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SAN FRANCISCO - Twitter reported a jolt of growth in the second quarter, driven in part by heavy use of the service during the World Cup soccer tournament. The strong results surprised Wall Street, and prompted investors to send the company's shares up 30 percent in after-hours trading. Revenue soared 124 percent, and the average number of people using the microblogging service in June was up 6 percent from March. However, Twitter faced continuing problems getting people to return to the service, with the average user refreshing his or her Twitter feed 792 times a month on average during the quarter, less than the first quarter and last year's second quarter. Still, Twitter has demonstrated an ability to extract more advertising revenue from each user, and it is adding new products that also allow it to sell ads in other companies' mobile applications. For the quarter that ended June 30, the company reported revenue of $312 million, up from $139 million a year ago. Analyst...

On the heels of digital subscription models like PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold, Electronic Arts has revealed its own Xbox One-exclusive subscription platform called EA Access. For $5 a month or $30 a year EA access gives subscribers access to the publisher's biggest Xbox One titles like Battlefield 4, Peggle 2 and Madden NFL 25. Unlike similar services like Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus, EA told Game Informer that they have no plans to remove games from their 'vault.' An EA rep. tells us that the company has no plans to remove games from The Vault. Also, progress is saved if you lapse and later re-up.- Game Informer (@gameinformer) July 29, 2014 In addition to free older games, EA's new subscription plan gives members 10 per cent discounts on digital Xbox One games as well as access to titles five days before their official release date. Early access is apparently confined to a 'limited trial' version of the game and Titanfall unfortunately isn't...

I adore the concept of 'unlimited.' I pay for unlimited data with my mobile carrier. My college dining hall offered unlimited meals at a flat rate. All-you-can-eat sushi is a crucial part of my existence. But there are some unlimited plans I remain wary of, and EA's recent announcement of unlimited access to its games on Xbox One is one of them. The plan, officially named 'EA Access,' will run gamers $4.99 per month, and will start with a beta of four games: FIFA 14, Madden NFL 25, Peggle 2, and Battlefield 4. According to EA's statement, there are 'more titles being added soon.' In addition to unfettered access to the company's 'vault' of titles, the program will also award subscribers 10% discounts on all EA digital purchases, as well as advanced access to new titles before they're released. The early access may be up to a week in advance, game saves will carry over, and the 10% discount will still apply to said titles. Games currently ...

(Click image for larger view and slideshow.) Building on CEO Satya Nadella's newly installed emphasis on non-Windows products, Microsoft announced several updates Tuesday for OneNote for Macs, iPads, and iPhones. Aimed chiefly at Mac and iOS users who have Office 365 accounts, the updates add not only richer note-taking tools, but also better collaboration between Apple products and Windows PCs. [Are iPads still the top tablets? Read Apple iPad Loses Tablet Market Share.] A part of Microsoft's Office suite, OneNote offers free-form note taking, including the ability to place text anywhere on the page and to insert and annotate links, PDFs, images, and other files. The app is organized in a binder-like format, with notebooks that contain tabs that contain pages. It is free across all platforms, but to collaborate and sync files across devices, you'll need an Office 365 account. Tuesday's additions are particularly crucial to the Mac version of OneNote. When it launched l...

Roger Cheng/CNET NEW YORK -- BlackBerry said Tuesday that it will acquire Secusmart, a German mobile security company. The purchase highlights how BlackBerry is doubling down on the enterprise as well as mobile security. The two companies have been partners since 2009. The plan is for Secusmart, known recently for its anti-eavesdropping software, to become a core component of BlackBerry's security portfolio and enterprise mobility management pitch. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. BlackBerry CEO John Chen announced the deal at the company's BlackBerry Summit. Secusmart CEO Dr. Hans-Christoph Quelle said the company's informal goal is to put its software in the hands of every chancellor and president in the world. 'There should be no need to wait to get to a secure landline,' said Quelle. Quelle's point is that voice needs to be better secured. He pointed out that any call can be monitored via computer systems or eavesdropping. 'It's easy to liste...

Photograph by Denis Doyle/Bloomberg Google Inc.'s Android operating system has a security flaw that could allow hackers to impersonate trusted applications and potentially hijack your phone or tablet, according to research released today. The basic issue is the way in which Android checks, or rather does not check, that certain applications are what they say they are, according to Bluebox Security, the company that identified the vulnerability. Hence the catchy name 'Fake ID.' Verifying identity is one of the most fundamental issues online. Is someone logging into a bank account really the owner of that account? Is an application really what it claims to be? San Francisco-based Bluebox helps companies secure their data on mobile devices, and its staff members work to research and understand the architecture of the mobile operating systems that Bluebox builds onto, says Jeff Forristal, chief technology officer. Each Android application has its own digital signature, an ID ca...

A research paper published in Sunday's online edition of Nature Nanotechnology could signal the beginning of a revolution in battery technology. The paper, 'Interconnected Hollow Carbon Nanospheres for Stable Lithium Metal Anodes,' was published by a team of researchers from Stanford University that have been working on developing an anode made of pure lithium. A pure lithium anode has been referred to as the 'holy grail of battery science.' The discovery could lead to longer-lasting cell phones and electric cars capable of traveling longer distances. The Lithium Standard All batteries have three basic components: an electrolyte, which sits between a negatively charged anode and a positively charged cathode. Current battery technology works by allowing positively charged ions to collect on an anode made of materials such as silicon or graphite. In existing lithium-ion batteries, lithium is present in the electrolyte as the source of electrons, which are discharged...

Posted: Print Article If you're after a new iPhone 6 but you think paying around £600 is just well... too cheap, then this is the phone for you. This is the Brikk Lux diamond-encrusted handset available for pre-order although you will have to wait a month longer than the general release while they stick all the shiny things to it. As well as precious stones it comes in a choice of 24-carat yellow gold, 24-carat pink gold or pure platinum. All this completely unnecessary and non-functional embellishing will cost between £2647 and £5179 depending on how bling you want to go. A lot of work goes into each one - every phone is actually disassembled before being hand polished and plated in up to seven different metal layers. After the diamonds are applied they are then put back together and tested before being shipped. Your new phone will have no extra features but will be extra shiny and visible when walking the streets at night. Bargain...

Summary: Today sees Apple refresh its premium MacBook Pro with Retina display lineup, bumping the CPU speeds and RAM options, as well as dropping the prices of the high-end models, ahead of the release of OS X 10.10 Yosemite. (Source: Apple) Today sees Apple refresh its premium MacBook Pro with Retina display lineup, bumping the CPU speeds and RAM options, as well as dropping the prices of the high-end models, ahead of the release of OS X 10.10 Yosemite. Prior to this upgrade the base version of the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display featured a 2560-by-1600 resolution at 227 pixels per inch retina display, 2.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 CPU, 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3L RAM, and 128GB of PCIe-based flash storage, and it had a price tag of $1,299. For the same price this model now comes with a 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5 chip and 8GB of memory. The base version of the beefier 15.4-inch with Retina display model came with a 2880-by-1800 resolution at 220 pixels per inch display, 2.0GHz quad-cor...

Looks like Microsoft's announcement of LG as one of its Windows Phone 8.1 OEMs is finally taking some shape. An as yet unannounced LG smartphone, running WP8.1 OS, has been spotted online in the database of AdDuplex, a 'cross-promotional network for Windows 8 and Windows Phone apps'. The news comes from a Twitter post by Alan Mendelevich, Founder of AdDuplex. According to the post, a WP8.1-based LG codenamed LG D635 appears to have been spotted on the AdDuplex network, and feature a 5-inch screen with an HD (720x1280 pixels) resolution. 'AdDuplex Stats teaser: LG D635, WP 8.1, 720p, 5' spotted,' states Mendelevich's post. Nothing more has been mentioned about the smartphone. The LG D635 device may be a test unit, and may not make it to the market in the precise form it's been spotted in. LG has not disclosed any plans for making a Windows Phone 8.1 smartphone until now, and the above information can be taken with a small pinch of salt. Microsoft announc...

NBA Phoenix Suns forward P.J. Tucker was reportedly arrested in May for a DUI with an astoundingly high .22 blood-alcohol content, Paul Coro of azcentral.com reported Monday night. Police charged Tucker, 29, with a violation for running a stop sign as well as four separate counts of varying DUI charges. If prosecuted and found guilty, Tucker could face a standard penalty of up to 45 days in jail or some form of house arrest. Curiously, the Suns signed Tucker to a new three-year, $16.5 million contract just last week. The DUI arrest occurred in May. It is unclear if the Suns knew of the arrest before offering him the contract. Tucker averaged 9.4 points per game for the Suns during the 2013-14 season and emerged as a starter. The police report stemming from the arrest, which was reported for the first time today by azcentral.com, describes Tucker's alcohol level as 'super extreme,' an apparent legal classification of any blood alcohol content level above .20. The belated n...

Facebook Is Now Forcing Everyone Download Messenger If They Want To Chat On Mobile Over the next few days, Facebook will stop allowing messaging in its main iPhone and Android apps, and force all its users around the world to download its standalone Messenger app. Facebook first started forcing users in a few countries in Europe to use Messenger in April, but after seeing 'positive results' in terms of engagement, its rolling out the plan to the everyone. Facebook tells me Messenger is about 20% faster, and not supporting multiple version of mobile chat will help it make both its main apps and Messenger better.

If you regularly chat on Facebook and don't already have Facebook Messenger installed, you may want to head into your platform's app store and get to downloading, because you'll soon need the dedicated messaging app to keep chatting with your pals. Facebook has confirmed to TechCrunch that in the coming days, it plans to kill the main Facebook app's support for Messenger on Android and iPhone, forcing those users to install Facebook Messenger for their FB chat needs. Those that use Facebook on the mobile web, desktop, iPad, Windows Phone and Paper app will be able to continue to chat in the main Facebook app for now. Facebook users on Android and iPhone will get notifications about the change in the coming days. The alert will tell them what's going on and include 'Remind Later' and 'Get App' options. After a few delays, though, Messenger will stop working in the Facebook app. So why the change? Facebook says that ripping Messenger support out of the...

But still puny, at 0.6% of all Macs, or 6 out of every 1,000 in North America Computerworld - Even though some users were unable to download Apple's OS X Yosemite public beta last week, the preview's debut resulted in a tripling of the upgrade's share of online traffic, an ad network said today. According to Chitika, Yosemite's share of U.S. and Canadian Mac traffic on the company's online ad network more than doubled from July 24, the day Apple released the beta, to the next day, July 25. By Friday, July 26, Yosemite's share had climbed to about 0.7% of all Macs, up from Wednesday, July 22, when the work-in-progress OS accounted for about 0.2%. On Sunday, July 27, Yosemite's share took a dip to just over 0.6%, still triple that of the day before the beta's launch. The 0.6% would represent 60 out of every 10,000 Macs, or 6 out of every 1,000. The increase in usage occurred in the face of problems some encountered last week in downloading the public beta ...

(Click image for larger view and slideshow.) Pivotal announced an alliance of sorts with Hortonworks on Monday, pledging to collaborate on development of the Apache Ambari project, open-source software used by Hortonworks to manage and monitor Hadoop clusters. Pivotal said its pledge to collaborate with Hortonworks on Ambari is in keeping with its open source credentials and contributions to Cloud Foundry, Redis, Spring XD, and RabbitMQ, and with its 'deep commitment' to Apache Hadoop. [Want more on Pivotal's Hadoop plans? Read Pivotal Subscription Points To Real Value In Big Data.] 'Pivotal is committed to supporting multiple approaches of installation technologies that will vary by use case, environment, and infrastructure decisions and requirements,' said a Pivotal spokesperson in an email exchange with InformationWeek. 'Ambari is one such use case. This is an example of Pivotal contributing to open source efforts to enable the entire Hadoop community and dri...

Details Created on Monday, 28 July 2014 14:25 Written by IVN Washington, DC - In a report issued today, the Federal Trade Commission staff recommends steps that mobile carriers and other companies should take to prevent consumers from being stuck with unauthorized charges on their mobile phone bills, an unlawful practice known as mobile cramming. The report focuses on the multi-billion dollar business known as carrier billing, which refers to the placement of charges for goods and services of third-party merchants on a mobile phone bill. 'Mobile Cramming: An FTC Staff Report' includes five recommendations aimed at mobile carriers, merchants who offer goods and services charged directly to mobile phone bills, and billing intermediaries known as aggregators who facilitate the placement of such charges on mobile phone bills. 'Mobile cramming is an issue that has affected millions of consumers, sticking them with charges they did not authorize, and the FTC has worked hard to co...

Home ' Mobiles ' HTC Makes A Samsung GALAXY S4 Owner Very Happy HTC Makes A Samsung GALAXY S4 Owner Very Happy After not receiving any reverts from Samsung for his burnt GALAXY S4, HTC leaps to the rescue. Nokia is pretty much famous for doing this in the past, but now HTC seems to be bringing a touch of goodness to the smartphone world and the world of customer service as well. A simple gesture can indeed make a world of a difference, especially on Reddit where the world is watching and listening. Reddit user TweektheGeek has posted on the website that his Samsung GALAXY S4 caught fire and that upon contacting Samsung, the Korean company said that they would replace it. Samsung listened initially but then later began ignoring the users requests. Its been months since the incident and the user took to Reddit to post the above and surprisingly caught the attention of another reddit user who happened to be a Product Manager from HTC. The Manager agreed to give TweektheGeek a bran...

LG Electronics has a strong product on its hands with its new smartphone, the LG G3. It is a powerful phone with a beautiful display, great camera and a pleasant, uncluttered Android operating system interface. But will enough people notice? Smartphone headlines are dominated by Apple and Samsung, and few customers in the United States think of LG as a maker of high-end phones. They should. Last year's LG G2 was a good phone that got people's attention, and the LG G3 could make the company a serious challenger. It features the same top-of-the-line processor found in the Samsung Galaxy S5 and the HTC One (M8), its top Android competitors, and it does not skimp on any specifications. The price of the LG G3 ranges from free to $200 with a new contract, depending on your carrier, or just under $600 with no contract. It is available on all four major carriers in the United States; all offer it in black or white except Sprint, which offers it in black or gold. Its possible drawback ...

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Greenpeace have become embroiled in another slanging match over the cloud provider's green credentials, due its supposed lack of energy-efficient data centres to power its services. In recent weeks rivals to Amazon such as Apple and Microsoft have been praised by Greenpeace for plans to utilise renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, while at the same time Greenpeace criticised Amazon for failing to follow suit. Now, in its most recent attack, senior energy campaigner at Greenpeace David Pomerantz, has used the availaibility of the Amazon Fire Phone to criticise the company, calling it a 'stone-age' machine with regards how its cloud-hosted services are powered. 'Cloud-based storage of photos and other smartphone data doesn't have to harm the environment: Apple, in stark contrast to Amazon, is powering its iCloud with 100 percent renewable energy,' he said. 'If Amazon wants to offer its customers a modern phone, i...

Anything Sprint tries to do, T-Mobile is determined to try to do better. T-Mobile on Monday unveiled a new family plan that will cost $100 per month for four separate lines and offer a total of 10GB of LTE data, or 2.5GB per line. In contrast, Sprint's most comparable 'Framily' plan costs $160 per month and offers a mere 4GB of data total, or 1GB per line. You can get an unlimited-data Sprint 'Framily' plan, of course, but it will cost a total of $240 per month since the unlimited option costs an extra $20 per line. The T-Mobile plan also looks pretty good when compared to similar plans from AT&T and Verizon - both of those carriers will give you 10GB of data total for four lines but they'll charge you $160 per month for it. The one big caveat to the T-Mobile plan is that while Verizon and AT&T let you share your data across all your lines as you see fit, T-Mobile is restricting it to 2.5GB per line, meaning that if you go over 2.5GB on your line you...

Apple may be looking to boost its radio game. The Cupertino tech giant is in talks to purchase talk radio app Swell for $30 million, Re/code reported. As part of the deal, Apple will shut down the Swell app this week, the site said, citing 'multiple' unnamed sources. For the uninitiated, Swell is kind of like Pandora for news radio - you listen to what it plays, and if you don't like it you can swipe to move on. The app learns your preferences over time, offering a personalized listening experience with unlimited streaming audio from iTunes, NPR, ABC, ESPN, BBC, CBC, TED, and more. According to Re/code, Swell boasts high-engagement among users, but has failed to gain a huge following. Most of the Swell team will reportedly move over to Apple following the acquisition. Swell, which is available on Apple devices running iOS 6 or later, had been beta testing an Android app, but never released it to the general public. The deal follows a string of acquisitions Apple has made o...

Summary: It's the Android-rival mobile operating system that never was. At least for now, anyway. (Image: CNET/CBS Interactive) Samsung is holding off its debut launch of its home-grown mobile operating system that aimed to rival Android. Tizen, which was set to launch in Russia with the Samsung Z smartphone in the third quarter, will now not go on sale as the South Korean-based electronics giant aims to drum up support for its developer platform. The software (and smartphone) was due to be paraded at a developers' conference in Moscow, but the device was scrapped, leaving developers unsure of the platform's status. Samsung said in a statement: 'To further enhance Tizen ecosystem, Samsung plans to postpone the launch of Samsung Z in Russia. Samsung will continue to actively work with Tizen Association members pursuing to further develop both Tizen OS and the Tizen ecosystem.' In a nutshell, Tizen hasn't quite mustered up the support Samsung would have hoped, par...

Summary: The European Commission saw no major barriers to the iPhone and iPad maker snapping up the headphone and music subscription service for $3 billion in cash and stock. (Image: Apple) The European Commission has approved Apple's acquisition of Beats for $3 billion in cash and stock. On Monday, the Brussels-based executive body said in a statement that the merging of the two businesses 'did not raise competition concerns because the combined market share of Apple and Beats Electronics is low.' It also said that the two companies are 'not close competitors' because the headphones they sell are markedly different in functionality and design. Apple bought the company in May for $2.6 billion in cash and $400 million in stock, after weeks and months of rumors. Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre will join Apple as mid-level executives deal, Apple said in a statement at the time. Also scrutinized was the streaming service Apple would acquire as part of the dea...

HTC has officially started rolling-out the Android 4.4.3 KitKat update with Sense 6 UI for its One (M8) developer edition, and update which should hit other variants of the device soon. The company updated users via its official Twitter account on Thursday. As also posted by a member at XDA developers' forum, the developer edition Android 4.4.3 KitKat OTA update is 592.17 MB in size. The user has also shared the zipped update file on the forum, and additionally suggested the update will be coming soon to the other unlocked versions of HTC One (M8) smartphones. ( Also see: HTC One (M8) in Pictures | Review) Earlier HTC's Vice President of Management, Mo Versi, had tweeted the update would arrive OTA early last week, and would incorporate security fixes from Android 4.4.4 KitKat in the current Android 4.4.3 KitKat update for the HTC One (M8). HTC has also updated the HTC One (M7) developer edition with Android 4.4.3 KiKat. Last Tuesday, the company even tweeted out the Kernel so...

Lithium ion batteries are everywhere, your stopwatch, the alarm clock that wakes up your six-year-old, and even the extra battery for your phone. But your phone still only contains lithium ion batteries, not lithium batteries. The difference is small in name, but the impact and effect they have is vastly different. Lithium ion batteries are inefficient compared to lithium batteries, but the latter is not even a quarter as stable. The lithium batteries in use today cause problems, and can overheat to the point of combustion, which causes the fires in Tesla cars, as well as the Boeing Dreamliner planes. But what makes them so much less stable? Lithium batteries have a single glaring issue and difficulty in the creation and actual making of the cell. Today, a battery consists of an electrolyte, a chemical to provide ions (negatively charged electrons), an anode (which discharges the charged particles), and a cathode (which gets the anode's ions). But that seems simple, and it sort of ...

It seems Microsoft will soon roll out the first update for Windows Phone 8.1 devices, as the Redmond giant has already shipped it to manufacturers. A report quoting sources has claimed the update will bring support for app folders and smart flip cases, amongst other new features. According to Nokiapoweruser, the Windows Phone 8.1 GDR1 - as the first update to Windows Phone 8.1 is called - is being tested by manufactures, the first 'public' step in the lifecycle of an update. The report claims the update brings Android and iOS-like feature to create folders for simpler management of apps. Users will be able to drag and drop tiles on top of other tiles to create a folder. This is not completely unexpected, since last month the company accidentally made live one of the webpages detailing steps for creating a folder on Windows Phone 8.1. Another feature in Windows Phone 8.1 GDR1, as per the report, will be support for smart flip cases for devices. Smart cases have become rather p...

The Last of Us Remastered releases on the PlayStation 4 this Tuesday. The mature-rated title is a bid by Sony to show everybody how much more powerful - and emotional - games on the PlayStation 4 can be. The Last of Us on PlayStation 3 was my favorite release of 2013 - and my favorite game of all time. It won more than 200 Game of the Year awards, including one from GamesBeat. If you didn't catch it the first time around, The Last of Us Remastered is a great opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. It's also a great way to take in the experience again for those who loved the original on PS3. The PS4 version has better graphics that fully render the title's post-pandemic world in the way it was meant to be seen. You'll immediately notice a difference in the quality of the visuals and the realism of the characters when you play the survival-action offering. The Last of Us tells the story of survivors who try to outrun a deadly fungus that turns people into the Infe...

DEARBON, Mich. (AP) -- AAA Michigan says gasoline prices in the state dropped about 14 cents in the last week, the fourth straight week they've fallen. The auto club says that the average price of a gallon of self-serve regular unleaded gasoline was $3.49 on Sunday. That's about 17 cents less than one year ago. Dearborn-based AAA Michigan surveys fuel costs at 2,800 Michigan gas stations daily. It says the cheapest price was $3.39 a gallon in the Lansing-East Lansing area and the most expensive was $3.68 in the Marquette area. Nationwide, it says gasoline averaged $3.53 a gallon Sunday, compared with $3.58 last week and $3.64 last year. AAA Michigan attributes falling U.S. gasoline prices to abundant refinery production and stable international oil markets despite the Russian-Ukrainian and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.

U.S. refineries are working overtime to ensure that gas prices stumble a little bit in the middle of a season that peaks in the number of cars on the road. The average price for regular gasoline at U.S. pumps dropped 9.04 cents in the last two weeks. Prices are now around 3.5795 a gallon. This information is based on information gathered from about 2,500 filling stations by the Camarillo, Calif.-based Company. Like Us on Facebook Refineries process more petroleum then they ever had since 1989 causing retail prices o decline. 'It's really a mid-summer gift,' Trilby Lundberg, the president of Lundberg Survey, said on Sunday. 'Refiners have been on a kick to run more crude, run at high rates and to cut price.' 'There is an abundance of gasoline, inventories are high, and refiners are cutting to chase those summer sales,' Lundberg said. 'We can expect gas prices to keep migrating down, though maybe not to this extent.' The highest price of gasoline was f...