We all know that Apple’s App Store makes lots and lots of money, but every now and then it still manages to surprise us. The app repository has shattered previous records, generating the whopping $10 billion in earnings in 2013.

What’s so impressive about this number is that it pretty much doubled 2012′s revenue estimate of $5 billion. December 2013 proved to be the most lucrative for the App Store, with over 3 billion app downloads and $1 billion in sales. Read more »

Samsung’s new line of Ultra HD TVs will offer more than just higher resolution; they will also come with the ability to stream 4K video from various online services.

So far Amazon, Netflix, Comcast/Xfinity, M-Go, and DirecTV are all on board and cooperating with Samsung to allow their high-res content to stream through the Smart Hub app: the built-in software on the Korean manufacturer’s televisions. Read more »

ASUS has announced a new 8-inch Windows 8 tablet, the VivoTab Note 8 today at CES. It comes with a special Wacom stylus, a 1280 x 800 pixel IPS display, 2GB RAM, a 5MP primary camera, and an HD front camera.

The real star of the show, asserts ASUS, is the Wacom stylus. It can purportedly deal with 1,000 pressure levels, making this a potentially enticing device for artists and users who are looking for a more true-to-life longhand writing experience. In the Windows tablet landscape, there really isn’t anything else like it, so it makes sense for ASUS to push the Wacom stylus’ technology. Read more »

Keys. Wallet. Phone. The three items we always check when we leave the house. Our hands are constantly typing away, calling, and texting on our mobile devices and our five-fingered appendages also come into contact with many other things during the day, leaving our cell phones pretty rife with bacteria. To combat legions of germs that accumulate on our handsets, Corning has announced that they are spraying their popular Gorilla Glass with an anti-bacterial coating.

The secret behind the antimicrobial properties of the new generation of glass is called ionic silver. Read more »

Mozilla’s Firefox OS developer program for tablets was just announced today. The company pledges to distribute both hardware and other support to developers dedicated to growing the tablet operating system.

Mozilla hopes to flesh out its OS in the same fashion that its ground-breaking web browser was developed: through a communal effort. Mozilla plans on beginning the development program soon after CES comes to a close and it hopes to have a working and ready tablet OS build this year. Read more »

Fuji announced the S1: the first weather resistant bridge camera. It offers a 50x optical zoom lens, full HD video recording, built-in Wi-Fi, and a dust and water-resistant body.

The camera boasts 70 different areas that are weather-sealed and the optical zoom is the equivalent of 24-1200mm (when breaking it down in 35mm camera terms). It has a 16.4MP backlit CMOS sensor It’s aperture range is f/2.8-5.6. Read more »

If you’ve been waiting for a way to interact with Vine on the web, rather than from a smartphone, you’re in luck. Vine has just released web profiles for its huge user base of over 40 million people.

Although users cannot upload clips from their web browser, they are able to like, share, and comment on Vine videos through the web site. Read more »

Analyst Patrick Wang of Evercore Partners speculates that Apple will release a 12-inch iPad Pro model. The newest iPad would be focused on capturing the business market, and is said to revolutionize notebook PCs.

Wang predicts that the new tablet from Apple will be powered by an A8 processor which will debut with the release of the device in Fall 2014. Read more »

Blackberry Messenger, or, BBM as the cool kids call it, received a warm reception when it was initially for Android, raking in over 10 million downloads within its first 24 hours.

BlackBerry has now a few new BBM features available on the Android version of their application: specifically Voice Calling and Channels. They’ve also ported over 100 new emoticons (your inner teenage girl is squealing, isn’t she?), increased the BBM group size, and added new ways to find friends within the app. Read more »

The comments section on this story is sure to turn into a flame war, but according to an online mental agility test, iPhone owners are more intelligent than Android users. Both smartphone consumer bases beat out Blackberry loyalists though, who came third in the survey.

The “Test of Wits was conducted by the British betting company, Ladbrokes. A thousand smartphone users took the multiple choice survey and iPhone users were able to complete the 7 trick questions in the quickest time possible: 94 seconds. Read more »

Until now to purchase a Google Glass unit, you needed to be on a very short list. You either had to have attended I/O, or be a friend of someone who is already using a pair. However, if you are signed up for Google Play Music’s All Access service and want some Glass goodness for yourself, you are in luck.

Google sent out the invitations this morning to its All Access subscribers to join the Explorer program (which is the name given to the testing and usage of Google Glass). To become an Explorer, all you need is an invitation from Google and $1,500. It’s a hefty price to pay, but then again, being able to use the newest technology before most people is pretty cool. Read more »

Back in September, Google acquired Bump, the smartphone data-sharing software developer, and now they are shutting it down. Bump’s CEO and Founder, David Lieb, announced in his blog that his two services, Bump and Flock, will be terminated officially on January 31st of this year. The apps will be removed from both the Apple App Store and Google Play, so users have until that time to export all of their data.

Bump was introduced in 2009, allowing smartphone users to share photos and contacts by simply bumping their phones together. Paypal adopted the technology briefly by allowing customers to transfer money via the software. Bump then ventured out with their own mobile payment application, and then released Flock; which was capable of aggregating pictures from various devices into one photo album. Read more »

So you want to be more connected to your car? Well if you’re sporting a new Mercedes-Benz, then Pebble has just the smartwatch for you. They’ve teamed up with the iconic German automotive manufacturer to create a wrist-watch style piece of wearable tech that should be available in 2014.

The Mercedes Benz/Pebble product and all of its details will be unveiled at CES between January 7-10. It’s safe to assume that the smartwatch will work with Mercedes’ already existing smartphone application: Digital Drive Style. Read more »

One of the biggest selling points of Android over iOS is the fact that there are more free apps available in the Play Store than the App Store. Sure, with free apps there are in-app advertisements and the occasional annoying pop-ups that users need to withstand. However, most people seem willing to deal with it, considering the growing popularity of Android. Now, new research from analytics firm, Distimo, indicates that this strategy is working, because a whopping 98% of all Google Play Store revenue comes from in-app purchases of free titles.

What about the the other 2%? Well that is divided equally between paid only apps and in-app purchases within paid applications. What kind of apps are people most likely to spend money on? Games. 90% of gaming revenue is made from in-app purchases. Read more »

Debuting in 1990, Final Fantasy III was Squaresoft’s most popular title; and the software manufacturers’ first game to sell over a million copies. You can now play its updated 3D remake on Windows Phone.

If you’re a gamer, then you’ve definitely heard of the Final Fantasy series. You’ve also probably noticed the countless remakes and renditions that have been made available for various platforms – and now also for Microsoft’s own mobile OS. Read more »