Social traffic and mapping app Waze is looking for beta testers ahead of its launch on the Windows Phone platform. For those who don't know what Waze is, let me explain. Waze is a social traffic app that allows users all over the country and world to report accidents, police, and hazards so others can avoid them.

Waze is one of the major apps that is available on Android and iOS and by working on a version for Windows Phone, it signals some belief in the Windows Phone platform. In order to apply for the program, you'll need to head over to waze.centercode.com. Note that applying does not guarantee a spot in the beta.

In order for Windows Phone to be successful, it needs to have some of these killer apps that are available on the competing platform. Waze is certainly one of them, but there are plenty more that Microsoft needs to bring over.

Google has posted up a short How-To introduction for Glass. The video, which only has a runtime of just over a minute, shows how to control Glass with the touchpad. It also gives a brief introduction to the UI, which are called cards. Take a look at the video for yourself:

It would definitely appear that more Google Glass How-To videos will be coming soon. These videos are definitely a great way to get the general public interested in the rather expensive headset. I know this got me extremely excited for Glass.

The video does stay away from situations that could result in some embarrassment, such as giving voice commands to Glass. I'll be really interested to see more of these videos. What did you think of it?

In a disappointing announcement, NASA has said they have renewed a contract with Russia. The contract with Russia is for Rocosmos to transport US crews to the International Space Station and has been used since the space shuttle program was retired in 2011. The extended contract will cost NASA $424 million.

NASA believes they will be able to send up US crews in US ships sometime in 2017, as long as they get the funding proposed in Obama's 2014 budget.

NASA is committed to launching U.S. astronauts aboard domestic spacecraft as soon as possible. Full funding of the administration's Fiscal Year 2014 budget request is critical to making these domestic capabilities possible by 2017.

It's rather sad that the United States has to rely on our allies to send up our astronauts to space. Many good inventions have come out of the NASA space program and it's a shame to see funding cut.

Nintendo has suffered from piracy for a while now, with devices being built to allow pirated games to be played on the Nintendo DS and a device to allow games to be played on the Wii through the USB port. The creators of the Wiikey have announced they have successfully built a new device to allow games to be played on the Wii U through the USB port.

The new device is known as the WiikeÜ and appears to be a method to allow piracy. The creators claim the device works on devices from any region without the need to solder any chips inside the device. The Wii U, which is already have issues selling, partly due to a lack of games, might be further hampered by this new device.

Rockstar Games, as promised, has posted up three new trailers for the upcoming Grand Theft Auto V. Each of the three trailers detail one of the main characters for the upcoming game, allowing you to get some insight into what you can expect. First up is Michael:

Analysts seem to love projecting what a company will do, with Apple being a particularly popular subject of speculation. Today sees Peter Misek, an analyst with Jefferies, predicting, or rather proclaiming, that Apple will launch a larger iPhone device sometime next year, specifically June, 2014.

Tim Cook has consistently shut down rumors that Apple was planning a device with a larger screen, saying that Apple would not build a larger iPhone until the current trade-offs no longer existed. That hasn't stopped people and analysts alike from predicting that we will see a larger iPhone this year or next.

Of course, Apple does engage it a bit of misdirection. Apple could very well be planning a larger iPhone. At the same time, analysts aren't perfect and Misek could easily be wrong. For now, take this with a bit of skepticism.

This morning we are hearing rumors that Nokia is planning on investing in Pelican Imaging, the firm behind the shoot now, focus later Lytro-style cameras.

The technology uses an array of small 'plenoptic' cameras in a single module to take images with multiple focal points and thus allows the photographer to adjust the images focus point at a later time. This frees up the user to focus more on what is around them and less time worrying about getting the perfect point of focus at the time of shooting.

Nokia is probably the number one leading innovator in smartphone camera technology, and has brought to market other revolutionary camera tech to the smartphone scene in the past. Most recently the firm managed to cram a 41 megapixel camera into its PureView 808 smartphone, and is rumored to be working on stuffing a similar camera into its next-generation Lumia smartphone.

This morning Nintendo announced several new title additions to its Virtual Console for the Wii U. Included in the announcement are titles like Megaman, Xevious, Balloon Fight, Super Ghouls 'n Ghost, Super Mario Brothers, Street Fighter II and The Legend of Zelda: A link to the past.

The announcement came via the above video, which was posted on YouTube. While no release date has been announced for the new games, the ever growing list of Virtual Console games is seriously making me consider buying a Wii U.

Shutterfly announced this morning that it has bought photobook software developer MyPublisher for an undisclosed amount. MyPublisher has been developing photobook making software for the past 18 years and is considered one of the leading innovators in the field.

In an interview with TheNextWeb, Shutterfly CEO Jeffrey Housenbold said:

"Shutterfly photo books continue to delight customers, bringing more consumers online to tell their stories and connect with friends and family in creative ways.

 

By combining MyPublisher's best in class software client with Shutterfly's industry leading cloud based platform, we will continue to drive growth and set the standard for design, choice and quality in the personal publishing and social expression category."

We all knew that good things were on the horizon when Iceland opened its arms and welcomed The Pirate Bay to its shores. This morning we are hearing word that The Pirate Party in Iceland has now surpassed the number of votes needed for it to gain a real seat in Iceland's parliament.

The Pirate Party has managed to nab three of the 63 total seats in Iceland's parliament, including one held by the party's leader Birgitta Jonsdottir. This puts the Icelandic Pirate Party ahead of its Swedish comrades.

While three seats in Iceland and two in Sweden may not sound like much, it will help some come the 2014 elections when Pirate Parties all over the EU push for a larger influence in world governments.

Rumors and claims of the world's thinnest cell phone have been around since cell phones were invented, and while some of those claims have turned out to be true, there is always another "World's Thinnest" right around the corner.

This morning we are hearing reports that Huawei has just sent a phone for approval through China's version of the FCC. While that is nothing special or unique on a normal day, leaked details on this handset say that it is the world's thinnest smartphone. The Huawei P6-UO6 measures just a mere 6.18mm thick.

The P6-UO6 is said to feature a 4.7-inch screen, with a quad-core 1.5GHz processor and 2GB of RAM. Rumors say that it will ship with Android Jelly Bean and will take photos at a mediocre 5 megapixels. Whether or not this leak is true, we wonder how much smaller can smartphones get? At 6.5mm thick (thin?), there is not a whole lot of room left.

Beginning today Skype will be available via Outlook.com in the UK, enabling users to make and receive calls via their inboxes. US users should not get very excited just yet though as the service will not become available stateside for a few more weeks.

Microsoft has planned on merging the two services since it acquired Skype back in 2011. A browser plugin must first be installed before you can use the service, which will merge both your Outlook.com and Skype accounts.

Additionally, users will also be able to import all of their Skype contacts into Outlook.

Twenty years ago today, the internet as we know it was born when CERN released the technology that made the World Wide Web work. It has been a long battle, but for the most part, the internet has remained open and free as its creators intended.

To commemorate 20 years of free and open information sharing, CERN has recreated the first website ever published. This is an effort to preserve the humble beginnings on which the modern and future internet was founded. CERN is also working to refurbish the original servers used as well to further preserve the history what could be the greatest invention ever.

Check out CERNS recreation of the first website here. Cool!

With Intel increasing the speed of its Thunderbolt interconnect to 20Gbps, and unveiling the new Falcon Ridge controller that will hit production by the end of the year, it didn't take long for the USB-IF to respond.

At the latest Intel Developers Forum that took place in Beijing recently, the USB-IF announced that development is underway to double the throughput of SuperSpeed USB from 5Gbps to 10Gbps. The speed enhancement will come with new cables, but retain backwards compatibility with existing connectors.

The USB-IF also unveiled the latest power delivery specification, providing a single cable for data and power delivery for devices up to 100 watts.

"The USB-IF recognizes consumer demand for a simplified single-cable solution to power and simultaneously transfer data to their laptops, tablets and smartphones," said Jeff Ravencraft, USB-IF president and COO. "With the new SuperSpeed USB enhancement to increase performance up to 10 Gbps data rate, coupled with the USB Power Delivery specification capable of delivering up to 100 watts of power to USB-enabled devices, consumers will soon be able to have one USB cable to support all their needs."

Nokia wants to out-cheap the already cheap phones arriving in emerging markets, with Bloomberg reporting the Finnish phone maker is "counting on a bare-bones handset that sells for just $20 to give it an edge" over its rivals in emerging markets.

The company's Nokia 105 phone includes features such as "preloaded games, a color screen, a radio, a speaking clock and a flashlight". The Nokia 105 has already reached shelves in India and Indonesia, with the company planning for a European launch in the hear future. Nokia were forced to play their hand after having their sales taken away in emerging markets from Samsung, Huawei and ZTE.

Google are looking to dig their heels into yet another market, according to a new report from DigiTimes, both Acer and ASUS are optimistic about the long-term prospects of Google's Chromebooks, and are now working on low-priced systems that will arrive in the second half of the year.

Acer will be aiming at students with a new 11.6-inch model to be released in July, as well as Chrome OS-powered systems to be expected from ASUS, HP, Samsung and Lenovo later in the year. We actually reported on vendors wanting to push Android-based products onto the market, so this might be it. Hold onto your seats folks, we're going to be experiencing a bumpy next couple of years for Windows.

The latest footage of the epic science fiction movie directed by Guillermo del Toro is here, with Pacific Rim never looking better. If you don't know what Pacific Rim is yet, you might want to watch the trailer below. If you do know what it is, you probably haven't read any of this and clicked the trailer anyway.

Thoughts? That trailer should have most people convinced, I tried throwing money at my screen but nothing happened. Instead of the shakey cam Micheal Bay movies we received with Transformers, and as much as I loved them as fun summer movies, this looks like we're actually going to see 288 feet high robots kicking some alien ass.

BlackBerry chief executive officer, Thorsten Heins, spoke with Bloomberg about their BlackBerry Q10 smartphone, saying that it is expected to sell "several tens of millions of units".

The BlackBerry CEO added: "We have very, very good first signs already after the launch in the UK. This is going into the installed base of more than 70 million BlackBerry users so we have quite some expectations". We also have Jefferies Group analyst, Peter Misek, saying that UK stores Selfridged and Carphone Warehouse selling out of the BlackBerry Q10 quickly, but couldn't back this up with any sales numbers. He has said: "Z10 sales in Canada, the US and UK remain steady with no inventory or return issues".

The BlackBerry CEO finished off by saying that the Q10 will "create a certain attraction towards BlackBerry 10, and then whatever comes up, we will entertain any valuable discussion for the company" in regards to licensing the BlackBerry 10 OS, adding: "We are still observing and watching that space and that's what we will continue to do".

With Glass set to be the best big thing, it would make sense that the second biggest social network in the world begin testing their application for the wearable eyewear from Google.

Google have been using the hashtag "#throughglass" on their Google+ posts using their Glass hardware, and earlier in the week we had Twilio developer Jon Gottfried hacking his own Twitter Glass application using Google's Glass API. He also used that same hashtag for tweets sent through his app, GlassTweet.

The developer also noticed some other tweets showing up with the #throughglass hashtag, but these tweets had an official "Twitter for Glass" label on them. If you're a developer, you can't just slap "Twitter" on any tweet, as the social network restricts the creation of apps with "Twitter" in the name. So this might actually be the real deal.

Sony are working on something with the codename of "Honami", which is said to be part of the company's "One Sony" branding initiative, which will see all of Sony's top technology to a single, superphone.

Chinese site, ePrice, have said that this new superphone from Sony would feature a 5-inch 1080p display, with a 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor and a huge 20-megapixel rear-facing camera with a Cybershot CMOS sensor and Carl Zeiss lens. We should also expect 2GB of RAM, a non-removable battery, as well as it being dust- and water-proof.

We should expect Sony to unveil this monster at the IFA trade show in September. If it's anything like their impressive Xperia Z, we should begin to get excited.