An ex-NSA contractor, Harold Martin has agreed to plead guilty to what could be the biggest theft of classified data in US history. Martin could face up to 10 years in prison for the single count of illegal retention of national security information.

Martin has been accused of stealing a massive 50TB of classified data from the NSA over the course of the 20 years that he was working there as a contractor. The government has not said what was done with the stolen data, but it is believed that the data stolen included elite hacking tools that Martin stole while working for Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp, the very same firm that employed the whistle blower Edward Snowden.

According to Reuters, the stealing of classified information has caused Martin to be charged with a total of 19 other offenses, as it is alleged by the indictment that Martin also stole documents and information from US Cyber Command, the CIA and the National Reconnaissance Office.

CES 2018 - Netgear have just announced their new Orbi Outdoor Satellite which will allow users to stay connected to their internet while outside and not have to worry about the elements damaging their portable extenders.

The Orbi Outdoor Satellite is specifically designed for outdoor use as the device will extend your Wi-Fi signal by an additional 2,500 square feet. To eliminate fears of an outdoor Wi-Fi device being damaged by the elements, Netgear have made the Orbi Outdoor Satellite completely water and dust resistant.

Most other Wi-Fi extenders provide users with a slower connection speed, but Netgear's Orbi Outdoor Satellite won't have this issue. Netgear have deployed some proprietary technology called FastLane3, which is capable of dedicating bandwidth between the Orbi Wi-Fi and your router, giving your outdoor devices the best connection speed possible.

Now that Wi-Fi is almost a necessity, nothing is more annoying than walking into a room in your home that is just out of reach of the signal to router, with iRobot soon updating the Roomba app with the ability of letting owners of use their Roomba to see which rooms are Wi-Fi dead zones, and which are not.

Your Roomba will be able to map out the problematic Wi-Fi areas within your home, and combined with mapping out floor areas and specific route planning, Roomba devices will have more efficiently navigate from room to room within homes.

Roomba device will be able to map out the strengths of certain areas within users homes, and once Roomba owners update their devices, people struggling with Wi-Fi signals in certain areas of their homes will be able to adjust their Wi-Fi settings accordingly, mostly eliminating Wi-Fi dead zones in their houses.

Mophie has just unveiled what a lot of travelling business and workstation users will love: their new powerstation AC external battery that is capable of charging laptops.

As you can see in the video above, Mophie's new powerstation AC has up to 100W of AC power output, pumping over 15 hours of battery life into your smart devices. There's AC power output and USB-C PD fast-charging, which is something you'll need with its huge 22,000mWh of battery power.

You can charge up specific laptops like Apple's new MacBook and MacBook Pros with the USB-C port, as they only draw 30W. Larger laptops that draw up to 90W will drain the Mophie powerstation AC in less than an hour, so you won't be able to fully charge a higher-end USB-C laptop without draining the powerstation AC completely.

In a world where PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds comes out of nowhere and racks up over 30 million sales, over 3 million concurrent gamers and over $600 million in sales in less than a day, it can make other sales of other games not seem so great.

Case in point is the lovechild of Wing Commander, the legendary and ambitious Chris Roberts with Star Citizen, a game that was born on Kickstarter before jumping into crowdfunding from its fans directly, in which it raised $34.91 million in 2017. This number is down from the slightly-higher $36.11 million from 2016.

Star Citizen raised $17.25 million on Kickstarter, and since that point that made $175.9 million - far less than the $600 million and very quickly growing of PUBG, especially now that it's on the Xbox One/X and planned for "all platforms" in the near future. We can expect PUBG to reach $1 billion in sales in the next couple of months, if not sooner at this rate.

While it seems Bitcoin is cooling off after hitting new records in 2017, it's time for Ethereum (ETH) and Ripple (XRP) to shine.

Ethereum has breached $1000, reaching a new record high price of $1044, an 8.9% rise in the last 24 hours. There are 96.8 million Ethereum coins circulating, with a new market cap of a huge $101 billion.

Ripple (XRP) sets a new all-time record price of $3.17

CES 2018 - LG is pushing more and more into the world of robotics, something it seems to be doubling down with at CES 2018 with their new CLOi branded robotics line.

LG's exciting new CLOi line of products come in three models for commercial use: Serving Robot, Porter Robot, and Shopping Cart Robot. Starting with the Serving Robot, we should expect to see LG's first robot creation at hotels, airport lounges, and even restaurants. This robot will deliver drinks and meals to customers with its built-in sliding tray - but hopefully it won't need a tip.

The Porter Robot will be used in hotels for express check-in and check-out, with payments accepted by the robots that will reduce waiting times. LG's new Porter Robot will even carry your suitcase around, but I'm sure it'll be carry-on size only and not your huge suitcase, or two, or five.

Opera has just pushed out a new browser update, with v50 of its popular browser coming out in the next few hours that will stop sites from hijacking your CPU to mine cryptocurrency.

There are already extensions released for both Chrome and Firefox that block hijacking scripts, but Opera is the first to block cryptomining within its built-in ad blocker. Impressive stuff, especially as Opera is my browser of choice (I'm all-in with Google for everything else).

Ripple (XRP) sets a new all-time record price of $3.17

Tesla's new mid-range Model 3 electric vehicle is right around the corner, with the car giant using the new Model 3 to make the quickest trip across the United States in an electric vehicle.

The Drive editor Alex Roy used Tesla's new Model 3 to drive from Redondo Beach, California to Manhattan, New York in 50 hours, 16 minutes, and 32 seconds. Roy made the journey with Model 3 owner Daniel Zorrilla, beating out his own time in 2016 when he used the Model S and Autopilot in 55 hours.

Even with the super-cold weather hitting most parts of the US right now, the Model 3 had its heater blasting away reducing the miles the electric vehicle could drive without charging. Still, it was able to complete the cross-country journey in just 50 hours, using $100 to charge their Model 3 in that time. Damn impressive.

CES 2018 - Nissan will be showing off the latest in its car technology at CES 2018 next week, with Nissan to unveil new software that comes from the medical field, and is capable of translating drivers' thoughts into actions where it would improve vehicle responsiveness.

This new software monitors drivers' brain wave activity to anticipate the intended movement, like turning the steering wheel, indicating, or braking. Nissan says that this system is 0.2-0.5 seconds faster than the driver, which is impressive on its own.

Nissan's new B2V technology is meant to make the driving experience better, with semi-autonomous technology like this increasing reaction times to the countless actions required when behind the wheel.