Nintendo have made their social network available to web browsers, with Miiverse now available in beta form. Miiverse allows you to view your friends' updates and posts to individual game communities in both text, and written or drawn form.

The squiggly bits arrive thanks to the Wii U GamePad's touchscreen. Nintendo have stated that Miiverse in web browsers is in beta form, and features a simple, responsive design that scales down to mobile devices well.

The ability to make new posts from the web interface isn't ready yet, so for now you'll have to use your Wii U. Before using the app, you'll need to have created a Nintendo Network account on the Wii U. You can check it out here.

PlayStation 3 owner? You might want to check for any new system updates on your console, as Sony have confirmed that update 4.41 is hitting the PS3 today.

Update 4.41 is designed to "improve system stability", but it's currently not known if this is a mandatory update or not. Sony took to the PlayStation Twitter account stating that it's just a minor update.

NASA have just launched three Nexus One smartphones into orbit as part of a low-budget, experimental satellite program that uses off-the-shelf components.

The three Android-powered devices are now circling high above the Earth, encased in 4-inch metal cubes, at an altitude of around 150 miles and will burn up on re-entry within the next two weeks. NASA's mission of each PhoneSat is easy, they just have to take photos of the Earth and send back periodic radio messages.

The mission is to see if the smartphones are capable of supplying the "brains" of future satellites, which would make satellites much cheaper in the future. NASA launched the smartphones into orbit on Sunday when Orbital Science Corp.'s Antares rocket lifted off from Virginia. Amateur radio operators had begun notifying NASA that they could pick up radio signals from the satellites within hours of the launch.

Google Glass, and their sure to be following competitors, are definitely set to be the new smartphone craze. Research firm IHS knows this, and has predicted that shipments of smart glasses could hit 9.4 million units between 2012 and 2016.

The first shipments will be small, with expectations of around 124,000 units this year as Google Glass becomes available to developers. Adoption is set to really ramp up going into 2014, expected to push up by 250% as Glass becomes available to you and me, the general public. Google will of course push Glass in the market, which will have competitors' devices gain market share too, with combined sales reaching 6.6 million units per year by 2016.

If smart glasses are too expensive to the general public, these numbers could be much lower with IHS estimating shipments could be as low as a million units through 2016.

In the wake of releasing its financial earnings statement, Netflix posted up a new mission statement document for investors. The document details various metrics about the company and what it is doing to plan for the future. The most interesting fact to take away from the document is that the company is spending roughly $2 billion per year on content.

Most of that $2 billion expenditure goes towards licensing old TV shows and movies, but some of it is used to pay for its original content. Netflix has also noticed that quality is more important than quantity:

As we've gained experience, we've realized that the 20th documentary about the financial crisis will mostly just take away viewing from the other 19 such docs, and instead of trying to have everything, we should strive to have the best in each category. As such, we are actively curating our service rather than carrying as many titles as we can.

There's plenty more to read about in the 11-page document, but I won't bore you with the details.

The growing market for mobile devices is helping boost Qualcomm's earnings. Like most companies, Qualcomm has just reported their quarterly earnings and they are quite good. Unlike desktop chip manufacturers, Qualcomm is producing chips used in tablets and smartphones, the industry that is quickly taking over desktop products.

Qualcomm reported revenues of $6.12 billion, which is up 24 percent year-over-year. Profit came in at $2.07 billion, which is also up, though only by 17 percent. Qualcomm is looking to return $431 million to shareholders and expects third-quarter revenues and profits to be up 25 percent and 14 percent, respectively.

Coinciding with the launch of the Radeon HD 7990, AMD has released updated Catalyst drivers, bringing the count up to 13.4. These are the first WHQL-certified drivers released by the CPU and GPU manufacturer in three months. Our resident GPU Editor and author of the driver analyses pieces will hopefully have a piece up on them soon.

The drivers bring official support for the newly released HD 7790 and HD 7990. To download the newest drivers, you can head over to AMD's driver support site.

Volkswagen has debuted a new vehicle, known as the iBeetle, at the Shanghai Motor Show. This new vehicle was built in conjunction with Apple, meaning that the iBeetle's big selling point is the iPhone integration present. Volkswagen is hoping to boost the popularity of the vehicle more than Apple is hoping to boost the popularity of the iPhone.

The car features a built-in iPhone 5 cradle and offers numerous different functionalities. The Beetle app allows the iPhone to display various gauges, such as a G-meter or compass. The new iBeetle and iBeetle Cabriolet will be put on sale in 2014, likely in the first part of the year.

It seems like everyone is rolling out two-factor authentication. Just a few days ago, Microsoft enabled two-step authentication for Microsoft accounts and now reports are surfacing that Twitter is working on a similar system. Google and others have already employed two-factor authentication to much success.

Now is the perfect time for Twitter to enable extra security. There have been many high-profile hacks of Twitter handles, including one of the AP's account yesterday, which resulted in a massive drop in the Dow Jones. Wired reports that Twitter has a two-factor solution built and is putting it under internal testing before releasing it to the public.

Australian authorities have announced that they have arrested the "self-proclaimed lead" of the LulzSec hacking group. Authorities have not yet named the suspect, but say the 24-year-old was employed in a position that gave him "access to sensitive information." He was discovered after an investigation into a compromised government website.

"[This] man's knowledge and skills presented a significant risk to the clients of the company for which he was employed," authorities wrote in a statement. He faces up to twelve years in jail.

LulzSec is the hacking group responsible for the 2011 Sony PlayStation network hack. Cody Kretsigner, another implicated in the Sony attack was senteced to one year in jail by the American justice system.

Apple has scheduled its Worldwide Developers Conference to start June 10, 2013. The conference will run from June 10 tto June 14 and take place at San Francisco's Moscone West. It's widely expected that Apple will announce iOS 7 at this year's WWDC and many expect iOS 7 to feature massive changes from iOS 6.

Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing:

We look forward to gathering at WWDC 2013 with the incredible community of iOS and OS X developers. Our developers have had the most prolific and profitable year ever, and we're excited to show them the latest advances in software technologies and developer tools to help them create innovative new apps. We can't wait to get new versions of iOS and OS X into their hands at WWDC.

Tickets for the event will go on sale tomorrow, April 25, at 10am PDT. They will set you back $1,599 and each organization is limited to just five tickets. Apple is also providing scholarships for students. To learn more, head to Apple's WWDC website, specifically the "Students" page.

Today, Zynga reported its first-quarter earnings. Incredibly, Zynga performed better than expected and managed to beat expectations that they experienced a loss. Zynga reported a net income of $4.1 million, much better than the loss of $85 million from this time last year.

Revenue came in at $263.5 million, down from $320.9 million this time last year. Even decent results by the struggling company has investors selling. In after-hours trading, Zynga's stock has dropped by 11 percent after having increased during today's trading.

We are encouraged by the strong execution from our teams and the breakout hit performance of FarmVille 2, which captures the imagination of nearly 40 million players every month. 2013 will continue to be a transition year as we face the challenging environment on the web and invest in developing the leading franchises and network across web and mobile platforms and offer our 253 million monthly players a connected experience that can follow them from work to school to home and anywhere in between.

We've heard several rumors about Amazon, with the most frequent one being they are working on a Kindle-branded smartphone. The latest rumor is that Amazon is getting ready to release a Kindle-branded set-top box. This would likely feature Android as the OS and provide access to Amazon's digital content.

We expect it would operate much like Apple TV. Amazon declined to comment regarding a possible set-top box, though BusinessWeek cites three people familiar with the project. The device is said to be in development in Lab126, based in Cupertino, California. Of course, as with all rumors, take this with a grain of salt.

Most of our readers likely know that Samsung has decided to ship two different versions of the Samsung Galaxy S 4. One model comes with a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600, while the other model comes with Samsung's very own Exynos 5, an eight-core processor based upon ARM designs.

The US and European markets are getting the quad-core Snapdragon-powered model, while other countries will be getting the arguably better Exynos 5-powered model. But why? And does it even matter? According to JK Shin, co-CEO of Samsung and head of Samsung's mobile business, the general public won't be able to tell the difference.

The main reason for using the two different chips, according to Shin, is sourcing. They want to have more than one source for chips going into the Galaxy S 4. "We use multiple different sources. It's a sourcing issue." One thing is clear, the Exynos 5 destroys the Snapdragon 600 in benchmarks.

Despite claimed inventory shortages, US Cellular has announced that they will be getting the latest Samsung smartphone come April 30. The Samsung Galaxy S4, originally announced back in March, will be coming to US Cellular. The 16GB version will be available in either black or white for $199, provided you sign a two-year contract.

After being one of two U.S. carriers to offer a presale for the Samsung Galaxy S 4, U.S. Cellular is now one of the first to have the device available for purchase online and in stores.

 

The Samsung Galaxy S 4 will be available for purchase online at uscellular.com on Friday, April 26. Preorders will also begin shipping that same day along with the exclusive, free S View flip covers that were a part of the presale. The device will be available in stores on Tuesday, April 30.

 

U.S. Cellular is offering the 16GB device in White Frost and Black Mist and it is $199.99 with an instant rebate. Customers who buy the 4G LTE Samsung Galaxy S 4 from U.S. Cellular can enjoy a valuable rewards program that recognizes loyalty. Currently, 61 percent of customers have access to a 4G LTE network, and by the end of the year, 87 percent of customers will be covered.

The title doesn't have a typo; The Provo Municipal Council voted Tuesday in a unanimous decision to allow Google to acquire the iProvo fiber network for a total price of $1. Not only is Google getting a steal on the fiber network, the city has agreed to pay approximately $722,000 for equipment to use the gigabit network for government services and $500,000 to determine the exact locations of the buried fiber cables.

Google will, in exchange, take ownership and control of the existing fiber network. They will provide free 5Mbps/1Mbps connections to all of Provo's residents for at least seven years. Additionally, Google will provide free gigabit connections to 25 different public institutions.

Provo, Utah will be the third Google Fiber city. "It gets back to our origins as a company...our customers cared about speed," said Google's director of community affairs.

Earlier today, I turned on my Xbox to watch a bit of Netflix and discovered the homepage featured an advertisement for an upcoming Microsoft event. That's right, Microsoft is advertising an event at which the next generation Xbox will be unveiled. Microsoft is trying to get the #XboxReveal hashtag trending, as seen in the picture below.

We will hopefully be able to feast our eyes on the next-gen Xbox 720 on May 21 at 10am PDT. Interested parties can watch the event on Xbox Live, Xbox.com or Spike TV. We will, of course, have full coverage of the event here in case you miss it. We also figure Microsoft will offer the event for replay.

We've seen a number of rumors about the upcoming Xbox 720. Just which would you like to prove true?

This morning Giada, a company most often associated with their Android based mini-PCs, unveiled a sleek new tablet based on Android. Dubbed the T720, the new tablet is packed with some powerful features.

Featuring Android 4.1 Ice Cream Sandwich, the T720 is a lightweight tablet that is powered by dual-core 1.5GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor, 1GB of RAM and a Mali-400 GPU. This equates to smooth and rich graphics on the 7" 1280x800 IPS display.

The T720 packs in 8GB of onboard storage which can be enlarged by the addition of a microSD card. The tablet features USB 2.0, HDMI and 802.11 B/G/N connectivity as well as Bluetooth 4.0. A 0.3MP front camera and 2MP rear camera are also put to use on the device, while a 4,000mAh battery gives the T720 5-7 hours of continuous use.

Acer has been pretty silent on the smartphone front since January when it launched the Liquid E1. This morning Acer announced its next generation smartphone, the Liquid E2.

The Liquid E2 features a quad-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex A7 processor, 4.5" qHD IPS display, 1GB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage, which can be augmented by a MicroSD card. Photo capturing task are handled by an 8MP rear camera that can shoot 1080p video at 30FPS. Android 4.2 is the operating system of choice.

The E2 is HSPA+ compatible and is available with a dual SIM card option. It is expected to release mid-May in Belgium, Netherlands, Ukraine, France, followed by Spain, UK, Italy, Germany and Russia, with a suggested retail price of 229 Euros. Dual SIM version pricing has not yet been announced.

The next game in the Call of Duty (COD) series has just been leaked thanks to US retailer Target and UK retailer Tesco. Target let the name slip in an advertisement which offered $10 off any game when you reserve your copy of Call of Duty Ghosts.

Tesco actually leaked box art on their website, which appears to have now been removed from their website. Thankfully, Joystiq managed to grab a screenshot before it was taken down. Each retailer posted a separate release date in the November and December time frame, which is traditionally on par for the series.

Judging by the box art above, the game does appear to be developed by Infinity Ward and Activision.