It was only a few hours ago that we reported that the PC version of The Division was being held back, because it would be "unfair" to consoles if the PC version of the game stood head and shoulders above its console counterparts.

Well, now Ubisoft has come out of the darkness, releasing a statement to PCGamesN: "It has come to our attention that a comment from one of our team members has been perceived by some members of the community to imply the PC version of The Division was 'held back' and this is simply not true. From the beginning, the PC version of The Division was developed from the ground up and we're confident players will enjoy the game and the features this version has to offer. And the feedback from PC players who participated in the recent closed beta supports this".

Now of course a company like Ubisoft isn't going to come out and admit that they are holding back the PC version of one of their biggest games of the year - but it would be nice to see them admit that the consoles are underpowered, which are holding back a huge leap in graphics, game size, AI, and so much more - including The Division being watered down from its E3 2013/2014 footage. There's simply no denying that, Ubisoft.

For most of Tuesday, Australians were angry at the biggest telco in the country over a nationwide outage that affected up to 16.7 million mobile services attempting to make phone calls or use data.

Well, a Telstra spokeswoman has explained: "This is an embarrassing human error. It's not OK. We do not like causing that level of inconvenience to our customers". Yes, all of that outrage over the outage, from a single person making a mistake. The Telstra spokeswoman added that there would be a full investigation and that some customers would be offered free data as compensation.

As for the issue, it all began when one of the nodes used for managing voice calls and data traffic between devices, and Telstra's network started malfunctioning. The Telstra spokeswoman explained: "We took that node down, unfortunately the individual that was managing that issue did not follow the correct procedure, and he reconnected the customers to the malfunctioning node, rather than transferring them to the nine other redundant nodes that he should have transferred people to".

It was twenty years ago at Superbowl XXXI that the world was first introduced to 'Independence Day', via the unforgettable explosive image of the White House being blown to smithereens and which helped propel it to one of the highest grossing films of all time. For the eagerly awaited sequel 'Independence Day: Resurgence', Twentieth Century Fox aired a gob-smacking new spot, which truly highlights the advancements of visual effects during the last two decades.

To coincide with the spot, the studio also unveiled the films theatrical poster, which harkens back to the iconic image from the original.

With returning starts Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch and Vivica A. Fox joined by newcomers Liam Hemsworth, Maika Monroe and Jessie Usher, expect explosions and general mayhem in true Roland Emmerich style as the future of the planet is decided.

Maybe it's a first world problem, but when you pay through the neck for mobile internet and calls here in Australia - you expect a level of service. Today, the country's biggest network Telstra, which services 16 million customers has dropped the ball in a pretty big way by announcing huge network outages.

According to News.com.au, huge swathes of Telstra's network in capital cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane went down just after midday, with many customers reporting they're still unable to make phone calls over two hours later.

The company has not issued an ETA on a network fix (which the company call an 'interruption'), but stay tuned to their site here.

iPhone bricked with the 'Error 53' problem going around? Don't worry about it - Apple has your back. No really, they do.

If you haven't already heard, thousands upon thousands of iPhone 6 users have lost their devices to 'Error 53', which is bricking expensive smartphones. Why? Error 53 has something to do with the Touch ID-powered Home button on the iPhone, which can be used as a fingerprint sensor to unlock your smartphone, compared to the four-digit code that's usually required.

But, if your iPhone has been damaged and you've had it fixed by a non-Apple approved repairer, then you're... well, screwed. A new update to iOS now detects non-standard components and shuts down your iPhone - bricking it - aka, your expensive iPhone is now useless. This is all because you didn't go to an Apple Store, and have your phone fixed. Apple has released a statement to The Guardian, where they said: "We take customer security very seriously and Error 53 is the result of security checks designed to protect our customers. iOS checks that the Touch ID sensor in your iPhone or iPad correctly matches your device's other components".

One of music's greatest producers Rick Rubin has a strange new project coming out: a Star Wars-themed electronic album featuring sound effect samples from the films. Named Star Wars Headspace, it includes tracks from Flying Lotus, Kaskade, A-Trak, Bonobo, Rubin himself, and many more. If you like, you can check out some samples here or listen to Zane Lowe's Beats 1 program throughout today to get a feel for it.

Headspace is releasing February 19 digitally (iTunes pre-orders are up here) and March 18 the old-fashioned way. The full track list is below.

1. Kaskade "C-3P0's Plight"

The world's first Blu-ray player (in North America at least) is said to be available about a month ahead of time, starting as early as last Friday. The Samsung UBD-K8500 (which resembles a certain Sega console), according to some enthusiasts, can be found in some shops now, while Best Buy customers are being told it's shipping this Wednesday; others say a store in Santa Monica was advertising it and promptly sold out.

Funnily enough, the K8500 -- currently $399 -- can't actually play 4K Blu-rays at the moment, as they aren't currently available: Amazon is taking pre-orders for The Martian and Kingsmen: The Secret Service, but both don't ship until March 1. However, the device can stream 4K content from Netflix and other providers.

Google and Bing are already quite good at predicting what you're thinking and giving you relevant suggestions. But it's slow and the predictive algorithms just aren't quite good for actual real-time suggestions. So a graduate student from Cornell wants to speed things up considerably, making things potentially awesome, yet incredibly creepy.

We all like our personalized suggestions when shopping or even when searching for things. It legitimately helps us, despite the privacy concerns related to it. But those results don't show up instantaneously. There's a significant amount of background work going on that links your actions to those personalized results. Wenlei Xie has come up with an algorithm that could potentially speed things up to near real-time.

Search engines and their underlying suggestions generally use a weighted node graph which is examined analyzed to see just how appropriate the suggestion is based on years of collecting and correlating information. The problem that Xie has found is that there's just so much information to walk through, that it's incredibly slow. So to make it faster and more relevant even sooner, he's proposed simplifying those graphs. In essence they're assembling only the most pertinent information, and discarding a lot of the fluff, to make it quicker.

The semi-closed beta test for Hitman is going to begin at the end of the week and Square Enix has released a short trailer and an FAQ site to prepare us as we step into the role of Agent 47 once again.

Those on the PlayStation 4 of course get to enjoy the beta on starting on the 12th of February at 8:00am PST going through the 15th at 8:00am PST. Those on the PC will have to wait until the 19th at 2:00am PST and then you can play to your hearts content until the 22nd at 2:00am PST.

During the beta you'll only have access to the prologue mission, aptly named "The Prologue". This is a secret ICA training facility that Agent 47 first trained in. It's also the first time that you meet Diana, the familial handler that you eventually save in an earlier game set further along the timeline. You're give two completely free-form missions to play through to try out the mechanics of the game. How do you get in the beta? Read on below.

Last month it was reported uninstalling the Facebook app on Android dramatically improved performance; other reports have surfaced indicating 20% of battery life can be saved in doing so. The Guardian, curious to see the impact on iPhones, set to work with its iPhone 6S Plus and found battery life was impacted by 15%, even across multiple phones. As well, about 500MB of space was saved between the size of the app and its cache.

Between these benefits and the option to use the well-designed Facebook mobile website (which can be linked to via your home screen), you can see there are few reasons to keep the Facebook app on your phone, and many great reasons not to.

Facebook has been alerted to the performance issues; a spokesperson says the matter is being investigated.