Activision took some time during the Game Developers Conference last week in San Francisco to show off some of their impressive 3D face rendering technology. You can check out the video below.

Activision seem to have produced some very realistic faces, but those lips and mouth movements aren't perfect yet. Everything else looks damn impressive, even more so that it was all driven from a PC with a single GeForce GTX 680 GPU inside. Activision have said that the technology demo is running at 180fps on the GTX 680 - a somewhat useless number - because if this tech was built into a game with another 20 characters with this tech, and entire world at this level of graphics, those frame rates would plummet.

It's nice to look through a window into next-gen facial rendering, and I can't wait until this becomes the norm. You can read more on it here.

AT&T have announced that they'll be selling Amazon's Kindle Fire HD 8.9 4G LTE tablet online, and in retail stores later this week. The US telco will be selling the tablet for $399 and will allow customers to add the slate to their existing Mobile Share plans for $10 a month.

AT&T have said that they will slash $150 from the price of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 4G LTE is customers sign a two-year service agreement, bringing that price down to $249. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 features an 8.9-inch 1920x1200-pixel display, a 1.5GHz dual-core TI OMAP4 processor and 1GB of RAM. The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 4G LTE will be available online and in AT&T retail stores on April 5.

We've already heard the rumors that South Korean electronics giant Samsung would release their Galaxy S4 mini shortly after its bigger brother, the Galaxy S4. Now there's fresh rumors that Samsung will announce this smaller smartphone, as soon as this week.

The Galaxy S4 mini would be made available in black and white, as well as a dual-SIM model being put up on the table. The dual-SIM Galaxy S4 mini would sport a 4.3-inch qHD display, a 1.6GHz dual-core Exynos 5210 processor, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and come to the party dressed in Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.

The single-SIM variant would bump the processor up to a quad-core variant, giving users with the single SIM card some boosted CPU performance.

A game from the 90s is coming back as a next-gen title, which we heard about a little while ago now but now we have the official trailer to Thief from Square Enix. Check it out below.

The trailer doesn't show off any in-game footage, which I don't think we'll see until the game is polished up to really sell itself to customers for next-gen platforms and PC. It does make me want to play it again with all of the technology we have at our disposal these days, oh boy.

We already know that Game of Thrones, the uber-popular HBO TV show was the most pirated show of 2012, but the show's season three premiere episode had some stellar numbers, too.

It aired last night, and saw 6.7 million US fans tuning in, but how were those download numbers considering it was the most pirated show of last year? Well, according to Torrent Freak, a single torrent of the season three premiere saw 160,000 simultaneous connections - but adding all of the releases together in one big pile of downloads would see well over one million downloads.

HBO even allowed viewers to watch the season premiere in more ways than usual, where the network allowed customers to stream Game of Thrones through HBO Go at the same time that cable subscribers watched it live.

Google's privacy director has announced internally that she is stepping down from her post with intentions to retire. Alma Whitten became Google's first director of privacy in 2010 after being an engineer with the company. Her job was to oversee future products and prevent the release of products that invaded privacy too much.

Whitten will remain with the privacy team for a few more months as Lawrence You transitions to her position. You is based in Mountain View, California and has been a Google engineer for eight years.

Google said in a statement:

During her 10 years at Google, Alma has done so much to improve our products and protect our users. The privacy and security teams, and everyone else at Google, will continue this hard work to ensure that our users' data is kept safe and secure.

AT&T has said that it will support the iPhone 5's HD Voice technology sometime later this year. The technology will roll out along with AT&T's switching over to routing voice over LTE. "HD Voice is part of our voice over LTE strategy," AT&T senior VP Kris Rinne said.

T-Mobile, on the other hand, will support the iPhone 5's HD Voice technology right from the start. When the device launches, T-Mobile users will be able to experience the higher quality audio that some have called a noticeable improvement. Sprint is also considering implementing HD Voice technology.

Apple has announced that its Q2 2013 financial results call will take place on April 23. On that day, Apple's second quarter results will be detailed and investors will be scrutinizing the company's performance. Will Apple's stock price increase or decrease after the announcement? Let us know in the comments.

The call will take place at 2PM Pacific and 5PM Eastern and will be available via the Internet.

Users on the Intel HD4000 GPU boat are about to get more performance. While at GDC, Intel announced a new version of their driver that will bring with it an up to 10 percent improvement in graphics performance. Also included in the new driver is support for OpenCL 1.2.

The new driver is said to have been built for Haswell processors, though the driver will also be compatible with Ivy Bridge. Different sources are reporting that it will be compatible with HD2500, though others are reporting that it won't be. The new driver will be released as early as this week.

Users can download the latest drivers from Intel's website.

T-Mobile has already announced that the HTC one will be coming to its network for $50 down and monthly payments. AT&T will reportedly opening pre-sales on April 4 online and April 5 in stores. The device will set customers back $249.99 for the 32GB version in either black or silver.

The 64GB AT&T exclusive will be available at a later date and will come in at $299.99. Of course, both devices come with a two-year contract at the listed prices. Meanwhile, a leaked RadioShack ad suggests that Sprint will have the HTC One available for $199.99 and that it will come with a $50 Google Play credit. This could be a RadioShack-only price and Sprint could use the same pricing as AT&T. The Google Play credit is likely a RadioShack-only promotion.

Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system continues to be somewhat of a flop. Usage data from Net Applications show Windows 8 usage is still behind that of Microsoft's last flop, Windows Vista. Windows XP and Windows 7 continue to be top contenders, even though XP was initially released over 11 years ago.

Windows 8 is used on 3.17 percent of computers, up from 2.67 percent in February. Vista, on the other hand, is found on 4.99 percent of systems. Windows XP is still found on 38.73 percent of systems and Windows 7 is the largest used operating system, found on 44.73 percent of systems.

Mac OS X 10.6-10.8 combined is found on below 7 percent of systems. Windows 8 uptake is likely to increase and is predicted to eclipse that of Vista within the year.

One of YouTube's three co-founders has debuted a new video sharing site. MixBit, introduced today on the heels of YouTube's "closing announcement", will allow the sharing of videos, much like YouTube, as well as the ability for content creators to collaborate and work together on projects.

Since @YouTube is ending, we're launching a new video site... Welcome to http://MixBit.com ! @MixBitApp This time it's not a contest!

MixBit.com isn't available just yet, though they note that "the future of video is launching soon!" The site was first teased during an interview at SXSW during which he said MixBit would provide "flexibility for people to work together and create content."

Details of the new site are still a bit scarce, but they will surely be forthcoming in the coming weeks.

Amazon has updated their Cloud Drive service to support file syncing, a step that is desperately needed for the service to become a viable alternative to SkyDrive and Dropbox. Cloud Drive originally launched in May of last year without file syncing capabilities, meaning that files had to be manually placed in the Cloud Drive and updated after editing.

Today's update brings with it the ability for files and folders to sync across all of your linked Cloud Drive devices. Amazon is still offering 5GB of free storage for users, so now may be as good as time as any to switch. You can learn more and download Cloud Drive from Amazon's website.

NVIDIA has debuted five new mobile GPUs for the mainstream and performance segments of the market. Ranging from the new GT 720M all the way to the new 750M, these GPUs all support NVIDIA's "GPU Boost 2.0" technology. GPU Boost dynamically changes the clockspeed of the GPU to save power when possible.

The new GT 720M and 735M compose the mainstream segment and the GT 740M, 745M, and 750M are destined for the performance user. While your current system may be a generation behind, it's highly unlikely that your older 680M will be eclipsed by the new 750M.

NVIDIA says that the new line of GPUs will be supported by all major notebook manufacturer in the coming months.

A judge has ruled that users do not have the right or ability to resell songs purchased through iTunes as one might do with used CDs or DVDs. This is one of the on-going arguments that relate to digital media and ownership. Much like software, it would appear that users are granted a license, rather than an owned copy, to use a song.

This ruling comes about from a lawsuit between ReDigi and Universal Music Group's Capitol Records. Universal sued the start-up saying that the company was violating the former's copyrights by enabling users to resell purchased iTunes music.

U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan's ruling says that (paraphrased) without explicit permission from a copyright holder, you are not allowed to resell a digital media file. The full decision is available US' Archive site.

AndroidPolice managed to get their hands on a system dump from the HTC Myst Facebook Phone. Most of the features are as you would expect, through there are some surprises packed inside. It makes use of a special Facebook app that isn't currently available anywhere else.

The system appears to be a mid-range HTC device that features a dual-core MSM8960 CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 720p 4.3-inch screen and a 5MP rear-facing camera. All of this hardware is powered by Android 4.1.2, through it appears it could be a heavily modified version of Android with deep Facebook integration.

The special build of the Facebook app bears a new package name as well as a host of new permissions. All of these new settings seem to be ones mainly used by home screen apps. HTC's own home screen app, "Rosie", isn't even installed on the device meaning Facebook's new app will likely take care of home screen functions.

There are also some hints that this version of Facebook might be released on the Google Play Store meaning that any Android device could replace their home screen with the Facebook version.

It's been a long and drawn out wait for the Raspberry Pi Model A to be released, but it is finally here and on sale in the US for a mere $25. Surprisingly the Model A is not being launched at Element14 as everyone might think.

Allied Electronics, a Texas based component supplier appears to be the first to market with the new $25 credit card sized Linux computer. The Model A is a dumbed down version of the vastly popular Raspberry Pi model B and differs in just a few missing components such as the LAN interface.

Unfortunately it appears that Allied has already sold out of the Model A's which leads us to wonder, why do these component houses not order several tens of thousands of units. They always blame supply, but Arduino was able to overcome supply shortages faster than Raspberry Pi has seemed to. If you know your product is going to sell in the hundreds of thousands almost overnight, why not scale up production to meet that demand?

In a recently released presentation, AMD has hinted that its new Steamroller micro-architecture is on track to be released this year. This comes at a surprise as most industry insiders thought that the new architecture would not arrive until mid to late next year.

In a presentation slide titled "AMD Opteron Technology: Delivering multiple generations of greater functionality and improved performance," it was hinted that AMD will be releasing server-class Opteron chips based on the new technology later this year.

X-Bit Labs is reporting that AMD has pushed forward its plans for Steamroller and the new chips will be compatible with current sockets and that the new server microprocessors will support PCI-E 3.0. Desktop chip's featuring Steamroller technology will most likely not be seen until next year though.

The China Post is reporting that HTC is already deep into production on a Windows based tablet. If true, this would be the first tablet from HTC since its 7-inch Android based Flyer disaster crashed and burned.

The Windows based table is said to already be in production at a Pegatron manufacturing facility and is in the 10.1-inch class. The screen is said to be full 1080p and should run Windows 8.

No other details have been mentioned yet, and we are still unsure if the device even exist. I personally will give the rumors the benefit of the doubt as supply chain leaks usually turn out to be true.

I honestly have no problem with advertising on the web, as it fuels free services that I love such as YouTube, Facebook, and Gmail, but when companies find clever ways to inject ads into the content on my mobile devices, I start to get a little steamed.

Nuance, announced this morning that it hast started a venture with advertising agencies that will bring voice integration into mobile ads. "Mobile has a monetization challenge," Nuance's Mike McSherry said in an interview last week with AllThingsD. "By introducing voice you can transcend the small screen size."

In a demo, McSherry showed off a fictional commercial for a deodorant company that followed a "Magic 8 Ball" theme. McSherry asked the ad if he should get a Tattoo, and it responded by asking his age. When McSherry replied, the app sarcastically suggested that he get a Chinese character that translated into something different than what McSherry thought. It then rolled a slogan based ad that recommended the deodorant product.