Going green is the big push right now and has been for the past several years. Apple releases its "Apple and the Environment" report to show just how Apple's business affects the environment around us. The latest report shows that while Apple is moving towards green energy use, its overall production of CO2 is still increasing.

Apple has started to brag that its data centers are 100 percent powered by renewable energy sources. Even with this change, Apple's overall production has increased by 34 percent. Apple attributes this increase to its overall increase in products sold. It's true that Apple produces less CO2 per dollar revenue.

Since 2008, Apple has reduced its emissions per dollar revenue by 21.5 percent. Apple has also increased renewable energy at its corporate facilities by 114 percent. However, facilities only contribute 2 percent of Apple's emissions. 61 percent, or the large majority, come from the manufacturing of the devices.

Apple is implementing a security feature known as two-step verification. It's similar to the security measures used by Google and other web services. Users are able to enable the service through the Apple ID website, after which two-step verification will be required to make changes to a user's account.

Users will set up a trusted device, such as a Mac or iPhone, and will need to print a recovery key. In order to reset a user's password, they will need to have access to the recovery key that they printed out. The first time you attempt to buy an app on a new device, you'll be required to enter a pin that can be accessed from a trusted device.

You can head over to the Apple ID website to enable it for yourself. It's definitely recommended, though it's only currently available in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.

The Ninth Circuit of Appeals has ruled that Isohunt's founder, Gary Fung, is liable for copyright infringement committed by the site's users because he possessed "red flag" knowledge that infringement was occurring. In its 59-page ruling, the Ninth Circuit court upheld most of a lower-court's decisions.

The main takeaway from this ruling is that if a site's operator is found to be inducing copyright infringement, they are no longer allowed in the safe harbor. The Court was able to identify that Fung induced copyright infringement through his posts on the Isohunt forums:

[Fung] communicated a clear message by responding affirmatively to requests for help in locating and playing copyrighted materials...posted numerous messages to the isoHunt forum requesting that users upload torrents for specific copyrighted films.

HTC CEO Peter Chou is so committed to the success of the HTC One that he has reportedly said that he will quit his job and leave HTC if the upcoming One smartphone is a flop.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Chou said that in the event that the HTC One is a failure, he will resign his position at the company. At the moment, things are not looking good for Chou as HTC's flagship release has been delayed until the end of this month due to delays.

The delays were first thought to be caused by HTC's new "Ultra Pixel" camera technology, or its aluminum uni-frame body, but we recently discovered that is not the case. In fact, HTC is having issues getting many of its components due to being downgraded from a tier one manufacturer.

Canon has just released what it is billing as the "world's smallest and lightest" fully featured DSLR. The EOS Rebel SL1 weighs in at just 14.36oz and is 25 percent smaller than its older sibling, the Rebel T4i. The new SL1 is targeted at competing with the current micro four-thirds mirror-less models that are flooding the market.

Featuring a new 18-megapixel CMOS based APS-C sensor, and Canon's very fast Digic 5 image processor, this little DSLR packs a punch. An ISO range of 100-12800 can tame low light situations, and is expandable to 25600 for stills and 6400 for video. The SL1 is capable of shooting four frames per second of continuous shooting.

The SL1 also features a 9-point auto focus system that is capable of autofocus tracking when shooting video. This is enabled by the bundled 18-55 f/3-5.6 IS STM "kit lens" that features Canon's movie servo autofocus feature. The EOS SL1 will hit shelves in April with a body only price tag of $650 or $800 with the kit lens.

A new virus specific to Mac has been discovered by Russian security firm Doctor Web. Named Trojan.Yontoo.1, the virus injects ads into webpages on the infected machine.

The malware works by installing an adware plugin into any of the popular browsers then overlays an advertisement in key locations on webpages. Doctor Web says that this trojan is just another piece of a large adware puzzle that has been infecting OS X for some time now.

The virus can be caught in several different ways, with the most popular method being the use of movie trailer pages in which users must install a plugin to view the content. Other methods of injection have been media player enhancement programs and download accelerators. One indication of infection is that when launched, Trojan.Yontoo.1 will prompt users to install a program called "Free Twit Tube" or something similar.

No information has been released from Apple on a removal tool yet, and it is expected that Apple will just patch its XProtect.plist which already blocks about 15 previous malware attacks. The best thing is to avoid any installs from unknown websites or anything that has a funny name. Remember, Google is your friend and if you are unsure of an application's validity, a five second search could prevent an infection. Be smart.

What do you do when you have more cash reserves than any other company in the world? You develop a system that magically flips your company's flagship phone into the proper position during a fall to lessen damage. Yes, Apple has patented a method that turns your phone into a cat.

US Patent #20130073095 describes a "Protective Mechanism for an Electronic Device" that appears to use centrifugal force to reorient an iPhone in the event of a drop or fall. From the patent drawings, it looks like a small motor with a weight on one end would spin up and make the phone flip into an orientation that would lessen damage to sensitive parts like the screen.

The patent also mentions alternative methods that would deploy airfoils to levy aerodynamics to reorient the phone. There is also mention of cables that could be jettisoned to catch the phone mid fall, and other far out there concepts like gas canisters used in conjunction with thrust nozzles to reorient the phone. Below you can see more of the artwork courtesy of Apple Insider.

The patent states:

In one example, the protective mechanism is configured to alter the device orientation as the device is falling. This may allow a less vulnerable portion of the device to impact the surface at the end of a freefall. For example, the protective mechanism may be activated to rotate the device so that it may impact a surface on its edge, rather than on a screen portion.

Six months ago Microsoft announced that Pandora would be coming to Windows Phone 8 and that its users would be treated to one year of ad-free listening. While it may be a little late, Pandora for Windows Phone 8 is finally here and Redmond kept true to its word.

The new Pandora App for Windows Phone 8 has been completely redesigned from the ground up specifically for Microsoft's mobile OS. Users are able to pin their favorite stations to Live Tiles, the main Pandora tile always displays track information, and the app can be put into "kid mode", which blocks all traces of explicit content.

Unlike the iOS and Android version, the Windows Phone 8 app does not feature song lyrics or artist biographies. Other than that, the apps are mostly the same. Microsoft has paid for nine months of free service in advance and it's users will not be subject to ads or the recently implemented listening cap. When the free period is over, users will have to subscribe to Pandora One for $36 a year or $3.99 a month.

Back in January, BlackBerry 10 launched with more than 70,000 applications in its app store called BlackBerry World. This morning BlackBerry has announced that those numbers now exceed 100,000.

In the past seven weeks, over 30,000 apps have been added to the BlackBerry World catalog, and more seem to pour in every day. This announcement comes with less than 24 hours before carriers like Verizon open up pre-orders for the new BlackBerry Z10 ahead of its retail launch next week on March 28.

Martyn Mallick, VP of Global Alliances at BlackBerry, said:

"The response to the BlackBerry 10 platform and applications has been outstanding. Customers are thrilled with the applications already available, and the catalog just keeps growing, now with more than 100,000 apps.

 

Top brands and application providers are joining us every day and are seeing the benefits of being early supporters of the new platform. We constantly hear from developers that the BlackBerry 10 tools are easy to build with and that we provide opportunities for app differentiation that they do not see on other platforms."

We're willing to bet that more than a few of our readers have participated in a video game beta test before despite the fact that they are sometimes hard to get into. Up until now, you usually had to rely on being selected to participate in those beta programs, but Valve is looking to change that.

Steam has just released a new service called Early Access that makes participating in beta test easier. Instead of filling out form after form, and email after email, Valve's solution is to let game developers simply charge users to be part of the beta. Developers can chose to offer the beta for free through the service or charge users full price for the game, which rolls over to your steam library when officially launched.

As of this posting, the Early Access program has 12 titles including some heavy hitters like: Arma 3 Aplha, Kerbal Space Program and Star Forge Alpha. It is still up in the air if gamers are willing to buy a game at full price months before release just to get access to the beta program, but something tells me that it will be a success.

Our Tweakipedia section has a new post.

If you're running an older laptop that's starting to feel a bit long in the tooth, it may be time to consider doing some upgrades to extend the longevity of the system. Our own Chris Ramseyer, along with most tech gurus, will tell you that upgrading to an SSD is one of the best ways increase the performance of an aging system and breathe new life into it. Previously the process of upgrading a disk could be complicated, but there are now many tools and different ways of upgrading a system to take advantage of a fast new SSD.

In today's guide, we'll show you how to upgrade your aging laptop-or even a new one, as is the one we're using today-to a solid-state drive. We'll also cover upgrading RAM to get the most performance we can from easily upgraded components.

Corsair's current mechanical gaming keyboard, the Vengeance K60, is a great keyboard, but people do like their backlights on their keyboards. Well, Corsair has come to your rescue, unveiling the Vengeance K70 - backlit enabled.

Corsair have made the Vengeance K70 available in both black and silver, but have gone a step further with the backlight color. The silver aluminum K70 comes with blue backlighting, while the anodized black sports deep red backlighting. This will ensure both keyboards not only perform well, but look great while doing so. Each key is then individually backlit, with the added ability of having every key capable of being independently enabled, or disabled.

In typical Corsair fashion, the fun doesn't stop there, as the Vengeance K70 comes with alternate colored, contoured keycaps for the WASD and 1-6 keycaps, allowing for truly personal customization. The Corsair Vengeance K70 will be available in April for a suggested price of $129.99.

Our first look at the Battlefield 4 website is here, which doesn't show much at all unfortunately. What it does tell us is that we can 'unlock the Battlefield 4 art' by having more fans log-in, the team at DICE will reveal 'more,' what exactly we'll see - is anyone's guess.

The website says to come back on March 27, which is when we'll see our first look at gameplay. This is what I'm excited for, hopefully it's not pre-rendered or scripted, and some actual, in-game footage. We can only dream.

If you've wanted to know how it feels to be a world renown overclocker, MSI have officially announced their 2013 MSI Master Overclocking Arena (MOA) is entering its six-year anniversary. MSI are going with a "NO LIMITS" concept, that will "bring out the core spirit of overclocking and help to unveil MOA 2013".

In order to enter, all you have to do is share the "No Limits MSI MOA" video on Facebook, giving you an entry into the draw. There will be two people chosen as winners, who will receive MSI's latest Gaming Series motherboard. Here's what you need to know:

• Only members of the MSI FAN CLUB fans have the right to participate.
• Winners must contact with MSI FAN CLUB before Apr. 15th, 2013 to retrieve the prices, anytime later than the designated date will be disqualified.
• The organizer reserves the right to review the eligibility of participants. Winners will be disqualified and prizes will be recalled if participant takes part in any act of obstructing the fair game principle with malicious computer programs or any other methods or if nonconformance with the activity rules are detected or reported by a third party.

For more detailed information, please visit MSI FAN CLUB page on Facebook.

Our Ask the Experts section has a new question, where we have Gaelan in Australia wanting some help deciding between some Sapphire GPUs.

Q: I'm buying a new system and trying to choose a single GPU for now and upgrade to crossfire later. Between the Sapphire Radeon HD7870 XT Edition, Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 Vapor-X 3GB or a card for a similar price which would you say is the best one.

I know the HD 7970 is better but I don't know if its really worth the extra money. Thanks.

A: You can view the answer to Gaelan's question right here.

Google have an announcement for us all today, with YouTube now seeing one billion monthly users. Using Wolfram Alpha's estimate of the 6.79 billion people on Earth, this would equate to roughly 14.7% of the world using YouTube every month.

The Mountain View-based everything giant has said that YouTube feeds out to nearly one in every two people on the Internet, a staggering number. Google were once criticized over acquiring YouTube in 2006, where they paid $1.65 billion for the video sharing site. I'm sure now, critics have their lips closed, and tears running down their faces. It was only last year that Google saw their first billion-view video, PSY's Gangnam Style.

From the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, significant pieces of Saturn V's rocket engines have been recovered. What makes this a big announcement is the fact they've been there for over 40 years, and recovered thanks to a privately-funded expedition by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Bezos explained the site of the discovery three miles below the surface, more than 400 miles from Florida's east cost as "an underwater wonderland, an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 engines that tells the story of a fiery and violent end, one that serves testament to the Apollo programme." The Amazon founder announced over a year ago that they had located the engine pieces that took man to the moon in 1969.

After three weeks abord a recovery vessel named 'Seabed Worker', Bezos and his team are on their way back to Cape Canaveral with their pieces of the Saturn V rocket engines. Bezos said in a statement on the expedition website: "We're bringing home enough major components to fashion displays of two flown F-1 engines. Many of the original serial numbers are missing or partially missing, which is going to make mission identification difficult. We might see more during restoration. The objects themselves are gorgeous."

Sixty seconds on the Internet doesn't sound like much, but think of all the millions of users on simultaneously, all doing different things and the numbers add up very quickly. In only 60 seconds, around 640TB of data is transferred around the world.

The data comes from an infographic by chipmaker Intel, who breaks it down into even more interesting numbers. Google is a big part of these numbers, where more than two million searches are conducted every sixty seconds. YouTube pushes out around 1.3 million videos, while at the same time consumes 30 hours worth of uploaded video for public consumption.

Moving onto social networks, Facebook sees around 6 million views, and Twitter enjoys around 100,000 new tweets per minute. E-mail is still a huge number, with 204 million e-mails sent out every minute. Most of these are most likely spam, but they still count as data being transferred. Intel has also made some projections looking into the future, where they expect the number of networked devices to double by 2015.

NVIDIA have begun shipping their GRID Visual Computing Appliance (VCA), where designers, animators and visual production users can purchase for just $24,900. On top of this, there is a $2,400 yearly software license fee.

What do you get for $25,000? 8 GPUs, 16 threads of CPU and 192GB of RAM capable of delivering service up to 8 users, with the 16 GPU model doubling this to 16 simultaneous users. If a studio had a decent amount of designers or artists, this could definitely be an option worth looking into.

Thanks to a new leak, we're taking a look at the new version of the Google Play app. The updated app features a Holo-like user interface, thanks to Droid-Life getting their hands (eyes?) on the new apk file, labeled 4.0.16. It's not ready to hit everyone just yet, but it gives us a sneak peak of what to expect from Google, and I love it.

It gives the Play Store a much needed refresh, bringing the interface into line with other Google services like Google Now. The font is all-new, the icons are bigger, and the colors match the categories displayed on the Google Play website. The app is far from perfect, but Google are quick with these things, so I'm sure we'll see an updated Google Play app this side of Google I/O in June.