It looks like NASA might just get that $100 million grant to find an asteroid, bring it back to the Moon, and study it. The $100 million initial fund would be used to find the right asteroid to retrieve.

The good news comes from the Christian Science Monitor, who says that President Obama is putting aside $100 million in a 2014 budget for the project. This isn't written in ink just yet, but it is exciting. The full project will cost much more, somewhere around $2.6 billion - a huge twenty-six times as much as the initial $100 million grant.

HTC's upcoming "Facebook Phone" or the HTC First, will still just be an Android phone underneath. Phandroid has reported that the OS shaking along underneath the First handset is accessible by either resetting the default launcher, or disabling the Facebook Home app from its own settings.

This is quite interesting, because it could change the future of the Facebook app itself. I would expect a future iteration of the Facebook for Android app to give all Android users this ability in the near future. Most people live their entire lives through their smartphone, and most of the time it's heavy Facebook use (I'm looking at you, my dear sister-in-law) and the background OS doesn't matter to those people.

Give them their games, status updates and 'liked' pages, and you've done your job.

Indie superstar, Minecraft, has sold more than 10 million copies according to Mojang customer support manager Marc Watson. Watson tweeted the news, with the milestone including just copies from PC, Mac and Linux - making it the seventh best-selling PC game of all time - a huge, huge milestone.

The game is also available on Android, Xbox 360 and iOS, so these numbers would be much higher if the extra platforms were counted. The developer has said that the Xbox 360 version alone has sold more than six million copies as of last month. Developer Jens Bergensten believes that across all platforms, sale numbers on Minecraft was around 20 million in January of this year.

What was originally thought of as a huge April Fool's Day joke has turned into an actual serious tease of the upcoming Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon from Ubisoft. A bunch of screenshots have made their way to the official Xbox.com website, which has gamers talking.

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon goes down a very different path to the usual DLC, where we should expect some seriously fun first-person shooter fun. Here is the official synopsis from the game's website:

The year is 2007. It is the future. Earth has been ravaged by a nuclear war and new paths for peace must be found. A U.S. cyborg army may have found a solution: a powerful bioweapon on a distant island. A Mark IV Cyber Commando, Sergeant Rex Power Colt has been sent over to gather information and figure out what the hell is going on.

US Cellular is trying something new for their would-be customers, where they're offering up some play-before-you-pay trials saving customers from signing a two-year agreement, to only be disappointed with US Cellular's network performance.

The offer is for just selected markets, starting off with Eureka, CA, Klamath Falls, OR and Knoxville, TN. Some carriers already offer this, but what happens here is that you don't need to actually sign a contrat in order to get any of the equipment to test their network out. US Cellular will instead offer a loan device, with three on offer: Motorola's Electrify M, Samsung Chrono 2 or Samsung Galaxy Metrix, which can be used for eight days with 500 minutes, 500 texts and 1GB of data included.

This is a great way to test out their network, to see if it's worth a dive into a two-year contract on a new device.

If the latest rumors are correct, Google is looking at acquiring WhatsApp in a deal that could be worth around $1 billion. The deal reportedly started out four or five weeks ago, where Digital Trends' source said that WhatsApp is "playing hardball" and are pushing for a higher acquisition price. This price is being pushed "close to" $1 billion right now.

With WhatsApp's immense popularity, and Google's soon big push into a possible unified messaging system - acquiring WhatsApp might be yet another smart billion-dollar acquisition by Google. We should hear more about this in the coming weeks.

This morning we covered a back and forth between Microsoft's Adam Orth and Xbox fans over Always-on DRM. Orth was quite disrespectful and in my opinion, very unprofessional. This afternoon, Microsoft issued an official apology to Xbox fans over the tirade.

The statement from Microsoft reads:

We apologize for the inappropriate comments made by an employee on Twitter yesterday. This person is not a spokesperson for Microsoft, and his personal views do not reflect the customer-centric approach we take to our products or how we would communicate directly with our loyal consumers. We are very sorry if this offended anyone, however we have not made any announcements about our product road map, and have no further comment on this matter.

It is worth noting that they did make a point to deny any conformation of any form of DRM on the next generation Xbox. While we still believe that the new Xbox will feature Always-on DRM, we understand why Microsoft is reluctant to release any details at this point.

It looks as though the Austin, Texas could be getting Google Fiber. Google and the City of Austin have an announcement planned for this Tuesday, April 9. Sources in the city seem to think that the announcement relates to broadband, most likely meaning Austin will be getting Google Fiber.

You are a leader here in Austin. Every day, your work and contributions help make our community better and stronger. That's why we want you to be one of the first to hear about something new coming to Austin. Please join Google and the City of Austin for an announcement on Tuesday.

There are definitely other explanations than Google Fiber. Google could be planning to test out same-day delivery, open a new office, or any number of things. But Google Fiber is somewhat likely. Austin did fairly well in the original contest for Google Fiber and Google has contemplated expanding outside of Kansas City.

We'll know more April 9 and will let you know the full details.

Every now and then a story comes along that makes you laugh out loud. For me, this is certainly one of those stories. Google has started receiving takedown requests of pages that contain a copyright holder's original takedown request. These robotically-generated requests are submitted because the original takedown request features the URL that was originally taken down.

It's rather hilarious and also ironic. In the picture above, you can see one of the takedown requests submitted by Fox asking for a ChillingEffects.org link to be removed. That link points to a previous Fox takedown request.

The system is clearly broken. Google is now handling over 20 million takedown requests per month and it shows no sign of slowing down. But just how we fix the DMCA isn't clear. Both Google and the movie studios have their own ideas and they are, of course, mostly contrary to each other.

Rumor has it Microsoft is working on a competitor to Google's Project Glass. According to a rumor posted by Apple Insider, Microsoft will be introducing a Google Glass competitor sometime in 2014. This rumor comes courtesy of Analyst Brian White who predicted Microsoft's move in a investor note yesterday.

It wouldn't be surprising that Microsoft would want to develop some sort of augmented reality device to compete with Google. The way things are going, augmented reality and wearable computing appear to be the way of the future with many companies jumping on board.

It appears to us that Google has made significant breakthroughs around software applications as it relates to this new product. As such, we believe this initiative will kick off a major push into the field of wearable electronics and therefore will be closely scrutinized.

Audi's Connect Infotainment system utilizes the T-Mobile network for its data needs. The companies have released a joint statement introducing new data plans that bring the price as low as $15 per month. The data plan would have previously set you back $30 per month on a month-to-month basis.

The new plans include unlimited data for $30 per month, a yearly contract, a two-year contract, or a 30 month contract. These will set you back a total of $324, $600, or $450, respectively. Cars are often long-term purchases, so getting a two-year contract probably isn't a problem for most.

One thing that I would like to see is the ability to sell the contract with the car, if for some reason you need to sell the car right away. It's not clear whether or not Audi and T-Mobile currently offer this.

Customers want to have the wireless experience they want when they want it - at home, at work, or in their car. Through our partnership with Audi, customers can now access award-winning in-vehicle service and virtually unlimited data access for as little as $15 per month.

GSMAreana has received some pictures from a tipster that are allegedly of the upcoming iPhone 5S. The pictures depict a radical departure from the current iPhone 5. They actually line up with a patent application approved by the US Patent Office last week, which could indicate they are real. Or the "tipster" could have crafted some pictures to match the application. First, the application picture:

As you can see, the patent application features a curved screen and curved back. Noticeable absent is the typical Home button. Now, take a look at the pictures sent in:

We encourage you to not take these pictures as the iPhone 5S that will be launched this summer. This could be a prototype or it could be the real thing. It could also be a render that someone has made from the patent image.

There is one thing to note. The back of the panel appears to feature the same regulatory markings as the current iPhone 5. This could indicate that this is a render using a picture of the back of the current iPhone 5 as the texture, or it could indicate this is a final product.

A new malware has been discovered by Kaspersky labs. The new malware spreads through Skype and turns the victim's computer into a Bitcoin miner. The victim's machine is then fully loaded to mine Bitcoins which is how the malware author makes money from the software.

The malware currently has a low detection rate. Kaspersky now identifies the malware as Trojan.Win32.Jorik.IRCbot.xkt. The malware is downloaded from a server in India. Once on the victim's machine, it pulls down more files from Hotfile, one of which is a Bitcoin mining application.

Bitcoin mining, explained more in-depth by Bitcoin, is a processor intensive task. The victim's CPU will be fully loaded mining Bitcoins, which are then given to the author of the malware. These Bitcoins are then used to turn a profit.

To stay safe, be sure to update your anti-virus software often and don't click any random links received via Skype.

An International Trade Commission judge has ruled that Samsung infringes upon a key part of an Apple patent that deals with text-selection on smartphones and tablets. The ITC judge also ruled that Samsung did not infringe upon parts of a second patent owned by Apple dealing with detecting if a microphone is plugged into the microphone jack.

Now that a ruling has been issued, the full ITC commission will convene and decide whether or not to uphold the judge's ruling. We are told to expect the final decision sometime in August. If the decision is upheld, it will not work out well for Samsung. The ITC can decide to bar importation of any device found to be infringing on the patent.

T-Mobile has started the roll out of software updates for the scores of unlocked iPhones already running on the carrier's network. If you're using an unlocked iPhone 5 on T-Mobile's network, this update will enable LTE and Visual Voicemail as well as fix minor bugs and optimizations.

We previously reported that this roll out would start today. You can easily update your device over the air or by connecting up to iTunes. The update details what it brings to the table:

Enables the following:

Visual Voicemail

4G network indicator

Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS)

AWS LTE (T-Mobile and officially unlocked AT&T iPhone 5 only)

HD Voice (T-Mobile and officially unlocked AT&T iPhone 5 only)

AWS HSPA+ (T-Mobile and new 2013 AT&T iPhone 5 only)

 

Auto configures:

MMS Settings

Personal Hotspot Settings (Smartphone Mobile Hotspot)

APN settings for LTE connectivity

The International Space Station (ISS) may have detected the elusive so-called dark matter, which is believed to be the glue that holds the universe together. The discovery comes from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on-board the ISS, which has detected about 400,000 positrons.

Positrons are the antimatter partner particle of electrons. Positrons have been detected before, but these are a little different in composition. They have an energy signature that suggest they might have been formed when particles of dark matter collided with other particles of dark matter.

In other space news, Saturn has once again returned to the northern hemispheres nighttime skies. Saturn has always been my favorite object to view, not just because of its beauty, but because it's easy to find and view with minimal equipment. A decent set of binoculars as well as cheap department store telescopes can all resolve Saturn and its rings and you might even be able to notice some color in the rings if the skies are clear enough.

Four of the tech industries largest companies are in Washington today to appeal to the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice in an effort to put a stop to patent trolling from firms like Lodsys and Intellectual Ventures.

Patent trolling has become a sort of industry all of its own in the last few years with firms headed up by lawyers buying up tech patents from failing companies or sell-offs. These firms have no original IP of their own and only exist to extort exorbitant licensing fees and lawsuit wins over everything from individual app developers to giants, such as Google.

The "patent assertion industry" has gotten so big that in 2012 it ate up roughly $30 billion in funds from large tech companies. Google has teamed up with BlackBerry, EarthLink and Red Hat and compiled a 22-page report explaining how Patent Assertion Entities have slowed innovation, decreased jobs, and overall hurt the US economy in the last decade.

The report noted that since 2007, these so called PAE lawsuits have made up over 65-percent of all patent lawsuits in the country.

Nintendo has officially issued an apology for low supply numbers for its most popular WiiU game to date. The rehashed Monster Hunter Ultimate is one of the highest rated games available on the console, and Nintendo just cannot keep it in stock.

"I'd like to apologize for the current stock shortage due to high demand of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate at retail. New #MH3U stock will hopefully be available in shops next week for Wii U and mid-April for Nintendo 3DS", read the tweet on the Nintendo UK Twitter account.

The shortage is only affecting physical copies of the game. Users can still visit the Nintendo eShop and purchase a digital copy of the game. They will need to have an external HDD though as the fully HD game is quite large.

All week we have been covering Google's decision to drop and fork WebKit to build its own web rendering engine called Blink. Today we are learning when the transition will begin taking place.

Google has confirmed that Blink will make its first official appearance in Chrome 28, which should release in this summer. In a Q&A session with the Chrome Development Community, Chrome developer advocate Paul Irish explained that "Blink is already integrated in Chrome Canary builds, and we can expect to see it in stable versions of the browser in about 10 weeks."

Blink is said to be faster, better coded, and overall a better rendering engine than WebKit. Web developers will not have to worry much about shifting standards in CSS or other code as Blink is a true fork of WebKit. There is a chance that we could see Blink built into upcoming beta releases of Chrome 28 as well, so keep an eye out.

Microsoft will release two critical patches this coming Tuesday April the 9th. The pair of patches are both for Windows and one for Internet Explorer.

One of the patches is a critical update to Windows 8, Vista, 7, XP and RT. The other patch is deemed "important" and is for Vista, 7 and XP. There is also patches for Windows Server 2012, 2008, and Server Core. An update of Microsoft's Windows Malicious Software Removal tool is also expected.

Keep an eye out for the updates next Tuesday.