The creators behind the Ouya console will begin shipping the consoles to Kickstarter backers on March 28. That's right, just one more month until you will be able to get your hands onto your very own Ouya console. The consoles are currently being produced with full launch still set for June.

OUYAs will begin shipping to Kickstarter backers on March 28. That's right. Parts are in the factory and assembly lines are buzzing. We'll gradually ramp up production as we make sure things are working. (Our full launch is still set for June, which is when OUYA will be available in stores!)

 

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of you will receive your OUYA, and you'll get to start playing right away. You will also get to watch OUYA evolve over the coming weeks and months. We'll continue to add new features, refine our user experience, and bring on more games. As always, we appreciate your feedback (and apply it), so keep it coming.

 

Keep a lookout in your inbox for an email from us. It will have your tracking number and estimated delivery date. Might take a few weeks to get to everyone. We have a lot of OUYAs to ship!

Ouya is the console that everyone is looking forward to. It blew through its $950k funding goal by raising nearly $8.6m. It will be available in stores for around $100 with extra controllers coming in at $50. They expect to release new versions every year, likely featuring new hardware.

avast! antivirus has announced that the latest version of their award-winning antivirus software is now available. Version 8 brings with it numerous new technologies to improve virus detection as well as detection speed. "As an antivirus should remain focused on the virus spreads," said the CEO of AVAST Vince Steckler. "And we have managed to achieve this by leveraging our unique advantage: A strong base of 177 million users worldwide."

You can download the latest version of avast! antivirus free version from avast!'s website.

While there isn't anything that can be proven to be nefarious about Google's actions, it does open up the possibility for posts calling the action into question. Google donated $25,000 to Common Sense Media for a party that the group was throwing in honor of the FTC's chairman's work for kids.

Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but the fact they did it while they were undergoing an investigation by the FTC could bring unwanted or unwarranted scrutiny of the company's actions. This isn't the first Google has done something like this. Previously, Google reportedly spent $80,000 honoring FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

Of course, these actions could be coincidental. We'll likely never know for sure, but there will be plenty of people alleging that they were done to try and buy favor.

Ubisoft has revealed the box art for the upcoming Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag PlayStation 3 game. Earlier today, the company tweeted a picture of the box that confirms some of the rumors that have been floating around for a while now.

In the picture, you can clearly see the protagonist standing on a ship with a pirate flag waving in the background. This should confirm the rumor of the adventure taking place in the Caribbean islands. We're supposed to be hearing more information about the game on March 4.

The game has been confirmed to be coming to the PC, Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii U. It could end up showing up on the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox 720, though this hasn't been confirmed.

Facebook has confirmed that they will be purchasing Microsoft's Atlas Ad Suite. Facebook will keep the current Atlas team as they are and Facebook is looking to invest in back-end scaling and better measurement tools. We've previously reported about the rumored acquisition of Atlas by Facebook here.

We plan to improve Atlas' capabilities by investing in scaling its back-end measurement systems and enhancing its current suite of advertiser tools on desktop and mobile. We will also work to improve the user interface and functionality with the goal of making Atlas the most effective, intuitive, and powerful ad serving, management and measurement platform in the industry. Ultimately, Atlas's powerful platform, combined with Nielsen and Datalogix, will help advertisers close the loop and compare their Facebook campaigns to the rest of their ad spend across the web on desktop and mobile.

Facebook and Microsoft did not disclose the purchase price, though the price was rumored to be under 100 million.

Futuremark has announced an update to their 3DMark 11 benchmark that makes the software completely compatible with the Windows 8 operating system. Futuremark says that scores from the new version are completely compatible and comparable to those that were generated by version 1.0.3.

The update comes with the following improvements:

• Keyboard focus is no longer checked during the demo or when running the benchmark in a loop. Note that if the display switches to the desktop due to a popup window during the benchmark, the run will still be aborted as the display mode is no longer the same.
• 3DMark 11 now remembers the last custom resolution used.
• GPU count detection for multi-GPU systems is now correct even when SystemInfo is explicitly disabled.
• 3DMark 11 will now prevent Windows from entering Sleep during the test.
• The license key is now reset when the benchmark is reinstalled, allowing removal of invalid keys.

The Futuremark team has also fixed several bugs that were present in the previous version. The new version of 3DMark 11 can be downloaded from Futuremark or will be automatically updated when Steam is next started.

Photo filters have become all the rage as of late, and now video hosting giant Vimeo is looking to cash in on the recent trend. The video hosting service has just released a new feature dubbed "Looks".

Looks is the result of a partnership between Vimeo and Vivoom, and will bring over 500 visual effects that will allow users to enhance their videos like never before. The new Looks feature will be part of the service's Enhancer toolbox. What makes this new feature so cool, in my opinion, is that the filters can be previewed real time with no lengthy rendering wait time.

The feature will also be able to make filter recommendations based on "technical analysis of the user's video and social data". The new "Looks" feature will be available for free for all Vimeo account holders for the next 90 days, after that it is expected to move to a paid or subscription service.

Sony keeps releasing tidbits of information here and there about its upcoming next-gen console, the PlayStation 4. In images released today Sony is giving us an up-close look at the portable and social aspects of the PS4.

The high-resolution screenshots show off some of the upcoming console's graphical user interface, but more importantly some of them give us a first look into how the new console will integrate with social media as well as mobile devices such as tablets and phones.

Other screens showcase the home page, game streaming and user profiles.

In a release today, China's Defense Ministry unveiled new details about alleged cyber-attacks on its websites. The report points a finger at the US claiming that about two-thirds of the security breaches originated from the USA.

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesma, Geng Yansheng, said:

"The Defense Ministry and China Military Online websites have faced a serious threat from hacking attacks since they were established, and the number of hacks has risen steadily in recent years. According to the IP addresses, the Defense Ministry and China Military Online websites were, in 2012, hacked on average from overseas 144,000 times a month, of which attacks from the U.S. accounted for 62.9 percent."

China says that it received more than 144,000 cyber intrusions a month in 2012 and that the US government is responsible for the majority of said breaches. The report comes hot on the heels of a report last month from security firm Mandiant, which traced cyber-attacks on US media outlets back to China.

Apple's iTunes U first launched in 2007, offering thousands of online education courses from over 1,200 universities and colleges. In 2012 it finally received its first dedicated app for iOS devices, and now in 2013, iTunes U has hit another major milestone.

Today Apple has announced that iTunes U has surpassed one billion content downloads. 60 percent of those downloads originate from outside of the US despite American universities like Ohio State subscribing to the service with its 100,000 enrolled students.

In an interview, Ohio State University's Dr. Matthew "Dr. Fus" Stoltzfus said:

"The interest my iTunes U course receives from non-college students is overwhelming. I've been working with high school teachers who use my iTunes U material to prepare to teach their own classes, high school students all over the world who are leveraging the course to tutor their fellow classmates, even retirees who download my iTunes U course to stay intellectually active."

Apple says that educators can create iTunes U courses in 30 countries. These courses, and other education content, can be accessed via the iTunes U app in 155 countries. In addition to thousands of individual iTunes U learning materials, over 75,000 educational apps are now available for iOS devices on the App Store.

With the news that Pandora will be limiting free users to 40 hours of music, apps like TuneIn Radio are beginning to look a lot more appealing to consumers who want a free streaming model. The popular live radio app has just released a new "Trending" feature.

For those of you who are not in the know, TuneIn corrals over 70,000 live radio stations from around the world, and serves them up on your iPhone, iPad and Android devices. The new TuneIn Live feature is being billed as a "universal programming guide" and allows users to easily find what's currently trending on-air, as well as what programs and stations are hot at the moment.

In addition to the new TuneIn live feature, the company has also integrated Google+ into the mix and can now use the social networking site to send your personal notifications of when your favorite shows are live on air.

The website Unwired View has released what it says are the specifications for HTC's upcoming Tiara, which will run Windows Phone 8 GDR2 - an updated version of Microsoft's current generation mobile operating system.

Uwired View said the information comes from the infamous evleaks Twitter feed, which has brought us similar leaks in the past. The HTC Tiara is said to feature a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, 4.3" WVGA LCD, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, 8MP rear and 1.6MP cameras and an 1800mAh battery.

The hardware specs are quite similar to the HTC One SV with just the rear camera and the OS being the main differentiators. We are left wondering if this device will share any of the design features of the just unveiled flagship HTC One.

In any event, if this leak is true, we now know that we will be seeing a next generation Windows Phone 8 phone from HTC. The question is, will HTC be able to steal any of the momentum away from Nokia's Lumia line of Windows Phones?

Samsung's Galaxy S IV is coming, and you have officially been invited to its launch event in New York City on March 14th at 7:00pm US Eastern time. This morning Samsung released an official teaser image that invited everyone down to Times Square to watch the unveiling via a live stream.

If there was ever any doubt about what this event was about, the large number 4 in the center should clear that up for you. The invite reads: "Be the first in the world to experience it!...You can watch Samsung Unpacked via live stream and experience Samsung's new flagship smartphone at Times Square."

It is widely expected that the Galaxy S IV will overtake the iPhone 5 as the most popular smartphone, by sporting a 4.99-inch HD SoLUX LCD and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 clocked to 1.9GHz.

We reported yesterday about the European Commission announcing a research grant for 5G, but now we have Tokyo, Japan-based NTT DoCoMo confirming that their tech-equipped vehicle successfully conducted a 10Gbps wireless test in Ishigaki in December.

They received help from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and their test relied on frequencies and bandwidth outside of the usual cellular service, trekking all the way into the 11GHz band with 400MHz of spectrum, but they proved they could far exceed the speeds of LTE and LTE-Advanced when moving outdoors.

In order to keep the connection, they required 24 antennas, with the telco hoping for similar speeds in frequencies over 5GHz, and they're hoping that the technology will define mobile communications as it improves. We shouldn't expect this tech inside of the next half decade or so, but it's impressive that we're seeing it this early on.

We've already seen some leaked benchmarks from the upcoming Galaxy S IV, but it looks like we could expect the same thing we did with the Galaxy S III - different processors for different Galaxy S IV variants across the world. The news comes from the Taipei Times, who report from JP Morgan's note to clients, where they said:

Similar to its previous Galaxy S3, Samsung is expected to adopt multiple solutions for the application processors and baseband chips in its new Galaxy S4, which will be unveiled in New York on March 14.

THis means that we might see the Galaxy S IV use Qualcomm's impressive Snapdragon 600 processor, while the rest of the world will see the Samsung-made octa-core Exynos 5 processor. Only time will tell, and in any case, no matter the processor you're going to get one powerhouse of a smartphone.

EA have announced that they will be building micro-transactions into all of their future games on PC and consoles, with the decision forming amidst the controversy over the micro-transactions in Dead Space 3, which was the first game in the EA-published series to be impacted by micro-transactions. Chief Financial Officer, Blake Jorgensen, when speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, said:

The next and much bigger piece [of the business] is microtransactions within games. We're building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever it might be. Consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business. Without a doubt, you're going to see more digital business and particularly more digital components of the gameplay allowed because the ease of it will be much better and the storage capability better.

It looks like micro-transactions are here to stay, and I'd even be willing to get we'll move toward a future of cheaper or even free-to-play games that are financed from micro-transactions.

It was only a matter of time, but we should expect a PC-like smartphone to be released later this year. At Mobile World Congress, i-mate were showing off something that most people don't seem to have noticed, a new smartphone with a 4.7-inch display but it was what was cranking along inside that was interesting.

The smartphone from i-mate was powered by Intel's "Clover Trail" hardware and the full version of Windows 8 Pro - meaning that the smartphone is capable of running most desktop-based software, which is a huge deal for a smartphone. i-mate's smartphone is called the Intelegent, and could go up for sale later this year for $750. Featuring an Atom processor, 2GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, the Intelegent would go up against most smartphones and completely win when it comes to its OS.

Backing up the usual specs, we have HSPA and 4G LTE capabilities, and up to 10 hours of talk time. i-mate will sell the phone by itself, or part of a desktop hardware suite for $1600, this suite would include a docking station they call the "hub". Once Intelegent is docked in the hub, the phone can be used with a traditional, wired phone handset, or make video calls. It will also function as a normal desktop PC, which will include a 23-inch touchscreen display, keyboard and mouse which powers an auxiliary wireless tablet with a 10.1-inch, 1080p-capable display.

We've already seen the insane performance that NVIDIA's upcoming Tegra 4 should provide us, but Qualcomm aren't just sitting on their hands. Rather, their hands are up in defensive position, swinging at NVIDIA before these chips have even made it into consumer devices.

Qualcomm's Senior Vice President of Product Management, Raj Talluri, told The Verge that Qualcomm is more focused on shipping products than refuting competitors' benchmarks. The company believes that their upcoming Snapdragon 800 easily beats NVIDIA's Tegra 4. Talluri also said that while NVIDIA may be offering something impressive, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 is so much more integrated, where the LTE modem is built directly into the silicon die.

The Snapdragon 800 also includes the ability to both encode and decode 4K content, which is a very nice feature to have going into 2013. We should see more than 50 products include the Snapdragon 800 in the near future, with the quad-core 2.3GHz chip expected to arrive in even more devices before the year is up.

Game of Thrones is an undeniable hit, so big that it was the most downloaded show of 2012, but how does the director of the show feel being downloaded so many times? David Petrarca, director of Game of Thrones said that you simply shrug your shoulder at piracy, and that illegal downloads don't really matter because your show thrives on cultural buzz.

When talking to a group of panelists at the Perth Writer's Festival over the weekend, the Game of Thrones director said that shows like the HBO smash hit capitalize on the social commentary they create, adding "that's how they survive." Just how many times was the show downloaded? It was averaging roughly 3.9 million downloads per episode in 2012. The closest downloaded show to this was How I Met Your Mother, with around 3 million downloads per episode.

HBO is unique, as the premium cable channel has 26 million US-based subscribers, and 60 million or so across the world. With that amount of subscribers, they can afford to allow illegal downloads as it gets their show some serious press - not just in the normal forms - but socially across Facebook, etc. The director also talked about other huge shows like Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Sons of Anarchy, saying that while they do well, they can all be consumed whenever, and wherever.

We've been hearing about flexible smartphones and displays, but before we can even imagine them in the consumer space, we need batteries to be flexible and stretchable. Well, it looks like that wait might be getting closer to an end, with researchers announcing the development of such a technology.

Using a process called "ordered unraveling", John A. Rogers from the University of Illinois and Yonggang Huang from Northwestern University say that their battery can be stretched by up to 300% of its original size, all without losing any functionality. Energy storage islands and "serpentine" wire connections are placed in a sheet of polymer. Polymer is flexible and stretchy by default, with the overlapping wiring can be installed without being damaged.

What can we expect in terms of battery life? According to the engineers, their solution performs close to a standard lithium-ion battery of the same physical size. So we're looking at around 8-9 hours, as well as the ability to charge it wirelessly, but the current prototype they're using loses some capacity after just 20 recharges.