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Apple executives have lashed out at the BBC Panorama report that revealed ongoing poor working conditions for employees at an Apple manufacturing facility in China. The report indicated employees were found to work up to 16 hours per shift, working many consecutive days, and living in harsh environments in their dormitories.

Apple CEO Tim Cook noted educational programs for workers in China, along with improving working conditions, in an open letter to Apple employees working in the UK.

"As you know, Apple is dedicated to the advancement of human rights and equality around the world. We are honest about the challenges we face and we work hard to make sure that people who make our products are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve."

After the NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun teamed up with his wife Lori to donate $1 million to non-profit charity City Year recently, the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation pushed $500,000 towards CARE in India and Napster's founder gave $24 million to Stanford for an allergy research facility - Microsoft once again put their name on this list, giving $2 million in software to NBC-supported charities.

Alongside this, the tech giant has given 200 HP Stream Windows tablets to these charities, enabling them to run Office 365 and Windows 8.1 quickly and efficiently on a 7-inch screen. Although not as impressive as $24 million in cold-hard cash, it's good to see more big-name companies get on board with charity work even if it's in the form of enabling their customers to donate through a company portal that's been established - anything is better than nothing.

Microsoft has been donating to NBC charity for the past 14 years, coining this donation as part of their "YouthSpark" program which is promoted to help 300 million youth find opportunities in education, entrepreneurship and employment worldwide.

Steve Bellone jumped quickly to his own defense after his Twitter account was seen 'following' pornstar Belle Knox - claiming the account was hacked. This County Executive claimed that Mrs. Knox made his shortlist of only 267 people 'followed' through a hijack of his professional account, not by his own means.

Possibly worried about his election campaign Bellone, a father of three, is up for re-election in 2015 and has made clear that this news is solely due to a Twitter hijack of the controversial Knox - who has been seen in headlines recently due to being exposed thanks to a fellow Duke University student shedding some light some extra-curricular activities relating to her employment.

Bellone's spokeswoman, Vanessa Baird-Streeter, publicly stated that "County Executive Bellone's Twitter account, which is operated by his staff, has been hacked and an obscene Twitter account was subsequently followed," further mentioning that "a formal complaint has been filed with Twitter and to the third-party software used to assist in managing the account. His staff has instituted stricter security protocols to ensure an incident like this does not happen in the future."

The North Korean government has reportedly orchestrated a major cyberattack to cripple Sony Pictures - and prevent "The Interview" from being shared - but the regular North Korean citizen likely has no idea about the data breach or movie. The North Korean government strictly regulates the Internet and media in the country, so it wouldn't be surprising if the population has no knowledge of the movie, or its contents.

"North Koreans will probably never know what this film was about," noted Leonid Petrov, from the Australian National University, as noted by BusinessWeek. "If there was a film about Kim Jong Un, it would only be explained in the most laudatory, sycophantic way. Foreigners made a film about our great leader, presenting the greatness of the great leader."

As such, trying to even get copies of the movie would be extremely difficult. There have been attempts to send balloons into North Korea with copies of movies, books and other banned materials into the country - but the balloons are routinely shot down. North Korean citizens who stumble across any of the contraband is ordered to turn it over, or they face potential torture, imprisonment, and other forms of punishment.

It feels like we've written 50+ stories on Sony in the last couple of weeks, but the stories just continue. News has broke that the hacked company has hired Judy Smith, who is a crisis specialist, so much so that there's even a TV show based on her career - ABC's Scandal.

TMZ was the first to report that Sony Pictures had hired Smith, reporting that she has already started "quietly advising Sony Pictures chief Amy Pascal." We've seen President Obama chime in, saying that Sony's decision to pull The Interview was "a mistake" but Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton replied, saying "We have not caved. We have not given in. We have persevered, and we have not backed down. We have always had every desire to have the American public see this movie."

North Korea has since offered a joint investigation with the United States to find the real culprit, after the Obama administration and the FBI pegged the blame on Pyongyang.

"Your genetic code is the correspondence between the 20 types of amino acids and the 61 types of messenger RNA triplets (codons, representing DNA) that specify them," explains Gizmodo in a recently published article.

If you're not sure what to set for your next password and your general spiel of letters, numbers and symbols aren't doing it for you - maybe it's time you tried genetic code. These codes are said to give you nearly infinite password outputs, helping ensure hackers steer clear from your precious Farmville and Candy Crush trophies.

These genetic condons spell the same amino acids to all organisms. "The RNAs of humans, hydras, hippos, hydrangeas,Haemophilus influenzae, and even viruses follow the same rules," explains Gizmodo, further mentioning that the reason human proteins are manufactured in bacterial cells is because everything follows the same rules.

Sony is currently removing any trace of The Interview from social networks, with The Interview's Facebook page gone, and the Twitter account isn't far behind that. There were 1800+ tweets on The Interview Twitter account, all of which have been deleted.

This comes after North Korea being blamed as the source of the hack by the US government, but not long after the country asked if the US government would join a joint operation to find out who exactly did this. The FBI and the Obama administration have yet to have replied to North Korea's offer, but I'm sure that can't be too far away now.

GIGABYTE and EVGA have been on the market with external VRM solutions for serious GPU overclocking, but it looks like ASUS is stepping into the game with its own external voltage regulator module, or VRM.

ASUS has already deployed GPUs with advanced 10-phase and 14-phase VRMs in the form of the ASUS Strix GeForce GTX 980 and the ASUS ROG Matrix Platinum GTX 980, but this is an entire new ballgame. The ASUS GPUs with the advanced VRMs still have limitations as they're consumer GPUs, with certain restrictions that stop too much power flowing through the card. The external VRM card will allow for far higher voltages being pushed through the GPU and memory, which should unlock some massive potential for extreme overclockers.

The VRM card in question features a "single 8-phase output with output voltage of up to 2.5V (with output voltage offset switches [+0.4V, +0.3V, +0.2V, +0.1V]) and current up to 500A. The card has on-board voltage control/monitoring, output current monitoring, VRM temperature monitoring, load-line calibration (0%, 60%, 80%, 100%), hotwire setting/monitoring and other features required by extreme overclockers. The board sports four six-pin PCIe (4*75W) input power connectors, which means that it can deliver up to 300W of power to the graphics board, enough power to break world's records" reports Anton Shilov from KitGuru.

While most news for Sony is about the hack against it by North Korea, or so the US government alleges, the Japanese giant is out there teasing its next-gen console. Yes, the PlayStation 5 has been mentioned, and it's about damn time.

Sony Computer Entertainment Executive Vice President, Masayasu Ito, talked with the online version of the Nikkei Shinbun, talked about his thoughts on the next generation PlayStation. He said that he thinks there will be a PlayStation 5, but he's not sure in what form it'll arrive. He teased that it could be a physical console in the form of the PS5, or it could be an even better device sitting in the cloud.

Ito said "I think there will be a PS5. However, I don't know what form it'll have. It could be a physical console, or it could be in the cloud. But even if the form might change, PS5 Games will be born. This is what we want." Now I'm two minds about this, especially with what has happened lately with Sony. On one hand, being in the cloud would stop a lot of the hardware issues holding us back, seeing a next-gen console barely do 1080p 30FPS would just be disastrous. On the other hand, if everything is in the cloud and Sony gets hacked... well, we know how that has turned out lately.

Kevin "Frank Underwood" Spacey may have been the big draw card for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare when it launched, but the latest DLC for Activision's super-popular first-person shooter has some massive stars lining up to lend their talent.

These stars include The Walking Dead's Jon Bernthal, John Malkovich, Bill Paxton, and Rose McGowan. Why the new DLC? Exo Zombies, that's why. Also, probably lots, and lots of money being given to these stars for their time in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Just in time for the holidays, some star-studded Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare DLC.

The US government may have pegged North Korea behind the big hack against Sony Pictures, but now the state news agency KCNA has reported that North Korea has proposed a joint investigation with the United States over the breach.

The FBI has come forward, formally accusing North Korea of the attack on Sony Pictures, where President Barack Obama has said that he would "respond proportionally." North Korea has added that it can prove it had nothing to do with the cyberattack against Sony Pictures, with a statement from the country saying that there would be "grave consequences" if the US government turns down its olive branch over the investigation, and continues to accuse North Korea of wrongdoing.

When NVIDIA unveiled its Maxwell architecture in September, we were thoroughly impressed. Even the high-end GPUs were able to sip power, while providing an immense amount of power. Well, the time has come for the mid-range GPUs to come out and surprise with the rumors of a GeForce GTX 960 announcement continuing, something we should hear about next month.

The new Maxwell-based GeForce GTX 960 is reportedly set for an announcement on January 22, 2015 - a new GPU that would feature a single 6-pin PCIe connector. This means the GeForce GTX 960 would only consume a total of 150W, down from the 165W required on the high-end GeForce GTX 980. We should see third-party cards from the likes of ZOTAC, ASUS, GIGABYTE and others that will ramp things up with custom coolers and increased power requirements, but the reference GTX 960 will sip between 100-120W with a total TDP of 150W.

Where things will get interesting is how competitive NVIDIA prices the GTX 960 in the market, where we should expect a price in the US of between $200-$250, which should begin to push AMD up against the wall. AMD has plenty of cards in the mid-range GPU market, with the Radeon R9 285, R9 280, and then the slightly more expensive R9 280X and R9 290s, but NVIDIA could really start taking away some of those Radeon sales with this new GeForce GTX 960. Especially if it could release it at $199, it could be the card to buy for the first half of 2015.

No. 1 social networking site Facebook must do something to appeal more towards teenagers, as the site again dropped in popularity among users 13 to 17 years old, according to a survey conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates. Facebook usage among teenagers dropped from 95 percent in 2012 down to 94 percent in 2013, and further declined in 2014 to 88 percent.

Although 88 percent is still quite impressive, there is growing concern that Facebook no longer is the "in" thing for teenage users. Ironically, Facebook-owned Instagram is cannibalizing its market share, as other social networking websites continue to pressure Facebook. However, Facebook still seems to be in an ideal position to remain the most popular choice among teenagers, even though some have argued that the website has lost its touch.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg noted that the "vast majority of US teens are on Facebook, and the majority of US teens use Facebook almost every day." - and Forrester Research numbers found Facebook is still the top social networking website among those aged between 12 and 17.

Microsoft and Sony are clashing with their Xbox One and PlayStation 4 game consoles, while Nintendo quietly develops ideas for a new generation game console, according to Shigeru Miyamoto. It's not uncommon for companies to quickly begin development of a new game console while actively promoting its current offering - but plans typically remain quiet, with company executives not discussing anything with the media.

"For the time being, our focus is on the Wii U hardware, but Nintendo as a whole has groups working on ideas for new hardware systems," Miyamoto said in an interview with the AP. "While we're busy working on software for the Wii U, we have production lines that are working on ideas for what the next system might be."

It's possible the next Mario game could be saved until the next Nintendo console platform is made available - but the gaming world will have to wait for confirmation.

The United States pointed towards North Korea being behind the massive Sony Pictures data breach, and many have argued for some type of retaliation against the country. However, trying to determine how to seek revenge on the North Korean government, in regards to cyberattacks, remains difficult. Trying a cyberattack in response would be risky, as the US has significantly more to lose if the North Koreans, along with its allies, decide to escalate the issue further.

"Nothing more," said Christopher Budd, online security communications professional, in a post published by GeekWire. "Yes, you read that right: nothing more. I believe that the U.S. should do nothing more in response to this situation than they already have: naming North Kore clearly as being behind this."

It seems more likely the US government will impose further sanctions on North Korea - and perhaps find ways to hurt the country's economy even further. Another idea is to find a way to distribute "The Interview" inside of North Korea, along with distributing "Team America" into the country - but that seems rather far-fetched.

Cyber espionage is a growing underworld business, with small nation states and foreign terror groups continuing to launch cyberattacks against enemies, according to a report released by McAfee Labs. Everything from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to malware being delivered via social engineering techniques are being added to cyber arsenals, used by increasingly sophisticated groups.

Established nations with cyber warfare programs will look for stealthier methods to gather intelligence and cripple political and military rivals - and developing cyber espionage programs remain dedicated to stealing finances and causing disruptions.

"Of particular note, McAfee Labs now sees sophisticated Eastern European cybercriminals shifting from quick, direct attacks on financial-institution customer credentials (leading to financial theft) to a more sophisticated advanced persistent threat (APT) approach in which they collect intelligence that they can either sell or use at a later date," according to the McAfee report.

BlackBerry's revenue dropped 34 percent during its fiscal third quarter, posting a net loss of $148 million, ending Q3 with $3.1 billion in cash. It may seem like a major financial loss, but the Canadian smartphone maker lost $4.4 billion during Q3 last year, and was a slightly smaller loss than reported during Q2.

The company expects it to take a "couple of quarters" before sales begin to increase, as BlackBerry still struggles to compete against the Apple iPhone - and smartphones from Samsung and other manufacturers using Google Android.

Here is what Chen said during the financial call: "Things are happening. I'm encouraged that they are happening, but I wouldn't say that all things are well. I mean we still need a lot of work and a lot of attention and working well together and that's what I'm spending most of my time on."

Despite both 'Transformers: Age of Extinction' lead Mark Wahlberg and director Michael Bay pouring cold water on their return for the inevitable 'Transformers 5', it seems both may have had a change of heart.

Speaking to ComingSoon, Wahlberg confirms he is "committed to doing a couple more" and will reprise his role as streetsmart inventor Cade Yeager. But even more surprising is his theory that Michael Bay will also be back, saying "I can't speak for Mr. Bay, but something tells me we'll be on set soon".

Bay has long held that 'Transformers 4' would be his final entry in the franchise, despite claiming the same following the previous film 'Transformers 3' in 2012. Wahlberg will be next seen in the sequel to Seth McFarlane's comedy 'Ted' in 2015. 'Transformers 5' is due for release in 2016.

It will be fun to see analyst sales figures for console sales after Christmas, as Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House admits the Xbox One is giving the PlayStation 4 a run for its money. Even though sales are described as "in line" with Sony's previous expectations, the cheaper price tag for the Xbox One has led to a significant sales bump for Microsoft.

The Xbox One starts at $350 in the United States, while the PS4 is available starting at $400. The $50 price cut was announced in November and will continue to January 3, 2015.

It appears to be a good time to be a console gamer, as both companies also have several appealing console/game bundles available. Expect continued price cuts and increased competition from both companies in 2015, while they try to woo gamers to their respective platforms.

The decision by Sony Pictures Entertainment to pull "The Interview" due to a cyberattack and subsequent terror attacks has drawn criticism from actors and President Obama.

"Sony is a corporation. It suffered significant damage," Obama said during a press conference. "There were threats against its employees. I'm sympathetic to the concerns that they faced. Having said all that, yes I think they made a mistake. We cannot have a society in which some dictator in some place can start imposing censorship in the United States. I wish they'd spoken to me first. I would have told them: 'Do not get into the pattern in which you are intimidated.'"

However, Sony is defending itself from Pres. Obama's statement and criticism from actors, many American citizens, and others criticizing the company.