Garmin is well known for its products surrounding in-car navigation, and now they are taking things to a whole new level. The company has just unveiled a new Heads Up Display or HUD for smartphones that will project relevant navigation data onto the end users windshield.

Garmin knows the danger presented when it's customers take their eyes off the road for a split second to check their GPS, so the company has invented a way to alleviate such distractions. The HUD unit will attach to a user's smartphone and will project information directly onto the windshield in the driver's line of sight. The information displayed includes: current speed, speed limit, navigation turn arrows, and distance until your next turn.

"HUD redefines the navigation experience by allowing drivers to find their way without taking their eyes off the road," said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of worldwide sales. "Head-up displays currently have their place in select high-end cars, but HUD makes this technology available as an aftermarket accessory for any vehicle, at an affordable price."

According to Frank Gibeau of EA Labels, the next-gen tablets will get to see some of EA's PS3 and Xbox 360 classics. Gibeau says that the next-gen tablets and mobile devices will feature roughly the same graphical fidelity as the current PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

But it's not just about graphics capabilities. Gibeau notes that games can't just be ported over. Instead, the games have to be redesigned for the new interfaces.

Future Apple devices could be flexible according to their latest patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Their patent talks about the creation of a flexible battery shape, which could take form in their iWatch that has been rumored for quite a while now.

The patent was filed all the way back in December 2011 and published yesterday, sees a flexible battery pack that uses a number of different cells connected through a laminate layer which is designed to "allow the battery to be shaped to fit a form factor of the electronic device."

Kim Dotcom's secure cloud storage MEGA, has been available for a while, but not on mobile. Today, it has launched on Android, and is available for download from the Google Play Store. We can expect MEGA for Android to include the following features:

MEGA for Android works on all Android devices, so you're not just limited to your Android-powered smartphone. You can grab MEGA for Android from the Google Play Store right here.

According to Dell's Global Vice President of Personal Computing, Sam Burd, the company could be looking at wearable computing. Burd says that Dell are "exploring areas in that space."

Burd was talking with The Guardian about how the company could be part of the new market for wearable computing where we already have Google, Sony, Pebble, Samsung and Apple. All of those companies have either teased their devices, shown them off (Google Glass) or are rumored to release a wearable device later this year. He adds:

Grand Theft Auto 5 is nearly here, but it looks like PS3 and Xbox 360 owners are going to have to do some spring cleaning on their consoles before installation, as it will require an 8GB installation before you can get into the game.

This is going to take quite sometime to get installed, more so on the Xbox 360 which will have GTA V arriving on two DVDs. The PS3 version will come on a single Blu-ray disc, which will make things a little easier. Xbox 360 owners with just 4GB or 8GB are going to be in trouble, where they'll need external storage before they even consider purchasing Rockstar Games' latest open-world title. Rockstar are already on damage control, preparing gamers to install GTA V so that they avoid disappointment.

Rockstar Games have said:

The upcoming Microsoft Xbox One will introduce a new Xbox Live Gold reputation system. This system is designed to rank players so mean or undesirable players are matched with other mean or undesirable players. The system will use player reports, moderator actions, mutes, and other reporting systems to rank players. The system may eventually take Xbox Live Arcade purchases and other participation things into account.

"There'll be very good things that happen to people that just play their games and are good participants," said Microsoft senior product manager Mike Lavin. "And you'll start to see some effects if you continue to play bad or, or harass other people en masse. You'll probably end up starting to play more with other people that are more similar to you."

The system will come with protections so a person's reputation won't be unduly affected by an angry mob. It will take into account factors such as whether or not the reporting player actually played a match with person being reported. If the player didn't, the report will carry much less weight than a report from someone who actually played a match with the player. It will also decline over time so that a single bad day won't affect your reputation by too much.

It looks like AMD could be jumping right into the HD 9000 series, skipping the HD 8000 series altogether, and this new next-gen GPU would be launching as soon as October.

The first HD 9000 series parts are set to be Curacao and Hainan, both 28nm-based chips on the GCN 2.0 architecture. The new architecture features an improved front-end with 4 asynchronous computing engines (ACEs) and 3 geometry engines, as well as more stream processors crammed in.

The reason for skipping the HD 8000 series is most likely because AMD are already re-badging HD 7000 series GPU's as HD 8000 series parts to OEMs. We should expect the Curacao XT to feature 2304 stream processors (36 compute units) 144 texture units, 48 render back ends and a 384-bit memory controller. The Hainan will be less powerful, featuring 1792 stream processors (28 compute units) 112 texture units, 32 render back ends and a 256-bit memory bus.

We have a full review of OUYA that will come in around a week, as I'd like a few good nights with it, and a few social nights with friends, in order to get a good look at the OUYA console.

For now, we have an unboxing video and a few teaser photos that you can enjoy.

Before we dive into our quick look at the Android-powered console, just how do you pronounce "OUYA". I have always thought it was "you-ah", but it is actually "ooh-AH". So let's take a quick dive into the OUYA.

I've expressed my thoughts on next-gen games countless times, with my latest piece here. I truly believe Oculus Rift is the future of gaming, and so do the Game Critics Awards, who chose Oculus Rift as the Best Hardware/Peripheral of E3 2013.

This means that the Oculus Rift beat out both the next-gen consoles, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4. This speaks volumes about the next-generation of games, with the consoles yet another evolution and not a complete revolution which is what we need. Oculus Rift turns the entire industry upside down, offering the game in virtual reality.

I'm glad that Oculus Rift took the award home, they obviously deserved it. Well done, Oculus VR!

Google has added new and updated 3D imagery for 50 cities in the United States. Google has promised to bring 3D buildings to the majority of large United States cities, and today's update appears to be a great step towards that goal. Today's update brought new or updated imagery for 50 US cities. New additions include Las Cruces, NM and Bend, OR, while San Francisco, CA and others received updates.

The full list directly from Google:

Ubisoft has announced that one of their sites was hacked and allowed unauthorized access to user account data. Ubisoft has not revealed the number of affected users, though it potentially could be the entire Ubisoft customer base as most of Ubisoft's games require a user account to play. The company has recommended that users change their passwords and passwords on any site that makes use of the same password.

The hackers will have to decrypt the passwords before they are useful, though this shouldn't take too long. Ubisoft stresses that the hackers did not obtain any payment data as it is not stored by the gaming studio. We're hoping to find out just how many of Ubisoft's customers were affected by the hacking, but we're not sure Ubisoft will be forthcoming with that data.

Sandisk continues their string of SSD-related acquisitions today with the purchase of SMART Storage Systems for $307 Million. This purchase comes after there was tremendous speculation that Sandisk was looking to acquire OCZ over the last several months. SMART Storage Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SMART Worldwide Holdings, is a leading provider of current and next-generation enterprise solid state drive (SSD) products and technology.

SMART Storage Systems makes more sense as an acquisition for Sandisk due to their patent portfolio that includes such revolutionary technologies as the Guardian Technology Suite. SMART also has much deeper penetration into the enterprise market than OCZ, and Sandisk has traditionally focused on enterprise-centric acquisitions in the SSD market. Recent acquisitions of Pliant and FlashSoft have created significant value for Sandisk over the last several years as they increase their presence in the enterprise market.

"We are delighted that a global technology innovator and manufacturer of the caliber of Sandisk supports our belief in SMART Storage's team and portfolio of next-generation enterprise SSDs," said Iain MacKenzie, President and CEO of SMART Worldwide Holdings.

Apple will be working with NV Energy, a Nevada-based utility company, where they'll build a solar array together. The new solar array will be built next to Apple's Reno, Nevada-based data center, and will power the data center once it's complete, as well as the surrounding community. Apple said in a statement:

The new facility will create around 1,000 jobs in and around Washoe Country, as well as "result in, over a 10-year period, a total of $24.1 million in direct and indirect revenues in Nevada" according to a survey by Applied Economics for the State of Nevada. Apple's goal is to eventually have all of their facilities powered by 100% renewable energy, and at this rate, they'll get there in no time.

Since 1998, Microsoft has offered the highly praised TechNet subscription service to IT professionals and developers. For a nominal fee, professionals were given access to the entire catalog of Microsoft software which greatly aided in development and system administration. Today, Microsoft announced in a letter to its subscribers that it will retire its TechNet subscription service effective August 31, 2013, the date in which all current subscribers' contracts end.

The service was also used by PC enthusiasts worldwide as it offered a cheap way to get access to Microsoft software that otherwise cost thousands of dollars. This led to enthusiasts activating enterprise-level software and consumer-level operating systems and software that were normally meant for "evaluation use only." Unfortunately, this also led to a rise in piracy of Windows software. Pirates figured out that they could subscribe to TechNet and sell the keys along with ISO files downloaded from the site at prices that were always too good to be true.

Microsoft has repeatedly tried to tighten the clamp on piracy by cutting the available keys to TechNet subscribers back in 2010 and then doing the same thing two years later. Fortunately, Microsoft is not leaving its subscribers out in the rain as it will offer current subscribers the option to renew their subscription for one additional year after the shutdown in August. Check out source #2 below for the full announcement from Microsoft.

Things have been looking down for Hewlett Packard for years now. The company can not seem to find a foothold in any of the new emerging tech devices even after acquiring companies like Palm. They failed rather epically with WebOS, and their iPAQ branded phones are just horrible.

Yam Su Yin, HPs senior director for Consumer PCs and Tablets in the Asia Pacific region told reporters that HP was working on a new generation of smartphone, but could not give a timetable as to when information would be released. He said that "It would be silly" for HP to say no to a new smartphone and that "HP has to be in the game!"

Honestly, I feel that HP has delayed long enough; they never really had a firm foothold in the phone market, and even the sales from Palm dried up rather quickly. With companies like BlackBerry who do smartphones very well, struggling to keep afloat in the current market, HP has to hit a serious high-end home run for their new phone to even be able to post semi-respectable sales. My advice to them is to spare no expense and release something that blows all else out of the water.

Intel has a strange age-related by-law, that requires all corporate officers to be aged 65 or under. This has forced Intel's Chief Technology Officer, Justin Rattner, out of his position as he is now 65 years old.

Rattner joined the company in 1973, becoming Intel's first Principal Engineer in 1979, the fourth Intel Fellow in 1988 and one of the first Intel Senior Fellows in 2001. He has participated in more Intel keynotes than any other Intel presenter, and has four important patents with his name stamped to them: a data processing system; a hardware scheduler/dispatcher for said data processing system; an interprocessor communication system, and a programmable I/O sequencer for use in an I/O processor.

Rattner will step down from his position with Intel Labs, and report to Intel's President, Renée James, in the meantime. It has worked out well, as his departure is straight away, with Intel stating that a "pressing family matter" has happened, and he needs to take an unspecified amount of personal leave from Intel. Upon his return, he will be an a non-officer role.

Google continue to impress, where they're offering applications to individuals who want to help out with their Google Maps coverage: "If you're a tourism board, non-profit, university, research organization, or other third party who can gain access and help collect imagery of hard to reach places, you can apply to borrow the Trekker and help map the world."

The Trekker sounds like a great idea, especially for those who love to travel and have special places around the world that are hard to access, so that they can personally share them with the world. The Trekker is quite the backpack, which weighs in at a back-breaking 42 pounds. Google have mapped it out in detail:

Jumping over to the UK for this piece, where Microsoft have lost a trademark case over their branding for cloud storage service SkyDrive. The ruling, which covers both the UK and EU, stated that Microsoft infringed on British Sky Broadcasting's trademark of the Sky brand with SkyDrive.

The ruling saw that it is possible for consumers to confuse the two brands, somehow. Sky, from BSkyB, offers their satellite broadcasting service, mobile apps and streaming to customers, and previously a cloud storage product but it fell under the name of Sky Store & Share. Microsoft have of course thrown in a counterclaim to invalidate four Sky trademarks "on the grounds of descriptiveness for cloud storage services."

Samsung have done quite well for themselves over the last couple of years, fighting against the near-invincible iPhone. How does it compare to Apple in regards to phone subsidies, something Apple usually have the most control over?

Samsung are actually out and ahead, according to market research firm ABI Research and their latest report. They've said that the average implied carrier subsidy for a Samsung smartphone in the US is around 84%. What this means is that phone carriers cover 84% of the up-front costs of a Samsung phone when a consumer buys one on a contract.

The carrier then makes the money back on the two-year contract you've just signed through various fees and monthly charges. HTC see a subsidy of around 80%, with the iPhone sitting at 74%. ABI analyst, Stuart Carlaw, says: "Samsung continues to squeeze its competitors at every turn. The Samsung [Galaxy S4] is now considered on a par with Apple's iPhone 5. Coupled with better subsidy, the breadth of its device portfolio, increasingly savvy marketing, and its excellence in channel execution, it is little wonder Samsung is dominating the mobile handset market from top to bottom."