Samsung's Galaxy S IV is being launched in 24 hours, so it is about time Apple's marketing chief, Paul Schiller, came out on damage control. Because, you know, they make the devices that everyone else copies.

Well, the Apple marketing chief has had some interesting things to say about the Android user experience, and how it is not a pleasant experience. Schiller yet again attacked Android's continued fragmentation problems, describing it as "plain and simple". He took a big jab at Android, saying: "Android is often given as a free replacement for a feature phone and the experience isn't as good as an iPhone."

That wasn't all, Schiller also attacked Android for a lack of integrated software solutions - something I personally laughed out loud over - where he said:

We don't have long until we know every nitty gritty detail on the Galaxy S IV from Samsung, but we 're seeing some specs leaked thanks to Chinese site it168. Check them out below:

Not too badly specced at all in my book - an 8-core processor will be interesting, the bump in GPU is needed for the now Full HD display. 2GB of RAM is standard on high-end handsets now, and the continued inclusion of a microSD card slot really sticks it to Apple who forces you to spend hundreds of dollars more just to get more internal storage.

Samsung are going to destroy it tomorrow, I can feel it. We should hopefully have a review here as soon as humanly possible, even if it comes out of my own pocket.

Twitter have finally released an application for Windows 8, which includes the usual features loved by Twitter fans, and some new things to take advantage of Windows 8's unique features.

You can grab Twitter for Windows 8 from the Windows Store right here, or from your Windows 8-based device.

Western Digital has invested in Skyera, a start-up focusing on all-SSD products for the enterprise market. The investment comes as part of Skyera's Series B round of financing, in which Skyera raised $51 million.

Radoslav Danilak, CEO of Skyera:

Andy Rubin has resigned from head of Android development. In his place, Google has appointed Sundar Pichai. Pichai has previously been the senior vice president for Chrome and Apps and is a nine-year veteran of Google. This could indicate that Chrome OS and Android will start to get cozy with each other, something that has previously been predicted.

It would be interesting if Google were able to allow Android apps to run on Chrome OS. It shouldn't be that hard of a task, but Pichai has said that it is much too early to discuss whether this is in the cards.

CNET is reporting that Twitter could release a standalone iOS music discovery app within the month. They say that Twitter is using their We Are Hunted acquisition from last year to power the new standalone music app. It's not clear why Twitter would want to join this crowded market.

CNET reporter Casey Newton:

Dell has just announced a new Windows 8 based tablet, and normally that would not be much of a big deal, but this tablet is actually a very big deal - literally. Measuring in at a whopping 18.4-inches, the new Dell XPS 18 is the direct competitor to Sony's VAIO Tap 20.

The 18" Windows 8 beast features a run-time of about five hours on a single charge, and weighs in at 4.85 pounds. The tablet features custom flip-out feet that allow it to transition from "desktop mode" to lap mode quickly. The tablet will ship with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse when it ships in April.

For a mere $900 you will get a dual-core Pentium ULV processor and 320GB hard drive. Premium editions will feature a Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. This monstrosity may not be for everyone, but it is the first tablet that has me considering purchasing a Windows 8 device.

Earlier today here in Taipei we attended the yearly Intel Computing Technology Demo which is tour held by Intel folks from the headquarters in US where they give Asian press a look into some fairly exciting tech that it's working on and stuff that we may see in the future.

At the event at the Sherwood Hotel today, Intel showed off a lot of its new Ultrabooks, tablets and smartphones, which of course are all powered by Intel chips. A lot of those products have been seen at events prior to this one, but what took our interest was Intel's take on perceptual computing and where it sees it going in the future.

At the front of the room was an Acer Aspire S7 Ultrabook running Windows 8, some may get excited for that fact alone. Besides just multitouch where we are now with such Windows 8 based machines, Intel showed off various demos which makes uses of the computer's web camera to produce some rather interesting results.

Research firm IDC have their latest report out, which expects to see a tip toward Android being dominant this year in the tablet market, taking the throne from Apple's iPad. IDC have increased their 2013 forecast for worldwide tablet shipments to 190.9 million, up from 172.4 million units.

Interestingly, Jitesh Ubrani, Research Analysts for IDC's Tablet Tracker, has said: "One in every two tablets shipped this quarter was below 8 inches in screen size. And in terms of shipments, we expect smaller tablets to continue growing in 2013 and beyond." Getting into the Android dominance, the IDC report that moving into 2013, Google will continue to expand their share of the tablet market.

Android's share of the tablet market is expected to reach 48.8%, a huge surge compared to the IDC's previous forecast of just 41.5%. Android's increased dominance comes at the expense of Apple's iOS, which is expected to drop from 51% market share to 46% in 2013. How about Microsoft's Windows 8 platform?

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has quite the exclusive today, reporting from a SimCity developer who reached out to them that Maxis don't actually offload a large portion of their game's calculations to their servers. The Maxis insider has said that the server isn't actually handling these calculations for non-social aspects of the game, and that engineering a single-player mode would not require that much effort.

RPS have verified that the Maxis insider works on the game, and has first-hand knowledge of how SimCity works. This insider has also made is clear that his repeated claims of server-side calculations is at odds with the reality of the project he worked on, where he explains:

It was only a matter of time, but Seagate have reached the milestone first by shipping two billion hard disk drives. It took the storage giant 29 years to reach this goal, and more impressively they shipped one billion drives by 2009, and have shipped one billion since.

The one billion drives shipped in the last four years is thanks to the explosion of demand for storage in mobile applications, cloud infrastructures, social media, business applications and the ever increasing consumer market. Steve Luczo, president, CEO and chairman of Seagate, has said: "This is truly an impressive accomplishment and I am proud to lead this company as we celebrate this success."

John Rydning, IDC's research vice president, for hard drives and semiconductors said:

Activision has finally jumped on the microtransactions train by way of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. Call of Duty games have traditionally earned money after launch by selling DLC content packs, normally consisting of new multiplayer and new Zombie maps. Black Ops 2 broke away from this by offering the Peacekeeper SMG in the first DLC pack.

Starting Wednesday, Black Ops 2 players on the Xbox 360 console will be able to change cosmetic features of their gaming experience. By purchasing "Personalization Paks" for 160 Microsoft Points, players will be able to change the look of their guns and gain access to new "Calling Cards."

Also available are World Calling Card Packs, $1, and Extra Slot Packs, $2. For the time being, Activision will likely stay with cosmetic microtransactions only. If they were to introduce microtransactions that changed the way multiplayer worked, Digital Trends notes that they would likely have player riots.

Acer has announced a new version of its C7 Chromebook that comes with more RAM and longer battery life. Of course, these upgrades come for a price. The original C7 retailed for $199 and came with around 4 hours of battery life and 2GB of RAM. The new C710-2055 model will set you back $280.

For the additional $81, customers will get around two extra hours of battery life. Along with the larger 6-cell battery, the RAM has been upped from 2GB to 4GB. This puts the Chromebook into the price range of cheaper Windows laptops and the iPad mini. It also makes the purchase less of an impulse purchase and one that actually requires a bit of thought.

Gregg Prendergast, vice president, U.S. Commercial Sales, Acer America:

AT&T has announced that the Sony Xperia TL will be getting an update to Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. The roll out will continue to be slow, though some users will be getting the update right away. The update brings with it the new features that have been added to Android 4.2, including Google Now.

AT&T says that the following features will be included in the update:

If you're a Sony Xperia TL user, we'd love to hear your thoughts on the new update.

China has said that it is willing to cooperate with the US in an effort to curb future cyber-attacks allegedly coming from within its borders. The country said it is ready to open a "constructive dialogue" to help put a stop to internet related attacks.

In a report released by the Associated Press, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry said that he condemned the recent attacks. "Cyberspace needs rules and cooperation, not wars. China is willing to have constructive dialogue and cooperation with the global community, including the United States."

The response from China comes after White House national security adviser Tom Donilon released a statement saying "China should take serious steps to investigate and put a stop to these activities," and asked the country to "engage with us in a constructive direct dialogue to establish acceptable norms of behavior in cyberspace."

Ben Heck of Xbox 360 Laptop, 3D Printing, and other Maker fame has just released the latest installment of his popular web show. Normally I would not consider this news, but the topic of this week's Ben Heck Show was just too cool to not cover.

This week's episode is part 1 of a 3 part series in which Ben manages to stuff a PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and a Wii U into a beautiful yet small laser cut enclosure. He is calling the creation the "Ultimate Combo Gaming System". In this first installment, we see a mild mannered Ben Heck tear everything apart in preparation for the build.

The mashup of gaming consoles should give everyone some ideas on what to do with their current consoles to make room for the next-gen devices coming out later this year. You can check out the full episode at source #3 below. Would you like to see more Maker / Hardware hacking content here at TweakTown? Let us know in the comments below.

In a move that few saw coming, Microsoft has released parts of the software used to control its Kinect hardware into the Open Source world. Twenty two code samples have been released into CodePlex for Makers, Hardware Hackers and third party engineers to use to develop their own Kinect based projects.

The code samples are available in C++, Visual Basic and C#. Anyone wanting to use the code will need to download Visual Studio, .NET and the Kinect for Windows SDK. The code allows for face tracking, depth of field, as well as audio capture and voice controls.

In what I consider a very smart move, Microsoft said that it released the code because it wants to get feedback from the developer community as well as rapidly speed up development for the Kinect as well as improve its software. All the code samples are released under the Apache 2.0 license and can be downloaded at Source #2 below.

Chris Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, is looking at getting back into the video website business after selling his video streaming site to Google for a nice $1.65 billion. Hurley has now begun teasing his new venture, where he said during a Q&A session with Digg founder and Google Ventures partner Kevin Rose: "I wish [South by Southwest] was a month later because I could unveil the new product."

He didn't go into much detail, but added that the new product is "primarily video-based...and gives flexibility for people to work together and create content." It looks like we should expect a next-generation YouTube, and that's not a bad thing at all. Digg founder Kevin Rose asked him if that was his intention, where he responded with: "We're not setting up to [kill YouTube]-now. There's always going to be a place for YouTube." His intention, instead, is to create a platform better suited for collaboration."

Facebook is used for a million and one things these days, but child trafficking - you'd think not. Misty VanHorn, a mother of two in Oklahoma has tried to sell her two children on Facebook. She was arrested on the weekend for alleged trafficking of minors on Facebook, trying to sell her 10-month-old and 2-year-old for $4000.

VanHorn reportedly offered the kids up for sale more than once, offering her innocent 10-month-old girl for $1000. Alternatively, you could buy a package deal which included both kids for $4000, where she actually had someone interested. VanHorn was dealing with a woman in Fort Smith, Ark., according to The Oklahoman. Because she was dealing across the state line from her home in Sallisaw, she might be charged with a federal crime.

Her Facebook message to the Fort Smith-based woman said: Just come to Sallisaw, it's only 30 minutes away and I'll give you all of her stuff and let y'all have her forever for $1,000. Why was VanHorn trying to sell her children? She wanted the $1000 to bail her boyfriend out of jail, where ironically she's being held on a $40,000 bail. Her kids are now in the custody of the state's department of human services, who alerted the police in the first place.

Intel has a bit of a problem on its hands. It's probably not as terrible as the Sandy Bridge SATA controller issue, but it could end up being another costly fix for the chip giant. According to Fudzilla, the problem cannot be fixed by a mere software update. Rather, the chipset will require a new revision to take care of the issue.

The bug isn't too major. If a USB 3.0 port is being used when the system is put to sleep (S3 state), the device will need to be reconnected upon waking the machine. It's nothing more than a slight hassle, but this is the second chipset glitch experienced by Intel in less than a year.

Motherboard vendors are saying that June is still the planned introduction for Haswell, so it looks like the first batch of motherboards could possibly be coming with the buggy chipset. We'll know more as the proposed launch period nears.