Researchers have discovered there are 256 apps on the App Store that have found their way around Apple's vetting process and violated privacy rights. All of them use the Chinese-developed Youmi SDK. In total, approximately one million people use the apps in question.

To be clear, the developer of any of these apps is not necessarily to blame at all. It appears Youmi is the one interested in acquiring your data, and has insidiously worked gathering tools into its development kit, thereby attempting to cover its tracks and pass the blame onto developers, should the scheme be uncovered.

Nate Lawson, founder of security analytics startup SourceDNA (which uncovered the violations), says this is "definitely the kind of stuff that Apple should have caught."

MSI has announced that its new compact and lightweight GS40 Phantom is now available to ship out, giving an edge to consumers who want to take high-performance enthusiast-grade gaming on the go.

The GS40 Phantom packs in all the latest trappings you'd expect in a high-grade gaming rig into a 3.5 lbs package, making it the "world's thinnest and lightest gaming laptop". Although it's so portable, the laptop sports serious hardware with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M GPU, 16GB of onboard DDR4 RAM clocked at 2133 MHz, and a sixth-gen Intel Core i7-6700HQ CPU clocked at 3.5GHz with Turbo Boost. The display is a 14" non-reflective full HD screen at 1920 x 1080 resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio and True Color support. For blistering-fast game loading, the Phanom sports a high-performance PCIe Gen 3.0 SSD configured in NVMe to deliver read speeds over 2,200 MB/s.

"The GS40 Phantom is a breakthrough in design that combines the power of bigger gaming laptops with the portability of a netbook," said MSI president Andy Tung. "The GS40 Phantom does not scale back on performance just to be lighter or thinner, it complements its svelte physique with technologies not even found in larger units."

AMD CEO and President Lisa Su affirmed her company's commitment to high performance x86 CPUs in its earnings call last week, for anyone in doubt following the recent news of financial troubles.

"In terms of long-term roadmap we are extremely committed to high performance x86 CPUs," she says. "And there should be no confusion on that point. [Chief Technology Officer] Mark Papermaster is currently directly engaging with the team on that execution and we'll have more details to come. But [we're] overall pleased with the execution and it continues to be our number one priority for the company."

More, she states Zen's impressive target 40% IPC performance is "on track" and that multiple FinFET designs have been taped out (meaning design is finalized, and the chips need only be produced).

Google's new Marshmallow-flavored, fingerprint-toting flagship Nexus duo--the affordable Nexus 5X and premium Nexus 6P--went on sale today, and to celebrate Google is handing out instant invites to its Project Fi cellular network.

If you've been waiting to get in on Google's own Project Fi connection, now's your chance: the tech titan will answer all requests with an instant invite to join up within the next 24 hours. All you have to do is sign up here. The service normally requires an invite to get in, and not all applications for an invite are met quickly--you often to have to wait quite some time on backlists to join.

Google's Project Fi starts at $20 per month for unlimited domestic talk and text, and even lets you use your phone as a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot to power other devices. Users pay an extra $10 per GB of data they plan to use after the intial $20 basic plan, and their unused data always rolls over to the next month. Project Fi is currently limited to the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P and Nexus 6, but if you're in the market for a new phone, Amazon currently has a great sale on a Nexus 6 for $349.

PC-maker ASUS is quite interested in augmented reality (AR) headsets and sees great potential in the new layered technology. Since ASUS apparently doesn't have its own R&D arm focused on the new AR platform (yet?), it has initiated tentative discussions with Microsoft to leverage the HoloLens rather than build its own AR headset from the ground up.

Right now Microsoft is the first major commercial tech company pushing the boundaries of augmented reality tech, but ASUS might join the fray to help solidify the platform. CNET reports that ASUS CEO Jonney Shih and Microsoft Windows exec Terry Myerson are discussing the possibility of a union, which could lead to a more affordable, ASUS-branded HoloLens.

Interestingly enough, Myerson hints that Microsoft is open to the deal."It's ultimately up to Mr. Shih if [ASUS] decides to make its own version of HoloLens." It's no surprise that Redmond would want to expand the Windows ecosystem across third-party products, which has done with its entire array of devices from PC's to mobiles. AR headsets would just be another category. "Everything we're doing in hardware, we do with the mind of how do we grow the Windows ecosystem. That is why we're investing to create a category."

Although Harmonix's latest entry in the acclaimed Rock Band franchise has been met with much fanfare and applause, the game still pushes an incredibly massive library of individually-priced downloadable songs onto players.

Nowadays video games have been plagued with a huge assortment of tricks and tactics aimed at separating you from the cash in your wallet: microtransactions, season passes and DLC being the main breadwinners. One of the biggest moneymakers has been music games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero--and Rock Band 4 continues this trend in earnest.

Rock Band 4 has a total of 1973 DLC songs that are individually marketed at $1.99 a piece, and to buy all of them you'd rack up a tab of almost $4,000--or $3926 to be exact. That's a lot of money for any video game, let alone an interactive music simulator like Rock Band.

We should expect Apple to unveil a new iPhone next year, like it does every year, but the new iPhone will be very different due to one small change: its LTE modem.

According to VentureBeat, Intel is working on its new 7360 LTE modem so that Apple can use it in their new iPhone in 2016. The company has over 1,000 people working on the chip, as it will be big business for them to get it into Apple's flagship handset. Even if Apple does use Intel's new modem in the next iPhone, it still might dual source its LTE modems from its current partner Qualcomm and Intel.

During Intel's recent earnings call, CEO Brian Krzanich said that its 7360 modem will begin shipping later this year and that new products using the LTE modem will be available in 2016. Apple hasn't officially signed Intel as the supplier of the modem, but if Intel can continue to reach milestones with its LTE modem, Apple should want it in their new iPhone.

We all know to expect some big upgrades on the Galaxy S7, but what should we expect exactly? According to the latest rumors, Samsung will include some big processor and camera upgrades, two key parts of the Galaxy S7.

Samsung's next flagship smartphone should feature its own Exynos 8890 processor, which is an impressive 8-core processor clocked at a huge 2.3GHz on the 14nm FinFET process. Apple paved the way with Force Touch on the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, but these new rumors would see Samsung introducing ClearForce technology onto its Galaxy S7, something that Qualcomm unveiled a few days ago now.

The new Galaxy S7 will also receive a camera upgrade, with Samsung using a 20-megapixel rear-facing camera using their own ISOCELL technology. On top of that, the Galaxy S7 should also feature ESS' Sabre 9018AQ2M headphone amplifier solution, which includes a 2-channel D/A audio converter. It also includes harmonic distortion support of up to -120dB, lowered power consumption, and more.

To celebrate this week's home video release of 'When Marnie Was There' from Japan's acclaimed Studio Ghibli, we're very excited to be able to giveaway five Blu-ray copies to our readers, thanks to our friends at Madman Entertainment.

Twelve-year-old Anna believes she sits outside the invisible magic circle to which most people belong, and shuts herself off from everyone around her. Concerned for her health, Anna's foster mother decides to send her to rural Hokkaido to stay in a sleepy town by the sea. As she dreams her days away amongst the marshes, Anna finds herself strangely drawn to the enigmatic house which sits upon the edge there. This is where she meets Marnie, an energetic young girl who seems to appear from nowhere. As she is drawn deeper into Marnie's world, she begins to learn about family, friendship and kindness.

To go into the running to take one Blu-ray copy home, simply answer the following question in 50 words or less:

We don't know much about AMD's next-generation GPU, apart from the fact that it'll feature HBM2 with over 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth, and some delicious speed upgrades over the more-than-capable Fury X.

The latest news comes from AMD's CEO, Lisa Su, where she teased: "We are also focused on delivering our next generation GPUs in 2016 which is going to improve performance per watt by two times compared to our current offerings, based on design and architectural enhancements as well as advanced FinFET products process technology".

Now, if that's not enough to get you excited, I don't know what is. If we're talking about a 100% jump, we can expect 4K 60FPS in every single game out right now without a problem. It'll also be the perfect GPU for VR headsets, as you'll be needing to pump 90FPS minimum to get the best experience on the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets. NVIDIA isn't far behind the GPU game, with its next-gen Pascal card also using HBM2 and expected to pack an insane 17 billion transistors.