Pantech's employees have just agreed to return 20 percent of their salaries between December 2014 and March 2015 to assist the struggling Korean mobile phone manufacturer out of it's recent debt problems. In August they filed for court receivership, which is said to be the South Korean equivalent to Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with them soon after deciding to sell the company.

However the bidding for Pantech has now closed and its been reported that not a soul placed a bid for the phone company. Determined to continue operation and climb out of debt, they asked their employees for a little trust - wanting a 20 percent return of their monthly pay over this 4 month period, seeing the staff take up the task.

CNET got hold of a Pantech 'source', with them claiming that "last month on November 28, we held an information session for our employees and asked for their consent and our employees decided to participate fully."

Much like most other equipment launched into space, the NASA rover Opportunity utilizes tried-and-true flash memory for data storage on its trek across the surface of Mars. Flash memory isn't as susceptible to vibration as other forms of data storage and operates better in temperature extremes, which works out great for equipment hurling its way through the cosmos. The rigors of spaceflight and the surface of Mars can push even the most durable equipment to the edge, as witnessed by the latest round of memory failures onboard the Opportunity rover.

Scientists reformatted the flash memory on the resilient little rover over the weekend, but things didn't go quite as planned. Now the rover is suffering from amnesia events and system resets. NAND is a persistent memory technology, it can retain data even without power, unlike RAM. The rover stores all data collected during the day in its onboard RAM memory, but when the rover 'sleeps' at night that data is typically copied over to NAND flash storage. The problems encountered during the flash formatting have placed the rover in a RAM-only mode, and data has to be beamed off to Earth each night before sleep. Scientists are working diligently to code a workaround that will avoid using one of the seven banks of NAND that is experiencing the issue.

"The mission can continue without storing data to flash memory, and instead store data in volatile RAM," said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas or NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "While we're operating Opportunity in that mode, we are also working on an approach to make the flash memory usable again. We will be sure to give this approach exhaustive reviews before implementing those changes on the rover."

Go big or go home! LG Electronics plans to show off a 55-inch 8K display during CES 2015 next month, and the screen will promote a beautiful 7680x4320 resolution (33.2 million pixels). The display prototype will be used to test potential mass production of the model, and wants to see how visitors react to the screen.

"With the know-how acquired from making the prototype, if LG finds good grounds to commercialize the display for mass production, it will do so," according to a source speaking to CNET. "LG has already finished up approving the technological viability of the 55-inch, 8K display, and is now starting preparation to commercialize it to make it a product."

The consumer market is barely becoming comfortable with 4K UHD, but manufacturers are pushing ahead to make us drool with 8K models. LG showed off an insane 98-inch 8K TV prototype during IFA 2014 earlier in the year, so it looks like the Korean giant wants to make sure it has plenty of UHD displays available.

Baidu maps used on desktops, laptops and mobile devices will be powered by the Nokia Here service outside of China, with an aim to help Chinese travelers. The deal, which will impact Baidu's desktop versions, Google Android and Apple iOS mobile mapping apps, will roll out in Taiwan - with other countries to be included in the future.

"Every day, millions of people count on HERE to explore the world and discover new places whether at home or on the go," said Bruno Bourguet, SVP and Head of Sales for the HERE program, in a press statement. "Together with Baidu, a new customer for us, we want to help the growing number of Chinese tourists get the most from their travels."

Nokia wants to compete with Google, OpenStreetMap and TomTom in the online mapping department, as the company continues to revamp itself. Here is available on Microsoft Windows Phone and Android already, with an iOS release expected sometime in early 2015. Nokia has worked with Microsoft, Amazon, Garmin, Moreover and Yahoo in the past, while also offering its services to BMW, Mercedes, and other automakers.

Early this morning, local time, news was spread by the mainstream media on a hostage siege taking place in Sydney's inner CBD involving 'Muslim Extremists' laying claim to an unknown number of hostages. If you're unaware of what's going on, one of the reputable news sources covering this unfortunate news (News.com.au) released a very simply laid out 'what we know' on the matter.

In light of local business evacuations and people rushing away from this threat, users began noticing that popular rideshare app Uber was charging users around the CBD a $100 AU to flee safely to their homes, this is said to be a "result of automatic surge pricing meant to get more drivers online" as according to News.com.au.

Mashable first reported on this issue, being sent screenshots of Uber's iOS application charging a $4/minute, $9.59/KM, $100 minimum cost, being clearly labeled in bold writing as "4.0X the normal fare".

The Guardians of Peace hacker group, which has taken credit for compromising Sony Pictures Entertainment, has offered to withhold compromising data: employees only need to email them their name and business title to be spared. The unique correspondence comes ahead of another promised round of published email correspondence between SPE employees.

Here is what the group said in an email: "Message to SPE staffers. We have a plan to release emails and privacy of the Sony Pictures employees. If you don't want your privacy to be released, tell us your name and business title to take off your data."

The message also has an ominous warning to SPE executives: "The sooner SPE accept our demands, the better, of course. The farther time goes by, the worse state SPE will be put into and we will have Sony go bankrupt in the end."

DARPA has developed something that is quite amazing: a self-guided, mid-flight-changing .50 cal projectile. This allows snipers to hide behind cover, and still hit their target with accuracy - even if they move.

The project comes from DARPA's "Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordinance" (EXACTO), with the team having the job of "developing more accurate military artillery that will enable greater firing range, minimize the time required to engage with targets, and also help reduce missed shots that can give away the troops' location".

A few months ago now, DARPA tested the .50 cal bullet at a distance of 1.2 miles, with the projectile using optical sensors on its nose to pull in-flight information. It also featured an internal electronic system that controls the fins on the projectile, which fling out in-flight, as they can't be seen in EXACTO photos. The video above shows a live testing of DARPA's impressive guided bullet, with the rifle intentionally aimed to the right of the target. The video shows that the projectile finds its target, changes its flight path on-the-fly, and then connects. DARPA's EXACTO team recently conduced the first successful live-fire tests using the in-flight guidance of .50-caliber bullets, which means it could be close to being used by snipers in the field.

There was a very brief error on Amazon UK's site that saw thousands of sales of third-party goods that were sold for just $0.01, with the glitch originating from Amazon Marketplace's Repricer Express between 7-8PM GMT on December 12.

Amazon issued a statement about the problem to Sky News shortly after the error took place, saying "we are aware that a number of Marketplace sellers listed incorrect prices for a short period of time as a result of the third party software they use to price their items on Amazon.co.uk". The retail giant has announced that most of the orders that were placed, have since been cancelled.

The piece of software in question is a subscription service that monitors Amazon pricing continuously for the lowest price, and then sets sale prices on items that a user sets as something they're after. Up to 60,000 item prices can be changed per hour, with the constant re-pricing there to maintain the lowest prices to give a seller the best change of being in Amazon's prized "More Buying Choices" box.

4A Games has released both the Linux and SteamOS versions of its Metro 2033 Redux and Metro: Last Light Redux games, with both versions featuring Steam Play support. This means that if you've already bought them, the Linux and SteamOS versions are automatically added to your Steam Library.

4A Games' Chief Technical Officer Oles Shishkovstov said: "Thanks to huge advances in driver support, the Metro Redux titles were developed for Linux using OpenGL 4.0. This has allowed us to deliver an experience that rivals the DX11 version for Windows in terms of graphical fidelity and performance - something that was just not possible when we ported the original Metro: Last Light to Linux a year ago".

Linux gamers will receive all of the graphical bells and whistles that the Windows version supports, something that includes SSAA, Motion Blur, NVIDIA's PhsyX technology, and more. 4A Games will be releasing an Open GL 4.0 version of the game that will be released for the Mac later this month. What will you need to run the game on Linux? Here are the minimum and recommended requirements:

Sony Pictures Entertainment is still trying to recover from a nasty data breach, and now the company's attorneys are taking aim at the media. Hackers have released eight rounds of data, much of it embarrassing, as SPE's attorneys want journalists and bloggers to stop publicizing leaked data.

"We are writing to ensure that you are aware that SPE does not consent to your possession, review, copying, dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading or making any use of the stolen information," according to a letter written by attorney David Boies, and sent to several tech media outlets.

The Supreme Court previously found a radio not liable for broadcasting an illegally recorded conversation, as the station was a third-party and didn't participate in actively making the audio recording. It would seem unlikely the SPE can make any legal demands of journalists for posting the data - and outlets will continue to air SPE's dirty laundry in public.