Bittorrent users in the United States will now be subject to the "six-strikes" copyright alert system. Customers of AT&T, Cablevision, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast will face "mitigation measures" if a movie studio or other copyright holder asserts that they were illegally downloading a copyrighted work.

Theoretically the program will affect all users who pirate copyrighted material, though studios and other content owners can only really easily track bittorrent swarms. The program features escalating tiers of warnings, starting out with a simple notice that they were found to be downloading copyrighted material.

The second tier will see users facing more invasive measures, such as being forced to watch a video. The final tier of punishment can see users having their download speed reduced, though no service can be disconnected as a result of these accusations. Users can appeal for $35 to the American Arbitration Association. If a user wins the appeal, the fee is refunded.

Opera seems to be making headlines on a weekly basis in 2013, A couple of weeks ago I reported on the companies adoption of Webkit, then a few days later, covered the layoff of over 90 employees. Now Opera is announcing the formation of an entirely new subsidiary.

Over the last few months Opera has made a few strategic acquisitions with the intention of bolstering it's mobile advertising business. The company has spent in excess of $100 million snatching up companies like AdMarvel, 4th Screen Advertising and Mobile Theory and has announced today the formation of Opera Mediaworks.

Opera Mediaworks is a fully-owned subsidiary, which is being touted as the world's largest mobile ad platform. The new arm of Opera includes ad mediation and exchange services AdMarvel and Opera Mediaworks, mobile advertising networks Mobile Theory and 4th Screen Advertising, and the Opera Mobile Store and Opera Payment Exchange to monetize ad solutions.

When digital camera's came onto the mainstream scene, the film camera industry was all but wiped out overnight, and we may be on the verge of a similar event now. Aptina, maker of most of the image sensors in high-end mobile phones has just released two next-generation image sensors that could change everything.

At the Mobile World Congress, Aptina has announced it's newest 12MP and 13MP mobile image sensors, that are aimed at use in flagship smartphones. The 12MP AR1230 is a 1.1-micron pixel device, with 4k video at 30fps support as well as 1080p at 96fps. The 13MP AR1330 sports image stabilization at 1080P and includes 4K UHD and 4K Cinema formats at 30fps.

Aptina also released a new image sensor designed for use in the tablet PC / TV segment of the market. The AR0261 is a 1080p sensor that features 1.4-micron pixels, and is reported to be able to handle 60fps at 720p, can work with apps that utilize gesture recognition and 3D video capture.

MWC 2013 - ASUS have just unveiled their latest smartphone during their conference at Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona, Spain - enter the Padfone Infinity. Sporting a 5-inch 1080p display, we have the ability to dock the Padfone Infinity with a 10.1-inch 1920x1200-capable tablet.

You should be used to this by now with the previous Padfone, but this new Padfone Infinity bumps the specs up as well as offering a "sleek aluminum body", and inside we find Qualcomm's 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 - which is quite an amazing piece of kit.

ASUS chairman Jonney Shih took the stage, unveiling the Padfone Infinity itself. Something ASUS are calling "Customer Happiness 2.0" is the central part of the Padfone Infinity's design - touch, responsiveness, uniquity and more. A whole new design is behind the Padfone Infinity using aerospace-grade aluminum alloy, unibody frame and brushed metal finish, twice-anodized diamond cut edge glass display.

I only became aware of Watch Dogs last week when a friend pointed it out to me, I was blown away - it looks truly incredible. The game was then shown off during the PlayStation 4 unveiling late last week and now we're hearing some discussion from developer Ubisoft Montreal on the game. Senior producer on the game Dominic Guay, has said that the PS4 version of Watch Dogs pushes all aspects of the game further, he told Digital Spy:

I guess the image I would give [compared to PS3] is that it's like a magnifying lens. I'll give you small examples; it's like the fidelity of the wind, how it will have everything reacting as it blows through the city, the AI reaction when something happens, every AI has to make a decision on how they'll react to it. We can spend more time in the brain of each AI with a more powerful machine, saying, 'OK, how will I react to what just happened there? Where will I run to? Will I call the cops?', or stuff like that. Fundamentally the core, innovative part of Watch Dogs is the same on every platform. But on PS4 we're able to push every lever a lot further.

The PS4 version of Watch Dogs will use the PlayStation 4's new touch pad to control the protagonists phone in-game, something that has been described as a "direct translation", and a "really cool" feature. As for the development of Watch Dogs on the PS4, Guay said that it's "definitely easier to get in" to as a platform, elaborating:

We knew it was coming, and we knew of a day, but now Samsung have confirmed it - the Galaxy S IV will be unveiled on March 14. Edaily has reported that Samsung mobile top dog, JK Shin, has said that the successor to the Galaxy S III will definitely be unveiled at the Samsung Unpacked event in New York City.

This might not sound special, but it is, as it is the first time a flagship Samsung smartphone has been unveiled in the US - the last one? Samsung's original Galaxy S all the way back in 2010. There's not much concrete info on the Galaxy S IV, but I'm hoping we don't just see a few things changed from the S III. I hope we see the material used being of better quality, a higher resolution display (5-inch 1080p has been rumored), and something else 'magical' - more than one magical thing would be nice.

It looks like the Barnes & Noble e-readers and tablets might not be around too much longer if a New York Times report is correct. The Times' report is from an unnamed source familiar with Barnes & Noble's corporate strategy, who said while "they are not completely getting out of the hardware business", executives can see that they need to shift the company's focus from low-margin hardware to licensing its "crown jewel" content to other platforms.

Barnes & Noble are reporting their third-quarter results this Thursday, which they're already downplaying in their Nook department. Could we see them leave the hardware game? I think so. I guess we'll find out more later this week.

Update: We've heard from a Barnes & Noble spokesperson who has said that "we have no plans to discontinue our award-winning line of NOOK products".

MWC 2013 - It's that time of the year again folks, we're seeing mobile devices being unveiled quicker than Taylor Swift writes songs about her ex-boyfriends, and now we have Lenovo's turn at unveiling some new products you might be interested in.

The company have released two new slates, the 7-inch A1000 and A3000 tablets, backing it up with a 10-inch S6000 tablet. The first tablet, Lenovo's A1000 is the entry-level device, featuring a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 16GB of on-board storage which expandable by up to 32GB with microSD - finally, it runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

The bigger brother of this is the 7-inch A3000, which is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core MTK processor, and features up to 64GB of expandable storage through microSD. It also runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but has an underwhelming 1024x600 IPS display. Also included in the A3000 series is another family member that will sport HSPA+ abilities.

MWC 2013 - Samsung have used Mobile World Congress to let the skinny slip on their latest device, HomeSync. It's not a smartphone, it's not a tablet, but rather a TV-connected device running the same type of specs that we see in our mobile devices.

This means we're greeted with a 1.7GHz dual-core processor, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of flash, a 1TB HDD for storage, Bluetooth 4.0, 802.11n 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet, optical audio and finally, HDMI 1.4. Samsung's HomeSync even supports up to eight individual password-protected and encrypted user accounts, which can each individually sync content from other devices, and share it through various accounts.

HomeSync is mostly a media hub capable of pushing out your content at 1080p, as well as streaming it from local Galaxy-branded devices. There's no news on whether this is anything to do with Google TV, but it does have the ability to grab content from the Play Store, as well as run its own apps. Another nifty feature is the ability to use your smartphone as a remote control with HomeSync.

MWC 2013 - Samsung have unveiled a new member of their Galaxy family of devices, the Galaxy Note 8.0. We've had a hands-on experience with it a little while ago, but now we have some more details to report on Samsung's latest device.

The new Galaxy Note 8.0 slides between the 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II smartphone and the 10-inch Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, but has some nice abilities for a middle child. We're looking at Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean as the OS, an 8-inch 1280x800 display with a pixel density of 189ppi. This makes the Galaxy Note 8.0's screen slightly better than Apple's iPad mini which features a 7.9-inch 163ppi display.

Cranking along inside the device we have a 1.6GHz quad-core processor, Samsung's own Exynos 4 - backing this up we have 2GB of RAM and either 32GB or 64GB of internal storage. There will be LTE-capable Note 8.0's in the wild, but at first there will be 3G connectivity on offer through HSPA+. Thanks to being part of the Note family of devices, we will have the S Pen stylus, which is really useful for the included apps from Samsung.