Set-top box maker Roku is innovating and will spend more time in 2014 focused on supporting streaming services with custom partnerships alongside TV manufacturers. Roku's shift from set-top boxes and moving directly into app support for HDTV makers is a smart strategy for long-term longevity. All content is available on the Roku TV home screen, with the platform currently supporting more than 1,200 apps - and includes partners such as Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Pandora, and Rdio. All updates will be implemented by Roku and rolled out directly into the connected smart TVs.

TV makers TCL and Hisense are the first two manufacturers to jump onboard with Roku, though better known, higher-end companies should eventually jump into the fun. HDTVs supporting Roku TV models will be available fall 2014, with TV sizing expected to range from 32" up to 55".

"Consumers will enjoy the ease and satisfaction of Roku TV while manufacturers leverage our design specifications, content relationships and software expertise," said Anthony Wood, Roku CEO, in a press statement. "At the same time the content community will gain additional distribution and revenues through an already popular and trusted streaming platform - now in the TV."

CES 2014 - We've already seen the Consumer Electronics Show 2014 start off, unofficially, with a bunch of 4K goodies being announced, with Qualcomm not being left out on its own - with the company announcing its new SoC, the Snapdragon 802.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 802 SoC is destined for TVs, where it is a TV-specific quad-core SoC that borrows features from the Snapdragon 800 SoC, and the "Ultra HD" 805 chip for mobile video. The Snapdragon 802 is all about powering 4K content in your living room, with the processor capable of multi-tasking, where it can easily handle browsing the Internet, or switching things up and streaming a movie or playing four HD video streams on your TV.

The Snapdragon 802 also has HQV, or Hollywood Quality Video, a video-processing engine which upconverts 1080p content to a level "approaching Ultra HD." The actual specs of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 802 are: a quad-core 1.8GHz Krait CPU, Adreno 330 GPU, two-stream dual-band 802.11ac, AllJoyn integration and Snapdragon Studio Access content protection.

CES 2014 - Lenovo has just finished taking the wrapping off its new ThinkVision Pro2840m 4K-capable display, but now we're hearing about the new N308 all-in-one PC, and a new 4K display with Google's mobile OS, Android, on-board.

The Lenovo ThinkVision 28 is the first 4K monitor to feature Android, but is being pushed as a professional 4K display first, with the Android desktop when required. The new ThinkVision 28 display features three HDMI ports, one DisplayPort, and five USB 3.0 ports for connectivity. Matt Bereda, Lenovo's Marketing Director, said: "Now you get a very high resolution display that you can use for work situations, as well as being able to have an Android interface that can access applications."

Inside of the ThinkVision 28 is an NVIDIA Tegra processor, and stock version of Android. One of the standout features here is that there is no Lenovo UI being splashed over the stock Android OS - which is a nice surprise. Bereda added: "There are base Android apps installed, similar to what you'd get with your phone. You can expect a similar interface. Kind of the baseline video, camera type of apps, but then you will also be able to download others."

CES 2014 - Lenovo has just announced a brand spanking new display that should have the tech world excited: the new ThinkVision Pro2840m monitor, which is a 28-inch, 4K-capable display priced at the competitive price of $799.

The new 28-inch 4K display will push out 3840x2160, and is one of two 4K-capable displays Lenovo is showing off at CES this year. Lenovo wants to deliver 4K-capable displays to its customers as soon as it can, with aggressive prices, which it has hit easily at $799. Matt Bereda, Marketing Director for Lenovo's Think Business Group said: "It's an ideal device for someone working with high-end graphics".

Lenovo's ThinkVision Pro2840m features DisplayPort, mini DisplayPort and HDMI inputs, and has adjustable orientation. We also have MHL (mobile high-definition link) capabilities and is expected to ship in April.

Microsoft is successfully guiding users away from Windows XP and up to Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 on new PCs, laptops, and other devices. XP's market share dropped from 40 percent at the start of last year down to almost 29 percent currently, with more businesses abandoning the OS. Despite being an archaic OS, much less secure than 7 or 8/8.1, Microsoft set an end-of-support date of April 8, 2014.

Microsoft wants partners to focus on migrating users directly to 8, but customers have the option to downgrade pre-installed systems to 7 if they are interested in a non-touch OS. There were reports that IT managers weren't taking migration seriously, and many casual users were unaware of potential security threats, but that stance is finally changing.

CES 2014 - Tom Forsyth, ex-Valve software engineer, joined Oculus VR in May last year, where he is now working as a software architect for Oculus VR's virtual reality headset, Rift.

Forsyth has just announced via Twitter that "we're showing the latest Rift kit at CES. Should be pretty interesting. I'm looking forward to the feedback". We should expect the new HD Prototype, which includes a 1920x1080-pixel display inside the Rift. The new Rift prototype should have its latency reduced, down from 60-70ms to just 10-20ms.

The iPad is currently stuck at the 9.7-inch ceiling, but this could all change with a new iPad rumored to be on the horizon. The new iPad Pro, a name it could go by, is being reported by Evercore analyst Patrick Wang.

Wang's report states that supply chain sources are backing up the claim of an enterprise iPad. Wang's sources state the Cupertino-based giant is looking to launch a 12-inch iPad in the fall of 2014, targeting the enterprise market with a new "hybrid" device that would bring the tablet and notebook worlds together.

Wang talked about the bill-of-materials (BOM) of this new iPad, estimating that the cost of the A6 processor inside the new high-end iPad costs just 4% of the total materials, while the MacBook Air's processor, which is made by Intel, costs 22% of the total. The iPad obviously has much higher costs involving its touchscreen, taking 30% of the BOM, while the MBA's display uses just 11% of the total BOM.

Intel's upcoming 14nm Xeon Phi, or Knights Landing CPU, will reportedly feature an insane amount of technology compared to what we see now in the Xeon range. The new Knights Landing CPU will see Intel increase the performance, throughput, and total TFLOP count with the next generation MIC (Many Integrated Core) card.

Intel's Knights Landing will be based on the company's Silvermont CPU architecture, which we see in the Bay Trail mobile products. Knights Landing on the otherhand, will support 512-bit AVX operations, and a new mesh interconnect architecture which will see 72 cores to ship on each PCB.

The new CPU with 72 cores on-board will also see 16GB of on-package eDRAM, and six DDR4 memory controllers which will be capable of seeing over 384GB of DDR4 memory. Then we have the rumor that Intel could abandon PCI-Express 3.0 because of its latency issues, and shift over to QPI which will ship with the Skylake-EX chipset.

Just months ago the US government was shut down, with hundreds of thousands of jobs in the air, millions of US citizens affected, but that's nothing when it comes to the blank cheques it signs to the National Security Agency for "research".

The US spy agency is reportedly working on a quantum computer that would break through any encryption thanks to its pure, insane amount of processing power. Edward Snowden is behind the leaks - come on, you're not surprised now, are you - revealing a program that is worth some $79.7 million, dubbed "Penetrating Hard Targets".

The Washington Post is reporting the news, stating that the majority of the research is being done at the University of Maryland's Laboratory for Physical Sciences.