We still live in a world controlled by mostly 28nm technology, but 20nm is popping its head over the horizon, and 16nm is floating in over that same mountain. Samsung has reportedly moved into volume production of its 14nm FinFET technology, which is a big deal.

Samsung will be building its next-gen Exynos processor on its own 14nm process, but both Apple and AMD will be benefiting from Samsung's super-small process. Intel is moving toward the mass production of 14nm 3D transistor technology, with its Broadwell-based Core M processors already shipping, but Samsung is right behind them ready to go for AMD, Apple and of course, itself.

Comparing 14nm against 20nm, we can expect the core area to be reduced by 15%, reduced power consumption by up to 35%, or an increase in processor frequency of 20%. Samsung will be the first to use its 14nm process, but I'm sure Apple will be right behind it with its upcoming A9 processor, which Samsung will build for its arch rival. So we can expect Apple's next-gen iPhone to have Samsung's technology at the heart of it, again.

ASUS has been doing some good things with its smaller video cards, but the latest one could be one of the hot-sellers during the holiday season. The new ASUS GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU Mini is based off of NVIDIA's second-generation Maxwell architecture, with the GTX 970 at the center of it.

On top of that, we have a 17cm long video card with the DirectCU II cooling from ASUS, using a single fan. It uses hot plate technology to improve thermal efficiency, which provides 20% more cooling than traditional, reference coolers. We also have Core Clocks of 1088MHz, while Boost Clocks are set at 1228MHz. We also have 4GB of RAM at its stock frequency of 7010MHz.

Connectivity wise we have one dual-link DVI port, a DVI-I port, HDMI 2.0, and DisplayPort 1.2. The ASUS GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU Mini requires just a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, which will be a perfect fit to Mini-ITX gaming systems. When it comes to pricing, we should expect similar pricing to GIGABYTE's GeForce GTX 970 ITX, which is on Amazon right now for $339.

AMD's Radeon R9 295X2 is still a champion of a GPU, even up against the likes of the single-GPU card from NVIDIA in the form of the GeForce GTX 980. Better yet, the R9 295X2 can now be found on Amazon for as low as $679, down from its introductory price of $1499.

The XFX Radeon R9 295X2 is currently $679 on Amazon, down from $1039 - a saving of $360. This is not too bad at all, especially when you consider you're getting two GPUs here. This card is still a great card for high-res gaming, especially 4K and beyond, and perfect for smaller systems where you can only install the single card.

Rumored to be due to either Black Friday sales, a DDoS attack succession or a combination of the two - Blizzard's Battle.net servers are reportedly experiencing major lag issues in several different forms.

You may have noticed that by trying to log in to the Battle.net client will you experience a wait of up to 25 minutes. Once you have finally managed to connect to their service, you'll likely see that not only are you unable to connect to view or chat to your friends, but you're unable to launch any games within.

Talking to some of my most loyal Blizzard friends, they have reported the ability to play games such as World of Warcraft as close as twenty minutes prior to the publishing of this article - however some reports claim up to 5 seconds of in-game delay (ping) among other technical glitches.

Toyota will begin testing its autonomous vehicles on open roads starting in December, using a system compromised of six laser radar devices mixed with higher-accuracy map data. The vehicle is able pass through electronic toll collection gates and main roads, while safely maintain its lane location.

"We will actively continue the development of autonomous driving technologies, but we are considering commercializing autonomous driving technologies that do not change the sovereignty of the driver," said Moritaka Yoshida, Toyota Chief Safety Technology Officer. "For Toyota, advanced driving assist technologies are for safety and realizing zero traffic deaths."

Last year, Toyota publicly showed its automated highway driving assist (AHDA) technology, with the ability for the car to automatically control gas and steering.

Robotics research has focused on factory automation, greeting customers in malls and shopping centers, but could one day soon have a new purpose: flying your meals and drinks to you while you dine at restaurants in Singapore. Infinium-Serve is the new fleet of autonomous flying robotic waiters that will be able to serve as waiters - and help reduce burden on labor problems in Singapore.

The robotic waiters could be deployed by the end of 2015, with Infinium Robotics currently trying to receive government grants to help pay for the project. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong saw an in-person test of the Infinium-Serve earlier this year, however, it remains unknown where he stands on the research.

"Introducing this technology into restaurants would take away mundane tasks of serving food and drinks," said Woon Junyang, Infinium Robotics CEO, in a statement. "It will allow human waiters to focus on higher-value tasks such as getting feedback from customers. This will result in an enhanced dining experience, which will eventually lead to increased sales and revenue for the restaurants."

Popular coffee shop chain Starbucks is rolling out wireless charging stations in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the effort is set to expand even further later on. Using Powermat Technologies, it would appear Starbucks could help bring wireless charging solutions to the mainstream - and it begins with its customers becoming more comfortable with wireless charging technology built directly into tables and bar tops.

Powermat Technologies CEO Daniel Schreiber says the charging speed at Starbucks locations rivals cabled connections - and while there has been a large amount of criticism regarding speed - it seems faster than many people give it credit for. However, there are only a small number of phones that support Powermat directly out of the box, so Starbucks provides Power Rings for charging - a loan or $10 to purchase them - along with Duracell-Powermat providing them online.

"You've got to have a complete system," said Matthew Guiste, Starbucks VP of in-store digital services. "No one has taken the plunge, [but] we want to start giving manufacturers a reason to put it in their phones."

Following a massive data breach that left 56 million debit and credit card details stolen, along with 53 million email addresses, the company spent $43 million during Q3 to deal with the aftermath. The company expects to receive $15 million reimbursement as part of a $100 million network liability insurance policy - and must now work to ensure the problem doesn't occur again.

Meanwhile, the company faces multiple lawsuits and will "incur significant legal and other professional services expenses" due to the incident. The company's payment card data network was complaint in fall 2013, and was undergoing 2014 certification when the breach occurred, according to an independent auditor.

"The forensic investigator working on behalf of the payment card networks may claim the company was not in compliance with those standards at the time of the data breach," Home Depot noted.

The Internet of Things market is growing rapidly, and is attracting more attention from US technology and telecoms buyers, according to the Hampleton Partners' report. More than $9.4 billion has been spent since 2011 to help acquire IoT suppliers, with a whopping $5 billion of that spent during 2014 so far.

Expect to see Intel, Texas Instruments, Juniper Networks, Johnson Controls and AT&T become more active in acquiring - and creating partnerships - that will help bolster their IoT product lines. There will be an estimated 28 billion Internet-connected devices by 2020, and a global market valued at more than $7.1 trillion - and that figure will only grow as reliable Internet continues to be expanded worldwide.

Meanwhile, IoT will be one of the fastest growing market segments, and spending to support the blossoming market is expected to be $59 billion by 2020. Such wide market growth presents excellent opportunities for manufacturers, especially by releasing consumer technology solutions.

Former GCHQ boss Sir John Adye believes current generation biometrics need more control, as he has concerns related to fingerprint scanners used by the Apple iPhone 6 and other devices. Despite believing the use of biometrics is a positive step toward device security, Sir John also is concerned about what happens to people's data when using these devices.

Sir John called out Apple specifically, with Apple Pay now allowing users to make payments simply with their fingerprint.

"I think Apple has done some good things. They appear to have a good system at the moment for protecting their operating system so it's difficult for anyone outside to penetrate it and retrieve data from it. But how long will that last, because the criminals... are very inventive at finding ways in, and although you can protect it in that way on the device itself, what happens if the device is lost or stolen?"