s Apple Inc.'s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Phil Schiller bitter following Google's acquisition of Nest Labs? As of Jan. 19, Schiller follows 117 Twitter accounts. The aforementioned Twitter figure is down by two belonging to Tony Fadell and his company Nest Labs.
The Microsoft and Nokia deal might be in its final stages ahead of the Finnish company's 2013 fourth quarter earnings conference call. Nokia has confirmed Jan. 23 as the publication date for their fourth quarter 2013 and full year 2013 results report via a conference call from its Finnish headquarters. The report will be available on Nokia's website after the conference call.
The Nokia Lumia 929 smartphone is on sale but in China. The latest Windows Phone 8 smartphone, speculated to debut in the United States (U.S.) with Verizon Wireless, was spotted in China for ¥3,800, or $628 when converted to the U.S. dollar.
Microsoft has quietly released an update for Surface Pro 2 but not all tablet owners have received the update yet. The software update is said to be a re-release of the December update for the Surface Pro 2. The update initially made its debut on Dec. 10, however, Surface owners encountered error codes when trying to install the update as well as battery drainage issues. Microsoft decided to pull the Dec. 10 update and promised a fix after the December holiday season.
The latest Pokémon anime season has officially begun, and it featured a throwback to the original theme song of the franchise. "Pokémon the Series: XY" made its season premiere on Jan. 18, nearly three months after the two-episode preview on Oct. 19. The season premiere not only introduced fans, who did not watch the Oct. 19 preview, to new characters but finally the opening theme song.
The Nokia Lumia 521's price has increased on Amazon.com, but the positive is the free shipping offer remains. Amazon spiked the price of the Lumia 521 by nearly $10. On Jan. 15, the Lumia 521 was priced at $79.99, which was a 47 percent discount from its original list price of $149.99. As of Jan. 20, the Lumia 521 is priced at $89.61, which is a 40 percent discount or $60.38 savings from the original list price. Despite the price increase, Amazon will ship the Windows Phone 8 device for free since the product cost more than $35.
U.S. President Barack Obama has been busy this week presenting his case to the American people that his administration is taking measures to insure that national intelligence agencies will not be abusing their resources. But on a somewhat smaller issue, Obama has come out saying that he believes marijuana use is no more dangerous than alcohol, a position he had been criticized for shying away from earlier in his presidency. "As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life," Reuters quotes the president saying in a New Yorker magazine article. "I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol."
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa has a message for the world's journalists and human rights organizations: "Go mind your business and not the affairs of a sovereign country like Ecuador." The leader of the small South American country has been besieged by activists and NGOs alike for a multifaceted dilemma brewing in the Yasuni Park region of that country; a remote, isolated area that is geographically pristine, rich in biodiversity, and a home to populations of humans that live outside the boundaries of modern culture.
