Facebook has made its Messenger app available for Windows Phone 8, an addition Microsoft welcomes as it seeks to increase the number of applications available for its smartphone OS. The app lets users see who’s online for a private or group chat, and lets them decorate messages with pictures and stickers. Users can also share their location, and contacts are automatically added to the app. For now, some features available on the Android and iOS versions — such as the ability to record... 

Target Corp announced an overhaul of its information security processes and the departure of its chief information officer as the retailer tries to re-gain customers and investors after a massive data breach late last year. CIO Beth Jacob is the first high-level executive to leave the company following the breach, which led to the theft of about 40 million credit and debit card records and 70 million other records of customer details. Jacob, who comes from a sales background and has been CIO since... 

AMD’s Mantle has been a hot topic for quite some time and despite its delayed birth, it has finally came delivered performance in Battlefield 4. Microsoft is not sleeping it has its own answer to Mantle that we mentioned here. Oddly enough we heard some industry people calling it DirectX 12 or DirectX Next but it looks like Microsoft is getting ready to finally update the next generation DirectX. From what we heard the next generation DirectX will fix some of the driver overhead problems that... 

DirecTV is having discussions with Walt Disney Co to license the rights to offer Disney’s broadcast and cable channels as part of an Internet-based product, DirecTV has confirmed. The deal would mirror a first-of-its kind agreement that Disney and satellite rival Dish Network Corp announced earlier this week. The Internet rights being discussed are part of a large-scale programming agreement that would replace a deal between the companies that expires in late December. Disney and Dish are... 

Kingston Technologies is the latest to throw its hat into the ring with a range of mobile oriented flash drives. The Datatraveler Microduo has both standard USB 2.0 and microUSB slots allowing for easier data transfer between mobile and desktop devices. Built with Android devices in mind, the device uses the On The Go (OTG) function in most modern Android microUSB ports to provide extra storage. The device comes in capacities ranging from 8GB to 64GB with a five year guarantee and full technical... 

For the first time, astronomers have directly measured how fast a black hole spins, clocking its rotation at nearly half the speed of light. The distant supermassive black hole would ordinarily be too faint to measure, but a rare lineup with a massive elliptical galaxy created a natural telescope known as a gravitational lens that allowed scientists to study the faraway object. “The gravitational lens is crucial,” study co-author Mark Reynolds of the University of Michigan told Space.com... 

Facebook is rumored to be acquiring Titan Aerospace, a New Mexico-based company known for making solar-powered drones. Analysts speculate that Facebook may want to use the drones to bring Internet connectivity to the two-thirds of the world that are not connected. The social networking company is reportedly paying $60 million for Titan Aerospace, according to TechCrunch, which cited unnamed sources. Neither Titan Aerospace nor Facebook responded to requests for confirmation. The aerospace company... 

Verizon Communications is engaged in discussions with content providers to deliver web-based TV services to mobile platforms, chief executive Lowell McAdam, said at an investor conference earlier in the week. Just recently, Dish Network Corp and Walt Disney Co announced a landmark deal that will allow the No. 2 satellite TV provider to deliver Disney-owned network content online, outside of a traditional TV subscription. Verizon’s goal “is to work with the content providers,” said McAdam... 

We already knew that Android was the mobile operating systems most targeted by malware, and that isn’t about to change any time soon. Security firm F-Secure has reported that malicious activity on Android accounted for 97 per cent of all detected mobile threats for 2013. The figures were revealed in F-Secure’s latest Threat Report for the second half of 2013, finding that there were 566 more Android malware variants found last year than during the previous year. “97 percent of the... 

Yahoo Inc discontinue allowing consumers access its various online services, including Fantasy Sports and photo-sharing site Flickr, by signing-in with their Facebook Inc or Google Inc credentials. The change, which will be rolled out gradually according to a Yahoo spokeswoman, will require users to register for a Yahoo ID in order to use any of the Internet portal’s services. The move marks the latest change to Yahoo by Chief Executive Marissa Mayer, who is striving to spark fresh interest... 

Fujitsu Labs have worked out a way to improve vibration feedback when typing on a virtual keyboard. The prototype haptic sensory tablet emits ultrasonic vibrations under the surface of the tablet’s display. The company says that although producing ultrasonic vibrations would generally require a good deal of power, its engineers have come up with a way of shrinking down the tech and allowing a tablet prototype to run its haptic feedback system. Essentially, the vibrations create a layer of high... 

The vast majority of stars in our Milky Way galaxy host planets, many of which may be capable of supporting life as we know it, a new study suggests. Astronomers have detected eight new exoplanet candidates circling nearby red dwarf stars, which make up at least 75 percent of the galaxy’s 100 billion or so stars. Three of these worlds are just slightly bigger than Earth and orbit in the “habitable zone,” the range of distances from a parent star where liquid water could exist on... 

AMD has announced its first “system in a socket” single accelerated processor unit (APU) that aims to reduce the cost of entry-level PCs. Based on the firm’s Kabini system on chip (SoC), the APU is named the “AM1 Platform”, combining most system functions into one chip, with the motherboard and APU together costing around $60. Due to be released on 9 April, the AM1 Platform is aimed at markets where entry-level PCs are competing against other low-cost devices. “We’re... 

Android and Samsung Electronics enjoyed the biggest benefits in the tablet market last year, as sales surged by 68%, according to Gartner. Worldwide sales of tablets to end users totaled 195.4 million units, fueled by sales of low-end, smaller screen devices, and purchases by first time buyers, the company reported. Android has become the biggest tablet operating system with 62% of the market. In 2012, Google’s OS trailed Apple’s iOS by a margin of about 8 million tablets, but by the... 

Sprint Corp and the federal government both agreed to fight in court over how much money law enforcement agencies owe the wireless provider for help the company was required to give investigators who wanted to tap phone calls. The Obama administration filed a suit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Monday, alleging that Sprint overcharged the government $21 million for expenses it incurred while complying with court-ordered wiretaps and other surveillance help. Sprint said it plans to defend...