Google’s going bonkers with updates this week. Its search engine now provides top trends, Google Drive for Android received a revamp and the company recently refreshed its Google+ app for Android and the web, among other announcements. That’s not all, though. Google on Thursday said that it’s bringing rich notifications to Chrome. No, we don’t mean wealthy rich, we mean chock-loaded-with-information rich.

Some examples include notifications for reminders, new emails, images shared through Google+ and more. You can even opt to call or send an email to a contact that wasn’t able to reach you, all from a new notification shade menu that will sit in your toolbar in Windows and in ChromeOS. Chrome users can opt to receive notifications for Gmail, Gmail Offline, Google Calendar, Google Drive, third-party apps and extensions such as Spotify or The New York Times.

The rich notifications are available in the latest Chrome Beta but, as we noted earlier, it’s only available for ChromeOS and Windows now. Google said Mac support is coming soon.

In the footsteps of the now defunct THQ, Atari is positioned to become the second major publisher of 2013 to sell off its most valuable franchises. The company is looking to raise a total of $22 million when the four day auction begins in July.

The American branch of Atari filed for bankruptcy protection back in January in a bid to break away from its troubled French parent company. However, since then, it has been unable to secure a buyer for the entire company, despite meeting with 180 and turning down 15, and it will take to selling off its most valuable franchises one by one.

Two of the biggest confirmed franchises that will be available are Rollercoaster Tycoon and Test Drive for a minimum of $3.5 million and $1.5 million respectively.

The most interesting investment is Total Annihilation going up for sale at a minimum of $250,000. Those who do not know, Total Annihilation is an early RTS game which is often cited as one of the most fun and well balanced games in the genre.

It doesn’t have the name recognition of Command and Conquer or Starcraft, but whoever lands it will own the rights to one of the greatest games ever made.

SEGA recently achieved Relic and its excellent Company of Heroes franchise during the first round of the THQ auction. RTS Studios are hot at the moment, and this is would be a brilliant IP to land. Sometimes I wish I could just throw around a quarter of a million and buy up one of these wayward franchises.

We”ll be sure to follow up on the Atari auction when it occurs in July. It it remains unknown what will happen to the most iconic of Atari’s franchises: Asteroids and Pong.

Apple is largely expected to introduce a cheaper iPhone variant alongside its iPhone 5S, a move the company hopes will become a hit in emerging markets such as China. But as of now, a release date is still unclear; we’ve heard fall as a possible timeframe, however, a new report from Macotakara claims production will start soon. And the device will come in multiple colors no less.

According to sources speaking with the site, the device will come in a wide variety of hues, including navy, white, gray, pink, green, yellow and orange. Reports conflict about what exact colors Apple will use, but the biggest point is the absence of a black option. When the device does hit, it’ll be available for $350-$400 without subsidies, a price made possible by the use polycarbonate materials.

Macotakara talks about the iPhone 5S as well, which is also expected in a wide variety of colors, including green and gold. If we’re ever going to see Apple iPod its iPhone line, the company will probably release colors similar to what’s available now. Otherwise, the design itself will closely resemble the iPhone 5, with the addition of a dual-LED flash and altered rear microphone.

Finally, Macotakara opines on the iPad 5, which the site says will get an additional microphone. Right now, the next-generation iPad is anticipated to hit after the iPhone 5S, meaning we can expect it to hit this fall.

The possibility of new colors doesn’t seem all that far fetched, especially if Apple wants to follow its iPod business model. If anything, it’ll add a dose of much-needed freshness to Apple’s iPhones, which have thus far only been offered in black and white starting with the iPhone 3G.

Apple’s much anticipated keynote address at WWDC has been officially put on the books for Monday, June 10—likely at 10:00 a.m. PST. The date isn’t all that unexpected seeing as the company already said when its annual developers conference would take place, and since it always holds it the first day, but if there’s any day you pay particular attention to that week, make it that Monday.

When Apple does take the stage, we’re expecting a lot of big announcements, and there’s really a lot of pressure—from media and fans—on the company to deliver. Perhaps the most anticipated topic at this year’s conference will be iOS 7, which is supposedly receiving a big Jony Ive overhaul in the wake of Scott Forstall’s firing.

What else can we expect? It’s becoming increasingly likely we’ll see MacBook Pro/Air refreshes with Intel’s new Haswell chips, while rumors of an iRadio service have been swirling. Otherwise, it sounds as though this event might be largely software focused. After all, this is a developer conference—Tim Cook already said not to expect any big hardware until fall of this year.

The Tizen Developers Conference in San Francisco has already kicked off, but the big news won’t come until May 24. Samsung and Intel are expected to unveil Tizen 2.1 tomorrow morning. The two firms could possibly announce the first Tizen handset as well.

According to Tizen Indonesia, the new mobile OS (nicknamed Nectarine during development) is almost ready to launch and Samsung should be able to release the first Tizen smartphone by July 2013 in Europe and Japan. There’s no word when it will launch in America, if ever.

Tomorrow’s keynote will feature the co-chairs of the Tizen Technical Steering Group: General Manager of the Intel Open Source Technology Center Imad Sousou and Samsung Executive VP Jong-Deok Choi.

Tizen Indonesia also reported that Tizen 2.1 will offer several new features, including a unique UI.  Samsung is expected to use its best hardware available to make sure the new handset is a success. Though, if the Galaxy S4 is any indication, that could mean another plastic handset.

We’ve been hearing rumors since last December that a Tizen handset was coming this year, right around the time Samsung officially announced its intention to sell its own Tizen devices. Samsung used to sell devices powered by Bada, which it also created before merging that platform into Tizen.

Google announced yet another update to its stable of web services today. Now the company has updated Gmail‘s search bar to scan for relevant information not only from your previous emails but also from your Google Drive files, Calendar events and more. The change will roll out to all U.S. users with English language accounts following a successful field trial.

Google is clearly ramping up all of its assets. It recently upgraded several other online tools; following last week’s yearly I/O conference, this week the Internet company pushed out several updates improving everything from Google+ to Drive and even Chrome.

The marketing wheels keep on spinning for Bungie’s next big effort, Destiny. Today we have a brand new trailer that blends atmosphere, live-action and CG into one nice push.

This is Bungie’s first full mega project since handing the keys to Halo over to Microsoft and 343 Industries. As such, there’s a lot of hope and hype riding along with Destiny.

Here’s the video’s description, as it appears on YouTube, to perhaps put you in the proper mood… if you’ve actually made it to this point in the article without clicking play.

As a Guardian of the City sets out on an epic, action-packed adventure to reclaim our Solar System, he recalls the moment when he was first taught the most important lesson of all — The Law of the Jungle.

As the trailer suggests, we’ll have a full gameplay reveal during Sony’s E3 press conference. That goes down the night of June 10th.

Destiny is set to release for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this fall. We’ll have more on this title as it comes.

HTC took the wraps off of the Desire 600 on Thursday morning, a brand new mid-range Android smartphone. Like the HTC One, the Desire 600 runs BlinkFeed and is equipped with the company’s BoomSound speakers and BlinkFeed news aggregator on the home screen.

The Desire 600 has a 4.5-inch super LCD2 display with a 960 x 540-pixel resolution, support for two microSIM cards, 8GB of storage, 1GB of RAM, support for HSDPA networks, NFC, an 8-megapixel camera, a 1.6-megapixel front-facing camera, a 1,860mAh battery and a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor clocked at 1.2GHz.

HTC said the Desire 600 will be available from wireless carriers and retailers “in a number of markets” starting early next month. It didn’t, however, name specific markets where the Desire 600 will launch.

Microsoft certainly wasn’t short on announcements earlier this week when it unveiled the Xbox One. It did, however, hold short of explaining deeper integration with its Windows Phone platform. While we were told that there will be continued Xbox SmartGlass support, Microsoft didn’t really expand on how it’s going to change. But it has to, SmartGlass is super limited right now and aside from offering control of the Xbox it’s relatively useless.

Microsoft is very likely indeed already working on a seamless approach to both platforms. “There’s some time between now and the delivery of Xbox One,” Microsfot’s senior marketing manager Greg Sullivan explained to PCMag. “Is there anything I can say? No. It doesn’t mean there’s nothing that’s being worked on… Are we where we’ll ultimately be? No, and we’ll continue to improve [Windows Phone].”

What can we expect? Here are a few scenarios I think could be really useful to end users, and ones that could certainly attract consumers to Windows Phone devices.

New Interactions with the TV

Microsoft has to, and I think it will, add additional controls to Windows Phone devices. The new Xbox supports Wi-Fi direct, which could potentially be used to usher content down to a smartphone’s display. You might be watching Xbox in your living room and then continue watching the content on your phone as you walk into another room, for example.

Or, while you’re watching TV, what if you could browse the Xbox Live TV Guide on your Windows Phone and control the Xbox? Wi-Fi direct could also add other features, such as “Send to Xbox” from a mobile device. You could have a family video from a recent vacation, for example, and send it to your big-screen TV right from the phone. What about music and photos? It’s all certainly possible. DLNA support enables this in some form on Android devices, but it’s still super clunky.

Cross-Platform Gaming

Achievements and Xbox Live mobile games are already available on the platform, but now there’s an opportunity for cross-platform gaming. The PS Vita allows you to pick up and continue playing PlayStation 3 games on the road –Microsoft should allow this on Windows Phone, too. What if you could start a game of FIFA 2014 on the Xbox One and then manage or play smaller parts of the game from your Windows Phone device?

Imagine a game like Bastion, for example, but with support for multiple players. One user could be playing at home on an Xbox while another could join in from a Windows Phone. Or what about simpler games, like Temple Run?

An Extra Controller

I don’t know if the demand is there, but imagine if you were able to use your Windows Phone as a basic controller for gaming. Head to your friend’s house to play a simple platform game, for example – what if you could pull out your phone, load an app and join in on the fun without having to bring your own controller? Obviously it would be too hard to add trigger controls and other features, but simple gaming should work just fine.

Wrap-Up

I think Microsoft was purposely mum on its mobile plans earlier this week because it will likely hold a separate event to discuss the next iteration of Windows Phone. I just hope the company isn’t too blind to realize that it has something Apple and Google don’t: an entire game and media console in the living room that’s far more powerful that Apple TV or Google TV. If it can leverage that for mobile, it has a real chance of boosting its market share in the smartphone space. 

According to a new report from Market Watch, Apple has purposefully kept tight control over iPhone 5 parts to keep repair costs sky high and ensure that no independent gadget repair companies can compete with its own prices.

AJ Forsythe, founder of Apple repair service iCracked, explains that even though the iPhone 5 is easier to fix than its predecessor and only takes five to ten minutes, his company is forced to charge twice as much to repair Apple’s newest smartphone (almost $200 as compared to under $100 for the 4S). However, he predicts that with Apple selling 300,000 new handsets per day the price will eventually decrease.

For now, however, Apple has a death-grip on iPhone 5 parts, which allows it to charge as much as $229 for a broken screen and remain competitive while also pressuring consumers to buy into AppleCare insurance.

“Apple controls everything from the manufacturing to the gear for the iPhone 5,” TechBargains.com editor Jeff Haynes told Market Watch. “Apple is trying to get people to sign up for Apple Care for $99 and to rely on their services at the Apple store. If you don’t, that cracked screen could cost you at least $230.”

Thankfully, if you look hard enough, there are repair shops that can fix an iPhone for a bit cheaper. Still, clearly there’s a problem.

HTC hasn’t come out publicly to state that the HTC First was a failure, but all of the signs are there. In a recent report an unnamed employee said the device was a “disaster” and AT&T dropped the price of the device from $99 to 99 cents in less than a month. As a result of the phone’s failure here in the U.S., Facebook and HTC are reportedly canceling U.K. launch plans.

According to U.K carrier Everything Everywhere, customer feedback is to blame. “Facebook has decided to focus on adding new customization features to Facebook Home over the coming months,” EE said. “While they are working to make a better Facebook Home experience, they have recommended holding off launching the HTC First in the UK, and so we will shortly be contacting those who registered their interest with us to let them know of this decision.”

Everything Everywhere says that it will continue to build its relationship with Facebook, but it sounds like U.K fans won’t be able to enjoy one. TechnoBuffalo contacted HTC for an official comment on the situation but we have not yet heard back.

As an early purchaser of the Xbox 360, I can say that the words “Red Ring of Death” speak quite loudly to me. In fact, I am currently on Xbox 360 number 5 with my first four all succumbing to the same widely publicized fate.

In reality though, the Red Ring of Death is a forgotten memory for a lot of gamers as it has not been a headline issue for several years now. I hadn’t even thought of it as an issue for the upcoming Xbox One, but Microsoft Studio boss Phil Spencer certainly has.

To clear the air for gamers who might have bad memories of the Xbox 360′s early poor design choices, Spencer commented to Edge on his confidence in the design of Microsoft’s most recent console

“The last Xbox was Trinity [Xbox 360 Slim] and our success rate on Trinity was very high. We learned a ton from the 360 launch and we took care of our customers with the extended warranty, but I think Trinity is telling.

Xbox One is built by the same Trinity team with the same learning that went from Xbox 360 into Trinity, and I’m confident in the quality of the new box.”

I seriously hope some of these world class engineers at Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony can finally put together a console that can last an entire generation. Xbox 360 number 5 has finally begun to break down, and I’m not entirely sure if my Wii every fully functioned correctly.

And yet, I’m still playing the same NES 25 years on at Grandma’s house every Christmas vacation.

Over the last two days, we’ve talked a lot about backwards compatibility, used games and Internet connectivity as huge exclamation points for the Xbox One, but does anyone have any concerns about the machine just straight up not working?

Order This From Amazon

Microsoft’s new Windows 8 ad takes a swift poke at Apple’s iPad, casting the latter as a more expensive, yet rather lackluster competitor to a Windows tablet. In the commercial, the company features Windows 8′s Live Tiles, PowerPoint, multitasking and relatively cheap price point, at $449 for a 64GB ASUS’ VivoTab Smart versus $699 for a 64GB iPad.

Wait just a minute. Haven’t we seen something like this before? The side-by-side positioning, white background, standalone logo at the end — it all looks so familiar, doesn’t it? Oh right. This is a riff on Apple commercials, particularly those long-running “I’m a Mac. I’m a PC” ads starring Justin Long and John Hodgman. Except this time, the Microsoft product is cast as the oh-so-cool option, and the Apple device is the one that just can’t keep up.

Of course, since there are no humans to deliver dialogue, Siri is front and center to underscore the arguable lameness of iOS on the Apple tablet. Toward the end, the flummoxed voice assistant gives up and suggests playing “Chopsticks,” a reference to Apple’s iPad mini commercial.

Here’s the ad in reference:

Well, it does get Microsoft’s message across. But, frankly, it still can’t hold a candle to the wonderfully bizarre Windows 8 vids that hit the Web earlier this month. The ads were developed with the Asian market in mind and posted by accident to Microsoft’s channel.

Windows 8.1′s release will be hitting later this year, and Microsoft reportedly has more than a billion dollars earmarked for Windows 8 advertising. That means more jabs at competitors — and possibly more weirdness — is likely to come. Stay tuned.

If you were worried that Mailbox would go the way of the buffalo after being acquired by Dropbox for a reported $100 million in March, you can finally put those fears to rest. The app that attracted a million users almost overnight when it first launched for the iPhone made the leap to iPad this morning, and founder Gentry Underwood says Android is next for the email-reading app.

Mailbox on the iPad is basically the same thing as Mailbox on the iPhone, but with the addition of a side-bar so you can read one email while keeping an eye on your inbox. The key to the app’s success has always been its swipe-based gesture control, and that’s not changing anytime soon. A quick swipe to the right archives an email while a longer swipe deletes it completely. Swipe lightly to the left to “snooze” an email for later or use a longer swipe to the left to send the email into folders titled “to read,” “to buy,” or “to watch.”

Mailbox’s move to the iPad is great news, but the real story may be the company’s plans to launch an Android app, and challenge Gmail on its own territory. When you think about it, Mailbox was almost designed with Android’s notification system in mind, which lets you control each new notification without opening the entire app. We hope we’ll be able to handle each new email as it arrives without ever launching the actual Android Mailbox app.

“There’s always this constant tension between, ‘This is great,’ and ‘Oh, there’s so much more we want to do’,” Underwood told GigaOm.

Redesigning Mailbox for the iPad was probably a walk in the park compared to entirely rewriting the app for Android, and Underwood acknowledges that his work is far from finished.

Samsung recently announced that it sold 10 million Galaxy S4 units in just 26 days. That immediately raises the question: how well did HTC fare with its brand new One flagship smartphone?

In an article by The Wall Street Journal, the news outlet said that it learned from an HTC executive that the company has shipped 5 million units so far. That’s since the device’s global debut in March. It’s also probably a bit lower than expected due to initial shipment delays.

The Wall Street Journal also shed some light on the recent departures at HTC. It said the company’s vice president of global communications, who left this week, decided to depart the firm due to “an unsuccessful advertising campaign of the One X series last year.” That sounds fishy, however, because one has to wonder why HTC would keep Gordon on board through the launch of the new HTC One if his campaign last year was so unsuccessful.

TechnoBuffalo reached out to HTC to confirm the sales figure but a spokesperson was not immediately available.

Nintendo has just announced the date and time of its next Nintendo Direct. We already know that it will feature Smash Bros., a Mario Kart for the Wii U and a brand new 3D Mario title.

The next Direct will happen June 11th, 2013. That’s right, the Tuesday of E3 week. It all starts at 7am Pacific (10am ET).

Here’s how I guessed Nintendo would handle E3 this year back when we received our invite to go hands-on with games at the show.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Nintendo will show a Direct Presentation directly before the preview. They’ll present the titles and footage to the world, and then they’ll open up the booth to a media hands-on period.

Count it.

In my opinion, all this hullabaloo about Nintendo no longer competing at E3 is now bunk. For people not at the show, the day will run exactly as it always has. Nintendo has always had the Tuesday morning time slot for their presentation. That remains the same. The only difference? No stage show this year. We’ll still have a presentation from Nintendo on Tuesday morning, it’ll just be in Nintendo Direct style.

Which, hey, I’m a fan of. We’ll be all over this show and whatever Nintendo has playable at E3.

The Syrian Electronic Army just loves hacking into Twitter. It breached the accounts of the BBC’s weather service, Financial Times, The Guardian, Telegraph and the Associated Press, and it’s more than likely not done yet.

Well, Twitter’s not just going take that lying down, so good for them that they decided to lock down those gates with a second set of keys. In fact, the two-factor authentication is good for everyone. Now businesses don’t have to worry about wayward staffers hopping on and damaging their rep, and you can breathe easy about unscrupulous types posing as you to spread porn links.

That’s not to say it’s perfect. The second verification step involves sending you a SMS, so take note if you’re not on an unlimited texting plan: The service messages you every time you log in.

As for the rest of us, here’s how to flip the switch for a more secure Twitter account.

How to Turn On Two-Step Authentication

• Log in to Twitter like usual.
• Go into your Twitter settings (on your desktop, it’s available in the gear icon, on the upper right).
• Scroll down to “Account Security” and check “Require a verification code when I sign in.”
• One of two things may happen at this point. If it’s your first time, you’ll be prompted to add your phone number. If you’ve already added a number on a previous visit, then you’ll get a pop-up window stating your phone needs to be verified to receive messages. Either way, the service is sending you a text message.
• Check your phone for the text stating your phone is capable of receiving verification codes. If it’s there, go back to Twitter and, in the “Did you receive our message?” window, hit the “yes” button and enter your password. 

You’re all set! The next time you log into Twitter, you’ll see this window.

A six-digit verification code will be sent to your phone each time, so type that in and you’re ready to tweet.

Authenticating Other Apps

Once you’ve set up the new verification process, you may notice an interesting note in your settings: “Once activated, you will need to generate a temporary password to sign in to your Twitter account on other devices and apps.”

This appears to be a one-time only thing when, say, an app is requesting your Twitter credentials. Here’s how to set up a temporary password, from the Twitter support page.

• Go to the Applications tab of your account settings on twitter.com.
• Click the Generate button.
• Enter your current account password and hit Generate again.
• When prompted to log in to your other device or application, enter your username and use the temporary password that you were provided.
• You’re in! The device or application will show up in your list of applications in your settings page.

Note: Temporary passwords will expire after one hour.

What do you think of Twitter’s two-step verification? Will the masses take to this, or will they opt to keep things simple with single-factor username/password authentication?

We expected the latest in Samsung’s flagship phone series to break the sales records its predecessors set, and the Galaxy S4 passed with flying colors. It hit the 10 million units sold mark overnight in Korea after only 26 days on the market.The Galaxy S3 had sold 10 million in 50 days, and before that, the Galaxy S2 had taken five months to hit the same sales figure.

“On behalf of Samsung, I would like to thank the millions of customers around the world who have chosen the Samsung Galaxy S4,” stated CEO Shin Jong-kyun. “At Samsung we’ll continue to pursue innovation inspired by and for the people.” Shin had predicted earlier this week that the Galaxy S4 would hit the 10 million mark sometime this week.

In celebration, Samsung announced a variety of new colors for the phone which will be available later this summer. These will include Blue Arctic, Red Aurora, Purple Mirage and Brown Autumn.

Contradicting earlier reports that Apple had edged back up to the 5th largest share of smartphone sales in China, a new report from Chinese organization Analysis International suggests that Apple held onto the 6th largest market share with a 6.4 percent market share in Q1 2013. Samsung continued to dominate with a 17.3 percent share of the market, according to figures obtained by DigiTimes.

Padding out the rest of Analysys International’s top ten are Lenovo (13.1 percent), Coolpad (10.3 percent), Huawei (10.1 percent), ZTE (6.9 percent), K-Touch (4.1 percent), GiONEE (3.8 percent), HTC (3.1 percent) and OPPO (2.9 percent). The research firm also said that 90.54 million handsets were sold in China in Q1 2013, up 34.8 percent from the same quarter last year and up 23.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012. 75.28 million of the devices sold were smartphones, and the devices are gaining in popularity.

Apple may gain ground if it is indeed able to ink a deal with the world’s largest wireless carrier, China Mobile, to launch an iPhone.

The Humble Bundle group rides again, only this time in weekly sale form. This week’s deal, as revealed yesterday, involves a whole lot of Alan Wake. PC gamers can pay whatever they want to get Alan Wake, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare and a whole slew of extras for the games.

Once you buy the bundle, you’ll be able to either download the game installs directly or redeem them with Steam Keys.

Despite it’s incredibly long development time, I wound up loving Alan Wake. The game was met with a lot of criticism from fans and reviewers when it released, but its reception was largely positive. I fall into the camp of lovers. The storyline is interesting, and the gameplay mechanic of popping enemies with a flashlight before shooting them works exceptionally well.

If you’ve got a gaming PC and haven’t had a chance to play either Alan Wake or Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, this sale is for you. Give it a go.

We’ve monitored the progress of NASA’s Curiosity pretty closely, and over that time the little rover that could has drilled in two separate locations in search for evidence of water on Mars. As it continues on to its eventual destination at Mount Sharp, Curiosity has been regularly snapping photos of its progress, which someone has very kindly put into one lovely time-lapse video.

The video itself slots in at just over one minute, and shows hundreds of photos captured by Curiosity. The shots are black and white, adding a tinge of romanticism, but they also emphasize just how isolated Curiosity is out there. If you didn’t know any better you could mistake the landscape for any desert here on Earth; it’s cool to see how the shadows slowly creep across the ground as the sun rises and sets.

The collection was put together by Karl Sanford using RAW photos taken by Curiosity’s left hazcam beginning on August 8. Many of the photos we’ve shown you are taken using Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager and Mastcam, so that’s why there’s a big difference in quality.

What’s included in the video isn’t even all the data Curiosity has onboard. Due to, you know, the relative distance between Mars and Earth, Curiosity is only able to send data back when an orbiter is overheard. Anything Curiosity can’t send gets stored, and gets sent at the next opportunity. So far, no alien sighting have been reported.

Thanks to the community, we’ve already seen some incredible footage come out of Curiosity’s travels. As the rover continues to dig, analyze and rove, it’ll keep beaming photos and data back, giving us more information about the Martian planet.

If you’re shopping around for the best contract to go with the Galaxy S4 (and by “best” we mean “cheapest”) then Cricket Wireless may be the carrier you’re looking for. Samsung‘s newest top-tier smartphone is already available on all of the major U.S. carriers (Verizon’s is arriving any day now) and now the smaller ones are stepping into the fray.

Cricket is offering the S4 for the budget-friendly up-front cost of $54.99 (that’s $100 less than T-Mobile). There are two catches, however. First, the deal is only available for “qualified customers”, which presumably means you’ll need to pass a credit check, and second, there’s an additional monthly device charge that’s similar to T-Mobile’s monthly payment plan.

We still don’t know how much Cricket’s monthly fee will be or even how long you’ll need to pay it. Based on the fact that Cricket values the physical handset at $599.99 it won’t be cheap, but The Verge argues that it will still probably be a better deal than what T-Mobile or any other big carrier can offer you. Either way, the phone isn’t available until June 7, at which time Cricket will have hopefully revealed exactly how much the Galaxy S4 will cost customers.

The first PlanetSide is finally going to catch up to its sequel’s free-to-play plan. It was originally released in 2003 during a huge MMO boom that was based heavily on subscription payment plans.

However, this is now a different time and age, and subscriptions are slowly losing out to the free-to-play model, and President John Smedley announced the news on his Twitter feed that Sony Online Entertainment wants to bring its classic MMOFPS up to speed with the rest of the industry.

The announcement comes just in time for the game’s 10th birthday.

Despite having a successful sequel on the market, the original still remains a popular alternative, especially for those looking to see the evolution of the series. It was first released to mixed reviews for maybe being a little too ambitious for its time, but its longevity has allowed it to survive as an early MMO classic.

No time frame was given on the jump to free-to-play, but expect to see it happen soon.

That historic call a British climber, Daniel Hughes, made from the top of Mount Everest was illegal, according to Nepalese authorities. For every positive, there always seems to be a negative. Always being connected sure has its advantages, except when you’re breaking the law.

Hughes’s impromptu video call was apparently deemed illegal by the Nepali government because he didn’t receive prior consent. The mountain has had cell coverage for several years, Time said, but you have to seek permission first to broadcast from the property. If found guilty, Hughes faces a ten-year ban from climbing Everest.

The climb was done in the first place to raise funds for the Britain-based anti-poverty charity Comic Relief. But no good deed goes unpunished. Even though Hughes’ actions were all in good fun, they went against rules set by the country’s communication ministry. As a result, the trekking agency hired by Hughes is under investigation, as is Hughes.

Mount Everest is a hallowed mountain, seen as one of the most excruciating physical exercises man can attempt. So it’s understandable the Nepali government would so strictly protect one of the most popular destinations in the world. But going after someone for simply doing a quick mobile broadcast? That seems silly.