The new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus helped propel Apple to the top of US activations in Q4. Josh Miller/CNET Apple and Google’s mobile operating systems captured 95 percent of all cell phone activations in the US in the fourth quarter, according to new data from research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Apple’s iOS took …

Notorious Spotify refusenik Taylor Swift at a Sony event in 2010 with then-CEO Sir Howard Stringer. James Martin/CNET Sony and Spotify have teamed up for PlayStation Music, which replaces Music Unlimited and will allow gamers to give their button-bashing a soundtrack with their Spotify tunes. Music Unlimited will close on March 29, after which the new service will launch some …

Setting up your own media center PC is a highly personal, quite in-depth task. For this How To, we’ll give a basic introduction to Kodi, and talk about how the software provides a simple solution for your media center PC’s player needs. Kodi (formerly known as XBMC) is media player software that can play most video and music file types …

Image by Abhisek Sarda, CC BY 2.0 Despite receiving 85,000 requests a year from government agencies requesting access to its customers’ metadata, Telstra has revealed that most of the requests for this digital data come via fax. Telstra shared the detail as part of an appearance at a public hearing on proposed Data Retention legislation held in Canberra today. Telstra …

Watch out, hotels: Don’t even think of blocking Wi-Fi. The Federal Communications Commission issued an enforcement advisory Tuesday saying that blocking an individual’s personal Wi-Fi hotspot is illegal. Any company that attempts to block a Wi-Fi hotspot willfully or with malicious intent will face the possibility of being leveled with “substantial monetary penalties,” the FCC said in a statement on …

Sony’s Xperia Z3 has won critical praise, but it ostensibly hasn’t helped boost Sony’s total sales. CNET Technology conglomerate Sony will lay off 1,000 more employees in its mobile division later this year as it attempts to make the struggling business profitable, a new report says. The company had previously announced plans to cut 1,000 jobs in the mobile division, …

Quickflix’ quarterly report for the end of 2014 shows that over 69 percent of paying Quickflix customers now have access to its streaming service, compared to 64 percent using the physical disc rental service. One of Australia’s first video streaming services, Quickflix offers customers the choice of disc rental with DVD or Blu-ray sent out via post; movie and TV …

Image by Alexandre Normand, CC BY 2.0 Both Australia’s largest telco and a leading digital privacy organisation have warned that mandatory data retention could create a “honeypot” of personal information that could be compromised by hackers and criminals. The warning came at a Parliamentary Committee hearing on proposed Data Retention legislation, which is hearing from telecommunications providers, security experts and …

Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus helped the company score record earnings last quarter. Sarah Tew Bigger is better, according to a new Juniper Research report that says phablets are destined to become even more popular over the next several years. More than 400 million phablets will ship in 2019, five times the the estimated 138 million to be shipped this year, …

The release of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus smartphones pushed Apple to record revenue and profits. CNET The iPhone continues to be Apple’s biggest seller. That’s both good news and bad news. Apple’s flagship smartphone drove record sales and profits for the Cupertino, Calif., electronics maker in the final quarter of 2014. However, the heavy mix of iPhone sales …

Shipments of the Apple Watch will begin in April. Pricing will start at $349. CNET Apple’s first wearable, the Apple Watch, will begin shipping in April, the company’s chief executive revealed Tuesday. CEO Tim Cook, speaking during a call with analysts following the company’s earnings announcement, said that “development for Apple Watch is right on schedule.” Previously, Apple had simply …

It typically takes Google about a year to build the necessary infrastructure for Fiber. Google Residents of four more US regions will have a chance to sample Google’s high-speed fiber network. Google said Fiber, the company’s 1-gigabit-per-second broadband network, is expanding to 18 cities in the Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; and Nashville, Tenn., regions. The Wall Street Journal earlier …

The iPhone 6 enjoyed “unprecedented” demand in the latest quarter, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook. CNET Of Apple’s many record-breakers and milestones, here’s a really big one: In its latest quarter, the company shipped its 1 billionth device running its iOS smartphone and tablet operating system. “It was truly a momentous quarter for iOS,” CEO Tim Cook said on …

Sarah Tew/CNET Turn off your lights with your wrist, click. Turn up the thermostat, click. The Misfit Flash , an entry-level fitness tracker released last year that’s already a really good, cheap gadget, will get a lot more useful soon. Misfit announced it’ll soon work as a sort of smart-home-operating remote, too, via a set of partnerships detailed in a …

Quirkbot can do some pretty awesome things, like letting you control a game of Pac-Man using bananas. Quirkbot Hey kids, straws aren’t just for drinking apple juice anymore. A new Kickstarter campaign for a device called Quirkbot will help you turn those old straws into a fully functional robot. Launched by Kids Hack Day, Quirkbot itself is a programmable microcontroller …