Yesterday we saw AT&T begin taking pre-orders on Samsung's long anticipated Galaxy S4, and tomorrow Sprint will follow suit ahead of its April 27th release. T-Mobile also confirmed that it will begin taking pre-orders for the S4 on April 24th.

T-Mobile customers will be able to purchase the Galaxy S4 for an upfront cost of $149 with 24 monthly payments of $20 when tied to the company's new Simple Choice Plan, which starts at $50 a month. AT&T is offering the device for $199 with a new two year contract.

Sprint customers can pick up the device for $249.99 with a new two year contract, but will receive a $100 credit which brings the price more in-line with T-Mobile's price range. I am still stuck deciding between Samsung's Galaxy S4 and HTC's aluminum unibody One.

Recent research at the University of Illinois has led to a breakthrough in lithium-ion battery technology. Researchers have developed a lithium-ion micro-battery that leaves all of its competition in the dust in both size and recharge rate.

A team headed up by professor William P. King has devised a new fast-charging cathode using 3D micro-structure, which resulted in an anode of similar design. When paired up, the result is a unit that is being touted as the most powerful battery in the world.

The new Li-ion micro-battery bucks current trends and avoids the usual tradeoff between longevity and power and has a footprint of just a couple of millimeters. This will ultimately lead to batteries for mobile devices that are 30 percent smaller, could broadcast radio signals 30 percent farther and could recharge in minutes compared to hours.

During Intel's first quarter earnings call, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said that Windows 8 touch devices including laptops will see a massive price drop in the coming months when the company releases its new quad-core Bay Trail chip. He said that new innovative designs will allow future touch devices to sink into the $200 price range.

"If you look at touch-enabled Intel-based notebooks that are ultra-thin using [Bay Trail] processors. Those prices are going to be down to as low as $200... Bay Trail is going to be a great product in that segment of the market and enable stunning performance relative to what the competition can bring."

Being billed as the most powerful Atom processor ever, Bay Trail is a complete redesign of the Atom micro architecture and is said to bring Atom chips closer to the performance levels of mainstream Intel processors.

After several websites released rumors that HP's Slate 7 UK launch would be delayed until June, the company has just released an official UK launch date of May 1st. This date is in line with HP's original scheduled launch date which puts all rumors of delays to rest.

The Slate 7 features a 1024x600 display, 1GB of RAM, and is powered by a dual-core Arm Cortex A9 processor. Running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, the Slate 7 will retail for 129 pounds, but after VAT, the cost will be much closer to 200 pounds.

There is still no word on when the US will see a Slate 7 launch, but with other more powerful 7-inch Android tablets at a better price point already being available, does it really matter?

Gottfrid Svartholm, one of the co-founders of everyone's favorite torrent website The Pirate Bay, has been indicted on charges of hacking along with three others. Svartholm is said to be the mastermind behind a series of cyber intrusions into Nordea Bank and the Swedish federal tax agency.

In a statement, prosecutor Henrik Olin had the following to say:

"A large amount of data from companies and agencies was taken during the hack, including a large amount of personal data, such as personal identity numbers of people with protected identities."

These charges come completely independent of a recent sentence of one year in prison that was passed down to Svartholm after a series of shady happenings where Cambodian authorities managed to deport him back to Sweden. These new charges carry a much longer sentence than just one year.

Next week Australia will see Huawei release a phone only rivaled in size by Samsung's Galaxy Note series of so-called phablets. The Ascend Mate is a 6.1-inch Android based smartphone that can only be described as a hand full of phone.

Featuring a 6.1-inch 720p IPS+ display, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, the phone will be powered by Huawei's own quad-core 1.5GHz processor. A monstrous 4050mAh battery and an 8 megapixel camera round out the phone/tablet mutation. Huawei has skinned Android Jelly Bean 4.1 with a custom launcher dubbed "Emotion UI", which appears to make use of so called "Me Widget."

The standard Android app folder is ditched in favor of placing all your apps on the home screen similar to how Apple handles multiple apps. Australian consumers will be able to purchase the device next Monday for $429 AUD through Harvey Norman, which also includes a Boost starter pack, that runs on Telstra's phone network.

Western Digital has today made backups of your precious data even easier by unveiling their WD SmartWare Pro app. The backup app automatically backs up file changes to a local drive when it happens, and it can schedule backups to the drive and a Dropbox account.

You can be even more cautious, and backup the Dropbox account to the external HDD. The nifty backup app isn't limited to WD-branded drives, so any external storage will do. You'll spend $30 on a three-computer SmartWare Pro license, which isn't too bad for your data backup needs.

According to a couple of venture capitalists, Apple's reputation is beginning to change and their employees aren't willing to stick around. One investor said: "More generally there is a growing level of dissatisfaction among Apple executives and employees, and a greater willingness to explore leaving".

Another VC told Business Insider that his firm has seen a big uptick in resumes coming in from current Apple employees. Business Insider's source spoke with some of these job-seekers, where they said that the startups are paying more, and that "Apple culture has started to change with the new leadership on top".

A month ago, top Apple reporter and analyst John Gruber of Daring Fireball said that retention has become "the single biggest problem that Apple faces, and almost nobody is talking about it". He added:

I think if there's going to be a problem coming up with big new things I think it's more likely a draining of really bright engineering and design talent at the rank and file level.

Microsoft holds patents that are hurting other companies making products based on Android and Chrome, but now Foxconn's parent company, Hon Hai, has licensed Microsoft's patents for Google's operating systems.

Hon Hai makes many Apple products, and between their many subsidiaries, they are responsible for the manufacturing of 40% of consumer electronic devices in the world. The deal they struck with Microsoft will see them enjoy the licenses of patents for phones, tablets and TVs and will see Microsoft receive royalty payments.

We haven't even had our hands grace the next-gen CPU that is Haswell yet, but Intel are already talking about their chipset destined for 2014 - Intel's 9-series chipsets.

These chipsets will support Serial ATA Express, which is based on the PCI Express protocol and will pave the way for some seriously high-bandwidth storage devices. Intel's 9-series chipsets will include core-logic sets such as Z97 and H97, and will support SATA Express by default. There will also be an all-new Intel device protection technology with boot guard built into the chipset, enhancing the security against low-level malware attacks on the upcoming next-gen platform.

What can we expect from SATA Express on Intel's 9-series motherboards? Well, we should see a cost-effective means to deliver interface speeds between 8Gb/s and 16Gb/s compared to the 6Gb/s maximum that the SATA III specification allows now. The specification will define new device and motherboard connects that will support both the current SATA devices, and the new SATA Express devices.

We know the PC industry is in a state of pain, but it looks like the largest chipmaker is hurting, too. Intel have just posted their latest earnings report, revealing that their quarterly profits for Q1 2013 are down 25% year-over-year.

For Q1 2013, Intel made $2.045 billion in profits, down from $2.738 billion last year. Intel CEO, Paul Otellini, said in a statement:

Amidst market softness, Intel performed well in the first quarter and I'm excited about what lies ahead for the company. We shipped our next-generation PC microprocessors, introduced a new family of products for micro-servers, and will ship our new tablet and smartphone microprocessors this quarter.

Facebook may have over one billion users, but how could they make more money from these users? The social network is reportedly set to roll out their own video-based advertising service, reports Ad Age.

A video ad on Facebook won't be cheap, where it might cost one million dollars for a 15-second spot. Quite an astronomical amount, but considering the amount of people you'd reach, it could just be worth it. Facebook are currently experimenting with four advertising slots, which could see the social network make around four million dollars in revenue, per day.

Facebook will do it well though, where they won't make you see the same video ads more than once per day, while simultaneously limiting the total delivery of ads to three per user, per day. How would these ads display to you? They could pop up as the 15-second ads, playing automatically and taking up a portion of your screen.

A Beijing-based third-party Internet security company called Anquan, are looking for a "chief porn identification officer", a position they posted on their Weibo account.

The company was started in 2010, with the goal to "combat bad information on the internet" and promote greater control of porn on the web. Anquan have big partners in Baidu and Tencent, as well as government agencies that regulate the Internet in China. Here's a translated version of the job post:

Job Location: Beijing

Salary: 200,000 RMB/year [$32,348.40 annually]

Job Responsibilities: Quickly and accurately identifying pornographic and obscene websites.

Job Description:

• 1. Research and study pornographic videos and images, formulate criteria for determining obscenity.
• 2. Deploy courseware on the standards of obscenity determination, and study materials such as educational videos on pornography.
• 3. Manage and rate pornographic resources (including BT seeds, images, and online videos).

Nintendo aren't having much luck with the Wii U console, with sales not impressing so far, and here we are with yet another disappointing month of sales for Nintendo's 'next-gen' console.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, has said that there is little hope of sales of the Wii U picking up anytime soon. The analyst also adds that "only 55,000 Wii U consoles were sold domestically in March," which is down from February's sales of 66,000 units, and January's sales of 57,000 units.

Pachter also doesn't think the Japanese company can do anything to help sales, where he adds "fortunes appear unlikely to improve for several months, even if Nintendo decides to drop [the] price, as there are an insufficient number of core titles that are generating interest in the console".

Facebook Home has expanded outside of the US finally, jumping over to the UK and Canada for starters. Even if you're based in the UK or Canada, you'll still need a specific phone for Facebook Home to work.

These phones are the Samsung Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S III, HTC One X+, One X or One. Facebook Home does come pre-installed on one phone at the momnet, the HTC First, which is still a US-exclusive on AT&T. EE and Orange have confirmed they'll support HTC's First smartphone in the UK, but there's no word right now on any Canadian telcos carrying the 'Facebook phone'.

So if you're after Facebook Home for your smartphone, and have a compatible device, check out the Google Play Store on your device.

Google have just updated their Chrome for Business browser, where the Mountain View-based company have added legacy browser support and cloud-based management for Google Apps.

If you are someone who uses older apps at work, you'll now be automatically switched to an alternate browser when needed. On the cloud side of things, the cloud-based management allows employees to log in to their Google Apps for Business or Education accounts from any device.

Google Glass shipments have started, and now we already have the Explorer Edition getting the unboxing treatment along with a slew of photographs. Unfortunately, it wasn't me doing the unboxing, sob.

The glasses include a microUSB cable and charger, a pouch and shades. One of the users have noted that users can send navigation directions directly from their smartphone to Glass, which is something I expected, but is now confirmed.

I'm such a big fan of Superman, and I really didn't like Superman Returns, so when I heard about Man of Steel, I became excited yet again. Everything from the suit, to the feel of the music has been perfect so far, and now, we have the third trailer to the movie.

It shows off some of that insane action finally, Superman flying, Zod menacing, more of fellow Aussie native Russell Crowe playing Kal-El's father, Jor-El. It is epic, and it deserves to be watched only in 1080p. Let me know your thoughts on the trailer in the comments below!

Comcast has decided to start encrypting even their basic cable channels, forcing customers to use a settop box on every TV where they want to watch cable TV. Previously, basic cable channels would just require hooking a TV up to the coax jack in the wall.

We are beginning to proactively notify customers in select markets that we will begin to encrypt limited basic channels as now permitted by last year's FCC B1 Encryption Order. While the vast majority of our customers won't be impacted because they already have digital equipment connected to their TVs, we understand this will be a change for a small number of customers and will be making it as convenient as possible for them to get the digital equipment they may need to continue watching limited basic channels.

Comcast will provide up to two DTAs free for two years, provided that the customers do not currently have equipment on their account. Customers will also have to request the settop boxes during the offer period around the time of encryption. Comcast has put up this FAQ about what to expect from the new encryption.

Bethesda has made use of the video sharing service Vine to tease a previously unannounced game. The Vine, viewable here, is quite cryptic, though several rumors are flying around the Internet. It starts out by showing barbed wire and then some spinning paper, which appears to be sheet music to Johann Sebastian Bach's "Air on the G-String."

One of the rumors flying around is that it could be a new Fallout game, though Bethesda's VP of Marketing indicated that this isn't the case with a tweet. Other rumors include the possibility that this new game could be a new Wolfenstein game. We'll probably learn more about the game at this year's E3 expo in June.

In the meantime, what do you think of the teaser? Any ideas what game it could be for? Let us know!