It's an interesting time for Windows-based systems, as there are mountains of Android- and iOS-based devices being sold every minute of every day, with no sign of slowing down.

DigiTimes' latest report is that major PC vendors are joining Intel in their push for Android-based convertible touch-based devices. Yes, Android-based devices are wanted from Intel, with it looking like they're slowly shifting away from Windows. Lenovo are the ones reportedly leading the pack, where they'll release an Android-based version of their Yoga, an 11-inch convertible tablet.

Acer, ASUS, HP and Toshiba are all preparing Android-based devices, which we should see more of heading into Computex and even more in Q3 2013. DigiTimes' sources have said that the "sweet spot" for Android notebook pricing is at around $500, which means we should see some pretty powerful devices similar to what we see from Apple and their iPad, and Samsung and others with their current Android-based slates.

LSI Corporation have something kinda big to talk about for the weekend, and that news is IBM are now offering versions of their High IOPS Modular Adapters based on LSI's Nytro WarpDrive technology. These models join a growing list of PCIe Flash cards that are designed to be used with IBM System x server series.

IBM's System x server series are used by large clients that require insane speed for Big Data analytics. LSI's Nytro WarpDrive products provide ultra-low-latency, high-performance storage for data-intensive applications, all while helping cloud and enterprise datacenters reduce their storage footprint, as well as those ever-increasing energy costs. The IBM High IOPS capacity options range from 300GB to 800GB of SLC and MLC Flash memory for IBM System x servers.

Have Bethesda just unveiled their latest title? We've heard whispers of it for a while now, but the Australian Video Game Classifications Board has just outed another video game.

Bethesda are calling this one 'Endless Summer', which is a game set to feature "strong horror themes and violence", and in Australia, has earned itself an MA15+ classification. The classification report states that Endless Summer features high impact violence, but no drug use. There should be mild nudity and a mild impact when in relation to sexual themes.

Remember, that Endless Summer could just be a codename, and that the name could change before its release, or even unveiling to the public.

That is all that is known, so let's recap. Bethesda, Endless Summer, horror, strong rating. Zenimax is involved, so could we expect some form of an open-world horror title? That would definitely be something new on the market. Next-gen consoles, do you work!

The PlayStation 4 is coming out this year, where I suspect we'll see it a month or so before the Holiday season - so November 2013. What could sell millions of consoles by itself? A truly next-generation Gran Turismo game.

It seems that Newegg are listing Gran Turismo 6 for a November 28 release, with Italian retailer Multiplayer backing them up. We've slapped a RumorTT stamp on this post for now, but this news gives us two gems to take away with us. First, GT6 is coming - we know this, but November 2013? That is awfully close considering GT5 only came out in November of 2010.

The bigger thing, is that if Sony were to really push the PS4 to its limits in terms of sales before the lucrative Holiday season - GT6 would be the title to do it with. We could also theorize that the PlayStation 4 would be released sometime in November if the GT6 release date is true. Exciting times.

Code found in the Google Glass companion app seems to indicate that Google will be allowing Glass users to take pictures by simply winking. Of course, with this comes numerous different issues. For instance, it'd be nearly impossible for people to tell that someone was taking a picture, which is already a problem with the advent of cell phones.

The problem of unwanted photographs in already such a problem in South Korea that cell phone manufacturers are required to program cameras to make a shutter sound that can't be disabled by users. At the same time, hands free functionality such as this would be beautiful for taking pictures while doing things with your hands.

What are your thoughts on the possibility of taking pictures by winking? Should Google be required to have Glass make a shutter sound?

Amazon has updated the Kindle app store with a bunch of new apps, including a much-anticipated Xbox SmartGlass app. The SmartGlass app is a companion app for the Xbox 360 that allows users to control their Xbox and get second-screen information, including access to Xbox Music, messaging, and other features.

The app has been available since fall for iOS and Android, but has just been made available Amazon's redesigned Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD. The app will scale natively to the resolutions provided by these Android tablets. If you have a Kindle Fire or Fire HD and an Xbox 360, you can download the SmartGlass app for free from the Amazon App Store.

The HTC One could be facing another delay, at least in the Netherlands. Nokia has been granted a preliminary injunction against HTC over the latter's use of high-amplitude mics in their latest flagship device. As you can see in the picture below, both the Lumia 720 and HTC One use the same dual-membrane components.

HTC is disappointed in the decision. We are considering whether it will have any impact on our business and we will explore alternative solutions immediately.

Nokia asserts that the supplier of the Lumia 720 part was supposed to be manufacturing the part exclusively for Nokia: "[the] microphone components [were] invented by and manufactured exclusively for Nokia."

This could be bad news for HTC. The One has already faced delays due to component shortages and could again be facing delays. This device is the--pardon the pun--one that HTC needs to turn their floundering company around.

Netflix had a fairly successful first quarter, adding a total of over three million users around the world. In the United States alone, Netflix pulled in 2.03 million new customers. These new additions bring Netflix's total subscriber count to over 30 million, higher than that of HBO for the first time ever.

Netflix pulled in $32 million in profits off of $1 billion in revenue for the quarter. To help increase revenues, Netflix is planning to offer an $11.99 plan that would officially support streaming to up to four devices. The current limit is two, but it doesn't seem to be heavily enforced.

CEO Reed Hastings expects less than one percent of subscribers to move to the new, more expensive plan. In other news, Hastings says that fewer than 8,000 people created free trial accounts to just watch House of Cards and then quit.

According to Eric Schmidt, Google Glass are about a "year-ish" away from getting a general market release. Glass was widely expected to be available sometime this year, though the new information from Schmidt during a BBC Radio 4 interview seems to suggest that this won't be the case.

Google is already releasing Explorer Editions of Glass to developers and they will get to play with them over the coming months, suggesting feedback as they go along. This feedback will then be used to improve the final version of glass before it hits the market.

He went on:

The fact of the matter is that we'll have to develop some new social etiquette. It's obviously not appropriate to wear these glasses in situations where recording is not correct. Companies like Google have a very important responsibility to keep your information safe but you have a responsibility as well which is to understand what you're doing, how you're doing it, and behave appropriately and also keep everything up to date.

This morning TechSpot broke news that during 2011 and 2012 over 2700 servers hosted with HostGator were compromised when an employee installed backdoors on the machines. Prosecutors say that 29 year old Eric Gunnar Gisse of Texas was responsible for the inside hacking.

Gisse was employed by the company between September of 2011 and February 2012 as a medium level systems administrator. HostGator says that Gisse went to great lengths to hide the backdoor as a common Unix admin tool, which he renamed "pcre", which is a common system file.

No evidence was presented as to whether or not Gisse ever used the backdoor to access any of the servers remotely, but as the meme goes, "One simply does not install a backdoor onto 2700 servers without the intent to use them."

Gisse is scheduled to be arraigned next month. It's unclear if he has entered a plea as of this writing. He is being held on $20,000 bond at the Harris County Jail in Houston, TX.

This afternoon Mars One officially announced the opening of its search and application process for the first manned mission to the planet Mars. Mars One is looking for two men and two women from different nationalities to man a one-way trip to Mars in 2023.

The trip to Mars is not for the light hearted, or those who are not willing to give up everything they have known. "While it is possible that, within the lifetime of the early settlers on Mars, there will be opportunity to bring one or more back to Earth, it cannot be anticipated nor expected", reads part of the mission briefing on the Mars-One.com website.

While I fully support this endeavor, and am immensely excited about humans leaving the planet Earth and populating another world, I still feel that a colonization mission is nothing more than suicide and will remain so until we develop a form of terraforming that would render the Martian atmosphere more hospitable for human life. I think a more technology appropriate approach would be for an orbital mission where we send explorers on a mission to orbit the planet before returning home.

Google has been using its Street View cars to snoop WiFi for years and today Germany has said enough is enough. The Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection has just hit the search giant with a fairly large fine of $190,000.

While that fine may seem astronomical to us, Google will treat it as nothing more than a pin-prick in its deep pocketed leather skin. The fine comes three years after an investigation in which Google was found guilty of pulling WiFi data from open networks that were discovered by its Street View cars.

Personal data including emails, passwords and pictures were all recorded, but Google says that all of the data has since been deleted. While I see where this invasion of privacy is a big deal, with more and more people using Gmail, Google+, Google Drive and Android, Google already has all of our private data stored on its servers anyway.

This morning Acer launched a new teaser video that featured glimpses of a new "revolutionary notebook" that appears to have some sort of uni-hinge design that allows the screen to flip over. The teaser is paired up with a Star Trek Into Darkness trailer, and quite well I might add.

The video concludes with a link to Acer's "Explore Beyond Limits" website which features two more Star Trek / Acer product integrated teaser videos as well as some high resolution desktop wallpapers. The new laptop looks interesting and you can expect full coverage on the device at Acer's launch event on Friday May 3rd.

This morning rumors of two new NVIDIA GeForce Titan GPU's have made their way to our ears. Website 3DCeter.org is reporting that NVIDIA is planning to launch two revisions of its flagship Titan GPU, the Titan LE and Titan II.

The new models will bring the Titan lineup to three different units that all share the same GK110 processor with the Titan LE being a slightly underclocked model, that uses marginal chips that didn't make the grade for full-fledged Titan performance. The LE will feature 2,495 CUDA cores across 208 texture mapping units, 5GB of GDDR5, and a peak power consumption rate of 190W, according to the leak.

The GTX Titan II is an upgraded model to the now famous GTX Titan and unlocks more of the GK110's power than the stock Titan. The Titan II name is said to change to Titan Ultra on launch and will feature 2,880 CUDA cores across 256 texture mapping units. Clock speed is boosted to 950MHz with RAM staying the same as the stock Titan at 6GB.

NVIDIA did not have any comments on the rumors.

It has been an awesome year so far for Apple if you only look at their sales numbers, but if you take a step back and let the entire picture come into focus you will see that things are not looking so good for the once largest company in the world.

This year we have already seen Apple's stock drop below $400 from a record high of over $700, a difference of 44-percent. While Apple is expected to post its strongest second quarter sales in its history, the company will report its first decline in profits in over ten years.

Analyst are forecasting iPhone sales of around 35 million units during the first quarter of 2013 with iPad sales in the 17 million range. Mac sales are hovering around 4 million units. Apple is expected to report that the gross margin on these products to be around 47.4-percent which is much higher than the expected 37.5-percent the company was hoping for.

When Microsoft killed the start button with Windows 8, many long time users were appalled, and cried foul. This morning the Verge is reporting that we will see a reappearance of the start button in the Windows 8.1, but don't get too excited yet.

If you were hoping for a start menu along with the revived start button, you will be sadly disappointed, the new start button is essentially a reskinned copy of the charm that appears when you mouse over to the right hand side of the desktop. Clicking the new start button will open the live tile interface.

News of this addition comes shortly after the announcement that Windows 8.1 will include a "boot to desktop" mode that will let users log directly into the desktop interface and forgo ever having to look at live tiles again.

Western Digital have just unveiled their latest storage device, a new 3.5-inch SAS-based solution for legacy data center storage systems. The release of their WD Xe, a 2.5-inch, 10,000 RPM, SAS-based HDD, is now available in a 3.5-inch WD performance adapter.

The new drive is shipping immediately, offering best-in-class performance, low power consumption, and a simple upgrade path for existing 3.5-inch storage systems. WD have cited the slowing demand for 3.5-inch, high-performance enterprise-class drives, but there is still a need for an alternate high-performance device as a transitional solution for legacy systems.

WD's 3.5-inch SAS WD Xe drive arrives with a SATA 6Gbps standard, and a sequential data rate of 204MB/sec. The 3.5-inch SAS drive can deliver up to 67% lower power versus 3.5-inch 15,000 RPM drives, which dramatically reduces cost and heat output. The new WD Xe SAS drives will arrive in 300GB, 600GB and 900GB and are priced from $229.99 to $599.99.

It looks as though Facebook are the ones behind the huge data center construction project which is taking place in the town of Altoona, Iowa. This new data center will be the fourth company-owned data center.

The remaining three are in Prineville, Ore., Forest City, N.C., and Lulea, Sweden. The news comes from a report in the Des Moines Register, who says the data center will span 1.4 million square feet. There's no news on whether the social network would see any tax breaks or incentives for building in Iowa.

Facebook are also said to want some tax credits for using wind power, something that will require a vote by the state legislature. State officials have been quiet about the whole ordeal, but there was some large competition between Iowa and Nebraska to win the deal.

According to Nintendo of America's chief executive, Reggie Fils-Aime, digital downloads are soaring. The executive adds that digital downloads are also becoming a "notable contributor" to Nintendo's bottom line, something he thinks will continue. Fils-Aime says:

We have 15 Nintendo-published titles available, both physically and digitally [on the 3DS]. So far in 2013, of those 15 available in this format, 11 percent of sales have come through full digital downloads of those games.

The Nintendo 3DS has been popular in the US, selling 8 million units in the first two years of being available. The Nintendo exec revealed that the 3DS smash hit Fire Emblem alone has seen digital sales of around 80,000 copies.

Anonymous don't let down on their promises, and with April 22 starting in some parts of the world, the Anonymous-led Web blackout has officially begun. The hacking collective will lead some 200+ sites who will suspend normal operations in protest of the rights-raping Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) that recently passed the US House of Representatives.

Anonymous, along with other groups, have called for the blackout protesters to use the hashtags #CISPAblackout and #StopCISPA. Last year's anti-SOPA blackout had some big support with companies like Google helping out, where the CISPA protest is mainly limited to the hacking and Anonymous circles. Anonymous and Occupy Facebook and Twitter websites have also promised to go silent for the day.

If CISPA passes, there will be a lot of change to users' rights and privacy on the web, we'll make sure to report as much CISPA news as we can.