Customers with Sky Broadband might find their speeds begin to crawl northward towards the end of the year. The broadcaster is paying Virgin Media's business arm £49 million ($74 million) for some of Richard Branson Liberty Global's deliciously fast fibre infrastructure. While there's no mention of BT, we wouldn't be surprised if this technological makeover was prompted by its corporate rival's recent assault on Sky's sporty golden goose.Filed under: Networking, Internet, HDCommentsVia: The Next WebRead similar

Bay Area app developer Smule has amassed an army of mobile instruments, but really, what fun are all those music makers without a little good old fashioned jamming? Today, the company's offering up the simply named Guitar, an app that lets you strum along to songs recorded through its equally straightforwardly named Sing. At present, the company has hand-picked a dozen or so singers, letting you play along (though expect that number to increase, as time goes on), becoming "the first pair of [Smule] apps that actually talk to each other," according to the company.Using the app is pretty straigh... Read similar

While Pioneer did announce at CES 2013 that its AppRadio 2 smartphone-powered in-dash unit would support the iPhone 5, the company was hush on any additional updates. Now, however, it has finally unveiled AppRadio 3, which is set to arrive in two models oh-so-descriptively named SPH-DA110 and SPH-DA210. Both retain the same functionality as the AppRadio 2 but add compatibility with MirrorLink enabled devices, thus expanding AppRadio's repertoire of supported products. Other notable features include integration with Siri Eyes Free for iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 owners, Google Voice Search for those... Read similar

When a TV, movie or games series is a big deal, it deserves, no, demands a limited edition box-set, preferably including either artwork or an article of clothing -- something that shows your commitment to the cause. Fortunately, Rockstar's decided to prep two different collector editions for Grand Theft Auto 5 players. The $80 version will include the physical game, artbook, and a blueprint map, alongside in-game ability boosts, stunt plane trials, bonus outfits and weapons. Dial the price up to $150, and you'll also get a branded security deposit bag, logo key, cap and even more extra content... Read similar

It's well over a year since the GTX 680 came out, but given how that card was a strong contender it may feel too early for an upgrade. NVIDIA knows the score, which is why it's made a particular point of pitching this year's card at owners of the GTX 580 instead. Upgraders from that GPU are pledged a 70 percent lift in performance, which is about double the gain a GTX 680 owner would see. On the other hand, something more people might notice -- if NVIDIA's slides prove to be accurate -- is a 5dBA drop in noise pollution, as well a new approach to fan control that attracts less attention by var... Read similar

After a series of rumors about the HTC First not selling too well in the States, we've now heard that the customized Facebook / Android handset won't be coming to the UK. Mobile News initially reported that UK pre-orders will be cancelled and we've just confirmed this with our own sources, who said that it was Facebook itself who made the decision, rather than HTC or either of the European carrier partners (EE and Orange). We've reached out to HTC and EE for confirmation and will update if we get a response.Update: We've just heard back from EE, who confirmed the rumor and attributed Facebook'... Read similar

There have been calls for an iPad-native Mailbox app virtually from the get-go -- some of us want to get to inbox zero on a bigger screen, after all. The team has clearly been listening, as the free Mailbox 1.3 update now supports Apple's larger gadgets. While there isn't much mystery in the new version for anyone who has used both Mailbox and other iPad email clients before, power users should appreciate seeing full messages while they swipe away at their inbox. We're still waiting on Mailbox support for other platforms -- and services beyond Gmail, for that matter -- but iPad owners can get ... Read similar

With Hong Kong boasting pretty much the fastest average internet speed on this planet, it's no surprise that the city is also one of the first to launch commercial 150 Mbps LTE Cat 4 service -- just right after SingTel's launch in Singapore earlier this month. Announced yesterday by CSL (who operates both one2free and the more premium 1010), its FD-LTE network takes advantage of the recently acquired 5MHz extended spectrum, in order to increase the capacity of 2600MHz from 2 x 15MHz to 2 x 20MHz. This upgrade is what enables Cat 4 download speed of up to 150Mbps on this band as of yesterday.Th... Read similar

Twitter announced Twitter Amplify this morning, the official name of its program to partner with video creators to embed video directly into the company's social stream. Knowing that a name simply isn't enough to get our blood pumping, the company also revealed a variety of new content partners to bolster its already strong relationships with the NBA and ESPN: A&E, Bloomberg TV, Major League Baseball, and Warner Music are just a few of the many new partners signed up for Twitter Amplify. And yes, we should all expect more Amplify partner announcements in the coming months, as Twitter's act... Read similar

File this under "things we could have sworn already existed." Microsoft just announced two mice, the Sculpt Mobile Mouse and Sculpt Comfort Mouse, and believe it or not, this marks the first time Redmond has made a pointing device with a hotkey for the Windows 8 Start screen. In addition to bringing up the Start Menu, you can use it return to the desktop, all without having to hit the keyboard. While the Mobile Mouse has just the Start key and a scroll wheel, though, the bigger Comfort Mouse takes things a step further: the button there doubles as a capacitive surface you can swipe to toggle t... Read similar