It looks like Google is going bonkers with its spring cleaning this year as they have already announced they’re ending its Google Reader and Google+ Games this year, but it looks like the search giant isn’t done sweeping some of its services under their rug as now, Google Checkout will be getting the axe.

Google Checkout is expected to be retired on November 20 as part of the company’s transition to fully support its multi-platform payment system, Google Wallet. In a blog post published yesterday, Google says merchants will be able to accept payments through Checkout until its retired on November 20. After that date, they’ll need to transition to another payment processing service, which Google has partnered with Brantree, Shopify and Freshbooks to make the process a little bit easier.

Google developers will automatically be transitioned to the Google Wallet Merchant Center within the next few weeks if they happen to be selling through additional Google properties, such as Google Play or Google’s Chrome Web Store. A Google Wallet button will also be available for shoppers for making purchases on merchant apps and sites, as well as Google properties.

When it comes to advertisements, it’s always better to get the approval of the artist whose music you’re “borrowing” rather than end up in a publicized lawsuit, which is exactly what’s happening between Eminem’s music publisher and Facebook as the company is suing both the social network and its advertising agency, claiming they infringed the rapper’s copyright.

The complaint contends a Facebook ad which was broadcast online on April 4 copied music from Eminem’s song, Under The Influence. The ad, which was called “Airplane,” was used in Facebook’s webcast during the company’s announcement of Facebook Home. Eight Mile Style, which is the company in charge of overseeing the rights and licensing of Eminem’s song catalog, claims Facebook’s ad agency copied the song “in an effort to curry favor with Facebook by catering to Zuckerberg’s personal likes and interests, and/or to invoke the same irreverent theme” as Eminem’s song.

After listening to both the Facebook Home Airplane commercial and Eminem’s Under The Influence (NSFW), we certainly see there are some similarities, but certainly not enough where the song played during the commercial could be considered a complete copy of the original track. What do you think?

We reported on an issue Google Voice users have been experiencing if they chose to give Hangouts a spin within their Gmail account. The problem users were reporting was their inability to make or receive calls from within Gmail. It’s a problem we’re sure Google was not aware of prior to Hangouts’ launch, but one of Google’s product managers has confirmed a fix is on the way.

Nikhyl Sinhal revealed the upcoming update in a Google+ post by first confirming the problem saying “Today’s version of Hangouts doesn’t yet support outbound calls on the web and in the Chrome extension, but we do support inbound calls to your Google Voice number.” Sinhal goes on to say Google is working on supporting both with outbound / inbound calls becoming available soon and recommends those users who are affected should continue to use Google Talk in Gmail.

Sinhal ends his post by confirming Hangouts is “designed to be the future of Google Voice.” Google plans on having the process of making and receiving calls be seamlessly integrated in its Hangouts.

At CTIA 2013, NVIDIA is demonstrating its 4G LTE modem capability of the Tegra 4i processor with integrated modem and the i500 stand-alone modem. You may recall that NVIDIA did a similar demonstration at Mobile World Congress when they showed a CAT3 100Mbps LTE link , but this time, the chip-maker has pushed the envelope by connecting their modems to a CAT4 150Mbps LTE link.
Read full post →Tegra 4i Integrated LTE Modem Tops 150Mbps

Considering that your Skype messages are being sent through a server before reaching the person on the other end, would you be utterly surprised if you found that your Skype messages are actually being read by the company that owns the software? While we guess it’s nice to think that the folks at Skype/Microsoft aren’t reading our messages, it turns out that maybe they are. This is according to a report by the folks at Ars Technica who teamed up with security researcher, Ashkan Soltani who discovered that links being sent across Skype were access by a machine whose IP address belonged to Microsoft.
Read full post →Skype Messages Found To Be Not As Private As You Might Think

The folks in Japan sometimes come up with some pretty creative gadgets, usually novel, but creative nonetheless. If you’re in the market for such a novel gadget, Thanko has a miniature camera that you might want to take a look at. This is not the first miniature camera we’ve seen, and by miniature we don’t mean that it is compact, but as you can see in the image above, is definitely more than compact in the sense that it is about the size of a coin! In fact it can even be worn around your neck or attached to your bag like a keychain of sorts.

The device measures 38x33x28mm and weighs a barely noticeable 17g. It is capable of capturing both video and photos in AVI and JPEG format respectively, both of which will be saved to a microSD card. It even features a strobe flash which when darkness is detected, can be fired to help illuminate the subject, although don’t expect too much from such a tiny device. It even comes with a motion sensor that can start recording videos about 2 minutes long by detecting body movement. Not too shabby for such a small device, right? It can be ordered via Thanko’s website (although you might need to brush up on your Japanese) for 5,980 yen.

Online games can be found, especially if you have a good group of friends to play it with, but at the same time we’ve all heard the horror stories of parents neglecting their children, and how some gamers have died just because they’ve been playing online games for excessive periods of time. The South Korean government seems to feel strongly about online gaming as well and they are looking to pass a bill in which online gaming could be viewed in the same light as drugs and alcohol, which is as a addictive substance.

This bill was announced by South Korean politician, Shin Eui-jin, who stated that the bill will allow the government to place some strict restrictions on online gaming since it can now be viewed as an addictive substance. This bill is backed up by fourteen other political representatives, and naturally some developers aren’t too pleased about it. One developer who spoke to Inews24 stated how “It is regretful that the government views games in the same category as drugs and gambling,” and basically how such a bill would hinder one of the country’s leading areas of economic growth. What do you guys think? Do you think online gaming should be viewed in the same light as drugs and alcohol?

Android users, if you’re not a fan of the default browser of Google Chrome, you’re in luck because an alternative has just been made available for you. Just after 3 months of launching in beta form, Opera for Android is now available for the public and can be download for free via the Google Play store. Opera for Android won’t differ too greatly from other browser apps for Android, but if you’re a fan or regular user of the desktop version of Opera, it seems that there are a couple of features which have been carried over from the desktop version onto the mobile version, which we guess you will have to be the judge of whether it was a good idea or not. Other features include a Speed Dial menu, an Off-Road mode that will connect to the internet via Opera’s proxy which not only will compress data, but will also help speed up the loading of webpages while keeping data consumption down to a minimum, so for those on tight data allowances, this might be worth taking a look at. So, who’s excited at the prospect of taking Opera for Android for a spin?

The other day Sony Japan revealed the trailer for a game called Panopticon. The trailer did not really tell us much about the game, and if you’re wondering just what the heck it is, well as it turns out, the game’s official title is Freedom Wars and it will be a game exclusive to Sony’s handheld console, the PS Vita. Sony has also released a new trailer video which is basically the original trailer you saw last time, except that this time round, there are subtitles and offers a little insight as to what is going on. As you might have saw in the previous trailer, there were numbers floating above the heads of some of the characters. It turns out that these numbers are actually a counter for how long a person has left on their prison sentences, and considering that all the characters have it on them, it is possible that the entire game could be based on some kind of virtual prison of sorts. Sony has also listed the game’s genre as being “Recovery” Multiplayer Action, whatever that means, but perhaps there will be some kind of co-op mode. In any case you can check out the “new” trailer in the video above.

One of the ways Nokia has managed to convince customers to come aboard their ship instead of the competition is by offering Lumia exclusives which aren’t available on other Windows Phone devices, and this is made possible thanks to the close relationship Nokia and Microsoft have. Well if you’re a Lumia owner and you love checking into places, you might want to check out the new official Foursquare app for Windows Phone which will come with an exclusive Augmented Reality feature that is only available on Lumia handsets.

Basically what this augmented reality feature does is that it allows users to search for potential venues simply by switching to the augmented reality mode and from there, the camera viewfinder will be able to show users the various locations that they can visit by overlaying Foursquare venues on top of the camera viewfinder. We guess it does sound like a pretty novel feature, but we guess for those who love technology and trying new things, this app might just do the trick. In any case the official Foursquare app can be downloaded via the Windows Phone Store, so head on over if you’d like to check it out.