Microsoft is building a new browser in-house that is rumored to work and look a lot more like Chrome & Firefox. The FBI has a lead on the Lizard Squad & who won big in the gadget sales over the holidays.

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Microsoft is building a new browser as part of its Windows 10 push | ZDNet

There’s been talk for a while that Microsoft was going to make some big changes to Internet Explorer in the Windows 10 time frame, making IE “Spartan” look and feel more like Chrome and Firefox.

It turns out that what’s actually happening is Microsoft is building a new browser, codenamed Spartan, which is not IE 12 — at least according to a couple of sources of mine.

Spartan is still going to use Microsoft’s Chakra JavaScript engine and Microsoft’s Trident rendering engine (not WebKit), sources say. As Neowin’s Brad Sams reported back in September, the coming browser will look and feel more like Chrome and Firefox and will support extensions. Sams also reported on December 29 that Microsoft has two different versions of Trident in the works, which also seemingly supports the claim that the company has two different Trident-based browsers.

However, if my sources are right, Spartan is not IE 12. Instead, Spartan is a new, light-weight browser Microsoft is building.

FBI Allegedly Investigating Lizard Squad Member Over Xbox Live, PSN Attacks

The FBI is actively investigating a member of the hacker collective that claimed responsibility for recent high-profile cyberattacks on Microsoft and Sony properties, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation and the attacks. A member of the Lizard Squad hacking group, who goes by the alias “ryanc” or Ryan, allegedly garnered the attention of a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation after speaking with the media about Lizard Squad’s Christmas-day attacks on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network.

The Interview Online Sales – Business Insider

Sony announced Sunday night that “The Interview” was downloaded or rented online more than 2 million times, generating over $15 million in sales.

After initially pulling the movie from theaters, Sony decided to release it online instead. “The Interview” premiered December 24 on YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video, and Sony’s own site, SeeTheInterview.com.

On Sunday, Apple made the movie available for rent or purchase on iTunes.

“The Interview” costs $14.99 to own or $5.99 to rent.

A source familiar with the movie’s online sales told Business Insider the “vast majority” of rentals and downloads came from Google Play and YouTube.

Meanwhile, “The Interview” was pirated an estimated 1.5 million times in its first two days, according to Torrent Freak.

Apple and Apps Dominated Christmas 2014 | Flurry

Flurry examined these new device activations to understand what types of devices consumers are exchanging for the holidays, and with which types of apps they are filling them. Since the beginning of the mobile revolution, Christmas Day has seen the highest number of new device activations and app installs each year, and 2014 was no exception. Flurry examined data from the more than 600,000 apps.

Apple accounted for 51% of the new device activations worldwide Flurry recognized in the week leading up to and including Christmas Day (December 19th – 25th). Samsung held the #2 position with 18% of new device activations, and Microsoft (Nokia) rounded out the top three with 5.8% share for mostly Lumia devices. After the top three manufacturers, the device market becomes increasingly fragmented with only Sony and LG commanding more than one percent share of new activations on Christmas Day. Up-and-comers Xiaomi, Huawei, and HTC all had less than one percent share on Christmas Day. One reason is surely their popularity in Asian markets where December 25th is not the biggest gift-giving day of the year.

6 Terabyte Hard Drive Round-Up: WD Red, WD Green and Seagate Enterprise 6TB

For a while, 4TB drives were the top end of what was available in the market but recently Seagate, HGST, and Western Digital announced breakthroughs in areal density and other technologies, that enabled the advent of the 6 Terabyte hard drive. This round-up looks at three offerings in the market currently, with a WD Red 6TB drive, WD Green and a Seagate 6TB Enterprise class model. Though the WD drives only sport a 5400RPM spindle speed, due to their increased areal density of 1TB platters, they’re still able to put up respectable performance. Though the Seagate Enterprise Capacity 6TB (also known as the Constellation ES series) drive offers the best performance at 7200 RPM, it comes at nearly a $200 price premium. Still, at anywhere from .04 to .07 per GiB, you can’t beat the bulk storage value of these new high capacity 6TB HDDs.