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Bitcoin; the once elusive currency reserved for shady transactions on the deep web has become popular over the past 12 months, but a recent collapse has its integrity in question. Firstly, it is important to understand what bitcoin is. For the uneducated, Bitcoin is a digital only 'currency' that is used like regular money, to make transactions, with the added bonus of (possibly) being anonymous. Due to an exploit in Bitcoin and in the online wallet service, Mt. Gox, Many people are raising an eyebrow about the reliability and integrity of the currency. Goldman Sachs, a HUGE investment banking company, recently weighed in and called Bitcoin a "speculative financial asset", not a currency. Personally, I think the currency, which was created with the purpose of being an anonymous hard currency, has failed because it has gone to the mainstream. The money isn't heavily secured, as the recent online bank heists have shown, and has no real advantage for the public. Bitcoin worked fine, amazing even, as a P2P currency only used by the deep web community, but its gotten to big and needs regulation to stay constant. This, however, is against the very nature of BTC and will therefore not be supported by the community. All in all, BTC is an interesting idea that worked on the micro scale, but cannot hope to function on the macro.

AdBlock is tool that many of us know of, and would totally never use because it can take revenue from content creators *shifty eyes*. All of us hate annoying ads, whether they be prerolls on videos or pop ups, or less than appropriate advertisements on streaming and torrenting websites. Adblock is a wonderful creation that hides most of those, and is thusly loved by many. Recently Adblock has done another thing which will undoubtedly make its user base happy, the web application now also blocks trackers, malicious cookies and scripts. This can be extremely important to people who value their privacy as it helps to ensure that as little of your private data is being sold as possible. The issue of online privacy has been gaining traction over the past few years and especially sine the Snowden revelations. I personally commend Adblock for their goal to protect their users, I and many others care about privacy and make active decisions to stay anonymous (I, for instance, use encrypted search engines and web browsers that encrypt data). This decision by Adblock isn't a huge step forward in online protection and privacy, but it is a step, and that's important.

This article is about a new phone being released by a company called FreedomPop. FreedomPop is an internet service provider that provides mobile service in the US. The phone is known as the Privacy Phone. It is the only phone currently on the market that allows for encrypted communications. It supposedly has 128 bit encryption for voice calls and text messages. Data from the internet is sent through a virtual private network, which is very secure and encrypted. Also the privacy phone allows you to change your phone number whenever you like.I think this is a great idea because many people can be hacked easily these days and finally there is a private way for people make calls, texts and access the internet. With that being said, who knows how long it will be before someone successfully hacks and bypasses the security on this phone.

Ebay, a service beloved by all, is an online market place for the buying and selling of goods. This week, Ebay has been at the forefront of innovation yet again. The tech giants are now allowing sales to be made in crypto-currency (aka virtual currency; think Bitcoin or Dogecoin). This is a very interesting move considering the companies usual apprehension over the digital world; having a long-standing policy against digitally downloaded items. Ebay is widely renowned and is used by people everywhere, and making virtual currency a payable option shows how far the idea has come. Bitcoin started out as a crypto-currency reserved exclusively for less than savoury characters on the dark web. However, the currency has been since thrust into the light and has become wildly popular; going for $600 a bitcoin. This is ultimately a win for Ebay and for us the consumers. Another way to pay can make new transactions much easier and efficient, no need to bring a third party in (PayPal). All in all, this new move by Ebay is another step in legitimizing online currency and making it available to the masses.

This article is about a bio-organic battery by StoreDot, which uses quantum dot technology to charge a phone from flat to full in 30 seconds. There is currently only a prototype and the tech used has not yet been shrinked so that if is small enough to fit inside phones. The battery is famous for its amazing charging speed for a smartphone. The info of this technology is from research being done into Alzheimer's disease. The work is called peptides (amino acids), the company uses these molecules to create nano-crystals. The only disadvantage said by StoreDot is that the ecosystem is not ready because this is a brand new type of material. This creation is great but then it has some risks because of the new type of technology and it may affect the environment negatively.

Picture in, your mind, an app. Now this app is probably popular, one you downloaded and is from the apple app store; this, however, could be changing soon. Although the android market place has been number 1 in downloads for a while now, they've been lagging behind in profit, but that gap is closing. The market place, already receiving 45% more downloads than the apple app store, is becoming more and more popular. Expanding markets in developing countries is aiding the expansion. Ultimately, android's reasonable pricing for phones is contributing to a huge boom in phone and app sales. Although this is the case, the market place is still far behind the App Store in revenue. The app store is currently making apple 85% more than the market place does for android, but those numbers are changing. One day soon, Android may topple apple's dominance in the app world and take its place as king.

Blockbuster is now defeated by Netflix(I think). Apperently blockbuster was bought out of by bankruptcy. Thats too bad and now Netflix is dominating its business. Its much easier to use, plus dont have to make your way to the store. Netflix made it easier for everyone by downlaoding it with a computer or with gaming systems. In the end Netflix is better.

A USB flash drive is a data storage device. So why not make things more fun with Mimoco, a company releasing USB keys modeled after your favorite characters. Available in Hello Kitty, Star Wars, Transformers and DC comic book characters.

So, Facebook has recently lost some followers, in case no one has heard. Today, Facebook announced the launch of another new feature: something called Subscriptions. It's actually pretty basic. You'll notice that some users will have a button that says "Subscribe." If you press that button, you will begin to see the user's updates in your News Feed, like tthey would if you were their Facebook Friend. However, the people you subscribe to don't approve your request, and there's no limit as to how many people can subscribe to a user. It is very much like Twitter and Google+, not to mention a stronger reboot of a feature called Pages, which has been up and running for a while. The plus side: you can choose what is shown publicly, and what is shown only to friends. Interesting to see how users take to this.

Best Buy is preparing for the fleet of customers that will be coming in for the iPhone 4S. they have just recieved their order and are awaiting the mass of loyal apple customers that will be coming. But dont worry just in case you find the iPhone 4S a little pricey they still have made other large orders of iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. The iPhone 3GS is being offered for free, but of course there comes a pricey plan with this

RadioShack is offering a pretty good trade in program following the release of the new iPhone 4S. You can trade in any smartphone, they will get a rep to analyse your phone and will give you a price. You will then get store credit for this phone and of course we all know its going towards your new iPhone 4S. You can trade in a undamaged unscratched iPhone 4 for an upgrade and have store credit left to burn.

Along with the Launch of Mafia Wars 2, Zynga has managed to get a new 270,000 square feet of space in San Fran. The place was decorated by some guy called the "Minister of Cool", who led internal Zynga teams focused on intergrating unique lighting, interior design and functionality. This includes a laser tube doorway, random dog bowls, and many other weird things.

Second bad news for Sony today.  Following the hack attempts at three of their networks, the company today announced [JP] that it will recall a total of 1.6 million BRAVIA LCD TV sets sold in Japan and other regions. The problem is a backlight component inside the TVs that could overheat and make the upper casing melt.

The launch of Sony's new handheld console Vita in Japan is just two months away (December 17), so it's about time big S made some official announcements regarding software prices. In a nut shell, the first batch of titles will not be sold for cheap.

Wait, Newsstand? A special folder just for digital magazines and newspapers? Meh! Lets just go ahead and delete th… oh, you can't. It's okay, we'll just put it into another folder and… nope, you can't do that either. Well, you can - you're just not supposed to. The Internet Hivemind has found a way.