News

The biggest news for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and its shareholders last week was the debut of the iPhone in China. On Friday, China Mobile, the world's largest carrier with over 750 million subscribers, began selling the iPhone 5c and 5s. Pre-orders for the devices began in December and reached 1 million. Analysts expect China Mobile to sell anywhere from 10 million to 15 million iPhones this year. You can read more about this here.

The 2013 Q4 numbers also came in last week and, according to market research company NPD Group, Apple saw significant gains. Apple's market share grew from 35% in Q4 2012 to 42% in Q4 2013. NPD also found that smart phone ownership is growing, claiming six out of ten phones, up from 52% last year. As would be

Baldur's Gate II is listed as being released to the App Store in December, but for some reason it is just hitting everyone's radar now. In case you missed the memo, it is now available for $14.99. It is only compatible with the iPad and requires iOS 5 or later. Here's the App Store Link.

Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition includes the original Shadows of Amn campaign, as well as the following expansions:

- Throne of Bhaal: Travel to Tethyr in this thrilling conclusion to the Bhaalspawn saga, and delve into the treasure-filled halls of Watcher’s Keep!
- Fist of the Fallen: Help the Sun Soul Monk Rasaad find peace in his quest for vengeance, and determine the fate of a heretical sect.
- Unbound: Join the Blackguard Dorn in carving a swath of destruction across the Realms, as he struggles to appease the increasingly bloody demands of his dark patron.
- A Shadow’s Life: Recruit the mysterious Thief Hexxat and take up her mission of retrieving long lost artifacts from tombs as far away as Zakhara..
- In Defense of the Wild: Protect the innocent and stand with Neera the Wild Mage against a ruthless school of Red Wizards.
- The Black Pits II: Gladiators of Thay: Explore the tactical depth of high-level Dungeons & Dragons combat. Turn your captors against each other while you dodge traps and battle for your life against Demi-Liches, Mind Flayers, and the legendary Githyanki.

Starting on Monday, January 20, Apple will be replacing damaged iPhone 5c screens in their stores. This is good news for any 5c owner who, after a bad drop, has had that sinking feeling confirmed when they turned it over to find a spiderweb of broken glass.

Everybody knows someone who perpetually has a fractured screen - their warranty has run out and they didn't purchase insurance and they are waiting for their upgrade, or they'd rather have a broken screen than go through re-installing

You know Bardbarian is going to be a unique experience from the opening seconds when the main character pops a zit and urinates into a bucket during the intro to the game. The game follows Brad, a barbarian who is tired of defending his town from goblin invaders. Brad decides one day to turn his battle-axe into an"Axe-Loot" and use rock and roll music to inspire the townspeople to fight for themselves.

The official App Store description describes Bardbarian as an unique hybrid of arcade, RPG, tower defense and shoot-em-up games. The game doesn't really feature any RPG elements, unless you count upgrades and a Story mode, but it is a unique tower defense title.

A recent document on Chromium confirms that Google is currently developing a remote desktop app called "Chromoting." There are already remote desktop apps such as Splashtop, Screens and Ignition, but those cost $4.99, $19.99 and a whopping $129.99 respectively. Chromoting supposedly will be free.

Few details are available currently, and the document suggests that there is still a lot of work to be done:

"... the iOS version is very unpolished at this stage. The toolbar icons are all placeholder, and the background color behind the host screen needs to be changed from blue to black. The upper toolbar for iOS (containing just the back button, so it can barely be called a toolbar), is revealed by tapping on the compass in the lower toolbar. Our plan is to consolidate the upper and lower toolbars into one toolbar that will likely be located in the upper section of the screen."

We can at least expect some of the basic functionality offered by the others. Remote