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Last month after analyzing Gartner's Q4 handset sales data, I quipped: "At this pace, smartphone sales should surpass feature phones within a couple quarters". Today, IDC released a real forecast, claiming that smartphone shipments would do just that. While not exactly sales, the change would mark a significant shift in the mobile phone market, with China charging ahead of all other countries.

The analyst firm expects smartphone shipments to nudge past 50 percent for the year, a forecast I consider to be overly conservative. Based on sales, the category already has 44 percent share, according to Gartner. The smartphone market is so fast-changing, few analysts get anything right. As I explained in December, IDC repeatedly underforecast smartphone shipments throughout 2012. The general view is likely right, but with feature phones falling at brisker pace.

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Little less than a week after the last build, Team Win Recovery Project has released a new version of the popular custom Android recovery TWRP. The newest iteration features a number of bug fixes and general improvements.

TWRP 2.4.3.0 touts fixing the persistence of the 24 hour time setting, which was introduced alongside TWRP 2.4.2.0, the loading of the screen timeout setting during start-up, the file selector crash (which is attributed to the multi-threaded design of TWRP), as well as two bugs related to restores. For users who have encountered issues with restoring backups, the functionality should work as intended with the latest version.

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Samsung is set to launch its flagship Galaxy S IV smartphone in New York as part of the Samsung Unpacked event on March 14. In order to start building some hype (not that the successor to the world's best smartphone needs it), the South Korean corporation has unveiled the first in a series of teaser trailers.

The advert introduces us to Jeremy Maxwell, a young child given the task of looking after a cardboard box with Un Packed on the side. In the teaser he is briefly shown the contents of the container, of which we see nothing, aside from the fact that whatever is inside glows very brightly (as someone says on YouTube, "it seems that inside the box there's a photocopier"), and then takes it home with him.

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Open-source Windows defrag tool UltraDefrag 6.0 FINAL has been released along with a 64-bit build and portable editions. The new build promises optimized disk processing algorithms for speed and efficiency, support for optimizing FAT disks and the ability to minimize the main window to the Taskbar Notification area.

Ultra Defrag comes with a graphical interface for less experienced users as well as options for defragging individual files, folders and drives from the Explorer context menu, but power users can also control it via a console, with options for batch processing and setting up scheduled tasks available. It also comes with boot-time options for defragging system files and Registry hives.

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Koushik Dutta, the developer behind Android apps like Carbon, ROM Manager and the popular ClockworkMod custom recovery, has released a new open-source root access management app called Superuser.

Explaining the reason for making it open-source, Dutta says that in his opinion a root access management app should be open to "independent security analysis" and that "obscurity (closed source) is not security". He also places a great deal of value on making the app "AOSP buildable" so that developers can include it in custom Android distributions.

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ASUS Transformer Pad owners are in for a treat, the latest treat in the candy jar in fact -- the Taiwanese manufacturer has announced that it will upgrade the popular tablet to Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

On its Facebook page, ASUS revealed that the Transformer Pad, in TF300 trim, is set to receive an update to Android 4.2 Jelly Bean this month, although there's no exact date as to when the roll-out will begin. According to the company, the Transformer Pad is the first non-Nexus device to receive the upgrade to the newest iteration of the popular green droid operating system.

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In tough economic times, raising the money and getting a movie made without any major stars in it can be more than a little challenging for independent film makers. Getting it distributed is even harder.

So instead of trying to get their movie into cinemas, releasing it straight to DVD, or even putting it out on YouTube, the makers of Pulp are distributing their low-budget British comedy via an alternative method -- Xbox Live.

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Eleventh in a series. The next installment of Robert X. Cringely's 1991 tech-industry classic Accidental Empires is highly appropriate for the industry today. He discusses concepts like "look and feel", how pioneers freely copied ideas and where attitudes began to change. There's something prescient, with respect to aggressive patent litigation by Apple and some other companies today.

This chapter also explores the incredible contribution one research lab, Xerox PARC, made to personal computing as we know it --germinator of graphical user interface, mouse, Ethernet and laser printer, among others. Photo is of the Alto, arguably the first computer workstation and one of many, many products conceived but not marketed.

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I am sure I am not alone when I say that Evernote is one of my favorite services. It makes life so much easier -- I can write a note on my PC and then see it on my phone when I am out. I can add an item to a shopping list and it appears on my wife's phone while she is in the store. There are all sorts of cool possibilities. But, if you visit the service today then you may be in for a bit of a surprise.

When you try to log into the site you will be taken to a prompt that asks you to please change your password -- no you did not enter your login credentials wrong. The service announced this morning that it was hacked. Dave Engberg of Evernote posted the bad news, while also trying to reassure customers that there is really nothing to worry about and that the password change is simply precautionary.

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Google is a hardware company now, something that is too often overlooked. Last week, the search and information company launched its first computer, Chromebook Pixel, which I reviewed overnight yesterday. In August 2011, Google bought Motorola, one of the most iconic American brands and inventor of the cell phone, for $12.5 billion; the deal closed in May 2012. Moto makes handsets and tablets, among other things.

But Motorola is a brand in decline, and one Google should want to reinvigorate if the plan is to release more-compelling, more-innovative Androids. Why should ASUS, LG and Samsung manufacture Nexus devices when Google has a huge hardware subsidiary? Meanwhile, one of the three is a partner out of control. Samsung threatens to fracture the broader Android ecosystem -- a problem I sternly warned about in April 2012 post "Google has lost control of Android". A resurgent Motorola could bring unity back to the Force, as the saying goes. Google bets that Guy Kawasaki can help make that happen.

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We all use it everyday. Be it Google, Bing or another alternative, we search for things without even really thinking about it. Google, however, wants to show you a little bit about what all goes into this seemingly simple activity. Friday, the company unveiled a new web site called 'How Search Works' that gives a rather in-depth look behind the scenes.

Google has, for sometime now, run an "Inside Search" blog that provides a bit of information on updates to the company's core service, but this one really lifts the curtain, though you still will not find any real trade secrets revealed -- though there is a 43-page document explaining how Google evaluates results. It is an interesting look at what really goes on when you type that innocent "funny cat videos" term into the little box. Yesterday Jake Hubert, a Google Product Manager, took to that blog to announce the new web site.

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Bitdefender has released the first public beta of Bitdefender Total Security 2014, its high-end security suite. And while the new edition doesn’t offer any revolutionary changes, there are enough additions and enhancements to make it interesting.

Bitdefender themselves are highlighting the suite’s “adaptive scanning technology”, which apparently “visibly improves speed and performance in a matter of hours by gradually molding to your PC”. The new Wallet fills a gap in the previous editions by storing your user names and passwords, then automatically filling them in for you.

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Apple's patent case against Samsung took an unexpected turn today. Judge Lucy Koh cut the damages, citing jury errors, removing some devices previously found to infringe the fruit-logo company's patents. Jurors had awarded about $1.05 billion in damages, which now are just $600 million (rounded up slightly). The South Korean electronics giant isn't off the hook by any means. More than a dozen devices remain infringers.

Judge Koh's order is a blow to Apple, but not one that invalidates any real part of its patent victory. The judge found that the jury had inappropriately calculated damages for some products, based in part on their acceptance of arguments made by Apple expert witness Terry Musika.

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By now most of you have likely heard of Photosynth, the Microsoft Labs project that made the mainstream, first as a web app and then on mobile. Now the mobile version has finally been ported to Windows Phone 8 devices as version 1.5 lands in the Windows Phone store today.

Photosynth is a panorama app that can take multiple high resolution images and stitch them together into a fantastic picture that users can pan around -- you can see some great examples on the website (it requires Silverlight).

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Eighteenth in a series. The US Windows Store slipped past the 30,000 applications mark this week and is now listing a total of 30,299 free and paid apps to Windows 8 users. While that is certainly a milestone, week-over-week growth of applications has slowed down once again considerably this week.

Only 585 new apps were listed in the store this week, almost a 50-percent drop from last week's 1,049 new applications. Of those, 384 are listed as free in the store, while the remaining 201 are paid applications.

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