Last year, South Korean maker Samsung introduced a number of variations of its Android flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, among which was a ruggedized model designed to work in harsh conditions. Dubbed the Galaxy S4 Active, it could even shoot video and play music through headphones underwater.

The specs of the new Galaxy S5 suggest that Samsung put an end to the Active designation, as the smartphone comes IP67-certified out-of-the-box. This means it is both dust and water-resistant, which suffices for those who do not leave their Galaxy S5 in the desert, construction sites, fish tanks, hot tubs, lakes and the like. Samsung, however, seems to think a Galaxy S5 Active has its place, as the smartphone was just unveiled.

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Acer has opened its BYOC Experience Center in Aspire Park over in Taiwan, a place which is designed to showcase the firm's Build Your Own Cloud ecosystem and its usefulness to both individuals and business organizations.

This is all part of Acer's push into cloud territory, as it looks to diversify away from the PC hardware business which has been hit hard lately by a downturn in demand (as tablets have gathered much momentum).

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We are not far off from the proverbial kickoff of the 2014 World Cup. The tournament takes place this year in the South American nation of Brazil, beginning in June. With a major sporting event comes web sites and apps, letting folks follow all of the action. However, in some cases, not all is what it seems.

Avast researchers uncovered an app that, while not actually dangerous, is designed to feed you only ads. "Some of the Android gaming apps we downloaded primarily displayed ads instead of letting us play. Let me just point out a few from many. We were unable to play Corner Kick World Cup 2014 at all because it displayed nothing but a white screen, with ads popping up now and then", says Flip Chytry.

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Besides being a big fan of technology, I am also hugely into the NBA. As a New Yorker, I grew up idolizing Knicks players like Anthony Mason, John Starks and Patrick Ewing to name a few. While I still bleed orange and blue, it has been a difficult road -- my team has never won a championship during my lifetime.

While the Knicks at least won championships in 1970 and 73, the Clippers have never won a ring. That franchise has historically been viewed as a loser and in the shadow of the Lakers. However, they have made huge improvements in recent years and are finally respectable. Sadly, that is being overlooked due to the racist comments of the current owner, Donald Sterling. As a result, the owner is being forced to sell the team. Well, guess who may be buying it? None other than Steve friggin' Ballmer, Mr. "Developers, developers, developers". Hey, he already has a haircut like Michael Jordan and Shaq, right?

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When you think of gaming PCs, your mind may immediately conjure huge ATX towers with LED lights, and massively large and expensive graphics cards. Yes, the rigs of many a gamer will resemble the previously envisioned computer. However, why does it have to be this way? Not all PC video gamers are teens looking for flash and pizzazz. No, some of them are adults and want something more mature and subdued.

Today, MSI unveils gaming all-in-one desktops that are mature and tame in design, but still sexy. The machines pack a significant amount of power, but the footprint on a desk will be no more than a typical monitor. In other words, the gaming PC has grown up.

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Many people are enjoying 4K videos on YouTube nowadays. Believe it or not, there is already content on Google's video site which is shot in that ultra-high resolution. I myself have enjoyed videos of nature and playful puppies in 4K, and it is exquisite.

Sadly, not everyone has a fast enough connection to stream 4K video. Hell, apparently, people are even struggling to play 720p and 1080p without excessive buffering. Well, Google does not like this and it wants you to know that the problem is not YouTube, but your ISP. You see, today, the company releases a new tool which will tell you if your ISP sucks.

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The more I ponder Apple's Beats acquisition, the less sense it makes. Buying big well-known brands that compete with yours is usually a bad idea -- worse when the acquirer owns no foreign brands. Extinguishing the big name, as Microsoft does with Nokia, is marketing murder. There's no place for the Beats brand in the Apple lexicon. The gun is drawn and ready to fire.

What I do see is another sign that Apple has lost its way. Tim Cook is a very able CEO, but as stated previously he is Star Trek's Spock without Captain Kirk (Steve Jobs). Cook's approach to business logistics, while brilliant, unmakes Apple. Beats is an acquisition that is off-key -- out of tune with the culture that made the fruit-logo company great. As such, on this Thursday in May, comes my confession. I was wrong five years ago in post "Why Apple succeeds, and always will". That company is gone.

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YouTube has become the defacto place to find just about anything and, while cat videos remain popular, music is also a big part of the service. Users seem to flock to the place to watch music videos by major artists that sometimes go viral, as well as unknown people who become memes.

YouTube spent some time reminiscing about its memorable past in an announcement of the birthday celebration. "To call out just a few highlights in YouTube history, there are more than 120,000 videos inspired by 'Let it Go' (based on videos posted with that title), half a million by 'Gangnam Style,' and a stunning 1.5 million videos by 'Harlem Shake' (that’s a lot of motorcycle helmets). These inspired riffs got us thinking about those magical moments when songs become bona fide trends—and people all over the world start remixing, covering, parodying, dancing, and lip-dubbing", says the company's Claire Stapleton.

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It's quite a trend now for handset makers to produce a big phone, then produce a smaller version of it and call it 'mini' or, in Sony's case, 'compact'. The idea is to piggy-back on the features that a flagship, top of the range phone offers, and bring down the overall size for smaller hands, and the overall price for smaller budgets. So, the new HTC One M8 has been joined by the HTC One mini 2, just as the original HTC One was joined by the original, er, HTC One mini.

You will have spotted an obvious difference in naming between the new flagship and the new mini. HTC isn't helping itself here, but it clearly wants us to view the two handsets as close relations, so let's forgive, forget and move on.

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At first glance, TransTools didn’t look like the most promising of programs. A suite "designed to help translators in various situations"? It would probably be for specialists only, and so expensive that big corporations would think twice -- right?

But wait. The package is really just about cleaning up poor formatting -- an OCR’ed document, say -- so could be useful for anyone. It works with Word, Excel, Visio and AutoCAD documents. And while there is a commercial version, the base edition is free for personal use? Now that’s much more interesting.

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Big data isn't just about finding more effective ways to market and advertise -- it's also about making the world a better place.

One of the industries in which big data is having its greatest impact is health care. So many improvements are being made with better results in hospitals and healthcare facilities across the world. One area, however, that continues to prove extremely difficult for the healthcare industry, and other industries, is suicide prevention.

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Last year we were somewhat amazed when HBO and the Game of Thrones producer went on record saying that piracy was not hurting the show, and they were just happy it was so popular. Now Wil Wheaton, who is famously a friend of geeks, is taking a similar stance.

Wheaton's new show, aptly named The Wil Wheaton Project, will require access to the SyFy network, which leaves out many potential viewers. Those who have cut the cord can still catch the debut episode via Hulu, but there is a catch to that as well -- it will not stream to the Hulu Plus service, blocking it from set-top boxes like Roku and Fire TV. You will have to watch it on your computer.

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UK telly addicts rejoice: the BBC has unveiled a major redesign of its mobile app with the release of BBC iPlayer 4.0 for iOS and BBC iPlayer 4.0 for Android. Both apps have been updated with the specific intent of making browsing and show discovery easier.

This has been achieved by creating new Home, Channel and Category pages, all of which sport a new design optimized for either portrait or landscape view.

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The so-called Internet of Things (IoT) came to the British public's fullest attention earlier this month, following national media coverage about two household name retailers announcing their proposed £3.4 billion merger. Dixon's and Carphone Warehouse positioned their desire to marry consumer electrical goods, such as fridges and TVs, with smartphone devices, as part of their preparation for IoT. In so doing, they would appear to want their slice of the multi-billion treasure trove tech industry giants such as Cisco and GE have been forecasting in the next five years.

Of course, the definition of IoT is not new. In fact it's been around for over a decade. What has changed is the public's awareness that the technology we use on a daily basis has caught up with the vision of an always-on, always-connected world. If you look into the details of what comprises the IoT, then you'll see that it includes everything from cloud computing, big data analytics, Internet-enabled devices, applications, network and storage.

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Security incidents originating from mobile devices are currently pretty rare. But with 2.2 billion smartphones and tablets set to be sold in 2014 and PC sales in decline, the focus of security breaches is likely to shift towards mobiles in future years.

According to research specialists Gartner by 2017 misconfiguration of applications will account for 75 percent of mobile security breaches.

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