Weed Firm is one of those games, like Flappy Bird before it, that took the App Store by storm, reaching the number one spot purely through word of mouth. The trouble for Apple is the game follows the "vicious and lawless career of Mr. Ted Growing", an expelled botany sophomore, and is essentially a marijuana growing sim in which you produce and sell different types of weed, and interact with various shady characters including cops, gangsters, druggies and dancers. Not exactly the sort of game Apple really wants to see at the top of its charts.

It was perhaps a surprise that the Breaking Bad inspired app made it through Apple’s rigorous, and at times prudish approvals process in the first place, but having flourished far too well at the top, it was only a matter of time before it was hacked down. The game, inevitably, is no longer available in the App Store.

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BullGuard has unveiled BullGuard Mobile Security for Android, its latest all-in-one security package for Android mobile devices.

The $19.95 (3 devices, 1 year) release introduces a new cloud-based antivirus engine, which should improve accuracy while removing the hassle of regular updates, improving performance and keeping battery-draining system load to a minimum.

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New research has found that half of security professionals don't bother to secure data on portable devices.

The findings, uncovered by an iStorage survey which questioned 500 attendees at Infosec 2014, revealed that 50 per cent of security pros don't bother with security measures or encryption when it comes to data on USB sticks or portable hard drives.

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The features of the new Microsoft Surface Pro 3 are impressive even when they are assessed individually. But they are even more impressive when grouped together in one single device, which might just be the first one of its kind that is actually the real deal -- it works as a tablet, it works as an ultrabook and it is good enough to replace both. At least that is what Microsoft is saying.

During the presentation event Microsoft made it clear the Surface Pro 3 is meant to compete with Apple's mighty 13.3-inch MacBook Air, more so than with the iPad. Make no mistake, this device is not a tablet in the traditional sense of the word. It is akin to a hybrid PC, much like the Surface Pro 2, due to its size, processor architecture and target market. So, because Microsoft made a big deal out of it being better than its ultrabook rival, how does it compare with the bigger MacBook Air?

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Various instant messaging services are on the verge of blocking unencrypted chat messages thanks to the roll out of a XMPP upgrade that has been in the pipeline for some time.

The XMPP Standard Foundation confirmed that the 70 services that are part of the public XMPP network turned on mandatory encryption for client-to-server and server-to-server connections.

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Google has unveiled Chrome 35 FINAL for Windows, Mac and Linux. After the relative excitement of version 34, version 35 contains little of note for the end user to get excited about.

Developers, however, will be pleased to see a number of new and improved features implemented, including the ability to take more control over touch input. There’s also an undocumented switch to the Aura user interface on the Linux platform.

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Curl is well known on Linux as a flexible command line tool which can download files using a wide range of protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, POP3, IMAP, RTMP, RTSP and many more.

The program is also available on Windows, though (and Mac, iOS, NetWare, Solaris, AmigaOS and more), and is ideal for automating regular downloads in your own custom scripts.

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An announcement on the PayPal Forward blog says that eBay will be asking users to change their passwords later today.

It says that this is due to, "...a cyber attack that compromised an eBay database containing encrypted eBay passwords and other non-financial information".

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As a trained Sociologist, I am always analyzing my surroundings. One of my particular interests is the plight of the working poor. It breaks my heart to see people toil away for low pay, while struggling to pay bills. Even sadder, these hard-working people are often taken advantage of by "pay-day" lenders -- they offer an extremely high-interest loan which targets the poor who cannot make ends meet.

Luckily, technology can be developed to solve many of the world's problems, including the pains of the workers living paycheck to paycheck. Yes, a new app for Android and iOS, called Activehours, is aiming to solve this problem.

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Accessing data on the move has become essential for business travelers. The days of being unable to do something because you were out of the office are long gone.

Demand for reliable, cost effective data access means that more business people are looking for ways to access Wi-Fi on the move rather than use expensive mobile data services.

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Germany and Nazism have history; one doesn’t have to be much of a history buff to know that. But the aftershocks of Hitler's Germany are still being felt; the country is still rather sensitive, shall we say, about the whole idea of the Nazis. So touchy, in fact, that as part of post-World War Two denazification the display of Nazi symbols (or "use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations") is illegal. This presents an issue for the game Wolfenstein which concerns itself largely with escaping from Nazis, killing Nazis, tracking down Nazis... there are lots of Nazis involved. Ultimately this meant that the popular game series was banned from Germany since it was first conceived back in the early 80s.

The latest installment in the series, Wolfenstein: The New Order, is set in the 1960s after a Second World War won by the Nazis. But this time around the game got a German release -- yesterday in fact. Bethesda's Pete Hines said last month that Germany has "a thing about Nazis", describing the country as "a little touchy" about the subject. So how was the release possible? This is not because the country has relaxed its laws -- the display of Nazi-related material can still result in a three year jail term -- but because the game has been censored.

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208 Datong Road is a nondescript concrete high rise on one of Shanghai's busiest roads. Amid the lingering smog rising like mist off the honking lines of traffic, and the trains screeching to a halt in the nearby main railway station, this building doesn't look like much. But this is exactly where five members of an elite People's Liberation Army group codenamed Unit 61398 were assigned to hack into some of the largest companies in the United States of America.

According to an indictment unveiled on Monday, "the co-conspirators used email messages known as 'spearfishing' messages to trick unwitting recipients into giving the co-conspirators access to their computers”.

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The more we do online the more passwords we have to remember and it's tempting to take shortcuts. A new survey by security specialist F-Secure reveals that 43 percent of respondents use the same password for more than one important account.

The sheer number of accounts we have is a problem also. 58 percent of poll respondents say they have over 20 password-protected online accounts or simply too many to keep track of -- 27 percent have between 11 and 20 password-protected accounts and 15 percent have under 10. Despite this though only 40 percent use a password manager to keep track of them.

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I have no problems with touchscreens in general, no problem at all. I can't imagine using a non-touchscreen phone any more, and I have tablets of all shapes and sizes coming out of my ears. Touchscreens make sense, they are intuitive, they are fun to use. In the right situation, at least. I bang on about being a very happy Surface Pro owner (not as yet a Surface Pro 3), but how often do I take advantage of the fact that it has a touchscreen? Very rarely. I might jab the screen every now and then to switch apps, I may even mess about with handwriting recognition from time to time, but despite my love of the device, a keyboard/trackpad/mouse combo is my preferred choice.

I use my Surface Pro as a laptop, and perhaps this is where my issues stem from. To me it makes little sense to reach over the keyboard to interact with the screen when a far more energy and time efficient trackpad flick does the job just as well. Used as a tablet, it would be a different story, but to me the Surface Pro range is not about amalgamating the best of laptops and tablets, it's about having a fancy laptop. But I digress. My point is that I have yet to be convinced of the value of touchscreen laptops (when used as laptops), and the idea of touchscreen monitors for desktop computers just seems like a step too far.

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Microsoft just announced a bigger and badder Windows 8.1 hybrid PC, pitched by the company as a laptop and tablet replacement that outclasses Apple's mighty MacBook Air. Offered in five significantly different configurations, which range from an affordable $799 to an eye-watering $1,949, on paper the Surface Pro 3 looks like a device that can be used by undemanding users and professionals alike.

The Surface Pro 3, powered by Intel Core i5 processors, is said to launch on June 20, while the less powerful Core i3 and faster Core i7 configurations are expected two months later, on the last day of August. Interested buyers, however, can pre-order one now.

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