Samsung has reshaped the smartphone market with the Galaxy Note series by giving large-screened handsets mass-market appeal. The South Korean maker has sold tens of millions of its stylus-equipped phablets and other similar devices, with the recipe also being applied by rival companies, such as HTC, LG, Nokia or Sony, seeking to make great strides of their own. After all, consumers love phablets as this segment accounted for 21 percent of all smartphone shipments in Q3 2013, according to research firm IDC.

And, today, Samsung introduces a new phablet in its lineup, called Galaxy Grand 2. The device is the successor of the Galaxy Grand, which was introduced in mid-December 2012 albeit with a smaller, 5-inch display. So how big is the new model?

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Finding the right disc burning tool for you can sometimes be a problem. The big commercial suites are expensive, but smaller freebies are often buggy, unreliable, sometimes weighed down with adware. So it’s good to find a small but capable alternative in Free Any Burn.

The program arrives as a compact download, only around 1MB. You can just unzip and run it right away, no installation required, no adware hassles. And it’s extremely portable: the authors claim it can run on anything from Window 98 upwards, so this really is a program you can run just about anywhere.

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December 1998. I started my Internet career at one of the first European e-commerce websites. At the time, we used to call it New Information and Communication Technologies. In 2013, 15 years later, some of these technologies are still seen as "New". But while in some countries seniors are stigmatized just when their experience is at its fullest, we refuse to see technologies age and be fully integrated. Ironic isn’t?!

Fear of technologies that are difficult to master is understandable, but why reject them all? Why not fully embrace them and establish the boundaries of what is understandable and useful as well as personal privacy limitations? These same technologies allow us to voice our opinions directly to those who created them and to provide collaborative feedback so they may be continually improved upon in order to enhance and remain relevant to our daily lives.

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Bitcoin is rarely out of the news these days. There have been stories about Bitcoin thefts, its use by cybercriminals, the first Bitcoin ATM, and most recently the virtual currency’s value soared to over $900 after the FBI told a US Senate committee hearing that it offers "legitimate financial services".

If you’re a bitcoin miner or collector, and are wondering what to do with your stockpiled virtual currency, you’ll soon be able to add "buy a trip into space" to the list of possibilities.

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You’ve found an essential Android app. You click "Install", wanting to check it out immediately. And so, let’s be realistic, you’re probably not going to spend a long time reviewing the app permissions, and thinking about whether it really needs to "send SMS", or not. Much easier to just click "Accept" and give it a try.

Skipping basic security checks can catch up with you later, of course, but install Bitdefender’s Clueful and this doesn’t have to be such an issue. This free app warns you of privacy risks whenever you install something new, and can produce a detailed report on your system whenever you like.

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Most fractal programs are entertaining for a while, and capable of producing some amazing abstract pictures. But the constant focus on 2D Mandelbrot imagery means that boredom will inevitably set in, and sooner rather than later. What you really need is something more interesting – and we have the ideal candidate.

Mandelbulber is a fractal program with a difference. Forget the usual 2D pictures, this brings you amazing ray-traced 3D images, with complex shading, full lighting and camera control, even the ability to create custom animations where the camera flies around and into your chosen view.

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There is no shortage of variety in today's Android tablet market. Devices come in a range of functionality and price, and from a host of makers. Two prominent tablets on the market are from a couple of the web's biggest sites, and both Amazon and Google are hoping their devices will land under your tree this holiday season.

The second generation of the Nexus 7, manufactured by Asus and sold by Google, has been on the market for some time, but now Amazon is pushing the third version of the Kindle Fire tablet. This latest iteration is, of course, purported to be the best, but is it? Can the HDX really be better than the 2012 HD?

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Sony PlayStation 4 hit the stores and Brian not only took a look at the brand new console, but also cracked open the case and slipped a larger hard drive inside. Brian wasn't alone in his love of the PS4, more than a million people also bought a console on the day of launch. But not everyone was happy as many units were found to suffer from a Blue Light of Death problem that rendered them unusable. Raspberry Pi was also celebrating its sales figures as more than two million were shifted since its launch last year.

In a rare show of unity, Microsoft and Google joined forces to help tackle the problem of online child pornography. At the same time, Microsoft took its Scroogled campaign to a new level by releasing merchandise (although Joe was impressed). Elsewhere online, Twitter introduced Twitter alerts to the UK and Ireland to help provide people with critical information in an emergency.

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It's been a big day for Microsoft. The Xbox One hit store shelves and took over the daily tech news, overshadowing all competition, including that of it's own Nokia devices arm. While reviews, unboxing videos and a few tales of hard drive woes have highlighted the news, there were other announcements surrounding the console launch.

One such piece of news came from an unexpected source. Logitech, known for its cases, keyboards and mice, is also in possession of all-in-one remote company Harmony. The darling of the home theater crowd, or at least those who don't wish to pay for Crestron, has thrown its support behind the new gaming console.

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If there is one thing I hate, it is paying for subscriptions. As new services come out and I subscribe, it feels like money is just being siphoned from my wallet. Entertainment services alone are bleeding me dry -- Netflix, Hulu Plus and Google Play Music All Access to name a few. Even though I detest subscriptions, there is one that I am happy to pay for -- Amazon Prime.

Now, I do not want to sound like a commercial for Amazon, but it is truly a service that delivers exponential value. You see, besides offering a plethora of TV shows and movies for free, it also enables free two-day shipping for physical products. I shop at the website so much, that the paltry $79 annual fee pays for itself rather quickly. As a computer nerd, getting something like a 120mm fan or PCI card in two days at no cost is awesome. Today, the company announces that you can now send a Prime subscription as a gift.

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The repercussions of the recent Adobe hack continue to echo around the internet. The attack exposed the user information for a huge number of customers, and data leaked online displayed email addresses, passwords and hints. The final tally of affected users ended up at 150 million, and the dump has since been parsed by security researchers, such as those at Sophos.

Now Evernote is the latest to warn customers of the far-reaching possibilities that could result from Adobe's misfortune. The note-taking service has been checking the database of email addresses and comparing it to its own customer list. When a matching email address is discovered, a message is generated to warn the potential victim.

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Fifty-sixth in a series. Microsoft has changed the layout in Windows Store slightly this week. The main screenshot size on each apps' Windows Store page has been increased significantly, so that screenshots take up more than half of the screen on a 1920 by 1200 monitor.

The overall growth of applications has accelerated again this week as 1,351 new apps were published in the last seven days.

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For most people customer relationship management conjures up the idea of a massive database of sales information. But for smaller, especially one person, businesses who may spend only a small amount of their time in front of a computer, traditional CRM isn't a practical proposition and doesn't lend itself to mobile use.

Step forward ONDiGO which is designed to provide CRM on the go -- see what they did there? It's built to be easy to use and to start working immediately so that you can begin improving business contacts with customers from day one.

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The little gaming console that could. Ouya, the Android-based Kickstarter darling, is on the market, and getting less attention than it did when everything was shiny and new. But the console continues to innovate and bring new games and features to the platform, in an effort to carve its own niche in a Sony/Microsoft-dominated world.

Now the console-maker has pushed a new update, which is perhaps the biggest since the little device debuted. The number one feature included here is external storage, in case you're running out of space for your games. Customers can now plug in an external drive, and the console will work with FAT32, NTFS, and ext4. A word of warning, though, don't take your drive to your friend's house, as the games won't work on another Ouya.

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Cloud storage locker MediaFire has announced the availability of its desktop sync clients for Windows PCs and Macs. The new apps, currently in beta, arrive alongside a revamped web interface that is designed to make editing, sharing and viewing files much easier. The service is currently offering both free (10 GB of storage) and paid plans (Pro and Business), which can take advantage of the new round of changes.

The base MediaFire Pro account includes 100 GB of cloud storage, and currently costs $24.99 per year (50 percent off from the usual $49.99). The company has given us 15 MediaFire Pro account redemption codes to give away to BetaNews readers, providing each winner with 100 GB of cloud storage for a year.

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