From CNET News.com: Google plans to shut down Google Checkout, its service for online payment processing, in six months, the company announced in a blog post Monday.

Even though Checkout was replaced by Wallet in 2011, it still has been an option for those merchants who are adamant about using the old service in their operations. But on November 20, that will come to an end. Google said by that time merchants who use Checkout will have two options: (1) move to another service, such as Google partners Braintree, Shopify, or Freshbooks, if they don't have their own payment processing, or (2) apply for Google Wallet Instant Buy if they do have payment processing.

"Today, we're letting Web merchants know that in six months, Google Checkout will be retired as we transition to Google Wallet -- a platform that enables merchants to meet the demands of a multiscreen world where consumers shop in stores, at their desks, and on their mobile devices," the company said in the blog post.

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From DailyTech: When it comes to processors for smartphones and tablet computers, companies like Qualcomm and Samsung have come a long way over the last several years. Processors from both manufacturers have turned up in a wide range of devices, with Samsung powering its own smartphones and those from Apple.

Two of the biggest companies in the microprocessor world are Intel and AMD. While Intel has continued to have success in the mobile processor market, even though its processors aren't as power efficient as offerings from other companies in the smartphone and tablet world, AMD has seen its market share continue to decline.

A new report his week from IC Insights takes a look at the overall microprocessor market for 2012. A significant downturn in the notebook and desktop computer market combined with a significant increase in sales for tablet and smartphone devices saw AMD plummet from second place to fourth place in 2012.

Intel still held the top spot with 65.3% of the overall microprocessor market.

Qualcomm now occupies the second place spot with 9.4% of the market courtesy of its ARM mobile processors for smartphones and tablets. Samsung came in the third spot with 8.2% market share thanks to a huge number of processors in production for Apple devices. AMD was in fourth place with only 6.4% market. Freescale was far behind with 1.9% of the market followed by NVIDIA with 1.4% market.

The overall microprocessor market for 2012 was worth $56.5 billion. The downturn in the personal computer market did see sales growth slow to 2% for the year after growing by 19% in 2011. The forecast is predicting microprocessor sells will increase by 10% for 2013 to $62 billion.

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From DailyTech: The fall of LightSquared and hedge fund manager Phillip Falcone was well documented. For a time it looked like the service provider would become a key partner to Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) with its ambitious satellite LTE scheme.

Then came the news that the satellite transmissions would interfere with roughly 75 percent of global positioning service (GPS) receivers -- a debacle that caused the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to reject LightSquared's bid in the eleventh hour, despite giving a conditional approval that critics say was bred from Mr. Falcone's close relationship with the Obama administration. In the aftermath of the FCC rejection, Sprint dumped LightSquared, LightSquared went bankrupt, and Mr. Falcone was accused of defrauding investors.

But the company still holds valuable spectrum, and in the midst of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy it reportedly has received a major bid for that spectrum that could help Mr. Falcone trim his losses and pay of debt, relieving bitter shareholders.

The bid for spectrum was first reported by Bloomberg and is reportedly the work of DISH Network Corp. (DISH) CEO, chairman, and founder Charlie Ergen.

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From X-bit Labs: Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest supplier of NAND flash memory, on Monday announced that it is now supplying its solid state drive (SSD), the SM843T, for use in high-performance servers and storage in next-generation data centers, including Big Data systems.

“Samsung Green SSD products are widely acknowledged for their superior performance and quality design having contributed to data center system improvements and operational cost savings. In response to customer demand, we are accelerating the growth of the flash storage market with new SSD offerings this year like the SM843T, while reinforcing our competitive edge in next-generation SSD products and solutions,” said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales and marketing at Samsung Electronics.

The SM843T strengthens Samsung’s Serial ATA interface enterprise SSD product lineup. Offering up to 960GB of storage space for faster and more efficient Big Data systems and cloud computing environments, the SM843T offers the industry’s most advanced performance level for Serial ATA-6Gb/s SSDs.

The new Samsung SM843T line-up boasts high performance and endurance levels, respectively, reaching up to 98 000 (sustained) random read IOPS (input/output operations per second) and 20 000 sequential TBW (terabytes written) with the 960GB model, while providing an ideal environment for Big Data systems.

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From X-bit Labs: As a result of Nvidia Corp.’s reluctance to release a lineup of graphics processing units previously known under Kepler refresh code-name, the company today has two flagship products aimed at the top of the market segments. While the GeForce GTX 690 and GeForce GTX Titan may offer equally high levels of performance, customers have so far preferred the latter to the former.

Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan has been on the market for about three months now, but it has already outsold the GeForce GTX 690, which has been on the market for well over a year, reports PCGamer web-site. As it appears, Nvidia was pretty surprised with the popularity of GeForce GTX Titan, however, it appears that many gamers simply do not want multi-GPU solutions and prefer single-chip graphics cards.

“Even we were surprised just how popular the GeForce GTX Titan was and still is. Titan sold a lot more than the GTX 690, for example. It’s still selling very well,” said Ben Berraondo, the senior PR manager for GeForce at Nvidia.

The GeForce GTX Titan is powered by Nvidia GK110 processor containing 7.1 billion of transistors and originally designed for supercomputers. The chip has active 2688 stream processors, 224 texture units, 48 raster operating as well as 384-bit memory bus. The monstrous graphics processor is clocked at 837MHz and can boost its speed to 876MHz, which is a result of the extremely high number of transistors. The graphics card comes with 6GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 6GHz.

By contrast, GeForce GTX 690 features two GK104 graphics processors with 3072 stream processors (1536*2) clocked at 915MHz. Peak compute performance of GeForce GTX 690 for video game should be even higher compared to the GeForce GTX Titan; however, there GTX 690 relies on SLI multi-GPU technology that does not work in all game titles, whereas GeForce GTX Titan demonstrates its maximum potential in all applications.

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From CNET News.com: Samsung will demo a new LCD screen that would top similar displays in resolution and pixel density, the company said Monday.

Geared for notebooks, the 13.3-inch WQXGA+ LCD display will offer a resolution of 3,200x1,800 pixels and a density of 276 pixels per inch. That surpasses the screen found on Apple's 13.3-inch Retina MacBook Pro, which provides a resolution of 2,560x1,600 pixels with 227 pixels per inch.

The new screen will appear at the Society for Information Display's annual exhibition, Display Week 2013. The event, which showcases display products, is running this week in Vancouver, Canada.

Also taking the stage will be a 10.1-inch WQXGA 2,560x1,600 LCD screen for tablets. Samsung promises a 30 percent increase in power savings on both screens compared with that of current tablet displays due to fewer circuits and greater efficiency of LED backlight units.

Other Samsung products on tap for Display Week 2013 are a 23-inch multi-touch LCD display that can detect 10 touch points at the same time, a 1,920x1,080 pixel 4.99-inch AMOLED display for mobile devices, and an 85-inch Ultra HD 3,840x2,160 pixel LCD TV panel.

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From DailyTech: Yahoo announced today that it will acquire Tumblr under a new agreement -- and even promised "not to screw it up."

Yahoo will acquire Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash, according to a Yahoo press release. Yahoo likely hopes to use Tumblr's position as a popular social media site to attract visitors to Yahoo's other offerings and bump up search use by integrating it into Tumblr.

Tumblr has over 300 million monthly unique visitors; 120,000 signups every day; receives 900 posts per second; users spend 24 billion minutes on the site each month, and more than half of Tumblr’s users are using the mobile app and do an average of 7 sessions per day.

The new agreement is expected to widen Yahoo’s audience by 50 percent to over a billion monthly visitors. Traffic is also expected to grow by by 20 percent.

“Tumblr is redefining creative expression online,” said Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. “On many levels, Tumblr and Yahoo! couldn’t be more different, but, at the same time, they couldn’t be more complementary. Yahoo is the Internet’s original media network. Tumblr is the Internet’s fastest-growing media frenzy. Both companies are homes for brands - established and emerging. And, fundamentally, Tumblr and Yahoo! are both all about users, design, and finding surprise and inspiration amidst the everyday.”

Under the new deal, Tumblr will be independently ran as a separate business, with Tumblr CEO David Karp keeping his position. Yahoo also assures that Tumblr will continue catering to users on the site the way it always has (meaning, Yahoo won't interfere with a good thing).

However, Tumblr will use Yahoo’s search and personalization technology to help users find creators and content.

“Our team isn’t changing," said David Karp, CEO of Tumblr. "Our roadmap isn't changing. And our mission – to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve – certainly isn't changing. But we’re elated to have the support of Yahoo! and their team who share our dream to make the Internet the ultimate creative canvas. Tumblr gets better faster with more resources to draw from.”

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From DailyTech: HTC has announced that it plans to double the production capacity for its flagship HTC One smartphone this month. The company says that its production capacity for the phone is increasing dramatically month over month as component supply issues continue to improve.

The tip on doubled production capacity comes courtesy of HTC North Asia president Jack Tong. HTC says that it also plans to increase production further in June to meet continued strong demand.

“Our capacity is expected to rise significantly starting from mid-May,” said Tong at a news conference in Taipei. “We are optimistic about our high-end sales during April and June.”

HTC blamed its recent lower-than-expected earnings on shortages for the HTC One in certain markets.

Tong also remarked that another device that HTC plans to help grow its revenue is the five-inch HTC Butterfly smartphone. The executive said sales for that particular device have increased 50 percent in Japan this month after the device was made free with a new contract.

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