Anonymous hacker Jeremy Hammond sentenced to 10 years for Stratfor leak  —  Hammond calls his sentencing a ‘vengeful, spiteful act’ by US authorities eager to put a chill on political hacking  —  Jeremy Hammond, the Anonymous hacktivist who released millions of emails relating …

Exclusive Interview: Steve Ballmer on His Retirement as Microsoft CEO … REDMOND, Wash.— Steve Ballmer paced his corner office on a foggy January morning here, listening through loudspeakers to his directors' voices on a call that would set in motion the end of his 13-year reign as Microsoft Corp.'s chief executive.

PlayStation 4 Teardown  —  A television game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment, first announced February 20, 2013 and released November 15, 2013.  Step 1 — PlayStation 4 Teardown We'd like to send out a big thank you to our friends at Chipworks for hosting our remote teardown of the newest Sony Play-device, the Play-Doh.

Tablet dollars: Android passed Apple for first time in Q3  —  Apple's iPad now trails Android in both units shipped AND revenues, says Morgan Stanley.  —  FORTUNE — Apple (AAPL) investors have long taken comfort in the fact that even if its share of tablet shipments fell behind Android's …

Schiller Says Samsung Tarnished Apple Brand  —  Apple's top marketing honcho Phil Schiller said Samsung Electronics' infringement of its design and technology patents has made it more difficult to sell the iPhone and iPad, while weakening the Apple brand in the eyes of consumers.

Google Play Music finally hits iOS with a free month of All Access and programmable radio in 21 countries  —  After much anticipation, Google finally released its native Google Play Music app for iOS today.  The All Access and Radio service was originally announced at Google IO in May with the promise …

Zulily Shares Pop 82% Above IPO Price  —  A week after Twitter's IPO and two days after education company Chegg debuted on the NYSE, Zulily, the daily deals site targeted at mothers, opened on the NASDAQ this morning under the symbol ZU.  Things are going well since the company priced 11.5 million shares …

Nokia's Lumia 2520 tablet available at AT&T on November 22nd for $399.99  —  Nokia's Lumia 2520 tablet is launching on AT&T next week.  The Finnish smartphone maker revealed today that the tablet will debut on November 22nd, the same day as its 6-inch Lumia 1520 and Microsoft's Xbox One …

Pinterest Will Launch a Travel Channel to Push Users from Inspiration to Booking  —  The existing travel category on Pinterest.  / Skift  —  Pinterest will soon launch a section devoted to trip inspiration and planning, Skift has learned from multiple sources.

Some Retina iPad Minis Showing Image Retention Issues  —  Some Retina iPad minis are demonstrating image retention issues, as noted by Instapaper creator Marco Arment, who originally developed a grid test to detect the problem in Retina MacBook Pros.  —  Image retention was first cited …

Candy Crush Saga tops 500 million downloads on Facebook, iOS and Android  —  Candy Crush Saga has been downloaded over half a billion times across Facebook, iOS and Android, social games developer King announced today.  —  The match-three title has grown into an international phenomenon over the last year …

Flipboard arrives on Windows 8.1 today with Live Tile support  —  Flipboard is launching on Windows 8.1 today.  We got an early look at the app during Nokia World in Abu Dhabi last month, but the final version will be available in the Windows Store shortly.

Facebook Removes Controversial Line From Privacy Policies  —  Facebook amended its privacy policies Friday morning by removing a proposed controversial line about its teen users.  —  In August, Facebook proposed new language that assumed all minors on the site had discussed with their parents …

News Use across Social Media Platforms  —  How do different social networking websites stack up when it comes to news?  How many people engage with news across multiple social sites?  And what are their news consumption habits on traditional platforms?  As part of an ongoing examination …

The second operating system hiding in every mobile phone  —  I've always known this, and I'm sure most of you do too, but we never really talk about it.  Every smartphone or other device with mobile communications capability (e.g. 3G or LTE) actually runs not one, but two operating systems.

Apple Bumps Coinbase's Bitcoin App From The App Store, Android App Lives On  —  Time to chalk another one up for cryptocurrency bitcoin's reputation as a disruptor in the financial world?  Today, news comes that Coinbase - the YC-incubated startup that offers a bitcoin buying and trading platform …

Apple Store Point Of Sale Systems Go Down Again Today, Outage Continues  —  Some Apple Stores have had their point-of-sale systems go down repeatedly today, TechCrunch has learned.  There was an extensive outage early Thursday morning and there has been an ongoing outage this evening in some stores.