“Threshold” to be Called Windows 9, Ship in April 2015  —  Microsoft tries to put Windows 8 in the rear-view mirror  —  At the BUILD developer conference in April 2014, Microsoft will discuss its vision for the future of Windows, including a year-off release codenamed “Threshold” that will most likely be called Windows 9.

Hackers Steal Card Data from Neiman Marcus  —  Responding to inquiries about a possible data breach involving customer credit and debit card information, upscale retailer Neiman Marcus acknowledged today that it is working with the U.S. Secret Service to investigate a hacker break-in that has exposed an unknown number of customer cards.

Beats Music launches in US on Jan. 21 for $10 monthly, $15 monthly for families through AT&T, no free tier  —  Beats Music Enters Online Streaming Market  —  SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Jimmy Iovine, whose career as a recording engineer, producer and music executive stretches from John Lennon to Lady Gaga …

Smart TVs, smart fridges, smart washing machines?  Disaster waiting to happen  —  This is a Samsung smart fridge, and it lets you run Twitter on your fridge for who on Earth knows what reason.  —  Samsung  —  If you believe what the likes of LG and Samsung have been promoting this week at CES, everything will soon be smart.

Queries to DuckDuckGo increased over 2.5X after Snowden revelations, totaled 1B for 2013  —  Anonymous search tool DuckDuckGo answered 1bn queries in 2013  —  The ‘anti-Google’, which searches the web without tracking or monitoring the user, now answers 4m queries a day

Stop Trying to Judge CES  —  Pepcom festivities came to a screeching halt as some of the 4k televisions were showing the BCS championship game, which became a nailbiter in the closing minutes.  Florida finally closed out the game with a 34-31 win over Auburn and the nerds went back to looking at iPhone cases and wearables.

How and when the iMac and Mac Pro can go Retina  —  Three major factors have probably prevented a proper 2×-in-each-dimension “Retina” version of today's 27″ iMac and standalone Thunderbolt Display, which would need to be 5120×2880 pixels:  — Nobody makes general-purpose LCD panels with that resolution today.

With original 4K content, studio partnerships, and infrastructure at the ready, Netflix could be the de facto 4K destination  —  How Netflix won CES  —  It's not the TVs, it's what you watch on them  —  The television industry has been holding its breath.

Semiconductor designers researching “self assembling” circuits using nanomaterials  —  Designing the Next Wave of Computer Chips  —  PALO ALTO, Calif. — Not long after Gordon E. Moore proposed in 1965 that the number of transistors that could be etched on a silicon chip …

Sony still in discussions with Microsoft over Windows Phone  —  EXCLUSIVE “We don't want to be a single OS manufacturer” … Sony has confirmed to TechRadar that it is actively looking into the possibility of launching a Windows Phone as it seeks to move away from being a single OS manufacturer.