Apple has agreed to pay a sum of €318 million (around $350 million) to settle an Italian tax fraud case, according to a report from the country’s daily newspaper La Repubblica.

The Cupertino-based company has been accused of tax evasion between 2008 and 2013. It is alleged that the iPhone maker failed to pay €880 million in corporate taxes during this five year period, and the amount was transferred to its subsidiary in Ireland, a country where the corporate tax rate is less than half of that in Italy.

Although the probe completed in March this year, the settlement took time as there were reportedly lengthy negotiations between Apple and Italian authorities. On its part, the country’s tax office has now confirmed that a deal has been reached, but it did not reveal the financial details of the settlement.

While Apple hasn’t yet commented on the settlement, it had earlier said that the company is “one of the largest tax payers in the world and paid every euro of tax it owed wherever it did…

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Microsoft has started rolling out a new update for the Lumia 950 and the 950 XL, starting in UK and Ireland. The update brings the version number to 01078.00027.15506.020xx.

The update includes the following changes:

Stability and performance improvements.
Improvements for SD memory card support.
Improvements for automatic display brightness settings.
Fix for a camera problem that was causing noisy images in low-light conditions for some users.
Fix for a 4K video problem that was causing stripes to show up while playing back recorded videos for some users.

Make sure to check your device to see if the update is available to download….

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The Xperia Z5 family definitely brought a new and very overdue spark of life to the OEM’s presence in the mobile realm and naturally got fans excited about the future of the brand. Consequently, rumors of a 2016 Xperia Z6 lineup have been flying all over the pace, but there are often conflicting and seem to raise more questions than they answer.

Initial leaks hinted at a total of five models, including a 4-inch Z6 Mini, 4.6-inch Xperia Z6 Compact, 5.2-inch Z6, 5.8-inch Xperia Z6 Plus and a 6.4-inch Xperia Z6 Ultra – talk about spoiled for choice. However, a leaked T-Mobile roadmap later omitted any mention of a Z6 Mini, dropping the number of devices down to four – two allegedly powered by a Snapdragon 820 and the other by a Snapdragon 620 SoC (now renamed by the Snapdragon 652). However, a new Chinese source just added another twist to the mystery with talk of a Z6 Lite.

According to Mobile-dad, the device will have a 5.0-inch display, placing it right between the Z6 Compact and basic Z6. The website also claims that said handset will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 650 SoC (known as the Snapdragon 618, prior to the renaming). A suggested price of $385 is also listed for the handset, along with a May 2016 release frame, but we can’t really be sure which market this refers to, nor can we vouch for the authenticity of the source as a whole.

Source (in Chinese) |…

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Samsung has announced that all the TVs in its 2016 line-up will feature Internet of Things (IoT) support as well as SmartThings platform integration. For those wondering, SmartThings is an open platform that lets users connect, manage and control smart devices and IoT services, something which they can do directly from their smartphone and SUHD TV.

The South Korean company says that its upcoming SUHD TVs will apply the home-grown IoT hub technology, allowing them to act as the controller for the entire smart home.

The IoT ready TVs will be showcased at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which is scheduled to be held during January 6 – 9 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Although the TVs will be SmartThings-enabled at launch, “the functionality will be activated regionally as SmartThings expands its platform availability,” Samsung…

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The upcoming Lenovo K4 Note smartphone has a “killer display”. This was revealed by the Chinese company in a recent teaser that was posted by Lenovo India on its Twitter account. The message accompanying the teaser says, “When is a display more than just a sum of its pixels?”

When is a display more than just a sum of its pixels?Get ready to thrill your senses with the K4 Note#KillerNote2016
http://ift.tt/1NPNhsb Lenovo India (@Lenovo_in) December 29, 2015

The device has been the subject of many teasers recently. Late last week, the company confirmed that the handset will come with a fingerprint sensor as well as near field communication (NFC) capabilities. Prior to that, it was officially confirmed that there will be 3GB RAM.

The K3 Note successor is expected to be launched on January 5 – press invites have already been sent and the event will be held in India’s capital city of New…

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Adobe Flash was in news for all the wrong reasons this year – as you might know, a lot of Flash vulnerabilities were discovered this year. If you’re wondering exactly how many, here the number: 316.

Yes, a total of 316 Flash bugs were discovered (and fixed) in 2015. For those doing the maths, that’s around 6.1 fixes per week. The last quarter of the year, especially, saw the company fixing a total of 113 bugs, which is roughly 1.5 per day.

It’s worth mentioning that Facebook’s chief security officer Alex Stamos called for an end to Adobe Flash support back in July this year. His comments came just a week after hackers compromised an Italy-based spy software company’s systems, revealing a major Flash vulnerability.

Oh, and by the way, a new – and yet another – Flash vulnerability was recently discovered, and Adobe has released a patch for it. Head to the Adobe link below to know more about it.

Via |…

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San Francisco-based ride-sharing service Sidecar is shutting down on December 31 (at 2PM Pacific Time). This was announced by the company’s co-founder and CEO Sunil Paul in a blog post on Medium.

Image credit: Hayne Palmour IV U-T San Diego

“Today is a turning point for Sidecar as we prepare to end our ride and delivery service so we can work on strategic alternatives and lay the groundwork for the next big thing,” Paul said. “This is the end of the road for the Sidecar ride and delivery service, but it’s by no means the end of the journey for the company.”

For those who aren’t in the know, founded in 2011, Sidecar was one of the first start-ups in the ride-sharing and car-hailing market, which is currently dominated by the likes of Uber and Lyft. It managed to raise a total of $35 million from investors including Union Square Ventures and billionaire Richard…

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Samsung has started rolling out a new update to its Gear S2 smartwatch that is primarily aimed at improving the battery life of the device. Weighing in at 4.85MB, the update bumps the software version to R730TUVU1AOL3.

A quick look at the change-log (see image below) suggests that the What’s new section only lists “Battery life has been optimized”. However, the update could also include some regular bug fixes and stability improvements.

To install the update, open the Samsung Gear app on your phone and head to Settings. Once there, go to the About Gear option, and then tap the Update Gear button. This should do the…

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Earlier this month, there were reports that the rumored Apple iPhone 7c will be launched in September 2016. However, a recent China Mobile roadmap revealed an April launch. While there’s still no confirmation on the launch time frame, a new report is suggesting that the device will go into mass production soon.

As per the report, Apple is already done with a small-scale trial production of the smartphone, and the mass production is expected to begin in January. In addition, it was also revealed that the handset will be similar to the iPhone 5s in shape and size, and will also come in three color options just like the latter.

Finally, the report also notes that the iPhone 7c (or iPhone 6c, or whatever it is called, as the name is also not yet confirmed) will pack in a 1,642 mAh battery. As for the price, the device is rumored to carry a tag of somewhere between $400-$500, presumably off…

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A new lawsuit is demanding $5M in damages from Apple for intentionally slowing down performance of legacy iPhones. The plaintiff claims that Apple has been engaging in deceptive business practices of purposely slowing down 100 members’ iPhone 4S’s.

After performing the upgrade in software, these iPhone 4S’s have apparently become so bogged down that they have become unusable in day-to-day conditions. Both first and third-party app loading delays are significantly longer with reported freezing and crashing as well.

This bogging down of software performance is said to encourage users to upgrade their old devices to newer iPhones.

The lawsuit continues by also claiming false advertisement from the installation notes for the new update. While these notes mention faster performance, enhanced security, longer battery life, and new app features, these same notes lack a warning of possible compatibility issues on older devices like the iPhone 4S.

The same lawsuit is aimed at Apple’s ecosystem saying that rather than upgrading to another phone OS, Apple’s business structure of apps and music is more likely to keep people from jumping ship to avoid losing the investments of money spent on apps and…

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