After reports surfaced claiming the Google Play Store was about to reach 15 billion app downloads, Google confirmed to TechCrunch that it reached the milestone “a few weeks ago.” Apple reached the same number of downloads in July 2011 and recently surpassed 25 billion downloads in March. The gap between the two marketplaces seems to be widening slightly, with Google seeing about 1 billion app downloads per month while Apple is serving about 1.25 billion app downloads per month. The Google Play Store curre...

Adding yet another positive note to Instagram’s biggest week ever — Facebook on Monday announced that it will acquire Instagram for $1 billion — the company’s new Android application has been downloaded more than 5 million times after less than one week of availability. Instagram launched for Android-powered devices on April 3rd, and it took less than one day for the highly anticipated app to reach the one million download mark. As of Monday, April 9th, the application had been downloaded from...

Wealthy smartphone users are more likely to own an Apple iPhone and less likely to play games or post on Twitter than average users. According to research from The Luxury Institute, 62% of U.S. consumers earning at least $150,000 per year own a smartphone. 45% of people falling to that category own an iPhone, 35% use an Android-powered device and 25% have a BlackBerry. More than 80% of wealthy smartphone owners download mobile apps, with the most popular categories being weather (63%), news (51%), travel (42%...

RapidShare is widely known as an invaluable tool for the illegal sharing of copyrighted digital material. Much like Megaupload, which was shuttered earlier this year when company founder Kim Dotcom was arrested and charged with racketeering and violating anti-piracy laws, RapidShare allows users to upload any file and share a link with other users who may then download the content. While some users share files legally with RapidShare, millions more upload copyrighted movies, music and eBooks which are then do...

The past year was a good year for the music industry as sales rose to their best highest point in eight years. According to the IFPI’s annual Recording Industry In Numbers report, revenue from physical media fell by 8.7%, compared with 13.8% in 2010, but were vinyl sales up nearly 29%. Digital revenue continued to grow, increasing 8%, compared to 5.6% in 2010, with digital track sales growing 19% to 3.7 billion songs. Australia leads the way in the digital space with 60% growth, compared with 8% growth ...

In an effort to bypass censorship as well as heat from authorities and copyright owners, The Pirate Bay on Sunday unveiled new plans to “experiment with sending out some small drones that will float some kilometers up in the air.” The GPS controlled drones will hover over international waters and host parts of the website. “Everyone knows WHAT TPB is. Now they’re going to have to think about WHERE TPB is,” The Pirate Bay team told TorrentFreak. “We’re already the most resilie...

A new study suggests that more than half of all Internet traffic is generated by non-human sources such as hacking software, scrapers and automated spam mechanisms. The majority of this non-human traffic, according to cloud service provider Incapsula, is potentially malicious. The study is based on data collected from 1,000 websites that utilize Incapsula’s services, and it determined that just 49% of Web traffic is human browsing. 20% is benign non-human search engine traffic, but 31% of all Internet...

The Motion Picture Association of America this week filed a motion for a summary judgement against file-sharing service Hotfile in a U.S. District Court in Florida, TorrentFreak reports. The MPAA, which describes itself as ”the voice and advocate of the American motion picture,” argued in its filing that Hotfile’s business model is identical to that of Megaupload, a popular file-sharing site that was shuttered earlier this year. ”Hotfile is responsible for billions of infringing dow...

Apple on Saturday confirmed that apps in its App Store have collectively been downloaded more than 25 billion times. The Cupertino-based company will reward Chunli Fu of Qingdao, China with a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card for downloading the 25 billionth app. Apple also stated that there are now 315 million iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices in use around the world. “We’d like to thank our customers and developers for helping us achieve this historic milestone of 25 billion apps downloaded,” said Ed...

Microsoft announced on Thursday that its Windows 8 Consumer Preview has been downloaded a million times. “One day later…one million downloads of the consumer preview,” a Microsoft spokesperson posted on the company’s Building Windows 8 Twitter account. Microsoft unveiled the latest version of its upcoming desktop and tablet operating system during a press conference on Wednesday, and response has been generally positive. BGR published a full review of Microsoft’s Windows 8 Cons...

iPhone users may be more inclined to pay for apps than their Android-toting counterparts because apps in the Android Market are usually priced much higher, according to market research firm Canalys.The company on Thursday released the results of a survey that found Android apps to cost two and a half times more than iPhone apps on average. The top paid-for Android apps were priced “dramatically higher” than those on iOS for the iPhone. “In the US, to purchase the top 100 paid-for apps in the...

Angry Birds for Facebook has launched one day ahead of schedule according to NewsCore. The wildly popular game has been in development for more than a year and was supposed to make its debut Tuesday. Instead, the hotly anticipated title launched late on Monday. The Facebook variant features the same game play as the original mobile app along with added social components, new power-ups and exclusive new levels. The game itself is free to play, with a 20-use power up costing $1. Angry Birds has been downloaded ...

Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace is reportedly now home to more than 50,000 applications. That’s a relatively small figure taking into consideration that Apple’s iTunes App Store now boasts more than 500,000 apps and the Android Market is estimated to offer almost as many. However, it is double the amount of applications that were available just five months ago, in July, when the Windows Phone Marketplace only offered 25,000 apps. All About Windows Phone, which first reported the mile...

Apple on Monday released the 2012 edition of its “12 Days of Christmas” application for iOS devices. From December 26th through January 6th, Apple is giving away free iTunes content including songs, music videos, apps and books to iOS device owners. New content is accessible through the app each day and free downloads will expire after 24 hours. Monday kicks things off with several Coldplay songs and videos, which can be downloaded for free until new downloads are made available on Tuesday. Apple&...