Car consortium buys Nokia's HERE mapping business for US $3.01 billion

A consortium made up of Audi, BMW and Daimler has agreed to purchase Nokia's mapping business for an approximate US $3.07 billion. This puts to rest a long standing bid to sell the business which Nokia has developed since it acquired NAVTEQ in 2007.

HERE Maps is ideal for motoring applications and it looks like while the big 3 carmakers have made the investment, the consortium of carmakers that can make use of the technology can only grow. Part of Here Maps' strength lies in consolidating real-time traffic information from vehicles. Uber was reportedly in talks with Nokia for the mapping business and had allegedly offered up to US $3 billion on the table.

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How to get your free Windows 10 upgrade now

Microsoft promised a free Windows 10 upgrade to legit and licensed Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 customers. The updates will appear on these millions upon millions of machines on a staggered rollout basis. Microsoft says 'Your notification to upgrade could come as soon as a few days or in a few weeks.' Which is just not acceptable, but there's a way to trick the system into updating ASAP.

Good thing about this method is that it works even if you haven't signed up for a 'reservation' to receive the free update (just means that you'll need to download a larger file). Hit jump on a quick how-to to getting Windows 10.

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Cameras and photo quality are the new proving ground for flagship smartphones

The sincerest form of flattery: Motorola 'borrows' Apple's Shot on iPhone 6 campaign to show its new Moto X is a worthy competitor to Apple's camera phone

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Over 1.5bn new photos are shared every day on Facebook, WhatsApp and Snapchat alone, which equates to about 550bn a year

Forget processor speeds, performance or screen resolution. The battleground for flagship smartphones today is camera and picture quality. We're taking an insane amount of pictures on our devices, everything from baby and pet shots, to selfies and food shots and our smartphones are the best devices for this sort of manic snap-happy photography fest.

Most smartphone users don't even take calls anymore, they may message or text and even play games and use apps and social media services, but you can be certain almost everyone takes pictures and video. Smartphone makers have responded by packing in the megapixels and improving the aperture for better low-light photography.

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Clarkson, Hammond and May take their talents to Amazon Prime for Top Gear-styled show

The power-trio of motoring journalism Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May have agreed to a three-season deal with Amazon Prime which will begin shooting this Fall for launch in 2016. Controversial Clarkson was sacked by the BBC after punching a Top Gear producer, as a result the season of Top Gear was cancelled and Hammond and May decided to quit the show.

Rumoured to be in talks with Netflix (which carries various seasons of Top Gear) but it looks like Amazon Prime offered the team a better deal. 

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