- Google Shopping will begin paid-for transition this February Google Shopping is beginning its transition to a commercial model in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil, Australia, and Switzerland next month - a transition that was completed in the United States in October 2012 - meaning that, for the first time, merchants in said 10 countries must pay to have their products listed on Google Shopping.
- PlayStation 3 surpasses Xbox 360 in number of shipped units for first time As Sony officially ends production of the PlayStation 2 and all eyes shift towards the two big next-generation game consoles expected to be announced and possibly made available before the end of the year, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720, Sony's current console, the PlayStation 3, is making headlines of its own.
- 30 new jobs at payment processing firm based in Ireland OmniPay, a payment processing company that established itself in Ireland in 2000 has announced, with the support of IDA Ireland, that it is to create a further 30 jobs at its headquarters in Dublin over the next six months.
- Irish businessman sets precedent with Twitter defamation case Prominent Irish businessman Declan Ganley has set a precedent for legal proceedings involving defamation and libel on social sites, including Twitter and Facebook, as he reached an out-of-court settlement yesterday with blogger Kevin Barrington over defamatory tweets he published in December of last year.
- Sony announces the Xperia Z – a Samsung Galaxy S4 competitor Sony has announced its new flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z - a device that it hopes will help keep the company relevant among the emerging leaders of the high-end smartphone market: Apple and Samsung.
- Sony officially ends PS2 production, now concentrating on PS4 After earlier unconfirmed reports that Sony had ended production of the PlayStation 2 - the most successful games console of all time - the Japanese consumer electronics giant has now officially confirmed this to be true.
- Google Play will hit one million apps this June After the single busiest week in terms of new device activations and app downloads in Android history, we study the size of Google Play's app directory and predict when it's likely to reach the magical one million app milestone.
- As tablet market matures, the iPad's share falls sharply This may sound a little shocking at first but in the days immediately after Christmas Apple's share of the tablet market actually fell by 7.1%. This is, however, a sign that the tablet market is maturing rather than any beginning of the end predictions for Apple.
- The Sociable: Our top 20 stories from 2012 Before we begin our journey again in 2013, we take a look back on 2012 and reveal the stories you read most on The Sociable.