Not every prediction comes true, but one of the more daring claims has surfaced from a Forbes article. According to the writer, Microsoft will be able to surpass Apple on the mobile scene in 3 years. If that does become a reality, it will be no easy feat as Apple is currently riding high with incredible profit margins and the enjoying popularity of its iPhone.

That being said, let’s not forget that Nokia is making some good inroads in emerging countries, which also means that Windows Phone is gaining some traction in those markets. If Microsoft continues and succeeds in integrating its core products, it is believable that Apple will have a strong competitor to deal with, assuming Apple doesn’t improve by leaps and bounds over the next three years. Will it come true? I guess we’ll find out in three years’ time.

Here’s Why Microsoft’s New Mobile Strategy Will Help It Overtake Apple In 3 Years

First of all, both Microsoft’s and Nokia’s dominance in emerging countries and the high demand for low cost smart phones will help propel Microsoft into the number two position globally (only the Android OS can compete here).

Second, as Microsoft rolls out its integration capabilities to business people across the enterprise through Office 365 and Windows 8.1, and to consumers through the Xbox, Microsoft will pick up a lot of new users that are looking for seamless app integration across their business and home lives. Most people will not want their information stuck in separate operating systems for much longer.

WIRED.com reports that data was hijacked through a security vulnerability in the traffic-routing system.

In 2008, two security researchers at the DefCon hacker conference demonstrated a massive security vulnerability in the worldwide internet traffic-routing system — a vulnerability so severe that it could allow intelligence agencies, corporate spies or criminals to intercept massive amounts of data, or even tamper with it on the fly.

Earlier this year, researchers say, someone mysteriously hijacked internet traffic headed to government agencies, corporate offices and other recipients in the U.S. and elsewhere and redirected it to Belarus and Iceland, before sending it on its way to its legitimate destinations. They did so repeatedly over several months. But luckily someone did notice.

And this may not be the first time it has occurred — just the first time it got caught.

How big of an issue is this? Whoever siphoned the data is able to read unencrypted data including email, spreadsheets, credit card numbers and other sensitive information.

TUAW reports that Target sold a demo iPad unit to on Black Friday and instead of going to Target for an exchange, she contacted a local news agency.

Not only that, according to the original report, the customer noticed that it was a demo unit after inspecting the sticker on the bottom, but instead of simply returning it to Target she decided to call a local news agency. You know, for justice.

This is a simple case of an inventory mistake by Target. This woman chose to blow up the incident and insisted that the iPad belonged to a woman in California.

Crowley made the assumption that this iPad belonged to another real human being. However, she also noted that the label on the box said “demo.”

Media outlets picked up the incident and started spreading sensationalist headlines. CNET’s headline read: “Woman buys ‘new’ iPad Air (full of someone else’s stuff)”

A Google search turned up many news sites that used similar misleading headlines.

WIRED.com reports that Twitter is making tweaks to its interface to encourage users to communicate with each other.

The main thing I’ve found using the new version is that the way you send and receive direct messages, see what your friends are up to, and take part in public conversations are all lot more obvious. That’s especially true of messages. That dedicated button for messages (which Twitter, interestingly, isn’t calling direct messages) is glaring at you all the time, inviting action.

It’s a big change. Twitter had buried the direct message in previous versions of the app. It was hard to find, and hard to understand how to compose a new one. Now it’s front and center, and meant to get you talking to people, directly, one-on-one, just as the Notifications tab is meant to get people interacting with each other publicly. Between Notifications and Messages, half of the app’s buttons are devoted to conversations.

Messaging is a big way for companies to keep users in the app. Facebook messages is the main pull for me to get onto the social network. When using Facebook messages on desktop and iPad, I find myself invariably drawn into going through my News Feed. No wonder Instagram is rumoured to be interested in messaging too.

How big is messaging? Tencent’s WeChat and QQ messaging apps boast of more than a billion users. Even LINE outnumbers Twitter with its 300 million users. Although Twitter has 883 million accounts, only 232 million are active users. But is Twitter too late to jump onto the messaging bandwagon?

The Next Web reports that WhatsApp has finally been updated for iOS 7.

Aside from a refreshed design that sports the iOS 7-style look, the app now lets users broadcast to lists to communicate to many people at once.

Image thumbnails are now larger, making it possible to see greater details in photos without having to open them.

WhatsApp might be losing the messaging race to Line and WeChat, but it is the first to roll out its iOS 7 design.

While the Nexus 5 is a good device, its main weakness is it’s problematic camera. With the Android 4.4.1 update, which should be rolling out in the next few days, hopefully the frustrating issues such as slow focusing will be resolved.

On a personal level, I hope that such improvements and fixes cascade down to the Nexus 4 that I’m using too, as that phone has a camera that is absolutely horrible.

Fixing the Nexus 5: with a new version of Android, Google tackles the camera

The changes break down in five categories, Burke says, autofocus first among them. Mixing speed and image quality requires a fragile balance, particularly in low light, and Android 4.4 skewed too far toward image quality. “There’s a tendency to say, ‘oh, we have this cool thing that stabilizes, so lets make the shutter time longer, reduce the gain even longer, and get better shots.’” But while the Nexus 5’s optical image stabilization allowed it to get better-than-average shots in low light, in good lighting it just made for frustratingly slow shooting speeds. By speeding up the framerate and increasing how quickly the camera can read its surroundings and fire a picture, Burke and his team improved the autofocus, the exposure, and the white balance. “You fix the motion blur,” he says, “and make everything faster.”