According to conflicting reports Apple either already bought or plans to buy PrimeSense, the Israel-based company behind the 3D sensor technology inside the first Kinect peripheral.

The news comes from Israeli financial paper Calcalist, who says Apple acquired Primesense for $345 million. However anonymous sources tell AllThingsD Apple did not buy the company just yet, but is "close" to doing so.

"We are focused on building a prosperous company while bringing 3D sensing and natural interaction to the mass market in a variety of markets such as interactive living room and mobile devices," PrimeSense tells Reuters. "We do not comment on what any of our partners, customers or potential customers are doing and we do not relate to rumours or recycled rumours."

After missing out on smartphones and tablets Intel refuses to be left behind in Internet of Things (IoT), forming the IoT Solutions Group to push IoT implementations across the industry.

The newly-formed divisions unites the Intelligent Systems Group with the Wind River subsidiary, bringing together the intelligent systems hardware, software, services and platform elements under a single organisation led by VP Doug Davis.

"[CEO Brian Crzanich] is saying, "I want a higher level of focus on this to help us grow it and put the level of attention on it that it deserves,"" Davis tells Reuters. "We're pulling together a couple of pieces that are already doing well and we want to accelerate those efforts."

Apple Q4 2013 revenues reach $37.5 billion with 9% Y-o-Y growth and profits worth $7.5bn-- hardly modest totals, but the laws of big numbers appear to be catching up with the iPhone maker as it faces gradual slowdown.

Such slowdown is seen in profitability, as the company's extraordinary gross margins (peaking at 47.4% in Q2 2012) are down to 37%, with Q1 2014 guidance pointing at margins of 36.5-37.5%. The company also expects Q1 2014 revenues of $55-58bn, another sign of slow(er) growth, at least as compared with Q1 2013 revenues of $54.5bn.

Apple products continue selling, and rather decently-- Q4 iPhone sales reach a new record (33.8 million units with 26% Y-o-Y), iPad sales total 14.1m (from 14m in Q4 2012) and Macs reach 4.6m (a decline from 4.9m in Q4 2012). However such gains are made less in mature and more in emerging markets, especially in China, and further proof of that theory should be gauged following the new iPad and MacBook launches.

Samsung becomes the biggest Corning shareholder while following a deal where the Gorilla Glass earns full control of joint venture Samsung Corning Precision Materials (SCP) in exchange of shares and display glass supply.

Formed in 1995 with Samsung Display, the SCP joint venture was 43% owned by Corning. In return Samsung gets 7.4% of Corning, as well as a 10-year LCD display glass supply agreement and the promise of further technological collaboration.

“We are pleased to have an opportunity to strengthen the strategic ties between our two companies,” Samsung Display CEO Kinam Kim says. “We look forward to concentrating our efforts and combining our expertise in product development with Corning’s renowned leadership in glass technologies to develop new market opportunities in consumer products and other industries.”

"It's full of Quarks and Atoms!" one might remark after looking at the Intel Internet of Things (IoT) roadmap-- one promising to "drive business transformation" by connecting intelligent devices, end-to-end analytics and legacy devices to the cloud.

"The IoT consists of a wide range of internet-connected devices, from a simple pedometer to a complex CT scanner," the company explains. "The true value in the IoT is realized when these intelligent devices communicate and share data with each other and the cloud, uncovering information and actionable insight that can transform business... Intel is focused on driving intelligence in new devices and gateways to help connect the billions of existing devices."

To reach such lofty goals Intel will make use of a pair of product lines-- the newly announced ultra low-power Quark X1000 SoC series and the 64-bit Atom E3800 family.

According to Reuters 3 of the top 20 Microsoft investors want founder Bill Gates to step down as chairman because his presence "effectively blocks the adoption of new strategies," thus limiting the powers of a new CEO.

Speaking to anonymous sources, Reuters reports the shareholders believe Gates wields "power out of proportion to his declining shareholding," even if he spends most of his time on philanthropic foundations.

Gates is the largest Microsoft shareholder, with a 4.5% stake in the $277 billion company-- a stake that, thanks to pre-set sales plan created when Microsoft went public in 1986, will drop down to nothing by 2018.

BlackBerry may soon find itself in what Bloomberg says is the lowest-costing buyout of a similar-sized N. American technology company yet, having reached a tentative $4.7 billion deal with major shareholder Fairfax Financial.

The deal has the Canadian insurance firm offering $9 per BlackBerry share, for an amount covering 90% of the company-- quite the plunge for a company once valued at $83 billion.

Fairfax owns the remaining 10% of BlackBerry.

Rubbing further salt in the wound is the fact that while the deal does not oblige Fairfax to actually buy up the smartphone maker, BlackBerry would have to pay a breakup fee worth over $150 million should it find an alternate buyer willing to pay a higher price by 4 November 2013.

Apple CEO Tim Cook does not mince his words in a Bloomberg post-iPhone 5S/C launch interview-- asked on the current state of the mobile industry, Cook at one point remarks "everybody is trying to adopt Apple’s strategy."

"It wasn’t that long ago that people thought it was an absolutely ludicrous strategy to try to do hardware and software... They thought it was crazy," he continues before pointing out the Windows/Intel model of hardware making has, by now, "ran its course."

One has to admit Cook makes a very interesting point. After all, why else would Google buy Motorola Mobility, or Microsoft acquire Nokia? The two companies might insist everything is hunky dory when it comes to hardware partners, but one cannot deny the advantages of being able to finely mesh hardware and software design together-- or believe OEMs are truly happy with the current situation.

In further talk on the mobile market Cook states the mobile market is "even more a two-operating-system world," if one where Android faces the "growing problem" of fragmentation. Cook considers the various Android variants (such as what Android or Samsung do with the software) as separate operating systems-- a piece of mathematics allowing him to declare "more people [are] using iOS 6 than there is any version of Android" before iOS 7 grows into the most popular OS around.