The streaming team within Microsoft's Operating Systems Group is developing a new technology named Arcadia, which is expected to replace the discontinued “Rio” game-streaming service. “Arcadia, which is being built on Microsoft's Azure cloud … will stream not just games, but also certain apps,” ZDNet reports, citing sources. Meanwhile, “Microsoft officials considered using Arcadia to allow users to stream Android apps and games on their Windows devices.” 

Netflix just released a new Android app featuring social recommendation features, which make it easier for users to share recommendations with friends. “The sharing is also done privately, and alerts people the next time they open Netflix,” VentureBeat notes. “This particular feature first launched for the Netflix website and other platforms back in September.” 

Upon its soft launch -- at least for Spanish in the English translations -- the first reviews are coming in for Microsoft’s Skype Translator. After a little getting used to, Mashable’s Lance Ulanoff concluded: “It does work.” Users still need an invite from Microsoft to use the services, but a broader rollout is coming. Already, real-time text translation is available for 40 languages including Korean to Estonian. 

Om Malik is pretty excited about the visual Web, which, as he marvels, is going to grow by some 900 billion photos, this year. On the visual Web, “An image is the gateway to accessing almost all content and information,” says Sophie Lebrecht, founder and CEO Neon Labs. Today, images “are becoming a touch point for navigation on mobile and other connected devices,” according to Lebrecht. Adds Malik, there are big opportunities for engineers and companies that can effectively organize this visual information. 

Google is making it easier for museums to build mobile applications that rely heavily on Street View, YouTube and its other top platforms. “Through partnerships between museums worldwide and the Google Cultural Institute, there are now 11 museums and cultural institutions that have participated in this pilot project to date,” TechCrunch reports. The apps may also offer photos of the exhibits and audio tours, along with social-sharing features.” 

Some of the top app of 2014 included Netflix, Facebook, Pandora and MyFitness Pal, according to new figures from Google and its Play app store. Among other content leaders, “Frozen," "The Walking Dead" and "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea all placed at the top of the list in their respective categories,” TechCrunch notes. “Google also said that Health and Fitness was the fastest-growing app category.” 

Microsoft just bought a crash analytics and app distribution provider named HockeyApp. The German service is designed for developers building apps on iOS, Android and Windows Phone. “As mobile, cloud, and DevOps continue to transform the application development landscape, we are bringing together the most complete set of tools and services for highly productive mobile-first, cloud-first development,” S. “Soma” Somasegar, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Developer Division, said in a blog post. 

For better or worse, Amazon has decided to let shoppers negotiate the cost of products with merchants. “Similar to eBay’s ‘Best Offer’ feature, Amazon will also now let shoppers in certain categories … make bids that the seller can either accept or decline,” VentureBeat reports. “The seller can also make a counter-offer to the potential buyer, one that’s perhaps lower than the listed fixed-price, but higher than the offer made.” 

DataGravity -- which specializes in helping companies track and extract value from the various data they collect -- just raised another $50 million. The Series C round was led by Accel Partners. “DataGravity says its storage array, available since October, will help companies wring more value out of the data they aggregate, and show them at the click of a button who’s looking at what information,” GigaOm reports. “For example, a law firm is using the product to make sure … that case information isn’t being read ‘inappropriately.’” 

YouTube just relaunched its Apple TV app so its videos can now include ads. “The update means YouTube on Apple TV will look similar to YouTube on Xbox and other devices, both in terms of appearance and content,” Re/Code reports. “It also (probably) means that Google’s team doesn’t think Apple is planning a significant overhaul of Apple TV anytime soon, since it (probably) wouldn’t spend the time on an app refresh if it thought the device was going to change radically in the near future.”