Photo: Killian Bell

Just like one of The Avengers — where bickering superheroes team up to fight a far more oppressive evil — Apple and Android fans on reddit have united forces to boycott what they see as the unethical blocking of NFC payment systems by a number of different retailers, affecting users of both Apple Pay and Google Wallet.

The reason for this blocking of the NFC service is that the retailers in question — including Gap, Old Navy, 7-Eleven, Sears, Kmart and others — are part of an organization called Merchant Customer Exchange, which uses its own payment system called CurrentC.

Revolv was snapped up by Nest — although it doesn’t look like it’ll remain revolving for long. Photo: Revolv

Nest has acquired Revolv, the Colarado-based startup which allowed users to control their smart home devices from a single interface using their smartphone.

No price has yet been announced for the purchase, which follows Nest’s $555 million Dropcam purchase back in June, and Nest’s own acquisition by Google for a massive $3.2 billion earlier this year.

San Andreas is 10 years old today. Photo: Rockstar

If you haven’t already picked up Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series on Android and iOS, you’re missing out on some of the best console games ever brought to mobile. But now’s your chance to get them super cheap, which GTA 3, Vice City, and San Andreas all reduced to celebrate the latter’s 10th anniversary.

The Xperia Z3v in all its waterproof glory. Photo: Sony

Unlike every other major smartphone company, Apple launches new flagship iPhones just once a year, meaning that whenever a customer buys a new iPhone around release time they can rest safe in the knowledge that their device is going to remain current for a whole twelve months.

Seeing the kind of success Apple has had with this model, Song Mobile has reportedly gone back to the Xerox machine drawing board, and decided to scrap their own twice-yearly policy of refreshing its flagship Xperia phone in favor an Apple-style annual overhaul.

Have you seen a Fire Phone in the wild yet? Photo: Amazon

During its earnings call yesterday Amazon gave some clues about just how spectacularly its Fire Phone business is tanking — making it seem one of the worst tech ideas since the RMS Titanic shipped without lifeboats.

How bad are we talking? At the end of its disappointing third-quarter the company still has a massive $83 million worth of unsold inventory sitting around.

It’s now taking a $170 million charge “primarily related to Fire phone inventory valuation and supplier commitment costs.”