EE customers in the United Kingdom can now pay a 50p fee when they call customers services to jump ahead of other callers in the queue. The priority service puts those who pay in touch with the next available operator while everyone else must wait, and it has been widely criticized by EE subscribers.

Google has Nest. Apple has HomeKit. And now Samsung is buying into the future of home automation too, with the $200 million purchase of SmartThings – a hardware startup that makes it easier for all your smart appliances to talk to each other.

SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson announced today that after starting from the bottom of KickStarter, his two year old home automation company has been bought by Samsung and is moving to Silicon Valley.

Researchers in the U.K. have developed a cellphone that is charged by ambient sound, eliminating the need for a charger. Filled with energy-harvesting “nanogenerators,” the device uses a principal called the piezoelectric effect to turn the sound vibrations in the atmosphere around it into energy.

Amazon is the latest company to move into the ultra-hot area of mobile payments with a new hardware/software combination called Amazon Local Register.

It’s essentially a credit card reader that attaches to your tablet or smartphone, and is accompanied by an app, allowing small business to take credit card payments.

Google is part of a global consortium that plans to install an undersea cable linking the U.S. and Japan to provide faster and more reliable Internet to Asia. The search giant hopes its “FASTER” project will make Google services more accessible to billions of people.