Free digital goodies from Apple will appear in both the App Store and iTunes between December 26th & January 6th! These will include free books, movies, apps, and songs!

AT&Ts has officially brought Gigabit to Austin neighborhoods. But some upsetting news came about this week regarding their contract. If you want that lower rate you have to submit to something called AT&T Internet Preferences, giving permission to AT&T to use your web browsing information. The company says they use the information to better target ads for the user. To opt out of this, you apparently can pay a higher price of $99. I don't believe it would make any difference.

An owner of a Samsung Galaxy S4 had his phone explode while it was charging. The guy, naturally, wanted to share his experience and posted a video on YouTube providing evidence of what happened. Samsung reacted to this upset not by replacing the damaged phone immediately like they should have, but by asking him to take the video down first. He instead posted a second video revealing how Samsung reacted to the situation. Oddly enough, Nokia sent a free Lumia smartphone to the man.

This week's What The Tech includes a strange new $150 dollar app from Apple, PopTopia, where the user can actually plug in a dongle that releases popcorn-scented molecules to the user while they play.

Facebook is developing a new sympathize button as an alternative to the like button for use in certain situations. Sometimes it is just plain awkward to have no option but to press “like” when a person posts a status that may or may not be a happy one.

Finally, looks like Applebees and possibly other restaurants like Chilis will begin replacing waiters with tablets. Last week, Applebees announced plans to install a tablet at every table in its 1850 stores in the US. The devices are used to order, pay the bill and ignore waiters. Also possible to ignore who you’re dining with because they will be preloaded with games.