Wenger confirms Arsenal interest in Real Sociedad starlet Griezmann

The forward has earned a France call-up on the back of his impressive goalscoring form in La Liga this season and the Gunners boss admits that the 22-year-old is a transfer target

Arsene Wenger has confirmed that Arsenal are monitoring Real Sociedad forward Antoine Griezmann. 

The 22-year-old has been in impressive form so far this season, scoring 19 goals across all competitions to help his side into sixth place in La Liga.

Arsenal remain in the market for a striker to reduce some of the goalscoring burden on Olivier Giroud, having failed with January moves for Alvaro Morata and Miroslav Klose.

Speaking to Telefoot TF1, Wenger admitted that the French winger is of interest to the Gunners, stating that they had been "following Antoine Griezmann for a long time".

Griezmann is currently La Liga's third-highest scorer behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Diego Costa and his exceptional form has earned a first call-up to the France side for their friendly with Netherlands.

Arsenal, meanwhile, could not find the target on Saturday as they slipped to a 1-0 defeat at Stoke, leaving them four points behind leaders Chelsea, with Wenger left to bemoan his side's inability to cope with the Potters.

"You have to give credit to Stoke, they defended well with resilience and they made the game very physical," he told reporters.

"We knew before the game, they have the highest number of fouls in the Premier League but we didn't cope well enough with it.

"Honestly I don't want to talk about the referee. I have nothing to say about [fouls on Giroud], I'm long enough in the game to make my own judgement and I prefer to concentrate on our performance."

Bayern will not stop signing Dortmund stars, says Rummenigge

The reigning champions are intent on continuing their transfer policy and will keep on trying to sign the best players available from their arch-rivals

Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge says that the Bundesliga champions will not stop signing players from Borussia Dortmund just to maintain a good relationship with their rivals.

The Bavarians have received their fair share of criticism for their tendency to stockpile the Bundesliga's best talent, with the signings of Mario Gotze and Robert Lewandowski from BVB in particular causing uproar.

Nevertheless, Rummenigge has made it clear that Bayern will not change their transfer policy, irrespective of how their rivals feel about it.

"We would never make a senseless decision to no longer sign players from Dortmund," Rummenigge toldZDF.

"We have a good relationship with Dortmund. I met with their CEO last summer and any bad feelings were cleared up then."

Bayern lured Gotze to the Allianz Arena last season by triggering his €37 million exit clause, while Lewandowski will make the move to Bavaria on a free transfer this summer.

Juventus would be a step back, says Verratti

The playmaker has rejected suggestions that he would want to join the Bianconeri, arguing that it would not be a wise career move for him

Marco Verratti has dismissed the idea of leaving Paris Saint-Germain for Juventus, describing the prospect of a move to Turin as a "step back".

The 21-year-old playmaker had the opportunity to join the Italian champions in 2012 while playing for Serie B side Pescara but instead opted to move to the Parc des Princes, where he has become an important part of the Ligue 1 outfit's midfield alongside Blaise Matuidi and Thiago Motta.

Verratti has previously stated that he rejected the Old Lady due to concerns over the amount of playing time he would be afforded in Turin, but he has now suggested that he has outgrown the Bianconeri.

"If I were to go to Juve now, it would be a step back," the midfielder told L'Equipe.

"I'm good here and I want to stay for a long time. When I was a kid, I liked the club [Juventus], but now I'm happy at PSG.

"The PSG project is among the best in the world. In Paris, we have the possibility of winning everything in a few years' time."

The Italy international, who has made 21 appearances and contributed six assists in Ligue 1 this season, also denied rumours that he had spoken with Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti over a possible transfer to the Santiago Bernabeu.

"There was no contact with Ancelotti last summer," Verratti declared. "We call each other every now and then, but it's only because he likes to joke a lot."

PSG currently lead Ligue 1 with 61 points from 26 games, five ahead of Monaco, who fell to a 2-0 defeat against Saint-Etienne on Saturday.

Oscars 2014: Brad Pitt Wins His First For 12 Years A Slave

The Academy Awards or Oscars are the most prestigious award ceremony in Hollywood. Every year, we root for our favourite performances and actors, both male and female as they walk on to the stage to collect their appreciation.

However, Brad Pitt who has been nominated thrice before has never won the statue but this year at the Oscars, history was written as he won an Academy Award for his work as co-producer on 12 Years A Slave.

Brad Pitt attended the Oscars with his stunning fiancee Angelina Jolie who wore a dress designed by Elie Saab from his Fall 2013 Couture collection. Angelina Jolie was one of the many stars to opt for a neutral palette this year alongside Cate Blanchett and Julie Delpy.

Talking about the Oscar Night, well Steve McQueen’s slavery drama 12 Years A Slave that unflinchingly portrays America’s dark past was crowned the best picture while Alfonso Cuaron’s 3D space thriller Gravity walked away with seven trophies.

While 3D film Gravity walked away with most of the golden statuettes out of its ten nominations thanks to its technical brilliance, the Academy’s over six thousand voters bestowed the top award on 12 Years A Slave out of the nine best picture nominees.

Best Actor and Best Actress Oscars went to Matthew McConaughey and Cate Blanchett for their roles in Dallas Buyers Club and Blue Jasmine respectively.

Here’s The Complete Winner List Of Oscars 2014:

Best Picture: 12 Years A Slave

Best Actress In A Leading Role: Cate Blanchett For Blue Jasmine

Best Actor In A Leading Role: Matthew McConaughey For Dallas Buyers Club

Best Actress In A Supporting Role: Lupita Nyong’o For 12 Years A Slave

Best Actor In A Supporting Role: Jared Leto For Dallas Buyers Club

Best Animated Feature Film: Frozen – Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee And Peter Del Vecho

Achievement In Directing: Alfonso Cuaron For Gravity

Achievement In Costume Design: Catherine Martin For The Great Gatsby

Achievement In Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki For Gravity

Achievement In Film Editing: Alfonso Cuaron And Mark Sanger For Gravity

Achievement In Make-Up And Hairstyling: Adruitha Lee And Robin Mathews For Dallas Buyers Club

Music (Original Score): Steven Price For Gravity

Music (Original Song): Let It Go From Frozen – Music And Lyrics By Kristen Anderson-Lopez And Robert Lopez

Achievement In Production Design: Catherine Martin (Production Design); Beverley Dunn (Set Decoration) For The Great Gatsby

Best Foreign Language Film: The Great Beauty (Italy)

Best Documentary Feature: 20 Feet From Stardom

Best Documentary Short Subject: The Lady In Number 6: Music Saved My Life, Malcolm Clarke And Nicholas Reed

Best Short Film (Animated): Mr. Hublot - Laurent Witz and Alexandre Espigares

Best Short Film (Live Action): Helium - Anders Walter and Kim Magnusson

The world's largest aircraft can fly for three weeks (it's not cute)

A touch scary?

(Credit: Airlander/Vimeo screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Thanks to technology, the world is becoming a darker place.

No, I'm not suggesting that we're becoming less and less enlightened, as we sacrifice our minds to the robots.

Instead, I'm merely indicating that we will soon not be able to see that thing we currently call the sky.

There'll be Jeff Bezos's drones flying around all day, delivering dictionaries and diapers to the distressed. There'll be journalistic drones all around, capturing every aerial detail of multiple carcrashes.

And then there'll be the HAV 304 Airlander, which is so large that it will block the view of several planets as it waddles through the heavens.

I confess I hadn't heard of this plane before the Telegraph told me it was the world's largest aircraft.

Indeed, when you look at the promotional video above, it's got massive green credentials, can fly for three weeks, and is a marvelous hybrid of airship, plane, and helicopter.

It's 300 feet long and doesn't need an airport to take off. Yes, if you have a large garden, it can take off from it.

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It can land on water, sand, or ice.

Some might be disturbed, though, by its potential uses. Though it can be used to deliver vast amounts of humanitarian aid, I was moved by the words of Hybrid Air Vehicles' technical director, who says in the video: "You can put 7 or 8 tons of surveillance equipment on board."

Honestly, we can never have enough surveillance. What fun to have it being transported in a vehicle the size of Vegas.

Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of metal band Iron Maiden, is one of those involved in this fine project, which has been given 2.5 million British pounds (about $4.2 million) to prepare itself for a maiden flight in the fall.

Some, though, have observed that its rear end resembles, well, a large human rear end.

That would surely be one more discombobulating sight in the skies of the future.

Just so beautiful.

(Credit: Airlander/Vimeo screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

IBM laying off up to 25 percent of 'hardware' division

IBM chief Ginni Rometty addresses attendees at Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona.

(Credit: IBM)

IBM has confirmed that it's laying off a portion of its workforce in order to focus on new priority areas, like the cloud, analytics, and cognitive computing. This means certain divisions of the company must see cuts.

"As reported in our recent earnings briefing, IBM continues to rebalance its workforce to meet the changing requirements of its clients, and to pioneer new, high value segments of the IT industry," IBM spokesman Doug Shelton told CNET in a statement. "To that end, IBM is positioning itself to lead in areas such as cloud, analytics and cognitive computing, and investing in these priority areas."

The company wouldn't comment on the number of people being laid off or what divisions would be most affected. However, one source familiar with the plans told CNET that the layoffs entailed up to 25 percent in the Systems and Technology group -- this is the group that makes IBM servers and is often referred to as the "hardware" division.

IBM announced last month that it sold its x86 server business to Lenovo for $2.3 billion, so layoffs within the hardware division seem to make sense. With the sale, about 7,500 IBM employees were expected to be offered jobs at Lenovo. In 2005, IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo, too.

IBM currently employs more than 400,000 people worldwide and says that its total workforce has remained stable over the past three years. Additionally, the company is investing in cutting edge projects like Watson, which was first developed by IBM researchers to show what was possible in combining cognitive computing and natural language processing.

"Already this year we have committed $1 billion to our new Watson unit and $1.2 billion to expand our Cloud footprint around the world," Shelton said. "In addition, just this week IBM announced a $1 billion investment in platform-as-a-service Cloud capabilities, as well as investments in areas such as nanotechnology which will bring hundreds of new jobs to New York state."

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"This also creates new job opportunities at IBM," Shelton continued. "At any given time, IBM has more than 3,000 job openings in these and other growth areas in the US."

IBM employs tens of thousands of people across the US. According to Alliance@IBM, a union seeking to represent IBM employees, workers in New York, Minnesota, and Vermont will be among those hit hard by the layoffs, along with workers in other countries.

Vermont's Burlington Free Press newspaper reports that more than 100 employees will be lad off from IBM's plant in Essex Junction, Vt. And, New York's Poughkeepsie Journal writes that IBM agreed to keep at least 3,100 high-tech workers in upstate New York through 2016 -- however, the last official head count of the state's workers was estimated around 7,000.

Sony looks to shed former Tokyo headquarters -- report

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Sony is edging closer to ditching yet another building.

The company has entered into an agreement to sell its old headquarters in Tokyo for $146.5 million, Yhe Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people who claim to have knowledge of the deal. The building, in central Tokyo, was the company's headquarters from 1990 to 2007. It's now home to the company's medical operation and other ancillary operations.

The impending sale is just the latest in a long line of asset sales that Sony has engaged in to improve its financial position. CEO Kazuo Hirai has been at working trying to raise cash and make his firm more agile, and has sold off a wide array of assets to do that. Last year, in fact, Sony sold for $1.1 billion its US headquarters on Madison Avenue in New York City. Still, Sony said earlier this month that it expects to post a $1.1 billion loss for its fiscal year ending in March.

Sony has not confirmed the news that it's planning to sell its former headquarters, but several reports out of Japan have also confirmed the news with sources. It's not clear when the deal will close.