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SpaceX video shows the landing of the rocket booster right from stage separation to the landing zone, both from the ground and from the rocket itself.

Videos showing SpaceX landing the booster stage of its Falcon 9 rockets are not new, but this webcast is clearly their best yet. It was broadcast today, covering the NROL-76 launch. Due the classified nature of the mission, SpaceX did not broadcast video of the second stage.

This presented the rocket firm with an opportunity however, to broadcast the landing of the first stage of the rocket from stage separation back to the surface of Earth. In a split-screen broadcast, SpaceX tracked the booster as it fell at high speed toward the Earth, oriented itself and slowed itself down to land safely. It also had an onboard camera as before.

The landing was a success and the video footage, as well as the detailed narration, gives the rest of us an idea of how tricky this manoeuvre is.

Watch the NROL-76 Launch Webcast below (the launch happens around 17:50 into the video).

Mr Musk's 'Boring Company' has shown a concept video for a subterranean network of tunnels that zips cars from place to place.

If you have spent time listening to Elon Musk opine, then you probably have heard him passionately complaining about traffic. The SpaceX & Tesla Motors CEO had tweeted last year that he was going to avoid traffic by getting a tunnel boring machine.

Apparently, it wasn't just a passing thought that Elon decided to tweet to the world, but a statement of intent. A SpaceX employee recently leaked a picture of a tunnel boring machine with a company logo for "The Boring Company" painted on. The photo was taken down but not before Business Insider grabbed and re-posted it.

Last week, 'The Boring Company' released a concept video. In the mock up, cars are seen parking on a street-level platform before being lowered into a tunnel and whisked off at high speed to a location and being elevated to the street.

Here is that video:

An analyst is predicting that Sony will speed up its console refresh cycle and release the PlayStation 5 in the second half of 2018.

The gap between the original PlayStation console and the PlayStation 2 console was six years (1994, 2000). Sony then released the PlayStation 3 console six years later, in 2006. Back in late 2013, Sony dropped the PlayStation 4 onto the market, this time the gap between the debut was seven years.

However, Macquarie Capital Securities analyst Damian Thong is predicting that the next major console release from Sony will be in the second half of 2018, just five years since the original PS4. Thong had accurately predicted the release of the PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro.

There are many reasons why Thong could be proven right again. With the release of the PS4, Sony switched to x86 architecture with AMD chips, as did rivals Microsoft with the Xbox One. It is very unlikely that Sony would opt to switch to custom processors with a PS5, and so maintaining backward compatibility with the PS4 titles shouldn't be a problem.

Market forces also may speed up the refresh cycle for the iconic console. More than ever, games consoles are competing with mobile platforms, low cost devices and increasingly affordable and convenient high-quality PC gaming. In this changing market, a seven year gap between PlayStation releases is probably unlikely.

The Turkish authorities have blocked access to Wikipedia, citing a 'smear campaign' against the country.

The block was announced by the BTK telecommunications watchdog, citing a law that allows it to block access to content on the Internet if it is deemed a threat to national security, or if it is obscene. Wikipedia.org has been blocked by the authorities on the grounds that it is engaged in a smear campaign against Turkey by linking the country to militant groups.

"Instead of coordinating against terrorism, it has become part of an information source which is running a smear campaign against Turkey in the international arena," Anadolu, a state-controlled news organization, reported.

The ban will only be lifted if the online encyclopaedia complies with demands from the Turkish government, according to the Reuters news agency.

Censorship of this kind is likely to concern rights' campaigners who have blown the whistle on infringements on freedom of speech and other rights in Turkey in the past year.

In an unfortunate display of how piracy-related censorship activity can identify innocent targets, a recent takedown request listed www.facebook.com as an infringing URL.

The takedown notice, spotted by TorrentFreak, was sent to Google by NetResult on behalf of the Premier League. Such notices request that Google remove results from its Search service that offer unlicensed video streams of football matches for free.

In the past, large scale efforts to block access to (or lower the visibility of) websites that engage in copyright infringement have been criticized for catching innocent targets in the web. This little snafu - in which NetResult identified https://www.facebook.com as a link that should be removed from Google's search results - is a rather dramatic example of an innocent party being identified and targeted.

Fortunately for Facebook, Google decided not to comply with the takedown request and Facebook's homepage can still be found by the world's most popular search engine.

Read More: TorrentFreak

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) finds that the sale of media set top boxes pre-loaded with piracy-enabling add-ons can be considered illegal.

The court handed down its decision last week in a case related to the sale of such media boxes in the Netherlands. Pre-loaded media boxes (sometimes incorrectly labelled as 'Kodi Boxes') come with apps and add-ons that provide access to streams of movies, TV shows, music and even live television. The sources for the content typically don't have the express permission of the copyright holder for distribution.

In this case, Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN took action against a business selling such pre-loaded boxes. Eventually, the case found its way to the ECJ for interpretation, and the court came to the conclusion that the sale of such devices can be considered illegal under EU copyright directives.

"It is common ground that the sale of the 'filmerspeler' multimedia player was made in full knowledge of the fact that the add-ons containing hyperlinks pre-installed on that player gave access to works published illegally on the internet," the ECJ decision reads.

Remedy Entertainment, the Finnish game developer behind hit games such as Max Payne, plans on listing on Nasdaq First North. The company says in its press release that it estimates the listing to happen next month.

Remedy's first hit game was Max Payne which introduced the bullet time effect from the movie Matrix into gaming in 2001 and got its film adaptation in 2008 starring Mark Wahlberg. The company has since created critically-acclaimed titles Alan Wake and most recently Quantum Break.

According to Remedy the listing will drive its future strategy that includes creating "high-quality games to the global market more often," which makes sense for a company that has been notoriously slow in releasing games. The company has managed to perform well with the games but it has taken up to 5 years to cook up one.

They also plan to develop games for multiple platforms, which hasn't been the case with its titles. The company hopes the listing will ensure better position to hold on to the ownership of their IP. Alan Wake and Quantum Break both have been published by Microsoft and been Xbox and Windows exclusives.

First North is Nasdaq's European stock exchange division for small and growing businesses that has lately seen activity from other Nordic gaming companies as well. Earlier this year a Finnish mobile game studio Next Games, known for its Walking Dead mobile game, also listed on Nasdaq Helsinki's First North market.

The New York Times has revealed that the ride-hailing service tracked iPhones used by customers in a bid to tackle fraud.

The idea was to identify criminals that install the app on stolen devices, use stolen credit cards to book journeys and then wipe the device and repeat.

"Being able to recognise known bad actors when they try to get back on to our network is an important security measure for both Uber and our users," Uber commented.

However pure Uber's intentions may have been, such fingerprinting measures are in violation of Apple's privacy policies, and Tim Cook himself reportedly ordered Uber to cease the activity or face expulsion from the App Store.

The NYT article also claimed that Uber went as far as to ringfence Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, to avoid detection of the practice by Apple employees.

Source: New York Times

Apple and Spotify are not necessarily the oldest and the most typical competitors. However, especially since Apple decided to launch their new Apple Music streaming service it has become evident that the companies are fighting for the same customers.

Spotify has managed to keep the number one spot, and actually even further the lead in subscriber numbers since the launch of Apple Music. Now the company seems to be expanding and challenging the world's largest company (by market cap) in another type of product.

The Swedish streaming powerhouse is looking to hire a senior product manager for the "Platform & Partner Experience team". The job offer sites "fully-connected hardware devices" that use Spotify and "category defining product akin to Pebble Watch, Amazon Echo, and Snap Spectacles."

What this means is unclear at this point, and soon after the recruitment announcement was posted it was removed from the site altogether. Obviously with such little detail it is really hard to pinpoint what type of hardware Spotify has in mind but one could imagine some portable music device is a pretty safe bet. Perhaps a voice controlled, Apple AirPods-like, streaming music player?

Apple has hired former NASA employee Jeff Norris, Bloomberg reports. Norris founded Mission Operations Innovation Office that was working under Jet Propulsion Lab, where many of the NASA's augmented reality projects were born.

Under Norris NASA has for example developed tools, which allow to control remote spaceships and robots via AR glasses. NASA is also in close cooperation with Microsoft and its HoloLens glasses which are perhaps the most known AR project to date.

According to Bloomberg, Norris moved to Apple early this year and works as a senior manager of an augmented reality research team. The leader of the team is Mike Rockwell who was acquired from Dolby Labs.

Apple might as well use Norris' expertise in other ways. While at NASA he was researching natural interfaces and how to use Kinect-style controls with robots.

Some reports suggest that Apple has been developing AR glasses for over a year. The company has not confirmed any products.

Intel and Micron have been promoting their new 3D Xpoint memory technology for a long time. Finally the technology is close to landing in computers and portable devices.

The technology will first be adopted by Intel's own server and business setups with the new Optane memories. Also the world's largest PC manufacturer Lenovo has announced previously that it will give some of its laptops a new hybrid drive which will include a small Optane drive.

3D Xpoint is said to be nearly as fast as a DRAM type memory, but the memory density is four times larger. Even if it might be as fast as some RAM memories it is not meant to replace them but instead give a huge speed boost to SSD and hybrid drives that are currently using NAND technology.

As you might imagine all this advancement in SSDs is not going to be cheap. For example, a 375 GB Optane SSD DC P4800X costs over $1500 without sales tax, so you'll have to wait a little while before mass markets are going to be adopting it.

However, for people that are interested in the performance of the new type of memory, and might even have use for it in servers or other business settings, AnandTech has an in-depth article, albeit crippled by Intel's policies a bit, about the aforementioned P4800X Optane SSD.

The Pirate Bay was founded in 2003 by three Swedes. Later on the trio became famous – or infamous – for their arrests, prison sentences, new business opportunities, and even from denouncing The Pirate Bay. Now arguably the most famous of the three, Peter Sunde, the face of TPB if you like, has released a new service.

The service is meant for people who are worried about their privacy, but what could it be since VPN and the likes have been around for ages. Sunde's new Njalla service is a domain registeration service which allows the customers to acquire domains fully anonymously.

The name of the service comes from the Sami people who used a njalla, or a hut on top of tree stumps or poles, to secure food away from animals.

Essentially Njalla works as an intermediary for businesses and private people to buy domain names. Njalla will officially be the one that buys the domain and therefore all the public information will point to Sunde's company but all the control is given to the customer.

Sunde says that there are services already that aim to give more privacy to customers but they mainly work as a redirect service without full anonymity. He acknowledges that customers must trust Njalla wholeheartedly but with that trust comes privacy that others can't provide. Even though Njalla owns the domains they will sign a contract that will hand over all the usage rights to the customer.

Streaming company Spotify has managed to grow the number of paying customers immense in the past couple of years. Even after Apple unveiled their new streaming music service Apple Music, Spotify has been outgrowing the Cupertino tech giant's music platform.

Still, Spotify is seeking ways to become more profitable for the artists and rightsholders but especially for itself. Starting this year the company has been essentially giving away the power to limit music in its free, ad supported tier to music labels. And now it seems, every label is going to have that option.

Earlier Spotify make deals with Universal Music, which allowed the label to restrict access to new albums for 2 weeks for Spotify free members. Now the Swedish company has made the same deal with its fourth largest partner – after the big three.

Merlin is sometimes considered to be the fourth big label. It controls thousands of indie labels and this essentially means that every major label is soon going to be able to restrict new releases to Spotify Premium only for the first two weeks. It is only a matter of time when Sony and Warner sign the same, or similar, deal with Spotify.

Fortunately this isn't the only way Spotify is trying to incentivize upgrade to Premium. Recently Spotify expanded its student discounts to dozens of new countries.

Microsoft's recent Creator's Update was in the works for a long time and finally the major update hit Windows 10 earlier this month. Now you might be wondering when can you expect the next significant update for the OS. 2018? 2019?

Fortunately, Microsoft has informed customers and partners about their future update schedule. It might actually surprise, that the company is speeding up the update cycle and the next major update is coming already next fall.

According to the software giant, Windows 10 will be updated every six months – in March and September of each year. A steady six month cycle is something Linux world is accustomed to for example, and is certainly a good thing. It might, however, mean that the updates are less thought out or comprehensive.

Microsoft is hoping to ease the work of their partner's sys admins and aims to increase the adoption rate of new OS versions. In related news, Microsoft has announced that Office 365 ProPlus will also change its update cycle to biannual.

Streaming media has changed how people behave in the age of the internet. People have largely given up music piracy because of services like Spotify and same is happening, albeit a little slower, in the movie and TV business thanks to Netflix.

Netflix has been growing very strongly for years, lately especially outside the US, and this means that there is less need for physical copies and moving yourself to another location acquire experiences, be it Blockbuster, Redbox, or movie theaters.

Obviously the Hollywood movie you'll watch on Netflix comes there after it has done rounds in the theaters and possibly in some physical form or other, but if you are willing to wait, then you get a lot of return for your monthly $10 investment.

Even further, Netflix is investing immense amounts of money in original production that is only seen on its service, and this is increasingly the reason people choose it over cable TV or a ticket in the cinema. However, new report suggests that Netflix might be interested in bringing its own content to movie theaters near you.

Netflix has told the investors during the release quarterly results that it is considering releasing some of its movies in theaters. Fortunately the company says that it is still dedicated to bring the content first on its own platform which begs the question: who would pay more to see a Netflix movie in a theater?