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Spotify is preparing to offer high quality lossless audio to subscribers for $20 per month, according to reports.

Along with competitors like Apple Music, Spotify delivers lossy audio to subscribers, whereas a selling point of Tidal was that it streamed lossless audio with noticeable results for listeners.

Some Spotify users that participated in a recent closed survey were asked if they'd consider spending an extra $5 for lossless audio quality, and some users also reported being offered "Spotify Hi-Fi" for $20 per month in-app.

The privilege of lossless audio would add $7.50 on top of the Premium fee.

Would you consider paying an extra fee for lossless audio?

Samsung's hotly anticipated Galaxy S8 smartphone will be unveiled at the end of the month, but we can already see what it looks like.

Leaked by Evan Blass (@evleaks), a press shot of the Samsung Galaxy S8 shows its curved, edge-to-edge display that has been detailed in previous leaks, and you also immediately notice the absence of the Home button.

The image just shows the lock screen of the Galaxy S8, but do take notice of the mention of the date Wed, March 29, which is when Samsung says it will officially unveil the SG8.

Other noticeable details are an additional key on the left, which is expected to be a shortcut key to launch Bixby, Samsung's assistant. There is also an Iris Scanner sensor on the front, and an indentation at the bottom seems to be from a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Surely more details will flood out in leaks before March 29.

The new Xbox Game Pass grants access to over 100 Xbox One and backwards-compatible Xbox 360 titles for a cost of $9.99 per month.

It includes titles from publishers such as 2K, 505 Games, BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment, Capcom, Codemasters, Deep Silver, Focus Home Interactive, SEGA, SNK CORPORATION, THQ Nordic GmbH, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Microsoft Studios.

Fan favorite games like Halo 5: Guardians, Payday 2, NBA 2K16 and SoulCalibur II will be included when the service launches this spring.

The 100 titles available will change monthly, with some new titles cycling in and out. Subscribers will be able to purchase game titles permanently at a discount if they choose to. All titles can be downloaded directly to the Xbox One HDD and so you won't need to rely on streaming.

Microsoft will be testing Xbox Game Pass with select members of the Xbox Insider Program in the Alpha Preview ring starting today with a very limited number of titles.

For more information, see www.xbox.com/game-pass

YouTube has unveiled its own live TV service carrying major U.S. broadcast networks, regional sports networks and some cable networks.

Major networks including ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and ESPN are part of the new YouTube TV service, which promises to break customers away from commitments and viewing limitations associated with subscription TV services.

The servicer also offers dozens of additional cable channels like MSNBC, Fox News, FX, USA, E!, Bravo, the Disney Channel, Sprout and more.

YouTube TV costs $35 per month, but you can choose to cancel it at any time rather than committing to a long contract.

A cloud DVR service can also be used to record programming and store it for nine months. You can watch YouTube TV on any screen, whether mobile, tablet or computer, and you can easily stream to your TV with a Google Chromecast or Chromecast built-in TV.

YouTube TV membership also provides access to YouTube Red original content.

Every YouTube TV membership comes with six accounts, each with its own unique recommendations and personal DVR with no storage limits. You can watch up to three concurrent streams at a time.

For more information see tv.youtube.com

Apple's next iPhones will feature a curved screen and ditch the proprietary Lightning connector for industry standard USB, according to a report.

The report comes from the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with Apple's forthcoming iPhone revisions, typically referred to as iPhone 7s, iPhone 7s Plus iPhone 8. If the sources are correct, then Apple will follow rivals like Samsung with a curved OLED display for its new 'iPhone 8'.

More interesting though is the claim that Apple is preparing to dump the proprietary Lightning connector, used for charging and data transfer, and instead use industry-standard USB-C. As had previously been rumored, the iPhone 8 models won't feature a Home button.

Other recent rumors about Apple's iPhone upgrades include a camera that can sense depth on the front of the phone, producing 3D selfies and also enabling accurate facial recognition.

This year will mark the tenth anniversary of the original iPhone that made waves when it was unveiled in 2007, and an expensive "10th anniversary edition" iPhone has also been rumored, expected to have a price tag around ~$1,000.

Source: Wall Street Journal

SpaceX is planning to fly private citizens beyond the Moon next year, according to chief executive Elon Musk.

According to the rocket firm, two private citizens have already paid a significant deposit for a trip that would see them fly out to the orbit of the Moon and return. Initial training and health probes will be begin later this year.

The private citizens will ride atop a Falcon Heavy rocket, which is set for a demonstration flight in 2017. Dragon v2 (or Crew Dragon), which is SpaceX' human-rated capsule, will hold the passengers for the journey.

SpaceX will demonstrate the Crew Dragon later this year, and then intends to fly American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on contract from NASA. The firm is currently contracted to perform an average of four Dragon 2 missions to the ISS per year, three carrying cargo and one carrying crew.

"Once operational Crew Dragon missions are underway for NASA, SpaceX will launch the private mission on a journey to circumnavigate the moon and return to Earth," SpaceX announced.

"Lift-off will be from Kennedy Space Center's historic Pad 39A near Cape Canaveral – the same launch pad used by the Apollo program for its lunar missions. This presents an opportunity for humans to return to deep space for the first time in 45 years and they will travel faster and further into the Solar System than any before them."

At the ongoing Mobile World Congress, SanDisk has released a flash memory storage solution for iPhone and iPad that connects seamlessly to the iOS device.

iXpand Flash Drive series connects at USB3 speeds to iPhone or iPad via Lightning connector and has storage capacity of up to 256GB.

256GB version costs £170 or €210 in Europe, $200 in United States. With the "clip" form factor, the memory stick attached seamlessly to the iDevice. It also has USB connector in case one wants to transfer the files to PC - and obviously, via Lightning connector, you can connect the stick to Mac, too.

The new Nokia-branded Android devices are not aimed at taking on flagships from heavyweights like Samsung, but instead target the affordable end of the market with competitive pricing and decent specs.

Among the new Nokia gear is the Nokia 6, Nokia 5 and Nokia 3. The Nokia 6 was introduced in China in January this year and immediately roused interest, with over a million reservations being placed, and soon it will be availble in more markets.

It features a 5.5-inch 1080p display, 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage with a microSD slot if you need more. A special edition Nokia 6 "Arte Black" will bump memory to 4GB RAM and internal storage to 64GB.

The Nokia 5 features a 5.2-inch 720p display, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage with a microSD slot for expansion up to 128GB. It packs a 13 megapixel camera on the back and 8 megapixel on the front. Like the Nokia 6, it is powered by a 3000mAh battery.

Huawei has shown off its new anticipated P10 and P10 Plus smartphones at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Details on the new high spec devices have been leaking in the days and weeks up to the show, with some hits and some misses. The devices are quite striking in appearance with eight different color finishes available; Ceramic White, Graphite Black, Mystic Silver, Prestige Gold, Dazzling Blue, Dazzling Gold, Rose Gold and "Greenery".

Specifically which finishes will be available in what region was not revealed.

While a clear evolution from the P9, one major difference is the location of the fingerprint scanner on the front of the devices, placed in the home key position. Like an iPhone, the sensor features vibration feedback.

We start to spot the differences between the P10 and P10 Plus when we look at the displays. The P10 packs a 5.1-inch Full HD (1080p) 432ppi display, while the P10 Plus upgrades to a 5.5-inch WQHD (1440p) 534ppi display. It had been rumored that the P10 Plus would feature a curved screen, but both feature a flat screen.

Both the P10 and P10 Plus feature Leica Dual Camera 2.0 which places two lenses on the back, one monochrome 20 megapixel sensor and one 12 Megapixel color sensor. The difference between the P10 and P10 Plus is the latter features f/1.8 aperture lenses instead of f/2.2 lenses.

HMD Global, company that holds the global license to use Nokia's brand in phones, has announced today a comeback of the iconic Nokia 3310 phone.

New 3310 follows the old Nokia 3310's footsteps and is anything but a smartphone - a feature phone using Nokia Series 30 operating system, with physical keys and $50 price tag.

Unlike it predecessor, new 3310 has a 2.4" color display (QVGA LCD display), has 2Mpix cameraat the back of the phone and has a flashlight. Connectivity has only support for 2G networks.

WhatsApp added a feature called "Status" to its app in February, 2017, copying the feature from the likes of Snapchat, Instagram and Messenger.

What it is then?

To put it simply, Status has now its own tab within the WhatsApp application, where you can see your contacts' statuses and where you can update your status. Status is a video, picture or a short text that will be shown to all of your contacts for the next 24 hours. Updating your status, however, does not send it out as a message to your contacts, but simply is shown inside the Status tab in WhatsApp app.

So, unless your contacts visit their app's Status tab, they wont know that you've updated your status.

Now, statuses disappear automatically after 24 hours - and there is no archive of past statuses, so once the status has been visible for 24 hours, it simply disappears, for good.

By default, your status is visible to all the people you have in your WhatsApp contact list. However, under security and privacy settings, you can limit that to specific people only - or to make it visible everybody, even to those who you haven't added to your contact list.

Just over three weeks ago we had you the first reputable Galaxy S8 leak (picture above) which showed both front and back of the device. Unfortunately the picture didn't reveal much because of its quality but fortunately now PhoneArena has released a few better pictures.

Being the most anticipated device of Spring 2017 rumors have been going crazy lately. However, before today we haven't seen good quality pictures of the device close up and with the display on.

The new pictures show that the upcoming Galaxy S8 seems to come with an array of sensors on the top of the device and as expected the display takes up almost the whole front panel. This seems to mean that the physical home button has been removed and thus the fingerprint reader moved.

The pictures also show the Edge Apps that take use of the curved Edge display on the S8. Maybe even more interestingly two of the pictures show the Always On display feature which shows the clock (and some other information) even when the phone is not active.

WhatsApp has long ago surpassed SMS in popularity and its billion users is rivaled only by Facebook Messenger, both obviously owned by Facebook.

WhatsApp's road to success has really been very simple. The company made a simple, easy-to-use, phone number based messaging system that didn't have many faults. Over time they've implemented new features but they've never tried to reach too far.

One thing they have been pioneering is security. WhatsApp messages and now even videos and calls are all encrypted if the user so desires. The latest new feature was Groups, which allows users to create multiple group chats.

Now, however, WhatsApp has come up with a surprise feature. The new feature is actually a new iteration of the status that has pretty much always been a part of WhatsApp but not an integral part by any means.

Status takes now more of a center stage and its essentially a carbon copy of Snapchat's Stories feature. Thus the status now allows you to add pictures, videos, or even GIF animations. Pictures can be enhanced with emojis or hand-drawn accents. The status updates self-destruct after 24 hours.

While the update will come to all mobile platforms (iOS, Android, Windows) it will roll out gradually starting today.

Bill Gates is obviously known from creating one of the worlds largest technology companies and becoming the richest man on earth for it. Now the previously often even hated CEO of Microsoft has become a futurist and a philanthropist.

Saving lives by eradicating malaria might be the most important job of the Gates Foundation but Bill has been also vocal about the challenges that future, especially automation and AI, brings along. In an interview with Quartz, Bill Gates suggests that when robots start working instead of men and women, we should tax them the same way.

In his view robots will free us from the labor of producing some of the things and services we need so we can move more on to things that cannot – at least as easily – be replaced. Those are some of the more empathetic jobs such as caring and teaching professions.

Because robots won't probably have their own bank accounts and won't be given actual money the income tax would be replaced with a tax that would target the owner of the robot, which would be the company. In Gates' view this would slow down the adoption of automation as well as fund the population that is jobless because of it.

Samsung's catastrophic launch of one of last year's most anticipated smartphones had a clear impact on the company's overall reputation, suggests a new report. An annual poll conducted by The Harris Poll reveals that Samsung's reputation has plummeted in the United States, Engadget reports.

The poll that was conducted on little over 30 000 U.S. adults between November 28 and December 16 puts Samsung in the 49th spot among the top companies. While this might not seem like an awful result you have to bare in mind that Samsung has been in the top-10 the previous two years. It is not hard to see a connection with exploding Note7 smartphones in last September and October.

The Reputation Quotient ranking of around 75 points puts Samsung just ahead of USPS while competitors like Google and Apple are 8th and 5th respectively with 82-odd points. That in itself should be telling.

Obviously there are still companies that are rated way worse and companies that have recently had even bigger controversies. These include everyone's favorite telecommuncations company Comcast and Volkswagen, which is known for its air fresheners, both of which are at approximately 63 points and rank 90th and 91st respectively.