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Virtual reality darling Oculus is preparing to start shipping the first consumer Oculus Rift headsets this month, and gamers will have a full portfolio of games to play when they receive it.

These are the 30 games that will be available at launch, followed by an additional 10 or so set to launch next month. Description of games are via Tech Insider:

"Windlands"
Psytec Games Ltd.
Price: $19.99

"Windlands" is a great example of virtual reality enabling you to experience something you're unlikely to ever experience in real life: flying through the air at high speed, using your robot arms to fling yourself from place to place.


"BlazeRush"
Targem Games
Price: Not announced

"BlazeRush" is the video game answer to a the proposition of a mid-'90s Hot Wheels commercial. Watch from above and control the action as tiny, kitted-out race cars go to town on each other in a winner take all race to the finish.


"Vektron Revenge"
Ludovic Texier
Price: $9.99

"Vektron Revenge" is a simple arcade-style game where you control a ship using your gaze. Wherever you look, your ship goes (on a 2D plane) -- it was originally created during a "game jam," which is an event where a theme or objective is given and game developers have a set amount of time to create a game, either individually or in groups, based on those constraints.

Sony and EA have teased that Star Wars Battlefront will be available in virtual reality via the upcoming PlayStation VR headset.

The device is set to launch in October for $399, but gamers are already getting excited about the prospects.

Sony CEO Andrew House gave scant details on the game or its availability except to say that it would be exclusive to the PSVR.

He will have more information when the companies make such details available.

Sony has launched a new PlayStation Video app for Android devices this week.

The app will let consumers stream purchased video content from the PlayStation Store on their phone or tablet, natively.

Additionally, you can use the app to purchase movies and TV shows, including PlayStation original content like Powers.

Sony also noted that there will be promotions on a "constant basis," likely meaning discounts on TV episodes.

The U.S. government has arrested and charged Ryan Collins with stealing hundreds of nude pictures of celebrities taken directly from their iCloud and Gmail accounts.

The pictures, released in 2014 to the public during an event that became known as "The Fappening," revealed private moments for many popular celebrities, most notably Jennifer Lawerence.

Government officials say Collins will plead guilty to a felony violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and one count of unauthorized access to a protected computer to obtain information. It is unclear what the punishment will be for his crimes.

While there had been rumors that the hackers had used brute-force methods to break into the iCloud accounts, it appears that Collins used a very simple method: phishing. The DOJ says Collins used emails such as "e-mail.protection318@icloud.com," "noreply_helpdesk0118@outlook.com," and "secure.helpdesk0019@gmail.com" and sent hundreds of emails to potential victims asking them to reset their iCloud and Gmail usernames and passwords. From there he would download the entire iCloud backup or would manually go through any email with picture attachments.

Collins is notably not being charged with releasing the photos, suggesting someone else purchased the pictures and then released them later.

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced support for cross-platform play through its Xbox Live platform, opening up gaming between the Xbox One and PCs as well as potentially with the Sony PlayStation 4.

Sony has responded to the move today, acknowledging that they could be interested (maybe).

"PlayStation has been supporting cross-platform play between PC on several software titles starting with Final Fantasy 11 on PS2 and PC back in 2002," says Sony. "We would be happy to have the conversation with any publishers or developers who are interested in cross-platform play."

The statement doesn't specifically mention Microsoft or the Xbox, but if big developers want the ability, there is little reason to doubt that Sony will jump at the opportunity.

Yesterday, Sony took that stage at GDC to announce the consumer version of their highly-anticipated PlayStation VR headset.

The PSVR is scheduled to launch in October for $399, pricing it under rival devices like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, both of which require PCs with high-end specs. The PSVR will also require the PlayStation Camera to work, so that will set you back another $50 or so. If you are thinking of the PSVR, you likely have a PS4 in your home, but you will need the console, as well, if you don't have it.

Says Sony boss Andrew House: "Today more than 230 developers are building content for PlayStation VR, from smaller independent teams to larger studios at the industry's top publishers. We expect to have more than 50 games available from launch in October 2016 until the end of the year. Of course, the full promise of PlayStation VR will continue to grow over time as talented developers create new experiences and new genres that wouldn't be possible outside of VR. The future looks bright indeed.

Additionally, The Playroom VR, from our very own Japan Studio, will be available as a free download from PlayStation Store for all PS VR owners at launch. The Playroom VR will include six games that can be enjoyed with friends and family, demonstrating why we believe VR can also be an impactful experience when it's shared."

Last year, Google began offering a $50,000 bounty for anyone who could compromise a Chromebook in guest mode.

Following zero successful submissions, the company has doubled the reward to $100,000. "Great research deserves great awards, so we're putting up a standing six-figure sum, available all year round with no quotas and no maximum reward pool," Google noted.

Additionally, Google has also added a Download Protection Bypass bounty, offering a reward to anyone who can bypass Chrome's Safe Browsing download protection features.

You can check out all the rewards here: Google Online Security

Sony has paid $750 million to buy out Michael Jackson's stake in a jointly owned catalog of over 4 million songs.

The catalog, which includes tracks from Jackson, the Beatles, Taylor Swift and many others, will help Sony to pad their streaming business revenue, which the company expects will jump to $5.2 billion by 2017.

Sony/ATV Music Publishing, as the joint venture is called, will pay a lump sum of $733 million to the Jackson estate, as well as a small portion of future distributions.

Jackson purchased the ATV catalog in 1985 for $41.5 million.

According to multiple reports, top tech companies like Facebook, Google and Snapchat are all working on increasing the encryption of their devices as Apple fights the U.S. government over access to anyone's data.

Facebook is planning to expand its secure messaging service WhatsApp by adding encrypted voice calls, as well. The company is also working on increasing security for its own Messenger tool.

Sources claim Snapchat is also working on a secure messaging system, and Google is said to be looking to expand their development of an encrypted email project.

The new projects all began after the Department of Justice began a court battle with Apple over a terrorist's iPhone, which is locked down and could contain information related to their crimes. Apple is scheduled to appear in court later this month.

Microsoft has announced that the Xbox Live online network is now open to cross-platform play with the PlayStation 4 and Windows 10 PC gamers.

Said Microsoft exec Chris Charla: "We're enabling developers to support cross-network play . . . This means players on Xbox One and Windows 10 using Xbox Live will be able to play with players on different online multiplayer networks – including other console and PC networks.

"Of course, it's up to game developers to support this feature . . . We're thrilled to confirm that Psyonix's Rocket League will be one of the first games to take advantage of this new capability by enabling cross-network play between Xbox One and PC players, with an open invitation for other networks to participate as well."

If the new service becomes mainstream, gamers are likely to be very excited by the prospects. There will no longer be any need to buy multiple consoles just to be able to play games with different friends or family who may be a Sony or Xbox fanboy.

Despite an item that was posted to their own FAQ website, Microsoft has confirmed that they still accept Bitcoin as a payment option for its gaming and mobile content.

Last week, a post titled "Microsoft Store doesn't accept Bitcoin" was published, suggesting that the company was indeed ending support for the digital currency.

Microsoft has since called the post a mistake: "We continue to support Bitcoin for adding money to your Microsoft Account which can be used for purchasing content in the Windows and Xbox stores. We apologize for inaccurate information that was inadvertently posted to a Microsoft site, which is currently being corrected."

It's unclear how such a post made it past editing, but for the time being, you can continue to pay with Bitcoin.

Western Digital has cleverly released a 314GB PiDrive this week, a hard drive built for the Raspberry Pi micro computer.

"Adoption of Raspberry Pi computing devices is expanding at a tremendous rate, reaching eight million units in about four years. However, the millions of Raspberry Pi users are finding limitations from data storage devices (SD card, USB hard drive or cloud storage) originally designed for other applications," said Dave Chew, chief engineer, WDLabs. "The WD PiDrive 314 GB HDD is designed to support Raspberry Pi growth by addressing barriers to hard drive adoption such as affordability, power loading and system set-up. In addition, we've maintained the key strengths of hard drive technology, including mass-storage value, high data integrity and reliability."

Raspberry foundation CEO Eben Upton was happy with the release, as well. "With the extended capabilities of Raspberry Pi 3, we can't wait to see what new projects our community comes up with. WD PiDrive 314GB gives our members a low-cost, purpose-built hard drive solution that helps them develop even more innovative and unique ways to use Raspberry Pi."

WD says the company has customized the hard drive's "magnetic recording and electrical system operating set-points to align with Raspberry Pi's USB data and power design to reduce the electrical power load of the hard drive on Raspberry Pi, while still maintaining sufficient performance to deliver maximum USB data transfer rate." Theoretically, this makes the drive ideal for the device.

Streaming giant Spotify has ended support for its Windows Phone apps, although you can continue to use the app indefinitely without any new updates.

The company launched their Windows Phone 7 app in 2011 and then the Windows Phone 8.x app in 2013. There has yet to be a native Windows 10 mobile app.

"We can confirm Windows Phone 8.x is no longer supported. You can still use our Spotify application on the associated devices, but it will no longer receive any further updates and download the application. We apologize for the inconvenience," noted the company.

Microsoft has struggled to keep the attention of developers, including big boys like Spotify, which has led to the downfall of the mobile operating system.

One of the cornerstones of Netflix Originals, whether its the shows including the award-winning House of Cards or Documentaries Virunga, is that they will be available at the same time all around the world. Much of the company's success especially outside the US has been for this fact.

Now it seems that the company has been caught having those awful region-specific licensing deals it downplays in its own strategy. One might call Netflix's situation a hypocrisy, since among others House of Cards' new season is not showing in multiple countries in Europe, Asia and Africa because it has been licensed to TV companies.

Netflix told TorrentFreak that this is because of old contracts that the company is trying to get rid of as soon as possible, and the fact that the company expanded to 130 new countries recently has brought these issues to light. Amongst other shows that suffer from late releases is the hugely popular Orange is the New Black.

Customers, however, are reasonable angry about the situation. People in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Turkey, Spain, and most of Africa are paying the same subscription fee but not getting the content as people just across the border. Furthermore people are defending their right to use VPN services to access other countries' Netflix content which Netflix has recently taken a tougher stance against.

Adobe has revealed that its Flash player was subject to another vulnerability. This time patch is already out and the company suggests you install it immediately.

The security vulnerability can allow third parties to access private information on your computer and even control the computers, says Adobe. It affects all the major operating systems, including Windows, Macs and Linux.

Fortunately the fix for this has already been released in the latest update. Most browsers feature automatic updates so you should be already safe, but to make sure check that your Flash version is as follows: Linux 11.2.202.577, Windows and Macs 21.0.0.182, Google Chrome 21.0.0.182, Windows 10 Edge and Internet Explorer 21.0.0.182, and Windows 8.x Internet Explorer 21.0.0.182.

You can update your Adobe Flash at https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/.