Latest news

Sony has introduced a 1TB 'Ultimate Player' edition console today, launching in Europe on July 15th.

"Offering twice the storage of the existing PS4, you'll be able to download more of the games you love to your PS4, extend your play with more great add-on content and save and share even more of your best gaming highlights," says Sony.

In addition to the larger capacity PS4, the company also noted that its 500GB design will now be 10 percent lighter and 8 percent more power efficient. Finally, the console will replace the glossy top with a matte finish, which will likely show less scratches and fingerprints.

Apple introduced it's new music streaming service with a three month trial period. For customers a three month free of pay trial period seems like a great deal. However, for artists the news wasn't that good. In fact, Apple said that it won't be paying artists for the listens during the three month period at all.

Taylor Swift argued that it was a shocking and disappointing in an open letter released on Tumblr. Only hours after it was released Apple took another look at the policy and decided to change it.

Apple boss Eddy Cue announced on Twitter that Apple will be paying artists for the listens during the three month trial period as well. At this point it is unknown though how the pay compares to pay from a normal listen. Also it is unclear if Taylor Swift will indeed now bring the hugely successful album 1989 to Apple Music That would make Apple Music the first music streaming service to feature the album in question.

Earlier this week, during E3, Sony made a great announcement for fans, but one that may slipped under the radar due to all the big games announcements.

Sony has added a new Media Player app to the PlayStation 4, one that allows you to play home media (or those videos you downloaded online) directly through a USB stick or home server.

Most importantly, the Media Player finally brings MKV support, a feature I have personally been asking Sony for since the launch of the PlayStation 3.

Here is the full codec list supported:

According to a new report, Apple is making huge margins on the bands for the Apple smartwatch.

Citing data from Slice Intelligence, a research firm that mines data from your email receipts, it is estimated that 2.79 million watches have been sold as of mid-June. The figure is significant compared to other smartwatches, but won't even make a mark compared to Apple's other cash cows.

Besides buyers buying the watch, it also appears there are strong sales of additional bands. The entry-level sports band retails for $49 at 38mm, but only costs $2 to make (as per IHS). Even if you take into account R&D, shipping and other costs, Apple is looking at 70 percent margins on the bands.

Slice estimates about 17-20 percent of shoppers have purchased multiple bands and the $149 Milanese loop is the second-most popular behind the cheaper Sports option. The most expensive band will set you back $449, which can double the price of your device.

As we reported earlier this week Taylor Swift has denied Apple Music her latest masterpiece called 1989. Now the pop princess explains herself in an open letter to Apple.

This open letter, dubbed "To Apple, Love Taylor", starts off by explaining what a great relationship she has had with one of the most influential companies in history – both technologically and in the music industry. The letter, however, quickly turns for the worse for Apple.

Swift says she's been shocked and disappointed by Apple Music's three-month trial period during which it doesn't pay the artists for the songs listened to. According to Swift this is not what "historically progressive and generous companies" should do.

She continues to explain that this is not about her – even though it is just her one album – but instead the starting and struggling artists that are rid of one quarter of a year's pay. Swift makes sure to say multiple times how much she respects Apple as a company and what they've done but says this particular thing is wrong.

The letter closes saying that it's not too late for Apple to change its policy and that Apple shouldn't ask for this because "we don't ask you for free iPhones".

EFF has conducted another annual Who Has Your Back? survey and the results are in. The survey which researched the practices relevant to user data handling suggests that the likes of Yahoo and Apple are amongst the best.

The categories were: "Follows industry-accepted best practices", "Tells users about government data demands", "Discloses policies on data retention", "Discloses government content removal requests", and "has a Pro-user public policy: opposes backdoors". A total of eight companies scored a star in all five categories. The companies were Adobe, Apple, Credo Mobile, Dropbox, Sonic, Wikimedia, WordPress, and Yahoo.

Social networks Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin all scored four stars and the tech conglomerates Microsoft and Google joined e-commerce giant Amazon with three stars. The bottom of list were AT&T and alarmingly the massively popular messaging platform Whatsapp.

The whole list of companies and their stars can be found here.

Taylor Swift doesn't like streaming music services. I depends on their business model how much she dislikes them but there has yet been a good enough streaming service for her newest and most precious baby called 1989. At Apple Jimmy Iovine and Tim Cook have tried to convince otherwise her but to no avail.

BuzzFeed reports that like any other streaming service Apple Music will not get the album 1989. However, like other streaming services entirely based on paid subscription the Apple Music will have her older repertoire.

Last year, after the release of her newest album, Swift broke up with the most popular music streaming service in the world, Spotify. Spotify offers a free, ad-supported subscription model unlike Apple Music. According to Taylor Swift that is not how you pay the artists as much as they deserve.

According to reports Taylor Swift has sold over 5 million copies of 1989. Her other albums are currently available to stream, for example, on Rhapsody and Tidal.

Microsoft announced at E3 this week that its current generation gaming console will be backwards compatible with selected Xbox 360 games later this year.

Microsoft says at first (this year) the target is at hundred games after which it'll expand to hundreds.

The announcement surely was a positive surprise to a lot of gamers but also might have caught Sony off guard. In an interview with Eurogamer Sony boss Shuhei Yoshida told that they had the impression that it wasn't technically possible.

According to Yoshida it would certainly require a lot of work from Sony to implement such compatibility with the PS4 and that is not currently in the works. Yoshida doesn't, however, say that it is not a possibility in the future.

Typing in www.thepiratebay.la and you are faced with a failed DNS lookup? Remove the www prefix and you are good to go.

Considering the nature of the site and its problems with the legal system it was not a surprise that reports suggested that it had gone offline once again. However, according to TorrentFreak the changes in The Pirate Bay's domain earlier this week were responsible for the mishap.

A month ago Swedish court ordered the seizure of .se domain but as TorrentFreak reports that is currently the one domain that works with the www prefix. The moderators of the site who spoke with TorrentFreak didn't know why the redirects are not working.

It has been only a couple of months since the original Apple Watch entered the shelves of Apple retail stores but already we have rumors about the successor. The release will likely be some time next year but already Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac claims to have some information.

Source can be considered fairly reliable but remember that a lot can still change before the actual launch. However, Gurman says that one of the key features added to the second gen device is a Facetime camera. The camera would be likely positioned unlike Samsung's Galaxy Gear, which had it directing forward to take pictures. Apple's would be mainly used for videocalls, and maybe selfies.

A new software feature Find my Watch would be also introduced thanks to a new WiFi chip enabling WiFi triangulation. This however would seem to prove that there is no GPS chip for positionin, a feature many would like to see especially for iPhone free fitness tracking.

The research Apple has done about the battery life of the watch seem to suggest that customers are happy with it – or enough so – that there won't be any major upgrades to the 18 hour battery.

Microsoft has announced that former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop and head of mobile phones Jo Harlow will be leaving the company. The two were considered the last standing ex-Nokia executives at Microsoft.

Stephen Elop took the job as Nokia CEO during a devastating decline and became known for the burning platform memo. Eventually his stay in the company lead to Nokia selling its mobile phone business to Microsoft.

Harlow's and Elop's departures are based on a new organizational structures that combine the devices (including Lumia smartphones) and operating systems under one Windows and Devices Group. The new division will be led by Terry Myerson who previously led the Windows division.

In addition to former Nokia execs Mark Penn, the man behind Scroogled campaign, will be leaving the company but his departure is not the result of the organization shake-up.

Amazon has revealed a new addition to their line of e-readers. The new Kindle Paperwhite features a high-resolution screen that is said to improve the reading experience significantly.

The display of the new version has a 300 PPI (pixels per inch) resolution which is on par with the more expensive Kindle Voyage. The new Paperwhite will not have as bright and as high-contrast display but it is being sold for $119 – $80 less than Voyage.

Amazon says the user experience of the most popular Kindle device has been revamped as well. The new typesetting engine will feature proper hyphenation in addition to more advanced letter spacing among other changes.

OnePlus has announced this week that their upcoming OnePlus 2 flagship will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 v2.1 processor that has actually been designed for the phone itself.

"Just like we did with the OnePlus One, our engineers debated endlessly over which CPU would be the perfect fit for the 2. While we played around with other options, we always came back to the 810. Its speed and ability to multitask while maintaining optimal battery performance remain unmatched amongst others in the industry," said Pete from One Plus.

The 810 v2.1 is a 64-bit chip with eight CPU cores and the device will have an Adreno 430 GPU allowing for streaming 4K.

Pete was also quick to discuss the overheating issues of the 810, which caused Samsung to ditch the CPU for its Galaxy S6 series.

"Although there have been reports that the 810 runs warmer than its predecessors, we assure you that we have taken all the necessary precautions and beyond to prevent this from occurring in the 2. We worked very closely with Qualcomm's engineers to integrate an improved version of the chipset (v2.1) in the OnePlus 2, and fine-tuned both hardware and software. The 2 will be 'cooler than ever,'" he added.

Avalanche Studios has unveiled a new trailer for Mad Max, one that promises to take you into the "Eye of the Storm."

The trailer follows Max and his goal of building the "ultimate war" machine.

Just like with all the Mad Max feature films, the game will feature a ton of dystopian madness and carnage.

Mad Max will be out for PS4, XBO and PC in September.

BioWare has unveiled the first teaser for their upcoming Mass Effect: Andromeda.

There is little known so far about the game, except that it will launch for the holiday season 2016 on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

"A new adventure awaits in the Mass Effect universe. With stunning visuals and a new galaxy to discover, BioWare delivers the next generation of space exploration," added the publisher.