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When the PlayStation 4 (PS4) launches next Friday, November 15, there will be 11 digital entertainment apps available immediately.

The apps available at PS4 launch include:

• Amazon Instant Video - Offering 150,000 titles to rent or purchase.
• Crackle - Sony Pictures Television multi-platform television network delivering original series
• Crunchyroll - For Japanese Anime enthusiasts
• EPIX - Stream more than 3,000 titles on-demand
• Hulu Plus - Unlimited instant streaming of popular shows like Family Guy, South Park, The Simpsons etc.
• NBA Game Time - Stay connected to Live out-of-market NBA game action on the PS4 system with NBA LEAGUE PASS Broadband on an authenticated basis for subscribers.
• Netflix - It would be immoral not to include Netflix.
• NHL GameCenter LIVE - Instantly stream live out-of-market games in HD quality with your NHL GameCenter LIVE subscription.
• Redbox Instant by Verizon - Verizon subscribers can stream a library of movies and receive 4 DVD or Blu-Ray rental nights every month for new releases at the Redbox kiosk. On-demand available for non-subscribers.
• VUDU - Watch the world's largest selection of HD movies and TV shows,
• YuppTV - 150 Indian TV channels Live and on demand, including a selection of over 600 Movies to watch anytime, anywhere.

So, there's no need to turn on your PS3 for Netflix at least.

Photos posted to the Baidu Tieba forum allegedly show the back cover of HTC's 'M8', the successor to the HTC One.

HTC is expected to announce a new flagship smartphone around February, after the HTC One launch failed to turnaround the firms business despite good shipping numbers.

The back cover that allegedly is from an early M8 prototype is very similar that of the ONE, except it has an extra hole on top above the camera.

Suggestions are that the hole is there for a fingerprint reader as your index finger would naturally rest in that spot while holding the device.

The rumored specifications for the HTC M8 include the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, 3GB or RAM and that it will also be the first device to use HTC's upcoming Sense 6 UI.



Source: tieba.baidu.com

(Pic via: unwiredview.com)

Deal between Netflix and Disney's Marvel will bring the flawed heroes of Hell's Kitchen, led by 'Daredevil,' to the leading Internet streaming service.

The pair announced an agreement to bring multiple original series of live-action adventures of four of Marvel's most popular characters exclusively to Netflix, starting in 2015.

Led by a series focused on "Daredevil," followed by "Jessica Jones," "Iron Fist" and "Luke Cage," the epic will unfold over multiple years of original programming, taking Netflix members deep into the gritty world of heroes and villains of Hell's Kitchen, New York.

The streaming service has committed to a minimum of four, thirteen episodes series, which will be followed by a culminating "The Defenders" mini-series event.

"Marvel's movies, such as 'Iron Man' and Marvel's 'The Avengers', are huge favorites on our service around the world. Like Disney, Marvel is a known and loved brand that travels," said Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos.

"With 'House of Cards' and our other original series, we have pioneered new approaches to storytelling and to global distribution and we're thrilled to be working with Disney and Marvel to take our brand of television to new levels with a creative project of this magnitude."

Sony stripped a PlayStaion 4 (PS4) to its motherboard for Wired, showing off the design of its next generation console.

The tear-down - carried out by Yasuhiro Ootori - shows off the console motherboard, glimpses of the custom AMD processor and companion chip, the Wi-Fi antenna and so on. The specs of the PS4 have been public for a long time.

What is interesting in the tear-down is it shows how Sony packed the hardware and the power supply unit into such a small space, and how its cooling system will keep it all from overheating.

The tear-down pictures and video show how it moves heat of the relatively slim case (for the first design) using two heat pipes and a custom centrifugal fan.

Of course, once the PS4 is out in the wild we will see far more detailed tear-downs of the system, though we think we'll pass on such experiments with ours.

View pics of the PS4 teardown at: wired.com

View a video of the teardown at: wired.com

Microsoft are in talks with football giant Real Madrid about potentially acquiring the naming rights to the iconic Santiago Bernabeu stadium.

It is named after the former footballer and President of Real Madrid, Santiago Bernabéu, who was President of the club for 35 years and is credited with turning it into a giant in Spanish and European football.

Changing the name of the stadium is guaranteed to face opposition from Real Madrid supporters, but with Real Madrid reportedly close to €600 million in debt, such a deal would be welcoming to the executives at the top.

Real Madrid can afford to splash out up to €100 million - depending on what reports you read - on Gareth Bale and have broken the bank for players in the past, such as Cristiano Ronaldo (£80 million), because the Spanish club has very healthy revenues, with the latest Deloitte Money League report calculating they had become the first football club to break the €500 million revenue barrier.

In Spain, Real Madrid and Barcelona get a much larger chunk of TV rights than others in the La Liga, whereas in other countries it is more equitable between clubs in the top leagues. It also reportedly managed to gain a 30 percent increase in a shirt sponsorship deal with the Emirates airline, whom it switched to from Bwin.

Rockstar had begun rolling out its stimulus package for Grand Theft Auto: Online, depositing $500,000 into players' in-game bank accounts.

The developer announced the start of the program on its blog yesterday. The GTA$500,000 deposit applies to all GTA Online players in the month of October 2013. It will take around two full days to complete, and Rockstar will update everyone on Friday.

The chaotic world of Grand Theft Auto Online was marred somewhat in its early days by bugs and problems experienced by players.

"Thanks go out to everyone for their continued patience and understanding while we worked through these issues, and we can't wait to bring more into the world of GTA Online," Rockstar staff write.

Verizon has revealed that the Nexus 7 won't be supported on its LTE network until after it had gotten the Android KitKat update.

The problem, according to Verizon is with the Jelly Bean OS running on the Nexus 7. The carrier claims that Google and ASUS requested that it halt the certification program for Nexus 7 after finding the issue, and not to resume until the KitKat update is pushed out for the device.

According to Google, that will only take a few weeks but it is a few weeks more that Nexus 7 owners will be locked out of Verizon after already been locked out since launch.

Here is a statement put out by Verizon (via: Engadget)

"During the certification process for the Nexus 7, Google, Asus and Verizon uncovered a systems issue that required Google and Asus to undertake additional work with the Jelly Bean OS running on the device. Since Google was about to launch its new Kit Kat OS, rather than undertake this work, Google and Asus asked Verizon to suspend its certification process until Google's new OS was available on the Nexus 7."

Kim Dotcom's MEGA cloud storage solution has exited beta with a bunch of improvements, and is promising some interesting new features for next year.

The service now loads faster after the code was made more efficient and dynamic feature fetching was implemented. The user interface has had a major revamp, dramatically reducing CPU overhead, while local caching will be used to speed up subsequent logins.

Navigating the site while file transfers are in progress is now supported. Your transfer queue will shrink to a small transfer widget in the lower left corner whenever you leave the file manager. User can also now use avatars and contact management has been improved.

You can now see the number of files a user is sharing with you, along with the last modified date/time. This is useful for tracking changes (in addition to the instant notifications).

The Firefox extension will reduce loading times, improve download performance and strengthen security, with downloaded data written directly to your hard drive instead of buffering it in the browser. It also allows you to download entire folder structures.

Three of the biggest names on the web - and in business in general - are combining efforts to safeguard the Internet by offering cash rewards to hackers.

It is pretty standard in the industry now for tech firms to have bug bounty programs to entice white hat hackers to go bug hunting in their code. It fixes flaws that could be found by criminals and exploited in ways that could make their customers less safe, and their products less reliable.

The new Internet Bug Bounty has more ambition than just safeguarding some company's software, instead it seeks to find bugs that could threaten more damage to the Internet. The program is sponsored by Microsoft and Facebook, while a Google security expert who helped to develop the program will sit on a panel that evaluates submissions.

"We've selected some of the most important software that supports the internet stack, and we want you to hack it. If the public is demonstrably safer as a result of your contribution to internet security, we'd like to be the first to recognize your work and say "thanks" by sending some cash to you or your favorite non-profit," the program's webpage reads.

Cash rewards up to $5,000 are offered depending on where the bug is found and its consequences, but the cash reward can be increased if the panel sees reason to do so.

"How much money you can earn with Spotify?" is the question that has popped up during the past couple of years. Some big name artists have pulled their music from Spotify, blaming extremely bad revenue shares and even labelling Spotify as the main reason for the music industry's decline. However, nobody has come out with the exact figures to back up that claim -- or disprove it. Until now.

Anssi Kela, a Finnish singer-songwriter, released his hit single "Levoton tyttö" earlier this year and he wanted to share his Spotify income details with his fans. He did it by drilling down the figures by month, and differentiating them to revenue coming from Spotify Premium, Spotify Unlimited and Spotify's free version.

First of all, he wanted to note that the revenue he got paid actually includes all the streaming revenue from all the streaming services where his song has been played. However, as other streaming services are virtually non-existent in Finland - with the song being in the Finnish language and with Finland being one of the first countries to actually get Spotify - Spotify stands as the de facto equivalent of music streaming services in the country, so it is fair to say that the figures represent revenue from Spotify, with maybe approximately 1 - 2 percent of the revenue coming from other services.

Verizon has launched its own branded tablet, following a few weeks of leaks and speculation.

The Ellipsis 7 is based on Android and has low-end specs compared to newer devices.

Ellipsis 7 tablets have a 1280 x 800, 7-inch IPS display, 8GB of storage, 1GB of RAM, and a 1.2GHz quad-core processor. Additionally, the device has LTE connectivity and a front-side camera and runs on a near-stock Android 4.2.

The device goes on sale tomorrow, November 7th for $249.99 off-contract, which is pricier than the Nexus 7, which boasts much nicer specs.

One notable feature, is the addition of Verizon Messages. The carrier says the service allows "users to send and receive text messages from their tablet. And with the most recent app update, users can send customized photos with collages for a more personal messaging experience."

Sony is inviting you to watch the live PS4 All Access: Greatness Awaits launch event next Thursday night before the mid-night launch of the PS4.

PlayStation teams up with SpikeTV to cover the event live in New York City on November 14th starting at 11:00pm Eastern Time/Pacific Time on regular cable providers; and 11pm Eastern Time/8pm Pacific Time on DirecTV. You can also watch it on Ustream or from the PlayStation U.S. Blog.

"Tune in to see exclusive world premieres and announcements about the PS4 games that will define 2014 and beyond," wrote Sid Shuman, Playstation Social Media Manager.

Contrary to earlier reports, Microsoft's Xbox One console will not be receiving ad-supported free music streaming from Xbox Music.

Instead, Xbox One includes a very limited trial of Xbox Music that lets users play 15 songs free before they require a Music Pass, with new users able to sign up for a 30-day free trial.

That essentially means that the Xbox One is in the same boat as the Xbox 360 when it comes to the music streaming service.

A tweet by Albert Penello, who heads up Xbox One product planning, had indicated that Microsoft had moved to an ad-supported free model for the Xbox One.

He recanted his statement and apologized in a follow-up tweet this morning.

I was wrong about Music on XboxOne: You get 15 free song plays then need Music Pass for ad-free streaming. No ad-supported streaming. Sorry!

-- Albert Penello (@albertpenello) November 6, 2013

After introducing its 'Like' and 'Share' buttons in 2010, the social network giant has decided they need a make-over.

Say goodbye to the tiny thumbs-up Like button that has forced its way into your Internet life in the past three years. Facebook has decided that a blue button with a little 'f' icon and the word 'like' is the way to go to get your attention from now on.

Believe it or not, the Like and Share buttons from Facebook are on more than 7.5 million websites in the world, and are viewed more than 22 billion times daily by Internet users. Therefore, redesigning them is not a risk-free task.

Facebook has positive data on its side though, with Facebook's Ray C. He indicating that the change has already produced improvement.

"We're already seeing a favorable increase in Likes and Shares with the new design and will be rolling these buttons out to everyone in the coming weeks," he wrote.

Amazon is looking to greatly expand its Kindle retail availability, by offering the e-reader to indie bookstores at a discount.

Dubbed 'Amazon Source,' the program lets local small businesses purchase the hardware, as well as accessories for resale at a slightly discounted rate. Additionally, Amazon will also give 10 percent of all ebook sales made by a consumer to the retailer where that Kindle was originally purchased.

The incentive runs for two years from original purchase date.

"We believe that retailers, online or offline, small or large, should be striving to offer customers what they want--and many customers want to read both digital and print books," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "For many years, bookstores have successfully sold print books on Amazon--now Amazon Source extends this opportunity to digital. With Amazon Source, customers don't have to choose between e-books and their favorite neighborhood bookstore--they can have both."

Finally, Amazon says retailers can get an ever bigger discount on the hardware if they choose to opt-out of the 10% deal.