Over the past week, there have been multiple reports about the future of Cyanogen Inc., the company behind the popular CyanogenMod Android fork. None were good.
Today, founder Steve Kondik addressed the "misinformation" and seems to suggest that Cyanogen is doing just fine:
Without giving specific details, Apple has confirmed that Pokemon Go had the most downloads in its first week of availability than any other app in history.
The game launched in North America earlier this month and just released in Japan, where it is expected to continue its blockbuster run. The game is currently the top free and top-grossing app on Google Play and iTunes.
Most estimates from experts place revenue at $1-$2.3 million per day for the game, putting it on par with hits like Clash Royale.
As expected, Verizon will bid $4.8 billion for Yahoo's core assets, ending the Web pioneer company's sad decline since its peak in the early 2000s.
Verizon will acquire the core internet operations and land holdings but not the company's highly valuable Alibaba stake, giving Verizon access to 1 billion visitors per month across a portfolio of media assets like the popular Yahoo Finance.
Revenue and profits for Yahoo have fallen for the last half decade, and the company's high-profile acquisitions like Tumblr have all misfired.
Marissa Mayer, the Yahoo CEO brought in 2012 to turn around the fortunes of the company but who did the exact opposite, will receive an extra $55 million in severance after the sale, giving yet another example of how executive pay is usually outrageous.
Facebook has yet another service that has reached 1 billion users.
The company's "Messenger" messaging and payments service hit the milestone this month, following in the footsteps of Facebook itself, and WhatsApp. The company's Instagram photo-sharing service has 500 million users, as well.
"As part of this journey to 1 billion, we focused on creating the best possible experiences in modern day communications. We remain focused on helping connect people to the people and businesses who matter most," said David Marcus, VP of Messenger, in a statement.
Less importantly, Facebook also says 22 million GIFs are sent via Messenger daily.
Microsoft has announced today that it will no longer support Skype for those using Windows Phones and users with Android versions before 4.03.
There will be continued support for iOS 8 and newer (which is most Apple users) and Windows 10 Mobile users (which is not most of Windows phone users).
You can continue to use Skype if you have those old operating systems, but you will not be receiving any future updates which will likely include new and improved features over time.
U.S. authorities have charged Ukranian Artem Vaulin with copyright infringement, alleging that he ran the world's most popular torrent site, Kickass Torrents.
Vaulin was arrested in Poland and the U.S. is actively looking to extradite him.
Prosecutors in Chicago claim the site offers unauthorized downloads of music, movies, games, ebooks and more valued at over $1 billion.
It also appears that domains have been seized.
Deezer, an on-demand music streaming service popular in parts of Europe, has launched in the U.S.
The company was available in 180 countries and had plans to go public last year, but competition from Apple, Spotify and others delayed and eventually killed their offering.
U.S. users will not get an ad-supported tier like Deezer offers in other countries, and so will have to pay $9.99 a month for the service, in-line with other competitors. Deezer offers 40 million tracks, 40,000 podcasts, "Flow" personalized radio stations based on your habits, lyrics and more.
Deezer currently has 6.3 million users and will have to pick up significant steam if it wants to compete against Spotify and Apple.
There is growing evidence that Tesla Motors will soon be just Tesla.
The electric vehicle giant has changed its web address from teslamotors.com to tesla.com, less than a year after the company purchased the domain. All traffic to Tesla Motors is now redirected to Tesla.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been cryptically tweeting about his upcoming "Master Plan" part 2, and this could be the initial step. Tesla is trying to acquire the Musk-founded SolarCity, and is expected to begin testing on driverless electric trucks that can drive hundreds of miles at a time. By changing to just Tesla, the company could be suggesting a pivot in the company from "just" a car company.
Last month, Musk said a merger of SolarCity and Tesla would build "a combined automotive and power storage and power generation company," that would feature stationary storage batteries, electric vehicles, and solar panels.
Despite the fact that Nintendo is only a partner in the game, shares of the gaming giant have doubled since the July 6 launch of Pokemon GO.
The game has become a global phenomenon, shocking even the game's creators, and the game has now expanded to 35 countries. Japan is the next country where Pokemon GO will launch, and it is expected to be a massive hit there, as well.
Nintendo isn't the only company expected to be helped by the launch of "GO." Apple and Google are expected to see hundreds of millions in profits from their cut of in-app purchases, and other companies have begun using Pokemon GO as a way to get traffic to their sites or retail locations.
Investors are clearly betting that Nintendo can hit gold again in the future with their popular catalog of characters including Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda.
It's likely overkill for 99 percent of PC owners, but Seagate has revealed a new 10TB Barracuda Pro HDD this week, giving users a massive amount of storage for their computing needs.
The drive is standard 3.5-inch, 7200RPM so it won't offer too much in terms of features besides capacity, but it is still interesting to see how far we have come.
"The Barracuda family has a rich history of delivering reliable drives at an affordable price point for our customers, who are struggling to keep up with the vast amounts of data they're creating and consuming," said Merle McIntosh, SVP Sales and Marketing, Newegg. "Seagate is pushing the boundaries on capacity and a cost-effective 10TB option is a product our customers will appreciate."
Unfortunately, that "cost-effective" drive will set you back $500, which is certainly less cost-effective than getting two 8TB drives from Seagate for $250 each.
Source:
Seagate
For the third time since last December, Brazil temporarily banned the WhatsApp messaging service before a court overturned the ruling.
A Brazilian judge had banned the app after the company (now owned by Facebook) refused to reveal encrypted messages pertaining to an ongoing case. The Federal Supreme Court then reversed that decision, claiming it was "scarcely reasonable or proportional."
WhatsApp said it could not cooperate with the investigation because all of the messages sent are encrypted and are not stored on their servers.
"As we've said in the past, we cannot share information we don't have access to," added a WhatsApp spokesperson in a public statement.
Netflix shares fell over 12 percent yesterday after the streaming giant announced adding just 1.68 million subscribers for the quarter, well below their guidance of 2.5 million.
The company also announced that cancellations were "slightly and unexpectedly" higher during the quarter, which saw Netflix enact a long-ago announced price rise. About 20 million users saw their subscription price rise by either $1 or $2 per month, which apparently is too much for Emmy-nominated original content.
Netflix confirmed the minor slow down both in the U.S. and abroad: "We are growing, but not as fast as we would like or have been." The company partially blamed the media for the miss, as well, citing massive negative press about the price rises, which were initially announced over a year ago.
Despite the challenges, Netflix still saw revenue increase by 28 percent year-over-year.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has announced this week that the company has reached an incredible milestone: 2 billion rides.
More impressively is the fact that the company hit 1 billion trips just seven months ago, six years after launching.
Uber is now in 450 cities and is the most-funded private company of all-time, having raised $13 billion since inception. The company is now valued at $62.5 billion.
For now the company has no plans to go public but when it does it will be the largest IPO since Alibaba and Facebook.
Microsoft has confirmed that its upcoming slimmed-down console, the Xbox One S, will officially launch on August 2nd alongside the Windows 10 Anniversary Edition OS.
The new console is 40 percent smaller than the original Xbox One, and now comes in the "robot white" color scheme. On the outside, the Xbox One S has lost the gigantic power brick of its predecessor and will come with the option to buy a vertical stand.
On the inside, Microsoft has upgraded the raw processing power of the console, adding 4K video support (including 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays), HDR support for gaming and video and a built-in IR blaster. Aesthetically, the USB ports have been moved to a more convenient spot up front, along with the controller pairing button.
"The Xbox One S for us was a realization that first, we want to make a smaller Xbox, but there was also some capability that we saw growing out in the market around HDR and 4K video," Xbox head Phil Spencer said last month. "So we said, if we're going to do an upgrade to our console, let's go ahead and embrace some of the technologies that are coming and make those part of our core SKU."
In addition, the console comes with a modified controller that has textured grips and the addition of Bluetooth.
Last week, Microsoft made headlines by claiming that its Microsoft Edge was the only browser that could handle 1080p streaming on your PC.
It appears that is actually true.
Multiple reports have tested Netflix with Chrome, Firefox, and Opera and found that they all cap at 720p, while Microsoft Edge and IE11 reach 1080p. No browser will stream 4K, no matter what hardware you have.
It is unclear why the Microsoft browsers offer the best quality, but Microsoft gives us a hint in their blog: "From video hardware acceleration to PlayReady Content Protection and the Protected Media Path, Windows 10 is designed to provide the highest quality, most secure, and most power-efficient video playback available on any version of Windows."
Japanese telecom giant SoftBank has agreed to purchase microprocessor leader ARM Holdings for $32 billion, a huge premium over its recent closing price.
ARMH designs the microprocessors used by Apple and Samsung (among others) and their designs are found in about 95 percent of all smartphones.
The deal appears to show confidence in the British economy and stability following their recent "Brexit" vote. In fact, SoftBank says it plans to double ARMH's current UK team from 1600 to 3200 employees in the next five years.
In 2015, ARM reported revenue of $1.5 billion with profits of $448.4 million, so while the company has a monopoly and has strong margins the deal appears to be rich on the surface. SoftBank likely hopes to make up some money through a new focus on designing chips for routers and the networking industry. ARMH currently has 15 percent share in that industry.
Nintendo has delighted fans by announcing a "mini replica" of their original NES console, a new version of the classic console that will come with 30 games built-in.
Launching on November 11th for just $59.99, the console will be smaller than the original and include an HDMI port making it compatible with all current generation HDTVs.
A few of the more popular games included with the new console are Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 and 3, The Legend Of Zelda, Punch Out, Final Fantasy and Donkey Kong.
If you want to play some old-school multiplayer, you can buy a second NES control pad for $9.99.
"We wanted to give fans of all ages the opportunity to revisit Nintendo's original system and rediscover why they fell in love with Nintendo in the first place," Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime said in a statement. "The Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition is ideal for anyone who remembers playing the NES, or who wants to pass on those nostalgic memories to the next generation of gamers."
Earlier this year, Microsoft sent out a notice to all OneDrive cloud users informing them that their storage space would be reduced unless they opted-in and asked to keep it.
If you did not ask to keep the storage, your space is now significantly smaller. Microsoft has downgraded accounts to just 5GB and removed the 15GB camera roll bonus for Windows 10 and Windows Phone users. The move is a bit shocking, given that Microsoft launched OneDrive years ago by offering 7GB of space.
Microsoft has paid tiers for those who want to keep the extra storage, or you can move over to Amazon, Google, Apple, Dropbox or any other number of cloud solutions.
A hacker going by the name Ox2Taylor released sensitive information about 80,000 Amazon Kindle users earlier this week after Amazon did not respond his warnings of a significant security risk within their servers.
Ox2Taylor says he tried to contact Amazon last week to tell them of the vulnerability but did not receive any response. He was seeking a $700 bounty from Amazon for revealing the vulnerability as well as an explanation on how to fix it. "They're a big company and they should have enough money to have the proper security defenses," he added.
In the database are usernames, passwords, address, phone number and IP address of over 80,000 users.
After a few days in which Amazon did not even acknowledge the bug, he released the whole list via a zipped file on the cyberlocker Mega. It has since been taken down. "I was trying to prove them privately but they were ignoring my warnings," he said.
Tesla CEO and genius Elon Musk has said he's ready to unveil part 2 of the Tesla 'Top Secret Masterplan,' a plan that's been in place since 2006, before the launch of the Tesla Roadster sports car.
The CEO says he could even post it later this week, teasing excited fans.
In 2006, Musk revealed the first part of the plan in a detailed document that has essentially gone to plan so far. Musk said at the time that the first plan was to a build a sports car, use the proceeds to built a more affordable car, use those proceeds for an even cheaper car and save the world with zero emission electric power and charging.
It is unclear what will be in part two of the plan, but many expect Musk to speak about his proposed acquisition of his solar power company SolarCity and the development of Tesla trucks that can drive long distances autonomously.
Infamous MEGA owner Kim Dotcom says he plans to relaunch the original Megaupload cyberlocker in January 2017, following its 2012 shutdown by U.S. authorities.
At its peak, Megaupload accounted for over 20 percent of global Web traffic at any given time and had over 50 million users. The site was accused of linking to millions of unauthorized files including pirated movies, music and games and it drew the ire of U.S. authorities and content rights holders.
Perhaps most shocking of the announcement is the fact that Dotcom says all former users will get their accounts back, exactly five years after the site was raided and shut down. Dotcom was arrested but after five years the entrepreneur has still not faced a trial or jury. He has also been fighting to get back millions in assets that were frozen at the time of his arrest.
According to reports, Google is working on two Android Wear smartwatches, its latest foray into hardware.
The company currently sells a Chromebook, the Pixel C tablet, the Chromecast dongle, and co-brands Nexus smartphones.
Currently, the smartwatches are codenamed Angelfish and Swordfish, and will prominently feature Google's assistant AI that was shown off during this year's I/O.
Angelfish is expected to have a 45mm case, LTE connectivity, GPS, heart rate monitoring and will steal some design aspects from the LG Watch Urbane. One report says "it does not have the stark circular 'puck' shape of Motorola's 360, nor the rather angular lugs or multi-piece design of the Urbane LTE. This gives the watch a subdued but sporty look." Additionally, the watch will have three buttons including a circular crown and two other unknown buttons.
The Swordfish should "resemble the Pebble Time Round" and will be smaller and thinner, include a single button and may not have LTE or GPS. It will also likely come with a much lower price point.
Expect an announcement in September.
Microsoft has released a new press statement that should clear up any confusion about its upcoming Xbox Play Anywhere service.
Last week, the company confirmed that Play Anywhere was scheduled to launch on September 13th, giving gamers access to some games on Windows 10 PCs and the Xbox One with just one purchase. However, Microsoft later changed the verbiage of the service, stating that Play Anywhere only applies to Microsoft Studios games that were shown off at 2016's E3 conference.
Obviously, that would have been a very big change to the former policy. Microsoft has now tried to clear up any confusion: "When we unveiled Xbox Play Anywhere, we said that every new Microsoft Studios title shown at the Xbox E3 2016 Briefing will support Xbox Play Anywhere. We understand that a recent blog post didn't specify that the only Microsoft Studios titles we've confirmed to date as Xbox Play Anywhere were shown at the E3 2016 Xbox briefing."
Okay.
OurMine, the group of hackers behind recent high-profile account thefts, temporarily took over Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's Twitter account, tweeting and posting a Vine clip.
The group tweeted "Hey, its OurMine,we are testing your security" while linking to their site.
OurMine recently took over the social media accounts of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.
It appears that the messages came through Vine, which suggests that it was Jack's connected Vine account that was really compromised.
Samsung has unveiled the first UFS (Universal Flash Storage) memory cards this week, the evolution of microSD.
The company is offering 32, 64, 128, or 256 GB capacity models and the performance is incredible compared to even the high-end current microSD cards. UFS cards offer sequential read speeds of up to 530 MB/s, multiples faster than microSD.
Samsung says you can transfer a 5GB, 1080p movie in about 10 seconds compared to 50 seconds for the average UHS-1 microSD card. Write speeds are up to 170 MB/s, as well, about seven times faster than the average card aimed at consumers.
For now, it is unclear what devices will support removable UFS cards and what the price will be for such a powerful chip.
Just a few days after releasing the developer betas of their two new operating systems, Apple has launched open betas for iOS 10 and macOS Sierra for testing.
To sign up, you have to join the Apple Beta Software Program, but keep in mind with all betas that there are bound to be plenty of bugs and app inconsistencies so it is not advised to download the installs to your primary device.
You can read a bit more about the new OS here and here.
Pokemon Go, the biggest mobile release of 2016, has had to delay its international rollout following server issues for gamers playing in the U.S.
Niantic, the company the built Pokemon Go with Nintendo, says they are aware of the issues and are quickly working on a fix. Niantic CEO John Hanke says the rollout is "paused until we're comfortable," and that "We thought the game would be popular, but it obviously struck a nerve," which might be the understatement of the week following millions of downloads and tens of millions of playing hours.
As of writing, the server issues are almost completely solved and gamers can continue to enjoy catching Pokemon in real life.
Amazon-owned Audible has launched a new service, 'Channels,' premium podcasts for $4.95 per month or free if you are an existing, paying Audible member.
The exclusive selection will include comedic performances, audio recreations of long-form written articles, and ad-free original podcasts.
At launch, there will be very few pods available, but Audible says there about 40 shows in production.
The company took a small shot at Apple, the market leader, and its offerings of thousands of podcasts. "I've heard customers refer to podcasting as a flea market, where you'll find some treasures, and it's surrounded by a lot of junk," said Eric Nuzum, senior vice president for original content development at Audible. "You have to be in the mood to sort through the junk to find the treasure, and people don't want to do that all the time."
Apple has settled with patent troll Network-1 Technologies for $25 million, ending a suit over alleged patent infringement.
The "'227 Patent entitled 'Document Stream Operating System' relates to methods that enable unified search, indexing, displaying and archiving of documents in a computer system," says Network-1.
Initially originated at Yale University in 1996, the patent's creator sued Apple in 2008 and eventually won a $625 million judgment in 2010. Following an appeal, the ruling was overturned and the Supreme Court denied review, thus ending the initial suit.
After the loss, the patent was sold to patent troll Network-1, who sued Apple again in 2014 (as well as other companies, including Microsoft). That case has now been settled for $25 million and Apple has also received licenses to numerous other Network-1 patents.
Nintendo executive Shinya Takahashi has suggested that the company is looking into creating a peripheral for smartphones that will make it easier for mobile gamers to play Nintendo action games.
The company has looked into third-party options but "may develop something new by ourselves," says Takahashi.
Takahashi made the statement after he was asked about famous titles (Mario, Zelda, etc) and when they might come to iOS and Android. The executive said those types of games would be difficult with virtual controls.
It will be interesting to see what the next step for Nintendo is.
Apple, Amazon, Facebook and other tech companies have formed a coalition to fight the EU's "Cookie Law," asking for more refined laws and a better balance between data collection and privacy.
"We believe that simplifying and streamlining regulation will benefit consumers by ensuring they are provided with a simple, consistent, and meaningful set of rules designed to protect their personal data," said the group. "At the same time, it will encourage innovation across the digital value chain and drive new growth and social opportunities. This is critical at a time when digital companies are striving to launch new innovative services and working to build a 5G Europe."
The group includes some heavy hitters including Apple, Amazon, BT, Blackberry, Dropbox, eBay, Facebook, Fastnet, Foursquare, Google, Huawei, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Netflix, Orange, Paypal, T-Mobile, TalkTalk, Telefonica, Three, and Vodafone.
Despite being blocked in the country since 2009, Twitter estimates that over 10 million people actively use the service in China.
The source claims that the number is what Twitter uses internally and that it is an estimate because even the company can't be entirely sure due to the Chinese user's use of a VPN that could show them as located basically anywhere.
Of course, 10 million in China is a tiny fraction of active Internet users in the nation, and a fraction of Twitter's overall users (700 million and 300 million, respectively) but it is interesting to see the lengths people will go to to be connected to world news and get around China's state-imposed censorship.
VideoLan has built a universal Window platform (UWP) app for their popular VLC media player, meaning it will eventually work across Windows 10 devices, Hololens and Xbox One.
The new app is in beta but already appears to have some cool features. As with desktop versions, the app will support nearly every type of file format, will offer a media library for managing content within the app itself, subtitle support, sync controls (for those poorly dubbed files you definitely have) and picture-in-picture mode to allow you to browse your content without closing your current video.
Over time, DVD/Blu-ray playback and TV tuning will also be made available, but VideoLan says the current UWP APIs do not allow such features as of yet.
Get the app here: Microsoft Store
BlackBerry has confirmed this week that it will discontinue sales of its BB10-powered BlackBerry Classic smartphone.
The phone was first launched in 2014 and includes a built-in QWERTY keypad in addition to its standard touchscreen. The company says the Classic has "long surpassed the average lifespan for a smartphone" in today's market, hence the discontinue, but it is also easy to infer that the phone was just not selling.
Moving forward, there are reports that BlackBerry is working on new Android-based phones to compliment last year's BlackBerry Priv, although it is unclear how well that phone sold.
Publicly, the company has offered support for BlackBerry 10 and BB10-powered devices moving forward, but it is hard to imagine for how much longer.
According to the WSJ, the upcoming iPhone 7 will finally up the storage for their base model, from a tiny 16GB to a more reasonable 32GB.
Apple has long offered multiple tiers, starting with 16GB and going as high as 128GB, but with the improvement of cameras over time and the size of apps growing (especially games), 16GB was just too small.
The publication also reports that Apple could offer a 256GB version although the price tag on that will likely cause you to take out a loan just to afford it.
Apple's latest is not expected to be a huge step up from last year's iPhone 6S, but this model will be thinner and more water-resistant, lose the 3.5mm headphone jack and offer twin camera lenses.
Arstechnica had a very interesting article today on a wireless router that should be familiar to many Afterdawn readers; the Linksys WRT54GL.
The router was released in 2005 and remains up for sale, bringing in millions in revenue for the company despite certainly having outlived its usefulness (from a tech standpoint). The router uses the 802.11g Wi-Fi standard (since elapsed by 802.11n and 802.11ac, it can only use the 2.4GHz frequency band, and it has max speeds of just 54Mbps, far lower than the new 1Gbps standard.
"To be honest, it somewhat baffles my mind," said Linksys Global Product Manager Vince La Duca. But will they stop selling it? No way. "We'll keep building it because people keep buying it," La Duca added.
Having sold over 30 million units since launch, why does the WRT54GL remain so popular? The answer may lie in its support for popular open source firmware like DD-WRT. Linksys has always allowed users to quickly and easily unlock their devices to run Linux-based open-source software that offers more advanced capabilities that some more locked-down routers nowadays don't even offer. Of course, the router does have great name recognition (nearly 4000 positive reviews on Amazon) and a cheap price tag ($43 on Amazon), which certainly helps with the popularity. The report also says small businesses use the routers as a cheap way to offer public Wi-Fi hotspots.
On Monday, OnePlus began rolling out their OxygenOS 3.2 operating system update for the OnePlus 3 but issues have forced the company to stop the rollout.
Here was the company's post on Monday before the rollout began:
I want to thank all of you who have provided feedback. Your input has been absolutely valuable in ensuring that we produce a high-quality update. Thank you for your patience and as always, we look forward to hearing your feedback on this one.
This will be an incremental rollout. We should reach 100% coverage in the next 48 hours or so.
Here are some of the highlights of this update:
Enabled sRGB mode in developer options.
Improved RAM management.
Improved GPS performance.
Enhanced audio playback quality.
Updated custom icon packs.
Fixed some issues with notifications.
Improved camera quality/functionality.
Fixed some issues in Gallery.
Implemented latest Google security patches.
Fixed bugs in Clock/Music apps.
So let us know what you think. Enjoy!
In April LG released their latest flagship smartphone, the G5, to big hype and a large marketing campaign. According to one report, however, the phone is a flop.
The Korea Times says LG has made some serious changes to the executives in its mobile division, in part admitting that the latest flagship did not meet internal company projections nor expectations. Reportedly, the company even said that its "latest flagship G5 smartphone failed to generate sales," leading to the turnover.
Many believe the G5, despite its nice specs, was just downright confusing given its modular design, but the biggest problem is probably the fact that many have now invested years in the Apple, Nexus or Samsung ecosystems, with little reason to change.
The report concluded that LG will likely ship around 2.2 million G5 phones this quarter, well below their expectations for three million.
A second hacker has pled guilty to violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for his role in the "Fappening" celebrity nude picture leaks.
Edward Majerczyk will face up to five years in jail for using phishing schemes to trick celebrities into giving up their email and iCloud credentials. From there, the man would search for any photos or videos, which included nude photographs of over 100 celebrities.
"This defendant not only hacked into e-mail accounts -- he hacked into his victims' private lives, causing embarrassment and lasting harm," said FBI assistant director Deirdre Fike in a press statement. "As most of us use devices containing private information, cases like this remind us to protect our data."
Another man, Ryan Collins, pled guilty to the same crime three months ago and will likely see prison time of 18 months. Neither of the convicted has been accused of leaking the photos, and the leaker remains "at large."
Just 18 months after rapper Jay Z purchased the service for $56 million, it appears that tech behemoth Apple is close to acquiring Tidal.
The company, which currently has the second-most popular music streaming service on the planet, is attracted to Tidal's roster of popular artists that have stakes in the service.
A few of those artists are Kanye West, Jay Z's wife Beyonce, Madonna, Rihanna and Daft Punk, all of which contribute exclusive content. Tidal is also the only service to offer Prince's catalog of music, thanks to Prince's relationship with Jay Z before he passed earlier this year.
Tidal offers a 40 million deep HiFi catalog for $20 a month, or standard MP3 quality for $10 a month (similar to Apple Music and Spotify). Tidal says it has over 4 million paying subscribers, a huge jump from when Jay Z bought it. Apple Music has 15 million paying subs, and Spotify has 30 million.
Specs have leaked for Google's upcoming Nexus device, this one built by HTC.
Codenamed 'Marlin,' the flagship device will allegedly have a 5.5-inch QHD AMOLED display, be powered by an unknown quad-core Snapdragon processor and 4GB RAM and up to 128GB of internal storage. Additionally, the phone will have dual 8MP/12MP cameras, Bluetooth 4.2, a 3450mAh battery and the same rear fingerprint scanner as its predecessors.
There have also been rumors of a project codenamed 'Sailfish,' a smaller model of the next-generation Nexus, just like this generation has the 6P and the smaller 5x.
As always, expect an official announcement in the August - October timeframe for the new Nexus devices.
Xbox Play Anywhere, the service that gives gamers access to some games on Windows 10 PCs and the Xbox One with just one purchase, will go live on September 13th.
Microsoft announced the program at E3 last month and there are already 12 games listed as "Play" supported.
When the service launches Gears of War 4, Forza Horizon 3, ReCore, Sea of Thieves, Halo Wars 2, Scalebound, Killer Instinct Season 3, State of Decay, 2Ark: Survival Evolved, Cuphead, We Happy Few, and Crackdown 3 will be available, all at their regular prices.
Microsoft says Play Anywhere saves your progress to a single file in the cloud, as well as a single set of achievements.
Requirements are minimal to use Xbox Play Anywhere but you need to have August 2nd's Windows 10 Anniversary Edition on your PC and the upcoming summer Xbox One firmware update.
Sony's IPTV service PlayStation Vue is said to have reached 120,000 subscribers, largely making it a success among similar services.
The company launched the service in March 2015, but only went nationwide three months ago in the U.S.
Pricing for Vue ranges from $40 and higher depending on major broadcast network availability and the number of channels.
Initially, Vue was available just on select Sony devices including the PlayStation but has since expanded to iOS, Amazon Fire products and Roku players.
