OS X Yosemite update tackles ‘surprise’ Mac security flaws
You know those unpatched Mac security exploits that Google revealed a few days ago? You probably won’t have to worry about them any more. Apple has released OS X Yosemite 10.10.2, a hefty update that fixes those vulnerabilities, which let an intruder hijack your system in the right circumstances. There’s also a solution for Thunderstrike, a nasty (if unlikely) attack that would compromise your computer through a malicious Thunderbolt device. Most of the other 10.10.2 tweaks aren’t huge, although you’ll probably like having access to iCloud Drive storage in your Time Machine backups. You’ll definitely want to grab the upgrade, even if you don’t need some of the smaller perks — it should go quite some distance toward safeguarding your Mac.
Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Software, Apple, Google
Source: MacRumors
Opera’s former chief launches a web browser for power users
For a while, Opera was a power user’s web browser — what you chose when other apps just didn’t have the right mix of clever tricks and shortcuts. The company’s switch to Google-based tech dropped some of those features, however, leaving you in an uncomfortable spot if you were a fan of the old interface. Thankfully, you’re not out of luck. Vivaldi, a company co-founded by Opera’s ex-CEO, is launching its own browser to appeal to a more demanding crowd. You’ll still get Opera mainstays like the Speed Dial page (for fast access to pages you like), but you’ll also get customizable keyboard shortcuts, tab stacks and page-specific notes. There are a few nice touches, too, such as a navigation bar that changes color to match the theme of the site you’re visiting.
The browser is available now in technical preview form for Linux, Mac and Windows. There are mobile versions on the way, too, although Vivaldi isn’t ready to share more details just yet. It’s worth giving the fledgling browser a try, although there’s no doubt that it faces an uphill battle. Vivaldi is largely catering to a subset of the Opera audience, which is already pretty small (1.4 percent of desktop use). It”ll have to do a lot if it’s going to be popular enough to rival Opera’s share of the web world, let alone big-name browsers like Chrome and Firefox.
Filed under: Internet, Software
Via: CNET
Source: Vivaldi
Stable channel of Chrome OS updated to version 40, adds emoji palette and custom wallpaper sync
Google has begun rolling out an update to the stable channel of Chrome OS, that is what you find on the Chromebooks, to version 40. Many of the changes are all under-the-hood changes that fix bugs, address security issues and make things a little smoother. There are a few smaller details that users might notice, while […]
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Facebook Lite heads to emerging markets, hopes to keep people with slower data using the service
Looks like Facebook has added another app to its portfolio today with the release of Facebook Lite. The new app is an ultra slimmed down version of the full featured app coming in at just 252KB. It isn’t one that users in the states will see in the Play Store though as Facebook created this app […]
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AT&T finally updating HTC One M8 to Android 4.4.4
Seems AT&T decided they should probably get on the ball with their HTC One M8 devices with Lollipop looming over their heads as they have decided to push out an update to the device that is a bit over due. Support documents for the update went up last week, but were quickly pulled back down. Now, […]
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Apple giving away TV shows and music with ‘Free on iTunes’
Free stuff is always great, especially if people actually want what’s on offer. Apple now has a special section called “Free on iTunes” where you can find TV shows and music freebies if you’ve already blown through your monthly entertainment budget. It features TV episodes from 12 Monkeys, Eye Candy and others, as well as music from bands like Purity Ring and Houndmouth. As 9to5 Mac points out, Apple offered a similar service before, but this time, the focus seems to be less on hits and more on material that’s still looking for an audience.
Filed under: Software, HD, Apple
Via: 9to5 Mac
Source: Apple
Plex discontinues Plex Pass app and consolidates into Plex for Android
Plex pushed out an update or sorts to both the Plex for Plex Pass on Android as well as Plex for Android. The Plex for Plex Pass app was the free app that gave Plex Pass subscribers early access to upcoming features and changes to the app prior to the users of the traditional app. […]
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The triumphant return of ‘Rock Band’?
After several years years of hiatus, an official announcement, and the shockingly rapid decline of the music game market, Rock Band suddenly leapt back to life this month. Harmonix Music Systems — the studio responsible for the music game craze, and the studio that created Guitar Hero, Rock Band and Dance Central — announced new tracks heading to the Rock Band online store, which works with both Rock Band 3 and Rock Band Blitz. Why in the world is Harmonix releasing new tracks as paid, downloadable content for games that only exist on previous generation consoles? The official word is full of public relations obfuscation:
“We had an exciting opportunity to add new content to the already-massive Rock Band library with a song from Arctic Monkeys – a band that’s never been in a Rock Band title before! – as well as new music from fan favorites Avenged Sevenfold and Foo Fighters. We couldn’t pass it up. Also, we wanted to see if we could still do it. Turns out we can. It’s sort of like riding a bike.”
Great. That out of the way, what’s really happening? Companies don’t just casually release new content for years old games. That’s not a thing that happens. I’d call it “testing the waters.”
First and foremost, here’s an interesting, not exactly surprising fact: “hundreds of thousands” of people are still playing Rock Band every month. That’s what a Harmonix rep told me, and it refers to folks playing online on “all platforms where DLC is available” (there’s no way of measuring how many folks are playing offline, but let’s wager that it’s not a lot).
For those of you wondering who’s still holding onto all those plastic instruments, the answer is “a surprisingly large group of people.”
As for the rest of us, well, my house is purged of all the fake guitars, wireless microphones, and plastic drum kits that accumulated across the Guitar Hero / Rock Band years. The same goes for most of my friends, and I doubt you’re much different. Beyond the burnout that comes with releasing several junky, obvious cash-in games — Activision flooded the market with constant variations on the Guitar Hero franchise — many of us didn’t want to fill closets/basements/dorm rooms/etc. with clunky gaming peripherals.
Harmonix is actually trying to determine how you feel about those peripherals in a survey sent out via Twitter. More importantly, not only is Harmonix trying to determine if you still own old peripherals — the company is asking very specific questions about which aspects of a Rock Band game (local multiplayer? a robust on-disc song library? etc.) are most important to you. It’s also asking which current-gen game consoles you own.
Smells an awful lot like Harmonix is pretty seriously considering a re-birth of its biggest ever franchise — the franchise that both helped popularize music games and managed to get more than one Beatle on stage during a video game press conference.
It certainly doesn’t hurt that the company is being asked about Rock Band all the time. When Forbes‘ Jason Evangelho asked about “Rock Band 4″ back in October 2014 (a theoretical sequel to Rock Band 3), here’s what Harmonix publicist Nick Chester said:
“We love Rock Band, it’s in the company’s DNA. We own the IP. And when the time’s right we will absolutely come back to it. There’s a whole bunch of factors to take into consideration before jumping in that pool again, but there’s a desire for it, absolutely.”
So, given that, and Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos outright stating that Rock Band would return at some point this console generation, the question of Rock Band’s triumphant return isn’t a question of if, but of when.
Do you want a new Rock Band on current-gen game consoles?
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals, Software, HD, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo
Sling TV preview: Does this $20-a-month cord-cutter service work as promised?
Sling TV, a $20-a-month service for cord-cutters, made quite the debut earlier this month, winning our Best of CES award amid a flood of attention from press and customers alike. But can the app really live up to its promise to “Take Back TV”? I’ve had access to the beta for a few days, allowing me to get an early look before the first batch of invitations for pre-registered customers goes out tonight at midnight ET. As far as I can tell, the answer is both yes and no. Internet TV is finally real, but it has a lot of strings left over from the old days of pay-TV, and not just because it’s coming from the folks at Dish Network. Getting must-have content from the likes of ESPN has its costs, and those might make the $20 entry fee higher than you’re willing to pay.
For now, Sling TV is available on Android, iOS and Roku. Access on the web and through Amazon’s Fire TV hardware is in the works, but for the moment, that’s it. In any case, after a long weekend of watching ESPN and the Cooking Channel testing, it’s clear that Dish has already accumulated plenty of know-how with its DishWorld international service. We’ll have to wait and see how Sling TV holds up with more users signed on, but for now, the streams are clear and uninterrupted, with video quality that’s more than acceptable over WiFi. Usually the stream reported bandwidth of 2 to 3 Mbps, which was enough to keep the picture clear, although I sometimes noticed compression with fast-moving objects or dark scenes. If you’ve used Netflix, you have a good idea of what I mean, and if that’s acceptable (or if you’ve been dealing with high compression from your cable provider already), you should have no issues here. I couldn’t get quite as good of a connection over LTE, and anything at the “Medium” quality setting (0.8 Mbps) or less looked grainy, as you’d expect.
Aside from the connection, the other big question is: How does Sling TV compete on content? In short, it’s a mixed bag. The good news is that you get the core package 12 channels (ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, TBS, Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, ABC Family and CNN), but the reality of different contracts with different providers means you get a different set of features on some channels. If I’m watching Bloomberg TV, DIY or HGTV, then life is great; I can flip back and forth through the show that’s airing, and use the “Start Over” option to immediately go back to the beginning or see tons of video on demand.
But with ESPN, ABC, TNT, CNN, HLN and the entire Disney family, the service works differently. It’s like old-school, pre-2000 analog TV: There’s no rewind, pause or seek and you can forget about stuff like Start Over. It’s like staying in a hotel or sitting in a waiting room and suddenly remembering you can’t skip back to watch the highlight play that just happened, except here, you’re specifically paying a monthly fee with the expectation that you can do just that.
Unfortunately, that’s not the worst of it; licensing issues can bite users in other ways. It’s not that I wanted to watch the Pro Bowl last night (I didn’t), but if I did, then I couldn’t on my phone (as shown above). On a tablet or TV, it’s no problem, but the NFL has an exclusive deal for phones that Sling TV can’t get around. Sling TV isn’t the only one blocked; the WatchESPN app with my Comcast login suffered the same block for the same reasons. It’s understandable, but frustrating on a service we’re hoping will move the TV market out of the stone ages. Other than that, I didn’t spot any device-specific issues, although I wasn’t able to reliably use AirPlay mirroring between my Retina display iPad and Apple TV. Direct AirPlay support should be available once the public comes in tomorrow, though, so that shouldn’t be a problem going forward.
So am I already down on our CES champ? Hardly. What Sling TV promised comes through in spades. I can flip through the available channels with little pause and hop from device to device with abandon. This is live TV reshaped for the internet that’s ready for smartphones, tablets and PCs. On the channels that allow full features, I can even watch in the ways I like to, without worrying about whether or not the DVR was actually set to record or any other silliness. The video-on-demand feature is well-sorted, if a bit barebones. It’s better-designed than Vudu, but not as easy to sort as even Netflix, and I’d expect it to improve in features and content as the service goes forward.
So the million-dollar question (or billion, if you own a cable company) is: Can this replace my current TV setup? For now, and for me, no. I don’t watch cable news or the reality-style shows that flood the Scripps family of channels that together make up the lion’s share of what’s available on Sling TV. Of course, my cable subscription already includes those (at a much higher cost, plus charges for equipment and other add-ons), but it also brings all of the other channels that I actually do watch, and can’t currently get on Sling TV. If you’re sitting on a big-screen setup and a TV addiction that keeps the DVR full from one day to the next, this probably isn’t going to cut it, although you’re welcome to try. There are just too many shows missing, and despite the rise of other streaming services it’s not quite a competitor for the cable bundle, even given its much lower entry price
Of course, if you do just need SportsCenter, a quick dose of fixer-upper info, some kids shows and the occasional shot of cable news talking heads, then boom — this package is made for you. But it’s still what many cord-cutters say they hate: a bundle. Plugging the holes with more sports or other genres is just falling further into the same trap that the current TV giants have been getting rich off of. Even at launch, adding a Kids bundle for Disney Junior, Disney XD, Boomerang, Baby TV and Duck TV or News & Info Extra for HLN, Cooking Channel, DIY and Bloomberg TV costs an extra $5 per package.
At CES, Sling said there would be more options like that coming, including a sports pack, so it will be interesting to see what’s available to mix-and-match going forward. The other great part about working over the internet is that features can be tweaked and released quickly — while its taken the cable industry decades to bring connected features to our boxes, the options for Sling TV are endless. At the beginning, that will mean adding a channel from internet video provider (and Disney-owned) Maker Studios. I don’t know what’s next or down the road, but tossing out the need to roll out instantly-obsolete hardware could put Sling a step ahead in the way we’ve already seen Netflix add features, devices or buzzwords like 4K and HDR video.
If (big if) you’re not allergic to a bundle, then it does work for someone who can mostly live without TV, but wants to pick it up sometimes for a few months here and there. There’s no contract (with a 1-week free preview period on signup), and no installer, so tossing these channels on top of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, et cetera takes just a few clicks, and so does getting rid of them when you’re ready to move on. TV still needs to evolve and Sling TV isn’t ready to address all of the industry’s issues, but if your need for TV is on the light side due to taste, budget, time or some combination thereof, it could be a great fit.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Software, HD
Gearbox’s beautiful ‘Homeworld’ remake reaches PCs on February 25th
If you’re a long-time PC gamer, you probably have a soft spot for the Homeworld series. Relic’s epic saga was both eye-catching and proof that real-time strategy could work in the void of space. However, time hasn’t been kind to the games — the first came out when 3D graphics cards were relatively new, and THQ’s acquisition of Relic (plus its eventual bankruptcy) made follow-ups difficult. At last, though, you’ll have a way to relive the Mothership’s journey while doing justice to your modern gaming rig. Gearbox, which bought the rights to the series, has revealed that its previously teased Homeworld Remastered Collection will reach the PC on February 25th. The remake spruces up just about every aspect of the two Homeworld games, ranging from much better-looking ship models and effects to reworked cutscenes. You also get a beta multiplayer experience that merges the online modes of both titles.
And what about a truly new game? That’s coming, too. Blackbird Interactive (a studio founded by Homeworld vets) is teaming up with Gearbox to make a prequel, Homeworld Shipbreakers. Nearly everything about the new entry is a mystery since it’s still early in development, but the announcement hints that there will be plenty more to do once you’re done replaying the originals.
Source: Gearbox Software, Steam
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