Alan Buckingham

Periscope from Twitter seems to get mixed reviews from users and the tech community. However, it isn't going away, at least as far as we know. The video sharing app received a lot of attention, which really is what Twitter wants from any improvement or new apps.

Periscope isn't new, but the app for Android is. It boasts the ability to replay your live broadcast to your followers, it can be private if you only want certain followers to see it, you can also share these broadcasts via Twitter, manage notifications and Hearts, which tracks how many viewers like your broadcast.

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There is perhaps no better purveyor of the universal remote than Logitech, which owns the Harmony brand. It's not necromancy, just solid engineering and hardware and software that just works. Perhaps that is why it has remained popular and Logitech has continued to improve things since taking over.

Now the company is stepping back a bit, but doing so in a good way, as it brings more home control to some of the older models via the Harmony Hub.

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Roku, the small set-top box, has become wildly popular in recent times. It is also constantly adding new content via "channels" and trying to improve the hardware offerings as well. Now folks in the UK will get the latest improvements.

Roku Search is, perhaps, the biggest part of the announcement, as it allows customers to more easily locate the content they wish to watch. For the moment it only covers a few key channels -- Netflix, Snagfilms and Popcornflix -- but Roku plans to add many more channels in the future.

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For many folks, music gets them through the day, or even life. There's also no shortage of services out there looking to get users to choose them. While some are lesser known, Spotify certainly isn't, as it's an industry leader that boasts 25 billion listening hours since it launched.

Now the streaming company is making some improvements that should satisfy customers even more. Users of the mobile app can expect what Spotify terms a "richer experience" for the Now app.

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Harmony remotes, purchased by Logitech, have long been a standard for universal control of your home theater. However, the world is moving on and headed towards fully connected homes -- dwellings where we can control everything with the touch of a button, automate it and let it serve us. The Internet of Things can be scary, as my colleague Derrick Wlodarz pointed out, but it can also be fascinating in that shiny new gadget sort of way.

Slowly but surely you can do all of this, not only from your phone or tablet, but from that remote control sitting on the coffee table in front of you. Harmony has just picked up support for Nest Protect, a smoke detector, and Rheem EcoNet, a water heater system.

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Video games and set-top boxes. They don't seem to go together, but these days they do. You can play games on many of them, though they won't be confused with an Xbox One or PS4. But today video games aren't just about playing, it's become a spectator sport as well. Much of that is due to the Twitch service which allows people to post videos and watch others.

Now the Twitch channel has arrived on Roku, one of the most popular set-top boxes on the market. The manufacturer is adding the channel now, allowing customers to begin streaming the videos that seem so popular in today's culture.

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Video and photos are universal these days. Most of us walk around with a camera in our pocket. Everyone benefits. Consider the meteor over Russia or almost instant access to breaking news of all sorts.

However, sometimes photos aren't good enough for the events in your life. Video is better -- like for a kid's birthday party or graduation, or family vacation. There's better, and there's better. Microsoft just released Hyperlapse to help you turn these videos into neat little time-lapses to make them a bit cool and easier to share.

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Music options abound these days, some more affordable than others. It's become genuinely hard to choose a streaming service that fits your needs and budget. While there aren't any new options on the market, one may have just become much more appealing, as Rdio makes a major annoucement about services and pricing.

This latest move adds a combination of both radio and streaming music of the user's choice and does so with one reasonably priced plan.

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Dropbox is one of the most popular services for storing and sharing files online. Combine that with Google's Gmail, a widely used email service, and you serve up a recipe for success. Or at least the storage service thinks and hopes so.

Dropbox is now arriving with improvements for that Gmail account you have, bringing easy storage sharing right to your desktop. This isn't entirely new -- an extension for Chrome has been available for a while now, but this update improves on things.

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Nielsen, the leader in TV ratings, has to move into the new era, which means TV streaming. Now the company is moving in that direction, partnering with Roku, the top set-top box maker on the market, in order to gather this data.

But how do you rate this new dimension in TV? Well Nielsen thinks it can and it's partnered with Roku to give it a try. The two are announcing a new deal beginning now and it aims to make the world of internet-based TV a ratable one.

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It's one thing to have your personal bank account hacked, you may lose a few dollars or worse a small fortune. However you would expect corporate accounts to have added security, preventing such a devastating event. That's clearly not the case. While we've seen point-of-sale systems hacked and customer data stolen, this time it was actually a company bank account that was robbed.

Irish airline Ryanair had its corporate account plundered by hackers to the tune of $5 million, or €4.6 million. The money apparently disappeared from accounts used to fund the fueling of the company's planes, not a cheap task and perfect for not immediately ringing alarm bells.

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It's a great time of the year for sports fans, with hockey in the playoffs, the upcoming NFL draft, the Triple crown and baseball season well underway. Now Roku is bringing all of this to your TV via both its set-top boxes and Roku TVs. It arrives just in time for all of the action.

The NBC Live Extra Service promises over 3,000 events per year, including some exclusive coverage. That traverses an awful lot of ground.

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Yesterday was the big day for Apple Watch, and also a big day for companies looking to capitalize on the hype and sales. We've seen Amazon jump on board, along with many others. Now the top lighting manufacturer in the world is getting into the game also, as Philips announces that it will be offering customers the chance to control their Hue lights right from their wrists.

Hue, if you aren't familiar, is a line of lightbulbs that are internet connected and can be controlled from multiple devices -- Apple Watch is the latest.

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We've grown used to sites like The Pirate Bay making pretty regular moves. It's kind of unavoidable in this business where organizations such as the MPAA exist. While we don't condone piracy, we also don't condone censorship, and there's plenty of studies that show that illegally downloaded content doesn't put much, if any, dent in the copyright holder's bank account.

Today the latest news surfaces -- Kickass Torrents, the top source on the web, is on the move after a brief visit to the Isle of Man. The place proved unfriendly to the organization, shutting it down rather quickly. Next stop? Costa Rica sounds like a nice tropical local, doesn't it?

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In today's world privacy has become a premium and companies and governments are the ones in the hotseat thanks to Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks and others. People are searching out ways to avoid being tracked, a difficult task in this current society. AVG is the latest to offer a solution.

The security firm is announcing Crumble, a new extension for Chrome that promises you can "surf without surveillance". The app comes from the Innovation Labs and is still in beta at the moment, but users can start testing it out now.

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