Alan Buckingham

Just this week Amazon rolled out Prime Music to all subscribers of its video and shipping service, adding one more competitor to an already crowded market. However, tempering that good news was a bit of sadness, as one other service has announced it will be closing its virtual doors very soon.

Earbits, an up and coming competitor in the space, is announcing it will close up shop on June 16th. Earbits was never a major player in the field, but it provided an alternative option, and was a benefit to aspiring artists, so the loss will be felt by many.

Continue reading →

The Kindle Fire HDX was one the pleasant surprises of 2013, with the new 7 and 8.9 inch versions bringing many changes to the hardware and interface. The software update was not backward compatible with the HD models, though Amazon continues to support that platform as well.

One of the most talked about features of the new tablets was the Mayday button, which can be easily accessed by pulling down the menu from the top of the screen, much like any Android device.

Continue reading →

It seems that not a week goes by these days without news of a security breach at some company. We've seen Target, Michaels and others fall victim, though the true victims are really the customers of these establishments.

Earlier this week we heard rumors that restaurant P.F. Chang's was the latest chain to suffer a data breach. The report first came from security researcher Brian Krebs, who stated "On June 9, thousands of newly-stolen credit and debit cards went up for sale on rescator[dot]so, an underground store best known for selling tens of millions of cards stolen in the Target breach. Several banks contacted by KrebsOnSecurity said they acquired from this new batch multiple cards that were previously issued to customers, and found that all had been used at P.F. Chang’s locations between the beginning of March 2014 and May 19, 2014".

Continue reading →

Earlier this year Amazon announced it would be raising the annual fee for its Prime service, with the price jumping from $79 to $99. It's still a reasonable deal, given that customers receive access to Netflix-like streaming movies and TV shows, free two-day shipping on orders and access to the Kindle Lending Library.

To help soften the blow of the increased price, and to perhaps grab more customers, Amazon is announcing that a music service is now part of the Prime deal.

Continue reading →

Roku, the tiny set-top box, has many entertainment options available for its customers. The options, which the company calls "channels", are available through the store, which is accessed via the box, and there are numerous offerings to choose from.

Some are region-specific, however, and one of those has been added today. UK viewers can now add ITV from the Channel Store. "This is a major addition as ITV Player makes it possible to catch up on content across ITV, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and CITV! That means shows such as Coronation Street, Britain’s Got Talent, Emmerdale, This Morning, Cold Blood and The Vampire Diaries, as well game shows, news, children’s entertainment and documentaries -- all available to stream when you want, where you want", says Roku's Ed Lee.

Continue reading →

If you moved to Feedly after the much lamented shut-down of Google Reader, as many RSS users did, then you may have noticed that the service is currently down. To prevent customers from wondering about the problems, the company has released an announcement.

Feedly says it is currently under a denial of service attack, with the attacker demanding money to bring an end to service interruption. In a brief post on the company blog, the developers let all customers know of the problem, and promise to update users as the situation develops.

Continue reading →

Microsoft differentiated itself from Sony in the game console market by positioning its offering as an entertainment device -- a living room hub, with HDMI pass-thru and lots of options. However Sony has a few of these as well, and now will be adding one more.

At the E3 gaming show, the company announces YouTube will be arriving on its console. "Sharing your greatest gaming moments on YouTube will be a piece of cake on PS4, thanks to the dedicated sharing capabilities at the very heart of PS4. YouTube will officially be one of the social options offered when you press the Share button on your DualShock 4. After pressing Share , you’ll see the YouTube icon pop up alongside Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, and Ustream, and in just a couple of quick steps, you can go from playing your favorite games to publishing videos on your own YouTube channel. You’ll also be able to see your friends’ shared YouTube videos using the 'What’s New' feed", the company states.

Continue reading →

Last week Microsoft boasted of aiding law enforcement in the take-down of the GameOver botnet, one of the leaders in the theft of banking information. However, Microsoft was not the only tech entity involved, and the death notice may have been a bit premature.

One of the others involved was security firm F-Secure, and it has pointed out some important aspects of exactly what happened. The thing people should be aware of is that this does not mean the threat is gone. F-Secure claims that it was "disrupted -- not dismantled".

Continue reading →

Logitech's Harmony line are perhaps the best known universal remotes, allowing for easy setup and one-click control over multiple items in the home theater. Press the TV button, for instance, and your television comes on, your A/V receiver comes on and is set to the proper input and whatever else you care to program in.

Now the company is announcing an update for both its Harmony Ultimate and Harmony Smart Control. The new features include support for controlling Sonos, a whole home stereo system, as well as control over the recently released Amazon Fire TV.

Continue reading →

Most everyone, at least the tech-savvy who read this, are familiar with VLC Player -- the Video LAN Client. It's a jack-of-all trades media player, that is capable of handling pretty much any format you can throw at it, no matter how obscure it may be.

Now the developers of the project are revealing one more feature that is on the roadmap -- support for Chromecast. The question was asked on the forums and lead developer Felix Paul Kuehne responded that support was in the works. "Yep, this is exactly what we are up to", he states.

Continue reading →

OpenSSL, which runs on the servers for many websites, has been having a rough time in recent weeks. We all learned of the near fatal flaw named Heartbleed, which affected quite a number companies and services on the web.

Now a new, albeit less severe, flaw has been discovered. Security researchers at AVG have unveiled what they are calling CCS Injection, which the company terms a vulnerability, but points out that it is not easily taken advantage of.

Continue reading →

If you have been using Netflix on any number of devices in your living room, including game consoles and various set-top boxes, then you're likely familiar with the "Post-Play" option. The feature automatically queues up the next episode of a show and begins it playing. For movies, it displays three recommendations at the conclusion.

Now the streaming service is bringing "Post-Play" to its Android app. For phones, this will work only with TV shows, but on tablets you will get the feature with both shows and movies.

Continue reading →

WWDC has proven to be the big event this week, introducing the latest iteration of Apple's operating system, known as OS X Yosemite -- yes the company has moved on from big cats, it did so with Mavericks.

One of the first to take advantage of this new platform is Netflix. The streaming video service is announcing it will bring HTML5 to Safari in the new operating system. "We're excited to announce that Netflix streaming in HTML5 video is now available in Safari on OS X Yosemite! We've been working closely with Apple to implement the Premium Video Extensions in Safari, which allow playback of premium video content in the browser without the use of plugins", says Netflix.

Continue reading →

Microsoft has a digital crimes unit, which it has utilized to systematically go after botnets around the world. The company claims several victories, but none is likely as big as the one now unveiled.

Zeus, an especially troubling entity, has been taken down by a combination of the Microsoft DCU and the US FBI. The company announces that the game is now over for "GameOver", a variant of Zeus (also known as Zbot).

Continue reading →

Last week I mentioned that I've been working from a Chromebook recently, in this case an HP 11. However, folks in other nations are not all so fortunate, as the platform is not yet available everywhere. That's something that Google would like to change, for both the benefit of itself and consumers.

Today nine more regions were checked off the list with a poetic announcement from Google's David Shapiro, who is director of Chromebook marketing.

Continue reading →