And I so hoped Apple would have a winner on its hands this year, a new iPhone that would woo me like no other smartphone has done before. And it does. Kind of. But, it's not the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, it's the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus. Yes, it's the darn new phablet on the block! And that's a problem. Having to go for a phablet to get the best iPhone is extremely limiting and stupid. Where's the normal-sized iPhone 6 that everyone can call the best iPhone yet? This one? I'm not feeling it. It's rubbish. What have you done, Apple?

This has got everything to do with the specs. I am not the first person to call Apple out for using hardware which someone had to raid a parts trash bin to find. The iPhone 6 that I've been waiting for does not feel like an iPhone with sub-par hardware. It just doesn't. The important bits are clearly inferior to Android flagships (heck, even top Windows Phones, which were known for using lesser hardware in the past) and iPhone 6 Plus, and, as you can well tell by now, I am one step away from using curse words to describe it. I'm trying not to go there. No promises that won't happen before the last period.

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The focus of Apple's event today was the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and the Apple Watch, but one of the more understated stars of the show was Apple Pay. This is not hardware, but a new mobile payment platform which Apple is billing as "your wallet, without the wallet". It works in conjunction with the new handsets to provide a new means of contactless payment and it supports credit and debit cards from American Express, MasterCard and Visa. There's backing from the likes of Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Capital One Bank, and users need to just add their credit or debit card to their iTunes Store account to start paying for goods and services with their phone -- or Apple Watch.

A number of big names have already jumped on the Apple Pay bandwagon, including McDonald's, Staples, Disney Store, and Whole Foods Market, as well as the 258 US Apple stores. Apple Pay can also be used in the App Store as well as more than 220,000 locations that support contactless payment. In addition to the benefits of contactless payment, Apple is really pushing the security aspects of Apple Pay. Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services says:

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Each month Netflix releases its "shame and blame" report, which covers the major US and Canadian ISP services. The streaming service is not kind, as it revealed problems on Comcast before giving in to demands to pay a fee to appease customers having issues.

The latest report has been issued and Comcast has risen in the ranking to a rather reasonable fourth place. However, the provider still lags behind rivals Cablevision, Cox and Suddenlink. But, it ranks above Verizon FiOS, Charter, AT&T and others. Verizon DSL finishes dead last, but that isn't a major surprise.

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Running counter to many of the rumors circulating ahead of the Cupertino event, Apple today announces the Apple Watch, not the iWatch. Unlike the Moto 360, Apple's offering takes the squarer form adopted by many other manufacturers, but there are differences. Taking design cues from older iPhones -- think 3GS period -- the Watch was relegated to the infamous "one more thing" slot after the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus were announced. Rather than the unibody design that some had expected, the Apple Watch features six different straps, comes in two sizes (38 mm and 42 mm -- his and hers essentially), and will be available in three different finishes.

Just like the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, the Apple Watch's display is made from sapphire crystal but there's something interesting to the right of the screen. More usually found on a traditional mechanical watch, there's a crown -- but this is not used for winding up a spring. Instead, this is a new form of input that can be used to scroll around the interface, zoom in and out, and doubles up as a home button. Despite the squared surround, the Apple Watch's UI is very round in flavor, mimicking the look of a traditional watch.

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Apple’s iPhone 6 launch was hotly anticipated, but anyone tuning into the live stream had to initially endure stuttering video and a lovely, but rather annoying Chinese or possibly Japanese woman talking over the top of things. Apple might make great hardware and software, but it really needs to work on its live streams.

As expected, the rumors and leaks turned out to be spot on. Apple is indeed launching two new devices -- the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, both of which are larger than the existing iPhone 5s.

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A week ago, Norwegian browser maker Opera revealed that it will bring the popular Opera Mini to Windows Phone. Not long after, the app was made available as a private beta to a few lucky testers. Now though, everyone with a Windows Phone can check out Opera Mini.

Opera Mini is the first well-known third-party browser to be available on Windows Phone. This gives it the opportunity to quickly attract the attention of those looking for an alternative to Internet Explorer, which comes on board the tiled operating system. The latter, at least so far, has proved to be a reliable and, more recently, powerful option. So does Opera Mini have what it takes to steal users away from its Microsoft-made rival?

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Apple always streams its major events live, but restricts them to existing users of Apple products. If you want to watch today’s imminent launch of the iPhone 6 and, possibly, a new smartwatch, you need to be viewing on Safari 5.1.10 or later on OS X v10.6.8 or later; Safari on iOS 6.0 or later. Streaming via Apple TV requires second or third-generation Apple TV with software version 6.2 or later.

However, there is a way around this.

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There are many video streaming services nowadays, such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Instant Video to name a few. Amazon is my favorite though, as it comes bundled with the awesome Prime membership which also offers music streaming, 2-day shipping and much more.

Sadly, Prime Instant Video has not been available on stock Android; you could only get it for the Kindle Fire tablets, Fire phone and Apple's iOS devices. Today however, Amazon announces that its streaming video service is now available for regular Android. Before you get too excited, please know there is a catch; it seems tablets are not yet supported -- weak!

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One problem with DVRs is storage -- if you save too many programs you'll find things being deleted to make room for new recordings. Most DVRs land in the 500 GB range, but some are now coming with one terabyte. Things are slowly improving, but now they will be taking a quantum leap thanks to TiVo.

How about a 24 terabyte monster for your TV show storage needs? That works out to about 26,000 hours of stored TV shows (that's SD, HD reduces things to a mere 4,000 hours), which should be enough for even the biggest couch potato. It is, not surprisingly, named the TiVo Mega and will be whole-home capable.

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As you may have guessed from the name, the Sony Xperia M2 Aqua is a brand new water resistant phone courtesy of the Japanese giant that seems to have made repelling H2O something of a personal vendetta.

Seriously, forget the Xperia Z3, the Sony Xperia M2 Aqua has the highest water resistance-rating for a mass-market smartphone. If you regularly make business calls in the shower, there is no other phone we'd recommend more highly.

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A shocking new report looking at online advertising shows that there has been a huge increase in the number of internet users making use of ad blocking tools. The report describes ad blocking as having gone mainstream, but it also suggests that the loss of ad revenue threatens the life of many websites.

Pagefair worked with Adobe putting together the report and found that 4.9 percent of internet users make use of ad blockers, including more than a quarter (27.6 percent) of those in the US.

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In a fast-changing world there's demand for new applications to be delivered quickly and traditional development processes often can't keep pace.

Seattle-based startup Shippable has announced a new version of its platform that helps developers to innovate and deliver more quickly using open source Docker containers. Docker -- in case you didn't know -- isolates resources of the Linux kernel to allow independent software containers to run on one Linux platform without the need to launch virtual machines. Docker containers can be run on any Linux machine whether on site or in the cloud.

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In one of the strangest joining of forces imaginable, Reddit (of recent Fappening censorship fame), Mozilla (the browser folks) and other well-known names are teaming up with porn sites. The net neutrality debacle is one that has been rumbling on for some time now as more and more ISPs reveal plans to provide faster internet access to those willing -- or able -- to pay more. This creation of a two-tier internet is something that has been met with disgust from many quarters, including lots of big online names.

Tomorrow, 10 September, the likes of Pornhub and Redtube will join Etsy, FourSquare, KickStarter and more in a day of protest.

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A warning has gone out to customers of Salesforce.com that the Dyreza trojan, previously targeted at banking sites, may be a risk to users of the CRM solution.

The malware uses social engineering techniques to get the victim to infect the system via email. Once installed it uses "browser hooking" to allow Dyreza to intercept content entered by the user into the web browser before that content is transmitted over the network to a web site. Critically this allows the interception to occur before the data is encrypted.

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HP has strengthened its public sector supply chain by enabling over 600 small/medium enterprises (SMEs) to prove their security credentials with the new Information Assurance for SMEs (IASME) security standard.

The IASME should allow SMEs to compete for public sector contracts by offering a more affordable route to compliance with ISO/IEC 27001:2013, the information security standard which was published last year.

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