Yesterday, when I first heard the rumors that Microsoft was going to be dumping the Xbox One’s DRM restrictions -- dropping the regular internet checks and making it easier to share and trade games -- I was skeptical. But then news sites began reporting the story, citing reliable sources, and Microsoft removed the Xbox One Q&A page from its website -- clear confirmation big changes were afoot.

Faced with a tide of anger from gamers, and overwhelming negativity towards certain aspects of its forthcoming entertainment console, Microsoft did something no one expected -- it reversed its stance on DRM and went back to the old ways. It was a surprising decision.

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A funny thing happened when I checked my email this morning. I found I had a friend request from Myspace, something I haven’t had for a long time. Even funnier was when I clicked on it Myspace -- or at least Myspace as I knew it -- was gone. In its place was a new sleek, Modern UI meets Spotify, music-based site. A site that doesn't seem to do friend requests anymore either so it's lucky I got that email or I might never have stumbled on it at all (conspiracy theories on a postcard please).

Of course this really shouldn't have come as a surprise, around nine months ago my colleague Wayne Williams reported early news of the update with the headline New Myspace is gorgeous, but who will use it?  Like everyone else though I’d read about a Myspace update and not deemed it worthy of brain space. So suddenly finding myself on the new site -- fresh out of beta -- was a bit of a shock.

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PlayOn, one of my favorite media apps for my Google TV, today unveils major new updates to its offering. The service is a life-saver for cord-cutters and has somehow managed to avoid lawsuits during its existence, even going so far as to partner with set-top box maker Roku, selling a box with PlayOn pre-installed.

The company first introduces a new service it calls PlayMark. This means, when you are browsing the web on your PC and you come across a cool video that you want to show to your family or friends later on TV, then you can click the PlayMark icon in your browser menu to mark the video. Then continue browsing the web and, later that evening, when you are in front of the TV looking for something to watch and remember that you wanted to show something to your family, you can bring up PlayOn, find the PlayMark folder, click on it and, in a few seconds, you will be watching that same web video you PlayMarked earlier.

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What makes a good audio editor? Many developers seem to think it’s all down to the length of the feature list, and so they’ll try to cram in just as much functionality as they possibly can. That can have its appeal, too, but there’s often a usability price to pay.

AV Audio Editor takes a very different approach. Its feature list is fairly basic, just the usual cut, copy and paste options, along with a few effects (volume tweaks, an equalizer and so on). But that’s still more than enough for many situations, and the real plus here is that AV Audio Editor takes these basics and implements them very well indeed.

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Veteran US developer Adobe has released Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 for Windows and Mac. Photoshop Lightroom is aimed at improving digital photographs, and version 5 debuts some major new features, including an Advanced Healing Brush for removing unwanted elements from photos.

Other new features include Upright, a smart straightening tool, Radial Gradient, smart previews, video slideshows and the promise of better photo book creation.

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My favorite platform for shuffling media around my home and, most importantly, getting it to my Google TV, today gets a bit better. Okay, actually a lot better. Plex announces updates rolling out to its Media Server platform, bringing it to version 0.9.8 -- one step closer to the fabled 1.0 release.

While the software has not yet reached that 1.0 threshold, do not get the impression it is not ready for your home. The service has been full-featured for sometime now.

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Pandora, which has long been my music app of choice, is part of many set-top boxes and smart TV's -- it is even built into my DVR. Today the music service introduces an all new big screen experience, launching its official TV service -- another step towards making the radio app available virtually everywhere.

TV.Pandora.com hits the market aiming at Xbox 360, smart TVs, set-top boxes and more. According to Tom Conrad from Pandora, "The next generation of Pandora for the living room is an entirely new experience designed from the ground up for your television and remote control. This new initiative is standards-based and embraces next generation TV, game console, and set top box architectures that support open web standard".

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Have media files and looking for a better way to stream them? Good news then. Plex, the amazing little server/client that helps users send media to all sorts of devices (and which originally forked from XBMC) just got better for Apple TV customers.

Plex's developer announces a new PlexConnect app built on its API. The same API which is used to port the service to the web, Roku, Samsung TV, Google TV and more.

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Facebook is great for sharing thoughts, links, complaints and pictures with your friends, family and colleagues but, until now, there has been no easy way to share files through the social network. Pipe is a Facebook app that has undergone private testing for some time, but is at last available for everyone to use. Once installed, Pipe will let you send files of up to 1GB in size to your Facebook friends.

The app works by setting up a P2P connection between you and anyone you decide to share a file with. Ordinarily, file transfers are carried out in real-time, but if you want to send a file to a friend who is not currently online, it will be securely stored until they are available. This reduces the size limit right down to 100MB but it is possible to send an unlimited number of files in this way.

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Amazon continues to beef up its Prime video offering, making friends with major studios and networks in a race for content. Today the online retailer woos even more customers, building on the recent update that will introduce original content to the platform, by adding a new group of popular TV shows to its library.

New partner Viacom will begin providing hundreds of TV shows and thousands of TV episodes from Viacom to Prime Instant Video, including a collection of TV shows that customers won’t find on any other digital video subscription service.

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Courts ordering ISPs to block access to known torrent sites is nothing new -- UK ISPs have already been told that the likes of the Pirate Bay, Kickass Torrents, H33T and Fenopy are out of bounds -- but Sky Broadband has decided, seemingly of its own volition, to take things a step further. Not content with following the letter of the law and preventing subscribers from accessing a number of well-known torrent sites, the ISP is widening its net and blocking access to torrent proxies.

Proxies are a common means of bypassing restrictions that may have been put in place by ISPs or employers, and there are countless sites and services that exist with the sole purpose of enabling users to access blocked torrent sites. While court rulings have publicly named a number of sites, the list of domains that Sky and other ISPs feel duty-bound to block remains rather more secretive.

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Despite recent rumors that it may fall into the black hole known as Yahoo, Hulu continues attempting to move forward as a viable source of TV for cord-cutters and those who just want an alternative. Today the company rolls out a new update for many of its hardware partners.

Dave Herman, senior product manager for living room devices, announces "we’re excited to roll out a new and improved Hulu Plus experience on Samsung Smart TVs and select Blu-ray players, Roku set-top boxes, and coming soon to the Wii console from Nintendo".

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We all know that the internet is home to illegal software, music, movies and much more. It may seem like an impossible task to put figures to piracy levels, but a report by Ofcom, the independent regulator for the communications industries in the UK, has done just that. The Online Copyright Infringement Tracker report found that a staggering 30 percent of regular downloaders of media did so illegally.

The report looked at the period from November 2012 to January 2013 and analyzed UK consumption of online music, film, TV programmes, books, games and software. Compared to the previous three months, the percentage of web users accessing any of this type of content increased from 57 percent to 60 percent.

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A week ago BBC iPlayer finally made its debut on Windows Phone 8, but the existing Android version has been far from forgotten about. BBC iPlayer 1.7 has hit Google Play and now boasts support for 10 inch tablets.

While owners of larger tablets previously had to pay a visit to the iPlayer website, UK viewers can now enjoy their favorite programmes directly in the app. If you're nursing a smaller 7-incher, there's no need to feel left out. The UI for more diminutive tablet and phones has been updated with a few tweaks as well.

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On May 21, Microsoft unveiled its next-generation game console, the Xbox One. This hour-long sneak preview into what’s coming soon for the entertainment platform gives us a pretty good picture into how serious Microsoft takes the living room. While the devices-and-services company struggles in mobile and other computing devices, it has a pretty good head start in the living room, and the message to competitors: We’re ready for a fight.

Microsoft positions the new console as a serious player in the living room. Xbox One shucks tradition to the wind as evidenced by the fact that the very first demo showed off its multimedia prowess: Fast app switching, made capable by three operating systems; deep Skype integration and a drastically improved natural interface layer powered by Kinect.

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