On April 8th, Roku rolled out its latest set-top box, known as the Roku 3. The little device made a splash with its new user interface and unique remote control that allows customers to plug in headphones for private listening, while still sitting back on the couch or moving around the home.

Now Roku's Tom Markworth announces that the popular new UI will start becoming available on older devices. "We’ve begun rolling out the new interface to supported Roku players as a free upgrade, and we know many of you have been waiting impatiently" Markworth states.

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Microsoft is on the verge of announcing the next Xbox, with an event scheduled for May 21. But that has not stopped the company from continuing to update the existing model. Granted, the new console will not be released that day and, even when it does hit the retail market, many customers will continue to use the older model, so it makes sense for support to continue.

The latest addition is a new Twitch app. In a brief statement, Xbox Live chief Larry Hryb, AKA Major Nelson, alerts us that "today, we’re launching one of the most asked for apps on Xbox LIVE". Hryb goes on to explain what to expect -- "Gold subscribers in the U.S. will have access to 300 of the most popular streams from the service. Users can view top channels by popularity or individual game and the dashboard features curated channels, tournaments and shows happening now".

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The latest research commissioned by the UK telecoms regulator Ofcom shows that just a tiny proportion of the population is responsible for most online copyright piracy. What's more these digital pirates are predominantly male and most could afford to buy the content if they wanted to.

The research shows that just 1.6 percent of UK Internet users over the age of 12 account for some 79 percent of copyright infringements. Also that the top 20 percent are likely to be male and aged between 16 and 34. So much for what many people may have suspected already. More interesting is that the research has sought to create a sort of spotter's guide to illegal downloaders by dividing them into a series of categories:

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Twenty-eighth in a series. Several popular apps received updates this week. A new version of the ESPN app was uploaded to the store adding tennis coverage to it and fixing a couple of bugs related to the live scoring tile feature and the display of select sports when they are snapped on to the side of the screen.

Toolbox, an app offering access to custom tools that you can display next to each other on the screen received its first commercial in-app upgrade. Users can add a Twitter client to the app for a one-time payment of $4.99.

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Vikings is proving to be a hot TV show this season, since March 3rd premiere on the History channel. It has finished its nine episode season one run, but remains in demand. Now Amazon, through its LOVEFiLM service brings the famed barbarians back to jolly old England, where the Vikings landed near the end of the eighth century.

The drama portrays the world of these Dark Age raiders, traders and explorers -- not from an outsider's view, but, through the eyes of Viking society.

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YouTube opened to the public in November 2005, and Google paid $1.6 billion for the service 11 months later. The video-sharing site is the quintessential freebee. No longer. Today Google announced the launch of the first pay-for channels, which is rather strange coming from the company which business model is about profiting from valuable content given away free wrapped with search keywords and advertising. Welcome to the new Internet, with paywalls rising everywhere. To play, you must pay.

In a statement Google says there are "1 million channels generating revenue on YouTube, and one of the most frequent requests we hear from these creators behind them is for more flexibility in monetizing and distributing content". That revenue largely comes from the in-video advertisements. Now you'll pay, too -- as little as 99 cents per month. Here's something: From the sampling I made today, subscription liberates you from advertising, which is something to cheer about.

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Are you a music fan? If so, then you have no shortage of solutions for both computer and mobile device. Everywhere from Pandora to Spotify offers an alternative for your PC or mobile device. Plus there are even apps that can identify a track you hear on the radio in a matter of seconds. Shazam is one of the ones that fall in the latter category.

Shazam, like SoundHound, identifies songs, while Rdio plays them for you. The two entities are joining forces in more locations now. "Now anyone with the Shazam app for iOS or Android can listen to entire songs after tagging them by clicking the 'Listen Free on Rdio' link", the music discovery service tells us.

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Since purchasing the Vizio Co-Star several months ago, I have become a fan of Google TV. I even considered using online services to "cut the cord". With my Amazon Prime subscription and network TV sites I will miss little. What stops me? The NFL and those networks. The league stubbornly refuses to move into the future, where other professional sports already reside, while many network websites block the Google device.

Today, PlayOn makes the barrier in front me even smaller. This is a huge move for MediaMall software. The company announces it brings full service to Google TV free of charge. It does so because of the slight that Google's living room solution has been shown by networks. "We’ve decided to make PlayOn completely free on Google TV. Why? Well, Hulu and the Networks have been discriminating against Google TV owners by not creating apps that enable folks to watch their content on Google TV", the company tells us.

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Spotify is the world’s most popular streaming music service with some 24 million active uses, around 6 million of those paying a subscription for premium services. I use Spotify all the time; it’s a great way of finding and sampling new music, and the company’s deals with major labels go a long way to legitimizing the streaming model.

Yesterday though, Spotify acted to change its website player after a Dutch developer released a Chrome extension that allowed MP3s to be downloaded from the site. Google removed the Downloadify plug-in from its site before Spotify applied the fix to the player, which now uses an encrypted format.

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Oct. 10, 2007 is the day I threw off the chains locking my music. I purged the last DRM-protected file from my personal catalog -- and not by stealing. I purchased every track, and getting them Digital Rights Management-free wasn't easy six years ago. The base collection started from CDs. The problem: Songs purchased from iTunes, starting in April 2003. Later, Apple offered facility to remove copyright restrictions. Meanwhile, I repurchased some tunes, or just did without them.

But chains remain. Every video purchased or rented for download is DRM-protected. Far worse are ebooks. There, the unsung hero -- your advocate and champion -- is JK Rowling. In late April 2012, she released the entire Harry Potter series as ebooks, DRM-free, baby. Rowling is more than a hugely successful writer; she stands up for readers, too.

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Twenty-seventh in a series. Growth remained stable but below the 2,000 new apps mark this week. The overall app count is now at 46,143 in the U.S. Windows Store, an increase by 1,788 apps in total. The store features 36,164 free apps, an increase of 1,362 apps, and 9,979 paid applications, which increased by 426 apps this week.

Several core apps were updated this week. The OneNote application for Windows 8 received an update that adds finger drawing support to it. To use the new feature, tap on the screen and select draw from the radial menu that opens up when you do.

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Most digital cameras will by default save photos as JPEG files, and it’s easy to see why: they’re small, can be saved and reloaded quickly, and are supported by just about every graphics package available.

Switching to your camera’s RAW format (if it has one) can be worthwhile, though: you’ll get minimally processed images containing all the data from your camera sensor, giving you much more precise control over how the final photo will look. RAW images are also huge, and can’t be opened by nearly as many tools, but there are still some great free options available -- and even though it’s only in alpha, the open sourceGTKRawGallery is already a promising contender.

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Today's set-top boxes do not all come from the cable or satellite provider and they frequently contain much more functionality than those that do come from the big providers. One is Roku, a company that has been innovating and upgrading at a rather quick pace recently, having only just released the Roku 3 with added functionality.

Now the company rolls out version 2.2 of its mobile apps for both the Android and iOS platforms. Roku promises that this latest update addresses feedback received from users.

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Most photo editors have a few filters which can turn regular photos into instant works of art: an oil painting, say, or a pencil sketch. But if you’d like more -- or you just want the arty effects, without the photo editing overhead -- then XnSketch is a simple free tool which just might be able to help.

The program runs almost everywhere (Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS, Android), and is very easy to use. We tried the Windows build, and it came with no adware or other unwanted extras -- just unzip the download and you’re ready to go immediately.

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The weather is warming up and our thoughts are turning towards vacation time. Where are you heading on that big summer trip? Regardless of the destination you decide on, Gogobot in conjunction with HomeAway can make sure you get the most from your time away with its new social-based guides covering many popular destinations.

Insider Guides is a new social sharing service which allows individual vacation rental owners to create customizable guidebooks for their guests, packed with local tips and recommendations covering favorite restaurants, attractions and activities. The guidebooks combine the property owners’ local expertise with Gogobot’s destination content, photos, reviews and social functionality. The service boasts over 2.5 million contributing members.

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