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Sony has begun a limited public launch of its PlayStation Vue online television service. It is now live for owners of the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 consoles to access in New York City, Chicago and Philadelphia.

The basic Access subscription package for PlayStation Vue costs $49.99 a month and will include both live and on-demand content from nearly 50 broadcast and cable TV networks, including CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, TNT, TBS, AMC, Comedy Central, Discovery Channel and more. The Core package costs $59.99 a month and adds a number of regional sports networks and movie channels. Finally, the Elite package is priced at $69.99 a month and adds more than 25 lifestyle, music and family channels.

One of the big features for the PlayStation Vue service is its Cloud DVR feature. Sony says:

Easily tag shows to watch later with the service's powerful DVR feature. Every episode aired thereafter will be available for up to 28 days in the cloud with no storage limit or scheduling conflicts to manage.

Sony plans to expand PlayStation Vue to more cities in the future and it will also be available on other devices such as Apple's iPad. The company already has a competitor with Dish Network's Sling TV, which starts at $20 a month and is available on more devices, including the Xbox One console.

Source: PlayStation blog

 Rakuten is beefing up its digital content chops after it announced the acquisition of e-book and audio-book marketplace OverDrive for $410 million. Read More

 Opera, makers of a suite of software for browsing the web on mobile and desktop devices used by some 350 million consumers, has made another acquisition to build out the services it offers to users. It has acquired SurfEasy, makers of a virtual private network (VPN) app that lets users browse the web more securely. This is Opera’s first security-focused acquisition, and it is made in… Read More

 Music streaming service Deezer has opened its HD-quality offering up to all, following an initial launch in the U.S. which included a period of exclusivity with Sonos. Read More

 Your next Android Wear watch could be a TAG Heuer. Intel and Google are today announcing a partnership with the iconic watch brand that will result in a TAG-branded Swiss watch powered by Android Wear. The announcement came at the start of Baselworld, the world-famous watch show in Basel, Switzerland where companies like TAG and Swatch are looking to retain market share. The partnership is… Read More

A new take on Louisa May Alcott's novel

Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women has been adapted many times through the years, though the most recent take on the tale arrived in 1994, so of course someone wants to bring it back to our screens. Sony has been in development on another version since 2013, and now the studio has Sarah Polley aboard to take over script duties.

Until recently, Olivia Milch had been working on the new adaptation of the story of the March family: a household of four sisters and their mother ("Marmee"), with Father March away being a chaplain in the American War of Independence. The story takes in the girls' governessing, learning the piano, ice skating, having snowball fights, catching scarlet fever and getting married. Jo is the cool one, Meg is the mumsy one, Beth is the quiet one and Amy is the young one. The saga continued in Good Wives, Little Men and Jo's Boys.

Though Polley has established her credentials as a writer director with the likes of Away From Her, Take This Waltz and Stories We Tell, she’s currently only engaged to work on the script, though we imagine Sony will offer her the director’s chair if she’s so inclined, should the screenplay land well with everyone involved. Amy Pascal, who recently left her job as boss at the studio, is on board to produce alongside Robin Swicord and Denise Di Novi. 

A clean workspace is nice, but sometimes things are just fine the way they are, even if it's a little messy. You can use the 30-second rule to find out if what you've got going is hurting your productivity, or if you're better off keeping it the way it is.

It's okay to find the best ways to streamline your productivity, but it can be harmful to only focus on the streamlining and not the actual "doing it" part. When it comes to your workspace, organization expert Alison Kero told Gwen Moran at Fast Company that you should use the 30-second rule to find out:

"If you are the kind of person where you look at your desk and somebody says, 'Hey I need this paper' and you can, within 30 seconds to a minute, find that paper very easily, then whatever system you've got going on is working for you. If you lose things all the time, your desk makes you feel like you're in chaos and overwhelmed, and you're spending more time hunting for things than actually being productive, that's when it's not working for you."

Don't stress too much about your workspace unless it's actually slowing you down. Things might seem a little disorganized to others, but it might be just right for you. It's your workspace, not theirs, so do whatever works best for you. If your space doesn't pass the test, it's time to get things decluttered.

5 Fake-Productive Things You're Doing That Are a Waste of Time | Fast Company

Photo by The Lone Traveler.

Britain has a long history of invasions: over the past two millennia, various armies from the Romans to the Anglo-Saxons conquered the bulk of the British Isles. A new genetic analysis of the country has revealed which invading force had the greatest impact on its DNA.

The UK can be split into 17 genetically distinct groups

Britons share the most DNA with people from France and Germany — countries which were home to the Angles and Saxons that moved into the British Isles after Roman rule collapsed in the 4th century. And despite broad similarities, the UK can be split into 17 distinct genetic groups that correspond to modern regions, according to a paper published in Nature that analyzed genetic data from more than 2,000 individuals in...

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Amazon Is Bringing ‘Bosch’ Back for a Second Season 

Comic book movies are the most popular thing since they started releasing magic movies during the holidays. Comics themselves, on the other hand, are much harder to get into. Here's how to find a place to jump in if you're overwhelmed by decades-long comic book stories.

Decide What You Want to Read About

Everyone has something that made them want to start reading comics in the first place. Before you start hunting down issues to read, decide what it is you want to read about:

• Choose a Character: Everyone and their mother knows about the new Age of Ultron movie coming out. But where did Ultron come from? And who the heck is that other weird robot dude? If you're asking questions like this, you may try taking a character-centric approach. Search apps like Comixology (sometimes called "Comics") for the name of the character you want to read more about. You could also just google around for the best stories about that character ("best ultron stories") or their origins ("ultron origin"). A little research can go a long way.
• Choose a Story: Comic history is filled with iconic and milestone stories. Some are huge events (which we'll talk about in a bit) like Civil War. Some are personal stories like Spider-Man No More. If there's a particular story you've heard of and want to read through it, start with that as a foundation.
• Choose a Writer: Once you've got a handle on who characters are—usually after you've gotten started reading—following specific writers is a good way to find stuff you really like—not to mention branch out without being overwhelmed by the ocean of comics out there. For example, Frank Miller is well-known for the Batman series The Dark Knight Returns. You won't always end up reading the same characters—Frank Miller was also known for Daredevil: Born Again, which isn't even in the same universe as Batman—but following a writer you know you like can be one of the most rewarding ways to read through different series. If you read a story you really like, find out who wrote it and look up some of their other work.

Get Some Context

Unlike Monty Python, you'll have a hard time beginning at the beginning if you're a completist. Many major comic book stories have been running for decades and they've changed so much over the years that you'll probably never go back to the start. Instead, you'll want to start by getting a little context—reading some of the "classic" storylines, and brushing up on a bit of a character's history.

There are several ways to get some context. These are a few of the most effective:

• Read Character Bios: Everyone knows who Spider-Man or Batman are, but who are Doctor Strange or Black Panther? The quickest way to find out is to read wiki entries for those characters. While Wikipedia itself has entries for most comic book characters, there are also dedicated wikis for specific publishers.
• Pick Up Character Encyclopedias: For many characters, you can often find encyclopedia-style books that will give you background on a character, as well as reading suggestions for major stories you might be interested in. It's one of the best ways to get familiar with a character.
• Read Classic Stories: You may not be able to read every comic that's ever come out, but some older stories are more important than others. For example, if you're a fan of the Marvel movies, the classic Infinity Gauntlet storyline will do more to help you keep up with the in-references than most other stories. You won't spend long talking with comic fans before getting a few recommendations for classic stories you can read, either.

Keeping up with current comics and getting context on older characters are very different things. Often, the lore and fandom around a character can be found in older stories, or aspects of a character that are accepted as "canon" (which can be pretty flexible, but it still matters a bit). If you want to get to know a character, read up on them first before jumping into their day-to-day.

Find a "Jumping On" Point

So now you've read a bit of the classic issues and you want to catch up to the more modern era. Since you aren't reading from the very beginning, you can find what comic book fans call "jumping on points." These are parts of the story where you can start reading without being too lost. There are a few different ways to find jumping on points, depending on what you want to read.

Follow a Recent "Event"

Comic book companies love their events. Sometimes they're headliners like the dozenth time Wolverine died, or major crossovers that get turned into movies like Civil War. These can be overwhelming, but they're also good ways to get acquainted with a large number of characters and the universe as a whole very quickly. Recent "events" will help you get caught up with the status quo of that world, too, making it a decent jumping on point.

Modern crossover events can feel particularly daunting, though, because universe-spanning events tend to have tie-ins with a dozen other series. Civil War, for example, consists of a seven-issue main event, but there are over a hundred issues that tie-in directly or semi-directly. If you really want to get in deep, you can check out reading lists that will tell you which order to read the whole event in, but don't be afraid to skip the small stuff and just read the main event. It'll be a lot less overwhelming, and you'll get the bits that matter most. Then you can branch off and read the tie-ins for just the characters you want to follow.

Find Fan or Publisher Reading Lists

Most comic apps and stores have big volumes that contain several smaller issues. These collections usually have a whole story from start to finish in one place. In some older cases, they'll be high-profile stories that you'll see referenced later on. They could be in-continuity stories, standalone events, or even retellings of a character's origin.

Alternatively, you can check out fan-made reading lists (after all, if anyone knows comics, it's the fans themselves). While there's no one place you can visit to find reading lists for everything, if you have the name of a character, event, or writer, you can almost always find a solid list of the best stories with a quick Google search. For example, Comic Book Herald has massive reading lists for both Marvel and DC. The Mary Sue also has an excellent collection of Comics 201 guides for navigating the comic world after you get started.

Start at the Beginning of a Writer's "Run"

Comics aren't written by the same people for decades—different writers will have "runs" on a book, often lasting several years. So, find the comic you want to read (say, the Avengers), then find when the most recent writer started their run—that's usually a god jumping on point.

Similarly, keep an eye out for "fake" #1 issues. The coveted "#1" on a comic book is alluring, but it's not quite accurate to interpret them as the beginning of a character's story. Often, comic companies will put them on the cover to denote the start of a particular chapter in the decades-long story. The continuity may not be thrown out, but they'll begin the story like this is the first thing you've read and (hopefully) intentionally provide context clues to past events where necessary.This method isn't 100% guaranteed to make sense, but it's better than grabbing the newest comic you see on the shelf.

Once you find a source that you like, keep exploring. The beauty of reading comics is that there's no single "storyline" that you have to follow. TV shows, movies, and even books have trained us to think that there is a single continuity and you have to start from episode one and watch them in order. Comics are very different. Your favorite characters all exist in the same world, doing their own things in separate stories (until there's a crossover) and you can pop in and see how any one person or group is doing at any point you choose without necessarily needing to worry about the broader universe.

Learn to Go With the Flow and Just Enjoy the Stories

Comic book movies are 97% origin stories. Comics themselves are the exact opposite—those origins happened decades a. If you decided to read comics because you like the movies and wanted to try your hand at the source material, you can get overwhelmed pretty quickly. Especially if you're trying to find the comic book version of the movie story you liked to compare.

The Age of Ultron comic is wildly different from the Age of Ultron movie. It features Ultron in the distant future after he's beaten everyone and rules the world. The upcoming Batman v. Superman film is loosely inspired by The Dark Knight Returns, but that comic is about a near-future Batman who comes out of retirement. Both of these stories aren't even in the primary continuity of their respective universe. Crazy, right?

Comic books are very different from other media. If you watched the Hunger Games and decided you wanted to read the book, you'd get essentially the same story. If you watched the Avengers and wanted to read the comics, you might find Tony Stark is the head of SHIELD and Ultron's a woman. Or that they're called the Illuminati for some reason.

Comics can be daunting, but you can enjoy reading them if you just go with the flow. Some stories are silly, some might make no sense without some context, and you might be left wondering how characters came to be in such wildly different circumstances (like that time Hulk became king of a planet). But treat it less like Game of Thrones and more like Friends. You don't really need to know every detail of the backstory to follow along. Just jump in wherever seems good to you and enjoy the ride.

“I'm goin' back to Cali.” (more…)

How quickly the tables are turned. (more…)

UK Chancellor George Osborne confirmed today that a new tax aimed at corporations diverting profit overseas will come into effect on April 1st this year. Although commonly referred to as the "Google Tax," the new measures will target a large number of multinational companies, including many not in the tech sector such as Starbucks and Vodafone. Let the message go out: this country’s tolerance for those who will not pay their fair share of taxes has come to an end," Osborne told Parliament during today's budget announcement.

the tax is only expected to raise £360 million

The tax is formally known as the Diverted Profits Tax and will feature a 25 percent levy on companies — higher than the UK's 21 percent corporate tax rate. It's...

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The US censored and refused to provide more documents than ever last year while responding to Freedom of Information Act requests, according to an analysis of federal data performed by the Associated Press. The government responded to just over 647,000 FOIA requests last year, a 4 percent drop from the year prior. In just over 250,000 of those cases, it censored documents or refused to provide access to them outright — nearly two out of every five requests. Censoring, however, may range from a single phone number's removal to the redaction of nearly an entire page.

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Microsoft has announced that it will give be giving free upgrades of Windows 10 to anyone who uses Windows right now—even if they're currently running pirated copies of the operating system.

Speaking to Reuters, Microsoft's operating system chief Terry Myerson explained from China that Microsoft will be "upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10." (It's not yet exactly clear as to what counts as "qualified"; we've reached out to Microsoft to find out.) The move is apparently an attempt to "re-engage" users that currently run pirated software in China. Illegal version of Windows are a huge problem there: recent estimates suggest that 75 percent of PCs in the country run pirated copies of the OS.

Update: There are conflicting reports online about whether the free upgrade will be limited to China or not. We're still waiting for Microsoft to get back to us to confirm exactly what the deal is.

Microsoft has already announced that upgrades to Windows 10 will be free for the first year, aligning with the Apple strategy of making the OS essentially a free product. To bring everyone in line, it makes sense to offer the same upgrade to pirated copies—even if it does feel a little like rewarding bad behaviour. We found out yesterday that Windows 10 will be available this summer. [Reuters on Re/code]

New court documents made public today have revealed the UK's troublingly broad legal justification for state-sponsored hacking, including targeting individuals who are not under any suspicion of committing a crime.

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 Call it a sign of the times: hot on the heels of Meerkat’s sudden boom in popularity among techies and Twitter’s kneecapping of the service as SXSW began, live-streaming startup Ustream is opening its internal API to the public so that anyone can build their own Meerkat-like broadcasting app. Read More

With a swear jar, you have to put some money in it every time you curse as punishment. If you want to break some other habits, you can use a similar approach, and increase your savings in the process.

Whatever habit you're trying to break, its always helpful to have some form consequence. You can reward yourself for not doing it or you can punish yourself for doing it. Kevin McKee at the money blog Thousandaire suggests you go for both with the "swear jar" method. The punishment is that you lose out on your spending money, but you still get the hidden reward of saving some cash. You can do this for anything, like forgetting to exercise might cost you $5, eating out when you're trying to stop could cost you $10, or you could even match your impulse buys. Of course, you have to keep yourself accountable, and that can be tricky. You can get friends, family, and co-workers involved to help you out if you need it. Break your habits without breaking the bank.

Force Yourself to Save | Thousandaire

Photo by frankieleon.

The newest Humble Bundle is live, and it's a big one. The mobile bundle is always a good source of cheap games, but this is the main deal—the Humble PC and Android Bundle 12. It currently includes seven games, all of which have PC and Android versions. Three of them are debuting on Android as part of the bundle as well.

The bundle comes in three tiers. You can pay anything and get access to Tetrobot and Co (debut), Titan Attacks (debut), Inner World, and VVVVVV.

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The Humble PC And Android Bundle 12 Includes 7 Games (3 Android Debuts) With More On The Way was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

There are two types of people in this world, according to psychologist Barry Schwartz: "satisficers," who settle for "good enough" and "maximizers," who always try to choose the best possible option. Guess which type is happier.

Yep, the satisficers. Unlike maximizers, who might always be questioning their decisions, suffering from FOMO (fear of missing out), and constantly being disappointed as their expectations rise, satisficers can settle for things that are just acceptable even if you know there might be something better out there.

This is Shwartz' advice given in an interview with Eric Barker:

Whenever you need a new laptop, call up one of your maximizer friends and say, "What laptop did you buy?" And you buy that laptop. Is it going to be the perfect laptop for you? Probably not. Is it going to be a good enough laptop for you? Absolutely. It takes you five minutes to make a decision instead of five weeks and it's a "good enough" decision.

Good enough is just right.

The Power of "Good Enough" | The Atlantic

Photo by pasukaru76.

Jojakim Cortis and Adrian Sonderegger normally produce beautiful commercial photos, but their hobby is recreating iconic photos -- the Hindenberg's explosion, Nessie 1934, Tiananmen 1989, 9/11, and more -- in miniature, so that their replicas are virtually indistinguishable from the originals. Read the rest

Developers no longer have free rein to immediately publish apps onto Google Play without any oversight. Google has announced that apps distributed through its store are now manually tested and reviewed to uncover app violations and malware. And much like Apple, sometimes it's real people handling that job. "This new process involves a team of experts who are responsible for identifying violations of our developer policies earlier in the app lifecycle," Google wrote in a blog post.

The new system has actually been in place for a couple months, and according to TechCrunch, Google hasn't received any complaints from developers about delays. It seems no one's even noticed the change. That's got a lot to do with Google's approach; not...

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OK, Google, let's have a talk. No, not the two of us. I mean, let me talk to someone else, using you. I heard you're willing to let me send Hangouts messages without opening the app now.

OK, Google, let me start over. No, no, no, that wasn't a command. Ugh, OK.

Google, send a hangouts message.

"Who do you want to message?"

Good, now we're getting somewhere.

Mom.

"Say your message."

I'm at the grocery store now, but I forget which milk you wanted.

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Google Now Lets You Send Hangouts Messages Using Voice Commands was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Day in and day out automated bots detect and report millions of alleged copyright infringements, which are processed by popular web services without a human ever looking at them.

Needless to say, this process is far from flawless, but YouTube’s takedown system is particularly problematic. YouTube allows copyright holders to upload their work into a fingerprint database so matching content can easily be detected.

This results in some rather hilarious mismatches, such as a cat purring video being flagged as pirated music. But there are also mistakes of a different order, where original artists are targeted over their own work.

These include Norwegian musician Bjorn Lynne who has had two of his videos hijacked by Universal Music Group (UMG) which is now running ads alongside his work.

“Can I just state publicly that I hate Universal Music Group. For the second time now, they have hijacked my music and claimed ownership of it in all YouTube videos that include my music, thereby monetizing my music,” Lynne writes.

Apparently UMG has the rights to an audiobook that uses Lynne’s music track “Kingdom of the Persians” as background music. This isn’t a problem, as his music can be freely used as long as the license fees are paid.

However, UMG have entered the audiobook in YouTube’s Content-ID system, and as a result they’ve hijacked the ads on the original video. Making matters even worse, UMG also rejected Lynne’s dispute through YouTube after he explained the situation.

“One thing would have been to have done this unwittingly, by mistake. But I have ‘disputed’ the claim on YouTube, written an explanation and told them about the origins of this music — then waited the FULL 30 DAYS that the claimant has to process the dispute, only to be told that UMG have reviewed the dispute and UPHELD their claim!” Lynne notes.

This means that the indie artist is running short on options to challenge the claim (although there’s still the appeal and counter-notification). He could of course sue the largest music corporation in the world, but without a heap of cash in hand that’s not really an option either.

“The only reasonable thing to do here, for me, would be to hire a top lawyer to go after them legally. But realistically, it’s like $350 per hour for a lawyer and a 3 hour minimum for a case, so I’m looking at over $1,000 just to get something started.”

“I feel powerless and I’m left to watch my music being raped by a media giant, who sits behind closed curtains, ignores the rightful owner of the music and just goes ‘Nah, we’ll take it anyway’. Screw you, Universal Music Group!”

According to Lynne this is not the first time his music has been hijacked. The same thing happened in the past with the track “Mystical Pyramids,” and it may very well happen again in the future.

Update: We updated the article to clarify that the Content ID process has three stages to fight a claim.

Update: Lynne posted an update on Facebook a few hours after we published this article. He took the issue to YouTube’s highest appeal process and that finally freed his videos.

“I have not had any communication with/from UMG, but what seems to have done the trick is that I used the “appeal” process at YouTube after I was told that my original dispute had been rejected by UMG. Going through the “appeal” at YouTube is a pretty scary process, because YouTube uses some very strong language to warn you that you may face legal action and/or your YouTube account may be shut down. I did it nevertheless, I was that hell bent on getting UMG to stop monetizing my music and claiming ownership of it.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and anonymous VPN services.

Stephen Moffat says the special is its own thing

We may still have to wait several months for Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch), John Watson (Martin Freeman) and the rest of the 221B Baker Street regulars to grace our screens for a new Sherlock adventure, but more details are starting to leak out about the episode. Or at least are being confirmed by co-creator Steven Moffat.

Talking before a panel at the SXSW conference, Moffat confirmed fan speculation that sightings of the leads in 19th garb do indeed mean that our heroes will be part of an adventure that takes place more than a hundred years in the past. “The special is its own thing,” Moffat told EW. “We wouldn’t have done the story we’re doing, and the way we’re doing it, if we didn’t have this special. It’s not part of the run of three episodes. So we had this to do it – as we could hardly conceal – it’s Victorian. Mark Gatiss and me, we wanted to do this, but it had to be a special, it had to be separate entity on its own. It’s kind of in its own little bubble." 

So yes, don’t go looking for clues to season four’s dramatics, this will be more of an event episode detached from regular continuity. We’ll take it. As for when we’ll see it? That’s still to be announced, but it’ll take a slot sometime in December, or possibly New Year’s Day, as it has sometimes appeared in the past. 

Cats vocalize at higher frequencies than humans, so they often ignore our music. Now two scientists have made songs specifically for cats. (Audio here.) Read the rest