With a seemingly ever-growing number of streaming music services available via the Web and dedicated mobile and tablet apps, choosing the one that best fits your need is an increasingly difficult task.There are lots of options out there, but here are some of the biggest and most notable that are worth checking out.

Spotify

Spotify is one of the best-known music services available, and as such it has a 20 million strong catalogue of tracks available to listen to – it also means there’s a thriving hub of third-party apps too, like the BBC’s Playlister service among many other, with which to extend your listening.

Pandora

Although Pandora is still only available to users in the US, Australia and New Zealand, it’s a veritable granddaddy of online music streaming, but walks a different line to Spotify. Rather than providing tracks on-demand, Pandora users pick an song and let it create a radio station of similar and related music. Thankfully, and as you might expect given its the primary function, this actually works pretty well and keeps recommendations sensible.

For a yearly payment of $36 or a monthly payment of $3.99, Pandora listeners can, however, upgrade to a Pandora One account, which removes all the advertising, and provides access to the service through the standalone Pandora One Desktop app.

Google Play Music All Access

OK, so it has an unwieldy and cumbersome name that we wish Google would change,  and we’ve already given you a pretty deep dive into Google’s music service, but here are several good reasons it deserves consideration in your short list. Currently, there’s a 20,000 track limit on the number of songs you can upload, but this should be enough for a modest music collection.

iTunes Radio

iTunes Radio is obviously, by its very nature of being tied to the largest digital music store, a big player in this list. Offering access from a range of [mostly Apple] devices, iTunes Radio can be used on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, PC, or Apple TV and allows seamless syncing of playlists between them. Like Amazon and Google’s music services, Apple also offers users the option of storing all your locally stored music in iCloud via the iTunes Match service, so you can play it back from any compatible device. To use this feature, you’ll need a premium subscription to iTunes Match costing $24.99 per year.

Deezer

The French company Deezer has been offering music streaming since way back in 2006, although back then it was called Blogmusik. It became a fully fledged business in August 2007.
With many years under its belt already, Deezer is now a mature service with a catalogue of 30 million tracks available for playback. Like the others, at its most basic it offers playlists, music discovery, favorites and integrated social features but it also offers a wide range of different mobile clients including iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry. It’s also available on Mac/PCs too, as well as via a dedicated Windows 8 app.

Users that sign up for a free trial of Deezer Premium+ via Facebook are given 15 days to test out the service, before needing to enter card details to carry on using it. Happily, it’ll work in a lot of different countries too, a full list can be found here.

Xbox Music

Xbox Music is Microsoft’s music streaming service that ties together its desktop, gaming, mobile and tablet devices for true multi-platform access, and a replacement for Zune.
It only launched last summer, but it’s already had a makeover for Windows 8.1 and launched on iOS, Android and via a Web player. Naturally, it’s available on Xbox consoles too.

SoundCloud

If you’re looking for a huge repository of music, but one that also lets you upload your own mixes and tracks too, then you’re probably looking for SoundCloud. Primarily intended platform for people to share their own musical creations and mixes, as it has grown in popularity and size, big artists and labels have also signed up, allowing for some of their music to be available through the platform.
SoundCloud offers three pricing tiers:

• Free – Offers two upload hours, 100 downloads, unlimited playlists and access to some stats, like number of plays, downloads, comments and favorites of tracks.
• Pro (€3 per month/€29 per year) – Allows four hours of uploads, access to posting tracks in ‘Quiet Mode’ (allowing you to control comments) and Spotlight (allowing you to pin up to five tracks to the top of your profile to receive more attention). It also includes more detailed stats, with reports on who is playing your tracks and where they’re located.
• Pro Unlimited (€9 per month/€99 per year) – Allows you to upload unlimited single sound file sizes up to 2GB each and within an upload time limit of 30 hours per week.

Grooveshark

Grooveshark is an online music streaming service for playing back individual tracks, artists or albums since back in 2007. The free tier allows ad-supported listening of tracks across a wide range of genres, but it’s really the hassle-free listening and good selection of electronic dance music that scored it a place on this list.

Slacker Radio

Slacker is another radio-style streaming service that’s available across a range of platforms, but unlike, say, Pandora, listeners aren’t restricted to only being able to listen to radio stations.

Sony Music Unlimited

Sony’s music streaming service, like many others, touts a catalog of more than 25 million tracks (“from indies to superstars”) available to play on demand, however, it’s a little different to some of the options here, in that there’s no free streaming plan available. Instead, to entice you to dip a toe into the water, there is a free 30 day trial so you can take it for a test run before deciding to carry on with monthly payments, or not. If you do decide to go ahead and pay for it, the service has two tiers: an Access Plan and a Premium Plan. It’s probably also worth mentioning that at the time of writing, there’s also a 3-month offer for $3/£3.

The Access Plan is the cheaper of the two — $4.99/£4.99/€4.99 — and allows users to access premium Channels, chart listings and editorial playlists curated by the team. Naturally, it also includes unfettered streaming access to the entire catalogue of tracks, or there’s the option to download playlists to your library for offline access – but only up to a limit of 1,000 tracks.

Mixcloud

Mixcloud touts itself as the place for long form audio. In real terms, this means that it’s a great repository for DJ mixes, radio shows, podcasts and any other longer audio formats. The company says that the average length of an upload on its platform is in excess of 40 minutes, and that the average listener stays tuned in for more than 20 minutes, and its long form format means it’s great at just running unattended in the background for hours at a time.

Rdio

Rdio is an ad-free music subscription service that allows users to listen to music on-demand, as well as to stream pre-made stations and playlists of tracks created by other users. Like many of the others, Rdio claims to have that magic 20 million song catalog and offers mobile access for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry devices (via a Web app). Although you’ll need to pay a monthly subscription fee for access from a mobile.

For $4.99/£4.99 per month, you can get access to unlimited streaming on the Web, shown above. Increasing this to $9.99/£9.99 broadens access to include mobile devices (Windows Phone shown below) and streaming via devices like a Roku media player. There’s also a family plan which includes two (by default, although more can be added) unlimited subscriptions starting from $17.99/£17.99 per month.

TuneIn Radio

TuneIn Radio is a little different to the other radio streaming services in this list as it focuses on acting as a hub and player for commercially available radio shows. In total, there are more than 100,000 live stations available, and more than 2 million podcasts. There is actually a chargeable app for iOS (currently $0.99, but usually $6.99) and Android ($6.99) that allow users to record live radio, but still won’t get you out of listening to those adverts. There are also free apps for Android and iOS too. It’s also available for Windows Phone, BlackBerry, some Roku players, through some Internet TVs – and even directly in some cars.

Myspace (Music)

MySpace might seem like an odd one in this list, but since it relaunched, it has re-angled itself as a music and video platform, rather than as a social network.

Beats Music

Beats Music is easily the newest service on this list, so new in fact that it hasn’t even quite started up yet anywhere, but it will on January 21. However, only for users in the US – although further expansion is to be expected, judging from the signup page for people outside the States.

Amazon

Amazon is clearly the elephant in the room when it comes to this, as it doesn’t offer a music streaming service. Yet. However, we’d be surprised if it didn’t offer one in the future.

Round up

As you can see, there are plenty of online streaming options available, with some being more suited to radio listening and others focusing purely on providing individual tracks and albums on-demand.
Most of those included in this list offer an algorithm or human curation aspect to discovery of new music, but you’ll likely need to spend some time using any of them before it accurately learns what you like.

A new headset has been created which lets you connect to devices just with a glance. Researchers have built a new wearable headset which tracks the users gaze and connects him or her to the devices he or she looks at.

The new gadget is called iGaze and contains an eye-tracking camera which calculates where the wearer is looking and transmits it to all the nearly internet-connected devices, such as stereos and TVs via Wi-Fi. The devices within the field of view reply with a beep played through the headset. When the wearer hears it, they need nod to confirm a desire to connect. The two speakers in the headset then send out an inaudible sound which Mics in the nearby devices use to calculate where the wearer is standing, enabling each device to discern if it has been selected.

Two people wearing the iGaze headsets can also connect with each other. The iGaze will allow wearers to swap files or contact information with a glance or tap on the headset. The device has been developed by Lan Zhang at Tsinghua University in China who said it could let wearers interact with the world in various ways. For example, in museums, the device’s head-up display could serve up extra information when a visitor looks at a given exhibit.

YouTube will be going offline in the coming few weeks, allowing users to save videos, said company executive Ceaser Sengupta at the Android One launch event in Gurgaon today.

According to Sengupta, YouTube offline will allow users on data network to watch the same videos over and over again withough having to bother about data charges. “Within the coming few weeks, much of YouTube will be available offline in India. This is huge, and our users will really, really like this. You can download a video once, save it to your phone, and watch it again and again,” said Sengupta.

There was some news in the recent past, about YouTube going the Rdio, Spotify and Beats Music way, offering a music subscription service called YouTube Music Key priced at $9.99/month. Sengupta didn’t mention about the offline YouTube being a subscription model, but the offline service will not be restricted to music videos only.  No details were given out on the advertising model for offline videos.

This is the first time I can remember that PC gaming was mentioned at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) without me having to remind an exec that we existed. Unprompted, Intel's Kirk Skaugen took to the stage in the main keynote proclaiming “desktop is alive and well. It's innovating, whether it's small form factors, all-in-ones, portable all-in-ones or extreme gaming. There are 711 million PC gamers in the world today, that's one in ten people on the planet,” he enthused.

Skaugen was talking up their new Broadwell processors, coming our way early next year. They're Intel's first 14nm product based on the Haswell microarchitecture. Simply put,” he said, “this 14nm technology is the most advanced silicon manufacturing technology in the world.”
But it's not simply the die-shrink that's going to be important for Broadwell as Intel is really pushing forward the processor graphics of its next CPUs.

That's interesting because, for the first time, Intel is going to be slotting their top Iris Pro GPU component into a socketed processor. That means you should be able to buy an Iris Pro-based processor and drop it into a cheapo mini-ITX H97 motherboard to make an affordable mini gaming PC. Of course you can already get a small form factor PC with the likes of the NUC and Gigabyte's Brix Pro, but those are super-expensive products. I'm hoping that Intel shifts the Iris Pro down into the more affordable i5 processor ranges, but they are not able to say yet what from those chips are going to take.

Unfortunately it's likely to remain a differentiator for Intel's K-series processors, even down at the Core i5 level. That still means potential for a far more affordable, teensy 1080p gaming PC than ever before.

“We're really focused around PC gaming and enthusiasts. This is the one area of PCs that has kept growing,” Intel's Lisa Graff told me at the show. “These are out most loyal customers: PC gamers. They want as much performance as we can throw at them. We're going to bring Intel's best technologies to bear for PC gaming.”

Apple has discontinued the iPod classic after 13 years. Apple has launched the iPhone 6, 6 Plus and the Apple Watch but has also announced the discontinuation of its venerable iPod Classic portable media player. The iPod classic was launched way back in 2001 and helped reach Apple the popularity it has now.

Even though the portable music revolution was started by Sony’s Walkman, iPod made more fans and followers in its 13 year old reign. From being a 5GB MP3 player in its early days to a 160GB Media player which could handle videos, the iPod Classic lived through it all. But Since Apple announced a 128GB version of the iPhone 6 and the 128GB version of the iPod Touch may follow, the iPod Classic seems irrelevant in today’s context.

When a new device comes in the market an old device has to exit the market eventually. And it seems Apple has decided that classic has run its course. Goodbye iPod Classic.

In related news, Sony recently announced its Walkman NWZ-A17 PMP which will play high-res Audio and supports multiple audio formats. The new Walkman NWZ-A17 will be priced at Rs. 18,500 approx.

Bharti Airtel has launched Wynk Music, a carrier agnostic music streaming mobile application, with a music library of over 1.7 million songs including Hindi, regional and international hits, an official said Tuesday.

"In India, Internet is predominantly on mobile. This music application Wynk can be used in both Android and iOS platforms from today," Srinivasan Gopalan, director, consumer business of the company told reporters here.

With this launch, Airtel has now become the first operator to introduce an over-the-top (OTT) mobile application in the Indian market, which will work across mobile operators, enabling customers to stream, download and buy songs, Gopalan said.

"With the proliferation of smartphones in the country, mobile phones have emerged as the most preferred platform when it comes to experiencing music on the go and accounts for almost 85-90 percent of total digital consumption, We are introducing this segment to Wynk - an innovative platform that blends technology and music and present a whole new dimension to music uptake in the country," Gopalan added.

Though 3G is the preferred connection, the app can be accessed on any mobile Internet connection like 2G, 4G and Wi-Fi.

Pioneer India Ltd., which has been a key market player in the car audio segment has now shifted their focus from “In-Car” to “In-Club”. Since its launch into the car audio market way back in 2009, Pioneer has captured the market really well. Their headunits found their way in almost every other car. Along with headunits, Pioneer also sold speakers and amplifiers in India to enhance the overall car audio experience. Home Audio was another segment that they had ventured into.

After home and car, today, Pioneer officially entered the DJ segment in India. Pioneer DJ consoles have already been available in India via grey market channels. The company saw this as a opportunity and seeing the growing trend of DJs, they’ve launched a line-up of DJ products. The products include professional DJ Multi-Player like the CDJ-2000NXS to the amateur oriented DJJ-WeGo2.

Their newly launched product range comprises of mixers, controllers, a turntable, active speakers, headphones and accessories. The prices of these products have not been disclosed, but Pioneer intends to display prices on its official website soon. The Pioneer DJ product range will be available through Pioneer’s distributor Rivera International. They have also tied up with an undisclosed retail chain to demonstrate and sell its affordable range of amateur DJ products starting from next month.

Google is preparing to kill popular music streaming services such as Spotify, Rdio and Beats Music with yet another subscription service: YouTube Music Key. While rumours about YouTube’s paid subscription service have been doing rounds for almost a year now, Android Police‘s post brings us more concrete information than ever before.

According to the blog post, YouTube Music Key will offer offline audio and video playback and ad-free audio playback. There’s an ‘Audio-only mode’, which allows users to listen to music off-screen or listen in the background while using other apps. It’s uncertain if and how YouTube plans to play offline videos with ads. New users can get a 30-day free trial, thereafter there’s a subscription fee of $9.99 per month. This is the same fee associated with popular music subscription services including Google’s existing Google Play Music All Access service.


Android Police says that the YouTube subscription service will offer a free 30-day trial period and after that it will cost $9.99/month, which is similar to Spotify's $9.99 monthly premium service. No information is given on the international pricing or the launch date of the service.

Other than offline videos, one of the major advantages of YouTube Music Key is that it will offer access not only to full artist catalogues, but concert footage and remixes as well. If that’s not enough, YouTube Music Key’s platform will apparently make it easier to add content and discover users. Luckily for Google Play Music subscribers, Google will allow automatic access to YouTube Music Key while rebranding the existing service to Google Music Key. However, there might be a discounted fee involved for accessing YouTube Music Key features.Availability also remains a key issue in making Music Key more widespread. As of now, Google Play Music is available only in 34 countries, while Spotify reaches out to over 60 countries, though neither are present in India.

Those cute little cat video you just watched could cost you millions. And it’s not just about cat videos – innocent videos on YouTube can be used to infect computers with dangerous malware, as revealed in the latest report by Morgan Marquis-Boire, a hacker-turned-researcher. In the report created for Citizen Lab, he described how a simple network injection tool can be used to infiltrate home computers.Such video attacks that use network injections have their own strengths and weaknesses. Other attacks like watering hole and phishing need the user to do something ‘wrong’, like clicking on an infected file or link. Network injections don’t need that. Any simple browser behavior, such as watching a funny cat video, can trigger such attacks. There is a limit, however – once the user’s computer has been infected, the infection is confined to the browser. And such network injection tools aren’t even difficult to find; they can be easily procured from companies like FinFisher and Hacking Team.

These tools, or rather appliances, are physical devices that can be stored inside ISP servers all over the world. To execute an attack, the malicious code is injected into the everyday browsing traffic. One simple way to do this is by using YouTube streams that are unencrypted. The hacker can target a user and then wait for them to watch a YouTube video. They can then intercept the traffic and replace it with their own code. This would give them complete control over the user’s device.

This method can be used for any unencrypted website that offers targeted traffic, but since YouTube is one of the most commonly visited websites, it can be an easy target for hackers. Another website that can be exploited in this way is login.live.com of Microsoft. Google and Microsoft have taken a note of this vulnerability and have encrypted all targeted traffic. This has made most videos safe; however, there are other vulnerabilities that devices from FinFisher and Hacking Team can exploit.

This can turn into a high-level problem, and companies have to take action to make sure that the Internet experience can become safe for an average user. Meanwhile, users can encrypt their files to make sure that no data can be stolen from their computers. This is not the only hacking tool that is easily available. Tools that could perform man-in-the-middle attacks have been openly available for many years. For example, the Ettercap open source tool allows the hackers to intercept and manipulate traffic on LANs. This tool was developed by Marco Valleri and Alberto Ornaghi in 2001. These two guys are the founders of Hacking Team, the same company that creates network injector devices that can infect YouTube videos.

The only thing that could prevent such attacks is encryption. With the rising number of hacking cases, there is a need for an encrypted Internet that can protect an average user from malware. Web developers need to make sure that their websites are encrypted and safe to use. Until then, users need to be wary of their online activities, including watching cat videos on YouTube.

iberry has launched Auxus Note 5.5, the company’s first smartphone with a fingerprint scanner. It has a 5.5-inch HD OGS display with Corning Gorilla Glass protection, powered by a 1.7 GHz Octa-Core with MediaTek MT6592 processor and runs on Android 4.4 (KitKat) OS. It has a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 8-megapixel front-facing camera, similar to Nuclea N2 and Nuclea X.
It has a fingerprint sensor below the camera that lets you unlock the phone easily. It has option to configure three fingerprints and has Finger App Lock feature to hide apps to create security profile with apps of your choice to be hidden or shown upon unlocking.


iberry Auxus Note 5.5 Specifications

• 5.5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD IPS OGS display with Corning Gorilla Glass protection
• 1.7 GHz Octa-core MediaTek MT6592 processor with 700 MHz Mali 450-MP4 GPU
• Android 4.4 (KitKat) OS
• Dual SIM with dual standby
• Fingerprint Scanner
• 13MP autofocus rear camera with LED Flash
• 8MP front-facing camera
• Harlequin LED Notification
• 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio
• 3G HSPA+, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS, NFC
• 2GB RAM, 16GB internal memory, expandable memory up to 64GB
• 3200 mAh battery

iberry has also launched the Auxus AX04i, a variant of the Auxus AX04 phablet with 3G support. Other specifications are similar, including a 7-inch display,Android 4.4 KitKat, 2-megapixel rear camera and a VGA front-facing camera. It is powered by a 1.3 GHz dual-core processor.



iberry Auxus AX04i Specifications

• 7-inch IPS display
• 1.3 GHz dual-core processor with Mali 400 GPU
• Android 4.4 (KitKat)
• Dual SIM (GSM + GSM)
• 2MP rear camera
• 0.3MP (VGA) front-facing camera
• 3.5mm audio jack
• 3G HSPA+, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, USB OTG
• 512MB RAM, 4GB internal memory, expandable memory up to 64GB
• 3000 mAh battery

The iberry Auxus Note 5.5 and the Auxus AX04i are priced at Rs. 13,990 and Rs. 6,490, respectively. These smartphones would be available exclusively on eBay India starting August 21st.

Sony will soon be launching its own curved TV line, starting with this new S90 series. Boasting of 4K resolution, a subtler curve, and better sound quality, these 65 and 75 inch UHD TV sets are poised to become Sony's champions in the hectic contest for the world's best curved living room screen.

A combination of Sony's top display technologies, such as BRAVIA, TRILUMINOS color, the 4K X-Reality PRO engine, and Motionflow XR800Hz are set to compete with rivals in terms of picture quality. But the S90 series isn't just all about show, so to speak. The line also boasts of a new 4.2 channel Multi-angle Live Speaker System that is advertised to guarantee quality 360-degree surround sound. What Hi-Fi?'s exclusive test of those speakers verified that the angled speakers do indeed give a better balance to the sound. The S90 is based on Sony's existing X9005B model and inherits a couple of other features as well, including edge-lit LED backlights, a removable Skype camera, and active 3D, with two 3D glasses included in the box.

The literal eye catcher of these pieces is, of course, the curved shaped, always advertised to give a more cinematic viewing experience. In this regard, however, Sony dares to be different, employing a still unrevealed shallower angle than its rivals. The manufacturer claims that this angle makes images appear less distorted. The likes of Samsung, on the other hand, subscribe to the 4200R theory, basically an angle that produces a curve of a circle with a 4.2 meter radius.

The BRAVIA S90 will come in two models, the 65-inch KD-65S9005B and the 75-inch KD-75S9005B. Sony has not yet revealed any pricing, launch date, or availability, but with IFA 2014 looming over the horizon, it is likely that it will disclose those details next month in Berlin.

According to a study by eMarketer, India has seen a record growth of 37% in social networking during 2013. India is expected to have more than 80 million Facebook and Twitter users by the end of the year.

A report published by eMarketer, provides insights and trends in digital marketing, media and commerce stated, "Indians are increasingly logging into Facebook and Twitter accounts, with the country recording the highest social networking growth of 37.4 per cent in 2013."

"With the second largest Facebook user-base outside the US, India is expected to have the largest Facebook population in the world by 2016," says the study, findings of which were released on Friday at a conference in Bangalore on 'Social Media Marketing in Emerging Markets'.

A recent survey by IMAI has found that 78 million netizens across the country were active users of Facebook in early 2013, registering a 50% growth over the same period in 2012, followed by 33 million users on Twitter and 20 million users on LinkedIn. Though psychologists and medical experts have been highlighting the increasing addiction to social media among youngsters, Nishant Rao, country manager (India), LinkedIn, feels social media can help too. "Older generation may feel it's bad, but a lot of meaningful interaction is taking place over social media. People now don't want to work for money. They are finding a purpose for working, and networking helps them to find the right kind of job," said Rao.

Google has signed a deal to buy game-livestreaming firm Twitch for $1 billion, confirmed sources familiar with the matter.

We don’t know everything about this deal, such as when it will be announced and the exact purchase price. We do know that Twitch investors who participated in past rounds are pleased that they will be getting significant returns that are multiple times the amount they originally invested. The deal underscores the value of live Internet streaming and the rise of competitive gaming as a spectator sport — something that draws millions of viewers, can offer prize pools that surpass pro golf’s marquee events, and provides a multibillion dollar opportunity for advertisers.

Google and Twitch declined comment. Both companies happen to be speaking at our GamesBeat 2014 event in September. This deal was first cited by unnamed sources from Variety said back in May that Google had made an all-cash offer and that the deal could be announced soon.

Twitch has more than 50 million monthly active users and more than 1.1 million members who broadcast videos each month. Back in June 2011, Twitch had just 3.2 million monthly active users. Twitch also distributes shows from partners including CBS Interactive’s GameSpot, Joystiq, and Destructoid, all gaming-news sites. More than 13 billion minutes of video are watched per month on Twitch.

YouTube is the No. 1 platform for Internet video, serving more than 6 billion hours of video per month to 1 billion users worldwide. But most of those videos are uploaded. Twitch began in June 2011 by Justin Kan and Emmett Shear, cofounders of Justin.tv. The site was one of the first to host livestreams, or real-time videos of something that was happening at that moment. Shear is still CEO of Twitch. Twitch has raised about $35 million from Bessemer Venture Partners, Alsop Louie Partners, WestSummit Capital, Take-Two Interactive Software, Thrive Capital, and Draper Associates.

Tom Scott and Matt Grey's idea for Emojli, a social network that forsakes all other forms of communication in favor of emoji, is not as wacky as it may first sound.  Emoji, which originally grew out of the Wingdings typeface, have evolved into a language of their own with a vocabulary almost as rich as English. Only last month another 250 graphics were added to the list, offering users everything from an emoji middle finger to an image of the Vulcan spread fingered salutation.

And unlike English, or any other written and spoken language for that matter, emoji are universal -- a smiley face is a smiley face. And, with the proliferation of social networks, social network users and the ubiquity of smartphones and messaging services like Line and WhatsApp, it's already got to the point where a status update, post or text isn't complete without an emoji somewhere in the mix.
As co-creator Tom Scott explained: "Matt [Grey] and I both came up with the idea and figured if we didn't build it someone else would. We weren't sold on it until we came up with the idea that even the usernames should be emoji -- at which point we both burst out laughing and decided to build it."


The two are very serious that although the site sounds like a joke, it is not an exercise in satire and that they are fully behind the network. As they say in their launch video, unlike traditional social networks, Emojli will be a haven for anyone trying to escape spam, trolls, memes and hashtags. And that's partly because there's no emoji for spam and thanks to the limited amount of images in the Unicode emoji library, the worst message someone on the network can possibly send is a pile of poo or the aforementioned middle finger.

Since putting up the invite page and opening an Emojli Twitter account on Monday, the network has already attracted 10,000 signups who, like initial Twitter members, will be able to gloat that their username is a single (graphical) character. Emojli is coming soon. In the meantime check out the video or reserve your emoji-only username. And, if your image of choice has already be taken, don't panic, there are 250,000 two-emoji username combinations remaining. 

LG has unveiled its new UB9800 Ultra HD TV lineup along with the first webOS-based smart LED 3D television at the India Gadget Expo. LG says its new Ultra HD TV lineup has exceptional picture quality with a 4K resolution (3840x2160 pixels) that's complemented by rich audio from the forward-facing 5.2 multi-channel sound system designed in collaboration with Harman Kardon, featuring LG's new Ultra Surround Sound concept.

The LG WebOS Cinema 3D TV series, which will be available in India sometime in June in 42-inch, 47-inch, 55-inch, and 65-inch sizes, priced between Rs. 82,900 and Rs. 15 lakhs.

LG says its WebOS Cinema 3D TV features Smart LED Screen technology. The smart television features a Launcher Menu, a UI that presents users with entertainment options and assists in organizing utilities into a neat viewing history. The Launcher comes with an integrated 3D World, a web browser and the LG App Store that has on offer latest movies, television shows and games. This television has a cinema screen design and an ultra slim profile, with finger gesture control on the Magic Remote.

Mr. Rishi Tandon, Marketing Head- Home Entertainment, LG India, said; "This year we have launched outstanding new Ultra HD and Smart TVs, highlighted by our new WebOS platform which will demonstrate how a TV can be truly smart. Looking at the international responses for the new range of LG TVs and a more evolved Indian consumer, we are confident that our Curved OLED, webOS and Ultra HD range will set a benchmark in the Indian Television market. This year, our target is to capture 30 percent market share in the flat panel television market."

The UB9800 Series 4K Ultra HD TVs was first showcased at CES 2014, and consists of 65-inch, 79-inch, 84-inch (seen below) and 98-inch units. LG's new Ultra HD TV models feature 3840x2160 pixels resolution and equip Ultra IPS panels.

The latest LG UB9800 Series 4K Ultra HD TVs equip a proprietary chip that the company claims enhances the Ultra HD resolution and also optimises the overall image quality. Further, the UB9800 4K Ultra HD TV series comes with an up-scaling function that LG claims to take the SD, HD and even full-HD content to near Ultra HD quality by rendering it in sharp.

The new UB9800 4K Ultra HD TVs come with the Tru-Ultra HD Engine Pro that supports a technique called 4K Motion Estimation Motion Compensation (MEMC), which the South Korean manufacturer claims makes the 4K Ultra HD content appear free of motion blur.

The new LG Ultra HD TVs also feature a built-in 4K HEVC 60p decoder. The 65-inch, 79-inch, 84-inch and 98-inch UB9800 4K Ultra HD TV series can decode broadcast signals in both H.264 and HEVC H.265 formats, in both 30p and 60p. Connectivity options include HDMI 2.0, USB and LAN ports. The new models also feature LG's Ultra HD Cinema 3D, that uses Film Patterned Retarder (FPR) technology to render 3D images with virtually no flicker or cross-talk. The new LG UB9800 series 4K Ultra HD TVs are available in India in different screen sizes of 84-inch (roughly Rs. 15 lakhs), 79-inch, 65-inch (roughly Rs. 4 lakhs), 55-inch (roughly Rs. 2.8 lakhs), and 49-inch (roughly Rs. 1.5 lakhs).

A new report from security expert McAfee has revealed that 80% of the Flappy Bird clones tested, contained malware.

Flappy Bird is a simple but highly addictive game that made waves earlier this year. Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen spent three days making the game and it was generating $50,000 a day in revenue soon after.

However, Nguyen felt that the game was too addictive and pulled it from all of the app stores, despite the income it was generating. He just gave up all of that money. But that left countless addicted players with no game.

That’s when third party developers quickly knocked off the game. But sadly, a high percentage of these clones contain malware, according to McAfee. And because of the open source nature of Android, most of these infected Flappy Bird clones are on Android phones.

One of the most common things caused by the malware are phone calls made without permission. These calls go to premium numbers that charge extra “much like the chat numbers that had a huge impact on people’s phone bills a few years ago.” That isn’t all. Texts are also sent to SMS addresses that collect money.

 Nearly a year's worth of whining and rumor-mongering has finally paid off: Grand Theft Auto V is coming to PC this fall, a full year after its debut on last generation's Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. And, for the console crowd, it's also making its way onto the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
The game moved almost a billion dollars in product in its first day last year, so a next-gen/PC release seemed inevitable—it lets Rockstar both double-dip on those who want the definitive version and rope in the (few) people who missed the game the first time around.

Furthermore, you'll be able to transfer your progress from the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game to your next-gen platform of choice.

The new version of Grand Theft Auto V will, of course, probably feature higher-resolution textures, anti-aliasing, better lighting, better weather, more traffic, and all the other graphical bells and whistles we've come to expect with this sort of repackaging.

The big excitement with a PC version of GTAV is mod support. Grand Theft Auto IV is still one of the most hilarious repositories of mod content six years after release.

Earlier today, we had the chance to visit the Gigabyte offices and one of the most exciting products being unveiled at Computex this year is Gigabyte’s Aorus X3 and X3 Plus gaming notebooks.

Unlike most gaming notebooks on the market which are big and bulky, the Aorus X3 and X3 Plus claim to fame is its sub 1″ thick chassis despite harboring hardware that’s generally found in gaming notebooks twice as large and twice as heavy. While the entire Aorus X3 series will contain features such as 4th Generation Intel Core i7 processor, up to 16GB of DDR3L (two slots), Nvidia GeForce GTX 870M 6GB GDDR5 graphics, and up to 1TB of ultrafast storage with two M.2 SATA SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration, the main difference between the Aorus X3 and the X3 Plus is that the the X3 will come with a 13.3″ QHD display (2560×1440) while the X3 Plus will include either a 13.9″ QHD (2560×1440) or 13.9″ QHD+ display (3200×1800).

The Aorus X3 series is expected to be available by Q3 2014 with the QHD models starting at $2,099 and the QHD+ model starting at $2,199.

The only unit I had a chance to get hands on time with is the Aorus X3 Plus and first impressions are quite good. The first thing you’ll really notice about the Aorus X3 Plus (QHD+ model) is its gorgeous IGZO powered QHD+ screen with its 3K resolution. Viewing angles were wide as expected, colors looked accurately reproduced, brightness was good and there were no issues with glare thanks to the screen’s matte finish.

Despite the notebook being on all day, the unit was perfectly comfortable to the touch although Gigabyte did have a laptop cooler underneath the unit since it was resting on a fancy backlit stand that was quite hot. The Aorus X3 Plus does have numerous vents on the bottom of the unit so cooling shouldn’t be a problem irregardless. Construction quality seemed quite good on the entire unit as it is constructed of metal although the metal did feel a bit thin in parts like the screen probably for weight savings. The entire notebook weighs a mere 4.12lbs, which is about the weight of a college textbook or most mainstream 13″ and 14″ notebooks.