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A new Xbox One system update includes another firmware update for controllers to fix several problems that have been reported by users.

The latest 1404 update (xb_rel_1404.140331-2200) includes a bunch of fixes, among them a firmware update for Xbox One controllers to fix a variety of issues, the second time Microsoft has pushed out a firmware update for controllers since launch.

Users reported problems with controllers disconnecting and also issues with headset quality.

Here's a list of fixes so far from a NeoGAF thread...

• Ongoing fixes and adjustments to the user interface.
• Additional fixes to address audio crackling sound encountered when Dolby Digital is enabled.
• Fixes for Blu-ray software issues that can result in 0x21 or 0x87de07d1 errors.
• Update to address an issue where ejecting a Blu-ray disc after the drive is idle can result in the disc being pulled back in, requiring a second eject command.
• Fix to address Kinect not responding to "yes" or "no" after issuing the "Xbox, turn off" command.
• Updates to reduce or eliminate Blu-ray drive "seeking" sounds after drive is idle (experienced in the 1403 update.)
• *NEW CONTROLLER FIRMWARE UPDATE*
• Update to help address controller disconnect issues.
• Update to help address headset adapter audio quality.
• Fix for LiveTV audio outputting in stereo instead of surround sound.
• Update for the Blu-ray player to fix an issue where it can freeze if left idle or paused for an extended period of time.
• Update to fix an issue where fast forwarding or rewinding an external video source results in screen freezing when surround sound is enabled.
• Fix for video playback stuttering while audio plays back normally in several apps (Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, etc.)

• Game save progress bar will now display when syncing cloud game saves.
• 50Hz Blu-ray player support for content recorded at 50Hz.
• Improved GameDVR video quality.
• Online friends notification, including the ability to filter notifications to all friends, favorites only, or disable friends online notifications altogether.
• *NEW FEATURE* Requested by the update preview community: Manually install available updates. If a new system update is detected as available, a button will appear under Settings, System that will display "Apply Available System Update." Note: this feature is being enabled after this current update completes installation. This feature will be available to preview when the next update is made available.
• *NEW FEATURE* A new ability to automatically redeem a license code from console messages. For future console messages that include a 5x5 license code, a new option will appear to allow you to automatically redeem the license, versus having to copy and paste the license code.

YouTube was reportedly preparing to launch a subscription music service to rival Spotify and others by the end of 2013, but it was delayed.

A new report suggests that the service has now been delayed again until during the second quarter, or later. The problem, according to sources speaking with Billboard, is that Google higher-ups are insisting that the service is launched "right," and is an immediately viable competitor.

Historically, Google products have launched in limited, beta phases. Even one of Google's most successful services, GMail (which just turned 10 year old) spent a whopping five years in beta after it launched in 2004.

This time the feeling at the company is a YouTube rival to other subscription services must be competitive and must be "right" from day one.

"They feel that there's just too much scrutiny of this product, and that they need to get it right out of the gate," said an unnamed label executive, reports Billboard.

Slysoft owner Giancarlo Bettini has reportedly been found criminally guilty in Antigua of making Blu-ray ripping software.

Slysoft develops and distributes a bunch of tools for DVD, Blu-ray disc creation and ripping. One of those tools is AnyDVD HD, which can decrypt the contents of Blu-ray Discs so that the raw structure containing the content can be ripped from the disc.

According to reports, AACS LA targeted Bettini in Antigua, where Slysoft is located. Due to a clause in Antigua's copyright laws, it is possible to be fined or even imprisoned for distributing tools that circumvent copy protection mechanisms.

Bettini has been found criminally guilty and has been ordered to pay a fine of $30,000 or face imprisonment.

The decision will come as a surprise since Antigua is seen as a very lax territory when it comes to copyright enforcement.

Slysoft and Bettini intend to appeal the verdict, and as of now, all of Slysoft's products are still on sale from the company's website.

Qualcomm is aiming to drastically increase Wi-Fi performance, particularly on networks with a lot of users, with its new MU-MIMO chipsets.

The goal is to achieve better overall Wi-Fi speeds on networks by making more efficient use of network capacity. With standard Wi-Fi, clients are served sequentially; during this time, only one device is sending and receiving information, thus only a small portion of network capacity is being used.

The accumulation of these sequential events creates a drop in throughput and capacity as more devices join the network. MU-MIMO (Multi-User MIMO) enables simultaneous transmission to groups of clients, making more efficient use of available Wi-Fi network capacity and speeding up transmissions.

In order to extract the maximum benefits of MU-MIMO, it must be used on both sides of the connection. To accelerate the benefits of MU-MIMO for more Wi-Fi users, Qualcomm Atheros is providing a complete ecosystem of solutions for networking products, as well as smartphones, tablets, computers, consumer electronics and automobiles.

"Great connectivity is not just about increasing the absolute speed. It's about making better use of network and airtime efficiency to support the growing number of connected devices, services and applications," said Dan Rabinovitsj, senior vice president, Qualcomm Atheros, Inc.

Crackle has announced a multi-year agreement with NBCUniversal that will give it exclusive rights to feature films from the studios library.

Over the next three years, more than 140 titles will roll out from the NBCUniversal, starting from this weekend. The deal gives Crackle the exclusive ad-supported video on demand (AVOD) rights to a variety of feature films including Miami Vice, starring Colin Farrel and Jamie Foxx, Jarhead and Peter Jackson's King Kong.

The Sony-owned Crackle streaming service is available in 21 countries and features some exclusive content, including "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee," with Jerry Seinfeld.

Financial terms of the deal stuck with NBCUniversal were not disclosed by either party.

"As an ad-supported, over-the-top network we pride ourselves on having a prime selection of premium content. Bringing NBCUniversal's collection of library films to Crackle complements our original programming and reinforces our commitment to provide viewers with even more streaming choices," said Philip Lynch, senior vice president of Digital Networks & Games for Sony Pictures Television.

Apple has acquired the veteran automatic speech recognition (ASR) firm Novauris Technologies.

Novauris was split from the British research division of Dragon Systems, now known as Nuance Communications, popular for their voice dictation and voice search technology. The company is full of voice tech vets, including those who worked at Nortel, Aurix, Dragon and SRI (the company that helped build Siri).

Apple, as is their standard comment, says "Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."

Supposedly, Apple made the acquisition last year and the team has been working on improving Siri, which has its share of problems.

Novauris Technologies has a full list customers including Verizon Wireless, Panasonic, Samsung, SingTel, Alpine, BMW and many more.

Intel has shown off some interesting new chips this week, including a 64-bit Android kernel and a new SoC aimed at Chromebooks and other low-end PCs.

Codenamed 'Braswell,'the new SoC will be the successor to the current-generation Bay Trail processors found in Chromebooks and cheaper Windows PCs. The new SoC will be built on the efficient 14nm manufacturing process and will offer improved performance along with better power efficiency.

The 64-bit Android kernel is optimized for Intel Architecture (IA) devices and Android 4.4, even though the OS is 32-bit. "With this release, the company ported, validated and tested the Android Open Source code on IA, taking on the work that developers typically would need to do on their own. This release will provide the ecosystem with 64-bit kernel support for development of next-generation devices," says the company.

Finally,the company discussed two other mobile chips: The SoFIA 3G and the Intel XMM 7260. The 3G is a dual-chip SoC aimed at low-end smartphones. The XMM has five-mode support, including the Chinese 4G TD-LTE and TD-SCDMA networks, which should increase Intel's potential base significantly.

Samsung has received praise from official due to the inclusion of anti-theft features in the Galaxy S5 smartphone.

Samsung's Galaxy S5 will come with two features: Find My Phone and Reactivation Lock. Find My Phone allows a phone owner to track down their device in the event that it gets stolen or is lost. Reactivation Lock is a feature that can be set to require the owner's account information to perform a reset.

"The decision ... to provide Samsung's Find My Mobile and Reactivation Lock features on Galaxy S5 smartphones and to allow those features to be activated for free is a step forward in our effort to ensure the industry makes effective theft deterrents available on every smartphone sold in America," a joint statement from New York's attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, and San Francisco's district attorney, George Gascon, reads.

The pair have been raising the issue of smartphone theft in the United States as more and more Americans are held up for their phones. They argue that if every smartphone in the United States had a "Kill Switch" that could be activated remotely, it would destroy the value of such items in the black market and reduce the incentive to steal them.

Apple has announced this week that its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will begin on June 2nd and extend through June 6th.

The company will reveal upcoming features for iOS and OS X, giving developers a first look from over 1000 Apple engineers.

"We have the most amazing developer community in the world and have a great week planned for them," said Philip Schiller, Apple's SVP of Worldwide Marketing. "Every year the WWDC audience becomes more diverse, with developers from almost every discipline you can imagine and coming from every corner of the globe. We look forward to sharing with them our latest advances in iOS and OS X so they can create the next generation of great apps."

Ahead of its anticipated launch on April 14th on the PlayStation 4 (PS4), you can check out a beta of the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn this weekend.

To get the beta, just head to the PlayStation Store and search for it this weekend, April 4 - April 7. Remember to uninstall the first beta client if you have it installed.

The beta will take place on live servers. So you will see the same worlds, the same game that 1.8 million players all around the world are already enjoying.

Those who have pre-ordered FFXIV will be able to access the game from April 11 - April 13 before everyone else. You can start building your character, getting a head start and making friends from all over the globe.

Remember, users currently playing Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn on PlayStation 3 are eligible to upgrade to the PlayStation 4 version starting 11 April, 2014 for free.


Sources and Recommended Reading:
FXIV: ARR launching on the PS4 in 14 days!: na.square-enix.com
"PS4" Upgrade Campaign: eu.finalfantasyxiv.com

(via: Engagdet)

Microsoft has confirmed a few milestones for its application stores this week.

The software giant says there are over 400,000 apps now available between the Windows Phone Store and the Windows Store. It was recently unveiled that the Windows Store had just reached 150,000, implying the Windows Phone Store is at 250,000, a significant number for sure, but still behind the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store, which have a million a piece.

In addition, the two app stores are now seeing a combined 14 million in daily app downloads.

The company recently announced that all Windows devices will be getting universal apps due to a new Windows RunTime ecosystem to launch with Windows Phone 8.1.

Developers will be able to use common code and have their applications work on Windows phones, PCs, tablets and even the Xbox One. The experience can be modified for screen size and different environments while keeping most of the code the same.

The Xbox 360 Edition of Minecraft has reached over 12 million sales, and the Xbox One edition will be coming, eventually.

The milestone was announced by the official Xbox website along with a Q&A with Mojang's Daniel Kaplan about Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition". Kaplan said that they never would have imagined the game being so successful.

"I remember when we started talking about sales numbers that we would be super happy to sell 1 million copies. That would have put us on par with BF1943 and Castle Crashers, which both are awesome games, so that was something to aim for. We never even dreamed of selling 12 million," he said.

The most requested feature addition they are hounded for is bigger worlds, but Kaplan explained that bigger worlds would require the guarantee of a hard drive in every Xbox 360.

"Since not all 360's ship with hard drives that makes things tricky. Luckily, on Xbox One, that's not an issue," he said.

On Xbox One, Kaplan said that the Minecraft: Xbox One Edition" will be coming, "eventually."


Sources and Recommended Reading:
Minecraft Creeps Past 12 Million Sold on Xbox 360: news.xbox.com

Google has been fined €1 million ($1.4 million) in Italy because its Street View vehicles were not clearly recognizable.

Italy's data protection watchdog imposed the fine on Google for not making the Street View cars it used to photograph Italian streets in 2010 clearly recognizable to the general public.

"Cars belonging to the giant of Mountain View roamed Italy's streets without being entirely recognizable as such, therefore not allowing the people present in those places to decide whether to be photographed or not," the Italian regulator said, reports Reuters.

In 2013, Google was fined €145,000 in Germany because its Street View cars had accidentally intercepted payload data from unsecured wireless networks.

It has also been sued for the accidental data collection in the United States, where it is being accused of violating federal wiretap laws.

Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music have filed suit against major Russian social network vKontakte (VK) over "large scale music piracy" being facilitated through its services.

The Russian divisions of the major labels each filed separate lawsuits, in conjunction with local industry group NFMI and the IFPI.

vKontakte, which has 145 million registered users (with over half in Russia) has never inked licensing deals with content rights holders and is allegedly keeping a massive catalog of music uploaded by its users, at least according to the labels. "VK's music service, unlike others in Russia, is an unlicensed file-sharing service that is designed for copyright infringement on a large scale," noted IFPI chief executive Frances Moore. "We have repeatedly highlighted this problem over a long period of time. We have encouraged VK to cease its infringements and negotiate with record companies to become a licensed service. To date the company has taken no meaningful steps to tackle the problem, so today legal proceedings are being commenced."

Samsung has made the ATIV SE official, following a few major leaks.

The Windows Phone 8 device has a 5-inch 1080p display, a 2.2GHz quad-core processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, a microSD slot, a 2600mAh battery and a 13MP rear-facing camera.

Samsung has included an infra-red blaster, allowing for control of home devices like TVs, 'Ativ Beam' for quick NFC-based sharing to other Samsung devices, and other Samsung applications. The device also has 4G LTE, Bluetooth 4.0 and all other standard radios.

The company's latest appears to have a rather refined design compared to the colorful and plastic Lumias, with a silver brushed look.

Verizon has the phone up for pre-order, priced at $200 with two-year contact and a ship date of April 12th. If you prefer to go without a contract, you can get the device for $600.