plus

Next week, Sony's PlayStation Vita gets a much-needed shot in the arm as the company has revealed a selection of games for PlayStation Plus subscribers and new firmware that adds some mildly exciting new features to the handheld gaming gizmo.

After months of teasing, the upcoming PlayStation Plus ($49 a year) game collection for the Vita arrives on November 19. The first set of PS Plus Vita games includes Uncharted: Golden Abyss; Jet Set Radio HD; WipEout 2048; Gravity Rush; Tales From Space: Mutant Blobs Attack; and the PSP version of Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions. Many of those titles are top-tier gaming experiences and currently cost more than $30. … Read more

This is an update of a deal I first wrote about back in June. With the holidays upon us, it's the perfect time for this "rerun."

Through the end of next week, and while supplies last, Roku is bundling the Roku HD box, a six-month Hulu Plus subscription, and an HDMI cable for $79.99 shipped. Those items would normally cost you around $128 if purchased separately.

A brief personal story: we're having a bit of trouble with our cable service. For some reason, the signal from ABC has degraded in the last couple weeks, leaving … Read more

CBS programming is coming to Hulu Plus.

The video-streaming site announced the news today, saying that the CBS library will be made available to Hulu Plus customers starting in January. More than 2,600 episodes from the CBS library will come to Hulu Plus, including those from series "Medium," "Numb3rs," and "CSI: Miami."

As part of the deal, Hulu will also get its hands on old shows, like "I Love Lucy" and "The Twilight Zone," the company said today in a blog post announcing the deal.

CBS, which owns CNET, … Read more

KMPlayer has changed a bit since we reviewed version 3.2 back in May. KMPlayer has always been popular and familiar software, so the latest version might be a bit of an eye-opener -- in good ways and bad. One of the new additions, "KMP Plus," acts as a dashboard for the program. On startup, users are greeted by an interactive home screen where they can watch promoted videos and advertisements, browse video channels, or access their own library content directly.

KMP Plus is attempting to become a premium service, but this 3.4 release highlights what seems … Read more

Most Android flashlight apps are extremely simple: on and off. Some add battery meters. Then there's Nikolay Ananiev's Tiny Flashlight + LED. Like most of the others, it's free, though it does have ad banners. No big deal, because it's way more than just an LED flashlight for your smartphone. Like what? For starters, it includes a prominent battery meter. The illuminated, color-coded Power button glows green for on and blue for off. But tap the Options button, and Tiny Flashlight's awesome extras come to light.

We installed Tiny Flashlight in a new smartphone running Android … Read more

DxO Labs and Phase One updated their image-editing programs this week, aiming to improve image quality and editing controls in an attempt to fend off market heavyweights Adobe Systems and Apple.

DxO Optics Pro 8 and Phase One Capture One Pro 7, like Adobe's Lightroom and Apple's Aperture, are designed in particular to handle raw photos from higher-end cameras, photos taken directly from the image sensor for higher quality, greater flexibility, but more hassle.

Among DxO Optics Pro's new features announced during the PhotoPlus Expo show in New York:

• A "Smart Lighting" control designed to … Read more

Apple issued an OS X update today that lets iPhoto, Aperture, and other Mac software use raw photos taken by the Nikon D600 and several other cameras that arrived last month at the Photokina trade show in September.

The Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 4.01 enables use of raw photos from the following cameras: … Read more

When photo enthusiasts entering the digital SLR market ask me whether they should go for Canon or Nikon, one of the points I often raise is Canon's appealing choice of high-end but not top-end lenses.

Well, Nikon just undermined that potential selling point. At the Photo Plus Expo show today, it announced its AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/4G ED VR, a telephoto zoom lens that provides a competitive answer to Canon's superb EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM.

Let's be clear here. These are still professional-grade lenses, and they aren't cheap. Canon's costs about $1,… Read more

Seagate announced today a new version of the Backup Plus portable drive designed especially for Macs.

The new Backup Plus family was first introduced back in June, initially available for Windows. The drive offers USB 3.0 and comes with the HFS+ file system out of the box.

The Backup Plus family replaces Seagate's GoFlex family but still offers a flexible design thanks to the Universal Storage Module (USM) standard, which basically allows you to use any type of connection standard (USB, FireWire, eSATA, or even Thunderbolt) just by swapping out the adapter part of the drive. The drive … Read more