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There aren’t a lot of companies offering smartphones running Windows software these days… and it looks like there aren’t a lot of people buying them either. In its latest SEC filing, Microsoft revealed that it sold only 2.3 million Lumia phones in the most recent quarter, down from 8.6 million during the same period a year earlier.

The good news for Microsoft’s hardware division is that revenue from sales of Surface tablets and notebooks was up by more than 50 percent during the same quarter.

Continue reading Microsoft Lumia phone sales plummet at Liliputing.

Say what you will about Valve's Steam Machines and Steam OS—they're not great—but at the very least they have encouraged PC makers to rethink PC design for the living room. And now, with HTC wanting to turn front rooms into VR labs with its excellent Vive VR headset, there's a small but growing demand for sensibly sized PCs that'll slot in next to a PlayStation or an Xbox. Acer's new Predator G1 gaming desktop doesn't quite manage to slim down to PlayStation 4 proportions, but it does cram Nvidia's monster Titan X graphics card into a chassis just bigger than briefcase. Compared to a typical gaming desktop, or Acer's own Predator G6, it's positively tiny. The question is: how has Acer done it?

The Tardis effect

The first 1,000 G1 customers will receive a free suitcase. There's no word on whether it'll be available to buy separately

Acer says the Predator G1's case was built a bit more like a games console than a regular tower PC, with a clear airflow path through the case that helps cards like the Titan X stay cool under load. However, taking off the side panel, there's nothing too mad going on. It has a metal cage around the GPU, designed to function as a heatsink and as a way to protect the card during transit, but the Predator G1 uses conventional fans rather than water-cooling or any other comparable "next-level" antics.

While there's an obvious appeal for people who want a VR setup suitable for a living room environment, Acer's also pitching the G1 at those after a semi-portable system. Indeed, the first 1,000 buyers will receive a matching piece of luggage designed with the signature Predator series armoured look. No, it's still not small enough to get past Ryanair's draconian hand luggage restrictions thanks to the extra cushioning inside it to protect the PC—and I wonder how much room is actually left for clothes in the thing afterwards—but hey, if you're in the market for a small gaming PC anyway, it's a nice bonus.

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Enlarge / iBooks and iTunes Movies have apparently been banned in China. (credit: Apple)

Apple's iBooks and iTunes Movies stores were shut down in China last week, according to a new report from The New York Times. The country's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television closed the stores just six months or so after they launched with the government's blessing. Services like Apple Pay and Apple Music are still operating for now, and an Apple spokeswoman told the Times that Apple "hope[s] to make books and movies available again to our customers in China as soon as possible."

The Chinese government is known both for its control and censorship of media and for favoring Chinese tech companies over American ones, something that has hurt sales for the likes of IBM, Qualcomm, and Microsoft. Apple has expended a lot of effort in the last few years to improve its sales in China, most notably inking a high-profile deal with China Mobile that brought the iPhone to China's largest wireless carrier in early 2014.

China is currently Apple's second-largest market after the Americas, and for several quarters it has been by far the fastest-growing territory in which Apple does business. Any moves by the Chinese government to make Apple's platforms less appealing could hurt Apple's growth in a year where iPhone sales are already expected to be flat.

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Some say the desktop PC is virtually dead already, but reality disagrees. A powerful desktop is the best way to get a VR-ready system, because even the best laptop GPUs can't keep up with those on the desktop—well, except one. The Acer Predator 17X strains at the limits of what's possible in a laptop right now, packing a desktop-class Nvidia GTX 980 GPU in a frame remarkably similar to the normal Predator 17, which can't go further than the GTX 980M. The performance difference is huge.

The 17X isn't the first consumer laptop with a GTX 980—both MSI's Dominator Pro-G and Asus' mad watercooled GX700 feature the same graphics card. But the 17X is a tad more practical. Up close, it looks like a normal gaming laptop, which means it's big, thick, and heavy. But it can can get by with a familiar fan setup rather exotic watercooling.

That said, the cooling system isn't entirely ordinary. Rather than use two fans like the normal Predator 17, the Predator 17X has three. There's an additional fan towards the front, used to pull in cool air from the front edge of the laptop before it's filtered through the insides and flushed out through some rear vents.

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Yesterday the world had to come to terms with the fact that one of the greatest musicians of the modern age was no longer with us. As first reported by TMZ, Prince passed away at Paisley Park, aged just 57.

While undoubtedly a musical genius, Prince’s relationship with the Internet was often a difficult one, with the entertainer even withdrawing all of his music from the major streaming services last year, leaving it only on Tidal.

But in file-sharing circles Prince was probably best known for his efforts to bring Internet piracy to an end. Almost nine years ago as part of an initiative to “reclaim the Internet”, Prince hired controversial anti-piracy outfit Web Sheriff to hit sites including YouTube, eBay, and of course, The Pirate Bay. The letter the site received on his behalf was ‘unique’ to say the least.

“Well, ‘way to go on losing all your fans’,” Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde told TF at the time. “I truly respect the son of a king’s work as a musician but he seems like he has some kind of problem in getting to deal with his fans.”

In the end that particular threat of legal action came to nothing but Prince’s fight against piracy never ended and sometimes pushed the boundaries of sensible. In 2014 Prince shocked almost everyone by threatening to sue 22 fans who posted links to videos of his concerts on Facebook.

“Prince has suffered and is continuing to suffer damages in an amount according to proof, but no less than $1 million per Defendant,” the lawsuit read.

Just a day later the lawsuit was withdrawn, adding yet another mystery to Prince’s life.

But whatever one might think of the man’s attitude towards the Internet and indeed piracy, one had to admire his commitment. While obviously keen to protect his own interests, Prince seemed to truly care about artists’ welfare. Interestingly, an extraordinary story that surfaced last night underlines just that.

When unauthorized content appears online, most artists and their labels rely on a chain of middle men to do the work for them, including taking content down and/or issuing legal threats. Indeed, Prince has relied on this mechanism himself many times in the past.

However, according to the operator of music hosting site YourListen, Prince wasn’t averse to dealing with things personally. After allowing only Tidal to stream his music, Prince discovered unauthorized music on YourListen – and decided to do something about it.

“I never thought in my life I would get a call on my cell phone from Prince,” Scott Goodman told The Frame.

“We never had the artist decide to physically call us and ask us to take that music down,” he said, noting that function was mostly carried out by automated bots.

Amazingly, Goodman says that Prince stayed on the line for almost 30 minutes to explain why he was determined to protect his music.

“His big picture and his goal and battle he’s been fighting for decades is stopping piracy. He truly believed that piracy could come to an end with people like him, who obviously had power and money. He told me, ‘Scott, we need to fight piracy. We cannot have musicians having their music stolen’,” Goodman says.

Having someone like Prince make a personal call to any kind of file-sharing site is absolutely unprecedented and it certainly appears to have had an impact on Goodman. Of course, one phone call is unlikely to change the world, but the thought that someone as reclusive as Prince believed in a cause enough to make that call himself is quite something.

“Prince fought the music industry, but also the internet (sued me at least once),” Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde said last night.

“He was a creative genius, deserves so much respect. RIP.”

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