Shut the door on your way out - PlayStation Home has closed for good

Back in 2007, Phil Harrison unveiled Sony's vision for the future of social gaming. It was called PlayStation Home, it was ambitious, and it turned out to be a bit of a mess.

Yet somehow the platform lived to a ripe old age of seven (it launched in public beta in 2008). Now it's 2015, Phil Harrison is corporate VP of Microsoft (Home quickly fell behind the mighty Xbox Live) and Sony has pulled the plug on Home.

We should commend Sony for sustaining its "game" for so long. Believe it or not, Home saw 19 million active users at its peak. Last year I met former Home architect Oscar Clark, who launched the platform back in 2007. You can read the full interview, in which Clark explained the bureaucratic and technological nightmares that stopped Home hitting its potential.

Ahead of its time?

It could be argued that Home was ahead of its time; it's easy to imagine that Facebook is busily working on its own "Metaverse" now that it's acquired Oculus VR. Who knows? With Morpheus nearing a release, maybe we'll soon see Home 2: VR.

Said Oscar Clark at the time: "Home was the first freemium console experience. There were massive lessons to learn… But they've been forgotten about, they've been ignored, they've been treated, in my opinion, as irrelevant.

"But if you look at what was there, what we did, how people spent money in the console space, the way people engaged in communities… you could completely revolutionise the way you approach consoles as a platform."

• The messy, doomed journey of PlayStation Home

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Your Apple Watch will be flooded with apps from day one

The imminent arrival of the Apple Watch isn't just an opportunity for iPhone owners to splurge some cash on a wearable accessory - it also gives app makers the chance to get their goods on millions of wrists.

Up until now only Apple's preferred partners (the likes of Twitter and American Airlines) have been allowed to push their wares through the App Store approval process, but now anyone can get involved, with Apple inviting submissions from the entire developer community.

That means there should be plenty of apps to test out once the smartwatch goes on sale on 24 April. The watches are going to be available to try on in Apple stores two weeks earlier on 10 April.

Right on time

There are over a million iOS apps currently available, so even if just a small percentage of them submit an Apple Watch app, there's going to be plenty of choice for early adopters. The official Apple Watch app for managing the wristwatch was launched with iOS 8.2.

For now, any third-party code running on the Apple Watch must come from a connected iPhone - developers can show glances (at-a-glance updates) as well as notifications (more detailed alerts with interactions). Support for standalone apps is expected in the future.

Developers have the option to release their apps straight away to those already testing the Apple Watch (like Tim Cook) or keep it back until the official April 24 date. Chances are that most of the high-profile app makers will want to get involved in this brave new world of wearables.

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Sony's Xperia Z4 just got outed, warts and all

It's been a long wait for the Xperia Z4, but while Sony continues to agonise over when to launch its 2015 flagship, you can whet your appetite with some freshly leaked specifications courtesy of the GFXBench benchmarking site.

We're looking at the familiar octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor and Adreno 430 graphics (just like the HTC One M9 then). The 5.1-inch 1080 x 1920 screen, meanwhile, is likely to be powered by Sony's Triluminos technology. 3GB of RAM is included too.

There's a 19-megapixel camera around the back and a 4.8-megapixel camera on the front together with the usual selection of sensors and connectivity options. The benchmarked model had 23GB of spare storage which probably equates to a 32GB spec.

The waiting game

These specs haven't been confirmed by Sony but it seems like a decent bet that they're on the mark. They're pretty much par for the course for a flagship smartphone in 2015, though the LG G4 might up the ante a little.

You can check out our Sony Xperia Z4 hub for everything we think we know about Sony's next major handset - we're expecting a pretty high price and a release date sometime in the summer.

Some rumours say there are going to be two flavours of the Xperia Z4 to choose between, one with the aforementioned 1080 x 1920 screen and one with an upgraded QHD 1440 x 2560 display. As soon as Sony has anything official to share, we'll pass it on.

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Samsung Galaxy S7 and Note 5 tipped to join curved screen revolution

The Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge have just been launched to pretty much unanimous critical acclaim but that hasn't stopped Samsung from planning the Galaxy S7, and it looks like its next flagship smartphone will feature even more curves and flexibility.

It appears that the positive reaction to the new devices, and especially the Galaxy S6 Edge which features a screen that curves over two edges of the handset, has led Samsung to expect huge sales of next year's follow up, the Galaxy S7.

Because of this, the Samsung Display division is expanding to meet the expected demand, according to South Korean website ETNews.

High hopes

An unnamed source reckons Samsung has requested 8 million flexible panels a month in preparation for the Galaxy S7.

ETNews' report also claims that the Galaxy S7 won't be the only Samsung handset to get a curved screen, as apparently the Galaxy Note 5 – which is expected to launch later this year – will also come with a flexible OLED edge display.

Samsung is also working on improving yields for the Galaxy S6 Edge's curved screens, which should mean that getting hold of the popular device will soon be much easier.

• Samsung may be planning a 4K display for the Galaxy Note 5

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This tiny fix from Sky will make your life better

Forget the election, forget the Apple Watch and the Galaxy S6, the only news today is that Sky's finally heard the pain of its customers and reversed the order of the planner on the Sky+ box.

Yes, you heard it right, the last thing you recorded will now be at the top of your planner and not accessed by scrolling through umpteen pages of old recordings.

The update arrives amid a sea of other (clearly more complicated but less important) changes including a scheduled tab (fist pump) and a delete all (double fist pump).

There's also better trailers for movies, laudable work with the RNIB on accessibility features and a better eco mode.

But, for now, let's just rejoice about the new world order...

More blips

We wanted to re-order TechRadar's blips. But we ran our of time...

• This iPad selfie stick makes us sick


• This Game Boy gun shoots 8-bit pictures at you


• Go play Super Mario 64 in your browser right now

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Samsung wants to boost Ultrabook storage with new SSDs

Samsung has extended its 3D V-NAND flash memory technology into a new pair of 3-bit 850 Evo SSDs designed to fit inside even the slimmest of Ultrabook PCs and may even find their way into Apple's new Macbook.

The mSATA and M.2 versions of the popular 2.5-inch SSD are shipping from today and use the company's proprietary 3D V-NAND technology that stacks 32-layers on top of one another to allow higher density memory in the same small package.

Samsung has packed the mSATA drive with the obvious SATA connection standard and it comes in 1TB, 500GB, 250GB and 120GB capacities, and boasts read speeds of up to 540Mbps and write speeds of up to 520Mbps.

Its M.2 counterpart, meanwhile, has a PCI-e connection, comes in 500GB, 250GB and 120GB capacities and offers read speeds of up to 540Mbps and write speeds of up to 500Mbps.

Both drives have TurboWrite technology that means the 500GB and 1TB offer random write speeds of up to 88K IOPS and random read speeds of up to 97K IOPS.

The pair also feature enhanced reliability with a higher level of sustained performance, AES 256-bit hardware encryption as standard, and an endurance rating of 150 total bytes written for drives with capacities of 500GB and above.

What is 3D V-NAND?

Samsung's new drives are based on the same 3D V-NAND technology of the original SSD 850 Evo, which sees flash memory cells stacked vertically in up to 32 layers to make sure more cells can fit into the same area.

In comparison, the previous generation 840 Evo SSD used 2D planar NAND memory and Samsung claimed back in December that the new 850 Evo has twice the drive endurance and 25% better power efficiency.

In terms of the number of layers, Samsung's 32 was recently outdone by SanDisk and Toshiba's new technology that features 48 layers and both implementations could one day lead to 10TB SSDs becoming a reality.

• Check out our Samsung 850 EVO 500GB review

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You can actually buy OnePlus' tiny April Fools' Day drone

It's April Fools' Day and every man and his dog is trying to catch us out with their ludicrous and 'hilarious' joke product launches, but OnePlus has taken things a step further by actually putting its new device on sale.

That's right, you can actually be the proud owner of the world's smallest remote-controlled drone, the OnePlus DR-1, measuring just 70mm (2.75 inches) across.

Sadly you can't control the drone with your OnePlus One smartphone - you instead get a slightly clunky looking remote to orchestrate your aerial bombardment with.

Game changing?

The DR-1 has been touted for a while by the Chinese startup, dubbing it a 'game changing' product in its teaser promotions.

The game is still very much unchanged (sorry OnePlus), but it shows the firm is willing to try things outside the world of mobile. That said, we still expect its next product launch to be the OnePlus 2.

It takes 20 minutes to charge the DR-1 and that will give you five to eight minutes of air time - which may not sound like a lot, but considering the size of the thing it's not bad.

It can be yours for $19.99, £15.99 (around AU$25), but this is a limited edition run so you'll have to be quick. Shipping is set to take three to 15 days.

• Here's what we want to see from the OnePlus 2

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