The shocking news of Prince’s death has fans, new and old, turning to their Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music apps, only to find them barren of his hits. Unfortunately, your options for streaming the music of His Royal Badness are limited. Last year The Purple One removed his music from popular streaming music sites, save …

China may not have the best Internet access in the world, but from what I’ve seen so far, it’s on top for mobile payments. My friends Amy Deng and Eric Liu moved from San Francisco to Shanghai about a year ago. When I asked them over lunch in Shanghai about some of their favorite tech in China so far, they …

Enjoy Earth Day, as it may be our last, according to a new trailer just released for the upcoming sci-fi film “Independence Day: Resurgence.” The 20th Century Fox film debuts internationally on June 23 and in the US on June 24 — but April 22, otherwise known as Earth Day, was a savvy date to drop a new long-form trailer. …

A standing desk is a great way to avoid sitting on your rear all day — but many standing desks don’t have a great place to put your PC. Taiwanese case manufacturer Lian Li has an intriguing answer: a motorized standing desk that brilliantly doubles as a unique case for all your PC components. Enlarge Image Lian Li The Lian …

There’s a reason Airbnb is such a phenomenon: it’s cheap. People put their unused spaces up for rent, make a little cash while they’re out of town, and the total cost of your vacation can be cheaper than if you stay in a hotel — or you can get more luxurious. It’s a win-win for everyone involved…except when it isn’t. …

The Internet is spilling tears Thursday following the news that music icon Prince, patron saint of all things purple, is dead at age 57. Since the news broke, hundreds of thousands of fans have taken to social media to grieve and share their devotion. “This is what it sounds like when doves cry,” some have written, quoting one of the …

E-waste is a growing problem, and the rapid advancement of technology is only making it worse. We use a gadget for a while and discard it once the new model comes out, which, of course, has a brand-new port, rendering your massive collection of charging cables virtually useless. If you’re anything like me, this has happened to you several times …

In a company blog post, Facebook says it will rely more on time spent reading an article as a metric for deciding if similar content should be more prominent in people’s news feeds. In the post by Moshe Blank, a Facebook software engineer, and Jie Xu, a research scientist, the pair says, “We’ve found that there are stories people don’t …

Gaming website Videogamer.com has spotted several products on Amazon.com that were only for sale to Amazon Prime members. Games such as Grand Theft Auto V for the PlayStation 4 or the film “Birdman” on Blu-ray are not available to buy directly from Amazon, and potential purchasers see the following message: “This item, sold by Amazon.com, is currently reserved exclusively for …

Amazon has spun out its Amazon Prime Video service into a standalone monthly subscription, just like Netflix and Hulu currently offer. Instead of paying a flat $100 fee every year for Amazon Prime (which includes free two-day shipping on most items, cloud storage, streaming music and video), you can opt to pay $8.99 monthly to watch movies and TV shows …

Starting Thursday, Amazon’s dirt-cheap Fire tablet ($50, £50) come in three new colors: magenta, blue and tangerine, as well as the previous black. Additionally, a step-up model with 16GB of internal storage (instead of the standard 8GB) is available for $70. The Fire Kids Edition also adds the 16GB storage option. It costs $120 and includes a protective case along …

If you manage a Facebook page there’s a chance your organisation or brand is looking somewhat narcissistic, as a recent bug is forcing some pages to automatically “like” their own posts. Our colleagues at Roadshow have noticed the bug in action, although CNET’s own Facebook page doesn’t appear to be affected. The Next Web reports that its page, along with …

All things considered, Microsoft is having a better year so far than a lot of other big tech companies. The world’s largest software maker on Thursday reported $22.1 billion in sales for its fiscal third quarter. That figure, which includes deferred revenue, is in line with the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Earnings, however, were 47 cents …

Google is updating its search offering to show listings for live TV channels. Searching for a show like “Game of Thrones”, for example, will show results for which channels are airing the show and at what times. This will appear alongside Google’s existing information, which indicates where you can watch the show using on-demand services, such as the Google Play …

Air pollution in major Chinese cities (and others) is the real deal. You read about it, hear about it and see locals regularly don paper face masks in an attempt to shield their lungs from its toxins. Many install apps on their phones to help monitor the buildup in cities like Shenzhen, Shanghai and especially Beijing. China’s capital only had …