New and digital media stories

Sony offers discounts after Christmas PlayStation Network hack 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/02/sony-christmas-playstation-network-hack-discounts-psn-lizard-squad

- has 110 million users 

- 22 year old man from Twickenham linked with the lizard squad was arrested in a raid on his home by the South east regional organised crime unit before being released on bail over cyber fraud offences in 2013-14.

This article is about the way in which PlayStation owners were interrupted because of hacking and the way in which users were prevented from connecting or registering their consoles. It states the fact that it wasn't restored until 28th December. Due to this - they offered their customers an extended membership for five days. Additionally they will be offering 10% discount codes this month.

In my opinion this article is useful as it allows me to inform others I know who play on Playstations what was causing interruption and there for make them more aware of what happened.

Apple faces lawsuit over storage space on iPhones and iPads

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/02/apple-lawsuit-storage-space-iphones-ipad-ios8-software-advertised-capacity

- users are seeking $5 million in damaged and a trial by jury.

- the shortfall ranges from 18.1-23.1%

- each gb of storage Apple short changed its customers amounts to approximately 400 - 500 high resolution photographs.

- Microsoft was also sued and defeated a case in California in 2012 over a similar issue with its surface tablets.

This article is purely about the way in which Apple failed to represent true storage statistics & when customers upgraded to the ios8 it took nearly 23.1% of the memory. Similarly when purchasing the 16gb iphone six, only 12gb is available due to the upgrade in software. This shows the way Apple are being sued for this mistake.

This is an interesting article as I can relate quite a lot to this & im glad that they are getting sued as I purchased an iPhone 6 and 4gb have already been taken up without me putting anything on it. 

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg follows Optah by founding book club

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/04/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-oprah-book-club

- Zuckerberg created a year in book page and urged his friends to join him in the project. As of Sunday afternoon, it had more than 89000 likes.

This article is purely based upon the founder of Facebook attempting to add a bit more of book to Facebook and by this he is going to be reading a book every other week in 2015, learning about different beliefs and cultures. The first book he is going to be reading is Moides Naims the end of power. 

This is an interesting article as it shows the way in which one is inspired by others and is doing something which could encourage others to read a lot more instead of always turning to technology.

Controversial VAT change means e-books are about to get more expensive

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businessclub/11320318/Controversial-VAT-change-means-e-books-are-about-to-get-more-expensive.html

- Large suppliers such as Amazon and iTunes house their businesses in Luxembourg to benefit from a 3pc rate, while the UK charges 20pc.

- This means the UK Treasury could benefit by around £300m from 2015, but someone has to lose; either the suppliers of affected services will see significantly reduced profit or consumers will see increased prices as some of the extra VAT cost is passed on,” said Amanda Tickel, tax partner at KPMG.

-A KPMG poll of 156 affected businesses found that three-quarters were considering raising their prices this year. 

-Just 21pc said they were using the EU’s mini one-stop shop (Moss) to distribute customer VAT payments from all member states.

- HM Revenue & Customs has estimated that the new rules will affect 34,000 small businesses in Britain.

-Companies generating sales worth less than the UK VAT threshold of £81,000 a year will only have to register for VAT on overseas sales, leaving their domestic business unaffected. 

This article is about the way in which Ebooks are due to increase in price & apps similarly. This will be due to the fact that original country VAT is due to be applied to electronics in the way each and every other product does.

This article is quite interesting as it shows me as an ebook user and app downloader how prices are going up and will make me more alert when purchasing. Allowing me to pay more attention as to whether purchasing the App at such a high price is worth it or not.