It was nearly four years ago that Spotify touted its next big feature for music lovers: lossless streaming, aka Spotify HiFi.  Finally, Spotify Premium users would get the chance to “upgrade their sound quality” from Spotify’s lossy 320Kbps Ogg Vobis codec to lossless CD-quality audio, with Billie Eilish and Finneas extoling the virtues of lossless Spotify HiFi streaming in a promotional video. The launch date for Spotify HiFi: “later this year,” meaning sometime before the end of 2021. Left unsaid but implied in Spotify’s February 2021 announcement was that Premium subscribers would be charged extra for lossless streaming. How much extra wasn’t clear, but the whole “upgrade” wording sure made it sound like you’d have to pay more for Spotify HiFi, thus helping Spotify inch its way toward profitability. The plan made perfect sense. After all, in early 2021, lossless and high-resolution music streaming was still a niche market occupied by the likes of Deezer, Qobuz, and (most of all) Tidal, with rates as high as $20 a month. (Spotify had already been testing a lossless add-on as early as 2017 at various price points.) So why shouldn’t Spotify charge extra for lossless music streaming too? Three months later, Apple and Amazon came along and ruined everything.  Separately but on the same day, the two companies rolled out their own lossless streaming offerings. Effective immediately, both Apple and Amazon said they would go the lossless way, topping Spotify HiFi with support for not just CD-quality tunes but also high-resolution audio tracks all the way up to 24-bit/192kHz (CD-quality audio is limited to 16-bit/44.1kHz), with spatial audio to boot.  The capper? Apple and Amazon’s paid music streaming subscribers would get all those lossless tunes for no extra charge.  It was a clever move that neatly undercut Spotify’s HiFi ambitions while also blowing up the business models of the niche lossless streamers (all of whom had to drastically overhaul their pricing plans in the ensuing years). All of a sudden, Spotify didn’t want to talk about Spotify HiFi anymore.  It wasn’t until January 2022 that Spotify finally broached the subject of Spotify HiFi again, saying it was “excited to deliver a Spotify HiFi experience to Premium users” but that “we don’t have timing details to share yet.” A month later, Spotify CEO David Ek blamed “licensing” issues for the delay.  Then followed months of stubborn silence, punctuated by rumors and leaks about Spotify HiFi’s fate. There was chatter in late 2022 about a supposed “Spotify Platinum” plan that would offer lossless audio along with “limited-ad” podcasts and other features. By June 2023, the rumored Spotify Platinum plan morphed into a rumored “Supremium” tier with lossless tunes and “expanded” access to audiobooks. Nearly a year later, word had it that “Supremium” had been replaced by a “Music Pro” add-on that packed lossless audio with “advanced mixing tunes.”  Finally in July 2024, Spotify’s Ek floated the idea of a “deluxe version of Spotify” with “all the benefits” of a standard Premium membership plus “a lot more control, a lot higher quality across the board, and some other things that I’m not ready to talk about yet.” Ek suggested the new “deluxe” Spotify (which has yet to arrive) might cost “something like $5 above the current premium tier.”   Behind the years-long delay, the rumors, and the trial balloons, it seemed like Spotify was casting about for a reason to charge extra for lossless music streaming—an argument that was tough to make given that Apple, Amazon, and others weren’t charging more for lossless tracks. (I’ve reached out to Spotify for comment.)  At last—perhaps for lack of a better idea—Spotify relented, announcing Wednesday that it would offer gratis lossless audio to its existing Premium subscribers, similar to what Apple and Amazon have been doing since mid-2021.  “The wait is finally over,” said Spotify VP Gustav Gyllenhammar in a press release. “We’ve taken time to build this feature in a way that prioritizes quality, ease of use, and clarity at every step, so you always know what’s happening under the hood. With Lossless, our premium users will now have an even better listening experience.”  Spotify Lossless (the “Spotify HiFi” moniker has apparently been banished) still has some drawbacks compared to lossless listening on Apple and Amazon; audio quality on Spotify is capped at 24-bit/44.1kHz, versus full-on 24-bit/192hHz for its competitors (good luck telling the difference, to be fair), and there’s no mention of native spatial audio support.  In any event, Spotify wound up singing Apple’s and Amazon’s tune when it came to lossless audio, folding it into its standard subscription plans for no extra charge. What else could it do? Read...

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There’s a reason so many small businesses are running consumer-grade security software: it’s cheap. But it’s not adequate for safeguarding your business’ devices, data, finances and reputation. Skrimp now and it might cost you more in the long run. We get it: you’re trying to turn a profit, not blow your budget on business-level security software and an IT team to manage it. Norton Small Business is a competitively priced security suite for small businesses with up to 10 employees, and right now there is a 30% discount on the first year, making it phenomenal value for money and a no-brainer for any small business owner who is serious about their company’s digital security. Save 30% on Norton Small Business with code PCWNSBPView Special Deal Norton Small Business comes with real-time antivirus, a firewall, and business support ready to assist you with virus removal. But it does so much more than helping protect your business devices from malware. Norton Small Business can help you protect your business from financial fraud with Financial Monitoring, preventing the loss of your data due to ransomware, PC theft or hard drive failures with Cloud Backup for Windows, empower your employees to work more securely from anywhere, and enables increased productivity with a suite of Windows PC optimisation tools. You don’t need to be tech savvy or hire an IT team to manage Norton Small Business–it’s easy to set up and runs in the background, so you can get on with operating your business with peace of mind over its digital security. Do you need small business cybersecurity? Yes. It doesn’t matter how tech savvy or up to date with the latest security news you are, the latest digital threats are pretty scary, and could be tricky to avoid, with AI making them smarter and more sophisticated than ever. If you’re running a small business don’t put a target on your back by underestimating the importance of proper protection for your business devices, data and employees’ online activities or thinking cybercriminals only target large companies. Plus, let’s face it, employees can do a lot of silly things without even realising it, like using devices with outdated software posing the risk of security holes cybercriminals could exploit; using their birthdays as passwords; not securing their connection when working remotely and connecting to insecure Wi-Fi, etc. Someone here needs to be the grown-up in the room. Take responsibility for digital security Norton Small Business costs £54.99 for up to three employees, £69.99 for up to five employees, and £99.99 for up to 10 employees. Step up to Norton Small Business Premium to enjoy 24/7 Business Tech Support to assist with common IT issues, Secure VPN, Financial and Social Media Monitoring, Driver Updater and 500GB of secure Cloud Backup online storage for Windows PCs; it costs £149.99 for up to five employees, and £199.99 for up to 10 employees. All prices are for the first year. Right now, PCWorld readers can take advantage of a rare 30% discount, unlocking Norton Small Business from just £38.50/first year, and Norton Small Business Premium from just £105/first year. Save 30% on Norton Small Business with code PCWNSBPView Special Deal Read...

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With any luck, Arm’s new Lumex CPU platform may give us a hint at what to expect for upcoming Windows on Arm PCs: four tiers of CPU power, plus an improved ray-tracing engine and graphics upscaling. Arm says that its new Lumex C1-series chips will deliver 25 percent more performance than the Cortex X925 series of processors it launched in May 2024. Like the X925, the latest Lumex C1 cores are being optimized with 3nm process technologies in mind, with physical implementations and foundry collaborations to speed customers to market. (While Arm has hinted at building its own physical cores for years, however, company representatives would say only that it includes “near production-ready physical implementations for partners” and is “not a chip.”) The Lumex platform is Arm’s brand for smartphones. PC-specific Arm chips will be branded as “Niva” under Arm’s new naming scheme, though they will share some common features with the Lumex cores. Qualcomm, which actually makes the Arm processors, uses the “Snapdragon” brand, which will almost certainly continue. Arm chips power the vast majority of the world’s smartphones, as Arm licenses its designs to customers who can choose to bring the Arm cores to market or take an architectural license and design compatible but otherwise brand new designs of their own making. That’s the approach Apple and Qualcomm have taken — who, in addition to designing smartphones, have brought Arm into the Mac OS space as well as Windows on Arm PCs. Though Qualcomm and Arm have had their legal differences over licensing Arm’s cores — which have since been settled — an Arm representative declined to comment when asked if any ongoing legal issues would prevent Qualcomm from taking a license. Arm’s new Lumex CPU cores continue delivering doble-digit performance gains, the company said.Arm And you will, apparently, see the Lumex in more than just PCs. “So the Lumex platform is going to power flagship smartphones through to PCs and tablets,” said James McNiven, the vice president of product management for Arm, in a press briefing. Smartphones, though, have their own demands: low power, which Arm’s RISC architecture was designed for; and maximizing local AI. The Cortex C1 series includes what Arm calls Scalable Matrix Extension 2 (SME2), using the Arm v9.3 instruction set. Arm doesn’t use a dedicated NPU. Instead, it uses a technology called KleidiAI that essentially uses software libraries to address AI-specific functions inside the CPU, no matter which version of the Arm architecture is present. In the C1 CPU cluster, Arm says, you’ll see a 5X uplift in AI performance. Arm says that will increase performance on apps that always have some form of AI technology running, such as audio generation, camera inferencing, or computer vision. Specifically, Arm is claiming over 4.7 times improvement in latency, speech recognition, and classical large language model tasks, and about 2.8 times faster audio generation. The other thing Arm has been known for is that it basically pioneered the concept of performance and efficiency cores, a strategy known as “Big-Little.” But with the Lumex, that’s been taken to a new level with the addition of a new “premium” core. Now, there are four different tiers of CPU cores: the C1-Ultra, the C1-Premium, the C1-Pro, and the C1-Nano. Arm now has four CPU cores, not just two.Arm Nothing’s really changed all that much: The Ultra and Premium cores are simply two tiers of “performance” cores, while the Pro and Nano deliver different levels of efficiency. Arm executives said that the Premium core could stand in for the Ultra cores on non-flagship, cheaper devices, as it offers similar performance to the Ultra, but in a 35 percent smaller area. The C1 Pro “improves” upon the Cortex A75 in terms of performance and efficiency, McNiven said, while the Nano has the “smallest footprint” and will play a role in both flagship and entry-level devices, he said. Overall, Arm executives said that the on-device AI is three times more power efficient than the previous implementations, and the Pro is 12 percent more power efficient at the same frequency. Arm is also introducing a new GPU, the Mali G1-Ultra, which will promise 20 percent better graphics performance, twice the ray-tracing performance, and 20 percent faster inferencing for AI processing than the earlier Immortalis-G925. The Mali G1-Ultra will also consume less power, as the block is on its own power island with less leakage when idle. Specifically, Arm is claiming that frame rates on ray-traced games will be 40 percent higher than its predecessor, part of moving to a “single-ray” model for improved efficiency and more realistic lighting,” McNiven said. The new Mali core also includes upscaling — quickly rendering at a lower resolution for improved frame rate, then upscaling it for better visual quality — but it does not use the AI-generated frames of some desktop GPUs. Arm’s new Mali core should be the foundation of GPUs on smartphones and Windows on Arm PCs alike.Arm “One of the examples that we have been seeing recently was some of the new ray tracing benchmarks like [UL’s 3DMark] Solar Bay Extreme, and I think that we see there up to a doubling in performance, because it is so ray tracing heavy. So it really does depend on just the amount of ray-tracing content,” McNiven said. One idea behind the Lumex platform, executives said, was to move certain cloud-based AI functions on to the device. Specifically, a large language model in the world of Krafton’s Inzoi (a spiritual successor to The Sims) was run on-device at the GDC conference, they said, as well as a “coach” that watched you play in Tencent’s Honor of Kings and offered advice. A major online payment provider is also working to put agentic AI on device to handle payment processing during peak times, instead of committing to expensive, back-end cloud servers, said Chris Bergey, the senior vice president of the client line of business at Arm. “If your device is capable of running a large language model, you have an extra means of interacting with the game that augments your experience,” McNiven said. “But if you don’t have it, the game is still playable.” Read...

Email remains the greatest risk for sensitive data breaches, with 90% of business communications exposed, warns Kiteworks` 2025 security report. Read...

TechHive Editors Choice At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Roku’s least expensive 4K HDR player Compact design fits behind a TV and is suitable for travel Better performance and Wi-Fi reception than the cheaper Roku Streaming Stick Cons Increasingly cluttered home screen Some old TVs might require a separate power adapter No Dolby Vision or Dolby Atmos support Our Verdict The middle dongle in Roku’s latest streamer lineup is just right. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Roku Streaming Stick Plus Retailer Price $29 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket Best Prices Today: Check today’s prices At a list price of $40—and often on sale for less—the Roku Streaming Stick Plus hits a sweet spot. It’s not the cheapest streaming dongle Roku sells, but it’s the least expensive option with 4K HDR video, and it sports slightly better performance than the $30 Roku Streaming Stick. Its portable design is also an improvement over the Roku Express 4K+, which Roku previously sold at the same price. I still have some misgivings about Roku’s software, which is gradually getting more complicated and bloated. But if you enjoy the Roku experience as it is, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus is a solid option. What’s included with the Roku Streaming Stick Plus The Roku Streaming Stick Plus has the same finger-sized design as the cheaper Roku Streaming Stick I reviewed in July, distinguished only by its embossed black “Roku” logo instead of a painted-on purple one. Its built-in HDMI connector plugs directly into one of your TV’s HDMI ports, and if it doesn’t fit within the spacing of those ports, you can request a free extender cable. Unlike earlier Roku models, the Streaming Stick Plus does not include a power adapter. Instead, you get a five-foot USB-A-to USB-C cable to plug into the USB power port on most modern TVs. The dongle had no trouble drawing enough power this way from the TVs I tested it with, but you might need to go hunting for an outlet adapter for old TVs that don’t provide USB power. For video, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus streams at up to 4K resolution with support for HDR and HDR10+, but not Dolby Vision. You need to step up to the $50 Roku Streaming Stick 4K for that. On the audio side, Dolby Atmos is also missing, as that feature is only available on the $100 Roku Ultra. Jared Newman / Foundry Roku now ships the same basic Voice Remote with all of its lower-end players. Like every other Roku current model, it includes buttons to control your TV’s volume and power, providing a single-remote solution unless you have an external sound system that doesn’t support HDMI-CEC. If that’s the case, you’ll need a separate remote for volume adjustments. (Because the Streaming Stick Plus doesn’t accept IR input, it won’t work with basic universal remotes.) One thing missing from this model is Bluetooth support. You can still connect earbuds to your phone and use Roku’s mobile app for private listening, but the Roku Ultra remains the only player that supports pairing headphones or earbuds directly to the streaming device. Roku Streaming Stick Plus performance and Wi-Fi reception Roku does an admirable job optimizing its software to run on lightweight hardware, so there isn’t a huge performance difference between each of its players. Still, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus does have some noticeable improvements over the cheaper Streaming Stick. In my side-by-side testing, the Streaming Stick Plus typically loaded apps a few seconds faster, and was quicker at filling program guide details as I scrolled through the Pluto TV app. Netflix in particular seemed to benefit, as the Streaming Stick Plus would often would return to where I was in Netflix’s menu system after switching to a different app. (With the cheaper Streaming Stick, Netflix usually needed a full reload.) The Roku Streaming Stick Plus also supports Wi-Fi 5, rather than Wi-Fi 4 as on the Streaming Stick, and I observed better Wi-Fi performance at long range as a result. Testing from the far end of my back yard on a portable monitor, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus maintained speeds around 20Mbps, while the Streaming Stick averaged less than 10Mbps and displayed a weak signal warning. Meanwhile, the $50 Roku Streaming Stick 4K achieved speeds of around 100Mbps in the same test. The improved Wi-Fi won’t matter in areas with solid reception—both models maintained 100Mbps connections in the office where my router is located—but it could make a difference on the fringes. If you want to use wired ethernet, Roku says the Streaming Stick Plus is compatible with USB-C-to-ethernet adapters that supply power, but I was unable to get it connected with several multiport USB-C hubs. The Roku Ultra is a better bet if ethernet is a must. Roku software: Familiar layout, new distractions Jared Newman / Foundry While Roku has traditionally prided itself on simplicity, in recent years that mission has been at odds with the economics of Roku’s business, which calls for ever-more ad revenue and—more recently—a push for more subscriptions. This manifests itself in a bunch of ways: The Home section, which once presented a straightforward list of your installed apps, now includes promotional content tiles and links to various content submenus. The left sidebar menu now has a banner ad at the bottom, which means the default menu options don’t all fit and you must scroll up and down to see them all. The banner ads in both the Home section and sidebar menu now have animations and video. More of Roku’s own apps are now pre-installed, including the recently acquired Frndly TV and the recently launched Howdy. The bottom-left banner covers up some menu options.Jared Newman / Foundry Fundamentally, it’s fine for Roku to try moving past the app grid paradigm and recommending more things to watch from the home screen. People do need help sorting through all their streaming services, and other streaming platforms have been trying to tackle that problem for years. But a lot of what Roku’s doing weighs too heavily on the side of upselling more services instead of helping navigate what you’re already paying for. To wit: Roku has a useful “Continue Watching” feature that tracks all the shows you’re watching across different services, but it’s buried in a “What to Watch” menu that’s all too easy to ignore. Why not put it in the newly-expanded Home section instead? “Continue Watching” is a great feature that’s too hard to reach.Jared Newman / Foundry Roku still deserves credit for nailing a lot of the little things. Many folks appreciate the remote’s dedicated fast-forward, rewind, and play/pause buttons—Google TV and Apple TV devices omit these—as well as the “Replay” button that jumps back in time with closed captions temporarily enabled. Roku also does a great job surfacing free content through its Featured Free menu and Roku Channel app, and support for Apple’s AirPlay comes in handy for sharing content from iPhones and iPads. The experience is overall positive; there’s just so much room for improvement. “Featured Free” is a dedicated menu for free movies and shows (with ads).Jared Newman / Foundry Roku Streaming Stick Plus vs. the rest For most Roku fans, the Streaming Stick Plus is a better option than the $30 Streaming Stick, with speedier app load times, better Wi-Fi connectivity, and 4K HDR video support. It’s also worth considering over the $50 Roku Streaming Stick 4K if you don’t care about Dolby Vision and have a decent Wi-Fi setup. I’d also pick the Roku Streaming Stick Plus over Amazon’s low-cost Fire TV Sticks, because for as cluttered as Roku’s software has become, Amazon’s is still a lot worse. If you prefer a more content-forward interface, consider Walmart’s Onn streaming devices (the $20 Onn box, $30 Onn 4K Plus, or $50 Onn 4K Pro) as alternatives. Otherwise, the middle dongle in Roku’s lineup should be all you need. This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best streaming devices. Read...