Fully Charged: PlayStation Home closing, Yahoo dropping its directory, and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke selling new album via BitTorrent

PlayStation Home shutting down in March

Sony’s PlayStation Home initiative on PlayStation 3 has always been a curious thing: a Second Life-like virtual community that offered limited interaction and seemed geared more towards marketing and promotions than fun and entertainment. And still, it commanded a bit of a community in its nearly six years of existence.

But that’ll be about the end of it. Sony has announced that PlayStation Home will close on 31 March 2015, and new content will cease being added in just a few weeks, on 12 November. Sony cites a “shifting landscape” for the move, and we’d guess that means even fewer people paying attention to Home now that the PS4 is out and thriving (and not made available on that console).

[Source: PlayStation Forums]

READ MORE: Long-term test: Sony PS4 review

Yahoo closing its 20-year-old directory

It’s been a long time since Yahoo was considered a search giant, and the company has diversified itself greatly over the years. And at the end of this year, 20 years after its beginning, Yahoo will finally close its iconic web directory.

The directory was the Yahoo experience initially, and the name is an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle,” but Yahoo says its “business has evolved.” On 31 December, the directory will close, leaving the company to focus on its more modern ventures.

[Sources: Yahoo Tumblr, The Verge]

Thom Yorke selling new album via BitTorrent

Radiohead is perhaps the most progressive major act around when it comes to digital efforts, whether it was selling 2007 album In Rainbows as a pay-what-you-want download or recently pumping its trippy mobile app full of new tunes, and now singer Thom Yorke is pursuing a new avenue to get his music to fans.

On Friday, Yorke released his new album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, via BitTorrent, allowing interested fans to spend US$6 to gain access to the eight songs and music video. The BitTorrent Bundle app claims more than 333,000 downloads as of this writing, but it’s unclear if that’s of the whole bundle just a tally of all of the files counted individually. Oh, and a vinyl edition is available for collectors.

[Source: Radiohead]

New Assassin’s Creed Unity trailer

As the November release date nears for Assassin’s Creed Unity, Ubisoft’s regular barrage of trailers has begun digging deeper into the various gameplay enhancements found within.

This latest clip explores the benefits of the ample player customization and details the roles in the co-op missions, making this truly intriguing new entry seem like it’ll be downright entrancing.

READ MORE: Assassin’s Creed Unity preview

About

Andrew writes features, news stories, reviews, and other pieces, often when the UK home team is off-duty or asleep. I'm based in Chicago with my lovely wife, amazing son, and silly cats, and my writing about games, gadgets, esports, apps, and plenty more has appeared in more than 75 publications since 2006.