Space travel is bound to be essentially lonely. Even in our one galaxy, there’s something like 300 billion star systems. Three hundred billion. It’s hard to even conceive of that number, to be honest.

Frontier Developments, the developer of Elite: Dangerous, has gone to great lengths to give players that feeling of loneliness, balanced with the excitement and multiplayer action that current gamers expect when they launch a video game.

“With a real full scale galaxy it’s easy to head off into unexplored space,” executive producer Michael Brookes told us. “We think that’s a good thing; players can choose the life of a pioneer on the unexplored frontier, or stick to more populated places for cooperative and competitive play with other players.”

Even better, this stunningly gorgeous fourth entry in the Elite game franchise is coming to your Mac soon.

The Apple Watch isn’t available for preorder until this Friday, and it’s already looking like certain models won’t ship by April 24.

Apple released the third major update to iOS 8 today with the public launch of 8.3, which brings a host of new features to iPhones and iPads.

The iOS 8.3 update is available as an over-the-air update or via iTunes. Some of the new features include racially diverse emoji, two-factor authentication for Google, new Siri languages, and tons of bug fixes.

Here’s a run down of the biggest features you’ll find:

Apple has released OS X 10.10.3 to the public. The update includes the all-new Photos app, which has been in beta for the last several weeks.

Hundreds of new emojis have also been added, along with improvements to Spotlight, Safari, Wi-Fi connectivity and more.

The batteries in an iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2 can hold 1810mAh and 7340mAh of power respectively. Even with those fairly generous capacities, these devices sometimes don’t make it through an entire day before they require a recharge, especially after heavy usage.

Now your devices can make it through the day – and the night, plus the following day – when you have the indispensible Innori 22400mAh Portable Battery Pack, available at a special price for a limited time at Cult of Mac Deals.

The first reactions to the Apple Watch are hot off the presses and, to be honest, they’re pretty much what I was expecting.

There are some nice revelations (battery life isn’t as bad as we feared), some areas to improve on (activating the screen carries a lag, although Apple promises it can fix it though software updates), praise for how easy it is to manage notifications, and a general sense of reviewers trying desperately to figure out what the hell a smartwatch should try and do.

And concluding that — despite being unclear about quite what that is — Apple has done it pretty well.

Check out the highlights of the early hands-on impressions from Re/Code, the Wall Street Journal, David Pogue, and the other people lucky enough to get an early review unit:

There are self-help books and expensive seminars that can give powerful inspiration to raise your career profile, be a better leader or grow your business.

Then there’s the free app that could potentially be a game-changer in less than three minutes.

The ambitious can gain bits of advice from more than 100 corporate gurus, best-selling authors and motivational speakers with Audvisor, a library of curated expertise brought to IOS and Android users in short audio clips.

The Resident Evil franchise has suffered a bit of an identity crisis in recent years, straying from its survival-horror roots toward something considerably more action-based. The latest entry, Resident Evil: Revelations 2, tries to have it both ways by splitting its four-chapter tale between two storylines. One features two frantic survivors struggling for resources, and the other has you playing as a heavily armed man of action.

It seems like mixing these two extremes would end up diluting them both, but somehow developer Capcom managed to take the best of both play styles and create something distinctive, harrowing and still damned scary.

Having first been made available to developers back in February, OS X 10.10.3 may be arriving for the rest of us today, according to a new report in the Associated Press.

The article in question concerns the new (free) Photos app for Mac, which serves as a replacement for iPhoto and Aperture. Photos makes it easy to organize and edit your photos using professional grade tools, such as granular color correction and a slew of other functions, previously available only in pro-grade apps like Adobe Lightroom.

Most apps are way too nice to us. “Don’t worry that you missed your 10,000 steps today,” they say. “There’s always tomorrow.”

CARROT apps are different. Whether you’re using a CARROT calorie counter or a CARROT weather forecaster, all the apps in the growing line have one thing in common: an hilariously sadistic AI character that serves as your in-app guide, dishing out harsh punishments if you miss your targets.

“So many of the apps out there are just cloyingly sweet, CARROT creator Brian Mueller tells Cult of Mac. “They’re always telling you that you’re doing a good job, no matter what you’re doing. I wondered what would happen if you did the opposite and created a sarcastic, irreverent personality who would yell at you if you don’t get stuff done. And, to my surprise, people really, really responded to it.”

April 24 isn’t just about the Apple Watch. If you live in China, it’s also the day on which the second brick-and-mortar Apple Store opens in Hangzhou — following hot on the heels of the recently-opened gorgeous West Lake store in the city’s Shangcheng District.

The new store is located in the city’s Jianggan District, in a MixC mall that is also home to a number of high-end brand stores and upmarket eateries.

Apple was among 12 tech companies — also including Google and Microsoft — which appeared in front of an Australian parliamentary hearing on Wednesday to defend their corporate tax structures in the country.

Apple has previously stood accused of shifting close to $8.1 billion in untaxed profits from its Australian operations to its business operations in Ireland over the course of the past decade.

Sometimes described as “Netflix for pirates,” the video streaming service Popcorn Time is coming to iPhone. The standalone Popcorn Time iOS app will launch imminently — quite possibly as early as today — and will allow users to watch pirated TV shows and movies on the move.

While it won’t be allowed in the App Store for obvious reasons, a workaround means users can install the app without having to jailbreak their handsets first — although, for now, you’ll need to have access to a Windows computer.

Samsung’s not had too much luck with smartwatches, but a newly-published patent application shows that it’s not ready to throw in the towel just yet.

The patent describes what is less a traditional watch than a wristband or He-Man-style manacle. It features a wraparound widescreen display, able to function in both bent and flat states, and describes its possible applications as multimedia viewing and communication.

After all, you never know when you’ll need to summon Battle Cat to help in your ongoing war with Skeletor and his cronies!

Instagram quietly enabled an option today that makes it super-easy to keep track of your favorite accounts.

You can now set up push notifications for whenever a specific account posts a new photo. The timing of the new feature makes perfect sense with the impending release of the Apple Watch.

Just three days before Apple’s smartwatch will be on display in stores around the world, new pictures have revealed what Apple Watch packaging will look like.

Images of the Apple Watch box, which doubles as a charging stand, were posted on Instagram today. With the first review units already out in the wild, we’re learning new details about the Apple Watch nearly every day, like how Apple Watch bands will be packaged.

Here’s a glimpse of the Apple Watch band boxes:

Sony is planning to invest $376 million dollars to boost capacity for chips used in smartphone camera sensors, including the iPhone. The company announced today that this will be the second boost to capacity made this year to meet demand.

Level-5, the game developer behind adored Nintendo 3DS gaming franchises Professor Layton and Fantasy Life, is making the rough transition to mobile devices.

At a press conference in Japan, Level-5 CEO Akihiro Hino said Layton 7, the next installment in the Professor Layton series, and Fantasy Life 2, sequel to the much-loved Fantasy Life sim game, would be coming to iOS and Android smartphones.

Unfortunately, both games show signs of becoming shallow mobile experiences, the biggest reason companies like Nintendo have cited as a reason not to bring handheld titles into the mobile arena.

My, how times have changed.

The iPad mini 3 was a bit of a disappointment because Apple really didn’t make any improvements other than adding Touch ID. Big changes could be in order for 2015, though, according to a video of an alleged 4th generation iPad mini rear shell that shows Apple’s smallest tablet is about to get an iPad Air redesign.

Watch the full hands-on video below.

Want a free month of HBO Now on your Apple TV, iPad or iPhone? If you sign up for the standalone service now, you can watch the premier of Game of Thrones on April 15 absolutely free.

I’m a long-time cord cutter and I’m super-excited that I can now purchase HBO directly from the television network, via iTunes, instead of having to sign up for a local cable TV package and then pay for HBO on top of that.

If you’ve got an Apple TV or an iOS device, you can get your own free month. Here’s how.

HBO finally unleashed its Netflix-killer today with the HBO Now app for iOS and Apple TV. The company is already having a hard time keeping up with demand on the streaming service, but according to a profile on HBO CEO Richard Plepler CEO, the original plan was to launch it at the end of 2016.

Today’s launch may not have happened it if weren’t for Apple executive Jimmy Iovine, who sparked the connection between HBO and Apple. After Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch made a hostile bid to takeover of Time Warner last year, Plepler says he knew he need to pivot the company. So he called up his old buddy Jimmy and asked if Apple would be interested in an HBO Now deal.

“I think that’s the shit,” Jimmy said.

Instagram has been inching towards being an all-in-one edit suite, and today the app took another small step in that direction.

Apple’s secret electric car project won’t be hitting highways for at least another five years (if ever), but that’s not stopping concept artists from dreaming up what a Project Titan vehicle might look like.

The folks at Freelancer held an Apple concept car contest this week, with the winner taking home a $1,500 prize. Top honors went to this semi-autonomous electric car concept from Aristomenis Tsirbas that oozes with Apple’s traditional minimalist design. Other features include custom LED head and tail lights, and discreet hatch doors that open laterally.

Here’s a look with the doors open:

If you’ve ever been interested in learning how to code but have balked at paying high tuition costs and investing your valuable time with a classroom schedule, then we’ve got an offer that you must take advantage of.

Now you can become a pro web developer and coder on your own schedule with the Learn to Code 2015 Course Bundle, available at Cult of Mac Deals for a limited time and at a discount that’s so huge you’d be crazy to pass it up.

HBO Now has finally landed on Apple TV, giving users access to stream HBO’s entire catalog of shows and live programming for just $14.99 per month. Apple TV owners can start using the service immediately with a free 30-day trial period.

Today’s HBO Now launch comes just in time for the Game of Thrones Season 5 premiere this Sunday. If you haven’t caught up, there might be enough hours left in the week to stream the past four seasons.