While streaming-video services seem to get all the love, there are still plenty of good reasons to get a Blu-ray player, especially since many models combine the excellent high-definition picture quality and great sound you get from discs with access to online content.

Summer's almost officially here. Whether you're traveling or just relaxing at home, these mobile devices can help make your leisure time more fun.

Smart phones, tablets, and laptops do lots of things well, but providing great sound quality usually isn't one of them. The small speakers in many of these devices produce audio that you could charitably call weak or even tinny. So what do you do if you're sharing tunes with friends or you want to listen to music or enjoy a video without putting on a pair of headphones?

You're forgiven if an ad for "the world's most portable desktop" confuses you. But don't be surprised if claims like that pop up more frequently, because computer manufacturers are beginning to make so-called portable desktops, complete with battery, that can be used something like a giant tablet.

Q: My children have many small electronics that operate on rechargeable batteries (MP3 players, laptops, handheld video game consoles). They play them until right before the charge runs out. They then plug them in and keep playing. Does this negatively effect the life or operation of the battery? —Patrick Madigan, MO

With smart-phone theft reaching epidemic proportions, a coalition of more than 50 law enforcement agencies, scholars, consumer advocates—including Consumers Union, the advocacy arm of Consumer Reports—and others is demanding that smart phone makers add a 'kill switch' (a mechanism that can shut down a device remotely) to phones in order to decrease their attractiveness to thieves.

Whether you're taking an epic vacation or staycationing, the right apps can help make your summer more fun, and safer, too. We found five that we love.

LG and Pantech, two companies that barely made a blip in the smart-phone world until recently, are churning out noteworthy models that earn high scores in Consumer Reports Ratings. Two of their most recent entries, the LG Optimus G Pro and Pantech Perception, have ultra-sharp displays, clever document-editing options, and intriguing features found on higher-priced rivals. Here are the details:

Yesterday at the E3 video-game show, we spent most of the day with Microsoft and the Xbox One, the company's upcoming next-generation video game console. The visuals were jaw-dropping—clear, sharp, and even hyper-real.

Eager to get your paws on a new Microsoft Xbox One or Sony PlayStation 4 game console this fall? Walmart.com is already starting to accept pre-orders for the new systems, which will compete head-to-head this holiday season.

AT Sony's E3 event last night, anticipatory gamers got their first sighting of the new console, which had been announced at a February press conference sight unseen. The PS4 is a black parallelogram: sleek and unobtrusive. The company also announced the PS4's price: $399, $100 less than the newly-announced price of the Xbox One. No release date was announced; all we know for sure is that the new PlayStation will arrive in time for the holiday season.

Apple today unveiled its upcoming iOS 7 mobile operating system, which includes a more-elegant-looking interface and a unique poison-pill approach to thwarting device theft.

All-day battery life is coming to the MacBook Air, Apple announced today during its World Wide Developers Conference. The new laptops use the latest processors from Intel, the fourth-generation Core processor known as Haswell ULT, and one advantage those processors bring is longer battery life.

At Microsoft's E3 press event today, the company announced a couple more details for its upcoming Xbox One gaming console: Most important to anticipatory gamers, the console will ship in November, and the price will be a not-insignificant $499.

The company isn't making much noise about it, but T-Mobile has a prepaid option that is surprisingly inexpensive: unlimited data for $30 a month. And our Consumerist colleagues discovered that it's not just for new activations.