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It's likely overkill for 99 percent of PC owners, but Seagate has revealed a new 10TB Barracuda Pro HDD this week, giving users a massive amount of storage for their computing needs.

The drive is standard 3.5-inch, 7200RPM so it won't offer too much in terms of features besides capacity, but it is still interesting to see how far we have come.

"The Barracuda family has a rich history of delivering reliable drives at an affordable price point for our customers, who are struggling to keep up with the vast amounts of data they're creating and consuming," said Merle McIntosh, SVP Sales and Marketing, Newegg. "Seagate is pushing the boundaries on capacity and a cost-effective 10TB option is a product our customers will appreciate."

Unfortunately, that "cost-effective" drive will set you back $500, which is certainly less cost-effective than getting two 8TB drives from Seagate for $250 each.

Source:
Seagate

For the third time since last December, Brazil temporarily banned the WhatsApp messaging service before a court overturned the ruling.

A Brazilian judge had banned the app after the company (now owned by Facebook) refused to reveal encrypted messages pertaining to an ongoing case. The Federal Supreme Court then reversed that decision, claiming it was "scarcely reasonable or proportional."

WhatsApp said it could not cooperate with the investigation because all of the messages sent are encrypted and are not stored on their servers.

"As we've said in the past, we cannot share information we don't have access to," added a WhatsApp spokesperson in a public statement.

Netflix shares fell over 12 percent yesterday after the streaming giant announced adding just 1.68 million subscribers for the quarter, well below their guidance of 2.5 million.

The company also announced that cancellations were "slightly and unexpectedly" higher during the quarter, which saw Netflix enact a long-ago announced price rise. About 20 million users saw their subscription price rise by either $1 or $2 per month, which apparently is too much for Emmy-nominated original content.

Netflix confirmed the minor slow down both in the U.S. and abroad: "We are growing, but not as fast as we would like or have been." The company partially blamed the media for the miss, as well, citing massive negative press about the price rises, which were initially announced over a year ago.

Despite the challenges, Netflix still saw revenue increase by 28 percent year-over-year.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has announced this week that the company has reached an incredible milestone: 2 billion rides.

More impressively is the fact that the company hit 1 billion trips just seven months ago, six years after launching.

Uber is now in 450 cities and is the most-funded private company of all-time, having raised $13 billion since inception. The company is now valued at $62.5 billion.

For now the company has no plans to go public but when it does it will be the largest IPO since Alibaba and Facebook.

Microsoft has confirmed that its upcoming slimmed-down console, the Xbox One S, will officially launch on August 2nd alongside the Windows 10 Anniversary Edition OS.

The new console is 40 percent smaller than the original Xbox One, and now comes in the "robot white" color scheme. On the outside, the Xbox One S has lost the gigantic power brick of its predecessor and will come with the option to buy a vertical stand.

On the inside, Microsoft has upgraded the raw processing power of the console, adding 4K video support (including 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays), HDR support for gaming and video and a built-in IR blaster. Aesthetically, the USB ports have been moved to a more convenient spot up front, along with the controller pairing button.

"The Xbox One S for us was a realization that first, we want to make a smaller Xbox, but there was also some capability that we saw growing out in the market around HDR and 4K video," Xbox head Phil Spencer said last month. "So we said, if we're going to do an upgrade to our console, let's go ahead and embrace some of the technologies that are coming and make those part of our core SKU."

In addition, the console comes with a modified controller that has textured grips and the addition of Bluetooth.

Last week, Microsoft made headlines by claiming that its Microsoft Edge was the only browser that could handle 1080p streaming on your PC.

It appears that is actually true.

Multiple reports have tested Netflix with Chrome, Firefox, and Opera and found that they all cap at 720p, while Microsoft Edge and IE11 reach 1080p. No browser will stream 4K, no matter what hardware you have.

It is unclear why the Microsoft browsers offer the best quality, but Microsoft gives us a hint in their blog: "From video hardware acceleration to PlayReady Content Protection and the Protected Media Path, Windows 10 is designed to provide the highest quality, most secure, and most power-efficient video playback available on any version of Windows."

Japanese telecom giant SoftBank has agreed to purchase microprocessor leader ARM Holdings for $32 billion, a huge premium over its recent closing price.

ARMH designs the microprocessors used by Apple and Samsung (among others) and their designs are found in about 95 percent of all smartphones.

The deal appears to show confidence in the British economy and stability following their recent "Brexit" vote. In fact, SoftBank says it plans to double ARMH's current UK team from 1600 to 3200 employees in the next five years.

In 2015, ARM reported revenue of $1.5 billion with profits of $448.4 million, so while the company has a monopoly and has strong margins the deal appears to be rich on the surface. SoftBank likely hopes to make up some money through a new focus on designing chips for routers and the networking industry. ARMH currently has 15 percent share in that industry.

Nintendo has delighted fans by announcing a "mini replica" of their original NES console, a new version of the classic console that will come with 30 games built-in.

Launching on November 11th for just $59.99, the console will be smaller than the original and include an HDMI port making it compatible with all current generation HDTVs.

A few of the more popular games included with the new console are Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 and 3, The Legend Of Zelda, Punch Out, Final Fantasy and Donkey Kong.

If you want to play some old-school multiplayer, you can buy a second NES control pad for $9.99.

"We wanted to give fans of all ages the opportunity to revisit Nintendo's original system and rediscover why they fell in love with Nintendo in the first place," Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime said in a statement. "The Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition is ideal for anyone who remembers playing the NES, or who wants to pass on those nostalgic memories to the next generation of gamers."

Earlier this year, Microsoft sent out a notice to all OneDrive cloud users informing them that their storage space would be reduced unless they opted-in and asked to keep it.

If you did not ask to keep the storage, your space is now significantly smaller. Microsoft has downgraded accounts to just 5GB and removed the 15GB camera roll bonus for Windows 10 and Windows Phone users. The move is a bit shocking, given that Microsoft launched OneDrive years ago by offering 7GB of space.

Microsoft has paid tiers for those who want to keep the extra storage, or you can move over to Amazon, Google, Apple, Dropbox or any other number of cloud solutions.

A hacker going by the name Ox2Taylor released sensitive information about 80,000 Amazon Kindle users earlier this week after Amazon did not respond his warnings of a significant security risk within their servers.

Ox2Taylor says he tried to contact Amazon last week to tell them of the vulnerability but did not receive any response. He was seeking a $700 bounty from Amazon for revealing the vulnerability as well as an explanation on how to fix it. "They're a big company and they should have enough money to have the proper security defenses," he added.

In the database are usernames, passwords, address, phone number and IP address of over 80,000 users.

After a few days in which Amazon did not even acknowledge the bug, he released the whole list via a zipped file on the cyberlocker Mega. It has since been taken down. "I was trying to prove them privately but they were ignoring my warnings," he said.

Tesla CEO and genius Elon Musk has said he's ready to unveil part 2 of the Tesla 'Top Secret Masterplan,' a plan that's been in place since 2006, before the launch of the Tesla Roadster sports car.

The CEO says he could even post it later this week, teasing excited fans.

In 2006, Musk revealed the first part of the plan in a detailed document that has essentially gone to plan so far. Musk said at the time that the first plan was to a build a sports car, use the proceeds to built a more affordable car, use those proceeds for an even cheaper car and save the world with zero emission electric power and charging.

It is unclear what will be in part two of the plan, but many expect Musk to speak about his proposed acquisition of his solar power company SolarCity and the development of Tesla trucks that can drive long distances autonomously.

Infamous MEGA owner Kim Dotcom says he plans to relaunch the original Megaupload cyberlocker in January 2017, following its 2012 shutdown by U.S. authorities.

At its peak, Megaupload accounted for over 20 percent of global Web traffic at any given time and had over 50 million users. The site was accused of linking to millions of unauthorized files including pirated movies, music and games and it drew the ire of U.S. authorities and content rights holders.

Perhaps most shocking of the announcement is the fact that Dotcom says all former users will get their accounts back, exactly five years after the site was raided and shut down. Dotcom was arrested but after five years the entrepreneur has still not faced a trial or jury. He has also been fighting to get back millions in assets that were frozen at the time of his arrest.

According to reports, Google is working on two Android Wear smartwatches, its latest foray into hardware.

The company currently sells a Chromebook, the Pixel C tablet, the Chromecast dongle, and co-brands Nexus smartphones.

Currently, the smartwatches are codenamed Angelfish and Swordfish, and will prominently feature Google's assistant AI that was shown off during this year's I/O.

Angelfish is expected to have a 45mm case, LTE connectivity, GPS, heart rate monitoring and will steal some design aspects from the LG Watch Urbane. One report says "it does not have the stark circular 'puck' shape of Motorola's 360, nor the rather angular lugs or multi-piece design of the Urbane LTE. This gives the watch a subdued but sporty look." Additionally, the watch will have three buttons including a circular crown and two other unknown buttons.

The Swordfish should "resemble the Pebble Time Round" and will be smaller and thinner, include a single button and may not have LTE or GPS. It will also likely come with a much lower price point.

Expect an announcement in September.

Microsoft has released a new press statement that should clear up any confusion about its upcoming Xbox Play Anywhere service.

Last week, the company confirmed that Play Anywhere was scheduled to launch on September 13th, giving gamers access to some games on Windows 10 PCs and the Xbox One with just one purchase. However, Microsoft later changed the verbiage of the service, stating that Play Anywhere only applies to Microsoft Studios games that were shown off at 2016's E3 conference.

Obviously, that would have been a very big change to the former policy. Microsoft has now tried to clear up any confusion: "When we unveiled Xbox Play Anywhere, we said that every new Microsoft Studios title shown at the Xbox E3 2016 Briefing will support Xbox Play Anywhere. We understand that a recent blog post didn't specify that the only Microsoft Studios titles we've confirmed to date as Xbox Play Anywhere were shown at the E3 2016 Xbox briefing."

Okay.

OurMine, the group of hackers behind recent high-profile account thefts, temporarily took over Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's Twitter account, tweeting and posting a Vine clip.

The group tweeted "Hey, its OurMine,we are testing your security" while linking to their site.

OurMine recently took over the social media accounts of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer.

It appears that the messages came through Vine, which suggests that it was Jack's connected Vine account that was really compromised.