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China's Alibaba has announced their payments-focused smartwatch 'Pay Watch' this week, with plans to crowdfund the device through their online ecommerce site Taobao.

Alibaba was quick to say that the watch is being designed and manufactured by FiiSmart, and that the watch will run on YunOS for Wear, which integrates Alipay for payments.

Unofficially, the specs include a 1.63-inch AMOLED display, a dual-core CPU with 4GB of internal storage, a 300mAh battery, and compatibility with Android and iOS. The battery has a stated life of 36 hours with regular use.

Furthermore, the smartwatch has heart-rate monitoring, motion detection, a pedometer and will have other built-in Alibaba features like the ability to buy directly through Taobao.

Pricing is still a bit unknown, but Alibaba says you can get the watch for the equivalent of $110-$160 depending on bands, etc.

Facebook and Microsoft have announced that one of the world's most popular games, Minecraft, will have its own virtual reality version soon.

Facebook-owned Oculus VR and Microsoft-owned Minecraft are partnering on the VR version of the game, and the title will be sold through the Windows store and the Oculus store.

The VR version will be a port of 'Minecraft for Windows 10,' confirmed Oculus.

There is little else known except that the game will work via the Samsung Gear VR or via next year's Oculus Rift headset, but it will be interesting to see how you can interact with the Minecraft world in virtual reality.

Samsung executive Peter Koo took to the stage at the Oculus Connect event this week, announcing the updated Gear VR, which apparently will be ready in time for Black Friday.

According to Koo, the new device will be available for their entire 2015 Galaxy lineup, including the Note 5, S6 Edge+, S6 and S6 Edge.

The new Gear is 22 percent lighter than its predecessor, has improved touchpad performance and will give users "access to an expanding universe of premium content" - although it is unclear what that content entails.

Most importantly, the price of the next generation Gear VR is just $99, an obvious play on getting more expensive smartphone buyers to add the "accessory."

Sling has announced that it will soon be updating its UI for the Xbox One, adding better functionality.

The overall user interface will remain the same, but Sling says there are a ton of bug fixes, and streaming quality has been improved significantly.

Additionally, you can now see the full schedule for any channel you have, as well as video-on-demand content for the channel all in one place.

Of lesser note, searching now uses the "Y" button for the Xbox just like nearly every other app does.

Read the full changes here: Sling

Sling has announced that it will be soon updating its UI for the Xbox One, adding better functionality.

The overall user interface will remain the same, but Sling says there are a ton of bug fixes, and streaming quality has been improved significantly.

Additionally, you can now see the full schedule for any channel you have, as well as video-on-demand content for the channel all in one place.

Of lesser note, searching now uses the "Y" button for the Xbox just like nearly every other app does.

Read the full changes here: Sling

Rovio has released the first trailer for their upcoming 'Angry Birds' movie, one that should answer the question about why birds and pigs hate each other.

"The question Rovio gets more than anything is 'Why are these birds so angry?'" said producer John Cohen. "This is the origin story for how that conflict came to exist between birds and little green piggies."

At this point, the movie may be the last attempt for Rovio to save its business as the company has not been able to recreate the success of the first Angry Birds game. The movie certainly has star power (for an animated flick), with Jason Sudeikis as Red, Josh Gad as the yellow bird, Chuck and Danny McBride as Bomb. Additionally, there are quite a few popular comedic talents voicing the pigs (and more).

Angry Birds the movie is set for release in March.

Late night TV host Conan O'Brien has updated his 'Clueless Gamer' series with the new Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5, playing along hilariously with Tony Hawk himself and rapper Lil Wayne, who is also in the game.

The game is set for launch next week, and many early reviews have the game 'reviving' the series, which had flatlined since its early PS2 roots.

Besides getting back to its skating roots, it seems the game has added some extra fun, as well, such as 'Big Head Mode' where you have to keep doing tricks to not have your oversized head explode.

Watch the hilarious video here:

Vertu, known for selling smartphones that cost over $10,000, has updated their flagship Signature Touch device, adding high-end specs to its sleek looks.

The new Signature Touch has a 5.2-inch 1080p display protected by 'fifth generation sapphire,' is powered by 4GB RAM and a Snapdragon 810 processor, has 64GB internal storage and a microSD slot and Android 5.1. Additionally, the phone has a 21MP rear camera with phase-detection autofocus and 4K recording.

Furthermore, the phone has Dolby Digital Plus certified stereo speakers, a large 3160mAh battery, supports nearly all LTE bands, has wireless and quick charging support, and iPass support - allowing for a connection to Wi-Fi nearly everywhere for free.

Of course, Vertu has kept their grade 5 titanium casing, a handcrafted calf leather back, and ceramic pieces, meaning the hardware is top notch, as well.

Finally, Vertu will give you free 18 months of Vertu Concierge, a 24/7 real-life personal assistant service, access to Vertu Life for "unrestricted access to elite and invitation-only events" and Vertu CERTAINTY, a way to encrypt all your communications.

Prices for the Signature Touch range from $9900 to $20900 depending on the combo you choose, and will begin shipping on October 16th.

Thanks to infamous leaker Evan Blass (@Evleaks), we have a good look at HTC's iPhone clone, the One A9.

The device will sell in six colors, including rose gold, garnet, 'acid gold' and a few silver/gray variants.

As rumored, the HTC One A9 will have a 5-inch 1080p AMOLED, run on a Snapdragon 617 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, dual 4MP/13MP cameras, a 2150mAh battery, a microSD slot, a fingerprint reader and a metal body.

John McAfee, the developer of the first commercial anti-virus program (McAfee), and current U.S Presidential hopeful, had some grim words about the future of the U.S. and its lack of preparedness for the inevitable 'cyberwar' that will hit all nations.

As the nominee for the newly created 'Cyber Party,' McAfee is building a run around a platform of helping bring cyber security to the U.S. and especially the government.

Here is is speech in full:

Instagram has announced that the service now has 400 million users, with a good majority coming from outside the U.S.

The company says 75 percent of users live outside the U.S. and over 50 percent of the last 100 million to join the service are from Europe and Asia. Additionally, Brazil, Japan and Indonesia were among the largest new users of the app.

"Instagrammers continue to capture incredible photos and videos from all corners of the earth (and even the solar system). We've seen inspiring moments like the first surface image of Pluto and Champions League celebrations, as well as striking locales like the white pools of Turkey and a Namibian desert ghost town. These are just a few of the more than 80 million photos per day shared on Instagram," says the company.

Instagram has been actively updating its service in the past year, adding new filters, different photo viewing modes, and better video support.

Edward Snowden believes he has answered the Fermi paradox: Encryption.

Why, with such a vast universe that has been around for billions of years, has no alien entity been able to send any signal to us? Snowden suggests, in an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson, that alien signals are too well encrypted to be distinguished from random noise.

"When you look at encrypted communications, if they are properly encrypted, there is no real way to tell that they are encrypted. You can't distinguish a properly encrypted communication, at least in the theoretical sense, from random noise," added Snowden. "So if you have an alien civilization trying to listen for other civilizations, or our civilization trying to listen for aliens, there's only one small period in the development of their society where all of their communications will be sent via the most primitive and most unprotected means."

"When we think about everything we're hearing from our satellites, or everything they're hearing from our civilization, if there are indeed aliens out there, all of their communications are encrypted by default. So what we're hearing -- which is actually an alien television show or a phone call or a message between their planet and their own GPS constellation, whatever it happens to be -- is indistinguishable to us from cosmic microwave background radiation."

Apple has announced this week that iOS 9 is the fastest adoption of the operating system yet, with 50 percent of devices already having installed it.

"Customer response to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus has been incredibly positive, we can't wait to get our most advanced iPhones ever into customers' hands starting this Friday," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "iOS 9 is also off to an amazing start, on pace to be downloaded by more users than any other software release in Apple's history."

iOS 9 improved Siri, added better encryption for user privacy, transit information in Apple Maps, updated News and Notes apps and more intelligent search.

Christopher Poole, the founder of anonymous message board 4chan, has sold the company to another pioneer in the anonymous destination community.

Poole, who started the site in 2003, has sold 4chan to Hiroyuki Nishimura, the founder of 2Channel - an early anonymous board based on anime and the Japanese culture.

"Hiroyuki is literally the only person in the world with as much if not more experience than myself in running an anonymous, large destination community that serves tens of millions of people," Poole noted. "He's the great-grandfather of all of this."

While 4chan is popular, it has never reached the popularity of sites like reddit, which are worth millions and have been gravitating towards becoming real businesses while 4chan has admittedly remained more of a hobby site.

Nishimura, for his part, was very happy to own the site. "I'm proud to be taking Mr. Poole's place as the owner of 4chan. I've long admired 4chan's place on the web as a producer of anonymous and Internet culture, and look forward to continuing to grow and develop the site and support the community."

The venture-capital backed 21 Inc. startup has released their first product, 'The 21 Bitcoin Computer,' a Linux-based hardware that incorporates the bitcoin protocol directly into the operating system.

21 Inc. wants to make bitcoin into a standard feature of all web services, and the company says the new computer is aimed at developers rather than consumers.

The 21 Inc Bitcoin Computer's OS will "full copy of bitcoin's code and related software that will allow developers to make bitcoin a core feature of the products they build." Additionally, it has a built in chip that is linked to 21's own mining pool, allowing for bitcoin to come to the user.

21's CEO Balaji Srinivasan expects developers to create services that can be monetized in bitcoin. "The utility of bitcoin up until this point has been the speculation value," Mr. Srinivasan added. "We have a new, pretty strong use case for bitcoin."

The computer goes on sale in November for $399.