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Sony has released the first trailer for the PlayStation Plus's exclusive original series, entitled "Powers."

Powers "tells the story of homicide detectives Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim, who are ordinary detectives working on cases that just so happen to involve people with extraordinary powers. As we speak, the show is filming in Atlanta under the showrunning genius of Charlie Huston, the critically acclaimed crime novelist" reads the PS blog.

The drama is based on a graphic novel of the same name.

Netflix has been incredibly successful with their original programming while Microsoft has failed to create a memorable show for the Xbox. It will be interesting to see how Sony fairs, but given their fanbase there seems to be an above average chance of success.

Microsoft has announced that over 1 million consumers have registered to be part of the Windows Insider program that allows for earlier beta testing of the upcoming Windows 10 operating system.

Says the software giant: "Over the weekend, we hit 1 million registrants for the Windows Insider Program. That equates to a lot of people using the Windows 10 Technical Preview and sending us feedback. How much feedback? Over 200,000 pieces of user-initiated feedback have been submitted to us via the Windows Feedback app from Windows Insiders like you."

Of course, this doesn't necessarily equate to 1 million users actually downloading the OS to test, but Microsoft's Joe Belfiore says a significant portion have. Of note, 36 percent of users have tried the OS's Technical Preview in a virtual machine, while the rest have actually installed it on a hard drive.

Many of the testers are using the OS for more than just a simple test here and there, with 68 percent launching at least 7 apps per day and 25 percent launching at least 26 apps per day.

The team behind the popular Popcorn Time software has returned with a vengeance, just days after their domain was taken down.

According to the team, the domain was taken down due to a legal investigation in Belgium, without any prior notice.

Reads the email from the team:

THIS WILL NOT BRING POPCORN TIME DOWN!! We are writing you this to tell you that we are back with a new domain:

http://popcorn-time.se/

And to send a message to those who are trying to take us down, that not only will Popcorn Time live forever (!!!) but it will, as we promised all along, change the world of online movie watching and will make anonymity an inseparable part of this world.

This is our vision, and our fulfilling this vision after this attack, will be the sweetest revenge of all.

This is only the beginning for us. It's not over till the fat lady sings and there are no fat ladies around here!!!

The Raspberry Pi continues its success, selling scale that was never expected by its founding team when the computer board went on sale in 2012.

Sales are now in excess of 3.8 million, with the microcomputer expected to hit 4 million sales before the end of the year. The Pi Foundation said in 2012 that they did not expect to sell over 10,000 boards during the lifetime of the microcomputer, so the sales are incredible and ongoing.

Over the summer, the company upgraded the board for the first time in years, releasing the B+, adding more USB ports and expanding the amount of GPIO pins. The RAM was also increased.

Netflix has confirmed that subscribers that want access to 4K streaming content will have to pay $11.99 per month for their subscription, a large increase from the standard pricing.

Subscribers who signed up before May 9th, 2014 pay $7.99 per month for access to the streaming catalog including HD, while those who signed up after pay $8.99. If you were already signed up for 4K, you will be grandfathered in until August 12th, 2016.

Netflix has the most 4K content available to consumers, and recently just added the hit show The Blacklist and the kid-friendly Smurfs 2 to the list. What else is great about the plan is it allows 4 devices to play simultaneously, compared to just 2 for the standard plan.

Currently, the company requires you to have a minimum of 25 Mbps download speed, and a 4K TV from a limited list from Samsung, LG, Sony, and Vizio. The content may not be worth the extra $4 to some, as the only content available now are Breaking Bad, the latest season of original series House of Cards, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters 2, a nature documentary and the aforementioned Blacklist and The Smurfs 2.

(Pic via FPHD)

As always, if we see a decent deal we like to post it here for our readers, and once again it looks like the Sony PlayStation 4 is on sale ahead of the holidays.

Available through BuyDig via eBay (meaning possibly no sales tax for some states), the console is available for $360, discounted off its standard $399 price tag.

The console remains the most popular of the current-gen, beating out rival Microsoft Xbox One on a monthly basis.

Check out the deal here: eBay

Google has launched a new Chromebooks for Work subscription service for enterprises that want to use the Chrome OS-based Internet-connected notebooks and also receive access to Google's Chrome OS management features and technical support.

There are a couple of different options for businesses looking for the management features. You can either pay $150 upfront for access, or you can choose to subscribe for $50 per year per device. If a business has a longer-term (3-5 years) replacement cycle, the upfront payment option could work best, although you cannot transfer licenses to any other Chrome OS device except one of the same model. The subscription allows you to transfer the license to any Chrome OS device.

As expected, the annual licensing is only available for Chrome for Work customers, and not schools or other educational institutions.

Crunch also explained some of the new features of the enterprise support. "The most important new feature for many of the businesses that want to adopt Chromebooks is likely support for single sign-on. With this, enterprises can use their existing sign-on service like CA SiteMinder, Microsoft AD FS, Okta, Ping Identity, SecureAuth, and SimpleSAMLphp (basically, services that use the SAML standard) to allow their employees to log in to their Chromebooks now. With this update, businesses can now also easily provision their devices with client certificates for accessing 802.1X EAP-TLS wireless networks and mutual TLS-protected web resources. Admins can use Google's management console to manage these certificates and distribute them to their users. Aruba Networks, Cloudpath Networks and Aerohive Networks have already implemented these features."

New Google head of social media Dave Besbris has denounced rumors that Google+ could be getting downsized in light of the abrupt departure of former boss Vic Gundotra.

"We're the largest we've ever been," Besbris said. "We're actually very happy with the progress of Google+, [Larry Page] said this at the time that Vic transitioned that he's going to continue working on building this stuff, that he's very happy with it. The company is behind it."

The interview is longer and has some nice tidbits, but mainly, Besbris has made it clear that there are "pre-conceived notions" about the social network that Google is fighting to remove. In the past, Google forced users to sign up for Google+ just to be able to access more important services (like Gmail, Drive, etc) but now "I only want people to use the software when they want to use the software," added Besbris.

Google+ remains a requirement for commenting on YouTube videos, but you no longer need to have your real name attached to the account. Using Hangouts also does not require Google+ anymore.

As is standard every few months, Sony has scheduled PlayStation Network maintenance in which many services will be unavailable.

In North America, the maintenance is scheduled from 10 AM to 5 PM PST on October 13 and in Europe from 6 PM BST until 1 AM BST on Tuesday, October 14.

Sony listed all the services that will be down during the maintenance time:

PlayStation Store on all devices
PlayStation Network Account Management
PlayStation Network Account Registration
Entertainment services
Online gameplay

Google will unveil their massive Nexus 6 in the coming weeks, says the WSJ, seemingly confirming weeks of rumors and leaks from Android-based media.

Built by Motorola, the Nexus 6 (codename Shamu for the giant killer whale) will have a 5.9-inch QHD screen, larger than even the iPhone 6 Plus and the Samsung Galaxy Note.

Design-wise the device will be similar to the newly released Moto X, and it will include a large 3200 mAh battery, dual 2MP/13MP cameras and will work with Motorola's turbo charging. Moto says just 15 minutes of charging will give you "8 hours" of life, although it is unclear if that means standby time.

There is little else known about the phone's specs except that it will launch with Android 5.0 Lemon Meringue Pie.

Xbox One owners who don't want the digital download - your wait is over: Minecraft is almost ready for retail shelves.

The physical disc will be available for $19.99 in stores starting November 18th, and just like with the downloadable copy, you can transfer your Xbox 360 data over to the current-gen console.

Last month, Microsoft acquired Minecraft maker Mojang for over $2 billion, promising to keep the game available on all major consoles and operating systems, and adding new Xbox One and Windows Phone versions.

According to a Mojang dev, the company was already working on the port for Windows Phone, even before the major acquisition. Tommaso Checchi tweeted some photos of the "Pocket Edition" of the game listed in the app menu of his Lumia 635. Notably, that phone only has 512MB RAM, so the game should work on all Windows Phone 8 devices.

Added the dev: "Btw, here's another reason we've been pretty busy... The port is in the first stages though. It's kind of slow now and needs optimization, so in full Mojang style the release date is "soon"™. And nobody forced/threatened us if you're wondering! Actually, we started before the whole Microsoft thing :)"

Likely, the game is a few months away, but Windows Phones and Minecraft fans have something to look forward to.

HTC has released its rumored action camera, the "Re," its first device outside of the wireless mobile arena.

The waterproof camera will rival the GoPro Hero line, and will help HTC move away from its reliance on smartphone sales, which have been weak for the company for years now, including 12 quarters of declining sales.

With its strange design and a single wide-angle lens with 16MP sensor, HTC says the device is for consumers that may not be going on as crazy adventures as GoPro users. The device also has built-in Wi-Fi for quick uploading and live streaming to YouTube through a partnership with Google.

"This is the first time we have introduced something significant beyond the smartphone, and we want to see a continuation of that," Chief Financial Officer and head of global sales Chang Chialin.

At $200, the Re is significantly more expensive than the new entry-level GoPro Hero, but also half the price of the high-end GoPro Black4. It will be available via the major U.S. carriers, Best Buy, HTC's own site and eventually through Amazon and other retailers.

E-commerce behemoth Amazon will open their first ever physical store location this holiday season.

The pop-up store will be right near the Empire State Building in New York City, in a prime tourist area for the busy holiday months.

Reports say the store will act as a "mini-warehouse, with limited inventory for same-day delivery within New York, product returns and exchanges, and pickups of online orders." This gives the potential for a customer to order in the morning and pick up their item later that same day with just a quick train ride.

Most likely, Amazon will also showcase their Kindle hardware, allowing customers to actually try them out like Apple does in-store.

One thing is clear from the reports, however: Amazon is using the store as an experiment and their is no big plan to open retail shops around the U.S. Depending on the success, their could eventually be a rollout.

Source:
WSJ

Evan Spiegel, CEO and founder of Snapchat has confirmed that the service will be getting ads in the near future.

Speaking at a summit, Spiegel said "People are going to see the first ads on Snapchat soon. We think they're pretty cool."


The ads will integrate into Snapchat's Stories feature, but users can opt out of seeing them. The ads should not show up when sending normal messages to each other. Stories is a feature that lets users send snaps to fill out event "stories" like a football game or party. It is likely that companies can find targeted stories to place ads in.

Spiegel also confirmed that the ads would not be targeted by user using personal data.