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Free open source alterinative to Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, has been updated to v6.1. The office productivity suite was originally born as a spin-off project from OpenOffice suite. Both, OpenOffice and LibreOffice resembled each other quite a lot for many years, but since then, LibreOffice has become the de facto open source office suite for many users and vendors.

The new LibreOffice v6.1 is mostly a minor improvement over v6.0 branch, but has interesting changes in it. Most importantly, the image management system of the entire suite has been revamped and is now easier and smoother to use, especially when editing files originally created in Microsoft Office.

So, if you're looking for a free Microsoft Office compatible suite, you might want to give LibreOffice a test.

You can download the latest version directly from AfterDawn's software section:

LibreOffice v6.1 for Windows (64-bit)

LibreOffice v6.1 for Windows (32-bit)

LibreOffice v6.1 for Mac OS X

Snap was once perhaps the hottest prospects in the messaging startup game but they've fallen quite a bit from their perceived glory. Now they've once again been trusted with hundreds of millions of foreign investments.

Thanks to Facebook, and others, who've been copying Snapchat's innovative features, and surpassing them in other ways, Snapchat has been struggling to stay relevant and afloat. A $353 million net loss previous quarter is just one of the signs of the waning platform.

Fortunately now Saudi prince Al-Waleed Talal has put forth $250 million to acquire 2.3% stake in the company.

Snap is nowadays known not only from its self-destructive messages, and AR filters called World Lenses that were released last year, but also social media sunglasses, 2016 launched Spectacles, that were revamped earlier this year.

Snapchat has currently just under 200 million users while Facebook-owned Instagram has recently surpassed a billion users according to Statista.

Perhaps the most hyped Virtual, and by Virtual I mean Augmented, Reality headset, Magic Leap, ever has been released to the public. However, the Microsoft HoloLens -like AR headset is by no means everybody's entertainment device, for few reasons.

Magic Leap can be now ordered in six cities in the United States: Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco and Seattle. But even if you live in one of these places, the price might put you off. See, the price for what seems to still be a fairly exclusive product, is $2,295, not including VAT.

If you still want to shell out the cash, you might want to know what you are spending your money on. The hotly anticipated AR device comes in a three pieces with the headset itself being one of them obviously. You also get one touchpad controller as well as the computing part of the operation called the Lightpack.

Included in the Lightpack is Nvidia's Parker mobile CPU, a GPU based on Pascal architecture, eight gigabytes of RAM and 128 GB flash storage. According to the company the battery can run the device for up to 3 hours at a time, which should be more than enough to tire your eyes.

Connectivity-wise Magic Leap supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2 and USB-C.

In a seemingly coordinated manner, multiple platforms have removed content from Alex Jones' Infowars outlet, citing violations of terms of service.

Podcasts and channels from the Infowars outlet disappeared from services run by Apple and Spotify, whilst Alex Jones' personal YouTube account was closed down for "violating community guidelines". Jones' personal Facebook page was also taken down.

According to Facebook, the page was removed for, "glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies."

Spotify explained the removal of podcasts from the Infowars outlet as punishment for, "repeated violations of Spotify's prohibited content policies."

Responding to the coordinated removal of Jones' and Infowars' content, Paul Joseph Watson claimed that the timing of the removal was intended to affect the upcoming midterm elections in the United States.

Facebook bans Infowars. Permanently.

Infowars was widely credited with playing a key role in getting Trump elected.

This is a co-ordinated move ahead of the mid-terms to help Democrats.

This is political censorship.

This is culture war.https://t.co/HkGOdjxhhk

-- Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) August 6, 2018

SpaceX has successfully reused a previously landed Falcon 9 booster based on its final 'Block 5' design.

This is not the first time that SpaceX successfully relaunched a previously flown and landed (or as SpaceX describes them: flight proven) booster, but it is the first time that it landed a Block 5 booster. SpaceX is hoping to reuse Block 5 boosters up to 100 times, and to fly no less than 10 times without the need for maintenance.

Last night, SpaceX launched a commercial satellite to geostationary orbit for Telecom Indonesia. The booster / first stage of the rocket was previously used back in May when SpaceX launched the Bangabandhu Satellite-1 into orbit.

The promise of reflying boosters is to cut launch costs significantly, though initially SpaceX may opt to keep launch costs higher to recoup the significant financial investment into the development of reusable rockets, the development of the Falcon Heavy and the ongoing development of the BFR.

NASA has also announced the first astronauts that will fly to space on a human-rated Dragon capsule from SpaceX. The Crew Dragon will have to pass a couple of test flights before the company will be able to fly humans.

AMD has put their newest, and most powerful, addition to Ryzen Threadripper family of CPUs on pre-order. The chip in question is the 32-core and 64-thread Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX, the first of the WX series, that was unveiled in June.

Now 2990WX is available for pre-order for those looking for a truly top notch multithread processor. The second generation Threadripper chip includes new Zen+ architecture produced with 12 nm process, but its TR4 socket is supported by current X399 motherboards with a BIOS update.

According to AMD, the new Threadripper 2990WX managed to already snatch the record for Cinebench multithread benchmark, although not with default cooling solution, as you might imagine. The CPU normally clocked at 3.0GHz (and boosted at 4.2GHz) was overclocked to 5.1GHz during the test.

While powerful in all kinds of tasks, this specific family of chips is meant mainly for professional use, be it video rendering or other CPU intensive work, where core and thread counts are important. The price tag is telling as well, as not many PC enthusiasts are willing to shell out $1799 for a CPU.

Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX pre-orders are now open and it'll take another week for it to hit the stores on August 13. The cheaper $1299 24-core (and 48-thread) 2970WX will be released next month.

Known for its electric cars, Tesla wouldn't be thought as the first company to develop their own microchips. But obviously Tesla's vehicles are just moving computers, and one of the most important parts of that computer happens to be the brains, the artificial intelligence brains.

It's been actually known for quite some time that Tesla is trying to come up with a more cost-efficient and tailored solution than the current Nvidia chips for its cars. Now the company has confirmed that it will be dropping Nvidia in favor of their proprietary AI chips.

Amidst reporting on quarterly results Elon Musk revealed that the homebrew chip will be introduces during next year. According to the Tesla and Space X visionary, it has been developed from the ground up for Tesla's vehicles and according to their needs.

The new chip will be able to handle all the AI calculations unlike many competing chips that require some form of software emulation. This makes Tesla's chip "an order of magnitude" faster than for example the currently used Nvidia chip.

Tesla chip is also backwards compatible so old vehicles could get an AI performance boost with a chip replacement. However, there's no word what the procedure would cost or when it would be available.

Taiwanese contract chip manufacturer TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) has had to shut down some of its factories after a virus infected its production lines. The world's largest semiconductor manufacturer builds Apple's system-on-chips, including for the upcoming iPhones expected to be released next month.

According to Bloomberg, TSMC was hit by a virus that crippled some of the company's factories. TMSC representatives have denied that the systems were compromised by a hacker but there is currently no explanation how the virus entered the systems.

For TSMC the timing is horrible, since it is currently trying to crank out as many Apple chips as possible for its most important customer before the release of upcoming iPhones.

The company did not, however, disclose if the affected factories were producing chips for iPhones and what kind of financial damage was inflicted by the virus. As the investigation matures TSMC hopes to answer more questions after the weekend.

Some factories are already back to normal but others with more severe problems are expected to take at least until Sunday to reboot.

Apple removed the headphone jack from iPhones almost two years ago with the release of iPhone 7. Whether it was at the time a brave move, as they spun it, or just a silly design choice it up to you.

However, $1 trillion Cupertino giant is not backing away from the strategy, rumors suggest. They plan to move further away from wired headphones towards a truly wireless future.

Barclays research team has been suggesting since early this year that Apple will be getting rid of the headphone jack dongle from the next iPhone. Now Cirrus Logic, a supplier for the headphone adapter, has all but confirmed to Barclays that this indeed is the case, MacRumors reports.

Apple is expected to release three new iPhone models next month, all of which are likely to not have headphone jack. Now users with traditional wired headphones might have to shell out some extra cash to use their preferred audio equipment.

The adapter isn't fortunately too expensive, currently at $9, and many of the current or previous generation iPhone users already have one adapter, but it is surely going to stir up some controvery if indeed Apple decides to exclude it from the retail box.

A couple years ago Nintendo released what seemed like a silly promotional product, a mini version of the good old Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES.

After NES Classic other companies followed suit, including Atari (although their approach is way different), but it was the NES Classic with the strong lineup of classic retro games that caught all the attention. So much so that it was sold out almost immediately.

Huge demand meant that the prices rose to ridiculous amounts in the second-hand market. Now, two years later, the NES Classic is back and the supply has been far better.

The demand is still there which is proven by the fact that according to market research firm NPD it has outsold all other consoles, including the current generation favorites Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.

This even though NES Classic was only sold for a few days during the analyzed period (June 2018). Of course one has to remember that NES Classic costs $59 while the others go for several hundreds.

So as the tweet by NPD analyst Mat Piscatella below shows, NES Classic outsold PS4 by unit numbers but not in dollar sales. If you want to know more about the numbers of both software and hardware sales head to Twitter and read the thread.

Apple has reached new heights that no company before it has reached. Cupertino-based tech giant closed the day yesterday with a share price of $207.39 which means it surpassed the magical and revolutionary (add other Apple-like superlatives) $1 trillion market cap.

Who would've guessed that making iPhones is such a good business model? Or as someone put it, buying low and selling high seems to pay off. Joking aside, Apple has done something no company has managed and to celebrate Tim Cook sent a memo to Apple employees reiterating what is important.

According to the note Apple's number one priority is customer. While people should be excited and happy about the milestone, they should remember that it is just a measurement of success in one, albeit super tangible, respect.

Obviously Cook knew the memo would be read by many outside the company and promoting a view that customer always comes first is good for the business in the long run. Not surprisingly Steve Jobs gets a mention as the visionary founder who instilled Apple with the values it holds.

And here's the letter Apple CEO Tim Cook sent to company's employees after hitting the historic milestone:

Team,

Today Apple passed a significant milestone. At our closing share price of $207.39, the stock market now values Apple at more than $1 trillion. While we have much to be proud of in this achievement, it's not the most important measure of our success. Financial returns are simply the result of Apple's innovation, putting our products and customers first, and always staying true to our values.

A recent update to the mega-popular CCleaner tool prompted backlash from long-term users as privacy options disappeared and other problems arose.

Recently acquired by Avast, CCleaner was updated to v5.45.6611 with some noticeable changes. In the free version of the app, Privacy settings were removed from the options meaning users could no longer opt-out of sending usage information. Another noted issue is that it seems impossible to close the application through normal means.

When you click the X in the top right hand corner of the app, CCleaner minimizes to the system tray on the taskbar, which is not unusual behavior. What is unusual is that right-clicking on the CCleaner icon in the system tray no longer provided the option to exit CCleaner.

This could be because of a shift in the way the developers want CCleaner to be used. In the new version, it seems much more difficult to disable Active Monitoring. Many CCleaner users may only use it to clear out browser history and temporary files every now and then. Active Monitoring will keep an eye on the accumulation of junk and other data and prompt users to run the cleaner routinely.

In order to disable it in the latest version, users apparently need to toggle off "Enable system monitoring," and then turn off Active Monitoring later. The problem users are having is that it toggles itself back on after restarting the app or rebooting.

According to a report by The Intercept, Google has been working on a version of its search engine that would comply with Chinese censorship laws.

It cited internal Google documents and inside sources in reporting on Dragonfly, a project that would omit results from websites including terms like "human rights" and "religion." The Reuters News Agency and Agence France-Presse both confirmed the initial report from their own separate sources.

A Google spokesperson provided a brief statement on the report without confirmation of denial.

"We provide a number of mobile apps in China, such as Google Translate and Files Go, help Chinese developers, and have made significant investments in Chinese companies like JD.com," the statement said. "But we don't comment on speculation about future plans."

The report cites Android apps called Maotai and Longfei that have been developed and could be launched within months if approved by the Chinese government.

Securities Daily, with is a state-owned outlet, dismissed the report citing "relevant departments" in reporting that Google is not preparing a return to the Chinese market.

Plex has taken Podcasts out of beta with the addition of several new requested features to improve the podcast experience.

You can now easily download your favorite podcasts so you will be able to listen to them when you don't have connectivity, such as during a long commute. You can download single episodes with a single tap or set up a smart rule to make sure you have enough episodes of podcasts that you'll need. You can with a couple of taps download the latest 5 episodes, or you could just opt to download all.

If you are migrating to Plex for your podcast needs, you can also now import your podcast subscriptions using an OPML import feature. The OPML format is supported by most podcast apps (e.g. Apple Podcasts), so this makes it much easier to migrate all of your subscriptions at once with a few steps on iOS, Android or on the web.

Additionally, Plex lets you listen to your podcasts on Sonos speakers, through Android Auto or on Chromecast-connected devices.

More info: www.plex.tv

A Seattle judge has halted the planned release of designs for 3D printed guns that were due to go on sale to consumers on Wednesday.

Defense Distributed was to start selling 3D gun designs to customers based on a prior settlement reached with the federal government. However, U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik has granted a temporary restraining order at he request of eight state attorneys general and D.C.

President Donald Trump had addressed the issue in a tweet on Tuesday, writing: "I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public. Already spoke to NRA, doesn't seem to make much sense!"

At the center of the controversy is uncertainty over the implications of the First and Second Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said that the President "will continue to look at all options available to us to do what is necessary to protect Americans while also supporting the First and Second amendments."

In response to statements made by Democrats about the settlement between the federal government and Defense Distributed, Gidley noted that it is illegal to own or to produce a wholly plastic gun under the law, and that the President supports the law as it stands.