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Tesla on Monday confirmed that it’ll soon be doing away with one of its biggest perks – complementary access to its vast network of Supercharger battery recharging stations. As it stands today, all Tesla owners have unlimited access to the automaker’s more than 4,600 speedy Superchargers which makes free, cross-country travel possible. If you live or work near a recharging station, you can just as easily pop in and top off your vehicle’s batteries, thus not having to spend a single dime on electricity to power your vehicle. Come next year, however, that won’t be the case for some buyers. Customers that order a Tesla after January 1, 2017, will no longer have free, unlimited access to Superchargers. Current owners and those that place an order before the first of the year will not be impacted (so long as delivery is taken before April 1, 2017. Moving forward, customers that order or take delivery outside of this window will instead receive 400 kWh of free Supercharging credits (roughly 1,000 miles) annually. Beyond that, Tesla says there will be a small fee to use its Supercharger stations that’ll be charged incrementally and cost less than the price to fill up a comparable vehicle with gasoline. The electric automaker said in June that its upcoming Model 3 sedan wouldn’t receive free, unlimited access to its Supercharger network. Tesla didn’t publish full details of the program, instead opting to do so later this year. The company did say, however, that pricing may fluctuate over time and vary regionally based on the cost of electricity. Either way, Tesla doesn’t see its Supercharger network as a tool to generate profit. Some will no doubt criticize Elon Musk and company for eliminating the perk but with more than 160,000 Tesla vehicles already on the road and at least twice as many Model 3 reservations in queue, continuing to offer the benefit would simply be untenable over the long haul without further cutting into the company's bottom line.

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Samsung really wants people to forget about its exploding Note 7s (and washing machines). The Korean company believes the best way to do this is by looking forward to its next generation of smartphones: the Galaxy S8. On Sunday, the firm said the upcoming handset would feature an all-new virtual assistant to rival the likes of Siri and Cortana. It was only last month when Samsung purchased Viv Labs, a startup co-founded by the team that created Siri. The company will be integrating its newly acquired artificial intelligence platform into the next iteration of the Galaxy S series. Reuters reports that Samsung hasn’t revealed many details about what services the virtual assistant will offer, though it did say it will feature third-party integration. "Developers can attach and upload services to our agent," said Samsung Executive Vice President Rhee Injong. As noted by Engadget, it’s unusual for Samsung to talk about an upcoming handset’s features so far in advance. The company usually tries to build up hype through component announcements but, after an awful 2016, Samsung needs the Galaxy S8 to be a huge success, and hopes revealing its abilities at this early stage will help give the phone a strong launch. Samsung traditionally unveils new Galaxy S handsets at Mobile World Congress in February/March, but the Wall Street Journal claims that the S8 reveal could be pushed back this year. Development of the new smartphone was reportedly delayed by two weeks while Samsung tried to discover the cause of the Note 7 battery fires. Samsung’s smartphones already feature a voice-activated assistant – S Voice – but its abilities are limited. With Viv, the company believes it will be able to compete with AIs from Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon. "Our Galaxy smartphones don't provide services that enable consumers to order pizza or coffee, but does provide third party applications. But the new AI platform will enable consumers to do things that they would usually do through a separate third-party application," Samsung said in a statement.

Adobe at its recent MAX 2016 conference for creative professionals demonstrated an experimental technology that’s sure to stir up its fair share of controversy. Known internally as VoCo and currently in development with Princeton University, the technology in question can be best described as Photoshop for audio. As Adobe developer Zeyu Jin showcases in the clip above, you can rearrange the order of spoken words and literally put words in someone’s mouth to make it sound as if they said something that never actually happened. The current iteration of the technology needs roughly 20 minutes of dialog from a person in order to recreate their voice. Given the proliferation of audiobooks, podcasts, vlogs and so on, finding enough material to feed the program – especially if the target is a celebrity, public figure or social media influencer – would be trivial. It’s easy to imagine how technology of this nature could be used in all sorts of unethical or nefarious manners but according to Jin, the development team has researched how to prevent forgery (likening it to watermarking for images). As for legitimate uses, Adobe said in a companion blog post that when doing voiceover, dialogue and narration work, it’d be nice to have the option to edit or insert a few words without the hassle of recreating the recording environment or bringing the artist back in for a follow-up session. Adobe hasn’t yet said when or even if the technology will one day make its way into a consumer-facing product. If it does, however, we’ll have to condition ourselves to be skeptical of any audio we listen to (just as we do today with images thanks to Photoshop).

Graphically speaking, hardware from the 8-bit era of gaming can’t hold a candle to what modern silicon is capable of but that doesn’t necessarily mean decades-old games were easier to beat. Indeed, one could argue that games of yesteryear presented even greaterchallenges due to the simple fact that tips, tricks and cheat codes weren’t nearly as accessible as they are today. In those days, you had to turn to friends or family members, gaming magazines or dedicated cheating hardware like the Game Genie or Pro Action Replay for help. Nintendo gamers, however, had an additional option that was just a phone call away. A quick call to the Nintendo Power Line would put gamers in touch with a Game Play Counselor that would help them get through tricky stages, locate hidden items or defeat tough enemies (for a substantial fee, of course). In lieu of computers, counselors had on hand actual binders full of screenshots, tips and codes as well as a vast collection of hardware and games allowing them to jump into the action and experience what the caller was going through on their end. The Power Line was eventually shuttered as the Internet rendered it useless but for millions of gamers of a certain age, it’ll forever hold a place in their hearts. Soon (and for a limited time), you’ll get to experience it all over again (or perhaps for the first time). In celebration of the upcoming launch of its NES Classic Edition system, Nintendo is bringing back the Power Line for three days only (November 11-13). Announced in July, the NES Classic Edition is a miniature replica of the company’s beloved mid-80s Nintendo Entertainment System. Rather than accepting original game cartridges, it’ll come pre-loaded with 30 of the all-time greatest NES games including Castlevania, Double Dragon II, Excitebike, Metroid, Punch-Out!!, Super Mario Bros. 1-3 and The Legend of Zelda, just to name a few. During launch weekend, anyone that finds themselves puzzled by one of the Classic Edition’s 30 games is invited to call the Power Line between the hours of 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. Pacific at (425) 885-7529 (that’s even the same phone number as the original Power Line save for the area code). Unfortunately, the revived Power Line won’t be manned by actual counselors. Callers will have to make do with recorded tips although Nintendo says there will be behind-the-scenes stories from original Nintendo Game Play Counselors (that alone may be worth a call for some). Nintendo didn’t mention whether or not it’ll charge for the temporary service. The NES Classic Edition arrives on November 11 priced at $59.99 and includes a replica NES controller as well as an HDMI cable and power cable.

GoPro has announced its Q3 2016 earnings, and, like every other one of its quarters this year, the news isn’t good. The wearable camera and drone maker missed analysts estimates by a huge margin, causing shares to plummet more than 22 percent. GoPro posted sales of $240.5 million for the last quarter, marking a 40 percent decrease from the $400 million it generated during the same period last year. It also reported a loss of 60 cents a share. Wall Street was expecting $316 million in sales and a much smaller loss of 35 cents per share. GoPro has lost $84 million in the last three months, a 330 percent YoY fall. The company’s stock trading was halted before the results were released, but the share price fell so much in after-hours trading that almost $250 million was wiped off the value of the company. GoPro’s stock has been declining steadily since last summer, and has fallen around 56 percent this year. The company issued fourth-quarter revenue estimates of between $600 million and $650 million, which seems optimistic given its recent results. Analysts, however, were expecting more - $675 million. Sales forecasts for the year have also been lowered, down to between $1.25 billion and $1.3 billion from previous estimates of $1.35 billion to $1.5 billion. Despite the disastrous results, company founder and CEO Nick Woodman remains positive. He said the company’s main problem is with production – it apparently can’t make enough products, especially the Hero 5 Black cameras and Karma drones, to keep up with consumer demands. Both devices were released in October, so their sales aren’t taken into account in the Q3 report. Woodman added that he expects his company to start making money again next year. "Looking forward to 2017, we expect to return to profitability, driven by the strength of our new products, double-digit revenue growth and annual operating expenses of approximately $650 million," he said.

Google said on Friday that Sprint will be the first domestic wireless provider to adopt Rich Communication Services (RCS), an upgrade to the aging Short Message Service (SMS) standard. RCS enables a host of enhancements not possible over SMS including high-resolution photo and video sharing, confirmation that a recipient has read your message, group chat and freedom from that annoying 160 character limit. RCS isn’t exactly a new concept (it was conceived in 2007 with the initial release pushed out in 2012) nor are the features it delivers. Roughly a decade ago, the wireless landscape looked nothing like it does today. Wireless carriers, which for years had made their money selling service plans that focused on metered talk minutes, were now marketing unlimited text messaging as their key perk. It wasn’t long before services like BlackBerry Messenger and Apple’s iMessage came along, offering users a way to circumvent carrier texting and rendering SMS-focused service plans useless. As additional third-party messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger emerged over the years, SMS more or less fell by the wayside. As mentioned, RCS has been around for years with several carriers including AT&T and T-Mobile having launched apps based on the technology under various names. What Google is looking to do now, however, is get everyone on the same page by baking support for RCS into the standard Android Messenger app… or at least, that seems to be the goal. As The Verge highlights, Messenger is just one of the three messaging apps that Google ships on its Pixel phones (Allo for consumers, Messenger for carriers and Hangouts for enterprise). Google says that come next year, all new Android devices from Sprint will come with Messenger for Android pre-loaded as the default SMS and RCS messaging experience. Those currently using select LG and Nexus phones from Sprint will have their messaging experience upgraded automatically via app update. Furthermore, those using other Android devices can grab the Messenger app from the Play Store should they so choose. One can’t help but wonder if this unifying tactic is too little, too late. Third-party apps like those mentioned above already have massive user bases and advanced features like end-to-end encryption. As of this past February, for example, WhatsApp said it had more than a billion active monthly users. I’m struggling to see how a carrier messaging app is going to gain much headway in an already crowded and established market but I digress. The search giant said it looks forward to launching RCS with more partners in the coming months.

Microsoft is set to make Windows updates a lot smaller through the Unified Update Platform (UUP), a new update delivery system that's being trialed in the latest Windows 10 Insider Preview builds ahead of a public launch next year. The Unified Update Platform's big advantage is differential downloads. When an update is available for your Windows 10 device, UUP will create a download package that only includes the changes since you last updated, instead of downloading an entire build. Microsoft expects this will lead to a 35 percent reduction in download size for major Windows updates. UUP also includes efficiency improvements so that less update data is sent to devices, and less processing is required for each update. This should lead to a faster update process and faster update checks. This new system is entirely under-the-hood, meaning there will be no major functionality changes to Windows Update itself. However, bandwidth reduction is a big deal for people with limited data caps, and performance improvements will reduce some of the frustrations associated with the slow Windows Update process. UUP is being deployed first in Insider Preview builds for mobile devices, and will hit PC, IoT and HoloLens builds later this year. The general public can expect to see these improvements in the Windows 10 Creators Update, which is scheduled to launch in March 2017. The only platform that won't be getting UUP is the Xbox One, due to the use of a different update delivery mechanism.

Last month, users of EVGA’s GTX 1060, 1070, and 1080 graphics cards reported that the GPUs were overheating so much that some of them caught fire. The company has now issued a VBIOS update that it hopes will solve the problem. Both Reddit and EVGA’s forums have been inundated with complaints from users of the affected cards, who report that their PCs are suddenly switching off as the GPU temperatures reach excessively high levels. In some cases, cards would emit smoke and shoot out flames. Tom’s Hardware Germany found that one GTX 1080 reached 114 degrees Celsius (237 degrees Fahrenheit) when running the FurMark stress test. Here’s a list of all affected cards. It was discovered that the problem lies with the cards’ voltage regulation modules (VRM) overheating due to the insufficient cooling coming from EVGA’s custom ACX 3.0 cooler. The company’s video BIOS update will increase the default fan speeds to reduce the VRM temperatures. “This update resolves the potential thermal issues that have been reported, and ensures the card maintains safe operating temperatures,” said EVGA. Every one of its cards shipped after November 1 runs the updated VBIOS by default. EVGA is also installing VRM thermal pads in all its new GPUs and is offering 10-series owners free thermal pad kits from its website. If you don’t want to install the thermal mod yourself, just send the card to EVGA and the company will do it for you. For those who would prefer a brand new card, EVGA says it will honor its full warranty on the affected GPUs. Its Standard Cross-Ship RMA means users will receive a new card before returning the defective one. You are required to pay the full cost of the replacement, but this is refunded shortly after EVGA receives your old GPU.

Microsoft’s most recent hardware offerings may be the talk of the town but things aren’t quite as peachy on the software side according to NetMarketShare. A quick look at the market share analytics firm’s desktop web browser trends must be quite alarming if you're Microsoft. Dating back to at least last December, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been ceding users at a steady (and rapid) pace. Digging in deeper, we see that Internet Explorer held 46.32 percent of the desktop browser market in December 2015. As of this past October, that figure has almost exactly been cut in half, down to just 23.13 percent. With Microsoft’s Edge only gaining a 2.47 percent share over the past year and Firefox and Safari more or less remaining flat, where exactly are all of Internet Explorer’s former users going? Over to Google’s Chrome browser. During the same span, Chrome’s market share went from 32.33 percent all the way up to 54.99 percent. That’s a mighty impressive 70.09 percent uptick. Microsoft’s combined market share (Internet Explorer + Edge) sits at 28.39 percent as of October. It’s hard to put actual user figures behind the percentages but Computerworld has taken a stab at it. Using NetMarketShare’s data for browser and operating system user share in addition to Microsoft’s claim that roughly 1.5 billion PCs worldwide run Windows, the publication estimates that IE and Edge have lost around 331 million users since the beginning of 2016. As always, keep in mind that these are market share estimates from a single analytics firm so take them with a grain of salt.

Video-sharing website Vimeo is looking to take on the likes of Amazon, Netflix and YouTube with a consumer-facing subscription service of its own. The Hollywood Reporter points to a recent shareholder letter from IAC CEO and interim Vimeo chief Joey Levin in which he pitches the idea for the service (Vimeo is one of the many companies IAC owns). In the letter, Levin says Vimeo has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to, following in Netflix’s footsteps, deliver compelling subscription viewing experiences for consumers in the market for pay TV. The main differentiator between Vimeo and all others in the over-the-top market is that unlike others that have to start from scratch, Levin says they will begin with more than a billion monthly video views, 115 million videos available, 240 million monthly viewers and millions of customers that have already purchased content from a Vimeo creator on their platform. Levin acknowledged that they’ll face stiff competition but their reputation as a one-stop shop for creators to bypass the entire existing media infrastructure will allow them to stand out among the crowd. What’s more, unlike other platforms that focus on building celebrities and influencers, Vimeo has loads of behind-the-camera talent (emerging filmmakers, editors and directors) known for turning out top-notch content. One example is High Maintenance, a title that originated on Vimeo and was recently picked up by HBO. The executive didn’t provide any details as to how much its subscription service will cost or what all it’ll include.

Just why does Apple love removing long-used ports from its products? It seems the outcry that followed the disappearance of the headphone jack from the iPhone 7 had no effect on the Cupertino company; it dropped most of the standard ports from the new MacBook Pro, including the SD card slot, yet kept the laptop's 3.5mm jack. Speaking during an interview with The Independent, Phil Schiller, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, explained the thinking behind axing the SD slot. He called the decision a “bold move” - similar to how removing the latest iPhone’s headphone jack took “courage.” It seems the two main reasons behind the slot’s removal were because it is “cumbersome” and there are an increasing number of cameras that use wireless transfer technology. While Schiller has a point about more cameras using wireless, there are still plenty of models, even expensive DSLRs, that don’t have the feature. And was the SD card reallysuch a pain when sticking slightly out of the MacBook's slot? Surely using a full USB-C SD adapter, as he suggests, would be a lot more cumbersome. When asked why the 3.5mm jack was removed from the iPhone 7 but remains on the MacBook Pro, Schiller said that the jack is used for more than just headphones on the laptop. Apple kept it because “these are pro machines,” and many users “have setups with studio monitors, amps, and other pro audio gear that do not have wireless solutions and need the 3.5mm jack.” Suggesting that if people used the MacBook Pro's jack for just headphones, then it would have likely been dropped. But it could still be removed in future models, if a Apple survey from September is anything to go by. The removal of so many standard ports, and the fact that not everyone is impressed by the new Touch Bar, has led to a fair amount of criticism being directed at the new MacBooks – something that has surprised Schiller. He did add, though, that he’s never “seen a great new Apple product that didn’t have its share of early criticism and debate — and that’s cool.” Despite the negative reception from some quarters, Apple’s online store is apparently taking more orders for the new MacBooks than “any pro notebook before.”

Chinese smartphone maker Huawei on Thursday unveiled its long-rumored Mate 9 smartphone, a flagship that’ll eventually find its way to US shores. The Huawei Mate 9 features a large 5.9-inch display operating at a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 with 2.5D glass that’s powered by a Kirin 960 octa-core processor and 4GB of RAM. It also includes 64GB of local flash (expandable via microSD card slot), a rear-facing dual camera system comprised of 12-megapixel and 20-megapixel f/2.2 aperture cameras with optical image stabilization, an 8-megapixel f/1.9 aperture selfie camera up front, a fingerprint sensor and a large 4,000mAh non-removable battery with fast charging technology. As Engadget details, Huawei built in a machine-learning algorithm that aims to learn your phone habits and optimize resources accordingly. For example, if you often play a specific game immediately after checking Twitter, the Mate 9 can pick up on this and prepare the CPU and RAM for a faster launch. The idea is to prevent your phone from running more slowly over time and thus, extend its usable life. Huawei has also reportedly spruced up EMUI 5.0, its Android 7.0 Nougat overlay. After spending some time with it, Engadget says the UI does feel a little less cluttered as icons have been redesigned and shuffled around in a meaningful way. Huawei didn’t say exactly when the Mate 9 would arrive in the US although a person reportedly familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that it’ll debut in the states in January. It’s a real shame to consumers that Huawei’s Mate 9 will miss the holiday buying season as there’s a huge gap in the market left by the early exit of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7.

Password manager LastPass on Tuesday extended the ability to sync login credentials across all platforms and devices, a perk previously reserved for paying members. LastPass founder, VP and GM Joe Siegrist said in announcing the change that by offering the service for free across all devices, they’re making it that much easier for anyone to make good password habits the norm. Having a password manager that goes everywhere you do, he said, affords a strong foundation for securing and taking control of your identity. This is the second major change for LastPass in as many years. LastPass launched in 2008 and as PCWorld notes, was only offered for free on the PC (mobile device usage was limited to paying members). That changed in August 2015 when LastPass expanded the reach of its free service to mobile devices. The catch, however, was that free users would be restricted to just one device type. Now, you’re free to use LastPass for free across any and all device types. LogMeIn acquired LastPass in October 2015 for $110 million. For those already using LastPass Free, no action will be required to start using the password manager on all your devices. Simply download the app for your browser or mobile device and sign in. LastPass’ Premium service, priced at $1 per month, still offers features you won’t get with the free version including family password sharing with up to five others, two-factor authentication options, priority tech support and 1GB of encrypted file storage, among others.

Raising kids in today’s tech-infused society has arguably never been more of a struggle. While some will argue the merits of becoming acquainted with technology at a very early age, others are steadfast in their belief that there are far more valuable ways for impressionable children to spend their free time. Reading, for example, has been shown to improve focus and concentration, reduce stress, expand one’s vocabulary and sharpen writing skills, especially among youngsters. It’s also the focus of Amazon’s latest app which advocates reading with a modern twist. Reading apps certainly aren’t anything new but Amazon’s new app, called Amazon Rapids, presents short stories across adventure, fantasy, mystery, humor, science fiction and sports categories in a unique chat-style format. More specifically, stories are told through the lens of characters chatting with each other. Examples Amazon listed including a grandmother invading her granddaughter’s group chat, an alien texting about invading Earth and two chickens debating on whether or not they should cross the street. All content is said to be appropriate for kids ages 7-12 with hundreds of original, illustrated stories on tap. New stories will be added each month, we’re told. Parents interested in checking out the app can sign up for a two-week free trial. Should you decide to stick with the app, you’ll be charged a flat rate of $2.99 (apparently an introductory rate) per month.

Olympus unveiled the OM-D E-M1 Mark II at Photokina 2016 last September, the successor to their flagship OM-D E-M1 mirrorless camera that's been around for a few years now. There’s a lot to love about the OM-D E-M1 Mark II although two key bits of information – its price and release date – were glaringly absent from its announcement. Olympus has filled inthe missing pieces of the puzzle this week and predictably, it won’t come cheap. Olympus tells us that the refreshed shooter will go on sale at the end of December with an MSRP of $1,999.99 for just the body (no lens included). In the UK, expect to pay £1,849.99 including VAT for the body or £2,399.99 for the body with Olympus’ excellent M.ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO lens. As a quick refresher, the weatherproof Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II features a 20.4-megapixel live MOS sensor and a TruePic VIII image processor that’s capable of shooting 18 frames per second with continuous focus enabled or up to 60 frames a second with the focus locked. You also get a five-axis image stabilization system, a new 121-point all-cross-type, on-chip phase detection and contrast detection autofocus system, two SD card slots, a 50-megapixel high-resolution mode, a battery that lasts 37 percent longer and a charger that does its job 50 percent faster, among other features. If you’ve yet to give a pro-level mirrorless camera like this a try, you’ll likely be shocked at what it’s capable of.

Microsoft is now all-in on Windows 10. The company has stopped selling OEM licenses of Windows 7 Professional and Windows 8.1 to manufacturing partners, effectively restricting all new systems to Microsoft's latest operating system. Microsoft's partners have had some time to prepare for the end of Windows 7 and 8.1 OEM sales as the dates have been available in Microsoft's lifecycle fact sheet for years. Most companies don't even bother selling products pre-loaded with older versions of Windows, particularly as most consumers want the latest software anyway. The end of sales for Windows 7 Professional comes a full two years after sales ended for Windows 7 Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate. Windows 8 sales ended a few months ago, and Microsoft has been quick to end sales of Windows 8.1 shortly afterwards. Currently, Windows 10 does not have an end of sales date. While you can no longer purchase systems with Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 pre-installed, Microsoft is still supporting both operating systems for many more years. Windows 7 is currently in its extended support phase, and will receive security patches until 2020. Windows 8.1 is in mainstream support until 2018, after which it will enter the extended support period until 2023. There is some good news for those that desperately want a Windows 7 Professional or Windows 8.1 license: some retailers like Newegg are still stocking official OEM licenses. However, once stock runs out, that's pretty much it for older versions of Windows.

Samsung said on Tuesday that it intends to invest more than $1 billion by the first half of 2017 to boost production of advanced system-on-chip (SoC) products at its manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas. Both Austin’s mayor and the head of the city’s chamber of commerce welcomed the news with open arms. The world’s second-largest chipmaker behind Intel makes most of its semiconductor profits from the sale of memory chips but as Reuters highlights, Samsung has been trying to bolster earnings from other products like the home-grown Exynos processors that power some of its mobile devices. The South Korean technology titan has also been working on contract manufacturing deals with clients such as Nvidia and Qualcomm. Company executives tell the Austin American Statesman that the $1 billion investment will be used to buy new manufacturing equipment and cover the cost of construction. Catherine Morse, general counsel and senior director of public affairs at Samsung Austin Semiconductor, said Samsung will be hiring between 250 and 500 manufacturing technicians and engineers to help operate the new equipment. Samsung put down roots in Austin way back in 1997 and currently employs roughly 3,000 locals. Competition in the semiconductor manufacturing industry has been heating up as of late. Just last week, for example, Qualcomm said it had reached an agreement to buy NXP Semiconductors for $47 billion as it looks to diversify into automotive and Internet of Things industries.

Alienware has announced a new Alienware 13 gaming notebook which the company is billing as the world's first VR-ready machine in a 13-inch form factor, thanks to the inclusion of an Nvidia GeForce GTX 10-Series GPU. The lineup comes in four base models: a TN model, a 1080p IPS model and two 1440p OLED models — with 8GB or 16GB of RAM. The two non-OLED models are powered by an Intel Core i5-6300HQ while the OLED models feature an i7-6700HQ. All four models can be outfitted with an Nvidia GeForece GTX 1060 GPU, which is the perfect discrete graphics core for gaming at 1080p, providing 40 to 50 percent more performance than the GTX 970M at a similar power and heat cost. n terms of design the Alienware 13 features a leaner, more elegant profile than its predecessor, measuring 13 x 10.6 x 0.87-inches and weighing in at 5.4 pounds. The lid uses Alienware's Epic Gray anodized aluminum, while the rest of the body is made of magnesium alloy and plastic. The laptop incorporates a new hinge-forward design which Alienware claims allows it to offer more rear ports and larger fans for increased cooling without additional noise. The base TN model starts at $1,199 while the OLED version starts at $2,099. They all ship standard with an IR camera for Windows Hello facial recognition and secure login features, 7.1 channel audio, stereo speakers, a Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port, a USB 3.0 Type-C port, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI 2.0 and Mini DisplayPort 1.2, and two audio jacks. The new laptops also support the Alienware Graphics Amplifier, which is the company’s proprietary external dock that lets you connect the desktop graphics card of your choice.

Will the tablet market ever stop declining? According to IDC figures, sales of slates and detachables – tablets with keyboards included – have fallen for the eighth quarter in a row. Compared to the same period last year, total tablet shipments are down 14.7 percent to 43 million units. Q3 2015 saw 50.5 million devices shipped worldwide - 10 percent lower than 2014. Apple and Samsung continue to dominate the sector, holding 21.5 percent and 15.1 percent market shares, respectively. The iPhone maker’s share went up this quarter by 1.9 points, while Samsung’s declined 0.9 points. Apple’s iPad Mini and iPad Air made up two-thirds of the company’s total tablet shipments, while the expensive iPad Pro helped keep revenues stable. Both Samsung and Apple experienced YoY declines; Apple dropped 6.2 percent, while Samsung fell 19.3 percent. Only two names on the list saw yearly growth: Huawei, in fifth position, was up by 28.4 percent from last year, and Amazon - stealing Lenovo's third spot - saw its YoY numbers increase by 319.9 percent. Part of the reason why the online retailer’s growth figure is so high is because the IDC didn’t include the 6-inch Fire tablets in Q3 2015. The low-cost device sold well during July’s Prime Day sale, when they were discounted by 30 percent, and the recently refreshed Fire HD 8 will continue to boost Amazon’s numbers. Lenovo drops one place from Q2 2016 to fourth spot. Its YoY numbers fell 10.8 percent to 2.7 million units shipped, but its share grew 0.3 points to 6.3 percent. The majority of the tablet market continues to be made up of low-cost (sub-$200) devices. "Unfortunately, many low-cost detachables also deliver a low-cost experience," said Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Device Trackers. "The race to the bottom is something we have already experienced with slates and it may prove detrimental to the market in the long run as detachables could easily be seen as disposable devices rather than potential PC replacements."

Microsoft revealed on Tuesday that the full version of Minecraft: Education Edition is now available for purchase in 50 countries and 11 languages around the globe. Microsoft in January acquired MinecraftEdu, a version of the game designed by Teacher Gaming co-founder Joel Levin with classroom use in mind, for an undisclosed sum (Teacher Gaming licensed the po[CENSORED]r building game from its creator, Mojang, so everything was on the up and up). Minecraft was already being used in more than 7,000 classrooms across more than 40 countries before Microsoft purchased MinecraftEdu. With help from more than 50,000 students and educators participating in an early access program, Microsoft has spent the better part of 2016 fine-tuning Minecraft: Education Edition. Priced at $5 per user, per year (there’s also a district-wide licensing model), the full version includes the highly anticipated Classroom Mode companion app that grants educators the ability to manage world settings, communicate with students, disperse in-game items and more. The official version also features all of the latest updates from Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition Beta including additional player skins, leads and horses as well as an updated user interface. Educators interested in learning more are encouraged to visit the Minecraft education portal where you’ll find tutorials, lesson plans, starter worlds and a place to collaborate with others already using the game in the classroom.

Google has been working hard to keep its ubiquitous Chrome browser as lean and fast as possible. Just last month it shared some upcoming enhancements that will dramatically reduce the amount of RAM used, courtesy of an updated JavaScript V8 engine in Chrome 55. While the latter is still in beta, Google today detailed other optimizations it has been quietly working on, namely implementing Microsoft's Profile Guided Optimization. The latter is a feature of Microsoft’s Visual Studio developer tools that measures how users interact with an application. The most often used functions are then optimized by PGO, sometimes increasing their binary size, and optimizing the memory location of the browser code so that those functions can be kept in the CPU’s fast instruction cache. PGO was implemented first with the Chrome 53 release of 64-bit Chrome, followed by version 54 of 32-bit Chrome. Google claims it’s seen startup times improved by 17%, new tab page load times by almost 15%, and overall page load times by 6%. You can read more about how PGO works in here. In related news, Google is currently testing a usability-focused design change in the Canary release of Chrome for Android that moves moves the search bar to the bottom of the screen. The change currently has to be manually enabled through a Chrome flag and is intended to improve one hand use for people with large smartphones.

Seagate has taken the wraps off a new Xbox accessory that aims to improve load times while simultaneously delivering additional storage capacity. The Seagate Game Drive for Xbox SSD is essentially just that – an external solid state drive designed specifically for Microsoft’s Xbox console. Tucked inside the brushed aluminum enclosure with familiar Xbox green accents is 512GB of flash storage which Seagate says should hold around 15 games and associated downloadable content (with the average game taking up 35-50GB of space). The drive utilizes a single USB cable for both connectivity and power. Seagate says the drive helps gamers get into the action quicker by reducing wait times at welcome screens and enabling quicker transitions between levels. The company didn’t provide any hard numbers to back up the claims but I don’t doubt for a minute that it’s faster than what comes stock in Microsoft’s console. People have been putting solid state drives in next-gen consoles ever since their debut in late 2013 and the results are indeed tangible. As you’ve no doubt surmised by this point, there’s nothing really “special” about this drive short of its enclosure. If you’ve got a spare solid state drive lying around, you could just as easily throw it in an external enclosure and use it to boost console storage. The Seagate Game Drive for Xbox SSD will be available later this month from Amazon, GameStop and other consumer electronics retailers priced at $199 which isn't a bad price for a 512GB external solid state drive.

Google has angered Microsoft by announcing a critical security flaw in Windows that remains unpatched ten days after disclosing it to the Redmond-based company. In its blog post, Google explains that it reported the zero-day vulnerabilities to Adobe and Microsoft on October 21. Adobe issued a critical fix to patch the bug last Friday, but the Windows vulnerability still hasn’t been addressed by Microsoft. Worst of all, Google says it is being actively exploited in the wild. “After 7 days, per our published policy for actively exploited critical vulnerabilities, we are today disclosing the existence of a remaining critical vulnerability in Windows for which no advisory or fix has yet been released,” wrote Google’s Threat Analysis Group.”This vulnerability is particularly serious because we know it is being actively exploited.” The Windows zero-day, which can be triggered via a win32k.sys system call, could allow an attacker to escape from the operating system’s security sandbox and gain administrator privileges. Google recommends updating Flash as soon as possible and applying Windows patches as soon as they become available. Microsoft is angry that Google publicly announced the vulnerability before it had a chance to issue a fix. “We believe in coordinated vulnerability disclosure, and today’s disclosure by Google puts customers at potential risk,” a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat. “Windows is the only platform with a customer commitment to investigate reported security issues and proactively update impacted devices as soon as possible. We recommend customers use Windows 10 and the Microsoft Edge browser for the best protection.” Microsoft clarified that exploiting the Windows vulnerability requires the Flash bug, so users that have received the patch are protected. But VB points out that until Microsoft sends out a fix, the flaw could be leveraged in other types of attacks.