News written by James Delahunty (October, 2017)

GameStop has detailed its new PowerPass service, which will allow subscribers to rent used video games from GameStop stores for a fee.

PowerPass will cost a subscriber $60 for six months. For the fee, the subscriber can visit their local GameStop and "rent" a different game at any time during the subscription period. There is a one game at a time limit.

At the end of the six month period, the customer can pick a title to keep at no additional cost.

There is one prerequisite however; you need to be a free or paid member of GameStop's Power-Up Rewards program to sign up for PowerPass.

Is such a "used game rental service" worth the typical cost of a single blockbuster title for six months?

Via: Engadget

YouTube is now offering a YouTube TV app designed for Android TV devices, including NVIDIA SHIELD, Xbox One and TVs with Android TV built-in.

Over the new few weeks, apps will also roll out for Smart TVs oif major brands, including LG, Samsung, Sony, along with Apple TV. YouTube TV launched in April this year, streaming live sports, local and national news to phones, tablets and computers. More than half of the time spent using YouTube TV includes the use of Chromecast, so it's a no brainer to release an app for Android TV devices.

YouTube TV is currently available in all top 50 metro areas in the United States, and will continue to quickly expand to other markets.

The features you can expect from the YouTube TV app for Android TV include:

• Control your live TV experience with your TV's remote control or game controller.
• For a more cinematic look, we made the background dark on your TVs.
• A new Live guide made for your big screen so you can get a sneak-peek at what's airing soon.
• Never miss the action with our background playback experience built for your big screen.
• Easily pick up where you left off on another device when you get home.

Facebook's WhatsApp has gotten around to pushing out the upgraded emoji set it showed off several weeks ago.

The new emojis are available starting with version 2.17.395 (stable) on Android. Whether they are better is entirely up to each user, but they do appear to be more "expressive" of emotion and several non-facial emojis look much better than before (e.g. the "mouse" emoji is now clearly a computer mouse!).

When WhatsApp pushed the new emoji set to the beta build earlier this month, they were immediately compared to several emojis used in Apple's iOS because some do bear a striking resemblance.

If emojis are your thing, the new set should be available as long as you have the latest WhatsApp version on your device. WhatsApp also recently announced the "delete for everyone" feature, which allows WhatsApp users to delete text messages they have sent to a recipient, as long as they do so within a seven minute window and all participants in the conversation have a version with the feature present.

As anticipated, Google today revealed two new powerful Pixel smartphones with considerable camera improvements, Google Assistant, Google Lens and more.

Google celebrates the fact that there is essentially feature parity between its new Pixel 2 and larger Pixel 2 XL. The differences are in display, battery, color and of course, price. The Pixel 2 handset packs a 5-inch OLED screen at 1920x1080, whereas the larger Pixel 2 XL upgrades to a 6-inch pOLED display at 2880x1440. For battery, the smaller handset includes a 2,700mAh battery and XL upgrades to 3,520mAh.

Pixel 2 color options include Just Black, Clearly White and Kinda Blue, while Pixel 2 XL is available in Just Black and Black & White.

Under the hood, both pack a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip, 4GB of RAM and a choice of 64GB or 128GB internal storage. They are water and dust resistant handsets and support fast charging (15 minutes provides up to 7 hours). Both run Android 8.0 Oreo (not 8.1 as predicted). A noticeable change is the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack with the new Pixels, but each does come with a USB-C adapter so you can keep using your headphones.

Another interesting feature is an always-on display which lets you see notifications at a glance on Pixel's screen without having to touch the power button, while a new "Now Playing" feature, exclusive to Pixel 2, automatically identifies the music playing around you and displays the information.