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A new trailer for the upcoming blockbuster shooter Gears of War 4 hit the web this past weekend and has been well received by fans of the series as it jumps into the next generation.

It is almost a decade ago since Gears of War was launched first on the Xbox 360 console, giving gamers a taste of what the (then) new generation had to offer them. Some will recall a well-received trailer showing Marcus Fenix running through war torn streets and alleys before encountering a giant corpser, all to the tune of Gary Jules - Mad World.

Gears of War 4 will bring the series "properly" to the next generation, exclusively on Xbox One (though it may follow on PC). The new trailer, titled "Tomorrow" takes us forward 25 years when JD Fenix (son of Marcus Fenix and Anya Stroud from the previous titles) is forced to battle a new enemy. In the few days since the trailer has been released it certainly has had a positive response.

If you haven't seen it yet, check it out.

A rise in the sale of physical Vinyl copies of albums has been linked to music streaming services in a research poll conducted by ICM.

The data showed that half of consumers who had bought a vinyl copy of an album did so after listening to the music on streaming services or other platforms. Free, ad-supported services appear to drive more sales than paid competitors.

Those aged between 25-34 buy the most physical vinyl copies of albums, according to the ICM data, followed by those aged 35-44. In 2014, vinyl sales hit a 21 year high when 2.1 million LPs were purchased in the UK, representing an eighth straight year of growth in demand, which seems to be continuing into 2016.

However, the research also showed that many of the buyers don't purchase the vinyl copy to listen to it. In fact, 7 percent of respondents had no turntable, and simply buy a physical copy to collect it and/or support the artist.

"I have vinyls in my room but it's more for decor. I don't actually play them," Jordan Katende, a student in Manchester, told the BBC News website. "It gives me the old-school vibe. That's what vinyl's all about.


Source: BBC News

Anti-piracy firm CEG TEK has suggested that Internet Service Providers in the United States should pay fines when subscribers repeatedly commit copyright infringement.

It made the suggestion to the U.S. Copyright Office as part of its consultation with the public on copyright issues. Among its suggestions is a proposed $30 fine to be dished out to an ISP each time a subscriber is caught committing piracy. The fine would apple after an initial warning.

CEG TEK seeks settlement from Internet users it alleges to have infringed copyright of its clients, usually an adult entertainment company. These requests are sometimes forwarded to the alleged pirate by an ISP, but most large providers have chosen not to.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not require that ISPs forward all copyright notices and settlement requests to their subscribers. CEG TEK would rather that the U.S. move to a model that is more like that of Canada.

"Canada's ISPs forward such notices at no charge to copyright owners. Setting up forwarding systems is relatively easy and inexpensive, and is similar to ISPs normal bill-forwarding systems," the company argued, reports TorrentFreak.

While no one was watching, Netflix introduced HDR content to its streaming service. Currently there's a very limited supply of HDR video but you can be assured that there will be more.

According to Engadget Netflix show Marco Polo is available in HDR video. Currently that is the only show available in High Dynamic Range but another Netflix Original, Daredevil, will soon be available in HDR as well.

To watch shows in HDR you obviously need equipment that supports the playback of such content. Netflix says that the service supports TVs with either Dolby Visual or HDR10 features.

As many of you know, the music industry, just like Hollywood, loves to play the blame game. Whether it's Napster or Spotify, the new technologies and services are here to steal the hard earned cash of artists. Well, it seems that digital music has gotten the music industry out of the 20 year recession.

But don't for a second think there's no internet services to blame. IFPI, the industry's lobby group, is still blaming YouTube for not doing its share, despite Google and Alphabet shelling out more than 3 billion dollars so far to the industry.

According to WSJ, IFPI claims that YouTube is allowing people to listen to music without them paying anything. YouTube of course points at its subscription service YouTube Red and the fact that it does everything it has to, or can do, to eliminate illegal music.

IFPI still doesn't seem too happy about the streaming services, but maybe it should look at the figures. Worldwide digital music topped physical media first time ever. And it was streaming services that were responsible for the growth. Even if both physical and digital media sales declined the industry as a whole saw meaningful growth first time since the 90s.

HTC has revealed its newest smartphone called simply the 10. It's the successor to years of One lineup that ended in One M9 last year.

HTC 10 clearly carries the same design principles from previous One models. It looks like one continuous piece of metal, just like its predecessors. Of course the innards are what matter, and HTC has covered certainly all the basics.

Specs include octa-core Snapdragon 820, 3 (32GB model) or 4 gigs of RAM (65 GB model), a 5.2 inch Quad HD display, and 12 and 5 megapixel cameras. The camera in the back, hailed already as one of the best around, has larger than conventional pixels which qualify it as an UltraPixel camera.

The phone features a 3000 milliamp hour battery, Type-C USB, and stereo speakers. Unfortunately the so called Boom Sound speakers are no longer front-facing. HTC 10 will be available in four colors (Carbon Grey, Glacier Silver, Topaz Gold, and Camellia Red) on April 12 for $699.

For the millionth time, Adobe's much-maligned Flash software has another critical vulnerability that affects millions.

The zero-day vulnerability lets attackers take control of a user's system, crash a user's system, and steal private information. Even worse, attackers are currently using the exploit so every unpatched system is potentially in trouble.

Adobe says all desktop versions of Flash are affected, including OS X, Windows and Linux.

Read more and get the update here: Adobe

Uber has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by California regulators in regards to a lack of proper background checks on drivers.

The ride hailing startup will pay up to $25 million to settle with the district attorneys of San Francisco and Los Angeles. The suit had also alleged that Uber was out of compliance for not getting proper licenses for airport dropoffs and pickups.

Regulators had found evidence that Uber failed to screen out 25 drivers who had serious criminal records, including a couple with convictions for murder and kidnapping.

Uber says it has already gotten back into compliance for the misleading ads about their background checks and the airports permits, and they expect to pay the minimum $10 million in fines, rather than the full $25 million if they fall out of compliance again.

An estimated 20 million Netflix subscribers are about to see their monthly price increase.

Since last year, many longtime subscribers have been grandfathered at $7.99 per month, but that price is set to go up to $9.99 per month beginning on May 8th.

A recent survey showed that 80 percent of affected Netflix users had no idea their prices were going up, at all, so this is a good PSA to those that are currently paying $7.99 per month.

No matter, there is little to complain about for the price, thanks to hits like Daredevil, Orange is the New Black and House of Cards.

Sony's latest major PS4 system software update is available now.

Version 3.50 (codenamed MUSASHI) adds some highly-awaited features including an expansion of remote play and the ability to hide your online status.

The full change list (via Sony):

In a surprise, Twitter announced earlier this week that it had secured the rights to stream Thursday night NFL games.

Other high-profile bidders included Amazon, Facebook and Verizon, which makes the new deal even more shocking since each of those tech giants has an established infrastructure for streaming.

Twitter will stream 10 of the 16 games on next season's slate - the same games that CBS and NBC will be broadcasting. Twitter is also looking to stream the games via their apps on consoles and set-tops.

According to reports, Twitter paid just $10 million for the rights, which is half the price that Yahoo paid last season to broadcast just one game that was being paid in London. It's also a fraction of the $450 million that CBS and NBC paid combined for the rights to show the games on TV with their own digital ad inventory. Reportedly, Twitter will just be rebroadcasting the CBS and NBC feeds of the games, with rights to sell a tiny portion of ads.

Premium pay television channel STARZ has announced the launch of its standalone streaming service for $8.99 per month.

Similar to offerings from HBO and Showtime, you can watch thousands of TV episodes and movies through consoles, mobile devices, and set-tops although the company does offer something that rivals do not - download capabilities.

"With the growing consumer appetite for our highly-rated, award–winning and diverse original programmingca and vast library of movies, our elegant and powerful app is the first in the industry to allow download capability to watch premium content anytime, anywhere, without the need for Wi-Fi access. Showcasing the rebranded STARZ offerings we announced last month, we believe this innovative app will also help fortify the broadband business of many of our traditional distributors and be even more appealing for inclusion in future video bundles," says the company.

The service promises to allow up to 4 users to watch simultaneously, and downloads are unlimited while you have a subscription. If you have Starz via a cable/satellite subscription, you can use the app, as well, authenticating using your ISP or cable provider login.

"Starz has entered the market today with an enormous value proposition for consumers. Our programming will now be more widely available to the 20 million broadband-only homes of cord nevers, cord cutters and cord shavers, including Millennials and other underserved consumers who need other viable subscription service options," added Starz in their press release.

Popular messaging app WhatsApp has launched end-to-end encryption for all communication, making it the largest service to do so.

The company, which has over 1 billion users, says that you must always use the latest version of the app to keep the privacy and the recipient must also. The encryption extends to phone calls, messages, photos, videos and files sent.

Says WhatsApp: "The idea is simple: when you send a message, the only person who can read it is the person or group chat that you send that message to. No one can see inside that message. Not cybercriminals. Not hackers. Not oppressive regimes. Not even us. End-to-end encryption helps make communication via WhatsApp private – sort of like a face-to-face conversation.

We live in a world where more of our data is digitized than ever before. Every day we see stories about sensitive records being improperly accessed or stolen. And if nothing is done, more of people's digital information and communication will be vulnerable to attack in the years to come. Fortunately, end-to-end encryption protects us from these vulnerabilities."

Over the past few weeks, we have heard rumors that Sony is working on an incremental upgrade to the PlayStation 4, for now, known as the PS4K due to its upgrades for 4K gaming.

It appears that rival Microsoft will not be following in the same footsteps (if the rumors end up being true).

Xbox boss Phil Spencer says if the company releases new hardware, fans should not expect "an Xbox One-and-a-Half," but rather a next-generation console.

"I'm not a big fan of Xbox One and a half. If we're going to move forward, I want to move forward in big numbers... For us, our box is doing well," says Spencer. "It performs, it's reliable, the servers are doing well. If we're going to go forward with anything, like I said, I want it to be a really substantial change for people–an upgrade."

Of course, everything is speculation for the time being but it is nice to see Microsoft thinking ahead.

Google has launched a new Chrome OS-based all-in-one, the Chromebase, for businesses in need of secure video conferencing in smaller meeting areas.

The company says the Chromebase is a "secure, self updating, easy to manage unit that builds on Chrome and WebRTC innovations for sharper video, audio and screen sharing. Guest account support makes it simple to join a meeting even without a Google account: Just click a meeting link invitation and you're connected."

Chromebase has a 24-inch adjustable touchscreen display, an integrated, adjustable HD camera, 4 microphones and 2 stereo speakers on the hardware end. On the software side, Google has announced "new features to our remote fleet management tools. Administrators can receive alert notifications and track health of their fleet of Chrome devices for meetings. They can remotely diagnose and troubleshoot audio, video quality and bandwidth problems. Administrators can also customize the interface using their own background images."

Chromebase for meetings is available for $799 in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland and Australia and it comes with a free year of management and support fees.