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Facebook has boasted an incredible figure for its Messenger instant messaging service: 800 million monthly active users.

"The Messenger team's mission is to make Messenger the best place to communicate with all the people and businesses in the world. I'm happy to report that we've made a good step in that direction, and towards the end of 2015, we crossed the milestone of 800 million people using Messenger each month. It's a good number, but we believe we have so much more opportunity ahead of us, and these are still the early days of Messenger," said Facebook in a recent post.

In 2015, the company spent a lot of money on improving Messenger, adding video calling, adding emojis, introducing Messenger for Business and other customization features. The company also got into the financial services world and began allowing users to send and receive money right through their chat.

At this rate, the service is likely to reach the billion mark in a matter of months, a major milestone for any service.

Over the past few weeks, there have been more and more reports concluding that Apple is set to get rid of the standard 3.5mm headphone jack from its upcoming iPhones.

By removing the port, it is expected that Apple can make the iPhone a tiny bit slimmer and, of course, they can boost their own bottom line as the new headphones will have to connect either wirelessly or via the proprietary Lightning port.

Apple fans are not happy about the rumored move (possibly because they already own expensive Beats headphones with a standard 3.5mm jack and have petitioned to stop Apple from dumping the connector.

The petition has 227,000 signers as of writing. That is a large figure given that the iPhone 7 is, at least, six months away from even being announced, but a tiny figure compared to the 100 million-plus iPhones the company is expected to sell in 2016.

If accurate, this would not be the first time Apple has double-dipped on its own customers. In 2012, the company got rid of its old proprietary 30-pin connector and replaced everything with the Lightning connector. Anybody who upgraded their phones and tablets then had to buy new charging cables and USB connectors.

According to multiple sources, Apple is working on completely wireless Beats headphones that will launch alongside the iPhone 7.

The headphones will not even have wires to connect the left and right buds and will, therefore, sit flush in your ears without ever tangling.

Motorola released the Moto Hint last year, which has a similar concept but includes only a single mono headphone.

Although everything is unconfirmed, the accessory is expected to include a built-in noise-cancelling microphone, allowing for phone calls and voice activation to Siri. Apple recently trademarked "AirPods" which gives a suggestion as to what the buds will be called.

For the time being there is no word on a suggested price, but these are expected to be the premium model of headphones Apple sells while they continue to include a free pair of EarPods with each phone.

Infamous Chinese game cracking group 3DM has warned that pirating PC games may be impossible in the near future.

"Bird Sister" of 3DM said "according to current trends in the development of encryption technology, in two years time I'm afraid there will be no free games to play in the world," The reason for the end of piracy is Denuvo Anti-Temper technology that protects DRM and stops even the best of crackers from editing any game files.

In fact, the recently released FIFA 16 and Just Cause 3 are still not cracked due to Denuvo, months after their respective release dates.

Denuvo is certainly excited with their results as director of marketing and sales Thomas Goebls added that they have "achieved good crack-free windows on every title we've protected" and "Due to our recent success in the past two years, some publishers are even considering releasing console-only titles for the PC platform."

First shown off last year at IFA, Samsung's new Ultra HD Blu-ray player is available for pre-order at $399.

The UBD-K8500 goes on sale in late February but you can order it now directly from Samsung or Amazon.

Design-wise, the 4K Blu-ray player looks very familiar to Samsung Blu-ray player owners except that this hardware can download 4K streaming apps, play 4K and 3D Blu-rays, and playback MP3s, MP4s, MKVs and more.

In 2014, Adam Sandler signed a deal with Netflix to produce and star in four original movies that would premiere exclusively on the streaming service.

The first film, 'The Ridiculous Six,' appears to be a resounding success. In its first thirty days of release, the film has become the most watched movie in Netflix's history. Says Netflix CCO Ted Sarandos: "The Ridiculous Six, by way of example, in the first 30 days on Netflix it's been the most-watched movie in the history of Netflix. It's also enjoyed a spot at number one in every territory we operate in, and in many of them, it's still number one."

Sandler's film employs his usual gang including Terry Crews, Rob Schneider, David Spade and Jorge Garcia and is based in the Wild West.

While the film has been universally panned, and Netflix's figures don't include how many people actually watched the film all the way through, on the surface it seems that the deal has worked out for both.

Lenovo has confirmed today that the name Motorola will soon be gone from their devices.

The Chinese giant purchased Motorola's mobile division in 2014 from Google and they have been using the Motorola name for their smartphones rather the less well-known Lenovo name (at least in the U.S.).

That is changing now although Lenovo says it will continue to use the nickname "Moto" as well as the winged "M" logo.

For example, new phones will sell as the 'Lenovo Moto E' rather than 'Motorola Moto E.'

Microsoft has confirmed that it is indeed stopping support for Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10 on January 12th, as previously announced.

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 users will receive a notification inviting them to use IE 11 or the new Edge browser that comes default with Windows 10. In addition, the notice will come with a cumulative patch to cover any existing security flaws in the browsers.

Microsoft notes that the end of life means no "more security updates, non-security updates, free or paid assisted support options, or online technical content updates."

If you upgrade, you won't have to worry about losing support for quite some time, as IE 11 and Edge have an end-of-life scheduled for 2020 at the very minimum.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen has confirmed that the new Android-powered Priv slider is on its way to T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint.

The phone launched last year, exclusive to AT&T, but that exclusivity period has run out.

Chen did not give a time frame for the phone's respective release dates, but T-Mobile CEO John Legere said the phone will be available online and in stores for $700 unlocked on January 26th.

"Things are starting to work," noted Chen when asked about sales. "We're generating cash, and we expect that to continue." Chen previously hinted that the company could leave the hardware market completely if they could not hit 5 million sales for the Priv for the fiscal year.

Now that the Oculus Rift is available for sale, industry analysts have piled with opinions on potential sales.

The majority of analysts believe sales in the first year will be in the low hundreds of thousands, which seems reasonable given the $599 price tag and the need for a mid-range computer and a high-end graphics card. A few analysts called for sales as high as one million.

Oculus founder Nate Mitchell confirmed the hardware is being sold at cost, so Facebook will not see any bottom line help (at least not in 2016).

Despite the slow start, analysts place the VR market with a projected value of $16 billion by 2020.

Oculus has announced the availability of the highly-anticipated Rift VR headset.

The headset sells for $599 and will begin shipping in 20 countries on March 28th. The device, which is being hailed as one of the most innovative experiences of the decade, will also include a headset (with mic and headphone), sensor and an Xbox One controller for your gaming needs.

Oculus is also including "Lucky's Tale" with each headset, the first VR platformer from developer Playful.

The company also introduced their new Oculus Remote, an 'input device we designed to make it simple and intuitive to navigate VR experiences.' The remote goes on sale later this year and Rift buyers get the first crack.

Of note, Oculus also released the necessary specs to be able to run the Rift, and they are on the higher end although you can likely build one for under $800:

Apple has announced today that customers spent $1.1 billion on apps and in-app purchases in the App Store for the two weeks ended January 3rd, a record for both traffic and sales.

New Year's Day was the "biggest day in App Store history with customers spending over $144 million."

"The App Store had a holiday season for the record books. We are excited that our customers downloaded and enjoyed so many incredible apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV, spending over $20 billion on the App Store last year alone," added Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "We're grateful to all the developers who have created the most innovative and exciting apps in the world for our customers. We can't wait for what's to come in 2016."

Netflix had today a press event at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in which they revealed major expansion in availability. Company CEO Reed Hastings announced that Netflix is now available around the world.

Hastings said that Netflix adds 130 new countries as of today and can be watched in 190 countries all over the world. The language selection is said to improve in the coming months and years but currently you have to rely on 15 languages available, including English, Spanish, French and Simplified (and Traditional) Chinese.

"Today you are witnessing the birth of a new global Internet TV network," said Reed Hastings.

In 2016, Netflix will released 31 different new or returning original series, over 20 movies and documentaries, 30 kids series, and range of stand-up specials.

In keeping up with rivals, Panasonic has used CES to announce their first 4K Blu-ray player - set for release in 2016.

Panasonic has promised a U.S. release this year, following an extremely limited launch in Japan in November. In Japan, the player has a ridiculous price tag of $3300, but it is expected to sell for much less when it reaches our shores.

Sony and Warner Bros. have begun announcing 4K Blu-ray titles, discs which support both 4K and HDR, and will be released this year, as well.

Source:
Verge

Yahoo has shut down is video portal Yahoo Screen, two years after it was launched to tie together Yahoo's original and syndication programming.

The site was home to the last season of former NBC hit "Community," Sci-fi comedy "Other Space" and "Sin City Saints" as well as the home of the first live-streamed NFL broadcast from London and streaming concerts via a partnership with Live Nation. Screen also had channels in partnership with media giants like Viacom, who supplied clips from Comedy Central, for example.

Earlier this year, Yahoo took a massive $42 million writedown for its Screen division, with executives citing 'Community' specifically for not bringing in the ad money they expected it would. The company also struggled to make the content easily accessible on devices that consumers have become accustomed to using, such as consoles.

All of Yahoo Screen's 1000 hours of content have migrated to Yahoo's other sections.