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Popular mini computer Raspberry Pi now has its own official 7-inch touchscreen display, allowing home users to create their own tablets.

While the Raspberry Pi has an HDMI port - making it easy to connect to most displays, it was pretty inconvenient if you wanted to take the computer on the go where you may not have access to a monitor.

Priced cheaply at $60, you can build your own tablet for under $100 although it is important to remember that the Pi is built to educate and not necessarily as a high-end device.

The display has an RGB 800×480 resolution at 60fps, 24-bit colour, 10 point capacitive touchscreen, 70 degree viewing angle and metal-backed display with mounting holes for the Pi.

According to the WSJ, Amazon is preparing a $50 tablet for the holidays, a device that would be even cheaper than the company's basic Kindle e-reader.

The tablet will have a 6-inch display, but will be priced at half of the cost of the company's own 6-inch Fire HD tablet.

With such a price tag, there is little hope for the performance of the tablet. The report claims that the device will "test the limits" of cost savings, including using a mono speaker. Yikes.

Most likely, the device will also have lock screen ads like its Fire tablets have, to help subsidize the costs.

Camera giant Canon has announced this week a 250 megapixel CMOS sensor that sets the record for highest resolution at its size.

The AOS-H CMOS sensor offers resolution of 19,580 x 12,600, and Canon's APS-H sensors were used in EOS-1D DSLRs not too long ago so the sensor is incredibly relevant even though the smaller APS-C is used now in current cameras.

"When installed in a camera, the newly developed sensor was able to capture images enabling the distinguishing of lettering on the side of an airplane flying at a distance of approximately 18 km from the shooting location," reads Canon's press release, an incredible feat.

Furthermore, "the new Canon-developed CMOS sensor, however, despite its exceptionally high pixel count, achieves an ultra-high signal readout speed of 1.25 billion pixels per second, made possible through such advancements as circuit miniaturization and enhanced signal-processing technology."

If you were looking for the sensor in your next DLSR or smartphone - keep waiting. Canon is looking for applications in "specialized surveillance and crime prevention tools, ultra-high-resolution measuring instruments and other industrial equipment, and the field of visual expression."

In a surprising development, Chinese smartphone OEM ZTE has taken 8 percent market share in the U.S.

The numbers come via IDC who says ZTE nearly doubled its share year-over-year for the Q2 2015. At 8 percent, the company is now in 4th place in the U.S., beating out much bigger brands like Sony, Lenovo/Motorola, HTC, BlackBerry and Alcatel.

"We came from nowhere, and now we are a solid force," says Lixin Cheng, head of ZTE's U.S. operations.

ZTE first started with smaller pre-paid carriers like MetroPCS but is now available on Sprint, T-Mobile and AT&T. Additionally, the phones can be found in Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy.

Unfortunately for the company, IDC says revenues are not moving in line with the market share growth. Revenue only grew 4 percent year-over-year even though sales were up 100 percent, suggesting ZTE is only taking share by cutting prices. The company just launched a high-end model for $450, but it is unclear whether consumers will care about that device when they can get their iPhone or Galaxy.

Apple Watch and the new MacBook have a feature called Force Touch. It is a pressure sensitive touch experience that allows two different types of touches based on how much pressure you apply, but the new iPhone might have in store something even better.

Mark Gurman of 9to5Mac suggests that the iPhone 6s to be revealed this Wednesday will offer a new version of that Force Touch, dubbed 3D Touch. This feature will allow not two but three pressure levels, thus the 3D moniker.

According to the information Gurman has acquired tap and press will be accompanied by "deeper press". The same feature is said to be included in the new iPad Pro that is rumored to be released alongside the new iPhones.

How will the users learn this new function and how well have the pressure levels been tweaked, that remains to be seen.

According to some new speculation, Apple may have acquired real-time motion capture studio Faceshift.

Faceshift uses 3D sensors to capture facial expressions, and the company has been working actively with game and animation studios. This year, the company released a software plugin for software like Unity and Maya and Faceshift also confirmed they are working on consumer software like a Skype plugin.

The company launched in 2011 right from the Computer Graphics and Geometry Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

On August 14th, a Swiss company registry filing replaced three corporate directors with a mergers and acquisition lawyer, Martin Frey, and Apple has used his firm, Baker & McKenzie, for numerous services in the past. In addition, Faceshift's San Francisco office head Doug Griffin just changed his LinkedIn profile to Considering New Opportunities,"
suggesting he may not be around when the acquisition is final.

Finally, Faceshift has completely removed references to its Faceshift Studio software and has gone uncharacteristically quiet on social media. While still speculation, nearly everything mentioned suggests a company with new management.

Acer tried to steal the show this week, unveiling its crazy Predator 6 smartphone at IFA 2015.

The Predator 6, part of a larger line of 'Predator' gaming devices, has a flashy case that should come as no surprise to laptop gamers and also features one of the more powerful processors out there.

Acer says the device has a 6-inch display, 4GB RAM, a 10-core MediaTek processor (likely the previously announced Helio X20), and a 21MP camera. There is little else known so far, but on paper the device is a beast.

The company also announced a gaming tablet, the Predator 8, with a 1920x1200 resolution, 2GB RAM, 64GB storage, a powerful Intel Atom X7-Z8700 processor and 8th generation Intel HD Graphics, making it a clear winner for gaming against most tablets and possibly a winner against the Tegra K1-packing Nvidia Shield.

According to the U.S. industry watch dog Federal Trade Commission (FTC), popular YouTubers were paid up to $30,000 to promote the Xbox One as part of "a deceptive ad campaign."

The FTC says large online entertainment network Machinima was part of the 2013 marketing campaign that ended up generating millions of views for the video reviews about the console.

Unfortunately for Machinima and Microsoft, the videos did not have any disclaimers stating that Microsoft had paid for the reviews, and thus the videos fell under "deceptive advertising" per U.S. law.

"When people see a product touted online, they have a right to know whether they're looking at an authentic opinion or a paid marketing pitch," said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC's bureau of consumer protection.

Machinima has since settled the case and will state why all vloggers are backing a product moving forward. "Machinima is actively and deeply committed to ensuring transparency with all of its social influencer campaigns," said the company.

Both Microsoft and its ad agency, Starcom MediaVest, have policies in place to avoid such deceptive practices and confirmed to the FCC that the payments were "isolated incidents."

This week at IFA 2015, Chinese OEM Huawei introduced their new flagship, the Mate S, featuring the 'Force Touch' feature made popular by the Apple Watch.

Force Touch is a pressure-based touchscreen tech that allows you to do different interactions with the devices dependent on how powerfully you press the screen.

For the Mate S, force touch will also make the phone into a scale (for lighter items of course) and allow you to open apps or zoom using pressure.

The Mate S has a 5.5-inch AMOLED display, a fingerprint scanner, a Huawei Kirin 935 octa-core processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, a 2700mAh battery and a pretty gorgeous thin metal frame.

Pre-orders begin soon for the device, which will be available in 30 countries (but not the U.S.) with a price starting at€649.

This week at the annual IFA event, Sony unveiled new Xperia smartphones including the flagship Xperia Z5 and its little brother, the Z5 Compact in addition to the new high-end Z5 Premium.

Most notable of the bunch is the Z5 Premium, which features a 5.5" 4K TRILUMINOS Display for mobile and IPS. The smartphone is powered by a Snapdragon 810 processor, 32GB internal storage and a large 3430 mAh battery. Sony notes that the microSD slot can support a 200GB card, giving you ample room for some 4K content.

The device supports quick charge, has built in DLNA and MHL 3.0 for porting the content to the big screen and Sony says the Premium will upscale everything you have to 4K without noticeable loss of detail.

Furthermore, the Premium also "features Sony's innovative memory on display feature – the data transfer between processor and device is optimized so Xperia Z5's display memory technology remembers the display of images seen on your smartphone and caches the image or video so that you don't need to reload the full image each time you view it – preserving battery power in the process."

The phones also promise the best camera yet, with a large 1/2.3 Exmor RS for mobile, a 23MP sensor and F2.0 G Lens with the fastest autofocus on the market.

Earlier this week, CBS Sports made headlines by announcing an expanded streaming schedule for their football broadcasts.

The company says it will stream NFL ON CBS game coverage including two regular season games, four playoff games and Super Bowl 50, all for free, even if you do not have a cable subscription.

CBS says the content will be available on "laptops, desktops and tablets at CBSSports.com and on televisions through select Connected TV devices, including Xbox One, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku players and Roku TV models."

The first game to be streamed is Jets vs Dolphins on October 4th at 9:30AM. The game is being played in London and is expected to have a live crowd of 90,000 fans. Additionally, the Thanksgiving Panthers vs Cowboys game will also be streamed.

More importantly, "all AFC playoff coverage will again be streamed this year, including the Wild Card, Divisional, and Championship games." The Super Bowl, the most watched TV event of the year (every year), will also be streamed, a notable milestone.

"We're very excited to offer more NFL ON CBS streaming coverage across more digital platforms than ever before," said Jeffrey Gerttula, Senior Vice President and General Manager of CBS Sports Digital. "All NFL fans will have access through their computers, tablets and now Connected TVs to two regular season games for the first time in addition to all of the AFC playoff action, culminating with a truly historic Super Bowl."

Following last month's HQ renders released by famous leaker @Evleaks (Evan Blass), we now have real photos of BlackBerry's upcoming Android-powered slider phone.

If all the leaks are accurate, the phone will have a full BlackBerry QWERTY keyboard hidden under a sliding touchscreen, reminiscent of the most popular smartphones of yesteryear.

From what we can tell, the phone will have a large speaker grille right on the bottom of the handset, the device will have a microSD slot for expanded storage and a 16MP camera. Codenamed Venice, the device has been rumored to have a Snapdragon 808 processor, a 5.4-inch QHD display and 3GB RAM although those specs are unconfirmed.

Somewhat comically, the photo shows the BlackBerry having WhatsApp installed, rather than BlackBerry's popular BBM messenger service.

Universal Music Group, the largest of the record labels, reported an increase in revenue and profits for the 1H 2015, following nice growth in its streaming business.

Revenue grew to $2.6 billion, up 15.4 percent year-over-year, although fluctuating currencies did play a part in the increase, said Universal parent Vivendi. Net income was up to $255 million, up 11.5 percent year-over-year and once again thanks in part to currencies.

More notably was the major 34 percent increase in subscription and streaming services, which helped the company to "more than offset the decline in both digital download and physical sales," both of which have long peaked. The number would have also likely been a bit higher had the results included Apple Music, which was released on June 30th and will show up in the 2H 2015 results.

A judge has approved a $415 million settlement ending a lawsuit that had accused Apple, Intel, Adobe and Google of conspiring to keep salaries down and job mobility low.

Workers sued the tech giants in 2011, accusing the companies of colluding to not recruit one another's employees between the years of 2005 and 2009, keeping salaries lower than they would have been had the companies been actively looking to hire the skilled workers.

Judge Koh deemed the settlement to be appropriate and attorneys will get $40 million for their time on the case while thousands of workers will get a cut of the large settlement.

Emails from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt and other high-level execs doomed the tech companies as it revealed plans for the companies to avoid 'cold calling' highly skilled engineers from the other companies, thus limiting their job mobility and salary opportunities.

Music discovery app Shazam had a great 2014, but its losses continue to accelerate as the company struggles to make profits.

Shazam had about 120 million monthly active users at the end of 2014, but the company lost £14.84m in 2014, up significantly from the £7.74m it lost in the previous year.

Revenue remained strong, at least, up 16 percent to £36.01m at the end of 2014.

The company has done two funding rounds since 2014, raising first $10 million USD and then $49 million USD, making Shazam a 'unicorn' - a startup with a $1 billion valuation. Like most unicorns, it does appear that Shazam is a ways away from making a profit.