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Formally announced earlier this year for launch next year, Nintendo's 'NX' console will really have to step up to the plate if the gaming company wants to remain relevant in the home console market.

Today, we have an interesting rumor about next year's console: The NX will run on Android.

It appears that Nintendo is looking to power the console with a platform that has a large third-party developer base, and Android is the most popular mobile operating system on the planet. If the NX really does run on Android, that would likely mean Nintendo is not positioning the console against titans like the Xbox One and PS4 but rather as a complement to its existing popular devices like the 3DS.

Of course, the gaming giant could be aiming at the desktop console market, preferring to use a forked Android and using resources that may have gone towards building an OS towards making better games.

We will know more as the year goes on, and especially more next year.

Asus has launched the ZenWatch 2 today, a sequel to their first Android Wear smartwatch.

The watch keeps the same rounded design of its predecessor (and from the Apple Watch), while offering two sizes, three stainless steel casing colors and 18 different color/strap material combos allowing you to wear the watch for whatever occasion you may need it.

Updated from the original is a new crown and the addition of a magnetic charger that the company says will improve recharging times. The watch also now has IP67 water-resistance.

The watch runs on Android Wear 5.1.1 although Asus did not reveal which version it will ship with. On top of Android Wear is the company's own ZenUI tweaks which include FoneHelper, activity and fitness tracking, and Enhanced Remote Camera. ERC is easily the coolest feature of the bunch, as it syncs the wearer's smartphone camera viewfinder to your wrist. This could be helpful when taking pictures from harder angles, or even possibly selfies.

Asus also confirmed that the watch offers 3-4 days of battery life per charge, a huge improvement over the Apple Watch and other Android Wear devices that offer in the 18 hour range.

The smartwatch will sell for $199 when it launches later this year.

Earlier this week, NVIDIA launched the SHIELD Android TV set-top box with a base price of $199 and the early reviews are highly favorable.

The SHIELD has 16GB of internal storage, 4K support, is powered by a NVIDIA 64-bit Tegra X1 processor, 3GB RAM and 256-core NVIDIA graphics. In addition, the set-top supports HDMI 2.0, runs on the Android TV platform including Google Cast support, has a microSD slot, 802.11ac dual-band Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet and two USB 3.0 ports. The SHIELD bundle also comes with a SHIELD controller and a free HDMI cable, a good deal given the controller's $49.99 price tag.

When Google introduced Android Lollipop and Material Design, the operating system took a turn from dark to light, with the operating system getting more colorful and lighter, moving away from the darker UI of previous iterations like Ice Cream and Jelly Bean.

Earlier this week, the company introduced Android M and released a Developer Preview. If you were a fan of the darker user interface, you are in luck if you have a phone or tablet that can flash the new OS.

Under developer options, there is now a new way to select the theme for your device, choosing between the stock version which is "light," the new dark, or automatic which will likely change your theme based on the time of day or ambient light sensor.

It is unclear whether the option will be standard when the OS launches officially, but there were plenty of Android fans that were peeved when the whole OS went light so we hope it will be a feature when M launches officially in November.

After talks had stalled last month, it appears Intel has resumed negotiations to purchase chip maker Altera.

The new deal could be for as much as $16 billion, 15 percent higher than Altera's current market value.

A deal could be made in the coming days, say the sources although both companies have declined comment.

The deal would follow the largest chipmaker merger ever, a $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom by Avago.

Piriform's CCleaner software has been updated to support Microsoft's new Edge browser (Project Spartan), and all you Windows 10 fans can get it here at AfterDawn.

In addition to normal browsing cleaning improvements to the popular Firefox and Google Chrome browsers, the company says they have also "improved our system restore detection algorithm" for the full app.

Changelist:

According to Jon Peddie Research (JPR), Nvidia continues to take share in the graphics add-in-board (AIB) market, which now has very little competition left.

The report takes into account all AIB boards that carry discrete graphics chips and private RAM including those used in PCs, servers, workstations, and scientific instruments. The report also includes factory installed chips and those sold directly to customers.

Nvidia, thanks to their high-end GeForce GPUs, remains the market leader and continues to take share. There are actually only four GPU suppliers left: Nvidia, AMD, Matrox and S3, although Matrox and S3 only had max 0.10 percent share over the last year, combined, making them rather irrelevant.

AMD and Nvidia have 48 OEM partners, and a dozen PC OEMs offer the GPUs as part of their systems or as an additional option when building the computers.

For the Q1, Nvidia rose their share to 77.5 percent, while AMD struggles along at 22.5 percent.

Read the full report here.

Thanks to Microsoft's own Xbox One support page, we now know that the company is planning to release updated Xbox One controllers that include a standard headphone jack.

The page has since been updated, but it used to read that the refreshed controller will launch at E3, and that the headphone port will be "only available on controllers released after June 2015."

Other than the much-awaited feature, the controller looks to be exactly the same as current models. The headphone jack will be located near the bottom of the controller, as reflected by #16 in the image.

The update should be a welcome relief to gamers who may own expensive headphones but had no way to connect them without Microsoft's stereo headset adapter.

Windows 10 has been largely unveiled by Microsoft in endless test versions on Windows Insider Program and to the masses at Build conference. It has however been unclear how much the operating system will cost.

For Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users the cost is zero. Microsoft has already promised a free upgrade for the newer OS versions. For Windows XP and older the price might have just leaked by electronics retailer Newegg, WindowsCentral reports.

The retailer's website reveals Windows 10 Home and Professional versions with $109.99 and $149.99 price tags respectively. The release date is marked as August 31 which isn't entirely in line with previous information on release. It is believed that Microsoft will release Windows 10 in late July.

Windows 10 comes in seven different versions which cover phones, tablets, schools, companies, homes and more.

At Google I/O the Mountain View search giant revealed a new feature on Android M that will ensure you'll use their search no matter what app you are using. The company calls this feature Now on Tap.

Now on Tap is a more integrated version of Google Now. It allows you to search contextual information with one tap. The feature automatically recognizes searchable elements from the display view whether its a movie title in a text message or a point of interest on Twitter app. The AI behind it can also suggests reminders.

Google says that app developers do not have to do anything special in order to add the functionality. It also suggests reminders.Now on Tap works Android-wide on all apps, although it probably searches only text.

The feature is used by pressing and holding the home button and if relevant information is not found the user can search using the Google Now voice search.

CNET has kindly shared a little video from the Google I/O keynote explaining how the feature works.

Google has been among the very first to get very excited about Internet of Things (IoT). Every day items and devices that include internet connectivity and use it to enhance the experience.

That is what Google's three billion dollar Nest is all about. However, Google hasn't really managed to do anything remarkable with IoT. Is it about to change with their new Brillo platform?

Brillo is a new try to conquer homes with smart devices. It's essentially a lite version of Android that only has the simplest of functions and features, including of course Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The communication between Brillo devices and smartphones or cloud services is done with a protocol named Weave.

The platform is naturally compatible with Nest systems but it remains to be seen if it will actually gain some traction among the developers.

Google's one of the biggest announcements at Google I/O was the new photo cloud service that it calls Photos ‐ naturally. The service to replace the mess that is Google+ photos and Picasa offers unlimited storage for free. Can't beat that, right?

Google's offering is very compelling. Photos is said to work on "all devices" and offers storage for personal photos and videos for free. There is no limit in quantity but quality is limited to 16 megapixels in still photos and Full HD in videos.

Google did say that the compression it uses to reduce file size retains the picture quality almost identical. For original pictures Google offers 15 gigabytes of Drive space for free.

Google officially unveiled the operating system update that is currently known as Android M at Google I/O. Even though it doesn't have a full name or a version number yet Google did give specifics about the features.

Android M will be an update that focuses largely on quality, speed, and user experience rather than new functionality. There are however new features but they might not sound flashy to the end user.

Firstly Android M will bring a revamped app permission system. In the new version the permissions are not asked as the user installs the software but instead when they are used. This makes installing apps faster and permission requests more relevant.

Custom Chrome Tabs allows apps to use Chrome browser in a cleaner way. The user will get the app's user interface even in websites that the app opens with Chrome. It's a customized web view that includes all the functionality of Chrome.

One of the most important technological advances in the works is mobile payment. Google has addressed this before with Google Wallet but has now introduced a new feature called Google Pay. In addition to support for fingerprint sensors across Android devices this feature is ready to challenge iPhone and Apple Pay.

If there's anything that Google had to do with their maps it was adding proper offline support for mobile. And that is exactly what they've done at this year's Google I/O. There is a catch though.

Google announced that Maps app is becoming offline friendly with not only the map pictures but also navigation with voice assistance. The app currently only allows to download small areas for offline use and there is no navigation.

The company didn't reveal how the roll out will be happening but it did refer to developing countries a lot which might mean that in the US and Europe the feature might not appear immediately.

In addition to maps the YouTube app will feature offline mode as well. The videos can be downloaded for 48 hours after which they delete themselves. Good news to travelers.

A bug has been found in iOS that allows a certain message to crash your iPhone or iPad. The bug in the messaging app or notifications makes the device freeze when receiving specific Arabic text string in iMessage.

The string shown in the picture crashes the device in such a way that it is unusable until fixed. Luckily there is a simple fix: send another message to the device. You can do this with Siri or from another device.

Since Apple has also acknowledged that the bug exists and suggests using Siri to answer the message. This also unfreezes the device. Apple also recommends to remove the entire conversation.

It seems that the bug is in parsing of the Arabic language or specific text format. Apple has promised a fix to the issue in the next software update. Until then you have to rely on these workarounds.