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Microsoft has set a date to show off the consumer experience of Windows 10, ahead of its scheduled launch in Autumn 2015.

The Redmond giant has alerted media and Windows enthusiasts that it will hold an event at its campus on Wednesday, January 21 to show off the consumer side of its upcoming Windows 10 operating system.

Among those in attendance that we will hear from will be senior leaders from the Operating Systems Group including Terry Myerson, Joe Belfiore and Phil Spencer. Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella will also show up to say some words.

The event will be broadcast live from the Redmond campus and details of a webcast will be provided in due time.

Windows 10 represents something of a reboot for Microsoft as it fights to recover from a disastrous Windows 8 era, and from declining interest in Windows Phone. It will also take another stab at gaining ground in smartphones and tablets, an area in which its competitors Apple and Google have dominated for years.

So set your reminders for January 21, and let's see what Microsoft has in store for us all next.

Microsoft has continued its new trend of releasing apps outside of its own ecosystem, unveiling a slew of MSN-branded apps for iOS, Android and Amazon.

The apps are all free and were originally developed for Windows 8 and Windows Phone devices.

Among the new apps are News, Weather, Sports, Food & Drink, Healthy & Fitness, and Money.

MSN's portal page still receives 400 million users per year, and the name still resonates with consumers. Previously, the apps were branded as Bing, which has less recognition despite being more modern.

Each of the apps are newly coded for their respective platforms, and not just ports, says Microsoft.

As rumored, the popular mobile game Candy Crush Saga is now available for Windows Phone.

The game is freemium, with in-app purchases consisting of extra lives, moves and other bonuses.

Candy Crush is the hit money-maker for casual gaming parent King Digital, since its release in 2012 for iOS and Android and Facebook.

Have you ever posted embarrassing photos of yourself and friends on Facebook after you've had just one drink too many?

Facebook's AI labs is working to make sure that doesn't happen to you so often. It is working on a system that can tell the difference between pictures taken of you when sober, and pictures taken of you when drunk.

If it determines that you are drunk, it will try to make you think twice before uploading.

Are you sure you want your boss and your mother to see this?" it reportedly will prompt a user.

Yann LeCun, head of Facebook's AI research, detailed the plans to Wired magazine and said that the labs are working on a digital assistant that will be able to carry out many similar tasks with photos and content uploaded to Facebook.

The social network already uses facial recognition software to correctly tag images and also to better target content to users based on their behavior.

This has led to some backlash from digital rights activists, who want customers to have the option to opt out of such AI systems.

Source: BBC News

According to e-mails, Seth Rogen was asked by Sony Pictures Entertainment to tone down a particularly gruesome scene in "The Interview", but the comedy actor refused to remove objectionable content.

The movie is at the center of the Sony Pictures hack in November. Rogen and James Franco star as two journalists who score an interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong un and are recruited by the CIA to assassinate him. Almost immediately after details of the movie became public, it was condemned by North Korea as an act of war, and of sponsoring terrorism.

While the FBI does not have hard evidence to link the mysterious state to the attack, security experts have found links and coincidences that suggest it. The group responsible for the attack also reportedly demanded the movie be cancelled.

Before this all happened however, Sony Pictures Entertainment boss Amy Pascal reportedly wrote to Seth Rogen by e-mail and asked him to tone down one particularly gruesome scene. The e-mails were first revealed by Bloomberg.

Rogen was resistant, even stating that "this is now a story of Americans changing their movie to make North Koreans happy, that is a very damning story."

Sony will release its PlayStation 4 (PS4) console in China in January next year, as the rapidly growing market is allowing console sales for the first time in 14 years.

The consoles will sell for 2,899 yuan - about $468 - each as Sony looks to profit from the appetite for gaming in the emerging economy. Microsoft is also offering its Xbox One console in China after the communist regime loosened the rules on video games systems.

However, that same regime may prove to be an obstacle on the software side since every single game will need to be approved before it can go on sale.

"Cooperating with the government, we'll provide a broad range of content for our users in China," Hiroyuki Oda, head of Asia business at Sony Computer Entertainment, said according to the Reuters news agency.

Several games have already been approved for sale after more than 30 have been submitted for licenses.

Microsoft's Xbox One is selling in China for 3,699 yuan - about $598 - and has ten titles currently on sale.

Chromecast has gotten a new Guest Mode that will allow Android device owners to cast to a TV with Chromecast without connecting to the WiFi network.

Either you don't want your friends connecting to your WiFi network or you don't want the hassle of finding the WiFi key, either way you can now make it very easy for others with Android devices to cast to your television.

You simply have to open the Chromecast app on your Android phone or tablet and select "Devices" from the navigation drawer. Choose your Chromecast device, tap the "Guest mode" setting and then turn the slider to "on."

Now your Android-wielding friends can fight over who casts the funniest YouTube video the TV.

The update has started rolling out, so make sure to keep your Chromecast app up to date. More information is available from chromecast.com/guestmode.

Here's a promotional video from Google showing off Guest Mode.

Uber has decided to halt all operations in the Indian Capital New Delhi after a driver allegedly raped a female passenger.

Head of communications in South Asia for Uber, Karun Arya, said that the San Francisco-based firm is conducting an assessment of its driver screening process. The alleged rapist in this case had been out on bail after being imprisoned for sexually assaulting a woman in his cab.

"We are evaluating additional screening options to include background checks on all our driver partners in India above and beyond what is currently required," wrote Arya.

He also promised that Uber will work closely with organisations that are championing women's safety in New Delhi and around the country.

"Safety is our top priority. We are fully committed to partnering with and are in discussions with the government, other transportation organisations and safety experts in India to implement robust solutions to ensure a safe ride."

It has been a difficult week for Uber as multiple cities in several countries either banned or sued the car service.

Microsoft has come along with another insane promotion through its Music Deals app, this time literally giving away popular albums for free.

User with the Xbox Music app or Xbox Deals app in the United States can take advantage of the freebies for a limited time only. In the Music Deals app, browse "Holiday Freebies" and you will find the albums in there.

Among the albums on offer are Eminem's 2013 chart topper The Marshall Mathers LP 2, Dr Dre's 2001, Kanye West's Graduation, Rihanna's unapologetic, U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind, Swedish House Mafia's Until Now and many others.

The deal is in place until December 15 so remember to go grab what you want legally for free before then.

The Music Deals app launched back in October and since then it has offered some really surprising deals. It offered Taylor Swift's 1989 for 99c for a short time and an additional 101 albums were priced at $1.99.

You can't beat free though, so check it out.

via: Neowin

While the Pirate Bay remains offline, other torrent services that went down as an indirect result of the Pirate Bay raid have started to come back online.

The most popular service that was hit in the crossfire was EZTV, and its main domain isn't working at the moment but proxy links, such as eztv-proxy.net, are connecting to the site's backend IPs. EZTV torrents are also being uploaded once again in other places, including Kickass Torrents.

TorrentFreak confirmed with operators of EZTV that servers are coming back online again and that the site is expected to recover fully.

Another BitTorrent site that has since fully recovered is Zoink. It is currently back operating a torrent storage service. Meanwhile, the Superbay forum is still offline, as is Torrage and the Istole tracker is still down.

There were some reports that the Pirate Bay is back up and running, but in reality the links are to proxy sites that are only offering up some cached older search results. Some of them may also be scams and thus better off avoided.

Whether the Pirate Bay can make a full and prompt recovery as it did back in 2006 remains to be seen, but co-founder Peter Sunde thinks it is time for the service to die.

In an ironic twist, Sony Pictures is apparently trying to halt the spread of hoards of data stolen by hackers in November using a tactic commonly used by cyber criminals.

According to a re/code report, Sony Pictures is essentially carrying out denial of service attacks aimed at torrents being used to share the leaked data. BitTorrent users trying to get their hands on the stolen information are being linked with fake seeds that disrupt the sharing of data by slowing it to a crawl.

Re/code cites sources in reporting that the entertainment company is utilizing Amazon Web Services to carry out this counterattack, with the servers being located throughout Asia.

The group behind the Sony Pictures attack, self identified as the Guardians of Peace (GOP), are estimated to have stolen up to 100 terabytes of data and have made at least six dumps of stolen data already, including copies of unreleased films like Fury.

The leaks went from being financially damaging to downright embarrassing for Sony Pictures and associated Hollywood personnel, and who knows what the hackers still have in their possession.

Microsoft is planning to release the Windows 10 operating system a bit later than it had previously predicted, but in line to coincide with the third anniversary of the Windows 8 launch.

Windows 10 is Microsoft's bid to adapt to changes in modern computing as consumers have rapidly adopted smartphones and tablets for work and play. The previous Windows iteration - Windows 8 - largely failed to impress consumers and Microsoft is keen to bury the previous three years below the dirt and start fresh.

Previous comments from within Microsoft indicated that Windows 10 could launch during the summer next year, but Microsoft COO Kevin Turner says it is more likely to be during the Autumn, perhaps an early fall release. He made the updated prediction to the Nikkei news service in Japan.

There is a notable milestone around that timeframe for Microsoft; August 2015 will be the 20th anniversary of the launch of Windows 95.

Windows is still used by an estimated 1.5 billion users on Desktops, but in mobile computing Microsoft really dropped the ball years ago and watched Apple and Google gobble up the market.


Sources and Recommended Reading:
Microsoft exec sees autumn release for Windows 10: www.reuters.com

Microsoft is endorsing the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, letting customers use it to pay for apps, games, music and videos across its digital services.

In a welcome boost to Bitcoin, Microsoft is endorsing the cryptocurrency by accepting it as payment for content across its services. You can use it now to add money to your Microsoft account so that you can buy apps, games and content from Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox Games, Xbox Music and Xbox Video.

To use bitcoin for Microsoft's digital services, sign into your Microsoft account and go to billing -> payment options -> Microsoft account -> redeem bitcoin. Select the amount you want to add and click Next, then review the amount of Bitcoin you will need and use your bitcoin digital wallet to complete the transaction within 15 minutes.

If you are using a smartphone, you can simply scan the QR code displayed on the page to pay from your mobile wallet app. On a Desktop, select Pay with Bitcoin and then pay from your Bitcoin wallet on the same device. If your wallet is on another device you can copy the receiving address and BTC amount to the wallet on your device or the Web and then make your purchase.

Some things to consider first

Large media outlets, local media sources and bloggers will be furious as a law about to come into force in Spain has pushed Google News out of the country.

Google News will remove Spanish publications from its service and will shut its Spanish site on Tuesday, December 16, and it's all the result of a misguided law that will come into force in Spain in the New Year.

After that point, Spanish media outlets will be forced to charge services like Google News for using even just snippets of information from their sources. Believe it or not, Spanish media outlets don't even have a choice not to charge these services, they are mandated to under the law.

Google can find no wiggle room to keep Google News operating in Spain and so it will shut the service there next week.

Google News - The best of intentions punished

Google News was actually born shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Krishna Bharat, a Google engineer, searched the term "World Trade Center" following the attacks and was shocked to find that the results didn't include any information on how the iconic skyscrapers were destroyed

That's how Google News came to be. It is a source of news information that now ranges from the world's largest media outlets, to local media and even to bloggers. It displays a headline, a small description (or the opening lines of an aritcle) and a thumbnail of the image associated with the article.

Microsoft has proudly announced the launch of Minecraft Pocket Edition for Windows Phone 8.1 today.

Reads the press release: "Windows Phone users can join the vast community of more than 100 million Minecraft players today with the launch of Minecraft: Pocket Edition for Windows Phone 8.1. Now available on Windows Phone, iOS and Android, Minecraft: Pocket Edition lets players bring their Minecraft worlds with them virtually anywhere.

Minecraft: Pocket Edition includes Minecraft's Survival and Creative modes so players can craft, create and explore on the go – as long as they have thumb strength and battery to burn. With a local Wi-Fi network, players can engage in multiplayer gameplay and team up with friends to explore new biomes, fight monsters, and craft infinite new worlds together."

The game will cost in line with other editions of Minecraft, selling for $6.99.