Brian Fagioli

Earlier today, Microsoft officially launched its Xbox Game Pass service for all users. If you aren't familiar, please know that it is essentially an all-you-can-eat-styled video game service. For a mere $9.99 per month, you can download and play 100+ Xbox One and 360 titles. It is insanely cool and a great value.

The problem? The games you download will take up a lot of space on your Xbox One's internal hard drive. Luckily, Microsoft makes it easy to expand the console's storage capacity -- just plug in a USB HDD or SSD. Today, Seagate announces an external mechanical hard drive that is designed for the console. The Game Drive for Xbox Game Pass Special Edition, as it is insanely called, can be had in either 2TB or 4TB. To sweeten the deal, you will get a complimentary Game Pass subscription!

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Last year, Microsoft released an open source project called "Cognitive Toolkit." This toolkit was designed with a focus on deep learning and artificial intelligence.

Today, after a fairly long beta period, Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit is finally updated to version 2.0. Not only does this production release have new features, but bug fixes too. Unfortunately, the release isn't entirely backwards compatible due to deprecated and renamed aspects of the toolkit.

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Bodhi is an interesting Linux distribution thanks to its lightweight nature. If you have an older PC that isn't particularly powerful, the operating system could breath new life into it. Unlike some other distributions that are light on resources, Bodhi is not ugly -- its Moksha desktop environment looks rather modern. I highly recommend giving the OS a try.

Today Bodhi reaches version 4.2.0. It is quite the boring release, as there isn't much to it. It is merely a rollup, incorporating many of the updates that were released since the previous stable version, 4.1.0. If you are already running Bodhi and have been installing updates, there is no reason to bother -- this is more for those that aren't already running the OS.

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Drawing and writing on a computer are both important features for creative types, but not everyone has the need. If you do have the need for a quality stylus, however, both Windows 10 and iOS are optimized for such things. The Surface line of personal computers and the iPad Pro, for instance, have official stylus accessories.

If you find yourself needing a third-party stylus for your Windows 10 or iOS device, Wacom has two new products that may interest you. The first such device is called Bamboo Ink, and it is named quite appropriately, as it is designed for Windows 10's Ink feature. For iOS -- including iPhone -- the company unveils the Bamboo Sketch. Both writing devices can be used with different types of replaceable tips for a more custom experience.

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Whether or not the Surface Hub is a success has been a big question mark. After all, Microsoft hasn't shared exact sales figures. Obviously, the company doesn't have to sell a ton of them to be considered successful, since it has a narrow focus and large price tag. While we still do not have exact sales figures, today we can confidently call the product a success. Why? Well, Microsoft announces something very impressive -- 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies have purchased at least one of them. Keep in mind, this is in addition to companies outside of that group.

True, that could be a total of only 50 Surface Hubs, but the number isn't so important. The truly impressive aspect is that these are high-quality companies that are often seen as trendsetters. In other words, this is exactly what Microsoft should want to be seeing from a fairly niche product. Today, the product gets even more attractive for two reasons. For one, the Windows 10 Creators Update is now available for it. Secondly, Microsoft introduces a new 5-year extended hardware service plan.

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While smartwatches aren't exactly lighting the world on fire as many manufacturers had hoped, it is still a fairly respectable segment. Let's face it, as the smartphone and tablet markets reach full saturation in the USA, companies will turn to things like wearables to hopefully make up for it.

Huawei is one such company that is focusing on smartwatches, but it is also expanding into Windows PCs too. The manufacturer focuses on a wise combination of value and elegance, producing desirable products at affordable prices. Today, Huawei announces that its Watch 2 Classic Android Wear smartwatch is finally available in the USA. The device has a 390x390 AMOLED screen and can play locally-stored music from Google Play. It of course has GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.

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Windows 10 is an absolutely wonderful operating system, and PC manufacturers are producing some gorgeous computers nowadays. Just yesterday, ASUS unveiled the beautiful Zenbook Pro. Last week, Huawei revealed a trio of elegant MateBook Windows 10 devices. Apple is certainly seeing some competition on the design front.

Today, Samsung announces the all-new Notebook 9 Pro convertible Windows 10 laptop. Available in two screen-sizes (13- and 15-inch), both models are powered by 7th-generation Intel Core i7 Processors. The 15-inch variant even gets an AMD Radeon 540 GPU. Both models have fast-charging using USB Type-C. What makes the Notebook 9 Pro particularly cool, however, is the embedded S Pen. Strangely, despite being labeled a "Pro" machine by Samsung, the laptop only runs Windows 10 Home.

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NVMe solid state drives are finally becoming more mainstream, delivering speeds that consumers never imagined. When SATA-based SSDs hit the scene, they too were mind-boggling though -- when compared to mechanical hard drives at least. Nowadays, however, a new SATA solid state drive is rather boring, as they are all largely the same speed.

Today, Toshiba announces an impressive new NVMe SSD with 64-Layer 3D Flash. The XG5, as it is called, uses the 2280 form factor and M.2 connection. Since heat can impact performance, the company has wisely chosen to include a heatsink.

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We are currently in the the Muslim holy month of Ramadan (May 26 - June 24). This is an important time for Muslims all over the world. They will be fasting during daylight -- a very arduous task indeed. In fact, not only do Muslims abstain from food during these hours, but beverages too -- including water! To our Muslim readers, we say Ramadan Mubarak and Ramadan Kareem!

To mark this wonderful time in the Islamic community, Google is offering some special websites and notifications in its services. This includes Maps, YouTube, Google Play, and more.

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Buying RAM for a desktop PC build should be an easy affair, but sadly, it is sometimes a bit confusing. Not only do you have to pick a brand and the correct type (DDR3 or DDR4), but compatibility with your motherboard can vary. Yeah, you can stick to the RAM tested as compatible by your board's manufacturer (your safest bet), but that could omit working RAM that the company did not get to test.

Today, HyperX (a sub-brand of Kingston) announces that its famed Predator DDR4 Memory kits now come in up to 128GB capacity and 4GHz (4,000MHz) speed -- holy moly! These sticks are designed to work with overclocking on both AMD and Intel platforms, but compatibility can still vary from board to board.

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USB Type-C dongles are a dime a dozen nowadays. Thanks to Apple MacBook laptops that only leverage USB-C, many manufacturers quickly jumped on the bandwagon, producing many adapters, dongles, and other accessories.

As the owner of a 2016 MacBook Pro, I am very familiar with dongles -- I own several. While you might think they are all the same, you'd be mistaken. Not only are they of varying quality, but the features are not the same either. Case in point, the Startech USB-C to HDMI and VGA presentation adapters. They may look like your typical HDMI and VGA dongles, but they have a special feature.

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One of the coolest things about open source software is the ability to fork it. What is forking? Very simply put, it is taking code and altering it so it can be taken in a different direction. This is usually done when people are dissatisfied with the current path of a project. A good example of this is LibreOffice, which is a fork of OpenOffice. As that example shows, sometimes the fork can become better and more popular than the original.

Systemd is a very polarizing topic in the Linux community, so it should come as no surprise that it would lead to a fork. You see, some Debian users disliked systemd so much that they decided to create a version of the OS without it. Devuan is that operating system, and today, the fork finally sees stable release.

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I have been enjoying the Opera desktop web browser lately. In fact, the experience has been so good, that I have been using it on Windows 10, Linux, and macOS. The browser has many great features, plenty of extensions, and it is darn fast too.

As an iPhone and iPad user, I thought maybe it was time to use Opera on mobile. After all, why not use the same app across all my devices? Unfortunately, after searching for Opera in the Apple App Store, I noticed something odd -- none of the company's iOS browsers (Opera Mini and Opera Coast) have been updated in 2017. Since we are almost halfway through the year, I decided to ask Opera what was up. Shockingly, the company told me that it no longer has a team working on iOS.

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Belkin's Wemo smart home devices are absolutely brilliant. Not only does the company offer power outlet and light switch adapters, but it recently introduced a dimmer switch too. The Wemo products are also compatible with both Amazon Alexa and Google Home, making them easy to control by voice.

Unfortunately, Wemo devices are not compatible with Apple HomeKit or Siri. There is good news, however -- Belkin is adding support. Starting this fall, consumers can buy a new product called "Wemo Bridge," which will enable HomeKit support for existing Wemo devices. It simply plugs into an Ethernet port on your router, thereby enabling support for Apple's smart home platform.

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I really enjoy my Apple Watch, but understandably, not everyone shares my enthusiasm. Heck, my colleague Joe Wilcox felt enslaved by his! For fans of the smartwatch, however, it isn't just a device, but a fashion statement too. It can be fun to swap bands to match an outfit, for instance. I own a casual nylon band for everyday use, and a more professional-looking leather variant for special occasions.

Today, popular case-manufacturer X-Doria releases a new band series for Apple Watch. Called "Action Band," it comes in three colors and can be had in both 38mm and 42mm sizes.

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