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Amazon rolled out a selection of new Echo products a week ago, in a move designed to cement the company’s position as the leader of voice assistant technology.

At its hardware event today, Google announced its Echo Dot competitor, called the Home Mini. A companion to the Google Home, it will offer much the same functionality, but in a far smaller, cheaper package.

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Google has unveiled the latest collections of best games and apps for Android. The company introduced the Android Excellence program earlier in the year, and now it has taken the wraps off the lists for Fall 2017.

These are not necessarily new titles, so as you browse through the collections you're likely to see a number of familiar names. In all, there are dozens of Android Excellence Apps and Android Excellence Games.

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It is difficult to imagine what the PC market would look like today had Microsoft not introduced the Surface RT and Surface Pro back in 2012. The software giant created a category, set the benchmark for high-end productivity-oriented tablets, and pushed rivals, like Apple, to compete in this space.

Despite this, Canalys CEO Steve Brazier and Lenovo COO Gianfranco Lanci believe that the Surface line will be put out to pasture by 2019. Why? The Surface business is not a huge money-maker for Microsoft, making it harder and harder to justify the cost to produce new devices and the low margins involved.

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Plex -- the company behind the eponymous media server software -- is rolling out an update that automatically adjusts video quality during playback. This is a feature that was previously only available to Plex Pass subscribers, but now all users can enjoy it free of charge.

At the same time, Plex is also introducing a new performance-enhancing option to help justify the cost of a subscription. Hardware-Accelerated Streaming does very much what you would expect -- assuming you have the correct CPU or GPU, that is.

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While DevOps seems to be flavor of the month with many organizations, the path to adoption is not necessarily a smooth one.

Intelligent SaaS specialist Pensa has conducted a survey of more than 200 IT decision makers with a view to identifying the biggest challenges they face in the adoption of DevOps practices.

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Keeping on top of the latest threats can be a major task, so it's no surprise that many businesses are turning to automated solutions to help ease the workload.

Threat intelligence provider Recorded Future is launching a new machine learning based platform called Threat Views which enables the delivery of relevant threat intelligence in real-time based on analysis of billions of data points in every language.

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Adobe has released Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 and Adobe Premiere Elements 2018, brand new versions of its consumer-level photo-editing and video-editing suites.

The 2018 versions remain standalone tools -- allowing users to purchase them outright -- and come with a number of new and improved features to build on previous updates.

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Hubs are familiar in some contexts: the center that makes order out of chaos and that serves as the connector orchestrating multiple moving parts. A hub is where "it" all happens.

We have strategically located airline hubs for major airlines in major cities, or networking hubs that connect all computers in a given network. We have the city center farmer’s market as a physical manifestation of a commerce hub, the stock exchange as a hub for global financial transactions, and even Comic-Con serving the needs of all comic book fans in one central location. But there’s a new type of digital hub that has emerged in the Subscription Economy. This new hub is about services, the cloud and, most importantly, subscribers.

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Google’s Pixel smartphones were among the best Android flagships released last year, and Google is expected to announce their successors today.

In addition to the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones, we’re also expecting the search giant to reveal other products, including a new Google Home, a new Daydream headset, and a new Chromebook.

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The European Union has ordered Amazon to repay €250m ($294m) after it ruled that the retailer was granted illegal state aid by Luxembourg. The tax advantage dates back to 2003, but Amazon says that it is considering making an appeal.

At the same time, the European Commission has announced that it is going to sue the Irish government for failing to collect €13bn ($15.3bn) in tax from Apple. The Irish government will need to defend itself in the European Court of Justice for failing to gather money from the iPhone-maker following a 2016 ruling by the commission.

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LinkedIn is your number-one personal branding tool, and this friendly guide shows you how to harness it to build connections and relationships -- and stand out in the world's largest professional network.

LinkedIn For Dummies walks you step by step through creating an eye-catching profile and demonstrates how to successfully expand your reach by connecting with colleagues, customers, and like-minded individuals from around the globe.

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According to a new survey of IT decision makers in the US and UK, 59 percent of business processes could be automated within the next five years, with 70 percent believing that robotics have become more of a priority.

The study from robotics specialist Redwood Software identifies the key benefits of automation as speed of process and reduction of manual effort, while the key risks are security and cost.

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At a Windows Mixed Reality event in New York City, Microsoft and Samsung joined forces to reveal the latest addition to the range of Windows Mixed Reality headsets. Samsung's offering seems to be rather more impressive than others that have been announced.

The Samsung HMD Odyssey offers a slightly higher resolution and wider field of view than other headsets. It also features integrated headphones and can be adjusted to suit varying eye gaps. Microsoft also announced that it has acquired virtual reality startup AltspaceVR.

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The massive data theft from Yahoo in 2013 is even bigger than first thought. It was big enough when it was believed to have affected around a billion users, but Yahoo has now provided an update indicating that the number is in fact three billion. Or, to put it another way, every single Yahoo user.

Yahoo, now part of Oath, has issued a statement in which it stresses that the updated figure does not represent "a new security issue" and that plaintext passwords were not accessed. The biggest data breach in history just got even bigger, and it's going to take a lot for Yahoo, Oath and Verizon -- the new owner -- to move on from it.

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Both PC and console gaming are wildly popular nowadays -- people even game professionally. Who would of thought in the early days of, say, "Pong," that people would eventually earn money for playing games? Crazy, right? Well, that is the the state of the world nowadays. Heck, gaming tournaments are even getting exposure on television -- TBS, for instance, broadcasts them weekly every Friday night.

To better enjoy their video games, consumers often purchase gaming peripherals and accessories, such as mice, keyboards, and game pads. For many, a headset is also a popular purchase, as it can let them either trash-talk opponents or communicate with teammates. SteelSeries makes many types of gaming peripherals -- including headsets -- and today, it announces that the popular and affordable Arctis 3 is now available in three new limited edition colors -- blue, grey, and red. Best of all, when you buy this headset in one of the new colors from SteelSeries' web store, the company will donate 10-percent to "Ditch the Label" -- an organization with a mission to stop bullying.

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