Amazon announces all-new Fire HD 8 with Alexa Hands Free

Amazon updates its own hardware products on a regular basis, often with little fanfare. There are no major press events, or hyped launches. Today, the retail giant announces another product update that likely won’t thrill the world, but will prove to be another big earner for the company.

The new Amazon Fire HD 8 with Alexa Hands-Free is what you’d guess from the name. An 8-inch HD Fire tablet with added, always ready, Alexa support.

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EU green-lights Apple's purchase of Shazam

Shazam app on iPhone

It's now ten months since Apple announced its plans to buy music-recognition firm Shazam, and a little under half a year since the European Commission started an investigation into the purchase because of concerns about competition.

EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager today announced that the commission will not stand in the way of the deal.

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TP-Link releases breathtaking Archer C5400X MU-MIMO Tri-Band Gaming Router

TP-Link is mostly known for offering cost-friendly networking equipment, but that doesn't mean it can't also focus on the high-end too. Quite frankly, it is wise to offer many models with differing specifications -- and at different price points -- to best meet the needs of all consumers.

Today, TP-Link releases a router that caters to gamers and enthusiasts. The "Archer C5400X," as it is called, is breathtakingly designed -- it looks like an alien spaceship, or some sort of overturned robotic spider. To be honest, it is almost a bit scary in its appearance -- the eight antennas look intimidating and menacing. Looks aside, it is chock full of top specs and plenty of useful ports. And yes, it features Amazon Alexa support, because, why not?

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APK teardown reveals Google Play Points loyalty scheme

Google Play Points

Google already gives you a way to earn money with your phone via its Rewards app, but it looks as though a new loyalty scheme could be on the horizon too.

A teardown of the Play Store APK reveals reference to "Google Play Points". While little is known about it at the moment, it appears to offer a way to earn points that can spent on things in Google Play.

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Access the web anonymously using Tor Browser 8

We browse the internet unaware of the amount of personal information made available to websites, social media networks and public forums. Every time you access a site you leave behind traceable information including a unique IP address and timestamp.

With this information, anyone can find you rather easily. ISPs, by law, are required to offer this information to the authorities on request. Now, this won’t affect 99.9 percent of people as most users do not have anything to hide, but there are solid reasons why you might want to disguise your identity.

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Security teams turn to automation to tackle avalanche of alerts

business security

High numbers of alerts and the resources needed to deal with them are causing problems for security teams and leading them to turn to Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) tools in order to cope.

A new report from security automation specialist Demisto finds teams are being inundated with more than 174,000 alerts every week and security teams are only able to review and respond to around 12,000 of them.

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Developers can now use staged releases in Google Play to test their Android apps on users

Google logo and Android head

Google has announced that developers can now take advantage of a new "staged releases" feature to roll out new versions of their apps to a small percentage of their user base.

The feature was first revealed at Google I/O earlier in the year, and Google says that it will give developers the chance to test new features on a limited number of users before opting for a wider rollout.

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How get rid of Chrome's stupid new rounded look

Google Chrome logo

The celebrate the 10 anniversary of Chrome, Google pushed out version 69 of the browser complete with a new look. Many people find change hard to accept, and for some Chrome users, the rounded look that Google has introduced feels like a step back in time.

If you prefer the way Chrome used to look, you'll be pleased to hear that you're not going to be forced to stick with the redesign. There's a hidden setting that you can tweak to get things back to how they used to be.

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How to enable the dark theme in YouTube for Android

YouTube Android dark theme

Dark themes have become very popular recently. Whether this is because of them being easier on the eye, people going through a Gothic phase, perceived battery saving, or just a passing fad is not clear, but plenty of apps are getting in on the idea.

The latest to jump on the bandwagon is YouTube for Android. Google is rolling out an update at the moment that brings dark theme goodness to your favorite video app -- here's how to enable it.

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GNOME 3.30 'Almería' Linux desktop environment is finally here

There are two types of Linux users -- those that think GNOME 3 is the overall best desktop environment, and those that are wrong. Yes, if you use Linux on the desktop, you should be embracing GNOME for optimal productivity. Sure, other DEs such as KDE Plasma, Xfce, and Cinnamon are good, but they simply pale in comparison.

Today, the latest version of the desktop environment -- GNOME 3.30 -- sees release. It is has been dubbed "Almería," which apparently is the Spanish city in which this year's GUADEC conference was held. As you can expect, it is chock-full of new features, bug fixes, and improvements. In fact, there are an insane 24,845 changes! The GNOME developers claim it will use fewer system resources too -- nice! There is even a new podcast app -- the simply named "Podcasts."

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Malware writers exploit recent Windows Task Scheduler 0-day vulnerability

It's a little over a week since a vulnerability in the Windows Task Scheduler was revealed. A patch for the 0-day has been released by third party security firm 0patch, but there's bad news for anyone who hasn't secure their system against the security threat -- malware writers are already taking advantage of the flaw.

The exploit was partly facilitated by the fact that the source code for a proof-of-concept exploit for the ALPC LPE vulnerability -- as well as a binary -- was published on GitHub. Now a group that has been named PowerPool has been spotted using the code in a malware campaign.

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Microsoft releases Windows 10 October 2018 Update Build 17754 with a ton of fixes

The next big feature update for Windows 10, Redstone 5, or the October 2018 Update, as it's now officially known, is getting ever closer to being finished.

Microsoft is rolling out builds to Fast ring Insiders on a regular basis, and today’s new release, Build 17754, fixes lots of problems with the OS update.

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Shutterstock's creative trends report: The design direction and aesthetics of 2018

Every year, Shutterstock customers across the world make billions of searches for images, footage, and music. Our data and creative teams analyze this search and download information to discover the biggest year-over-year increases. The information gathered, plus expert knowledge from our content, design, video, and music teams, forms the creative trends series which identifies and predicts the trends for the upcoming year.

This year, we selected a "trend to watch," a style we predicted would explode onto the design scene in more ways than one: Holographic Foil. The holographic trend has notes of the ‘80s, a dash of sci-fi, and a hint of nostalgia. Up 435 percent in searches, holographic’s chameleon palette of shimmering colors has been a trend to watch, even finding its way to the catwalk at Paris Fashion Week; Iridescent designs were showcased by Maison Margiela models walking down the runway in prismatic looks accompanied with iridescent lips.

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Data and containers and the keys to success

Digital data

In the beginning, workloads, tools, and requirements for big data were simple because big data wasn’t really all that big. When we hit 5TB of data, however, things got complicated. Large data sets weren’t well suited to traditional storage like NAS, and large sequential reading of terabytes of data didn’t work well with traditional shared storage.

As big data evolved, the analytics tools graduated from custom code like MapReduce, Hive, and Pig to tools like Spark, Python, and Tensorflow, which made analysis easier. With these newer tools came additional requirements that traditional big data storage couldn’t handle, including millions of files, read-writes, and random access for updates. The only constant was the data itself.

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Get 'Hacking the Hacker' ($13 value) FREE for a limited time

Meet the world's top ethical hackers and explore the tools of the trade.

Cybersecurity is becoming increasingly critical at all levels, from retail businesses all the way up to national security. Hacking the Hacker takes you inside the world of cybersecurity to show you what goes on behind the scenes, and introduces you to the men and women on the front lines of this technological arms race. Light on jargon and heavy on intrigue, this resource drives to the heart of the field, introducing the people and practices that help keep our world secure.

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