Taking a screenshot of your gaming prowess on your Xbox One will soon be as simple as screenshotting your desktop on your computer. It's a feature that has been requested for a long time, and promised for almost as long. Now head of Xbox Phil Spencer reveals that work is well under way and the ability to take screenshots should be coming to gamers soon.

The ability to record in-game video is nothing new, but the simple option to grab a screenshot is something that Xbox One owners are still waiting for -- although PS4 owners have enjoed this abilty for a while. With access to development software, Phil Spencer tweeted, er, a screenshot, of the screenshot feature in action.

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If you've dropped a few hundred dollars on a Surface Pro -- or even if you're one of the crazy few to have put your faith in Windows RT -- you want to protect your investment. One of the delights of the Surface Pro is that it is pleasingly svelte, even with the keyboard cover connected. So while you'll undoubtedly want to keep your Surface safe and secure, you probably don’t want to wrap it in armor casing that triples its size and weight.

Filling the gap in the market between full-blown laptop case and simple slip cases comes the Inateck Surface Pro 3 felt sleeve. Described variously as a Surface Case Cover, Laptop Bag, Felt Sleeve, Surface Pro 3 Sleeve Case Protection, and a Surface Pro 3 Sleeve, the felt case provides a surprisingly protective home for your tablet, and packs a few pleasing extras.

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There are so many Linux-based operating systems nowadays, that it can be maddening to try and settle on one. For many home users, sticking with Ubuntu or Mint is probably for the best. Why? These distributions are beginner-friendly while also powerful for experts too. In other words, you can grow with them without fear of hitting a ceiling.

My personal favorite is Fedora, because it is powerful and stable, while offering frequent updates to various packages and the actual kernel too. Even Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, uses Fedora. The problem with this operating system, however, is that it is not beginner friendly. This is because Fedora is so strictly focused on being entirely free; not in price, but in licensing and other things. A beginner may face trouble getting media to play; a non-starter to say the least. Korora is designed to fix this dilemma. It is essentially a "remixed" Fedora, which makes it better for beginners by including things -- repositories, codecs, proprietary software -- that are not normally included. Heck, Fedora experts may even prefer it, as it can be tiring to frequently configure vanilla Fedora installs.

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Outside Apple Store, people excitedly line up to buy iPhone 6. The crowd is remarkably eclectic. Tattoos here. Mohawk there. Someone wearing a prim business suit chats with a burly biker wearing sleeveless T-Shirt. Everyone's clothes beam bright, vibrant colors. Loud laughter and uproarious chatter is everywhere. This is one happy group of buyers.

The store's doors exit onto a green pasture of sheep. Each wears a chain around its neck, with iPhone 6 attached. Cow bells appear on the screens, and clanging sounds against the chirping of birds. One animal looks up: "Baaaaaaa!" Then another, and another. An announcer asks: "Do you really want to be an iSheep?" Then the Android logo and robot flash across the screen.

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If you suspect your PC has been infected by malware, but your regular security package hasn't raised an alert, then you could try to locate the threat yourself. It's sometimes easier than you might expect.

One strategy is to search your system for recently changed or modified executables. If you find an EXE file created yesterday on your desktop, maybe an SCR file in a temporary folder, and you’re not sure how they got there, then they might deserve further investigation.

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When it comes to smartphones, it is important to remember that they are not religions. All smartphones have data connections, a display, a web browser and for the most part, a camera. The underlying operating system is the big difference, but even that does not matter much, other than to be secure. In reality, for many consumers, it is simply a means to run apps.

Windows Phone has a great user interface, but it lacks apps; this is why the platform is unsuccessful. Today, the world's-first Ubuntu Phone device is announced and it will be coming soon. The BQ Aquaris E4.5 is a dual-sim affair with a fairly low price tag. The question is, who wants it? From an app perspective, it will be behind even Microsoft's mobile OS. Other than the absolutely biggest Ubuntu followers, I cannot see an educated consumer making the purchase.

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Working from home has its perks. I don't waste any time commuting. I get to eat home-made food at lunch. And, among other things, I never have to worry about battery life. If the battery of my smartphone is nearly done, I can always find a charger to top it up again. Life is easy in this regard, until I walk out the door.

I don't usually plan my trips so that I go out with a fully-charged smartphone. This is the least of my concerns, to be honest. There's always a charger in the car. And, for the times when that is not an option, I carry either a Lepow Poki 5000 or U-Stone 12000 external battery charger. I'll be reviewing both in this piece.

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Last month, a collection of the world’s most renowned scientists and technology entrepreneurs signed an open letter from The Future of Life Institute warning of the potential dangers that unchecked artificial intelligence could bring.

The institute cautioned that, while AI has the potential to do good such as eradicating disease and poverty, the risks are often being left unconsidered as private companies fund millions of dollars into rapidly accelerating research programs.

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With so many great free archiving tools around for the PC, commercial packages need some seriously powerful features to stand any chance of success. Berlin-based developer Ashampoo has taken the plunge anyway by releasing their $29.99 Ashampoo ZIP Pro -- but does the program have what it takes to win us over?

ZIP Pro’s Windows 8-like interface gets it off to a good start, pastel-shaded tiles floating over a white-gray background. And if this isn’t quite to your taste, there are a few alternative skins to try out.

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Even though most IT and business leaders are certain that their business will benefit from smart devices in the next three to five years, very few organizations actually have a clear strategy on how to take advantage of the new market. That’s the result of a survey conducted by Gartner. The company surveyed almost 500 IT and business leaders and found that 40 percent believe the Internet of Things will benefit their business in the next three years, while the other 60 percent believe it will happen in the next five years.

However, basically nobody has thought of a clear and concise strategy on how to take advantage of the emerging market.

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A secret UK court has ruled that the UK's intelligence agency GCHQ acted unlawfully by intercepting information gathered by the NSA. Investigatory Powers Tribunal said that because the rules surrounding the UK’s access to the NSA's PRISM and UPSTREAM program data were secret, data sharing between the US and UK was illegal. A case has been brought against GCHQ by Privacy International, Bytes for All, Liberty, and Amnesty International.

But while the IPT said that accessing this information breached human rights laws this is no longer the case. Why? The illegality of sharing data collected through these surveillance programs centered on the very fact that they were secret. In blowing the whistle about what the NSA was doing, Edward Snowden unwittingly made this data sharing legal. Whoops.

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I have never used a case with any of my smartphones. When the back is all plastic and there is no metal in sight, the added width and thickness that a case adds is not something that I can justify just to cover some superficial scratches that are not off-color. But then I got an iPhone 6.

With nothing but metal surrounding the 4.7-inch display, I soon had a feeling I would be getting a case after all. On iPhone 6, scratches would look terrible, especially on my Space Gray model. I haven't found it to be as slippery as my colleague Joe Wilcox has, but this has also been of concern, more so than with any of my previous smartphones. Enter Acme Made Charge for iPhone 6.

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The emoji heart was, perhaps not surprisingly, the most used "word" of 2014. It’s the first time that the Global Language Monitor has awarded the title to a symbol, a significant moment for the English language.

New digital formats continue to change communications; text speak was the first widespread digital vernacular and, although it might be out of fashion now, we still use words derived from that language today. We live in an era of images and video, where Pinterest, Vine and emoticons are prevalent in our lives. If people do use words at all, they communicate in 140 characters. Social and digital tools have also made people see symbols differently. Before the smiley face emoticon first appeared in a post to Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science General Board, from Professor Scott E Fahlman in 1982, or indeed prior to this in a public appearance in Puck magazine in 1881, would our brains have recognized the punctuation pictorially? Probably not. However, digital technology has taught us en masse to recognize the position of the open parenthesis relative to the hyphen and the colon.

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One-hundred and seventeen in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows in the past seven days.

Microsoft released preview versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint on systems running the latest official Windows 10 Technical Preview build. The company optimized the universal apps for touch and mobile use, and first reports indicate that they run fine on all devices regardless of screen size.

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If CES is any indication, wearable technology is going to be huge this year, so it’s no surprise that the Wearable Technology Show has doubled in size for its second outing.

Boasting twice as many exhibitors and product launches as last year, the UK show moves to a new home at ExCeL in London, and will be co-located with the Augmented Reality Show, an event dedicated to AR, VR and smart glasses.

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