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Four-hundred-thirty-eight in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on the Microsoft Store in the past seven days.

It looks as if Microsoft has postponed, or even cancelled, the Windows 10X operating system.

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When someone tells me that Chromebooks are only good for surfing the web, I have to do my best not to angrily laugh in their face. That opinion is just so ignorant and outdated. The truth is, Chromebooks run the excellent Chrome OS Linux distribution, which is more than capable for business, education, and personal use. You aren't limited to web apps either -- you can run many desktop Linux and Android apps nowadays. Oh, and Chrome OS is more secure than Windows 10 too.

Most new Chromebooks come with a USB-C port, letting you connect many great accessories, such as docks and dongles, to expand its usefulness. Yeah, you can even turn a Chromebook into a makeshift desktop by connecting a monitor, mouse, and keyboard. And now, HYPER has unveiled a trio of Google-certified "Works With Chromebook" USB-C products.

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There is lots of good news lately for SpaceX, especially NASA choosing the Hawthorne, CA-based company to build a $2.89 billion lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis Moon landing slated for 2024. Key to that single-source contract, which eliminates two competitors including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, was SpaceX’s willingness to restructure payments to fit the $750 million appropriated by Congress this fiscal year for the project.

Already the lowest Artemis bidder, Elon Musk’s company was willing to make the deal work for the customer, which is unusual thinking for space contractors, with many asking, Where did SpaceX get the money?

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For the most part, Android smartphones are pretty boring nowadays. LG has often been a risk-taker in the Android market, taking chances with unique phones that have funky designs and cool features. Sadly, LG has decided to leave the mobile market. Thankfully, Lenovo seems ready to take the reins with its brave new Legion Phone Duel 2 -- a drool-worthy gaming-focused 5G smartphone that is a successor to last year's model.

What makes the Lenovo Legion Phone Duel 2 so special? Well, it builds upon its predecessor with better specifications and a nicer overall design. It has a huge (6.92-inch) high-resolution (2460 x 1080) AMOLED HDR display, 44MP front camera, and 64MP rear shooter. The front camera pops out from the side of the phone, meaning there is no notch to interfere with the screen.

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Smartphones are no longer exciting and they never will be again. You know what? That's fine. These devices are just tools in our day to day lives at this point. The good ol' days where people lined up overnight to get the newest models are long gone. Even the once-popular keynote event where companies highlighted their newest phones on a stage has fallen out of favor with consumers -- those events have largely become a joke at this point. An unintended parody of sorts.

And so, it is not surprising that a major smartphone maker has decided to exit the overcrowded and boring mobile market. Yes, folks, after many rumors, LG has finally decided to officially stop making smartphones and tablets.

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Since the advent of B2C eCommerce in earnest about twenty years ago, an "armed conflict" has been raging between the merchants and financial services providers on one side of the equation, and the fraudsters attempting to take advantage of vulnerabilities in the ecosystem on the other side.  A typical metaphor for this conflict is the reference to the "Whack-A-Mole" game.  The implication is that immediately after a vulnerability is quashed by the implementation of technologies targeted to detect and block it, new technologies and tactics are introduced by fraudsters to perpetuate successful fraud. And so the battle rages on… until now.

One key consideration in preventing fraud is the use of technologies to determine whether the purchaser at the other end of an Internet session is actually the person they represent themselves to be.  Some would say that the first major breakthroughs in identifying "Who is there?" on the purchaser side was the use of IP intelligence, and associated technologies like proxy piercing detection. Additional enhancements to complement the first fraud detection technologies have included the addition of more sophisticated "inference-dependent" technologies categorized as Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral Biometrics.  All of the services delivered in this category use the combination of various dynamic and static inputs or "signals" to infer the probability that there is indeed a person at the other end of an Internet session, and that it is indeed the person is actually who they represent themselves to be. In other words, implying "Who is there?"

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Four-hundred-thirty in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 on the Microsoft Store in the past seven days.

Microsoft's Store for Business and Education will only offer free apps from April 14, 2021 onward.

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Just a few years ago, Google opened up Google Play to real-money gambling apps in a limited number of countries, including the UK, Ireland, France, and Brazil. Before then, any app of that kind was totally prohibited for hosting in the official Android app store.

Starting from March 1, the new phase of real-money gambling app legalization in Google Play commences. Google now allows gambling and betting apps to be published in its Google Play Store. Generally, the policy change will have a positive impact on the gambling markets in an additional 15 countries, including English-speaking USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as local markets in Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Romania, and Spain.

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Earlier today, we told you about an all-new NVMe solid state drive from Lexar. That SSD looks quite nice, as it is both fast and affordable. Not to mention, the Lexar brand is synonymous with "high-quality." That company has been cranking out great memory products for many years.

Of course, Lexar is not the only trustworthy maker of SSDs. Along with more-known manufacturers like Samsung are lesser-known companies like Transcend. If you have shopped for storage products lately, you have probably come across Transcend, and yes, that brand can absolutely be trusted too. Today, Transcend launches its latest NVMe SSD. Called "MTE240S," it is designed for both content creators and gamers. With that said, it should be a solid choice for any computer user, really.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has made life harder for pretty much everyone. People have lost jobs, businesses have closed, and worst of all, countless people have lost their lives. Thanks to the hard work of scientists, however, we finally have vaccines rolling out and normalcy is on the horizon.

Medical research surrounding COVID-19 isn't over though, as scientists still have plenty of work to do. Olek Wojnar, a developer of the Linux-based Debian operating system, has been working to help these scientists by packaging some software for easy installation on Linux. One of those packages was Google's build software Bazel. Upon finding out about Wojnar's efforts, Google offered to help with the process.

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While solid state drives make wonderful internal boot drives for computers, they are also great options for external storage. Not only are they smaller than mechanical hard disk drives, but they use less power, and are much faster too. Quite frankly, if you are someone that needs to transport data on a portable drive, you'd be insane to still use HDD in 2021.

If you want a diminutive external solid state drive, you cant go wrong with Micron's Crucial X6 Portable SSD. Not only is the drive fast, durable, and small, but it utilizes USB-C too. Not to mention, its design is so cute -- I absolutely adore the square body and its rounded corners.

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This upcoming Sunday is Super Bowl LV, and it is looking to be one of the greatest matchups in championship history. Legendary quarterback Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will take on QB Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. The game is notable because of Brady's advanced age (43) and the fact that the Buccaneers are the first team in NFL history to play "at home" in the Super Bowl. Yes, the big game is in Tampa Bay this year.

Who will win? That's anybody's guess, but I'd put my money on the Buccaneers despite the Chiefs being the apparent favorites. If you aren't familiar enough with NFL football to predict a winner, don't worry; you don't have to be an expert to enjoy the game. With that said, if you do want to learn more about the sport in anticipation, I have some great news -- there are some secret "Hey, Google" commands that can help you out.

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In 2020, companies like Tesla and Aerion (supersonic jets) flaunted 'Digital Twins' as being the cornerstones of their product design prowess.

This concept of representing physical objects in digital fashion is an extension of the general computer simulation industry that has been decades in the making. If 'software is eating the world', it seems that for the applied sciences type of domain, computer simulations have officially become the standard utensils.

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A smart home is a happy home as far I am concerned. Since going all-in on smart devices in my house, my life has been much improved. I can control my thermostat without getting out of bed, and when I leave a room, I can tell Google to turn off the light. If I hear a bump in the night, I can pull out my phone or tablet to monitor my Wi-Fi cameras. We are living in the future, and it is great.

For my smart lighting, I have outlet adapters connected to lamps, and for the most part, this works well. If I could do it over, however, I would probably just get smart bulbs. Today, TP-Link unveils its latest such product; the KL125 Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Light Bulb. This 800 lumen bulb is notable for being both dimmable and multicolor, meaning you can change the color and the brightness of the light -- something you cannot do with a smart outlet adapter.

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The Universal Media Server Project has released Universal Media Server 10.0.0, a major new update of its open-source, cross-platform Java-based media server for Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

The server, which works with a wide range of UPNP/DLNA-compatible devices from mobiles to smart TVs, gains significant improvements to its web and DLNA browsing interface, with the aim of providing more flexible and visually pleasing options for navigating the user’s content.

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