If you use Windows 10, regardless of which device you have it installed on, Microsoft has a nice holiday present for you. Ten of the top music albums of 2015 are basically now being given away for free by the company.

All you need is a Windows 10 device. And you have to be in the US, since the offer is geographically restricted. If you do tick these two boxes, though, you can just go ahead and grab either one of the ten free albums (or all of them). Here’s the full list:

• James Bay – Chaos and The Calm

• Alabama Shakes – Sound & Color

• Tame Impala – Currents

• Selena Gomez – Revival

• Ellie Goulding – Delirium

• Alessia Cara – Know It All

• Breaking Benjamin – Dark Before Dawn

• Jeezy – Church In These Streets

• Logic – The Incredible True Story

• Big Sean – Dark Sky Paradise

If you’re interested in any of them, make sure you get yours as soon as possible from the Windows Store, because, according to Microsoft, this is a limited time…

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We’re all about Snapdragon 820 today. After we told you about a potential Lumia that may utilize Qualcomm’s flagship chipset for next year, and benchmark scores revealed the SoC to be a top performer, we’re now learning that it may be featured in the 2016 Nexus smartphone, again made by Huawei.

The Chinese heavyweight has only made a single Nexus – this year’s Nexus 6P, but the rumor goes that Google will be partnering with it for at least another year. And if the Snapdragon 820 is every bit as powerful as initial reports suggest, it’s only natural for it to be the chosen one to do the job.

The info comes from Chinese electronics industry analyst Pan Jiutang, and he’s putting Huawei in a list along with other big names like Samsung, Sony, LG, and Motorola, who will be outfitting devices with the S820.

Apparently, Google isn’t a fan of Huawei’s in-house top-end solution, the Kirin 950, which Huawei uses in the recently announced Mate 8.

Naturally, it’s too early to consider this information final, and the ongoing hype around the Snapdragon 820 might have gotten people overly excited. That said, the chip remains the most logical solution for a Google flagship in 2016.

Source |…

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theaters next week and while some of them won’t allow you to bring a lightsaber, you can bring your Star Wars-themed Motorola Droid Turbo 2 for Verizon.

Starting today you can use the Moto Maker (online or at a store) to create and edit a phone with one of the new characters.

It’s mostly a color scheme of the exterior of the phone, matched with the right wallpaper (which you get from an exclusive app on the Google Play Store). There’s no actual Star Wars branding on the hardware, which is a little disappointing.

The available characters are Poe Dameron, Rey, BB-8, a First Order Storm Trooper and Kylo Ren.

Rey • Kylo Ren • Poe Dameron • BB-8 • a First Order Storm Trooper

By the way, you can score one of 12,000+ tickets for the opening weekend by posting a tongue-in-cheek theory about Star Wars at…

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Have you tried AirConsole? Its motto is “Your browser is the console, your smartphone is the gamepad,” which means exactly what you think it does. You can play games on your PC screen, controlling them with your phone, which turns into a touch controller. You can invite your friends for multiplayer games too!

Now OnePlus has partnered with AirConsole to offer some exclusive games for the platform – Silly Run Valley, Remon & Honey and Brick Wars.

We slacked off work for a few minutes to try out the games and they are very impressive, multiplayer is especially fun.

Silly Run Valley is an infinite runner in the vein of Temple Run and works with the phone’s accelerometer. Remon & Honey is a side-scrolling shoot-’em-up, which puts an old-school controller on your phone. Multitouch is supported, so pressing several buttons at once works (but don’t hold down the fire all the time or your weapon will “overheat”).

Silly Run Valley • Remon & Honey • R&H’s controller as seen on the phone

There are other games too, suitable for a more mature audience like Texas Hold ’em and Cards Against Humanity.

Note that you don’t have to install anything – just open http://www.airconsole.com on both a computer and a phone (or several) and type in the provided code. You can also install the AirConsole game if you’re going to play often, but the browser-only version is great for an impromptu party game challenge.

PS. We can’t try it right now (work and what not), but apparently AirConsole works with Smart TV browsers too, so you don’t even need a…

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The popular tipster @evleaks got yet another interesting piece of intel today, this time around it’s the Samsung Galaxy S7 in the spotlight. According to the leak the Galaxy S7 will be outed in four different editions: Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 plus, Galaxy S7 edge, and Galaxy S7 edge Plus.

This doesn’t sound too surprising as Samsung already has three versions of its flagship (Galaxy S6, S6 edge and S6 edge+) and we already reported on the Plus version. Still it’s nice to hear that the Plus won’t be coming at the expense of some of the other two but will be bringing even more diversification to the lineup.

The Galaxy S7 lineup is expected to go official on the next MWC in February and to introduce the new Exynos 8890 chipset with Samsung’s first custom processor cores. Other rumors point a brand new 12MP 1/2.0″ sensor.

Samsung Galaxy S7 Plus rendered from leaked 3D models

If you need even more details, the Galaxy S7 series have been tipped to use new magnesium build and offer Hi-Fi audio. 3D Touch-like features should be also on board to compete with Apple.

There is no indication if the Plus versions will be introduced side by side with the regular ones, but nevertheless – it seems very likely we are getting at least four Galaxy S7 phones next year, before we even start counting the Active, Neo, and Mini…

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The annual CES expo in Las Vegas is almost upon us and LG is among the first to tease some of the electronics it will be presenting there. Today’s announcement shows a few intriguing devices with rich connectivity options and up to 1,500 lumens of brightness

The three new projectors part of the Mini Beam series are PW1500, PW100, and the PH550, while the highlight of the series is the recently released PF1000U model.

The PW1500 (1,500 lumens) and PW1000 (1,000 lumens) offer Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, so you can out picture to a Wi-Fi screen and stream audio via a Bluetooth connection.

The LG PH550 has lower brightness at 550 lumens, but in addition to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, it packs a battery, which will give you about 2.5 hours of projection time on a charge. LG calls this projector a triple wire-free device, as may work without any cables whatsoever (at least for two and a half hours).

LG also wants to remind the world about the flagship projector, which is already on sale, the PF1000U. As the name suggests it delivers 1,000 lumens brightness, but it also has Full HD resolution. It is capable of projecting 100-inch picture from up to 15 inches thanks to the innovative Ultra Short Throw technology.

LG PF1000U is already available for purchase for $1,300.

The LG PW1500, PW1000 and PH550, alongside with the PF1000U, will be properly introduced and showcased at the CES expo early next month.

Source |…

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The world’s largest retailer Walmart started selling BlackBerry’s Priv a couple of days ago, and a quick look at the retailer’s website now reveals that the device is already out of stock. Its listed price on Walmart is $700.

A quick bit of Googling reveals that the Android-powered smartphone went out of stock at Walmart in less than a day.

Assuming that there wasn’t an issue on Walmart’s end and the retailer wasn’t selling only a handful of units, this indicates a very high demand for the Priv, something which can attributed to the hype around the device as well the ongoing holiday season.

As a result the Canadian company’s share price has been climbing rapidly this week (11% up to $8.15) reaching its highest level this year.

While these are no doubt silver linings for BlackBerry, it would be premature to say that the device has done the trick for the struggling Canadian company as official sales figures aren’t yet in.

Source |…

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Google just released Android 6.0.1 factory images for its newly-launched Pixel C tablet. Two images (with buld numbers MXB48J and MXB48K) are available for the device, and they can be downloaded from Google’s developers website.

In addition, the Mountain View, California-based company has also released binaries for the tablet, although currently only those corresponding to the MXB48K version are available.

The Pixel C is the first tablet that has been designed and produced by Google itself, meaning there’s no partnership with another company like in the case of the Nexus tablets.

Factory Images |…

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The Snapdragon 820 carries the huge responsibility to restore Qualcomm’s leading-position in high-end mobile chipsets, undermined by the unfortunate Snapdragon 810. Judging by the results preliminary development units show, it may very well be capable of doing so.

Over at the company’s headquarters working devices (non-commercial, naturally) were subjected to a battery of popular benchmarks and here are the findings.

For starters, single-core performance of the new custom Kryo cores, measured in GeekBench, is well ahead of anything in the Android realm. A near 60% improvement over Samsung’s Exynos 7420 in this respect, a score upwards of 2,300 points is still behind Apple’s single Twister core’s result.

Multi-core results in the same benchmark show the Snapdragon 820 inching ahead of Samsung’s current-gen flagship silicon, but we’re yet to see what the Exynos 8890 is capable of. Still, in this test, 4xKryo is comfortably ahead of 2xTwister.

Snapdragon 820 developer unit against current chipsets in GeekBench

The new Adreno 530, which according to the scarce information available on the matter appears to be an Andreno 430 with a few evolutionary tweaks, is actually mightily impressive. In the offscreen Manhattan test of GFXBench, which is run at a standardized 1080p resolution, the chip is capable of twice the frame rate of the S810 or the Exynos 7420. It also beats Apple’s A9 by some 20%.

GFXBench offscreen/onscreen • Basemark X

In the onscreen tests, where the test device has to push more pixels (2,560×1,600 resolution of the developer’s rig, versus 2,560×1,440 or even 1080p displays in the rest of the devices), the chip delivers respectable performance. Most impressive is the comparison with the Exynos 7420 here, where Qualcomm’s solution manages almost twice as many frames per second. The overall score in Basemark X shows the S820 as a clear favorite as well, though the A9 is missing from the chart.

And back to our headline Antutu result. At 131648 points, the score is about twice as high as current-gen flagships from Samsung camp, rocking the Exynos 7420. That makes us more than a little suspicious of its authenticity, but it is a photo of the developer unit with the Antutu score, and that can’t be doctored, right?

Source 1 Source…

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Has Samsung now entered the piano market? Well, doesn’t seem so, but in a promotional push for their Galaxy Tab S2 tablet, the South Korean company has launched a piano made from over 100 units of the device.

The event took place in London’s Spitalfields Market, where pianist Myleene Klass unveiled the tablet piano. “Nothing makes me feel more festive than gathering around the piano with my two girls. The Samsung Tab S2 piano is a real first and nothing like I’ve ever played before. My youngest has just learned jingle bells and I know she’d love to try it on this piano,” she said.

Commenting on the launch, Conor Pierce, Vice President of IT & Mobile at Samsung Electronics UK & Ireland, said, “With stunning AMOLED screens the tablet piano not only sounds great but looks great too, with the screens showing off a fantastic gold Christmas wrapping paper animation. Like the piano, the Galaxy Tab S2 is also available in a beautiful gold design, making it the perfect special Christmas gift for family or loved…

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