Huge news for Windows 7 and 8 users this week as Microsoft's Windows 10 upgrade receives a price tag, and a massive update for current Windows 10 users to improve Cortana, the Start Menu and more!
Plus, we've got news on the latest Harry Potter book, a revival of MTV's golden age and the first aircraft to fly around the world entirely on solar energy. There's plenty to get stuck into, so get comfy and crack on with this edition of the Week in Geek!
Top trending tech news
Windows 10 upgrade now comes at a cost
This Friday marks the one year anniversary of Windows 10, the latest OS from Microsoft. Over the course of the past year, Windows 7 and 8 users have been urgently prompted to upgrade to Windows 10, causing quite a stir on the internet when live streams were interrupted and computer terminals around the world became temporarily inactive due to some aggressive updating procedures to bring everyone up to speed.
As of Friday the 29th of July this free upgrade to the latest OS will become chargeable, so if you haven’t upgraded already you’ll have to pay $119 starting on Saturday. While some people are understandably a bit miffed at the sudden price jump, all versions of Windows have been chargeable when they were released. Windows 10 was the first version of Windows to be released as a free upgrade for existing Windows users and marks a big change in the way Microsoft roll out new operating systems and updates.
If you’re already using Windows 10, keep your eyes peeled for a large update due to arrive in the first week of August. This update will improve services like Cortana, as well as adding the ability to sign in with biometric data such as fingerprints. We’re keen to see what other improvements the update will bring!
Solar Impulse travels the world on energy from the Sun
Solar Impulse 2 has achieved a journey around the world using only solar power. The single-seat experimental airplane is covered with over 17,000 solar cells and holds four on-board batteries to allow the plane to travel at night. Over 505 days, travelling the same speed as a car, the airplane finally completed the difficult task with stopovers every 15-20 hours to allow the pilots to switch out and to re-supply the plane.
Pilots André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard flew the plane approximately 26,000 miles and landed in Abu Dhabi after departing from there on the 9th March 2015. The program cost $170 million to complete and was financed by a number of private companies and individuals. Piccard broke 3 records in a single flight between Japan and Hawaii including the world’s longest solar-powered flight both by time and distance and also the longest solo flight by time for any aircraft.
New on the High Street
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Bookshops around the world have been preparing for the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the 8th in the series of Harry Potter books. Differing slightly from the usual format, The Cursed Child is presented as the script to the upcoming Harry Potter musical of the same name, which premieres on Saturday the 30th of July.
Sellers have noted that this 8th book has received more pre-orders than the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which was released in 2007. Fans of Harry Potter have been anxiously awaiting the latest installment, where they can catch up on the life of Harry and Ginny Potter and their three children, James Sirius, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna. Many believe that one of their children will be the titular ‘cursed child’ but we will have to wait and see to find out more!
Tickets for the play have already sold out, but more will be released next week for lucky fans to grab. 300 extra tickets for each performance go on sale on Friday the 4th of August, and there will be performances continuing right up until December 2017 just in case you haven’t managed to get your tickets already.
Doom: The Board Game
Board game makers Fantasy Flight Games announced this week of their plans to release a re-imagined version of their 2004 Doom board game based on Bethesda’s blockbuster 2016 game. Players will take control of either the UAC’s elite marines attempting to achieve a variety of objectives or as the legions of merciless demons that are trying to overrun the Mars research complex in asymmetric-style gameplay.
The marines start each mission with a class card to determine their unique skills and a ten-card action deck featuring armour, weapons and tactics that are played throughout the mission. The demons are summoned using one of three assigned threat cards. Infestation, horde and assault cards determine the behaviour of portals which are where the demons spawn from. Each is unique meaning the marines will need a custom strategy if they are to withstand the demon onslaught.
The game will support two to five players with one player controlling the legions of hell and the others controlling the individual marines.
Movie and TV news
Star Trek Beyond
This week saw the release of Star Trek Beyond, the third of the new era Star Trek films and the 13th Star Trek film in total. We’ve been excited to see where this new strain of Star Trek is taking us, as the first two in the revamped series rewrote the history of Star Trek as we know it! Star Trek Beyond’s release marks the 50th anniversary of the original Star Trek series starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and George Takei, and continues to retell the story of their iconic characters.
One new actor appearing in the new film is Idris Elba, famous for his roles as Stringer Bell in The Wire and John Luther in Luther. There were rumours he was to play a Klingon in the new film but as the trailer confirmed, he’ll be a different species altogether - and a villainous one at that. Star Trek Beyond will have some overlap with the “five-year mission”, the mission that saw Kirk and his crew exploring the final frontier of space in the original 1960’s series.
It’s already out in the cinemas, so if you’re a Trekkie, transport yourself to your nearest cinema and check it out for yourself.
MTV Classic
35 years after the launch of MTV, the network plans to transform the existing VH1 Classic channel into MTV Classic, a new service broadcasting old shows and music from the 90’s to the viewers of today. There’s a lot to get excited over with this announcement, as we’ll see reruns of popular TV shows like Beavis and Butthead, Real World and Aeon Flux as well as many others.
Set to launch on August 1st, MTV Classic will kick things off by rebroadcasting the first hour of MTV ever aired. This stream will also be available through MTV’s Facebook page, which is sure to get a lot of attention from users around the world keen to relive their childhoods through one hour of television!
What many people are looking forward to are the reruns of MTV Unplugged, the live acoustic shows featuring famous artists and bands like Nirvana, Erykah Badu and Bob Dylan to name just a few. Whatever your favourite MTV memories are, tune in from Monday to spark your nostalgia and let us know what you liked most in the comments below.
Games with Gold and PlayStation Plus
Microsoft this week announced their Games with Gold for August which provide Xbox Live Gold subscribers with some free games to add their library. As long as the Xbox Live subscription is being paid, they're yours for keeps. Next month, Microsoft are offering Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate and Spelunky from the 1st August. From the 16th August, players will be able to pick up WWE 2K16 and Beyond Good and Evil HD. In total it’s a collection worth $120 with the possibility of an extra 2600 Gamerscore for achievement fans. The downloads are available for only a limited time so if any of these take your fancy, grab them while you can!
PlayStation fans have also been alerted to the latest games to be added to their PlayStation Plus subscription service. For August, Sony are releasing Tricky Towers which at first glance appears to look a bit like Tetris but is more of a physics-based construction game in which you build a tower. It looks like it also has a really fun competitive multiplayer mode so it’s definitely worth a look. Sony are also releasing Rebel Galaxy to the program, which tasks you with flying increasingly larger dreadnought-sized space galleons in epic space battles with barrages of broadside exchanges. It’s not all-out action either, with plenty of exploration, negotiation and trade to keep the diplomats amongst you happy too.
And finally...
Apple's Billionth iPhone
This week saw Apple's Tim Cook celebrating the sale of their 1,000,000,000th iPhone, a true landmark occasion for the company. iPhones make up almost 18% of the total smartphone market share, which is phenomenal for one manufacturer to claim.
iOS is due for an update later this year, and a new iPhone to be launched in September which will only drive their popularity further. We have a great roundup on what to expect in iOS 10, with a breakdown of features and improvements from one of our Agents. Check it out for more information.
That's it for this week's crucial roundup, but be sure to check back next Friday for more news from the world of science, tech and geeky entertainment! And for more great articles from our Agents straight to your inbox each month, why not get your name down below for the Geek Squad newsletter?