With its stock currently wallowing in the bargain basement, Twitter has announced that Periscope streams will now appear directly in iOS Twitter feeds. Periscope, if you’re not familiar, is the wildly popular live video streaming app that claims to have logged over 100 million broadcasts since its debut just nine months ago. This new feature, which should also come available to-Android and web-based users soon enough, makes it possible to check out Periscope videos without bouncing between apps. The videos will autoplay in the background, which could make Twitter the same kind of resource hog Facebook has become. It is expected this move will result in exposing Periscope to an even wider audience. And “expose” is the operative word here. Periscopers are notorious for sharing all sorts of details … very personal details … in their live streams. Now, depending on who you follow, you could get an eye-full of something you … don’t want an eyeful of, whether you like it or not. Are you still limping along on Windows 8? It’s time to upgrade. Really, you’re gonna want to get on that because Microsoft is dropping Windows 8 like a bad habit, just as it did with Windows 7, starting … right about now. No more bug fixes, patches, security updates, or any other kind of active support once the patch goes live. To be clear,-we’re not talking about Windows 8.1, so if you have a start menu of sorts, you’re safe for now. The update also kills Internet Explorer 8, 9, and 10, in case you happen to use one of the older versions of that browser. For now, an upgrade to Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 is free through the Windows store, and if you ask us, we say just skip right to the top and install Windows 10. We think you’ll be glad you did. And finally, if you’ve been thinking about getting into Amazon’s smart speaker, the Echo, but $180 seems a little steep, then you may be in luck as rumors are circulating that we could see a mini- version arriving soon. The Wall Street Journal reports that the beer can-sized speaker is code-named “Fox,” and, unlike the Echo, doesn’t sit around listening for a wake word, but instead requires you to press a button to activate the speaker’s voice command system. Though that aspect is likely meant to preserve the speaker’s battery, it may be enough to draw the interest of those creeped out by the idea that a speaker is always listening to them. Obviously, the Fox is meant to be portable, but if it follows in the footsteps of the Echo, it too should be able to create shopping lists, control smart home devices, get your sports scores, set timers and alarms, and answer a wide array of questions, so long as the answer is on Wikipedia. This being a rumor, there’s no indication of price or availability, though we’re thinking closer to $100 than the Echo’s $180, and we should know for sure in the next few weeks.



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