BGR Daily Breaking Stories

Daily Headlines TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2014

Microsoft heads in an interesting new direction with today’s ’12 Days of Deals’ sale Microsoft’s 12 Days of Deals Christmas sales promotion continues on Tuesday with a special Fitbit bundle that fitness buffs will certainly appreciate. After discounting a variety of devices in the past days, most of them related to Microsoft’s core products, including Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox One, the company has chosen for a popular fitness tracker to include in its holiday promotion on December 16th.  MORE → The story behind the Milky Way wallpaper on your iPhone 6 Apple has a penchant for plastering beautiful scenery on all of its new devices, so you probably weren’t surprised to find a gorgeous shot of the Milky Way beneath the apps on your iPhone 6. The man who captured in the image in the first place, on the other hand, was completely taken aback.  MORE → HBO Go and Showtime are finally coming to Roku for Comcast subscribers Comcast is one of the largest pay TV providers in America. And as subscribers know all too well, it’s also one of the slowest when it comes to adopting many of the value-added services that other pay TV subscribers get to enjoy. While the wait for Comcast to come around can often be painful for customers, a bit of good news came late Monday night when it was revealed that HBO Go and Showtime Anytime streaming will finally be made available to Comcast customers who own Roku devices.  MORE → Get the first Lord of the Rings movie for free on Google Play right now Now that all three Hobbit movies have been released, Google is apparently letting Tolkien fans everywhere celebrate by giving away the first Lord of the Rings movie. Yes, you heard that correctly — you can now download Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for free right now from Google Play.  MORE → Hack reveals 20 movies Sony will release from now through 2017 Sony has recently been the target of one of the most important hacks in history, at least considering the amount of data that was stolen in the heist. And now, of course, that data is all slowly being published online. The hackers who hit Sony have already leaked a list of unreleased Sony movies, making them available for download, and several other data dumps containing personal details for Sony employees and various celebrities, email exchanges between top Sony execs, and even plans for the future.  MORE → Flappy Bird and iPhone 6 among the most Google searched tech items of 2014 With 2014 almost over, Google has released its regular search stats for the year, replacing its usual “Zeitgeist” report with a more user-friendly name: “Year in Search.” The search giant has released details about the queries performed on its search engine throughout the year, grouping the searches in various categories. Among the tech-related products, or gadgets that were most searched for online this year, Google has listed the controversial Flappy Bird app, but also many smartphones, including the iPhone 6.  MORE → Microsoft starts previewing one of its coolest products ever Microsoft is working on a real-time Skype translation tool that could go a long way toward eliminating language barriers once and for all, and you can preview it right now. Skype announced on Monday that people who signed up for its Skype Translator preview program can start using it right now on any devices they own that run on Windows 8.1.  MORE → These were the 10 most discussed topics on Facebook in 2014 As 2014 comes to a close, Facebook wants us to take a look back at the people, the places and the events that defined our year. The popular social network has put together a Year in Review site with a series of fascinating top 10 lists, from the TV shows that kept us glued to our couches to the songs that never seemed to leave the radio.  MORE → BlackBerry explains what the haters don’t get about the Passport Just like Taylor Swift, BlackBerry knows that its haters are gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate its newest flagship smartphone. To set the record straight, the company has posted a humorous article that details “11 things wrong with the BlackBerry Passport,” even though all 11 items listed are actually the device’s purported strengths.  MORE → Still dealing with slow or no Internet? Take the matter into your own hands! There are many people still lacking a decent Internet connection or any Internet connection whatsoever since in many places ISPs haven’t deployed strong broadband infrastructure. Instead of continuously asking for them to bring Internet to you, you could simply do what the people in the Italian village of Verrua Savoia did: take the matter into your own hands, and setup your own Internet service in your community.  MORE →

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