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In the name of enhanced security, the tech giant is having users tie their linked e-mail and other accounts to one single Microsoft account.

Sony is getting busy trying to parlay its successful E3 into a sense of momentum for the PlayStation 4 leading up to its release this holiday season. Exhibit A for this effort is Sony Computer Entertainment International CEO and President Andrew House telling the Wall Street Journal that the company has raised its internal sales projections for the PS4. The newest estimate comes in light of "positive signs about demand for the device" and "favorable reactions to the company's presentation Monday at the Electronics Entertainment Expo." Note that House refused to state precisely how much of an increase Sony made to its internal projections—those expectations could have gone from 1,000,000 expected sales to 1,000,001 for all we know. Still, Sony Computer Entertainment America head Jack Tretton mentioned that Gamestop said it wants "every single unit" Sony can manufacture, a statement confirmed by a Gamestop representative and suggestive of strong initial pre-order demand. Amazon is no longer taking pre-orders on the "Launch Edition" of the PS4 hardware, though systems bundled with various games are still available and "gauranteed [sic] to be available on the Release Day." The "Day One Edition" of the Xbox 360 is still available for pre-order on Amazon, but it's impossible to know how Amazon's launch day supplies of both systems compare directly. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Microsoft publicly gave its opinion of used games—it's another story for game publishers. Andrew Cunningham Microsoft is taking a lot of heat for implementing an online check-in system that will allow publishers to explicitly block the resale of used game discs on the Xbox One. But it's the publishers themselves that will have to decide whether or not to take advantage of the ability Microsoft has given them. So far at least, no publisher has been willing to go on the record definitively stating that they are for or against the existence of second-hand game discs on Microsoft's next system. This might be because these publishers were seemingly caught flat-footed when Microsoft announced its policy a couple of week ago. "We have not received anything from Microsoft until today on this one," CD Project Red co-founder and Joint CEO Marcin Iwi?ski told Eurogamer just after Microsoft's licensing policy was announced. "Before we form any definite opinions here, we would like to have this process explained in details by the platform holder." (Later, Iwi?ski defended CD Project Red's decision to release on Microsoft platforms despite the system's online check-ins. "We couldn't simply not release The Witcher 3 on Xbox One. We want to make sure that every single player will have access to our game...") Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

@zzlovers You're correct though regarding its availability in Thailand. For some discussion on this see here Thanks!

@Autumnalia See this post in our Community for a little insight Thanks, Autumn! #OfficeMobile

Version 4.0 of EMET has just been released and contains a slew of updates and improvements, along with providing support for current Microsoft operating systems. read more

Meet 3 Windows 8/Windows Server 2012 cmdlets that will save you lots of time Mark takes a break from his AD coverage to show you some truly cool PowerShell tools: the volume cmdlets, the disk cmdlets, and the physicaldisk cmdlets. read more

We might not be getting the second part of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit until December 13th but that doesn’t mean that we won’t be getting lots of teasers to help pass the time until then. This newest featurette for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is a six-minute trip into the incredibly beautiful shooting locations in New Zealand used in the movies. There isn’t any new “movie” scenes to be revealed but more a tour guide for the fans of the movie to see where it all took place. So sit back and enjoy a bit of travel in the beautiful countryside of New Zealand and maybe chuckle a little bit at the sight of dwarves and hobbits hopping in and out of helicopters. via FirstShowing.net A Six-Minute Featurette Of Behind-The-Scenes For ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug’ [Video] is a post from: Winextra Follow us on Twitter: @WinExtra and on Facebook: WinExtra Fans Related posts: Pete Jackson Teases Us With Fleeting Scenes And Q&A About ‘Desolation of Smaug’ [Video] The First Trailer For “The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug” Is Here Trailer #2 For “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” [Video] The Hobbit trailer hits the web

Unless of course you use Windows Phone About a month and a half after it released a preview version of this functionality, Skype has shipped its new video messaging feature to clients for Windows desktop, Windows 8/RT, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry. Notice anything missing from that list? read more

How to update a phone by updating a back-end cloud service It may be incessantly mocking Apple’s oft-derided Siri voice recognition feature, but behind the scenes Microsoft has been working to add similar functionality to Windows Phone. And this week, the firm revealed how this work has improved the voice search and voice-to-text features in Windows Phone without requiring any updates to the handsets. read more