The Microsoft Surface tablets live a troubled existence. Ostensibly tablet devices designed by Microsoft to show how Windows 8 (and later 8.1) are designed to work on a Tablet, the devices originally came with; then later made optional a series of Covers (such as the Touch Cover and Type Cover) that added physical keyboards to the mix. Combined with the tablets featuring a kickstand to keep the screen upright, it often felt more like Microsoft were actually aiming to build hybrid devices – laptops with a removable screen that just HAPPENED to be usable as a tablet – rather than tablet devices in their own right.

The Surface Pro 3 takes it even further.

Microsoft’s belief is that up until now, tablets and laptops have been mutually exclusive devices, suiting different use cases. Unveiled today at a purpose-built event at New York City, Microsoft say their next entry to their Surface line of tablets is designed with one particular purpose in mind – to bridge that gap. So no longer is it enough to sell tablets with enough optional accessories to be usable as laptops – Microsoft’s new goal is to have their tablet replace your laptop entirely.

In order to achieve that goal, Microsoft first started by upping the 10.6-inch screen – as seen on the Surface Pro 2 – to 12-inches, or one whole foot wide. The display also comes with a 2,160 x 1,440 resolution, topping traditional 1080p HD displays on the market. The combination leads to a 4:3 viewing ratio – the same as a typical TV before Widescreen became commonplace – which Microsoft says is “critical” to compete with a typical laptop screen.

Despite the enlarged screen, Microsoft also seems to be committed to making the overall device smaller and lighter to use. At 9.1mm thick, the Surface Pro 3 shaves a millimetre-and-a-half of thickness from the Pro 2; while it weighs just 800g. The lightness of the tablet was demonstrated by placing it on a pair of scales with a MacBook Air on the other side, demonstrating it to be lighter than Apple’s famously ultra-thin laptop in a thinly-veiled dig towards one of the biggest players in the Tablet Computing market.

But if Microsoft really want to make this a laptop-killer, it needs the power to match. For this, Microsoft is equipping all the Surface Pro 3 tablets with Intel Core processors (more on that later), not only improving the power of the tablets beyond that of previous Surfaces, but also pushing it into the realm of – yes, you guessed it – your typical medium- to high-end laptop. Microsoft ran a number of high-end apps; and even a 3D-rendering app on-stage during the presentation to prove its capabilities. Adobe also came on-stage to show off a new version of Photoshop, “specifically optimised” for the Surface Pro 3, which even has 200% bigger icons to make it work equally well when touched with a stylus or with fingers. Adobe claim that the updated app also contains an enhanced feature set that has been made possible with the power of the new device.

Microsoft will release the Surface Pro 3 in three flavours, offering different Intel Core processors – the i3, i5 and i7 in order of power – to allow users to compromise between performance and price. All of them will sport a number of USB 3.0 ports and a redesigned kickstand, which rotates between angles starting at the standard 22 degrees up to 150 degrees – a departure from the fixed viewing angles of the previous two iterations. They will also come with Microsoft’s popular Type Covers in multiple colours.

While the devices hit stores in America on Wednesday, global release plans and price points are not yet known. Taking the American prices, however, the entry level i3 device – with minimum storage and RAM included – will cost $799; the equivalent of £480 here in the UK. Customers who want an Intel Core i5 will need to dish out $999 to $1,299 (roughly £590 – £770) depending on Storage and RAM, and the most priciest i7 model – with the full 512GB of storage and 8GB of on-board RAM – will set you back over a grand in our money, with the US price of $1,949 equating to over £1100 this side of the pond. We hope to have news on the European launch dates and price points as soon as they become available.

We’ve known about it since February, but finally, D-day (Deactivation Day) has arrived for online services on Wii and DS games. At some point in the next 24 hours, Nintendo is turning off the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Service as used for Wii and DS games. This means you’ll no longer be able to use the WiFi on Wii and DS to play those games online, download new content, or access leaderboards.

That means no more Mario Kart DS races; no more Professor Layton downloadable puzzles; no more online Multiplayer in Super Smash Bros. Brawl or the original Monster Hunter 3. And while it was originally suggested that DSi-enhanced games would not be affected, this seems to have been wishful thinking, as even Pokémon Black and Pokémon White and their sequels (along with the other DS-era Pokémon Titles) are being disconnected (Nintendo UK’s page about it only lists games with Downloadable Content as being discontinued; the American site is a little more comprehensive, although some titles have different names between regions).

While the games will no longer be playable online or be able to receive downloadable content, local Wireless is unaffected – so you can still wirelessly race, battle, puzzle against or otherwise play with your mates within a ten-metre range; and use Download Play if your game offers it. The games will also continue to have all their offline play features. Meanwhile, Pokémon fans worried their Pokémon collections from Generations 4 or 5 are permanently locked to stay in that generation need not worry – using a 3DS, it’s still Possible to move Pokémon from some DS Pokémon Titles to the Pokémon Bank and then to Pokémon X and Y, thanks to the Poké Transfer app for 3DS which remains functional.

Online services that do not use Nintendo WFC, such as Netflix and Youtube apps, also remain functional on their respective devices (for as long as the companies behind those apps continue to support the Wii or DS, anyway); and Internet Browsing is still also possible. Meanwhile the Wii Shop Channel is also remaining up and running for the moment, so WiiWare and Virtual Console games can still be downloaded, gifted and so on. Even so, it’s clear where the real focus of online for Nintendo is now – Wii U, 3DS, and the Nintendo Network, all of which will continue their normal lives long after their predecessors are cut off later today.

It may seem hard to believe, but as of tomorrow (15th May 2014), Diablo 3 will be two years old. Cake and singing songs just isn’t in the style of the popular dungeon-based Hack-and-Slasher, however. Nor is a single day of celebration enough. No, Blizzard has something better in mind.

To celebrate the game’s second anniversary and the community that made it all possible, Starting tomorrow and running until May 22, players who log in to defend Sanctuary will receive double Rift Fragments as well as a +100% boost to their chance to find Legendary items.

While the buffs will apply to all characters; and will stack with other buffs a Player may have to add further bonuses to their drop rate etc, those with a console version of the game are unfortunately excluded – this event is for PC & Mac only. However, as Console releases already have better drop rates than the PC equivalent, this is hardly a big loss. What MIGHT be a big loss is the timing, as many Diablo 3 players are complaining the week-long event falls into a period where many students are completing major exams – thus limiting the time they have to take advantage. However, the most hardcore of Diablo 3 players are already clearing their schedule to make room for a whole week of non-stop action.

Whether you’re a casual or hardcore Diablo 3 player, looks like Diablo’s demons better prepare for a lot more bloodshed than usual.

Say what you want about a massive retail chain releasing an own-brand Tablet, but when that Tablet sells over half a million units in one year, clearly you must be doing something right. But while the Hudl tablet may have been very successful for massive retailer Tesco – enough so that a sequel is planned for later this year, in fact – it hasn’t all been plain sailing.

An unusual glitch that causes the screen to go completely unresponsive in certain situations has caused the store to have to replace a significant number of tablets under warranty. Over the last few weeks, Tesco have been hard at work to discover a cause for this issue; and eventually narrowed it down to a faulty piece of code responsible for managing the screen’s sensors. As a result, it’s rolling out an Android update to fix the issue for any tablets still affected.

Tesco say that some updates have passed Google certification and are already hitting affected Hudls, but it could take up to three weeks for the fix to reach everyone. So if you’re using a Hudl and finding it to stop working every now and then, hold fast – you’ll soon be back to working order without the hassle of a return.

When Popcorn Time first hit Windows PCs, Hollywood was a picture of fear and anger. Here was a service designed to find torrents of all kinds of movies past and present; and make pirated copies of movies available for FREE – and worse, they were open-sourcing the project! Hollywood eventually took down the original code and jailed the person responsible – but not before other people grabbed the code and forked it, creating similar software and projects of their own. And now, Popcorn Time is going mobile.

That’s because on the project’s most popular forks, Time4Popcorn, have released an Android app online. Sporting the same look, feel and selection of films as the desktop version, Time4Popcorn’s app is only recommended for those with generous data plans; as it also streams the films from torrents rather than offering them directly. Some elements of the Android interface are still quite low-res compared to the Desktop version and there are UI elements that don’t work yet, plus some films have a noticeable delay before they start playing due to the availability or speed of the torrent process.

Naturally, with movie piracy being a criminal offence, Google were not at all pleased to see the Android app released. While Time4Popcorn apparently submitted the app to the official Google Play store, don’t expect to find it there yourself, as Google removed it on the grounds of “theft of intellectual property”. As a result, it can only be downloaded from Time4Popcorn’s website.

If this hasn’t put you off using the new App, however, there might be an even BIGGER reason to urge consumers to avoid it. The Time4Popcorn app’s functionality is mainly served by a centralised server, which makes it vulnerable both to takedown attempts by legal bodies or angry hackers; as well as opening the potential for malware to be distributed through it. Indeed, some users allege that the app contains malware already – although this does not seem to be the case, as the developers of the app makes its source code public and no dangerous code has been found within. Whatever the case may be, the point is that by utilising this single central server approach – which is also used by the Desktop version – Time4Popcorn offers no safety net and no guarantees as to the availability, safety and security of the service, should anything happen to that server in the future. You use it at your own risk.

Just like on Windows, however, the open-source nature of Popcorn Time means it may only be a matter of time before a second Android version is released; and there’s even been interest in building it for Chromecast. Perhaps this is the sad fact of piracy – it continues to evolve and grow even as it gives the finger to the very organisations by which it harms, yet whom without which it would cease to exist.