Germany's privacy regulatory body has taken issue with Facebook collecting WhatsApp user data, ordering the company to delete the data and cease the practice, calling it "an infringement of national data protection law."

"It has to be [the user's] decision, whether they want to connect their account with Facebook," says Hamburg data protection commissioner Johnnes Caspar. "Therefore, Facebook has to ask for their permission in advance. This has not happened."

Germany -- which boasts 35 million WhatsApp users -- isn't the only European country to take issue with Facebook's approach: France and Britain have both done so, with the former stating it would monitor the situation "with great vigilance."

It's a hard life if you're an AMD user and like to stream and record. Whereas NVIDIA users enjoy the sleek, performance-light, and feature-rich Shadowplay, there's really nothing as good for the other camp.

The gap narrows somewhat today though as Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) Studio (the new and improved version of OBS) gains support for AMD's Video Coding Engine (VCE). Essentially, this means fast, high-quality recording and streaming, in contrast to Windows Media Foundation offered, particularly at 1080p and 60 FPS.

VCE support has been in testing for awhile now and today marks the first stable release. To download it, hit the source link below, or if you're in no hurry, wait until the next OBS Studio release with which it will be bundled.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA, launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and to this day it stays a vital research tool for astronomy. Hubble is meritorious for some major discoveries and photographs that have shown us the beauties of the universe.

Today, NASA announced that Hubble has imaged what may be water vapor plumes erupting off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. It appears that the icy moon erupts with high altitude vapor plumes. Scientists estimate that the plumes rise about 200 kilometers before falling back onto Europa's surface.

The observation increases the possibility that missions to Europa may be able to sample Europa's ocean without having to drill through miles of ice.

Google's self-driving car was involved in yet another accident and this one was the worst so far. The autonomous Lexus sustained major damage in an accident involving a commercial van.

According to the report, the van driver ran a red light and collided with the modified Lexus SUV. The van hit the passenger side of the door and damaged it heavily but no one was hurt. The accident occurred in Mountain View and Lexus had to be towed from the scene.

Apple announced their new phones this month and the prices are as expected - the iPhone 7 starts at $649 and iPhone 7 Plus at $769. But, do you know how much Apple has to spend to manufacture those phones?

A report from IHS Markit, an analyst company based in London, shows that Apple's total cost to manufacture the iPhone 7 (32GB) is $224.80, which is around 18% more than the cost of the iPhone 6S.

"Total BOM (the bill of materials) costs for the iPhone 7 are more in line with what we have seen in teardowns of recent flagship phones from Apple's main competitor, Samsung, in that the costs are higher than in previous iPhone teardown analyses. All other things being equal, Apple still makes more margin from hardware than Samsung, but materials costs are higher than in the past", said Andrew Rassweiler, senior director of cost benchmarking services.

There's a new Dota 2 tournament that's about to take place, with some of China's best Dota 2 teams taking to the seas and participating in a LAN tournament that is being hosted on a cruise ship. Yes, you read that right.

The Nanyang Cruise Cup will see four Dota 2 teams, including TI6 champions Wings Gaming and Newbee, competing against each other on a cruise ship sailing across the Pacific Ocean for four days. Sapphire Princess will take the Dota 2 players from Shanghai on October 13, stopping by Japan and South Korea, before it returns to port on October 17.

Sapphire Princess will be hosting all of the LAN matches with its crew of 1100 and guest capacity of 2678, with the two other teams joining the Nanyang Cruise Cup through qualifier matches before the end of the month.

NVIDIA used to make graphics cards for Apple and some of their Mac products, but current-gen Mac systems are running AMD Radeon graphics cards, with this possibly changing in the future.

According to a job ad posted by NVIDIA, they are looking for a software engineer who would "help produce the next revolutionary Apple products", reports Bloomberg. The job post continues, adding that the role would require "working in partnership with Apple", as well as writing code that will "define and shape the future"of graphics-related software on Macs.

There also isn't just a single job posting, but three job listings on NVIDIA's database that reference Apple, with the latest posting appearing last week. One of the jobs specifies working with the NVIDIA Mac graphics driver team, which is interesting to see indeed. Apple has always been one to engineer their products to a very high standard, and with NVIDIA continuing to refine their GPU architecture, could we see Pascal or Volta in future Mac systems? I think so.

It wasn't too long ago that we had our first look of the Pixel smartphone, and now we have a clearer shot of the 5-inch smartphone, and the purported new navigation buttons.

VentureBeat has the scoop with the Google Pixel smartphone, the 5-inch variant while the 5.5-inch display will find a home on Pixel XL, but we have a great look of the phone's UI. We can see the new Pixel Launcher, as well as the circular launcher icons and new navigation icons.

The icons are now completely filled in on the Android 7.0-based smartphone, compared to the empty shapes on previous versions of Android. The change in icons could be an exclusive to the Pixel, but overall the smartphone is shaping up to be a nice evolution from Nexus to Pixel, and Android 6.0 to 7.0, so far.

One of the more exciting things we've heard about Google in the last few months is that they're reportedly working on a next-gen OS that would see the combination of Android and Chrome OS, known as Andromeda. Well, now there are rumors that Google will unveil an Andromeda-powered 'Pixel 3' laptop, which will hit the market in Q3 2017.

The purported Pixel 3 would arrive with a 12.3-inch display, with Google wanting its ultra-thin laptop to be used in 'tablet' mode, too. We could see a Lenovo Yoga-type of flexibility with the Pixel 3, especially as it is supposedly powered by an Intel Core m3 or i5 processor, 32/128GB of storage and 8/16GB of RAM. We should see two models of Pixel 3, one with the Intel m3/32GB storage/8GB RAM and the higher-end model with Core i3/128GB storage/16GB RAM.

Android Police reports that there should be a fingerprint scanner and more on the Pixel 3:

Google is mere days away from unveiling its new Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, as well as their new Andromeda operating system which is said to be an infusion of Chrome OS and Android, and could be the next big thing which will be ready in 2017.

The upcoming hardware-focused media event should see a bunch of new devices unveiled by Google, with notorious leaker Evan Blass teasing the Chromecast Ultra. Google's purported Chromecast Ultra is a 4K-ready device, which will have the same form factor as the current Chromecast, but it not features a "G" insignia, with the Chromecast logo removed.

The new 4K-ready Chromecast rocks a physical button, which could be used as a reset button, or an on/off switch. Google will reportedly be shipping the new 4K-powered Chromecast Ultra in October, for just $69.

With a newly focused Microsoft aiming for services and devices and beyond successful brands in Windows and Xbox, the Surface range has been quickly making a name for itself against Apple in many ways.

Microsoft tried its hand at the mobile market with Nokia, but it didn't work and it was a massive acquisition that saw Nokia virtually dissolve into irrelevance when compared with how Samsung and Apple have completely dominated and made monopolies of the mobile market, something Nokia was once the ruler of.

With rumors of Surface Phone, the company could be working on its own smartphone to compete against Samsung and Apple, teaming up with Qualcomm on the processor side of things. More information has surfaced on Microsoft's purported smartphone, with a post on Baidu teasing it runs Windows 10 Mobile Redstone 2, packs the Snapdragon 830 processor, a 5.7-inch 2K display, and a 20MP camera.

To celebrate this week's release of 'The Conjuring 2' on Blu-ray and DVD, we have 10 Blu-rays to give away thanks to our friends at Roadshow Home Entertainment.

The Conjuring 2 brings to the screen another real case from the files of renowned demonologists played by Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, who, in one of their most terrifying paranormal investigations, travel to north London to help a single mother raising four children alone in a house plagued by malicious spirits.

To go into the running to win a prize, simply correctly answer the following question:

The pro basketball organization known as the Philadelphia 76ers has acquired and merged eSports teams Dignitas and Apex, and will manage the new entity as Team Dignitas on a day-to-day basis going forward. The organization says it will provide to the team sponsorship, sales, branding, digital marketing, merchandising, player recruitment, and publicity services, as well as development and wellness practices.

The acquisition makes the 76ers the first North American pro sports team to acquire an eSports team, although it isn't the only association between the two worlds: to name one example, pro/former pro athletes Shaquille O'Neal, Alex Rodriquez (aka A-Rod), and Jimmy Rollins have a stake in Team NRG.

Dignitas and Apex are known for League of Legends, Counter Strike: GO, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, and Smite.

Guerrilla Games is really excited about its massive new game Horizon: Zero Dawn, saying that the game's story will blow you away even if you really don't like stories.

After seeing a bunch of trailers for Horizon: Zero Dawn, I have to say the game looks absolutely gorgeous. But it's more than just beautiful; it pulls you in, and makes you actually think about this crazy world full of titanic metal dinosaurs, primal magic, and impressive-looking shooter mechanics. It has this distinct mystique about it, and it's clear that Guerrilla Games cares a ton about this project. To match these striking visuals, Horizon: Zero Dawn will apparently have a "really fresh concept," with Fallout: New Vegas writer John Gonzalez helping pen the narrative.

"When I've seen some people saying 'Ah, I don't care about the story, it's not going to matte,' [but] I think it is going to matter. I think there's going to be huge amounts of enjoyment to be had for this game even for people who don't care about the story," Lead Writer John Gonzalez told Game Informer.

For some really bizarre reason, Microsoft will stop selling one if its major Xbox 360 exclusives on its storefront...and the company hasn't explained why. How soon until other Xbox 360 games get phased out, too?

While raving about Forza Horizon 3's accolades and positive review scores, Turn 10 delivered a curious buzzkill: the original Forza Horizon game has reached its "End of Life" status, and is being retired from the Xbox marketplace next month. If you already own the game, or buy the game before October 20, you won't be affected. But pretty much everyone already owns the game since it was given away for free on Xbox LIVE Games With Gold a bit ago.

The caped crusader is back again, although this time, it may be a bitter sweet finale. Recent news has broken out across gaming sites, announcing completion of Batman: Arkham VR for Sony PlayStation. The development company of previous Batman: Arkham titles, developer RockSteady has reached out and discussed their future, now that the VR game is set to hit stores next month.

After the release of Batman: Arkham Knight, Rocksteady will be finalising the Batman series with their latest virtual reality project now submitted, Batman: Arkham VR. Producer Dax Gin reached out and spoke to Eurogamer, making the following statement: "We submitted Batman VR to Sony, last week which was an awesome experience".

He then continued after being asked about the company's next move: "To be honest I don't really know, we're in a very enviable position where we have some time and space to decide what we're doing next we can sit back and think what our dream game would be, and we have Warner Bros.' support to do that". The information released by the producer was more than enough to enable the idea that Batman could be no more as he continued to hint that the office was mourning the sad split between them and the Dark Knight, revealing: "I think there's a little bit of sadness on the team, it feels like breaking up?"

Pasadena, California is the latest town to impose a streaming tax on its residents. Starting January 1, the 9.4 percent tax will be applied to services like Netflix, HBO Go, and Hulu.

Five other California cities have already implemented such a tax, and 45 others are on the radar.

There is opposition to the tax, of course, not just on a personal level, but legal as well: the state's leading taxpayer association Howard Jarvis questions the legality of the levy.

Game developer Bungie has recently made news headlines with their latest expansion pack Destiny: The Rise of Iron, launching only days ago for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Online sources are already revealing to the public ways in which players can attain the one-of-a-kind 'Days of Iron Armor'. The exclusive gives users the ability to customization weapons and load-out gear via the increase of a player's rank.

In order to acquire the different pieces of armor and weapons, gamers will have to earn them as rewards that will then be recorded into their own Destiny profile book. This is done by completing challenges and tasks that provide achievements that are then tracked and recorded, increasing profile rank as they progress throughout the game. Tasks such as opening Iron Armor boxes hidden around different places will help assist in the increase of rank as another piece becomes available for use.

Once completed, the piece of armor shifts into the inventory where the customization can then take place. Acquiring the gear is simple as each set piece is tied to a particular rank in the record book.

Foxconn is currently manufacturing Nintendo's mysterious new NX hardware, and now a purported employee has revealed potential new information on the system, namely a GPU and CPU attachment that can be swapped between the console and handheld portion.

Remember that Foxconn worker that leaked the PlayStation 4 Pro console, and said the NX is a "PSP-like device" being made right now at the plant? Now another Foxconn worker is taking aim at the NX. According to the worker's claims, Nintendo's new cryptic NX system will have three parts: a handheld tablet with detachable controllers, a mini-console that the handheld can be "docked" into, and a detachable hardware upgrade attachment called a "performance module" that can slot into the handheld or the console to boost GPU and CPU power.

The performance module can be swapped between the handheld and the mini-console at will, transforming both the handheld and the mini-console with "PS4/Xbox One-like" power. Both the handheld and the mini-console dock will be usable without the performance module, but their performance will be limited--think basic functionality, web surfing, Netflix, MiiVerse interactions, and likely Virtual Console gaming.

Bethesda Softworks have recently launched an update for their hit game Fallout Shelter. It has been confirmed that the update will see that iOS devices will feature a new set of game-related stickers, for which can be used in iMessage .

The 1.7.2 update will be free, but the installment of Fallout Shelter's free in-app base game is essential in order to obtain the exclusive sticker content. The latest update will feature characters such as 'Vault Boy' (seen in the image above) to be conveying various emotions through the display of different themed identities. Some possess a comedic and happy tone whilst others appear to be angry and even sad.

Depending on the topic of conversation at the time, these one-of-a-kind stickers can give an edge to iMessages, as the content is only available via the new download. Once installed, this updated feature can be used in any app that contains sticker support.