Well, DirectX 11.2 is coming folks, and it will be exclusive to Windows 8.1 and Xbox One. Microsoft have confirmed the news, with the new iteration of Microsoft's software including tiles resources, which will allow developers to cram more detail into our games, and much more.

DirectX 11.2 is built to use both system RAM and graphics RAM to store textures, with Microsoft's Antoine Leblond saying that the tiled resources will see DirectX 11.2-based games have much better resolution of textures displayed in-game. Leblond used a live example, showing off a demo that used 9GB of texture data that was held in system RAM compared to graphics RAM.

This is great for PC gamers, but it also means gamers will be looking at a new OS once again. Microsoft are doing it strangely, too, as they won't be offering DirectX 11.2 to Windows 8 - so it looks like Windows 8 is done and dusted for if you're a gamer. Glad I haven't made the switch yet.

If you haven't heard about the NSA's PRISM program yet, you really are behind in current events - and I suggest you check out the countless pieces we've all written on it here at TweakTown. Now we have The Washington Post unveiling a heap of new slides about the NSA's PRISM program, as shown below, or here.

The new slides give us a much better look into just how much, and how far this data collection goes. It also includes information on how an NSA analyst requests information from a particular company, the number of current surveillance targets in PRISM's database, as well as the dates the big players on the Internet began participating.

As you can see above, there are some serious companies involved, and they're taking everything. This includes e-mail, video, VoiP, file transfers, social networking details and more. Pretty much anything that is done electronically by any human being on Earth, is recorded by this program. Every company that matters is on there - Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo, and more.

My fondest memories as a kid growing up was growing up through the network area of connecting PC's together for some Quake, Duke Nukem, Command & Conquer and good old file sharing - but those days could be ending in Sweden, where there is now a "LAN party tax".

From now on, organizers of LAN parties will have to pay a fee of up to $5,000 so that they can receive a "permit" that will allow them to connect together PC's or gaming consoles. The ruling was made legal by the Gambling Board, who are the supervisory authority for gaming and lottery and in accordance with the liberal government's revised slot machine regulation of last year.

Now video games fall under this umbrella, and LAN gamers and organizers are only going to suffer. General Counsel at the Gaming Board, Johan Rohr, has said that "in the eyes of the law, these are slot machines." Not only will the LAN organizers be slapped with a fee for the "permit", but they could also be up for paying extra for an inspection fee if the Gambling Board decide to check the party out.

We've been on m.2, or NGFF (Next Generation Form Factor) watch since Computex earlier this month and we've finally found a notebook/ultrabook with an NGFF option. The Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E431 is the first of its kind, at least the first we've actually found.

The options list is very limited at this time. You either order their $50 24GB NGFF SSD for cache or you don't. The description is pretty light as well. We've already ran a few tests on ADATA NGFF drives, one with a JMicron controller and another with an LSI SandForce controller.

It's not much but it's a start. Next week a package arrives with new tools for measuring performance of NGFF products and at that time we'll have everything we need to write a proper review of the new ADATA NGFF SSD's.

BlackBerry reported its earnings and sales figures today. Unfortunately for the company, those numbers were lower than expectations. Because of this underwhelming performance, BlackBerry shares declined by over 27 percent today. The price per share for BlackBerry now sits at around $10.46, or the lowest they have been since November of last year.

Many analysts expected BlackBerry to sell around 3.5 million BB10 devices this quarter. Instead, the company managed to sell just 2.7 million. To put this figure in perspective, Nokia sold nearly double the amount of devices as BlackBerry, which still isn't saying much. BlackBerry sat at an operating loss of $84 million, or 16 cents per share. This is quite a bit better than this quarter last year in which BlackBerry lost of $500 million. Revenue was also up 9 percent to $3.1 billion.

BlackBerry still has quite a bit to do if they want to stick around. Some have called for the company to split its hardware and software business, something that the company says it isn't planning to do. Do you think BlackBerry has a chance at sticking around?

Yahoo announced today that they would be doing a Google-like summer cleaning in which they sunset older and out-of-date products. One of the most notable products to make Yahoo's sunset list is the ancient search engine AltaVista. There are many other products on list, which you can see below. Most of the product closures take place by the end of July, though two don't happen until the end of September.

CEO Marissa Mayer, a former Googler, appears to be taking the Google approach to these products. Many of these product shutdowns aren't surprising. Previous rumors had suggested that AltaVista was going to be shut down in 2010. Many of these products are legacy or duplicate a function provided by another aspect of Yahoo's offerings. As such, they are just costing the company money.

Sunday night after the clock strikes midnight, Google will shut down its Reader service for good. That's right after eight long years the search giant is pulling the plug on its popular RSS feed importer. The project was created back in early 2005 by Google engineer Chris Wetherell and after two years of development was released to the public through Google Labs in 2007.

With the pending shutdown, many alternatives of popped up with big-name sites such as AOL and Digg both developing their own replacements. Other alternatives have been around for quite a while now such as The Old Reader, Pusle, and my personal favorite, Feedly. All of these alternatives except for Pulse allow for the importation of your Google reader feeds via XML file.

Here at TweakTown most of us have already switched over to Feedly which seems to be winning the race as the most popular Google reader replacement with more than 8 million new subscribers being added since Google announced Reader's shutdown. This is partially because Feedly makes the importation process so simple as all you need to do is log into your Google account and it will import your Google Reader settings automatically. Additionally, the interface is very Google Reader like with some UI improvements for a more refined experience.

For those of you who have a PlayStation 3, don't fret, Sony will continue to support their current money-maker once the PS4 launches later in the year for $399.

The confidence in the PS3 comes directly from Sony Japan President, Hiroshi Kawano and Sony Worldwide President, Shuhei Yoshida, when they spoke during an interview with Japanese gaming magazine, Weekly Famitsu. They said that support for the PS3 will continue indefinitely, and that the company has "no intention of immediately shifting from the PS3 to the PS4."

Kawano also noted that after seven years since the PS3 launched, it continues to "sell at a constant pace" and that there are countless titles headed to the PS3 in the future. Kawano added: "With the 2014 launch of our cloud service in the US allowing users to play PS3 games on the PS4, some people may switch consoles from the PS3 to the PS4. But that'll be a gradual process, and to say 'we're releasing a new console, so trade in your old ones for it' would be a maker's ego talking, plain and simple."

Alienware are still here, making some seriously high-end gaming PC's and notebooks, and their General Manager, Frank Azon, has some harsh words for Microsoft and Sony's next-gen consoles.

He said that the Xbox One and PS4 are just becoming more and more like the PC, stating that the PC is the ultimate gaming platform, and that Microsoft and Sony are just borrowing concepts from the PC and putting them into a flashy-looking box that sits in your living room.

Azon isn't just talking fluff either, as we know that the next-gen consoles are powered by x86 architectures, which is what the PC is built upon. On top of that we have AMD building them, which are a PC company. We have digital downloads, streaming TV and movies, which have been staples of the PC industry for years now.

The next couple of years are going to be filled with many different wearable technology devices being released, but most thought that Apple would be the first to the market with the most popular smartwatch - it seems we were wrong, as Foxconn have beaten Apple to the finish line, kinda.

Foxconn showed off their new smartwatch during a recent shareholders meeting, with the smartwatch capable of connecting to an iPhone wirelessly and displaying incoming call information as well as Facebook posts. The Foxconn-built smartwatch also had the ability of monitoring the wearer's heartbeat, respiration and other vital statistics.

If the device reports that your heartbeat is beating too fast, it can offer you steps on how to get it down. This news is important as Foxconn are one of Apple's closest partners, and if they've got a smartwatch out now, which seems pretty capable, what are Apple going to be saying behind closed doors right now?

During what can only be described as a massive crackdown on illegal online pharmacies, the US FDA has taken down more than 9,600 websites that illegally sold "dangerous and unapproved" prescription drugs. The FDA says that it issued regulatory warnings to the site owners and proceeded to seize any websites along with $41 million of illegal medicine.

Dubbed "Operation Pangea," the operation took place from June 18-25 and involved not only the FDA, but many partners worldwide. The FDA says that many of these illegal sites operated as part of a large organized criminal network and most falsely claimed to be Canadian pharmacies.

Many of the sites displayed fake license and certification documents as well as falsely used drug brand names and the wording "FDA Approved" to put potential customers at ease. Furthermore, to manipulate potential victims, the sites would use names that look convincing to non-savvy browsers. Two examples given were Walgreens-store.com and c-v-s-pharmacy.com.

Facebook's Android app is usually hit and miss on whether an update will be amazing and fix tons of issues or will just inject more bugs into the user experience. It appears that Facebook realizes this and has now opened a new beta testing program that all Android users are invited to join.

Facebook says that the creation of this beta tester pool is because of the sheer vastness and diversity of hardware and OS software in the Android ecosystem. This makes it very difficult for the software developers to find every bug and every issue that only appears on a specific device or version. This new program is organized by Google's new "Group for Beta Testers" service that was announced at Google I/O earlier this month.

To join the group, all you have to do is click the link at source #2 below, join the group, except the permissions, and head to the Android market and re-download the Facebook app. Facebook has created its own group (source #3) in which users can join and leave feedback, but that is not a requirement. Reporting bugs found in the application is as easy as clicking a new "report bug" button icon in the settings menu.

BitFenix is known for its clean yet very modern chassis designs and today the company has unveiled its latest ATX masterpiece. The Ronin is a mid-tower PC case that features enhanced cooling capabilities, DIY/hacking-friendly features and styling, and the same high-quality construction that BitFenix is known for.

The Ronin accommodates up to two 140 mm fans in the top or a water cooling radiator up to 240 mm in length. Additionally, there are two 120 mm fan locations in the front and one in the back as well as one on the bottom. Like other modern PC chassis, BitFenix has designed the hard drive cages to be removable to allow the installation of graphics cards up to 420mm in length.

Continuing BitFenix's long-standing DIY-friendly design, the Ronin features tool-free drive locking mechanisms, a plethora of cable management options, as well as a motherboard tray CPU bracket cutout to allow easy swapping of CPU coolers. Air filters are located in the front of the case as well as on the bottom allowing for a mostly dust free lifespan. BitFenix says that the Ronin will be available in store shelves mid-July, but MSRP is unknown at this time.

Google is most often referred to as the search king, and rightfully so as it does search better than all others. What we tend to forget is that Google makes most of it's money from advertising, which is something else the company does phenomenally well. Like most other companies, Google is not a fan of competition and this morning it has flexed its muscles in an effort to remove all "adult content ads" from Blogger.

Google is sending out notices to owners of adult-themed blogs hosted on its popular Blogger service. The notice warns of a change to its terms of service which will restrict its users from earning money by displaying adult ads on their blog. The email explicitly states that on June 30 Google will "strictly prohibit the monetization of Adult content on Blogger."

At the moment, it appears that Google is contacting Blogger users that have already manually mark their blogs as adult or have been identified (through means unknown) to be running explicit ads. The process does not appear to be flawless as some users have reported receiving email even though they have never made a single post on their blog.

I'm a huge fan of Google Now, using it on the daily, but the app has just been updated with some fresh features. Google have introduced a live TV feature and Google Offers to Google Now.

The TV cards work with Internet-connected TV's, where they'll display more information about what is currently playing on your TV. Users need to connect their Android-powered device to the same network that the TV is on, and then tap "Listen for a TV Show" in Google Now. This feature will show things like factoids about the show and profiles of the actors within the show.

The second feature Google Now received was Google Offers, which will keep track of your saved offers. If you're near a store where you've got an offer available, the Offers Card will pop up with a notification alerting you of the nearby savings to be had.

I really want an Ultra HD TV and Sharp may have just unveiled something I might truly be interested in. A THX-certified, 70-inch 4K display that costs $8,000. This is a lot, especially compared to Seiki sets, but THX certification isn't just handed out to any device.

Sharp says that this new device will arrive in mid-August, and wdill include four HDMI inputs that accept native 4K, two USB ports, an SD card reader and it will all arrive in a beautiful ultra-thin frame that allows the 70-inch beast to take up the same space as a normal 65-inch set.

NVIDIA have released the GeForce 320.49 Beta drivers, which are perfect for the just-released GeForce GTX 760 GPU. The new beta drivers not only include support for NVIDIA's latest mid-range GPU, but they include a bunch of fixes that were reported with previous drivers.

These fixes include problems with image corruption and artifacting Eve Online: Retribution, Assassin's Creed III, Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. The GeForce 320.49 Beta drivers also include, or add SLI support for a number of titles: Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Natural Selection 2, Trackmania 2: Canyon and GRID 2.

You can download the drivers right here.

Google has processed hundreds of terabytes of Earth imagery to construct a cloud-free version of its satellite imagery used in its Maps and Earth products. The data is also now higher resolution, providing the ability to see the Earth in greater detail. The new imagery comes from NASA's and USGS' Landsat 7 satellite. Due to a hardware failure early in life, this was no easy feat.

Landsat 7's imagery has black stripes in the normal images due to said hardware failure. Google had to combine multiple images in order to remove those black stripes. This same process is essentially how they managed to get a cloudless version of their imagery, even in tropical zones that almost always have some cloud cover.

Google has also focused on bringing the new imagery to zones that hadn't been updated in a while. This means the new imagery focuses on Russia, Indonesia, and central Africa. Google notes that the new image is over 800,000 megapixels. In other words, it would take a piece of paper the size of a city block to print it out at the standard 300dpi.

It looks as though it could still be a long time before Instagram finds its way onto the Windows Phone and BlackBerry platforms. This fact comes courtesy of Instagram's CEO, who noted during an interview that Google Glass is towards the bottom of their list for new platforms. This is because Instagram considers where its users are and where the growth is.

Shortly after explaining that a Glass app is towards the bottom of their list, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom warned that BlackBerry and Windows Phone apps may not be coming anytime soon. "I'm just saying that in order of priority, the way we evaluate where to expand to is really simply where our users are, and where the growth is," the executive explained. "It took us a very long time to get to Android."

We're actually quite surprised that Instagram hasn't brought an app to the other mobile platforms as of yet. Instagram is owned by Facebook, a massive company that could easily afford to port the application to the other platforms. If you're planning on using Instagram on Google Glass just be warned that it could be a very long time until an app is released for the platform.

Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, and Skype have been hit with a complaint in the European Union over data protection issues in relation to the recently revealed NSA spying program Prism. THe complaint has been brought by the same group that ran the Europe v Facebook campaign. Through this latest complaint, they hope to gain clarification on the laws regarding foreign data passing to US agencies.

These five companies have been selected specifically because of their corporate structure. Each has a subsidiary in the European Union, which should be required to follow EU data protection rights and policies. The question becomes a bit less straightforward when these companies have US headquarters, possibly making them be required to comply with US laws that are in conflict with EU laws. They have an excellent explanation: