entertainment

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The official Hulu Plus app arrived for Windows Phone 8 this morning, bringing tons of top-notch TV shows and movies to your phone. Download it now. The app is free but a Hulu Plus subscription will run you $8 a month.

The app provides all the conveniences of the Hulu service—like ad-free kids shows and popular grown-up offerings like Community, Family Guy and Modern Family—with some nice Windows Phone design touches. You can pin Hulu Plus to Start for Live Tile updates about new show and films, or configure the app to update your Lock screen wallpaper for even faster glance-and-go updates. Another handy feature: You can find, queue, and start watching a program on your Windows Phone, then pick up where you left later back at home on your PC or Xbox 360.

The official Hulu blog has more about the new app.

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Deezer is a global music subscription service that is available in more than 180 countries. And today, the Deezer app is available in the Windows Store. With the app, Windows 8 users can enjoy up to a year’s worth of unlimited ad-supported access to Deezer’s catalogue of 20 million tracks on your Windows PC and/or tablet at no cost. Of course, Deezer has paid plans as well if you want to enjoy ad-free music. See this post from Deezer for more.

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I would like to introduce you to the ASUS VivoBook S500, the latest and largest addition to the ASUS family. If you are looking for a PC with a big, bright screen (15.6” inches to be exact) that is durable, yet portable, this might be the one for you.

The first thing that caught my attention was the keyboard. The track pad is situated slightly more towards the left because the VivoBook S500 has a number pad in addition to the full featured keyboard. This is a great feature that is not very common on laptops. If you are headed off to school in September to study Engineering, or other math focused majors, this is a feature that you will love, and will make your classmates envious.

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Xbox has officially announced Xbox Music tonight which begins rolling out to Xbox consoles on October 16th. Starting on October 26th, Xbox Music will deliver free streaming music on Windows 8 and Windows RT PCs and tablets in 15 markets worldwide!

Xbox Music has a music catalog on par with iTunes and will give you access to millions of songs and albums that you can subscribe to or purchase through the Xbox Music Store. Buy an Xbox Music Pass for just $9.99 (U.S.) per month and you can get access to ad-free, unlimited playback of any song in our catalog. Your music experience will be effortlessly integrated across Windows 8 and Windows RT PCs and tablets, Windows Phone 8 and your TV with the Xbox 360. Xbox Music is cloud-powered: if you have an Xbox Music Pass you can create the perfect playlist on your Windows 8 or Windows RT PC or tablet and then see it automatically appear on your TV with your Xbox 360 or on your phone with Windows Phone 8.

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Xbox has officially announced Xbox Music tonight which begins rolling out to Xbox consoles on October 16th. Starting on October 26th, Xbox Music will deliver free streaming music on Windows 8 and Windows RT PCs and tablets in 15 markets worldwide!

Xbox Music has a music catalog on par with iTunes and will give you access to millions of songs and albums that you can subscribe to or purchase through the Xbox Music Store. Buy an Xbox Music Pass for just $9.99 (U.S.) per month and you can get access to ad-free, unlimited playback of any song in our catalog. Your music experience will be effortlessly integrated across Windows 8 and Windows RT PCs and tablets, Windows Phone 8 and your TV with the Xbox 360. Xbox Music is cloud-powered: if you have an Xbox Music Pass you can create the perfect playlist on your Windows 8 or Windows RT PC or tablet and then see it automatically appear on your TV with your Xbox 360 or on your phone with Windows Phone 8.

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“Dude, have you downloaded Crackle yet?”

I’d barely opened my laptop this morning and my Windows Phone-owning buddy (and big Stephen King fan) was already pelting me with instant messages. “All you have to do is set up an account and you’re watching flicks. I watched Christine on the bus to work this morning.” He urged me to blog about how cool it is.

He was right: The official Crackle app, which landed in Marketplace earlier this week, provides free access to hundreds of full-length films and TV shows, streamed to your Windows Phone for free. What’s nice is that you can play them as much as you want, and nearly two dozen new titles are added to the catalog each month from sources including Columbia Pictures, Tri-Star, Screen Gems, and Sony Pictures Classics. Download the app—or check out the Crackle site—for the complete list of titles.  The app is available in Australia, Canada, UK, and US.

Anybody else give it a whirl yet?

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Last Thursday, we announced the availability of the Windows 8 Release Preview. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been living with the Windows 8 Release Preview on all my devices – from my laptop, to a tablet, to my All-in-One PC at home, and my desktop PC here in my office at work. Windows 8 brings together all these devices and has changed the way I use these devices and PCs. I wanted to share these experiences with you. If you have the Windows 8 Release Preview installed, most of what is in my post are things you can do yourself today with the Windows 8 Release Preview. And if you haven’t installed the Windows 8 Release Preview, perhaps this might change your mind! Or if you are simply not comfortable running a pre-release OS on your PC, then hopefully this post serves as a sort of “sneak peek” for you on what is to come with Windows 8 later this year.

To begin, I thought it was only natural to begin with the “heart” of the new user experience in Windows 8 – the Start screen…

The Start screen is the dashboard to everything important to me

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UPDATE 5/21: Find out more about this offer here at www.windows.com/freexbox.

The school year is wrapping up for many but for those who are graduating high school - thoughts are already on the upcoming school year this fall and starting college. Starting college can be a big adjustment and we’d like to help with that. Starting May 20th in the U.S., students who buy a qualifying Windows PC worth $699 or more at participating retailers can get a 4GB Xbox 360 console for free, just like last year! Starting May 18th in Canada, students who buy a Windows PC worth $599 or more can also get a 4GB Xbox 360 console for free!

Participating retailers in the US include Dell.com, Fry’s Electronics, HPDirect.com, Microsoft Stores, and NewEgg.com. In Canada, they include Dell.ca, Future Shop, Staples and The Source.

Please note that participating retailers and terms and conditions may change over the course of the promotion.