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The most notable tech acquisitions of 2017, so far

Last year saw some massive tech acquisitions, with SoftBank purchasing Cambridge-based chipmakers ARM for a whopping $32 billion (£25 billion), HP snapping up Samsung's printer business and Oracle acquiring Netsuite, not to mention the mammoth news of Verizon agreeing to buy Yahoo Inc for $4.8 billion (£3.6 billion).

And 2017 is no different, with Intel, Google and SoftBank all making interesting and expensive tech acquisitions.

Here are the most notable tech acquisitions of 2017, so far.

To take a look back at 2016's top tech purchases, see 17 of the most notable tech acquisitions of 2016.

1. ESW Capital buys Jive

ESW Capital buys Jive

Collaboration software company Jive has been acquired by ESW Capital - an Austin, Texas-based private equity firm specialising in enterprise software companies - for $462 million (£358 million). 

Jive will now become part of the Aurea family of technology companies, with the plan being to integrate it into Aurea's customer experience (CX) management platform.

Aurea CEO Scott Brighton said of the purchase: “Jive, in combination with Aurea, enables us to bring customer experience and employee and customer engagement together."

The sort of software Jive makes - known as Enterprise 2.0 - has become ubiquitous now, and is being increasingly dominated by the likes of Microsoft and new players like Slack. Which makes the acquisition at this price arguably the best possible outcome for the company.

Read next: Nine of the best enterprise collaboration software tools | Slack, Workplace, Microsoft Teams and more

2. HPE buys SimpliVity

HPE buys SimpliVity

January 2017 saw Hewlett Packard Enterprise buy hyperconverged infrastructure provider SimpliVity for $650 million (£520 million). The deal - that is expected to close in the second quarter - will boost HPE's hyperconverged portfolio.

The vendor has already announced new products following the acquisition. HPE will combine SimpliVity Omni Stack software with its DL380 servers, which will be available during the second half of 2017.

3. Cisco buys AppDynamics

Cisco buys AppDynamics

In January 2017, Cisco acquired application analytics firm AppDynamics for $3.7 billion (£2.9 billion).

San Francisco-based AppDynamics provides software that monitors the performance of most applications, flagging issues and areas that need particular attention.

The deal came just before AppDynamic's IPO and closed in March 2017.

4. HPE buys Nimble Storage

HPE buys Nimble Storage

In March 2017, HPE agreed to buy hybrid storage provider Nimble Storage for $1.09 billion (£1.5 billion) cash, in an attempt to expand its growing storage business.

HPE CEO Meg Whitman has been focusing on networking, storage and technology services as part of a major restructuring of the business.

5. CA buys Veracode

CA buys Veracode

CA Technologies has agreed to acquire security testing firm Veracode for $614 million (£490 million). The deal is said to broaden CA's devops portfolio, and expand its development and testing offering for enterprises and app developers, with the acquisition expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2017.

Veracode provides a software-as-a-service platform that helps developers improve the security of their applications.

6. Apple buys Workflow

Apple buys Workflow

March 2017 marked the completion of Apple's acquisition of iPad and iPhone automation tool Workflow, according to TechCrunch.

Workflow allows users to create a list of functions or commands that will automate certain tasks within an application. Created by a small team comprising of Ari Weinstein, Conrad Kramer, Ayaka Nonaka and Nick Frey, along with the purchase of Workflow, Apple will also be hiring its creators.

7. Google buys Kaggle

Google buys Kaggle

In March 2017, Google confirmed its acquisition of Kaggle, an online community of data scientists and host of data science and machine learning competitions, for an undisclosed sum.

In early March, Google and Kaggle joined forces to host a $100,000 competition around machine learning and the classification of YouTube videos.

And while the details of this acquisition of vague, it's believed that Google bought Kaggle to improve its AI and machine learning capabilities, by taking advantage of Kaggle's active community of 600,000 data scientists.

8. Intel buys Mobileye

Intel buys Mobileye

US chipmaker Intel agreed to purchase Israel-based driverless car firm Mobileye for $15.3 billion (£12.5 million).

Mobileye currently holds contracts with 27 car makers, and according to the BBC. It also controls two-thirds of the software for automatic emergency braking and semi-autonomous cruise control systems on the market.

In partnership with BMW, Intel and Mobileye are working to produce a working fleet of 40 driverless of BMW 7 Series cars on roads by the end of 2017.

9. Verizon buys Yahoo

Verizon buys Yahoo

In February 2016, Yahoo revealed that it was looking for "strategic alternatives" for its core business, and by July Yahoo had agreed to sell the company’s core internet operations to Verizon for $4.8 billion (£3.6 billion).

This acquisition spilled over into 2017, with news of Yahoo's recent (and multiple) data breaches causing Yahoo to reduce its price. This means Verizon will buy the firm for $350 million (£281 million) less than originally agreed.

So while the deal is still yet to formally close, with a new price agreed by both parties, 2017 should see the finalised acquisition happen soon.

10. Baidu buys Raven Tech

Baidu buys Raven Tech

Chinese-American web services provider Baidu acquired digital assistant startup Raven Tech for an undisclosed amount in February.

Raven Tech produces a Mandarin-speaking AI-powered assistant, dubbed the Chinese answer to the Amazon Echo.

Confirming the purchase of the startup’s tech, product and staff (around 60 employees), this acquisition highlights Baidu's increasing push into artificial intelligence.

The deal comes after Baidu recently hired AI expert Qi Lu as its COO and Group President, Lu was had previously worked on Microsoft's AI efforts.

Interestingly, Raven Tech is an alumnus of the Microsoft Venture Accelerator, having previously raised $18 million of series A funding from Y Combinator and other investment firms including Zhen Fund, Matrix Partners China and DCM Ventures.

11. SoftBank buys Fortress Investment Group

SoftBank buys Fortress Investment Group

In February 2017, SoftBank agreed to buy asset management firm Fortress Investment Group for $3.3 billion (£2.6 billion) cash.

Fortress Investment Group has invested in a whole host of tech firms including Lyft, Xapo and Jawbone.

The news of this deal came as part of an ongoing chapter in SoftBank's recent history, with SoftBank's COO Nikesh Arora wanting to focus more on a larger investment strategy, investing heavily in other tech firms.

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These are the cyber security threats that keep the banks up at night, and how they plan to combat them

In the current climate of major data breaches amidst an ever shifting cyber threat landscape, the people in charge of vast volumes of valuable financial data are under increasing pressure to keep customer data safe from hackers and fraudsters.

Speaking at the SWIFT Business Forum in London last week, a range of senior security professionals at financial services firms and banks told the audience what keeps them up at night when it comes to cyber security and fraud. Here's what they said:

1. A constantly changing threat landscape

JF Legault, global head of cybersecurity operations at JP Morgan, highlighted the way that the threat landscape has changed over the past few years.

He explained: "In late 2014 we saw the advent of malware targeting wholesale banking platforms. Criminals stopped going after simple, low-value monetary amounts and shifted to high-value payment platforms. The reason they did that was a lot more yield on the crime they committed. We also saw a shift toward business email compromise. We also saw a number of breaches affecting the financial sector that led to fraudulent messages."

Read next: Most dangerous new cyber security threats 2017: ransomware, spearphishing, IoT botnets

His diplomatic answer to what keeps him up at night was simply: "What the business says keeps it up at night. I am there to help the business innovate and look at the different risks they face."

2. False positives

In the fraud space, the biggest issue for banks is "false positives" in its anti-money laundering (AML) monitoring systems. This means issues being flagged that aren't actually fraudulent activities, taking up valuable analyst time.

Anthony Fenwick, global head of treasury and trade solutions and AML compliance at Citi Group said simply: "Our biggest problem in this industry is false positives."

Read next: How technology will transform banking in 2017: Blockchain, cloud computing and digital challenger banks

When asked if artificial intelligence technology could help solve this issue, Fenwick said: "The story is why are we producing so many false positives, not 'let's deploy robots to get rid of the false positives'.

"One of the drivers I am trying to change is that the use of electronics and AI have to go hand-in-hand with the best humans. The idea that we remove all human activity from this process misses the point of what we are trying to do, which is marry these two capabilities to tackle the beast of bad data."

3. The big breach

Royce Curtin, managing director of global intelligence at Barclays, said: "It's the big breach that keeps us awake at night. If and when and that ultimate failure to provide the service customers expect and entrust us to keep safe. So we work very hard and take it very seriously the responsibility of building systems and trust for services that people feel comfortable using."

Read next: 2016's biggest data breach fails

Last year saw the biggest data breach at a bank in UK history. Tesco Bank was hit by an attack which saw 20,000 compromised users lose money from their accounts. The banking wing of the supermarket giant is in the process of paying back £2.5 million to customers who had their accounts compromised.

4. Missing a breach

Brendan Goode, regional CISO for UK and Ireland at Deutsche Bank said he most fears the feeling of "did we miss something? Where you look back at the logs and it is right there."

This failure of the system to alert to a potential breach is a major part of a modern cyber security strategy, and would keep any CISO worth their salt up at night.

5. Customers

As the February 2016 hack of the Bangladesh Central Bank showed, customer accounts can be the most vulnerable point of entry to a bank's systems. The hackers used stolen privileged credentials to steal $81 million before they were caught.

Matt Middleton-Leal, regional vice-president UK, Ireland and Northern Europe at security software vendor CyberArk, said: "Banks fear attacks which hide behind insider privileges because they allow cybercriminals to appear as legitimate users, giving them unprecedented freedom to work their way up to their most valuable financial assets."

Gottfried Leibbrandt, CEO at the financial messaging vendor SWIFT admitted that the bank's customers "will always be the weakest link, but at the same time the response should not be 'let's fix the weakest link' but you have to take an end-to-end view."

"Yes the weak link will always be the customer at the end of the day," he said, "but in retail banking the banks have been able to put in controls after it gets into the bank to respond to suspect logins, fraudulent transactions and do real risk scoring."

6. Ruthless adversaries

Craig Rice, director of security at Payments UK and the CSO at BACS said that the threat shouldn't be considered a technology problem but more like organised crime.

Read next: Cybersecurity trends 2017: Malicious machine learning, state-sponsored attacks, ransomware and malware

"They are ruthless shadow operations that work outside of a regulatory regime," he said. "They are quicker than you are, they are more ruthless than you are and they are more willing to be pragmatic than you are. That's a really tough competitor you are dealing with, so stop thinking about this as a technology problem."

So, how do the banks confront these issues?

How do the banks deal with this ever-changing threat landscape?

Communication and intelligence

The main theme of the day regarding cyber security and fraud was a shift from a walled-garden approach to a holistic one, and this comes down to better communication and intelligence sharing.

JF Legault at JP Morgan laid out his approach to contending with the new threat landscape: "I am responsible for collecting threat and fraud intelligence to ensure that we know where adversaries are going and what they are going after."

He said this comes down to not just technology, but people and process: "So how do we go from a cyber security analyst that is very much focused on technology and cyber controls, to an analyst that understands the business and can have a conversation with someone in the payments space?"

Read next: Travis Perkins uses Splunk’s flexible cyber security monitoring to protect against customer data breaches

This approach can also be seen in the language of modern cyber security vendors. Splunk's cyber security tools are all marketed with a focus on intelligence and response, and UK cyber startup Darktrace is making good progress in the enterprise market because it is rooted in this approach.

From perimeter security to multiple layers

Gottfried Leibbrandt from SWIFT highlighted the need for a change in thinking from its clients, "from perimeter security where no one gets inside our walls, to in-depth defence."

"Realising that sooner or later someone will get in and catching them when they get in, seeing what they do and being able to respond by having multiple layers of defence," he said.

Cross-industry collaboration

Leibbrandt from SWIFT pointed out that the days of banks keeping their cyber strategy a closely guarded secret are over if there is to be any progress in combating today's cyber threats.

He said: "A lot of the threats we see today exploit the ecosystem, they don't look for an individual link in the chain, they look for weak points in the end-to-end chain, so the response means we have to work together as an ecosystem."

Many of the conference attendees mentioned the recently opened National Cyber Security Centre as a positive step for the private sector towards snuffing out cyber threats.

Goode from Deutsche Bank put it best when he said: "As soon as you make it more difficult, as soon as you start sharing and taking away the different avenues to target any bank and increase awareness, you make it a less enticing environment for adversaries to engage in."

Scenario testing

Despite many admitting it is a pain, scenario testing and exercises are one of the best ways for organisations to protect themselves from cyber threats, especially when they are conducted across the industry. The Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority have typically taken a pretty progressive and collaborative approach to resiliency benchmarking in the UK.

Legault from JP Morgan said: "Doing exercises, so getting everyone around the table and you simulate scenarios so you understand where your gaps are and what you do well, you understand what you need to build into your cyber process and your resiliency process. It is essential to do that with everyone within your organisation: legal, cyber, compliance, the business, the operations folks, the technology folks and even your peers."

Actionable insights

Banks are increasingly looking to get more actionable insights to not just their security analysts but people within the business units themselves. This means intelligence that can be quickly turned into a response by the most relevant people, especially important in a landscape where breaches can happen in a heartbeat.

Brendan Goode from Deutsche Bank said: "In payments it is important to create intelligence inside the bank and publish it out and disseminate that fast and someone needs to receive it and do something with it, so actionable intelligence. That comes down to speaking a common language. So being able to say: here is a set of accounts and a volume of transactions that you should be mindful of, so that they can set alerts."

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Atlassian launches first data centre in Europe as part of global expansion

Australian collaboration software company Atlassian has launched its first data centre in Europe as the company ramps up its plans for global expansion in the cloud market.  

The infrastructure in Ireland was announced at the first European Atlassian Summit in Barcelona and is available for all existing cloud customers of its team planning and project management JIRA Software and content creation and sharing platform Confluence.

Atlassian currently offers European customers including Lufthansa and Virgin Media the choice of running its software on their own servers or by Atlassian in the cloud. More than 75 percent of Atlassian customers pick the latter as their first investment in the company's products, but until now this had only been available on infrastructure in the USA.

The result of the greater distance that the data had to travel was slower speeds and worse performance than their counterparts across the Atlantic. The new data centre in Ireland will help the Europeans to catch up.

"Initial tests are amazing," co-founder and co-CEO Scott Farquhar told the audience of almost 18,000 attendees, after emerging on the stage from a posse of robot-suited dancers covered in flashing fluorescent lights.

"They show that that the latency has reduced by 300 percent," he said. "That's going to make a huge difference to those of you that use our cloud products in Europe."

The company chose Ireland as the location for the infrastructure due to its regional networking performance and legal requirements, and plans to add further cloud hosting regions around the world.

Restructuring cloud architecture

Atlassian is in midst of a major overhaul of the infrastructure it uses for its European cloud customers, which will now be hosted exclusively on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Farquhar promised that the move would enhance security, following a rough week at the $6 billion (£4.6 billion) company in which vulnerabilities in both the HipChat app and Confluence information sharing system were reported.

"To reinforce this effort, we’ve made a foundational change in our cloud platform over the last year and are now using AWS to host our services," the 37-year-old said. "This enables us to offer an increased variety of cloud deployment regions, with strong performance and local failover options."

Atlassian has an enduring relationship with the continent, where four of its first five customers were based and almost 40 percent of its revenue is generated today. To further its European reach the company will also add another 13 European languages to the nine in which core products JIRA and Confluence are currently available.

The company was founded in 2002 to help teams organise, discuss and complete shared work through a series of products that today include messaging app HipChat, user management platform Crowd and the aforementioned JIRA and Confluence. In January it added visual collaboration tool Trello to the portfolio of products.

More updates

Farqukar also announced that developer ecosystem known as Atlassian Marketplace has now generated more than $250 million in total sales since it launched in 2012 and $100 million in the last year alone.

More than 3,000 add-ons are currently available on the platform, and a number of new ones were announced at the summit, including integration with operational intelligence platform Splunk.

Atlassian has also undergone what head of design Jürgen Spangl called the "biggest redesign we have done for our cloud products." It includes streamlined navigation along a grid layout that reduces clutter, improved search and create functionality, updated colours and fonts and new versions for mobile and tablet.

New versions of Git code repository management tool Bitbucket Server and Data Center and continuous integration server Bamboo have been produced to support DevOps adoption in enterprises.  Developers have been given more control over configuration and global teams can now maintain mirror access in the event of short outages by caching authentication credentials locally.

The company also revealed that all of its major platforms are now available in data centre editions, following the recent addition of HipChat and Crowd to the line-up.

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Best Windows 10 apps for business users: 19 Windows 10 apps you can download in the UK

After the apparent 'disaster' of Windows 8, Microsoft users seem to have warmed to Windows 10 and all that it has to offer.

And with Microsoft reporting that there are 400 million active Windows 10 devices in use, we're surely set to see an increase in not only Windows app downloads but also the number of Windows apps being produced.

We've compiled a list of top Windows 10 apps (both desktop and phone) aimed at business users. 

And while the list is in no particular order, we like:

- Trello Cental
- Network Speed Test
- Expense Spy
- One calendar

Here are 19 useful Windows apps...

Read next: Eight free open source alternatives to Windows 10

1. Trello Central

Trello Central

Trello Central is the Windows version of Trello offering most of the features available on the Android app. Trello Central is a work and life planner and project management tool.

Key Features: 

- Create boards
- Invite co-workers to interact and edit documents
- C
ustomised workflows
- Add and assign tasks
- Upload photos and videos, attach files and add editable checklists. 

Download here.

2. Expense Spy

Expense Spy

Expense Spy keeps track of finances and set budgets. 

Key features:

- Separate budgets for short trips
- Alternative expenses
- Regular payments
- Data are displayed in a table or chart
- Active tiles
- Foreign currencies
- OneDrive backup

Download here.

3. Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams

For those wanting to stay firmly within the Microsoft family, and those with the appropriate commercial Office 365 subscription, Microsoft Teams is a great choice for an instant messenger with extensive collaboration features.

Microsoft Teams is similar to Slack, but for those running a Microsoft shop, Teams is a great option and comes as part of your subscription, so using it will come at no additional cost.

Key features: 

- Instant messaging 
- Quick file transfers
- Group messaging and channels
- Multi-factor authentication

Download here.

4. Adobe photoshop express

Adobe photoshop express
© Microsoft

This express editor enables users to create, edit and filter photos without needing a ton of experience.

Key features:

- Crop, straighten, rotate and flip photos, and remove red-eye from photos
- Auto-fix
- One-touch filters
- Looks pack and noise reduction pack

Download here.

5. Network Speed Test

Network Speed Test

Monitoring your internet speed is vital in ensuring you get the most from your broadband connection. A slow speed can indicate a break on the line or other issues that need addressing and this app will tell you exactly how well your internet connection of working.

Key features:

- Measure network latency
- Download and upload speeds
- Monitor SSID and BSSID when you are connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot
- Examine past network performance history.

Download here.

6. WhatsApp

WhatsApp

Facebook-owned WhatsApp has launched a Windows desktop app designed to extend the experience provided by the WhatsApp mobile app.

The official WhatsApp blog stated: "Like WhatsApp Web, our desktop app is simply an extension of your phone: the app mirrors conversations and messages from your mobile device."

Key features: 

- Calling
Send photos, videos, and Voice Messages
- Group chat
- No international charges
- Offline messages
- WhatsApp Web

Download here.

7. Zoho

Zoho

Zoho has two useful business apps, Zoho Invoice and Zoho Expense that aid accounts and finance management. Both apps work on mobile and desktop Windows devices.

Zoho Expense key features:

- Receipt scanning
- Expense reporting
- Multicurrency support
- Mileage tracking

Zoho Invoice key features:

- Accept card payments
- Share, discuss and collaborate with customers online
- Client Portal
- Records expenses

8. WinOpener

WinOpener

WinOpener can open RAR, ZIP, 7z and other compressed files - it's a useful app to have when working with multivolume archives. 

Key features:

- It's free, with no in-app purchases needed
- Offers a bug-free guarantee 
- Supports ZIP, RAR, 7z, TAR, etc

Download here.

9. One calendar

One calendar

One Calendar offers users one platform to view multiple calendars from Google calendar, Outlook,Office365 calendar and Facebook events.

Key features:

- View multiple calendars
- Add, update and delete appointments
- Filter and search the information
- Work offline
- Data storage
- Theming

Download here.

10. Dropbox

Dropbox

Dropbox's cloud storage platform is an accessible and secure way to manage important personal documents and those you wish to share with others. The desktop app offers offline storage for free.

Key features:

- Access photos, docs, and videos from any device
- 2 GB of free space when you sign up
- Share even your biggest files with a simple link — no more attachments!
- Add files to your "Favorites" for offline viewing

Download here.

11. Skype for Business

Skype for Business

The Microsoft-owned Skype for Business app is a popular business-focused app that provides an online meeting room, instant messaging and an user-friendly interface. 

Key features:

- View shared content during video meeting
- Group IM or video chat
- Mute or remove attendees
- Passive authentication
- Instant messaging

Download here.

12. Evernote

Evernote

Evernote users can create shared documents that can easily be edited by all staff simultaneously. Evernote also offers time-tracking functionality to map productivity and exploit areas of under-use.

Key features:

- Auto-synchronise notes among computer, tablet and smartphone
- Time-tracking
- Note taking
- Share photos

Download here.

13. Todoist

Todoist

Todoist is a checklist and task manager app that enables users to view tasks, mark them as complete and create and share collaborative projects.

Key features: 

- Add, view, and organise your tasks from multiple devices
- Set recurring dates
- Delegate tasks and share projects
- Add comments, upload files, and receive instant notifications on shared projects

Download here.

14. SHARE.it

SHARE.it

Simply put, SHARE.it  is a file and photo sharing platform from Lenovo. 

Key features:

- Share photos, music and video
- Transfer files between phone and computer
- Multi-platform

Download here.

15. 9 Notes

9 Notes

9 Notes is a note-taking app with advanced editing features ideal for those working within a creative environment or someone who is bored of simplistic note-taking apps with a lack of features.

Key features: 

- Notebook-style interface
- Create both handwritten and text notes
- Multiple text styling options
- Crop, resize and apply filters to images and notes
- Advanced Graphics editor for posters, brochures, and graphical content

Download here.

16. Translator

Translator

Translation apps are always useful in business, so having one on your desktop is worthwhile. Translator is an app that does just that, translates via voice, text and camera shots.

Key features:

- 51 languages
- Camera, voice and offline translation
- Text-to-speech
- Word of the Day
- Full history

Download here.

17. Grapholite

Grapholite

Grapholite offers an all-in-one diagrams wizard, able to create flow charts, floor plans, network layouts, sketches and illustrations. 

Key features: 

- Flow charts
- Organisational charts
- Web site structures and wireframes
- Computer network layouts
- Workflows
- Graphs, algorithms, schemes
- Infographics

Download here.

18. Battery X

Battery X

Simply put, Battery X provides an app designed to know your battery status, remaining charge and statistics. Great for those on the go, in both personal and professional situations.

Key features: 

- Set custom battery level alerts
- Details of battery usage 
- Hours of remaining charge

Download here.

19. IM+ Instant Messenger

IM+ Instant Messenger

IM+ offers a fully integrated instant messenger service ideal for people with multiple chat platforms in use. This app will bring all of those together placing them in one easy location. 

Key features:

- Support for all popular instant messaging services including Facebook, Google Talk and AOL/AIM/iChat
- Free text messages and photo sending
- Group chats
- Multiple accounts per service
- Typing notifications
- Personal status messages

Download here.

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Competition: Win a copy of Outlast 2

The first Outlast gained a quick reputation for terror when it arrived in 2014, and three years on Outlast 2 is here to mess us up even more.

Once again you take on the role of an investigative journalist caught up in some nasty stuff - this time a community of violent religious sorts deep in the American wilderness. You can run, you can hide, and you record what happens on your trusty night vision camera, but you can never fight back - meaning the terror never really lets up.

Thanks to our friends at GOG.com, we've got five copies of Outlast 2 on PC to give away, and you could get one absolutely free of charge by following the instructions below to enter our competition.

We're also giving away five copies of Little Nightmares, so make sure to enter that too, and if you're looking for more horror titles to round out your collection, check out GOG.com's Haunted Horrors sale this weekend, which has a huge selection of horror titles at up to 79 percent off.

To win, you'll need to use the giveaway form below. Simply log in to Gleam to use the entry options. You can choose to enter just once by picking one of the options after signing up below, or you can increase your chances of winning by choosing two or more options. If you already follow us on Twitter or Like us on Facebook, that'll count too. Simply press the +1 button and follow the instructions provided.

Outlast 2 – PC Advisor

The competition will end at 11pm BST on Sunday 30 April. The winner is chosen completely at random by the Gleam widget.

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Competition: Win a copy of Little Nightmares

You may know them for the lovable LittleBigPlanet series, but Swedish developer Tarsier Studios have darker things lurking in the back of their minds. They've now come out in the form of Little Nightmares, which pairs the cutesy aesthetic of LittleBigPlanet with a rather darker world of things that go bump in the night.

Echoing the likes of last year's Inside, Little Nightmares sees you control the helpless young girl Six in a side-on puzzle platformer as she tries to escape from a string of distorted monsters that look like they might have come from Jim Henson's Silent Hill. The game's only just come out, but we already reckon it might be one of the best horror games around.

Thanks to our friends at GOG.com, we've got five copies of Little Nightmares on PC to give away, and you could get one absolutely free of charge by following the instructions below to enter our competition.

We're also giving away five copies of Outlast 2, so make sure to enter that too, and if you're looking for more horror titles to round out your collection, check out GOG.com's Haunted Horrors sale this weekend, which has a huge selection of horror titles at up to 79 percent off.

To win, you'll need to use the giveaway form below. Simply log in to Gleam to use the entry options. You can choose to enter just once by picking one of the options after signing up below, or you can increase your chances of winning by choosing two or more options. If you already follow us on Twitter or Like us on Facebook, that'll count too. Simply press the +1 button and follow the instructions provided.

Little Nightmares – PC Advisor

The competition will end at 11pm BST on Sunday 30 April. The winner is chosen completely at random by the Gleam widget.

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The best OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T cases

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