Watch the first trailer for 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story'

It's been barely three months since Star Wars: The Force Awakens swept into theaters, showing the world what's become of the far-flung galaxy since Return of the Jedi. Now that the film is available to purchase, the folks at Disney and Lucasfilm are turning their attention to Rogue One, starting with a brand new teaser trailer. Set before A New Hope, the film follows a group of Rebel rogues trying to steal the plans for the original Death Star. As such, you can expect plenty of throwbacks to the original trilogy, including classic stormtroopers, X-wing starfighters and Star Destroyers.

Felicity Jones' character is the focal point of the trailer, painting her as a rebellious type that frequently breaks the law. She's brought before the Rebel Alliance and described as "reckless, aggressive and undisciplined." Clearly, they need her help though, as she's later shown in the battlefield taking down Empire goons and running towards AT-AT walkers. We also get a glimpse of some secondary characters, including an Empire general that's undoubtedly the main villain. It's tense, exhilarating stuff, with plenty of explosions and blaster fire to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Rogue One is being directed by Gareth Edwards, who worked on Monstersin 2010 and the Godzilla reboot in 2014. It's one of many standalone Star Wars films that include a Han Solo origin story and a (likely) exploration of Boba Fett. Rogue One comes out on December 16th, before Rey, Finn and the gang return to our screens for Episode VIII on December 15th, 2017.

Facebook makes finding your Messenger friends way easier

Facebook announced on Thursday that it is implementing three new features for its popular Messenger app. They're designed to make finding and connecting with other users easier. Specifically the company is rolling out "Messenger Usernames," "Messenger Links" and "Messenger Codes."

Messenger Codes work in essentially the same manner as Snapchat codes; you simply scan the code that someone sends you to instantly connect with them. Usernames and links perform the same base function -- giving other people a quick means of finding you on Messenger. Usernames can easily be added to business cards and other physical media, as theFacebook blog announcement suggests, while links are meant to be integrated into email signatures. The new features are being made available to businesses as well as individual users, which should dovetail nicely with the company's rumored efforts to enable purchases directly through the app.

Watch the BAFTA Games Awards live right here!

prestigious movie and TV awards, recognising developers, composers and writers that have impacted the industry. You can watch this year's ceremony live on Twitch from 5:45pm BST (12:45pm ET/9:45am PT), which is being hosted by comedian and video game fan Dara O'Briain.

There are 16 categories, including best game, British game and debut game. There are technical awards too for artistic and audio achievement, as well as story, music and game design. Everybody's Gone to the Rapture leads the field with 10 nominations, followed by The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Her Story with seven nominations apiece. Rocket League, Life is Strange andBatman: Arkham Knight all have five, while Metal Gear Solid V, Ori and the Blind Forest and Until Dawn enjoy four. A deluge of games fill up the remaining slots, including Splatoon, Fallout 4 and Bloodborne.

Group of 10- to 14-year-olds win $15,000 playing 'Minecraft'

If your kids are going to play video games anyway, then you may want to make sure they're really good at it. Why? Well, take for example this group of grade and middle school kids from Maryland who got a $15,000 shared college scholarship for winning the second Super League Gaming World Championship in Minecraft. Super League Gaming is a four-week league wherein participants play games in theaters. The 10- to 14-year-old players calling themselves Live2Craft bested 450 other groups of all ages (mostly grade- to high school-aged, though) from 68 cities across the US.

While the 5-person team won the scholarship prize, the top-scoring player in the league is from another team in California: a 10-year-old kid named Julien Wiltshire. He was also the first season's top scoring player and even took home a $5,000 scholarship prize. This time, he defeated almost 2,000 other gamers -- twice the number of the first season's participants -- earning him the right to brag that he's now a two-time Minecraft champ. He might also be gearing up for the third season starting on April 30th, so if your younglings want to join, it may be wise to start training them pronto.

Ubisoft breaks out the banhammer for 'The Division' cheaters

Ubisoft

Ubisoft knows that cheating is running rampant in Tom Clancy's The Division and it's out to change that. Between hacks where enemy bullets can travel through walls to homing bullets, trying to enjoy the game the way its meant to be played is a bit fraught at the moment. But come the game's April 12th update, PC players, at least, will have platform-specific tools at their disposal to report the jerks according to a Ubisoft Twitch stream.

Typing "/report [username]" while playing will flag the possible offender's account for Ubisoft to look at, and if the gaming company determines nefariousness is at play they'll get a three day suspension. Repeat offenders? That's grounds for a permaban. It's a reasonable expectation that if this doesn't curb the cheaters, the three-day time-out will give way to nothing but permabans a la what Ubisoft did with Rainbow Six: Siegehackers in January.

There are some pretty welcome glitch fixes en route as well. Those address issues where missions wouldn't start, wouldn't complete, non-player characters are able to shoot through walls and glitches where folks could get stuck in place on a piece of architecture in the environment, among other bugs.

Stream Android games to Twitch without a smartphone

Bluestacks' desktop emulator now works with the broadcasting service.

Twitch committed to mobile gaming by sponsoring a Vainglory tournament and now it'll be easier to stream Android games thanks to Bluestacks. As a reminder, Bluestacks makes an Android emulator for PC (or Mac) that lets you run most any mobile app or game on the desktop. The new app, called Bluestacks TV, works in two ways. First off, you'll be able to watch selected Twitch streams on Bluestacks, as if you were watching a Twitch Stream on mobile. At the same time, mobile game broadcasters will be able to stream directly to Twitch via the Bluestacks emulator without using a smartphone.

The latter feat is by far the most difficult of the two, according to Bluestacks, and will be a boon to mobile game broadcasters. Normally, you need a phone or tablet, wires to connect to a PC and a webcam. "A lot of people have tried to crack mobile game streaming, but the multiple-device issue makes it really hard," says Bluestacks VP John Gargiulo. "This consolidates everything onto one PC, which is the device of choice for gamers anyway." To show off the tech, Bluestacks TV will host a mobileHearthstone tournament on Twitch that kicks off today at 9 AM ET.

Purists might argue that streaming from a PC via emulation isn't exactly in the spirit of mobile gaming. Nevertheless, Bluestacks reportedly has 130 million users, so the partnership exposes a lot of those folks to Twitch and vice-versa. It will also make things easier for mobile Twitch broadcasters and developers alike. "We've been approached to put an SDK in our games, but that's bandwidth we don't have," developer Mark Zhang told Bluestacks. "The fact that millions of people can stream Castle Clash to Twitch without us doing anything is massive."

Panasonic's airline seat puts you in a high-tech cocoon

Panasonic has launched the most techie airplane seat we've ever seen, complete with its own app, user programmable mood lighting and a 4K TV. It revealed the product, called "Waterfront," at Hamburg's Aircraft Interiors Expo (yes, there's a show for everything), where it was spotted by The Points Guy. Since this is Panasonic's first foray into high-end airliner seats, it teamed up with B/E Aerospace, Formation Design Group and Denny e-bike designer Teague.

The most you might expect from an airline seat is WiFi and a private screen, but Panasonic's Waterfront goes way beyond that. To start with, it has an app that pairs with your seat via pulsing lights from the in-flight screen. Once it's set up, you can use it to tweak seat lighting down to individual zones like the water bottle and front pocket. It also controls the entertainment system, which features a 24-inch 4K TV, the first Ultra HD in-flight system so far. To take full advantage of that, it'll presumably need some kind of 4K airliner streaming player, which doesn't exist right now as far as we know.

Zach Honig/The Points Guy

The app lets you program a video and music playlist and remembers your settings for the next flight. It also adjusts your seat, puts up a "do not disturb" sign (complete with a wake-up call time for the crew) and tells you where to claim your bags on arrival. Other high-tech features include wireless phone charging, universal power, an HDMI input to let you watch your own movies, and even a built-in camera (for video chats, presumably). The seat is apparently as comfy as you'd expect, considering the price you'll have to likely pay to claim it. However, it won't arrive until 2019, so there's plenty of time to save up.

Steve should have known that engineering was not for him when he spent most of his time at university monkeying with his 8086 clone PC. Although he graduated, a lifelong obsession of wanting the "solitaire" win animation to go faster had begun. Always seeking a gadget fix, he dabbles in photography, video, 3D-animation, and is a licensed private pilot. He followed l'amour de sa vie from Vancouver, BC to France, and now lives near Paris.