Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba confirmed for Stephen King’s Dark Tower

The Dark Tower is one of those unfilmed Stephen King novels that seemed doomed to forever languish in development hell. But the wheels are finally turning on a movie version – with Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba now officially attached in leading roles.

The news was confirmed by King himself, via his official Twitter feed. (The initial tweet was posted at 9.19am local time – a sly Dark Towerreference – although he then had to delete and re-post at a somewhat less significant time, after misspelling Elba’s name).

The news comes as no major surprise; it was reported at the end of last year that McConaughey had been offered his pick of roles. Elba was then sought for the role of the gunslinger Roland Deschain. McConaughey, it appears, has opted for the darker, more mysterious part of the ‘man in black’.

Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) is attached to direct the film, which previously had J.J. Abrams and Ron Howard in the director’s chair. (Howard is now producing.) The adaptation of the book, a dark Western fantasy, has been in various stages of development for nearly ten years.

1982’s The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger is the first of a series of eight books; it’s not unreasonable to expect that Sony are hoping for a franchise. King considers the series his magnum opus.

The author spoke to Entertainment Weekly about his enthusiasm for the project. “The thing is, it’s been a looong trip from the books to the film,” King told EW.

“When you think about it, I started these stories as a senior in college, sitting in a little shitty cabin beside the river in Maine, and finally this thing is actually in pre-production now. I’m delighted, and I’m a little bit surprised.”

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Best Android apps 2016: The apps you NEED on your Android handset

There's a lot to sort through on Google Play. Thankfully, we're here to alleviate the pain and deliver a definitive list of the best Android apps you can stuff onto your phone's internal memory or microSD card. We've listed the essential apps your phone just has to have, as well as the best social, entertainment, fitness, travel, and productivity apps.
If you have any suggestions for apps we’ve missed, get in touch through the comments below or reach us on samiullah1023@gmail.com

Best Android apps 2016: Essential apps

1. Avast Antivirus & Security (free; with in-app purchases)

Avast Antivirus & Security is a powerful antivirus app that you can trust; its PC counterpart is one of the best free antiviruses of 2015. For those who want comprehensive cover, plenty of additional features are available as in-app purchases, including geofencing and remote data recovery. For those who just want basic protection, however, you’ll find this does everything you need for free.

2. Greenify (free)

Getting the most from your phone’s battery is always key. Lollipop may have its own set of battery-saving tools, and many phones now offer power-saving modes, but these should be seen as a last resort.

Greenify sits in the background helping to regulate how much battery various apps are using. It freezes the apps you tell it to when you’re not using them, and instantly defrosts them when you need to gain access.

3. Clean Master (free)

Nobody likes having a slow device, and Android somehow manages to grab digital detritus like a magnet in a junkyard. Clean Master is the mop and bucket you need to scrub your phone or tablet clean.

Clean Master’s Junk File Cleaning feature scans your Android device and chucks out any unwanted cache and residual files. 

4. Tasker (£2.99)

If you really want to tinker with Android, Tasker is a brilliant way of automating much of the functions you'd normally do manually. It takes a little getting your head around, but the scope here is enormous - especially if you have root access on your phone. 

You can train your phone to open Spotify when you put your headphones in, for example, or automatically respond to texts with your street address. If you can feed it the instructions, Tasker can automate the rest.

5. Opera Max (free)

Unless you’re lucky enough to have unlimited data on your phone, or a bottomless wallet, you’ll want to get the most out of your data package.

This is where Opera Max comes in. It crunches down the size of images and videos, speeds up website load times, and typically saves you from around a third to almost half of your general data use. You can restrict some apps to only ever connect via Wi-Fi, and temporarily turn off connections if you want to save some data for the end of the month.

6. Pocket (free)

Found an article you like but want to read it later, when you may not have an internet connection? Pocket is the solution to your problem.

Allowing you to save articles and videos to read and watch later across any Pocket-enabled device, you’ll never be short of something to read or share again. It’s the perfect distraction for Tube journeys, flights and those long train trips in signal black holes.

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You won't need an Xbox to play Microsoft's next generation of games

Microsoft will bring games to Windows PCs on the same day they're released on the Xbox One console

Halo. Forza. Fable. Gears of War. These exclusive games are all potential reasons to buy a Microsoft's Xbox One game console instead of Sony's PlayStation 4. But soon Microsoft will offer the alternative of playing Xbox games on a PC.

Microsoft is merging its software for Windows PCs and for Xbox consoles. This means when you buy a game made by Microsoft or one of its close partners, you will be able to play it on either device. It could potentially change the way we buy and play games.

Titles like the space-age shooter Halo have become some of the most sought-after games in the industry. People literally buy an Xbox just so they can play certain games. Making them available on PCs might bolster computer sales among consumers, and that's a win for Microsoft whose software powers those computers.

Quantum Break will be released on Windows 10 and Xbox One on the same day in April

That's key at a time when Microsoft needs to convince the tech industry to support its Windows 10operating system, which was released in July and currently runs on just 11.9 percent of PCs. Computer makers like Hewlett-Packard have blamed Microsoft for underwhelming PC sales.

Bringing some of the industry's most popular games to Windows could make a difference.

"For Windows to be successful, gaming has to be vibrant, healthy, and innovative," Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox division, told journalists at a Microsoft event.

This doesn't necessarily mean Microsoft is trading Xbox sales for Windows PC sales. (The Xbox Onelags in sales behind Sony's PS4.) Microsoft is betting that developers who make games for PCs will want to build games for the Xbox too, and it's providing a set of tools called the Universal Windows Platform so developers can build games for both console and PC at the same time.

Games for Windows

On Tuesday, Microsoft announced the games it plans to launch before June. One of the surprising ones is a title for its racing game series, Forza Motorsport, made for Windows 10 computers. Called Forza Motorsport 6: Apex, the PC game won't be as fully featured as the Xbox One version. It will offer a smaller selection of cars, tracks and game modes, for example. But it's a start.

Now that Microsoft has laid the groundwork, every new Forza Motorsport racing game will ship on both Windows 10 and Xbox, said Forza series creative director Dan Greenawalt.

Forza isn't the only Xbox-exclusive series coming to PCs. The hotly anticipated Quantum Break, which stars Shawn Ashmore (from "X-Men: Days of Future Past") as a fugitive who winds up with superpowers after a time-traveling experiment gone wrong, will be released on Windows 10 and Xbox One on April 5. Xbox One preorders will come with a copy of the PC game.

Fable Legends, a free-to-play role-playing game that doesn't have a release date yet, will also arrive the same day on Windows and Xbox and will let owners of either version play together on the same servers.

Windows gaming project manager Peter Orullian said shipping games simultaneously will become the norm for Microsoft.

"We'll get to the point where that's the intent for every title," he said.

The next time you see a Microsoft game you like, you may not need an Xbox to give it a try.

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