Sep 17

Steam Hits 15 Million Concurrent Users For The First Time Ever

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Steam has been setting new concurrent user records over the past couple of years. Then again, it’s not like Steam’s popularity is fading away. It’s a very popular service among PC gamers and they continue to flock to it in greater numbers. Steam has set a new concurrent user record. Steam reached 15 million concurrent users for the first time ever earlier today.

So what does Steam mean by concurrent users? It’s a measure of how many people were logged into Steam at a certain point in time. Earlier today, more than 15 million people were logged into Steam at the very same time.

This has never happened before but Steam come close earlier this year. We saw back in January when the service’s status page revealed that a new concurrent user record had been set at 14 million.

Before that, the last Steam concurrent users record was set back in January 2016 when it revealed that more than 12.3 million people were logged into the gaming service at the same time.

It wasn’t just Steam that hit a peak today. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds set a new record today as well. It had an impressive 1.3 million concurrent users which is the highest ever on Steam. The previous record for most simultaneous users on a game on Steam was held by Dota which hit a peak of 1.29 million users.

Steam Hits 15 Million Concurrent Users For The First Time Ever , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

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Sep 17

Star Wars: Battlefront 2 VR Ruled Out

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Fans of the original Star Wars: Battlefront title has been looking forward to the successor. Previous reports had suggested that perhaps the DICE and Criterion Games’ will have a virtual reality component. It would make sense to, one can only imagine how it would feel like to be in the game’s Star Wars universe in immersive virtual reality. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen.

Criterion’s Matt Webster and John Stanley have confirmed in an interview with Metro that there’s not going to be a VR component in Star Wars: Battlefront 2. When asked about VR options for the game, they just said “There is no VR.”

Stanley added that VR was “very important” to Criterion and while they don’t rule out VR for future games, their comments don’t indicate that there’s any possibility of a Star Wars: Battlefront 2 VR experience.

Many fans of the title would have been hoping for Criterion to develop a VR experience for the new title given that it made the well-received X-Wing VR mission for the original Battlefront title. That mission was released for the PlayStation VR.

Criterion is now developing the space combat for the new title but as it has now confirmed, there’s not going to any VR experience.

Star Wars: Battlefront 2 is going to be released on November 17th on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

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Sep 17

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds breaks Steam record for most concurrent players

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Steam‘s all-time record for the most concurrent players has been broken by the game that almost everyone is talking about these days: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Even though it was released six month ago, and still remains in early access, Battlegrounds‘ growth has shown no signs of slowing down. The multiplayer shooter has become one of Twitch’s most-viewed games, and just last … Continue reading

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Sep 17

Sketchy iOS Antivirus Apps Booted From App Store

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There has been an abundance of sketchy virus scanning apps on the iOS App Store for quite some time now and Apple is finally clamping down on these low-quality apps. The company has updated its developer app review guidelines for iOS. The new guidelines also limit how developers can use Face ID on the iPhone X.

Apple did remove many of these sketchy apps from the App Store earlier this year but the new guidelines will go a long way in ensuring that such apps don’t make it on to the App Store in the first place.

The new guidelines ban apps that claim to “including content or services that it does not actually offer.” This is true when it comes to these sketchy virus scanning apps for iPhones and iPads.

It’s not possible to scan for viruses on iOS with third-party apps. That’s because the sandboxing on iOS doesn’t allow apps to directly interact with each other or the core iOS operating system.

Developers who are looking to tap into the iPhone X’s Face ID facial recognition system have to provide an alternate method of unlocking for children under 13 years of age. This is also included in the updated guidelines for developers.

Sketchy iOS Antivirus Apps Booted From App Store , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

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Sep 17

Spotify iMessage App Makes Song Sharing Simpler

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Spotify has launched an iMessage application quietly this week. The new app makes it simpler to share music with friends using iMessage. Spotify hasn’t actually announced the new app as yet but it’s quite similar in functionality to the Spotify app for Facebook Messenger which was released several months ago.

Spotify users can use the share button to easily share songs with their friends and family over iMessage. However, this action can only be down within the Spotify app so when the recipient gets the link to the song, they have to leave the iMessage app, open Spotify, and then listen to the song.

The Spotify iMessage app eliminates the need to leave the iMessage app. The app enables users to search for any track in the Spotify library from within iMessage itself and they can send a 30 second snippet of that song to the recipient which they can listen to in iMessage.

This feature has to be enabled by opening a conversation in iMessage, clicking on the App button on the left, and then enabling Spotify. Once the app is enabled, the Spotify icon needs to be tapped whenever the user wants to search for songs that they want to share.

The recipient receives a 30 second snippet of the song along with a link that takes them to the Spotify app if they want to listen to the entire song.

Spotify iMessage App Makes Song Sharing Simpler , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

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Sep 17

Pirate Bay Hijacks Your CPU To Mine Digital Currency

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Torrent websites can’t rely on legitimate ad networks to generate revenue. That’s due to the pirated content that flows freely on these websites. Running any website requires resources, let alone a torrent website, which has more complications that site owners have to deal with. Those complications cost money. So how can these websites make money? Hijacking your CPU seems to be a new method.

The Pirate Bay is the world’s most popular torrent website. Apparently, it’s hijacking users’ CPUs to mine digital currency. TPB’s visitors recently discovered JavaScript code on the website which revealed that a cryptocurrency miner was embedded on the site.

The miner uses the computer’s resources to mine Monero coins. Visitors were able to figure this out because they noticed a significant spike in CPU usage on certain pages of the website. The miner is reportedly embedded in the search results and category listings and users who land on these pages will notice the CPU usage spike when the miner starts working.

The Pirate Bay confirmed to TorrentFreak that it was testing this feature for a day as a new method of generating revenue, adding that eventually, it might be feasible enough to generate constant revenue. The site might reveal more information about its digital currency mining plans later.

It’s essentially hijacking its users’ computer resources because they are not being given any notice about what’s happening. Unsuspecting users won’t be able to figure why their systems are being bogged down.

Some users have found that the miner can be blocked using browser settings or ad blocks so we can expect many to rely on these methods to prevent The Pirate Bay from hijacking their CPU.

Pirate Bay Hijacks Your CPU To Mine Digital Currency , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

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Sep 17

Virgin Mobile USA iPhone 8 And iPhone 8 Plus Launch Date Confirmed

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If you’ve been meaning to purchase an iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus from Virgin Mobile USA, bear in mind that you will have to wait longer than the customers who are buying it from one of the four major carriers. Virgin Mobile USA has confirmed its launch date for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. It’s going to start taking pre-orders for the new smartphones from September 22nd.

Apple and its carrier partners have already started taking pre-orders for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. They will release the handsets on September 22nd, the day when Virgin Mobile starts taking pre-orders.

Virgin Mobile hasn’t explained why there’s a one-week delay particularly given the fact that carriers like U.S. Cellular will be releasing the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus on time. It’s going to release the handsets on September 29th.

It merits mentioning here that Apple is going to expand international distribution of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus on September 29th beyond the 29 launch markets. The handsets will then be available in markets like Russia, Greece, and Poland.

Virgin Mobile recently became an iPhone-only carrier that offers a single plan. The plan provides unlimited voice, texting, and data for $1 for the first year and $50 per month after that.

Virgin Mobile has also confirmed that it’s going to start taking pre-orders for the iPhone X on October 27th, the same day Apple starts taking pre-orders for its new flagship.

Virgin Mobile USA iPhone 8 And iPhone 8 Plus Launch Date Confirmed , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

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Sep 17

Chinese Tech Behemoth Tried To Acquire Spotify This Year

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Spotify’s preference of staying independent is no secret. If the company wanted to be acquired by someone it would have found a lot of suitors. According to a new report, it actually had to rebuff a potential suitor with very deep pockets. The report claims that Chinese tech behemoth Tencent tried to acquire Spotify earlier this year.

Recent reports about Spotify the company suggest that it’s gearing up to go public in the United States. It’s believed to be preparing for an IPO-less listing for 2018.

TechCrunch hears that Tencent, a Chinese tech giant valued at over $380 billion, tried to acquire Spotify earlier this year. Tencent apparently wanted to acquire Spotify to expand its reach in the music streaming market beyond China and Asia.

Spotify is the most popular music streaming service in the world. It has more than 140 million active users and more than 60 million paying customers. It’s believed to be valued at $13 billion.

It’s not entirely impossible to believe that Tencent would be interested in Spotify given that acquiring the company want instantly make it the top global player in the streaming market. Tencent’s own music streaming unit touts 600 million users across three main streaming services. However, Tencent’s services are limited to China and Asia while Spotify’s reach is in over 60 countries.

The scribe isn’t clear if the talks ever reached a point where a price was discussed between the two companies. Both Spotify and Tencent declined to comment on the report so there hasn’t been an official response from them so far.

Chinese Tech Behemoth Tried To Acquire Spotify This Year , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

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Sep 17

BlackBerry Smartwatch No Longer Seems Like A Myth

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BlackBerry hasn’t had much luck with hardware over the past decade. The smartphones that it made itself didn’t sell as well as it might have hoped. The company only made one tablet and that flopped as well. We never go to see any wearable devices from the company so while a BlackBerry smartwatch might have seemed like a myth at one point, it appears to be a genuine possibility now.

No, BlackBerry isn’t making a return to hardware. It’s sticking with the decision it made to exit the hardware market and license its brand and patents to third-party manufacturers.

We’ve already seen TCL churn out BlackBerry-branded smartphones and it will continue to do so. TCL is the exclusive partner and it’s going to manufacture smartphones that carry BlackBerry branding and run its custom version of Android.

BlackBerry has now signed a patent license agreement with Timex Group. The financial structure of this agreement will provide on-going royalty payments from Timex to BlackBerry. The companies have made the additional terms of this agreement confidential.

BlackBerry has a patent portfolio of more than 40,000 worldwide patents and applications that cover a wide range of technologies such as wireless communications, networking infrastructure, messaging, acoustics, enterprise software, cybersecurity, and more.

“This license agreement with Timex demonstrates the strength of BlackBerry’s patent portfolio, and will enable us to focus on further patent licensing opportunities in the mobile communications market,” said Jerald Gnuschke, senior director of Intellectual Property Licensing at BlackBerry.

The companies haven’t hinted at any product plans as yet but this agreement between them leaves the door wide open for Timex to develop a smartwatch under the BlackBerry brand.

Whether or not this will happen is another matter altogether. Given BlackBerry’s business model shift, it can reasonably be expected that something will come of this patent agreement.

BlackBerry Smartwatch No Longer Seems Like A Myth , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

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Sep 17

Verizon-Exclusive Asus Zenfone V Launched

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Asus has launched a new smartphone for customers in the United States. The handset is called Asus Zenfone V. The “V” in the handset’s moniker is for Verizon so don’t go about calling this the Asus Zenfone 5. This new handset is going to be exclusively available from Verizon in the United States.

Asus hasn’t just rebadged one of its existing smartphones and launched it as the Zenfone V in the United States. It’s an entirely new device that has been developed for Verizon. It bears model number V520KL.

The handset is a mid-range affair but its specs are better than most of the mid-range smartphones that we’ve seen so far from the company. It has a 5.2 inch Full HD AMOLED display which is a nice addition given that the company doesn’t make a lot of smartphones with AMOLED displays.

It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. There’s support for external expansion via microSD cards. The handset also features a 23 megapixel rear camera with f/2.0 aperture and Optical Image Stabilization. There’s an 8 megapixel front camera, a 3,000mAh battery, and a USB Type-C port.

The Asus Zenfone V has only surfaced on the company’s website so far. Verizon is yet to announce it which is why there’s not a lot of information available right now about its pricing and availability.

Verizon-Exclusive Asus Zenfone V Launched , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

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