The business of eSports in numbers
It takes about 50 years for a “game” to become a “sport,” according to Andrew Paradise’s calculations. He’s an entrepreneur who recently joined the wave of investors getting in on the eSports game: His app, Skillz, allows mobile-gaming fans to win real money while playing some of their favorite titles. That’s right, mobile eSports. From smartphones to dedicated eSports arenas, Paradise knows why professional gaming is a booming market and he explains it all in a straightforward, money-focused manner. If you’ve ever looked at eSports and wondered, “Why?” Paradise might have your answer.
“Just like video games, basketball and football weren’t initially considered sports and certainly weren’t mainstream for the early years of their existence,” Paradise says. “We are now hitting the 50-year milestone in eSports history as people who grew up playing Pong have children playing League of Legends and Call of Duty. In many respects, eSports have already gone mainstream.”
Hear that, eSports haters? According to Paradise, dismissing eSports only demonstrates how out of touch someone is with an emerging new reality — kind of like a musician deciding to abandon streaming services or tech companies opposing net neutrality.
A number of recent, high-profile acquisitions support the idea that eSports are an accepted, legitimate sport, at least on the investment side of things: On July 1st, Swedish entertainment company MTG acquired the Electronic Sports League, the largest eSports organization in the world, spending $86.4 million for a majority stake in the company. In September 2014, Amazon bought video game-streaming site Twitch for just under $1 billion. Even CaptainSparklez, a popular YouTube personality, has entered the mobile eSports market in a partnership with Activision co-founder Howard Marks.
A screenshot from Valve’s eSports documentary, Free to Play
It’s easy to see why investors are excited about the future of eSports. The industry is valued at $612 million in revenue worldwide, with 134 million total viewers, according to SuperData Research. Paradise says analysts expect these numbers to grow by roughly 30 percent over the next five years. Investors today look at the direct revenue generated by professional gaming, including competitions, sponsorships, online ads, paid viewership, merchandise, licensing, tickets, game sales and fantasy sports, to name a few pipelines, Paradise says.
Additionally, investors have to consider the fans “as an important metric for the future of the industry and for potential revenue,” he adds.
“ESports are well on their way not just to legitimacy, but to true sports supremacy.”
— Andrew Paradise
One of today’s most popular eSports games demonstrates the industry’s ability to rack up a lot of cash quickly: In October of last year, SuperData calculated that League of Legends was poised to generate $1 billion in revenue in 2014 alone, and that’s just via in-game transactions. It’s worth noting that League of Legends is a free game. The $1 billion comes from voluntary player investment in new characters, fresh outfits, aesthetically customized items and boosts, and it doesn’t include revenue from major, sold-out tournaments, streams or merchandise.
League of Legends is one of the top eSports at the moment, alongside Dota 2, StarCraft II, Counter-Strike and StarCraft: Brood War, Paradise says.
“Measured by the number of participants or by minutes played, video games are already a bigger industry than all offline sports,” he says. “Additionally, video games are much younger in their evolutionary history than offline sports and are growing at a much faster rate.”
Some serious eSports bling
A new, booming industry means big bucks for investors. Paradise says that his company, Skillz, facilitates eSports competitions across games from more than 1,100 studios. “While many of the games we power are not household names, the combined prizes paid in these games represent 30 percent of all eSports prizes paid so far this year,” he says.
Paradise sees eSports as a rapidly evolving, lucrative industry that will soon compete directly with — and perhaps surpass — traditional sports.
“Looking at physical spectators, Game [8] of Major League Baseball’s first World Series drew 7,455 spectators in 1903 — 64 years after the game was invented,” Paradise says. “By comparison, last year’s League of Legends Championship — which came just 42 years after the release of Pong [in 1972] — drew over 40,000 spectators. ESports are well on their way not just to legitimacy, but to true sports supremacy.”
[Images: ESL (lead image); Valve (teams at computer terminals); ESL (trophy)]
PSA: NVIDIA announces worldwide recall for SHIELD Tablet, overheating battery poses fire risk
NVIDIA might be in the process of pushing out software updates to its devices, but it has also issued a voluntary worldwide recall for any SHIELD Tablet sold between July 2014 to July 2015. The recall is due to NVIDIA determining that because the tablets battery can overheat, the tablet poses a fire hazard. If you have an affected device, NVIDIA will replace it with an identical device, albeit with a different battery.
Basically, because NVIDIA has stated that the recall affects any SHIELD Tablet sold from July last year to this month, this recall is open to every SHIELD Tablet sold since launch. SHIELD Tablet owners are being asked to cease using the device immediately, apart from performing any necessary backups.
The recall affects both WiFi and LTE variants of the SHIELD Tablet, with the following model numbers:
- P1761, P1761W and P1761WX
SHIELD Tablets with serial numbers ranging from 0410215901781 through 0425214604018 are included in the recall. If you aren’t sure, you can find the model and serial numbers etched on the left-hand side edge of the tablet, as well as on its retail packaging.
How can I tell if my unit is affected by the recall? The voluntary recall applies only to tablets with a certain battery type. Once you’ve verified that you’re running the latest software, find your unit’s battery type by following these instructions: From the Home screen in Android, select the Apps icon and proceed to:
- Select the Settings icon
- Scroll down, select About tablet
- Select Status
- Under the “Battery” category, you’ll see Y01 or B01
- If B01, your unit is NOT affected by this recall
- If Y01, your unit needs to be replaced. Please select Y01 to launch the recall application on the device
If you have an affected device, you can submit your claim online right here. If you aren’t able to place your claim online, you can always make a call to the relevant NVIDIA customer support team:
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US and Canada: 888-943-4196.
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United Kingdom: 0-808-189-3133
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Russian Federation: 8-800-100-6288
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Germany: 0800-183-3882
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France: 0805-080777
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Japan: 0120-981-483
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Norway: 0800-24-631
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Spain: 900-838886
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Sweden: 020-889-826
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South Korea: 080-808-0631
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Czech Republic: 0800-880-826
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Poland: 0-0-800-141-0159
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Italy: 800-788-031
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The Netherlands: 0-800-022-4704
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Switzerland: 0800-848-791
If you know someone with a SHIELD Tablet, let them know about the recall.
Notice for NVIDIA Tablet Customers
Voluntary Recall of NVIDIA SHIELD Tablets
SANTA CLARA, CA–(Marketwired – Jul 31, 2015) – NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today announced a voluntary recall of its SHIELD™ 8-inch tablets that were sold between July 2014 and July 2015, which the company will replace. NVIDIA has determined that the battery in these tablets can overheat, posing a fire hazard. The recall does not affect any other NVIDIA products.
NVIDIA is asking customers to visit www.nvidia.com/support/tabletrecall for information on how to obtain a replacement device. NVIDIA is also asking consumers to stop using the recalled tablet, except as needed to participate in the recall and back up data. Consumers will receive a replacement tablet after registering to participate in the recall.
NVIDIA is coordinating with appropriate governmental agencies to ensure that the recall follows established industry practices.
About NVIDIA
Since 1993, NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) has pioneered the art and science of visual computing. The company’s technologies are transforming a world of displays into a world of interactive discovery — for everyone from gamers to scientists, and consumers to enterprise customers. More information at http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/ andhttp://blogs.nvidia.com/.Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: NVIDIA’s replacement of SHIELD tablets, NVIDIA’s coordination with government agencies and the recall following established industry practices are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: global economic conditions; our reliance on third parties to manufacture, assemble, package and test our products; the impact of technological development and competition; development of new products and technologies or enhancements to our existing product and technologies; market acceptance of our products or our partners’ products; design, manufacturing or software defects; changes in consumer preferences or demands; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of our products or technologies when integrated into systems; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, including its Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended April 26, 2015. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on the company’s website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.
© 2015 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo and SHIELD are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. Features, pricing, availability and specifications are subject to change without notice.
Come comment on this article: PSA: NVIDIA announces worldwide recall for SHIELD Tablet, overheating battery poses fire risk
WWE Network now available in Google Play for Android TV
WWE Network is now available on the Google Play Store for Android TV, allowing users to watch live events or re-watch past matches. Keep in mind that you will need a subscription to access most of WWE Network’s content.
In signing up for a subscription, you will have unlimited access to pay-per-view events, live programming, WrestleMania, and of course, a variety of recorded events from the past. If you’re not sure on the subscription yet, WWE Network is offering a 1-month free trial.
One thing’s for sure: as we see TV networks create their own applications for operating systems, the need for TV will slowly become obsolete. After all, why pay for a TV subscription when you can pay a few dollars for your favorite networks on your Android TV?
If you’re interested in downloading the WWE Network on your Android TV, scan the QR code or hit the download link below.
Come comment on this article: WWE Network now available in Google Play for Android TV
How to factory reset your Android device
When experiencing technical difficulties, you may be only a factory set away from seeing improvements. For example, with my LG G3, I was having issues with audio levels during phone calls and a factory reset fixed it right up.
Doing a factory reset doesn’t always provide a fix; however, it’s usually the first thing customer support will tell you to do in trying to get your device in working order. That said, it’s the best course of action before taking any other steps. And we’re going to show you a couple of the best processes to employ a factory reset on your device.
Before you start
The best thing to do before you start is to backup all the data on your smartphone or tablet. We put together a handy guide, taking you step-by-step on securing all of your data on external hardware or in the cloud.
I would highly recommend following those instructions before proceeding because you will lose all of your data after this process is completed.
Of course, if you just want to save a few photos and documents, you can download Google Photos and upload all your pictures to the cloud. For documents, uploading them to Google Drive will do the trick.
Now, let’s get started!
Factory reset through software
The most common way to do a factory reset is through the software. In most cases, you can can do this by opening your app tray, tapping Settings > Backup and Reset > Factory Data Reset. This is the process for the Moto X (2013) and should be similar with most devices. The Factory Data Reset feature might be within the device’s Security settings.
After selecting Factory Data Reset, you will be asked a series of questions in addition to requesting your device’s password or unlock pattern.
Your device should now be in the process of resetting itself now. If whatever issue you are experiencing disables your ability to use the software, there are some other processes to achieve a factory data reset!
Factory data reset through hardware
Doing a factory data reset through your device’s physical buttons is called a “hard reset.” It’s the most effective way to reset your device if you’re experiencing issues with software.
Most devices use the following to start the processes: hold the volume down and power key for 2-3 seconds (while powered off) until the device’s boot options appear.
Now, use the volume down key to highlight Recovery and the volume up key to select it. The phone should now show the manufacturer’s logo followed by the Android recovery screen. Press and hold the volume up key for 10 seconds, and then quickly press and release the power key.
You should now see the Android recovery screen. Again, you can scroll down with the volume down key. Highlight the Wipe data/factory reset function. Press the power key.
Your device should now begin wiping all data on your smartphone, giving you a clean slate. The process works similar with most devices. However, in some cases, such as the Galaxy S6, you may need to power off the device, and hold the power, volume up, and home screen key all at the same time to begin booting into Recovery. For the most part, it’s a similar process, even with tablets.
Wrap Up
Those are a few simple steps you can take to resetting your Android device. The only difference you might find between devices is that the “Factory Data Reset” is under Security, and not Backup and Restore.
Additionally, if factory resetting your device doesn’t fix the bugs or errors you’re experiencing, it’s best to report it to the manufacturer and see if it’s not too late to get your device swapped out with one that works properly.
Come comment on this article: How to factory reset your Android device
MINIRIG the only Bluetooth speaker you will ever need.
The search is over! MINIRIG has finally answered the question I have asked every year about portable Bluetooth speakers. Yes, you can have a portable speaker that truly sounds good. I have listened to countless portable speakers, but the one key element missing is the quality of the sound. Sure there are larger speakers that would do the trick, but that does not make it very portable. The MINIRIG has set the bar on sound quality from a small footprint. Even at the highest volume there is no distortion, which is something other portable speakers have failed to master.
The speaker is made up of a single machined piece of anodized aluminum with a very minimal design, light weight, simple to operate, and has an astounding battery life. The speaker has an attractive design that comes in a variety of colors. The MINIRIG is also light weight making it easy to keep with you. The device it is connected to controls the volume leaving you with two options on the speaker itself, high and low. Setup is also a breeze by simply turning it on and finding the Bluetooth on your phone. I have found most speakers have a difficult time connecting with a device. The MINIRIG always worked and never posed any issues connecting with a multitude of phones and tablets. The housing comes in several color choices made of aluminum and covered in matte poly carbonate making it extremely durable.
The sound is what truly sets it apart from the rest of the field providing crisp clear audio even at the maximum volume. The sound also fills the entire room with ease making it a joy to listen to even from a distance. Deep tones come through fairly well making it all the better considering most portable speakers have no deep tone at all. Various forms of music are handled amazingly something hardly ever found. Most other speakers fall short when changing to new genres limiting their capabilities. From country to hip hop and everything in between the speaker fails to disappoint.
Battery life is a constant issue for any portable device. The MINIRIG has a rated fifty hour battery and it is no joke. Several days went by before I had to charge it. The speaker even allows you to charge your phone making it perfect for lay overs and camping trips. I was able to go a few weeks without charging the speaker with casual listening. when I left the speaker playing it lasted over two days without a charge set on low volume for test purposes.
The MINIRIG surpassed all the expectations I had with a small portable speaker. The quality of the build and capabilities of the speaker rivaled larger non mobile units with ease. Even as good as this product is you can take it up a notch by adding another MINIRIG and a Subwoofer. Unfortunately I did not have this set up but given how impressed I was with just one I can say the additions would be well worth the price. The speaker is also IPX4 rated so it is resistant to small accidents with water. If there is one knock on the MINIRIG the fact that it is not fully submersible is a minor let down.
MINIRIG comes in seven different colors and three packages of 1, 2, or 2.1. The price starts at $219.05 for just the speaker and is worth every penny. The full package of two speakers plus the sub woofer is $608.69. The company is PASCE Ltd in Bristol UK. The unit was designed by a group of engineers and over time refined into the final product of the MINIRIG. The quality of the build and capabilities display the hard work and attention to detail the team has put forth. In conclusion this is the only speaker you will ever need for your mobile audio needs.
The post MINIRIG the only Bluetooth speaker you will ever need. appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Nvidia recalls some Shield tablets, potential fire hazard to blame
The Nvidia Shield tablet is an excellent device, and a mainstay in our list of best Android tablets for many months now. It looks though that there’s an issue affecting the 8-inch tablet’s battery, because Nvidia just announced a recall program affecting Shield tablets sold over the last year.
Nvidia is asking affected Shield owners to submit a claim to receive a replacement device. Not all units are affected: in order to check if you will need to replace your Shield, you must follow these steps:
- Update your Shield tablet to the latest software version (build date must be newer than July 1, 2015) from Settings>About tablet>System updates
- Check if your model is affected from Settings>About tablet>Status:
- If the entry in the Battery category is B01, you are safe, no return needed
- If the entry in the Battery category is Y01, you must go through the recall
- Tap on “Y01” to receive your device serial number.
- Enter the serial number on the form available here.
- Enter the claim number you receive from the Nvidia site in the recall notice.
More details on the recall procedure are available here.
Nvidia will ship you a replacement tablet free of charge, but make sure to save all your local data from the old tablet because once you activate the new one, the old one will be deactivated remotely and become unusable.
See also: NVIDIA Shield Tablet review
Nvidia did not detail the reasons behind the recall, under than to say that “tablets can overheat and pose a fire hazard.” From the multitude of reports about injury and damage caused by faulty electronics, this is not an issue you want to take lightly, so make sure to go through the recall as soon as possible.
Have you experienced any issues with your Shield tablet?
Deal: Grab a ZeroLemon SolarJuice 20000mAh Battery for 50% off
Ever find yourself in a situation where getting to a wall outlet to charge up your phone just isn’t possible? Whether you’re on a lengthy road trip, simply out all day without access to an outlet, or on a multi-day camping trip, having a reliable battery pack certainly can come in handy. And as luck would have it, right now the AA Deals Store is offering the ZeroLemon SolarJuice 20000mAh Battery Pack for 50% off the listing price.
The ZeroLemon SolarJuice battery pack has two outputs, enabling you to charge multiple devices at once. The outputs come in 2.1 and 1A variants, which is perfect for charging a tablet and a smartphone.The massive 20,000mAh battery pack can not only charge your smartphone more than four times in a single charge, but in a pinch, you can actually charge it via the power of the sun, thanks to the fact that the battery pack charges with a 1.2W monocrystalline solar panel. Of course, you can still plug the battery pack in for faster charging if you’re indoors. The power pack has four LED indicators to provide battery capacity information as well as an super bright LED flashlight. You’ll even receive a carrying hook and a pouch with your order to help carry it around more easily.
You can pick one up from the AA Deals Store for just $49, which is about $30 cheaper than you’ll find it even through places like Amazon.
How far we’ve come: a look at smartphone performance over the past 7 years
Smartphones are pretty quick these days, offering buttery smooth multi-tasking and packing enough grunt to push out plenty of pixels for high resolution gaming. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the world of smartphones was quite different not so long ago. So, let’s take a little time to appreciate just how far our little smartphones have come.
We could spend ages talking through every new chip, technological breakthrough and chip design under the sun, but I just can’t bring myself to type out that many model numbers, instead let’s talk performance. Although benchmarks might not be perfect, they’re not a bad guide to theoretical peak performance between devices running the same test. GeekBench is one of the more reliable and has achieves that go back quite a way, so we’ll be pulling some data from there.
Android vs iOS
There’s no better place to start than the old Android vs Apple grudge match, so let’s delve back in time to see who topped the smartphone benchmarks each year. Apple may have been the first on the market all those years ago, but it’s an advantage that Android has been very quick to close in on.
Much as it did back then, Apple still has a heavy input into the design of its smartphone SoCs, while Android mostly relies on big market players to provide chips for a range of products. Perhaps not unexpectedly, it’s been a close run race for several years, but the past couple have seen an interesting trend emerge. Apple’s iPhone range has built a steady lead with single core performance, while the best Android phones have leapt ahead with multi-core performance.
We can directly correlate this large jump in performance to the introduction of big.LITTLE octa-core SoCs, while Apple remains more interested in per core performance. We have previously discussed how Android makes use of multiple cores and this is helping Android see notable performance gains in certain scenarios, as well as aiming to improve battery life in less demanding tasks.
Performance by brand
Android is a big place, so it’s only right to examine the broader competition. For this chart we’re looking at the major flagship releases each year from some of Android’s biggest global brands. It’s tricky to find data on every handset, but should give us a rough idea about where the competition has been.
This chart nicely demonstrates Motorola’s shift to and from the mid-tier market, while LG managed to keep up with the big players in the market thanks to its Nexus handsets. Samsung has consistently held a position at the front of mobile processing technology, partly thanks to its own range of Exynos Socs, as has Sony, for the most part.
We shouldn’t be surprised to see a close run race between all of the big Android players, as most smartphones have been making use of the same processors in each generation, many of them from Qualcomm. The only real performance differences tend to last a few months, as companies race to be the first to the next milestone.
This past few years have been an interesting period in the mobile SoC arms race, as manufacturers leapt from the older Qualcomm S4 designs up to faster, quad-core chips and finally into the octa-core behemoths of today’s handsets, all in the space of just two to three years. Samsung managed to leapfrog the competition with its octa-core big.LITTLE Galaxy Note 4 at the end of 2014 and seems to have maintained a notable advantage this year thanks to its 14nm technology. Other companies have transitioned over to Qualcomm’s own Snapdragon 810 octa-core chip this generation, but is a tad behind on a 20nm manufacturing process.
LG has seen the slowest rate of improvement in the past few years, having been early into the Snapdragon 800 series with the Nexus 5 but then choosing to avoid the more recent 810 in favour of Qualcomm’s hexa-core 808 for its LG G4.
Bang per buck
One of the greatest things about technology is that it gradually become more affordable. You don’t have to pay top dollar for compelling smartphone performance these days, but that has not always been the case. Take a look at this next chart which plots performance against price over the past five years.
As we would expect, today’s handsets cost half as much as they did a few years ago and offer up equal, if not improved performance.
As an example, the sub $150 Moto E second generation offers up similar performance to yesteryear’s $500+ Galaxy S2, and runs circles around this decade’s early and far more costly Android handsets, such as the HTC Nexus One.
These days, low cost octa-core MediaTek chips offer up competitive performance at a fraction of the price of Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragons
We can also spot an interesting dynamic that has played out between the very premium $500+ market and the mid-range game. 2012 and 2013 saw the gap between the high and low tier markets close thanks to the Nexus 4 and 5. This ended with the introduction of the pricey Nexus 6, but low cost brands from Asia have picked up the baton.
While low cost manufacturers are benefiting from scalable multi-core big.LITTLE designs, high-end devices are adopting faster core designs and smaller, more efficient processing nodes.
That said, there is now a more notable performance gap between the very high-end phones packing the latest octa-core chips and those which are still relying on older or cheaper SoCs. Samsung, Sony, HTC, and LG have a lead so far this year as first adopters, but this is already changing, as lower cost manufacturers gear up their own next-gen releases, such as the OnePlus 2 and the Moto X Style, which boast flagship performance with sub $400 price tags.
Another interesting trend can be seen when we look at the single-core performance of these same handsets.
Turning to the sub $250 market, the trend looks quite similar to the premium market of five years ago. Single core performance has been close run between the two tiers, the performance gap has occurred as budget smartphones remained locked on old dual-core setups. However, falling prices in multi-core and more powerful core architectures has seen the $150-$250 price bracket really close the gap with more expensive handsets, thanks to low-cost smartphones like the ZTE Grand S2.
High Performance phones on a budget
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Today we’re left with a more evenly spread range of options for both price and performance than we had even two years ago, let along five. The hardware that fits in our pocket has come a huge way in less than a decade and it’s going to be exciting to see where we end up.
Cricket Wireless adds free unlimited calls and texts from Mexico and Canada to the US
When it comes to U.S. prepaid carriers, Cricket Wireless remains one of the best out there. With its “taxes included in pricing” structure to its excellent discounts for autopay and multiple lines, there’s a lot to love about Cricket. Now Cricket is getting even better for those who find themselves frequently making trips to Canada or Mexico.
While Cricket Wireless already offered free calling and texting from the US to Mexico and Canada, now they are also adding free calling and texting to the US from Mexico and Canada. The new feature will go into effect on August 2nd for those in Mexico, with Canadian support coming “later that month”. For those that travel, this is certainly an excellent freebie. That said, this is a small restriction for calls made from Mexico to the US: they cannot exceed 50% of the total usage from the customer each month for any consecutive three-month period or the account could face termination.
For more details on Cricket Wireless and its plans, be sure to check out their official website.
Google rejects France’s demand for a global ‘right to be forgotten’
When French regulator CNIL told Google it must apply “right to be forgotten” requests globally last month, it gave the company 15 days to comply or face further action. That deadline came and went without a whisper from the search giant, but it’s taken another 34 days for it to muster a reply. In a blog post, Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel at Google, called CNIL’s order “disproportionate and unnecessary,” arguing that if it had obeyed its demand, France would essentially set the standard for internet regulation.
After the European Court of Justice ruled that it must accept requests to delist search results, Google says it has dealt with over 250,000 removal requests. CNIL argued that successful applications, which stand at around 41 percent, should apply “on all extensions of the search engine” and extend them beyond Google.fr to all of Google’s search websites.
“The overwhelming majority of French internet users – currently around 97 percent – access a European version of Google’s search engine like google.fr, rather than Google.com or any other version of Google,” says Fleischer. “As a matter of principle, therefore, we respectfully disagree with the CNIL’s assertion of global authority on this issue and we have asked the CNIL to withdraw its Formal Notice.”
The regulator confirmed to Reuters it had “taken note” of Google’s arguments, which it says are “mostly of a political nature” rather than being based on “strictly legal reasoning” like it’s own. It’ll now assess the appeal and decide whether it will accept it within “two months.”
[Image Credit: shutterstock]
Via: Reuters
Source: Google Europe Blog
AIVAnet 