Unable to log into Pokémon Go right now? You are not alone!
It appears as though the Pokémon Go login servers are experiencing a bit of trouble, preventing users from being able to log in and play the game. Have you noticed any issues, or are you still out there catching them all? Niantic has been adding support for gameplay in several new countries over the recent days, and odds are that the servers are just simply overloaded at this point.
Server issues are never fun, but if you are experiencing them you are not alone. If you notice the app slowing down, or the inability to complete a login on your phone, just be patient while the teams behind the scene sort this out. Be sure to let us know if you are seeing any issues, or if you are able to log in and play as normal.
Pokémon Go
- Join our Pokémon Go forums!
- How to deal with GPS errors in-game
- Which team should you choose?
- How to play without killing your battery
- The Ultimate Pokémon Go Game Guide!
Recommended Reading: How reliable are internet movie ratings?
‘Ghostbusters’ is a
perfect example of
how internet movie
ratings are broken
Walt Hickey,
FiveThirtyEight
The reboot of the 1984 classic hits theaters this weekend, but the criticism of the new Ghostbusters has been flying for months. FiveThirtyEight takes a close look at internet ratings for the film as a way of showing that you shouldn’t always rely on those numbers when making a decision about which movie to see. “People put far too much faith in numbers that are preliminary, decontextualized and, in the end, oversimplified,” Hickey concludes.
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“What do you mean, ‘Biblical’?”: Calculating the ‘Ghostbusters’ Twinkie in real life Ok, ok. I promise this will be the last Ghostbusters story I include. However, someone took the time to do the math on that mythical Twinkie, and the calculations are super interesting. |
Solving all the wrong problems New technology is making a lot of things easier, but it’s not addressing the real issues that need to solved. As Arieff notes, many of the so-called innovations only cater to a small portion of us, and some take care of the things our mothers used to do. |
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Hold your horses, virtual reality hasn’t come to live sports (not yet) VR broadcasts of live sports have been around for a few months now, but the overall experience has a long way to go. |
Taking photos at shows is messing with your memories You’ve probably heard about the measures some acts are taking to curb people using their phones during performances, but does being quick to snap a selfie really affect your memories of the event? |
‘Pokémon Go’ Now Available in 26 New Countries Across Europe
Pokémon Go launched this morning in 26 new countries across Europe, capping a blockbuster week in which the augmented reality-based title became the most popular mobile game ever and saw Nintendo shares set record trading volumes in Tokyo.
The announcement of the multi-country launch was made earlier today on the official Pokémon Go Facebook page.
Pokémon Go is available in twenty-six new countries. As of tonight, Trainers living in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland are able to download Pokémon GO from the Play Store or App Store.
As a major market, France still remains conspicuously absent from the launch list, while rollout in Canada and across the Asian region has yet to begin. Some users have also reported login problems with the game since this morning’s announcement, suggesting continued server-side issues for game developers Niantic Labs.
Speaking to Reuters yesterday, chief executive of Niantic John Hanke said Pokémon Go will release in around 200 countries “relatively soon” as developers work to bolster server capacity to enable the wider rollout.
Those comments helped Nintendo shares surge another 10 percent on Friday, setting a record in daily trading volume for an individual stock on the Tokyo exchange. The shares have climbed 86 percent this week, adding $17 billion in market value.
Meanwhile in New York City, a stampede was caught on camera on Friday near Central Park, where a “Vaporeon” pokémon character reportedly showed up. People were seen jumping from cars to capture the creature.
According to The Verge, similar scenes have taken place around the U.S. where rare game characters have appeared, with huge crowds converging on locations such as the Boston Common, Provo City Library in Utah, in Des Moines, Iowa, in Bellevue, Washington, and Altamonte Springs, Florida.
Earlier this week, U.S. mobile carrier T-Mobile announced it plans to offer its customers free data to play the game, while Sprint and affiliated Boost Mobile stores are providing charging stations to players, and even training up store staff to help customers locate nearby game features.
Developers Niantic has also revealed it is considering introducing a sponsorship scheme similar to one it has with its other AR-based game Ingress, which assigns sponsors’ stores and vending machines as spots in the game.
Tag: Pokémon GO
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ICYMI: Sound wave sewer checks, the feminized phone and more
Today on In Case You Missed It: A town in Maryland is checking for clogs in sewer lines with a sound wave system funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. And a Chinese-made smartphone is geared towards women in the most condescending of ways.
In TL;DR, be sure to read up on Tesla’s newest, ‘low-cost’ car. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Twitch makes it easy to find streams in your language
It’s simple enough to search for streams on Twitch, but if you want to explore all the broadcasts available in a particular language, you’ll find the website’s new feature quite useful. The company has just launched Multi-Language Filters, which you can access on the Live Channels list of every game directory page. Now, when you visit, say, the Hearthstone or League of Legends portal, you’ll find a pull-down menu on the right-hand side. It lists various languages broadcasters use, including American Sign Language (ASL) — choosing Español, for instance, will show only Spanish streams without having to change the whole website’s settings. Polyglots can also pick more than one option.
Twitch’s Noreen McInnis says you’ll notice personal design changes different from your friends’ as you start using the filter. She didn’t elaborate on what those changes will be, but they will apparently be based on how you use the feature. We’re guessing you might find your frequent language of choice at the top of the menu (or maybe even pre-selected) the more you use it. You can see a short demo of the the filter below, though you can try it out for yourself on Twitch right now.
Source: Twitch
The Public Access Weekly: Wake me up before you go-go
Wow, has it ever been a Pokémon-tastic week or what? In the roughly ten days since the AR games’ release, it has exploded across every dark and light corner of the internet and out into the real, live world. Players are crashing their cars, finding bodies, walking off of cliffs, walking onto sex offenders’ property, getting caught cheating, getting locked in cemeteries, registering voters and getting robbed all over the damn place. It’s craziness out there y’all.
Now, on to the non-Pokémon portion of the Weekly! Over in the comment section, we’ve got a bug that is removing legitimate comments. I’m not sure what’s causing it yet, but I’m working with the developers on fine-tuning the spam algorithm (which might be the culprit). In the meantime, I’m doing my best to catch legit comments and re-approve them. So, if your comment has disappeared (and there was nothing untoward about it), it was almost certainly caught by this bug. In other words, it’s not you. It’s us. Sincere apologies to those who have been affected by the glitch, we hope to have a fix for that shortly!
Looking for something to read? Check out:
There was a good amount of eye-rolling in the Engadget Slack channel when Shervin Pishevars mobile app response to recent police shootings was brought up (Okay, most of it was mine). Maybe his heart was in the right place, or maybe it was just his pocketbook, but the fact remains: It might be time to admit that not everything needs an app or a Silicon Valley-style “disruption” to be solved.
Because Verizon is our parent company, people often think we can’t write about them objectively. Cherylnn Low’s honest coverage of Verizon’s new data plans is sure to ruffle some feathers on both sides of the fence (and has already provoked quite a few thoughts in the comment section).
The news that Microsoft will be cutting the 15GBs of OneDrive storage that it gave to users in 2014 is provoking a whole bunch of strong feelings in the comments. But even if you skip the conversation after the story, it’s worth knowing what’s going down and when.
Looking for something to write about? Mull over:
World of Warcraft, being an MMORPG, has a history of troubled communications and social interactions between players. Blizzard’s newest policy is to silence players who have been reported multiple times for spam or abuse. What are your thoughts — Will this help with WoW’s history of harassment? Will anything? What are the drawbacks to this new policy? If you’re a WoW player, do you support it?
For those of you who are playing the Pokémon, what are your thoughts about the mental health claims being made by players on Twitter (and doctors)? Is catching them all really a great way to alleviate the symptoms of anxiety and depression?
For those of you who aren’t playing, here’s a quick question: How are you escaping from Pokémon Go?
This tiny accessory will make your USB Type-C transition way less painful
They’re not expensive, but it would be a good idea for more companies to bundle this USB Type-C adapter in the box.
I received the new ZTE Axon 7 in the mail yesterday, and promptly unboxed it. (You can watch it over on our Facebook page if you haven’t already.) The phone itself is a known quantity: powerful, sleek, and unlocked, all for $399. We’ll have a review up shortly.
Inside the box, though, is something I didn’t expect to be as useful as it has proven over the past 24 hours: a USB Type-C to Micro-USB adapter, which makes it easy to use all of those legacy cables I have configured around my house.
The truth is that everyone has a million Micro-USB cables lying around, and likely only a few Type-C cables. As the industry transitions to the new standard — which is considerably better, being reversible and capable of more current at the same voltage — there’s going to be an extended period where some devices, particularly less expensive ones, will still ship with the older version. Even Samsung, the world’s biggest Android manufacturer, has resisted adopting USB Type-C in its main devices to maintain compatibility with its Gear VR headset and other first-party accessories (though that is expected to change with the Galaxy Note 7).
The truth is that everyone has a million Micro-USB cables lying around
Sure, an adapter is easy to lose, and is certainly a bridge to a future where something so disposable is unnecessary, but in the meantime more companies should think about including one. We know that Motorola has decided to include an admittedly more useful USB Type-C to 3.5mm headphone adapter in every Moto Z and Moto Z Force box, but ZTE gets bonus points for thinking about how its customers use smartphones today, not just how they will in the future.
There are a couple things to note about these adapters:
- Most of them are USB 2.0-only, which means that even if the USB Type-C device you’re connecting to supports USB 3.1, speeds will be limited to 480Mbit/s. Some adapters do support USB 3.0 (which isn’t quite as fast as USB 3.1) — you just have to know what you’re buying.
- Some of these adapters include a 56kΩ resistor, which limits the amount of current through the cable if it terminates in a USB Type-A (the larger connector that usually plugs into a laptop or AC adapter). These shouldn’t be necessary if you’re using a high-quality cable with its own 56kΩ resistor built in, but it’s there for added protection.
- If your phone supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge spec, this adapter should work just fine — it did when connecting the Axon 7 to a Quick Charge 2.0-compatible Motorola Turbo Charger — as it merely works as a passthrough.
- I know I’m going to lose this thing, so maybe, if you do decide to buy one, get a two or three-pack.
- USB Type-C is reversible, but Micro-USB isn’t. Make sure that when you insert the adapter, you know which direction the Micro-USB end is facing, so that you don’t break the cable, or the adapter, putting it in backwards.
There you go: not much to this thing, but I’m going to use the heck out of it all the same.
If you’re looking for one (or set of three), Amazon has a whole bunch of them from well-known accessory makers like Aukey, Goliath, and Unitek.
See at Amazon
Do you think you’d have use for one of these adapters? Let us know in the comments!
Watch out for fraudulent ‘Pokémon Go’ apps
It’s official: Pokémon Go has become a major phenomenon: It’s getting people interested in augmented reality, inspiring filmmakers and even helping players cope with anxiety. Unfortunately, it’s also creating targets for malware developers. According to the antivirus folks at ESET, at least three fake Pokémon Go apps have been spotted on the Google Play store since the game launched. One of them has the unsettling distinction of being the first malicious, fraudulent screen-locking app to surface on Google Play.
At a glance, “Pokémon Go Ultimate” looks a lot like the official app — but after installation the app renames itself “PI Network.” Launching it immediately causes a user’s device to lock up, rending the phone unusable until the battery is removed or the device is rebooted via the Android Device Manager. Once the phone reboots, the app hides itself and generates ad-revenue by silently clicking ads in the background. It could be worse, too: ESET’s blog says that the app is only one step away from being ransomware.
Two other fraudulent Pokémon apps briefly surfaced that produced fake security messages, attempting to trick users into paying for a virus removal service that doesn’t exist. At present, all three apps seem to be removed from Google Play, but be on guard: more are likely to show up in the coming days. By all means, join the Pokémon revolution — just make sure you’re downloading the real app before you head out to catch ’em all. Check out the source links below for ESET’s full advisory and security recommendations.
Via: Ars Technica
Source: WeLiveSecurity, ESET
Apple’s idea for music royalties could stick it to Spotify
The Copyright Royalty Board, a three judge panel that sets licensing rates, is trying to figure out what the statutory rate music download and streaming services will pay publishers between 2018 and 2022. Now, the New York Times and Billboard report that Apple has a suggestion on how to figure out those rates that oh-so-coincidentally would negatively impact services with free streaming options like Spotify (heating up their back-and-forth battle) and YouTube. The statutory rate is what services pay unless they make a direct deal with a publisher, and can shape negotiations between them.
As we’ve heard over the last year, publishers and artists like Taylor Swift aren’t happy about Spotify’s free option, while Apple Music is only available to subscribers (and has a three month free trial period).According to both publications, the proposal (which has not been made public) would have streaming services pay 9.1 cents in songwriting royalties for each 100 plays, equal to the royalties of one download. This is much simpler than the current setup, which pays out a percentage of revenue and is obviously much lower for a free service.
Still, it’s just one proposal of many — the NYT says Spotify, the RIAA, Google, Pandora and Amazon were all expected to file their own suggestions this week — and the CRB is only in the early stages of coming to a decision.
Source: New York Times, Billboard
Sick of Pokemon Go? Here’s 12 other augmented-reality apps to try
This might shock you, but… Pokemon Go isn’t the only augmented-reality app out there. Gasp!
The technology has been gaining momentum in recent years, especially with the advent of virtual reality (VR) and augmented-reality (AR) headsets, so there are actually several apps available that, although they aren’t quite as nostalgic as Pokemon Go, do provide an experience in which your real world blends into a virtual one. In fact, Niantic Labs, the developers behind Pokemon Go, released another AR game years ago.
So, if the lure (heh, see what we did there?) of Pokemon Go is starting to wear off, Pocket-lint recommends checking out your other options. We’ve therefore rounded up some AR apps you should try, and we’ve included that old Niantic game too. Here’s what we found.
AR apps and games
Ingress (Android | iOS)
Of course we’re going to start off with Niantic’s first AR title. This game turns your world into a globally-competitive game. The premise is that some unknown, mind-altering energy is taking over the world, as discovered by European scientists, so the world is divided into two forces: the Enlightened, which seek the power of this energy for themselves, and the Resistance, which tries to defend humanity against the force.
You have to go out and discover mysterious artifacts around you, some of which will help you in your quest. You also have to capture territories and defend them against the opposing team and solve thousands of mysteries. The story of Ingress evolves daily as you play it.
Zombies, Run! (Android | iOS)
If you like Pokemon Go because it gets you off your couch, check out this title that’s all about making you fit, with the help of zombies. It’s an immersive game that brings you into a world full of zombies, and to survive, you must run or jog – all while listening to the undead scream. You must collect supplies and unlock daily missions, too. Just remember to speed up when a zombie is on your heels.
Zombies Everywhere (Android | iOS)
Yes – another zombie app. This app works just like Pokemon Go, except you have to kill zombies instead of collect Pokemon.
The Walk (Android | iOS)
This was developed by the same team that created Zombies, Run!. In the game, which takes three months to finish, you must carry a package – that could save the world – to a mysterious destination. As you walk, you get closer to your destination and unlock immersive audio story clips.
Superhero Workout (Android | iOS)
Here’s another fitness AR app from the creators of Zombies, Run!. In the game, you become the pilot of a battleship and must defend the world against alien forces. You’ll do real-world exercises, like crunches and arm punches, to defeat aliens. The app uses motion detection too.
SpecTrek (Android)
This game is all about catching and getting rid of ghosts. It’s a simple title that transforms your own world into a world full of ghouls. You must find where they’re spawning using the GPS and camera on your phone, and then you try to catch them. The more ghosts you get, the better you do.
Clandestine Anomaly (Android | iOS)
Ever want to defend the world against an alien invasion? In this game, aliens are launching an attack on your planet and in your city. You are the Earth’s only hope. You’ll get to watch the alien invasion around you, deploy defensive and offensive tactics, build structures around your neighborhood, and take part in the battle from your home or move to real-world locations.
Temple Treasure Hunt Game (Android)
You can now be a treasure-hunter. This interactive game uses geo-location to turns the world around you into a temple full of hidden artifacts you need to uncover. You can either be a treasure protector or a treasure hunter. You can even play it with friends and family. For instance, you can share treasure trails with your friends, and all of you can hunt for the treasure together as a team.
Geocaching (Android | iOS)
This is another treasure-hunting, outdoor-based game. You basically get to discover real, hidden containers around the world – and some of them even contain small stuff for trade. It’s basically the same thing as Pokemon Go, but instead of catching Pokemon on your phone, you’re trading real-world objects and stories with other adventurers from acround the globe.
Real Strike (iOS)
This app turns your reality into a military base and includes first-person shooting (but, please, don’t use real guns). You have 25 weapons to choose from in the game that you can fire and reload. Combat items include night vision, thermal vision, and more.
Parallel Kingdom MMO (Android | iOS)
Want to enter into a past era of kings and kingdoms? This location-based MMORPG game lets you complete quests and slay monsters, with your location becoming the battle ground. There are 40 levels, trading options with other players, chat rooms, leaderboards, and more.
Night Terrors (Indiegogo)
This app isn’t out yet, but we had to include it. Like horror films? Well, Night Terrors transforms your house into a haunted death trap.
Want more?
These two are also worth trying for their AR tricks: Field Trip and Sky Guide.
AIVAnet 