Pokemon Go update makes catching rare Pokemon easier
There’s an update coming to Pokemon Go that will take some of the frustration out of trying to catch rare Pokemon.
Called the “capture bonus”, the update (coming soon) will give you extra power to catch certain types of Pokemon, based on your achievements in the game so far.
The catching bonus revolves around the medals system that Trainers are awarded for capturing certain types of Pokemon. If you catch a lot of water type Pokemon, you earn the Swimmer medal, for example, in various stages.
This currently has no function, it basically just gives you a sense of achievement, but the catch bonus means that you’ll have extra power to catch Pokemon of that type.
That means that if you come across a powerful Pokemon with a high CP, you’ll have a greater chance of catching it, as your previous catches give you a boost.
If the Pokemon you’re after is multiple types, then your catching bonus will be the average of your medal status for both those types.
It hasn’t been revealed exactly when the update will land, but it should be hitting your Android and iOS devices soon.
- Pokemon Go: How to raise your XP level, power up and evolve your Pokemon
- Pokemon Go: Best Pokemon with highest CP
- Pokemon Go: How to find and catch rare Pokemon like Charizard, Blastoise and Alakazam
- Pokemon Go top tips: Master the Pokemon mayhem
- Pokemon Go Gym tips: How to battle, train and win
LinkedIn can quietly tell headhunters you want a new job
Let’s say you’re not happy with the way you’ve been treated at work, but your objections have fallen on deaf ears. If you start hunting around for another job, it’s all too easy for that information to leak back to your current employer. That’s why LinkedIn has launched Open Candidates, a service that enables would-be job-switchers to signal recruiters that they’re looking for an escape route.
According to BusinessInsider, a moment from Silicon Valley provided the inspiration for LinkedIn to begin working on the feature. In it, Gilfoyle updates his employment status, only for his phone to blow up with calls less than a minute later. If you haven’t already, you’ll receive an email from the site asking you to update your own recruitment status. You’ll then be asked to fill in suggested job titles, a start date and some key facts for headhunters to learn.
Even better is that LinkedIn won’t share this information with recruiters from your own company, or firms that have a known affiliation. As TechCrunch reports, LinkedIn’s key revenue stream is from people looking for work and folks looking to fill jobs. But it needs to guard that money, since it’s facing attacks from companies like Monster and Glassdoor, which are all looking to steal a chunk of that pie. By making it easier for people to find work (and not alert their bosses) should help to
Source: LinkedIn
Search ads show up on Apple’s App Store
While we’ve known for months that Apple would start placing adverts in App Store search results, only a small percentage of iPhone and iPad users have seen them so far. From today, however, all device owners running iOS 10 in the US will see targeted apps whenever they search for popular terms like “taxi,” “to do” and even “Pokémon” on Apple’s app marketplace.
Should you search for a common keyword that Apple has allowed advertisers to target, the App Store will show the familiar app card — detailing its name, developer rating and price — but sponsored listings will show a light blue background and a small badge labelled “Ad.”
When Apple SVP Phil Schiller first confirmed that developers could influence the visibility of their apps, the company wanted to be “fair to developers and fair for indie developers,” allowing smaller studios with limited budgets to make their creations more visible to the hundreds of millions of iOS device owners.
Apple continues to reinforce the claim that its Featured sections are “not for sale,” so this could be seen as a fair compromise. The company follows Google, after the search giant introduced a similar feature in May 2015. It now remains to be seen how closely Apple’s marketing teams will monitor the placement of apps so that users aren’t shown spoofed apps or are tricked into downloading a third-party app purporting to be the real deal.
As VentureBeat points out, Pokémon Go already has a clone called Catch ‘Em sitting in the paid top spot. However, the real app is listed below, so just be sure to double-check before you download anything.
Via: The Verge
Source: Venturebeat
Sony reveals the A6500, its new E-mount mirrorless flagship
It doesn’t seem like that long ago that Sony launched the its top-of-the-line A6300 mirrorless E-mount camera, but guess what! That model, which we found mighty impressive, has now been displaced by a new flagship, the 24.2-megapixel A6500. While sharing many of the features of the last model, including 4K video and an 11fps shooting mode with continuous autofocus, it’s Sony’s first E-mount APS-C model to have 5-axis image stabilization
Now, however, the A6500 can shoot 11 fps for up to 307 frames in RAW mode, meaning you can shoot like that for around 30 seconds. For video, the A6500 can read out the entire 6K sensor and scale it down to 4K without any pixel binning. It also supports a new function called “Slow and Quick” mode, letting you shoot at frame rates from one to 100fps. As before, you can shoot 4K at up to 100 Mbps, and view 4x slow mo in real time.
The A6500 now has not only a touch screen, but a touch pad. That lets you shift the focus point just by dragging your finger across the screen. Other features include a 2.4 million dot XGA OLED electronic viewfinder, the ability to extract stills from movie footage directly (8-megapixel stills from 4K and 2-megapixel stills from HD modes), and the usual connectivity features including WiFi, QR and NFC.
The A6500 won’t come cheap — it’s coming to Europe in December for $1,400 (€1,700 in Europe) with body only, or €2,800 with SEL1670Z lens. We’ll have US pricing and more photos and hands-on impressions of the new A6500 shortly.
Humans can only live to 115, researchers claim
Research out of New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine believes that the goal of living forever is an impossible one. A team of researchers analyzed morality rates and aging trends across the world and found that there may be a ceiling to our lifespan. Popular belief may be that humans could live longer if they remain in good health, it appears that the best we can hope for is 115 years on this planet. Which should give you just enough time to finish all of those TV series binges before the world inevitably boils into dust.
An extensive piece in the New York Times has sourced comment from across the scientific community with a wide variety of opinions being offered. Some believe that the study validates a long-held belief that immortality is impossible, while others dispute the findings. The paper quotes James Vaupel, who said that it was “disheartening” and was based upon a scientific “mistake.” It’s also worth reiterating that this was a trend-based study, rather than a biological one, and its inferences may be a perverse reading of the data.
The study also fails to take into account key advances in science that could upend the current thinking on aging and DNA. After all, our lifespan is hard-coded into our DNA, not as a set figure, but by how many times each cell can reproduce. Imagine that each cell is playing the game of your life with a series of quarters lined up on the top of an arcade machine. Each time damage has to be repaired (i.e. replication), you pump another quarter into the coin slot. But a cell can only replicate so many times before you’ll run out of quarters and it’s game over.
But advances in gene editing mean that we’re getting closer to removing and replacing parts of people’s genetic code. Currently, that’s been used to cure a fatal case of infant leukaemia and hemophilia, but the potential is enormous. Scientists like George Church have ambitions to build a “perfect” strand of DNA that could reduce our vulnerabilities to disease and injury. It’s a mostly-theoretical concept right now, but given how far genetics has come in the last few decades, not an impossible one.
Via: New York Times
Source: Nature
Apple Supplier Foxconn Launching Low-Cost Smartphone Line in Japan Next Year
Apple supplier Foxconn Electronics is reportedly gearing up to launch its own line of smartphone devices in Japan, using its recent acquisition of Sharp to help manufacture and distribute the handsets (via DigiTimes). Over the past few years, Foxconn has been a major supplier for Apple device manufacturing, including for the iPhone SE and iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus.
The company is said to be working on entry-level and mid-range options for the lineup, with an expected launch date in the first quarter of 2017, according to sources within the Japanese manufacturing industry. The sources mentioned that it “remains unclear as to which brand Foxconn will use” to market the devices, although it is “highly possible” for the handsets to be sold under a Sharp branding.
However, it remains unclear as to which brand Foxconn will use to market the smartphones it produced in-house in the Japan market, said the sources, adding that it is highly possible those smartphones will be sold under the Sharp brand.
Foxconn’s move to introduce cheaper models of smartphones could offset Sharp’s Aquos line of devices, which corner the high-end market in Japan but leave the company open to introduce entry-level and mid-range devices for consumers. According to the sources knowledgable of the launch, the addition of Foxconn’s smartphones “will enrich Sharp’s product portfolios,” if the company is indeed the brand attached to the new handsets.
Foxconn has produced its own smartphones under different branding before, but today’s report suggests the company is attempting to launch its new devices with a heavier marketing push within Japan. No other descriptive factors of the smartphone’s components or features were mentioned in the report.
Most recently, Apple was rumored to be in talks with Sharp to provide OLED displays for next-generation iPhones, with the ultimate outcome of the deal depending on Sharp’s capacity to output a large amount of displays. The rumor of Apple’s negotiations with Sharp followed a report last week that said the electronics manufacturer is set to spend $570 million on OLED panel production, although its output goal of mid-2018 means it’ll miss next year’s mega-cycle iPhone 8 launch.
Tag: Japan
Discuss this article in our forums
North America’s Busiest Commuter Trains Now Support Apple Pay
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has announced the MTA eTix app for iPhone now supports Apple Pay, enabling commuters to conveniently and securely purchase tickets for New York City’s Long Island Railroad and Metro-North Railroad trains.
As of this week, commuters can use Apple Pay to purchase one way, round trip, ten trip, weekly, and CityTickets tickets — as well as monthly passes — through the MTA eTix app, which can be used at all LIRR and Metro-North stations.
Image Credit: Lionel via The New York Times
“The New York commute just got that much easier thanks to Apple Pay in the MTA eTix app,” said Apple Pay vice president Jennifer Bailey. “Now you can skip the line entirely to buy train tickets right on your iPhone.”
MTA’s Long Island Railroad, operating between Manhattan and the eastern tip of Suffolk County on Long Island, is the busiest commuter train in North America, with an average weekday ridership of over 300,000 passengers.
MTA’s Metro-North Railroad, operating between Manhattan and upstate New York, plus parts of southwestern Connecticut, is the second busiest commuter train in North America, with an average weekday ridership of over 285,000 passengers.
MTA eTix, free on the App Store [Direct Link], eliminates the need to stand in line to purchase tickets from a vending machine. Instead, your iPhone serves as your electronic ticket, which you activate before boarding a train.
Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tag: New York City
Discuss this article in our forums
Where to buy Sony’s Xperia XZ in the UK
Sony’s smartphone launch timetable has been pretty questionable of late. After bringing the Xperia X Compact to the UK the day after Apple’s iPhone announce, the company is back with a poorly timed release of the Xperia XZ, just as the dust is settling after Google’s big Pixel event. Nevertheless, the Xperia XZ is Sony’s first smartphone of the year bearing all the hallmarks of a flagship. It may only pack slight improvements over the uninspiring Xperia X Performance, but between the handset’s industrial design, powerful innards and laser-autofocus camera, there’s still plenty to like. And as of today, it can now be yours.
| Cheapest contract (with upfront) | £38.49 (£50) | £34 (£70) | £32 (£120) | £28.49 (£90) on EE | £18.49 (£325) on EE | £23 (£175) on O2 |
| Cheapest contract (lowest upfront) | £51 (£10) | £37 (£0) | £42 (£20) | £36 (£0) on EE or O2 | £36 (£0) on EE | £42 (£0) on Vodafone |
| Pay-as-you-go | — | £552 | £550 | — | — | — |
| Unlocked (SIM-free) | — | — | — | £540 | £519 | — |
Typically, Sony phones don’t get this amount of traction among carriers and contract resellers, but it seems they’re all ready to show the Xperia XZ some love. There aren’t any particularly cheap options, though, so you’re either looking at an upfront payment of some variety, a high contract cost or low monthly allowances, if not all three. Speaking of Three, the carrier will be offering the Xperia XZ but hasn’t nailed down its pricing structure just yet. We’ll be updating this post just as soon as Three adds the phone to its online store.
It appears giffgaff is the only MVNO ranging the Xperia XZ, at least on launch day. The provider’s pricing starts at £35 upfront on a £35.49 per month contract (this goes down if you pay more upfront), or you can buy the phone outright for £549 and bundle it with plans starting at £10 per month.
If unlocked is more your style, then Buymobiles.net has the best deal we can find currently at £519. Mobilephonesdirect.co.uk is pretty close with its £523 pricing, but right now there’s no point looking elsewhere, with most other retailers charging between £540 and £550 for the device.
Xbox exclusive ‘ReCore’ gets a 30-minute demo
When ReCore was first announced, it looked fresh and exciting. An agile explorer flanked by cute, adorable robots in a sprawling desert. Oh, and Mega Man legend Keiji Inafune was attached to the project. The concept was intriguing, at the very least. But then the game came out, and its $40 price-tag made sense; in short, it just wasn’t very good. To help with ReCore’s less-than-stellar reception, Microsoft has announced a 30-minute trial version for Xbox One and Windows 10. There’s no fee, or expectation to buy, but if you do pick up the full game your progress will carry over.
To tempt new players, the ReCore team has pushed out a “significant update” to the game. Load times have been reduced, and both the music and visuals have been tweaked. On a technical level, you should also see “improvements” to the waypoint system, as well as better checkpoints, respawns and collisions. These changes, while welcome, will do little to save the game’s underlying faults. But maybe, just maybe, they can help people to look past those rough patches, and appreciate ReCore’s redeeming qualities — namely decent exploration and fun puzzle solving.
Source: Xbox Wire
Game Fnatic: See what it takes to be a ‘League of Legends’ pro
It’s on. The Engadget video series Game Fnatic follows four amateur and semi-pro League of Legends players as they attempt to win a spot on Fnatic, one of the world’s most successful and famous teams. The first five episodes are live right now, right here. Even if you’re unfamiliar with League of Legends, the debut episodes break down the basics and introduce the four competitors, each of whom brings a unique skill — and personality — to the series.
Game Fnatic is a behind-the-scenes look at Fnatic’s League of Legends philosophy and what its star players look for in a teammate. The competitors not only have to learn how to train like a pro, which includes physical activity and hours upon hours of game time, but they have to prove they can play well with Fnatic’s superstar lineup, which features Martin “Rekkles” Larsson, Fabian “Febiven” Diepstraten and Bora “YellOwStaR” Kim, all of whom have competed at the League of Legends World Championships. The 2016 Worlds tournament is live through October 29th, so now is a great time to get a closer look at what it takes to be a professional League of Legends player.
Game Fnatic is a 10-part series, so once you’re done devouring the first five episodes, keep an eye out for the second half in the coming weeks. You know where to find us.
AIVAnet 