PC shipments recover in the US
It’s not all doom and gloom in the PC world… for once. Both Gartner and IDC estimate that PC shipments actually grew in the US for the first time in over a year, climbing in the second quarter to either 4.9 percent according to Gartner (which includes Windows tablets) or 1.4 percent if you ask IDC (which doesn’t). There’s no one answer as to why the computer industry is bouncing back, regardless of who you ask. A stronger US economy is playing a part, but the analyst groups also point to strong Chromebook sales to schools as well as a possible spike in purchases from governments and other public outfits.
Just don’t look at shipments in the rest of the world, as they’re rather ugly. Both Gartner and IDC reckon that worldwide deliveries dropped between 4.5 to 5.2 percent. That’s not as bad as it could have been (IDC was predicting a 7.4-point drop), but you’ll have to forget any visions of an imminent return to the PC’s heyday. Economies are still weak outside of the US, and mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are still a higher priority for cash-strapped buyers. Lenovo may have extra reason to worry — its shipments shrank enough that it’s barely holding its market share lead over HP.
On the bright side? While researchers are cautious, they do see ways the industry could climb out of its hole. As upgrading to Windows 10 will soon cost you $119, there’s the chance that people will decide to replace their PCs rather than fork over cash to update existing machines. You could also see the corporate crowd take a serious look at buying Windows 10 computers instead of clinging to aging systems for dear life. Although that amounts to a lot of “ifs” and “maybes” that could easily change, it’s the best hope yet for a PC business that has been declining for years.
Source: Gartner, IDC
Twitter remains quiet about OurMine attack on its CEO’s account
Early Saturday morning the team that has been breaking into high-profile social media accounts managed to temporarily hijack Twitter accounts for the CEOs of Yahoo and Twitter. Despite repeated requests from Engadget, Twitter has not commented on the incident and Jack Dorsey has not tweeted about it. Twitter’s Trust & Info Security Officer Michael Coates did take time to refute a claim made by the OurMine hackers, after they posted a screenshot they claimed proves Vine has access to its users passwords.
We securely store our passwords per industry best practice (bcrypt).
— Michael Coates ஃ (@_mwc) July 9, 2016
According to Coates, on Vine “the admin site is restricted to Twitter IPs, is https, and never shows passwords in any form.” OurMine claims they only took it from Dorsey’s Dropbox, but as ZDNet points out, some of the info in the capture suggests it’s just a fake. We still don’t know exactly what hole the group used to tweet from @Jack, but check the post from Saturday for some tips on what you should do to be as secure as possible.
Are these Google’s upcoming Android Wear smartwatches?
If you haven’t heard already, Google is making two Android Wear smartwatches (possibly Nexus-branded), and now a leaked render has surfaced depicting what those upcoming smartwatches might look like and feature.
Android Police, which published a bunch leaked details about the watches (thought to be codenamed Angelfish and Swordfish), has posted the render and described it as a “recreated image” of the devices. Android Police said it couldn’t share its source, and so it recreated the watches based on the source’s material, and the end result “may look slightly different”. Okay.
It also warned the devices are still undergoing development, so the design could end up totally different. Heck – one or both of the devices could even be cancelled. Anyway, as you can see, the watch on the left is the larger “Angelfish” device. It has a large crown button and smaller “shoulder” buttons. The watch face pictured is an iteration of Google’s customisable faces in Android Wear 2.0.
Unlike Angelfish, which is a standalone watch with a sportier design, the smaller Swordfish lacks LTE and GPS, is less thicker, and has a clean look. It has an odd crown button interrupting its minimalist look, however. Swordfish also has a bezel with a gentle curve to it. Android Police said its image doesn’t reflect the Swordfish’s display glass containing a small amount of circular display bezel.
Android Police
That means there will be a black “gap” between where the watch body ends and the visible display area begins, but this will apparently avoid the flat tyre-look of the Moto 360. So, instead of a single spot “cut” out of the circle, Google made a smaller circle with a smaller display area overall.
Other than that, there’s no more information about whether these are Nexus watches, how much they’ll cost, nor when they’ll launch.
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NFL starts working on a Snapchat Discover channel
Big-name sports leagues have briefly teamed up with Snapchat before (mainly for Live Stories), but the NFL appears to be in it for the long haul. The football league is hiring a managing editor that would produce content for a Snapchat Discover channel full of animations, articles and videos. The exact nature of the content is under wraps, to no one’s surprise. However, it’s reasonable to suspect that the NFL would offer the sort of bite-sized content that it does on its website, such as news and game highlights.
The league wouldn’t comment to Mashable on the findings, which isn’t surprising when work on the channel hasn’t really started yet — assuming it goes forward at all, that is. If the NFL does get to Discover, though, it’ll claim a highly coveted spot. Only a handful of companies have any presence on Discover, and they’re almost exclusively mainstream media outlets and brands. The NFL would both bring sports to Discover in a big way and beat other leagues (such as the NBA and NHL) that have been jockeying for their own channels.
Via: Mashable
Source: LinkedIn
Become a 1980s hacker in ‘Quadrilateral Cowboy’ on July 25th
Quadrilateral Cowboy has been a long time coming. Creator Brendon Chung, creator of the underground hit Thirty Flights of Loving, began working on Quadrilateral Cowboy in 2012 and he showed off an early version of the game in 2013. It’s a blocky, first-person espionage game set in the 1980s that has players actually hack their way through various levels, typing in lines of code to disengage alarms, open doors and generally sneak around. The independent-gaming crowd ate it up and Chung said it would be out within six months. He was off by nearly three years.
Quadrilateral Cowboy will hit PC via Steam and Chung’s studio, Blendo Games, on July 25th, and it’s due to land on Mac and Linux in September. Chung announced the release date today on Twitter.
We talked with Chung earlier this year about the reasons behind Quadrilateral Cowboy’s delay. Back in 2013, once he found a balance between marketing duties and actual development (hint: he largely stopped doing press for the game), he said the game took on a life of his own and he didn’t want to rush it.
“This is going to sound kind of artsy-fartsy, but I get this feeling sometimes when I start writing, that it’s not me anymore,” Chung said. “The piece that you’re writing just starts to kind of steer itself, in a way. The game did that to me.”
As for what the game will do to players, Chung said he hoped it wouldn’t be intimidating. Even though it involves actual coding, Quadrilateral Cowboy was designed to be a game for everyone, from engineers to novice players.
“My favorite thing at these shows is when kids come up to play it — like 10, 11, 12 years old,” he said. “They don’t have these preconceived notions that programming is this thing for geniuses or brilliant people. …They’ll just sit at the keyboard, they’ll start banging on it, and they get it. They pick it up because they don’t have all this baggage about what programming is. It’s amazing. That’s what I want.”
Quadrilateral Cowboy has a date: available on July 25, 2016.https://t.co/3CZNNKEfTB pic.twitter.com/mBDSXLtiLA
— Brendon Chung (@BlendoGames) July 11, 2016
Source: Quadrilateral Cowboy
‘Pokemon Go’ Driving Foot Traffic to Local Businesses
The success of Pokemon Go has had many real-world ramifications recently, including cautionary tales of car accidents, thieves using the game to stage robberies, and Nintendo’s shares jumping 25%, or $7.5 billion, in days. The new augmented reality game is also driving business to local restaurants and bars, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
Food and drink sales spiked by about 30 percent compared to a typical weekend, according to [L’Inizio’s Pizzar Bar] manager Sean Benedetti. It was part luck—the game chooses which public locations to imbue with special significance in its virtual world—but there was also savvy strategy. Benedetti, 29, spent about $10 on “Lure Modules,” an in-game purchase that attracts Pokémon to a specified location. Players soon picked up on the fact that L’inizio’s was well worth visiting. “People are coming out of the woodwork because of this game,” he said.
Pacific Standard co-owner Ryan Kahl told Bloomberg that while the game has increased foot traffic in his Brooklyn-based bar, he hasn’t yet seen the traffic translate into business. “We had one guy run to the back because he had a rare Pokemon,” he said. “It’s been a little weird.” However, Kahl said he had not tried to see if using “Lure Modules” would make a difference, noting that he’s hoping it gets hot enough that adventuring players need to refuel.
Pokemon Go. Got. Real. (Thanks, @Clatham78) pic.twitter.com/fjrtOw97CD
— James Bartholomeou (@Iyagovos) July 8, 2016
Some businesses have taken to hanging up signs alerting players how it does or does not support the game. Pacific Standard, for example, hung up a sign saying “Pokemon are for paying customers ONLY!”, although Kahl says it was a joke. A Dairy Queen in Texas also put up a similar sign. Other businesses, however, have alerted customers to in-store discounts for meeting certain parameters within a game, like using a “Lure Module” or being a part of one of the game’s teams.
Other locations, like Internet Archive’s Washington office, have found themselves unable to financially take advantage of the attention. Many of the game’s gyms are churches or other public establishments, and former churches and establishments can still be crowned as gyms. The group eventually put up a sign letting players know that they were welcome to battle at the gym, but to not disturb their staff, according to Bloomberg. Designer Boon Sheridan, who lives in a former church, has seen his home transformed into a gym.
Living in an old church means many things. Today it means my house is a Pokémon Go gym. This should be fascinating.
— Boon Sheridan (@boonerang) July 9, 2016
Nintendo, Niantic and The Pokemon Company plan to make improvements to Pokemon Go, including the ability to trade Pokemon with other players. While business owners indicated to Bloomberg that they’d be interested in working with the companies to promote their businesses through the game, it’s unclear if Nintendo is open to that idea.
Pokemon Go is available in the App Store for free [Direct Link] for users in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. The game is expected to roll out to the United Kingdom and other countries in the near future after server issues are sorted out.
Tags: Nintendo, Pokémon GO
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Pokémon GO security concerns appear to only affect iOS
You might have seen some security concerns about the Pokémon GO app being talked about on social media. These are very valid issues — the application can use its own webview container for login from your Google Account, and once approved it gives itself full access to all of your data.
We reached out to Niantic — which developed the Pokémon Go app. The company declined to comment.
The good(?) news is that this appears to be an iOS-only issue. On Android, the app appears to use the “right” way to log in with your Google credentials, and it doesn’t ask for access to your sensitive account data. You can check for yourself right here. In fact, when we check on an account that hasn’t used an iPhone to sign in, the Pokémon GO app isn’t even listed as having any access. Don’t be alarmed if you see the same thing.
The first concern — the webview container login page — isn’t too troubling. Apple has secure methods for apps to do this sort of thing (though Google would rather the user be directed to the default web browser so the URL can be checked) and every app is vetted by Apple staff before it’s published. Yes, even Apple can let something slip through, but the account authorization page is legit. We checked. And millions of users have checked.
The second concern — access to all of your Google account data — is much more troubling.
This level of access means that the publisher can see everything. According to Google:
When you grant full account access, the application can see and modify nearly all information in your Google Account (but it can’t change your password, delete your account, or pay with Google Wallet on your behalf).
Certain Google applications may be listed under full account access. For example, you might see that the Google Maps application you downloaded for your iPhone has full account access.
This “Full account access” privilege should only be granted to applications you fully trust, and which are installed on your personal computer, phone, or tablet.
And more. Basically, anything you’ve ever done while signed in with Google, and everything you’ve ever saved in Drive or Photos is wide open to Niantic and the app itself.
Now we don’t think Niantic or Nintendo is going to pore through your account data or look at your photos. But what happens if someone out there finds a way to hack Niantic? With access to the right database, any attacker can have a token that gives them all your “stuff.” That’s not good. Not good at all.
What we recommend is that you use a separate Google account if you’re going to play Pokémon Go on your iPhone. Or you can decide to not play at all and delete the permissions from your Google security page.
The important thing is that you know what’s going on.
Pokémon Go
- Requirements to play Pokémon Go
- The Ultimate Pokémon Go Game Guide!
- How to play without killing your battery
- Be careful where you download from
- Join our Pokémon Go forums!
Five things you should do first in Pokemon Go
Yeah, yeah, we get it. Gotta catch ’em all! Hold on a sec, though. Do these things first.
Jumping headfirst into a game like Pokemon Go is a fantastic way to miss some of the things early on that are going to make your later experience in the game go a lot more smoothly. The beginning tutorial is great, especially if you’re a fan of watching images of Professor Willow slide in and out of frame, but it turns out there’s a lot more to this game than tossing PokeBalls and walking around your town. Here are some quick starter tips for anyone looking to get the most out of their Pokemon Go experience!
Try to catch a Pikachu
At the beginning of the game you are offered a choice between one of three starter Pokemon, but what the game doesn’t tell you is there’s a fourth option. Walk away from those starter creatures a couple of times and a fourth Pokemon will show up. Pikachu is a Lightning type, which is an element with strengths and weaknesses that are different from the other three. This will give you a unique advantage when you start fighting other Pokemon at Gyms, which doesn’t happen until your character reaches Level 5.
Read More: How to score a Pikachu as your starter Pokemon!
Map out your local PokeStops
There are places all around you that give you items when you visit them in the real world. PokeStops can be historical monuments, churches, a funny sign someone took a photo of, or just something unique in your town. They’re everywhere, and every five minutes they have a new cache of items to offer you. In your early levels, it’s a good idea to create a list of PokeStops you can walk between, so you can go back and forth and stock up on items while searching for Pokemon. By the time you’ve levels up to start participating in Gym battles you’ll have plenty of items for keeping your Pokemon healthy, and won’t have to go hunting for PokeBalls when everyone else runs out.
Learn how to throw curveballs
Every experience point (XP) counts in the early days, so you want to make sure you’re getting the most our of everything you do. A great way to give yourself a little boost early on is to get good with curveball throws. This is a special technique for throwing your PokeBall, and if you capture a Pokemon by throwing a curveball you gain extra XP, which means you’ll level up faster.
Read More: How to get a curveball bonus in Pokemon Go!
Find local players
This game does not have to be played alone, in fact Pokemon Go rewards you for playing with friends. If a group of people are somewhere and one of you discovers a Pokemon, everyone can see and capture their own version of the Pokemon. If you install a Lure Module on a PokeStop, anyone nearby can come take advantage of the increased volume of Pokemon that appear in the area.
Playing with friends is safer, and you all get more out of it. Also, when you join a team at level 5 it helps to know who your allies are so you can plan strategies for keeping control of your local Gyms.
Learn your local Pokemon
One of the most important things you can do in Pokemon Go is level up Pokemon you have caught in the wild. When you capture a lot of the same kind of Pokemon, you earn Candy and Stardust that are necessary for evolving and increasing the power of your Pokemon. The best thing you can do for yourself in the early days of this game is learn which Pokemon are the most common in your area and catch as many as possible. When you have a lot of them, you can use a Lucky Egg to double your experience while evolving all of your Pokemon, which will get you to the next level in no time!
Read More: The best way to use a Lucky Egg!
Pokémon Go
- Requirements to play Pokémon Go
- The Ultimate Pokémon Go Game Guide!
- How to play without killing your battery
- Be careful where you download from
- Join our Pokémon Go forums!
