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The Disc-less Xbox One S All-Digital Edition to be Available for Preorders from Mid-April

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The rumours of Xbox launching the disc-less console were already making rounds, starting from November last year. Apparently, the company has also confirmed the news that it is planning to launch a new Xbox One S without a disc drive in the coming month.

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Image Source: onmsft.com

It is expected that the console may be cheaper than its predecessors, as the company is removing the expensive Blu-ray drive from the console. The console will rely on the digital downloads and Microsoft’s services like Game Pass.

Microsoft had launched the game pass service in 2017, and if go with the company claims, it has registered millions of users for the same in the past two years. The monthly plan for the game pass costs a $9.99, under which the users get access to 100 different games, including Rocket League, the Halo series and Gears of War 4, etc.

Allegedly, Microsoft will also provide options to the users to have pre-installed games on the console. Even the buyers can choose on which games they want to have on their consoles.

In recent times, the company has been publishing all the new games digitally. Even the popular game Fornite has never been released physically. So the disc-less console maybe another lead to the digitization of the gaming industry.

As there are already speculations, that the new console will be cheaper, the cost of the console is estimated between $200 and $250. It is also expected that the Xbox One S may have a greater emphasis on Microsoft’s xCloud streaming service.

According to a report from Windows, Central reports, Microsoft’s All-Digital Edition Xbox One S will be available for preorders, starting from mid-April and will be launched widely to be available for purchases in the stores from the month of May, before Microsoft’s upcoming E3 show takes place in June.

The new console may prove to be a milestone for Microsoft, as Microsoft will be the first company to launch a non-physical media home console.

SoundCloud is Now Offering Student Discounts at $4.99/Month for its Go+ Streaming Service

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After numerous requests from the student subscribers over many past years, finally, SoundCloud has launched an affordable subscription plan for them, giving them a 50 per cent discount on its premium SoundCloud Go+ streaming service reducing the price from $9.99 down to $4.99 a month.

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Image Sourec: digitaldjtips.com

SoundCloud is the famous online music streaming service providers, currently, operating in 190 countries. But the premium service from SoundCloud is only available in nine countries including the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, and the Netherlands.

The company was getting requests from the students, the subscribers of the SoundCloud premium plan, to reduce its prices for them, and for that matter, in 2017, SoundCloud had also launched a limited SoundCloud Go plan for $4.99. But the plan was not that impressive and could not please its users, as they were given access to a limited edition of songs under the plan.

SoundCloud hosts over 200 million tracks including the tracks from the tie-in and rising artists, which is also a reason behind the popularity of this platform. So not having the access to the wide SoundCloud collection even at $4.99 was a turn off for its student subscribers.

But now, with the new plan, the students belonging to a certified college or university will have access to the huge high-quality SoundCloud audio collection on half the prices. The students who are already registered with the SoundCloud Go+ can switch to the new plan through the SoundCloud website.

SoundCloud might be a bit late to provide the affordable subscription plans to its student subscribers, as other audio streaming providers including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Amazon Unlimited, have already introduced many pocket-friendly plans to its users. But the loyal users of SoundCloud will stick to the service with the new plan. In the same regard, amid the tough competition, the company may also win new users.

For now, the service is only available in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. And, in the coming week, it will be introduced to the users in Germany, France, and the Netherlands.

Flickr Plans to Soon Dump its a Decade Old Yahoo Login System

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The photo-sharing website Flickr has announced that it no more will have the same old Yahoo’s login system. After a long decade, the company has finally decided on dumping the tedious feature that none of its users is interested in using.

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Image Source: siliconindia.com

In 2007, Yahoo had acquired Flickr, and only after two years of the acquisition, the company installed a Yahoo login for Flickr. In the pre-Instagram era, Flickr was at the top of the all photo sharing websites, but the users always complained about the Yahoo login system, as nobody used their Yahoo mail Id otherwise and often used to forget the passwords.

In April 2018, SmugMug acquired Flickr, and since then it has been working on the new login system for the Flickr users. Even due to the massive data breach it faced, which affected its three billion users, badly, Flickr was receiving the requests for a new and secure login system.

As of now, Flickr might not be as influential as it used to be, but still, there are many loyal Flickr users that are continuously posting and sharing pictures on the platform. So the new login system is the biggest news for them, and the platform can expect more user engagement in the future.

Also, Flickr has extended the dates for its free account users to download the pictures, now rescheduled to March 12 from Feb 5. Last year, the company had announced new plans for the users, in which the users with premium accounts would pay a $50 as the monthly charge, and the ones with free accounts will only be able to download 1000 photographs from the platform.

“We hope you love this new, simpler login experience,” Flickr said in a statement. “We’re still hard at work on performance and stability improvements across the site, but we’re delighted to check this key item off our members’ wish lists.”

The new login system is still under the process until then the users need to use the same Yahoo account for Flickr. But as soon the new login system comes into effect the users will have to register themselves with a new account and password on Flickr.

Twitter Testing a New Moderation Feature to Help Users Fight Toxic Comments

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According to a tweet from a security researcher and expert software unpacker, Jane Manchun Wong, Twitter is testing its new moderation feature, that will allow the users to hide unwanted comments on their tweets. The company itself confirmed the news that they are testing a new feature hide replies feature, such that the users will be able to hide replies to their tweets, through that feature.

The new feature will let the users hide comments on their tweets, but the comments won’t be permanently hidden, and other users can also see the comments by simply clicking a button on the tweet, that may say See Replies or so. The feature will also allow the users to unhide the tweets from the history and report any of the ‘bad’ replies on them, any time.

The Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, also had admitted in a statement last year, that the company has been fighting with a lot of negativity in the user conversations, which is leading to abuse, harassment, and the spread of misinformation, which clearly is not the intentions of the company.

“People who start interesting conversations on Twitter are really important to us, and we want to empower them to make the conversations they start as healthy as possible by giving them some control,” Michelle Yasmeen Haq, the senior product manager, said in tweet thread, confirming the news, “We already see people trying to keep their conversations healthy by using block, mute, and report, but these tools don’t always address the issue. Block and mute only change the experience of the blocker, and report only works for the content that violates our policies.”

Although Twitter has already provided its users with the mute, block, and report options, the hide replies option will help them show their disagreement with the replies on their tweet, and signal the audience that the conversation was becoming toxic.

There have been many features that Twitter tested but never implemented. Although the hide replies features seem to be quite useful, it only depends on the company whether it will publish the feature or not.

Chinese Govt to Put Digital Locks on PUBG to Restrict Young Players Under 13

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There have been rounds of rumours for quite some time now, that the multi-player battle online game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), will be banned soon in various countries due to the extra engagement of children on the game. But there had been no confirmation on the same ever, from any of the governments.

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Image Source: gearnuke.com

But now there is bad news for the Chinese young video game players, as Tencent has imposed a digital lock on the games like Honour of Kings and PUBG Mobile, for the children of age below 13. The children of the same age group, now, will have to ask their guardians to open the lock in order to play the game.

The Chinese gaming giant Tencent announced the new curbs for the underage video-game players, following the Chinese internet governance requirements, to restrain the gaming addiction in youth. The company had already imposed the screen time limit and other rules in order to restrict children from spending more time on games. Now, Tencent plans to double down the rules in order to prevent minors from accessing some of its games in China, to prohibit things like violence, information about gambling or pornography, national politics, or another damaging behaviour for the minors.

The digital lock will be based on facial recognition and player ID checks, such that it will identify the age of the player and restrict the access. The company has set up the barriers, as the Chinese governments have raised concerns about addiction and myopia in children. The government is also worried about the worsening sightedness and poor optical heath among minors, due to their indulgence in long-hour gaming habits.

For now, the digital lock will only work in 12 cities in China. The cross-platform game PUBG has been most criticised for the increased addiction among the video game players. The game is one of the fastest growing video game that is available to play on PCs, Xbox, as well as smartphones. PUBG hosts 100 players during a single game in real-time, which has been the biggest factor in the popularity of the game.

Last year, too, the Chinese Government had imposed a nine-month freeze on new video games for the same reasons, that ended in December, itself.

Uber, Lyft Rewarding the Drivers with Cash Bonuses to Invest in Shares in Their Respective IPOs

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According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, the cab-renting service Uber and Lyft are planning to allocate some cash bonuses to their drives so that they can invest in the company’s shares through the upcoming IPO of those companies.

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Image Source: howtogeek.com

There has been a lot of discussions about the role of a driver in a transport company and most of the times those drivers are not recognised as the full-time employees of that company. Also, under the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), those companies are not allowed to grant those drives a share of the stocks, directly, in the company.

Although many times several laws have been trying to put those drivers into the full-time employee category, companies like Uber and Lyft regards the drivers as individual contractors. Now the two companies are planning to offer those drivers who have been a part of their team for a longer time with rewards, such that they would be able to buy a share of the stakes in the IPO of those companies, before shares to begin trading on public stock exchanges.

According to the reports, Lyft will be granting the drivers, who have completed 10,000 rides, with $1,000 and the driver who have completed over 20,000 rides will get $10,000. It will be the choice of the drivers if they want to keep the money or put the money towards IPO-priced shares.

On the other hand, there is no hint from Uber over the amount of reward money. Although there has been no confirmation from Lyft as well, and the money value can be changed depending upon the situation.

Uber had been talking about offering a part of the shares of the company to its drivers since 2016, and last year, in May, the Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi also announced that the company was planning to provide extra benefits and rewards to its drivers. Uber has also started free tuition fee and insurance programs for the drivers working for the company.

Noticeably, both Lyft and Uber are ready to debut on the Nasdaq for their IPOs. It is expected that Lyft between $20 billion and $25 billion in its IPO, and Uber may reach $120 billion in the IPO. Lyft and Uber will be putting hundreds of millions of dollars toward the reward program for its drivers so that they would be able to invest during their IPOs.