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Tesla Launches a New Amazon Store to Sell Self-branded Merch

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Tesla, the automotive and energy company, has launched a new Amazon store, to sell its merchandise. This is not the first time that the company is manufacturing and selling those merchandise as it has been selling them on its own ‘Tesla Shop’ website for past many years.

Image Source: pando.com

The automaker previously had also teamed up with Home Depot to sell its energy products, though, hey ended the partnership in 2018.

The company had been selling self-branded goods including almost everything, like water bottles, hats, hoodies, surfboards, iPhone cases, wireless smartphone charger, a portable battery, etc. on the online store, and the people who have been following CEO Elon Musk and are his fans, have always been there to buy them.

As Tesla also knows that Amazon is the number one online shopping site, making Tesla goodies available on an Amazon store will help Tesla to grab more buyers for its merch. The opening of Amazon’s online stores for the Tesla merch can be a company’s move to reach more people. Although the store will not have all the Tesla accessories, yes, it will have some interesting ones available on it.

The Amazon store will have on sale the iPhone X cases, having written Tesla on it, subtly emblazoned across the side. The case price will be between $35-$45. It will also be selling hoodies branding Tesla, which will cost between $70-$75 and a 1:18 scale die-cast models of the company’s cars costing around $250, etc.

Although with the launch of its Amazon store, Tesla had put only two products on the site, i.e. an iPhone 8+ case and a Tesla iPhone X folio case. There can be two reasons that the company had only put two products for sale, either the other products were all sold out, or the company was not ready for the launch. The latter reason can be more accurate as now the company has even put down the page on which it was selling all the goods.

Microsoft Expanding Xbox Live To Switch, iOS & Android

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According to a GDC listing, Microsoft is planning to expand the Xbox live support to cross platforms. The home video game console Xbox plays ones of the most popular games in the world, and Microsoft has decided to develop a Software Development Kit (SDK) that can be integrated to different platforms, like iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch beside Xbox and PC.

Xbox
Image Source: dailystar.co

The company is planning to announce the news and the details about the new SDK in the upcoming 2019 Game Developers Conference (GDC). The Game Developers Conference is the yearly convention for the game developers where they showcase their ideas and new gaming products. This year the event will be held in San Francisco in March.

“Xbox Live is expanding from 400 million gaming devices and a reach to over 68 million active players to over 2 billion devices with the release of our new cross-platform XDK,” says the GDC listing. At the event, Microsoft will be hosting a panel titled, “Xbox Live: Growing & Engaging Your Gaming Community Across Platforms.”

Microsoft has already made a few of its Xbox Live Achievements available on a few of the iOS and Android devices. But the new SDK will integrate Xbox Live achievements, friends, clubs and game history into non-Xbox and Windows PC platforms for the first time. The company will also be employing its PlayFab suite containing its backend tools as a part of this package.

“Xbox Live players are highly engaged and active on Xbox and PC, but now they can take their gaming achievement history, their friends list, their clubs, and more with them to almost every screen,” said Microsoft on its GDC conference schedule page.

This is an effort from Microsoft to break down longstanding barriers in the gaming industry, by building a cross-platform gaming service, that will enable the developers to get their users onto different platforms, such that they can be active on the Xbox games, without actually using the Xbox console.

New “Dr Mario World” Game to Get on to iPhone & Android Smartphones by Summer 2019

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Nintendo, the Japanese multinational video game company has announced that it is going to launch its another mobile video game, Dr Mario World, in the coming summer. The game is going to be an action puzzle game, based on the theme of the 90’s popular Mario game.

mario-world
Image Source: destructoid.com

For the development process, Nintendo has joined its hands with Japanese messaging app LINE and development company NHN Entertainment. The game will be available on the Apple Store and the Play Store for free, with in-app purchases.

One of the prominent names in the video game industry, Nintendo, has been in the field for the past many decades, and in 2016, it started its Smartphone games line. One of the first mobile apps which the company introduced was freemium social networking app Miitomo. Later, the company rolled out Super Mario Run, its first game to the mobile games lineup, and then, Fire Emblem Heroes for the Smartphone users.

The company made the announcement through its official Twitter account about the release of its new game, saying, “The doctor is in! Mario puts on the white coat once again in the mobile game Dr Mario World, targeting an early summer 2019 global release.”

Dr Mario World is the 90’s most famous Mario games played on NES. The company has already developed and launched a few other games, few of which were huge hits and few of which could not do that well. Now we need to see how well the game goes as the puzzle game on the Smartphones.

Nintendo had also been preparing to bring about another Mario game, Mario Kart Tour, for quite some time now, but now, there may be a delay in the release of the game to avoid any kind of mistakes and to provide better quality to its users. Even after the delay, people can expect the game to launch in the summer along with Dr Mario World.

The Dr Mario World will be released in about 60 countries.

After Second Straight Quarterly Profit, Tesla to Start the Production of Y Model By 2020

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There have been many talks about Tesla’s SUV electric vehicle, Model Y. Even the Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been talking about this SUV model since 2015. But the wait might get over soon, as according to some reports, Tesla has sent letters to its shareholders regarding starting the production of the Y model as soon as 2020 ends.

tesla
Image Source: fortune.com

The Model Y is going to be a mid-sized SUV vehicle, whose design is yet to be revealed. Allegedly, the Model Y will be based on the Model 3 sedan, and it will obtain 75 per cent of its parts from the most affordable Tesla model. Hence the production cost of the Model Y may be a bit lesser than the Model 3.

Tesla, basically, has its production line for its other models including S, X and 3, based in Fremont, but the Model Y may get its own dedicated production line at Gigafactory in Nevada, since there may not be much space for the production at Fremont for the Model Y.

The company came up with the plan of starting the production of the Model Y, as a result of a profitable fourth quarter of 2018, reported last year. Tesla said on Wednesday that it made a profit of $139.5 million in the fourth quarter, after recovering a loss of $675.4 million from a year earlier.

Tesla went public in 2010, and this is the first time that the automaker has revealed its profits, in consecutive quarters. According to Musk, the company is ready to invest in new projects and bring improvements to the older ones. The company has claimed that it will cut the cost on various Tesla models, will improve its service operations, launch at least three sedan models for its Chinese and European customers, and also will start working on its Model Y.

The Model Y is expected to be a crossover, and that may lead to an increased demand for Nidel Y over Model 3, resulting in an uptick in sales, and profit. If we consider the letter Tesla sent to its shareholders, the year is going to, certainly, be a profitable one for Tesla.

Pinterest Hires Goldman & JPMorgan Chase as the Lead Underwriters for its Anticipated IPO

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Pinterest is all set for its IPO, and reportedly, this San Francisco based photo sharing website owner has hired Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase as its lead underwriters for the same. The company has been in the business, since almost 11 years, and has become a well known visual search site where people post and share pictures related to different sorts including fashion, beauty, lifestyle, wedding etc.

pinterest
Image Source: appobzor.com

According to Reuters, the company has indicated that the company may raise $1.5 billion in the IP0, and it may go public in the first half of the year. According to the people with the awareness on the subject, said that in 2017, Pinterest raised $150 million in secret funding round and was valued at $12.3 billion, at the same share prices.

Pinterest, a social media website, with a unique concept, has grown very well since its inception, and currently, has more than a 250 million monthly active users. Last year, the company valued between $12 billion and $13 billion and reported annual revenue of $700 million, which was 50 per cent more than the revenue it gained in 2017. The main reason behind the success of this platform, according to one of its investor is that “there are no Russian trolls” on Pinterest, and also, there have been no cases in which Pinterest have ever sold its users’ data.

Pinterest is like a bulletin board and used to bookmark and pin things the users want to track onto it. The boards are categorized based on different topics. But the site is just not a photo sharing website, as it also allows people to sell goods on the platforms. The user can also shop for things through their mobiles, by holding and clicking on the desired product.

Although the timing for the IPO is not the best as its contemporary companies, including Facebook and Twitter, are going through serious user privacy breach allegations, put by the politicians. But as Pinterest has always been away from such matters it may not affect its IPO.

Notably, along with Goldman Sachs, Pinterest’s IPO is backed by many other investment firms, including Valiant Capital Partners, Wellington Management, Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Google is Working on Apple-Inspired Face ID Authentication & Privacy Protections

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Android Pie is still not available on all the Android Smartphones, and Google is all set to launch its another mobile operating system, i.e. Android Q. There have been various guesses about the release date and the features of this new Android OS, and last week the XDA Developers, also, published its findings through the leaked AOSP build of Android Q.

Android Q
Image Source: YouTube

The code obtained by the XDA developers includes various methods, classes and strings that reveals that the new OS may have the facial recognition. Even being late for the fingerprint technology on the iPhones, Apple was the first who introduced the face recognition technology on them. Now, along with the other guesses, this piece of code clearly shows that Google is all set to catch up with its rival company on the face recognition technique.

Although Android already has got a 2D-based “Trusted Face” face scanning-based authentication support, Android doesn’t offer any native hardware support. The new feature will be a secure biometric authentication feature similar to Apple’s Face ID.

Apple uses a depth sensing system, that projects a structured light from a dot project in order to recognise the user’s face. An array of 30,000 dots projected through True Depth, in a known pattern using a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) module, is processed and compared with the resulting image against secure reference data.

Mishaal Rahman, specially indicated towards the code it found related to facial identification on the XDA-Developers Portal site, writing, “dozens of strings and multiple methods, classes and fields related to facial recognition in the framework, SystemUI and Settings APKs”.

The Smartphone companies including Huawei and Xiaomi, already have incorporated the suitable hardware for such technology, but as they are using the Android OS on them, they were not able to make use of the hardware, until now.

The findings also indicated towards the new Android Q having better privacy for users, especially, involving the clipboard permissions. Usually, the apps can access a user’s clipboard, even having the most sensitive information on them, but now, the OEM may prevent the apps to access the information on the clipboard without permission.