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Razer to Close its Game Store as the Part of its ‘Realignment Plans’

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Image Sourec: techaeris.com

Razer has announced that it is going to shut down its a year old digital game store by the end of this month.

The gaming peripheral manufacturing company, Razer, is one of the dominant brands in the gaming industry. Last year, it had launched its digital game store, to try its hands on digital distribution platform for PC games, to earn a share in the profits of the game sales business. But even before completing one year of its Game Store, the company announced to close it down by defining it “as part of realignment plans.”

“We regret to announce that Razer Game Store will cease operations on February 28, 2019, at 0100hrs Pacific Time as part of the company’s realignment plans,” Razer wrote in a statement. “It has been a privilege for us to recommend and deliver great digital game deals to you. We have been extremely fortunate to have you as part of our awesome community. Thank you for the support and making all this possible.”

Razer launched its Game Store in April 2018, as an effort to get into the digital gaming business. The Game Store was designed to provide its users with access to thousands of online games at one place. The store was launched as an opponent to its contemporaries like Steam and Amazon, and it included games from Razer’s partners including Ubisoft, Bethesda, Bandai Namco, Deep Silver and Rockstar. The platform also provided games from other stores through Steam or Uplay product keys.

The company also provided many offers and perks to its users through the platform like credits to earn for Razer’s silver loyalty program, attractive discounts over Razer’s games and hardware, etc.

We can only estimate from this unexpected announcement from Razer, that even after putting all its efforts, the launching of the Game Store did not go well according to its plan. Also, the company has not given any other statement over why it is closing its short-lived Game Store so abruptly. Although it is not the end for the cheap games from Razer and also all the pre-orders that have been made to the Razer’s Game store will be fulfilled before the Game Store shuts down. The company will also continue operating its Razer Gold and Razer Silver programs, through which the users can avail offers and discount on the Razer hardware.

SeaBubble Working on its Flying Taxis; Showcases the Prototypes in Miami

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Rapidly growing technology has made us quite aware of the changes that may take place in the coming future. Uber has already announced about its air taxis, and soon we may see people above the sleek roads, in the air driving their flying cars.

But for now, we just have to adjust with the SeaBubbles’ “flying” boats. Yes! You read it right. The France-based company SeaBubbles has just introduced five prototypes of its electric flying boats in Miami this week. The company has been experimenting with its various models for the past three years, and now, it has introduced its first-to-market boat, which is a 4.5-meter flying boat. The boat can carry four passengers besides the driver and uses the waterproof lithium-ion batteries.

seabubble
Image Source: thepeninsulaqatar.com

The flying boat taxis are the result of the combination of technologies from the nautical industries, aviation, and intelligent software, and the team SeaBubbles includes the qualified aeronautical engineers and watermen, who are working on building fast water taxis to help in reducing the traffic on the roads.

The boat is raised out of the water using the foils that give an illusion of flying boat. In this way, the water drag is reduced, and the boat’s covering is separated from the water, making it run faster even in the rougher waters, maintaining the comfort of the passengers.

For building those flying boats, the company has joined its hands with many other companies, who have helped in building the parts of the boat, using the best of the technologies.

The startup is the idea of its CEO and the French yachtsman Alain Thébault, who broke a world record for sailing speed twice, at 50.17 knots, in 2009, and his co-founder Anders Bringdal, who also set a windsurfing world record, at 51.45 knots. The two co-founders want to bring a clean and fast taxi service for the waterways for the major cities, in order to help reduce the daily traffic in the cities. Earlier the company had also launched one of its windowless white flying boat, named as “Soapdish.”

These flying taxis will also be more cost-effective as those are running on electricity and not on gas. The taxis can be charged at a power station, and those stations will preferably be solar charged.

“The cities today have one thing in common: pollution and congestion. You could do this with a normal boat. But with a normal boat with a normal combustion engine, the fuel price you’re paying is between $70 and $130 per hour. With us, it’s $2 dollars” said Bringdal.

SeaBubbles also has its own mobile application, similar to those of Uber and Ola. The company is currently looking for buyers in Miami, and it alerady has its customers in Russia, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, etc. Although it is also operating in Paris there is a speed limit on boats in Paris, which is not favourable for those Bubble taxis as those are built to run faster.

A Rare Sealed Copy of Super Mario Bros. Auctioned for $100,150; Makes World Record

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Super Mario, is one of the most acclaimed video games of all times and one of the most popular games among the children of 80s and 90s. The love of people for this amazing game can be measured through the huge amount for which an old pristine sealed copy of Super Mario was auctioned.

Super Mario
Image Source: kotaku.com

An original mint copy of the Super Mario Bros., for NES, was sold for $100,150 at an auction, making a world record for being the first ever graded video game to be sold for a six-digit amount. The game is professionally graded and certified one and was auctioned by the Heritage Auctions. Wata Games has certified the game, and for its condition, it gave it 9.5 out of 10 and a “Seal Rating” of A++.

“Beyond the artistic and historical significance of this game is its supreme state of preservation,” says Kenneth Thrower, co-founder and chief grader of Wata Games.

The game was bought by a group of collectors including Jim Halperin, founder and co-chairman of Heritage Auction, Zac Gieg, owner of Just Press Play Video Games, Rich Lecce, who is a video game collector, and the owner of Robert B. Lecce Numismatist Inc.

This copy of the video game was one of those rare copies that were sealed with a Nintendo sticker on the top of the box, whether other regular video games are shrink-wrapped.

As there are so many versions of Super Mario Bros., and all of the video consoles had at least one of their own Super Mario version released in the past thirty years, this mint copy of Mario is a bit different from all of those versions of Super Mario and is one of the rare of the versions of it.

This preserved copy of Super Mario Bros. was one of the early released copies of the same, published in Los Angeles and New York, during the testing of the video game, in 1985. This copy of video game was kept in a flawless condition and the seal of quality won it the huge value. This game cartridge is one of the eleven versions that were shipped between 1985 to 1994, in a black box, having slightly different features from one another.

Google Plans to Spend $13 Bn for its Expansion in 24 Out of 50 US States

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The Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, announced on Wednesday that Google is planning to expand in various new locations in the U.S. The CEO broke the news through a blog post where he described that Google plans to invest in multiple data centres and offices.

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Image Source: sky.com

The news can be a good one for the citizens of the US, as this expansion of Google’s data centres and offices will generate more job opportunities for them. Currently, the company has only revealed the names of the cities, including Nebraska, Nevada, and Oklahoma, and the expansion will take place in 24 different states and 13 communities. In this expansion, even the construction work will generate over 10,000 construction jobs.

In the blog-post, Pichai wrote, “With this new investment, Google will now have a home in 24 total states, including data centres in 13 communities. 2019 marks the second year in a row we’ll be growing faster outside of the Bay Area than in it.”

The announcement is considered as the result of the criticism, that Google faced, in the past few years. Google was criticised about the fact that it is not contributing to the US economy, as much as the company of the previous era used to.

In this regard, last year, the company invested over $9 billion on the facilities and this year Google has planned to invest over $13 billion on the new offices and the data centres.

“Our expansion across the U.S. has been crucial to finding great new talent, improving the services that people use every day, and investing in our business,” Pichai wrote in the post. He said this will be the second year in a row that Google will grow “faster outside of the Bay Area than in it.”

Google is not the only Silicon Valley tech giant, which is expanding to the other parts of the US, but companies like Apple and Amazon are also crossing the boundaries. Apple is also investing $1 billion in new offices in Austin to spread its growing workforce across the U.S., such that the expansion may lead to over 15,000 new jobs. On the other hand, Amazon, too, is planning to open its new offices in New York City and Virginia, as well as is looking for a good location for its second headquarter in the US.

Instagram is Testing its DM Feature for Web

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Image Source: systweak.com

Last week, Facebook was talking about unifying its all messaging apps into one, such that the businesses can easily access the Instagram direct messages. And now, reportedly, Instagram is testing its direct message feature for the web version of the app.

First spotted by the reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong, she twitted a screenshot of the feature on her official Twitter account.

Currently, only the Instagram mobile app is supporting the DM (Direct Message) feature. The desktop version of the website is a minimal, pared-down version of the same, which only shows the feed and a few other basic features in it. Instagram on desktop only offers its users to scroll down the feed, search for other Instagrammers and follow them and still needs a feature to upload pictures and stories. After all the app is a photograph based social media platform. Noticeably, even the Browser Notification support was added to the web version of the app last September.

There may be a few reasons behind, why Instagram has suddenly started the testing for the DM features for the web.

One being that Instagram started the testing for its standalone messaging app, i.e. DM, in 2017 and after the launch of the DM app, Instagram may have recorded an increase in the messaging app users. So, it may have encouraged Instagram to provide its users with the facility to use the Instagram DM easily, independent of the devices they are using.

Also, Instagram does not have an app for the iPad, and the iPad users have to rely on using the browser to use Instagram. So having the DM feature for the web will also enable the iPad users to access their DMs on the iPad.

But, as Instagram started the testing of the DM feature for the desktop only after Facebook made an announcement about unifying all three messaging apps, i.e. Facebook Messenger, What’s App and Instagram, this can be the prime reason behind the same.

LinkedIn is Rolling Out the Beta Version of its ‘Live’ Video Broadcasts in the U.S.

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LinkedIn has revealed that it is going to launch the beta version of its new live video streaming feature. Tech Crunch on Monday spotted the news, according to which the company will be providing its invite-only live feature to be broadcasted for select groups in the U.S.

linkedin
Image Source: inc.com

The live feature will broadcast conferences, advice from the experts, news, interviews as well as events from big companies and famous influencers. The feature will also help people have discussions online.

Although the feature is an invite-only and is still in its beta, LinkedIn is also offering a contact form, through which, the people who want to try out the live streaming, can apply for it. The company has not given any clues on if the feature will be available for everyone or not.

For now, the feature is in its pilot mode and will be rolling out this week for testing. The company has collaborated with several third-party developers that have sufficient experience in live broadcasting streaming services development. The company aims at having posted more polished live videos on the platform, that matches the theme of LinkedIn. The third party developers may include Wirecast, Switcher Studio, Wowza Media Systems, Socialive and Brandlive, etc. and according to LinkedIn, more names will be added to the list. Also, Microsoft’s Azure Media Services will also work as a part of this effort.

Noticeably, Microsoft had acquired LinkedIn in 2016, but it has never interfered or been a part of the company’s working.

In August 2017, LinkedIn had also introduced a native video feature for users, which started functioning as in-feed video ads, last year in the spring. According to LinkedIn, the users are more likely to watch videos rather reading long static sponsored content. The company also revealed that it is already earning 30 per cent more comments over the videos ads.

Companies like Facebook and Twitter are already providing the same feature to their users, and it has been the biggest form for them to grab more user engagement. So it would be interesting to see how the live video streaming feature will change things for LinkedIn.