NEW YORK: Google has launched a video-game streaming platform called Stadia. The platform will store a game-playing session in the cloud and lets players jump across devices operating on Google’s Chrome browser and Chrome OS, such as Pixel phones and Chromebooks. The Stadia will be available in late 2019.
Some industry watchers were expecting a streaming console, but Google’s platform centers squarely on the company’s cloud infrastructure.
“The new generation of gaming is not a box,” said Google Vice President Phil Harrison. “
Much like movies and music, the traditional video-game industry has been shifting from physical hardware and games to digital downloads and streaming. Video-game streaming typically requires a strong connection and more computing power than simply streaming video, since there is real-time interaction between player and game. Google says it is leveraging its data centers to power the system.
Google said playing video games will be as simple as pressing a “Play Now” button, with nothing to download or install. An optional dedicated Stadia controller will be available. The WiFi-enabled controller has a button that lets players launch a microphone and use Google Assistant to ask questions about the games being played. Another button lets users share gameplay directly to Google’s video streaming service, YouTube.
He said, “It won’t replace traditional games devices overnight”. “And we wouldn’t be here if not for the existing traditional platforms.”
The company said Stadia will be available in late 2019 in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and parts of Europe. Google showed demos of “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” and “Doom Eternal.” More information about games and pricing is due this summer.
That’s because the platform could bring in players not willing to spend the money upfront for a gaming PC or a console.
(Agencies)
NEW YORK: Tony Fernades, chief executive officer (CEO) of AirAsia , quit Facebook in protest over the video posts of New Zealand mosque attacks.
Fernandes, who had 670,000 followers, said in a series of tweets on Sunday morning that Facebook needs to “clean up” after videos of the New Zealand mosque attacks were uploaded onto the platform.
“The amount of hatred that goes on in social media sometimes outweighs the good,” he said in a tweet Sunday. “Facebook could have done more to stop some of this.”
As may as 49 people were killed and dozens injured in shootings at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch after a gunman opened fire on worshipers.
Closed down my Facebook account with 670 k followers. Just thinking about Twitter now. Weather to close or carry on. The amount of hate that goes on in social media sometimes outweighs the good. But on Twitter I think the battle for me goes on.
— Tony Fernandes (@tonyfernandes) March 17, 2019
Fernandes said he had been “a victim of so many fake bitcoin and other stories” and decided to close down his account.
Facebook could have done more to stop some of this. I myself have been a victim of so many fake bitcoin and other stories. 17 mins of a live stream of killing and hate!!!! Its need to clean up and not just think of financials.
— Tony Fernandes (@tonyfernandes) March 17, 2019
Facebook needs to “clean up and not just think of financials,” he said. On Saturday, Facebook said that it removed 1.5 million videos of the attack. “We continue to work around the clock to remove violating content using a combination of technology and people…,” Mia Garlnick, spokesperson for Facebook New Zealand, said on Twitter.
Fernandes said he was also mulling to quit Twitter. “On Twitter, I think the battle for me goes on,” he tweeted.
Fernandes has nearly 1.3 million Twitter followers and has posted more than 20,000 tweets.
CALIFORNIA: Facebook Inc. struggled to restore its services fully on Thursday after a 17-hour partial outage made the world’s largest social network inaccessible to users across the globe, driving a wave of online complaints.
Number of reports on the crowd-sourced Down Detector website – one of the internet’s most used sources of numbers on outages – peaked at just over 12,000 gradually falling to a couple of hundreds by early Thursday.
But with thousands of users complaining on Twitter under the hashtag #facebookdown, a number of media reports put the number affected in the millions.
The BBC and a handful of other media outlets said it was the platform’s longest ever outage. Reuters was not immediately able to verify those claims.
Facebook representatives took to Twitter to update users on the problems.
A Facebook spokesman, asked by Reuters for more details, would only repeat the company’s initial statement on the outage on Wednesday, saying that it was working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
Instagram, Whatsapp and Facebook apps were down for much of Wednesday, although the photo-sharing social network said it was back up early on Thursday. Facebook was yet to provide an update on its other services.
“Anddddd… we’re back,” Instagram tweeted here along with a GIF image of Oprah Winfrey screaming in excitement.
Social media users in some parts of the United States and Europe as well as in Japan were hit by the disruption, according to DownDetector’s live outage map here.
The Menlo Park, California-based company, which gets a vast majority of its revenue from advertising, told Bloomberg that it was still investigating the overall impact “including the possibility of refunds for advertisers.”
On Twitter it also said that the matter was not related to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
In a DDoS attack, hackers use computer networks they control to send such a large number of requests for information from websites that servers that host them can no longer handle the traffic and the sites become unreachable. (Reuters)
NEW DELHI: Google has launched an app to help Indian children to read and write. Bolo, an online reading tutor, was availed to Indian users of Google’s Android operating system, company said.
The app mimics teacher-student interactions, using artificial intelligence to guide children and give them feedback as they read aloud. The app is geared towards native speakers of Hindi. The app includes 40 Hindi stories and 50 English stories that children can choose from. The company is mulling to add more languages. In India, more than 580 million people use internet. Nearly 60% of the country’s population is still to have access to the internet, presenting a huge potential market for major tech companies.
Bolo is the latest of several India-first features that Google has rolled out to try and attract hundreds of millions of users. The new reading app will also be available offline.
LONDON: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is taking the social media company in a new direction by focusing on messaging similar to the features of Chinese app WeChat.
Zuckerberg outlined his vision to give people ways to communicate privately, by stitching together Facebook’s various services so users can contact each other across all of the apps.
That sounds strikingly similar to WeChat, which has become essential for daily life in China. WeChat, or Weixin as it’s known in Chinese, combines functions and services that in the West are done by a number of separate companies — think of Facebook and its Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram services combined with PayPal and Uber.
WeChat, launched in 2011, has the usual chat features — instant messaging and voice and video calling, though it doesn’t employ top-notch encryption like Facebook’s Whatsapp. Here’s a look at what else it does.
The app hosts group chats where users can discuss topics like sports, technology, social issues, investment ideas, celebrities, breaking news and beyond. WeChat Moments is a scrolling social media feed where users can write posts and share photos and videos.
The app rolled out a new feature this year, Time Capsule,that removes user videos after 24 hours, in an apparent attempt to mimic Facebook’s Stories feature.
Users can also send friends digital stickers, get access to online games and find out who’s nearby by shaking their phone.
Companies and organizations both inside and outside China can use the app for marketing by setting up an official account. Travel booking platform AirBnb, luxury goods company Chanel and Chinese tech giant Huawei are among brands with a presence on WeChat.
It is wildly popular in mainland China and less so in other countries, which is unsurprising because the communist leaders in Beijing have blocked its citizens from accessing Facebook and other Silicon Valley services for years.
But there’s one thing that WeChat doesn’t let users do: speak freely. Politically sensitive posts are regularly scrubbed from the service, illustrating how the app has become a key part of China’s censorship regime because of its huge user base and outsize social influence.
WeChat also lacks so-called end-to-end encryption, considered the gold standard for privacy and used by Facebook and other services like Signal and Apple’s iMessages.
Chinese dissidents and activists have long suspected that authorities are able to monitor what they’ve been saying on the app. The company, however, has denied it keeps a record of user chats.
(Agencies)
SURKHET: The CAN Info Tech-2019 is taking place in Birendranagar, the capital of Karnali State, from coming Friday.
The five-day Karnali State-level ‘Info Tech Fair’ is to be held on 8-12 March under the aegis of Federation of Computer Association Nepal, Karnali State, Surkhet.
In order to make the State tech-savvy and develop it as a hub for tourist attraction, the fair has been organized, informed Purna Dev Adhikari, chair of Federation’s Karnali State.
“Expansion of Information Technology – Foundation for Digital Karnali’ has been set as the slogan for the fair.
“We have anticipated that the fair would help Karnali State in framing the concept of ‘Digital Karnali’ and execute the idea”, Chair Adhikari added.
Smart tourism has also been laid emphasis in the fair, he shared, adding that the innovative information and technology products would be exhibited in the CAN Info Tech.
Prem Prakash Chand, chair of CAN Federation Surkhet informed that a robot would inaugurate the ‘CAN Info Tech fair’.
Tech related instruments and accessories, including IT seminar and robots developed by Nepali scientists would be exhibited in the fair.
Also, the event would offer several programs such as ICT conference, ICT workshops, seminar on smart technology for digital Karnali, Chair Chand informed.
“Free maintenance of computer, laptop and printer would be provided and 5 to 50 percent discount would be offered on the purchase of IT equipment and parts”, he further shared.
Over 100,000 people from all 10 districts of the State are expected to visit the first-ever fair.
SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook Inc is planning to launch a new tool “clear history”, allowing users to clear their browsing history.
David Wehner, Chief Financial Officer at Facebook Inc said that the tool will affect the company’s ability to target advertisements and that it will be launched at the end of this year.
Facebook had announced plans for a “Clear History” product last year, but technical challenges have delayed its implementation.
LONDON: Instagram has agreed to ban graphic images of self-harm after objections were raised in Britain following the suicide of a teen whose father said the photo-sharing platform had contributed to her decision to take her own life.
The call for changes was backed by the British government after the family of 14-year-old Molly Russell found material related to depression and suicide on her Instagram account after her death in 2017.
Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said Thursday evening the platform is making a series of changes to its content rules.
He said: “We are not where we need to be on self-harm and suicide, and we need to do more to protect the most vulnerable in our community.” Mosseri said further changes will be made.
“I have a responsibility to get this right,” he said. “We will get better and we are committed to finding and removing this content at scale, and working with experts and the wider industry to find ways to support people when they’re most in need.”
The call for changes was backed by the British government after the family of 14-year-old Molly Russell found material related to depression and suicide on her Instagram account after her death in 2017.
Her father, Ian Russell, said he believes the content Molly viewed on Instagram played a contributing role in her death, a charge that received wide attention in the British press.
The changes were announced after Instagram and other tech firms, including Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter, met with British Health Secretary Matt Hancock and representatives from the Samaritans, a mental health charity that works to prevent suicide. Instagram is also removing non-graphic images of self-harm from searches.
Facebook, which owns Instagram, said in a statement that independent experts advise that Facebook should “allow people to share admissions of self-harm and suicidal thoughts but should not allow people to share content promoting it.” (Associated Press)
You can see some brilliant new laptops already, and there are sure to be more to come as the year progresses. Of course, we’ve also got the best laptops that were released last year as well, as these machines are still formidable notebooks that are worth considering.
No matter what kind of laptop you’re looking for, our best laptop guide lists a wide range of excellent laptops, from super-slim and all-powerful Ultrabooks, to high-end laptops, Apple MacBooks, gaming laptops and budget laptops as well. We’ve also included our own price comparison tool that will check the most popular online retailers on the internet and highlight the best prices for the best laptops.
Every entry in this best laptops buying guide has been thoroughly tested by us, and we only include laptops that have seriously impressed us and convinced us they are worthy of a place in this list.
1. Huawei MateBook X Pro
2. Dell XPS 13
3. Asus ZenBook Flip S UX370
4. Apple MacBook Pro with Touch Bar 13-inch 2018
5. MSI GS65 Stealth
(Agencies)
KATHMANDU: ‘CAN Info-tech’ – an annual fair of information technology – this round has drawn around 400,000 visitors. Ranjeet Kumar Poddar, general secretary, Computer Association of Nepal (CAN), informed there was exciting presence of visitors at the information technology fair that kicked off on 29 January. As many as 100,000 people had observed the fair in its concluding day on 3 February (Sunday), the host confirmed.
The 25th edition of six-day CAN Info-tech held at Bhrikutimandap in the capital had showcased the use of drone for drugs transportation, distance learning, smart home and technological uses in agriculture sector.
Named as ‘SUBISU CAN Info-tech-2019 in Association with e-Service’, the fair had also exhibited innovative ICT technology and equipments, new software, security instruments and home-grown technological innovations of Nepal.
Hementa Chaurasiya, Chair, CAN Federation, shared the rationale behind the fair has become more pronouncing with spurt in the production and development of Nepali technology. Arrangement was made for the government school students, senior citizens and people with disability to visit the fair free of cost. In the Robot Battle competition under mini push category, Suraj Patwari won the medal while Pawandev Sharma became first-runner-up. Likewise, Sonam Ghimire got the winner title and Pawandev Sharma first-runner-up in combat robot battle. Under autonomous robot battle category, Rajesh Ghusu, Rabin Parajuli, Sushil Shrestha and Saroj Gurab registered their wins while Sanjeeb Gosai, Prakash Shrestha, Bijaya Kumar Phuyal and Sagar Kharel became first runner-up.