15.05.2021 at 06.00 pm
Sony: It’s tough to get a PS5 this year â 
Amazon sends out postcards to verify sellers’ addresses â
đ·Hi guys,đ welcome to this new news article of Technology, We have a lot of news, but before that, your coffee first: We start:đ
Krafton, the South Korean company that owns the rights to PUBG, has released a teaser regarding a new game called Battlegrounds Mobile India designed specifically for the country.
This comes after the Indian government banned PUBG and 118 other Chinese apps in September due to data security concerns.
Krafton has tried to distance itself from Tencent, the game’s distributor in India, to get the ban lifted.
Two months after the ban began, Krafton said it aims to bring the game back to the country in some form, and the company has also pledged to invest $ 100 million in the local gaming community.
It was clear that the game was returning as an Indian version without any connection to Tencent that had caused the game to be banned in the first place.
The teaser suggests that the upcoming game may look a lot like the banned game, and Crafton said in a statement: There is an initial registration period before the game is officially launched in the country.
And PUBG was one of the most popular games in India with more than 50 million monthly active users in the country before it was banned, so a lot of players have been anxiously waiting for the game to return.
And PUBG still had more than 10 million users in India last month, with many using VPNs and other solutions to bypass geo-restrictions.
Krafton said: The game is exclusively developed for the second largest internet market in the world, and we are collaborating with partners to build an esports ecosystem with regular in-game content delivery, starting with a series of in-game events for India at launch.
The game – which uses the Indian flag’s color scheme – clearly delivers its esports ecosystem that is separate from the base game.
This also means that in-game events differ between the two games, so the player base is soon split between two versions, with a third game called PUBG New State emerging later this year.
And according to the privacy policy listed on the game’s website, the game is in compliance with all local laws regarding data storage.
This may be to avoid any conflict with the government’s insistence that all user data be stored in the country.
The company said: With privacy and data security a top priority, we work with partners to ensure data protection and security at every stage, and this ensures that privacy rights are respected, and all data collection and storage operations will be fully compliant with all laws and regulations in force in India and the players here.
Battlegrounds Mobile India includes a number of restrictions aimed at protecting minors, who must provide a parent or guardian’s phone number in order to play, and daily time and spend is limited to three hours and around $ 95.
Amazon has turned to postcards to ensure that sellers in its marketplace live where they say they live.
After requiring third-party sellers to release their brand names and addresses in September, Amazon now makes sure that their addresses are original and accurate.
To do so, the company began sending postcards to outside merchants selling in its US market to verify their addresses.
đ€Ą What is the point of that? HHH HHH HHH
The postcard says: As part of our commitment to providing a safe and trustworthy shopping experience to our customers and selling partners, we need to verify the displayed business address via the Amazon.com seller account page.
The postcard added that merchants will not be prevented from selling through the platform while verifying their addresses, as third-party sales account for more than half of Amazon’s revenue.
Amazon confirmed that it began testing the initiative with new vendors last year, and then began to include some existing sellers at the beginning of this year, and the company said: It now plans to expand the initiative further.
An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement: We are leveraging a combination of advanced machine learning capabilities, robust auditing, and expert human investigators to protect our customers and selling partners from bad actors and products, and once the seller is allowed to sell in our store, we continue to monitor their account and behavior for new risks.
Amazon initially communicates with the seller to inform him that it needs to verify his business address, and the seller reviews and confirms his business address through an internal portal called Seller Central, and once this is complete, Amazon sends him a postcard.
On the postcard there is a verification code that the seller is required to enter into Seller Central, and the seller has 60 days to verify their address, and if that fails, Amazon can freeze the money in the seller’s account.
Amazon bans any seller account that proves that his address is incorrect, and if the seller’s postal power is lost in the mail, the company allows him to request a new card to be sent to his address.
The company began last fall by requiring sellers in its US market to publicly disclose their brand name and address in order to make it easier for consumers to know these vendors and their products before purchasing.
Amazon operates online markets in more than a dozen regions, but the largest is in the United States as of late March, and Amazon has more than 6 million overseas sellers worldwide, and more than half of them sell through Amazon in North America.
And there was previously no easy way to find out where the seller or legal entity offering the product was, unless consumers were shopping at Amazon marketplaces in Europe, Mexico and Japan, where sellers had long been required to display the trade name and address, due to local laws.
Bro, Leave Amazon now, and tell us what do you mean by Sony?đ±
đ· Ooh, wait , đ€« Amazon is boosting its network of connected devices to compete with technologies like the new AirTag from Apple.đ
Amazon announced its partnership with Tile, a company that manufactures lost object trackers, and Level, which makes smart locks, to use these devices to enhance its tracking network based on Bluetooth and wireless technology.
The number of devices across a particular tracking network is a key to its accuracy, and this is part of the reason why many believe that Apple’s tracking network is so powerful because it relies on more than a billion iPhones, iPads and Macs to help track lost items.
Tile has been vocal against Apple’s entry into the lost item tracking space, and recently told Congress that it and other app developers are afraid of Apple’s policies on third-party apps and device accessories.
And Amazon’s partnership allows it to leverage its tracking network, called Sidewalk, by allowing Tile and Level devices to take advantage of the Bluetooth networks created by millions of their Echo products.
Tile will begin working with the Amazon network starting June 14th.
Sidewalk was introduced late last year and billed as a free network-sharing service across neighborhoods that uses Echo devices as bridges to share a small portion of users’ low-bandwidth wireless network with devices such as Echo devices and Ring cameras.
Tile devices work with Sidewalk by integrating compatible Echo devices to further expand the coverage of the Tile network, in an effort to help users safely locate keys, wallets and other items.
Sidewalk is also enhancing the in-house Tile experience with Alexa, Amazon said, as customers can ask Alexa to find the missing items and then the Tile tracker will start ringing to indicate where the missing item was found.
Amazon added: Users with multiple Echo devices connected to Sidewalk are able to find lost items around their homes faster.
Sidewalk’s second partnership with Level allows users to control locks via the Ring and Level apps without needing to be in the Bluetooth range of their mobile device.
Instead of relying on their mobile device’s Bluetooth connection, the Level Lock can connect directly to a compatible Ring Video Doorbell Pro using only the bluetooth connection of the Sidewalk shared between the two devices.
Ok! thank you, Sony now?đż
Ok Man đ, look, Sony has warned a group of analysts that the PS5 will remain in short supply until 2022, indicating that the Japanese company will be constrained in its ability to boost sales targets for its latest gaming platform.
The Japanese company said, while announcing the financial results in late April: It had sold 7.8 million platforms as of March 31, and aims to sell at least 14.8 million platforms in the current fiscal year.
That should keep the PS5 at a pace that matches the path of the popular PS4 platform, of which the company has sold more than 115.9 million units so far.
In summary after these results, Sony told analysts that it is difficult to keep up with strong demand.
The PS5 has been difficult to find since its launch in November, partly due to a shortage of components, such as semiconductors, and the company has not provided an official estimate of when it expects the display to return to normal.
âI donât think demand parallels supply this year, demand will not decline this year, and even if we secure more gear and produce many units of the PS5 next year, our supply will not be able to keep up with demand,â Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Tutoki said in the briefing.
âWe’ve sold over 100 million PS4 platforms, and given our market share and our reputation, I can’t easily imagine demand dropping,â he said.
However, the company’s latest earnings report indicates that stay-at-home demand is stabilizing.
Sony said: The monthly active users through the PlayStation Network decreased to 109 million at the end of the January-March period compared to 114 million monthly active users in the previous quarter, and sales of games decreased in this period compared to the previous year.
Competitor Nintendo warned last week that a lack of components could affect production, and it is officially targeting sales of up to 25.5 million platforms in the year ending in March 2022, down slightly from the previous year.
đ· Good nowâ
India’s attempts to stimulate domestic tech industrialization may include a halt to the release of products manufactured in China.
Reuters reported that the Indian Ministry of Communications had stopped approving the devices equipped with Chinese-made wireless network units since at least November, in order to pressure companies to manufacture products in India.
The move, led by the Wireless Planning and Coordination Wing of the Ministry of Communications, reportedly delayed the launch of more than 80 products by US companies, such as Dell and HP, in addition to Chinese companies such as: Lenovo, Oppo and Xiaomi.
Also, orders received from some Indian companies, which bring some products from China, are awaiting approval from the Wireless Planning and Coordination Pavilion.
Imports from China were delayed for finished electronic devices, such as: bluetooth speakers, wireless earphones, smart phones, smart watches and laptops containing wireless network units.
India’s tough stance on Chinese imports comes amid Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for greater economic self-reliance.
His nationalist policies helped promote the growth of smartphone assembly in the South Asian country, and it appears that the government’s intention is to persuade companies to locate more of their electronic production in India.
The idea of ââthe government revolves around pushing companies to manufacture these products in India, but technology companies are stuck in a difficult situation, as business in India means large investments and a long wait for returns, and on the other hand, the hurdle imposed by the government on imports means a potential loss of revenue.
India previously allowed companies to enter wireless equipment at their own risk, a move that facilitated imports, but new rules in March 2019 required companies to seek government approval.
Google has a way to control Stadia games over the TV with your phone!
đ· yes Catwoman, There is currently only one official way to run Google’s Stadia game streaming service via 4K TV, via the Chromecast Ultra, which connects to the company’s Stadia controller over the wireless network.
Players suffer because of that, Google has not yet brought Stadia to the new and improved Chromecast device, Google Chromecast with Google TV, and previous versions did not support Bluetooth, which means that the only way to pair the controller is by connecting it to Google’s cloud servers.
But the search giant now has an alternative solution, according to a new report, which indicates that there is a new « bridge mode » hidden in the latest version of the Stadia application via Android, which is supposed to allow you to send joystick signals from your phone.
This allows you to operate Stadia using your phone’s touch screen, or even connect another gamepad to your phone, and you can also use your phone to change the TV volume.
The original Stadia controller has been a problem for the company since Stadia launched on November 19, 2019, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Google decided to go ahead with this solution.
And it took several months for buyers to use Google’s wireless joystick wirelessly with anything except for the Chromecast Ultra, as desktop web browsers and Android phones weren’t supported at first, which meant you had to connect a USB-C cable.
And third-party joystick support was very strong on those other platforms, allowing you to easily sync the PlayStation or Xbox gamepad to play.
It is unlikely that you will even need this new « bridge mode » to play Stadia on your 2020 Google Chromecast with Google TV as it supports a Bluetooth joystick.
It is somewhat unclear at the moment how much Google is interested in Stadia, especially after it suspended all indoor gaming studios in February.
The platform has also since lost its product head and at least six additional employees, along with its internal struggles.
đ· See you soon on the next reviews…
đAnd apparently, Google had to pay publishers tens of millions of dollars for each game in order to move it to Stadia.