Author: azeeadmin

Nintendo was slow on the draw to enter the mobile market, but now that the company’s in, the titles are starting to come at pretty steady clip. The gaming giant’s got another RPG arriving on Android and iOS September 27.

We don’t know a ton about Dragalia Lost at the moment. The title was announced back in April, and the company plans to shed more light on the game during a Mobile Direct event tonight. That will be streamed live via the YouTube video right here:

The RPG was developed by Cygames, a Japanese studio behind titles like, Granblue Fantasy, the hugely popular cross-platform title featuring art direction by Final Fantasy’s Hideo Minaba. Nintendo also acquired a chunk of stock in the studio, which bodes well for future collaborations between the two.

Nintendo describes the title as “a vast multiplayer action RPG” with a bunch of dragons. Even more importantly, it will be free to play, marking a shift in strategy from earlier titles like Super Mario Run, which proved something of a sales disappointment for the company.

Sonos is doubling down on the custom in-home audio market with new products and partnerships. The company today announced a new version of the Sonos Amp and a partnership with Sonance that will result in three architectural speakers — in-wall, in-ceiling and outdoor — that Sonos says will gain additional functionality when paired with a Sonos system.

Sonos is also announcing upcoming Control APIs that the company says will make it easier to integrate Sonos into the ever-evolving smart home. This jibes with Sonos’ long-standing approach of working with other platforms to offer its customers as many services as possible.

The new Amp allows owners to use traditional home audio speakers with a Sonos system. Connect a turntable or stream media with just the Amp and power a set of bookshelf speakers. According to the spec sheet, the Amp has enough power to push most high-end bookshelf speakers.

The Amp replaces the Connect:Amp. The new version is more powerful, works with more platforms and is more expensive at $599 rather than $499. This new version outputs 125 watts per channel at 8 ohms; it can power four speakers instead of two. The additional power makes the Amp more versatile than its predecessor, too. Sonos says the Amp can be used to add stereo sound to a TV (thanks in part to HDMI Arc support) or add wireless rears to a Sonos theater setup. Or, two Amps can be used to add a complete surround sound system. Multiple Amp units can be stacked or mounted in a rack.

The Amp works with AirPlay 2 and with Alexa when used in conjunction with an Amazon Alexa-enabled Sonos device like a Sonos One or Beam.

With a product like the Amp, Sonos has a new offering for those customers looking to integrate the convenient Sonos line into their high-end home theater setup. That’s a serious market, too, and the company’s new partnership with Sonance shows Sonos is committed to addressing the home audio enthusiast while building products to compete with Apple and Amazon.

Together, they will produce in-wall speakers that when used with a Sonos Amp will offer additional functionality. The company stopped short of detailing the added functionality. These speakers are set for an early 2019 release.

This is Sonos’ first large announcement after going public on August 2.

The interconnectedness of the cloud has allowed us to share content widely with people inside and outside the organization and across different applications, but that ability has created a problem of its own, a kind of digital fragmentation. How do you track how that piece of content is being used across a range of cloud services? It’s a problem Box wants to solve with its latest features, Activity Stream and Recommended Apps.

The company made the announcements at BoxWorks, its annual customer conference being held this week in San Francisco,

Activity Stream provides a way to track your content in real time as it moves through the organization, including who touches it and what applications it’s used in, acting as a kind of digital audit trail. One of the big problems with content in the cloud age is understanding what happened to it after you created it. Did it get used in Salesforce or ServiceNow or Slack? You can now follow the path of your content and see how people have shared it, and this could help remove some of the disconnect people feel in the digital world.

As Jeetu Patel, Box’s Chief Product and Chief Strategy Officer points out, an average large company could have more than a thousand apps and there is no good way to connect the dots when it comes to tracking unstructured content and getting a unified view of the digital trail.

“We integrate with over 1400 applications, and as we integrate with those applications, we thought if we could surface those events, it would be insanely useful to our users,” he said. Patel sees this as the beginning of an important construct, the notion of a content hub where you can see the entire transaction record associated with a piece of content.

Activity Stream sidebar inside Box. Photo: Box

But Box didn’t want to stop with just a laundry list of the connections. It also created deep links into the applications being used, so a user can click a link, open the application and view the content in the context of that other application. “It seems like Box was a logical place to get a bird’s eye view of how content is being used,” Patel said, explaining Box’s thinking in creating this feature.

A related feature is a list of Recommended Apps. Based the Box Graph, and what Box knows about the user, the content they use, and how it’s interconnected with other cloud apps, it also displays a list of recommended apps right in the Box interface. This lets users access those applications in the context of their work, so for instance, they could share the content in Slack right from the document.

Recommended Apps bar inside Box. Photo: Box

For starters, Recommended Apps integrations include G Suite apps, Slack, Salesforce, DocuSign and Netsuite, but Patel says anyone who is integrated with the web app via the API will start showing up in Activity Stream.

While the products were announced today, Box is still working out the kinks in terms of how this will work. They expect these features to be available early next year. If they can pull this off, it will go a long way toward solving the digital fragmentation problem and making Box the content center for organizations.

Netflix has hired Vernā Myers in the newly-created role of vice president, inclusion strategy.

Myers has spent the past two decades at the head of The Vernā Myers Company, where she consulted on issues around diversity and inclusion. She’s also written and spoken broadly on those topics.

In the announcement, Netflix notes that it’s already worked with Myers as a consultant, and that her new job will be to “devise and implement strategies that integrate cultural diversity, inclusion and equity into all aspects of Netflix’s operations worldwide.”

“I have been a longtime fan of the inclusive and diverse programming and talent at Netflix, and then I got a chance to meet the people behind the screen,” Myers said in a statement. “I was so impressed by their mission, their excellence, and decision to take their inclusion and diversity efforts to a higher level. I am so excited and look forward to collaborating all across Netflix to establish bold innovative frameworks and practices that will attract, fully develop, and sustain high performing diverse teams.”

Earlier this summer, Netflix fired its chief communications officer Jonathan Friedland after he used the N-word in a meeting. The company just announced that Facebook exec Rachel Whetstone will be replacing him.

Facebook says it has corrected the issue of users’ deleted posts, which had affected those who had previously cross-posted their Tweets to their Facebook profile – a feature that’s no longer supported. Earlier this month, Facebook locked down its API to prevent third-party apps from being able to post to profiles as the logged-in user, and Twitter was one of those apps impacted by the change.

However, the changes to Facebook’s API would not have mass deleted all of users’ cross-posted Tweets. It should have only prevented Twitter users from continuing to automatically post from Twitter to their Facebook profile or business page.

But Twitter, for whatever reason – an accident, one would hope – requested its Facebook app be deleted. This resulted in removals of all the content that had been cross-posted by Twitter to Facebook being also deleted from users’ profiles.

Facebook was in touch with Twitter since then, and received permission to have the app re-enabled. (Though it took longer than expected – Twitter was made aware of the problem early in the evening on Tuesday but it wasn’t until the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday that Facebook confirmed it was restoring the content – which means they received permission from Twitter to do so. Obviously, Facebook can’t just turn on a third-party app again after the developer says to take it down – it had to ask. Twitter, we understand, didn’t give Facebook immediate permission to fix the problem. Maybe it’s still mad about the whole cross-posting thing being turned off?)

While, technically speaking, the error is on Twitter’s side here, Facebook probably should have had some kind of warning in place to alert the app developers – whomever they may be – of the consequences of their decisions. That is, deleting their app would also delete all the content shared through it over the years.

Many Twitter users had heavily relied on the cross-posting feature to maintain their presence on Facebook and continue their discussions with a new audience. The deletions meant they lost years’ worth of Facebook posts and conversations, in many cases.

Facebook says it has restored all the removed content, a spokesperson told TechCrunch via email around 1:20 AM ET on Wednesday. All impacted users should be able to see their cross-posts tweets and their discussions again.

If you want to convert Netflix gift cards into dollars on a PayPal account, you usually have to find someone willing to do the same transaction in the other direction. It can quickly go wrong if you never receive your money.

Meet AirTM, a service that makes it easier to convert any form of money into any other form of money. You can deposit money using banks, gift cards, cash through Western Union and other equivalent services, cryptocurrencies and more. You can withdraw money through any of those protocols as well. AirTM is raising a $7 million Series A with BlueYard leading the round.

While many of you probably don’t see why you’d use a service like this, AirTM’s users in Venezuela are willing to pay high fees to convert their bolívars into anything else. Multiple years of hyperinflation have turned everyone’s savings into piles of bills that are worth close to nothing.

AirTM accounts aren’t bank accounts. When you create an account, you get an e-wallet in AirUSD. You can deposit and withdraw money as well as send and receive money. Depending on your payment method, you’ll get different fees.

For instance, there’s a huge supply of money from PayPal, which means that you’ll pay quite a lot to deposit money using PayPal and convert it into AirUSD.

While AirTM sounds great for money laundering, the company is a registered money service business and follow anti-money laundering and know-your-customer requirements. The company is just getting started as it manages $9 million in monthly transaction volume with 4,000 daily active users. But it’s clear that it has the potential of creating an alternative to traditional banking in countries with volatile currencies.

There’s no price yet on Acer’s new gaming chair, but even the “Predator Thronos” name suggests that you’ll be paying a year’s salary for the honor of taking one home. The Thronos is more appliance than gaming accessory, really, weighing in excess of 485 pounds.

The whole thing suggests some old school smokey VR arcade. It’s really a kind of self-contained, motorized cockpit with a seat that reclines 140 degrees, to peep up to three 27-inch monitors. It’s stupid and extravagant and kind of cool and probably half the size of my New York City apartment.

Yes, the chair vibrates and the whole thing lights up and maybe it could double as a half decent massage chair, if you’re looking for a way to justify the expenditure to your significant other who just doesn’t have the same kind of lifelong passion for flight simulators as you. Or maybe you can sleep on it when you get in trouble for spending a few months’ rent on a gaming chair. 

No word on availability or pricing, or Thronos’ quest to retrieve the final Infinity Stone and destroy half of the universe.

Sinemia continues its campaign to take advantage of MoviePass’ high-profile struggles and win over the better-known movie ticket subscription service’s customers. Today, it announced a new plan priced at $9.99 per month.

MoviePass, after all, recently announced that it would be keeping its monthly subscription price at $9.95, but limiting subscribers to three movies per month (with discounts on additional tickets).

The new Sinemia tier also includes three tickets each month, but it has the additional benefit of allowing subscribers to buy tickets for any 2D, non-IMAX screen, and to buy those tickets in advance. MoviePass, in contrast, is rotating the available movies each day, and it requires subscribers to buy their tickets at the theater, on the same day as the screening.

Just a couple weeks ago, Sinemia announced a refer-a-friend program that rewards subscribers who convince their friends to leave other subscription services. The company makes no secret of the fact that it’s targeting MoviePass in particular — in today’s announcement, it describes the new plan as one that “matches MoviePass’ latest.”

Sinemia offers a variety of other options, ranging from $3.99 per month for one ticket, to $14.99 for three tickets, with IMAX and 3D access.

If you’re a rider on Deliveroo, you can now follow courses on OpenClassrooms and get certificates of achievement for free. You get a free Premium Solo account, which is worth €20 per month ($23.44).

You’ll find courses in French, English and Spanish on many technical and non-technical topics. For instance, you can learn a programming language, UI or project management skills. But you can also follow courses on marketing, leadership and more.

OpenClassrooms is a freemium platform, which means that anyone can access courses for free. But a premium account lets you access additional materials and more features to study at your own pace. You also get certificates of achievement when you go through an entire course.

This isn’t groundbreaking news for Deliveroo riders, but it’s good to see that the company wants to take care of its “partners” with perks — I’m sure they’d rather become employees with traditional benefits.

As long as you’ve worked with Deliveroo for the past three months, you can renew your free Premium Solo subscription. It is limited to some countries for now. In the future, Deliveroo and OpenClassrooms plan to offer Premium Plus subscriptions with grants.

This subscription tier lets you sign up to a path that leads to a diploma and a job. It usually costs €300 per month and replaces traditional universities for those who want to work on the side. It takes months or even years to complete a path.

OpenClassrooms and Deliveroo received a $1 million grant from Google.org to develop this partnership. They pitched the idea to Google’s charitable arm in order to help freelancers learn new skills. As part of this project, OpenClassrooms will create new courses on accounting, business opportunities and other useful skills for freelancers.

On September 5, Senator Bernie Sanders will introduce legislation aimed at curbing large companies like Amazon and Walmart’s “corporate welfare.” Amazon has unsurprisingly been on the offensive since the Vermont Senator called the company out by name.

When we interviewed Sanders by phone yesterday, the retail giant provided us with a fairly standard comment, “encourage[ing] anyone to compare our pay and benefits to other retailers.” Today, however, it’s got something more substantial, and the company’s not mincing words here.

In a blog post titled “Response to Senator Sanders,” Amazon calls out what it claims are “inaccurate and misleading accusations” against the company. Sanders noted in our conversation that Amazon has been less than forthcoming with certain details, though the company says its been “in regular contact” with his office.

Yesterday a Sanders representative confirmed with TechCrunch by email that Amazon had offered the senator a tour of a fulfillment center. It was an offer Sanders planned to take the company up on, though no date has been set.

“While Senator Sanders plays politics and makes misleading accusations, we are expending real money and effort upskilling people with our Career Choice program,” the company writes. “Career Choice is an innovative benefit that pre-pays 95 percent of tuition, fees and textbooks (up to $12,000) for courses related to in-demand fields, regardless of whether they’re related to skills for jobs at Amazon or not. We have over 16,000 employees who have participated in Career Choice.”

Of course, the senator is hardly the first to levy such complaints against the company, as we noted yesterday. A recent story from Business Insider documents what it deems “horror stories” from inside some of the company’s warehouses. It’s a suggestion billionaire owner Jeff Bezos has roundly refuted, stating, “I am very proud of our working conditions, and I am very proud of the wages that we pay.”

Bezos, in particular, has received the brunt of Sanders’ criticism. The senator made income inequality a tentpole issue of his 2016 presidential campaign, and the focus has carried over to companies like Amazon. As has been noted, the median salary at the company is $28,444, less than Bezos makes every ten seconds.

Sanders’ bill is aimed at what he has deemed the corporate welfare of companies like Amazon and Walmart.

“It says: if you are a large company of 500 or more employees and you’re paying your workers wages that are so low that they have to go on food stamps, Medicaid, public housing, etc., then you have to pay taxes commensurate to how much the government is now spending for that assistance,” Sanders told TechCrunch. “It’s going to be the employer – the Jeff Bezos, the Walton family – who will pick up the tab for these public assistance programs, rather than the middle class of the country.”

Amazon’s response takes specific issue with Sanders’ use of “food stamps” in his complaints against the company

“In the U.S., the average hourly wage for a full-time associate in our fulfillment centers, including cash, stock, and incentive bonuses, is over $15/hour before overtime,” Amazon writes. “We encourage anyone to compare our pay and benefits to other retailers. Senator Sanders’ references to SNAP, which hasn’t been called “food stamps” for several years, are also misleading because they include people who only worked for Amazon for a short period of time and/or chose to work part-time — both of these groups would almost certainly qualify for SNAP.”