Facebook has blocked Path's access to its social graph due to Path's recent spam debacle. This will prevent Path from being able to access the social network's "Find Friends" feature, meaning the app won't be able to spam your contacts list with invites. However, users will still be able to login to Path via Facebook and they will still be able to share their content onto their walls.
Online gaming and ESports is starting to gain some significant popularity in China, which is said to be potentially one of the biggest markets for pro gaming, online gaming, and mobile gaming. According to the research firm Niko Partners, the online games market in China will reach $11.9 billion this year in revenue, and it will continue to tack on $2 billion more each following year for the next 5 years.
Activision has recently revealed the Call of Duty: Ghosts trailer, causing excitement to fans all around. However, that excitement may have its faults as many scammers are already looking to take advantage of naive gamers. Several fake websites have begun appearing on the internet posing as Call of Duty: Ghosts websites. These sites say they're offering free Beta keys and other goodies for your information.
Spotify has recently acquired Tunigo, a music discovery app that creates themed playlists based on your mood. Spotify will transfer all of Tunigo's 20+ employees to its offices in both Stockholm and New York, where they will be focusing their efforts on Spotify's main service. Tunigo will still continue to run, however it's still unknown what Spotify plans on doing with it. It may integrate Tunigo's playlist feature into its service.
Microsoft is continuing to try and entice developers to develop apps for its Windows Phone 8 platform, and this time around, they are bringing new features and statistics to better support their persuasion. It touts an increasing market share (albeit by only 2%) as one of its major selling points, as well as an increased number of first time smartphone buyers opting for the Windows Phone 8 platform (debatable).
Eternal Darkness, a popular survival horror game released for the GameCube, will have a "spiritual successor" soon if finances are in order. Precursor Games will be developing the game and it plans on generating $1.5 million through crowdfunding in order to create Eternal Darkness's sequel. The game will be called Shadow of the Eternals, and it will initially be available for PC and Nintendo Wii U gamers.
PayPal CEO John Donahoe is considering ways of implementing BitCoins into PayPal's digital transaction network. He says that he's watching Bitcoins very closely and expects that the virtual currency, or virtual currency in general, will be here to stay. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Donahoe stated that within 5 years, Bitcoins and other virtual currencies will be able to be converted into cash and be used in the real world.
The Syrian Electronic Army strikes again, and this time, their target was both E! Online and Justin Bieber. In a series of tweets, the SEA stated that Justin Bieber was coming out of the closet and admitting to his homosexuality in an E! Online exclusive. The group provided links following those tweets, presumably to malware infested sites. The SEA finished up their practical joke with the tweet, "The Syrian Electronic Army was here! Fans of @justinbieber, you have been trolled."
Scientists from the University of Manchester have discovered that by combining Graphene, a one-atom thick layer of graphite, with the transition metal dichalcogenides, a material that can react to light, they are able to create a product that can generate electricity from sunlight. They can form thin sheets of the product that can be placed on buildings to absorb sunlight and turn it into electricity.
Jagex, the developers of the infamous web-browser MMORPG RuneScape, has decided that it's time to put Java away and welcome in HTML5. The game developer knew that in order for the next sequel of RuneScape, RuneScape 3, to be successful, it needed to transition into a new engine. It considered Adobe Flash, but Flash didn't enough power to run the game, and it thought of Microsoft Silverlight, but Silverlight is limited only to Internet Explorer.
Ford has decided that this year, it will surpass its hybrid sales record. It's highest annual amount of hybrids sold dates back to 2010, the year it sold 35,496 of its Fusion and C-Max hybrids. Currently, the car manufacturer has sold 29,561 hybrids this year alone, meaning that it only needs to sell about 6,000 more hybrids to beat its original record, a feat that it believes can be accomplished within this month.
Samsung has received a lot of complaints recently over the limited available storage on its Samsung GALAXY S 4 device. While consumers purchased the 16GB version of the Samsung GALAXY S 4, they were unpleasantly surprised when they discovered that only 8.49GB of space was available for them to use. Consumers feel like its the same type of trickery that Microsoft displayed when its 32GB Surface RT tablet was discovered to only allow consumers 16GB of available storage.