Author: Loknath Das

HIGHLIGHTS Strategy game Civilization VI is now on iPad It released on PC last year There are no plans for an Android or iPhone release Civilization VI is now available on the App Store. The 2016 PC strategy game is playable on the iPad Air 2, iPad 2017, or any iPad Pro running iOS 11. Civilization VI iOS price is Rs. 2,300 in India and $29.99 in the US. This however, will be bumped up to Rs. 4,600 in India and $60 in the US after 11:59pm PST on January 4 (1:29pm IST on January 5). Civilization VI iPad download size is around 3.1GB.…

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HIGHLIGHTS PUBG’s second Xbox One patch is now out Initial impressions suggest a smoother experience Another patch is on the way early next year PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) for the Xbox One and Xbox One X has got its second patch. The PUBG Xbox One patch download size is 4.36GB. Fixes include weapon recoil reduction, UI modifications, and what’s being referred to as ‘continued performance optimisations’. Initial impressions suggest that the new PUBG Xbox One patch has resulted in a smoother experience and slightly better visual fidelity. “The team will continue to evaluate areas for improvement, whether its client and server optimisations or…

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France’s data privacy watchdog may fine messaging app WhatsApp if it does not comply with an order to bring its sharing of user data with parent company Facebook into line with French privacy law. The French data protection authority – CNIL – said on Monday it had told WhatsApp to comply with the order within one month, and pay particular attention to obtaining users’ consent. If WhatsApp does not comply it could sanction the company, the watchdog said. The CNIL said WhatsApp did not have the legal basis to share user data with Facebook and had violated its obligation to cooperate with the French…

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HIGHLIGHTS Likes, shares, and comments can be used as engagement bait This engagement previously gamed Facebook’s News Feed Now, Facebook will demote those pages that repeatedly use this bait Facebook is finally taking stern action against “engagement bait”, where publishers beg users to vote, like or share a post in the hopes of bumping it to the top of people’s News Feeds by manipulating the social networking site’s algorithms. Such posts will neither be gone forever, nor be banned, but the California-headquartered company said it will now demote these posts in the News Feed. Posts which prompt users to, for example…

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HIGHLIGHTS Facebook will recognise if a blocked contact has created a new account Users can now ignore messages, moving them to Filtered Messages Facebook says women, journalists will benefit most from the features To prevent harassment on Facebook, the social media giant has introduced new tools that keep unwanted friend requests and messages from reaching you. The new features proactively recognise and help prevent unwanted contact when someone you blocked sets up a new account or tries to contact you from another account they control, said Antigone Davis, Global Head of Safety at Facebook in a statement on Tuesday. ALSO SEEFacebook to Notify Users…

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It’s been a shockingly packed year for great new video games. Over the course of the last 12 months, it seemed like there was never really a pause, or a moment when there wasn’t something interesting to play. To celebrate, this week Verge staff will be publishing essays on their favorite releases of the year, the games that spoke to us personally. Expect to see a new one each morning, culminating in a list of our collective 15 favorite games of 2017 on Friday. You can keep up with it all right here. Playing Horizon Zero Dawn for the first time was a good reminder…

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Here are all the most important video game releases of 2017. 2017 was a really incredible year for video games. Some big surprising indie hits joined a resurgence from Nintendo. Brand new AAA games came out from beloved studios taking a risk on new franchises, and long-running series saw new entries that were almost total overhauls of what came before. Here are the seven most important video games of 2017. 1. PlayerUnkown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) – Bluehole Perhaps the most important game of 2017 was one that nobody saw coming. PUBG took a lot of ideas from the PC survival genre and created…

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Last summer’s Pew Research Center and Gallup surveys showing sharply declining public support for colleges and universities — especially among Republicans — seriously rattled higher education leaders. Understandably so: with the GOP running the federal government and two-thirds of the states, those trend lines can translate not just into fewer Americans willing to finance a college education personally, but also less favorable treatment of colleges and universities by politicians and policy makers. A pair of new surveys conducted this fall offer a more nuanced picture of public attitudes about higher education. The surveys, by Civis Analytics and Echelon Insights, probably…

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HIGHLIGHTS Apple Pay Cash lets you make payments through the Messages app Works with iPhone and iPad models that run iOS 11.2 and above Fixes variety of bugs and adds additional support for HomeKit Apple has released the official watchOS 4.2 update for all Apple Watch models. The new software update brings with it support for Apple Pay Cash, which when setup on an iPhone running iOS 11.2, will become available in the Messages app and Wallet app on Apple Watch devices. The feature is only available for US users as of now. Unveiled first at WWDC 2017 for launch with iOS 11, Apple Pay Cash was delayed…

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HIGHLIGHTS Users can monitor CPU, GPU, RAM, fan speed and temperature in-game The smartphone offers controls for streaming and performance monitoring There are also improvements to streaming, power savings and performance AMD has released what it is calling one of its biggest and most significant driver releases ever. The new Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition introduces an all-new in-game overlay with performance information such as the current performance in frames per second, CPU, GPU and RAM usage as well as temperature, power consumption and fan speed for the graphics card. Users will also be able to adjust per-game Radeon settings such…

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