Mountain Dew Makes Bottle Cap Into A Tool

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‘Severed’ Is A Serious Trip

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Batman’s 75th Anniversary Celebrated

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Free-To-Play Games: The Future?

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Mobile and console game developers have been dabbling in the “freemium” business model with their products for some time, and King.com’s Tommy Palm believes that said business model could be the way that the market heads in the future.

Speaking with IGN, Palm stated, “The micro-transaction is so strong and it’s definitely a much better model. I think all companies have to transition over to that. If you talk to many hardcore gamers, they’re not happy about it right now, but if you asked them about the long term, ‘Do you want to continue playing your favorite game for years to come ‘ And the answer will be yes.”

Pricing will play a huge part when it comes to the F2P market. “I think for companies it is very important to find a good balance. Free-to-play games are difficult to do, and you really need to be good at making it feel balanced to the gamers. So it’s not too greedy.

“At King, for instance, we took the decision to make our games truly free-to-play, so you will never end up in the position where you’re forced to pay. So you can play all the way to the end without having to pay. For instance, in Candy Crush, of the players who are on the last level, more than half of them didn’t pay to get there.”

Source: IGN

PlayStation 4 Firmware Update Planned

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The PlayStation 4 continues to be a hot seller in the video game market, and now an update (1.7) could be incoming that will make it even better.

Sony revealed that an update would be coming to the system soon, introducing a number of features, including the removal of the HDCP set-up that a lot of gamers aren’t too thrilled with.

Which other features, though Although he didn’t say specifically, English Community Manager of PlayStation Europe Chris Owen did tease a little bit on his Twitter account, stating, “Goodness, so much news coming out this week.” Sony has previously said that update 1.7 will add a video editor, the ability to save videos and screenshots to a USB drive, and will allow PS4 owners to turn off HDCP so that gameplay can be captured via HDMI.

When asked by interested gamers as to what the news would be, Owen simply stated, “News coming soon, hold tight!”

If any news does break about the update, we’ll certainly keep you posted.

Source: MP1st

Toshiba’s 4K Laptop Coming Next Week

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After seeing a successful launch in the United Kingdom, Toshiba’s latest laptop is about to make waves in the United States.

The company’s latest laptop computer model, the P55T, is a 15.6-inch laptop with a 3840 x 2160 resolution display, equivalent to 4K resolution. The core of the system is powerful, with AMD 2GB DDR5 Radeon R9 M265X discrete graphics, a 4th-gen Intel quad-core i7 CPU and 16GB DDR3L maximum memory.  It also features Technicolor certification, as well as a 1TB 5400 PM mechanical hard drive. In addition, a copy of Adobe’s Lightroom 5 will also be included, for would-be artists and photographers looking to do more with their computer. (For those who prefer gaming, this laptop should also be quite compatible on your end as well.)

The P55T will sell for $1,500, and hits stores on April 22. That’s certainly a far cheaper price than other 4K-compatible laptops are being projected for.

Source: Engadget

Google Losing In Mobile Game Ads

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When it comes to advertising in mobile games, some might think bigger companies like Google may be an ideal choice. However, according to a report from VentureBeat, that may not be the case.

Several game developers have begun choosing startup ad companies such as Vungle and AdColony for their monetization purposes, rather than Google. Some 176 game developers with 1,100 publishers games, 300 million collective downloads and over $600 million in annual revenue took the survey, and indicated that game developers tend to abandon Google after hitting 11 published games. In addition, developers who use any company besides them seem to make more money, along the lines of more than $50,000 per month.

The report shows several monetization models being used, with ads: interstitials leading the pack, followed by in-app purchases and both banner and video ads. Meanwhile, value-exchange ads and native ads round out the bottom of the list.

Source: VentureBeat

Microsoft Rolls Out Xbox One Update

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Microsoft continues to work to make its Xbox One console convenient and easy-to-use for owners. Today, the company launched a new update for the system, available free of charge, and applicable upon booting up the system.

The update will bring a number of new features, including a progress bar for downloading games, the ability to see friends sign in when they hop on their system, better video quality with the GameDVR component, and improved voice/motion support for Kinect.

In addition, controllers and wireless headsets now have better connectivity with the system, and the system has the option to power cycle itself automatically following an overnight update.

Source: TechCrunch

Graphene: The Wonder Material

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Those companies out there that are building tomorrow’s best innovations, take note – you might want to consider using graphene.

A new blog post on the New York Times explains how graphene could be the material of the future when it comes to innovation in product design. It’s a strong, thin material that’s capable of conducting electricity and heat better than most other materials.

Considered a “wonder material” by many scientists, it is only a single atom thick, meaning it can be used on anything from electronic clothing to supercharged quantum computers, all while serving the same purpose.

“Graphene is one of the few materials in the world that is transparent, conductive and flexible – all at the same time,” said Dr. Aravind Vijayaraghavan, a lecturer at the University of Manchester. “All of these properties together are extremely rare to find in one material.”

Don’t be surprised to see graphene in more devices over the next few years.

Source: New York Times

This Week’s [a]list Jobs – April 16

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[a]list daily is now your source for the hottest job openings for senior management and marketing in games, entertainment and social media.

Here are this week’s [a]list jobs: