With Pokémon Go slowly phasing out, could the next big thing be Harry Potter Go? Sorry, but no! Harry Potter Go rumors have been shut down by Niantic, the creators of Pokémon Go. Instead, Google has announced on Tuesday that they will release a “mobile virtual reality platform” that will include a “Harry Potter adventure from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.” The gaming experience will be part of the Daydream VR platform, a virtual reality headset, in which the controller will become the player’s wand. The game’s release will be in November, around the same time as the Fantastic Beasts movie premiere. (Source: Mashable)
Amazon Prime’s New Benefit
Amazon Prime has over 55 million users – personally we aren’t sure how you can actually function without it. And, it just got better. Amazon has added Prime Reading to Prime’s already long list of benefits. Prime members now get free access to 1,000 digital books or popular magazines, but physical copies still cost money and best sellers are excluded from the list of free books. Readers are rejoicing. Specifically, readers who don’t like to stare at a brightly lit phone before sleeping – looking at you Kindle Readers (nice pun). Why? This feature can only be accessed on Kindle e-readers and Kindle apps. Sorry, you still have to pay for our best sellers: Socialnomics, Digital Leader, and What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube. #HumbleBrag (Source: Mashable)
New Software Aids Government Spying
Do you ever worry about companies making secret software that provides the U.S. government with your personal information? Well, this is a real thing now. Yahoo Inc. has secretly created a custom software program that reads user’s incoming emails for “specific information.””This is a classified demand the U.S. government asked of Yahoo. Yahoo’s compliance with the government’s demand represents the “first case to surface of a U.S. Internet company agreeing to an intelligence agency’s request by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.” We don’t know what information they are looking for, only that Yahoo was given the instruction to search for “a set of characters.” It is not known how long this has been going on or what information has already been passed along. But, it’s safe to say the Internet will voice their opinion on this growing security vs. privacy debate. (Source: Reuters)
