Month: February 2023

WhatsApp stickers are one of the latest big revolutions in the Meta application. Although they’ve been around for several years now, it’s a relatively new feature, and many users still don’t know how to create their own.

So far, it has always been necessary to use complementary apps to create stickers. However, iPhone has added a very simple way to create custom stickers on its devices. Follow the instructions below and learn how to create them easily.

Create WhatsApp stickers in 4 easy steps

This new feature was discreetly introduced in version 23.3.77 of WhatsApp for iPhone, which is now available on the App Store. Thanks to this update, users can choose any photo they have to instantly turn it into a WhatsApp sticker.

The way to do it is very simple. Just follow these four steps:

1. Open the iPhone Photos application.
2. Choose the photo you want to turn into a Sticker.
3. Touch and hold the photo you want to turn into a Sticker.
4. Drag the photo into a WhatsApp conversation.

Once you drag the photo, WhatsApp will ask you if you want to turn it into a sticker. When you confirm it, it will be saved in your WhatsApp sticker collection.

This feature, however, is based on the image subject detection that was introduced with iOS 16, so it cannot be used in previous versions. In addition, it can also be used in other messaging apps such as Telegram or iMessage.

Spotify is today’s music app par excellence. Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon’s platform has managed to revolutionize the music industry since its founding in 2006, and although it has had a difficult year in which they have had to lay off many employees, the company’s numbers continue to grow more and more.

Now, in order to continue contributing to innovation and remain the leading music streaming platform, it has incorporated a revolutionary change: it has eliminated the “like” button from its platform, replacing it with a “more” button.

One button to rule them all

Spotify has been testing this change since late last year on some users. The new button allows you to both save music and add songs to specific playlists. Clicking once on the button saves it to your library, and with the second click you can save it to a specific playlist.

Previously, the app had the classic heart icon. Pressing it meant that you liked a song and saved it to your library, and the button to add it to a playlist was separate, hidden in a separate three-dot menu. With this, Spotify wants to save users time and make the experience simpler and more fruitful.

However, we are so used to the heart button (Twitter even changed its “fav” star to this icon) that it is not clear that the new button will work at all. We’ll see how users react in the coming months.

February 27th marks Pokémon Day, the company’s official day to celebrate the Japanese release of Pokémon Red and Green (Pokémon Red and Blue in the West). This day is usually used to present new additions to the franchise, such as new games or DLCs. In addition, Pokémon-themed parties are held throughout Japan.

But how did Pokémon manage to reach the success it has become today? Today we take advantage of Pokémon Day to take a look back at the first generation of video games that brought the saga. From Bulbasaur to Mewtwo, with these first 151 creatures they proved that this was something totally new. However, their story was much more complex than we imagined.

Satoshi Tajiri: the ideologist behind Pokémon

No matter how spectacular they may be, great phenomena do not usually come from great inspirations. From Newton’s Law of Gravity, which was born after an apple fell on the physicist’s head, the small details of everyday life have served as inspiration to create the greatest milestones of humanity. In the case of Pokémon, we have to go all the way back to the early childhood of Satoshi Tajiri, the video game designer who created the series, to understand where it came from.

Tajiri lived in Machida, a city on the outskirts of Tokyo characterized by working-class families. Born in 1965, one of his favorite hobbies during his early years was to visit the many rural areas of the area – many of which have disappeared due to the growth of the city – in search of insects to catch. As he has explained on the few occasions he has allowed himself to be interviewed, he had an immense insect collection that earned him the nickname “Doctor Bug” among his family.

More or less, you can imagine young Tajiri as one of those bug hunters that appeared in the Green Forest of the first generation of Pokémon. Only, instead of being loaded with Caterpies and Weedles, he had an impressive collection of beetles and butterflies.

But if there was one thing that paved the way for Tajiri in creating the Pokémon imaginary, it was video games. It is no coincidence that the most identifiable phenomenon of this generation was born from a game and not from a manga or an animated series. The creator of Pokémon admitted to having become obsessed with Space Invaders to the point of skipping school to go to the arcade. Because of his little obsessions, he almost failed to graduate from high school.

His father even offered him a job at the Tokyo Electric Power Company to give him a minimally channeled future, but Tajiri turned down his offer and worked hard to get his diploma. As soon as he did, it became clear that his hobby was not just a hobby, and from that point on, he strived to become a video game developer.

At the age of sixteen, Tajiri won a Sega contest for the best idea for a video game. To do so, he had to disassemble his Famicom console, analyzing it to see how it worked before exploring the possibilities of his first project. But breaking into the video game industry was no easy task. Despite the fact that Japan was home to a large part of the world’s gamer population, Tajiri was just a young enthusiast who had won a contest for teenagers.

In this way, he did a two-year technical degree at the National Technological School of Tokyo while he began to collaborate in various specialized magazines as a game tester. Then, together with his friend Ken Sugimori, who currently serves as art director of Pokémon and was the creator of the first 151 creatures, he launched a fanzine called Game Freak in 1982.

Satoshi Tajiri knew that Game Freak could become much more than a fanzine, so he gathered his team with Junichi Masuda, a programmer and musical composer, to develop their first video game. The three young dreamers had to hack a NES to find out how it worked inside, since they didn’t have the development package used by professionals. But their efforts were not enough and Nintendo slammed the door in their faces when they tried to sell them the project. It was Namco, which at that time already had a certain reputation in the industry, who ended up making a place for them in their company. And so, in 1989, they released their first title for the NES: Quinty (Mendel Palace in the US).

Despite having nothing to do with Pokémon, Quinty already laid the groundwork for some of the key elements of the franchise. The characters were blue and green, very colorful and dressed with a vest and cap; something similar to what we would see in the first Pokémon Red and Blue (or Red and Green in Japan). The video game could be played by one person or two, laying the seed for the cooperation between players that would later be explored so much in Pokémon. And, despite having the typical story of saving the princess, it was played with a youthful tone similar to that used in his great work.

The difficult development of Pokémon Red and Green

Thanks to Quinty, Satoshi Tajiri fulfilled his dream of becoming a video game developer. The title had succeeded internationally and, although it was a long way from its current fame, Game Freak was already a company in its own right. The dream of three friends had become a fruitful business, so it was time to make a new bet.

With the Game Boy console just hitting the market, Tajiri’s head was filled with ideas about the next video game he wanted to make. Thanks to the Cable Link, a milestone in technology that allowed two consoles to connect and interact with each other, the developer began to think of mechanics that could be adapted to the handheld tool.

Little by little, Game Freak came up with the project, which was initially called Capsule Monsters. It was a role-playing game in which the protagonist would have capsules in which he could store the monsters he encountered. At first, the monsters would be rivals, but when they were hunted they would become “fighters” with which to face other creatures. Tajiri’s idea was already underway, but Nintendo, the same company that had already announced its refusal to Game Freak when it was still a virgin studio, had yet to be convinced.

To get their hard-to-get support, Tajiri wrote a fictitious missive in which he highlighted what the press would say a month after its release. Among other virtues, he highlighted the possibility of swapping monsters between consoles and gave examples of the two hundred monsters they wanted to include, from a green dragon to a magical firefly.

The presentation of the project was so original that Nintendo bought the idea. And it fell into the hands of none other than Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of some of the most famous games in history: Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Donkey Kong. Between Tajiri’s imagination and Miyamoto’s expertise, there was absolutely nothing that could go wrong. However, it took six years for the video game to become a reality.

Nintendo was working on many other projects, and Miyamoto-san could not devote himself to Pokémon as much as he would like, so it was a long and hard gestation. During those desperate years, the company stopped receiving financial benefits and was on the verge of bankruptcy. In fact, on more than one occasion Tajiri had to pay his own – and his parents’ – salaries out of his own pocket.

To make matters worse, the name Capsule Monsters was already registered, so they had to change it to Pocket Monsters in Japan and Pokémon in the West -the latter came about because of trademark problems with the word Pocket-. And, when everything seemed to be ready, the game’s release was delayed for several months due to last-minute problems.

In the end, the odyssey came to a beautiful end on February 27, 1996. On that day, thousands of Japanese children opened their boxes of Pocket Monster Green or Pocket Monster Red, the first editions to be released in the country. On that day, a phenomenon was born that would mark a generation and eventually reach every corner of the planet.

The secret behind Pokémon’s success

When someone thinks of the launch of Pokémon, they imagine fireworks and festivals full of people dressed up as Pikachu, but the reality was quite different. In its early stages in Japan, Pocket Monster was received without much glory. Video game magazines, which would later worship the franchise, barely dedicated the article to it. When it was released, the Game Boy was already an old machine, so for the first few months it barely remained in the Top 10 best-selling games. However, word of mouth and a good marketing campaign soon paid off.

The 151 creatures that came with the game were an attraction for collectors, the fact that it was an RPG with a youthful tone appealed to the more adventurous, and being able to exchange the creatures through a simple cable caused entire groups of friends to flock to the stores. Little by little, Pocket Monster climbed up the sales charts, reaching an incredible ten million copies sold, surpassing Tetris as the console’s best-selling game.

Pokémon became Nintendo’s biggest hit of the decade, so their international tour couldn’t suffer a single setback. Seeking to appeal to Western audiences, they prepared two versions somewhat different from the Japanese ones. Instead of choosing Pokémon Red and Green, they preferred to have Blastoise replace Venusaur on the cover, thus making Pokémon Red and Blue the versions that reached the whole world. In addition, they made the release of the video games coincide with that of the anime. In this way, children who watched Ash’s adventures could live their own Pokémon adventure.

The release of the game was a huge pressure for the Nintendo Spain branch. Although they had been looking forward to the release of the game for three years, they had the task of tripling the sales predictions they made, which were already much higher than usual. Added to this mission was an even more chaotic one. Not only would they have to triple sales, but they would also have to deal with all the merchandising that Pokémon implied.

Contrary to what happened with Dragon Ball, children would not have to trade in stolen photocopies; the Nintendo paraphernalia was already prepared to supply the thousands of children who would buy the video game. The anime, toys, stuffed animals, collectible cards, clothing, tazos, trading cards, school bags and a long etcetera would be the responsibility of Nintendo Spain. But, although in Japan it made sense that even children’s bed sheets were being traded, in Spain the phenomenon had not yet been born, so Pokémania arrived all at once, overwhelming the kids who did not quite understand where it all came from.

But thanks to all this paraphernalia, they not only tripled the forecasts, but also sold many more units and became the best-selling titles in Spain. Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue alone sold 880,000 units separately. And Pokémon Yellow, which was released less than a year later, sold 600,000.

This last version closed a generation that has not been surpassed by any other. Pokémon’s boom was fading in terms of sales of its videogames. But, as the latest games of the franchise have shown, its followers have not stopped growing.

Knowing how much free space there is in your Google account is more important than you think, especially if you are a user of an Android device. And the fact is that it offers you 15 GB of free cloud storage to safeguard your Gmail emails, Drive documents and images in Photos. But … What happens when we reach the limit of these free gigabytes? Very simple: Most Google services stop working, including the ability to send and receive mail via Gmail. That is why it is so important to always be aware of the remaining space in Drive.

To save you some discomfort, in today’s article we are going to show you how to see how much storage space is left in your Google account. The process is really simple and, in just a few clicks, you will know if it is time to clean out unnecessary files or invest in a paid Google One account. Here we go!

1. Sign in to your Google account

To find out how much free space is left on Google, first of all you need to log in to your account. To do this, open your browser and, once on the Google browser page, click on the icon with your avatar in the upper right corner of the screen. Then select the option “Manage your Google account”. Alternatively you can go directly to your account by clicking on the following link.

2. Select your payments and subscriptions

From your Google account, click on the “Payments and subscriptions” tab at the top of the screen.

3. Manage your account storage

Now simply scroll down the contents of your subscriptions until you reach the “Account Storage” section. Here you will see a summary of the free space left in your Google account. If you want to know this data in more detail, click on “Manage storage”.

4. Check how much free space is in your Google account

Finally, check how much storage is left in your Google account. From this page you will not only see the GB in use in your account, but also in which services are being used (Google Drive, Gmail and Google Photos). It’s that simple!

Why it is important to keep an eye on storage on Google

As we have already told you, each Google account is associated with a 15 GB Google One subscription. These are responsible for storing your emails, files, photos and even backing up any of your Android devices. If you run out of storage space in your account, you will not be able to:

• Send and receive emails through your Gmail account
• Upload new files to Google Drive
• Edit or create new files with Google Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Drawings, Forms and Jamboard
• Back up new videos and photos to Google Photos

As you can see, exhausting your Google storage space is a serious handicap, especially if it is the email account you use regularly. That is why it is important that you always keep an eye on not exceeding the 15 GB free that you have associated.

What is Google One and what is it for?

In the article we have mentioned several times the name of Google One but it is common that, even if we have contracted this service, we do not know what it is. Google One is a subscription plan that provides more storage space in Gmail, Drive and Photos in addition to allowing us to share these advantages with our family unit (up to 5 people). This one emerged in 2018, as a paid alternative to Drive for all those who needed more than 15 GB of space for their account. It is, therefore, an improvement on Google’s free cloud storage service.

How to get more storage space on Google

Are you about to run out of space on Google? Don’t worry, the important thing is that you have realized it in time. There are different methods with which you can free up space on your Google account in a few seconds. These are the ones we like the most:

Method 1. Use the Google space saver

One of the easiest methods to recover space on your account is to use Google’s space saver. It automatically analyzes the status of Gmail, Photos and Google Drive and offers you different options to free up precious MB. If you access its website you will see that Google’s storage manager is divided into:

• Items in trash or spam – The space saver analyzes all files in your spam folder or that are still in your recycle garbage can.
• Large items– Here you will find a list of the items that take up the most space in your Gmail emails and their attachments as well as in your Drive folders or videos and photo images. Each file is accompanied by a small preview so you can easily identify them.

You will see that each suggestion of files to delete is accompanied by how much space you will recover in your Google account. If you agree with any of the platform’s automatic suggestions, simply click on the “Review and delete” option. This way you will be able to recover space in your account very quickly and easily.

Method 2. Delete files manually

If the Google space freer doesn’t convince you, you can always delete the files you don’t need manually. This method is much slower than the previous one, but it gives you much more control over what to delete, since you don’t always want to delete the largest files. Of course, you need to keep in mind the following tips.

To delete files from Google Drive you should not only select them and click on the “Delete” button. By doing this, the file will be moved to the Recycle Bin but it will still take up space in your cloud. To recover storage you will need to access the Recycle Bin and delete its contents by hand.

As for Gmail, the simplest advice is to delete large emails. You can do this by typing “size:25” so that Gmail will return the emails that are this size (the maximum that Google allows per email). From this point on, all you have to do is reduce the number (size:24, size:23 and so on). It is also recommended that if you are fond of subscribing to newsletters, you delete them once read or unsubscribe to stop receiving useless mail. Still not enough free space? Take a look at our tips to free up space in your Gmail account.

As for Photos, review one by one the memories you want to keep. It is recommended that in order not to occupy all your space on Google, you choose to make a backup copy of your photos on a portable hard drive or USB device. Another interesting option is to disable the automatic uploading of photos from your Android phone or tablet. This way you can manually choose which images you want to be saved in the cloud without taking up space on your Google account.

Method 3. Change your Google One plan

If you are still running out of space on your Google account, it may be time to switch your subscription plan to Google One. For a small fee you can not only multiply the storage space in your Google account, but also get juicy upgrades only available to paying customers. Here are the main Google One plans:

Basic plan:

• Price-$1.99 per month or $19.99 per year (you save 16%)
• 100 GB of storage
• Expert help from Google
• Possibility to share your plan with 5 other people
• Subscriber benefits

Standard plan:

• Price-$2.99 per month or $29.99 per year (you save 16%)
• 200 GB of storage
• Expert help from Google
• Possibility to share your plan with 5 other people
• Subscriber benefits

Premium plan:

• Price-$9.99 per month or $99.99 per year (you save 17%)
• 2 TB of storage
• Expert help from Google
• Ability to share your plan with 5 other people
• Subscriber benefits
• Google Workspace premium features
• Google One VPN

Easily manage space in your Google Account

We hope this article has helped you to see the storage space left in your Google account. Remember that this is necessary for the proper functioning of Gmail, Drive and Photos… So make sure you always have a few GB free! And remember, if you liked what you read, don’t forget to share it with your friends on social networks.