Author: Monique Irish Casingal

{ "de-DE": "Monique Irish Casingal ist eine philippinische Senior-Content-Writerin mit Schwerpunkt Videospiele und digitale Software. Als Absolventin der Literaturwissenschaft und selbst begeisterte Gamerin war sie kurzzeitig im Software-News-Bereich tätig – und inzwischen deutlich länger damit, die neuesten Trendspiele, neue Programme und auch ältere Titel zu testen, denen man definitiv eine Chance geben sollte.", "en-US": "Monique Irish Casingal is a Filipina senior content writer specializing in video games and digital software. As a graduate of AB Literature and an avid gamer herself, she's had a previously short stint in delivering software-related industry news, and a currently even longer one in reviewing the latest trending games, new programs, and those old titles that people should give a shot.", "es-ES": "Monique Irish Casingal es una senior content writer filipina especializada en videojuegos y software digital. Licenciada en Literatura y gamer empedernida, tuvo una breve etapa cubriendo noticias del sector del software y, desde entonces (durante mucho más tiempo), se dedica a analizar los últimos juegos en tendencia, programas nuevos y también esos clásicos que merecen una segunda oportunidad.", "fr-FR": "Monique Irish Casingal est une rédactrice senior philippine spécialisée dans le jeu vidéo et les logiciels numériques. Diplômée en lettres et joueuse passionnée, elle a d’abord brièvement couvert l’actualité de l’industrie logicielle, avant de passer plus durablement à la critique des jeux tendance du moment, des nouveaux programmes et de ces titres plus anciens qui méritent qu’on leur donne une chance.", "it-IT": "Monique Irish Casingal è una senior content writer filippina specializzata in videogiochi e software digitale. Laureata in Letteratura e gamer appassionata, ha avuto una breve esperienza nel raccontare notizie dell’industria software e, da allora (per molto più tempo), si dedica a recensire i giochi del momento, i nuovi programmi e anche quei titoli più datati che vale la pena riscoprire.", "ja-JP": "", "nl-NL": "Monique Irish Casingal is een Filipijnse senior content writer die zich richt op videogames en digitale software. Als afgestudeerde in Literatuurwetenschap en zelf een fanatieke gamer had ze eerder een korte periode waarin ze nieuws over de software-industrie bracht, en inmiddels een veel langere waarin ze de nieuwste trending games, nieuwe programma’s en ook oudere titels recenseert die mensen echt eens een kans moeten geven.", "pl-PL": "Monique Irish Casingal to filipińska starsza autorka treści specjalizująca się w grach wideo i oprogramowaniu cyfrowym. Jest absolwentką filologii/literatury i zapaloną gamer-ką. Ma za sobą krótki epizod w tworzeniu newsów z branży software, a obecnie znacznie dłuższy – w recenzowaniu najnowszych, popularnych gier, nowych programów oraz starszych tytułów, którym warto dać szansę.", "pt-BR": "Monique Irish Casingal é uma senior content writer filipina especializada em videogames e software digital. Formada em Literatura e gamer de carteirinha, ela teve uma breve passagem cobrindo notícias da indústria de software e, desde então (por muito mais tempo), vem se dedicando a analisar os jogos em alta, novos programas e também aqueles títulos antigos que merecem uma chance.", "social": { "email": "", "facebook": "", "twitter": "", "linkedin": "" } }

Wikipedia has stopped accepting cryptocurrency donations

After an intense voting session on the potential removal of cryptocurrency in donations to Wikimedia’s services, the nonprofit organization finally decided to discontinue the direct acceptance of crypto as a means of donating. It has since closed its Bitpay account and will be monitoring the situation for feedback.

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Wikimedia Foundation is the owner, operator, and host of Wikipedia, the popular and free open online encyclopedia maintained by volunteers worldwide. Since Wikipedia is largely funded through donations, Wikimedia has had to adjust its supported payment methods based on what its current donor communities prefer and have access to. This time, they’d rather shut down the cryptocurrency movement in their circle.

Wikimedia had first started directly accepting crypto way back in 2014 when its users had requested it. However, in the wake of the issues surrounding cryptocurrency—mainly concerning its negative impact on our environment—the organization’s numerous users and volunteers eventually banded together back in January 2022 to request its removal from Wikimedia’s accepted forms of donation.

After months of voting and debate, 71% of the user votes were in favor of Wikimedia stopping the direct acceptance of cryptocurrency—with 232 in favor of the ban while 94 were against. Wikimedia announced that it will be closing its Bitpay account so that it can no longer directly accept crypto donations. Additionally, the foundation mentioned that it will continue to be flexible and responsive to the needs of its volunteers and donors.

While users can no longer easily support Wikipedia with cryptocurrency, this doesn’t mean that the option is fully off the table. Wikimedia has simply cut off its direct route. You can still use crypto—although it will require some conversions to be accepted. If you’re interested in learning more about news on cryptocurrency, here’s a crypto hack scandal on Axie Infinity and Opera for Android now featuring an Ethereum Layer 2 Wallet.

Netflix is getting serious with its venture into video games this year

Streaming service giant Netflix is apparently betting big on video games as it prepares nearly 50 video games for its subscribers by the end of 2022. It had previously offered mobile games for some of its hit shows—like Stranger Things: 1984 and Stranger Things 3: The Game—but now, more are slated to come after the company faced losses with its subscriber count.

Netflix is one of the most popular subscription video-streaming services around, but it still struggles to compete against rivals like Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, and Paramount+. With its recent earnings report, the company’s announcement of entering the video game space last July 2021 will heavily come into play.

So far, Netflix has released only a handful of mobile game apps that are mostly either tie-ins to or adaptations of their shows. The streaming service is also well-known for creating TV show adaptations of popular video games, like League of Legends, Castlevania, and The Witcher. This time, with their plans to produce both a TV show and a mobile game for the popular tabletop card game “Exploding Kittens,” it’s becoming clear that Netflix intends to dip more into the video game industry.

This comes at an opportune time as Netflix’s stock had reportedly lost 200,000 subscribers after the first quarter of 2022. Now, the streaming service is planning to get serious with video games to attract new subscribers. It has already acquired three game studios: Boss Fight Entertainment, Next Games, and Night School Studio, which had developed Oxenfree. Next Games itself had released Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales last year before its acquisition.

While churning out 50 video games by the end of the year sounds ambitious for a company previously focused on streaming shows, the idea of providing adaptations to both shows and games vice-versa presents a whole new avenue for entertainment that Netflix could potentially earn from. Netflix is planning to stick to Android and iOS games for now—with only its subscribers having full access to them.

Image credit: About Netflix | News

You can soon link a second mobile device to your WhatsApp account

Following its multi-device feature update weeks ago, WhatsApp is starting to work on a second version that will allow users to link new mobile devices to their WhatsApp accounts. This will add a new section to the screen interface where you can register your other phone or tablet. 

Among the instant messaging app’s numerous beta features in development, WhatsApp’s multi-device support is currently one of the best that’s finally been made available to the public. With it, users can link up to four desktop devices and one phone to their WhatsApp account and let them access the app’s services almost anywhere. 

However, some users have more mobile devices so the limitation of only one phone per account can be stifling. Fortunately, WhatsApp Beta is already developing more of the feature and will be introducing a “second version” soon. This will let you add another phone to your supported devices via the “Register Device as Companion” feature.

This new section will only show up when you open WhatsApp on a different phone. It will display instructions on how to link up your new phone to your account and will require one of your linked devices to work first. Similar to how the multi-device feature works, it’ll display a QR code you can scan. For now, WhatsApp is working on supporting secondary phones but users will eventually be able to link tablets, too.

There’s no announced release date on the beta test for this just yet, but we can expect that it’ll eventually be available for all WhatsApp platforms. Regardless, this will be a great addition to the app’s list of handy features—especially for Business accounts since WhatsApp Business is developing an optional subscription plan that offers a bigger limit on supported devices. 

Image credit: WABetaInfo

TikTok was 2022’s most downloaded app in its first quarter

According to Sensor Tower’s report on Q1 2022’s top mobile apps, TikTok was the most downloaded app worldwide from January to March 2022—surpassing 3.5 billion all-time downloads from last year’s Q1. Currently, it’s the first app not owned by tech giant Meta to break that record. 

Over the years, TikTok has proven to be more than a new short-form video platform that could replace the beloved but discontinued Vine app. This Chinese-owned video-focused social networking service has evolved from a simple entertainment app to a social media powerhouse with an international presence that rivals that of Instagram and YouTube.

This is all the more apparent in Sensor Tower’s findings, which listed TikTok as the top downloaded app all over the world. This only counts unique installs—only one download per user—and only from Google Play Store and Apple App Store combined, excluding third-party stores and Google and Apple’s own apps. For Google Play Store’s list, Tiktok only ranks third and is beaten by Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. It dominates the list for Apple App Store, however—shooting past YouTube by a wide margin with about 70 million downloads worldwide. 

In the US alone, TikTok has been the top app in each quarter since Q1 2021. It and YouTube have been competing for first place in the Apple App Store. In other regions like Europe and Asia, TikTok also holds a high rank—if not being at the top—but some of the competitors have also shown considerable growth and popularity this past quarter and year. These include WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat.

With how much TikTok is expanding its reach daily, we may see an even bigger turnout in the next quarter or year. This can’t only be attributed to its large userbase but also the numerous features and improvements it’s been working on diligently. One of these is a new dislike button for comments that TikTok is recently testing and the launch of its own music distribution platform. 

Image credit: Sensor Tower

Microsoft Teams now supports Apple Silicon Macs

While Microsoft hasn’t officially announced it yet, a downloadable version of Microsoft Teams that is optimized for Apple Silicon-powered Macs is currently available on the company’s website. It still seems to be in its beta phase so expect some bugs when you test it.

Due to the nature of Apple devices, numerous apps and programs aren’t always supported by the macOS platform. Even when your Mac has an Intel processor and can run some software with Apple’s Rosetta 2 translation technology, the software’s performance isn’t always the best. This new Teams version, however, bodes well for the future of Apple and Microsoft’s relationship.

Apple Silicon is a series of system processors that most modern Apple devices and products use. It had replaced Intel processors since 2020 and when on a Mac, it can typically run three types of applications: iPhone and iPad apps through the Mac App Store, apps designed for Intel Macs that can run through the Rosetta 2 translation, and “universal” apps. 

Before this, Microsoft Teams was under the second type as it didn’t support Apple Silicon. Recently, however, a file for a version of Teams optimized for this processor was discovered on Microsoft’s official website and can be downloaded by anyone. Teams has now become a “universal” app and is reported to be running much better on Apple Silicon Macs than before.

Although, since there’s no announcement just yet, this means that the popular communication app is still in beta and users will be encountering other performance issues. Hopefully, it’ll finally be given a public release sometime soon. After all, Microsoft Teams will soon be available on the Microsoft Store for Windows so it may someday be offered on the Mac App Store, too.

Some important late changes to Google Play’s April 2022 updates

Google has already started to roll out its April updates for the so-called “Google System”—which is what they collectively call the updates to the Android operating system, Google Play Store, and Google Play services. New changes that hadn’t been announced at the start of the month include the Autofill feature’s support for virtual cards and the discontinuation of the Find My Device app.

As previously reported a few weeks ago, Google Play is getting new features and fixes this April 2022. Most of these updates focus on improving the app’s services to all users, but new additions to the list also tweak some of the minor issues to help make Google Play an important app on your device.

As mentioned in the previous news, Google Play is only getting a few major changes this month. The highlights of this are the new features for the Play Pass and Play Points programs and the improvement on the Play-as-you-download feature’s waiting times. There are more miscellaneous feature updates and fixes involved here but they still are as equally important.

Some late changes added, however, get more specific in what they offer. For one, Android’s Autofill feature, powered by Google Play Services, now supports virtual cards—and you should expect an updated Terms of Service soon. Another update is the addition of a pop-up that suggests you regularly back up your images to Google Photos if your device is also set to automatically back up to Google Drive.

The last new update is Google Play finally discontinuing the Find My Device app on business-owned devices that have an Android Work Profile. All of these are now available on the Google Play services version 22.12 and are mostly for mobile devices so simply check if you have the update ready.

You can soon download Microsoft Teams from the Microsoft Store

The Microsoft Store will soon be offering Microsoft Teams for PC users to download. The popular communication app will still be available on its official website but now, they have an alternative way to download it. 

As Microsoft’s official digital distribution platform, the Microsoft Store offers a wide variety of programs and apps that you can purchase and download without having to open up a browser. This, of course, includes the brand’s flagship programs like the Office 365 suite—although interestingly enough, Microsoft Teams had been exempted from this. 

The upcoming update now ensures that Teams will be a downloadable software right from the Microsoft Store’s interface. This goal was recently added to the Microsoft 365 public roadmap, with the Teams version that will be available from the store will support work, school, and personal accounts on Windows 10, and work and school accounts on Windows 11.

The lack of support for personal accounts on Windows 11 is due to the existence of the Chat app on the operating system. Chat is a built-in lightweight version of Microsoft Teams on Windows 11 that allows personal account users to quickly start a video call or chat. Windows 10 has no such built-in Teams capabilities, so the upcoming Microsoft Store update will be for their benefit.

You can expect this update to be available for the public around May 2022 for the desktop and web platforms. While it doesn’t seem like a major improvement for both applications, it still promotes user-friendliness and other ways to get Teams on your PC. This is all the more promising with Teams’ new feature of allowing Bluetooth headsets to control calls directly with their device buttons. 

Google Photos’ UI redesign update gets delayed

Google Photos’ latest major update, an interface redesign supposed to roll out soon, has hit a snag. This scheduled release was announced last March 2022 but has been delayed in order to include some additional changes. There’s no definite date mentioned on when the update will finally come so users can just expect it to eventually drop without fanfare.

As one of Google’s free cloud services, Google Photos is widely-used and needs to be tweaked every now and then to stay intuitive for all users. Some updates can get important last-minute changes, however, so it’s not surprising that the popular photo-sharing and storage service wouldn’t always be on schedule.

Back in March, Google Photos announced that it has redesigned its interface for a more user-friendly experience. More specifically, it reworked the Library and Sharing tabs—allowing all albums from both the cloud and your synced devices to appear in one location. This is a pretty handy change for Sharing since it’ll be quicker to sort through folders. However, the Library tab may bombard some users with so many folders, if they’re used to cloud and on-device albums being separate.

This unwieldy redesign on the Library tab UI may be the reason why the update has been delayed for Android—and has even been rolled back for the iPhone and iPad. Meanwhile, the awaited improvement on the Sharing tab is still gradually rolling out on Android and iOS over the coming weeks, as scheduled. At the very least, the delay will ensure that important changes will be implemented so user satisfaction is guaranteed.

Regardless of being off-schedule, the update release is still a welcome one for most users since Google Photos is one of Google’s most popular services. If you’re new to it and want to grasp the basics of navigating its interface, here’s a guide on how to use Google Photos.

Image credit: Photos | Google Blog – The Keyword

WhatsApp’s developing an optional subscription plan for Business accounts

To offer additional services that may interest some businesses, WhatsApp is currently working on a new optional subscription plan for WhatsApp Business accounts. Even after it’s implemented, however, WhatsApp itself will still remain free to use.

WhatsApp is known for expanding and improving its feature as much as possible through its WhatsApp Beta program. Even the Business app gets major updates every now and then—and sometimes, enterprising minds come up with cool WhatsApp concepts like this one designed for India’s Kirana stores. This time, paid subscription services are being offered on the table.

The subscription plan under development will be offering additional features to businesses. One of these premium features is the option to link up to 10 devices instead of the normal 4-device limit when using WhatsApp’s multi-device feature. This is a pretty great offer since WhatsApp is also working on an exclusive redesigned interface for the “Linked Device” section for Business. It will allow users to add multiple devices to a single account so different people in the business can all talk to a customer in the same chat. 

For now, the premium 10-device limit feature is the only known feature included in the subscription plan. The rest of the additional services will be announced in the future. Take note that this plan is only for WhatsApp Business accounts and won’t be available to standard WhatsApp users. WhatsApp Business will also remain free to download and use; businesses will just have the option to subscribe to additional services.

The subscription plan will be available in a future update on WhatsApp Business Beta for Android and WhatsApp Business Beta for iOS. If you’re interested in what had been planned for Business’ monetary services prior to this, you can read up on how WhatsApp Business started and the relationship between WhatsApp and WhatsApp Business.

Image credit: WABetaInfo

You can soon exclude specific WhatsApp contacts from seeing your status

WhatsApp is currently working on improving its advanced privacy settings by adding a “My Contacts Except…” feature for your profile status. This will allow you to exclude specific contacts so they can’t see your info. The feature will be rolled out to selected beta testers on WhatsApp Beta for iOS.

While the popular instant messaging app has recently revealed that it’s working on making WhatsApp profiles much easier to share, it definitely adds comfort to have the option to hide your current status to some of your contacts. Fortunately, the beta version has been slowly developing this feature over the past few months.

The “My Contacts Except…” functions as a blocklist of sorts for the app, letting users add selected contacts of theirs so that certain activities from their profile status won’t be seen by those people. This is only for the user’s account visibility, which includes elements like their “Last Seen” activity, their profile photo, and their “About” page.  

To access this feature, go to your Settings, then Account, and then Privacy. Choose either “Last Seen,” “Profile Photo,” and “About,” and a new page will open up containing the options “Everyone,” “My Contacts,” “My Contacts Except…,” and “Nobody.” Tapping the aforementioned feature will then allow you to choose contacts that you want to exclude from viewing your information.  

Take note that this status-hiding is mostly a one-way street. You can still view your excluded contacts’ Profile Photo and About. However, you can’t see their “Last Seen” time since you’re not sharing yours. Nevertheless, it’s a pretty handy feature to have so you don’t just set everything to “Nobody” when you want to hide your profile. Another cool privacy feature WhatsApp improved is photos from WhatsApp disappearing chats are no longer being auto-saved.

Image credit: WABetaInfo