Author: Henry R. Lares

Henry Lares is still early into his career as tech reporter but has already had his work published in many major publications including Tech Crunch and the Huffington Post.  In regards to academics, Henry earned an engineering degree from Apex Technical School. Henry has a passion for emerging technology and covers upcoming products and breakthroughs in science and tech.

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Games News

New Pokemon Game Might Be Announced For Nintendo Switch During Today’s Nintendo Direct

Nintendo has teased a Pokemon-related announcement which is a planet to take place during the latest Nintendo Direct, scheduled for today, February 27th, at 9 AM ET. Accordingly, it could be something about a new Pokemon game.

The Pokemon media franchise began its life in 1996 when Pokemon Red and Green were released in Japan for the portable Game Boy console. The games were a hit among players, leading to the development of a juggernaut which has become one of the most best-selling franchises of all time (toppled only by Nintendo’s Mario).

The player character is a Pokemon or Pocket Monster trainer, tasked with becoming the best in their region by competing in the Pokemon League and becoming a champion. On their journey, trainers will use Poke Balls to capture wild Pokemon which can be encountered throughout the world. In the classic games, they will have to battle the Pokemon first and then attempt to catch them with the help of the Poke Balls. In Pokemon GO and the Pokemon Let’s Go titles players can throw the balls directly, without the need to battle the Pokemon.

Captured Pokemon can be used in fights against a rival trainer, and each victory will allow them to gain experience points. Once a threshold is reached the Pokemon will level-up, earning new skills at select levels, or evolving into a more powerful form.

New Pokemon Game Might Come To Nintendo Switch Soon

The CEO of the Pokemon Company has previously declared that a new entrance in the series will be released during the second half of 2019. It was also mentioned that the new title would be the most beautiful one in the series when it comes to graphics, as it will be able to harness the full capabilities of the Nintendo Switch console.

Some of the fans hope that the long-awaited Generation 8 will also make an appearance since it is already known that new Pokemon will be featured during the game. Unlike recent titles, the potentially upcoming Pokemon game is targeted at the hardcore fan base, featuring many of the options that aren’t available in Pokémon Go, for example.

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News Tech

What is an Ecommerce Website?

While there is much speculation around the origins of ecommerce, it is generally agreed the first true ecommerce transaction took place on August 11, 1994. The American retail site Net Market sold a copy of the Sting CD “Ten Summoner’s Tales” to Phil Brandenberger of Philadelphia—marking the first retail sale on the internet.

This, in turn makes Net Market the producer of the first ecommerce site.

So, what is an ecommerce website? Shopify, one of the leading providers of online stores says ecommerce refers to the buying and selling of goods or services using the internet. This includes the transfer of money and data to execute these transactions.

The term is often used to refer to the sale of physical products online. But it can also describe any kind of commercial transaction facilitated through the internet.

How an Ecommerce Site Works

Technically, an ecommerce site is an amalgam of website code, an associated database and appurtenant third-party applications. These usually include payment processing or payment gateways.

Ecommerce websites also rely upon SSL certificates to secure data transferred between the consumer and the site, as well as the site and the owner’s financial institution of choice. The best ecommerce sites avoid storing important data—such as credit card numbers—unless they have the proper PCI compliance. Visitors come to these sites either directly, from search activities or by referral from other sites.

Types of Sites

While most often thought of in terms of online presences like Amazon, eBay, or Zappos; ecommerce sites take a number of different forms. These include retail activities sure, but there are also wholesale, drop shipping, crowd funding, subscriptions, services and digital products. Further, ecommerce transactions can be business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B).

Primary Components

Breaking an ecommerce site down into its constituent parts, we find the basic aspects include (at minimum) product pages, a shopping cart, a checkout procedure and a secure payment process.

  • Product pages: Dedicated to outlining the attributes of an offering, key information usually includes photographs of the product along with a description, sizing information (where appropriate), color choices and any other details a shopper might find useful.
  • Shopping carts: These afford site visitors a place to “store” an item they’re considering for purchase, while looking at other products. This saves them the trouble of having to go back to every page of the site they visited to find their purchases when they decide to buy.
  • Checkout page: The prices of items selected during the shopping session are totaled here. Taxes, shipping charges and associated fees are added to the purchase, affording the shopper an opportunity to know how much they’re spending before providing payment information.
  • Payment page: Also, sometimes referred to as payment gateways, this is where credit card or other payment information is provided and transmitted to the appropriate financial institution for approval of the transaction.

Security Measures

Secure Sockets Layers technology is one of the primary tools used to ensure the security of transactions on ecommerce sites. SSL encrypts information transmitted to and from the site to prevent the interception of financial information. Trust seals provided by companies such as Norton and McAfee also fall into this category.

Online shopping has evolved considerably since Mr. Brandenberger bought that CD. So has the nature of ecommerce sites. Where a web presence incorporating all of the features above had to be built from scratch back in 1994, providers like Shopify now offer turnkey sites—many of which are based upon free templates. This makes it easy for anyone with a good idea and marketing savvy to have a shot at making money selling goods and services on the internet.

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News Tech

HoloLens 2, Microsoft’s “Mixed Reality” Headset, Finally Unveiled

Even though it took a while until it was confirmed, we knew all along that Microsoft would unveil the HoloLens 2. That is the next-generation “mixed reality” headset from the company which is hoped to change “the way work gets done.”

Compared to the original, Microsoft says it will be more comfortable and immersive, as well as provide “industry-leading value out of the box.” Its predecessor did not give an exact figure, but HoloLens 2 has more than double the field, but it never changes the 47 pixels per degree of sight. The experienced has been compared by the company with jumping from a 720p television to a 2K set for each eye. The device will track your retinas to know what are you looking at precisely.

A new “time-of-flight” depth sensor is used by HoloLens 2, and some fancy algorithms will track your hands without using controllers. Some interesting things were happening during a live demonstration of the device.

Microsoft finally unveiled its “mixed reality” headset, HoloLens 2

Various applications were yanked by Microsoft employee in 3D space such as a virtual piano and then the company’s take on Slack and Facebook Workplace, Microsoft Teams. Depending on what you want you can either use an entire fist or a single finger to push buttons and other interface elements that stay mid-air.

Thanks to its carbon fiber material the new “mixed reality” headset, HoloLens 2, should be more comfortable for you to wear, taking into consideration the fact that Microsoft has also improved thermal management. Similar to PlayStation VR, for tightening the main headband you will use dial and if you want to quickly concentrate on something else you can flip up the main visor.

Microsoft still targets enterprise customers with the HoloLens 2, and they were not shy to show that during the Mobile World Congress as the company went all in on how the new “mixed reality” headset would help businesses.

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News Tech

iOS 12 – iOS 12.1.2 Unc0ver Jailbreak New Leaks

The @pwn20wnd team has finally released, after working on its development for months, the 31 unc0ver 3.0.0. With that being said, it means that you can finally install the  unc0ver jailbreak for iOS 12 – iOS 12.1.2 on your compatible iOS device. One great advantage would be that it offers Substrate and Cydia compatibility. Unfortunately only if you are an owner of an iPhone X, iPhone 8 or iPhone 7 you can use this jailbreak tool as it only supports A8X-A11 powered iOS devices.

If keeping an eye on the news is part of your to-do list, it means that you already know that A12 support will also be added for iOS devices powered by this processor in the unc0ver jailbreak for iOS 12 – iOS 12.1.2. Unfortunately, at the moment, only users of A8X through A11 chips-powered iOS devices can benefit from this tool.

As we mentioned previously in this article, you now have the possibility to download the latest IPA of unc0ver jailbreak for iOS 12 – iOS 12.1.2. It ensures a stable jailbreak experience thanks to its Substrate and Cydia support. The fluidity and stability of the jailbreak look like what the team is mostly focused on this time around. The unc0ver jailbreak for iOS 12 – iOS 12.1.2 will soon be extended to additional devices so keep checking that news.

This tool is only available in the beta version, but it does not mean you can’t take advantage of what it offers. If your iOS device is compatible with it, you can jailbreak it using this tool. However, you should downgrade to the iOS 12.1.1 beta 3 in case you have the latest firmware from Apple on your device. Otherwise, it will not work the way you expect it to.

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News Tech

Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti: What Are The Improvements That We Will See?

Nvidia is already a well-known name and the company has launched numerous successful products. Nonetheless, not all of them are instant hits. For example, the new RTX Turing family did not bring considerable improvements. The sales for the RTX 2070 and 2080 were not as good as expected.

However, Nvidia still has another chance. The GTA 1660 might be the product that we expected all along. It appears that the GTX 1660 managed to bring all the enhancements that were needed all along. Let’s discuss this product a bit more.

The GTX 1660

According to various reports, the GTX 1660 Ti managed to be a bridge between the GTX 1060 and the RTX 2060. The product did come with a price increase, especially combined with the price of the previous release. The 1060 debuted at $249, while the actual launch price is $279.

If we take a closer look at the card review, it becomes quite clear that this is the best Turing GPU that Nvidia has always launched. There is also a significant performance improvement that manages to justify the price increase.

The GTA 1660 Ti has a Turing (TU116) GPU Architecture. It also has 1536 GOU ores and no tensor cores and no RT cores. However, there are 120 texture units and 48 render outputs. The memory bus width is 192-bit and the memory bandwidth is 288 GB/s. The GTA 1660 Ti has a 6 GB memory capacity.

If we compare Turing and Pascal, and we take a look at GTX 1660 Ti versus GTX 1060 6 GB, there is a 36% relative performance increase. There is also a price increase, but as we already mentioned before, it is justified.

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