Category: Tech

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Tech

Netflix Reached 137 Million Subscribers Worldwide in Q3 2018

Netflix is in great shape in the third quarter fo 2018, as the service performed better than expected and now reached more than 137 million subscribers worldwide. After a disappointing second quarter, Netflix did more than just turn the tide by exceeding all expectations in Q3 2018. The famous giant streaming service gained 7 million subscribers in the third quarter, bringing its total to 137 million.

Out of the more than 7 million subscribers, 5.87 million were worldwide and 1.09 million across the United States. Netflix is doing better than expected and admits to having “underestimated the number of memberships.” “The variance from our expectations is due to a larger than expected increase in new subscribers worldwide, with strong growth in all our markets, including Asia,” Netflix representatives explained.

Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, told investors last year that $8 billion would be reinvested in original content creation in 2018, for a total of 700 new programs. During his time in Paris, he revisited this strategy to confirm that the department was not focusing exclusively on American productions.

Netflix reached 137 million subscribers in the third quarter of 2018

Netflix’s expensive but profitable strategy should enable it to continue to win even more subscribers by the end of the year. The platform is expecting a gain of 9.4 million subscribers in the next months, out of which 7.6 million would be outside the United States.

This growth has enabled it to earn more money and increase its sales by 34% compared to the same period last year. That amounted to $4 billion with a net income of $402.8 million, compared with $129.6 million in 2017.

With such results, the leading streaming service can wait calmly for the arrival of new competitors in this market. Next year, we’ll get the streaming service of Disney, a giant company that plans to use its popular licenses to outperform Netflix. This will include the arrival of films and series such as The Mandalorian, a Star Wars live series directed by Jon Favreau.

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Games Tech

PlayStation 4 6.02 System Update Launched With Performance Enhancements

Sony has just rolled out the new PlayStation 4 6.02 system update which is now available for the owners of the console, worldwide. The new PS4 firmware patch comes with slight performance enhancements and fixes some bugs, as well.

According to the official release note, the new PlayStation 4 6.02 system update improves the console’s performance, but some users also reported that the new firmware patch is fixing the recently reported malicious message bug causing PS4 consoles crash.

That error allows a malicious message, consisting of a string of unique characters, to crash PlayStation 4 video games console. Soon after the first reports of this bug emerged online, Sony announced that they fixed the issue and anyone should avoid opening the respective message with the consoles, but, instead, use the PSN app for Android and iOS.

PlayStation 4 6.02 System Update Launched With Performance Enhancements and Bug Fixes

Sony has just revealed the new PlayStation 4 6.02 firmware patch which brings improved performance and minor bug fixes. Also, it’s possible that this new system update could fix the recently reported error that permits a malicious message to crash PlayStation 4 consoles each time a user opens up the message to read it.

In other news, PlayStation 4 owners will soon be able to change their online IDs within PlayStation Network. That functionality has never been present before in PSN, although many gamers asked Sony to add it. Now, Sony accepted it and will make that possible in PSN in 2019.

If you want to play new games on your PlayStation 4 console, then you’ll have lots of option to choose from in the PlayStation Store as many games are now on sale. Also, don’t forget that another big release takes place next week with the launch of Red Dead Redemption 2 on October 26th.

In short, Sony has just released the new PlayStation 4 6.02 system update with performance enhancements and bug fixes.

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Tech

New Google Maps Update Now Shows Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

Earlier this week, Google announced a new Google Maps update that makes it possible to locate electric vehicle charging stations. The new feature comes right after the addition of the group planning option for choosing and rating on a restaurant and the new Reserve function to assist people in booking for activities and tables at favorite diners.

The upcoming Google Maps update helps people locate the closest EV charging stations. It’s ideal for electric vehicle owners who can now find charging stations while on the road.

To locate electric vehicle charging stations, all you have to do is to search using terms like “EV charging,” “EV charging stations,” “Electric car charging stations, or derivatives of the three. Google Maps would return a map showing you the nearest such station. You must have your smartphone’s Location setting activated to let Google now your position to retrieve the closed EV charging stations.

New Google Maps Update Now Shows Electric Vehicle Charging Stations

Once you’ve located a station, just tap on it, and Google Maps will show you additional information, including how many ports are available, how fast is the charging, customer ratings, images, and so on.

Google Maps is now helping you locate Tesla and Chargepoint electric vehicle charging stations, worldwide. However, in the US, the app is also revealing SemaConnect, EVgo, and Blink stations. For the UK drivers, new Google Maps update can pinpoint Chargemaster and Pod Point stations, while people in Australia or New Zealand can find Chargefox stations.

As the electric car market is growing more and more, many electric vehicle drivers wonder where they can find charging stations. Until now, especially for those who are much time on the road, locating an EV charging station was challenging. Now, thanks to the new Google Maps update, users can pinpoint the nearest electric vehicle stations, depending on drivers’ location.

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Tech

Google Pixel 3 XL Teardown Revealed Samsung Display And The New Google Titan M Security Chip

Experts at iFixIt ripped open the new Google Pixel 3 XL and discovered many new additions in comparison with the previous model, the Pixel 2 XL. Accordingly, the new Google flagship smartphone boasts the Google Titan M Security chip and the all-new Samsung AMOLED panel which displays brighter and more saturated colors than the last year’s Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.

Besides, according to iFixIt, the new Google Pixel 3 XL construction presents massive amounts of glue, particularly for the rear glass panel, which makes it difficult to repair. In fact, the iFixIt experts even broke some of the smartphone’s components in the process, including the earphone and a ribbon cable underneath the battery. Because of all that, iFixIt gave Pixel 3 XL a repairability score of 4 out of 10.

While Google Pixel 3 XL boasts many new additions under the hood, some of the components are the same used on Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, as well as on other smartphone models of other manufacturers.

Google Pixel 3 XL Teardown Revealed Samsung Display And The New Google Titan M Security Chip

As we’ve already pointed out, Google Pixel 3 XL teardown put up by iFixIt reveals that the new smartphone model boasts a Samsung AMOLED display and the new Google Titan M Security chip.

Besides these additions, Pixel 3 XL presents the same Google SR3HX “Pixel Visual Core” chip as the last year’s model. Also, regarding the phone’s camera, it seems that indeed Google mounted the standard Sony camera sensor, IMX363, in this case, which is usually used by other manufacturers on their devices.

Accordingly, all the new camera functionalities and improvements are only software-based and not hardware, as we would’ve expected. Definitely, Google Pixel 3 XL takes excellent pictures, but only thanks to the Google camera AI implemented on the new flagship smartphone. You can check out the full Google Pixel 3 XL teardown by iFixIt, below.

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Tech

Google Chrome 70 Launched With New Features And Privacy Improvements

There is a new update available for Google Chrome. That is Google Chrome 70, and it is a version that is already available for the essential compatible operating systems, such as Windows, MacOS, and Linux, besides Android and iOS. The new version of Chrome presents critical improvements, including the new privacy options to manage extensions better.

That is a change that has a lot to do with the recent cyber attacks that have occurred in applications or extensions of third parties and have endangered the privacy of Google Chrome users. Now, Google is setting the goal to prevent such risky situations. With the new Google Chrome 70 version, we will have the opportunity to manage in a more detailed and individualized way the extensions that we install within the browser. Also, we can now granted or deny some of the extensions’ access to our data.

Another important, though controversial, feature in Google Chrome 70 is the automatic sign-in disabling. Users have repeatedly complained that when accessing Google’s services, such as Gmail, for example, they logged into the browser directly and synchronized the data. Users don’t think this is convenient, because no authorization is requested from the user.

Google Chrome 70 launches with new features and privacy improvements

Other relevant novelties come on board this new Google Chrome 70 version. One of the most important is the possibility of installing web applications for Windows users.

In that way, we will be able to use web applications as if they were native Chrome apps. These programs will appear as if they were directly accessed on the computers, so we can access them much more easily.

Google Chrome 70 also supports fingerprint verification for macOS, iOS, and Android. Owners of MacBook Pro devices, which have TouchID, will now be able to log on to computers using the fingerprint reader. The same goes for users of the mobile version of Google Chrome 70 for Android.

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