Monthly Archives: February 2015
Nintendo Struggles With Demand For Beta Creators Program
A week after rolling out the new beta Creators Program, Nintendo is struggling with the demand for the affiliate program.
"Due to your enthusiasm for the program, we’re receiving a higher volume of applications to register channels & videos than expected," says Nintendo in a statement. "It is taking longer than we anticipated to confirm the applications. We appreciate your patience as we work through them as quickly as possible."
To expedite matters, Nintendo has shared a selection of tips for would-be affiliates. Nintendo is "not able" to register channels and videos that are not in line with its Terms of Service, and can only register videos and channels that contain game titles "specified on the list of supported games".
Twitter CEO Admits ‘We Suck at Dealing With Abuse’
The CEO of Twitter has accepted personal responsibility for the platform's continuing poor performance when it comes to dealing with abuse.
The Verge obtained comments made by Dick Costolo on an internal forum for employees of the micro-blogging platform, where he acknowledges ongoing issues with trolls are causing a huge number of people to stop using it.
"We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years," he wrote in response to a colleague asking if anything could be done to improve the situation. "It's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.
Comic Book Reviews for February 4, 2015
Superman stole all the headlines this week with his fancy new super power and costume redesign. And to further cement that this is Superman's week, we also got the third volume of Superman: Earth One. He's already got all the best superhero powers -- isn't that enough?!
Marvel kicked off the first chapter of Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men: The Black Vortex, another precious issue of Hawkeye, and the second chapter of Star Wars.
On the inside scene, we got the debuts of Rat God, Imperium, Cluster, and Stray Bullets: Sunshine and Roses. But the biggest book on that front is, hands down, Spawn #250. Congrats to Todd McFarlane and company for reaching that milestone, a feat seen far too rarely these days.
Saved by the Bell Cast Reunites on Jimmy Fallon
Back when he was hosting Late Night, Jimmy Fallon tried to reunite the cast of Saved by the Bell. It never quite worked out, though Mark-Paul Gosselaar did show up as Zack Morris one night, but on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Wednesday night, Fallon's dream came true.
As part of a special week of The Tonight Show episodes filming in Los Angeles -- as opposed to Fallon's usual New York home -- Fallon did a sketch where he was a student at Bayside High and he was joined by Gosselaar as Zack, Mario Lopez as Slater, Elizabeth Berkley as Jesse, Dennis Haskins as Mr. Belding and Tiffani Thiessen as Kelly. Okay, it wasn't a full cast reunion, as Dustin Diamond and Lark Voorhies weren't present, but it was still a pretty notable gathering of the original SBTB crew (and considering Diamond's strained relations with his former castmates in recent years, his absence isn't a shock).
Furious 7 Unleashes a 2nd Trailer
"This time it ain't just about being fast." So it's about being … furious?
Universal Pictures has rolled out the second full trailer for Furious 7, the long-awaited next installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise. The new trailer (seen below) is an extended version of the Super Bowl spot aired last weekend:
Furious 7 zooms into theaters stateside April 3.
Android 5.1 Lollipop Appears on Android One Devices
Android 5.1 Lollipop will roll out to select devices by the end of February 2015, sources tell Android Pit, with it appearing out of the box this week on select Android One devices.
The first builds of the update are installed on Android One devices reportedly shipping out Indonesia this week. According to Android Pit, the official Android.com Indonesia page displayed the three devices - Evercoos One X, Mito Impact and Nexian Journey - with Android 5.1 Lollipop specified as the OS. At the time of writing, the devices descriptions now states “Android™ Lollipop (and gets the new version soon after it’s released).”
Riot Launches First League of Legends Oceanic eSports League
Riot Games is launching the first ever Oceanic Pro League for League of Legends tonight, a weekly league that involves eight teams competing over the course of a 7-week split for $64,000.
Each split offers the opportunity to win $32,000 and players will receive an additional $100 'match fee' for each game played. The top five finishers will keep their spots for the next split, while the bottom three will have to defend their OPL membership in the Challenger Series.
“We have some amazing talent in this region and they are only going to get better in a professional league,” said Daniel Ringland, eSports manager, Riot Games Oceania in prepared statement.
Details on Melbourne’s Square Sounds Festival
When it comes to different genres of music, there aren’t many out there as retro-minded as chiptune. You might be thinking to yourself, “What exactly is chiptune music?” Well, to quote a hypothetical listener with quintessential old person mentality, it’s “Nintendo music.” And apart from writing the genre off as a bunch of computer-sounding noises that couldn’t possibly hold a candle to the likes of a Chubby Checker, to a certain extent, they’re right. A good chunk of chiptune music available today is made using the sound capabilities of old gaming hardware like the Nintendo Game Boy, Commodore 64 and Atari 2600. And the end results range from melody-driven synth-drenched soundscapes to beat-driven bass workouts, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the chiptune scene is both vibrant and flourishing.
12 Xbox Predictions for 2015
DOWNLOAD PODCAST UNLOCKED EPISODE 181
Four editors. Three predictions each. That means we've got 12 Xbox predictions for 2015 that you can hold us to come Christmas-time. Plus, we can bet on them! Which of us is Nostradamus (probably none of us), and which of us is Nostra-dumb-us (probably all of us)? Plus: A few Sony games look like they're on their way to Xbox, Condemned 3 might happen, Grand Theft Auto V's sales numbers continue to astound us, Dying Light isn't being ignored (yay!), and more.
Oh, and if you're new to Podcast Unlocked or have missed any episodes, get caught up!
Ryan Reynolds on Why Deadpool Won’t be Another Green Lantern
Ryan Reynolds has assured us that his upcoming Deadpool project will take a very different path to the one trodden by his unspectacular 2011 flick, Green Lantern.
Speaking to Yahoo, Reynold's admitted that a major part of Green Lantern's problem was the lack of a screenplay from day one.
"When we shot Green Lantern, nobody auditioning for the role of Green Lantern was given the opportunity to read the script, because the script didn’t exist", said Reynolds. "I’m not complaining about it — it was an opportunity of a lifetime, and if I were to go back and retrace my steps, I would probably do everything the exact same way."