Pokémon go (Microsoft)

Microsoft rejected this guy for not showing 'passion' — so he built his own version of Pokémon Go from scratch

Behold: PoGo-UWP running in a window on Windows 10.Screenshot/Matt Weinberger

Pokémon Go is a smash hit on Android and iPhone, but there's no version at all for Microsoft's struggling Windows 10 Mobile, leaving some would-be players in the cold.

And given that Windows 10 Mobile's market share is well under 1% of all smartphones globally, there's not a lot of incentive for game developer Niantic to ever make one.

Fortunately for those few, proud Windows 10 Mobile phone owners, there is an option: "PoGo-UWP," a totally unsanctioned and unauthorized effort to bring the Pokémon Go phenomenon to Windows 10, spearheaded by a developer named Stefano Tenuta.

On the project's GitHub Wiki page, Tenuta gives three main reasons for starting the PoGo-UWP project: First, "because learning new things is always cool." Second, "because it could be done." But third, and best of all: "Because Microsoft rejected my job application saying that I wasn't showing enough 'passion', and this proves them wrong :)"

"Being rejected is always a good source for motivations, and proving that I'm better than what they thought is one of them," Tenuta tells Business Insider.

Tenuta tells Business Insider that his unofficial PoGo-UWP app has had 50,000 unique users opening the app a combined 1.5 million times in the month or so since it was first released. That's a fraction of the many millions of players on the official Pokémon Go app for iPhone and Android, but it's impressive for a niche passion project.

The "UWP" part of the name refers to "Universal Windows Platform," Microsoft's new standard for apps that can run on desktops, tablets, and mobile phones alike. That means that if you really wanted to, you could use PoGo-UWP to play Pokémon Go on your Windows 10 PC, too.

Essentially, PoGo-UWP is a donation-funded version of the familiar Pokémon Go app rebuilt from the ground up for Windows 10, one feature at a time. A version of the game that went live on Friday added the Pokédex and the ability to see the items you're carrying. It's not perfect, but it works.

It connects to the main Pokémon Go servers, so you can play with your friends on Android and iPhone. Just be advised before we go any further that Niantic has been cracking down on the use of unauthorized Pokémon Go tools, and using PoGo-UWP could get your account banned from the game as a cheater.

Here's a look at the first version of the game in action. It's apparently come a little ways since this video was uploaded:

Passion project

Tenuta says that he got the inspiration from a fan-made petition going around the internet begging Niantic to bringPokémon Go to Windows 10 Mobile. That petition had 80,000 signatures when Tenuta saw it, and it gave him the spark of an idea. Plus, as an independent app developer, he thought it might give him some visibility.

He spent a day doing technical tests to make sure it was possible, and off he went.

The first, extremely basic version of PoGo-UWP dropped at the end of July. On the project's GitHub page, Tenuta says that he was soon bombarded with feature requests, questions, and bug reports, so much so that he ended up spending "the following 3 days working for 24 hours straight to solve them and make people happy."

But just shy of two weeks ago, Tenuta writes, he got help in the form of a team of experienced volunteers willing to donate their time to helping him build the project. Which means that lots more features are coming, bringing it just a little bit closer to the original Pokémon Go app with each update.

Tenuta says that he doesn't expect PoGo-UWP to ever get up to par with the official Pokemon Go app's signature Augmented Reality mode or 3D models ... he just wants the game to work.The Pokemon Company

"I honestly didn't expect such help from people, but I'm really glad that they're here because I couldn't have done this without them," Tenuta says.

Don't hold your breath, though, for the game's signature augmented-reality camera mode, or for three-dimensional models of each monster. "I'm just a single dev, I'm not Niantic," Tenuta writes.

On that subject, though, he says he's not terribly worried about Niantic shutting his project down, even though it would be entirely within its rights to do so. Unlike most third-party Pokémon Go apps, PoGo-UWP isn't designed to give its users an unfair edge - it's just trying to let Windows 10 Mobile users in on the fun.

"This means that we're not harming anyone with this project, but we're giving more users the chance to play their game, and everyone of these users may be a potential customer for their in-app purchases, so this can be a win-win situation for both of us," Tenuta says.

How to use it

Okay, I'll be honest with you: I don't have a Windows 10 Mobile phone handy, so I tried installing it on a Surface Book.

Even knowing it's more for phones than laptops, the process of getting PoGo-UWP running was a huge pain, requiring messing with a lot of settings related to installing unofficial apps. Even once I got it running, it was glitchy and unreliable. But, hey, for a free, volunteer-driven project, it ain't bad.

If you want to give it a shot, first and foremost, you need to have or create an account for the game. Second, you need access to an iPhone or Android phone the first time you load up the game, just to select your first Pokémon, since you can't do that from PoGo-UWP. If you don't have one, web service Bluestacks can simulate the game in the web browser for you on PC well enough to get started.

Website Bluestacks can emulate the Android version of Pokemon Go in the web browser.Bluestacks

Then, you can grab PoGo-UWP itself, per Tenuta's landing page for the latest version. If you're using it on a phone, you really just need to copy over the file and open it. If you're using it on a PC, you need to install a "certificate" file first, which is where I ran into trouble, but enough random fiddling (not advised) made it work just fine.

And then, you're off to the world of Pokémon Go. Just know that if it doesn't work exactly right, there are a  lot of known issues that Tenuta and his team are working on, so have some Patience.

Pokémon GO Actually Lets You Earn Money

Pokémon GO Actually Lets You Earn Money: Here's How

By Fego Ogbegwa |Aug 25, 2016 1:50 PM 

Playing Pokemon GO can actually help players earn legit money.

Playing Pokemon GO is already an overwhelming feeling to experience. But of course, players can't deny the fact that it can sometimes interfere with their personal commitments like family and work, among others. Well, what if playing the hit augmented reality mobile game can be used as a source of income? Believe it or not, it's actually possible.

According to Otakukart , a Singapore-based company is said to be hiring Pokemon GO trainers in. The job post was originally advertised in Funzing.com, which is a well-known online marketplace. And yes, a player by the name of Ivy Lim was the first person to be hired as a Pokemon Master.

Lim, 22, was selected from thousands ofPokemon GO candidates who applied for the position. And take note: it's not a mediocre gig or whatsoever -- she is said to be earning a whopping $1000 per month. Her job? Well, it's pretty simple: catch Pokemon and train other players on a daily basis for three straight months.

At first, Lim didn't expect that such Pokemon GO job exists -- let alone the Pokemon Master position. As of this writing, she's a trainer at Level 23 and have so far caught 121 creatures. Nevertheless, she plans to double the figures as soon as her job officially starts. Part of her role is to teach tips, secrets and other stuff that will help players on their journey towards becoming the very best.

For Pokemon GO players who are interested to train under Lim's umbrella, they can simply get in touch with her via Funzing's site. In one way or another, this could bring the trend up once again. It should be noted that the whole craze has declined following a decreased in the player pool of over 10 million.

What are your thoughts on this Pokemon GO gig? Are you interested to apply for the position? Let us know what you think at the comment section below!

Google Duo

Google Duo arrives to take on FaceTime

A relentlessly focused mobile video chat app

• By Fego Ogbegwa
   
• on August 16, 2016 14:30 am
 

86

Google's Duo, a new video chat app that works exclusively on phones, is getting released today. I've been using it for about a week and I can tell you that it's fast, easy to use, and devoid of complicated bells and whistles. You tap on the face of the person you want to call, they answer, and you have a one-on-one video chat going. Nobody who uses this app can say that Google didn't achieve its goal of creating a video chat app that's relentlessly, explicitly designed solely for phones.

That effort is so single-minded I can't decide if it's timid or bold.

First, a bit about how Duo works. It's available on both Android phones and iPhones. When you sign up, the app checks your phone number from your SIM and then sends you a confirmation text. That's the whole setup process — there are no accounts to create nor friend lists to maintain. It's tied directly to your contacts list and your phone number.

That's great for simplicity, but bad if you want to use Duo on anything other than your phone. It's also unable to make conference calls, put Hangouts-style funny pirate hats on your head during a call, or offer just about any other fancy feature you might expect from a video conference app.

“WE THOUGHT 'AMAZING ON MOBILE, NOTHING ON DESKTOP' WAS THE BETTER APPROACH.”

Duo's radical simplicity is by design, says vice president of Google's communications division, Nick Fox. "By being laser-focused on mobile," he says, "it enables us to just make sure that we were doing a great, wonderful job on that case. ... For us, we thought 'amazing on mobile, nothing on desktop' was the better approach."

There is one feature in Duo that feels genuinely new: it's called "Knock Knock." When you receive a call on Android (it doesn't work on the iPhone), your entire screen starts showing the live video from your caller before you even answer. It lets you see who's calling — and lets the caller make funny faces to try to entice you to answer. Google's promo video for Duo emphasizes it heavily:

In my testing, Knock Knock worked very well — and it has the added benefit of making the call start immediately. The video call is already running the nanosecond you swipe up to answer it. "Instead of the call starting with frustration and confusion,” Fox says, "you start with a smile because you know it already works." I don't know about the smile, but I do know that Duo calls started without all the "Hello, are you there?" that I typically experience with most other video and audio calls.

For those worried about people hijacking their screen with a video feed while they're at dinner or a meeting, a few notes to ease your mind. First, Knock Knock only works with people you already have saved in your contacts — so random people won't show up. Second, you can block a caller if you like — but take note that since Duo doesn't have its own independent friends list, blocking a caller on Duo blocks them everywhere. Last, you can turn the feature off entirely if you don't like it.

Google also has done a lot of work on the back end to make things feel immediate. It's based on WebRTC, with some added technical underpinnings to make the call automatically ratchet the quality up or down depending on your connection quality. It's even able to maintain the call when you switch from Wi-Fi to cellular. After a very brief hiccup, the call just keeps on going.

I mostly tested Duo on a Nexus 5X (running the latest Android Nougat Beta), where call quality was mostly good — better on Wi-Fi, but never so bad that it dropped completely. On the iPhone 6S, call quality was equally good. However, because Google doesn’t have the same ability to integrate on iOS as it does on Android, there are a few hassles: no Knock Knock, and you have to unlock the phone before you answer the call.

Duo is the second of the two apps Google announced at its developer conference this past May. The other is the AI-enhanced text messaging appAllo, for which Google hasn't yet announced a release date. That's odd enough, but perhaps not as confusing as Google's overall strategy with communication apps: instead of fixing its unified solution, Hangouts, Google has opted to release two different (but slightly related) messaging apps: one for video and one for text.

Neither app is designed to replaceGoogle's other video and messaging app, Hangouts. Instead, Hangouts will continue to exist with a more tightly focused mission: serving enterprise users, where Fox says we can expect "it will increasingly be more integrated with Google Apps suite." It will still be available for consumers, of course, but those users won't be the focus of future product development.

HANGOUTS WILL CONTINUE, BUT WITH AN ENTERPRISE FOCUS

And Fox is also not especially concerned that Google is offering a multiplicity of communication apps. He sees Google's products as split broadly into three bands: Allo and Duo for consumers; Hangouts for the enterprise; and services that are more carrier focused — like SMS, RCS, and even the Phone app. Fox believes that consumers simply aren't confused by a multiplicity of messaging apps — whether they're made by Google or not — "People use the apps that their friends are using," he says. And he's excited to see Duo (and, later, Allo) compete with all of them head-to-head.

How Duo will actually compete was (and is) one of my biggest questions. Why use Duo when Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, FaceTime, Hangouts, and any number of other options exist? Is Google going to leverage the massive power of the Android install base somehow? Will Duo be part of the standard suite of Google Play apps preinstalled on the vast majority of Android phones (outside of China)? "We haven't made decisions on that yet," says Fox. "We want to get it out there, see how it does, and then I see distribution as the next step rather than the first step."

When I said up top that I couldn't decide whether Google's strategy with Duo was bold or timid, this is what I was referring to. It's not going to be the automatic default for all Android phones, replacing phone calls in the way that iMessage replaces SMS. Google isn't ready to go there just yet, which feels timid.

DUO HAS TO COMPETE ON ITS OWN MERITS

But it's also bold. In this incredibly crowded marketplace, Google is forcing Duo to compete on its own merits. You can invite somebody to use it by sending them a text from inside the app, but otherwise the plan seems to just be to see how it is received in the marketplace. I asked some variant of "how are you going to get users for this thing" no fewer than four times in my hour with Fox, and every time the answer boiled down to this: "We're focused on building great apps that people love and distribution will follow that."

I have no idea if that plan will work: sometimes boldness is just naiveté. But I can't help but respect the clarity of purpose behind the creation of Duo. It's aggressively, obsessively focused on making the best possible mobile experience for video chat, at the expense of all else. He said no to desktop, no to conference calling, no even to allowing the same account to work on multiple devices. For the Duo team, getting "mobile first" right meant demanding it be "mobile only."

Duo does one-on-one video chat very well, which is what Google set out to make it do. The question now is whether or not that's enough.