ShinyShiny snippets: GTA publisher strikes £9.6bn deal with FarmVille

FarmVille
The video games publisher behind Grand Theft Auto has struck a $13bn (£9.6bn) deal for FarmVille owner Zynga in a huge bet on the future of mobile gaming.  Take-Two has paved the way for smartphone spin-offs of its biggest console hits by creating one of the industry’s largest mobile game publishers with sales of just over $6bn. The move marries titles from Take-Two’s most popular console and PC series, including GTA, Red Dead Redemption and Civilisation, with Zynga’s mobile games spanning Empires & Puzzles, Golf Rival and Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells. The cash-and-shares deal is a 64pc premium of Zynga’s closing price on Friday. Telegraph 

Tesla’s automated driver-assist feature has added an assertive driving mode. The setting will follow other cars more closely, change lanes more frequently, not leave the overtaking lane, and perform rolling stops. Such driver behaviour by humans is often discouraged by safety groups. However, it could sometimes be safer for an automated system to be more assertive, like a human driver, rather than being overly cautious, one motor safety expert said. The three driving profiles – chill, average, and assertive – were first added in Tesla’s October update. That update, however, was quickly pulled because of other issues, but the driving profiles feature has now been restored. BBC 

After teasing its first foldable smartphone in December, Honor has unveiled the Magic V. Honor is joining the likes of Huawei, which is its former parent company, and Xiaomi by stepping into the foldable marketplace. Like Samsung’s Z Fold devices, this is a dual-screen smartphone. It has a 6.45-inch, 431 PPI external display with a resolution of 2560 x 1080, 120Hz refresh rate and 21:9 aspect ratio. Open it up, and users can access a 7.9-inch, 381 PPI display, which has a 2272 x 1984 resolution, 90Hz refresh rate and 10:9 aspect ratio. Both OLED screens are a little larger than the Galaxy Z Fold 3’s respective displays and support a 100% DCI-P3 color gamut. Engadget

Apple is not planning to get involved in the “metaverse”, despite its widely reported plans to launch augmented and virtual reality headsets, according to a new report. The metaverse has become a key point of focus for many technology companies looking to promote their future plans in recent months. Facebook renamed itself to Meta to try and associate itself with the idea, as well as revealing its plans to move social interaction into virtual reality worlds, and has been joined by many others. But Apple is unlikely to mention the word at all when it introduces its rumoured virtual reality headset, according to reliable Apple journalist Mark German. Independent

Apple’s iMessage introduced free messages between iPhone users a decade ago has been discriminating against Google users, and that has been affecting mental health of Android users, a recent report from The Wall Street Journal revealed. Hiroshi Lockheimer, Senior VP at Google then took it to Twitter to address Apple. He stated that using peer pressure and bullying as a way to sell products is “disingenuous for a company that has humanity and equity as a core part of its marketing”. Android’s own account chimed in, saying texting should bring us closer together and there is a solution.

Google claims Apple is benefiting from green bubble bullying on iMessage

Users of iMessage on iPhone have other iMessage users’ chat bubbles in blue, while messages from Android users appear green, and it has been like that since they were able to use their native messaging app on the Google OS back in 2016. According to WSJ, teens and college students “dread the ostracism that comes with a green text”. GSM Arena

Chris Price