Technology

Due to the popularity of the PlayStation and Xbox brand, it’s not surprising that when the PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles were released there was a rush to buy them. As it would be understandably impossible for Sony and Microsoft to meet this onslaught of demand, naturally this would result in temporary shortages.

These shortages have since been taken advantage of by scalpers who are buying the consoles and reselling them at pretty much a 100% markup (if not more). Now according to data engineer Michael Driscoll from dev.to, he was curious to see how much these scalpers have made and he put together a program that scrapes information from platforms like eBay to get an idea.

Screen sharing is a pretty useful tool and we’ve seen many desktop video calling applications offer the feature. In case you’re unfamiliar with the feature, basically during a video call or livestream, you can share what’s on your screen so that people in the chat know what you’re looking at.

This is useful for doing things like presentations or even creating watch parties, and the good news for Discord users is that it looks like the iOS and Android version of the app now supports screen sharing. The feature has actually been available on the desktop version of Discord for the past few years now, but it is finally available on mobile.

That being said, it seems that over in Canada, the Switch continues to remain a success story for Nintendo where according to the company, the Switch remains the top-selling console in the country for 25 consecutive months. This means that for a little more than two years, the Switch has dominated the console sales in Canada.

According to Dominic Gross, General Manager, Nintendo of Canada, “We are pleased that fans of all ages throughout Canada are playing Nintendo Switch and enjoying the versatility of the system. Whether it is playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe together or connecting online with friends and family to share island creations in the Animal Crossing: New Horizons game, Nintendo Switch offers something for everyone and we hope it creates many happy memories this holiday season and beyond”.

If you have been following social media, you might have noticed that one of the more popular games these days is indie hit Among Us. The game has been played by everyone, including some politicians who have used it to try and reach out to more people. The good news is that if you were looking for more ways of playing the game, you’ll be pleased to learn that it is launching on the Nintendo Switch.

For those who are unfamiliar, Among Us is a video game similar in concept to the Mafia game, where one or more players during a game will try to kill as many other players without getting caught. The goal for the other players is to try and figure out who the killer(s) might be and vote them off.

Sony has commenced the Android 11 rollout for its flagship Xperia 1 II device. It has only launched on the Taiwanese variant so far (XQ-AT52), but it signals a wider regional release is likely imminent. The OTA update is 933.9MB in size and moves the build number from 58.0.A.3.224 to version 58.1.A.0.921, keeping the November 2020 Android security patch from the earlier firmware.

While CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the more highly anticipated games of 2020, it seems that for some gamers, especially those on the PS4 and the PS5, the launch was less than ideal. So much so that gamers are now reporting that Sony is apparently issuing refunds for gamers who request for it.

For those who need a little bit more context, the launch of Cyberpunk 2077 on the PS4 and PS5 consoles have been less than stellar. Sure, it’s a new game, but even so, it seems that due to bugs or poor optimization, PS4 gamers are reporting that the game plays at a low 720p resolution, with framerates dropping to 15 fps.

Given how many smartphones are sold every year, it’s actually quite a lucrative business, so it’s not hard to see why even Canon wants in on the action. The company has recently confirmed that they too will start selling their CMOS sensors to third-party companies who might need to use their technology.

According to Canon, “Canon has been manufacturing CMOS sensors since 2000 for exclusive use in Canon products. Building on that expertise and success, Canon is now committed to starting external sales to collaborate with various industries. Canon CMOS sensors feature unique designs to meet the needs of demanding vision applications.”

Right now, people or groups who are buying up PS5 consoles and reselling them at a marked up price are a huge problem. From what we’ve noticed, a lot of these scalpers are trying to sell the consoles at almost double the retail price that online retailers are selling the console at, and are netting a pretty decent profit out of it.

That being said, a report from Kotaku has revealed that over in South Korea, one retailer by the name Gamewoori is trying to fight against these scalpers by taking a no-mercy approach and outright cancelling orders if they are found to be bought for the intention of resale. According to the retailer’s Instagram, they claim that if they find any evidence that one of their customers is trying to resell their pre-order at marked up prices, they will cancel their orders, even if payment has already been made (presumably they will refund these orders).

Spotify is a music streaming app and we’re sure that many of you know this, but what if you had local music files stored on your phone before you started using Spotify? One of the options was uploading your music to Spotify, but this needed to be done through your computer. An alternative is to find and use a different music player for locally stored files.

The good news is that you may soon no longer have to. According to researcher Jane Manchun Wong, she discovered that Spotify could soon add support for playback of local files. This means that essentially the Spotify app will become an all-in-one app for playback of files stored on your phone, stream music, podcasts, and more.

If you thought that maybe keeping your photos and videos on Facebook might be a good way to preserve them and act as a backup, you might want to rethink that. This is because according to multiple user reports, it seems that Facebook has started to delete pictures and videos uploaded to its platform via the PS4.

For those unfamiliar, in the past Facebook and the PS4 were integrated with each other, meaning that gamers on the PS4 could directly uploaded screenshots and videos taken on their console directly to the social media platform and share it with their friends and followers. However, about a year ago, Sony announced that they would be removing the integration.

One of the problems that professional photographers face when shooting in the field, like during a live event such as a wedding, is that there is always a chance that their cameras or memory cards can fail and all the photos that they’ve taken are lost. This is usually why wedding photographers work in teams and carry multiple cameras.

Sony is hoping to make their lives easier by launching a new app and storage service called Visual Story. This app allows users to pair their Sony cameras with a mobile device like an iPhone or iPad, and whenever photos are taken they are immediately transferred to the app and to Sony’s cloud service.

The concept of scalping is buying high demand items and then flipping them for a huge markup. This is based on the extremely high demand for certain items that are either difficult to get or are limited in nature. This is the case for the Sony PS5 in which Sony is struggling to try and meet the demand of the market right now, creating a space for scalpers.

In fact according to a report from Business Insider, they found a PS5 scalper calling himself Mark F who apparently managed to nab himself 221 PS5 consoles. Mark F also sold these scalped units for a whopping $1,000 each, and in the first week of his sales alone, he managed to nab a cool $40,000.

Sony has confirmed that its Android 11 firmware rollout will start from December 2020. The first phone to get the update will be the Xperia 1 II, this year's current flagship. Sony has also confirmed that the Xperia 1 II will be updated at the same time to support slow motion video recordings in 4K HDR at 120 fps (frames per second).

Sony updated the Xperia 5 II (Mark 2) recently to add November 2020 Android security patches moving the build version to 58.0.A.28.25. We saw this build hit some of the Asian SKU's a while back, and is now hitting some of the European models.