Category: Apps

Baidu aims to take advantage of foreign talent in order to excel in the mobile gaming market

Mobile gaming is becoming more popular in China and companies that have helped the growth of these games, such as Baidu, are beginning to seek expansion beyond the country’s borders. Baidu is China’s largest search engine company and has played a pivotal role in the expansion of the mobile games sector. The company operates a mobile gaming platform that accounts for some 100 million application downloads each day. Baidu recently visited Canada in order to spark relationships with talented game developers.

Company meets with developers from Vancouver and Toronto

Representatives of Baidu Mobile Games met with more than 20 game developers in Vancouver and developers from Toronto. Both Vancouver and Toronto are considered “hot spots” when it comes to animation talent and mobile game development and, as such, Baidu has been making an effort to connect with this talent in the hopes of making new mobile games more available in China. Competition in China’s mobile gaming space is beginning to grow at a rapid pace and more companies are looking for foreign talent to give them the edge in the booming market.

China is an attractive market for ambitious game developers

China is a very attractive market for the game industry as a whole. An estimated 300 million people play mobile games every day. These people are willing to pay for the games they play, if these games are able to hold their attention and are not too big in terms of data. Many foreign development studios have been trying to break into the Chinese market, but doing so has been quite difficult. Having the backing of a company like Baidu can make this process much simpler and give developers access to a huge demographic that is hungry for mobile gaming.

Baidu has yet to announce partnerships with Canadian developers

Things move quite quickly in the mobile gaming world, so the developers that Baidu has met with may already be creating games for the Chinese company. These games may be released in a matter of months, but Baidu has not yet made any official announcement concerning any partnership it has made with Canadian game developers.

New app for Google Glass enables users to control the device with their mind.

A new wearable tech application, a program known as MindRDR, that has been designed to work with Google Glass, but has not yet received approval from Google, allows users to control the optical head mounted display with nothing more than their thoughts.

The program works with Glass and another head mounted sensor.

MindRDR, which comes from London-based developer, This Place Ltd., works in combination with Google’s wearable technology and another sensor that is mounted on the user’s head to analyze the person’s brainwaves. The sensor also measures the focus level of the user. When the user’s level of focus surpasses a specific threshold, MindRDR tells Google Glass to take a picture. If the user continues to concentrate, the app will inform Glass to post the picture on social media.

The app is open source and it is free, which means that anyone is welcome to experiment with it to make new developments. This Place believes that MindRDR could one day be utilized to enable people with locked-in-syndrome, quadriplegia or sever multiple sclerosis to communicate via Google Glass. The company has even said that Stephen Hawking has shown interest in MindRDR.

The app has not been approved by Google but the company is interested in learning about new technology for its wearable tech.

In an email to TIME, a spokesperson for Google comment that the “application seems to work through a separate piece of kit which you attach to Glass. We have not reviewed, nor approved the app so it won’t be available in the Glass app store. Of course, we are always interested in hearing about new applications of Glass.”

The wearable device does not really need hands to be operation because it responds to voice commands. Many believe that Glass has a lot of potential for being particularly beneficial to individuals who are paralyzed, helping them to gain some independence in their life. There have even been talks of Glass having advanced eye tracking capabilities.

Thus, although it is unknown what exactly is in store for Google Glass, it is clear that serious technological advancements are being considered for this wearable tech