Author: Julie Campbell

First mobile game from Nintendo draws 1 million users in first 3 days

| March 25, 2016

This came as good news for the Japanese tech giant that had been holding onto its policy for only console games.

Nintendo recently announced that the first mobile game it ever launched managed to draw over one million users within the span of three days that followed its initial release.

The first mobile gaming experience offered by Nintendo was in the form of its “Miitomo” app.

The Miitomo mobile game is an interactive experience that makes it possible for users to be able to design their own Mii avatars. It released this app in order to be able to position itself to better compete with its rivals. Through the use of this mobile app, smartphone users are able to change the outfit worn by their avatar through in-app purchases. They can also use their avatars to interact with those that have been created by friends or other mobile application users.

Within the mobile game, the avatars also interact with the user him/herself and share the answer with friends.

Nintendo - Mobile GameFor example, the avatar may ask one of the players of the mobile games what they did over the weekend or “What is your favorite food?” When the player answers, it is shared with the other characters selected by that player.

The game app was originally launched in Japan on a Thursday and by the following Saturday it had already broken the one million user mark, according to a company spokesperson. At the time of the writing of this article, she had also said that there weren’t any updated figures to release. That said, following a national holiday on the weekend of the achievement of the first million users, the stock markets opened on the Tuesday to send Nintendo’s shares upward by a striking 8.18 percent.

The official Twitter account for the mobile game stated that Nintendo had been quite surprised with the number of players who were instantly attracted to the app. As Sony and Microsoft continued to outpace Nintendo’s sales in terms of consoles and related games, the three giants have now moved into the app sphere for mobile devices where they are competing with thousands of other developers with cheap and even entirely free games.

Will wearable technology turn us all into comic book-style super-humans?

| March 23, 2016

A recent study in the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education says big things are coming.

The outcome of a new study has now been published in the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education and has suggested that wearable technology will give people the ability to “do things they could not do before.”

From the sounds of it, we could be headed into quite the fascinating future in terms of our potential.

There have already been devices and mobile apps being demoed as prototypes that have shown that it won’t be long before wearable technology will be helping people to be able to see, hear and even speak better than was ever possible for them. This includes assisting people who have never been able to see, hear or speak in their lives, or who have had those abilities limited or removed by illness or injury.

That said, the potential for wearable technology is there for virtually everyone, said the study.

Wearable Technology - SuperheroesThe research said that providing solutions for various challenges will turn wearables into more than just a fad. Instead, there researchers believe that there will be super-powers on their way as a result of the use of these devices. The research pointed out that the responses of the participants frequently brought up abilities and powers that “normal humans” don’t have. Among the sixteen total professionals in wearable tech who were surveyed, twelve believed that the devices would one day provide users with abilities beyond those that come naturally to them.

Among those who are most likely to benefit from wearables, according to the survey respondents, are the “less-able bodied and the able bodied,” which essentially appears to imply that everyone will be able to find a use for these devices in one way or another.

Among those who are less-able bodied, there will be wearable technology such as improved hearing aids and other devices that will assist them to be able to do what they previously haven’t been able to, or enhance their abilities in areas in which they have been physically limited. On the other hand, in the case of the able-bodied, one of the respondents, Mary, explained that “people who have able bodies able to do things that they could not do.”