Category: Featured News

Zynga aims to recover from trouble through re-structuring

Once mammoth mobile and web game developer Zynga has hit a very rough patch recently. The company, which is behind some of the most popular online games in the world, such as Farmville, saw its stocks crash in recent months, falling 85% from its all-time high. Zynga has been a formidable name in the mobile gaming space for years, but has been confronted with problems that may be forcing the company to re-structure and re-consider its focus on social gaming.

Developer cuts 150 jobs as part of overhaul

Over the past several months, Zynga has seen lackluster performance with many of its games. This month, the company cut 150 jobs in an effort to save itself from financial ruin and to prepare itself for a major overhaul. The overhaul is being loosely dubbed as Zynga 2.0, but it is unlikely that the game development company will stray far from its mobile gaming roots or risk breaking new ground by developing games that may not find success. Ironically, this is part of the problem that lead Zynga to its current crisis.

Developer targeted by EA in copyright lawsuit

Zynga has long been criticized in the game industry, as well as others, for its focus on quick-to-market mobile and social games that are almost identical to well-established, successful games that come from major developers like Electronic Arts. The similarities between these games are so striking that Zynga has found itself in the midst of a copyright lawsuit from Electronic Arts, which claims that the company blatantly stole and used concepts from one of its popular games. While Zynga may have etched out some early success with its approach to gaming, this success garnered the company with a great deal of attention that it may have wanted to avoid.

Overhaul may bring Zynga back to the top

Despite the myriad problems that Zynga is facing, the company’s popular games still boast of a massive following. Farmville 2, for instance, claims some 45 million monthly active unique users. Zynga has seen less success in its mobile gaming ventures and the launch of other titles, but the company may be able to pull itself back from serious crisis if it can adopt a more quality-centric development formula.

Korean vehicle manufacturer, Hyundai, will soon replace car keys with smartphones.

Hyundai has just made a new high tech announcement in which it revealed its latest NFC technology smartphone system that will use a driver’s mobile phone to replace traditional car keys.

The auto manufacturer predicts that this option will become available on some 2015 models.

This means that within two years’ time, drivers may be able to use NFC technology enabled smartphones to lock and unlock their cars, as well as to turn them on. This cutting edge technology uses the latest in smartphone features in a brand new way for added convenience and comfort.

Unlocking the vehicle will be as simple as waving the NFC technology enabled smartphone over the window.

The window of the vehicles will be equipped with an electronic tag that reads NFC technology communications. This way, a simple wave of the device is all that is needed to lock or unlock the doors. Hyundai is calling this its Connectivity Concept.

A statement from the chief operating officer at Hyundai Motor Europe, Allan Rushforth, said that the Connectivity Concept highlights the auto manufacturer’s philosophy for using the latest technologies that are accessible to a broad spectrum of customers. Rushforth explained that “With this technology, Hyundai is able to harness the all-in-one functionality of existing smartphone technology and integrating it into everyday driving in a seamless fashion.”

The NFC technology features were demonstrated by the company in Germany, where it gave a preview using the concept version of its small popular car, the i30. Models using these features should become available as early as 2015. Also in those vehicles will be an expanded use of the smartphone chips, which will allow the devices to rest into a central console featuring a 7 inch display.

That way the NFC technology will be able to provide the information system of the vehicle with a number of in-car preferences, such as synched music, radio station choices, navigation route data from the contact list, and seat and mirror settings, all while charging the device. Each driver profile will be saved separately.