Headlines this week
- WhatsApp found itself in some hot water this week after a judge in India told the company to delete all user data from people who opted out of the app's privacy policy before September 25th. The company has refused so far, stating that this ruling does nothing to hinder their plans moving forward. This came in the wake of WhatsApp announcing that it would be start sharing user data, including phone numbers, with Facebook.
- In a little over a week, Google Allo has been downloaded over five million times. The controversial texting app has been on everyone's tongue and despite some warnings from the privacy community, people are still eager to try it out on their own. Of course, we don't know the active user count right now, but we're betting it's not over five million just yet. It was also the number one most downloaded app in the Play Store last weekend.
- The developers of HERE WeGo are starting a new platform to help add live traffic data to the app. What they're trying to do is make it so that HERE records things like car location and speed along with other sensor data to show traffic patterns. Think Waze, but without users having to input anything themselves. Cars with this feature can also transmit data like when the wiper blades are on, indicating rainy conditions. It's kind of cool, actually.
- Ubisoft purchased the moderately successful developer studio Ketchapp this last week. For those who don't know, Ketchapp is known for its hit game 2048 which was essentially a rip off of the game Threes. They're not known as the most original developer studio out there, but they have been highly successful. Pretty much anyone with a brain has probably guessed that Ubisoft and Ketchapp will be working to make even more mobile games over time.
- Google announced the winners of their first annual Indie Gaming Festival this last week. Among the winners were Orbit, a game about gravity, Numbo Jumbo, a puzzler, and Bit Bit Blocks which is another puzzler. There were also a handful of games that were selected as runner ups. They should all either be in the Play Store or released there in the near future. We talked about Orbit in our best new Android games that were released in September.
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