Google has decided to improve the life of travelers by issuing a series of updates on its Flights and Trips services, and on the hotel search features. These updates are meant to help people find the best deals out there, by showing them, for instance, when certain tickets or hotel rooms reach a lower price. More precisely, these services will now benefit from price tracking features.

Google’s price tracking will show you the cheapest tickets and trips

Price tracking is not an unusual feature for travel services. Platforms like Hopper or Kayak already had such options for their users, and Google decided to get closer to the competition by including them as well. This way, you will be able to access such information just after a quick search on Google, without having to use a special traveling service.

Google Flights will now benefit from AI technology, and use its algorithms for historical price tracking. This means it will look at the evolution of prices for a particular destination, and calculate the perfect moment for you to buy the ticket. Also, it will notify you when the tickets are unlikely to get any cheaper, or when they are less expensive than usual.

Google poses some great competition for other traveling platforms

The price tracking is not available only for flights, but also for hotel searches. Once you enter a hotel name in the search bar, Google will show the current price rates. Also, if there’s an event going on in the area, you will find out. This means either that the prices are higher or that the hotel is more crowded. This kind of information is perfect if you’re planning a vacation and want to catch the best rooms.

Google has one more update, which will show users special discounts for plane tickets or trips. This update is available in Google Trips, the custom planner. All the special offers and price tracking will appear once you visit a city within the Google Maps app, and will roll out on both Android and iOS.
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You must have heard of the game series Payday, and of the many developers involved. Now, all these game studios decided to form some sort of alliance, and they all gathered under the name of 10 Chambers Collective. To honor this collaboration, they decided to produce a new game, which is currently undergoing development. The game has a suggestive and amusing name, GTFO.

The name GTFO is quite suggestive for the game

The developers have described the upcoming game as a “4-player hardcore co-op action horror FPS”. This means it will truly be a terrifying experience to play it, and the name is quite suggestive. The developers wanted to make the players so afraid that they would want to GTFO of the places they would encounter.

By watching the trailer, players will be able to get ready for the horror elements in the game, as well as for the gun play. As mentioned before, the game will feature four players who would form a team. Then, they will have to explore dark and mysterious underground chambers, where swarms of monsters and horrific creatures come out to attack them.

The horror FPS is not suitable for anyone

The players need to work together if they want to survive. Apart from the classical FPS elements which involve shooting, some other tools are also available. These are all kinds of gadgets which should help the players defeat the monsters. GTFO will offer dozens of unique missions and weapon options, and will constantly keep you in suspense.

The game takes you by surprise, so there is no moment when you can relax. If you want to survive, you have to remain engaged throughout the entire gameplay, and keep up with anything that might arise. It was a tough experience even for the developers, so GTFO is not for the faint-hearted. If you are feeling prepared to play the game, get ready for its release in 2018. However, more details are going to be released as the time comes.

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Today, Activision releases the first community event for Call of Duty: WWII. The event, called Winter Siege, will be available across the most popular platforms, namely PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Just in time for the holiday season, players will get to enjoy loads of exclusive features, as well as new content.

Winter Siege is a special season-themed event

Winter Siege constitutes a reimagining of the popular multiplayer map Carentan. The map is one of the favorites of the fans, and will be available in a special winter theme, with snow and cold weather. Such a version was available even before, but only for the owners of Season Pass.

During the second week of Winter Siege, the Gun Game will be back, but only for a limited period. Special game sessions offering double XP will run non-stop, while the classic mode will leave players in a heated competition to make first kills with each of the weapons.

The event comes with rare weapons and wintery redesigns

To fit the winter atmosphere, the headquarters will receive a redesign. The entire establishment will look wintery, and everything will be covered in snow. Moreover, a Quartermaster will come to visit and offer players special uniforms, weapons, and other items.

Major Howard will deliver some Special Orders every day, which will allow players to get each variant of a new weapon for free. If you’re looking for other rare weapons, they will also be available in the special Supply Drops. To get these, you only have to be part of the Winter Siege event. One such supply drop will be available once you log in, and others will be available for purchase in exchange for Call of Duty Points.

Together with the Winter Siege event, Activision will also provide a series of bug fixes for Call of Duty: WWII. If you are willing to join one, such events are open to everyone until January 2^nd, 2018.

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It turns out Google Maps has started considering more means of transportation when recommending you routes. A Redditor has spotted a new icon in the app present in the top bar of the app, which will offer you a new option of navigation. Just like the other modes, it becomes available once you introduce a location and choose to navigate to it. We are talking about Motorcycle Mode.

Motorcycle Mode is a useful Google Maps feature

A route to a location can differ, depending on the vehicle you choose to get there. Therefore, Google Maps offers you more navigation modes, so that you should know what route suits you best. You can either get into the car and drive to the location, choose public transportation, or walk to your destination.

However, there are other transportation options as well, so Google Maps decided to include them, too. Now, you can spot a new icon in the top bar, right between the Driving Mode and the Transit Mode, the Motorcycle Mode. At the moment, this feature is undergoing testing in India.

Motorcycles are quicker than cars, as they can take shortcuts on narrow roads

This makes perfect sense, since many Indian roads are too narrow for cars to fit in. The truth is that motorcycles can be a quick means of transportations, and it’s important for people to find the shortcuts. Therefore, the Motorcycle Mode might soon be released outside India as well, but it’s still not clear when or if this happens.

The Motorcycle Mode works just like the other modes. It will offer the user the time they should spend on the road and the routes available for the vehicle. Plenty of users might embrace it, as riding motorcycles is often faster than driving. The Motorcycle Mode should be available everywhere around India, but it’s currently only a test. An individual feature might be adopted or not, depending on the user response.
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For the next two weeks, get ready to go hunting in Pokemon Go, as there’s a new legendary Pokemon available for you to catch. The Pokemon in question is Ho-oh, the bird we all know from Pokemon Gold. Since it has a special status, Ho-oh will be available to catch only if you work together with other players during a legendary raid.

A new legendary Pokemon in Pokemon Go

Ho-oh makes its appearance in Pokemon Go for the first time. However, unlike other legendary Pokemon, it will be available in the game for a shorter period of time. Usually, they can be accessed for about a month. However, Ho-oh will be down for hunting between November 28^th and December 12^th. Therefore, gather your group of friends and hurry up.

Legendary Pokemon are rare and unique and, in the original games, only Master Trainers could catch them. Also, once you faced it in battle, you only got one chance at catching it. Therefore, Pokemon Go had to maintain this special status of these creatures.

Legendary Pokemon have a different status in Pokemon Go

However, unlike in the original games, legendary Pokemon are not one of a kind. Their status is given by the fact that you need teamwork to catch one. This means you have to settle a legendary raid, which requires a gathering of at least 20 players.

Once they stumble upon the legendary Pokemon, players have to use all the creatures they had caught so far and try to weaken the special one. If their Pokemon is successful, they can get their very own legendary. Therefore, the creatures are not unique, so there shouldn’t be any competition between the players.

Until December 12^th, players can start roaming the streets in large groups, and hope they might be given a chance to catch and own their very own legendary Ho-oh.
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If you have a hard time sleeping because of annoying noises nearby, Bose found a solution. The company decided to release a pair of headphones with a twist. Instead of releasing noises, you can use the in-ear devices to block noises, so that you can deal with snoring, traffic sounds, or barking that might keep you up at night.

The Sleepbuds block the noise coming from outside

Just like their name suggests, the Sleepbuds help you sleep better. They are wireless, and can be introduced directly into your ears. Afterwards, they help you fall asleep by playing calm sounds. Also, the purpose of the sounds is to block all the noise coming from outside, which might disturb you.

Unfortunately, you cannot make a custom set of sounds to play while you’re trying to fall asleep. However, the Sleepbuds come with a smartphone app, and it offers you a variety of sounds and tunes you can choose from. They are all meant to have a soothing effect and not keep your mind occupied, while still covering the outside sounds.

The headphones can even play your morning alarm

Since all these noises will be blocked, then you might be afraid you won’t hear your morning alarm. Fortunately, Bose found a solution. The app allows you to set an alarm as well, which will play directly in the Sleepbuds. This is perfect if you share the room with someone else you don’t want to wake up.

The idea of an alarm being played directly into your ears might sound disturbing and also damaging for the hearing. However, since the Sleepbuds play everything soothingly, the volume of the alarm will probably be kept at a low level as well.

However, the Sleepbuds are only a prototype at the moment. Bose started a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, and set a goal of $50,000. All those who donated money were promised a pair of earphones. The company managed to raise $440,000, and all the available pairs are sold out, but they might get on the market sooner that we would expect.
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Nowadays, many people own a smart speaker, as they are easy to use and quick to assist people on all kinds of tasks. However, many others are reserved about such devices, and would rather not use them, for fear they might be eavesdropping on their everyday conversations. It turns out they should worry about those powered by Amazon Alexa.

Rohit Prasad, the head researcher on the Alexa mechanism and vice president of Amazon, explained these devices won’t listen to the users’ conversations. When the first smart assistants were designed, their creators were aware they might pose some privacy issues. Therefore, they built accordingly, so that they won’t be able to do it.

The Alexa smart speakers are unable to listen to what the users say if they are not willing to be heard. In other words, the devices are not advanced enough from a technical point of view to listen to everything that is going on around it. They can remember what the users said for only a few seconds after they heard the words.

The mechanism behind Alexa is not so elaborated

Also, they have specific wake words which activate them. Then, they listen to the commands, and perform the actions, but it can pick them up once every few seconds. This means that it doesn’t store anything and, once you issued a command and it gets performed, it’s gone forever.

The Alexa mechanism allows it to understand only four wake words, and each of them is controlled by a strict algorithm. This means that, at that moment, the speaker is programmed to understand only one word and nothing more.

Then, it starts recording, and this is signaled by the ring at the top of the device which gets illuminated. The command is sent to the Amazon servers, and only then different AI machines take over and perform the action. The speaker itself has limited capabilities, and it’s not advanced enough to listen to conversations.
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If they wanted add ons, Gmail users had to go to each individual plugin they wanted, and install it individually. However, Google understood this was quite counterproductive, so it decided to integrate these add ons in the email app and make them work across all platforms.

Add ons are now integrated on Gmail

Add ons for Gmail used to be third-party plugins, meaning that users had to search for them and install them separately. Also, they had to do it across all platforms they used to connect to their account. This could take a lot of time, and wasn’t exactly user-friendly, so Google decided it was time to change it. Therefore, in March, it announced how it would internalize add ons on Gmail.

This means that, now, you can find all these plugins within the email app. If you select the settings menu in the top right corner of the app, you can scroll down until you find the Get Add Ons field. At the moment, you can choose from ten plugins, which let you integrate the email app into different platforms, such as Quickbooks, Asana, Smartsheet, or Trello.

The plugins are more business-oriented at the moment

What is even better is the fact that, once you install these integrated plugins, they’re there to stay. This means that Gmail doesn’t forget them, and will appear on all platforms where you sign in. In fact, they are only available on browsers and on Android devices at the moment, but they will soon get to the other platforms as well.

The first integrated add ons are heavily oriented towards business. However, Google wants to add more of them, and include some which are suitable for a work environment. Also, the company encourages developers to create plugins of their own, as writing the code of the add on once in the app will keep it running every time.
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Star Wars fans worldwide are delighted about a future game based on the franchise, with the support of the almighty Electronic Arts. The game will feature a third person perspective on action and adventure, and will be developed by the studio who also created Dead Space, Visceral Games. However, while the Star Wars game will definitely see the light of day, the game studio’s future is quite dark.

The Star Wars game remains, but Visceral Games is out

EA definitely wants to keep the Star Wars game going but, after listening to player feedback and analyzing the market, it seems that Visceral Games’ perspective is not the most suitable to make the game a successful title. The studio’s aim was to make the gameplay quite linear, but EA wanted to make sure this was the right choice.

Therefore, they tested this concept on several players, who then had to express their opinions and rate their experience. Then, they looked at what the market offers, and how other similar games look like. In the end, the conclusion was that the design needed a reboot. EA is more eager to shift the linear progress of the game into something easily influenced by the player’s choice.

The game will be shaped more after the player

The remaining work of the Star Wars game’s development will be taken over by EA’s studios from Vancouver. However, many of the Visceral Games employees who worked on the title will definitely go on developing it, but within EA leadership.

The game, titles Star Wars Battlefront II, was supposed to come out sometime in 2019. However, given these unexpected changes, the game has been diverted towards “a new timeframe”. Therefore, it might experience a delay. Motive Studios was one of the developers which supervised the project and, once Visceral is gone, Motive might get more active in the development process.
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A recent report has just revealed a dangerous security breach in T-Mobile’s servers, which allowed hackers to get hold of one’s data incredibly easy. Everything hackers had to do was know a user’s phone number, and then they could access their account, steal their email address, and make use of the network code of their phone.

The T-Mobile vulnerability was solved 24 hours after detection

Karan Saini, from the startup security firm Secure7, was the one that discovered this dangerous vulnerability. He explained how, after getting access to all phone numbers of T-Mobile users, hackers could have created a database with all their personal information. This constitutes a huge security hole, which could seriously violate the privacy of any T-Mobile user.

The mobile company was immediately notified of the issue, and they solved it in less than 24 hours after they were first informed. Also, they conducted some investigations and discovered that no user fell victim to the security breach. Meanwhile, T-Mobile decided to reward Saini for spotting the dangerous bug and offered him $1,000 from their special bug-fighting program.

Hackers got hold of replacement SIMs and then controlled user’s accounts

However, others have different opinions. A hacker who insisted on remaining anonymous claims there were certain people who took advantage of the vulnerability. These people were several kids, who managed to trick the T-Mobile engineers they were the owners of some phone numbers they actually didn’t own. This way, they asked to have their SIM cards replaced.

By getting hold of someone’s SIM, it’s easy to control his other personal information. For instance, the hacker can easily access the user’s email or social media accounts, as he can control them through the system of SMS authentication. Some people actually admitted being victims of such attacks.

Although tech support employees need to ask some security questions before sending someone a replacement SIM card, they sometimes get tricked into doing it without these measures. Also, there circulated some videos on the internet where people were taught how to perform this hack, so there might have been some victims of the malicious technique after all.

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