Amazon Prime Day happened in the US this week, which made it an absolute nightmare to weed out endless “news” posts from tech websites about timed deals. As a reminder, Amazon Prime Day is officially delayed in Canada due to the pandemic, and we should see Prime Day in this country later this year.
Here are a few stories I’ve found interesting over the last couple days that aren’t related to Prime Day in the US.
Facebook’s Plan to Begin Testing Advertising on Oculus Headsets Isn’t Starting Well
I missed this last week, but Facebook announced a program to begin testing ads in software and/or games that run on its Oculus headsets. The program was to start with a game called Blaston, where the game’s developer would run ads in the game as a test. It is worth noting that Blaston is a paid game, and users were understandably upset that the company would begin inserting ads in to a game that they spent money on. After a weekend of backlash, Blason’s developer relented, and has said it will not test Oculus ads in the game.
This doesn’t mean that the idea of ads on Oculus headsets is over, of course. This will merely delay the inevitable. Ads are coming to the VR platform, and that is a shame.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/21/22544468/facebook-oculus-quest-ads-resolution-games-blaston
Microsoft Brings Fluid Framework to its Software Suite
This one is relevant to anyone using Microsoft products for work. At the Build developer conference Microsoft announced the Fluid Framework. What that Fluid Framework is is a set of tools that allows users to embed parts of documents into other parts of the Microsoft suite of products. So in a Microosoft Teams room, items can be embedded allowing easier collaboration across several documents and tools.
I don’t personally use the Microsoft ecosystem for work, but this seems pretty slick, and should be pretty powerful once users get the hang of it.
Bell MTS Bringing 5G Home Internet to Rural Communities in Manitoba
One of the promises of 5G was that it would bring more robust, reliable, and more importantly higher capacity cellular service. This increased network capacity allows 5G signals to be a more reliable service for home internet, serving as an alternative for areas where it is not economical to run the physical wires. Now Bell MTS in Manitoba is starting to roll out 5G home internet to 12 rural communities in Manitoba. The service is sold in speed tiers between 10 megabit and 50 megabit download, and 10 megabit upload, and more importantly there is no data cap.
This is one of the promises of 5G being realized, and any service that can more reliably connect rural communities and close the broadband gap is a huge deal.
Xbox Cloud Streaming Begins Xbox Series Upgrade
At E3 last week Microsoft said that they would be upgrading the infrastructure that the Xbox Cloud Streaming service used from Xbox One S based consoles to newer Xbox Series based consoles. I don’t think anyone expected it quite so soon, but that update has apparently begun. Microsoft has yet to confirm the rollout, but users across the internet have noticed that many games on Xbox Cloud Streaming are now running with faster load times, and graphical options settings consistent with the Xbox Series X. I wasn’t aware of this until I started putting together this roundup, so I’m excited to go try it out.
https://mobilesyrup.com/2021/06/22/xbox-cloud-gaming-series-x-server-upgrade-rollout-some-users/
Xbox Design Lab Returns
A few years ago Microsoft let users design their own Xbox controllers with virtually any colour combination, which was a really neat way to personalize game controllers. With the launch of the Xbox Series X and Series S the Xbox Controller Design Lab was temporarily shut down, likely due to the company needing to ensure there was sufficient supply of basic controllers. Now a few months later the Design Lab has returned and users can now design controllers that are based on the new and updated controller for the Series X and Series S. That marks the end of today’s roundup because I need to go design an all orange controller.
https://www.thurrott.com/games/xbox/252065/xbox-design-lab-returns-with-new-xbox-controllers