Category: Technology

Telstra’s carbon neutral MVNO, Belong, has announced that it has partnered with Kingfisher to launch Second Life Phones which will offer pre-owned smartphones for value and environmentally conscious consumers.

The pre-owned and refurbed device program offers both various and limited devices, mainly Apple’s iPhone but a few Samsung Galaxy devices at reasonable prices and is being marketed via new TV ad running across the major TV networks, YouTube and social media apps as an eco -friendly alternative to purchasing a brand-new device.

Belong head of product and marketing, Aaliah Eggins-Bryson has stated at the launch of Belong’s Second Life services that:

“Too many Australians believe mobile phones have no material impact on the environment than other things in their lives but in fact, every year, the world throws away around 44.7 million tonnes of tech. This is why we’ve launched Second Life Phones; because the most sustainable phone is the one that already exists.”

So what devices are on offer, well here is a full list:

Samsung galaxy:

• Samsung Galaxy S20 5G in cosmic gray – 128GB – $669
• Samsung Galaxy S20 in cosmic black – 128GB – $699
• Samsung Galaxy S20+ 5G in cosmic black – 128GB – $649
• Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G in either cloud lavender, cloud navy, cloud red or cloud white – 128GB – $559
• Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G in either phantom black or phantom silver – 128GB – $949
• Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G in either phantom black or phantom silver – 256GB – $999

Manzana:

• iPhone 11 64GB in white or black – $599
• iPhone 11 Pro in space gray – 64GB – $699
• iPhone 11 Pro in space gray – 256GB – $789
• iPhone 11 Pro Max in space gray – 64GB – $799
• iPhone X in space gray or Silver – 64GB – $439
• iPhone X in space gray or Silver – 256GB – $489
• iPhone XR in either black, Product (Red), yellow, white, blue or coral – 64GB – $459
• iPhone XR in either black, Product (Red), yellow, white, blue or coral – 128GB – $489
• iPhone XS in either space grey, gold or silver – 64GB – $479
• iPhone XS in either space grey, gold or silver – 256GB – $539

You can check out the link here to see how Belong’s second life phone system in partnership with Kingfisher works and check out the deals listed above if you’re in the market for a phone but don’t want to break the bank in getting some high end and mid range devices at bargain prices.

Over the weekend, Bungie disabled destiny 2‘s in-game text chat across all platforms after trolls discovered a way to use it to crash other players’ games. Now, the chat still remains off and Bungie hasn’t provided an ETA for when it will return.

On Saturday, I hopped online to play some destiny 2 and was hit with a small message telling me in-game text chat had been temporarily disabled across all platforms. I didn’t think much of it as I primarily play on Xbox Series X and don’t really use text chat. But it turns out that a nasty and simple exploit had been discovered in Bungie’s online sci-fi shooter and to avoid players abusing it, Bungie disabled text chat completely.

The exploit, if done properly, allows a troll to crash someone else’s game (or their own game) by simply entering a specific string of text. An example of this can be seen in a video clip uploaded on July 30 by destiny 2 player ritz. (It should be noted the text seen in the video isn’t the entirety of what’s needed to cause the exploit to trigger.)

why does this exist pic.twitter.com/mra9ByPW6c

— ritz (@ritzzcar) July 30, 2022

According to some reports, players were experiencing crashes when playing online in multiplayer, as those areas have public text chat and were vulnerable to this particular exploit. Shortly after its discovery, players began sharing clips of the exploit and reporting it online, leading to Bungie swiftly disabling all text chat in destiny 2 on all platforms. Bungie confirmed this on his Twitter account on July 30.

“We have temporarily disabled text chat on all platforms in destiny 2 while we investigate an issue causing Weasel errors,” tweeted Bungie. “Stay tuned for updates.”

Bungie has a hotfix planned to go live tomorrow following some maintenance today, but there’s been no confirmation from the devs on if this exploit is being fixed in this upcoming patch. Kotaku has reached out to Bungie about the exploit and if it has any updates on when players can expect a fix and for text chat to be turned back on.

Spotify is updating its app to address a long-standing user complaint with music playback — but it’s asking customers to pay for the fix. The company announced today it will introduce, at last, a separate Play Button and a Shuffle Button at the top of albums playlists to make it easier to play the music the way you like. This will replace the combined button available before, which had been inconsistent across platforms and frustrating to use. However, streamers may be disappointed to find out that what should be an app update in favor of better usability is oddly being sold to them as a reason to upgrade to Spotify’s paid tier — the company says the new button is only being offered to Spotify Premium subscribers.

This seems a bizarre choice given that customer complaints had correctly identified an issue with the overall design of the Spotify app’s interface and its user experience. As one review posted last year to Spotify’s Community forums had noted, the button offered was even different across Spotify’s apps. On mobile, playlists had the combined Shuffle/Play button, but on the desktop, the button was just a regular Play Button. This was confusing for users who switched between platforms, the post pointed out. The user suggested Spotify simply offer two separate buttons so people could choose how they wanted to stream music, instead of having to tap into Now Playing screen to enable or disable Shuffle mode.

The post received 647 upvotes and pages of comments from others who agreed. It was not the only complaint of this nature on the forum site. Others posted similar requests for separate Play and Shuffle buttons or even different solutions to the same problem. For example, one person asked Spotify to allow users to configure which button appeared in the app to make it a user’s choice.

Spotify has been working on this problem for awhile. It first introduced the Shuffle/Play icon in 2020 to reduce streaming to just a click, it said, and last year made Play Button the default button on all albums for Spotify Premium users (at Adele’s request, as you may recall). With this upgrade, the Play Button will remain the default, and Shuffle will be a separate option across the mobile Spotify experience.

While arguably a minor change to the app — it’s literally just a button — it’s clearly a feature that was in need of a fix in users’ minds not a premium offering. Other major music streaming apps, like Apple Music and Amazon Music, already include separate Play and Shuffle buttons, for instance.

It’s uncommon for app makers to charge for something like a different button, especially when the reason for the change is because users were unhappy with the app’s functionality and design. One somewhat related example could be Twitter’s subscription service, Twitter Blue, which allows users to customize the bottom bar of the app with buttons of their choosing. But in that case, the option is more about personal preference and quick access to favorite features — not usability. Even without paying, Twitter’s features are still easy to get to in the main navigation on the left side of the app.

Spotify tells us the idea to charge for the button has to do with how it perceives the benefits associated with a Premium Subscription. At its core, Premium users are paying for the option to listen to any song they want, on-demand. The button is somewhat of an extension of that, as it’s allowing users to choose to listen on-demand in any way they want.

Microsoft is taking an interesting approach to secure regulatory approval for its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. In a recent filing spotted by Rock Paper Shotgun, the company told New Zealand’s Commerce Commission the troubled publisher produces no “must have” games. Yes, you read that right.

“There is nothing unique about the video games developed and published by Activision Blizzard that is a ‘must have’ for rival PC and console video game distributors that give rise to a foreclosure concern,” the company says in the document. Put another way, Microsoft believes owning the rights to best-selling Activision Blizzard franchises like Call of Duty won’t prevent rivals like Sony from competing against it.

At first glance, that would seem to be a nonsensical argument to make about a company Microsoft plans to spend $68.7 billion to acquire. All the same, it’s a claim the tech giant is making in response to its rivals. In a filing with Brazilian regulators, Sony called Call of Duty “an essential game” and an AAA title “that has no rival.” It argues the franchise is so popular that it influences the consoles people buy. Sony is likely speaking from experience. In 2015, the company announced an agreement with Activision that saw some Call of Duty content arrive on PlayStation consoles first.

Downplaying the importance of Call of Duty is just one of the ways Microsoft has tried to placate regulators. In February, the company pledged it would continue to make the franchise available on PlayStation consoles beyond the end of any agreements Sony and Activision had in place before the acquisition was announced. More recently, the company announced a labor neutrality agreement with the Communications Workers of America, which has been organizing video game workers across the industry.