Articles about Pokemon Go

Yesterday, Grant Park in Chicago was packed with thousands of Pokémon fans. People of all ages attended the Pokémon GO Fest in the hope of catching ultra-rare Pokémon at the special event, but things did not go well.

A series of technical glitches meant that game-creator Niantic was forced to cancel the event. The large number of attendees led to network issues which could not be resolved, causing anger and annoyance among fans. As part of its compensation offer, the company is giving festival-goers $100 of Pokémon GO's in-game currency, Pokecoins.

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If you were like any other human being who grew up with Pokémon video games, cartoons, and trading cards, you've played Pokémon Go within the past year or so. It's essentially a scientific fact. The game was lauded with exorbitant praise as something that encouraged people to go outside, explore, and be active.

That is, except for the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which declared in an ordinance earlier this year that such behavior wasn't welcome around its breweries and cheese factories.

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The lifecycles of breakthrough technologies such as augmented reality (AR) are heavily reliant on mainstream take up. Many believed AR would initially be used by architects to visualize buildings and design companies for 3D graphic imagery. Yet its first major adoption saw more than 100 million people take to the streets to hunt Pokémon.

Evolving from a simple, location-based AR game into a cultural phenomenon, Pokémon Go was the most successful app launch of 2016. Approximately one in five 14-24 year olds installed Pokémon Go and it has been credited as the most successful mobile game launch in history. It captured the imagination of a new generation of game players by combining location awareness, exploration and much loved cartoon characters in a global treasure hunt.

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The relentless popularity of Pokémon Go continues and shows little sign of abating. Despite the threat of privacy issues and malware, millions of gamers continue in their mission to catch 'em all.

But if you were feeling tempted to use one of the various techniques that have been developed for cheating at the game, you might want to reconsider. Developer Niantic is now handing out permanent bans to cheaters after updating its terms of use.

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Pokémon Go has proved almost unbelievably popular, and like any app that gains a huge following, malicious versions of the app soon appeared. The game has been in the headlines after hackers knocked gaming servers offline, but there have also been major privacy concerns.

Now there could be a nightmare brewing for developer Niantic Labs in Germany, where consumer advocates say the game violates the country's consumer and privacy laws. Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV) says the company needs to make sweeping changes to a raft of clauses in the app's terms of use in order to avoid further action.

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Pokémon Go has proved itself to be a rare phenomenon, and it has taken the world by storm. Attracting casual gamers of all ages the augmented reality title, Pokémon Go has seen people hitting the streets in search of elusive Pokémon -- until the servers overloaded.

There have been a few glitches with Pokémon Go, largely due to its staggering popularity. But today many people found that they were unable to get online for a different reason -- the game servers were hit by hackers. A group called PoodleCorp claims responsibility for the takedown and says worse is to come.

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Yesterday, Europe's Competition Commission expanded its legal assault against Alphabet and major subsidiary Google. Four monopolies are under fire: AdSense, Android, search, and shopping services. Trustbusters allege that Google uses anticompetitive tactics to protect its market dominance, which share ranges from 80 percent to 90 percent in each category. Behind the charges is a hoity-toity attitude typical of overly-protectionist EU regulators. What if the information giant gave them what they want?

Imagine this: Google shuts down operations across the entire Euro zone—in a Brexit-like departure, but suddenly with no preparations. Switch it off. Search and other services could remain available in Britain and to all other non-EU countries. The company surely has the means, starting with IP blocking and expanding to other measures. The risk: Confirming just how dominant is Google, because of the incredible negative consequences. But the chaos also would lead to an outcry to restore services, while illuminating how important Big G is to citizens and how greatly businesses benefit, or profit, from the monopolies.

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Pokemon Go isn't a particularly good game. The environments are rather plain, gameplay is amateurish, and there are server issues galore. Ultimately, the phenomenon is fueled by millennial nostalgia and curiosity about augmented reality. In other words, the game's shelf life could be very short.

T-Mobile is wisely being opportunistic and cashing in on the fad, however. Today, the cell phone carrier announces it is giving its customers unlimited data for Pokemon Go. Is the game popular enough to drive consumers to switch to T-Mobile?

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