Highlights: PUBG confirms that it is reworking its in-game maps. Erangel is the first map that will be updated. Players expect the loot balance to be tweaked for good weapon distribution on the map. PUBG was first released in March 2017 for PC, with Erangel as its first map. There haven’t been any drastic changes to it since its inception, except for multiple bug fixes and some minor additions like the addition of trees and buildings to areas that were too unsheltered. Recently, a leaked map image suggested that the company is working on a big overhaul for the map and now, the game developers have fessed up that there are some considerable changes coming to the map. In a blog post, the company confirms that it is working on new ways to balance loot and otherwise improve the maps, starting with Erangel. “We understand that loot balance is a very important part of the game but also recognize that the map layout is just as important, so we’re working hard to ensure that any changes made to either will feel good when completed. We plan to start testing several potential changes to Erangel soon, and will share our plans for these tests in the coming weeks,” says PUBG Corp. Loot is one of the issues players of the game have frequently asked the company to make adjustments to. There have been complains about the loot algorithm being unbalanced as gamers face difficulty in finding good weapons and ammunition, even in places with many structures like Pochinki or Novo. Some other changes to the game might include texture overhaul and addition of cover, compounds and new buildings to some areas of the map. As for the previously leaked image of the new Erangel map that fanned the rumours is said to be “just a snapshot in time” and such images “rarely represent the entire plan or scope of what’s being worked on.” Do note that while Erangel for PUBG PC gets reworked, there’s a high chance that the same map could be made better for the Mobile version of the game as well. Related Reads: PUBG Mobile might soon let you play as a zombie PUBG playing man narrowly escapes death, drinks acid instead of water 
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Highlights: Mark Zuckerberg says he wants to build more secure Facebook He laid down principles that privacy-focused social networking would follow. The CEO also took subtle dig at Apple and China accusing them of dishonouring users’ privacy. The year 2018 brought a lot of bad news for Facebook. The company was mired in several user data privacy related controversies, but now the company seems to be looking forward to building a secure social networking platform across all its apps, or atleast that is the message in Mark Zuckerberg's 3200-word letter addressed to people questioning the company’s ability to provide a secure way of communication. The letter is Zuckerberg's "Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking”. “My focus for the last couple of years has been understanding and addressing the biggest challenges facing Facebook. This means taking positions on important issues concerning the future of the internet. In this note, I’ll outline our vision and principles around building a privacy-focused messaging and social networking platform. There’s a lot to do here, and we’re committed to working openly and consulting with experts across society as we develop this,” Zuckerberg said in his letter. Zuckerberg wants readers of the letter to know that he believes that a privacy-focused communications platform will become more important than today’s open platforms because privacy gives people the freedom to connect more naturally. In his letter, the executive also laid out the steps taken by the company to provide a secure atmosphere for people to communicate with each other. He laid out some principles that Facebook would follow while designing and implementing a secure platform where “people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever.” “This is the future I hope we will help bring about,” he said. He also recognised that he may not have people’s support in what he plans to do. “I understand that many people don’t think Facebook can or would even want to build this kind of privacy-focused platform — because frankly we don’t currently have a strong reputation for building privacy protective services, and we’ve historically focused on tools for more open sharing. But we’ve repeatedly shown that we can evolve to build the services that people really want, including in private messaging and stories,” Zuckerberg said. On the relevance of public social networks, the CEO said that these will continue to play an important part in people’s lives, that is, for connecting with everyone they know, discovering new people, ideas and content, and giving people a voice more broadly. He noted that since people also want to interact privately, Facebook sees this as an opportunity to build a simpler platform that’s focused on privacy first. “We plan to build this the way we’ve developed WhatsApp: focus on the most fundamental and private use case — messaging — make it as secure as possible, and then build more ways for people to interact on top of that, including calls, video chats, groups, stories, businesses, payments, commerce, and ultimately a platform for many other kinds of private services,” he explained. On end-to-end encryption, Zuckerberg said that the need is imperative, however, the company also has a responsibility towards the society. “...there are real safety concerns to address before we can implement end-to-end encryption across all of our messaging services. Encryption is a powerful tool for privacy, but that includes the privacy of people doing bad things. When billions of people use a service to connect, some of them are going to misuse it for truly terrible things like child exploitation, terrorism, and extortion,” the CEO highlighted. He vowed to work with the governments, but shared an instance where the encryption had his employee sent to jail. Highlighting the need for encryption to safeguard users’ data and misuse, Zuckerberg said that governments often make unlawful demands for data. “...and while we push back and fight these requests in court, there’s always a risk we’ll lose a case — and if the information isn’t encrypted we’d either have to turn over the data or risk our employees being arrested if we failed to comply,” he added. Finally, putting emphasis on secure data storage, Zuckerberg said the company is willing to be banned in countries that object to its new focus on privacy. Although he did not directly take the name of any country or company, but the part of his letter that focused on data storage had an undertone targeting China and rival Apple. Facebook and Apple have been at loggerheads over privacy and the top executives of both Apple and Facebook have traded barbs over the issue. In the letter, Zuckerberg subtly took a dig at China as well as Apple. By doing this, he may lose a good chance of expanding business in the South Asian country where Facebook has been trying hard to make inroads. For those who don’t know, Apple’s Chinese iCloud partner, Guizhou-Cloud Big Data (GCBD), cut a deal with the state-run China Telecom last year, according to which all user data was moved to the latter’s servers. This raised privacy concerns as people thought of a possibility that the Chinese government could gain access to it. “People want to know their data is stored securely in places they trust. There’s an important difference between providing a service in a country and storing people’s data there. As we build our infrastructure around the world, we’ve chosen not to build data centers in countries that have a track record of violating human rights like privacy or freedom of expression,” Zuckerberg said. “If we build data centers and store sensitive data in these countries, rather than just caching non-sensitive data, it could make it easier for those governments to take people’s information,” he added. He says that the best way to protect the most sensitive data is not to store it at all, “which is why WhatsApp doesn’t store any encryption keys and we plan to do the same with our other services going forward.” Related Read: Facebook lobbied in India, US, UK and multiple other countries against data privacy laws: Report
Highlights: A man in MP is said to have accidentally consumed acid as he was playing PUBG. While PUBG could be blamed for being the reason, it could be a case of smartphone addiction. PUBG has been blamed for being addictive multiple times in the past. PUBG has gripped gamers worldwide. Combining the battle royale genre with good gameplay mechanics, the game has garnered over 30 million daily active players. However, it has also been blamed multiple times of being addictive and causing problems for people, at least in India. A new report from ToI again links PUBG with addiction as a 25-year-old man from Madhya Pradesh is said to have consumed acid instead of water while playing the game. As per the report, an unnamed person from Chhindwara, MP, was sitting in his courtyard, playing PUBG. He was so engrossed in the game that he accidentally picked up a bottle of acid and drank it, mistaking it for water. The incident is said to have taken place about a month ago and the man was rushed to a hospital where Dr Maman Gogiya treated him. However, his condition worsened and he was taken to Nagpur but was brought back as his condition didn’t improve. Dr. Gogiya reportedly operated on him and said, “There were ulcers in his stomach that had created an obstruction. When his condition did not improve in Nagpur, his family brought him back here. He was not able to eat anything and lost 5-6 kilograms in just a few days.” Fortunately, the patient has recovered and is doing fine now as his stitches were removed on March 3. It’s easy to blame PUBG for being the reason for how the man ended up drinking acid accidentally instead of water. However, there are many things to consider here since the doctor who treated him said that the patient was “glued to” his phone, even while recovering. “But even during treatment, he was busy playing some or the other game on his phone. And when he was not playing games, he would be watching movies on his phone,” the doctor told TOI. Considering the doctor’s statement, one could argue that the problem here is not of PUBG addiction of smartphone addiction. Smartphone addiction is a very real thing. As per a study, it can not only damage interpersonal skills among Indian teens, but also have a significant negative health impact and harmful psychological effect on Indian adolescents. Companies manufacturing phones and operating system for these phones know about the detrimental health effects of being glued to them all the time. Thus, there are tools that help people discover if they are spending too much time in front of a screen. Google has Digital Wellbeing apps that help regulate time spent with your phone while apple has Screen Time for the same. There are multiple third party apps as well to help with digital addiction/moderation. Related Reads: PUBG Mobile might soon let you play as a zombie PUBG Mobile version 0.11.1 update to add new India Bonus Challenge, enable exchange of BC for UC: Report 
Highlights: Images of Microsoft’s Chromium-based Edge web browser have surfaced online. They reveal the upcoming browser’s design, which is quite similar to Chrome. The design could be similar as the developers are working on internal features instead of focussing on the user interface. Back in December last year, Microsoft announced that it is using Google’s Chromium to bring better web compatibility to its Edge browser. Since then, there have been no major announcements as to where the development has reached or when it would be announced for everyone. Neowin has published some screenshots of the new Chromium-based Edge browser and reports that the company has been working on it internally for months. Apparently, the company has two separate channels to test the browser, a Dev channel that is said to be updated weekly and a Canary channel, which is updated daily. As per the images, the overall design is similar to Microsoft Edge, however, there are some noticeable changes to the user interface that impart a Chrome-like design to it. The screenshots embedded in this article are said to represent the current interface of the browser. The default search bar in the new tab is of Microsoft’s Bing and the background image is of the search engine’s image of the day. There is a most visited section on the bottom and an option to toggle a personalised feed pulled from Microsoft News has also been added. As per the report, the current option in Edge to view all your tabs and set aside the currently open tabs has been removed from the Chromium-based version of the browser. Additionally, the screenshots show off some settings and options that are being tested like extension support, a new tab view option, and sync. From the images, it seems like the current extensions for Microsoft Edge are supported and the report states that many extensions compiled from their Chrome Web Store listing are also present. The extensions and profile picture is placed on the immediate right of the address bar, same as Chromium, and the extension store is said to be accessible from within the browser, while extensions are currently installed through the Microsoft Store. The screenshots do suggest that the Chromium-powered Microsoft Edge, codenamed "Anaheim," is quite similar to Chrome in terms of design. However, as it is with almost all projects that are based on open source software, the current state of the user interface could change drastically over time. This is because it has been a few months since the new web browser's development started. The devs working on it are most likely focussed on setting the groundwork for the browser instead of focussing on its user interface, which, right now, seems to directly pulled from Chromium. The UI of the browser is most likely to change over time, along with its functionality, but it should not take Microsoft as much time as it took for them to reach to the current mature state of Edge browser. Chromium acts as a framework with everything already in place to quickly get a browser up and running, however, it is on a company that chooses to use it to whether or not make changes to its UI. Knowing Microsoft, the final version of Anaheim might end up more closely resembling the current Edge than Chrome. Related Reads: Microsoft Edge now adopting Chromium open source for better web compatibility Microsoft's Lite OS is reportedly aimed at dual-screen and Chrome OS-powered devices
Highlights: Xiaomi Black Shark 2 spotted on Geekbench. The phone is seen sporting Snapdragon 855 SoC and 12GB RAM. Scores 3,516 and 11,413 points in single and multi-core tests respectively. Xiaomi’s gaming sub-brand Black Shark is expected to launch its third phone, Black Shark 2 soon. The phone has been in the news lately and it has now been spotted on Geekbench. According to the data published by the benchmarking platform, the Black Shark 2 is powered by Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 855 processor with whopping 12GB RAM. The phone appears with the name “blackshark AAA” and scores 3,516 and 11,413 points in Geekbench's single and multi-core tests respectively. Reportedly, the scores are slightly higher than the 8GB RAM variant that scored 3,494 and 11,149 points in single and multi-core tests respectively. The phone runs on Android Pie and is expected to launch by the end of next month. The Black Shark 2, the third phone in the series (other two are Black Shark and Black Shark Helo), has already been reported to feature a liquid cooling technology dubbed Liquid Cool 3.0. Currently, the Lenovo Z5 Pro GT, Xiaomi Mi 9 and Samsung Galaxy S10 5G variant feature 12GB RAM and if the listing is indeed of the Black Shark 2, it will be the fourth phone to do so. Last year in October, Xiaomi announced the successor to the first Black Shark phone called the Black Shark Helo. With the launch, Xiaomi became the first manufacturer to launch a phone with 10GB RAM. The Black Shark Helo featured a 6-inch OLED display with 1080p resolution and 18:9 aspect ratio. The Black Shark Helo features Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 845 SoC with Adreno 630 GPU and a large 4,000 mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0 support. Recently, the Xiaomi-backed gaming smartphone maker set up headquarters in Bengaluru. The company’s Vice President David Li is said to be looking after India operations while Chirag Nagendra, who was the formerly with OnePlus in the communications team has joined as Black Shark’s Marketing head. The company also announced its India presence formally and it seems to be in the process of setting up things in India. There will be an official launch date of the brand announced later. This means that after much wait, people could finally get their hands on the Black Shark gaming phones that saw a limited release in just 23 countries. Related Read: Xiaomi Mi 9 tops AnTuTu's February score listing, Lenovo Z5 Pro GT grabs second spot
Highlights: FItbit has launched four new wearables in India starting Rs 6,999. The wearables can be pre-ordered starting today. Fitbit has launched for new fitness wearables — The Fitbit Versa Lite Edition, Fitbit Inspire HR, Fitbit Inspire, Fitbit Ace 2. The four new wearables are aimed at the affordable segment and introduce new features to that segment. Furthermore, Fitibit announced it will launch an upgraded version of the app with a major redesign, offering more personalisation, a better understanding of the fitness data and ways to discover new content and connect with others. The Fitbit Versa Lite Edition is a stripped down version of the company’s smartwatch. The wearable tracks your heart-rate, activities and sleep. There’s also in-built personal guidance to help reach your goals. The watch is offered in an array of colours and is swimproof with a one-button design. The wearable has GPS, can display smartphone notifications The smartwatch will be available in India for Rs 15,999. Next, the Fitbit Inspire HR is the company’s most affordable heart-rate tracking wearable priced at Rs 8,999. It offers 15+ goal-based exercise modes, GPS, guided breathing, sleep stages tracking amd more. The device also comes with a 5-day battery life and is swimproof with a touchscreen display. The Fitbit Inspire is essentially the same wearable sans the heart-rate tracking ability. It’s also priced lower at Rs 6,999. All the three fitness wearable can be pre-ordered on e-commerce stores from Thursday. Finally, the Fitbit Ace 2 is meant for children aged 6 years and above. It also has a swim-proof design and comes with a bumper to protect the screen from damage. It’s also available in an array of colours and accessories including animated clock faces. There are challenges designed for kids’ activities and colour avatars to engage them better. The Ace 2 will go on sale in Q2 2019 for Rs 6,999. Related Reads: Fitbit Versa review: Does its job, while looking good
