Doodle 4 Google competition to celebrate Canada's 150th Birthday

By Sonya Davidson

Google launches this year's Doodle 4 Google competition that invites kids across Canada to celebrate the country's 150th Birthday by redesiging the Google logo. Based on the theme "What I see for Canada's future...." the competiton offers entrants tens of thousands in prizing and a chance to be featured on Google.ca

"Doodle 4 Google is a chance for young Canadians to dream and think big. At Google, we are trying to make the future world a better place, by building new technologies, investing in initiatives and making the internet more accessible," said Google vice-president and Google Canada managing director, Sam Sebastian. "This year's competition is all about celebrating the future of Canada. We're excited to see how students imagine the next 150 years!"

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Waze and Spotify team up to make navigation and music more seamless for drivers

 

Crowdsourced navigation and realtime traffic app Waze has joined forces with the leading streaming music provider Spotify to allow users to more seamlessly access features while driving. Soon, Spotify users will have access to playlists on the Waze app. This means less multitasking, or having to leave Waze to go to Spotify.

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Upcoming PlayStation VR horror game lets friend mess with your gameplay

Virtual reality games tend to be a solo activity. But an upcoming PlayStation VR game wants to change that. Developer Firesprite is introducing a new concept with The Persistence. This sci-fi horror title comes with a mobile companion app to let friends nearby see your game map. They can either choose to make your life easier and steer you towards items you need or cause so much trouble. And at times the app will reward them with points for taking using approaches. At the same time the player in VR might get the option to upload a virus to a terminal in the game to wipe a spectator’s upgrade points. 

In this game, you play as a member of a spaceship that gets into an “incident” where many of the crew members turn into mutants. You then have to try to survive and save the ship. Adding a bit of difficulty and taking away any form of memorization, when you die, you come back with a new name and backstory. We can't say yet how the game will translate in real life but the wait isn't that long. Firesprite aims to release The Persistence around May of this year.

Source: Polygon

'A Series of Unfortunate Events' gets a second season on Netflix

It doesn't come as a surprise that Netflix's adapation of A Series of Unfortunate Events is getting a second season. Daniel Handler, creator of the 13-part young adult series, has said earlier this year that he and other writers of the show were already working on the second season. Now, Netflix confirms the comeback of the show in an announcement trailer that shows coded messages used by the secret organization VFD in the show. Highlighted letters in the trailer are meant to direct viewers to vastlyfrighteningdecision.com, which displays a message from Lemony Snicket, the show's narrator (and Handler's pen name for the books), and how displeased he is with your continuining patronage of the show. Despite what he says, though, we are looking forward to the "miserable" show to come back.

Source: The Verge