EA buys ‘Titanfall’ studio Respawn

Titanfall 2 didn’t do as well as expected when it came out, leaving the future for the game a bit uncertain. At least, the studio doesn’t seem to be suffering the same fate. EA just announced it acquired Respawn in a deal valued over US$400 million. EA has previously published two Titanfall games so the acquisition doesn’t come as a surprise.

The two are already working on a few projects. One is a third-person Star Wars game, which was announced back in May 2016. Another is a virtual reality experience. And last is another title for the Titanfall universe. What isn’t known is if it’ll be Titanfall 3 or a mobile version of the game.

Source: Engadget

Rian Johnson is developing a new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy

Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson is going to be sticking around for a while. Disney just announced that Johnson is going to be developing a new trilogy of films for the Star Wars universe. He will be writing and directing the first installment and will be working with longtime producer Ram Bergman. But these will feature entirely new set of characters as Episode IX will close out the Skywalker saga.

Johnson couldn’t contain his excitement over the news. He even sent out a tweet joking, “Obviously I hope you like The Last Jedi. But man now I REALLY hope you like The Last Jedi.” In a statement, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy says, "We all loved working with Rian on The Last Jedi. He's a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy."

Source: GameSpot

Twitter’s 280 character limit upgrade now live for all users

What your timeline could possibly look like now with longer tweets

Watch out world, tweets are about to get longer. Or will they? Well, the option is there now officially. Twitter announced after its “successful” trial run in September, the update from 140 characters to 280 is now live for all users around the world—except for those that tweet in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, though. The change is said to be the company’s response to feedback it’s been getting to users. You should be able to tweet longer now or check if your app is the latest version.

The move though comes at a time when the service continues to be under fire for everything from the harassment users experience on its platform, to how it let propaganda that illegally influenced the US’s 2016 presidential election, and then there’s the tirade of said US President. The release of the 280 character update is said to be a diversion of sorts against the larger issues the platform faces, at least according to Kelley Heider, a crisis communications expert at SSPR, a public relations firm that often works with tech companies. "They change their narrative in the news cycle by responding to user feedback," she told CNET

IFTTT decentralizes Google Drive service, splits actions into Docs, Sheets, and Drive

IFTTT (or If This Then That) is an automation platform that works across a variety of services over the internet. You can use it to do things like save Instagram photos to your Google Drive, have it cross-post social media posts on various platforms, turn on the lights at home when it detects you’re in the area, and so much more. A new update coming to the platform though relates more to Google Drive. IFTTT is splitting up its Google Drive “applet” into the more specific Google apps, namely Drive, Sheets, and Docs.

This time, any applet that deals with spreadsheets will become linked to the Sheets channel, same goes for Docs and any created or uploaded document. Meanwhile, any applet that makes use of the file upload action will remain part of Drive. IFTTT is setting up these new services now and warns its users their might be some service interruptions on November 9. Some of you might already see the two new channels and have your applets migrated there.

Source: Android Police