'Diablo 3' allows intercontinental multiplayer, Blizzard takes cut of Auction House earnings

Diablo 3 players will be able to team up with their fellow adventurers from across the globe — but with a few restrictions, Blizzard announced today.

Characters and items in Diablo 3 will be bound to one of three server regions: The Americas, which includes the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia; Europe, which encompasses European nations as well as Africa and the Middle East; and Asia, which includes South Korea, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong.

Though you can't move characters between these three regions, players will have access to "Global Play," which lets them create new characters in territories other than their "home" region. They'll be allowed to play with other players on those servers with only one restriction: They can't bid in the real-money Auction House in any other region but their own.

Speaking of, Blizzard also announced that the real-money Auction House won't launch until "approximately one week" after Diablo 3's May 15 launch. Blizzard posted a comprehensive FAQ on the controversial auction system on the game's official site, clearing up a few points of interest for its prospective users.

For instance, folks hoping to turn the game into a business opportunity will be discouraged to learn that Blizzard will take $1 off the top of every piece of equipment sold (and 15 percent off of everything else), and charges a 15 percent transfer fee to move money through a third party like PayPal. To avoid that surcharge (as well as PayPal's own transfer fee), players can choose to move funds to their Battle.net account, where they can use their money to pay for games, subscriptions or more in-game items. Of course, once they do that, that money cannot be refunded back into real-life cash.

Check out Diablo 3's official site for more information on how the Auction House will operate.

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PayPal launches UK-only InStore mobile payments app

Online payment giant PayPal is launching a UK-only app for Android and iOS called PayPal InStore, which enables users to make payments using their smartphone and PayPal account. Rather than using NFC, the app generates a unique barcode for each account and relies on a four-digit PIN for security.

Mobile payments have yet to make their mark in the UK, and perhaps with that in mind, PayPal has found an unlikely partner with the middle-of-the-road Aurora fashion group to help launch the scheme. Aurora will be taking mobile payments in its Coast, Oasis, Karen Millen, and Warehouse stores nationwide starting tomorrow. PayPal has recently partnered with a number of companies across the world as it attempts to make it big in the mobile payment space.

So why no NFC? Cameron McLean, Managing Director of PayPal UK, says that "mobile payments don't need NFC technology to succeed," adding that the service "works with the phones most of our customers already own," and "our retail partner doesn't have to install new systems to take in-store mobile payments." PayPal has carried out research among major UK retailers that suggests you won't need a wallet on the British high street in 2016. According to McLean, "a phone will be enough."

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BYD Shows off Remote-Controlled Car in Beijing

BYD Technologies is a Chinese company that makes automobiles. The company is on hand at the 2012 Beijing International Auto Show and has shown off a car called the F3 Plus that has a very interesting feature. The company claims it’s the first production automobile to have this feature.

The feature I’m talking about is dubbed Remote Driving Controller technology. What that means is the car is remote controlled like a toy. The vehicle has a special key controller that allows the driver to move the vehicle forwards/ backwards and left or right without being inside.

The car will only move at a limited speed in remote control mode. The company says that this mode is intended to allow people to do things like park the car in a spot that would be too small for them to open the doors and get out. The feature will be standard on the F3 Plus and pricing is unannounced on the car at this time.

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Facebook Windows Phone Update In The Works

It looks like Facebook for Windows Phone is about to get an update which will include a range of new features and enhancements, and the news was revealed on Facebook.

Some of the new features in Facebook 2.5 for Windows Phone will include threaded messaging, tagging, the ability to delete posts and comments, active links in posts and you will now also be able to like comments.

The team has been working hard over the past few weeks on building the next version of Facebook for Windows Phone, and as we’re getting close to release we thought now would be a good time to share with you some of the upcoming features you’ll be finding in v2.5

You can find out more information of what will be available in the new Facebook for Windows Phone when the update is released over at Facebook.

Source The Next Web

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Microsoft Sells 650 AOL Patents To Facebook For $550 Million

It has been revealed this week that Microsoft has sold a majority of its AOL patent porfolio to Facebook for $550 Million. The deal included 650 patents in total, but in its initial AOL Auction Microsoft secured around 925 U.S. patents and patent applications plus a license to AOL’s remaining patent portfolio.

The remaining patents in AOL’s portfolio, contains around 300 additional patents that were not for sale. As a result of today’s agreement, Facebook will obtain ownership of approximately 650 AOL patents and patent applications, plus a license to the AOL patents and applications that Microsoft will purchase and own. Brad Smith, executive vice president and general counsel, Microsoft explains:

“Today’s agreement with Facebook enables us to recoup over half of our costs while achieving our goals from the AOL auction,”-“As we said earlier this month, we had submitted the winning AOL bid in order to obtain a durable license to the full AOL portfolio and ownership of certain patents that complement our existing portfolio.”

Source: Microsoft

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New Dropbox Links Feature Makes File Sharing Even Easier

Dropbox the online cloud backup and sharing service has unveiled a new feature of its service in the form of Links. Dropbox CEO Drew Houston and Product Manager Ivan Kirigin demonstrated the new Links feature to the TechCrunch team last week, and now the new Links feature can now be used by Dropbox users to share files in a snap. Either large videos or collections of smaller files.

To start using the new features simple login to dropbox.com, and just select “Get link” for a file or folder in your Dropbox.  On mobile, open the file and press the link icon in the bottom left corner. Dropbox explains:

“Now you can make links to files or folders in your Dropbox. Quickly share your photos, docs, and videos with friends and colleagues — even if they don’t have Dropbox!

When you create a link, your photos, videos, and even documents are displayed in a gorgeous full-browser view. Your friends and family can simply follow your links to view photos and instantly watch home videos online. Even your presentations look great without anyone having to download and open them separately.”

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Google Increases Google Docs Storage To 5GB Before Google Drive Launch

Google has increased to storage on their Google Docs to 5GB, the service previously offered 1GB of storage, and this is apparently been increased ahead of the launch of Google Drive.


There is even a rumor that Google may launch their Google Drive service some time today, and with more and more details on Google Drive being revealed over the last week we suspect we are pretty close to the launch.

As soon as we get some more details on when Google intends to launch their new cloud based Google Drive service we will let you guys know.

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