Connect with us

Jim Bonacci, the creator of popular internet game Happy Wheels, is currently working on a sequel for the game. An email inquiring about a lack of news to Totaljerkface.com, the game’s official hosting site, brought this response from Bonacci: “I will try to force myself to write a news post this week. Just been working on my sequel.” The news is very welcome for fans of the game, who have not received more than one news post in the whole of 2016. Bonacci himself has not posted to the official site since late 2015.

Happy Wheels was a sensation soon after its release in 2010. The game features a multitude of characters with widely varying designs, such as Santa Claus, all the way to such characters as a wheelchair-bound man and a woman driving a mobility scooter. The game is most famous for its ragdoll physics and extremely graphic content. Characters can be killed in a variety of violent ways, most often through impacts and weapons. In 2015, a mobile version of the game was released for iOS.

The game has been a popular game for YouTube content creators since its release. Famous players of Happy Wheels include Felix Kjellberg (PewDiePie), Sean McLoughlin (Jacksepticeye), Mark Fischbach (Markiplier), and many others. The game is famed for its replayability, as over 5 million user-created levels have been released within the game so far, with hundreds still being created and played daily. The total number of plays of the game totals over 8 billion.

It is still unknown what the sequel to Happy Wheels might look like, but a poll on the official site shows that the majority of voters wish any sequel to the game retain the original’s cartoon style graphics. Bonacci’s promised news update will hopefully shed some light on the future and progress of the sequel.

 

Apps

Mobile apps from Threads make profile switching easy

blank

Published

on

blank

Twitter rival, Threads, owned by Meta, now allows account switching without logging out.

This Thursday, the social networking app announced that users can swap accounts on its mobile apps by long pressing the bottom right profile icon. Tap “Add profile” after the long press to add a profile.

Users can easily switch between work and personal profiles. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri did not say if the profile-switching feature allowed you to add a limit of accounts.

 

Threads profile switching

On the same day as Facebook allowed multiple personal profiles on Blue, the text-based social networking app announced its profile feature.

Threads keeps adding features three months after its launch. It began testing full-text search in New Zealand and Australia late last month. The company launched global search this month.

Threads added 24-hour post notifications and web quote functionality in September.

Threads’ competitors ship features in a competitive social media landscape. Mastodon released version 4.2 this week with improved profile and post search, automatic quick action suggestions in the search box, a new web interface with thread indicators and article previews, and a Privacy and Reach settings tab.

Continue Reading

Apps

Elon Musk said X will collect ‘a tiny monthly payment’ for its service

blank

Published

on

X owner Elon Musk suggested today that Twitter may no longer be free. Musk said the business was “moving to a small monthly payment” for the X system in a live-streamed meeting with Netanyahu on Monday. He suggested such a tweak to address platform bots.

Musk said, “It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots.” According to him, bots have a high effective cost due to their low cost (a tenth of a penny), even though they require a few dollars. Each bot creator needed a new payment method to make another bot.

Musk said the new subscription price would be a “small amount of money.”

Musk also announced that X now has 550 million monthly users and 100 to 200 million daily postings. Musk’s stats may include automated accounts, either good bots like news feeds or malicious bots like spammers.

This figure couldn’t be compared to Twitter’s pre-Musk user base, which was computed using mDAU, Twitter’s own metric. This earlier statistic identified Twitter users who may be monetized by adverts. Twitter reported 229 million mDAUs in Q1 2022.

Musk did not specify when he would charge for X. Since Musk took over the network last year, it has been pushing users to subscribe to X Premium (formerly Twitter Blue). This $8 per month or $84 per year subscription service lets you modify posts, reduce the ad load, prioritize search and conversation rankings, make lengthier posts, and more.

X doesn’t divulge its paying subscribers, but independent research shows X Premium doesn’t attract most customers. X Premium has 827,615 subscribers, according to one estimate.

Musk has considered charging everyone for X. In fact, Platformer claimed last year that Musk was considering a Twitter paywall.

Though hate speech on X came up, Musk and Netanyahu discussed AI technologies and regulation today. Musk called himself “against antisemitism” and “anything that promotes hate and conflict.” Musk threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League, which has accused Musk and X of antisemitism, in his latest fight.

Continue Reading

Apps

X launches government ID account verification

blank

Published

on

blank

For paid users, X, formerly Twitter, has implemented government ID-based account verification to prevent impersonation and provide “prioritized support.”

Social media partner Au10tix provides identity verification solutions from Israel. The ID verification pop-up says the Au10tix can store this data for 30 days.

blank

X’s verification support page says ID verification is available in “numerous countries,” but not in the EU, EEA, or UK. The region’s strict data protection laws likely explain this.

ID-based verification seems unnecessary and rarely beneficial. The company may age-gate content based on ID age.

“X currently focuses on account authentication to prevent impersonation and may explore additional measures, such as ensuring users have access to age-appropriate content and protecting against spam and malicious accounts, to maintain platform integrity and healthy conversations,” it said.

Users who pass the verification badge will receive a government ID verification note. Only clicking the blue checkmark on the profile page shows it. The company said ID-verified users will get “prioritized support from X Services,” but this is unclear.

The company allowed paid users to hide checkmarks from their profiles last month.

X plans to speed up checkmark reviews if users verify their IDs. Plus, they can frequently change their names, usernames, and profile photos without losing the checkmark.

Only paid users can use ID-based verification. Ironically, X promotes impersonation and spam reduction but doesn’t offer verification tools to all users.

Twitter discontinued legacy verification and removed account checkmarks in April. However, the company reinstated the top account checkmark after much chaos.

The social network added biometric data, education, and job history to its privacy policy last month.

“This will additionally help us tie, for those that choose, an account to a real person by processing their government-issued ID,” X told Bloomberg. “This will also help X fight impersonation attempts and secure the platform.”

Continue Reading

Trending