Today, Microsoft announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion.

The post Microsoft to Acquire Activision for $68.7 Billion appeared first on GamersHeroes.

Microsoft has announced their intention to acquire Activision Blizzard King in a deal that values the monolithic publisher at $68.7 billion. This, Microsoft states, will help to ‘provide building blocks for the metaverse’, and is expected to be approved by regulators in FY23, which runs from July 2022 to end of June 2023 for Microsoft. Activision Blizzard is the third largest video games company in how much revenue they draw in, behind only Sony and Tencent, thanks to their vastly popular and successful franchises like Call of Duty, Candy Crush and Warcraft, Diablo and Overwatch. They also have a sizeable position in esports, thanks to owning Major League Gaming, which hosts popular Call of Duty and Overwatch competitions. This leaves massive questions over what the future of video games looks like. With Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda for $7.5 billion in early 2021, ones of the biggest concerns was that all of Bethesda’s future games would become Xbox exclusives, a fear that turned out to be warranted. However, nothing that Bethesda produces has the reach and pervasiveness of Call of Duty or Candy Crush – not even Skyrim. Will Microsoft be content to keep the next Call of Duty game as a cross-platform release? Will COD Warzone remain on PlayStation while Modern Warfare 2 becomes an Xbox exclusive? We simply do not know right now, but this is a huge deal. Activision Blizzard comes with a significant stigma right now. The company is embattled on multiple fronts with lawsuits and government investigations into the workplace culture, as well as employees who are striking while also preparing to unionise. This has drawn stern criticism from the leaders of Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo, so with that in mind, Microsoft acquiring the company could be a huge step forward in cleansing it of its unsavoury whiff. That certainly seems to be the implication. While the deal works its way through anti-trust regulators, Bobby Kotick will remain as CEO of Activision Blizzard. However, “Once the deal closes, the Activision Blizzard business will report to Phil Spencer, CEO, Microsoft Gaming.” This certainly implies that the man who allegedly knew of the allegations running through his company for years will be hanging around for the transition period and then sail off into the sunset. Just last week, Spencer said that he doesn’t believe it’s his job “to punish other companies” like Activision Blizzard for such misdeeds, though now that Activision will be part of his company, he needs to ensure that they are squeaky clean. In the here and now, Spencer said, “Players everywhere love Activision Blizzard games, and we believe the creative teams have their best work in front of them. Together we will build a future where people can play the games they want, virtually anywhere they want.” “For more than 30 years our incredibly talented teams have created some of the most successful games,” Kotick said. “The combination of Activision Blizzard’s world-class talent and extraordinary franchises with Microsoft’s technology, distribution, access to talent, ambitious vision and shared commitment to gaming and inclusion will help ensure our continued success in an increasingly competitive industry.” Considering the size of this deal, you can expect that it will draw much greater scrutiny from legislative bodies over the next few months. While the Bethesda purchase was waved through, this is much more significant and will have a higher barrier for success. Source: Microsoft

Microsoft has agreed to acquire publisher Activision Blizzard, the technology giant has announced. The deal is valued at $68.7bn (~£50.5bn), according to a report by Reuters. RELATED: Blizzard President J. Allen Brack steps down Microsoft has announced that both entities will continue to operate independently until the transaction closes. A company-wide email posted on the Activision […]

The collaboration kicked off with the pioneering implementation of liquidity lockers, allowing users to track Unicrypt liquidity locks from the CoinStats app in real-time. The mutual integration will allow investors and traders to view and monitor liquidity locks for their favorite altcoins on leading DEXes like Pancakeswap and Uniswap. 

On the other hand, the Unicrypt community can directly access the CoinStats suite of tools via a user-friendly desktop app. Crypto proponents can use CoinStats to view, track, and research coins they are interested in from all tokens, pairs, and locks pages on Unicrypt.

The collaboration is beneficial for both user bases, marking the beginning of an exciting journey. The CoinStats and Unicrypt teams plan to add more technical integrations that bring substantial added value to both communities while offering investors advanced DeFi mechanics.

About Unicrypt

Unicrypt Network is a multi-chain protocol offering users a broad spectrum of decentralized services that instill investor trust in the DeFi ecosystem. The platform's suite of services brings value to the DeFi space by delivering custom, disruptive, and fully audited tech.

Unicrypt has developed a first-of-a-kind decentralized ILO Launchpad that helps upcoming projects get the best possible start to their journey. 

The project also offers a liquidity locking function that solves the issue of dwindling confidence in DeFi by allowing token developers to lock liquidity for a preset period, guaranteeing their project's longevity and value. This solution protects crypto investors from rug pulls and exit scams, fostering the widespread use of decentralized finance applications.

What's more, Unicrypt integrates a revolutionary farm-as-a-service Dapp that offers crypto enthusiasts LP rewards for contributing liquidity to the protocol's pool. The multi-service platform also offers staking and token vesting services designed to incentivize the DeFi community and create a sustainable ecosystem.

Connect with the Unicrypt community and stay on top of all upcoming partnerships and developments via the platform's Twitter, Discord, and Telegram pages.

About CoinStats

CoinStats is an all-in-one platform that allows users to manage their DeFi and crypto assets. Launched in 2017, the leading cryptocurrency portfolio tracking app allows both experienced and novice investors to view, track, and manage their digital assets in real-time.

Users can also trade from multiple accounts/wallets on the most popular exchanges and earn up to 20% APY on their crypto investments from one convenient dashboard.

The secure portfolio tracker app offers accessibility and convenience in managing digital assets for over 1.5 million active users from across the world. The platform is used for managing $500+ billion worth of crypto and has handled over 500 million transactions and trades so far.

Users can keep track of 20,000+ coins and get 24/7 live reports on the crypto market via the CoinStats app. To connect with the vibrant CoinStats community, please follow the social media pages below:

Twitter | Telegram | Discord | Instagram | Facebook | Reddit 

Microsoft has announced its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, bringing the likes of Raven Software and Infinity Ward under the Microsoft Gaming.

HS2 Ltd plans to use VR and real-time monitoring by sensors built into the high-speed railway’s infrastructure to boost its reliability

The post Training, wayfinding and now maintenance—VR at the forefront of HS2 appeared first on VRWorldTech Magazine.

Microsoft is set to acquire Activision Blizzard, with Phil Spencer pledging to bring as many of its games to Xbox Game Pass as possible.

The post Microsoft Has Agreed to Acquire Activision Blizzard appeared first on GameSpew.

Xbox has announced a deal to buy Activision Blizzard, the company behind Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and many other major gaming franchises.

Creators of Call of Duty, Warcraft, Candy Crush, Tony Hawk, Diablo, Overwatch, Spyro, Hearthstone, Guitar Hero, Crash Bandicoot, StarCraft and more join Team Xbox As a team, we are on a mission to extend the joy and community of gaming to everyone on the planet. We all know that gaming is the most vibrant and […]

TLDR; process it with a new Python Data Processing Engine in the Cloud.

Amsterdam, Nl, Jan 18, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - The Nosana Network is Solana's decentralized solution for crowd-computing, performing the computations needed to power projects in the Metaverse. Nosana is excited to announce that after a successful IDO on Solanium.io which sold out in 2 days, the platform has successfully closed the funding rounds with $1.5 Million raised. The $NOS token has since then been listed on the exchanges Gate.io, Raydium, and MEXC.

Everybody wants a piece of the metaverse; with Facebook rebranding itself to Meta Platforms, the giant company signaled that the metaverse isn't just a fleeting trend. Thus, companies, brands, and projects far and wide are getting into the metaverse in one way or another.

Nosana is one of the newest Solana-based projects to dive headfirst into the metaverse. As a crowd-computing network, Nosana promises a cheaper, accessible, and sustainable alternative for centralized cloud solutions by utilizing spare capacity. With a lot of chatter surrounding their launch, they will get the chance to demonstrate these capabilities by delivering the necessary computations for the metaverse.

With clear objectives and the technical expertise to back it up, Nosana is poised to be the decentralized infrastructure of the Metaverse.

"As in any hype cycle, there's a temptation for startups to position themselves as a "metaverse company" to ride the buzz, but Nosana has strong fundamentals, a compelling vision, and solid technology that is better than any existing or coming solutions. They're at the forefront of it all." - Craig Percoco, Inevitrade

Nosana is now readying their Incentivized Testnet, which will give teams a chance to try out Nosana's features and tools before going to mainnet. Projects and teams who register and are selected will receive tokens for running pipelines on the testnet, culminating in the airdrop of mainnet tokens. The incentivized TestNet is planned to go live by the end of February, with developers having the chance to pre-register their projects now through the Nosana.io website.

The Nosana Network will be the leading provider of decentralized CPU-based Dev(ops) solutions, revolutionizing the development process of Metaverse projects. The network allows projects to develop with the computing power of the crowd to power the computational needs of projects within the metaverse via the $NOS token.

Social Links

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/nosana
Telegram: https://t.me/NosanaCI
Medium: https://nosana.medium.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nosana_ci

Media Contact

Wesley Bonda, Nosana CMO
E-mail: team@nosana.io
Website: https://nosana.io

SOURCE: Nosana

Copyright 2022 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. www.acnnewswire.com

TSUKUBA, Japan, Jan 18, 2022 - (ACN Newswire) - Tiny dressings that generate electricity in response to movement could accelerate wound healing and tissue regeneration. Scientists in Taiwan reviewed the latest advances and potential applications of wound healing technology in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.
The natural wound healing process involves complex interactions between ions, cells, blood vessels, genes and the immune system; with every player triggered by a sequence of molecular events. An integral part of this process involves the generation of a weak electric field by the damaged epithelium - the layer of cells covering tissue. The electric field forms as a result of an ion gradient in the wound bed, which plays an important role in directing cell migration and promoting blood vessel formation in the area.

Scientists discovered in the mid- to late-1900s that stimulating tissue with an electric field could improve wound healing. Current research in this field is now focused on developing small, wearable, and inexpensive patches that aren't encumbered by external electrical equipment.

This has led to research on piezoelectric materials, including natural materials like crystals, silk, wood, bone, hair and rubber, and synthetic materials such as quartz analogs, ceramics and polymers. These materials generate an electric current when exposed to mechanical stress. Nanogenerators developed using the synthetic materials are especially promising.

For example, some research teams are exploring the use of self-powered piezoelectric nanogenerators made with zinc oxide nanorods on a polydimethylsiloxane matrix for accelerating wound healing. Zinc oxide has the advantage of being piezoelectric and biocompatible. Other scientists are using scaffolds made from polyurethane and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) due to their high piezoelectricity, chemical stability, ease of manufacturing and biocompatibility. These and other piezoelectric nanogenerators have shown promising results in laboratory and animal studies.

Another type of device, called a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), produces an electric current when two interfacing materials come into and out of contact with each other. Scientists have experimented with TENGs that generate electricity from breathing movements, for example, to accelerate wound healing in rats. They have also loaded TENG patches with antibiotics to facilitate wound healing by also treating localized infection.

"Piezoelectric and triboelectric nanogenerators are excellent candidates for self-assisted wound healing due to their light weight, flexibility, elasticity and biocompatibility," says bioengineer Zong-Hong Lin of the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. "But there are still several bottlenecks to their clinical application."

For example, they still need to be customized so they are fit-for-size, as wound dimensions vary widely. They also need to be firmly attached without being negatively affected or corroded by the fluids that naturally exude from wounds.

"Our future aim is to develop cost-effective and highly efficient wound dressing systems for practical clinical applications," says Lin.

Further information
Zong-Hong Lin
National Tsing Hua University
Email: linzh@mx.nthu.edu.tw

Research paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14686996.2021.2015249

About Science and Technology of Advanced Materials (STAM)

Open access journal STAM publishes outstanding research articles across all aspects of materials science, including functional and structural materials, theoretical analyses, and properties of materials. https://www.tandfonline.com/STAM

Dr. Yoshikazu Shinohara
STAM Publishing Director
Email: SHINOHARA.Yoshikazu@nims.go.jp

Press release distributed by Asia Research News for Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.

Copyright 2022 ACN Newswire. All rights reserved. www.acnnewswire.comTiny dressings that generate electricity in response to movement could accelerate wound healing and tissue regeneration. Scientists in Taiwan reviewed the latest advances and potential applications of wound healing technology in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.