Game payments to be shifted to local currency by Facebook

Facebook is moving the payment system on games from the existing credits format to local currencies. Developers are given the deadline till September 12, 2013 to shift the payment procedure according to the new method. Facebook has already begun looking into local currency payments for games and will launch the local currency API for developers soon.

Online gaming is one of the greatest sources of revenue for Facebook as it mentioned in its quarterly report and the social media is of the opinion that shifting payments to local currency method will ease out the process for end users in addition to providing a faster transaction process for the developers.

TIPA award LG’s True Color IPS Monitor as “Best Photo Monitor” of 2013

LG’s Monitor 27EA83 was given one of the highest awards of the imaging industry: “Best Photo Monitor” of 2013 by the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA). The monitor features features In-Plane Switching (IPS) display technology combined with a high resolution and a wide color palette which makes it perfect for filmmakers, photographers and graphics professionals.

Il-geun Kwon, senior vice president of LG Electronics’ IT Business Unit said that the company was highly honored at receiving recognition by TIPA and it reaffirms the qualities provided by LG in its products.

The LG ColorPrime boasts WQHD (2560 x 1440) resolution with the ability to accurately reproduce 99 percent of the Adobe RGB color space. The monitor can also be rotated 90 degrees, enabling users to choose the screen orientation that best suits the specific needs.

TIPA, comprising of 29 magazines from 13 countries, is one of the most influential photographic and imaging press associations in the world.

FBR Freezes PTA Accounts to Recover Rs. 2 Billion

Large Tax-payer Unit (LTU) Islamabad of Federal Board of Revenue yesterday recovered Rs. Rs 2.038 from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority under the head of unpaid taxes by freezing its accounts in Islamabad.

According to sources, bank accounts were held and then freed after the recovery of unpaid taxes from year 2006.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and LTU Islamabad are long running this dispute over taxes.

There was a time when PTA hadn’t paid any taxes for ten years valuing over Rs. 10 billion. PTA claims that it is a government body itself and must pay all the revenues to government exchequer itself, however, LTU Islamabad is of the view that taxes must be collected from the revenues that PTA generates – in accordance with law – and this way the money will ultimately go to government exchequer.

LTU Islamabad had attached PTA accounts last year as well for similar reasons, and had recovered Rs. 3.6 billion.

FBR had collected PKR 3.43 billion in 2010 by carrying a similar action against the telecom authority.

It merits mentioning here that PTA collects various license fee and other dues from Telecom operators, which according to FBR are termed as revenues and must be taxed.

AMD aiming to produce chips for Android and Chrome tablets

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) seems to have opened its eyes to the wide range of possibilities offered by operating systems other than Windows 8 as it announced that it will be designing chips based on the x86 and ARM architecture to support Android and Chrome on tablets. As per last year AMD had said that it would only be focusing on developing tablet chips that would support Windows 8.

Lisa Su, senior vice president and general manager of global business units at AMD said at the Computex trade show that though the company was very committed to Windows 8 with it being a great OS but the market of Android and Chrome based tablets was also quite lucrative.

Windows 8 has not been that much successful in its tablets operations as of yet and a few Windows based tablet using AMD chips Z-10 and Z-60 did not sale very well.

With Intel also eying the tablets market with its Silvermont based Bay Trail SoC chips, AMD has done well to make its mark in the market.

AMD will be featuring its “Temash” chips A4 and A6 in the latest Windows based tablets in second half of this year. Temash chips consume only 3.9 watts, offer a battery time of up to 8 hours and are expected to rival Intel’s Bay Trail tablet chips.

Samsung Unveils Galaxy S4 Active; Water Proof S4 Variant

Putting weight to all rounds of rumors, Samsung has now announced Galaxy S4 Active that is almost identical to Galaxy S4, but with added attribute of being a water proof device.

This time, following the footsteps of Sony XPERIA, Samsung made this device IP67 certified (dust- and water-proof), enabling users to submerge it for up to 30 minutes at a depth of one meter.

Measuring in at 9.1mm thick and 151g in weight, Galaxy S4 active features 5-inch full HD (1920×1080 pixels resolution) TFT LCD screen that has a pixel density of 443 PPI 1080p display.

Running on Android 4.2.2, the latest iteration of the operating system, Samsung embedded this device with 1.9GHz quad-core processor with 16GB internal storage that is expandable by another 64GB via microSD card slot inside a fully waterproof case.

On camera front, it sports an 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 2-megapixel front facing camera. However, the volume key located on the side of the phone can be used as a camera key, enabling users to simply and swiftly open the camera application to capture photo and video right away. Moreover, the camera alters into a powerful LED flash light to support dim-light and night-time activities with a long press of the volume key.

Another good aspect for camera lovers is that it also embraced with Aqua Mode feature for taking snaps underwater. With a water-resistant earphone jack, one can use headphones even throughout wet conditions.

Connectivity options include, Wi-Fi direct, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and LTE as well as it also sports an Infrared blaster along with battery capacity of 2600mAh. This device has an accelerometer, proximity sensor, a gyro sensor, digital compass, barometer, gesture sensor, finger hovering sensor and a light sensor.

Other software tweaks include Group Play to share music, photos, documents and games together along with Trip Advisor-powered S Travel, S Translator etc.

However, this device will be fully showcased at Samsung’s Premiere event in London on June 20. Coming to its availability, it has been predicting that the GALAXY S4 Active will start selling sometime this summer initially in U.S. and Sweden and then will move to other regions.

This device will be presented in three different color options, including Urban Grey, Dive Blue and Orange Flare. However, price tag has been keeping wrapped.

Here are the key specs for Galaxy S4 Active:

• 5-inch full HD (1920×1080 pixels resolution) TFT LCD screen
• 1.9GHz quad-core processor
• 2GB RAM
• 16GB internal storage expandable up to 64GB via microSD card
• 8-megapixel rear camera
• 2-megapixel front facing camera
• Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
• 2600mAh battery