PlayStation still boosting Sony’s revenues

Sony first launched PlayStation back in 1994. A device which connected with TV gave a new gaming experience. It was a device with DVD option and 2 remotes. PS got a very good response and it sold 102 million consoles.

In 1999, Sony launched PlayStation 2 which completely changed the dynamics of gaming. Better games, better graphics and new technology lead to become all-time best selling gaming device with over 155 million consoles sold. PlayStation 3 was launched in 2006 but couldn’t beat the sales volume of PlayStation 2 and its all time sales were nearly 84 million consoles.

Now even after 24 years of PlayStation launch, PlayStation 4 is gaining immense popularity not only in teens but also in adults. Still gamers love spending their time playing their favourite games. PlayStation 4 has HD graphics which gives a real time experience. Apart from this, now PS has wireless remote controls which allows users to play according to their comfort level.

  

Despite presence of competitors like X-Box & Nintendo, PS4 recorded $2.1 Billion profit which is 27% increase in Sony’s gaming revenue. Its total sales were recorded at $4.9 Billion. Till date, Sony has sold over 86 million consoles and its games God Of War sold 3 million copies in its first 3 days while another game Spider-man sold 3.3 million copies in 3 days.

Instagram is promoting ads for stories to generate cash

In social media marketing, Facebook and Instagram along with Twitter are playing significant roles in the market. Monthly users of Instagram are about 700 million. Instagram introduced the “Story feature” in summers 2016 which was like Snapchat in which users were able to create stories containing images and videos and these stories can be shared with friends and the life of a story is 24 hours.

Instagram is planning to earn dollars from small businesses with the help of ads in the stories. A new ad type naming “Promote for Stories” is being introduced by Instagram. In this way small business can show their offers and discounts to many users within no time through their Instagram page. Admins of the page can choose their targets to make the story visible to users in the form of an ad and they can attach links of their profiles as well. This option is like Facebook’s boost option that allows the users to pay in order to show the posts instantly to the users.

  

Instagram has also introduced a new feature in which users can share a preview image of an IGTV video (IGTV is a standalone vertical video application made by Instagram). By tapping on the image, users can watch the full video on IGTV.

Facebook owns both Instagram and WhatsApp. Earlier this month Whatsapp also announced display ads on its status stories. It certainly seems that these online social platforms are now focusing on multiple revenue streams to increase their earnings. 

Despite the departure of the co-founders, Instagram is still showing some innovations and introducing new features which shows that Instagram is determined to keep creative users and businesses to become the social giant in the market.

NASA’s Kepler retires after 9 years

Since its launch in 2009, NASA’s space telescope Kepler is finally going to retire. Kepler was successful in observing half a million stars and hundreds of planets around those stars. It opened our eyes to diverse worlds. Some totally different from our solar system.  The data transmitted by Kepler is still being used in many research projects. Scientists were also able to identify new rocky planets the size of Earth. (Good news! They are in the habitable zone)

Kepler’s mission was to continuously look on one patch of the sky and notice every small planet or star that appears. This mission lasted for three and a half years. It was a huge success and started producing many exoplanets when the data was processed. The spacecraft, now retired, is out of fuel and will simply drift through the solar system.

Kepler completed its initial mission in 2014 but due to its state of the art construction and optimum use of fuel it was approved for a second mission called K2. This second phase was different from the first because it would not have Kepler staring at one patch in the sky only. Kepler would change its view every three months thereby covering more area. Consequently, the number of new stars observed witnessed an upwards surge.

With the help of Kepler scientists were able to announce the existence of more than 1200 exoplanets. Google’s AI was working to find more exoplanets hidden in the noisy data. Kepler has burned its last reserve of fuel and has transmitted the final batch of data through the Deep space Network. This data will soon be available to NASA’s teams and citizen scientists. As for the exoplanet hunt, it has been taken up by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).