Niantic has collaborated with financial company Fold to create an augmented reality game called Fold AR. The game allows users to earn bitcoin and in-app benefits by exploring their physical surroundings. It is currently undergoing testing and the Fold AR team will allow a small fraction of users to test the game for a limited time daily.

Pokémon Go is an obvious inspiration for the game, but Fold’s press release has gone a step further by calling it a part of the metaverse. The difference between the two games lies in the prize – while Pokémon Go revolves around capturing cute monsters, Fold AR is based mostly on finding cubes and tapping them to reveal a prize.

And it’s the prizes bit that makes the game special, as some of them are in the form of Bitcoin in the denomination of Satoshis. Satoshis is currently a very small unit worth 1/20th of a penny. The reward also contains power-ups for the Fold app.

There’s another difference, however, concerning the world it’s set in. Fold AR doesn’t virtual locations that correspond to real-world places. Instead, the game spawns a block between 1 and 50 feet away from the player every 10 minutes, corresponding to the rate of real Bitcoin mining.

The Fold AR team hopes to add more features with time, even including one that lets players hide Bitcoins for friends to find as well as some form of NFT.

Fold CEO Will Reeves says that the goal of the game is to partly make a virtual currency feel real by creating an AR setting for it. The game is full of cryptocurrency-related memes and other related stuff, but it’s still supposed to appeal to both crypto-enthusiasts as well as regular players.

RELATED:

• REDMAGIC 7 gaming phone gets Bluetooth SIG-certified, launch imminent
• Alleged Redmi K50 Gaming series specs, launch details emerge
• Reliance Jio & MediaTek launch the Gaming Masters 2.0 e-sports tournament in India
• ViewSonic Elite XG320U gaming monitor with 144Hz 4K resolution launched in Brazil
• ASUS working on a Surface Pro-like laptop that docks with an eGPU for gaming: Leak

The post Niantic & Fold launch new AR game that lets you grab Bitcoins instead of Pokémon appeared first on Gizmochina.

In the Q1 of 2019, Samsung launched its first foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Fold. Even though its commercial availability was delayed a couple of times due to display issues, it is still a remarkable device. Samsung must have taken note of this, as insiders are reporting that the Korean giant plan to reveal two new foldable smartphones next year.

On top of this, other variants of foldable smartphones are expected to hit the market next year, expanding the foldable segment to meet the demand for larger screens in compact form factors. At least two new foldable models are likely to be launched by Samsung next year, while there are rumors that LG Electronics will debut its first foldable phone.

EDITOR’S PICK: Redmi K30 Rumor Roundup: everything we know about the upcoming 5G handsets

One of these next-generation Galaxy Folds will reportedly come with a clamshell design. As per the report, the cover display will primarily be used by the company just to show notifications along with some other basic information such as battery info while charging. A couple of charging animations seemingly designed for the device have also been found in the OneUI 2.0 beta.

The retail price of the clamshell phone is estimated to be around 1 million won ($845), a price strategy to ramp up sales and make it a mass-market model. It’s expected to launch sometime in February 2020, possibly alongside the Galaxy S11. That is unless the Galaxy S11 itself is the new clamshell device, though it seems rather unlikely.

“Samsung’s plan to expand the foldable product lineup depends on the market response to the clamshell model slated for launch in 2020, but it is clear the firm will increase the lineup,” said Choi Bo-young, an analyst at Kyobo Securities. He also mentions that the proper successor to the Galaxy Fold will likely be announced around August 2020.

Let’sGo Digital, an online IT outlet based in the Netherlands, revealed that the Korean company filed a design patent with the Hague International Design System in May, though it was not officially announced until Nov. 29. The patent sketch shows that the outward-folding foldable design looks like Huawei’s Mate X.

So far, there have been no significant reports about the launch of the device. This is mainly because the company has seen some major restructuring of its smartphone business. “We do have the foldable technology that has been developed, but our official stance is that it’s too early yet,” said a company official.

UP NEXT: Samsung Galaxy Fold smartphone sold out in just five minutes in China

(Source)

The post Samsung working on two different folding phones for 2020 appeared first on Gizmochina.

As people are slowly warming up to the idea of a foldable smartphone, Samsung wants to grab a big chunk of the market next year. The company has reportedly sold only around 500,000 units of the Galaxy Fold worldwide, but it has an ambitious sales target for the lineup in 2020. 

ETNews reveals that Samsung is aiming to sell nearly six million foldable smartphones in 2020. That’s quite an ambitious target for a phone featuring a yet-to-be-proven design and a price tag that’s out of reach for a majority of smartphone users. However, the report states that Samsung’s confidence in the foldable form factor has increased after the launch of the device. In fact, the company even considered setting a target of ten million foldable sales next year, only to bring it down to a more conservative 6 million. This is still higher than the IHS Markit estimate of just 3 million foldable shipments in 2020. 

The Galaxy Fold has already launched in major markets across the globe like South Korea, U.S., India, and will land in markets such as Japan, Poland, Mexico, and Switzerland later this month. Samsung should announce the successor to the Galaxy Fold around early 2020. It is expected to feature a clamshell design and should be more robust than the current generation model. The new model will reportedly shift from polyimide to ultra-thin flexible glass to remove the crease that’s visible on the current generation version. The company already has a patent for a square clamshell foldable design, and you can take a look at it here. 

UP NEXT: Samsung’s Under Display Camera smartphone said to release by early 2020

(Source, Via)

The post Samsung has set an ambitious sales target for the Galaxy Fold lineup next year! appeared first on Gizmochina.