In Other News: 16/05/2013.

• EA have told Kotaku that their company is no longer producing any games for the Wii U. EA spokesman, Jeff Brown, said that, "We have no games in development for the Wii U currently." EA's ex-CEO, John Riccitiello, had previously promised an"unprecedented partnership" but it seems that that won't become a reality any longer!
  Via TheVerge.

• Blackberry have confirmed that when their BBM app goes cross platform that tablets of both iOS and Android varieties will not be able to use the app initially!
  Via TrustedReviews.

• If you missed Google's keynote at I/O yesterday then head to this link here to catch up if you have a spare three and a bit hours!
  Via Phandroid.

• Angry Birds Rio has landed on Windows Phone! The app will be available for both versions of the platform and is priced at $0.99!
  Via PhoneArena.

• Sony's Xperia Tablet Z for NTT DoCoMo in Japan has started getting a new software version with the build number 10.1.E.0.265. According to DoCoMo there is only one change and that's touch panel improvements, but there's no specifics! The update is about 840MB in size so do this over WiFi!
  Via XperiaBlog. 

• Sega has announced that the OG Sonic the Hedgehog game for Android! The game which debut in 1991 will cost you $2.99 (USD and AUD), £1.99 or €2.69 depending on where you live and that's not a bad price for full 60fps gaming and a remastered soundtrack!
  Via TNW.

• YouTube Live has expanded to all of the channels on the website with more than 1,000 subscribers! That's good news for people who don't like watching people stream on Twitch!
  Via TheVerge.

• Android app piracy is still a really big problems with some games seeing piracy rates around 95% which is absolutely crazy!
  Via Slashgear.

And finally, Microsoft have confirmed that the ad you see below is actually from the company and that it was internal and was leaked. The idea is that the phone they're showing how Google does their business, but obviously it's designed to promote Microsoft's offerings, but that doesn't make it less interesting and it has a little bit of a point!

Via TheVerge.

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In Other News: 09/05/2013.

• Acer are a bit more happy with the changes which Microsoft is readying for the next version of Windows 8 because the whole world isn't quite ready for touch and apparently now Microsoft have realised that!
  Via TheVerge.

• BT and their new sports packages will be coming free to BT Broadband customers in the future! There will be a few hurdles to jump through, but that is an insane deal! Sky customers will have to pay either £12 or £15 to add it to their Sky subscription per month, depending on whether they want standard or high definition on their pictures! For full details check out PocketLint here. 

• The Nokia Lumia 900 on AT&T is finally receiving the update to Windows Phone 7.8!
  Via IntoMobile.

• Apex Launcher 2.0 has hit Google Play and the update involves, amongst other things, a new feature which lets you know how many notifications there are for each app on the shortcut to the app, in much the same way as iOS tackles the problem.
  Via AndroidPolice.

• Facebook Home has finally hit the one million downloads mark on the Play Store!
  Via IntoMobile.

• ITV have updated their Android app for their online catch up service. The update however, is an exclusive to a plethora of Samsung devices, but apparently the APK will work on any hardware from a Sony Xperia X10 through to a HTC One if the reports on our Twitter feed are to be believed!
  Via Eurodroid.

• Rovio have updated their Bad Piggies app with a tonne of new levels, 120 to be exact and there's a few new gadget to power your concoctions!
  Via AndroidCommunity.

And finally, according to the guys over at Engadget the Wii U will have a fair amount of restrictions  in the games it can play in the future because EA's Frostbite 3 engine apparently doesn't play nice. That rules out the next instalment of Battlefield, Star Wars and Mass Effect as well as this seasons Madden. Maybe that's why we've been seeing price drops left, right and centre!

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In Other News: 06/05/2013.

Image Credit: Allianz.

• The new list of Fortune 500 companies is out today and amongst the notable tech companies to feature are Apple at number six and AT&T is in at number 11. A tad further back are people like HP, Verizon, Microsoft and Amazon, each of whom came in at 15, 16, 35 and 49 respectively.
  Via Slashgear.

• Sony are rumoured to be creating a new smartphone with a quad-core Mediatek processor in a move which would see them utilize a processor from the Taiwanese company for the first time!
  Via AndroidBeat.

• The Verge is today reporting that Google will launch paid subscriptions on YouTube as early as this week! If and when this becomes a reality we will give you much more detail on it!

• Rumour has it that Nintendo is offering conversion software to app developers as a way to bolster their content offering on the Wii U! We're not sure if the tactic is genuine or whether or not it'll work. But, watch this space because this sounds very likely and it seems that Nintendo might be getting ready to protect themselves from the likes of the OUYA and Gamestick!
  Via ZDNet.

• Today's rumours suggest that Microsoft's next Xbox won't require a always on internet, for everything. A supposedly leaked email to Microsoft employees suggests that playing Blu-rays,  watching live TV and playing single player games won't require the internet connection. As always take this with a pinch of salt because it could be completely false!
  Via ArsTechnica. 

• Samsung's Galaxy S4's have been getting their first software updates which are between 54 and 78MB in size depending on where you are and they bring stability fixes and camera improvements, which again are dependent on where you live. For those of you with a device locked to a carrier expect a few weeks delay until you get this, at the very least!
  Via AndroidBeat.

• Over the weekend you might have noticed that the Syrian Electronic Army, hacked and tweeted out incorrect comments about Justin Bieber's sexuality. For full details on that head to Slashgear here, but in the meantime we think Twitter should hurry up with that two-step verification!

• Maxis and EA have confirmed that The Sims 4 will be coming to PC and Mac at some point in 2014!
  Via Slashgear.

• Hulu Plus is now out for Windows Phone 8!
  Via Engadget.

• The anti-virus firm McAfee have announced that they've acquire the Finnish firm Stonesoft for $389 million. McAfee are owned by Intel and the purchase will supposedly beef up the company's firewall and online protection!
  Via TheNextWeb.

And finally, some of you might remember that when the HTC One was officially announced there were actually three colour options. There was silver, black and red. Until today we haven't heard anything about the red variant, but it seems that the guys over at LandOfTechnology were the first to notice that HandTec, a UK seller have put the red phone up on the site, presumably they're just waiting for the device to come into stock, but that does mean that the phone is on the way and you can see what it'll look like in the picture below!

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In Other News: 15/02/2013.

• It seems as though the Wii U is not selling very well. We already know that Nintendo sells the console below cost, but according to a NPD rep sales of Wii U hardware are 38% lower than sales for the original Wii across the first three months of availability. 'Sources' also have been told that Wii U sales for the whole of January were “well under” 100,000 units, some estimates peg the figure as low as 45,000 to 59,000 units.
  Via Slashgear.

• Apple's Jony Ive has been given a gold Blue Peter badge after appearing on the show and giving them access to some of Apple's most secretive areas!
  Via CNet.

• Skype will soon have Video Voicemail as a feature! The company have been testing the feature on OS X, Android and iOS. At the moment, those of us in the US and UK should be seeing an option to use the feature, although it might be hidden in some sort of overflow features button. For the moment it seems that people will get 20 free video messages to start with and we're not sure what happens after that, but Skype have confirmed that unlimited voice messaging will be included as part of a premium subscription.
  Via Engadget.

• Apple's iOS 6.1 release hasn't been quite as smooth as things were before. There was originally issues connecting to and syncing with Microsoft Exchange, now we've got that lockscreen bypass trick and so apparently iOS 6.1.2 will be rolling out before February 21st! Fingers crossed everything's good this time around!
  Via Slashgear. 

• Google is reportedly suing BT for 'arming patent trolls'. A Google spokesperson has said that, "We have always seen litigation as a last resort, and we work hard to avoid lawsuits, but BT has brought several meritless patent claims against Google and our customers-and they've also been arming patent trolls."
  Via Wired.

• Tamagotchi is now available for Android!!! If you don't know what these badboys are then first you weren't born in the '90's and secondly there's egg-shaped virtual pet which you need to feed, clean and generally look after! The app is currently available as a free download, but it's currently limited to American and Canadian users! You can get it here!
  Via Wired.

• Do you remember that super expensive Vertu Ti phone we covered the other day? Well it turns out that the device was actually meant to run Windows Phone, but it turns out that the device is now running Android because of the "complexity of building for Windows Phone." We're not quite sure what that means, but it's probably got something to do with the limited customisability Microsoft's operating system offers OEM's compared to Android!
  Via ZDNet.

And finally, with the launch of the Galaxy S4 expected within the next few months the 'leaks' of the device seem to be coming thick and fast. Today is no different and SamMobile have reported about a leaked roadmap style document has been found online. The document itself is embedded below, but remember this could quite easily be faked!

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23/01/2013: Nintendo shows off 2013 for the Wii U, Black Ops 2 double XP, Microsoft to invest in Dell? Plus much, much more!

Nintendo shows us what 2013 holds for the Wii U!

   Nintendo's Wii U console proved to be a popular option over Christmas as it racked in more money than the insanely popular Wii did over the first few months of availability. That wasn't down to number of sales, instead it was attributed to the slightly larger cost of the Wii U. Either way people still need games to play and a good overall experience on the brand new console and that's what Nintendo showed us today; a good selection of new features and games which we can expect to see over the coming months!

   There was a huge set of games which are on the way, some of them we're going to just link to trailers, but some of them are worth a quick mention! Satoru Iwata actually took the time to apologise for the lack of releases so far this year, he claimed that his teams needed more time to perfect the gameplay, but perhaps they just had short time scales to work to.

Image Credit: TheFourOhFive.com 

   All of the following titles will be available towards the end of March and onwards! You'll have  Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, LEGO City Undercover at the end of the March. After that will be the time we start getting excited: there's a new 3D Mario action game, Zelda games, a Wario game and a new Mario Kart game on the way!!! We'll be able to see a demo of most of those at E3 later in the year! There will also be some sort of party game too, one with all of the mini games, which will support both Wii remotes and the gamepad, so you can get everyone in on the action! 

   The games don't stop there, we'll be seeing a new game centred on Yoshi's antics, which will be the brain child of the guys who made Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Last up will be Shin Magami Tensei meets Fire Emblem. It'll be a game with fighting, but we don't know too much more than that at this moment in time.

The links to the adverts for the rest of the games are below:

• Bayonetta 2.
• Monolift.
• The Wonderful 101.
• Xenoblade Wii U.

   Now when it comes to updates Nintendo is planning on releasing two; one in spring and one in summer. Both updates will boost the consoles speed and performance and hopefully this will help address the complaints of games loading slowly, which Nintendo have heard. The first update will also add new Virtual Console functionality. This will allow you to play GameBoy Advance titles and games from other old Nintendo consoles direct on your Wii U GamePad or on the TV. 

   Nintendo will offer people who already use Virtual Consoles on the Wii the opportunity to the Wii U will get a discount if they buy the same games again. The pricing models are shown below.

   Last but not least the MiiVerse will be getting a new update which will add support for mobile devices, as well as verified accounts which will work in a similar way to verified profiles on Twitter. This verification won't be available for everyone, it will be a privilege for devs and the celebrities of this world. These exclusive accounts have the ability to link websites on their Miiverse posts and you have to chance to embed YouTube videos. Both of these will arrive with the first of the two updates we mentioned earlier.

   The video embedded below will see a Nintendo employee talk you through the new features. It's 30 minutes long so it will take you a little while if you want to plough through it!

   

Via Slashgear. (1) (2) (3) (4).

   

In other news:

• If you're a dev interested in working on games for the 'Gamestick', which has been on Kickstarter lately, then you now have to option of paying $250 for the console and getting the extra bonus of a six-month window of 100% revenue on any games you release before this July! Naturally you'll also get a Gamestick, but it won't arrive before everyone else who backed the device, which is a bit of a bummer!
  Kickstarter Via Slashgear.

• Samsung has overtaken Apple to become the biggest consumer of semiconductors in the world, with a whopping 8% of the market, which given how many other companies there are is impressive! Apple was only .8% behind with 7.2% of the market share.
  Gartner Via Slashgear.

• The Verge thinks that Nokia will offer a new device which is codenamed 'EOS' which will feature a camera sensor similar to that on Nokia's 808 PureView! It will reportedly pop up on a Windows Phone 8 device which will be one of Nokia's 2013 flagships! We'll have to wait and see!
  Via TheVerge.

• The 4G spectrum auction is under way in the UK! Hopefully we will see some competitors to EE in the space very soon!
  Via BBC.

• Calling all Black Ops II gamers! From the 25th of this month to the 29th there will be a double XP weekend! So if you're looking to get through those prestiges then get on this weekend!
  Via Twitter.

• A UK shopping centre owner by the name of Land Securities has inked a new arrangement with Google to use their Product Search feature to find the best price for the items that consumers are after, free Wi-Fi will also be on offer in the shopping centres, both of these will hopefully allow shoppers to feel like they are getting the best deal! Land Security is hoping to create "an environment appropriate for multi-channel retailers", so we might be seeing more order online and pick up deals.
  Via TheRegister.

• Rumours on the internet today are suggesting that Microsoft could be putting up $3billion to take DELL private!
  Via MacWorld.

And finally, yet again Google have reiterated that churning out more Nexus 4's and 10's is a priority. Larry Page didn't get much chance to discuss it in his earnings call, but they expect things to work themselves out soon enough!

Via Phandroid.

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07/12/2012: Bluestacks for Surface RT? Video game sales slightly down, LG finally gets ICS on Optimus 2X and much more!

Bluestacks to offer Surface RT support as Rubicon complain about RT sales!

   Some of our loyal readers may well have seen us cover Bluestacks before. It's essentially an Android app emulator which gives you the possibility of playing you favourite Android games or booting up your Taptu feeds. It seems that their emulator has come in very useful with the arrival of Windows 8 and all those touchscreen devices.

   At the moment it seems the guys at Bluestacks are doing pretty well on their own. They've had over 5 million organic installs direct from their website in only 8 months! The future is look very, very bright too as they've penned some deals with ASUS and AMD that will see their app pre-installed on 100 million devices next year! 

   The only problem is that, at the moment, there's no support for Windows RT, which powers Microsoft's Surface tablets. Indeed, apps on Windows RT don't seem to be doing too well as game creator, Rubicon, posted up a blog which explains how their foray into RT apps resulted in the grand total of £52 or $83 worth of income. That was for a whole week of sales of their smash hit Great Big War Game! 

   This news alone makes it interesting to hear that Bluestacks have acknowledged that they would lioke to offer Bluestacks for Windows RT at some point in the next year. This is not a concrete commitment in any way, but they have expressed an interest in doing so. This leaves Microsoft in quite a predicament because they are simultaneously confronted with the possibility of 750,000 of Android's touch optimised apps, whilst at the same time trying to convince companies to develop 'Metro' style apps to suit their new OS.

   What would you prefer? Lots of Android apps on your Surface or upcoming Surface Pro or apps designed specifically to play nice with the Metro UI? Let us know in the comments below!
Via Engadget and TechCrunch.

Video game sales decline despite the big releases!

   Video games - the bane of parents and teachers lives everywhere, but the past time of a budding generation of tech-centric kids and big kids alike! Unfortunately, it seems this year we've not turned out in force with sales of both hardware and software down 11% on the year to this November.

   NPD have released some interesting information here because "entertainment software units decreased by 15%, however, when comparing the performance of the top five titles from this year to last, we see a rise in unit sales of 5% - [it was] games outside of the top five [which] sold less, leading to overall declines." This isn't wholly surprising given that November last year saw the simultaneous launches of Uncharted 3, Skyrim, Lego Harry Potter 5-7 and Modern Warfare 3!

   There's also the distinct lack of new consoles this year. The Wii U will not figure prominently in these figures because there has only been widespread availability very recently and for the most part people who want a console now have their Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3!

Via BBC.

In other news:

• RIM is widely expected to give their Blackberry Fusion enterprise customers an easy way to get involved with Blackberry 10. The plan is to introduce this idea to the UK first with other countries to follow soon after. Their senior director for enterprise at RIM, Bryan Lee, said:

'We remain committed to our enterprise customers and want to provide them with a head start on understanding the power of BlackBerry 10 and preparing their existing environments for the new mobile computing platform. The BlackBerry 10 Ready Program gives customers access to a variety of services, information, tools, and special offers to help ease their transition to BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10.' Via MobileToday. 

• Sony has agreed a deal with Box to up the bundled storage with new Xperia smartphones to 50GB to match LG and Samsung's similar offerings (although Samsung offers Dropbox storage instead).
  Via Clove.

• HTC has launched it's budget Windows Phone 8 device, the 8S, on Three today with very reasonable pricing too! It's available for £180 on Pay-As-You-Go and from £17 a month on contract! This means that Three now offer both the 8S and 8X and should you opt for the latter then you also get a complimentary copy of Windows 8 Pro for your computer! You can check them both out over at Three's website here!
  Via BGR.

• AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile have teamed up to bring forward to release of  emergency texting, or text-to-911! We can only assume this is because of the issues with Hurricane Sandy and the support of the FCC!
  Via PCAdvisor.

• LG is today pushing out the ICS, yes ICS, update to their Optimus 2X devices! The phrase better late than never comes to mind!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• Apple and Samsung were back in front of Lucy Koh today and she called for "global peace" between the two. Something which brought out a few chuckles from onlookers as she reiterated her point. She said "I'm not joking... it would be good for consumers and good for the industry" if the pair could iron out a deal. Samsung, for their part said that they were more than "willing to talk," but Apple weren't. Instead they restated their position that the billion dollar punishment which was initially agreed by the jury was a mere "slap on the wrist" for Sammy. Unsurprisingly, we're no further along. As always we'll let you know when we hear any more!
  Via Engadget.

• After reporting yesterday that Huawei was working on a 6.1" challenger to Samsung's Galaxy Note, Huawei's exec, Yu Chengdong, came forward to offer a rough time frame for a release date. He was only prepared to offer up early “early 2013”, which essentially means that it will be landing at either CES in January or Mobile World Congress shortly after that! There was one other tasty little tidbit and that was that Mr. Chengdong thinks you should pass up Samsung's Galaxy Note II, because it's 'grossly overpriced'. We'll have to wait and see what Huawei can tempt us with early next year!
  Via IntoMobile.

And finally, this is Onda's, a company famous for making solid PMP's, new V972 tablet! Aside from having a very catchy name, there's also a good set of specs for this little thing. It's got a quad-core AllWinner processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage which is expandable with microSD cards, rear and front facing cameras at 5MP and 2 megapixels respectively and a 8,000mAh battery that is rated for 8-10 hours usage. The real highlight though is that there is a Retina-equally 9.7" display with a resolution of 2048x1536! 

So what's the catch you ask? Well as far as we can see there isn't one, it comes with Android 4.1 and there's plans for a 4.2 update. The price you ask? $240 or £150!!! Wow. Don't you wish you had a relative in China sometimes?

Via PhoneArena.

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24/09/2012

Intel announces it's working on dual-core and LTE!

   Intel’s is hard at work making their Medfield chips the mobile world's finest. They have LTE-capabilities and multicore versions in the pipeline. The first fruits of this labour are due before the end of this year!

   The company said Intel will be “shipping some LTE products later this year and ramping into 2013″ according to director of product marketing, Sumeet Syal. The director was speaking with TechCrunch, and he also confirmed the company is hard at work making more Android apps play nice with the x86 architecture.

   The company said for the moment we're looking only dual-core Medfield chips but in the future they are looking to create more potent quad-core Atom chipsets! Although, the company explains why they are hard at work on single-core processors at the moment:

   “You have to take a look at how many instructions per clock can the architecture handle — our belief is that others are throwing cores at the issue in terms of getting more performance.  We make that determination based on our architecture so we felt very comfortable coming out with a single core dual-threaded for our first product, and as we’re able to get more and more performance in the right implementation of the architecture we believe putting in dual-core would be the right thing for our next generation product” Sumeet Syal, Intel

A bit of Apple news:

• Apple announced this morning that they sold 5million iPhone's in the first week of the phones availability. That definitely makes Samsung's 20million Galaxy S3 sales in 100 days look a bit average!

• Apple has announced that they've updated 100million devices to iOS6 since it's launch last Thursday!

• iOS6 was jailbroken on launch day!

• If you're a disgruntled iOS6 user and you simply must have Google Maps back there's a nice little hack to bring it back! But, it's still being worked on because it has a tendency to crash! In the meantime why not just use a browser alternative such as Nokia Maps or even the on-line version of Google Maps?

In other news:

• Netflix for Android has had a nice little overhaul which makes it look like a more tablet optimised app! It's a nice little update and well worth a download if you use the service!

• Nintendo's upcoming Wii U console will be region locked! So wait until it's available in your region instead of trying to get one early because otherwise you'll be importing games too!

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Nintendo Pre-E3

Nintendo.

Wii U Controllers.

 





   Above we have Nintendo's newest plans for their upcoming Wii U console. Above to the left is their standard controller which looks remarkably similar to a certain other consoles controller! *cough* Xbox *cough*. 

   Secondly the picture above to the right is how Nintendo have progressed and have finally decided on their handheld tablet-esque controller will look, again they have done away with the flat joysticks that were on the Nintendo 3DS, so if you've just got used to them, sorry, but I think most people agree proper joysticks are slightly easier to use! Interestingly the Gamepad can be carried around with you so you can play on the fly!

Wii U Miiverse.

    The Miiverse is Nintendo's new gaming social system designed to integrate with the Wii U console. This will offer avatars, chat, communities and more. All of this centres around the Mii avatars and has support for text and handwritten messages, both of which can be accessed from a mobile browser on a smartphone or tablet. This will allow Wii U users to quickly access help from friends especially on trickier levels and challenges.

   There’s also something called Mii Wara Wara, which gathers game-related messages and collects them into the individual titles. Location-base Miis can be found, clustering them around where you’re physically gaming if you’ve taken your Gamepad out and about.

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29/05/2012

Are your eyes ready for what's about to happen?

   Ohhhh boy, I've thrown out on hell of an enigmatic title right there, it could be something disgusting I'm about to tell you. But, given your on a tech site it's not going to be. The news is instead that if you thought HD made a huge difference over normal definition then you're in for a mighty big treat soon.

   Today the International Telecommunications Union has announced plans for what’s being called Ultra High Definition Television or UHDTV. The intriguing thing here is that not only has the ITU agreed on one single standard, but today we have two! The two recommendations  include resolutions of 3840 x 2160 and 7680 x 4320!!!

   The lower resolution standard will arrive sonnest, and then there will be a bump to the higher resolution after that. This is similar to what we have today with HDTV and specifically the differences between 720p and 1080p resolutions. These new resolutions will be called 4K and 8K. Exciting times, but good luck streaming 8K if you live anywhere outside a city in the UK!

Why the 'Pebble blue' Galaxy S3 is delays.

   From the picture above (From Mobilebulgaria) appears to show exactly why Samsung have had problems getting enough Galaxy S3's out in the wild for today's launch.

   The official line from Samsung is below, and they've explained it considerably better than I could!

   "Samsung’s Galaxy SIII Pebble Blue version comes with a newly invented blue colour and special hyper-glaze material.

   In order to meet the highest internal quality standards and to provide the best quality Galaxy SIII to customers, a short supply of Pebble Blue version is expected in some regions in the next 2-3 weeks.

   Samsung is working hard to ensure that customers will get the Pebble Blue coloured devices as soon as possible."

In other news:

• 3 UK has started rolling out the ICS update for the HTC Sensation XL!!!
• An old iPad prototype, that was barely working and had connector cables on two sides, sold today on Ebay for $10,200!!!
• The exodus from RIM has continued with the announcement today that their Legal leader has resigned, but will stay on until a successor can be appointed. Now, the loss of  Karima Bawa, may not signal the end of RIM but it's symptomatic of the wider company.
• Skype for Xbox probably won't arrive before the end of the year, sorry guys!
• Samsung have unleashed their 'Music Hub' as an alternative to Spotify, you can get a tonne of songs and not much else! Check it out, it's not that great in all honesty.
• The forthcoming Nintendo console is likely to retain it's name as the Wii U on launch!

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