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Facebook’s Messenger Platform Gets Its First Game

Facebook’s newest product is featured in its messenger platform that was revealed earlier this year.

Doodle Draw is a game that allows Facebook users to  draw and send images to their friends. And their friends get to guess what they drew.

According to Josh Constine for Techcrunch, “Doodle Draw for iOS and Android will be familiar to anyone who played Draw Something… because it’s a blatant copy of the 2012 flash in the pan mobile game that got acquired by Zynga for an exorbitant price. Don’t feel too bad for the fallen games giant, though, as Draw Something was just a mobile version of the classic party game Pictionary. You can download app developer Clay‘s Doodle Draw here, by tapping the “•••” button in a Messenger chat thread to open the platform app list.”

Since the introduction of the platform, Facebook has tried to get users to use it more. The game is just one attempt to build interest. For those who are not fond of Facebook games, Doodle Draw will not do anything to spark your interest.

It is highly likely that this is just the first round of promotional gimmicks the company will launch.

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Did Drake Dump Jay Z’s TIDAL for Apple?

In recent months, Jay-Z’s music streaming service, Tidal, has come under fire. There have been rumors and reports about artists jumping ship, internal conflict and failed business strategies.

On Monday, Apple revealed a multitude of products and services for Apple users at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2015. Celebrities like rapper and singer Drake and filmmaker J.J Abrams were at the San Francisco conference.

Drake was there to promote Apple Music. He said that the company’s new streaming service is a way for artists and their fans to interact better.

“Focus on your body of work. Instead of having to post your stuff on these different and sometimes confusing places, it’s all in one place: and that is Connect,” explains Drake.

One of the most surprising announcements was that Drake’s newest album will drop on the Apple Music service. That leaves many to wonder why not drop the album on Tidal and what happened to his business relationship with Jay-Z. Those questions have yet to be answered.

Connect, the social aspect of the streaming service, is designed to allow big and small artists to share and connect with fans with lyrics, behind-the-scenes photos, remixes and more.

“Apple’s shuttered social music network hinged on connecting listeners to artists. However, Drake stressed how Apple’s new solution, unlike competitors like, say, Spotify and Tidal, is a simple and elegant one for fans and musicians alike,” reports writer Kwame Opam for The Verge.

Also, there has been rumors of a $19 million contract with Drake. At this moment, that can’t be confirmed.

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Diversity Play? 10 Comic Book Characters Who Have Been Changed To A Person Of Color

The geek community is vehement about changing white characters into people of color. After every casting announcement, Twitter becomes a hotbed of racial epitaphs and ignorance. The intolerance over the casting of fictional characters in pieces of entertainment can be reminiscent of the worst kinds of racism in this country. To the pleasure of open-minded geeks everywhere, Marvel and, especially, DC Comics continue to add diversity anyway they see fit. Here are some white characters who are now people of color.

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Iris West (DC)

On the hit CW show The Flash (2014), Candice Patton portrays Barry Allen’s love interest. At first fans were in an uproar over the casting, but now since the show has become a hit, most fans have moved on.

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Aquaman (DC)

In the DC Comics cinematic universe, the king of the Seven Seas will be played by Jason Momoa. He became a fan favorite playing Khal Drogo on the HBO show Game of Thrones.

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New Features, Advancements Revealed for Apple’s New Operating System

Apple’s new OS could bridge the gap between your laptop and your phone.

The Yosemite Operating System will focus on sleek app design, speed and reliability that current operating systems may not offer.

According to Ian Sherr and Shara Tibken for CNET.com, “some of the key new features included advancements for its Spotlight search function, allowing users to ask it about the weather, for example, or find stock prices and sports scores. The company also enhanced its search functions in apps like email, where they can easily find messages they hadn’t yet responded to. Apple also made it easy for two apps to run on the screen at once, a function called ‘split view.'”

Some of these features are not new and have been introduced in the Windows operating systems like Windows 8 and 10. Apple is banking on brand reputation to sell its new product. The company  wants it to be the most user-friendly OS on the market.

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“It’s more of an upgrade to the feel of OS X. This means a lot more gesture control, continuing the tradition of making OS X feel more like iOS. For instance, El Capitan lets you swipe two fingers across the trackpad to delete a message. You can also kill unwanted autoplay music with a single tap. And you can also pull up Mission Control with a three-finger swipe. This kind of stuff is largely reminiscent of Windows 10, and the list of little improvements goes on,” reports Adam Clark Estes for Gizmodo.

The OS will also have widgets that connect users to news, sports and other informational sources. There will be a shared menu that allows developers to create blogs that will also enhance the user’s experience and build a rapport between developer and user. For more information on features check out Apple’s website.

Apple users can upgrade now via the Apple Store.

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5 Impressive Facts About the First Black Woman Cartoonist

Jackie Ormes was the first Black woman to create, write and draw her own syndicated comic strip in the United States. For those who read and enjoy comics, you may realize that there are not a lot of female creators working on prominent characters for DC Comics and Marvel. However, in the 1930s, Ormes (born Zelda Mavin Jackson), was making a comic strip before Batman and Superman became the cultural icons they are now. She was a pioneer who deserves the same credit as Jack Kirby, Wally Wood, C.C. Beck, Joe Kubert and many others. Ormes was ahead of her time just like Orrin C. Evans.

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Torchy Brown in ‘Dixie to Harlem’

Ormes’ first comic strip was published in the all-Black newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier from 1937-38. Above, you can see the extreme detail of her work. This strip showed the great migration of African-Americans moving to the North to escape the Jim Crow South. Torchy Brown is a teenage girl from Mississippi who goes to Harlem to find fame as a singer and dancer.

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Will John Stewart Be the Next Green Lantern?

News has been swirling around for a long time about who will become the next Green Lantern? The Green Lantern movie, slated to be released in 2020, has a bare bones profile on IMDB.com, and we don’t have quite enough information of what to expect aside from a release date. However, in an announcement from Meet The Movie Press, it was revealed that John Stewart will in fact be our 2020 Green Lantern. I haven’t seen anything else released directly from other sources to substantiate if the news is in fact true, but if it is, this will be another great accomplishment from DC to bring in one of the most popular Black superheroes of all time.

Since Justice League Unlimited on Cartoon Network aired from 2004-06, the popular space cop has become a favorite among many fans of the animated series. There are younger fans who only know of John Stewart because of JLU, and it makes sense to bring in a Green Lantern who has already resonated with so many fans both young and old. Older fans, who were likely reading his comics during John’s heyday, already know that John Stewart is one of the first popular Black superheroes published by DC Comics.

Read more at www.blackgirlnerds.com

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Schools Use Drones to Spy on Cheaters

Drone technology has come a long way in just the past five years. Companies like Amazon plan to use drones to deliver packages in the near future. We already know that various armed forces around the world are using them for reconnaissance or for offensive purposes.

According to Wired writer Katie Collins, “every year in China millions of students sit a higher education access exam that is so stressful it has been linked to spates of suicides and frequently results in youngsters fainting in the examination room. Known as the ‘gaokao’, the exam is taken over two days, is based primarily on memorization and determines the course of the young students’ lives.”

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In the Chinese province of Luoyang, schools have decided to prove that they are a little smarter than cheating kids. The schools are aware that kids might try to use cellphones to find answers they just don’t know.

They plan on using drones to monitor examination rooms. This exam is essentially the SAT on steroids. It has been reported that many students have been so stressed about the test that they committed suicide to avoid shame.

In order to avoid cheating, the drones will hover 500 meters in the air over the test site. It can detect the cellphone and relay that message back to the test proctors via tablet.