Apps

BPI Foundation’s Breakthrough app teaches personal finance through a digital board game

Your financial choices can either save you or break you!

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BPI Foundation, the social responsibility arm of the Bank of the Philippine Islands, launched its first interactive mobile game. Called Breakthrough: The Financial Choices We Make, the game aims to educate more Filipinos about personal finance in an entertaining manner. For brevity, we’ll be calling the game Breakthrough from hereon.

You can sharpen your financial awareness, understanding, and judgment — from basic to complex financial concepts. Saving, budgeting, insurance, debt management, investments, and retirement planning; your financial choices can either save you or break you.

Walkthrough

Breakthrough utilizes a board game set up like Monopoly, but instead of humans, you’re going against AI opponents. Players roll the dice which travels around the digital board landing on a corresponding tile.

Each tile presents common life events where a player’s decision can affect their score. There’s an opportunity to save, go on vacation, invest in stocks, or purchase insurance. You can even experience mishaps beyond your control like getting scammed, phished, or having emergencies such as car breakdown and home damage.

Overall, you can either amass or lose wealth depending on the path you decide to take. Whoever has the most assets, investments, coins, and highest net worth wins the game.

App development

The development of the app is the Foundation’s response to the World Bank’s study recommending the use of edutainment as a form of teaching financial concepts to the public, as stated by BPI Foundation Executive Director Owen Cammayo.

Apart from the board game, the app included a Financial Wellness journal, quizzes, and tips for players. Moving forward, the BPI Foundations plans to use the app in future runs of financial education webinars and other Foundation activities.

Moreover, the game is planning to scale up, further improving and expanding the gameplay. The Foundation, together with its partner Taktyl Studios, is working on allowing multi-player options, too. Breakthrough is now available on the App Store and Google’s Play Store.

Apps

New X users must pay a dollar per year to post and reply

Rolling out globally now

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New users on X might soon face a tough time on the platform. The social media website will likely start charging new accounts a small fee for the right to post on the platform.

Now, the fee isn’t a new one. Almost six months ago, the company tested the paid system in New Zealand and the Philippines. New users in those countries had to pay a dollar per year for the ability to post and reply to content.

As spotted by X Daily News on the same platform, the company might be ready to take the experiment to a larger market. New text strings have shown that the policy is rolling out worldwide.

The policy is designed to combat a wave of bots appearing on the platform. By preventing new accounts from creating posts, X hopes to stave off the standard behavior of bots these days. You might have noticed them as OnlyFans creators in unrelated posts, peddling NSFW content on their bio.

Though the global rollout was only just spotted, owner Elon Musk has seemingly confirmed the change. Replying to X Daily News, Musk says that it is “the only way to curb the relentless onslaught of bots.” He says that the current breed of bots can easily bypass simple checks these days.

SEE ALSO: X will no longer let you hide your blue checkmark

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Apps

Disney+ might get always-on channels similar to cable TV

Featuring content from Marvel, Star Wars, and classic Disney

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Disney+ | Disney Plus

The burden of choice on streaming platforms is real. If you’re like us, you’ve spent hours just mindlessly scrolling through titles on Netflix or Disney+ without watching anything. Netflix, at least, has a Play Something button to fight off that irresistible urge. Now, Disney+ is reportedly trying something different: always-on channels.

If you already cut cable from your lives, you’re likely missing traditional channels or networks that have pre-determined programming. It was a flawed system that eventually ended up with mediocre content and a downpour of ads. However, cable did allow us to keep watching without deciding what comes next.

Now, according to The Information, Disney+ is working on adding those channels to its streaming service. Naturally, these channels will include content from the platform’s library such as Marvel, Star Wars, and its list of classic animated films.

Strangely, the reported feature might still have ads in between programs. Though the addition of ads does mean a better similarity with real television, users still have to be paying subscribers to access the channels. Even if you’re already paying for Disney+, you might still get hit with ads.

Disney has not confirmed the reports yet. The platform might launch a version of the feature outside of the scope included in this report. It’s also unknown when these always-on channels will launch.

SEE ALSO: Macross to be available on Disney+

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Apps

Google might offer satellite connectivity soon

Starting with the Pixel 9 series

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A few years ago, Apple unleashed one of the most interesting features for the iPhone today: Emergency SOS. Designed for those who like their fair bit of the outdoors, Emergency SOS allows users to contact emergency services without network coverage. Other manufacturers, however, are struggling to adopt the same feature. Now, Google might soon join Apple in providing satellite connectivity for its users.

Despite the convenience, satellite connectivity hasn’t taken off as much as the industry expected it to. For one, a network of satellites isn’t the easiest thing to maintain. Apple is still currently offering its services for free, a gamble that may or may not pay off. Now, the iPhone maker won’t be alone.

According to Android Authority, Google might start offering the same service to Pixel 9 users. Starting with this year’s upcoming flagship, the company is reportedly teaming up with T-Mobile to create satellite connectivity for its users. The telecommunications network is teaming up with SpaceX for the feature.

The same report describes how the feature might work. Once activated, the feature will ask users of their situation: is everyone breathing, are people trapped, are weapons involved, among others. The phone will then relay this information to emergency authorities for a rapid response.

Unfortunately, pricing remains a mystery. While Apple is still offering its satellite connectivity for free, other brands might put the burden of cost on the end user. Hopefully, they won’t, but a paid version is unfortunately expected at this point.

SEE ALSO: Should you be excited for Apple’s satellite connectivity?

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