League of Legends and Valorant developer Riot Games has announced a new partnership with Cisco Systems from San Jose, California. The worldwide technology giant will be the “Official Enterprise Networking Partner of League of Legends Esports” for the next two years. Cisco engineers and tech will be powering The Realm, Riot’s top-tier tournament client. They’ll […]
Mozilla Lays Off 250, Teams Working On XR-Related Projects Affected
The organization behind the Firefox Web browser as well as a series of XR-related projects, including the Mozilla Hubs Web-based social networking work, laid off a significant number of people in a restructuring effort. Approximately 250 people will lose their jobs and another 60 will be reassigned, according to communications shared by Mozilla Corporation CEO […]
Teams, Organizers, Influencers Largely Silent on BLAST’s Controversial NEOM Deal
Last week when Riot Games’ League of Legends European Championship announced it had entered into a partnership with NEOM, a planned cross-border city in the Tabuk Province of northwestern Saudi Arabia, a large section of the esports community and employees of Riot expressed outrage. With the groundswell of criticism surrounding Saudi Arabia’s record of human […]
Psyonix Email to Teams Unveils New Rocket League Esports Structure
The Esports Observer has obtained a letter sent to Rocket League Championship Series teams by publisher Psyonix which outlines significant changes to the game’s esports structure. This restructuring comes just weeks after teams within the RLCS sent a letter to Psyonix in an effort to address grievances related to communication and revenue opportunities within the […]
Paytm First Games teams up with ESPL for mobile esports tournaments in India
Indian mobile game platform Paytm First Games has teamed up with Esports Players League (ESPL) for mobile esports tournaments in India. Singapore-based ESPL has created an esports tournament and media network, starting with esports competitions in Asia. It is targeting amateur gamers with a path to becoming professionals, and it announced last fall that it […]
How Microsoft Teams will use AI to filter out typing, barking, and other noise from video calls
Last month, Microsoft announced that Teams, its competitor to Slack, Facebook’s Workplace, and Google’s Hangouts Chat, had passed 44 million daily active users. The milestone overshadowed its unveiling of a few new features coming “later this year.” Most were straightforward: a hand-raising feature to indicate you have something to say, offline and low-bandwidth support to […]
Allied Esports teams up with HyperX for Online Tournaments
Allied Esports has announced a partnership with gaming peripherals brand HyperX for its upcoming online tournaments offering. With the ongoing situation regarding COVID-19, the two brands will collaborate on moving the former’s popular weekly competitions online. Allied Esports and HyperX Jud Hannigan, CEO of Allied Esports, commented in a release: The current landscape has required […]
Microsoft announces Teams for consumers, Skype daily active users up 70% to 40 million
As part of its Microsoft 365 for consumers news today, the company announced Microsoft Teams for consumers and new Skype metrics. Skype has passed 40 million daily active users, an increase of 70% month over month. Furthermore, Skype to Skype calling minutes are up 220% month over month. Less than two weeks ago, Microsoft shared […]
Microsoft Teams struggles as coronavirus pushes millions to work from home
Microsoft Teams users in Europe are reporting major issues accessing the service today, at a time when millions of people are relying on technology to help them work and study remotely. As people around the world are increasingly working from home in an effort to avert a COVID-19 catastrophe, cloud-based collaboration and communication tools will […]
Sentons teams up with Foxconn to create virtual buttons for smartphones
Sentons has teamed up with global contract manufacturer Foxconn to create virtual buttons for smartphones. These buttons can sense gestures, including presses, swipes, and taps. San Jose, California-based Sentons powers its virtual buttons with a technology it calls software-defined surfaces (SDS) and is adding an SDS ButtonBar to further replace physical buttons on smartphones. You’ll […]