Niantic introduces ‘Buddy Pokemon’ system for players in Pokémon GO

Pokemon Go creator Niantic Labs, recently announced the introduction of 'Buddy Pokemon' in the game. A user will have the ability to pick one of their favourite Pokemon from their collection to become their buddy. A buddy pokemon will appear alongside you avatar on your profile screen, and will help open new in-game rewards and experiences.

Among other things, you will receive candy for walking together with your Buddy Pokemon. This will be an easier way to collect candies to evolve your Pokemon. Every pokemon has its own unique candy. The player has the ability to change the Buddy Pokemon any time they want.

Most of Niantic's updates have been focused on bug fixes, and to combat bots. The company last month banned third-party app makers from providing users the ability to find pokemon on their maps. The company claimed that this was causing undue strain on their servers, which were already overwhelmed by the sheer number of users logging on to them to play.

Just last month, Niantic blocked accounts that were getting unauthorized access to the game's servers. This includes accounts that were involved in data scraping operations, and had bots active. The company claimed that such operations on the servers act similar to a DDoS (Denial of Service) attack. The last update of the game was v1.5.0 for iOS and 0.35.0 for Android.

The augmented reality game was an instant hit when it was launched in July this year, and became one of the most played mobile games in a very short duration. According to an Axiom Capital Management report on Bloomberg, the daily active users on the game have seen a decline from near 45 million around mid July to 30 million around mid August.

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Niantic aiming for rollout of Pokemon GO to 200 markets soon

The head of the developer behind Nintendo Co Ltd’s Pokemon GO said he wanted to launch the smash-hit mobile game in roughly 200 countries and regions "relatively soon" and was working on bolstering server capacity to enable the wider rollout. The game, which marries a classic 20-year old franchise with augmented reality, has taken the world by storm despite having been launched in only five countries – the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Britain and Germany.

"Why limit it?" John Hanke, chief executive of Niantic, which developed Pokemon GO jointly with Nintendo affiliate Pokemon Company, said in an interview with Reuters on Friday. He declined to go into a detailed time-frame for further rollouts but noted that the company's first location-based augmented reality game Ingress had taken a month or two to reach that number of markets.

His comments helped Nintendo shares on Friday surge another 10 percent, setting a record in daily trading volume for an individual stock on the Tokyo bourse. The shares have climbed 86 percent in just over a week, adding $17 billion in market value. He confirmed that the game would soon be coming to Japan and that he expects "ultimately to launch" the game in South Korea, where Google's mapping functions are restricted due to security issues with North Korea. Hanke said Niantic, which was spun off from Google last year, is working on the mapping issue. "There are solutions to that," he said.

South Korea is the world's fourth-biggest gaming market after China, the United States and Japan, according to Amsterdam-based research firm Newzoo. But he was more reserved about prospects for a launch in China, saying only that there are regulations that have to be considered. Hanke said the company is considering introducing a sponsorship scheme similar to one it has with Ingress, which designates sponsors’ stores and vending machines as spots in the game.

Sponsors pay per customer visit, providing a revenue stream in addition to in-app purchases. Niantic currently has eight corporate sponsors for Ingress globally, including SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T), and the number is likely to be similar for Pokemon GO, he said.

In a Facebook post Wednesday, Brazilian Rio de Janeiro mayor Mayor Eduardo Paes shared his hopes that the game would arrive in the country ahead of the 2016 Olympics games which will be hosted there.

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Pokemon Go APK Could Hijack Your Phone: How to Check If It's Genuine

Until Pokemon Go makes it way to countries outside of Australia, New Zealand, and the US, a vast majority of eager fans have little choice but to resort to obtaining the game through unofficial means, which means downloading the APK file. It's something we've outlined in this handy guide for Android users.

In the event you've obtained Pokemon Go through other sites, there's a chance it might not be the right APK. According to security software company Proofpoint, a malicious version of the game has been uploaded to various APK download sites.

"This specific APK was modified to include the malicious remote access tool (RAT) called DroidJack (also known as SandroRAT), which would virtually give an attacker full control over a victim's phone. The DroidJack RAT has been described in the past, including by Symantec and Kaspersky. Although we have not observed this malicious APK in the wild, it was uploaded to a malicious file repository service at 09:19:27 UTC on July 7, 2016, less than 72 hours after the game was officially released in New Zealand and Australia," the firm said.

This means that there's chance that the Pokemon Go APK you downloaded is a fake, and could give anonymous individuals complete access to your phone. Here's how you can tell if the Pokemon Go APK you've downloaded is RAT-free.

Method 1:

The Secure Hash Algorithm or SHA is a string of characters unique to specific data. It's a way to check if a file has been altered or not by acting like a signature for a text or data file.

• To calculate the SHA-256 hash of your Pokemon Go APK this is what you need to do:
• Obtain Hash Droid from the Play Store.
• Select Hash A File.
• Under Select a hash function, choose SHA-256.
• Choose the Pokemon Go APK from your Download folder.
• Hit Calculate.
• If safe you should get: 8bf2b0865bef06906cd854492dece202482c04ce9c5e881e02d2b6235661ab67

At the time of posting this, no updated versions of Pokemon Go have been released so it is safe to assume any other SHA-256 hash belongs to a malicious APK.

As per Proofpoint, the SHA-256 of one of the malicious APKs is 15db22fd7d961f4d4bd96052024d353b3ff4bd135835d2644d94d74c925af3c4

Method 2:

• On your Android device go to Settings -> Apps -> Pokemon Go
• View the Permissions section.
• Here's what it should be asking permission for:

And here's what one of the malicious Pokemon Go APK asks for:

As you can see, it would ask for access to your call logs, record audio, check your browsing history, and even send messages and make calls on your behalf. Scary.

Hopefully Niantic and The Pokemon Company rectify this by making Pokemon Go available to all regions soon. Till then though I'd advise caution prior to downloading.

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