Archive for July, 2016

Cold Water ends Drake’s 15-week run at No.1

Friday, July 29th, 2016

It’s happened – Drake is no longer Number 1 on the Official Singles Chart.

Drizzy’s 15-week stay at the top spot – the second longest consecutive stint in UK chart history – is over; his Wizkid and Kyla collaboration One Dance has slipped four places and finishes at this week’s Number 5.

Our new Number 1 is Cold Water, Major Lazer’s powerhouse collaboration with Justin Bieber and MØ, which notches up 102,000 combined sales to take the top spot, including 5.56 million streams and 47,000 downloads. The track is Major Lazer and MØ’s first Number 1 single and Justin’s fourth.

The rest of this week’s Top 5 looks like this: Jonas Blue and JP Cooper’s Perfect Strangers holds firm at Number 2, Calum Scott’s Dancing On My Own climbs one to hit a new peak of Number 3 and The Chainsmokers tumble one spot with Don’t Let Me Down.

New entries and high climbers

Elsewhere in the Top 10, Shawn Mendes’ Treat You Better climbs three places to a new high of Number 6, and Kent Jones’ Don’t Mind rises 10 to 9 following his performance in BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge earlier this week.

Bastille’s Good Grief is a big climber this week, vaulting to a new peak of 15, up nine places from last week’s 24. MØ is back again with her solo hit Final Song which climbs two rungs (17), and she is closely followed by M.O – the girl group’s first Top 40 entry Who Do You Think Of rises from 35 to 25.

Christine and the Queens’ Tilted moves two places to a new PB of 27, as does Charlie Puth and Selena Gomez’s We Don’t Talk Anymore (28). Anne-Marie’s Alarm is a new entry in this week’s Top 40, up 23 placings to 32, and finally Snakehips’ Cruel featuring Zayn floats five places to 33.

Check out this week’s Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full

Lego Star Wars tops gaming charts for a fourth week

Monday, July 25th, 2016

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens enjoyed its four straight week at number one on the UK charts last week in spite of dropping 39 percent of its sales compared to the week before.

No new releases, meant that it was a very slow week on the retail charts with FIFA 16 moving into second place and Monster Hunter Generations dropping from third to ninth.

While slipping from second to sixth in the all formats chart, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End remains the best-selling single SKU.

All Formats (all prices):

1. Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens / Warner Bros.
2. FIFA 16 / EA Sports
3. Overwatch / Blizzard
4. Grand Theft Auto V / Rockstar
5. Doom / Bethesda
6. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End / Sony
7. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 / Activision
8. Rocket League / 505 Games
9. Monster Hunter Generations / Capcom
10. Minecraft: Xbox Edition / Microsoft

This gaming news can be discussed here

One Dance scores a 15th week at Number 1

Friday, July 22nd, 2016

He may only want One Dance, but Drake shows no signs of vacating the dance floor as he fights off his rivals to claim a 15th straight week at Number 1.

One Dance, which features Wizkid and Kyla, was also the most streamed track of the week, racking up 4.33 million listens.

Jonas Blue and JP Cooper rise one place to Number 2 with Perfect Strangers, while Don’t Let Me Down, from Chainsmokers feat. Daya, slips a spot to 3.

Calum Scott’s cover of Robyn’s Dancing On My Own holds firm at 4, and Kungs vs Cookin’ On 3 Burners’ This Girl is also a non-mover at 5.

Shawn Mendes, who scored a Number 1 earlier in the year with Stitches, breaks into the Top 10 with Treat You Better, at 9, while MØ leaps nice places to 19 with Final Song.

Highest new entry this week goes to Katy Perry. Rise, which is set to be used in Olympics’ coverage for US TV channel NBC, goes in at 25.

5 Seconds of Summer also score a brand-new entry, with Girls Talk Boys, taken from the new Ghostbusters movie, starting at 28, and French star Christine and the Queens vaults 11 places to Number 29 with Tilted.

British girl group M.O. score their very first UK Top 40, with Who Do You Think Of leaping 12 places to Number 35, while MK & Becky Hill’s Piece Of Me rebounds five slots to 37. Finally, a new entry for Snakehips and former One Direction star Zayn – their collaboration Cruel goes straight in at 38.

Check out this week’s Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full

Someone Already Made a Kickass Torrents Clone

Friday, July 22nd, 2016

The game of whack-a-mole continues. Less than 24 hours after being taken down in an international sting operation, Kickass Torrents (KAT) is back—well, sort of. The popular torrent link site isoHunt has created a mirror for KAT at KickassTorrents.website.

According to a Venture Beat report, the KAT mirror is hosting files from about the last year and a half or so, giving people just enough time to archive anything they didn’t have time to save. Although the links should still work, there are no forums on the mirror—one of the biggest draws to the original KAT website.

This isn’t the first time the team at isoHunt has come to the rescue of the pirating community, either. Back in December 2014, isoHunt created a mirror of The Pirate Bay, another popular torrenting site, after it was taken down following a police raid in Sweden. The Pirate Bay mirror was practically identical to the original Pirate Bay website, and the mirror even hosted new content.

The KAT mirror won’t be anywhere near as robust. “We don’t know how long it can last, but at least it’s something,” the isoHunt team said in a statement that pops up on the newly created mirror site.

The isoHunt team is encouraging pirates to rally around KickassTorrents creator Artem Vaulin by signing this petition on Change.org. The likelihood that the petition will be enough to save Vaulin is slim, but if the petition reaches more than 100,000 signatures in 30 days, the US government will likely release an official response. Before you sign the petition, you should remember that you’re basically identifying yourself as a piracy sympathizer—so think long and hard before you sign your name on something you know the Feds will be watching.

The Force Awakens tops gaming chart for a third week

Monday, July 18th, 2016

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been sitting pretty at the top of the UK retail charts for three consecutive weeks now despite a 45% drop in sales compared to last week (it’s still got a couple more weeks to go before pulling level with Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes, which enjoyed five weeks at the top).

Elsewhere it was a solid week for Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and thanks to a retailer’s event (we’re assuming GAME), Naughty Dog’s action-packed adventure jumped up four places (with a 152% increase in sales). Grand Theft Auto V and Fallout 4 also enjoyed their own promotional bumps. Similarly, 11th and 12th placed games Zoo Tycoon and Kinect Sports re-entered the top twenty thanks to their inclusion in new hardware bundles.

The highest new entry this week is Capcom’s Monster Hunter Generations, with the 3DS title landing ahead of Overwatch in third. Here’s the GfK Chart-Track top ten in full:

1. Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens / Warner Bros.
2. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End / Sony
3. Monster Hunter Generations / Capcom
4. Overwatch / Activision Blizzard
5. Grand Theft Auto V / Take 2
6. Doom / Bethesda
7. FIFA 16 / EA
8. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 / Activision
9. Rocket League / 505 Games
10. Fallout 4 / Bethesda

This gaming news can be discussed here

One Dance logs 14th week at Number 1

Friday, July 15th, 2016

Drake has done it again: One Dance is once again the UK’s Number 1 song on the Official Singles Chart, logging a staggering 14th week at the top.

The rapper is fast approaching a chart record with the song; the longest stint at Number 1 on the Official Chart is 16 weeks, a record held by Bryan Adams’ 1991 hit (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. Will he hold on long enough to match or surpass them?

He faces strong competition from two songs that make big gains on the chart this week; Chainsmokers’ Don’t Let Me Down shoots from 7 to Number 2, and Jonas Blue’s Perfect Strangers up 13 places to Number 3 today. Both are now in a strong position to potentially snatch the title from Drake.

Making up the rest of this week’s Top 5 are Calum Scott’s Dancing On My Own, up from 10 to 4 and surpassing Robyn’s Number 8 peak with the original song in 2010, and Kungs vs Cookin’ On 3 Burners’ This Girl slips from 2 to 5.

Miami rapper Kent Jones climbs two places to crack to the Top 10 at 10 with Don’t Mind, and Shawn Mendes’ Treat You Better leaps 7 spots to Number 13.

This week’s highest new entry comes from Olly Murs’ You Don’t Know Love at 23, and three songs hit the Top 40 for the first time: Mo’s Final Song at 28 (up 25 places), Charlie Puth and Selena Gomez’s We Don’t Talk Anymore at 30 (up 19 spots), and Selena’s Kill Em With Kindness at 35 (up 22).

Check out this week’s Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full

Nintendo to re-release the NES

Thursday, July 14th, 2016

The Japanese gaming giant has just announced its intention to recreate the classic Nintendo Entertainment System for the modern era. Say hello to the Nintendo Classic Mini.

Well, that came out of nowhere! The NCM appears to small enough to be held one-handed and comes with a selection of 30 games built-in. Though a glimpse at the front of the console shows what is presumably a cartridge slot for putting your original games to use.

Further details on the Nintendo website reveal that the NCM is fully HDMI capable and is powered via a single USB port. Both cables will ship with the product along with a single controller.

Nintendo has clearly been following some of the insanely popular emulator projects on Kickstarter and decided to go the whole hog with its own entry into the market. No emulator can compete with a high-fidelity recreation of the original hardware.

There are no details on whether the NCM will improve on the original console’s functionality, but presumably Nintendo will be following up with further details.

(more…)

Freeview to carry eight extra BBC channels during Rio Olympics

Tuesday, July 12th, 2016

Multiplex and broadcast infrastructure company Arqiva has confirmed it will carry eight additional services on digital terrestrial TV for the duration of the 2016 Olympics

The additional services, delivered in conjunction with the BBC and consisting of a mixture of standard and high definition streams, will broadcast on the company’s COM8 multiplex, which has a technical reach of 76% of households. Arqiva says the move will help contribute towards the BBC’s goal of bringing more than 3,000 hours of coverage of the event.

In order to receive the channels, viewers must have a device that’s DVB-T2 compatible – i.e. a device supporting Freeview HD, Freeview Play, YouView (BT TV, TalkTalk TV, Plusnet TV) or EE TV.

The COM8 multiplex already carries QVC+1 HD and QVC Beauty HD on channels 111 and 112, so viewers who can receive these services now will be able to benefit from the expanded service. Viewers may need to retune their receivers at the beginning of August in order to receive the expanded Olympics service, which will be live from 5th August – 21st August 2016.

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Lego Star Wars continues to dominate gaming charts

Monday, July 11th, 2016

Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens has remained at the top of the UK retail charts for the second week in a row (despite a 54% drop on the previous week’s sales).

The Wii U version of the game released last week, bringing the total up to seven physical formats for the Lego juggernaut.

Overwatch is climbing again by taking second, and Doom has knocked FIFA 16 down to fourth by taking third spot, this due to recent price promotions on PS4.

The retail edition of Rocket League also continues to do good business, and Carmageddon: Max Damage debuted this week in 22nd.

Here’s the all-formats (all prices) GfK Chart-Track top ten:

1. Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens / Warner Bros.
2. Overwatch / Activision Blizzard
3. Doom / Bethesda
4. FIFA 16 / EA
5. Rocket League / 505 Games
6. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End / Sony
7. Grand Theft Auto V / Take 2
8. Ratchet & Clank / Sony
9. The Division / Ubisoft
10. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 / Activison

This gaming news can be discussed here

Drake lands a 13th week at Number 1 with One Dance

Friday, July 8th, 2016

Drake has done it yet again – he’s still at Number 1 with his Wizkid and Kyla collab One Dance.

The most streamed track of the week, One Dance has now notched up 13 consecutive weeks at the top, the third longest consecutive Number 1 of all time, behind Wet Wet Wet’s Love Is All Around (15 weeks) and fellow Canadian Bryan Adams’ (Everything I Do) I Do It For You.

Despite being the biggest sellers of the week, Kungs vs Cookin’ On 3 Burners’ This Girl settles for Number 2 for the fourth week in a row, and Drake and Rihanna’s Too Good holds firm at 3 for the second straight week. Calvin Harris and Rihanna’s This Is What You Came For is static at 4, while Adele’s Send My Love (To Your New Lover) climbs one place to a new peak of Number 5.

New Entries and High Climbers

The Chainsmokers crash the Top 10 for the first time in their careers with their Daya collaboration Don’t Let Me Down, up nine places to Number 7 and Calum Scott hits Number 10 (up two) with Dancing On My Own, his first UK Top 10 single.

Leaping 14 places to this week’s Number 12 is Kent Jones with Don’t Mind and also on the up is Ariana Grande; Into You ascends eight to 14, the highest charting so far from her Dangerous Woman album.

This week’s highest climber is Jonas Blue with his track Perfect Strangers, which climbs 22 rungs to Number 16. Also on the rise is Shawn Mendes’ latest single Treat You Better, his second Top 20 single bounces nine places to Number 20.

Finally, two new tracks enter the Top 40 for the very first time. Rihanna scoops her 45th Top 40 single with Needed Me, up three to 38. The second newbie this week is from MK & Becky Hill; Piece of Me is MK’s first and Becky’s second (not including her uncredited vocals on Wilkinson’s Afterglow) Top 40 single.

Click here to see this week’s Top 100 Official Singles Chart in full