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If you go to the Internet Browser and tap out the Mario theme, you can play Arkanoid.

Cartoon Network’s We Bare Bears follows three endearing bear brothers: Grizz, Panda and Ice Bear and their awkward attempts at assimilating into human society. Living in the global tech epicentre, Silicon Valley, the bears are obsessed with the latest high-tech gadgets and crave nothing more than to be “Internet Famous”. These bears would give Zoella and Joe Sugg a run for their money any day – they’re masters of the selfie, kings of apps and are constantly posting hilarious videos of themselves online.

In fact, Grizz, Panda and Ice Bear are in love with the idea of online stardom so much that they’ve shared their best tips to help you climb the Internet fame ladder and go viral; like how to take a good selfie, how to bust a move like a pro and how to celebrate each new social media follower.

Besides trying to become Internet famous the three lovable outsiders, Grizzly (Eric Edelstein), Panda (Bobby Moynihan) and Ice Bear (Demetri Martin), are just trying to fit into the society and mingle with humans – and if they can get some ice cream (or fat-free frozen yogurt) on the way, all the better.

We Bare Bears was created by Annie Award-winner Daniel Chong (Toy Story of Terror!) who will be taking part in a Facebook Live Q&A on 13 March between 4:10-4:30 pm GMT on Cartoon Network UK’s Facebook page.

The all-new episodes of We Bare Bears will kick off on weekdays at 6 pm from Monday, 13 March, on Cartoon Network.

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been steadily pushing their acquisition programme as they have recently acquired Thinkbox Software, a company which creates and sells solutions for media design and content creation, loosely targeted at people in the wider spectrum of the video-media industry.

Not much about the deal has been mentioned, except for a short message on Thinkbox Software’s website by the company’s CEO, Christopher Bond.

“We’re excited to announce that we’ve been acquired by Amazon!

We’ll be joining the Amazon Web Services family, and we’re looking forward to working together to deliver exciting customer offerings.

At this point, it’s still business as usual for us. We’ll continue to provide you, our customers, with remarkable support whether you work on-prem, in the cloud or both.

Chris and the Thinkbox Team”

Other acquisitions of AWS include NICE high-performance computing software company last year, and cybersecurity company, Harvest.ai, in January. Apart from these, in 2015, AWS bought Biba Systems to strengthen its video-conferencing system and soon after the company launched ‘Chime’, an online-meeting service.

Founded in 2010, Thinkbox had about 39 people working until last July. Services of Thinkbox Software include ‘Deadline’ for render management, ‘XMesh’ for geometry caching,  ‘Sequoia’ for point cloud meshing tools.

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‘Poker is the game of the future’, says AIGF, CEO, Roland Landers, ambitiously.

Formulated in 2016, the All India Gaming Federation (AIGF) has been pushing for the legalisation of sports betting.

Internationally, gambling comes under the umbrella term ‘Gaming.’ From Poker and Rummy to horse racing and fantasy leagues, each one of these have some sort of betting mechanics in place. While many countries / states earn huge revenues from such events, most of these are still banned in India.

The word ‘gambling’ brings in the stigma of illegality, even with games like Rummy, which has been declared as a ‘Game of skill’ by the Supreme Court of India a couple of years back. In India, only two states currently allow gambling through their offline gaming licences, Goa and Sikkim.

It is to be noted that the gaming laws are restricted state-wise and thus each state has to abide by its own laws in the vicinity. However, online poker can be played by any individual throughout the country except from two states: Assam and Odisha, because the gaming acts applicable to these states, the Assam Game and Betting Act 1970 and Orissa Prevention of Gaming Act 1955 do not create any exception for ‘games of skill.’ Thus, any game in which money is at stake, is barred according to the aforementioned acts. Skill-based games were made legal in Nagaland last year through a notification.

Now, according to Landers, AIGF is currently in conversation with at least three states from southern India to move ahead and legalise skill based gaming; however he did not specify any names. The states have apparently studied the Goa model and are keen on applying the same and AIGF is helping them out on how to go about it.

According to a KPMG report of 2010, gambling and betting in India is worth over $60 billion, most of which is gray and according to FICCI, if betting is legalised, the revenue potential can reach as high as Rs 20,000 crores. Thus legalising it will not only help in generating revenues, but also assist in regulating the betting practices. Taking an example from ‘The National Lottery’ of UK and how it supports their athletes, the revenue fund could be used for something similar or it could also be used to strengthen the social infrastructure in some form.

Roland Landers

AIGF is registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 and has its headquarter in Mumbai. The organisation follows a membership policy. With three founding members, it has a total number of 12 members currently and offers membership in the categories of gold, silver and even a start-up plan which will be going live from April. “We want to develop where we will work with a foreign partner, so that responsible gaming happens from all aspects,” says Landers. In a more elaborative way, ‘gaming’ here stands for eSports, fantasy leagues, poker, rummy, horse racing, lotteries, casinos and sports betting. The organisation wants sub-committees for each one of them.

“If betting and casinos are legalised, it will help the entire value chain including tourism and job creation and eventually the government can earn revenues from licences and tax,” asserts Landers.

With high amount of smartphone penetration and an enormous youth population, a digital India could earn huge revenues from these modes, while regulating the process to that it does not go into the gray area.

AIGF aims to regulate the basis on which these kinds of games are played and provide it with more credibility. Going by the ideas of Landers, the organisation wants to maintain the stance of ‘Responsible Gaming’. “Just like the phrase ‘responsible drinking’, we want to ensure the same for gaming. No under-age gaming or emptying your pockets,” adds Landers, “This is our major agenda.”
 
Some of the states where betting and staking money on even ‘skill-based games’ is illegal have pretty old gaming acts, while online poker, rummy and fantasy leagues are fairly new. Thus, AIGF is looking forward to work with these states to issue notifications to address the issue. The organisation has employed a law firm, Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan Attorneys, as their aide.

AIGF is also pushing to amend the structure in which GST (Goods and Service Tax) would be applied to gaming, with a recommendation. With a lot of international eyes on the Indian market, which is poised to grow on a steady scale, non-allowance of FDI in this sector is a problem that the organisers are trying to address as well.

AIGF is organising a ‘Gaming Conclave’ on 17 March in association with FICCI where all the regulators would be present. The agenda would include cyber security, a white paper on skill gaming and more.

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