DITTO NOW HAS ITS SIGNATURE MOVE: TRANSFORM. LET THE HUNT BEGIN!

v0.47.1 of Pokemon GO brought several client-side changes, which we explored in our data mine a few days ago. Ditto received some necessary animations and interactions therein, but one thing was missing: Ditto's signature move TRANSFORM had not been assigned to it on the server side.

A short while ago, however, the Silph Research group discovered that Ditto has now been officially assigned the TRANSFORM move in the brand new server-side game settings.

That means, travelers, that the hunt is officially on!

DITTO IS COMING (VERY) SOON

New code for Ditto has been added in spades. Code showing the following has now appeared:

Ditto appears to be able to be 'encounterable' in the wild. It is not clear whether this is enabled yet, or whether it will appear as Ditto before capture, but the species is almost certainly 'capturable' (as opposed to acquirable only through non-wild-encounter)
Ditto appears to be able to be used in battle
Sounds for different Ditto effects have appeared (not included, so as not to spoil the effect!)
A background graphic for Ditto has appeared (dark purple)
A small 'spotlight' graphic has appeared for ditto that may indicate a different appearance either on the map, or elsewhere
It is possible that Ditto is now in the game. We are unable to confirm either way, but this update appears to have given the client everything it needs to handle Ditto interactions. Keep it together, travelers.

2. THREE NEW 'SPONSORS' HAVE APPEARED... BUT THEY'RE UNUSUAL

To add to the known sponsor list (MCDONALDS, POKEMON_STORE, TOHOSOFTBANK, and GLOBE), three new 'sponsors' have appeared:

SPATULA
THERMOMETER
KNIFE
This could possibly be placeholder names/icons for sponsored retail/restaurant locations that will play host during a promotion. Or, they could be used for a future event in other ways. Notably, no new graphics have been added client-side for the three items, so it is unclear whether they are simply icons to appear in PokeStop photo-discs, or have other purposes.

3. TWEAKS TO THE NEW NEARBY TRACKER

New code now appears to show that the NEARBY tracker (currently being tested in San Francisco, Arizona, and Seattle) will hide the SIGHTINGS radar when a minimum number of NEARBY Pokemon are detected. The minimum number is unclear, but anecdotally, it may currently be a single one. The code appears to be able to adjust this parameter - perhaps indicating Niantic is continuing to refine the feature.

Logic has also appeared that informs the client whether or not to show the NEARBY Pokemon tracker at all, possibly referencing the geofence, or if there are no POKESTOPS with spawns in range.

PURE SPECULATION AHEAD!
4. SOMETHING ...SHINY...

We don't want to get ahead of ourselves, as we're working with crumbs, travelers. But for the first time, the phrases SHINY and RARE have appeared in the APK.

There is a new audio file that plays when a wild Pokemon is captured that is deemed RARE by the game (it's a little more enthusiastic than the normal 'you did it' music after a capture).

Finally, there is a decent amount of new code segregating Pokemons' materials into "default" and "shiny" materials. Materials, for those unfamiliar with game development, are specifications for how surfaces appear, reflect light, are colored/tinted, etc.

If it's true that a SHINY material has been introduced, it is possible that tinted versions of Pokemon may begin appearing.

However.

There are currently no new Pokemon sprites for the Pokedex/Sightings/Nearby tracker, nor elsewhere in the game. We might have expected to see alternate SHINY sprites in this update if "shinies" were truly going to become part of the collecting game.

Take this one with a big grain of salt, travelers. But we'll be keeping an eye out for traction on this front.

5. COMBAT TWEAK?

We have seen no change to the move DPS or species CP values, but a small amount of new code referencing moves/attackers has appeared. This currently remains unexplained, but may point towards future changes to the combat system.

PARTING WORDS
So, travelers, a little more than meets the eye with this update! Whether or not SHINY Pokemon will be appearing in the game, we are confident that Ditto is nearing it's appearance. It may already be enabled in the game! So keep a sharp eye.

Niantic's VP of Product recently shared that very large things will be heading to the game before the end of the year. In our mind, these signs point towards some awesome things to come.

The Hunt For Ditto In Pokemon GO Is Finally On!

Ditto has long been rumored to arrive in Pokemon GO, but it was only recently that everything about it seems to make sense. Following a recent update to the game, data miners on social media sites were able to gather information about the Pokemon's supposed arrival and abilities. This is definitely something that players must look forward to.
According to The Silph Road -- a popular Reddit community dedicated to Niantic's hit mobile game -- the signature move of Ditto has been discovered in the title. This is thanks to a new patch (v0.47.1) unleashed by the studio lately. The said update reportedly brought various client-side changes, all of which have been data mined a couple of days ago.
While there have been several Pokemon Easter eggs pointing to the Pokemon GO creature's existence in the last few weeks, nothing seems to highlight its ability. Well, actually, it's already a thing in the past. The aforementioned community was able to confirm that the developers have finally assigned -- officially -- the Transform ability to the specie. As of this writing, it's already been placed in the game's newly released server-side settings.
So what does this mean for the fans of Niantic's title? It's simple -- the hunt is on! Yes, that's right. The highly anticipated Pokemon is already available in the game. Players can now head straight to the wild and look for the popular monster.
The said Pokemon GO creature is equipped with the ability to transform into any other species. For instance, it can copy Dragonite. And through it, it's also able to mimic or utilize the same skills. This one here is really going to be a real game changer in gym battles.
As previously reported here at iTech Post, the monster was first rumored to arrive sometime in December. The month is believed to be the release window of Gen 2 update, something fans have also been anticipating for. Hence its arrival is a bit of a surprise to many fans.
What are your thoughts on Ditto finally arriving to Pokemon GO? Have you started your journey to catching this creature already? What are your expectations? Tell us what you think at the comment section below!

Top 11 CP-Pokemon after rebalance!

11th: Alakazam
Status: BuffedStamina: 110, Attack: 271, Defense: 194
Stats: +85 Attack; +42 Defense
Percentage CP Change: +64.57%
Maximum CP: 2887

Many of us older Pokemon fans are extremely excited to see Alakazam’s CP buff. He was fun using in the original Pokemon games and many of us were shocked seeing how useless he was in Pokemon Go. I specifically made this a top-11 analysis to squeeze him in. Although he ranks at 11th, he received a huge CP change and outpaced Gengar.

Something Strange Happened To Pokemon Go GYMS Yesterday, they all went grey!

Since last update Niantic made some changes in Pokemon Go Gyms and Gyms are now a lot easier and changed for good but a user reported that during yesterday night all Gyms turned grey,He also said that usually Gyms are always changing between teams but yesterday all turned into grey for certain time duration.

He also mentioned that he took a quick walk to see other Gyms in the area and checked that they all were grey as well and one of was level 7 Valor Gym but that turned grey as well.

This discussion took place on reddit and there were few other pokemon trainers who backed him up that this same issue happened to them as well in their area!

What do you think is it possible that spoofers are going around beating Gym and turning them into grey? or Could it be that Niantic is updating Gyms and adding some certain features?

Pokemon Go Permanently Locking Out Players Because Of Offensive Names And Bug?

According to some trainers Pokemon Go app is permanently locking them out of the game.

So what happens is your name could be flagged if it’s offensive and some users reported that their name got flagged even though it wasn’t offensive,one of the user’s nickname was WMDraongslayer, so when his name got flagged, he was still logged in the game and he noticed that his name was changed into some number strings and later he changed his nickname to SnorlaxSlayerWM.

Afterward he went home, and next day he noticed there was an email from Niantic in his inbox, he opened it, which is below:

“Trainer,

We have reset your nickname because it has been identified as offensive to other players. The next time you login you will be asked to select a new nickname.

-NianticOps”

He ignored the email as he already changed his nickname, but next day he was asked to log in again, and as soon as he logged in, He immediately met by the professor Willow. He says, “Hi Trainer! What should I call you, again?”

When you tap on the screen, it takes you to another screen that says, “Enter the nickname that other Trainers will use for you.”

Now this is where the main issue begins! The trainer tried to change name multiple time, he even used some random numbers but it didn’t work out! Every time he hit submit button, it immediately says “Server Error. When you click “OK”, it takes right back to the renaming screen. You get stuck in an infinite loop.

You can’t even log out or go to any other screen. [ My Tip: In case you wanna log out you can always re-install the game and if not, just go to settings, my applications and clear cache/data for Pokemon Go app, and you will need to re-login]

There are about 20-30 players on reddit who reported similar issue since last 3 months, not much but still this issue needs to resolve!

What you can do is Report this issue as a bug here: Pokemon Go Bug Report that way it will be resolved faster and for better!

Dragon Ball Super- Trunks’ Spirit Sword Bomb- Explained

Dragon Ball Super Episode 67 is the most action packed episode of Super we have seen till now. Future Trunks did things no one saw coming. With his Spirit Sword Bomb, he annihilated the physical body of Zamasu. He repaired his broken Sword by charging it up with his ki, which is quite acceptable because we have seen him unleashing ki blasts using the sword before. Besides, just the simple fact that he carries and uses a Sword as a weapon tells us that he has great control over it and the Sword is certainly special. Later, he went on to gather energy from everyone and the entire planet to form a Spirit Bomb. He first absorbed the Spirit Bomb and then charged his Sword up with its power just like he did with his usual ki earlier on. With all the powers directed in the sword, it became powerful enough to damage Zamasu whose immortality got nullified after the fusion. Also, he was exhausted having just fought Vegito. If Vegito’s fusion stayed a bit longer he would probably end up destroying Zamasu. Trunks made sure to take advantage of that too.

Pokemon Go: Promoting physical activity but sponsoring Mcdonalds? Research.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity is recommended per week. Many, nearly 1/4 adults worldwide and 4/5 adolescents, fail to reach this standard. Physical inactivity also tends to lead to sedentary behavior, or sitting too much, and physical inactivity and sedentary behavior are NOT the same. You can theoretically reach WHO guidelines while still leading a sedentary lifestyle, such as chronic TV-watching, video game consumption, working desk jobs, etc. Both  increase mortality for 5 of the major non-communicable diseases.

AVGs have been studied to see if they garner enough metabolic equivalents (METs) or heart rate (HR) to meet the aforementioned standards. For the most part, the research is mixed, but much of it support AVGs — especially since it replaces sedentary video game consumption at a minimum.

Fast forward.

Pokemon Go is an augmented-reality game; although it is an AVG, it is unique of its own. Researchers, including myself, are testing various aspects of Pokemon Go and the implications of physical activity. As of now, I have high hopes for Pokemon Go.

But the advertising is a variable I have never considered. Niantic has boasted about the positive effects of Pokemon Go, but what is unique to Pokemon Go (as opposed to Wii Sports Boxing for example) is the advertising of unhealthy places such as Mcdonalds. In Japan, Mcdonalds was a sponsor even before launch.

I believe Niantic does not have the right to play both worlds. Advertising is a strong tool; it absolutely contributes to their generous marketplace prices, but to advocate physical activity and healthy lifestyles while simultaneously allowing one of the unhealthiest fast food venues as a sponsor lies a certain paradox.