Today Mojang brings another round of fixes for Beta players on Bedrock.

Remember that only those on Xbox One / Windows 10 / and Android may participate in the Beta builds.  You will not be able to join Realms or non-beta players worlds and you will not be able to open worlds opened in the Beta in earlier/current stable builds of Bedrock.

• Crashes/Performance
  
  • Fixed several crashes that could occur during gameplay
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when trying to enchant fishing rods

• General
  
  • Marketplace ratings now appear correctly when scrolling (MCPE-60287)

•  Gameplay
  
  • Parity: Blocks will now lose their waterlogged state when pushed by a piston
  • Kelp will now keep growing after being partially broken by a piston, and the piece below will have a maximum random age of 24 (MCPE-57330)
  • Blue Wither Skulls will once again break Obsidian (MCPE-63223)
  • Ender Dragon Fireball attacks no longer cause excessive damage (MCPE-40344)
  • Hopper mine carts will now drop hoppers and mine carts when broken with a ranged weapon (MCPE-55859)
  • Fixed several crafting recipe issues:
    
    • Multiple Honey Blocks can be crafted in the 2×2 crafting grid (MCPE-63081)
    • Crafting Multiple Honey Blocks returns the correct amount of items to the player (MCPE-63461, MCPE-58579)

• Mobs
  
  • Parity: Cured Zombie Villagers can now offer discounted trades (MCPE-47040)
  • Hostile mobs will now correctly seek out and jump on turtle eggs (MCPE-36244)
  • Cured Zombie Villagers no longer inherit XP unexpectedly, which would prevent them from acquiring a new profession (MCPE-48712)
  • Villagers will no longer become preoccupied with sharing carrots (MCPE-32627)
  • Vindicators that spawn in Woodland Mansions will now use the spawned event and become hostile before being attacked (MCPE-43208)
  • Villagers now have a chance to offer Trident Enchantment books as trades (MCPE-35406)
  • Creepers in boats now deal damage to players nearby
  • Wolves will once again heal when fed meat (MCPE-63205)

Broomstick League is Now Available on Steam Early Access and is 10% off!*

Equipped with a broomstick, a wand and nerves of steel, players must hone their flying skills and use magic to dodge enemies, defend their goal, and pull off incredible plays in Broomstick League. Soar high through the magical arenas as you try to outscore the competition and gain victory over your opponents.

*Offer ends March 12 at 10AM Pacific Time

The Entertainment Software Association has posted an updated statement on June’s E3 plans as concerns about the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak continue to rise.

In that statement, the ESA says that E3 is currently still planned to take place in Los Angeles on June 9-11, but that it is actively “monitoring and evaluating the situation daily.”

The ESA’s updated comments come hours after the county of Los Angeles declared a state of emergency, a step that ultimately allows local governments to better access and allocate funds for preventative measures and continue to monitor the virus’ spread. Los Angeles reported its first COVID-19-related death today, and has reported seven confirmed cases so far.

“The health and safety of our attendees, exhibitors, partners, and staff is our top priority,” reads the statement. “While the ESA continues to plan for a safe and successful E3 show June 9-11, 2020—we are monitoring and evaluating the situation daily. Our E3 team and partners continue to monitor COVID-19 via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). We are actively assessing the latest information and will continue to develop measures to further reduce health risks at the show.”

The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!

Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania​

Our artists honor the unique aesthetic vision of each project and work to make all aspects of the experience beautiful. The team is comprised of 2D/conceptual artists, 3D modelers, technical and effects artists, and animators.  We are seeking a talented VFX Game Artist to work on projects ranging from online worlds and handheld games to virtual reality experiences and themed interactive attractions.

You must demonstrate the ability to collaborate well with a multi­disciplined team, communicating constructively, both verbally and in writing, in order to create engaging and visually compelling game assets.  The ideal candidate will have to be self-motivated and a collaborative team player who is able to work closely with the Art Director to be responsible for large sections of the game.

Our ideal candidate will have the ability to handle both technical and artistic issues during game development, as well as be able to work quickly in a team atmosphere with schedules and reliable milestone delivery, all while demonstrating the ability to respond professionally to feedback and art direction.   This candidate should be highly creative, able to conceptualize, and possess an eye for motion.  Passion for effects work and game visuals, with the ability to reach a wide range of styles within the media are crucial.

You will design, create and implement dynamic and dramatic in-game special effects in-engine (explosions, pyro, UI effects, magic, environmental effects, etc). You will work closely with designers, engineers, artists, and audio to inspire gameplay ideas and ensure that the effects meet design needs and stunning visuals. Our candidate should be comfortable using Maya, Photoshop, Unreal and/or Unity to create and implement VFX.

We’re looking for someone excited about cross­-disciplined collaboration and making great games with us!

REQUIREMENTS:

• Portfolio of work must be available for review, displaying the use of particle systems, shaders, and mesh effects
• Understanding of optimization limitations and methodology
• Display excellent communication skills, both verbal and visual
• Understanding of various methodologies for VFX creation
• Experience in Unreal and/or Unity engine for the creation of VFX
• Understanding of VFX/PostFX integration and performance impacts

DESIRED SKILLS:

• Concept art foundational skills
• Houdini experience
• Knowledge of shader creation or shader based workflows

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND:

•  BS/BA/BFA degree in fine arts, animation, visual communication, or similar

Interested? Apply now.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

Looking for a new job? Get started here. Are you a recruiter looking for talent? Post jobs here.

The Castlevania series has a rich history on Nintendo consoles ever since the original game came first to the Japanese Famicom Disk System way back in 1986, and then to the NES a year later. There may be a significant release or two from Konami’s vampire-killing catalogue still missing from Nintendo platforms (we’re looking at you, Symphony of the Night), but the vast majority of the series can be found on Nintendo consoles. Given the release of Netflix’s third Castlevania season today, we thought it might be fun to look back at the franchise.

But where should you start if you’re new to the Castlevania series? Which Castlevania game is the best? Those are tough questions, but we’ve done our best to whip up a ranked list of the best Castlevania games (on Nintendo consoles) below. The series has many high points (and a couple of very low ones, too) and come in two distinct flavours: the more straightforward right-to-left style of the original games or the more expansive brand of Koji Igarashi-produced games (sometimes referred to as ‘Igavanias’) which combined spiritually with Nintendo’s Metroid series to birth an entire genre of ‘Metroidvania‘ video games.

For Switch owners the Castlevania Anniversary Collection should obviously be your first port of call, and there’s always Koji Igarashi’s non-affiliated Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night once you’ve exhausted all the Belmonts below. The Switch version isn’t perfect, but it is much improved since launch and is arguably the closest thing fans will get to Symphony of the Night on Switch until Konami decides to put Symphony of the Night on Switch.

We’ve included a couple of spin-offs and oddities, but that’s more than enough waffle. Wipe away those bloody tears, and let’s go kill us some vampires.

Publisher: Konami / Developer: Konami

Release Date: 18th Nov 2008 (USA) / 20th Mar 2009 (UK/EU)

We start with a spin-off. Set in the Castlevania universe, this 2008 Wii game brought all your favourite characters and monsters together for a momentously rubbish one-on-one 3D fighter with awful controls and questionable character designs. Castlevania Judgment was panned by critics and fans alike on release and time has done nothing to heal the wounds this one inflicted. A miserable pile, indeed.

Publisher: Konami / Developer: Konami

Release Date: 10th Dec 1989 (USA) / 10th Dec 1989 (UK/EU)

The first entry for the series on the Game Boy, and one best left forgotten, Castlevania: The Adventure is a turgid, terminally sluggish approximation of the series’ classic gameplay with repetitive, bland level design. Given the host console’s limitations, you might be tempted to give it the benefit of the doubt, but the sequel would show what the platform was truly capable of and expose this for the horror that it is. Do yourself a favour, skip this and start your portable Castlevania adventure with Belmont’s Revenge.

Publisher: Konami / Developer: Konami

Release Date: Feb 1988 (USA) / Nov 1988 (UK/EU)

Available on Switch as part of Konami’s Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection, Haunted Castle is an odd duck. Made exclusively for arcades, it occupies a strange middle ground somewhere between homage, parody and port and sees Simon Belmont (with a sprite which stands a quarter of the screen tall) rescuing his new bride from the villainous clutches of the Count. The music is by far the best thing about it, but despite looking superficially ‘better’ than the original, it’s an unfairly punishing arcade experience designed to empty your pockets of shiny coins. As such, there’s not much fun to be had and ultimately it’s not a patch on the original.

If you’re interested you can check out the differences between the original NES game, its VS Castlevania arcade port and Haunted Castle in this video.

Publisher: Konami / Developer: Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya

Release Date: 11th Mar 1998 (USA) / 11th Mar 1998 (UK/EU)

Without knowing that this was the third Castlevania for Game Boy, you could be forgiven for thinking this was the second game before Konami perfected things with Belmont’s Revenge. But no, Castlevania Legends was a late release for the ageing console (1997 in Japan, 1998 in the West) – the third and final entry and a less than auspicious farewell to Nintendo’s 8-bit handheld. Following the release of the towering Symphony of the Night on PlayStation would have been an unenviable task, to be sure, but even taking into account the platform’s inherent limitations this is an intense disappointment. With poor animation, lacklustre sprite work and equally unimpressive level design, it’s hard to believe that this came a whopping seven years after its fantastic predecessor.

Simply put, it wasn’t good enough at the time, and despite being a sought-after collectors item these days, it’s only got worse with age. Avoid.

Publisher: Konami / Developer: Konami

Release Date: 31st Dec 1998 (USA) / 11th Mar 1999 (UK/EU)

A flawed stab at a polygonal 3D Castlevania, this isn’t ‘bad’ as much as ‘crushingly average’. Launching several years into the N64’s cycle in 1999, players expected better from a 3D game at the dawning of the new millennium. Camera issues were a perennial problem for games of the era, but the best Castlevania titles have always been characterised by tight controls and Castlevania (yes, it eschewed the ’64’ colloquially appended to its title) simply wasn’t up to snuff. We respect it – from afar – but this one’s probably best left in the crypt.

Publisher: Konami / Developer: Konami

Release Date: 30th Nov 1999 (USA) / 3rd Mar 2000 (UK/EU)

This second N64 entry released less than a year after the first and actually includes the entire first game as an unlockable bonus once you’ve completed the prequel adventure. Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness is essentially the game its predecessor should have been and would no doubt be a DLC release with umpteen patches these days. It features numerous gameplay tweaks and also uses the Expansion Pak for improved visuals, but paying full price for this after putting down hard cash for its predecessor at the start of the year was painful, even for series devotees. Those N64 carts were pricey back in the day, and even in its polished form Legacy of Darkness is a long way from ‘classic’ status, in spite of our residual affection for it.

Publisher: Konami / Developer: Konami

Release Date: 29th Oct 2007 (USA) / 19th Oct 2007 (UK/EU)

Another game we have fond memories of, despite itself. Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest is obtuse, infuriating and downright cheap at times… but it’s got a killer soundtrack and admirably changes things up by building on the original game with new ideas, including a day/night cycle and an intriguing (if ultimately frustrating) non-linear approach. Back in the day it would have been an absolute nightmare, and we totally understand people who lose patience with it, but if you’re not opposed to sitting down with a walkthrough and making use of save states, we’d recommend giving Simon’s Quest another chance. The soundtrack alone makes it worth a playthrough.

Publisher: Konami / Developer: Konami

Release Date: 1987 (UK/EU)

This MSX2 version of Castlevania was developed in tandem with the NES game and features many similarities as well as some fascinating differences from the game you’re probably familiar with. For example, it wasn’t possible to implement scrolling in the MSX2 version so each level is divided into single screens that you move between. If you’re interested in a side-by-side comparison, check out this overview video from Splash Wave.

So what’s this doing on a list of Castlevania games for Nintendo consoles, you ask. Well, Vampire Killer released on the Wii U Virtual Console in Japan, so while we may not have had the pleasure in the West, it has technically appeared on a Nintendo platform. Ergo, it’s inclusion here.

Publisher: Konami / Developer: Konami

Release Date: 1st Sep 1995 (USA) / 1st Sep 1995 (UK/EU)

Known as Vampire’s Kiss in the EU, Castlevania: Dracula X is a Super NES remake of the PC Engine original Rondo of Blood, it doesn’t stand up to comparison with the game on which it is based, although it’s certainly not bad taken in isolation. It offers solid, old-school Castlevania fare and is worth investigating if you’ve chewed your way through better games in the series (most notably the original Rondo of Blood). If you’re new to the series, we wouldn’t start here, though.

Killer box art, mind.

Today, I stumbled upon this beautiful regex problem:

Given is a multi-line string and a regex pattern. How to find all lines that do NOT contain the regex pattern?

I’ll give you a short answer and a long answer.

The short answer is to use the pattern '((?!regex).)*' to match all lines that do not contain regex pattern regex. The expression '(?! ...)' is a negative lookahead that ensures that the enclosed pattern ... does not follow from the current position.

So let’s discuss this solution in greater detail. (You can also watch my explainer video if you prefer video format.)

Detailed Example

Let’s consider a practical code snippet. I’ll show you the code first and explain it afterwards:

import re

s = '''the answer is 42

the answer: 42

42 is the answer

43 is not

the answer

42''' for match in re.finditer('^((?!42).)*$', s, flags=re.M): print(match) '''

<re.Match object; span=(49, 58), match='43 is not'>

<re.Match object; span=(59, 69), match='the answer'> '''

You can see that the code successfully matches only the lines that do not contain the string '42'.

How can you do it?

The general idea is to match a line that doesn’t contain the string ‘42', print it to the shell, and move on to the next line.

The re.finditer(pattern, string) accomplishes this easily by returning an iterator over all match objects.

The regex pattern '^((?!42).)*$' matches the whole line from the first position '^' to the last position '$'. If you need a refresher on the start-of-the-line and end-of-the-line metacharacters, read this 5-min tutorial.

In between, you match an arbitrary number of characters: the asterisk quantifier does that for you. If you need help understanding the asterisk quantifier, check out this blog tutorial.

Which characters do you match? Only those where you don’t have the negative word '42' in your lookahead. If you need a refresher on lookaheads, check out this tutorial.

The lookahead itself doesn’t consume a character. Thus, you need to consume it manually by adding the dot metacharacter . which matches all characters except the newline character '\n'. As it turns out, there’s also a blog tutorial on the dot metacharacter.

Finally, you need to define the re.MULTILINE flag, in short: re.M, because it allows the start ^ and end $ metacharacters to match also at the start and end of each line (not only at the start and end of each string). You can read more about the flags argument at this blog tutorial.

Together, this regular expression matches all lines that do not contain the specific word '42'.

In case you had some problems understanding the concept of lookahead (and why it doesn’t consume anything), have a look at this explanation from the matching group tutorial on this blog:

Positive Lookahead (?=…)

The concept of lookahead is a very powerful one and any advanced coder should know it. A friend recently told me that he had written a complicated regex that ignores the order of occurrences of two words in a given text. It’s a challenging problem and without the concept of lookahead, the resulting code will be complicated and hard to understand. However, the concept of lookahead makes this problem simple to write and read.

But first things first: how does the lookahead assertion work?

In normal regular expression processing, the regex is matched from left to right. The regex engine “consumes” partially matching substrings. The consumed substring cannot be matched by any other part of the regex.

Figure: A simple example of lookahead. The regular expression engine matches (“consumes”) the string partially. Then it checks whether the remaining pattern could be matched without actually matching it.

Think of the lookahead assertion as a non-consuming pattern match. The regex engine goes from the left to the right—searching for the pattern. At each point, it has one “current” position to check if this position is the first position of the remaining match. In other words, the regex engine tries to “consume” the next character as a (partial) match of the pattern.

The advantage of the lookahead expression is that it doesn’t consume anything. It just “looks ahead” starting from the current position whether what follows would theoretically match the lookahead pattern. If it doesn’t, the regex engine cannot move on. Next, it “backtracks”—which is just a fancy way of saying: it goes back to a previous decision and tries to match something else.

Positive Lookahead Example: How to Match Two Words in Arbitrary Order?

What if you want to search a given text for pattern A AND pattern B—but in no particular order? If both patterns appear anywhere in the string, the whole string should be returned as a match.

Now, this is a bit more complicated because any regular expression pattern is ordered from left to right. A simple solution is to use the lookahead assertion (?.*A) to check whether regex A appears anywhere in the string. (Note we assume a single line string as the .* pattern doesn’t match the newline character by default.)

Let’s first have a look at the minimal solution to check for two patterns anywhere in the string (say, patterns ‘hi’ AND ‘you’).

>>> import re

>>> pattern = '(?=.*hi)(?=.*you)'

>>> re.findall(pattern, 'hi how are yo?')

[]

>>> re.findall(pattern, 'hi how are you?')

['']

In the first example, both words do not appear. In the second example, they do.

Let’s go back to the expression (?=.*hi)(?=.*you) to match strings that contain both ‘hi’ and ‘you’. Why does it work?

The reason is that the lookahead expressions don’t consume anything. You first search for an arbitrary number of characters .*, followed by the word hi. But because the regex engine hasn’t consumed anything, it’s still in the same position at the beginning of the string. So, you can repeat the same for the word you.

Note that this method doesn’t care about the order of the two words:

>>> import re

>>> pattern = '(?=.*hi)(?=.*you)'

>>> re.findall(pattern, 'hi how are you?')

['']

>>> re.findall(pattern, 'you are how? hi!')

['']

No matter which word “hi” or “you” appears first in the text, the regex engine finds both.

You may ask: why’s the output the empty string? The reason is that the regex engine hasn’t consumed any character. It just checked the lookaheads. So the easy fix is to consume all characters as follows:

>>> import re

>>> pattern = '(?=.*hi)(?=.*you).*'

>>> re.findall(pattern, 'you fly high')

['you fly high']

Now, the whole string is a match because after checking the lookahead with ‘(?=.*hi)(?=.*you)’, you also consume the whole string ‘.*’.

Negative Lookahead (?!…)

The negative lookahead works just like the positive lookahead—only it checks that the given regex pattern does not occur going forward from a certain position.

Here’s an example:

>>> import re

>>> re.search('(?!.*hi.*)', 'hi say hi?')

<re.Match object; span=(8, 8), match=''>

The negative lookahead pattern (?!.*hi.*) ensures that, going forward in the string, there’s no occurrence of the substring 'hi'. The first position where this holds is position 8 (right after the second 'h'). Like the positive lookahead, the negative lookahead does not consume any character so the result is the empty string (which is a valid match of the pattern).

You can even combine multiple negative lookaheads like this:

>>> re.search('(?!.*hi.*)(?!\?).', 'hi say hi?')

<re.Match object; span=(8, 9), match='i'>

You search for a position where neither ‘hi’ is in the lookahead, nor does the question mark character follow immediately. This time, we consume an arbitrary character so the resulting match is the character 'i'.

Where to Go From Here?

Summary: You’ve learned that you can match all lines that do not match a certain regex by using the lookahead pattern ((?!regex).)*.

Now this was a lot of theory! Let’s get some practice.

In my Python freelancer bootcamp, I’ll train you how to create yourself a new success skill as a Python freelancer with the potential of earning six figures online. The next recession is coming for sure and you want to be able to create your own economy so that you can take care of your loved ones.

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Join 20,000+ ambitious coders for free!

Quixel Bridge 2020 was recently released, the first major release since being acquired by Epic Games late last year. Quixel Bridge acts as a… well bridge, in between your 3D and texturing content and your games engines and tools of choice, with plugins for most applications including Blender, Max, Maya, Unreal Engine and even Unity. With the release of Quixel Bridge 2020, it is now completely free for everybody.  Even if you don’t use Megascans, Quixel Bridge can be an excellent tool for organizing and managing your graphics content, especially now that a subscription is no longer required.

Details from the Quixel release announcement:

Better, faster, and free forever

We’ve improved the 3D viewer to give you more accurate real-time PBR shaders, plus inertial rotation and zooming.

Additionally, we’ve also updated the Maya, Blender, and Cinema 4D integrations with new improvements and bug fixes. We have also finally introduced support for the Alembic file format, and you can start downloading and exporting .ABC files right away.

But most importantly, Bridge is now completely free for everyone, forever. A paid subscription is no longer needed simply to access, download or export your content at any time.

Free unlimited Megascans for use in Unreal

And finally, the entire Megascans library is now completely free for use within Unreal Engine. Just log in with your UE account and you are all set!

We’re beyond excited to offer the entire Megascans library, Bridge and Mixer completely free of charge. And, in combination with Unreal Engine, creating any world imaginable has never been more exciting!

Check out the video below to learn more about Quixel Bridge, including how to install and use Bridge with Blender and Unreal Engine 4.24.

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Last year, a team of Amish-owned horses dragged a load up a ridge near Essex, New York. It was a normal scene for rural America – straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting – except that they were bearing telecommunications equipment to connect the local community to the internet.  

Essex is barely 12 miles across the lake from Burlington, Vermont, but broadband is scarce. In our increasingly digital and interconnected world, broadband is as important as electricity or water. Rural communities without broadband face higher unemployment rates and see fewer educational and economic opportunities. For the woman overseeing the horses, Beth Schiller, CEO of CvWireless LLC, this is a solvable problem. Together with Microsoft’s Airband Initiative, she’s bringing connectivity to her community. 

In the summer of 2017, we launched the Microsoft Airband Initiative, which brings broadband connectivity to people living in underserved rural areas. To eliminate the rural broadband gap, we bring together private–sector capital investment in new technologies and rural broadband deployments with public–sector financial and regulatory support. We set an ambitious goal: to provide access to broadband to three million people in unserved rural areas of the United States by July 4, 2022. At two and a half years since launch, we are at the halfway point of the time we gave ourselves to meet this goal and we feel good about the steady progress we’ve made and how much we have learned. But one thing we have learned is that the problem is even bigger than we imagined. 

The broadband gap is wide but solvable 

Beth’s horse-borne approach to connectivity may be unique, but the problem is not: According to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) 2019 broadband report, more than 21 million people in America, nearly 17 million of whom live in rural communities, don’t have access to broadband.  

A recent study by BroadbandNow found that the number of unserved people is nearly double the current reported amount and more than 42 million Americans do not have access to broadband –especially in rural areas. Our own data shows that some 157.3 million people in the U.S. do not use the internet at broadband speeds. And while we are making progress and the reported number is down by six million people from last year, that’s still more than the populations of our eight biggest states – California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio and Georgia – combined. More must be done. 

As we’ve said from the start of the initiative, without accurate data we cannot fully understand the broadband gap. You cannot solve a problem you don’t understand. More accurate data will help deploy broadband in the places its needed. Because the government makes many funding decisions based on federal data, communities that lack broadband – but, according to FCC data, have access to broadband – have less access to resources needed to actually secure broadband connectivity. This is certainly a Catch-22, but it can be solved. We’re encouraged that the FCC has adopted new policies that should result in broadband providers reporting more accurate data and that Congress has worked on legislation to improve the FCC’s broadband data. It’s imperative that these policy changes are quickly and fully implemented so that people without broadband will get access to it.  

Steady progress to close the broadband gap

But the country can’t wait on perfect data. We’re moving full steam ahead in the areas where we know we can help and making steady progress against our 3-million-person goal. We’re now in 25 states and one territory, and staging pilot programs in two additional states. We’ve already reached a total of 633,000 previously unserved people, up from 24,000 people in 2018, and as our partners’ network deployments accelerate over the coming months, we will be reaching many more.

We haven’t made this progress alone. We have made it through building partnerships throughout the United States, learning more about local solutions that will close the broadband gap. Partners such as Wisper Internet will work to bring broadband access to almost 1 million people in rural unserved areas in Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. In Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, our partner Watch Communications will bring high-speed internet access to more than 860,000 people living in unserved rural areas. Our partnerships also bring connectivity to historically underserved communities, including those residing on tribal lands. Sacred Wind Communications will help approximately 47,000 people on and off Navajo lands in New Mexico reap the benefits that come with access to the internet. Moreover, we have forged strategic partnerships with American Tower Corporation, Tilson, and Zayo Group over the last year that will further bring down the end-to-end network deployment costs for rural ISPs. We have also established a broad-based Airband ISP Program that provides ISPs in 47 states plus Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico with access to critical assets, helping them connect rural communities.

There’s good news about the cost of connectivity. The price of TV white spaces devices (TVWS) – a new connectivity technology that’s particularly useful in rural areas where laying cable simply isn’t an option – continues to drop. In the last year, the cost of customer equipment has plummeted by 50%, all while achievable speeds have increased tenfold.

At the same time, we’re pleased to see our partners in government make important, steady progress to enable these new technologies. We applaud Chairman Pai and the FCC for their vote last week to propose positive and necessary changes to TVWS regulations. Reducing red tape will enable ISPs to accelerate their progress in rural broadband deployment and help bridge the digital divide in rural America. We are also pleased that the FCC has announced plans to make up to $20 billion available in Rural Digital Opportunity funding to help ISPs bring high-speed broadband access to high-cost unserved rural areas. At the state level, we’re pleased that several state governments have created their own funding programs to support new broadband infrastructure, including Illinois, Indiana, Virginia and South Dakota.

What comes after connectivity?

As we’ve connected communities across the country, we’ve kept asking ourselves a central, key question: What comes after connectivity?

Broadband connections aren’t a panacea for all that ails rural America. Simply plugging in an ethernet cable doesn’t create jobs, increase farmers’ yields or provide a veteran with healthcare. Rural communities need resources beyond infrastructure to rebuild and lift themselves up. That’s why much of our work goes well beyond connectivity.

From education, agriculture, veterans to healthcare, we are working with local and national organizations to take the next step. For example, we are partnering with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to support their telehealth initiative. We are working with Airband partners to offer discounted broadband service to veterans as well as provide vital digital skills and employability training. Our work on Airband is enabling other Microsoft efforts – such as our TechSpark program, digital skills initiatives and even environmental sustainability – to flourish in areas we’d never be able to reach otherwise.

Take for example, agriculture. The family farm is the embodiment of rural America. Unfortunately, many American farmers have struggled in recent years, whether because of policy, extreme weather events and climate change, or falling crop prices. Farmers need help, and many have turned to new technologies to compete in the global marketplace. Our FarmBeats platform is one such technology that can give farmers a real-time view of their land using ground-based sensors and “internet of things” technology to track everything from soil temperature to pH levels to moisture data. This can create a modern “Farmers’ Almanac” to chart out the farm’s future, helping farmers predict what they should plant and where, increase yields, better utilize fertilizer and irrigate more efficiently. But a farm that lacks access to high-speed internet will be left in the past, unable to use these new technologies. That’s where Airband comes in: connecting rural communities to transformative technologies.

The effort to electrify rural America in the 1930s enabled new technologies to transform those areas, empowering farms, ranches and other rural places and improving quality of life and economic opportunity. Now, nearly 90 years later, broadband can similarly provide the infrastructure to lift up rural America, but we’re losing the race against time. While our investments and those of our partners are taking seed and we are beginning to see advances, technological progress doesn’t wait. If we don’t move faster, rural America will be left further behind. We can’t let that happen.

Tags: Airband initiative, broadband access, rural broadband