Posted by: xSicKxBot - 02-11-2020, 06:34 PM - Forum: Windows
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US Air Force and Microsoft partner to empower airmen with modern IT
The U.S. Air Force is breaking the glass as a leader in harnessing the power of cloud, rapidly rolling out modern services to enable airmen to advance the mission through more effective collaboration. As part of their digital transformation journey to achieve global access, persistence, and awareness for the 21st century, the U.S. Air Force is deploying targeted workloads that allow airmen to focus on their missions rather than spending time managing IT infrastructure.
Mission focus and efficiency
A key part of their digital transformation strategy is leveraging the technology industry’s capabilities for cloud infrastructure, allowing the U.S. Air Force to re-tool and refocus their resources. As part of our collaboration with the U.S. Air Force, we’re deeply aligned on a joint mission to drive IT enhancements that enable airmen to be more efficient and effective. Building out the capabilities for this targeted mission focus started with planning for how the organization will manage their data in the future, deploying core functions such as Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive and other capabilities delivered through the Microsoft 365 suite of productivity applications.
Improved total cost of ownership
The rapid deployment of cloud tools at this scale is made possible by the U.S. Air Force’s leadership in building the multi-cloud factory Cloud One, a migration center of excellence designed as a foundation for future innovation. Leapfrogging more traditional cloud migration strategies with a Platform as a service (PaaS)-first approach and secure systems boundary, Cloud One enables the U.S. Air Force to rapidly transform legacy systems into modern apps and exploit the agility, scale and global presence afforded by the cloud.
William Marion, U.S. Air Force Deputy Chief Information Officer, says that Cloud One is the U.S. Air Force’s “path to the cloud, but further it is fundamental to the Digital Air Force and the future of Multi-Domain Operations. It enables our teams to achieve unprecedented cost efficiencies and productivity through automation, agile software development at scale, and a streamlined process for moving applications to production.”
Cloud One has recalibrated what internal teams expect from a cloud migration, providing all the foundational cloud capabilities including networking, monitoring, access control and identity. In addition, apps deployed to Azure Government inherit the platform’s security controls by design, further reducing operational costs and freeing up resources to focus on the mission.
Focus on security and compliance
The U.S. Air Force understands the importance of a dynamic, foundational risk management framework that can react quickly to cyber-attacks and changes in the threat landscape. With Microsoft 365 Government and Azure Government, they can obtain the scale and performance of modern cloud tools while maintaining compliance with the strict compliance requirements of the Department of Defense (DoD), including DoD Impact Level 5.
Next-generation collaboration
One of the primary goals of the U.S. Air Force is to empower airmen to collaborate and execute their missions with modern technology best practices. The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Enterprise IT and Cyber Infrastructure Division (AFLCMC/HNI) at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts has planned, tested and started deployment of Microsoft Teams to improve project management and teamwork. With geographically separated organizations, Teams will streamline collaboration and communication between airmen across the globe.
The massive scale of this U.S. Air Force organization – wide rollout requires massive change management – so we’ve developed a joint plan with focused training, deployment and service adoption to drive mission-focused use cases. The plan includes learning events with modern modalities, creating consumable resources to enable airmen to learn more about how Teams can work for their unit. This includes product immersion events, ask-me-anything events, and video content so airmen can learn efficiently from wherever they are in the world.
These advances in productivity, cloud acceleration, and collaboration are a result of ongoing teamwork across the 16th Air Force, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, and the Defense Information Systems Agency. As thought leaders and innovators, these organization have planned, built and deployed modern IT experiences at massive scale using Microsoft 365 Government and Azure Government, enabling airmen to continue to fly, fight and win in air, space and cyberspace.
Mini Review: EQQO – An Engaging Puzzler With A Deep Narrative
EQQO (pronounced ‘echo’) is a touch-based puzzle game in which you take on the role of an unseen narrator, guiding her blind son through a sacred land filled with ancient temples, traps, and mysterious creatures. The game offers up several options for its gameplay, and you can mix-and-match depending on how you like to play. Undoubtedly at its best in handheld mode, the game lets you play using a combination of touchscreen controls, gyro controls, and good old fashioned button prompts. Our preferred method was using the touchscreen entirely, as you can easily move the in-game camera around with quick swipes while tapping on interactive objects within the environment.
Your goal in EQQO isn’t immediately clear. You’ll start off in a seemingly idyllic countryside setting with blue skies and lush greenery, albeit littered with dead trees and ancient ruins. Eventually, you’ll come across a dying serpent god who gifts you with a giant egg, and it’s then your job to escort the egg and keep it safe from any danger. It’s not long before you come across a vast network of temples, and it’s here that the game really spreads its wings, presenting you with a multitude of puzzles that, while not particularly difficult, are often quite clever.
Controlling the game’s narrator, you have abilities that EQQO himself cannot hope to possess. Using the touchscreen, you can pick up objects like stones and spears, turn cranks to lower bridges, pull chains to open vast gates, and more. The game is presented via predetermined camera angles, and as you observe the environment, more angles become available to you via shining stars, allowing you to then switch between them at will. Utilizing all available camera angles is vital in completing the puzzles, and you’ll need to switch between them frequently, especially during instances in which EQQO temporarily leaves the egg behind.
For the most part, EQQO will be entirely on his own. As you progress through the game, however, creatures known as Shadows turn up and present an immediate threat to the egg. Quite often, you’ll need to guide EQQO away from the egg in order to open certain passageways, but in doing so, he’ll leave the egg vulnerable, allowing the Shadows to descend upon it. In instances like this, you’ll need to switch perspectives between EQQO and the egg quickly, picking up stones to throw at the advancing Shadows to keep them at bay, whilst guiding EQQO down the correct path.
We were pleasantly surprised by EQQO. After a rather lacklustre opening segment, the majority of the game proves itself to be an engaging puzzle title with a surprisingly meaningful narrative to support it. If you’re after a challenge, you might want to look elsewhere, but for its price, EQQO is a lovely, relaxing experience that will keep you playing right to the end.
If you've been enjoying Season 4 of Apex Legends, chances are you've had some time playing around with the latest roster addition, Revenant. And if you have, you might be thinking about grabbing some new skins to stand out. But maybe you just want to scare other players, which is exactly what the dead eyes of the Gilded Rose Revenant skin will do.
You can grab the skin through Twitch Prime from now until March 7, but you need to think long and hard about the implications if you do. Sure, the red and gold color scheme is really attractive, as are the floral accents down Revenant's arms. But it's those eyes that are just a deal-breaking.
Cold, static and constantly gazing at you down the sights. Even the description for the Gilded Rose knows how horrifying it will be to have this version of Revenant after you.
"Roses are red, Revenant’s skin is too, and he’ll never, ever stop hunting you!" Well thanks for that terrifying image to fall asleep to, Respawn.
The Clockwork Pi GameShell is a build it yourself hand-held console aimed at indie game developers and retro gamers. Late last year I cove red the unboxing and assembly while today we are going more hands-on with the device. In the second half of the video we show step by step how to develop and deploy Godot games on the GameShell device. This tutorial should also work for most Raspberry Pi based boards that support Godot development.
If you are following the instructions to build Godot Engine games on your GameShell you will need a build template. The two options mentioned in the video are the Clockwork export template or the more generic frt export templates for Pi devices. I have tested with both export templates successfully.
The only documentation on building Godot games for the GameShell is this forum thread. The Clockwork GameShell is available on Amazon currently for $139 USD. Check out GameShell in action in the video below.
Totallee, a smartphone accessory vendor, recently became one of the first case makers to initiate preorders for a protective cover designed to fit Apple’s as-yet-unannounced iPhone SE follow-up.
Totallee’s Thin iPhone SE 2 Case.
While the company fails to provide information regarding the product’s design, the “Thin iPhone SE 2 Case” is likely based on leaked schematics, supposed renders or best-guess estimates of Apple’s much-rumored iPhone SE successor.
Apple has yet to announce a so-called “iPhone SE 2,” but reports dating back to October suggest the device’s design will borrow heavily from iPhone 8. It appears Totallee buys into those rumblings and is manufacturing a compliant case set to ship out on March 24.
Analysts, including Ming-Chi Kuo, expect the “iPhone SE 2” to feature a 4.7-inch display and include modern internals like an A13 Bionic processor and LCP antenna design. Apple is anticipated to carry over Touch ID biometric authentication in lieu of a switch to its TrueDepth camera array and Face ID.
Ever eager to get a leg up on competition, third-party case makers have for years relied on unofficial information to get iPhone accessories on store shelves at or ahead of Apple hardware launches. Cases for nearly every iPhone, as well as iPad and other Apple product lines, have popped up online in the months or weeks leading up to an official debut.
Betting on unofficial specifications and being first to market — with days or weeks of exclusivity — can be a boon for business, but companies run the risk of losing large investments should their “inside information” turn out to be incorrect.
Apple is rumored to launch a new affordable iPhone model in March. Recent reports claim the company is eyeing a starting price of $399, the same price assigned to the original iPhone SE in 2016.
Playing Music on your Fedora Terminal with MPD and ncmpcpp
MPD, as the name implies, is a Music Playing Daemon. It can play music but, being a daemon, any piece of software can interface with it and play sounds, including some CLI clients.
One of them is called ncmpcpp, which is an improvement over the pre-existing ncmpc tool. The name change doesn’t have much to do with the language they’re written in: they’re both C++, but ncmpcpp is called that because it’s the NCurses Music Playing ClientPlus Plus.
Installing MPD and ncmpcpp
The ncmpmpcc client can be installed from the official Fedora repositories with DNF directly with
The most painless way to set up MPD is to run it as a regular user. The default is to run it as the dedicated mpd user, but that causes all sorts of issues with permissions.
Before we can run it, we need to create a local config file that will allow it to run as a regular user.
To do that, create a subdirectory called mpd in ~/.config:
$ mkdir ~/.config/mpd
copy the default config file into this directory:
$ cp /etc/mpd.conf ~/.config/mpd
and then edit it with a text editor like vim, nano or gedit:
$ nano ~/.config/mpd/mpd.conf
I recommend you read through all of it to check if there’s anything you need to do, but for most setups you can delete everything and just leave the following:
db_file "~/.config/mpd/mpd.db" log_file "syslog"
At this point you should be able to just run
$ mpd
with no errors, which will start the MPD daemon in the background.
Using ncmpcpp
Simply run
$ ncmpcpp
and you’ll see a ncurses-powered graphical user interface in your terminal.
Press 4 and you should see your local music library, be able to change the selection using the arrow keys and press Enter to play a song.
Doing this multiple times will create a playlist, which allows you to move to the next track using the > button (not the right arrow, the > closing angle bracket character) and go back to the previous track with <. The + and – buttons increase and decrease volume. The Q button quits ncmpcpp but it doesn’t stop the music. You can play and pause with P.
You can see the current playlist by pressing the 1 button (this is the default view). From this view you can press i to look at the information (tags) about the current song. You can change the tags of the currently playing (or paused) song by pressing 6.
Pressing the \ button will add (or remove) an informative panel at the top of the view. In the top left, you should see something that looks like this:
[------]
Pressing the r, z, y, R, x buttons will respectively toggle the repeat, random, single, consume and crossfade playback modes and will replace one of the – characters in that little indicator to the initial of the selected mode.
Pressing the F1 button will display some help text, which contains a list of keybindings, so there’s no need to write a complete list here. So now go on, be geeky, and play all your music from your terminal!
Heaven Dust Brings Resident Evil-Inspired Zombie Horror To Switch This Month
The Switch is about to get another dose of zombie-based survival horror in the form of Heaven Dust, a game inspired by genre star Resident Evil.
The game has you waking up in a strange mansion full of zombies and deadly traps, leaving you to go on the hunt for helpful items and solve puzzles. You can expect plenty of zombie fights, too, all presented in a top-down view (as seen in the trailer above).
Here’s the game’s official blurb and a feature list:
In 1970, a scientific investigation team found a new virus in the blood samples from a primitive tribe called “Torkue” in New Guinea. Some scientists think it will help to reveal the secret of immortality and they called it “Heaven Dust”. However, it turns out that it’s not really a gift from Heaven, it opens the gate to hell instead.
After the research center in New Guinea was destroyed in an accident related to the mutant virus, they brought “Heaven Dust” to the USA, then the research was carried out entirely by their subsidiary company StarDust. A disaster is just unfolding…
Features: – Thrilling and immersive exploration-horror experience! – Challenging story-integrated puzzles! – A hopeless story with different endings. Maybe there is a good one.
The game has been developed by Chinese indie dev One Gruel Studio and will launch on Switch on 27th February.
As ever, make sure to share your thoughts on this one in the comments below.
It’s no secret that I love playing brawlers in TERA. And with the release of the Fists of Justice content update, I get to add another race/class combo to my stable of fighters—the popori brawler—and I’ll be punching like mad to get him up to max level to take on one of my favorite dungeons: Antaroth’s Abyss.
Spoiler Alert: In my previous Xbox Wire article, I talked about the Red Refuge and its complicated web of relationships and TERA lore. Antaroth’s Abyss picks up minutes after you report to your superiors about what you saw while cleaning out the refuge, and in a completely unexpected turn, you find yourself accused of the very wrong you just righted!
You’re ordered to report to Antaroth’s Abyss to be judged for your “crime.” And while this is a completely optional assignment, the opportunity to punch some big bosses and clear your name (including a final encounter with some particularly brutal tactics) isn’t one you’ll want to miss.
It’s actually the dungeon’s second boss, Kalioth the Executioner, that really sells Antaroth’s Abyss for me. As a brawler, you’re always in the thick of things, and can take hits no other class can. My popori lancer has spent a lot of time staring at huge BAM feet in his career, and my new popori brawler will need to widen his focus to accommodate the Kalioth’s complex left-and-right attack patterns. Guessing wrong could mean game over for you and your group, but the many defensive options in the brawler’s attack set give you a little more leeway than other tanking classes.
TERA
En Masse Entertainment, Inc.
☆☆☆☆☆326
★★★★★
TERA is a new breed of MMO, blending True Action Combat with the vast game world and deep social interactions of a role-playing game. In TERA, you aim, dodge, and time your attacks for an intense and rewarding tactical combat experience. TERA’s expansive content is totally free to play, from character creation all the way to level 65 and beyond. True. Action. Combat—Experience an MMO with non-stop, pulse pounding action. In TERA, it’s your skill and positioning that determine whether you live or die in battle. Epic Encounters—Team up with friends to take down Big-Ass Monsters in menacing dungeons and open world hunting zones, or put your PvP skills to the test against other players in one of the many battlegrounds TERA has to offer. Vast Fantasy World—With seven character races and ten playable classes, you can customize your character to match your individual playstyle. You’ll embark on thousands of quests in a game world rich in history and lore, fighting a myriad of monster types across a variety of landscapes such as arid deserts, icy tundras, sweltering jungles, and many, many more. No Restrictions— TERA offers a truly free-to-play experience, with no artificial cap on classes, zones, what you can do, or how good you can be—all the content in the game can be experienced without paying a single penny. To support the continued development of TERA, we offer account services, cosmetic items, costumes, accessories, weapon skins, mounts, and more for purchase from an in-game store. A World of Fellow Players—Whether you fight as part of a guild or are content to make friends (and enemies) along the way, being part of TERA’s vibrant community means there is always someone to share your adventures. Retooled for Consoles— Featuring an interface redesigned and optimized for game controllers, TERA offers an immersive MMO experience from the comfort of your living room couch!
There are a few more things to unpack in this update, but being able to combine my “most fun” options like this has me really excited to play a new character. I just hope I can get his ears to flop the right way…
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 02-11-2020, 07:49 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Video: Indexing and iterating design space permutations in game dev
In this 2016 GDC session, programmer Nathan Sturtevant covers the mathematics of counting with combinations and permutations, and how game devs can employ it in their own projects.
It was a rich, technical talk that delved deep into key topics like how to compute perfect hash functions (rankings and unrankings) that allow programmers to convert to and from the index of a permutation/combination and an actual game state.
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page.
Poll: Box Art Brawl #29 – International Superstar Soccer 64
Welcome back to Box Art Brawl, the series where we throw a rosette and a bunch of regional box art variants into a pit and see which one emerges victorious with the bloodied prize pinned to its chest.
Last week we watched as Mario Bros. battled for your amusement and pleasure. In a shocking turn of events, the sneaky reissued European version triumphed over the classic North American box which left the Famicom port of the arcade game in third place. We honestly thought the pixel art cover had that one wrapped up, but it wasn’t to be. A valiant attempt, but thwarted.
This week we’re jumping two generations forward to the Nintendo 64 and one of the best digital interpretations of the beautiful game ever made with Konami’s ISS 64. This game is a particular favourite at the Nintendo Life office that we fire up on a regular basis not only for its silky gameplay, but also for the exquisite delivery of its excitable commentator. The commentary jumps hilariously from calm to INCREDIBLY ANIMATED at the drop of a hat – usually mid-sentence – as the lines are hastily wedged in between your play. Team names are a particular highlight, especially when “GREECE!” or “BRAZIL!” are on the pitch. It’s priceless and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Enough of this banter, let’s kick things off.
“Welcome to this live broadcast. This is glorious football weather.”
Europe
“First half kicks off…”
Forgoing the usual black border of the European PAL boxes, ISS 64 starts strong with a mixed international team on the cover. The logo has an old-school Sky Sports feel to it with plenty of colour and impact. The image itself is dynamic and really puts you on the field, seemingly in the boots of the goalkeeper as this bunch of bleeding-edge renders drive play towards you.
Throw in a packed stadium and this team has the makings of a great one. The red ‘KONAMI’ on the left gets a bit lost, but Europe has come out fighting with this effort.
“YES! Wonderful cover! Will he take a shot? He’s hit it first TIME!!!”
Japan
“Consummate skill, there!”
Heading to Japan, here we have the original Jikkyou J.League Perfect Striker, the game released in December 1996 and formed the basis for the ISS 64 we know and love before it was adapted for the west. Now, it should be noted that ISS 64 went back to Japan in the form of Jikkyou World Soccer 3 which released two months after the western version in September 1997, with international teams replacing the original’s Japanese League teams.
So, in a very real sense Japan has two versions of ISS 64, the lucky so-and-sos . We’ve chosen to go with the original Perfect Striker because 1) the players from this officially-licensed J.League cover were simply re-skinned for the European release, so that sets up a nice parallel, and 2) we find the faces of the players on the Jikkyou World Soccer 3 cover even more unnerving than these automatons. Please feel free to register any complaints or concerns about editorial bias sullying the integrity of this hallowed video game box contest in the comments. They shall be diligently filed with the ones from last week.
“THE REFEREE SAYS PLAY ON!”
Once again we get players from different teams together on the pitch, although the dark night sky here was traded for blue in the west and while the black helps contrast against the logo, a floodlight or a few stars might have livened things up. Despite sitting on a dark background, the title still gets a little lost. The ‘KONAMI’ is white this time and punches out a bit more, though. Overall, it’s another decent effort, but has it done enough to see off the competition?
“This COULD be a chance! He’s looking around for openings…”
North America
“It sails to the… Right.”
Ah! The North American cover is nothing if not succinct and to-the-point. It’s got a soccer ball on it and you’re not going to miss the title on this one. You get the standard red strip down the right side of the cover and the peeled-back corner with the ‘Only For Nintendo 64’ logo. It’s easy to overlook, but this one does in fact feature a player as part of the Nintendo Sports logo in the top left corner.
Not much else to say, really. It’s not our favourite, but we’re not the ones voting, are we?
“WHAT A HOWLER!”
“He has players waiting for the cross! He centres the high ball. WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY!”
So, three different covers for one of the best football games ever, but which one gets your vote? Click your pick below and hit the ‘Vote’ button:
“Let’s see that again…”
“And there it is! Full time has been blown! A stunning victory for…” We’ll catch you next week for Box Art Brawl #30.
