.NET Core 3.0 Preview 5 is now available. This iteration was brief for the team and primarily includes bug fixes and improvements to the more significant updates in Preview 4. This post summarizes the important points in this release.
Please see the release notes for additional details and known issues.
To upgrade an existing ASP.NET Core 3.0 Preview 4 project to Preview 5:
Update Microsoft.AspNetCore.* package references to 3.0.0-preview5-19227-01
Update Microsoft.Extensions.* package references to 3.0.0-preview5.19227.01
That’s it! You should be good to go with this latest preview release.
New JSON Serialization
In 3.0-preview5, ASP.NET Core MVC adds supports for reading and writing JSON using System.Text.Json. The System.Text.Json serializer can read and write JSON asynchronously, and is optimized for UTF-8 text making it ideal for REST APIs and backend applications.
This is available for you to try out in Preview 5, but is not yet the default in the templates. You can use the new serializer by removing the call to add Newtonsoft.Json formatters:
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{ ... services.AddControllers() .AddNewtonsoftJson() ...
}
In the future this will be default for all new ASP.NET Core applications. We hope that you will try it in these earlier previews and log any issues you find here.
We used this WeatherForecast model when we profiled JSON read/writer performance using Newtonsoft.Json, our previous serializer.
public class WeatherForecast
{ public DateTime Date { get; set; } public int TemperatureC { get; set; } public string Summary { get; set; }
}
JSON deserialization (input)
Description
RPS
CPU (%)
Memory (MB)
Newtonsoft.Json – 500 bytes
136,435
95
172
System.Text.Json – 500 bytes
167,861
94
169
Newtonsoft.Json – 2.4 kbytes
97,137
97
174
System.Text.Json – 2.4 kbytes
132,026
96
169
Newtonsoft.Json – 40 kbytes
7,712
88
212
System.Text.Json – 40 kbytes
16,625
96
193
JSON serialization (output)
Description
RPS
CPU (%)
Memory (MB)
Newtonsoft.Json – 500 bytes
120,273
94
174
System.Text.Json – 500 bytes
145,631
94
173
Newtonsoft.Json – 8 Kbytes
35,408
98
187
System.Text.Json – 8 Kbytes
56,424
97
184
Newtonsoft.Json – 40 Kbytes
8,416
99
202
System.Text.Json – 40 Kbytes
14,848
98
197
For the most common payload sizes, System.Text.Json offers about 20% throughput increase during input and output formatting with a smaller memory footprint.
Options for the serializer can be configured using MvcOptions:
System.Text.Json is now the default Hub Protocol used by SignalR clients and servers starting in ASP.NET Core 3.0-preview5. Please try it out and file issues if you find anything not working as expected.
Switching back to Newtonsoft.Json
If you would like to switch back to the previous default of using Newtonsoft.Json then you can do so on both the client and server.
Install the Microsoft.AspNetCore.SignalR.Protocols.NewtonsoftJson NuGet package.
On the client add .AddNewtonsoftJsonProtocol() to the HubConnectionBuilder:
new HubConnectionBuilder()
.WithUrl("/chatHub")
.AddNewtonsoftJsonProtocol()
.Build();
On the server add .AddNewtonsoftJsonProtocol() to the AddSignalR() call:
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is a new AR mobile game from Niantic, the makers of Pokémon GO. It’s similar to that of its predecessor and allows players to bring the universe of Harry Potter into the real world.
The main gameplay loop involves exploring the world around you, freeing ‘Foundables’ (like catching Pokémon) and interacting with nodes scattered across the map. Unless you’re in a rural area, when you fire up the game for the first time you may see spires and structures looming in the distance. There are three Harry Potter: Wizards Unite locations that you can visit while you’re playing the game, each which will help you collect Foundables.
These locations are Inns, Greenhouses, and Fortresses. Understanding the purpose of the Wizards Unite locations and how you interact with them isn’t made as clear as it could be, so we are here to help!
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Locations | What does each location do?
Let’s take a look at all of the Harry Potter: Wizards Unite locations and see exactly what each of them do.
Inn
An Inn corresponds to real world location (often a pub, cafe or something similar) and will appear on the map as a house-like structure. As you come across one, you can enter it by simply tapping on the screen. Once inside, you’ll be prompted to trace a Glyph (swipe with your finger) to activate the Inn. Completing this task will reward you with a meal, which will in turn reward you with Spell Energy. The amount of energy you get depends on the meal you eat… we’ve seen as low as 2 or 3, but as high as 10. The meal you get will depend on your real-world location.
If the name doesn’t give it away, you’ll need Spell Energy to cast spells in Wizards Unite. You cast a spell every-time you try to ‘catch’ a Foundable (and like in Pokémon GO, you sometimes need to try several times before it works or disappears). You also cast spells when you interact with Fortresses (see below). Every time you cast a spell, you will lose some Spell Energy, so it is going to be important to be mindful of how much you have left. If you’re just starting off, you can only hold 75 Spell Energy. While this isn’t a lot, it will be enough to allow you to do at least a day’s worth of activity without needing to visit an Inn, which will help you level up!
Different Types of Inns
There are five different types or ‘colors’ of Inns. Each color represents the real-world location that it is likely to be found in. For example, a Green Inn will be found in rural areas and will offer better meals, since they are hard to come by. On the other hand, Pink Inns can be found in both rural and urban areas and offers meals that give out less Spell Energy.
Below is a list of all the different Inn colors, locations, and maximum Spell Energy:
Green Inn – Rural areas; Up to 10 Spell Energy
Purple Inn– City areas; Up to 7 Spell Energy
Blue Inn – Rural and Urban areas; Up to 6 Spell Energy
Brown Inn – Rural and Urban areas; Up to 6 Spell Energy
Pink Inn – Rural and Urban areas; Up to 3 Spell Energy
Different type of Inn meals
As stated above, visiting the different Inn locations will reward visitors with a meal that will replenish their spell energy. After-all, you cannot cast a good spell on an empty stomach. There are a total of ten meals that you can eat at Inns in Wizards Unite, each giving players 1-10 Spell Energy.
Below is a list of all of the meals and their corresponding Spell Energy rewards:
Tomato Soup – 1 Spell Energy
Afternoon Tea – 2 Spell Energy
Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans – 2 Spell Energy
Pumpkin Juice – 2 Spell Energy
Violet Pudding – 3 Spell Energy
Bangers and Mash – 5 Spell Energy
Fish and Chips – 6 Spell Energy
Honeyduke’s Chocholate Bar – 6 Spell Energy
Butterbeer – 7 Spell Energy
Turkey/Chicken Dinner – 10 Spell Energy
If you have played Pokémon GO, it will be best to think of Inns as Pokestops. You aren’t going to need to visit this Harry Potter: Wizards Unite location multiple times a day if you’re just a casual player. So, it’s best just to keep it in the back of your mind and remember to stop by one if you are out and about!
Dark Detectors
Inns have a secondary screen that allows you to place ‘Dark Detectors’ – these are in-game items you can earn (or buy) and act like Lures from Pokémon GO. If you place one in an Inn, you’ll be able to find rarer traces for the next 30 minutes.
The main purpose of Dark Detectors is to help players collect Foundables faster. During the 30-minute period that they are active, you will earn increased XP and have a chance at locating Foundables that you might not normally come across. Dark Detectors can also be stacked with up to three per Inn.
Greenhouse
Greenhouses are small glass buildings, which contain pots that are able to grow various plants, which can eventually be turned into potions. When you come across a Greenhouse, you can go inside and choose from three randomized plant pots to grow your plant. After collecting the ingredients from you plant, you’ll need to leave the Greenhouse for 5 minutes before returning.
Growing a Plant
The main purpose of a Greenhouse is to grow a plant which will give players ingredients that can be used to create Potions. Every once in a while, you’ll come across seeds while playing Wizards Unite. You can add these seeds to your collection and use them to grow a specific plant in a greenhouse. You can see the different seeds that you have collected by going to the Vault and clicking the seed icon on the right side of the screen.
There is a total of 10 plants that you can grow in the Wizards Unite Greenhouses, each which are able to be used in different Potions. Everyone who contributes to growing a plant will be able to reap its crop. However, once a plant has finished growing, players will only have 30 minutes to pick its ingredients.
Below, you’ll find a list of all the plants in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, along with the materials required and the time it takes to grow them.
After you have turned your seeds into plants, you can use the ingredients to create potions that will help you throughout the game. Potions are not unlockable until Level 4, so if you haven’t made it that far yet, you aren’t going to be able to do anything with the Greenhouse plants you collect.
However, once you have reached Level 4, if you click on the suitcase icon on the main screen, you’ll be taken to a menu where you’ll be able to choose from five icons. The Potions icon is located on the bottom left hand side of the screen, simply click on it to view all of the Potions that you have available and their needed ingredients. Additionally, if you go to the Vault and click on the ingredient’s icon, you can see a complete list of all of the ingredients that you have collected.
Pots vs. Rental Pots
Each Greenhouse will have three pots that are available to use for free. If all three pots are currently being used, then you’ll have to either wait it out or use a Rental Pot. These are pots that can be bought with in game currency and will come with all the ingredients that you need as well as reduce grow time.
Below is a list of the different rental pots costs and time availability:
Rental Pot A – 35 coins – 180 minutes
Rental Pot B – 70 coins – 480 minutes
Rental Pot C – 140 coins – 1440 minutes
Both the Rental Pots and the free pots work fine to grow a plant. Using a Rental Pot is not going to reap you a benefit that a regular pot won’t. It’ll simply save you some time and supply you with the necessary seeds needed to grow your desired plant.
Fortress
The final of the three Harry Potter: Wizards Unite locations is known as a Fortress. These are really tall buildings that will allow players to complete a series of challenges in exchange for exclusive rewards. They won’t be hard to recognize, as they are the tallest building on the map.
Once you enter a Fortress, you and up to four others can compete in a series of challenges where you choose the difficulty. As you enter the Fortress, you and your partners will be able to fight a series of opponents, who are guarding some of the rarest and most powerful Foundables around.
Runestones
Before you begin a fight, you’ll have to hand over a Runestone, which will determine the strength of your enemy. So, if you give up a higher level Runestone, you’ll face a higher-level enemy. If you hand over a lower level Runestone, you’ll face an easier enemy.
Runestones can be gathered while you’re collecting Foundables and as you level up the various sections in your registry. Runestones are located in Treasure Trunks, which are earned by returning Foundables. Each Runestone you receive will correlate to an area of expertise, or as the game calls it, a Family.
However, just because you hand over a low level Runestone doesn’t mean you won’t face a difficult enemy here or there. If you are playing solo, it is safe to assume that whatever level Runestone you put in is going to reflect the types of enemies you fight. However, if you’re playing with others, the water becomes a bit muggy since the more players you add, the more difficult the Fortress will be, because they will also be adding Runestones into the mix.
In addition to all of this, as you continue to move through the Fortress, the enemies are going to get stronger and stronger. The different floors are referred to as ‘Chambers’ in the game, and the rule of thumb is that the higher the Chamber, the harder the enemy. If you plan to fight through a lot of Chambers, you’re going to want to bring a couple of players with you.
If you decide that a Fortress is too difficult for you after putting in a Runestone, you can leave the lobby before the 30 second time runs out and your Runestone will be returned to you. However, once that 30 second timer is out, your Runestone is gone for good.
Floor Stats
One thing that is important to note is that while you can be in a Fortress with up to four other players, all battles will take place solo. This means that each player will fight their own battles, even though they are working as a team. While teammates can help the fighter by using spells when they are not in combat, it is ultimately up to each player to defeat their individual opponent. Different Professions are stronger and weaker against different types of enemies, so being smart about who fights which enemy is important (more on this later).
There is a total of 20 Fortress Chambers in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, each having its own player levels and base ratings. Additionally, each Chamber will have a limited number of times allotted to players, meaning they must pass the Chamber before the time runs out. If you run out of time, then you forfeit the Fortress.
Below is a list of all the Chamber levels, time limits, minimal player level, and base ratings:
Chamber 1 – Time: 300 seconds – Player Level: 1 – Base Rating: 0
Chamber 2 – Time: 300 seconds – Player Level: 1 – Base Rating: 170
Chamber 3 – Time: 300 seconds – Player Level: 2 – Base Rating: 340
Chamber 4 – Time: 360 seconds – Player Level: 2 – Base Rating: 510
Chamber 5 – Time: 360 seconds – Player Level: 3 – Base Rating: 680
Chamber 6 – Time: 360 seconds – Player Level: 3 – Base Rating: 850
Chamber 7 – Time: 420 seconds – Player Level: 4 – Base Rating: 1020
Chamber 8 – Time: 420 seconds – Player Level: 4 – Base Rating: 1190
Chamber 9 – Time: 420 seconds – Player Level: 5 – Base Rating: 1360
Chamber 10 – Time: 480 seconds – Player Level: 5 – Base Rating: 1530
Chamber 11 – Time: 480 seconds – Player Level: 6 – Base Rating: 1700
Chamber 12 – Time: 480 seconds – Player Level: 6 – Base Rating: 1870
Chamber 13 – Time: 540 seconds – Player Level: 7 – Base Rating: 2040
Chamber 14 – Time: 540 seconds – Player Level: 7 – Base Rating: 2210
Chamber 15 – Time: 540 seconds – Player Level: 8 – Base Rating: 2380
Chamber 16 – Time: 600 seconds – Player Level: 8 – Base Rating: 2250
Chamber 17 – Time: 600 seconds – Player Level: 9 – Base Rating: 2720
Chamber 18 – Time: 600 seconds – Player Level: 9 – Base Rating: 2890
Chamber 19 – Time: 600 seconds – Player Level: 10 – Base Rating: 3060
Chamber 20 – Time: 600 seconds – Player Level: 10 – Base Rating: 3230
As you can see, towards the beginning a Fortress won’t be too tough. However, as you go on, you’re going to want to have some help from other players.
Strategic Spells
While you’re fighting, you’ll need to keep your health bar in mind, as running out of health will result in a loss. So, be mindful of how much health you have as you continue through the Chambers. To help out, players will be able to cast different types of spells based on their Profession, which can weaken an enemy or heal a player. If you haven’t unlocked Strategic Spells yet, then you’ll need to continue to increase your expertise in your Profession.
There are three different types of Professions in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite which are going to determine what kind of Strategic Spells you can cast. Below is a list of the different Profession classes and a short description of each.
Auror – Aurors deal extra damage against Dark Forces and take extra damage from Beasts.
Magizoologist – Magizoologists deal extra damage against Beasts and take extra damage from Curiosities.
Professor – Professors deal extra damage against Curiosities and take extra damage from Dark Forces.
If you plan to go far into a Fortress, you’re likely going to want to have a nice variety of Professions on your team. While all of them are important, the Magizoologist Profession will offer a significant advantage during Fortress battles. They are able to heal your teammates during battle as long as they are ‘sitting out’ of the fight.
There are tons of different Strategic Spell casting strategies in Wizards Unite. There isn’t really a right or wrong way to go about it. It will likely come down to personal preference and the resources you have available to you. Just make sure you and your team are thinking things through and you’ll likely be okay!
Enemy Types
There are four main types of enemies that will appear in a Fortress – Dark Forces, Curiosities, Beasts, and Neutral. Each of these enemy types are weak to certain Professions and will deal increased damage to other Professions.
Below is a list of the four main enemy types along with their strengths and weaknesses:
Dark Forces – Deal increased damage to Professors; Take increased damage from Aurors
Curiosities – Deal increased damage to Magizoologists; Take increased damage from Professors
Beasts – Deal increased damage to Aurors; Take increased damage from Magizoologists
Neutral – Deal and take neutral damage to all Professions
You’ll want to pay attention to what type of enemy you’re facing, so that you will know who in your group is the best matchup for each fight. For example, a Professor shouldn’t fight a Dark Force enemy, because they are capable of dealing increased damage to players of that Profession. In the same light, an Auror should fight a Beast when possible, because they can deal increased damage to that enemy type.
Along with the four main enemy types, there are six different ‘levels’ that and enemy could be. For example, the first few Chambers will probably have Common enemies while the final few will likely have Fierce enemies.
Below is a list of all of the different Enemy levels that will appear in a Fortress:
Common – Normal enemy
Formidable – Increased Defense and Proficiency Power
Elite – Increased stats for some or all active enemies
Hopefully you found this useful and are ready to go out and explore your surroundings. We’ll have some more Wizard’s Unite content for you over the coming weeks, but let us know if you have any burning questions you’d like answered sooner rather than later!
Microsoft looks to ‘do for data sharing what open source did for code’
Microsoft is working to standardize data-sharing terms via pre-designed licensing agreements, the first of which now are available for preview and comment. Microsoft Corporate Vice President and Chief IP Counsel Erich Andersen said that Microsoft is trying to bring open-source-license-like structure to data-sharing agreements. The OSI maintains a number of pre-approved licenses, such as the Apache License, BSD License, MIT License, etc., which companies can use to license their source code. Microsoft officials said they believe these kinds of agreements could alleviate the need of companies to spend months or years negotiating and creating data-sharing governance agreements. Source: ZDNet
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 07-24-2019, 11:05 AM - Forum: Lounge
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GTA 5 Online's Big Casino Update Is Now Live; Patch Notes Released
More than a month after it was officially announced, Grand Theft Auto V's new Diamond Casino & Resort is open for business. The long-awaited casino is now live in GTA Online on PS4, Xbox One, and PC as part of the game's latest update, which also introduces a wealth of new clothing options, vehicles, bug fixes, and other tweaks to the online mode.
Located on the corner of Vinewood Park Drive and Mirror Park Boulevard, the Diamond Casino & Resort is a new facility where you and other players can enjoy the nightlife. The casino floor features all of the activities you'd expect to find in this type of establishment, including Three Card Poker, Blackjack, Roulette, and Slot Machines, with some enticing prizes at stake, including some new "high-end" vehicles. You can also bet on virtual horse racing and spin a wheel for free to earn various in-game prizes.
You'll receive a free daily allotment of chips that can be used to play the various casino games. However, you can also purchase these chips with the game's GTA$ currency (which itself can be purchased with real-world money).
Additionally, high rollers can purchase a penthouse at the Diamond Casino & Resort, which can then be customized to your liking with a media room, spa, garage space, and other options. Those who purchase a penthouse will also gain "VIP" access to certain areas of the casino as well as a new storyline involving the Diamond family. If you have a Twitch Prime account, you can score a penthouse for free if you link your accounts by the end of July 19. More details can be found on Rockstar's blog.
Alongside the Diamond Casino & Resort, the latest GTA Online update adds seven new vehicles to the game: the Truffade Thrax, Obey 8F Drafter, Weeny Issi Sport, Vapid Caracara 4x4, Annis S80RR, Enus Paragon R, and the armored Enus Paragon R, which can be unlocked by completing the new casino story missions. Rockstar says more than 400 pieces of clothing and artwork for your penthouse will also be available through the casino store, and new collectible playing cards can be found hidden across Los Santos. There are 54 in total, and each one you collect will reward you with RP and Chip bonuses.
Rounding out the update is a litany of bug fixes and stability improvements. You can see a portion of the patch notes, courtesy of Rockstar, below. For more details on the Diamond Casino & Resort update, check out Rockstar's new blog post.
The Diamond Casino & Resort has been added to GTA Online. The Diamond Casino & Resort is a shared location for players to enjoy together. The Casino offers a wide range of activities and provides multiple Guest Services for players to use.
The Casino Penthouse has been added to GTA Online. Players can purchase a Casino Penthouse from The Diamond Casino & Resort website and can be customized with a choice of optional extras such as a media room, a spa, a private dealer, garage space, and much more. The Penthouse also provides owners with a VIP membership that gives access features including with new Casino Story Missions, Freemode Missions, and two new arcade games.
Hidden Playing Card Collectibles have been added to GTA Online. Players can find these Hidden Playing Card Collectibles scattered around Los Santos and collect them for a reward. Collectibles progress can be tracked by using the new ‘Collectibles’ option in Interaction Menu.
Seven new vehicles have been added to GTA Online:
Truffade Thrax
Obey 8F Drafter
Weeny Issi Sport
Vapid Caracara 4x4
Annis S80RR
Enus Paragon R
Enus Paragon R (Armoured)
Over 400+ items of clothing and artwork for the Penthouse will be made for sale for Male and Female characters in the Casino Store that rotates items weekly
New Races have been added to GTA Online
Six new player actions have been added to GTA Online:
Cut Throat
Cry Baby
Stinker
Shadow Boxing
Karate Chops
The Woogie
New Daily Objectives have been added to GTA Online
Eleven new Awards have been added to GTA Online
New Features & Updates - PS4, Xbox One, PC
Updates have been made to the ‘Passive Mode’ option in GTA Online:
Passive Mode can now no longer be active when using a weaponized vehicle
A Passive Mode cooldown of 2 minutes is now in place for players who have just killed another player
Players now must wait 5 minutes before they can activate Passive Mode again after disabling it
Players now must wait 30 seconds before they can disable Passive Mode after activating it
Updates have been made to the ‘Go Ghosted’ option in GTA Online:
The ‘Go Ghosted’ option is now available to players after 2 deaths instead of 3
The length of time players remain ghosted to each other has been increased from 2 minutes to 5 minutes
The window of time for consecutive kills to count has been increased from 5 minutes to 10 minutes
Updates have been made to Daily Objectives in GTA Online:
A number of PVP related Daily Objectives have been removed
The first Daily Objective in the list will now be the same for all players each day
The cash reward for completing the Daily, Weekly, and Monthly streaks has been increased
A new ‘Services’ option has been added to the Interaction Menu that allows players to view and change options for all large vehicle properties such as:
The Terrorbyte
The Avenger
The Mobile Operations Center
The Galaxy Super Yacht
Updates have been made to Series in GTA Online:
‘Featured Adversary Mode’ has been renamed to ‘Featured Series’
Target Assault Series has been removed
Each Series type now only has one trigger on the map
Several help text entries regarding existing Series have been removed
Updates have been made to Series help text appearance rates
Player Elevation Indicators are now present in all Instanced Content such as Adversary Modes, Heists, etc.
Time Trials now pay out $100,000 upon successful completion
The Stone Hatchet has been added to Creators
The Declassee Impaler is now purchasable on the arenawar.tv website
Arena Traps have been added to the Arena Creator
The Race type of Arena War Races are now forced into being a ‘GTA Race’
Players can now use the laptop in their Arena Workshop to see all of the Sponsorship Tier unlocks they have been awarded The Nightclub popularity gained for completing a Nightclub Management Mission has been increased from 10% to 25%
According to Serebii.net, an upcoming patch for the game will bring the title up to Version 1.0.2. It will resolve two bugs. The first is a communication problem that occurs if the playtime is 999:59 and the second fixes an issue preventing Mystery Gift entry after 10 attempts, even after time has passed.
Are you still playing this game? Are you looking forward to the next major entries in the Pokémon game series? Tell us below.
Interestingly, this same glitch has now been used to get an “infinite” amount of Korok seeds. While there was a way to obtain unlimited Korok seeds in the past, this previous method was patched out by Nintendo around a year ago.
If you’d like to see how exactly the new method works, you can view the YouTube video below, uploaded by Gaming Reinvented:
If you would like a more thorough breakdown, read the full explanation.
Have you played Breath of the Wild recently? What do you think of the above glitch? Leave a comment below.
The Fedora CoreOS team is excited to announce the first preview release of Fedora CoreOS, a new Fedora edition built specifically for running containerized workloads securely and at scale. It’s the successor to both Fedora Atomic Host and CoreOS Container Linux. Fedora CoreOS combines the provisioning tools, automatic update model, and philosophy of Container Linux with the packaging technology, OCI support, and SELinux security of Atomic Host.
Read on for more details about this exciting new release.
Why Fedora CoreOS?
Containers allow workloads to be reproducibly deployed to production and automatically scaled to meet demand. The isolation provided by a container means that the host OS can be small. It only needs a Linux kernel, systemd, a container runtime, and a few additional services such as an SSH server.
While containers can be run on a full-sized server OS, an operating system built specifically for containers can provide functionality that a general purpose OS cannot. Since the required software is minimal and uniform, the entire OS can be deployed as a unit with little customization. And, since containers are deployed across multiple nodes for redundancy, the OS can update itself automatically and then reboot without interrupting workloads.
Fedora CoreOS is built to be the secure and reliable host for your compute clusters. It’s designed specifically for running containerized workloads without regular maintenance, automatically updating itself with the latest OS improvements, bug fixes, and security updates. It provisions itself with Ignition, runs containers with Podman and Moby, and updates itself atomically and automatically with rpm-ostree.
Provisioning immutable infrastructure
Whether you run in the cloud, virtualized, or on bare metal, a Fedora CoreOS machine always begins from the same place: a generic OS image. Then, during the first boot, Fedora CoreOS uses Ignition to provision the system. Ignition reads an Ignition config from cloud user data or a remote URL, and uses it to create disk partitions and file systems, users, files and systemd units.
To provision a machine:
Write a Fedora CoreOS Config (FCC), a YAML document that specifies the desired configuration of a machine. FCCs support all Ignition functionality, and also provide additional syntax (“sugar”) that makes it easier to specify typical configuration changes.
Launch a Fedora CoreOS machine and pass it the Ignition config. If the machine boots successfully, provisioning has completed without errors.
Fedora CoreOS is designed to be managed as immutable infrastructure. After a machine is provisioned, you should not modify /etc or otherwise reconfigure the machine. Instead, modify the FCC and use it to provision a replacement machine.
This is similar to how you’d manage a container: container images are not updated in place, but rebuilt from scratch and redeployed. This approach makes it easy to scale out when load increases. Simply use the same Ignition config to launch additional machines.
Automatic updates
By default, Fedora CoreOS automatically downloads new OS releases, atomically installs them, and reboots into them. Releases roll out gradually over time. We can even stop a rollout if we discover a problem in a new release. Upgrades between Fedora releases are treated as any other update, and are automatically applied without user intervention.
The Linux ecosystem evolves quickly, and software updates can bring undesired behavior changes. However, for automatic updates to be trustworthy, they cannot break existing machines. To avoid this, Fedora CoreOS takes a two-pronged approach. First, we automatically test each change to the OS. However, automatic testing can’t catch all regressions, so Fedora CoreOS also ships multiple independent release streams:
The testing stream is a regular snapshot of the current Fedora release, plus updates.
After a testing release has been available for two weeks, it is sent to the stable stream. Bugs discovered in testing will be fixed before a release is sent to stable.
The next stream is a regular snapshot of the upcoming Fedora release, allowing additional time for testing larger changes.
All three streams receive security updates and critical bugfixes, and are intended to be safe for production use. Most machines should run the stable stream, since that receives the most testing. However, users should run a few percent of their nodes on the next and testing streams, and report problems to the issue tracker. This helps ensure that bugs that only affect certain workloads or certain hardware are fixed before they reach stable.
Telemetry
To help direct our development efforts, Fedora CoreOS performs some telemetry by default. A service called fedora-coreos-pinger periodically collects non-identifying information about the machine, such as the OS version, cloud platform, and instance type, and report it to servers controlled by the Fedora project.
No unique identifiers are reported or collected, and the data is only used in aggregate to answer questions about how Fedora CoreOS is being used. We prominently document that this collection is occurring and how to disable it. We also tell you how to help the project by reporting additional detail, including information that might identify the machine.
Current status of Fedora CoreOS
Fedora CoreOS is still under active development, and some planned functionality is not available in the first preview release:
Only the testing stream currently exists; the next and stable streams are not yet available.
Several cloud and virtualization platforms are not yet available. Only x86_64 is currently supported.
Booting a live Fedora CoreOS system via network (PXE) or CD is not yet supported.
We are actively discussing plans for closer integration with Kubernetes distributions, including OKD.
Fedora CoreOS Config Transpiler will gain more sugar over time.
Telemetry is not yet active.
Documentation is still under development.
While Fedora CoreOS is intended for production use, preview releases should not be used in production. Fedora CoreOS may change in incompatible ways during the preview period. There is no guarantee that a preview release will successfully update to a later preview release, or to a stable release.
The future
We expect the preview period to continue for about six months. At the end of the preview, we will declare Fedora CoreOS stable and encourage its use in production.
CoreOS Container Linux will be maintained until about six months after Fedora CoreOS is declared stable. We’ll announce the exact timing later this year. During the preview period, we’ll publish tools and documentation to help Container Linux users migrate to Fedora CoreOS.
Fedora Atomic Host will be maintained until the end of life of Fedora 29, expected in late November. Before then, Fedora Atomic Host users should migrate to Fedora CoreOS.
Getting involved in Fedora CoreOS
To try out the new release, head over to the download page to get OS images or cloud image IDs. Then use the quick start guide to get a machine running quickly. Finally, get involved! You can report bugs and missing features to the issue tracker. You can also discuss Fedora CoreOS in Fedora Discourse, the development mailing list, or in #fedora-coreos on Freenode.
Welcome to Fedora CoreOS, and let us know what you think!
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 07-24-2019, 11:05 AM - Forum: Windows
- No Replies
How smart cities are putting people first
The United Nations (UN) estimates that by 2050, 68 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. This rapid urbanization poses serious challenges to municipalities around the world, such as increased congestion and air pollution.
Cities need to be resilient – to survive, adapt, and grow, they also need to be great places to live in. Smart cities are leading the way in this transformation by moving on from 19th century ways of designing cities around automobiles to redesigning cities with people in mind – technology can help in ways not possible before.
Finding new ways to connect with and engage residents
Participating in local governance is important for all city residents, but traditional city hall meetings aren’t accessible to everyone. Smart cities, however, are now bringing city halls online via social media, or kiosks to remote areas.
At the same time, smart cities are modernizing their services and the infrastructure that delivers them. Water, energy, and other public services need careful regulation, and Internet of Things (IoT) technology is helping cities manage them in a sustainable and economical way. Cities are even using these innovations to collaborate across departments. In Denver, air quality sensors outside of schools measure the levels of pollution in different areas. City workers combine this information with traffic data to build a complete picture of how the flow of automobiles affects air quality.
Connecting and engaging with residents also means making public services more visible and accessible to everyone. Municipalities in the United States such as Lafayette, Louisiana, have introduced non-emergency municipal service portals that allow residents to receive real-time updates about sanitation, crime, city budgets, and more.
Smart infrastructure case study: Houston, Texas, United States
Smart water meters. Around 60 percent of the city’s 500,000 water customers have smart meters, which gather data on water usage every 15 minutes. In the future, this technology will give customers real-time leak alerts and conservation advice.
Proactive roadside air filtration. Bridges along the city’s main overpass are fitted with air quality monitors and air filtration technology, which senses and cleans pollution to prevent it from affecting nearby neighborhoods.
Community sentiment analysis. Houston uses Zencity technology to analyze data from social media and the internet, identifying trending topics to understand residents’ opinions about the city.
Finding smart solutions to traffic problems
Traffic is a big challenge for today’s cities, and it’s an issue that’s always changing. A few years ago, around 30 percent of inner-city traffic was attributed to drivers looking for parking. Today, rideshare services coupled with the growing popularity of one-day delivery services, might be contributing to increased traffic. There are a number of cities who are commissioning studies to look at the impact of these types of services. It’s a challenge for cities – on one hand they want to bring new services to their residents but they are not fully aware of the impact until further down the line.
Smart cities try to tackle traffic congestion in a number of ways, including levying congestion charges or introducing electronic road pricing systems, which are smart tolls that vary according to traffic. Other cities are using technology such as security cameras and smart cars to gather traffic flow data.
Making mobility a priority for residents
Smart cities are also helping residents to get around by offering intelligent transportation services that adapt to their needs, such as route optimization. These services map out specific routes for individual residents, helping them get to their destinations quickly and they are informed by real-time data to help residents avoid delays such as traffic jams.
Growing evidence suggests that these systems encourage residents to use other modes of transportation besides automobiles. For growing cities, this can help reduce the “battle for the curbside” as cars compete to park or drop people off. The challenge for cities, however, is in ensuring that these smart transportation systems are safe and manageable after deployment. This is made easier by digital twin technology, in which cities simulate and virtually test new systems before deploying them.
Smart transportation case study: Auckland, New Zealand
The coastal city of Auckland is home to 1.6 million people, and it’s quickly attracting new residents to its shores. Thanks to its enviable quality of life and strong economy, the city expects its population to double in the next 25 years. This presents many transportation challenges for Auckland, particularly as its narrow shape limits how far its roads can expand.
To tackle these issues, Auckland created a new digital strategy to help residents move around. By using Microsoft cloud platforms, the city gathers data about traffic movement and weather conditions. This information is then used to inform commuters about travel routes and help plan developments in transportation infrastructure.
The city also deployed a range of smart transportation technologies, including traffic lights that react to real-time data. Global Positioning System (GPS) sensors on buses and sensors placed at key points along roads and intersections monitor the flow of automobiles in different areas. The system calculates when specific routes are overcrowded, and it adjusts the wait times at intersections to prevent traffic jams.
Reports indicate that the city’s digital strategy is having a real effect. Drivers are finding parking spaces more easily, citizens are using rail services more, and wait times for public transportation are being reduced significantly.
Next steps
With the ongoing shift toward rapid urbanization, smart cities are currently setting an example for the rest of the world, and people are noticing. In an October 2018 report, IDC FutureScape predicts that “Investment in smart city use cases will reach $158 billion by 2022, with the fastest overall growth in the Americas and the most spending on fixed visual surveillance and public transit.”
As the technology in these initiatives matures, one thing is certain—the cities of the future will put people first.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 07-24-2019, 11:05 AM - Forum: Windows
- No Replies
Check out the ways AI is helping save lives in emergencies
Disaster can bring out the best in human nature. Emergency service personnel, rescue crews and volunteers work tirelessly, often putting their own lives at risk.
Whether they’re responding to a natural disaster or other accident, rescue and relief teams increasingly use AI as a vital tool to save lives and to get help to the right place at the right time.
These are some of the technologies from organizations beyond Microsoft that aremaking a difference in disaster zones.
When a building collapses, rescuers will look for voids, spaces in the rubble where a person could be trapped. This is often slow, painstaking work in cramped and dangerous conditions.
Enter Snakebot: a 5–centimeter-wide robot equipped with lights and cameras that can squeeze into tight spaces. Developed by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Snakebotcan crawl, climb, roll and even swim. Prototypes were used in the aftermath of the Mexico City earthquake in September 2017.Operators sent the robot to search voids too small or unstable for people or search dogs to enter. Learning from that experience, the team that designed it now plans to add microphones and sensors that can detect hazardous gas.
In Japan, the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant after the tsunami that struck the country in 2011 required robots to enter areas that people couldn’t. Teams sent a variety of remote–controlled and autonomous machines to inspect and remove the fuel rods.
Eye in the sky
Drones are giving emergency services a bird’s–eye view of disaster zones, which is proving particularly useful in fighting wildfires.
Using surveillance drones that can stay aloft for hours, and small quadcopters, operators on the ground can see how a fire is behaving in real time and the hazards in the way. Some drones are equipped with thermal–imaging cameras or laser–imaging systems that help firefighters build maps predicting where fires will spread.
Researchers are developing ways of using swarms of autonomous drones to assist firefighters on the ground. The Defense Science and Technology Laboratory in the U.K. and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory recently ran the Swarm and Search AI 2019 Fire Hack competition, looking for new algorithms and AI applications for planning and executing complex drone missions.
When a disaster strikes, large amounts of information flow into control rooms and emergency call centers. Making sense of it is vital to prioritizing the response and to deployingresources and personnel correctly.
AI can trawl through vast quantities of data in a very short time, spotting patterns that may not be apparent to people under stress. Capabilitiesinclude prioritizing emergency calls and analyzing social media to create a picture of events unfolding in real time. DigitalGlobe’s Open Data Program, which provides high-resolution satellite imagery for disaster response, was used in the aftermath of Cyclone Idai in 2019 to identify damaged roads, buildings and infrastructure from space.
In September 2018, Microsoft announced the AI for Humanitarian Action program in collaboration with the United Nations. This $40 million, five-year Microsoft initiative harnesses the power of AI to help with disaster recovery and supports nonprofit and humanitarian organizations through financial grants, partnerships and technology investments, in addition to technical expertise. This work is across the areas of disaster response; refugees and displaced people; human rights; and the needs of children, and is part of Microsoft’s AI for Good suite, a growing $125 million commitment to using AI to help unlock solutions to some of society’s biggest challenges.
We’ve just shipped the official version of the SignalR Service SDK for ASP.NET support:
Azure SignalR Service is a fully managed Azure service for real-time messaging. It is a preferred way for scaling ASP.NET Core SignalR application. However, SignalR Service is based on SignalR for ASP.NET Core 2.0, which is not 100% compatible with ASP.NET SignalR. Some code changes and proper version of dependent libraries are needed to make ASP.NET SignalR application work with SignalR Service.
We have received many usage feedbacks from customers since we announced the preview support for ASP.NET, at Microsoft Ignite 2018. Today, we are excited to announce that we have released the generally available version 1.0.0 of ASP.NET support SDK for Azure SignalR Service!
This diagram shows the typical architecture to use Azure SignalR Service with application server either written in ASP.NET Core, or now, in ASP.NET.
For self-hosted SignalR application, the application server listens to and serves client connections directly. With SignalR Service, the application server will only respond to clients’ negotiate requests, and redirect clients to SignalR Service to establish the persistent client-server connections.
Using the ASP.NET support for Azure SignalR Service you will be able to:
Continue to keep SignalR application using ASP.NET, but work with fully managed ASP.NET Core based SignalR Service.
Change a few lines of SignalR API codes, to switch to use SignalR Service instead of self-hosted SignalR Hubs.
Leverage Azure SignalR Service’s built-in features and tools to help operate the SignalR application, with guaranteed SLA.
To receive the full benefit from the new ASP.NET support feature, please download and upgrade your SDKs to the latest supported versions:
Many factors, including non-technical ones, make the web application migrate from ASP.NET to ASP.NET Core difficult.
The ASP.NET support for Azure SignalR Service is to enable ASP.NET SignalR application developers to easily switch to use SignalR Service with minimal code change.
Some APIs and features are no longer supported:
Automatic reconnects
Forever Frame transport
HubState
PersistentConnection class
GlobalHost object
HubPipeline module
Client side Internet Explorer support before Microsoft Internet Explorer 11
ASP.NET support is focus on compatibility, so not all ASP.NET Core SignalR new features are supported. To name a few: MessagePack, Streaming, etc., are only available for ASP.NET Core SignalR applications.
SignalR Service can be configured for different service mode: Classic/Default/Serverless. For ASP.NET support, the Serverless mode is not supported.
For a complete list of feature comparison between ASP.NET SignalR and ASP.NET Core SignalR, the proper version of SDKs to use in each case, and what are the recommended alternatives to use for features discontinued in ASP.NET Core SignalR, please refer to doc here.
We’d like to hear about your feedback and comments. You can reach the product team at the GitHub repo, or by email.
