If you haven’t picked up a physical copy of the wonderful roguelike / Metroidvania hit Dead Cells yet, you might want to hold off just a little longer. Motion Twin has revealed publisher Merge Games will be releasing a Dead Cells – Action Game of the Year physical edition for the Switch and PlayStation 4 this August.

This updated hard copy of Dead Cells will include a key ring, art book and reversible cover. Most importantly, you’ll also get the recently released “Rise of the Giants” DLC on the game card.

This physical release is to celebrate a momentous first year, with sales of Dead Cells surpassing two million units. It will arrive in North America on 20th August and shortly after in Europe on 23rd August.

Will you be buying this Game of the Year edition? Tell us down in the comments.

Inspire 2019, taking place in Las Vegas July 14–18, is Microsoft’s premier event for partners and an experience for anyone interested in growing their business and strengthening their Microsoft partnership. The event brings together thousands of attendees from 130 countries around the globe for a week of networking and learning — all with the goal of increasing partner profitability and accelerating business growth. This year the keynote speaker lineup will include Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, President Brad Smith, Executive Vice President Judson Althoff, who leads Microsoft’s Worldwide Commercial Business organization, and Corporate Vice President Gavriella Schuster, who leads Microsoft’s One Commercial Partner organization. You can find other featured speakers listed online. 

Fishing is a way of life for coastal communities around the world. An estimated four million fishing vessels sail the world’s oceans, providing fish for a global seafood market valued at over $120 billion.

“It’s hard to overstate the importance of fish,” says Nick Wise, CEO of the nonprofit organization OceanMind. “There are three billion people in the world who rely on seafood as their primary source of protein, mostly in developing nations. Twelve percent of the world’s population relies on the wild-capture seafood industry directly or indirectly for their livelihoods.”

Overfishing — when fish is caught faster than stocks can replenish — is a significant factor in the decline of ocean wildlife populations, not least because of the bycatch of other marine life such as turtles and cetaceans. Each of these creatures is an important part of ecosystems and the biodiversity of the ocean.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates one-third of all fish stocks are now overfished and are no longer biologically sustainable.

“A collapse in fish stocks and a failure to manage fishing sustainably,” says Wise, “would lead to a food security crisis and result in significant poverty around the world.”

To fight back against this overfishing, OceanMind is using the power of AI to map data and then feeding that information to government authorities to help catch perpetrators.

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Smart tracking

Regional, national and international regulations are used to manage fishing efforts and can include restrictions on fishing out of season, using banned gear or techniques, or catching more than a set quota.

There are many ways of trying to catch those flouting the law, such as patrol boats, on-board cameras, and the remote electronic monitoring of discards.

However, the vastness of the ocean makes the job difficult.

OceanMind’s system currently tracks thousands of boats, with the capability of tracking millions, across the globe by gathering data from a wide range of sources, including collision-avoidance transponders aboard boats; radar images; satellite imagery; and cellphone signals. Analyzing these enormous datasets is beyond the capability of any one person. OceanMind has developed machine-learning algorithms that predict the type of fishing behavior based on vessel location, and flags suspicious and potentially illegal activity such as fishing too close to the shore.

But the system can’t tell on its own whether anyone is breaking the law.

“The difference between legal and illegal fishing is simply whether or not the vessel had a license to do what it did in that place, at that time, and in that way,” says Wise. “That’s what makes combating illegal fishing challenging: One vessel making a particular maneuver might be legal, another vessel doing the same thing next to it might be illegal.”

OceanMind’s fisheries experts verify the alerts flagged by AI and coordinate closely with the relevant authorities, who can then decide whether to investigate further. The organization already has partnerships with governments, including Thailand’s, which can then target resources to catch offenders.

Real-time advances

Until now, OceanMind has used onsite servers to process the data that comes in every day. “We were basically running a day behind,” explains Wise. “We reviewed things that were happening yesterday.”

Through a Microsoft AI for Earth grant, OceanMind is moving its data analytics to the Microsoft Azure cloud. “The collaboration with Microsoft is going to bring all of that data through our system much more quickly and apply the AI in near real time.”

That transformation will make a big difference to enforcement. Real-time monitoring will help authorities plan patrols that can catch illegal fishing as it happens.

By AppleInsider Staff
Thursday, June 06, 2019, 06:02 pm PT (09:02 pm ET)

Following a start to preorders in France, Germany and the UK last week, Apple on Friday quietly initiated sales of Beats’ Powerbeats Pro headphones in Australia and China.

With the new preorder availability, Beats’ first totally wireless headphone model is now up for sale in seven regions.

Announced in April, Powerbeats Pro went on sale in the U.S. and Canada in early May ahead of a release on May 10.

Australia was added to the list of regions accepting orders for the headset on Friday local time, reports mac prices. China, which was not included among an initial set launch countries, also started the preorder process on Friday.

Powerbeats Pro is slated to roll out in 20 countries this summer, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

Prior to Australia and China, Apple began sales in France, Germany and the UK on May 31.

Apple’s regional websites for all other countries show the device as “coming soon.”

Beats’ first completely wireless product, Powerbeats Pro incorporates Apple smarts like the H1 chip to enable enhanced connectivity, better run time and “Hey Siri” support. Unlike the tech giant’s own AirPods model, Powerbeats Pro is somewhat ruggedized and features IPX4 water resistance.

AppleInsider found the Beats buds to deliver high quality sound and long battery life, but those benefits come at the expense of portability when compared to AirPods.

© 2019 Valve Corporation. All rights reserved. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries.

Heads up: The deadline to register for XRDC at a discount rate is tomorrow, Wednesday June 5th, at 11:59 PM Pacific!

This is a great opportunity to save hundreds of dollars on your pass to XRDC, the premier industry event for AR/VR/MR developers and innovators. This year the event will serve up an invigorating array of speakers and exhibitors in a beautiful new waterfront venue: the Fort Mason Festival Pavilion in San Francisco.

The whole event is being revamped to be more interactive and engaging, and this year there’s an all-new XRDC pass for sale, the Startup Pass, which is nearly half the price of the regular pass and specifically designed to give smaller teams and trailblazing startups a clear path to success at XRDC!

So make sure to look over XRDC passes and prices and register before tomorrow’s deadline to get the best price on your ticket to the big event.

A number of exciting sessions have already been announced, including DeepMotion chief Kevin He’s intriguing Entertainment track talk on “Using AI to Create Interactive Digital Actors,”  in which he’ll discuss the challenges of (and science behind) building an interactive character authoring tool — as well as how companies can integrate intelligent character simulation into their own games and experiences.

Plus, Packet39 cofounder Shachar Weis will be there to how you how VR is improving children’s healthcare in his XRDC Healthcare track talk on “MRI Simulator: Using Biofeedback Loops to Reduce Anxiety in Children.”

You’ll see how this simulator was designed by combining elements from game design, immersive technologies and biofeedback to help patients train before the scan, and remain calm and still during, improving image quality and shortening the scan duration.

And in their Enterprise track talk on “Building Virtual Reality for Public Safety”, The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Sarah Hughes and Jack Lewis will share lessons learned in designing VR experiences to improve public safety, developing VR environments with the first responder community, trials and tribulations from 500+ demos, and more. Expect to walk away understanding what worked well — and what failed miserably!

For more details about XRDC, which is produced by organizers of the Game Developers Conference, check out the official XRDC website. You can also subscribe to regular XRDC updates via email, Twitter and Facebook.

Gamasutra, XRDC, and GDC are sibling organizations under parent company Informa

Starting at 2:00 p.m. PST today, members of the Xbox One Preview Delta Ring will begin receiving the latest 1906 Xbox One system update (19H1_RELEASE_XBOX_DEV_1906\18362.4036.190524-1924).

DETAILS:

• OS version released: 19H1_RELEASE_XBOX_DEV_1906\18362.4036.190524-1924
• Available: 2:00PM PDT 5/28/19
• Mandatory Date/Time: 3:00 AM PDT 5/29/19

New Features:

In this 1906 update you’ll find fixes and known issues listed below, please keep an eye out for feature announcements as they’re ready to be previewed. Thanks, as always, for your passion for helping make Xbox One system updates the best they can be prior to release to GA!

Mixer

• Users can watch full-screen Mixer streams on the Mixer Twist.  Simply navigate to the Mixer twist, select a stream and hit A.  Please test out these new features and provide feedback.

Fixes:

My Games and Apps

• Fixed an issue in which some games were stalling or crashing when installing.

 System

• UI fixes to Home to correctly show when your Game Pass subscription is expiring.
• Narrator fixes to various parts of Home and the Dashboard. Localization fixes.

Known Issues:

Audio

• Headsets are not being assigned to the users profiles and not working correctly.

My Games and Apps

• We have identified an issue with any game that you own that is also in Game Pass does not show in your Ready To Install (RTI) – Workaround – Install from the Store PDP.
• We are tracking an issue with duplicate tiles in RTI.

Profile Color

• Sometimes users may encounter the incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.