There’s no shortage of cowboy simulators for fans of the Old West, but Forever Entertainment’s upcoming Switch version of Hard West will let players enjoy barroom brawls with a shot of turn-based XCOM-style strategy.

From the screens and the trailer, it bears a passing resemblance to Wasteland 2, a game which struggled technically on Switch, but the developers promise that performance won’t be a problem for Hard West. Forever has remastered Creative Forge’s PC version for the handheld and it reportedly runs at 1080p in docked mode, too.

Here’s a little more flavour from their official description of the ‘Weird West’:

During journey through the world where the Wild West and the world of fantasy connect, the player will encounter events and choices that will determine his fate. In 8 scenarios consisting of 40 fights, you will meet a colorful cast of playable characters whose fates are intimately intertwined with yours.

During the fight, the player has an access to special skills in the form of cards collected during journey. In addition, the cards can be combined into powerful combinations that allow additional options during battles.

One of the unique features in Hard West is “Luck”, which introduces an additional, exciting element during skirmishes with opponents. “Luck of the Draw” is more than just a pure probability – in Hard West Luck guarantees an exciting and demanding fight, significantly affecting the chances of a shot or miss.

The Switch version comes with the Scares of Freedom DLC, making it cheaper than the same package on Steam at the time of writing. During the first two weeks of release there’ll be a 10% discount, plus 33% off for anybody who’s got another Forever Entertainment game in their Switch library. We’re not sure if those discounts accumulate, but either way it’s a sizeable chunk off the full price.

With ‘Mostly Positive’ user reviews on Steam, this may well be one to watch out for. It’s coming on 7th March for €19,99/$19.99 with pre-orders available from 28th February, so if you like the look of this turn-based West-em-up or enjoyed it on PC, you’ve got something to look forward to.

Played the original game? How does it compare to XCOM? Let us know below…

It’s not even a week since the February Nintendo Direct dropped and finally kickstarted 2019 for Nintendo fans. Of course, the world of video games is fast-moving, and we all knew it wouldn’t be long before the rumour mill began creaking and moving again.

Our friends over at NintendoSoup have noticed that @muguwus, a Twitter user who predicted a whole bunch of last week’s Direct has posted this enigmatic missive:

Not the loquacious sort, it seems. While truckloads of salt are required with most things found on the internet, Pokémon Day – the anniversary of the series’ launch in Japan back in 1996 – is coming up on 27th February. This mysterious tipster also accurately called a long list of games from the Direct, almost as if they’d seen the video before the broadcast:

Whether this rumour turns out to have substance or not, the absence of news in the last Direct coupled with the upcoming anniversary means it doesn’t take a Sherlock to foresee a Pokémon Switch announcement on the horizon.

Are you getting impatient for more details on Pokémon Switch? Would you be disappointed if the only news is a Pikachu with a different hat in Pokémon Go? Drop us a line below…

Daimler AG is both a world leader in commercial vehicles and premium cars, and a pioneer in innovative mobility. The work requires processing enormous amounts of confidential, business-critical data, but until recently, the automaker had a problem. Its on-premise data platform, built five years ago, lacked the flexibility and scalability needed for big data projects, while Daimler’s strict security standards – more rigorous than what’s legally required – prevented the company from moving data into the cloud.

To solve the problem, Daimler launched eXtollo, the company’s new cloud platform for big data and advanced analytics. Developed with Microsoft, the platform uses Azure Key Vault, a service that safeguards encryption keys and secrets, including certificates, connection strings and passwords.

The solution paved the way for Daimler to migrate its data lake to the cloud, with eXtollo now serving internal business units around the world, including production, finance, sales, marketing and research. Hosted on Azure, the platform also enables more artificial intelligence (AI) projects that help Daimler accelerate innovation, better serve its customers and shape the future of mobility.

To learn more about eXtollo and Daimler’s work with big data, Transform chatted with Guido Vetter, head of Daimler’s Corporate Center of Excellence Advanced Analytics & Big Data.

TRANSFORM: What challenges did you have with your on-premise data platform?

VETTER: We had a monolithic environment and limited capacity. The requests and demands for service from Daimler’s business units were so massive that we were not able to scale the calculation power to what we needed. We had our units competing for calculation resources and we had to schedule and plan who was calculating when. But with Azure, the big advantage is we scale up, we compute, we pay, we scale down.

TRANSFORM: How did Azure Key Vault help?  

VETTER: Azure Key Vault was the lever for us to move into the cloud. The biggest challenge for us internally is that we process confidential data. We don’t want this data to leak anywhere. But with “bring your own key” in Azure Key Vault, we are in control of the data and encryption material. Nobody but us can use the data. Combined with services like Azure Active Directory, it gives us all the data protection and security we need to make sure everything is to our highest standards of security.

TRANSFORM: How long did it take you to develop eXtollo?

VETTER: We launched the idea of eXtollo in workshops with Microsoft in January 2018. Then we went live for Europe in April. It was a three-month exercise and a lot of the time we spent validating concepts. We went live in the U.S. in October and later in Asia. So, we have in nine months of almost-global coverage. It was lightning-fast. Cloud is really bringing us the speed and the flexibility to do that.

TRANSFORM: What are some use cases for eXtollo?

VETTER: We do a lot of forecasting cases. In the past, it took days to calculate forecasts in the finance or production areas, which the algorithms can now do in minutes and seconds. We also do driving behavior analytics and forecasting with AI on what a customer potentially wants to buy and that gives us a better portfolio of sales.

The best use case scenario is error code forecasting for the vehicle. When you take your car to the workshop for a repair, the mechanic can download an error code log from the car and immediately see how to solve the problem. The computer program is based on a machine-learning algorithm that analyzes historical, diagnostic data of cars to give targeted suggestions for faster, better service.

The cloud really enables the potential of AI for all levels of the organization. That’s one of the advantages of Azure – we have all the tools we need, whether we use AI algorithms or normal advanced analytics algorithms.

Savvy Business Leaders is a five-episode thought leadership podcast series featuring industry-leading influencers and some of the leading brands tackling emerging business challenges facing leadership teams today.

Host Bill Detwiler, Managing Editor of TechRepublic and Tech Pro Research, interviews leading experts to dive into key areas of business transformation, from relationship selling to connected field service, and beyond. He speaks with business leaders that have successfully navigated the business challenges using Microsoft technology, sharing insights uncovered in their digital transformation journey.

How to listen:

You can listen to individual episodes and view the transcripts with related content below. Or, listen on the go by searching for “Savvy Business Leaders” in the podcast category on iTunes, Google Play Music, and Spotify.

Episode #1: All your data through a single pane of glass

Renowned data journalist David McCandless shares simple strategies for leveraging data visualizations to reveal the meaningful insights organizations need to drive their business forward. Stuart Stock, CIO at Veolia UK, will share how the environmental resource management company is using Microsoft Power BI to transform the way their employees and customers analyze data to make data-driven decisions.

	David McCandless Data Journalist, Founder of Information is Beautiful
	Stuart Stock CIO at Veolia UK

Episode #2: Sales expert Jill Konrath on data-driven sales strategies

Sales strategist Jill Konrath orients us to the changing landscape of sales relationships. She explains how access to information empowers salespeople to connect with and provide the greatest value to customers. Next, Jennifer Deutsch, CMO, and Michael Cantor, CIO of global data center maintenance organization Park Place Technologies, share how embracing sales enablement technologies brings new opportunities to advance their business goals.

	Jill Konrath Relationship selling expert, keynote speaker, and author
	Jennifer Deutsch CMO, Park Place Technologies
	Michael Cantor CIO, Park Place Technologies

Episode #3: Data strategies to overcome digital disruption in retail

Sucharita Kodali discusses the digital disruption of the retail industry. She provides valuable insight into building a data strategy to address these emerging challenges, including key considerations and guidance on where to start. Learn about the role of AI in the retail sphere, how connecting and consolidating data can ensure its integrity, and why automating processes improves customer experiences.

Sucharita Kodali Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, retail industry analyst

Episode #4: Futurist Brian Solis on reinventing field service management

Host Bill Detwiler talks field service management with Brian Solis, Principal Analyst and Futurist at Altimeter Group, and Paul Bean, CEO of Mining Worldwide at Sodexo. Brian Solis explains how disruptive technologies are enabling connected field service and unlocking new business models. Then, Paul Bean explains how they are harnessing these technologies to make early, informed, and holistic decisions.

	Brian Solis Author, The End of Business as Usual and X: The Experience When Business Meets Design Principal Analyst and Futurist, Altimeter Group
	Paul Bean CEO of Mining Worldwide, Sodexo

Episode #5: Differentiated value through customer service innovation

Brian Solis discusses how customer experience is guiding digital transformation, with companies using data to be more accessible on mobile platforms and best meet customers’ expectations. Jaclyn Wainwright, CEO of AiR Healthcare Solutions, explains how customer engagement tools enable her healthcare delivery company to anticipate patient needs.

	Brian Solis Author, The End of Business as Usual and X: The Experience When Business Meets Design Principal Analyst and Futurist, Altimeter Group
	Jaclyn Wainwright CEO, AiR Healthcare Solutions

Series host:

Bill Detwiler Managing Editor of TechRepublic and Tech Pro Research

Oninaki was one of the new titles announced during last week’s Nintendo Direct, and has been the beneficiary of some significant coverage in this week’s issue of Japanese magazine Famitsu.

Published by Square Enix and developed by Tokyo RPG Factory, Oninaki is being described as an “intensely shocking title” and is currently around 65% complete; a release is expected this summer.

However, rather more interesting is the news that Takashi Tokita – who served as director and scenario writer on the SNES titles Chrono Trigger and Live A Live – is working on the game as creative producer. Tokita also directed Parasite Eve on the Sony PlayStation, and more recently was director and scenario writer on Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light.

The scenario is in the hands of Hirotaka Inaba, who also performed the same role on Tokyo RPG Factory’s previous titles, I Am Setsuna and Lost Sphear. Atsushi Hashimoto (I Am Setsuna) is installed as director, while Ryutaro Sasaki is acting as producer.

Are you a fan of Tokyo RPG Factory’s games? Are you looking forward to playing Oninaki? Let us know with a comment.

If Switch owners in the west thought they had to wait a long time for Nintendo’s belated Online service to arrive, spare a thought for their counterparts in the east. The service, which launched back in September last year, will finally arrive in South Korea and Hong Kong this spring.

Interestingly, @chinesenintendo, the Twitter account devoted to reporting Nintendo developments in the region, points out the use of Famicom controllers despite labelling the service as ‘NES’ in both the Simplified and Traditional Chinese banners:

To be fair, while four months is a long time, this is a relatively small delay if you look back over the history of product launches in the region. While South Korea is arguably the home of eSports, conversely, the Chinese government has historically been very restrictive with official releases, digital or otherwise.

Until as recently as 2015, a ban on the sale of video games consoles produced outside the country led to some inventive solutions from the likes of Nintendo and other companies. With that in mind, it’s impressive that Switch’s online service has come to Hong Kong so quickly.

The Chinese mainland, of course, is another matter entirely. Despite being the largest video game market in the world, companies of all varieties must deal with some very stringent restrictions to get their products on sale in China.

There’s no word on pricing just yet, but it’s great to see Nintendo slowly expanding the service.

Are you a Switch owner in the region who’s been waiting for NSO to arrive? Drop us a line below…

Every day there seems to be a security breach reported in the news where our data is at risk. Despite the fact that SSH is a secure way to connect remotely to a system, you can still make it even more secure. This article will show you how.

That’s where two-factor authentication (2FA) comes in. Even if you disable passwords and only allow SSH connections using public and private keys, an unauthorized user could still gain access to your system if they steal your keys.

With two-factor authentication, you can’t connect to a server with just your SSH keys. You also need to provide the randomly generated number displayed by an authenticator application on a mobile phone.

The Time-based One-time Password algorithm (TOTP) is the method shown in this article. Google Authenticator is used as the server application. Google Authenticator is available by default in Fedora.

For your mobile phone, you can use any two-way authentication application that is compatible with TOTP. There are numerous free applications for Android or IOS that work with TOTP and Google Authenticator. This article uses FreeOTP as an example.

Install and set up Google Authenticator

First, install the Google Authenticator package on your server.

$ sudo dnf install -y google-authenticator

Run the application.

$ google-authenticator

The application presents you with a series of questions. The snippets below show you how to answer for a reasonably secure setup.

Do you want authentication tokens to be time-based (y/n) y
Do you want me to update your "/home/user/.google_authenticator" file (y/n)? y

The app provides you with a secret key, verification code, and recovery codes. Keep these in a secure, safe location. The recovery codes are the only way to access your server if you lose your mobile phone.

Set up mobile phone authentication

Install the authenticator application (FreeOTP) on your mobile phone. You can find it in Google Play if you have an Android phone, or in the iTunes store for an Apple iPhone.

A QR code is displayed on the screen. Open up the FreeOTP app on your mobile phone. To add a new account, select the QR code shaped tool at the top on the app, and then scan the QR code. After the setup is complete, you’ll have to provide the random number generated by the authenticator application every time you connect to your server remotely.

Finish configuration

The application asks further questions. The example below shows you how to answer to set up a reasonably secure configuration.

Do you want to disallow multiple uses of the same authentication token? This restricts you to one login about every 30s, but it increases your chances to notice or even prevent man-in-the-middle attacks (y/n) y
By default, tokens are good for 30 seconds. In order to compensate for possible time-skew between the client and the server, we allow an extra token before and after the current time. If you experience problems with poor time synchronization, you can increase the window from its default size of +-1min (window size of 3) to about +-4min (window size of 17 acceptable tokens). 
Do you want to do so? (y/n) n
If the computer that you are logging into isn't hardened against brute-force login attempts, you can enable rate-limiting for the authentication module. By default, this limits attackers to no more than 3 login attempts every 30s.
Do you want to enable rate-limiting (y/n) y

Now you have to set up SSH to take advantage of the new two-way authentication.

Configure SSH

Before completing this step, make sure you’ve already established a working SSH connection using public SSH keys, since we’ll be disabling password connections. If there is a problem or mistake, having a connection will allow you to fix the problem.

On your server, use sudo to edit the /etc/pam.d/sshd file.

$ sudo vi /etc/pam.d/ssh

Comment out the auth substack password-auth line:

#auth       substack     password-auth

Add the following line to the bottom of the file.

auth sufficient pam_google_authenticator.so

Save and close the file. Next, edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file.

$ sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Look for the ChallengeResponseAuthentication line and change it to yes.

ChallengeResponseAuthentication yes

Look for the PasswordAuthentication line and change it to no.

PasswordAuthentication no

Add the following line to the bottom of the file.

AuthenticationMethods publickey,password publickey,keyboard-interactive

Save and close the file, and then restart SSH.

$ sudo systemctl restart sshd

Testing your two-factor authentication

When you attempt to connect to your server you’re now prompted for a verification code.

[user@client ~]$ ssh user@example.com
Verification code:

The verification code is randomly generated by your authenticator application on your mobile phone. Since this number changes every few seconds, you need to enter it before it changes.

If you do not enter the verification code, you won’t be able to access the system, and you’ll get a permission denied error:

 
[user@client ~]$ ssh user@example.com

Verification code:

Verification code:

Verification code:

Permission denied (keyboard-interactive).

[user@client ~]$
 

Conclusion

By adding this simple two-way authentication, you’ve now made it much more difficult for an unauthorized user to gain access to your server.

Given the accelerating pace of change around the globe, the worlds of school and work are undergoing massive transformations. New technologies such as artificial intelligence are empowering today’s students to address big challenges that motivate them, such as reversing climate change and slowing the spread of disease. At the same time, collaboration tools, mixed reality and social media are bringing them closer to one another than ever before.

To successfully navigate these changes and to leverage the opportunities ahead of them, we need to prepare students with the diverse skills they will need in the future.

To better understand how to prepare today’s kindergartners to thrive in work and life, last year we released research about the Class of 2030.

Our findings highlighted two core themes: Student-centric approaches such as personalized learning and the growing importance of social-emotional skills.

Social-emotional skills such as collaboration, empathy and creativity have long been essential, but our research revealed they have become newly important to employers and educators alike. Social-emotional skills are also necessary for well-being, which is a key predictor of academic and employment success.

So this year we decided to dig deeper, to better understand what educators and schools worldwide are doing to enhance students’ skills and well-being and to understand how technology can help. We worked with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) to survey more than 760 educators in 15 countries. From Mexico to Sweden and from Indonesia to Canada, we listened to the voices of educators. We also interviewed leading experts on and reviewed 90 pieces of research.

Click the excerpt above to view the full infographic.

What we learned is that educators around the globe are placing a high priority on student well-being and they are actively seeking ways to nurture it in their classrooms, across the school environment, and in their communities.

According to the survey, 80 percent of educators believe that well-being is critical for academic success, for developing foundational literacies and for cultivating strong communication skills, and 70 percent of educators say well-being has grown in importance for K-12 students during their careers.

At the same time, school systems have not moved as quickly as educators to prioritize well-being. Only 53 percent of educators said their schools have a formal policy in place to support students’ well-being. Individual educators can do great things in their own classrooms. But to impact well-being at scale, systemic approaches are needed.

We identified some common barriers that educators encounter in trying to help improve their students’ well-being:

• 64 percent of educators said they lack the resources or time to support students’ well-being
• 71 percent of respondents said changes to enhance student well-being need to be driven by school leaders

And, we asked educators what technologies they find most beneficial in overcoming these barriers. Three areas stood out:

• 58 percent mentioned immersive experiences that allow students to explore scenarios from the perspective of others, which show strong promise for promoting social-emotional skills, particularly empathy
• 49 percent cited tools that foster collaboration among students
• 46 percent of educators favor tools that help collect and analyze data about students’ emotional states

In addition, technology provides the critical scale to take any of these approaches beyond a single classroom.

To help identify best practices, we took a close look at schools where teachers report their students enjoy higher-than-average well-being. We found several common threads. These leader schools are more likely to:

• Have a formal plan to promote well-being
• Measure and monitor well-being as well as academic achievement
• Support inclusive classroom practices that amplify student voice
• Engage purposefully with the community
• Take a whole-school approach to professional learning

A complete summary of our research results will be released in March. In the meantime, we invite you to join our free webinar series on Teaching Happiness, starting February 25, 2019, for a broader exploration of the skills that empower students to lead happy and fulfilling lives.

We are excited to be on this journey together with all of you, to learn from you, and to contribute our insights and our technologies to help every student on the planet achieve more.

You may never read another app description as resigned as Partia 3’s. The developer, Dustin, laments the financial failures of the previous two entries, the cost of his vacations and weekends to the creation of this final chapter in the trilogy, and the likely mediocre response the new game will generate. Declaring it the ‘last app store description he will ever write,’ he signs it: “For the lovers only.”

The Parthia series is the creation of a devoted two-person team who have been making console-style strategy RPGs with no IAP for seven years with little reward to show for it. For that alone it’s worth a look – although unless you’re a strategy RPG die-hard, maybe not much more than a look.

The first Partia came out in 2012 and Partia 2 followed in 2014. Five years later, the labor of love is finally complete. Unfortunately, in that time, not much has advanced in the games’ design. Many of the criticisms given in PT’s review of the first game in the series still hold true even seven years later. Now, you do have touch controls rather than an on-screen controller, and the field isn’t pillarboxed into an approximation of a Game Boy Advance aspect ratio. But the UI is still frustrating, and the graphics and animations are limited. It would be nice if the gameplay made up for that.

The Parthia series has always been a devoted homage to Fire Emblem , which is known for its handheld titles on Nintendo platforms. Now there is an official Fire Emblem game on mobile, and a very popular one, albeit not the one fans were probably hoping for. Fire Emblem: Heroes reduced the size of the battlefield and dropped the series’ signature character permadeath. Parthia, on the other hand, is orthodox in its presentation of traditional strategy RPG gameplay. Your units move freely around the large battlefields. They can carry different equipment, gain levels, and have their individual advantages and weaknesses. In between battles, you can manage your army, buying and selling equipment and recruiting new soldiers. Most importantly, permadeath remains a threat, encouraging you to play carefully with your favorite characters.

However, battles are tedious. First, it takes a dozen taps to enter a simple command. Tap to select the unit. Tap to choose move. Tap to choose attack. Tap to choose the weapon. Tap to choose the target. Tap to confirm. Watch the animation. And that’s after turning off the default setting that requires double taps for each of those commands! Then, units too-frequently miss their targets or do little damage, making each battle a war of slow attrition. The AI does little to help the pace, preferring to wait to be attacked or otherwise being easily lured into bottlenecks and slowly whittled down one by one. Further, Parthia 3 doesn’t do a good job of teaching the player the capabilities of the units, instead leaving the education up to trial and error. I’m still not 100% sure which units are supposed to be strong against which, or if there even is a big difference between them. The AI is never a threat unless a story event demands overwhelming enemy forces.

Battles are often driven by story events, which push some drama onto the map by suddenly manifesting new enemy or allied units. The story remains forgettable, although commendable in its ambition. It’s trying to tell an epic tale of war and justice, but the large and thinly-drawn cast makes it hard to get a handle on why you should care. Not helping the narrative is the poor English used, which features grammatical or spelling errors in every other dialogue box. It’s not enough to make comprehension impossible, but it is enough to be frustrating to read and drop you out of the tale.

Devotees of the console strategy RPG style of Fire Emblem may find a lot to like in Parthia 3 and its prequels, especially those disappointed by Nintendo’s limited Fire Emblem: Heroes. This series was created by someone with a lot of love for a very particular kind of game. Now that the creator is freed of this obsession, I hope his next project can find the audience it deserves.