The RISC-V Foundation will be hosting a free, Getting Started with RISC-V event in San Jose. This 1 day event will showcase innovative RISC-V implementations from members of the Foundation.
The half-day San Jose event on April 4 will feature engaging presentations, demos and networking opportunities.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 03-06-2019, 03:11 PM - Forum: Windows
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New research: Leaders at successful companies embracing AI
The race is on The survey results show that high-growth companies are not only more than twice as likely to actively use AI compared to lower growth companies, but they also have bigger plans in a much shorter timeframe. Of the double-digit growth companies surveyed, while almost all (94%) intend to use in AI for decision making within the next three years, more than half plan to do so over the next 12 months. In comparison, the majority of low-growth companies are only looking to invest in decision-making AI in the next three to five years.
“What’s striking about the research is the difference between double-digit growth companies and those with lower growth,” says Susan Etlinger, Industry analyst with the Altimeter Group. “Double-digit growth companies are further along in their AI deployments, but also see a greater urgency in using more AI. They are looking at a one to three year timeframe – often really focused on the coming year. Lower growth companies are looking at more of a 5-year timeframe. What this says to me is that the more you know, the higher your sense of urgency is.”
Crucially, it’s not too late for those companies and leaders who are further behind in their AI journeys to start now, to increase their chances of remaining competitive.
Start small, learn fast and scale The research findings have shown that AI is successfully utilised by leaders to invest more time in humans, while helping them create and execute new strategies. In addition, we have seen how leaders value AI’s ability to help them grow their own skills.
Evidence showing that the fastest-growing companies have invested – and will continue to invest – in AI also highlights the importance of ensuring that business, inspired by their leadership, progress on their AI journey sooner, rather than later, before they run the risk of losing their competitive edge to more progressive companies.
In Microsoft EMEA President Michel van der Bel’s words: “Start small, but start with intention. This will help teams build trust, learn from feedback and build confidence. In a nutshell, this is what will help get your AI journey off with a strong start.” Progress today, and reap the benefits for both yourself as a leader, and your company as a whole, tomorrow.
For more information on progressing your AI journey, please feel free to visit our AI business resources. .
If you weren’t aware, Visual Studio subscribers have free monthly Azure credits, that are ideal for experimenting with and learning about Azure services. When you activate this benefit, it creates a separate Azure subscription with a monthly credit balance that renews each month while you remain an active Visual Studio subscriber. If the credits run out before the end of the month the subscription is suspended until more credits are available. No surprises, no cost, and no credit card required for any of it!
The table below shows you how many Azure credits you get based on your type of Visual Studio subscription:
Visual Studio subscription type
Monthly Azure Credits
Activate Credits
Visual Studio Professional (standard subscription)
Now that you know how many Azure Credits you get every month for free, you are probably wondering what you can spend it on! We have put together the following simple table to help you get going:
Azure Service
Tier
Estimated Monthly Cost
App Service
Shared
$9.49
Storage
General Purpose V2 (1GB)
$1.06
SQL
Single DB (5DTUs, 2GB)
$4.90
CosmosDB
1GB
$23.61
Functions
Dynamic
First 1M executions free (up to 400K GB-s)
Monitor
Application Insights
First 1GB free
Key Vault
Standard
$0.03 (per 10k operations)
Service Bus
Basic
$0.05 (per 1M operations)
Redis
Basic (C0: 250MB Cache)
$16.06
Hopefully, you found this information helpful and you are on your way to make use of your Azure credits. If you are interested in the cost of an Azure service you didn’t see in the table above, try the Azure price calculator. If you have any questions or problems just leave us a comment below.
This week’s update is a bit wordier than usual, mainly because the usual format didn’t seem to fit what limited information, I have to share this time around. Before we get on to the main event, one bit of news I will share because it came in my Inbox today.
Feral Interactive are currently hard at work porting Tropico over to iPhone. Things seem to be coming a long well, because yesterday they shared a few screenshots over twitter. We really enjoyed Tropicowhen we reviewed it last year, and hopefully iPhone users will get to enjoy it soon as well.
Meanwhile, in the world of el presidente mobile games…
Out Now
There’s actually nothing definitive I want to highlight this week. Perhaps I’ve not been as in-touch as I normally would have been (had some days off), but nothing seems to have jumped out at me.
A few of the other sites seem to be talking about Immortal Rogue, which to be fair does look good and will be going on our ‘To Do’ list. The only thing is, according to the App Store page the game was released at the end of January. Google Play doesn’t give me enough information to determine when that version was released, so it’s possible this week marks the appearance of that version.
On our end, I’ve got people reviewing Knights of the Card Table, Wars Across the World and the digital adaptation of the Gem Rush board game.
Addendum: This completely slipped our mind, but Shieldwall Chroniclesfrom PT favourites Wave Light Games released on iOS today. We’ve got this on our review list as well, so stay tuned!
Updates
Star Traders: Frontiers has updated again this week with lots of tweaks and balances – if you’re interested, they’re actually working towards the eventual release of Carrier-class ships in the game, with accompanying fighters. Again, even if you don’t use Steam, we highly recommend keeping an eye on the official Steam page, because a lot of information as to the current road-map and what goes in every update is posted there.
Other than that, Evolution has had a few updates and tweaks since launch. A lot of major issues, especially on Android, have been solved one way or another (the minimum specs for Android devices has been raised for the moment, for example), and they’re working through the rest of the outstanding issues as well.
A previous candidate on our Best Board Games list, Elder Signs is now down to a buck on iOS, a little bit more on Android. Note that there’s different app entries for the iPhone and the iPad version of the game, so make sure you buy the right one.
One of our favourite action RPGS and Diablo-like games is enjoying a small reduction, if you’ve yet to give It a try yourself. Please note that it has been cheaper in the past, typically $3.99 but in 2017 went as low as $2.99.
This is a simple and engaging card game adapted from a physical game of the same name. It’s down to just a buck – not the most ‘serious’ of experience, but good for some casual fun.
A more serious war game, the base game for this is currently down to just a buck, although we’re unclear as to how much content you actually get. At the time of writing there’s ten IAPs consisting of individual scenarios. We’ve actually got a review in progress if you want to wait, but so far, our reviewer has been quite impressed with what he’s played.
Seen anything else you liked? Played any of the above? Let us know in the comments!
New Godot 3.1 Tutorial Series! Creating a Complete 2D Game Step by Step
We just published a brand new 18 part text tutorial series over on DevGa.me, Getting Started with Godot Step by Step Tutorial Series. This tutorial walks you through the entire game creation process using Godot 3.1, from creating your initial project, to publishing your game with details step by step instructions and screen shots. Even better it’s got professional quality art assets from Game Developer Studios and is completely open source!
If you need more detailed information on any subject we cover, be sure to check our existing Godot 3 Tutorial series, that goes into much more technical detail. There will be a step by step video version available shortly. There is also a 70pg PDF version of this tutorial available for Patreons.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 03-06-2019, 07:07 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Epic Game Of Thrones Season 8 Battle Scene Teased, And It Sounds Brutal
We've known for a while now that Game of Thrones Season 8 will have an epic battle scene, and now the producers have shared more details about it. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, episode director Miguel Sapochnik, who previously directed the Battle of the Bastards episode, confirmed this new episode will feature a battle between familiar living characters and the Night King and his army. The showdown has been teased since the show's beginning, and now it's finally coming.
In the episode, which chronicles the Battle of Winterfell, familiar characters like Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Sansa Stark, Arya Stark, and Brienne of Tarth are outnumbered as they fight against the supernatural foes. According to EW, it's the "longest consecutive battle sequence ever committed to film." At 40 minutes, the Helm's Deep battle from The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers was the longest battle sequence that Sapochnik said he could find in cinema history.
Co-executive producer Bryan Cogman spoke about the epic battle scene, calling it unprecedented for TV or film.
"What we have asked the production team and crew to do this year truly has never been done in television or in a movie," he explained. "This final face-off between the Army of the Dead and the army of the living is completely unprecedented and relentless and a mixture of genres even within the battle. There are sequences built within sequences built within sequences. [Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss wrote] an amazing puzzle and Miguel came in and took it apart and put it together again. It's been exhausting but I think it will blow everybody away."
Filming the episode took 11 weeks of night shoots. According to the report, up to 750 people worked all night for almost three months in sub-freezing temperatures and enduring cold rain, mud, and heavy wind.
Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark, told EW that "nothing can prepare you for how physically draining" it was filming the battle scene. "It's night after night, and again and again, and it just doesn't stop," she said. "You can't get sick, and you have to look out for yourself because there's so much to do that nobody else can do… there are moments you're just broken as a human and just want to cry."
The actor who plays Ser Jorah Mormont, Iain Glen, said filming the battle was the "most unpleasant experience I've had on Thrones."
"A real test, really miserable. You get to sleep at seven in the morning and when you wake in the midday you're still so spent you can't really do anything, and then you're back," he added. "You have no life outside it. You have an absolute f**ked bunch of actors. But without getting too method [acting] about it, on screen it bleeds through to the reality of the Thrones world."
The entire interview at EW is incredibly in depth and fascinating--check it out here.
Tickets For EGX 2019, The UK’s Biggest Games Show, Are On Sale Now
EGX 2019 is open for business, and tickets for the event can be purchased right now.
As the UK’s biggest consumer video games show, EGX is the place to be if you want to sample the latest games and hardware. While a full list of attendees hasn’t been confirmed yet, it’s a fair bet that Nintendo will be there to show off its biggest upcoming games, as well as a selection of 2019’s hottest titles.
The 2019 event is notable for another big reason; after a few very pleasant years in Birmingham following the demolition of Earl’s Court (EGX’s former home), the show is returning to London and will take place at the ExCeL between the 17th and 20th of October.
You can order your tickets right now by heading over to this page.
Random: One Tiny Fix Could Make Sonic’s Movie Appearance So Much Better
How Sonic is set to look in the movie
As we imagine you’ve seen by now, it would appear that Sonic’s full appearance for his upcoming movie has been leaked online. Fan reaction has been pretty negative, to say the least, and even Sonic creator Yuji Naka has taken to Twitter to share his confusion at the design.
Rough translations: “Is this a sonic movie?”
“I feel that it is important to look at the whole body visual of Sonic and head body and stomach. Did you not get a little more balance?”
We have to say, something about our favourite blue hedgehog is definitely off. There are a few things we could point out, such as his white fur hands (no gloves!) and plain Nike shoes, but we’ve since realised that it’s the eyes that cause the biggest problem.
IGN Deputy Reviews Editor, Tom Marks, has ‘fixed’ this very issue in this image shared on Twitter. Gone are the strangely small, separate eyes, replaced with Sonic’s classic mega eye that spans across his whole face. You’d think the one eye approach would be the weirder of the two, but it really is how Sonic is supposed to look, isn’t it?
We doubt any changes will or even can be made to Sonic’s design in the movie at this stage, but we’d definitely prefer to see this design grace our screens than the current one.
What do you think? Does this fix work? Share your thoughts with us below.
The current Fedora Logo has been used by Fedora and the Fedora Community since 2005. However, over the past few months, Máirín Duffy and the Fedora Design team, along with the wider Fedora community have been working on redesigning the Fedora logo.
Far from being just an arbitrary logo change, this process is being undertaken to solve a number of issues encountered with the current logo. Some of the issues with the current logo include the lack of a single colour variant, and, consequently the logo not working well on dark backgrounds. Other challenges with the current logo is confusion with other well-known brands, and the use of a proprietary font.
The new Fedora Logo design process
Last month, Máirín posted an amazing article about the history of the Fedora logo, a detailed analysis of the challenges with the current logo, and a proposal of two candidates. A wide ranging discussion with the Fedora community followed, including input from Matt Muñoz, the designer of the current Fedora logo. After the discussions, the following candidate was chosen for further iteration:
In a follow-up post this week, Máirín summarizes the discussions and critiques that took place around the initial proposal, and details the iterations that took place as a result.
After all the discussions and iterations, the following 3 candidates are where the team is currently at:
The RISC-V Foundation will be hosting a free, Getting Started with RISC-V event in Irvine. This 1 day event will showcase innovative RISC-V implementations from members of the Foundation.
The half-day Irvine event on April 3 will feature engaging presentations, demos and networking opportunities.
