Posted by: xSicKxBot - 11-13-2018, 04:41 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Black Friday 2018 -- Walmart's Early Ad Game Deals For PS4, Xbox One, Switch
With Black Friday approaching--it falls on November 23 this year, putting it less than two weeks away--more and more retailers are releasing their Black Friday ads early. That's a good thing for shoppers, because it allows us to compare prices, plan our purchases, and decide which doorbusters to go for. Walmart's Black Friday ad is now available, so let's look at all the upcoming deals on video game consoles, games, and accessories.
As with many other retailers, Walmart isn't waiting until Friday to begin offering its discounts. The deals begin at 6 PM local time on Thursday, November 22 (Thanksgiving in the US). Online shoppers will get access to the discounts even earlier; Black Friday deals at Walmart.com will start on Wednesday, November 21 at 10 PM ET (7 PM PT).
On the hardware side of things, Walmart will have a deal on nearly every console on the market. You'll be able to get a PS4 Slim 1TB with Spider-Man for $199. The Xbox One S Minecraft Creators Bundle will be marked down to $199, and you'll be able to save $100 on an Xbox One X, bringing the price down to $399. Nintendo Switch will still cost $299, but you'll get a free copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with the purchase. Finally, Nintendo 2DS with Super Mario Maker will be $79.
When it comes to games, it might be quicker to list the ones that won't be on sale. There will be tons of great deals, making Black Friday a good time to grab anything you've had an eye on recently. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will be marked down to $40, which is $5 cheaper than it will be at Target and Best Buy. Assassin's Creed Odyssey is dipping to $35, as is Destiny 2: Forsaken Legendary Collection. And while they're not getting discounts, Walmart is offering exclusive steelbook versions of Fallout 76 and Red Dead Redemption 2 for $60 each.
You can find the full list of discounted items for each platform below. And if you want to see all the other items Walmart will have on sale, check out the full Walmart Black Friday ad.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 11-13-2018, 04:41 AM - Forum: Windows
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ERM contributes to a more sustainable future with Microsoft 365
Today’s post was written by Richard Zotov, Group CIO at ERM.
The sustainability industry addresses the complex balancing act between supporting socioeconomic development and ensuring the healthy future of our environment and our communities. ERM employees are passionate about helping to shape a sustainable future with the world’s leading organizations. We work with the majority of Fortune 500 companies, whose activities—from drilling oil to discovering the next miracle drug—have an enormous impact on us all. Because sustainability means something different for every customer, like exploring clean energy sources or guaranteeing an ethical supply chain, ERM employees must be skilled, flexible, and agile in how they approach each engagement.
It is my goal as CIO to make sure this amazing group of more than 5,000 individuals have the best tools at their disposal as they collaborate in creative teams across 40 countries to help our customers achieve their unique business and sustainability goals. So we made the strategic decision to harness technology and data to digitalize and transform how we work. That’s when we deployed Microsoft 365 across our entire organization, from administrators in our 160 offices to mobile consultants gathering data in the field. Today, ERM employees have new tools to work faster, better, and safer, accelerating the positive, global impact of the work we do.
Now that everyone uses the same Microsoft 365 toolkit to collaborate, harness data, and streamline operations, we have a unified foundational layer for our new workplace culture. We’re connecting our entire business to be more efficient. And when it comes to security, we can meet our customers’ high standards and enhance the credibility of our security position with the Microsoft cloud platform.
This workplace transformation is really a two-pronged approach to remaining at the forefront of the sustainability industry. First, we harness technology and data to accelerate our sustainability and environmental health and safety services. The second involves looking at how we develop new revenue streams as an offshoot of our newly digitalized way of doing business.
With Microsoft 365, we are making headway with the first goal. It’s part of an enterprise-wide push to focus on exceptional customer value. For example, we have technologically transformed how we collect, store, and manage data during site investigation, one of our biggest service lines. Onsite data collection used to be a laborious manual process. Today, we use Microsoft 365 to help digitalize data collection—consultants take tablets into the field for data input and upload it for storage in the Microsoft cloud where it’s available in real-time for colleagues to analyze back at the office. Now our customers receive our reports in easily consumable Power BI dashboards, as opposed to lengthy write-ups, and we’re delivering insightful data into the hands of our customers faster.
As we gain experience in transforming our service lines using Microsoft cloud services, among others, we’ll be in a better position to explore new digital opportunities that help add value to the work we do for customers. This strategy will keep us at the leading edge of technology innovation and help maintain our competitive advantage.
As we work with the intelligent tools within the Microsoft 365 cloud platform, we empower our employees to deliver value to our customers—helping them achieve that balance between doing business and being a conscious steward of the environment. It’s great to know that ERM is adding to the global dialogue on sustainability, contributing to a healthier future for the planet.
—Richard Zotov
Read the ERM case study for more on their move to a modern workplace with Microsoft 365.
Road Redemption is an action racing game where you lead your motorcycle gang on an epic journey of pursuit, blood, and speed. Through your travels, you will upgrade your character, bike, and weapons by completing races, assassinations, robberies, and more. You?ll need to use kicks, grabs, counters, and other moves to stay alive. Death is a constant companion on the roads of the wasteland, but it is not an end if you are killed, you keep everything you?ve earned so you can get back in the race. Through local and online multiplayer, you can work together with your friends or grind them into road dust beneath your tires. You can play multiplayer online or through 2-4 player splitscreen.
The original roast master is back. Same sick burns, same smoldering attitude, now all scaled up in stunning HD. Spyro is bringing the heat like never before in the Spyro Reignited Trilogy game collection. Rekindle the fire with the original three games, Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. Explore the expansive realms, re-encounter the fiery personalities and relive the adventure in fully remastered glory. Because when there's a realm that needs saving, there's only one dragon to call.
TSIOQUE is a dark but playful Point & Click adventure, hand-animated in meticulous, frame-by-frame 2D. Escape the clutches of an Evil Wizard and discover the secrets hidden within the spellbound castle of your ancestors. We take the role of princess Tsioque, imprisoned in a castle overtaken by the Evil Wizard.
SoulCalibur 6 Black Friday 2018 Deals On PS4 And Xbox One
The Black Friday deals just keep coming in. Ahead of the Black Friday 2018 sales hitting multiple retailers on November 23, several outlets have offered up an early look of their plans for Black Friday featuring discounts on gaming consoles, accessories, and of course the biggest games of 2018-- including SoulCalibur VI.
As the latest entry in the long-running series, SoulCalibur VI returns to the series' roots by offering a reimagined take on the original game's story. In addition to the return of many classic characters, we also see the arrival of some new faces, who managed to make their presence felt in the game's in-depth story mode. This game also brings the return of the Create a Soul mode, which allows players to make their own custom fighter from a variety of different tools and accessories.
In our review of SoulCalbur VI, editor Tamoor Hussain stated in his impressions: "SoulCalibur VI is a fighting game that's easy to recommend. Like all the best titles in the genre, it has a low barrier to entry and high skill ceiling. For those looking to get in a few games with friends it's welcoming and immediately enjoyable. For those committed to ploughing the depths of its systems to get tournament ready, it has plenty to unpack and understand. Better still, those that want to play alone will find SoulCalibur VI has some of the most substantial single-player content in any fighting game today."
There's much more to see if you're looking for other exciting Black Friday deals. Remember, many of these deals aren't active until the time of Black Friday, so keep that in mind when you're sorting through these deals early. For more info on all things Black Friday, be sure to check out GameSpot for all the updates and highlights on what's to come.
A Free Guide for Setting Your Open Source Strategy
The majority of companies using open source understand its business value, but they may lack the tools to strategically implement an open source program and reap the full rewards. According to a recent survey from The New Stack, “the top three benefits of open source programs are 1) increased awareness of open source, 2) more speed and agility in the development cycle, and 3) better license compliance.”
Running an open source program office involves creating a strategy to help you define and implement your approach as well as measure your progress. The Open Source Guides to the Enterprise, developed by The Linux Foundation in partnership with the TODO Group, offer open source expertise based on years of experience and practice.
The most recent guide, Setting an Open Source Strategy, details the essential steps in creating a strategy and setting you on the path to success. According to the guide, “your open source strategy connects the plans for managing, participating in, and creating open source software with the business objectives that the plans serve. This can open up many opportunities and catalyze innovation.” The guide covers the following topics:
Why create a strategy?
Your strategy document
Approaches to strategy
Key considerations
Other components
Determine ROI
Where to invest
The critical first step here is creating and documenting your open source strategy, which will “help you maximize the benefits your organization gets from open source.” At the same time, your detailed strategy can help you avoid difficulties that may arise from mistakes such as choosing the wrong license or improperly maintaining code. According to the guide, this document can also:
Get leaders excited and involved
Help obtain buy-in within the company
Facilitate decision-making in diffuse, multi-departmental organizations
Help build a healthy community
Explain your company’s approach to open source and support of its use
Clarify where your company invests in community-driven, external R&D and where your company will focus on its value added differentiation
“At Salesforce, we have internal documents that we circulate to our engineering team, providing strategic guidance and encouragement around open source. These encourage the creation and use of open source, letting them know in no uncertain terms that the strategic leaders at the company are fully behind it. Additionally, if there are certain kinds of licenses we don’t want engineers using, or other open source guidelines for them, our internal documents need to be explicit,” said Ian Varley, Software Architect at Salesforce and contributor to the guide.
Open source programs help promote an enterprise culture that can make companies more productive, and, according to the guide, a strong strategy document can “help your team understand the business objectives behind your open source program, ensure better decision-making, and minimize risks.”
Learn how to align your goals for managing and creating open source software with your organization’s business objectives using the tips and proven practices in the new guide to Setting an Open Source Strategy. And, check out all 12 Open Source Guides for the Enterprise for more information on achieving success with open source.
Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Getting Three More Games Soon
Microsoft announced even more backwards compatible games coming to the Xbox One at its X018 conference. On November 13, the service will add three more games: the full trilogy of Final Fantasy XIII titles with Xbox One X enhancements. Plus Civilization Revolution, which is already available via backwards compatibility, will be getting some Xbox One X upgrades as well.
The original Final Fantasy XIII was Square Enix's big tentpole title in its marquee franchise. For its two sequels--Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII--the studio focused more singularly on the central character of Lightning and blended in some action game mechanics. While FFXIII's narrative was built to stand alone, XIII-2 and Lightning Returns are part of a matched set, with a cliffhanger that neatly leads from one into the other.
Civilization Revolution took the sim aspects of the popular strategy series and simplified them for a more quick and casual experience. That helps the interface work a little better on consoles, but the game has hit tons of other platforms including mobile devices.
As always, once these go live on the service, if you already own these games you can insert the disc to start the download, or find the digital version in your Games section on the dashboard. The number of games on Xbox One is big and constantly growing, so check out our full list of backwards compatible games to see if any of your nostalgic favorites are already available.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 11-12-2018, 09:10 AM - Forum: Lounge
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New Kingdom Hearts 3 Trailer Is Full Of Pooh
Kingdom Hearts 3 already has an all-star cast of Disney characters, but at Xbox's X018 fan event one more made his debut. Everyone's favorite honey-loving bear, Winnie the Pooh has been confirmed to appear in the third entry in the Square Enix-developed title. Of course, this isn't the first time he's been featured in the series, as players have traveled to 100 Acre Woods, home of Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and friends multiple times.
This time, we got to see Pooh talking to Sora, Donald, and Goofie, telling him that he'd always be with him. Along with Pooh, the trailer also provided another glimpse at what Master Xehanort and Organization XIII are up to. Naturally, it will require Sora, Donald, Goofy, and a supporting cast of some of the most iconic Disney characters from throughout the ages to come together and put a stop to these evil schemes, which involves creating an ultimate keyblade.
Shinji Hashimoto from Square Enix also appeared during the stream to talk about Pooh's appearance, saying that in Kingdom Hearts 3 there will be mini-games to play in the 100 Acre Woods. For this location specifically, gameplay will be oriented around puzzles. Talking about technological advancements and what they bring to Kingdom Hearts 3, Hashimoto said the Xbox One hardware allowed the team to depict roaring scenes in the Pirates world and the vastness of Big Hero 6's San Fransokyo.
The trailer also gave us a glimpse at the some of other words, including an evil Baymax in the Big Hero 6 universe. Some on-ship acrobatics in the Pirates of the Caribbean world.
On November 5, Square Enix released a trailer set in the Kingdom of Corona, the world in which Tangled takes place. In that trailer, Sora, Donald, and Goofy meet Rapunzel and Flynn, before being ambushed by enemies. Rapunzel looks to have a pretty handy traversal ability that involves using her long hair to swing from tree branches. This will no doubt help the gang get around much easier.
Other Disney franchises represented in Kingdom Hearts 3 include Toy Story, Big Hero 6, Frozen, Hercules, and Monsters Inc. Various members of the voice cast attached to these are also reprising their roles for the game. For example, Zachary Levi be playing as Flynn Rider while Donna Murphy will once again be Mother Gothel. For Frozen, Idina Menzel will be voicing Elsa, while Kristen Bell returns for Anna, Josh Gad is Olaf, and Jonathan Groff is Kristoff. Haley Joel Osment will also be voicing series protagonist Sora again.
Kingdom Hearts 3 is set to release on January 29, 2019 on Xbox One and PS4.
By Andrew O’Hara Sunday, November 11, 2018, 09:02 pm PT (12:02 am ET)
Nomad has debuted their latest accessory, a genuine leather enclosure for AirPods that not only protects the easily-scratched charging case, but makes it look great in the process.
Nomad AirPods Rugged Case in brown
Rugged Case is a two-part enclosure for your AirPods that keep things slim and is made of Horween leather, a decades old tannery based out of Chicago, known for their exceptional quality. If you’ve tried any of Nomad’s excellent iPhone cases, you should be aware of the leather’s look and feel.
One of AirPods’ owners biggest complaints to date has not been about any functionality, but the propensity of the charging case to collect copious scratches through normal use. Others have brought cases to market for Apple’s diminutive earbuds, but few have taken off with customers.
Nomad Modern Apple Watch Strap, AirPods Rugged Case, and iPhone Rugged Case in black
While we haven’t tried out Nomad’s Rugged Case for AirPods yet, at first blush it appears to be a big step up from the bulky and stiff AirSnap from Twelve South, that retails for the same price.
Stay tuned for our hands of the Rugged Case in the coming days.
