Posted by: xSicKxBot - 12-10-2019, 09:19 AM - Forum: Lounge
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What's New To Netflix This Week? Movies, TV, And Originals
At this point, Netflix users are all just counting down the days until The Witcher arrives on the service. However, until then, the streaming service giant is still pumping content almost every day of the week. There are a few movies you may want to check out this week, along with a Netflix original special that will undoubtedly be hilarious.
On Thursday, Jack Whitehall: Christmas with my Father arrives, and the comedy special is a live show featuring the aforementioned Jack Whitehall...and his father, Michael Whitehall. The special will feature guests, like the cast of Queer Eye giving Michael a makeover. If you've seen the previous Netflix seasons of this series, then you know there will be many moments of Michael being confused, grumpy, and upset with what Jack wants him to do.
The only other recommendation for this week is a very ok horror movie. On Monday, It Comes at Night lands, and the movie follows a group of people living in a house together as there is an unknown threat in the outside world, which comes for them at night. The movie plays more into paranoia and trust rather than focusing on the horrors that await everyone in the outdoors.
Below, you'll find everything coming to Netflix this week. For more streaming service info, check out the December release lists for Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and Shudder.
Unreal Engine 4.24 was just released by Epic Games, although the biggest new feature is actually outside of the engine. Last month Epic Games announced they acquired Quixel and in this release you can now use your Epic credentials to download over 11K high quality textures completely free, as long as you use them in Unreal Engine. You can either access the textures in Unreal Marketplace as packs, or using Quixel Bridge. Another major feature of this release is that Unreal Studio has been folded into Unreal Engine, with that functionality, including Datasmith, available for free.
There’s a host of new features and improvements across the board, with something for everyone. You can now create even more convincing interior and exterior scenes for games and visualization with new tools for nondestructively creating and editing open-world landscapes that adapt to other scene elements; gorgeous atmospheric skies; and Screen Space Global Illumination that scales across console and desktop platforms.
For those looking to create more believable characters, creatures, and virtual beings, we’re proud to offer a first look at our new strand-based hair and fur system that enables you to simulate and render hundreds of thousands of photoreal hairs at up to real time speeds. Formerly part of Unreal Studio, Datasmith—the toolkit for converting entire scenes at high fidelity from 3ds Max, SketchUp Pro, Cinema 4D, and a host of CAD and BIM formats—is now available for free as part of 4.24 and all future versions of Unreal Engine going forward. Add to that new Visual Dataprep for streamlined, easy-to-use, automated data preparation, and getting data from any source real-time ready is faster and easier.
That’s not to mention the first-class USD support that enables modelers and layout artists to work in parallel; enhancements to multi-display rendering that make it much easier to use out of the box, even on existing projects; and a new task-based wizard to give you a better starting point when creating new projects.
You can learn a great deal more about this release in the complete release notes or keep watching the video below.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 12-10-2019, 03:00 AM - Forum: Windows
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Microsoft Store offers free Computer Science Education Week workshops
One hundred and thirteen years ago in New York, a girl was born into a generation where the average woman was more likely to perfect a signature pie recipe than solve a pi-based equation. Pushing against expectations, this girl became one of the pre-eminent technologists of our times and made it possible to convert human language into machine code understood by computers. On Dec. 9, the anniversary of Admiral Grace Hopper’s birthday kicks off Computer Science Education Week, an annual program dedicated to inspiring K-12 students to take interest in computer science.
As technology such as AI and cloud computing rapidly transforms the future of work, it’s more important than ever for students and educators to develop STEM—science, technology, engineering and math—skills. It’s estimated that over 85 million jobs worldwide will go unfilled by 2030 if we don’t bridge the STEM skills gap—but schools often struggle to implement quality STEM curriculum and prepare students for career paths that are just starting to come into focus.
Inspire students to ignite a passion for Computer Science
Microsoft Stores are committed to empowering students and educators with computer science resources and will host over 400 events in partnership with STEM influencers throughout Computer Science Education Week across locations. Ensuring no one is left behind when it comes to developing increasingly crucial computer science skills, programming this year has an increased focus on inclusion for traditionally underrepresented students.
Microsoft Store workshops will offer hands-on learning centered around coding, game design, app development and more using technologies from Windows, Surface, Office 365, Minecraft and more. Participants will hear from a diverse group of mentors and organizations from across the STEM field, including Lynell Caldwell, NASA, Brandon Copeland, Black Girls Code, Al Smith, Curtis Baham, Lee Woodall, Dennis Brown and Titus O’Neil.
Check your local Microsoft Store to register for exciting workshops geared toward empowering every learner, including workshops like;
Latina Girls in Gaming with MakeCode Arcade: Learn basic block coding and create video games with Gabriela Ponce, producer with Turn 10 Studios and advocate for helping the Latinx community succeed in the gaming industry. Gaby will share more about her journey combining her passions for art, culture and technology, and empower Latina girls to embrace STEM skills.
All Kids Code with Tynker Space Quest: Solve coding puzzles to guide an astronaut in space with Nadmi Casiano, the first deaf woman to graduate with an aeronautical engineering degree. All students are welcome, and ASL interpreters will be available at participating Microsoft Store locations to empower students with hearing disabilities.
African American Girls Code with Tynker Space Quest: Joan Higgenbotham, one of the first African American female astronauts to go into space, will share her experience at a workshop geared toward inspiring African American Girls to pursue STEM. Participants will learn basic coding concepts in an engaging format as they navigate aliens in search for a spaceship.
MANCODE with Design and Code Apps: Brainstorm app ideas and bring ideas to life with MANCODE, an organization aimed at addressing the stagnate growth of African American males within the STEM industry, who currently represent only 2.2% of the field. This workshop is geared toward underrepresented male students aged 13 and older, who will meet a male minority mentor and learn about the importance of technology.
Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit Workshop: Explore the magic of STEM at a Harry Potter Kano Coding Kit Workshop that introduces foundational coding concepts, including drag-and-drop coding. This autism-friendly workshop features alternate activities to allow a broad level of participation, and parents are welcome to join with their child.
In addition to these workshops, Microsoft Stores will also host Minecraft Hour of Code workshops, teaching students of all ages to code with Minecraft. The new Minecraft Hour of Code lesson aligns with this year’s theme, Computer Science for Good. Students will explore coding and artificial intelligence as they protect a village from forest fires in an immersive Minecraft world. Anyone can learn how coding can help build a better world—in just one hour!
Check availability of workshops and RSVP at your local Microsoft Store. Programming will vary by location. And, do you know students always get 10% off at Microsoft Store?* Make sure to take advantage of your discount when you shop at Microsoft Store.
The kernel team is working on final integration for kernel 5.4. This version was just recently released, and will arrive soon in Fedora. This version has many security fixes included. As a result, the Fedora kernel and QA teams have organized a test week from Monday, December 09, 2019 through Monday, December 16, 2019. Refer to the wiki page for links to the test images you’ll need to participate. Read below for details.
How does a test week work?
A test day/week is an event where anyone can help make sure changes in Fedora work well in an upcoming release. Fedora community members often participate, and the public is welcome at these events. If you’ve never contributed before, this is a perfect way to get started.
To contribute, you only need to be able to do the following things:
Download test materials, which include some large files
Read and follow directions step by step
The wiki page for the kernel test day has a lot of good information on what and how to test. After you’ve done some testing, you can log your results in the test day web application. If you’re available on or around the day of the event, please do some testing and report your results.
Happy testing, and we hope to see you in the Test Week.
If you’re a Scandinavian resident then there’s an excellent chance that the name Bergsala will mean a great deal to you. This company has been instrumental in distributing and marketing Nintendo’s products in countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland, and, more recently, became an investor in SteamWorld creator Image & Form and its associated publishing arm, Thunderful. Bergsala is, at the time of writing, the only Nintendo distributor not owned by Nintendo – and the most incredible thing is that the whole relationship was started with a lie.
This excellent feature on IGN covers the story in great detail, and we recommend you give it a read. For the short (and less interesting) version, listen up. Back in 1981, Swedish electronics store owner Owe Bergsten spotted one of Nintendo’s Game & Watch handhelds during a trip to Singapore. He wanted to not only sell the LCD game in his shop, but to distribute the product all over Europe. To get to this point, he fibbed to Nintendo in Japan that he owned a business with the contacts and network capable of achieving such a lofty goal, when in reality, his fledgeling outfit was anything but.
While he might have been economical with the truth, Bergsten’s instinct was spot-on and after selling out of his initial order of 30,000 Game & Watch units, he was soon shifting 180,000 a month. By 1983, 1.7 million Game & Watches had been sold in Sweden alone – a country with a population of around 8.3 million people at the time.
When Game & Watch demand dropped off, Bergsten turned his attention to the Famicom, which had just launched in Japan. He was so sure that it would be a success in Europe and he convinced Nintendo to allow him to release a specially-modified variant of the Japanese console, but it never happened because, by that point, Nintendo had decided it was going to release the Famicom in the west as the NES (a move which, you could argue, was instigated in some small part by Bergsten’s faith in the console). Bergsala also created the Nintendo Videospelklubb, a precursor to the Club Nintendo newsletter Nintendo of America released – another of Bergsten’s many claims to fame.
Today, Bergsala controls Nintendo’s business in Scandinavia, and for many players who grew up in that part of the world, is just as important a name as Nintendo, Sony, Sega or Microsoft. It’s interesting to think about how Nintendo’s presence in Europe could have turned out so much differently had Owe Bergsten not told the little white lie that netted him an empire.
Nintendo ‘Indie World’ Presentation Announced For Tuesday 10th December
Nintendo has revealed that it will be livestreaming an Indie World video presentation tomorrow, 10th December.
The show will kick off at 6pm UK time / 7pm CET (so that’s 10am PT / 1pm ET). It’ll feature “roughly 20 minutes of information on some upcoming indie games” for Switch.
Naturally, we’ll make sure to host the show right here at Nintendo Life, so make sure to come along, watch, and chat about all the announcements as they happen.
What do you want to see? Any particular games or franchises you’re hoping will come to Switch? Let us know in the comments below.
Rumour: Unannounced Disney Action Game Remake In The Works For Switch
YouTuber Doctre81, who last weekend revealed the rumouredRidge Racer 8 project exclusive to Switch had likely been axed, has now seemingly discovered information about an unannounced Disney action game remake on its way to the Switch and other platforms.
This finding comes from the LinkedIn profile of Giuseppe Crugliano, the CEO and creative director of PlayMagic – which is the same development team behind the remake of the stylish cel-shaded shooter XIII that’s been delayed until next year.
At the top of the projects section of the LinkedIn profile, the Disney project is listed. In addition to this is an unannounced third-person action remake for all modern platforms (including the Switch).
Doctre81 is unsure what the second listing could be. As for the Disney game, he doesn’t think it’s likely to be Kingdom Hearts, as the game has already been remastered on other platforms. There’s also fan speculation it could be Epic Mickey, a Mickey Mouse game in general, or an old Star Wars title.
HBO's Watchmen: Episode 8's Post Credits Scene Explained
HBO's Watchmen broke tradition with Episode 8, "A God Walks Into Abar," by including, for the first time in the series, a post-credits scene. Hopefully you stuck around for it--but if not, stop right here and go back to watch. We're going to dive deep into what it might mean and why it matters, so you're in for some spoilers, even if you finished the episode but shut your TV off early.
To briefly recap, the scene actually starts as audio playing over the credits. It's a disgusting squishing noise that, we soon learn, is Veidt's post-trial "punishment." Each of the clones approaches a bound and prone Veidt and asks him "will you stay master?" When Veidt says no, the clone smashes a tomato (remember, they grow on trees here on Europa) in his face. From there, we abruptly cut to Veidt in a jail cell, reading Fogdancing--a fictional in-universe novel written by the fictional, in-universe author Max Shea, who also wrote the Tales Of The Black Freighter comic-within-the-comic of the Watchmen graphic novel. It's Veidt's birthday again, we learn, as the Game Warden brings him his traditional yellow-and-purple cake, topped with 7 candles.
"If you sing 'For He's A Jolly Good Fellow,' I'll vomit all over your boots," Veidt says. Thankfully, the Game Warden doesn't test this threat. Instead, he offers to bring Veidt a new book--but Veidt says he likes this one. Why? The Game Master "wouldn't understand," he says. "It's about loneliness."
At this moment, the Game Master drops some interesting knowledge. He was actually the first Mr. Philips to be "born" on Europa, which we can assume is why he seems to have more power than the other Philips clones. Of course this only makes us wonder where the first Ms. Crookshanks ended up, or if she's even still around.
"Why is heaven not enough?" The Game Master asks, to which Veidt responds that this place isn't his home and that back on Earth "his children, all 8 million of them, [are] undoubtedly standing in their cribs crying out in desperation" for Veidt to return. Knowing what we know about how things are going on Earth, we can confidently say this isn't true--Earth may be going through some rough stuff, but aside from a few off-handed conversations, news clips, and Trieu's statue, no one on Earth seems all that interested in Veidt at all. He's been declared dead, and Elvis Lives-like conspiracies notwithstanding, that's about the extent of the thought he's been given.
But of course, someone like Adrian Veidt would never be able to wrap his head around that reality. He's always, in his own estimation, been the single most important, qualified, intelligent, and capable person on the planet. He also reveals here that it's not necessarily the superiority that's most important to him, it's his own usefulness: "Heaven isn't enough because they don't need me."
That's when something very strange happens. As the music swells, Veidt realizes there's a horseshoe baked into his cake. He gleefully pulls it out, tears his cot away from the wall, and begins scraping away at the floorboards while cackling delightedly. If you remember all the way back to Episode 1, you'll recall Philips and Crookshanks presenting him with a horseshoe rather than a knife during his first birthday party. At the time, it seemed like a bizarre glitch in their "programming," like they couldn't tell the difference between a cake knife and a horseshoe. But this moment recontextualizes that entirely.
Is it possible that Philips and Crookshanks have, somehow, been working toward Veidt's plan all along and that first horseshoe was just a minor hiccup in his timeline? Did Jon somehow pass his own deterministic experience of the world--the idea that everything that has happened and will happen is already laid out and predetermined--on to the people he made? Or is it all just a simple case of one loyal clone--the prosecutor who winked at Veidt after her closing arguments, maybe--being in on the scheme and baking a cake with a hidden key in it under all the other clones' noses like an old timey prison break?
Either way, the fact remains, Veidt's plan is proceeding in a way that he's clearly extremely happy about. And though we can't tell if he's planning on pulling some sort of Shawshank Redemption tunnel gambit or if he's planted some kind of weapon or escape tool under the floor of his jail cell, we're pretty sure it'll all be cleared up once and for all next week during the finale.
They searched for the Infinite Forest, and through it, a path to their people’s salvation: a simulated future where they were free from the Cabal.
Instead, they found something else.
“Small disturbances,” said oldest Ozletc, the wisest. “Little currents in this timeline. Can you see them, sister?”
“I can taste them,” said second-born Tazaroc, the hungriest of her sisters. “I can feel the edges.”
Third-born Niruul, the quietest among them, reached her hand out to test the air. “As can I,” said she. “And something else. The source is disguised. The technology is Human, but refined. Surprisingly so.”
“Disable it,” said Tazaroc, who was impatient. “It is leaking. I wish to see the leak.”
Niruul fluttered her fingers across the sleeve of her suit. She worked for one day and one night, though the passage of time was hidden by Mercury’s perpetual blinding light. All the while, she could feel the restless impatience of her sisters.
❖❖❖
A strange device shimmered into existence around them. They looked up the length of an enormous, golden spire.
“It whispers,” said Tazaroc.
“Then block your ears,” said Ozletc. “Do you see the potential in this?”
“Chaos,” said Niruul.
“No,” said Ozletc. “Opportunity. See how it tugs at the fabric of our time? Can you see the seams?”
The seams were sewn tightly shut, but a skilled hand could find them. A skilled hand could rip every stitch. All three sisters could feel it.
“It will take time to activate,” said Niruul. “Someone has protected it from meddling.”
“We will have time,” said Ozletc. “We will open the past and change the course of Ghaul’s fate. Anticipate his mistakes. Undercut his advisors.”
“Why?” said Tazaroc.
“Because he could be swayed to our purposes,” said Ozletc. “He was a fool, but he could be puppeteered. Led to a more advantageous downfall.”
“But why not go back further?” said Tazaroc, eager. “To dash the whelp’s skull in the pit, before he crawls out onto a throne?”
“Risky,” said Niruul, shaking her head. “Why not tear into the future instead, and make our attack where the Guardians cannot predict it?”
“Predictions are not their strength,” said Tazaroc.
“And yet they have built this,” snapped Niruul.
“Sisters,” Ozletc said. “We needn’t argue. This device will let us walk through future and past both. And so we will cut the most advantageous path, whatever it may be.”
❖❖❖
For hours and days and weeks, the sisters labored over the machine. While her sisters defended her from the Vex, Niruul bent the device to their purposes and, with the force of their combined will, made it whir to life.
Around them, time split along its seams. Windows into other worlds, Mercury’s true past and future, opened before them. The device stood at the center of all of it, an anchor point. And all along the fault lines of time, where the past and present and future met, Vex were ripped in half, sliced through by a knife of pure temporal energy.
They surveyed their new kingdom: a past, present, and future open to their manipulation.
“It is so clear,” said Niruul, reverent. “An unobstructed glimpse into what was and what will be.”
“Not the troubled ramblings of a mad thing, like the OXA,” said Tazaroc.
They shared the feeling of unbounded possibility, and tasted the potential for success, and then for failure. Together, they drank the feelings in and steeled themselves against them.
“The past and future are at our fingertips, sisters,” said Ozletc. “Let us see what prospects they hold.”
The Rock Band 4 team is mixing things up this holiday, partnering with Apple Music for a special four week season that will feature music from some of our favorite Apple Music playlists. Each week features a different playlist, with a great selection of new DLC to choose from. All Rock Band Rivals crews will start the season in Gold, giving everyone a jump start on their quest for Bloodstone. The Apple Music takeover kicks off on Thanksgiving, a perfect time to pull your crew together and rally with friends and family.
The Rock Band community is alive and well, and actively competing week over week in Rivals mode. Rivals challenges focus play on specific challenge themes making for regular fun and competitive play. For those of you in crews, we hope you enjoy the Apple Music takeover. For those of you on the sidelines waiting for your chance to get in, go get it!
