As so often happens, it seems there were minor regional differences between the Nintendo Direct broadcasts for the east and west. Japanese fans were treated to games missing from the North American and European versions.

First up is Dragon Quest Rivals, a free download first released on mobile back in 2017. It’s an online card-based battler in the Hearthstone mould with characters from across the RPG series and cross-play between Switch and mobile.

Next is a cutesy baseball game from Konami, Jikkyuu Powerful Pro Baseball, launching this year. Part of a long-running series, it’s arguably most notable for being from Konami – they still make games, see! – but we’re not the biggest baseball fans. Four-player co-op sounds interesting, though, if you like a spot of rounders.

Finally we have a crossover, Doraemon: Nobita’s Story of Seasons, and we’re a bit jealous. It appears to mix classic Harvest Moon-style gameplay with the cast of Doraemon in a beautiful watercolour world. Check out the trailer:

Looks lovely, no? Hopefully we’ll get some information about a western release soon – otherwise we’ll be finding ways to add points to our Japanese eShop account when this one releases this year.

Do you wish that any of these were included in the North American or European Directs? More enthusiastic about baseball than we are? Let us know in the usual place.

The Python developers have released the first alpha of Python 3.8.0 and you can already try it out in Fedora! Test your Python code with 3.8 early to avoid surprises once the final 3.8.0 is out in October.

Install Python 3.8 on Fedora

If you have Fedora 29 or newer, you can install Python 3.8 from the official software repository with dnf:

$ sudo dnf install python38

As more alphas, betas and release candidates of Python 3.8 will be released, the Fedora package will receive updates. No need to compile your own development version of Python, just install it and have it up to date. New features will be added until the first beta.

Test your projects with Python 3.8

Run the python3.8 command to use Python 3.8 or create virtual environments with the builtin venv module, tox or with pipenv. For example:

$ git clone https://github.com/benjaminp/six.git
Cloning into 'six'...
$ cd six/
$ tox -e py38
py38 runtests: commands[0] | python -m pytest -rfsxX
================== test session starts ===================
platform linux -- Python 3.8.0a1, pytest-4.2.1, py-1.7.0, pluggy-0.8.1
collected 195 items 

test_six.py ...................................... [ 19%]
.................................................. [ 45%]
.................................................. [ 70%]
..............................................s... [ 96%]
....... [100%]
========= 194 passed, 1 skipped in 0.25 seconds ==========
________________________ summary _________________________
 py38: commands succeeded
 congratulations  

What’s new in Python 3.8

So far, only the first alpha was released, so more features will come. You can however already try out the new walrus operator:

$ python3.8
Python 3.8.0a1 (default, Feb 7 2019, 08:07:33) 
[GCC 8.2.1 20181215 (Red Hat 8.2.1-6)] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> while not (answer := input('Say something: ')):
... print("I don't like empty answers, try again...")
... 
Say something: 
I don't like empty answers, try again...
Say something: Fedora
>>>

And stay tuned for Python 3.8 as python3 in Fedora 31!

Learn how to use Cockpit for Linux administration tasks in this tutorial from our archives.

If you administer a Linux server, you’ve probably been in search of a solid administration tool. That quest has probably taken you to such software as Webmin and cPanel. But if you’re looking for an easy way to manage a Linux server that also includes Docker, one tool stands above the rest for that particular purpose: Cockpit.

Why Cockpit? Because it includes the ability to handle administrative tasks such as:

• Connect and manage multiple machines

• Manage containers via Docker

• Interact with a Kubernetes or Openshift clusters

• Modify network settings

• Manage user accounts

• Access a web-based shell

• View system performance information by way of helpful graphs

• View system services and log files

Cockpit can be installed on Debian, Red Hat, CentOS, Arch Linux, and Ubuntu. Here, I will focus on installing the system on a Ubuntu 16.04 server that already includes Docker.

Out of the list of features, the one that stands out is the container management. Why? Because it make installing and managing containers incredibly simple. In fact, you might be hard-pressed to find a better container management solution.
With that said, let’s install this solution and see just how easy it is to use.

Installation

As I mentioned earlier, I will be installing Cockpit on an instance of Ubuntu 16.04, with Docker already running. The steps for installation are quite simple. The first thing you must do is log into your Ubuntu server. Next you must add the necessary repository with the command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cockpit-project/cockpit

When prompted, hit the Enter key on your keyboard and wait for the prompt to return. Once you are back at your bash prompt, update apt with the command:

sudo apt-get get update

Install Cockpit by issuing the command:

sudo apt-get -y install cockpit cockpit-docker

After the installation completes, it is necessary to start the Cockpit service and then enable it so it auto-starts at boot. To do this, issue the following two commands:

sudo systemctl start cockpit

sudo systemctl enable cockpit

That’s all there is to the installation.

Logging into Cockpit

To gain access to the Cockpit web interface, point a browser (that happens to be on the same network as the Cockpit server) to http://IP_OF_SERVER:9090, and you will be presented with a login screen (Figure 1).

A word of warning with using Cockpit and Ubuntu. Many of the tasks that can be undertaken with Cockpit require administrative access. If you log in with a standard user, you won’t be able to work with some of the tools like Docker. To get around that, you can enable the root user on Ubuntu. This isn’t always a good idea. By enabling the root account, you are bypassing the security system that has been in place for years. However, for the purpose of this article, I will enable the root user with the following two commands:

sudo passwd root sudo passwd -u root 

NOTE: Make sure you give the root account a very challenging password.

Should you want to revert this change, you only need issue the command:

sudo passwd -l root

With other distributions, such as CentOS and Red Hat, you will be able to log into Cockpit with the username root and the root password, without having to go through the extra hopes as described above.
If you’re hesitant to enable the root user, you can always pull down the images, from the server terminal (using the command docker pull IMAGE_NAME where IMAGE_NAME is the image you want to pull). That would add the image to your docker server, which can then be managed via a regular user. The only caveat to this is that the regular user must be added to the Docker group with the command:

sudo usermod -aG docker USER

Where USER is the actual username to be added to the group. Once you’ve done that, log out, log back in, and then restart Docker with the command:

sudo service docker restart

Now the regular user can start and stop the added Docker images/containers without having to enable the root user. The only caveat is that user will not be able to add new images via the Cockpit interface.

Using Cockpit

Once you’ve logged in, you will be treated to the Cockpit main window (Figure 2).

You can go through each of the sections to check on the status of the server, work with users, etc., but we want to go right to the containers. Click on the Containers section to display the current running contains as well as the available images (Figure 3).

To start an image, simply locate the image and click the associated start button. From the resulting popup window (Figure 4), you can check all the information about the image (and adjust as needed), before clicking the Run button.

Once the image is running, you can check its status by clicking on the entry under the Containers section and then Stop, Restart, or Delete the instance. You can also click Change resource limits and then adjust either the Memory limit and/or CPU priority.

Adding new images

Say you have logged on as the root user. If so, you can add new images with the help of the Cockpit GUI. From the Containers section, click the Get new image button and then, in the resulting window, search for the image you want to add. Say you want to add the latest official build of Centos. Type centos in the search field and then, once the search results populate, select the official listing and click Download (Figure 5).

Once the image has downloaded, it will be available to Docker and can be run via Cockpit.

As simple as it gets

Managing Docker doesn’t get any easier. Yes, there is a caveat when working with Cockpit on Ubuntu, but if it’s your only option, there are ways to make it work. With the help of Cockpit, you can not only easily manage Docker images, you can do so from any web browser that has access to your Linux server. Enjoy your newfound Docker ease.

The winners of the 2019 Microsoft for Healthcare Innovation Awards were announced at HIMSS19 yesterday during the Microsoft Health Forum.  Each year, the awards acknowledge health and life sciences organizations and their technology solution partners that are achieving innovation excellence with a Microsoft-based solution.

We’re always excited to highlight the achievements of our forward-thinking customers and partners as they advance digital transformation in health. Here are the winners in each of the submission categories:

Award Category:  Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and KenSci

To better understand which patients are at the highest risk of COPD, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde worked with KenSci to leverage AI and Machine Learning to predict long-term hospital stays based on clinical history, socio-economic factors and risk to stratify the top 20% high risk patients likely to admit for the first time due to COPD, in order to drive preventive intervention.

Award Category:  Empower Your Care Teams and Employees

Vision Source, LP and Kno2

To meet the needs of populations with diabetes, Vision Source needed to establish a nationwide interoperability network for their 3,350 independent locations. As a result, Vision Source selected Kno2’s Interoperability as a Service, enabling immediate access to over 2 million referring providers through the nation’s major health information networks: Direct, referral networks, care quality, and those connected through Commonwell Health Alliance.

Award Category:  Engage Your Patients & Enable Personalized Care

Premera Blue Cross

Premera Scout™ is an intelligent virtual assistant that helps customers find the information they need to make the most of their health plan. Premera powers this solution using advanced AI from Microsoft Healthcare. Guided by a customer-centered strategy, Premera transforms complicated and confusing experiences to simple and easy ones.

Award Category:  Optimize Clinical Operational Effectiveness & Improve Outcomes

Prediction of Patient Placement (POPP) Team at Boston Children’s Hospital

Boston Children’s Hospital uses Prediction of Patient Placement (POPP), a real time forecasting tool to predict incoming admissions from the Emergency Department. This tool enables proactive coordination of downstream operations in order to reduce transfer wait time. The model uses hospital-specific, historical data and is EHR- and hospital-agnostic.

Award Category:  Outstanding Innovation

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and DNAnexus

A partnership between St. Jude, DNAnexus, and Microsoft developed the St. Jude Cloud, a secure cloud-based data-sharing and collaboration environment, to provide researchers access to an extensive public repository of pediatric cancer genomics data, accelerated data mining, analysis and visualization capabilities.

Award Category:  Transform the Care Continuum & Reimagine Healthcare

Johns Hopkins Medicine

Johns Hopkins Medicine developed the Precision Medicine Analytics Platform (PMAP) to empower faculty to make discoveries; improve diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes; and lower the cost of care. PMAP is comprised of two parts: Discovery – for faculty researchers to fuel the discovery of new insights and algorithms; and Care Delivery – after discovery medical validation, promoted for use by other physicians.

Thank you to our judges

In addition to acknowledging the innovative solutions of the award recipients, we would like to thank each of the distinguished judges who reviewed this year’s entries:

• Ahmad Hashem, MD, PhD, CEO, Boston Biopharma, Inc.
• Benjamin Rooks, Managing Director, ST Advisors, Inc.
• Gienna Shaw, Senior Writer, Amendola Communications
• Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, MA (Econ), MHSA, Health Economist and Advisor, THINK-Health and Health Populi blog
• Jay Srini, FHIMSS, Chief Strategist, SCS Ventures; Adjunct Associate Professor, SHRS, University of Pittsburgh
• Keith Fraidenburg, MBA, EVP & COO, CHIME
• Melinda Richter, Global Head, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS
• Michael Docktor, MD, Gastroenterologist, Clinical Director of Innovation @ Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School
• Taren Grom, Founding Partner/Editor, PharmaVOICE
• Victoria (Vicky) L. Tiase, MSN, RN-BC, Director – Informatics Strategy, New York Presbyterian Hospital

What’s your story?

Congratulations again to our winners. We would love to hear how your health organization is creating better experiences and delivering better care, please share with us through email, Facebook, or Twitter.