For us, revisiting Kanto has been a joyful trip down memory lane and we thought we’d pull out our favourite Pokémon-related artist designs on TeePublic, which is currently offering 25% off using the code HOLIDAYCOOL at the checkout until Dec 2nd.
Please note that some of the links on this page are affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale which helps support the site. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.
There you have it, those are our favourite designs at the moment, let us know in the comments below if you have any other favourites.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 12-02-2018, 06:13 AM - Forum: Windows
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New batch of Xbox Game Pass titles are on their way
Hello, Xbox Game Pass members!
Now that we’ve had our annual dose of turkey and family, normal service resumes here at Xbox Game Pass. And on that note, we’re excited to share three important public service announcements:
If the 16 games we announced at X018 were not enough, we are adding three more to the Xbox Game Pass catalog over the coming week, starting with The Gardens Between on November 29, Mutant Year Zero on December 4, and Strange Brigade on December 6. We require you to play these, as well as the over 100 other great games included in your membership – no negotiation.
If you have a mobile telephone, you need to download the Xbox Game Pass app for iOS and Android. Through this app you can remotely install Xbox Game Pass games to your Xbox One so they’re ready to play when you come home from school or work. We’ll also send you notifications to let you know when games are added, so say goodbye to FOMO (and your job/free time).
Follow our Xbox Game Pass Instagram and Twitter You don’t want to miss out on life-changing memes and gaming banter.
What’s that sound? It’s like a voice on the wind saying “We want more…” We hear it. Keep it tuned here to Xbox Wire, the Xbox Game Pass Twitter and Instagram channels (see above) and the Xbox Game Pass app (again, see above) where we’ll be dropping even more games throughout the month of December.
Without further ado, let’s dive into some details on the new games coming soon to Xbox Game Pass:
The Gardens Between (November 29)
Follow two best friends Arina and Frendt who fall into a surreal world full of dreamlike garden islands. Together they’ll embark on a nostalgic journey through a world built around objects from their childhood, lighting constellations and illuminating threads from a time when friendship was the most important thing in the world. Manipulate time to solve puzzles and traverse each precious memory to reach the summit of each island in this single-player puzzle adventure.
Mutant Year Zero (December 4)
A tactical adventure game with turn-based combat and real-time exploration of a post-apocalyptic world, Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden puts you in command of a unique squad of mutant soldiers as you scavenge through the remains of civilization to survive. From the creators of Hitman and PayDay, experience a mix of story, exploration, stealth, and strategy in the brutal environment of a decimated planet Earth as your band of heroes embark on a quest to discover the legend of Eden.
Strange Brigade (December 6)
Join an elite agency of extraordinary adventurers and investigate the darkest corners of Egypt, where mythological menaces manifest! Strange Brigade offers a rip-roaring, 1930s-style campaign full of peril, intrigue, and good old derring-do for one to four players as you tackle an army of mummified monsters! Solve mind-bending puzzles, defy dastardly traps, unearth incredible treasure in a mysterious, ancient landscape and use the most marvelous firearms known to man in thrilling third-person combat to defeat the witch queen Seteki and send her petrifying minions back to the afterlife.
Join Xbox Game Pass Today
With over 100 great games for one low monthly price, including highly-anticipated new Xbox One exclusives the day they’re released, including the highest-rated* Xbox exclusive of this generation Forza Horizon 4, plus more games added all the time, Xbox Game Pass gives you the ultimate freedom to play. If you haven’t tried Xbox Game Pass, join today and get your first month for $1, and discover your next favorite game.
For the latest Xbox Game Pass news, follow us on Twitter and Instagram and stay tuned to Xbox Wire. Until next month, game on!
Red Dead 2 Online PS4-Exclusive Gun, Horse, And Outfit: How To Access Them
Red Dead Redemption 2's online component, Red Dead Online, is now live to all players after a staggered rollout. If you're playing the game on PS4, you're entitled to some exclusive items that are not yet available on Xbox One. Here's how to claim them.
Before being able to get any of the items, you'll first need to play through the opening tutorial section of Red Dead Online, which takes around 45 minutes or so. Once you've officially entered free roam, you're given access to things like the catalog, and it's at this point you can claim your freebies, as outlined on the PlayStation Blog.
The easiest of the bunch to grab is the Grizzlies Outlaw outfit. Simply open your satchel by holding left on the D-pad, go to the Outfits section, and you can add it to your collection. Once you own it, you can change into it (or any other clothing you own) by heading to your camp and accessing the wardrobe.
The other freebies require you to go to a particular location. For the High Roller Double-Action Revolver, you'll have to head to a Fence (which you can spot on the map), where it can be claimed.
And finally, you'll head to a stable to grab both the Red Chestnut Arabian horse and the Alligator Skin Ranch Cutter saddle. You start out in Red Dead Online with only a single slot for a horse, so if you want to grab the new horse immediately, you'll need to ditch your starter steed to claim this one. This horse has better stats than the starter one, while the saddle provides bonuses to the health and stamina Cores of the horse you equip it on.
All of this is separate from the exclusive goodies available in Red Dead Redemption 2's single-player mode. While we've become accustomed to timed exclusives like these lasting for long stretches--some Destiny content has been PS4-only for 1-2 years--the exclusivity period here lasts only 30 days. If you pre-ordered the game or bought a special edition, you may have other bonus content to claim in Online.
Although Red Dead Online is now available to all owners of Red Dead 2, it is still in beta form. Rockstar promises many updates to come, and one thing we know is coming is the ability to buy in-game gold with real-world money.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 12-01-2018, 06:10 PM - Forum: Windows
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Feeding the world with AI-driven agriculture innovation
In the 1950s and 1960s, plant biologist Norman Borlaug famously led the “Green Revolution,” developing high-yield grains that helped drive up global food production when paired with innovations in chemical fertilizers, irrigation, and mechanized cultivation. By so doing, Borlaug and his peers helped save a billion people from starvation. However, this new form of farming was not sustainable and created multiple environmental issues.
The good news is that we’re now in the midst of a second Green Revolution that’s part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Here’s how technology innovation, driven by big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning, will reap a more bountiful harvest.
A vision for AI in agriculture
Farmers are deploying robots, ground-based wireless sensors, and drones to assess growing conditions. They then capitalize on cloud services and edge computing to process the data. By 2050, the typical farm is expected to generate an average of 4.1 million data points every day.
AI and machine learning interpret findings for farmers, helping them continually tweak crop inputs to boost yields. Farmers can use AI to determine the optimal date to sow crops, precisely allocate resources such as water and fertilizer, identify crop diseases for swifter treatment, and detect and destroy weeds. Machine learning makes these activities smarter over time. It can also help farmers forecast the year ahead by using historic production data, long-term weather forecasts, genetically modified seed information, and commodity pricing predictions, among other inputs, to recommend how much seed to sow.
Such precision farming technology augments and extends farmers’ deep knowledge about their land, making production more sustainable. Advanced technology can increase farm productivity by 45 percent while reducing water intake by 35 percent. However, the key is ensuring equitable access: Often the communities that need AI the most lack the physical and technology infrastructure required to support it.
Connecting communities with broadband
Access to high-speed connectivity and reliable power are still challenges in many parts of the world. That’s one reason Microsoft and its partners are bringing affordable broadband to rural communities in countries such as Colombia, India, Kenya, South Africa, and the United States through the Airband Initiative.
When communities are connected, farmers can benefit from AI and machine learning, even if they lack internet access to their individual farms. Microsoft employee Prashant Gupta and his team used advanced analytics and machine learning to create a Personalized Village Advisory Dashboard for 4,000 farmers in 106 villages and a Sowing App for 175 farmers in a district in the southeastern coastal state of Andhra Pradesh in India. Farmers with simple SMS-enabled phones can access Sowing App recommendations, which apply AI to data such as weather and soil conditions to optimize planting times. Farmers who followed the AI-driven advice increased yields by 30 percent over those who adhered to traditional planting schedules.
Using IoT and AI on individual farms
Farmers with connectivity can use IoT to get customized recommendations. The Microsoft FarmBeats program, driven by principal researcher Ranveer Chandra, has developed an end-to-end IoT platform that uses low-cost sensors, drones, and vision/machine learning algorithms to increase the productivity and profitability of farms. FarmBeats is part of Microsoft AI for Earth, a program that provides cloud and AI tools to teams seeking to develop sustainable solutions to global environmental issues.
In the United States, FarmBeats solves the problem of internet connectivity by accessing unused TV white spaces to set up high-bandwidth links between a farmer’s home internet connections and an IoT base station on the farm. Sensors, cameras, and drones connect to this base station, which is both solar- and battery-powered. To avoid unexpected shutdowns due to battery drain, the base station uses weather forecasts to plan its power usage. Similarly, drones leverage an IoT-driven algorithm based on wind patterns to help accelerate and decelerate mid-flight, reducing battery draw.
IoT data processing—for bandwidth-hogging information like drone videos, photos, and sensor feedback—is done by a PC at the farmer’s home. The PC performs local computations and consolidates findings into lower-memory summaries, which can be distributed over bandwidth more easily, while also serving as a backup during network outages.
AI for everyone means more food for the world
Over time, AI will help farmers evolve into agricultural technologists, using data to optimize yields down to individual rows of plants. Farmers without connectivity can get AI benefits right now, with tools as simple as an SMS-enabled phone and the Sowing App. Meanwhile, farmers with Wi-Fi access can use FarmBeats to get a continually AI-customized plan for their lands. With such IoT- and AI-driven solutions, farmers can meet the world’s needs for increased food sustainably—growing production and revenues without depleting precious natural resources.
Be the first to know about new advancements in the Microsoft AI farming initiative. Follow us at FarmBeats.
To stay up to date on the latest news about Microsoft’s work in the cloud, bookmark this blog and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 12-01-2018, 06:10 PM - Forum: Windows
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Fishy business: Putting AI to work in Australia’s Darwin Harbour
Identifying and counting fish species in murky water filled with deadly predators is a difficult job. But fisheries scientists in the Northern Territory are working on an artificial intelligence project with Microsoft that has incredible potential for marine science around the world.
Your mission should you choose to accept it, is to go into one of Australia’s largest harbours and count the fish. Think this sounds daunting? You don’t know the half of it.
First, there’s the water. There’s a lot of it in Darwin Harbour – five times more than Sydney Harbour, to be precise. Heavy tides swell more than seven metres then retract, leaving little visibility in their wake.
And if you think you’ve got some occupational hazards at work, try getting your job done in an environment teeming with some of the world’s most intimidating apex predators – saltwater crocodiles, along with tiger, bull and hammerhead sharks. More than 300 salties are caught in the harbour each year.
This is the daunting task of the Department of Primary Industry and Resources for the Northern Territory Government, as it goes about ensuring fisheries resources are sustainably managed and developed for future generations.
Murky water filled with deadly predators like the saltwater crocodile make diving to count and identify fish species impossible.
“If you’re in the water with a crocodile you aren’t taking a calculated risk. You’re going to be a statistic. That’s it. If you’re in the water and he’s there, he wants you and you’re gone.” – Wayne Baldwin, Research Technical Officer, NT Fisheries
If shooting fish in a barrel is a metaphor for something all-too-easy, the correct metaphor for something exceptionally challenging might be counting fish in Darwin Harbour. Yet the NT Fisheries team, led by Dr Shane Penny, Fisheries Research Scientist, do it every day. As the old saying goes, you can’t manage what you can’t measure, so their work begins with knowing how many fish there are.
But they were bogged down by the time it took to wade through hours of underwater footage. The team needed to assess the abundance of critical fish species faster and more accurately, while maintaining a safe distance from deadly predators.
A meeting of the minds
It was from these murky depths that an innovative project showed the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to support the important work being done by this team of marine biologists. Amid rising debate about the potential impact of AI on society, a collaboration between these scientists and Microsoft engineers became an opportunity to test out its powers as a force for good. Could technology hold the key to safely, accurately and rapidly counting fish – giving the NT Fisheries team more time to devote to analysing this data and improving the sustainable management of NT fish stocks?
The NT Fisheries team had high hopes. They had been using a baited remote underwater video (BRUV) to help with high-risk data gathering. The camera allows the team to see what’s in the water without going in. But even with BRUV on their side, the task was formidable.
Shane Penny, Fisheries Research Scientist and his team using baited underwater cameras.
“We’ve had quite a few problems with sharks coming in and taking the baits away. Tawny sharks have learned how to open our baits and suck it all out before we have a chance to collect any video.” – Wayne Baldwin, Research Technical Officer, NT Fisheries
Then there was the sheer quantity of work involved. Once the video is collected, terabytes of footage must be viewed, and its content scoured and quantified. To put this in perspective, a single terabyte would store 500-hours of your favourite movies. The team was identifying vast quantities of different fish species and tracking their behaviour. This diversity and the murkiness of the water meant classification was often far from simple.
Steve van Bodegraven, a Microsoft machine learning engineer and Darwin local, worked with the NT Fisheries team over several months to see whether computer vision would be up to the ambitious task of identifying fish in underwater images.
In a similar way to how tags are suggested for friends and relatives in the photos you upload to social media – through repeated exposure and the discovery of patterns – the project’s success depended on feeding the system with training images. Along the way they had to confront an array of unusual problems. For example, how would Microsoft’s AI solution respond to fish like gold-spotted cod that can change colour to blend into their environment?
“We went in and talked to them about how they work and the challenges they face,” van Bodegraven says. “From that we tried to figure out how we could help. Everything we do is explorative, so we don’t necessarily have solutions out of the box.”
Three months and thousands of images later, results are encouraging to the scientists. To date the system is showing great potential, having learnt to identify 15 different species, from black jewfish to golden snapper which are under careful management to rebuild breeding stocks.
The AI solution automates the laborious process of counting local fish stocks by progressively learning to identify different varieties of fish.
“We threw a few test images of fish it’s never seen before and it’s managed to pull those out and differentiate them from the fish it does know about. Once we had that first positive identification of a fish, we really felt we were onto something. From there it was just a matter of finding the right tools to improve and optimise.” – Dr Shane Penny, Fisheries Research Scientist
With each new fish analysed, the power of the machine learning technology increases. Samantha Nowland, the team’s Darwin-born research assistant, sees the potential for such systems to change the game in marine management. NT has some of the most pristine waters in the world with healthy populations of endangered species such as sawfish and sharks. The development of this technology and its availability may help other areas of the world to improve their understanding of aquatic resources and ensure they are managed sustainably.
Beyond the harbour
While there’s already talk of using the system to create a global database of fish species, the NT Fisheries team is focused on analysing trends, coming up with management plans and expanding its reach.
“It’s going to help us monitor any marine species in Darwin Harbour and around the region,” Penny says. “We have a lot of endangered species and many more where we don’t have enough data. We need research projects that can identify species accurately.”
Microsoft’s van Bodegraven hopes it will open people’s eyes to the transformative potential of AI in fisheries and marine management and beyond. The project has already piqued the interest of fisheries departments across Australia, while the possibility of using the technology to monitor other animal species, like the iconic Kookaburra, is being actively explored.
Microsoft is also exploring how it could support similar projects elsewhere. By making the technology available via open source platform GitHub, the technology giant is encouraging others to build AI solutions that address their unique scenarios.
“Projects like this set a new precedent. Hopefully it will make people curious and give them the confidence to explore the application of AI in their industries,” van Bodegraven says. “It’s going to change industries and societies. The potential is only limited by imagination.”
The Weekender: Back to Regular Programming Edition
Now that the chaos of Black Friday is over, we can return to our usual programming in the run-up to Christmas. It’s been a quieter week – we reviewed Royal Adviser and Farabel, but then nothing else aside from some news. On the horizon we’ve got reviews coming in for a few new projects, including C & C Rivals, but we’ll mainly be looking towards Christmas now for the big push.
Out Now
The Elder Scrolls: Bla-
Oh never mind. As you may have heard by now, Bethesda has officially pushed back the launch of The Elder Scrolls: Blades, until Match 31st, 2019 (at least). There hasn’t really been anything official from Bethesda on this, we’ve just got the iOS pre-order entry to go by.
We’re expecting preview code sometime soon, so if they do follow through with that at least we might be able to report back some early impressions before the year is up, but don’t get your hopes up.
This one was actually out last week but we didn’t do a Weekender update because of Black Friday. Still, it exists, and Richard’s reviewing it as we speak to expect the formal PT verdict to land sometime soon.
Vengeance is the next entry in Ironhide’s Kingdom Rush Tower-Defence/RTS games, featuring new towers, upgrades heroes and countless other bits as the devs continue to try and innovate their brand of strategy. It’s also fully playable offline, which is nice.
Another card game port, Morels won a bunch of card game awards in 2012 and 2014 when it was originally release and depending what version you’ve seen you might also know it as ‘Fungi’. It’s finally made the jump to digital platforms.
This is a two-player game where you must forage mushrooms and acquire other ingredients and accessories to cook meals for yourself. The more and better quality meals you cook, the more victory points you gets. I’ve played the physical version – it’s a very easy, casual game for two people (although it needed a fair amount of room), but it wasn’t quite exciting enough for prolonged exposure. It’s not one you’d have busted out a lot.
The app seems to be ticking all the boxes though – a colourful design, a tutorial and in-app rulebook, new ways to play the game, and more importantly, plenty of different options. Solo player vs. an AI (with 3 difficulty levels), local pass & play and then online asynchronous or real-time versus another player.
Finishing off this segment with another quirky logic puzzle, Marching Order sees you as a rather stressed out band manager trying to get their troupe in order. It may not sound like a challenge, but every animal you’re trying to sort has a specific set of preferences to keep them happy.
The trick of the game is to put the animals in the correct/optimum order, so that all animals are as happy as possible and the music is good when you eventually go on your march. The presentation and theme makes me think this one might be a good one for kids, but we haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. If anyone does, do let us know what you think!
Sales & Updates
I would have thought you’d all be sale’d-out from last week, so I’ve not looked this week to see if anything’s going cheap – most of the good ones were part of Black Friday and Cyber Monday anyway.
On the update front there’s been no recent things that we can see worthy highlight, but we will use this as an excuse to drop in another bit of news that we know is relevant to your readers.
You’ll remember 2012’s Plague Inc.? Well developer Ndemic Creations are finally releasing a brand new game – Rebel Inc. It’s a bit of a departure – you’re not the insurgency itself, but you’re having the balance military and civilian priorities within your region to win the hearts of the people and stamp out the rebels.
The official feature list is:
Stabilise five different, richly modelled regions
Innovative representation of counter insurgency tactics
Use realistic initiatives to empower the local government
Highly detailed, hyper-realistic world based on extensive research
Intelligent strategic and tactical AI
Sophisticated narrative algorithms shaped by your decisions
Five unique governors with radically different abilities
Comprehensive in-game help and tutorial system
Full Save/Load functionality
Internet connectivity not required
It’s worth nothing that this appears to be trying to treat the subject matter seriously, even though it’s a fictional game. It’s already available for pre-order via iTunes if you’re interested, and it will be releasing on December 6th.
That’s all for this week’s update, enjoy your weekends!
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 12-01-2018, 10:43 AM - Forum: Lounge
- No Replies
This $270 Nintendo Switch Deal Is Still Live
The Nintendo Switch console doesn't go on sale often, so when it does it's a big deal. Right now, Ant Online (via Ebay) is selling a Nintendo Switch with red and blue Joy-Cons for $270. That saves you $30 off the normal retail price. It's not clear how long this deal will last, so if you want to grab a Switch for yourself or someone on your gift list this year, hop on it fast.
It all adds up to a well-rounded system you can plug into your TV to play when you're at home, or throw into a bag when you're on the go. For more suggestions, check out our holiday gift guide for Switch games and accessories.
This Ebay deal comes shortly after Nintendo announced it had a record-breaking Black Friday weekend in the US, selling $250 million worth of products, including Switch hardware and games like Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee and Super Mario Party.
It Looks Like Pokémon GO Is Finally About To Get Player vs Player Battles
One of the most heavily requested features for Pokémon GO looks set to finally arrive in the game, as developer Niantic teases the feature on social media.
Ever since the app first launched back in 2016, fans have been hoping to see player trades and battles find their way to the game for that authentic Pokémon experience. Trading was introduced earlier this summer, securing one of the two nicely, and battling was then promised to arrive at a later date.
As you can see for yourself below, it certainly seems like that magical day is just around the corner. Things started with this first tweet earlier today.
From there, new tweets have followed to reveal the mystery. Each tweet has arrived on the hour every hour, so we might get treated to some more information as the day goes on.
Update: Since this article went live, another tweet was posted to confirm that our suspicions were true.
Are you ready to battle your friends in Pokémon GO?
Fortnite’s Switch-PS4 Account Merging Feature Has Been Delayed Until 2019
Epic Games has announced that Fortnite‘s account merge feature – which was set to be introduced this month – has been delayed until early 2019.
If you missed the news on this one, the merge feature is in the works to help those who were forced to create a new account on Nintendo Switch when Sony blocked all accounts that had been used on PlayStation. When up and running, this feature will allow players to merge all purchases and cosmetics, win totals, V-Bucks, and more from their various Fortnite accounts together, meaning that the items they’ve bought in-game on Switch, PlayStation, or any platform can be accessed across all devices.
It’s a feature that will be most welcome to those who were forced to spend extra on a second account thanks to Sony’s initial cross-play reluctance, but the developer is having some trouble getting the feature live. A recent blog post explains the delay:
“Due to some ongoing technical concerns, we will be delaying the Account Merge feature until early next year. We want to make sure that this process is thoroughly tested and working properly before releasing it to those of you currently looking to transfer purchases from other accounts to your primary account. We’ll be sure to update you as we get closer to the release of the feature, which will include a web page on launch to help guide you through the flow!”
If you were unaware, Sony’s account block itself has now been lifted, meaning that Fortnite players are slowly getting to a point of playing the game how they like – which arguably should have been the case right from the beginning. Hopefully, this final step won’t be too long away.
Did you or anyone you know have to open up a second account to get started on Switch?Perhaps your first experience of the game was on Nintendo’s machine anyway? Tell us below.
Sending unsolicited nudes via AirDrop might soon be illegal in NYC
A bill introduced to the New York City Council this week seeks to address the growing problem of “cyber flashing,” or the act of sending explicit photos to strangers through file sharing technology like Apple’s AirDrop.
Thanks to iPhone’s popularity — and AirDrop’s behavior — Apple products are prime candidates for exploitation. The wireless protocol is designed to quickly connect to, and move content between, two supporting iOS or Mac devices.
Unlike other systems, AirDrop presents a preview of incoming photos and video, which users can then accept or decline. Cyber flashers take advantage of the automated preview feature to present inappropriate material to victims.
Further, AirDrop allows users to send files anonymously, as devices are identified by their user-defined name. An iOS user, for example, can easily modify their device name in the operating system’s Settings menu.
Though AirDrop is by default restricted to a user’s contacts list, the feature can be configured to allow connections with all nearby devices. Once modified, discoverability settings are saved, meaning a device is perpetually set to one of three options: “Receiving Off,” “Contacts Only” or “Everyone.”
A decidedly modern form of sexual harassment, cyber flashing is typically conducted in high occupancy spaces like trains and buses, where people are often seen with their eyes glued to mobile device screens. The more users in a given area, the more targets there are for perpetrators who use crowd cover to remain anonymous.
“In the old days, you had to have a long trench coat and good running shoes,” New York City Councilman Joseph Borelli said in a statement to The New York Times. “Technology has made it significantly easier to be a creep.”
Councilmen Borelli, Donovan Richards, Justin Brannan and Alan Maisel are co-sponsors of a bipartisan anti-flashing bill introduced on Wednesday. If passed, the legislation would make it illegal to “send an unsolicited sexually explicit video or image to another person with intent to harass, annoy or alarm such other person,” punishable by up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine.
“Keep your pic in your pants,” Richards said. “If you do it, the message we are sending is that the repercussion is a fine or jail time.”
As AppleInsider explained last year, users can protect themselves from becoming cyber flashing victims by limiting AirDrop discoverability to known contacts.
To do so, open Control Center on any device running iOS 12 by swiping down from the top right corner of the screen (iPhone X and newer) or up from the bottom of the screen (iPhone 8 and older). Press down on the Bluetooth icon, or press and hold, to reveal additional connectivity controls, tap on the AirDrop icon and select Contacts Only or Receiving Off.
Alternatively, the same AirDrop settings can be found under General > AirDrop in the Settings app.
