You’ve just had the release of Update Aquatic and yet you still expect us to keep working? In this heat? Oh, fair enough – here’s a Wednesday snapshot for the coming-very-soon 1.13.1 update! Enjoy it before we all melt.

A full changelog for the snapshot can be found on Minecraft.net.

FIXED BUGS

• MC-134570 – Door top half missing when updating to new version
• MC-134476 – Miss written sounds .json causing almost all 1.13 subtitles to be unshown (Fix included)
• MC-134468 – Map cloning recipe only yields 2 maps
• MC-134414 – Concrete powder falling onto sea grass just replaces it
• MC-134348 – Crash while upgrading: bkv{block=Block{minecraft:acacia_slab}, properties=[type, waterlogged]} has no property: half
• MC-134300 – Inconsistency with update order when pistons retract other pistons
• MC-134298 – Observers don’t detect retracting sticky pistons
• MC-134297 – Observers detect moved blocks late in 1.13
• MC-134166 – Villager door detection order has changed
• MC-134115 – Containers next to chunk borders can lose items when upgrading
• MC-133995 – Transferring world from 1.12.2 to 1.13 isn’t working
• MC-133986 – Non [a-z0-9/. _ -] character in path of location: minecraft:EntityHorse
• MC-133959 – Credits don’t appear when clicking “Copyright Mojang AB” in the title screen.
• MC-133942 – 1.13 Release is called a snapshot when backing up world
• MC-133905 – Large oak trees generate without making block under stump dirt
• MC-133894 – Drowned don’t drop items that they picked up as zombie then were converted
• MC-133871 – Waterlogged trapdoors do not update properly when opened
• MC-133839 – Crash when tp/at world border
• MC-133715 – Thrown tridents cannot be picked up after dying
• MC-133587 – Deleting server format error
• MC-133251 – Curse enchantments don’t use red text
• MC-132703 – Iron golems do not spawn in center of village
• MC-132663 – Command blocks kick player when entering certain commands > 256 characters in multiplayer
• MC-131868 – Concrete powder next to waterlogged blocks is not converted to concrete
• MC-131678 – Setblock property – block and setblock property – value are reversed in error messages
• MC-131462 – Coordinate math error causes structure not to generate and possibly other issues
• MC-131029 – Villager door detection range has changed
• MC-125134 – Server crashes while generating new chunks – java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: We are asking a region for a chunk out of bound
• MC-124942 – “Invalid book tag” is not translatable
• MC-124690 – Successful “/bossbar set players” doesn’t give success message in chat
• MC-124543 – JSON-Text formatting in CustomNames of container blocks does not work
• MC-122625 – Order of contents of north- and east-facing double chests changed after update 1.12.2 -> 1.13
• MC-119971 – Various duplications, deletions, and data corruption at chunk boundaries, caused by loading outdated chunks — includes duping and deletion of entities/mobs, items in hoppers, and blocks moved by pistons, among other problems
• MC-88356 – Bow animation broken in off-hand in third person
• MC-88099 – Slimes/Magma cube with NoAI-Tag still can damage the player

To get snapshots, open your launcher and go to the “launch options” tab. Check the box saying “Enable snapshots” and save. To switch between the snapshot and normal version, you can find a new dropdown menu next to the “Play” button. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (In the “launch options” page).

Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com.

Snapshots can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds. 1.13 will have a lot of experimental snapshots that may break everything and smell funny. This may be one of those snapshots. This is what happens when Mojang are changing all the things! 

Share your thoughts on how 1.13 is shaping up in the comments below!

The following features will be available to all players of Destiny 2.

It should be noted that not everything in Update 2.0.0.1 will become available on September 4. There are special events like Iron Banner that will be scheduled at a later date. During the season, new Crucible Maps will enter Matchmaking playlists. We’ve also indicated the fact that one of these new maps will be a PlayStation exclusive.

Please stay tuned to this blog for a more complete calendar of events as we grow closer to the beginning of Season 4. Developer commentary for some of the new additions listed above is being gathered at this moment. We’ll also have updates on the maintenance windows for the two deployments in future editions of ‘This Week At Bungie.’

Open source is the new normal in tech today, with open components and platforms driving mission-critical processes at organizations everywhere. As open source has become more pervasive, it has also profoundly impacted the job market. Across industries the skills gap is widening, making it ever more difficult to hire people with much needed job skills. That’s why open source training and certification are more important than ever, and this series aims to help you learn more and achieve your own certification goals.

In the first article in the series, we explored why certification matters so much today. In the second article, we looked at the kinds of certifications that are making a difference. This story will focus on preparing for exams, what to expect during an exam, and how testing for open source certification differs from traditional types of testing.

Clyde Seepersad, General Manager of Training and Certification at The Linux Foundation, stated, “For many of you, if you take the exam, it may well be the first time that you’ve taken a performance-based exam and it is quite different from what you might have been used to with multiple choice, where the answer is on screen and you can identify it. In performance-based exams, you get what’s called a prompt.”

As a matter of fact, many Linux-focused certification exams literally prompt test takers at the command line. The idea is to demonstrate skills in real time in a live environment, and the best preparation for this kind of exam is practice, backed by training.

Know the requirements

“Get some training,” Seepersad emphasized. “Get some help to make sure that you’re going to do well. We sometimes find folks have very deep skills in certain areas, but then they’re light in other areas. If you go to the website for Linux Foundation training and certification, for the LFCS and the LFCE certifications, you can scroll down the page and see the details of the domains and tasks, which represent the knowledge areas you’re supposed to know.”

Once you’ve identified the skills you need, “really spend some time on those and try to identify whether you think there are areas where you have gaps. You can figure out what the right training or practice regimen is going to be to help you get prepared to take the exam,” Seepersad said.

Practice, practice, practice

“Practice is important, of course, for all exams,” he added. “We deliver the exams in a bit of a unique way — through your browser. We’re using a terminal emulator on your browser and you’re being proctored, so there’s a live human who is watching you via video cam, your screen is being recorded, and you’re having to work through the exam console using the browser window. You’re going to be asked to do something live on the system, and then at the end, we’re going to evaluate that system to see if you were successful in accomplishing the task”

What if you run out of time on your exam, or simply don’t pass because you couldn’t perform the required skills? “I like the phrase, exam insurance,” Seepersad said. “The way we take the stress out is by offering a ‘no questions asked’ retake. If you take either exam, LFCS, LFCE and you do not pass on your first attempt, you are automatically eligible to have a free second attempt.”

The Linux Foundation intentionally maintains separation between its training and certification programs and uses an independent proctoring solution to monitor candidates. It also requires that all certifications be renewed every two years, which gives potential employers confidence that skills are current and have been recently demonstrated.

Free certification guide

Becoming a Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator or Engineer is no small feat, so the Foundation has created this free certification guide to help you with your preparation. In this guide, you’ll find:

• An array of both free and paid study resources to help you be as prepared as possible

• A few tips and tricks that could make the difference at exam time

• A checklist of all the domains and competencies covered in the exam

With certification playing a more important role in securing a rewarding long-term career, careful planning and preparation are key. Stay tuned for the next article in this series that will answer frequently asked questions pertaining to open source certification and training.

Learn more about Linux training and certification.

At its heart, the Imagine Cup is all about bringing students together from across the globe, inspiring them to usher in our collective future using cloud-based technologies of today and tomorrow, including artificial intelligence (AI), big data, mixed reality and more. Since its inception 16 years ago, the Imagine Cup has motivated nearly 2 million students from over 190 countries around the world to bring their biggest, boldest ideas to life.

Today, we are excited to announce smartARM of Canada as the 2018 Imagine Cup champions! smartARM created a robotic hand prosthetic, using Microsoft Azure Computer Vision, Machine Learning and Cloud Storage, that uses a camera embedded in its palm to recognize objects and calculate the most appropriate grip for an object. Based on machine learning, the more the model is used, the more accurate it becomes.  As the victors, smartARM wins a mentoring session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, $85,000 in cash and a $50,000 Azure grant. Team iCry2Talk of Greece earned second place with a low-cost and non-invasive intelligent interface between infant and parent that translates in real time the baby’s cry, and associates it with a specific physiological and psychological state, depicting the result in a text, image and voice message. Third place went to Team Mediated Ear of Japan for its project, Mediated Ear, software for hearing-impaired individuals to focus on a specific speaker among a multitude of conversations. Mediated Ear can relay specific sounds in audio waveforms through deep learning.

For the winners, and for their competitors, the road to the World Finals started with a single idea on how to change the world through innovative use of technology. Tens of thousands of students walked this road, spending months coding their solutions and dreaming up go-to-market plans to bring their ideas to life. From there, and through fierce competition at the national and regional level, 49 teams from 33 countries were selected to compete in the World Finals.

This year, we’ve added special Imagine Cup awards of $15,000 for three key areas of digital transformation: AI, big data and mixed reality. On Tuesday, we crowned the winners. SochWare from Nepal, won the AI award for designing a solution to help farmers identify plant diseases, suggest mitigation strategies, connect with experts and get updated with recent agriculture findings. Drugsafe from India won the big data award for their solution to validate genuine drugs and decrease illness from counterfeit substances. Pengram from the United States won the mixed reality award for allowing engineers from around the world to be holographically “teleported” into a workspace when needed.

The 2018 winners emerged from a strong field of competitors featuring projects that utilized leading-edge cloud technologies with the promise of improving the way we live and work. Throughout it all, the next generation of innovators put their creativity on display in addressing some of humanity’s most pressing issues.

This year’s participants weren’t just developing unique and potentially game-changing technology experiences, but they are also actively sharpening the skills that will boost their success as developers, technologists and entrepreneurs for the next generation. They follow in the footsteps of a long line of dreamers driven to succeed. For example, 2017 year Imagine Cup alumni Declan Goncalves of Canada was featured in Betakit’s “Canada’s Developer 30 Under 30” list for developing a platform which allows medical practitioners to better quantify their patient’s progress and detect neurodegenerative disease onset with the help of AI. Another alumni team, Kobojo, began their journey making Facebook games at Imagine Cup 2008 and has since raised $6 million in venture capital for their startup.

I’d like to thank this year’s championship judges: Co-founder and COO of Bitnami, Erica Brescia; CEO of Glitch, Anil Dash;, and Microsoft’s own Peggy Johnson, Executive Vice President of Business Development at Microsoft. Special thanks also to Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Azure Compute Corey Sanders, who hosted the championship and announced this year’s winner. Last but certainly not least, on behalf of Microsoft, I’d like to congratulate our new Imagine Cup champion, team smartARM, and all of the students who worked so hard to make this 16th anniversary Imagine Cup the most inspiring one yet. If you haven’t had a chance, be sure to view the championship video above to see some of the best student developers in the world envision a brighter, bolder future for us all.

— Charlotte

P.S. Follow me on Twitter for updates on Imagine Cup and other news and noteworthy information in the cloud and ecosystem space.

Tags: 2018 Imagine Cup, AI, Big Data, mixed reality

By Roger Fingas
Wednesday, July 25, 2018, 02:56 pm PT (05:56 pm ET)

Intel will be Apple’s exclusive cellular modem supplier for next-generation iPhones, the CFO of Qualcomm indicated on Wednesday.

Mockups of Apple’s 2018 iPhones.

“We believe Apple intends to solely use our competitor’s modems rather than our modems in its next iPhone release,” said George Davis in a conference call. Apple’s only other modem supplier in recent years has been Intel, which came onboard in 2016, supplying components for GSM versions of the iPhone 7 and other recent iPhone models.

Losing Apple as a client, if even just temporarily, could deal a serious financial blow. The iPhone is of course one of the most popular smartphone brands in the world, often leading in key markets.

Multiple reports have hinted at Apple going Intel-only, thanks largely to the latter’s XMM7560 chip, which supports both GSM and CDMA carrier networks. The modem is now in mass production for 2018 iPhones, though until now it was uncertain if some phones would still use Qualcomm parts.

Apple has strong incentive to ditch Qualcomm, as the two companies are engaged in a global legal battle over patents and royalties. Apple began the war in January 2017 with a $1 billion lawsuit, claiming Qualcomm abuses its “monopoly power” to demand high royalties and force chip buyers to license patents. The chipmaker countered in April, and the pair have since lodged multiple complaints in domestic and international courts, roping in other Apple suppliers as well.

Until 2016 Apple was locked into an exclusive arrangement, but prior to the XMM7560, the technical superiority of Qualcomm’s modems was another factor keeping the company from switching to Intel. On top of broader network support, Qualcomm chips have been faster, to the point that Apple throttled them to prevent major gaps with Intel-based hardware.

This fall should see three new iPhone models: 5.8- and 6.5-inch OLED devices, and a 6.1-inch LCD unit. The LCD phone could potentially ship later than its counterparts.

If Nick were still doing his News by Numbers column, he’d be all over a stat like this. Turns out that Battle Royale game people won’t stop talking about rakes in a lot of money.

On mobile alone, Fortnite is reportedly making as much as $2 million USD a day average. Bearing in mind ‘mobile’ in this context just means the iOS version, since Android hasn’t landed yet.

The data comes via Sensor Tower, a business-focused website that likes to track activity such as this. Between the iOS version’s launch on March 15^th, 2018 and July 11^th (when Season 4 ended), the daily figure was around $1.2 million USD.

The new higher estimation comes from data pulled from the first ten days of activity for Fortnite’s Season 5 content. This new figure is 19% higher than what was spent on average during the first days of Season 4. Sensor Tower also states that the game’s all time high daily spend was on July 13^th (so a couple of days into S5), where it hit $3 million USD.

There’s still no word on when the Android crowd is allowed in on the fun, but we’re still expecting it to drop before the end of summer.

Twitter allows one to share blog posts and articles with the world. Using Python and the tweepy library makes it easy to create a Twitter bot that takes care of all the tweeting for you. This article shows you how to build such a bot. Hopefully you can take the concepts here and apply them to other projects that use online services.

Getting started

To create a Twitter bot the tweepy library comes handy. It manages the Twitter API calls and provides a simple interface.

The following commands use Pipenv to install tweepy into a virtual environment. If you don’t have Pipenv installed, check out our previous article, How to install Pipenv on Fedora.

$ mkdir twitterbot $ cd twitterbot $ pipenv --three $ pipenv install tweepy $ pipenv shell

Tweepy – Getting started

To use the Twitter API the bot needs to authenticate against Twitter. For that, tweepy uses the OAuth authentication standard. You can get credentials by creating a new application at https://apps.twitter.com/.

Create a new Twitter application

After you fill in the following form and click on the Create your Twitter application button, you have access to the application credentials. Tweepy requires the Consumer Key (API Key) and the Consumer Secret (API Secret), both available from the Keys and Access Tokens.

After scrolling down the page, generate an Access Token and an Access Token Secret using the Create my access token button.

Using Tweepy – print your timeline

Now that you have all the credentials needed, open a new file and write the following Python code.

import tweepy auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler("your_consumer_key", "your_consumer_key_secret") auth.set_access_token("your_access_token", "your_access_token_secret") api = tweepy.API(auth) public_tweets = api.home_timeline() for tweet in public_tweets: print(tweet.text)

$ python tweet.py

The above program calls the home_timeline API method to retrieve the 20 most recent tweets from your timeline. Now that the bot is able to use tweepy  to get data from Twitter, try changing the code to send a tweet.

Using Tweepy – send a tweet

To send a tweet, the API method update_status comes in handy. The usage is simple:

api.update_status("The awesome text you would like to tweet")

The tweepy library has many other methods that can be useful for a Twitter bot. For the full details of the API, check the documentation.

A magazine bot

Let’s create a bot that searches for Fedora Magazine tweets and automatically retweets them.

To avoid retweeting the same tweet multiple times, the bot stores the tweet ID of the last retweet. Two helper functions, store_last_id and get_last_id, will be used to save and retrieve this ID.

Then the bot uses the tweepy search API to find the Fedora Magazine tweets that are more recent than the stored ID.

import tweepy def store_last_id(tweet_id): """ Store a tweet id in a file """ with open("lastid", "w") as fp: fp.write(str(tweet_id)) def get_last_id(): """ Read the last retweeted id from a file """ with open("lastid", "r") as fp: return fp.read() if __name__ == '__main__': auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler("your_consumer_key", "your_consumer_key_secret") auth.set_access_token("your_access_token", "your_access_token_secret") api = tweepy.API(auth) try: last_id = get_last_id() except FileNotFoundError: print("No retweet yet") last_id = None for tweet in tweepy.Cursor(api.search, q="fedoramagazine.org", since_id=last_id).items(): if tweet.user.name == 'Fedora Project': store_last_id(tweet.id) tweet.retweet() print(f'"{tweet.text}" was retweeted'

In order to retweet only tweets from the Fedora Magazine, the bot searches for tweets that contain fedoramagazine.org and are published by the “Fedora Project” Twitter account.

Conclusion

In this article you saw how  to create a Twitter application using the tweepy Python library to automate reading, sending and searching tweets. You can now use your creativity to create a Twitter bot of your own.

The source code of the example in this article is available on Github.

Kubernetes security has come a long way since the project’s inception, but still contains some gotchas. Starting with the control plane, building up through workload and network security, and finishing with a projection into the future of security, here is a list of handy tips to help harden your clusters and increase their resilience if compromised.

Part One: The Control Plane

The control plane is Kubernetes’ brain. It has an overall view of every container and pod running on the cluster, can schedule new pods (which can include containers with root access to their parent node), and can read all the secrets stored in the cluster. This valuable cargo needs protecting from accidental leakage and malicious intent: when it’s accessed, when it’s at rest, and when it’s being transported across the network.

1. TLS Everywhere

TLS should be enabled for every component that supports it to prevent traffic sniffing, verify the identity of the server, and (for mutual TLS) verify the identity of the client.

Note that some components and installation methods may enable local ports over HTTP and administrators should familiarize themselves with the settings of each component to identify potentially unsecured traffic.

Source

This network diagram by Lucas Käldström demonstrates some of the places TLS should ideally be applied: between every component on the master, and between the Kubelet and API server. Kelsey Hightower‘s canonical Kubernetes The Hard Way provides detailed manual instructions, as does etcd’s security model documentation.

Read more at Kubernetes.io

Racing drivers are notoriously difficult to work with. Their competitive personalities make them act like divas from time to time; while jealousy bubbles under the surface as teammates receive upgraded parts or preferential treatment. Losing hurts, but they hone their craft through driving practice as well as the team of mechanics and engineers constantly tweaking the cars. Winning is everything: without it, the money doesn’t flow, and this means everything suffers – from logistics, to R&D, even the coffee. It doesn’t all come down to the time on the clock or the position on the starting grid.

All of this requires a fine balance, and Playsport Games’ Motorsport Manager Mobile 3 includes every tiny detail you can imagine and a lot that you didn’t consider.

The journey to leading a racing team starts with personalising the brand, from the look of the avatar who represents the team, to the colours on the cars. A micro-transaction upgrades the game so that everything can be edited, recreating any year from any racing series you could choose by personalising names and teams, not just your own. The initial screen feels a little overwhelming to begin with, but the tutorials work hard to break down barriers.

The home screen is overflowing with sections which break down into further menus or sprawling maps which dictate the path of upgrades possible in the career. The HQ has three separate sections, for drivers, finance and research, all of which can be upgraded by investing cash and waiting a set number of races. This is also seen in logistics which determines how quickly you can move parts and cars around the world, offering bonuses to stats for controlling more warehouses or depots. At first, this idea seems more complicated than it needs to be, but it does really come down to tapping nodes that you believe will benefit your team in the long run.

You can also manage your drivers, allocating points earned from XP gained in races into traits making them better at certain things. Overtaking, defending on track, braking later into corners or even steady their focus to stop them from crashing as much. Sponsors are sought out for finances to trickle in and they supply not just money, but also influence, which can be spent on stealing ideas from other teams or sending your drivers on fan tours or PR courses to give the appearance of your brand a boost.

There’s a section for managing engineers who design new parts for the cars and mechanics who advise drivers during the races. Later in the game you can nurture young drivers or invest in the car for the following year. Seeing all of this, feels like being hit by a tidal wave of information, but it gets drip fed steadily over time allowing for new options to feel less obscure and more second nature. Bold tutorial screens accompany each new feature and help is always on hand via question mark buttons in each section.

The first season does feel like the developers have left the training wheels on – money seems plentiful, sponsors are kind enough to offer large sign-on bonuses which fund building new front wings for the single seater formulas or new brakes and spoilers for sports car races. As the game progresses, drivers demand more; showing jealousy if you offer a new part to a teammate instead of them and with this their performance on track will suffer. Contracts will expire and require careful negotiating so as not to test a driver’s patience – represented by two hands nearing closer to shaking as you choose signing fees, length of contract etc…

The small details of running the team are plentiful and should you choose, you could spend hours planning the best upgrade paths to benefit the team or scout new drivers and staff members who will design the best components for your cars. Over time, as your career lengthens, options will be offered to change formulas which all have different rules (these can be voted on using influence, too) and will tax your tactics during the races themselves, be it through refuelling mid-race or using Energy Recovery Systems and hybrid engines.

Which brings us to the actual racing. The different series vary in length of races and set up. Single seater plays more like a Formula One system, sports cars and endurance formulas require different thinking. The race overview shows the track, with the cars zipping around in a clear view, differentiated by colour and number, so your team sticks out. The lap times sit on the left side of the screen, showing which tyres everyone is using and how they’re deteriorating. The right side is dedicated to your drivers, allowing you to pit them when you feel best within the race, change their driving style, impacting wear on the tyres or the engine power which either guzzles or conserves fuel.

While you can’t quite get into the tiny details of driving, you can sway outcomes by pitting early and undercutting other teams or choosing different tyres which may allow for longer stints on track. Every second of the racing is tense as you watch the tyres degrade and wonder whether to pull in your driver or leave them out for longer. The car slowly wears down, too, which is like watching a ticking time bomb. The closer it gets to zero will mean either a crash or a retirement.

The most interesting aspect of racing is qualifying, where you’ll be setting up the car for the weekend. This is done by choosing cards and using up spanners on your mechanics gauge. You could choose a card that takes up 1-6 spanners or even 1-16, the result is random and might mean it takes up none of the gauge but still delivers a boost in car setup. But gambling too much might see all of the spanners used as you try for a big tweak leading to disaster and hindering your car more than anything else. It’s an interesting system that leaves a lot up to chance and certainly gamifies an aspect of play.

All of these details add up to a great experience that authentically replicates the life of a team principal. There’s stress when the cars break down or money becomes scarce after heavy investments and there’s pride when your set up cards boost the car to land you a one-two on the starting grid. A game made up of so many small decisions and menus allows for a surprising amount of excitement. Watching those small dots speed around the screen may not give the surge of pleasure a standard racing game would, but watching your team secure a win, leading to a championship is genuinely wonderful.