I recently learned about FRRouting (FFR), an IP routing protocol suite for Linux and Unix platforms. FRR has been under rapid development since the first release in April 2017. So, they just turned one, and they recently released version 4.0 of the software. According to the website, this release brings various enhancements aimed at creating the best routing protocol stack available.

How did I not know about all this? Doubtless due to a personal defect. In any case, the contributors designed FRR to streamline the routing protocol stack. FRR can be used for connecting hosts, virtual machines, and containers to the network, for network switching and routing, and much more. Here’s what I learned about the excellent FRRouting project and how it came to be.

FRR has its roots in the Quagga project, which I covered here. In fact, it started as a fork by some long-time Quagga developers who combined their efforts to improve on that project’s well-established foundation.

Why Fork?

Anyone can fork an open source project, which can be either an advantage or a disadvantage. A fork can double the workload, divide the contributor community, or make two “meh” projects instead of one great one. It can create hard feelings. Or, a fork can succeed, by reviving a moribund project and bringing new energy and enthusiasm. It can also rescue a code base from the clutches of a bad commercial steward. Forking a project is rarely done on a whim because it’s a such a big step.

Examples of successful forks include Ubuntu, forked from Debian (although arguments rage over whether it is really a fork or some other weird thing nobody can think of a word for), the LibreOffice fork of OpenOffice, and my favorite, the MariaDB fork of MySQL.

MariaDB is the all-time great “having your cake and eating it” story. The short version is Sun Microsystems bought MySQL for a cool billion dollars and hired the talent that built it. But the MySQL executive team, including Monty Widenius and Marten Mickos, were publicly unhappy with Sun. They left Sun, taking their billion dollars with them. Then Oracle bought Sun, which motivated Widenius to fork MySQL and found MariaDB, which has been a clear success. (A longer version is here: Migrating to MariaDB from MySQL.)

Why Fork Quagga?

Quagga was created as a fork of the GNU Zebra project, which had died. So, FRR is a fork of a fork. I asked on the FRR developer’s mailing list about this and received a wealth of interesting answers. (You can read the whole thread on the dev list archive.)

Here’s what people said:

“There was a desire for a project that was governed by community consensus and documented process.”

“I find the FRR community very welcoming, very friendly, extremely helpful and respectful. It is very rare I come across communities like this and it is a real pleasure to engage in conversation and work on issues with them. If one needs a few eyes on a bit of code all you have to do is ask and you get constructive input, almost all of the time from multiple people.”

“The easy and pleasant direct access to the developers is a great bonus.”

Community-driven development

There was a point in time where Quagga was running on a skeleton crew, and thousands of patches were backed up from a variety of contributors, sitting, aging, and going nowhere. Thus, working through the backlog and creating a fast-paced, community-oriented project governed by consensus and documented process are some of the primary FRR drivers. A lot of the work on FRR is devoted to implementing new protocols and features, including cloud networking technologies.

Governance

Governance is also a necessary part of any OSS project, and it can make or break a project. FRRouting managed this by joining the vendor-neutral Linux Foundation, which is home to many important projects including the Node.js Foundation, Let’s Encrypt, and of course the Linux kernel.

FRRouting has a six-member technical steering committee, and members are elected to one-year terms. Maintainers have regular open meetings, and there is an official charter. This governing structure helps the project handle the numerous issues that any large, complex, and essential software project has to deal with, such as development direction and priorities, differences of opinion, licensing, finances, and so on.

Getting and Using FRR

FRR is hosted on GitHub. You may clone the repository, download source tarballs, or download .deb and .rpm packages. The documentation is quite good, and there is detailed information on becoming a contributor. The FRR user guide also provides a great overview of the architecture.
Visit FRRouting to learn more about the project. Also check out FRRouting on Juniper’s Advanced Forwarding Interface for an interesting example of where FRR is already finding a home in advanced networking architectures.

Today, we announced an agreement to acquire GitHub, the world’s leading software development platform. I want to share what this acquisition will mean for our industry and for developers.

The era of the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge is upon us. Computing is becoming embedded in the world, with every part of our daily life and work and every aspect of our society and economy being transformed by digital technology.

Developers are the builders of this new era, writing the world’s code. And GitHub is their home.

As every industry – from precision medicine to precision agriculture, from personalized education to personalized banking – is being impacted by technology, the developer community will only grow in numbers and importance. Developer workflows will drive and influence business processes and functions across the organization – from marketing, sales and service, to IT and HR. And value creation and growth across every industry will increasingly be determined by the choices developers make.

In short, developers will be at the center of solving the world’s most pressing challenges. However, the real power comes when every developer can create together, collaborate, share code and build on each other’s work. In all walks of life, we see the power of communities, and this is true for software development and developers.

That is why we are so excited about today’s announcement. More than 28 million developers already collaborate on GitHub, and it is home to more than 85 million code repositories used by people in nearly every country. From the largest corporations to the smallest startups, GitHub is the destination for developers to learn, share and work together to create software. It’s a destination for Microsoft too. We are the most active organization on GitHub, with more than 2 million “commits,” or updates, made to projects.

Microsoft has been a developer-focused company from the very first product we created to the platforms and tools we offer today. Building technology so that others can build technology is core to our mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Chris Wanstrath (left), Github CEO and co-founder; Nat Friedman, Microsoft corporate vice president, Developer Services; Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO; and Amy Hood, Microsoft Chief Financial Officer.

Microsoft is also committed to empowering communities, from the world’s professionals to IT professionals to gamers. We believe in the power of communities to achieve much more than what their members can do on their own. It’s our ability to work together that helps our dreams become reality, and we are dedicated to cultivating and growing communities to do just that.

And Microsoft is all-in on open source. We have been on a journey with open source, and today we are active in the open source ecosystem, we contribute to open source projects, and some of our most vibrant developer tools and frameworks are open source. When it comes to our commitment to open source, judge us by the actions we have taken in the recent past, our actions today, and in the future.

Given all of this, together with GitHub, we see three clear opportunities ahead.

First, we will empower developers at every stage of the development lifecycle – from ideation to collaboration to deployment to the cloud. Going forward, GitHub will remain an open platform, which any developer can plug into and extend. Developers will continue to be able to use the programming languages, tools and operating systems of their choice for their projects – and will still be able to deploy their code on any cloud and any device.

Second, we will accelerate enterprise developers’ use of GitHub, with our direct sales and partner channels and access to Microsoft’s global cloud infrastructure and services.

Finally, we will bring Microsoft’s developer tools and services to new audiences.

Most importantly, we recognize the responsibility we take on with this agreement. We are committed to being stewards of the GitHub community, which will retain its developer-first ethos, operate independently and remain an open platform. We will always listen to developer feedback and invest in both fundamentals and new capabilities.

Once the acquisition closes later this year, GitHub will be led by CEO Nat Friedman, an open source veteran and founder of Xamarin, who will continue to report to Microsoft Cloud + AI Group Executive Vice President Scott Guthrie; GitHub CEO and Co-Founder Chris Wanstrath will be a technical fellow at Microsoft, also reporting to Scott. You can see how Chris, Nat and I envision the opportunity ahead in this public presentation.

Together we will continue to advance GitHub as a platform loved by developers and trusted by organizations.

Tags: Chris Wanstrath, developers, GitHub, Nat Friedman, Satya Nadella

WWDC

By Andrew O’Hara
Monday, June 04, 2018, 08:23 am PT (11:23 am ET)

Instead of relying on QR or barcodes at WWDC 2018 this year, Apple is using NFC with Face ID or Touch ID authentication of the pass in the user’s Wallet.

In years past, attendees would all get a physical pass with barcodes, designed to be worn at all times. The past several years those physical badges relied on NFC for entry, but this is the first time that the Wallet pass has used the same technology for access control.

When an attendee goes to redeem their wallet pass for their badge, the pass appears on the lock screen. Following the pop-up, it will then have the user authenticate the pass with Face ID or Touch ID, in the same fashion as a Apple Pay transaction.

Using NFC for passes isn’t entirely new, but it is rare. Apple does allow passes and loyalty information to support NFC, but few have adopted the process.

This also seems similar to using NFC to make your way into a hotel room, a feature rumored to arrive with iOS 12. It has been suggested that Apple will open up NFC access for additional functionality including accessing hotels, offices, and more.

Apple has been slow to evolve its NFC policies since adopting the technology nearly four years ago, but the company has made moves to expand its limited feature set over the past year.

This isn’t Apple’s first adoption of the technology, though. In 2017, Apple released watchOS 4 with GymKit, a platform that enables a two-way sync of data between an Apple Watch and a stationary workout machine. The authentication and pairing process is conducted via NFC.

The launch of iOS 11 brought Core NFC, a framework that lets developers tap into iPhone’s onboard NFC chip to scan NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) data tags. So far, only a few companies have taken advantage of Core NFC, one of the first being glucose reader manufacturer Abbott.

Stay abreast of Apple’s announcements by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos from the event.

Can’t watch Apple’s livestream of the keynote? AppleInsider has you covered with a live blog covering all the announcements.

Provider pattern was introduced in ASP.NET 2.0 and it gives the developers the flexibility of where to store the state of ASP.NET features (e.g. Session State, Membership, Output Cache etc.). In ASP.NET 4.6.2, we added async support for Session State Provider and Output Cache Provider.  These providers provide much better scalability, and enables the web application to adapt to the cloud environment.  Furthermore, , we also released SqlSessionStateProviderAsync, CosmosDBSessionStateProviderAsync, RedisSessionStateProvider and SQLAsyncOutputCacheProvider.  Through these providers the web applications can store the Session State in Azure resources like, SQL Azure, CosmosDB, and Redis Cache, and Output Cache in SQL Azure.  With these options, it may be not very straightforward to pick one and configure it right in the application.  Today we are releasing ASP.NET Providers Connected Service Visual Studio Extension to help you pick the right provider and configure it properly to work with Azure resources.  This extension will be your one-stop shop where you can install and configure all the ASP.NET providers that are Azure ready.

How to install the extension

The ASP.NET Providers Connected Service Extension can be installed on Visual Studio 2017. You can install it through Extensions and Updates in Visual Studio and type “ASP.NET Providers Connected Service” in the search box. Or you can download the extension from Visual Studio MarketPlace.

How to use the extension

To use the Extension, you need to make sure that your web application targets to .NET Framework 4.6.2 or higher.  You can open the extension through right clicking on the project, selecting Add and clicking on Connected Service. You will see all the Connected Services installed on your VS which apply to your project.

After clicking on Microsoft ASP.NET Providers extension. You will see the following wizard window, you can choose the provider you want to install and configure for your ASP.NET web application. Currently we have two sets of providers, Session State providers and Output Cache provider.

Select a provider and click on the Next button. You will see a list of providers that apply to your application, which connects with Azure resources. Currently we have SQL SessionState provider, CosmosDB SessionState provider, RedisCache Sessionstate provider and SQL OutputCache provider.

After the provider is chosen, the wizard window will lead you to select an Azure instance which will be used by the provider selected.  In order to fetch the Azure instances that apply to the selected provider, you will need to sign in with your account in Visual Studio.   Then Select an Azure instance and click on the Finish button, the extension will install the relevant Nuget packages and update the web.config file to connect the provider with that selected Azure instance.

Things to be aware of

1. If the application is already configured with a provider and you want to install a same type of provider, you need to remove that provider first. E.g. your application is using SQL SessionState provider and you want to switch to CosmosDB SessionState provider. In this case, you need to remove the SessionState Provider settings in the web.config, then you can use ASP.NET Providers Connected Services to install and configure the CosmosDB SessionState provider.
2. If you are installing Async SQL SessionState provider or Async SQL OutputCache provider, you need to replace the user name and password in the connection string in web.config added by ASP.NET Providers Connected Services. As you may have multiple accounts in your Azure SQL Database instance.

Summary

ASP.NET Providers Connected Services helps you install and configure ASP.NET providers for your web application to consume Azure services. Our goal of this Visual Studio extension is to make it easier and provide a central place to help you configure different providers for the ASP.NET web applications and connect your web applications with Azure. Please install the extension from Visual Studio Marketplace today and let us know your feedback.

Roguelikes are a tricky genre to pin down, seeing as the name itself began popping up everywhere at once without much structural rigor once a certain type of game started to in win players over. Conspicuous features include turn-based gameplay, usually with exploration or combat, and limited-to-no persistent progress carried across different play sessions.

Not feeling Rogue enough? How about trying out some of the best puzzle games instead.

These constraints made for entertaining, thoughtful and compact games which acquit themselves well to on-the-go bursts of play. This list includes the most classic and favorite members of the roguelike genre on mobile, as well as some unusual hybrids, noteworthy and exciting in their own right.

Auro (Review)

Developer: Dinofarm Games
Platforms: Android
Price: $1.99 

Auro is the result of Keith Burgen’s careful tinkering and experimentations with game design. He’s an outspoken creator with a definite vision which hinges on useful distinctions like the knowledge horizon (a player can’t know everything at once, the designer draws a line beyond which information is out of reach). The prince must save the kingdom by bumping enemies and judiciously using spells and skills across this hex-based battler. Speed, precision and efficiency are paramount; score-chasing the measure of success. Not praised enough, the game’s only drawback is its exclusive availability on android.

Road Not Taken (Review)

Developer: Spryfox Games
Platforms: iOS, Android
Price: $4.99

In Road Not Taken, the winter is harsh and full of children, lost and dearly missed by the village. You, a sackcloth-clad stranger, take your torch and use what precious energy you have to brave the elements, to find and rescue each child. Along the way, the stranger will fend off wolves and spiteful ghosts, scavenging for food and the materials to make campfires. Each step drains energy, more so if carrying items, so the whole game is turn-based but with a soft cap on the number of steps. ‘Soft’ because energy can be replenished by eating various foodstuffs. The procedural generation behind each run belies the handcrafted puzzle levels which recur. This hybrid game wears many hats, though it is primarily a puzzler with crafting elements and a dash of combat. The secrets are a delight to discover and add to your book of recipes, while the multiple play modes offer a softer means of approach for newcomers.

FTL (Review)

Developer: Subset Games
Platforms:  iOS
Price: $9.99

Faster Than Light is a quest to save one corner of the galaxy, powering your ship through sections whilst questing for a handy crew, a devastating array of weapons, and sometimes just a glug of fuel. Real-time with pause combat works around cooldowns, with each battle encounter ending once the enemy ship is destroyed or its crew incapacitated. Honestly, the ship is the real hero, suffering hull breaches and 1 HP scrapes while slowly updating its bells and whistles till it can slay the beast. The chiptune beats and graphics were neither wholly retro nor AAA trendy but instead creating their own cool aesthetic. An uncontested classic.

Dream Quest (Review)

Publisher: Peter M Whalen
Platforms: iOS Universal
Price: $2.99

The challenge in Dream Quest is always the same: proceed through three levels as a chosen class, building a deck strong enough to escape the realm of dreams at last. But like its namesake, the twists and turns this progression takes are strange and wonderful. Rogue-likes typically rely on stochastic events and imperfect knowledge, yet Dream Quest transforms these uncertainties into a must-try challenge for strategy buffs.

The total card-pool is modest and manageable but in total produces a surprising variety of synergies and unique challenges. Inscrutable sphinxes, malicious mimes, and immortal hydras all make an appearance as foes, giving show-stopping battles. The art is so bad it has become iconic; the theoretical possibilities it provides are captivating. Dream Quest’s endgame is supremely satisfying in of itself, but the arduous journey to meet the Master of Dreams is equally thoughtful and intense. A pleasure throughout.

Dungeon of the Endless

Developer: Amplitude Studios
Platforms:  iOS
Price: $3.99

One-part tower defense, one-part dungeon crawler with a party-squad dynamic and thoughtful exploration system, Dungeon of the Endless exists as a kind of in-universe spinoff for Endless Space and Legend, other offerings from Amplitude Studios and good games in their own right. Pick a ship to explore and a crew with various perks and stats and start carving a path through. The game is split into two phases: the initial exploration phase, where each room could reveal a trap, a merchant, an artefact or many other space oddities besides. The game should be Frankenstein of unlikely parts and genres, but its flow is seamless, its gameplay familiar yet inspired.

Crypt of the Necrodancer

Developer: Brace Yourself Games
Platforms:  iOS
Price: $4.99

Dance like no one but the lord of death is watching. The rhythm-based gameplay calls back to Audiosurf, Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero, but the skill-split here favors combat and planning over split-second reflexes and a perfect internal metronome. The dungeon pulses to the beat, with everyone’s movement on the grid bound by this universal time. Import your own playlist, pick a character and get questing for loot, boss battles and a jig to remember. The graphics are simple and the size of the maps, the variety of enemies are not colossal, but these actually work in the game’s favor. Entrancement: a simple compulsion to move to the beat. Fill the game with your own personal library of earworms and enjoy the groove.

Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

Developer: Nicalis, Inc.
Platforms:  iOS
Price: $14.99

Binding of Isaac refuses to die. Lurching from platform to platform, from expansion to expansion, with an ever-multiplying list of secrets, mini-bosses and bonus-final-final-final zones. Conceived as part of a game jam, its inspiration is simply the biblical namesake, with a maternal twist. A child told to wait in the basement with pullulating horrors. The game’s enemies are filthy, rotten, grotesque, and the player’s weapons are literally mewling infant’s tears. If the setting is twisted, the mechanics are straightforward. Its real-time combat is frantic but not chaotic, the oodles of possible weapons and upgrades not to RNGesus-dependent. A good player acquires knowledge as well as skills with each run-through. Not as easy to play on the go, but besides that practical concern, a worthy and immortal, depraved challenge.

Crowntakers

Developer: Kalypso Media Group
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $2.99, $3.49

Crowntakers has a sense of scale, uniquely balancing tactical combat with long-term investments via the overworld. It needn’t even be played as a roguelike at all, strictly speaking, for one of its alternate play modes is a persistent RPG with unlockables. The emphasis on individual decisions in either case remains paramount, from the exploration phase to combat. Its limitations are in how carelessly it hides some information, about enemy abilities, for example, from the player. In short, an excellent refreshing roguelike-RPG-lite which might be outmatched by other roguelikes but remains a distinct favorite.

Hoplite (Review)

Developer: Magma Fortress
Platforms:  iOS, Android
Price: $2.99, (free demo on Android)

Hoplite might very well delight that wight who likes only the right sort of roguelike. The hoplites of history aren’t usually considered lone wolves or heroes, but this is exactly what the game casts you as: one nameless figure on a tight hexa-based on a quest to retrieve the golden fleece. Soldiering across levels of escalating difficulty, visiting temples to get incremental bonuses. The movement and decisions are simple, just a series of swipes along with the odd special ability. Small numbers and single turns are always decisive, and the ability effects are simple yet profound, little deus ex machinas bestowed each level. The skill synergies are tantalizing enough to draw you in, and the fiendishly difficult achievements (pacifist run, anyone?) will keep even veterans engaged. This one is a relic of the genre that is sterling.

868-HACK (Review)

Developer: Michael Brough
Platforms:  iOS
Price: $4.99

Of all the Roguelikes, 868-HACK ties reward to punishment most directly, scrambling the player’s usual risk-reward mindset. Thematically, a hacker scours the network for cash, energy and points while dodging hostile programs and warping across different nodes (i.e. levels). Mechanically, the poison and the cure are all the same stuff, because by hacking to gain a lead or even just catch your breath, the player spawns more foes. Resources are forever tight, and any attempt to siphon extra points or tools will aggravate the delicate game-state. As with many roguelikes, positioning is all-important, as is assembling an effective suite of programs to  clear enemies and generate rewards. Across multiple successful runs, enemies gain random passive bonuses, and the prestige builds as the risks compound.

What would your list of the best roguelike games on iOS and Android look like? Let us know!

Last month we reported that Blender Game Engine (BGE) was being removed entirely from the source code of Blender for the upcoming major 2.8 release.  Judging by the comments section this was certainly a polarizing decision, with replies basically falling into two camps.  On one side there was a lot of “good riddance to bad rubbish” type replies, while in the other camp it was mostly “I’m done with Blender if this happens”.  Clearly the decision impact enough people that something had to be done.  Well, that something was just announced on Twitter:

The linked article from the developer mailing list:

Hi all,

The Blender Foundation Development Fund has reserved a number of bigger donations (also on donator’s request) for game engine and interactive 3D related features.

Now 2.8 is getting shaped up, it was time to check on this topic. Yesterday afternoon I met with Benoit Bolsee and a couple of Code Quest participants, to discuss the future of Blender’s real-time 3D needs and “interaction mode”.

The outcome is that Benoit accepted a grant to work as designer and lead developer for one year on bringing back a good real-time interactive 3D system in Blender. He will do this part-time, in average 1.5 days per week, starting July 1st.

Obviously all work and further discussions will be done in public; using our regular channels (mailing lists, code.blender.org, developer.b.o, devtalk.b.o). Help from other Blender developers is very welcome. This will be further announced when Benoit starts.

To summarise, work will first be done in two areas;

– Implement a high quality real-time viewport with physics/event handling. This should result in a pleasant & usable environment to setup and bake simulations.

– Design and prototype a new nodal logic system.

Related to this work is also to enable good support (export or some kind of integration) for external game engines such as Godot, Armory, Blend4Web, Unreal, Unity, etc.

I especially invite the first three (open source) projects to connect with us to find ways to keep a high level of compatibility.

Work on typical GE features such as super-fast drawing (LOD, etc) are welcome too but should be part of the regular work on Blender’s viewport and our internal drawing engines. That way everyone benefits. Laters,

-Ton-

Blender Game Engine is not coming back, but a great deal of the functionality that was removed with it will be returning. Additionally Blender will be working directly to support Blender as a game development tool for existing game engines.

This July, Microsoft will host bright student developer teams from across the world for the 16th annual Imagine Cup. Teams will travel to Redmond, Washington to showcase their technical innovations and compete for up to $100,000 USD, as well as a mentoring session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. We are excited to announce the dates for the 2018 Imagine Cup World Finals!

Follow the action to learn more about the competing teams and tune in to see which teams will be announced as World Finalists!

July 23, 2018

The Imagine Cup World Finals kick-off at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington! The day starts with a Tech Showcase, where teams will pitch to multiple judges and the top-rated teams will move on to the next round. Imagine Cup Awards finalists in Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Mixed Reality are chosen to vie for $15,000 USD.

July 24, 2018

The top 15 teams are announced and will move forward as Imagine Cup semifinalists. There is good news for all other teams – they will get a second shot in the wildcard round! The students vote which wildcard teams will be saved and have the opportunity to join the semifinals. Semifinalists present their projects to the judges, and the final 3 teams are chosen to compete in the World Championships.

July 25, 2018

Imagine Cup World Championships – Streamed Live! Tune in at 9:00am PST to watch the top 3 teams pitch to the judges, coming to you live from the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Seattle. Who will win it all?

Save the date for the Imagine Cup World Finals to see who will win $100,000 and the glory of being the Imagine Cup champions!

The team at Valve seem to have unceremoniously delisted the upcoming mass shooting simulator Active Shooter from Steam today, calling the developer “a troll, with a history.”

This is a big deal because the alleged game developer in question (Revived Games, aka Ata Berdiyev) seems to have a storied history of making terrible games, often by reusing the assets and intellectual property of others, and then quickly having them removed from Steam.

It’s also significant given that the alleged video game in question purports to put players in the shoes of either a mass shooter or the law enforcement personnel attempting to stop them, and thus quickly earned the public ire of mass shooting survivors, the parents of victims/survivors, politicians, and basically anyone with a conscience.

“We have removed the developer Revived Games and publisher ACID from Steam,” a Valve representative told Motherboard. “This developer and publisher is, in fact, a person calling himself Ata Berdiyev, who had previously been removed last fall when he was operating as ‘[bc]Interactive’ and ‘Elusive Team.'”

Sure enough, the Steam listing for Active Shooter (which was supposed to launch next month) now appears to be nonexistent.

“Ata is a troll, with a history of customer abuse, publishing copyrighted material, and user review manipulation,” the rep continued. “His subsequent return under new business names was a fact that came to light as we investigated the controversy around his upcoming title. We are not going to do business with people who act like this towards our customers or Valve. The broader conversation about Steam’s content policies is one that we’ll be addressing soon.”

It’s worth pointing out that earlier this month Valve’s content policies were publicly called into question after developers began reporting threats of removal from Steam over games the company deemed to include inappropriate adult content.

Play Rising Storm 2: Vietnam for FREE starting now through Sunday at 1PM Pacific Time. You can also pickup Rising Storm 2: Vietnam at 50% off the regular price!*

If you already have Steam installed, click here to install or play Rising Storm 2: Vietnam. If you don’t have Steam, you can download it here.

*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time

Starting at 6:00 p.m. PDT today, members of the Xbox One Preview Alpha Ring will begin receiving the latest Xbox One system update (1806.180521-1920). Read on for more about the features, fixes and known issues in the latest 1806 system update.

NEW FEATURE FEEDBACK:

Updates for Groups based on Xbox Insider feedback:

We’re enabling Groups for the rest of Preview Alpha tonight! You’ll want to take the new system update once available and then start trying out Groups if you have not had access to the feature before. There’s also the existing Quest for Preview Alpha to give the team invaluable feedback on your experience using Groups.

How to find the Groups of games and apps feature:

• [Guide] If you were looking for the Pins button in Guide, instead click on the “My games & apps” button – we’ve combined Groups/Pins with “My games & apps” to put all your stuff in one convenient location for quick access!
• [My games & apps] If you go into “My games & apps” you will see a new tab on the left for your “Groups” – Pins will be your first Group and you can create more from there
• [Home] If you go to Home you will still have access to your Pins block and can add other Groups to Home after you create them
• Note: You may need to sign in/out again if you are not seeing Groups in “My games & apps” or your Pins block loading as expected after your first sign-in. If you do not see your Pins as the first Group, go to “My games & apps” > Groups and choose to reset your local Groups data

Fixes:

Guide

• Fixed an issue where some users were not seeing the currently active title in the list of Recently used games & apps.

Groups

• Fixed an issue where the “Add more” or “Create a group” page for Groups would not show all installed content when filtering
• Fixed some issues related to editing Groups not properly being reflected across multiple consoles that all have Groups enabled

Mixer Broadcasting

• Fixed an issue in which some users were experiencing issues with USB webcams while broadcasting.
• Fixed an issue where some users would not see the broadcast overlay or appear as broadcasting in the Guide.

 System Performance

• Misc. performance fixes in the platform.

Known Issues:

Groups  

• A few users are still experiencing the blank names for Groups. Workaround: You may need to rename these Groups if the local reset did not clear up the issue for you.
• The Groups tab My games & apps may not show after sign in even though you can access Groups in Guide. Workaround: Sign in / out to refresh these pages.
• You may see “This group does not exist” on Home on first sign-in for your existing Groups. Workaround: Sign in / out to refresh these pages.
• Some changes might not be reflected when editing Groups between multiple consoles after coming out of connected standby.  Sign in/out to fix.
• Titles hidden from Ready to install will show up as an item you can add through the “Add more” or “Create a group” page
• Choosing “Add to Home” for a game within a group will not add the block to Home
• You may see issues roaming between a GA console and preview 1806 console. Workaround: Choose to reset your Groups locally to resync from the service.
• Resetting Groups – local re-sync or reset everywhere: We’ve updated the reset button at the bottom of the Groups page in “My games & apps” so now you can delete your local Groups data and re-sync with the service. This will clear up a lot of issues that may have occurred due to bad states or if data is not showing up as expected. You can still delete from everywhere if you want a fresh start with Groups.
  
  • You may need to sign in / out for the pages to refresh afterwards.
  • Note: If you are still seeing issues after performing a local reset and/or sign in/out, please make sure to file a bug so the team can investigate

Profile Color

• Sometimes users may encounter an incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.

Networking

• Work continues on the stability of the Wi-Fi connectivity.  If you see any issues please report the problems for investigation.

YouTube

• Some users are encountering an issue where their YouTube account is being signed out whenever they launch the app.
  
  • Workaround: Uninstall/re-install the app and sign in with your account again.