James Cameron's Avatar sequels are practically mythological at this point, 11 years after the release of the original--but they are happening. The cast has been sharing behind the scenes images of their work on Avatar 2, which at the very least proves that a movie is being made, despite the fact we know next to nothing about the actual plot or what a return to Pandora might look like with the finished CGI in place. So far it's been a lot of water on the Hawaii-based set. Now, Kate Winslet is joining the trend with a new image, shared by producer Jon Landau on Instagram.
Winslet plays, in her own words, a "water person," which required underwater motion capture filming. She learned how to free dive for the part, and according to an interview she gave in The Hollywood Reporter, her longest breath hold was a whopping 7 minutes and 14 seconds--take that, Tom Cruise.
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Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-27-2020, 04:42 AM - Forum: Windows
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Music students use Microsoft Teams to find harmony and well-being
When lockdown began last March, Joseph was sent scrambling for an alternative to in-person instruction. He had recently appeared on a Rahman-centered podcast called “I Love ARR,” hosted by an Australian friend named Chander Ramanathan, who uses Microsoft Teams for the production.
“The COVID-19 situation – boom, it hit everyone,” remembers Ramanathan. “I had a call from Alphons saying ‘Think of some options and let’s get together.’ I said there’s nothing to think about, it’s Microsoft Teams.”
The next day, the two met for a tutorial – and in no time, Joseph was confident enough to determine it was the way forward. They trained the faculty of nearly 40 people, created various channels for vocals, piano and more classes, added students as guest users, employed Microsoft Forms for evaluations and implemented it all – over a single weekend.
“Another great feature is Live Event,” says Joseph, unabashedly thrilled by the possibilities such technology has put at his fingertips.
“Recently I tried a Live Event, and more than 1,000 people attended. I was giving a starter session in music theory. Even for my existing students, I’ve been doing it as a combined session where I do Indian music and Western music. I give that free, so the Crossroads students will have an edge in that musical knowledge. For me, this platform gives me a big office in my hands.”
Chander Ramanathan, at left, helped musician and teacher Alphons Joseph, in blue jacket, start using Microsoft Teams.
A newfound confidence All over the world, music teachers are making an impact like never before. Music students are learning to collaborate and hone their skills in ways they never imagined. And music is bringing people together, at a time when that is so very needed.
In October, Joseph launched the school’s online music learning platform, called “Crossroads eSuite,” available to students from all over the world. Using Microsoft Teams, “I’ve become much more confident with online teaching,” he says.
“We are longing to get back together, because that’s what’s really important,” says Gareth Gay. “But the technology is fascinating; it has given us a massive jolt into the future and shown us the possibilities of how it could be useful going forward.”
“At a time of crisis, music brings people together,” adds Cekmeci. “It has so many benefits.”
Rajat Agrawal also contributed to this report.
Top image: Ceyda Cekmeci, choir director for Istanbul’s Music for Peace Foundation, rehearses with students at Tekfur Palace in Istanbul, Turkey. Photo by Ozan Şahin.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-27-2020, 04:42 AM - Forum: Windows
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Q&A on C3.ai, Adobe and Microsoft partnering to reinvent CRM with AI
As organizations worldwide continue to respond and react to a new business climate, we have seen more clearly than ever that the traditional approach to business applications is no longer sufficient. Organizations need a new class of business applications that provides the agility to see and respond to emerging trends, new opportunities, and potential risks so that ultimately, they can delight their customers and deliver the business outcomes that truly matter.
That’s why today we are excited to announce, together with C3.ai and Adobe, the launch of C3 AI CRM powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365. C3 AI CRM leverages Dynamics 365 as the foundation for end-to-end, intelligent customer engagement, with Adobe Experience Cloud providing real-time customer profile and customer journey management, together with C3.ai’s industry-specific enterprise AI capabilities.
With C3 AI CRM, organizations can unlock the power of AI-driven customer relationship management in a solution purpose-built for specific industries, leveraging data from any source to produce predictive business insights. We are proud to welcome C3.ai to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 ecosystem, and to continue our collaboration with Adobe.
We had a chance to catch up with Amit Ahuja from Adobe and Ed Abbo from C3.ai to talk a little more about this partnership.
Why is traditional CRM insufficient for today’s enterprise requirements?
Ed: When we first created CRM back in the 1990s, it revolutionized sales, marketing, and customer service. Back then, the vast majority of customer data—contact and account information, transaction history, service history, pricing, etc.—resided in internal enterprise systems. CRM unified those internal silos and applied rules-based workflows to customer-facing processes—and three decades later, today’s CRM systems still operate in much the same way, even though the world has dramatically changed. Today’s CRM applications are backward-looking systems of record. But what businesses require are forward-looking, predictive systems of intelligence that provide real-time, data-driven insights to deliver the optimal customer experience
In today’s digital world, the vast majority of data relevant for CRM resides in external, rather than internal, sources—social network relationships, online activity, market and economic data, credit scores, financial filings, etc. All of that data must be unified and analyzed with AI using advanced machine learning methods that have been developed within the last 5 – 10 years. The data in today’s CRM systems is not sufficient for AI, and they were not built with architectures designed to aggregate, unify, and apply machine learning to petabyte-scale volumes of disparate, structured, and unstructured data. You can’t simply bolt these capabilities onto traditional CRM systems as an afterthought—it requires a modern AI-first architecture.
Alysa: We see the same trend, with the volume of data just growing exponentially. For organizations to succeed in this climate, they need to do two things. First, they need to aggregate data from across their organization and leveraging the external data Ed talks about. With that, they can access a 360-degree view of their customers and indeed, their entire operation. Second, they need a solution that applies intelligence to the entirety of that data estate, so they can quickly make decisions that generate new value for their organizations and deliver exceptional experiences for their customers.
On top of that, we have seen that the definition of CRM has broadened—it’s not just about salesforce automation anymore. Organizations need solutions that allow them to understand and optimize the broader customer engagement journey, from marketing and sales all the way to back-end service and support, taking advantage of that unified approach to data and pervasive AI.
Amit:The antiquated model of static, siloed customer profiles do not work anymore. Legacy CRM products were not designed to aggregate, unify, and apply advanced machine learning models to today’s massive, disparate data sets. For today’s digital businesses, it’s not enough to have the most data, you need the right data—behavioral, transactional, and operational—to understand your customer, and the intelligence to act on it in the moment.
Why did C3.ai partner with Microsoft and Adobe to build the world’s first AI CRM application for industries?
Ed: C3.ai, Microsoft, and Adobe bring together the perfect combination of technology, industry, and domain expertise to address the requirements for a new generation of CRM. No technology company has a greater footprint and credibility in the enterprise globally than Microsoft with its ecosystem of Microsoft Dynamics 365 business applications, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and Microsoft Power Platform, powered by Microsoft Azure. And Adobe has set the standard for the customer digital experience with Adobe Experience Cloud. C3.ai brings expertise in industry-specific Enterprise AI and, of course, a management team with deep experience in CRM.
Importantly, in addition to this combination of leading technologies and expertise, we share a common vision with our partners of an AI-first, industry-specific approach to delivering a new generation of AI CRM solutions. There is an enormous opportunity to reinvent CRM for the 21st century, leveraging technologies that did not exist when today’s CRM products were designed, to bring exciting new capabilities to customers that will enable them, in turn, to deliver better experiences for their customers and grow their business.
Alysa: We have had a longstanding partnership collaborating with C3.ai in the enterprise AI space, most recently this spring announcing how C3.ai adopted and deployed Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and Microsoft Teams in less than two weeks to help streamline sales operations, collaborate in real time, expand mobile capabilities to power remote selling and generate new business opportunities. We’re excited to deepen that partnership with this announcement, allowing our mutual customers to leverage the combined power of Azure, C3.ai, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and the Adobe Experience Cloud. Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers a full portfolio of intelligent business applications. By integrating C3.ai’s industry-specific data and AI models and Adobe’s best-in-class customer experience engine, our customers will realize even greater value from Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Amit: Digital transformation has taken on a heightened urgency. Customer journeys are complex, and they expect consistent, personalized experiences across every touch point. To deliver those personalized experiences, brands are challenged to bring together disparate data sets. Bringing together Adobe’s customer experience leadership with C3.ai’s deep AI expertise and Microsoft’s CRM platform enables a new caliber of customer engagement by fusing behavioral data into customer profiles, orchestrating customer journeys and delivering real-time customer experiences.
How does this solution leverage the Open Data Initiative (ODI)?
Alysa: The work on ODI continues, and today’s announcement with C3.ai is another example of how, together with Adobe, we are delivering progress on the vision that drives ODI. The momentum we have gained is exciting, and our work continues to be validated by partners like C3.ai who share our desire to help organizations put their data to work quickly, removing friction, and derive value from their data—particularly when that data is siloed across multiple systems and sources. We’re excited to see how ODI will continue to help companies transform their customer experiences through real-time insights delivered from the cloud.
Amit: We’re excited about the momentum we’ve gained with ODI, and our work continues to be validated by partners such as C3.ai who share our desire to help organizations put their data to work quickly, removing friction and deriving value.
What customer outcomes will C3 AI CRM powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Adobe Experience Cloud deliver?
Ed: Bringing an AI-first, industry-specific approach, C3 AI CRM delivers a precision system of intelligence that unlocks powerful new capabilities for customers. Consider revenue forecasting, for example. We can now unify and analyze extraprise data—SEC filings, equities prices, market data, and so on—to create far more accurate forecasts. Similarly, whatever the use case – intelligent lead prospecting, next-best-product offer, price optimization, customer churn management, etc.—we can analyze massive volumes of data, make predictions, and generate recommendations to augment human agents or trigger automated processes.
By using C3 AI CRM powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Adobe Experience Cloud, our customers will be able to better anticipate their customers’ needs and deliver more satisfying customer experiences—more personalized, more efficient, more intelligent—while increasing revenue, profitability, and customer loyalty. This is the future of CRM.
Amit: Every organization has processes that can be improved quickly with the right kind of AI. Organizations that are finding the most value from AI have moved beyond pilots to scale AI across their entire organization and are using AI to find new ways to work smarter and drive efficiencies to increasing cost pressures. Joint customers can transform sales, marketing, and customer experiences with a new AI-native technology stack that brings together real-time customer profile, journey management, and experience delivery from Adobe, sales intelligence, and insight from Dynamics 365 CRM, as well as deep industry AI expertise from C3.ai. For example, in financial services, C3 AI can help with credit prospecting, churn management, and call center predictions. In manufacturing, use cases include dealer management and predictive maintenance and service. In the public sector, AI can be applied across case and process management, as well as citizen engagement, and can guide safety and sustainability practices within cities.
How does this partnership bring CXM value to brands?
Amit: Across every industry, whether it’s business-to-business or business-to-consumer, people aren’t just buying products. They’re buying experiences. Consumers today have more avenues than ever before to engage and interact with brands and they expect personalized experiences across every touchpoint. However, brands are struggling to deliver these experiences. Data, such as purchase history, used to craft a bespoke customer experience has many owners within an organization, creating an incomplete view of each customer, and, ultimately, an underwhelming experience. Winning brands must be able to capture, analyze, and act on everything they know about their customers in real time in order to deliver the best experience possible. Adobe brings leadership in CXM with Adobe Experience Cloud, the end-to-end solution for experience creation, marketing, advertising, analytics, and commerce. And by bringing together Adobe’s leadership with C3.ai’s deep AI expertise and Microsoft’s CRM platform, we’re delivering a new caliber of customer engagement.
How are ISVs like C3.ai partnering with Microsoft and Adobe?
Alysa: Microsoft attracts ISVs of all shapes and sizes to build on and extend the Microsoft cloud with industry-specific line-of-business applications. Unlike other business application platforms, Microsoft eliminates the traditional silos of ERP and CRM and empowers ISVs to build without limitation. With our Business Applications ISV Connect Program, ISVs like C3.ai can access go-to-market support and sales resources along with the technical foundation that allows them to build on the intelligent capabilities of the entire Microsoft cloud.
As long-time readers of this very site will be aware, Chris Scullionreally knows his stuff. That’s why we get him to fill these hallowed pages with lovely words; he’s something of a boffin when it comes to the world of Nintendo, having worked at Official Nintendo Magazine during its heyday.
Scullion has been putting his massive gaming-focused noggin to good use in other ways, too – he penned the utterly superb NES Encyclopedia a while back, and has returned in 2020 with a follow-up tome which performs the same trick, this time looking at every game released on the massively popular Super Nintendo (in the west, at least). Including all of the Japanese titles would have been nice – especially as there are a great many amazing titles which never made it to the west – but given that most people will have only played North American and European titles back in the day, it’s not a deal-breaker.
Even without Japanese releases, the book covers a whopping 780 games, each one with its own description, screenshot and fun factoid. Some of the bigger releases have box art, too, and there’s a bonus Virtual Boy section at the back which details the 22 games released for that ill-fated console.
Like the NES book, this proves to be an exhaustive reference when it comes to picking out the very best SNES titles, so if you’re a newcomer to the format, then leafing through its 264 pages is going to be a revelatory experience – as well as highly entertaining, as Scullion’s writing is infused with plenty of humour.
However, unlike a lot of gaming writers who trade laughs for knowledge, Scullion clearly knows his stuff and does an excellent job of summing up precisely why you should (or shouldn’t) seek out a particular game. While we all have fond memories of titles such as Super Mario World, Zelda: Link to the Past and Secret of Mana, there are a shocking number of duds on Nintendo’s 16-bit powerhouse, so Scullion’s book should help you pick out the gems and avoid the duffers.
Just like its predecessor, the SNES Encyclopedia comes in hardback format and is printed on high-quality, glossy paper stock, making it the ideal coffee-table tome for anyone who is even remotely interested in video games or Nintendo consoles. Scullion’s next project tackles the SNES’ rival, the Mega Drive / Genesis, and we can’t wait to get our hands on that.
Please note that some external links on this page are affiliate links, which means if you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 10-27-2020, 04:41 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Twitch Continues To Get Criticized By Music Industry
In the past months, Twitch has struggled with onslaughts of DMCA takedown notices and the use of non-licensed music on the platform. The company recently set up a Twitch Soundtrack service to offer licensed music to streamers, but some music organizations aren't convinced that Twitch is taking the necessary steps to address the issues.
According to Variety, Twitch and its parent company Amazon received a letter signed by major US music institutions, including RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America. It accuses the platform of letting streamers ignore copyright laws and failing to secure the proper copyright licenses for the Soundtrack tool.
The letter claims that Twitch did not get synch (audio-only use) and mechanical (video use) licenses for Soundtrack. It also asserts that Twitch "allow[s] and enabl[es] its streamers to use our respective members' music without authorization, in violation of Twitch's music guidelines." The letter elaborates, "Twitch appears to do nothing in response to the thousands of notices of music infringement that it has received nor does it currently even acknowledge that it received them, as it has done in the past."
How to Install PIL/Pillow in Python? A Helpful Illustrated Guide
PIL is an abbreviation of Python Imaging Library and it adds image processing to Python. In 2011, PIL has been discontinued—its unofficial successor framework Pillow for image processing is an actively maintained and user-friendly alternative for Python 3.
pip install Pillow
Let’s dive into the installation guides for the different operating systems and environments!
How to Install Pillow on Windows?
To install the updated Pillow framework on your Windows machine, run the following code in your command line or Powershell:
The simplest way to install Pillow in PyCharm is to open the terminal tab and run the following command:
pip install Pillow
Here’s a screenshot with the two steps:
Open Terminal tab in Pycharm
Run pip install Pillow in the terminal to install Pillow in a virtual environment.
As an alternative, you can also search for Pillow in the package manager. However, this is usually an inferior way to install packages because it involves more steps.
How to Install Pillow in Anaconda?
You can install the Pillow package with Conda using the following command in your shell:
conda install -c anaconda pillow
This assumes you’ve already installed conda on your computer. If you haven’t check out the installation steps on the official page.
Where to Go From Here?
Enough theory, let’s get some practice!
To become successful in coding, you need to get out there and solve real problems for real people. That’s how you can become a six-figure earner easily. And that’s how you polish the skills you really need in practice. After all, what’s the use of learning theory that nobody ever needs?
Practice projects is how you sharpen your saw in coding!
Do you want to become a code master by focusing on practical code projects that actually earn you money and solve problems for people?
Then become a Python freelance developer! It’s the best way of approaching the task of improving your Python skills—even if you are a complete beginner.
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Earlier this week the first beta of Godot 3.2.4 was released bringing several fixes and improvements as well as a few new features.
The primary features of the first Godot 3.2.4 beta from the Godot blog include:
Android App Bundle and subview embedding support.
2D batching for GLES3 (remember that we added it for GLES2 in 3.2.2), and improvements to GLES2’s batching.
A new software skinning for MeshInstance to replace the slow GPU skinning on devices that don’t support the fast GPU skinning (especially mobile).
Several smaller fixes and improvements
Downloads for all major platforms are available for download here. The major new feature of most interest to me is the new sprite batching, an optimization trick to improve 2D rendering speeds. In the video below we run the popular Bunnymark test on Godot 3.2.3 and the new Godot 3.2.4 and we saw respectable improvements.
During the video, you’ll get a closer look at how we’ve made it faster than ever to get into your games, how games on the next generation of Xbox look better and play better than ever before, and how the Xbox app keeps you connected to your console and friends, even when you’re not home. From the new dashboard experience and our new Xbox Wireless Controller to next-gen game optimizations and storage solutions, this video will give you a look at everything you can expect from Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.
