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Update: NIS America says that it's still investigating the issue with Cold Steel IV pre-orders. No timeframe for when we can expect a fix has been given, and we still don't really know what the problem is, or why it's taken this long to correct a PlayStation Store issue. We'll continue to update this article as we learn more. Original Story: It seems NIS America and PlayStation have a bit of a sh*tstorm on their hands when it comes to Trails of Cold Steel IV. The role-playing title is out today in North America and Europe on PS4 (that's the 27th October), but some fans can't even begin their download. Those who pre-ordered the game on the PlayStation Store are unable to actually download it, as if the pre-order itself hasn't unlocked properly. It's unclear who's responsible for this, but series fans have been swarming both NISA and PlayStation support on social media in search of answers. Right now, all we have to go on is this single tweet from the aforementioned publisher, which is from 17 hours ago (at the time of writing): NISA has provided no further updates on the situation. To be clear, those who haven't pre-ordered can still buy the game digitally with zero issues. But if you try to do so with a pre-order already in place on your account, you simply won't be able to. Again, it's a total mess. And it really is a shame that this is happening. We played through Cold Steel IV recently for review, and we liked it a lot. Hopefully this whole thing gets sorted out sooner rather than later.

America’s top tech companies are pushing for a software-based approach to building 5G telecom networks that could help the United States and its allies get past the hardware-based leadership position that China’s Huawei currently holds. “We have a point of view which is now pervasive in the industry that the way you will ultimately build out the 5G and beyond infrastructure is not a legacy telco model,” said John Roese, the chief technology officer at Dell Technologies, referring to traditional telecom companies that provide all the equipment needed to operate a network in a proprietary black box. The new idea is to “disaggregate that infrastructure, to open it up, to software define it and run a nonstandardized hardware” to operate the open radio access networks, or RAN, that power cellular technology, Roese told CQ Roll Call in a recent interview. Dell, AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, China Mobile, Microsoft, Cisco, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung and other top tech companies around the world are part of the O-RAN Alliance to push the United States and other governments to break away from proprietary telecom networks and embrace virtual telecom models. The idea behind virtual telecom models is that you can develop software that takes on the functions currently delivered by proprietary hardware and therefore the new systems can be run on widely available cloud-based servers. A radio access network is an essential element of a mobile telecommunication system that connects user devices such as computers, smartphones and tablets to the core part of a network. In modern telecom systems, the “radio” is typically a silicon chip that resides on both a user device as well as the core network. In a traditional model, the radio chip is part of proprietary hardware that is supplied by telecom providers. But that could change with the arrival of so-called open radio access networks. The push to break the traditional telecom model comes after a yearlong effort by the Trump administration to persuade allies not to adopt Huawei’s 5G networks because of fears that Beijing could eavesdrop on network traffic. Loss of leadership After years of inaction, Congress, the White House and federal agencies such as the Pentagon and the Federal Communications Commission also have woken up to the fact that U.S. global telecom leadership had disappeared in a flurry of mergers and acquisitions through the 2000s, leaving it to rely on European companies or China. But the Trump administration hasn’t fully embraced the idea of backing virtual telecom networks. While White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow has pushed for the software-based approach, Attorney General William Barr, who once worked for Verizon and was general counsel for GTE, in February dismissed the open radio access network idea as “pie in the sky.” In May, Barr issued a statement saying that the technology was not an immediate solution but should be studied. The United States is facing a multipronged problem when it comes to the next-generation telecom network, said Melanie Hart, a China specialist at the Center for American Progress. “We have a Huawei problem, where China is using every lever of state power” to help the company achieve global dominance in 5G, Hart said. The telecom industry’s oligopolistic structure poses another problem that discourages interoperability without common standards, she said. “If you want to get in on the network, the radio access network is critical, and it’s a cartel.” And lastly, the United States “has not made the investments at home to ensure that fundamental areas of technological innovation and global supply chains that lie at the nexus of telecom and national security” are being addressed, Hart said. “Now, we see Congress trying to play catch-up. That’s something we have neglected at least since the early 2000s.” One of the impediments to experimenting with software-based networks is that telecom providers such as AT&T and Verizon are risk averse and unlikely to invest in new approaches without knowing if they would pay off, she said. Pentagon help The House’s fiscal 2021 Pentagon policy bill proposes that the Defense Department demonstrate at military bases the use of a software-based 5G network using a virtualized radio access network — in other words, a network whose core functions are driven by software rather than proprietary hardware. Working with telecom companies, the Pentagon can “ensure that this technology is a viable contender for commercial 5G network deployments,” lawmakers wrote in the committee report accompanying the legislation. The next administration could expand such experiments by seeking federal funding to help high schools and universities in rural America try out a software-based approach to 5G connectivity, Hart said. If successful, the United States could then provide international loans to help poor countries in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere adopt similar approaches, she said. Lawmakers also have proposed bills to boost support for domestic manufacturing of semiconductor chips that would be essential to software-based telecom networks. Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, introduced their bill in June, and a companion bill in the House was proposed by Reps. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas. The FCC also held a forum last month in which Roese and other tech executives called for the commission and other U.S. agencies to back a software-based approach to 5G. The use of open radio access networks would offer multiple benefits, Sachin Katti, vice president of strategy at VM Ware, said at the FCC event. It would lead to the creation of a virtual radio network, and “I think it’ll really open the door for a tremendous amount of hardware innovation to come in” because with a virtual network one can use different hardware configurations and “run the radio network essentially as an app or a software on top of it,” Katti said. VM Ware is a unit of Dell. Open radio access networks and virtualized networks already have been proven to be effective and secure, Tareq Amin, the chief technology officer of Rakuten Mobile, an offshoot of Japan’s e-commerce giant Rakuten, said at the FCC forum. The company was set to go with Huawei’s 5G equipment but changed direction and chose to adopt the open radio approach, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said. Amin said more than 6,000 5G base stations in Japan already were operating with Rakuten’s virtual network model and the company planned to provide 5G coverage to 70 percent of the country’s po[CENSORED]tion by March 2021.The open, software-based network provides “full visibility, transparency,” into not only the source of the software but also all of the hardware components, Amin said. Although the Trump administration has focused its efforts on stopping Huawei’s global reach, that is not enough, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said. “Restrictions on Huawei and ZTE are a minor fix for a much larger problem,” Rosenworcel said, citing the two Chinese telecom companies targeted by the Trump administration. “That’s because the 5G cybersecurity challenge is much bigger than simply dealing with a few Chinese companies,” and the United States must embrace the open radio approach and provide federal funds for American companies, she said.

Sapphire is no stranger to thinking outside of the box when it comes to their graphics card designs. They were one of the first to go all-in on vapor chamber cooling back in their Vapor-X days, they went wild with flowthrough designs for the Fury cards, and they really went to town on the R9 285 with an ITX version. Now they've taken that passion and delivered on the baby Navi 14 chip with their small form factor focused Sapphire Pulse RX 5500 XT SF. The design of the Sapphire Pulse RX 5500 XT SF delivers the full RX 5500 XT design in just 177.2mm in length. Staying within the 2 slot design signature of their Pulse cards means the owner doesn't have to make concessions with most small form factor cases on the market. Taking the cooling aspect down a notch from the full-size Pulse RX 5500 XT we see the SF sporting aa single fan cooler but as cool as the Navi 14 die runs it shouldn't have any trouble keeping the 135w TDP in check. One thing that might have been a good move for the SFF crown would have been if the 8-pin PCIe power connector was on the rear of the card. When it comes to speeds and feeds of the Sapphire Pulse RX 5500 XT SF we see basically the same specifications as the full-size Pulse RX 5500 XT with the 1408 Navi based Stream Processors running at a Base Block speed of 1685MHz, a Game Clock of 1737MHz, and a Boost Clock of 1845MHz. This model is available in both 4GB and 8GB models, both in the 14Gbps flavor on the 128-bit bus resulting in a memory bandwidth of 224GB/s making 1080p gaming a breeze. I know we're on the cusp of a new lineup coming from the Red Team but it could be some time still before we see the more cost-conscious crowd getting some attention. While I applaud Sapphire for delivering something unique to the SFF enthusiasts I can't help but wonder why not go wild and do this with the 5600XT?

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/ae0809ff-34c4-4067-959a-cb6cf72d8da3 Volkswagen chief executive Herbert Diess has abandoned attempts to secure more stimulus for the auto industry after the world’s largest carmaker enjoyed a stronger-than-expected recovery in sales across western Europe and China. “If we don’t face a second lockdown or further economic slump, I would argue that there’s no need for another purchasing incentive,” Mr Diess, who lobbied loudly for subsidies in Germany at the start of the pandemic, told the Financial Times. Although the EU car market has contracted by almost 30 per cent so far this year, VW’s sales in western Europe climbed more than 10 per cent in September, during which it delivered more than 300,000 vehicles in the region. VW’s sales in China, its largest market, were up almost 1 per cent in September from the same month last year. At its delayed annual general meeting at the end of September, VW forecast that the upswing in orders would help it post a profit in 2020. The company is due to announce its full quarterly results on Thursday. “There were a lot of incentives out there for electric cars and plug-in hybrids in Germany and all over Europe, and it worked,” Mr Diess conceded of the stimulus governments introduced early in the pandemic. The verdict from Mr Diess came after Ola Kallenius, the chief executive of rival Daimler, also dismissed the need for further stimulus even as much of Europe grapples with a new rise in coronavirus cases. Daimler’s net profits increased almost 20 per cent in the third quarter of the year, to almost €2.2bn, as Mercedes-Benz sales in China grew more than 23 per cent in the period — a development Mr Kallenius described as “almost too Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/ae0809ff-34c4-4067-959a-cb6cf72d8da3 Germany’s once-powerful auto lobby was pushing for comprehensive stimulus for the industry as recently as June, asking Berlin to repeat a €5bn scheme rolled out in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, which provided an incentive for the purchase of new vehicles and helped the sector reach record sales levels. Mr Diess was heavily criticised for appearing on German national television in April, calling for an “urgent stimulus package” in the EU’s largest car market that would subsidise purchases of combustion engine vehicles, even as VW enrolled tens of thousands of workers in state-sponsored furlough schemes. “It wasn’t very skilful of him,” said a person familiar with the thinking of one of VW’s key investors, as politicians poured scorn on the Wolfsburg-based group’s decision to go cap-in-hand to Berlin while planning to pay more than €2bn in dividends. Monika Schnitzer, an economic adviser to the German government, argued at the time that the country’s carmakers were “in good shape” despite coronavirus-induced shutdowns, and warned that reviving the economy via a single industry was a “dangerous situation”. Ultimately, the German government opted to only increase subsidies for the purchases of new electric vehicles, and a reduction in Mehrwertsteuer, or VAT. But Mr Diess defended his original decision to call for the stimulus. “In light of the sudden standstill of the economy in the spring, I was pushing for car buying incentives because such a big part of the German economy depends on the car sector,” he said. “The argument was that if you want to stimulate the German economy quickly, the auto sector provides the best lever because Germany is so much into automotive production, development and retail,” he added.

A video attacking Chancellor Rishi Sunak's "lavish celebrity lifestyle" has sparked a row on social media. The video, by a new pro-Labour campaign group, targets Mr Sunak's personal wealth and accuses him of planning tax cuts for "his old mates in the City". Tory former Chancellor Sajid Javid responded to it by saying: "The Left really, really do detest ethnic-minority Tory Cabinet ministers." Conservative peer Baroness Warsi took issue with Mr Javid's criticism. "That's not universally true Sajid," she tweeted. "Don't think the left 'detested' me when I was a Tory Cabinet minister although many on the right did/ still do for holding a mirror up to racism within our ranks." Online election ads - who is targeting whom? The obscure groups buying up Facebook election ads But Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly said the attack video followed a "pattern", tweeting: "The left really don't like us BAME people being successful, do they." And Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the foreign affairs committee, said: "I don't remember seeing videos like this about [former Tory chancellor] Phillip Hammond who was also very wealthy but somehow Rishi Sunak is different." The group behind the video, One Rule For Them, hit back at suggestions Mr Sunak had been singled out because of his ethnicity, saying: "We make videos about our political opponents on the merit of their decisions." 'Political start-up' The group said it had also made an attack ad focusing on Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his adviser Dominic Cummings. One Rule For Them's founder, former Labour Party advisor and campaign organiser Adam McNicholas, has accused the party under Sir Keir Starmer of not being aggressive enough in its attacks on political opponents. Mr McNicholas described One Rule For Them as "a grassroots political start up", which would be "working independent of political parties with the sole focus of defeating the Tories in marginal seats". He added: "We are crowdfunding to raise money to run campaigns in target seats. "We will continue to target politicians - national and local - where they think the rules don't apply to them and where they are responsible for regressive policies like denying kids free school meals during the school holidays and cutting income support by £1,000 per year for low income workers during the pandemic." Non-party campaign groups have grown in influence in recent years. Momentum, which was set up to support Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party, spent £500,458 on campaigning in the run up to last year's general election. Mr McNicholas said his new group had no formal links to the Labour Party. "I have friends who work for Labour so I talk to people who work for Labour but the project is entirely independent. It's me and my team of volunteers," he told BBC News.

The new TVision service will launch starting on Nov. 1, available on existing TV and mobile devices in addition to the new TVision HUB Android TV device, at right. (T-Mobile Photos) T-Mobile unveiled an overhauled version of its TVision television service on Tuesday morning, along with a new TV streaming device, launching a new challenge to the cable industry and jumping into a crowded and competitive field of video platforms. The revamped TV service is one of the first big competitive moves by the Bellevue, Wash., based wireless carrier following the completion of its $26.5 billion merger with Sprint earlier this year. It’s part of T-Mobile’s broader push beyond traditional wireless services, which also includes a move into 5G home Internet service. Packages include a collection of live news and sports channels for $40/month, including ESPN, Fox, Disney and others, with additional content at higher tiers, up to $60/month total. A package of 30 entertainment channels such as AMC, BET, HGTV and others starts at $10/month. TVision will be available via dedicated apps on Apple TV, Android TV, and Amazon Fire TV boxes, in addition to apps for Android and iOS devices. The TVision HUB device and remote control will sell for $50. It’s an Android TV device, which plugs in via HDMI, allowing users to access TVision and other services. T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert, the longtime T-Mobile executive who took the helm of the company earlier this year, continued the trash-talking tradition started by his predecessor, John Legere, in the announcement Tuesday morning, taking a series of competitive jabs at the big cable companies. “If ever there was an industry that needed an Un-carrier overhaul, it’s cable and satellite TV,” Sievert said, using the company’s term for its disruptive moves in the wireless industry. “I mean, it’s no secret why these companies are dying, they treat their customers so badly.” The announcement plays into a larger shift by consumers away from traditional cable packages and toward smaller packages of channels and streaming services. In addition to trying to siphon its share of customers from cable companies, T-Mobile will be going head-to-head against similar live TV and streaming services such as Google’s YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, Dish Network’s Sling TV, and AT&T’s TV Now. T-Mobile compared its $50/month TVision Live TV+ service (with sports channels including NFL Network) to the standard $65/month YouTube TV plan. However, YouTube TV offers additional perks such as unlimited cloud DVR storage, while T-Mobile limits cloud DVR storage to 100 hours. One of T-Mobile’s competitive advantages is its network of stores across the country, which the company says will sell and support the TVision service. The new TVision is set to launch in phases starting Nov. 1, beginning with T-Mobile postpaid wireless customers, before becoming generally available next year. It’s a successor to a higher-priced offering that the company launched last year based on technology from Layer3 TV, the Denver-based company that T-Mobile acquired for $325 million in late 2017. [T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert will join us at the GeekWire Summit later this week for a conversation about T-Mobile and the future of tech and telecom.]

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Roughly two and a half weeks before its release, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War already has a launch trailer. That's slightly unusual given the fact that these marketing drops usually work in tandem with the actual release of a game, but here we are. The minute-long slice of footage focuses entirely on the campaign for the upcoming PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 title, which just so happens to be the mode we're interested in most. That's because the multiplayer portion feels off and a recent PS4 beta did very little to change those impressions. Let's hope the final product is much better, but then even if it's not, we've got a full Zombies mode to look forward to. It could basically be its own game at this point. Are you hyped for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War? Make it the first PS5 game you'll play in the comments below.

Microsoft has announced that its tool to create surveys and quizzes is now available to all users after previously only being available to business and education users. Microsoft Forms enables users to create a survey or quiz on any topic and the tool works on any device via the web and through the Office mobile app. In a blog post announcing that Forms is now available to all users, the software giant suggests that it can be used to gather input and make plans for a variety of events from group exercise sessions to holiday gatherings or even to host a virtual trivia night with friends from any location. We've put together a list of the best survey tools for customer research These are the best customer feedback tools on the market Also check out our roundup of the best employee experience tools At the same time though, Microsoft Forms can even be used in virtual classrooms to engage with students or to create fun and interactive quizzes with the option to add video. Related Videos Microsoft Forms While Microsoft Forms is now available for free for anyone with a Microsoft account, Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers can add more respondents to their surveys or quizzes and make use of additional templates. As Forms leverages built-in AI intelligence, the tool does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to creating surveys or quizzes by making smart template suggestions as users work including recommending themes as well as adding extra questions and answer options based on what users type in the title. Even free users of Microsoft Forms have a dozen templates available to work with for invitations from holiday and birthday parties, feedback surveys and even a t-shirt size sign-up form to help with team orders. These themes vary from events to holidays, travel, learning, food and more but you can also use your own photos to personalize your form. Once your form is ready to go, you can share it via a link or QR code that can be accessed from virtually any device at any time. Once the results are in, you can also export them directly to Excel for additional analysis. We've also highlighted the best Q&A and polling platforms

NVIDIA's next GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, has just leaked out along with its full specifications through a public validation made within GPU-Z. The GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is expected to be a mainstream offering for gamers which should be priced around $400 US range. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Full Specs Leak Out, 4864 Cores & 8 GB VRAM, Also Listed For Pre-Orders In China For Around $399 US The validation was spotted by the editor of TechPowerUp's GPU & CPU database, Matthew Smith. The NVIThe GA104-200 GPU on the NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ti graphics card features 4864 CUDA Cores, 80 ROPs, clock speeds 1410 MHz base, and 1665 MHz boost. Based on the specs, the card should deliver an effective compute horsepower of 16.2 TFLOPs. These are also the default clock speeds for the card so it is likely that we are looking at a stock clocked variant rather than a custom design.DIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is currently an unreleased graphics card which unlike the GeForce RTX 3070 has yet to be announced. NVIDIA is most likely going to announce the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti sometime after the GeForce RTX 3070 in November with availability expected either during next month or by early December to tackle AMD's Radeon RX 6700 series lineup based on the Navi 22 GPUs.NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Full Specifications: Coming to the specifications, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti was submitted for validation by an anonymous user on 25th October. According to GPU-Z, the specifications feature the GA104 GPU which confirms that this is the second GPU to feature the said chip. There's no specific variant or SKU number mentioned but previous reports have hinted at the GA104-200 SKU for the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. For memory, the graphics card will feature 8 GB of GDDR6 memory which will be running across a 256-bit bus interface. The memory clock for the GDDR6 memory would be maintained at 1750 MHz or 14 Gbps effective which rounds up a total bandwidth of 448 GB/s. The pixel and texture fillrate are both reported at 133.2 GPixel/s & 674.3 GTexel/s, respectively. NVIDIA RTX 3060 Ti Already Listed For Pre-Orders in China For Around $400 US In news related to the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics card, Twitter fellow Avery78 (via Videocardz has spotted several pre-order listings for the card. The cards were listed by various retailers and sellers over at Chinese Taobao outlet and have been listed for pre-order prices which range from 2049 to 2999 Chinese Yuans which equals around $300-$450 US. Now, these aren't official NVIDIA prices, and such early pre-orders are known to be inflated by a huge factor. We have already seen several custom variants being worked on by NVIDIA's AIB partners which will definitely be available at launch.One of the sellers has also pointed out that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti stock should arrive after November which means an early December retail launch however he could also be talking about his own stock rather than the official retail launch. That much needs to be confirmed but it is likelly that NVIDIA is going to announce its upcoming cards sooner or later after AMD unveils its RX 6000 series graphics cards tomorrow on 28th October.

Auto Trader has recognised top dealers in it’s retailer awards. The top accolade, the Retailer of the Year, was awarded to three businesses representing the very best in the automotive retailing sector: Cedar Specialist Cars (under 50 cars); Alex Scott Cars (50-100 cars); and Luscombe Motors (over 100 cars), who were previous winners of the title in 2018. The Awards recognised the top performing automotive retailers in the UK across seven different award categories, including the Customer Experience Award. Based on one of the largest mystery shopping exercises of its type, the category saw 1,000 of Auto Trader’s best performing retailers gradually whittled down to just three deserving winners via three mystery shopping phases: email (1,000 retailers), telephone (434 retailers) and a personalised video tour of a car (150 retailers) which given the current situation replaced a face-to-face forecourt interaction. The winners were: Harvey Cooper Cars (under 50 cars) Martin Brothers Motor Group (50-100 cars); and The Donalds Group (over 100 cars). Auto Trader’s chief executive officer, Nathan Coe, said: “The automotive industry is by nature, incredibly resilient, but we’ve been amazed at just how successful some retailers have been at adapting to the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19. “We’ve seen examples of businesses who have truly gone the extra mile to respond to changing consumer behaviour and expectations, not just making the car buying process easier and more efficient, but safer too. “We’ve also been hugely inspired by leadership teams that have taken equally bold steps to protect their colleagues and to instil rewarding and collaborative working cultures. “In this climate we think it’s more important than ever to step back and to recognise true retailing excellence. And based on the most comprehensive judging process, there is no doubt that this year’s winners are incredibly deserving and truly represent the very best of our industry.”

Life is good in the Okanagan all year-round and at Vernon’s celebrated Seasons new home community, it’s even better. The final phase of new homes is underway at Seasons in the Okanagan, a new community boasting spectacular views over Okanagan Lake. Designed as a vibrant, diverse neighbourhood of single-family homes, a selection of seven floorplans makes it easy to select the perfect home to suit your lifestyle. Starting at $609,900, the homes are built by Everton Ridge Homes to exacting standards of quality. New home owners can choose between upper living floor plans and bungalow walk-outs, and between Prairie and Craftsman-design exterior, customizing floor plans and personalizing selections with attractive flooring, cabinet and other selection items. The location you love The Upper Seasons Community offers both well-appointed homes in an inviting setting for daily living, and a sought-after location that really has people talking. “Our homebuyers truly love the location, with its convenient access to both the lake and downtown Vernon, with all the opportunities that affords, including shopping, dining and cultural pursuits,” notes Jacob Kuiken, president of Everton Ridge Homes. The proximity to the lake and marina is ideal for those who love life on the water, or enjoy a scenic cycle or hike through the picturesque Okanagan countryside. With membership at the Seasons Recreational Facility Club, residents will experience the Okanagan lifestyle right at home, including a heated swimming pool, pickleball court, crafts area, and community activities, not to mention a well-equipped fitness centre to keep you active, regardless of the weather outside your front door. Discover your Season Construction is underway on the Seasons model home, and new homes to begin this spring for welcoming homeowners. In the meantime, visit the show home in the Turtle Mountain community, open at 5052 Turtle Pond Pl. from 12 to 4 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Explore the possibilities for your home today, including the option of personalizing the finishes. Learn more today at evertonridge.ca/seasons or call 778-475-0422. Reserve your favourite lot today before your new Seasons neighbour does!

Two economic indicators—the unemployment rate and the stock market—made headlines during the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency: The former fell to a 50-year low and the latter broke records to ascend to dizzying heights before the 11-year bull run ended on March 11. Presidencies are inextricably intertwined with economic performance in the minds of the public. While perceptions play a role in business optimism and consumer confidence, how much can any president take credit when the economy prospers? Or, how much can the public blame any president when it falters? Fiscal and monetary policies are the primary ways to influence the economy. Fiscal policy involves changing government spending or the tax structure. Government spending and revenue plans are laid out in the federal budget, a process initiated when the president submits a proposal to Congress with help from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). However, the budget resolutions later passed by the House and the Senate are different from this submission. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) was created in 1974 to limit the influence of the OMB on the budget process; the CBO conducts independent technical analysis of the economy, and Congress relies on it while formulating its budget proposals. What, then, is the role of the president in this process? The House and Senate budget committees propose their own resolutions based on the president’s budget, and the president’s priorities for federal programs can shape the conversation in the chambers. The president can also veto the finalized appropriations bill; while Congress can override the veto with a two-thirds vote in both chambers, the difficulty of that makes it more inclined to negotiate with the president. If the bill is not signed before the start of the fiscal year and the president refuses to sign a continuing resolution to fund federal agencies, the government shuts down. This has happened during four of the last five administrations. A shutdown is powerful leverage for the Oval Office, though it comes at a terrible cost. For example, the dispute between Trump and Congress over border-wall funding and the resulting 35-day shutdown, the longest in history, shuttered nine federal agencies. Businesses could not obtain required permits and certifications, private companies could not go public and loans were held up. The CBO estimated that the shutdown decreased federal spending by around $3 billion, lowering the growth rate by 0.2 percent in the last quarter of 2018 and 0.4 percent in the first quarter of 2019. Monetary policy refers to changing money supply to influence interest rates, which is usually done through the purchase and sale of Treasury bonds by the trading desk of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Roughly half of American households have credit card debt and homeownership is the primary way to build wealth in this country, so interest rates have wide-ranging consequences. Research shows that central bank independence and transparency are essential for effective monetary policy. If the government called the shots, then the pressure to print money and keep interest rates low would be significant. These dangers are well-documented; for instance, under Robert Mugabe’s administration, Zimbabwe printed banknotes that were Z$100 trillion in face value but still not enough to cover a bus fare. The Federal Reserve is headed by a seven-member Board of Governors. The U.S. president nominates board members and a chair and two vice chairs from among them, but the nominees must be confirmed by the Senate. The governors serve one 14-year term, with term expirations staggered so that presidents appoint only two governors during a single term in office. However, most governors leave to pursue other opportunities, and the median duration of serving on the board is just over five years. Trump has already filled three positions on the board, including two vice chairs, and there are two more vacancies he could fill. Once confirmed, governors cannot be removed except “for cause.” Trump also replaced Janet Yellen with Jerome Powell as the Fed chair. While they share similar views on monetary policy, Powell’s different approach to financial regulations made him an attractive choice for a president who ran on a platform of deregulation. Their relationship has been less rosy since Powell’s confirmation as he and Trump do not see eye-to-eye on interest rates. While the central bank continues to steer clear of politics, public criticism from the president makes it difficult to lower the interest rate when needed while also appearing independent. While there are multiple checks and balances on the executive branch when it comes to the economy, executive orders and presidential proclamations can have significant economic impacts. Examples include Trump’s downsizing of two national monuments in Utah and opening the land to mining and cattle grazing and withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Tariffs affect both consumers and producers through their impact on supply and prices, and Trump has used them as the primary tool in the trade war with China. Barack Obama used executive orders to increase federal employment of veterans, individuals with disabilities and recent graduates; accelerate broadband infrastructure deployment; and establish a minimum wage and paid sick leave for federal contractors. Before him, George W. Bush used them to directly negotiate trade deals bypassing Congress, expedite energy projects and promote regulatory reform and financial literacy. Simply being in the White House brings enormous visibility as the media picks up on the president’s remarks. Trump is the first president to use social media in a significant way to mobilize supporters and share his thoughts and decisions, and his tweets opposing coronavirus-induced lockdowns spurred demonstrations from those who wished to see the economy reopen quickly as well as action from some governors. However, the COVID-19 crisis also illustrates the limits of presidential power, when stocks slide and the president acknowledges that not much can be done except wait and “the market will take care of itself.” Ranajoy Ray-Chaudhuri is an assistant professor of economics at Muhlenberg.

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Pokemon Sword and Shield's Crown Tundra expansion is officially here. The DLC is now available to download around the world, and to celebrate its release, The Pokemon Company is giving away a special Pokemon to all Sword and Shield players: Ash's Pikachu. Or, more accurately, it's giving away eight Ash's Pikachu. All month long, players will be able to claim eight special Pikachu, each of which is wearing one of the different caps that Ash donned throughout the Pokemon anime series. A similar promotion was held following the launch of Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon back in 2018, so if you missed the Pikachu then, you'll have another chance to get them. These Pikachu will all be distributed via special passwords that will be gradually revealed across Pokemon's website and social media channels. Here are all the passwords that have been revealed so far: P1KACHUGET - Original Cap Pikachu 1CH00SEY0U - Pokemon: I Choose You Cap Pikachu P1KAADVANCE - Hoenn Cap Pikachu V0LTTACKLEP1KA - Sinnoh Cap Pikachu P1KABESTW1SH - Unova Cap Pikachu KAL0SP1KA - Kalos Cap Pikachu ULTRAP1KA - Alola Cap Pikachu To claim your free Pikachu, fire up your copy of Pokemon Sword or Shield and follow these steps: Open Mystery Gift from the game's menu screen Select Get Gift with Code/Password Follow the prompts to connect online Input the passwords when promptedThe Crown Tundra DLC released on October 22, and it takes players to a new arctic area where they'll head up an expedition team. The area is home to a variety of returning Pokemon, including every Legendary from past games. The Crown Tundra also introduces a new co-op mode called Dynamax Adventures; these expeditions have you team with up to three other players to explore Raid dens together, battling the different Dynamax Pokemon you encounter along the way.Beyond that, The Pokemon Company also reconfirmed that Pokemon Go compatibility is coming soon to Pokemon Home. The feature is due to arrive before the end of the year and will let you transfer Pokemon directly from Go to Home. You'll get a few free gifts for doing so. First, you'll receive the Mystery Box in Pokemon Go, which is used to summon the Mythical Pokemon Meltan in the wild. On top of that, you'll get a Melmetal that's capable of Gigantamaxing via Mystery Gift in Pokemon Home.

Michael Walkinshaw from TIMIA Capital notes that the acquisition demand for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies has become even stronger in a post COVID world. He states that there has been a noticeable increase in SaaS growth equity funding and M&A activity during the past few months. During Q2 2020, SaaS merger and acquisition (M&A) deal volume had dropped below 600 for “the first time since 2016,” Walkinshaw claims. But during Q3 2020, TIMIA Capital saw a considerable surge in M&A and growth-stage equity funding activity in their portfolio. The company acknowledged that their sample size is relatively small, however, early reports from the Software Equity Group seem to be consistent with their experience. Walkinshaw notes that a recent report from EY also revealed that 70% of investors are now expecting M&A activity to improve in the coming year. While explaining what might have led to a surge in SaaS M&A activity, Walkinshaw writes in a blog post: “COVID-19, while severely affecting the overall economy, had less of an impact on the technology sector—particularly the software sector. In the ‘new normal,’ companies everywhere put greater emphasis on strengthening their digital capabilities, processes, and workflows. As such, they relied on existing software to keep businesses going, reallocated travel and conference budgets to buy new software to support work-from-home scenarios, and invested in software to deliver remote or physically-distanced services. As a result, most software categories, with the exception of travel and entertainment, saw flat or growing revenue instead of declines.” As reported recently, Chargebee, an SaaS and e-commerce business subscription service, has secured $55 million through its series F investment round that was led by Insight Partners. Chargebee integrates with payment gateways such as Stripe, Braintree, PayPal to allow customers to automate recurring payment connections along with invoicing, taxes, accounting, email notifications, SaaS metrics, and customer management. Last month, Mirakl, a marketplace SaaS platform, secured $300 million through its latest investment round that was led by Permira. TIMIA Capital claims that most SaaS firms say they’re not experiencing any “abnormal customer churn rates” (after a few months into the pandemic). TIMIA added that its portfolio firms’ revenue curves went flat for a while and then began their ascent. While they might not have been acquiring customers at the same rate as before COVID, the majority of them were had still been reporting “new customer activity,” TIMIA’s management noted. Walkinshaw, CEO at TIMIA Capital, noted: “It wasn’t long before TIMIA decided to switch the investment machine back on again. It was refreshing to witness the robustness of the SaaS model. We were encouraged by the resilience of the B2B SaaS sector, in particular, and have greater certainty than ever in the model we have built.” He added: “All of this activity is focused on growth-stage companies. In our world, that means companies with annual revenue of $3 million or more. We have not seen the same robust activity for early-stage venture capital.” Despite the challenges resulting from the Coronavirus crisis, SaaS-focused businesses continue to engage in new partnerships. As reported in September 2020, integrated payment and commerce solutions provider Paya teamed up with SaaS firm CoverMe. Paya reported that through the partnership, CoverMe will increase efficiency for healthcare providers in processing payments, as well as give providers the ability to offer patients and their insurers more flexibility in paying for medical services. Sponsored Links by DQ Promote

More information regarding the clock speeds for the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT custom "Big Navi" graphics cards have leaked out by Patrick Schur. In his latest tweet, Patrick talks about the AMD Radeon graphics card, the ROG STRIX Radeon RX 6800 XT from ASUS, which reportedly comes with boost clocks beyond 2.5 GHz.ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 6800 XT With AMD's Big Navi "Navi 21 XT" GPU Reportedly Features Boost Clocks Beyond 2.5 GHz at 290W TGP The information is based on engineering board samples so final clocks and TGPs may vary but it is interesting just how far AIBs have managed to push AMD's Big Navi GPUs, even if internally. ASUS's ROG STRIX Radeon RX 6800 XT is the highlighted model today & there are three systems mentioned by Patrick that have been tested within 3DMark 11, all with variable clock speeds. The RX 6800 XT is reportedly running with a set TGP of 290W and a 1000 MHz memory clock which represents 16.00 Gbps memory dies. ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX 6800 XT Custom Graphics Card Reported Clocks: Average - 2291 / 2289 / 2092 MHz Median - 2373 / 2301 / 2320 MHz Max (Boost) - 2556 / 2394 / 2489 MHz There are also entries spotted by Patrick at 255W TGP which are also listed below: Average - 2298 / 1993 MHz Median - 2357 / 2342 MHz Max (Boost) - 2509 / 2557 MHz The first thing mentioned by the leaker is that the drivers had some issues which are why the clock speeds for the custom AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card are not as consistent as they should be. The large variances in average clock speeds should be resolved by the time the cards hit the market. Also, the difference between the 255W & 290W TGPs may not look much but it is possible that the higher TGP cards will deliver more overclocking head-room and stable clock speeds. 3DMark 11 isn't something that we should consider a heavy work-load for 2020's graphics cards so more recent applications need to be evaluated before these clock speeds can be represented for the final models. AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT “Big Navi” GPU Alleged 3DMark Benchmarks Leaked – Faster Than GeForce RTX 3080 at 4K, Slower In Port Royal Ray Tracing Once again, the 290W & 255W figures for the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics are TGPs that AMD basis on GPU and VRAM power alone. It is not the equivalent of NVIDIA's TGP which is the figure for the entire board. Igor had also stated this and a 290W TGP variant should effectively end up with a total board power of around 350-355 Watts. We are more or less getting the custom variants in November if these reports are accurate but the top variants from each AIB can be expected around the end of November or mid-December based on the availability of the Big Navi GPUs for AMD's Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card. AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT With Navi 21 XT & Radeon RX 6800 With Navi 21 XL GPUs The AMD Radeon RX 6800 series will feature two RDNA 2 based graphics cards, the Navi 21 "Big Navi" based Radeon RX 6800 XT and the Radeon RX 6800. The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT will come packed with the Navi 21 XT GPU which is a cut-down SKU featuring 72 Compute Units or 4608 SPs. The card will also feature 16 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit bus interface, a 512 GB/s total bandwidth, and clock speeds of 2015 MHz base and 2250 MHz boost at reference specs. Yesterday, it was reported that the Navi 21 XT could feature TBPs as high as 320W for reference and 355W for custom variants. The AMD Radeon RX 6800 graphics card will feature an even more cut down Navi 21 "Big Navi" GPU with 64 Compute Units of 4096 stream processors. The card will feature the same VRAM config of 16 GB GDDR6 memory, a 256-bit bus interface but it was reported that the card will end up with a slightly lower memory clock of 14 Gbps which will deliver a net bandwidth of 448 GB/s. The GPU is going to feature clock speeds of 1815 MHz game and 2105 MHz boost clocks at reference specs. It was also stated that the AMD Radeon RX 6800 with Navi 21 XL GPU could feature a TBP of 290W at stock clocks.AMD will officially be unveiling its RX 6000 series graphics card family on October 28th. The second half of 2020 would definitely be interesting times for all the hardware enthusiasts and mainstream PC gamers who are looking forward to upgrading their PCs with the best hardware.

Een fietsster is zondagmiddag aangereden door een auto in Noord-Scharwoude. De vrouw is naar het ziekenhuis gebracht. Ze reed met haar elektrische fiets over het fietspad langs de N504 toen een automobiliste vanaf de Voorburggracht de Ovaltonde op wilde rijden. Daarbij kwam de auto met de fietster in botsing.De vrouw ging onderuit en raakte gewond aan haar been. Ze is na de nodige eerste hulp door het ambulancepersoneel naar het ziekenhuis in Alkmaar gebracht.