AL_MAOT

NBA 2K21 has added a new feature--video ads that cannot be skipped. Stevivor reports that the game now features ads that will play between matches, and which you cannot skip through. These ads are for the Oculus Quest 2, and they've been spotted in the PS4, Xbox One, and PC versions of the game. This is a tactic we're used to seeing in free-to-play titles, but NBA 2K21 is a full-priced title--and depending on which version you bought, it can cost up to $100. Here's a video recorded by Stevivor of one of the ads playing in the game's MyTeam mode, which has now entered Season 2. 2K has tellingly added these ads well after reviews of the game has hit, which were already scored lower than previous entries in the series--GameSpot gave NBA 2K21 a 6/10. They also come weeks after players may have committed to purchasing the game. The NBA 2K series has already received criticism for its focus on monetization and microtransactions beyond the initial cost of the game--these ads will likely make things worse for the series' reputation. EA's UFC 4 similarly added--and then soon removed--unskippable ads between rounds.

> Opponent's nickname: @-Apex > Theme (must be an image): > Work Type: avatar > Size & Texts: 150×250 / Camera > How many total votes?: 11 > Work time: 2-3 Hours

Pune: Persistent Systems NSE 0.51 % will acquire Capiot Software and its subsidiaries in India, Australia and Singapore, the Pune-based IT services provider said on Thursday. Persistent will pay $5.45 million for the Palo Alto, California-based Capiot’s India operations and $0.89 million for its US business, it said. The deal is expected to close in two to four weeks. Capiot, founded in 2014, specializes in enterprise integration with expertise in MuleSoft, Red Hat and TIBCO. It also delivers enterprise modernization, with advanced proficiency in key partner platforms, frameworks and industry data models. During financial year 2019-20, Capiot had consolidated revenues of $6.28 million. “For enterprise IT to succeed in advancing business goals and sales, it must have a central integration platform to work across disparate applications and data sources. Capiot’s singular focus in enterprise integration with key platform players like MuleSoft and TIBCO coupled with proprietary frameworks and common data models have accelerated implementations, with many successful rollouts,” said Sandeep Kalra, President, Persistent Systems. “Their strong history in enterprise integration will provide many of our clients an immediate benefit and will help us solidify our Salesforce ecosystem capabilities,” he added. The acquisition further strengthens Persistent’s ability to provide enterprise integration strategy and advisory services to guide clients with their integration strategy, platform choice, and roadmap to meet business goals. It will also help in API-led integrations using specialists in the leading integration platforms coupled with frameworks and industry-specific common data models designed to accelerate business outcomes, and provide integration services to support changing business needs and innovation. Following the acquisition, certain key Capiot consultants and employees will be eligible for an additional deferred income of a cumulative maximum amount of $1 million per year over the next three years, contingent on retention of such employees and achievement of targets, and additional incentive of a cumulative maximum of $1 million in the first year for achieving certain revenue targets. Vasudeva Anumukonda, CEO of Capiot Software, said, “Since our inception, Capiot has been committed to delivering the best outcome for our clients in the area of enterprise and data integration. We are excited to become part of Persistent Systems and to bring our expertise in integrating cloud applications and our data API-fication offerings to further augment Persistent capabilities and to accelerate the outcome for our clients, providing broader solutions in an ever-changing landscape.”

One of the biggest multiplayer shooters of the generation could be coming to Xbox Game Pass, if the service's official Twitter account is hinting at what we think it is. Rainbow Six Siege has millions of players, and it looks like some more Xbox players are going to get access for free. A post on the Xbox Game Pass Twitter features no text, but instead an image of a massive six-band rainbow and a siege weapon placed outside a castle. That could be a big coincidence, but it almost certainly means the game is coming to Xbox Game Pass. Because Ubisoft is supporting free next-gen upgrades for Rainbow Six Siege and several other recent games, you'll likely be able to play the Xbox Series X and Series S version on the new systems, too. Now Playing: Rainbow Six Siege - Tachanka Rework Gameplay Trailer Microsoft is no stranger to silly teases for new Xbox Game Pass additions. It did something similar with Doom Eternal just as Microsoft purchased Bethesda. In that case, it was with a hidden "The Slayer is Coming" message hidden in the copy of an email. Ubisoft is shaping up to have a very busy holiday season. Watch Dogs: Legion releases on October 29 before coming to the next-gen systems at launch, and Assassin's Creed Valhalla is out on November 10. Immortals: Fenyx Rising then arrives on December 3, and the cooperative-focused Rainbow Six Quarantine is also in the works.

Musician Name : Ralph Towner Birthday / Location : Born March 1, 1940 (age 80) - Chehalis, Washington, United States Main instrument : 12-string guitar, classical guitar, piano, synthesizer, percussion, trumpet Musician Picture : Musician Awards & Nominations : Deutscher Schallplatten Preis Best Performance : Diary Other Information : Towner was born into a musical family in Chehalis, Washington. His mother was a piano teacher and his father a trumpet player. Towner learned to improvise on the piano at the age of three. He began his career as a conservatory-trained classical pianist, attending the University of Oregon from 1958-1963, where he also studied composition with Homer Keller. He studied classical guitar at the Vienna Academy of Music with Karl Scheit from 1963-64 and 1967-68. He joined world music pioneer Paul Winter's "Consort" ensemble in the late 1960s. He first played jazz in New York City in the late 1960s as a pianist and was strongly influenced by the renowned jazz pianist Bill Evans. He began improvising on classical and 12-string guitars in the late 1960s/early 1970s and formed alliances with musicians who had worked with Evans, including flautist Jeremy Steig, bassists Eddie Gómez, Marc Johnson, Gary Peacock, and drummer Jack DeJohnette

Nickname : AL_MAOT Tag your opponent : @HiTLeR. Music genre : DJ Number of votes : 7 Tag one leader to post your songs LIST : @HiTLeR.

The internet can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Today it’s easier than ever to hop on the web, make connections with the like-minded, learn something new or even launch a career, like game streaming. Streamers build a following by putting their skills and personality out there, and you can’t be a po[CENSORED]r streamer without interacting with your viewers and the broader community on Twitch YouTube and the like. But what happens when that community is plagued with toxic behavior, from hate speech to harassment, that can seem louder than the kudos and positive emojis? As a technology business, can innovations like artificial intelligence serve as the elixir for an industry made unpleasant by its own customers? Trolls Gone Wild If you’re internet-savvy enough to have made it to this website, chances are you’ve seen or even experienced how nasty people can be online. With streamers, the insults can come in real-time and become more personal as your face and image are put on display. In fact, according to Intel research,10% of players who quit gaming cited toxicity as the reason. In an op-ed, a Twitch streamer known as ZombaeKillz detailed her own experiences as black female streamer. “In two decades of online gaming, I have been stalked offline, threatened with rape and murder and even saw users steal my kids' pictures from Facebook so they could mock them in online groups,” she wrote. “The feeling of helplessness and violation is something you never forget. But with gaming giants … embracing the Black Lives Matter movement in recent months, you might think that these companies would be more conscientious about stopping bigotry on their platforms. However, based on my experiences and those of other streamers of color I speak to, it’s clear that the reality doesn’t live up to the rhetoric.” It’s no secret that various minority groups, including the LGBTQIA community, feel “vulnerable” in these environments, as ZombaeKillz put it. And while you can block people on Twitch and other game streaming platforms, most grant enough leeway for multiple offenses, whether calling someone ugly or calling someone a racial slur, before getting banned -- if they are even disciplined at all. Vague Policies Leave Streamers Vulnerable To help police its community, Twitch relies heavily on a team of human moderators, but could an influx of tech help make the platform, which has an average of 1.5 million viewers at any moment, more user-friendly? Twitch’s content moderation is built upon its Terms of Service and Community guidelines. Streamers also have the option to build additional layers of standards on top of that. For example, streamers can use volunteer moderators to help moderate content on their channel. These volunteer moderations “play a vital role in the Twitch community,” a Twitch spokesperson told Tom’s Hardware. “We invest heavily in this area and support them with tools and resources to make their jobs easier, (such as Mod View), and improve the overall moderation structure on Twitch,” the spokesperson said. Twitch’s Mod View feature is just one of the ways we see tech starting to make moderation of over 4 million unique streamers’ channels more plausible. Announced in March, Mod View is a home base of tools for Twitch moderators that replaces the need to type commands in chat. When it comes to dealing with actual complaints, Twitch uses “a combination of human moderators and automation”the spokesperson told us. One of the platform’s biggest investments is in “trust & Safety,” they said. This spring, the company launched the Twitch Safety Advisory Council. It’s also hiring a VP of global trust and safety. “We have doubled the size of our safety operations team this past year, enabling us to process reports much faster, and added new tools for moderators, [such as] moderator chat logs, and viewers to control their experience, [such as] chat filters,” Twitch’s spokesperson said. “We also have work underway, including a review of our Hateful Conduct and Harassment policies, enhanced offensive username detection, improvements to AutoMod and our Banned Words list and other projects focused on reducing harassment and hateful conduct. According to Twtich’s policy, hateful conduct is anything that “promotes, encourages or facilitates discrimination, denigration, objectification, harassment or violence based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or serious medical condition or veteran status and is prohibited.” But when it comes to punishment for such “prohibited” activity, things get fuzzy. Prohibited typically means forbidden, but in Twitch’s case, doing something forbidden doesn’t seem to mean you’ll be prevented from doing it ever again. Twitch’s policy says hateful conduct is a “zero-tolerance violation” but then immediately points to a “range of enforcement actions,” which includes indefinite suspension, as well as warnings and temporary suspensions (1-30 days). When we asked Twitch if it ever permanently bans users, the company would only point me to its Account Enforcements and Chat Bans page, which states: “Depending on the nature of the violation, we take a range of actions including a warning, a temporary suspension and, for more serious offenses, an indefinite suspension.” However, the guidelines don’t delineate which behaviors lead to this level of enforcement. “For the most serious offenses, we will immediately and indefinitely suspend your account with no opportunity to appeal,” Twitch’s Account Enforcements and Chat Bans page adds. “If a banned user appears in a third-party channel while being suspended, this could cause the ban of the channel they appear in.” Of course, the best streaming platforms of 2020 include more than just Twitch. There are also gamers on platforms like Facebook Gaming and YouTube. WIth YouTube, policies essentially allow for the occasional slip-up of slurs and other offenses. YouTube lets you anonymously flag content for it to review if you think it violates their guidelines. And YouTube says it removes any content that violates its Community Guidelines. But the people who posted it may be back sooner than you’d expect. YouTube explicitly states that “Hate speech, predatory behavior, graphic violence, malicious attacks, and content that promotes harmful or dangerous behavior isn't allowed on YouTube” and gets more specific by detailing hate speech against “age, caste, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, nationality, race, immigration status, religion, sex/gender, sexual orientation, victims of a major violent event and their kin [and] veteran status” The site dives even further when it comes to race, refuting those who “incite or promote hatred based on any of the attributes noted above. This can take the form of speech, text, or imagery promoting these stereotypes or treating them as factual.” The list goes on, putting the X on “claiming superiority of a group” or comparing people to “animals, insects, pests, disease or any other non-human entity.” But when it comes to enforcement, YouTube gets way less specific, saying it may remove content, but only “in some rare cases.” Confusingly, further reading the policy follows up with a statement that seems to implicate that this content will automatically be removed: “If your content violates this policy, we’ll remove the content and send you an email to let you know. If this is your first time violating our Community Guidelines, you’ll get a warning with no penalty to your channel. If it’s not, we’ll issue a strike against your channel. If you get three strikes, your channel will be terminated.,” YouTube’s policy states. YouTube’s so-called Strikes System grants users three strikes within a 90-day period. Theoretically, you could spread your harassment over a careful 91-day period and never rack up more than a couple strikes. It’s possible YouTube’s moderation squad is too savvy for this, but its policy doesn’t explicitly prevent it. Streaming Platforms Are Already Moderating With Tech Perhaps more black-and-white than streaming platforms’ open-ended language on fighting harassment, a layer (or two) of tech is also critical. Advancements like machine learning are common in streaming platforms’ moderation toolkits. But there’s also room for more advanced technologies to help fight hate speech and other harassment in real-time. First, let’s start with some things gaming platforms are currently using. Twitch’s AutoMod, for example, combines machine learning and natural language processing algorithms to identify “risky” chat messages. It puts these comments on hold until a moderator can view them and approve them for display. The tool can also read through misspellings and evasive language. AutoMod also allows for five levels of moderation, including none, over four different categories: discrimination, hostility, profanity and sexual content. Twitch controls the dictionary of words used, but streamers can also make a list of words for their own channel YouTube builds community policies by working with YouTube creators, as well as machine learning “to detect problematic content at scale,” considering that hundreds of hours of content are reportedly loaded to the platform by the minute. Flagged content, meanwhile, gets viewed by “trained human reviewers.” YouTube also employs an Intelligence Desk that “monitors the news, social media and user reports to detect new trends surrounding inappropriate content.” But with offenders having loopholes for keeping their accounts and, therefore, the harassment alive, what can be done so streamers don’t have to see hate speech and other offensive behavior in the first place? Hope for Improvement: Real-Time Moderation Tools One of the obvious challenges with streaming moderation is the sheer wealth of videos and comments that hits these platforms that are exploding with po[CENSORED]rity. Streamers can have volunteer moderators on air with them, but automation has the potential to take things to the next level. At 2019’s Game Developers Conference (GDC), Intel detailed a fascinating way for tech to play a role in moderating. Intel showed off a prototype tech made in collaboration with Spirit AI that used artificial intelligence to identify toxic chat. Spirit AI had been focusing on text chat, but with Intel’s help the technology is growing to moderate voice chat too. “The tooling that we built, basically you point it at a directory on your on your system. It would go through that list of files and tell you which ones which ones flagged certain types of behaviors and why,” George Kenendy, Intel gaming solutions architect, told Tom’s hardware regarding the demo showed off last year. Since then, Intel has worked with Discord to harvest opt-in data from its Destiny 2 channel and built a validated data set to prove that it has a “really high accuracy at detecting certain types of toxic content,” Kennedy said. Now, the company is experimenting with different features. Currently the tech takes human speech (mostly in English), converts it to text and then uses behavior models that Spirit AI uses for its various customers in the gaming industry. The behavior models vary. Some look at an entire domain and tell you if something’s toxic. Other companies use individual behavior models for individual categories. Those types of models have the option to use deep learning or a random forest classifier. Kennedy showed us a couple of demos that Intel has been using to test its machine learning pipelines. They’re able to take content from any video or audio file, including one playing off YouTube, or microphone and do transcripts in real-time, blocking out whatever type of audio is specified. They’re also experimenting with a “temperature tracking mechanism” where gamers could track the temperature of a conversation with another user. If the conversation crosses the gamer’s threshold of comfort, the other user is muted. In a demo, Kennedy played a YouTube video and had the AI replace the names of fruits with quacks. This sort of technology could help gamers with hands-free moderation during livestreams. It also showed us customization options with different categories, putting the power in the user’s hands. “After the algorithm converts it to text, then we have a set of behavior models that we use to do detection,” Kennedy explained. This is all still in the research and development phase, and Intel hasn’t committed to building any products, but there’s clearly opportunity down the line -- especially considering the wide gaps stream platform’s community policies are leaving exposed. Streamers Push for More Tech can automate moderation, helping to better tackle large audiences and live content and giving streamers customization power with tools that are easier to understand and leverage than streaming platforms’ community policies. But ultimately, the industry is widely looking at streaming gaming platforms to use their power too. “Once these different platforms have policies, they can use machine learning tools to enforce those policies, but at the end of the day, you may need to get to behavior change,” Intel’s Kennedy said. “The platforms have the option to ban people for things that violate their terms of service. … If you don't want to actually censor players, there is the option to give players user-facing tools that let them control the type of content that they encounter when they play games.” “We see a future where in addition to delivering the best power performance, we can actually improve the gamer experience so that this issue is less of a problem for them,” the exec said. In her op-ed, ZombaeKillz pushed for more enforcements from platforms like Twitch, such as “IP bans, so users cannot create multiple accounts for harassment” and a way to prevent hate speech-based usernames. Some streamers have pushed for instant bans for certain offenses. ““Any time a racial slur [is used], whether they tried to explain that that was a one-time thing or they didn’t mean it like that, i feel like just one strike and they’re gone [would be a better policy,” YouTube streamer BrownSugarSaga told Tom’s Hardware. “Anything against the LGBT community, one strike and you’re completely gone. I feel like they should be a bit more strict and...take that into consideration because a lot of times people do report, but the [offenders] still stay there. They are not strict enough … they wait for multiple reports…” Tech is only as powerful as the people and policies behind it. And it seems that players at the heart of the burgeoning streaming industry are looking to the platforms to step up their game.

A new vulnerability that enables an attacker to obtain sensitive user information has been discovered in Jira which is a po[CENSORED]r system for bug tracking, interacting with users and project management. The information disclosure vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-14181, has a CVSS score of 5.3 and was first found by Positive Technologies expert Mikhail Klyuchnikov. The vulnerability affects Jira Server and Data Center and occurs because any unauthorized user can access a specific script. Jira's developer Atlassian is known for making po[CENSORED]r products that are used by 170,000 clients in over 190 countries and 83 percent of its customers are part of the Fortune Global 500. We've put together a list of the best online cybersecurity courses These are the best laptops for programming on the market Also check out our roundup of the best antivirus software Jira vulnerability Senior security researcher at Positive Technologies Mikhail Klyuchnikov provided further insight on the vulnerability he discovered in a press release, saying: "Such vulnerabilities help attackers to significantly save time in their attempts to breach systems: they make it possible to determine the presence of an account with a particular login in the system. By bruteforcing various logins, attackers can identify which users are present in the system. If a login exists, the system discloses the user's personal data (in cases where such data is present), and if a login is not found, the system reports it. “After bruteforcing the existing logins, the attackers could go on to bruteforce the passwords of each existing user. Without this vulnerability, attackers would have to haphazardly bruteforce the passwords to logins which might not exist in the system. The vulnerability reduces the time hackers would need and decreases the probability of being detected, which, ultimately, makes the target less attractive for attackers. That's why we strongly recommend installing the updates." Thankfully though, Atlassian has patched the vulnerability in product versions 7.13.6, 8.5.7 and 8.12.0 and customers should install it immediately to prevent falling victim to any potential attacks exploiting it.

The Biden campaign Animal Crossing island is full of surprises, including voting booths, a field office, and more. The Joe Biden campaign put some serious work into its island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The Democratic presidential nominee can be seen walking around his field office, a polling place, and much more in the meticulously designed 'Biden HQ.' He'll shout one of his campaign slogans, "no malarkey" if you speak to his character. And that's a fact, Jack. "A lot of the residents on the island are dogs, Joe Biden loves dogs," said Kinda Funny's Greg Miller while exploring the island on Twitch. Kinda Funny debuted the town on their stream on October 16 by visiting it with the Dream Suite. Miller was joined by Animal Talking Host Gary Whitta. Whitta expanded into a show called Talk Guys recently, which takes place in the online multiplayer game Fall Guys. The island has Joe Biden yard signs, a field office with a basement full of trains (one of Joe Biden's nicknames is 'Amtrak Joe' since he often commuted by train), a polling place with voter information, and an ice cream stand in front of Nook's Cranny. There are a lot of fun spaces on the island, including Joe Biden fliers (made with custom designs) on the ground in places. It's clear that whoever designed the island is a big fan of Animal Crossing. The back part of the Biden HQ is covered in dog houses (turned around so they look like houses in the distance) and windmills. It's a common design trick that makes islands feel bigger in the Animal Crossing community. You can visit Biden HQ in Animal Crossing by laying down in bed to open the Dream Suite and entering the code DA-7286-5710-7478. You won't be able to take anything from the island, but you can text “AC” to 30330 to get a special Biden campaign shirt for your villager. President Trump doesn't have an Animal Crossing: New Horizons island yet and with the election fast approaching he better get on that. Terraforming takes a long time. Both candidates had individual town halls this week to talk to voters about social justice, climate change, and other issues. This took the place of a traditional debate.

Nickname : AL_MAOT Tag your opponent : @-Apex Music genre : Pop Number of votes : 7 Tag one leader to post your songs LIST : @HiTLeR.

Musician Name : Michael Manring Birthday / Location : Born June 27, 1960 (age 60) - Annapolis, Maryland, U.S. Main instrument : Bass guitar, keyboards Musician Picture : Musician Awards & Nominations : Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Digital Daytime Drama Series Best Performance : Breakfast in the Field - Aerial Boundaries - Watching My Life Go By Other Information : Michael Manring was born in Annapolis, Maryland, as the youngest of four children. His family lived in Norfolk, Virginia and moved to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. in 1969. The Manrings were a very active family musically, providing a very fertile background for Michael's musical development. He and his brother Doug—a guitarist and drummer, later living a long time in Japan—formed a very active rhythm group while in high school, venturing through jazz rock and fusion, playing rock classics at beer parties or pop standards in restaurants and at weddings. Manring was a pupil of bassist Peter Princiotto from Spring Hill area, Virginia. He began to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts in the late 1970s, but canceled his studies in 1979 because of the heavy workload he already had, touring with several different bands like the Prog Rock band However. During his time at Berklee College he used every opportunity to play with very different musicians and bands. In the 1980s he studied and toured with Jaco Pastorius and began to develop his own style

Musician Name : John McLaughlin Birthday / Location : Born 4 January 1942 (age 78) - Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England Main instrument : Guitar Musician Picture : Musician Awards & Nominations : Grammy Award for Best Jazz Solo - Echo Award for Jazz Production Best Performance : Dragon Song Other Information : John McLaughlin (born 4 January 1942) is an English guitarist, bandleader, and composer. A pioneer of jazz fusion, his music combines elements of jazz with rock, world music, Indian classical music, Western classical music, flamenco, and blues. After contributing to several key British groups of the early 1960s, McLaughlin made Extrapolation, his first album as a bandleader, in 1969. He then moved to the U.S., where he played with Tony Williams's group Lifetime and then with Miles Davis on his electric jazz-fusion albums In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Jack Johnson, and On the Corner. His 1970s electric band, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, performed a technically virtuosic and complex style of music that fused electric jazz and rock with Indian influences. McLaughlin's solo on "Miles Beyond" from his album Live at Ronnie Scott's won the 2018 Grammy Award for the Best Improvised Jazz Solo. He has been awarded multiple "Guitarist of the Year" and "Best Jazz Guitarist" awards from magazines such as DownBeat and Guitar Player based on reader polls. In 2003, he was ranked 49th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". In 2009, DownBeat included McLaughlin in its unranked list of "75 Great Guitarists", in the "Modern Jazz Maestros" category. In 2012, Guitar World magazine ranked him 63rd on its top 100 list. In 2010, Jeff Beck called McLaughlin "the best guitarist alive," and Pat Metheny has also described him as the world's greatest guitarist. In 2017, McLaughlin was awarded an honorary doctorate of music from Berklee College of Music

GrubHub+ members can get an in-game ticket for an exclusive Special Weekend event taking place next month. Pokemon Go developer Niantic has partnered with GrubHub for an exclusive in-game event. Next month, GrubHub+ members will be able to participate in a Special Weekend event that features exclusive Timed Research tasks, increased spawn rates of certain Pokemon, and more. To participate in the Special Weekend, you'll need to be a GrubHub+ member and sign up on the Pokemon Go website to receive an event ticket. Niantic says these tickets are limited to one per Pokemon Go account and will be available until October 28, while the event itself takes place on Sunday, November 2, from 11 AM to 2 PM local time. Now Playing: Pokemon Sword & Shield DLC, EA Play On Game Pass, & Torchlight 3 Release Date | Save State Throughout the event, you'll be able to complete new Timed Research tasks that net you various rewards, including three Incense, a Star Piece, and 100 Charizard Mega Energy, a new resource that's used to Mega Evolve Pokemon. You'll also be able to encounter the following Pokemon when you use Incense during the event: Bulbasaur Charizard Squirtle Pikachu Unown G Unown H Sableye Patrat Minccino Ferroseed Shiny Ferroseed Finally, any Incense that you use during the Special Weekend will last for one hour. You can read more details about the event on the Pokemon Go website. In the meantime, a new Team Go Rocket event is underway right now in Pokemon Go. From now through October 19, Rocket grunts will appear more frequently than normal, and they'll have new Shadow Pokemon in tow. On top of that, you'll receive new "strange eggs" when you defeat Rocket leaders; these will hatch into certain Poison- or Dark-type Pokemon. Finally, there's a new Rocket-focused Special Research questline that leads to a battle with Giovanni and a chance to capture his Shadow Mewtwo. That's not all that's happening in the game this week. October's Community Day takes place this Saturday, October 17, and features the po[CENSORED]r Gen 1 starter Charmander. Origin Forme Giratina is also appearing again in five-star Raids until October 23.

While we love building PCs (especially the best PC builds), sometimes it’s more convenient or even cheaper to buy a prebuilt desktop. The good news is that, as we get closer to the holiday season and retailers try to clear out inventory, we’re seeing some incredible sales on gaming PCs. On any given day, you may to see gaming PC deals on a variety of systems, ranging from budget rigs with GTX 1660 cards for less than $700 to RTX-enabled systems for far less than $1,500 or even models that are on par with the best gaming PCs. That’s why we’re collecting the best deals on gaming PCs below. If you're more interested in building your own PC or upgrading what you have, see our lists of best tech deals overall, best monitor deals or best SSD deals. Best Deals on Gaming PCs

The release of WireGuard earlier this year was one of the biggest things to happen to the VPN industry in a long time and now Google has added support for the new protocol to the next version of Android. WireGuard, which was created by Edge Security's Jason A. Donenfeld, uses state-of-the-art cryptography to provide users with the highest level of privacy, security and speed. The new protocol is faster than existing VPN protocols and it also only contains just 4,000 lines of code compared to OpenVPN's 100,000 lines of code, making it easier to review and audit. Just after the release of version 1.0.0 of the protocol back in March, it was added to the Linux kernel and made available in Linux 5.6 by Linus Torvalds. As Android is also based on Linux, it makes sense that Google would want to bring native WireGuard support to its mobile operating system by adding it to Android 12's Linux Kernel 5.4 tree. We've put together a list of the best privacy apps for Android These are the best Android VPN apps on the market Also check out our roundup of the best business smartphones Adding WireGuard to Android With every new Android version, Google forks each Linux Kernel release to include “patches of interest to the Android community that haven't been merged onto mainline or Long Term Supported (LTS) kernels”. These kernels are known as Android Common Kernels and they form the Linux kernel that ships with Android devices. As google releases new versions of Android, the search giant supports several Linux kernel releases. For instance, Linux Kernel versions 4.14 and 4.19 are in Android 11 while versions 4.19 and 5.4 will be included with Android 12. Today's flagship Android smartphones run on top of a fork of Linux Kernel 4.19 but with the upcoming release of Android 12, new devices will run on top of Linux Kernel 5.4 which includes WireGuard support. Recently a number of new commits were added to the Android 12-5.4 tree of the Android Common Kernel and one of these commits was for the WireGuard VPN protocol. Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman explained in his commit that WireGuard will be available in Android 12 as a simple network device driver, saying: “This commit implements WireGuard as a simple network device driver, accessible in the usual RTNL way used by virtual network drivers. It makes use of the udp_tunnel APIs, GRO, GSO, NAPI, and the usual set of networking subsystem APIs.” We'll likely hear more about WireGuard support in the latest version of Android once we get closer to Android 12's official release.

Nickname : AL_MAOT Tag your opponent : @YaKoMoS Music genre : PoP Number of votes : 7 Tag one leader to post your songs LIST : @HiTLeR.

Musician Name : Jacques Loussier Birthday / Location : Born: 26 October 1934 - Angers, France / Died: 5 March 2019 (aged 84) Main instrument : Piano Musician Picture : Musician Awards & Nominations : - Best Performance : 1979 Pulsion (CBS) Other Information : Jacques Loussier (26 October 1934 – 5 March 2019) was a French pianist and composer. He arranged jazz interpretations of many of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, such as the Goldberg Variations. The Jacques Loussier Trio, founded in 1959, played more than 3,000 concerts and sold more than 7 million recordings—mostly in the Bach series. Loussier composed film scores and a number of classical pieces, including a Mass, a ballet, and violin concertos. Loussier's style is described as third stream, a synthesis of jazz and classical music, with an emphasis on improvisation

Razer has a number of peripherals on sale on Amazon for Prime Day, including keyboards, mice, and peripherals. If you're in need of some gaming accessories, now is the time to take a look. There are savings of up to 50% on Razer products. We've combed through those to pick out a few that we reviewed and think are especially good deals, but you can go to Amazon for the full list of Razer's gear for sale. Other deals available include some on gaming keyboards and mice, as well as microphones. Keep an eye out while we pick out the rest of the best deals throughout Prime Day.

Cybersecurity firm McAfee has announced the expansion of its MVISION portfolio, which will now include three McAfee Device-to-Cloud suites. The newly designed suites will bolster security for devices, networks and the cloud, providing enhanced cloud management and unified security policies. The three suite options include MVISION Advanced, which delivers proactive endpoint threat prevention, MVISION Premium, with its AI-powered endpoint detection and response, and MVISION Complete, which delivers total device-to-cloud protection so organisations can better safeguard their digital transformation efforts. MVISION is McAfee’s attempt to bring its renowned security solutions to the cloud. It employs a single, cloud-native enforcement point to bring better visibility, control and protection to its users. We've built a list of the best antivirus services on the market The best endpoint protection software available today Check out our list of the best malware removal software out there New tools As more businesses adopt a cloud-first stance in order to manage the rise of remote working brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, the need to prioritise cybersecurity safeguards becomes ever more important. The expanded MVISION suite will provide additional defences for the modern enterprise. “McAfee is committed to providing new and updated security delivery models that make security easier to buy and manage, and help drive businesses forward in any environment,” explained Kathleen Curry, senior vice president of Global Channels, OEM and Strategic Alliances at McAfee. “The Device-to-Cloud suites were built with our partner community in mind. At inception, we had discussed with partners their needs to ensure we got it right—from pricing to implementation services, which will all be partner driven. Together, we will deliver a premium experience to our customers.” As the enterprise technology landscape shifts, cyberattackers are already looking for ways to exploit any vulnerability. New ways of working require redoubled defences, which is where McAfee’s expanded suite of tools comes in. Best ransomware protection: free, paid and decryption tools

The spin-off's next season starts Thursday. Star Trek: Discovery's third season kicks off Thursday after a year and a half away, and the CBS All Access series has just released a sneak peek at what's ahead for the upcoming episodes. In the short clip, which can be viewed over at ET, science specialist Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) tries to gain the mysterious Cleveland "Book" Booker's help after crash landing on a strange new land. In the clip, Burnham is given the cold shoulder--strongly suggesting there is a history between the characters with a lot of baggage resulting in a loss of trust. The episode likely gets into their relationship, and also picks up after the Season 2 finale that saw the Discovery's crew traveling nearly a thousand years into the future--so there's a lot to get into. Season 3 also sees the addition of the franchise's first transgender and non-binary characters. You can read further into everything we know about the next season here. During a Comic-Con@Home panel over the summer, Martin-Green shared her feelings on the themes at play in the new season, emphasizing the role hope plays: "There's the obvious hope that… the plan works. And even logistically, that we land where we're supposed to, that we defeat Control, that we save the world and save the universe. There's inherent hope in that. And also, the hope to continue discovering myself as Burnham. That'll always be there. That hope of continual unveiling and finding that perfect, sweet balance between all the forces that wage within me." Star Trek: Discovery's third season will premiere on CBS All Access on October 15. The show began in 2017, and has been part of a recent resurgence and expansion for the Star Trek franchise, including the upcoming Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Section 31, and the recent animated Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Musician Name : Mark Isham Birthday / Location : Born September 7, 1951 (age 69) - New York City, New York, U.S. Main instrument : Trumpet, synthesizer Musician Picture : Musician Awards & Nominations : Prime Time Emmy Award for Best Female Presenter for a Television Series Best Performance : 1983 Vapor Drawings Other Information : Isham was born in New York City, United States, the son of Patricia (née Hammond), a violinist, and Howard Fuller Isham, a Professor of Humanities.[ His discography is extensive and varied, including participation with artists including David Sylvian, Group 87, Art Lande, Pharoah Sanders, Van Morrison, David Torn, and sessions with people like Brian Wilson, Joni Mitchell, Terry Bozzio, Bill Bruford, XTC, and Siouxsie Sioux. Isham is a Scientologist. He is married to Donna Isham

Nickname : AL_MAOT Tag your opponent : @HiTLeR. Music genre : Remix Number of votes : 7 Tag one leader to post your songs LIST : @HiTLeR.

We've closed the book on our beloved protagonist in Kazuma Kiryu. Through seven mainline games, we grew to care about a man who fought for the people he loved most and tried to do the right thing no matter his circumstances--and also did his best to resolve some of the most ridiculous situations of everyday people. As we enter Yakuza: Like A Dragon, we begin anew in the series with fresh faces and revamped gameplay mechanics. And after putting a few hours into it on Xbox Series X, Like A Dragon hit me with everything I love most about the series while standing strong as its own spirited game. Every time I talk about the Yakuza games, I also point to its perfect blend of outlandish humor and captivating melodrama--consistently hitting the right notes at the right moments. It has always been outward in its expression of modern Japanese culture and embraced it in a way that permeates every aspect of the franchise. All of that is intact with Like A Dragon as I explored Yokohama, sang karaoke, beat up some bad dudes in the Series X demo. But in this departure from previous entries, we see the absurdity cranked up to great effect, a party dynamic that adds a wonderful narrative layer, and a welcome switch to a turn-based RPG. Now Playing: Yakuza: Like A Dragon Xbox Series X 4K Gameplay - Karaoke And Combat Drama In Yokohama Meet Kasuga Ichiban, our new protagonist who is presented as the antithesis of Kiryu. He's louder, outspoken, and a lot less reserved. Kasuga is kind of a charming dork who tends to have a positive outlook and isn't shy about his love for Dragon Quest (yes, the real video game series). His imagination fuels the ridiculous premise of fighting in a turn-based RPG style, because that is how he's envisioning these street fights going down. But the personalities of Kasuga and Kiryu intersect in that they both have fists of steel and hearts of gold. As the story goes, a young Kasuga in good old Kamurocho takes the fall for a yakuza family crime. After spending well over a decade in prison, expecting to be greeted by his yakuza family, he re-enters the free world alone and is eventually betrayed by the man he looked up to when he was running with the gang. He then finds himself dumped in Yokohama, having hit rock bottom with only the desire for truth pushing him forward. The preview demo I played started in Chapter 5, however, and much of the setup had already passed. From what I can gather, Kasuga and his friends Adachi and Nanba were working at a soapland before the manager died, but they have a lead on what really happened and connect it to the city's Chinese Liumang gang. Despite being out of the loop of the core narrative, I was immediately enamored with the characters. Unlike previous Yakuza games where you played as one protagonist (switching to others depending on the game), Like A Dragon's party dynamic brings an exciting element to its storytelling. Characters Are The Heart Of Yakuza Kasuga isn't alone. With his friends, who are party members, he bounces ideas off of them to figure things out and shares moments of joy and strife, creating a consistent dialogue to carry the story. It may sound quite standard from an RPG perspective, but when you integrate this dynamic with Yakuza's already-strong character development and narrative style, you really come to appreciate the new approach. While Kiryu (and to an extent, Saejima, Majima, and Akiyama) kept people at arm's length and mostly fought alone, Kasuga embraces friendship and goes out of his way to fight for his companions. For example, take Saeko Mukoda, a party member and the main focus of Chapter 5. You immediately see her introductory cutscene where it's revealed that she's directly affected by the murder of the soapland manager who was helping Kasuga and company. It was deemed a suicide, but she knows there's evil scheming going on and joins the group. In one moment, she has to leave the party to work as an undercover hostess, but Kasuga is hesitant to leave her without backup. At another moment, she decides to leave the group for the day, but Kasuga runs back to her to invite her to hang out and drink with the rest of the group. And when Saeko opens up about why she's so invested in uncovering the truth, Kasuga and friends uplift her to let her know they have her back moving forward. They seem to bring out the best in each other, whether it's in small cutscenes like going out for the night, tense moments in enemy territory, or unraveling the story's mysteries. Friendship also manifests through a bond system, where you can manually develop relationships by fighting together and hanging out at the karaoke bar to learn more about your party and empower them, a la Persona's Social Link/Confidant system. When lovable characters have been one of the strongest hooks in the series, I can't wait to see how Yakuza: Like A Dragon makes the most of this new approach. Like A Dragon Quest In what was an April Fool's joke come true, Yakuza: Like A Dragon really is a turn-based RPG, and it's actually a really good combat system. When you encounter enemies, everyone transforms into the role they've equipped through the Job system. With four party members, you get to use a variety of attacks, spells, buffs and debuffs, and heals to take down the likes of evil chefs, bad dudes disguised as trash bags, unhinged baseball players, and of course, menacing men of various gang affiliations. This is where the game goes from ridiculous to absolutely absurd. Like A Dragon ditches any notion of seriousness even as all the characters play their roles straight. You can cast lightning spells from the sky to zap a group of enemies, have Saeko swing her bag around for an AOE attack, or make Nanba breath flames into enemies for fire damage. If you switch to specific Jobs, like the musician, you can toss CDs or play a concert that summons fans to stomp out your foes to inflict even higher damage. I'm particularly a fan of Saeko's Idol Job, where she uses the power of her stans to beat the shit out of an enemy with perfect choreography using glowsticks. The essence of Yakuza's heat actions lives on in these special casts and summons. I'm only scratching the surface of the comical yet effective Job types and spells, and plenty were available in the demo. You'll be able to switch between Jobs at any time you have access to the Hello Work building in Yokohama, and each Job comes with its own perks, stat changes, outfits, and movesets. It's so damn hilarious that you can't help but fall in love with the way the game embraces it's new level of absurdity, especially when I'm beating the crap out of big yakuza men with a giant vibrator like it's a baseball bat or grinding pepper on top of enemies to inflict damage. Things can get awkward in terms of positioning during battles since they happen in actual locations in the game world. Characters walk around the defined arena and might take a second to get around objects. You can do follow-up combos on downed enemies for extra damage or use AOE attacks, but it may not be as intuitive since timing can be thrown off since the turn-based system doesn't use predefined positions or clear indicators for an attacks potential effects while enemies move around. Admittedly, the fights in this demo were very easy and didn't allow for difficulty changes. I suspect that the party was set to be a bit overpowered and with good gear from the start, but I hope the game is able to let its wild combat system shine by challenging you to use it effectively. The Xbox Series X Experience Since it is an Xbox Series X launch title and I played it on our Xbox Series X preview unit, I want to shift to the more technical aspects of Yakuza: Like A Dragon. It runs on the Dragon Engine which was used in Yakuza Kiwami 2, Yakuza 6, and Judgment, but now it's tuned for next-gen. When running the game on Series X, you'll have three enhancement options: high resolution, high frame rate, and normal. High resolution looks to be rendering true 4K for the best image quality, but the game will run at what appears to be around 30 FPS. High framerate mode brings down the resolution in order to run much higher FPS, although the drop in graphical quality is very noticeable. In the video above, I set the visuals to normal and the game seemed to hold a consistent 60 FPS throughout combat and exploration without sacrificing too much in visual detail--I found it to be the best option since it does offer smoother gameplay than what we've had from previous entries that use the same graphics engine. Those new to the Yakuza franchise may be put off by some of its quirks, such as the way characters sometimes awkwardly move in and out of scenes or the flow of non-voiced scenes. Remember that it's also a cross-gen title that hit the PlayStation 4 in Japan back in January this year. However, Yakuza: Like A Dragon can still shine with its visual flourishes and fine details that bring Yokohama and its characters to life. And like most modern Yakuza games, the detailed expressions and character models of the main cast stand among some of the best-looking in video games today. The Smaller Touches That Make It Yakuza If it wasn't clear towards the beginning, the Yakuza franchise holds a special place in my heart and it's pretty wild to see the traditionally PlayStation franchise at the forefront of the Xbox Series X/S launch. Yakuza: Like A Dragon is shaping up to live up to highs of its previous entries all while starting a brand new story that newcomers can approach without prior experience. It's trying new things even as it's playing on the core Yakuza foundation that many of us know and love. Take minigames as an example. A personal favorite of karaoke is back, which plays as a rhythm game but also gives an opportunity for its characters to express themselves in such charming fashion. Nanba brings back the classic Baka Mitai, and Adachi offers his own rendition of Machine Gun Kiss. But Saeko gets her own song called Spring Breeze where she plays piano and the rest of the party enthusiastically cheers her on as an adorable ode to friendship. And Kasuga's own song, called The Future I Dreamed Of, shows a silly music video that actually fills you with determination and inspiration as he reflects on his own upbringing. There's just nothing quite like this in games outside of Yakuza. Though less expressive, there's a competitive can collecting minigame and race against others to get the most cans by riding a bike through the streets while avoiding crashing. You have the Part-Time Hero side quests where you go around fighting bullies to clean up Yokohama's streets for rewards. There's a quiz minigame that's presented as an adult school exam series where Kasuga learns more about culture at large to boost his social stats like passion, style, charisma, and kindness. That quiz minigame is also introduced through a substory where you encounter an American tourist who speaks English. Kasuga has a hard time responding, but an over-enthusiastic man helps you out and pushes you to go to the adult school. Another substory has you helping a man who's being punked out of his baby formula (silly, I know) that he needs to take back home--you find out he's been overworked which strains his relationship at home. Substories have been one of Yakuza's greatest sources of laugh out loud moments and character development, and I still have yet to see many of the substories that litter Yokohama's streets. These are the types of things that take you around the seaside town and give it life. It might not seem as dense or exciting as the seedy red-light district of Kamurocho, but Yokohama has its own personality and I'm eager as ever to explore it. Even with just a small slice of the game in this Xbox Series X demo, Yakuza: Like A Dragon shows us why the franchise has won the hearts of so many and continues to stand out among its peers. I'm convinced that the move to a turn-based RPG can pay off, and I'm already invested in our new protagonist Kasuga Ichiban and his friends, because Like A Dragon pulls these things off in ways only Yakuza can. We'll be able to get the full picture when Yakuza: Like A Dragon launches for Xbox Series X/S, PC, and current-gen platforms on November 10 (although the PS5 version is due in March 2021).