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If you’re looking to set up a new business phone system, then your research will no doubt have lead to you to VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, as a potential option and ask: what is VoIP? You've also likely run into the acronym SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol in connection with VoIP. In fact, navigating the world of business phone systems can often feel like an alphabet soup of acronyms. Still, given that "businesses that switch to VoIP reduce the cost of their local calls by up to 40%, and save up to 90% on international calls" it's crucial to understand what each acronym means so you can choose the best VoIP services. In this guide, we’ll define VoIP, as well the difference between SIP and VoIP, outlining how each service works together and benefits your business phone system. First things first, what exactly is VoIP and what does it stand for? VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol and is essentially a digital phone service. Instead of sending audio through traditional phone lines, VoIP phone systems digitize your voice and send packets of audio over the internet. In some ways, VoIP is a lot like making a video call—except that you’re only sending audio, not video, back and forth. As a cost-effective alternative to the traditional analog phone system, businesses enjoy significant savings with cloud based telephony systems like VoIP. With free quotes from the best VoIP phone providers, your business can too. Thanks to a rise in remote working and customer preference to contact businesses by phone, po[CENSORED]rity for VoIP software is set to keep growing. With VoIP phone systems, you can add as many phone lines as your business needs without having to bring in an electrician. You can also integrate with software to automatically route your calls between departments or to keep a digital recording of every call that comes into your business.What is SIP? Well, not quite the refreshing summer drink you were imagining: SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol. It's an open-source communications protocol that is deployed by VoIP phone systems to function. For VoIP business phone users, SIP is critical to initiating, maintaining, and terminating a phone call between two or more devices. It’s particularly important to understand the word protocol in order to understand SIP. In this context, a protocol is a set of rules used by digital devices to communicate with each other. A protocol like SIP regulates how the exchange of data packets is synchronized between devices and how those data packets are interpreted. The usefulness of Session Initiation Protocol isn’t limited to enabling VoIP business phone calls. SIP software can also be used to conduct video conferences, exchange instant messages, or distribute multimedia files and other data across global teams.Trying to compare SIP and VoIP directly doesn’t really make sense. Why? Comparing the two is like assessing a magician and their assistant side by side. One, VoIP, is the principal performer while the other is a support act. VoIP is a communications system, and SIP is a signalling protocol used to support that communications system. SIP is one way to deploy your VoIP phone system. It's favoured by telephony managers as it directly connects PBX (private branch exchange) users with public network phone users. VoIP business phone systems which use SIP rely on the protocol, to relay information between VoIP-enabled devices. You may notice SIP and VoIP have become somewhat synonymous, since SIP is easily the most widely used protocol for supporting VoIP communications.

You could spend a little or a whole lot on a gaming laptop, or somewhere in-between and, for the most part, get exactly what you pay for. Buying a refurbished model can be an exception to the rule. Such as this refurbished Evoo laptop with a GeForce RTX 2060 tucked inside, for $638.40 at Walmart. It's not too often I highlight refurb/recertified deals, because if you shop around, you can frequently find brand new items at a discount. I'm making an exception in this case because it's coming direct from Walmart, as opposed to a random marketplace seller, and it's a tantalizing discount on what was already an aggressively priced laptop. Incidentally, the only current listing is by a marketplace seller trying to hawk one of these for $1,299.99. Some would call that ambitious. I say it's silly. Taking a ride in the Wayback Machine, however, it shows this laptop started out at around $1,000, and most recently sold for $899.Now it's less than $640, with hardware and features that punch above its price class. The core makeup of the system is an AMD Ryzen 7 4800H processor (8C/16T, 2.9GHz to 4.2GHz, 8MB L3 cache) based on Zen 2, paired with what is still a stout GPU based on Turing. It's well-rounded configuration too, with 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 15.6-inch display with a 1920x1080 resolution and fast 120Hz refresh rate. Other highlights include RGB backlighting on the keyboard, a decent assortment of ports, and THX tuning (audio and display), if that matters to you. The only real caveat is the refurb status. Walmart's warranty terms provide a 30-day return window, and a 90-day backing in case something breaks. This is not for everyone but, if you decide to pounce, put it through some thorough stress testing right off the bat. If all goes well, you'll have scored yourself a killer deal. And if not, well, back to Walmart it goes.Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).

Capcom's COO says the company wants to make PC its main platform for games, according to a translated report from Japanese outlet Nikkei, and reiterated by Bloomberg reporter Takashi Mochizuki. Capcom also aims to have 50% of its sales on PC and 50% on consoles by 2022 or 2023. Chief operating officer Haruhiro Tsujimoto made the comments to Nikkei at this week's Tokyo Game Show. Capcom also announced this week that Monster Hunter Rise, previously a Nintendo Switch exclusive, will come to PC in January 2022. While some of Capcom's games have come to PC after console releases, like Monster Hunter World taking an extra eight months in 2018, many of its recent releases like Resident Evil Village and Devil May Cry 5 have arrived on all platforms simultaneously. Record-setting sales numbers potentially play a role in Capcom's decision to increase focus on PC. The Resident Evil series became Capcom's first to surpass 100 million lifetime sales. According to Capcom's investor relations portal, Monster Hunter World has sold 17.3 million units, Resident Evil 7 has sold 9.8 million units, and Monster Hunter World: Iceborne has sold 8.2 million units. Those are cross-platform numbers, but PC sales certainly played a big role—leaked data earlier this year suggested World sold better on PC in the west than on PlayStation.Capcom's most recent financial report, from July 2021, showed the publisher achieved sales figures of ¥95.3 billion ($859.6 million)—a year-on-year increase of 16.8%. Capcom's arcade sales suffered during the pandemic, dropping 18.4% (to $183 million) and operating income dropping 87.7% (to $1.4 million). Capcom's videogame division made up for it, though, raising net sales up 25.6% (to $691.3 million) and operating income up 53.1% (to 340.2 million).

The Indian state of Karnataka, home to India's Silicon Valley, has proposed a ban on online games involving betting and wagering, sparking concerns that growing state regulations could hit the nascent but booming sector. Karnataka is proposing an amendment to the Karnataka Police Act to include such online games, seeking to ban "any act or risking money, or otherwise on the unknown result of an event including on a game of skill," according to the bill seen by Reuters. Many offences under the law already attract prison time, and the bill proposes to increase these penalties. The Karnataka government has said the bill is needed as youngsters from rural areas, mostly idle in the city during the COVID-19 pandemic, "have shown a tendency of becoming habitual gamblers."It comes as online fantasy gaming platforms such as Tiger Global-backed Dream11 and Sequoia Capital-funded Mobile Premier League (MPL) that offer fantasy cricket and football games have become increasingly po[CENSORED]r in India. Karnataka, home to some of the world's biggest tech companies and India's tech capital Bengaluru, is the fourth Indian state to seek to ban online games involving prize money after Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh. "Business of MPL, Dream11, and everyone in the sector will suffer," said one gaming industry source, who declined to be named because the person was not authorised to speak to the media. "These states are important - they roughly account for 20 percent of (the total) business for such companies." The online gaming industry in India has grown over the past few years. Foreign investors have shown growing interest in backing Indian gaming startups since last year as the COVID-19 pandemic drove people stuck indoors towards such games. India currently has more than 400 online gaming startups and, as of 2020, had around 360 million gamers, according to an EY-All India Gaming Federation report. Online gamers are expected to grow to 510 million by 2022 and the industry will be worth $2 billion (roughly Rs. 14,750 crores) by 2023, the report said. The Dream11 and MPL platforms, offering paid contests with cash prize for players, have expanded rapidly in recent months with extensive marketing and hires. Dream11 is seeking a US listing by early next year, local media has said. Such growth has sparked concerns that these platforms, like gambling, are addictive and can cause financial harm. India's Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states have all banned online gaming offering cash prizes over the past few years, though Tamil Nadu's bill was subsequently struck down by its high court. Sandeep Chilana, a New Delhi-based lawyer, said such laws have a weak legal standing given the Supreme Court has repeatedly said skill games - like fantasy cricket - are not like gambling which remains largely prohibited across India. "Indian states are overreaching and will face legal challenges by banning such skill games," said Chilana. The Karnataka proposal also comes at an inconvenient time for the industry, during the po[CENSORED]r Indian Premier League cricket tournament. Fantasy gaming competitions around the tournament are one of the biggest fee generators for online gaming companies, said a second industry source, who asked not to be identified. The potential ban will also hurt professional players, said Esports Players Welfare Association, a non-profit for online gamers. "Games and esports are areas where skill can be developed as a result of which it is not a sin activity," the group said.

Imagine a utopia where cryptominers, cryptocurrency enthusiasts, and investors alike could be free to live, far from the ever imposing reach of mankind's laws. This was the vision of bitcoin fanboys, and utopian idealists, Grant Romundt, Rüdiger Koch, and Chad Elwartowski. These three were determined to make their dream of crypto-Rapture a reality. That is until they realised some hard truths tied to running a floating colony. The plan was simple: Buy a $9.5 million retired cruise liner > pop over to Panama > build a utopia > profit! Sounds easy right? What these three idealists didn't foresee, however, were the number of hoops they would need to jump through, in order to make their paradise a reality. Fueled by the romantic ideals of Patri Friedman et al., the three started off strong with their 'Seavilization' project. First, they Christened their ex-cruise liner (previously the Pacific Dawn) The M.S. Satoshi, after the godfather of bitcoin—perhaps willing some of his luck to rub off for a successful mission. Though, according to The Guardian (via IFL Science), the successful renaming of the ship was the first and final triumph.The three soon discovered that the seas, contrary to po[CENSORED]r belief, are not completely lawless, free-build areas. There are strict regulations to be followed, especially for huge cruise liners also planning to run a crypto-business.Romundt lamented to the Guardian, "We were like, 'This is just so hard.'" This wasn't Romundt's first attempt at founding a seasteading community, either. You'd have thought the guy would have packed it in after he and his girlfriend were forced to flee for their lives from the coast of Thailand after a previous floating community was declared a threat to the country's independence—an offence punishable by life imprisonment, or even death. Back to the Satoshi's noble embankment: Soon after they set sail, seasoned British cruise captain Peter Harris became concerned. “I was thinking a week into the job, 'I can see I’m going to be resigning,'” he told The Guardian. When asked about Koch the captain admitted he seemed like the upstanding sort, if somewhat naïve. "He didn’t understand the industry." Harris explained, "He just thought he could treat it like his own yacht." Further hurdles mounted, with the pursuit being deemed uninsurable by Panamanian authorities. "They wouldn’t even tell us why we weren’t insurable, they just kept saying no," Romundt noted. "It’s kind of hard to remedy something if you don’t know what the problem is." Although no official comments were made to the crew regarding their denial of insurance, Captain Harris surmised their plans to run a bitcoin business may have had something to do with it.And while the three had managed to get the Panamanian authorities to agree to a permanent mooring for the Satoshi (as long as it remained designated as a ship), another snag emerged: where they were allowed to dump their sewage. They discovered that, so as not to break the law they were trying their damndest to avoid, they would need to sail 12 miles every few weeks to offload the human waste in international waters. That's where the entire operation ran afoul. It was around this time Romundt and company finally caved. Defeated, Romundt put his dreams of Seavilisation behind him and spent the holidays sipping wine and exploring the Satoshi. He even went around enjoying the waterslides by himself, as Harris said he turned them on especially for the festivities. So, while the three didn't manage to create a lawless crypto-fueled utopian paradise, hopefully, they've invited a sense of realism into the minds of anyone considering a similar feat. As it turns out, building Rapture is hard.Screw sports, Katie would rather watch Intel, AMD and Nvidia go at it. She can often be found admiring AI advancements, sighing over semiconductors, or gawping at the latest GPU upgrades. She's been obsessed with computers and graphics since she was small, and took Game Art and Design up to Masters level at uni. Her thirst for absurd Raspberry Pi projects will never be sated, and she will stop at nothing to spread internet safety awareness—down with the hackers.

Book of Travels sounded really intriguing when we got our first proper look at it in late 2020. It's a "tiny" MMO, without conventional quests and plotlines: Instead, it promises a "collaborative and friendly roleplaying experience" in a serene world where players are living their lives. There will be conflict and combat, but it will be rare and impactful rather than simply a repetitive mechanic driving character advancement. It was expected to launch into Steam Early Access in August 2021, but at the last minute developer Might and Delight hit the pause button, saying they realized during closed beta testing that they needed more time before the public rollout. Now the studio has settled on a new launch date, revealed today as October 11. Might and Delight emphasize that while Book of Travels is now fit for public release, it's still a work in progress and thus there will bugs, balance issues, and limited content. "Chapter Zero" is essentially the game's first season, but it will last for the duration of the Early Access period, which is expected to last for two years. That might seem like a long stretch, especially with our expectations so skewed by the advent of live service games, but Book of Travels is an ambitious project from a small indie team and I would expect that it's going to take some time. A more detailed development roadmap is on the way, but the first month will be dedicated solely to taking player feedback: "No extra content will be added until we've taken that time to closely examine your first impressions," the studio said. I'm really eager to try this one. I've never really fallen for an MMO because they always quickly become a grind: Stand in line, kill ten rats, collect the stuff, move to the next. Compared to that, the promise of something more open and exploration-focused, especially in such a lovely looking game world, is a genuinely interesting prospect. You can find out more about the game at tmorpg.com.Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

Apple users are being urged to install emergency software updates released by the company on 13 September 2021 to patch a critical vulnerability discovered by security researchers. The vulnerability can allow hackers to silently infect iPhones and other Apple devices with powerful spyware known as Pegasus. Read on to find out what the security flaw means for Apple users, and what you should do if you’re affected. Sign up to our monthly Technology newsletter to keep on top of our latest tech news and reviews. Read more: The security flaw was discovered by cybersecurity researchers Citizen Lab, based in Toronto. It allows attackers to deploy what’s called a ‘zero-click exploit’ that can run silently without the owner of the device having to click on a suspect link or open a document. Once the infected files – in this case, PDF documents disguised as GIFs – are on a device, Pegasus spyware is silently installed. Once the spyware is on a device, the attackers can silently copy and steal the messages sent and received on the phone, use the camera to secretly film the phone’s owner, and eavesdrop via the microphone. While it’s very unlikely that ordinary users’ Apple devices will be targeted by Pegasus spyware, the vulnerability the researchers found has worried security experts. Where does the spyware come from? Spyware that can be installed without the phone’s owner doing anything at all is highly prized by law enforcement, criminals and some governments. It means they can silently snoop on the target without them having any clue their device has been compromised. The exploit in this case, called ‘FORCEDENTRY’, was found when the researchers analysed an iPhone belonging to a Saudi dissident, whose phone was hacked when they were sent image files containing the spyware via iMessage. Citizen Lab said that FORCEDENTRY is the latest in a string of zero-click exploits linked to NSO Group, an Israeli company best known for its Pegasus spyware. NSO Group says its products are meant to be used only to target criminals by licensed law enforcement bodies, but Pegasus is known to have been used in the past to target dissidents, journalists and human rights activists. The phones of activists in Bahrain, French journalists, and an adviser to Dubai’s Princess Latifa, who was recaptured in 2018 on a yacht on the Indian Ocean after fleeing the emirate, are among those whose phones are said to have been compromised by Pegasus spyware. Compare our Mac antivirus software package reviews. Read more: Apple Watches are updated to watchOS 7.6.2, while Macs running the current Big Sur version of macOS are updated to Big Sur 11.6. Older Macs running Catalina and Mojave will receive updates to Safari version 14.1.2. Apple’s head of security, Ivan Krstić, said: ‘Attacks like the ones described are highly sophisticated, cost millions of dollars to develop, often have a short shelf life, and are used to target specific individuals. ‘While that means they are not a threat to the overwhelming majority of our users, we continue to work tirelessly to defend all our customers, and we are constantly adding new protections for their devices and data.’ If you haven’t yet updated your Apple devices this week, you should check for the update and run it as soon as possible. Read more:

Amazon has officially announced the date for its big fall hardware event: it’ll take place on Tuesday, September 28th at 12PM ET / 9AM PT. As always, Amazon isn’t giving any details on what to expect — the invite sent to The Verge only says that they’ll be “news about our latest Amazon devices, features, and services.” In previous years, though, Amazon has announced new Echo speakers, updates to Alexa’s software, new Eero routers, updated Ring cameras, and more. Amazon also tends to announce its more unique and experimental products at its fall event: previous years have send the announcement of the Echo Loop ring, the Echo Frames glasses, and the Ring drone (which has yet to make a re-appearance since its initial debut last year.) We may have gotten an early look at Ring’s dash cam as well, when images leaked out this June. The event is invite only, so don’t expect a public livestream, but The Verge will be covering all the news as soon as it happens on September 28th.

Quantic Dream, the studio behind the narrative-focused Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human, may be working on a new Star Wars game. A trio of sources have reported that the studio has done a deal with Disney for a game that might already be well into development, and Quantic Dream itself dropped a cryptic hint about it too. The rumor first surfaced last week when French YouTuber Gautoz (via VGC) claimed that Quantic Dream "will be signing with Disney" now that its Sony contract is over. "It looks like they will be working on a Star Wars game," Gautoz said. Shortly after that, noted secrets-leaker Tom Henderson, who last week claimed that next year's Call of Duty game will be Modern Warfare 2, said on DualShockers that he had been told the same thing by a separate source "who provided overwhelming evidence that he had contacts at Quantic Dream." According to Henderson, the game has been in development for about 18 months. Quantic Dream also apparently "liked" Henderson's tweet about the story, although it has since unliked it. Make of that what you will.Finally, Kotaku says today that it too has heard the same story, from a separate source of its own, who also indicated that Quantic Dream has been working on it for about 18 months. Kotaku's source said the new project, unlike the studio's previous releases, is a more conventional action game, possibly in an open world setting and with multiplayer components.Some job openings on Quantic Dream's website point in a similar direction: The studio is hiring for roles including competitive senior game designer, who among other things must have "prior experience in managing a meta-database in LiveOps," and senior game economy designer, with "a sensibility to game design combined with an outstanding knowledge of all key elements that allow the game to work as a service and thrive financially." A senior level designer listing calls for experience working on an "open environment game and/or a multiplayer game." None of that (or any of the other listings I've looked at) mention Star Wars specifically, but they definitely point away from Quantic Dream's usual interactive dramas. Its games aren't everyone's cup of tea, but they are consistent: From The Nomad Soul to Detroit: Become Human, they're linear. narrative-heavy (and heavy-handed) adventures built on, as Andy Kelly put it a couple years ago, "lavish production values, QTEs, wild tonal inconsistency, overwrought drama, gratuitous shower scenes, and SWAT teams." That's not the sort of thing that calls for a games-as-a-service designer or open-world experience. It's odd to me that Quantic Dream would take on such a different style of game for its big Star Wars debut, especially since Ubisoft is already working on an open-world Star Wars game—but of course, all of this is entirely unconfirmed, and may ultimately prove mistaken in the details or entirely inaccurate. With similar reports coming from three separate sources, though, I'm inclined to give it some weight: I'm not expecting an open-world action game a la Destiny 2, but at this point I'll be a little surprised if Quantic Dream isn't working on a Star Wars something. I've reached out to the studio for more information and will update if I receive a reply.Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

Earlier this year, a well known beer company issued a peculiar ad before the Super Bowl. After showing a brief clip, they invited people to listen to an eight-hour soundscape while they slept in return for half-off a 12-pack of beer (or a free 12-pack if shared with a friend). The intention was to embed favourable thoughts and feelings about the brand and its product while listeners slept, in what they call "Targeted Dream Incubation". (I don't think the company needs naming—if they're advertising in people's sleep, they don't need the extra coverage from us!) It seems like a gimmick, but as an open letter from sleep researchers protesting this kind of advertising pointed out, people can be highly susceptible to suggestions made while sleeping. It also isn't a leap to already connect it to games: Xbox used Targeted Dream Incubation last year as part of the advertising campaign for the Xbox Series X, crafting videos out of the dreams selected streamers had after playing the new console for the first time. Hit game Tetris Effect is also literally named after the phenomenon where players continue to see tetromino shapes in their dreams or in the natural world, even for players who have the kinds of memory loss that mean they don't remember playing Tetris in the first place. It's an interesting psychological phenomenon by itself, with applications in treatment for PTSD flashbacks, and I kind of wish 'interesting things about the brain' wasn't a field that immediately got exploited for advertising. With both the Xbox ads and Tetris Effect, they're marketing on the stickiness of games in sleep, rather than directly using it for a mass audience, but that's little comfort when we know from the beer company that advertisers are ready to make that step. RECOMMENDED VIDEOS FOR YOU... Please close pop-out player to resume playback. video playingHalf Life: Alyx - Best VR Game of the Year 2020 | PC Gamer Death Stranding - Game of the Year 2020 | PC Gamer 31/12/20Death Stranding - Game of the Year 2020 | PC Gamer Crusader Kings III - Best Strategy Game of the... 30/12/20Crusader Kings III - Best Strategy Game of the Year 2020 | PC Gamer DOOM Eternal - Best FPS Game of the Year 2020 |... 29/12/20DOOM Eternal - Best FPS Game of the Year 2020 | PC Gamer Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Best RPG Game of the... 28/12/20Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Best RPG Game of the Year 2020 | PC Gamer Valorant - Best Multiplayer Game of the Year 2020 |... 27/12/20Valorant - Best Multiplayer Game of the Year 2020 | PC Gamer This isn't the only kind of intrusive advertising going on lately: Facebook is preparing to introduce adverts to Oculus Quest games and apps, using data from the user profiles that became mandatory to use the VR gaming headsets last October.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) on Thursday reported that Ukrainian law enforcement has pulled the plug on a clandestine cryptocurrency mining farm in the city of Vinnytsia. The perpetrators had set up camp in an old warehouse and stealthily tapped into the city's power grid to mine cryptocurrency. Most interestingly, the miners were caught with a shocking number of Playstation 4's. And pretty much everything else, too. The Ukrainian authorities reportedly seized up to 5,000 pieces of hardware, including over 500 graphics cards, 50 processors and 3,800 PlayStation 4 (PS4) consoles, all of which are in short supply in the U.S. and beyond, as well as other tidbits. It's not surprising to see processors and graphics cards discovered, since they are required to power mining rigs. The PS4 consoles, however, seem to be out of place.The photographs showed an endless list of racks with PS4s that are apparently connected to the internet. While we've seen pictures of alleged PS4 mining setups before, there has never been any concrete evidence that you can actually mine cryptocurrency on a gaming console. Although, after seeing a DIY project with a Game Boy mining Bitcoin, anything is possible. And the fact that the Ukrainian miners had so many PS4s does suggest that they may have found a way to mine with them. There's a base level of compute performance associated with Ethereum mining. However, the bar is so low that the majority of graphics cards end up with more compute performance so memory bandwidth has a more prominent role. The PS4 features 8GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 5.5 Gbps. Across the 256-bit memory interface, the PS4 delivers a memory bandwidth up to 176 GBps. The Pro variant, on the other hand, has memory running at 6.8 Gbps, offering up to 217.6 GBps. For comparison, the Radeon RX 580, which is one of the best mining GPUs, has a memory throughput of 256 GBps. Hypothetically, the PS4 Pro could potentially come close to a Radeon RX 580 in Ethereum mining. Even if it is possible to mine with a gaming console, using a graphics card or ASIC would still be more efficient. Then again, the Ukrainian miners had put up bogus electricity meters and were stealing electricity, so efficiency probably wasn't on their agenda.

A $16 billion effort to modernize health records at the Department of Veterans Affairs ran into major problems in its first installation, two watchdog reports say. The Department of Veterans Affairs tried several times to modernize its sprawling, aging health records system before deciding in 2018 to replace it.The Department of Veterans Affairs is in the process of overhauling the country’s oldest electronic health record system at the country’s largest hospital network. Even if it goes smoothly, planners have repeatedly warned, it will be an extremely complicated task that will take 10 years and cost more than $16 billion. And so far, it is going anything but smoothly. The new health record software is supposed to increase efficiency and speed up care in the beleaguered veterans’ health system, which serves more than nine million veterans. But when the department put it into use for the first time in October at a V.A. medical center in Washington State, it did the opposite. The department’s inspector general issued two scathing reports on the rollout this week. One found that the company that was awarded a no-bid contract by the Trump administration to do the overhaul underestimated costs by billions. The other report said the training program for hospital staff that the company created was so flawed and confusing that many employees considered it “an utter waste of time.” All the employees who went through the training at the first hospital to use the new health record system, the Mann-Grandstaff V.A. Medical Center in Spokane, Wash., were given a test afterward to see whether they had learned to use it proficiently. Nearly two-thirds failed, the report said.Soon after Mann-Grandstaff began using the software in October, employees started to complain that the training was rushed and inadequate. Tasks that had been simple before became complex. The new system was so cumbersome that productivity decreased by about one-third, the inspector general’s report said. “Staff were exhausted, struggling, felt that they were failing and morale was low,” the report said. The software upgrade also came with unexpected extra costs, the inspector general reported, because the department will have to spend at least an additional $2.5 billion for new laptop computers and other equipment that can run the new software. The Department of Veterans Affairs pioneered electronic health records in the 1980s with a system created in-house that is known as Vista. The open-source software used in Vista allowed employees at hospitals across the country to build on and adapt the system to meet local needs. But because anyone could modify it, Vista became a tangled software shantytown of more than 130 systems and thousands of applications. Though in general they worked seamlessly within the veterans’ hospital network, Vista was unable to readily share patient information with the military or with private hospitals.The department tried several times over the past 20 years to modernize Vista at its 1,500 hospitals and clinics, and spent nearly $1 billion in the process. But the hydra of homegrown code defied all its efforts.In 2018, the Trump administration signed a 10-year, $10 billion deal with a private medical-records contractor, the Cerner Corporation, to replace Vista and to train the department’s 367,200 health care workers to use the new system. Spokane was chosen for the trial run, and there were problems from the start, including two postponements. The office overseeing the installation did not consult with the frontline health care workers who would be using it, according to the inspector general. Employees were not given access to software they could practice on, the report said. Trainers supplied by Cerner were regularly unable to answer employees’ questions about practical use scenarios, and often demurred by saying, “Let’s put that in the parking lot.” After being inundated with complaints, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican who represents Spokane in Congress, sent a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs in March, describing a system that was so confusing it caused veterans to receive the wrong drugs and nurses to break down in tears. “I am hearing an increasing number of complaints and pleas for help,” Ms. McMorris Rodgers wrote in the letter. She added: “I have one report of a V.A. doctor ordering a veteran two medications, but he received 15 erroneous medications. I have multiple reports of prescriptions being delayed, which in one case caused a veteran to suffer withdrawal. These impacts are dangerous and unacceptable.” In surveys of hospital employees, two-thirds of those who completed the training said they still could not use the new system without difficulty, the inspector general’s report said. The department’s official test results told a different story, indicating that 89 percent of employees passed proficiency tests after training. But investigators found that, in fact, only about 44 percent had passed. Department officials in charge of the rollout had “removed outliers” to make the official results look better, and deleted additional data that may have shown further problems with training, the inspector general’s report said. The department said on Friday that it took the inspector general’s findings “very seriously,” but it declined to comment further on the reports. In a statement, Cerner said: “Cerner is fully supporting V.A. and shares their commitment to getting this right. Together, Cerner and V.A. have made progress toward achieving a lifetime of seamless care for our nation’s veterans and we look forward to continuing this important mission.” In the spring, as problems were becoming apparent, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis R. McDonough, who took over the department this year, suspended the rollout of the new system for three months to review issues. That review is now complete, and the department is expected to announce next week how it will proceed. A veterans’ hospital in Columbus, Ohio, was next in line to get the new system, but Mr. McDonough hinted at a news conference in June that the Columbus installation may be postponed. The secretary is scheduled to testify before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs next week, and is expected to face pointed questioning. “It is clear from these reports,” Representative Mark Takano, the California Democrat who chairs the committee, said in a statement, that the cost “was vastly underestimated by the previous administration and that there are significant failures with the current staff training program.”

Patrick Marleau can pass Gordie Howe for the most NHL games played when the San Jose Sharks forward plays No. 1,768 at the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday. "I'll try to take it all in as much as possible," Marleau said Saturday after playing game 1,767. "The fun part is playing an actual game and all that, but my family's going to be there to help celebrate, so it'll be super special having them in the building." San Jose lost 5-2 at the Minnesota Wild on Saturday when the 41-year-old forward tied Howe. "Monday there's going to be two separate feelings: It's going to be the honor of being in a game and watching Patty set history, and the other part is, let's play well with him and be proud of ourselves in the way we play," San Jose coach Bob Boughner said. "For me, that's the biggest thing right now. If we play our game, if we play well, we give ourselves a chance to win. That's what we intend to do on Monday for that big night and hopefully cap it off for Patty and his family the right way." Marleau is in his 23rd NHL season and has played 1,595 games in 21 seasons with the Sharks, including 44 this season to extend his streak of consecutive regular-season games to 898, fourth-longest in NHL history. The native of Aneroid, Saskatchewan, also played 164 games in two seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs (2017-19) and eight games with the Pittsburgh Penguins last season. "I'm looking at it as an opportunity to thank everybody who's helped me along the way, because there's no way you get to play in this league or play this long without a huge support system," Marleau told "Hockey Night in Canada." "Definitely my family, growing up, my parents, my brother and sister, all the sacrifices they make, and my immediate family now with my wife and kids. ... "Coaching staffs, training staff, teammates, chiropractors, massage therapists, I mean, everybody that I've come into contact and become friends with or who helped me along, I extremely want to thank them for all their support." Howe has held the NHL record for regular-season games played since Nov. 26, 1961, when he surpassed Ted Lindsay and became the first player to reach 1,000 games. Howe played 1,687 games in 25 seasons with the Detroit Red Wings before retiring in 1971. After coming out of retirement in 1973 to play 419 games in six seasons in the World Hockey Association for Houston and New England, Howe returned to the NHL for one season after New England joined the NHL as the Hartford Whalers in 1979. Howe played 80 games for the Whalers in 1979-80 before retiring again. A native of Floral, Saskatchewan, Howe played his final regular-season game against the Red Wings on April 6, 1980, at 52 years old. He was 88 when he died June 10, 2016. "First, I was so happy to hear that our group stayed out, the entire team shook his hand after the game," Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. "I understand it was initiated by [Ryan Suter]. I think that is such a classy thing for our group to do, and then we talked about it after the game in the coaches room that anytime your name can even be mentioned in the same sentence as Gordie Howe, it's very, very special, and what he's done for as long as he's done it and how he's played the game, not on the perimeter, just in the dirty areas. I don't know him personally, but everything you hear it's how team-first he is. It's a wonderful accomplishment." Howe is second in NHL history with 801 goals (Wayne Gretzky, 894) and fourth in points with 1,850. Marleau is 23rd in goals (566) and 50th in points (1,196). "Gordie, growing up, looking at hockey cards, looking at statistics, first things first, I always go see all the Saskatchewan players who grew up there and made the NHL, because that's where I was, and that's where I was trying to go, and obviously he was top of the list," Marleau said. Selected by San Jose with the No. 2 pick in the 1997 NHL Draft, Marleau made his NHL debut 16 days after his 18th birthday, Oct. 1, 1997, against the Edmonton Oilers. He is the youngest player to make his NHL debut since Hy Buller played at 17 years, 267 days with the Red Wings on Dec. 7, 1943. After playing 1,493 games in 19 seasons with the Sharks, Marleau signed a three-year contract with the Maple Leafs as an unrestricted free agent July 2, 2017. Marleau was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes on June 22, 2019, and had the final season of his contact bought out without playing a game for the Hurricanes. "One of the most respected guys in the League," Minnesota forward Zach Parise said. "I don't know if that's a record that's going to be broken again. At least it's going to be there for a long time. You have to have a lot of things go right, a lot of things go your way with your health. When you think about it, that many games, and unfortunately he's gone through two lockouts. He could be at 2,000 now. It's an incredible number." Marleau returned to San Jose to play 58 games last season before being traded to Pittsburgh on Feb. 24, 2020. He became an unrestricted free agent and signed a one-year contract with the Sharks on Oct. 13. "It's incredible being around Patty for a bit and seeing all the work he's put in getting to this point where he's beating that kind of record," San Jose forward Timo Meier said. "It's obviously incredible for him, but all the teammates are incredibly proud, and we're really honored to be on the same team and witness that record." Marleau has played in four decades: 196 games in the 1990s, 716 in the 2000s, 782 in the 2010s and 73 in the 2020s. Maple Leafs forward Joe Thornton (173 games) and Washington Capitals defenseman Zdeno Chara (119) are the other active players to play in the NHL during the 1990s. "He's the greatest Shark to ever wear the Shark jersey," San Jose defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic said. "Great teammate, 500-plus goals, has the records for longest games played. He's done it all for the San Jose Sharks, and that's why when you say 'San Jose Sharks' the first player that comes to mind is Patrick Marleau." Howe is the only player in to play in the NHL in five decades: 191 games in the 1940s, 690 in the 1950s, 701 in the 1960s, 139 in the 1970s and 46 in the 1980s. "That was pretty special," San Jose forward Kevin Labanc said. "I mean, I'm so happy for him. He's so classy, I'm congratulating him and his whole family. You think about how many games, to play that long, it's incredible, and he's a great player. It couldn't happen to a better person, and we're all looking forward to the next game when he passes Gordie Howe's record." NHL.com staff writers Tom Gulitti and Tracey Myers and independent correspondent Jessi Pierce contributed to this report

Artificial intelligence-driven commercial energy storage provider Stem Inc has put its Athena software platform in a 345MWh portfolio of California assets in an IT handover that only took two months. The company was appointed to put the Athena software to manage the 86-site commercial and industrial (C&I) energy storage asset portfolio by its joint owners, South Korean technology company SK E&S and Switzerland-headquartered investment fund SUSI Partners in June, as reported by Energy-Storage.news at the time. Athena provides intelligence and real-time decision-making capabilities to the energy storage systems, enabling end-customers to manage their energy costs and usage, particularly at times of peak demand while also providing local utility Southern California Edison (SCE) with a controllable capacity resource. Stem Inc said this week that after transferring the portfolio within two months of landing the contract from SK and SUSI’s joint venture (JV) company Electrodes Holdings, the sites have been operating successfully for six months and have realised an average 30% increase in savings versus the previously installed software. Stem Inc is currently targeting a New York Stock Exchange listing of its shares via merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Star Peak Energy Transition Corp. Star Peak said yesterday that a special meeting of its stockholders will be held on 27 April to approve the business combination with Stem. 15 April 2021: Zinc battery player Eos buys manufacturing JV stake from nuclear company Holtec Aqueous zinc battery energy storage company Eos Energy Enterprises has bought out its partner in a manufacturing joint venture (JV), nuclear equipment company Holtec. The long-duration energy storage technology and systems provider, which already listed on the NASDAQ exchange through a SPAC merger in November has announced a number of recent contract wins to provide its technology in geographies including Greece, India and around the US. It had established HI-POWER, a manufacturing partnership with Holtec in 2019, leaning on Eos’ battery manufacturing design automation technology and Holtec’s decades-long history of manufacturing equipment for nuclear energy facilities. A manufacturing facility was established at Holtec’s Pittsburgh base. Eos Energy Enterprises said earlier this week that it has acquired the remaining 51% equity in HI-POWER and has assumed full control over supply chain, back-office, personnel and day-to-day management relating to the venture and will continue manufacturing at the site. Eos will pay Holtec back its initial US$10 million capital contribution it made in the venture and five further US$5 million annual instalments. 15 April 2021: Softbank Ventures Asia invests in novel vanadium ion battery company - report Venture capital group Softbank Ventures Asia appears to have invested in Standard Energy, a South Korea-based startup developing and commercialising a novel vanadium ion battery for stationary storage applications. Softbank Ventures Asia, the VC arm of telecommunications group Softbank, posted a link to a news story from technology website Techcrunch on its social media channels including LinkedIn and Facebook which said that an investment was made in a US$8.9 million Series C funding round. The news was also covered in various South Korean news channels. Standard Energy did not respond to a request for confirmation and more details from Energy-Storage.news by the time of publication. According to the company’s website, what it has developed is dissimilar to both lithium-ion and vanadium redox flow batteries, claiming Standard Energy has “created a battery the world has never seen before”. Standard Energy claims the vanadium ion battery has 96% energy efficiency and capable of continuous high power operation without additional cooling. Like vanadium redox flow batteries, it promises long-term capacity retention and unlike lithium-ion has “zero ignition risk”, even through over-voltage, exposure to high temperatures and penetration. Standard Energy claims it has already been through more than a million hours of test time from lab scale to field testing.

For storage startups focused on the highest end of infrastructure, removing the costs associated with a hardware business might be the only way to reach potential. But only if you’re not leaving customers to fend for themselves integration-wise. Look as profitable as possible and focus on only the largest deals. This has been Vast Data’s stated mission since its inception and in a new move announced today, the startup is one step closer to both. Vast is stepping out of the hardware business and taking that hefty line item off their books, shifting it entirely to hardware partner, Avnet. Instead of buying the hardware up front or forcing customers into the familiar pattern of over-provisioning, Vast’s books show a software profits only while on the customer side, they can basically dedicate support people just to those muti-petabyte deals they’re focusing on. It is this focus on just the highest end of storage where Vast can differentiate from other startups who took a similar approach to ditching their hardware businesses. First, they’re doing it relatively early in their game, avoiding the Oracle or Nutanix shock that hit when those companies took similar steps. And unlike a Nutanix, which focused on tackling the entire market, from small, mid-size, and large enterprise, Vast won’t have to scramble wildly to deeply support everyone. It’s just the largest installs, which means Vast can wisely provision the people to make the support work instead of trying to handhold the world’s businesses ala Nutanix. This is a smart move. Vast can have all the cost off their own books, pushing it onto Avnet’s, and bask in the glory of high software margins, making it more attractive to investors and potential buyers. And while it shows some internal business savvy, there’s nothing really lost for users, in fact, everything stays the same, except users can buy hardware at cost and add to it over time instead of having a single fat CAPEX to contend with when what they wanted might have been a performance not a capacity increase out of the gate. The kernel of the idea for this shift in practice was driven by a hyperscale customer that wanted to use Vast’s software but already had established relationships with the hardware vendors. What held the deal back, according to Vast’s Jeff Denworth, was that they didn’t want to leave their own hardware partnerships on the floor to make the shift to one of their appliances. “They wanted to buy like a hyperscaler but they don’t have legions of people doing storage integration. In this middle state where they want the visibility, want to align their flash purchases with their server purchasing cadence for maximum buying power but don’t want to deal with the integration part.” This “Gemini” business model, as Vast as named it, will let Vast keep selling managed software on hardware that customers can buy at cost as an integrated appliance that comes straight from Avnet. And for end users, the possibility to escape some of the problems inherent to appliance purchases, letting “customers buy like hyperscale cloud operators without the heavy lifting commonly associated with building always-on, massively scalable clouds of low-cost flash infrastructure.” “This is really the first disaggregated business model in storage,” Denworth says. “At the end of the day, customers just cut us a check for the software and only see hardware at or below street price. We have our own purchasing people work with companies like Intel and Mellanox to ensure a good price and you’re not solving the problem on your own, which you would be with software-defined plays. The product is fully integrated by the manufacturer, just as before, so in terms of how the systems is delivered and supported, it’s all the same but for us, we have more financial instruments to use to go after the big deals and to satisfy customer requirements in a more granular manner.” The true differentiator here for those hyperscalers who want to leverage all the hardware partnership benefits but don’t want to deal with integration is packaged in with the Gemini model. Vast has a “co-pilot” for each of its customers who have their own hardware but a Vast Gemini license. This gets them their own Level 3 engineer dedicated to their site to monitor systems, handle feature requiests, and manage all the deployment and operation of Vast’s Universal Storage platform. VAST says it has already delivered dozens of petabytes to customers since the launch of this new business model at the turn of the year. Gemini customers such as Squarepoint Capital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard benefit from the flexibility Gemini provides them as they scale their Universal Storage investments with a solution that is now optimized for each organization’s unique requirements. “Hardware refreshes are a chronic headache for any IT department as any downtime can have a negative impact on business operations,” said Bill Mayo, CIO of Broad Institute. “What we look for are solutions that have the flexibility to scale performance and capacity so we can quickly adjust to the needs of our organization.” “In the quantitative trading industry, having the flexibility to dial up performance and grow on demand without a forced refresh or hardware tax is a key win for our business,” said Jesse Sieger, Systems Specialist at global investment management firm Squarepoint Capital. “Gemini has given us the freedom and flexibility to meet our data center needs at any given time, while also increasing our return on investment.”

Hugh, Amanda and Suzie visit a dormer house in Cork, a restored schoolhouse in Co. Down and modern home in Co. Galway. Which home will progress to the finale? Norma and Stephen Barrett bought a site in Cork in 1993 and built a dormer house. Twenty-four years on, they decided to modernise the house. Stephen, who is an engineer, and Norma, who works in computer science, worked closely with Cook architects to design the house and they also helped with the decorating. They used modern architectural methods such as zinc cladding; the windows have been cleverly planned to bring in as much light and the house has clever detail throughout.Another chance to see Lucy Kennedy heading off to 'live' with Christy Dignam. Christy has led the ultimate rock n roll lifestyle. Lucy gets to experience her first Aslan concert when she accompanies the band to a sold-out gig in Limerick.If you’ve been missing The Handmaid’s Tale then this one based on a book by Margaret Atwood might do the trick. Based on the real life of Irish servant, Grace Marks. In 1842 Marks is convicted of the murder of her employer and his housekeeper in Canada. She is escorted from the Kingston Penitentiary to do housework for the prison's governor. Meanwhile, Simon Jordan, an ambitious New York doctor, arrives to meet a committee dedicated to pardoning Grace. Grace recounts to Simon her torturous childhood and emigration from Ireland.Appearances are deceptive in a glossy six-part adaptation of Jean Hanff Korelitz's novel You Should Have Known directed by Susanne Bier. Successful therapist Grace Fraser (Nicole Kidman) juggles her demanding work and responsibilities to her devoted husband Mike (Hugh Grant) and young son Henry (Noah Jupe). A violent death compels Grace to question everything she thought she knew, especially her husband.

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a senior Saudi royal, sold a large English country estate to the King of Bahrain’s family, according to people with knowledge of the deal. The former ambassador to the U.S. sold Glympton Park in the scenic Cotswolds region in February, the people said, asking not to be identified as the deal is confidential. The sale price was more than 120 million pounds ($165 million), one of the people said. Public documents filed this month for Glympton Estates Ltd., the company managing the estate, show a change of ownership at that firm. They now list King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa and his son, Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa, as the people with significant control of the firm, replacing Prince Bandar. Part of the upper floors of Glympton Park House, O Part of the upper floors of Glympton Park HouseMARTYN HAYHOW/AFP via Getty Images The sale underlines the close relationship between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, the neighboring island nation that has relied heavily on the kingdom for security and fiscal support. Representatives for Prince Bandar declined to comment. Representatives for the Bahrain King did not respond to requests for comment.The sale also shows that wealthy buyers are opting for estates outside London for holiday homes after the pandemic made living in the capital less attractive. The lifestyle changes triggered by the virus meant last year was probably the most active for top-end country homes since the 1980s, Lucian Cook, head of residential research at broker Savills Plc, said in a December statement. A number of U.K. assets owned by members of the House of Saud royal family have come to the market in recent years. Prince Abdulaziz bin Fahd is reported to be in advanced talks to sell a stake in Salesforce Tower, a City of London skyscraper, to a U.S. investor for about 195 million pounds. The private family office of Cheung Chung Kiu, a Chinese magnate, recently bought a 45-room home in the Knightsbridge district from the heirs of Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the late crown prince, for more than 200 million pounds. Glympton Park is a former deer park in an area renowned for its large country homes and high-end holiday properties. The estate includes the main house, which was constructed in the 18th century, parkland and a church. Prince Bandar is an elder statesman in Saudi Arabia and was previously in charge of intelligence. He bought the estate in the 1990s for 11 million pounds and reputedly spent a further 42 million pounds on renovations afterward, the Oxford Mail reported in 2008. King Hamad and his family have a long association with Britain and the Royal family, including attending the Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations. Bahrain is one of a number of nations that sends officers to train at the U.K.’s Sandhurst Royal Military Academy.

To assist that winning formula, access to a state-of-the-art informatics suite is key, either on-site or as a cloud-based solution. This article evaluates a third option that is taking off across laboratories of all sizes, from entry-level to enterprise: Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). A subscription-based Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), hosted in the cloud and accessed via the internet, can be a secure, scalable, and cost-effective alternative to conventional software licensing, installation, validation, management, and maintenance. It is therefore crucial to know how to determine if the software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery model for a LIMS is right for your organization. If reducing complexity and upfront expense is a priority, then SaaS is well worth considering. This desire -- for simplicity and a smooth-running experience -- is behind the ever-growing trend to provide cloud-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, including those that many of us depend on daily. Think Microsoft Office 365, Google Apps, Dropbox, and Slack, to name just a few omnipresent SaaS brands. Increasingly, the laboratory informatics space is also seeing a shift toward the cloud, and not just for hosting a purchased LIMS solution or subsequent data storage. There’s an eagerness to renounce conventional models of licensing, installing, managing, and maintaining software in favor of using a web-based service provider to acquire the right-sized application and, at the same time, shift the responsibility for back-end security, availability, and performance.To get to the heart of the growing appeal of a SaaS LIMS, a sense of why some organizations prefer to continue with their existing protocols is needed. For those purchasing software to meet their specific needs with the support of strong IT departments, a LIMS on-site has some captivating advantages. Companies that are especially risk-averse may want more control over their data with in-house retention. The necessity for a stable, predictable LIMS, with the potential for additional components such as Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN), Lab Execution System (LES), and Scientific Data Management System (SDMS), exceeds other considerations; such as sedate upgrade cycles and the maintenance interruptions during hardware or software risk of service. But those principles underscore the challenges that are at the foundations of purchasing a LIMS. There could be considerable expenses up-front with regards to acquiring a permanent software license. While for a large global enterprise, it may be of little concern, it could be prohibitive for many smaller companies and laboratories with stringent operating budgets. Hardware, appropriate IT-support staffing, and the maintenance costs associated with sustaining a secure data center require large budgets. However, a managed cloud solution can limit many concerns for large and small organizations alike. In an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model, the LIMS software is purchased, but subsequent installation and hosting takes place across virtual servers at remote facilities, for a fee or through a subscription-based arrangement. The customer can access the LIMS via a secure connection and a web browser while being free from infrastructure management. Service level agreements offer additional layers of assurance insofar as availability is concerned. However, the customer still has the responsibilities of software administration and maintenance. In that context, it’s clear to see why a SaaS-based LIMS might be an attractive prospect for many organizations.With a SaaS model, companies can access a state-of-the-art informatics suite without any considerable upfront capital investment concerning licensing and infrastructure or paying for unnecessary features. Simply put, they’re renting access to cloud-based applications and the necessary features, along with storage for LIMS and other data. Servers, security, networking, load balancing, auto-failover, and backups are all included in the subscription package. Whether they are in the same lab, a different building or another part of the world, users have persistent access to the latest version via their web browser of choice and because the vendor looks after all software updates. There’s no additional need for additional installation or validation on a workstation, laptop, or mobile device. Access to particular features can be switched on or off, a feature common across SaaS applications developed for personal and professional use. Subscribers can often choose from a selection of plans, such as Standard, Advanced, and Enhanced, each with unique price-points, based on the necessity to support a certain number of users and/or get access to increased storage, load balancing, testing parameters, failover and disaster recovery, or other features. That flexibility can also be receptive to an organization’s ever-changing requirements. In fact, instant scalability to meet the demands of business is a key benefit when considering a subscription-based model. A vendor can configure its SaaS offering as pre-packaged, industry-specific solutions that cope with unique workflows in biobanking, cancer research, diagnostics, health care, contract testing, quality assurance, the food and beverage industry, and oil and gas sectors, for example. Thus, facilitating the appropriate LIMS solution for any organization while eliminating the need for customizations, accelerating adoption and deployment, and reducing costs. Vendor validation of the SaaS environment is critical for LIMS customers in regulated industries.Pharmaceutical, healthcare, food and beverage, and like industries can now take advantage of validated SaaS, in which the vendor ensures the delivered system is managed and maintained in a controlled, risk-aware manner. The vendor assumes responsibility for changes made to the delivered software during feature enhancements, software upgrades, and updates made to the LIMS, where every alteration is fully documented, tested, and reported to the user.That evidence of validated control is essential when a company must report to the FDA or similar regulatory body. Such vendor support guarantees the system is held to the highest possible standard in terms of data integrity and system control, and the responsibility for maintaining those issues rests with the vendor. In a large – or growing – organization, validated SaaS is essential because it allows the LIMS to be deployed with confidence and even expand to other locations, subsidiaries, and partners.According to a recent investigation conducted by LabVantage, if one considers that most LIMS are in use for around seven years before they are significantly upgraded or replaced, alongside the average annual costs related to hardware and IT resources, a SaaS-based LIMS could lead to a saving up to 32 percent in contrast to the expense of an on-site solution.1 However, budget alone should not be a leading factor. One of the early questions a decisionmaker should ask is, “What’s needed?” followed by, “And why?” This is directive toward a number of scenarios in which a SaaS-based LIMS could make the most sense. For a tech-savvy organization already using the cloud, or in which the C-suite has decided to transition to a cloud-first strategy, the answer to “why” could lead the way. Others that don’t have strong IT and financial resources to draw upon might also see a cloud-based solution as a legitimate fit for their needs. Labs of all sizes that have simple or common routines and don’t need a full-featured or fully configured informatics suite fit another category for which the SaaS model is appropriate. Mergers and acquisitions, contract or off-shore projects, and other circumstances in which a temporary solution might be needed during a transition period or where the clarity around the feature set required for long-term use is not known. Such instances could take advantage of the built-in security, flexibility, scalability, and ease of adoption that a subscription-based LIMS offers.Choosing between an on-site, managed cloud, or SaaS solution (validated or not) necessitates a number of decision points. One way to evaluate the decision-making process is using a decision tree. (see page 4). For an organization that wants to keep its LIMS on-site or is intent on customizing one, there isn’t a path to SaaS. And if purchasing a permanent license is also preferential, the only options are an on-site installation or a cloud-based solution with or without a managed services contract. But for those that seek out an approach with less of a burden and know the value of effortless and cost-effective access to a consistently up-to-date laboratory informatics suite, with wholly integrated LIMS, ELN, LES, and SDMS, SaaS is a good alternative. And with vendor validation, it is accessible to industries subjected to regulation. Labs of all sizes – from entry-level to enterprise – can reap the rewards of eliminating the expensive overheads associated with conventional systems and just pay for what is necessary when using SaaS-based LIMS.

AMD'd next-generation Ryzen Threadripper might be coming soon, according to the latest patch notes for the po[CENSORED]r HWiNFO diagnostic suite. Realix, the developer behind HWiNFO, said earlier today that the upcoming version of the software will improve its work with AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro as well as "next-generation Ryzen Threadripper" platforms. This is essentially one of the first public signs of AMD's 4th Generation Threadripper, which is allegedly based on the Epyc 'Milan' design. "Improved detection of AMD ThreadRipper Pro and next-generation ThreadRipper," a line in the HWiNFO changelog reads.Unfortunately, we're still not certain if HWiNFO got word from AMD or is simply adapting its Milan knowledge to fit the new Threadripper.That's because, at this point, we don't know much about AMD's next-generation Ryzen Threadripper and what 'improved detection' means in its case. We are almost certain that the upcoming Ryzen Threadripper will be based on the 3rd Generation Epyc 7003-series 'Milan' design and will therefore feature Zen 3-based chiplets with a unified core complex and L3 cache architecture. We can also assume that these CPUs feature slightly different sensors, a new memory controller, and other changes. So, if HWiNFO can properly detect Epyc 7003-series, it should be able to detect most of the next-generation Threadripper's features correctly without help from AMD. Still, diagnostic software is also vital for hardware developers and enthusiasts that play with the latest parts. Therefore, hardware developers are eager to add support for their new and upcoming products to diagnostic software in a bid to make the lives of their partners a bit easier. That's why it's not uncommon to learn news about future products from various third-party software makers. So, in the case of HWiNFO's next-generation Threadripper announcement, we can't confirm whether Realix got preliminary information from AMD or just learned how to use Epyc 7003-series 'Milan' information in context of the next-generation Ryzen Threadripper. In any case, now that Milan is out, AMD's 4th Generation Ryzen Threadripper is a bit closer to release too.

Finnish developer Supercell is best known for its mobile games Clash of Clans and Clash Royale, and today, it announced plans to expand that fantasy universe in a big way. Supercell revealed that three new Clash titles are in development. “On top of offering a new Clash experience to current players, we want to broaden Clash to new audiences who haven’t experienced Clash before,” the developer wrote in a blog post. The games include: Clash Quest, a turn-based tactical adventure game; Clash Mini, a virtual board game where you build teams of adorable miniatures; and Clash Heroes, a co-op action roleplaying game. Supercell also notes that they’re all fairly early in development and will likely change in some ways as things progress.In fact, the developer is somewhat infamous for killing games in beta, so some of these titles might not see a wide release at all. “With your feedback, we think these three can become the great games that Clash fans deserve,” the developer says. “If they don’t meet the standards though, we’ll kill them and move on to other attempts.” Even still, the trio of games represents a big push from the company to expand its po[CENSORED]r fantasy universe; last year, Supercell also launched its first CG animated short, and in 2016, there was a Clash webseries helmed by writers who worked on The Simpsons. The push also shows the company’s growth in recent years. Two of the games — Mini and Heroes — will be the first titles out of Supercell’s new Shanghai studio. “It’s important to note that the Clash of Clans and Clash Royale game teams are 100 percent separate from the three [new] Clash games (and the dev teams behind them),” the developer says. “Meaning these new Clash games won’t impact any development or support for existing Supercell games.” There’s no word on when any of the new games will start rolling out in beta, but Supercell says it also has several other non-Clash games in development.

The German premium automobile market is headed for a blowout quarter and BMW is “too intriguing to ignore,” Deutsche Bank said on Thursday, as the bank upgraded the stock and raised the target price by 17%. Shares in BMW (ticker: BMW.Germany) climbed 2% higher in early Frankfurt trading before giving up gains to trade around flat—ahead of rivals Volkswagen Group (VOW.Germany) and Daimler (DAI.Germany), which were 1% to 2% lower. BMW stock is up 22% since the beginning of the year. The back story. While the Covid-19 pandemic wrought havoc on car makers in 2020 and led to a massive fall in sales, BMW’s exposure to China—its largest and most profitable market—helped the 105-year-old company to rebound. Beyond the pandemic, the road ahead for BMW, like many other European car makers, will be defined by electric vehicles. Governments instituted a pedal-to-the-metal push for greener transport last year. Incentives for consumers and punitive emissions targets for manufacturers helped make Europe the world’s largest electric-vehicle market in 2020, and the region remains a key force in the industry’s pivot away from internal combustion engines. BMW lags behind Volkswagen Group, Europe’s EV leader and the key rival to Tesla (TSLA), as well as Mercedes-Benz-owner Daimler, but controls more than 5% of the total European EV market. BMW plans for electric vehicles to account for 50% of sales by 2030 and restructure its product range around a new class of EVs from 2025. Also read: BMW Stock Is Up Amid a Sunny Profit Outlook. But Electric Vehicles Are the Real Story, and Investors Should Watch Out. What’s new. German premium cars are headed for “a very strong quarter,” Deutsche Bank said on Thursday, with upscale brands like BMW set to outperform mass-market European businesses like Renault and parts of Volkswagen Group, which includes Audi and Porsche. Analysts led by Tim Rokossa at the bank said that while BMW lags behind Daimler and Volkswagen in its pivot to electric vehicles, the company’s momentum is “too intriguing to ignore,” especially in the U.S. The analysts also noted that the company is a “safer” pick than its German rivals with respect to environmental, social, and governance investing factors. The bank said BMW’s chief financial officer, Dr. Nicolas Peter, left a positive impression on analysts following a roadshow where the management team confirmed that pricing remains strong across all markets. BMW expects deliveries to rise 5% to 10% year-over-year, with management considering the upper end of the range more reasonable, but Deutsche Bank said this guidance may actually be too conservative.The bank upgraded BMW stock from hold to buy and raised the target price to €105 ($123.64) from €90. With the shares trading around €88, the analysts see the stock as having legs to run 19% higher. The analysts also said that BMW confirmed that the supply chain of semiconductors was tight amid the global shortage, but that there has been no discontinuation of production.Looking ahead. If auto investors have learned one thing in the last year, it is that the market is going crazy for electric-vehicle stocks. The hunger for EVs has spilled over from pure electric plays like Tesla and NIO (NIO) to legacy car makers, with shares in well-positioned groups such as Volkswagen seeing a tremendous rally in the last month. Barron’s has cautioned in the past that investors in the likes of BMW should be careful to keep an eye on valuations, and not let romantic growth stories overshadow the realities of this competitive sector. That is still true. But Deutsche Bank’s upgrade adds weight to the company’s ambitions and is a meaningful endorsement. An added bonus is that BMW is currently safe from the global semiconductor shortage. This is more immediate good news for the stock, because manufacturing issues related to the chip shortage have wrought havoc for shares in other companies, like Volvo Trucks, which now faces production halts.Emmanuel Macron was last week the first European leader to suggest the European Union should decide a significant other round of fiscal stimulus, on the model of the $1.9 trillion package passed by the U.S. Congress two weeks ago. “The U.S. will be back to pre-crisis level by the middle of 2021, and most important will resume their [growth] trajectory very soon,” the French president said after a video summit of EU leaders, noting that the European economy will only be back to its prepandemic level in the spring of 2022.Wall Street is facing a new problem linked to hedge funds, margin calls, financial derivatives, and leverage. It sounds a little scary, but it shouldn’t be enough to hurt the market. The same can’t be said for some banks’ stocks, though. Shares of Credit Suisse and Nomura Holdings fell sharply on Monday, as each warned of potentially large losses from a U.S. client, likely linked to troubles for Archegos Capital Management reported by Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal. Archegos declined to comment.American depositary receipts of Chinese electric-vehicle makers NIO, Li Auto, and XPeng are under more pressure after an editorial in a Chinese news outlet called out some problems with the local EV industry. NIO (ticker: NIO) ADRs are down about 0.5% in early Monday trading. Li Auto (LI) ADRs are down 0.3%, and XPeng (XPEV) ADRs have fallen 1.7%. The S&P 500, for comparison, is down about 0.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is off about 0.1%.Covid-19 hammered the restaurant business—and its suppliers, like restaurant equipment maker Welbilt—hard. But with the economy recovering and eateries reopening, Welbilt stock looks like a buy. It’s been a miserable year for restaurants. Sales fell 27% last year, as in-person dining disappeared and restaurants were shuttered. And when no one is going to restaurants, the businesses don’t buy new ovens, which caused revenue at Welbilt (ticker: WBT), which makes deep-fryers that McDonald’s (MCD) uses to cook its french fries,...Lululemon will report earnings on Tuesday, and Piper Sandler argues that the stay-at-home-era star can deliver—in its results, and throughout the year—even with an economic reopening. Analyst Erinn Murphy reiterated an Overweight rating on Lululemon athletica (ticker: LULU), although she lowered her target for the stock price to $478 from $490. The maker of athletic apparel “should benefit from the broader casualization of fashion trends–even in 2021,” she wrote.Am I getting desperate, or do European stocks look attractive? Let’s not rule out a combination of the two. The S&P 500 index is up more than 75% from its pandemic low a year ago. And since good news on vaccines broke in November, value stocks and reopening plays have turned into market darlings. If you hold a value stock that isn’t up at least 20% since then, consider the possibility that it’s not a value. Or not a stock. Is the ticker symbol kWh? That might be a utility bill.

Last March, as you remember, the Players Championship was canceled after one round due to the pandemic. Your betting was canceled, too. No second-, third- or final-round picks, no head-to-heads, no props. Nothing. Starting Thursday, as the Players plays again, you, the gambler, gambles again. We’re here to help. Eleven members of our staff have made three picks — to win, top 10 and a prop bet of choice — using odds from the DraftKings website. Our primary goal, of course, is to help you with your own weekly picks, whether those are for a low-stakes office fantasy league, or (legal!) big-bucks bets with a sportsbook. Or for the new Chirp Golf app (which is available in the App Store and at Google Play), which allows users to place live bets using fake money to win real-life prizes. Our Josh Sens, who won our weekly picks game last year, will kick things off. Whom does he like? Scottie Scheffler, at +5,500. “Just a matter of time,” Sens writes. “Just a matter of time. So they keep telling us. I agree.”To-win: Viktor Hovland, +2,800. Barring a weekend slip-up at Bay Hill last week, Hovland is as hot as any player in the game, with four top-five finishes, including a win, in his past six starts. He hits greens (ranked 23rd on Tour), makes birdies in bunches (9th) and knows how to score (10th) — a recipe for success at the Stadium Course. Top 10: Jon Rahm, +200. Five top-10s in past seven starts. About to make it 6-for-8. Prop: Best 18-hole round score of the tournament: Louis Oosthuizen, +5,000. Louis knows how to go low like the best of them. Witness his cumulative score over his past eight PGA Tour rounds: 26 under.To-win: Collin Morikawa, +2,200. He’s coming off a victory and played well in his one round (which was wiped out last year) at the Players. The key to TPC Sawgrass is finding fairways and hitting greens, and the best young ball-striker in the game is the perfect fit. He’s struggled putting in the past but was sharp two weeks ago at the WGC, and if he can be even close to that good on the greens again, he’s going to contend. Top 10: Tony Finau, +225. Are there better near-top-10 locks than Tony Finau these days? He hasn’t played particularly well here, but he’s in solid form. Prop: To be decided by a playoff, yes, +400. We missed this event last year, so now we need some bonus golf. Plus, the Players’ three-hole aggregate playoff is fantastic theater.To-win: Hideki Matsuyama, +4,000. Oh how quickly we forget Hideki’s 63 in the opening round of last year’s Players. Had the Tour not stopped play, it’s quite possible Matsuyama could have entered this year’s tournament the returning champion (and to think he hasn’t won since!). I like Hideki to finish what he started this week.Top 10: Patrick Reed, +400. Reed ranks second on Tour in Strokes Gained: Putting and has only two sub-20 finishes in 2021. This is absurd value for a guy who’s played quite well to date. I’m sorry, but these are just the golf FACTS. Prop: Best 18-hole round score of the tournament, Jordan Spieth, +3,300. I cannot, in good conscience, pick him to win this golf tournament. But less than two months removed from a 10-under 61 at the Waste Management, I most definitely CAN pick Spieth to have the low score of the tournament.To-win: Justin Thomas, +2,000. He’s too good to have odds this long, and there are glimmers of hope despite a lackluster start to 2021. If he drives it in the fairway, expect him to contend. Top 10: Sungjae Im, +550. He’s a Florida killer and finding his form. Prop: Playoff, +400. It’s gonna get clumpy at the top.To-win: Dustin Johnson, +1,200. I don’t normally pick the favorite, but I am this week. Hard to deny DJ’s stats this year as a whole, even if he doesn’t have the BEST record at TPC Sawgrass. He did have a T5 in 2019, so that’s enough justification for me. Top 10: Webb Simpson, +300. I can’t quit you, Webb! And why should I? Guy is a Top-10 machine, playing great. Plus, he’s a former champ (2018). Easy pick! Prop: Best 18-hole round score of the tournament, Rory McIlroy, +2,200. Regardless of where McIlroy finishes in the big events, seems like he can always be counted on to post a low-to-mid 60s round at some point during the week.

Experts from the sector argue making coverings mandatory in all public spaces will hurt business and not do anything to stop coronavirus contagionsAfter a punishing year, the Spanish tourism sector is desperately in need of good news. But instead, the new law making face masks mandatory in all public spaces regardless of the distance between people has come as an additional blow. Until now, the law only imposed the use of masks if a safe distance of 1.5 meters could not be respected. The change in the law went largely unnoticed until it was flagged up by EL PAÍS, despite its publication in the Official State Bulletin (BOE). The obligation to keep mouths and noses covered in public spaces, including the beach and swimming pool, will undoubtedly put a number of tourists off coming to Spain, according to industry pundits who point out that businesses were not consulted on the measure. “We are going through the kind of hell that threatens to wipe out thousands and thousands of jobs and businesses,” says José Luis Zoreda, vice-president of Exceltur, the main lobby group for Spanish tourism – a sector which accounted for 12% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) prior to the health crisis. “And now they want to turn the beaches into open-air field hospitals.”According to Zoreda, the sector has already given up any hope of an Easter rebound. “The crucial thing now is to look to the summer, which means instilling high levels of confidence so that foreigners or Spaniards want to visit,” he says. Zoreda does not believe that these types of measures, which he considers “improvised,” are helpful in building that confidence. And it’s not just the face masks. In Exceltur, they are extremely critical of the ubiquitous images of illegal parties in tourist apartments in cities like Madrid and the new rules that require travelers coming over the French border to have a negative PCR test. “We ask that tourism be a state policy,” says Zoreda. “And we want more consistency between the measures, many of which seem contradictory.” After talking to EL PAÍS by phone, Zoreda produces a meme showing the faces of two tourists who have a tan mark on their faces from wearing a face mask. The caption reads: “Souvenir of our vacation in Tenerife.” It is a joke, but one that aptly reflects the concerns of the sector.Exceltur is not the only organization to criticize the Spanish government’s new face mask law. In regions highly dependent on tourism, the announcement has also come as a shock. The Benidorm Hotel Association (Hosbec), considers the initiative “excessive.” According to Nuria Montes, the secretary general of Hosbec, “the security measures that were taken last year of creating plots on beaches, maintaining distances and monitoring compliance with the regulations proved to be effective. If you are with people from the same household in areas of 4x4 meters and maintain social distance, we do not understand why it would be necessary to wear a mask when sunbathing.” But in the Valencia region, the use of face masks was already mandatory in public areas, including beaches and swimming pools, regardless of social distance. This law was passed in February and will remain in force until April 12. Only those in the water are exempt. The government of the Balearic Islands, a po[CENSORED]r tourist destination, announced on Wednesday that masks will not be mandatory at beaches and swimming pools in its territory, claiming that the new national law does not override its own regional legislation. According to health chief Patricia Gómez, “there is a sentence in the national law that mentions ‘in conformity with the health authorities.’ Our legal services feel that our legislation is not superseded by the national one, and our own measures will remain in force.”Last year, when the mandatory use of the mask was introduced to the Balearic Islands, the Balearic Hotel Chains Association reported cancellations and a drop in bookings from the United Kingdom and Germany, the main source countries of tourism to Spain. In Andalusia, Juan Zapata, president of the Federation of Hotels and Tourist Accommodation (Fahat), says the new rules are “tolerable,” explaining that face masks had to be worn last year on beaches in the southern region. According to Zapata, the measure was “well-accepted” by tourists, given the seriousness of the health crisis. “What really worries us hoteliers is the vaccination rollout and the restrictions on mobility because without mobility there is no tourism,” says Zapata, whose data reveals that 80% of the 500,000 hotel beds in the region are closed and just a fraction of the remaining 20% is occupied. Meanwhile, the president of the Málaga Beach Bar Association, Manuel Villafaina, believes that the restrictions make patrons feel uncomfortable, especially in open-air spaces where social distancing can be respected. “It is logical to wear a mask when walking, but if you are in a hammock two meters away from everyone, it is not,” says Villafaina, whose association represents 1,100 entrepreneurs with beach bars, known as chiringuitos in Spain, hammocks and nautical areas. “It makes some people uncomfortable and they prefer to stay at home.” However, Ivan Periano, president of the Cádiz Chiringuito Association, believes that the beaches will fill up this summer “with or without” the face mask rule and that a keen awareness of the pandemic must be maintained. “It has been a very complicated year for us,” he says. “With the restrictions on opening times and capacity, many of the beach bars have decided not to open because they could not make ends meet. This year we still don’t know what will happen. Decisions are taken every 15 days, depending on how the situation evolves.”