‘Dead Rising 4’ DLC is as ridiculous as you’d expect.
Golf, but with ridiculous instruments of death like a fire-breathing triceratops head instead of woods and irons. That’s the pitch for Dead Rising 4’s season pass of add-on bits and sounds like the best kind of absurdity. Specifically, the “Super Ultra Dead Rising 4 Mini Golf” mode that’ll come out some time after the base game’s December 6th release date. A post on Xbox Wire says that the game of undead putt-putt is made all the more difficult with zombies acting as hazards and generally getting in the way on the mini links. It isn’t the Outlaw Golf sequel we’ve been clamoring for, but at least it’s something.
Not into golf? There will also be an add-on episode dubbed “Frank Rising,” which, as its name suggests, finds protagonist Frank West infected with the zombie virus and needing to find the cure before his life — and time — runs out. Sounds like an interesting twist on the original game’s ever-ticking countdown clock. And if you want to outfit Mr. West with a bit of [insert December holiday of choice] cheer, the “Stocking Stuffer Holiday Pack’ should do the trick.
The season pass will run you $24.99 if you’re going to take the wait-and-see approach (which is honestly the prudent option), or, you can go all out for the Digital Deluxe Version for $79.99. That’s a $5 savings over buying a physical copy plus the season pass, but you won’t have a green plastic case to put on your shelf. The choice is yours. Unless you own a PlayStation 4, that is. Sony fans will have to settle for an HD remaster of the first three games this fall, as DR4 is an Xbox One exclusive for the time being.
Source: Xbox Wire
Tech giants outspend banks in US lobbying
It won’t shock you to hear that tech companies are trying to cozy up to politicians, but they may have more influence than you think. Bloomberg has determined that the five largest tech firms in the US (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft) spent more than twice as much on lobbying in 2015 as the five largest banks — $49 million versus $19.7 million. Facebook and Google argue that the money is necessary to both explain their operations and defend an open internet, but there are mounting concerns that they may have too much sway.
For instance, New America Foundation’s Barry Lynn warns that these companies are terrified of “competition policy” that could restrict their businesses, such as a repeat of the federal anti-monopoly case against Microsoft. Google may not have dismissed the FTC’s antitrust probe due to lobbying, but there is a concern that companies could have officials look the other way. And it’s safe to say that they’re not fond of measure that would force them to repatriate cash stored overseas and pay taxes.
At the same time, it may be difficult for the feds to completely reject tech industry overtures. The government needs to cooperate closely with these companies for everything from fighting terrorist propaganda to modernizing data. The future administration will likely have to walk a fine line between listening to what tech has to say and preventing it from dictating policies that hurt both your market choices and the country’s bottom line.
Source: Bloomberg
Microsoft Hails ‘Historic Achievement’ in Speech Recognition Technology
Researchers at Microsoft claim to have created a new speech recognition technology that transcribes conversational speech as well as a human does (via The Verge).
The system’s word error rate is reportedly 5.9 percent, which is about equal to professional transcribers asked to work on the same recordings, according to Microsoft.
Microsoft researchers from the Speech & Dialog research group (Image: Allison Linn)
“We’ve reached human parity,” said chief speech scientist Xuedong Huang in a statement, calling the milestone “an historic achievement”.
To reach the milestone, the team used Microsoft’s Computational Network Toolkit, a homegrown system for deep learning that the research team has made available on GitHub via an open source license. The system uses neural network technology that groups similar words together, which allows the models to generalize efficiently from word to word.
The neural networks draw on large amounts of data called training sets to teach the transcribing computers to recognize syntactical patterns in the sounds. Microsoft plans to use the technology in Cortana, its personal voice assistant in Windows and Xbox One, as well as in speech-to-text transcription software.
But the technology still has a long way to go before it can claim to master meaning (semantics) and contextual awareness – key characteristics of everyday language use that need to be grasped for Siri-like personal assistants to process requests and act upon them in a helpful way.
“We are moving away from a world where people must understand computers to a world in which computers must understand us,” said Harry Shum, who heads the Microsoft AI Research group. However it will be a long time before computers can understand the real meaning of what’s being said, he cautioned. “True artificial intelligence is still on the distant horizon.”
Tags: Microsoft, Cortana
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Bill Belichick is through with the NFL’s Surface tablets
You’d think Patriots coach Bill Belichick is feeling over the moon right now. After all, his golden boy Tom Brady is finally back from a four-game suspension, handed to him by the NFL for his role in a cheating scheme now widely known as “Deflategate.” But no, Belichick isn’t happy. Instead, the Super Bowl-winning coach is lashing out at tablets. And while he doesn’t mention Microsoft’s Surface by name, that’s the device the league pays $80 million dollars a year for teams to use on the sidelines. It’s also the one he just smashed in a game against the Bills earlier this month.
“As you probably noticed, I’m done with the tablets,” Belichick said at a press conference today, in response to a question about issues he had with the tech during the Patriots’ latest game. “I’ve given them as much time as I can give them. They’re just too undependable for me,” he added. “I’m going to stick with pictures as several of our other coaches do as well because there just isn’t enough consistency in the performance of the tablets.
Belichick says he “just can’t take it anymore,” noting that he’s going back to relying on printed images to view and analyze plays. “It’s a personal decision. “I’ll use the paper pictures from here on because I’ve given it my best shot,” he added. “I’ve tried to work through the process but it just doesn’t work for me and that’s because there’s no consistency to it.”
The NFL gave us the following statement: “Microsoft is an integral, strategic partner of the NFL and implementing their technology on our sidelines has increased the efficiency and speed of collaboration between coaches and players to an all-time high. Within our complex environment, many factors can affect the performance of a particular technology either related to or outside of our partner’s solutions. We continue to work with all of our partners to ensure the best systems are in place to most effectively assist the clubs in the execution of their game plan.”
As for Microsoft, the company told Engadget that it respects Belichick’s decision, but naturally doesn’t agree with his comments about the Sideline Viewing System not being reliable. Unfortunately, the fact is there’s plenty of proof to suggest otherwise.
Here’s the full statement from Microsoft: “We respect coach Belichick’s decision, but stand behind the reliability of Surface. We continue to receive positive feedback on having Surface devices on the sidelines from coaches, players and team personnel across the league. In the instances where sideline issues are reported in NFL games, we work closely with the NFL to quickly address and resolve.”
Here’s Belichick’s full answer as to why he hates the tablets. Lasted five minutes and 25 seconds. pic.twitter.com/wcSqebtQRu
— Zack Cox (@ZackCoxNESN) October 18, 2016
Source: Patriots
OneNote can now use Android’s split-screen mode
As Windows Phone is not so much an ongoing concern anymore, Microsoft’s software is decidedly cross-platform at this point. Today, the company’s collaboration and note-taking software OneNote is getting some Android-specific updates. For starters, the OneNote app now supports Android’s new split-screen mode that launched with Android 7 Nougat — you can view the app side-by-side with other Office apps, or really any other app you want. For a productivity app, that’s pretty helpful.
The OneNote app also now lets you open password-protected sections of files and documents that were locked on other apps. Microsoft said this was a top user-requested feature — which makes sense, given that any locked file would be essentially useless without it. Microsoft also added back the ability to record audio directly in the OneNote app, with the recordings automatically backed up to the cloud. That’s a pretty handy feature if you do a lot of recording, as Android doesn’t really have its own built-in voice recording features.
You can also embed any PDF or Office document that you’ve saved in OneNote directly into any documents you’re creating in the app. Lastly, Microsoft will soon be adding the ability to customize the “section tabs” in your OneNote documents on the Android app — a pretty basic feature that seems like it should have been in the app for a while now. That feature isn’t available yet, but the rest should be rolling out to the app today. You can go get it in Google Play now.
Source: Microsoft
Microsoft’s Outlook.com Premium gives you custom email
How much do you value control over your email? Enough that you’re willing to pay for a custom experience, but not so much that you’re willing to jump through hoops to do it? Microsoft might have your back: it just held a quiet launch of the public preview of Outlook.com Premium, a subscription version of its web-focused email service. Fork over $50 per year ($20 per year as part of a promo) and you’ll not only ditch the ads on the web, but receive five personalized email addresses at no extra charge during the first year (it’s $10 per year afterward). Microsoft will automatically share calendars, contacts and files between those custom addresses, too, so your family or small business will stay in the loop.
This is a preview, so it’s going to be rough around the edges. There’s no auto-forwarding or groups, for starters. If you can live with the omissions, however, the Premium service might strike a good balance between that urge for customization and the safety net you get through tech giants like Microsoft.
Via: ZDNet
Source: Outlook.com Premium
Clinton campaign considered Tim Cook and Bill Gates for VP
One of the nuggets of information to come from the Podesta emails leaked by Wikileaks is a correspondence that lists business and tech leaders as potential running mates for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. If you’re running against a business man, you might as well fight commerce with commerce.
CNN reports that on March 17th, Podesta sent an email filled with political figures and business leaders that were considered by top Clinton campaign staffers. In a odd choice of separating those individuals, Podesta organized the names into “food groups.”
One of those groups included Apple CEO, Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and cofounder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Melinda Gates. The email also contains GM CEO, Mary Barra and Starbucks CEO, Howard Shultz. But in the end, Clinton decided to stick with a politician like herself and picked Tim Kaine killing our dreams of an iPhone in every pocket and an Apple car in every garage.
Source: CNN
Microsoft’s speech recognition engine listens as well as a human
When humans try to transcribe a spoken conversation all in one go, they manage to miss 5.9 percent of what they hear on average. Microsoft announced on Tuesday that, for the first time, they’ve managed to get a computer to perform that same transcription task just as well as a person. “We’ve reached human parity,” Microsoft’s chief speech scientist Xuedong Huang, said in a statement.
To accomplish the 5.9 percent error rate, which beats a 6.3 percent record set just last month, the Microsoft team leveraged neural language models resembling associative word clouds. That is, a word like “fast” resides much closer to “fast” than it does to “slow”. This allowed the speech recognition engine to generalize between words and better recognize them in context. The team relied on Microsoft’s homegrown deep learning Computational Network Toolkit to develop its record-setting algorithm.
The team’s next goal is to improve the engine’s robustness so that it can be used in real-life situations such as on crowded city streets or while driving. They also hope to eventually get it to work with multiple users simultaneously.
Source: Microsoft
‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ is coming next fall
Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar has been teasing a new Red Dead game in recent days, and we now know what it is: Red Dead Redemption 2. The third game in the series, it’s described as “an epic tale of life in America’s unforgiving heartland.”
Where the story will pickup from is unknown. Given the events of the first Redemption, it’s likely to be a prequel. The only promotional imagery we have so far is of a band of seven characters against a sunset — with the central figure looking a lot like the series’ protagonist, John Marston. But if it is a prequel, why call it Redemption 2? Are we maybe looking at a relative, or an all-new character? We’ll hopefully have some answers on October 20th, when a trailer drops at 11AM ET.
As well as the expected single-player mode, Rockstar says “the game’s vast and atmospheric world will also provide the foundation for a brand new online multiplayer experience.” The game is due out in fall 2017 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One — there is no mention of PC support anywhere in the promotional material.
Source: Rockstar
Who’s still using Windows Phones? The NYPD.
Microsoft may have all but given up on Windows Phones, but rookies in the New York City Police Department are now getting them with their gun and badge. As CNET reports, the NYPD only started handing out department-issued smartphones and email addresses in 2015, and the official device of the largest police force in the United States are the Lumia 830 and Lumia 640 XL.
Those phones debuted in late 2014 and early 2015, respectively and the department reportedly passed on iOS and Android devices because the Windows Phone platform offered the best remote management and security features. The NYPD and Microsoft also worked collaborated on a suite of crime-fighting apps like a direct 911 line that goes to an officer rather than a dispatcher, a police records search, in-house messaging, a case management system and a media library for training videos and policy updates. According to the department, the ability to route 911 calls directly to officers has dropped the response time for crimes in progress by over 12 percent.
While those Nokia workhorse might seem a little bit out of date, CNET notes the department is looking into upgrading to Windows 10 devices by next summer. And, in any case, any smartphone at all is a vast improvement over the department’s previous policy — a downright archaic system of shared voice mailboxes.
Source: CNET
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