Month: August 2024

Is IP Technology the Right Choice for Today’s House of Worship? Insigh

Posted on by faz_business


In his article, “Is IP Technology the Right Choice for Today’s House of Worship? We Asked the Experts,” Steve Reynolds dives into the shift toward IP-based systems, specifically ST 2110, within religious institutions. In today’s digital age, the adoption of IP technology in houses of worship is on the rise, and the benefits are becoming increasingly clear. Initially, there was doubt about whether churches could implement such advanced technology. However, experts argue that both broadcasters and houses of worship share a critical objective: to produce high-quality video content with a system that is both flexible and scalable. The growing number of ST 2110 deployments, including the significant project at Lakepointe Church, underscores how IP technology is not only feasible but also highly beneficial for the unique needs of churches.

The economic advantages of adopting IP technology, especially for budget-conscious houses of worship, cannot be overstated. The initial cost of ST 2110 has decreased significantly over the years, making it accessible to a broader range of organizations. IP workflows also reduce the need for extensive physical infrastructure, allowing churches to future-proof their operations without the prohibitive costs associated with traditional SDI systems. Additionally, the ability to use existing cable infrastructure helps further lower expenses, making IP a practical and cost-effective solution for churches of all sizes.

For smaller churches, a hybrid approach to integrating IP technology is ideal. This method allows them to start with a limited ST 2110 infrastructure and expand over time, reaping the benefits of IP without the need for a complete system overhaul. The enhanced interoperability offered by ST 2110 ensures that houses of worship can seamlessly integrate a variety of equipment, paving the way for smooth operations. As more religious institutions embrace IP technology, they are better equipped to meet their evolving needs, making it a forward-looking solution that is both cost-effective and efficient.

Read the full article by Steve Reynolds for Imagine Communications HERE

c++ – Assimp’s scene object doesn’t contain any model data after import

Posted on by faz_business


I’ve been attempting to import models with the following:

const aiScene *scene = importer.ReadFile("Models/fbx/Dragon 2.5_fbx.fbx", aiProcess_Triangulate | aiProcess_FlipUVs);

This always gives me a valid scene object but nothing is ever populated in the object. Inspecting the scene in Visual Studio’s debugger shows the following:

scene object

Further inspection of the RootNode shows the following:

root node

I have tried using pre built binaries, building from source from several different tags, and using many different models and formats. The result is always the same.

Has anyone run into this before?

The Complete MDR Buyer’s Guide

Posted on by faz_business


In today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape, traditional security measures often fall short. Security teams grapple with technology, headcount, and expertise challenges, making it increasingly difficult to protect their organizations effectively. As cyber risks top the list of CEO concerns, a robust MDR solution is no longer a luxury but a necessity. According to Gartner, 60% of businesses will turn to MDR services to enhance their Security Operations Centers (SOCs) by 2025. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the process of selecting the right MDR provider to bolster your security posture. 

In this guide you will learn how to:

  • Identify the key criteria for evaluating MDR solutions.
  • Extend your security team’s capabilities without additional headcount.
  • Bridge the cybersecurity skills gap with expert MDR services.
  • Implement advanced threat detection and response strategies.
  • Consolidate security functions for a more streamlined SOC.
  • Justify the cost of MDR services with clear ROI benefits.

Telecom that enabled Biden deepfake scam will pay FCC $1M

Posted on by faz_business


Early this year, AI-powered fake audio of President Biden reached voters in New Hampshire. The FCC struck back swiftly, identifying the perpetrator as the Texas-based Life Corporation, which has been behind similar scams over the years, and whacked them and an associated individual with a $6 million fine. But the scammers also enlisted the help of a game, shape-shifting telecom that has previously been implicated in shady doings. Lingo Telecom, as it’s now known (AKA Ameritel, Excel, Impact, Startec, Trinsic, etc) will pay a $1 million civil penalty and agree to definitely follow the rules this time for sure, starting now.

Telecoms like Lingo are not supposed to enable scams by providing services to known bad operators. “Communications
service providers are the first line of defense against these threats and will be held accountable,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rossenworcel.

Dustborn Free Download (v2024.08.20) – WorldofPCGames

Posted on by faz_business


Dustborn Free Download By WorldofpcgamesDustborn Free Download By Worldofpcgames

Dustborn Direct Download:

Dustborn is a single-player, story-driven action-adventure game about hope, love, friendships, robots…and the power of words. You play Pax: exile, con-artist, Anomal — with the ability to weaponize language. Looking for a new life and a way out, Pax has been hired to transport an important package from Pacifica to Nova Scotia, across the Justice-controlled American Republic. Sounds like a legit reason for a road-trip, right? So pack your bags, assemble a crew with their own peculiar powers, and get ready to travel the country! Explore the stunning Neo-Western landscapes of an alternate history America on a robot-driven tour bus, and stop at a dozen locations along the road to build your crew, manage relationships, complete missions, and face increasingly difficult challenges. But the people you stole the package from want it back, and the authoritarian Justice is hot on your heels, so don’t forget to pack your baseball bat!

(And, oh yeah, you’re travelling undercover as a punk-rock band, so you’ll definitely need to brush up on your musical skills before your next gig.) At the end of the road lies salvation…but to get there, you’ll need to cross an entire continent. Words have power. Like, actual power. Fight with Shouts and use Vox in conversations to manipulate people and talk your way out of hairy situations. Craft new words, and learn to wield a lingual arsenal against enemies…and friends. On the road across an alternate history America, you’ll stop at iconic locations, take on unexpected assignments, meet a colorful cast of characters, enlist new crew members, and evade (or fight) your pursuers. See beautiful sights along the highway, rendered in a colorful graphic-novel-inspired art style that brings stunning 2D illustrations to 3D life.

Features and System Requirements:

  • Graphic-novel-inspired art style that brings stunning 2D illustrations to 3D life.
  • Craft new words, and learn to wield a lingual arsenal against enemies…and friends.
  • See beautiful sights along the highway, rendered in a colorful.

Screenshots

System Requirements

Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
Processor: Intel Core i5 5th generation or equivalent
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 2GB or equivalent
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 25 GB available space

Installation Guide

Turn Off Your Antivirus Before Installing Any Game

1 :: Download Game
2 :: Extract Game
3 :: Launch The Game
4 :: Have Fun 🙂

Microsoft’s revised Recall AI feature will roll out to beta testers in October

Posted on by faz_business


Microsoft’s Windows Recall feature, which stores a timeline of activity snapshots on your PC, has a new release date for Windows Insiders. Microsoft unveiled the feature to much fanfare in May, only to delay it indefinitely (after blowback from security researchers) a few weeks later. After taking time to recalibrate, the company said on Wednesday it will roll out Recall to beta testers using Copilot+ PCs in October.

Windows Recall stores snapshots of everything you do on your PC. Designed as a “photographic memory” for your PC activity, it lets you revisit things like products, emails, documents or chats shown on your screen. The feature’s perks are easy to see, especially for those who spend long hours on their PC (or those with foggy memories).

But if that also sounds like a privacy nightmare, security researchers thought so, too. Despite safety assurances from Microsoft during its announcement at Build 2024, cybersecurity and privacy experts sounded the alarm. The fundamental problem was that intruders wouldn’t only get goodies from your traditional file system if they accessed your PC. In addition, they could see anything you’ve done on your computer from the moment you activated Recall to the present. That’s because Microsoft — for reasons we can’t quite comprehend (other than put AI in all the things as quickly as possible) — left Recall’s data unencrypted.

As security expert Kevin Beaumont detailed, Recall didn’t hide sensitive information like passwords or banking details. Sure, your timeline was theoretically safe as long as nobody could access your PC. But if you accidentally installed malware or let an intruder in through other means, they would find a motherlode of sensitive — unencrypted — data.

Screenshots of Windows Recall, showing a PowerPoint slide (Screenshots of Windows Recall, showing a PowerPoint slide (

Microsoft

In response to the blowback, Microsoft added some common-sense security features that left us wondering why they weren’t there in the first place. Again, it’s hard to decipher the company’s motives for that omission when the feature was announced — other than speculating that it wanted to prioritize a seamless user experience over tight security.

These security changes included making the feature opt-in instead of enabled by default when setting up a Copilot+ PC. In addition, Microsoft said the feature would require Windows Hello — a face or fingerprint scan — and deploy “just in time” decryption (only unlocked through Hello). That means if a hacker gains access to your computer, your screenshot timeline should remain encrypted unless you lend your face or finger to unlock it (or they somehow find a way around Hello’s encryption).

Microsoft says it will publish a new blog post when the feature is available in October through the Windows 11 Insider Program. The feature will require a CoPilot+ PC (the first of which launched in June) with a compatible chip. That chip list includes Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite, although Intel may have its first CoPilot+ chips out in the wild when the feature finally arrives in preview.

New C++ features in Visual Studio v17.11

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Visual Studio 2022 version 17.11 is here and comes with a host of new features for C++ developers. We’ve made improvements across our toolchain, Unreal Engine support, Build Insights, CMake debugger, and more. This post gives a quick overview of what’s available; for all the details, see What’s New for C++ Developers in Visual Studio 2022 17.11 on the C++ blog.

The three main areas of improvement in this release are in formatted output, vectorization, and diagnostics. For formatted output, we’ve implemented parts of Formatting Ranges and all of Printing Blank Lines with println. Our vectorization improvements hit over a dozen of the standard algorithms, and we’ve improved the diagnostics of common misuses of std::ranges::to and std::get(std::tuple). See the STL changelog for all the details.

We have added support for the CMake debugger in CMake projects targeting Linux via WSL or SSH. The CMake debugger allows you to debug your CMake scripts and CMakeLists.txt files through the Visual Studio debugger.

To start a CMake debugging session, set a breakpoint in your CMakeLists.txt file and then navigate to Project > Configure Cache with CMake Debugging.

CMake debugger Linux

We’ve added several new features for Unreal Engine developers:

  • An Unreal Engine toolbar that provides quick access to Unreal Engine actions such as attaching to UE processes and accessing the UE log
  • An Add Class dialog for adding common UE class templates to your project
  • An Add Module dialog for adding UE modules to your project

Unreal Engine Add Class

In this update, we added quality of life changes to C++ Build Insights integration. You can now filter your Build Insights trace results by project. For results in each row, you will now see the relative path and file name instead of the full path. We have also improved the grouping of results in the Included Files view.

Build Insights QoL Update

We have significantly enhanced the performance of conditional breakpoints in C++ through a reworked implementation.

Beginning with version 17.11, our initial assessment finds that execution time is almost four times as fast, reducing execution time from 80 seconds to 21 seconds over 80,000 iterations.

We hope this has given you a taste of what’s new. For all the details, see What’s New for C++ Developers in Visual Studio 2022 17.11 on the C++ blog.

We are very much interested in your feedback. The comments below are open. Feedback can also be shared through Visual Studio Developer Community. You can also reach us on Twitter (@VisualC), or via email at visualcpp@microsoft.com.


Sy Brand
C++ Developer Advocate, C++ Team



The FTC’s noncompete agreements ban has been struck down

Posted on by faz_business


A federal judge has blocked the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on noncompete agreements that make it difficult for workers to join their employers’ rivals or launch competing businesses. The ruling prevents the FTC’s ban on noncompete agreements from taking effect on September 4th, though the agency could still appeal the decision.

On Tuesday, US District Judge Ada Brown in Dallas, Texas ruled that the antitrust agency exceeded its statutory authority to ban practices related to unfair methods of competition, saying the noncompete agreements ban is “unreasonably overbroad without a reasonable explanation,” and would “cause irreparable harm.” Brown’s decision now stops the FTC from blocking noncompetes nationwide after initially delaying the ban with a preliminary injunction in July.

“We are seriously considering a potential appeal”

“We are disappointed by Judge Brown’s decision and will keep fighting to stop noncompetes that restrict the economic liberty of hardworking Americans, hamper economic growth, limit innovation, and depress wages,” FTC spokesperson Victoria Graham said in a statement to The Verge. ”We are seriously considering a potential appeal.”

If the FTC does push ahead with an appeal, it would go to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to be heard. Appeals on district court decisions are often a lengthy process, with the FTC’s appeal against Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard acquisition still pending a result. In the meantime, the FTC will have to challenge noncompetes via case-by-case enforcement actions.

The ruling upholds a lawsuit that Tax firm Ryan LLC filed in April — later backed by the US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable — to challenge the noncompete agreements ban, arguing that it would make it difficult for companies to retain talent. When the FTC voted 3-2 in support of the ban, the agency said it would allow for more than 8,500 new businesses to be made each year.

Games Workshop officially bans the use of AI in its Golden Demon painting competitions

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The Oscars of painting little guys are the Golden Demon awards, handed out by Games Workshop at official miniature painting competitions. The entry guidelines for the 2024 Golden Demon awards contain a note in the FAQ section that wasn’t present in the previous year’s guidelines. In answer to the question, “Am I allowed to use Artificial Intelligence to generate any part of my entry?” it simply replies, “No.”

This is presumably in response to controversy over the winning entry in the Single Miniature: Warhammer 40,000 category in 2023’s Golden Demon awards, which was Neil Hollis’s piece, Exodite. It was controversial not for the miniature itself, but for the jungle backdrop, which was printed with the assistance of the generative AI tool Midjourney.