Security and cybersecurity incidents are costly, with losses increasing every year. In light of these growing threats, it is no wonder that organizations in all industries continually rank security as...
For a while, I had never heard of the walking simulator, which is a genre that sounded dangerous when I considered the lack of walking I do. These story-based games, something like What Remains of Edith Fitch, have definitely risen in popularity over the past couple of years, and gaming has changed for the better because of it. To celebrate Dear Esther’s 10th anniversary, the game is free until the end of today.
In Dear Esther, you’re placed on a remote island in the outer land of Hebrides. In this desolate world, you hear a voice that begins to read parts of a letter, starting with “Dear Esther.” This first-person game is famous for its full, story-driven experience, choosing to abandon the typical gameplay beats you’d find in other games. If you’re looking for a stunning narrative experience and want to join the debate on whether these games are actually games, then download Dear Esther as soon as you can.
Writing a letter
The 10th annive...
February 15, 2022 Ottawa, ON Public Health Agency of Canada Recent data indicates that the latest wave of COVID-19 driven by the Omicron variant has passed its peak in Canada. As provinces and territories adjust their public health measures,…
Call of Duty Season 2 is live for Vanguard, which introduces the objective-based Zombies map Terra Maledicta. This new Zombies map has an optional main Easter egg story quest you can complete, but there are a few side quests that will reward you with some sweet loot. Here are all the steps for completing the "digging" side quests of Terra Maledicta.
These side quests will require you to do some digging around the map, so the first step for both is to find a shovel.
Find a shovel
Outpost Courtyard shovel location
The shovel can be found at four different locations on the map:
Against the wall in the Outpost Courtyard
To the right of the Venomous Vigor perk fountain
Beside the train car near the Aethereal Haste perk fountain
In the Market Storage building
Lost Tome Pages Easter egg
Dig up lost pages
Lost tome page
Using a shovel, start digging at the small dig piles on the map. I found most of my success around the outer and inner walls of the buildings, but these dig piles are pretty much everywhere and look like a little mound of dirt. You'll see a prompt pop up that says dig when you've successfully found a dig site. Digging at the sites have a chance to reveal a lost page from the Tome of Rituals. Sometimes you uncover random items like salvage or monkey bombs, but keep digging until you have uncovered four tome pages.
Turn in the pages
Door for the tome pages
Take the four pages to the glowing red door found in the Outpost Courtyard near the starting hub. Get close to the door and interact with it to place the pages one by one. I had a bit of trouble getting the interact prompt to pop up, so it seems really picky about where you stand. Just get close to each of the four anchor points to try and get the prompt to appear. Eventually, the pages will lock into place.
Claim your reward
With all four pages in place, you can now claim your free loot behind the door. This reward seems to be most commonly a death machine killstreak, but there is a rare chance of getting a ray gun. You can preview what item is waiting behind the magical door by peeking through the hole in the left side of the wall.
Antenna side quest
Dig up an antenna
Antenna item
Eventually your digging will unearth a radio antenna item. Again, it's random what items you get from dig sites. Maybe you get salvage, a tome page, an antenna, or monkey bombs. Just keep digging until you get one. For me, I got the antenna long before I found a tome page.
Place antenna
Merchant Road comms table
Once you have an antenna, go to the Merchant Road area of the map. There's a table outside with a communication setup with radios and other equipment. Place the antenna here. You'll be attacked by a wave of Boom Schreiers, which is Vanguard's fast enemy type that will explode when either killed or approaching you.
Rotate additional antennas
Antenna near Venomous Vigor
After dealing with the Boom Schreiers, you need to locate three other antennas on the map. You don't have to dig these up, you just need to find and rotate them. The order doesn't seem to matter here, but Boom Schreiers will attack after the first two antenna rotatations, and then heavy Sturmkriegers will attack you on the third and final rotation.
Antenna locations:
One is located upstairs in the Bazaar near the Diabolical Damage perk fountain
Another is located in the Debris Fields near the Venomous Vigor perk fountain
A third is found in Market Storage
Rotating all the three antennas and finishing the final wave of Sturmkriegers will spawn a loot chest as a reward.
At the moment, there are Corrupted Heart items that can be dug up and reburied in other areas of the map, but it's uncertain if this is some part of another side quest.
Microsoft's spring update to Windows 11 is now officially live. New features include the first Amazon apps, a revamped taskbar, and more.
Microsoft will push the new features to your PC via Windows Update, the Microsoft Store, and new “experience packs” that will download quietly in the background and facilitate changes to the Windows 11 operating system. Updates to the Store will push new versions of Notepad and Windows Media Player, which will replace the older Groove Music app. Several years ago, Microsoft pulled the plug on the Groove music service. In fact, clicking on “Groove Music” within your app drawer should redirect you to the new Media Player app.
Here's what's new within the new Windows experiences for February 2022:
The addition of Android apps, via a subset of the apps available via the Amazon Appstore
The addition of a Weather app on the Taskbar
The ability to mute your mic in Teams, again from the Taskbar
Easier screen sharing in Teams, from your Taskbar
The (re)addition of the clock to multiple monitors on the Taskbar
Updates to Media Player and Notepad
The “update” may be delivered in chunks, so that certain portions of it may arrive earlier than others. For example, the updated Media Player and Notepad arrived almost immediately via the Microsoft Store on my PC, but the new updates to Windows 11 via Windows Update weren't available when clicking “check for updates” within the Settings menu.
Technically, it's not even fair to call the new release a Windows 11 February 2022 Update, although that may be what it will be known as. In a blog post, Microsoft chief product officer Panos Panay called the updates “new experiences in Windows 11” and not a formal update. The plan of record is to issue Windows 11 22H2 or whatever it ends up being called this fall.
Here's what you need to know about the new features.
Android app support
As with virtually all of Microsoft's new features, the new experiences arrived early within the Windows Insider preview program. We have a detailed story describing how to install Android apps on your PC via the Amazon Appstore and would expect that it will be the same under the new experiences as well.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Essentially, it's a one-step process. All you have to do is download the Amazon Appstore Preview app within the Microsoft Store and follow the instructions. Windows establishes a virtual machine of sorts on your PC and downloads the necessary files in the background. Interestingly, formal VMs typically require Windows 11 Pro. In this case, Android apps will run on top of Windows 11 Home, provided you have the necessary hardware to run the operating system.
Is it worth it? Sort of. The limited number of apps (under 60) means that there's a lot of clunkers within the current offerings — the type of apps you'd uninstall from a new PC. But apps for United Airlines and The Wall Street Journal also mean that there's enough there to check out. Google's own app store isn't available, either, without some modifications.
A redesigned Taskbar
If you're familiar with our original Windows 11 review, you know that we took issue with the redesigned Taskbar and Start menu. You'll be happy to know that certain things have been fixed…and others haven't.
As the bulleted list above notes, head-scratching omissions like the removal of the clock from the taskbar on anything but the main display have now been restored. What's slightly disappointing is that two of the new features — muting the mic and sharing your screen — seem to be exclusive to Microsoft Teams, not any app that uses your mic. In other words, while using Teams, you'll see a little mic icon appear on your Taskbar. (A mic icon already appears when using an app like Zoom, but clicking it simply takes you to the Windows 11 Settings page and mic permissions). Now, while using Teams, clicking that mic icon will simply mute your mic.
Likewise, the new update also facilitates screen sharing — again within Teams. While in a Teams call, if you hover your mouse over your taskbar, you should see a small thumbnail of the active window as well as a button to share the screen. Clicking it will simply project it for others to see.
Finally, the Weather icon has arrived on the Taskbar. On Windows 10, this is known as “News and Interests.” On Windows 11, the Weather icon is a shortcut to the Widgets menu in the left-hand corner by default. While you're using another window, the weather icon will simply show a small summary of the weather (sunny, partly cloudy, and so on) and temperature. Hovering over it will open the Widgets drawer, which may be a surprise.
The new Windows Media Player app
As noted above, Windows Media Player replaces Groove Music, whose utility became questionable when Microsoft killed off the Groove Music Pass five years ago (!) in 2017. Now, Media Player works like you'd expect. Pick a music file, play it, and go on from there. There's no integration with Spotify and no visualizer, but there is basic functionality for both audio and video playlists.
Mark Hachman / IDG
While the app itself doesn't list the audio/video formats it supports, it's at least nicely integrated with your Music, Videos, and Downloads folders, finding my collected audio and video files and presenting them within the app's context. Supposedly, the apps also pulls content from OneDrive even with a specific music folder added to the music library.
The new Notepad
If you're not a frequent Notepad user, you'll wonder what's changed. If you are, you may notice the new Dark Mode and how Notepad adapts to your Light Mode/Dark Mode system settings. Otherwise, the most noteworthy additions are multi-level undo (hurray!) and emojis (okay?).
Microsoft didn't say whether or not it would be adding to these new “experiences” over time. In any event, it's a bit of fresh paint for Windows 11.
Stoned Ape Crew is a Solana-based weed-themed NFT collection composed of 4200 apes with valuable utilities to offer holders. Weed fanatics might not yet get the level of representation and acceptance they want from society on a global scale, but a presence in a fast-expanding industry might be a good start. In line with this, a […]
Indonesian insurtech firm PasarPolis announced the appointment of Rajesh Kumar as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO). PasarPolis said that Rajesh’s extensive experience with nearly two decades in the technology sector