GitHub has launched a new type of user account designed to bring centralized, granular control to the platform’s enterprise users.
Enterprise Managed Users (EMUs) are a new type of user account for GitHub Enterprise Cloud (GHEC) customers that are provisioned and managed centrally with the help of the customer’s existing identity provider (IdP).
First announced in private beta last year, EMUs are designed to give admins granular control over GitHub accounts across the company, and currently works only with identity services from Microsoft’s AzureAD and Okta.
“Enterprises using EMUs can create user accounts for their employees via a linked IdP. Administrators are also able to manage user profile data (e.g. display name, email address, etc.) and membership to GitHub teams through their IdP,” the company explained.
Move to the cloud
Reporting on the announcement, VentureBeat notes that before EMUs, GHEC customers could invite external developers into company groups using their existing individual accounts, over which they had little control.
With EMUs, companies can now create user accounts using their existing IdP. From a security point of view, EMUs give better control to corporate customers, especially since EMU accounts can only be used to work on repositories that belong to the company.
VentureBeat argues that the move towards EMUs ties into GitHub’s larger push to transition software development towards the cloud, given as it comes on the heels of the launch of its browser-based Codespaces development environment.
Top video conferencing firm Zoom won’t be buying Five9 after the two companies have confirmed the acquisition deal they’d been planning since July has fallen through after Five9’s shareholders decided to reject the deal.
Zoom had offered Five9 a $14.7 billion all-stock deal, which the latter had employed proxy advisory company Institutional Shareholder Services, to analyze - and roughly two weeks ago, the company advised Five9 to turn the deal down.
The value of the deal was apparently the main issue, with Five9 shareholders reportedly only seeing a 13% increase in the value of their shares, reportedly too low for them to accept.
Five9 is a cloud-based contact center platform, whose Crunchbase page shows eight investment rounds, totaling $114.1 million in funding. So far, the company has acquired four other firms, including two in 2020 - a cloud-based Intelligent Virtual Agent platform provider, Inference Solutions, and workforce engagement management solution, Virtual Observer.
Foundations intact
Announcing the news in a blog post, Zoom’s founder and CEO, Eric Yuan, said buying Five9 was an “attractive means to bring to our customers an integrated contact center offering. That said, it was in no way foundational to the success of our platform, nor was it the only way for us to offer our customers a compelling contact center solution.”
After the news broke, Five9 shares fell 2% in extended trading, after falling another 11% when the news of the possible acquisition was first announced. Zoom’s shares also fell on the initial news, 28%.
CNBC believes Zoom was interested in Five9 because it seeks to reduce its dependence on video and audio meetings. Together with Five9, Zoom expected to have an addressable market worth $91 billion in 2025.
Major spoilers follow for Foundation’s first three episodes. Watch them first before reading on.
As Apple TV Plus’ supposedly next big hit, Foundation is taking its time to hit its stride. Ordinarily, a great TV series would’ve hooked viewers by now and already be delivering compelling drama, humor, suspense or action each week.
About this episode
- Episode 3 (of 10), 'The Mathematician's Ghost'
- Written by Olivia Purnell
- Directed by Alex Graves
★★★
But Foundation isn’t done with its character and story set-ups – something that its third entry, The Mathematician’s Ghost, is guilty of. There’s a decent amount of progress in its Trantor-centric plot, but episode 3’s Terminus storyline feels like a backwards step as it introduces us to more cast members and settings that, while admittedly key to Foundation’s plot, slow its pacing down once more.
Unlike its predecessors, Foundation episode 3 takes a different approach to its branching narratives. Rather than jumping back and forth between each storyline, The Mathematician’s Ghost’s first half is entirely devoted to its Trantor-based plot. Terminus’ story thread, meanwhile, is reserved for later.
It’s a strategy that works well. Yes, Trantor’s story includes the show’s now customary time jumps – 400 years into the past, then 19 years after the Star Bridge bombing and, finally, another 17 years into the future. Given that Foundation’s story spans an entire millennia, this cycling through time is ultimately necessary.
With episode 3 devoting its first half to Trantor, too, its time hopping isn’t as confusing as Foundation’s two previous entries: its singular storyline, unfolding in the same location, being much easier to follow. This approach also gives Foundation time to provide a clearer insight into how each of Cleon I’s clones are created, carry out their royal duties and undergo their ‘ascension’ when they’re no longer fit for purpose.
And that helps Trantor’s main players to ingratiate themselves to us. What’s notable about Cleon’s clones, and their humanoid advisor Eto Demerzel, is that they’re more available from an emotional perspective than their human counterparts. You can sense the regret and dread in each clone ahead of their ‘ascension’: a pleasant name for the process where each one is incinerated at the end of their lifespan.
Seeing Brother Dusk – now known briefly as Brother Darkness – being terminated in mere seconds makes for harrowing viewing. It’s a somewhat anticlimactic way for someone’s life to end, but it provides viewers with an insight into the callous and self-righteous nature of Cleon I’s original clone plan. It gives no regard to the thoughts and feelings of his clones, regardless of whether they’re considered to be truly alive or not. It’s the first time where Foundation poses an ethical question to its audience and, by doing so sensitively, it challenges us to ponder whether Cleon I’s plan is amoral or not.
(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)
The same is true of Demerzel. As a humanoid who’s outlived Cleon I and every one of his clones, we witness the impact that each one’s death has had on her. It’s a sad and lonely existence for Demerzel, particularly after we learned that she’s the last of her kind in episode 2.
Again, we’re able to relate with a non-human emotionally – compare that to the disconnect we feel with Cleon I, or other humans we’ve seen in the show, and there’s a stark contrast between characters we resonate with and those we don’t. It’s akin to TV shows like Westworld or Humans where, as an audience, we care more for humanoids than the series’ real people.
If there’s one aspect of episode 3’s Trantor storyline that’s slightly confusing, it’s how it uses Lee Pace and Terrence Mann to briefly embody younger versions of their emperors.
Pace and Mann end up portraying Brother Dawn and Brother Day – they played Day and Dusk respectively in Foundation’s first two episodes – during Darkness’ ‘ascension’. Initially, it’s difficult to adapt to the pair’s altered roles but, thankfully, it’s only for one scene before they revert back to Day and Dusk respectively. And, while it’s disorienting, it is pleasing that Foundation uses the same actors to inhabit these roles. It maintains continuity between the three emperors’ appearances as they age and forgo the use of prosthetics or other makeup.
(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)
While Trantor’s story is straightforward, the same can’t be said for Terminus’. Its plot picks up with Seldon’s followers eventually landing on their new home, but it begins to rush through events with very little time for viewers to immerse themselves in these new surroundings.
We’re quickly reintroduced to the Vault, watch a CGI timelapse of Terminus City being built, and spend a very brief moment meeting a young Salvor Hardin. It’s all a bit breathless, even more so when the show fast forwards to ‘present day’ where an adult Salvor (Leah Harvey) is now Warden of Terminus.
The pacing of episode 3’s second half feels more imbalanced when, after we meet adult Salvor, it slows right down. More characters are introduced, such as Daniel MacPherson’s Hugo, while various plot exposition hampers the episode’s flow.
It’s an issue that grates even more when The Mathematician’s Ghost actually starts to go somewhere.
We get all-too-brief conversations between Salvor and her parents Abbas (Clarke Peters) and Mari (Sasha Behar), which offer a tiny but fun insight into their family dynamic. Meanwhile, a meeting between Terminus’ main leaders, after Anacreon warships are spotted orbiting Terminus, and a sequence where Salvor chases an unknown child into a wrecked spaceship, provide some much needed tension and horror to proceedings.
But it’s just not enough to satisfy viewers’ demands for greater character development or better plot pacing. Episode 3’s ending, which sees Salvor ambushed by an Anacreon landing party, could kickstart the Terminus story arc into life. But, with Salvor’s fate unknown until episode 4 – the credits roll immediately after she’s surrounded – we have to wait another week for Foundation to simply get going.
Our verdict
(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)
The Mathematician’s Ghost is a disjointed Foundation entry that continues to wrestle with pacing and plot issues. The change in narrative approach certainly helped its Trantor-centric storyline, but its Terminus plot arc appears to suffer as a result. So it’ll be interesting if subsequent episodes stick to this new formula or return to the location-swapping blueprint that was used in episodes 1 and 2.
If Foundation wants to break away from its continual pacing problems, though, it might need to do away with its location hopping and multiple time jumps. Yes, the show’s world building has been necessary, but it’s been to the detriment of in-depth character development, action sequences, shocking twists and interesting subplots.
Unless there’s a real need to establish any new major characters or locations, Apple’s live-action adaptation needs to start focusing on those latter points. Otherwise, it may struggle to maintain viewers’ interest before season 1 reaches its midway point.
Foundational facts
(Image credit: Apple TV Plus)
The Mathematician's Ghost is the first time that three of Foundation's most prominent characters – Hari Seldon (Jared Harris), Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) and Raych Seldon (Alfred Enoch) – don't appear in the TV adaptation.
Llobell does feature in some capacity, though. As season 1's narrator, Loubell's voice can be heard at various intervals during episode 3. This is a call back to Dornick's role in the Foundation book series, too, where Dornick ends up being Seldon's biographer.
Daniel MacPherson's Hugo is another wholly original character for Foundation's TV show. There is no similar character in any of Isaac Asimov's novels.
Much like Gaal and Raych's relationship (in episode 2) is a new inclusion in the TV adaptation, so too his Salvor and Hugo's. There's a distinct lack of romance in Asimov's book series early on, so this is the TV series' way of rectifying this.
The hovercraft speeder that Salvor Hardin uses to move around Terminus is eerily similar (in design, at least) to the X-34 landspeeder that Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi use in Star Wars: A New Hope. As Foundation was a major inspiration for the Star Wars franchise, this is a nice nod to George Lucas' movie series.
Foundation is the first major acting role for Cassian Bilton, who briefly portrays a teenage version of Brother Dawn in episode 3. Until the Apple TV Plus show, Bilton had only appeared in short films including Seclusion and Shoal.
2021 is certainly setting itself up to be a great year for writer Olivia Purnell. The TV scribe, who penned the script for The Mathematician's Ghost, also wrote the screenplay for seven episodes of Y: The Last Man's TV adaptation. Expect Purnell, who cut her teeth on the American Gods TV series, to be involved in other big productions in years to come.
While Purnell is a relative newcomer to the sci-fi scene, the same can't be said for episode 3's director Alex Graves. The West Wing director has helmed entries in numerous sci-fi productions including Altered Carbon, Fringe, Lost in Space and Journeyman. So The Mathematician's Ghost was in good hands!
New episodes of Foundation debut exclusively on Apple TV Plus every Friday.
The Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce platform Flipkart has now extended its Smart Upgrade Plan and Product Exchange program to be available for products across mobiles, large and small home appliances and electronic products.
Flipkart said that last year during the Big Billion Days, there was a 50% increase in people availing product exchange for mobiles. "With the scale-up of these two programs, millions of customers will now be able to upgrade and purchase high ticket products in an affordable manner," the company said in a press statement.
The programs that initially started with mobiles and laptops are now available under several other categories, including TVs, refrigerators, washing machines and tablets. Small home appliances such as fans, mixer grinders, and water purifiers are also being added under the product exchange program.
Ranjith Boyanapalli, Head – Fintech and Payments Group at Flipkart, said, “while we pioneered the Smart Upgrade and Product Exchange last year and received an encouraging response, we are expanding the offerings this year to make it more widely accessible to our customer base, including those who are new-to-credit.”
Clash of titans: Amazon, Flipkart change their mega festival sale to the same date
The Flipkart Smart Upgrade plan allows customers to upgrade their smartphones, electronic and home appliances so that prices are not deterrent in their purchase making decisions.
Under this plan, customers can purchase a new appliance and have to pay only 70-75% of the price of the chosen product and select a payment tenure during the initial purchase.
They can keep the product by paying the remaining amount at the end of the tenure or upgrade to another product by exchanging for a better spec product in an affordable and smart way.
Several brands, including Mi, Whirlpool and IFB, are a part of this program.
Here are the few elementary steps to avail the program:
* Select a product from the list of eligible offerings for Smart Upgrade.
* Select the Flipkart Smart Upgrade Plan from the device’s product page and complete the KYC online instantly. The plan benefits will be applied on the payments page automatically.
* Checkout by paying 70%-75% of the original price upfront using any payment instrument, including EMI, Credit Cards, Debit Cards or Cash on Delivery. Customers can also complete their KYC beforehand for a faster checkout process.
The available tenures and upfront amount to be paid under Flipkart Smart Upgrade Plan will vary from product to product.
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Scarlett Johansson and the Walt Disney Company have reached a monetary agreement over the actor's Black Widow lawsuit.
As reported by Variety, the two parties have settled the dispute after a two month stand-off – though the terms of the agreement have not been made public.
Johansson had sued Disney for breach of contract after Black Widow received a simultaneous release on Disney Plus and in theaters. According to industry insiders, Johansson's lawsuit claimed that her contract ensured any film in which she starred would launch exclusively in cinemas worldwide.
In a statement, Johansson said: “I am happy to have resolved our differences with Disney. I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve done together over the years and have greatly enjoyed my creative relationship with the team. I look forward to continuing our collaboration in years to come.”
Alan Bergman, Disney Studios Content chairman, added: “I’m very pleased that we have been able to come to a mutual agreement with Scarlett Johansson regarding ‘Black Widow'. We appreciate her contributions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and look forward to working together on a number of upcoming projects, including Disney’s ‘Tower of Terror.'”
In July, Johansson's lawyers claimed that Black Widow's day and date Disney Plus release would reduce the actor's Black Widow payday. Per Johansson's team, she would've earn additional bonuses based on how the Marvel movie performed at the box office.
Johansson's lawyers argued, though, that Black Widow's Disney Plus release reduced the amount that the actor earned as her deal didn't entitle her to a slice of the film's streaming performance. As a result, Johansson had sued Disney for a reported $50 million in lost earnings before the pair settled outside of court.
Analysis: is this the end of Disney's day and date release strategy?
(Image credit: Disney / Marvel Studios)
For now, at least, it seems like the Premier Access initiative is on hold. With cinemagoers feeling uneasy about returning to theaters, due to the ongoing pandemic, Disney decided to provide audiences with a choice over how (and where) they watched the studio's latest releases.
It's unclear how experimenting with a simultaneous theatrical and Disney Plus release truly worked out for Disney. Sure, Disney made $67 million by offering Black Widow to viewers as a Disney Plus Premier Access title, but that clearly had an impact on its box office takings – with Shang-Chi likely to surpass it soon enough.
Whether the lawsuit is a factor or not, the studio appears to be more hesitant about launching its movies on Disney Plus and in cinemas at the same time.
Recently, the Walt Disney Company confirmed that its final six film releases of the year would all receive timed exclusive theatrical runs. That includes Marvel's Eternals, the next MCU movie to arrive in theaters, on November 5.
Yes, each one will arrive on Disney Plus in the future, but not before they've screened in cinemas for a 30-day or 45-day exclusivity period.
Of course, this doesn't mean that Disney won't change tactics again if Covid-19 cases rise rapidly. The studio will want to provide audiences with a choice about how they consume Disney's latest content. If that means releasing films on Disney Plus and in theaters simultaneously, should Covid-19 cases increase, Disney may change its release strategy.
For the time being, however, Disney's committed to theatrical releases: for fans of the moviegoing experience (not to mention theater owners), that's something to celebrate.
With so many shows and movies to choose from on Australia's major streaming services, it can often be difficult to find the best new stuff to entertain yourself with each end of week.
In an effort to make things easier, we've hand-picked the best new shows and movies to watch on Aussie streaming platforms this weekend, covering the likes of Netflix, Disney Plus, Binge, Foxtel Now, Stan, Apple TV Plus and Amazon Prime Video.
Below, you'll find a list of new highlights, with binge-worthy TV shows sitting alongside some great big-budget movie arrivals – and a couple of oddball left-of-field entries, just for some variety.
The big new shows and movies in this entry include the highly anticipated adaptation of the complete series of Seinfeld on Netflix, the arrival of Wonder Woman 1984 on Binge, and Lego Star Wars Halloween special Terrifying Tales on Disney Plus. Here are our streaming picks for the weekend of October 1-3, 2021.
One of the most groundbreaking sitcoms of all-time, Seinfeld is a self-described "show about nothing" in which four self-absorbed friends (led by comedy legend Jerry Seinfeld) go about their lives while getting caught up in a series of hilarious misadventures. Easily one of the funniest shows ever made, you can now revisit the entirety of Seinfeld on Netflix.
Jake Gyllenhaal (Nightcrawler, Donnie Darko) stars in this single-location thriller that was shot during lockdown by director Antoine Fuqua (Southpaw, Training Day) in which a demoted police officer assigned to a call dispatch desk receives an emergency phone call from a woman who has been abducted. Now, he must do everything he can to help keep her alive.
Gal Gadot returns in Wonder Woman 1984, the '80s set sequel which sees the DC superhero face the ultimate '80s villain – a greedy businessman (Pedro Pascal) with the ability to grant wishes. Okay, so most people would agree that the film wasn't as good as its predecessor, but there's still plenty to like here.
Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of novels is one of the most influential sagas in science fiction literature, and now it's finally received the live-action treatment on Apple TV Plus – and with what appears to be an enormous budget, to boot! Spanning thousands of years, the story of Foundation sees a band of exiles set off on a journey to save humanity after the fall of the Galactic Empire. Episode 2 ended on an incredibly shocking moment that could change the entire course of the Foundation project. We can't wait to see how everyone reacts to what happened.
LEGO Star Wars gets its own Halloween special which takes place after the events of The Rise of Skywalker. In it, Poe and BB-8 are forced to make an emergency landing on Mustafar (last seen during the climactic battle in Revenge of the Sith) where they meet the greedy Graballa the Hutt who is attempting to turn Darth Vader’s castle an all-inclusive Sith-inspired luxury hotel. Sounds appropriately ridiculous then!
The hilarious action comedy The Nice Guys arrives on Amazon Prime Video this week, starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. The former plays a tough guy for hire, while the latter widowed private detective who's raising an adolescent daughter who's already wiser than he is. Like all good detective stories, the pair start out on their own separate cases, only to find out both are actually linked. Filled with excellent one-liners and terrific comedic performances, The Nice Guys is well worth your time.
Jack Spade's world keeps spiralling as he attempts to keep the DWL afloat by trying to put on a good show at the all-important State Fair, despite protestation from his neglected wife. Meanwhile, Rooster makes the decision to leave the DWL and join the competition after being passed up yet again for a push from Jack.
Indian government's policy think tank, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) has tied up with Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Intel to set up a new experience studio that will be a hub for collaboration and experimentation at the NITI Aayog Frontier Technologies Cloud Innovation Center (CIC).
The studio, situated in New Delhi, will enable problem solving and innovation between government stakeholders, startups, enterprises, and industry domain experts.
The studio will help in use of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/ VR), blockchain, and robotics in public sector enterprises and institutions.
The studio will be the hub for government, healthcare, education, and nonprofit startups from India to showcase their solutions.
The experience studio at the NITI Aayog Frontier Technologies CIC will adopt a hybrid model enabling physical and virtual workspaces to collaborate seamlessly. The studio’s digital workspace will enable state-of-the-art collaborative environments to invite experts from various verticals, government departments, research institutions, and not-for-profit organisations for hands-on workshops.
Startups will be encouraged to participate actively
NITI Aayog will use the studio to demonstrate the application of geospatial, AR/VR, drone, and IoT solutions in verticals such as healthcare, agriculture, and smart infrastructure.
Major homegrown industry leaders like MapMyIndia in geospatial solutions, Raphe mPhibr in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and the Centre for Advanced Research in Imaging, Neuroscience and Genomics (CARING), which delivers AI in healthcare – and global leaders like Dassault Systems, and startups like Vizara Technologies and Agatsa Software are demonstrating their solutions at the studio, according to a press release from Amazon India.
Startups will be encouraged to participate actively in the studio through hackathons, grand challenges, and other capacity building initiatives, in collaboration with the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) and Atal Incubation Centres (AIC).
Will help solve public sector challenges
“The new experience studio with AWS and Intel will further support our mission to identify and deploy leading edge technologies to drive continuous innovation in delivering citizen services,” said Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog.
“The new experience studio at the NITI Aayog Frontier Technologies CIC, based on the AWS Cloud Innovation Centers program, aims to quickly solve public sector challenges through collaboration and actualize innovations from experimentation and prototypes,” said Rahul Sharma, President, Public Sector – AISPL, AWS India and South Asia.
“Intel is committed to expanding access to technology resources and knowledge through our collaboration with NITI Aayog and AWS to develop, build, and support cloud services that can enrich the lives of people in India and around the world,” said Prakash Mallya, VP & MD – Sales, Marketing & Communications Group, Intel India.
The NITI Aayog Frontier Technologies CIC was established in October 2020 as part of the AWS Cloud Innovation Centers Global Program. AWS Public Sector CICs are also present across Australia, Bahrain, Canada, France, Germany, South Korea, and United States.
