Ahead Of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, The Entire Series Is On Sale For $10

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is shaping up to be one of our most anticipated RPGs of 2024 – find out why in Game Informer’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard cover story – and if you’re also excited about the game, you might be wondering if you should dig into the series’ past. If you’re thinking about a first-time playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Dragon Age: Inquisition, or your twelfth playthrough, Steam has you covered because you can purchase all three games for less than $10 right now. 

Steam launched a Dragon Age franchise sale yesterday, with a 90% discount on all three games in the series. Here’s the prices for each and the order to play them in if you want to start at the beginning: 

  1. Dragon Age: Origins – Ultimate Edition (which includes the Awakening expansion): $2.99
  2. Dragon Age II: Ultimate Edition: $2.99
  3. Dragon Age Inquisition: $3.99

Ahead of Veilguard, which launches on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC sometime this fall, we highly recommend playing Inquisition as it ties directly into the new game. However, there will likely be appearances, cameos, and story ties from Origins and its sequel, too, so if you want to know everything you need to before jumping into Veilguard, this sale might be the way to go. 

For more about Veilguard, be sure to head to Game Informer’s coverage hub, which features exclusive interviews, features, and more about the game. Here’s some of what you can read about right now: 

You can also click the banner below to be taken right to Game Informer’s Veilguard hub, which is a great link to bookmark to ensure you don’t miss any of our upcoming features about the game. 

Which of the Dragon Age games have you played? Let us know in the comments below!

Broadcom’s AI surge challenges Nvidia’s dominance

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New Ragon Institute building opens in the heart of Kendall Square

Leaders from MIT, Harvard University, and Mass General Brigham gathered Monday to celebrate an important new chapter in the Ragon Institute’s quest to harness the immune system to prevent and cure human diseases.

The ceremony marked the opening of the new building for the Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard, located at 600 Main Street in the heart of Cambridge’s Kendall Square, where its multidisciplinary group of researchers will expand on the collaborations that have proven impactful since the Institute’s founding in 2009.

“Fifteen years ago, the Ragon Institute started with transformative philanthropy from Terry and Susan Ragon,” Ragon Institute Director and MIT professor of the practice Bruce Walker said. “Initially, it was an experiment: Could we bring together scientists, engineers, and medical doctors to pool their creative knowledge and cross-disciplinary specialties to make advances against the greatest global health problems of our time? Now, 15 years later, here we are celebrating the success of that experiment and welcoming the next phase of the Ragon Institute.”

The institute’s new building features five floors of cutting-edge, dedicated lab space and more than double the floor area of the previous facilities. The open, centralized layout of the new building is designed to empower cross-disciplinary research and enable discoveries that will lead to new ways to prevent, detect, and cure diseases. The expanded space will also allow the Ragon Institute to bring in more scientists, researchers, biologists, clinicians, postdocs, and operational staff.

“Cross-disciplinary collaboration is a hallmark of the Ragon Institute, and that is really how you do transformational research and breakthrough science at scale — what everyone talks about but few actually achieve,” said Mass General Brigham President and CEO Anne Klibanski. “Partnerships between health care and academia accelerate these breakthroughs and foster innovation. That is the model of scientific discovery this whole area represents, that Boston and Massachusetts represent, and that this institute represents.”

In addition to state-of-the-art lab space, a third of the new building is open for public use. The Ragon Institute’s leaders expressed a commitment to engaging with the local Cambridge community and believe the institute’s success will further strengthen Kendall Square’s innovation ecosystem.

“As a relative newcomer, I see this elegant new building as an inspiring vote of confidence in the future of Kendall Square,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth said. “I gather that over a few decades, thanks in part to many of you here today, Kendall Square was transformed from a declining postindustrial district to the center of a region that is arguably the biotech capital of the world. I believe we now have an opportunity to secure its future, to make sure Kendall Square becomes an infinitely self-renewing source of biomedical progress, a limitless creative pool perpetually refreshed by a stream of new ideas from every corner of the life sciences and engineering to unlock solutions to the most important problems of our time. This building and this institute embody that vision.”

The Ragon Institute is a collaborative effort of Mass General Brigham, MIT, and Harvard. It was founded in 2009 through support from the Phillip T. and Susan M. Ragon Foundation with the initial goal of developing an HIV vaccine. Since then, it has expanded to focus on other global health initiatives — from playing a vital role in Covid-19 vaccine development to exploring the rising health challenges of climate change and preparing for the next pandemic.

The institute strives to break down siloes between scientists, engineers, and clinicians from diverse disciplines to apply all available knowledge to the fight against diseases of global importance.

During the ceremony, Phillip (Terry) Ragon ’72 discussed the origins of the Institute and his vision for accelerating scientific discovery.

“With Bruce [Walker], I began to see how philanthropy could really make a difference and how we could power a different model that we thought could be particularly effective,” Ragon said. “The fundamental idea was to take an approach like the Manhattan Project, bringing the best and brightest people together from different disciplines, with flexible funding, and leave them to be successful. And so here we are today.”

Ragon Institute faculty are engaged in challenges as varied as developing vaccines for tuberculosis and HIV, cures for malaria, treatments for neuroimmunological diseases, a universal flu vaccine, and therapies for cancer and autoimmune disorders — with the potential to impact billions of lives.

The new building’s opening followed additional funding from Terry and Susan Ragon, which came in recognition of the Ragon Institute’s expanding mission.

“[Through this partnership], we’ve accomplished more than we realized we could, and that’s shown in the scientific progress that the Ragon Institute has achieved,” said Harvard University interim president Alan Garber. “To pull this off requires not only scientific brilliance, but true leadership.”

Walker, the Institute’s founding director, has spent his entire career caring for people living with HIV and studying how the body fights back. He has helped establish two cutting-edge research institutes in Africa, which continue to train the next generation of African scientists. The international reach of the Ragon Institute is another aspect that sets it apart in its mission to impact human health.

“Today we launch the next 100 years of the Ragon Institute, and we’re fortunate to work every day on this enormously challenging and consistently inspiring mission,” Walker said. “We’re motivated by the belief that every day matters, that our efforts will ultimately alleviate suffering, that our mission is urgent, and that together, we will succeed.”

Minecraft Is Finally Getting A Native PS5 Version

Developer Mojang has revealed that a native version of Minecraft is finally coming to PlayStation 5. It’s currently in a testing phase, but if you own the PlayStation 4 version of the game for your PS5, you can take part in the preview right now. 

Though Minecraft has been playable on PS5 for years, it’s always been the PS4 version; this native version, however, is a new build of Minecraft made specifically for PS5, which means it will theoretically perform better on the console. 

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“Currently, however, the only way to play Minecraft on a PlayStation 5 is by purchasing the PlayStation 4 version of the game,” the announcement reads. “By developing a native version of Minecraft for PS5, we’ll be able to make the game run more effectively on the PS5’s hardware.” 

Though Mojang hasn’t revealed how long the Minecraft PS5 version preview will last, all are welcome to take part in it, so long as they own the PS4 version of the game. To access it, go to “Settings” on your PS4 version of Minecraft while playing on a PS5 and select “Preview.” This preview includes the new Tricky Trials update, so you can venture into the trial chambers, meet a breeze, craft a mace, and more. 

Mojang asks that players who encounter bugs during this preview report it to the developer, and more generally, provide any feedback they might have. 

For more about the game, read Game Informer’s Minecraft review, and then check out this story about how actor Jack Black has all but confirmed he’s playing Steve in the upcoming live-action Minecraft movie. After that, read about Netflix’s animated Minecraft series. 

Are you excited about a native Minecraft version for PS5? Let us know in the comments below!

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CISO security & business continuity insights: lessons from an undersea cable blackout – CyberTalk

Issam El Haddioui: Head of Security Engineering, EMEA – Africa | Security Evangelist with the Office of the CTO. Issam El Haddioui has held multiple technical leadership and management roles with major cyber security vendors in different countries. He has 20+ years’ experience in worldwide consulting, designing, and implementing security architectures across verticals. He holds two master’s degrees and various technical certifications.

In this dynamic and insightful interview, Check Point expert Issam El Haddioui highlights how an undersea cable disruption impacted multi-national, regional and local businesses across Africa. He then describes how to prepare for internet blackouts and brownouts within your organization, walking through best practices and forms of resilient cyber security architecture.

1. Would you like to provide an overview of the subsea cable issue that recently affected West and Central Africa?

Internet access and connectivity for a large portion of our continent, more than a dozen of countries, was impacted earlier this year due to submarine undersea cables being damaged. Businesses in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Uganda and more were forced to rely on phone conversations to exchange data in a timely manner. Others in East Africa had to use satellite network connections to continue operating.

2. Why is the issue significant? Who was affected and to what extent?

With almost 90% of Africa’s internet traffic relying on undersea cables, all aspects of the continent’s digital economy were subject to disruption; from quality of service to having no-connectivity at all. Stock exchanges, banks, e-commerce and logistics platforms were out of order for a significant part of the day, impacting revenue and business continuity. It caused delays to critical services for the continent and its citizens.

3. When interruptions – like what happened with the undersea cables – occur, what are the risks or vulnerabilities that businesses face?

In these circumstances, businesses are facing not only lower productivity, which impacts their competitiveness, but also security related risks, such as lack of visibility over their presence and global assets, and lack of visibility into non-local cloud platforms. They also lack real-time prevention in case of any local threats or insider actor.

4. For businesses based in West or Central Africa or with offices in the region, given the sub-sea cable cut, what kinds of general business resilience measures would you recommend?

In addition to the redundancy and resilience mechanisms applied by operators responsible for the cables, business can also opt for, when possible, a redundant/backup network connectivity via satellite communication. Also, we recommend having a local copy of critical data either on premises or leveraging the development of local and sovereign cloud providers. Sometimes, undersea cable disruption can also lead to a cyber attack due tapping or eavesdropping by threat actors who are meddling with the cable. Hence, encryption is also a highly recommended when trying to exchange data.

5. How can a SASE architecture help enterprises maintain secure and reliable connectivity to business critical applications and data?

SASE architecture that’s supported by a highly resilient meshed backbone can help maintain secure and reliable local communications for remote workers in countries using local PoP during any disruption; providing access to business data and applications.

6. What kinds of visibility and control does SASE offer and how is that beneficial?

With SASE architecture, business will have control over any connection to their data or applications, regardless of where it originates from. It allows them to check the security posture of the device where the user is initiating the connection, authentication and access control policy. It also gives them the ability to use the best route with low latency for critical traffic. It provides a full, central, in real-time and granular view of the security status of the environment; an important visibility mechanism enabling security analysts to prevent any potential threats or malicious activity.

7. How can SASE’s cloud-delivery model and optimization capabilities help reduce the impact of internet brownouts or blackouts?

SASE cloud-delivery with local PoP will help maintain local connectivity and access to data and applications during a period of internet blackout. In fact, SASE providers, such as Check Point, will have a local replica on all its PoP globally, with the same security policy. These local PoPs or some local providers have built resilience into their infrastructure that SASE can benefit from, such as dual connectivity via satellite or radio-based communication.

8. What related advice do you have for corporate leaders?

Digital transformation and the new hybrid mode of working have given businesses and governments a myriad of benefits and opportunities. These include reducing their real estate costs by enabling the remote workforce, rapid go-to-market with online and e-commerce platforms, accelerating the launch of citizen programs…etc.

This new reality cannot be supported by traditional connectivity and security architectures, but requires new agile, scalable, and holistic ways to deal with an extended attack surface and heterogenous mode of connection. SASE is one direction to help address some of these new challenges, offering secure and controlled access to data and applications from anywhere to anywhere, cloud-delivered and as-a-service.

9. At this point, the cables have been restored. Do you expect to see another incident like this within the next 12-18 months?

Even with all the resilience mechanisms that the cables operators are implementing, we are never totally immune from such incidents for various reasons. Incidents like what we saw in Africa this year are not very frequent, but according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), undersea cable disruptions occur at a rate of 200 incidents per year due to different accidental damages.

10. Is there anything else that you would like to share?

It is very important, during periods of internet blackout or disruption, not lose sight of insider threats, such as internal employees or third-parties, and potential local intrusion that can cost your business millions due to a data leak, reputational damage or legal liabilities. Hence, a unified and integrated security platform with visibility into the internal and external attack surface is key to your security monitoring in real-time.

For more insights from Issam El Haddioui, please see CyberTalk.org’s past interview. Lastly, to receive cyber security thought leadership articles, groundbreaking research and emerging threat analyses each week, subscribe to the CyberTalk.org newsletter.

The Friday Roundup – Faceless Videos and Forced Perspective

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Toward socially and environmentally responsible real estate

The MIT student of popular imagination is a Tony Stark or a Riri Williams working in a lab and building the technology of the future. Not necessarily someone studying real estate.

Peggy Ghasemlou is doing just that, however, and she’s traveled over thousands of miles and jumped through about as many hoops to do it.

A licensed architect in her hometown of Tehran, Iran’s capital, Ghasemlou enrolled at MIT to pursue her interests in sustainability and inclusion in the fields of architecture and real estate development. Now, after managing visa and travel issues that required her own superhero-like determination, she’s halfway through earning a master of science in real estate development (MSRED) from the School of Architecture and Planning’s Center for Real Estate (CRE). This fall, she will be working with lecturer Jacques Gordon, CRE’s former “executive-in-practice,” on a thesis involving portfolio management.

Throughout her time at MIT, Ghasemlou has enjoyed her program’s balance of economics, technology, sustainability, and design. She says the curriculum has supported and challenged her in equal measure, but above all, she appreciates the program’s emphasis on financial, social, and environmental responsibility.

“I’m so grateful that I chose MSRED, because they are not just thinking about how to make more money,” she says. “They are teaching us about how to make a lasting positive impact.”

It hasn’t been an easy journey. Visa issues, scholarship rejections, and thousands of miles stood between her and MIT, and the challenges didn’t end when she did get to campus, halfway around the world from her home and family. She beat all those odds, however, and is ready for whatever the future brings.

“When I first arrived here, I had three main feelings: relief, hope, and doubt,” she said. “Now, I am just feeling grateful for my time here and the friendships I have made.”

From design to ownership

While growing up, Ghasemlou loved design “from the start.” That affinity led her to pursue a bachelor’s in architectural engineering, followed by a master’s in digital engineering with a focus on sustainability.

She first made serious contact with MIT while pursuing her master’s, taking the Institute’s online courses to help her with her thesis on zero-energy buildings. She chose both the thesis and the classes out of a desire to “do something positive and impactful” and learned how to use tools to optimize a building’s energy efficiency, among other important measures.

After she earned her master’s, she spent the next five years designing and developing residential buildings for a studio in Tehran. The experience sparked her interest in the financial side of architecture and real estate, and along with it, the intersection of sustainability, economics, and design — areas encompassed by MSRED’s curriculum.

She decided to apply, and was also awarded the Goldie B. Wolfe Miller Women Leaders in Real Estate scholarship.

“The Goldie Initiative is the most supportive community,” she says. “They’re the best thing that’s happen[ed] to me in the U.S. They really care about you, and they really want, in their heart, to help you.”

With women underrepresented in the real estate fields, particularly at leadership levels, awards like this emphasize both the progress that has been made as well as the work that is yet to be done. In Tehran, Ghasemlou founded Girls in Real Estate Development (GIRD), to introduce the fields of architecture and real estate to young women and help create career pathways for these traditionally male-dominated professions.

“I really love to see women being in decision-making positions and to be able to influence different industries in meaningful ways,” she said. “Whatever I learn, I try to [pass along to the next generation]. It might have a small impact on them, but I tell them, ‘If I can do it, you can do it.’”

Once she made it to MIT for her first semester, she took finance and economics courses, which were new subjects for her. Adjusting to a new environment was also jarring, but she credited her classmates and professors for being “incredibly supportive” and helping her “not feel so isolated.”

Her second semester featured sustainability courses — a friendlier prospect, given her background in design — and helped point her in the direction of sustainable portfolio management for her thesis topic.

However, enrolling at MIT was one thing. Actually getting to campus was another.

The long and winding road

Rewind back to last summer. Once the excitement of being accepted to the MSRED program wore off, reality set in. Like other international students, Ghasemlou had to apply for a visa. She did so through the U.S. embassy in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, and began the waiting game. Days turned into weeks, however, so she decided to try her luck with a different embassy and packed her bags for Toronto.

With the start of classes only weeks away, she made the decision to wait it out in the Canadian metropolis. She ended up having to take online classes during the beginning of the semester, but right on the day she “lost all hope,” her visa was finally issued.

In Ankara, that is.

She had already flown over 6,000 miles just to get from Tehran to Toronto, and she was now staring down the barrel of a 10,000-mile-plus trip to go back to Turkey for her visa and then get to MIT’s campus, all while the semester was kicking into gear. That may have been too daunting a prospect for some, but not for her.

“I calculated the hours I was in the airport and airplane: over 30 hours,” she said. “I arrived in Boston, I remember, at 11:30 p.m., then I just thought, ‘Tomorrow, I should go to my classes.’”

Luckily, her family supported her throughout the process.

“I’m so thankful for my parents and my brother — especially my brother — because he believes in me all the time,” she said. “That really helped me go through all the hard times I had to go through to be here.”

Now that she is here, she’s got a lot of big ideas for the future of housing, sustainability, and real estate. She’ll be spending the summer with a Boston-based nonprofit called Preservation of Affordable Housing, assessing units for sustainability goals and updating sustainability criteria.

Going forward, she expressed an interest in staying in Boston long-term, noting its potential to join other cities in becoming “one of the leaders in sustainability.” She’s a believer in policy for effective change-making, and cites New York City’s Local Law 97 (LL97), which requires that large buildings meet certain limits regarding energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions, as an example of a law that is “not just a policy” but also makes people think about the city around them.

Ghasemlou also aims to continue to support other women in the real estate fields, and expresses admiration for female industry leaders such as Fidelity’s Suzanne Heidelberger.

“When I see successful women in this industry, I feel inspired and proud of them,” she said. “I really want to see more and more female leaders in the industry.”

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