Author: Willis E. Shaffer

7 Steps To A Better Financial Future

On August 16, 2018

It’s always important to secure your future, no matter how young you are. Whether it is learning how to do your taxes or saving your money, you can never go wrong if you plan ahead. Here are seven ways through which you can have a better financial future.

Find methods to reduce your expenditure

If you are someone who relies on just one source of income, it is essential to see where you spend your money as this will be the money that you will use to reach your goals. If you use credit cards, keep track of your credit card statements. After you have an idea of where your money is going, stop needless or undesired expenses. These can be in the form of monthly subscriptions like magazine or gym memberships.

Make a budget

Create a budget and look at it as a way to save money rather than a restriction. Having a budget is vital to take control over the money that you have and also to be sure that you have your needs that are both short term and long term fulfilled. This will also mean you’ll have to prioritise your goals based on your budget.

Make sure to hire someone to do your taxes if you do not know how to do them yourself

If you’re not good at doing your taxes, it is best to hire someone since doing taxes can be pretty complicated. You might not be aware of all or some of the deductions or credits that you’d be entitled to.

Escalate your savings

While you may not be able to save money right now, you can always work with what you have, and from there on, you can save more money. This is one of the most effective ways by which you can accumulate wealth.

Have an end goal in sight all the time

It is always important to begin working on your plan with the big goal in mind. You can add in short-term goals in here as well. Short term goals include being debt free or buying a new home.

Your children’s education

No matter how many kids you’ll have, you need to start saving for their education right at the beginning. Many parents make the mistake of planning for their children’s education far too late.

Do not deter from the plan at hand

Since you now have a budget, you’ll have to spend less to reach the target. You can always give yourself an allowance if you do not want to budget your money.

4 Upcoming Games That You Should Look Out For In The Year 2019

By Willis E. Shaffer

On August 16, 2018

In Games

This year’s E3 gave us an incredible lineup of games. From Indie games like Afterparty and Killer Queen to AAA titles like the new entry to the Devil May Cry series and Shekiro: Shadows Die Twice, there was no shortage of impressive video games. In this article, we look at four games that you should be on the lookout for in the year 2019.

Kingdom Hearts III

Since the release of the first Kingdom Hearts game in 2002, where Disney characters were put in the same universe as that of Square Enix’s unique Final Fantasy characters, the series has gone on to win many praises across the industry. Almost 13 years since the release of Kingdom Hearts, the game is set to include characters from Tangled, Monsters Inc and Pirates of the Carribean to name a few. Kingdom Hearts is slated to hit the shelves on January 25 in Japan and January 29 worldwide for both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Crackdown 3

Xbox One has struggled in this generation when it comes to exclusive titles, with Sea of Thieves receiving poor critical reception because of its shallow in-game depth. Crackdown 3 was initially rumoured to be released along with the Xbox One as a flagship title. But the game has been in development hell for the past four years, citing compatibility issues. But E3 2018 saw the release date for Crackdown 3 delay again, with a gameplay demo being showed to the public. Crackdown 3 will follow the events of a terror attack that targets the entire world, and it is up to the player to track down the perpetrators. The game is slated to release sometime in February 2019.

Ghost of Tsushima

The makers of the Sly Cooper and Infamous games look to strike gold with what looks like a masterpiece in the making. Ghost of Tsushima was announced all the way back in 2017, but it was only in this year’s E3 that we got to catch a glimpse of the gameplay. Combining stealth elements with immersive combat, the game is set in 1274 during the Mongol invasion of Japan. Although Sucker Punch Productions haven’t announced a release date, we can expect a late 2019 or early 2020 release for the PS4.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

After the success of the Souls series, director Hidetaka Miyazaki has announced his desire to create something entirely different, and that is precisely what Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is poised to be. The game adds verticality to an already complex combat system and incorporates fast-paced combat familiar to ninja-like techniques. Sekiro was first thought to be a sequel to Tenchu, a stealth action game that was popular during the 6th generation. Sekiro is believed to hit the shelves in early 2019 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

The future of Alexa

By Willis E. Shaffer

On August 16, 2018

In Tech

The innovation technology in being able to ask things without touching a screen is a wow moment for everyone especially when it does what you asked it to do. Reacting to commands is the beautiful thing about Alexa. When I first heard her name, I thought of her as a person. Only doing research showing what this technology can achieve.

Voice computing is taking over, and Alexa is a big reason why. Amazon is working on how to make Alexa smarter and more like a person. They are discovering products that can work with Alexa and setting up the products so that everyone in the world will be able to work with Alexa. These products will become available to anyone. In hotel rooms, you will use voice control to activate what is going on for what you need. Hopefully personalised to know you and your specific needs. Similarly, in the workplace, public places and in cars. Voice will become the predominant way to interface with a lot of technology.

Voice recognition will not be able to replace screens, but it will compliment them. People have worked for many years on voice recognition. Speech recognition has gone so far because we have computing possibilities and capabilities that we did not have many years ago. We finally have the artificial intelligence algorithms and can learn from more significant amounts of data. Computer technology can extract grammar and deal with languages that we do not know.

There are sensors everywhere gathering data all the time. They are on devices and utilities as well as on engines, machines our cars, so when the systems are on they all produce data. They know about you too. Your data is in the government also like your income tax, what are your marital status and your address. Every movie you watch, every move you make, so that they can figure out what you like and what to sell to you. We will give all this information, information that are extremely useful.

We give our location data, where we are going, how fast we are going. Robotics is an applied application, where they take all this data and use it. You get automated farming and driverless vehicles. It is happening. Tesla reports back and makes improvements to their cars continuously.

In noisy environments, speech recognition works great. With Alexa you do not have to be near her, she will respond to you even if you are further away.

Alexa has an Echo, a speech recognition service that recognises the wake-up word. When you call her name, she wakes up. The command is then sent to the cloud to enable the device to do more complicated things that are required. Amazon has made a prominent place for Alexa, but there are still significant challenges to face. This Echo voice activation that awakens Alexa made some people worried about their privacy.

The concern for the future is, will Alexa automatically shoot an intruder when the intruder alarm is activated?