Madden NFL 20 offers new gameplay modes and the ability to craft an ultimate team, but doesn’t separate itself from the games that came before. Fans of EA’s long-running Madden NFL series can be easily separated into casual and hardcore categories, and both sets of players will find things to love and hate about Madden 20. The 33rd game in EA’s mega popular franchise, Madden 20 fixes numerous issues that were present in former titles but hasn’t yet crossed the line into what sports enthusiasts refer to as a “perfect game....

Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students. WWDC was actually light on specific updates for the K–12 environment....

Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students. The discussion around macOS and iOS has been going on since the iPad was first released....

One of the trends we’ve seen over the years in K–12 is the move away from native applications for the desktop. In fact, outside of Microsoft Office, I don’t know of a mass market application that’s launched as a native app on macOS in my entire time as an IT Director in education since 2009. Content/development firms for K–12 have always wanted a write once and run everywhere approach. It was tried with Java....

The cast of Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings continues to grow, with actress Rosalind Chao reportedly joining the ensemble. Chao most recently appeared in the Netflix film The Laundromat and will next be seen in the live-action Mulan, where she will play Mulan’s mother Hua Li. Shang-Chi’s cast already includes newcomer Simu Liu as the titular hero and Tony Leung as the film’s villain The Mandarin. Awkwafina will also appear in the film, though her role has not been revealed....

New Loki Trailer from Marvel Studios Unlike previous clips, this one shows an actual scene from the show that features the God of Mischief himself, Loki, and Mobius introducing himself to Loki. They travel down a corridor of the Time Variance Authority (TVA) headquarters. In case you missed it, you can check out the new trailer below.  Loki appears to be recruited by the TVA leader, Mobius, to help fix the broken timeline....

But social media usage is on the rise, with 76% of consumers reporting they used social media more in the last year and 63% purchased on it. Recent data like this from the Sprout Social Index 2021™, UK & Ireland report should serve as a wake-up call for retailers sceptical about what social media is worth. Whether it’s a digital or in-person purchase, social followers signal potential business for brands of all shapes and sizes....

Jada Pinkett-Smith is in talks to return as Niobe in Matrix 4. It has been over 15 years since a Matrix movie was in theaters, but the franchise is finally on track to see a new installment made. The news of Matrix 4 happening came earlier this year when it was announced that Lana Wachowski was attached to write and direct the fourth film. This came after prior reports of a possible reboot being in the works, but this is a new project entirely....

These new consumer habits that we have developed aren’t necessarily down to laziness - it’s the fact that the sheer volume of content out there is overwhelming. We don’t have the time, or the patience, to dig a little deeper for those extra details - we want clear, concise messaging and we want it straight away. We’re also starting to see that online audiences are getting younger and they are used to having answers quickly, usually through the use of a search engine or even on social media....

Later this year, Disney will be launching its own Netflix-style streaming service called Disney+ and it will premiere a number of TV series that tie into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They won’t be the first TV shows in the MCU, but these are the first that will actually have direct links to the movies. Jessica Jones would occasionally mention Captain America to suggest that they were in the same universe, but these will interconnect with the movies in the same way that the movies themselves do....

A new Marvel Entertainment video features the Avengers: Endgame cast trying to decode an MCU-themed escape room. Director Joe Russo serves as the “GameMaster,” and the clip includes MCU stars Anthony Mackie, Letitia Wright, Sebastian Stan, and Benedict Cumberbatch. Produced for $356 million, Avengers: Endgame has earned over $2.3 billion at the box office since releasing on April 26, making it the second highest-grossing movie of all time. In the film, the superheroes attempt to gain control of the six Infinity Stones, this coming after Thanos essentially changed the game in Avengers: Infinity War....

Smartphones have become powerful. They have started housing processors reaching range up to gigahertz and RAM up to 8 Gigabytes. Even the smartphones boasting a lucrative spec sheet face some kind of issues regarding them at some point. One of the most disturbing and dominant problems is restarting and freezing problem of a smartphone on its own. Nothing is more troubling for a person when he learns that his smartphone has freezes often or gets restarted on its own....

Microsoft updated its OneNote apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac today with a number of highly requested features including the ability to insert files, lock and unlock protected sections, PDF printouts, and much more. In addition, the update also includes the ability to organize notebooks by moving and reordering sections and pages, support for formatted text copied from other apps, and an option to create notebooks and save them to OneDrive for Business....

Windows 10 Build 20231 To improve upon initial device setup Microsoft is adding a page to the Windows OOBE “To help better understand how you plan to use your device and aid in customizing your device given your intended usage.” This feature is rolling out to a subset of Insiders in the Dev Channel so you may or may not see it on your build. Here is the list of changes and improvements to build 20231:...

A 9to5mac reader writes in telling us he/she’s found some interesting files in Lion. These files are labeled “MobileDocumentsFolder.icns, Mobile Documents 32.png and SidebarMobileDocumentsFolder.icns” and show new types of icons for a Cloud file system. Clearly, this would seem to be the successor to iDisk and is probably shows a more transparent interface between the desktop and the Cloud, perhaps a little more like Dropbox. We’re also thinking there is an iWork....

Today, in order to help brands gather and acknowledge this valuable customer feedback, we’re excited to announce that you can manage your Facebook Reviews from Sprout. Whether you manage one Page or many, you can seamlessly continue the social conversation by monitoring and engaging with ratings and written reviews alongside all other incoming messages in the Smart Inbox. Manage Your Facebook Reviews From the Smart Inbox Within the Smart Inbox, Facebook Reviews surface the numerical rating as well as the written review left on your Page(s)....

Tyrese Gibson, one of the stars of Morbius star, has confirmed that the first trailer will drop on Monday. So far, Sony’s Spider-Man spinoffs have proven to be a huge success, with Venom grossing over $850 million worldwide and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse netting an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. Next up is Morbius, by director Daniel Espinosa, starring Jared Leto as the so-called “Living Vampire.” The last few days have seen reports that a trailer drop is imminent, with claims that it would release on January 13 at 6 AM PST....

Eric Schmidt is no longer Google’s chief executive as Larry Page took the reigns this morning. The blogosphere is analyzing what this means as pundits scramble to measure the impact of Google’s co-founder on the company’s future. Page is taking over at a time when Google is one of the most powerful and most-valued technology companies on the planet. They reported $8.4 billion revenue in the last quarter. The company owns search and mobile advertising and is chipping away market share from everyone in the cellphone space....

Making The Grade is a weekly series from Bradley Chambers covering Apple in education. Bradley has been managing Apple devices in an education environment since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing 100s of Macs and 100s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple’s products work at scale, stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for students. When the iPad was released was back in 2010, many people in the education industry saw it as a way to end the large backpacks that children have to carry back and forth to school....

According to Taika Waititi, there’s an ongoing debate about whether or not to keep Thor fat. Waititi, who directed Thor: Ragnarok and who will return to helm Thor: Love and Thunder, explained that there’s a revealing question at the heart of what otherwise might be a mostly aesthetic detail. The transformation for Thor hasn’t been merely physical, though. While he’s always had his supports, and while audiences have been fond of Chris Hemsworth’s performance as the hammer-wielding Avenger, it wasn’t until the third installment that the franchise earned glowing reviews....