Month: May 2024

84% of gamers have an interest in pursuing a third level degree course in game development and design in Ireland

84% of gamers say they would consider taking a course in game development and design at higher education level, according to a new survey from GamerFest, Ireland’s leading gaming and esports festival. In addition, 9 in 10 say they think it is possible to have a gaming career in Ireland.

Of the 84% who said they would be interested in third level courses, nearly 4 in 10 (38%) currently work in another industry, but would have pursued a career in the gaming industry if the option was available when they were entering third level education. A further 46% are currently considering taking a course in game development and design.

The majority (96%) of those surveyed also feel that the government should increase investment and expenditure in the Irish gaming industry beyond the current level. 9 in 10 people agree that gaming companies should be able to avail of tax relief measures to operate in Ireland. While Ireland’s tax credits for the sector are competitive internationally, those surveyed said that they would like to see robust credits introduced.

Interestingly, one third of those surveyed were unaware that Ireland is home to a developing major games industry – a number of major gaming companies have offices in Ireland including Riot Games, producers of the popular shooter game Valorant, and Electronic Arts, who create The Sims series and EAFC (formerly known as FIFA).

Gaming is a hobby for all ages with nearly 8 in 10 playing for fun

Gaming is a key hobby for many across a range of ages, with the biggest group of gamers surveyed stating they were between the ages 35-44 (35%). 77% of gamers are playing for fun, while one in ten surveyed say they engage in gaming for social purposes and to meet others with similar interests. A quarter of game players surveyed spend over 10 hours per week playing video games.

When it comes to spending money on gaming, 40% of gamers are outlaying more than €50 a month, with 1 in 10 spending over €100 per month on their hobby. More than half of those who spend money on gaming each month spend a quarter of their monthly budget on in-game purchases, such as Fortnite Skins or V-Bucks, to enhance their gameplay.

Gaming fans and content creators come together for GamerFest Dublin this May

Gamers and leading content creators in the gaming sector will come together this May 25th and 26th in the RDS, Dublin for the 7th year of GamerFest, which has welcomed over 25,000 visitors since its inception from across Ireland. GamerFest has firmly established itself as a diverse, community-led gaming event for everyone with a passion for gaming, from causal gamers and families right through to professional esports players and teams.

Nearly 80% (78%) of those surveyed believe live gaming events, like GamerFest, are extremely important in supporting the games industry.

The epic GamerFest weekend is a celebration of all things gaming and will feature the latest gaming releases, virtual reality experiences, esports, cosplay competitions and gaming challenges. There will also be a host of special guests including top Twitch and YouTube creators including Shauna Davitt, The Gara Show, Ryan Mar and Jack Igoe, with more special guest announcements to come. There will also be opportunities to learn about careers and third level courses in the gaming industry from leading companies and colleges.

In addition to last year’s super events across the Play, Compete, Connect and Discover zones, this May will see both Call of Duty Zone and Helldivers II playable at the festival. There’ll also be the exhilarating Formula One Fastest Lap competition in the Currys Sim Racing Zone, and for those looking to get their groove on, a Just Dance Challenge will take place across the weekend.

GamerFest CEO Stuart Dempsey says: “GamerFest continues to go from strength to strength, and we couldn’t be more excited to return to the RDS this May. There will be something for everyone, from casual gamers right through to budding esports stars.

“GamerFest is delighted to have a number of colleges and industry experts to chat about educational and career options in the sector at this year’s event. We see so many visitors to GamerFest seeking information on careers in the games industry so it’s a really exciting time for the games industry

“As showcased by our survey, the gaming industry in Ireland is a sector with enormous potential, and we are only scratching the surface in terms of the economic growth and job creation that it can bring to Ireland.

“It’s fantastic that the IDA is currently working to strengthen the financial support for the gaming industry through stronger tax credit initiatives, and we believe this can lead to a whole range of benefits for the wider Irish economy.”

Public, private and voluntary sector organisations join forces to boost software skills in North and West Belfast

Leading organisations in IT, training and education have joined forces to provide young people from North and West Belfast with the chance to learn software skills that will help them work towards a future in the tech sector.

Over six months, Queen’s University Belfast and Impact Training, supported by Telefónica Tech UK&I, delivered a coding academy training programme to help 16-19-year-olds from the Greater Shankill, West and North Belfast gain essential workplace skills and learn about the latest technologies and opportunities within the IT industry.

This is the second year that the programme has run, and it saw the young people attend a series of regular coding sessions, delivered by Queen’s and Impact Training, with a graduation for the students held in the Telefónica Tech Belfast offices, which employ 330 people in Belfast. Sponsored by Telefónica Tech, each student was also provided with a Raspberry Pi for graduating, a small and affordable computer used to learn programming, which they can use to continue to develop their coding skills.

The graduation ceremony for those who completed the course took place on Wednesday 24th April at Telefónica Tech UK&I’s office in Titanic Quarter. As part of the event, awards were presented to the young people, including an outstanding achievement award to recognise a participant who went above and beyond and demonstrated true potential and dedication to learning new skills. This year’s winner was Justin Clarke.

Delivering training opportunities for young people in Greater Shankill, West and North Belfast for over 45 years, Impact Training, provides training options for school leavers who have chosen to pursue a more vocational path.

Ellen Dickson, Strategic VP of Enterprise Health at Telefónica Tech UK&I, commented: “Congratulations to all of the young people who completed this year’s course. Telefónica Tech UK&I is incredibly proud to once again support and be part of such a fantastic programme that will hopefully mark the beginning of an exciting career in IT for those who participated. As well as providing young people with essential skills to widen their career options, the programme will also help boost the pipeline of skills that is needed to enable our IT sector to continue to thrive.”

Dr David Cutting, Director of Education in the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen’s University Belfast, said: “We are delighted to join forces with Impact Training and Telefónica Tech UK&I to deliver something so worthwhile, helping young people discover their love for IT and embark on careers in the sector. We are proud to see our peer mentors support the next generation of experts in coding and share their love and enthusiasm.”

This has been an outstanding programme to help the young people of Belfast kickstart their IT careers.  It is incredible to see how quickly the participants took up coding and the amount of talent and passion that each of them had. It is fantastic to see our students helping to train the next generation of experts in coding.”

Gerard Fox, Vocational Employment Manager at Impact Training, added: “It is fantastic to witness how much students can grow and reach their full potential when completing the course and it is fantastic to offer it once again to young people in Belfast. It not only gives them an insight into the IT sector but it is also a fantastic way for them to gain confidence and grow as they begin the journey towards their future careers. Congratulations to everyone who completed the course.”

Tech Review – Edifier WH700NB ANC Headphones

The Edifier WH700NB ANC Headphones are the latest cans on offer from the brand that delivers great audio experiences at affordable price which for me puts it up to other headphones that are overpriced with a clean look and comfortable finish they have another winner here.

The presentation is low key here with simple packaging and no hard case given this time however this is fine, the headset is robust and no creaks on twisting it about and they do fold up for travelling and could be placed in order carry cases if you have any.

They have a ratchet style extension arm each side which is solid and will stay in place, the cups are comfortable and can be used for hours on end and the headband is too with no clamping effect notice during my many hours of testing.

The controls are all on one side here again and easy to use and navigate giving you a clean and easy task to get things done with your controls which we demo in the video review below.

You have small but definitive buttons here even for my big fingers there was no issue doing what I wanted but then you have the Edifier connect app to that will help you also with controls.

We have play/pause skip and reverse tracks volume control and access to your voice assistant and of course call management.

There is a dedicated multifunction key too for ANC control on this key you can turn on/off ANC and switch ambient sound on and off.

The sound is excellent with decent due to being equipped with 40mm dynamic drivers coated in titanium, volume too how I like it, the ANC is also decent too highs lows and mids no issue and listening to all genres and some movies of course delivered an excellent audio experience with the ANC and volume turned up to the max and not hearing a thing going on outside which is how I like it, there is game mode too so if you are a gamer you will enjoy this, gaming is not a huge thing on my list but I do from time to time play so on the phone and it works really well.

Call quality is also rather good here for the few calls taken and a zoom session, and battery life is up there with some of the best on the market too with high end brands. We also have dual connection here so for me working on my laptop an using my phone all day this works really well and will do for anyone in similar positions which there is many of out there today.

There is no lag latency no tinny sound maxed out on volume or on any EQ setting so for me overall another great pair of headphones almost as good as their WH950NB Hi-Res audio headphones.

 

The Edifier connect app

 

Features 

     Enhanced Active Noise Cancellation Experience advanced multi-mode active noise cancellation designed for both outdoor and indoor environments, including commuting, library, airplane, and underground use.

·         Up to 68 Hours Playback Time

·         Crystal-Clear Call Clarity Powered by advanced Al algorithms and a single microphone with DNN noise cancellation, the headphones picks up the human voice clearly even under noisy conditions. Effortlessly engage in hands-free calls or tele-conferences with impeccable clarity.

·         Equipped with 40mm dynamic drivers coated in Titanium, the WH700NB headphones deliver deep, impactful bass and crystal-clear high frequencies.

·         Fully Foldable For a Comfortable Use Designed for your comfort, the W700NB headphones boast skin-friendly ear cushions and a soft-toned headband. The foldable and compact design enhances portability, making them your ideal on-the-go companions.

·         Seamless Dual Device Connectivity The headphone can connect two source devices at the same time. Seamlessly transition between music, online meetings, videos, and calls across two different devices.

·         Customized App Control Unlock a realm of possibilities through the Edifier Connect app. Tailor your listening experience with 4 preset EQ settings, soothing sounds, customizable button configurations, and more. Your audio preferences, your way.

 

Overall here for the money Edifier has once again delivered on a well balanced pair of headphones with a clean look and plenty of features at your disposal including access to their Edifier Connect app which is also clean and simple to use and if you want good sound at a really affordable price here it is on one package that you cant complain about.

 

BUY

Video Review

Remora Unveil Groundbreaking Wireless Audio Solution, Remora PRO

Remora, a leading audio startup at the forefront of eliminating cables from professional and high-end consumer audio applications, is proud to announce the launch of their inaugural product: Remora PRO. This cutting-edge innovation, based on the acclaimed Headphone 3.0 platform from Sonical Inc, introduces a game-changing Ultra-Wideband (UWB) wireless connection, delivering an unparalleled loss-less audio experience with imperceptible latency.


Designed to cater to the millions of professional users and premium audio listeners who refuse to compromise on quality or latency, Remora PRO is set to empower audiophiles, music producers, live performers and DJs with a cable-free audio experience. The product’s groundbreaking design connects seamlessly with all existing audio sources via analogue and USB interfaces, and is adaptable to all headphone models. Moreover, the Remora PRO offers full Bluetooth support, ensuring backward compatibility with billions of existing wireless audio devices.

The Remora PRO fulfills the unmet performance needs of audio professionals and music enthusiasts that Bluetooth has been unable to support.  Mark Wade, Head of Products at Remora explains “By using CosmOS, the operating system for the ear from Sonical, running on their high performance ear computer platform, Remora PRO provides a complete solution for a personalized experience through downloadable plugins.”

Grammy award-winning mix engineer Wez Clarke expressed his enthusiasm, stating, “I love the fact that I can use the professional headphones I already own, which I’ve had for years and understand the sound profile of.” Clarke further emphasized, “This level of audio performance goes beyond regular Bluetooth wireless headphones and is truly a cable replacement.  More than that, it means I don’t have to throw away my headphones just to get access to the latest technology”

The Remora will include THX AAA, the patented THX linear amplifier technology for headphones. THX AAA on the Remora will ensure the ultimate no-compromise headphone audio experience by delivering the world’s highest fidelity audio with infinitesimally low levels of noise, distortion, and power consumption for a quality and fatigue-free listening experience.
Anticipating a high demand for this revolutionary product, Remora PRO are scheduled for shipping by the end of September with a suggested retail pricing of GBP £759 USD $949 EUR €890. Pre-orders are now open on the company’s website: www.remora.pro

Key Features of Remora PRO:

  • Ultra Wide Band (UWB) wireless connection for an uncompressed lossless audio experience with imperceptible latency at 24bit / 96kHz
  • End to End latency of sub 5ms in UWB mode
  • Compatibility with all existing audio sources via analogue and USB interfaces.
  • User configurable through Sonical’s CosmOS with downloadable plugins for a personalised audio experience
  • Full Bluetooth support for backward compatibility with existing wireless audio devices
  • XMOS USB input and an ESS Powered DAC output
  • THX AAA certified headphone amplifier for an unparalleled headphone audio experience

Remora will be at the Sonical booth in Hall 1, C12 at HIGH END Munich 2024.

 

 

Gamma Risk strengthens UK presence with launch of retrofit calculator solution

Gamma Risk, the property risk technology company, today announces that it is strengthening its UK presence with the launch of a retrofit calculator solution, EPCWOW. The company – which has an office in Manchester and has previously rolled out other products in the UK market – is hoping to replicate the success it has had in its home market with BERWOW.

Since launching in 2020, the BERWOW application has enabled over 100,000 people across the country to explore retrofit projects, resulting in millions of euros being invested in residential retrofit. For SSE Airtricity alone, BERWOW has resulted in a 60% increase in retrofit conversion rates. Last year, AXA became the first insurance company offering the BERWOW tool to Irish homeowners, using it to support its new Go Green web platform.

Specifically developed for the UK market, including Northern Ireland, EPCWOW is a new web tool which can be customised for each client and is particularly relevant for customers of banks, insurance companies and energy providers.

The white-label offering helps these organisations to better support their customer bases by enabling homeowners to understand both the financial and energy savings benefits of home upgrades.  Furthermore, it enables these organisations to affect real change in their customers’ properties, reducing their Scope 3 CO² emission levels in the process. This results in the reduction of CO² emissions across properties and therefore improves the green credentials of providers.

To enable EPCWOW to calculate the energy efficiency of specific property types and potential cost savings for homeowners through selected retrofit measures, Gamma Risk has partnered with EPC specialist, Quidos.

Homeowners simply enter their property type details into the online platform, which prompts EPCWOW to suggest retrofit improvements based on the specific house type along with estimated costs, bill savings, grants, and other benefits.  The user can then select and deselect measures until the desired bundle of upgrades is satisfactory and affordable.

The rollout of EPCWOW comes as Gamma rebrands as two entities, Gamma Risk and Gamma Labs. Gamma Risk assesses both physical and transitional risks to property assets for the entire UK and Ireland through the use of cutting-edge technology, operating the largest and most complete property risk database for the region. Gamma Risk will also aim to deliver innovative solutions – including EPCWOW – and data insights which enable businesses to make more sustainable business decisions, adapt operations to reduce CO² emissions and uphold compliance with regulatory requirements.

Commenting on the launch of the new service, Feargal O’Neill, CEO of Gamma Risk, said: “This is the first interactive energy calculation tool of its type in the UK market, regenerating net savings as different measures are selected. By simplifying complexity and delivering high-quality data insights through cutting-edge solutions, we can help businesses across the UK to enhance their customer experience and enable sustainability. Through EPCWOW specifically, this means empowering homeowners and supporting retrofit journeys.

“This solution will not only help to reduce carbon emissions and improve energy efficiency for individual properties but for society as a whole – driving towards a greener future and showing the future impact of current actions. It also allows the businesses involved to boost their standing from both a sustainability and profitability perspective.”

Brits spend 182.5 hours per year searching for something to watch, study finds

Being stuck between multiple streaming services and debating what to watch can be time-consuming. A recent study by Currys uncovered how much time people spend choosing a programme or movie to watch and asked 2,018 Brits to understand their challenges and difficulties in selecting what to watch. Out of those asked, 10% admitted they spend up to 2 hours trying to find something to watch, with the average time spent, across all respondents, on this decision dilemma being 30 minutes a day.

For those who find themselves watching TV daily, this 30 minutes per day translates to a staggering 182.5 hours per year dedicated to the daunting task of deciding what to watch—equivalent to just over 7 days annually lost to “choice paralysis”.

The survey also revealed that nearly 60% admit that after endless scrolling, they give up on finding something to watch altogether.

Endless scrolling for the perfect show can lead to overwhelming anxiety, making the search for something enjoyable more stressful than fun.

Dr. George Fieldman, a Consultant Psychologist, offers insights into the reasons behind people’s anxiety when it comes to deciding what to watch on TV, he said: “Fear and danger are poorly correlated which means that people fear making the wrong choice. Even when it comes to picking something to watch on TV still comes with a fair amount of factors to consider which can lead you to spiral into anxiety. What you watch is a significant investment of time and people don’t want to make the wrong choice. It has to be worthwhile to justify spending that time which could be spent elsewhere.

“Those that suffer from anxiety are more likely to experience choice paralysis. This usually happens because making the right choice is important for them and they overestimate the impact of making the wrong decision.”

Brits only give shows 34 minutes to impress them

The study also revealed that UK viewers take a surprisingly short time to figure out if they want to continue watching a show or not, with the average decision time being 34 minutes to assess whether the unfolding plot or character dynamics align with expectations and preferences.

When it comes to movies, Brits take even less time to decide as the average time is just 30 minutes before turning it off.

The storyline was found to be the most important factor for 47% of Brits when choosing a TV program. Delving deeper into their considerations, the cast and actors follow closely at 41% and genre at 40% (with drama voted as the UK’s go-to genre). Combining this with the influence of reviews standing at 31%, it highlights a varied approach to viewers’ decision-making process.

Top pet peeves for Brits when trying to watch something 

Considering the hassle of trying to decide what to watch, the last thing Brits want is to be disturbed while viewing. The survey found that the top bug bear of Brits while watching a film or TV is someone talking, this being a top annoying habit for 45% of respondents.

Next is spoiling key moments for 32%, in joint third, people checking their phones (30%) and constantly asking about the plot (30%) and lastly falling asleep during the show or movie, which is a pet peeve for 27%.

Action % who find this annoying
Talking 45%
Spoiling key moments 32%
People checking phones 30%
Constantly asking about the plot 30%
Falling asleep 27%

You can find the full study here: https://www.currys.co.uk/techtalk/tv-advice/no-you-choose.html

Microsoft agrees 30MW renewable energy deal with SSE Renewables and FuturEnergy Ireland

Microsoft announced today that it has entered into a long-term Corporate Power Purchase Agreement (CPPA) with SSE Renewables and FuturEnergy Ireland that will add 30MW of wind energy capacity to Ireland’s electricity grid by way of the newly commissioned Lenalea Wind Farm near Letterkenny, County Donegal.

The renewable energy Corporate PPA secures a sustainable route to market for one of Ireland’s newest onshore wind farms, which was jointly developed by SSE Renewables and FuturEnergy Ireland. SSE Renewables is part of FTSE-listed SSE plc, while FuturEnergy Ireland is a Coillte-ESB joint venture.

Under the terms of the Corporate PPA, the renewable electricity produced by the seven Vestas V117-4.3MW onshore wind turbines at Lenalea Wind Farm will contribute towards Microsoft’s goal of powering its data centre operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025.

Today’s announcement is additional to 900MW of renewable energy CPPAs that Microsoft announced in November 2022. Of that capacity, more than 216MW of onshore wind and solar energy projects have already reached commercial operation, delivering clean energy to Ireland’s grid, with a further 250MW due to reach commercial operation this year.

This agreement is the first long-term Corporate PPA to be jointly entered into by co-development partners SSE Renewables and FuturEnergy Ireland.  CPPAs, such as this one, provide important routes to market for renewable energy developments, and play a valuable role in enabling the development and accelerated delivery of renewable energy generation to underpin Ireland’s decarbonisation targets.

The deal with Microsoft will also provide for a Community Benefit Fund of approximately €150,000 per year, equivalent to €2 for every megawatt hour generated by the project. The allocation of funds by way of annual grants will be overseen by a locally appointed Community Committee, which has already been established. A funding strategy will be developed in conjunction with the Community Committee to inform and shape the structure of the fund.

Today’s announcement follows the completion of construction at Lenalea in December 2023. The 30.1MW onshore wind farm is now fully operational, generating renewable electricity for export to the national grid, and contributing towards Ireland’s 2030 targets for onshore wind.

Eoin Doherty, Vice President, EMEA Regional Leader, Microsoft Cloud Operations + Innovation, said: “At Microsoft, we are committed to playing our part in supporting the decarbonisation of energy grids in markets in which we operate data centres. With the Lenalea Wind Farm achieving commercial operations, we are taking another important step on our journey to achieve 100% renewable energy supply and support wider efforts to add clean energy capacity to Ireland’s energy grid.”

Stuart Donnelly, Director of Corporate Power Purchase Agreements, SSE Renewables, said: “Securing our first long-term Corporate PPA for new onshore wind in Ireland is a satisfying milestone for SSE Renewables and our development partner FuturEnergy Ireland. We are pleased to support Microsoft’s climate and renewable energy goals, while delivering a meaningful contribution to Ireland’s energy targets and security of supply. Working together we will also deliver a positive socio-economic impact through a substantial, locally managed community benefit fund. This agreement is an excellent example of sectors collaborating in Ireland to meet infrastructure and sustainability objectives, supporting the accelerated delivery of renewable energy, which will be vital in the years ahead to enable renewable energy investments and the delivery of 2030 and longer-term net zero targets.”

Mary Lynch, Portfolio Director at FuturEnergy Ireland, said: “Lenalea represents the first project delivered by FuturEnergy Ireland and the very first step towards achieving our 1GW 2030 target. It is also the first of seven projects which we expect to deliver in partnership with SSE Renewables.

“Corporate PPAs are an important part of the Irish electricity market and we are very happy to support Microsoft’s commitment to carbon-free energy targets. Such collaboration and partnerships are critical if Ireland is to meet its climate action goals. We are also looking forward to maximising the local impact of the Community Benefit Fund, which is now live.”

Delivery of the Lenalea Wind Farm represented a total capital investment of more than €40 million by SSE Renewables and FuturEnergy Ireland, providing a significant economic boost locally. Construction and delivery of the project helped to support County Donegal’s economy and employment, with over 150,000 working hours recorded by regional contractors employing a significant local workforce. The positive economic contribution from the project to the region is expected to continue during the wind farm’s operation through a combination of local operational spend as well as annual contributions in commercial rates payments to the local authority.

How taking time out for breakfast can help Childline change lives

This May, Childline is asking workplaces across Ireland to come together and host a breakfast to support Ireland’s only 24-hour listening service for children and teenagers nationwide.

Pictured are Jessica O’Leary, Head of Fundraising, Childline by ISPCC, with Reggie Power (5) celebrating the launch of Rise and Shine for Childline, the charity’s national breakfast campaign designed to get people talking while raising funds for its essential services

Since February alone, 145 children have reached out to Childline by ISPCC’s 24/7 listening service to talk about self-harm, and 65 of those children are repeat contacts who have then gone on to reach out to us for help with suicide ideation.  Please join us by hosting your own breakfast so we can continue to be there for every child that needs us.

Rise and Shine for Childline is kindly supported by McCambridge bread.

Companies that sign up will receive a fresh delivery of McCambridge bread. To sign up visit:  https://childlinebreakfast.com/

AWS Announces General Availability of Amazon Q

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced the general availability of Amazon Q, the most capable generative artificial intelligence (AI)-powered assistant for accelerating software development and leveraging companies’ internal data. Amazon Q not only generates highly accurate code, it also tests, debugs, and has multi-step planning and reasoning capabilities that can transform (e.g., perform java version upgrades) and implement new code generated from developer requests. Amazon Q also makes it easier for employees to get answers to questions across business data such as company policies, product information, business results, code base, employees, and many other topics by connecting to enterprise data repositories to summarize the data logically, analyze trends, and engage in dialog about the data. Today, AWS is also introducing Amazon Q Apps, a new and powerful capability that lets employees build generative AI apps from their company’s data. Employees simply describe the type of app they want, in natural language, and Q Apps will quickly generate an app that accomplishes their desired task, helping them streamline and automate their daily work with ease and efficiency. To learn more about Amazon Q, visit aws.amazon.com/q.

“Amazon Q is the most capable generative AI-powered assistant available today with industry-leading accuracy, advanced agents capabilities, and best-in-class security that helps developers become more productive and helps business users to accelerate decision making,” said Dr. Swami Sivasubramanian, vice president of Artificial Intelligence and Data at AWS. “Since we announced the service at re:Invent, we have been amazed at the productivity gains developers and business users have seen. Early indications signal Amazon Q could help our customers’ employees become more than 80% more productive at their jobs; and with the new features we’re planning on introducing in the future, we think this will only continue to grow.”

Amazon Q Developer

Today, developers tell us that only 30% (or less) of their time is spent on coding, while the rest is spent performing tedious and repetitive tasks. This could be researching best practices from various parts of the web or learning how things work through documentation, forums, and conversations with colleagues. Developers also have to manage infrastructure and resources, troubleshoot and resolve errors, and understand operating costs. When they switch projects, they have to spend time learning the existing code base to understand its programming logic. Finally, there is all the work of testing and refactoring code, upgrading applications, debugging and optimization, and ensuring security by having to carry out vulnerability scanning and applying appropriate security fixes in a timely fashion. Companies want to empower their developers to spend less time on this coding muck and more time on creating unique experiences for their end users, while being able to deploy faster.

Q assists developers and IT professionals (IT pros) with all of their tasks—from coding, testing, and upgrading applications, to troubleshooting, performing security scanning and fixes, and optimizing AWS resources. Amazon Q delivers advanced and tailored generative AI capabilities, including:

  • Most accurate coding recommendations: Amazon Q helps developers build faster and more securely by generating code suggestions and recommendations in near real time. Customers such as Blackberry, BT Group, and Toyota are already using Q to increase developer productivity and speed up innovation in their organizations. Amazon Q Developer has the highest reported code acceptance rates in the industry, for assistants that perform multi-line code suggestions, with BT Group recently sharing that they accepted 37% of Q’s code suggestions and National Australia Bank reporting 50% acceptance rates. Q also has a powerful customization capability that securely leverages a customer’s internal code base to provide more relevant and useful code recommendations. With this capability, Q is an expert on your code and provides recommendations that are more relevant to save even more time. Q keeps customizations completely private, and the underlying FM does not use them for training, protecting customers’ valuable intellectual property.
  • Amazon Q Developer Agents: Q has a unique capability, called agents, which can autonomously perform a range of tasks–everything from implementing features, documenting, and refactoring code, to performing software upgrades. Developers can simply ask Amazon Q to implement an application feature (such as asking it to create an “add to favorites” feature in a social sharing app), and the agent will analyze their existing application code and generate a step-by-step implementation plan. Developers can collaborate with the agent to review and iterate on the plan before the agent implements it, connecting multiple steps together and applying updates across source files, code blocks, and test suites. Carrying out these tasks, Q has achieved the highest scores of any software development assistant available today, scoring 13.4% on the SWE-Bench Leaderboard and 20.5% on the SWE-Bench Leaderboard (Lite), a dataset that benchmarks coding capabilities.

To save customers months, even years, of time upgrading applications, Q can also automate and manage the entire upgrade process–with Java conversions available today and .Net conversions coming soon to help people move from Windows to Linux. In their IDE, developers simply ask Amazon Q to “transform” their project and the agent analyzes application source code, generates new code in the target language or version, executes tests, and completes all code changes. A five-person team at Amazon used Q to upgrade more than 1,000 production applications from Java 8 to Java 17 in just two days (the average time per application was less than 10 minutes), saving months of time, and improving application performance–previously, many of these applications would each take a couple of days to upgrade.

  • Best-in-class security vulnerability scanning and remediation: Q scans code for hard-to-detect vulnerabilities, such as exposed credentials and log injection. With a single click, Q automatically suggests remediations tailored to the application code, allowing developers to quickly accept fixes with confidence. Q’s security scanning capabilities outperform leading publicly benchmarkable tools on detection across most of the popular programming languages, helping to significantly improve the security and code quality of a developer’s application.
  • Q is an expert on AWS and optimizing your AWS environment: Amazon Q Developer is an expert on AWS and is in the console to help IT pros optimize their cloud environments, as well as diagnose and resolve errors and networking issues, select instances, optimize structured query language (SQL) queries, extract, transform, and load (ETL) pipelines, and provide guidance on architectural best practices. To further help customers optimize their cloud environments, today Amazon Q Developer includes a new feature that helps customers list their AWS account resources, configurations, and analyze billing information and trends, making it easier for them to manage their accounts. For example, IT pros can simply ask, “What instances are currently running in US East 1?” or “What’s my S3 bucket encryption?” or “What were my EC2 costs by region last month?” and Amazon Q Developer will list the resources and details in a summarized answer with links to learn more.

 

Amazon Q’s conversational interface is available wherever it is needed—in the AWS Console, in Slack, or in IDEs, including Visual Studio Code and JetBrains–to give developers the ability to use the conversational experience of Q within their favorite software development solutions. To extend the Q experience to more places developers work, AWS is announcing new partner extensions from Datadog and Wiz, and an integration with GitLab Duo that will offer joint customers a unified interface—whether working in AWS or GitLab.  By integrating Amazon Q’s generative AI capabilities with solutions that developers know, use, and trust, developers can update and create software faster.

Amazon Q Business

Organizations possess vast amounts of data spread across multiple documents, systems, and applications. Employees across every organization and department spend hours every week searching internal sources for information, piecing together analyses, writing reports, building presentations, gathering insights from dashboards, and adapting content for different audiences. Generative AI can help solve these challenges. However, the offerings available today are not connected to business data or internal resources and are not built from the ground up with security in mind. Because of these barriers, many organizations cannot safely tap into the full potential of generative AI.

Q Business is a generative AI–powered assistant that can answer questions, provide summaries, generate content, and securely complete tasks based on data and information in your enterprise systems. It empowers employees to be more creative, data-driven, efficient, prepared, and productive:

  • Q unites more data sources than any other generative AI assistant available today: Amazon Q Business easily and securely connects to 40+ commonly used business tools, such as wikis, intranets, Atlassian, Gmail, Microsoft Exchange, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)–more than any other generative AI assistant available today. Simply point Q at your enterprise data repositories, and it will search all of your data, summarize logically, analyze trends, and engage in dialog with end users about the data. This helps business users to access all of their data, no matter where it resides in their organization.
  • Built from the ground up with security and privacy in mind: Amazon Q Business seamlessly integrates with a customer’s existing identities, roles, and access permissions to personalize the interactions for each individual user, while maintaining the highest levels of security. It generates accurate responses based on enterprise information, and customers can restrict sensitive topics, block keywords, and filter out inappropriate content. Q also does not use customer content to train the underlying models for anybody else. Amazon Q Business outperforms all published results for other assistants on correctness, truthfulness, and helpfulness for general Q&A (using the MultiHop-RAG dataset), as well as industries like finance (using a FiQA dataset sample) and technology (using a LoTTE dataset sample).
  • Inventive generative BI allows analysts to build detailed dashboards in minutes and business users to get insights fast: Amazon Q brings its advanced generative AI technology to Amazon QuickSight, AWS’s unified Business Intelligence (BI) service built for the cloud. With Amazon Q in QuickSight, customers get a Generative BI assistant that allows business analysts to use natural language to build BI dashboards in minutes and easily create visualizations and complex calculations. It is also the only BI product where business users can get AI-driven executive summaries of dashboards, ask questions of data beyond what is presented in the dashboards, and create detailed and customizable data stories highlighting key insights, trends, and drivers. Business users can ask to “build a story about how the business has changed over the last month for a business review with leadership;” and in seconds, Amazon Q creates a narrative with specific insights and supporting visuals, including specific ideas of how to improve the business. Users can choose to layout the content produced by Q in an easy to share document or presentation where they can customize text, images, and themes, and use Amazon Q to rewrite and improve the text.
  • First-of-its-kind capability that helps every employee go from conversation to generative AI-powered app in seconds: Today, AWS is announcing the new Amazon Q Apps capability (in preview). Amazon Q Apps allows employees to easily and quickly create generative AI-powered apps based on their company data, without requiring any prior coding experience. With Q Apps, employees simply describe the app they want, in natural language, or they can take an existing conversation where Amazon Q Business helped them solve a problem, and with one click, Q will instantly generate an app that accomplishes their desired task that can be easily shared across their organization.

For example, creating employee onboarding plans for new recruits can be a long and laborious process. They require many hours of searching through different data stores and documents to find the appropriate content for the new employee; and often, the content is out of date or not specific enough to their role. With Q, an HR professional could simply describe they want an app that will create an onboarding plan for a new employee that utilizes the company’s existing best practices, and has an input field for employee ID that personalizes the onboarding plan to their role by drawing from internal data sources specific to their job family.  In a matter of seconds, Amazon Q Apps will build an app that can automatically generate a personalized onboarding plan tailored to the employee, their role, and the department using the latest best practices. The HR professional can then share the app with hiring managers across the company to instantly build personalized onboarding plans for their own teams.  Now, with Amazon Q Apps, business users can easily, quickly, and securely build an app based on enterprise information to improve their work productivity.

What Amazon Q customers and partners are saying

GoDaddy helps millions of entrepreneurs globally start, grow, and scale their businesses. “Amazon Q in QuickSight allows us to ask our data contextual business questions without having to constantly rely on ad-hoc dashboards. For example, now we can much more easily discover and drill into anomalies in business performance across the company,” said Ed Sarausad, senior director, Data & Analytics, at GoDaddy. “This shift not only streamlines our processes, but also elevates our analytical capabilities. What excites us most is the opportunity to unlock insights with profound, previously unasked questions. That allows us to respond more swiftly and with greater depth, enhancing our data learning journey.”

National Australia Bank is one of the largest financial institutions in Australia. “At NAB, teams across the bank are excited about how generative AI can transform our work, and we’ve found a great solution in Amazon Q Developer, a powerful generative AI-powered tool for our engineers and developers,” said Andrew Brydon, executive chief engineer at National Australia Bank. “The tool has seamlessly integrated advanced generative algorithms and tools into our development process, delivering unparalleled benefits like completing tasks faster, increasing productivity, and minimizing repetitive actions. So far, our developers have accepted 50% of the code suggestions made by Amazon Q Developer, and that number continues to increase as we scale. We look forward to seeing how Amazon Q Developer will continue to empower and inspire our engineers to upskill their technical expertise, delivering better service for customers.”

Netsmart is a leading technology provider for community-based care. “The demand for community-based care has grown exponentially, and Amazon Q Developer is helping us meet that demand by fueling our efficiency and innovation,” said Paul Snider, vice president of engineering at Netsmart. “Amazon Q Developer can transform the way our engineering team approaches research, design, and coding. Since using Amazon Q Developer, our team has seen a strong code suggestion acceptance rate of 35%. This has allowed our engineers to efficiently generate high-quality code and documentation, implement new features, which can accelerate development cycles, and significantly reduce manual effort. We are excited about the impact of Amazon Q Developer on our development processes.”

Novacomp provides a diverse range of IT products and services while specializing in Quality Assurance Automation, Software Testing services and Nearshore Outsourcing. “Modernizing applications at Novacomp has historically been a time-consuming task that is often de-prioritized against other development initiatives,” said Gerardo Arroyo, CTO of Novacomp. “Our team turned to Amazon Q Code Transformation to help upgrade a project running in Java 8 to Java 17 with over 10,000 lines of code. This is a task that would typically take an expert over two weeks to manually complete, but Amazon Q seamlessly modernized our project in a matter of minutes. Since adopting Amazon Q across our organization, we have realized a 60% decrease in average in our tech debt.”

Persistent Systems is a multi-national technology services company that builds software that drives digital transformation. “Amazon Q Apps has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach generative AI,” said Praveen Bhadada, head of generative AI at Persistent Systems. “We can now empower everyone on the team to quickly build and integrate applications with a no-code approach, using enterprise data sources while carefully aligning with existing identities, roles, and authorization levels.”

Smartsheet is an enterprise software as a service offering for collaboration and work management. “Amazon Q Business is streamlining knowledge management and accelerating employee productivity at Smartsheet,” said Bani Bedi, senior vice president, corporate development and strategy at Smartsheet. “Previously, it was too difficult for our 3,300 employees to find the information they needed across public help documents, training courses, and hundreds of all-employee Slack help channels. We have consolidated our organizational knowledge into a single AI engine to give our workforce immediate answers, significantly boosting employee productivity. Now, employees can simply tag @AskMe in any Slack channel, ask a question, and Amazon Q will instantly give them an answer. Our CEO uses Amazon Q Business to obtain answers and conduct research, getting the information that he needs without interrupting an employee’s workflow. We accomplished all of this in a couple of weeks and without writing a single line of code, using our existing identity system. Additionally, our engineering teams use Amazon Q to summarize incident statuses, identify action items, access API documentation, and troubleshoot technical issues more efficiently, so they can focus on delivering exceptional products to our customers.”

Sun Life is a leading international financial services organization. “Together with AWS, we’re leveraging generative AI to help our people work more efficiently and deliver superior digital experiences to our clients,” said Laura Money, EVP & chief information and technology innovation officer at Sun Life. “Adopting Amazon Q Apps will enable our teams to build secure and seamless solutions that create value and differentiation across our business. For example, empowering our teams with access to Amazon Q in just a few clicks will streamline the creation and sharing of applications tailored to their respective needs.”