MercurySteam has announced the PC specs that will be required to play its upcoming RPG Blades of Fire. The specs range from the bare minimum that would be needed to run the game at 1080p and 60 frames per second, all the way up to Ultra settings where everything is maxed out and the resolution is 4K.To start things off, the minimum specs for Blades of Fire are an Intel Core i7-11700KF or AMD Ryzen 5 5800X CPU, 16 GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB or AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 6 GB GPU. This will allow Blades of Fire to run at 1080p with settings on high and FSR set to Performance, with a frame rate of 60 FPS.The recommended settings revolve around playing at 1440p at the High graphics preset and 60 FPS with FSR set to Balanced. To get this, players will need an a similar CPU and RAM as the minimum recommendation, along with either an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB , or an AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT 12 GB graphics card.To play at 4K/60 FPS with FSR set to Balanced, the same CPUs and RAM are recommended once again, but paired with either an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super 12 GB, or AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT 16 GB GPU.The Ultra recommendations revolve around playing at 4K/60 FPS, but with FSR set to Quality. This needs an Intel Core i7-13600K or AMD Ryzen 5 7600X CPU, 16 GB of RAM, and either an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 16 GB, or an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24 GB GPU.It is worth noting that all of the recommendations revolve around using AMDs FidelityFX Super Resolution technology in some form or another. This essentially means that these PC hardware recommendations dont involve Blades on Fire at native resolutions. Rather, the game will run at lower resolutions, and with FSR, will be upscaled to your displays resolution.Blades of Fire was announced with a trailer just last month. Being developed for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, the title will be hitting store shelves on May 22. The story revolves around Aran de Lira, who must set out on a journey that will pit him against the forces of Queen Nerea.Along the way, Aran will have to forge his own weapons by making use of the games Forge mechanics. The developer has previously explained that this will be the main method of player progression, rather than relying on the rise of numerical stats like RPGs traditionally tend to do.Combat in the game has also been described as requiring more caution on the players part. Along with everything else you might have to take into account while fighting enemies, the game also features an interrupt mechanic that will allow players to stagger enemies.You cannot interrupt enemies easily, explained lead designer Joan Amat. That is what keeps the pace down. If you could, it would speed up everything. If you had the initiative, you would be always dealing damage first, being the first to act. The game would not be as lethal. Enemies would have more HP if youre just attacking over and over.

Animoca Brands reported Q4 bookings coming in at $108 milliion, up 167% times from $40 million a year ago.Read More

Thank Goodness You're Here wins Game of the Year at UKIE Video Game Awards 2025Sam Houser and Siobhan Reddy were among the five inductees into the UK Games Industry Hall of FameImage credit: Coal Supper News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on March 5, 2025 Coal Supper's comedy title Thank Goodness You're Here took home UK Game of the Year at the UKIE Video Game Awards 2025 last night, in addition to best PC game.Ustwo Games' Monument Valley 3 won best mobile game, while Studio Gobo's Lego Horizon Adventures received the accolade for best console game as well as Soul Assembly's Just Dance 2 VR for best mixed reality game.Futurlab was given the award for best developer, followed by Playstack for best publisher. The Rising Star award went to Spilt Milk Studios, for "exhibiting significant potential for future contributions to the industry."There were also five inductees into the UK Games Industry Hall of Fame including Sam Houser, Siobhan Reddy, David Braben, Demis Hassabis, and Meghna Jayanth.Read the full list of winners below:UK Game of the Year: Thank Goodness You're Here (Coal Supper)Best UK console game: Lego Horizon Adventures (Studio Gobo)Best UK PC game: Thank Goodness You're Here (Coal Supper)Best UK mobile game: Monument Valley 3 (Ustwo Games)Best UK mixed reality game (VR, AR, XR): Just Dance 2 VR (Soul Assembly)Sustainability Champion: Playground GamesDiversity and Inclusion Champion: Women in GamesBest UK developer: FuturlabBest UK publisher: PlaystackRising Star: Spilt Milk Studios

Sony is reportedly conducting layoffs across its Visual Arts and PlayStation Studios Malaysia support studios.Numerous current and former PlayStation employees shared the news on Linkedin, indicating there have been widespread cuts on a global scale."I don't often post, in fact, I think this is my first post. So with sadness in my heart, I was part of the PlayStation Visual Arts layoffs today," wrote senior material artist Lewis Labram."My 16-year journey at Visual Arts has come to an end as I was recently affected by this week's layoffs. It has been a great run and a privilege to work with some truly amazing people on fantastic projects over the years," added animation supervisor Chris Clyde.A number of other Visual Arts workers indicated their time at the studio has come to an end, prompting an outpouring of support from friends and colleagues.Sony also appears to have downsized other PlayStation teams.PlayStation Studios Malaysia senior project manager Johann Affendy Mahfoor claimed a "mass workforce reduction" has swept across the studio and its global counterpartspushing them out of the door on the eve of their two-year work anniversary."As mentioned in the other post, there was a wave of mass workforce reduction which affected Malaysia and our global counterparts. Unfortunately I'm no longer part of the PS brand, along with a few other Production mates in this then-cheerful lunch photo," they added."Saddest, most devastating part for me was seeing high performers and key individuals who were actively working on projects being laid off. I wish everyone affected all the very best, and I hope we all come back stronger from this challenging ordeal."Sony continues to downsize PlayStation teams following project cancellations and studio closuresThose statements appear to corroborate a report from Kotaku, which has spoken to one anonymous source who claimed Sony is conducting widespread layoffs across its network of internal studios.Kotaku claims some of those laid off had been working on now-canceled projects, but that others were also impacted.The latest reports have surfaced just months after Sony scrapped live-service misfire Concord and shuttered internal studios Firewalk and Neon Koi. Prior to that, it laid off around 900 workers across key studios such as Insomniac, Guerrilla, and Naughty Dog.The PlayStation maker also reportedly canceled a live-service project in development at Bend Studio at the beginning of 2025.Sony is now attempting to "maximise synergies" under fresh leadership. At the beginning of the year, the company appointed Hideaki Nishino as president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment to "reach new heights."Moving forward, Nishino said the company must focus on its two biggest strengths: technology and creativity. "We will continue to grow the PlayStation community in new ways, such as IP expansion, while also delivering the best in technology innovation," he added.Game Developer has reached out to Sony for comment.

Sometime last fall, Kevin Rose started thinking seriously about Digg again. A smidge over two decades ago, hed launched a social and link sharing website that, for years, was known as the homepage of the internet. Since then, Digg had been through several owners and many pivots, Rose had gone on to several other careers, and the internet had moved on. Rose had thought about building something like Digg again, and had even been approached to buy back the domain and website a few times, but the timing had never been right.This time, though, things started to click. Rose and a group of what he calls brainstorming partners, which included Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, design and product exec Justin Mezzell, and even folks like Blogger and Twitter cofounder Ev Williams, started to talk about whether AI might be able to help them build a better social platform. I would call Alexis up and we would chat, Rose says, and wed be like, hey, what if, what if, what if? And a lot of those things started giving us both that butterflies-in-the-stomach situation, where youre like, oh, this could be cool. This could be really cool.Now, Digg is making a comeback. Rose will be its chair, Mezzell its CEO, and Ohanian an adviser. (Both Rose and Ohanian are also venture capitalists now, and their firms are investing in the new venture.) They bought the domain and other assets from Money Group for a price they wouldnt disclose and are bringing it back. The site is relaunching today, but only in a limited form. Its ultimate ambitions, however, are enormous: Digg aims to build the kind of community-first social platform that basically no longer exists on the internet. And its new founding team thinks AI could be the secret to pulling it off.One from the early Digg days. You can guess which one is Kevin Rose. Image: Kevin RoseIf youve been on the internet long enough to remember the old Digg, you already have a rough idea of how the new Digg will work. Everything is based on content and links: someone shares a link, and people can comment and vote on the links. (If you like something, you Digg it; the old Bury downvote option is now gone.) The most popular stuff ends up on the homepage which Rose and Mezzell tell me they hope will once again be the homepage of the internet but there will also be countless smaller communities surfacing and sharing stuff in their own niche. There are, of course, plenty of ways to talk about links on the internet. One of them, Reddit, continues to be very popular! The team isnt shy about the comparison but thinks that by better engaging with the community, and without the growth-at-all-costs requirements of being a public company, they can build something that takes better care of its users. If Digg does this right, the homepage will feel like Old Digg, and everything else might feel like Better Reddit.Rose says he and Ohanian are both convinced and both learned the hard way that the real trick, the thing nobody has yet done properly, is to give the communities the tools they actually need to operate. This is where AI comes in. So much of a moderators job, Rose says, is just grunt work: fighting spam, reviewing obvious policy violations, litigating pointless fights. How can we remove the janitorial work of moderators and community managers, he says, and convert what they do every day into more of a kind of director of vibes, culture and community than someone that is just sitting there doing the laborious crappy stuff that comes in through the front door? The real trick is to give the communities the tools they actually need to operateThe new Digg, Rose says, will include lots of AI-forward ways to sort through and make decisions on content. He also hopes AI can be used for fun. Im just making stuff up here, but theres everything from an AI agent that converts your entire sub-community into Klingon, to another one where you dont allow a certain type of profanity and thats automatically auto-moderated. Users will be able to tap AI models to build stuff right in their communities, too. If we can create more of a dynamic canvas where agents are layered on top to assist, to help, to do wild things, to create games, to do whatever that community wants them to do, then we have something, Rose says. The new Digg, if the team does it right, should feel more like a community-driven art project than an old-school internet forum. But Rose and Mezzell both say the whole thing depends on doing what users want and nothing else. One of the things that I believe that made Digg, and makes Reddit, a special place on the internet, Rose says, is that there are humans behind the scenes with real opinions, real conversation, real stories that they find interesting. The second you start to sterilize that, youre just an aggregator of information. Youre a fancy RSS reader with some voting on it.One big challenge, Mezzell says, is figuring out how to reward and promote users for doing good work. Digg wont show how many followers you have because that creates bad incentives; same with competing to be the most-Dugg person on the platform. There are all these very simple systems that we already have, for commenting systems and branching and all that stuff. But even if we start there, we cannot stop asking the question about how to give people the respect for being really insightful, for being really encouraging, for being really funny. He doesnt have a perfect answer for it yet, but he knows thats key to making it work.Theres a lot more that the new Digg team doesnt have a perfect answer for yet. Rose and Mezzell both say, a few times each, that whats launching today is essentially a prototype. Itll have a homepage, a few sub-communities, some links, some comments, and thats about it. The goal is to get people excited that Digg is back, and then both introduce them to the new platform and build it alongside them. If you come on day one, Rose says, its 99.9 percent nostalgia and youre like, damn, this is like a slightly updated version of Digg that looks really cool. Give it some time maybe even just a few weeks, if the new team ships as fast as Mezzell promises and itll be something different.See More:

Apples Advanced Data Protection (ADP) is a privacy feature very few people have been using. Non-techies had never heard of it, and even some geeks hadnt enabled it.So Apple standing up to the UK governments attack on ADP might not seem a big deal but Id argue that its way more important than it might seem, for three reasons The British governments worldwide attack on ADPWe previously outlined what ADP is, and why it matters, but the executive summary is that it extends end-to-end encryption to almost all your iCloud data. That means that Apple has no access, and therefore cannot grant access to any government agencies who come knocking on its door.ADP was introduced in 2022, and its fair to say that it didnt make much of a splash. It remains off by default, so about the only people who enabled it were security-conscious geeks. Until now.Apple effectively revealed a secret orderThe repressive legislation used states that companies that receive one of these orders cannot reveal this fact. The idea is that tech companies can be forced to expose their customers personal data without being able to warn them of this fact.It would have been illegal for Apple to tell the world that it has been ordered to create backdoor access to ADP. What the company cleverly did instead was announce that it was withdrawing ADP from the UK, without explaining its reason. Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection (ADP) in the United Kingdom to new users and current UK users will eventually need to disable this security feature. ADP protects iCloud data with end-to-end encryption, which means the data can only be decrypted by the user who owns it, and only on their trusted devices. We are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by ADP will not be available to our customers in the UK [] As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will.This message was crystal clear. Essentially we cannot tell you that the British government ordered us to build a backdoor into ADP, nor that we refused.Additionally, we now know that Apple has appealed the secret order its not allowed to tell us about.The iPhone maker has made its appeal to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an independent judicial body that examines complaints against the UK security services, according to people familiar with the matter.Its of course not Apple who leaked information only Apple would have because that would be illegal.The UK and US are two members of a key international intelligence alliance known as the Five Eyes. This is the agency which told the tech industry back in 2018 that privacy is not absolute and end-to-end encryption should be rare. These are countries who keep each others secrets.But because the British government over-reached by demanding access not just to accounts owned by its own citizens, but by iCloud users worldwide, and because Apple effectively revealed the secret order without revealing the secret order, that led the US government to speak up and to do so publicly.Trumps Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard wrote in a letter responding to Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona that she was not made aware of the UKs secret demand by her UK counterparts. However, she suggested, the UK government may have broken a bilateral privacy and surveillance agreement in making the demand.A combination of the British governments stupidity and Apples strong stance means that what was previously a niche featured used by a tiny proportion of iCloud users is now headline news.Thats important for three reasonsFirst, the saga has dramatically increased public awareness of end-to-end encryption in general, and Advanced Data Protection in particular.Second, governments around the world now know that this type of secret order even with gagging clauses wont protect them from public disclosure, because Apple can be counted on to make the matter very public.Third, its put the US government in a very awkward position if it too wanted to issue one of these secret orders under similar legislation of its own. It not only knows that Apple would tell us about the order without telling us about the order, but that it would be attacked for hypocrisy after criticizing the British governments action.Apple isnt just standing up to the UK government, its standing up to all governments worldwide who might like to follow the British example.Photo byPeter ForsteronUnsplashAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Apple yesterday released the latest iOS 18.4 beta and it enables support for RCS on Google Fi. iPhone users on the Google MVNO have been waiting for this improvement to Android-iOS messaging since September.With iOS 18.4 beta 2, the RCS Messaging toggle appears in Settings > Apps > Messages for Google Fi subscribers. The Waiting for activation process might take a moment.More broadly, iOS 18.4 appears to enable support for MVNOs that use T-Mobiles network in the US.When iOS 18 launched in September, RCS was just enabled for the big US carriers (AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon). Support for other providers rolled out with successive point releases. Apple maintains a Wireless carrier support and features for iPhone in the United States and Canada support article that lists RCS messaging status.Expect iOS 18.4 to go stable in April. There are a few more betas in the coming weeks with some notable changes already appearing. Alternatively, you can join the beta program now.Add 9to5Google to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Google experts who break news about Google and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Google on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Mar 05, 2025Ravie LakshmananCyber Espionage / Network SecurityThe threat actor known as Lotus Panda has been observed targeting government, manufacturing, telecommunications, and media sectors in the Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Taiwan with updated versions of a known backdoor called Sagerunex."Lotus Blossom has been using the Sagerunex backdoor since at least 2016 and is increasingly employing long-term persistence command shells and developing new variants of the Sagerunex malware suite," Cisco Talos researcher Joey Chen said in an analysis published last week.Lotus Panda, also known as Billbug, Bronze Elgin, Lotus Blossom, Spring Dragon, and Thrip, is a suspected Chinese hacking crew that's active since at least 2009. The threat actor was first exposed by Symantec in June 2018.In late 2022, Broadcom-owned Symantec detailed the threat actor's attack on a digital certificate authority as well as government and defense agencies located in different countries in Asia that involved the use of backdoors like Hannotog and Sagerunex.The exact initial access vector used to breach the entities in the latest set of intrusions is not known, although it has a history of conducting spear-phishing and watering hole attacks. The unspecified attack pathway serves as a conduit for the Sagerunex implant, which is assessed to be an evolution of an older Billbug malware known as Evora.The activity is noteworthy for the use of two new "beta" variants of the malware, which leverage legitimate services like Dropbox, X, and Zimbra as command-and-control (C2) tunnels to evade detection. They have been so-called due to the presence of debug strings in the source code.The backdoor is designed to gather target host information, encrypt it, and exfiltrate the details to a remote server under the attacker's control. The Dropbox and X versions of Sagerunex are believed to have been put to use between 2018 and 2022, while the Zimbra version is said to have been around since 2019."The Zimbra webmail version of Sagerunex is not only designed to collect victim information and send it to the Zimbra mailbox but also to allow the actor to use Zimbra mail content to give orders and control the victim machine," Chen said."If there is a legitimate command order content in the mailbox, the backdoor will download the content and extract the command, otherwise the backdoor will delete the content and wait for a legitimate command."The results of the command execution are subsequently packaged in the form of an RAR archive and attached to a draft email in the mailbox's draft and trash folders.Also deployed in the attacks are other tools such as a cookie stealer to harvest Chrome browser credentials, an open-source proxy utility named Venom, a program to adjust privileges, and bespoke software to compress and encrypt captured data.Furthermore, the threat actor has been observed running commands like net, tasklist, ipconfig, and netstat to perform reconnaissance of the target environment, in addition to carrying out checks to ascertain internet access."If internet access is restricted, then the actor has two strategies: using the target's proxy settings to establish a connection or using the Venom proxy tool to link the isolated machines to internet-accessible systems," Talos noted.Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.SHARE

The rapid adoption of cloud services, SaaS applications, and the shift to remote work have fundamentally reshaped how enterprises operate. These technological advances have created a world of opportunity but also brought about complexities that pose significant security threats. At the core of these vulnerabilities lies Identitythe gateway to enterprise security and the number one attack vector for bad actors.Explore the importance of modernizing Identity strategies and the benefits of centralizing Identity within your security ecosystem to safeguard your organization from costly breaches while enhancing operational efficiency.The rise of fragmented tech stacksGone are the days when enterprises relied on a single solution tied to a comprehensive license agreement. Businesses today prioritize agility and performance, opting for "best-in-breed" solutions that patch together fragmented tech ecosystems. While these advanced tech stacks provide flexibility, they also create significant challenges for IT and security teams.Every app, platform, and infrastructure component you add increases the overall complexity of your ecosystem. This fragmentation scatters resources and identities across disconnected silos, limiting visibility and making it easier for cybercriminals to identify and exploit security blind spots. For modern businesses, unmanaged Identity isn't just a weaknessit's the Achilles' heel of enterprise security.The growing threat of identity-based attacksWhy is Identity the new prime target? The 2024 Verizon Data Breach Report found that 80% of breaches involve compromised Identity credentials. With the average time to detect and contain a breach sitting at 290 days, it's clear many organizations are underprepared for these increasingly sophisticated threats. Stunned by the rapid pace of cloud and SaaS adoption, many companies still lack the unified visibility and controls needed to protect their systems and mitigate risks effectively.Rather than acting as a passive gatekeeper, Identity must now become the foundation of a proactive, defense-first enterprise security strategy.Centralizing identity within a security ecosystemTo combat modern threats, enterprises need to rethink their approach to Identity. Centralizing Identity across all systems and applications can significantly reduce security gaps, create real-time insights, and enable faster responses to potential attacks. It's more than just authentication; it's about transforming how organizations utilize Identity as a robust security tool.Modern, cloud-native Identity solutions empower businesses by delivering three essential capabilities:1. Comprehensive visibilityVisibility is critical when combating blind spots in fragmented tech stacks. A centralized Identity platform provides unified, real-time insights into your entire ecosystem, helping security teams surface vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. By consolidating all Identity and access data into one platform, enterprises can identify risks faster and prioritize remediation.Ask yourself, can your Identity solution Give you visibility into all threats across all systems, devices, and types, and customer accounts? Incorporate third-party signals from across your tech stack (in addition to first-party signals from your Identity provider) for comprehensive, real-time threat visibility? Run automated scans of all your tools and evaluate your setup against an aggregated set of Zero Trust frameworks?2. Powerful orchestrationCentralized Identity solutions don't just expose risksthey help eliminate them. Automation enables proactive remediation during potential breaches, from flagging unusual behavior to automatically revoking access. This type of orchestration enhances incident response, making it scalable and efficient even in complex environments.Checklist: Can your Identity solution Simplify the task of setting up automated remediation actions? Enable granular customization of remediation actions based on risk factors, policies, and other contextual cues? Trigger robust responses like universal logout to protect against potential breaches?3. Broad and deep integrationsA modern Identity platform connects seamlessly with your existing tech stack through APIs, unlocking the full value of system-wide security features. Whether it's connecting your cloud services, SaaS applications, or legacy systems, these integrations create a consistent, secure user experience while closing security gaps.Checklist: Can your Identity solution Seamlessly integrate with your key enterprise Saas applications, e.g., your CRM,productivity, collaboration, ERP, and IT ops management apps? Provide deep Identity security capabilities that go beyond simple provisioning and single sign on to provide protection for those apps before, during, and after login? Integrate with core parts of your security stack to enhance risk monitoring, threat detection, and remediation?The path to Identity-first securityIdentity-first security creates an open, efficient, and secure ecosystem for managing apps and systems without siloes, custom integrations, or security gaps. The OpenID Foundation's IPSIE working group is working to make this vision a reality.Take the next stepYour enterprise's success depends on its ability to adapt and thrive in an evolving security landscape. By shifting your mindset and making Identity the foundation of your cybersecurity strategy, your organization can achieve stronger protection, operational efficiencies, and a seamless user experience.It's time to stop playing defense and start innovating security around Identity. Start with a modern, cloud-based Identity solution that ensures you stay ahead of the threats your systems face daily. Explore how centralizing Identity can transform your security ecosystem today.[Discover More About Modern Identity Solutions]Found this article interesting? This article is a contributed piece from one of our valued partners. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

In November 2024, McKinseys Alex Panas (the global leader of industries) and Axel Karlsson (global leader of practices and growth platforms) wrote:The tech opportunities for todays organizations are alluring. Businesses are racing to capitalize on the proliferation of technologies like generative AI, and with more data at their fingertips than ever, the potential to transform the business through tech seems vast. But companies looking to make digital hay need to play their cards right, otherwise they risk falling into the same traps that befuddled business leaders of yore faced with earlier digital disruptions.Pana and Karlsson cited digital missteps like not having a clear vision for a digital project or overestimating a projects ultimate economic return to the company. But there are two other ground floor caveats that also are requisite for digital project success: The new technology must be seamlessly integrated into company business processes; andthe users must be trained to successfully use it.The goal is total digital assimilation into the business. That digital assimilation is hard to attain if the business processes that use the technology dont work right, or if employees get confused with the new technology. At this point, the project sputters and the blame game starts, often with the burden placed on IT.Related:Why is this? Isnt it the job of HR or user departments to train employees and to redesign business processes so the business flows can work with new digital technology? And, isnt it ITs job to stick to technical tasks, like developing, integrating, testing and deploying new digital technologies so that users can use them?Thats the general idea in theory, but all you have to do is to walk up to a bank teller or a clerk at a hardware store counter whos struggling to put your transaction through. As they struggle, they will tell you, Its the system.How to Deal with the 'Its the System' ProblemI still find CIOs today who will consider a digital project complete and successful if delivered within budget and timeline. They wash their hands of it and dont consider it their responsibility if users later struggle with the system. Or, maybe the new system renders an internal business process painful or unwieldy. Unfortunately, taking a position like this can cost a career!Digital transformation expert Eric Kimberling talks about why CIOs get fired and says that CIOs can become captivated by the technology itself, focusing on its bells and whistles and cool features, while ignoring the organizational and human dynamics of a transformation. Related:He goes on to say, CIOs sometimes assume that if technology works well from a technical perspective, it will automatically work for the business ... However, this assumption may or may not hold true. The best CIOs I have worked with are actually those who possess limited technological knowledge but possess a deep understanding of operations and the business they work for. They recognize the value and importance of the human and organizational aspects of change.CEOs and boards see this, too. Thats why they expect their CIOs to be as strategically and operationally on top of the business as they are on the technology. Its also incumbent on CIOs to assume more active roles in the human and business sides of digital project deployments if they want to avoid the its the system blame syndrome.The CIO Role in User EducationUser education and business process design isnt the forte of most CIOs, nor of IT staff for that matter. How can CIOs and IT engage more substantially in digital projects to ensure that systems work well in business workflows and that knowledge transfer to employees has occurred?Digital assimilation should be the goal of the CIO and the project team. If a digital system is to be assimilated into the business fabric of the company, it must meld well with business processes and be intuitively simple for workers to use and understand. Seamless business workflows and optimal ease of use should be ground-level goals of the user-IT project team, and it is the CIO who should push this idea. It is not enough to proclaim a project complete and successful just because it meets the timeline and comes in under budget.Related:Project tasks should reflect business processes and ease of use goals. If a business process needs to be redesigned to accommodate new digital technology, tasks should be assigned for developing the workflow, doing the business workflow walkthrough, documenting it, testing it for all routine operations foreseeable exceptions and debugging it until it runs cleanly. If this sounds a bit like the design, develop, test-and-deploy sequence of traditional IT application development, it sounds that way because it is. Developing, testing and revising business process flows, and usability should have equal billing with getting the software done.New business processes using digital technology should be pilot tested. Before new software is deployed, its tested in a system environment that emulates the environment the software will run with in production. The same should be done with new business processes that incorporate digital technology. The new tech and business process should be run in a pilot environment that emulates the live business environment where users will be operating. This is the only way you can really see the business issues and fix them for a smooth project cutover. The CIO should collaborate with other C levels. Launching new business processes and tech, and ensuring that employees have the skills to use them, is everybodys business. However, its especially the business of the user area executive and the CIO who should be co-sponsoring the project and energizing their teams. When both parties and their staffs are aligned with the on-the-ground strategy of making sure the tech works, and that users know how to use that tech, theyll not only finish the project, theyll fail-proof it.