The mystery surrounding Sony Santa Monicas upcoming game has taken a new twist, with industry insider Tom Henderson challenging a previous report by Daniel DanielRPK Richtman that the next God of War title would be set in Egypt, claiming that instead of the land of the pharaohs, the game will take us back to Ancient Greece, the setting of the original GoW trilogy.As Henderson mentioned in a recent podcast (timestamp 51:00), following Insider Gamings coverage of DanielRPKs report, he was contacted by someone from Santa Monica who told him that the game will be set in Greece instead of Egypt and will feature a younger version of Kratos, rather than the older, bearded father figure fans of the series have come to know over the past seven years.Based on this, it can be assumed that the upcoming God of War title could either be a prequel to the Greece trilogy or a reboot/remaster, with both possibilities seeming equally plausible to the insider. If true, this would confirm that SSMs next project is indeed part of the God of War franchise, rather than an entirely new IP as earlier rumors had suggested.Due to the anonymous nature of both reports, its impossible to say with certainty which one will ultimately prove accurate, however, with Sonys first State of Play conference of 2025 rumored to take place later this month, we may not have to wait long to find out.Interestingly, the first mention of Sony returning to the Greek setting and remastering the original trilogy didnt come from Henderson, but rather from a lesser-known insider, Lunatic Ignus, more than four months ago over on Reddit. Back then, the rumor was labeled as misleading, and Lunatic was heavily criticized by redditors, however, with Insider Gaming now echoing the claims about the setting and the possibility of a remaster, it seems Lunatics report wasnt as looney as many thought.SSMDont forget to join our80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us onInstagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads,where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post Tom Henderson: The Next God of War Game Will Be Set in Greece appeared first on CG SHARES.

Using blender, I designed and printed this fantasy style stone henge kinda table ornament for a friend, because he wanted one of those 3D dragon toys. I figured Lets take it to the next level, shall we? So I went into blender, designed this model and then painted it using the technique I learned in Procreate. Im so excited!! What do you think? Definitely opening new doors for me. submitted by /u/AdZealousideal8375 [link] [comments]

Nature, Published online: 07 February 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00422-7People begin to move in vortices in densely-packed crowds. Plus, the scientists who kept research alive in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas conflict.

The Rise of Co-Living Spaces for Young Professionals in East Asia: 5 Projects Redefining Flexible LivingSave this picture!Episode Suyu 838 Co-Living Complex / Collective B. Image Yongjoon ChoiCo-living in East Asia has been rising since 2020, rapidly expanding while remaining in its early stages. At the same time, it continues to fulfill a significant demand from young professionals working in major cities. A 2020 study by real estate services firm JLL highlighted the growing demand for co-living in China and Singapore, citing key advantages such as affordability compared to private studio apartments and a contemporary urban lifestyle that fosters openness and shared experiences. Much like other industries where ownership is becoming less relevantsuch as streaming services for music, films, and television, or mobility solutions like car- and bike-sharingco-living appeals to a similar demographic that values flexibility and access over long-term commitments.Unlike co-living initiatives in Spain, which often focus on multigenerational shared spaces, East Asian co-living primarily targets young professionals with dynamic career paths. Often required to relocate every few years, these individuals prioritize convenience and adaptability over investing in a permanent home. For them, committing to a long-term residence may not be practical, making fully furnished, professionally managed co-living spaces with built-in amenities and hygiene services an attractive option. These environments cater to fast-paced urban lifestyles, where networking at professional events often precedes solitary downtime at home.Save this picture!Additionally, well-curated co-living spaces offer valuable social opportunities, making it easier for newcomers to a city to build connectionsan often challenging task when moving to an unfamiliar place. Co-living provides a smooth transition by reducing the stress of finding accommodation, purchasing furniture, and navigating local services, all while ensuring a sense of community. As young professionals establish themselves in a city, they may eventually transition to more permanent housingor, in many cases, relocate again to develop and pursue new career opportunities in another city. Related Article The Impact of Co-Living in Spain: 5 Projects with Multigenerational Shared Spaces As economies become more dynamic, the concept of locality is shifting from a fixed notion of "home" to one shaped by evolving market demands. Many industries now encourage or require young professionals to gain international experience, preparing them for future leadership roles with global responsibilities. Against this backdrop, co-living may become an essential housing solution for a generation that prioritizes mobility, professional growth, and urban connectivity.Mangrove Dongdaemun Co-living / COMSave this picture!Save this picture!Opened in August 2022, Mangrove Dongdaemun Co-living is an ambitious collaboration between the MGRV team and COM, offering over 170 living solutions. The project highlights the benefits of co-living in East Asia by striking a delicate balance between individual and shared livingprioritizing privacy while fostering a sense of community. The design incorporates lobby lounges, community desks, and communal spaces to achieve this, enhancing the co-living experience and compensating for the relatively compact private units.Located in the heart of Seoul, Mangrove Dongdaemun attracts shortto medium-term young city dwellers who want to experience city life while immersing themselves in a vibrant, co-living community of over 300 people. Originally a business hotel, the building naturally lent its layout to the co-living model, efficiently optimizing minimal private living spaces while providing expansive communal amenities such as a lobby, caf, rooftop spaces, and shared kitchens.Co-Living Home / Yuan ArchitectsSave this picture!Save this picture!Co-Living Home by Yuan Architects redefines urban living by seamlessly integrating indoor and outdoor spaces. Staircases serve not only as circulation elements but also as transitional spaces that bridge different spatial experiences. Instead of rigidly dividing public and private areas through walls, the design establishes a natural spatial hierarchy through elevation changes, incorporating a split-floor or loft-style plan.Situated in a historic neighborhood at the city's heart, the project revitalizes the aging urban fabric while introducing a contemporary co-living model. By fostering flexibility and community, the design encourages indirect yet meaningful interactions among residents, mirroring the organic social exchanges found within the city's dense city of narrow alleyways.Rather than relying on expansive living areas, the building takes inspiration from the intimate scale of its surroundings. Individual rooms and shared spaces are interwoven along dynamic, meandering circulation paths, cultivating spontaneous interactions and redefining co-living as a sequence of shared moments rather than a singular, centralized gathering space. The result is an engaging, vibrant living environment that appeals to young professionals, offering a fresh perspective on co-living within a culturally rich, historic setting.Taihang Village Co-living Space / f.i.t.Save this picture!Save this picture!Driven by the region's growth, this co-living development offers a unique approach to integrating visitors and locals in the remote Taihang Village in the Qinba Mountains. Drawing from the area's rich vernacular architectural language, the design embraces and revitalizes existing structures, introducing the co-living concept while preserving the village's architectural heritage. The project ensures the longevity of traditional typologies while adapting them for contemporary communal living through careful refurbishment, structural reinforcements, and thermal improvements.The design creates a striking contrast between old and new, with rugged stone exterior walls juxtaposed against pristine white interiorsvisually distinguishing private spaces from shared communal areas. Additionally, the project reactivates unique access points by utilizing rooftops and connecting structures with bridges, further strengthening the village's sense of community. This innovative adaptation of courtyard living enhances the co-habitation model, reinforcing the cultural and social fabric of the town while offering a fresh perspective on communal rural living. Also particularly helpful for young professionals seeking a retreat, an escape, or even an opportunity to develop new businesses in more remote areas of the country, this co-living model encourages a fresh engagement with rural life while maintaining strong connections to tradition and modernity.Canvas House for co-living / Ministry of DesignSave this picture!Save this picture!Integrating co-living concepts into an architectural rehabilitation project is the core principle behind Canvas House by the Ministry of Design. Targeted at expats and young professionals, the project reimagines a heritage shophouse along Blair Road in Singapore for contemporary communal living. The design prioritizes shared spaces by dedicating much of the ground floor, vertical circulation areas, and intermediary spaces to co-living functions. Private rooms are strategically positioned along the front and back of the rectilinear shophouse to maximize natural daylight.The design utilizes vertical continuity to enhance the shared living experience further, allowing light to filter through skylights into communal areas while creating dynamic spatial interactions. The staircases and split levels serve a dual purpose: They facilitate movement and subtly delineate different communal programs, ensuring connectivity while maintaining privacy and avoiding confrontation among residents.The interior is blanketed in white, intentionally blurring distinctions between private and public spaces, old and new, to create a unified aesthetic that reinforces the co-living ethos. This design approach fosters an organic flow of movement and interaction, transforming the shophouse into a seamlessly integrated environment that encourages shared experiences while respecting individual needs.Episode Suyu 838 Co-Living Complex / Collective BSave this picture!Save this picture!Episode Suyu 838 Co-Living Complex leverages its prime location near Seoul's essential transportation hubs, attracting a diverse and dynamic community. Designed by Collective B, the visionary project has over 838 residential units. It is conceptualized as a "vertical village" that evolves into a "sustainable village" as its community grows, adapts, and responds to changing lifestyles.Beyond spatial planning, the design prioritizes communal spaces that foster sustainability and social interaction, serving as meeting points for residents to connect and engage. The long-term success of this co-living model also relies on active community and building management. Residents are encouraged to participate in gardening workshops, book concerts, and other community-led initiatives, fostering a sense of belonging and contribution. Even furniture subscription services are available, ensuring adaptability to residents' evolving needs.More than just a collection of living spaces, Episode Suyu 838 has transformed into a fully integrated vertical village. It offers a diverse range of amenities, including cafs, conference rooms, libraries, reading lounges, shared kitchens, parcel delivery rooms, co-working spaces, and private call booths. This curated, well-managed co-living ecosystem provides everything residents need to live, work, and connect within a single, thriving community.Save this picture!This article is part of an ArchDaily curated series that focuses on built projects from our own database grouped under specific themes related to cities, typologies, materials, or programs. Every month, we will highlight a collection of structures that find a common thread between previously uncommon contexts, unpacking the depths of influence on our built environments. As always, at ArchDaily, we highly appreciate the input of our readers. If you think we should mention specific ideas, please submit your suggestions.Image gallerySee allShow lessAbout this authorJonathan YeungAuthorCite: Jonathan Yeung. "The Rise of Co-Living Spaces for Young Professionals in East Asia: 5 Projects Redefining Flexible Living " 10 Feb 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1026694/the-rise-of-co-living-spaces-for-young-professionals-in-east-asia-5-projects-redefining-flexible-living&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save!ArchDaily?You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Akshay Phadk has spent the past decade in tech, from Big Tech to startups.He faced countless rejections before four rsum strategies helped him land a job at Microsoft.He focused on technical strengths, concise content, visual appeal, and clear communication to stand out.Akshay Phadk, 32, has spent the last decade climbing the ranks in both Big Tech and startups."I aspired to work at such places alongside people who were curious to learn new things, looked at the way things were and thought they could be made better, and wanted to make a difference in people's lives with their work," Phadk told Business Insider.The Seattle-based senior software engineer at Webflow started his career in tech by landing two consecutive internships at Ericsson while pursuing his master's degree in electrical and computer engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.After graduating from his master's program in 2016, Phadk was hired full-time at Ericsson before working at Microsoft, B2B SAAS fintech startup Vareto, and Webflow.In addition to landing his offer from Microsoft, Phadk also secured final onsite interview rounds at Meta, Amazon, Dropbox, and Yelp, as well as job offers from 23andMe and Wayfair.The offers didn't come easily, though.He said he had "countless interviews" where the outcome wasn't in his favor, and each rejection stung, especially in cases where he'd reached the final stage of the interview loop. When Phadk got the good news of his job offers, he felt "shock mixed with half-disbelief and relief, like I'd just run a marathon."Four ways to make your rsum stand outHere's the exact rsum that helped Phadk score these victories, and the four choices he made that he feels helped him stand out from other candidates. Courtesy of Akshay Phadk 1. Keep a narrow focus on technical strengths"Listing a lot of technologies even if someone has used all of them can hurt more than help," he said, as it could be perceived by hiring teams as inflating your capabilities."New grads or early-in-career candidates may feel tempted to include more technologies to make their rsum more competitive, but it only opens them up to more scrutiny," he said. "Tech companies are looking for engineers who've solved meaningful problems at scale. These opportunities require time and effort to build, so for someone with five to seven years of experience, the number of such projects will usually be in the single digits."Listing too many technologies can also backfire when interviewers probe the candidate's capabilities, Phadk explained."A less-than-satisfactory response to a question about a technology one hasn't used recently even if they're familiar with it may mean a rejection, especially if a lot of candidates are competing for the same role," he said.On his rsum, Phadk mentioned only the top technologies the ones he'd used the most and had the most technical knowledge of with each role, and rated his own expertise with each technology with a graphic showing his self-assessed skill level between one and five."This was an attempt to show my confidence in certain skills rated higher by me, and acknowledge that I had more learning left in other skills rated lower," he said. "I wanted to make it clear that I wasn't claiming expert-level competence in all the skills listed on my resume."Phadk highlighted his Apache Spark expertise prominently in the description of his last role, which he feels helped him stand out in his Microsoft application, as it was one of the technologies the team was investing in.When the hiring team asked him deep probing questions about technologies that he had less experience with, Phadk was upfront and honest if he didn't know the answer. "It isn't possible to be an expert in everything, and being honest about not knowing the answer is better, in my opinion, than guesswork," he said.2. Be concise in all rsum elementsThis same "less is more" strategy served Phadk in his overall rsum, which he kept to a lean one-pager."Hiring managers dedicate 30 seconds to a minute to review each rsum," Phadk said. "I wanted to ensure that my rsum communicated the most important pieces of information in that timeframe, while also creating a strong hook."To achieve these goals, in addition to ensuring he didn't add too many technical details, he served up a hook by dedicating two to three lines to describe each of his key projects."Because of this, I was able to create a sense of curiosity, and I was consistently able to secure a hiring manager technical screening interview in which the hiring manager wanted to know more about my work," Phadk said.3. Stand out visuallyEven for people without graphic design skills, you can still take steps to make your rsum visually pleasing.Phadk included company and university logos from his past roles and schools on his rsum to create a strong brand association. He also used a custom sans-serif font over a serif font to create a polished and professional feel and adopted a grayscale color palette instead of a black one for a softer reading experience."I've never used Microsoft Word or text editing software to create my rsums," Phadk said. "I feel rsums created this way end up looking generic especially if you use templates, which almost everyone else does too."Instead, he's experimented with a few software programs, such as Adobe Photoshop, LaTeX, and Figma to create his rsum.4. Clearly communicate responsibilities and outcomesCandidates sometimes blend their own achievements with team achievements on their rsums, which can make it harder for recruiters and hiring teams to determine what work they really did.To avoid this, Phadk listed only the work he did as an individual not what his team did collectively and did so in simple terms without jargon."Hiring managers are looking for engineers who can communicate their achievements objectively and clearly understand how their work adds value," he said.To reveal the full scope of his project areas, Phadk ensured that his rsum emphasized projects in different areas of software engineering, spanning systems engineering, backend web development, and data engineering.Phadk stressed that demonstrating the ability to adapt to new paradigms and technologies gives hiring managers confidence that they can trust you with projects that are out of your comfort zone."The takeaway for the hiring manager was my ability to pick up new technologies and be successful with them," Phadk said.If you landed a job in Big Tech and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at janezhang@businessinsider.com.

Jonathan Wolf was a tech exec who ate a lot of ultra-processed foods before cofounding a nutrition company.Wolf improved his diet by making small changes over a few years.They include eating fewer UPFs and switching from milk to dark chocolate.When Jonathan Wolf co-founded the nutrition company ZOE eight years ago, his diet was "not great." He was eating lots of ultra-processed food and tons of sugar, he told Business Insider.But he began making incremental changes to his diet in 2017,after he met ZOE co-founderTim Spector, an epidemiologistwho studies nutrition and gut health at Kings College London.Wolf was previously the chief product officer at an advertising tech company. Spector made him aware of how he could improve his diet, including by caring for his gut microbiome, or the microorganisms that live in the gastrointestinal tract. Evidence suggests that a diverse gut microbiome, partly achieved by eating fibrous and fermented foods, is linked to better physical and mental health.Here are the positive steps Wolf took.1) Eating fewer ultra-processed foods Ultra-processed food is made using industrial processes. MJ_Prototype/ Getty In the last 18 months, Wolf has become more aware of and reluctant to eat ultra-processed foods, he said. UPFs are made using industrial processes, and can contain additives such as preservatives and emulsifiers. They were linked to 32 health problems in a recent study, but the authors said further research is needed to confirm there is a link between UPFs and poor health.Wolf tries to eat fewer UPFs, including by avoiding artificial sweeteners or foods at restaurants that are likely to be ultra-processed."We're eating these foods that are made with ingredients that have never been available in the kitchen, that our bodies have never been exposed to before. Whereas our grandparents were eating zero ultra-processed foods," he said. "I suspect it's going to turn out to be a huge part of the health crisis that we're having."It can be hard to cut out UPFs entirely because they are ubiquitous, particularly in Western countries. Nichola Ludlam-Raine, a dietitian, previously told BI how they can be incorporated into a healthy diet.2) Shifting focus from excluding to adding foods to his dietWolf had stopped eating foods that he was led to believe weren't healthy, such as gluten.But research on the gut microbiome published in 2021, which ZOE was involved with, showed that a more diverse gut microbiome was associated with better markers of health, including lower blood pressure and a lower chance of having a fatty liver.Participants who ate a variety of healthy, plant-based foods had more diverse gut microbiomes, the study found.Wolf realized he needed to eat more whole foods to increase the diversity of his diet and, therefore, his gut microbiome.3) Working up to eating 30 plants a weekSpector was part of a 2018 American Gut Project study into how many types of dietary fiber, found in plants, are needed for a diverse microbiome. Fruits and vegetables were factored in, as well as other plant-based items such as spices.It concluded that 30 plants a week appeared to provide enough, which Wolf tries to aim for. Wolf tries to eat 30 plants a week to improve his gut microbiome diversity. istetiana/Getty Images "I did not get there in one step. In fact, it took me years to increase to 30. But I did it steadily, and I think the biggest thing that helped was the realization that tinned food and frozen food can actually be really healthy," he said.He tries to keep nutritious foods on hand, such as frozen spinach, canned beans, and nuts, so he can easily throw together a meal that contains at least a few plants.4) Gradually switching from milk to dark chocolateWolf was pleased to discover that he could still eat chocolate every day as part of a healthy diet."If you're eating a really high-quality dark chocolate, there's a lot of science that says that's actually good for you," he said, partly because it counts as one of your 30 plants a week, contains fiber, and is fermented.He slowly transitioned from eating milk chocolate, to 50% cocoa, to 60%, and all the way up to 90%. Dark chocolate contains antioxidants, fiber, and polyphenols.5) Eating fewer foods that spike his blood sugarWolf cut down on foods that spiked his blood sugar particularly high, specifically white bread and tea with lots of sugar.Blood sugar spikes are a safe and necessary part of digesting food. But having consistently high or low blood sugar can lead to a higher risk of chronic diseases, Sarah Berry, professor of nutritional sciences at King's College London, previously told BI.Wolf replaced white bread with rye bread because itZOE sells continuous glucose monitors, which were originally developed for people with diabetes to track their blood sugar levels. However, experts are split on whether they are useful for non-diabetics, and fear they may lead to people avoiding certain foods unnecessarily.

Macron aims to dedicate a gigawatt of nuclear power to create one of the worlds largest AI-computing facilities.

Justin Hotard, who joined Intel in February last year, is departing the company to lead Nokia.

In an age where flagship GPUs are said to cost $2,000 but, in reality, cost considerably more and that's assuming you can even find one we no longer feel excited for the latest and greatest games using cutting-edge rendering techniques. More often than not, these games are poorly optimized, and beyond that, they're usually not even fun to play.But, every now and then, we do get a new AAA title that doesn't run like hot garbage, doesn't require a flagship GPU for a smooth 60 fps (even with upscaling), and, above all else, is simply a good video game.But, every now and then, we do get a new AAA title that doesn't run like hot garbage, doesn't require a flagship GPU for a smooth 60 fps (even with upscaling), and, above all else, is simply a good video game. The most recent example of this rare phenomenon is Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, a game with a metascore of 88, equally positive user reviews, and very positive Steam reviews. So, we've got a good one here.With that in mind, we've spent the last few days doing nothing but benchmarking GPUs day and night to bring you the most comprehensive performance guide possible. We've tested 35 GPUs, across three resolutions, using four quality configurations. As usual, there's a lot of data to go over.But before we get into that, a few additional notes:First, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is built on the aging CryEngine albeit a heavily customized version but this means that features like ray tracing aren't included. We really do wonder how many gamers actually care about that. There's also no frame generation, which, while not a bad feature by any means, has limited usefulness in many cases.Both DLSS and FSR upscaling are supported though, and they are genuinely useful technologies.Ultimately, this means Kingdom Come: Deliverance II isn't going to win any awards for best graphics not by a long shot even though some of its locales are quite impressive. But as the reviews indicate, this isn't important. Gamers are more than happy to forgo visual fidelity for a game that is both fun to play and runs well two things that often go hand in hand.Don't get me wrong though, the game looks perfectly fine, and some aspects are even impressive, but overall it's not on the same level as something like Cyberpunk 2077, for example.For testing, we're using an early-game section appropriately titled Quest Start, where you ride on horseback along a predefined path. This setup makes for a highly repeatable graphical benchmark. Each test run lasts for 60 seconds, after which we can quickly reload to the starting point and run it again.We're testing at the standard 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions, using the Medium, High, and Ultra presets, along with an Ultra + Upscaling configuration, using 'DLSS Quality' for the GPUs that support it and 'FSR Quality' for everything else.We've skipped the 'Low' preset because, while it looks fine, the jump to 'Medium' is a significant visual upgrade. In fact, moving from Medium all the way to Ultra often isn't a drastic improvement, though it does reduce pop-in, which can be an issue in this game.There's a lot of data to go over so let's get into itBenchmarksUltra 1080pStarting with the native 1080p Ultra data, we see several promising signs. First, it's possible to achieve very high frame rates in this title, so flagship GPUs won't be capped at just over 100 fps something we've seen far too often recently. That, of course, spells disaster for mid-range and entry-level products.For around 90 fps which we generally aim for as a baseline the RTX 3080 or 4070 are more than sufficient. However, on the AMD side, you'll need a Radeon RX 7900 XT, as the 7900 GRE falls a bit short. It appears that, at least for now, Nvidia has an advantage over AMD in this title, as GPUs like the 7700 XT trail just behind the RTX 4060 Ti, which isn't typical.For 60 fps or better, the Arc B580 performs well, along with the RX 6800 and RTX 3060 Ti. It's good to see these older models still delivering a solid experience at the Ultra quality preset.Ultra 1440pJumping up to 1440p, you'll want a 6900 XT, 7800 XT, 7900 GRE, or RTX 4070 for over 60 fps. Nvidia still maintains a performance advantage at this resolution, with the 7900 XTX only managing to match the RTX 4070 Ti at 90 fps. For over 100 fps, you'll need an RTX 4080, 4080 Super, 5080, 4090, or 5090. As expected, the RTX 5080 was 11% faster than the 4080 Super and 13% slower than the 4090.Ultra 4KAt native 4K, you'll need an RTX 4080 or 4080 Super for 60 fps. The RTX 5080 offers an additional 16% performance boost, reaching 73 fps on average in our test. The 4090 was another 18% faster, while the 5090 was 35% faster than the 4090.Ultra (Upscaling) 1080pNow enabling upscaling at 1080p something we don't typically recommend since the render resolution is too low, even with the quality upscaling option DLSS generally performs better than FSR. With upscaling enabled, the RTX 5080 became 17% faster, while lower-end models like the RTX 4060 saw a 28% performance boost. On the Radeon side, the 7900 XTX gained 11% with FSR enabled, while the RX 7600 saw an 18% uplift. The good news is that nearly all tested GPUs were now capable of rendering 60 fps.Ultra (Upscaling) 1440pMoving up to 1440p, the RX 6800 now reaches 60 fps thanks to a 22% performance boost from FSR Quality upscaling. Several reasonably affordable GPUs, such as the 7700 XT and RTX 4060 Ti, now exceed 70 fps.Ultra (Upscaling) 4KAt 4K, we see the true benefits of upscaling. High-end GPUs such as the RTX 5090 saw a 33% performance uplift, with the same improvement observed on the 7900 XTX, allowing it to average 73 fps the same level of performance as the RTX 4070 Ti. Meanwhile, the 7900 XT and RTX 3080 now reach 60 fps.High 1080pDropping down to the High preset boosts the RTX 5090's performance by a massive 50%, reaching 341 fps. This is excellent news because it means that nearly all GPUs can now render over 60 fps at native 1080p. Even the RTX 3060 Ti is now capable of nearly 100 fps on average.High 1440pAt 1440p, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX sees an almost 40% performance increase compared to Ultra settings, while the RTX 4070 Ti gains 32%. This means playing at over 60 fps with the High preset, even at 1440p, is easily achievable with an Intel Arc A770, B580, RTX 3060 Ti, or RX 6800.High 4KAt 4K, we observe a 28% performance increase for the RTX 5090 compared to Ultra, with a 31% improvement for the 7900 XTX. For 60 fps or better, you'll need an RTX 4070 Ti or 7900 XT though the Radeon GPU just barely falls short of that target.Medium 1080pSwitching to the Medium preset at 1080p further boosts the RTX 5090's performance by 9% over High and an impressive 64% over Ultra. Meanwhile, the RTX 4070 enjoys a 21% uplift from High to Medium, marking a 69% increase from Ultra to Medium.This means that all GPUs can now render over 60 fps even the lower-end Radeon RX 6600 while still maintaining great visual quality.Medium 1440pAt 1440p (native), using the Medium preset, the RTX 3060, RX 7600, and RX 7600 XT achieve an average of 59 fps, while the RTX 4060 hits 63 fps and the Arc B580 reaches an impressive 77 fps. For those targeting 90 fps or better, the RX 6800 XT, 7700 XT, 7800 XT, or RTX 4070 will do the job.Medium 4KFinally, at native 4K using the Medium preset, achieving over 60 fps is possible with an RTX 3080, 4070 Super, or 7900 XT. Meanwhile, for over 90 fps, the RTX 4080, 4080 Super, 5080, 4090, or 5090 will work well.Kingdom Come FTW!Testing Kingdom Come: Deliverance II was a breath of fresh air. As a wise man once said, "It Just Works." It's rare these days that we play or even test a game using CryEngine. Hunt: Showdown might be the only current example.Seriously though, it was refreshing to test a game that loads quickly and doesn't have shader compilation screens that take several minutes in fact, it doesn't have them at all. Levels load quickly, quality settings can be adjusted on the fly, and at least in our experience, the game never crashes. It's also well optimized, runs smoothly on a wide range of hardware, and won't trick your CPU into thinking it's running a Blender simulation.Just loading some modern games for testing feels like a mission in itself, as if successfully getting into the game is part of the challenge. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is the opposite of that.Just loading some modern games for testing feels like a mission in itself, as if successfully getting into the game is part of the challenge. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, on the other hand, takes just 27 seconds to launch from the moment you hit "Play" in Steam or only 18 seconds if you skip the splash screens.Loading into the level takes just 26 seconds, meaning you can go from the Windows desktop to actually playing in under a minute. While some of this depends on CPU and storage performance, believe us, there are countless modern games that take literal minutes before you can even start playing.Not only are shader compilation loading screens nonexistent, but traversal stutter is also completely absent. The game is smooth as silk. This really highlights the issues we've been facing with Unreal Engine games clearly, Epic needs to rethink a few things.On that note, a big part of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II's success likely comes down to the fact that it's built on an older but highly efficient game engine. The fact that the game still looks great using the Medium preset, and can deliver well over 60 fps at native 1440p with a GPU such as the Arc A770, RTX 3060 Ti, or RX 6700 XT, is fantastic. It means nearly everyone can enjoy this game without having to spend oodles of cash just to get a console-like experience.Forcing ray tracing would have been disastrous for these GPUs we've seen plenty of examples of that. Take Star Wars Outlaws, for instance. We're not even sure to what extent it uses RT effects at the Medium preset, but to achieve frame rates remotely comparable to Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, you need to enable upscaling.Now, Star Wars Outlaws might look better than Kingdom Come: Deliverance II at the Medium preset that's subjective. The point is, if RT effects were mandatory in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II rather than optional, the game likely wouldn't have been received as well as it has.Don't miss: The Most Anticipated PC Games of 2025 (Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is one of them)Some might argue that the game could look much better with RT lighting, but if we consider most examples, the odds of that being the case aren't great. What we do know for sure is that RT would significantly reduce performance, likely for only a minor visual upgrade or one that most gamers wouldn't find worth the performance hit. We don't think we're wrong about this, and we'd bet most of you agree. Let us know in the comments below.That said, optional RT effects are fine as long as implementing them doesn't take away time that could otherwise be spent optimizing the game. As a side note, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II does offer a preset above "Ultra," labeled "Experimental," but we didn't bother benchmarking it. The visual quality difference was negligible, making the performance hit seem unnecessary.Another area where Kingdom Come: Deliverance II doesn't push visual boundaries is textures, though overall, they're certainly good enough. Even on the Ultra preset, gaming on an 8GB graphics card isn't an issue. The 8GB and 16GB versions of the RTX 4060 Ti delivered identical performance throughout our testing. That said, allocating a bit more VRAM to reduce pop-in would have been a welcome improvement.Overall, it's great to see so many gamers enjoying Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (one of our Most Anticipated PC Games of 2025), and from a performance perspective, we can see why. Hopefully, we'll see more well-optimized titles in 2025 though we certainly won't hold our breath.Shopping Shortcuts:Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 on AmazonNvidia GeForce RTX 5090 on AmazonAMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX on AmazonNvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super on AmazonIntel Arc B580 on AmazonAMD Radeon RX 7600 on AmazonAMD Radeon RX 7800 XT on AmazonAMD Radeon RX 7900 XT on Amazon

UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill ... [+] (Photo by Kent Nishimura of Getty Images)Getty ImagesLast month, Andrew Witty led UnitedHealth Groups first earnings call since the tragic murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of its insurance division, UnitedHealthcare. The killing shocked the industry, drawing renewed attention to the nations largest health insurer at a time when public frustration over healthcare costs and coverage denials has reached a boiling point.On the call, Witty addressed the elephant in the room: why America healthcare is unaffordable.Fundamentally, healthcare costs more in the U.S. because the price of a single procedure, visit or prescription is higher here than it is in other countries.Witty is right. Americans pay twice as much as their global counterparts for the same drugs, hospital stays and clinical services. Worse, insurers have little control over pricing: a broken patent system, restrictions on drug price negotiations and unchecked hospital consolidation make it extremely difficult to rein in the nations $5 trillion annual healthcare bill.But does that mean nothing can be done? UnitedHealth Group isnt just any insurer, after all. It is the largest and most powerful healthcare company in the world, insuring 50 million Americans, employing 90,000 physicians and generating the fourth highest revenue among U.S. corporations.Part of the challenge is that insurers have, historically, tackled rising costs by restricting care: rejecting prior authorization requests, denying claims and limiting patient access. This approach has made them a target for congressional scrutiny, media criticism and public outrage.MORE FOR YOUBut the story doesnt have to end there. Witty has an opportunity to seize this moment and shift strategy.The Next Era For UHG: Competing On Health, Not DenialsFor decades, UnitedHealthcare has stayed ahead of its competitors by consolidating market power, expanding into lucrative areas like pharmacy benefit management and maximizing profits within a dysfunctional system.Its a strategy reminiscent of a classic story. Two hikers encounter a charging bear in the woods. One quickly laces up his shoes. The other scoffs, Why bother? You cant outrun a bear! The first hiker responds, I dont have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you.Likewise, UHG has long focused on outrunning its competitors by cutting costs, tightening prior authorization rules and restricting access to care.Now, Witty has an opportunity to stop running and start leading. Instead of relying on prior authorization requirements and claims denials, UHG could lower costs by keeping people healthier in the first place.That would mean shifting from short-term cost-cutting measures to long-term investments in the prevention and effective management of chronic diseases: the biggest drivers of medical spending and the reason U.S. life expectancy has stagnated over the past 15 years.Wittys Chance To Fix The Real ProblemAccording to the CDC, 6 in 10 American adults have at least one chronic illness. Conditions like diabetes, heart failure and hypertension are major contributors to serious medical complications, including heart attacks, strokes, cancers and kidney failureleading causes of death and disability that account for at least 70% of all healthcare expenditures.But these complications of chronic disease arent inevitable. CDC data suggests that prevention and more effective control of chronic diseases would reduce these expensive and life-threatening medical problems by 30-50%. In other words, the problem isnt just the prevalence of chronic disease. Its how well (or poorly) the healthcare system controls them.Currently, the U.S. does a poor job of managing chronic disease.Hypertension, which contributes to 40% of strokes, is controlled only 60% of the time in the U.S. Yet high-performing healthcare systems achieve control rates that are 30% higher, according to HEDIS data.Diabetes, the leading cause of heart disease, kidney failure and amputations, is successfully controlled in less than half of patients nationwide, despite the availability of proven interventions.The problem is this: we know how to prevent these complications, but our healthcare system fails to value and fund the solution. As a result, the U.S. spends the vast majority of its healthcare dollars treating costly, preventable conditions after they become life-threatening. This is whereWitty and UnitedHealth Group have an unprecedented opportunity to address our current failures and lead the transformation of American medicine.UHG has the resources, data and provider network to implement smarter strategies at scale. By shifting away from a system that waits for life-threatening disease to develop, UHG could not only improve patient health but also significantly lower long-term healthcare costs.Three Ways UHG Can Lead The Future Of HealthcareWittys recent public comments suggest he understands the problem. The question is: Will he take the bold action required?For over a decade, policymakers and healthcare leaders have talked about shifting Americas healthcare model from fee-for-service medicine (which rewards volume) to value-based care (which rewards better health outcomes). But despite the rhetoric, little has changed. The financial incentives for doctors and hospitals remain misaligned, technology is underutilized in managing chronic disease and insurers continue to focus on restricting care rather than preventing illness. Witty has an opportunity to redefine what a health insurer can be. Here are three bold moves to kickstart the process of transformation:1. Pilot A Capitated Care ModelInstead of paying providers per test, procedure or hospitalization, United should pilot test a system in multiple communities where doctors and hospitals receive a fixed, risk-adjusted payment per patient. This model, called capitation, incentivizes prevention, early intervention and better disease management rather than unnecessary treatments.Make a five-year funding commitment to the participants to allow enough time for better chronic disease management to lower hospitalizations and emergency visits.Pay participating doctors at the level they would earn under fee-for-service but promise to share half of the cost savings with them as patients become healthier and require fewer ED visits, hospitalizations and complex procedures.2. Invest In Primary Care And Preventive HealthThe U.S. underinvests in primary care, favoring expensive specialty care and hospital interventions. UHG should shift incentives to prioritize prevention, ensuring chronic diseases are managed before they escalate.Increase the number of primary care doctors who participate in the pilot projects to ensure they have time to focus on prevention and effective management of chronic diseases when they arise.Leverage Optums data to help clinicians proactively manage patient health. Provide monthly reports highlighting patient progress on chronic disease management, identifying those at risk of complications and flagging individuals who need early intervention to prevent costly health crises.3. Use Generative AI For Excellent Chronic Disease ManagementInstead of patients relying on infrequent doctor visits for help managing their chronic diseases, AI-powered health monitoring could track daily patient datasuch as blood pressure, glucose levels and early signs of heart failureallowing for real-time intervention. By analyzing patterns and detecting warning signs early, AI can alert physicians when a patients condition is deteriorating, thus preventing costly complications and emergency hospitalizations.Use AI-driven predictive analytics to personalize care plans and recommend medication changes quickly, long before scheduled office visits.Use new, open-source AI models like DeepSeek to create disease-specific clinical tools that empower patients to both prevent and more effectively control their chronic conditions.A Defining Moment For Witty, UnitedHealthThis is Wittys chance to redefine the role of health insurance in America. With the cost of coverage becoming unaffordable for tens of millions of Americans and congressional scrutiny mounting, UHG has a choice: continue the status quo of cost-cutting and utilization restrictions and face potentially huge consequences or lead a transformation that lowers costs by improving health.For the health of our nation, lets hope he chooses the latter.UnitedHealth Group was contacted regarding this story on Friday, February 7. The company had not responded by the time of this articles publication.

This illustration photograph taken on October 30, 2023, in Mulhouse, eastern France, shows figurines ... [+] next to a screen displaying a logo of OpenAI, a US artificial intelligence organisation. (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP) (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty ImagesOpenAI, the giant behind ChatGPT, just dropped a $14-million Super Bowl ad extolling the virtues of AI tech and positioning it as one of the greatest inventions in human history. Butshockinglynone of the content that appears in the 60-second spot was actually made by AI.In OpenAIs defense, the company did rely on its text-to-video AI model Sora in the concepting stage for the ad, but the final animation itself was entirely crafted by humans.This is a celebration of human creativity and an extension of human creativity, OpenAI Chief Marketing Officer Kate Rouch told The Verge.The ad, which features a slick aesthetic that I can only define as digital minimalism, traces some of the biggest moments in human progress from the discovery of fire to the moon landing, eventually arriving at the internet andyou guessed itChatGPT.Still, its not all that surprising that OpenAI relied on humans for the final spot.Despite the fast progression in generative AI tech, the outcomesespecially when it comes to video and animationstill exhibit unsettling, mildly uncanny characteristics. Its all in the little details: jerky movements, bizarre psychedelic-like textures and other such oddities. Just look at the AI deepfake French President Emmanuel Macron just posted.The ad premieres amidst the publishing of a new blog post from Sam Altman in which the OpenAI CEO predicts the use of AI will grow exponentially in the future due to swift decreases in costsabout ten times lower every 12 months for a given level of AI.In the essay, Altman further posits that AI should significantly improve living conditions for humans, but adds that distributing AIs benefits equally among people might require some human ingenuity.The historical impact of technological progress suggests that most of the metrics we care about (health outcomes, economic prosperity, etc.) get better on average and over the long-term, he elaborates, but increasing equality does not seem technologically determined and getting this right may require new ideas.AI was in the spotlight big time in this years Super Bowl. Google ran an AI-themed Super Bowl campaign around its own Gemini model showcasing how it can help small businesses.Unfortunately, the effort backfired due to a now-corrected statistic that placed Gouda cheese as one of the worlds most consumed. The statistic was fed by Gemini itself, which is somewhat ironic. Youd think this is precisely the kind of thing that AI woulda, Gouda, shoulda caughtbut it didnt.Yes, I know that was a terrible pun. I wish I could blame it on AI.

Data has always been regarded as an organisations crown jewels, but due to the explosion of data sources, making sense of the structured and unstructured information contained within an enterprises different data stores is an increasingly complex task. Pulling everything together to provide a homogenous view of business activity may seem like a project that will never end, which is why there is now interest in data engineering.According to analyst Gartner, data engineers play a key role in enabling organisations to unlock the value of data. This involves designing and building systems to collect, store, transform, operationalise and deliver data at scale. The analyst firm says data engineering involves collaboration between the business and IT to make the appropriate data accessible and available to various data users such as data scientists or data analysts at the right time.Gartners Essential skills for data engineers to succeed report identifies a range of skills required in data engineering. Report authors Mayank Talwar, Zain Khan and Shubhankar Nandi describe structured query language (SQL) as being pervasive across a wide range of tools and platforms, making it a critical and extensible skill. As an example of SQLs pervasiveness, they note that dbt, a data transformation tool, enables data engineers to transform data in their warehouses by simply writing select SQL statements.The second core skill identified in the report is data processing, which is described as a foundational skill that every data engineer must possess. This is because data in its raw format is not usually useful for analytics. Data processing covers batch and real-time processing; storage covers technologies like data lakes, data warehouses, graph and document databases, and object stores. Common programming languages used by data engineering teams include Python, Java and Scala.Other core skills listed by Gartner include data storage, data orchestration, programming and collaboration. With regards to data orchestration, the analysts note that data engineering pipelines are slowly moving from tools that support task-driven architectures, such as Apache Airflow and Luigi, towards tools that offer a data-driven approach, such as Dagster, Flyte from Lyft and reflow.Gartner recommends IT leaders prioritise development of the core data engineering skills since they are widely adopted, heavily used and have proven to provide significant benefits.There is a case for assessing a simpler approach to achieving the goal of providing timely enterprise data to the business in a format users can make use of for planning and analysis. This is where providers of traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems see an opportunity to build a business around the need for organisations to have a single version of the truth. From an ERP perspective, this single version of the truth resides in the systems of record that make up an ERP system.Read more about data engineeringAn explanation of data architects versus data engineers: Data architects and data engineers are both necessary for effective data management teams.The importance of building a data foundation: Terren Peterson, Capital Ones vice-president of engineering, discusses how data pipelines and platforms are essential for artificial intelligence success.SAP, for instance, delivers an entire systems and application stack as a cloud-centric offering on a subscription basis, together with process mining and other tools, plus bundled support, maintenance and other services.Dale Vile, co-founder of analyst firm Freeform Dynamics, notes that SAPs Business Technology Platform (BTP) can be considered an integral part of the suppliers cloud offering. BTP is essentially a platform as a service (PaaS) that allows customers to extend SAP applications and/or build custom applications.For some customers, this kind of all-encompassing service is truly attractive as it means they no longer have to worry as much about systems-level operations, monitoring, security and so on, says Vile. A lot of the stuff that makes SAP landscapes so challenging to run and change over time is taken care of once you sign the contract.The contract effectively ties an organisation into SAP. While there is a case to build in flexibility, for some organisations it is far more important to have a single version of the truth and have all data in one place. This is the case at Irish manufacturing firm WaterWipes, as data manager Liz Cotter explains. You can have your advanced analytics automation, but if your master data isnt accurate, then your transactional data is worthless Liz Cotter, WaterWipesPreviously, she says, software as a service (SaaS) systems sat alongside SAP and may have been integrated with SAP, but were not fully harmonised. In other words, the organisation selected best-of-breed SaaS products to support certain business processes, such as human resources or customer service. Cotter says this meant SAP was not the system of record for some of the newer datasets being used by the business.She says SAP Datasphere enables the business to run a standard platform as a system of record for transactional data, which provides a master copy of the organisations data. I feel that SAP has transitioned and is offering more tools to keep up with the demand for enriched data, she says.Cotter joined WaterWipes in January 2024 with a remit to put in place data management and data governance. She says the company was not making the best use of the data it had available, which could be used to gain insights and help to align with strategic key performance indicators (KPIs).When we assessed our data maturity, there was no data governance and data security. We needed a tool to help mitigate that risk quickly, she says.As Cotter points out, successful IT-driven business initiatives require a solid data foundation. You can have your advanced analytics automation, but if your master data isnt accurate, then your transactional data is worthless, she says. For Cotter, there is little point in investing in new technology unless the data is as accurate as possible.The company began working with Bluestonex on implementing its Maextro master data management tool. This is developed on SAP BTP and provides data governance and data management for WaterWipes.Its basically an application to manage data, workflows and data reporting, says Cotter.This avoids SAP developers having to run queries directly on the companys S/4Hana system. In terms of data maturity, Cotter says: Were not going to get to expert level, but we want to align with our 2027 strategy, which is very ambitious in terms of sales and customer growth.The phased approach has involved building out data governance and data management best practices first, before investing in technology.Given the trend to do more with artificial intelligence (AI), the Gartner analysts urge IT leaders to ensure data engineers recognise the need to upskill themselves. This upskilling, according to Gartner, is required if data engineers want to participate in building the data foundation layer for companies that have decided to train language models on their enterprise data.With GenAIs [generative artificial intelligence] appetite for training data exponentially rising, data engineers can play a pivotal role in creating data platforms and pipelines that can supply high-quality data required for training these models, the analysts note in the Essential skills for data engineers to succeed report.Gartner predicts that companies will start building smaller, more refined and business-curated language models as opposed to large language models for greater controls on cost, privacy, risk and accuracy. Gartner believes data engineers will need to learn how to work with unstructured data and create data repositories to enable the building of these models.Ideally, IT leaders would be given the time and resources to develop a data engineering practice, but this is unlikely. Cotters experience at WaterWipes shows it is entirely possible for even those organisations that are still quite early in their data management journey to achieve business value relatively quickly. The one caveat is that this may involve being tied into a particular product set, such as an ERP system.

French President Emmanuel Macron announced a total of 109 billion in private investments in the AI ecosystem (around $112 billion at current exchange rates) on Sunday evening. This week, Paris is hosting the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit the third international summit focused on AI after the one in Bletchley Park in the U.K., and Seoul, South Korea.I can tell you this evening, Europe is going to speed up, France is going to speed up. And for us, France, were announcing at tomorrows summit 109 billion of investment in artificial intelligence over the next few years, President Macron said in a TV interview on France 2 and Indias First Post.Whats that? Its exactly the equivalent for France of what the United States announced with Stargate $500 billion its the same ratio. With 68 million inhabitants, France has five times fewer people than the U.S.On Sunday, TechCrunch started counting all the investment pledges from foreign and local players that have been rolling in over the past few days. With 30 to 50 billion coming from the United Arab Emirates (and MGX), 20 billion coming from Canadian investment firm Brookfield, 10 billion coming from Bpifrance and 3 billion coming from French telecom company Iliad, we reached a total of up to 83 billion ($85 billion).So a few companies havent announced their plans just yet. During the interview, Macron mentioned Orange and Thales as other investors in the program. Most of the investments will go toward new AI-focused data centers. Hence, the comparison with Stargate.Macron also shed a light on French AI startups, such as Mistral, Wandercraft and Owkin, which has moved its headquarters to the U.S. He believes Europe is still competitive when it comes to artificial intelligence startups and even said that DeepSeek represented an opportunity to catch up.There was a race to scale up. Everybody thought you always had to be bigger and stronger. What did DeepSeek do with its open models? They have taken all accessible innovations from the latest OpenAI model and adapted them to their own model, using a more frugal approach, he said. Everyone will continue to do this. And thats why you have to be in this race.Mistrals own data center projectArthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral, also announced plans to invest billions in an AI cluster. The Paris-based company is arguably the only European company working on foundation models that can compete with models from Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Alibaba and others.Were going to do our bit and invest several billion euros in a cluster, which will be set up in Essonne, so that we can train even more efficient systems in just a few months time, Mensch said on French TV TF1.Those announcements could be considered as a reaction to the Stargate Project, a $500 billion investment program led by OpenAI and SoftBank to build multiple data centers for AI in the United States.As a reminder, the majority of Frances electricity production comes from nuclear power plants. France also produces more electricity than it needs. As tech companies are looking at new locations for power-hungry data centers ideally powered by carbon-free electricity France appears as an ideal location in Europe for these new projects.In France, we have an extraordinary lead. We produce some of the most decarbonized, controllable and safe electricity in the world. We have the safest and most stable grid. And we export this low-carbon electricity, Macron said.According to him, France exported 90TWh of electricity to neighbor countries in 2024. And France now plans to use that headroom to attract foreign investments.

Sweet!We knew that some Splatfest themes would make a comeback once Nintendo announced that Splatoon 3's "regular updates" would come to an end, and next month we'll see just that!The 2023 chocolate-themed Splatfest will be the first theme returning to the Splatlands next month, with the battle of "What's your favourite chocolate?" getting underway from 8th to 9th February. Once again, Team Dark Chocolate, Milk Chocolate and White Chocolate are all up for grabs, so expect to make your vote in the coming days.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Image: NintendoOver the weekend a post on Famiboards with images supposedly showing placeholder listings on Costco Canada's internal system has a Switch model listed for $499.99 CAD.The post from ProteusRidley (Note: content hidden for non-registered Famiboards users) includes two images supposedly showing the backend product listing and a printed point-of-sale sign misspelt as "NINTENDO SWITCH PALCE HOLDER". (Thanks, Notebookcheck.)The poster doesn't claim that this is definitely Switch 2-related, "but it may be. The price could also be a placeholder as well." They also say that in "five years of working here, I have never seen a place holder for anything."499 Canadian dollars converts to around 350 USD / 280 GBP at the time of writing, which would be on the lower end of analyst pricing predictions for Nintendo's upcoming hardware.However, various global factors at the moment mean that a direct exchange rate comparison isn't terribly helpful for determining the Switch 2 MSRP Nintendo might land on in different territories. For reference, the Switch OLED model currently retails for $449.99 CAD / $348.99 USD / 309.99 GBP respectively.Nintendo has made no official announcement regarding Switch 2 pricing, although following the publication of its quarterly financial reports last week, Nintendo president Shuntaru Furukawa stated in an investor Q&A that the firm was carefully considering consumer expectations with its Switch 2 pricing.Let us know below if this 500 CAD figure is in the ballpark you'd expect for the next Nintendo console. Though no official price will be revealed for nowMoney where your Meowth is$699 is the new $599[source famiboards.com, via notebookcheck.net]See AlsoShare:00 Gavin first wrote for Nintendo Life in 2018 before joining the site full-time the following year, rising through the ranks to become Editor. He can currently be found squashed beneath a Switch backlog the size of Normandy. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related ArticlesEx-PlayStation Boss On Switch 2's Name: Nintendo Created So Much "Brand Value""Why would you mess with that?"Nintendo Talks About Future Switch Support Ahead Of Switch 2 Launch"We would like to continue releasing new titles"Mysterious Patent Hints At "Predictive Input" For Nintendo Switch 2Rollback netcode, but at a hardware level?Nintendo Is Developing New Mobile Game Apps, Unsurprisingly"Even as we transition to Nintendo Switch 2"

As players had been expecting given how hard it was teased throughout last week, the first anniversary of Helldivers 2's release has seen Arrowhead unleash a big Illuminate campaign that's taking a lot of work to try and hold off. Read more

Side Quest TrackedDon't worry, Dragon Quest die-hards, Square Enix is "working hard" on the 12th game, and it's hoping to drip feed you details as soon as it canThe game was first announced way back in 2021.Image credit: Square Enix News by Oisin Kuhnke Contributor Published on Feb. 10, 2025 Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate has been missing in action for a while, but its series creator promises it's still trudging along.We've known that Dragon Quest 12 has been in the works since at least 2019, and it was officially announced with the subtitle The Flames of Fate way back in 2021, four years ago now. Things have been a bit quiet when it comes to the 12th game in the intervening years, but Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii did actually share an update on the game over the weekend, even if it was just a small one. As part of a livestream with his radio show group KosoKoso Hōsō Kyoku, Horii shared that the team dev team is currently "working hard on Dragon Quest 12", and that he's hoping they can share new information about it bit by bit (translations via Automaton).To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Fans were a bit concerned about the fact of Dragon Quest 12 last year due to the fact that long-time Dragon Quest producer Yu Miyake moved to Square Enix's mobile games division, stepping down from his position as producer. In May of last year, following said departure, Horii shared an update, which was also literally just a "don't worry, the game is still in the works" type of update, but at least this most recent update does still confirm that progress is happening.Right now, there's not much known about Dragon Quest 12 in general. Horii suggested at its announcement that the battle system might be different, and that it'll be targeted more towards adults, though perhaps with Final Fantasy 16 not doing quite as well as Square Enix had hoped it might have shifted to a more broader audience. It's also aiming for a simultaneous worldwide release, so whenever it does finally come out, you can potentially celebrate on the same day as Japan.

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Yes, Dragon Quest 12 is still in development, says series creatorAny-slime soon.Image credit: Square Enix News by Ed Nightingale Deputy News Editor Published on Feb. 10, 2025 Dragon Quest 12 is still in development, series creator Yuji Horii has confirmed.The latest in the long-running RPG series was first announced back in 2021 but little has been seen since beyond the initial teaser trailer.Over the weekend, though, Horii held a livestream with this radio show group KosoKoso Hōsō Kyoku (thanks Automaton) where he confirmed the development team is "working hard on Dragon Quest 12".Dragon Quest 12 teaser trailerWatch on YouTubeFurther details are expected to be released little by little, though nothing more was revealed at this time.Back in May last year, Horii also acknowledged Dragon Quest 12 on social media, stating the development team wanted to make a game "worthy of the final contributions of the two people who passed away".Those two people are Dragon Quest character designer Akira Toriyama and composer Koichi Sugiyama, who had worked on every game in the series before their deaths.Horii's comments came shortly after Dragon Quest series producer Yu Miyake stepped down from his role to oversee Square Enix's mobile game division, putting Dragon Quest 12's development into question.Now, in his livestream, Horii apologised for confusion around the game's development and denied it had been cancelled.Little else is known about Dragon Quest 12, though at the series' 35th anniversary livestream Horii stated the classic turn-based battle system will be altered and the tone will be darker and aimed at adults.In its latest earnings report, Square Enix stated Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake exceeded sales expectations. Previously it reported sales of 2m copies, with the game becoming 2024's biggest game in Japan after just a week on sale.While similar remakes of Dragon Quest 1 and 2 are expected this year, anticipation is building for the next full release in the series to build on the success of Dragon Quest 3.

Completed for the London Borough of Newham, the Plashet Road housing complex consists of 100 per cent affordable dwellings, 74 per cent of which are family units.Levitt Bernsteins first social housing project designed to Passivhaus standards has achieved Passivhaus Classic certification a first for a scheme delivered by Newham Council.The site is surrounded by 12 retained mature plane trees on three sides, and the building responds sensitively to the sites context by being set back from the street, with spacious green areas and new planting around the perimeter. This, together with a landscaped courtyard, is designed to enhance biodiversity on the site.AdvertisementThe elevational treatment offers a modern interpretation of the surrounding vernacular, drawing on patterns and brickwork found in neighbouring streets, with a continuous diamond pattern running along the top of a red brick plinth.The dual- and triple-aspect homes optimise natural ventilation and daylight, supporting low-carbon living while minimising maintenance costs.Architects viewPlashet Road was the first Passivhaus scheme for many on the project team. An early decision was taken to make the building as responsive to Passivhaus principles as possible, letting these inform the design as it developed.Conceived as a courtyard development, initially the living spaces and balconies faced on to the courtyard, with access decks wrapping around the outer perimeter. A fundamental design decision was taken in response to Passivhaus principles to flip the arrangement so the majority of living spaces and balconies instead faced west or south, with access decks facing east or north.This optimised the layouts in response to the sun's path around the building, with living spaces benefiting from solar gain in winter months and higher daylight levels, balconies benefiting from a sunnier aspect at times they are more likely to be used, and access decks in locations where these benefits are less critical.This arrangement also brings more activity to the courtyard and reduces the lengths of access decks while ensuring active street frontages.Nicola Jaques, associate, Levitt BernsteinPassivhaus consultants viewWe are delighted to have been part of the design and delivery of these new Passivhaus-certified, low-carbon homes. The rigour of the Passivhaus standard helped focus on delivering a high-quality building, through quality checks of calculations, documentation and construction by the independent Passivhaus Certifier, Warm. The outcome will be low energy bills and low carbon emissions for residents over the entire life of the building.Will South, Passivhaus Designer, EtudeClients viewWhen Newham Council decided to redesign an existing scheme for the Plashet Road site in West Ham, opportunities arose for a refreshed client brief, to create a more efficient development and to provide homes that would be aligned with the councils emerging energy strategy.The design phase was characterised by a very intensive period of meetings between the clients design and cost consultants and the design team members, exploring and navigating principles of Passivhaus, complex details and specifications.It was a steep learning curve for many, and at the same time extremely enjoyable working with Levitt Bernstein and the energy consultant Etude, which threw their collective knowledge and enthusiasm into it to deliver a very energy-efficient scheme at large scale. The reward for their hard work is the recently received Passivhaus certificate.Geertje Kreuziger, ex-design adviser to Newham Council, (worked on the Plashet Road scheme from inception to planning application submission) Source:Levitt BernsteinProject dataStart on site March 2021Completiondate January 2024Gross internal floor area 6,559m2Gross (internal + external) floor area 7,411m2Site area 4,093m2Form of contract or procurement route Design and BuildConstruction cost UndisclosedArchitect Levitt BernsteinClient London Borough of NewhamStructural engineer Heyne Tillett SteelM&E consultant Max FordhamQuantity surveyor Philip Pank PartnershipPassivhaus consultant EtudeSustainability consultant XC02Daylight consultant XC02Fire consultant Joule GroupLandscape consultant Levitt BernsteinAcoustic consultant Max FordhamProject manager Role carried out by London Borough of NewhamPrincipal designer Levitt BernsteinCDM coordinator Role carried out by London Borough of NewhamBuilding control Newham Building ControlMain contractor Bugler DevelopmentsCAD software used RevitNB: The project team listed is the pre-planning team. Levitt Bernstein and Etude were the only consultants to continue post-planning, working for the contractor along with their delivery team.Environmental performance dataSpace heating demand 19.1 kWh/m2/yrHeat load 9.9 W/m2Energy use intensity (EUI) 48.8 kWh/m2/yrAirtightness at 50pa 0.86 m3/h.m2On-site energy generation 0%Overall area-weighted u-value (including windows and doors) 0.335 w/m2kOverall area-weighted u-value (excluding windows and doors) 0.121 w/m2kAnnual CO2 emissions 2.0 kgCO2/m2

The architect, working with Dublin-based conservation specialist Howley Hayes Cooney, will create an estate-wide masterplan covering the world-famous universitys 200 buildings.According to the practice, its work will pave the way for the universitys future evolution while respecting and enhancing its existing built heritage which ranges from 18th-century courtyards to 20th-century masterpieces such as ABKs iconic 1967 Berkeley Library.The masterplan aims to make the campus more inclusive, engaging better with the city and supporting the universitys 2030 decarbonisation strategy.AdvertisementA spokesperson for the team said: [We] will work across the entire estate to realise this potential, engaging with students and staff and identifying opportunities for Trinity to use its places and spaces more creatively, sustainably and effectively.The search for the estimated 1 million contract began back in 2022.The appointment comes eight years after Trinity chose Perkins+Will to design a 840 million innovation campus on a prominent 2.2haplot overlooking Grand Canal Dock and a short distance from Daniel Libeskinds landmark Bord Gis Energy Theatre.Trinity College sits opposite the former Irish Houses of Parliament. It was founded in 1592 and is the oldest university in the country. It currently has 22,000 students and 3,500 staff.Historic buildings on the universitys main site include the Thomas Burgh-designed 1732 Old Library where the famous Book of Kells is kept.AdvertisementAllies and Morrison has a studio in Dublin and is already working elsewhere in Ireland, including on the Town Centre First programme which is helping to revitalise town centres across the country. Source:Ros KavanaghPrinting House Square, Trinity College Dublin, by McCullough Mulvin Architects (2022)Project dataLocation Dublin, IrelandClient Trinity College DublinProject type Education with masterplanning and urban planningConservation expert Howley Hayes CooneyLandscape architect Dermot FoleyPlanning Declan BrassilCost AecomCivil and structures, project supervisor for the design process (PSDP) TobinTransport Transport InsightsMEP, energy and fire consultantBuro Happold Source:G. & T. CramptonTrinity Colleges Berkeley Library in Dublin

Feb 10, 2025Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Data ProtectionZimbra has released software updates to address critical security flaws in its Collaboration software that, if successfully exploited, could result in information disclosure under certain conditions.The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-25064, carries a CVSS score of 9.8 out of a maximum of 10.0. It has been described as an SQL injection bug in the ZimbraSync Service SOAP endpoint affecting versions prior to 10.0.12 and 10.1.4.Stemming from a lack of adequate sanitization of a user-supplied parameter, the shortcoming could be weaponized by authenticated attackers to inject arbitrary SQL queries that could retrieve email metadata by "manipulating a specific parameter in the request."Zimbra also said it addressed another critical vulnerability related to stored cross-site scripting (XSS) in the Zimbra Classic Web Client. The flaw is yet to be assigned a CVE identifier."The fix strengthens input sanitization and enhances security," the company said in an advisory, adding the issue has been fixed in versions 9.0.0 Patch 44, 10.0.13, and 10.1.5.Another vulnerability addressed by Zimbra is CVE-2025-25065 (CVSS score: 5.3), a medium-severity server-side request forgery (SSRF) flaw in the RSS feed parser component that allows for unauthorized redirection to internal network endpoints.The security defect has been patched in versions 9.0.0 Patch 43, 10.0.12, and 10.1.4. Customers are advised to update to the latest versions of Zimbra Collaboration for optimal protection.Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.SHARE

I have an AirTag on my keychain to keep track of my keys, but obviously an AirTag is too big and bulky to fit inside a wallet. Thats what the SwitchBot Wallet Finder is for. Disguised inside a thin, credit-card form factor, the SwitchBot Wallet Finder connects to the Find My app on your iPhone, so you can follow its location, and it even houses a speaker so you can make it beep to help you find your wallet when it inevitably gets lost somewhere in your home.Read on for my review SetupSetup is super simple. Although it ostensibly supports its own app and Android, I have used it solely through the Apple Find My app built into the phone. I didnt even download the SwitchBot app at all. To set up, you open Find My, tap Add Item, and press and hold the button on the Wallet Finder card for a couple of seconds. You then choose a name and emoji icon to identify it later. By default, it suggested Benjamins Keys, but I renamed it to Benjamins Wallet, selected one of the wallet-adjacent available emojis, and pressed Continue and I was done. Then, it just slips into one of the empty card pockets in my wallet.How it tracks locationAs a reminder, Find My accessories do not have GPS. Instead, they broadcast a low-energy Bluetooth signal that nearby Apple devices like iPhones, iPads and Macs pick up on. The location is then transmitted securely and privately to the Find My network, so you can hopefully locate and retrieve your lost item.Even if you are miles away, as long as someone with an Apple device is nearby, the wallet will be locatable on the map in the Find My app.Theres also no ongoing subscription or other costs to worry about (unlike some competitors).As demonstrated by the success of AirTags, the Find My network works really well and the SwitchBot Wallet Finder is just as effective. If your item is stationary, and nearby one of the billion iOS devices in the world, it wont take too long for its location to appear in Find My. If the item is moving, location updates are slightly delayed behind real-time, however.You can also use the Find My app to mark your item as explicitly lost. Then, if someone else finds your wallet and wants to help give it back to its rightful owner, they can use the Identify Found Item feature in Find My which will present your contact information to help arrange returning it to you. The upcoming iOS 18.2 update even adds the ability to make a shareable link to send to others to help assist in tracking down your lost items.Finding nearby using the speakerUnlike an AirTag, the Wallet Finder does not incorporate an ultra-wide band radio. That means it lacks the Precision Finding feature that the AirTag offers when in close proximity.However, the integrated speaker in the Wallet Finder more than suffices for the job of finding your lost wallet. When in Bluetooth range, the card emits a reasonably loud tone. It is slightly less loud than the sound an AirTag makes, and naturally gets a bit muffed when ensconced inside a closed wallet, but it is still audible, more than enough for you to hear it from a good distance away.For the (embarrassingly common) case of when Ive misplaced my wallet somewhere inside my house, I can now just open the Find My app, press Play Sound, and instantly hear which room it is in.Find My also works with the Siri voice assistant, as an added convenience. For example, I can shout wheres my wallet? at my HomePod, and it will start pinging it for me.Safety and trackingIve been using Pebblebee Card for the last couple of years and I love it! They released a new version recently that has even longer battery life. Rechargeable also! View all commentsJust like AirTags, the Wallet Finder is marketed as a device to help recover lost items. It is not designed to address problems of theft or nefariously track other people. If the card is separated from its owner for a period of time, the speaker will emit a noise to make people aware of its presence. It will also trigger Unknown Item Moving With You alerts on any nearby iPhones in the vicinity.Its also worth pointing out that someone else with the card in their possession can deactivate the Find My connection, by pressing the button in a particular shutdown sequence.ConclusionIf used for its intended purpose, the SwitchBot Wallet Finder is a very effective and great value for money. While obviously designed to be kept inside a wallet, it even has a built-in hole cutout if you did want to slip it on some kind of lanyard or keychain. I highly recommend it.Perhaps the only drawback to be aware of is that the Wallet Finder card has no means of replacing the battery. It is a single use consumable, rated for about 3 years of usage. But the contents of your wallet are valuable enough that it probably makes financial sense to simply buy another when it eventually dies. You just have to be okay with yourself regarding the environmental waste.Add 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

Warning: contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Onyx Storm and the Fourth Wing seriesOnyx Storm, the third installment of author Rebecca Yarross Empyrean series a fantasy romance saga set at a military college for dragon riders is already breaking records. The book hit shelves on Jan 21 and sold 2.7 million copies in its first week, making it the fastest selling adult-fiction title of the past 20 years according to the New York Times. (Translation: Its time to get on the romantasy train, folks!) And with good reasonits incredibly fun.The addictive story contains multitudes, from swoon-worthy romance and spicy sex scenes to political intrigue, magic, and betrayal. And thats before you get to all the dragons. Like its predecessors, Onyx Storm is full of twists and surprises, perhaps none more so than its action-packed ending, which concludes on the sort of cliffhanger that will easily power BookTok videos and online discussion forums for months to come. The cryptic ending isnt particularly surprisingthree books into the series we already know that Yarros loves to leave her audience wanting more in the worst way possible. But that hasnt stopped us all from speculating with abandon about what Onyx Storms many twists and narrative surprises all mean.What Happened at the End of Onyx Storm?The chaotic ending of Onyx Storm is epic in scope, both in terms of action and what its events mean for the future of the series going forward. The book ends with a huge battle, as Xaden, Violet and the other riders face off against the venin dark wielders to defend the city of Draithus and rescue Violets sister, Mira. Violet manages to defeat the silver-haired venin Theophanie thanks to a last-second assist from Aaric, whose (surprise!) precognitive abilities provided her with the weapon with which to do so. Xaden, unfortunately, is not so lucky and channels from the ground again in order to save his dragon, Sgaeyl from the venin sage Berwyn and help Violet in the larger battle. His effort essentially turns the tide of the fight though he is turned further venin in the process. In the books closing chapter, Violet awakens at Riorson House after being missing for over 12 hours, to find herself married to a now-missing Xaden and unable to remember what happened. In short: theres a lot to unpack.Who Is Xadens New Brother?The ending of Onyx Storm also confirmed that Xaden isnt the only familiar face whos turned venin and its someone we clearly know. Yarros doesnt reveal this persons identity, but Xadens reaction is a horrified one. He refers to the unnamed venin as his new brother and cant believe that this new initiate could have ever chosen to turn after having witnessed everything he himself has gone through over the past months. But who could it be?The most obvious choices are Bodhi and Garrick, Xadens cousin and best friend, respectively. Theyre his closest confidantes and the people, even more so than Violet, who have spent the most time with him over the course of this series. Theyve both witnessed every step of Xadensstruggle to stop his own transformation and, conveniently, both are unaccounted for at the end of Onyx Storm. Garrick is missing, and while we catch a glimpse of a retching Bodhi during Imogens POV chapter, his absence when Violet awakens indicates hes not exactly around to rule Tyrrendor at the moment.Of the two, Bodhi is perhaps the more likely choice, given that his close physical resemblance to Xaden (as if they could be.brothers, perhaps?) has been mentioned repeatedly throughout the series. But what if Yarros is going for an even bigger twist? The use of male pronouns narrows down our choices, of course, but there are several intriguing options that fit the rest of our known criteria. Aaric has been revealed to be a precog, and we all love fantasy stories where someone with the power to see the future realizes they must somehow sacrifice themselves for the greater good. But perhaps the most interesting option of all is Brennan. Violets brother has already essentially cheated death once, revived by Tairns previous rider Naolin, a siphon like Sloane, who used his power to save Brennan and gave him a scar in the process thats been mentioned multiple times over the course of the books. But when Sloane siphons power into Brennan to help save a dying Mira, theres no scar left behind this time. Violet specifically mentioned how weird this is, which feels like a big red flag that something is off about Brennan.Who Is the Venin Sage Berwyn?Of course, theres also the question of Xadens mysterious mentor. Weve been speculating about the identity of the venin Sage since Violet first faced off with him at Resson in Fourth Wing and dont seem any closer to the answer about who he is or what he wants two full books later. Theres probably a reason for that.We know he turned Xaden, that hes a rival of Theophanies, andthats kind of it. But a secret thats worth keeping for three books is probably a big deal, right? Onyx Storm certainly never made it feel as though Theophanie was anyone we knewor particularly needed to knowin this way. But the same cannot be said for Berwyn, who seems to represent something bigger than a simple venin doppelganger. His interest in Xaden feels personal, as does his hatred for dragonkind. All of this is pointing toward the idea that one of the wildest Onyx Storm theories floating around the fandom may actually be true: Berwyn is Naolin.For those that dont remember (or dont have a detailed spreadsheet that tracks all this info), Naolin is Tairns previous rider, and the idea is that in order to essentially bring Brennan back from the dead during the Tyrrish Rebellion, he must have siphoned power from himself, his dragon, and even the ground in order to do so. We know almost nothing about what happened to Naolin after he saved BrennanViolets brother wont talk about it, and Tairn is a brick wall on the subject. Did he turn, enough for Tairn to break their bond? (It would explain why Naolins death almost killed Tairn and why he wont talk about what happened to his former rideror even confirm that he died!) Plus, theres a certain symmetry to it, given Xadens own close relationship with Brennans sister.What Is Xadens Plan and Why Did He Need to Marry Violet?When Xaden channels power from the earth to save Sgaeylwho has been injured and trapped under a net by Berwynhe creates such an enormous (onyx!) storm of shadow that he kills all the wyvern and some random venin while knocking out Berwyn and his new, unnamed brother. This act, has of course, turned Xaden himself more fully venin, but not enough to prevent him from flying off with his dragon after agreeing to put some vague plan into motion. Whats Xaden doing here? Well, thats probably the big mystery that will be answered in Book Four.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!Part of it, at least, appears to have involved marrying Violet. She wakes up at Riorson House after killing Theophanie, sporting a ginormous wedding ring and carrying a document from the head priestess of Dunnes temple verifying the legality of her union with Xaden (and Violets new status as Duchess of Tyrrendor). Xaden is missing, along with four other riders and six dragon eggs. And Violet has no memory of any of it (more on that in a second.) Whats Xadens end game here? Well, Onyx Storm is purposefully unclear on this point. Whatever it is, Sgaeyl didnt appear to like it, though she clearly goes along with her rider, however reluctantly.Is it simply about saving Tyrrendor? (And, if so, did Xaden somehow know Bodhi wouldnt be around to rule in his stead?) Is Xaden concocting a plan to bring down the venin from within? We dont know, and there arent a ton of clues beyond a cryptic message scrawled on the back of their unorthodox marriage licenseDont look for me. Its yours now. Hes gone.Is the it Tyrrendor since theyre married now? And who is the he? Is it Xaden? (If so, why would he refer to himself in the first and third person?) Is it Bodhi? Someone else completely random?What Happened to Violets Memories?Part of the reason the ending of this book is so chaotic is that we completely abandon Violets point of view for multiple chapters. Instead, we get chapters from Xaden, Rhiannon, and Imogen, and when were finally returned to Violets POV everything has changed, in ways not even our heroine fully understands. Apparently 12 hours have passed since she passed out after killing Theophanie, and a lot has happened in that interim. The problem is, Violet doesnt have any memory of those events, because Imogen used her signet to erase them. And finding out what happened during that stretch of timeand what those events mean comes nextwill undoubtedly be a big part of the plot of the next book.Why would Violet tell Imogen to erase her memories? There could be many reasons. But she clearly married Xaden, so at some point Violet agreed to whatever Xadens unknown plan is. It seems safe to assume that erasing her memories is so she doesnt unwittingly reveal that plan to anyone else, be it venin, memory-readers like Dain or any other as-yet-unidentified inntinnsics who might be able to unknowingly glean the truth from her mind.The Missing Riders and Dragon EggsIn Onyxs Storms final chapter, we also learn that several dragons and riders were killed during the 12 hours that Violet cant remember. There are also four missing riders and, most troublingly, at least six missing dragon eggs. Imogen confirms that Garrick is one of the missing riders but the the other three remain unidentified. Did they disappear with Xaden? Were they turned as well? Or have they headed off on some secret secondary mission that Violet simply cant remember?As for the dragon eggs, its certainly possible that venin could have stolen or destroyed them during the fighting. But it seems important to remember that during Violet and Quest Squads travels earlier in the book, we learned that the Isle Kingdoms are obsessed with dragons, and want some of their own. Trading in dragons is forbidden, but Umbriel offered Violet a military alliance in exchange for 12 dragon eggs. Quest Squad immediately shot that deal down, but it seems very possible that someone may be striking some sort of similar bargain using the missing eggs. Twelve hours certainly doesnt seem like a ton of time for major geopolitical deal-making, but stranger things have happened in this series and with so many dead dragons and riders maybe Navarre cant afford to be as picky about such things as they have in the past. Key question: Did the dragons approve this mission, if it did indeed happen? And, if so, why only six eggs? Was that all that was available in the hatching ground? Or is this some kind of compromise?Adarna and the IridsMuch of Onyx Storm is concerned with the search for the mysterious seventh dragon breed and finding answers about Adarnas heritage. To be honest, Quest Squad doesnt do a super great job of tracking them down and probably never would have found them if a pack of irids (the name for Adarnas species) hadnt literally walked right up to Violet and said hello. Unfortunately for Adarnas hopes, her dragon family are kind of jerks. Dedicated pacifists, they refuse to involve themselves in human affairs and basically left Adarnawho they refer to as the criterionbehind in the hatching ground as a test to see if mankind had evolved enough to stop using dragons as weapons of war. (Spoiler alert: Humanity fails.)We all have a lot of questions about irids and their powers, and though Adarna disappears to go learn from her people for a bit before returning to Violets side during the battle, we still dont know much about them as a breed by the end of Onyx Storm. What we do know is that they are incredibly magical, enough to manipulate the bonds between dragons and riders and potentially (probably?) even between dragons themselves. Adarna breaks her bond with Violet (or at least suppresses it enough that the connection is negligible) and odds are decent that shes somehow manipulated or broken the mating bond between Tairn and Sgaeyl as well. When Violet awakes at Riorson House, she cant communicate with Tairn and their connection feels foggy, as though hes in some sort of deep sleep. Which, lets be real, sounds an awful lot like Violets reaction after her bond with Adarna was broken.Who Are the Six Most Powerful Riders?Its been mentioned several times now in this series that this is the first time both a lightning wielder and a shadow wielder have been alive at the same time since the First Six riders walked the earth. The implication here is that the signets of the six original riders are somehow being replicated (reincarnated?) at this precise moment, most likely to give The Continent a fighting chance to defeat the venin. But who would our Fourth Wing Six be?Obviously Violet is one of them, with her powerful lightning ability. Lynx manifesting shadow powers feels super important in the wake of Xaden turning venin. (Magic craves balance after all.) Garrick can basically teleport. (Though its also possible hes venin now as well, but for the sake of argument lets assume he isnt.) Miras unique ability to manipulate wards seems as though it will be necessary in the future, particularly since she really, really should have died in Onyx Storm. Other likely options for the final two slots: Ridoc (with his newfound skill at freezing the water in the bodies of living beings), Sloane (could her siphoning ability drain venin power back into the earth?), Aaric (a pre-cog!), or even Brennan (he certainly seems to be the most powerful mender in generations).Whats Bodhis Second Signet?The question of Bodhis second signet may be more important than ever given that theres at least even odds that Bodhis a venin at this point. But while Onyx Storm sort of backhand confirms that he has one; he tells Violet I dont have a second signet just like Xaden doesnt. After all, we know Xaden does have one, meaning that Bodhis second ability is probably also an inntinnsic power, which could get him killed if it was discovered.What Does This All Mean For Book 4?This all leaves a ton of questions for the next book in the Fourth Wing saga to answer. But whats most interesting about the series third installment is that Onyx Storms ending most likely means that Yarros will have to switch to a more consistent multiple-POV format in terms of telling its story. There are too many things that happened that Violet, as our primary narrator, likely wasnt present foror simply doesnt know. (And is unlikely to remember, given the nature of Imogens gift.) Xaden, Sgaeyl, Imogen, and likely several others (Adarna?) were clearly involved in whatever events took place during the 12 hours missing from Violets memories, and well need someone to recount those events to us. (Dragon egg heist? Dragon bond severing? Wedding ceremony?). The shifting POV chapters at the end of Onyx Storm almost certainly herald a similar format for its sequel in some way.But whatever happens in Book 4, well probably be waiting a while to find out. Yarros, who has a chronic illness, wrote the first three books in her Empyrean series in just 20 months. Shes said the pace was hard on her health, so the author is planning on taking a break before writing the next installment. During a recent Good Morning America interview, Yarros did say that the final two books in the series have already been plotted out, however. So fingers crossed the wait passes swiftly!Onyx Storm is out now, published by Red Tower Books, an imprint of Entangled Publishing.

Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in complex reasoning tasks, particularly in mathematical problem-solving and coding applications. Research has shown a strong correlation between the length of reasoning chains and improved accuracy in problem-solving outcomes. However, they face significant challenges: while extended reasoning processes enhance problem-solving capabilities, they often lead to inefficient solutions. Models tend to generate unnecessarily lengthy reasoning chains even for simple questions that could be solved more directly. This one-size-fits-all approach to reasoning length creates computational inefficiency and reduces the practical utility of these systems in real-world applications.Various methodologies have emerged to enhance LLMs reasoning capabilities, with Chain-of-Thought (CoT) being a foundational approach that improves problem-solving by breaking down reasoning into discrete steps. Building upon CoT, researchers have developed more complex techniques such as extended CoT with additional steps, self-reflection mechanisms, multi-turn reasoning, and multi-agent debate systems. Recent developments have focused on scaling up reasoning length, as demonstrated by models like OpenAI-o1 and DeepSeek-R1. However, they generate extensive reasoning chains regardless of the problems complexity. This inefficient approach increases computational costs and larger carbon footprints.Researchers from Meta AI and The University of Illinois Chicago have proposed an innovative approach to address the inefficiencies in LLM reasoning by developing a system that automatically adjusts reasoning trace lengths based on query complexity. While previous heuristic methods have attempted to improve token efficiency for better accuracy with reduced overhead, this new research takes a reinforcement learning (RL) perspective. Instead of explicitly modeling response lengths or balancing intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, the researchers have developed a grouping methodology, that involves categorizing responses into distinct groups based on their characteristics, creating a comprehensive framework to cover the entire response space while maintaining efficiency.The proposed methodology employs a sequence-level notation system that simplifies the complex transition probabilities and intermediate rewards by treating each response as a complete unit. The architecture divides responses into two primary groups, one for regular-length Chain-of-Thought responses and the other for extended responses, each with distinct inference costs. The system operates through a bi-level optimization framework, where resource allocation constraints are defined within a convex polytope that limits the density mass of each group. Moreover, the algorithm uses an iterative approach, solving the upper-level problem through gradient updates while directly addressing the lower-level optimization at each iteration.The experimental results demonstrate significant performance improvements across different implementations of the proposed methodology. The supervised fine-tuning (SFT) constructions, SVSFT and ASV-SFT-1, achieve enhanced pass@1 metrics, though at the cost of increased inference requirements. More notably, the ASV-IuB-q+ formulation with parameters set at 50% and 75% show remarkable efficiency improvements, reducing costs by 4.14% at 2.16 times and 5.74% at 4.32 times respectively, matching the performance of SCoRe, a leading RL-based self-correction method. The findings also reveal a noteworthy limitation of prompting-based and SFT-based methods in both absolute improvement and efficiency metrics, suggesting that self-correction capabilities emerge more effectively through RL.In conclusion, researchers introduced a method to overcome the inefficiencies in LLM reasoning. Moreover, they introduced IBPO, a constrained policy optimization framework that implements a weighted Supervised Fine-Tuning update mechanism. This approach determines optimal weights through an integer linear programming solution, in each iteration, built upon the CGPO framework. While the system shows effective constraint adherence and dynamic inference budget allocation in mathematical reasoning tasks, computational resource limitations can be addressed through sample accumulation across multiple steps. Future research directions include expanding the frameworks applicability across different LLM applications and scaling up experimental implementations to test its full potential in various contexts.Check outthePaper.All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitterand join ourTelegram ChannelandLinkedIn Group. Dont Forget to join our75k+ ML SubReddit. Sajjad AnsariSajjad Ansari is a final year undergraduate from IIT Kharagpur. As a Tech enthusiast, he delves into the practical applications of AI with a focus on understanding the impact of AI technologies and their real-world implications. He aims to articulate complex AI concepts in a clear and accessible manner.Sajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/Microsoft AI Researchers Release LLaVA-Rad: A Lightweight Open-Source Foundation Model for Advanced Clinical Radiology Report GenerationSajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/ACECODER: Enhancing Code Generation Models Through Automated Test Case Synthesis and Reinforcement LearningSajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/s1: A Simple Yet Powerful Test-Time Scaling Approach for LLMsSajjad Ansarihttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sajjadansari/Neural SpaceTimes (NSTs): A Class of Trainable Deep Learning-based Geometries that can Universally Represent Nodes in Weighted Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) as Events in a Spacetime Manifold [Recommended] Join Our Telegram Channel

Square Enix revenues fall over the past nine months to $1.6bnHD games segment operating profits jump to $30.2 million due to strong sales of Dragon Quest 3 HD-2DImage credit: Square Enix News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Feb. 10, 2025 Square Enix released its financial earnings for the nine months ending December 31, 2024, reporting a decrease in net sales attributed to "weakness in existing titles" in its mobile and PC browser sub-segment.The firm also saw a drop in Digital Entertainments revenue, including its video games business, due to new titles generating lower sales than Final Fantasy 16 and Dragon Quest: The Dark Prince the previous year.Here's what you need to know:The numbers: Net sales: 248.5 billion ($1.6 billion, down 3.5% year-on-year)Profit: 24.7 billion ($161.9 million, down 7.7% year-on-year)Digital entertainment net sales: 160.3 billion ($1.05 billion, down 10.7% year-on-year)The highlights:Despite a drop in overall net sales in its Digital Entertainment segment, Square Enix saw a 70.3% increase in operating profit for its HD games subsection to 4.6 billion ($30.2 million) compared to the same period last year.The firm attributed this to "lower development cost amortisation and advertising expenses", in addition to stronger sales of Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D "than initially assumed" which launched in November 2024.Square Enix also saw a 26.4% rise in net sales for its MMO sub-segment, reaching 44 billion ($288.6 million) following the release of Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail in July 2024.Looking at its mobile and PC browser sub-segment, the firm saw a significant decline of 58.5% in operating profit to 5.6 billion ($36.7 million) compared to the same period last year.The firm acknowledged that despite the launch of its puzzle RPG Emberstoria in November 2024, there was a drop due to "weakness in existing titles, the recognition of royalty revenue in the previous fiscal year, and a valuation write-down associated with content production account."Looking ahead, Square Enix said there were no changes in its forecast for the fiscal year, which were announced during its FY24 results published last May.

A three-step process for finding truth onlinePublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Were back!Issue #264: confessions of a healthcare comms lead, executive orders, and brown noiseBy Harris SockelJon Krakauer, bestselling author of several blockbuster nonfiction books including Into the Wild, took to Medium last week to respond to a YouTuber who claims there are significant factual errors in his 1997 book about an Everest climbing disaster, Into Thin Air.This is kind of personal for me. Into Thin Air is not only one of my favorite books, its one of the first books of narrative nonfiction I ever read. I was assigned it as summer reading before 11th grade, after it was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The book chronicles Krakauers experience climbing Everest in 96 and a deadly storm that killed eight people and left several others stranded on the mountain. Its riveting. Its nonfiction, but its just as engrossing as the best novel youve ever read.Most of the accusations outlined in the post concern the position of climbers on the mountain and how prepared or unprepared the crew was for the storm. I wont get into too much detail, but I do want to briefly touch on the tactic this YouTuber is taking (as alleged by Krakauer) because it points toward a universal law of the internet.Theres an axiom about online discourse known as the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle, Krakauer writes. The less vulgar term for it is Brandolinis Law, named after an Italian programmer who postulated that the energy it takes to refute a single falsehood is an order of magnitude larger than that needed to produce it.In other words, distortion happens fast. Getting to the truth is a slower process.Mike Caulfield, a who studies the spread of rumors and misinformation for a living, has a three-step process for finding the truth on the internet, and I think back to it often whenever Im confronted with (a) someone who seems overconfident about questioning an established fact, or (b) anything that feels out of my depth:Check for previous fact-checking workGo upstream to the primary sourceRead laterally, which basically means Google your sources (you can do this easily with a minus search term, e.g. if you want background on the Wall Street Journal but dont want a bunch of results from the site itself, search: -site:wsj.com Wall Street Journal)Most importantly: Give the truth some time! Krakauers post is the first of what will be eight separate chapters of commentary and (as a huge fan of this book for going on 20 years) Ill be following closely. Were also readingKathleen Murphy, former head of comms for her states BlueCross BlueShield affiliate, recalls arguing with the companys Chief Medical Officer over a denied claim to a child who needed lifetime IV nutrition therapy. Murphy had no choice but to issue a bland statement explaining in deliberately arcane language why the claim was denied, but as she sent it she was shaken. I wanted to scream, she writes, but I had a job to do. So I opened my laptop and composed an email.FDR issued 3,721 executive orders over his 12 years in office, the record by far (second is Woodrow Wilson at 1,803). Most of FDRs orders sought to remake the federal administration but what he did not do, and whats unique to Trumps approach, is use an EO to create and empower a small team of individuals to enact sweeping and substantive reform on the federal civil service, without the consent of Congress. (Peter Stanley Federman, Assistant Prof. of Policy and Global Studies) A top highlight on Medium from last weekWe can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression. (Tee Mugayi)Your daily dose of practical wisdomIf you (like me) work from home and cant bear the silence but are too distracted by music try white noise? Or brown noise, featuring lower, more calming frequencies a la rushing tides.