Following a lengthy wait, A Song of Ice and Fire's Illustrated Edition series is set to return this fall with A Feast for Crows. The Illustrated Edition of the fourth novel in George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy series will be published on November 4, almost exactly five years after the release of the previous entry, A Storm of Swords: The Illustrated Edition. Game of Thrones fans can preorder A Feast for Crows: The Illustrated Edition for $50 at Amazon.Note that reserving a copy at Amazon means you won't pay until it's shipped, and you'll be eligible for any price cuts between now and November 4.The Illustrated Edition series debuted in 2016 with A Game of Thrones. Following a three-year wait, Random House published A Clash of King's Illustrated Edition in 2019. A Storm of Swords was published one year later, but then the waiting game started. For Game of Thrones fans, the wait for this special hardcover edition of A Feast for Crows undoubtedly pales in comparison to The Winds of Winter. Nearly 14 years have passed since the release of A Dance with Dragons, so five years is nothing.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Todays New York Times Games Connections puzzle is ready to test your logic and vocabulary. In order to win this one, you will need to be ready to sort sixteen words into four secret categories with no more than three mistakes allowed.

The upcoming Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket expansion Shining Revelry will feature Paldea's Iono as a Supporter card, but her card shuffling and drawing effect drew immediate concerns from players following her reveal. The Pokemon TCG Pocket booster set that Iono is part of will go live on Thursday, March 27.

The Mushroomancer skill is a unique power that activates when you wear certain armor in Monster Hunter Wilds. In addition to influencing your stats, different armor in Monster Hunter Wilds can have additional buffs called skills, which activate under special circumstances. One of these skills is called Mushroomancer, which is especially strong since it allows your hunter to consume mushrooms. In this Monster Hunter Wilds guide, well explain what the Mushroomancer skill does, how to get it, and how to use it.What does the Mushroomancer skill do in Monster Hunter Wilds?The Mushroomancer skill allows you to digest mushrooms that would otherwise be inedible and gain positive effects from them, similar to the Congalalamonster. This means you can eat certain mushrooms and they will act as a support item for your hunter.Below, see a table that contains the full list of mushroom effects when you consume each item with the Mushroomancer skill active.Mushroom typeEffectBlue mushroomWorks like a potion and will restore a small amount of health. Toadstool Works like an immunizer and will temporarily boost your natural ability to recover lost health.NitroshroomWorks like a demondrug and will temporarily boost your attack power.ParashroomWorks like an armorskin and will temporarily boost your defense.MandragoraWorks like a max potion and will fully restore your health and temporarily maximizes the size of your health gauge.Devil's blightWorks like a dash juice which will recover stamina and temporarily reduce stamina depletion when performing actions.ExciteshroomThis will provide a random effect from another mushroom.The Mushroomancer skill has three different levels. The skill level is determined by how many pieces of armor your hunter has equipped that have the skill. The overall skill level is equal to the sum of the levels of all your equipped pieces of armor that have the skill. For example, if your hunter has the Mushroom Charm I equipped (which has Mushroomancer level one) and the Conga Mail (which has Latent Power level one), the overall skill level will be three.Here is a chart that shows you how much of a stat boost you will get from each level. Note, that the level maxes out at three. Level 1: Allows you to digest blue mushrooms and toadstools.Level 2: Allows you to digest blue mushrooms, toadstools, nitroshrooms, and parashrooms.Level 3: Allows you to digest blue mushrooms, toadstools, nitroshrooms, parashrooms, devils blight, and exciteshrooms.How to get the Mushroomancer skill in Monster Hunter WildsTo get the Mushroomancer skill in Monster Hunter Wilds, you just need to equip the correct armor. Here is every piece of armor that will grant your hunter the skill.HeadChestArmsWaistLegTalismansDecorationsConga Helm (Level 1)Conga Mail (Level 1)Conga Vambraces Alpha (Level 1)Conga Coil Alpha (Level 1)Conga Greaves (Level 1)Mushroom Charm I (Level 1)Fungiform Jewel 2 (Level 1)Conga Vambraces Beta (Level 1)Conga Coil Beta (Level 1)Conga Greaves Alpha (Level 1)Mushroom Charm II (Level 2 according to Fextralife)Dober Greaves Alpha (Level 2)Mushroom Charm III (Level 3 according to Fextralife)Melahoa Roots Alpha (Level 3)How to activate the Mushroomancer skill in Monster Hunter WildsThe mushroomancer skill is activated from the moment you equip the armor. It doesnt have any time limits and allows you to use these mushrooms as items whenever youd like. This is part of what makes it so powerful. You can come to a fight with loads of extra heals and items to buff your hunter so long as you bring the right mushrooms. Our Monster Hunter Wilds guides can outline your progress with ourmain story walkthroughandmonster listahead of reachingHigh Rank, help you settle on an armament with ourweapons listandbest weaponsexplainers, uncoverores,bones, andmonster tails, and teach you how tojoin friends in co-op multiplayer.

If theres one thing Hideo Kojima loves, its movies. The acclaimed creator of Metal Gear and Death Stranding takes every opportunity he can to talk about his favorite films and their impact on his life and career, be it in his collection of essays, his Brain Structure podcast, or excitedly recommending movies from none other than the fabled Criterion closet.On Thursday, the 61-year-old video game designer appeared in a new video produced by the French pop culture outlet Konbini as part of its ongoing celebrity-focused Video Club series. The video features Kojima walking through JM Vido, one of the oldest and one of the few remaining video rental shops still in business in Paris, recommending his favorite films by French directors.During my childhood, Japanese 50s and 60s movies were awesome, as were the French 50s and 60s movies, and most creators of today originate from those movies, Kojima said when asked why he chose to focus specifically on recommending French directors. The French Lumire brothers created movies about 120 years ago, and there was a golden era of French movies, Japanese movies, etc. and then Hollywood movies came in. Even when I rewatch them now, they are great, new, and original, so thats why I wanted to introduce these French movies to the younger generation. I was really influenced by them myself, so most are classics.Kojimas energy is positively infectious throughout the video as he buzzes through the shelves, cherry-picking his selections and giving brief yet passionate explanations behind why he likes a particular film and what it means to him.The biggest takeaways? His favorite La Seydoux film is 2012s Sister directed by Ursula Meier, and he really, really wants to meet Leos Carax some day. I really love his works, but I havent met him yet, Kojima says. So if you are seeing this, please contact me! Heres hoping he gets his wish.You can find a list of Kojimas recommendations below and where you can stream or rent them, in case youre looking for something to watch this weekend:Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bte) Dir. Jean CocteauAvailable to stream on Max and Criterion ChannelThe Hole (Le Trou) Dir. Jacques BeckerAvailable to stream on Criterion ChannelThe Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la peur) Dir. Henri-Georges ClouzotAvailable to stream on Max and Criterion ChannelAlphaville (Alphaville: une trange aventure de Lemmy Caution) Dir. Jean-Luc GodardAvailable to rent on Amazon and AppleNouvelle Vague Dir. Jean-Luc GodardThe Night Is Young (Mauvais Sang) Dir. Leos CaraxAvailable to stream on HooplaEyes Without a Face (Les yeux sans visage) - Dir. Georges FranjuAvailable to stream on Max and Criterion ChannelLa Jete Dir. Chris MarkerAvailable to stream on Criterion ChannelLe Samoura Dir. Jean-Pierre MelvilleAvailable to stream on Max and Prime VideoElevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour lchafaud) Dir. Louis MalleAvailable to stream on MaxEnter The Void Dir. Gaspar NoAvailable to rent on AppleBarbarella Dir. Roger VadimAvailable to rent on Amazon and AppleThe Deep Dark (Gueules noires) Dir. Mathieu TuriSister (LEnfant den haut) Dir. Ursula MeierAvailable to stream on Kanopy and rent on Amazon and AppleFantastic Planet (La Plante sauvage) Dir. Ren LalouxAvailable to stream on Max and Criterion Channel

We may earn a commission from links on this page.Garmin watches like my beloved Forerunner 265S have so many features buried in their menus that you may not have discovered some of the best ones. Here are some of the best underrated features of Garmin watches (available on Forerunners and other models), as well as convenient shortcuts youll find yourself using all the time.Shortcuts for getting around your Garmin watch Left is the flashlight (it's brighter in the dark, I promise). Right is what you get when you long press on the sunset time complication. Credit: Beth Skwarecki Quickly get back to the home screenThis works on all the touchscreen watches: Wherever you are, no matter how many menus deep, just cover the screen with your palm. The screen will go dark, and when you activate it again (by tapping the touchscreen, flicking your wrist, or hitting the top left light button), it will be back at the home screen.Pull up a flashlightDouble press the light button (top left). Even if your watch isnt equipped with an LED flashlight, this will turn on the flashlight app that displays bright white pixels to provide a soft light. It's handy for going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, or getting out of your kids room at bedtime without stepping on a LEGO. Ohand you can quickly turn it off by putting your palm over the screen.Long press your watch face complicationsUnlike on an Apple Watch, you cant tap a complication to get more information about it. I assumed that meant the complications werent interactive. But noyou need to long press the complication, and then you get the info. My sunrise/sunset complication pulls up a circular chart with sunrise, sunset, dusk, and dawn times (and an option to look at different dates or locations). You can also use this to get more information on complications that were on by default and you never quite figured out what they are.Garmin Share The watch on the left is sending a workout to the watch on the right. Credit: Beth Skwarecki If you run with others, or like to discuss workouts with a friend who also uses Garmin, youll love the Garmin Share feature, which allows you to beam a workout (or course map) to another persons watch. Whats a Norwegian 4x4? my husband might say. Here, Ill send it to you, I can answer, and hell have it in his on-watch workout library in seconds.How to send items with Garmin Share:Hit the Start button as if you were going to start an activity.Scroll down until you see Garmin Share as an option. Select it.Youll see a screen that says Ready to Receive. Scroll down to see all your shareable items (workouts, courses, etc) and choose one.Your watch will say Looking for devices. If your friend has opened up the receiving screen, their watch model and their name will become available to select.How to receive a workout with Garmin Share:As above, go to the Start button, scroll down, and select Garmin Share.Youll see a screen that says Ready to Receive.When they share the file, youll get an option to say yes or no to downloading it.You can also share a workout by finding it on your watch (as if you were going to do the workout) and then selecting Share instead of Do Workout.Sunset alertsYou can set all kinds of alerts on your watch. One day I was poking around the menus, just curious about what was in there, when I noticed a sunset option.I have this habit of going out for an evening trail run without checking how much time I've got until the sun goes down. Its a recipe for regret: Either Ill wish I brought a flashlight, or Ill wish I had just started my run a little earlier in the day.But now, thats a problem of the past. I went into Settings > Notifications and Alerts > System Alerts > Til Sunset, and set the time to one hour (1:00:00). Now, I get a little buzz on my wrist when I have an hour before the sun sets. If Im dressed for a run but have been dawdling on getting out the door, thats my cue. And if I realize Im not going to make it back before dark, I grab a flashlight on my way out.Set hot keys for features that would otherwise be buried in a menuA hot key is a shortcutsomething like, long press the START button (top right) to turn sleep mode on or off.To set up hot keys, go into settings > System > Hot Keys. There are seven you can use: holding the start, back, or down buttons, or pressing two buttons at once (start and down, start and up, back and light, or back and up).Some of the handy features you can map to a hot key include:Lock the device (great if you have a toddler who likes to play with your watch)Broadcast heart rate (so that you can see your HR on gym equipment)Change sport (if youre running on the track, but want to switch to a regular run when kids storm the field for soccer practice)Turn the touchscreen on or offBring up a stopwatch or timerFind my phone Credit: Beth Skwarecki This is a standard smartwatch feature these days, but I keep seeing people discover it for the first time, so heres your public service announcement: Hold the LIGHT button (top left) to get that wheel of little shortcut things. Select Find My Phone, and it will.

There was a time when we all had dedicated alarm clocks on our nightstands to wake us up in the morning. Now, I'd wager a smartphone does the job for most of us (whether we like it or not).The thing about alarms, though: They kind of need to work every time they're scheduled to go off. There's no acceptable percentage of failure, as, presumably, you're setting that alarm at a specific time for a good reason. You might have work, an interview, an appointment, any number of other important obligations, and not all of them are going to tolerate "my alarm didn't go off" as an excuse. So, alarms need to work, and right now, alarms set on a Google Pixel can't be trusted.Alarms aren't reliable on Pixel at the momentSomething screwy is going on with Pixel alarms, as evidenced by this Reddit thread on r/GooglePixel. One user shared that their alarm on their Pixel 9 did not go off that morning, which caused them to be late to work. This wasn't a one-off alarm, either (not that it would make the situation any better if it was); rather, this was the user's prescheduled Monday-through-Friday alarm that had been working for years, according to the poster.Scrolling through the thread, you'll find posts from other users experiencing similar alarm issues. Some actually received notifications from Android saying the alarm failed to sound, which is at least a bit helpful. (You don't have to spending the day wondering if it was your phone that messed up, or if you turned off the alarm in your sleep.) However, not all affected users were so lucky: Another user claims they have five alarms set each morning and none of them went off, with zero notification about a failure on Android's end. Curiously, one user says they woke up late, but their Pixel said there was an upcoming alarm for a time that was already in the pastas if the phone thought it was currently earlier than it actually was.It's possible this isn't just affecting Pixel phones, either. One commenter believes this is an issue with the alarms in Google's Clock app on Android 15, which the user experienced on their OnePlus device. All that said, Android Authority hasn't been able to replicate the issue on their end, so it's possible this isn't an issue affecting all Pixel phones or all Google Clock users. Still, there are enough reports to warrant some concern. Why is the alarm not working on Pixel?It's not clear what's causing this specific issue, but it's not the first time smartphones have had trouble with alarms. Last year, Google acknowledged a bug was deleting saved alarms on Android, causing a similar issue. You may have also experienced problems with Google Assistant being too quick to turn off an alarm too, or your Pixel Watch sounding the alarm too earlyor, worse, too late.Before any Apple fans get too smug, the same complications are present over on iOS. Last year, Apple confirmed there were issues with its iPhone's alarms, as users reported their alarms weren't going off. Some even say issues are still occurring.The short answer is there's likely a bug that's causing Pixel or Google Clock to not sound the alarms you set. Google hasn't publicly commented on this issue as of this writing, but the Reddit poster did say Google Support has reached out to them. If this is a bug, hopefully Google patches it fast. How to get around a broken Pixel alarmWhile we wait for a potential fix from Google, it seems safe to say the Google Clock app isn't the best option at the moment for anyone who wants to be sure they'll wake up on time. Luckily, there are a surprising number of alarm clock apps out there for you to switch to if you don't trust Google's built-in solution. Give one a shot, at least until we get some more clarity from Google about the situation. Alternatively, you could rely on a different device entirely for your morning alarms. If you don't have a true alarm clock these days, you might have another piece of tech that isn't running Google Clock to rely on, like, say, a smart speaker. It's definitely a pain though, seeing as setting alarms are a basic feature you expect a smartphone to be able to handle.

Amazon is suing the Consumer Product Safety Commission over its decision to hold the company legally responsible for faulty products on its platform, The Associated Pressreports. Amazon's suit demands that the shipping giant be considered a "third-party logistics provider" instead of a distributor and also calls the CPSC "unconstitutionally constructed."The origins of the legal fight can be traced back to 2021, when the CPSC sued Amazon to force it to recall faulty carbon monoxide detectors, unsafe hair dryers and flammable children's sleepwear. At the time, Amazon had already taken some steps to address the issue, like informing customers who purchased the products that they were hazardous and offering store credit, but the CPSC wanted the company to go further.The CPSC move to classify Amazon as a distributor in 2024 made the company responsible for issuing recalls and refunds for products sold through its Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) program. FBA lets sellers send their products to Amazon warehouses, where Amazon then handles picking, packing and shipping those products to customers, along with things like customer service and returns. Amazon takes issue with its classification as a distributor because it doesn't own or make the faulty products the CPSC is concerned with it sees itself as more of a hands-on FedEx.Besides wanting to be reclassified and not held responsible for issuing more refunds, Amazon also has problems with the CPSC itself. The CPSC's commissioners are appointed by the President, approved by the Senate and serve for seven years, unless they're removed for "neglect of duty or malfeasance in office." Amazon feels the commission's relative invulnerability is unconstitutional and makes them "judge, jury, and prosecutor" in proceedings.Amazon's made similar claims about the National Labor Review Board, the organization in charge of protecting workers' right to unionize. The timing of these complaints is key. The Trump administration is not particularly interested in maintaining any government organization empowered to regulate business, and it seems likely it will side with Amazon in disempowering the CPSC, one way or another.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-wants-the-consumer-product-safety-commission-deemed-unconstitutional-211037804.html?src=rss

If you think about it, Severance's "innies" the people trapped in an endless cycle of office work should genuinely hate their "outies" their other halves who exist everywhere else. While outies are free to live a seemingly carefree existence, unburdened by the labor, boredom and indignities of office life, innies have no escape. Every time they enter the elevator at the end of their shifts, which triggers the switch to their outie persona, innies just blink and return to the sterile hallways of nefarious biotechnology firm Lumon Industries. There are no weekends or holidays, there isn't even time to sleep.Editor's note: The Severance finale is now live, but this review was written prior to the release of the final episode of the second season. Meanwhile, Apple confirmed today that it has ordered a third season of the hit show, so we can continue to follow the stories of Lumon's finest.Spoilers ahead for Severance season 2. No spoilers for the finale, "Cold Harbor."Severance's first season arrived as we were all reeling from the initial onslaught of the COVID pandemic and many of us were dealing with our own work-life balance issues. It introduced the show's core concept that Lumon pioneered the ability to completely separate work and life experiences and it made the terms "innie" and "outie" a new cultural shorthand. But the debut season also leaned heavily on the outie perspective, sometimes to a fault. In its second season, Severance became even stronger by focusing more on the innie perspective. Do they deserve whole lives, or just the labor their outies don't want to deal with? Are they allowed to fall in love? Are they even real people?AppleThese are all concepts the show previously touched on, but the innie experience became all the more tragic as season two went on. We watched as Adam Scott's Mark S. wrestled with the dueling desires to rescue Lumon's wellness counselor, Ms. Casey, who was revealed to be his outie's supposedly dead wife, and also nurture a budding romance with fellow innie Hellie R. (Britt Lower). John Turturro's Irving B. spent the entire season nursing a broken heart, after the innie he fell in love with disappeared. And Zach Cherry's Dylan G. ended up falling in love with his outie's wife (Merritt Wever), who saw the best aspects of her floundering husband through his innie.Innies owe their lives to their outies, but lead a tortured existence that basically just makes everything easier for outies. Season two made it clear that the process of severance, which involves a brain injection that splits the innie and outie personas, essentially creates an adult child who only exists to work. Innies have no understanding of science, history or the greater world beyond what Lumon tells them. And naturally, the company's messaging to innies is purely focused on efficiency, output and the cult-like adoration of its founder, Kier Eagan. (It's as if Apple based its entire internal culture on worshipping Steve Jobs as a god, complete with archaic rituals and holy texts.)AppleWhile we spent less time with outies in this season, the show still had a sharper take on their side of the severed experience. There's a funny nod to the "return to office" phenomenon, where Tramell Tillman's Milchick practically had to beg the outies to come back to Lumon, following their innie revolt at the end of season one. In our world, RTO is mostly a phenomenon where executives are eager to witness their employees toiling away, rather than allowing them to potentially slack off while working at home.We also get a sense of what outies lose by giving up their work life to their innies. When Dylan G.'s outie, Dylan George, is turned down for a basic job outside of Lumon, he learns he can't count his innie's work time, since he didn't actually experience it. (In some ways it feels reminiscent of what we could lose by outsourcing work to AI tools.) Severance isn't just a trap for the innies stuck in Lumon's offices, their outies will also have a tough time landing a job anywhere else. The only choice is to stay loyal to Lumon, and its dear founder Kier, until you retire. Or die.According to Dan Erickson, the creator and showrunner of Severance, this season was partially inspired by the recent Hollywood writer's strike. "We were all talking to our guilds and having conversations about workers rights and what we owe our employers and what we should reasonably expect back in return... And how much of ourselves and our lives and our energy we should be willing to give up for the sake of a job," he said in an interview on episode 252 of the Engadget Podcast.AppleWhile much of the second season was written before the strike, "consciously or unconsciously, I think that the tone of that, of those conversations made their way into the story," Erickson said. "And certainly I think that they'll be on people's minds as they're watching the show. Because at the end of the day... it is a show about the rights of workers and what they deserve as human beings."As I watched this season of Severance, and processed the events of its explosive finale, I couldnt help but be reminded of Kazuo Ishiguros heartbreaking novel Never Let Me Go. Its set in a strict boarding school where students are raised to serve one specific purpose, and their own lives are devalued in the process. But they still love, learn and dream. They have hopes and desires. Every innie should be so lucky.Update, March 21 2025, 4:40PM ET: This story has been updated to add an editor's note about the season finale and the confirmation about a third season of the show..This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/severance-season-two-review-even-before-the-finale-innie-rights-and-humanity-made-for-a-stronger-show-100003889.html?src=rss

Apple Mac Studio M3 Ultra runs massive AI models in memory, challenging traditional multi-GPU setups with efficient performance and lower power consumption.