Developer S-Games upcoming action title, Phantom Blade Zero, is trying to replicate the feeling of playing through a kung fu action movie. Director Soulframe Liang spoke about this in a conversation with Eurogamer at Game Developers Conference 2025. In this conversation, Liang also spoke about managing the scope of Phantom Blade Zero by taking cues from game development ideas of the 90s.We want to call back the golden age of Hong Kong kung fu movies from the 1970s, starting from Bruce Lee and then Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, said Liang. The trend has faded out since the early 2000s so we want to go back to that and try to bring the trend back.Staying with this idea, Liang also brings up Sloclaps action game Sifu as one of the inspirations behind the themes and gameplay of Phantom Blade Zero. He brings up the idea that, if a French studio can do it so well, why couldnt a Chinese studio. If a French studio can do something like that, asked Liang, why couldnt we do something even more authentic from Chinese culture?Liang also spoke about wanting to develop games in the style of the past, back when games were being developed for the original PlayStation and the PS2. Games at the time used to be more narrow in their scope, and rarely did we see a game that tried to chew off more than it can handle, especially considering the hardware limitations of the time. Liang refers to the scope of Phantom Blade Zero as being like a bigger indie game.We want to get back to the PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 era, said Liang, when the games were not so big, the budgets not sky high, the team manageable, and all the developers were passionate and creative and with experience. Its like a bigger indie game, but with budget and with experience and with a stable hand, and everything feels so integrated from the starting point when you press down the Start button to the finish point of the staff list.Along with this, Liang also spoke about another major Chinese releaseBlack Myth: Wukong. Liang spoke about how the release of the title gave the larger gaming market the realisation that there is a big market for games made by Chinese developers on the global stage. Everyone now realises there is potential for a Chinese-made game to make 30m copies in half a year, said Liang.Phantom Blade Zero doesnt yet have a release date. The title is currently in development on PC and PS5. Rumours from last year have indicated that S-Game is targeting a Fall 2026 launch window for the upcoming action title. The studio revealed through an interview back in January that it expects players to take anywhere between 20 and 30 hours to finish the main story in Phantom Blade Zero.A release date for Phantom Blade Zero is expected to be announced later this year. In the meantime, check out some uncut footage of a fight against one of the titles bossesChief Disciple of the Seven Stars.

Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Wilds first Title Update launches on April 4th. Mizutsune is already confirmed as a new monster, but players can also hunt the first Arch-Tempered monster, Rey Dau, to earn new Hunter and Felyne Armor. Check out the trailer below, though beware of spoilers.Mizutsune is available from Hunter Rank 21 and includes new armor and weapons. Arch-Tempered Rey Dau is an Event Quest that requires Hunter Rank 50. As requested by fans, you can now hunt Zoh Shia repeatedly and craft dedicated armor and weapons from its parts.The Grand Hub is a new addition where players can hang out and partake in Arena Quests and Challenge Quests. You can also look forward to new Event Quests, mini-games like Barrel Bowling, and the Divas performance. April 22nd also sees the Festival of Accord: Blossomdance appearing until May 6th and includes new limited-time quests, equipment, and more.If thats not enough, a new Capcom collaboration quest will debut by the end of May. Series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto also teased the next Title Update, which pretty much spoilers the return of Lagiacrus. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

A wax writing tablet with a stylus London MuseumLondon is a city of layers, where shining skyscrapers are built atop some of the citys oldest ancient sites. Recent excavations, such as aRoman basilica unearthed in Londons financial district, exemplify the citys rich history.For many years, however, there were few protocols for the preservation or proper excavation of artifacts. We used to have to beg to get on site,Sophie Jackson, an archaeologist at theMuseum of London Archaeology (MOLA), tells theGuardians Zoe Williams.But things have changed, as companies that once saw archaeological sites as hindrances have begun to embrace discoveries beneath the footprints of their soaring office towers.One of those companies is Bloomberg, a financial media firm that commissioned archaeologists from MOLA to excavate beneath the site of its new European headquarters in London between 2012 and 2014. They found tens of thousands of well-reserved Roman artifacts.Now, 14,000 of those findsalong with a roughly $26 million donationare heading to theLondon Museum, a revitalized collection of the citys rich past poised to open a new flagship location in 2026, according to astatement. Many of them will be on public view for the first time ever.Sharon Ament, the museums director, calls Bloombergs donation a momentous gift that ties the past to the future and which will be a lasting legacy for London, per the statement.Aside from the money, which is set to help the London Museum transform aVictorian-era meat market into its new exhibition space, the collection of Roman artifacts is the largest donation of archaeological material the museum has ever received.The site where the artifacts were discovered was a third-centuryC.E. temple dedicated toMithras, a deity who gained cult-like worship in the Roman Empire. The London Museum's sweeping collections will soon occupy a renovated Victorian-era meat market in central London. London MuseumIn the 1950s, when the temple in central London was first unearthed, it garnered widespread attention, with curious onlookers lining up for blocks to see the ancient history beneath their feet.However, the archaeological methods at the time were pretty haphazard, per the Guardian. Workers would simply take artifacts out of the ground and hand them over to their superiors with little regard for provenance or preservation.For decades, the site was only partially excavated, for fear that further digging would disturb anearby church built by famed architectChristopher Wren.We knew that in the layer underneath, that they hadnt dug into, a lot of material would have survived, Jackson tells the Guardian. The site was especially fortunate to be near the waterlogged course of theWalbrook, a lost underground river whose muddy conditions helped protect organic materials from decay. Archaeologists with the Museum of London Archaeology unearth a Roman woven basket. Museum of London ArchaeologyWhen Bloomberg took over the site in the 2010s, archaeologists finally had a chance to tap into that layer with modern excavation methods. The results were stunning.Among the well-preserved finds now heading to the London Museum are leather goods, jewelry, ceramics, pottery, animal bones and around 750 pairs of shoes from the first century C.E.The collection also features 400 writing tabletswooden frames surrounding black wax that carried messages, notes and business transactions. Dated to between 50 and 80 C.E., the tablets are among the earliest examples ofRoman cursive, a style of handwriting, discovered in Britain, perArtnets Richard Whiddington.One tablet, for instance, dated to 57 C.E., was a financial document. They were amazing bureaucrats, the Romans, Jackson tells the Guardian. And its nice for Bloomberg, isnt it? A Roman pottery vessel unearthed at the site London MuseumOther tablets contained key information about citizens of Roman London, including previously unknown names and social gossip.The archaeologists also recovered about 70,000 pieces of Roman pottery, including imports from Gaul that hint at Londons role as a business hub. Other pieces are decorated with cult symbols for the worship of Mithras, who was known for hisritual slaying of a bull.Animal bones, which bear the trace of every tool mark, every nick made by a butchers knife, also provide new insights into the agricultural and culinary practices of ancient London,Alan Pipe, an archaeologist at MOLA, tells the Guardian.When the London Museum opens next year, it will have more than seven million objects in its collections, according to theArt Newspapers Gareth Harris, making it one of the largest archaeological archives on the planet.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Rome, Archaeology, Artifacts, British History, Cool Finds, Cultural Preservation, England, History, London, Museums

Murphy, the Beloved Bald Eagle Foster Dad Who Went Viral for Incubating a Rock, Has Died Following Storms in MissouriThe 33-year-old raptor had parented two orphaned chicks since gaining international attention for sitting on a rock in 2023 In 2023, Murphy was incubating a rock when an orphaned eaglet arrived at the sanctuary in need of some fatherly love and care. World Bird SanctuaryFans are mourning the death of Murphy, the internet-famous bald eagle who became a foster dad in 2023 after trying to incubate a rock.Murphy was found dead in his enclosure at the World Bird Sanctuary in Valley Park, Missouri, where he had lived for most of his life. A necropsy revealed the beloved bird had suffered a head injury, though veterinarians are not exactly sure what happened.They suspect his death may be related to the intense tornadoes and thunderstorms that swept through the area on March 14, killing at least 12 people in Missouri and causing widespread property damage. Keepers discovered Murphys body in his aviary the next morning, March 15.We are unable to determine if Murphy was spooked by something and hit his head while jumping off a perch or if wind and precipitation played a part in the injury, according to a statement the sanctuary posted on social media.Another possibility is that Murphy was hit in the head by a piece of hail, reports the New York Times Livia Albeck-Ripka.Murphy had lived through countless storms in the past, and he had access to shelter during the recent severe weather event, according to the sanctuarys post. Adding to the mystery is the fact that his three aviary mates are alive and in good health, and the aviary itself did not sustain any damage during the storms.Officials with the sanctuary said they did not evacuate any birds, because the facility was not in the path of any tornadoes.While we do everything that we can to keep our birds safe, accidents outside of our control can happen, according to the statement.Murphy lived to be 33, which surpassed the 15- to 25-year lifespan of wild bald eagles. He first came to the sanctuary in the mid-1990s with a broken leg and was released after receiving medical care. He later returned with a broken wing that rendered him incapable of flying.Since this injury meant he could not be returned to the wild, Murphy spent the rest of his life at the sanctuary, which is located about 20 miles southwest of St. Louis. Across 305 acres of forested land, the facilitys hospital cares for more than 650 injured raptors each year and provides a home for more than 200 animals.In March 2023, Murphys behavior started attracting some attention. The eagle carefully constructed a nest on the ground in his enclosurethen began diligently incubating a rock, since he did not have an egg. To alert visitors that Murphy was OK, the sanctuary posted a sign that read: Murphy is not hurt, sick or otherwise in distress. He has built a nest on the ground and is very carefully incubating a rock. We wish him the best of luck!The sign went viral, making Murphy an international bird celebrity. Then, the sanctuarys keepers heard about a young eaglet that had fallen from its nest. Given Murphys earnest dedication to the rock, they gave him the chance to become a foster dadthey replaced the rock with the baby bird.He was sitting on a rock and everybody told him, Its a rock, its not going to hatch, Dawn Griffard, former CEO of World Bird Sanctuary, told theWashington Posts Praveena Somasundaram at the time. And all of a sudden, in his mind, it hatched, and he has a chick.After a slow and careful introduction process, Murphy and the eaglet, named Rocky, began to bond. Thanks in part to Murphys fatherly love and care, Rocky was successfully released into the wild on July 7, 2023.In April 2024, caretakers gave Murphy a second foster eaglet, which he parented with the same gusto. That young bird is expected to be released sometime this summer, according to the sanctuary.Murphy is the only bald eagle that has ever fostered a chick at the sanctuary, which does not often receive eaglets. But staffers learned so much from watching Murphy care for the two chicks that theyve designed an aviary specifically for the needs of eaglets. They plan to name it Murphys Manor in his honor.In the social media statement, the sanctuary thanked Murphy for his resilience, spirit and dedication. By caring for Rocky, the bird touched the hearts of millions of people throughout the world and brought daily joy to thousands of fans.In recent days, the sanctuary has received hundreds of emails, letters, cards and social media tributes to Murphy, per the Washington Posts Jonathan Edwards.We could not have asked for a better ambassador and role model, according to the statement. We are devastated by this loss and know that the community mourns with us.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Animals, Baby Animals, Birds, Death, Internet, Land Birds, Wildlife, Zoology

Immutable announced that the SEC has notified the company it is formally closing its inquiry into the company and related parties.Read More

As AI-generated images become more precise and accessible, GPT-4o represents a significant step forward in the space.Read More

The Colorsoft is like a souped-up Kindle Paperwhite, but that isnt such a bad thing.When we reviewed the Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition late last year, one of our biggest gripes was the e-readers initial starting price of $279.99. Its a high price to pay for an ebook reader, particularly given its smaller 7-inch display and lack of stylus support, but those shortcomings are more forgivable now that the ebook reader is on sale at Amazon and Best Buy for an all-time low of $224.99 ($55 off).At its core, the Colorsoft is really just a Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition with a color screen. Its the first Kindle to utilize E Inks color screen technology, which provides more vibrancy than Kobos like-minded Libra Colour even if the 300ppi resolution is halved in color mode. The resulting contrast and color make browsing and reading books (or comics!) more pleasant and engaging, but dont expect the kind of glossy, high-res images you might get on a dedicated tablet with an OLED or LCD display.That said, the Colorsoft benefits from all the upgrades youll find on Amazons newer Kindles, as well as a slew of recent software updates. It features an auto-adjusting front light, robust IPX8 waterproofing, and faster page-turning performance than prior models. Youll also get up to two months of battery life and wireless charging, not to mention a healthy 32GB of storage and zero ads. Its the e-reader to get if you want a color screen and want to stick with Amazon.In fact, its the only one.

Its extremely hard to beat Ankers A1695 InstaCord 25,000mAh portable battery when it comes to value and price, especially now that its 20 percent off thanks to Amazons Big Spring Sale. Originally $109.99, its currently available from Amazon and Anker for an all-time low $87.99 not bad considering the high-capacity power bank offers 165W of total charging power and not one, but two retractable USB-C cables built in. One doubles as a sturdy carrying loop, while the other is embedded near its ports on the top.The battery was a recent star in The Verges fun Today Im Toying With video series, in which our own Sean Hollister heaps some praise onto the InstaCord battery. Something cool about its built-in cables is that theyre bidirectional, meaning they can charge devices and be used to charge the battery itself. Anker usually comes out with at least one must-own portable battery per year, and so far, this is 2025s top candidate.

Autoregressive Transformers have become the leading approach for sequence modeling due to their strong in-context learning and parallelizable training enabled by softmax attention. However, softmax attention has quadratic complexity in sequence length, leading to high computational and memory demands, especially for long sequences. While GPU optimizations mitigate this for short sequences, inference remains costly at scale. Researchers have explored recurrent architectures with compressive states that offer linear complexity and constant memory use to address this. Advances in linear attention and state-space models (SSMs) have shown promise, with RNN-based approaches like RWKV-4 achieving competitive performance while significantly lowering inference costs.Researchers from multiple institutions, including the RWKV Project, EleutherAI, Tsinghua University, and others, introduce RWKV-7 Goose, a novel sequence modeling architecture that establishes new state-of-the-art (SoTA) performance at the 3 billion parameter scale for multilingual tasks. Despite being trained on significantly fewer tokens than competing models, RWKV-7 achieves comparable English language performance while maintaining constant memory usage and inference time per token. The architecture extends the delta rule by incorporating vector-valued state gating, adaptive in-context learning rates, and a refined value replacement mechanism. These improvements enhance expressivity, enable efficient state tracking, and allow recognition of all regular languages, exceeding the theoretical capabilities of Transformers under standard complexity assumptions. To support its development, the researchers release an extensive 3.1 trillion-token multilingual corpus, alongside multiple pre-trained RWKV-7 models ranging from 0.19 to 2.9 billion parameters, all available under an open-source Apache 2.0 license.RWKV-7 introduces key innovations layered on the RWKV-6 architecture, including token-shift, bonus mechanisms, and a ReLU feedforward network. The models training corpus, RWKV World v3, enhances its English, code, and multilingual capabilities. In addition to releasing trained models, the team provides proof that RWKV-7 can solve problems beyond TC complexity, including S state tracking and regular language recognition. This demonstrates its ability to handle computationally complex tasks more efficiently than Transformers. Furthermore, the researchers propose a cost-effective method to upgrade the RWKV architecture without full retraining, facilitating incremental improvements. The development of larger datasets and models will continue under open-source licensing, ensuring broad accessibility and reproducibility.The RWKV-7 model employs a structured approach to sequence modeling, denoting model dimensions as D and using trainable matrices for computations. It introduces vector-valued state gating, in-context learning rates, and a refined delta rule formulation. The time-mixing process involves weight preparation using low-rank MLPs, with key components like replacement keys, decay factors, and learning rates designed for efficient state evolution. A weighted key-value (WKV) mechanism facilitates dynamic state transitions, approximating a forget gate. Additionally, RWKV-7 enhances expressivity through per-channel modifications and a two-layer MLP, improving computational stability and efficiency while preserving state-tracking capabilities.RWKV-7 models were assessed using the LM Evaluation Harness on various English and multilingual benchmarks, demonstrating competitive performance with state-of-the-art models while utilizing fewer training tokens. Notably, RWKV-7 outperformed its predecessor in MMLU and significantly improved multilingual tasks. Additionally, evaluations of recent internet data confirmed its effectiveness in handling information. The model excelled in associative recall, mechanistic architecture design, and long-context retention. Despite constraints in training resources, RWKV-7 demonstrated superior efficiency, achieving strong benchmark results while requiring fewer FLOPs than leading transformer models.In conclusion, RWKV-7 is an RNN-based architecture that achieves state-of-the-art results across multiple benchmarks while requiring significantly fewer training tokens. It maintains high parameter efficiency, linear time complexity, and constant memory usage, making it a strong alternative to Transformers. However, it faces limitations such as numerical precision sensitivity, lack of instruction tuning, prompt sensitivity, and restricted computational resources. Future improvements include optimizing speed, incorporating chain-of-thought reasoning, and scaling with larger datasets. The RWKV-7 models and training code are openly available under the Apache 2.0 License to encourage research and development in efficient sequence modeling.Check outthe Paper.All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,feel free to follow us onTwitterand dont forget to join our85k+ ML SubReddit. Sana HassanSana Hassan, a consulting intern at Marktechpost and dual-degree student at IIT Madras, is passionate about applying technology and AI to address real-world challenges. With a keen interest in solving practical problems, he brings a fresh perspective to the intersection of AI and real-life solutions.Sana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/Lyra: A Computationally Efficient Subquadratic Architecture for Biological Sequence ModelingSana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/Fin-R1: A Specialized Large Language Model for Financial Reasoning and Decision-MakingSana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/Microsoft AI Releases RD-Agent: An AI-Driven Tool for Performing R&D with LLM-based AgentsSana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/KBLAM: Efficient Knowledge Base Augmentation for Large Language Models Without Retrieval Overhead

Lenovo is offering the best deal right now on PlayStation 5 DualSense controllers. The Deep Earth Collection, which includes the metallic Volcanic Red, Cobalt Blue, and Sterling Silver. colorways are on sale for $54 after you apply coupon code: PLAY5 in your shopping cart. That's about 33% off and better than Amazon's Spring Sale.Lenovo might not be the first store you'd think of for great deals on PlayStation controllers, but surprisingly, no one can match their pricing. This might be your last chance to get a DualSense controller at this price for quite a while, at least until Sony's PlayStation Days of Play Sale that will probably happen sometime in late May.Sony PS5 DualSense Controller for $54Volcanic RedSony PS5 DualSense ControllerCobalt BlueSony PS5 DualSense ControllerSterling SilverSony PS5 DualSense ControllerThe original PS5 DualSense controller is decked out in the same white color scheme as the console itself and retails for $69.99. Since then, Sony has consistently released more and more colors, some of them more striking than others. In late 2023, Sony launched the Deep Earth collection, "a new metallic colorway for PS5 accessories" with aptly sounding names like Sterling Silver, Volcanic Red, and Cobalt Blue. These controllers retailed for $79.99 and were (and still are) one of the more striking color schemes. We rarely see these on sale compared to the other colors.Color aside, the Dualsense is oft regarded as the best PS5 controller under $100. It also makes for an excellent controller for your PC. The DualSense is modeled after the tried and true design and layout of previous PlayStation controllers, but it also packs in modern features such as haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, a built-in microphone and speaker, integrated touchpad, internal gyroscope and accelerometer for motion sensing, and USB Type-C charging.Why Should You Trust IGN's Deals Team?IGN's deals team has a combined 30+ years of experience finding the best discounts in gaming, tech, and just about every other category. We don't try to trick our readers into buying things they don't need at prices that aren't worth buying something at. Our ultimate goal is to surface the best possible deals from brands we trust and our editorial team has personal experience with. You can check out our deals standards here for more information on our process, or keep up with the latest deals we find on IGN's Deals account on Twitter.Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.