If youve been thinking about spending big on a premium display for your gaming PC, nows the perfect time to push through with a purchase because of the huge discounts you can get from Amazons Big Spring Sale 2025. Check this out: the 49-inch Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 gaming monitor, which usually sells for $1,600, is available with a 41% discount that drops its price to just $950. The $650 in savings is scheduled to last until March 31, but you still better hurry if youre interested because stocks of the gaming monitor may run out before the event ends.The 49-inch Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 gaming monitor, which received a high score of 4.5 out of 5 stars in our review, is featured in our list of the best gaming monitors as the best 32:9 gaming monitor. Its game-changing and one of the best OLED displays weve tested, and it all begins with the QD-OLED technology that delivers a wide color gamut, intense brightness levels, and inky black levels that will let you fully enjoy the graphics of the best PC games.Further increasing the immersion youll experience with the 49-inch Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 gaming monitor is the 1800R curvature on its screen, which fills your field of vision, and the 240Hz refresh rate and 0.03ms response time that result in extremely smooth animations and instant reaction times, according to our computer monitor buying guide. The gaming monitor will let you connect to multiple sources at once with its collection of ports that include HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort, and USB, and the Auto Source Switch feature automatically switches the monitors connection to the source thats functioning.RelatedTheres no shortage of monitor deals in Amazons Big Spring Sale, but only a few can match the savings you can get from this offer for the 49-inch Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 gaming monitor. From its original price of $1,600, its down to only $950 following a $650 discount, but we dont expect this bargain to last until the event ends on March 31. To make sure you buy the 49-inch Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 gaming monitor at 41% off, we highly recommend adding it to your cart and finishing the checkout process immediately.Editors Recommendations

Yo-Yo Ma narrates a documentary about the remarkable cellist, whose life and career were cut short by multiple sclerosis.

P2P Phoenix Napster to become a music-marketing metaverse firm after $207M acquisition Napster will promote music in "branded 3D virtual spaces," soon-to-be owner says. Scharon Harding Mar 25, 2025 4:00 pm | 32 Credit: Napster Credit: Napster Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreInfinite Reality, a media, ecommerce, and marketing company focused on 3D and AI-powered experiences, has entered an agreement to acquired Napster. That means that the brand originally launched in 1999 as a peer-to-peer (P2P) music file-sharing service is set to be reborn again. This time, new owners are reshaping the brand into one focused on marketing musicians in the metaverse.Infinite announced today a definitive agreement to buy Napster for $207 million. The Norwalk, Connecticut-based company plans to turn Napster into a social music platform that prioritizes active fan engagement over passive listening, allowing artists to connect with, own, and monetize the relationship with their fans." Jon Vlassopulos, who became Napster CEO in 2022, will continue with his role at the brand.Since 2016, Napster has been operating as a (legal) streaming service. It claims to have over 110 million high-fidelity tracks, with some supporting lossless audio. Napster subscribers can also listen offline and watch music videos. The service currently starts at $11 per month.Since 2022, Napster has been owned by Web3 and blockchain firms Hivemind and Algorand. Infinite also develops Web3 tech, and CEO John Acunto told CNBC that Algorands blockchain background was appealing, as was Napster's licenses for streaming millions of songs.To market musicians, Infinite has numerous ideas for helping Napster users interact more with the platform than they do with the current music streaming service. The company shared goals of using Napster to offer "branded 3D virtual spaces where fans can enjoy virtual concerts, social listening parties, and other immersive and community-based experiences" and more "gamification." Infinite also wants musicians to use Napster as a platform where fans can purchase tickets for performances, physical and virtual merchandise, and "exclusive digital content." The 6-year-old firm also plans to offer artists abilities to use "AI-powered customer service, sales, and community management agents" and "enhanced analytics dashboards to better understand fan behavior with Napster."I firmly believe that the artist-fan relationship is evolving, with fans craving hyper-personalized, intimate access to their favorite artists, while artists are searching for innovative ways to deepen connections with fans and access new streams of revenue," Acunto said in a statement.Napster has come a long way from its peak, when it reached 89 million users, per Infinite's announcement. In its earliest days, Napster was primarily used for sharing MP3 files that were often pirated. This didn't sit well with the music industry, and eventually Napster was slapped with big lawsuits from Metallica and the Recording Industry Association of America. (Seventeen years later, Metallica's full catalog would be available on Napster.) By 2001, Napster was shut down, and in 2002, the company filed for bankruptcy.After that, the Napster brand changed hands multiple times, including with Roxio, which made Napster an iTunes rival in 2003. The early 2000s saw Napster try various business ventures, including a Flash-based site that let you stream for free but without playlists and a subscription model.Best Buy owned Napster for a bit in 2008 but eventually sold it to Rhapsody, which relaunched the Napster brand as a streaming service in 2016. UK-based MelodyVR paid $70 million for the brand founded by Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning in 2020 before selling it in 2022 to the blockchain firms.Now, Napster is set to begin a new chapter. Infinite didn't disclose any plans to change the streaming service as it functions now. But Infinite's focus will be on creating new ways to monetize the service with emerging technologies. Other companies have failed to work out how to successfully put on virtual music events that people actually want to watch. But if Infinite fails, it's not hard to imagine the Napster brand emerging from the ashes yet again. As Infinite chief business officer Amish Shah put it, "The endurance of the Napster brand stands as a testament to its resilience."Scharon HardingSenior Technology ReporterScharon HardingSenior Technology Reporter Scharon is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica writing news, reviews, and analysis on consumer gadgets and services. She's been reporting on technology for over 10 years, with bylines at Toms Hardware, Channelnomics, and CRN UK. 32 Comments

Mind expanding Weve outsourced our confirmation biases to search engines Forcing the use of general search terms can help people change their minds. John Timmer Mar 25, 2025 3:41 pm | 12 Credit: Westend61 Credit: Westend61 Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn morePeople are often quite selective about the information they'll accept, seeking out sources that will confirm their biases, while discounting those that will challenge their beliefs. In theory, search engines can potentially change that. By prioritizing results from high-quality, credible sources, a search engine could ensure that people found accurate information more frequently, potentially opening them to the possibility of updating their beliefs.Obviously, that hasn't worked out on the technology side, as people quickly learned how to game the algorithms used by search engines, meaning that the webpages that get returned have been created by people with no interest in quality or credibility. But a new study is suggesting that the concept fails on the human side, too, as people tend to devise search terms that are specific enough to ensure that the results of the search will end up reinforcing their existing beliefs.The study showed that invisibly swapping search terms to something more general can go a long way toward enabling people to change their mind.Searching for affirmationThe new work was done by two researchers, Eugina Leung at Tulane University and Oleg Urminsky at the University of Chicago. Much of their study focuses on a simple question that people might turn to a search engine to answer: Is caffeine good or bad for you? If you wanted to search for that, you could potentially ask "what are the health effects of caffeine?" which should get you a mixture of the pros and cons. But people could also ask it in less neutral terms, such as, "Is caffeine bad for you?" These more specific searches are likely to pull up a more biased selection of results than the general, neutral terms.Leung and Urminsky did some tests that suggested this was likely to be a real-world problem. Using a Google Adwords planner, they pulled out some of the most common searches that included the word "caffeine" and found that over a quarter of them were narrowly focused and not likely to return a representative spectrum of information on the molecule's effects.Google data also suggests that people do tend to craft search terms that reflect their cognitive biases. "Google Trends data show that the higher the Republican vote share in a state," Leung and Urminsky write, "the more likely Google users in that state were to search 'Trump win' or 'Trump won' compared to searching 'Biden win' or 'Biden won.'"With that in mind, they designed a large series of experiments that looked into how these biases play out within controlled experiments. We won't go into all the details, but the general format of the work was to ask the participants their thoughts on an issue, such as whether caffeine was good or bad for you. The participants were then told to go search for more information, after which their opinions on the topic were checked again.The results, while not always dramatic, consistently pointed in the same direction: If a participant crafted narrow search terms, they were more likely to structure them in a way that should return information that confirms their biases. Or, as the researchers put it, "Experimental participants tended to devise questions that, if answered correctly, would corroborate rather than invalidate their hypothesis." And, not surprisingly, they were more likely to hang onto their original opinion after having been given the chance to look over the results of that search, whether it was provided by Google or GPT 3.5.The topic really didn't matter that much. Leung and Urminsky tested a list that included things like the societal impact of bitcoin to whether gas prices are likely to go up in the future. All of them displayed the same pattern. Again, it was never absolutenarrow searches tended to be 10 to 25 percent more common than general ones. There was simply a tendency to focus searches in a way that would likely reinforce existing beliefs. But that tendency was remarkably consistent.So, the researchers decided to see if they could upend it.Keeping it generalThe simplest way to change the dynamics of this was simply to change the results returned by the search. So, the researchers did a number of experiments where they gave all of the participants the same results, regardless of the search terms they had used. When everybody gets the same results, their opinions after reading them tend to move in the same direction, suggesting that search results can help change people's opinions.The researchers also tried giving everyone the results of a broad, neutral search, regardless of the terms they'd entered. This weakened the probability that beliefs would last through the process of formulating and executing a search. In other words, avoiding the sorts of focused, biased search terms allowed some participants to see information that could change their minds.Despite all the swapping, participants continued to rate the search results relevant. So, providing more general search results even when people were looking for more focused information doesn't seem to harm people's perception of the service. In fact, Leung and Urminsky found that the AI version of Bing search would reformulate narrow questions into more general ones.That said, making this sort of change wouldn't be without risks. There are a lot of subject areas where a search shouldn't return a broad range of informationwhere grabbing a range of ideas would expose people to fringe and false information.Nevertheless, it can't hurt to be aware of how we can use search services to reinforce our biases. So, in the words of Leung and Urminsky, "When search engines provide directionally narrow search results in response to users directionally narrow search terms, the results will reflect the users existing beliefs, instead of promoting belief updating by providing a broad spectrum of related information."PNAS, 2025. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2408175122 (About DOIs).John TimmerSenior Science EditorJohn TimmerSenior Science Editor John is Ars Technica's science editor. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. When physically separated from his keyboard, he tends to seek out a bicycle, or a scenic location for communing with his hiking boots. 12 Comments

Boeing's successful bidAn artist rendering shows an early version of Boeing's proposed design for the US Air Force's sixth-generation stealth fighter. Boeing President Donald Trump announced on Friday that Boeing was selected to develop the future combat aircraft, which will be designated the F-47.The designation is a deviation from typical naming conventions because it was previously used for the World War II-era fighter, the P-47.Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said the designation is a nod to the P-47 escort fighter of World War II, as well as the Air Force's founding year in 1947 and the "pivotal" support of the 47th US President Donald Trump in developing the aircraft.Winning the $20 billion NGAD contract will serve as a much-needed boost not only to its waning defense unit but also to recoup losses from the KC-46 tanker and new Air Force One aircraft.Steve Parker, interim president, and chief executive of Boeing Defense, Space, and Security, said the company made "the most significant investment in the history of our defense business" after being tasked with designing, building, and delivering the sixth-generation fighter to the Air Force."We are ready to provide the most advanced and innovative NGAD aircraft needed to support the mission," Parker said in a statement.The US Air Force's next-gen stealth planeAn early concept art rendering of the US Air Force's sixth-generation fighter. US Air Force The pursuit for America's next-generation platforms began over a decade ago in the early 2010s.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched a study in 2014 to explore strategies to maintain the US' edge in air superiority. It found that simply developing sixth-generation combat aircraft wouldn't be enough to ensure air superiority against US adversaries, instead urging a "family of systems" across multiple domains, including air, space, and cyberspace.Air superiority is the condition where a nation's aircraft can fly at minimal risk from other aircraft and surface-to-air missiles. The US's longtime edge in achieving this is increasingly threatened by the proliferation of air defense missiles and China's aircraft build-up, including two types of stealth fighters.Building upon DARPA's findings, the Air Force launched its own study, Air Superiority 2030, which laid the groundwork for its NGAD program, which envisioned creating a future hybrid fleet of crewed and uncrewed aerial systems.As one of the Air Force's most sensitive and highly classified programs, few details were publicly known about the NGAD program.In September 2020, Will Roper, then-Air Force acquisition chief, officially confirmed that the service had test-flown a prototype of its next-gen fighter. This was the first public acknowledgment of the top-secret program that he said he hoped would garner "greater credibility" on the program's progress.By 2023, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman appeared to be in the running to develop the NGAD platform, floating potential designs for it in promotional materials for their future projects a common practice among US military aircraft manufacturers.Northrop Grumman the lead contractor for the B-2 Spirit and B-21 Raider stealth bombers was also in the running to build the NGAD aircraft but dropped out of consideration as the prime developer in 2023, instead intending to support other bids as a supplier.Early concept designsA video promoting Boeing Phantom Works' upcoming projects appears to show a concept rendering of the next-generation platform. Boeing Defense/X Art renderings of the NGAD fighter show little more than the jet's sleek exterior and wings, revealing few details about the aircraft's final design.But concept designs released by the three competing legacy combat aircraft contractors could give an idea of what the F-47 could look like when it takes to the skies.In a promotional video released by Boeing Phantom Works in 2023, a brief rendering of a 3D model stealth plane showed assembling mid-flight to showcase the digital design capabilities to streamline the development of innovative aircraft.The hypothetical stealth aircraft appears to feature a flat, tailless cranked wing design with two engines.A fighter jet upsetAn art rendering shows Lockheed Martin's proposed design for the US Air Force's sixth-generation stealth fighter. Lockheed Martin Before Boeing was selected to build the F-47, Lockheed Martincombat aircraft production, leading some to believe that it would be the prime contractor of the NGAD platform.Following the fighter jet upset, Boeing's share price jumped 3% to $5.28 a share on Friday, adding $4 billion in market value. Meanwhile, Lockheed's stock"While disappointed with this outcome, we are confident we delivered a competitive solution," Lockheed Martin said in a statement.Boeing has long been a major player in the military aerospace sector, including developing the F-15 and F/A-18 fighter jets and the KC-46 aerial tanker.However, unlike competitors like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, which secured domestic contracts for the F-22 Raptor and B-2 Spirit stealth aircraft respectively, Boeing's long-term defense production largely relies on foreign acquisition and international defense sales.Boeing and Lockheed previously faced off to develop the fifth-generation multirole fighter as part of the Pentagon's Joint Strike Fighter program. Lockheed's X-35 beat out Boeing's X-32, entering production as the F-35 Lightning II.Lockheed's NGAD designLockheed Martin posted an aircraft outline that appeared to resemble an NGAD-like platform on its Instagram story. Lockheed Martin/Instagram Lockheed's hint at its potential NGAD concept proposal was a lot more subtle. In 2023, Lockheed's Skunk Works division posted a black-and-white aircraft outline on its Instagram to celebrate its 80th anniversary.Despite the lack of details in the cryptic post, the planform appears to resemble a tactical aircraft design, likely related to the Air Force's NGAD program.Lockheed further pointed to its potential future participation in the NGAD by releasing another promotional video later that year, seemingly referring to the Air Force's pursuit of a hybrid fleet. The video features crewed and uncrewed systems flying in formation, with Lockheed's F-35 surrounded by futuristic UAVs.Northrop Grumman withdraws NGAD bidA 2021 video released by Northrop Grumman featured concept renderings of its future aircraft projects, including what appears to be a next-generation fighter jet. Northrop Grumman/YouTube Northrop Grumman was also competing to be the prime contractor behind the Air Force's NGAD aircraft. The company hinted at its interest in participating in the NGAD program in a 2021 promotional video that appeared to include a tailless stealth fighter in a hangar with historic and futuristic aircraft.But Northrop Grumman's bid to build the NGAD fighter was cut short after it pulled out of consideration in 2023, CEO Kathy Warden announced.Warden added that the company was "responding to other bidders' request for proposal as the supplier, that's particularly in our mission system portfolio."Navy's next-gen fighter up for grabsAn artist rendering shows an early version of Northrop Grumman's design for the US Air Force's sixth-generation fighter. Northrop Grumman Northrop Grumman was selected to build the B-21 Raider, the Air Force's first sixth-generation stealth bomber, as part of the service's Long Range Strike Bomber program.The company unveiled the stealth bomber in late 2022, and the aircraft took its maiden flight in November 2023.Northrop Grumman is still in the running against Boeing to develop the Navy's next-generation fighter, the F/A-XX, which aims to replace the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.Steep ambitions, steep price tagAn artist rendering of the US Air Force's sixth-generation fighter, the F-47. US Air Force The NGAD's steep ambitions to revolutionize the USair superiority missioncome with an equally steep price tag. In 2018, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the NGAD airframe alone could cost up to $300 million each.Then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in 2023 that he anticipated the unit cost to be "too expensive to be purchased in large numbers," revealing the service's plan to team each NGAD with two CCAs.From 2022 to 2024, Congress allocated $5.1 billion to develop NGAD-related technologies, which included a "strategic pause" in the program due to high project costs. In 2025, the Biden administration requested $2.75 billion to build an NGAD platform, which could skyrocket to an estimated $5.72 billion by 2029.'China is a threat today'An F-22 flies over Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. US Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Paige Weldon Kendall emphasized the pressing need for the NGAD "family of systems" amid evolving threats by US adversaries, especially after the Pentagon truncated the procurement of F-22 jets from 750 to 187 in 2009."NGAD will include attributes such as enhanced lethality and the ability to survive, persist, interoperate, and adapt in the air domain, all within highly contested operational environments," Kendall said in May 2023. "No one does this better than the US Air Force, but we will lose that edge if we don't move forward now."The urgency is also spurred in part by China's increasingly sophisticated long-range air defense and electronic warfare systems as China-Taiwan tensions contribute to growing militarization in the Indo-Pacific.The F-47 is expected to operate closely with two new uncrewed fighters, so-called "loyal wingmen" that are capable of flying missions too dangerous for a pilot in the cockpit.In a potential war scenario with China, defense analysts argued the F-22's limited range and payload capacity would be ill-suited for the terrain, consisting of islands spread hundreds of miles apart, leaving the fleet vulnerable to attack during refueling efforts."China is not a future threat; China is a threat today," Kendall said during a 2024 keynote address."I am not saying war in the Pacific is imminent or inevitable. It is not," he added. "But I am saying that the likelihood is increasing and will continue to do so."

US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was one of the top officials who used the Signal app to discuss airstrikes in an apparent breach of security protocol. ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP via Getty Images 2025-03-25T22:43:15Z SaveSaved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? Military social media is buzzing with memes about officials' use (or misuse) of Signal.Trump officials mistakenly added a journalist to a Signal chat on military operations.The Pentagon recently warned against using Signal due to hacking concerns.Is the cure to male loneliness starting a group text to bomb the Houthis?That's one of the sarcastic questions posed in memes blowing up across military-focused social media after top Trump officials used Signal to discuss airstrikes against Yemen's Houthi militants an operational security violation, or OPSEC, almost certain to be career-ending or worse for a rank-and-file soldier.Vice President JD Vance, Trump's national security advisor Mike Waltz, and other top officials debated whether to strike Yemen in a group chat that mistakenly included Jeffery Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, who reported on the chaotic exchange. Goldberg reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared an attack plan, including the names of those being targeted, before the airstrikes on the encrypted app raising concerns this practice could spoil the operation or endanger troops.President Donald Trump said Tuesday that "there was no classified information as I understand it," and Waltz added, "We have our legal teams looking at it."Signal has been widely used for years throughout lower military levels for communication. But even junior troops with access to top-secret materials, which could include pending missile strikes, have long known that communicating such sensitive details should only be done via government-provided secure lines, like SIPR (secure internet protocol router) email or phone, making the message exchange an intelligence gaffe of preposterous proportions.The founder of Signal, Moxie Marlinspike, mocked the spillage."Now including the opportunity for the vice president of the United States of America to randomly add you to a group chat for coordination of sensitive military operations," he wrote in a post on X Monday.Likely because of Signal's popularity, the Pentagon released new guidance last week discouraging the app's use even for everyday communications, NPR reported Tuesday. According to the memo NPR cites, "Russian professional hacking groups are employing the 'linked devices' features to spy on encrypted conversations," the guidance read."The use of Signal by common targets of surveillance and espionage activity has made the application a high value target to intercept sensitive information."The memo was dated March 18, one week after the baffling Houthi chat began.Memes circulating online poke fun at Hegseth, Vance, Waltz, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, all military veterans who presumably had to undergo annual cyber awareness while serving.Many memes and users pondered whether the entire military would be required to brush up on OPSEC (operational security) classes and ask if the adage "different spanks for different ranks," will continue to hold true.Former CIA operations officer John Sipher called the move "worse tha[n] amateur" in a post on BlueSky. "It 100% provides Moscow information on US capabilities and personalities. Information they can use down the line or share with Iran the Houthi enablers. It may provide ongoing access to some participants."Okay this one is my favorite Signal gate meme[image or embed] ex-Lethality Jane (@lethalityjane.bsky.social) March 25, 2025 at 2:04 PM"Member when all we had to worry about was some S2 dork bringing his cellphone into the scif?" asked one commenter, referring to personnel in ultra-secure areas known as sensitive compartmented information facilities. "Pepperidge farms remembers.""Text STOP to unsubscribe from war plan updates," read another."Somewhere a US Army counterintelligence agent is having a minor breakdown over how he has a perfect new case study for his annual OPSEC brief but he won't be able to use it for at least four years," read yet another BlueSky post.Somewhere a US Army counterintelligence agent is having a minor breakdown over how he has a perfect new casestudy for his annual OPSEC brief but he won't be able to use it for at least four years. ex-Lethality Jane (@lethalityjane.bsky.social) March 24, 2025 at 7:50 PMIt's unclear if Waltz, Hegseth, and other top leaders must take the same cyber awareness training that the rank and file are required to complete annually.

Lord of the Rings is no stranger to LEGO, but this new set is notable for its cosiness more than its grandeur here's all we know about LEGO Icons The Lord of the Rings: The ShireTech23:08, 25 Mar 2025Are you here on 'party business'?There's never a dull moment when LEGO is concerned. While we saw the reveal of a Pokemon LEGO collaboration last week, the company is back with a stunning new Lord of the Rings set.While Lord of the Rings has seen plenty of stunning LEGO sets with Rivendell, Barad-Dur, and a handful of BrickHeadz, this new LEGO Icons The Lord of the Rings: The Shire looks absolutely gorgeous and actually kind of cosy.Article continues belowThe new set includes Bilbo Baggins' home, while also including no fewer than nine minifigures, with a real Hobbit (well, actor Sean Astin) revealing all. Here's all we know.Remember, a wizard is never lateNot all those who wander are lost especially when travelling through the astonishing detail of the Shire made out of LEGO bricks! Astin says in a neat video package LEGO has put together.From the smallest hobbit-hole to the grandest fireworks, building this set brought back so many fond memories of Middle-earth.""Now fans can journey there themselves and build their own adventures.The "Unexpected Gathering" set took us to the Shire before, but this is all about Bilbo's famous 'eleventy-first' birthday party from the start of Fellowship of the Ring.Happy Birthday, Bilbo!The set will set you back 229.99, and has 2,017 pieces. It includes the front of Bilbo's home, while also featuring an interior, Merry and Pippin messing around with fireworks, some external decorations and that all-important dragon firework.As for the minifigs, you'll find Frodo and Bilbo, Gandalf, Merry, Pippin, Samwise, Mrs Proudfoot, Farmer Proudfoot and Rosie Cotton the latter three being debutants in LEGO form.Article continues belowFor the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.

Monster Hunter Wilds will introduce a new Monster and much, much more with its free title update dropping in the coming weeks here's everything we learned todayTech23:03, 25 Mar 2025Mizutsune should prove a challengeCapcom held its first look at the Monster Hunter Wilds Title Update today, and it certainly looks impressive.The free update, which forms the first part of an ambitious post-launch roadmap, will introduce a returning monster with the 'bubble dragon' Mizutsune, as well as more challenging encounters.Article continues belowThe game hit huge player numbers on launch day, despite some performance issues on PC, so Mizutsune will soon be coming up against millions of Hunters. Thankfully, the new Grand Hub should make it easier to party up with friends and like-minded comrades (something players had been complaining about).Here's all we learned today, with the full presentation below.The highlight is definitely Mizutsune, the 'bewitching dancer' who looks lethal in the new footage as it uses bubbles and swiftness. You only need to hit HR 21 to tackle the monster, too, which is nice.Naturally, a new monster brings new gear, too, so players can deck themselves and their Palico out.The new armour sets look greatMizutsune isn't alone, either. Arch-tempered Rey Dau, a tougher version of the lightning dragon, will arrive as part of an Event Quest on April 29, and offers its own rewards. You'll need to be HR 50 or above to take on the electrifying beast.Zoh Shia will be added as a repeatable foe, and comes with yet more slick armour to earn. And, it'll be easier than ever to team up with friends with the new Grand Hub.The new area comes with Barrel Bowling, arm wrestling, and The Diva, who you can watch while enjoying your time. It's accessible after reaching HR 16.Time trials are here as part of new Arena Quests, too, and you'll get Pendants for doing so. Better times give snazzier Pendants, while Challenge Quests will set your equipment before you fight.Yes, there's new Palico armour from Mizutsune New outfits for Alma, classic gestures, and a cosmetic pack will also arrive on April 4.As for what's next, a Seasonal Event called Festival of Accord: Blossomdance will kick off on Tuesday April 22. Interestingly, Capcom is teasing a 'Capcom Collaboration' at the end of May.Interestingly, it seems Lagiacrus could be the headline monster of Title Update 2. That's planned for Summer.Monster Hunter Wilds is Capcom's fast-selling game in the company's history, selling more than 8 million copies in its first three days.Article continues belowFor the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.

A24 and filmmaker Alex Scharfman are ready to shine a new light on unicorn lore with the arthouse distributors latest genre release. In Death of a Unicorn, Jenna Ortega (Wednesday) and Paul Rudd (Avengers: Endgame) play a daughter and father who accidentally run over a baby unicorn on the way to an important meetingone that could make or break their familys dealings with the dads mega-rich employer. The bizarre sequence of events leads to a discovery that could change the world, if it actually gets out of the realm of a mansion in the secluded magical woods. io9 recently sat down with Scharfman to discuss the films genesis, the decision to cast Ortega alongside some of the funniest actors working today, and why satire in todays world needs to be fantastical in order to be able to laugh at it. Sabina Graves, io9: So, Im not usually a unicorn fan, but I think you finally made me a unicorn girly. So thank you for that. Alex Scharfman: Thats what Jenna said too. Jenna was not into unicorns. I mean, I wasnt into unicorns until I started researching the movie. But yeah, I think hopefully people are getting a layer of depth that we didnt know was there for a while. io9: I get it now. They can be metal as hell. Lets start at the beginning. What is the backstory on you taking on this project specifically? Because its a wild ride.Scharfman: The idea just kind of came to me; the opening scene sort of splodged in my head somewhere and I dont really know where that came from. But sometimes that sort of thing happens, where you imagine a scene and youre like, Where does that go? This very naturally just started pulling the thread of like, Where does that lead? and What if someone hits a unicorn with their car? What is a unicorn? Like, what do we bring to that as a people? io9: When you imagined this happening to a daughter and her father, did you think, Oh yeah, Paul Rudd would be that dad?Scharfman: At the time, no, it was before actors or charactersit was a scenario. And I didnt know what was going on or where they were going or what it was; [it was] just something that stuck out in my mind. It took me a couple of years to even start exploring it. io9: Definitely. And it also gave me the vibes of a Kurt Vonnegut short story that takes fantastical elements to tell a very real satire tale. Scharfman: Can I just say Im a huge Kurt Vonnegut nerd? And he actually has a story about a father and son in the Middle Ages, which is weird.io9: Oh yeah, his unicorn hunting story. A24 Scharfman: Unicorn Trap.io9: Right! Scharfman: Yeah, okay. So you know the story. io9: Did you actually think about that while you were writing this, or was it happenstance?Scharfman: That was kind of happenstance to be honest. I have read and have the full Vonnegut anthology. Ive read every short story hes ever written. But that one was not one that I was actively thinking of, because the unicorns arent actually that big of a central figure in that. Its more about the father and son. io9: Definitely with that in mind, obviously youre a huge fan of satire then. Do you think there are fundamentals to making a satire film like this, especially during a time where literally every day in real life feels like a satire? Scharfman: Its funny, when I started writing this, I started outlining it like 2019. And I think fall 2019, Knives Out had just come out and I was like, Oh, cool, satire. Obviously, weve had a lot of satire lately in a class commentary vein. I think there was something about this that was attractive to me, when I started researching unicorn mythology and unicorn lore, which I think at a certain point I realized was kind of inherently about class and about social structures and strata. But especially the tapestries that we encounter in the movie that are referenced throughout, those are about a lord sending out his court and his minions to go kill a unicorn and bring it back to him so he can possess it forever. Its very much about commodifying nature and social hierarchy that allows one person to say, Go do this for me and bring it back here so I can own something, which I think is fundamentally about class and satire. I thought the story was kind of naturally asking for that. In terms of the context of 2025, I think when youre doing a horror satire, the fun of that is being able to do both horror and satire. [They] are genres that live well with metaphors and I think theres a fun opportunity to align metaphors. However, I do think that theres something intentionally unsubtle about the movie that I think is because we live in unsubtle times. And maybe thats what we do at this moment is, you know, we live in an era when the worlds wealthiest man has an office in the White House; its very much like its all on the surface. Now I feel like things used to be a lot more veiled and there were certain degrees of decorum or norms that have since been kind of chucked out the window. It felt appropriate to me to make something that was direct and hopefully cathartic, and I certainly thought about the unicorns having a sense of violent restorative justice, which feels appropriate for the moment we live in. io9: Like the whales versus yachts! Amazing. No, its so wild that this just happened to get on that wavelength, because I was dying from Will [Poulters] petulant tech bro performance. Because Im just like, wow, like were seeing a person like that all the time now, normalized, but he just nailed that role.Scharfman: I couldnt agree more. Im so lucky Will is in the movie and delivers the performance that he did because I think its funny and its wild and over the top and big, but its also very grounded in this kind of human psychology that I think speaks to a larger degree of, How do we get here? What kind of personality type did we as a society develop and foster into existence? This millennial man-child tech bro, these self-styled masters of the universe who think they have all the answers through a degree of bravado and just bolstering forward. A24 io9: He and everyone you surrounded Jenna with are the funniest people. So its kind of wild to see her up against the bonkers likes of Richard [E. Grant] and Paul [Rudd] with a straight face. That bit with Anthony [Carrigan] and the damn grandfather clock. I did not catch it on the first view until Jenna pointed it out!Scharfman: That was one of my favorite jokes; it really kills me. The movie takes inspiration from a lot of creature features from the 70s to 90s, but also class satires in the sense of genre, like Luis Buuels The Exterminating AngelGosford Park. These movies are real ensemble movies, which, I love an ensemble movie where you kind of have all these characters standing in for archetypes for social structures or things bigger than themselves. And because theyre this ensemble in a very contained way, they get to be a little bit larger than life. In this very contained ecosystem [of a film] it affords people the opportunity to be a little big from time to time, and to kind of lead it to that theatricality and that fun dash of camp. It was just fun populating that and then Jenna was kind of the audiences surrogate. Shes our eyes and ears. Shes the person whose values we agree with. That was kind of the nature of the story, [it] was always [Jennas character] Ridley at the center of this bizarre world and dealing with these crazy people, with the Leopold family and their schemes. Pauls character really recognizes [they] are crazy, but he wants things from the crazy people, so hes acting as if theyre not and shes not down with the game. io9: Touching back on your inspirations for the creature feature aspect of this, I for sure got John Carpenter and Amblin vibes. What are the mechanics of getting deep into thatobviously creating unicorns where they are a combination of practical and CG, and how you wanted to frame them in the story? Im so happy you didnt shy away from hiding them. Scharfman: I think in a contemporary creature feature, you need to satisfy that for the audience, and especially with a movie thats intentionally reinventing a creature. Keeping them in shadow, keeping them in fog, obscuring them for a while but by the end of the movie theyre in broad daylight just walking down the stairs, you know, and giving you that pleasure of saying Were actually going to get a good clean look at this thing.io9: What did the actors have to act against for all those suspenseful scenes? Scharfman: It was a combination of things we had. At times we had live horses on set, we had puppets on set. We had really large beautiful puppets. I love the puppets; they were so much fun. And whenever possible we use the puppets. It was really important throughout the whole process to have as much as possible practical elements in place, not just for the actors but for me composing shots, just wanting to see those as much as possible. Theres certainly VFX, but even when we had VFX, we had our puppet heads that were more of a VFX lighting reference head. We would have puppeteers still walk through the shots so that the actors knew where the creature would be, and knew what the creature would look like in each position, and how it would be moving around. Theres a real tactility to them; theres some shots that are just puppets, obviously, in the movie. Its always exciting when you can figure that out its part of the puzzle of the filmmaking process for a movie like this. Death of a Unicorn opens this Friday. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, whats next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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