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Key parts of the Social Security website have proven inaccessible over the past week, and the agency now says that it is probing the cause of the service disruptions. The problems come not long after the agency compelled retirees to seek help more exclusively online, as it attempts to downsize its phone operations. Last week, the Washington Post reported that the agencys website had crashed four times in 10 days this month because the servers were overloaded, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts. Now, the agency has responded, claiming thats not quite the case. There have been a couple of recent incidents impacting My Social Security and we are actively investigating the root cause, SSA spokeswoman Nicole Tiggemann told the Associated Press. Tiggemann claimed that the website was still operational during the incidents but that some people may have experienced a problem signing in to their personal My Social Security account. The reported problems took place not long after the agency encouraged retirees to reach out for help online and announced the nixing of phone-based identity verification. After much backlash, the agency partially retracted the announced policy change for those retirees applying for Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicare, or Supplemental Security Income. However, the plan still seems to be to drastically scale down the agencys phone services, which could have a major impact on Americans access to benefits. Newsweek recently reported that the people who would be hit hardest by the changes are Trumps own voters. The agency has been on the defensive in recent weeks, as ongoing backlash to its announced policy changes (and the involvement of Elon Musks DOGE in those changes) have spurred an outpouring of confusion and anger. Critics believe that DOGE may be intentionally attempting to sabotage the agency in an effort to justify its closure. Meanwhile, Musk has continued to publicly disparage Social Security, spreading lies about the amount of fraud impacting the program. At a political event in Wisconsin this week (where the billionaire is attempting to buy the Supreme Court election), Musk claimed: One interesting statistic was that 40 percent of the calls into Social Security were fraudulent, meaning that it was someone trying to get a Social Security payment that was going to a senior instead to go to a fraud ring, a claim that the New York Times has noted has no basis in reality and may in fact be a misunderstanding (or a purposeful skewing) of a different statistic.The SSA recently disputed the news that it would be closing field offices across the country, despite the fact that DOGE has very publicly listed dozens of SSA field offices on a website dedicated to federal lease terminations. Recent reports in the media that the Social Security Administration (SSA) is permanently closing local field offices are false. Since January 1, 2025, the agency has not permanently closed or announced the permanent closure of any local field office, the agency said last week. From time to time, SSA must temporarily close a local field office for reasons such as weather, damage, or facilities issues, and it reopens when the issues are resolved, it continued. The agency has announced the permanent closure of one hearing office, in White Plains, NY. The announced closure of the White Plains office is actually quite a big deal, as it is one of the largest in New York state, and is the only one in the county of Westchester (which has a population of approximately a million people). SSA identified for the General Services Administration underutilized office space to ensure the government is spending taxpayer money as prudently as possible. The agency provided GSA a list of sites for termination, the statement continues, seeming to admit thatcontrary to what it just saidit is planning on closing numerous SSA offices. Most of these are small hearing rooms with no assigned employees. Since most hearings are held virtually, SSA no longer needs these underutilized rooms.Social security activists have said that the changes ushered in under DOGEs watch will lead to deaths, and former federal officials have been highly critical of the governments new approach to the nearly 100-year-old program. The agencys former commissioner, Martin OMalley, has claimed that the changes instituted could lead to large-scale service disruptions as soon as June.

7 HeavenFinal Fantasy 7 Remake is coming to Switch 2, so get your pointy quiff and big sword readyYou're getting some Final Fantasy with the new console.Image credit: Square Enix News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on April 2, 2025 What would the Nintendo Switch 2 be without some Final Fantasy delivered especially for the new console? Slightly less interesting in the hair department, you say? Fair, but we don't have fear that reality, because Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade is coming to Switch 2 at an indeterminate date.Yep, Cloud and his pointy quiff/big sword combo have rocked up at today's Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, to share that news the Remake is coming to Switch 2, though no date as to when that'll be has been given yet.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Instead, director Naoki Hamaguchi just told us to stay tuned for more updates on FF7 Remake coming to Switch 2. There was no mention of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth coming to Switch 2 here, in case you were wondering.So, there you go. If you don't know what you're in for our FF7 Remake review saw Kirk McKeand write: "Some of the changes are huge, and not entirely successful. I wont go into details, but one tweak left me feeling like Id been conned. And newcomers will likely just have no idea whats going on. Characters that were fleshed out over the course of the original game feel rushed and without context - its like youre expected to know who they are. It is too meta."While Im excited for the next game, I felt deflated for an entire day after the credits rolled. But the journey is completely worth it. Midgar is so well-realised, the main characters are wonderfully done, and the battle system is masterful. I can see myself moseying through the entire 40 hours again. At times it felt almost overwhelming to actually be playing it - like Square Enix had made a game specifically for me. I just wish the loyalty to the source material lasted throughout. Despite that, theres no denying that this is the best Final Fantasy has been in a long time."Make sure to check out the rest of our coverage of today's big Switch 2 Direct, since it featured like a hour worth of video games and also facts about the new Nintendo video game box that I'm sure your brain needs to ingest.

A new Kirby Air Ride game is coming, at last! Kirby Air Riders is coming in 2025, and is being directed by none other than Smash Bros royalty Masahiro Sakurai. There's no word yet on when exactly this year it'll be coming out, but nonetheless, expect it soon. Read more

Tutorial is a paid download.It was revealed today that the Nintendo Switch 2 will launch alongside a paid app which teaches you all about the new console.Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour launches on the same day as the consoleJune 5thand teaches you the ins and outs of the system.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Still no specifics, mind you.Well, here's a face that we had grown tired of anticipating! Hollow Knight: Silksong made a cameo in today's Nintendo Switch 2 Direct presentation yes, an actual, real cameo and it was accompanied by a 2025 release window.We saw very little of Team Cherry's sequel, all in all, but the blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in the presentation's sizzle reel has us pumped for more info.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

AI sales rep startups are a very crowded market these days. If youre driving into San Francisco from the airport, youll probably spot billboards promising that you can Stop Hiring Humans (Artisan) or urging you to Hire Piper, the AI SDR (Qualified). While some of these startups are certainly growing fast, the field has its challenges and some VCs are wary.Anshul Gupta, co-founder of Actively AI, admits the early versions of these AI sales tools dont live up to their own hype. Gupta claims classic AI sales reps arent the right approach, telling TechCrunch theyve failed by focusing too much pure volume that means contacting as many potential customers as possible.Founded in 2022, Actively AI argues it has a different approach. The startup builds custom reasoning models for companies to sift through their data and find the highest-value prospects to sell to, mirroring the work that top human sales reps do.Its a new way of leveraging reasoning tech, a technique thats taken the AI world by storm by forcing AI models to flesh out their logic and double-check their work.Actively claims this method is working, touting that it has helped clients like fintech Ramp get tens of millions of dollars in extra revenue.The New York-based startup has now raised $17.5 million in Series A funding from Bain Capital Ventures, it exclusively told TechCrunch. That follows a previously unannounced $5 million seed round from First Round Capital, bringing total funding to $22.5 million.We call it GTM Superintelligencea reasoning-driven approach that doesnt just automate or assist, but actively makes the best possible decisions to drive growth, Activelys CEO (and other co-founder) Mihir Garimella said in a statement.The startup says it uses a combination of in-house models and popular reasoning models from OpenAI and Anthropic to power its tech. Both founders previously studied AI at Stanford, with Garimella focusing on a field closely related to reasoning called active learning, giving Actively its name.Activelys fundraise is the latest evidence that the boom in reasoning models could be spreading beyond foundational AI companies like OpenAI or DeepSeek to startups.Just last week, for example, a YC-backed startup raised $5 million claiming it had built a reasoning engine for slashing paperwork in healthcare. That startup, Taxo, said it had passed $1 million ARR in six months. (Actively declined to share its exact ARR, but said it has grown tenfold in 9 months.)Its still a bit early to tell whether Activelys reasoning-powered approach will work as advertised, or if this will become just a new spin on AI sales tools. After all, reasoning only really took off late last year with the rise of DeepSeek. For now, though, some investors are certainly buying the pitch.

Cloud infrastructure is dominated by several large industry players: AWS, Microsofts Azure, and Google Cloud. While to some it may look like AI is headed in a similar direction, the founders of Parasail think AI infrastructure will look very different and are betting their companys fate on it.Parasail works with dozens of providers to deliver on-demand GPUs for companies and enterprises looking to build AI models and applications. Parasail gives customers access to hardware, including Nvidias H100, H200, A100, and 4090 GPUs, at a fraction of the cost that incumbents charge, according to the company.Theres basically three cloud vendors who run the internet, and that isnt exactly how the internet is being rebuilt when you look at AI, Tim Harris, one of Parasails co-founders and the CEO of Swift Navigation, told TechCrunch. Its much more fragmented. The compute is much more fungible and fluid, so you can actually inherently run it in a more horizontal nature, and thats really what we were trying to do.Harris added, We didnt want a world where AI was controlled from soup to nuts by the hyperscalers.Harris and Parasail CEO Mike Henry had the idea for the startup a few years back. Henry, the former CPO of Groq, told TechCrunch that he had spent a long time thinking about what it would take to build AI infrastructure that could compete with Nvidia. He said that when he realized AI infrastructure was being rapidly built up by numerous players, he saw an opportunity for a horizontal move.According to Henry, the rapid clip of innovation happening in AI hardware was making it difficult for companies to keep up.We had to really focus on, how do we make [this] as simple as possible for the customer? Henry said. Theyre barely keeping up with the open-source model releases alone.Harris and Henry got started on the company back in 2023, hired an engineering team, and began building in early 2024. Today, theres no shortage of vendors looking to help enterprises and other companies build and scale their AI products. From hyperscalers like Nvidia and Microsoft to startups such as Together AI and Lepton AI, customers have plenty of options.The Parasail founders dont think theyre all one and the same. Sure, all these vendors provide GPUs and AI infrastructure, Henry said, but he thinks the proprietary technology Parasail has running under the hood helps it stand out. This tech is what connects Parasails GPUs from various sources together.Wednesday marks the official launch of its platform, but Parasail is already working with dozens of customers including Elicit, Weights & Biases, and Rasa. The company has also raised $10 million from a seed round in 2024 that had participation from Basis Set Ventures, Threshold Ventures, Buckley Ventures, and Black Opal Ventures.To gain meaningful market share, Parasail will have to go head-to-head with hyperscalers and bet on the demand for GPUs continuing to grow. There is reason to believe that it will, but there are also signs like Microsoft canceling some of its data center contracts that the predictions around needed AI infrastructure may be a bit overblown.We see literally no end [to] the demand, Harris said. Its really that customers have a hard time doing it have a hard time scaling AI. The models now are getting to a place where [companies] can just grab open-source models and pretty much run them, but then being able to get access to GPUs, access to data centers, all the optimizations we can do that with a click of a button.

Step into the mystical world of Carpathia with The Legend of Ochi, where a young girls fate intertwines with a mysterious creature. In this First Look, meet Ochi, the adorable yet elusive being brought to life through incredible puppetry!The VFX are made by:Kings Ransom Media (VFX Supervisor: Nicolaus Waetjen)XReality Studios (VFX Supervisor: Ignacio Lacosta)Selected Works (VFX Supervisor: Francois Roisin)In-house team (VFX Supervisor: Grant White, CG Supervisor: Erik Ferguson, VFX artists: Leandro Vasquez, Jack Stone, Chris Fraser, Giles Hicks, Ralph Briscoe andDaniel Lpez)The Production VFX Supervisor is Grant White.Director: Isaiah SaxonRelease Date: April 25, 2025 (USA) Vincent Frei The Art of VFX 2025The post The Legend of Ochi appeared first on The Art of VFX.

AI-driven 3D modeling platform Tripo AI has introduced an Application Programming Interface (API) to generate high-quality 3D models from text and image inputs.With this launch, Tripo aims to provide developers with tools to integrate 3D model generation into their applications and services. Designed to enhance user interaction, create immersive environments, and support simulation development, the API offers various features intended to streamline creative workflows.Available through a dedicated web application, Tripos capabilities are also accessible via its API, which is tailored for broader and more customized use cases. For developers looking to streamline their 3D modeling process, Tripos API offers a variety of tools designed to streamline processes ranging from initial drafts to polished, animated models.3D model of a retro style shield. Image via Tripo AI.Key features of Tripos APIOne of the standout features is the APIs ability to generate quick drafts from text and image inputs. Rather than spending hours manually crafting initial concepts, users can produce basic models in a matter of minutes. This approach is aimed at speeding up the prototyping process, allowing developers to explore different designs or perspectives before diving into detailed modeling.Theres also the option to enhance these draft models, moving from rough concepts to high-resolution versions without having to start from scratch. For developers focused on refining their designs, this capability offers a straightforward path to producing polished results.In addition to model generation and refinement, Tripos API supports automated animations, allowing static designs to be brought to life. The idea here is to make presentations and user experiences more dynamic, with minimal effort required on the developers part.Customization and conversion are also on the table. Users can stylize models with creative twists, such as converting them into lego-like or voxel-based versions, to suit various project needs. On top of that, the API supports conversion into widely-used formats like USDZ and FBX, ensuring compatibility across different platforms and applications.Describing its API as a scalable solution, Tripo has also provided a documentation with detailed setup instructions and usage guidelines aimed at ensuring smooth integration and reliable performance.Developments in Text-to-CAD toolsGrowing interest in generative AI has contributed to the expansion of text-to-CAD platforms within the 3D printing sector.For example, Zoo, previously known as KittyCAD, introduced its AI-powered Text-to-CAD tool following a rebranding effort in January 2024. Designed as an open-source platform, the tool uses the KittyCAD design API and ML-ephant machine learning API to convert short text prompts into CAD files, with export options including formats like STL, OBJ, and FBX.The tools effectiveness largely depends on how precisely users describe their intended designs. While vague prompts tend to produce simplistic or inaccurate results, providing clear details about size, shape, and features leads to more accurate and functional models. Zoo is also planning to offer customization options, allowing users to fine-tune the tool using proprietary datasets for tailored applications.A helical gear CAD model generated using Zoos text-to-CAD tool. Image by 3D Printing Industry.Another contribution came from GPU manufacturer Nvidia developing its Magic3D text-to-3D model tool in parallel with Googles DreamFusion and Physna Inc.s generative AI prototype for creating 3D models and scenes.According to a research paper, the tool uses a two-step approach where it first generates a basic, low-resolution model, which is then refined to achieve higher resolution. Magic3D also supports prompt-based editing of 3D meshes. After uploading a base prompt and a low-resolution model, users can alter the text input to modify the resulting 3D model.What3D printing trendsshould you watch out for in 2025?How is thefuture of 3D printingshaping upTo stay up to date with the latest 3D printing news, dont forget to subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter or follow us on Twitter, or like our page on Facebook.While youre here, why not subscribe to our Youtube channel? Featuring discussion, debriefs, video shorts, and webinar replays.Featured image shows a 3D model of a retro style shield. Image via Tripo AI.