Nature, Published online: 02 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08744-2A general reinforcement-learning algorithm, called Dreamer, outperforms specialized expert algorithms across diverse tasks by learning a model of the environment and improving its behaviour by imagining future scenarios.

Nature, Published online: 02 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08800-xUsing a natural experiment that avoids common bias concerns, this study finds that the live-attenuated shingles vaccine reduced the probability of a new dementia diagnosis within a follow-up period of 7 years by approximately one-fifth.

Nintendo has finally revealed that the Nintendo Switch 2 will launch on June 5. The console will cost $450, and will have a bundle that includes Mario Kart World for $500. Along with that announcement, Nintendo also unveiled new games and updates coming in a Nintendo Direct, showing off what you can play on the new hardware. While some of those Nintendo Switch 2 games are coming later in the year, or beyond in the case of From Software's The Duskbloods, we have compiled a list of everything that will be available on launch day, June 5.This list includes a combination of new games, ports of older third-party games, and Nintendo Switch 2 additions of Switch games. The pricing of some of these, like upgrades for Nintendo Switch games, haven't been revealed just yet, but we do know a few are coming at launch. Mario Kart WorldMario Kart World is the next Mario Kart game, touting an open-world racing adventure with 24 player races, and tons of costumes for the racers. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the WildThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is getting a paid upgrade for Switch 2, with improved frame rate and graphics. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the KingdomTears of the Kingdom is also getting a paid update at Switch 2 launch, with both of these paid upgrades included in Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pass. Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD RemasterAn HD Remaster of Bravely Default will be available at launch for Switch 2, complete with new minigames and updated graphics. Survival KidsSurvival Kids is a co-op survival crafting game from Konami, following kids stranded on desert islands where they need to craft and collect. Rune Factory: Guardians of AzumaRune Factory: Guardians of Azuma is a new fantasy farming sim game, coming to Switch 2 at launch. Split FictionHazelight's new critically acclaimed co-op platformer Split Fiction is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 at launch, offering two player minigame and platforming fun. Final Fantasy 7 Remake IntergradeFinal Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade, which includes the first game in the remake trilogy and its Yuffie DLC, will be available at launch. Street Fighter 6Street Fighter 6, the latest entry in Capcom's fighting game series, will be available and there will be both a base edition and an edition with Year 1-2 Fighters. Civilization 7A Nintendo Switch 2 edition of Civilization 7 will be available, including upgraded graphics and mouse Joy-Con controls. Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate EditionCD Projekt Red's critically acclaimed sci-fi RPG Cyberpunk 2077 will be available on Nintendo Switch 2, with the Ultimate Edition including the Phantom Liberty expansion. Hogwarts LegacyHogwarts Legacy, the open-world RPG set in the wizarding school of Hogwarts, will be available at launch on Switch 2. Yakuza 0 Director's CutYakuza 0, the prequel to Ryu Ga Gotoku's beat-'em-up open-world Yakuza franchise, will launch with new cutscenes and a new multiplayer mode. FortniteThe free-to-play battle royale, rhythm game, and Lego survival crafting game Fortnite will have a Switch 2 edition at launch. Deltarune Chapters 1-4Deltarune, the follow-up game from the creator of Undertale, will be launching chapters 3 and 4 on Nintendo Switch 2 at launch. The previous chapters will also be available, but have been previously available on PC. Nobubaga's Ambition: Awakening Complete EditionA complete edition of Nobunaga's Ambition, a military strategy game, will be available, including previous DLC and new scenarios. Puyo Puyo Tetris 2SAn updated version of 2020's Puyo Puyo Tetris will launch alongside Switch 2, adding new multiplayer modes to the competitive puzzle game. Fast FusionFast Fusion, a hyper-fast, futuristic racing game, will launch on Switch 2 with race car customization and local multiplayer support. Hitman: World of Assassination - Signature EditionIn addition to confirming its upcoming James Bond game will be coming to Switch 2, IO Interactive announced Hitman: World of Assassination, which includes maps from all three modern Hitman games, and special Mario-themed cosmetics. Three GameCube TitlesGameCube games are coming to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription, with three games, The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker, Soulcalibur 2, and F-Zero GX, coming on launch day.

After years of clamoring for the GameCube library to come to Nintendo Switch Online, the Nintendo Switch 2 will add the console and a few games to the Nintendo Classics collection. The GameCube library will launch the same day as the Nintendo Switch 2 releases to the public on June 5, with these games ready to pick up and play.The games will feature a higher resolution than the original releases, and players can customize the controls as well. There will also be a wireless controller designed after the original GameCube controller that will feature a C button, also released the same day as the Switch 2.This is specifically for subscribers to the Switch Online + Expansion Pack tier. You can purchase that for $80 a year, but we don't know if the price might go up. Let's take a look at the games that were featured in the presentation and the ones that were shown to be dropping later on. As with Nintendo Switch Onlines other classic libraries, games will be added periodically and are subject to change. The Legend of Zelda: Wind WakerInitially released in 2002, Wind Waker's cartoonish style and gameplay won over fans and spawned sequels and spin-offs with 3DS titles like Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. F-Zero GXThe 2003 racing video game was a collaboration between Nintendo and Sega. It's the successor to F-Zero X, and continued the series' difficult, high-speed racing style, while keeping the basic gameplay and control system from the Nintendo 64 game.GX introduced a "story mode" element, a series first, where the player assumes the role of F-Zero pilot Captain Falcon through nine chapters while completing various missions. Players will be able to join three other friends in four-person races online or locally. Soulcalibur 2Soulcalibur II is considered to be one of the greatest fighting games ever made. It had improved graphics compared to its predecessor and introduced several new and guest characters, including Link (with four costumes) for the GameCube version. Super Mario SunshineTaking Mario on vacation to the tropical Isle Delfino, where he, Toadsworth, Princess Peach, and five Toads are trying to soak up some sun. Too bad a villain known as Shadow Mario is vandalizing the island with graffiti, with Mario getting wrongfully convicted for the mess.As punishment, Mario is ordered to clean up Isle Delfino, using a device called the Flash Liquidizer Ultra Dousing Device (F.L.U.D.D.), all the while saving Princess Peach from Shadow Mario. The game was re-released alongside Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy in the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection on Nintendo Switch in September 2020. Fire Emblem: Path of RadianceFire Emblem: Path of Radiance is the ninth main installment in the Fire Emblem series, but the third to be released in the West in 2005. A direct sequel for the Wii, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, was released in 2007 in North America and Japan, and later in 2008 for Europe and Australia.It was a rare example of cross-platform play, as players with save data from the Game Boy Advance Fire Emblem games were able to connect with Path of Radiance and access concept art and special maps revolving around characters from those games. Pokemon XD: Gale of DarknessPokemon XD was the successor to the GameCube title Pokemon Colosseum and also takes place in Orre, the setting of Colosseum's adventure mode.The game was first announced in March 2005 as a new GameCube game, but not as a sequel to Colosseum--later developments, as well as two promotional demo versions, confirmed the game would be very similar. Shadow Pokemon, first introduced in Colosseum, were a major gameplay element, with a Shadow Lugia being featured on the game's box art. While most of the gameplay recycled a lot of material from Colosseum, Pokemon XD became a fan favorite. Super Mario StrikersThis was also the last Mario game released on the GameCube in Japan and North America. Super Mario Strikers, or Mario Smash Football in Europe or Australia, pitted Mario and friends against each other in five-on-five soccer games.Much like Mario Power Tennis, the player can use Mario-themed items such as bananas and red shells to hinder the opponent and gain the advantage during the game. Strikers received generally favorable reviews and spawned two sequels. Luigis MansionMario's little brother's first solo outing broke away from the mold, and for the first time, a Nintendo console launched with a Luigi-centric title. Luigi's Mansion put the green-hat hero in the spotlight as he busted ghosts and solved puzzles to rescue his brother and friends. The game was re-released for the 3DS and had two sequels, the latest being a Nintendo Switch launch title back in 2019. Pokemon ColosseumThe GameCube Online library will also feature Pokemon XD's predecessor, Pokemon Colosseum. The game featured creature models ported from both Pokemon Stadium games. Pokemon Colosseum was a critical and commercial success, with lots of praise for its graphics and music. Chibi-RoboChibi-Robo follows a series of tiny robots, who are programmed to spread happiness. The game has the player cleaning Chibi-Robo's nearby environment, trying to collect "Happy Points." All the while, making sure your battery doesn't die.The original game was released in 2005, with a sequel for the Nintendo 3DS entitled Chibi-Robo! Photo Finder. The original Chibi-Robo had a Japanese re-release in 2009 for the Wii and the final entry for the series, Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash, also for the 3DS released back in 2015.

Atomfall gives you plenty of skills to learn. These can improve your ranged and melee combat, your crafting abilities, your stealthiness, and other important gameplay elements. However, since there's no real experience point system, you can only learn new skills by finding books called Training Manuals.

Final Fantasy is no stranger to its fair share of emotional moments, given the story-heavy nature of most games in the series. This includes its fair share of tearjerking moments as characters sacrifice themselves to aid the heroes by any means necessary.

Producing video content is a particular challenge for generative AI models, which have no real concept of space or physics, and are essentially dreaming up clips frame by frame. It can lead to obvious errors and inconsistencies, as we wrote about in December with OpenAI's Sora, after it served up a video with a disappearing taxi.It's these specific problems that AI video company Runway says it's made some progress in fixing with its new Gen-4 models. The new models offer "a new generation of consistent and controllable media" according to Runway, with characters, objects, and scenes now much more likely to look the same over an entire project. If you've experimented with AI video, you'll know that many clips are brief and show slow movement, and don't feature elements that go out of the frame and come back inusually because the AI will render them in a different way. People merge into buildings, limbs transform into animals, and entire scenes mutate as the seconds pass.This is because, as you might have gathered by now, these AIs are essentially probability machines. They know, more or less, what a futuristic cityscape should look like, based on scraping lots of futuristic cityscapesbut they don't understand the building blocks of the real world, and can't keep a fixed idea of a world in their memories. Instead, they keep reimagining it. Runway is aiming to fix this with reference images that it can keep going back to while it invents everything else in the frame: People should look the same from frame to frame, and there should be fewer issues with principal characters walking through furniture and transforming into walls.The new Gen-4 models can also "understand the world" and "simulate real-world physics" better than ever before, Runway says. The benefit of going out into the world with an actual video camera is that you can shoot a bridge from one side, then cross over and shoot the same bridge from the other side. With AI, you tend to get a different approximation of a bridge each timesomething Runway wants to tackle.Have a look at the demo videos put together by Runway and you'll see they do a pretty good job in terms of consistency (though, of course, these are hand-picked from a wide pool). The characters in this clip look more or less the same from shot to shot, albeit with some variations in facial hair, clothing, and apparent age. There's also The Lonely Little Flame (above), whichlike all Runway videoshas reportedly been synthesized from the hard work of actual animators and filmmakers. It looks impressively professional, but you'll see the shape and the markings on the skunk change from scene to scene, as does the shape of the rock character in the second half of the story. Even with these latest models, there's still some way to go.While Gen-4 models are now available for image-to-video generations for paying Runway users, the scene-to-scene consistency features haven't rolled out yet, so I can't test them personally. I have experimented with creating some short clips on Sora, and consistency and real-world physics remains an issue there, with objects appearing out of (and disappearing into) thin air, and characters moving through walls and furniture. See below for one of my creations: It is possible to create some polished-looking clips, as you can see from the official Sora showcase page, and the technology is now of a high-enough standard that it is starting to be used in a limited way in professional productions. However, the problems with vanishing and morphing taxis that we wrote about last year haven't gone away.Of course, you only have to look at where AI video technology was a year ago to know that these models are going to get better and better, but generating video is not the same as generating text, or a static image: It requires a lot more computing power and a lot more "thought," as well as a grasp of real-world physics that will be difficult for AI to learn.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.If youve been eyeing a Nintendo Switch OLED but havent wanted to pay full price, you might want to check out this refurbished model (with white Joy-Cons) going for $249.99 on Wootthats a solid chunk cheaper than Amazons $289 sale-price tag. However, this price is only live for four days or until it sells out, whichever comes first. This is a refurbished unit (tested and certified to work like new), so it may show light cosmetic wear, but performance-wise, youre getting the same console that PCMag called the Best Gaming Console of the Year in 2021. Nintendo Switch OLED Model $249.99 at Woot $339.99 Save $90.00 Get Deal Get Deal $249.99 at Woot $339.99 Save $90.00 Its seven-inch OLED screen is brighter, crisper, and more vibrant than the originals LCD. Games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Super Mario Odyssey just pop in handheld modethis is especially noticeable when youre gaming outdoors or in a room with lots of natural light. Theres also a wider kickstand that actually supports the console now (so tabletop play isnt a balancing act anymore), and a slight bump in storage (64GB instead of 32GB), though youll still probably need a microSD card eventually, notes this PCMag review. And while the Joy-Cons are the same in terms of function, the dock has been tweaked with a wired LAN port if you want a more stable internet connection. Its not a performance boost under the hoodsame processor, same RAMbut it feels like an upgrade if youre using it mostly as a handheld or tabletop device.That said, this deal has a few fine-print caveats. It only ships to the 48 contiguous U.S. states (so if youre in Alaska, Hawaii, or elsewhere, no dice), and unless youre an Amazon Prime member, youre tacking on $6 for shipping. The 90-day Woot limited warranty is decent enough, too. If youve been debating whether the OLED version is worth the extra money over the base Switch, this refurbished deal narrows the price gap enough to make it more appealing.

The entry-level laptop from modular computing company Framework, which we first saw in February, is almost ready to roll. Founder and CEO Nirav Patel said on Wednesday that you can reserve the Framework Laptop 12 on April 9 at 11AM ET.The Framework Laptop 12 is a colorful 12.2-inch notebook with a 360-degree hinge that lets you fold it back into a (chunky) tablet. This zillionth iteration of that form factor stands out because of Framework's ethos of modular repairability. If you decide it's time for an upgrade in a couple of years, there's no need to fork out $1,500 for a new device; you can simply upgrade its modular parts.The Framework Laptop 12 has a 12.2-inch, 1,920 x 1,200 touchscreen display that, at 400 nits, gets "much brighter than you typically see from an entry-level or lower-cost laptop." It will be available with a 13th-gen i3 or i5 Core processor and up to 48GB of DDR5 RAM. You can also get up to a 2TB 2 TB M.2 2230 SSD, Wi-Fi 6E and the company's standard choice of Windows 11 or Linux.FrameworkAlthough it's helpful to have those general spec guidelines, Framework says it won't share the modular machine's full spec breakdown, ship date or pricing until it's available for pre-order. So, you won't know how "entry-level" it is until the clock is ticking to reserve one. Although seeing Big Tech marketers weaponizing FOMO to increase sales numbers isn't exactly a rarity these days, it stands out all the more coming from a startup that, in other ways, is among the most consumer-friendly.Patel even cautioned in today's announcement, "We have a hunch that the early batches are going to go very quickly." In other words, you'd better not take too long scanning that spec sheet and weighing it against pricing before the train pulls out of the station.Regardless, you can learn more about the Framework Laptop 12 in the video below before checking out its full specs on April 9 at 11AM ET. Patel advises pre-order customers to create an account on the company website in advance.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/you-can-pre-order-frameworks-entry-level-2-in-1-touchscreen-laptop-on-april-9-182310021.html?src=rss

According to a recent Digital Education Council survey, as many as 86 percent of university students globally use artificial intelligence to assist with their coursework. Its a staggering statistic thats likely to have far-reaching consequences for years to come. So its not surprising to see a company like Anthropic announce Claude for Education, an initiative it says will equip universities to "play a key role in actively shaping AI's role in society."At the heart of Claude for Education is a new Learning mode that changes how Anthropics chatbot interacts with users. With the feature engaged, Claude will attempt to guide students to a solution, rather than providing an answer outright, when asked a question. It will also employ the Socratic method in conversations, asking questions like What evidence supports your conclusion? as a way to guide users to understanding. All of this is powered by 3.7 Sonnet, Anthropics new hybrid reasoning model, and tied to Claudes Projects feature, which gives you a way to organize your chats around specific topics.Claude for Education is available to all Pro users with an .edu email address. Additionally, Anthropic is partnering with Northeastern University, the London School of Economics and Political Science as well as Champlain College to make Claude available to all students at those institutions.At the same time, the company is launching two new programs. The first, Claude Campus Ambassadors, gives students the chance to work directly with Anthropic to launch educational initiatives at their school. The second, meanwhile, will see Anthropic award API credits to students working on projects involving Claude. Separately, the company says it will work with Instructure, the company behind the Canvas learning software, to increase access to tools universities are using to integrate AI into their teaching.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/claudes-new-learning-mode-will-prompt-students-to-answer-questions-on-their-own-172057828.html?src=rss