Breakdown & Showreels Godzilla x Kong – The New Empire: Skar King’s Arena by Weta FX By Vincent Frei - 16/04/2025 From glowing lava flows to epic creature clashes, Weta FX shares how they built the massive subterranean arena at the core of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Watch the making-of and witness the scale behind the spectacle! WANT TO KNOW MORE?Weta FX: Dedicated page about Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire on Weta FX website.Kevin Smith and Ludovic Chailloleau: Here’s my interview of Kevin Smith (Overall VFX Supervisor) and Ludovic Chailloleau (Animation Supervisor) – Weta FX.Alessandro Ongaro: Here’s my interview of Production VFX Supervisor Alessandro Ongaro. © Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2025

It’s been two years since David Chipperfield Architects (DCA) carefully restored Venice’s Procuratie in Piazza San Marco, a 16th-century landmark featured in far too many photographs to count. Denise Scott Brown’s pigeons come to mind. Ahead of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, San Marco Art Centre (SMAC)—a new institution at the intersection of visual arts, architecture, fashion, technology, and film—has moved into the old decorated shed’s second floor. SMAC’s 10,700-square-foot location in the Procuratie has sixteen galleries within the building originally attributed to Mauro Codussi, Bartolomeo Bon, and Jacopo Sansovino, later renovated by DCA. Today, Procuratie is owned by Generali Real Estate, which hired David Chipperfield Architects to renovate Procuratie and now leases space to SMAC. “SMAC fills a gap in Venice’s rich cultural landscape. We focus on content that sheds light on the unexpected, that challenges conventions and poses rigorous questions,” SMAC cofounders Anna Bursaux, David Gramazio, and David Hrankovic said in a statement. Renaissance-era beams were left exposed. (Adriano Mura/Courtesy Generali Real Estate) Sixteen galleries flank off a 260-foot corridor. (Andrea Artoni/Courtesy Generali Real Estate) “We are a spontaneous and experimental organisation, testing traditional models of arts institutions and exhibition making,” SMAC’s cofounders added. “We welcome collaboration, providing institutions, artists, and creative practitioners with a platform in Venice. We believe that the arts open new possibilities for human co-existence and allow for cities and communities to thrive.” SMAC’s sixteen galleries are arranged along a 260-feet corridor, whose details were revived by DCA, albeit instilled with a contemporary vision. The walls are clad in light grey Venetian marmorino made of crushed marble. The floors are white terrazzo. The enfilade’s original doors were preserved, while some Renaissance-era beams were left exposed. SMAC’s museum quality conditions and full climate and humidity control will help conserve this historic architecture. Modern circulation weaves the historic spaces. (Alessandra Chemollo/Courtesy The Human Safety Net) The venue has 15-foot ceiling heights and 58 windows in total which overlook Piazza San Marco. Visitors enter SMAC through a private courtyard, Corte Maruzzi, which guides visitors to a new, monumental staircase designed by Chipperfield. On the second floor, aside from the galleries, there are two event rooms with Napoleonic-era frescoes, where exhibition partners, curators, and the general public will coalesce. Coinciding with the Biennale, SMAC’s inaugural programming will feature two solo exhibitions one on Harry Seidler, an Australian modern architect; and another on Jung Youngsun, a Korean landscape designer. On May 8, San Marco Art Centre and The World Around will host a symposium about the future of contemporary architecture.

In the wake of the abrupt termination of the Mitre contract to run CVE Programme, a group of vulnerability experts and members of Mitre’s existing CVE Board have launched a new non-profit with the intention of safeguarding the programme’s future. The CVE Foundation’s founders want to ensure the continuity, viability and stability of the 25-year-old CVE Programme, which up to today (April 16) has been operated as a US government-funded initiative, with oversight and management provided by Mitre under contract. Even reckoning without the impact of Mitre’s loss of the CVE programme contract – which is one of a number of Mitre-held government contracts axed in recent weeks – and has already led to layoffs at the DC-area contractor – the CVE Board members say they already had longstanding concerns about the sustainability and neutrality of such a globally relied-upon resource being tied to a single government. Their concerns became suddenly heightened after a letter from Mitre’s Yosry Barsoum warning that the CVE Programme was under threat circulated this week. “CVE, as a cornerstone of the global cyber security ecosystem, is too important to be vulnerable itself,” said Kent Landfield, an officer of the foundation. “Cyber security professionals around the globe rely on CVE identifiers and data as part of their daily work – from security tools and advisories to threat intelligence and response. Without CVE, defenders are at a massive disadvantage against global cyber threats.” The founders said that while they hoped today would never come, they have spent the past year working diligently in the background to create a strategy to transition the CVE system into a dedicated, independent non-profit. Unlike Mitre – originally a computer research spin-out at MIT in Boston that now operates multiple R&D efforts – the CVE Foundation will be solely dedicated to delivering high-quality vulnerability identification, and maintaining the integrity and availability of the existing CVE Programme database on behalf of security professionals worldwide. The foundation says its official launch marks a “major step toward eliminating a single point of failure in the vulnerability management ecosystems” and safeguarding the programme’s reputation as a trusted, community-driven resource. “For the international cyber security community, this move represents an opportunity to establish governance that reflects the global nature of today’s threat landscape,” the founders said. Although at the time of writing the CVE Programme remains up and running, with new commits made to its GitHub in the past hours, reaction to the contract’s cancellation has been swift and scathing. “With 25 years of consistent public funding, the CVE framework is embedded into security programmes, vendor feeds, and risk assessment workflows,” said Tim Grieveson, CSO and executive vice-president at ThingsRecon, an attack surface discovery specialist. “Without it, we risk breaking the common language that keeps security teams aligned to identify and address vulnerabilities effectively. “Delays in sharing vulnerability data would increase response times and give threat actors the upper hand,” he added. “With regulations like SEC, NIS2, and Dora demanding real-time risk visibility, a lack of understanding of risk exposure and any delayed response could seriously hinder the ability to react effectively.” To maintain existing levels of resilience in the face of the shutdown, it’s important for security leaders to ensure organisations have a clear understanding of their attack surface and their suppliers, said Grieveson. Added to this, collaboration and information sharing in the security community will become even more essential than it already is. Read more on this story Mitre, the operator of the world-renowned CVE repository, has warned of significant impacts to global cyber security standards, and increased risk from threat actors, as it emerges its US government contract will lapse imminently. Chris Burton, head of professional services at Yorkshire-based penetration testing and security services provider Pentest People, said he hoped cooler heads would prevail. “It’s completely understandable there are concerns about the government pulling funding for the Mitre CVE Programme; it’s a troubling development for the security industry,” he said. “If the issue is purely financial, crowdfunding could offer a viable path forward, rallying public support for a project many believe in,” added Burton. “If it’s operational, there may be an opportunity for a dedicated community board to step in and lead. “Either way, this isn’t the end, it’s a chance to rethink and reimagine. Let’s not panic just yet; there are still options on the table, as a global community. I think we should see how this unfolds.” At a more practical level, Grieveson shared some additional steps for security teams to take right now: Map internal tooling dependencies on CVE feeds and APIs to know what breaks should the database go dark; Identify alternative sources to maintain vulnerability intelligence, focusing on context, business impact and proximity to ensure comprehensive coverage of threats, whether they be current, emerging or historic; Accelerate cross-industry intelligence sharing to proactively leverage tactics, tools and threat actor data.

Expired US government funding nearly disrupted this global security system. How can we prevent this from happening again in 11 months?

The fifth annual Gayming Awards, which will be broadcast on July 8, has a strong selection of indies, as well as plenty of triple-A favorites.

Key Takeaways Nvidia has announced three new 5060 series GPUs. The 8GB variants aren’t available for critic reviews, raising suspicion of an underperforming product. Nvidia claims 2x faster frame rates, which we and other critics found misleading. Nvidia just announced the launch of three new graphics cards: the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, the RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, and the RTX 5060. Both variants of the RTX 5060 Ti will be available from April 16, whereas the RTX 5060 will come out sometime in May. The RTX 5060 Ti is priced at $429 – the lowest Nvidia has ever gone for a 16GB GPU. This is also about 22% cheaper than the RTX 5070 when it launched at $549. The 8GB variant of the Ti model is priced at $379, whereas the RTX 5060 will cost $299. This is where things start to get a bit damp. It’s not obvious to many why anyone would prefer the 8GB variant for just a $50 price difference. This may have been done purposefully to downplay its 8GB 5060 series GPU variants. We have another reason for this school of thought. Usually, Nvidia GPU launches are preceded by a full-fledged review schedule, where different reviewers are handed out samples before the official release. However, that’s not the case this time around. Nvidia seems to have specifically blocked the supply of the 8GB Ti variant for reviews. So, only the 16GB variant will be reviewed by various tech houses. Also, although the official release mentions April 16 as the official release date for both variants, the 8GB version may come out a ‘few weeks’ after the 16GB one. It seems like Nvidia wants to shift the spotlight to the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB and ‘protect’ the 8GB variants from reviewers’ wrath. You’d ask, why the ‘wrath’? Well, the 8GB GPU variants do not have enough VRAM to handle the requirements of modern games. This leads to lower texture quality, stuttering, and poor performance. Although you can still play games at 1080p on these GPUs, they aren’t future-proof. This is why industry experts and gamers suggest 12GB GPUs. Nvidia is aware of this. The whole ‘protecting the 8GB variant’ play is being done because they know they’ve built a substandard product that will be bashed by reviewers, affecting its sales. Instead, Nvidia wants to push the 16GB variant, get positive reviews on it, and then put the 8GB 5060 GPUs on the store shelves. Now, innocent buyers who are oblivious to the specifications may end up buying the 8GB versions since they’re cheaper, only to find they’ve been scammed. Performance Performance-wise, the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB GPU seems to offer the best value for gamers. It’s 20% faster than the RTX 4060 Ti and 30% faster than the 3060 Ti variant. Plus, after adjusting for inflation, it offers 15-20% lower cost per frame than the RTX 4070 and is 33% cheaper than the RTX 3060 Ti. The 8GB Ti variant offers similar core performance. However, less VRAM is a significant bottleneck that can affect performance on various modern games. The RTX 5060 is also claimed to be 20-25% faster than the RTX 4060 and 30% faster than the RTX 3060, with a 40% lower cost per frame. However, the VRAM drops from 12GB on the RTX 3060 to 8GB on the RTX 5060, which makes it an overpriced GPU at this price. Nvidia’s Marketing Gimmick In addition to the review and price blunder Nvidia has made with this launch, another laughable marketing gimmick is going around. Nvidia claims that the new 50 series GPUs offer 2x the frame rates of the previous models. Good, right? Nope. Nvidia has, very smartly, used the words ‘frame rate’ instead of ‘performance.’ And even in doing so, the numbers are way off. The official launch page says that the frame rate on the 5060 Ti is 171 compared to the 4060 Ti’s 87, and the latency is down from 48 to 47. However, if you look at the small font of caveat at the bottom (something you may need a microscope for), it says that this performance was achieved on DLSS Quality Mode and by using the max frame gen level supported by each GPU. As you might already know, DLSS uses AI to upscale a lower-res image to make it look like a higher-res one. So, Nvidia claims that Wukong runs at 102 FPS in the new GPU. However, in reality, the render rate is below 30 FPS – a sick marketing joke. This also isn’t the first time Nvidia has tried to deceive users. They had earlier said that the 5090 GPU variants would render twice the performance of the 4090 series, which was never the case. That’s all we could muster from the one-page official Nvidia release, and it isn’t looking like a great release for what is the ‘leading AI chip manufacturer.’ We’ll have to wait for all the GPUs to hit the stores and see how they perform in real-world settings. Krishi is a seasoned tech journalist with over four years of experience writing about PC hardware, consumer technology, and artificial intelligence.  Clarity and accessibility are at the core of Krishi’s writing style. He believes technology writing should empower readers—not confuse them—and he’s committed to ensuring his content is always easy to understand without sacrificing accuracy or depth. Over the years, Krishi has contributed to some of the most reputable names in the industry, including Techopedia, TechRadar, and Tom’s Guide.  A man of many talents, Krishi has also proven his mettle as a crypto writer, tackling complex topics with both ease and zeal. His work spans various formats—from in-depth explainers and news coverage to feature pieces and buying guides.  Behind the scenes, Krishi operates from a dual-monitor setup (including a 29-inch LG UltraWide) that’s always buzzing with news feeds, technical documentation, and research notes, as well as the occasional gaming sessions that keep him fresh.  Krishi thrives on staying current, always ready to dive into the latest announcements, industry shifts, and their far-reaching impacts.  When he's not deep into research on the latest PC hardware news, Krishi would love to chat with you about day trading and the financial markets—oh! And cricket, as well. View all articles by Krishi Chowdhary Our editorial process The Tech Report editorial policy is centered on providing helpful, accurate content that offers real value to our readers. We only work with experienced writers who have specific knowledge in the topics they cover, including latest developments in technology, online privacy, cryptocurrencies, software, and more. Our editorial policy ensures that each topic is researched and curated by our in-house editors. We maintain rigorous journalistic standards, and every article is 100% written by real authors.

Something to look forward to: People with color blindness have varying degrees of difficulty seeing or distinguishing certain colors. Gamers affected by color blindness often rely on specific accessibility options to fully enjoy their on-screen experience. Ubisoft's latest release, however, could significantly improve their experience – not just in one game, but across a broader range of titles. Ubisoft recently introduced Chroma, an open-source tool designed to simulate various types of color blindness. According to the French publisher, around 300 million people worldwide are affected by color vision deficiency – many of whom are gamers who spend significant time engaging with rich and vibrant digital environments. With Chroma, developers can simulate the three main types of color blindness: Protanopia, Deuteranopia, and Tritanopia. Ubisoft has already used the tool internally across several game projects, supporting its accessibility team during complex testing scenarios. Notably, Chroma is designed to work across all games, with no dependencies on specific game engines or platforms. The tool boasts additional features such as accurate visual simulation and real-time rendering at up to 60 FPS. While 60 FPS may not be considered "high-performance" by modern gaming standards, it represents a reasonable tradeoff in the context of accessibility – especially when the alternative is an inaccurate or incomplete visual experience. It's also possible that this frame rate applies only to the simulation tool during development, rather than affecting performance in final game builds. Chroma also offers live gameplay recording, screenshot capture, a configurable UI, and more. The tool works by applying a filter over the game's graphics to simulate color blindness, Ubisoft explained. Developed since 2021 by the company's Quality Control team in India, Chroma uses the Color Oracle algorithm and supports both single and dual screen setups. It provides several hotkeys and a customizable overlay to streamline testing. According to Jawad Shakil, Ubisoft's Quality Control Product Manager, Chroma was designed to integrate color-blind accessibility into the creative and testing process from the earliest stages of game development. The QC team devoted extensive effort to ensure the tool eliminated lag and minimized visual inaccuracies. // Related Stories Ubisoft is now releasing Chroma under an open-source license, giving other developers a new option to enhance accessibility in their own games.

Sony makes some of the best TVs on the market in 2025, and most of the latest and greatest models (first announced at CES) haven’t even hit shelves yet! This means you’ll be able to score midrange and premium 2024 models for super-good prices, especially when there’s a sale. As luck would have it, the Sony 65-inch Bravia 7 Series 4K QLED is marked down to $1,400 from its original price of $1,900. We tested the Bravia 7 back in November 2024, and editor at large Caleb Denison gave the QLED a 4 out of 5 star rating. “The Bravia 7 has insanely great picture quality” is the major takeaway from his video review and writeup, and Sony’s thoughtful engineering can be thanked. The Bravia 7 delivers bright and bold picture quality with rich, lifelike colors and fantastic contrast levels that rival some of the best OLED TVs out there.  Related The Bravia 7 has a terrific local dimming system that allows the TV to achieve pure, inky blacks during dark scenes while still emphasizing highlights and other picture details. The TV gets bright enough to watch SDR content during the day without sun or other ambient light sources muddying the picture. The TV doesn’t have the best reflection handling though, so it’s best to keep lamps at least a few feet away from the screen.  Apps, casting, and voice assistant features run on Google TV OS, a fast and intuitive smart hub that’s packed with apps, free live TV stations, and even smart home controls (for compatible devices). The TV also supports HDMI 2.1 connectivity and VRR and ALLM support, making it an excellent choice for gaming! Save $500 on the Sony 65-inch Bravia 7 Series 4K QLED when you purchase today. We also recommend taking a look at our lists of the best Sony TV deals, best QLED TV deals, and best TV deals for even more discounts on top Sony sets.  Editors’ Recommendations

Tuning in to your emotions LG TVs’ integrated ads get more personal with tech that analyzes viewer emotions LG licenses tech for interpreting TV users' feelings and convictions. Scharon Harding – Apr 16, 2025 4:14 pm | 17 Credit: Getty Credit: Getty Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more LG TVs will soon leverage an AI model built for showing advertisements that more closely align with viewers' personal beliefs and emotions. The company plans to incorporate a partner company’s AI tech into its TV software in order to interpret psychological factors impacting a viewer, such as personal interests, personality traits, and lifestyle choices. The aim is to show LG webOS users ads that will emotionally impact them. The upcoming advertising approach comes via a multi-year licensing deal with Zenapse, a company describing itself as a Software as a Service marketing platform that can drive advertiser sales “with AI powered emotional intelligence.” LG will use Zenapse’s technology to divide webOS users into hyper-specific market segments that are supposed to be more informative to advertisers. LG Ad Solutions, LG’s advertising business, announced the partnership on Tuesday. The technology will be used to inform ads shown on LG smart TVs’ homescreens, free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels, and elsewhere throughout webOS, per StreamTV Insider. LG will also use Zenapse's tech to “expand new software development and go-to-market products," it said. LG didn’t specify the duration of its licensing deal with Zenapse. Zenapse’s platform for connected TVs (CTVs), ZenVision, is supposed to be able to interpret the types of emotions shown in the content someone is watching on TV, partially by using publicly available information about the show's or movie’s script and plot, StreamTV Insider reported. ZenVision also analyzes viewer behavior, grouping viewers based on their consumption patterns, the publication noted. Under the new partnership, ZenVision can use data that LG has gathered from the automatic content recognition software in LG TVs. With all this information, ZenVision will group LG TV viewers into highly specified market segments, such as “goal-driven achievers,” “social connectors,” or "emotionally engaged planners," an LG spokesperson told StreamTV Insider. Zenapse's website for ZenVision points to other potential market segments, including "digital adopters," "wellness seekers," "positive impact & environment," and "money matters." Companies paying to advertise on LG TVs can then target viewers based on the ZenVision-specified market segments and deliver an “emotionally intelligent ad,” as Zenapse’s website puts it. This type of targeted advertising aims to bring advertisers more in-depth information about TV viewers than demographic data or even contextual advertising (which shows ads based on what the viewer is watching) via psychographic data. Demographic data gives advertisers viewer information, like location, age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, and income. Psychographic data is supposed to go deeper and allow advertisers to target people based on so-called psychological factors, like personal beliefs, values, and attitudes. As Salesforce explains, “psychographic segmentation delves deeper into their psyche” than relying on demographic data. “As viewers engage with content, ZenVision's understanding of a consumer grows deeper, and our... segmentation continually evolves to optimize predictions,” the ZenVision website says. Getting emotional LG’s partnership comes as advertisers struggle to appeal to TV viewers’ emotions. Google, for example, attempted to tug at parents’ heartstrings with the now-infamous Dear Sydney ad aired during the 2024 Summer Olympics. Looking to push Gemini, Google hit all the wrong chords with parents, and, after much backlash, plucked the ad. The partnership also comes as TV OS operators seek new ways to use smart TVs to grow their own advertising businesses and to get people to use TVs to buy stuff. With their ability to track TV viewers' behavior, including what they watch and search for on their TVs, smart TVs are a growing obsession for advertisers. As LG's announcement pointed out, CTVs represent "one of the fastest-growing ad segments in the US, expected to reach over $40 billion by 2027, up from $24.6 billion in 2023." But as advertisers' interest in appealing to streamers grows, so do their efforts to track and understand viewers for more targeted advertising. Both efforts could end up pushing the limits of user comfort and privacy. LG is one of the biggest global TV brands, so its plan to distribute emotionally driven ads to the 200 million LG TVs currently in people's homes could have a ripple effect. Further illustrating LG TVs' dominance, webOS is estimated to be in 35 percent of US homes, per data that Hub Entertainment Research shared this week. As such, LG's foray into advertising driven by AI’s ability to understand and appeal to viewer emotions could lead to other CTV OSes following suit. For its part, LG thinks it can use Zenapse's tech to make "future innovations that could shape new emotionally intelligent experiences for the TV screen," a spokesperson told StreamTV Insider. As it stands, targeted ads are a divisive approach to what we might consider a necessary evil: advertising. While targeted ads rely on tracking techniques that many find invasive, they could also result in ads that are more relevant and less annoying to the people seeing them. In cases where advertising is inevitable, some prefer ads that appeal on a personal level over messaging that can be inappropriate or, even, disturbing and offensive. At this stage, we don’t know how the ads shown on LG’s webOS might evolve with Zenapse’s technology. But it seems like LG and, likely, other smart TV OS operators will try to strengthen their abilities to understand your convictions, beliefs, and values. Scharon Harding Senior Technology Reporter Scharon Harding Senior 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 Tom’s Hardware, Channelnomics, and CRN UK. 17 Comments

A machine delivers a nutrient-rich liquid to artificial chicken fibresShoji Takeuchi The University of Tokyo A thick, bite-sized piece of chicken fillet has been grown in a lab using tiny tubes to mimic the capillaries found in real muscle. Researchers say this gives the product a chewier texture. When growing thick pieces of cultured meat, one major problem is that cells in the centre don’t get enough oxygen or nutrients, so they die and break down, says Shoji Takeuchi at the University of Tokyo. Advertisement “This leads to necrosis and makes it hard to grow meat with good texture and taste,” he says. “Our goal was to solve this by creating a way to feed cells evenly throughout the tissue, just like blood vessels do in the body. We thought, ‘What if we could create artificial capillaries using hollow fibres?’” The fibres used by Takeuchi and his colleagues were inspired by similar hollow tubes used in the medical industry, such as for kidney dialysis. To create the lab-grown meat, the team essentially wanted to create an artificial circulatory system. “Dialysis fibres are used to filter waste from blood,” says Takeuchi. “Our fibres are designed to feed living cells.” First, the researchers 3D-printed a small frame to hold and grow the cultured meat, attaching more than 1000 hollow fibres using a robotic tool. They then embedded this array into a gel containing living cells. Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month. Sign up to newsletter “We created a ‘meat-growing device’ using our hollow-fibre array,” says Takeuchi. “We put living chicken cells and collagen gel around the fibres. Then we flowed nutrient-rich liquid inside the hollow fibres, just like blood flows through capillaries. Over several days, the cells grew and aligned into muscle tissue, forming a thick, steak-like structure.” The resulting cultured chicken meat weighed 11 grams and was 2 centimetres thick. The tissue had muscle fibres aligned in one direction, which improves texture, says Takeuchi. “We also found that the centre of the meat stayed alive and healthy, unlike past methods, where the middle would die.” While the meat wasn’t considered suitable for a human taste test, a machine analysis showed it had good chewiness and flavour markers, says Takeuchi. Manipulating the hollow fibres may also make it possible to simulate different cuts of meat, he says. “By changing the fibre spacing, orientation or flow patterns, we may be able to mimic different textures, like more tender or more chewy meat.” Johannes le Coutre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney says that while it is impressive research, the process would be difficult to carry out on an industrial scale. “[The] holy grail in this whole field is scaling up of new technology,” he says. Journal reference:Trends in Biotechnology DOI: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2025.02.022 Topics:food science