Xbox summer showcase headliner is The Outer Worlds 2 not Fable Adam Starkey Published April 9, 2025 4:47pm Updated April 9, 2025 4:47pm Showcase season is nearly here (Microsoft) Microsoft has confirmed the date and time of its annual Xbox showcase in June, but it sounds like it might be a disappointingly low-key one. Nintendo’s announcement of the Switch 2 launch date on June 5 may have swallowed up all the attention over the past few weeks, but it’s only the opening salvo in a months long parade of similar showcases, from various different companies. Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest, aka not quite E3, is set to air a day after the console’s launch on June 6, and now Microsoft has announced its annual summer showcase will take place within the same week. As announced by Microsoft, the Xbox Games Showcase 2025 will be livestreamed on Sunday June 8 at 6pm UK time, or 10am PT/1pm ET in the US, across YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook. There are no details on how long the showcase will be, but it will be followed by a Direct dedicated to The Outer Worlds 2. Microsoft has done a similar double feature over the past couple of years, with Starfield and Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6, respectively, but The Outer Worlds 2 doesn’t feel quite as anticipated as those. Its billing implies The Outer Worlds 2 will be Microsoft’s big game for the second half of 2025. Ninja Gaiden 4 is also slated to launch later this year, but as developer Obsidian Entertainment are owned by Microsoft, The Outer Worlds 2 perhaps makes more sense as the central focus. This suggests many already announced Xbox games will not be released until next year at the earliest. Fable has already been delayed to 2026, but State Of Decay 3, Everwild, Perfect Dark, and Gears Of War: E-Day are all currently without a release date. Many of these games may well be featured in the showcase but by not getting the 30-minute spotlight at the end, it implies none of them are out this year. As is to be expected from a showcase, there’s a strong chance of some surprise announcements. A remastered Gears Of War collection has been rumoured for years, while we could also see an official reveal for the in-development Xbox handheld. Rumourmonger eXtas1s also suggests that Hollow Knight: Silksong will befeatured, but it was already at the Nintendo Direct – for about five seconds – so that’s not necessarily anything to get excited about. In what might be another hint towards a quieter release slate, this year’s showcase will be a digital-only presentation. ‘We will not have a theatre experience for fans and media this year,’ Microsoft said (via The Verge’s Tom Warren). Xbox FanFest, an in-person event which typically coincides with the showcase in Los Angeles, has also been pushed back to a later date. More Trending Regardless, coupled with the Switch 2’s launch, June looks set to be a big month for game announcements, given Nintendo and Sony are also likely to have equivalent events. Nintendo’s normal late June slot seems a given, since the Switch 2 will only just have launched at that point, while current rumours suggest that Sony is trying to decide the scale of their preview show. Insider Jeff Grubb has previously said that PlayStation is ‘debating’ whether to make their usual summer event a proper showcase or a smaller State Of Play presentation. He suggested this week that they’ve likely now decided, but there’s no indication of which way they went. Despite being published by Xbox, The Outer Worlds 2 is set to launch on PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S in 2025. Will the sequel be a big hit? (Microsoft) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

By Cheryl Eddy Published April 9, 2025 | Comments (0) | Bella Ramsey as Ellie in The Last of Us. © Liane Hentscher/HBO Season two of The Last of Us hasn’t even arrived yet, but the early reviews were overwhelmingly positive—and HBO, being no fool, has already given the green light for a third season. Creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann were suitably excited in an HBO press release announcing the news. “We approached season two with the goal of creating something we could be proud of,” Mazin said; along with Druckmann, he’s also a writer, director, and executive producer. “The end results have exceeded even our most ambitious goals, thanks to our continued collaboration with HBO and the impeccable work of our unparalleled cast and crew. We look forward to continuing the story of The Last of Us with season three!” Druckmann added, “To see The Last of Us brought to life so beautifully and faithfully has been a career highlight for me, and I am grateful for the fans’ enthusiastic and overwhelming support.” “Much of that success is thanks to my partner in crime, Craig Mazin, our partnership with HBO, and our team at PlayStation Productions. On behalf of everyone at Naughty Dog, our cast, and crew, thank you so much for allowing us this opportunity. We’re thrilled to bring you more of The Last of Us!” Season two explores The Last of Us‘ story five years after the events of season one; it stars Pedro Pascal as Joel, Bella Ramsey as Ellie, Gabriel Luna as Tommy, and Rutina Wesley as Maria, as well as Kaitlyn Dever as Abby, Isabela Merced as Dina, Young Mazino as Jesse, Ariela Barer as Mel, Tati Gabrielle as Nora, Spencer Lord as Owen, Danny Ramirez as Manny, and Jeffrey Wright as Isaac. Catherine O’Hara is a guest star. Season two of The Last of Us premieres Sunday, April 13 on HBO and Max. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. Daily Newsletter You May Also Like By Germain Lussier Published April 7, 2025 James Whitbrook and Gordon Jackson Published April 1, 2025 By Sabina Graves Published March 31, 2025 By Cheryl Eddy Published March 31, 2025 By Cheryl Eddy Published March 31, 2025 By Germain Lussier Published March 25, 2025

Ravine House / Kolman Boye ArchitectsSave this picture!© Johan Dehlin•Skurusundet, Sweden Architects: Kolman Boye Architects Area Area of this architecture project Area:  150 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2024 Photographs Photographs:Johan Dehlin Lead Architects: Erik Kolman Janouch, Victor Boye Julebäk More SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. Nestled just northwest of the picturesque Skurusundet strait, this small property posed several challenges for potential buyers envisioning a new house. The site is a deep ravine bordered by cliffs to the east and west, with limited road access. While the elevated crags of the property offer stunning views of the Stockholm port inlet, accessing these heights while adhering to planning regulations and feasible building costs seemed a daunting task.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Historically, the area around the property was a summer retreat for people of modest means, characterized by small, simple red cottages available for subsidized summer stays. Due to its proximity to Stockholm, most of these cabins have now been replaced by larger, permanent residences. This particular site, however, formerly held a larger structure; evidence of which can be seen in the terraced landscape walls descending through the ravine, ending in a semi-circular fish pond framed by a solid granite wall.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The new house is a strict three-story structure with a compact plan, that leaves a minimal footprint. By partially embedding the building into the existing steep cliffside, the necessary height for an additional story was achieved while simultaneously reducing visual impact. As such, the building incorporates the existing terraces with minimal further changes. The strict division of the timber into horizontal and vertical elements opposes the terrain and lends the relation between the house and the site a strong character.Save this picture!Save this picture!A central timber stair ties the three floors of the building together and organizes the plan. The bottom floor of the building comprises utility spaces. The middle floor serves as the main entrance floor, holding wardrobes and bedrooms. The fully glazed, open-plan top floor offers striking views of the Stockholm port inlet and is designed for a combined kitchen and living room. Each floor has direct access to different levels of the terraced rock garden outside.Save this picture!The building uses renewable materials where possible, given the particular characteristics of the site. Where the Saltviga project worked with ennobling off-cuts from floor production, in this project an idea of upgrading raw wood material was tested. Knotty pinewood was turned into knotless pinewood through a select-saw-glue process. The knotty wood was used for invisible interior structural parts, while the carefully selected flawless parts were exposed. As such, the pinewood was turned from an affordable and readily available material into one with more subtle and graceful textural qualities.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less About this office MaterialWoodMaterials and TagsPublished on April 09, 2025Cite: "Ravine House / Kolman Boye Architects" 09 Apr 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1028886/ravine-house-kolman-boye-architects&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save世界上最受欢迎的建筑网站现已推出你的母语版本!想浏览ArchDaily中国吗?是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Toxic Skull Poison FX in Unreal Engine 5 Niagara Tutorial Full Video - https://youtu.be/RLiK7iy1XPM FAB - https://www.fab.com/sellers/CGHOW Whatsapp - https://bit.ly/3LYvxjK Patreon- https://www.patreon.com/Ashif NFT - https://opensea.io/CGHOW Twitter - https://twitter.com/cghow_ 👉👉 If you Liked it - http://bit.ly/2UZmiZ4 Channel Ashif - http://bit.ly/3aYaniw Support me on - paypal.me/9953280644 #cghow #UE5 #UE4Niagara #gamefx #ue5niagara #ue4vfx #niagara #unrealengineniagara #realtimevfx ●Visit - https://cghow.com/ Unreal Engine Marketplace - https://bit.ly/3aojvAa Artstation Store - https://www.artstation.com/ashif/store Gumroad - https://cghow.gumroad.com/

In this issue: We introduce a new dataset designed to assist renewable energy infrastructure planners, a new method for denoising MRI imagery, and an AI tool for analyzing distant galaxies. Check out our latest research and other updates.  NEW RESEARCH Global Renewables Watch: A Temporal Dataset of Solar and Wind Energy Derived from Satellite Imagery Siting renewable energy infrastructure requires careful consideration of the potential impact on ecosystems, cultural and historical resources, agriculture, and scenic landscapes. To help policymakers, researchers, and other stakeholders assess strategies for deployment, researchers from Microsoft, The Nature Conservancy (opens in new tab), and Planet (opens in new tab) present a comprehensive global temporal dataset of commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) farms and onshore wind turbines. The researchers built the dataset by training deep learning-based segmentation models on high-resolution satellite imagery and then deploying them on over 13 trillion pixels of images covering the world. The final spatial dataset includes 375,197 individual wind turbines and 86,410 solar photovoltaic installations. For each detected feature, they estimate the construction date and the preceding land use type, and aggregate their findings to the country level, along with estimates of total power capacity. Read the paper NEW RESEARCH SNRAware: Improved Deep Learning MRI Denoising with SNR Unit Training and G-factor Map Augmentation This research proposes a new training method, SNRAware, to improve the ability of deep learning models to denoise—or remove unwanted random variations—from MRI images. MRI images can suffer from high levels of noise when scanning is accelerated with parallel imaging or when data are acquired using lower cost, low-field MRI systems.   The researchers tested SNRAware on 14 different models, including ones based on transformer and convolutional architectures. The proposed training scheme improved the performance of all the tested models. This broad applicability means that the method is flexible and can be applied to different kinds of models without redesigning them. The testing showed SNRAware significantly improves the quality and clinical utility of MRI images while preserving important diagnostic details. Read the paper NEW RESEARCH Can AI unlock the mysteries of the universe? Analyzing the physical properties of individual galaxies is a fundamental skill in astronomy. It requires a thorough understanding of galaxy formation theories and the ability to interpret vast amounts of observational data. However, even for seasoned astronomers, this process can be time-consuming and labor-intensive. To help astronomers accelerate this fundamental process, researchers from Microsoft and external colleagues introduce Mephisto, research designed to analyze extremely distant galaxies observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Mephisto analyzes photometric data from distant galaxies, proposing physical models and interacting with Code Investigating Galaxy Emission (opens in new tab), a commonly used galaxy spectral simulation program. Mephisto can detect discrepancies between models and observational data, identifies potential instrumental errors or limitations in the models, iteratively adjusts parameters, and generates multiple explanations for the observational data. Read the article APPLIED AI Japan Airlines’ new AI app will make it easier for cabin attendants to report inflight events with Microsoft’s Phi-4 small language model Japan Airlines (JAL) is using technology developed by Microsoft Research to deploy an AI app that helps flight crews communicate more effectively with ground staff when something unexpected comes up during a flight. The JAL-AI Report is being developed using Microsoft’s Phi-4 small language model (SLM), which requires less computing power than the large language models (LLMs) most generative AI tools run on, so it can be used offline on a device for specific tasks. Cabin attendants who have tried it say it can slash the time for writing operation reports by up to two thirds, say, from one hour to 20 minutes, or from 30 minutes to 10 for simpler cases. Read the story Microsoft Research | In case you missed it AI weather forecast project eyes access through desktop computers  Financial Times | March 20, 2025Aardvark Weather uses AI to deliver accurate forecasts in just minutes from a desktop computer. Developed by scientists at the University of Cambridge, with support from the Alan Turing Institute, Microsoft Research, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, this technology is tens of times faster than existing methods and requires only a fraction of the computing power. Director of Microsoft Research talks AI for science (what it really means)  The Deep View | March 11, 2025Chris Bishop, Director, AI for Science, Microsoft Research, discusses what AI is doing for science. This interview dives into how AI is accelerating discovery of new techniques and findings, the benefits of foundation models like Aurora, MatterGen’s capabilities, and AI’s impact on scientists. Microsoft’s Christopher Bishop: Scientific discovery is AI’s killer application  Financial Times | April 3, 2025Christopher Bishop runs Microsoft’s AI for Science research unit, which applies the powerful technology to the natural sciences. Bishop sees the mission of the lab, which was founded in 2022, as accelerating scientific discovery using the technology.In this conversation with the Financial Times’ AI editor Madhumita Murgia, he explains why he believes scientific discovery will prove to be the single most important application of the technology. Innovation to Impact (ft. Dr M – DGTL Voices with Ed Marx)  DGTL Voices with Ed Marx | March 12, 2025Matthew Lungren, Chief Scientific Officer, Microsoft Health and Life Sciences, and Jonathan Carlson, Managing Director, Microsoft Health Futures, discuss AI’s transformative impact on radiology and the importance of collaboration in research and product development. They highlight how healthcare organizations can leverage Microsoft’s resources for innovation, emphasizing Microsoft’s progress in developing radiology-specific multimodal models and its broader work in healthcare. Tech Life – The doctor will see you now  BBC Sounds | March 4, 2025An update from the live trials in Ghana of Microsoft Research’s Holoportation 3D telemedicine technology. BBC’s Tech Life speaks to lead researcher Spencer Fowers, as well as a patient and doctor benefiting from the portable kit.Related video: 3D telemedicine offers help to sick Ghanaians in remote locations Microsoft Unveils New AI Model to Edit Video Games  IEEE Spectrum | March 11, 2025Lead researcher Katja Hoffman discusses Microsoft’s Muse, a transformer model with 1.6 billion parameters trained on 500,000 hours of player data that can generate gameplay examples from a single screenshot. National University of Singapore collaborates with Microsoft Research Asia to advance AI research and cultivate computing talent  NUS News | April 2, 2025The National University of Singapore (NUS) has signed a five-year collaboration agreement with Microsoft Research Asia for a Joint PhD Supervision Program, bringing together NUS’s academic and research excellence with Microsoft Research Asia’s global leadership in AI, computing research, and industrial applications to cultivate talent. As part of this collaboration, NUS and Microsoft Research Asia will nurture PhD students through the Industrial Postgraduate Program, supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB). This initiative will help to cultivate interdisciplinary, high-caliber tech professionals and drive the integration of AI technology across industries. How Microsoft made it through 50 years  The Verge | April 4, 2025A lot has changed since Microsoft was founded, but in many ways, the company’s core business model and ethos remain the same: make software that everyone needs and get it installed everywhere. Adapting to change, including the ongoing AI transformation, has always played an important role in the company’s success. View more news and awards Opens in a new tab

NASA administrator nominee Jared Isaacman believes the US can simultaneously handle missions to both the moon and Mars. Isaacman’s ambitious goals were presented during the billionaire entrepreneur’s Senate confirmation hearing on April 9, and conflict with longheld expert opinions on a safe and feasible trajectory to expand humanity’s presence in space. “As the President stated, we will prioritize sending astronauts to Mars. Along the way, we will inevitably have the capabilities to return to the moon,” Isaacman said during his opening remarks on Wednesday. “We don’t have to make it a binary decision of ‘moon versus Mars.’ Or ‘the moon has to come first versus Mars.’ I think we could be paralleling these efforts,” he added during later questioning. Federal law explicitly instructs the NASA administrator to “establish a program to develop a sustained human presence in cis-lunar space or on the Moon, including a robust precursor program, to promote exploration, science, commerce, and United States preeminence in space, and as a stepping-stone to future exploration of Mars and other destination.” “If that is the law, I’m committed to it,” Isaacman said following multiple requests to confirm his understanding of the statute. Returning to the moon has long been seen as a necessary step before attempting a human mission to Mars. The logistical and technological considerations are innumerable, but it essentially comes down to learning to walk before trying to run a marathon. “We’re going to learn how to use the resources on the moon in order to be able to build things in the future as we go,” former NASA administrator Bill Nelson said during a 2022 news conference. “Not a quarter of a million miles away, not a three-day journey—but millions and millions of miles away on a months and months if not years-long journey.” Meanwhile, there’s also a matter of financing the endeavors. A NASA study presented at the 2016 International Conference on Environment Systems estimated that it will cost roughly half a trillion dollars to send astronauts to Mars, along with another $2 billion for life support systems. In March, President Trump’s initiative known as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) directed NASA to slash $420 billion in “unneeded contracts” from itsrequested $25.3 billion 2025 budget. When asked for his thoughts on funding and staffing cuts, Isaacman stated he “was not familiar” with the details. “NASA has a pretty extraordinary budget… I believe we can do the near-impossible.” At its peak in 1965-66, NASA’s funding comprised about four percent of the federal budget, but that amount steadily decreased over the ensuing decades. Just 0.5 percent of the federal budget was earmarked for the agency in 2024. This story is developing… The post NASA nominee: ‘We will prioritize sending astronauts to Mars’ appeared first on Popular Science.

News Climate A lush, green Arabian Desert may have once linked Africa and Asia Long-gone grasslands may have provided migration routes at times over the past 8 million years The Arabian Desert is today a vast and barren landscapes. But humid periods over the last 8 million years may have brought ephemeral rivers and grasslands to the region, a new study suggests. Achim Thomae/Moment/Getty Images Plus By Martin J. Kernan 31 seconds ago The Arabian Desert, today the largest expanse of windswept sand dunes on Earth, experienced recurring periods of humidity millions of years ago, researchers report April 9 in Nature. The study may explain how mammals at that time survived the trek across what is now a vast and barren landscape. The findings come from mineral formations deep inside caves beneath the Arabian Peninsula. These speleothems — stalagmites and stalactites, formed by dripping rainwater — provide evidence that the region underwent repeated humid periods stretching back nearly 8 million years. The scientists used uranium dating to precisely determine the ages of speleothem samples, offering one of the oldest climate records for the region. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's science breakthroughs every Thursday.

Nature, Published online: 09 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00962-yAn established theory for how good sleep reduces a person’s risk of neurodegenerative disease has been called into question. The ensuing argument could have enormous consequences for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service has revealed that March 2025 saw the lowest sea ice maximum extent in the 47-year history of the satellite record – the warmest March on record for Europe.