I've been trying to distill my thoughts and feelings about playing Marathon into something easily communicable and I keep coming back to Season 6, Episode 13 of The Simpsons. In the episode, titled "And Maggie Makes Three," Homer learns that he's become a father for the third time and, in response, reacts with a despondent thumbs up that simultaneously acknowledges that something good has happened but that it also creates the potential for stress, hardship, and maybe even disappointment. I hate to reduce playing an alpha version of the next game from the team behind Halo and Destiny to a reaction meme deployed by millennials in group chats, but the accuracy of what homersadthumbsup.jpg conveys is undeniable.After around eight hours of gameplay where I faced off against developers, content creators, and members of the press, I left Bungie's Bellevue studio keen to play more of its high-stakes PvPvE multiplayer game. And at the same time, I couldn't deny that I had serious concerns about the experience that its compulsive gameplay loop is couched within. Putting it plainly, I'm worried Marathon could launch as a solid multiplayer shooter that is brimming with potential but thin on content. And in the dog-eat-dog world of multiplayer games, that could be a major issue. Even in its alpha stage, what made playing Marathon so compelling was immediately evident. It took just one match of running, gunning, looting, and extracting to identify that the core of the experience leverages Bungie's pedigree as a best-in-class first-person-shooter developer. As longtime Halo or Destiny players can attest to, there's a satisfying texture in the moment-to-moment gameplay that makes Bungie's games hard to put down. The satisfying thump of a melee kill or the glee that comes from sticking an enemy with a plasma grenade has carried Halo through multiple generations. And deep loot-based progression layered on top of that gives Destiny a gravitational pull that's hard to escape. Marathon has all that, but within the framework of an extraction shooter. For those not familiar, this is a relatively new flavor of multiplayer shooter that takes the thrills of PvP and marries it with the tension of battle royale to create a game about dropping in, grabbing resources, and then making it to an extraction point to get out with your goodies in a single life.Continue Reading at GameSpot

The New York Times Games Connections has returned with another seemingly impossible puzzle. Winning requires careful examination of all sixteen words and correctly organizing them into four mystery categories with only a few attempts allowed.

This weekend Bungie revealed Marathon’s sci-fi-fueled gameplay to the world. The studio, celebrated for its sublime first-person gunplay and ever-expanding gameplay, is venturing into the extraction-shooter genre when the game launches on September 23. The Marathon premise is simple and enticing: load up your Runner with valuable gear, compete with other players to secure more loot, and risk it all trying to extract with all the goods.  I had the opportunity to catch up with Marathon Game Director Joe Ziegler hot off the heels of this reveal, diving deeper into the details around Bungie’s next game. We cover lots of ground, including Bungie’s approach to a new genre, tapping into the power of PS5, the game’s bold art style, and more. Play Video Tim Turi: Congratulations on the big gameplay reveal! How are you and the team feeling following the event? Joe Ziegler: It’s pretty exciting. The term I’ve been using a lot is “nerve-cited.” It’s a labor of love we’ve been working on for a few years now, and that definitely comes with the passion that we’ve poured into it, iterating with our audiences, and this desire to produce something amazing to play and to see.  Having it touch real players’ hands for the first time is thrilling, because we do this to excite and entertain them in amazing ways, but also nerve wracking. You know, you question a lot of decisions you made. You’re really hoping that all the things that you’ve thought of are really what players care about. And we feel like we’re there, but we’re really excited to see what players have to say. During the development of Marathon, were there specific moments or experiences that made the Bungie team realize it was onto something special? So many of them are these unpredictable moments. Moments where you thought one thing was going to happen, but another thing happened. In our game, you’re traveling to this mysterious world where danger could lurk around every corner. Sometimes you turn a corner and you’re face to face with the United Earth Space Council (UESC), these really brutal and dangerous opponents inside of our game. Or sometimes you’re just traversing across the map and bullets are whizzing by from another crew that has seen you. And some of those moments get extremely exciting, because you don’t think you’re going to make it out of it, and you turn the tables, or you just barely eke by, and you find your way out to the exfil. When you get out, you’re just shaking with an awesome intensity that you’re going to remember for a long time. What’s the backstory behind the name “Marathon?” In the original (1994) game, “Marathon” is the name of the colony ship sent out from Earth by the UESC. They sent it past the reaches of our solar system to establish the first colony on a system called Tau Ceti. And so the UESC Marathon is kind of a weird ship built into an asteroid-like moon, and then sent out to make the long journey. …if you were to make me guess, I’d assume that “Marathon” refers to the fact that it was a 500-year journey, and was an appropriate name for a very, very long commitment of travel.  We’re using the Marathon name [for this new 2025 game] because of the legacy of the IP. We’re taking a lot of those familiar IP elements, the UESC Marathon ship as well, and bringing it to light in modern day. We’re reinterpreting a lot of things, but there are a lot of familiar elements as well, such as the ship and Tau Ceti, that I think fans from the past will really enjoy seeing. Bungie is famous for its pitch-perfect gunplay. How do you go about being true to that legacy while making Marathon’s FPS action feel like its own thing? A lot of it comes from the nature of the game and the types of decisions that you want players to be making and how you want them to make those decisions. This game is very much about survival. And in survival-style games, a lot of the pressure is on you to manage resources, be adaptive, and be situationally aware. What we’re doing with our gunplay and our systems is we’re taking a lot of that familiar action base that players really enjoy, and we’re adding intense survival layers on top. For example, you don’t regenerate health automatically very quickly, but you have consumables that help you heal. Part of that is to create moments where you make decisions to either go into battle or fall back. You have to think about the resources that you’re carrying.  View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Do you have a message for any players curious about extraction shooters, but are a little nervous or intimidated by the risk/reward? I will definitely say that this game is challenging and intense, but it’s very rewarding. As you learn it you’ll feel yourself developing survival skills that you may not have experienced before, that begin to make you feel masterful. We have also designed this game to feel really natural on controllers as well. There are a lot of PC extraction shooters where mouse and keyboard are a little bit more common, and so in designing for that what we’re trying to do is get the interface and gameplay finickiness out so you can play it naturally. We want you to be able to focus on adapting and learning those survival skills to pull off memorable runs. Obviously players are risking their valuable loadouts in a given match. Can you tell us about any persistent progression elements? We want to make sure the players feel like they get something for their time spent in every match. Some of that is going to be experience-based. For example, leveling your runner level in any given season. Some of that will be related to upgrades provided by factions. As you gather materials or get currencies, you’ll be able to increase some of your overall character stats. So you might get a little bit more stamina, or you might be able to loot boxes a little bit faster. Some of it will also increase the options that you have to purchase from an in-game item store called the Black Market. You can use the currency you collect in game to purchase different weapons, implants, and upgrades based on what you unlock inside of that upgrade tree. So as you play the game you’ll see a lot of your options grow. What ways is Bungie taking advantage of PlayStation 5 technology for Marathon? We definitely have haptic support for [DualSense wireless controllers], which is pretty fun when you get into some of those gunfights and you feel feedback on your fingertips. We’re also supporting the Tempest 3D Audio engine, so you’re going to hear a lot of immersive audio.  In addition, a lot of the rendering technology on the PS5, and especially on the PS5 Pro, is really awesome. So we’re planning some awesome usage of PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution), and some additional support in upscaling and resolution. So if you have a PS5 or PS5 Pro you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how we deliver on the console.  Play Video [EMBED Gameplay Reveal Trailer] Marathon’s art style is not quite like anything else out there right now. Can you walk us through what makes it so striking and unique? Our aesthetic is hugely inspired by graphic design and a lot of modern product design trappings. But I think what really sets us apart is whenever I look at a [Marathon] image, I go, “I think I understand it,” or “I think I don’t… but I really like it.” There’s something really enticing about visuals that look so bold and graphic like something you’d see in print but also pulled onto the screen and mixed with this technological sci-fi shaping. That, and also put against a very organic background and the contrast of all these things really pops. It’s a mixture that I don’t think we’ve seen a lot of before, and we’re really excited by it, because it creates all those visual contrasts and conflicts that go together to help the tone of the game, which is really about paranoia. It’s about intensity. It’s about not knowing the truth you know, seeking to find it, and constantly being wrapped into a rabbit hole of information. You don’t know what’s true or false. So all those things kind of come together really nicely through the art style as well.  Is there anything else you’d like to make sure the PlayStation audience takes away from this big reveal? If you’re a person who really enjoys getting into survival experiences. If you’re a person who really enjoys testing your mettle with other players inside of that space trying to do the same. And if you’re a player who really, just wants to go on a thrilling ride that you never know the outcome of… I think this is going to be a game for you. Especially because we’ve focused so much on making this an experience that translates across platforms really well. I’m especially excited to see PlayStation players come in and experience the genre and our offering inside of it. We’ve poured a lot of passion and love into [Marathon], and we’ve played it a lot, and we played a lot for fun too. So we’re excited to have them join our community, show us what’s good, and show us how good they can be. Marathon launches September 23 on PS5, Steam, and Xbox Series X|S.

The Marathon alpha gives you a chance to play Bungie’s forthcoming extraction shooter significantly ahead of its Sept. 23 release date. Announced during Bungie’s Marathon stream on April 12, the Marathon alpha allows you to check out four characters on two maps. Like most alpha tests, though, it also doubles as a technical stress test for the game, meaning you could run into connectivity issues and other hiccups. Below, we’ll tell you how to sign up for the Marathon alpha, including some other information about what to expect from the alpha. How to sign up for the Marathon alpha Currently, the only way to get into the Marathon alpha test is to join Bungie’s Marathon Discord, which you can access via the following link: https://discord.gg/marathonthegame. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown on how to sign up for the Marathon alpha: Sign up for the Marathon Discord and agree to the rules. Go to the #alpha_access chat and type /alpha. Watch for the Discord bot to ping you in the #new-noise chat and follow the custom link it offers. Create a Bungie account if you don’t have one, or sign into an existing account. Select your platform of choice: PlayStation, Steam, or Xbox. Thoroughly read and, if you’re comfortable, accept the Marathon alpha NDA. Fill out the Marathon survey, which asks you about your preferred platforms (including PC specs, if that’s your choice), your experience with past Bungie games, and your familiarity with PvP games like Marathon. Close out of the survey and return to the original tab to confirm that you’ve been signed up for the alpha. In a post-script on the survey, Bungie notes completing the form enters you into “a pool” of prospective players but does not guarantee access to the alpha. Codes will be sent to players the week of April 14, and throughout the runtime of the alpha. It’s possible Bungie could add more methods to get Marathon alpha access in the future, but the studio hasn’t announced anything like that just yet. When does the Marathon alpha start and end? The alpha will start on Wednesday, April 23, at 10 a.m. PDT and run through Sunday, May 4, at 10 a.m. PDT. Bungie said in a FAQ on its website that this particular alpha is focused on North America and only available to players ages 18 or older. Codes are locked to your particular Bungie account and thus can’t be given away or sold. Access will also not come with friend codes, although players will be able to group up with others who’ve been selected. If you are selected for the Marathon alpha, you’ll get an email with instructions on how to download the game, which is about 6 GB. Curious about the PC specs? See them here! Bungie also confirmed that there will be additional opportunities to play Marathon ahead of its Sept. 23 release date. All account progress will be wiped between the alpha test and any the game’s launch. What to expect from the Marathon alpha We were able to play the Marathon alpha early as part of a media and creator preview event at Bungie HQ, though some aspects might be different than the public alpha. During our playtime, we were able to check out two different maps: Perimeter and Dire Marsh. Perimeter is a smaller, early game map, where Dire Marsh pits six squads of three against each other in a large campus. There were a wide variety of different weapons and items in our tests, including golden legendary items with powerful unique effects — although they were quite rare. It’s unclear if Bungie is holding back some weapon types for the full game, but the studio did confirm in a Q&A that there are unique weapon mods we weren’t able to play with. We had access to four Runners — what Marathon calls its heroes — in the alpha: Locus: A tank-like character with a powerful shield, a rocket salvo, and boosters on his legs. Glitch: A speed character who can quickly traverse the area with her arm cannon and double jump. Blackbird: An information character who can scan the environment to help locate potential threats. Void: A stealth character capable of going invisible at will to escape or surprise his enemies. We were also able to test a few contracts, which are essentially quests that help improve your relationships with various factions. Advancing your faction progress will allow you to upgrade your account with more vault space, access to more advanced items in the shop, and more. Disclosure: Parts of this article are based on a Marathon preview event held at Bungie’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, from April 2-4. Bungie provided Polygon’s travel and accommodations for the event. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.

We're now seeing significant AI upgrades from the big players in the field almost every week, with most new features quickly copied by rival companies as each one looks to stay ahead. Now it's time for Microsoft Copilot to play catch-up, as it adds a host of features we've previously seen tested by Microsoft or launched for other AI chatbots.Copilot now has Deep Research, for example, to match all the Deep Research tools elsewhere, while Copilot Search has been upgraded. Microsoft has also rolled out its own AI-hosted podcast generator, a tool that's been available for a while on competing services. There's a lot to explore, and each new feature is explained below.These updates have just been announced and are rolling out over the "coming weeks and months," depending on "platform, market and language." At the time of writing I wasn't able to access or test any of them except Copilot Search, but this is all the information we have about them from Microsoft.Copilot MemoryCopilot can now remember more about you, and personalize its answers accordingly. In return for a little less privacy, you get a little more convenience: The AI bot won't suggest a mushroom recipe if it knows you hate mushrooms, for example, and can recall previous anniversary gifts for your partner so you don't purchase the same item twice.This matches what we've seen with Gemini and ChatGPT, and does raise some questions about how much we should really be sharing with these AIs. Microsoft says a full set of privacy options will be coming to the Copilot dashboard, and you'll be able to "choose which types of information it remembers about you or to opt out entirely." Copilot ActionsCopilot is joining the ranks of the AI agents—bots that can actually carry out tasks for you, such as booking hotel rooms or buying gifts for friends (nothing says you care like having AI do the work of purchasing gifts, after all). It's called Copilot Actions, and the launch partners are 1-800-Flowers.com, Booking.com, Expedia, Kayak, OpenTable, Priceline, Tripadvisor, Skyscanner, Viator, and Vrbo.This is in some ways an elaborate upgrade on autofill: For example, tell Copilot where you want to stay and when, and it'll do the job of filling out all the forms with that information (and your address and payment details) on the hotel website. As with other AI agents, like Opera's Browser Operator, it has the potential to be very useful and also go very wrong.Copilot VisionCopilot Vision isn't actually new, having made its debut on the web last year, but it's now coming to the apps for Windows, Android, and iOS. It means you'll be able to point your device camera at something and have Copilot identify it, or answer questions about it—so the AI is essentially seeing the world around you at the same time as you.AI tools have long been able to identify the contents of images and photos of course, but Copilot Vision adds real-time processing and interpretation. The Copilot app for Windows will be able to run the same sort of analysis on whatever's on your computer screen as well, and even interact with files and apps if needed. Copilot Vision is expanding to more devices, including Windows. Credit: Microsoft Copilot PagesCopilot Canvas is a bit like ChatGPT Canvas combined with ChatGPT Projects, or something along the lines of the Notion app, giving you space to organize disparate thoughts and notes in one central hub. It'll come in handy for creating content, exploring ideas, and running research projects.This isn't completely new either, having previously been available to business customers signed up for Microsoft 365 Copilot—where it can be used as a way of collaborating with other people, like a giant Google Docs file with added AI. Now it's rolling out so individual users can explore it too.Copilot PodcastsYou may well have come across the AI podcasts you can magic up through Gemini or NotebookLM from Google, and now Copilot can do the same: You can either choose one of Copilot's suggestions based on your interests and what you've been chatting about, or feed it specific documents and websites for content prompts.It's possible to interact with the podcasts while they're playing, Microsoft says, and it gives you another way of exploring topics beyond the default to-and-fro of the text conversation. This is one of the more clever tricks that AI chatbots have managed so far, so it's no surprise to see Copilot joining in with a version of its own. Copilot is getting into the AI podcast game. Credit: Microsoft Copilot Deep ResearchMicrosoft obviously saw ChatGPT Deep Research, Perplexity Deep Research, and Gemini Deep Research, and decided that name was as good as any for its own matching feature inside Copilot. As with the competitor offerings, the idea is you give Copilot a topic to research, and it'll go away and scour the web for relevant articles and resources.All the information it finds will then be put together in a carefully curated and formatted report at the end, almost like an actual person has done it. Microsoft says queries run with Deep Research enabled will take between three to six minutes to complete; unless you're on Copilot Pro, you'll be limited to five Deep Research queries a month.Copilot ShoppingIf you've ever felt your online shopping could use some AI help, you're in luck: Copilot has added some extra enhancements to its ability to scour the web for the best deals. You can now get the chatbot to research the details of items, and compare them against each other (like the Pixel 9a and the iPhone 16e), in more detail.Microsoft is also going to start adding direct links to buy products from within Copilot, as well as the option to track prices as they rise and fall—so you might get an alert from the AI assistant telling you the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is now cheaper than ever. And this is something Copilot does better than its AI rivals right now. Copilot SearchCopilot and Bing go way back, but now Microsoft is taking on Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT Search more directly with a more prominent and widely available search offering: Copilot Search will serve you "intelligently curated information" with the goal of avoiding "potentially misleading information" as much as possible.This is something that's live now globally, so I could test this one out. As with the Google and ChatGPT offerings, information is neatly laid out, with small citation and source boxes dotted around just in case you want to check the human (or AI?) writing on the web the answers have been scraped from.Copilot Search correctly identified R.E.M.'s first album for me (mainly by regurgitating Wikipedia—thank you, human contributors), and properly explained how DNA worked—though it was interesting that it quoted a "guest author" on DailyNewsHungary as well as Healthline for this one. Perhaps more work on sources is needed.

Spoilers for “The Robot Revolution.” The start of any season of Doctor Who is important, doubly so when there’s a new co-star to introduce. “The Robot Revolution” has to get us to fall in love with Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), ensnare new fans and keep existing ones hooked. Especially since it’s the second of two series that Disney paid for, meaning it’s got to do well enough to keep the money flowing. We open “17 years ago” with Belinda Chandra staring at the stars next to her boyfriend, Alan Budd (Jonny Green). It’s an awkward teenage date, with Alan clearly trying to win the heart of his beau by buying her one of those star adoption certificates. In 2025, Belinda is now a nurse at a busy London hospital where, in the background, the Doctor is searching for her. Belinda goes home to bed, and we see that she’s got the star ownership certificate framed on her wall. But she’s rudely awoken by a squad of retro-futuristic ‘50s robots in a Tintin rocket who have come to abduct both her and the certificate. The Doctor reaches her home just in time to see the rocket take off, and cue the opening credits. The certificate wasn’t a gag present, and she is actually queen of the planet BelindaChandra, populated by BelindaChandrians (I’m calling them humans from now on). The Doctor gives chase in the TARDIS but both the rocket and TARDIS get caught in a vaguely-defined time fissure. When Belinda arrives, she’s greeted by the human Sasha55, who tells her the robots are in charge, having overthrown and subjugated the people in a bloody uprising a decade prior.           “Oh, this is a bit like Jupiter Ascending,” I wrote in my notes. Belinda is taken to a throne room where she’s told that she must merge with the planet’s evil ruling supercomputer, the AI Generator. AI Generator, all skull shapes and Tesla coils, intends to bond with Belinda. She is shown an animated demonstration of her fate, as she is wrapped in machine parts and made into an unthinking cyborg.           “Oh, that's like the scary bit from Superman III,” I wrote in my notes. Who’s been lurking in the background of the scene all along? The Doctor, who has adopted the title of Planetary Historian. (Thanks to the time fissure, he arrived here six months ahead of the rocket, the Robots seized the TARDIS and he’s been working with the rebellion. He’s even got a new companion, Sasha55, who he’s promised to take to the stars when this is all over.) He tells Belinda the robots can’t, for some reason, hear every ninth word spoken, and gives her a coded message telling her he, and the rebellion, are here to rescue her. In the ensuing fight, Sasha55 is vaporized, much to the Doctor’s admittedly brief horror and grief. The surviving rebels, along with a little Roomba bot assigned to clean Queen Belinda’s pathway…           “Oh, like the floor-cleaning robot M-O from Wall-E,” I wrote in my notes. … escape to a teleporter, after which the Doctor disables the Roomba to ensure the robots can’t track them down, then kisses the ‘bot by way of apology. Then comes time for the episode to stop while we see the Doctor and Belinda interact properly for the first time. The Doctor was told about Belinda’s plight by someone from their future, and he can’t say more lest he muddle the timelines. Alistair Heap / BBC Studios / Disney / Bad Wolf The time fracture both vessels passed through has caused plenty of time-bending issues, like the fact the robots have their own copy of Belinda’s star certificate. But it’s not a copy, it’s the same object from another point in time, and nobody knows how or why they have it. Belinda, like Ruby Sunday before her, is trope-aware enough to know that two of the same object from different points in time cannot occupy the same space, lest it cause an explosion.            “Oh, like in Timecop!,” I wrote in my notes. There are wounded at the base, and Belinda instantly kicks into nurse mode, grabbing IVs and treating patients. She’s quick to take charge and has no patience for nonsense, quick to defend herself from any hint of condescension when the Doctor suggests something “timey-wimey” is going on. She refuses to allow anyone to fight her battles for her and is determined to grab the narrative and shape it her way, no matter the cost. So, she sneaks off, reactivates the Roomba and offers herself to the robots in exchange for them sparing the lives of the rebels. Belinda and the Doctor are taken to meet the AI Generator which turns out to be… the AL Generator. When Belinda was kidnapped by the robots, she mentioned her ex Alan had bought the certificate, and so they went to kidnap him as well. But the time fracture meant Alan arrived a decade earlier, fused with the machine (becoming a creepy cyborg) and started the robot uprising. Even so, Belinda’s happy to sacrifice herself to him until she spots Alan holding his copy of the star certificate. She opts to Timecop the two pieces of paper together, causing a big timey-wimey explosion that only the Doctor can pull her out of. Belinda is safe, but the Doctor mentions that he’s now intertwined with Belinda’s timestream. Alan, meanwhile, has been regressed to a sperm on the floor that the Roomba bot quickly mops away. Reunited with the TARDIS, the Doctor scans Belinda and reveals he’s already met her descendant — Mundy Flynn (also Varada Sethu) from last season’s “Boom.” Belinda may be curious as to how someone that far removed from her may be identical, but she’s not embracing the mystery. She’s angry with the Doctor for scanning her without consent and that he’s treating her like a puzzle to be solved. Having seen Sasha55 die, she knows trekking around with the Doctor is dangerous, and wants to get back to May 24, 2025. But the TARDIS won’t land on present-day Earth, and even the Cloister Bell begins ringing a warning. They open the TARDIS doors to see empty space before the Doctor decides to take her back home “the long way round.” Once the ship disappears, a series of objects start to float in front of the camera: A smashed up black cab, the twisted wreckage of the Eiffel Tower, Belinda’s star adoption certificate and a calendar with all the days in May but the 25th ticked off. Uh-oh. It's a lot to get through in such a short episode Alistair Heap / BBC Studios / Bad Wolf Like a lot of Disney-era Who, “The Robot Revolution” feels overstuffed to the point of bursting. On one hand, nothing overstays its welcome. On the other, it feels like the show is burning through a movie’s worth of plot on fast-forward. It’s hard to get a tangible sense of the stakes given how rushed everything is, and there’s a lot of telling, rather than showing. We’re told the planet is under the brutal thumb of an evil overlord but it plays out as little red ships firing at buildings in the digital matte paintings. We’re told Alan is a creep but we never really get any sense of that until after he’s revealed as the villain. We’re told the Doctor is operating on instructions from a figure from his own future, but it’d be nice if some of this was depicted. Davies was pivotal in reviving Doctor Who and building the cultural juggernaut it became under his leadership. His role in the show’s history is secure but, even so, his Disney-era series seem to be in thrall to the work of his own successor, Steven Moffat. “The Robot Revolution” features a macguffin found inside a mundane trinket, a split narrative and time-bending shenanigans. It’s not that Moffat owns these ideas but you can almost feel Davies trying to bend his less formal, more character-driven style into something else. A cynic might suggest Davies is reacting to the slight of not having a single credited episode in Doctor Who Magazine’s most recent poll of the series’ greatest, while Moffat has five. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the slightly frantic, gappy nature of this script is a deliberate ploy to lay the framework for the rest of the season. But, even so, you can feel a degree of straining for a storytelling model that doesn’t quite work. If the script is the weakest part of the episode, then the production design has to take the crown for strongest. The retro-futuristic robots call to mind a bright red Ford Thunderbird or Chevy Bel Air while the cleaning robot is clearly styled on a VW Beetle. It’s a rather humanistic design I wish the robovac makers of today would emulate. Behind the scenes James Pardon / BBC Studios / Disney / Bad Wolf Doctor Who is a regular source of gossip, especially given the permanently tenuous nature of the star role. It’s easy to say the lead is about to quit and for that to sound true, given they leave after three or four years in the role anyway. There are a number of recent reports suggesting Ncuti Gatwa has already quit the show, or is about to. Many of them also suggest the BBC and Disney are refusing to greenlight new episodes until they see how successful this season is. In addition, the BBC says funding cuts and inflation has seen its budget fall by £1 billion (around $1.3 billion) in real terms since 2010. It doesn't help that, when asked directly about the future of the series in an interview with (the BBC's youth-orientated news show) Newsround, Russell T. Davies opted to equivocate in a way that suggests the show is about to back on ice. I mention this because of the sequence where Belinda defeats Alan with the certificate, and the Doctor pulls her out. He says she needed a Time Lord to absorb the enormous amount of energy kicked out when she touched the paper together. The Doctor then clutched at his back as if he was in a lot of pain, but shrugged it off and was fine for the rest of the episode. Fans with long memories, however, know that absorbing a lot of energy from the time vortex is what killed Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor back in 2005. Well, that and Eccleston’s decision to leave. Mrs. Flood Corner Lara Cornell / BBC Studios / Disney / Bad Wolf It seems Mrs. Flood enjoys moving in next door to whoever is winding up as this year’s companion. While being abducted, she calls to her neighbor to call the police and tell her parents she loves them. As the rocket lifts off, she tells the audience that we haven’t seen her, and goes back indoors to avoid encountering the Doctor, who sprints out in pursuit.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/doctor-who-the-robot-revolution-review-meet-belinda-chandra-190054697.html?src=rss

A range of electronics goods are now exempt from tariffs – including those manufactured in China.

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. At the end of March 2025, national active housing inventory for sale was up 28.5% year-over-year. That year-over-year active inventory growth is happening just about everywhere. The recent jump in active inventory for sale tells us that homebuyers have gained some leverage in most housing markets over the past year. Some “seller’s markets have turned into “balanced markets,” while some “balanced markets” have turned into “buyer’s markets.” While active listings are rising year-over-year in most regional housing markets, most markets are still below pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels. (In March 2025, national active housing inventory for sale was still 20% below pre-pandemic March 2019 levels.) However, by late 2025, it’s possible that nearly half of U.S. metro area housing markets could be above pre-pandemic 2019 active inventory levels.  Generally speaking, housing markets where inventory (i.e., active listings) has returned to pre-pandemic 2019 levels have experienced weaker home price growth (or outright declines) over the past 30 months. Conversely, housing markets where inventory remains far below pre-pandemic 2019 levels have experienced stronger home price growth over that period. Many of the softest housing markets, where homebuyers have gained leverage, are located in Gulf Coast and Mountain West regions. These areas were home to many of the nation’s top pandemic boomtowns, which experienced significant home price growth that stretched housing prices beyond local income levels. That said, even tighter markets in the Northeast and Midwest are starting to see inventory growth pickup. 

Chargers and charging stations are things that you probably need at your desk or workspace all the time. However, the ones that are available in the market aren’t the most creatively designed since these are the kinds of products that are more functional than aesthetic. But that doesn’t mean that designers cannot come up with something more creative, even if they’re still just a concept. Designer: Aleksandr Misiukevich Cubolt is one such concept which reimagines a regular, mundane charging station by incorporating Lego into the design and letting users personalize it themselves. It’s basically a modular, customisable charging hub that lets you add a bit of fun into what’s an otherwise functional device. Cubolt is more than just a charging station; it’s a canvas for creativity.Drawing inspiration from the iconic LEGO brick, the design features a base compatible with LEGO pieces, allowing users to personalize their charging station with favorite minifigures, custom builds, or decorative elements.This modular approach not only caters to individual aesthetics but also encourages users to engage with their workspace actively. The main part is a cube that has the dimensions of a the regular 8×8 lego dots. This means that you’ll be able to attach bricks and other lego accessories to it when you want to decorate it. The cube uses aluminum materials so it should be stable and safe for your devices (in theory of course). The charging rod included can be inserted and removed from the cube and on the back there are four Lego dots to complete the picture. I don’t know of course if that will be allowed if this becomes an actual product. Everything should be easy to assemble and disassemble and the easy repairability comes with that as well. So what can you do with a charging station like this? You can design your cube whichever way you want with various Lego products. Aside from just something to charge your devices, you can also turn it into a pen or office supplies holder with the right parts. Or you can create an architectural or art structure or use it as a color accent for your space. And when you get bored with it, you can just create something new. As technology continues to permeate our daily lives, designs like Cubolt highlight the potential for products that not only serve a purpose but also inspire and delight.Whether you’re a LEGO enthusiast or someone seeking to add a unique touch to your desk, Cubolt offers a refreshing take on the conventional charging station. The post Charging station concept lets you integrate Lego pieces for creative purposes first appeared on Yanko Design.

A reasonable performer but not for high-end creatives