Fine-tuning your AI prompts can boost work productivity.getty You're in a rush to meet a deadline and decide to use ChatGPT to create a marketing email. You type in the AI prompt, "Write a professional 100-word marketing email." The result is a generic, jargon-filled document lacking the tone or structure you were hoping for. It's a reminder that effective AI prompts make all the difference between mediocre and exceptional AI output, and mastering them comes down to one critical skill—prompt engineering. According to DigitalOcean's bi-annual Currents survey, while 45% of respondents acknowledge that AI tools have made their jobs easier, 43% feel these tools are overhyped. As AI drives rapid change in the workplace, this satisfaction gap typically stems from ineffective AI prompts rather than technology limitations. Crafting the right prompt can mean the difference between receiving valuable output that streamlines your workflow or an inadequate response that leaves you frustrated. By understanding and applying the principles of effective prompt engineering, you can significantly enhance the quality of AI-generated outputs. Let’s explore how you can master the skill of fine-tuning your AI prompts for better results and increased productivity. Understanding the Anatomy of an Effective AI Prompt Before diving into specifics, it's helpful to understand the foundation of prompt engineering. High performers recognize that the following four components form the building blocks of any effective AI prompt: Persona: Providing information about yourself or the role you want the AI to adopt creates a context that shapes the response. For example, "I am a marketing director preparing for a product launch" immediately frames the conversation. Task: Clearly defining what you want the AI to do eliminates ambiguity. Be specific about your instructions while maintaining clarity and conciseness. Context: Adding relevant background information guides the AI toward more targeted results. This might include project details, audience information, or specific constraints. Format: Specifying how you want the information presented—whether as an email, report, or presentation—helps ensure the output matches your needs. Proven Strategies to Improve Your AI Prompts Be Specific and Detailed You can generate more accurate and relevant responses using highly specific AI prompts. For example, instead of asking: "Give me ideas for improving customer service." Try this: "Generate five strategies for reducing customer support response times for a B2B software company with a distributed support team across three time zones. Each strategy should be implementable within 30 days and require minimal additional budget." The second prompt provides clear parameters that guide the AI toward solutions tailored to your specific situation. Provide Examples When you need the AI to follow a particular format or style, showing is more effective than telling. This technique, sometimes called "few-shot learning," dramatically improves the AI's ability to match your expectations. For instance, if you need to generate multiple product descriptions, provide one example of your preferred style and ask the AI to follow that pattern. This approach reduces the need for revisions and creates more consistent outputs. Supply Relevant Data AI systems excel at analyzing information but can only work with what you provide. When appropriate, include specific data points, statistics, or background information in your AI prompt. This approach is particularly valuable for analysis, report generation, and data-driven decision-making. Specify Your Desired Output When crafting an AI prompt, clearly articulate what you want the final product to look like. This includes length, tone, style, and any specific elements you want included or excluded. For example: "Write a professional email to our enterprise clients announcing our new cybersecurity feature. The email should be approximately 250 words, maintain a confident but not technical tone, emphasize the business benefits rather than technical specifications, and include a clear call to action for scheduling a demo." Frame Instructions Positively Research in cognitive psychology shows that positive instructions are processed more efficiently than negative ones. This principle applies to AI prompts as well. Instead of saying: "Don’t use technical jargon." Say: "Use simple, accessible language appropriate for a non-technical audience." Positive framing reduces ambiguity and helps the AI focus on what to do rather than what to avoid. Assign a Persona Giving the AI a specific role or perspective can dramatically improve the relevance and depth of its responses. This technique leverages the AI's ability to adapt its output based on contextual cues. Here's an example AI prompt: "As an experienced financial analyst with expertise in emerging markets, evaluate the potential risks and opportunities of expanding our operations into Southeast Asia." This approach is particularly effective when you need specialized knowledge or a specific perspective on a topic. Implement Chain of Thought Prompting For complex problems, asking the AI to show its reasoning process often yields more accurate and thoughtful responses. Research has consistently shown that AI prompts requesting step-by-step reasoning significantly improve problem-solving accuracy compared to direct questions. Here's an example: "Walk through your analysis of our quarterly sales data step by step, identifying key trends and explaining your reasoning for each insight." This technique improves the response's quality and gives you visibility into how the AI reached its conclusions. By encouraging the AI to work through problems methodically, you can identify potential errors in logic and gain deeper insights into the subject matter. Break Complex Tasks into Smaller Steps When tackling complicated projects, breaking them down into sequential AI prompts often produces better results than attempting to accomplish everything with a single instruction. For instance, instead of asking for a complete marketing plan in one prompt, you might: First, request an outline of key sections Then, ask for detailed content for each section individually Finally, request an executive summary that ties everything together This iterative approach allows you to review and refine at each stage, resulting in a more cohesive final product. Common AI Prompt Pitfalls to Avoid Even with solid prompt engineering knowledge, experienced AI professionals occasionally fall into these traps: Overloading with Information While details are important, overwhelming the AI with excessive information can dilute the focus of your request. Aim for the minimum effective amount of context. Ambiguous Instructions Phrases like "make this better" or "improve this" leave too much room for interpretation. Always specify what "better" means in your context. Ignoring Model Limitations Different AI models have different capabilities and knowledge cutoff dates. Understanding these limitations helps you craft prompts that work within the system's constraints rather than against them. Neglecting to Iterate The first AI prompt rarely produces the perfect output. Based on initial results, be prepared to refine your approach. Mastering the Art of Prompt Engineering Remember that prompt engineering is both an art and a science. While these guidelines provide a solid foundation for crafting effective AI prompts, don't be afraid to experiment with different approaches. By mastering this skill, you'll transform AI from a sometimes-helpful tool into a powerful ally that consistently delivers exceptional results. Most importantly, you'll gain a competitive advantage that can significantly impact your career success in an increasingly AI-driven professional landscape.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, the latest flagship model for Samsung’s tablets, has already found its way into the Samsung Galaxy deals at Walmart. It’s on sale for $985, for savings of $144 on its original price of $1,129. The discount may disappear at any moment though, so if you don’t want to miss the chance to buy this premium device for less than $1,000, there should be no hesitation. We highly recommend pushing forward with your purchase as soon as you can — today if possible, as tomorrow may already be too late. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, which was just released in October 2024, has already claimed a spot in our list of the best tablets as our choice for the best big Android tablet. We gave it a score of 4 out of 5 stars partly because of its gorgeous display — a 14.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X touchscreen with anti-reflective technology so you won’t have trouble using it while you’re outdoors. The tablet also features IP68 water and dust resistance, alongside Armor Aluminum frames for extra durability. The performance of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra is another major selling point for the tablet. It’s powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9300 Plus processor and 12GB of RAM, and you can expand its built-in 256GB storage by up to 1TB through a microSD card. Your purchase of the device will also comes with the S Pen, a stylus that makes it easier to draw and take notes, and a Keyboard Case that pulls double duty of protecting the display when closed and transforming the tablet into a laptop when open. Related If you’re thinking about investing in your next purchase from Samsung tablet deals, you might want to make it the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra. It’s available from Walmart with a $144 discount that slashes its price from $1,129 to $985, but we’re not sure how much time is remaining before this offer expires. The device is pretty new so chances to save aren’t happening often yet, so you better grab this opportunity to get the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra for below $1,000. Editors’ Recommendations

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Houston, we've had a problem Why are two Texas senators trying to wrest a Space Shuttle from the Smithsonian? This seems like a smart use of taxpayer money. Eric Berger – Apr 16, 2025 5:25 pm | 23 Space Shuttle Discovery as seen on display. Credit: The Smithsonian Space Shuttle Discovery as seen on display. Credit: The Smithsonian Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Should the city of Houston, which proudly bills itself as "Space City," have a prized Space Shuttle orbiter on public display? More than a decade ago, arguably, the answer was yes. After all, the Space Shuttle program was managed from Johnson Space Center, in southeastern Houston. All the astronauts who flew on the shuttle trained there. And the vehicle was operated out of Mission Control at the Houston-based facility. But when the final decisions were being made to distribute the shuttles 15 years ago, the Houston community dragged its feet on putting together a competitive proposal. There were also questions about the ability of Space Center Houston to raise funding to house the shuttle within a new display area, which magnified concerns that the historical vehicle, like a Saturn V rocket before it, would be left outside in the region's humid environment. Finally, other cities offered better proposals for displaying the shuttles to the public. In the end, the four shuttles were sent to museums in Washington, DC, New York, Florida, and California. Bring it back home And that was all more or less settled until last week when the two US senators from Texas, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, filed the "Bring the Space Shuttle Home Act" to move Space Shuttle Discovery from its current location the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia to Houston. The space collectibles news site, CollectSpace, has a good overview of why this move is stupidly impractical. Essentially, it would easily cost $1 billion to get one of the two shuttle aircraft carriers back into service and move Discovery, it is unclear where the shuttle could survive such a journey in its current state, and the Smithsonian is the nation's premier museum. There's a reason that Discovery, the most historical of the three remaining shuttles that have gone to space, was placed there. After the senators announced their bill, the collective response from the space community was initially shock. This was soon followed by: why? And so I've spoken with several people on background, both from the political and space spheres, to get a sense of what is really happening here. The short answer is that it is all political, and the timing is due to the reelection campaign for Cornyn, who faces a stiff runoff against Ken Paxton. Paxton is the attorney general of Texas. In 2020, several high-level assistants in his office accused Paxton of "bribery, abuse of office, and other crimes." Late,r the Republican-dominated Texas House impeached him by a vote of 121–23. However, after the 2020 presidential election, Paxton led the way in filing lawsuits that sought to overturn the results. So the MAGA base loves him. Cornyn, therefore, may well lose the runoff. NASA wants no part of this Here's what we know about the legislation, which is, in DC parlance, a "messaging bill." Cornyn is behind this, and Cruz simply agreed to go along. The goal in Cornyn's campaign is to use the bill as a way to show Texans that he is fighting for them in Washington, DC, against the evils there. Presumably, he will blame the Obama administration, even though it is quite clear in hindsight that there were no political machinations behind the decision to not award a space shuttle to Houston. Space Center Houston, which would be responsible for hosting the shuttle, was not even told before the legislation was filed. NASA, too, is not a willing party. The space agency does not want to have to find retirees who worked on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft decades ago to work to try to refurbish one of them. The most flight-ready aircraft of the two had its orbiter attachments removed, needs new engines, and would have to be recertified to return to flight. "We don't want any part of this," one NASA official told Ars. It seems unlikely that this is a punitive bill toward the Smithsonian. It just happens that, according to Cornyn's office, Discovery is the only shuttle still "owned" by the federal government, and therefore eligible to be transported. The bottom line is that two Texas senators want taxpayers to spend at least $1 billion to remove the most historic Space Shuttle from the most historic spaceflight museum in the world, possibly break it in an across-the-country move, and then put it in a nondescript warehouse in Houston. I am a huge space buff who lives just a few minutes away from Space Center Houston. Even I can recognize this for the colossally stupid idea that it is. Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger Senior Space Editor Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston. 23 Comments

Stone tools with purple dye residue found at Tel Shiqmona in IsraelMaria Bukin/Shalvi et al., 2025, PLoS One, CC-BY 4.0 For centuries, a coastal settlement in modern-day Israel was home to the industrial-scale production from marine snails of a purple dye that was one of the ancient world’s most precious commodities. Known as Tyrian purple, it was especially sought after to colour woollen textiles and was highly prized by the wealthy and powerful in Iron Age Mediterranean societies. But until now the direct evidence of any sites of large-scale production has been sparse. Advertisement From 1100 BC to about 900 BC, Tel Shiqmona was a small Phoenician fishing village where purple dye was produced on a small scale. Then, as the Kingdom of Israel began to expand, the site was transformed “from a fishing village to a fortified purple dye production centre”, says Golan Shalvi at the University of Chicago. During archaeological work at the site, Shalvi and his colleagues found the remains of dye-stained vats used to process the substance, each of which could have held up to 350 litres of liquid. Altogether 176 artefacts related to purple dye production were recovered, including 135 purple-stained items. The dye is harvested from sea snails in the Muricidae family, which secrete mucus to defend themselves and kill prey. “The secretion is initially a slightly greenish fluid, which oxidises upon exposure to air and gradually turns purple,” says Shalvi. “However, in order to transform it into an actual dye — one that chemically bonds with textiles — it must be processed into a solution through a complex series of chemical steps.” Keep up with advances in archaeology and evolution with our subscriber-only, monthly newsletter. Sign up to newsletter The researchers claim Tel Shiqmona is the only site in the world where there is clear evidence for large-scale manufacture of purple dye in a specialised facility for so long. However, there are no historical records that tie the site to the dye and little is known about the actual process that was used to manufacture it, says Shalvi. After the Kingdom of Israel fell around 720 BC, the scale of dye production wound down until the Assyrians took over the site and ramped the process up yet again. Around 600 BC, when the Babylonians conquered the region, dye production at Tel Shiqmona was abandoned. “It was an industrial site throughout most of the Iron Age, without monumental architecture or any particular beauty or elegance,” says Shalvi. “I imagine it as a very smelly place — especially to a modern nose — since the production process emitted a terrible odour. I picture wool fleeces dyed in various shades drying outside and inside the buildings, which may have given the site a purplish-reddish-blue hue.” Purple dye has fascinated people all over the world, he says, and it has been the subject of extensive research. “Its association with elite classes and religious rituals gave it immense cultural, symbolic and economic significance far beyond its function as a mere colour.” Journal reference:PLoS One DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0321082 Topics:archaeology

US lawmakers are looking into how DeepSeek may have gotten Nvidia chips. Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images 2025-04-16T23:13:19Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? US lawmakers are looking into how DeepSeek may have gotten Nvidia chips despite export controls. They also accused DeepSeek of funneling American user data to the Chinese government. The lawmakers urged stricter export controls to limit China's AI advancements and data access. US lawmakers are looking into how advanced Nvidia chips may have gotten into the hands of the Chinese AI company DeepSeek, which they also accused of spying on Americans on behalf of China.House Representatives released a report on Wednesday that they said "reveals that DeepSeek covertly funnels American user data to the Chinese Communist Party, manipulates information to align with CCP propaganda, and was trained using material unlawfully obtained from US AI models." The lawmakers — Reps. John Moolenaar, a Republican from Michigan, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois — said it appeared DeepSeek, which released a powerful AI model that made headlines in January, had used 60,000 chips from Nvidia despite US sanctions limiting the ability of the company to sell some of its hardware to China.Nvidia is already having a tough week. Its stock fell nearly 7% on Wednesday after the company announced that it had been informed that the Trump administration would require a new license for all accelerated chips shipping to China. The company said it expected a $5.5 billion decrease in earnings due to the Trump administration's tariffs.DeepSeek and a representative for Moolenaar did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider about the report."DeepSeek isn't just another AI app — it's a weapon in the Chinese Communist Party's arsenal, designed to spy on Americans, steal our technology, and subvert US law," Moolenaar said in a statement, which called DeepSeek a "serious national security threat" to the US.The lawmakers said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang directed the design of chips to get around US export controls. They also sent a letter to Huang requesting lists of customers located in China and Southeast Asia and any communications between Nvidia and DeepSeek.Nvidia said in a statement to Business Insider that "the US government instructs American business on what they can sell and where — we follow the government's directions to the letter."The company also said it sells its products to companies worldwide, adding that its reported Singapore revenue indicates the billing addresses of its clients, many of which the company said are subsidiaries of US companies. "The associated products are shipped to other locations, including the United States and Taiwan, not to China," the statement said.The lawmakers' report also found it was likely DeepSeek had deployed methods to copy leading AI models from US companies, violating those companies' terms of service. OpenAI told lawmakers "DeepSeek employees circumvented guardrails in OpenAI's models" to accelerate the development of its own models at a lower cost, according to the report.OpenAI said in January it was investigating if DeepSeek used the outputs of its AI models to "inappropriately" train its own models.The report also found that 85% of responses from DeepSeek models purposefully suppress content related to democracy, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and human rights, the statement said.The recommendations in the report include increasing the effectiveness of US export control policy and further restricting China's ability to develop and deploy advanced AI models by expanding export controls on chips.They also encourage Congress to consider requiring that chips companies track the eventual user of their products, not just the purchaser. Recommended video

One of the Switch 2's big benefits is backward compatibility with Nintendo Switch 1 games, and there's a fresh update on two popular titles joining the lineupTech22:00, 16 Apr 2025Switch 2 will launch in 50 days(Image: AFP via Getty Images)The Nintendo Switch 2 is likely to be one of the biggest console launches in history, and after getting to play it at a hands-on event last week, it's not hard to see why.Article continues belowMatching the existing portability of the Switch 1 with much more power, new control options, and a sizeable lineup of launch games, Nintendo is in a really good spot (despite ongoing issues with Trump's Tariffs).‌One of the biggest perks is that the Switch 2 is backward compatible with most Switch 1 games, and Nintendo has provided updates on two titles (thanks, NintendoLife).Fortnite is getting a Switch 2 versionNintendo has been looking to test as many Switch 1 games on Switch 2 as it can, and has a page that contains games it currently has some issues with.Article continues belowThe list, found here, currently only has two games listed.The first is Fortnite, which was already shown off in the Switch 2 Nintendo Direct as being a day one title for the new console.Seemingly, the Switch 1 version of the game won't be getting an update because the Switch 2 version will supersede it.‌Given the price of games for Switch 2 so far, we'd imagine having a big, free-to-play game that can show off the console is likely to be a very shrewd move on the part of both Nintendo and Epic Games.Switch 2 will play older games(Image: PA)‌The other game on the list is Fitness Boxing, which you may have spotted is actually developed by Nintendo.Given the game's reliance on motion controls, it'd likely be a challenge to port it across to any other system, but it seems Nintendo has no concerns about its Switch 2 transition."Planned to be resolved via an update," the page explains, suggesting Nintendo is confident it'll be up and running soon.Article continues belowFor more on Nintendo Switch 2, check out our dream ports for the system — including Monster Hunter, Death Stranding, and even Halo.For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.‌‌‌

Bionic Bay – it’s pretty and pretty hard (Kepler Interactive) A 2D platformer whose inspirations include Limbo, Dark Souls, and Portal is one of the most inventive, and difficult, games of the year. In the formative years of video games, when you had to put a coin in a slot to play them, everything was brutally difficult. Not necessarily to the point of being unfair – manufacturers didn’t want you to feel as though you’d been fleeced when you died – but tricky enough that a steady flow of coins would be needed from all but the most accomplished players. When home consoles first emerged the same philosophy continued, partly because it was before the era of save points, so every time you started up a game it was from the very beginning. After the advent of memory cards, hard drives, and cloud saves, video games became a more mainstream hobby, and developers deliberately made them more accessible to appeal to audiences unused to being digitally brutalised for fun. Because history is cyclical, and too much of a good thing tends to get boring, over the past decade there’s been a move back to games that offer a far greater degree of challenge. Roguelikes are one indicator that difficulty is back in fashion, but it’s FromSoftware’s Soulsborne games that have been at the forefront of the movement to stop mollycoddling players, instead treating them like adults – albeit adults in a boot camp built to make them better players. Bionic Bay doesn’t look or sound like a From game, but it’s inspired by the same ethos of honest yet unforgiving challenge. It’s a sinister-looking, side-scrolling platformer that’s immediately reminiscent of games such as Limbo and Inside. Like its inspirations, Bionic Bay is a game of few words, preferring to let its environment tell you most of the things you need to know about both its story and the mechanics you can harness to make your way through its gargantuan, bio-mechanical landscapes. Your set of moves – a dash, jump, and roll – can be put together in various combinations to bridge gaps that look unachievable and make precision jumps through gaps so tight you’re initially convinced you’ve got the wrong idea about where you’re supposed to be going. You also get given a teleporter that you can attach to objects and instantly swap places with them. That easy-to-understand mechanic is soon put to increasingly complex use, from allowing you to make your way across even larger chasms, by beaming islands into the right place to hop across, to building – and then moving – barriers that prevent you from being vaporised by scanning laser beams. There are sections where you can slow down time for a few seconds, or punch objects with disproportionate force, and that’s all in the opening few hours. Each new ability is carefully introduced, getting you used to how it works before it’s riffed on to produce brief but absurdly complex set pieces that you’ll need to retry dozens of times before finally making a run to the next checkpoint. Many of those are in-game seconds apart but can require many minutes of repeatedly dying before you have sufficient skill to complete them in the requisite single take. Checkpoints are fortunately generous, or at least they start off that way. As you get further into the game you increasingly come across situations that at first seem completely impossible, their difficulty so extreme that no human could be expected to exhibit that level of precision and timing, let alone as part of a long sequence of moves, failure in any one of which causes instant death. Part of Bionic Bay’s magic is that it’s not only happy to do this but does it regularly. That means you become accustomed to sections that initially seem like dead ends, but over the course of numerous attempts become almost second nature, so what was once an implausible dream becomes something that, given a couple retries, you can do relatively easily. The game trains you to be a better player without the frippery of power-ups or extended energy bars. More Trending Bionic Bay is entirely built around realistic physics, so gravity works, explosions send loose pieces of scenery flying, and momentum is conserved when you use your teleporter, leading to 2D Portal-style hijinks. An unanticipated side effect of that is that your tiny hero’s motion around the screen has something indefinably Muppet-esque about it. It prevents the gargantuan, broken industrial backdrops from feeling too bleak, and infuses the whole thing with an odd sense of jollity. His ragdoll physics also make many of your frequent, accidental deaths comical, as do the sound effects as he’s crushed or seared, the cheerful squelches and singeing noises adding character despite the character’s minuscule onscreen stature. But that’s all just window dressing for the succession of elegantly designed and slightly knockabout micro-puzzles, to be unpicked as you get deeper into its half-lit biomes. Bionic Bay delivers merciless lessons in dexterity and timing, continually pushing you towards greater achievements in platforming perfection. It Impresses with the ingenuity of it challenges and its refusal to recycle ideas makes every level its own unique conundrum. If you enjoy uncompromising games, that are also imaginative and inventive, then this is going to go down as one of the best experiences of 2025. Bionic Bay review summary In Short: A fast-moving and savagely difficult 2D platformer that draws equal inspiration from Limbo and Soulsborne games, with its own restless sense of invention that never falls short. Pros: Ultra-tight controls and a dedication to preserving – and playing with – the laws of physics. Glorious, silhouetted landscapes and a difficulty level that is challenging but never unfair. Cons: Well-judged or not the difficultly level will be too much for some. Visuals can be a little too dour at times. Score: 9/10 Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed) and PCPrice: TBAPublisher: Kepler InteractiveDeveloper: Mureena and Psychoflow StudioRelease Date: 17th April 2025Age Rating: 12 That’s your player character way in the background (Kepler Interactive) 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. Arrow MORE: Games Inbox: How long will the PS5 console last? 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

As Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) ascends to a leadership role within the rebellion in Andor season two, he sets his course for that fateful date with destiny in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. But where does that leave the impressive ensemble of other characters introduced in the series—you know, if they make it out of this final season alive? In a sit down with io9, we asked show creator Tony Gilroy his thoughts on moving on from Andor after making a series of cinematic chapters that set the table for the events of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. On whether he thinks Lucasfilm might pick up the stories of Andor‘s Rebels or Imperial personalities without him, Gilroy said, “Well, they own it all, they can do as they wish. I mean we’ve made eight movies in five years.” (Describing the work on Andor as “movies” makes sense, because each of season two’s three-episode drops feels like a three-hour movie.) Gilroy continued, “There’s a lot of ideas, a lot of new planets, a lot of everything in there; it’s theirs for the picking.” Ultimately his collaboration through Andor was a limited experience that has introduced many new fan-favorite heroes and villains, and it’s mostly thanks to the head of Lucasfilm. “My linkage with with Lucasfilm is primarily with Kathleen [Kennedy]. I primarily deal with her [and] Pablo Hidalgo [who] is the sort of keeper of the [story lore] over there when it comes to keeping things real. He’s the historian and he’s the arbiter of what’s kosher and what’s not. I knew him from Rogue, we spent time on Rogue and that’s my primary point of connection with Lucasfilm.” “I’ve only spoken to George Lucas once after Rogue on the phone—I’ve never met him,” he said of his only interaction with Star Wars’ creator. “We kind of were left to be free-range here,” Gilroy said. “We kind of ran wild, we kept testing. We tested the beginning, ‘We want to have him go to a brothel and kill two cops!’ ‘Okay!’ ‘We want to hire the production designer from Chernobyl!’ ‘Okay!’ We showed what we wanted to do, and then we then we set about to do it, and they were just incredibly supportive.” Andor season two premieres April 22 on Disney+. 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.

Distance and Dimensions / GRAY-ZONE Design OfficeSave this picture!© Nao Takahashi•Japan Architects: GRAY-ZONE Design Office Area Area of this architecture project Area:  37 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2024 Photographs Photographs:Nao Takahashi Lead Architects: Takuya Takahashi More SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! "Would people be happy if a design office opened nearby?" This is a renovation plan (for a mixed-use residence) for our architectural design office in an urbanization control area. The underlying idea of ​​the project was to consider the appropriate "sense of distance" before considering the appropriate dimensions.Save this picture!Specific examples of sense of distance include the sense of distance between "designer and visitors (client, local residents, friends, acquaintances, future client)" in our daily lives, and the broader perspective of the architectural design industry, "design office and society (contractors, meetings with manufacturer sales, people from other industries, people with no work-related ties)." Since the location would likely be appreciated by a convenience store, this project began with thinking about creating a place that would not only provide a rational office space but also benefit people who are not familiar with design offices or who do not request work from the office.Save this picture!Save this picture!Site –  The planned site is in Hadano City, the only basin in Kanagawa Prefecture. The main house of this project and the three houses on either side are related to each other. The road in front is the main route used by farmers' cars going in and out of the fields on the south side, so there is a lot of traffic with neighbors at certain times. The challenge was how to design it to be a familiar hub of communication. A large-scale manufacturing plant used to be run on this site, and at that time, it was expanded as a single-story wood processing plant, and a second floor was added later. It was necessary to refine the "architectural lines" that had been added impromptu while respecting the history of the site.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Plan –  In order to create a continuous relationship between the geographical characteristics of the area and the spatial experience inside, a three-dimensional earthen floor space called "agari-doma" was created at about GL (from ground level) + 500mm in the part facing the road boundary. ※Old Japanese houses had a "doma" (a space with a dirt floor) that was used for storage, work, and play. This project expresses the doma in three dimensions."Agari" means rise. The agari-doma was planned to be used as an impressive approach to the extraordinary place that is the design office, as a veranda where people can sit from inside and outside, and as a seasonal event space so that the people's activities themselves would become the face of the building, and the facade would change every time they pass by the office.Save this picture!Save this picture!Prospects – Although this is a small-scale office project, by inviting people like a house and opening up like a store, we hope to create an opportunity to change the "sense of distance between the design office and the building" that each visitor has.Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less Project locationAddress:Kanagawa Prefecture, JapanLocation to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.About this office Published on April 16, 2025Cite: "Distance and Dimensions / GRAY-ZONE Design Office" 16 Apr 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1029155/distance-and-dimensions-gray-zone-design-office&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