Prices are likely to go up, even if the exact amount is unclear. But experts warn against panic-buying if it puts you in debt.

What we've been playing - mansion redesigns, perseverance, and enthusiasm A few of the things that have us hooked this week. Image credit: Eurogamer / Xbox Game Studios Feature by Robert Purchese Associate Editor Additional contributions by Tom Orry Published on April 19, 2025 19th April Hello and welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've been playing. This week, Tom has been persevering with Avowed, and Bertie has been both redesigning a mansion every day, with little success, and sucking up second-hand enthusiasm. What have you been playing? Catch up with the older editions of this column in our What We've Been Playing archive. Blue Prince, PS5 To see this content please enable targeting cookies. I found a book called the Red Prince in the game the other day. What could it mean?Watch on YouTube I really admire the layers of this game. I'm assuming that by now, you'll know the game's set-up: day by day, you attempt to build a blueprint of a house in such a way that you'll find the mysterious 46th room of it. You place a room when you touch a door handle, picking from a choice of three, and keep doing it until you run out of space or footsteps, or hem yourself in. Then you go to sleep and try it all again the next day. It sounds easy but it's not. I'm low-key alarmed at how little progress I seem to be making. I'm on my seventh attempt so I'm a good few hours in, yet my builds seem to be getting smaller rather than larger, which I take to be a gauge of success, or non-success as the case may be. But isn't it always this way? There's the initial surge of confidence, of 'I've been playing games for years so I can manage this', followed by the dip as you realise no, there is a significant puzzle here and I'm not going to do it easily. It's only once that's passed that the more enjoyable gradual incline of discovery comes. Discovery is a good word to use here, too, because it's in each unsuccessful attempt that smaller details are absorbed, where you look more closely at what's around you and examine each detail for any clue you might have missed. And it's here where the layers of the game present themselves - the underlying story of the enigmatic mansion, the quirks of the puzzling systems, the greater puzzle itself. And a sign of a great game, I think, is it having many layers to discover. I'm impressed. -Bertie Avowed, Xbox Series X Cool review! If I don't say so myself, says Bertie, talking to himself.Watch on YouTube I'm still slowly making my way through Avowed. My time with it is so sporadic that I've semi given up on learning most of the systems and am now essentially treating it as a nice big walk through some previously unexplored areas of land. I've pushed the difficulty down so combat isn't really a problem, and I'm enjoying the sightseeing. I'm also trying to resolve as many disputes as possible by just talking, although that doesn't always work. If anyone does start something with me, I simply torch them into oblivion. So, yeah. My save file says I've been playing for 13 hours and I've only just traveled to Emerald Stair. A little Google suggests people tend to get there a lot quicker than that, but I'm happy taking my time. Check back in six months to see if I've hit the end credits. -Tom O South of Midnight, PC But on a clock, like, everything is south of midnight, is it not? Watch on YouTube I'm cheating slightly here because I haven't actually played it, but I've been watching my partner play it for the past week or so - she streams if you ever fancy watching - and it's not so much the game itself that strikes me, though I have plenty to say about it, but what she says about it. Quickly, here are the things I have to say about the game. It's gorgeous - I'm so eloquent I know. And with its deliberately low animation frame-rate and spidery character movements it reminds me so strongly of Into the Spider-Verse sometimes I forget what I'm watching. Two: Olivier Deriviere. The French music maestro is in literal full swing here. But it's not just that it sounds nice, it's that the music itself is welded to the gameplay in the game. This is something Deriviere does - he designs music systems rather than soundtracks. I did a whole interview with him about it not so long ago. It's - and he is - fabulous. But back to what my partner says about the game. Simply put, she's enthusiastic about it. She wants to play South of Midnight, I suppose more so than Assassin's Creed: Shadows and The Last of Us Part 2, which she's also playing at the moment. (She puts me to shame.) And although that sounds like an unremarkable thing to say, that someone wants to play a game, it feels remarkably refreshing to hear in person. Because sometimes I forget, in all my frowning at games and forming opinions about them, how nice enthusiasm is to be around. -Bertie

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Krafton’s release of InZoi has piqued the interest of The Sims 4 developer Maxis and publisher EA. Following the release of the new life simulator, the developers are asking players around 100 questions about the game to improve future Sims products. Despite significantly lower player numbers than The Sims 4, which is now a free-to-play game, EA and Maxis are interested in finding out just what players love about the Krafton’s new release. The Sims 4 devs release dense InZoi survey Players signed up for emails from The Sims Labs team now have access to a massive survey, which players can access here, via SimsCommunity, that features comparisons between the two life simulators. With around 100 questions to answer, it seems that future Sims 4 DLC or the game’s eventual sequel may take some inspirations from its competitor. In the survey, EA and Maxis ask players how many hours they’ve spend creating Zois, playing the game and using individual features. Depending on the responses that players give, we could potentially see InZoi-only features—such as the game’s 3D scanning or motion capture options—added to future Sims games. EA and Maxis are asking questions about every aspect of InZoi, from locations to specific gameplay features and more. Source: SimsCommunity While there’s no confirmation that any of these features will make their way into a future entry in The Sims, the new survey also asks about InZoi’s inclusion of cars in the game. Despite the feature’s recent scandal involving players running over virtual kids, the ability to drive through the open world has certainly opened gamers’ eyes to the new game. With the next Sims title expected to be a live-service game just like EA’s new Skate game, the upcoming successor could end up taking a few of InZoi’s killer features to make the world feel more alive and active. However, very little is known about the upcoming successor. For more InZoi coverage, read about how players have discovered a way to kidnap characters as they wait for an official adoption feature. The Sims 4 Platform(s): macOS, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X Genre(s): Casual, Simulation, Strategy 8 VideoGamer Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share

Duncan Rudd writes: Tear apart any ground terrain using a set of input curves. Blender 4.3 Geometry Nodes tutorial. Source

In a letter to the Social Security Administration’s Inspector General’s office requesting an investigation into DOGE, Ranking Member Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-VA) alleged that the government entity created by Elon Musk supposedly to reduce the size of the federal government is now constructing a “cross-agency master database” of sensitive personal information.Wired appeared to back up Connolly’s allegations on Friday, detailing an effort at DOGE to fold this database into the Department of Homeland Security, the counterterrorism agency founded after 9/11. Specifically, “mass amounts” of personal data harvested from the IRS, SSA, and voting records in Pennsylvania and Florida were recently uploaded into servers at the United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS), which processes immigration cases.Connolly cited testimony from SSA whistleblowers who witnessed DOGE engineers accessing the agency’s IT system with “backpacks full of laptops, each with access to different agency systems”, with the aim of combining them into one database. Connolly warned that not only would such a database pose a threat to government cybersecurity, which siloes its information across several agencies to prevent cyberattacks from accessing all information at once, it was also very likely violating several privacy laws.The Committee has also received reports about troubling, fumbling efforts by DOGE to combine sensitive information held by SSA, the IRS, HHS, and other agencies into a single cross-agency master database. Improving how federal agencies share data to improve outcomes and customer service is a longstanding and bipartisan goal in Congress. Information obtained by the Committee, however, indicates that DOGE is carrying out its work in a manner that disregards important cybersecurity and privacy considerations, potentially in violation of the law. In an apparent attempt to sidestep network security controls, the Committee has learned that DOGE engineers have tried to create specialized computers for themselves that simultaneously give full access to networks and databases across different agencies. Such a system would pose unprecedented operational security risks and undermine the zero-trust cybersecurity architecture that prevents a breach at one agency from spreading across the government. Information obtained by the Committee also indicates that individuals associated with DOGE have assembled backpacks full of laptops, each with access to different agency systems, that DOGE staff is using to combine databases that are currently maintained separately by multiple federal agencies.Though several other House investigations into DOGE’s activities have revealed their data harvesting efforts at other agencies, Rep. Connolly’s letter is the first to allege that DOGE, the government-shrinking agency founded by Elon Musk and now wreaking havoc across the federal government, is pooling everyone’s data into one giant database. “I have long championed efforts to improve data sharing across the government to combat improper payments and to increase government efficiency,” Connolly wrote. “But any efforts to reform our current systems must be undertaken with the utmost sensitivity and concern for privacy, security, and the Social Security payments that millions of people rely on.”The privacy implications of this cross-agency database would not only violate numerous privacy laws and cause cybersecurity risks, but could also become a potent weapon for whomever can access said database: it could be used by the government to conduct mass surveillance of whomever they wished to target, such as immigrants, or become a target for outside actors seeking a trove of private and personal data. Either way, “it’s terrifying,” John Davisson, senior counsel and director of litigation at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told Nextgov, adding that this was exactly what the Privacy Act was supposed to prevent. “Aggregation of data is building a weapon, essentially, and it’s one that can be used in a lot of different ways.” See More:

April 19, 2025 Developed by Bit Reactor, in Collaboration with Respawn Entertainment and Lucasfilm Games, Star Wars Zero Company is Set to Launch in 2026 Watch the Official Announce Trailer which Premiered at Star Wars Celebration Japan TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- At Star Wars™ Celebration Japan, Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) revealed Star Wars Zero Company, players will step into the shoes of Hawks, a former Republic officer, to command an elite squad of cunning operatives through a gritty and authentic story set in the twilight of the Clone Wars. As an unconventional outfit of professionals for hire hailing from across the galaxy, Zero Company must set aside their differences to overcome nearly impossible odds and take on an emerging threat that will consume the galaxy if left unchecked.At Star Wars™ Celebration Japan, Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) revealed Star Wars Zero Company™, a single-player turn-based tactics game developed by Bit Reactor in collaboration with Respawn Entertainment and Lucasfilm Games.“Our vision for Star Wars Zero Company is grounded in gameplay design pillars that weave in the immersive Star Wars galaxy with engaging turn-based tactics gameplay,” said Greg Foertsch, CEO and Creative Director at Bit Reactor. “It’s our aim to deliver a game with an original Star Wars story from the Clone Wars era that has meaningful outcomes from player choices, and deep turn-based tactical combat with an approachable and cinematic presentation.”“At Lucasfilm Games, we’re huge tactics fans and we have wanted to make a game like this for a long time,” said Douglas Reilly, GM & VP, Lucasfilm Games. “The best tactics games are all about meaningful choices, and we’re confident we have chosen the right squad in Bit Reactor to deliver a compelling and innovative title that is authentic to Star Wars.”In Star Wars Zero Company, players will embark on a campaign of tactical operations and investigations across the galaxy. Between missions, they will develop a base of operations and gather intelligence through a network of informants to stay one step ahead of Zero Company’s adversaries. Players will have the freedom to create and customize their own squad of recruited operators while getting to know a cast of newly authored Star Wars characters.Hawks’ appearance and combat class can be fully customized, while recruited operatives can be personalized from a range of original Star Wars character classes and species. Tailor squadmates’ appearances, load-outs, and abilities across a wide variety of character archetypes, including Clone Troopers, astromechs and even a Jedi. While in the field, members of Zero Company will forge bonds between them to unlock powerful combat synergies that can turn the tide of battle. With near-endless possibilities and high-stakes encounters that could change the fate of the galaxy, players will need intense preparation, adept strategy, and the right squad to succeed.Star Wars Zero CompanyFollow EA Star Wars on X, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram to stay up to date as more information is revealed.About Bit ReactorBit Reactor, LLC was created by longtime strategy game developers as an independent, developer-first game studio creating and perfecting experiences that blend game design, art and technology with a passion for making something great. The talented team is composed of some of the minds behind decorated titles like XCOM, Civilization, Gears of War, Elder Scrolls Online, and more.About Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA) is a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. The Company develops and delivers games, content and online services for Internet-connected consoles, mobile devices and personal computers.In fiscal year 2024, EA posted GAAP net revenue of approximately $7.6 billion. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, EA is recognized for a portfolio of critically acclaimed, high-quality brands such as EA SPORTS FC™, Battlefield™, Apex Legends™, The Sims™, EA SPORTS™ Madden NFL, EA SPORTS™ College Football, Need for Speed™, Dragon Age™, Titanfall™, Plants vs. Zombies™ and EA SPORTS F1®. More information about EA is available at www.ea.com/news.EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS FC, Battlefield, Need for Speed, Apex Legends, The Sims, Dragon Age, Titanfall, and Plants vs. Zombies are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. John Madden, NFL, FIFA and F1 are the property of their respective owners and used with permission. © 2024 Electronic Arts Inc. Electronic Arts, EA SPORTS, Frostbite, and the EA SPORTS and Frostbite logos are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc.Lucasfilm, the Lucasfilm logo, STAR WARS and related properties are trademarks and/or copyrights, in the United States and other countries, of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. © & TM 2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved. Cristian Delgado Senior PR Manager [email protected] 206-637-5552 Source: Electronic Arts Inc. Multimedia Files:

Rey Mysterio may miss WrestleMania 41 after suffering an injury on SmackDown. Here’s what we know and the updated match cards for Night 1 and Night 2.

After obliterating the federal office on long COVID and clawing back billions in COVID funding from state health departments, the Trump administration has now entirely erased the online hub for federal COVID-19 resources. In its place now stands a site promoting the unproven idea that the pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2 was generated in and leaked from a lab in China, sparking the global health crisis. Navigating to COVID.gov brings up a slick site with rich content that lays out arguments and allegations supporting a lab-based origin of the pandemic and subsequent cover-up by US health officials and Democrats. Previously, the site provided unembellished quick references to COVID-19 resources, including links to information on vaccines, testing, treatments, and long COVID. It also provided a link to resources for addressing COVID-19 vaccine misconceptions and confronting misinformation. That all appears to be gone now, though some of the same information still remains on a separate COVID-19 page hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While there remains no definitive answer on how the COVID-19 pandemic began, the scientific data available on the topic points to a spillover event from a live wild animal market in Wuhan, China. The scientific community largely sees this as the most likely scenario, given the data so far and knowledge of how previous outbreak viruses originated, including SARS-CoV-1. By contrast, the lab origin hypothesis largely relies on the proximity of a research lab to the first cases, conjecture, and distrust of the Chinese government, which has not been forthcoming with information on the early days of the health crisis. Overall, the question of SARS-CoV-2's origin has become extremely politicized, as have most other aspects of the pandemic.

Quantum computing microchip. Universal Quantum 2025-04-19T08:33:01Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? International companies and organizations see 2025 as a tipping point for quantum technology. Major advancements are afoot as the industry navigates the "International Year of Quantum." Here's some of the biggest quantum news so far this year— and things to keep an eye on. The era of quantum is officially upon us, and if you're not immersed in the world of emerging tech, you may have missed the memo.The burgeoning field leverages quantum mechanics to solve complex problems faster than classical computers. It promises breakthroughs that could revolutionize fields from medicine to data privacy and is attractingWhile the announcements of advanced quantum chips from the biggest of Big Tech players may have briefly broken through the news of the escalating trade war, alarming aviation accidents, and increasing political unrest, there's so much more to know about what's gone down in the industry so far in 2025, which the United Nations has dubbed the "International Year of Quantum."Here's some of the biggest quantum news so far this year — and things to keep an eye on.Big Tech is all in on quantumSkepticism is fading about whether the quantum industry can achieve all that it promises, and major discussions have now turned to the timeline to get there.According to research by Boston Consulting Group, the quantum industry attracted $1.2 billion from venture capitalists in 2023 despite a 50% drop in overall tech investments that year. BCG projects that quantum computing will create between $450 billion and $850 billion of economic value globally and sustain a $90-$170 billion market for hardware and software providers by 2040.The Big Tech players are all investing heavily in quantum advancement, hoping to catch up with IBM — a longtime frontrunner in the field, with several different prototype chips and its circuit-based commercial quantum computer, IBM Quantum System One, which was unveiled in January 2019.Amazon announced its Ocelot chip in February. The company says it represents a breakthrough in error correction and scalability, two key issues that have long slowed advancement in the field. Its announcement came just a week after Microsoft debuted its Majorana chip and only a few months after Google's Willow chip hit the scene in December.Nvidia is also aiming to get in on the action. This year, the company announced at GTC that it is developing a new quantum research lab in Boston.The government is betting on quantum tooThe Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense's research and development agency, has expanded its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative this year in an attempt to achieve utility-scale operation by 2033. DARPA in early April announced it had chosen 18 companies to test and advance various technologies for creating qubits — the building block for quantum computers — including superconducting qubits, trapped ion qubits, and other novel approaches.Microsoft and PsiQuantum have already advanced to the third and final phase of DARPA's quantum initiative. IBM, IonQ, and Rigetti Computing are among the newest companies joining the QBI.The first quantum supercomputer is nearly hereIBM plans to debut the world's first quantum-centric supercomputer this year.This new system will use the modular IBM Quantum System Two architecture, which is designed to be scalable and upgradeable. It is expected to feature over 4,000 qubits and aims to break existing records in the field, eventually surpassing the size of the largest quantum computer by more than threefold.IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told Time in March that "something remarkable" is on the horizon for quantum technology and that the company has positioned itself to create the next generation of foundational technology through advancements in quantum.Advancement comes with security risksWhile we're on the cusp of a quantum revolution, cybersecurity professionals have previously warned Business Insider that the tech comes with its own risks.It's not just basic data privacy or the chance of personal financial details becoming public. From national security secrets to the blockchain and beyond, all encrypted data will be readily accessible and, more worryingly, manipulatable by anyone with a fully fault-tolerant and quantum-capable system.Karl Holmqvist has served as a quantum security advisor to major government bodies, including the Department of Defense and NATO. He is the CEO of Lastwall, which provides cybersecurity solutions designed to protect users from quantum computing threats."When you start peeling back the layers, it's like anything that's internet-connected will likely have problems," Holmqvist previously told BI. "A lot of the time, we trust that the links between systems are secure and the data that's gone between them is secure, and there's no way to get into those that they're encrypted. If you take away that default assumption, it allows so many new entry points into systems that it becomes quite concerning."Hiring managers are starting to take noticeLinkedIn shows that the salary bands for jobs in quantum computing range from $150,000 on the low end to well past $500,000 a year, depending on the role and company. Hiring managers are paying attention.Yaad Oren, a managing director at SAP Labs, one of the world's biggest software companies, previously told Business Insider that recruiters in the field look for curiosity more than anything else."Of course, we need expertise — and quantum is a very deep science and practice that requires a lot of knowledge — but if you follow the industry, you see there are also many disruptions going with quantum," Oren said. "We're definitely looking for change agents and curiosity is needed because, I mean, the industry is not sure at all that the current quantum technology we have now will be the winning architecture."He added: "It's like building a building from the ground floor." Recommended video

How my partner finally learned to love video games – Reader’s Feature GameCentral Published April 19, 2025 9:00am Surprisingly, Baldur’s Gate 3 does have a split-screen mode (Larian Studios) A reader reflects on the social nature of modern gaming and the positive experience of playing together with another person. I enjoy gaming, a form of escapism from the negativity of modern life. Recently, my partner decided she wanted to enter the digital domain and started looking into ways we could play together. She started looking at controllers and I started looking at games to play. Somewhat naively I presumed local co-operative multiplayer games would still be readily available, but they proved elusive. Dusting off the Xbox Series X and browsing through the marketplace, finding a local couch co-op game was a challenge. There wasn’t a plethora of titles readily available but, thanks in part to backwards compatibility, some of the greatest hits from the Xbox 360 library are available to play. Not an obvious title to ‘enjoy’ together but the first game that came to mind was Resident Evil 5 and a local split-screen option. Gaming has become a more solitary experience in recent years. A subjective viewpoint, I’ll concede, but as a form of entertainment gaming seems increasingly focused on social dynamics and interaction. But looking at any random gaming stream, it’s predominantly individuals on their own, communicating through comments and subscriptions, in the absence of another person. The architecture of modern gaming is built around facilitating immediate online access, so perhaps the notion of sitting beside someone and experiencing a game in each other’s company is archaic. With some exceptions, the notion of multiplayer gaming today is built around online play, not local co-op. The halcyon days of dusting off GoldenEye 007 on the N64 on a weekend, with three of your friends on one small screen, is a distant memory. To avoid coming across like a cantankerous old man romanticising the past, the trajectory of playing online evolved through gamer demand and preference. There is, however, a tangible joy in experiencing gaming together with a friend or partner in each other’s company. I picked up a green controller in the Boxing Day sales, when the sticks started experiencing drift in my old one. To lean into stereotypes somewhat, my partner decided to pick up a contrasting pink controller. We now have complimentary his and hers controllers to enjoy our gaming experience, although it did start a conversation on finding custom controller plates; I’d quite enjoy a Borg themed design, she was musing on a Jane Austen print. Playing a game together was a lovely way to spend the day together, a few frustrations here and there but it reminded me of the joy of playing with someone else. Which isn’t to denigrate online gaming, it’s a popular way to play together – the main way today’s gamers experience co-operative campaigns on modern releases. In the last generation, a few of my old buddies would schedule a session together online after work, to experience Ghost Recon: Wildlands and then Breakpoint a year or two later, to live out our frustrated soldier fantasies. It was fun to play together that way, but it lacked that spark of being in each other’s company. Different companies create different ways to experience cooperative games, Nintendo is the best example of championing a balanced approach between the online solo experience and designing their hardware to facilitate local co-op gaming. The original Switch model utilised detachable controllers for certain titles but even their older console releases, such as the SNES, came with two controllers to play together. Going all the way back to the original Pokémon games using a data link transfer cable to connect the original Game Boys, nearly every Nintendo console release has encouraged a communal experience. Scrolling through the online store, it was nice to discover a few games with the option to play side-by-side. It Takes Two and A Way Out were two of the recommended games, but it was also nice to see Baldur’s Gate 3 offering a split-screen option on the Xbox Series X. Shooting the infected together in Resident Evil or the Horde in Gears Of War is fun for a while but it would be nice to play together in a fantasy setting. The options available to play together are relatively modest but there are still a couple of games we can enjoy side-by-side. When she decided to embrace what I enjoy as something we could do together, it was nice to be able to make that a reality. If gaming is a form of escapism from the maelstrom of negativity, it’s nice to have someone to experience that with in person. More Trending Thank you for reading. By reader comfortablyadv (Twitch/Facebook/Instagram/X) It Takes Two – the perfect game for couples (EA) The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro. You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you won’t need to send an email. 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