A $450 serrated knife may slice a loaf just as cleanly as one that costs less than $50. But the benefits of the more lavish blade—quality, ergonomics, sheer prettiness—might make it worth the expense.

Ahead of Marathon’s alpha, Bungie announced that it’s lifting the non-disclosure agreement, allowing players to share details and gameplay. Sources speaking to Forbes’ Paul Tassi have since offered potential reasons why. As a technical test, the alpha is limited to allegedly avoid breaking things (which is nothing new in the industry). Despite the NDA, it also seemingly expected leaks, which would have been fine given the limited nature of the test. However, leadership reportedly became nervous following last weekend’s reveal, particularly the reaction. Removing the NDA is meant to “shift the narrative.” Perhaps the openness will show that the studio isn’t trying to hide anything and wants to foster a dialogue with the community for the future. Time will ultimately tell, but despite the early nature of the alpha, even those who couldn’t participate can witness more extended gameplay. Stay tuned for updates in the coming days. Marathon launches on September 23rd for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. The closed alpha will run from April 23rd to May 4th. Check out the minimum system requirements here and the intro cinematic.

The newly published AI 2027 scenario offers a detailed 2 to 3-year forecast for the future that includes specific technical milestones.Read More

Many of Logitech’s products are pricier now than they were in the recent past. In a video published this week, YouTuber Cameron Dougherty detailed increases as high as 25 percent on the company’s PC and gaming accessories, including well-known Logitech gear like the MX Master 3S mouse. I took a peek at a few Internet Archive captures of Logitech’s current offerings to confirm the YouTuber’s findings, and sure enough, prices are going up. The MX Master 3S, my favorite mouse and the one I’m using at this very moment, now costs $119.99, a $20 increase from before. And on the keyboards side, for instance, the Pro X TKL has gone up to $219.99 from $199.99 before. One keyboard Dougherty calls out, the previously $27.99 K400 Plus Wireless Touch, went up by $7 to $34.99 — a relatively small increase that, at 25 percent, is one of the higher price bumps Logitech made. Dougherty notes a few products that didn’t see price increases, including the MX Ergo mouse and the G703 gaming mouse. And according to the video, a handful of products have actually dropped in price, like the Pro X Superlight mouse, which was $159.99, but is now $149.99. Logitech doesn’t seem to have … Read the full story at The Verge.

A Novel and Practical Meta‑Booster for Supervised Learning 0 like April 20, 2025 Share this post Last Updated on April 20, 2025 by Editorial Team Author(s): Shenggang Li Originally published on Towards AI. A Stacking‑Enhanced Margin‑Space Framework for Dynamic, Loss‑Driven Ensemble Updates in Classification and RegressionPhoto by Thorium on Unsplash Ensemble methods thrive on diversity, yet most frameworks exploit it sequentially (boosting) or statically (stacking). We introduce Meta‑Booster, a unified system that blends incremental updates — the “deltas” — of several base learners at every boosting step. Built on XGBoost, LightGBM, AdaBoost, and a compact neural network, the method supports both classification and regression. At each round, we: Delta extraction: Capture each learner’s one‑step update — margin increments for classifiers or residual deltas for regressors — to isolate its immediate predictive gain.Stacked combination: Solve a constrained regression on the held‑out set to derive a weight vector that best explains the current residuals, allowing contributions from all learners simultaneously.Iterative update: Apply the weighted delta with an optimal learning rate found via line‑search, producing a greedy, loss‑driven ensemble evolution that adapts to the task. Unlike static stacking, where weights are fixed or full‑model outputs are averaged, Meta‑Booster tweaks the blend a little at every round, always chasing a better validation score. This dynamic scheme not only lifts accuracy (log‑loss, AUC) and precision (MAPE, RMSE) but also shows which learner is pulling its weight at each step. Tests on car‑price and credit‑risk datasets confirm: margin stacking drives classification, residual stacking powers regression…. Read the full blog for free on Medium. Join thousands of data leaders on the AI newsletter. Join over 80,000 subscribers and keep up to date with the latest developments in AI. From research to projects and ideas. If you are building an AI startup, an AI-related product, or a service, we invite you to consider becoming a sponsor. Published via Towards AI Towards AI - Medium Share this post

CarPlay users often request web browsers and video apps for use while parked, but Apple limits CarPlay apps to a handful of categories. Adapters that run Android apps and display CarPlay exist as a workaround. However, there’s now an app on the App Store that includes a browser feature for playing video. The CarPlay app loads URLs from the web to play video while parked. Sidecar is a utility app with CarPlay support that has existed for a while. Apple hasn’t changed its tune on web browsers and video players for CarPlay, though. Instead, an update to Sidecar has made it through app review without being flagged. Developer Siddharth Natamai shows Sidecar’s park and browse feature in action on Threads. The app requires users to provide a URL to the app on the iPhone, then navigate to the web feature in the CarPlay app to load the website. It has plenty of room for improvement as a web browser and video player, but customers should be aware that the feature could be removed in a future update. Sidecar is a free download with a $9.99 in-app purchase to unlock the web browser/video playing feature. This is probably a buy-it-while-supplies-last situation with no guarantee that future versions will pass app review. Best Apple accessories Follow Zac Hall: X | Threads | Instagram | Mastodon Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Image by Getty / FuturismDown in the wild and wonderful world of Florida, the owner of an oddities shop has been arrested for selling human remains on Facebook Marketplace.As USA Today reports, 52-year-old Kymberlee Schopper has been charged with the illegal purchase and sale of human bones on Zuckerberg's commerce platform.At the end of 2023, police in the Daytona Beach suburb of Orange City received a tip that Wicked Wonderland, Schopper's shop that also advertises pet taxidermy and animal "mummification" on its website, was selling various human bones and skeletal fragments.From a $35 human rib to a $600 partial human skull, the store's wares were valued at $850 in the tip authorities received. When they spoke with Schopper's daughter and co-owner, 33-year-old Ashley Lelesi, the proprietress copped to the sale without hesitation. According to the affidavit viewed by USA Today, the mother-daughter team was unaware that selling bones was illegal in the state of Florida — one of only eight American states that broadly bans the practice, though dozens of other states have conditional prohibitions on it.Lelesi told the cops that she and Schopper had purchased the bone lot from various private sellers. She provided police with five of the six specimens and told them the shop had already sold a piece of skull fragment for $50, even providing receipts for the purchase and sale of all the bones in question.Later, both mother and daughter met with police and had, at that point, changed their tune. According to the affidavit, Schopper told authorities that the bones were "educational models," which would place them in a legal loophole within the state's ban on the sale of human remains.Apparently, the cops didn't buy it, and Schopper was charged with purchasing or selling human organs and tissue, a second-degree felony that can carry up to a 15-year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine. It does not appear that Lelesi was charged with any crime, and the mother posted her $7,500 bail following her arrest.Nine years ago and 650 miles away, a similar debacle unfolded in New Orleans after Ender Darling, a member of a Facebook group called "Queer Witch Collective," told their fellow magic practitioners that they had some local bones for sale. Per their initial post, Darling had taken to procuring bones from a "poor man's graveyard" near their house that would rise to the surface during rainstorms in the notoriously stormy city — and would happily sell them to their fellow witches for the cost of shipping.The Queer Witch Collective exploded in fury at Darling for not only collecting bones without consent from the families of the deceased, but also turning a profit off them. Though Darling's ethnic background remains something of a mystery, they are decidedly not Black, and as speculation raged about which graveyard they got the bones from, many commentators on the increasingly-fiery — and now mythical — thread pointed out that the majority of people buried in a New Orleans potter's field would be Black.After this "bones discourse" spread to Tumblr and became a meme, people in power caught wind of the "Boneghazi" debacle. After being tailed by police, Darling was arrested in Florida — where else? — and charged with burglary and trafficking human remains, though those charges were minimized after they pleaded guilty.As the investigation unfolded, Louisiana enacted its Human Remains Protection and Control Act, which called for harsher punishment for the trafficking of bones and other body parts and brought it into the fold of states that criminalize the practice.Though it's entirely plausible that the owners of Wicked Wonderland were unaware that selling bones is illegal in Florida, they could have done a quick Google search about what happened to the last person who got caught doing it — and saved themselves a world of trouble.More on selling parts: Shop Scrutinized for Selling Human Bodies Out of a Strip MallShare This Article

Everything you need to know about the final night of WrestleMania 41: who's wrestling, what's at stake and how to watch live.

For AD100 star Jeremiah Brent, home is everything (he wrote a whole book about it, after all). That’s why his inaugural line of rugs and throw pillows for Loloi, which launches tomorrow, is inspired by downtown Manhattan—the place where his creative journey began. “It’s really where I started off,” he says. “I'm always thinking of ways to weave New York into a story because it means so much to me.”Each of the four Jeremiah Brent x Loloi rug collections is named for a street in the West Village, the historically artistic neighborhood where Brent launched his career and currently lives with his family. The hand-tufted, wool-and-jute Barrow Collection, for example, features bold, linear motifs that nod to the mix of modern and classical buildings in the area, like the Barrow Street Nursery School. “There's this particular corner that I love—the shadows and the light and the architecture,” Brent says. “Everything's rooted in a memory for me.”The Barrow collection is available in six colorways and a variety of sizes. Courtesy of LoloiThe power-loomed Bleecker Collection, with its warm tones, high-contrast patterns, and subtle distressing, honors “one of the most important streets for our family,” shares Brent. “We're always running up and down it on the weekends.” Meanwhile, the hand-woven wool and cotton Greenwich Collection plays with pile and texture variation to add dimension to solid colors.A hand-knotted, soumak weave construction defines the Perry Collection: a set of four wool-and-cotton rugs available exclusively to trade customers. Brent created these pieces to fill a void in the market that he noticed as an interior designer. “I always try to pull in things that not only inspire me, but also that people need and can't find anywhere,” he explains. “So making these really beautiful, sturdy, thick weaves that have a lot of personality and quality was really important.”Shoppers drawn to the collection’s throw pillows can choose from the Sullivan, Brent’s version of a ticking stripe, the Christopher, which offers a cozy, waffle texture, and more. “Throw pillows are the gateway,” he says. “They’re a really safe way that you can add a lot of personality and not feel like you've necessarily spent your entire paycheck.” Courtesy of LoloiThe collaboration is rounded out by 20 throw pillows, which Brent loves for their ability to encourage individuality. Across all the rugs and pillows, Brent opted for neutral, earthy tones like creamy ivory, warm beige, charcoal gray, and moss green. “The palette, for me, is always based off of nature,” he notes. These versatile hues accomplish his goal of longevity for the collections. “This line is really about investing in something that you're going to have for a long time,” Brent says. “I believe that everything you spend money on needs to mean something.”Jeremiah Brent x Loloi will be available for purchase at www.loloirugs.com, Amazon, and select retailers starting tomorrow at 9 am.

If chivalry isn't quite dead yet, it's definitely on life support. OpenAI CEO and tech mogul Sam Altman recently acknowledged that people adding "please" and "thank you" to their AI prompts is burning a hole in his pocket. Responding to a post on X—formerly known as Twitter—where someone pondered “how much money OpenAI has lost in electricity costs from people saying 'please' and 'thank you' to their models,” Altman replied that it’s “tens of millions of dollars well spent.” “You never know,” he added. It might seem silly to be courteous to a chatbot, but some AI developers argue it actually matters. Microsoft's design lead Kurtis Beavers, for instance, believes politeness "helps generate respectful, collaborative outputs." "Using polite language sets a tone for the response," Beavers explains. And there’s some logic to it: what we call "artificial intelligence" is really more like a hyper-advanced prediction engine—think predictive text, but supercharged to form full sentences based on context. "When it clocks politeness, it’s more likely to be polite back," states a memo from Microsoft’s WorkLab. "Generative AI also mirrors the levels of professionalism, clarity, and detail in the prompts you provide." A late 2024 survey found that 67 percent of Americans said they were courteous when talking to chatbots. Among them, 55 percent said they do it because it “feels like the right thing to do,” while 12 percent confessed they're just trying to stay on good terms in case of an AI-led doomsday. While that kind of robot rebellion still lives in science fiction—and most experts doubt LLMs will ever become truly “intelligent”—the environmental toll of today’s AI is very real. And all those “pleases” and “thank yous” are making an impact. A Washington Post investigation, working alongside researchers at the University of California, looked at the energy cost of crafting a 100-word email using AI. The result? Just one email eats up 0.14 kilowatt-hours of electricity — enough to keep 14 LED bulbs on for an hour. Do that once a week for a year, and you’re using 7.5kWh, roughly the same power consumed in one hour by nine homes in Washington, DC. Now picture the thousands of detailed prompts flooding AI models like ChatGPT every day — it's far from energy-efficient. AI manners may seem like a small matter, but they highlight a larger issue: every question we ask these models leaves an environmental footprint. The data centers powering today’s chatbots already account for about 2 percent of global electricity use — a figure poised to balloon as AI continues to weave into daily life. So next time you're thinking of thanking Grok for its services, consider skipping the chatbot altogether and writing the message yourself. Your brain — and the planet — will be better off.