The company is making a shift to focus on only the highest-value GenAI use cases and shut down pilots that were redundant or underdelivering.

It's OK to delay Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the dad rock of video games, and I love it It also proves AAA publishers should be more willing to delay their games. Samuel Axon – Apr 18, 2025 8:30 am | 0 Assassin's Creed Shadows refines Ubisoft's formula, has great graphics, and is a ton of fun. Credit: Samuel Axon Assassin's Creed Shadows refines Ubisoft's formula, has great graphics, and is a ton of fun. Credit: Samuel Axon Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Assassin’s Creed titles are cozy games for me. There’s no more relaxing place to go after a difficult day: historical outdoor museum tours, plus dopamine dispensers, plus slow-paced assassination simulators. The developers of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows seem to understand this need to escape better than ever before. I’m “only” 40 hours into Shadows (I reckon I’m only about 30 percent through the game), but I already consider it one of the best entries in the franchise’s long history. I’ve appreciated some past titles’ willingness to experiment and get jazzy with it, but Shadows takes a different tack. It has cherry-picked the best elements from the past decade or so of the franchise and refined them. So, although the wheel hasn’t been reinvented here, it offers a smoother ride than fans have ever gotten from the series. That’s a relief, and for once, I have some praise to offer Ubisoft. It has done an excellent job understanding its audience and proven that when in doubt, AAA publishers should feel more comfortable with the idea of delaying a game to focus on quality. Choosing wisely Shadows is the latest entry in the 18-year series, and it was developed primarily by a Ubisoft superteam, combining the talents of two flagship studios: Ubisoft Montreal (Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Assassin’s Creed Origins, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla) and Ubisoft Quebec (Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Immortals Fenyx Rising). After a mediocre entry in 2023’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage—which began as Valhalla DLC and was developed by B-team Ubisoft Bordeaux—Shadows is an all-in, massive budget monstrosity led by the very A-list of teams. The game comes after a trilogy of games that many fans call the ancient trilogy (Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla—with Mirage tightly connected), which was pretty divisive. Peaking with Odyssey, the ancient trilogy departed from classic Assassin's Creed gameplay in significant ways. For the most part, cornerstones like social stealth, modern-day framing, and primarily urban environments were abandoned in favor of what could be reasonably described as "The Witcher 3 lite"—vast, open-world RPG gameplay with detailed character customization and gear systems, branching dialogue options, and lots of time spent wandering the wilderness instead of cities. As in Odyssey, you spend most of your time in Shadows exploring the wilds. Credit: Samuel Axon I loved that shift, as I felt the old formula had grown stale over a decade of annual releases. Many other longtime fans did not agree. So in the weeks leading up to Shadows' launch, Ubisoft was in a tough spot: please the old-school fans or fans of the ancient trilogy. The publisher tried to please both at once with Valhalla but ended up not really making anyone happy, and it tried a retro throwback with Mirage, which was well-received by a dedicated cohort, but that didn't make many waves outside that OG community. During development, a Ubisoft lead publicly assured fans that Shadows would be a big departure from Odyssey, seemingly letting folks know which fanbase the game was meant to please. That's why I was surprised when Shadows actually came out and was... a lot like Odyssey—more like Odyssey than any other game in the franchise, in fact. Detailed gear stats and synergies are back, meaning this game is clearly an RPG... Samuel Axon Detailed gear stats and synergies are back, meaning this game is clearly an RPG... Samuel Axon ...and that carries through to character customization and progression, too. Samuel Axon ...and that carries through to character customization and progression, too. Samuel Axon There are cities and towns, but they're pretty small, and they're not a big focus. Samuel Axon There are cities and towns, but they're pretty small, and they're not a big focus. Samuel Axon ...and that carries through to character customization and progression, too. Samuel Axon There are cities and towns, but they're pretty small, and they're not a big focus. Samuel Axon Similar to Odyssey, Shadows has deep character progression, gear, and RPG systems. It is also far more focused on the countryside than on urban gameplay and has no social stealth. It has branching dialogue (anemic though that feature may be) and plays like a modernization of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. Yet it seems this time around, most players are happy. What gives? Well, Shadows exhibits a level of polish and handcrafted care that many Odyssey detractors felt was lacking. In other words, the game is so slick and fun to play, it's hard to dislike it just because it's not exactly what you would have done had you been in charge of picking the next direction for the franchise. Part of that comes from learning lessons from the specific complaints that even Odyssey's biggest fans had about that game, but part of it can be attributed to the fact that Ubisoft did something uncharacteristic this time around: It delayed an Assassin's Creed game for months to make sure the team could nail it. It’s OK to delay Last fall, Ubisoft published Star Wars Outlaws, which was basically Assassin's Creed set in the Star Wars universe. You'd think that would be a recipe for success, but the game landed with a thud. The critical reception was lukewarm, and gaming communities bounced off it quickly. And while it sold well by most single-player games' standards, it didn't sell well enough to justify its huge budget or to please either Disney or Ubisoft's bean counters. I played Outlaws a little bit, but I, too, dropped it after a short time. The stealth sequences were frustrating, its design decisions didn't seem very well-thought out, and it wasn't that fun to play. Since I wasn't alone in that impression, Ubisoft looked at Shadows (which was due to launch mere weeks later) and panicked. Was the studio on the right track? It made a fateful decision: delay Shadows for months, well beyond the quarter, to make sure it wouldn't disappoint as much as Outlaws did. I'm not privy to the inside discussions about that decision, but given that the business was surely counting on Shadows to deliver for the all-important holiday quarter and that Ubisoft had never delayed an Assassin's Creed title by more than a few weeks before, it probably wasn't an easy one. It's hard to imagine it was the wrong one, though. Like I said, Shadows might be the most polished and consistently fun Assassin's Creed game ever made. No expense was spared with this game, and it delivers on polish, too. Credit: Samuel Axon In an industry where quarterly profits are everything and building quality experiences for players or preserving the mental health and financial stability of employees are more in the "it's nice when it happens" category, I feel it's important to recognize when a company makes a better choice. I don't know what Ubisoft developers' internal experiences were, but I sincerely hope the extra time allowed them to both be happier with their work and their work-life balance. (If you're reading this and you work at Ubisoft and have insight, email me via my author page here. I want to know.) In any case, there's no question that players got a superior product because of the decision to delay the game. I can think of many times when players got angry at publishers for delaying games, but they shouldn't be. When a game gets delayed, that's not necessarily a bad sign. The more time the game spends in the oven, the better it's going to be. Players should welcome that. So, too, should business leaders at these publishers. Let Shadows be an example: Getting it right is worth it. More dad rock, less prestige TV Of course, despite this game's positive reception among many fans, Assassin’s Creed in general is often reviled by some critics and gamers. Sure, there’s a reasonable and informed argument to be made that its big-budget excess, rampant commercialism, and formulaic checkbox-checking exemplify everything wrong with the AAA gaming industry right now. And certainly, there have been entries in the franchise's long history that lend ammunition to those criticisms. But since Shadows is good, this is an ideal time to discuss why the franchise (and this entry in particular) deserves more credit than it sometimes gets. Let's use a pop culture analogy. In its current era, Assassin’s Creed is like the video game equivalent of the bands U2 or Tool. People call those “dad rock.” Taking a cue from those folks, I call Shadows and other titles like it (Horizon Forbidden West, Starfield) “dad games.” While the kids are out there seeking fame through competitive prowess and streaming in Valorant and Fortnite or building chaotic metaverses in Roblox and—well, also Fortnite—games like Shadows are meant to appeal to a different sensibility. It’s one that had its heyday in the 2000s and early 2010s, before the landscape shifted. We’re talking single-player games, cutting-edge graphics showcases, and giant maps full of satisfying checklists. In a time when all the biggest games are multiplayer games-as-a-service, when many people are questioning whether graphics are advancing rapidly enough to make them a selling point on their own, and when checklist design is maligned by critics in favor of more holistic ideas, Shadows represents an era that may soon by a bygone one. So, yes, given the increasingly archaic sensibility in which it’s rooted and the current age of people for whom that era was prime gaming time, the core audience for Shadows probably now includes a whole lot of dads and moms. The graphics are simply awesome. Samuel Axon The graphics are simply awesome. Samuel Axon Yep, it's a map full of checklist items and todos. Samuel Axon Yep, it's a map full of checklist items and todos. Samuel Axon You can read descriptions of historical sites and look at artwork like you're exploring a real-world museum. Samuel Axon You can read descriptions of historical sites and look at artwork like you're exploring a real-world museum. Samuel Axon Yep, it's a map full of checklist items and todos. Samuel Axon You can read descriptions of historical sites and look at artwork like you're exploring a real-world museum. Samuel Axon There's a time and a place for pushing the envelope or experimenting, but media that deftly treads comfortable ground doesn't get enough appreciation. Around the time Ubisoft went all-in on this formula with Odyssey and Valhalla, lots of people sneered, saying it was like watered-down The Witcher 3 or Red Dead Redemption 2. Those games from CD Projekt Red and Rockstar Games moved things forward, while Ubisoft's games seemed content to stay in proven territory. Those people tended to look at this from a business point of view: Woe is an industry that avoids bold and challenging choices for fear of losing an investment. But playing it safe can be a good experience for players, and not just because it allows developers to deliver a refined product. Safety is the point. Yeah, I appreciate something that pushes the envelope in production values and storytelling. If The Witcher 3 and RDR2 were TV shows, we’d call them “prestige TV”—a type of show that’s all about expanding and building on what television can be, with a focus on critical acclaim and cultural capital. I, too, enjoy prestige shows like HBO’s The White Lotus. But sometimes I have to actually work on getting myself in the mood to watch a show like that. When I’ve had a particularly draining day, I don’t want challenging entertainment. That’s when it’s time to turn on Parks and Recreation or Star Trek: The Next Generation—unchallenging or nostalgic programming that lets me zone out in my comfort zone for a while. That's what Assassin's Creed has been for about a decade now—comfort gaming for a certain audience. Ubisoft knows that audience well, and the game is all the more effective because the studios that made it were given the time to fine-tune every part of it for that audience. Assassin's Creed Shadows isn't groundbreaking, and that's OK, because it's a hundred hours of fun and relaxation. It's definitely not prestige gaming. It’s dad gaming: comfortable, refined, a little corny, but satisfying. If that's what you crave with your limited free time, it's worth a try. Samuel Axon Senior Editor Samuel Axon Senior Editor Samuel Axon is a senior editor at Ars Technica, where he is the editorial director for tech and gaming coverage. He covers AI, software development, gaming, entertainment, and mixed reality. He has been writing about gaming and technology for nearly two decades at Engadget, PC World, Mashable, Vice, Polygon, Wired, and others. He previously ran a marketing and PR agency in the gaming industry, led editorial for the TV network CBS, and worked on social media marketing strategy for Samsung Mobile at the creative agency SPCSHP. He also is an independent software and game developer for iOS, Windows, and other platforms, and he is a graduate of DePaul University, where he studied interactive media and software development. 0 Comments

Given the outsized role AI has taken in discussions about the future of work, not to mention humanity, it is no surprise that a C-level role focused on this technology has emerged.  “There's this trend line when something is massive, important, game-changing from an industry perspective, and people don't know how to react to it, they name a C-Level title who is ultimately responsible and accountable for incubating new ideas, trying new ways of working, and pivoting an organization culturally,” Casey Foss, chief commercial officer at West Monroe, a business and tech consulting firm, tells InformationWeek.  West Monroe conducted a survey of 1,000 professionals at the director, vice president, and senior vice president levels to get an idea of what they expect the C-suite to look like in five years. The chief AI officer (CAIO) role played a prominent part in the responses; 40% believe that this position will grow in influence and importance over the next five years.  What exactly does the CAIO role look like today, and how will it have to change to keep up with the breakneck development of AI technology and its capabilities?  What Does a Chief AI Officer Do? When a new leadership role begins its rise to prominence, there is a lot of room for individuals and companies to define what it looks like. A CAIO’s job at one company might look quite different from another.  Related:“Some AI officers are identifying use cases. Some are heavily focused on the technology. Some are heavily focused on upskilling the people and delivering value through how they do the work,” says Foss.  For Ivalua, a cloud-based procurement software company, AI was so important that the company’s founder David Khuat-Duy shifted from his position as CEO to CAIO at the beginning of this year.  His first objective in his new role is to deploy AI internally at the company. Then, he wants to take those lessons learned to customers.  LinkedIn appointed its CAIO, Deepak Agarwal, at the beginning of this year as well. “To help LinkedIn use the best AI technology available for our purpose and goals, my team and I focus on developing and deploying cutting-edge AI solutions that enhance how members and customers connect, learn, and grow on the platform,” he tells InformationWeek via email.  Given just how quickly AI is advancing, a primary responsibility of CAIO could be keeping up with those changes and understanding what that means for their enterprises.  Vivek Mohindra, senior vice president, corporate strategy at Dell Technologies, a technology solutions company, works closely with John Roese, Dell’s CTO and CAIO. “John and I collaborated to set up what we call AI radar. We really track on a daily basis the changes in our landscape and think about what the implications of that could be,” he shares.  Related:CAIOs could be heading up efforts to build models internally or finding ways to leverage externally built models. And managing data is intrinsic to that task.” There’s a lot of data categorization, storage, cleaning that needs to happen,” says Khuat-Duy.  As CAIOs identify use-cases for AI and champion their implementation, they are likely to be spearheading the accompanying changes in process and culture. “Chief AI officers must also serve as internal advocates for AI while guiding teams through emerging regulations, ethical considerations, and increasing stakeholder expectations for what AI can achieve,” says Agarwal.  The regulatory and ethical dimensions of the job are no small piece. AI governance is integral to the CAIO’s responsibilities.  No matter how a CAOI is tasked with doing their job, the overarching goal is almost certainly going to be delivering value from AI to their enterprise. How Does the Role Fit into the C-Suite? AI is poised to touch every aspect of business operations, if it isn’t already. That puts the CAIO in a position that requires communication and coordination with other executives and their teams.  Related:Roles like CTO, CIO, and chief data officer are natural complements to the CAIO. Indeed, Dell’s CAIO is also its CTO.  “My weekly meetings with the CTO are extremely important both because the CTO's office builds out a lot of the architecture that we have to fit into but also we have a big impact on with that architecture has to look like in order to get the data to the right place,” says Craig Martell, chief AI officer at Cohesity, an AI-powered data security company.  They might find themselves in regular conversations with a chief people officer or chief human resources officer about sourcing talent and how AI is reshaping the day-to-day for existing talent.  Interaction with the CFO is inevitable. How much of the budget can a CAIO secure for their AI strategy? AI comes with cybersecurity concerns. Naturally, the CISO is going to want face time with a CAIO to understand how to mitigate those concerns. Of course, CEOs and boards are going to want to know how AI can drive an enterprise toward its business goals.  Martell also finds himself spending a good deal of time on compliance issues, particularly around data usage. “The chief AI officers are going to have to become much more legally adept,” he notes. That is going to mean coordination with chief legal and compliance officers.  How Could the Role Change? The AI landscape is no stranger to shakeups. DeepSeek came onto the scene, sparking an avalanche of discussion around the possibility of a cheaper model undercutting the more entrenched players.  The enticing possibilities of AGI and quantum computing hover in the future, albeit one of uncertain timing. Big questions about how to regulate AI are still open. What do all of these potential changes mean for the position that is meant to shepherd organizations’ AI strategies?  For now, the role is less about exploring the possibilities of AI and more about delivering on its immediate, concrete value.  “This year, the role of the chief AI officer will shift from piloting AI initiatives to operationalizing AI at scale across the organization,” says Agarwal.  And as for those potential upheavals down the road? CAIO officers will no doubt have to be nimble, but Martell doesn’t see their fundamental responsibilities changing.  “You still have to gather the data within your company to be able to use with that model and then you still have to evaluate whether or not that model that you built is delivering against your business goals. That has never changed,” says Martell. Will Chief AI Officers Face Pressure to Deliver? AI is at the inflection point between hype and strategic value. “I think there's going to be a ton of pressure to find the right use cases and deploy AI at scale to make sure that we're getting companies to value,” says Foss.  CAIOs could feel that pressure keenly this year as boards and other executive leaders increasingly ask to see ROI on massive AI investments.  “Companies who have set these roles up appropriately, and more importantly the underlying work correctly, will see the ROI measurements, and I don't think that chief AI officers [at those] organizations should feel any pressure,” says Mohindra.  Will Chief AI Officers Last in the C-Suite? AI is certainly not going anywhere, but what about the CAIO?  Khuat-Duy argues that there will continue to be the need for a central team that manages this technology. “Managing data and the architecture around LLMs is clearly something that needs to be thought [about] in a central, global way for a company,” he says.  Mohindra envisions the CAIO role at Dell as a temporary one.  “This role is finite by design. It is to launch and integrate AI until it becomes inseparable from how our company operates and it is embedded in the DNA of the company, at which point you really don't need a separate role to capitalize the momentum that one needs for an AI-powered enterprise,” he says.  That could mean the CAIO simply steps into a different position. Or, the role gets folded into another. “I think the most likely path is sort of a combination of data and AI,” says Martell. The fate of the role, like its current form, is likely to be dictated by the needs of individual companies.  

Douglas fir wood can be turned into a water filterJanet Horton / Alamy Stock Photo Slices of wood can act as water filters that remove bacteria and microplastics with more than 99 per cent efficiency, potentially offering a cheap way to protect people from water-borne illnesses. Previous research has investigated more complex methods to make wooden filters involving complex chemical treatments, but these would be impractical in lower-income countries where water-borne illnesses cause hundreds of thousands of deaths a year, say Antoni Sánchez-Ferrer and Jenifer Guerrero Parra at the Technical University of Munich, Germany.

Forests are the second-largest carbon sink on the planet, after the oceans. To understand exactly how much carbon they trap, the European Space Agency and Airbus have built a satellite called Biomass that will use a long-prohibited band of the radio spectrum to see below the treetops around the world. It will lift off from French Guiana toward the end of April and will boast the largest space-based radar in history, though it will soon be tied in orbit by the US-India NISAR imaging satellite, due to launch later this year. Roughly half of a tree’s dry mass is made of carbon, so getting a good measure of how much a forest weighs can tell you how much carbon dioxide it’s taken from the atmosphere. But scientists have no way of measuring that mass directly.  “To measure biomass, you need to cut the tree down and weigh it, which is why we use indirect measuring systems,” says Klaus Scipal, manager of the Biomass mission.  These indirect systems rely on a combination of field sampling—foresters roaming among the trees to measure their height and diameter—and remote sensing technologies like lidar scanners, which can be flown over the forests on airplanes or drones and used to measure treetop height along lines of flight. This approach has worked well in North America and Europe, which have well-established forest management systems in place. “People know every tree there, take lots of measurements,” Scipal says.  But most of the world’s trees are in less-mapped places, like the Amazon jungle, where less than 20% of the forest has been studied in depth on the ground. To get a sense of the biomass in those remote, mostly inaccessible areas, space-based forest sensing is the only feasible option. The problem is, the satellites we currently have in orbit are not equipped for monitoring trees.  Tropical forests seen from space look like green plush carpets, because all we can see are the treetops; from imagery like this, we can’t tell how high or thick the trees are. Radars we have on satellites like Sentinel 1 use short radio wavelengths like those in the C band, which fall between 3.9 and 7.5 centimeters. These bounce off the leaves and smaller branches and can’t penetrate the forest all the way to the ground.  This is why for the Biomass mission ESA went with P-band radar. P-band radio waves, which are about 10 times longer in wavelength, can see bigger branches and the trunks of trees, where most of their mass is stored. But fitting a P-band radar system on a satellite isn’t easy. The first problem is the size.  “Radar systems scale with wavelengths—the longer the wavelength, the bigger your antennas need to be. You need bigger structures,” says Scipal. To enable it to carry the P-band radar, Airbus engineers had to make the Biomass satellite two meters wide, two meters thick, and four meters tall. The antenna for the radar is 12 meters in diameter. It sits on a long, multi-joint boom, and Airbus engineers had to fold it like a giant umbrella to fit it into the Vega C rocket that will lift it into orbit. The unfolding procedure alone is going to take several days once the satellite gets to space.  Sheer size, though, is just one reason we have generally avoided sending P-band radars to space. Operating such radar systems in space is banned by International Telecommunication Union regulations, and for a good reason: interference.  Workers roll the BIOMASS satellite out into a cleanroom to be inspected before the launchESA-CNES-ARIANESPACE/OPTIQUE VIDéO DU CSG–S. MARTIN “The primary frequency allocation in P band is for huge SOTR [single-object-tracking radars] Americans use to detect incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles. That was, of course, a problem for us,” Scipal says. To get an exemption from the ban on space-based P-band radars, ESA had to agree to several limitations, the most painful of which was turning the Biomass radar off over North America and Europe to avoid interfering with SOTR coverage. “This was a pity. It’s a European mission, so we wanted to do observations in Europe,” Scipal says. The rest of the world, though, is fair game. The Biomass mission is scheduled to last five years. Calibration of the radar and other systems is going to take the first five months. After that, Biomass will enter its tomography phase, gathering data to create detailed biomass maps of the forests in India, Australia, Siberia, South America, Africa—everywhere but North America and Europe. “Tomography will work like a CT scan in a hospital. We will take images of each area from various different positions and create the 3D map of the forests,” Scipal says.  Getting full, global coverage is expected to take 18 months. Then, for the rest of the mission, Biomass will switch to a different measurement method, capturing one full global map every nine months to measure how the condition of our forests changes over time.  “The scientific goal here is to really understand the role of forests in the global carbon cycle. The main interest is the tropics because it’s the densest forest which is under the biggest threat of deforestation and the one we know the least about,” Scipal says. Biomass is going to provide hectare-scale-resolution 3D maps of those tropical forests, including everything from the tree heights to ground topography—something we’ve never had before. But there are limits to what it can do.  “One drawback is that we won’t get insights into seasonal deviations in forest throughout the year because of the time it takes for Biomass to do global coverage,” says Irena Hajnsek, a professor of Earth observation at ETH Zurich, who is not involved in the Biomass mission. And Biomass is still going to leave some of our questions about carbon sinks unanswered. “In all our estimations of climate change, we know how much carbon is in the atmosphere, but we do not know so much about how much carbon is stored on land,” says Hajnsek. Biomass will have its limits, she says, since significant amounts of carbon are trapped in the soil in permafrost areas, which the mission won’t be able to measure. “But we’re going to learn how much carbon is stored in the forests and also how much of it is getting released due to disturbances like deforestation or fires,” she says. “And that is going to be a huge contribution.”

Waterfalls are one of nature's most awe-inspiring sights. The sound of pounding water, the feel of mist, and the visual of cascading water all combine for an unforgettable experience.The US has some amazing cascades, from New York to Alaska to Tennessee.These natural marvels can draw millions of visitors a year, propping up local economies. Visitor spending in Niagara County, New York, which is home to Niagara Falls, reached a record high of $1.082 billion in 2023, according to data from Tourism Economics.However, not all of the country's most beautiful waterfalls are major tourist attractions. Some require arduous hikes that reward visitors with picturesque views. Others are visible from the roadside, perfect for snapping unforgettable photos without much effort.Here are 17 of the US's most jaw-dropping waterfalls. Bridal Veil Falls, Alaska Bridal Veil Falls seen from the road in Alaska. Karel Stipek/Getty Images/iStockphoto For over 40 years, daredevils have been climbing the icy walls of Keystone Canyon as part of an annual festival. Located near Valdez, east of Anchorage, the canyon also contains more than a dozen waterfalls. Bridal Veil Falls is among them, its rushing water suspended in a frozen tableau during the winter. It's over 600 feet tall and is viewable from Richardson Highway. Havasu Falls, Arizona Havasupai Falls in Arizona. Francesco Riccardo Iacomino/Getty Images The contrast of teal water and dusty orange rocks makes Havasu Falls a memorable sight. The waterfall is one of several on the Havasupai Indian Reservation. Over 60 miles from Grand Canyon Village, it's a 10-mile hike to see the vivid scenery. Temperatures can get scorching, as high as 115 degrees Fahrenheit. The popular spot also requires a reservation in advance. Burney Falls in, California The waterfall at MacArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park in California. Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images Volcanoes and erosion shaped Northern California's Burney Falls. The craggy rocks are remnants of basalt lava flows, with nooks and crannies that hold flowing water. Snow melt and springs feed the 129-foot cascade, upping its intensity in the spring and summer. They end in a misty reservoir below the falls. Sightseekers pack the park during warmer months, so expect lots of traffic if you visit. Yosemite Falls, California Upper Yosemite Falls in California. Mario Tama/Getty Images Melting snow turns into the pounding Yosemite Falls in spring. By late summer, it's like someone has turned off the tap. Three cascades make up the Yosemite National Park's falls, which are among the tallest in the world at 2,425 feet. Full moons in April and May produce an effect known as a moonbow, when the Lower Yosemite Falls' splashing water creates a lunar rainbow. Visitors can take a 1-mile path to the bottom or a more taxing 7.2-mile hike to the Upper Falls. Bridal Veil Falls, Colorado The hydroelectric power station at Bridal Veil Falls, Colorado. Brad McGinley Photography/Getty Images Telluride is known for its skiing, but it's also home to Colorado's tallest free-falling waterfall. Like Alaska's Bridal Veil Falls, it freezes in the winter. Snow enthusiasts come for the spectacular views as well as ice climbing. In summer, hikers, bikers, and four-wheelers arrive for a peek at the 365-foot flow. Atop the falls sits a hydroelectric power plant, built in 1907. Wailua Falls, Hawaii Wailua Falls in Hawaii. Prisma Bildagentur/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Two streams meet and part in the Kauai's Wailua Falls, depending on the amount of water flowing. The trail to the falls is dangerous, and hiking is prohibited — however, tourists barely have to leave their cars to get a glimpse of the twin falls. In the mornings, rainbows dance in the falls' mist. It's a hugely popular spot for wedding photos, and park officials have had to create guidelines to keep it from getting overrun with couples on their big day. Waimoku Falls, Hawaii Waimoku Falls in Hawaii. Universal Education/Universal Images Group via Getty Images It's no easy feat to reach Maui's 400-foot Waimoku Falls. After a twisty drive to Haleakalā National Park, hikers take the Pīpīwai Trail through a bamboo forest. Moss coats the trees, and the water thunders over the precipitous cliff. There can be rock falls and flash floods in the park, so visitors should be alert. Shoshone Falls, Idaho Shoshone Falls in Idaho. AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images via Getty Images Outside Twin Falls, what's known as the "Niagara of the West" spans 900 feet and plummets from 212 feet. It pours into the Snake River, which winds through a basalt canyon. Kayakers and canoeists travel along the river when it's warm. Spring means melting snow adds oomph to the flow, which slows in summer when some of the water is used for irrigation. Viewing decks offer opportunities for breathtaking photos, and there are hiking trails and picnic areas in the park as well. Cumberland Falls, Kentucky Cumberland Falls in Kentucky. Jim Lane/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Like Yosemite, Cumberland Falls produces lunar rainbows when the 125-foot-wide expanse of water catches the light during full moons. Crowds make their way to the Cumberland Falls State Resort Park to see the moonbow, either hiking the challenging trail for a closeup or staking out a spot in the parking lot, which has a view of the falls. Tahquamenon Falls, Michigan The Upper Falls at Tahquamenon Falls State Park in Michigan. AP Photo/John Flesher Winters are cold in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, but the Tahquamenon Falls don't freeze over every year. They're nicknamed the "Root Beer Falls" because cedar tannins have turned the water soda-pop brown. Water also foams as it drops nearly 50 feet, like the foam on a freshly poured soft drink. There are two sets of falls, located about 4 miles apart. Niagara Falls, New York A boat heads toward Niagara Falls. Laura Ragsdale/Getty Images/iStockphoto Arguably the most famous falls in North America, Niagara flows through both Canada and the US. One of its cataracts, Horseshoe Falls, thunders down 180 feet and is located in both Ontario and New York. There are plenty of vantage points for watching the three waterfalls, including bridges and an observation tower. Perhaps the most unique is the Maid of the Mist boat tour, which has been ferrying passengers past the falls since 1847. Rainbow Falls, New York The Rainbow Falls in New York's Ausable Chasm. MissNephew/Getty Images/iStockphoto Niagara Falls doesn't have a monopoly on New York's pretty waterfalls. Near Lake Placid is the 150-foot Rainbow Falls, located in the Ausable Chasm, a sandstone gorge. True to its name, a spectrum of colors dazzles on the rock wall as the light catches the mist. Visitors need a reservation if they're going to make the 8.5-mile roundtrip hike from May through October. The Route 9 bridge also crosses nearby. Dry Falls, North Carolina The trail behind Dry Falls in North Carolina. Jose More/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images For those who like to peer at waterfalls from behind the curtain of water, Dry Falls is a spectacular option. A trail through the Nantahala National Forest takes hikers around the back of the 75-foot waterfall. Visitors can also see the front view after a short walk from the parking lot, but either way, this is a popular attraction that gets crowded. Multnomah Falls, Oregon A viewpoint at Multnomah Falls in Oregon. Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images A short drive from Portland brings travelers to the state's tallest waterfall. Underground springs supply the two-tiered Multnomah Falls, which crashes down over 600 feet. Though that flow is heaviest in winter and spring, tourist traffic peaks in the summer. Visitors need a permit for admittance at the end of May through early September. Ruby Falls, Tennessee Ruby Falls lit up pink in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Valerie Schremp Hahn/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service via Getty Images Take an elevator ride into a limestone cave in Lookout Mountain, and follow the trail to Ruby Falls. It's named not for its color but for the wife of Leo Lambert, who found the waterfall in 1928. Raining down 145 feet, the underground waterfall is a popular attraction that's not far from Chattanooga. Today, lights illuminate the cave, and tickets are needed to enter. Snoqualmie Falls, Washington The Salish Lodge above the Snoqualmie Falls in Washington State. Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images The gushing waterfall in the opening credits of the '90s show "Twin Peaks" is Snoqualmie Falls. Less than an hour from Seattle, it cascades 268 feet against a backdrop of granite cliffs. Sightseers can enjoy them from an accessible observation deck or check into the Salish Lodge, which overlooks the falls. Yellowstone Falls, Wyoming The Lower Falls in Yellowstone National Park. Jonathan Newton/Getty Images Hydrothermal vents aren't Yellowstone's only stunning water feature. The Upper and Lower Falls carry the Yellowstone River to the park's Grand Canyon. Each tumbles roughly 100 feet into the canyon, which is over 20 miles long and a rich mix of reds and yellows. Roads with viewpoints run along both the Upper and Lower Falls.

Last year, a coterie of tech billionaires rallied behind Donald Trump’s candidacy. Many had not been lifelong Republicans. In 2016, the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen declared Hillary Clinton the “obvious choice” for president, saying Trump’s immigration agenda “makes me sick to my stomach.” Elon Musk, meanwhile, had once been an Obama-supporting climate hawk. Yet they, and many others in their circles, found their way to supporting an openly authoritarian insurrectionist in 2024. They offered many explanations for this decision, some of which were unabashedly self-interested — Trump had promised to limit regulatory scrutiny of their companies and taxation of their capital. But right-wing tech moguls generally insisted that their fundamental concern was for the country, not their profits: Trump’s pro-business policies would accelerate economic growth and technological progress — thereby ensuring America’s prosperity and global supremacy. Three months into his presidency, Trump has delivered on many of the so-called tech right’s requests for regulatory relief. Yet, to the extent that their faction genuinely cares about maximizing American economic growth, technological progress, and global standing, their investment in Trump has been an utter disaster.RelatedWhy Big Tech turned rightWhy the tech right backed TrumpIt isn’t hard to see why right-wing tech moguls believed Trump’s election would advance their interests. To some in their circles, the Democratic Party had become a financial threat. Many venture capitalists were heavily invested in the crypto industry, which the Biden White House regarded as “rife with bad actors.” The Democratic administration therefore discouraged banks from serving many crypto businesses and prosecuted some of its moguls for money laundering. What’s more, Joe Biden chilled mergers through vigorous antitrust enforcement, proposed new regulations on AI development, and suggested taxing unrealized capital gains. All this was antithetical to many tech billionaires’ material interests. And this financial injury was compounded by cultural insults. In the tech right’s view, the “woke” left seemed to disdain success in general and successful white males in particular. And social justice ideology didn’t just irritate the Silicon Valley superrich online; it increasingly fomented insubordination within their workplaces.Donald Trump credibly promised to advance the tech right’s interests along all these fronts. But some Silicon Valley moguls weren’t content to rest their case for Trumpism on grounds of narrow self-interest or cultural grievance. Rather, Andreessen and his fellow VC Ben Horowitz insisted Trump’s election was necessary for safeguarding nothing less than “the future of America.”In their account, the United States was suffering from a crisis of low economic growth and stagnating productivity. Unwise government policies were not merely stymying crypto’s profitability but American innovation writ large. And this posed a threat to liberty both within America’s borders and beyond them. After all, “Low economic growth also means the rise of smashmouth zero-sum politics” in which people come to believe that “gains for one group of people necessarily require taking things away from other people,” Andreessen and Horowitz wrote in a pre-election manifesto. More critically, the United States would not be able to maintain geopolitical supremacy without retaining economic and technological preeminence. And if America did not reign supreme, the Chinese Communist Party would be able to impose its “much darker, more totalitarian” view of global governance upon the world. Trump understood how important it was for the US to “win” in its techno-scientific race against the CCP, according to Andreessen and Horowitz. His election would, therefore, accelerate American economic growth and technological progress while enhancing US power on the global stage.Thus far, Trump has delivered many of the tech right’s narrow demands. Crypto and AI startups face little regulatory scrutiny or pressure to implement DEI programming. But Trump has simultaneously sabotaged America’s economic growth, scientific prowess, and geopolitical influence. Trump’s trade war is undermining American economic growth — in both the short and long termThe president’s decision to put across-the-board tariffs on virtually all foreign imports — and 145 percent duties on Chinese ones — has already cost many tech investors and founders dearly. Startups reliant on Chinese inputs have found themselves abruptly on the brink of insolvency. Other firms have been forced to cancel their IPOs amid bearish investor sentiment. The tech right hoped Trump’s election would clear the way for a wave of mergers, enabling venture-funded startups to cash out by selling their businesses to Big Tech firms. Yet his tariffs have eroded the value of major US tech companies, sapping their interest and capacity to buy out startups (while his administration’s approach to antitrust enforcement has proven more adversarial than anticipated).But Trump’s trade war has been even more damaging to the tech right’s high-minded goals than to its narrow pecuniary ones. Bitcoin is still more valuable today than it was before November’s election. The same cannot be said of the S&P 500, which more closely tracks American economic performance. Trump’s tariffs have not accelerated US economic growth. Rather, they have likely ground it to a halt. The Atlanta Fed’s economic growth tracker currently predicts that GDP will contract by 2.2 percent this quarter. Many analysts believe the US economy is already in recession. Perversely, Trump’s trade policies have been especially harmful to American manufacturers, who are more vulnerable to surging input costs than many other businesses. New orders from manufacturers in New York state hit the lowest level on record this month, according to Federal Reserve data. Service-sector businesses have also drastically scaled back capital investment plans in the face of rising costs.Trump’s culpability for this downturn is unambiguous. It is his trade war that is depressing consumer confidence and deterring business investment by driving up costs and increasing economic uncertainty.Needless to say, if a politician unilaterally orchestrates a recession through trade policies he can’t coherently explain, it is difficult to say that his election was vital for economic growth.But what makes Trump’s tariffs truly antithetical to Andreessen and Horowitz’s purported goals is that they are jeopardizing America’s long-term economic performance and geopolitical stature. One source of American economic might is the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. And Trump’s erratic and belligerent trade policies have shaken global faith in the dollar’s safety. Normally, in times of financial volatility, demand for US dollars and Treasury bonds spikes, as investors seek the security of our currency and debt. But during today’s crisis, the dollar’s value has fallen, while yields on US Treasurys have surged. Many financial analysts believe this could be the beginning of a shift away from the dollar, as global investors rethink the reliability of America’s economic and political institutions. If that proves right, America’s borrowing costs would durably increase while its consumers’ purchasing power would lastingly fall, trends that would undermine the nation’s long-term growth. Meanwhile, it is hard to see how anyone preoccupied with enhancing American global power — particularly, relative to China — could be pleased with Trump’s first three months. By violating the terms of America’s existing trade agreements — including some he personally negotiated — Trump undermined our nation’s diplomatic credibility. And by imposing across-the-board tariffs on core US allies, he led European and Asian powers to consider the possibility that China is the more stable and reliable global superpower.In recent days, the Trump administration sought to rally America’s allies into a united front against Chinese trade abuses. But it is struggling to mount such an alliance, according to the Wall Street Journal, because “many European and Asian partners aren’t sure to what extent they are still allied with Washington.” Rather than becoming more adversarial to Beijing, some in the EU are calling for the bloc to end its cooperation with American efforts to starve China of cutting-edge technology.Trump is gutting the tech right’s favorite kind of government spendingTrump’s assault on American economic performance and technological progress extends beyond the realm of trade policy. His haphazard cuts to federal funding for both government agencies and private research have been similarly devastating. In their manifesto last year, Andreessen and Horowitz attributed “American technology leadership” partly to “our higher education system, and long-term government investment in scientific research.”Yet the Trump administration has sought to choke off funding to these sources of innovation. Since taking office, it has canceled or frozen billions of dollars in federal science funding and choked off further funds to top research universities, such as Harvard. Economists widely believe this general austerity will slow technological progress and economic growth. Research has estimated that every dollar invested in scientific research and development yields $5 in economic gains.What’s worse, the Trump administration has specifically targeted some of the most promising lines of medical research. Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines are among the greatest medical breakthroughs of the past decade. They promise to limit the toll of future pandemics and advance treatments for some of the world’s worst diseases. One recent study suggested an mRNA-based therapy inhibited the recurrence of pancreatic cancer in some patients.Nevertheless, the Trump administration has discouraged universities from seeking grants for mRNA research, announcing all such grants would be reported to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a staunch critic of mRNA technology — for review.Trump’s spending cuts have undermined economic progress on other fronts. For example, the administration has proposed $20 billion in cuts to the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), which provides long-term capital to domestic energy projects that advance America’s strategic interests. Its lending has successfully promoted nuclear energy (one of Andreessen’s avowed causes), mineral mining, and gas infrastructure. Even before Trump, it was already leanly staffed. According to Thomas Hochman of the Foundation for American Innovation, most asset management firms employ roughly 500 employees for every $100 billion in managed assets; LPO has employed closer to 350. In a letter to the administration, 30 think tanks and energy companies suggested that large cuts to LPO’s funding could undermine American energy production.Meanwhile, Trump’s layoffs at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are slowing drug development. With the FDA too short-staffed to fulfill its core functions in a timely manner, companies have been forced to postpone clinical trials and drug testing for new medical treatments. The administration is chasing scientific talent out of the USFinally, the Trump administration is jeopardizing America’s access to the most fundamental economic resource: skilled labor. Among the list of pro-growth policies that Andreessen and Horowitz endorsed in their “Little Tech Agenda” last year was an “Expansion of high-skilled immigration to encourage foreign graduates of American universities and others to build new companies and industries here.”But Trump has done the very opposite, exiling foreign students and recent graduates from the United States, thereby discouraging others from immigrating to the country.Specifically, his administration has taken to abruptly terminating foreign students’ visas and ordering them to leave the country. According to a database from Inside Higher Ed, the State Department has changed the legal status of more than 1,000 students and recent graduates at over 170 colleges and universities. In some of these cases, no clear rationale for the visa revocation has been articulated. In many, the cause seems to be the most minor legal infractions, such as receiving a speeding ticket. The White House has also seemingly empowered immigration officials to menace legal immigrants, including esteemed scientists. Kseniia Petrova graduated from a renowned Russian physics and technology institute before being recruited by Harvard Medical School. When Trump took office, she had been working on an investigation into slowing cellular damage from aging. But in February, she was detained at Boston Logan International Airport for failing to declare frog embryos she had transported from France at her university’s request. Normally, this would incur a small fine. Instead, the customs official terminated her visa on the spot and initiated deportation proceedings. Now, she is stuck in a detention center in Louisiana. All this has sent a very clear message to talented, foreign-born scientists both in the US and abroad. A recent poll by the journal Nature found that 75 percent of US-based scientists say they are considering leaving the country. In response, European countries have been aggressively seeking to lure top scholars out of the United States. There is no high-minded case for TrumpThere are other ways the Trump administration has subverted the tech right’s ostensible ideals. In a post-election podcast, Andreessen and Horowitz complained that, even as the Biden administration had allegedly cracked down on legitimate crypto businesses, it did nothing to combat “all the crazy, fly-by-night meme coins”; Trump proceeded to launch a shady meme coin of his very own.Andreessen also complained that the Biden administration had undermined the rule of law, pressuring businesses into agreements that “you voluntarily agree to it but in an atmosphere of coercion.” This would seem like a fitting description of the Trump White House withholding funds and federal contracts from universities and law firms until those entities agreed to implement the administration’s ideological priorities or provide it with pro bono legal assistance.But it seems unlikely the tech right was ever under the misimpression that Donald Trump had a deep-seated commitment to ethical business practices or lawful government. They were all sentient on January 6, 2021. It is more plausible though that reactionary tech billionaires genuinely believed the Republican would accelerate economic growth and tech progress through tax cuts and deregulation — this is, after all, what global investors seemed to believe in the immediate wake of Trump’s election, if stock market trends are any guide.But Trump has swiftly invalidated the tech right’s high-minded reasons for supporting him. What remains is the grubby, self-interested argument that the crypto industry’s short-term profits matter more than America’s long-term economic health or geopolitical influence. This seems to be a difficult case to make. As Politico has observed, Andreessen’s X feed grew quiet in the wake of “Liberation Day” after he served as one of Trump’s loudest tech evangelists on social media for months. As of this writing, the mogul has not published a post on the platform in over a week.See More:

One thing you realise as you get older is that memories are plastic and that the stories you tell about your life change with every recollection, depending on who you are at the time. This is one of the themes – and indeed the mechanics – of Lost Records, a narrative adventure about four teenage girls who develop an intense friendship in rural Michigan during the summer of 1995. In the first instalment, they form a band, discover an old shack in the woods to use as a clubhouse, and encounter a supernatural force emanating from a deep hole they discover nearby. But as autumn draws in and the girls plan a climactic rock gig, tragic secrets are uncovered.Cleverly, the story is told mostly in flashback, as the characters meet again, decades later, in their long-abandoned home town – they’re older, wiser and with new perspectives on what happened to them as teenagers. Lead character Swann, a keen photographer whose video camera provides a key game interface in the first episode, is living a solitary life, while Autumn is still filled with anxiety and Nora is now an influencer. Missing is Kat whose terminal cancer diagnosis obliterates their world at the close of part one.Incredibly poignant … Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Tape Two). Photograph: Don’t NodWhile the first instalment focused on the excitement and hubris of the teenage characters, this is a much darker story concentrating on the adults as they pick apart their lives. Through dialogue trees and interactive memory segments you help Swann navigate the meeting, as well as moments from the past. There is less of the video camera this time. In the first part, there were multiple occasions where you had to film certain scenes, creating a nicely personal bank of footage which could be edited and reshot. There is also much less actual gameplay: an early scene where you have to pack a box and a later stealth sequence where you sneak into Kat’s bedroom are the only real moments of ludic challenge. I missed taking more of an active role.What you get instead, are some incredibly poignant narrative scenes, as the girls battle with the reality of Kat’s diagnosis and the raw ambiguity of their feelings for each other. Two moments stand out especially: Swann and Nora meeting alone one afternoon, talking and exchanging gifts, every word, every gesture, communicating a mass of unspoken feelings. Then, Swann sneaking into Kat’s bedroom and helping her cut her hair before chemotherapy takes it. This is some of the most profound, sensitively structured and emotionally resonant writing about the teenage experience of love and loss I have ever encountered in a video game.Tape Two ends on an ambiguous note, though I think this is utterly true to the experience of playing. The mysterious hole in the woods, which the characters call “the abyss”, can be interpreted as entirely symbolic, as can all the supernatural events in the game, and this is a brave, credible narrative decision. Sometimes, there are no answers, and sometimes the magic we perceived around us when we were young turns out to have been something else entirely – perhaps just friendship or imagination, or the yearning to be something in the world.The effect is like Stranger Things directed by Kelly Reichardt – a realist fantasy in which silence and ambiguity come to the fore. Lost Records is ultimately a game about love, grief and self-recrimination, and the different intensities of those forces as we age. By the end you miss the optimism and verve of those girls in the woods, as though you were one of them – and quite possibly, in a lot of ways, you were.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Pushing ButtonsFree weekly newsletterKeza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gamingPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion

The statue sold out within hours (Shift Up/JND Studios) The director behind Stellar Blade has become one of the wealthiest people in Korea, but it’s not for the reason you might think. Stellar Blade is one of last year’s best action games and for South Korean studio Shift Up, it was their breakthrough moment in the West. The action game sold over one million copies, following its launch on PlayStation 5 in April, and a PC version is set to be released in June 2025. Shift Up chairman and founder, Kim Hyung-tae, has subsequently become one of the richest people in Korea, but it isn’t because of Stellar Blade. As reported by Forbes, Kim Hyung-tae’s net worth is $725 million (£546 million) as of April 14, 2025, which puts him at number 46 on Korea’s rich list. The founder’s net worth ballooned in July last year, when Shift Up became a public company and received an initial offering of $320 million (£241 million). This made Kim Hyung-tae a billionaire, as the largest shareholder of the $3 billion company. Since then, Shift Up’s shares have fallen more than a third and Kim’s overall net worth has shrunk to $725 million, but it’s still enough to make his debut on the rich list. You’d have to be pretty rich to afford these (Shift Up/JND Studios) Shift Up’s biggest success is mobile title Goddess Of Victory: Nikke, which was released on Android and iOS in 2022 and PC a year later. According to the studio’s financial report for 2024, the free-to-play game accounted for 69.6% of the studio’s total revenue, generating $105.4 million. This number was actually down 7% over the previous year, but the studio is planning to launch Goddess Of Victory: Nikke in China in 2025, so that will likely give it a major shot in the arm. In comparison, royalties from Stellar Blade amounted to $43.2 million in 2024. More Trending Shift Up has showcased its wealth through a new $2,400 (£1,800) statue of Stellar Blade protagonist EVE. Created by JND Studios, the statue weighs 8.4kg and has already sold out after pre-orders went live on April 18. Along with EVE, there are separate statues of the equally improbably proportioned Tachy and Adam’s drone. The bundle with all three statues costs a whopping $3,899 (£2,935). Is there going to be a Stellar Blade 2? Stellar Blade is set to launch on PC in June 2025, alongside a DLC crossover with Goddess Of Victory: Nikke. This comes after Stellar Blade’s first major DLC, a collaboration with NieR: Automata, which launched last year. Shift Up has already announced plans for a sequel but nothing has been officially revealed, so it will likely be a few years away yet. That may well mean it ends up being a PlayStation 6 title. A sequel is coming (Sony Interactive Entertainment) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

The streaming device competition gained a new entrant just a few months ago when the Google 4K TV Streamer debuted, replacing the relatively shortlived Chromecast with Google TV dongle. Google pitched the TV Streamer as a big improvement over the Chromecast, and so far that seems to be right on the money. The Google TV Streamer is also right for the money during Amazon’s limited-time 21% off deal that drops the price lower than ever to just $79. The only discouraging words to greet the Google 4K TV Streamer when it dropped last September were that it was twice the price of the $50 Chromecast dongle. But the superiority of the TV Streamer’s performance and features soon quieted the naysayers, and with this sale the TV Streamer’s price is moving back into the neighborhood of the Chromecast. See at Amazon So Long, Streaming Stick While the Chromecast with Google TV was a decent performer, it was just a no-frills streaming stick, and Google decided it was time to up its streaming game. The TV Streamer is a low-profile oblong box, 6 inches in width by 3 in depth, looking a little bit like a slightly larger Apple Magic Mouse. Unlike the Chromecast stick, the TV Streamer has an Ethernet port for hardwiring to the internet and an HDMI 2.1 port for connecting to the screen. (Hardwiring via the Ethernet port is optional, since the TV Streamer also has a very capable built-in Wi-Fi connection.) The upgrade over the Chromecast shows up the most in the speed department — the TV Streamer is 22% faster than the stick, bringing it into the same neck of the streaming woods with the Roku Ultra and Apple TV 4K. It’s also fast enough for cloud gaming with the Steam Link and GeForce Now apps, and has Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity for wireless headphones and other gaming peripherals. Apps By the Thousands Once you’re unboxed and set up, the clean and intuitive Android OS interface screen is your place to find the thousands and thousands of apps that the Google TV Streamer can run. The included voice-accessible remote can also control your TV and many peripherals, and it can also be made to ring if you’ve misplaced it. Once you pick your first streaming session with the TV Streamer, the 4K HDR picture will really make you happy you upgraded from that streaming stick. Deploy the Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos sound features and you’ll get the full experience of the Google TV Streamer, and for a price that’s now just slightly higher than the Chromecast stick. This Amazon limited-time deal offering the all-time low price of just $79 on the Google 4K TV Streamer is a great chance for you to upgrade from the Chromecast or any other no-frills streaming stick. Move up into the 4K HDR streaming world at a great price before this deal ends. See at Amazon