Apple's shift to a more Mac-like experience in iPadOS 19 and iOS 19 is rumored to introduce features such as a menu bar — but there are reasons to doubt the latest "leak."Apple will reveal iOS 19 and iPadOS 19 at WWDC this summerDespite repeated calls over the years for the iPad to run macOS and be more like the MacBook Pro in usage, Apple has resisted making that move. However, that hasn't stopped rumors from surfacing about changes that bring the operating systems much closer together.According to a source of serial leaker Majin Bu, Apple will be shrinking the gap between macOS, iPadOS, and iOS when it comes to iOS 19 and iPadOS 19. Rumor Score: 🙄 Unlikely Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

This post is brought to you by Yacademy Located a few minutes by boat from some of the most iconic landmarks of Venice, the Certosa island is a hidden gem of one of the most fascinating cities in the world, the perfect location where to experiment wood design techniques consistent with the environment, the his­tory, and the natural characteristics of the lagoon. This is how the design workshop of the first edition of Yacademy's course in Wood Architecture, the result of the collaboration between YAC and Klimahouse, took shape, making the island its protagonist. Certosa Island - Venice, ItalyTutored by Lars Almgren, Associate partner and Senior architect at Dorte Mandrup - the design workshop gave rise to various design proposals developed by the students who, divided into teams, transformed the island into a high-end tourism destination and increased its ac­comodation potential, developing lodge modules and renovating the restaurant. Among the final projects, Caligo by Yuka Imada, V...

French developer’s debut release continues to make waves. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 turned more than a few heads in the lead-up to its release, and courtesy of its turn-based combat, storytelling, music, and more, it has enjoyed widespread critical acclaim. Reflecting that acclaim, on the day of its release, the game also attracted quite the sizeable playerbase. As per SteamDB, on Thursday, the day of its release, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 saw a peak of 51,922 concurrent players on Steam. That means the game has already exceeded the all-time Steam concurrent player peaks of several major recent RPG releases, including the likes of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (46,161), Persona 3 Reload (45,002), Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake (45,357), and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth (40,564). Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. It is also available via Game Pass. Read our review of the game through here, where we awarded it a score of 9/10.

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" Unity has released Unity 6.1, the latest version of the game engine and real-time renderer.The release is the first ‘update release’ from Unity’s new release schedule, and will receive the same level of support as a LTS release until Unity 6.2 becomes available later in the year. Below, we’ve summarized its key features for CG artists, as opposed to developers, including 3D deformation in the water system, Deferred+ rendering in the Universal Rendering Pipeline, and a lot of rendering performance updates, including support for Variable Rate Shading. 1. HDRP: 3D deformation in the Water System creates rolling waves The High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP), primarily for desktop and console games, gets support for 3D deformation in the Water System.The Water Decal system now supports horizontal deformations, making it possible to create effects like rolling waves, rather than just modifying the position of the water surface vertically. There is also a new water sample scene of an underground cave, showcasing both the new deformation effects and the existing caustics effects. 2. URP: Support for Deferred+ rendering speeds up scenes with many lights The Universal Render Pipeline, primarily for mobile and web games, now supports Deferred+ rendering as a rendering path.Standard deferred rendering is commonly used for scenes with a lot of lights, but has a high memory overhead and impact on performance compared to forward rendering. Deferred+ rendering reduces that performance impact, supporting cluster-based light culling and the GPU Resident Drawer introduced in Unity 6. You can find a detailed comparison of the available render paths in the online documentation. 3. URP/HDRP: Bicubic sampling smooths low-resolution lightmaps Both render pipelines now support bicubic sampling for lightmaps, helping to improve their visual fidelity by smoothing sharp or jagged edges, especially at the edges of shadows.It is particularly useful for low-resolution lightmaps, at the cost of an additional performance overhead, and required additional padding on lightmap UV charts to avoid texture bleeding. 4. URP/HDRP: Rendering performance improvements, including Variable Rate Shading Unity 6.1 features a number of changes intended to improve rendering performance, one of the most significant being support for Variable Rate Shading (VRS).VRS makes it possible to adjust the shading resolution dynamically in specific areas of the screen, reducing GPU workload without sacrificing visual quality. It is supported via Vulkan on Android and PC, via DirectX 12 on Xbox and PC, and on the PlayStation 5 Pro. In the URP, users also now have the option to reduce the number of shader variants that Unity creates for fog and LOD meshes, reducing shader loading times and runtime memory usage. 5. Create more advanced browser-based games with WebGPU (Experimental) For browser-based 3D games, Unity 6.1 introduces experimental support for the WebGPU API, intended as a successor to WebGL.Unlike WebGL, it supports modern GPU computing frameworks like DirectX 12, Vulkan and Metal, making it possible to access more of the processing power of modern GPUs. In Unity, some graphics features not supported on WebGL 2, like compute shaders, indirect rendering, GPU skinning and the VFX Graph, can now be supported via WebGL. However, WebGL currently only has partial support in the major web browsers, and has a number of limitations within Unity, so it isn’t yet recommended for use in production. Other features: new Project Auditor and integrated build automation Key changes for developers include the Project Auditor, a new static analysis tool.It scans the codebase and files of a game to identify potential issues related to assets, scripts and project settings, helping to identify quality and performance issues early in development. In addition, Build Automation, for creating builds of a project in the cloud, is now integrated directly into the Unity editor. Platform support: support for Facebook Instant Games and new Android devices Changes to the platforms to which Unity can deploy include support for Instant Games on Facebook and Messenger.For Android games, Unity 6.1 better supports mobile devices with larger or foldable screens, and can now match Vulkan graphics configurations to specific Android devices. For AR and VR games, the update introduces support for Android XR and adds support for build profiles for Meta Quest. The first ‘update release’ in Unity’s new release cycle Unity 6.1 is also the first Update Release in Unity’s new release schedule.Whereas the old Tech Stream updates were more like betas, Update Releases are “production-ready and fully supported”, and will receive the “same level of support as an LTS” (Long-Term Support release), including bugfixes and platform updates, until the next release is published. In the case of Unity 6.1, that means active support until Unity 6.2 is released later in the year. The following release, Unity 6.3, also due out later this year, will be the next LTS, and will be supported for two years. Price and system requirements Unity 6.1 is available now. The Unity Editor is compatible with Windows 10+, macOS 11.0+ and Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 Linux.Free Personal subscriptions are now available for artists and small studios earning under $200,000/year, and include all of the core features. Pro subscriptions, for mid-sized studios, now cost $2,200/year. Enterprise subscriptions, for studios with revenue over $25 million/year, are priced on demand. Read an overview of the new features in Unity 6.1 on Unity’s blog Read a full list of new features in Unity 6.1 in the online documentation Have your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we don’t post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Zencoder announced today the acquisition of Machinet, a developer of context-aware AI coding assistants with more than 100,000 downloads in the JetBrains ecosystem. The acquisition strengthens Zencoder’s position in the competitive AI coding assistant landscape and expands its reach among Java developers and other users of JetBrains’ popular development environments. The deal represents a strategic expansion for Zencoder, which emerged from stealth mode just six months ago but has quickly established itself as a serious competitor to GitHub Copilot and other AI coding tools. “At this point, there are three strong coordination products in the market that are production grade: it’s us, Cursor, and Windsurf. For smaller companies, it’s becoming harder and harder to compete,” said Andrew Filev, CEO and founder of Zencoder, in an exclusive interview with VentureBeat about the acquisition. “Our technical staff includes more than 50 engineers. For some startups, it’s very hard to keep that pace.” The great AI coding assistant shakeout: Why small players can’t compete This acquisition comes at a pivotal moment in the AI coding assistant market. Just last week, reports emerged that OpenAI is in discussions to acquire Windsurf, another AI coding assistant, for approximately $3 billion. While Filev maintains the timing is coincidental, he acknowledges that it reflects broader market dynamics. “I think there’s going to be more to it, and I’m looking forward to it,” Filev said. “It’s a huge product surface. You have to support multiple IDEs, you have to integrate with multiple DevOps tools, you have to support different parts of software life cycle. There are 70-plus, 100-plus programming languages… There’s so much work there that it’s very, very hard for the smaller companies that only have like sub-10 engineers to compete in the long term.” How Zencoder’s JetBrains strategy outflanks Microsoft-dependent rivals One of the key strategic values of acquiring Machinet is its strong presence in the JetBrains ecosystem, which is particularly popular among Java developers and enterprise backend teams. “JetBrains audiences are millions of engineers. They’re one of the leading providers for certain programming languages and technologies. They’re particularly well known in the Java world, which is a big chunk of enterprise backend,” Filev explained. This gives Zencoder an advantage over competitors like Cursor and Windsurf, which are built as forks of Visual Studio Code and may face increasing constraints due to Microsoft’s tightening of licensing restrictions. “Both Cursor and Windsurf are what’s called forks of Visual Studio, and Microsoft recently started tightening their licensing restrictions,” Filev noted. “The support that VS Code has for certain languages is better than the support that Cursor and Windsurf can offer, specifically for C Sharp, C++.” By contrast, Zencoder works with Microsoft’s native platforms on VS Code and also integrates directly with JetBrains IDEs, giving it more flexibility across development environments. Beyond hype: How Zencoder’s benchmark victories translate to real developer value Zencoder differentiates itself from competitors through what it calls “Repo Grokking” technology, which analyzes entire code repositories to provide AI models with better context, and an error-corrected inference pipeline that aims to reduce code errors. The company claims impressive performance on industry benchmarks, with Filev highlighting results from March that showed Zencoder outperforming competitors: “On SWE-Bench Multimodal, the best result was around 13%, and we have been able to easily do 27% which we submitted, so we doubled the next best result. We later resubmitted even higher results of 31%,” Filev said. He also noted performance on OpenAI’s benchmark: “On the SWE-Lancer ‘diamond’ subset, OpenAI’s best result that they published was in the high 20s. Our result was in the low 30s, so we beat OpenAI on that benchmark by 20%.” These benchmarks matter because they measure an AI’s ability to solve real-world coding problems, not just generate syntactically correct but functionally flawed code. Multi-agent architecture: Zencoder’s answer to code quality and security concerns A significant concern among developers regarding AI coding tools is whether they produce secure, high-quality code. Zencoder’s approach, according to Filev, is to build on established software engineering best practices rather than reinventing them. “I think when we design AI systems, we definitely should borrow from the wisdom of human systems. The software engineering industry was rapidly developing for the last 40 years,” Filev explained. “Sometimes you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes the best approach is to take whatever best practices and tools are in the market and leverage them.” This philosophy manifests in Zencoder’s agentic approach, where AI acts as an orchestrator that uses various tools, similar to how human developers use multiple tools in their workflows. “We enable AI to use all of those tools,” said Filev. “We’re building a truly multi-agentic platform. In our previous release, we not only shipped coding agents, like some of our competitors, but we also shipped unit testing agents, and you’re going to see more agents from us in that multi-agent interaction platform.” Coffee mode and the future: When AI does the work while developers take a break One of Zencoder’s most talked-about features is its recently launched “Coffee Mode,” which allows developers to set the AI to work on tasks like writing unit tests while they take a break. “You can literally hit that button and go grab a coffee, and the agent will do that work by itself,” Filev told VentureBeat in a previous interview. “As we like to say in the company, you can watch forever the waterfall, the fire burning, and the agent working in coffee mode.” This approach reflects Zencoder’s vision of AI as a developer’s companion rather than a replacement. “We’re not trying to substitute humans,” Filev emphasized. “We’re trying to progressively and rapidly make them 10x more productive. The more powerful the AI technology is, the more powerful is the human that uses it.” As part of the acquisition, Machinet will transfer its domain and marketplace presence to Zencoder. Current Machinet customers will receive guidance on transitioning to Zencoder’s platform, which offers enhanced capabilities through its proprietary Repo Grokking technology and AI agents. The new developer landscape: A rapidly evolving ecosystem The acquisition of Machinet by Zencoder signals a turning point in the AI coding assistant market, as larger players absorb innovative smaller companies with specialized expertise. For enterprise decision-makers evaluating AI coding tools, the landscape is shifting from a question of whether to adopt these technologies to which platform will provide the most strategic advantage. “Jokingly, I think like half of the Y Combinator batch is AI startups, and it’s just impossible to compete in this space with two engineers at this point,” Filev noted. “You’ve got to have some real resources, technical resources and market resources in order to succeed here.” As industry titans like Microsoft and OpenAI deepen their investments in this space, companies like Zencoder are carving out distinctive positions based on integration flexibility, benchmark performance, and engineering philosophies that align with enterprise needs. For developers watching this market consolidation unfold, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: the future won’t be about whether AI writes your code, but rather which AI becomes your preferred pair programmer when you return from that coffee break. Daily insights on business use cases with VB Daily If you want to impress your boss, VB Daily has you covered. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI. Read our Privacy Policy Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here. An error occured.

Report: Wicked's Jon M. Chu attached to direct Split Fiction adaptation Euphoria's Sydney Sweeney is reportedly set to star and executive produce Image credit: Hazelight Studios News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on April 25, 2025 Hazelight Studios' smash hit Split Fiction is reportedly getting a film adaptation starring Euphoria's Sydney Sweeney with Wicked director Jon M. Chu at the helm. That's according to Variety, which reports that the film is being written by Deadpool & Wolverine screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. It suggests that the film will be produced by Mike Goldberg and Dmitri M. Johnson's Story Kitchen, and Chu's Electronic Somewhere. Sources told the publication it's unclear whether Sweeney will portray Zoe Foster or Mio Hudson in the film. Sweeney is also reportedly attached as an executive producer. Variety previously reported that a bidding war was underway for a Split Fiction adaptation last month. Split Fiction launched on March 6, 2025, to immediate success. The co-op multiplayer follows Zoe and Mio, two writers trapped within a simulation of the worlds they've created. The game topped one million units in 48 hours followed by two million sales in one week. It proceeded to break three Guinness World Records, becoming the most played local co-op game on Steam, most sold local co-op game within 48 hours, and most sold local co-op game within one week of release.

Microsoft has revealed that it’s created a minute-long advert for its Surface Pro and Surface Laptop hardware using generative AI. But there’s a twist: it released the ad almost three months ago, and no-one seemed to notice the AI elements.The ad, which went live on YouTube on January 30th, isn’t entirely made up of generated content. In a Microsoft Design blog post published Wednesday, senior design communications manager Jay Tan admits that “the occasional AI hallucination would rear its head,” meaning the creators had to correct some of the AI output and integrate it with real footage.“When deciding on which shots within the ad were to be AI generated, the team determined that any intricate movement such as closeups of hands typing on keyboards had to be shot live,” Tan says. “Shots that were quick cuts or with limited motion, however, were prime for co-creation with generative AI tools.”Microsoft hasn’t specified exactly which shots were generated using AI, though Tan did detail the process. AI tools were first used to generate “a compelling script, storyboards and a pitch deck.” Microsoft’s team then used a combination of written prompts and sample images to get a chatbot to generate text prompts that could be fed into image generators. Those images were iterated on further, edited to correct hallucinations and other errors, and then fed into video generators like Hailuo or Kling. Those are the only specific AI tools named by Tan, with the chatbots and image generators unspecified.“We probably went through thousands of different prompts, chiseling away at the output little by little until we got what we wanted. There’s never really a one-and-done prompt,” says creative director Cisco McCarthy. “It comes from being relentless.” That makes the process sound like more work than it might have been otherwise, but visual designer Brian Townsend estimates that the team “probably saved 90% of the time and cost it would typically take.”The process echoes recent comments from Microsoft’s design chief Jon Friedman to my colleague Tom Warren, that AI is going to become one more tool in creatives’ arsenals, rather than replacing them outright. As Friedman puts it, “suddenly the design job is how do you edit?”Despite the fact that the video has been online for almost three months, there’s little sign that anyone noticed the AI output until now. The ad has a little over 40,000 views on YouTube at the time of writing, and none of the top comments speculate that the video was produced using AI. Knowing that AI was involved, it’s easy enough to guess where — shots of meeting notes that clearly weren’t hand-written, a Mason jar that’s suspiciously large, the telling AI sheen to it all — but without knowing to look for it, it’s clear that plenty of viewers couldn’t spot the difference. The ad’s quick cuts help hide the AI output’s flaws, but suggest that in the right hands, AI tools are now powerful enough to go unnoticed.See More:

Breath of Fire IV is back from the dead on PC, 25 years after its original launch.Capcom’s much-loved role-playing game first launched on the PlayStation in Japan and North America in 2000, then in Europe a year later. The PC port came out in Europe and Japan in 2003.It revolves around a man called Ryu (not that other Capcom Ryu) who can turn into a dragon. He teams up with other warriors to prevent an emperor from destroying the world.As part of its ongoing Preservation Program, GOG has fully updated Breath of Fire IV for modern PCs and released it DRM-free on its platform.Breath of Fire IV ScreenshotsThe enhanced version is fully optimized for modern systems, with Windows 10 and 11 compatibility. There’s both English and Japanese localizations, along with improved graphics powered by an upgraded DirectX renderer, new display options like Windowed Mode, V-Sync, Anti-Aliasing, and refined gamma correction for better visuals. The audio engine has also been upgraded, restoring missing environmental sounds and adding new configuration options.Breath of Fire IV isn’t the only classic game revived on GOG today. The list below includes Ultima Underworld 1+2, as well as Ultima 9. This means the entire Ultima series is now preserved and available within GOG’s Preservation Program.Here’s the full list:● Ultima Underworld 1+2● Ultima 9: Ascension● Worlds of Ultima : The Savage Empire● Ultima Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams● Worms: Armageddon● Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood● Realms of the Haunting● Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon● StonekeepWesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Stabbings. Bludgeonings. Splitting men from groin to throat. Slipping on entrails. Killing a warhorse with a single punch. And corpses so mangled after battle that they’re only identifiable by their shoe size. Such are the rumoured feats of the Westerosi war knights recently announced by Variety as having been cast in House of the Dragon season three. In short: expect violence. It’s about time. It’s overdue in fact. House of the Dragon spent season two taking a great big run up at some of the Seven Kingdoms’ most famed battles and then… ended. The Game of Thrones prequel left fans with an action IOU in place of the climactic clashes we’d hoped to see. Now, the HBO show is set to correct that, as its most recent casting news suggests. Tom Cullen, Joplin Sibtain and Barry Sloane have joined season three as knights Ser Luthor Largent, Ser “Bold” Jon Roxton and Ser Adrian Redfort. Where there are knights, there are swords, and where there are swords, there are squelchy deaths and streets running with blood. Ser Luthor Largent is preceded by his reputation as a horse-punching giant and captain of the King’s Landing City Watch under Prince Aegon Targaryen. He’ll be played by Welsh actor Tom Cullen, who’s no stranger to Medieval swords and armour after playing the lead role of Landry du Lauzon in the History Channel’s Knightfall. Cullen is also known for roles in BBC true crime series The Gold, as Thomas Seymour in historical drama Becoming Elizabeth, and will soon be seen opposite Gillian Anderson in Northern Ireland political drama Trespasses. Ser “Bold” Jon Roxton is a Greens-allied knight famed for carrying Valyrian steel longsword Orphan-Maker. He’ll be played by Joplin Sibtain, who can currently be seen as Cassian’s mate Brasso in Disney+ Star Wars series Andor. Sibtain’s a British stage and screen actor with past roles in Doctor Who, Avenue 5, and a host of video game and audio drama voice roles. They’re joined by Queensguard member Ser Adrian Redfort, played by Barry Sloane, an English actor known for roles in ITV crime drama The Bay, The History Channel’s Six, and voicing Captain John Price in the Call of Duty video game series. Previously announced as having joined season three are Happy Valley and former Grantchester lead James Norton as Ormund Hightower, the nephew of Rhys Ifans’ Ser Otto Hightower, and a campaign leader for the Greens. Fantastic Beasts and Broadway actor Dan Fogler will play Ser Torrhen Manderly, and Sons of Anarchy’s Chibs aka Tommy Flanagan, will play Lord Roderick Dustin. Read more about them all here.   Filming on the third season began at the end of March 2025, and the new episodes are expected to air in 2026, with the return of core cast Emma D’Arcy, Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Rhys Ifans, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney and more. We’ll keep you posted as further production news arrives.

In the wake of the recent tariffs debacle, both Bloomberg and The Financial Times are reporting that Apple aims to manufacture import almost all of its iPhones sold in the United States from India, rather than China, by the end of next year. This means Apple would need India to make more than 60 million phones a year, in order to satisfy its domestic sales. Overall India iPhone assembly would have to approximately double to meet this target, to about 80 million per year. While Apple was in the process of diversifying iPhone production before the Trump administration took office, it seems the ensuing tariff wars have given motivation to accelerate the plans. Since February, when Trump’s plans for reciprocal tariffs were first announced, Apple’s India production has surged. For a short while, Apple faced eye-watering 145% tariffs on its Chinese imports. As of right now, with the smartphone tariff exemption in place, iPhones imported from India would see no tariffs applied to them. Tariffs from iPhones imported from factories in China are currently slapped with 20% levies. Of course, the US tariff policy changes by the week and the situation may be different by the end of next year. Still, Apple benefits from diversifying its supply chain operations. 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