Selection on the ramp at Auschwitz II–Birkenau from the Auschwitz Album, a photographic record of the Holocaust during World War II. It and the Sonderkommando photographs are among the small number of visual documents that show the operations of Auschwitz II–Birkenau, the German extermination camp in occupied Poland. Originally titled "Resettlement of the Jews from Hungary" (Umsiedlung der Juden aus Ungarn), it shows a period when the Nazis accelerated their deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. The images were taken by photographers from the camp's Erkennungsdienst ("identification service"). Among other things, the Erkennungsdienst was responsible for fingerprinting and taking photo IDs of prisoners who had not been selected for extermination. The identity of the photographers is uncertain, but it is thought to have been Bernhard Walter or Ernst Hoffmann, two SS men who were director and deputy director of the Erkennungsdienst. The camp's director, Rudolf Höss, also may have taken several of the photographs himself. Photograph credit: Unknown Auschwitz Erkennungsdienst photographer; restored by Yann Forget Recently featured: Royal Palace of Amsterdam Indian Head gold pieces Blue-tailed damselfly Archive More featured pictures

April 27: Koningsdag in the Netherlands Raising the Flag on the Three-Country Cairn 630 – Shahrbaraz usurped the throne of the Sasanian Empire from Ardashir III, but was himself killed six weeks later. 1650 – Wars of the Three Kingdoms: Covenanter forces defeated the Royalists at the Battle of Carbisdale near the village of Culrain, Scotland. 1945 – World War II: The photograph Raising the Flag on the Three-Country Cairn (pictured) was taken after German troops withdrew to Norway at the end of the Lapland War. 1965 – Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation: British forces repelled a surprise Indonesian attack on a base at Plaman Mapu in Sarawak. 2005 – The Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger airliner, made its maiden flight from Toulouse, France. Ulysses S. Grant (b. 1822)Sheila Scott (b. 1922)Olivier Messiaen (d. 1992) More anniversaries: April 26 April 27 April 28 Archive By email List of days of the year About

How did DeepSeek attain such cost-savings while American companies could not? Let's dive into the technical details.Read More

When Google launched its long-awaited Find My Device network in April 2024, it arrived to… well, what’s the opposite of “fanfare”? A slow network rollout and damning reviews dampened enthusiasm for what was supposed to be a wave of Android-powered rivals to Apple’s AirTag. But a year’s a long time in tech, and Google has been promising improvements almost since Find My Device was first switched on. I wanted to know: have things gotten any better?To find out, I set about testing the latest trackers from the three main companies that make compatible models: Pebblebee, Chipolo, and Motorola. For now Google doesn’t make its own Pixel or Nest-branded tracker, and Samsung’s SmartTags use its own SmartThings Find network, not Google’s. In the name of science, I also got hold of an Apple AirTag and a Tile tracker to serve as reference points for Google’s chief competitors.I found a network that’s clearly improved in the year since launch, one that in good conditions — a busy city, a tracker that’s not moving — is every bit as good as Apple’s and Tile’s. It’s when tracking gets trickier, in rural settings or with moving tags, that a gap between Google and the competition still opens up. The strange part is, that might well be by design.The networkIn its broad strokes, the Find My Device network works pretty similarly to Apple’s Find My network. You can use it to locate dedicated smart tracking tags, along with offline phones and tablets, or one of a small selection of third-party devices with built-in Bluetooth tracking, including certain Sony headphones and earbuds. Trackers and lost devices use Bluetooth to connect to passing Android devices, which in turn share their encrypted location with the network, so that you can, in theory, see its location on a map. Then it’s just a matter of heading there to find it.I say “in theory” because things aren’t quite so simple, and they certainly weren’t when Google’s network first launched. While Apple’s Find My network will tell you where your tech is so long as a single nearby iPhone makes Bluetooth contact, Google has been more cautious about how it uses location data. To avoid sharing the location data of individual nearby Android devices that have found a tracker — even anonymized, and encrypted — the Find My Device network defaults to aggregating location data. That means it requires multiple Android devices to make Bluetooth contact with a tracker, before sharing a single location calculated using the separate devices, so no individual user’s location data is shared unless they opt in to more permissive privacy settings. Making matters worse, Bluetooth pings are intermittent, not constant, which means a passing Android phone isn’t guaranteed to successfully make contact, adding to just how many people you’d need to pass by your lost belongings to get a successful location.Unlike AirTags, the Chipolo Pop and Pebblebee Clip are built to attach directly to your keys.Even a few months after the network came online, the result was that Google’s tracker network wasn’t very good at tracking. In a review of the Pebblebee Tag in June 2024, Android Police went a full day without getting a location ping on a “lost” tracker. Around the same time Android Central tested both Pebblebee and Chipolo trackers — they went three days without an alert.Google acknowledged the issues, promising that June that it was “actively working to roll out enhancements” to improve the speed and accuracy of tracking. Android product manager Angela Hsiao told me that Google’s internal testing shows that on average items are now found four times faster than at launch, and in follow-up testing this January Android Police agreed that the trackers “suddenly work great.” So, what changed?Any improvements come in two parts. First up, Hsiao says that Google has been making “continuous algorithm and technical under-the-hood improvements” since the network’s launch, doing things like tweaking Bluetooth scanning frequency and duration to improve the odds of two devices making the Bluetooth connection necessary to trigger a connection. User behavior has changed, too. While the default settings rely on aggregated data to protect individual users’ privacy, those who are willing can switch from this “high-traffic areas” setting to an “all areas” option. The names are needlessly confusing, but what it really means is letting Google use your phone’s location data individually to track other devices — just like Apple’s network does — without waiting for other phones to come along. With every device on default settings at launch, no-one had this enabled. Hsiao wouldn’t specify how many users have opted in over the last year, only telling me that there are “more” than before, though with the option buried in the Find Device app’s settings it’s hard to imagine it’s any more than a small minority.So is Google overselling its improvements, or is its Find My Device network really up there with Apple’s Find My by now?The trackersBefore that, it’s worth a quick rundown of exactly what I’ve been testing. Pebblebee, Chipolo, and Motorola are the three big manufacturers of dedicated Find My Device trackers in North America and Europe, at least until Google decides to get involved for itself, so I tested them all.The Pebblebee Clip includes a light to help you find it.Chipolo’s new Pop comes in a range of bright colors.Motorola designed its Tag to match the AirTag almost exactly, so existing accessories should fit it well.Pebblebee offers three models: the Clip, Tag, and Card. I focused on the Clip, a circular tracker a little larger than an AirTag, but with a built-in hole for attaching to key rings. It has a Bluetooth range of up to 500 feet — though this assumes open line of sight and ideal conditions, so practical range will be much shorter — and, uniquely, it’s USB-C rechargeable (apparently lasting a year between charges), so it won’t generate undue e-waste. The Tag is a smaller model with a shorter range, while the Card is designed to slip into your wallet. All three support both Google and Apple’s tracker networks, though only one at a time. But it does mean that if you change phones you can keep using the same tracker.Chipolo used to offer both a round tracker and a card, but in the course of my testing the company simplified its range: there’s now only the circular Chipolo Pop, which like Pebblebee trackers will work with either Android or iOS. It comes in a range of bright colors — ideal if you want to pick up a few for the family without mixing them up — but top Bluetooth range is a little shorter at 300 feet. You also can’t recharge these, though the standard CR2032 battery should be easy enough to replace when it dies after a year or so of use.Then there’s the Moto Tag. It’s strictly Android-only, but it’s also the most Apple-y tracker of them all — Motorola sneakily designed it in almost the exact same proportions as the AirTag, deftly piggybacking on that existing accessory market. Its Bluetooth range is similar to the Chipolo Pop’s, it uses the same replaceable battery, and its IP67 rating is the best water-protection across any of the Google-powered options. This is also the only one to include support for ultra wideband (UWB), enabling precision tracking from a compatible phone when you’re in short range… or at least it would, if Google had enabled UWB support on the network. Until it does — and for what it’s worth, Hsiao told me that Google will have more to share on that “very soon” — the Moto Tag’s UWB support is strictly theoretical, but a welcome bit of futureproofing.Pebblebee also offers its smaller Tag.There’s a wallet tracker from Pebblebee too, though this Chipolo model was discontinued during my testing — which means you can find it for cheap right now.Find My Device trackers come in all shapes and sizes, though that’s mostly thanks to Pebblebee.What about the competition? The AirTag only comes in one size and shape, and Apple doesn’t quote an official range on its Bluetooth. Like the Moto Tag it’s IP67-rated, and uses CR2032 batteries, too. It also boasts UWB support, and it actually works. One handy feature that Apple offers and Google doesn’t is separation alerts, notifying you when you’re walking away from a device to prevent you losing it in the first place.Finally, I tested a Tile Mate, too. The OG tracker giant updated its range in 2024, but still leverages its own network of Tile devices, rather than using Google’s or Apple’s. There’s no UWB support, but there is a range of four styles: the regular Mate, more powerful Pro, card-shaped Slim, and the small Sticker, which can attach directly to whatever you want to track. The big downside to Tiles is that unless you buy the Pro, the batteries are non-replaceable — meaning when they die, they die, and you’ll have to buy a new one.The resultsThe five trackers I set head to head (clockwise from top): Moto Tag, Chipolo Pop, Pebblebee Clip, Tile Mate, Apple AirTagI set out to test how this range of trackers handled three basic things:Tracking lost items using the wider network, both in dense urban areas and those a little less busy.Finding items at close range, using Bluetooth, UWB, and alarms.Triggering “unknown tracker” alerts when placed in someone else’s bag, to prevent possible stalking.To test the first, I dropped off my bundle of trackers in a small park across from a popular cafe in Islington, London — a spot with moderately heavy footfall, but some way short of what you’d find at a central tube station. I hid them behind a low brick wall, purposefully making conditions suboptimal for the Bluetooth. Then I headed back home, marked each tracker as lost, and waited. The Tile Mate popped up first, 15 minutes after I’d marked it lost, and marked the location just a few feet from where I knew I’d left the tags. Another 15 minutes later, the AirTag and the Google trio all popped up at about the same time, but with one big difference: Apple’s location pin was just as accurate as Tile’s, but the three Google trackers all showed me a search radius of 20 feet or so, and the tracker was actually located just outside that circle. When I checked again a few hours later the pin was in the perfect spot, but it took the network a little longer than the others to get there.I tried the same thing outside of London, along a secluded trail in the suburbs. This is a spot with minimal foot traffic outside of a few dog walkers and joggers, making it more of a challenge for the tracker networks. This time Apple came in first, taking just 15 minutes to let me know my AirTag had been found — quicker than it had actually managed in the city, and the pin was just as precise. Tile took a little over an hour to find my Mate, though it thought it was about 50 feet down the road, meaning I’d probably never have really found it. Across the four hours I spent in the area, none of the trackers on Google’s network popped up at all.What about when you actually get to wherever your tracker supposedly is, but need to know exactly where it is? I expected Apple to have an easy upper hand here, its UWB support giving precise(ish) directions to your iPhone, so that you know which direction to walk and how close you are. Once you’re close enough, you can tell the AirTag to start ringing an alarm so you can find it by sound.While none of the Chipolo, Pebblebee, or Motorola tags support UWB properly just yet, they’re actually easier to find than the AirTag, thanks to one clever little technological trick: they’re really, really loud. UWB or not, all three of the Google-powered tags I tested packs a speaker far louder than Apple’s, audible from several rooms away, which is really all you need so long as the tracking network can get you close enough in the first place.But there’s the rub. Across several weeks of testing tracking, the story was similar: in busy areas Google’s network was about as fast as Apple’s to track and find devices, but it was often less precise. This is especially true for moving targets: when my partner carried my assortment of trackers with her on a night out (consensually!), the Find My Device network succeeded at identifying her location when she was hanging out in a bar, but it offered hopelessly broad search areas — sometimes whole city neighborhoods — whenever she was on the move. 1/4Google finds moving targets hard to track precisely — this is a really big chunk of London.That’s a direct result of Google’s choice to rely on aggregated data. Unless a tracker is picked up by multiple devices simultaneously, any tracking will rely on aggregating pings from across a period of time. If the tracker is moving, that means each device it connects to will report a different location, and as a user you get shown a pretty large area to search. Leave your backpack behind in a bar and Google’s network will help you find it; leave it in a cab and you might be in trouble.In Google’s defense, that’s a feature, not a bug. Hsiao told me that the network “is intentionally designed with a balance that prioritizes safety over continuous, real-time tracking capabilities.” That’s safety for individual users’ location data, but also safety for potential stalking victims, as there’s no useful live feed of a tracker’s location.The other side of stalking protection is unknown tracker alerts, and the bad news here is that no one seems to be getting this right. Tile doesn’t offer the feature at all, and in fact advertises on that basis — not in the name of easier stalking, but so that would-be thieves don’t get alerts that you might be tracking them as they run off with your gear.Interoperability seems to be the problem elsewhere: friends’ iPhones would reliably detect my rogue AirTag if I sent it out with my partner, and Android phones would usually warn about the Find My Device tags, but it was rare for either type of phone to detect a tracker from the other network. That ain’t great, but it seems to be Apple’s problem as much as Google’s — the two companies worked together to create an industry standard for detecting unwanted trackers, but it doesn’t seem to actually work all that well.Try not to leave this behind in a cab.Even after 12 months of work, it’s pretty inarguable that Google’s Find My Device network still isn’t as good as Apple’s Find My at actually finding stuff. The difference now is that the disparity is philosophical, not technological: Google doesn’t seem to want to offer precise real-time tracking, and so it’s built its network to be more private, but less effective. For those who want to actually track their lost tech, that’s a big potential downside — Apple’s AirTag will often do a better job, and even Tile’s network is occasionally more accurate. Google’s big bet is that “good enough” will be good enough, that finding lost belongings most of the time, pretty accurately, and fairly fast is all people really need, and that they’re willing to give up on those edge cases in return for a network that’s safer and more private than the competition. Quite simply, it’s not very Google. This is not a company known for sacrificing functionality in the name of privacy, and certainly not one you’d expect to claw at less data than Apple does at the same game. And so whatever the Find My Device network’s faults, there’s something to celebrate in its compromises.Photography by Dominic Preston / The VergeSee More:

Google Cloud has just released an extraordinary compendium of 601 real-world generative AI (GenAI) use cases from some of the world’s top organizations — a major leap from the 101 use cases it shared just a year ago at Google Cloud Next 2024. This sixfold expansion showcases the explosive pace at which GenAI technologies are moving from prototypes to production, powering transformations across virtually every sector. Announced during Google Cloud Next 2025, the comprehensive list covers companies ranging from Uber, Samsung, and Citi to Mercedes-Benz, Deutsche Bank, and Alaska Airlines. The breadth of applications highlights GenAI’s growing importance as an operational, creative, and strategic lever across automotive, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, media, retail, and public sector industries​. The Structure: Agents, Industries, and Applications Google structured the showcase across 11 major industry groups and six AI agent types: Customer Agents: Enhance user experiences via chatbots, predictive services, and personalization Employee Agents: Boost internal productivity through content generation, summarization, and knowledge discovery Creative Agents: Accelerate campaign design, media production, and product innovation Code Agents: Streamline software engineering and IT workflows Data Agents: Leverage data for analysis, optimization, and decision support Security Agents: Fortify organizations with AI-driven threat detection and fraud prevention​. This agent-based taxonomy makes it clear: AI is no longer a separate tool — it’s becoming embedded into the organizational fabric. Industry Snapshots: Real-World Impact Automotive & Logistics The automotive industry is rapidly adopting conversational and predictive AI. Volkswagen of America built a multimodal virtual assistant inside the myVW app using Google’s Gemini models, letting users point their phones at dashboard indicators for instant explanations​. Mercedes-Benz launched an automotive AI agent offering natural language navigation and e-commerce sales capabilities directly within its vehicles. Even logistics giants are innovating: UPS is constructing a digital twin of its global package network for real-time package tracking and optimization​. Financial Services Banks and fintech companies are particularly aggressive in AI adoption. Citi is using Vertex AI to empower developer toolkits and document digitization. Deutsche Bank’s “DB Lumina” research tool, powered by Gemini, slashes research report creation times from hours to minutes​. Meanwhile, Discover Financial Services deployed AI assistants that aid both customers and contact center representatives, significantly improving service efficiency​. Healthcare & Life Sciences In healthcare, the impact of AI extends from diagnostics to operational efficiency. Freenome is building early-detection cancer tests combining AI and blood samples. Mayo Clinic unlocked 50 petabytes of clinical data with Vertex AI Search, accelerating research access​. Apollo Hospitals in India scaled tuberculosis and breast cancer screening to 3 million people by applying AI to radiology workflows​. Manufacturing & Electronics Manufacturers like Samsung are embedding Google’s Gemini AI directly into their devices — the Galaxy S24 now offers AI-driven text summarization and image editing features​. Trimble and Honeywell have incorporated Gemini for Workspace to enhance engineering productivity and document automation​. AI is dramatically altering customer engagement. Papa John’s, Wendy’s, and Uber are using AI-powered predictive ordering systems​. Radisson Hotel Group reported a 50% gain in marketing productivity and over 20% revenue lift by personalizing ads with Vertex AI​. Even creative industries are leveraging AI: Adobe has integrated Imagen 3 and Veo 2 into Adobe Express, dramatically accelerating campaign creation​. Technology Highlights: Google’s Evolving Stack Many of these applications were made possible through core Google Cloud AI technologies, notably: Vertex AI: Model training, deployment, RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) pipelines Gemini Models: Multimodal LLMs powering text, code, vision, and conversational capabilities Imagen & Veo: High-fidelity generative image and video models BigQuery ML: Data warehousing with embedded machine learning Security AI: AI-first threat detection with Google SecOps​. An emerging trend is the heavy use of enterprise-tuned AI agents, such as Gemini Code Assist for developer productivity or Gemini in Security for threat intelligence​. Emerging Patterns Across Use Cases Several clear trends emerge from Google’s compilation: Generative AI is moving from experiments to mission-critical systems: Whether automating underwriting in finance, driving drug discovery, or powering multimodal search in automotive apps, GenAI is now operational at scale. Hybrid Multimodal Models are increasingly vital: Many solutions integrate text, vision, and structured data — not just plain language models. Verticalized AI Agents are accelerating: Google’s partners aren’t just fine-tuning LLMs — they’re building domain-specific, industry-tuned AI agents tightly integrated into their workflows. Democratization of AI: Solutions like Vertex AI’s search and data agents are putting sophisticated AI tools into the hands of business users, scientists, and even drivers — not just engineers. Final Thoughts The 601 use cases shared by Google paint an exhilarating picture: AI transformation is no longer theoretical — it is happening today, at massive scale, in nearly every sector. Google’s strategy of aligning its AI offerings with real-world operational needs — from customer engagement and logistics to employee productivity and cybersecurity — is accelerating this adoption curve. As Google’s President of Global Revenue, Matt Renner, said in the announcement, “This is just scratching the surface of what’s becoming possible with AI across the enterprise”​. If these use cases are any indication, the next year promises even more staggering innovation. Check out the Report. Also, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and join our Telegram Channel and LinkedIn Group. Don’t Forget to join our 90k+ ML SubReddit. Asif RazzaqWebsite |  + postsBioAsif Razzaq is the CEO of Marktechpost Media Inc.. As a visionary entrepreneur and engineer, Asif is committed to harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence for social good. His most recent endeavor is the launch of an Artificial Intelligence Media Platform, Marktechpost, which stands out for its in-depth coverage of machine learning and deep learning news that is both technically sound and easily understandable by a wide audience. The platform boasts of over 2 million monthly views, illustrating its popularity among audiences.Asif Razzaqhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/6flvq/A Coding Implementation with Arcade: Integrating Gemini Developer API Tools into LangGraph Agents for Autonomous AI WorkflowsAsif Razzaqhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/6flvq/Meta AI Introduces Token-Shuffle: A Simple AI Approach to Reducing Image Tokens in TransformersAsif Razzaqhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/6flvq/A Comprehensive Tutorial on the Five Levels of Agentic AI Architectures: From Basic Prompt Responses to Fully Autonomous Code Generation and ExecutionAsif Razzaqhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/6flvq/NVIDIA AI Releases OpenMath-Nemotron-32B and 14B-Kaggle: Advanced AI Models for Mathematical Reasoning that Secured First Place in the AIMO-2 Competition and Set New Benchmark Records

Important LLM Papers for the Week From 07/04 to 14/04 0 like April 26, 2025 Share this post Author(s): Youssef Hosni Originally published on Towards AI. Stay Updated with Recent Large Language Models Research Large language models (LLMs) have advanced rapidly in recent years. As new generations of models are developed, researchers and engineers need to stay informed on the latest progress. This article summarizes some of the most important LLM papers published during the Third Week of April 2025. The papers cover various topics shaping the next generation of language models, from model optimization and scaling to reasoning, benchmarking, and enhancing performance. Keeping up with novel LLM research across these domains will help guide continued progress toward models that are more capable, robust, and aligned with human values. LLM Progress & Technical ReportsLLM ReasoningLLM Training & Fine-TuningAI AgentsVision Language Models Most insights I share in Medium have previously been shared in my weekly newsletter, To Data & Beyond. If you want to be up-to-date with the frenetic world of AI while also feeling inspired to take action or, at the very least, to be well-prepared for the future ahead of us, this is for you. 🏝Subscribe below🏝 to become an AI leader among your peers and receive content not present in any other platform, including Medium: Data Science, Machine Learning, AI, and what is beyond them. Click to read To Data & Beyond, by Youssef Hosni, a… youssefh.substack.com We introduce BitNet b1.58… 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

Happy Alien Day! Fans celebrate the iconic sci-fi horror franchise every April 26th and this year IGN marks the occasion by sharing with you these cool new videos from FX’s Alien: Earth.We can exclusively reveal a new video showing the gestation of a creature aboard a Weyland-Yutani Corp. spaceship. Running three minutes in length, the gestation video – which you can watch below – pays off a series of short teases we’ve been debuting across our social platforms this past week.PlayIn addition to our exclusive gestation video, there’s also a new teaser FX has released that’s set aboard a Weyland-Yutani ship and shows a crteature within a crate. You can watch that below and find the new poster as well.The teaser’s voiceover captures that good ol’ Weyland-Yutani hubris that always leads to really, really bad things happening: “This ship collected five different life forms from the darkest corners of the universe, each one a unique deadly species … monsters!”PlayHere’s the official plot synopsis for the series, which is set in the year 2120 and premieres this summer on FX and Hulu: “When a mysterious space vessel crash-lands on Earth, a young woman and a ragtag group of tactical soldiers make a fateful discovery that puts them face-to-face with the planet’s greatest threat in the sci-fi horror series Alien: Earth. As members of the crash recovery crew search for survivors among the wreckage, they encounter mysterious predatory life forms more terrifying than they could have ever imagined. With this new threat unlocked, the search crew must fight for survival and what they choose to do with this discovery could change planet Earth as they know it.”Sydney Chandler leads the cast of FX’s Alien: Earth, which includes Alex Lawther, Timothy Olyphant, Essie Davis, Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay, David Rysdahl, Adrian Edmondson, Adarsh Gourav, Jonathan Ajayi, Erana James, Lily Newmark, Diem Camille and Moe Bar-El.Every Xenomorph and Alien from the Alien MoviesFor more on the Alien franchise, check out the IGN community’s ranking of the Alien movies and find out how to watch the Alien movies in chronological order. Plus, discover why we think Predator: Badlands has an Alien connection.

Category: GamesApril 25, 2025 How FragPunk’s Shard Cards Are About to Break the Rules for First-Person Shooters Jeff Hu, Marketing Manager, Bad Guitar Studio We’re thrilled to announce that FragPunk will launch April 29, 2025, for Xbox Series X|S and the Xbox app on Windows PC as a free-to-play title! FragPunk‘s signature feature is an innovative card system known as Shard Cards, powerful gameplay modifiers which enhance suspense and tactical diversity during every match, which are designed to disrupt traditional first-person shooter gameplay, offering a fresh experience for both novice and advanced players. Creating Unexpected Dynamics The idea of incorporating a card system into a first-person shooter (FPS) was influenced by sports regulations. Chang Xin, the producer of FragPunk, is a tremendous fan of sports. He believes that the continuous reforms in those rules aim to enhance suspense and uncertainty, boosting viewer engagement. For instance, the popular King’s League in Europe introduces item-based elements to soccer, successfully adding diversity and excitement to the game. Chang Xin recognized that even in a sport like soccer, which demands a high degree of fairness, randomness could enhance the viewer experience, revealing a significant untapped market. This resembled the competitive FPS genre, where games strive for competitive balance and tactics, often leading to repetitive gameplay. Chang Xin recognized that a lack of suspense in traditional FPS designs has resulted in predictable matches where stronger players dominate consistently. In FragPunk, the creation of Shard Cards aims to inject unexpected dynamics into FPS gameplay, enriching tactical options and strategic depth for all types of players. Building Cards Creating Shard Cards is not without its challenges. The team at Bad Guitar Studio faced challenges about maintaining game balance while introducing new card designs. Initially, the prototype of FragPunk focused on allowing players to alter game rules, resulting in designs closely tied to basic gameplay mechanics. However, this limited the team’s creativity for further card development. Eventually, the team recognized that since the purpose of Shard Cards is to disrupt gameplay, they should not be constrained by existing rules. This shift in mindset led to a more open and imaginative card design process. For example, the “Dimensional Travel” enables all players can travel between two worlds, however, implementing two worlds within level design proved to be quite difficult, so we changed our approach. After using the card, players can become invisible to enemies and are not harmed by them. In fact, they remain in the same map; it’s just that enemies are not visible, achieving the effect of two worlds Balancing Fun and Competition There are concerns that cards might compromise the competitive integrity of the game. However, the design’s primary goal is to enhance suspense and diversify gameplay tactics; to enrich player enjoyment and the FPS experience. Core shooting skills remained, with cards providing unexpected possibilities. Feedback from newer players indicated that the card system introduced a refreshing variety to matches, making outcomes less predictable and enhancing their overall enjoyment. This is crucial for newer players to have a positive gaming experience, contrasting with traditional FPS games where skill disparities often lead to frustration. Moreover, every card is designed and accompanied by a tactical framework, allowing players to create unexpected strategies by combining Shard Cards. For example, players can develop unique card synergies to enhance their gameplay, such as the “Blade Master + Turtleback” combo, which allows blocking bullets from both front and back. In ranked modes, only strategic cards that enhance gameplay are included, maintaining a level of competitiveness and fairness through a ban-pick system that encourages strategic counterplay. Breaking the Rules While various game modes are available, FragPunk’s core experience revolves around the bomb defusal mode named Shard Clash. The design team aimed to innovate within this beloved FPS subgenre by introducing cards that revolutionize traditional gameplay mechanics. For attackers, cards like “Mission Bound” grant invincibility while planting, and “Throw to Plant” enables automatic planting by throwing the converter into the objective — transformative effects that could drastically alter existing tactical frameworks in standard bomb defusal games. With the Shard Card system, FPS game rules are broken no two matches in FragPunk are alike, contributing to a unique gaming experience. FragPunk is set to launch April 29, 2025, for Xbox Series X|S and the Xbox app on Windows PC. Add it to your wish list today and get ready to break the rules! To learn more, head over to our FragPunk product page. Stay in the know by following us on socials: Discord, X (formally Twitter), YouTube, and Instagram. FragPunk Pioneer Bundle NetEaseGames_Global ☆☆☆☆☆ 82 ★★★★★ Get it now *FragPunk will be free-to-play when it releases on 6th March 2025. No purchase is required to play the game included in this pre-order offer. Kick off your FragPunk fights by bending the rules in style! Purchase the FragPunk pre-order bundle to get platform-exclusive skins, stickers, and a charm as well as the first season’s premium battle pass at an exceptional value! This exclusive bundle will be permanently removed from the store after the pre-order period ends. If you fancy one of the included items, now’s the time to secure them before they go away forever! This product includes the following content: – Platform-exclusive weapon skins (only available in this bundle)*2 – Platform-exclusive stickers (only available in this bundle)*2 – Platform-exclusive charm (only available in this bundle)*1 – Premium battle pass*1 Claimable upon first login after launch by visiting your in-game mailbox. FragPunk Bad Guitar Studio ☆☆☆☆☆ 75 ★★★★★ Get it now Bend the rules with Shard Cards! No two rounds of FragPunk are ever the same. Discover over 100 Shard Cards with an activatable selection that changes every round creating new and unique combinations that create infinite possibilities! Cards can amplify your jump height, reverse the roles of attackers and defenders, engulf your bullets in flame or turn them into chain lightning, and even may resurrect you and your team! Frantic 5v5 Hero Shooter! Each round lasts about 2.5 minutes, so get a move on! The short TTK means you have to aim well and react fast to win the fight. Pick between 12 heroes with diverse abilities, customize your weapon combination, choose your cards and get ready for a fight! Variety that fuels replayability Pick your favorite hero from a selection of 12, each with their own unique abilities. Find your favorite guns among the 17 available, some which have special abilities, like shooting faster over time, bursts and more! Discover new hero, weapon and card combinations and develop your personal combat style! Immersive Maps & Vibrant Visuals! Prepare for rich map designs and mixed visual effects including collages, graffiti and a blend of realistic and stylized textures. Feast your eyes on bold colors, sharp shapes and dynamic lines to provide you with diverse visual experiences while the bullets fly. The post How FragPunk’s Shard Cards Are About to Break the Rules for First-Person Shooters appeared first on Xbox Wire.

It goes without saying, Apple’s approach to developing its AI-infused version of Siri has gone very wrong in many ways. Most of the features intended to ship alongside iOS 18 haven’t yet arrived, despite being 10 months past the initial unveiling of iOS 18. Apple has even officially confirmed the delayed launch, stating that the features would launch “in the coming year.” However, according to numerous reports – Apple has a strategy to bounce back with iOS 19. Here’s how. The problem To put it short, the ultimate issue with Siri is that Apple had to rush things together for the unveiling of iOS 18. Apple would’ve liked to rewrite all of the architecture for Siri prior to the release of iOS 18, but ultimately – they didn’t have the time to. Per Bloomberg: The current iOS 18 version of Siri essentially has two brains: one that operates the legacy Siri commands, like timers and making calls, and another that handles more advanced queries. The latter capability will be able to tap user data and already is used to not get confused when people change their request mid-command. In order to get Apple Intelligence out the door as part of iOS 18, the company didn’t have time to meld the two systems together. That means the software doesn’t work as smoothly as it could. Ideally, this melded system would’ve worked out just fine. However, this approach turned out to be far from smooth. Engineers were consistently fighting through a “rash of bugs”, and ultimately things weren’t working as intended. Apple software SVP Craig Federighi ultimately expressed concerns that none of the features were working as intended. How Apple aims to fix things With iOS 19, Apple intends to rebuild the Siri architecture from the ground up. This’ll ideally allow for the three promised Siri features for iOS 18.4 to finally come to fruition. Additionally, Apple has undergone major leadership shakeups in its AI department, which’ll ideally result in better execution. Here are the details on Apple’s new Siri architecture, per Mark Gurman: For iOS 19, Apple’s plan is to merge both systems together and roll out a new Siri architecture. I expect this to be introduced as early as Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June of this year — with a launch by spring 2026 as part of iOS 19.4. This new system will finally phase out the legacy Siri architecture, one that’s stuck with us for over a decade. Last but not least, Apple recently handed the keys to Siri to Vision Pro chief Mike Rockwell, and he’s quickly overhauling leadership: Mike Rockwell, head of engineering for the assistant, is replacing much of Siri’s leadership with lieutenants from his Vision Pro software group, according to people with knowledge of the matter. He’s also restructuring teams related to speech, understanding, performance and user experience. Many Apple employees working on Siri have reportedly complained about its leadership, so this is an important change as well. While it’s too early to call, it certainly sounds like Apple will have its AI strategy far more fleshed-out this year than they did at WWDC24. My favorite Apple accessories on Amazon: Follow Michael: X/Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram 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

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's dream of creating virtual worlds in which we can hang out with our friends, attend work meetings, and play games has been a disaster for a while now.The company has lost billions of dollars on its Reality Labs division, which was tasked with building out the billionaire's vision for the "metaverse" — a concept that had such a hold on Zuckerberg a few years ago that he renamed the entire company Meta back in 2021.Now, The Verge reports, Meta is laying off even more employees in the division — this time pummeling the folks working on its lineup of Quest VR headsets and apps."Some teams within Oculus Studios are undergoing shifts in structure and roles that have impacted team size," Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton told The Verge. "These changes are meant to help Studios work more efficiently on future mixed reality experiences for our growing audience, while still delivering great content for people today."According to Bloomberg, more than 100 people across its Reality Labs division are being laid off, representing only the latest round of job cuts.For years, Zuckerberg was hellbent on turning the concept into a reality. But despite having spent tens of billions of dollars on the tech, reality remains woefully behind his ambitions.While the company's Ray-Ban smart glasses have sold better than Zuckerberg expected, Meta's lineup of VR headsets has seen sales slump over the years, indicating waning interest in the tech.As of February, the company had lost nearly $70 billion over the last few years, with extremely little to show for it. A 44-second ad for the company's Horizon Worlds VR app earlier this year was so terrible that the company deleted it following widespread mockery.The company's virtual worlds, once pitched as a place for work meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic, have been overrun by underage children or turned into lifeless ghost towns.In early 2023, Zuckerberg seemingly bowed to the pressure, announcing that Meta would be pivoting to AI, a change that in many ways marked the first nail in the coffin for the company's VR efforts. At the time, the CEO made noticeably few mentions of his metaverse, suggesting he had cut his losses and moved on, investing billions in AI instead.Which leaves the question: could Zuckerberg's latest obsession suffer the same fate as his last passion project? Tech investors and executives alike have remained highly wary of an impending AI bubble, with astronomical spending far outstripping demand.Is AI the future, the same way Zuckerberg's metaverse was once seen as the future as well?During an investor call in January, Zuckerberg promised a "pivotal year for the metaverse." But whether that's a positive pivot toward bleeding less money, or a restructuring pivot as he spins the concept down, remains to be seen.Share This Article