A Massachusetts man has agreed to plead guilty to hacking into one of the top education tech companies in the United States and stealing tens of millions of schoolchildren's personal information for profit. From a report: Matthew Lane, 19, of Worcester County, Massachusetts, signed a plea agreement related to charges connected to a major hack on an educational technology company last year, as well as another company, according to court documents published Tuesday. While the documents refer to the education company only as "Victim-2" and the U.S. attorney's office declined to name the victim, a person familiar with the matter told NBC News that it is PowerSchool. The hack of PowerSchool last year is believed to be the largest breach of American children's sensitive data to date. According to his plea agreement, Lane admitted obtaining information from a protected computer and aggravated identity theft and agreed not to challenge a prison sentence shorter than nine years and four months. He got access simply by trying an employee's stolen username and password combination, the complaint says, echoing a private third-party assessment of the incident previously reported by NBC News. of this story at Slashdot. #19yearold #accused #largest #child #data

RT Train Sim World 5Drive through three lines of the Frankfurt’s S-Bahn network in Train Sim World 5 on @Xbox. 2️⃣5️⃣ Stations🚆 Drive your choice of DB BR 430, 423, 143 + Dostos🚥 600 playable services in totalBegin your rail journey via #train #sim #world #drive #through

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade for PS5See See at Best BuySee at WalmartSee at TargetAmazon has dropped the price of Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade for PS5 to only The PS5 physical edition had been out of print for years, which led to some rather ridiculous prices on the reseller market. Earlier this year, Square Enix finally printed a fresh batch of the sought-after edition that bundles the base game and the Intermission DLC. Multiple retailers sold out of the reprinted copies months ago, while others still regularly sell it for its full list price. Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade for PS5Final Fantasy 7 Remake is a gorgeous reboot of the classic 1997 game it's based on. Set primarily within the early Midgar chapters of Final Fantasy 7, the remake gives Cloud Strife and the rest of the Avalanche crew a massive graphical glow-up as they fight to stop Shinra Inc. from turning the planet's life essence into a power source. Ghosts from the past threaten Cloud and his friends, and toward the end of the game, there are major changes to the storyline that shake up the status quo.The Intermission expansion focuses on Yuffie Kisaragi and her partner Sonon Kusakabe as they work to steal a powerful artifact from Shinra. This is a short but fun add-on to the main campaign of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which also saw various technical and graphical improvements added to the game. It's a fairly linear game overall--with some annoying padding--but if you're looking to revisit the cyberpunk world of Square Enix's beloved sci-fantasy game, Final Fantasy 7 Remake won't disappoint.It's also worth noting that Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade is getting a Nintendo Switch 2 port. Though it's not available to preorder yet and no release date has been set, we'd expect it to receive a physical edition, too. See See at Best BuySee at WalmartFinal Fantasy 7 Remake: Material Ultimania PlusSee Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Material UltimaniaSee You should also check out the official Material Ultimania book focused on the PS5 version of FF7 Remake. Published in November, Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Material Ultimania Plus takes fans behind the scenes for a look at the creation of the heralded RPG. Normally the hardcover edition of the new book is on sale for . You can also save on the first Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Material Ultimania book, which drops the price to This 336-page hardcover focuses on FF7 Remake's original PS4 version.Continue Reading at GameSpot #final #fantasy #remake #intergrade #ps5

Soul Hackers 2 gives players total freedom with how they want to build each of the four party members. There are no limits or restrictions on what demon you choose to equip on whom, letting you completely change the playstyle of a character anytime. #best #affinity #each #party #member

Call it the ultimate proving ground. Collaborating with teammates in the modern workplace requires fast, fluid thinking. Providing insights quickly, while juggling webcams and office messaging channels, is a startlingly good test, and enterprise AI is about to pass it — just in time to provide assistance to busy knowledge workers. To support enterprises in boosting productivity with AI teammates, NVIDIA today introduced a new NVIDIA Enterprise AI Factory validated design at COMPUTEX. IT teams deploying and scaling AI agents can use the design to build accelerated infrastructure and easily integrate with platforms and tools from NVIDIA software partners. NVIDIA also unveiled new NVIDIA AI Blueprints to aid developers building smart AI teammates. Using the new blueprints, developers can enhance employee productivity through adaptive avatars that understand natural communication and have direct access to enterprise data. Blueprints for Engaging, Insightful AI Agents Enterprises can use NVIDIA’s latest AI Blueprints to create agents that align with their business objectives. Using the Tokkio NVIDIA AI Blueprint, developers can create interactive digital humans that can respond to emotional and contextual cues, while the AI-Q blueprint enables queries of many data sources to infuse AI agents with the company’s knowledge and gives them intelligent reasoning capabilities. Building these intelligent AI agents is a full-stack challenge. These blueprints are designed to run on NVIDIA’s accelerated computing infrastructure — including data centers built with the universal NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Server Edition GPU, which is part of NVIDIA’s vision for AI factories as complete systems for creating and putting AI to work. The Tokkio blueprint simplifies building interactive AI agent avatars for more natural and humanlike interactions. These AI agents are designed for intelligence. They integrate with foundational blueprints including the AI-Q NVIDIA Blueprint, part of the NVIDIA AI Data Platform, which uses retrieval-augmented generation and NVIDIA NeMo Retriever microservices to access enterprise data. AI Agents Boost People’s Productivity Customers around the world are already using these AI agent solutions. At the COACH Play store on Cat Street in Harajuku, Tokyo, imma provides an interactive in-store experience and gives personalized styling advice through natural, real-time conversation. Marking COACH’s debut in digital humans and AI-driven retail, the initiative merges cutting-edge technology with fashion to create an immersive and engaging customer journey. Developed by Aww Inc. and powered by NVIDIA ACE, the underlying technology that makes up the Tokkio blueprint, imma delivers lifelike interactions and tailored style suggestions. The experience allows for dynamic, unscripted conversations designed to connect with visitors on a personal level, highlighting COACH’s core values of courage and self-expression. “Through this groundbreaking innovation in the fashion retail space, customers can now engage in real-time, free-flowing conversations with our iconic virtual human, imma — an AI-powered stylist — right inside the store in the heart of Harajuku,” said Yumi An King, executive director of Aww Inc. “It’s been inspiring to see visitors enjoy personalized styling advice and build a sense of connection through natural conversation. We’re excited to bring this vision to life with NVIDIA and continue redefining what’s possible at the intersection of AI and fashion.” Watch how Aww Inc. is leveraging the latest Tokkio NVIDIA AI Blueprint in its AI-powered virtual human stylist, imma, to connect with shoppers through natural conversation and provide personalized styling advice.  Royal Bank of Canada developed Jessica, an AI agent avatar that assists employees in handling reports of fraud. With Jessica’s help, bank employees can access the most up-to-date information so they can handle fraud reports faster and more accurately, enhancing client service. Ubitus and the Mackay Memorial Hospital, located in Taipei, are teaming up to make hospital visits easier and friendlier with the help of AI-powered digital humans. These lifelike avatars are created using advanced 8K facial scanning and brought to life by Ubitus’ AI model integrated with NVIDIA ACE technologies, including NVIDIA Audio2Face 3D for expressions and NVIDIA Riva for speech. Deployed on interactive touchscreens, these digital humans offer hospital navigation, health education and registration support — reducing the burden on frontline staff. They also provide emotional support in pediatric care, aimed at reducing anxiety during wait times. Ubitus and the Mackay Memorial Hospital are making hospital visits easier and friendlier with the help of NVIDIA AI-powered digital humans. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital is exploring the potential of digital avatar technology to enhance the pediatric patient experience. As part of its ongoing innovation efforts, the hospital is evaluating platforms such as NVIDIA’s Digital Human Blueprint to inform the early design of “Care Companions” — interactive, friendly avatars that could help young patients better understand their healthcare journey. “Children can have a lot of questions about their experiences in the hospital, and often respond more to a friendly avatar, like stylized humanoids, animals or robots, that speaks at their level of understanding,” said Dr. Ryan Moore, chief of emerging technologies at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. “Through our Care Companions built with NVIDIA AI, gamified learning, voice interaction and familiar digital experiences, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital aims to improve understanding, reduce anxiety and support lifelong health for young patients.” This early-stage exploration is part of the hospital’s broader initiative to evaluate new and emerging technologies that could one day enhance child-centered care. Software Platforms Support Agents on AI Factory Infrastructure  AI agents are one of the many workloads driving enterprises to reimagine their data centers as AI factories built for modern applications. Using the new NVIDIA Enterprise AI Factory validated design, enterprises can build data centers that provide universal acceleration for agentic AI, as well as design, engineering and business operations. The Enterprise AI Factory validated design features support for software tools and platforms from NVIDIA partners, making it easier to build and run generative and agent-based AI applications. Developers deploying AI agents on their AI factory infrastructure can tap into partner platforms such as Dataiku, DataRobot, Dynatrace and JFrog to build, orchestrate, operationalize and scale AI workflows. The validated design supports frameworks from CrewAI, as well as vector databases from DataStax and Elastic, to help agents store, search and retrieve data. With tools from partners including Arize AI, Galileo, SuperAnnotate, Unstructured and Weights & Biases, developers can conduct data labeling, synthetic data generation, model evaluation and experiment tracking. Orchestration and deployment partners including Canonical, Nutanix and Red Hat support seamless scaling and management of AI agent workloads across complex enterprise environments. Enterprises can secure their AI factories with software from safety and security partners including ActiveFence, CrowdStrike, Fiddler, Securiti and Trend Micro. The NVIDIA Enterprise AI Factory validated design and latest AI Blueprints empower businesses to build smart, adaptable AI agents that enhance productivity, foster collaboration and keep pace with the demands of the modern workplace. See notice regarding software product information. #talk #nvidia #partners #boost #people

Sephiroth ranks very high on the “cool” scale, and a huge reason for that is his ōdachi, the extra-long katana he wields, called the Masamune. He’s not the first Final Fantasy character to wield a sword that has this particular name, but he’s probably the most notable, not least because of a very infamous murder he commits with this sword at a key moment in the original FF7. I’ve been both fascinated and amused by the ostentatious appearance of Sephiroth’s sword ever since I first saw cosplayers brandishing their versions of it at conventions in my teen years, and I’ve always wanted to know what went into its supremely impractical design. So who better to ask than designer Tetsuya Nomura, the Square Enix visionary who first put this sword into Sephiroth’s hands? And so, in honor of Cool Sword Day, here’s Nomura explaining the sword’s backstory, its surprisingly variable length, and more. Polygon: What led to the decision to name Sephiroth’s sword after the medieval blacksmith Masamune? Tetsuya Nomura: The Masamune has appeared throughout the Final Fantasy series as the strongest sword. When thinking about equipping Sephiroth with a sword that is a worthy match for him, I figured there was no better option than Masamune. Whose idea was it to give Sephiroth this specific type of sword, rather than a buster sword for example? That would be mine. Each time Cloud went through a tweak in design, the accompanying buster sword seemed to grow larger. Reason being, I thought the juxtaposition between Cloud wielding a giant “sword” and Sephiroth, who is far more powerful, wielding a skinny “katana” would be quite interesting. Additionally, the contrast between a wide broadsword and a long Japanese katana is also inspired by the rivalry of two famous Japanese swordsmen, Musashi and Kojiro. Were there any other design ideas for his sword that were not chosen and that you would be willing to share with us? As mentioned earlier, I had a specific sword in mind for Sephiroth, so I didn’t have any other ideas. Did the length of Sephiroth’s sword make it difficult to design fight scenes, especially in FF7 Rebirth where you actually get to play as Sephiroth?  Sephiroth has appeared in many different titles before, and with each appearance, the length of his sword is adjusted based on the title’s specifications. In other words, we didn’t design the scene based on the length of the sword, but rather, designed the length of the sword based on the game design. I have a rough guideline that his sword should be around 10 feet long, but this has never been consistent across any of his appearances, including Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, or any merchandise, etc. Do you ever alter the length of the sword in certain scenes, such as lengthening it for visual effect or shortening it to accommodate certain moves?The Masamune’s blade has an organic quality to it, lengthening and shortening as needed. In the recently released second season of The First Soldier arc in Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis, there actually is a scene in which the Masamune grows longer for the first time. I would love for you to check it out. Did someone in the universe of FF7 make this sword especially for Sephiroth? I mentioned The First Soldier arc in Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis a moment ago, but if you look at season one, when young Sephiroth first appeared, you will see that he is equipped with a Shinra military sword. That means it won’t come as a surprise if other people were also equipped with it. That said, I personally think that a military sword is more of an accessory for ceremonial purposes, and so Sephiroth would probably be the only person who would actually wield it after customizing it to be more suited for combat. Typically, a sword is heavily impacted by the skill of its wielder, and it is prone to become useless unless the wielder has the appropriate prowess; so, it is rare for someone to use a sword in combat. Also, in the aforementioned second season of The First Soldier arc of Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis, you will experience the episode in which young Sephiroth obtains the Masamune, as well as meet the blacksmith who created the sword, so we’ll be diving deeper into the lore of the Masamune for the first time. The settings and background were brewing in my head, but in order to depict this in the game, I consulted Motomu Toriyama, the Co-Director of the Final Fantasy VII remake series and Director of Final Fantasy 7 Ever Crisis, and we decided to ask Kazushige Nojima, Scenario Writer for the Final Fantasy 7 series to write this for us. #length #sephiroths #sword #ff7 #actually

Google announced a lot of new stuff today at I/O, but few things were more eye-watering than the company's new Google AI Ultra subscription. At per month, it's by far the most expensive subscription Google has yet launched. So it makes sense it comes with everything. And I mean everything.For starters, subscribers at this tier get to use Gemini Ultra, which includes the new Veo 3 video generation model that can also generate sounds alongside video, to...some effect. This tier will also be the first to get access to the upcoming 2.5 Pro Deep Think reasoning model that Google says can "consider multiple hypotheses before responding." It also brings access to tools like Flow and Whisk that provide editing tools on top of Veo and Imagen's video and image-generating capabilities.Technically, these plans are part of the Google One subscription family, so they're not solely focused on AI features. On top of the above mentioned features, you'll also get 30TB of storage across all the services attached to your Google account. Google has also thrown in a YouTube Premium individual subscription at this new, highest tier. This makes it the only Google One plan that includes ad-free YouTube. Sorry, folks who are only paying for the Google One Premium subscription with 30TB of storage and only Gemini Pro access.Google's previous plan, Google AI Premium, is now Google AI Pro. It still costs per month, and comes with the same perks it did before. Now, however, users have access to a limited version of Flow with Veo 2, as well as Gemini in Chrome. #googles #new #ultra #subscription #plan

AMD has unveiled its 9060 XT GPU at Computex 2025. The midrange GPU will be the clear competitor to Nvidia’s 5060 Ti and goes toe-to-toe with it on almost every spec. Built on AMD’s 4-nanometer RDNA 4 silicon, the 9060 XT will pack 32 compute units, along with 64 dedicated AI accelerators and 32 ray-tracing cores. AMD Notably, the RX 9060 XT will ship in 8GB and 16GB GDDR6 versions, whereas Nvidia’s RTX 5060 Ti uses faster 28 Gb/s GDDR7, delivering roughly 40 percent more bandwidthon the same 128-bit bus. We’ll have to wait for some side-by-side performance comparisons before drawing any strong conclusions from those specs. AMD has listed the 9060 XT’s boost clock at speeds up to 3.13 GHz. The GPU boasts 821 TOPS for AI workloads and will draw a modest 150 to 182 watts from the board. The card will connect via PCIe 5.0 x16 and supports the now-standard DisplayPort 2.1a and HDMI 2.1b. Based on these initial specs, the 9060 XT should be a solid entry for games running at 1080p and a decent option for those at 1440p. Those wishing to play at 4K should still opt for the Radeon RX 9070 or 9070 XT. Pricing and exact release timelines have not yet been announced.This article originally appeared on Engadget at #amd #unveils #radeon #computex

The same week that Vodafone accused Telstra of inflated mobile network coverage maps, Australia’s largest telco has announced price rises of up to AUacross all its offerings. #telstra #raises #phone #internet #prices

Fortnite was kicked off the App Store in 2020 and is finally available again for iPhone users. #fortnite #approved #apple #returns #app