Amazing sound for everything you listen to. FxSound corrects the limitations of your devices and compressed audio. FxSound is (technically) a 90's kid at heart. It's roots are in a program called DFX Audio Enhancer, born in 1999. This audio processor was a huge hit, and sold millions. As much as we dug all the crazy colorful skins and old-school sound, it was eventually time to move into the future of audio. With a few major overhauls and some polish, FxSound was born. We wanted to build on the pedigree and foundation of DFX, so we kept the best aspects while modernizing the sound and look. The result is the FxSound you see here today. Now, we made FxSound so that you can download it, turn it on, and just watch the cool bars bounce without touching the settings. Out of the box, it's got a great, all-around tone, with a good amount of volume and space added to your sound. But there is so much more under the hood, and with a little active effort FxSound can go from a nice audio quality booster to a fully customizable, powerful audio suite. Read on to learn more about how to use FxSound, and learn a little bit about your audio along the way. Video Games Surround sound to create full immersion into your virtual world. TV and Movies FxSound smooths and improves audio for your favorite shows and movies. Transcription FxSound boosts your clarity to save your sanity. Rewind less, get paid more. EQ Balanced your sound with our 9-band EQ with customizable center frequencies. Visualizer Feel your music in a new way. Effects Boosted bass and volume that will make your neighbors complain. Presets Presets professionally designed for music, gaming, movies, transcription, and more. How does FxSound work? Home stereo systems and PC's are built with a compromise: keep hardware affordable at the cost of quality. FxSound compensates for low quality hardware by targeting and processing sound's timbre, volume, spatial balance, and dynamics. What this means for you is clearer, louder, deeper, and balanced audio. Install our lightweight program, let it run quietly in the background, and enjoy your new audio experience. How does FxSound boost volume? FxSound is built to provide a dynamic yet controlled increase in volume. We prevent harmful peaking to make listening less fatiguing. Along with our equalized boost means you can increase your volume without distortion. (Unlike some other volume boosters out there). How does FxSound improve sound quality for music? Your music files, even ones labeled as "high quality", have some compromises. Some of the original data is removed to make the file a more manageable size. When you stream your music, even more 1's and 0's are cut out to make it fast to deliver. As such, your favorite songs become flat, dull, and lifeless. This is where FxSound comes in. FxSound helps by giving you the highest possible audio passthrough and output. Then, with targeted EQ, you can bring up those compressed areas and return your music to its proper form. How does FxSound help with gaming? Video games are one of the most acoustically rich, audio-saturated situations you'll encounter. Music, sound effects, ambient sounds, spatial processing, audio cues, warnings, indicators, and dialogue all crowd into your headphones or speakers. Unless you're dropping serious coin on a hi-fi gaming setup, you'll lose detail and miss important sounds. And if you're lucky enough to have that high-end gear, you can't always dial in global settings to fit your hearing profile. FxSound will pass your game's audio through at a higher bitrate than almost any other digital sound card. With EQ and effects, you can apply a smoother, richer, more clear experience to your favorite games. When looking to get that edge (and finally joining your high ELO friends), give FxSound a shot. What's New FxSound 1.1.33.0 Beta Changelog Volume normalization supported through RMS normalization Bugfix: Tray icon added back after explorer restart Context menu changes for playback device selection In mini mode, window will be always on top Ukrainian language support added Translation corrections in Arabic, Bosnian, Croatian, Dutch, Hungarian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish FxSound 1.1.31.0 Changelog Fixed the unhandled exception and crash in the application after installation Notifications not displayed during output device change is fixed Correction in Swedish translation

After the massive base experience with Elden Ring, plus the huge Shadow of the ErdreeElden Ring Nightreign takes the base mechanics of the main game and transforms it into a co-op survival game with roguelike elements. While you can play alone, this is a game built for you and your friends to conquer together, although the lack of cross-platform support is a big downer. All the trailers and footage make this game look like a greatest hits of FromSoftware, with tons of returning bosses, armor sets, and locations that we can’t wait to discover. To make sure you’re not waiting a second longer than you need to, here’s all the preorder information about Elden Ring Nightreign, including when preloads begin and how big the game is. Elden Ring Nightreign release date Bandai Namco We won’t have to wait much longer because Elden Ring Nightreign launches on May 30. Unlike many other games, there are no options to buy special editions to access the game early, so we will all start on equal footing. Recommended Videos Elden Ring Nightreign file size Bandai Namco According to PlayStation Game Size, which has accurately shared file sizes for tons of upcoming games, Elden Ring Nightreign will be 21.176 GB on both PS4 and PS5, with an extra 738 MB on top if you get the digital artbook and soundtrack. File sizes don’t typically change much between platforms, so Xbox and PC players should expect a similar game size. To be safe, having at least 25 GB free would be our recommendation. Elden Ring Nightreign preload options Bandai Namco Anyone who preorders Elden Ring Nightreign can preload the game two days early on May 28. That’s handy for those with slow or limited internet, but if you do forget, 21 GB shouldn’t take very long at all to download. Elden Ring Nightreign preorder details If you’ve been waiting to preorder Elden Ring Nightreign, now is the time. There are three options to pick from, but any preorder entitles you to preloading the game. Standard Edition – $40 Base game Bonus “It’s Raining!” gesture preorder bonus Digital Deluxe Edition – $55 Everything in the Standard Edition Digital artbook Mini souindtrack Additional DLC with playable characters and bosses Collector’s Edition – $200 (physical only from Bandai Namco store) Everything included in prior editions Statuie of Wylder Steelbook Nightfarer cards Exclusive hardcover artbook Digital soundtrack Collector’s Box

‘Vibe-coding’ with new AI tools makes it possible for just about anyone to create personalized apps—no programming required.

No sleep till Brooklyn New Claude 4 AI model refactored code for 7 hours straight Anthropic says Claude 4 beats Gemini on coding benchmarks; works autonomously for hours. Benj Edwards – May 22, 2025 12:45 pm | 4 The Claude 4 logo, created by Anthropic. Credit: Anthropic The Claude 4 logo, created by Anthropic. Credit: Anthropic Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more On Thursday, Anthropic released Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4, marking the company's return to larger model releases after primarily focusing on mid-range Sonnet variants since June of last year. The new models represent what the company calls its most capable coding models yet, with Opus 4 designed for complex, long-running tasks that can operate autonomously for hours. Alex Albert, Anthropic's head of Claude Relations, told Ars Technica that the company chose to revive the Opus line because of growing demand for agentic AI applications. "Across all the companies out there that are building things, there's a really large wave of these agentic applications springing up, and a very high demand and premium being placed on intelligence," Albert said. "I think Opus is going to fit that groove perfectly." Before we go further, a brief refresher on Claude's three AI model "size" names (first introduced in March 2024) is probably warranted. Haiku, Sonnet, and Opus offer a tradeoff between price (in the API), speed, and capability. Haiku models are the smallest, least expensive to run, and least capable in terms of what you might call "context depth" (considering conceptual relationships in the prompt) and encoded knowledge. Owing to the small size in parameter count, Haiku models retain fewer concrete facts and thus tend to confabulate more frequently (plausibly answering questions based on lack of data) than larger models, but they are much faster at basic tasks than larger models. Sonnet is traditionally a mid-range model that hits a balance between cost and capability, and Opus models have always been the largest and slowest to run. However, Opus models process context more deeply and are hypothetically better suited for running deep logical tasks. A screenshot of the Claude web interface with Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 options shown. Credit: Anthropic There is no Claude 4 Haiku just yet, but the new Sonnet and Opus models can reportedly handle tasks that previous versions could not. In our interview with Albert, he described testing scenarios where Opus 4 worked coherently for up to 24 hours on tasks like playing Pokémon while coding refactoring tasks in Claude Code ran for seven hours without interruption. Earlier Claude models typically lasted only one to two hours before losing coherence, Albert said, meaning that the models could only produce useful self-referencing outputs for that long before beginning to output too many errors. In particular, that marathon refactoring claim reportedly comes from Rakuten, a Japanese tech services conglomerate that "validated [Claude's] capabilities with a demanding open-source refactor running independently for 7 hours with sustained performance," Anthropic said in a news release. Whether you'd want to leave an AI model unsupervised for that long is another question entirely because even the most capable AI models can introduce subtle bugs, go down unproductive rabbit holes, or make choices that seem logical to the model but miss important context that a human developer would catch. While many people now use Claude for easy-going vibe coding, as we covered in March, the human-powered (and ironically-named) "vibe debugging" that often results from long AI coding sessions is also a very real thing. More on that below. To shore up some of those shortcomings, Anthropic built memory capabilities into both new Claude 4 models, allowing them to maintain external files for storing key information across long sessions. When developers provide access to local files, the models can create and update "memory files" to track progress and things they deem important over time. Albert compared this to how humans take notes during extended work sessions. Extended thinking meets tool use Both Claude 4 models introduce what Anthropic calls "extended thinking with tool use," a new beta feature allowing the models to alternate between simulated reasoning and using external tools like web search, similar to what OpenAI's o3 and 04-mini-high AI models currently do in ChatGPT. While Claude 3.7 Sonnet already had strong tool use capabilities, the new models can now interleave simulated reasoning and tool calling in a single response. "So now we can actually think, call a tool process, the results, think some more, call another tool, and repeat until it gets to a final answer," Albert explained to Ars. The models self-determine when they have reached a useful conclusion, a capability picked up through training rather than governed by explicit human programming. General Claude 4 benchmark results, provided by Anthropic. Credit: Anthropic In practice, we've anecdotally found parallel tool use capability very useful in AI assistants like OpenAI o3, since they don't have to rely on what is trained in their neural network to provide accurate answers. Instead, these more agentic models can iteratively search the web, parse the results, analyze images, and spin up coding tasks for analysis in ways that can avoid falling into a confabulation trap by relying solely on pure LLM outputs. “The world’s best coding model” Anthropic says Opus 4 leads industry benchmarks for coding tasks, achieving 72.5 percent on SWE-bench and 43.2 percent on Terminal-bench, calling it "the world's best coding model." According to Anthropic, companies using early versions report improvements. Cursor described it as "state-of-the-art for coding and a leap forward in complex codebase understanding," while Replit noted "improved precision and dramatic advancements for complex changes across multiple files." In fact, GitHub announced it will use Sonnet 4 as the base model for its new coding agent in GitHub Copilot, citing the model's performance in "agentic scenarios" in Anthropic's news release. Sonnet 4 scored 72.7 percent on SWE-bench while maintaining faster response times than Opus 4. The fact that GitHub is betting on Claude rather than a model from its parent company Microsoft (which has close ties to OpenAI) suggests Anthropic has built something genuinely competitive. Software engineering benchmark results, provided by Anthropic. Credit: Anthropic Anthropic says it has addressed a persistent issue with Claude 3.7 Sonnet in which users complained that the model would take unauthorized actions or provide excessive output. Albert said the company reduced this "reward hacking behavior" by approximately 80 percent in the new models through training adjustments. An 80 percent reduction in unwanted behavior sounds impressive, but that also suggests that 20 percent of the problem behavior remains—a big concern when we're talking about AI models that might be performing autonomous tasks for hours. When we asked about code accuracy, Albert said that human code review is still an important part of shipping any production code. "There's a human parallel, right? So this is just a problem we've had to deal with throughout the whole nature of software engineering. And this is why the code review process exists, so that you can catch these things. We don't anticipate that going away with models either," Albert said. "If anything, the human review will become more important, and more of your job as developer will be in this review than it will be in the generation part." Pricing and availability Both Claude 4 models maintain the same pricing structure as their predecessors: Opus 4 costs $15 per million tokens for input and $75 per million for output, while Sonnet 4 remains at $3 and $15. The models offer two response modes: traditional LLM and simulated reasoning ("extended thinking") for complex problems. Given that some Claude Code sessions can apparently run for hours, those per-token costs will likely add up very quickly for users who let the models run wild. Anthropic made both models available through its API, Amazon Bedrock, and Google Cloud Vertex AI. Sonnet 4 remains accessible to free users, while Opus 4 requires a paid subscription. The Claude 4 models also debut Claude Code (first introduced in February) as a generally available product after months of preview testing. Anthropic says the coding environment now integrates with VS Code and JetBrains IDEs, showing proposed edits directly in files. A new SDK allows developers to build custom agents using the same framework. A screenshot of "Claude Plays Pokemon," a custom application where Claude 4 attempts to beat the classic Game Boy game. Credit: Anthropic Even with Anthropic's future riding on the capability of these new models, when we asked about how they guide Claude's behavior by fine-tuning, Albert acknowledged that the inherent unpredictability of these systems presents ongoing challenges for both them and developers. "In the realm and the world of software for the past 40, 50 years, we've been running on deterministic systems, and now all of a sudden, it's non-deterministic, and that changes how we build," he said. "I empathize with a lot of people out there trying to use our APIs and language models generally because they have to almost shift their perspective on what it means for reliability, what it means for powering a core of your application in a non-deterministic way," Albert added. "These are general oddities that have kind of just been flipped, and it definitely makes things more difficult, but I think it opens up a lot of possibilities as well." Benj Edwards Senior AI Reporter Benj Edwards Senior AI Reporter Benj Edwards is Ars Technica's Senior AI Reporter and founder of the site's dedicated AI beat in 2022. He's also a tech historian with almost two decades of experience. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC. 4 Comments

An AI integration modifies a business process and how employees work, but it also requires an integration with IT infrastructure and systems. This is where some of IT’s most technically savvy staff will be working, and they will want to discuss technology integration approaches and ideas. Most CIOs aren’t software engineers, but they are responsible for having a working knowledge of all things IT so they can hold meaningful dialogues with their most technical employees to assist in defining technology direction. What do CIOs need to know about the technical side of AI integration? 1. AI technical integration is about embedding AI in systems and workflows The assumption here is that by the time your staff is getting into technical design and tooling decisions, that the business case and application for AI have already been decided. Now the task is deciding how to effect a technical embedding and integration of the AI into the IT infrastructure and applications that will support the business process. 2. Modeling is first and foremost AI systems are built around models that utilize data stores, algorithms for query, and machine learning that expands the AI’s body of knowledge as the AI recognizes common logic patterns in data and assimilates knowledge from them. There are many different AI models to choose from. In most cases, companies use predefined AI models from vendors and then expand on them. In other cases, companies elect to build their own models “from scratch.”  Related:Building from scratch usually means that the organization has an on-board data science group with expertise in AI model building. Common AI model frameworks (e.g., Tensorflow, PyTorch, Keras, and others), provide the software resources and tools. These AI model-building technologies are not familiar to most IT staffs. The technologies use data graphs to build dataflows and structures that define how the data will move through the graph. Operational flows for the logic that operates on data must be defined. The model-building software also provides for algorithm development, model training, business rule definitions, and the machine learning that the model executes on its own as it “learns” from the data it ingests. IT might not know this stuff, but it can’t afford to ignore it. IT and CIOs need at least a working knowledge of how these opensource model building technologies work, because inevitably, these models must interface with IT infrastructure and data.  3. IT Infrastructure comes next Related:How to integrate an AI system with existing IT infrastructure is where CIOs can expect significant dialogue with their technical staffs. The AI has to be integrated seamlessly with the top to bottom tech stack if it is going to work. This means discussing how and where data from the AI will be stored, with SQL and noSQL databases being the early favorites. Middleware that enables the AI to interoperate with other IT systems must be interfaced with. Most AI models are open source, which can simplify integration --  but integration still requires using middleware APIs (application programming interfaces) like REST (representational state transfer application programming interface), which integrates the AI system with Internet-based resources; or GraphQL (graph query language,) which facilitates the integration of data from multiple sources. It’s IT that decides how to deploy the optimal data stores, infrastructure storage and connectors needed to support the AI, and there are likely to be different options (and costs) for deployment. This is where the CIO needs to dialogue with technical staff. 4. Data quality The AI group will rely on IT to provide quality data for the AI. This is accomplished in two ways: 1) by ensuring that all data incoming into the AI data repository is “clean” (i.e., the data has been transformed by software like ETL (extract-transform-load), and it is accurate and it is able to interact with other data in the AI data repository; and the data is secure (i.e., encrypted between transfer points or checked at the edges of each resource the data must traverse). Whether it is working with outside vendors, vetting vendors for clean, secure data and periodically auditing them; or defining the data transformations and security technology and operations that must be put in place internally, it is all IT’s responsibility. The CIO will need to dialogue on technical levels with vendors, and with the IT database, storage, security, systems, applications and networking groups. Related:5. AI security The data (and data access) in and to AI must be secure at all times. To arrive at this point, security must be enacted on multiple levels, and it will entail technical discussions and decision making to get there.  First and foremost is data security. Much of this has already been discussed under data quality, and it will involve most IT departmental teams. Second is user access authorities and activity monitoring. Who gets access to what, and how will you monitor user activities? The users can define their own authorization lists and IT can implement these -- but complication occurs when it comes to monitoring user activities. If for example, the user activities occur only with onsite data repositories, sites can use a technology like IAM (identity access management), which gives IT granular visibility of every user activity. However, if cloud-based access is involved, IAM won’t be able to monitor this activity at any level of detail. It might become necessary to use CIEM (cloud infrastructure entitlement management) software instead to gain granular observation of user activity in the cloud. Then there are “umbrella” technologies like IGA (identity governance administration) that can serve as an over-arching framework for both IAM and CIEM.  The IT security group (and their CIO) must decide which strategy to adopt for comprehensive protection of AI. Finally, there are malware threats that are unique to AI. Yes, you can use standard malware detection to ward off attacks from bad actors on AI data, just as you would on standard data and applications -- but the plot thickens from there. For example, there are malware injections into AI systems that can inject inaccurate data or change the labels and features of data. These skew the results derived from that data and result in erroneous recommendations and decisions. The practice is known as “data poisoning.”  IT is expected to come up with a data validation technique for incoming data that can detect possible poisoning attempts and stop them. This could involve data sanitization technologies, or data source verifications, and it is possible that inserting these technologies could slow down data transport. The technical staff needs to weigh these options, and CIOs should insert themselves into the discussions. The Bottom Line The bottom line is clear: CIOs must be able to dialogue and participate in decisions at multiple AI levels: the strategic, the operational and the technical. Even if companies have dedicated data science groups, both data scientists and users will ultimately wend their way to IT, which still must make the whole thing happen. CIOs can help both their staffs and their companies if they develop a working knowledge of how AI works, in addition to understanding the strategic and operational aspects of AI -- because companies, employees and business partners all need to hear the CIO’s voice. 

Elaine Knox The good news is that we might be about to solve the Fermi paradox. Many have long suspected that the reason why there don’t seem to be millions of talkative aliens out there in space is that, when an intelligent civilisation develops the technology to enable interstellar communication, it also develops weapons that enable it to quickly destroy itself. So far, we are matching this trajectory. We have sent probes beyond the solar system – and vast quantities of electronic data fizzing in all directions at the speed of light – but we have also got thousands of thermonuclear weapons…

A judge blocked Trump's plan to dismantle the Department of Education. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images 2025-05-22T16:50:19Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? A federal judge blocks Trump's plans to dismantle the Department of Education. The judge ruled that the department has to reinstate workers it fired and stop plans for more cuts It also halted plans to transfer student loans out of the Department of Education. President Donald Trump's plan to shut down the Department of Education is officially on pause.A federal judge on Thursday issued a ruling blocking Trump's administration from carrying out its executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. The ruling also blocked the department's plan to fire additional employees and its intent to transfer student loans out of the department to another agency.The judge also directed the department to "to restore the Department to the status quo such that it is able to carry out its statutory functions" by reinstating all federal employees who were terminated from the department in March.Shutting down a federal agency requires congressional approval. While Linda McMahon, Trump's education secretary, has repeatedly said that she intends to work with Congress to shut down the department and improve efficiency at the agency, the judge wrote that there is "nothing in the record" to back up those points."Not only is there no evidence that Defendants are pursuing a 'legislative goal' or otherwise working with Congress to reach a resolution, but there is also no evidence that the RIF has actually made the Department more efficient," the ruling said, referring to the formal name for the firings, reductions-in-force. "Rather, the record is replete with evidence of the opposite."Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Department of Education, told Business Insider in a statement that "a far-left Judge has dramatically overstepped his authority, based on a complaint from biased plaintiffs, and issued an injunction against the obviously lawful efforts to make the Department of Education more efficient and functional for the American people.""This ruling is not in the best interest of American students or families," Biedermann said. "We will immediately challenge this on an emergency basis."Thursday's ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed by a group of professors and teachers' unions. The group argued that attempts to dismantle the Department of Education would harm students and families who rely on federal aid and grants.On March 11, the department announced it was terminating over 1,300 workers. McMahon said this was part of the department's "commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers."The judge said that the cuts "paint a stark picture of the irreparable harm that will result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America's most vulnerable student populations.""Indeed, prior to the RIF, the Department was already struggling to meet its goals, so it is only reasonable to expect that an RIF of this magnitude will likely cripple the Department," the judge said.Student loan borrowers are navigating a changing landscape. The Trump administration restarted collections on defaulted student loans on May 5 after a five-year pause. It is also looking into redefining eligibility for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Meanwhile, 2 million student-loan borrowers are still waiting for their income-driven repayment plan applications to be processed while the SAVE plan remains blocked.

Don’t call Kylie Kelce a WAG. The acronym for the “wives and girlfriends” of professional athletes rankles the podcaster, who first rose to fame as the wife of retired Philadelphia Eagles player Jason Kelce. As Kelce explains, the phrase suggests that “your spouse’s profession swallows you up as well.”But many in the media are heralding this moment as a “new era” for WAGs, and Kelce is just one of several famous women who are at the fore of this renaissance: Everyone from TikToker Alix Earle, who is dating Miami Dolphins player Braxton Berrios, to Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles — unquestionably the more famous athlete — who is married to the Chicago Bears’ Jonathan Owens. Then there’s Taylor Swift, one of the most successful musicians on the planet, who, thanks to her relationship with Kylie’s brother-in-law Travis Kelce, has become the ultimate symbol of the new WAG.Meanwhile, a host of lesser-known women are experiencing their first taste of fame through their relationships with tennis players, Formula 1 race-car drivers, and even pole-vaulters. A sizable number have leveraged their romantic lives to receive brand deals, podcasting opportunities, and magazine profiles.By and large, our understanding of WAGs is rapidly evolving to acknowledge their own social and economic power. They’ve transformed from tabloid punching bags to an appealing status symbol. Still, the continued use of the term does raise some complicated questions: Why are we so interested in defining these women, some of whom are independently successful, by their relationships to men? And what does it mean that they might be raking in more attention and financial opportunities than some female athletes? The rise of the new WAG The public’s fascination with WAGs isn’t new. The acronym originated across the pond in the early 2000s to describe the wives and girlfriends of English footballers. British tabloids and football fans alike lambasted women — celebrities in their own right — like former Girls Aloud member Cheryl Cole and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham for their partying, extravagant spending, and flashy, maximalist looks. When the England national football team lost the 2006 FIFA World Cup, their partners were blamed in the press for the defeat. In the United States, being a WAG could be an equally dangerous public position. From Jessica Simpson to the Kardashians, they’ve been painted as distractions, attention-seekers, and bearers of bad luck. Over the past two decades, though, a WAG has become less of an involuntary title and more of an identity that some women are willing to cultivate, given that it can come with its own rewards.David and Victoria Beckham at the MOBO Awards on October 6, 1999. Dave Hogan/Getty ImagesThis modern version of WAG-dom can be credited to early 2010s reality shows like WAGS, Basketball Wives, and La La’s Full Court Life. These platforms allowed these women — some anonymous before they entered into relationships with athletes — to craft their own public narratives and become notable personalities on their own. For years now, Ayesha Curry, wife of Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry, has modeled what it means to be a “WAG influencer,” embracing her public relationship with her spouse while building a separate career as a successful cookbook author and host. Since then, WAG-influencers have become a welcome staple of certain sports cultures. Formula 1 has exploded in recent years, with a small part of that popularity owed to the sport’s stylish other halves. Since 2017, female viewership has grown from 8 percent to 40 percent. This has been largely credited to the popular Netflix series Formula 1: Drive to Survive, which put a spotlight on the personal lives of drivers and, naturally, their partners. Lily Herman, who writes the F1 newsletter Engine Failure, says that the current popularity of WAG-influencers in Formula 1 can be credited to the former partners of a few young popular drivers from 2019 to 2022, like Carlos Sainz’s girlfriend Isa Hernáez and Charles Leclerc’s girlfriend Charlotte Sine, who were both featured on Drive to Survive. In 2022, Sine was the first WAG in the sport to explicitly use her access to the F1 circuit as a part of an ad campaign for the skincare brand Sunday Riley.“They were around during an era where the sport saw a lot of growth in its younger fan base, especially among teen girls and younger women, and there was a new wave of interest in these young drivers’ personal lives,” says Herman. These women have inspired fan pages, Tumblr accounts, and subreddits dedicated to their relationships, fashion, and rumored drama. Lately, the organization has fully embraced WAGs as recognizable supporting characters in the F1 universe, featuring them on social media and including them on chyrons during racing broadcasts. Tennis has tried to replicate the WAG-to-influencer pipeline too, although the sport and its fans are still warming up to the presence of outside partners. Morgan Riddle, who’s dating highest-ranked American male player Taylor Fritz, has been making get-ready-with-me videos for tournaments and vlogging about her life on the tennis tour since 2022. Ayan Broomfield, a former college tennis player who’s dating Frances Tiafoe, and influencer Paige Lorenze, who’s dating Tommy Paul, have mimicked the same career path, broadcasting their lives as WAGs on social media. Herman says that WAGs play a role in “adding dimension” to their male partners, contributing to the marketability of both. “Fritz is pretty bland as a public figure without his girlfriend,” says Herman. “She’s done way more in her work as an influencer and content creator to make him seem multidimensional than he has through solo interviews and profiles.”It certainly benefits younger, newer WAGs who are already powerful women. Biles and Swift have joined their ranks and seem to take pride in the role. Beckham, now a successful fashion designer, has also played a role in igniting a nostalgia for WAGs, thanks to the popular 2023 Netflix docuseries Beckham. The business of being a WAG is still very traditional In our current political climate, the WAG boom raises interesting questions. Research shows that some Gen Z-ers are identifying as more conservative than their parents. “Trad wife” content abounds online. Where do WAGs fit in? WAG influencers share some obvious similarities to tradwife influencers, women who’ve created lucrative identities and even businesses by perpetuating conservative ideas of marriage and motherhood. In a Substack essay, sports writer Frankie De La Cretaz argues that WAGs are essentially the tradwives of men’s sports: “No matter how many businesses a WAG starts or how many charities she runs, she still embodies a heteronormative idea of family and a woman’s place in society.” It’s hard to get around the fact that most WAGs are initially famous for their association with a male partner, although they may ultimately transcend that attachment (see Kylie Kelce’s complaint about being called a WAG and consider that her podcast, Not Gonna Lie, briefly dethroned The Joe Rogan Experience when it debuted in 2024).WAGs are gaining visibility while the most talented female athletes are still fighting for wage parity and struggling to land brand deals.But even attempts to define WAGs outside of their relationships come off a bit shallow. Stories about how these women are impacting sports largely focus on their brand deals and follower counts. When we celebrate the influence of WAGs, we’re mostly talking about their ability to turn other women into consumers and spectators, not athletes. Meanwhile, WAGs are gaining visibility while the most talented female athletes are still fighting for wage parity and struggling to land brand deals. Back in March, Australian tennis pro Daria Saville made a TikTok about the lack of sponsorships she and other female pros receive compared to tennis WAGs. “Female tennis players are not getting those brand deals,” she said. “It’s actually tennis WAGs that fit into the ‘aesthetic’ rather than, us, sweaty tennis players.” De la Cretaz tells Vox that the WAG boom echoes the mainstream platforming of tradwives. “It’s an extension of “girlboss” feminism, the idea that promoting women regardless of what that looks like is somehow good for women,” De la Cretaz says. “It’s also this idea that whatever you’re choosing is valid, even though those choices don’t exist in a vacuum.” The most visible WAGs are still predominantly in straight relationships, and a large part of being one still involves affirming a male athlete’s heterosexuality. As journalist Kira Cochrane wrote in a 2010 piece for the Guardian about football WAGs, “consciously or not, the women know their role is to boost their partner’s masculinity.” She added that their often highly feminized presentation “underlines [their] status as possessions, part of the package for footballers.” WAGs, with their new clout and influence, haven’t exactly gotten a total makeover. Rather, their hustle has grown more appealing. After all, they represent all the things women are encouraged to be in a time when mainstream culture is trending more conservative. They’re tradwives. They’re girlbosses. They’re stylish and beautiful. Most of all, they’re sitting on the sidelines. See More:

Nintendo's mascot is one of the most iconic video game characters of all time, but fans have only just discovered the unusual backstory behind Super Mario's nameTech16:08, 22 May 2025The origin of Mario's name goes back to a rent dispute in the 1980s(Image: Universal Studios via AP)Super Mario has been enchanting video gamers for decades, yet it appears many have only just stumbled upon the origins of the iconic plumber's name. For anyone with a passing interest in gaming, Mario is a household name, the protagonist of the famous Super Mario series and the face of Nintendo.The Mario franchise stands as the top-selling video game series ever, boasting over 830 million units sold – including a staggering 430 million from Super Mario titles alone. Whether at costume parties or Halloween bashes, Mario's likeness is unmistakable across the globe.‌However, the backstory behind his moniker remains a curiosity for many. First making an appearance in 1981's Donkey Kong, the character initially went by "Jumpman", but it wasn't until the follow-up, 1982's Donkey Kong Jr, that he received the memorable name Mario, paving his way to international acclaim.‌The website Quora saw an outpouring of intrigue when one user posed the query: "Why is Mario called Mario?" Knowledgeable fans were quick off the mark to clarify, shedding light on a fascinating tidbit. The beloved character's namesake was none other than Mario Segale, an American businessman and notable figure in real estate development.Segale was the proprietor of a warehouse in Tukwila, Washington, which Nintendo used as a rental space during the early 1980s. When Minoru Arakawa, the founder and erstwhile president of Nintendo of America, fell behind on the rent for the premises, Segale made a memorable appearance to "angrily remind" him to pay – inadvertently providing inspiration to the Nintendo team.Article continues belowOne Quora user expressed their thoughts: "Could have been Shigeru Miyamoto, but I'm going with former Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa as a means to mock their then-landlord Mario Seagale, which in turn, turned Jumpman into Mario when the character became the antagonist in Donkey Kong Jr."Another individual elaborated: "Mario is called Mario because he was named after Mario Segale, who was the landlord of Nintendo of America's office, after barging in on a company meeting to demand payment of overdue rent."One Nintendo exec was said to have named Mario after their angry landlord(Image: Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)‌In Jeff Ryan's 2011 book, Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America, he delved into the origins of the iconic name, recounting how Segale had nearly "jumped up and down himself" in fury over the delayed rent, emulating Jumpman’s own antics.He wrote: "Around this time, the Tukwila warehouse's owner showed up in person to angrily remind Arakawa about the rent. As the legend goes, the owner, Mario Segale, interrupted a conversation over what to call Jumpman. Segale said his piece, and he grew so incensed he almost jumped up and down himself."After the landlord departed, having delivered the threat of eviction, someone suggested the name Mario. It was a bit of a laugh, given that both men sported moustaches. But the name was well-received by all.Article continues below"If Mr. Segale had only shaved that morning, who can say what name the character on the screen might have been given? Super Carlos? Super Ivan? Super Stavros? Would that alternate-universe name have made a difference in Nintendo's success? Under any other name, would Mario play as sweet?"Mario will next appear in Mario Kart World for the Nintendo Switch 2, which will be released as a launch game for the new console on June 5th.‌‌‌

A voyage to Awaji (Ubisoft) A new leak has shed light on the release date for Assassin’s Creed Shadows first DLC, along with a rumoured co-op mode. Assassin’s Creed Shadows may have fallen short of sales for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, but it’s still been a major hit for Ubisoft. Set in feudal Japan, the new instalment scored the second highest day one sales in the franchise’s history. In the US, meanwhile, Assassin’s Creed Shadows is the second best-selling game of the year so far, behind Monster Hunter Wilds. Ubisoft has already announced the game’s first DLC, Claws Of Awaji, will release later this year, but a new report has narrowed down the release date. According to Insider Gaming, Ubisoft is ‘targeting September 2025’ for the Claws Of Awaji DLC, citing sources familiar with the game’s development. However, it’s claimed the DLC could be pushed back to October this year, depending on Ubisoft’s release strategy for other titles. Elsewhere in the report, the previously rumoured co-op mode for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, codenamed League, is said to still be in development and will launch ‘sometime next year’. While this co-op mode was originally assumed to revolve around the game’s two protagonists, Naoe and Yasuke, a source suggests it might include other characters too. ‘While they’re obviously central characters, there’s a deeper narrative tied into the co-op that will expand the experience beyond just the two of them,’ a source states. Assassin’s Creed has some history with multiplayer, with the Paris-based Assassin’s Creed Unity featuring dedicated co-op missions. Other games in the series have had multiplayer modes as well, like Assassin’s Creed 3’s wolfpack mode, but this was only really a minor distraction. More Trending As for Assassin’s Creed Shadows first DLC, Claws Of Awaji takes place on the island of Awaji, where you will ‘reclaim a lost treasure while avoiding the traps and ambushes of deadly new foes’, according to a synopsis. It will feature a new bō weapon type for Naoe, along with new skills, gear, and abilities over the course of 10 hours. Beyond Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ubisoft is reportedly developing a multiplayer spin-off codenamed Invictus and a remake of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag. Ports of both Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Shadows are also apparently on the way for the Switch 2. A Switch 2 version is apparently on the way (Ubisoft) 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