Style: Upscale Traditional Color Combination: Sand beige, charcoal, terracotta, rich brown Who is it for: For homebodies who appreciate the art of setting. Perfect for those who want their living space to feel like the establishing shot of their favorite indie film – thoughtfully composed but never trying too hard. Budget: $-$$ Cinematic Attraction Living Room – Shopping List Below we present a curated list of products presented on the board: 1. Sectional Sofa with Chaise 2. Leaman Upholstered Chair 3. Nira Metal Coffee Table 4. Dotted Ceramic Planter 5. Farmhouse English Manor Rug 6. Velvet Throw Pillow 7. Boucle Ottoman Pillow Covers 8. Greenbury Floor Lamp 9. Tawny Sideboard 10. Antique Wall Mirror 11. Metal Tabletop Candlestick 12. Janie Semi Sheer Curtain 13. Grey and Black Abstract Wall Art 14. Artificial Fiddle Leaf Fig Tree Tips and suggestions Colors That Work Together: Think of this palette as natural sophistication. The sand beige creates a warm backdrop that feels instantly welcoming, while charcoal elements add definition without heaviness. Terracotta and rich brown accents bring earthy depth that keeps the space from feeling too pristine. Window Treatment: Don’t overthink your curtains! The sheer beige panels here filter light beautifully without blocking it completely—like the perfect Instagram filter for your actual life. Hang them higher than you think you should to create the illusion of taller ceilings. Furniture Foundation: The L-shaped sectional provides plenty of seating without overwhelming the room. When choosing accent chairs, look for designs with visible wooden frames—they feel substantial without adding visual bulk. The contrast between the cream sofa and darker chairs creates natural visual interest. Art Curation: Abstract art intimidating? It shouldn’t be! The black and white pieces here work like sophisticated neutrals that add interest without demanding attention. Think of abstract art as texture for your walls—you don’t need to “get it” to enjoy it. Lighting: Lighting is your room’s unsung hero. The arched floor lamp here directs light where you need it while adding architectural interest. Always aim for at least three light sources in a living room for the most flattering, flexible illumination. Accent Pieces: Plants aren’t just decoration—they’re living sculptures that improve your air quality! The fiddle leaf fig makes a statement, while the small tabletop plant adds life to your coffee table arrangement. If you kill plants regularly, high-quality faux options are perfectly acceptable. The Final Note: Creating a cinematic living room isn’t about perfection—it’s about intention. Each piece here works together to tell a visual story without screaming for attention. The result is a space that feels both curated and comfortable—somewhere you actually want to live, not just photograph. Remember, the best rooms feel discovered rather than decorated, as if each piece found its perfect home naturally over time.

The newspaper has a brand new homepage and app design.

Ready to move on from the traditional glass slab? Introduce a hinge into your life with these folding smartphones.

Apple is reportedly preparing to allow iPhone users in the EU to select third-party voice assistants to be the default, instead of Siri.Siri may become only an optional voice assistant in the EUApple has tried hard to deal with the regulatory changes in the European Union, such as the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act. It now seems that Siri could be the next major victim in the Apple ecosystem from those rule changes.According to Bloomberg on Sunday, Apple is working to meet EU regulations that affect Siri. Specifically, Apple is working to enable other digital assistants to operate in Siri's place. Rumor Score: 🤯 Likely Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile, launched in March 2024 for iOS and Android, will no longer receive new content. The official Twitter account has confirmed that the title didn’t meet expectations and will be delisted from the Google Play and Apple App Stores. Its social features will also be retired, but those who install it before May 19th can still play with servers remaining online. Even cross-progression remains available. Unfortunately, there won’t be any new seasons or updates to the gameplay. Call of Duty Points and Black Cell also won’t be available to purchase. If you have any left, they’re still redeemable in the in-game store. Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile’s woes began almost immediately after launch, as it reportedly earned $1.4 million in its first four days. Call of Duty Mobile earned $4.2 million in the same period when it launched in 2019, translating to a 67 percent drop for the new title. We deeply appreciate your dedication and passion for Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile. Going forward, we will be streamlining the scope of the game. This decision was made after careful consideration of various factors and while we're proud of the accomplishment in bringing Call of… pic.twitter.com/2FU3itRRZ9— Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile (@WarzoneMobile) May 16, 2025

The AI winners won’t be the ones slapping “AI” on a landing page — they’ll be creating products enterprises can't live without.Read More

There have been a lot of big games this year that have felt all-consuming, like Monster Hunter Wilds or Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Maze Mice offers something different: a small, pick-up-and-play experience that takes a bunch of ideas from some classics and adds a clever twist.The game, from Luck Be a Landlord developer TrampolineTales, mixes elements of Pac-Man, Vampire Survivors, and even the classic Snake. As an adorable, pixelated mouse, you zip around a maze to get blue experience gems that are guarded by cats. When you pass by the cats, they’ll wake up and start chasing you, sometimes creating a hilariously long line of felines. (Cute ghost cats will also appear and inconveniently float right into your path.) All the action takes place on one screen, so it’s easy to see where everything is at any given time.Image: TrampolineTalesWhen you get enough gems, you can pick from a selection of three power-ups. The upgrades are often a little silly, like knitting needles that fly through the air to attack the cats pursuing you, but as with Vampire Survivors, it’s fun to experiment with different abilities to create interesting builds.Maze Mice’s most interesting feature is that time only moves when you move, like in Superhot. When you inch forward, the enemy cats inch forward right behind you, but when you’re not moving, they’re frozen, too. Your abilities are all on cooldowns, and the time on those cooldowns also only advances when you move forward. It all means that instead of the growing sense of being overwhelmed that you might get while dodging ghosts in Pac-Man or fighting hordes of monsters in Vampire Survivors, Maze Mice gives you time to sit and think about where you want to go next — even if you have 10 cats on your tail.I really like how it all works. You’re still dealing with lots of enemies, but instead of the anxiety of having to fend them off in real time like in other games, it’s all much much more laid-back. The charming atmosphere and catchy music help make the experience feel more welcoming than stressful, too.They’re so cute! Image: TrampolineTalesAfter runs, you’ll unlock new upgrades and characters for future runs based on your score. I’m a big fan of a mine weapon that blows up when I get the cats following me to walk over it. And my favorite character so far is a mouse named Jazz with sunglasses and a saxophone — who starts with a saxophone weapon. Such a cool little guy!Maze Mice is in early access, so it should get more content down the line. It seems like there’s a generous amount to play with already; TrampolineTales launched the game this month with 30 characters and 63 upgrades, meaning there’s a lot to dig into. But the thing I love most about it is that I can play for a few minutes after an hourlong Doom: The Dark Ages level and feel like I actually accomplished something – even when those pesky cats eventually catch up to me. See More:

The Ultimate Guide to MCP Servers — Finally, a Way to Supercharge Your AI 0 like May 18, 2025 Share this post Last Updated on May 18, 2025 by Editorial Team Author(s): Subhadip Saha Originally published on Towards AI. Most AI Setups Fall Short — Here’s the Bulletproof Server Strategy Top Devs Use to Stay Fast, Scalable, and Smart.Image generated with AI, for blog use only Picture this: you’re sitting at your desk, coffee in hand, trying to get your AI tool to do something useful. Maybe you want it to create a cool 3D model, automate a boring task, or even draw a diagram for your next big idea. But instead, it just… stalls. It’s like your AI is stuck in a box, unable to reach out and grab the tools it needs. Sound familiar? I’ve been there, and let me tell you, it’s frustrating. Hi, I’m Subh, and not too long ago, I was wrestling with this exact problem. I was working on a side project — a little app that needed some fancy visuals. I thought, “Hey, my AI can handle this!” But every time I asked it to do something outside its usual tricks, like pulling data from the web or controlling Blender, it just gave me blank stares (or, you know, blank text). I felt like I was shouting into a void. That’s when I stumbled across something called MCP servers, and let me tell you, it was like finding the key to a locked door. In this blog, I’m going to take you on a… 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

The director of Thunderbolts* — now officially renamed The New Avengers — has explained why one character in particular had to die early on in the movie, and how conversations with the actor who played the character went.Warning! Spoilers for Thunderbolts* / The New Avengers follow:Early in Thunderbolts* / The New Avengers, Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) is killed by Ava Starr / Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), unceremoniously shot in the head as the assassins come to blows within a covert O.X.E. facility. Taskmaster dies in her first and only scene in the movie.PlayWhile Marvel’s Thunderbolts* promos had inserted Taskmaster into shots later on in the movie to make it look like the character would make it at least a decent chunk of the way through, her fate had been called into question when the character appeared to be removed from certain shots in pre-release trailers.Making matters even more obvious, Kurylenko was the only member of the Thunderbolts* not to appear in Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday cast reveal. So, for MCU fans who were paying attention, Taskmaster’s death wasn’t exactly a surprise. But for many it will have come as a shock, especially so early in the film.So, why did Taskmaster have to die? In an interview with The New York Times, director Jake Schreier said the idea came about as a result of the movie feeling “a little bloodless,” and a desire to have a “real tension” between characters who were capable of killing people.“That was a tough one because it’s a character that matters to a lot of people and we don’t want to take that lightly,” Schreier said.“That idea came after the strike when it just felt like the movie at that point was a little bloodless. It’s not rated R, but if we were trying to tell a story that had real tension about people who killed people for a living, you needed to depict that in a way. Obviously, we could have introduced a new character and then gotten rid of them, but then it wouldn’t have the resonance or potentially the shock of doing it to Taskmaster.”The Most Surprising Avengers and Marvel Characters Not Announced for DoomsdaySchreier admitted it wasn’t easy to tell Olga Kurylenko, who played Taskmaster in Black Widow, that she’s return for Thunderbolts* only to be killed off early on.“It’s like in sports: players want to play,” Schreier said. “Olga’s a great actress and of course that’s a hard conversation to have, but she was an absolute pro about it and willing to show up, and I’m very grateful for that.”Earlier this month, Schreier told Entertainment Weekly that the team behind Thunderbolts* felt they needed to kill Taskmaster early “so that you didn't really know who was going to make it.""The decision to do it when we did it, we went through a lot of different versions of that, and we thought very carefully about it," Schreier added."And it felt like, while it would've been very nice — and Olga is a wonderful actress — to have her on the team for longer, that death would've kind of reverberated a lot harder and made it harder to find our tonal balance if it had happened later in the film."And it would've occupied such a kind of more emotional space that would've stepped on what we really need to be building. And we have so little narrative real estate to do it, which is the connection between Yelena and Bob [Lewis Pullman], and the movie is really going to hinge on that. And so in order to keep our tone and to build that team together, it actually felt best, even if it feels a little cold-blooded, to have that happen early."According to the film’s co-writer Eric Pearson, Taskmaster was originally intended to have a much bigger part in the movie, and she was meant to have an important connection to Ghost.“That's one of the biggest changes from my final draft, because in the last version that I did, [Taskmaster] lived out the whole movie and there was a pretty big subplot of her and Ava connecting as two characters that were raised in labs and being controlled by other people,” Pearson told IGN.So, that’s that for Taskmaster, but of course the other Thunderbolts*, that is, The New Avengers, live on, and will appear in Avengers: Doomsday alongside, or potentially in conflict with, the (true?) Avengers. Check out IGN's Thunderbolts Ending Explained: What Happens in the Post-Credits and How Does It Affect the MCU? for more.Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.