The Node Charts add-on for Blender offers a wide range of options for animated data visualization. This month, it receives five new graph types.The update for 'Node Charts: Info Graphs for Blender' has been released, here are the features:First, here is the Trailer:Five 3D Cycles Graphs:https://i.giphy.com/media/fUX0hfvIQPkQPwHjix/giphy.mp4Five Graphs are added to the product: (Circle Graph 3D, 2-3 Circle Graph 3D, Pie Graph 3D, 2-3 Pie Graph 3D, Horizontal Bar Graph 3D)The Python add-on for the 2D Graphs also work for the 3D Graphs as well. These Graphs currently only work with the Cycles Render Engine.

An asteroid the size of a school bus is due to zip past our planet on Wednesday, coming closer to us than the moon.The asteroid, named 2024 VX3, is forecast to skim past the Earth at a distance of 92,100 miles Wednesday evening, bringing it much closer to us than the moon's 238,900-mile orbit.2024 VX3 is estimated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) to be between 20 and 43 feet in diameter, making it between the same size as a giraffe or a Brachiosaurus.Two other asteroids are also expected to pass the Earth's neighborhood on Wednesday, with two more scheduled to visit Thursday.Stock image of an asteroid passing the Earth (main) and a school bus (inset). A bus-sized asteroid is due to pass the Earth today, coming closer than the moon.Stock image of an asteroid passing the Earth (main) and a school bus (inset). A bus-sized asteroid is due to pass the Earth today, coming closer than the moon.ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS On Wednesday, 2024 VO2 and 2020 AB2, both estimated to be around the size of a house at between 36 and 78 feet in diameter, will fly by our planet, albeit at a much greater distance than 2024 VX3. 2024 VO2 will pass us at a distance of 2,730,000 miles, while 2020 AB2 will be even further away, at 4,490,000 miles.Thursday's asteroids, named 2024 VV1 and 2024 UA10, will pass at 4,520,000 miles and 4,550,000 miles respectively. 2024 VV1 is also roughly house-sized, while 2024 UA10 is about the size of a plane, between 78 and 173 feet in diameter.For reference, at its nearest point to Earth, our neighboring planet Venus is about 24 million miles away.Due to its relatively close distance, Wednesday's 2024 VX3 is classified by CNEOS as Near-Earth Objects or NEOs, which are objects that are within 30 million miles of Earth."A NEO is defined as an object that has a closest approach to the Sun less than 1.3 AU [approximately 120 million miles]," Martin Barstow, a professor of astrophysics and space science at the University of Leicester in the U.K., told Newsweek.We have detected about 36,000 objects in our solar system so far that we have classified as NEO.Some particularly large NEOs are also classified as potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) or potentially hazardous objects (PHOs). These are defined as coming within around 4.6 million miles of Earth, having a diameter of at least 460 feet across, and being brighter than a magnitude of 22.0 or less."Astronomers consider a near-Earth object a threat if it has an Earth minimum orbit intersection distance of 0.05 AU (around 4.7 million miles or 7.5 million km) or less and is at least 140 meters [460 feet] in diameter. Those are known as potentially hazardous objects (PHOs)," Svetla Ben-Itzhak, an assistant professor of space and international relations at Johns Hopkins University, previously told Newsweek.2020 AB2, 2024 VO2, 2024 VX3, and 2024 UA10 are all NEOs, but none are also PHAs due to their larger distance from the Earth.If a PHA did ever collide with Earth, it could be apocalyptic for humankind."Not all cosmic objects present a threat to Earth. If a cosmic body [of 460 feet (140 meters) in diameter] crashed into Earth, it could destroy an entire city and cause extreme regional devastation; larger objects over 1 kilometer [in diameter] could have global effects and even cause mass extinction," Ben-Itzhak said.Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about asteroids? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.

The new year had barely dawned, and Kurt Barwis, president of Bristol Hospital and Health Care Group in Connecticut, was on the phone in the emergency room. His back was (literally) against the wall.It was January 2022, and omicron, a new variant of COVID-19, was evading vaccines and antibodies from prior infections. The virus spread rapidly throughout the United States, overwhelming hospitalsincluding the small, 154-bed Bristol Hospital.On this particular night, more than 100 people were waiting for treatment; the line stretched outside into the cold, Barwis told Newsweek. He was calling local hospital CEOs to see if they could take any more patientswhile other CEOs were ringing him with the same request.Meanwhile, more than a dozen patients were needlessly sitting in acute care beds. They had already been treated, and doctors had cleared them to discharge to skilled nursing facilities. But their insurance companies hadn't yet granted the prior authorizations required to transfer.More health insurance claims and prior authorization requests are being denied, sending hospitals into administrative overload, industry leaders have reported.More health insurance claims and prior authorization requests are being denied, sending hospitals into administrative overload, industry leaders have reported.Photo Illustration by Newsweek/Getty Images So they sat and waited. And the people queuing for their spots sat and waited. And Barwis stood against the wall and called other hospitals, where even more people were sitting and waiting.At Bristol Hospital, omicron exposed how the prior authorization process can delay and disrupt emergent health care operations. And although the consequences aren't always visible to the public, they're an ever-present concern for hospitals nationwide. In a 90-day period, patients with Medicare Advantage plans spent 14,000 unnecessary days in New York hospitals due to discharge delays, the Healthcare Association of New York State reported in 2023.According to Barwis, working with Medicare Advantage insurance plans is like dealing in the Wild West. And it's gotten exponentially worse since the cowboys started using AI.Why Does AI Allegedly Target Medicare Advantage?It's hard to nail down exactly when insurance companies began implementing AI tools; they tend to be vague about internal automation processes. But multiple health care and tech leaders who spoke with Newsweek began noticing accelerated claims denials between 2019 and 2020.The lawsuits came years later, but in quick succession. In July 2023, Cigna was hit with a class action lawsuit over an algorithm that reportedly rejected more than 300,000 claims in two monthsspending about 1.2 seconds on each. A second, similar suit was filed against the company the next month.In November 2023, a lawsuit against UnitedHealthcare claimed that the company deployed an AI tool developed by NaviHealth (itself an arm of the company's health services business, Optum) to deny care to elderly Medicare Advantage (MA) beneficiaries. Weeks later, Humana was served papers for allegedly utilizing the same NaviHealth tool, which had a known 90 percent error rate, according to the initial lawsuit. Patients on MA plans are often denied care at above-average rates. Between 2022 and 2023, denials rose more than 20 percent for private, commercial claims and nearly 56 percent for MA claims, the American Hospital Association reported in September. Nearly one in five health systems stopped accepting at least one MA plan last year amid frustrations with prior authorization requirements and rising claims denials, according to a January 2024 survey of health system CFOs from the Healthcare Financial Management Association.Though the network is starting to thin, more than half of the eligible Medicare population is currently enrolled in a MA plan. Unlike traditional Medicare, MA offers some premium-free plans with out-of-pocket limits and additional benefits like vision and dental. MA members experience 45 percent lower out-of-pocket costs and have a more than 40 percent lower rate of avoidable hospitalizations than original Medicare enrollees, a UnitedHealthcare spokesperson told Newsweek.Another difference between traditional Medicare and MA is that the latter is covered by private insurance companies. These companies are contracted with the federal government, and receive a monthly sum from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to cover estimated care costs for each beneficiary. CMS generates each individual's risk score using data from traditional Medicare beneficiaries with similar clinical profiles. This informs the pay rate that insurers receive for MA plans, which is adjusted on an annual basis.These fixed payments motivate MA plans to invest in a beneficiary's health through preventative services and early interventionsat least, that's the idea. Healthier patients are less likely to require expensive medical interventions. If a patient spends less than CMS anticipated based on their profile, the MA plan pockets the rest of the money. On the flip side, if the patient grows sicker and spends more than CMS anticipated, the MA plan must pay the difference.Enter prior authorization, a cost-control measure used by private insurance companies. At its best, the prior authorization process helps ensure insurance companies are being billed fairly and discourages wasteful spending in the health care system. At its worst, prior authorization can be used to deny or delay pricier treatments, even when a patient's doctor insists upon them.This can clog the health care system, like Barwis reported at Bristol Hospital. Some patients need a level of care between hospital and home, like a post-acute rehabilitation hospital or a skilled nursing facility. These centers provide more specialized care for conditions that take time to heal: physical therapy to recover from surgery, speech therapy to regain function from a stroke.However, because of their specialized, live-in nature, these facilities can be expensive. They're often recommended for elderly patients who happen to have Medicare, and some MA plans have been known to stall clearance for post-acute care or outright deny it.But lately, hospital leaders have noticed an uptick in what they consider unwarranted denials. In September, Newsweek gathered more than 100 physicians and health care executives to discuss AI's impact on doctorsand an increase in claims denials emerged as a concern.Dr. Eric Williamson, Associate Chair for Radiology Informatics and Supervisor of the Radiology AI Program at Mayo Clinic, called this an "unintended consequence" of AI. While the technology was originally designed to automate administrative tasks and ease the burden on providers, its adoption by insurance companies has created more denied claims, according to Williamson, requiring doctors to spend more time contesting these decisions."We know that AI is contributing to an increased number of claims denials, and yet a very high number actually get overturned once they're challenged," Williamson told the audience. "That requires human effort on the part of the provider."The issue is likely beyond individual physicians' control, Williamson continued: "This is part of a big system that needs to be fixed."Now, the U.S. Senate agrees.Senate Calls Out MA Prior Authorization DenialsOn October 17, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report detailing a MA prior authorization environment that it says "has become not just a bureaucratic maze, but a potential threat to [MA beneficiaries'] health."Led by Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, the committee obtained more than 280,000 pages of documents from the three largest MA insurersUnitedHealthcare, Humana and CVSwhich together cover nearly 60 percent of MA enrollees.Between 2019 and 2022, each company denied prior authorization requests for post-acute care facilities significantly more than other requests, according to the report. UnitedHealthcare and CVS denied these requests at triple their overall denial rate in 2022, while Humana's post-acute denial rate was more than 16 times higher than its baseline.These denials increased as the companies began using predictive technologies like AI to automate the prior authorization process, according to the report. Historically, insurers have staffed physicians to review claims from their peers (in accordance with standards set by the insurers). But with the help of AI models, insurers can shorten or even bypass the human review process, leading to higher profits from increased denials and reduced labor spend.Insurance companies generally argue that AI is not used to replace humans, but to reduce administrative burdens and improve efficiency. When Newsweek first asked UnitedHealthcare to elaborate on its AI use, the company pointed to a webpage that says, "AI and [machine learning models] are used safely and responsibly to enable and supportbut not replacecritical human decision-making."However, the subcommittee suggested that in some cases, when stacked against AI models that are generating such significant cost savings, human reviewers could be pressured to follow the predictive technologies' recommendations.The Senate subcommittee also said insurance companies have intentionally used algorithms to deny care and drive down costsUnitedHealthcare included.In 2019the year before Optum acquired tech company NaviHealthUnitedHealthcare denied 1.4 percent of MA beneficiaries' claims for admission to skilled nursing facilities, according to the report. In 2022the first full year that NaviHealth was managing MA claims for UnitedHealthcarethe denial rate was reportedly 12.6 percent, or nine times higher than before the company acquired NaviHealth.The Minnetonka, Minnesota, headquarters of UnitedHealthcare, one of three insurance companies named in the Senate's October 17 "Refusal of Recovery" report.The Minnetonka, Minnesota, headquarters of UnitedHealthcare, one of three insurance companies named in the Senate's October 17 "Refusal of Recovery" report.Getty Images A spokesperson for UnitedHealthcare denied the report's assertions, and said only a "small fraction" of Medicare claims require prior authorization at all.Although 99 percent of Medicare Advantage enrollees are required to obtain prior authorization for some services, those services are usually expensive ones that are requested less frequently (like stays at skilled nursing facilities or chemotherapy), according to the health policy and research organization KFF. In 2022, there were 1.7 prior authorization requests per MA enrollee."This report inaccurately represents how automation is used in decision makingwe do not use ANY algorithmic tools to make adverse coverage determinations for post-acute care," the UnitedHealthcare spokesperson said over email.Humana has also contracted with NaviHealth since 2017, but the Senate subcommittee could not determine whether predictive technologies drove the 54 percent increase in its denial rates for long-term acute care hospital stays from 2020 to 2022. However, the subcommittee did identify such long-term admissions as a cost concern for the company. A spokesperson for Humana did not return Newsweek's requests for comment.CVSwhich provides MA coverage through its subsidiary, Aetnahas been refining its automation capabilities for years, the report said. According to a 2019 internal presentation obtained by the Senate subcommittee, a model designed to predict the probability of approval for inpatient authorizations was calibrated and tested at two levels. One level would "maximize savings," while the other would "maximize auto-approvals."When the model-in-training analyzed past requests from MA beneficiaries, its "maximize savings" function produced a net savings of $3.6 million, while its "maximize auto-approvals" function produced a net loss of $400,000.The model wasn't used to make care decisions during the Senate report's time frame, between 2019 and 2022, and was only applied to skilled nursing facilities when implemented in May 2023. However, the 2019 presentation said it was a "key priority" to build a "separate model" for post-acute prior authorization requests, according to the report. A different presentation later that month suggested an auto-approval rate of more than 12 percent for the company's overall MA division, and 2 percent for MA post-acute care.According to the Senate report, the documents suggest that by the end of 2019, CVS "was calibrating its automation strategy to prevent approvals of cases it felt ought to be denied." A CVS Health spokesperson told Newsweek via email that the report "significantly misrepresents" the company's use of prior authorization, and that "many" of the documents included were drafts, not indicative of final decisions. The insurer is frequently audited by CMS, according to the spokesperson (as are its competitors).But some of these technologies did make it to prime time. In mid-2021, CVS launched its AI-powered Post-Acute Analytics initiative, with the goal of "optimizing [skilled nursing facility] utilization." The initiative began in two states' MA plans, but by the end of 2022, it was approved in 16 states, according to the report. Initially, it was slated to save $10 to $15 million over three years, but by November 2021, projections had skyrocketed to $77.3 million in savings.Post-Acute Analytics (PAA), the vendor responsible for this AI tool, responded to the report on its website, alleging the Senate subcommittee "mistakenly" attributed increased prior authorization denials to its Anna software. The vendor claimed that PAA software was "never" used to make prior authorization recommendations or deny skilled nursing facility requests.Elaborating on its processes, PAA said its AI tools accelerate approvals, enhance compliance and reduce administrative burden. "We focus on approvals, not denials," PAA said.But a CVS document obtained by the Senate listed "medical cost savings" as the "value driver" for Post-Acute Analytics. Five other initiatives were listed in the same table, each with a value driver of "admin cost savings" or "admin & medical cost savings." Although PAA claims to reduce administrative burden and emphasize approvals, it was the only initiative on the document that CVS did not identify as an administrative cost saver.Newsweek reached out to PAA and asked about this discrepancy. The company has not responded to Newsweek's questions.Can Hospitals Fight Rising Claims Denials?The Senate subcommittee recommended that CMS start collecting prior authorization information broken down by service category to see if any are being "singled out" for denials, and to conduct targeted audits if insurer data reveals notable increases in adverse denials. It also suggested CMS expand regulations for predictive technology usefor example, requiring that MA insurers disclose how these tools are used in the prior authorization process and developing rules to ensure they don't sway physicians' opinions.In an October 2 conversation with Newsweek, Chandler Barron, president of Parathon (a revenue cycle management vendor that provides denials management services to health systems), suggested that more clarity on the insurance companies' algorithms could be useful. Today, there's little transparency about how AI is being used to deny claims. If health systems could see the AI model's scorecards, at least they'd know what they're up against, according to Barron."It's like all of a sudden, the language has changed on them, and there's no interpreter anywhere close," Barron said.But even with improved transparency, most hospitals don't have the resources to interpret that information, according to Barron. They're already spending about $19.7 billion a year arguing with insurers about denied claims, health care consultant Premier estimated in March.Oftentimes, there are more people on the administrative side of the hospital than on the care delivery side, Dr. Michael Gaowho led NewYork-Presbyterian's AI strategy as medical director for transformation before founding his own AI company, SmarterDx, in 2020told Newsweek. When clinicians are swept into work that doesn't face patients, it accentuates the shortage of medical workers, according to Gao.On October 28, SmarterDx announced a new tool that can scan denied claims and produce comprehensive appeal letters, including clinical evidence and coding references. The tool was piloted for inpatient care at three hospitals, and reportedly cut the time it takes to craft an appeal letter from roughly an hour to about five minutes."We want all of our doctors and nurses to be treating patients, not writing appeal letters," Gao said.Advocates protested outside the U.S. Capitol on July 25, 2023, as Congressional Democrats hosted a news conference calling for an end to "wrongful delays and denials" from Medicare Advantage plans.Advocates protested outside the U.S. Capitol on July 25, 2023, as Congressional Democrats hosted a news conference calling for an end to "wrongful delays and denials" from Medicare Advantage plans.Alex Wong, Getty Images But not every hospital can afford to fight AI with AI, according to Barwis, Bristol Hospital's president who also serves on the American Hospital Association's Board of Trustees. Bristol Hospital pays physician advisers to dispute denials, but isn't compensated by insurers for that administrative load. Without the extra resources of a big health system, such cost pressures can force community and rural hospitals into consolidation.Most insurance companies are for-profit entities with shareholders and investors who incentivize them to produce a return. It doesn't cost them anything to deny a claim, but hospitals must expend significant resources to fight back, health care leaders told Newsweek. Sometimes, the burden of denials is so large that hospitals must pick and choose which ones to fightaccepting that they won't be reimbursed by insurers for some of the care that they have provided.In some of these cases, Dr. Joe Evans, chief medical information officer at Virginia-based health system Sentara Health, believes AI could actually help. If utilized fairly, automatic approvals could allow patients and providers to make informed decisions about their care while they're still in the same room. For example, a patient who needs a CT scan and is automatically approved could schedule that appointment before leaving the office.There's "great opportunity" for some algorithmic approvals, where models could give green lights to all claims that meet certain criteria, Evans said.But, as the Senate subcommittee found, auto-approval models are significantly less profitable.Against Doctor's OrdersUnlike insurance companies, hospitals bear the immediate burden of patients' safety. When patients sit in the hospital unnecessarily, they increase their risk of a fall or hospital-acquired infection. Still, hospitals cannot release patients without a safe discharge plan.Sometimes, denied claims make patients sicker, Barwis said. For the cancer center's MA patients, the average time from clinical diagnosis to treatment has more than doubled over the past two years. It can take up to a month for patients to get the treatment they need as their doctors work to obtain approval. Patients' conditions can worsen during that time, leading to more expensive ER and hospital visits.After reading the Senate subcommittee's report, Barwis is concerned about savvy tech being used to maximize denials."The sophistication that's being utilized, it's shameful," he said. "It is absolutely shameful."

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Wasteland Walkout"We are not afraid to do what's necessary" Hundreds of Fallout and Elder Scrolls devs at Zenimax go on strike against MicrosoftThe need to bargain over issues like remote work options and outsourcing is the crux of the one-day action, union claims.Image credit: Bethesda News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on Nov. 13, 2024 Hundreds of workers at ZeniMax - the publisher behind Fallout and Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda, as well as the likes of DOOM developer id Software - have gone on a one-day strike today, November 13, with reason for the action being alleged lack of bargaining by Microsoft over issues like remote work and outsourcing.Members of ZeniMax Workers United - CWA, the group of roughly 300 QA developers who unionised via the Communications Workers of America union back in January 2023, have walked out of ZeniMax locations across the US states of Maryland and Texas.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. "Today, we are on strike," ZeniMax Workers United - CWA wrote in a post on Twitter, "We are not afraid to do what's necessary to make sure that Microsoft meets us at the bargaining table over key issues like remote work options and outsourcing."We deserve job security and improved working conditions. Hundreds of our members are striking from 10-6PM in Maryland and Texas today to tell Microsoft to stop dragging their feet." To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Just last month, The CWA filed an unfair labour practice charge against ZeniMax, accusing the company of contracting out QA work without notifying the union, with the concern among workers being that think kind of thing could undercut unionised amd established staff by shifting their work elsewhere, leaving them with less leverage to fight for the assurances they want from their employer.VG247 has reached out to ZeniMax and Microsoft for comment.Last month also saw Activision QA developers who unionised earlier this year, forming Activision Quality Assurance United - CWA, held protests on Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's release day, protest over Microsoft's remote work policies, with workers claiming that "when workers requested reasonable accommodations to work from home, Microsoft refused to provide exemptions for workers who disclosed serious medical conditions or recommendations from doctors to work remotely".

Froggy!"It's fun to see the fan debates online about who's coming up next" - Sonic 3 director hints at even more characters being teased in the threequel, and I'm placing all my bets on Big the CatNo, I've never gambled before, why do you ask?Image credit: Paramount/ Sega News by Oisin Kuhnke Contributor Published on Nov. 13, 2024 Sonic the Hedgehog 3 certainly won't be the end of the series' live-action adaptations, as its director hints at more character teases to come.Earlier this year, the producer of the Sonic movies Toby Ascher said he wants the Sonic movies to be "Avengers-level events", and it sounds like there's still plans to put that into practice. Director Jeff Fowler recently spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the upcoming threequel, and like the two previous films before it, he said that we can expect the end of the film to tease another character from the games for future projects. While Fowler didn't say who that would be, to no one's surprise, he did say that it's "fun to see the fan debates online about who's coming up next, who's going to be teased at the end of the film.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. "We have a lot of the same conversations. We've all got our favorites on the filmmaking side, and we're all making great cases for 'it should be this one or that one.' It is fun to keep that anticipation. This movie is no different in terms of teasing new characters." Personally, you can find me at the betting station putting all my money on Big the Cat, because there's just no way we can have another film without him, right? Okay, the more likely scenario is either someone like Metal Sonic or Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat, but I can dream, right?Interestingly, Fowler also spoke about developing Shadow's storyline for the third film, with the original material obviously being a bit heavier than you might think (Maria, a young girl and Shadow's closest friend, literally gets shot and dies in the games, and she's set to appear in the film). "That's the challenge of these films," Fowler says. "It's always to take what has come before in terms of the video games and the comics and all that. How do we take the essence of what the fans love and merge it with this movie treatment that we created?"We certainly are very respectful about what fans expect to see and what they love about the character. We're also very aware of the times and the right way to handle that kind of imagery in a family film. I think we really ended in a great place. I think fans will watch this film and really appreciate Shadow and Maria. A lot of care and a lot of love has gone into telling Shadow's story and giving fans the best movie version of the character imaginable."With the film not due out until December 20, there's certainly lots of questions about what's going to happen to Maria, but for now we'll all just have to find out in the cinema.

Image: The Pokmon CompanyPokmon Trading Card Game Pocket has got off to a flying start on mobile devices, but one feature trainers have been unable to access at launch is trading.It was previously mentioned trading would not be available on release, and now in an update, The Pokmon Company has confirmed it will arrive early next year in January 2025.There also appears to be a bit of a catch - it's a slow and limited rollout. The announcement further explains how this feature will only allow "certain cards to be traded" at first, and the plan beyond this is to "gradually expand the selection of cards that are able to be traded".Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube784kWatch on YouTube Along with this, TCG Pocket is planning to add new booster packs before the end of this year, and there are "other new features" already in development outside of the trading system, with more details (including dates) to come."We plan to announce more details about these updates as the dates for the addition of these features are finalized, so please look forward to it" "How many packs have been opened, then?"Earning 3x more per day than Pokmon GO, apparentlyAre you excited about trading? Looking forward to new boosters before the end of the year? Leave a comment below.[source community.pokemon.com]Related GamesSee AlsoShare:01 Liam is a news writer and reviewer for Nintendo Life and Pure Xbox. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of Mario and Master Chief. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related ArticlesPokmon Trading Card Game Pocket: Pikachu EX Deck GuideA shocking way to playPokmon Trading Card Game Pocket: Articuno EX Deck GuideThis icy deck only requires two rare Pokmon instead of several to freeze opponents outPokmon Trading Card Game Pocket: Mewtwo EX Deck GuideThis deck will cause real-life psychic damage to your opponentsPokmon Trading Card Game Pocket: Tier List & Best DecksPray to Arceus you pull these cardsPokmon Trading Card Game Pocket: Marowak EX Deck GuideGet ready to whack your way to victory if you can flip heads

But it's reportedly too early to make a call on Halo.Last month, Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella spoke about how Xbox was extending its gaming content to other platforms including the Nintendo Switch.It's unsurprisingly reignited a lot of debate about how far Xbox could go with this new strategy, and now Phil Spencer has elaborated on this during a recent interview with Bloomberg - mentioning how he doesn't really "see sort of red lines" stopping certain franchises from making the jump to other platforms.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that one of his top donors, Elon Musk, will co-lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Its a not-even-thinly-veiled nod to the popular Doge meme, depicting a cute Shiba Inu, which is also the inspiration behind the meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin.The commission, which will advise Trump, isnt an actual government department those have to be affirmed by Congress. But Musk seems to have successfully turned a joke he made on X in August into an actual advisory role in the Trump administration.Musk has been a known proponent of the Doge meme for years. The meme itself is simple. It references a Shiba Inu, a breed of hunting dog from Japan. The dog, whos named Kabosu, captured the internets hearts by being exceptionally cute, similar to other, older animal-themed memes like Grumpy Cat. Its owner, a kindergarten teacher in Japan, first posted a picture of Kabosu in 2010, but the Doge meme went viral in 2013 when people added multicolored Comic Sans-styled text to the photos, imagining a dogs internal monologue in broken English. A picture of this Shiba Inu in a pile of autumn leaves might read something like: much leaf, very pile, many fall, such pumpkin spice latte.The jokes were funny 10 years ago, but like any meme, these unfamiliar phrasings could only remain entertaining for so long. However, Doge maintained cultural relevance because, in late 2013, two software engineers created a new cryptocurrency as a joke and named it Dogecoin, a reference to the Doge meme.For a cryptocurrency that was created to make fun of cryptocurrency itself, Dogecoin has taken on a life of its own, and in part, we have Musk to thank for that. Hes been a longstanding proponent of the purposeless coin, even announcing a Dogecoin-funded DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon via SpaceX. (It was initially planned to launch in 2022, but DOGE-1 has not yet gone to the moon.)Musk also confirmed that Tesla owns some unknown amount of Dogecoin when he was sued for $258 billion for an alleged racketeering scheme designed to inflate the price of the cryptocurrency. (The lawsuit was dismissed earlier this year.) Musk toyed with Dogecoin at X, too, having briefly changed the companys logo last year to be the doge meme another move that resulted in a sharp boost in the price of Dogecoin.Similarly, Dogecoin spiked by nearly 20% on Tuesday night after Trump announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).Musks meme-based antics arent new; see the 420 joke that was a part of the funding secured Tesla debacle, for instance. But for Trump, its a bit less expected.Doge follows the same trajectory as Pepe the FrogThe Republican Party has a history of embracing memes to their advantage. During Trumps last presidential term, a popular meme dubbed Pepe the Frog became associated with the alt-right.Created by comic artist Matt Furie in his 2005 comic Boys Club, Pepe the Frog is a cartoon character and embodiment of the dudes rock ethos a shorthand for immature, yet not actively harmful activities among groups of young men (such as the Boys Club characters). For Pepe, that means hes a carefree dude who just wants to smoke weed and play video games with his bros. Pepe probably does not know what a 401(k) is, and its doubtful that he owns a bed frame.Most people who used the Pepe meme never knew about its origins; instead, they just saw a frog with various expressions that they could use to portray their emotions, from deep sadness to sheer delight. People felt a kinship with the meme, often adopting him as their avatar on various forums like 4chans /b/ board, which generates some of the most heinous content on the internet due to its lax rules and decades-long reputation for breeding chaos.Pepes ubiquity on the web continued for over a decade. In 2015, the frog was the most reblogged meme on Tumblr. So when Trump announced his campaign for president that year, Pepe was still prevalent online. Because the meme is so divorced from the original context of the Matt Furie comic, the apolitical character became a de facto dog whistle signaling involvement in alt-right movements. Trump began to post Pepe memes that echoed his beliefs, as calls to build the wall on the countrys southern border with Mexico grew in the U.S.For communities on the internet that had grown accustomed to portraying Pepe in Nazi gear or as a U.S. border patrol officer, Trumps acknowledgment of their memes felt like an endorsement.This escalated further when Trumps son, Donald Trump Jr., shared a graphic mocking Democratic candidate Hillary Clintons pronouncement that Trump voters are deplorables, which included a version of Pepe as Trump. As a result, the embrace of the term deplorables grew and Pepe became synonymous with alt-right movements. In a TV interview where the white nationalist Richard Spencer gets punched in the face, hes wearing a Pepe pin on his blazer.Memes like Pepe function well as a political dog whistle because they seem innocent and already have proven their popularity. Yet what looks like images of sad frogs or happy dogs can be twisted into something darker. Though not all uses of the meme were intended to signal alt-right associations, the Anti-Defamation League ended up classifying Pepe as a hate symbol.Pepe has since come around. Strangely enough, the frog is more associated with crypto and Twitch streamers than alt-right activism these days; the frog was even represented on signs in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Doge could now fall into the same trap that Pepe landed in, becoming a symbol of the second Trump administration and Elon Musks involvement in it. But as Pepe showed, a meme has the potential to be reappropriated and stretched into something new, over and over again. The unofficial, Musk-led DOGE office may not be the final fate of Kabosu the Shiba Inu.

Its been 13 years since Apple released Final Cut X. Thats just over half of the video-editing softwares entire lifespan, having celebrated its 25th birthday this April. Its several lifetimes in the world of consumer software, leading some to wonder whether the company had quietly washed its hands of the offering.After 13 years of waiting, Final Cut Pro finally goes up to 11, and now Apple is no longer mucking about. The software is available to download Wednesday. Existing users will get Final Cut Pro 11 as a free update, while new customers will have to shell out $300 to download it from the Mac App Store, following a 90-day trial period.So, what, precisely, warranted the long-awaited jump to 11? Two letters: AI. Weeks after delivering Apple Intelligence to iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS, the company is tapping AI to power new features.Image Credits:AppleAt the top of the list is Magnetic Mask, which easily crops people and objects out of video without having to rely on a green screen.This powerful and precise automatic analysis provides additional flexibility to customize backgrounds and environments, Apple notes. Editors can also combine Magnetic Mask with color correction and video effects, allowing them to precisely control and stylize each project.Image Credits:AppleThe other top AI-based feature here is Transcribe to Captions, which essentially does what it says on the box, adding text to Final Cuts timeline. That feature is powered by an in-house large language model (LLM), according to the company.The other big topline feature here is focused on Apples struggling mixed-reality headset. After adding the ability to capture Spatial Video on the latest iPhones, that content can now be edited with Final Cut. The footage can be color corrected, effects can be added, and the depth positioning of titles can be adjusted.While CEO Tim Cook has admitted that the $3,500 headset isnt the mainstream consumer product the company wanted, Apple is reported to be working on a more affordable model. The Vision Pro itself is capable of capturing Spatial video, along with the iPhone 15 Pro and all iPhone 16 models. Canon also recently released a new dual lens that will shoot the format on an R7 camera.The new Final Cut introduces some time-saving features, as well. Magnetic Timeline, for instance, is a way to rearrange clips quickly, while keeping the audio in sync with video.Apple says Final Cut Pro 11 was built specifically for its first-party silicon, the M-series of chips. That includes the ability to play back more simultaneous 4K and 8K ProRes video streams.Along with the long-awaited arrival of Pro 11, Apple is releasing Final Cut Pro for iPad 2.1. The touched-based interface is getting enhancements to light and color, as well as an improved workflow experience. Thats also available starting Wednesday as a free download for existing users.