In context: AMD's 3D V-Cache technology has significantly enhanced gaming performance in the company's last three generations of processors, with rival Intel yet to respond. In a recent interview, Intel revealed that while it has similar technology in development, gaming performance is not its primary focus. Intel apparently has no plans to produce consumer desktop CPUs featuring 3D-stacked cache to compete with AMD's technology. Instead, the company is focusing on enhancing the cache configuration for its next-generation server CPUs, which it considers a more critical market segment.Over the past few years, stacking die configurations to expand L3 cache has become a key advantage for AMD. The addition of 3D V-Cache to the Ryzen 5 5800X3D made it arguably the best-value gaming CPU upon its launch in 2022. Its newly released successor, the 9800X3D, has undisputedly claimed the title of the best overall gaming CPU, as confirmed in our review.However, Intel Tech Communications Manager Florian Mailslinger recently told YouTubers der8auer and Bens Hardware that the company's equivalent to 3D V-cache won't debut in desktops. Around the 1-hour and 19-minute mark in the interview below, he confirmed that Clearwater Forest, a lineup of Xeon server CPUs set to arrive in 2025, will feature a technology called Local Cache, which uses vertically stacked tiles.Evidence of the technology first surfaced in an ICEP 2024 presentation slide from Intel last June. The slide described how Clearwater Forest will employ 3D stacking to increase overall cache capacity and reduce latency between compute and memory similar to how AMD's X3D chips boost gaming performance.Mailslinger defended Intel's decision by acknowledging that gaming is not a significant mass-market focus for the company. While AMD's 3D V-Cache gives its processors a clear edge over Intel's in gaming scenarios, Mailslinger pointed out that this advantage does not extend to productivity applications a sentiment echoed in our review of the 9800X3D. // Related StoriesAdditionally, Mailslinger downplayed the impact of Intel's gaming performance gap. Prior testing by TechSpot showed that enhanced cache would not yield a substantial improvement in gaming performance for Intel's 14th-gen Core CPUs.The success of Clearwater Forest may play a pivotal role in Intel's future. Production challenges and recent financial struggles have put CEO Pat Gelsinger's efforts to revitalize the company under intense scrutiny. The new server CPUs will introduce Intel's 18A process node, which will determine whether Intel's foundry business can return to competitiveness with industry leader TSMC.Meanwhile, AMD continues to promise further performance gains with future X3D processors, potentially including the 9900X3D and 9950X3D. While details remain scarce, possible improvements could involve varying SRAM stack sizes or increasing cache capacity on high-end models.

Big quote: Zeng remarking on Musk's tendency to overpromise on timelines. "Maybe something needs five years," Zeng said. "But he says two years. I definitely asked him why. He told me he wanted to push people." Robin Zeng, the founder and chairman of CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.), the world's largest EV battery company based in Ningde, China, has made a blunt assessment of Tesla's ambitious 4680 battery project, declaring it "is going to fail and never be successful." Zeng's prediction, made during an interview with Reuters, underscores a deepening debate within the EV industry regarding the future of battery technology and Tesla's strategic direction.Tesla's 4680 battery cells, named for their dimensions (46mm diameter and 80mm length), are a significant technological bet for the company. Introduced in 2020, these cells were touted as a game-changer in EV battery technology. Tesla claimed the new design would offer five times more energy capacity and significant cost reductions compared to their previous battery designs.The 4680 cells have already found their way into some Tesla vehicles, including the Cybertruck. Moreover, the company reached a significant milestone in September, announcing that it produced 100 million of these cells an achievement that came just over three months after Tesla had announced producing 50 million 4680 cells, indicating a rapid acceleration in production.Zeng and Musk reportedly clashed over Tesla's battery strategy during a heated debate in an April meeting. According to Zeng, Musk was silent in the face of Zeng's critique. "He doesn't know how to make a battery," Zeng told Reuters.Zeng believes Tesla lacks the expertise to successfully develop and manufacture the 4680 cells at scale. Indeed, scaling up production of the 4680 cells has proven difficult. Tesla has faced issues with the cells collapsing in on themselves during use. Other battery manufacturers like Panasonic have also cautioned about technical problems hindering mass production. // Related StoriesAlso, Tesla's plan to employ dry electrode technology an innovation aimed at reducing costs and improving efficiency has not achieved the anticipated results at a mass production level. This technology was a cornerstone of Tesla's vision for the 4680 cells but has posed significant implementation challenges.Tesla and CATL maintain a complex and interdependent relationship. CATL supplies batteries for Tesla's vehicles produced in China, including models sold in North America. The Chinese company specializes in lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, which, while generally offering less range than cylindrical cell units, provide advantages in cost and safety.The disagreement between these two major players in the EV industry underscores the ongoing debate about the future of battery technology. While Tesla continues to heavily invest in its proprietary 4680 cells, CATL and other manufacturers are exploring alternative approaches, such as advancements in LFP batteries and the development of solid-state batteries.Zeng also touched on Musk's leadership style in the Reuters interview, particularly his tendency to set ambitious timelines. Zeng noted that Musk often promises delivery times that are shorter than realistically achievable, a strategy Musk reportedly employs to "push people." This approach has led to skepticism in the industry and among consumers, especially regarding promises about technologies like full self-driving.

Netflix has occasionally neglected its lineup of thrillers, but November has two very worthy additions. The first is Michael Manns Collateral, a stylish crime thriller that debuted 20 years ago. Angelina Jolies Salt is the second addition, and its one of her best action thrillers. At 14 years old, Salt is also older than most of the movies on Netflix, but it holds up very well.Additionally, Netflix is the current streaming home for Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho, Red Dragon, and a lot of other thriller movies as well. So dont hold yourself in suspense any longer, because these films and more are among the best thrillers on Netflix right now.Recommended VideosWeve also rounded up the best thrillers on Amazon Prime Videoand the best thrillers on Hulu if Netflix doesnt have what youre looking for.RelatedNeed more recommendations? Then check out the best new movies to stream this week, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+.Recently added to NetflixCollateralr2004Saltr2010

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The Phoenix Art Museum devotes an exhibition to the Light and Space movement luminary, featuring enchanting, enigmatic work from across his decades-long career.

A whole new world Silo S2 expands its dystopian world Ars chats with cinematographer Baz Irvine about creating a fresh look for the sophomore season. Jennifer Ouellette Nov 16, 2024 10:09 am | 11 Credit: YouTube/Apple TV+ Credit: YouTube/Apple TV+ Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreThe second season of Silo, Apple TV's dystopian sc-fi drama, is off to a powerful start with yesterday's premiere. Based on the trilogy by novelist Hugh Howey, was one of the more refreshing surprises on streaming television in 2023: a twist-filled combination of political thriller and police procedural set in a post-apocalyptic world. It looks like S2 will be leaning more heavily into sci-fi thriller territory, expanding its storytellingand its striking cinematographybeyond the original silo.(Spoilers for S1 below as well as first five minutes of S2 premiere.)As previously reported, Silo is set in a self-sustaining underground city inhabited by a community whose recorded history only goes back 140 years, generations after the silo was built by the founders. Outside is a toxic hellscape that is only visible on big screens in the silo's topmost level. Inside, 10,000 people live together under a pact: Anyone who says they want to "go out" is immediately granted that wishcast outside in an environment suit on a one-way trip to clean the cameras. But those who make that choice inevitably die soon after because of the toxic environment.Mechanical keeps the power on and life support from collapsing, and that is where we met mechanical savant Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) at one with the giant geothermal generator that spins in the silo's core. There were hints at what came beforerelics like mechanical wristwatches or electronics far beyond the technical means of the silo's current inhabitants, due to a rebellion 140 years ago that destroyed the silo's records in the process. The few computers are managed by the IT department, run by Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins).Over the course of the first season, Juliette reluctantly became sheriff and investigated the murder of her lover, George (Ferdinand Kingsley), who collected forbidden historical artifacts, as well as the murder of silo mayor Ruth Jahns (Geraldine James). Many twists ensued, including the existence of a secret group dedicated to remembering the past whose members were being systemically killed. Juliette also began to suspect that the desolate landscape seen through the silo's camera system was a lie and there was actually a lush green landscape outside.In the season one finale, Juliette made a deal with Holland: She would choose to go outside in exchange for the truth about what happened to George and the continued safety of her friends in Mechanical. The final twist: Juliette survived her outside excursion and realized that the dystopian hellscape was the reality, and the lush green Eden was the lie. And she learned that their silo was one of many, with a ruined city visible in the background.That's where the second season picks up. Apple TV+ released the footage of the first five minutes last week: Official sneak peek for the second season of Apple TV+'s sci-fi drama Silo. The opening battle, with all new characters, clearly took place in one of the other silos (Silo 17), and the residents desperate to break out did so only to meet their deaths. The footage ends with Juliette walking past their skeletons toward the entrance to Silo 17. We know from the official trailer that rebellion is also brewing back in her own silo as rumors spread that she is alive.The expansion of Silo's world was an opportunity for cinematographer Baz Irvine (who worked on four key episodes this season) to play with lenses, color palettes, lighting, and other elements to bring unique looks to the different settings.Ars Technica: How did you make things visually different from last season? What were your guidelines going into this for the cinematography?Baz Irvine: There's few different things going on. I love season one, but we were going to open it up [in S2]. We were going to introduce this new silo, so that was going to be a whole other world that had to look immediately familiar, but also completely different. We start season one with an exterior of the dystopian, future blasted planet. On the technical point, I saw two things I could do very simply. I felt that the format of season one was two to one, so not quite letterbox, not quite widescreen. When I saw the sets and I saw the art, everything the amazing art department had done, I was like, guys, this needs to be widescreen. I think at the time there was still a little bit of reticence from Apple and a few of the other streamers to commit to full widescreen, but I persuaded them.I also changed the lenses because I wanted to keep the retro feel, the dystopian future, but retro feel. I chose slightly different lenses to give me a wider feel of view. I talked to my director, Michael Dinner, and we talked about how at times, as brilliant as season one was, it was a bit theatrical, a bit presentational. Here's the silo, here's the silo, here's the silo...., So what you want to do is stop worrying about the silo. It is incredible and it's in the back of every shot. We wanted to make it more visceral. There was going to be a lot more action. The start of episode one is a full-blown battle. Apple released the first five minutes on Apple. It actually stops at a very critical point, but you can see that it's the previous world of the other Silo 17.We still wanted to see the scope and the scale. As a cinematographer, you've got to get your head around something that's very unusual: the Silo is vertical. When we shoot stuff, we go outside, everything's horizontal. So as a cinematographer, you think horizontally, you frame the skyline, you frame the buildings. But in the silo, it's all up there and it's all down there, but it doesn't exist. A bit of the set exists, but you have to go, oh, okay, what can I see if I point the camera up here, what will VFX brilliantly give me? What can I see down there? So that was another big discussion. The initial view of what's outside the silo YouTube/Apple TV+ The initial view of what's outside the silo YouTube/Apple TV+ What's actually outside the silo YouTube/Apple TV+ What's actually outside the silo YouTube/Apple TV+ The initial view of what's outside the silo YouTube/Apple TV+ What's actually outside the silo YouTube/Apple TV+ Ars Technica: When you talk about wanting to make it more visceral, what does that mean specifically in a cinematography context?Baz Irvine: It's just such a lovely word. Season one had an almost European aesthetic. It was a lot of very beautiful, slow developing shots. Of course it was world building. It was the first time the silo was on the screen. So as a filmmaker, you have a certain responsibility to give the audience a sense of where you are. Season two, we know where we are. Well, we don't with the other silo, but we discover it. This role for me meant not being head of the action. So with Juliet, Rebecca Ferguson's character, we discover what she sees with her, rather than showing it ahead of time.We're trying to be a point of view, almost hand-held. When she's running, we're running with her. When she's trying to smash her helmet, we are very much with her.On another level, visceral for me also means responding to actionnot being too prescriptive about what the camera should do, but when you see the blocking of a scene and you feel it's going a certain way and there's a certain energy, responding to that and getting in there. The silo, as I said, is always going to be in the background, but we're not trying to fetishize the silo too much. We're going to look down, we're going to look up, we're going to use crane moves, but just get in with the action. Just be with the people. That means slightly longer lenses, longer focal lengths at times. And from my point of view, the fall off and focus just looks so beautiful. So I think that's what visceral means. I bet you somebody else would say something completely different.Ars Technica: Other specific choices you made included using a muted green palette and torchlight flashlight. So there is this sense of isolation and mystery and a spooky, more immersive atmosphere.Baz Irvine: The challenge that I could see from when I read the script is that a large part of season two is in the new Silo 17. So the new Silo 17 hasn't been occupied for 35 years. It's been in this dormant, strange, half-lit state. It's overgrown with plants and ivy. Some of the references for that were what Chernobyl looked like 20 years down the line. When humanity leaves, nature just takes over. But as a counterpoint, we needed it to feel dark. Most of the electricity has gone, most of the lights have gone out. I needed to have some lighting motivation to give some sense of the shape of the Silo, so that we weren't plummeting into darkness for the whole episode. So I came up with this idea, the overhead lights that power the silo, that light the silo, were in broken -down mode. They were in reserve power. They'd gone a bit green because that's what the bulb technology would've done. Episode one introduces us to people living in a different silo. YouTube/Apple TV+ Episode one introduces us to people living in a different silo. YouTube/Apple TV+ The residents of Silo 17 seem to have met a sticky end. YouTube/Apple TV+ The residents of Silo 17 seem to have met a sticky end. YouTube/Apple TV+ Episode one introduces us to people living in a different silo. YouTube/Apple TV+ The residents of Silo 17 seem to have met a sticky end. YouTube/Apple TV+ Part of the reason to do that is that when you're cutting between two silos that were built identically, you've got to have something to show that you're in a different world. Yes, it's empty, and yes, it's desolate and it's eerie, and there's strange clanking noises. But I wanted to make it very clear from a lighting point of view that they were two different places.The other thing that you will discover in episode one, when Juliet's character is finally working her way through the Silo 17, she has a flashlight and she breaks into an apartment. As she scans the wallshe starts to notice, oh, it's not like her silo, there are beautiful murals and art. We really wanted to play into this idea that every silo was different. They had different groups of people potentially from different parts of the states. This silo in a way developed quite an artistic community. Murals and frescoes were very much part of this silo. It's not something that is obvious, and it's just the odd little scan of a flashlight that gives you this sense. But also Silo 17 is scary. It's sort of alive, but is there life in it? That is a big question.Ars Technica: You talk about not wanting to all be in darkness. I'm now thinking of that infamous Game of Thrones episode where the night battle footage was so dark viewers couldn't follow what was going on. That's clearly a big challenge for a cinematographer. Where do you find the balance?Baz Irvine: This is the eternal dilemma for cinematographers. It's getting notes back from the grownups going, it's too dark,it's too dark. Well, maybe if you were watching it in a dark room and it wasn't bight outside, it would be fine. You have to balance things. I've also got Rebecca Ferguson walking around the silo, and it can't be in so much shadow that you can't recognize her. So there's a type of darkness that in film world I know how to convey it. It's very subtle. It is underexposed, but I used very soft top light. I didn't want hard shadows. By using that light and filling in little details in the background, I can then take the lighting down. I had an amazing colorist in Company 3 in Toronto and we had a chat about how dark we could go.We have to be very dark in places because a couple of times in this season, the electricity gets pulled altogether in the old silo as well. You can't pull the plug and then suddenly everybody's visible. But it is a film aesthetic that, as a cinematographer, you just learn, how dark can I go? When am I going to get in trouble? Please can I stay on the job, but make it as dark as possible? You mentioned Game of Thrones, clearly audiences have become more used to seeing imagery that I would consider more photographic, more bold generally. I try to tap into that as much as possible. If you have one character with a flashlight, then suddenly that changes everything because you point a flashlight at the surface and the light bounces back in the face. You have to use all the tools that you can. YouTube/Apple TV+ YouTube/Apple TV+ YouTube/Apple TV+ YouTube/Apple TV+ YouTube/Apple TV+ YouTube/Apple TV+ YouTube/Apple TV+ YouTube/Apple TV+ YouTube/Apple TV+ Ars Technica: In season one there were different looks (lighting and textures) for different social hierarchies of the social hierarchies. Does that continue in season two?Baz Irvine: I tried to push that a little bit more in season two. I loved the idea of that J.G. Ballard high rise, the rich at the top, everything inverted. The silo is crazy tall. We worked it out. It's about a kilometer and a half.The mechanical is the fun bit because mechanical is the bottom of the silo. Down there, we wet the walls, wet the floors, so that the more greeny, orangey colors you associate with fluorescent lights and more mechanical fixtures would reflect. You keep the light levels low because you get this lovely sheen off the walls. As you move up through the middle, where a lot of the action takes place, the lighting is more normal. I'm not really trying to push it one way or another.Then you go up top where the judicial live, where the money and power is. You're a lot closer to the light source because there only is this one huge light source that lights down in the silo. So up there the air is more rarefied. It's like you're on top of a Swiss mountain. It just feels cleaner. There's less atmosphere, slightly bluer in light, different color temperatures on the practical lighting in offices. It's less chaotic, more like a more modern aesthetic up there. You've got to be careful not to overplay it. Once you establish colors, you run with it and it just becomes second nature. It was a lot of fun to be able to demarcatess long as you remembered where you were, that was always the trick.Ars Technica: What were the most notable challenges and highlights for youwithout giving away anything beyond episode one.Baz Irvine: I think the big thing about episode one is that it's like a silent movie. Rebecca Ferguson has maybe two lines, or maybe she doesn't actually say anything. It's a journey of discovery, and there's some quite scary, terrifying things that happen. There's a lot of action. Also, we find out there's water in Silo 17. Silo 17 is flooded. You don't find that out until she slips and falls and you think she's fallen to her death. From the outset knew that there would be an extensive amount of underwater, or on the surface of the water, filming that would need to take place. We had to do a massive amount of testing, looking at textures of water, what equipment we could use, how we could get the depth, the width. We built a huge tank at one of our studios in London and used Pinewood's famous underwater tank for the fall.Also there was the challenge of trying to do shots of that scale outside because we actually built sets. We could probably see 50 feet beyond Rebecca. We had the surface of the scorched surface, but beyond that is VFX. So we had huge blue screens and all these different cranes and things called Manitous with massive frames and had to control the sun. That was very challenging. You can really go down a very cliched path when trying to imagine what the fallout of a massive nuclear attack would look like. But we didn't want to overplay it too much, we wanted to embed it in some sort of reality so that you didn't suddenly feel at the start of episode one, oh my, you're on the surface of Mars. It had to feel real, but also just completely different from the interior world of the silo.Ars Technica: I assume that there's a lot more exciting stuff coming in the other episodes that we can't talk about.Baz Irvine: There is so much exciting stuff. There's a lot of action. The silo cafeteria, by the way, is just incredible because you have this huge screen. When I turned up, I was thinking, okay, well this is clearly going to be some big VFX blue screen. It is not. It is a projected image. The work that they did to make it feel like it was a camera mounted to the top of the silo, showing the world outside, and the different times of daywe just literally dialed in. Can I have dusk please? Can I have late afternoon with a little bit of cloud? It was such a fun toy box to play with.New episodes of Silo S2 will premiere every Friday through January 17, 2025, on Apple TV+.Jennifer OuelletteSenior WriterJennifer OuelletteSenior Writer Jennifer is a senior reporter at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Baltimore with her spouse, physicist Sean M. Carroll, and their two cats, Ariel and Caliban. 11 Comments Prev story

Half-Life 2 Week These are the lasting things that Half-Life 2 gave us, besides headcrabs and crowbars Beyond the game itself (which rocks), Half-Life 2 had a big impact on PC gaming. Kevin Purdy Nov 16, 2024 6:45 am | 17 This article is part of our 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2 series. Credit: Aurich Lawson This article is part of our 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2 series. Credit: Aurich Lawson Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreIt'sHalf-Life 2week at Ars Technica! This Saturday, November 16, is the 20th anniversary of the release ofHalf-Life 2a game of historical importance for the artistic medium and technology of computer games. Each day up through the 16th, we'll be running a new article looking back at the game and its impact.Well, I just hate the idea that our games might waste peoples time. Why spend four years of your life building something that isn't innovative and is basically pointless?Valve software founder Gabe Newell is quoted by Geoff Keighleyyes, the Game Awards guy, back then a GameSpot writeras saying this in June 1999, six months after the original Half-Life launched. Newell gave his team no real budget or deadline, only the assignment to follow up the best PC game of all time and redefine the genre.When Half-Life 2 arrived in November 2004, the Collectors Edition contained about 2.6GB of files. The game, however, contained so many things that would seem brand new in gaming, or just brave, that its hard to even list them.Except Im going to try that right here. Some will be hard to pin definitively in time to Half-Life 2 (HL2). But like many great games, HL2 refined existing ideas, borrowed others, and had a few of its own to show off.Note that some aspects of the game itself, its status as Steams big push title, and what its like to play it today, are covered by other writers during Ars multi-day celebration of the games 20th anniversary. That includes the Gravity Gun. How many film and gaming careers were launched by people learning how to make the Scout do something goofy? Credit: Valve How many film and gaming careers were launched by people learning how to make the Scout do something goofy? Credit: Valve The Source EngineIts hard to imagine another game developer building an engine with such a forward-thinking mission as Source. Rather than just build the thing that runs their next game, Valve crafted Source to be modular, such that its core could be continually improved (and shipped out over Steam), and newer technologies could be optionally ported into games both new and old, while not breaking any older titles working perfectly fine.Source started development during the late stages of the original Half-Life, but its impact goes far beyond the series. Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Portal 1/2, and Left 4 Dead, from Valve alone, take up multiple slots on lists of the all-time best games. The Stanley Parable, Vampire: The MasqueradeBloodlines, and a whole lot of other games used Source, too. Countless future game developers, level designers, and mod makers cut their teeth on the very open and freely available Source code tools.And then, of course, where would we be as a society were it not for Source Filmmaker and Garrys Mod, without which we would never have Save as .dmx and Skibidi Toilet.Half-Life: Alyx is a technical marvel of the VR age, but it's pulled along by the emotional bonds of Alyx and Russell, and the quest to save Eli Vance. Credit: Valve Half-Life: Alyx is a technical marvel of the VR age, but it's pulled along by the emotional bonds of Alyx and Russell, and the quest to save Eli Vance. Credit: Valve A shooter with family dynamicsNovelist Marc Laidlaw has made it clear, multiple times, that he did not truly create the Half-Life story when he joined Valve; it was all there when I got there, in embryo, he told Rock Paper Shotgun. Laidlaw helped the developers tell their story through level design and wrote short, funny, unnerving dialogue.For Half-Life 2, Laidlaw and the devs were tasked with creating some honest-to-goodness characters, something you didnt get very often in first-person shooters (they were all dead in 1994s System Shock). So in walked that father/daughter team of Eli and Alyx Vance, and the extended Black Mesa family, including folks like Dr. Kleiner.These real and makeshift family members gave the mute protagonist Gordon Freeman stakes in wanting to fix the future. And Laidlaws basic dramatic unit set a precedent for lots of shooty-yet-soft-hearted games down the road: Mass Effect, The Last of Us, Gears of War, Red Dead Redemption, and far more. Remember when a Boston-area medical manufacturing firm, run by a Half-Life fan, got everyone thinking a sequel was coming? Fun times. Credit: Black Mesa Remember when a Boston-area medical manufacturing firm, run by a Half-Life fan, got everyone thinking a sequel was coming? Fun times. Credit: Black Mesa Intense speculation about what Valve is actually doingAnother unique thing Laidlaw helped develop in PC gaming: intense grief and longing for a sequel that both does and does not exist, channeled through endless speculation about Valve's processes and general radio silence.Half-Life 2 got Episodes but never a true numbered Half-Life 3 sequel. The likelihood of 3 took a hit when Laidlaw unexpectedly announced his retirement in January 2016. Then it got even less likely, or maybe just sad, when Laidlaw posted a barely disguised snapshot of a dream of Epistle 3 to his blog (since deleted and later transposed on Pastebin).Laidlaw has expressed regret about this move. Fans have expressed regret that Half-Life 3 somehow seems even less likely, having seen Valves premiere writer post such a seemingly despondent bit of primary source fan fiction.Fans of popular game eager for sequel isn't itself a unique thing, but it is for Half-Life 3s quantum existence. Valve published its new employee handbook from around 2012 on the web, and in it, you can read about the companys boldly flat structure. To summarize greatly: Projects only get started if someone can get enough fellow employees to wheel their desks over and work on it with them. The company doesnt take canceled or stalled games to heart; in its handbook, its almost celebrated that it killed Prospero as one of its first major decisions.So the fact that Half-Life 3 exists only as something that hasnt been formally canceled is uniquely frustrating. HL2s last (chronological) chapter left off on a global-scale cliffhanger, and the only reason a sequel doesnt exist is because too many other things are more appealing than developing a new first-person shooter. If you worked at Valve, you tell yourself, maybe you could change this! Maybe. What, you're telling me now it's illegal to break in, take source code, and then ask for a job? This is a police state! Credit: Valve What, you're telling me now it's illegal to break in, take source code, and then ask for a job? This is a police state! Credit: Valve Source code leak dramaThe Wikipedia pages List of commercial video games with available source code and its cousin Later released source code show that, up until 2003, most of the notable games whose source code became publicly available were either altruistic efforts at preservation or, for some reason, accidental inclusions of source code on demos or in dummy files on the game disc.And then, in late 2003, Valve and Half-Life superfan Axel Gembe hacked into Valves servers, grabbed the Half-Life 2 source code that existed at the time and posted it to the web. It not only showed off parts of the game Valve wanted to keep under wraps, but it showed just how far behind the games development was relative to the release date that had blown by weeks earlier. Valves response was typically atypical: they acknowledged the source code as real, asked their biggest fans for help, and then released the game a year later, to critical and commercial success.The leak further ensconced Valve as a different kind of company, one with a particularly dedicated fanbase. It also seems to have taught companies a lesson about hardening their servers and development environments. Early builds of games still leakwitness Space Marine 2 this past Julybut full source code leaks, coming from network intrusions, are something you dont see quite so often.Pre-loading a game before releaseIt would be hard to go back in time and tell our pre-broadband selves about pre-loading. You download entire games, over the Internet, and then theyre ready to play one second after the release timeno store lines, no drive back home, no stuffed servers or crashed discs. It seems like a remarkable bit of trust, though its really just a way to lessen server load on release day.Its hard to pin down which game first offered pre-loading in the modern sense, but HL2, being a major launch title for Valves Steam service and a title with heavy demand, definitely popularized the concept.Always-online for single-player gamesHeres one way that Half-Life 2 moved the industry forward that some folks might want to move back.Technically, you can play HL2 without an Internet connection, and maybe for long periods of time. But for most people, playing HL2 without a persistent net connection involves activating the game on Steam, letting it fully update, and then turning on Steams Offline Mode to play it. Theres no time limit, but you need to keep Steam active while playing.Its not so much the particular connection demands of HL2 that make it notable, but the pathway that it, and Steam, created on which other companies moved ahead, treating gaming as something that, by default, happens with at least a connection, and preferably a persistent one. It's Game of the Year. Which year? Most of them, really (until Disco Elysium shows up). Credit: Valve It's Game of the Year. Which year? Most of them, really (until Disco Elysium shows up). Credit: Valve A place on All-time video game rankings foreverHalf-Life 2 introduced many ground-breaking things at oncedeep facial animations and expressions, an accessible physics engine, a compelling global-scale but family-minded storywhile also being tremendously enjoyable game to play through. This has made it hard for anyone to suggest another game to go above it on any "All-time greatest games" list, especially those with a PC focus.Not that they dont try. PC Gamer has HL2 at 7 out of 100, mostly because it has lost an understandable amount of Hotness in 20 years. IGN has it at No. 9 (while its descendant Portal 2 takes third place). Metacritic, however fallible, slots it in universal second place for PC games.So give Half-Life 2 even more credit for fostering innovation in the arbitrary ranked list of games genre. Rock Paper Shotguns top 100 is cited as the best to play on PC today, as they have paid no mind to what was important or influential. And yet, Half-Life 2, as a game you can play in 2024, is still on that list. Its really something, that game.Kevin PurdySenior Technology ReporterKevin PurdySenior Technology Reporter Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering open-source software, PC gaming, home automation, repairability, e-bikes, and tech history. He has previously worked at Lifehacker, Wirecutter, iFixit, and Carbon Switch. 17 Comments Prev story

Readers rated AI-mimicry of Shakespeares poems above the authors real worksNorth Wind Picture Archives / AlamyMost readers cant distinguish classic works by poets such as William Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson from imitations generated by artificial intelligence. And when asked which they prefer, they often chose the AI poetry.Over 78 per cent of our participants gave higher ratings on average to AI-generated poems than to human-written poems by famous poets, says Brian Porter at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.Porter and his team prompted OpenAIs

The shadow of a laser beam appears as a horizontal line against the blue backgroundAbrahao et al. (2024)Light normally makes other objects cast shadows but with a little help from a ruby, a beam of laser light can cast a shadow of its own.When two laser beams interact, they dont clash together like lightsabers in Star Wars, says Raphael Abrahao at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. In real life, they will simply pass through each other. Abrahao and his colleagues, however, found a way for one laser beam to block another and make its shadow appear. AdvertisementThe crucial ingredient was a ruby cube. The researchers hit this cube with a beam of green laser light while illuminating it with a blue laser from the side. As the green light passed through the ruby atoms, it changed their properties in a peculiar way that then affected how they reacted to the blue light.Instead of letting the blue laser pass through them, the atoms affected by the green light now blocked the blue light, which created a shadow shaped exactly like the green laser beam. Remarkably, the researchers could project the blue light on a screen and see this shadow of a laser with the naked eye.Abrahao says he and his colleagues had a long discussion of whether what they created really qualified as a shadow. Because it moved when they moved the green laser beam, they could see it without any special equipment and they managed to project it onto commonplace objects, like a marker, they ultimately decided in the affirmative. Untangle the weirdness of reality with our monthly newsletter.Sign up to newsletterHistorically, understanding shadows has been crucial for understanding what light can do and how we can use it, he says, and this experiment adds an unexpected technique into scientists light-manipulation toolbox.TomsChlouba at the University of ErlangenNuremberg in Germany says the experiment uses known processes to create a striking visual demonstration of how materials can help control light. The rubys interactions with the laser, for instance, are similar to those of materials used in laser eye surgeries, which must be able to respond to laser light by blocking it if it gets dangerously intense.Journal reference:Optica DOI: 10.1364/OPTICA.534596Topics: