Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn MoreIn a world where efficiency is king and disruption creates billion-dollar markets overnight, its inevitable that businesses are eyeing generative AI as a powerful ally. From OpenAIs ChatGPT generating human-like text, to DALL-E producing art when prompted, weve seen glimpses of a future where machines create alongside us or even lead the charge. Why not extend this into research and development (R&D)? After all, AI could turbocharge idea generation, iterate faster than human researchers and potentially discover the next big thing with breathtaking ease, right?Hold on. This all sounds great in theory, but lets get real: Betting on gen AI to take over your R&D will likely backfire in significant, maybe even catastrophic, ways. Whether youre an early-stage startup chasing growth or an established player defending your turf, outsourcing generative tasks in your innovation pipeline is a dangerous game. In the rush to embrace new technologies, theres a looming risk of losing the very essence of what makes truly breakthrough innovations and, worse yet, sending your entire industry into a death spiral of homogenized, uninspired products.Let me break down why over-reliance on gen AI in R&D could be innovations Achilles heel.1. The unoriginal genius of AI: Prediction imaginationGen AI is essentially a supercharged prediction machine. It creates by predicting what words, images, designs or code snippets fit best based on a vast history of precedents. As sleek and sophisticated as this may seem, lets be clear: AI is only as good as its dataset. Its not genuinely creative in the human sense of the word; it doesnt think in radical, disruptive ways. Its backward-looking always relying on whats already been created.In R&D, this becomes a fundamental flaw, not a feature. To truly break new ground, you need more than just incremental improvements extrapolated from historical data. Great innovations often arise from leaps, pivots, and re-imaginings, not from a slight variation on an existing theme. Consider how companies like Apple with the iPhone or Tesla in the electric vehicle space didnt just improve on existing products they flipped paradigms on their heads.Gen AI might iterate design sketches of the next smartphone, but it wont conceptually liberate us from the smartphone itself. The bold, world-changing moments the ones that redefine markets, behaviors, even industries come from human imagination, not from probabilities calculated by an algorithm. When AI is driving your R&D, you end up with better iterations of existing ideas, not the next category-defining breakthrough.2. Gen AI is a homogenizing force by natureOne of the biggest dangers in letting AI take the reins of your product ideation process is that AI processes content be it designs, solutions or technical configurations in ways that lead to convergence rather than divergence. Given the overlapping bases of training data, AI-driven R&D will result in homogenized products across the market. Yes, different flavors of the same concept, but still the same concept.Imagine this: Four of your competitors implement gen AI systems to design their phones user interfaces (UIs). Each system is trained on more or less the same corpus of information data scraped from the web about consumer preferences, existing designs, bestseller products and so on. What do all those AI systems produce? Variations of a similar result.What youll see develop over time is a disturbing visual and conceptual cohesion where rival products start mirroring one another. Sure, the icons might be slightly different, or the product features will differ at the margins, but substance, identity and uniqueness? Pretty soon, they evaporate.Weve already seen early signs of this phenomenon in AI-generated art. In platforms like ArtStation, many artists have raised concerns regarding the influx of AI-produced content that, instead of showing unique human creativity, feels like recycled aesthetics remixing popular cultural references, broad visual tropes and styles. This is not the cutting-edge innovation you want powering your R&D engine.If every company runs gen AI as its de facto innovation strategy, then your industry wont get five or ten disruptive new products each year itll get five or ten dressed-up clones.3. The magic of human mischief: How accidents and ambiguity propel innovationWeve all read the history books: Penicillin was discovered by accident after Alexander Fleming left some bacteria cultures uncovered. The microwave oven was born when engineer Percy Spencer accidentally melted a chocolate bar by standing too close to a radar device. Oh, and the Post-it note? Another happy accident a failed attempt at creating a super-strong adhesive.In fact, failure and accidental discoveries are intrinsic components of R&D. Human researchers, uniquely attuned to the value hidden in failure, are often able to see the unexpected as opportunity. Serendipity, intuition, gut feeling these are as pivotal to successful innovation as any carefully laid-out roadmap.But heres the crux of the problem with gen AI: It has no concept of ambiguity, let alone the flexibility to interpret failure as an asset. The AIs programming teaches it to avoid mistakes, optimize for accuracy and resolve data ambiguities. Thats great if youre streamlining logistics or increasing factory throughput, but its terrible for breakthrough exploration.By eliminating the possibility of productive ambiguity interpreting accidents, pushing against flawed designs AI flattens potential pathways toward innovation. Humans embrace complexity and know how to let things breathe when an unexpected output presents itself. AI, meanwhile, will double down on certainty, mainstreaming the middle-of-road ideas and sidelining anything that looks irregular or untested.4. AI lacks empathy and vision two intangibles that make products revolutionaryHeres the thing: Innovation is not just a product of logic; its a product of empathy, intuition, desire, and vision. Humans innovate because they care, not just about logical efficiency or bottom lines, but about responding to nuanced human needs and emotions. We dream of making things faster, safer, more delightful, because at a fundamental level, we understand the human experience.Think about the genius behind the first iPod or the minimalist interface design of Google Search. It wasnt purely technical merit that made these game-changers successful it was the empathy to understand user frustration with complex MP3 players or cluttered search engines. Gen AI cannot replicate this. It doesnt know what it feels like to wrestle with a buggy app, to marvel at a sleek design, or to experience frustration from an unmet need. When AI innovates, it does so without emotional context. This lack of vision reduces its ability to craft points of view that resonate with actual human beings. Even worse, without empathy, AI may generate products that are technically impressive but feel soulless, sterile and transactional devoid of humanity. In R&D, thats an innovation killer.5. Too much dependence on AI risks de-skilling human talentHeres a final, chilling thought for our shiny AI-future fanatics. What happens when you let AI do too much? In any field where automation erodes human engagement, skills degrade over time. Just look at industries where early automation was introduced: Employees lose touch with the why of things because they arent flexing their problem-solving muscles regularly.In an R&D-heavy environment, this creates a genuine threat to the human capital that shapes long-term innovation culture. If research teams become mere overseers to AI-generated work, they may lose the capability to challenge, out-think or transcend the AIs output. The less you practice innovation, the less you become capable of innovation on your own. By the time you realize youve overshot the balance, it may be too late.This erosion of human skill is dangerous when markets shift dramatically, and no amount of AI can lead you through the fog of uncertainty. Disruptive times require humans to break outside conventional frames something AI will never be good at.The way forward: AI as a supplement, not a substituteTo be clear, Im not saying gen AI has no place in R&D it absolutely does. As a complementary tool, AI can empower researchers and designers to test hypotheses quickly, iterate through creative ideas, and refine details faster than ever before. Used properly, it can enhance productivity without squashing creativity.The trick is this: We must ensure that AI acts as a supplement, not a substitute, to human creativity. Human researchers need to stay at the center of the innovation process, using AI tools to enrich their efforts but never abdicating control of creativity, vision or strategic direction to an algorithm.Gen AI has arrived, but so too has the continued need for that rare, powerful spark of human curiosity and audacity the kind that can never be reduced to a machine-learning model. Lets not lose sight of that.Ashish Pawar is a software engineer. DataDecisionMakersWelcome to the VentureBeat community!DataDecisionMakers is where experts, including the technical people doing data work, can share data-related insights and innovation.If you want to read about cutting-edge ideas and up-to-date information, best practices, and the future of data and data tech, join us at DataDecisionMakers.You might even considercontributing an articleof your own!Read More From DataDecisionMakers

Epic Games announced that Fortnite is going first person with Fortnite Ballistic, a 5v5 multiplayer tactical shooter game. The title launches into early access on December 11 with ranked and unranked play. Ballistic is intended to be an adrenaline-filled, round-based 5v5 competitive game mode where strategy, tactical teamwork, and individual prowesRead More

Stories from 30 years of PlayStationFormer UK and European PlayStation veterans share stories from their time working on PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 Feature by Christopher Dring Head of Games B2B Published on Dec. 6, 2024 During EGX in London, PlayStation veterans Chris Deering, David Wilson, Geoff Glendenning, David Ranyard and Masami Kochi took to the stage to share stories from the history of PlayStation.I hosted the special session and there were some fascinating little insights into working on PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4. To mark the 30th anniversary of the PlayStation brand, here are some of the key anecdotes from that very session.Sony Europe's target was to sell just 3m PS1s in three years"I had worked in the industry way before PlayStation at Atari in the mid-80s," began Chris Deering, who ran the PlayStation European business up until the launch of PS3."Since that time, Nintendo and Sega were the dominant factions on console. I was happy to get involved with Sony's entry because I thought it would legitimatise console gaming in some countries where it was seen as very downmarket, or even criminal like the arcades down by the train station."I knew that the Sony name would legitimise the concept. But what excited me the most was the disc, which would allow us to get games that were selling fast into store a lot faster than eight weeks, which was the time it would take to order new discs from Japan."So I was optimistic, but not too optimistic to think it wasn't going to be a fight. What we set out to sell in the first three years of the European division was three million units and 14 million games. It ended up being ten million units and 40 million games. We were very conservative in setting the objectives, but we had the ability to scale up. Then we had a lot of fun with the marketing, and developers coming in with new games and super better looking versions of old games, and that all helped to make the phenomenon happen. And it's been here ever since.""I was optimistic about PS2, but not too optimistic to think it wasn't going to be a fight."Chris DeeringPlayStation UK gave away loads of PS1s to 'cool' peopleThe UK PlayStation team was determined to make this new console a desirable, cool product for adults. And to do so, it tapped into the club and rave scene of the mid 1990s."There was this revolution in youth culture at the time," revealed former UK marketing boss Geoff Glendenning. "So we positioned PlayStation in the UK to an 18 to 30-year old market. We made the brand edgy. We made it cool. We didn't pay for any endorsement. We gave hundreds upon hundreds of PlayStations away to very cool people. I didn't say they had to talk about it. There was no social media then. It was truly word of mouth. And that word of mouth was a spark that spread amongst youth tribes and friendships groups. It was very underground."I knew that giving a PlayStation to a top DJ that they'd love it. And they're cool amongst their friends, they'd have their friends round, they'd play it, and they'd effectively become an ambassador for it. We created an army of ambassadors. It wasn't a cool brand because the advertising was cool, it was cool because the movers and shakers and influencers of youth culture were out there saying that Sony really knew it stuff. I employed culturally connected people, who worked in music and fashion and taught them marketing. Because you can't teach a corporate marketer youth culture."It wasn't just club culture. It was also snowboarding, skateboarding, surfing, graffiti, hip hop, breakdancing... we were in the underground, supporting culture. I wasn't interested in football or F1."The Crash Bandicoot marketing campaign saw a man attacked by pimps PlayStation's slightly unorthodox approach to marketing extended to the launch campaign of Crash Bandicoot saw them create fake Bandicoot road signs and lost pet posters. But one slightly edgier idea may have resulted in a real life assault."We had slightly controversial postcards that went into phone boxes in Soho," Glendenning remembered. "It's where you'd get a lot of postcards featuring... well, ladies who wanted to date people. The guy who was putting these [Bandicoot postcards] up in the phone boxes... well, we found out that all the pimps owned these phone boxes. It was their phone box. We only found out when the guy who was putting those postcards out got beaten up. Which was a shame. Lesson learned."Recollections over whether the assault actually took place, or whether it merely nearly took place, differed amongst the panellists. Either way, they didn't repeat the idea again.Chris Deering beat Richard Branson at Tekken PlayStation rooms featuring consoles connected to the TVs cropped up in all sorts of places, including clubs and retailers. It also featured during the relaunch of Virgin Megastores in London."We created a room full of PlayStations and TVs," Glendenning remembered. "And I just went up to [Virgin boss] Richard Branson and said, 'Hey, would you like to play PlayStation'. And that picture is of [Richard and Chris Deering] playing Tekken against each other."Deering quips: "And I won, thankfully. It would have been embarrassing if I didn't."Rayman was the best-selling game on PS1 in the UKWhat was the best-selling game on PS1 in the UK? Tomb Raider perhaps? Gran Turismo?Nope. It was the original Rayman. The game found its way to the summit due to various bundles and pricing activity. Here's the full Top Ten courtesy of Nielsen.UK Best-Selling PS1 Games (Nielsen)PositionTitle1Rayman (Ubisoft)2Gran Turismo (Sony)3Tomb Raider 2 (Eidos)4Driver (Atari)5Tomb Raider (Eidos)6Gran Turismo 2 (Sony)7Colin Mcrae Rally (Codemasters)8Crash Bandicoot (Sony)9Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (EA)10Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (Eidos)The trade media were sceptical about PS2 ahead of launchPS2 would go on to become the most successful games console of all time. But the trade media at the time was somewhat sceptical about its chances."The popular consensus was that the same platform holder had never maintained dominance over two generations," recalled former PlayStation UK and European PR leader David Wilson. "There was a lot of naysayers. I remember someone at Sega saying on the front page of one of the trade titles, 'We'll kick their asses, they're running away'. So there was negativity about it. But we felt we had a great product. A great heritage. We didn't launch with a great line-up. But you could tell by the anticipation that we had something special."But the stock shortages, which the panellists insisted was not manufactured, caused a real headache."It was tough because there was a special chip in it that was slow to produce. We had supply chain-related issues. The demand was there, but there just wasn't enough machines," Deering said."It was also financially difficult because the publishers had all made games to come out at a certain time, and they couldn't work on anything. So the part of the industry that was involved in PlayStation did have a punch to the gut in 2001. But it all passed."PlayStation took huge financial risks on EyeToy and SingStar Two of the most innovative and successful products on PS2 came out of Sony's London Studio: SingStar and EyeToy. And both of them saw PlayStation Europe take a real gamble that they would take off due to the fact both involved expensive to produce hardware."The EyeToy team went next door to the corporate headquarters," said Dave Ranyard, who held numerous roles at London Studio, including studio director."The team asked them, 'We don't know how many cameras to order, should we order 30,000 or 50,000?' and Chris [Deering] said: 'Order 500,000'. It was a big bet, and it paid off."Deering observed: "Well, we ended up selling six million.""I had Russians having sex on the PlayStation Network"David WilsonIt wasn't the only time Deering backed the London development team."There was another big decision around SingStar," Ranyard added. "Karaoke was huge in Asia, but it wasn't so much in Europe. How do you get people who have never sung in front of their friends or a TV to do that? It's quite a behavioural shift. So the dev team suggested we ship the game with two microphones. Which is double the cost of goods. If you go to any business school, they'd say that was nuts. Ship it with one and sell the other. But we went to Chris Deering, and asked and he said yes. And it worked. It gave people the confidence to play it. They were always with someone else doing this new thing."EyeToy caused some X-rated PR headachesEyeToy did create some unexpended challenges."The games were amazing," Wilson shared. "SingStar and Eyetoy expanded the audience. It was really incredible. But there were a few headaches on the comms side. The ability to broadcast your own content... I had Russians having sex on the PlayStation Network."Ranyard laughed: "We had pioneered user-generated content with video... which yes, had some issues. But it was on a par with YouTube at the time with content creator."The GTA exclusivity deal was partially a reaction to Xbox"We were worried when we saw Xbox coming," Deering remembered. "We knew exclusivity was the name of the game in a lot of fields, like Sky TV with sports. Just as Christmas was approaching when Xbox would launch, a few of us went out to our favourite third-party publishers and developers, and we asked them, 'How would you like a special deal if you keep your next generation game on PlayStation exclusive for a two-year period?' And one of the deals we made was with Take-Two for the next three Grand Theft Auto games. At the time, it wasn't clear that Grand Theft Auto 3 was going to be as huge as it was, because it used to be a top down game."It was very lucky for us. And actually lucky for them, because they got a discount on the royalty they paid. Those deals aren't uncommon in industries with platforms. Including today with things like social media."God of War 2 was a challenge for PS3 David Wilson said that the PlayStation PR team knew that PS3 was going to be a challenge "straight out of the box.""It was our difficult third album. We had a terrible E3. We had a higher price point. We were late to market. It was a challenge."And what made matters worse, the PS2 was still going strong with games that were on par with the PS3 launch line-up."We were launching God of War 2 on PS2, and it looked amazing," Wilson lamented. "And I was like, 'Oh my god, we are trying to push this super expensive machine against our existing machine that had a huge install base and had games that looked this amazing'."Yet things improved. "The PS3 was a game of two halves. In the latter half we had some amazing properties.""We had built up all this technology around camera tracking thinking we had this whole new market, but we didn't"David RanyardThe PS4 was great for developers except for oneThe PS3 was notoriously hard to develop for, while the PS4 was, by comparison, a dream. But when we asked London Studio how they found the PS4, they had one pretty major complaint."London Studio used to work on camera games," Ranyard pointed out. "Even SingStar was considered a camera game as you could use it. And the camera was going to be bundled with the PS4."Usually only about 10% of PlayStation players are going to have a camera. And we thought, 'Wow, this console is going to have a camera in the box'. But then Xbox announced it was going to have Kinect in the box and it became this battle around cameras and price. And the PlayStation Camera was doing this Hokey Cokey, it was in the box, then it was out of the box, then it was in again... but eventually it wasn't in the box. And we had built up all this technology around camera tracking thinking we had this whole new market, but we didn't. So it was a bit challenging for us. And that is what led us towards VR."The UK PS4 launch happened early to compete with Xbox PlayStation was notoriously aggressive against Xbox during the battle between Xbox One and PS4, with the infamous Sony video mocking Xbox's (eventually scrapped) policy around sharing games.Xbox was having a tough time and PlayStation was eager to press the advantage. In the UK, PS4 unlike in the US was launch after the Xbox One release. The UK team's response? Throw a launch party early."We just went early to get out ahead of Xbox," Wilson revealed. "We had the OXO tower [PR stunt in London] at the same time, and a massive party on the night of the US launch so we went a week early to try and get ahead of things."

Chris Kerr, News EditorDecember 6, 20245 Min ReadImage via Google / DeepmindGoogle has unveiled a large-scale foundation world model called Genie 2 that it says is capable of "generating an endless variety of action-controllable, playable 3D environments."Genie 2 is the brainchild of the company's AI research division, Deepmind, and can purportedly create playable 3D worlds "based on a single prompt image."It's billed as a seismic leap forward when compared to Genie 1, which introduced an approach for generating 2D worlds, but what are we actually looking at here?After a fleeting glance, it's tempting to proclaim Google has successfully created a model capable of turning rudimentary prompts into expansive virtual realms. The company itself is eager to suggest as much, writing that Genie 2 can "generate a vast diversity of rich 3D worlds" with emergent capabilities such as "object interactions, complex character animation, physics, and the ability to model and thus predict the behavior of other agents.""Below (as pictured) are example videos of people interacting with Genie 2. For every example, the model is prompted with a single image generated byImagen 3, GDMs state-of-the-art text-to-image model," says the company."This means anyone can describe a world they want in text, select their favorite rendering of that idea, and then step into and interact with that newly created world (or have an AI agent be trained or evaluated in it). At each step, a person or agent provides a keyboard and mouse action, and Genie 2 simulates the next observation. Genie 2 can generate consistent worlds for up to a minute, with the majority of examples shown lasting 10-20s."Image via GoogleThe examples selected by Google to showcase its new model are uniform in their sterility. Character models wander vapid interpretations of forests and deserts, scarcely populated with structures and foliage looped on repeat. Pyramids that bend and warp as the camera swings overhead. A forest of trees echoing ad infinitum.Emergent interactions take the form of basic movements and character animations that flatter to deceive. The short clips shared by Google (which presumably elected to showcase only the finest Genie 2 outputs) feature bland facsimiles of vaguely familiar video game scenarios that quickly fragment and decay when placed under any sort of scrutiny."Genie 2 generates new plausible content on the fly and maintains a consistent world for up to a minute," states Google. This sentence is not the ringing endorsement the company thinks it is.Google and other AI companies fail to understand the act of creationGame developers (and creatives cut from any cloth) do not aspire to create "plausible content." People (and I'm talking about the humans working on your favorite games, not their corporate employers) create to delight, inspire, entertain.We create to connect with each other and unpack our shared human condition. To create anything is to send fragments of yourself into the eternal aether, hoping that someone, somewhere, will find meaning in the deliberate, unpredictable, collaborative mess that art so often becomes.Google evidently doesn't understand how developers make games, either. There's intentionality behind every single decision, whether it's designing an open-world in service of pacing or mechanicsor baking your narrative into the very fabric of the environment. These are not elements you can simply conjure into being with a string of text or AI-generated image.Genie 2 is a blunt instrument lacking precision or purpose. Google has spent time and resources creating a tool that can scarcely reproduce the most cliched examples of video game guff. A blurry neon city. Fantasy man on horse. Now, it must convince us the crumbling husks churned out by Genie 2 are worthy of our time and attention. Let's be clear: they are not.Right now, they're barely even viable. Google itself has admitted the model is only capable of maintaining consistent worlds for less than a minute. It's like watching the memory of a memory swirling the cosmic drain. There is only degradation and collapsepresumably at great real-world cost (via The Guardian).Who is all this for? Based on what Google has showcased here, players dreaming of eventually blinking their own games into reality with the help of AI tools will quickly realize their 'creations' are devoid of both style and substance. Two aspects of video games that are unmistakably human.Developers, meanwhile, have already shown how existing technologies such as procedural generation can be used make entire galaxies corporeal. Robust asset stores exist for those in need of pre-made building blocks to assist with rapid prototyping or full blown production. Engines like Unity, Unreal, Godot, and GameMaker continue to cater to the needs of developers at all levelswhile some might choose to build their own from the ground up.If AI tools like Genie 2 are the solution, what is the problem?In an era of layoffs, studio closures, financial upheaval, and mass conglomeration, the biggest challenge facing developers is finding the resources needed to unlock their creativity in a way that feels sustainable. In an industry that's becoming increasingly risk-averse and insular at the top level, developers need those with the deepest wallets to start taking chances on new ideas instead of trying (and so often failing) to replicate the successes of their competitors.Forget about churning out plausible content. Give developers what they need to pull their most abstract, ambitious ideas into reality. If you really want innovation, invest in people.Read more about:Generative AIAbout the AuthorChris KerrNews Editor, GameDeveloper.comGame Developer news editor Chris Kerr is an award-winning journalist and reporter with over a decade of experience in the game industry. His byline has appeared in notable print and digital publications including Edge, Stuff, Wireframe, International Business Times, andPocketGamer.biz. Throughout his career, Chris has covered major industry events including GDC, PAX Australia, Gamescom, Paris Games Week, and Develop Brighton. He has featured on the judging panel at The Develop Star Awards on multiple occasions and appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live to discuss breaking news.See more from Chris KerrDaily news, dev blogs, and stories from Game Developer straight to your inboxStay UpdatedYou May Also Like

Square Enix is ending seasonal support for multiplayer battler Foamstars after less than a year.The Japanese publisher explained the next seasonal update, rather ironically called the 'Party Goes On!,' will essentially serve as the title's swan song.The Party Goes On! will take place from December 13, 2024, to January 17, 2025. No more seasonal updates will launch after that period."In this concluding update, expansions will be introduced to enhance gameplay, such as the ability to customize shots of each character, and new enhancement elements, such as Prism Gems, all aimed at ensuring players can continue to enjoy the game for the foreseeable future," wrote Square Enix in a notice to players."All online services will remain available after the "Party Goes On!" season ends. In addition, we plan to hold the Foamstars Cup, a series of in-game events named after each character."The company noted that previous season passes will be made available again to "ensure that new players can fully enjoy Foamstars." Players will be able to flit between existing season passes to obtain items they might have missed. Although Foamstars will remain playable moving forward, it's hard to read this as anything other than the title being mothballed by Square Enix."No new content" for FoamstarsIn a separate blog post, Foamstars producer Kosuke Okatani reiterated there will be "no new content" coming down the pipeline and thanked players for their interest."I don't want this to sound like a final message since you will be able to continue playing the game. However I wanted to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to you all once again," he wrote. "Thanks to all of you, we've managed to successfully complete every update we had planned. We've been able to reach this point because of your warm support. On behalf of the entire team, I'd like to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude."Okatani expressed hope that players will be able to access Foamstars for "years to come," but it's clear Square Enix has struggled to realize its vision for the project. Okatani said the development team faced "many challenges" throughout production, while the decision to turn Foamstars into a free-to-play product just eight months after it launched suggested the title has struggled to find an audience.

Gamers Nexus has released a video deconstructing NZXTs defense of its Flex gaming PC purchase and rental program. In it, host Steve Burke says the company is still misleading customers, despite adjustments made in response to his previous video in which he called the program a scam.NZXT said in its response this week that it would clarify details about its Flex program, which Gamers Nexus had criticized for having specs that would change sometimes day-to-day. The company has appeared to update specs and performance numbers for its purchase builds. But Gamers Nexus reports it still spotted issues like inconsistent FPS numbers and a FAQ that implied NZXTs for-sale Player: Three Prime build uses an RTX 4090 graphics card, despite its specs saying otherwise. The FAQ entry Burke mentions seems to be gone now, but as of this writing, theres still an entry titled What GPU is right for me? that lists the RTX 4090 and its benefits. Such inconsistencies are a problem for potential customers, Burke says.The fact that NZXT misrepresented its product, even after its statement, as having a 4090 when it still had a 4080 Super ... seemingly indicates that even NZXT cant keep up with its own specs changes. If NZXT cant keep up with it ... how are they expecting the customer to keep up with it?Gamers Nexus offers other criticisms of the companys rental program, from improper packaging damage fees with upper bounds that exceed the cost of equivalent non-rental versions of the PCs to the creator-based ad videos that continue to exist, despite the company saying it had pulled all influencer-led Flex advertising. NZXT did not immediately respond to our request for comment on the new video.Gamers Nexus said Thursday that its working on a deeper investigation, and its video today ends with Burke saying hes received a number of very concerning tips from former employees and customers.

Theres a lot of Star Trek: Discovery in the official trailer for the Star Trek: Section 31 movie that Paramount Plus just released big drama, explosions, and some looming threat thats unlike anything that Starfleets ever seen. The trailer shows off a little more of the film, with moody corridors, some sort of electrified space ball, and brief looks at the spaceships that the show will feature. It also devotes more time to characters besides Michelle Yeohs Emperor Philippa Georgiou namely Omari Hardwicks Alok Sahar and Kacey Rohls future Enterprise C captain, Rachel Garrett. Its still a mystery what trouble Emperor Philippa is leading her team into, though.Philippa will work with a team that also includes a pointy-eared alien named Fuzz (Sven Ruygrok), an empath named Melle (Humberly Gonzalez), the exoskeleton-wearing Zeph (Rob Kazinsky), and a Chameloid shapeshifter named Quasi (Sam Richardson). Star Trek: Section 31 starts streaming January 24th on Paramount Plus.

Ovani Audio Arcade Humble Bundle Returns / News / December 7, 2024 / Audio, HumbleTheAudio Arcade: The Definitive Collection of Music and Sound by Ovani Humble Bundlecontains a large collection of sound effects, game soundtrack and audio game engine plugins for Godot, Unity and Unreal Engine. If you are a fan of Ovani audio content, also be sure to check out their ongoing Black Friday Game Audio bundle here. This is a 48 hour only re-run of a bundle that happened back in June of 2024. As with most Humble Bundles it is organized into tiers:1$ TierRhythmic Music Pack Vol 2Fantasy Music Pack Vol 4Jazz Music PackRetro Sound FX Pack Vol 2Earth Sound FX PackMedieval Sound FX Pack Vol 3Mid TierChildrens Music PackSynthwave Music Pack80s Music PackPirate Music PackEastern Music PackKeys Music PackFoley: Inventory Sound FX PackAir Sound FX PackFoley: Sports Sound FX PackSteampunk Sound FX Pack Vol 2Roblox Music PluginUnreal Music PluginUnity Music PluginGodot Music Plugin$20 TierGuns Sound FX PackEnvironmental Ambience Godot PluginLo-Fi Music PackEpic Music PackHeavy Electronic Music PackEnvironmental Ambiences Sound FX Pack Vol 2Science Fiction Sound FX Pack Vol 3Electronic Music Pack Vol 5Magical Music Pack Vol 2Casual Music Pack Vol 2Ambient Music Pack Vol 5Metal Music Pack Vol 3Horror Music Pack Vol 5Simple Magic Sound FX Pack Vol 2Explosives Sound FX PackBody Horror Sound FX PackFoley: Props Sound FX PackHarvesting Sound FX PackHeavy Vehicles Sound FX PackEnvironmental Ambience Unity PluginYou can learn more about theAudio Arcade: The Definitive Collection of Music and Sound by Ovani Humble Bundlein thevideobelow. Do remember, this bundle is only available for 48 hours!

This week EA announced they were adding 23 patents to their accessibility patent pledge. In addition, they released a new open-source project, the IRIS Unreal Engine plugin which can be used to detect photosensitivity moments in games. This plugin is built upon the already open source IRIS library and is released under the BSD 3 open source license.Details of the new patents being pledged from Electronic Arts:Gaming isand should befor everyone.For years now, EA has strived to make gamingas inclusive as possibleand to minimize barriers between our players and our shared love for video games. And today, in this spirit and following International Day of Persons with Disabilities we have added 23 accessibility-centered patents to ourindustry-first accessibility patent pledge. Through this pledge, launched in 2021, we share our accessibility-related technology with the wider industry royalty-free, so that together we can work towards meeting the needs of our diverse gaming community at EA and beyond.These newly pledged patents cover technologies to improve speech recognition, generate more personalized speech and simplify the use of speech recognition technologies in computing and gaming devices.Among other things, these patented accessibility technologies could be used to improve the gameplay experience of players who have speech disability or who prefer or need assistance with verbally expressing themselves. They could make it possible for those players speech to be more effectively recognized and reflected in-game in a way that is representative of their age, emotion, language and speaking style.To Blanca Macazaga Zuazo, Software Designer for Player & Quality Insights (PQI) Tech at EA, one of the most exciting contributions being made today is the open sourcing ofa new EA-developed pluginfor Unreal Engine 5 that enables in-engine use of EAs photosensitivity analysis tech, IRIS, which was itself open-sourced as part of last years pledge update.After all, Blanca is one of the key developers of IRIS and its new plugin, and has made it her mission to create, improve and evolve accessibility-based technologies to allow as many players to play and have fun as possible.Details of the pledge itself:Electronic Arts (EA) promises not to enforce against any party for infringing any of the listed EA patents. A list of patents subject to this pledge can be found below, and EA may add additional patents to this pledge at a later date.EA makes this pledge legally binding, irrevocable (except as under Defensive Termination) and enforceable against EA and all subsequent patent owners of the listed patents. This pledge does not provide any warranties or assurances that the activities covered by pledged patents are free from patent or other intellectual property infringement claims by a third party.Key LinksNew Patent Pledge AnnouncementEA Patent Pledge for Increasing AccessibilityIRIS Unreal Engine Plugin GitHubEA GitHubYou can learn more about the EA patent pledge for accessibility as well as learn more about open-source projects from Electronic Arts in the video below.

Clear communication can be surprisingly difficult in todays audio environments. Background noise, overlapping conversations, and the mix of audio and video signals often create challenges that disrupt clarity and understanding. These issues impact everything from personal calls to professional meetings and even content production. Despite improvements in audio technology, most existing solutions struggle to consistently provide high-quality results in complex scenarios. This has led to an increasing need for a framework that not only handles these challenges but also adapts to the demands of modern applications like virtual assistants, video conferencing, and creative media production.To address these challenges, Alibaba Speech Lab has introduced ClearerVoice-Studio, a comprehensive voice processing framework. It brings together advanced features such as speech enhancement, speech separation, and audio-video speaker extraction. These capabilities work in tandem to clean up noisy audio, separate individual voices from complex soundscapes, and isolate target speakers by combining audio and visual data.Developed by Tongyi Lab, ClearerVoice-Studio aims to support a wide range of applications. Whether its improving daily communication, enhancing professional audio workflows, or advancing research in voice technology, this framework offers a robust solution. The tools are accessible through platforms like GitHub and Hugging Face, inviting developers and researchers to explore its potential.Technical HighlightsClearerVoice-Studio incorporates several innovative models designed to tackle specific voice processing tasks. The FRCRN model is one of its standout components, recognized for its exceptional ability to enhance speech by removing background noise while preserving the natural quality of the audio. This models success was validated when it earned second place in the 2022 IEEE/INTER Speech DNS Challenge.Another key feature is the MossFormer series models, which excel at separating individual voices from complex audio mixtures. These models have surpassed previous benchmarks, such as SepFormer, and have extended their utility to include speech enhancement and target speaker extraction. This versatility makes them particularly effective in diverse scenarios.For applications requiring high fidelity, ClearerVoice-Studio offers a 48kHz speech enhancement model based on MossFormer2. This model ensures minimal distortion while effectively suppressing noise, delivering clear and natural sound even in challenging conditions. The framework also provides fine-tuning tools, enabling users to customize models for their specific needs. Additionally, its integration of audio-video modeling allows precise target speaker extraction, a critical feature for multi-speaker environments.ClearerVoice-Studio has demonstrated strong results across benchmarks and real-world applications. The FRCRN models recognition in the IEEE/INTER Speech DNS Challenge highlights its capability to enhance speech clarity and suppress noise effectively. Similarly, the MossFormer models have proven their value by handling overlapping audio signals with precision.The 48kHz speech enhancement model stands out for its ability to maintain audio fidelity while reducing noise. This ensures that speakers voices retain their natural tone, even after processing. Users can explore these capabilities through ClearerVoice-Studios open platforms, which offer tools for experimentation and deployment in varied contexts. This flexibility makes the framework suitable for tasks like professional audio editing, real-time communication, and AI-driven applications that require top-tier voice processing.ConclusionClearerVoice-Studio marks an important step forward in voice processing technology. By seamlessly integrating speech enhancement, separation, and audio-video speaker extraction, Alibaba Speech Lab has created a framework that addresses a wide array of audio challenges. Its thoughtful design and proven performance make it a valuable resource for developers, researchers, and professionals alike.As the demand for high-quality audio continues to grow, ClearerVoice-Studio provides an efficient and adaptable solution. With its ability to tackle complex audio environments and deliver reliable results, it sets a promising direction for the future of voice technology.Check out the GitHub Page and Demo on Hugging Face. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitter and join ourTelegram Channel andLinkedIn Group. If you like our work, you will love ournewsletter.. Dont Forget to join our60k+ ML SubReddit. Asif RazzaqAsif Razzaq is the CEO of Marktechpost Media Inc.. As a visionary entrepreneur and engineer, Asif is committed to harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence for social good. His most recent endeavor is the launch of an Artificial Intelligence Media Platform, Marktechpost, which stands out for its in-depth coverage of machine learning and deep learning news that is both technically sound and easily understandable by a wide audience. The platform boasts of over 2 million monthly views, illustrating its popularity among audiences. FREE AI WEBINAR: 'Fast-Track Your LLM Apps with deepset & Haystack'(Promoted)