You know that flavor of internet conversation where one familiar item is identified as another, wholly different item in a way that shouldnt make sense but weirdly does? Like how a hot dog could be classified as a sandwich, or because it has a filling enclosed by dough, a Pop-Tart is ravioli. Despite Infinity Nikkis looks of a high-quality dress-up gacha game, it is actually Breath of the Wild reborn in some fancy-ass clothes.In the game, you play as Nikki, an ordinary girl who gets whisked away to the fantasy world of Miraland along with her talking, bipedal, pantsless cat Momo. In Miraland, fashion is magic and a guild of stylists use it to combat the worlds evils and one another.I had issues with its clunky, unintuitive, and at times unresponsive control scheme.Infinity Nikki having so much in common with Breath of the Wild was not immediately obvious. I started out disliking the game immensely. I had issues with its clunky, unintuitive, and at times unresponsive control scheme. The menu icon is in the top-right corner of the screen but is opened by holding the left shoulder button. But when you open the radial menu, you can only highlight icons with the right thumbstick. The direction pad is straight-up not functional, and while you use the X button to confirm selections, circle is used to click through dialogue. Its a mess and a platform switch between mobile and PS5 didnt address this at all.There is an issue with linking accounts on PlayStation that could result in being unable to use cross-progression. This Eurogamer article explains the confusing details. To avoid any issues, before your first Infinity Nikki session on any platform, make an Infold Games account on their website and use that to sign in where you like.Control issues aside, Nikki then rubbed up against my antipathy for gacha games. I dont hate them outright despite their reputation for having the same kind of predatory design elements that led to crackdowns on lootboxes. Rather, Ive found them to be either completely impenetrable with their thousand million progression systems and currencies layered over utterly banal gameplay, or so naked in their core purpose to extract my time and money that they turn me off. At first blush, Infinity Nikki felt like that.In addition to exploration and fashion battles, Infinity Nikki is filled with all kinds of mini-games that provide an entertaining break from gameplay like this take on Flappy Bird. But as I was running through a pastoral countryside, gentle piano music playing at a default volume a few notches below a whisper, I spied a golden twinkle in the distance. I found a plant I could collect. Then another. Then Momo, who is basically the mobile game version of Persona 5s Morgana, told me something called a whimstar was nearby. I found it at the top of a rocky cliff, requiring some light platforming to reach. From the elevation, I saw a treasure chest, so I used my bubble outfit to gently glide toward it before changing into my purification outfit to dispatch the monsters guarding it. Once they were gone, I saw a bug I could collect with the new bug catchers outfit I had just made. Then IIts easy to read this and think that all Infinity Nikki has done is take BOTW and stuff it with microtransactions (which Ill get to later). But by the time I had my, Oh shit. This is Zelda, revelation, it didnt feel like a cheap clone. The same pleasing jolt I got solving a Korok puzzle, I felt from getting a whimstar. And the dress-up mechanics added a layer of novelty that further enhanced the game and my enjoyment.Infinity Nikki has a seriously robust photo mode. Image: Infold GamesEverything in Nikki is powered by fashion. There are special outfits, like my monster purification dress or bug catcher uniform, that impart abilities that let you traverse the map, collect materials, and fight monsters. You then use materials youve gathered from those activities to upgrade your ability outfits or obtain the clothing you want to customize your avatar. There are so many pieces of clothing and accessories, each one rendered in intricately beautiful detail, that you use to exude your own style and win fashion battles against other stylists.After exploration, I had the most fun crafting outfits in fashion duels against NPC stylists. Each piece of clothing is assigned points in five categories: sweet, fresh, elegant, sexy, or cool. Whoever has the highest points in the designated categories wins. Since these battles are based on score, you can easily win wearing an ugly mishmash of high-value clothes kinda like how I won my first battle. The experience was so rewarding that it made me want to try winning future battles with looks that are both high-scoring and high-fashion.The absolute atrocity with which I won my first stylist duel. Image: Infold GamesTo borrow a phrase from Final Fantasy XIV, Glamour is the endgame. It means that youre not playing to become powerful or beat the game, youre playing solely to fund your fashion habit. And its surprisingly not expensive.Despite Nikki being a gacha game that is, at its core, designed to get you to spend money, its monetization systems feel more vestigial than critical. Most gacha games never require players to spend money, but are usually designed such that you cant help it. Core game activities are arbitrarily limited and if you want to keep playing, you have to pay up. From what Ive seen after 15 hours, Nikki doesnt have that.Dressing up is the core feature and theres a cash shop where you can spend money on consumables that give you the chance (known as pulling in the gacha community) of winning high-value, tantalizingly pretty clothes. But there are so many other, cash-free ways to get outfits that are just as pleasing as anything for sale.You can make a look out of mixing and matching pieces from your ability outfits, earn clothing or the blueprints to make them from quest rewards, or simply buy stuff from in-game vendors with in-game cash. I was not a fan of all the lace, sparkles, and pastels I made for my first outfit that I considered tossing a few bucks into the fashion slot machine. But as I continued my magpie-like adventures I made a punk rock look Id actually wear in real life without spending a dime. It felt like the shop is only there for the folks who just have to have the exclusives it offers.An example of the kinds of clothing you can pull for with Infinity Nikkis gacha mechanic. Image: Infold GamesI enjoyed how Infinity Nikki subverted my expectations. A gacha game managed to recreate Breath of the Wild in function and spirit while the depth and detail of the fashions spoke directly to my love of individual expression in games. It wasnt simply an Unreal Engine 5 version of the dress-up games of the early internet but a spiritual, sartorial successor of one of the best games of the last decade.Infinity Nikki is available now on Android, iOS, PlayStation, and PC.

Claudes New Feature Will Blow Your Mind! 0 like December 13, 2024Share this postLast Updated on December 14, 2024 by Editorial TeamAuthor(s): Gencay I. Originally published on Towards AI. Claudes Feature is Game-Changing and redefines AI OutputsThis member-only story is on us. Upgrade to access all of Medium.created with le-chatIf you have experience using LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or others, you might experience long, boring, and unrelated outputs.I recall using these prompts after long and really long outputsbe concise. It looks like Claude hears all of us and creates this fantastic future that will increase your prompts' efficiency and save you a lot of time.Lets start!Claude 3.5 Sonnet Choose StyleClaude created this new feature, and you can choose the output style dynamically. Lets look deeper and click on it. Here is the screen we see now;Claude 3.5 Sonnet StylesAs you can see, there are four different styles;NormalConciseExplanatoryFormalI like formal. Why? Because some of us are using these while working, the outputs we have to share might be in a formal tone, so kudos to Claude's team for thinking about it. But if you see, there is one more thing to discover.You can also create and edit styles; lets click on them. Now, youll have the following screen to preview existing styles. Lets check Concise.Claude 3.5 Sonnet Styles CustomizationNow, youll have the following screen to preview existing models. Lets click on the short Read the full blog for free on Medium.Join thousands of data leaders on the AI newsletter. Join over 80,000 subscribers and keep up to date with the latest developments in AI. From research to projects and ideas. If you are building an AI startup, an AI-related product, or a service, we invite you to consider becoming asponsor. Published via Towards AITowards AI - Medium Share this post

Warning: This piece contains spoilers for Venom: The Last Dance and Kraven the Hunter.In news sure not to excite anyone in particular, Kraven the Hunter is now in theaters. The latest and most likely last live-action spin-off flick for Sonys unfortunate cinematic universe is limping towards a humiliating opening weekend with scathing reviews (including IGNs), marking an ignominious end for whats been one of the worst years ever for the superhero genre. While no major superhero franchise is at its best right now, with the MCU struggling to get back to the heights of the Infinity Saga and Warner Bros. betting big on James Gunns upcoming Superman reboot to get DC back on track, none have been as consistently lackluster as the Sony Spider-Man Universe (SSU). Or is it the Sony Universe of Marvel Characters (SUMC)?More on Sony/Marvel: Kraven the Hunter Ending Explained: A Major Spider-Man Story Teased (And Wasted)Whatever this franchise was supposed to be called, its all but certainly over. The Wrap recently reported that Sony Pictures is seeking to shutter this flailing enterprise after Kraven the Hunter so they can put all their focus on the upcoming Spider-Man 4 and Beyond the Spider-Verse. Good on them for cutting their losses and not subjecting us to any more of this nonsense, but the real question is: How did anyone think this was going to turn out differently? None of these movies were particularly good (sorry, Venom fans) and they all starred characters who are defined by their relationships to Spider-Man, a character they werent allowed to meet. This series was always going to fail, even if someone managed to wrangle a worthwhile movie out of the situation. Lets take a look at why Sonys Marvel Universe was doomed before it even started.How to Watch Sony's Spider-Man Universe in Chronological OrderSpider-Man: Civil WarThe Sony Universe has always been a strange beast because of the bizarre rights situation it exists in. Sony Pictures holds the film rights to the Spider-Man franchise, but after the critical and financial disappointment of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014, Sony decided to share Spider-Man with Marvel Studios and allow Peter Parker to swing into the MCU, where hes since been played by Tom Holland. But Sony had already started development on multiple spin-off projects during the TASM days, such as Venom and Sinister Six films. Sony clearly wanted to exploit more of the Marvel characters they had access to, but the centerpiece of the franchise, Spider-Man, was now tangled up in the web of what is technically their competitor.The solo Spider-Man films that came after were indicative of the passive-aggressive agreement that Disney and Sony struck. Homecoming and Far From Home were drowning in references to the wider MCU, ensuring that it would be difficult for Sony to just pull out of the arrangement without upsetting fans and shareholders who would question why Hollands now very popular version of the character was no longer in the same world as his Avengers pals, while No Way Home used brute force to get versions of characters from Sonys non-MCU franchises into legitimacy with the power of the multiverse. But none of that changes that Sonys connection to the wider Marvel brand was remarkably one-sided, something that even general audiences were capable of cluing in to.Its laughable that a cinematic universe filled with Spider-Man characters doesnt actually have Spider-Man in it.The in association with Marvel logo that Sony was forced to use and the clear indication that they werent allowed to feature Spider-Man in their spin-off films created an omnipresent feeling of Sonys films being a B-side to the MCU. Regardless of how many times Tom Hardy or others teased Venom meeting Spider-Man, the entire Venom trilogy came and went without the two characters ever crossing paths. Same with Morbius, Madame Web, and now Kraven, with the closest thing to a proper Peter Parker appearance outside of Let There Be Carnages post-credits scene being him being born in Madame Web. Its laughable that a cinematic universe filled with Spider-Man characters doesnt actually have Spider-Man in it, but that fact ruined the series in more ways than one.The Unsinister SixWe say this with nothing but love for superhero fiction, but it tends to be fairly conventional. With respect to exceptions like Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns or X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, most superhero stories follow a fairly standard formula and find their own take in the details, not the blueprint. Therefore, superhero films, especially ones depicting origin stories, follow a similar mold where the protagonist undergoes a formative arc that parallels them coming to terms with their powers and accepting their role as a superhero. However, besides Madame Web, Sony has exclusively used supervillains as the lead characters in their films, meaning that they have to turn these comic book antagonists into heroic figures almost by necessity, especially since their actual enemy, Spider-Man, is both a good guy and not around.PlayVenom started his comic book career as a villain who wanted nothing more than to cave in Spider-Mans skull, and although he later adopted the role of Lethal Protector and became more of an antihero, his choice to move away from his villainous past only makes sense within the context of actually having one. Kraven and Morbius also started off as Spider-Man enemies, and although the latter has the tragic monster angle going on, he has always had a dark side even when hes worked on the side of the good. But these movies flatten any potential nuance by having their leads be unambiguous hero figures, which only begs the question of why they would ever even hypothetically have interest in fighting Spider-Man down the line.It is, of course, possible that filmmakers with a strong vision and respect for the source material could have figured out a way to make properly villainous characters into big movie leads, but Sony apparently had no interest in allowing that. All of these movies are corporate hackjobs regardless of the talents of anyone involved, conjured into being by executives and accountants desperate to compete in the superhero big leagues. Yet people who had any love for these characters would recognize that making them utterly antithetical to their comic book counterparts was doing them a disservice, but thats exactly what Sony did at every turn. Its beyond depressing to see the love and care for the superhero genre and comic book medium in their animated Spider-Verse features be so absent in their live-action entries. But perhaps that was inevitable when the desire to constantly expand Sonys superhero world was circumvented by the logistics of only owning one superhero franchise.Who Will Be the New Avengers in the MCU?A One-Track UniverseHeres the thing with trying to build a cinematic universe: You actually need more than one franchise in order to do it. An under-discussed reason why the MCU clicked the way it did is because Marvel Studios had access to several different franchises that could have existed independently of each other if they needed to, and only gained extra value when put in the same world. Sonys problem is that they only had one franchise, that being Spider-Man. Even without Peter Parker in them, Venom, Morbius, Madame Web and Kraven are still all Spider-Man movies because they are attached to his world by default. You cant have one without the other, meaning that trying to force the issue and make movies about these characters without Spider-Man is only going to result in a series that cannibalizes itself to death.The MCU clicked because it had access to several different franchises that could've existed independently of each other and only gained extra value when put in the same world. The Venom movies all feature a tiny cast and symbiote or symbiote-adjacent antagonists. Madame Web is a prequel about a group of characters who will eventually become Spider-Women, but not in the movie itself. Kraven has to battle (and kill!) the Rhino, depriving Spider-Man of another hypothetical antagonist down the line. All of these films feel empty because none of these characters were designed to be leads. They are supporting characters who are part of a larger world centered around a figure who can actually shoulder that burden. Trying to build a universe out of appetizers without ever getting to the main course was only ever going to leave the audience starving.The lesson that Sony Pictures never learned is that carving up pieces of your franchise and then trying to duct tape them back together doesnt actually make your franchise any bigger. But they couldnt help but try to get in on that blockbuster pie all the same, even if it meant fronting hysterical ideas like having the MCUs Vulture warp into the post-credits scene of Morbius, or of teasing Knull as a major threat down the line right after killing Venom, meaning he would presumably be stuck battling a ramshackle group of second stringers. Hell, even the ideas that didnt wind up happening, such as teaming up Black Cat and Silver Sable, two characters who have nothing to do with each other besides both being women in Spider-Mans world, or of making a Sinister Six movie in a universe where Spider-Man presumably cant appear when that group exists for the sole reason of fighting Spider-Man, are exactly the sort of cheese-brained absurdity that we as a society should never have entertained. Sure, Sonys Marvel Universe may have failed, but the real travesty is that it was ever allowed to try.Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Bluesky.

Five and a half minutes into Nickel Boys, young Elwood stops to watch Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his How Long, Not Long speech. It is broadcast on a stack of televisions in a storefront window. As the TVs click on and the picture comes into focus, Elwoods grandmother, her friends, and other passersby stop and watch the face on the screen, to listen to his faithful claims that the injustice America inflicts upon its Black citizens will soon come to an end.We see this crowd gather not directly, but in the reflection of the storefront window where the faces Elwood and the others blend with that of Dr. King, his declarations growing stronger in their repetition. Thats the first time we viewers see Elwoodlayed as a child by Ethan Cole Sharp, as an adult by Daveed Diggs, and as a teen by Ethan Herissebut not because hes been absent from the films first scenes. Rather its because director RaMell Ross uses first person perspective almost exclusively in Nickel Boys.Although author Colson Whitehead mostly uses third-person narration in the films source material, the 2019 novel The Nickel Boys, Ross and cinematographer Jomo Fray tell their adaptation virtually only through the point-of-view of Elwood and Turner (Brandon Wilson), two friends who bond at the abusive and segregated Nickel Academy reform school. More than a mere gimmick, the first-person viewpoint in Nickel Boys underscores the films themes about the enduring trauma of racial injustice and thus adds a new tool to the language of cinema.How We See StoriesFirst-person perspective is common to fiction because it allows the author to develop characters while also filling out the world in which the story takes place. Jane Eyres passions are informed by her descriptions of Rochesters home. Dostoyevskys Underground Man presents his Russian milieu as a reflection of his own impotence. Humbert Humberts description of American motels in the travelogue section of Lolita underscores his broken moral compass. As this last example demonstrates, first-person narration allows for unreliable narrators, storytellers whose limitations (ethical, situational, or otherwise) make the reader doubt the person guiding them through the world.Try as they might, filmmakers havent had as much success translating the technique to screen. Even if we understand the limitations of the framethat some things exist outside of the cameras gaze, or that some things are in focus while others are not we viewers still take the image as more or less objective. Thats why Rashomon, Atonement, The Last Duel, and other cinematic examples of effective unreliable narration show us the same events from different perspectives. We need multiple perspectives to triangulate the truth between the narratives rather than simply doubt the narrative as its being given to us.Even worse are the movies that attempt sustained first-person POV for reasons other than unreliability. The noirs Lady in the Lake (1946) and Dark Passage (1947) both use first-person for much or all of the movie, the former to replicate Raymond Chandlers propulsive prose, and the latter to hide the protagonists face until he can remove bandages after his extensive surgery and reveal that he looks like Humphrey Bogart. Without question, some found footage movies have effective first-person POV. But as the 2010s showed, for every The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield, there are dozens of imitators that never transcend the gimmick.Time and again, cinematic first-person POV is nothing more than an attention-grabbing trick, one that only increases the distance between the viewer and the subject. And that makes Ross use of the technique in Nickel Boys all the more astounding.Witnessing the PastMost of Nickel Boys takes place in the late 1960s at Floridas Nickel Academy where the introspective Elwood has been sent after accepting a ride from a car thief. The restrictions of the school, made barbaric by the Jim Crow laws of the era, are particularly rough on the sensitive Elwood, who spends his days separate from the other boys until he forms a connection with the outgoing Turner.The boys meet while at lunch and, as usual, their first conversation plays out through Elwoods perspective. But after Elwood thanks Turner for sticking up for him, the camera takes the latter boys point of view, first in a time-lapse sequence while riding in a train car and then to replay the same conversation we just watched. From that point on, the movie mostly alternates between the two boys perspective, never catching their faces in the same shot until late in the film when the two of them look up at a mirror on the ceiling.Ross decision to replay the conversation isnt to reveal new information we may have missed. Instead it established the movies concept of subjectivity, something hinted in the aforementioned scene of Elwood watching King on television. Elwood doesnt become Elwood, not a full person, until someone else sees him and recognizes him. Its not just that we finally see Ethan Herisses face. Its that we understand what Turner sees when he looks at Elwood, regarding the boys tendency to keep his head down and hide his intelligent eyes.Put another way, switching between the two boys POVs show how their identities and understanding of the world arent just singular. Yes, they may only see from their own perspective, but that perspective gets reinforced and corrected and shaped by the perspectives of others.That communal reinforcement is paramount while at Nickel because the schools administrators work so hard to undermine the boys identities. Whether its the schools head Mr. Spencer (Hamish Linklater) telling them that hes whipping them for their own good or older Black man Blakely (Gralen Bryant Banks) spreading his internalized racism to them, Elwood and Turner must fight to believe what they see with their own two eyes.Never Look AwayAs in Whiteheads novel, Nickel Boys will sometimes jump ahead to the life of the adult Elwood, who makes a modest living with the moving company he founded. Scenes with the adult Elwood dont come through his POV. Rather the camera sits directly behind him as if the viewers constantly look over his shoulder.The shift in POV captures the haunted way that Elwood lives his life as an adult, particularly in his relationship to Nickel Academy. By virtue of seeing him as an adult, we know Elwood escaped Nickel, but many others did not. Those stories, and often their bodies, have been buried under mountains of lies, as history remembers Mr. Spencer as a great and caring man, remembers Nickel as sometimes imperfect, but by and large a positive institution. Adult Elwood is desperate to tear down those lies and find more proof of what he knows.The distance between the viewer and adult Elwood captures the distance audiences sometimes seek in depictions of real atrocities. Whitehead based Nickel Academy on the Dozier School for Boys, which closed in 2011 after the torture and murder that occurred there could no longer be ignored. Its a horrible thing and its only natural that viewers would want to look away, especially white viewers (like this writer), who resemble the villains more than we do the heroes.Throughout history, movies have given viewers outs to look away from racist atrocities. Even beyond the canon of films that valorize the Confederacy and the Old South, movies have white heroes with whom audiences can identify: Robert Shaw in Glory, Skeeter in The Help, Agents Ward and Anderson in Mississippi Burningeven Tony Curtis Joker, who begrudgingly comes to respect fellow chain gang prisoner Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier) in The Defiant Ones, a movie Elwood watched at Nickel.Read more Given the many failed attempts to make first-person work in movies, the technique could have been another way for viewers of Nickel Boys to look away. We could get so distracted by the technique that we spend more time talking about its successes or failures than we do the actual themes of the film. But Ross never lets the movies technical aspects overshadow its people or their relationship to real suffering. When we watch through Turners eyes as Elwoods grandmother Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, in an absolutely rich and layered performance) come in for a hug, when Elwood shuts his eyes to prepare for his whipping, when the adult Elwood sees a traumatized adult revert back to the battered child he knew at Nickel, the technique recedes and the immediate human emotion takes over.Its only later that we realize what Ross has done, adding a whole new vernacular to cinematic language without ever losing the humanity that makes art matter in the first place.Nickel Boys is now playing in theaters across the U.S.

Microsoft probably needs no introduction. But in case you are not familiar with the Microsoft for Startups program, it is an initiative that provides free licences and Azure credits to selected software entrepreneurs over the course of three years.Needless to say, its general manager, Hans Yang, is somewhat of an expert when it comes to identifying the ideas that will make it to market and that particular drive he calls founder energy.With some founders, it is immediate you can see it right off the bat, Yang tells TNW during an interview at the Red Bull Basement global final where he is acting as a judge. A lot of times you can see the hustle, and you can see them describe their vision clearly and articulately.However, Yang adds that he thinks there are just as many cases of brilliant technical minds where all of the insight and depth is more contained inside their head. They can express that in a product, or in application or service, but they dont necessarily know how to express that to the outside world yet, and I think there is room for that kind of founder too.The of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!And how does one go about unlocking a founder like that? Its honestly just access, Yang says. Of course theres access to technology and tools, but I think its also about access to expertise to the right experts and mentors.Which is why competitions like Red Bull Basement, where finalists are offered workshops on how to craft a compelling pitch and business model, and other initiatives (such as the TNW Soonicorn summit) matter. As Microsoft for Startups, we can go and give them credits, which gives them access to cloud compute and AI workloads, and can offset some of the cost, Yang says.But we dont necessarily have the opportunity to tell them hey, when you pitch to an investor, make sure youre leading with the size of the problem and the potential market opportunity that youre going after, and how youve looked at the competition and you believe that your solution is better because it is faster, more efficient, more capable, etc.Europes startup ecosystem just needs timeAlong with a mounting discourse around technological and digital sovereignty, the conversation in Europe has also revolved around how the continents startups are lagging behind its counterparts across the Atlantic.Initiatives like EU Inc, which wants to create a pan-European legal entity to help startups expand and raise funds more easily throughout the bloc, lament the discrepancy in maturity between the US and EU ecosystems.Even the reaffirmed Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated in October this year that European companies face way too many national barriers that make it hard to work Europe-wide, and way too much regulatory burden.Yang, however, is optimistic. He believes that, given time and as alumni from successful startups return to build companies in their home countries (such as Frances AI darling Mistral, founded by former DeepMind and Meta employees) the European tech startup ecosystem will mature to the level of that of the US similarly to what has happened in Taiwan.There was a large movement to bring Taiwanese talent to the US, Yang, who is of Taiwanese descent, says. My parents both went to graduate school in the US, and they had many classmates who came from Taiwan, but then went back. And when you look at the semiconductor industry, much of that was built on the back of essentially boomerangs folks that went to the US, but then came back to their home country.When the Draghi report on the future of EU competitiveness was released in October this year, it named an innovation gap as one of the main culprits to the blocs trailing other areas. On a mission to close said gap, the EU has named its very first Commissioner for Startups, tasked with driving ambition to put research and innovation, science, and technology at the centre of the EU economy. This includes creating a trusted network of deep tech investors across the continent. I wouldnt necessarily say that the European ecosystem is behind from an innovation perspective, Yang says. I think when you talk about size and scale, yes, its true, but only because theres been more cycles of venture investors investing in startups [in the US]. The ecosystem has just had more time to develop. So I think that Europe honestly just needs time to have the winners which then spawn the next generation of winners after that. Story by Linnea Ahlgren Linnea is the senior editor at TNW, having joined in April 2023. She has an Ma in international relations and covers quantum, AI, and the ev (show all) Linnea is the senior editor at TNW, having joined in April 2023. She has an Ma in international relations and covers quantum, AI, and the evolving concept of 'technological sovereignty'. Dabbles in gaming and fitness wearables. But first, coffee. Get the TNW newsletterGet the most important tech news in your inbox each week.Also tagged with

Its been a while since WhatsApp introduced the ability to make audio and video calls in the app. To make this process even easier, Meta has been experimenting with a new call dialer built into WhatsApp for iPhone that will let users call people who arent in their contacts.WhatsApp adding a call dialer to its appAs noted by WABetaInfo and also confirmed by 9to5Mac, the latest beta of WhatsApp for iOS introduces a call dialer that looks a lot like the iPhones default dialer for regular calls. The feature works as youd expect: simply enter someones phone number and, if its registered with WhatsApp, you can call the number right from the app.The idea, of course, is to make it easier and quicker to call people and businesses without having to add their number to your contacts first. The dialer can be found by tapping the + button in the Calls tab in WhatsApp.With this, Meta takes WhatsApp one step closer to becoming a full replacement for Apples Phone app. With iOS 18.2, which was released to the public this week, users can choose a third-party app as the default for calls and text messages. There dont seem to be any apps that support this feature yet, but it wont be surprising if WhatsApp adds support soon.Earlier this week, WhatsApp also announced a series of improvements to WhatsApp calls. Meta says it is working to improve the quality of calls, especially video calls which will now have a higher resolution. The company will also let users initiate a call with specific members of a group chat.When it comes to the new call dialer, the feature is gradually being rolled out to WhatsApp users and is now available to those who have the latest beta version of WhatsApp installed via TestFlight. WhatsApp is available for free on the App Store.Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Its the holiday season, and Apple TV+ has a variety of fitting titles for getting in the spirit. Here are three must-see holiday specials I highly recommend: ones a movie, anothers a fun short based on a beloved property, and finally theres a TV classic.SpiritedRyan Reynolds is one of the biggest stars currently working in Hollywood. Recently he was in the wildly popular Deadpool and Wolverine, but did you know Reynolds also starred in a holiday musical comedy for Apple TV+?Spirited is, in my view, a modern-day Christmas classic. It pairs Reynolds with Will Ferrell for a fresh twist on Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. Even if you think youve seen one too many Scrooge movies in your life, Spirited is well worth your time.Heres Apples summary:Each Christmas Eve, the Ghost of Christmas Present (Will Ferrell) selects one dark soul to be reformed by a visit from three spirits. But this season, he picked the wrong Scrooge. Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds) turns the tables on his ghostly host until Present finds himself reexamining his own past, present and future. For the first time, A Christmas Carol is told from the perspective of the ghosts in this hilarious musical twist on the classic Dickens tale. If youre really against musicals, maybe Spirited wont be for you. But the music here is especially great, hailing from the duo behind La La Land, The Greatest Showman, and more.Spirited is available now exclusively for Apple TV+ subscribers.Ted Lasso: The Missing Christmas MustacheTed Lasso, the quintessential Apple TV+ series, produced a fun claymation short for the holidays.Ted Lasso: The Missing Christmas Mustache is less than five minutes long, but its a fun way to celebrate the Christmas tradition of claymation classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.From the team that brought kindness back, Ted Lasso: The Missing Christmas Mustache is a stop-motion short, featuring the voice talents of the beloved ensemble cast as they help Ted search for a lost item that ultimately leads him to realize the meaning of the holiday season. The holiday short stars Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, Brendan Hunt, Jeremy Swift, Juno Temple, Brett Goldstein, Phil Dunster and Nick Mohammed.Apple has made the short available free on YouTube, so you dont even need a TV+ subscription. However, if you are an Apple TV+ subscriber, I also recommend rewatching some of Lassos holiday episodes, and also checking out the lovely Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas.A Charlie Brown ChristmasNearly the entire Apple TV+ library consists of originals, but Peanuts is one of the very few examples of TV+ content that is not original to Apple.Apple has produced its own brand-new Peanuts content, but its also licensed a variety of classic TV specials and made them available to Apple TV+ subscribers.A Charlie Brown Christmas probably needs no introduction from me, as its annual viewing for a lot of families. But in case you need a show summary, here you go:In this beloved Peanuts special, feeling down about the commercialism of Christmas, Lucy recruits Charlie Brown to be the director of the gangs holiday play. Can he overcome his friends preference for dancing over acting, find the perfect tree and discover the true meaning of Christmas?What are your favorite Apple TV+ holiday go-tos? Let us know in the comments.Best Apple TV 4K accessoriesAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

"A very sad thing indeed."White KnightDespite previously using artificial intelligence tools to help resuscitate old John Lennon vocals, fellow Beatle Paul McCartney is now singing a different tune about the tech.As the Guardian reports, the benighted Beatle has issued a statement ahead of the UK parliament's debate over amending its data bill to allow artists to exclude their work from AI training data. In it, McCartney warned that AI may take over the industry if nobody takes a stand."We[ve] got to be careful about it," the Beatle said, "because it could just take over and we dont want that to happen, particularly for the young composers and writers [for] who, it may be the only way they[re] gonna make a career.""If AI wipes that out," he continued, "that would be a very sad thing indeed."Then and NowMcCartney's new position on AI comes just over a month after the Grammy Awards announced that the final Beatles song, "Now and Then," had been nominated for two awards making it the first AI-assisted track ever to get the nod from the Recording Academy.Though the track wasmade using AI, it wasn't the generative type that's been getting immense buzz lately. Around the time the song was released, McCartney revealed that engineers had used AI tech known as "stem separation" to lift the assassinated Beatle's vocals from an old demo."There it was, Johns voice, crystal clear," the Wings singer said in a press release about the song and titular album last year. "Its quite emotional. And we all play on it, its a genuine Beatles recording."Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr added in that statement that the AI tech that helped bring Lennon's vocals back to life was "far out.""It was the closest well ever come to having him back in the room," Starr expounded, "so it was very emotional for all of us."Be that as it may, both McCartney and Starr's names are absent from a popular petitionagainst the unauthorized use of artists' work by AI companies. Most recently, "Running Up That Hill" songstress Kate Bush became one of the more than 36,000 signatories to join the anti-AI campaign, which also features well-heeled endorsers across industries including Julianne Moore, Stephen Fry, and The Cure's Robert Smith.It's not quite "AI for me but not for thee," but the remaining Beatles' absence from the petition feels noteworthy as their home country prepares to debate whether to sign AI restrictions into law.More on AI and musicians: The AI That De-Ages Eminem Into Slim Shady Is Astonishingly BadShare This Article

"The future of the Polaris program is a little bit of a question mark at the moment."Stuck in the OfficeBillionaire Jared Isaacman has been to space twice. First, he commanded the first all-civilian mission to orbit in September 2021 on board SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft. Almost exactly three years later, he again rode the craft to orbit to become the first private astronaut to go on a spacewalk.But the playboy space tourist may soon have to go on a hiatus from his privately-funded trips into orbit because Isaacman was picked by president-elect Donald Trump,or perhaps his buddy Elon Musk, to become the next head of NASA.The announcement catapulted the trained fighter jet pilot into the upper echelons of Washington, DC which could force him to put his personal space travel ambitions on hold.As part of the private Polaris program organized by Isaacman, the entrepreneur wanted to follow up his September spacewalk with two more trips on board SpaceX's Crew Dragon and eventually the company's much larger Starship."The future of the Polaris program is a little bit of a question mark at the moment," Isaacman told the audience of a space conference in Orlando, as quoted by Reuters. "It may wind up on hold for a little bit."Spacefaring Kinda GuyIt's the first time Isaacman has made a public appearance since being appointed NASA administrator. As Reuters points out, the billionaire appeared highly optimistic about the future of the private space industry at the event but offered few clues on how we would lead NASA starting in January.The 41-year-old is widely expected to further existing private-public partnerships, which could turn out to be a major windfall for SpaceX, which is already a major NASA contractor."At NASA, we will passionately pursue these possibilities and usher in an era where humanity becomes a true spacefaring civilization," Isaacman wrote in anannouncement on X last week.Where his new role will leave the Polaris program and SpaceX's other private astronaut partnerships with the likes of Axiom and Vast remains unclear.In short, while it may not be him personally riding a spacecraft into space, given his new role in the Trump administration, SpaceX's space exploration ambitions almost certainly just got a major boost.More on Isaacman: The New Head of NASA Had an Interesting Disagreement with the Space AgencyShare This Article

Dec 13, 2024The Hacker NewsCybercrime / CryptocurrencyThe U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has indicted 14 nationals belonging to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) for their alleged involvement in a long-running conspiracy to violate sanctions and commit wire fraud, money laundering, and identity theft by illegally seeking employment in U.S. companies and non-profit organizations."The conspirators, who worked for DPRK-controlled companies Yanbian Silverstar and Volasys Silverstar, located in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Russian Federation (Russia), respectively, conspired to use false, stolen, and borrowed identities of U.S. and other persons to conceal their North Korean identities and foreign locations and obtain employment as remote information technology (IT) workers," the DoJ said.The IT worker scheme generated at least $88 million for the North Korean regime over a span of six years, it's been alleged. In addition, the remote workers engaged in information theft, such as proprietary source code, and threatened to leak the data unless a ransom was paid. The illicit proceeds obtained in this manner were then routed through U.S. and Chinese financial systems back to Pyongyang.The DoJ said it's aware of one employer that sustained hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages after it refused to yield to the extortion demand of a North Korean IT worker, who then ended up leaking the confidential information online.The identified individuals are below -Jong Song Hwa ()Ri Kyong Sik ()Kim Ryu Song ()Rim Un Chol ()Kim Mu Rim ()Cho Chung Pom ()Hyon Chol Song ()Son Un Chol ()Sok Kwang Hyok ()Choe Jong Yong ()Ko Chung Sok ()Kim Ye Won ()Jong Kyong Chol (), and Jang Chol Myong ()The 14 conspirators are said to have worked in various capacities ranging from senior company leaders to IT workers. The two sanctioned companies have employed at least 130 North Korean IT workers, referred to as IT Warriors, who participated in "socialism competitions" organized by the firms to generate money for DPRK. The top performers were awarded bonuses and other prizes.The development is the latest in a series of actions the U.S. government has taken in recent years to address the fraudulent IT worker scheme, a campaign tracked by the cybersecurity community under the moniker Wagemole.The DoJ said it has since seized 29 phony website domains (17 in October 2023 and 12 in May 2024) used by DPRK IT workers to mimic Western IT services firms to support the bona fides of their attempts to land remote work contracts for U.S. and other businesses worldwide. The agency said it has also cumulatively seized $2.26 million (including $1.5 million seized in October 2023) from bank accounts tied to the scheme. Separately, the Department of State has announced a reward offer of up to $5 million for information on the front companies, the individuals identified, and their illicit activities."DPRK IT worker schemes involve the use of pseudonymous email, social media, payment platform and online job site accounts, as well as false websites, proxy computers, virtual private networks, virtual private servers, and unwitting third-parties located in the United States and elsewhere," the DoJ said. "The conspirators used many techniques to conceal their North Korean identities from employers."One such method is the use of laptop farms in the U.S. by paying people residing in the country to receive and set up company-issued laptops and allow the IT workers to remotely connect through software installed on them. The idea is to give the impression that they are accessing work from within the U.S. when, in reality, they are located in China or Russia.All the 14 conspirators have been charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to commit identity theft. Eight of them have been charged with aggravated identity theft. If convicted, each of them faces a maximum penalty of 27 years in prison.Radiant Capital Crypto Heist Linked to Citrine SleetThe IT worker scam is just one of the many methods that North Korea has embraced to generate illicit revenue and support its strategic objectives, the others being cryptocurrency theft and targeting of banking and blockchain companies.Earlier this month, decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Radiant Capital attributed a North Korea-linked threat actor dubbed Citrine Sleet to the $50 million cryptocurrency heist that took place following a breach of its systems in October 2024.The adversary, also called Gleaming Pisces, Labyrinth Chollima, Nickel Academy, and UNC4736, is a sub-cluster within the Lazarus Group. It's also known for orchestrating a persistent social engineering campaign dubbed Operation Dream Job that aims to entice developers with lucrative job opportunities to dupe them into downloading malware.It's worth noting that these efforts also take different forms depending on the activity cluster behind them, which can vary from coding tests (Contagious Interview) to collaborating on a GitHub project (Jade Sleet).The attack targeting Radiant Capital was no different in that a developer of the company was approached by the threat actor in September on Telegram by posing as a trusted former contractor, ostensibly soliciting feedback about their work as part of a new career opportunity related to smart contract auditing.The message included a link to a ZIP archive containing a PDF file that, in turn, delivered a macOS backdoor codenamed INLETDRIFT that, besides displaying a decoy document to the victim, also established stealthy communications with a remote server ("atokyonews[.]com")."The attackers were able to compromise multiple developer devices," Radiant Capital said. "The front-end interfaces displayed benign transaction data while malicious transactions were signed in the background. Traditional checks and simulations showed no obvious discrepancies, making the threat virtually invisible during normal review stages."Found this article interesting? This article is a contributed piece from one of our valued partners. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.SHARE