After delivering several outstanding stealth strategy titles in the form ofShadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, Desperados 3,andShadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew,developer Mimimi Games took everyone by surprise when it announced last year that it would be shutting down in spite of the success of its titles, with the co-founders citing a heavy personal toll. In the aftermath, the future ofShadow Gambit: The CursedCrewin particular looked uncertain, being Mimimi Games only self-published title, though things are now looking much more secure.Manor Lordspublisher Hooded Horse has announced that it has acquired the publishing rights forShadow Gambit: The Cursed Crewacross all platforms. Going forward, the game will be published, distributed, and handled in general by Hooded Horse.We are honored and humbled that Mimimi chose us to be a part of Shadow Gambits journey, says Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender. This game is the pinnacle of stealth strategy games, and were looking forward to helping it maintain the long-term success it deserves.Shadow Gambit is in its final form, and were excited to be partnering with Hooded Horse for its ongoing commercial needs, says Mimimi Co-Founder Johannes Roth. Were very impressed by their approach to indie publishing and are confident they will help the game reach even more players.In our review ofShadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew,we awarded it a score of 9/10, saying, Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew is an excellent game. With its wonderfully realized fantasy pirate setting, it instantly pulls you into its world, and with a combination of tight and perfectly implemented mechanics, excellently designed stealth sandboxes, and a colourful cast of characters thats an absolute blast to play as, it delivers a consistently fun and inventive adventure where the stealth, tactics, and experimentation never lose any of their charm, right up until the credits roll. Read the full review through here.Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crewis available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

The Game Animation Sample Project has been updated for UE 5.5 with over 300 animations, a new Experimental setup that provides better artist control without diminishing quality, setups that are 100% networked and ready for multiplayer, mobile supportand more!

Make the most of your holiday season downtime with this months batch of free Unreal Engine learning content, covering Blueprint, motion design, real-time lighting, and much more.

A portrait of Ian McKellen (center) hanging alongside depictions of (from left to right) Frances Barber, Charles Dance, Harriet Walter and Simon Callow StageBlockAn exhibition at theRed Eight Gallery in London is immortalizing the greatestShakespearean actors of our time through portraits that can blink, breathe and rattle off soliloquies.For hundreds of years, artists have captured the theaters greatest actors through portraiture. The new show, titled The Shakespeare Portraits (Act I), aims to update the practice by bringing the thespians to life using state-of-the-art technology.The show includes ten digital portraits of contemporary actorsincluding celebrities likePatrick Stewart andIan McKellenreciting lines from various Shakespeare plays. However, the portraits are not just small films that play on loop. Artnets Juliet Stevenson's portrait at London's Red Eight Gallery StageBlockMichael Billington, a critic for the Guardian, writes that he was struck by the intimacy of the experience.I sat beneath a large, framed image of Ian McKellen, and as I spoke to the exhibitions creative director,Arsalan Sattari-Hicks, I realised that Sir Ians head was occasionally moving, that his gaze was subtly shifting and his features expressing a variety of emotions, he adds.The portraits were made by StageBlock, a tech studio that creates new kinds of interactive art. The actors worked with the studio, posing for a camera and reciting their lines.Museumgoers can hear the speeches by pressing a button. Each of the ten actors infuses their own spin on their chosen Shakespeare text, giving viewers an up-close look at how they bring the Bards lines to life.Ian McKellen delivers all the worlds a stage fromAs You Like It,Derek Jacobi offers upHamlets to be or not to be, writes Artnet. Harriet Walter turns toProsperos Ye elves of hill fromThe Tempest,David Suchet performsMacbeths infamous lines on the futility of life tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow (a role Suchet has never played).The Shakespeare Portraits by Stage BlockWatch on StageBlock is hoping that viewers will not only see the novelty in the new pieces, but also treat them as lasting works of art that can be hung in galleries and sold to interested buyers.Its a bold, visionary new idea for the digital age, but I hope it wont stifle the talent of the individual portraitist, writes Billington of the Guardian. I cherish the notion of, say, Salvador Dals painting of Olivier as Richard III hanging on a gallery wall alongside the mesmerizing image of McKellen looking on at one in watchful fascination.The tech company also plans to make an Act II of the show, which will feature a second round of Shakespearean actors in new digital portraits next year.This collection is the culmination of profound collaborations with some of the most iconic actors of our time, says Sattari-Hicks in a statement. This is only the beginning, with many renowned home-grown and international talents already in line for future collections.The Shakespeare Portraits (Act I) is on view at the Red Eight Gallery in London through January 10, 2025.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Actors, Arts, British Writers, Celebrities, Digital Art, Exhibitions, Exhibits, Film, Movies, Museums, Painting, Portraiture, Theater, Visual Arts, William Shakespeare

Researchers Find 13 Proteins in the Blood That Are Seemingly Linked to Brain AgingThough experts say more work is needed to understand the findings, this line of study might offer a way to monitor age-related cognitive disorders and target treatmentGayoung LeeDecember 20, 2024 1:12 p.m. Researchers looked at brain scan data and results from blood tests to search for correlation between certain proteins and brain aging. dem10 via Getty ImagesChinese neurologists have identified 13 proteins in the blood that appear to be good indicators of how fast our brains age.In the future, this information could help monitor aging in the brain and keep tabs on age-related cognitive disorders, like dementia. But other experts say a closer investigation is needed before we can be certain that these proteins are truly tied to brain aging.In a paper published this month in Nature Aging, a team of scientists analyzed almost 11,000 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans from people ages 45 to 82 that were included in the U.K. Biobank. They used artificial intelligence to determine the brain age of the scans based on features including brain volume and surface areaessentially, they predicted how old a person is based on their brain data. This brain age number can be different from the chronological age of the individual and can shed light on cognitive aging and risk for neurodegenerative diseases.The higher the A.I.-predicted age is relative to their actual age, the faster their brain is aging, explains study lead author Wei-Shi Liu, a neurologist at Fudan University in Shanghai, to New Scientists Carissa Wong.Next, researchers appraised the concentration of 3,000 proteins in the participants blood, to determine which proteinsdelivered to the brain via blood vesselswere associated with brain age. They concluded that 13 proteinseight linked to fast brain aging, and five linked to slow agingappeared connected to the brain age. Certain proteins that affect cellular stress and inflammation increased with age, while others that help with maintenance tasks like cell regeneration dwindled, reports Live Sciences Emily Cooke.Determining this correlation is a notable feat, as previous studies with the same objective had involved fewer than 1,000 people, Nicholas Seyfried, a neurologist at Emory University who was not involved in the study, tells New Scientist. Not only that, the scientists focus on brain age sets the study apart from previous work that examined proteins alongside the real age of the individual, as Liu tells Nature News Miryam Naddaf. Scientists suggest that studying the "brain age gap" can inform us about how quickly our brains are aging. izusek via Getty ImagesStudying biomarkers related to an individuals biological brain age could be a more targeted approach for finding and identifying age-related issues with the brain. And for Lius team, this allowed for a direct analysis of the protein composition in the blood of individuals with a large gap between their brain age and actual age.They also found that certain proteins linked to brain aging underwent significant changes in level at the brain ages of 57, 70 and 78, per the paper. These peaks have different implications, which may be helpful in the early diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders, Liu says to Nature News.For instance, blood tests for these proteins could provide critical information about how fast an individuals brain is aging. These markers could be the canary in the coal mine to tell you, hey, look, lets start intervening to slow your brain aging now, while youve got enough time, Seyfried says to New Scientist.However, some experts have pointed to limitations of the studys findings, which Lius team has also acknowledged. The idea that aging comes in three waves goes against pretty much everything that is known about brain aging, says Mark Mattson, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who was not involved in the study, to Live Science.Additionally, exactly where these 13 proteins come from in the brain is unknown. Until levels of those proteins in the brain are established, it will be unclear whether they actually play a role in brain aging, Mattson adds. But he did find the correlations with brain age interesting.Others also point out that the individuals studied for the paper were mostly white, wealthy people. Further research involving more diverse ethnicities and income levels will be necessary to determine whether the results are more widely applicable.Nevertheless, Liu is hopeful that the 13 proteins his team identified could help guide future treatments for brain diseases. With these comments in mind, the team now plans to continue with their research and address others concerns. In the next couple decades, this could open up ways to target the proteins to slow aging and disease, he tells New Scientist.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Aging, Brain, Cognition, Health, Neuroscience, New Research

OpenAI has just confirmed that is releasing a new reasoning model named o3 and o3 mini, a successor to the o1 and o1 mini models.Read More

So many games. So little time. Seems like I say that every year, as my pile of shame gets bigger. But I had enough time to pick my fav games.Read More

Valve's Year In Review for Steam recently launched, and revealed an interesting metric about its platform's playerbase.Next to a breakdown of the games users played this year is a factoid that only 15 percent of Steam players spent their time on games released in 2024. Conversely, 47 percent of players devoted their time to games from the past 1-7 years (or "recent favorites"), and 37 percent played titles from eight or more years ago ("classics").For comparison, 17 percent of Steam users played 2022's then-current games, and 2023 was lower at 9 percent. The ratio of recent favorites for 2022 and 2023 were 19 percent and 52 percent, respectively, and classics for each year were 62 percent and 38 percent.Throughout 2024, games like Helldivers 2, Marvel Rivals, and Balatro saw large player numbers or sales (or both). However, Steam's most-played titles are currently led by older, free-to-play titles: 2023's Counter-Strike 2, 2013's Dota 2, and 2017's PUBG.Behind those are Marvel Rivals and Path of Exile II, which both launched earlier this month. Sky's Banana is the third game of the year to round out Steam's Top 10 most-played, and it was also released this past December.As PCGamer notes, Steam also houses 201,695 games. According to SteamDB, this year had 18,687 releases, up 30 percent from 2023's 14,313 games.

Japanese accessory maker Sanwa Supply has released a new 240W USB-C cable with a flexible design that could help prevent damage, as spotted by Toms Hardware. The USB-C connectors on either end of the cable can rotate 360 degrees and bend from side-to-side up to 180 degrees, reducing strain on ports and minimizing bending that could eventually cause wires inside to break.The company sells a lot of its peripherals through Amazon in the US and Japan, but the new flexible USB-C cable doesnt appear to be available there yet. For the time being youll need to try to import it from Sanwa Supplys own online store where its available in two lengths: one meter for 2,580 (around $16.53) or 1.8 meters for 2,780 (around $17.80).The flexible cable can potentially be used in places where other USB-C cable wont fit. Image: Sanwa SupplyAlthough there are still very few devices that can actually charge at 240W speeds, Sanwas new cable could help future-proof your charging kit. However, data transfers with the cable are limited to USB 2.0 speeds and will max out at 480mbps. Thats much slower than the 40Gbps transfer speeds offered by other 240W USB-C cables.Its not an ideal solution for those frequently copying mountains of data, but if youve got USB ports located in tight spots, or want more freedom of movement when using your smartphone while its plugged in, this could be a solution.

YouTube is taking a tougher stance on clickbait, saying it will remove content with titles or thumbnails that promise viewers something that the video doesnt deliver, as spotted earlier by TechCrunch. This change will slowly roll out in India first, according to YouTubes blog post, but will expand to more countries in the coming months, YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon says in a statement to The Verge.YouTube says the policy will combat egregious clickbait that misleads viewers, with a particular focus on videos related to breaking news or current events. The companys examples of egregious clickbait include a video with the title the president resigned! that doesnt actually address a resignation or a top political news thumbnail attached to a video with no news content.As the policy rolls out in India, YouTube will remove content that violates the rules without giving a strike to creators, at least at first. And as we continue to educate creators, our enforcement efforts will prioritize new video uploads moving forward, YouTube says.