Japanese automakers Honda and Nissan will attempt to merge and create the worlds third-largest automaker by sales as the industry undergoes dramatic changes in its transition away from fossil fuels.The two companies said they had signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday and that smaller Nissan alliance member Mitsubishi Motors also had agreed to join the talks on integrating their businesses. Honda will initially lead the new management, retaining the principles and brands of each company.Following is a quick look at what a combined Honda and Nissan would mean for the companies, and for the auto industry.An industry shakeupThe ascent of Chinese automakers is rattling the industry at a time when manufacturers are struggling to shift from fossil fuel-driven vehicles to electrics. Relatively inexpensive EVs from Chinas BYD, Great Wall, and Nio are eating into the market shares of U.S. and Japanese car companies in China and elsewhere.Japanese automakers have lagged behind big rivals in EVs and are now trying to cut costs and make up for lost time.Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi announced in August that they will share components for electric vehicles like batteries and jointly research software for autonomous driving to adapt better to dramatic changes in the auto industry centered around electrification. A preliminary agreement between Honda, Japans second-largest automaker, and Nissan, third largest, was announced in March.A merger could result in a behemoth worth about $55 billion based on the market capitalization of all three automakers.Joining forces would help the smaller Japanese automakers add scale to compete with Japans market leader Toyota Motor Corp. and with Germanys Volkswagen AG. Toyota itself has technology partnerships with Japans Mazda Motor Corp. and Subaru Corp.What would Honda need from Nissan?Nissan has truck-based body-on-frame large SUVs such as the Armada and Infiniti QX80 that Honda doesnt have, with large towing capacities and good off-road performance, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of AutoForecast Solutions.Nissan also has years of experience building batteries and electric vehicles, and gas-electric hybird powertrains that could help Honda in developing its own EVs and next generation of hybrids, he said.Nissan does have some product segments where Honda doesnt currently play, that a merger or partnership could help, said Sam Abuelsamid, a Detroit-area automotive industry analsyt.While Nissans electric Leaf and Ariya havent sold well in the U.S., theyre solid vehicles, Fiorani said. They havent been resting on their laurels, and they have been developing this technology, he said. They have new products coming that could provide a good platform for Honda for its next generation.Why now?Nissan said last month thatit was slashing 9,000 jobs,or about 6% of its global work force, and reducing global production capacity by 20% after reporting a quarterly loss of 9.3 billion yen ($61 million).Earlier this month it reshuffled its management and its chief executive, Makoto Uchida, took a 50% pay cut to take responsibility for the financial woes, saying Nissan neededto become more efficient and respond better to market tastes, rising costs and other global changes.Fitch Ratings recently downgraded Nissans credit outlook to negative, citing worsening profitability, partly due to price cuts in the North American market. But it noted that it has a strong financial structure and solid cash reserves that amounted to 1.44 trillion yen ($9.4 billion).Nissans share price has fallen to the point where it is considered something of a bargain. A report in the Japanese financial magazine Diamond said talks with Honda gained urgency after the Taiwan maker of iPhones Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., better known as Foxconn, began exploring a possible acquisition of Nissan as part of its push into the EV sector.The company has struggled for years following a scandal that began with the arrest of its former chairman Carlos Ghosn in late 2018 on charges of fraud and misuse of company assets, allegations that he denies. He eventually was released on bail and fled to Lebanon.Honda reported its profits slipped nearly 20% in the first half of the April-March fiscal year from a year earlier, as sales suffered in China.More headwindsToyota made 11.5 million vehicles in 2023, while Honda rolled out four million and Nissan produced 3.4 million. Mitsubishi Motors made just over one million. Even after a merger Toyota would remain the leading Japanese automaker.All the global automakers are facing potential shocks if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on threats to raise or impose tariffs on imports of foreign products, even from allies like Japan and neighboring countries like Canada and Mexico. Nissan is among the major car companies that have adjusted their supply chains to include vehicles assembled in Mexico.Meanwhile, analysts say there is an affordability shift taking place across the industry, led by people who feel they cannot afford to pay nearly $50,000 for a new vehicle. In American, a vital market for companies like Nissan, Honda and Toyota, thats forcing automakers to consider lower pricing, which will eat further into industry profits.Elaine Kurtenbach, Associated Press business writerAP Auto Writer Tom Krisher contributed to this report from Detroit.

Called the Mareterra Project, this new urban development on Monacos coastline is a sight to see. It is a floating eco-district that was completed this month, establishing an unprecedented global benchmark. It has been constructed entirely on land that has been reclaimed from the sea to build a new territory for development. This urban development will add six hectares, allowing environmental stewardship and architectural class to merge perfectly and harmoniously.I wanted this new area to embody the excellence and conviviality that distinguish the Principality of Monaco so well, said HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco. Mareterra will integrate perfectly with our shoreline, and in a few years will be seen as a natural extension of our territory.Designer: Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), Valode et Pistre Architectes, and Michel DesvigneThe urban project has been developed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), Valode et Pistre Architects, and the landscape architect Michel Desvigne. The entire district focuses on public access. It includes the Le Renzo residential complex, a marina, public parks, and commercial spaces. Most of the area is occupied by parks and leisure spaces. So, the Mareterra is another innovative and valuable addition to this public-centric district.One of the star features of Mareterra is its innovative construction on water. This ambitious project extends Monacos coastline through the use of underwater caissonslarge concrete structuresthat not only create new land space but also double as marine habitats to enhance biodiversity. Developed in collaboration with marine biologists, this engineering approach aims to minimize ecological disruption. Proactive measures have been implemented to relocate and monitor native species such as Posidonia seagrass and red coral. Anti-turbidity screens have also been incorporated to protect the nearby marine reserves, thereby preserving the surrounding marine environment.The project features energy-efficient systems, which are in line with Monacos carbon neutrality goals for 2025. Solar panels generate 40% of the districts energy needs, while a seawater thalasso-thermal loop efficiently provides heating and cooling, significantly reducing overall energy consumption. Rainwater is collected for irrigation purposes, and green roofs, together with over 1,000 trees, play a crucial role in mitigating urban heat. While a 1-hectare (2.47-acre) pine forest has been created, providing residents with environmental and recreational advantages.Mareterra is designed to improve Monacos cultural infrastructure. Around 6,000 square meters have been given to exhibition spaces, offering venues for cultural events. It also features restored artworks such as Alexander Calders Quatre Lances in Princess Gabriella Square, and a Meditation Space designed by Tia-Thy Nguyn. A pedestrianized promenade is created to connect different parts of the district while offering serene views of the sea. Different residential, commercial, and recreational areas have been connected and linked.The post Monaco Welcomes An Impressive Floating Eco-District Focused On Public Access first appeared on Yanko Design.

When I last wrote to you in this magazine, I told you a bit about the MIT Collaboratives, an effort to spark new ideas and modes of inquiry and help the people of MIT solve global problems. Since then, weve launched the first collaborative, grounding it in the human-centered fields represented by our School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS). Were calling it the MIT Human Insight Collaborative, or MITHIC.In broad terms, MITHIC is an endorsement of the quality of our faculty in these fields and an expression of how deeply we value the scholarly and artistic practices that expand our understanding of the things that make us human.In a practical sense, its designed to help our scholars in human-centered disciplines go big. MITHIC will give them the resources to pursue their most innovative ideas within their discipline, create opportunities for them to collaborate with colleagues outside it, and enable them to explore fresh approaches to teaching our students.We celebrated the launch of MITHIC with a showcase of creative excellence. MIT faculty shared research that blends the humanistic with the technological, MIT students improvised on jazz saxophone, and in a keynote conversation, the acclaimed novelist Min Jin Lee talked about her dedication to putting the human at the center of her work.Our faculty are wonderfully energized by MITHIC, and more than 100 have already taken part in the collaboratives Meeting of the Minds events, organized to connect researchers across the Institute who work on similar topicsfrom cybersecurity to food security, climate simulations to the bioeconomy.There may never have been a more important time for society to make humane choices about new technologies. And Im thrilled that at MIT weve created a collaborative powered by human insight to support our scholars, students, explorers, and makers in shaping a future of technology in service to humanity.

THE CULT OF THE FOUNDER. THE CULT OF THE TECH GENIUS.Beware: Silicon Valleys cultists want to turn you into a disruptive deviant. Techs cult of the founder bounces back. Silicon Valleys Strange, Apocalyptic Cults. How the cult of personality and tech-bro culture is killing technology. Company or cult? Is your corporate culture cultish? The Cult of Company Culture Is Back. But Do Tech Workers Even Want Perks Anymore? 10 tech gadgets with a cult following on Amazonand why theyre worth it. 13 steps to developing a cult-like company culture.The headlines seem to write themselves (if that clich is allowed anymore in the age of ChatGPT and generative AI). Tech is culty. But that is a metaphor, right? Right?!When I first saw Michael Saylors Twitter account, I wasnt sure. Saylor is an entrepreneur, tech executive, and former billionaire. Once reportedly the richest man in the Washington, DC, area, he lost most of his $7 billion net worth in 2000 when, in his mid-30s, he reached a settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission after it brought charges against him and two of his colleagues at a company called MicroStrategy for inaccurate reporting of their financial results. But I had no idea who he was back then.In 2021 Saylor started showing up in my Twitter feed. His profile picture showed a man with chiseled features, silver hair, and stubble sitting in a power pose and looking directly into the camera, a black dress shirt unbuttoned to display a generous amount of his neck. It was a typical tech entrepreneurs publicity shot except for the lightning bolts blasting from his eyes, and the golden halo crown. Then there were his tweets:#Bitcoin is Truth.#Bitcoin is For All Mankind.#Bitcoin is Different.Trust the Timechain.Fiat [government-backed currency] is immoral. #Bitcoin is immortal.#Bitcoin is a shining city in cyberspace, waiting for you.#Bitcoin is the heartbeat of Planet Earth.As MITs humanist chaplain, I follow a lot of ministers, rabbis, imams, and monks online. Very few religious leaders would dare to be this religious on social media. They know that few of their readers want to see such hubris. Why, then, does there seem to be an audience for this seemingly cultish behavior from a cryptocurrency salesman? Are tech leaders like Saylor leading actual cults?According to Bretton Putter, an expert on startups and CEO of the consulting firm CultureGene, this neednt be a major concern: Its pretty much impossible, Putter writes, for a business to become a full-blown cult. And if a tech company or other business happens to resemble a cult, that might just be a good thing, he argues: If you succeed in building a cultlike culture similar to the way that Apple, Tesla, Zappos, Southwest Airlines, Nordstrom, and Harley-Davidson have, you will experience loyalty, dedication, and commitment from your employees (and customers) that is way beyond the norm.Are the cultlike aspects of tech companies really that benign? Or should we be worried? To find the answer, I interviewed Steve Hassan, a top expert on exit counseling, or helping people escape destructive cults.At age 19, while he was studying poetry at Queens College in New York City in the early 1970s, Hassan was recruited into the Unification Churchthe famously manipulative cult also known as the Moonies. Over his next 27 months as a member of the church, Hassan helped with its fundraising, recruiting, and political efforts, which involved personally meeting with the cult leader Sun Myung Moon multiple times. He lived in communal housing, slept only a few hours a night, and sold carnations on street corners seven days a week for no pay. He was told to drop out of college and turn his bank account over to the church. In 1976, he fell asleep at the wheel while driving a Moonie fundraising van and drove into the back of a tractor-trailer at high speed. He called his sister from the hospital, and his parents hired former members to help deprogram him and extract him from the cult.After the Jonestown mass suicide and murders of 1978 brought attention to the lethal dangers of cult mind control, Hassan founded a nonprofit organization, Ex-Moon Inc. Since then, hes earned a handful of graduate degrees (including a doctorate in the study of cults), started numerous related projects, and written a popular book on how practices with which he is all too familiar have crept into the mainstream of US politics in recent years. (That 2019 book, The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control, seemed even more relevant in early 2024, when a video called God Made Trump went viral across the campaign trail.) Hassan even found himself advising Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin, leader of the second impeachment trial against Donald Trump, in 2021, on how to think and communicate about the cultish aspects of the violent mob of Trump followers who stormed the Capitol on January 6 of that year.I wanted to ask Hassan what he makes of the discourse around tech cults, but first its important to understand how he thinks about cults in the first place. Hassans dissertation was titled The BITE Model of Authoritarian Control: Undue Influence, Thought Reform, Brainwashing, Mind Control, Trafficking, and the Law. The idea was to create a model that could measure cult exploitation and manipulation, or what Hassan and other experts in related fields call undue influence. His BITE model looks to evaluate the ways social groups and institutions attempt to control followers behavior, information access, thoughts, and emotions. Because there is no one quintessential, Platonic definition of a cult, what matters is where a given instance of potential cultishness falls on an influence continuum. In this continuum model, Hassan evaluates the ways in which institutional cultures attempt to influence people. To what extent are individuals allowed to be their authentic selves or required to adopt a false cult identity? Are leaders accountable to others, or do they claim absolute authority? Do organizations encourage growth in the people who participate in them, or do they seek to preserve their own power over all else? While any kind of person or group can struggle with some of the dimensions on Hassans continuum chart (which lists constructive behaviors at one end and destructive behaviors at the other), healthier organizations will tend toward constructive responses more of the time, whereas unhealthier institutionsthose more truly worthy of the cult label in the most negative sensewill tend toward destructive responses such as grandiosity, hate, demands for obedience, elitism, authoritarianism, deceptiveness, or hunger for power.It turns out that there are some real, meaningful similarities between cults and tech, according to Hassan. This is the perfect mind-control device, he told me, holding up his iPhone. He explained that when he joined the Moonies in 1974, cult recruiters had to get information from the victim. Now, he said, users of everyday technologies are sitting ducks: There are 5,000 data points on every voting American in the dark web, and there are companies that will collect and sell that data.The first time Hassan was told about cryptocurrency, he added, it smacked of multilevel marketing to him. The proposition that you can make a fortune in a very short amount of time, with almost no labor, was something he had seen many times in his work. As was the idea that if you become an early investor in such a scheme, youll make more money if you recruit more people to join you. The people who started it are always going to make 99% of the money, Hassan said. And as in the cults that recruited him and continue to recruit the kinds of people who ultimately become his clients, everyone else is going to get burned.All of this would certainly seem to explain why I so frequently hear from people, eager for me to know they are fellow atheists, who tell me to buy some bitcoin because it will rewire my neurons and cure me of the woke mind virus.Of course, it should be noted that some scholars have complained about Hassans work, arguing that brainwashing and mind control are concepts for which there is not sufficient evidence. But Im not claiming that tech uses literal brainwashing, nor is it like when a character in a Scooby-Doo episode hears You are getting very sleepy and then their eyes become squiggles. Hassan probably wouldnt say so either.Companies dont need to go to such extremes to exert undue influence on us, though. And as is clear from the headlines I cited above, a lot of companies have been accused of, or associated with, a bit of cultishness.I wont attempt to evaluate anyones cultish tendencies on a scale of 1 to 10. But I see crypto sales techniques as a particularly good example of cultlike behavior, because if theres one thing cults need to be good at to sustain their existence, its separating people from their wallets. Cryptocurrency has specialized in that to extraordinary effect.Its all a continuum, and it would be hard to find a person whose life is completely devoid of anything cultish, technological or otherwise. But as a culture, we are careening dangerously toward the wrong end of Hassans chart. Or to quote a Michael Saylor tweet, We all stumble in the dark until we see the cyber light. #Bitcoin.Adapted from Tech Agnostic: How Technology Became the Worlds Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation. Copyright 2024 by Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain at MIT. Used with permission of the publisher, MIT Press.

We need a strategy to deal with a hydra.Its Sunday, January 14, 2024, more than 50 hours since the annual MIT Mystery Hunt kicked off at noon on Friday, and Setec Astronomy is one of more than 200 teams racing to solve hundreds of puzzles over three days. The 60-some members of Setec, many of whom are joining remotely from as far away as Australia, are making good progress, even though many of us are running on limited sleep and questionable nutritional decisions. Several of the chalkboards in the Building 2 classroom weve been assigned for our team headquarters are covered in lists of puzzle solutions or messy diagrams charting out theories about how to crack the various challengesall of them constructed, as Mystery Hunt tradition dictates, by the most recent winner, in this case The Team Formerly Known as the Team to Be Named Later.The hydra were dealing with is a metapuzzle: We have to find a way to use the solutions from other puzzles that weve already solved to extract one more answer. If we solve this one, well be rewarded with more puzzles.We know we need to diagram the answers for this round of puzzles as a binary tree. In keeping with the hydra metapuzzles mythological analogue, every time we solve one puzzle, two more branch off until we have a diagram five levels deep. Were still missing answers from several unsolved puzzles that would help us figure out how the diagram works and how to extract an answer to the metapuzzle. The diagram weve drawn, in green chalk, gets more chaotic with every addition, erasure, and annotation we squeeze onto the overcrowded chalkboard. But we can sense that were just one aha! away from a solution.MITs Mystery Hunt has been challenging puzzle enthusiasts every year since Brad Schaefer 78, PhD 83, wrote 12 subclues on a single sheet of paper as a challenge for friends during Independent Activities Period (IAP) in 1981. The answers led solvers to an Indian Head penny he had hidden on campus. Todays Hunts are still built around that basic concept, but what constitutes a challenge has changed over four decades. One of the clues from the original 1981 Hunt is just a missing word in a quote: He that plays the king shall be _____; his majesty shall have tribute of me. Its easy to solve today with Google, but in 1981, even if you knew it was Shakespeare, if you didnt notice the subtle hint that you should look for a character referring to a play within the play, it might have taken a few hours of skimming the Bards collected works to find the answer.The Setec Astronomy team tries to map out whether the human knot theyve gotten themselves into can be untangled.JADE CHONGSATHAPORNPONG 24/MIT TECHNIQUEWe add a few more solutions to the hydra diagram over the next few hours. Eventually someone notices that all the answers in the fifth level of the diagram seem to have an odd prevalence of Ls and Rs. This is the aha! moment: They tell us how to navigate the binary tree. From the first node at the top of the tree, we follow the Ls and Rs in the order they appear in each of the 16 solutions on the fifth level. Take the left branch, then right, then left again, landing on a word that starts with H. The second fifth-level answer leads us to a word that starts with E. Repeating the process with all 16 answers spells out an apt way to deal with a hydra: HEADTOHEADBATTLE. (Puzzle solutions are traditionally written in all caps with no spaces or punctuation.) Those of us whove been tackling the puzzle take a moment to enjoy our victory before splitting up to find new puzzles to work on.Some elements of the Mystery Hunt are hard to describe, the kind of must-be-seen ingenuity that also inspires hacks on the Great Dome and any number of above-and-beyond engineering projects showcased around campus every year. Most of the puzzles are utterly unique, although they do often incorporate logic and word problems as well as more mainstream elements like crosswords, sudoku, and Wordle. But almost anything can be turned into a puzzle. For example, chess puzzles might be combined with the card game Magic: The Gathering. Or solvers could be asked to organize a Git repository with 10,000 out-of-order commits (that is, find the correct sequence of 10,000 changes to a file as it was tracked in a version control system), identify duets from musicals, or draw on their knowledge of pop culture trivia.For most of its history, the Mystery Hunt had little official status on campus. By tradition as much as any organizational effort, teams simply showed up in Lobby 7 on the Friday before the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday for the kickoff. In 2014, the MIT Puzzle Club was formed to help provide year-to-year continuity and other support, such as securing rooms for teams to work in and reserving Kresge Auditorium for the opening ceremonies. Puzzle Club also hosts other events, such as mini puzzle hunts and sudoku and logic puzzle competitionswhich Becca Chang 26, the clubs current president, says has helped a lot with outreach to new students or anyone who might be interested in [puzzles].Technology has enabled the Mystery Hunt to grow and evolve in significant ways, and not just in terms of the kinds of puzzles that are possible. Through the mid-1990s, a single person could take on the responsibility of writing and running the event. Today its a yearlong commitment for the winning team to design the next years Hunt. Doing so requires managing creative output and technological infrastructure that rival those of a small business. Duties include spending thousands of hours writing and testing puzzles, constructing physical puzzles and props, and building a dynamic website that can withstand the huge influx of puzzle-hungry visitors.Todays Hunts are built around a story. Here John Bromels as the god Neptune checks in on Galactic Trendsetters progress to restore the god Pluto after his planet was demoted.JADE CHONGSATHAPORNPONG 24/MIT TECHNIQUEJust organizing a team of solvers can be a major undertaking, especially now that more and more participants are joining remotely. Anjali Tripathi 09, who started the team Im Not a Planet Either in 2015, got her introduction to puzzle hunts through a miniature Mystery Hunt that Simmons Hall runs for first-years. After tackling the main event with the Simmons team on campus as an undergrad, she participated remotely for the first time in 2010. I was abroad in England and still wanted to do Hunt, and I remember how hard that was, she says. The team had no infrastructure for it.Its about connecting with other humans thats why we do it.Erin Rhode 04, whose team name one year was the entire text of Ayn Rands Atlas ShruggedToday, solvers can work together across the room or across a continent. Platforms like Slack and Discord have become indispensable to many teams, which use them for updates and announcements as well as creating separate channels where people can tackle a given puzzle together. Many teams use applications that organize the convoluted deluge of puzzles into a workflow so everyone can see which have been solved, which need attention, and whos working on what. Google Docs and Google Sheets make it easy for multiple people to contribute to progress on the same puzzle whether theyre sitting side by side on campus or are separated by several time zones.I think especially post-2020, there is just the expectation that everything is going to be accessible online, says Tripathi, who still has a Hunt-related Google doc from 2008, just a couple of years after the service launched.But even as the Mystery Hunt has adapted to the internetand to increasingly powerful search engines, smartphones, the Zoom era, and even some machine-learning applicationsat its core it remains a very human experience.Its about connecting with other humansthats why we do it, says Erin Rhode 04, a longtime Mystery Hunter whose team has won twice. She recalls being inducted into the Hunt as a first-year in 2001. An upperclassman came in and was like, Youre coming to the math majors lounge. Were doing this puzzle hunt thing. The name of Rhodes team changes every year, though they might be best known for the year their name was the entire text of Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged. Last year, they were . (Thats not a typo or a missing wordits the zero-width space, a Unicode non-character primarily used in document formatting.)Early Mystery Hunts led solvers to an Indian Head penny hidden on campus. Today, winning teams are awarded coins unique to each years Hunt. Ringed with a repeating MH24, the 2024 coin shows the cities teams visited on their quest.JADE CHONGSATHAPORNPONG 24/MIT TECHNIQUELike so much of the Hunt, team names are an exercise in creativity. The full name of the team running the 2024 Mystery Hunt was officially The Team Formerly Known as the Team Formerly Known as the Team Formerly Known as the Team Formerly Known as the Team Formerly Known as the Team to Be Named Later. Some teams keep their name every year, like Setec Astronomy (an anagram for too many secrets, in a reference to the classic 1992 heist film Sneakers). Others change every year or every few years, or when teams merge, as when Death from Above joined forces with Project Electric Mayhem to become Death and Mayhem.Rhode remembers one particular puzzle from her first Hunt that she and her team (known that year as the Vermicious Knids) worked on through the night. They had to figure out that a list of enigmatic phrases were clues to song titles. For example, Of course; you just go north on Highway 101 clued the song Do You Know the Way to San Jose? I think today, we would have solved that puzzle in about an hour, Rhode says. There werent song lyric databases back then. And so it was a lot more sitting around on your own trying to come up with songs as opposed to just finding some master list and then searching it. Writing puzzles with the knowledge that solvers will have a slew of tools at hand is just part of the process. Use whatever technology you have at your disposal to solve the puzzle is the general rule of thumb, says Jon Schneider 13, a machine-learning researcher who hunts with Galactic Trendsetters . (The in their team name is pronounced like a plane taking off and landing, respectively.) Schneider has been hunting since 2010, when it was common for solvers to have to identify clips of songs or other audio. Hes seen that change in the past decade, though: Audio recognition [technology] like Shazam has become a thing, so its harder to create puzzles that require the skill of music recognition.When youre a constructor, you try to figure out: What is my challenge for the solver? says Dan Katz 03. Katz has solved and written a lot of puzzles. (In fact, he created a five-puzzle mini Hunt for this issues Puzzle Corner.) He attended his first Mystery Hunt in 1998, as a junior in high school, before he had even applied to MIT. Hes been part of a winning team eight times (probably a record) and competes in events like the World Sudoku Championship and US Puzzle Championship. In Katzs view, technology should make puzzling more interesting for the solver. While solvers might need to, say, code a program, organize information in a spreadsheet, or navigate a video-game-like interface to arrive at an answer, what he prizes most is the mental challenge of figuring out how to solve a puzzle.During whats known as the Mid-Hunt Runaround, a team follows a set of cryptic instructions that lead them on a subterranean journey across campus.JADE CHONGSATHAPORNPONG 24/MIT TECHNIQUERhode misses the days before an app was able to listen to a few seconds of a song and identify it. One of my superpowers in the early days of the Hunt was: Play me a bunch of pop songs and I can identify like 90% of them, she says. Now everybodys got Shazam on their phone. And so as fast as I might be, Shazam was always going to be faster.That doesnt mean puzzles cant be based on song identificationor image identification, another common puzzle element that has been made trivial by tools like Googles image search capabilities. It just means constructors must become more creative. You have to obscure the images or the music in such a way that the technology cant find it quickly, Rhode says. She describes a puzzle she wrote when she wanted solvers to identify songs without using technology: I arranged eight songs a cappella and sang them myself, but buzzing like a bee. And the whole idea was you cant Shazam that.Schneiders team took a similar approach to constructing a puzzle in which solvers had to identify specific visual artistsnot by their work, but by their distinctive style. Solvers were prompted to upload an image of their choosing, and a generative AI tool similar to DALL-E rendered it in the style of the artist they were supposed to name.I mostly justwant to be surprised.Jon Schneider 13 of the team Galactic Trendsetters Thats not the only puzzle to have incorporated some machine-learning elements in the last few years. A few examples have used semantic similarity scoring systems where solvers have to guess words or phrasesa kind of machine-learning-enabled version of hot or cold.Even if machine learning has potential as a tool for puzzle constructors, generative AI is unlikely to solve Mystery Hunt puzzles anytime soon. ChatGPT can answer questions that might be helpful in getting started and maybe even help solve a crossword clue or two, but the puzzles are often so unusual that it doesnt know where to begin. When presented with them, it usually responds by stating that it would need more context or clues in order to proceed.Schneider did find ChatGPT very helpful, though, in solving a nonMystery Hunt puzzle about navigating the byzantine rules of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, which he admits hes never played. A few years ago, there would have been no way around spending hours digging through the rulebooks and figuring out each step, but giving the puzzle to ChatGPT worked. It was really good at doing this. I guess it had trained on enough data of people playing Dungeons & Dragons that this was within its capabilities, he says.Schneider is optimistic that new technology will be integrated into Mystery Hunt in creative ways, expanding the scope of what puzzle constructors can come up with to entertain solvers. Ultimately, he says, I mostly just want to be surprised.As the sun sets on Sunday, Setec continues solving puzzles at a steady pace, but were also still unlocking new sections of the Hunta sign that were still some distance from the endgame, though rumors (but never spoilers) from friends on other teams suggest that a few teams might be closing in. As midnight rolls around theres still no announcement, and so we push on. Ultimately, the 2024 Hunt ends up running into Monday morning, one of only a handful of times its taken more than 60 hours to complete.The 2024 Mystery Hunt included what was called the Herc-U-Lease Scavenger Hunt. As part of the scavenger hunt, teams were asked to have as many members as possible look as identical as possible. Death and Mayhem realized that many members were wearing black T-shirts and decided to unify the look with paper hats fashioned from copies of The Tech someone found on campus.MOLLY FREY/DEATH & MAYHEMA little after 5 a.m., team Death and Mayhem solves the final puzzle to win the 2024 Mystery Huntand the responsibility of developing the 2025 Hunt, which kicks off on January 17. In the end, 266 teams have solved at least one of the 2024 Hunts 237 puzzles and Setec Astronomy has solved 174. (Teams typically care less about postgame rankings than about how many puzzles they get to before time runs out.)The Team Formerly Known as the Team to Be Named Later sends out an announcement that a wrap-up event, at which theyll give a full overview of the weekend and hand over the reins to Death and Mayhem, will begin at noon in 26-100. Because creating a Mystery Hunt is such a daunting task, Death and Mayhem got to work on this years within hours of winning, says James Douberley 13, who assumed the title of benevolent dictator to orchestrate and oversee the teams puzzle writing.The weight of expectation is not lost on Douberley and his teammates: This is a once-a-year event that holds a lot of meaning for many participants.The Mystery Hunt is about solving puzzles, but its also far more social and immersive than puzzle books and escape rooms. In 2024, nearly 2,000 people representing 91 teams showed up on campus to participateand another 2,450 or so signed up to puzzle from afar. All told, solvers included 52 faculty members, 278 students, and 950 alumni, ranging from recent graduates to those who got their degrees decades ago. For Chang, the Hunt is an opportunity to connect with the broader community, including alumni from her dorm whom she doesnt see often. This is the one time in the year that we get to all just be in one place together and do this thing that we love, she says. Its just a really great bonding experience.Shortly after solving the final puzzles in the 2024 MIT Mystery Hunt, members of Death & Mayhem received the custom coins awarded to the victors and posed for a photo with Aphrodite (of the Team Formerly Known as the Team to Be Named Later), who blew kisses in celebration.COURTESY OF DEATH & MAYHEMThe MIT campus plays a special role in the Hunt. Maybe you have to use the walls of the List Visual Arts Center lobby as a grid for a logic puzzle, or find certain names on the memorial plaques in Lobby 10 whose first letters spell out an answer. But its not just that clues can be part of the physical spaceits that campus is the epicenter for the MIT spirit of creativity, inventiveness, and industriousness that makes the Mystery Hunt unique. People talk about New York being a character in movies, Katz says. I feel like MIT is a character in Mystery Hunt.For Douberley, the Mystery Hunt takes him back to his student days, when he tackled hard challenges through marathon work sessions and all-nighters. You fall asleep on the floor, and youre in the dorm lounge and your friend comes and wakes you up and says, Heres a coffeeI need your help with something, he says. And that is something that lives with you for the rest of your life.Editors Note:The 2025 MIT Mystery Hunt kicks off on January 17, 2025. But if youre eager to start puzzling before thenor get a taste of puzzling if youve never taken part beforecheck out theMIT Mystery Heist, a pre-Hunt round of puzzles written by the Mystery Hunt team known as the Providence Crime Syndication. Learn more and solve atmitmysteryheist.com.

In 2024, plenty of remarkable projects worldwide reached completion. From headline-making new housing and hotel designs in Denver to scale-pushing cultural centers in China to redevelopments of modern classics in San Francisco, here are some of our highlights from Archinect's news coverage this year.MAD ArchitectsOne River North by MAD Architects. Photo: Vic Ryan.MAD was on a roll this year, pitching new designs and opening completed projects left and right. The studio kicked off the year with their massive overhaul of the Jiaxing Train Station in China (dubbed the "train station in the forest"), followed by the curvy ZGC International Innovation Center in Beijing, and a "flying saucer-shaped" installation for the Guangdong Nanhai Land Art Festival in Yanqiao Village. Outside of China, MAD dominated headlines and comments sections in October with the anticipated opening of their "cracked-open" One River North scheme in Denver, the Ephemeral Bubble installation for the Echigo-Tsuma...

Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable similarities to human cognitive processes ability to form abstractions and adapt to new situations. Just as humans have historically made sense of complex experiences through fundamental concepts like physics and mathematics, autoregressive transformers now show comparable capabilities through in-context learning (ICL). Recent research has highlighted how these models can adapt to tricky tasks without parameter updates, suggesting the formation of internal abstractions similar to human mental models. Studies have begun exploring the mechanistic aspects of how pretrained LLMs represent latent concepts as vectors in their representations. However, questions remain about the underlying reasons for these task vectors existence and their varying effectiveness across different tasks.Researchers have proposed several theoretical frameworks to understand the mechanisms behind in-context learning in LLMs. One significant approach views ICL through a Bayesian framework, suggesting a two-stage algorithm that estimates posterior probability and likelihood. Parallel to this, studies have identified task-specific vectors in LLMs that can trigger desired ICL behaviors. At the same time, other research has revealed how these models encode concepts like truthfulness, time, and space as linearly separable representations. Through mechanistic interpretability techniques such as causal mediation analysis and activation patching, researchers have begun to uncover how these concepts emerge in LLM representations and influence downstream ICL task performance, demonstrating that transformers implement different algorithms based on inferred concepts.Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Improbable AI introduce the concept encoding-decoding mechanism, providing a compelling explanation for how transformers develop internal abstractions. Research on a small transformer trained on sparse linear regression tasks reveals that concept encoding emerges as the model learns to map different latent concepts into distinct, separable representation spaces. This process operates in tandem with the development of concept-specific ICL algorithms through concept decoding. Testing across various pretrained model families, including Llama-3.1 and Gemma-2 in different sizes, demonstrates that larger language models exhibit this concept encoding-decoding behavior when processing natural ICL tasks. The research introduces Concept Decodability as a geometric measure of internal abstraction formation, showing that earlier layers encode latent concepts while latter layers condition algorithms on these inferred concepts, with both processes developing interdependently.The theoretical framework for understanding in-context learning draws heavily from a Bayesian perspective, which proposes that transformers implicitly infer latent variables from demonstrations before generating answers. This process operates in two distinct stages: latent concept inference and selective algorithm application. Experimental evidence from synthetic tasks, particularly using sparse linear regression, demonstrates how this mechanism emerges during model training. When trained on multiple tasks with different underlying bases, models develop distinct representational spaces for different concepts while simultaneously learning to apply concept-specific algorithms. The research reveals that concepts sharing overlaps or correlations tend to share representational subspaces, suggesting potential limitations in how models distinguish between related tasks in natural language processing.The research provides compelling empirical validation of the concept encoding-decoding mechanism in pretrained Large Language Models across different families and scales, including Llama-3.1 and Gemma-2. Through experiments with part-of-speech tagging and bitwise arithmetic tasks, researchers demonstrated that models develop more distinct representational spaces for different concepts as the number of in-context examples increases. The study introduces Concept Decodability (CD) as a metric to quantify how well latent concepts can be inferred from representations, showing that higher CD scores correlate strongly with better task performance. Notably, concepts frequently encountered during pretraining, such as nouns and basic arithmetic operations, show clearer separation in representational space compared to more complex concepts. The research further demonstrates through finetuning experiments that early layers play a crucial role in concept encoding, with modifications to these layers yielding significantly better performance improvements than changes to later layers.The concept encoding-decoding mechanism provides valuable insights into several key questions about Large Language Models behavior and capabilities. The research addresses the varying success rates of LLMs across different in-context learning tasks, suggesting that performance bottlenecks can occur at both the concept inference and algorithm decoding stages. Models show stronger performance with concepts frequently encountered during pretraining, such as basic logical operators, but may struggle even with known algorithms if concept distinction remains unclear. The mechanism also explains why explicit modeling of latent variables doesnt necessarily outperform implicit learning in transformers, as standard transformers naturally develop effective concept encoding capabilities. Also, this framework offers a theoretical foundation for understanding activation-based interventions in LLMs, suggesting that such methods work by directly influencing the encoded representations that guide the models generation process.Check out the Paper. 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. Dont Forget to join our60k+ ML SubReddit. Mohammad Asjad+ postsAsjad is an intern consultant at Marktechpost. He is persuing B.Tech in mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Asjad is a Machine learning and deep learning enthusiast who is always researching the applications of machine learning in healthcare. [Download] Evaluation of Large Language Model Vulnerabilities Report (Promoted)

Universal Pictures has revealed that Christopher Nolan's next film will be The Odyssey, a 'mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX film technology' that will be released in theaters on July 17, 2026.Nolan's The Odyssey will bring "Homer's foundational saga to IMAX film screens for the first time" and will be a retelling of the Ancient Greek epic poem that was first written in the 8th or 7th century BC.For those unfamiliar, The Odyssey follows the journey of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, who travels the world for 10 years in an attempt to get home after the Trojan War. While Universal didn't reveal any further details on Nolan's The Odyssey, reports have already been painting a picture of the stacked cast the film will have.Matt Damon was the first person reported to be in talks to star in Nolan's next film, which marks his return to Universal after 2023's Oppenheimer, which won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. Alongside Damon, reports state he may be joined by Charlize Theron, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong'o, and Robert Pattinson.Image Credit: Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty ImagesWe're obviously excited about Nolan's next film as we gave Oppenheimer a 10/10. In our review, we said, "A biopic in constant free fall, Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolans most abstract yet most exacting work, with themes of guilt writ large through apocalyptic IMAX nightmares that grow both more enormous and more intimate as time ticks on."A disturbing, mesmerizing vision of what humanity is capable of bringing upon itself, both through its innovation, and through its capacity to justify any atrocity."For more, read about Nolan's very public split with Warner Bros. and which movie we said was the best of 2024.Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.Adam Bankhurst is a writer for IGN. You can follow him on X/Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on TikTok.

It's the holiday season, which means festive activities, family time, and, most importantly, the Steam Winter Sale. With discounts on everything from massive open world RPGs to pixel-art platformers, it can be tough to limit yourself to just a few games. While I'm all for splurging on 2024 releases, if you're looking to maximize bang for your buck, you could also pick up a solid bunch of slightly older (but still amazing) PC games. For example, right now you can get over 10 copies of Fallout: New Vegas for the price of one S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2. A starting point for Steam sales should always be checking your Wishlist, but if you're looking for something new (or want to make sure you're not missing an obvious deal), I found 33 of the best PC games for $10 or less. The Complete Edition of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for $10The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Complete EditionThe Witcher 3's massive open world, compelling characters, and meaningful approach to player decision-making raised the bar for RPGs back in 2015. After The Witcher 4 was revealed at The Game Awards, what better time to play (or replay) one of the greatest RPGs of all time? Especially now that the Complete Edition, which includes the base game and every DLC, is down to just $9.99.More RPGs Under $10: If you're looking for a narrative-driven RPG, I highly recommend Disco Elysium, which is also down to $10. Other RPGs with deep discounts include Bethesda properties like Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas, and (of course) Skyrim. Meanwhile, Baldur's Gate 3 fans who have a hankering for more turn-based combat can pick up one of Larian's older games, Divinity: Original Sin, for just $3.99. Fallout 4Fallout: New VegasDisco Elysium - The Final CutThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Special EditionSee it at SteamControl - Ultimate EditionFable AnniversarySupports cross-platform co-opDivinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition40% Off Stardew ValleyStardew ValleyLeave your office job to inherit your grandfather's farm and help rebuild (or price out) the local town in Stardew Valley. IGN re-reviewed Stardew Valley after the farming game got a massive update and ended up giving it one of the only 10/10 game reviews for all of 2024. Given that Stardew was somehow my most-played game on Steam and Nintendo Switch, I have to agree that "Masterpiece" is a fair assessment.More Cozy Games Under $10:Cozy Grove, which I feel is more like Animal Crossing than Stardew, is on sale for under $5. If you're the type of person who enjoys organizing, I'd recommend Unpacking, while Spiritfarer brings the management game genre to the afterlife. Cozy GroveUnpackingSpiritfarer: Farewell EditionPotion CraftDOOM Eternal for $10DOOM EternalThe DOOM series was pretty foundational to the FPS genre, and one of the best DOOM games of the modern era has dropped to under $10. In IGN's 9/10 DOOM Eternal review, Ryan McCaffrey highlights the game's satisfying difficulty: "This excellent refinement of the already outstanding 2016 reboot makes you an unspoken deal: if you can keep up with it, it will keep up with you."More FPS Games Under $10: For more single-player shooting, you can get six Halo games for $10 with The Master Chief Collection. Multiplayer shooters like Siege and Battlefield 2042 are also under $10 for the time being. Halo: The Master Chief CollectionTitanfall 2Battlefield 2042Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege50% Off Hollow Knight Hollow KnightHollow Knight is one of the most rewarding gaming experiences I've had, and also the closest I've come to throwing my Switch at the wall in frustration (that's a positive, by the way). Per IGN's 9/10 review: "The world of Hallownest is compelling and rich, full of story thats left for you to discover on your own, and built with branching paths that offer an absurd amount of choice in how you go about discovering it." Now you can find out why there's always a chorus of comments begging for a Silksong release date for just $8. More Platformers Under $10: Like Hollow Knight, Celeste doesn't shy away from challenging the player, and additional "B-sides" for every level up the ante for even platforming veterans. I recommend Little Nightmares to any horror fan, while the 2020 Ori sequel offers particularly creative puzzles. CelesteLittle NightmaresIt Takes TwoOri and the Will of the WispsCivilization VI for $2.99Sid Meiers Civilization VIWith Civ VII set to release in just a couple of months, most of the Sid Meier franchise is on sale. While I prefer Civ V's map mechanics, Civ VI, in my experience, is better optimized for setting up multiplayer lobbies. Convince your friends to drop a couple of bucks, and you can all lock into an empire-building marathon that will most likely end in some form of betrayal. More Strategy and Simulation Games Under $10: Most Total War games and DLCs are discounted, though one of the best deals is the Warhammer base game for $6. And if you've ever wanted to travel across the entirety of Europe for $5, now you can (with Euro Truck Simulator 2). Total War: WarhammerStellarisCities: SkylinesPlanet CoasterEuro Truck Simulator 275% Off Overcooked 2Overcooked 2If you're looking for something cheap you can convince your friends to pick up and play with you, look no further than Overcooked 2. The cooperative cooking game allows up to four players to hop into a campaign that, with arcade-style levels and goofy physics, will probably lead to some screaming. But, as IGN's Overcooked 2 review describes, this "frantic and inventive co-op game... manages to turn frustration into charm."More Co-op Games Under $10: For larger groups, I also recommend For the King and Castle Crashers. It Takes Two is one of the best games for two-player co-op, and only one person has to buy the game courtesy of Hazelight Studio's "Friend's Pass." And, of course, Portal 2, down to just $2, will always be a co-op classic. Stardew ValleyIt Takes TwoCastle CrashersPortal 2For the KingWhat did you pick up in the sale? Anything you'd recommend that's missing from my list? Let us know in the comments below!

For just one more day, Best Buy is slashing $100 off the new Asus ROG Ally X gaming handheld PC. Best Buy was the only vendor that discounted the Ally X for all of Black Friday and Cyber Monday and according to the product page, this deal is going to expire in one day. If you're shopping for the absolute best gaming handheld PC on the market, this is your last chance to pick one up below market price for the rest of the year.$100 Off the New Asus ROG Ally XAsus ROG Ally X AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme 1TB Gaming HandheldIn our Asus ROG Ally X review, gaming guru Jacqueline Thomas wrote that "the Asus ROG Ally X is simply the best handheld gaming PC on the market right now (knocking the Legion Go off its throne). With more and faster memory and double the battery as the original Ally, the Ally X will run any modern game without dying in an hour and a half."The Asus ROG Ally X improves on the original ROG Ally in several significant ways, including a much bigger 80Whr battery with nearly double the runtime, more RAM, a beefier cooling system, double the storage capacity on the base model, and better controls. It carries over the AMD Z1 Extreme processor and 7" 1080p 120Hz display found on the more expensive of the two original Ally models. It's also more powerful than the Steam Deck, so if you prioritize visual fidelity and technical performance over an intuitive, easy-to-use UI, then the ROG Ally X is the better choice for you.Like the Ally, the Ally X runs off the Windows 11 operating system. The benefit of this OS compared to the Steam Deck's proprietary Steam OS client is that you can install pretty much any Windows-based game launcher, including Battle.net, Xbox Games Pass, Epic Games Store, GOG, Ubisoft Connect, and of course Steam itself. That makes it more attractive to gamers who like to play games that aren't normally available on Steam and are harder to load onto the Steam Deck, like Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Minecraft, and more.Why Should You Trust IGN's Deals Team?IGN's deals team has a combined 30+ years of experience finding the best discounts in gaming, tech, and just about every other category. We don't try to trick our readers into buying things they don't need at prices that aren't worth buying something at. Our ultimate goal is to surface the best possible deals from brands we trust and our editorial team has personal experience with. You can check out our deals standards here for more information on our process, or keep up with the latest deals we find on IGN's Deals account on Twitter.Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.