A new industrial facility in suburban Seattle is giving off a whiff of futuristic technology. It can safely treat fecal waste from people and livestock while recycling nutrients that are crucial for agriculture but in increasingly short supply across the nations farmlands.Within the 2.3-acre plant, which smells lightly of ammonia, giant rotating spindles turn steaming-hot septic sludge and biosolids from local wastewater treatment plants into what an engineer calls poop crepes. Giant scrapers then deposit the baked biomatter onto a combination conveyor belt and dryer to yield a growing pile of sterilized fertilizer. The waste-processing method uses compressed steam generated in an earlier step, cutting the electricity needed by 95%. Besides the dry fertilizer, the process yields nearly pure ammonia and water.This system, called Varcor, was designed by the Seattle engineering firm Sedron Technologies and is owned by the SanFranciscobased company Generate Upcycle. Wastewater treatment plants across the country are using high heat, composting, and devices akin to pressure cookers to transform leftover biomass into rich fertilizers, mulches, and other soil additives with names like Bloom and TAGRO (short for Tacoma Grow). Some process the wastewater in a separate step to extract phosphorusan essential plant nutrient and a common element in the human dietand layer it to form round pellets, in a technique a bit like building pearls. This technology, developed by a St. Louisbased company called Ostara, creates a slow-release fertilizer that can be sold back to farmers.We love tackling the yuck factor head-on, says the CEO of Epic Cleantec, which transforms wastewater into clean water and a natural soil additive.Even portable toilets can be vehicles for nutrient recovery, through nitrogen-capturing methods developed by peecycling groups like the Rich Earth Institute and Wasted in Vermont and by Sanitation360 AB in Sweden. Because our protein-rich diets contain abundant nitrogen, the element can be readily recycled from both urine and feces.Making fertilizer from the nutrients that we and other animals excrete has a long and colorful history; for generations it helped Indigenous cultures around the world create exceptionally fertile soil. These systems fell out of favor in Western culture, but researchers and engineers have joined advocates in reframing feces, urine, and their ingredients as invaluable natural resources to reuse instead of waste products to burn or bury. Several companies are now showing how to safely scale up the transformation with energy-efficient technologies. We love tackling the yuck factor head-on, says Aaron Tartakovsky, cofounder and CEO of Epic Cleantec, which uses a chemical reaction and heat to transform wastewater into clean water and a natural soil additive. A small sample of the truckloads of waste being transformed into dry fertilizer.BRYN NELSONA recent review in the Journal of Environmental Management, in fact, touts wastewater treatment plants as renewable biological nitrogen mines that can supply the essential but expensive component from reclaimed sewage sludge at a time when many farmers are finding it harder to obtain. Sewage can, the authors conclude, become an important raw material for the sustainable production of organic-mineral fertilizers from renewable resources available locally, with a low carbon footprint. Extracting nitrogen and phosphorus for reuse can also help remove those pollutants from the plants outflow and reduce the amount of organic matter destined for landfills and manure lagoons, which store and manage huge concentrations of livestock waste. Reinserting ourselves into natures recycling system, in other words, could help us meet the planets growing food needs without unduly fouling the environment.The Varcor system heats the incoming poop and separates it into solid matter and vapor. A process called mechanical vapor recompression allows the compressed steam to be reused as a heat source while the water and ammonia vapor are separated and distilled. The conveyor belt/dryer carries the remaining solids to the giant crepe-making spindles and then into a waiting truck below. The plant is now selling three to four truckloads of this dry fertilizer to farms every week. Stanley Janicki, chief revenue officer for Sedron Technologies, says several companies are also interested in using the ammonia product to make fertilizer instead of deriving it from fossil fuels.It could be really exciting to have a technology like this work if it can help us close the environmental loops on fertilizers and clean water access, Kimberly Worsham, founder and CEO of the sanitation and hygiene consulting agency FLUSH (an acronym for facilitated learning for universal sanitation and hygiene), says of Varcor. I love seeing new technologies coming on that can revolutionize how we use and reuse. But Worsham worries that managing such complex technology could prove unsustainable if it doesnt attract enough workers with the necessary skills.Securing regulatory permits and licenses could also pose challenges. When I look at why this has not been done before, it has very little to do with the technology, says Tartakovsky. It has everything to do with the regulatory framework.Many existing regulations, advocates say, simply never contemplated the potential for wastewater to generate useful products instead of pollutants. The water released by the Varcor plant, for example, is clean enough to be reused, but local officials are proceeding cautiously. To meet discharge regulations, the plant is sending its outflow to a nearby wastewater treatment plant instead of an adjacent wetland.Despite the challenges, the underlying technology is spreading: Two Midwestern dairies have adopted the system, and a third is working on it. Janicki says the biggest one installed, in Indiana, is five times the size of the Seattle-area septic conversion system, with the potential to convert 250 million gallons a year of cow manure into reusable water, organic fertilizer, and ammonia. The energy-efficient transformation of waste into naturally derived products could eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions from stored manure and traditional fertilizer production while offsetting the energy needed to run the farm.Waste-to-fertilizer strategies, even if scaled up, wont be enough on their own to help feed the planets burgeoning population. By viewing people as not only consumers but also producers, however, they could help us take far better advantage of some underrated natural assets that wont run dry anytime soon. Bryn Nelson is a Seattle-based science writer and the author of Flush: The Remarkable Science of an Unlikely Treasure.

Apple Fitness+ kicks off the new year with its biggest lineup of programming, bringing users more ways to stay active and mindful in 2025.

2024 saw many noteworthy early access releases, including Palworld, Enshrouded, The Rogue Prince of Persia, and Hades 2. Supergiant Games ended the year with the massive Olympic Update, adding the final Nocturnal Arms, a new region, and tons of new voice lines. Fortunately, the wait for new content will be short.In a pre-Holidays Steam post, Supergiant confirmed that the next major update would arrive in early 2025 and feature the final confrontation of the alternate route. Another big update is coming later this year, expanding on the story and other various parts. However, you need to wait until Version 1.0 for the true ending.Unfortunately, a release date will depend on how our major updates progress. Suffice it to say that it isnt guaranteed for this year, though never say never. Stay tuned for updates in the meantime.Hades 2 is available for PC early access via Steam and the Epic Games Store. Check out our review for the launch of early access, which we gave a nine out of ten and described as a compelling, absurdly polished title that once again showcases Supergiants prowess in every possible way.

Between all the releases this year, big and small, indie developer Toby Fox reiterated on BlueSky that Deltarune Chapters 3 and 4 are on track for 2025. He even described it as a new catchphrase, following a previous statement about both chapters 100 percent launching this year.As a sequel to the critically acclaimed Undertale, Deltarune launched in October 2018 with Chapter 1; Chapter 2 followed in September 2021. It offers a different setting but some returning characters and similar combat mechanics. The protagonist is Kris, who works with Susie and Ralsei on a quest to save the world. Though you can choose to be a pacifist and or annihilate all before you without remorse, Deltarune mixes things up with its party system and unique abilities for each character.Chapters 1 and 2 are free to download on PS4, PC, and Nintendo Switch. The remaining chapters require purchasing, though Fox has yet to announce pricing. Their launch timing depends on localization and console porting, so stay tuned for further updates. tobyfox (@tobyfox.undertale.com) 2025-01-02T00:27:37.760Z

Remember when Koei Tecmo announced the establishment of a new, unnamed studio last year that would deliver triple-A titles? Led by Yosuke Hayashi of Dead or Alive, Hyrule Warriors, Ninja Gaiden, Metroid: Other M and Fatal Frame fame, its gearing up to reveal its first title in 2025.In the recent end-of-year statements from various Japanese game developers by 4Gamer.net, Hayashi said (translation via Gematsu), 2025 should be a year where we can announce and deliver various titles, including the AAA studio title Im currently in charge of. I hope this year brings even greater excitement to the entertainment format that is video games.Nothing is known about the title in question, though Koei Tecmo said the studio would focus on developing new major titles and exists as a project independent from existing brands. It could very well be a new IP, not unlike last years Rise of the Ronin from Team Ninja, but well have to wait for more details.Speaking of Team Ninja, president Fumihiko Yasuda said the developer hopes to announce and release titles befitting its 30th anniversary. A new Ninja Gaiden serving as a follow-up to the 3D action-adventure series? Time will tell, so stay tuned for updates, but at least theres The Game Bakers Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound to look forward to this Summer. Its a 2D side-scroller that pays homage to the series retro roots head here for more details.

Apple Fitness Plus is getting a fresh makeover in the Strava app. The two companies just announced theyre collaborating to revamp how Fitness Plus integrates with the popular fitness community, which includes more detailed workout summaries, Strava athletes appearing in Fitness Plus content, and a free three-month trial to the service for Strava subscribers.Starting today, youll be able to see a thumbnail of the Fitness Plus workout and information like episode number, music genre, trainer, metrics, and achievements. While mostly a design update, this brings Fitness Plus more in line with other Strava integrations from services like Peloton and Ladder.Technically, Apple Watch users have been able to import their workouts into Strava from the get-go. However, that integration has been limited with bare-bones workout summaries. While you could see the activity type, calories burned, and basic heart rate metrics, there wasnt any information about the class or instructor. (As you can see from this screenshot, youd be hard-pressed to know that my New Years Day yoga workout was even a Fitness Plus class.) How Fitness Plus workouts appeared in Strava before versus how theyll appear going forward. Image: AppleThe Fitness Plus and Strava integration goes in both directions. For starters, new and existing Strava subscribers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia will get a free three-month trial of Fitness Plus regardless of whether they have an Apple Watch. (You do, however, need an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV to access the service.) Popular Strava athletes will also feature as guests in Fitness Plus workouts. That includes a strength workout with runner Hellah Sidibe on January 13th and a treadmill workout with Kayla Jeter.So far, Apple has only offered free Fitness Plus trials with the purchase of a new Apple gadget. And while the service regularly features well-known athletes as guest hosts in its programming, its never sourced those guests from a third-party fitness community. Sidibe, for example, may not be quite as famous as two-time Olympic gold medalist Ted Ligety (who recently hosted a Fitness Plus series). However, if youre into running and on social media, theres a good chance youre familiar with Sidibes seven-year daily run streak and penchant for running with four smartwatches. Over the past 10 years, weve hugely admired what Strava has done to impact the fitness space, especially around community, says Jay Blahnik, Apples vice president of fitness technologies, acknowledging that Apple doesnt often partake in this sort of collaboration. RelatedBlahnik says working with Strava also presents a new opportunity for Fitness Plus reach. When the service first launched, there was an emphasis on making sure it was inclusive, motivating, and accessible for people of all levels. And in those early days, it often felt like Fitness Plus was like a fitness starter pack for the average person who might need a little encouragement something The Verge pointed out in its initial review. Thats not exactly the typical Strava user.They dont need us for motivation! Theyre already self motivated, says Blahnik. Instead, for seasoned athletes, Blahnik is pitching Fitness Plus as a supplemental resource for cross-training and discovering new activity types. Maybe theyre taking up running for the first time, and they want to make sure that they dont get injured, and they need to do the yoga and the strength, adds Zipporah Allen, Stravas chief business officer. Both Allen and Blahnik also note that the collaboration isnt a one-and-done type of deal, hinting that the integration could evolve further down the road. While both demurred on providing specifics, Blahnik noted the companies have bold ambitions for what [they] might be able to do down the road in terms of sharing.In the short term, its a beneficial move for both companies. Strava recently angered users by changing the terms of its API for third-party apps, leaving some disgruntled users questioning the value of a Strava subscription. A free three-month trial to Apple Fitness Plus could appease some of those users. Strava has long been a de facto fitness data hub for dedicated athletes, giving Fitness Plus easy access to long-term athletes who arent likely to quit their New Years resolutions.

Anthropic has made a deal to settle parts of a copyright infringement lawsuit brought against the maker of the Claude AI model for allegedly distributing protected song lyrics. The agreement was signed off by US District Judge Eumi Lee on Thursday, requiring Anthropic to apply existing guardrails in the training of future AI models and to establish a procedure for music publishers to intervene when copyright infringement is suspected.In October 2023, several music publishers including Universal Music Group, ABKCO, Concord Music Group, and Greg Nelson Music filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Anthropic for allegedly training its AI system on lyrics from at least 500 protected songs. According to the complaint, when Claude was prompted for the lyrics to songs like Beyoncs Halo, Mark Ronsons Uptown Funk, and Moves like Jagger by Maroon 5, the chatbot provided responses that contain all or significant portions of those lyrics.While the music publishers acknowledged that platforms like Genius already distribute lyrics online, they noted that those sites pay a licensing fee to use the protected works. Anthropic intentionally removed or altered copyright management information from the impacted songs when ingesting data found on those sites to train its AI models, according to the lawsuit filing.Under the agreement signed by Anthropic on Thursday, the AI company says it will maintain the guardrails it has already implemented that aim to prevent its AI models from infringing on copyrighted content. Anthropic will also apply its existing guardrails to any future AI systems it develops. Music publishers and Anthropic will work together in good faith to resolve any instances where the guardrails are deemed ineffective, with the court ready to settle any disputes.Claude isnt designed to be used for copyright infringement, and we have numerous processes in place designed to prevent such infringement, Anthropic said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. Our decision to enter into this stipulation is consistent with those priorities. We continue to look forward to showing that, consistent with existing copyright law, using potentially copyrighted material in the training of generative AI models is a quintessential fair use.The music publishers behind the original complaint have requested a preliminary injunction to bar Anthropic from training future models on their protected song lyrics, with the court expected to issue a ruling in the coming months.

The self-attention mechanism is a building block of transformer architectures that faces huge challenges both in the theoretical foundations and practical implementation. Despite such successes in natural language processing, computer vision, and other areas, their development often relies on heuristic approaches, limiting interpretability and scalability. Self-attention mechanisms are also vulnerable to data corruption and adversarial attacks, which makes them unreliable in practice. All these issues need to be addressed to enhance the robustness and efficiency of transformer models.Conventional self-attention techniques, including softmax attention, derive weighted averages based on similarity to establish dynamic relationships among input tokens. Although these methods prove effective, they encounter significant limitations. The lack of a formalized framework hinders adaptability and comprehension of their underlying processes. Moreover, self-attention mechanisms exhibit a tendency for performance decline in the presence of adversarial or noisy circumstances. Lastly, substantial computational demands restrict their application in settings characterized by limited resources. These limitations call for theoretically principled, computationally efficient methods that are robust to data anomalies.Researchers from the National University of Singapore propose a groundbreaking reinterpretation of self-attention using Kernel Principal Component Analysis (KPCA), establishing a comprehensive theoretical framework. This novel interpretation brings forward several key contributions. It mathematically restates self-attention as a projection of query vectors onto the principal component axes of the key matrix in a feature space, making it more interpretable. Furthermore, it is shown that the value matrix encodes the eigenvectors of the Gram matrix of key vectors, establishing a close link between self-attention and the principles of KPCA. The researchers present a robust mechanism to address vulnerabilities in data: Attention with Robust Principal Components (RPC-Attention). Utilizing Principal Component Pursuit (PCP) to distinguish untainted data from distortions in the primary matrix markedly bolsters resilience. This methodology creates a connection between theoretical precision and practical enhancements, thereby increasing the efficacy and dependability of self-attention mechanisms.The construction incorporates multiple sophisticated technical components. Within the KPCA framework, query vectors are oriented with the principal component axes according to their representation in feature space. Principal Component Pursuit is applied to decompose the primary matrix into low-rank and sparse components that mitigate the problems created by data corruption. An efficient implementation is realized by carefully replacing softmax attention with a more robust alternative mechanism in certain transformer layers that balance efficiency and robustness. This is validated by extensive testing on classification datasets like ImageNet-1K, segmentation datasets like ADE20K, and language modeling like WikiText-103, proving the versatility of the approach in various domains.The work significantly improves accuracy, robustness, and resilience on different tasks. The mechanism improves clean accuracy in object classification and error rates under corruption and adversarial attacks. In language modeling, it demonstrates a lower perplexity, which reflects an enhanced linguistic understanding. Its usage in image segmentation presents superior performance on clean and noisy datasets, supporting its adaptability to various challenges. These results illustrate its potential to overcome the critical limitations of traditional self-attention methods.Researchers reformulate self-attention through KPCA, thus giving a principled theoretical basis and a resilient attention mechanism to tackle the vulnerabilities of data and computational challenges. The contributions greatly enhance the understanding and capabilities of transformer architectures to develop more robust and efficient applications in AI.Check out the Paper and GitHub Page. 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. Aswin Ak+ postsAswin AK is a consulting intern at MarkTechPost. He is pursuing his Dual Degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He is passionate about data science and machine learning, bringing a strong academic background and hands-on experience in solving real-life cross-domain challenges. Follow us on X (Twitter) to get regular AI Research and Dev Updates here...

Call of Duty players are flooding to Activisions privacy support page after a YouTuber showcased a method of finding out their hidden skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) rating.For years, SBMM has been the hottest of topics within the Call of Duty community, with some proclaiming it ruins the experience, others saying it helps level the competitive multiplayer playing field. High-skilled Call of Duty players often bemoan SBMM for chucking them into what they call sweaty lobbies full of similarly high-skilled players. All the while, Activision has kept players skill rating hidden from them, forcing them to speculate about where they might sit compared to others and how it fluctuates from game to game.However, popular Call of Duty YouTuber TheXclusiveAce exposed a method that will let players know their skill rating for every single Multiplayer game theyve played going all the way back to 2021s Vanguard. However, it involves jumping through a few hoops and youll have to wait a little while before you get the data.The method involves heading over to Activisions privacy page and submitting a new personal information access request. Youll need to log into your Activision account to automatically include the various Call of Duty games, but once done, you can submit a request. IGN has gone through this process and can verify its legitimacy, although you'll have to wait a day or two for the data to arrive via email.TheXclusiveAce received his data and, in his video on the subject, showed off just how extensive it is. It shows every single Multiplayer match in detail, down to the mode played, the map played, the operator and skin you used, and even the execution you had equipped. You can see the number of hits you landed in the match, your longest streak, damage done and taken, and, if you're interested, the percentage of time moving. Many more data points are included, but it's the skill stat that's of most interest here.With his data, TheXclusiveAce was able to chart his Black Ops 6 skill rating, showing how it changed over time. TheXclusiveAce, who will be one of the better Multiplayer Call of Duty players around relative to the overall player base, has a skill rating of around 400 through the course of his time with Black Ops 6, although there are occasional sharp drops and rises.Unfortunately, this data in isolation doesnt help players understand how their skill rating compares to others'. It also doesnt reveal the skill rating of the lobby or why a player's skill rating changed from game to game. However, TheXclusiveAce compared his K/D ratio to his skill rating to try to draw conclusions on Black Ops 6s SBMM. From what he can tell, poor play relative to previous performance does reduce skill rating, and improved play relative to previous performance increases skill rating, although it can take some time to kick in either way. TheXclusiveAce suspects lobby skill rating impacts changes in individual skill rating; if the SBMM expects you to perform at a certain level relative to the lobby skill rating and you fail to meet that expectation, your skill rating might drop even if you had a good game.Last year, Activision explained how Call of Dutys SBMM works in somewhat vague terms. Skill is determined based on a players overall performance," Activision said. This includes kills, deaths, wins, losses, as well as mode selection, and recent matches as an overall metric across all Multiplayer experiences. This is a fluid measurement thats consistently updating and reacting to your gameplay, Activision explained. Skill is not only a factor in matchmaking players against appropriate enemies, but also when finding teammates.Activision went on to say skill in matchmaking means all players (regardless of skill level) are more likely to experience wins and losses more proportionately. We use player performance to ensure that the disparity between the most skilled player in the lobby and the least skilled player in the lobby isnt so vast that players feel their match is a waste of time, Activision said.The question now is whether the Call of Duty community will work together to track skill ratings at scale. If it does, not only will players finally get a sense of their skill rating relative to the wider community, but they will start to learn exactly what influences skill rating changes over time.Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Atari has teased a re-reveal of its handheld console at CES 2025 next week.In a tweet, below, Atari showed off the GameStation Go device, a portable video game player with extra buttons and a widescreen.While the Gamestation Go comes complete with the d-pad, face buttons, and shoulder buttons you'd expect on a retro handheld, what makes this stand out is the inclusion of a Trak-BallTheres little else to go on at this stage, but the GameStation Go looks like the final design for a product Atari revealed a year ago. At the time the handheld was called the Atari Gamestation Portable and was due out during the fourth quarter of 2024 priced $149. This earlier version came with the Atari Trak-Ball, Paddle, and Keypad controllers, and we can see a refined design for these in the GameStation Go.The Atari Trak-Ball is commonly used with arcade classics Centipede and Missile Command, with the Paddle used for the likes of Breakout. Atari games such as Brain Games and Codebreaker use the Keypad. The My Arcade logo is on the bottom of the device, which confirms the maker of the product under official license from Atari.You'd expect the Gamestation Go to play a long list of retro games bolstered by Atari's recent aquisition of the Intellivision brand and certain games from Intellivision Entertainment LLC. The purchase included the rights to more than 200 titles from the Intellivision portfolio and the Intellivision trademarks.Thats all we have for now. Expect more when CES 2025 kicks off from January 7.Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.