If you're looking for fantasy TV shows,Netflix is where it's at. There's a reason the streamer is still the top dog -- and when it comes to genre entertainment, look no further.When Game of Thrones first hit television screens, audiences weren't ready for the scope that can be achieved with fantasy programming on TV. Since George R.R. Martin's series ended, streamers have thrown a cavalcade of fantasy ideas at the proverbial wall. Of all the streamers, it was Netflix that has steadily brought jaw-dropping tales to the small screen.Think I'm nuts for mentioning Game of Thrones? Just look at titles like The Witcher, Sandman and Shadow and Bone to see the lasting impact HBO's landmark series has left on the culture.That said, there's more to the fantasy genre than these hack-and-slash, magical monster shows. Netflix's range is all-encompassing. Whatever fantasy itch you're looking to scratch -- be it a spooky murder mystery, a dystopian coming-of-age adventure or a colorful pirate journey -- you'll find it here.If you want suggestions for the bestfantasy TV showson Netflix, you've come to the right place. Scroll to find our guide for titles to add to your list. Now, all you've got to do is decide what to watch first.Read more: 18 Best TV Shows on Netflix to Watch Right Now Netflix Wednesday With Wednesday, Tim Burton has found further gold to mine in the Addams Family story canon. The series follows Wednesday Addams, played with deadpan delight by Jenna Ortega, as she's sent off to attend Nevermore Academy -- the school for outcasts. Throughout the first season, Wednesday investigates a murder mystery plaguing the school and the nearby town of Jericho. She may not make friends easily, but she definitely leaves her mark (as does the program). Netflix Sweet Tooth Based on the Vertigo comic book of the same name, Sweet Tooth takes place post-pandemic in a dystopian future where human babies are born with animal characteristics. These "Hybrids" are vilified by the general public and blamed for the extinction-level event known as "The Great Crumble." Our hero is a half-boy/half-deer Hybrid named Gus (Christian Convery) who goes on a journey to find his long-lost mother and, potentially, a cure. Netflix One Piece Eiichiro Oda's One Piece is a global phenomenon. The hit anime got the live-action works on Netflix and, thanks to the insight provided by Oda, this One Piece instantly became a hit with fans the world over. The fun collective performances of the cast and the program's immersive world-building and action-packed vibe proved that a live-action adaptation can absolutely work. The program, like the anime and manga before it, follows Monkey D. Luffy (Iaki Godoy) as he pursues his dream to become a pirate and find Gol D. Roger's legendary treasure know as, wait for it, the One Piece. Amanda Matlovich/Netflix Locke and Key Inspired by the comic books written by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) and illustrated by Gabriel Rodrguez, Locke and Key follows the Locke family as they attempt to pick up the pieces after the unit's patriarch is mysteriously murdered. They move back to Keyhouse, their ancestral home, and soon, weird things begin to happen. The three Locke siblings -- Tyler, (Connor Jessup) Kinsey (Emilia Jones) and Bode (Jackson Robert Scott) -- and their mother, Nina (Darby Stanchfield), discover keys that unlock all sorts of magical secrets that could give the answers behind their father's death. Netflix Lockwood & Co. Lockwood & Co. is based on the book series by Jonathan Stroud. The YA genre series follows three young paranormal investigators who fight ghost threats on behalf of their burgeoning psychic detection agency in London. The sharp dialogue and chemistry between the three leads -- Lucy Carlyle, Anthony Lockwood and George Karim -- make this program a fun binge. Netflix The Witcher The Witcher stars Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia, the program's titular hero. Based on the books by Andrzej Sapkowski -- which first inspired the popular video game franchise -- the Netflix show follows the adventures of Geralt as he hunts monsters. Thanks to the detailed world-building and ensemble performances, The Witcher is a must-watch for any fans of the fantasy genre.Cavill left the series after season 3, with Liam Hemsworth taking over the role. Netflix The Sandman The Sandman hails from the broodingly brilliant mind of Neil Gaiman. Inspired by the characters and storylines from his beloved DC comic book series, the program follows Morpheus (Tom Sturridge), aka the King of Dreams, aka Dream, as he ventures through multiple worlds and timelines to retrieve items stolen from him, rebuild his power, and save The Dreaming -- aka his home.The show's cast is stacked with impressive talent, including Charles Dance, Jenna Coleman, Boyd Holbrook, Gwendoline Christie, Patton Oswalt, Mark Hamill, Stephen Fry, David Thewlis, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Vivienne Acheampong and Mason Alexander Park. Netflix Dead Boy Detectives Dead Boy Detectives is the second series within Neil Gaiman's Sandman universe to come to Netflix. The spin-off follows two teenage dead boys -- George Rexstrew plays Edwin Payne and Jayden Revri is Charles Rowland -- who decided the afterlife was for suckers and instead joined forces to solve supernatural mysteries. Eike Schroter/Netflix A Series of Unfortunate Events Based on Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler's hit YA book series, Netflix's A Series of Unfortunate Events follows Violet (Malina Weissman), Klaus (Louis Hynes) and Sunny Baudelaire (Presley Smith) -- three unlucky orphans who face a headwind of challenges as they seek to unveil the truth about their parents. If only that greedy Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris) would stop getting in their way. Netflix Arcane Arcane is an animated series that effortlessly elevates the genre. Inspired by the immensely popular League of Legends, the program explores the origin story of two iconic characters from the video game. In the process, this beautifully animated program unpacks heavy issues like class warfare and trauma. Netflix Shadow and Bone Shadow and Bone takes inspiration from Leigh Bardugo's popular Grishaverse novel series. The show follows Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li), a young woman who learns she has special abilities. Discovering she's a Grisha (or magic-user) is just the beginning of her adventure as she's faced with the huge responsibility of bringing peace to a war-torn universe. Netflix Avatar: The Last Airbender Netflix continues its effort to make the perfect live-action adaptation of a hit anime. Avatar: The Last Airbender pursues story beats familiar from the animated series and follows young Aang, who discovers he's the last Airbender -- the proverbial chosen one who can control the four major elements: air, fire, water and earth. Netflix found enough promise in the fledgling project to renew it for a second and third season. Netflix Castlevania Castlevania hails from comic book writer Warren Ellis and takes inspiration from the Konami video games Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, Castlevania: Curse of Darkness and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The series follows heroes Trevor Belmont (Richard Armitage), Alucard (James Callis) and Sypha Belnades (Alejandra Reynoso) as they fight Dracula and underlings. With an aesthetic that honors the Konami games; compelling writing; and heaps of blood-soaked action, this is a worthy title to add to your watch list. Netflix Warrior Nun Warrior Nun takes its inspiration from Ben Dunn's comic book Warrior Nun Areala. The series follows Ava Silva, a young woman who wakes up in a morgue with superpowers and a divine artifact stuck in her back. Her journey of self-discovery reveals a new purpose in life: to battle demons and other such hell-beasts on Earth. Why? Because she's now a member of an ancient sect of supernatural nuns known as the Order of the Cruciform Sword.It's a bonkers bloody thrill-ride that lasted two seasons on the streamer -- meaning it won't take too long for you to binge right through it. Netflix Disenchantment Matt Groening, creator of animation giants The Simpsons and Futurama, brought his unique sensibilities to Netflix with Disenchantment. The five-season series takes viewers back to medieval Europe and a fictional kingdom named Dreamland. The show follows the misadventures of the rebellious, often-drunk princess Bean (Abbie Jacobson), her demon sidekick Luci (Eric Andr) and their elf pal Elfo (Nat Faxon) as they galavant through neighboring lands, confront bizarre characters and uncover an overarching conspiracy. Kevin Baker/Netflix The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is the prequel series to the 1982 Jim Henson cult classic The Dark Crystal. The program follows three brave Gelfling -- Rian, Brea and Deet -- as they spark a rebellion against the Skesksi race after learning the truth about the source of their rulers' power. The series relied heavily on practical effects and puppetry and kept the use of CGI to a minimum. Due to the production costs, the show was canceled after one season. But boy, what a wonderful season it is. Diyah Pera/Netflix The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a supernatural YA series created by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the chief creative officer of Archie Comics. He's the same person who brought Riverdale to the CW, which makes sense considering the similar tone both programs have. This Sabrina, unlike '90s sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch, delves heavily into the occult. It's a wonderfully mature take on the character, and it planted the seeds for what the streamer could do with original programming in the genre. Basically, Sabrina walked so Wednesday could run.

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The big picture: The healthcare sector has become a lucrative target for cybercriminals, given the abundance of exploitable data and the often inadequate cybersecurity measures affecting many providers. Ascension, which operates 118 hospitals and hundreds of other facilities nationwide, was evidently unprepared for an attack of this magnitude, despite its size and resources. In a filing with the Maine Attorney General's office published on December 20, the American healthcare giant revealed that a staggering 5.6 million people had their personal and medical data exposed in a cyberattack earlier this year.According to Ascension, the breach occurred on February 29 but went undetected until May 8. The attack potentially allowed hackers to access a wealth of sensitive information, including payment details, insurance information, Social Security numbers, addresses, and dates of birth. While Ascension stated that no evidence suggests patient electronic health records were directly compromised, the scale of the breach remains alarming.As for how a massive healthcare system fell victim to such a severe hack, it came down to a classic error: an employee accidentally downloaded a malicious file disguised as legitimate. The healthcare provider admitted in June that it was "an honest mistake."The cyberattack forced Ascension to postpone surgeries and appointments at some facilities, while others had to turn away ambulances. Patients experienced lengthy wait times, and multiple facilities were without access to electronic records for weeks after the breach. The company now says it is working to reschedule delayed procedures and regain its footing.The financial impact was significant as well. Ascension reported an 8-12 percent drop in patient volume during May and June compared to 2023, attributing the decline directly to the disruptions caused by the attack. // Related StoriesCompounding the situation, the breach followed closely on the heels of the unprecedented Change Healthcare cyberattack, which compromised the data of over 100 million Americans earlier in 2024. That incident, considered the most damaging healthcare hack in US history, also impacted Ascension.In response to these two major breaches, Ascension says it has diversified its claims clearinghouses to "better protect itself from future incidents."The breach ranks as the sixth-largest healthcare data incident ever reported in terms of the number of people affected.Ransomware attacks, in general, have been on the rise, with 2024 shaping up to be another record-breaking year. They are also becoming increasingly costly. A recent report indicates that the median ransom payment rose to $2.54 million last year a staggering 41 times larger than the previous year's median of $62,500.

This Can Continue?"Ive been hearing the fans expectations" - As Nier approaches its 15th anniversary, the series' producer teases what's next for one of the weirdest RPGs around"Id appreciate it if you could patiently look forward to whats coming."Image credit: Square Enix News by Oisin Kuhnke Contributor Published on Dec. 28, 2024 The Nier series is hitting its 15th anniversary next year, and while a new game hasn't been confirmed just yet, the games' producer might have teased something for 2025.I haven't been with the Nier series since day one, but I can definitely say I'm a big fan of it now. Like many I started off with 2017's Nier: Automata, which is coming up to eight years old now. Earlier this week the official Nier Twitter account shared that Automata has now sold over nine million copies, which is great and all, but obviously what people really want is news of a new game. There was the mobile entry Nier: Reincarnation, but that's been shutdown now anyway, so if you want a sequel you're out of luck. Thankfully, though, it doesn't seem to be all doom and gloom, as series producer Yosuke Saito recently spoke about Nier, seemingly teasing that some kind of announcement could be coming next year. To see this content please enable targeting cookies.As part of 4Gamer.net's annual end-of-year interviews with notable Japanese game devs (and translated by Gematsu), Saito said of the Nier series: "2025 will be a milestone year as it marks the 15th anniversary of the Nier series, so Id like to do something for it! What should we do maybe something with the next game, or developments related to that Ive been hearing the fans expectations. Its a bit tricky, though That said, as Ill likely be doing less direct work as a producer, Id appreciate it if you could patiently look forward to whats coming."To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Now, this isn't a confirmation of any kind, just a confirmation of an intention to do something, but look, I'll take anything! When you're someone like me whose favourite Square Enix titles are this and Kingdom Hearts, any news is good news. Let's just hope Saito isn't talking about another mobile game that'll eventually get shut down.

The real heroFollowing on from Unpacking, did you take any lessons from that and apply them to Tempopo?Yeah, absolutely. Creative director Wren [Brier] brought a lot of different skills that I and Tim [Dawson, technical director] don't have. It's great to round out design and ethos on things, but mainly in how to approach accessibility and connecting with people in puzzle design.There were a lot of elements in Unpacking where people don't feel intimidated or stupid playing that game. It is, at its core, a puzzle game. It's got no fail states, it's got no kind of punishment to it, but there are still puzzles to be solved.People talk to us after that game and ask if we're going to be the wordless narrative studio; that's not really what interests us, to just take an element of a game that was super successful and put that in everything we do. But I do think the broadly accessible nature of Unpacking is something that I'll always look at and think, "Wow, that was so brilliant." I really admire Wren and Tim for managing that and building that out.You managed to take what a lot of people consider to be a really stressful experience and make it this really accessible and engaging mechanic and also let the actions tell the story.Yeah exactly. It's always a beautiful thing to see when people working through an experience and actually thinking about it. I think about it a lot with films where I'll watch something terrible on Netflix because I don't care and I don't have to think about it ever again, or I'll go to the cinema.A little while back I went with my wife to watch a movie called Perfect Days and afterwards, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Every day for a week I was thinking about it and it's one of those things that was living in my brain. That's something I want everyone to have while playing this game.For Tempopo, you've moved from the pixel art of Unpacking to 3D visuals. What is that transition like? Do you find that easy to work with, or did you experience any problems?I've been making games for 15 years; that's the shortest amount of time out of any of the core Witch Beam team. Jeff [van Dyck, composer and sound designer] has been doing this for most of his adult life, and Tim is a fair few years longer as well. So we know how to make games in general. A lot of that time has been spent working on games that got cancelled or don't exist. So it's not like your gameography is 10,000 games long or anything. It's the nature of our industry.It's always a beautiful thing to see when people working through an experience and actually thinking about it.Specifically working in 3D, our first game, [Assault Android] Cactus, was a full 3D shoot 'em up, using the visuals in a bombastic way that worked pretty well for that game. There are always trade-offs between using three-dimensional perspective and cameras versus 2D in terms of accuracy of positioning. It comes down to what serves the game best.For Unpacking, the charm and being able to map things perfectly as you do, works better in 2D with pixel art. And for Tempopo, we lean into 3D because it's all about spatial awareness. You can't have that kind of element of verticality, perspective, and moving the camera around otherwise.Once you pick a perspective, it's got to be about maximising the advantages of that, especially as a small team. We've leaned into animation to try and get everything to feel in sync and moving joyfully. To some degree, it's a lot easier than doing that in 2D where you have to draw every single frame, so animation becomes this really expensive, complicated element of a 2D game.Music and movement is clearly an important part of Tempopo. Why was music chosen as a focal point of the game?There's a wonderful thing about having audio as a pillar of your game and it comes from the fact that we started this company with Jeff Van Dyke. And he's just a genius. By having Jeff as this full partner, it meant that from the very first concepts, we would be talking with him about how audio can be intricately involved in everything from the very first step.We have really strong accessibility goals with our games.With Tempopo, we're using harmony and music as this kind of underlying heartbeat that helps you with the puzzles and the 3D spatial element because you feel the timing of everything, even if you can't hear the music. Every object in the game is moving synchronously with each other. You end up with this sense of being able to look at something and say, "Okay, it's moving at this speed, this is the beat, I can feel it, and now I know that it's two turns away from this point, and how long those turns take..." You start to think in sync with the beat, and I think it's beautiful.Even if you look at Unpacking, the audio soundscape and that game ended up being one of the most insane undertakings that an indie team has ever done, I would say. I forget how many tens of thousands of sounds it was in the end, but it's one of those things where we're very focused on making sure that the audio soundscape of our games is given the same care as everything else. *clunk* *schwif* *bang*Right, and it ties into what you were saying about messaging and making it clear. Music is kind of the universal language, isn't it? Everybody understands rhythm even if you don't have rhythm, everybody can follow a beat, generally.We really lean into that consistent heartbeat that underpins everything across Tempopo through the different soundtracks, and the actions that the characters take occur on and off half beats or full beats. They synchronise perfectly and the flowers within the levels are singing and pushing towards that rhythm. It all plays back into itself in such a way that even if you're just watching the visual reactions, you can almost feel the timing, you know.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube790kWe have really strong accessibility goals with our games. Anytime we have an audio element, we make sure that there is a visual element that accompanies it with an equal level of weight. It's wildly unnecessary to build something where you're excluding a bunch of people. That's why this game is musical, but it is not a music rhythm game.And though there isn't actually a visible three-dimensional grid, I think that this audio-visual sync helps you conceptualize a grid. The game can be beautiful and not have to be segmented up and look like a two-dimensional thing, but it can still have that sense of delineated space because of how everything syncs up.Nature is another big part of this game. What do you think that relationship between music and nature is and how do you think that applies to Tempopo? Or does that come up in the game as one of the big themes?For us, nature and gardens came about because we wanted to unify all the elements in the game. Once you have music and magic and characters and movement and collection and all these things, 'How do you actually bring this together?' We tried to think of real-world concepts that tie these disparate elements together.Gardens are a perfect fit. They're wonderfully calming places full of big personalities that have to coexist together and support each other. They're feeding nitrogen into the soil that the other one uses. A garden is a very diverse place with different elements, but everything is working together. So we thought, 'Why not lean into this element of nature where we already have this place where people feel calm and relaxed?' Gardens are a place that people design and they want to make feel like their own, so we brought that into the game as well.Even Mythbusters showed that the flowers respond to music and grow faster when music is playing, right? Like, why wouldn't plants want to jam out like the rest of us?What a perfect answer! Getting into the gameplay, you've got a little command wheel that looks like a flower, with petals that allow you to put down different commands. Where did that idea come from and can you give us some examples of how it'll be used in-game?These are what we're calling "instructions" for now, so you're placing them down to try and create a perfect plan. Every level is a rescue where you're trying to collect the flowers that have been lost and take them back to your garden. Then, as the player, you can design your little musical garden.Like, why wouldn't plants want to jam out like the rest of us?Essentially, Hana [the main character] is conducting the music and the Tempopo are following the beat. They're great at moving, but it's up to you to tell them what to do. We started coming up with different actions that would help with cooperative elements. I guess this is where I was inspired by some of those classic puzzle games like Lemming, where you're telling one to be like a blocker or build a bridge or do something like that and work together. It all comes back to the idea that this game's theme is harmony.Image: Cult GamesHarmony and bringing people together through video games is such an important thing. That's something that you've done in Unpacking. There is a real sense of harmony when you get everything in the right place. Here it feels similar in a completely different way.A huge part of that in Tempopo is where you can just press the play button, the handle will start conducting, the music will be going, and the characters will move around and do everything, and then you can press that button again and it just resets everything back. The way that people play and engage with the game is about this kind of approach do they spend a long time looking at something and thinking it through, or do they just iterate and make little changes all the time and feel like I'm getting closer to this perfect movement of this concerto of elements working together?That helps a lot with not wanting people to feel frustrated or scared of the game because I don't think there's much value in a puzzle game judging how you solve a puzzle. It doesn't feel like a very interesting thing to me.It's not, you want to bring [players] in and make them feel like they're clever. It's not about how difficult it is. It's about how satisfying it is. You don't satisfy anybody by saying, "Oh no, you did that wrong." Not that there shouldn't be a wrong answer, but there shouldn't be a way to punish you if you do it wrong.And that's been a really tricky thing to come from a game like Unpacking which has essentially no fail states, to a game like Tempopo, which has a more pure puzzle theme running through it. The really important bit for me with Tempopo is the emotional arc for the player. It's where we probably spent the most amount of time in development using the music, the interface, all of the tools, to make you feel calm while you're playing. If you can calm people down while they're solving problems, they'll have a much higher sense of satisfaction.That's why this game is musical, but it is not a music rhythm game.I think the worst case for me is when I've played a puzzle game and I felt really tense about everything and then I finally solved the thing but I'm terrified of whatever is happening next. I want people playing this game to be sitting back and enjoying their time with it. We've had people in playtest sit there, press the button to play the music, and listen and sit back for five minutes while they watch everything hop around. It goes through the cycle of all the different musical tracks and everything and they're looking at the space and thinking, 'What should I do?'So there's still an element of trial and error in some levels?Absolutely. It's trial and error in a way where it's purposeful. We're calling it "planning and execution," the idea that you press the button, you've got your plan, you're watching it play out, and you're [thinking], "Is this the right plan?" In getting there, the game is trying to help you stay in the right mindset, and it's not judging you, it's not telling you that you've restarted 300 times.Image: Cult Games'Planning and execution' is a much better term we're allowed to make mistakes. You just have to keep trying things and you'll get there eventually. Watching it play out and hearing that people will just sit there and listen to the music, go through the motions, and not feel under any pressure, is delightful. That's really important for the genre.Yeah! And we're trying to build more accessible tools around the interface because that's a big part of trying to make a game that works for younger and older players. It's a puzzle game so we're going to have challenging puzzles in there for people to get stuck into but we're also trying to have a really easy curve to explain all the mechanics and extra accessibility options to allow those with less experience with puzzle games to solve things differently. [I'm] not sure I want to deep dive into the specifics of all those things yet just because we're still testing and implementing things. But there will be options there to make the game really work for younger players as well as more experienced puzzlers.Tempopo is really a game about the emotional state that you are going to be in while you playTempopo is really a game about the emotional state that you are going to be in while you play it. And I think that's largely where I want to push it. We have self-described it internally as a very soft game; it has this softness about it that when you play it, you feel connected, not judged.Soft and cosy is good, and it's got to have something that will keep us coming back to it, whether you've got experience with puzzle games or not.Yeah, and we're really hoping that there's more to it than just solving the puzzles as well for where people will want to stick around because of the experience. There's this other element to it which is not just about solving puzzles. I think it's super important to give the player a chance to unwind and do something that's entirely within their control.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube790kThis interview has been edited lightly for clarity.Thank you to Sanatana for speaking to us, very late at night. Tempopo is due to launch on Switch in 2024. [Update: With just days to go, though, that's incredibly unlikely. 2025 it is, then!]Related GamesSee AlsoShare:06 Alana has been with Nintendo Life since 2022, and while RPGs are her first love, Nintendo is a close second. She enjoys nothing more than overthinking battle strategies, characters, and stories. She also wishes she was a Sega air pirate. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related Articles161 Games You Should Pick Up In Nintendo's 'Hits For The Holidays' eShop Sale (North America)Every game we scored 9/10 or higher54 Games You Should Pick Up In The Nintendo Switch eShop Holiday Sale (Europe)Every game we scored 9/10 or higherMultiple Cartoon Network Games Have Been Removed From The Switch eShopMerry Christmas!

There are a number of iPad apps that can help you explore and express your creativity. Although the iPad started off as a simple device that could be used to stream content or browse the web on the go, Apple has essentially turned its iPads into powerful machines that can be used to do things like create digital art and edit videos.Below weve compiled a list of some of the best iPad apps for creativity that are available on the App Store.Before we get into the list, its worth noting that although Adobes creative apps are often top choices for creativity on the iPad, but this list wont include them because they are already quite well-known.The list will instead focus on somewhat lesser-known apps.ProcreateImage Credits:ProcreateProcreate is one of the most popular drawing apps for the iPad, and for good reason. The app lets you create digital paintings, sketches, and illustrations using dozens of different types of brushes. Procreate is easy to use and features built-in gesture controls, along with a simple interface.The app allows for high-resolution canvases up to 16K by 8K on compatible iPad Pros. It also lets you create storyboards, GIFs, animatics, and simple animations. Plus, you can import image files such as JPG, PNG, and TIFF.Procreate includes several features that are designed to help you during the creative process on your iPad, such as QuickShape, StreamLine, Drawing Assist, and ColorDrop.Once youre finished creating your piece, you can relive your creative journey with the apps time-lapse Replay feature and share a 30-second time-lapse video on social media.You can access Procreate with a one-time payment of $12.99.LumaFusionImage Credits:LumaFusionLumaFusion is a great app for editing videos if youre ready to graduate from iMovie. The app features numerous user-friendly features that make it perfect for aspiring videographers or indie filmmakers on a budget.With LumaFusion, you can create multiple layer edits with 4K ProRes and HDR media.You can add different effects, choose from dozens of transitions, and record voiceovers. The app lets you create multilayer titles and import fonts and graphics. Plus, you can fine-tune audio with Graphic EQ, Parametric EQ, Voice isolation, and more.The app lets you to create projects with a variety of aspect ratios, including 16:9 landscape, 9:16 portrait, square, widescreen film, anamorphic, and more.LumaFusion is available for a one-time payment of $29.99. You can also purchase additional features, such as multicam editing and the ability to send your project to Final Cut Pro for Mac.CanvaImage Credits:CanvaCanva offers a user-friendly platform that allows anyone to create visual content, even without graphic design experience. You can use it to create presentations, infographics, videos, websites, social media posts, and more with over 250,000 templates.Canva features tools for editing photos, personalizing content with logos and images, adding audio, and cropping and speeding up video.The platform also has a series of AI features that are designed to make the creation process easier. For instance, you can extend an image using Magic Switch or turn ideas into images with Magic Media.Canva is free but offers a $12.99 monthly subscription if you want unlimited access to its AI features, premium templates, and more.Affinity Designer 2Image Credits:AffinityAffinity Designer 2 is a graphic design app that combines vector design, pixel-based textures, and retouching into a single platform. Its great for professional illustrators, web designers, game developers, and other creatives.The app lets you create illustrations, branding, logos, icons, UI/UX designs, typography, posters, labels, fliers, stickers, concept art, digital art, and more. It supports Apple Pencils precision, pressure sensitivity, and tilt functionality.Affinity Designer 2 features gesture controls to speed up your workflow, and it lets you customize keyboard shortcuts. You can also do things like create your own custom font and zoom to over 1,000,000% for absolute precision.You can access the app through a one-time payment of $18.49.ConceptsImage Credits:ConceptsConcepts is a great app for exploring your ideas and experimenting with designs. You can use the app to sketch plans, make notes and mindmaps, and draw storyboards and designs.The app features Nudge, Slice, and Select tools that allow you to easily change any element of your sketch without redrawing it. The app features realistic pens, pencils, and brushes that flow with pressure and tilt.Concepts gives you access to scale and measurement tools that calculate real-world dimensions, and also features a tool wheel or bar that you can personalize to your liking.The apps basic features are free. Concepts offers a $4.99 monthly subscription if you want access to additional features, such as the ability to create your own brushes and premium editing tools.Best iPad apps to boost productivity and make your life easier

CES kicks off January 7. The annual Las Vegas event sets the tone of the years consumer electronics and automotive industries. As always, TechCrunch will be there, sniffing stories from the most exciting startups and tech giants. If you really want a piece of the action without paying for the hotel and flight, many of the events biggest keynotes will be streamed. While the show officially runs January 7 to 10, most of the big news drops in the lead up to the show, by way of in-person press events. These are largely set for the January 6 Press Day.Per usual, the events center around some of techs biggest names, including Nvidia, Samsung, Toyota, and Sony. The good news for those who prefer to avoid mingling among the 140,000 international attendees is that all the key press conferences and keynotes will be livestreamed, either through the companies press pages or CES itself.Heres how to tune into the big ones.AMD January 6 at 11 a.m. PT/2 p.m. ETAMD has its work cut out for it at CES 2025.Competitor Nvidia has been sucking the oxygenout of every room it graces, as the chipmaker remains at the forefront of the AI boom. So, how will AMD compete with Nvidias reported RTX 5000 announcement? The company should show off its own next-gen GPU. As part of an ongoing rebrand, the RDNA 4 cardscould arriveas either the RX 8000 or RX 9000 series. Toyota January 6 at 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m ETSamsung January 6 at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ETSamsungs CES presser is always an odd duck. The Korean electronics giant generally keeps its powder dry when it comes to consumer electronics. After all, its expected to announce its latest flagship handset the Galaxy S25 toward the end of January.CES 2025 is going to continue the companys tradition of TVs and appliances. There are also odds and ends like consumer robots that will most likely never see the light of day. Samsunghas adoptedthe tagline AI for All: Everyday, Everywhere for the presentation, which kicks off on January 6 at 2 p.m. PT/5 p.m. ET.NVIDIA January 6 at6:30 p.m. PT/9:30 p.m. ETNvidia will no doubt have the biggest CES 2025. After all, the company has pretty much the biggest everything nowadays. The chip giant is sporting a $3.4+ trillion market cap, due largely to itsfoundational position in the ongoing AI boom. Companies like OpenAI and Meta have purchased Nvidia processors by the boatload, and thats unlikely to change in the new year.Founder and CEO Jensen Huang will help kick off CES 2025 with his trademark leather jacket and an unwavering vision,per Nvidia.

We are at the dawn of a new space age. If you doubt, simply look back at the last year: From SpaceXs historic catch of the Super Heavy booster to the record-breaking number of lunar landing attempts, this year was full of historic and ambitious missions and demonstrations.Were taking a look back at the five most significant moments or trends in the space industry this year. Naysayers might think SpaceX is overrepresented on this list, but that just shows how far ahead the space behemoth is in relation to its competitors. In no particular order:1. Boeings bungled Starliner mission turns into a SpaceX winNASA and Boeing no doubt had high hopes when the Starliner vehicle lifted off for its first crewed test mission in June. But a series of technical malfunctions occurred as the vehiclemade its final approach to the International Space Station, which kicked off a months-long investigation into those problems, with the chief concern being whether the two onboard astronauts could safely use Starliner to come back home.Out of an abundance of caution, NASA officials determined that the two astronauts would stay aboard the ISS for many more months than originally planned, and that they would return using a SpaceX Dragon capsule in the spring. The decision was a major blow to Boeing, which has incurred about $1.6 billion in cost overruns developing Starliner, and may need to conduct another crewed test flight before the vehicle can be certified to fly regularly for NASA. (For what its worth, the capsule performed a flawless touchdown.)Image Credits:NASA (opens in a new window)2. SpaceX catches Super Heavy for the first timeSpaceX made incredible progress in its Starship test program, with the company launching the massive rocket four times in 2024, bringing the total launches to six overall. During the fifth flight in October, the Super Heavy booster flew back to the launch site, and was caught by two large arms jutting out from the launch tower.The space company nailed booster reuse with its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, with the company successfully recovering 367 boosters to date. These boosters touch down on land or on massive ships at sea using four legs that are autonomously deployed right before touch down. But using a similar technique to recover the Super Heavy is impractical for a number of reasons chiefly its massive size which led SpaceX engineers to develop the booster catch method.Image Credits:SpaceXDuring the most recent launch test in November, SpaceX decided to scrub a second catch attempt, so there is clearly still work to do to hit the kind of launch and recovery cadence the company is aiming for. But the catch marked a historic day in spaceflight not to mention, arguably one of the most incredible engineering feats of the century so far.3. Polaris Dawn crew performs first private spacewalkJared Isaacman has been in the news recently due to his nomination to the role of NASA Administrator by incoming President Donald Trump. But the billionaire founder of payment processing company Shift4 Payments also made headlines this year when he led the Polaris Dawn mission and performed the first commercial spacewalk.Spacewalks are incredibly dangerous: in leaving their vehicle, astronauts expose themselves to risks like micrometeoroids and radiation, not to mention having to rely on the integrity of their spacesuits to provide essentials like oxygen and cooling. Yet the crew of Polaris Dawn, along with their mission partners SpaceX, took on exactly these challenges with the mission. Two of the four crew members, Isaacman and SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis, took turns emerging from the top of their vehicle, a specially equipped Dragon, for about ten minutes each. The pair performed a series of tests on the SpaceX-made spacesuits while connected to the vehicle via umbilical cord.Image Credits:Polaris Dawn (opens in a new window)4. Multiple firms take aim at the moonThis year, two private companies and two nations attempted to touch down on the moon. While the total number of attempts is not a record, the breadth of players certainly is: Japan, China, and two American companies all took their shot at success.intuitive machines odysseus descendingImage Credits:Intuitive Machines (opens in a new window)The outcomes were mixed. Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic had to abort its landing attempt around ten days into the mission. Intuitive Machines and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, meanwhile, both reached the surface but failed to land in an upright position. Chinas Chiange 6 mission, which both landed and returned samples from the far side of the moon, appears to be the only straightforward success.5. The Space Force pays outWed be remiss not to mention one of the space industrys single largest customers the Department of Defense whose priorities and spending shape the ecosystem overall. This year, the Space Force awarded a number of major contracts to commercial providers, signaling that its willing to pay big dollars to commercial entities that can deliver.Some notable contracts include a $733 million, eight-launch contract to SpaceX; a $515 million contract for 18 satellites to Rocket Lab; several contracts to defense startup Anduril for surveillance and other work; and a series of smaller but no less notable contracts for rapid response capabilities to True Anomaly, Impulse Space and Rocket Lab.

Hi everyone,First of all, sorry if my english is bad nad hope you can help me.I have a project where Im making a tornado in a small city. The problem is when i want to render ar Karma sometimes it crashes when i want to go back to OBJ or Karma layer trying to change or add something like a light.I saw at Cache Management that I have 400% at SOP Cache. How can I lower that %?I dont think its my PC problem, have 96 gb RAM and a RTX 3060. Maybe its because Houdini didnt use enough RAM?Need help to stop crashing my file every 5 minutes when I try to make some changes.If you need some more info just tell me!Thanks!

Built in 1892, at the height of the convergence of tastes of the Queen Anne Victorian and more traditional Colonial Revival architectural styles, the Louis E. Robinson House at 60 Stimson Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island, showcases the intricacies and whimsy that can be designed when a house is a blending of styles. The residence was built for Louis Elmer Robinson (not Robertson like so many sources claim), a cotton dealer and merchant, from plans by architect Frank W. Angell of the firm, Gould & Angell of Providence. The Robinson House is a gambrel-roofed mass, set gable end to the street, leaving only the ground story and side elevations in clapboard. The polygonal half-tower attached to the side elevation and its paneled grouping of windows retains the older medieval allusion of the early Queen Anne style, but with a swans neck pediment topping the stair hall window showcased the Colonial influence. I am imagining the home with a more period-appropriate color palette, but it still shines!