The Nintendo 64 is home to some of the most celebrated local multiplayer titles with hits like GoldenEye 007 and Super Smash Bros.. This should not lead people to believe that the PS1 was completely lacking in this department, however. Sony's debut gaming machine had plenty of games to give friends hours of competitive fun.

There are thousands of Creative Islands in Fortnite, and they all serve different purposes. Gamers will find an island for just about anything, and this includes generating experience points to quickly increase their Battle Pass level. Over the years, the Fortnite Battle Pass has become harder to complete, and many gamers don't want to deal with the pressure so they resort to grinding it out in Creative.

Artificial intelligence can detect undersea movement better than humans, report claims.

Take an exclusive look behind the curtain of Wicked and uncover the magic of this highly anticipated adaptation. From on-set bloopers to special effects marvels, this behind-the-scenes feature offers a glimpse into the artistry and dedication that brought the Land of Oz to life. Join Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo as they share their experiences on set, offering personal insights into their transformative performances as Glinda and Elphaba.The production of the film artfully intermeshes the employment of practical effects and groundbreaking visual effects. The VFX were produced by some of the top studios in the business. ILM, led by VFX Supervisors Robert Weaver and Anthony Smith, along with Animation Supervisor David Shirk, provided effects that are awe-inspiring. Framestore, led by Jonathan Fawkner and Jeremy Robert, created great visuals with their animation and visualization teams. Outpost VFX, led by Chris Antoniou, and TPO VFX, led by Matthew Tinsley, lent technical know-how to make the magical ambiance of the film.Under the masterful direction of Production VFX Supervisor Pablo Helman, these effects have all been well-designed to integrate in a seamless and cohesive way. From magical makeup to intricate set design, Wicked promises to send audiences on a journey of fantasy and imagination celebrating the art and creativity of each person involved in the making.The post Wicked Behind the Scenes appeared first on Vfxexpress.

I dont know about you, but practically every time my phone rings, my heart rate starts skyrocketing.Who the hell could be calling me? What in the world do they want? And why, for the love of all things sacred, isnt their name showing up on the screen?!Its that last part thats especially unsettling. Despite all the fancy-schmancy smarts these allegedly smart devices of ours possess, we still seem to get an annoying amount of random calls from numbers we dont know and cant easily identify.In fact, one of the most common questions I hear from readers is about that very issue: How can I reverse look up a phone numberwithout paying for some shoddy service or using some shady-seeming app?My friend, Ive never had a great answeruntil now.Unearth all sorts of little-known tech treasures with my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. A spiffy new discovery in your inbox every Wednesday!Your reverse phone number lookup genieSo here it is: The next time you need to identify an unknown number, remember a handy little off-the-beaten-path site called NumLookup. NumLookup lets you type in any phone numberbe it business or personal, U.S. or internationaland, seconds later, get a detailed overview of exactly who owns it. It typically takes about seven seconds to do:You just pull up NumLookup in any browser, on any device youre using.You type or paste the number in question into the search box at the center of the screen.And you hit the search button alongside it.NumLookup makes it as easy as can be to seek out info on any number with a couple of quick steps.One more click and a quick CAPTCHA later, and boom: Youll see your resultstypically complete with the owners name and sometimes even more identifying info.Ive been seeking out and testing tons of reverse number lookup tools, and this is the first one Ive found thats free, reliable, and actually worth your while to use.Its results arent flawless, of courseit ultimately relies on publicly available data, and some people go to great lengths to make sure their digits cant be identifiedbut its had far more hits than misses for me and more often than not serves up exactly the info I need.That added intel may not entirely eliminate the annoyance of an incoming call ring, but it goes a long way toward lowering the associated anxiety and eliminating the maddening mystery around an unknown number.Hey, well take it!NumLookup works through its websiteno downloads or installations required.Its free to use for a handful of searches per day. The service makes its money through ads on the site and optional paid subscriptions that unlock unlimited searches and additional data.You dont have to sign in or create any accounts, and the company behind NumLookup promises that all data is encrypted and kept completely private.Want even more productivity-boosting goodness? Check out my free Cool Tools newsletter for an instant introduction to an AI-powered supertool that transcribes your brainand another off-the-beaten-path gem every Wednesday!

As the clock ticks closer to a U.S. ban on TikTok, small businesses are bracing for the loss of an app that has, in many cases, proven vital for their success.Millions of small businesses use the short-video social media app to help them grow their business in a multitude of ways. From helping to grow a customer base and selling goods directly from the app to advertising and marketing, TikTok has become a lifeline for small and medium-size businesses, offering a level playing field for brands to connect with targeted audiences.This app saved our business, posted one entrepreneur on TikTok. Last June, her crafting business was on the brink. But after launching her TikTok shop, the in-app shopping feature turned things around, driving sales far beyond what her website or other social platforms could achieve. There is no other social like this one, she said. @lmecreations1 I know I am not alone #tiktokban #tiktokshop #smallbiztiktok #smallbizlife original sound LME creations The U.S. government has cited national security concerns as the main reason behind its potential ban of TikTok. The Justice Department has ordered ByteDance, the China-based parent company of the app, to sell TikTok by January 19 or face a complete ban in the U.S.If the ban goes into effect, TikTok estimates that small businesses on the platform would lose more than $1 billion in revenue in just one month.TikToks short-video format, paired with its algorithm that prioritizes engaging content, has enabled small, local businesses to go viral and tap into global audiences. Entrepreneurs leverage the platform to showcase their products, offer behind-the-scenes glimpses, and build personal connections with customers, making it an invaluable tool for business growth. 69% of these businesses say that using TikTok has led to increased sales for their businesses in the last year, and 39% say that access to TikTok is critical to their businesss existence, said Blake Chandlee, president of global business solutions for TikTok, in a court filing last month.If a ban is indeed enacted, small businesses will need to shift to other platforms to connect with their customers. Instagram Reels, Snapchat, and YouTube Shorts are potential alternatives. But for many businesses, no other app currently offers the same blend of reach, functionality, and audience engagement that TikTok does.Lizz Smoak, brand strategist and a SCORE mentor, urges small businesses to diversify their presence across different platforms if they havent already done so, as well as build email lists to keep in direct contact with customers, no matter the platform shifts. Teaming up with multi-platform creators and micro-influencers can also help boost visibility, while sharing user-generated content (UGC) from influencers and customers keeps the buzz alive and engagement high.The strongest marketing strategies are like roots of a tree, says Smoak. The deeper and wider they grow, the more resilient youll be when the winds of social change blow. Building a community both online and offline isnt just smart, its essential for long-term growth.

Swiss architecture studio Atelier Archiplein has refurbished and extended La Villa house in Annecy, France, renewing the home's dated interiors.Situated on a hillside overlooking Annecy Lake, the 1960s home was in need of updating as its "single-purpose rooms" were no longer practical for contemporary use.To address this, Atelier Archiplein refurbished the villa's three floors, which are arranged around its existing concrete structure, and completed extensions to the building's front and rear.Atelier Archiplein has refurbished and extended a home in Annecy"Dating back to the 1960s, the existing house consisted of small, independent, and single-purpose rooms," studio co-founder Marlne Leroux told Dezeen."The project aims to break apart this spatial configuration, which no longer aligns with contemporary uses, by making the entire space available as a communal area.""This required extensive structural work, an aspect of the intervention that became a theme in its own right," she added. "Thus, the structure of the building is made visible in the interiors, left raw and expressed through a series of parallel piers."The studio rearranged the home for modern useThe 350-metre-square villa is defined by its pitched structure topped with an overhanging roof.A rough external render used to finish the newly-insulated facade was chosen by the studio for its ties to mid-20th century architecture, and is complemented by brick window sills and wood-framed openings.Green-toned details, including awnings and railings, were repeated throughout the design.The existing concrete structure was retainedAccessed via a stepped entrance at the front of the home, the residence opens up to an entrance hall where a nook provides storage space. A bedroom and bathroom is hosted at the villa's opposite end.Beyond this space, the home opens up to a series of interconnected living spaces, which are partially divided by load-bearing concrete structures and united by terrazzo flooring.Read: Concrete "wells" illuminate French home renovated by Atelier Delalande TabourinThe centralised living room, which features a fireplace backed by a slim concrete wall, is flanked on one side by a home office and by doors leading out to an adjacent terrace on the other.Behind this, a row of columns, which serve as remnants of the home's former facade, demarcate the kitchen and dining space.Large openings designed to optimise views across the lake draw light into the interior, which is defined by white walls and concrete set off with wooden details and colourful accents.Terrazzo flooring and wooden details feature in the communal spaces"Each load-bearing frame is treated with variable forms that address specific structural and spatial challenges," Leroux said."Despite these significant interventions, the project establishes a clear connection with the history of the site by exploring the stylistic and chromatic codes of the building's era of construction.""The newly introduced design elements transport us to a reimagined past," she added.Large windows overlook the nearby lakeA wooden staircase leads up from La Villa's ground floor to an upper floor, where an external terrace encased by a green, steel railing sits at the home's rear.Additional spaces include a basement level, which is complete with direct access to an adjacent garden.Other houses recently completed in France include a home designed to challenge the typical standards of suburban housing in the village of Pradez-le-Lez and an old farmhouse overhauled in Normandy designed to evoke the site's rural history.The photography is byAurlien Poulat.The post Atelier Archiplein updates 1960s lakeside villa in France appeared first on Dezeen.

Achieving expert-level performance in complex reasoning tasks is a significant challenge in artificial intelligence (AI). Models like OpenAIs o1 demonstrate advanced reasoning capabilities akin to those of highly trained experts. However, reproducing such models involves addressing complex hurdles, including managing the vast action space during training, designing effective reward signals, and scaling search and learning processes. Approaches like knowledge distillation have limitations, often constrained by the teacher models performance. These challenges highlight the need for a structured roadmap that emphasizes key areas such as policy initialization, reward design, search, and learning.The Roadmap FrameworkA team of researchers from Fudan University and Shanghai AI Laboratory has developed a roadmap for reproducing o1 from the perspective of reinforcement learning. This framework focuses on four key components: policy initialization, reward design, search, and learning. Policy initialization involves pre-training and fine-tuning to enable models to perform tasks such as decomposition, generating alternatives, and self-correction, which are critical for effective problem-solving. Reward design provides detailed feedback to guide the search and learning processes, using techniques like process rewards to validate intermediate steps. Search strategies such as Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) and beam search help generate high-quality solutions, while learning iteratively refines the models policies using search-generated data. By integrating these elements, the framework builds on proven methodologies, illustrating the synergy between search and learning in advancing reasoning capabilities.Technical Details and BenefitsThe roadmap addresses key technical challenges in reinforcement learning with a range of innovative strategies. Policy initialization starts with large-scale pre-training, building robust language representations that are fine-tuned to align with human reasoning patterns. This equips models to analyze tasks systematically and evaluate their own outputs. Reward design mitigates the issue of sparse signals by incorporating process rewards, which guide decision-making at granular levels. Search methods leverage both internal and external feedback to efficiently explore the solution space, balancing exploration and exploitation. These strategies reduce reliance on manually curated data, making the approach both scalable and resource-efficient while enhancing reasoning capabilities.Results and InsightsImplementation of the roadmap has yielded noteworthy results. Models trained with this framework show marked improvements in reasoning accuracy and generalization. For instance, process rewards have increased task success rates in challenging reasoning benchmarks by over 20%. Search strategies like MCTS have demonstrated their effectiveness in producing high-quality solutions, improving inference through structured exploration. Additionally, iterative learning using search-generated data has enabled models to achieve advanced reasoning capabilities with fewer parameters than traditional methods. These findings underscore the potential of reinforcement learning to replicate the performance of models like o1, offering insights that could extend to more generalized reasoning tasks.ConclusionThe roadmap developed by researchers from Fudan University and Shanghai AI Laboratory offers a thoughtful approach to advancing AIs reasoning abilities. By integrating policy initialization, reward design, search, and learning, it provides a cohesive strategy for replicating o1s capabilities. This framework not only addresses existing limitations but also sets the stage for scalable and efficient AI systems capable of handling complex reasoning tasks. As research progresses, this roadmap serves as a guide for building more robust and generalizable models, contributing to the broader goal of advancing artificial intelligence.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. 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...

Looking forthe most recentMini Crossword answer?Click here for today's Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands and Connections puzzles.Today's NYT Mini Crossword was one of the easier ones of late, I thought. I was a little mixed up by the 8 Across clue -- They're rolled in annoyance -- but it seemed obvious once I filled in a few more letters. Read on for all the answers.If you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times' games collection. If you're looking for today's Wordle, Connections, Strands and Connections: Sports Edition answers, you can visitCNET's NYT puzzle hints page.Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini CrosswordLet's get at those Mini Crossword clues and answers. The completed NYT Mini Crossword puzzle for Jan. 5, 2025. NYT/Screenshot by CNETMini across clues and answers1A clue: What "verb" or "adjective" is, confusinglyAnswer: NOUN5A clue: On the ___ (free)Answer: HOUSE6A clue: One holding a deedAnswer: OWNER7A clue: Large in scope, as a photography lensAnswer: MACRO8A clue: They're rolled in annoyanceAnswer: EYESMini down clues and answers1D clue: "You've got to be kidding!"Answer: NOWAY2D clue: Unit equal to roughly 28 gramsAnswer: OUNCE3D clue: App customersAnswer: USERS4D clue: Infamous Roman emperorAnswer: NERO5D clue: Where the heart is, it's saidAnswer: HOMEHow to play more Mini CrosswordsThe New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day's Mini Crossword for free, but you'll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer?Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Connections puzzles.I grew up in Minnesota, so when I saw today'sStrandspuzzle theme, I figured my decades of experience with all things wintry and cold would serve me well. And so it did. But there's one oddball word in today's answer that reflects winter weather in my current city of Seattle more than the traditional Minnesota winter. If you need hints and answers, read on.Also, I go into depth about therules for Strands in this story.If you're looking for today's Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visitCNET's NYT puzzle hints page.Read more:NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So FarHint for today's Strands puzzleToday's Strands theme is:Cold snap.If that doesn't help you, here's a clue: Walking in a winter wonderland.Clue words to unlock in-game hintsYour goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle's theme. If you're stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:WIND, STAR, RATS, HATE, HATES, HATS, DINT, RITE, HAZY, RULE, RULER, HEATAnswers for today's Strands puzzleThese are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you've got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:SNOW, FROST, SLEET, FLURRY, BLIZZARD, DRIZZLEToday's Strands spangramToday's Strands spangram isWINTERWEATHERTo find it, start with the W that's the furthest left letter on the top row, and wind down. The completed NYT Strands puzzle for Jan. 5, 2025. NYT/Screenshot by CNET