Call of Dutyhas been and continues to be one of the games industrys biggest and most successful properties, but even though its no secret that the shooter series is one of the most lucrative IPs around, curiously enough, its not often that we get official sales figures revealed for any of its instalments.Recently, however, Activision executive Peter Kelly head of creative onCall of Duty revealed sales figures for threeCall of Dutygames in a December court filing, as caught and reported by Game File and the numbers are unsurprisingly high.As per the court filing,Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold Warhas sold over 30 million units worldwide since its release in 2019. Meanwhile, the title preceding it 2019sCall of Duty: Modern Warfarereboot stands at over 41 million units sold worldwide. Then theresCall of Duty: Black Ops 3, which has sold over 43 million units since releasing close to a decade ago in November 2015.Call of Dutygames selling staggering numbers isnt the most surprising thing in the world- and as per the aforementioned court filing, the series certainly needs to sell that much if it is to turn a profit against its eye-watering development costs, with the aforementioned Black Ops Cold Warsdevelopment costing as much as over $700 million. Read more on that through here.

Massively ballooning game development budgets are among the biggest issues facing the games industry right now, and we continue to see increasing examples of that by the day. Unsurprisingly, it has emerged that Call of Duty as one of the biggest gaming properties on the planet has some of the largest and most eye-watering budgets in the industry.Caught and reported by Game File, development budget figures for threeCall of Duty titles wererevealed by Activisions Patrick Kelly who is head of creative on theCall of Dutyfranchise in official court filings in December. As per the filing, 2020sCall of Duty: Black Ops Cold Warhad a development budget of over $700 million, 2019sCall of Duty: Modern Warfarereboot stands at over $640 million, while 2015sCall of Duty: Black Ops 3stands at over $450 million.Kelly states in the filing that those figures cover development costs over the games lifecycle for each game, suggesting that costs associated with developing each games post-launch content is also included.That said, its also worth noting that these figures only cover development costs- marketing costs, which usually tend to be just as high as development costs for AAA titles (especially for something likeCall of Duty), are bound to take the total budget figures radically higher for the three aforementioned titles. Then again, all three titles have also sold exceedingly well, based on figures revealed by Kelly in the filing.This putsCall of Dutyat the top of the list of highest game development budgets, though its worth noting that information on that front is scarce at best, thanks to the consistent reluctance of developers and publishers to disclose relevant numbers. Notable examples in recent years have been limited to the likes ofThe Last of Us Part 2, Horizon Forbidden West, Marvels Spider-Man 2, Concord, The Callisto Protocol, and others, though these newly revealed figures forCall of Dutyput the shooter series far above any of the aforementioned titles.

Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki and Yasuhide Mizuno, CEO of Sony Honda Mobility announced that the Afeela electric vehicle car with PlayStation 5 features is ready for pre-registration. There are two models coming in 2026, and the name the companies have for the versions are the Afeela 1 Origin ($89,900) and the Afeela 1 Signature ($102,900). They showed whRead More

Maingear unveiled a Signature Edition desktop gaming PC designed in collaboration with popular Twitch streamer Shroud.Read More

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The Last of Us will return to HBO and Max this April. Series creative director, Neil Druckmann, announced the premiere of the shows second season onstage at CES this evening alongside a short teaser for the new season. A specific premiere date wasnt given.The shows first season wrapped up in March 2023, so itll be more than two years between seasons by the time the new one debuts. The Last of Us first season was very well-received particularly for a video game adaptation so expectations are high for the shows return.This season is supposed to cover a portion of the second game, with the full story being split across two or more seasons, according to an interview last year with the shows creators. We dont think that were going to be able to tell the story even within two seasons [2 and 3] because were taking our time and go down interesting pathways which we did a little bit in Season 1 too, showrunner Craig Mazin told Deadline.Alongside the return of The Last of Us, Sony also announced plans to bring several other PlayStation titles to the screen. Ghost of Tsushima is being adapted into an anime series, and both Horizon Zero Dawn and Helldivers 2 are being made into films.

Amazfit may not be a household name, but its been crushing it in the budget smartwatch space for a long time. And at CES 2025, the company is trying to outdo itself with the $99 Amazfit Active 2.I was a big fan of the companys GTR 4 watch it wasnt a looker, but it packed in an incredible amount of value for $200. I liked it so much that its sat comfortably as the top overall pick in our fitness tracker buying guide for two years. Compared to that watch, the Active 2 has even more functionality forhalf that price. Its got a bright 2,000 nit OLED display, upgraded health sensors, revamped heart rate and sleep algorithms, and the Zepp Flow AI assistant. Theres also a smarter strength training mode that can auto-detect sets, reps, and rest, offline maps with turn-by-turn directions, and personalized training plans via the Zepp Coach integration. For people with periods, theres also a mini app in collaboration with Wild.AI, which delivers diet and exercise recommendations based on hormonal and menstrual cycles throughout a persons life (i.e., reproductive years, perimenopause, and menopause). The watch also works in tandem with the companys recently launched Helio smart ring, similar to how the Samsung Galaxy Ring optimizes sensor accuracy with its Galaxy Watches. European users will also get contactless payments via Zepp Pay, a feature that was notably missing from the GTR 4.The display gets up to 2,000 nits of brightness.You almost never find this kind of feature set for under $250. Its bonkers that you can get it for $100. Amazfits Active line, which launched last year, effectively replaces its popular GTR lineup (though you can still easily find GTR 4 models online). Style-wise, you can see that in how the Active 2 switches from the original Actives square, Apple Watch-esque design to a more classic 44mm round watchface. The standard model comes with a tempered glass screen, stainless steel case, and a 20mm silicone sport band. The premium model costs $129 and upgrades the screen to a more durable sapphire glass and includes an additional leather strap. Compared to the Active, the Active 2 also adds more advanced hardware like a barometer, a gyroscope, and an ambient light sensor. Battery life isnt quite as good, dropping to 10 days with normal use compared to 14 days. (That said, 10 days is still impressive compared to the competition.) I wish the touchscreen were a little more responsive, but thats been my only real complaint so far.On paper, the Active 2 feels like it ought to have some kind of catch. However, Ive been wearing the premium Active 2 for the last few days, and its quite nice. So far, performance has been zippy, its lightweight on the wrist, and Ive already gotten several compliments from coworkers. Sometimes budget devices can look chintzy, and while no one would mistake the Active 2 for a luxury watch, it doesnt look or feel as cheap as a $100$150 smartwatch could. Im still testing out the health and fitness features, but so far, its held up well on a handful of treadmill runs, and in the last three days, Ive only used about 25 percent battery. I wish the touchscreen were a bit more responsive, but its nothing too egregious thus far. Its too early for me to make a definitive call on the Active 2, but so far, its looking like it could be a compelling option for folks who want a simpler smartwatch without breaking the bank.The Active 2 is available for preorder in the US now and will launch globally in February.

Sony is launching the Xyn (pronounced zin), an extended reality headset for creating 3D objects for films, animation, and games. The device, which Sony first teased at CES last year, will come with 4K OLED displays, video passthrough, and support for third-party design, modeling, and production software.Based on the video shared by Sony, it looks like wearers will be able to flip up the headset when theyre not using it. It doesnt appear to come with the ring and pointer that Sony showed off last year, though.Alongside the headset, Sony revealed Xyn Motion Studio, an accompanying Windows app that supports up to 12 Mocopi sensors, its wireless motion-tracking system that V-Tubers and other creators often use to control virtual avatars. The software comes with motion-editing features, allowing creators to trim and merge motions, as well as adjust time and position.Theres also a prototype of a spatial capture solution, which is supposed to transform images of real objects and spaces into photorealistic 3D computer-generated assets using Sonys algorithm. One year out from Sonys initial teaser, and details are still pretty slim on what exactly this headset will be capable of, aside from viewing and interacting with 3D objects.Sony is planning to release its Xyn Motion Studio software in late March 2025, but there still isnt any word on the availability or pricing of its headset.

People often follow Probabilities, Deviations and Densities that play a key role in ML modeling. 0 like January 6, 2025Share this postAuthor(s): Chandra Prakash Bathula Originally published on Towards AI. This member-only story is on us. Upgrade to access all of Medium.Photo by Clarisse Croset on UnsplashPart 2: First, make sure you follow these steps, before applying Machine Learning algorithms!We have discussed about basic plotting earlier, now lets dive into some real time insights.We can see the points scatter, but can we work around to get the density of points at a specific region? If there are any, will it be possible for us to know the confidence of the count?To answer these questions we need to delve deep into concepts like Histograms, PDF & CDF.Everything that we have discussed previously is about 2D and 3D. We realized that we could not do visual 4D and developed pair plots.What about 1-D? Why dont we try a 1-D scatter plot?A 1-D scatter plot can be plotted using a single variable on the x-axis to make the y-axis zeroes.By creating data frames based on species in the plot, we have the X-axis as the Petal Length and the Y-axis as nothing.import numpy as npimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt# Assuming iris is a pandas DataFrameiris_setosa = iris.loc[iris["species"] == "setosa"]iris_virginica = iris.loc[iris["species"] == "virginica"]iris_versicolor = iris.loc[iris["species"] == "versicolor"]# Plotting petal lengths for each species using Read the full blog for free on Medium.Join thousands of data leaders on the AI newsletter. Join over 80,000 subscribers and keep up to date with the latest developments in AI. From research to projects and ideas. If you are building an AI startup, an AI-related product, or a service, we invite you to consider becoming asponsor. Published via Towards AITowards AI - Medium Share this post

Optimizing YOLOv8 & Scaling Object Detection on Small Devices 0 like January 6, 2025Share this postAuthor(s): Supriya Rani Originally published on Towards AI. From Quantization Aware Training to Pruning, discover how to make YOLOv8 faster and more efficient for edge devices.This member-only story is on us. Upgrade to access all of Medium.Photo by Museums Victoria on UnsplashImagine running an AI model that can detect objects in real-time on your smartphone or a drone without freezing or draining the battery. Sounds like magic, right? But its the future of object detection, powered by YOLOv8.YOLOv8 is one of the fastest and most accurate models for identifying objects, but its also hefty. When deploying this model on smaller, resource-limited devices like phones, sensors, or embedded systems, you can quickly run into performance issues. Thats where optimization techniques come in.In this article, well explore how tools like Quantization Aware Training (QAT), pruning, and others can transform YOLOv8 into a lean, mean detection machine that works seamlessly on low-resource devices. Whether youre building the next generation of smart cameras or mobile apps, optimizing YOLOv8 is the key to delivering high-performance, real-time object detection.AI generated imageYOLOv8 is the latest release in the well-known You Only Look Once (YOLO) series, and its a game-changer when it comes to speed and accuracy. Its widely used in areas like self-driving cars, surveillance systems, and robotics. But while YOLOv8 is extremely powerful, its also quite resource-intensive. Thats where optimization comes Read the full blog for free on Medium.Join thousands of data leaders on the AI newsletter. Join over 80,000 subscribers and keep up to date with the latest developments in AI. From research to projects and ideas. If you are building an AI startup, an AI-related product, or a service, we invite you to consider becoming asponsor. Published via Towards AITowards AI - Medium Share this post