Were pleased to share that DNEG has entered a strategic partnership with Stars Collective to bring immersive theater experiences to the Chinese market!Leveraging our decades of expertise and our DNEG IXP division, which was launched earlier this year, we will work with Stars Collective on the development and production of immersive experience content, including establishing and operating immersive experience venues in China, and designing IP-themed stories and experiences tailored for the Chinese market.Speaking on the partnership, CEO Namit Malhotra said,With the launch of DNEG IXP, our Immersive Experiences division, and our continued drive to diversify our service offering to complement our Hollywood partnerships and projects, I welcome this strategic partnership with Stars Collective. The agreement aligns with our own investment in and development of premium global content, and I am confident that this partnership will deliver exciting creative opportunities for storytellers and new avenues for content owners to maximise the value of their IP across territories.The development, production, and operation of these immersive experience projects will focus first on China, with future plans to expand into Southeast Asia and North America.Learn more from Variety.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today's Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.So the purple category in the NYT Connections puzzle was kind of entertaining today, but if you don't know a certain probability puzzle involving a certain game-show host, you're going to think the puzzle makers are off their rockers. Click here if you want to know what I'm talking about. Read on for today's Connections hints and answers.The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. And players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.Read more:Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every TimeHints for today's Connections groupsHere are four hints for the groupings in today's Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest, yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.Yellow group hint: Conditioned by something else.Green group hint: Cool itBlue group hint: Cheers!Purple group hint: Game-show brain teaserAnswers for today's Connections groupsYellow group: Be contingent (on)Green group: "Calm down"Blue group: Ingredients in an old fashionedPurple group: Featured in the Monty Hall problemRead more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English WordsWhat are today's Connections answers?The yellow words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is be contingent (on). The four answers are depend, hinge, rely and rest.The green words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is "calm down." The four answers are chill, easy, enough and relax.The blue words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is ingredients in an old fashioned. The four answers are bitters, orange, rye and sugar.The purple words in today's ConnectionsThe theme is featured in the Monty Hall problem. The four answers are car, door, goat and host.

It hasn't been an easy couple of years forstudent loan borrowers. Between multiple payment pauses and the courts disputing the legality of the Biden administration's Saving on a Valuable Education plan, the fate of student loan forgiveness and other programs remains unclear. Elaine Rubin, a higher education policy expertAs a student loan expert with more than 15 years of experience in the industry, I understand the confusion. I've witnessed my fair share of program changes, but I've never been through a period more complicated and tumultuous than the policy tug-of-war we've seen over the past two years.With so many factors up in the air, how should you approach your student loan repayment strategy?You can't control the fate of debt relief programs or income-driven repayment plans, but there are steps you can take to regain control of your student loans. Here are five things you can do right now -- and one thing you shouldn't do. Review your student loan balanceDo you know how much you owe in total on your student loans? You might have an idea (or think you do), but it's important to check.Many borrowers I've worked with are surprised to find they owe more than they initially borrowed when it's time to start repayment. This is because most loans, except subsidized ones, begin accruing interest from the moment they are disbursed. Outstanding interest, which has not been capitalized or added to your loan, is listed separately from the principal balance. To fully understand your loan balance, it's important to carefully review your statements.If you know who your student loan servicer is, you can log into your online account to check your balance. If you're not sure, you can find out by logging into your Federal Student Aid account and visiting the My Aid page.Read more:5 Ways to Pay Off Your Student Loans Even Faster Plan to restart paymentsIf you are enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, your loans have been in an administrative forbearance since this summer due to the plan's legal challenges. You haven't been able to make payments, and your interest rate has been set to zero. This payment hold is temporary, and I expect it to end soon.If you haven't done so already, reevaluate your monthly budget to accommodate your student loan payments.Compare the income-driven repayment plansIf you're worried about SAVE disappearing or looking to adjust your budget to include your monthly loan payments, it's a good idea to explore all available repayment plans. You can use the US Department of Education's Loan Simulator to estimate your payments and check eligibility for specific plans. This tool will let you explore available income-driven payment options.Update: The department recentlyrestored the Pay as You Earn and Income-Contingent Repayment options, two IDR plans that were previously phased out. You can now apply for them online (if you're eligible). Don't sleep on the PSLF buyback programThe Public Service Loan Forgiveness program offers debt cancellation for teachers, nurses and other public service employees who work in a qualifying job for 10 years and make 120 payments on their loans. If you're enrolled in SAVE and were close to reaching your 120 total payments, the recent payment pause may have delayed your forgiveness. In this case, you might benefit from the PSLF buyback program.The PSLF buyback program lets you "buy back" months where your loans sat on hold during a forbearance period -- but only if doing so brings you to 120 total payments.For example, let's say you had already made 115 qualifying payments before your loan entered the SAVE Plan forbearance. You could apply for the PSLF buyback program to buy back five of the months where your loans were in forbearance to reach the 120-payment requirement. You'll apply for the program online, and once approved, you'll have 90 days to pay off what you owe for the number of months you buy back. So, if your monthly payment was $100, you'd need to pay $500 to receive forgiveness.You'll need to also make sure you meet all other PSLF eligibility criteria, such as working for a qualifying employer and having the correct loan type. If you think you're eligible and want to confirm your payment count, you can find qualifying payment amounts in yourStudentAid.gov account. Expert tip: If you qualify for forgiveness through the buyback program, you will not pay any federal taxes on the forgiven amounts through 2025. However, certain states may tax student loan forgiveness. If you're in school, start paying off interestIf you're still in college, your student loans likely haven't entered repayment yet. While it's difficult to predict whatrepayment options will be available in the future, there are proactive steps you can take now.One recommendation is to pay off any interest that accrues while you're still in school. Even small contributions can help reduce the overall cost of your loans in the long run.If your federal student loan hasn't yet entered repayment, you won't be eligible to enroll in a repayment plan yet. Repayment starts six months after graduation or if your enrollment drops below half-time, unless you enroll in another program, like graduate school, before the grace period ends. Don't count on forgivenessMany borrowers have turned to income-driven repayment plans to reduce their monthly payments and potentially qualify for student loan forgiveness. However, forgiveness is not guaranteed, especially as legal challenges continue to threaten the SAVE repayment plan. Programs like PSLF and forgiveness under the Income-Based Repayment Plan carry less risk, since they would require congressional action to be altered or eliminated.That said, it's always wise to plan for full repayment of your student loans, regardless of any current potential forgiveness opportunities. More student loan advice

Marvel Rivals, the new hero shooter based on Marvel comics characters, starts its first full season later this week. The free-to-play game launched season 0 on Dec. 6 and quickly reached 20 million players.After the abbreviated season 0, we're starting the first full (13-week) season. We're gotten a flood of confirmed details, and here's what we know about season 1, including the trailer for the season.Marvel Rivals season 1 start timeThe Eternal Night Falls trailer says the season begins Friday, Jan. 10. The trailer's YouTube page specifies that it's 4 a.m. ET/1 a.m. PT.Read more:Marvel Rivals: How to Choose Which Heroes and Roles to Play Sue Storm can pull unsuspecting enemies into your team, allowing for a quick elimination. Marvel/Capture by Adam BenjaminNew Marvel Rivals heroes and mapsThe new trailer on Monday gave us brief glimpses of the Fantastic Four -- Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch and The Thing. They're a fitting addition to the game, given its premise that two Doctor Dooms from different timelines are warring for control. (It also helps build hype for the new Fantastic Four movie, First Steps, coming this summer.) Invisible Woman will take the role of a strategist, and Mr. Fantastic will be a duelist. Though not appearing until later in the season, The Thing will be a vanguard, with Johnny Storm adding yet another duelist to the roster.I had a chance to try out the new heroes before the season and had two main takeaways. First, Mr. Fantastic is officially a duelist, but his role very much blends with vanguards. His Reflexive Rubber ability lets him store and bounce incoming damage back at enemies, and his ability to generate overhealth makes him far tankier than most duelists. In most of the games I played with or against him, he was absorbing almost as much damage as the team's tanks.Second, Invisible Woman has a lot to keep track of. I enjoyed the high-actions-per-minute play style, but some players might be fatigued by having to track the limited range of her primary fire, the health of her deployable shields, the multiple inputs for her push/pull ability and the cooldowns of all her abilities. She has a lot of utility, but effectively managing those various resources is the key to her success. When enemies overextend, you can use Invisible Woman's ultimate to prevent enemy strategists from healing them while also healing your team inside the radius. Marvel/Capture by Adam BenjaminThe season will be divided into two halves, with Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman being added at the start of the season, while Thing and the Human Torch join up in the second half. We'll get one new convoy map, Midtown, where players will escort the Fanastic Four's robotic ally H.E.R.B.I.E. to Avengers tower. We're also getting an all-new arcade game mode, Doom Match, which will take place in Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. A third map, Central Park, will be added midseason. Prepare for some portal pandemonium in the Sanctum Sanctorum's arcade mode. MarvelThe devs said this is twice what they have planned for future seasons, so it's probably safe to expect one new hero at the start of future seasons and another about six weeks later, with one or two new maps per season. That would mean eight new heroes per year, and four to eight new maps. That's an impressive amount of content for a live-service game.There have been many other Marvel Rivals leaks recently, including hero models or abilities for characters like Ultron, Emma Frost and Jean Grey. These all have yet to be confirmed and won't show up in season 1, but they do suggest a healthy content roadmap for the game, essential for keeping players engaged over the year.Battle pass Marvel/Screenshot by CNETSeason 0 featured an abbreviated battle pass, and developers have said the season 1 pass will feature "double the content and excitement," in the latest dev vision video. That includes 10 new costumes, styled around the season's Eternal Night theme.The season 1 battle pass will cost 990 lattice (about $10 worth of in-game currency). You can earn 600 lattice and 600 units (collectively, about $12 worth of in-game currency) if you complete the battle pass.Balance changesThe devs have seen your Reddit posts -- Hawkeye and Hela are getting nerfs to start season 1, although the changes look a little tame compared to community expectations. Jeff's ultimate is also being adjusted. And buffs are coming the way of Captain America, Cloak and Dagger, Storm, Venom and Wolverine, among others.The devs have released full patch notes detailing the changes, and the stats on the Rivals website will be updated with new balance numbers. The Rivals site has also been updated with pick and win rate stats and will receive new updates every half season.Ranked reset and mouse accelerationThe dev vision video also revealed that players' ranks will drop seven divisions -- a platinum 1 rank will start the new season at silver 2, in their example. By that math, anyone in gold 2 or lower will be back at bronze 3 to start the season.Additionally, the game is introducing the celestial rank, which will feature the standard three tiers and appear after the grandmaster rank.The developers also said that season 1 will include the much-requested mouse acceleration settings option, meaning no one will have to resort to editing game files if they don't want that feature.For more on Marvel Rivals, check out my tips for getting started and my guide to choosing which heroes and roles to play.

The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered is the latest PlayStation game to require a PSN account on PCDespite last year's Helldivers 2 outcry.Image credit: Naughty Dog/Sony News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on Jan. 10, 2025 It's probably not a huge surprise to hear at this point, but Sony has confirmed The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered will - like numerous other single-player PlayStation games before it - require a PSN account in order to play when it launches for PC this April.Sony, of course, faced a major backlash last May when it announced it would be making PSN accounts mandatory for Helldivers 2 on PC - a move that meant players in the 177 countries where PSN is unavailable would no longer be able to play the game they'd purchase. Ultimately, the outcry was significant enough that Sony relented, but that hasn't stopped it from implementing PSN requirements for an increasing number of PC ports since then.It's a decision that's continued to draw criticism given the requirement - which was originally justified as being necessary for the "safety and security" of online play - is now being implemented across both multiplayer and single-player games. Ghost of Tsushima, for instance, does have a multiplayer component, despite being a predominantly single-player title, while other PC releases requiring PSN - such as Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, God of War Ragnark, and Until Dawn - are purely single-player experiences.The Last of Us Part II Remastered PC announcement trailer..Watch on YouTubeAnd now The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered (as spotted by VGC) has joined the steadily expanding list of predominantly single-player PlayStation titles - online leaderboards are supported in its roguelike No Return mode - requiring a PSN log-in on PC.For most, that requirement is probably little more than a somewhat irritating inconvenience. But for others - namely, those based in one of the aforementioned 117 regions where PSN is unavailable - it means The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered simply won't be purchasable on PC. And given Sony previously confirmed this month's PC port of the single-player Marvel's Spider-Man 2 also requires a PSN account, it appears this is a path it's now determine to follow.The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered launches for PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store on 3rd April, the same month season two of HBO's acclaimed The Last of Us television series begins airing. Digital Foundry called the remaster - which includes the likes of increased texture resolution, increased level-of-detail distances, and improved shadow quality - the "best way to play a genuine classic" when it arrived on PlayStation 5 last year.

"Stay tuned for more".Another accessory manufacturer has decided it's ready to show off some new 'Switch 2' products. This time it's Skull & Co with an all-new "NeoGrip" accessory, which will allow you to get a better grip on Nintendo's new system in handheld mode.Here's a look, and as you can see - these same images seem to feature the new hardware that hasn't even been announced by Nintendo yet. Wild, we know!Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Doorbell cameras are standard fare these days. More and more people have invested in connected security systemss, as the technology has become both cheaper and more user friendly. Theres one important thing these system wont do, however: shoot people and animals with paintballs.That is, however, pretty much the Eve PaintCams whole M.O. Carrying the somewhat misleading tagline Safety Simplified, there is a quartet of different models rigging on the same theme. After running both Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns, Slovenian startup OZ-IT set up shop at CES 2025 this week to show the tech world what is at very least a novel approach.Crowdfunding videos and media handouts highlight the systems prowess with both human and animal targets thats intruders in the case of the former and unwanted wildlife with the later. The Eve, Eve+, and EvePro are largely targeted at people, while the camouflaged Simba is primarily aimed at deterring wild animals.Depending on the configuration you choose, the system has some combination of pet detection (Eve+, EvePro), face recognition (EvePro), and animal recognition (Eve Simba) AI features.There are a range of projectiles (paintballs), as well, including one with capsaicin, the chemical compound that gives chili peppers their heat, which the company says is legal in most countries. They also offer special projectiles for specific animals and ones filled with UV paint to help the police track a tagged intruder down.

Tesla has revealed a new-look Model Y meant for the Chinese and other Asian-Pacific markets, marking the first major update to the SUV since its launch in 2020. The redesign comes as Tesla finished 2024 having delivered fewer vehicles than it did in 2023. It was the first year-over-year drop since the company started selling mass market cars in 2012. The new Model Y is slated to start deliveries as early as March in China and some surrounding countries. Its not yet clear when Tesla will bring this version to Europe and the U.S., though it took around four months for that to happen with the updated Model 3 last year.The changes to the new Model Y which was internally codenamed Juniper track pretty closely to the ones Tesla made to its Model 3 sedan in 2023, while also borrowing some design elements from the companys other projects. The front end is less bubbly and has a sharper edge to it, like the new Model 3. But the new Model Y also eschews the bug-eye headlights for a continuous light bar running across the front a design seen on the Cybertruck and the prototype of the Cybercab. Tesla also ditched the traditional tail lights in favor of a singular light that stretches across the rear of the car under a small protrusion in the hatch. Tesla claims this cross-car lamp is the first indirect reflective body panel taillight of its kind.Inside, the Model Y refresh has the same ambient light bar found in the new Model 3, which wraps around most of the cabin and can be changed to different colors. There are powered rear seats and a new touchscreen display for rear passengers, and Tesla says the suspension has been improved and that road noise has been reduced. The SUV is a few pounds lighter than its predecessor and can therefore eke out a bit more range, but it seems there is otherwise no radical change on that side of things.This story is developing

Sony Corporation has announced the launch of XYN, an integrated software and hardware solution designed to support the creation of spatial content. Leveraging Sony's imaging, sensing, and display technologies, XYN accurately captures real-world objects, human motion, and backgrounds, recreating them in virtual environments for 3DCG production.By supporting a wide range of third-party tools, it enables flexible workflows. XYN will support intuitive and efficient spatial content creation for a diverse range of creators.XYN Motion Studio is a PC application which supports connection with 12 mocopi sensors and utilizes Sony's proprietary algorithms for automatic motion interpolation and auto-tagging functions. It will be available in late March 2025. The mobile motion capture system mocopi has been utilized by VTubers and VR social platform users as well as creators in game, film, and animation production. The new XYN Motion Studio enhances precision through connections with 12 sensors via dedicated receivers (professional mode). The application also adds new functions for motion data, editing, making motion capture more affordable and accessible to creators across various genres.XYN Spatial capture solution will convert high-quality, photorealistic 3DCG assets from real-world objects and spaces using images captured by mirrorless cameras and proprietary algorithms. Additionally, a prototype for a mobile application that visualizes the shooting conditions of the mirrorless camera in real-time is also under development. This will streamline the 3DCG production workflow for films, games, virtual production, and the metaverse for objects such as props, items, and spatial backgrounds.Additionally, the "XYN Headset" prototype is an immersive spatial content creation system equipped with high-quality 4K OLED microdisplays and video see-through function, optimized for intuitive creative work in spatial content creation. It will support various 3D production software, including pre-visualization and 3D character modeling, not only in the field of industrial design but also in entertainment, and a proof-of-concept experiment using the prototype is underway with Sony Pictures Animation.Experience the world of XYN at Sony's booth at CES 2025 from January 7-10.Check out a concept video for XYN now: Journalist, antique shop owner, aspiring gemologistL'Wrenbrings a diverse perspective to animation, where every frame reflects her varied passions.

This large, Italianate style mansion is located at 417 Sharon-Goshen Turnpike, the main street through West Cornwall Village, Connecticut. The house was built around 1860 for Stephen Foster (c.1816-1863) a merchant and railroad contractor who had constructed a portion of the Housatonic Line railroad near West Cornwall. He and his wife, Helen, previously lived in a Greek Revival style house across the road until they moved into this stately residence. Mr. Foster would not get to enjoy his mansion long as he died in 1863. Helen Foster remained at the home until her death in 1875. The high-style Italianate residence was likely built by master-carpenter C. W. Marsh, and features all the hallmarks of the style: overhanging eaves with decorative brackets, elaborate window and door moulding, two-over-two windows, and a shallow hipped roof with dormer.