As Engadget's chief The Last of Us correspondent, I was pretty pumped to find out during Sony's CES 2025 press conference that season two of the HBO show would come out in April. But Naughty Dog head Neil Druckmann also teased a "location-based experience exhibit" that would transport participants into the tunnels of Seattle filled with Infected. That's an area straight out of The Last of Us Part II, and today I got a chance to try the proof-of-concept experience. It was short, minimal, and a little rough, but it was also another good example of how Sony is trying to take its tentpole franchises from PlayStation and put them in entirely different experiences.Unfortunately, Sony had a strict "no cameras or videos" policy for this experience, so you'll have to rely on my words and a little video the company showed about the tech behind it.I entered the experience with three other participants after a quick run-down of the gear we'd use: two of us got shotguns, and two got flashlights (sadly I was stuck with a flashlight). Both have a bunch of small sensors attached to the front so that they could interact with the environment we entered; the flashlight felt like a real flashlight with some sensors on the end, but the guns were crude tubes with a handle and trigger; the trigger felt pretty good from my quick test of it before we got started. There are also sensors on the barrel of the gun that detect a "pump" motion to reload it.Once we were outfitted, an actor playing a member of an unnamed militia briefed us on the mission: some of our fellow mercenaries disappeared in the Seattle subways perhaps kidnapped by the WLF, perhaps taken down by Infected. Our job was to find him... what could go wrong?Our guide directed me and the other flashlight-holder to start lighting up the subway station which was created by three giant screens surrounding us. The walls of the room were made of LED panels, and the sensors on the flashlights interacted with them to track my moment. I needed to be pretty close to the screens for it to recognize my flashlight, but it was pretty cool to be lighting up a virtual environment in real time.Nathan Ingraham for EngadgetThen, of course, a clicker scream puts the group on high alert and given that it came from a specific location we all swing our flashlights in that direction to identify the threat. Just as in the game, though, the disgusting infected creature shambled closer to us, let out another scream and came charging forward, at which point the shotgunners blasted away with abandon. That noise brought more Infected charging into the space; I would light them up with the flashlight and my partner shot them down.Things calmed down, momentarily then a massive subway car started sliding out of its precarious place, which trigged one of the demo's coolest effects. The floor was rigged for haptic feedback, and while we had felt it rumble at various disturbances, this was by far the biggest impact. The combo of the visuals, audio and haptics all made it feel, well, immersive. I certainly didn't forget I was in a demo, but it was cool nonetheless. Beyond the floor haptics, Sony says that there are even scents pumped into the room to further the atmosphere, but I wasn't able to detect anything myself.Then we got the obligatory cameo from The Last of Us Part II co-protagonist Ellie and her companion Dina, as they scrambled away from Infected who start chasing them down. One knocked Ellie down and started ripping at her throat until Dina caught up and pulled it off her, at which point they sprinted away. Unfortunately, the disturbance brought a massive swarm of monsters coming at us, which brought on the big battle of the experience. I started illuminating the hordes and my companion blasted them down, but then dozens started overwhelming the screens and the screams got more and more intense until everything cut to black as our crew was overrun. That's that!I'm not judging the experience too harshly, because Sony was clear both in its press conference and before we tried it that this is a very early proof of concept. The main thing that pulled me out of it was that the space we were in is static there's no way to run away or move beyond the boundaries of what we were presented with. And then, as I mentioned, you needed to be relatively close to the "walls" for them to recognize the flashlight or gun, which meant that if you backed up to take in the scope of the space you gear might not work.The other barrier to it being truly scary or more immersive is that I couldn't ignore the fact that the threat was on a screen rather than in the room with me. There's no doubt that having full control in an environment like this would be a wild way to play a game like this, but it was all just a little too on the rails and removed from the space I was in.I'm trying to track down anyone from Sony who can tell me more about the genesis for this idea as well as where they see it going in the future. But Sony and Naughty Dog have already brought The Last of Us to a variety of other media, and this feels like a more high-tech vision of what Sony did in conjunction with Universal Studios when it brought the franchise to the Halloween Horror Nights that happens at the theme parks. Whether this is a one-off curiosity or something we see down the line in a more complete fashion, though, remains to be seen.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/sonys-immersive-the-last-of-us-experience-at-ces-2025-dropped-me-into-a-subway-filled-with-zombies-140010550.html?src=rss

In summer 2023, the Biden administration announced its plan to certify devices with a logo indicating powerful cybersecurity. Now, as Biden navigates his last couple weeks in office, the White House has launched the US Cyber Trust Mark. The green shield logo will adorn any product which passes accreditation tests established by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).The program will open to companies "soon," allowing them to submit products to an accredited lab for compliance testing. "The US Cyber Trust Mark embodies public-private collaboration," the White House stated in a release. "It connects companies, consumers, and the US government by incentivizing companies to build products securely against established security standards and gives consumers an added measure of assurance through the label that their smart device is cybersafe." Some companies, like Best Buy and Amazon, plan to showcase labeled products for consumer's easy discovery.Steps to get the program up and running have continued over the last year and a half. In March, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the program in a bipartisan, unanimous vote. Last month, the Commission issued 11 companies with conditional approval to act as Cybersecurity Label Administrators.The White House's original announcement included plans to also create a QR code linking to a database of the products its unclear if this aspect will move forward. The QR code would allow customers to check if the product was up-to-date with its cybersecurity checks.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/devices-with-strong-cybersecurity-can-now-apply-for-a-government-seal-of-approval-131553198.html?src=rss

Expired domains allowed watchTowr to access and sinkhole thousands of web backdoors.

While the new DLSS 4 will massively boost frame rates in titles like Cyberpunk 2077, it's slightly concerning for future PC ports.

Japans national police suspect hacking group MirrorFace is behind a years-long crime spree.

Cohere on Thursday debuted its early access program for its AI agent platform called North, as it deepens its focus on the enterprise.

The U.S. Interior Department said on Wednesday a congressionally mandated oil and gas drilling lease auction in Alaskas Arctic National Wildlife Refuge received no bids from energy companies.Outgoing President Joe Bidens administration billed the outcome as proof the 19 million-acre refuge, home to species including polar bears and Porcupine caribou, should remain off-limits to fossil fuel development, even as President-elect Donald Trump seeks to encourage expanded drilling there.The lack of interest from oil companies in development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reflects what we and they have known all alongthere are some places too special and sacred to put at risk with oil and gas drilling, said Acting Deputy Interior Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis.The U.S. was scheduled to hold a federal auction for some 400,000 acres of the refuge, the minimum required by the 2017 Tax Act, on Friday, but had required bidders to express interest in advance by a Jan. 6 deadline.The lack of interest means no auction will be held.Trumps previous administration had sold oil and gas leases in ANWR in 2021, but the sale generated just $14.4 million in high bids, with an Alaska state agency as the sole bidder for most of the acreage sold.ANWRs 1.6 million-acre coastal area along the Beaufort Sea is estimated to have up to 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil, according to government surveys. But oil companies have been hesitant to pursue the resources in part because of high costs of development, and public relations challenges around drilling in a wildlife sanctuary.A native group, Voice of the Arctic Inupiat, which favors drilling, said in a statement ahead of the auction that the sales small size undermined economic potential for the region.The push to open the refuge has been decried by other native groups including the Gwichin Steering Committee, which represents tribes that depend on the caribou for subsistence.The failed lease sale clearly demonstrates that even oil companies recognize what we have known all along: drilling in the Arctic Refuge is not worth the economic risk and liability that results from development on sacred lands without the consent of Indigenous Peoples, the committee said in a release.On Monday, Alaska sued the Biden administration over the planned sale saying curbs on land that Interior offered in ANWR made it impossible or impracticable to develop. The suit said that when combined with the departments cancellation of the leases granted during the last days of Trumps first presidency, the state will get just a fraction of the $1.1 billion the federal government estimated it would get in revenues from energy development.Oil industry group the American Petroleum Institute had criticized the offering as small and ill-placed.Richard Valdmanis and Timothy Gardner, Reuters

When Tiger Woods launched his apparel brand Sun Day Red in 2024, he joked that he wanted to ruin the logoor at least render it obsolete.The mark shows a tiger made from 15 stripes to represent Woodss 15 major titles. He told Today, My goal is to ruin the logo. If the trademark is this, my job is to ruin it [by winning more championships]. But for Woods, whose last major win was at the Masters Golf Tournament in 2019, there are other challenges to face, including a pair of trademark disputes.Puma has filed a notice of opposition over the Sun Day Red logo, adding to the pile-on after Tigeraire, a helmet airflow systems manufacturer that uses a tiger logo, filed its own notice last September.Attorneys for Puma wrote in legal filings that Woodss companys logo is highly similar in appearance to Pumas, and because Sun Day Red applied for a trademark for its logo that covered items including clothing, footwear, and sports equipment, it will cause confusion as to the source, sponsorship, association, or affiliation of those goods and services due to Pumas strong position in the footwear, apparel, and sports industries.Pumas iconic leaping cat logo was designed by German cartoonist Lutz Backes and, according to court documents, its been used in the U.S. since at least 1969. Attorneys for Puma argue that in addition to its similar appearance to Pumas logo, Sun Day Reds logo is applied in similar ways, like on shirts and the backs of shoes; they included examples of social media posts comparing the two logos in their filing.Theres no single threshold for when a logo violates a trademark, but disputes generally center on the possibility that a reasonable person would be confused. Some companies are more aggressive than others about protecting their marks. Apple filed more than 200 trademark oppositions in a three-year period, according to a 2022 Tech Transparency Project report, including against companies that sell products unrelated to Apples as well as businesses that use logos depicting oranges and pears. In a U.K. court in November, Adidas lost its suit against menswear brand Thom Browne for that companys use of a four-bar stripe design.Pumas filing a notice of opposition wont block Sun Day Red from using its logo for the time being, but attorneys asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to refuse Sun Day Reds trademark registration.

Despite all the attention on technologies that reduce the hands-on role of humans at work such as self-driving vehicles, robot workers, artificial intelligence and so on researchers in the field of neuroergonomics are using technology to improve how humans perform in their roles at work.Neuroergonomics is the study of human behavior while carrying out real-world activities, including in the workplace. It involves recording a persons brain activity in different situations or while completing certain tasks to optimize cognitive performance. For example, neuroergonomics could monitor employees as they learn new material to determine when they have mastered it. It could also help monitor fatigue in employees in roles that require optimum vigilance and determine when they need to be relieved.Until now, research in neuroergonomics could only be conducted in highly controlled clinical laboratory environments using invasive procedures. But engineering advances now make this work possible in real-world settings with noninvasive, wearable devices. The market for this neurotechnology defined as any technology that interfaces with the nervous system is predicted to grow to US$21 billion by 2026 and is poised to shape the daily life of workers for many industries in the years ahead.But this advance doesnt come without risk.In my work as a biomedical engineer and occupational medicine physician, I study how to improve the health, well-being and productivity of workers. Neurotechnology often focuses on how workers could use wearable brain monitoring technologies to improve brain function and performance during tasks. But neuroergonomics could also be used to better understand the human experience at work and adapt tasks and procedures to the person, not the other way around.Capturing brain activityThe two most commonly used neuroergonomic wearable devices capture brain activity in different ways. Electroencephalography, or EEG, measures changes in electrical activity using electrodes attached to the scalp. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy, or fNIRS, measures changes in metabolic activity. It does this by passing infrared light through the skull to monitor blood flow.Both methods can monitor brain activity in real time as it responds to different situations, such as a high-pressure work assignment or difficult task. For example, a study using fNIRS to monitor the brain activity of people engaged in a 30-minute sustained attention task saw significant differences in reaction time between the beginning and the end of the task. This can be critical in security- and safety-related roles that require sustained attention, such as air traffic controllers and police officers.Neuroergonomics also studies how brain stimulation could be used to improve brain activity. These include neuromodulation technologies like transcranial electrical stimulation, or tES; transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS; or focused ultrasound stimulation, or FUS. For example, studies have shown that applying tES while learning a cognitive training task can lead to immediate improvements in performance that persist even on the following day. Another study found that tES may also help improve performance on tasks that involve motor skills, with potential applications in surgical skills training, military tasks and athletic performance.High-stakes ethical questionsThe use of neurotechnology in the workplace has global implications and high stakes. Advocates say neurotechnology can encourage economic growth and the betterment of society. Those against neurotechnology caution that it could fuel inequity and undermine democracy, among other possible unknown consequences.Ushering in a new era of individualized brain monitoring and enhancement poses many ethical questions. Answering those questions requires all stakeholders workers, occupational health professionals, lawyers, government officials, scientists, ethicists and others to address them.For example, how should an individuals brain activity data be protected? There is reason to suspect that brain activity data wouldnt be covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, because it isnt considered medical or health data. Additional privacy regulations may be needed.Additionally, do employers have the right to require workers to comply with the use of neuroergonomic devices? The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 prevents discrimination against workers based on their genetic data. Similar legislation could help protect workers who refuse to allow the collection of their brain information from being fired or denied insurance.Protecting workersThe data neurotechnology collects could be used in ways that help or hurt the worker, and the potential for abuse is significant.Employers may be able to use neurotechnology to diagnose brain-related diseases that could lead to medical treatment but also discrimination. They may also monitor how individual workers respond to different situations, gathering insights on their behavior that could adversely affect their employment or insurance status.Just as computers and the internet have transformed life, neurotechnologies in the workplace could bring even more profound changes in the coming decades. These technologies may enable more seamless integration between workers brains and their work environments, both enhancing productivity while also raising many neuroethical issues.Bringing all stakeholders into the conversation can help ensure everyone is protected and create safer work environments aimed at solving tomorrows challenges.Paul Brandt-Rauf is a professor and dean of biomedical engineering at Drexel University.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Japanese studio Schemata Architects has used locally sourced timber planks to clad this series of low-lying, angular guesthouses overlooking the sea on Kouri Island, Okinawa.Located on the eastern coast of the small island in northwestern Japan, the project named Yawn Yard comprises seven individual guesthouses spread across two nearby sites connected by a road.Schemata Architects has completed Yawn Yard in OkinawaTokyo-based Schemata Architects designed each of these guesthouses with an irregular, hexagonal plan. Created by two rectilinear blocks angled to create a V-shape, they shelter a central terrace and pool facing the sea."The freestanding villas for families and groups of several people were all designed to allow guests to stay in privacy without worrying about the noise of adjoining guests," said Schemata Architects founder Jo Nagasaka.Each guesthouse has an irregular, hexagonal plan"Considering the inefficiency of making different plans for the individual buildings, we developed a more efficient design method using an inverted V-shaped unit combining two standardised plans," Nagasaka added."The openings of the V-shape are adjusted and each unit is positioned according to the direction of the sea view and the site shape."The units are raised on concrete plinths that double as patiosIn each of the Yawn Yard guesthouses, a block containing a bedroom and bathroom sits opposite a block containing another bedroom and kitchen, encouraging "seamless" movement between indoors and outdoors throughout the day.They are raised on a concrete plinth, which also provides the surface for the external courtyards, and finished both externally and internally in wooden planks and panels that were made from locally sourced timber.Read: Feldman Architecture creates hilltop house in California's wine countryFurniture and custom light fittings were designed with local design companies, with the aim of immersing visitors to Yawn Yard in local craft and culture.To the east, a larger communal block contains visitor facilities including a restaurant with a menu developed by local chef Takashi Kamieda with a focus on local ingredients and dishes.Locally sourced timber linesYawn Yard externally and internally"Aiming to create a place where guests could experience Okinawan culture, we worked with an Okinawan construction company, Shinyo, for the buildings and used as much Okinawan-made furniture as possible," explained Nagasaka."We also collaborated with many Okinawan artists, in particular Luft Nami Makishi and Chinako Okeda introduced us to local teams including Yuria Wood Workshop, Hachiman Tile Factory, and Ryuko Construction that process local materials such as Okinawan wood, Ryukyu bricks and limestone."Local design companies created the furniture and light fittingsOther recent projects by Schemata Architects include the transformation of a 145-year-old townhouse in Kyoto into a store for perfumery brand Le Labo and the conversion of a brick and concrete structure in Seoul into an art gallery.The photography is courtesy of Ju Yeon Lee.The post Schemata Architects clads Yawn Yard guesthouses in Japan with local timber appeared first on Dezeen.