You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Contents hide A brand-new custom campaign has been announced for Larians sublime RPG Baldurs Gate 3. Made with map tools released last year, modder SquallyDaBeanz is working on bringing the World of Warcraft to Baldurs Gate 3 in a daring new campaign environment.Baldurs Gate 3 meets World of WarcraftRevealed in a teaser trailer, the Baldurs Gate 3 modder has announced a new custom modded campaign for Larians RPG that will recreate the Undead starting zone from World of Warcraft, Tirisfal Glades.Entirely separate from the Dungeons and Dragons universe, this soloor co-opadventure is described as a close recreation of the World of Warcraft Classic area, but with some changes to work with BG3s gameplay.The modder explains that a teaser level will be released that will take place in Deathknell, the starting area for Undeads in WoW. This 90-minute release will include quests, encounters and a few locations to tease the full mod.The approach to encounters, quests, loot, and more have to be adapted to Baldurs Gate 3 systems, the modder explains. The map and set dressing, however, is a close recreation but I dont plan to do this for the entire mod.Theres currently no release date for the entire mod, but the unofficial BG3/Warcraft crossover should have its early teaser released sometime in February.A haven for moddingBaldurs Gate 3 already has thousands of mods to try and make Astarion hotter, add functional Pokeballs to the game or even re-adding cut content to the game from its early access period. However, with map tools now available for the game, modders will be creating content for the game years after Larian leaves Faerun behind.Just like older Baldurs Gate titles, the arrival of custom campaigns means that players will have decades of content to play through. Well, Larians made decades of content for us already, especially with the arrival of 12 new subclasses this year.Baldurs Gate 3Platform(s):macOS, PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Series XGenre(s):Adventure, RPG, Strategy10VideoGamerSubscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

Apple has asked shareholders to vote against a proposal to scrap its diversity, equity and inclusion programmes, as tech rivals scale back similar schemes before Donald Trumps return to the White House.The National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative thinktank, wants the iPhone maker to end its DEI efforts because they expose companies to litigation, reputational and financial risks. The proposal will be voted on at Apples annual general meeting on 25 February.In a notice to shareholders, Apples board has recommended investors vote against the proposal because, it says, it already has the right compliance procedures to deal with any risks and because the proposal inappropriately attempts to restrict Apples ability to manage its own ordinary business operations, people and teams, and business strategies.DEI schemes are sets of measures designed to make people of all backgrounds regardless of ethnicity, class, sexuality and gender feel supported and included in the workplace.Discussions on ways to increase diversity, particularly on race, rose to global prominence in 2020 when the murder of George Floyd by a US police officer prompted businesses to examine their own policies amid global protests.However, the concept has since become a focus for rightwing politicians and Trump has pledged to ban DEI programmes in both the government and the private sector.Last week, Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, said it was terminating its DEI programmes immediately.The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the US is changing, said Janelle Gale, the vice-president of human resources at Meta, in an internal memo.Meta also referenced recent supreme court decisions and the charged views of DEI that are held by some people. The US supreme court, which has a conservative majority, ruled in 2023 to overturn affirmative action policies under which universities sought to adjust admissions to take into account disadvantages for racial minorities.The change followed Metas announcement that it was changing moderation practices at the company to get back to our roots around free expression.Meta is not the only company to row back on diversity programmes.Amazon also announced last week that it was winding down its diversity programmes. In a memo to employees on Friday, the tech company said it was winding down outdated programmes and materials related to representation and inclusion.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Business TodayFree daily newsletterGet set for the working day we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionMcDonalds last week said that it would end some diversity goals for its leadership and suppliers, also citing the supreme court decision. The company had introduced the targets including having women account for 45% of leaders, and 35% of US company leaders to come from underrepresented groups in 2021 after lawsuits alleging discrimination and sexual harassment.Walmart, the worlds largest retailer, in November said that it would stop using the term DEI, drop DEI training and stop considering race or gender when deciding on supplier contracts, after it was threatened with a boycott by conservatives.The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a century-old campaign group, has said that it will take legal action to prevent what it describes as the second Trump administrations retreat from civil rights enforcement and attacks on efforts to promote racial justice.Even though most of the country supports efforts to address racial inequality, Trump promises to eradicate many of those efforts and thereby worsen racial disparities, the ACLU said before Trumps election in November.Other companies have signalled a shift in focus away from other issues supposedly aligned with progressive politics. Six of the worlds largest banks JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs have left the UN-sponsored net zero banking alliance since the start of December. Activists have criticised the move as a way to avoid attacks from the Trump administration, which is strongly committed to the fossil fuel sector.

They're BackMarvel Rivals mods inevitably return in slightly dodgier fashion after NetEase cracked down with season 1, provided you're willing to risk a lot to be Mr OnePiecesticOh, and you'll have to follow some instructions with a rather unnerving amount of disclaimers.Image credit: NetEase News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on Jan. 13, 2025 With the arrival of Marvel Rivals season one came a bunch of players suddenly wondering why the mods they'd installed for the game were no longer working, and it seems this wasn't just the usual case of a game update requiring mods to be quickly updated to match it.Instead, developer NetEase appears to have made a tweak to game designed to make it tougher to mod, something some members of the game's community have inevitably responded to not by just giving up on modding it, but by finding a way to get around NetEase's changes, even if it means more risk that probably isn't worth it just to merk some fools as a manga character with superhero powers.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Enter modder modder Prafit, who's found an apparent workaround and uploaded a guide on how to execute it to Nexus Mods. I'll be honest, it's the kind of thing that, as a pretty seasoned mod installer, I'm looking at and wondering if the minor changes you currently get from most Marvel Rivals mods would make it worth bothering with."This application is a temporary fix for season one to get mods working," Prafit wrote, "Use at your own risk. By using this you are actually circumventing a system that was created to stop us from modding on the Season one patch start. No one knows if NetEase will ban you, but they have never issued permabans as far as we know."Later on, they actually outline how they claim this anti-mod "system" added in by NetEase works and how their workaround circumvents it. "It turns out NetEase put in code to check the hashes of PAK files and only allow the game to load PAK files. However, it turns out you don't have to use PAK files. You can just extract the PAK files like a zip and run them unpaked. The problem is, the game is loading 50,000 files versus one so this can be quite problematic even on the fastest SSDs. Using a solution like this could even make your SSD die faster."So yup, just install stuff in a way that requires your files to be far less neatly packaged, and could potentially contribute to a pretty key bit of your PC suffering more wear and tear, as well as risking a possible ban by testing just how far NetEase wants to push things. Even if you're desperate to replace Mr Fantastic with Luffy from One Piece, as one of the early mods designed to work in with this season one workaround does, that's a lot of risk to be taking.Odds are this tug of war's nowhere near done if NetEase really is set on taking a hardline stance when it comes to mods. Though, it'd maybe be nice to see it come to a solution similar to that of Space Marine 2 developer Saber Interactive, which responded to mods causing issues in online sessions last year by banning them from public online sessions, but still allowing them in private lobbies, in order to keep those who'd keep on using them separate from players after a vanilla experience.

Though software won't be the focus.Reliable podcast channel Nate the Hate has claimed that Nintendo's 'Switch 2' will be revealed this coming Thursday, 16th January (thanks, VGC).Speaking on Nintendo's plan for its Switch successor, Nate the Hate states that the console "will be revealed on Thursday, January 16th, just a few days from now". He goes on to state that he's heard of more specific details regarding the trailer itself, but this might be "incomplete".Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Jeff Bezos space company Blue Origin postponed the inaugural launch of its first orbital rocket, New Glenn, early Monday morning after experiencing an unspecified issue with one of the vehicles subsystems.While delays like this happen all the time in spaceflight, this one once again puts the timing of the much-anticipated launch in question. According to Eric Berger at Ars Technica, the company got deep enough into the countdown that Blue Origin would likely need at least 48 hours to reset the rocket for launch.On top of that, conditions in the Atlantic Ocean are expected to worsen this week, and Blue Origin is trying to land New Glenns booster on a drone ship similar to how Elon Musks SpaceX often recovers the core of its Falcon 9 rockets.New Glenns success is crucial to Blue Origin, as the company is trying to enter a heavy-lift market currently dominated by SpaceX. Up until now, Blue Origin has been primarily focused on launching tourists and science experiments to sub-orbital space in its much smaller New Shepard rocket. New Glenn is supposed to help unlock new business for Blue Origin, which already has contracts to deliver payloads to space with NASA, the Space Force, Amazons Project Kuiper, and more.Blue Origin has been preparing to launch New Glenn for a few weeks now, and finally rolled the 320-foot-tall rocket out to its launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 9. At that point, the company was targeting a launch on January 12. But over the weekend, the company pushed that target date back one day in order to increase the odds of successfully landing New Glenns booster.New Glenns three-hour launch window began at 1AM ET on January 13. The company loaded propellant into the rocket. But it got stuck troubleshooting the unspecified subsystem issue and pushed the launch time back multiple times before calling it off. (Berger reported that it had to do with ice clogging a line that helps vent gas away from the rocket.) Blue Origin has said the primary goal for New Glenns first launch is to reach orbit safely, and that anything beyond that is icing on the cake. Should New Glenn reach orbit, the rocket will be carrying a demonstrator of its Blue Ring spacecraft, which the company wants to use as a building block for a larger space-based economy.

Results of ReduceArtefact Studio blends midcentury and Caribbean influences for pared-back addition, Triangle HouseByPaige Davidson January 13, 2025Interiors, International (Lorenzo Zandri)SHARENestled within a cul-de-sac in Epsom, England, the Triangle House by London-based architecture firm,Artefact Studiostands out from an otherwise neutral street with its unique color palette. The home is an addition to a quiet brick house from the 1950s, filled with several ambitions: to incorporate a bathroom, bedroom, and office/music room; extend the living space; and take better advantage of the new garden, redone by Phenomena whose palms and exotic plants set the scene. The architects realized the brief with dramatic design punches, inspired by the clients Caribbean heritage. The new wing adds fun and flair to the home while working with the preexisting homes ethos, midcentury roots, and awkward plot. Triangle House draws immediate intrigue through the facade, where the additions eggshell colored, street-facing exterior lies pressed up against the original minimalistic midcentury brick house. The two facades are connected by a canopy composed of a blue triangle acting as support for red and white beams.Read more about the house on aninteriormag.com. United Kingdom

Seonna Hong, Rest as an Act of Defiance (2024), acrylic, oil pastel, and tape on raw canvas, 51 x 65 inches. Image courtesy of The Jaunt and Hashimoto Contemporary, shared with permissionFind Resources and Support for L.A. Artists Affected by the WildfiresJanuary 13, 2025ColossalColossalA series ofwildfireshave ravaged Los Angeles during the past week, claiming more than 12,000 structures and two dozen lives. Numerous artists and arts workers across the region are devastated by the loss of homes and studioseven entire careers worth of work. As fires continue and Los Angeles residents begin to comprehend the scale of the disaster, support for those affected is urgently needed.Whether youre seeking assistance or would like to learn how you can help, weve compiled a list of resources to get you started. Many of these link to further spreadsheets and donation sites, managed by both organizations and individuals, which receive updates on a regular basis as new opportunities emerge.Relief Funding and GrantsAdolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation Emergency GrantPainters, printmakers, and sculptors who have maintained a practice for a decade or longer may receive a one-time grant of up to $15,000 in assistance in light of a catastrophic event. Typical grants range from $5,000 to $7,000.Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF+)$3,000 emergency relief grants are available for individual craft artists using traditional or folk materials and who have public-facing practices, who have recently experienced a disruptive emergency or disaster.Artists Fellowship One-Time Emergency AidNeed-based financial assistance is available to professionalvisual artists and their families or dependents in the event of sickness, natural disaster, bereavement, or unexpected extreme hardship. The fellowship notes that professional artists make their livelihood through sales as reported on a Schedule C with a U.S. Federal tax return and that a demonstrated exhibition history is ideal.Rauschenberg Emergency Medical Grants for ArtistsThese grants provide need-based funding to artists who have experienced unexpected mental health, medical, or dental emergencies. The grant is open to artists in the visual arts, choreography, and a category called film/video/electronic/digital arts. Applicants cannot have earned more than $75,000 average gross income for their last two tax filings, or $150,000 for joint filers.Application closes at 5:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, January 14. Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency GrantUrgent grants are available for visual and performing artists who have sudden and unanticipated opportunities to exhibit or present with insufficient time to seek other sources of funding. Grants range from $500 to $3,000.FundraisersHelp LAs Artists and Art Workers Start Over on GoFundMeOrganized by Ariel Pittman, senior director of Various Small Fires, along with a team of volunteers, this GoFundMe aims to raise $500,000 to support the L.A. arts community.Hashimoto Contemporary Los Angeles Fire Relief FundraiserMore than twenty artists have donated original works and limited edition prints as prizes for the drawing. Each entry will qualify you for a chance to win one work. Entries close at 12:00 a.m. PT on January 15. Winners will be drawn at 12:00 p.m. PT on January 16, during a live event on Hashimoto Contemporarys Instagram Stories. 100 percent of proceeds will be donated to a 501(c)3 assisting with community support. Purchase tickets.Fire Fundraisers ListThis running list compiles active GoFundMe campaigns and other ways to support individuals who have been affected by the fires.Anat Egbi Poster Sale to Support Alex EganEganis one of many who lost his home and studio. The artist was in the final days of completing works for his forthcoming solo show with Anat Egbi, set to open at the end of January. All of the works were burned in the fire. 100% of proceeds from the poster sale support the artist.Further resourcesA running list of resources to help artists impacted by the fires, including mutual aid like art supply donations, storage, donation campaigns, and general relief funding.A list of resources and ways to support artists and art workers in L.A., including mutual aid, regional and federal relief aid, and fundraisers for both individuals and the community.Los Angeles Homeless Services AuthorityGeneral resources to support those affected by the fires, including temporary housing, where to donate, access to food, health and medical, animal evacuation, and more.Next article

The Labour governments 50-step artificial intelligence (AI) plan sets out a series of measures to develop the UK as a powerhouse for artificial intelligence.Some of these steps, such as building sovereign AI capabilities, involve vast supercomputer investments. Although this work has already begun, with new facilities such as Bristols Isambard-AI and the Dawn supercomputer in Cambridge, the government wants to increase high-performance computing (HPC) capacity 20-fold by 2030.Data from Tussells public sector AI procurement tracker shows that while the headline figures for investment in HPC capacity to support AI look promising, the total invested is skewed by one immense contract.Tussell calculated that 2.4bn worth of AI contracts were awarded in the UK public sector between 2018 and 2024. However, it seems this figure is not as big as the hype surrounding generative AI (GenAI) would suggest, with Tussell reporting that nearly half of that total stems from a single contract between the Met Office and Microsoft in 2021, worth 1bn.It also reported that 2.4bn represents roughly 2.5% of the total value of all IT services and software contracts awarded by the public sector between January 2018 and October 2024. According to Tussell, this shows that while there is a lot of excitement around AI, it has not filtered into public procurement in a meaningful way.Beyond the computing capabilities required to power machine learning and AI inference workloads, Jacob Beswick, director of AI governance at Dataiku, believes there is some confusion over data ownership and an inability to share data in a meaningful way across the public sector.In his experience having previously been UK government assistant director for AI adoption and regulation, and before that, assistant director for industrial strategy at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy it is almost impossible to find out who in the public sector actually uses AI.There are also questions as to what data exists, who has ownership of that data and who can access it, according to Beswick, along with power dynamics between central departments pushing an AI agenda and departmental autonomy.He said there are data silos between departments and within departments, such as between different hospitals and NHS trusts, which hampers attempts not just to create effective AI models, but to create a generally digital, data-driven service.Looking at the governments five-year plan to build out computing and AI capabilities, Amanda Brock, CEO of Open UK, said: Making the UK a global IT superpower is more than about AI and infrastructure. There are longstanding challenges around talent, funding and education that would need to be addressed to reverse that trend.I doubt these initiatives will make the UK irresistible to AI firms. Does the government think it has the right level of skills and experience to do this itself?Similarly, Ivana Bartoletti, founder of think tank Women Leading in AI and global chief privacy and AI governance officer at Wipro, believes there should be more focus on AI skills.There needs to be an emphasis on AI skills, extending beyond technical expertise to wider literacy and management skills, she said. Equipping business leaders to understand how AI can concretely solve their problems and enhance productivity, by leveraging employee insights, will be essential for widespread adoption.Bartoletti believes businesses need to move away from fearing AI and take more of an AI partnership mindset.One of the steps in the governments AI opportunities action plan is to identify AI growth zones, which it said would consider regional growth opportunities. The governments goal is to take into account local growth plans and align with its industrial strategy for the digital and technology sector.The location of AI growth zones must also be considered in relation to the energy requirements of the computing facilities these sites will require.Shweta Singh, assistant professor of information systems and management at the University of Warwick, pointed out that AI appears to be heavily focused on London and the south-east, despite the governments ambitions to build out AI growth zones.While growth zones aim to spread benefits, historically, tech innovation has often been concentrated in specific regions like London or the south-east, leaving others behind, she said.Singh also claimed the UKs AI strengths are weakened by its reliance on foreign AI firms, such as Google-owned DeepMind, which raises concerns about domestic innovation and intellectual property retention.While the general consensus from industry commentators is largely positive, the big challenge facing the government when it comes to utilising AI more effectively in the public sector is funding.Its tough to see where funding for new technology would come from, particularly as the chancellor reiterates that departmental budgets are already tight, said Dataikus Beswick.Implementing a robust digital and AI strategy requires proper levels of funding. As Beswick noted, if they are not centrally funded, funding for public sector AI initiatives will have to come from individual departmental budgets.Thats a tough sell for ministers already faced with making large amounts of savings, he added.Read more about UK AIUK Defence Committee urges MoD to embrace AI: Defence Committee outlines changes it thinks the Ministry of Defence should make to realise the battlefield advantages of artificial intelligence.UK government looks to rewrite copyright rules for AI training: Labour has begun a consultation looking at how creators of original content can be compensated for AI training that uses their work.

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Samsung's Galaxy S23 is part of the new Galaxy Compensation Scheme. Photographer: Angel ... [+] Garcia/Bloomberg 2023 Bloomberg Finance LPAfter 12 months of staggeringly high trade-in prices for old phones, Samsung is doubling down on its trade-in pricing with a new money-back scheme for Galaxy devices.The Korean company announced today that it will launch a new trade-in program that doesnt require the purchase of a new handset. The Galaxy Easy Compensation scheme will pay Korean Galaxy phone owners money for their old device, with values fluctuating depending on the condition. Crucially, no purchase of a new phone is needed.Samsung says that it will grade used phones on three scales; excellent, good, and recycle, with payouts adjusted depending on which category the used phone falls into. The company hasnt released pricing for phones yet, but the list of accepted devices might give us some insight.Galaxy S23Galaxy S22Galaxy S21Galaxy S20Galaxy Galaxy Z Fold5Galaxy Fold4Galaxy Fold3Galaxy Z Flip5Galaxy Flip4Galaxy Flip3These are all newer phones that were released in the last five years and, crucially, theyre all still within their update window. They all receive some combination of security patches and operating system updates. The scheme, which launches on January 14th, is only available in Korea for now, with expansion to other countries planned for the future.MORE FOR YOUIn recent sales, Samsung has valued some of these phones highly when trading in for a new device. For example, the company was offering $800 for the Galaxy S22 Ultra when buying the Z Fold 6. It will be interesting to see what the Korean company will pay for these devices when a new phone isnt being bought.It seems that Samsung is planning to resell these devices, with the announcement explicitly stating that the company plans to purchase used smartphones that customers do not use and use them for future resale. Presumably, this means the recovered handsets will be refurbished.Samsung Wants To Ditch Android's ReputationI dont know how much value there is in a five-year-old Galaxy S20, but I can see newer handsets still fetching a decent price. Especially with Samsungs new seven-year guarantee of software support. This also explains why Samsung extended software support last year to at least four years of updates for devices released after 2019.Samsung is clear, it wants its Galaxy phones to be as valuable as iPhones, regardless of how old the device is. Samsung Electronics plans to preserve the market value of Galaxy smartphones, the press release explains. That is a tall order for any Android phone.With that said, the Korean company may be inching closer to rehabilitating the image of Android handsets in the public consciousness. Recent data from Sell Cell revealed that Samsung phones are depreciating at a slower rate with every release. For example, the Galaxy S22 series lost on average 66.7% of its value in the 12 months after launch. However, the Galaxy S23 only lost 61% in the same time frame, which is a 5.6% improvement.A dedicated trade-in portal, which officially states what a phone is worth from Samsungs position, adds some security to buyers who typically see the price of their expensive phones crater as new handsets are launched. But that security depends on what Samsung is willing to pay for said devices. We will have to see if Samsung maintains that high pricing for old phones when a new device isnt bought.