MacworldIn his latest Power On newsletter (subscription required), Bloombergs Mark Gurman says Apples 2025 will be loaded. That includes the Mac, and Gurman cites the timeframe for when Apple will release new Macsmost of what Gurman reports has been stated before, but its worth reiterating, especially if you have plans to invest in a new Mac this year.The M4 MacBook Air will get the Mac rolling in 2025, with a release happening relatively soon. Gurman previously reported that the M4 MacBook Air would start shipping between January and March, and now he states that the new laptop is already in production. Besides an M4 chip, the new Air is rumored to get a 12MP Center Stage camera, like the one in the M4 MacBook Pro.One interesting new tidbit: Gurman doesnt think that the M2 MacBook Air, Apples most affordable laptop, will be replaced by an M3 Air, citing production issues with the M3. Since Apple still makes M2 chips (used in the iPad Air and Vision Pro) it makes sense for Apple to keep the M2 MacBook Air around. Gurman doesnt address whether it would get a price reduction, but Apples history suggests that it wont.In October, Gurman reported that the Mac Studio was originally scheduled to be released at the same time as the M4 MacBook Air, but Apple rescheduled it to a time between March and June. Gurman now states that the Mac Studio release could occur during the first half of the year, a statement thats less specific than before but covers his bases should Apple reconsider a joint release with the M4 MacBook Air. The Mac Studio will be upgraded to the M4 Max and Ultra chips and incorporate Thunderbolt 5.That brings us to, as Gurman puts it, later in the year when Apple releases the M5 MacBook Pro. If Apple sticks to previous release dates, it will happen in late October or early November. Besides an M5 chip update, Apple isnt going to introduce any other new features; the company is saving those for 2026 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the MacBook Pro.Gurman also reports that the M5 Mac Pro is on track to be ready before the MacBook Pro, though the timing isnt yet clear. It will feature the M4 Ultra, which goes by the code name of Hidra. No design changes have been reported, but the upgrade to an M4 Ultra will include Thunderbolt 5 implementation.Notably, the only Mac not mentioned in Gurmans report is the iMac. Apple waited two years to upgrade the M1 iMac to the M3, but upgraded to the M4 after only a year. In this case, the upgrade was seemingly part of the companys desire to reduce production of the M3, so it may be back on a two-year cycle and may not get upgraded until 2026. No mention of an iMac with a larger display was mentioned in Gurmans report, either. Rumors have stated that a 32-inch iMac could be released in 2025.

Nobody could accuse the British Government of lacking enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). According to its newly published AI Opportunities Action Plan, the technologys blossoming will remake the British economy, boost productivity, smooth bureaucracy, and transform the quality of state services such as healthcare.Through this, the government wants the UK to become an AI superpower, consolidating its position as the worlds third largest AI market, behind the US and China, the report said.Part of the initiative is a 14 billion investment ($18 billion) by Vantage Data Centres, Nscale, and Kyndryl to build new data center infrastructure, on top of the 25 billion in AI investment announced at the International Investment Summit last October.Its deeper theme is that the UK should be able to produce as well as consume AI technology, because receiving technology from others is a recipe for dependence.There is barely an aspect of our society that will remain untouched by this force of change, said Prime Minister Keir Starmer in his report foreword.This government will not sit back passively and wait for change to come. It is our responsibility to harness it and make it work for working people, he said.AI Growth Zones (AIGZs)Many of the 13,250 jobs the reports says will be created in the near term will be in AI growth zones, the first of which will be in Culham, Oxfordshire, also the HQ for the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).Thats significant because all of the data centers housing AI will consume huge amounts of power, at least 100MW to start with and eventually 500MW. Unfortunately, while Culham is the home of research into nuclear energy, there is no power station onsite, which explains why the report proposes a new AI Energy Council to fill the gap.Cooling the new data centers could also be an issue in a potential drought zone, despite Thames Water promising to build a new reservoir nearby.Additional requirementsNational Data Library: AI, of course, needs data lots of it. Thats becoming harder to source. The Reports answer is a National Data Library, underpinned by strong privacy-preserving safeguards. The deeper detail of this has yet to be announced, but issues of privacy and copyright lurk. Public compute: The UK needs another supercomputer, somewhere. This is despite the new government ditching plans as recently as October to build precisely this type of computer at Edinburgh University. The UKs other supercomputer centers include Bristol (Isambard AI), and Cambridge (Dawn).People: The plan proposed working out how many people the UK needs and then developing plans to fill gaps. That includes importing skills by exploring how the existing immigration system can be used to attract graduates from universities producing some of the worlds top AI talent.Regulatory oversight: AI has yet to grapple with its daunting ethical concerns. The reports answer is to turn the UKs AI Safety Institute (AISI) into a statutory body with the power to intervene where it thinks fit.White hotThe idea of a bold national plan for AI echoes that of another Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, who in a famous 1963 speech proposed overhauling the UK through the white heat of technology.This parallel isnt necessarily happy; although the UK embraced Wilsons white heat in pockets, it failed to capitalize on the wider opportunities offered by that eras early development of computing and software. That was despite having plenty of clever people in the field, a decent education system, and big companies willing to invest.The new plan is also uncomfortably similar to the recent Conservative administrations championing of everything AI under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right down to his rhetoric about matching AI superpowers AI and China.One difference is that the reports vision was authored by industry figure Matt Clifford, an entrepreneur and investor appointed as the administrations AI adviser after Labours election win in July.He authored the plans 50 recommendations, all of which the government plans to implement. That suggests that the UKs AI overhaul is not being driven as a pet project by politicians alone. Another backer is Demis Hassabis, co-winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his AI-aided work on protein folding.Making not takingIn many ways, the challenges faced by the UK in enabling AI indeed, all future computing projects mirror what every country faces. Energy and cooling are problems, and tooling up to fill infrastructure and skills gaps is competitive and resource intensive.One reason Wilsons 1960s plan struggled was that the state and public services ignored the computing innovation going on around them. However, given that AI is already being experimented with in the NHS, perhaps attitudes have changed.But what will really count is that private companies can make money out of AI in the UK in the long run. Governments plans and infrastructure are helpful and set the mood, but only go so far.While the focus on investing in infrastructure such as computing power and a national data library is welcome, said Dr Pia Huesch, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) research fellow, the UK Government must not forget the risks posed by AI technologies or the international partnerships that are needed to secure long-term benefit from AI technologies.

Mobile gamers rejoice, the Abxylute S9 is an affordable controller that can stretch to fit your cased iPhone or iPad mini with a powerful set of customization features.Abxylute S9 controller review: a controller for your entire Apple ecosystemA controller manufacturer called Abxylute has finally built the perfect mobile gaming controller for iPhone and iPad mini owners. If all it did was stretch to fit an iPad mini and cost under $100, that would be enough, but it's so much more than that.The Abxylute S9 is a wraparound controller that connects to the iPhone or iPad mini over USB-C while gripping it from either side. The end result is a mobile gaming solution similar to a Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

As sprawling fires continue to devastate Los Angeles, the latest reporting estimates that more than 12,000 structures (including houses, cars, and outbuildings) have been damaged or destroyed.Since the first fires erupted on January 7th, 2025, social media timelines have become saturated with images and videos showing warzone-like destruction across Pasadena, Altadena, Pacific Palisades, and beyond. Amid the tragic footage, one home has gone viral for more positive reasons.No words really - just a horror show. Some of the design choices we made here helped. But we were also very lucky. pic.twitter.com/kpqfiRj49M g chasen (@ChasenGreg) January 9, 2025In an image that has been viewed on X over 14 million times, a brand new home in Pacific Palisades stands alone, seemingly unscathed, amid a landscape of charred and ruined structures. The image was posted by Greg Chasen, who claims to be the architect responsible for the design of the scheme. According to Bloomberg, the Malibu-bas...

The Nintendo Switch has boasted solid support from Ubisoft over the course of its prolonged lifetime, and it looks like the publisher is set to step up its efforts further still with the consoles imminent successor. That the Switch 2 will likely boast stronger third-party support owing to its allegedly stronger hardware has looked likely for some time, and as per insider NateTheHate, Ubisoft will be one of the publishers leading the charge in that department.Speaking during a recent podcast episode, the leaker claimed that Ubisoft has more than half a dozen games in development for the Switch 2, including ports of upcoming games, recent releases, and older titles.Assassins Creed Miragewill allegedly be available for the console within its launch window, while a version ofAssassins Creed Shadowsis also in development. Allegedly, however, the latter wont be ready for release until later.The insider also claims Switch 2 versions ofRainbow Six SiegeandThe Divisionfranchise are in development, and that the idea of a combinedMario + Rabbidspack containing both titles has also been internally considered.Past leaks have claimed that Ubisoft also intends to release the nextFar Cryfor the Switch 2.Given the publishers support for the Switch, it wouldnt be surprising to see it stepping up its efforts for its successor. The Switch 2 itself is allegedly going to be revealed later this week, so we might have more official details sooner rather than later.Meanwhile, as per NateTheHate, other major third-party titles likeMetal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirthare also headed for Nintendos next console.

The trees became visible as an ice patch melted on the Beartooth Plateau, which is part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Daniel StahleA melting ice patch in the Rocky Mountains has revealed the remains of up to 5,900-year-old trees that could offer insights into past climate conditions, according to new research.Scientists discovered more than 30 dead whitebark pine trees (Pinus albicaulis) that were entombed in ice for millennia, according to a new paper published late last month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.They found the previously hidden stand of trees on the Beartooth Plateau in northwest Wyoming, which is part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The whitebark pines were lying flat but had been preserved in good condition, suggesting they were rapidly enveloped by ice.The trees were recently exposed when the ice patch began melting due to hotter temperatures related to human-caused climate change, reports New Scientists Taylor Mitchell Brown. In the same area, receding ice patches have also revealed fragments of wooden hunting weapons, including one that was more than 10,000 years old.The plateau seems to have been the perfect place to allow for ice patches to establish and persist for thousands of years, recording important information on past climate, human activity and environmental change, says study lead author Greg Pederson, a paleoclimatologist for the United States Geological Survey, in a statement. The ice patch has previously revealed fragments of wooden hunting weapons. Joe McConnell / Desert Research InstituteThe trees are located 10,140 feet above sea level, which is roughly 590 feet higher than the regions current tree line. (The tree line, also known as timberline, marks the edge of a high-elevation habitat that can support trees. Above this invisible marker, the conditions are too harsh for trees to grow.) This suggests the regions climate was once warmer than it is today.By studying the trees rings and using radiocarbon dating techniques, researchers were able to determine that they lived 5,950 to 5,440 years ago. Then, they looked at data from Arctic ice core samples to understand what the climate was like during that time, a period known as the mid-Holocene.The trees were alive during an era of falling temperatures, which have been linked with ongoing volcanic eruptions. As volcanoes in the Northern Hemisphere erupted, they spewed so much debris into the air that they blocked sunlight from reaching the surface, which caused temperatures to drop.Eventually, around 5,100 years ago, it seemingly became so cold that the trees at that high elevation could no longer survive. The chilly weather also caused a nearby ice patch to expand and engulf the whitebark pines.The trees are a valuable time capsule that tells us not only about these mountain forests 6,000 years ago, but about the climate conditions that allowed them to exist, says Kevin Anchukaitis, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Arizona who was not involved with the research, to New Scientist.By learning more about the regions past climate, scientists say they can more accurately predict the future. If global temperatures continue to rise, for example, they expect trees to start growing at higher elevations, so long as they have enough moisture.Year-over-year records, as well as decadal records and even century-level records are exceedingly important, study co-author Craig Lee, a researcher of environmental archaeology at Montana State University, tells the Billings Gazettes Brett French. They provide comparative data points for allowing us to contextualize our more nuanced observations of the current climate that we experience today.Today, the whitebark pine is considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act. These trees face several stressors, including rising temperatures, drought and wildfires. Theyre also battling a pest called the mountain pine beetle and a deadly invasive fungus called white pine blister rust.Healthy whitebark pines can live for hundreds of yearsand sometimes survive up to 1,000 years. They grow at high elevations throughout the western United States and Canada, providing food for red squirrels, grizzly bears, Clarks nutcrackers and many other creatures. They also play an important role in their high-elevation ecosystems, as they provide shade that helps keep snow cold and stable.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Climate Change, Ecology, Environment, evolving climate, Mountains, New Research, Plants, Trees, Wyoming

Space Ape spins out new studio NextBeatPortfolio will include Space Ape IPs Beatstar and Country StarImage credit: NextBeat News by Vikki Blake Contributor Published on Jan. 13, 2025 Space Ape Games has expanded by establishing new studio NextBeat.PocketGamer reports Space Ape co-founder and exec Simon Hade has assumed the CEO position, joined by product manager George Yao, head of operations Imogen Turner, and live ops and player manager, Daisy Fletcher."Excited to announce that Im starting a new project that a bunch of us have been cooking up with Supercell for a while now," Hade said in a brief post on LinkedIn."Will reveal all soon."It's thought the studio's portfolio will include Space Ape IPs Beatstar and Country Star.Supercell - which already owned 62% of Space Ape - increased its investment in Space Ape back in November, acquiring the London-based studio.This will be Supercell's first office in the UK, with CEO Ilkka Paananen commenting: "We believe the best teams create the best games, so we are really excited to find our place within London's incredibly talented games ecosystem by joining forces with Space Ape."

If youre in the market for a highly portable tablet, Apples smallest tablet has fallen to its lowest price to date at multiple retailers. Right now, the latest iPad Mini is on sale at Amazon and Best Buy with Wi-Fi and 128GB of storage starting at $399 ($100 off). If you need more storage, you can also buy the step-up model with 256GB of storagefor $499 ($100 off)or the 512GB variant for $699 ($100 off).RelatedWith its 8.3-inch screen and lightweight design, the latest iPad Mini is closer in size to the iPhone than any other tablet in Apples lineup. As a result, its easier to carry on the go and hold with one hand, making it an excellent option if you read a lot on your tablet. Its small size doesnt come at the expense of performance, though. In fact, the onboard A17 Pro chip is snappier than the A14 Bionic chip found in the entry-level iPad, even if its not as speedy as the processors in the M4-powered iPad Pro or M2-powered Air.Unlike the base iPad, the seventh-gen Mini supports Apple Intelligence, so you can take advantage of a host of AI-based features such as AI-assisted summaries, Genmoji, ChatGPT, and the ability to erase unwanted objects in photos. It also supports the newer Apple Pencil Pro, along with Wi-Fi 6E and faster USB-C performance. Theyre pretty iterative updates overall; however, theyre also a lot more appealing at $399 than they are at the tablets typical retail price of $499.Read our iPad Mini review.2024 iPad Mini (Wi-Fi)$399$49920% off$399$399$49920% offThe seventh-gen iPad Mini comes with Apples A17 Pro chip and support for Apple Intelligence. Its also compatible with the Apple Pencil Pro and offers faster Wi-Fi and USB-C speeds.

Developing Graphical User Interface (GUI) Agents faces two key challenges that hinder their effectiveness. First, existing agents lack robust reasoning capabilities, relying primarily on single-step operations and failing to incorporate reflective learning mechanisms. This usually leads to errors being repeated in the execution of complex, multi-step tasks. Most current systems rely very much on textual annotations representing GUI data, such as accessibility trees. These lead to two types of consequences: information loss and computational inefficiency; but they also cause inconsistencies among platforms and reduce their flexibility in actual deployment scenarios.The modern methods for GUI automation are multimodal large language models used together with vision encoders for understanding and interaction with GUI settings. Efforts such as ILuvUI, CogAgent, and Ferret-UI-anyres have advanced the field by enhancing GUI understanding, utilizing high-resolution vision encoders, and employing resolution-agnostic techniques. However, these methods exhibit notable drawbacks, including high computational costs, limited reliance on visual data over textual representations, and inadequate reasoning capabilities. The methodological constraints impose considerable constraints on their ability to perform real-time tasks and the complexity of executing complex sequences. This severely restricts their ability to dynamically adapt and correct errors during operational processes because of the lack of a robust mechanism for hierarchical and reflective reasoning.Researchers from Zhejiang University, Dalian University of Technology, Reallm Labs, ByteDance Inc., and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University introduce InfiGUIAgent, a novel multimodal graphical user interface agent that addresses these limitations. The methodology is built upon the sophisticated inherent reasoning capabilities through a dual-phase supervised fine-tuning framework to be able to adapt and be effective. The training in the first phase focuses on developing the base capabilities by using diverse datasets that can improve understanding of graphical user interfaces, grounding, and task adaptability. The datasets used, such as Screen2Words, GUIEnv, and RICO SCA, cover tasks such as semantic interpretation, user interaction modeling, and question-answering-based learning, which makes the agent equipped with comprehensive functional knowledge.In the next phase, advanced reasoning capabilities are incorporated through synthesized trajectory information, thus supporting hierarchical and expectation-reflection reasoning processes. The hierarchical reasoning framework contains a bifurcated architecture: a strategic component focused on task decomposition and a tactical component on accurate action selection. Expectation-reflection reasoning allows the agent to adjust and self-correct through the assessment of what was expected versus what happened, thus improving performance in different and dynamic contexts. This two-stage framework enables the system to natively handle multi-step tasks without textual augmentations, hence allowing for higher robustness and computational efficiency.InfiGUIAgent was implemented by fine-tuning Qwen2-VL-2B using ZeRO0 technology for efficient resource management across GPUs. A reference-augmented annotation format was used to standardize and improve the quality of the dataset so that GUI elements could be precisely spatially referenced. Curating the datasets increases GUI comprehension, grounding, and QA capabilities to perform tasks such as semantic interpretation and modeling of interaction. The synthesized data was then used for reasoning to ensure that all task coverage was covered through trajectory-based annotations similar to real-world interactions with the GUI. Such modularity in action space design lets the agent respond dynamically to multiple platforms, which gives it greater flexibility and applicability.InfiGUIAgent did exceptionally well in benchmark tests, far surpassing the state-of-the-art models both in accuracy and adaptability. It managed to achieve 76.3% accuracy on the ScreenSpot benchmark, showing a higher ability to ground GUI across mobile, desktop, and web platforms. For dynamic environments such as AndroidWorld, the agent was able to have a success rate of 0.09, which is greater than other similar models with even higher parameter counts. The results confirm that the system can proficiently carry out complex, multistep tasks with precision and adaptability while underlining the effectiveness of its hierarchical and reflective reasoning models.InfiGUIAgent represents a breakthrough in the realm of GUI automation and solves key reasons why existing tools suffer from important limitations in reasoning and adaptability. Without requiring any textual augmentations, this state-of-the-art performance is derived by integrating mechanisms for hierarchical task decomposition and reflective learning into a multimodal framework. The new benchmarking provided here forms an opening for developing the next-generation GUI agents seamlessly embeddable in real applications for efficient and robust task execution.Check out the Paper and GitHub Page. 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 our65k+ 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. Meet 'Height':The only autonomous project management tool (Sponsored)

Starting this week, Amazon is dropping 20% off the price of the LEGO Super Mario Piranha Plant 71426, now only $47.95 with free shipping. This deal brings the per-brick price to a little less than 9 cents. The LEGO Piranha Plant was released back in November of 2023, and is still of the more popular Mario-themed LEGO sets around.20% Off LEGO Super Mario Piranha Plant 71426LEGO Super Mario Piranha Plant 71426The LEGO Piranha Plant measures 9" high, 4.5" wide, and 6.5" deep about the size of a potted plant and consists of 540 bricks. The set is marketed for ages 18+, which means it's catered towards adults and experienced builders. However, this is such an adorable looking set that it's sure to be a hit with kids of all ages, whether or not they join in on the build. The Piranha Plant makes for a fantastic display; it has numerous articulation points located at the head, mouth, stalk, and each of its leaves, and the jaw is also hinged, all of which allow for myriad customizable poses. There's even a cool little easter egg: A piggy bank is built into the pipe with two golden coins included to get you started on your stash.IGN writer Kevin Wong personally built this set in his LEGO Piranha Plant review and writes, "As far as LEGO builds are concerned, the new Piranha Plant is just about perfect vibrantly colored, well-proportioned and sized, and reasonably priced. Whether you're new to bricks or you're a dedicated hobbyist, this set captures that signature Mario franchise whimsy cute but not too cute, menacing but not too menacing, and imbued with lots of personality."f you're looking for even more fun LEGO sets, here are our picks for the . If you're curious about LEGO's upcoming releases, check out the new and upcoming LEGO sets for January 2025. If you're looking for another great LEGO Mario set to pair this with, check out the recently released LEGO Super Mario World: Mario & Yoshi set, which we also built here at IGN.Why Should You Trust IGN's Deals Team?IGN's deals team has a combined 30+ years of experience finding the best discounts in gaming, tech, and just about every other category. We don't try to trick our readers into buying things they don't need at prices that aren't worth buying something at. Our ultimate goal is to surface the best possible deals from brands we trust and our editorial team has personal experience with. You can check out our deals standards here for more information on our process, or keep up with the latest deals we find on IGN's Deals account on Twitter.Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.