The new Tiny SE and Meet SE webcams offer advanced AI technology and clear images at affordable ... [+] prices.OBSBOTIve tested plenty of webcams and, currently, the Obsbot Meet 4K delivers one of the best image qualities that Ive experienced. When I tested the Meet 4K, I consistently received comments during Zoom meetings about how clear my video feed was. If Im honest, it was a bit too clear at times and showed far too many wrinkles for my tastes.The Obsbot Meet 4K and the Obsbot Tiny 4K are two great webcams from the Obsbot stable but today the company has announced two new models which are more affordable as they offer 1080p resolution instead of 4K.The Obsbot Meet SE is an AI-powered Full HD webcam while the Obsbot Tiny SE is an AI-powered PTZ Full HD camera. The Meet SE has a fixed view while the Tiny SE can pan, tilt and zoom thanks to its two-axis gimbal.Both models offer high-quality video images at an affordable price because they use a 1080P sensor instead of a 4K one. Do you need 4K for a webcam? Well, for applications like Zoom, Skype or Teams, I would say not but if you want to record video for YouTube or other platforms, you might want the extra resolution of 4K. The extra pixels are also useful if you digitally zoom because you lose less resolution.The new Obsbot Tiny SE is probable the most affordable PTZ webcam and includes AI tracking and full ... [+] 1080P resolution.OBSBOTMORE FOR YOUBoth these new SE webcams are aimed at gamers, remote workers and content creators and they offer a lot of features for the money. They work with Obsbots Center software which has plenty of customization features including image settings for adjusting saturation, brightness, contrast and sharpness.The Obsbot Tiny SE has dynamic PTZ capabilities that Obsbot says are powered by AI. With its two-axis gimbal, the Tiny SE can deliver smooth and precise tracking of face or body, keeping the presenter center stage and perfectly framed during live streams or when recording presentations. The Tiny SE also has ultra-high frame rates of 1080P @ 100fps and 720P @ 120fps.The images produced by the Tiny SE come from a 1/2.8'' Stacked CMOS sensor with a 2.9m pixel size. The lens has a wide aperture of f/1.8 for high image quality even in low light levels. The device also has dual native ISOs and Staggered HDR technology for improved dynamic range in both bright and low-light environments.The Tiny SE is powered by a Deep Learning Neural Network which offers advanced modes for body part, hand and zone tracking. There is also gesture control for remote operation. Seamless compatibility is available with platforms like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, plus the Tiny SE also has preset modes for PTZ positions, tracking and image settings.The compact Obsbot Meet SE is available in three colors and offers full 1080P resolution. OBSBOTThe second launch from Obsbot is the new Meet SE, a tiny webcam that can sit on top of a monitor or laptop. With ultra-high frame rates of 1080P @ 100fps and 720P @ 150fps, the Meet SE can produce smooth action video and its ideal for streaming, gaming and recording. The Meet SEs low-light capabilities are boosted by a 1/2.8'' Stacked CMOS sensor and Staggered HDR for vibrant details under a range of difficult lighting conditions.Thanks to AI Auto Framing, the Obsbot Meet SE can adapt to various shooting scenarios, including single-user or group meetings. It can be used in portrait or landscape modes plus there is built-in gesture control for hands-free operation. The webcam weighs just 33.2g and its available in Aurora Green, Space Grey and Cloud White.The Meet SE also works with Obsbot Center software which can be used to adjust settings for recording, AI Auto Framing, Auto Focus, Bokeh and Beauty Mode. The software and webcam are compatible with lots of popular platforms like OBS, Twitch, Kick and Zoom. There is also integration support for OSC, Global Hotkey and Stream Deck via plug-ins.The clever little Tiny SE webcam can pan, tilt and zoom and even recognises gestures or can be ... [+] controlled with a remote. For $99 it's a bargain.OBSBOTObsbots aim in developing both the Tiny SE and Meet SE webcams is to make AI-driven webcam technology accessible to more people. Core innovations included AI auto framing, gesture control and excellent low-light performance. The Tiny SE works well as a dynamic webcam thanks to its two-axis gimbal with AI Auto Tracking and Auto Zoom. Its ideal for streamers and presenters and even offers enhanced features like a Laser Whiteboard, making it ideal for professional environments such as online lectures and presentations.The Obsbot Meet SE is a good little webcam for people on the move or when working from home. Its extremely portable and offers very high image quality and performs well in low-light conditions. The Meet SE is suitable for anyone who needs a simple webcam with top-notch video quality and intelligent AI functions for framing and body tracking using a digital zoom rather than the physical PTZ movements offered by Obsbot Tiny SE.Pricing & Availability: The Obsbot Meet SE and OBSBOT Tiny SE will be available for purchase starting January 15, 2025, through OBSBOTs official website and Amazon. The Tiny SE will retail for $99 and the Meet SE for $69 making these two webcams the most affordable for their type and quality.

The big picture: Doom, the original first-person shooter for DOS by id Software, was released in 1993. Despite being over 30 years old, the game continues to inspire resourceful (and somewhat crazy) developers to run its code in some of the most unusual computing environments imaginable. We can now add PDF documents to the ever-growing list of "things" that can run Doom. A high school student interested in programming and cybersecurity developed the DoomPDF project, providing yet another example of how killing cacodemons on Mars has become a truly universal pastime, no matter the technology used.Developer "Ading2210" was able to create DoomPDF because the PDF standard supports JavaScript code. Adobe Acrobat implements the full specification of the PDF JS library, the programmer explained, allowing for some truly amazing feats, including 3D rendering, hardware detection, and more. However, DoomPDF relies on the JavaScript implementation in modern web browsers, which feature a more limited "PDF engine" and API support.Despite these limitations, Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers can perform "whatever computation we want," Ading2210 said, with only minimal I/O interactions. The developer compiled Doom's original C code with an older version of Emscripten that targets asm.js instead of WebAssembly. Inputs can be read through text fields and buttons, but "rendering" a fast-enough Doom graphics replica proved to be a much more challenging task.DoomPDF can achieve a six-color monochrome output, which should be enough to provide a "legible" in-game representation on the screen. The Doom PDF port, which can be played on Chromium browsers, isn't the most performance-optimized version of the game, though it could be considered "playable" if you're obsessed enough.Doom has been officially ported to game consoles, PC systems, different operating systems, mobile devices, and essentially every new computing platform developed since the 1990s. Even Doom Eternal, the latest entry in the Doom saga, includes the original "wad" files for Doom and Doom II, which you can load while chilling at the Doom Slayer's fortress of solitude orbiting Earth. // Related StoriesDeveloper id Software released the source code for Doom in 1997, a choice that sparked a meme-like movement where programmers are trying to run the game on the most esoteric devices they can hack. So far, Doom has proven to run on CAPTCHAs, alarm clocks, GPUs, volumetric displays, AI models, and much more.

President Biden signed an executive order Tuesday designed to ensure that the AI industry will have plenty of compute and electrical power in the coming years by making federal lands available to expansive data centers and clean energy production facilities.Specifically, the order directs federal agencies to fast-track large-scale AI infrastructure projects on federal land, make more federal sites available for data center and energy production projects, as well as integrate the new infrastructure into the local power grid. Both the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense are to each find three sites within their holdings where private companies might be able to build AI data centers before running competitive solicitations from prospective builders on those sites.Recommended VideosThe order isnt just a blank check for new AI projects; it imposes numerous safeguards and criteria on developers for how these projects can be built. These include requiring firms to pay for their facilities construction, as well as provide sufficient clean energy capabilities to fully power the data centers once they come online. The race to achieve artificial general intelligence, the relentless drive to train ever larger language models in hopes the U.S. can beat out China for global leadership of the technologys development has caused the electrical and cooling requirements for AI data centers to skyrocket in recent years. A Department of Energy report from December estimated that data center electricity draws have tripled in the last 10 years and are on pace to as much as triple again by 2028.A new report from JLL doesnt paint a much rosier picture, the real estate management firm figures data center power demands will only double by 2029. Whats more, current data center infrastructure tends to be geographically clustered, which strains local power grids, distorting how that power is delivered to customers and increasing the likelihood of brownouts.AI will have a profound implications for national security and enormous potential to improve Americans lives if harnessed responsibly, from helping cure disease to keeping communities safe by mitigating the effects of climate change, President Biden said in a prepared statement. However, we cannot take our lead for granted. We will not let America be out-built when it comes to the technology that will define the future, nor should we sacrifice critical environmental standards and our shared efforts to protect clean air and clean water.Editors Recommendations

A fundamental pivot Amid a flurry of hype, Microsoft reorganizes entire dev team around AI Shift ensures the majority of Microsoft's developer resources will focus on AI. Samuel Axon Jan 14, 2025 4:00 pm | 172 Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Credit: Microsoft Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Credit: Microsoft Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreMicrosoft CEO Satya Nadella has announced a dramatic restructuring of the company's engineering organization, which is pivoting the company's focus to developing the tools that will underpin agentic AI.Dubbed "CoreAI - Platform and Tools," the new division rolls the existing AI platform team and the previous developer division (responsible for everything from .NET to Visual Studio) along with some other teams into one big group.As for what this group will be doing specifically, it's basically everything that's mission-critical to Microsoft in 2025, as Nadella tells it:This new division will bring together Dev Div, AI Platform, and some key teams from the Office of the CTO (AI Supercomputer, AI Agentic Runtimes, and Engineering Thrive), with the mission to build the end-to-end Copilot & AI stack for both our first-party and third-party customers to build and run AI apps and agents. This group will also build out GitHub Copilot, thus having a tight feedback loop between the leading AI-first product and the AI platform to motivate the stack and its roadmap.To accomplish all that, "Jay Parikh will lead this group as EVP." Parikh was hired by Microsoft in October; he previously worked as the VP and global head of engineering at Meta.The fact that the blog post doesn't say anything about .NET or Visual Studio, instead emphasizing GitHub Copilot and anything and everything related to agentic AI, says a lot about how Nadella sees Microsoft's future priorities.So-called AI agents are applications that are given specified boundaries (action spaces) and a large memory capacity to independently do subsets of the kinds of work that human office workers do today. Some company leaders and AI commentators believe these agents will outright replace jobs, while others are more conservative, suggesting they'll simply be powerful tools to streamline the jobs people already have.Nadella doesn't sound particularly conservative on this front, though. His blog post opens with this extraordinarily lofty series of statements:As we begin the new year, its clear that were entering the next innings of this AI platform shift. 2025 will be about model-forward applications that reshape all application categories. More so than any previous platform shift, every layer of the application stack will be impacted. Its akin to GUI, internet servers, and cloud-native databases all being introduced into the app stack simultaneously. Thirty years of change is being compressed into three years!Those are some big promises and expectations. If we take his words at face value, it appears he expects agentic AI to be at the heart of a global transformation and considers it Microsoft's core objective over the next three years to be making sure its software and services are the ones that underpin that.Agentic AI is imagined as the next big turning point for the tech industry, and for the world of work in general. It's seen as a step forward from general purpose LLM chatbots like ChatGPTwhich aren't really specialized in anything and require informed users to work to get the most out of themand limited-scope, feature-specific applications of deep learning, like Apple has introduced in its platforms and software.Most observers believe some kind of widespread application of agentic AI is likely, but Nadella's grandiose vision of completely transforming software development, and by extension the entire industry, with this reorganization suggests he's one of the most bullish voices on agentic AI, to say the least.Samuel AxonSenior EditorSamuel AxonSenior Editor Samuel Axon is a senior editor at Ars Technica. He covers Apple, software development, gaming, AI, entertainment, and mixed reality. He has been writing about gaming and technology for nearly two decades at Engadget, PC World, Mashable, Vice, Polygon, Wired, and others. He previously ran a marketing and PR agency in the gaming industry, led editorial for the TV network CBS, and worked on social media marketing strategy for Samsung Mobile at the creative agency SPCSHP. He also is an independent software and game developer for iOS, Windows, and other platforms, and heis a graduate of DePaul University, where he studied interactive media and software development. 172 Comments

The Russian central bank has dismissed rumors of freezing retail bank deposits.Freezing deposits would harm financial stability and undermine trust, the bank said.Last year, the central bank hiked rates to 21% in an attempt at cooling Russia's wartime economy.Russia's central bank has taken to Telegram to publicly dismiss rumors that its citizens' bank deposits may be frozen.The idea that retail bank deposits could be frozen is "absurd" and "unthinkable," the Central Bank of Russia wrote in a Telegram post on Monday."In addition to the fact that this is a gross violation of the right of citizens and companies to manage their assets, such a step will undermine the foundations of the banking system and the financial stability of the country," the regulator wrote.The concerns came after Elvira Nabiullina, Russia's central bank governor, hiked rates to 21% late last year in a bid to cool soaring inflation an economic pain point President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged.The high interest rates attracted a flood of bank deposits. Recently, rumors emerged that retail deposits could be frozen, prompting Russians to swarm the central bank with questions, the bank wrote in its Telegram post."It is quite obvious that in any market economy, of which bank lending is an integral part, such a step is unthinkable," the bank wrote in the post dismissing the rumors.The rumors about frozen deposits are a reflection of the nervousness in Russia's wartime economy. This is not the first time Russia's central bank has addressed concerns that Russians' savings could be frozen and interest withheld.In November, Nabiullina dismissed such concerns as "nonsense," Russia's RBC news outlet reported. She was responding to a question from the lower house of Russia's parliament.Russia has been under a slew of Western sanctions since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. It has managed to avoid going bankrupt thanks in part to growth from its massive spending on military and defense activities. It has also managed to pivot to alternative export markets such as China and India.However, the Russian central bank has warned that the economy is at risk of overheating.Russia's economy faces multiple issues like high inflation, a decline in the value of the ruble, and a severe manpower shortage.In November, the country's inflation rate hit nearly 9%. Prices of staples from butter to potatoes in the country have risen sharply, putting a strain on the finances of ordinary citizens.As the war in Ukraine nears its fourth year, Russia's economy could run out of cash before the end of this year, a Swedish economist wrote on Tuesday. This could hit its ability to continue financing the war and its economy.

Diriyah Biennale Foundation / BRICKLABSave this picture! Laurian GhinitoiuArchitects: BRICKLABAreaArea of this architecture projectArea:16000 mYearCompletion year of this architecture project Year: 2021 PhotographsPhotographs:Laurian Ghinitoiu, Turki Gazzaz Lead Architects: Abdulrahman Gazzaz, Turki Gazzaz More SpecsLess SpecsSave this picture!Text description provided by the architects. The Diriyah Biennale Foundation is Saudi Arabia's primary institution dedicated to promoting contemporary and Islamic arts from the region and beyond. Upon its establishment in 2021, Bricklab won an international competition for the design and construction of its headquarters in Riyadh's JAX creative district. One of the first anchor tenants in the district, the foundation called for the rehabilitation of 8 decommissioned warehouses spanning a total area of 16,000 m2 to host world-class galleries, art handling facilities, public workshop areas, offices, an auditorium, and a multipurpose plaza.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The architectural language implemented across the site pays homage to the site's industrial past. Most of the warehouse facades were maintained in their original condition, while a continuous band of translucent polycarbonate runs throughout the property to filter out incongruities and establish a strong presence for the foundation within the urban fabric and simultaneously along the valley.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!A series of openings interrupt the once-isolated interiors to frame views across the valley onto the wider JAX district. Organized around a central open-air plaza, the different exhibition spaces are weaved together through a set of ramps and exterior walkways that traverse the disparate warehouses comprising the Biennale complex. This outdoor area has since become the locus of public activities and a compelling series of site-specific art installations.Save this picture!The architecture of the Diriyah Biennale headquarters highlights a sense of urban continuity and a subtle reference to the repercussions of the later stages of the oil boom on the historic town of Ad Diriyah. As such, it is a relatively rare exercise in rehabilitation and adaptive reuse, especially when concerned with a former industrial district. Generally, this demonstrates a shared visionary approach that has proclaimed a marked departure from the contemporary trends towards new construction that Saudi Arabia has become infamous for in the past decade.Save this picture!Project gallerySee allShow lessProject locationAddress:Diriyah, Saudi ArabiaLocation to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.About this officeBRICKLABOfficePublished on January 15, 2025Cite: "Diriyah Biennale Foundation / BRICKLAB" 15 Jan 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1025750/diriyah-biennale-foundation-bricklab&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save!ArchDaily?You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Nature, Published online: 14 January 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00053-yEpidemiological studies have linked dirty air to dementia and other brain disorders. Now researchers are trying to determine how pollutants do their damage, and how much harm they cause.

Black State, a Metal Gear Solid-style action-adventure with highly realistic visuals and ray tracing developed by Motion Blur, received a new WIP gameplay video.Check it out: https://80.lv/articles/metal-solid-gear-style-action-black-state-received-new-gameplay-video/#videogames #gameindustry #gamenews #gamedev #nvidia #raytracing

Devolver Digital has just revealed a new title, which is an action-adventure with a dark fantasy setting where youll need to solve puzzles by bizarre ways like drinking blood or digging through viscera.Wishlist Moroi: https://80.lv/articles/moroi-an-upcoming-action-adventure-with-dark-fantasy-setting/@GoodShepherdEnt #gaming #gamedev

Former Starfield Designer Dennis Mejillones compared Todd Howard to George Lucas.He said, "geniuses come up with terrible ideas, too," and they need honest feedback to filter them: https://80.lv/articles/former-starfield-designer-compares-todd-howard-with-george-lucas/#videogames #gameindustry #gamenews #bethesda #starfield