Sometimes, the tools we use tell as much of a story as the work we create with them. A pen might seem basic in a world dominated by keyboards and touchscreens, but when its designed with precision and purpose, it reminds you why physical tools still matter. The TWYST Ballpoint Pen isnt trying to compete with modern techits here to complement it, giving form to thoughts that deserve to be more than fleeting pixels on a screen.What sets TWYST apart isnt just its materials or designits the way it fits into your workflow without fanfare. Made from copper and brass, its crafted to last, both in durability and relevance. The feel of its octagonal body in your hand, the smooth twist mechanismit all works together to create a writing experience thats satisfying without trying too hard. Its a tool that simply gets it right, striking the balance between form, function, and a little bit of personality.Designer: LegendrClick Here to Buy Now: $67 $103 (35% off). Hurry, only 2/98 left!Copper, with its undeniable warmth and depth, is the soul of this pen. Each piece is CNC-milled, ensuring that every single unit is sculpted to perfection. Over time, the metal develops a unique patina, creating a one-of-a-kind signature for its user. Its a design choice that speaks to a love for the enduringa reflection of its creators belief in blending timeless aesthetics with utility.But its not just coppers character that makes the TWYST pen stand out. Brass, another noble metal and an additional TWYST variant, adds strength and elegance. Together, these materials bring a certain gravitas to the pen, given that they have a gorgeous bronze-rose color, and that theyre heavier than the more commonplace stainless steel. The pens antibacterial properties add a practical edge, while the balance of weight in hand reminds you that simplicity often carries the most significance.As for its design, every detail has been meticulously thought through. The octagonal geometry ensures a natural grip, whether youre jotting down quick notes or penning something profound. The smooth twist mechanism feels intuitive, a reflection of the craftsmanship behind it. The Schmidt Technology refill housed within ensures every stroke glides across the page with precision.. Simple, and sophisticated. Thats all.The materials are fully recyclable, with no plastic components in sight. The pens are designed to practically last forever, because thats what craftsmanship was like back in the day. No planned obsolescence, no single-use culture. Just a good old-fashioned fusion of design, engineering, and intent. The pens measure a little over 5.1 inches, sport that gorgeous octagonal body which is great to grip and prevents rolling. There is, however, a palpable lack of a pocket clip, although in my opinion that would ruin the TWYSTs silhouette.The TWYST pen was built for those who see beauty in simplicity and power in details. Its not just about making your markits about enjoying every moment of the process. When the weight of the pen aligns with your thoughts, and the copper warms to your touch, it doesnt feel like a tool anymore. It feels like an extension of who you are and what you create. Whether youre a dreamer, a doer, or somewhere in between, TWYST invites you to approach your work with intention. With every twist of its mechanism and every word it commits to paper, it becomes a quiet reminder: the tools you use should match the weight of your ideas.Click Here to Buy Now: $67 $103 (35% off). Hurry, only 2/98 left!The post This Gorgeous All-Metal Pen was Machined from a Single Block of Copper with Zero Plastic Parts first appeared on Yanko Design.

The US is increasingly intent on winning the AI race with China. Experts say this ignores the benefits of collaborationand the danger of unintended consequences.

Auction house Sothebys is selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from the National Basketball League (NBA) Top Shot collection.Sothebys will put eight NBA Top Shot NFTs under the hammer amid a general NBA memorabilia sale event, according to theirwebsite. The NFTs in question are valued between $500 and $3,000 each, with bidding opening on Jan. 21. A Sothebys announcement reads:During 2024-2025 NBA season, the NBA and Sothebys will host a variety of auctions that feature your favorite player jerseys. [] NBA Auctions bidders will be invited to exclusive events at Sothebys throughout the coming years, including live auctions held at Sothebys following the NBA All-Star Game and the NBA Finals.The detailsThe collectibles being sold depict several well-known players, including Bub Carrington, Pacme Dadiet, Jaylen Wells and Kyshawn George. Each NFT includes a clip highlighting a moment from the depicted players first-ever NBA game.NBA Top Shotis the digital version of traditional sports trading cards. The cards can beacquired on Top Shot, an NFT marketplace where fans can buy, sell, and trade NBA moments. Theyare packaged video clips of game and player highlights that are minted in limited runs and operate like trading cards.Non-fungible tokens are tokens much like many digital assets. What sets them apart is they are not fungible, which means that you cannot consider multiple NFTs as interchangeable because each one has its own ID and is a separate asset. This is different from most digital assets where each Bitcoin (BTC) can be considered the same as any other.NFTs are seeing increasing adoption. Social media giant Reddit launched its own, and very recently instant messaging behemoth Telegram did the same. NFTs are also easily created with no programming knowledge. If youd like to try your hand at creating your own NFT collection check out our handy guide on how to do just that.The post Sothebys auctions NBA Top Shot NFTs appeared first on ReadWrite.

Apple's generative AI, Apple Intelligence, also generates some usage reports. Here's how to turn off the Apple Intelligence Report in macOS.How to turn off Apple Intelligence Reports in macOS.Apple's much-anticipated AI features dubbed Apple Intelligence have been released for most Apple platforms on recent hardware. Public reception has been, shall we say, less than enthusiastic - with some reports claiming up to 73% of Apple users have no interest in the technology.Others, such as BBC have complained that Apple Intelligence isn't ready for prime time - with Apple devices reporting erroneous news headlines after creating summaries. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

The 2025 edition of theWorld Monuments Fund (WMF)'s biannual World Monuments Watch List has been announced with 25 new cultural sites considered to be under threat from a variety of different sources both natural and manmade.Leading the list was the notable and important inclusion of the "Historic Urban Fabric"of Gaza. Weve covered the difficult-to-account scale of destruction there since the beginning of the Israeli military incursion, which has to date destroyed at least 66% of all buildings (per the U.N.) and countless important heritage sites. Ukraines equally prolific war losses were also represented by the Kyiv Teachers House which was damaged by Russian missiles in October of 2022.Kyiv Teachers House, Ukraine. Photo: World Monuments FundThe Moon (yes) is another off-beat, if not peculiar, inclusion. The Fund says: "As a new era of space exploration dawns, international collaboration is required to protect the physical remnants of early Moon landings and preserve these...

Nintendo seemingly has bigger fish to fry in the days ahead with the Switch 2 allegedly set to be announced imminently, but the Japanese giant has other irons in the fire as well.Donkey Kong Country Returnsis set to return (for the second time) soon, and ahead of its release, Nintendo has premiered a launch trailer. Check it out below.Handled by Forever Entertainment, you should expectDonkey Kong Country Returns HDto be a fairly conservative remaster. Its changes and additions will include a remade intro, minor visual enhancements, new JoyCon features, QoL improvements and new content carried over from the platformers 3DS version, and the like. The original remains a modern platforming classic, however, so those wishing to experience it for the first time (or re-experience it) will want to keep an eye out.Donkey Kong Country Returns HDlaunches for the Nintendo Switch on January 16. Curiously, the remaster doesnt credit the work of original developer Retro Studios. Read more on that through here.

Discover how AI threat modeling is helping CISOs redefine zero trust in 2025 by combating identity-based attacks.Read More

Justin Carter, Contributing EditorJanuary 15, 20252 Min ReadImage via Xbox.At a GlanceIt's unclear what a 'small' round of layoffs are for Microsoft, or why it's reducing its video game team to begin with.Business Insider reports Microsoft is eliminating positions across the company. Two sources speaking to the outlet claimed these reductions were "small," and will affect its security, video game, and sales divisions.It's unclear what "small" means in this context, considering Microsoft's size and the various divisions and companies under its umbrella. When it laid off 1,900 employees in January 2024, the company noted it had 22,000 staff in its video game division.Last week, Microsoft confirmed upcoming layoffs to Business Insider targeting "underperforming" employees. Today's cuts are apparently unrelated to those terminations.For Microsoft, this marks its third consecutive year of laying off video game workers. Around this time in 2023, it laid off 10,000 employees from its overall workforce. First-party Xbox teams like 343 Industries (now Halo Studios), The Coalition, and Bethesda Game Studios were impacted. 343 was said at the time to be hit the hardest, which prompted several ex-developers to claim Microsoft had mismanaged the studio during Halo Infinite's development.Last year, Microsoft laid off an eye-popping number of workers after the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. At the time, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said the staff cuts would ensure it and Activision leadership were "all aligned on the best opportunities for growth."Cuts continued into 2024, with Microsoft closing Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks and laying off corporate workers and support staff. Last May, Microsoft admitted it spread itself too thin after the Activision acquisition and began offering some workers buyouts.It was Arkane and Tango's shutdowns that drew the most criticism from the industry. At the time, the Communications Workers of America said those closures should further spur game developers to unionize. The union had previously commended Microsoft for not interfering with the forming of unions across its various subsidiaries. It later condemned the tech company for lacking "respect and compassion" by cutting so many jobs.Business Insider's latest story did not provide a reason as to why Microsoft is cutting staff in its game division. Its sources mainly focused on the cuts to the company's security team, but had no insight for the other two divisions.Read more about:Layoffs[Company] XboxAbout the AuthorJustin CarterContributing Editor, GameDeveloper.comA Kansas City, MO native, Justin Carter has written for numerous sites including IGN, Polygon, and SyFy Wire. In addition to Game Developer, his writing can be found at io9 over on Gizmodo. Don't ask him about how much gum he's had, because the answer will be more than he's willing to admit.See more from Justin CarterDaily news, dev blogs, and stories from Game Developer straight to your inboxStay UpdatedYou May Also Like

The growing reliance on AI models for edge and mobile devices has underscored significant challenges. Balancing computational efficiency, model size, and multilingual capabilities remains a persistent hurdle. Traditional large language models (LLMs), while powerful, often require extensive resources, making them less suitable for edge applications like smartphones or IoT devices. Additionally, delivering robust multilingual performance without straining hardware capabilities has proven elusive. These challenges highlight the need for efficient and versatile LLMs designed with edge environments in mind.Kyutai Labs has released the Helium-1 Preview, a 2-billion parameter multilingual base LLM tailored for edge and mobile environments. Unlike many of its predecessors, Helium-1 is designed to perform comparably or better than models like Qwen 2.5 (1.5B), Gemma 2B, and Llama 3B, all while maintaining a compact and efficient design. Released under the permissive CC-BY license, Helium-1 aims to address critical gaps in accessibility and practical deployment.Based on transformer architecture, Helium-1s focus on multilingual capabilities makes it particularly valuable for applications requiring language diversity. The models edge-optimized design ensures that developers can deploy it in environments with limited computational resources without compromising performance. These attributes position Helium-1 as a significant step forward in accessible AI for diverse global use cases.Key Technical Features and AdvantagesThe Helium-1 Preview incorporates several technical features that enable its impressive performance:Balanced Architecture: With 2 billion parameters, Helium-1 strikes a balance between computational efficiency and capability. It utilizes token-level distillation from a larger 7-billion parameter model, ensuring quality outputs while minimizing complexity.Extensive Training Data: Helium-1 was trained on 2.5 trillion tokens, providing it with a strong foundation for understanding and generating a wide range of languages. Its 4096-token context size supports handling longer text inputs effectively.Edge-Focused Optimization: Designed for deployment in resource-constrained settings, Helium-1 minimizes latency and memory usage, making it ideal for mobile and IoT applications.Open Access: The CC-BY license ensures that developers and researchers can freely adapt and build upon the model, encouraging further innovation.Performance and ObservationsInitial evaluations of Helium-1 reveal strong performance across multilingual benchmarks, often surpassing or matching models such as Qwen 2.5 (1.5B), Gemma 2B, and Llama 3B. These results highlight the effectiveness of its training strategies and optimizations.Despite its relatively small size, Helium-1 exhibits impressive versatility. It handles complex queries with accuracy and generates coherent, contextually relevant responses, making it suitable for applications like conversational AI, real-time translation, and mobile content summarization.ConclusionHelium-1 Preview represents a meaningful step forward in addressing the challenges of deploying AI models on edge and mobile platforms. By effectively balancing multilingual capabilities and computational efficiency, Helium-1 sets a precedent for future developments in this space. Its scalability, coupled with Kyutai Labs open-source ethos, underscores its potential to broaden access to high-performing AI technologies. As development continues, Helium-1 is poised to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of AI on edge and mobile devices, empowering developers and benefiting users globally.Check out the Details and Model on Hugging Face. 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.(Promoted) Asif RazzaqAsif Razzaq is the CEO of Marktechpost Media Inc.. As a visionary entrepreneur and engineer, Asif is committed to harnessing the potential of Artificial Intelligence for social good. His most recent endeavor is the launch of an Artificial Intelligence Media Platform, Marktechpost, which stands out for its in-depth coverage of machine learning and deep learning news that is both technically sound and easily understandable by a wide audience. The platform boasts of over 2 million monthly views, illustrating its popularity among audiences. Meet 'Height':The only autonomous project management tool (Sponsored)

A mod dedicated to recreating Liberty City within Grand Theft Auto 5, as a mod, has shut down.Insider-Gaming reports that the Liberty City Preservation Project, a mod meant to recreate the setting of GTA 4 as a mod for GTA 5, has been taken down at the request of Rockstar Games. In a statement on Discord, user nkjellman said "Due to the unexpected attention that our project received and after speaking with Rockstar Games, we have decided to take down the Liberty City Preservation Project."Rockstar is well-known for asking modders to take down various mods like this AI-powered GTA 5 story mode mod, or a VR mod for Red Dead Redemption 2. The Liberty City Preservation Project take down is also not without direct precedent as Rockstar issued a take-down for a mod that tried to recreate Grand Theft Auto Vice City within GTA 5.One interesting development is that while Rockstar is judicious when it comes to taking down mods, they also sometimes hire those very modders to work at Rockstar Games. And some mods, like the Vice City mod, were taken down only for Rockstar themselves to announce remasters of those very games. PlayIGN's Twenty Questions - Guess the game!IGN's Twenty Questions - Guess the game!To start:...try asking a question that can be answered with a "Yes" or "No".000/250This isn't to say Rockstar is working on a GTA 4 remaster, by any means, but there's certainly precedent. Still it may be years away before we get an answer as we know Rockstar is currently hard at work trying to ready the highly-anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 for a 2025 launch.Matt Kim is IGN's Senior Features Editor.