Fresh off of correctly reporting the Nintendo Switch 2s reveal date, leaker NateTheHate has teased the next State of Play for February. Further details havent been revealed, but it sounds reasonable given Sonys propensity for the month (or close enough) over recent years.The real question is what it could reveal. Last year featured Silent Hill 2 remake gameplay, the reveal of Sonic X Shadow Generations, Rise of the Ronin, Silent Hill: The Short Message, Metro Awakening, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Kojima Productions also featured heavily on the broadcast, presenting new Death Stranding 2: On the Beach footage and announcing a new stealth action IP, Physint.Death Stranding 2 will receive a release date this year, so why not at the next State of Play? We could also learn more about Sucker Punchs Ghost of Yotei (also out in 2025) and Haven Studios co-op heist shooter Fairgame$. Maybe Bend Studios next IP will appear as well. Stay tuned in the meantime.Hows February sound? NateTheHate2 (@NateTheHate2) January 16, 2025

Titans architecture complements attention layers with neural memory modules that select bits of information worth saving in the long term.Read More

Can any one person describe the entire state of the video game marketplace? Entrepreneur, author, and Epyllion CEO Matthew Ball is certainly giving it a shot. The man who wrote "The Metaverse" is out this week with a slide deck full of data and analysis capturing the economic headwinds facing the business.Ball's presentation gets to the heart of a very uncomfortable fact: according to analysts, video game spending didn't just fail to grow after the COVID-19 pandemic, it dipped 3.5 percent in 2022 and only climbed back a few percentage points by the end of 2024. Other data points, like a declining amount of playtime in games, are also enough to trigger game developers' anxiety (and mine!).Ball identifies the slowing growth as being a symptom of major interlocking growth drivers of the period between 2011-2021 (when consoles and mobile devices exploded in capabilities and new social networks came online) losing steam. It's not a pretty picture, but this is a business built on solving big problems by staring them right in the face.His lengthy explanation of the complicated market effects at play might warn investors and executives from investing more in the video game businessbut that leaves and opportunity for savvy developers and leaders to slip in and find victories where others retreated.I have no doubt this slide deck is bouncing through the inboxes of various studios right now and sliding across the desks of different C-suite execs. If you want to make the most of Ball's data, you'll need to think about how it applies to your day-to-day life. Here are a few takeaways that might resonate with rank-and-file developers.Video game budgets have to come downThis is probably thuddingly obvious to many of our readers but Ball's data makes a very clear point: video game budgets are too dang high. The amount of money invested in individual games is becoming more difficult to turn a profit on when a fewer percentage of players are picking up new games every year. "Excluding annual releases, but including sequels, only 6.5 percent of gametime in 2023 was for new games," Ball writes. "Always On" games-as-a-service titles released before 2019 earned the most "gametime" in that year. "Tens of billions in development and marketing investment and thousands of games competed for that 6.5 percent of total players hours (and four titles won half of it)."Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is the unfortunate poster child for Ball's breakdown here, as his breakdown of sales versus budget of the widely beloved sequel relative to its predecessors shows the heart of the problem. The series' production budget shot from just over $100 million to over $300 million across three games (Miles Morales clocked in at just over $150 million), but lifetime sales of the series haven't increased exponentially.Image via Matthew Ball.Pair that against the small market share the series is competing for and the economics become rough. I don't know the fate of the budgets for future Marvel's Spider-Man games, I do know Insomniac is aware players aren't necessarily seeing the payoff of the increased spending, a fact that came out in the frustrating dump of leaked documents obtained by hackers targeting the studio.Now here's where things get hard: how do you reduce budgets? There are only three major tools: lower salaries, lower development time, or lower headcounts. Each has frustrating tradeoffs that in many cases, punish workers and reward executives who ballooned the budgets in the first place.Devs need to dance with governmentsBall's data points to two obvious ways government regulators could influence the game industryone explicit, the other implicit.The implicit argument isn't clearly stated, and I wonder if Ball would take issue with my analysis. But reading between the lines, an understated challenge of bigger budgets is this: game development is hit brutally hard by the cost of living and inflation. As we discussed last year, the same number of developers you stick on a game costs dramatically different depending on the country you're operating in. Developers in higher-cost-of-living regions are being undermined by ones in lower-cost-of-living regions, and developers in the latter territories risk being exploited because they have less agency to leverage better wages.Image via Matthew Ball.Ball's explicit argument targets the purported monopoly Google and Apple have on their mobile platforms. He says that if the iOS and Android app platforms need to "open up." New stores could, among other things, drive competition that lowers the 30 percent "platform fee" claimed by Google and Apple, drive new discoverability methods that connect players to a wider variety of games, and spark innovation for new genres of games.Both topics may require industry leaders to grit their teeth and press local and national governments in support of regulatory action. Industry lobbying groups to date have largely focused on tax breaks and legislation surrounding the import cost of parts and access to internet bandwidth. That's a lot of work invested into legislation that primarily benefits the world's largest publishers and studios.Just like Mr. Smith, it's time for video games to go to Washington (or London, Ottowa, etc. etc.).Players respond to exciting "new genres"but where do new genres come from?Speaking of new game genres, Ball's analysis concludes that the emergence of new game genres could be a shot in the arm for the video game market place. He points to the era of the battle royale genre's as being the kind of event that can drive new growth. The industry, he says, could use a shot of innovation.His suggestions for where new genres might come from are concentrated on possible technological advances in "mass concurrency," "high-bandwidth data streaming," "higher-persistence game worlds," and "cloud native games." His analysis of generative AI also focuses on the technology's potential to introduce new genres, as some developers like those at Hidden Door are experimenting with.Image via Matthew Ball.Ball's technology-focused thinking isn't out of place, as many previous industry advances came out of graphical and rendering advances. But there might be a missing variable here: unpaid modding.Many breakout new genres of the 2010s began life as mods (born of unpaid labor) for entirely different games. That goes for MOBAs, battle royale games, tactical shooters like Counter-Strike, and more.That trend muddies of the waters of where developers can find true innovation that will land with playersand who benefits from it. Valve and Blizzard jumped into action to try and profit off genres built on mods of their games. Meanwhile, Brendan Greene was lucky to find a business partner that could turn his ARMA 3 mod into a full game, but Epic Games fast-followed with Fortnite so hard it became the defining version of the genre in the United States.A bubbling example of this phenomenon right now might be Grand Theft Auto Online's roleplaying servers. Their popularity speaks to Ball's analysis that the next generation of video game players prioritizes social play over competition, and right now Rockstar Games is the beneficiary of unpaid time and labor from players setting up their own mini improv theaters. Will Rockstar build on this audience after the release of Grand Theft Auto VI? Will other developers swoop in to try and eat their lunch?Internationalism is impacting the market (and boosting PC market share)Video game analysts from the early 2000s have a fair bit of egg on their face as one of the few bright spots for the traditional video game marketplace is consistent growth in the world of PC games. Declining sales around 2010 led some to think consoles and mobile would inevitably beat out PC games, which were (and sometimes are) difficult and fiddly to get running."Twenty years ago, PC's share of non-mobile console spending was 29 percent. It's now 53 percent," writes Ball. "And while console [spending] has stagnated since 2021, PC has grown 20 percent."Before you jump out of your desk and greenlight another generation of flight simulators, you should check out why PC spending is growing. "The largest share of Steam users now use Chinese as their default client language (which probably underrepresents China's total share of Steam users)," says Ball.Additional data he shares shows that Chinese client language users are among the group that has grown the most on Steam from December 2021 to September 2024. This group represents what many publishers hope to reacha "fresh audience" with different tastes and interests than the more calcified existing market.But while Chinese player spending on video games has grown by $39 billion since 2011, only 20 percent of their domestic spending goes to imported titles. Spending on imported titles declined five percent from 2023 through 2024. Ball compares this phenomenon to one also taking place in the film industry: locally-made entertainment is outpacing imported entertainment across the globe in China, Nigeria, and India.Image via Matthew Ball.Box office hits like Wandering Earth, A Tribe Called Judah, and RRR are cinematic cousins of Black Myth: Wukongentertainment produced by local artists that are wildly popular in their countries of origin and also find audiences abroad."As foreign markets grow, their domestic production capabilities and supply grow too, and this always results in national preferences then shifting to local product," Ball observes.There's opportunity for the game industry to meet this moment. We've seen rustling from South Korea about expanded interest in triple-A games alongside the country's longtime passion for free-to-play multiplayer titles, and regions like Brazil and Eastern Europe are following similar trends.If you're not in those regions, you might wonder how your neck of the game industry can benefit. For now, the best I can offer is that if overseas audience spend more time on consoles and PCs than mobile devices, developers have an opportunity to catch some of that interest by investing in localization.Understanding player socialization should be a priorityWoven through Ball's analysis is another long-running trend: how players and why socialize through games is changing.The Roblox phenomenon, for instance, isn't just about younger players being drawn to blocky graphics and user-generated content, it's that the platform's flexible tools have become a haven for self-expression and social play. We can again look at the proliferation of Grand Theft Auto Online roleplaying servers as another data point in this phenomenon, and outside of games, the increasing growth of chat platform Discord."One in five Discord users (or 40 million total) use the app to stream gameplay to their friends each monthand just under one in three watches monthly," Ball notes. It's a piece of social glue that accelerates interest in games like Palworld, Smite 2, Phasmophobia, and Lethal Company.Discord's list of users playing Steam Early Access titles as a share of total observed players is largely loaded with co-op multiplayer games, but also features single-player titles like Fields of Mistria, Hades II, and Manor Lords. Ball describes this as "disproportionate" game discovery behavior.Image via Matthew Ball.The developers behind these games probably didn't do any weird science studying the habits of Discord users (unless they did, in which case, hey reach out to me I want to know what you learned), but enough of them have succeeded on the platform in a way that suggests studying how players engage with and use Discord might be a vector for developers to grow, explore new genres, and succeed in 2025 and beyond.(And Discord may not deserve all the credit heresocial apps across the globe likely drive similar behavior in different regions).How do developers handle an uncertain future?I'll be honest here. When I first read Ball's report, I came away with some degree of anxiety. The human brain struggles to wrangle numbers like these, and it's easy to spiral into an unhelpful spree of if->then statements that make a decline in billions of dollars in spending feel like the end of the world. The problems and solutions are so big and abstract that if you aren't a big-money decision makerjust a humble programmer, artist, designer, or a writer like meyou can feel like you have no agency in a field you deeply love. And even if you have the power to greenlight a game, what if the games Ball is proposing aren't the ones you want to or even can make?The solution, I think, is to look at Ball's data and analysis as a map. Maps don't serve one purposethey lay out the territory as best they can so another traveler can navigate it. Plenty will read Ball's map and see "X marks the spot" where others will see "here there be dragons."You don't have to change or fix the game industry. But to make the game you want to make, having a map handy might keep you from sailing into dangerous waters.

Nintendo has finally revealed its new console, debuting the Switch 2 with a short video that went heavy on visuals but light on information. The video was paired with a brief follow-up press release from Nintendo that also didnt go into much detail, with the company ostensibly saving all the juicy stuff for the Switch 2 Direct set to take place on April 2nd. While we wait for official word, here are the burning questions we still have about the Nintendo Switch 2.What are the Switch 2s specs?Perhaps the most glaring omission in the Switch 2 reveal was the fact that Nintendo didnt say anything about how powerful the new console is. We can see that the console is bigger, but whats the screen size? Is it OLED or LCD? Is the screen resolution still 720p? Is 4K resolution supported? Though visible for a few brief moments, the reveal video showed off the Switch 2s new dock. Whats the docked resolution? Is it just a charging shell, or is it still required for TV play? Can you dock the Switch 2 in the original Switch dock, or will it support all the super-portable third-party docks? The Switch 2 also features a second USB-C port at the top. Its likely there to offer a way to connect USB-C headphones without sacrificing a charging port. But perhaps it might have some other mysterious function. Has native Bluetooth support been improved? Itd be nice to connect more than two wireless controllers if a Bluetooth headset is being used. What about the UI? Can we expect to see a homescreen similar to the original Switch? What about the UI for the eShop? Can you still post screenshots and clips directly to Facebook? Will Nintendo add the ability to post to other social media or streaming platforms? Image: NintendoHow exactly do the Switch 2 Joy-Con controllers work?A lot of the reveal trailer focused on the new Joy-Cons, and while theres some info we can infer, theres still more we dont know. Do they attach via magnets? Do they still have 3D rumble? Will the Switch 2 support the original Switch Pro controller or the original Switch Joy-Cons in wireless mode? Prior to the reveal, there were rumors that the Joy-Cons would have magnetic Hall effect joysticks that would supposedly combat Joy-Con drift. So, what improvements has Nintendo made to protect against drift? Will Nintendo still offer repairs for the new Joy-Cons if they do drift? Will it sell new Joy-Cons separately at launch, and do they come in any new colors? What does that new button do?Theres a new button on the Switch 2 directly below the home button on the right Joy-Con. Does it have something to do with a new chat functionality like rumors have suggested? Sure seems like thats some mouse action. GIF: Nintendo / The VergeDoes the new Joy-Con work like a mouse?The reveal video featured a Joy-Con attaching to a cover and zooming around on a surface like a mouse. Is mouse functionality one of the Switch 2s new gimmicks? Speaking of gimmicks, is there still an IR camera for games like 1-2-Switch? I also hope that the Switch 2 will still support original Switch peripherals like the Ring Fit Adventure Ring-Con. Image: The Verge, NintendoWhat games will be playable on the Switch 2?The Switch 2 reveal only showed off one game: a new Mario Kart. Beyond that, we have no idea what kind of launch titles to expect or if the new Mario Kart will even be among them. So, what kind of games can we expect for the Switch 2? Will there be Switch 2 exclusives at launch, or will we get cross-gen launch games like Breath of the Wild? One of the bigger original Switch complaints was that newer, larger games often didnt run or look all that good. Can the console run more technically intensive games? If so, will they run natively on the console, or will they be playable via cloud streaming like Kingdom Hearts and Control? Speaking of Mario Kart, the short glimpse we saw of it in the trailer featured what looked to be 15 simultaneous racers with 24 spots behind the starting line. Does this mean the Switch 2 will feature enhanced multiplayer capabilities like larger player lobbies, and will the console natively support communication with them? What of Amiibos? Will the Switch 2 still support those, or are there plans to make more?What Switch 2 games will be backward-compatible?In todays video, Nintendo reaffirmed that the Switch 2 would be backward-compatible, playing both physical and digital original Switch games but with the important caveat that not all games would be supported. What original Switch games wont be compatible? Will the original Switch games that do work on the console receive some kind of graphical or performance boost like certain games on PlayStation and Xbox?How much does the Switch 2 cost?Theres also the question of how much the Switch 2 will cost. The original Switch retailed at $299.99 in 2017. Since then, the cost of everything has gone up, especially computer chips. The Switch OLED, the only significant console refresh Nintendo offered, was only $50 more than the base model. But without knowing its internal specs, its hard to guess what the Switch 2 might cost.When will the Switch 2 launch?The most important unanswered question we have about the Switch 2 is the simplest: when can we buy it? Nintendo didnt share much beyond saying that it will launch in 2025. Much like with the original Switch, it will take the Switch 2 on a world tour starting in April. Its likely that the consoles release date will follow the tours conclusion, which looks to be in June. Heres hoping Nintendo shares that critical information, along with answers to at least some of these questions during its Switch 2 Direct on April 2nd.How do the cartridges taste?Oh, wait, there is one more burning question... what flavors can we expect for the Switch 2 cartridges? Im hoping for something better than insecticide.

Large Language Models (LLMs) based on Transformer architectures have revolutionized sequence modeling through their remarkable in-context learning capabilities and ability to scale effectively. These models depend on attention modules that function as associative memory blocks, storing and retrieving key-value associations. However, this mechanism has a significant limitation: the computational requirements grow quadratically with the input length. This quadratic complexity in both time and memory poses substantial challenges when dealing with real-world applications such as language modeling, video understanding, and long-term time series forecasting, where the context windows can become extremely large, limiting the practical applicability of Transformers in these crucial domains.Researchers have explored multiple approaches to address the computational challenges of Transformers, with three main categories emerging. First, Linear Recurrent Models have gained attention for efficient training and inference, evolving from first-generation models like RetNet and RWKV with data-independent transition matrices to second-generation architectures incorporating gating mechanisms like Griffin and RWKV6. Next, Transformer-based architectures have attempted to optimize the attention mechanism through I/O-aware implementations, sparse attention matrices, and kernel-based approaches. Lastly, Memory-augmented models focus on persistent and contextual memory designs. However, these solutions often face limitations such as memory overflow, fixed-size constraints, etc.Google Researchers has proposed a novel neural long-term memory module designed to enhance attention mechanisms by enabling access to historical context while maintaining efficient training and inference. The innovation lies in creating a complementary system where attention serves as short-term memory for precise dependency modeling within limited contexts even though the neural memory component functions as long-term storage for persistent information. This dual-memory approach forms the foundation of a new architectural family called Titans, which comes in three variants, each offering different strategies for memory integration. The system shows particular promise in handling extremely long contexts, successfully processing sequences beyond 2 million tokens.The Titans architecture introduces a complex three-part design to integrate memory capabilities effectively. The system consists of three distinct hyper-heads: a Core module utilizing attention with limited window size for short-term memory and primary data processing, a Long-term Memory branch implementing the neural memory module for storing historical information, and a Persistent Memory component containing learnable, data-independent parameters. The architecture is implemented with several technical optimizations, including residual connections, SiLU activation functions, and 2-norm normalization for queries and keys. Moreover, it uses 1D depthwise-separable convolution layers after query, key, and value projections, along with normalization and gating mechanisms.The experimental results demonstrate Titans superior performance across multiple configurations. All three variants MAC, MAG, and MAL outperform hybrid models like Samba and Gated DeltaNet-H2, with the neural memory module proving to be the key differentiator. Among the variants, MAC and MAG show strong performance, especially in handling longer dependencies, surpassing the MAL-style combinations commonly used in existing hybrid models. In needle-in-a-haystack (NIAH) tasks, Titans outperforms baselines across sequences ranging from 2K to 16K tokens. This superior performance stems from three key advantages: efficient memory management, deep non-linear memory capabilities, and effective memory erasure functionality.In conclusion, researchers from Google Research introduced a groundbreaking neural long-term memory system that functions as a meta-in-context learner, capable of adaptive memorization during test time. This recurrent model is more effective in identifying and storing surprising patterns in the data stream, offering more complex memory management than traditional methods. The system has proven its superiority in handling extensive contexts through the implementation of three distinct variants in the Titans architecture family. The ability to effectively process sequences exceeding 2 million tokens while maintaining superior accuracy marks a significant advancement in the sequence modeling field and opens new possibilities for handling increasingly complex tasks.Check out the Paper. 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. Recommend Open-Source Platform: Parlant is a framework that transforms how AI agents make decisions in customer-facing scenarios. (Promoted)The post Google AI Research Introduces Titans: A New Machine Learning Architecture with Attention and a Meta in-Context Memory that Learns How to Memorize at Test Time appeared first on MarkTechPost.

Its finally here. After months of speculation and rumour, Nintendos new console has been announced and its called the Nintendo Switch 2. Its an understated name to match an understated console - on first inspection it barely looks any different to a regular Switch. But take a closer look and theres plenty of fascinating details that suggest how Nintendo has evolved its beloved hybrid console. 30 of them, in fact, and were here to show you them all. From a brand new face button to whole new ways of using the Joy-Con, heres everything revealed in the Nintendo Switch 2 reveal trailer. Nintendo Switch 2 - First Look01 - The Switch 2s form factor is much the same as its predecessor, just a little bigger. The main unit of the console has grown in size and the now Joy-Con are taller. We estimate the entire console is around 15% bigger than the original Switch. 02 - Gone are the brightly coloured Joy-Con of the last generation. Nintendo has opted for a uniform dark grey across the entire console, which gives the entire device something of a sleeker, Steam Deck-like appearance. 03 - Thats not to say the console is devoid of colour entirely. It pays homage back to the original Switchs bright red and blue controllers with a ring of colour around each analogue stick. This extends to the inner-edges of both the console unit and each Joy-Con, which not only looks slick but acts as a colour coding system - red slots into red, and blue slots into blue. 04 - Talking of slots, the Joy-Con no longer slide into place on rails. Instead they now directly slot into the device, with a protruding connector on the main unit plugging into a port on the inner-edge of the Joy-Con. While unconfirmed by this trailer, rumours have suggested that each Joy-Con is held in place using magnets, similar to Apples Magsafe laptop charging cables.05 - The rear of each Joy-Con features a newly-designed trigger system that releases the controller from the main unit. As you can briefly see in the demonstration video published on Nintendo.com, squeezing the trigger causes a piston-like component inside the Joy-Con to push the controller away from the console.06 - On the front of the Joy-Cons we can see that the classic control layout has been preserved. The analogue sticks remain off-set, with the left stick sat above the four direction buttons, and the right stick below the A, B, X, and Y face buttons. Towards the tops of the controllers are the Plus and Minus buttons, and at the bottom is the square capture button on the left and circle Home button on the right.07 - Below the Home button is a new, unlabelled button. What it does is currently a mystery to anyone but Nintendo. 08 - The L and R shoulder buttons are exactly where youd expect them to be, and sitting beneath them are the ZL and ZR triggers. These appear to be deeper and more rounded than those on the Switch, and so will hopefully be more comfortable to use and easier to operate. 09 - The analogue sticks still use a low-profile design, but their faces have a notably smaller inside ring radius and thicker, taller rims. This likely is to provide better thumb grip and support. 10 - Theres no sign of the NFC Amiibo interface on the right-hand Joy-Con, but thats not to say it wont be there. After all, the feature was invisible on the original Switch. What does seem to be missing, though, is the IR sensor that was on the bottom edge of the original right Joy-Con. Considering barely any Switch games used it, its perhaps unsurprising to see it cut from the Switch 2.11 - Once again the internal edges of each Joy-Con controller have SL and SR buttons, indicating that the Switch 2 will still allow players to use each individual Joy-Con as its own controller. The big improvement here, though, is that the SL and SR buttons are significantly larger - potentially up to four times the length of those on the original Switch. They will almost certainly be easier to use.12 - The strip of four green LEDs that indicate which player each Joy-Con is assigned to has returned, although this time its on the forward-facing edge of the connector strip rather than the inward-facing one.13 - Between the SL and SR buttons is the connector port that links each Joy-Con to the main console unit, but also another couple of interesting components. Mirroring the original Switch, we can see the Sync button below the connector, which will pair a Joy-Con with the console. 14 - Its the component above the connector that proves most intriguing, though. This small, clear lens could well be a laser sensor similar to whats in a computer mouse. If so, it would mean the Joy-Con can be used like a mouse. The trailer even suggests this when the Joy-Con skate around with their wrist-strap accessories attached they literally look like scurrying mice with tails. 15 - Talking of the wrist-straps, theyre back in a newly-designed form, with red and blue colours to match the internal colour splash on each Joy-Con. 16 - Moving onto the main console unit itself, the key improvement is a bigger screen. Its not quite the near edge-to-edge panel that the Switch OLED boasted, but it takes up significantly more of the unit than the original Switchs display. What display technology it uses is currently unclear while wed love to see a bright OLED screen, this base model could well use a more traditional LED panel. 17 - The top edge of the device is largely unchanged. It features a slightly redesigned power and volume buttons, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a ventilation grill that appears to be of a roughly similar size to that on the original Switch, just split into three vents rather than five. 18 - The Game Card slot also remains on the top edge of the console. Its also the only visible slot on the device. Considering the machine is backwards compatible, that means the Switch 2s game cartridges will almost certainly be the same form factor as those used in the original Switch.19 - There is one new curious addition to the top edge to speculate about, though. Next to the headphone jack we can see a USB C port. What this is for were uncertain, as the Switch 2 also has the same bottom-mounted USB C port as its predecessor for docking and charging. Perhaps there are a range of USB-based peripherals in the works that make more sense mounted to the top of the console? Or perhaps the next Pokemon will go fully old-school and use a link cable to trade monsters? Were perhaps too excited than we should be to find out what a mystery USB slot does.20 - Alongside the bottom-facing USB C port are new, downward-firing speakers that replace the original Switchs rear-facing speakers. This new position will hopefully ensure better sound quality. 21 - The rear of the console sports a brand new kickstand system, which runs the entire length of the device. It does admittedly look a little flimsy, but the rubber feet on the edges of the console unit itself may be there to help support the kickstand and keep the entire device steady. The kickstand also seems to be able to lock into multiple angles at the very least it will have an upright position and one that lies it at a much shallower angle thats almost lying flat. 22 - As youd expect, the Switch can be plugged into a dock and connected to a TV. The dock appears nearly identical to the original Switchs, but the corners have been rounded off to match the radius of the Joy-Cons. Oh, and theres a massive Switch 2 logo on the front of it, too. 23 - Also mirroring the original Switch is the inclusion of a controller peripheral that the Joy-Cons slot into. It looks just as uncomfortable as the original version, but hopefully hands-on time will reveal that some improvements have been made. 24 - You cant have a console reveal trailer without a game, and this Switch 2 reveal gives us a sneak peak at what looks like a brand new Mario Kart game. It appears this will be a bigger, more chaotic version of Nintendos beloved racer as the starting line has space for 24 racers. Mario Kart 8 was limited to just 12 racers. 25 - Arching over that starting line is a sign that reads Mario Kart - Mario Bros. Circuit. It appears to be a whole new, seemingly American-flavoured track for Mario Kart one that appears to make use of more open space and off-road sections. 26 - The clip confirms ten characters for the roster: Mario, Luigi, Bowser, Peach, Yoshi, Toad, Donkey Kong, Daisy, Rosalina, and finally Wario, who can be spotted for just a split second as the screen flips.27 - While brand new games such as new Mario Kart were obviously on the cards, its good to see that old Switch games will be supported through backwards compatibility. However, the reveal trailer does warn that certain games may not be supported. We suspect that this may refer to games that used peripherals that directly connected to the Switch 1s Joy-Cons. Ring Fit Adventure, for instance, required the Joy-Con to be slotted into the ring, and the new Joy-Con design will presumably be incompatible with the old rail system. 28 - But when can we get finally own this brand new Nintendo console? 2025 is the only date were given, so sometime within the next 12 months (but likely not before June).29 - Well learn much more, including hopefully a release date, in just a few short months. A Nintendo Direct is scheduled for April 2nd.30 - Following the direct, youll be able to get hands-on with the console yourself as part of the Nintendo Switch 2 Experience, a worldwide tour taking place between April and June. Starting on April 4th in New York and Paris, and then going on to visit cities such as London, Berlin, Melbourne, Tokyo, and Seoul, it is open to all Nintendo Account holders provided you win a ticket via the free-to-enter ballot. Registration for the ticket raffle opens on January 17th. And those are the 30 key details revealed by the Switch 2 announcement trailer. Be sure to check out everything that's been confirmed so far, and stick with IGN over the next few months for even more Nintendo Switch 2 news. Matt Purslow is IGN's Senior Features Editor. Additional editorial support for this article was provoided by Alex Simmons, Dale Driver, Jesse Gomez, and Simon Cardy.

Over the span of its 50-year run, Saturday Night Live has played host some of the most talented comedic performers in American TV history. Equally as impressive as SNLs roster of cast members, however, is the list of folks who tried out for the show and failed to make the cut. Why is it that so many successful comedic figures couldnt crack the rotation on SNL? It turns out that not even the people in charge of the auditions fully know why.Theres a lot of people I brought in and thought I cant believe were not hiring that person,' Marci Klein, SNL Head of Talent from 1995-2012, says in the new Peacock docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night.Produced by Morgan Neville and released a month in advance of the official observance of SNLs 50th anniversary, SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night is a fascinating watch. Three of the docuseries four episodes dive into SNL specifics (including a behind-the-scenes peek at the writing process of a 2024 episode, an oral-history of More Cowbell, and an autopsy of what went wrong with season 11). But episode 1 Five Minutes takes a broader look at the most important five minutes of every SNL cast members journey: their audition.Footage of SNLs audition process is frequently hard to come by. Aside from an SNL 40th anniversary compilation and Will Ferrells iconic tryout, viewers dont often get to see video of successful SNL auditions, let alone the ones that ended in disappointment. SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night provides viewers with a privileged look at both. In addition to the auditions of SNL heavy-hitters like Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Kristen Wiig, and more,NOTE: While each of these entries is accompanied by a YouTube video embed to break up the textual monotony, only the Jim Carrey, Kevin Hart, and Stephen Colbert sections contain footage from their respective auditions as those have been previously released. Footage from the remaining auditions can be found around the 18:30-mark of SNL50: Beyond Saturday Nights first episode.Jim CarreyOf all the people who stopped by the Studio 8H audition stage, Jim Carrey looms large as the one that got away. Not only did the elastic performer become one of the biggest comedy stars at the box office, but he proved his sketch chops by becoming part of the cast of In Living Color. His audition, while raw, contains plenty of hints of the excitement to come like his rendition of a baby-armed post-nuclear Elvis. Jennifer CoolidgeJennifer Coolidge was so funny. But I couldnt get anybody to get it, Klein says in SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night. Jennifer Coolidge is indeed very funny but it probably takes longer than a five-minute audition to fully connect with her laidback comedic style. Thankfully, SNLs loss on this one was the worlds gain. Coolidge had a successful career in Christopher Guest mockumentaries before joining HBOs The White Lotus and winning an Emmy award. Shes also a popular impression for current SNL cast members and hosts.Kevin HartBefore he became one of the most successful stand-up comedians and movie stars of his era, Kevin Hart was just a young background actor in Judd Apatow projects trying to make his way in the world. His path led him to an SNL audition, which he kind of killed! Unfortunately his rendition of a man who had a spinal fusion didnt connect with the panel. Mindy KalingMindy Kaling has made a name for herself as both a comedic performer and writer in TV series like The Office and The Mindy Kaling Project. Based on that dual experience, one would imagine that she would be a perfect fit for SNL. Still, the audition panel didnt vibe with her audition for whatever reason. In the one bit we see in SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, the Massachusetts-native is wearing a Boston Red Sox hoodie and playing a character from New England. Perhaps the show felt it had already hit its Masshole quota in the wake of Jimmy Fallon and Rachel Dratch Boston Teens sketches. Donald GloverNow the ultimate multi-hyphenate as writer/producer/actor/stand-up/director/Grammy-winning musical artist, Donald Glover a.k.a. Childish Gambino got his start in television comedy. Hell, he got his start in television comedy on SNLs own home turf of NBC! While a writer on 30 Rock (and just before he got his breakout role as Troy Barnes on Community), Glover attended a rare mid-season audition for SNL, which was looking for a regular Barack Obama impersonator. While his Obama impression apparently didnt pan out (the show chose Fred Armisen a white performer already in the cast ), he did uncork a killer Chris Rock impression in which he complained about an influx of vampires in New York City. Jordan PeeleAlso brought in to audition for the role of SNLs Barack Obama impersonator was then-Mad TV star Jordan Peele. Thanks to its subsequent deployment on Peele and Keegan-Michael Keys own sketch show Key & Peele, we know that said Obama impression was a good one. And SNL agreed! They reportedly were prepared to give Peele the job but Fox refused to let him out of his Mad TV contract. Oh well, Peele decided to settle for becoming a generational horror filmmaker instead by creating Get Out, Us, and Nope. In SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night, we get a look at the non-Obama portion of Peeles audition. It contains a hilarious impression of a Starbucks barista from the hood who is adamant that a customer requested a caramel mint mocha latte.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!Stephen ColbertThe Late Show host Stephen Colbert is the only non-SNL cast member that SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night invites on to watch footage of his own failed audition. I was hoping Id never see this, Colbert says right before the clip plays. His concern is unwarranted as the young Stephen Colberts audition is very good! He plays a waiter who is nauseated by the mere thought of food and has to hold back vomit while reading the days specials. Henry ZebrowskiHenry Zebrowski never got a chance to be a star on Saturday Night Live but he is very much the start of the first episode of SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night. There was a guy named Henry Zebrowski who did his audition, Lindsay Shookus says. Three minutes in he came out from behind the wall and he was completely naked. It was such a shock. Im not even sure what he did at that point. He was the naked guy and he didnt get hired. Not because he was naked. We then get to see Henry in all naked glory. Zebrowski did just fine without SNL, enjoying a long career as a sketch comedian and getting a supporting role in Martin Scorseses The Wolf of Wall Street. Currently he is one of the hosts of paranormal/true crime podcast Last Podcast on the Left and a co-owner of the Last Podcast Network. All four episodes of SNL: Beyond Saturday Night are available to stream on Peacock now.

As we swiftly approach a public release later this month, Apple has released iOS 18.3 beta 3 for developers. iOS 18.3 beta 3 features the build number 22D5055b. Apple hasnt yet released a new public beta, but were expecting that to change as soon as later today.Compared to the monster iOS 18.1 and iOS 18.2 updates, iOS 18.3 is a relatively minor release for iPhone users. There are changes to the Calculator app, Settings app, various bug fixes and improvements, and more. Check out my colleague Jeff Benjamins full recap below: iOS 18.3 will be released to everyone later this month. After that, iOS 18.4 will enter beta testing. That update is expected to include major new Apple Intelligence features, like upgrades to Siri, priority notifications, and more. If you spot anything new in iOS 18.3 beta 2, let us know in the comments below, onTwitter @9to5MacandThreads @9to5Mac. Stay tuned for our full hands-on coverage with the new releases right here at9to5Mactoday and throughout the rest of the week.My favorite iPhone accessories: Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

"We cannot find any incident that matches this description."Truth CrimeTough-on-crime crusader Elon Musk claims that there was an axe murderer on the loose in the city of San Francisco who tried to kill several of his employees, with the authorities doing nothing to catch the assailant. The key word in all of this being "claims.""About a year ago, a guy tried to kill three X employees with an axe outside the former Twitter HQ in SF. They reported it to the police, but nothing was done," Musk tweeted, responding to the account End Wokeness (a favorite of his). "He later killed someone with that axe."If this is true, the city has become so utterly lawless that the cops never got wind of the grisly murder. On Monday, local police said they could find no records supporting Musk's story, the evidence that, once again, Musk may be simply be fibbing or falling victim to preposterous rumors."Based on the information provided, we cannot find any incident that matches this description in that location in 2023 or 2024," Evan Sernoffsky, a San Francisco police spokesperson, told the Chronicle.Tall FailsYes, it would be remiss to take the authorities at their word. But Musk can't even get his own story straight here. As we'll show, he's made these claims before, changing key details literally every time he's done so.When Musk shared a similar account last April, he stated that "several" employees were threatened "by a guy with a machete" outside a Walgreens not with an axe, and not outside Twitter headquarters."They didn't report it," Musk claimed, "because that doesn't constitute an arrestable crime in California. That guy later killed 3 people." His most recent version of events, however, purports that the employees did report the crime and that the assailant only killed one person.In an interview with Tucker Carlson last October, Musk threw in another variation in body count: the hatchet man, back to menacing employees outside Twitter HQ rather than a drugstore, killed two people, according to the Chronicle.Facts vs FeelingsMusk has frequently lied and spread conspiracy theories in his railing against crime, foreigners, and anything else that can be pinned on the "woke" agenda.Last year, for example, he chimed in the conservative moral-panic-of-the-moment by accusing Haitian immigrants of being "cannibals," while spreading other unfounded claims. He's even suggested that most homeless people don't exist, andthat the word "homeless" is "usually a propaganda word for violent drug addicts."Given his conflicting reports and his history of fabulism whether as part of the culture war or to prop up his enterprises it's hard to take this axe-slash-machete murderer tale of his seriously.The real axeman of San Francisco may in fact be Musk himself: after taking over Twitter, he annihilated 80 percent of its workforce, or more than 6,000 employees.Share This Article

Jan 16, 2025Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / CybersecurityDetails have emerged about a now-patched security vulnerability that could allow a bypass of the Secure Boot mechanism in Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) systems.The vulnerability, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-7344 (CVSS score: 6.7), resides in a UEFI application signed by Microsoft's "Microsoft Corporation UEFI CA 2011" third-party UEFI certificate, according to a new report from ESET shared with The Hacker News.Successful exploitation of the flaw can lead to the execution of untrusted code during system boot, thereby enabling attackers to deploy malicious UEFI bootkits on machines that have Secure Boot on, irrespective of the operating system installed.Secure Boot is a firmware security standard that prevents malware from loading when a computer starts up by ensuring that the device boots using only software that is trusted by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). The feature leverages digital signatures to validate the authenticity, source, and integrity of the code that is loaded.The affected UEFI application is part of several real-time system recovery software suites developed by Howyar Technologies Inc., Greenware Technologies, Radix Technologies Ltd., SANFONG Inc., Wasay Software Technology Inc., Computer Education System Inc., and Signal Computer GmbH -Howyar SysReturn before version 10.2.023_20240919Greenware GreenGuard before version 10.2.023-20240927Radix SmartRecovery before version 11.2.023-20240927Sanfong EZ-back System before version 10.3.024-20241127WASAY eRecoveryRX before version 8.4.022-20241127CES NeoImpact before version 10.1.024-20241127SignalComputer HDD King before version 10.3.021-20241127"The vulnerability is caused by the use of a custom PE loader instead of using the standard and secure UEFI functions LoadImage and StartImage," ESET researcher Martin Smolr said. "As a result, the application allows the loading of any UEFI binary even an unsigned one from a specially crafted file named cloak.dat, during system start, regardless of the UEFI Secure Boot state."An attacker who weaponizes CVE-2024-7344 could, therefore, sidestep UEFI Secure Boot protections and execute unsigned code during the boot process in the UEFI context even before the operating system loads, granting them covert, persistent access to the host."Code executed in this early boot phase can persist on the system, potentially loading malicious kernel extensions that survive both reboots and OS reinstallation," the CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) said. "Additionally, it may evade detection by OS-based and endpoint detection and response (EDR) security measures."Malicious actors could further expand the scope of exploitation by bringing their own copy of the vulnerable "reloader.efi" binary to any UEFI system with the Microsoft third-party UEFI certificate enrolled. However, elevated privileges are required to deploy the vulnerable and malicious files to the EFI system partition: local administrator on Windows and root on Linux.The Slovakian cybersecurity firm said it responsibly disclosed the findings to the CERT/CC in June 2024, following which Howyar Technologies and their partners addressed the issue in the concerned products. On January 14, 2025, Microsoft revoked the old, vulnerable binaries as part of its Patch Tuesday update.Outside of applying UEFI revocations, managing access to files located on the EFI system partition, Secure Boot customization, and remote attestation with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) are some of the other ways of protecting against exploitation of unknown vulnerable signed UEFI bootloaders and deployment of UEFI bootkits."The number of UEFI vulnerabilities discovered in recent years and the failures in patching them or revoking vulnerable binaries within a reasonable time window shows that even such an essential feature as UEFI Secure Boot should not be considered an impenetrable barrier," Smolr said."However, what concerns us the most with respect to the vulnerability is not the time it took to fix and revoke the binary, which was quite good compared to similar cases, but the fact that this isn't the first time that such an obviously unsafe signed UEFI binary has been discovered. This raises questions of how common the use of such unsafe techniques is among third-party UEFI software vendors, and how many other similar obscure, but signed, bootloaders there might be out there."Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.SHARE