FromSoftware has long been known for the cryptic and fairly inaccessible lore in its games, and that tradition continued in Elden Ring and its Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. Now, the same is to be expected of Elden Ring Nightreign, the upcoming cooperative Elden Ring spin-off that is breaking new ground for the Dark Souls developer. However, while cryptic lore and mysterious characters are a given for Elden Ring Nightreign, it can't miss what may be its final chance to explore one of Elden Ring's most unexplored characters.

Hey everyone! Were a small, passionate team of two (artist/game designer and project manager/marketer) diving into a new projecta fun town-building game called Lil Angry Town. The concept? Keep a town of temperamental little citizens happy, or chaos will break loose! Think simple mechanics, striking visuals, and plenty of humor. I have attached a screenshot showcasing the art direction we are pursuing.Were looking for a Unity developer to join u

2025 is well underway, and theres a whole lot of exciting new sci-fi releases on the horizon to look forward to. Star Trek: Section 31, The Gorge, and Mickey 17 are slated to hit streaming and theaters within the next couple of months, to say nothing of all the other films slated for release in the latter half of the year. If youre looking for the best sci-fi to watch from the comfort of your home right now, though, youve come to the right place.This month, weve got a two-part modern epic of a sci-fi masterpiece, a much-maligned (but fascinating) star vehicle set in a post-apocalyptic future, and an American-produced adaptation of a French graphic novel by one of the greatest Korean directors of our time.Lets take a look at what this month has to offer!Editors pick:Dune and Dune: Part TwoDirector: Denis VilleneuveCast:Timothe Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca FergusonDenis Villeneuves two-part adaptation of Frank Herberts sci-fi epic is a masterpiece for our time. The story of Paul Atreides, the scion of a powerful noble family in a spacefaring far future, is both far-fetched and elemental: a fantastical depiction of the perils of seeking revenge, the ennobling power of love, and the perils of faith co-opted by the agenda of imperialism. The films rendition of the desert planet of Arrakis, the native Fremen, and the colossal sandworms are spectacular, as is nearly every performance on screen, though especially Timothe Chalamet and Zendaya. If you havent witnessed Dune yet, consider this your sign to do so and if youve seen Dune already, consider this your opportunity to experience it again. Toussaint EganWaterworldDirector: Kevin ReynoldsCast: Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, Jeanne TripplehornContinuing this posts theme of environmental extremes, the wrongly maligned 1995 epic Waterworld is more or less about what it sounds like: The polar ice caps have melted, sea levels have risen, and the world is almost entirely covered in water.The films action follows Kevin Costner as a man simply known as The Mariner who sails the world aimlessly. Now, if youre thinking that this kind of sounds like a Mad Max rip-off with water instead of sand, youre technically correct, at least on paper. But in practice, Waterworld is so much more fascinating, and its world is uniquely bizarre and beautifully rendered a fact that led the production to go astronomically and infamously over budget. And Costner turns out to make for a perfect post-apocalyptic cipher. Removed from its reputation as one of recent Hollywoods most infamous disasters and an ill-fated attempt to start a franchise, Waterworld remains a pretty incredible adventure movie in the vein that rarely if ever gets made anymore which admittedly is due at least in part to Waterworld itself. Austen GoslinSnowpiercerDirector: Bong Joon-hoCast: Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Tilda SwintonBong Joon-hos sci-fi action movie about the remnants of humanity surviving aboard a massive post-apocalyptic train is just as excellent today as it was back in 2013. The film follows Curtis (Chris Evans), who leads the poor passengers at the back of the train on a rebellion to take control of humanitys locomotive arc, in hopes of creating a better, more equitable place for all the passengers aboard.Curtis band of fighters making their way from the back of the train to the front plays like a horizontal version of The Raid, with all kinds of bizarre and ridiculous characters dotting their path to the leading car. While the class metaphor may not be quite as intricate here as it is in director Bongs Best Picture winner Parasite from a few years later, the lack of subtlety allows him to wield the concept like a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel, creating one of the angriest and most interesting hidden gems of the 2010s. AG

From hyper-personalized algorithms to smart data investing, a few predictions for the next generation of social media networksContinue reading on UX Collective

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.If you're looking for gym-friendly earbuds with solid noise cancellation, the Jabra Elite 4 Active is now $69.99, down from $119.99. Jabra Elite 4 Active in-Ear Bluetooth Earbuds $69.99 at Amazon $119.99 Save $50.00 Get Deal Get Deal $69.99 at Amazon $119.99 Save $50.00 They have a slightly larger design, which helps them stay secure during workouts or commutes. That said, even with their size, they feel surprisingly light. Plus, they come with three silicone eartip sizes to help you find the right fit. The earbuds feature 6mm drivers with a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz. They support Bluetooth 5.2 and the AptX and SBC codecs. However, iOS users might notice the lack of AAC support, which could affect sound quality for high-res listening.Each earbud has simple button controls, letting you switch between ANC and HearThrough modes, adjust volume, skip tracks, and access your voice assistant. You can also customize these controls, tweak ANC settings, and fine-tune the sound using the five-band EQ in the companion app. Android users also get extras like Spotify Tap and Google Fast Pair. Battery life is about seven hours per charge, with an extra 21 hours from the case.The noise cancellation on these earbuds works well for the price, cutting down low-frequency sounds like airplane hums and muffling noisy environments. The sound profile emphasizes bass, which is great for bass lovers. Plus, theres no distortion at high volumes, and the EQ gives you even more control over the sound, notes this PCMag review. Additionally, they have an IP57 rating that makes the earbuds dust-resistant and waterproofmeaning they can handle sweat, rain, and even a quick rinse. The charging case, however, isnt waterproof, so you'll need to dry the earbuds fully before docking them.

The Nintendo Switch 2 is finally official, and while we still don't know when anyone will be able to own the new console, we do know when some lucky people will get to try one for themselves. Nintendo is holding hands-on events starting on April 4 and running through June where you'll be able to try the Switch 2 for yourself in select cities in North America, Europe, Oceania and Asia.You can register for a "Nintendo Switch 2 Experience" event starting today, January 17 from 3PM ET / 12PM PT through January 26 at 11:59PM local time for each event location. If you're planning on registering, you'll need to be 18 years or older and have either a free Nintendo Account, or a Nintendo Account Family Group if you're planning on going with a group. There's no need for any kind of paid Nintendo Switch Online membership and you don't have to worry about family members under six having an account as long as they're accompanied by an adult that does.Nintendo says the hands-on event should last two hours and 20 minutes, but didn't share what ticket holders will actually get to try during the experience. Maybe some Mario Kart?It's important to also stress, heading to Nintendo's website and registering for tickets doesn't mean you'll actually get to attend. Nintendo refers to the process as a drawing because attendees or groups of attendees will be chosen randomly. Signing up early doesn't guarantee you'll have a better chance of getting in.Where Nintendo Switch 2 Experience events are being heldNintendo is hosting its Switch 2 events for around three days in each city, though it's only announced hands-on locations in the first three cities.In North America, you'll be able to register for a hands-on in:New York, April 4-6, 2025 at Center415Los Angeles, April 11-13, 2025 at Television CityDallas, April 25-27, 2025 at Embarcadero Building at Fair ParkToronto, April 25-27For the events in Europe, you'll be able to pick from:Paris, April 4-6, 2025London, April 11-13, 2025Milan, April 25-27, 2025Berlin, April 25-27, 2025Madrid, May 9-11, 2025Amsterdam, May 9-11, 2025In Oceania, there's only one event location:Melbourne, May 10-11, 2025Finally, in Asia, you'll be able to choose from:Tokyo (Makuhari), April 26-27, 2025Seoul, May 31-June 1, 2025Hong Kong, To be announcedTaipei, To be announcedHow to sign up for a Nintendo AccountNintendoIf you want to register to try the Switch 2, you'll need to have an a Nintendo Account, and if you don't already have one, they're pretty easy to set up.Head to the Nintendo Account website to get started. Then click on "Create a new Nintendo Account." From there, enter in your date of birth and decide if you want to create your account using an existing Google or Apple account, or by entering in your information from scratch.If you choose the latter, enter in a nickname, an email address, your date of birth, country of residence and timezone. Then agree to Nintendo's User Agreement and Privacy Policy by checking their respective boxes and hit "Submit." You'll receive a verification code via email that you should then enter into the empty verification code field and click "Verify." Once you do, you'll be all set up.The process is similar if you use an Apple or Google account. Nintendo will ask you to enter a nickname, date of birth, country of residence and timezone. You'll also have to agree to the User Agreement and Privacy Policy, and submit a verification code. The key difference is once you do, you'll be able to use your Apple or Google account to log in instead of an email.How to add a child to your Nintendo Family Account GroupIf you plan on checking out the Switch 2 with younger friends or family who aren't old enough to have a Nintendo Account of their own, you can create one for them under a Nintendo Family Account Group.To start, you'll need to log in to your own Nintendo Account. Then click on "Family group" and then "Add a member." From there you can select "Create an account for a child." Enter the child's date of birth, and then enter your Nintendo Account password and click on "OK."You'll then have to enter a nickname, a child account sign-in ID (a username, essentially) and a sign-in password. Agree to the User Agreement and Privacy Policy, then click "Submit, and then "OK" to create the account.Update, January 17, 2:20PM ET: Added details on the duration of the Nintendo Switch 2 Experience.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/how-to-sign-up-for-the-nintendo-switch-2-experience-170052140.html?src=rss

The Wheel of Time season 3 will be released in March here's what we know about it so far.

This year's JPMorgan health-care conference took place a month after UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was fatally shot in New York City.

On Thursday, January 9, as fires spread across the Los Angeles area, architect Greg Chasen woke up early after a fitful nights sleep. Hed been at his parents house in Pacific Palisades the night before, desperately trying to protect it by trimming back shrubs, turning on sprinklers, and turning off the gas and power, as the wind howled and flames rose in the distance.After spending the night at his own house, he went back. I woke up at dawn thinking theres no way you could do anything against fire like that, he says. I crossed my fingers and thought, Ill get on my bike and go see how it went.Fortunately, the canyon where his parents live had narrowly escaped the fire. So he rode his bike farther to look at a house hed designed for a friend that had finished construction only months earlier. The neighborhood was devastated. On one side of the street, around 60 houses in a row had burned. But the newly built house was still standing.[Photo: courtesy Greg Chasen]In part, it was luck. But the property had also been designed with a few extra steps that made it less likely to burnand could be an example for others when rebuilding begins in the burn zone.First, the landscaping was designed to be as fire-resilient as possible. The yard, which is surrounded by concrete walls, is filled with gravel and low plants, rather than larger trees that could easily spread flames to a home if they catch on fire. (The owner, who had lived through another wildfire elsewhere in the past, also went through the yard removing any dead leaves before the fire spread to the area.)The walls of the house are made with fire-rated materials, in addition to low-flame-spread materials. In the code, you have a choice of one or the other, Chasen says. In this case, we had both. The deck is made with concrete and Class A wood, which Chasen says resists fire. The windows use tempered glass that can survive high heat and impact from flying debris. When the next-door neighbors car exploded into flames in the adjacent driveway, an outer pane of glass in the new house broke, but the interior tempered glass stayed in place. The roof is metal, with a fire-resistant layer underneath, and doesnt have any vents that could let in embers. The house was tightly sealed, and after the fire, only had a slight smoky smell.[Photo: courtesy Greg Chasen]The building code in California has changed after past fires; Los Angeles was the first large city in the country to ban wood shingle roofs, in 1989. (After a destructive fire in Oakland in 1991, lawmakers eventually required fire-resistant roofing materials statewide.) Its possible that the building code could become stricter now. On the same street as the house that survived, some other recently built homes had prefabricated roof trusses that Chasen suspects made them more likely to burn. Its a very cost-effective, quick way to provide all of the roof gables that people like at big new expensive homes, but its very vulnerable to fire, he says. He argues that the building code should address that.California is also currently drafting laws that would require more defensible space, with vegetation farther away from homes. Requiring more space between structures could also help reduce the risk of a fire spreading, though it would mean that fewer houses could be built in neighborhoods where housing is already in short supply.Its increasingly common for California architects to focus on fire resistance. Even for houses that I have that are not in the high fire [risk] zone, we basically take the high fire [risk] zone standards and apply them to all our structures, says Ignacio Rodriguez, CEO of IR Architects. Of nine recently built houses in the fire zone that his firm designed, eight survived. (The ninth, built on the ocean side of Pacific Coast Highway, had Cape Cod-style wood siding, something that Rodriguez says he no longer uses.)His strategies include clearing brush from yards beyond Cal Fires standards for defensible space, using fire-resistant materials like stucco or fiber-cement siding backed with fire-resistant wallboard and wool or ceramic fiber insulation, and adding roll-down shutters that can help keep flames out of a house. While its easiest to build a fire-resistant house from scratch, the same strategies can be used to retrofit older homes to make them safer.Its not possible to completely eliminate fire risk in an area where fires naturally burnespecially as climate change increases the chance of more extreme fires. Homeowners also cant control whether their neighbors trim back vegetation or take other steps to reduce risk for a neighborhood. But targeted changes can make a difference. One insurance startup in California is willing to insure homes in high-fire-risk zones if homeowners make specific improvements, such as removing a tree in a risky location or replacing windows on a vulnerable wall.Designing for wildfire resilience does add some cost. Of course, its arguably worth it. Chasen says that while visiting the devastated neighborhood, he was essentially looking at a pile of ashes, adding, These were $6 million homes. Build smaller, better, more resilient.

Houses by Richard Neutra and Ray Kappe are among more than 12,000 structures lost in the ongoing fires in Los Angeles. Here, we roundup five of the most significant to have been destroyed.The Palisades and Eaton fires are the two largest of the several fires that have caused at least 24 deaths and the destruction of more than 12,000 buildings in Los Angeles since they began early last week.The fires, exacerbated by strong winds and drought conditions, have destroyed whole neighbourhoods, and hundreds of thousands of people have had to evacuate. Power outages and contaminated drinking water have affected thousands more.As of today, increases in wind speeds threaten to expand the ongoing fires.Above: a home designed by Richard Neutra was destroyed in the fire. Image via Los Angeles Damage Inspection (DINS) database. Top: the house before the fire. Photo copyright of Julius Shulman and Juergen NogaiGroups such as the Los Angeles Conservancy and Save Iconic Architecture are tracking the status of buildings deemed iconic or noteworthy in the midst of the "unfathomable" damage in the city.Many iconic structures that were under threat have now been marked safe including: Eames House and adjacent Eames Case Study Houses, Getty Villa, Craig Ellwood's Hunt House in Malibu, Buff, Straub & Hensman's Bass House and The Alfred Newman-Martha Montgomery House by Frank Lloyd Wright.Read: "The scale of the damage is unfathomable" say Los Angeles architectsMeanwhile, officials have been compiling data on a house-by-house destruction report. Many of the destroyed modernist homes are located in Malibu and the Palisades, while the Eaton fire destroyed many historical Spanish Revival and Craftsmen-style homes in the town of Altadena.Below are some of the most significant houses lost in the ongoing Palisades and Eaton fires:Photo copyright of Julius Shulman and Juergen NogaiThe Benedict and Nancy Freedman House by Richard Neutra, Pacific PalisadesRenowned modernist architect Neutra designed this small house in 1949 for two screenwriters.Built primarily with wood, the original structure had a single low volume with massive glass windows and clerestories. It was slowly expanded to become a two-level house over the years, remodelled by local studio Nonzero\architecture (studio bau:ton).View this post on InstagramA post shared by Save Iconic Architecture (@saveiconicarchitecture)Robert Bridges House by Robert Bridges, Pacific PalisadesArchitect Robert Bridges designed this home to cantilever off a cliffside in the neighbourhood, supported by massive concrete pillars.It was built in the 1980s in the brutalist style but clad in California redwood.Photo courtesy of Tim Street-Porter/Crosby Doe AssociatesKeeler House by Ray Kappe, Pacific PalisadesSCI-Arc founder Kappe built this home for a jazz musician in 1991, using his own house nearby as a reference.The modern structure featured mostly wood construction and multiple tiers with terraces that cantilevered out towards the street. It was one of many Kappe designs to be destroyed, including the Culbert House in Malibu.Photo via WikipediaAndrew McNally House by Frederick L Roehrig, AltadenaBuilt for the president of technology company Rand McNally, this Queen Anne-style mansion in Altadena was one of the first significant works in the area and had become indicative of its late 19th-century architecture.New York-born architect Frederick Louis Roehrig designed the house, constructing it out of mostly wood with massive rotundas on one side.Photo via WikipediaScripps Hall by C W Buchanan, AltadenaAlso known as the Pasadena Waldorf School, this Craftsman-style structure was designated on the National Historic Register.The three-storey structure was made from wood and brick and featured the extruded rafters typical of the style when it was completed in 1904.The post Richard Neutra house among iconic homes lost during LA fires appeared first on Dezeen.