While Easter eggs are fairly common in gaming, Hideo Kojima is one of those developers fans can expect plenty of Easter eggs from in just about any game, regardless of its genre, tone, or relevance. The same goes for one of his most recent games, Death Stranding, which included a subtle reference to P.T., a legendary interactive demo intended as a teaser for a new installment in the Silent Hill franchise, Silent Hills. The project was ultimately canceled, but P.T.'s influence can still be felt in Death Stranding, and the same could eventually be said of its sequel, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach.

Its confirmed: Hollow Knight: Silksong is still a real video game thats in active development, despite recent conspiracy theories. Matthew Griffin, who handles marketing and publishing for Team Cherry, wrote last Friday on X, Yes the game is real, progressing and will release.Griffins comment was a reply to an X user asking for an update after Hollow Knight speedrunner fireb0rn doused a growing conspiracy theory in the games community that a release date announcement was on its way. As Hollow Knight fans are wont to do, they thought they cracked the code on why developer William Pellens alt X account changed its profile picture and teased that something big is coming. It turns out, nothing big was coming after all.Yes the game is real, progressing and will release. <3 Matthew Griffin (@griffinmatta) January 18, 2025Its back to waking up every day and hoping theres news about the hotly-anticipated sequel to the 2017 action game. Ever since Silksong was announced in 2019, its fans have been searching for signs that its coming out. The community is so rabid, its basically a meme at this point. Not a major game announcement goes by without fans desperately hoping that Silksong will miraculously show up. The games subreddit is like watching the GIF of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphias Charlie Day hysterically explaining the patterns he found in a bunch of letters pinned to a wall. The game needs to come out if only to give these people something else to do.Hopefully, it wont be long. The last we heard is the game was planned to release in 2023, but was delayed to 2024. Obviously it didnt make that date either, but at least we know its still on the way. Get ready for another spark of speculative hype in April when well get the first Switch 2 Nintendo Direct presentation. And if thats not fruitful, theres always Summer Games Fest.

OpenAI will build and open AI infrastructure worth $500 billion in the United States over the next four years in partnership with SoftBank. The two entities have teamed up to establish a new company called the Stargate Project to build AI data centers for the ChatGPT maker, and according to their announcement, it will "secure American leadership in AI" as well as "create hundreds of thousands of American jobs." SoftBank will finance the project, while OpenAI will be in charge of its operations. Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, will serve as its chairman.While OpenAI and SoftBank will serve as the Stargate Project's lead partners, there are several other companies involved in the initiative. In addition to OpenAI, Arm, NVIDIA, Oracle and, of course, Microsoft will be its key initial technology partners. The company's official announcement says OpenAI, NVIDIA and Oracle will work together to "build and operate this computing system," though it didn't expound on what that means.As for Microsoft, the company has posted an announcement about its involvement in the project and said that it will continue its "strategic partnership" with OpenAI. Microsoft will still have the right to use OpenAI IP on its products, and the OpenAI API will still exclusively run on Azure. However, it will no longer be OpenAI's exclusive provider for computing capacity. Whenever OpenAI needs additional capacity as its needs grow, Microsoft will have the "right of first refusal," which means the ChatGPT-maker has to check with it first before working with other parties.The Stargate Project is releasing $100 billion immediately for its first data center buildouts, starting with one in Texas. As TechCrunch notes, it was previously reported that OpenAI was in talks with Oracle to lease a data center in Abilene, Texas that can reach almost a gigawatt of electricity by 2026. It didn't mention any other sites, but it did say that it's "evaluating potential" locations across the country.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/openai-and-softbank-team-up-for-a-500-billion-ai-data-center-venture-120018021.html?src=rss

Transit app Moovit has partnered with the travel marketplace Distribusion Technologies to let users plan and book long-distance trips throughout Europe. The app now includes a ticketing system that works in 40 European countries.The company says travelers can book trains, buses and ferries straight from the app, as well as learning directions to a station, checking out schedules and keeping an up-to-the-minute eye on trip timing. This should help alleviate much of the stress of long-distance travel, as various aspects of the journey will all be viewable and adjustable via a single app. Moovit says this is a first for urban mobility platforms.Its also the first time that Moovit has enabled mobile ticketing for inter-city journeys throughout Europe, including cross-border trips. The company has partnered with carriers like Deutsche Bahn, Trenitalia and National Express to make this happen.These tools are available right now on Android, iOS and the web client. The big caveat? It's only in Europe, for now. The app is available in 3,500 cities across 112 countries. Well let you know when other regions get access to this tech.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/transit-app-moovit-adds-ticket-purchasing-functionality-throughout-europe-110043997.html?src=rss

Murdoc botnet is apparently based on the notorious Mirai.

According to experts, age verification laws like those enforced in Florida could open up to data privacy and security implications. So, what's at stake?

The British competition regulator tapped a top former Amazon executive as its new chair after accusations from Prime Minister Keir Starmer of stifling growth.

For most environmentalists, the day Donald Trump got elected president in November was a dark day. But there was one small, overlooked corner of the movement that celebrated. In a statement congratulating Trump on his victory, the leaders of the American Conservation Coalition saw a chance to bring an America-first climate strategy to fruition. Now, we will build a new era of American industry and win the clean energy arms race, they wrote.The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit was founded in 2017 by college students who wanted to prove that there was a conservative case for climate action. Since then, its evolved from a group on the rights fringes into a political force. The American Conservation Coalition has wide grassroots support, with some 60,000 members in branches around the country and connections all over Congress. Trumps second term will be a test of how strong its influence has become.I think theres a golden opportunity right now for Republicans to shift the environment from a left-wing issue that Republicans lose on to a conservative issue that they can win on, said Chris Barnard, the organizations president. And by the end of this administration, that is what we hope to achieve, and hope to have real, tangible progress and solutions that point back to that show that.The group has extensive ties to Trumps Cabinet nominees, according to Barnard. Liberty Energys CEO Chris Wright, nominated for secretary of energy, is a personal friend to the American Conservation Coalition, or ACC, and recently hosted a fundraiser for the coalition. Former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Trumps nominee to lead the Interior Department, led a town hall in New Hampshire with Barnard during his six-month presidential run in 2023; Lee Zeldin, Trumps pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency, has worked on various issues with the ACC.If thats the yardstickhelping Republicans get engaged on climatetheyve been a resounding success, said Matthew Burgess, an environmental economist at the University of Wyoming who studies how to depolarize climate change. In his estimation, the Republican Party has perceptibly shifted its stance on climate change, moving away from outright denial in recent years. Whatever movement theres been on the Republican side, the ACC is probably easily the single most important advocacy group on that.You wouldnt mistake the American Conservation Coalitions platform for one found on a progressive climate groups website. The top three priorities are unleashing nuclear energy, reforming the permitting process to make it easier to build new energy projects, and beating China by leading the world in all-of-the-above energy production. That includes more oil and gas development, in line with Trumps energy dominance agenda. In his first week, Trump is expected to push to undo President Joe Bidens limits on offshore drilling and federal lands, roll back emissions standards for vehicles, and end a freeze on new projects to export liquefied natural gas.Our approach will always be distinct from the approach of a progressive group, because its guided by conservative principles like innovation and deregulation and empowering individuals and local communities, said Danielle Butcher Franz, the CEO of the ACC. But that doesnt necessarily mean that were not on the same page about the severity of these issues. Butcher Franz says that tackling climate change effectively means that both conservatives and progressives need to change their approach. Conservatives could be a lot bolder in the solutions they propose, she said: They oftentimes have a reputation for being the party of no and just striking down the things that they dont like. Progressives, on the other hand, could work harder to find common ground. There are a lot of self-imposed litmus tests where if you dont agree on everything, youre not [seen as] worth working with, Butcher Franz said. She said shes seen potential partnerships with other climate groups collapse over a single area of difference, like support for fossil fuel production.For some progressives, the ACCs Republican ties are the problem. I think people often try to hold us accountable for the views of high-profile Republicans that people dont like, Butcher Franz said. She gets asked questions like, Well, President Trump has said that climate change is a hoax, so how can Republicans possibly make progress on this? But thats the wrong starting place, she said. I think the better question is, Does somebody need to be bought into a progressive climate agenda to reduce emissions? And I would argue that, no, they dont.The groups approach creates a pairing of ideas that are rarely seen side by side. Enough alarmism. Enough inaction, a slogan on the ACCs site reads.Those feelings may be reflected by much of the country, regardless of political affiliation: 80% of Americans say that climate news makes them feel frustrated that theres so much political disagreement over the problem, according to a recent survey by Pew Research Center.The interesting thing about the ACC is, I think a lot of what they say, if you look at polls, is pretty close to what the median voter is saying about climate change, Burgess said. You know, Its real, doing something is much better than doing nothing, and renewables and nuclear are good and we should be prioritizing them, but we dont want to get off fossil fuels, and particularly natural gas, in the short term, especially insofar as it hurts our economy.When the ACC began in 2017, talking about climate change with Republican politicians who had long shied away from the subjector simply denied it existedwasnt easy. In the early days, we were all volunteers who were just trying to chase each opportunity that presented itself, said Stephen Perkins, now the coalitions COO. It was tough back then to even say climate or environment in conservative spaces. We found it difficult to get those meetings and to have those conversations with elected officials or with other leaders within the conservative movement.But as early as 2019, partway through Trumps first term, some of this resistance started to fade. Trumps EPA administrator, Andrew Wheeler, signed a memorandum of understanding with the ACC to find ways to get young environmental leaders involved in the agencys programs. In 2020, Barnard and Benji Backer, the ACCs founder, went on a hike with Senator John Curtis, who was in the House of Representatives at the time, in his home state of Utah. The conversation sparked the idea for the Conservative Climate Caucus, started by Curtis as a safe place for House Republicans to talk to each other about climate change. It now has more than 80 members, who have been more willing to support green technology than other Republicans, if still generally opposed to measures to curtail greenhouse gas emissions directly. As these changes unfolded, the American Conservation Coalitions base grew. In 2021, Perkins was hired to build grassroots support for the group, which had about 5,000 members at the time. Across the country, through outreach and advertising, they now have 60,000 members, mostly college students and young professionals who are right-of-center, Perkins said. The goal is to reach 100,000 members by the end of 2025.A lot of our members are in government offices, Perkins said. In fact, its really hard for us now to walk into a member of Congress office without someone in the front room knowing about ACC because they were involved in college. According to Eli Lehrer, president of the R Street Institute, a center-right think tank, the ACCs grassroots support is crucial to its success. They have an impact in D.C., because they have an impact around the country, he said. So they both can mobilize people locally, and that gives them a way to talk about the same issues in D.C.Over the last two years, the American Conservation Coalition reached the national stage. In August 2023, the Republican primary debate included a question from a college student, one of the groups members, about how the presidential candidates would calm fears that their party didnt care about climate change. Even as the candidates deflected, some young conservatives saw it as progress that the topic even came up. The ACC also sponsored the Republican National Convention last July and had a booth there for the first time, with Trumps former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, speaking at their reception.These are just signs that the narrative is changing, and that conservatives or Republicans are seeing that theres an opportunity for them to engage that is authentically conservative, Barnard said. They dont feel like they have to leave their values at the door when talking about this stuff.However, Barnard says hes more concerned with achieving practical results than getting Republican politicians to say the right thing. If they pass a bill to boost nuclear power and clean energy, but its for economic reasons or national security reasons rather than climate reasons, its still a win, he said: We need to focus a lot more on what actually works than what sounds good, and on tangible progress than on litmus tests that just further polarize both sides.This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.

Visit Whitehouse.gov today, and youll be greeted with a full-bleed video of President Donald Trump stepping back into the White House as fighter jets fly overhead. When it ends, youre left with a big photo of Trump smiling and pointing toward some unseen fans with big text: America is back! Neat. Theres just one little thing missing: The U.S. Constitution web pagewhich, as Redditors have noted, is now a 404 error.Intentional or not, the moment is a symbol of Trumps new world order thats been realized overnightnot in our cities and towns just yetbut across some of the most important spaces in the online world.[Screenshot: whitehouse.gov]The deletion of digital resourcesTrump is preternaturally attuned to the power of his digital reach. In the hours after taking office, he deactivated the core functionality of the CBP One app. This is an app introduced under President Joe Biden giving undocumented migrants the ability to legally seek asylum in the U.S. These people could use the app to sign up for orderly appointments at border crossing checkpoints. Under Trump, you can still download the app, but it no longer takes appointments, and all existing appointments have been canceled. This update appears on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website, a digital action made years faster than the presidents border wall can be built.[Screenshots: CBP One]The new administration has also abruptly deactivated reproductiverights.gov. Again, this is a Biden administration initiative taken after the Supreme Courts decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization in June 2022 essentially overturned Roe v. Wade. The site offered legal, plain language resources on rights to emergency care, contraceptives, and abortion. Today, this site is simply gone. Load it in your browser and you get a black screen, as if the domain never existed. The Internet Archive is the only place you can see it.[Screenshot: reproductiverights.gov]And beyond the elimination of the Constitution on the White House website, the administration has also deleted the White Houses Spanish version along with its Spanish X account, in what seems like an intentional snub to the Latinx community.Any marginalized group throughout history will tell you that erasure is far from a new phenomenon. But the scale and speed at which its happening now has been supercharged by light speed communications and despots that have architected our digital world. These moves cut far deeper than Trump superficially issuing an executive order to rename the tallest peak in the U.S. from Denali back to Mount McKinley, or calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. When the internet is our lived environment, Trump is significantly reshaping our infrastructure with electronic swiftness.By contrast, the erasure of physical spaces is often lengthy and difficult. It requires all sorts of ordinances quietly passed to shift laws that will eventually break concrete. The historic redlining and reconstruction of thriving immigrant neighborhoodslike those in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, and Miamirequired years of bureaucratic malevolence, followed by high-dollar investments and physical manpower to demolish and rebuild these spaces anew.The modern version, enacted online, is shrewd in its instantaneousness. No one is pretending the decision is simply about building a highway anymore. Organize the right mob, light the right match, strike the right key, and its just gone. All thats left are the survivors who insist, really, something great was here.The flex of social medias political power brokersThis phenomenonthe mass terraforming of our digital spacesis not simply the work of Trump, but of the other power brokers in his orbit, too. On X this week, many users have been welcomed by posts at the top of their feeds showing Elon Musk basking in attention from the adoring crowd at a post-inauguration rally. On Facebook, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg popped into user timelines alongside spouse Priscilla Chan saying hes optimistic and celebrating [flag emoji].These social media moments are more than political victory laps; theyre portraits of deeper decisions at play. Any user of X can attest to its shifting right-wing agenda since Musk took over Twitter and rebranded it. Zuckerberg announced the elimination of fact-checking across his platforms after taking a cultural pulse post-election, arguing, We try to have policies that reflect mainstream discourse. Since the inauguration, many Meta users have found that the algorithm suggests accounts for Trump and Vice President JD Vance, while some even noted the service had temporarily blocked the ability to search some democratic hashtags.We have fewrights on Facebook, Instagram, or X. We sign them away in countless pages of terms and conditions when we agree to converse in the spaces of major corporations. And so when these corporations want favor with Trump, of course the algorithm will project Trumps vision of America as the status quo. Mainstream social media is now a vast propaganda machine, while legacy media is maligned. The digital world is shouting harmful, hateful fictions and that are, through sheer numerical dominance, becoming our reality.In an environment constructed upon vendettas and fictions, its difficult to see a productive way forward that honors veracity, that cares for the people who require our care most. There are no checks and balances in a world that can be deleted with a keystroke. But its worth noting that this supreme digital power is also a massive design flaw: The malleability of the digital record will always be sand shifting under our feetjust ask TikTok, which dodged its own grazed bullet last week.If our previous reality could disappear on little more than a resentful whim, then this hateful empire can, too. Control is never a permanent state.

Architecture studio Archer + Braun has renovated a listed home in Edinburgh, adding a limestone-clad extension punctured by expansive glazing.Aptly named Limestone House, the five-bedroom home unexpectedly received listed status during the design phase, requiring Archer + Braun to blend a "contemporary style with the historic fabric of the structure".Its previously fragmented interior has been reconfigured and opened up with a rear extension, which is clad in Portland stone chosen to complement the home's original architecture.Archer + Braun has added a limestone-clad extension to a home in Edinburgh"The main concept for the project was to propose a contemporary modernist extension that was inspired by the tones and the materiality of the period property, whilst also offering unique spaces and views that are very different to what's found in the existing house," studio co-founder Stuart Archer told Dezeen."This particular limestone was chosen as we felt that it worked much better with the existing property's tone and palette than the buff sandstone that is often used in developments throughout Edinburgh," Archer added."Lastly, the limestone is robust and is suitable for adverse weather situations and is suitable for the wet Scottish climate."Portland stone was used to line the extensionDefined by its textured stone walls, the single-storey rear extension contains a kitchen, dining and living area.Archer + Braun designed it to wrap around the home separated from the existing structure by a "green corridor" that retains views of the residence's original walls through a series of openings.A slim courtyard separates the original home from the new structureAt the front of the home, the extension meets a new two-storey structure housing a guest suite that replaced an original garage. Metal roofing intended to complement the home's natural aesthetic is used to top both of the structures."The extension is pulled away from the existing building so that it touches lightly upon the existing building by introducing a small courtyard," Archer said. "The main proposals are kept to the rear of the site resulting in the principal elevation being unaffected."Read: Luke McClelland uses stone and oak to overhaul Georgian apartment in EdinburghAt its rear, expansive glazed openings that draw on mid-century Californian aesthetics line the extension to provide visual and physical connections between the home and connecting garden.Here, a series of wooden steps designed in response to the site's sloping topography leads down to the outdoor space.A kitchen, dining and living area are contained in the extensionInside, the bright open-plan kitchen, dining and living area features pared-back finishes, retaining focus on outward views. Storage space and a bathroom are held behind this area, off of which a corridor provides access to the internal courtyard and an adjacent garage.At its opposite end, the extension connects to the main house via stairs, which lead up through a study and library before reaching the home's entrance and living spaces.Other adaptations to Limestone House include the transformation of an old kitchen into a snug, while original details such as decorative panelling have been retained.A study connects the kitchen to the existing home"The existing layout of the house was largely retained and any changes were kept to the secondary spaces where there were fewer existing features," Archer said."The original cornicing, panelling, architraves and other details were all refurbished and re-decorated in a neutral palette which allows all the details to be read."Many of the home's original details have been retainedOther homes finished with stone exteriors include a holiday home organised around a courtyard in Mexico and a dwelling built from fluted blocks in Greece.The photography is by Will Scott.The post Archer + Braun adds "modernist extension" to Limestone House in Edinburgh appeared first on Dezeen.