The software development vendor now offers agentic AI-powered incident response that could dramatically minimize downtime.Read More

Fortnite reclaims top spot on revenue and engagement charts for December 2024 | Newzoo ChartsIndiana Jones and the Great Circle made the MAU Top 20 charts with boost from Day One release on Xbox Game PassImage credit: Epic Games News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Jan. 22, 2025 Fortnite reclaimed the top spot on Newzoo's overall revenue and engagement charts for December.Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2/3/Warzone/Black Ops 6 was pushed down to No.3 on the revenue charts and No.4 for monthly active users.Focusing on the revenue charts, Path of Exile 3 came in at No.5 during its launch month followed by fellow newcomer Marvel Rivals at No.6.A trio of RPGs returned to the Top 20 following holiday discounts, with Hogwarts Legacy at No.13, Cyberpunk 2077 at No.17, and Baldur's Gate 3 at No.19.On the individual platform charts, Indiana Jones and Great Circle launched at No.10 PC and No.13 on Xbox. Gran Turismo 7 rose from No.39 to No.14 on PlayStation following its 25th anniversary celebrations.As for player engagement, Marvel Rivals settled in third place after displacing other popular live-service titles. Overwatch 2 saw the biggest drop in terms of MAU, falling from No.9 to No.12.Indiana Jones and the Great Circle settled at No.17 despite not being available on PlayStation. Newzoo attributed this boost in engagement to the game being a Day One release on Xbox Game Pass.Here are the Top 20 games by revenue in the US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy for December 2024, across PC and consoles, according to Newzoo:RankLast month RankTitle12Fortnite23EA Sports FC 2531Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, 3, Warzone, and Black Ops 644NBA 2K255N/APath of Exile 26N/AMarvel Rivals77League of Legends816Grand Theft Auto 596The Sims 41015EA Sports College Football 251111EA Sports Madden NFL 251212Minecraft1321Hogwarts Legacy1425Roblox158Valorant1614Super Mario Party Jamboree1727Cyberpunk 20771813World of Warcraft1923Baldur's Gate 32018Counter-Strike 2 & GoAnd here are the Top 20 games by monthly active users across US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy for December 2024, across PC and consoles, according to Newzoo:RankLast month RankTitle11Fortnite22Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, 3, and Warzone 2.03N/AMarvel Rivals45Grand Theft Auto 553Minecraft64Roblox76Rocket League87EA Sports FC 2598Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege1010EA Sports College Football 251111EA Sports FC 24129Overwatch 1 & 21312Counter-Strike 2 & Go1415NBA 2K251513The Sims 41614Apex Legends17N/AIndiana Jones and the Great Circle1820Valorant1913Red Dead Redemption 22019Fall Guys

If youre spending more time indoors to escape the icy winds or need something impressive to enjoy the Super Bowl, a new TV might be in order. Although its a couple of years old now, the LG C3Amazon and Walmart. Theyre selling the 65-inch model for $1,196.99 ($302 off), which is matching its all-time low price.RelatedThe LG C3 offers a great picture quality with vivid color, no light blooming or bleeding, and deep, inky black levels for a practically infinite contrast ratio. If you somehow havent seen how good an OLED panel can look yet, then a trip to Best Buy is in order. It appeases most home theater and gaming needs with a 120Hz variable refresh rate and auto low-latency mode across all four of its HDMI ports, Dolby Vision and HDR 10 Plus, Dolby Atmos audio, and an incredible upscaling engine that can make older content look fantastically sharp. Youre not missing out on much by skipping the LG C4, either, and the incoming C5 may not have enough to justify waiting and paying significantly more. LG advertises a substantial brightness boost in the newer models, but in reality, the C4s panel doesnt blow the C3 out of the water. The C4 is also capable of a higher 144Hz refresh rate, though thats a largely discernible jump thats only relevant for PC gamers. Both run webOS, which offers a deep selection of apps for gaming, music, and video with voice-activated content discovery.LG C3$1197$150020% off$1197$1197$150020% offThe LG C3 offers more processing power than its predecessor and several new picture modes. It continues to offer a 120Hz refresh rate and low input lag as well, along with support for Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync variable refresh rate tech.$1197 at Amazon$1197 at WalmartMore ways to saveCostco members can pick up the Insta360 X4 adventure bundle for $429.99 ($7 off) at Costco. The waterproof 8K action camera comes with two batteries, a 114cm selfie stick that Insta360s software can automatically remove from your footage, and a 256GB V30 microSD card. You can shoot up to 30 frames per second at its max resolution, or step down to 5.7K for up to 60 frames per second and 4K at 100 frames per second all decent improvements over the X3. Another new feature is a detachable lens guard to protect the glass element, one that doesnt noticeably impact your image quality when shooting in 360 mode.The CMF Buds from Nothings affordability-focused sister brand are already a ridiculous bargain, but Amazon is discounting select colors to an even better $27 ($12 off). The IP54 wireless earbuds support active noise cancellation that can reduce up to 42dB of noise and have four noise-filtering mics to help with call quality. Theyll last up to eight hours per charge with a total 35.5 hours available with the case, and they have Bluetooth 5.3 with Google Fast Pair support. You can customize them in Nothings companion app, too, allowing you to change gesture behaviors and tweak audio modes.If you need a really good Android phone thatll get major software updates for more than half a decade, you should start with the Google Pixel 8A. You can get the 128GB model for $399 ($100 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store right now. Its using Googles Tensor G3 processor, which supports computational photography and other AI features being baked into Android. The phone also has a 120Hz display, Qi wireless charging, and a decent camera thats not quite as nice as those on its flagship counterparts but still capable of impressive results. Read our review.

YouTube Premium users are getting a slew of new experiments to try out before anyone else alongside an option to reduce their membership cost when bundling subscriptions. Subscribers can now also sign up to test multiple experimental features all at once, instead of being limited to just one at a time.There are several new experiments that users can try out, including 256kbps bitrate audio quality on videos, and options for iOS users to view YouTube shorts in picture-in-picture mode and automatically download recommended Shorts for offline viewing. The AI-powered skipping feature that allows users to jump right to the most-watched part of a video is also available on web browsers after initially being introduced for mobile devices last year.These will eventually be joined by expanded playback options for mobile devices that can increase video speed by up to four times. YouTube hasnt mentioned when this experimental feature will be available, however, only that its coming soon.YouTube is also rolling out a deal that makes YouTube Premium a smidge cheaper when you purchase it as a bundle with Googles cloud storage. The offer is eligible on Google One Premium plans (which start at $9.99 per month for 2TB) or higher, but youll only save $2 per month on YouTube Premium bringing the price back to 2023 levels.

SDL 3 Released / News / January 22, 2025 / SDL, or the Simple DirectMedia Layer is one of the most important open-source game development frameworks and they just released SDL 3. Well technically its SDL 3.2.0, but it is the first production ready version of the SDL 3 branch. Key features of SDL 3 include:Extremely good documentation: Weve spent a ton of effort writing and revising the API reference.Example programsto get you started,running in your web browser!More consistent API naming conventions. Everything is named consistently across the API now, instead of different subsystems taking different approaches. Also, weve tended toward more descriptive names for things in SDL3.Main Callbacks: optionally run your program from callbacks instead of main().GPU API: access to modern 3D rendering and GPU compute in a cross-platform way.Dialog API: access to system file dialogs (file and folder selection UI for opening/saving).Filesystem API: simple directory management and globbing, access to topic-specific user folders.Storage API: Abstract interface to platform-specific storage.Camera API: access to webcams.Pen API: access to pens (like Wacom tablets and Apple Pencil, etc).Logical audio devices: different parts of an app can get their own unique audio device to use.Audio streams: handle buffering, converting, resampling, mixing, channel mapping, pitch, and gain. Bind to an audio device and go!Default audio devices: SDL3 will automatically manage migrating to new physical hardware as devices are plugged in, ripped out, or changed.Properties API: fast, flexible dictionaries of name/value pairs.Process API: Spawn child processes and communicate with them in various ways.Colorspace support: Surfaces and the renderer, etc, can manage multiple colorspaces.The Clipboard APIcan support any data type(SDL2 only handled text), and apps can provide data in multiple formats upon request ina provided callback.Better keyboard input, for all your keypress needs.Customizable virtual keyboardson iOS and Android.High DPI support is dramatically improved over SDL2.App metadata APIfor letting SDL report things about your app correctly (like in the About dialog on macOS, etc).and much, much more.If you are migrating from SDL 2 be sure to check out the migration guide linked below. Key LinksSDL 3.2.0 Release DetailsSDL HomepageSDL 3 Language BindingsSDL 3 Migration GuideSteam Games using SDLYou can learn more about the Simple DirectMedia Layer game development framework as well as the SDL 3 (technically 3.2.0) release in the video below.

Out of the various methods employed in document search systems, retrieve and rank has gained quite some popularity. Using this method, the results of a retrieval model are re-ordered according to a re-ranker. Additionally, in the wake of advancements in generative AI and the development of Large Language Models (LLMs), rankers are now capable of performing listwise reranking tasks after analyzing complex patterns in language. However, a crucial problem exists that appears trivial but limits the overall effectiveness of these cascading systems.The challenge of the bounded recall problem, where a document is irrevocably excluded from the final ranked list if it wasnt retrieved in the initial phase, causes the loss of high-potential information. To solve this problem, researchers came up with an adaptive retrieval process. Adaptive Retrieval (AR) differentiates itself from previous works by leveraging the rankers assessments to expand the retrieval set dynamically. A clustering hypothesis is applied in this process to group similar documents that may be relevant to a query. Adaptive Retrieval (AR) could be better understood as a pseudo-relevance feedback mechanism that enhances the likelihood of including pertinent documents that may have been omitted during the initial retrieval.Although AR serves as a robust solution in cascading systems, contemporary work in this vertical operates under the assumption that the relevance score depends only on the document and query, implying that one documents score is computed independently of others. On the other hand, LLM-based ranking methods use signals from the entire ranked list to determine relevance. This article discusses the latest research that merges the benefits of LLMs with AR.Researchers from the L3S Research Center, Germany, and the University of Glasgow have put forth SlideGar: Sliding Window-based Adaptive Retrieval to integrate AR with LLMs while accounting for the fundamental differences between their pointwise and listwise approaches. SlideGar modifies AR such that the resulting ranking function outputs a ranked order of documents rather than discrete relevance scores. The proposed algorithm merges results from the initial ranking with feedback documents provided by the most relevant documents identified up to that point.The SlideGar algorithm utilizes AR methods like graph-based adaptive retrieval (Gar) and query affinity modeling-based adaptive retrieval (Quam) to find document neighbors in a constant amount of time. For LLM ranking, the authors employ a sliding window to overcome the constraint of input context. SlideGar processes the initial pool of documents given by the retriever for a specific query and, for a predefined length and step size, ranks the top w documents from left to right using a listwise ranker. These documents are then removed from the pool. The authors used the reciprocal of the rank as a pseudo-score for the documents.The authors employed the MSMARCO corpus data for practical purposes and evaluated its performance on REC Deep Learning 2019 and 2020 query sets. They also used the latest versions of these datasets and de-duplicated them to remove redundancies. A variety of sparse and dense retrievers were utilized. For rankers, the authors employed different listwise rankers, including both zero-shot and fine-tuned models. The authors leveraged the open-source Python library, ReRankers, to apply these listwise re-rankers.After conducting an extensive set of experiments across diverse LLM re-rankers, first-stage retrievers, and feedback documents, the authors ascertained that SlideGar improved the nDGC@10 score by up to 13% and recall by 28%, with a constant number of LLM inferences over the SOTA listwise rankers. Furthermore, regarding computation, the authors discovered that the proposed method adds negligible latency (a mere 0.02%).Conclusion: In this research paper, the authors propose a new algorithm, SlideGar, that allows LLM re-rankers to address the challenge of bounded recall in retrieval. SlideGar merges the functionalities of AR and LLM re-rankers to complement each other. This work paves the way for researchers to further explore and adapt LLMs for ranking purposes.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. Adeeba Alam Ansari+ postsAdeeba Alam Ansari is currently pursuing her Dual Degree at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, earning a B.Tech in Industrial Engineering and an M.Tech in Financial Engineering. With a keen interest in machine learning and artificial intelligence, she is an avid reader and an inquisitive individual. Adeeba firmly believes in the power of technology to empower society and promote welfare through innovative solutions driven by empathy and a deep understanding of real-world challenges. Meet 'Height':The only autonomous project management tool (Sponsored)

Diamond Select Toys has long catered to statue collectors who love Keanu Reeves' filmography, as they've released several products based on the John Wick and The Matrix franchises. Now DST is adding another Reeves franchise to its stable, with the company revealing the very first statue based on Reeves' comic book series (and future Netflix adaptation) BRZRKR.IGN can exclusively reveal the first images of the BRZRKR Gallery Diorama B. (Modern) PVC Statue. Check them out below:BRZRKR Gallery Diorama B. (Modern) PVC Statue - Image GalleryWhile the BRZRKR comics have explored the long, sad story of the immortal warrior known as B throughout his unnaturally long life, this particular statue is based on B's modern look. It depicts him charging into battle while wearing tactical gear and wielding a pair of knives.The Brzrkr Gallery Diorama B. (Modern) PVC Statue measures roughly 9 inches tall and is sculpted in PVC. The statue was designed by Caesar and sculpted by Jean St. Jean.This statue is priced at $59.99 and is slated for release in Fall 2025. Preorders will open on the Diamond Select Toys website and other retailers on Friday, January 23. Until then, why not check out the many collectibles available on the IGN Store?PlayIn other BRZRKR news, Reeves and screenwriter Mattson Tomlin gave fans an update on the movie and anime adaptations at Comic-Con 2024. Tomlin revealed he had recently turned in a draft of the film script, and also that he was assembling a team to work on the BRZRKR anime series in Fall 2024. Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket byfollowing @jschedeen on BlueSky.

Since its beginning in the streaming world back in 2007, Netflix has been a pioneer and a primetime player that brought us quality, original shows (Squid Game, Stranger Things, The Witcher) and movies (The Irishman, All Quiet on the Western Front, Marriage Story) to remember. As streaming has evolved and changed throughout the years, streaming services have also been changing in structure, content rights, and pricing. Despite the increase in competition (and prices), Netflix does not offer any sort of free trial. Even though the service does have a free trial page in the Netflix help center, it simply states that Netflix does not offer free trials and points to links on how to change your Netflix plan or cancel your Netflix membership.Can You Get Netflix for Free in Other Ways?Although Netflix doesn't have a free trial directly, you can still technically get free Netflix through other means. The only true "free" option available is T-Mobile's Netflix on Us benefit that offers a free Netflix when you sign up for certain Go5G plans of the service. Both Verizon and Comcast offer subscription bundles that can help reduce the overall cost of Netflix, but these plans don't give you the service for no additional cost.What Netflix Alternatives Have Free Trials?Luckily, if you are looking for a free streaming service trial, there are still multiple competitors that offer quality content and a chance to sample their streaming library for free. Check out these various alternatives below:1. Hulu (30-day free trial) - Starting at $9.99/month7 Days FreeHulu Free TrialSee it at HuluDozens of premium add-ons and Live TV optionsA treasure chest of classic to modern TV shows and series2. Amazon Prime (30-day free trial) - Starting at $14.99/month30 Days Free Amazon Prime Free TrialPrime Video is included with an Amazon Prime subscription.See it at AmazonAward-winning, original contentFree shipping on Amazon orders with membership3. CrunchyRoll (14-day free trial) - Starting at $7.99/month14 Days Free Crunchyroll Free TrialSee it at CrunchyrollThousands of hours of animated series (anime) instantly available to streamFirst streaming service to stream new seasons of anime after Japan4. Apple TV+ (7-Day Free Trial) - Starting at $9.99/month7 Days Free Apple TV+ Free TrialSee it at AppleHome to brand new, hit original films and original seriesExclusive access to select original films shortly after theater release5. Paramount+ (7-Day Free Trial) - Starting at $7.99/month7 Days Free Paramount+ Free TrialIncludes a 7-day free trial.See it at Paramount+Available add-ons for increased streaming libraryPremium content with new releases coming exclusively to Paramount+6. DirecTV Stream (5-Day Free Trial) - Starting at $79.99/month5 Days FreeDirecTV Stream Free TrialSee it at DirecTV StreamOne of the top providers for streaming sports and TV on top of their movie/series streaming libraryUnlimited Cloud DVR Storage, unlimited streaming devices, and unlimited access to local and premium channels. For a full list of descriptions and pricing, check out our article on the best Netflix alternatives with free trials.

Look, up in the sky! Its an ongoing! Its a one-shot! Its a young readers graphic novel! Its all of these things, starring Superman.To get ready for James Gunns much-anticipated film reboot of Superman, DC Comics is celebrating the Man of Steel with new offerings for a wide range of readers. A-list creators Mark Waid, Dan Slott, and Dan Jurgens offer new looks at Superman and his friends and foes, including villain Lex Luthor and members of the Justice League.Lets break down whats coming up as part of the publishers Summer of Superman initiative kicking off in April:Credit: DC Comics/Brad WalkerAction Comics #1085 (April 9)The ramp-up begins with Action Comics#1085 on April 9, written by G. Willow Wilson and illustrated by Gavin Guidry. The issue completes the Superman Superstars storyline that Wilson has been telling, in which Superman meets a scientist who claims to have solved the global warming crisis at a terrible cost.Credit: DC Comics/Jorge JimenezSummer of Superman Special April 16The Summer of Superman truly launches on Superman Day on April 18, marking the 87th anniversary of the first superheros debut in 1938s Action Comics #1. Written by Waid, Slott, and Joshua Williamson, with art by Jorge Jimnez, the oversized one-shot Summer of Superman Special #1, which is out on April 16 just in time for Supes big day, features that most venerable of comic book traditions: a wedding. The wedding of John Henry Irons aka Steel and Clark Kents old Smallville squeeze Lana Lang drives a story that sees old friends gather and new threats arise.Credit: DC Comics/Dan MoraSuperman #25 April 23One week later, on April 23, Superman #25 brings back the Man of Steels greatest enemy: Lex Luthor himself. The criminal mastermind/former president returns to wrestle away control of Supercorp, the do-gooder organization at the center of Williamsons run on Superman. The 48-page issue pairs Williamson with artists Dan Mora, Eddy Barrows, and Eber Ferreira, completing the series first major storyline and setting up the Man of Steels next challenge.Credit: DC Comics/Rafael AlbuquerqueSuperman Unlimited #1 May 21The adventure continues with the highly-anticipated new ongoing Superman Unlimited by Slott and artist Rafael Albuquerque beginning on May 21. Famous for his daring takes on Spider-Man and She-Hulk, Slott begins his Superman tenure with equally audacious ideas, including a world-wide infusion of green Kryptonite making the planet more dangerous for our hero and the Daily Planet getting a new employee transferred from the mythical Gorilla City.According to group editor Paul Kaminski, Slotts take harkens back to the widescreen action of the Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness Superman/Batman series of the early 2000s. Superman Unlimited will capture the big, fun, high-flying adventures that Superman is known for, while also providing big moments for DCs Superman-related comics with the introduction of a massive new Kryptonite deposit. Imagine a world where Superman is stopping a bank robbery, but every weapon is packed with Kryptonite ammunition and every petty criminal carries a Kryptonite shiv, says Kaminski. This is a world of unlimited danger on a level that Superman, and DCs Superman family of characters, has never faced before.Credit: DC Comics/Lee WeeksSuperman: The World #1 June 25While most books focus on Supermans beloved Metropolis, Superman: The World shows what the Man of Tomorrow means for people across the globe. Legends Dan Jurgens (The Death of Superman) and Lee Weeks (Daredevil) team up with a host of creators from everywhere from Brazil to Bosnia to India to take a cosmopolitan look at Man of Tomorrow. Superman: The World releases on June 24.Credit: DC Comics/Rob JustusSupermans Good Guy Gang July 1Of course, you cant celebrate Superman without also including the littlest superhero fans. July 1 sees the release of Supermans Good Guy Gang, the first in a kid-friendly series of graphic novels. Designed for young readers between the ages of 5-7, Supermans Good Guy Gang stars Clark Kent as an eight-year-old getting used to his new powers. Writer and artist Rob Justus pairs young Clark with other new heroes Hawkgirl and the Green Lantern Guy Gardner, the latter of whom somehow makes perfect sense.No matter what you want of the first superhero, this sounds like a very nice way to spend the lead up to the Man of Steels return to the big screen on July 11.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!

SummaryFragPunk, the 5v5 tactical hero shooter with powerful gameplay modifiers called shard cards launches for free on March 6, 2025.Xbox users can get exclusive cosmetics by unlocking the FragPunk Pioneer Bundle before the game launches.The Pioneer Bundle also includes a battle pass voucher, offering even more items.FragPunk, the rule-changing 5v5 tactical hero shooter, launches on Xbox Series X/S for free on March 6, bringing boundless fun through the use of Shard Cards, powerful gameplay modifiers that let you bend the rules of every gunfight. Before you discover your favorite lancer and activate over 100 Shard Cards, you can secure some exclusive drip, only available on Xbox Series X/S for a limited time!Xbox Series X/S users can get their hands on the exclusive FragPunk Pioneer Bundle starting now, and only available until the game launches on March 6. Electrify the battlefield with this colorful addition to your arsenal! The pack gets you two Xbox-exclusive X Warrior weapon skins for your submachine gun and pistol, completely decked out with high powered tubing, flashy colors and a deadly looking bayonet.Better still, youll also get an exclusive charm,X-Anger, and 2 exclusive stickers: X-Memory and X-Elixir. All three can be applied to customize all of your weapons, so you can pick a fight with some extra personality.The FragPunk Pioneer Bundle is available for purchase for $9.99 USD and its content will be made available upon your first login. To learn more about FragPunk, head over to our product page, and wishlist the game to get even more rewards at launch.FragPunk Pioneer BundleNetEaseGames_Global$9.99Pre-order*FragPunk will be free-to-play when it releases on 6th March 2025. No purchase is required to play the game included in this pre-order offer.Kick off your FragPunk fights by bending the rules in style! Purchase the FragPunk pre-order bundle to get platform-exclusive skins, stickers, and a charm as well as the first seasons premium battle pass at an exceptional value!This exclusive bundle will be permanently removed from the store after the pre-order period ends. If you fancy one of the included items, nows the time to secure them before they go away forever!This product includes the following content: Platform-exclusive weapon skins (only available in this bundle)*2 Platform-exclusive stickers (only available in this bundle)*2 Platform-exclusive charm (only available in this bundle)*1 Premium battle pass*1Claimable upon first login after launch by visiting your in-game mailbox.FragPunkBad Guitar StudioGet it nowBend the rules with Shard Cards!No two rounds of FragPunk are ever the same. Discover over 100 Shard Cards with an activatable selection that changes every round creating new and unique combinations that create infinite possibilities! Cards can amplify your jump height, reverse the roles of attackers and defenders, engulf your bullets in flame or turn them into chain lightning, and even may resurrect you and your team!Frantic 5v5 Hero Shooter!Each round lasts about 2.5 minutes, so get a move on! The short TTK means you have to aim well and react fast to win the fight. Pick between 12 heroes with diverse abilities, customize your weapon combination, choose your cards and get ready for a fight!Variety that fuels replayabilityPick your favorite hero from a selection of 12, each with their own unique abilities. Find your favorite guns among the 17 available, some which have special abilities, like shooting faster over time, bursts and more! Discover new hero, weapon and card combinations and develop your personal combat style!Immersive Maps & Vibrant Visuals!Prepare for rich map designs and mixed visual effects including collages, graffiti and a blend of realistic and stylized textures. Feast your eyes on bold colors, sharp shapes and dynamic lines to provide you with diverse visual experiences while the bullets fly.