The Sims 1 & 2 reportedly getting PC re-releases this weekAs series' 25th anniversary looms.Image credit: Eurogamer News by Matt Wales News Reporter Published on Jan. 27, 2025 In less than a week, The Sims turns 25, and EA is reportedly poised to re-release The Sims 1 & 2 this week as part of the series' quarter-century celebrations. The Sims 1 & 2 have, of course, long been unavailable in an official capacity, with the 25-year-old original never getting a digital release and its sequel's short-lived Ultimate Collection being yanked from Origin in 2018. That could be about to change, however; Kotaku, citing a "source familiar" with EA's plans, reports re-releases of The Sims 1 & 2 will launch on PC later this week, with all their original expansions included. It's "unclear" if a console release is also coming.Lending further credence to Kotaku's report are the handful of conspicuous teases EA has been sharing to coincide with the start of The Sims' Nostalgia Now week, which runs from 27th-31st January. The series' official website, for instance, now features a character from the original The Sims surrounded by The Sims 2's radial menu.Similarly, the publisher has posted a short animation - accompanied by the phrase "BRB" - on social media. It features The Sims' iconic spinning Plumbob, first surrounded by The Sims 2's radial menu then superimposed on coloured squares reminiscent of The Sims 1's box art. Interestingly, the video then transitions to a scene resembling The Sims 3's loading screen. Kotaku's report doesn't mention the series' third outing, but fans were slightly stunned earlier this month when, with zero explanation or fanfare, it received its first (still mysterious) update in 15 years. If this means EA's has been quietly tinkering under the hood to implement some much-needed stability and compatibility fixes, there'll be a lot of happy Sims players.All of which is to say it could be an exciting few days for The Sims fans, and that's before EA's big birthday blowout next week. Things kick off with a 25-hour livestream celebration of the series next Tuesday, 4th April, coinciding with the release a "huge" free 25th anniversary update for The Sims 4, adding 70+ new items, a new limited-time event, and more.

Ubisoft announces studio closure as it lays off 185 staffLeamington closed as "targeted restructurings" hit other teams.Image credit: Ubisoft News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief Published on Jan. 27, 2025 Ubisoft is set to close its UK studio based in Leamington, as it sheds 185 jobs across the business. A small number of Leamington staff will be retained under remote contracts. Additionally, Ubisoft offices in Dsseldorf (formerly Blue Byte), Stockholm and the Newcastle-based Ubisoft Reflections will be downsized."As part of our ongoing efforts to prioritise projects and reduce costs that ensure long-term stability at Ubisoft, we have announced targeted restructurings at Ubisoft Dsseldorf, Ubisoft Stockholm and Ubisoft Reflections and the permanent closure of Ubisoft Leamington site," a Ubisoft spokesperson said in a statement to Eurogamer."Unfortunately, this should impact 185 employees overall. We are deeply grateful for their contributions and are committed to supporting them through this transition."Founded in 2002 as FreeStyleGames by a group of former Rare and Codemasters veterans, Ubisoft Leamington had most recently worked as a support studio on the Tom Clancy's The Division series, and also assisted development on games such as Star Wars Outlaws, Skull and Bones and Far Cry 5.In its heyday, under its previous ownership by Activision, Leamington was best known for its DJ Hero games, before it was put to work on the publisher's Guitar Hero and Call of Duty franchises. Ubisoft then acquired the firm in 2017.As for the teams that have been downsized, Ubisoft Dsseldorf is best known for developing Anno and The Settlers, while Ubisoft Stockholm most recently worked on Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora with Massive Entertainment. Ubisoft Reflections, the veteran team originally founded in 1984 and acquired by Ubisoft in 2006, had been working closely with Leamington supporting AAA game development.Ubisoft's latest layoffs come as the company continues to try and cut costs after a string of disappointing game launches including the failure of big budget bet Star Wars Outlaws, the shutdown of live-service shooter XDefiant, and repeated delays to Assassin's Creed Shadows amidst wider concern for the firm's future.Ubisoft has repeatedly reduced its headcount since 2022, when it employed 20,279 people. By the end of September 2024, Ubisoft employed 18,666.Earlier this month, Ubisoft said it was "taking decisive steps" to reshape the company, in order to "review and pursue various transformational strategic and capitalistic options to extract the best value for stakeholders". Reports previously suggested Ubisoft was keen to take the company private via investment from Chinese giant Tencent, although company boss Yves Guillemot wanting to retain overall control has allegedly proven a sticking point. All eyes now turn to the upcoming launch of Assassin's Creed Shadows on 20th March, whose success has never seemed more vital.

DeepSeeks new open source AI reasoning model, R1, sparked a sell-off of Nvidias stock and caused its consumer app to soar to the top of the app stores.Last month DeepSeek said it trained a model using a data center of some 2,000 of Nvidias H800 GPUs in just about two months at a cost of around $5.5 million. Last week, it published a paper showing that its latest models performance matched the most advanced reasoning models in the world. These models are being trained in data centers that are spending billions on Nvidias faster, very pricey AI chips.The reaction across the tech industry to DeepSeeks high-performance, lower-cost model has been wild.Pat Gelsinger, for instance, took to X with glee, posting, Thank you DeepSeek.Gelsinger is, of course, the recently former CEO of Intel, a hardware engineer, and current chairman of his own IPO-bound startup, Gloo, a messaging and engagement platform for churches. He left Intel in December after four years and an attempt at chasing Nvidia with Intels alternative AI GPUs, the Gaudi 3 AI.Gelsinger wrote that DeepSeek should remind the tech industry of its three most important lessons: lower costs mean wider-spread adoption; ingenuity flourishes under constraints; and open wins. DeepSeek will help reset the increasingly closed world of foundational AI model work, he wrote. OpenAI and Anthropic are both closed source.Gelsinger told TechCrunch that R1 is so impressive, Gloo has already decided not to adopt and pay for OpenAI. Gloo is building an AI service called Kallm, which will offer a chatbot and other services.My glue engineers are running R1 today, he said. They couldve run o1 well, they can only access o1, through the APIs.Instead, in two weeks, Gloo expects to have rebuilt Kallm from scratch with our own foundational model thats all open source, he said. Thats exciting.He said he thinks DeepSeek will make AI so affordable, AI wont just be everywhere. Good AI will be everywhere. I want better AI in my Oura Ring. I want better AI in my hearing aid. I want more AI in my phone. I want better AI in my embedded devices, like the voice recognition in my EV, he says.Gelsingers happy reaction was perhaps at odds with others who were less thrilled that reasoning foundational models now have a higher-performing and far more affordable challenger. AI has been growing more expensive, not less.Other reacted by implying DeepSeek must have fudged its numbers somehow and training must have been more costly. Some thought it couldnt say it used higher-end chips because of U.S. AI chip export restrictions to China. Others were poking holes in its performance, finding spots where other models did better. Still others believe that OpenAIs next model, o3, will so outpace R1 when it is released that the status quo will be repaired.Gelsinger shrugs all of that off. You will never have full transparency, given most of the work was done in China, he said. But still, all evidence is that its 10-50x cheaper in their training than o1. DeepSeek proves that AI can be moved forward by engineering creativity, not throwing more hardware power and compute resources at the problem. So thats thrilling, he said.As for this being a Chinese developer with all that implies, like concerns over privacy and censorship, Gelsinger metaphorically shakes his head.Having the Chinese remind us of the power of open ecosystems is maybe a touch embarrassing for our community, for the Western world, he said.

Cybersecurity company SonicWall says hackers are exploiting a newly discovered vulnerability in one of its enterprise products to break into its customers corporate networks.SonicWall said in an advisory that the vulnerability in its SMA1000 remote access appliance, which companies use to allow their employees to remotely log in to their corporate networks as if they were in the office, allows anyone over the internet to plant malware on affected devices without needing a login for the system.The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-23006, was discovered by Microsoft and shared with SonicWall last week. In a subsequent support post, SonicWall said the vulnerability is confirmed as being actively exploited in the wild, indicating that some of SonicWalls corporate customers had been hacked. The bug is known as a zero day because it was exploited before SonicWall had time to provide customers with a fix.When contacted by TechCrunch, neither SonicWall nor Microsoft said how many companies had their networks compromised in the attacks, but urged customers to patch affected systems by installing the security hotfix that SonicWall has since released.Several thousand SMA 1000 appliances are exposed to the internet, according to a Shodan search result shared by Bleeping Computer, putting many of those companies with unpatched systems at greater risk of attacks.Malicious hackers are increasingly targeting corporate cybersecurity products, such as firewalls, remote access tools, and VPN products. These devices exist on the perimeter of corporate networks to protect against would-be intruders and unauthorized access. But they also have a propensity to contain software bugs that can render their security protections ineffective, allowing hackers to compromise the very networks that these devices were tasked with protecting.In recent years, some of the biggest makers of corporate cybersecurity products, including Barracuda, Check Point, Cisco, Citrix, Fortinet, Ivanti, and Palo Alto Networks, have disclosed zero-day attacks targeting their customers, which have resulted in broader network compromises.According to U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA, the top most routinely exploited vulnerabilities during 2023 were found in enterprise products developed by Citrix, Cisco, and Fortinet, and used by hackers to conduct operations against high-priority targets.

The Fisk Rubber Company was founded in Chicopee, Massachusetts, in 1898 by Noyes Wilson Fisk, who purchased the Spaulding and Pepper Company in 1895 and renamed it to the Fisk Rubber Company. The company originally produced bicycle tires and other rubber items, later branching out with automobile tires in 1899 which proved to be an impressive success. The companys Fisk Tires became a household name, especially popular among early automobile owners for their durability and performance. At its peak, the company employed thousands of workers, contributing significantly to the local economy of Chicopee, as well as other branch factories in inNew Bedford, Massachusetts,Jewett City, Connecticut and Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The firm grew rapidly, and an entire complex was built here in Chicopee, centered around this building, constructed around 1916 as the Administrative Offices for the company. Architect George B. Allen designed the building in the Classical Revival style. During the Great Depression, Fisk Rubber was crippled by competition and eventually was acquired by United States Rubber (laterUniroyal) in 1940. Uniroyal, Inc. closed their Chicopee plant in 1980, and the complex sat largely unused for decades, with a majority of buildings demolished in recent years. Hopefully this lovely building, instrumental to the growth of Chicopee and America as we know it, will be preserved for generations to come.

Ecovacs' Deebot N30 Omni is a mid-range robot vacuum with high-end features worth way more than its cost, especially with this deal.

The move means that people who don't want to use Apple's AI tech will need to manually disable it.

Honor Magic7 ProEwan SpenceThe Honor Magic7 Pro is the latest flagship from Honor. On paper, it meets the definition of a 2025 flagship; with several upgrades to the specifications, it has brought new features that the competition would be wise to consider. Yet some awkward decisions in the design process have led to a handset that feels less than the sum of its parts.Honor Magic7 Pro's Key UpgradesIt's worth looking at three features of the Honor Magic7 Pro to get a feel of this latest flagship.The first is the welcome upgrade to IP68/IP69 protection. This offers extended periods of water protection when submerged. It also protects against high-pressure water streams up to 80 degrees Celsius.The second is the chipset. Unsurprisingly, Honor is matching the vast majority of the current flagships using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite. This also allows direct performance comparisons with other handsets, and Honor falls a touch short. It looks to be an issue with cooling the chipsetthe Magic7 Pro is not as efficient as the competition. The vast majority of use cases are not going to notice the slight loss of top-end performancegamers will fall into this category, but I suspect the dedicated will look for a gaming-focused smartphone with more memory and optimized features.The European and UK versions of the Magic7 Pro come with just one specification12 GB of memory and 512 GB of storage. This should again cover the vast majority of users.Honor Magic7 ProEwan SpenceMORE FOR YOUFinally, you have the battery. Curiously, its capacity has been dropped for the global variant. The Chinese version ships with 5859 mAh, while the European version loses roughly ten percent, taking it to 5270 mAh. With other flagships pushing up to 6000 mAh, this is a significant disadvantage for the Magic7 Pro. 100W wired charging is supported, with an empty to full time of around 35 minutes, yet the smaller capacity contributes to the faster time. Neither is there a fast charger in the box, so to get that rate you'll need to use your existing charger or make an additional purchase.With flagship specifications incredibly close across all the manufacturers, I feel that Honor's decision to cut the battery is the wrong one.Honor Magic7 Pro's CameraDoes the camera make up that shortfall?The main lens performs well and handles detail and bright light comfortably. You have the option to apply filters (including vibrant, natural, and authentic). Broadly speaking these impact the saturation, which makes a difference to the older way when manufacturers locked in vibrancy and saturation through their own post-processing software.The ultrawide lens sits nicely alongside the main lens, although it captures less detail than many would hope. While small, some edges can end up being color-fringed, for regular daily snaps and capturing moments. This isn't a problem, but those who edit more and will use the images professionally may want to check some sample shots before committing to the Magic7 Pro.Honor Magic7 ProEwan SpenceThen, we have the telephoto lens. At lower levels, it performs solidly, up to x3 for optical zoom, x6 with sensor cropping, and up to x30 for digital zoom. Now, it can go beyond this and climb up to x100 Zoom with the option to use Honor's AI Super Zoom, using server-based generative AI to enhance the image. It also tends to interpolate and add elements to the image. Perhaps with more AI training, this will become more reliable, but right now, there's a sense of being unable to trust the final image.One of the welcome upgrades comes with the selfie camera. The 50-megapixel single lens comes with auto-focus. This is not yet seen as standard, with several flagship handsets not including it. It's a win for Honor here.Yet the Magic7 Pro camera system feels rather middle of the pack. thatHonor Magic7 Pro OSMagicOS 9.0 is Honor's flavor of Android. There is a bright feel to the UI, with a good sweep of color in the launcher and the built-in apps. There's also a lot of empty space. Honor's use of large-radius curves takes up a lot of the screen real estate, reducing the amount of information that can be shown on a single screen. The default font size is quite large, I rarely feel the need to move the font size to small to balance out old and hungry eyes. I had to here.Honor Magic7 ProEwan SpenceFor all the benefits that a high-resolution screen can offer, Honor has decided to use the extra pixels for smoother curves, more font kerning, and more space. It's a choice that has a personal impact and helps the Magic7 Pro stand out against the pack. If you want a friendly and less threatening approach, you'll appreciate this part of MagicOS. If you'd prefer information over infotainment (which is the camp I fall into), MagicOS is going to be a touch frustrating.Honor Magic7 Pro And AIHonor has not gone overboard with the presentation of AI on the Magic7 Pro. The biggest addition is MagicLM. Honor's large language module is now present out of the box (it was coming soon at the launch of the Magic6 Pro) and is used for many of the AI-driven creative tasks, including transcription, summarising short texts, web pages, meeting notes, and image generation. These are all very much 'table stakes AI, and Honor meets the brief nicely.As with last year's Magic6 Pro, some of the key AI options will not be available until later in the year. This includes the heavily trailed deepfake detection that analyses video conferencing apps to determine if deepfake tech is being used. This is arguably the point of differentiation Honor has over other AI suites, but we won't know how effective the detection is or how prevalent deepfake video chats are for some time.Honor Magic7 ProEwan SpenceHonor Magic7 Pro ConclusionsLast year's Honor Magic6 Pro felt like a win for its hardware: refreshing the design cues, lifting up battery specs and fast charging to the top of the specs comparison charts, and offering significant upgrades on the camera lenses and software.The Honor Magic7 Pro hasn't maintained that advantage over the competition. The design remains broadly static and most of the specifications feel like maintenance upgrades. Meanwhile the competition has pushed ahead. In visible areasespecially the batterythe Magic7 Pro has moved backwards.This doesn't feel like the next flagshipit feels more like a mid-cycle upgrade to the Magic6 Pro, a Magic 6S Pro if we are to use an established convention (although the Porsche Design Honor Magic6 Pro RSR should rightly be seen as the minor update). Designing a smartphone involves lots of small decisions that eventually impact the overall feel. In my view, some of Honor's decisions have negatively impacted the Magic7 Pro's offering to consumersThe Magic7 Pro can still deliver a flagship level of quality and features, but competing smartphones have an edge over this year's flagship from Honor.Disclaimer: Honor supplied an Honor Magic7 Pro for review purposes.

StrandsNew York TimesLooking for Mondays Strands hints, spangram and answers? You can find them here:I always enjoy really long spangrams to figure out, and I like it when they twist into fun shapes relating to the puzzle. Today, we have both!How To Play StrandsThe New York Times Strands puzzle is a play on the classic word search. Its in beta for now, which means itll only stick around if enough people play it every day.Theres a new game of Strands to play every day. The game will present you with a six by eight grid of letters. The aim is to find a group of words that have something in common, and youll get a clue as to what that theme is. When you find a theme word, it will remain highlighted in blue.Youll also need to find a special word called a spangram. This tells you what the words have in common. The spangram links two opposite sides of the board. While the theme words will not be a proper name, the spangram can be a proper name. When you find the spangram, it will remain highlighted in yellow.Be warned: Youll need to be on your toes.Some themes are fill-in-the-blank phrases. They may also be steps in a process, items that all belong to the same category, synonyms or homophones, The New York Times notes. Just as she varies the difficulty of Wordle puzzles within a week, [Wordle and Strands editor Tracy] Bennett plans to throw Strands solvers curveballs every once in a while.MORE FOR YOUWhat Is Todays Strands Hint?The NYT hint will be first, then we will do a hint of my own creation to help you. The first hint:Stable supplyMine is:Whoa nelly!This should be relatively easy, Id say.What Are Todays Strands Answers?The spangram is below as spoilers begin, then the answer list after that.HORSEBACKRIDINGAnd where you find it:StrandsNYTAnd the answer list:REINSSPURSSADDLEBRIDLEHARNESSCROPStrandsNYTWell, I told you it was a long spangram today, and here we are. I got HORSE then RIDING then HORSERIDING before I found HORSEBACKRISING for a full 15 letter spangram which you dont see everyday. And its in the shape of a horse head! Very funny. The words were pretty easy and the only one that wasnt there really was HORSESHOE, but I think thats understandable.Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.

In brief: The founder of an AI startup and his wife were indicted this week on charges of defrauding investors in a scheme spanning six years. If convicted, they could face decades in prison and the forfeiture of assets obtained through the alleged scheme. Alexander Beckman, founder of the AI startup GameOn Technology (now ON Platform), and his wife, attorney Valerie Lau Beckman, were indicted on 25 charges, including conspiracy, wire fraud, and identity theft. According to the US Attorney's Office, the couple allegedly defrauded investors out of $60 million over six years. If convicted, Alexander faces more than 60 years in prison, while Valerie could get over 80 years.Beckman founded GameOn in 2014, which gained early recognition for its customer service chatbot technology. The company had several high-profile clients, including the NBA, Riot Games, and Armani Exchange. However, prosecutors allege that the company's business model was unsustainable, with free pilot programs and revenue-sharing agreements that rarely generated income. Investigators claim GameOn even paid some clients extravagant fees without receiving payments in return.Beginning in 2018, Beckman allegedly orchestrated an elaborate scheme to secure millions in investor funding to cover business and personal expenses. The lengthy indictment (below) claims he exaggerated revenue figures, inflated cash balances, and fabricated customer relationships to mislead investors.Beckman Indictment via Scribd // Related StoriesThe indictment also accuses his wife of forging documents, including audits and bank statements, and stealing sensitive information from her former employer, a venture capital firm. One indictment detail alleges Lau falsified a bank account statement to show a balance of $13 million when the account had just $26. While GameOn's annual revenues never exceeded $1 million, Beckman reportedly told investors the company earned $72 million in a single quarter of 2023.Prosecutors say the couple used investor funds for personal expenses, including a $4.2 million San Francisco home, a Tesla Model X, and their 2023 wedding. Meanwhile, GameOn employees sometimes went unpaid as the company struggled to meet payroll and other financial obligations.The scheme reportedly began unraveling in 2023 as investors questioned the company's financials. Beckman allegedly admitted to inaccuracies in an audit but continued fabricating documents and creating fake email accounts for real people to cover his tracks.In June 2024, after an investor sought to verify a bank statement in person, Lau allegedly planted a fake statement at the bank, an incident captured on security cameras. She resigned from GameOn the following month.ON Platform, the rebranded version of GameOn, declined to comment on the charges. High-profile clients like the NFL, Valentino, and Live Nation also failed to respond to requests for comment.If convicted, Alexander Beckman could face over 60 years in prison, while Valerie Lau Beckman's potential sentence exceeds 80 years. The couple will also have to forfeit all assets obtained through the fraud.