Saber Interactive has provided an updated roadmap for Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, with its next content drop, the Datavault Update, arriving in February to kick off Season 3. As promised, a new PvP map is inbound, and its called Tomb.Set in the narrow corridors of a Necron tomb on Demerium, the map favors more close-quarter gunfights and tactics. There is an area for more open engagements; however, you must watch out for blind spots and ambushes. As for PvE, a new Extremis enemy, the BioVore, is coming. It appears in Tyranid maps and can fire devastating Spore Mines.The Raven Guard is also confirmed as the next Chapter Pack with the MK VI Corvus helmet and accompanying trinkets. Finally, the Datavault will be added to the Battle Barge and let you unlock game details and cosmetics with currency earned from completing Ordeals across all modes.Examples include completing any Operation on Average difficulty or higher, slaying Tyranids by knocking back Spore Mines, and more.The patchs exact date has yet to be confirmed, so stay tuned for more details. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is available on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Check out our review.

Actor Simu Liu, known for his role as the protagonist in Marvel movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, has expressed a desire to play the leading role in a movie adaptation of seminal game Sleeping Dogs.Taking to social media platform X, Liu spoke about his experience in pitching a movie adaptation of Sleeping Dogs to film executives that dont understand the title. He also that he would like a sequel for the title down the line.So few film projects make it from pitch phase to greenlight, said Liu in the post. Pitching execs who dont understand the game has been tiring. Everyones overwhelming love of Sleeping Dogs here has really given us life!First a movie, then a sequel game for everyone thats always been the dream.The last time we heard anything about a Sleeping Dogs movie was all the way back in 2018, with action star Donnie Yen saying that the movie was still under production. More recently, however, Yen has said that the movie basically dead at this point.I spent a lot of time and did a lot of work with these producers, and I even invested some of my own money into obtaining the drafts and some of the rights, said Yen in a recent interview with Polygon. I waited for years. Years. And I really want to do it. I have all these visions in my head, and unfortunately I dont know, you know how Hollywood goes, right? I spent many, many years on it. It was an unfortunate thing.Sleeping Dogs is a cult-classic open-world action game that puts players into the shoes of undercover cop Wei Shen. The game tells an epic story about feuding mobs in Hong Kong, and how these criminal elements can often bleed into civilian life getting affected. The title was originally released back in 2012 on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.For more details on Sleeping Dogs, check out our thoughts on why the game is still addictive even today.So few film projects make it from pitch phase to greenlight. Pitching execs who dont understand the game has been tiring. Everyones overwhelming love of Sleeping Dogs here has really given us life!First a movie, then a sequel game for everyone thats always been the dream. pic.twitter.com/g84r9Lf0SI Simu Liu (@SimuLiu) January 31, 2025

Researchers Have Deciphered a Nearly 2,000-Year-Old True Crime PapyrusThe Greek document details a court case in ancient Palestine involving tax fraud and provides insight into trial preparations in the Roman Empire The papyrus dates back to between 129 and 132 C.E. Israel Antiquities AuthorityBack in 2014, a researcher from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem rediscovered an ancient papyrus while organizing a storeroom in the Israel Antiquities Authoritys Dead Sea Scrolls Unit. Once found in the Judean Desert, the documents script had previously been classified as Nabataeanan ancient Aramaic languagebut papyrus expert Hannah Cotton knew better.When I saw it marked Nabataean, I exclaimed, Its Greek to me! the researcher says in a statement by the university.Cotton and a team of experts spent the next decade deciphering the 133-line text, and their findings were recently published in the journal Tyche. Turns out, the document is the longest Greek papyrus ever found in the Judean Desert, and its newly translated content is particularly unique: a Roman lawyers detailed notes about the trial of two men accused of tax fraud.This is the best-documented Roman court case from Judaea, apart from the trial of Jesus, says study coauthor Avner Ecker, a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the statement.Per the study, the papyrus was likely written on the eve of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, a second-century Jewish uprising against Roman rule. The Roman Empire had colonized Judeathe southern part of ancient Palestinesome 200 years earlier. By 132 C.E., various Roman incursions upon Jewish life, including bans on religious practices, had taken their toll: The dwindling population of Jews in Palestine revolted. The rebellion, led by a man named Bar Kokhba, was crushed by the Romans in 135 C.E., and Jews were subsequently banned from Jerusalem.The newly translated papyrus was written after Roman Emperor Hadrians visit to Judea around 130 C.E. and before the Bar Kokhba Revolt, per the study. It details Romes case against two individualsGadalias and Saulosaccused of forging documentation about selling and freeing slaves to bypass paying Roman taxes.Forgery and tax fraud carried severe penalties under Roman law, including hard labor or even capital punishment, says study coauthor Anna Dolganov, a papyrus expert at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, in the statement.The papyrus was written in vibrant and direct language by a strategizing prosecutor, advising another lawyer about pieces of evidence and anticipating objections, per the statement. The document also contains a rapidly drafted transcript of the judicial hearing itself.As Dolganov says in the statement, This papyrus is extraordinary because it provides direct insight into trial preparations in this part of the Roman Empire.Significant portions of the document are missing, making conclusions about the trials participants difficult to draw. Still, the researchers write that the prosecutors were likely functionaries of the Roman fiscal administration and suggest the defendants were Jews. The papyrus also makes mention of an informer who denounced the defendants to Roman authorities.As Live Sciences Kristina Killgrove writes, the papyrus sheds light on the long-debated question of whether or not ancient Jewish people owned slaves. The document mentions that Saulos family owns multiple slaves, but whether those enslaved people were Jewish is unclear.The trials location and the cases outcome also remain mysterious. Per the study, proceedings may have been interrupted by the Bar Kokhba Revolt. Somehow, this papyrus ended up among a collection of documents stored in caves in the Judean Desertthe Dead Sea Scrolls, which were rediscovered in the mid-20th century.As study coauthor Fritz Mitthof, a historian at the University of Vienna, says in the statement, the papyrus showcases the Romans governmental reach: They regulated private transactions even in remote regions of their empire.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Anthropology, Archaeology, Crime, Israel, Language, Law, Middle East , Roman Empire

A polar bear near Kaktovik, Alaska. New research reveals how polar bears keep ice off their fur. Alan Wilson via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0Polar bears dont have to worry about skipping a wash day. The sebum, or natural oil, on the mammals fur helps them survive the harsh Arctic weather by making it hard for ice to stick to them, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.Senior author Bodil Holst, a physicist at the University of Bergen in Norway, was inspired to investigate polar bear fur after watching a TV quiz program, she tells Michael Le Page at New Scientist. She realized that she had never seen a polar bear covered in ice in any wildlife documentaries, even after they emerged from a dive in below-freezing water.And then I thought, well, how come freezing is not a problem? How come you dont get accumulation of ice on the fur under these circumstances? says Holst to New Scientist.To answer those questions, Holst gathered an international team of researchers. The group compared ice resistance in samples of four materials: washed and unwashed polar bear fur, human hair and hair-based ski equipment coated in chemicals called fluorocarbons. They tested the materials by measuring how much force was required to move an ice block off of each one, writes Sciences Alexa Robles-Gil.Julian Carolan, the studys lead author and a chemist at Trinity College Dublin, even used his own hair for the research. It wasnt that pleasant to do, he tells the Washington Posts Dino Grandoni. I had to let my hair get very greasy over a week, which did not look very good. I then shaved it all off as close as I could to the scalp, which was tough on account of the greasiness. This also left me with a bald head in the cold month of January last year.For their efforts, the scientists found that ice has a much harder time sticking to unwashed, greasy polar bear hair than to oily human hair. When the polar bear fur was washed, it performed more like human hair, pointing to the sebum as the key to the anti-ice effect.They then performed a chemical analysis of the polar bear sebum and identified cholesterol, diacylglycerols and fatty acids as its primary components. Additionally, the bears sebum did not contain squalene, a fatty oil found in the hair of humans, sea otters and many aquatic mammals, suggesting this lack could help with ice resistance, per a statement from Trinity College Dublin.The study confirms what people who work closely with polar bears have long known, as Geoff York, a biologist with Polar Bears International who was not involved in the research, tells the Washington Post. When we get them on the ground, and theyre safely sedated, theyre amazingly dry.These new findings also reinforce Indigenous knowledge about the Arctic-dwelling bears, per the paper. Inuit people have taken advantage of the sebums properties, even affixing shoe-like patches of polar bear fur to the bottom of stools to prevent them from sticking to the ice.Understanding how polar bears stay warm and dry in the Arctic could help scientists develop alternatives to PFAS-laden anti-ice repellants. PFAS, also known as forever chemicals because of how long they persist in the environment, are often used to make non-stick and water-resistant materials. The researchers say engineers could use the ingredients found in polar bear sebum to create safer products.If we do it in the right way, we have a chance of making them environmentally friendly, says Holst to the Washington Post. That is certainly the inspiration here.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Animals, Arctic, Bears, biomimicry, Chemistry, Environment, Innovations, Mammals, New Research

It's 63% cheaper than OpenAI o1-mini and 93% cheaper than the full o1 model, priced at $1.10/$4.40 per million tokens in/out.Read More

Last year, the saying going around the game industry was Survive until 25. The hope was that things would get better after a very rough year.Read More

Quantic Dream's Beyond: Two Souls TV rights acquired by Elliot Page"The storys rich narrative and emotional depth offer us a fantastic foundation"Image credit: Quantic Dream News by Rachel Weber Senior Editor Published on Jan. 31, 2025 Quantic Dream's 2013 supernatural action adventure Beyond: Two Souls is on its way to a TV adaptation after the rights were acquired by one of the game's original stars Elliot Page, through their company Pageboy Productions. Filming the game was one of the most challenging and fulfilling acting experiences of my career, Page told Deadline. The storys rich narrative and emotional depth offer us a fantastic foundation. We want to create a unique vision of the characters and their journeys that resonates with fans and newcomers.The game focused on Jodie Bell, a girl with psychic abilities and a supernatural entity called Aiden for a buddy, who becomes becomes entagled in the world of government secrets after being sent to the United States Department of Paranormal Activity. The show is already in early development, but there's no word yet on whether Page's co-star in the game, Willem Dafoe, will return to his role.We are absolutely thrilled to collaborate again with Elliot Page on this project, added Quantic Dream writer and director, David Cage. I was blown away by his acting performance in the game, and I couldnt think of anyone else to tell this story with the same passion on another medium. Beyond: Two Souls is a very special game for millions of players around the world who were moved by the story of Jodie and Aiden, and their journey in life and beyond. I know that Elliot has all the talent and instinct to make it something really unique on TV.Beyond: Two Souls orginally launched in 2013 as a PlayStation exclusive and was ported to PC in 2015. According to the LinkedIn page of Quantic Dream CEO Guillaume de Fondaumire, the game has sold over 6 million copies worldwide. Pageboy Productions currently has three other announced projects in development including The Darkness Outside Us, a sci-fiction movie based on the YA novel by Eliot Schrefer and PowderKeg, a TV mini-series based on the true story of a murder linked to The Jenny Jones Show. This adaptation will honor the games legacy while inviting fresh perspectives, Pageboys Head of Development and Production Matt Jordan Smith also told Deadline. Delving into questions of survival and how split-second decisions can alter not just our lives, but the lives of others, are key to telling the story.

PocketGamer reports developer Kukouri Mobile Entertainment is leaving game development.In a statement, CEO Petri Piipari revealed the studio has gradually moved away from game development "for a few years now." It's already sold its two game IPs, Pixel Worlds and Tiny Troopers, to Social First. The studio itself still exists, but will pivot to another industry.Piipari revealed its struggles with the two, now delisted properties: Pixel Worlds has failed to be "commercially viable" in recent months, and Troopers is licensed to a separate developer and publisher. As such, Kukouri made the "difficult decision to close down all game operations."At time of writing, no layoffs have been reported, and Kukouri's next moves are unknown. Its now defunct developer website reads: "Thanks for all the years."Who is Social First?Social First, the new steward of Kukouri's former properties, is made up of former staffers from the Finnish studio. Its own game, the Early Access title Nexus Station, has been billed by PocketGamer as a successor to Pixel Worlds. Founder/CEO Kim Soares told the outlet the decision to acquire Pixel and Tiny Troopers' rights "was an easy one. [...] Many of the Social First team have been working at Kukouri on either or both of these IPs earlier in their career, including myself. We wanted to secure the IPs from Kukouri, as they are legacies of many of our team members."Developers spinning up their own studios to carry on the spirit of their former employer is nothing new, but not all of them wind up acquiring the properties they once worked on. For the moment, Soares hasn't disclosed anything about what's in store for either property. However, he did say these acquisitions won't change Social First's Nexus focus "in any way.""Pixel Worlds had one of the best online communities I have ever seen in my career of 25 years in game development, [and] we really hope to see that community come together again in Nexus Station."

I would have preferred any other Super Bowl matchup than another showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, but the world doesnt revolve around me. Regardless, I love a good championship football game, especially one enhanced by an immersive sound system. If youre in need of a home theater audio upgrade yourself, Sonos might be the play, as its offering up to $250 off its connected soundbars and speakers through February 8th.RelatedThe Sonos Arc, for example, is on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart starting at just $649 ($250 off) right now, which is the lowest price weve seen on the high-end soundbar. It was the most impressive soundbar in the Sonos lineup before the Sonos Arc Ultra showed up. Although it doesnt have the expanded soundstage offered by the Ultras extra virtual channels and Sound Motion tech, its still terrific as a standalone Dolby Atmos soundbar with eight woofers, two tweeters, and two upfiring speakers. It supports Apples AirPlay 2 and does the Sonos trick of offering voice-activated control using Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, too.Sonos Arc$649$89928% off$649The Sonos Arc is the companys flagship soundbar, offering a plethora of drivers, including upward-firing Dolby Atmos speakers. This soundbar provides immersive, powerful sound, whether youre watching movies or enjoying music. Read our review.The Arc could still use a bit of bass help, though, assuming you want to get the most out of movies and games after the final whistle blows. You can get that by pairing it with a Sonos Sub Mini, which is matching its all-time of $343 ($86 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos online storefront right now. Its a compact wireless subwoofer that should be much easier to find space for in tighter home theaters than the fourth-gen Sonos Sub. The latter is bigger and more powerful, but also pretty expensive. Thankfully, its available for $679 ($120 off) from Sonos as part of the companys ongoing Super Bowl promo.Sonos Sub Mini$343$42920% off$343It cant fully match the loudness and sheer power of the flagship Sonos Sub, but the more compact Sub Mini still kicks out plenty of boom that will make you feel the low-end bass from your couch. Read our review.If these pairings would stretch your budget too much, Sonos also makes several budget-friendly soundbars. The second-gen Sonos Beam is available for $399 ($100 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos, which is $30 more than its lowest price to date. Its more compact than the Arc, but still offers good sound, an eARC HDMI port, and support for Dolby Atmos with virtualized surround sound channels (though, no up-firing Atmos speakers).Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos are also discounting the entry-level Sonos Ray to $179, which is $100 off and $30 more than its all-time low. It cant match the sound coming out of the Sonos Arc or the latest Beam, but itll surely trump what most TVs can output. Plus, at 22 inches wide, its the ideal size if your entertainment center doesnt have much space. That said, youll need an optical cable for audio from your TV as it doesnt have an HDMI eARC port like the other soundbars do.Sonos Beam (second-gen)$399$49920% off$399The Sonos Beam (second-gen) is a compact soundbar that supports Dolby Atmos and can stream music from a plethora of services. Read our review.Sonos Ray$179$27936% off$179The Ray is Sonos entry-level soundbar thats best for bedrooms and smaller apartments. It only connects to TVs via optical cable, thus missing out on HDMI-CEC functionality. It also produces balanced, dynamic sound despite its small size, easily besting built-in TV speakers. Read our review.If you prefer a smart speaker over a soundbar, the Sonos Era 100 is also currently matching the record low of $199 ($50 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Sonos online storefront. With a pair, you can add rear surround sound to make it feel as though youre in the stands hearing cheers and jeers. That said, the Era 100 doesnt support Dolby Atmos like the beefier Sonos Era 300 does. The latter is the only Atmos-supporting Sonos speaker, and it also happens to be on sale for an all-time low of $359.99 (about $89 off) at Best Buy.The Era 100 does well on its own as an all-around music speaker, though. Like the Era 300, it offers both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, AirPlay 2 support, and Amazon Alexa compatibility (with a dedicated switch to disable the microphone). It also supports Sonos handy Trueplay tuning feature and USB-C line-in, which lets you connect wired devices using an optional 3.5mm to USB-C adapter.Sonos Era 100$199$24920% off$199Sonos Era 100 smart speaker is a replacement for the older Sonos One, utilizing two tweeters (left and right) and one larger woofer. In addition to Wi-Fi, the Era 100 also supports Bluetooth audio and line-in playback via an optional 3.5mm to USB-C adapter. Read our review.Sonos Era 300$360$44920% off$360The hourglass-shaped Sonos Era 300 is designed from the ground up for spatial audio and Dolby Atmos. It supports the same Bluetooth and line-in features as the Era 100. If you pair two 300s together with a Sonos Arc or Beam (Gen 2), you can get truly immersive home theater surround sound. Read our review.$360 at Best Buy$449 at SonosSee More:

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman teased exactly two weeks ago that o3-mini would ship in a couple of weeks, and its arriving on time today. OpenAI is launching its latest o3-mini reasoning model inside ChatGPT and its API services and making a version with rate limits available to free users of ChatGPT for the first time.Originally announced as part of OpenAIs 12 days of ship-mas in December, o3-mini is designed to match o1s performance in math, coding, and science, while responding faster than the existing reasoning model. OpenAI says o3-mini should respond 24 percent faster than o1-mini and provide more accurate answers in the process. Much like o1-mini, this latest model will show how it worked out an answer, rather than just providing a response.OpenAI provided some early benchmarks showing its o3 model outperforming o1 in December, and it now says the o3-mini version will outperform o1 in a number of coding and reasoning tasks at less cost and latency. Developers will be able to leverage o3-mini through OpenAIs API services, including the Chat Completions API, Assistants API, and Batch API.Paid users also be able to select o3-mini-high, which OpenAI says will be the best coding option in ChatGPT and include higher intelligence responses that take a little longer to generate. o3-mini will also work with search to find answers with links to web sources.This is also the first time free users of ChatGPT will be able to try out OpenAIs reasoning models, just days after Microsoft made o1 free for all Copilot users and DeepSeek shook up the AI world. You can try o3-mini free of charge in ChatGPT by selecting the Reason feature in the chat bar, and the rate limits will be similar to the existing GPT-4o limits. o3-mini will also be available for ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Pro users worldwide today, and OpenAI is tripling its message limits for Plus and Teams users to 150 messages per day. Only Pro users, who are willing to pay $200 a month, will get unlimited access to o3-mini.