Following the massive version 2.0 introducing Rinascita, Kuro Games Wuthering Waves is slated to receive a new update on February 13th. Waves Sing, and the Cerulean Bird Calls adds two new five-star Resonators Phoebe and Brant alongside new locations and story quests. Check out the trailer below.The locales in question include the Averado Vaults underground section, the Riccioli Islands, where some manner of mystery awaits, Whisperwind Haven with its windmills, and much more. There will be five new Echoes and an option to save them to presets for seamless switching.A Suggest feature is also inbound to highlight the best Echoes alongside their most common stats, which should help when building characters. If that wasnt enough, players can store up to 3,000 Echoes.Stay tuned for more details on Version 2.1 before its launch. Wuthering Waves is available for PC, iOS, Android, and, most recently, PS5. Check out our review here, which also outlines Rinascita and its content.

Want to apply for an Epic MegaGrant this year? Dont miss this important change regarding the submission window. Read on to ensure you have all your bases covered when it comes to applying for an EpicMegaGrant.

Snail Games said it will show up at GDC with a lineup of updates, first-look reveals, and new partnerships to highlight its growth strategy.Read More

President Donald Trump has paused the removal of the de minimis exemption on goods from China, temporarily putting an end to the confusion and high fees that have plagued both customers and businesses over the past few days. The de minimis exemption allows packages valued at less than $800 to enter the country duty free, but the exemption had been removed as part of Trumps tariffs against China that went into effect this week.The pause is only temporary. It was issued this morning through an executive order, which says that the de minimis exemption will be removed again when the Secretary of Commerce notifies the administration that adequate systems are in place to fully and expediently process and collect tariff revenue.One of the major issues facing implementation of the tariffs was processing and collecting fees on the vast number of packages that were no longer safe under the exemption. The executive order seems to acknowledge the need for process and staffing changes, halting the de minimis removal until at least some of the shipping chaos can be contained.Following the implementation of the tariffs, the United States Postal Service stopped and restarted accepting packages from China and Hong Kong, and people have observed additional import fees on packages shipped from China. Companies like Shein and Temu depend on the rule as a way to directly ship low-cost goods to buyers without requiring them to pay import fees.The 10 percent tariff on goods from China is still in effect. Trump also announced tariffs against Mexico and Canada, but those were put on a one-month pause this week.

The Trump administrations war on electric cars continues with the halt of a national program that sends money to states to install EV charging equipment. It was the latest move by President Donald Trump to reverse Biden-era EV policies even as those policies have personally enriched his top ally, Elon Musk.According to a memo from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program will be put on pause while it is retooled to align with the new administrations priorities (those priorities being more gas guzzlers and fewer EVs). The agency said it is immediately suspending the approval of plans to deploy new EV chargers for all fiscal years and will no longer approve new funding requests until a new plan is implemented.The FHWA said it aims to have updated guidance published by the spring, at which point it will start accepting public comment. After the comment period is closed, it will issue revised guidance that incorporates its responses to public comment.Gas guzzlers > EVsThe agency is also giving leeway to those states (most of which are Republican-run) that have declined to spend federal funds already received under NEVI.Since FHWA is suspending the existing State plans, States will be held harmless for not implementing their existing plans, Emily Biondi, associate administrator at the agency, writes in the memo to state transportation officials. Until new guidance is issued, reimbursement of existing obligations will be allowed in order to not disrupt current financial commitments.Since his election, Trump has vowed to reverse many of his predecessors pro-EV policies, including the federal EV tax credit and new tailpipe emission rules that would require automakers to produce more EVs. The NEVI program, in particular, was often criticized by Republicans as wasteful, especially after The Washington Post reported in March 2024 that only seven charging stations with 38 ports had been opened under the program.NEVI may have gotten off to a slow start, but its most recent report for the fourth quarter of 2024 showed improved progress. According to the Q4 update, there are 126 public EV charging ports in operation across 31 NEVI stations in nine states, an 83 percent increase in open NEVI ports over the previous quarter. (In Q3, there were 69 public charging ports in operation across 17 NEVI stations in eight states.)A total of 41 states have released at least their first round of solicitations, as of November 2024. Of those states, 35 have issued conditional awards or put agreements in place for over 3,560 fast-charging ports across more than 890 charging station locations.Since his election, Trump has vowed to reverse many of his predecessors pro-EV policiesThat progress is now at risk with the Trump administration rescinding funds for NEVI. The legality of pausing the program is certainly an open question, especially considering the money for it was approved by Congress as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The Trump administration attempted to freeze all funding for federal programs, only to rescind the order after a judge ordered it to be paused.Another variable is Elon Musk, who is leading Trumps efforts to root out waste in the federal government under the umbrella of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has said he supports eliminating federal incentives for EVs, while also collecting vast sums of taxpayer dollars to expand his companys EV charging network. Tesla has received $31 million in NEVI funds to install 539 DC fast-charging ports, which represents 6 percent of all funds distributed so far, according to a dashboard that tracks the spending.Barring any legal challenges, the EV charging industry now must wait for the Department of Transportation to retool the program. The pause could also give congressional Republicans enough time to write legislation to rescind funding for the program altogether, which would obviate the need for the administration to follow the process it laid out in the memo.Eliminating federal funding for EV charging would have a significant impact on the number of chargers that get installed and could help further dampen EV sales. Consumers routinely cite charging anxiety as among their top concerns about switching to electric power. With todays order, the Trump administration is essentially making that problem worse.See More:

Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT, Gemini, and Claude utilize vast training datasets and complex architectures to generate high-quality responses. However, optimizing their inference-time computation remains challenging, as increasing model size leads to higher computational costs. Researchers continue to explore strategies that maximize efficiency while maintaining or improving model performance.One widely adopted approach for improving LLM performance is ensembling, where multiple models are combined to generate a final output. Mixture-of-Agents (MoA) is a popular ensembling method that aggregates responses from different LLMs to synthesize a high-quality response. However, this method introduces a fundamental trade-off between diversity and quality. While combining diverse models may offer advantages, it can also result in suboptimal performance due to the inclusion of lower-quality responses. Researchers aim to balance these factors to ensure optimal performance without compromising response quality.Traditional MoA frameworks operate by first querying multiple proposer models to generate responses. An aggregator model then synthesizes these responses into a final answer. The effectiveness of this method relies on the assumption that diversity among proposer models leads to better performance. However, this assumption does not account for potential quality degradation caused by weaker models in the mix. Prior research has primarily focused on increasing cross-model diversity rather than optimizing proposer models quality, leading to performance inconsistencies.A research team from Princeton University introduced Self-MoA, a novel ensembling method that eliminates the need for multiple models by aggregating various outputs from a single high-performing model. Unlike traditional MoA, which mixes different LLMs, Self-MoA leverages in-model diversity by repeatedly sampling from the same model. This approach ensures that only high-quality responses contribute to the final output, addressing the quality-diversity trade-off observed in Mixed-MoA configurations.Self-MoA operates by generating multiple responses from a single top-performing model and synthesizing them into a final output. Doing so eliminates the need to incorporate lower-quality models, thereby improving overall response quality. To further enhance scalability, researchers introduced Self-MoA-Seq, a sequential variation that processes multiple responses iteratively. This allows for efficient aggregation of outputs even in scenarios where computational resources are constrained. Self-MoA-Seq processes outputs using a sliding window approach, ensuring that LLMs with shorter context lengths can still benefit from ensembling without compromising performance.Experiments demonstrated that Self-MoA significantly outperforms Mixed-MoA across various benchmarks. On the AlpacaEval 2.0 benchmark, Self-MoA achieved a 6.6% improvement over traditional MoA. When tested across multiple datasets, including MMLU, CRUX, and MATH, Self-MoA showed an average improvement of 3.8% over Mixed-MoA approaches. When applied to one of the top-ranking models in AlpacaEval 2.0, Self-MoA set a new state-of-the-art performance record, further validating its effectiveness. Further, Self-MoA-Seq proved to be as effective as aggregating all outputs simultaneously while addressing the limitations imposed by model context length constraints.The research findings highlight a crucial insight into MoA configurationsperformance is highly sensitive to proposer quality. The results confirm that incorporating diverse models does not always lead to superior performance. Instead, ensembling responses from a single high-quality model yields better outcomes. Researchers conducted over 200 experiments to analyze the trade-off between quality and diversity, concluding that Self-MoA consistently outperforms Mixed-MoA when the best-performing model is used exclusively as the proposer.This study challenges the prevailing assumption that mixing different LLMs leads to better results. By demonstrating the superiority of Self-MoA, it presents a new perspective on optimizing LLM inference-time computation. The findings indicate that focusing on high-quality individual models rather than increasing diversity can improve overall performance. As LLM research continues to evolve, Self-MoA provides a promising alternative to traditional ensembling methods, offering an efficient and scalable approach to enhancing model output quality.Check outthePaper.All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitterand join ourTelegram ChannelandLinkedIn Group. Dont Forget to join our75k+ ML SubReddit. NikhilNikhil is an intern consultant at Marktechpost. He is pursuing an integrated dual degree in Materials at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Nikhil is an AI/ML enthusiast who is always researching applications in fields like biomaterials and biomedical science. With a strong background in Material Science, he is exploring new advancements and creating opportunities to contribute.Nikhilhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/nikhil0980/NYU Researchers Introduce WILDCHAT-50M: A Large-Scale Synthetic Dataset for Efficient LLM Post-TrainingNikhilhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/nikhil0980/This AI Paper from Meta Introduces Diverse Preference Optimization (DivPO): A Novel Optimization Method for Enhancing Diversity in Large Language ModelsNikhilhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/nikhil0980/Researchers from University of Waterloo and CMU Introduce Critique Fine-Tuning (CFT): A Novel AI Approach for Enhancing LLM Reasoning with Structured Critique LearningNikhilhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/nikhil0980/Researchers from Stanford, UC Berkeley and ETH Zurich Introduces WARP: An Efficient Multi-Vector Retrieval Engine for Faster and Scalable Search [Recommended] Join Our Telegram Channel

LatestMachine LearningGenAI for Better NLP Systems III: A Tool That Simplifies Text Annotation 0 like February 7, 2025Share this postLast Updated on February 7, 2025 by Editorial TeamAuthor(s): Nabanita Roy Originally published on Towards AI. This article explores how prompt engineering & LLMs offer a digital, quick, and better annotation approach over manual onesThis member-only story is on us. Upgrade to access all of Medium.Image Source : Author (Inspiration: https://www.dqlabs.ai/blog/what-is-data-quality-management/)Lets start with a question for this article, shall we? How do you tell the Machine Learning models the meaning of a particular word, especially when they are quantitatively intelligent and lexically challenged?Behind the Medium paywall? Click here to access the blog for free.Data annotation plays a crucial role in developing and assessing NLP models with supervised learning, a branch of machine learning that relies on the guidance it receives to train on a set of data points. It involves identifying and labeling text with additional information to specify the role of words or sentences in the given context.Annotations are widely used in medical research (vast medical terms/jargons in literature), finance and legals (sentiment and other indicators), customer service and chatbots (identify specific keywords and action them), social media, retail and e-commerce and so on. This definitely estimates the spectrum of usage of text annotations to cater to the demands of the AI revolution across various industries.Traditionally, this is used to be a manual job but not anymore. Clearly Generative AI has given us this immense advantage of textual intelligence already and it is Read the full blog for free on Medium.Join thousands of data leaders on the AI newsletter. Join over 80,000 subscribers and keep up to date with the latest developments in AI. From research to projects and ideas. If you are building an AI startup, an AI-related product, or a service, we invite you to consider becoming asponsor. Published via Towards AITowards AI - Medium Share this post

Pokmon Trading Card Game Pocket has a strange black market where players are buying and selling the digital cards online via its controversial trading mechanic.Myriad listings for Pokmon TCG Pocket cards have appeared on eBay, with players charging $5 to $10 per card. This is only possible through the game's recently introduced trading mechanic, as these sellers are simply asking to exchange friend codes with the buyers and then sending a card over.One $5.99 listing for a Starmie ex, for example, asks buyers to ensure they have 500 Trade Tokens, one Trade Stamina, and most importantly, an "unwanted Pokmon ex" to exchange for the card they actually want.This is where things get a bit strange. While it's already a blatant breach of the Pokmon TCG Pocket terms of service as "buying or selling virtual contents or data on the service" is not allowed the seller in these situations essentially loses nothing.The buyer gives up a card they don't need for a card they do, which is a regular trade beyond the price tag, but the buyer doesn't lose stock. Per the restrictions on trading, only cards of the same rarity can be traded, meaning the seller gains an ex Pokmon when they sell one and can therefore just sell it again.Myriad listings for ex Pokmon and 1 Star, alternate art cards, the two rarest available to trade, are listed on eBay, each with varying price tags. Entire accounts are on sale too, offering the likes of Pack Hourglasses and rare cards within them, though this is a fairly common for online games, breach of service or not.Trading in Pokmon TCG Pocket proved controversial upon its release last week, though this trading online isn't directly related to the complaints.Alongside the standard mechanic that restricts players from opening packs or Wonder Picking or, now, trading too much without spending real world money, the feature was also introduced with an extra restriction called Trade Tokens. Players criticized the high cost of obtaining these, as they essentially had to delete from their collections five cards before trading one of the same rarity.This black market would have spawned even if trading had been released with absolutely no restrictions, however. The only relation to what players have complained about so far is in how bare bones the mechanic is, as there is no way to trade without being friends with another player.This is because some players, like siraquakip on Reddit, were hoping for "a pretty safe way for the community to connect more." Players have called for the ability to put cards up for trade publicly within the app, alleviating the need for using external websites like Reddit and Discord, and now eBay, to find the cards they need.Every Alternate Art 'Secret' Card in Pokmon TCG Pocket: Space Time SmackdownDeveloper Creatures Inc. has already warned players against buying and selling cards using real world money and other methods of cheating, telling players before trading launched that "if we confirm that a player has engaged in behavior that violates the Terms of Use, we will warn them, suspend their account, or take other action."The irony is that Creatures Inc. deployed the hated Trade Tokens mechanic in order to stop exploiting the system in ways exactly like these eBay sellers are doing. It's therefore clearly not worked, but has turned much of the community against the developer.It's currently "actively investigating ways to improve" the trading feature but hasn't released any specifics on how it will do so despite complaints starting three weeks ago when it first unveiled the feature.Fans have claimed trading is being implemented as a means of increasing revenue for Pokmon TCG Pocket, which is estimated to have made half a billion dollars in less than three months, before trading was possible.This is also evidenced by the inability to trade cards of 2 Star rarity or higher, as if players could immediately trade for their missing cards, they wouldn't need to spend $10 or $100 or more for a random chance of getting them. It cost one player around $1,500 just to complete the first set, for example, and the third in three months arrived last week.Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Player housing is coming to World of Warcraft, and Blizzard has unveiled its first look at how the MMO will handle it. In a new preview, the WoW team walked through early details, and even threw a quick jab at Final Fantasy XIV's housing in the process.World of Warcraft is adding a sought-after housing feature in its upcoming expansion, World of Warcraft: Midnight. Amid its pillars and goals for housing in the recent dev blog, Blizzard listed "A Home for Everyone" as one of its targets."As a part of our focus on wide adoption, we wanted to ensure that Housing is available to everyone. If you want a house, you can have a house," Blizzard said. "No exorbitant requirements or high purchase costs, no lotteries, and no onerous upkeep (and if your subscription lapses, dont worry, your house doesnt get repossessed!)."Player housing is, in essence, what it sounds like: physical homes players can buy in these MMO worlds, with plenty of room for personalization and decoration, that other players can visit. It's a very popular facet of Final Fantasy XIV where housing feeds player ingenuity, resulting in theater productions, nightclubs, cafes, and museums.Of course, Final Fantasy XIV also has some rather infamous housing woes. There are a limited number of plots per server, you have to pay high amounts of Gil and enter a lottery, and then risk your house being demolished if left alone too long.World of Warcraft's aim seems to be countering some concerns players might have about housing, based on Final Fantasy XIV's situation. Housing is even shared among the Warband, so characters can come and go, and rewards are also shared across characters and factional lines. While a Human character can't buy a house in the Horde zone, a Troll character in your Warband can, and then the Human character can use it.Additionally, while World of Warcraft's housing will be split into just two housing zones and "Neighborhoods" of roughly 50 plots apiece, they are instanced and have both Public and Private options. The former is maintained by game servers and created "as needed," so there's no clear limit yet on Neighborhoods.Blizzard seems to be in it for the long haul with World of Warcraft housing. In its stated pillars, alongside "boundless self-expression" and "deeply social," the team said it wants housing to be a "long lasting journey" with its own roadmap, and updates stretching out into future patches and expansions. It certainly feels like a commitment, and though it took a jab at XIV's systems, it also shows Blizzard is aware of the pitfalls.There are still more details to iron out between now and the expected summer unveiling of World of Warcraft: Midnight.Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

25 years ago, The Sims made history with the first instalment of a legendary series that would go on to be one of the best-selling of all time. Few simulation games have enjoyed the success and longevity of The Sims and the freedom and creativity to play with life however you want has afforded the series near-unrivalled appeal in the years since.This week, Electronic Arts is celebrating this milestone and the history of the series in a big way, which includes a huge The Sims 4 Free Content Update containing new Create a Sim options, clothing, Build/Buy Items and much more. The festivities will also include the limited-time Blast From The Past Event, which lets players earn revamped versions of iconic items from the original The Sims game via in-game goals.We had the opportunity to chat with Kevin Gibson, Production Director for The Sims at EA. Gibson has been working in production roles across the franchise since 2003, and has first-hand experience of how the series has evolved in that time. The studio is abuzz with excitement about the franchises birthday, and Gibson shares that digging deep into the series past to rediscover nostalgic highlights has been extremely rewarding.Our incredible players have shown us that no one does life like The Sims, and we wanted to celebrate this journey we have been on together, Gibson says. 25 years ago there was a game with an idea that made big a splash at E3, and look where we are today! Weve been part of multiple generations and touched millions of lives.We wouldnt be here today without that, and we wanted to take a moment to pause and recognize all of our players from those who were there at the E3 launch in 1999, to those that are brand new Simmers today enjoying The Sims 4 for the first time. All of the Simmers from all of the years and all of the different ways to play The Sims, are part of this 25-year journey, and this is our way of saying thank you.Blast From The PastThe Blast From The Past event is a particularly nostalgic look back at the early 2000s, bringing memorable clothing, furniture and decor from the early Sims games into The Sims 4. Among the items are some of my personal favourites, including two bold neon inflatable chairs, a three-tiered cake, and the fabulous light-up dancefloor where my young self also ordered many a Sim to boogie on down.A lot has happened in the world in 25 years too in the year 2000, The Sims created a simulation in the image of real life. Now, that original game serves as a time capsule to a past life. For example, in the first game, putting a wired phone inside your home was a necessity. In The Sims 4, Sims carry their own mobile phones, brimming with services that can be accessed anywhere, just like us.Weve taken time to really explore the history of The Sims, going back to the roots and playing the original game, as well as exploring many of the previous game launches to remind ourselves of all the different ways people play with life, Gibson tells us. Everyone at the studio has had a different part of the franchise they cherish as meaningful to them, and the opportunity to share those moments with our players as part of the 25th birthday celebration has been a lot of fun.Preserving the Spirit of The SimsThe original The Sims was great fun, but often irreverent, difficult and downright wacky in the scenarios it presented. Your Sims could perish in freak accidents, their shrill screams piercing through your cheap PC speakers, all while another Sim is receiving a mysterious prank call about canoes. While The Sims has evolved to welcome a wider audience across two decades, its spirit remains largely unchanged, and this is something that the team has always wanted to preserve.The Sims was hard. Your Sims died, a lot. However, a core concept of The Sims was that it was your story and the game provided the push back in a humorous way, Gibson says, The tradition of letting the player tell their story, while the game pokes at the edges with humor and challenge has been a key pillar of how we make decisions for the game.The Sims 4 continues in that original spirit of serving the needs of the player and the story they are telling, while using comedy to enhance the story in new and different ways your Sims can die, they can be ghosts, they can romance the Grim Reaper or even become a Reaper themselves.Even at over a decade old, The Sims 4 continues to feel fresh, with a consistent roadmap of content packs and updates. The Sims as a franchise has always evolved over time, marking huge economical, societal and technological advancements inside its progression systems, and that is reflected in the recent Free Content Update.The Sims 4 team wanted to give our players something that felt more in line with todays fashions and trends for clothing and decor, Gibson adds. We spent time doing a full review of our assets in the game, finding where there was room to draw inspiration from modern expectations of aesthetics and style that our players expect as part of the new content we wanted to add.The Sims can draw from reality, fantasy and science fiction, romance, home decor, world culture, travel and so much more, Gibson adds. Were always building onto this ever-growing toybox of options and experiences within The Sims. In addition, we have a large group of people who are all eager to share moments from their lived experiences and help bring authentic nuances to the game to help tell stories players are interested in telling.The Sims team has also kept a close eye on community requests and discussions over the years, and lots of additions that have been made to The Sims 4 directly reflect what the players are asking for, a demonstrable commitment to building a game for everyone.Our evolution has been fuelled constantly through listening to our players, Gibson adds. The Sims is about the player, the story they are trying to tell, the creative space they are trying to build within, and the expression they want to have within the game. We have evolved the most in the need to change and grow to meet our players expectations of this franchise and to reflect the world we all live in.From the beginning, weve always sought to immerse our player community in this different version of the world we know, where they can experiment and explore, and express themselves. Across all our games and spin-offs, this core commitment to creativity and imagination has always remained true, and underlying it all is an enthusiastic, endlessly inspiring community.The new The Sims 4 Free Content Update and Blast From The Past Event are available to play in The Sims 4 now. There are lots more Sims celebrations going on this week be sure to visit the official website for more information. The Sims 4 base game is also free-to-play on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.The Sims 4Electronic Arts717Get it nowXbox One X EnhancedUnleash your imagination and create a unique world of Sims thats an expression of you! Download for free and customize every detail from Sims to homes, and much more. Choose how Sims look, act, and dress, then decide how theyll live out each day. Design and build incredible homes for every family, then decorate with your favorite furnishings and dcor. Travel to different neighborhoods where you can meet other Sims and learn about their lives. Discover beautiful locations with distinctive environments and go on spontaneous adventures. Manage the ups and downs of Sims everyday lives and see what happens when you play out scenarios from your own real life! Tell your stories your way while developing relationships, pursuing careers and life aspirations, and immersing yourself in this extraordinary game, where the possibilities are endless. Play with life!Download for Free The base game of The Sims 4 is free to download. Get a plethora of options for building homes, styling Sims, and customizing their personalities. Craft their life stories while exploring vibrant worlds and discovering more ways of being you all at no cost.Create Unique Sims A variety of Sims are yours to personalize, each with distinct appearances, dynamic personalities, and inspiring aspirations. Use powerful customization features to bring your imagination to life. Create yourself, your favorite celebrities, your fantasy, or your friends! Change your Sims clothing to reflect your mood, develop stories that deepen your world, and give their lives purpose with traits and aspirations.Build the Perfect Home Effortlessly build and design homes for your Sims in Build Mode. Construct the home of your and their dreams by planning its layout, choosing furnishings, and altering the landscape and terrain. You can even add a pool, basement, and garden, or rebuild with new ideas and designs!Play with Life Control every moment of your Sims lives from their relationships to their careers. Your choices shape every aspect of their lives from birth into adulthood. Along the way, develop your Sims skills, pursue original hobbies, take them on adventures, start new families, and much more.Add New Experiences Use the Gallery to find inspiration from a community of players just like you. Download and comment on your favorite Sims, homes, and designed rooms.Get More with EA Play EA Play* members can expand their career possibilities with The Sims 4 Get to Work Expansion Pack*Conditions, limitations and exclusions apply. See tos.ea.com/legalapp/eaplay/US/en/PC/ for details. Conditions & restrictions apply. See ea.com/legal for details.