Blizzard just revealed World of Warcraft: Crossroads, a new short story anthology featuring tales about Thrall, Jaina Proudmoore, Renzik The Shiv, Faerin Lothar, Alleria Windrunner, and Locus-Walker. This World of Warcraft book is planned to release on November 11, but players can listen to one of the short stories in it for free right now.

Echoes of Time is a time-limited quest thats part of the larger Blast from the Past event in The Sims 4. Do it and the other event quests, and youll be able to earn free in-game items like The Surprise Birthday CakeandThe ElectroDance Floor.In order to get all the free items in the Blast from the Past event, you have to do multiple quests. This guide will explain how to unlock the Echoes of Time quest in The Sims 4 and give a full walkthrough on how to beat it.How to unlock Echoes of Time in The Sims 4To start the Echoes of Time quest, you need to complete two quests before it: A Strange Visitor and Missing Clues. Once you finish them, the game will automatically prompt the Echoes of Time quest with a small pop-up window on your screen. Select, OK, and the quest will start.Echoes of Time quest walkthrough in The Sims 4The game will start with two tasks: Read the History of Time Travel at a Library and Study a Historical Display at a Museum. First, pull up your in-game phone and click the green car icon on it to travel to the library in town. Click on the library Willow Creek Archive and then the large car button. Once there, go into the library and left-click on a bookcase, select the option: Read History of Time Travel. Wait a bit, and the game will check that quest off.Now its time to go to the museum. Pull up your phone to travel again and go to the Municipal Muses, the museum in Willow Creek. Click on any work in the exhibit and click View. The view button should have a small Emit icon next to it. Wait for a while and the game will check off this task in the quest. Now go find any computer and click it. Select the Play Game option and then select The Sims Archives vol. 2. Once again, wait for a bit as your Sim plays the game and it will prompt the next part of the quest.Where to find an Elder in The Sims 4Next, the game tells you to Ask an Elder about the Shard. The game just wants you to talk to an older Sim for this step.To go find an older Sim, we waited around our my house in Willow Creek until seeing one walking around in the green space. Another way to do this is by going to a populated local area, like Magnolia Blossom Park, pausing Live Mode, and scrolling around until you find an older Sim.You can check the age of another Sim by hovering your cursor over a Sim without clicking. Once you find a Sim labeled, Elder, go and click it. Introduce yourself if you havent already. Then click again and select the option, Ask about Shard.Now the game tells you to Research Shards of Time. This is pretty easy, but its hidden behind a few menu options. Start by going to a computer and clicking the More Choices, option. From there, you need to click Web, and then Research From there, the option, Research Shards of Time will pop up; select that option. How to find the Shards of Time in The Sims 4The game now tells you to Search Objects for Shards of Time three times. To do this, you need to search random objects in your house and see if they have the Shards of Time.Click on various objects in your home like a couch, computer, bookcase, whatever until one object pulls up the option to Search for Shard of Time. In our playthrough, not every object that we searched had a Shard of Time, but it only took us four tries in total to find three shards.Now that we found three shards, its time to show them to our blue-haired buddy. To do that, go and find Emit, the guy you met in the previous quests. (Polygon found him in Magnolia Blossom Park going for a brisk jog.) Once you find him select the option, Show Shards of Time. Your Sim will show him the Shards and the quest will be complete. For more Blast from the Past quests, see our walkthroughs for Inventing the Past, A Strange Visitor, and Missing Clues, or our full Blast from the Past rewards list.

The Inventing the Past quest is part of a series of timed-limited quests in the Blast from the Past event inThe Sims 4.Each week in the event brings new story content for players to complete. If you do it and all the other quests part of the event you can get free items likeThe Surprise Birthday CakeandThe ElectroDance Floor.Here ishow to unlock and complete the week two Inventing the Pastquest in the Blast from the Past event inThe Sims 4. Since the quest involves a lot of specific steps, this guide will also explain how to level up Logic, how to level up handiness, and how to find plathinum and ironyum in The Sims 4.How to unlock the Inventing the Past questTo unlock the Inventing the Past quest, you must complete three other event quests prior: A Strange Visitor, Missing Clues, and Echoes of Time. Once you complete the Echoes of Time quest, the game will automatically start the content for Inventing the Past.Inventing the Past quest walkthroughAs you start this quest, youll start with three tasks off the bat: Read Theoretical Electronics at a LibraryRepair Something while Handiness Level 2 or HigherExercise Your Mind while Level 2 or Higher in Logic The first task is pretty straightforward: Press M to pull up the map and travel to any neighborhood library, like Willow Creek Archive. Go into the library, click on a bookcase, and select the option, Read Theoretical Electronics. Wait a moment, and that task will be complete.The rest of the quest is like a long to-do list of random tasks. The rest of the guide goes into detail on how to complete all the other tasks. How to level up Handiness in The Sims 4 To start on the Repair Something while Handiness Level 2 or Higher task, you need to level up your Sims Handiness to level two or higher. If youre playing from an existing save file, its likely your Sim has already reached a high enough level. If not, here is how to level up Handiness in The Sims 4.An easy way to level up your Sims Handiness level is by putting a Woodworking Table in its home. Its a piece of furniture in the Activities and Skills section of the objects menu and it costs 750 simoleons. Once you have one and placed in your home, its time to use it. Click it and select Horse Sculpture or Knife Sculpture. Continue to create sculptures until you level up. We only had to make three to raise our Handiness from level one to two.Now we need to repair an object. To do this, you can continue to live your day-to-day life until any object breaks. To speed this process up, Polygon bought the cheapest sink and used it a ton by cleaning dishes and having our Sim use it to wash its hands. When an object breaks, click it, select the Repair option.How to level up Logic in The Sims 4Now the game asks you to Exercise Your Mind while Level 2 or Higher in Logic.The easiest way to level up your Logic in The Sims 4 is to play chess. If you dont have a chess board, you can buy a basic one for 450 simoleons or you can use the public ones for free in Magnolia Blossom Park. Go to a board and continue to play until your Sims Logic level increases from one to two. Once your Sims has Logic level of two, play any chess game again, and it will satisfy the quest request for, Exercise Your Mind while Level 2 or Higher in Logic.How to get plathinum and ironyum in The Sims 4Now you need to find two kinds of ores: plathinum and ironyum. Theyre different items, but you use the same process to find each one. Heres how to find them.Hit M to pull up the map and travel to an outdoor area like Magnolia Blossom Park. Now look around outside until you find the spots to mine for the ore. Pause Live Mode if you want, and scan the surrounding area for protruding rocks that mark where you can mine for plathinum and ironyum. They look like the image below. Click on each rock and select the Dig option. Continue to dig in these marked spots until you unearth plathinum and ironyum. After completing that long to-do list, the game now instructs you to Build the Time Travel Component. To do that, pull up your inventory by pressing I and scroll down to Shard of Time icon that looks like a purple crystal. Click it and select, Build Time Travel Component. Do that and the quest is done!For more Blast from the Past quests, see our walkthroughs for Echoes of Time, A Strange Visitor, and Missing Clues, or our full Blast from the Past rewards list.

There's nothing worse than opening a PDF and realizing you can't use the search function or even highlight text. This typically happens when a PDF was created by scanning a paper documentit's just a series of images. Most modern scanning software uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) so that words are both searchable and selectable but sometimes you'll run into documents where this didn't happen.In those cases, the free and open source OCRmyPDF is perfect to have around. This is a command line application that quickly converts any PDF file into a PDF/A file complete with optical character recognition, meaning you'll be able to search the text. Even better, it's completely free.Installing the application is best done using your package manager on Linux devices and using Homebrew on Mac. Windows users can technically install the application by installing Python and a few other dependencieslook into that if you're willing to do some digging.Once the application is set up, you can use it by typing ocrmypdf followed by the name of the document you want to add OCR to, and then the name of the document you'd like to create. So, for example, ocrmypdf before.pdf after.pdf would take "before.pdf", add character recognition, then create a new document called "after.pdf".The process will take awhile, depending on the size of the document, and it might not be entirely accurate if the image quality is low. Even saying all that, though, I found this did a pretty good job even with the most ancient and poorly compressed PDFs I could dig up. Credit: Justin Pot And there's more you can do here: In fact, the Cookbook on the OCRmyPDF documentation outlines a bunch of things you could do. You can compress the images in the PDF, for example, by adding --pdfa-image-compression jpeg to your commend. You can automatically re-orient any pages with sideways text by adding --rotate-pages to the command. Or maybe the PDF you're processing already has OCR that you think is poor qualityyou can add --redo-ocr to the command; this will strip out existing OCR information and start over.You get the idea: There's a lot here. Check out the documentation for more information because there's more this thing can do.

If youve been living your life severed from Apple TV because youre on an Android phone, then Apple has some good news for you, refiner. Starting today, the Apple TV app is available on Pixels, Samsung Galaxies, and all other Android phones and tablets, complete with the ability to subscribe to Apple TV+ and the MLS (Major League Soccer) Season Pass.Thats great news for anyone who, like me, cant stop thinking about Severance, and Apples doing its best to make the sign-up process as easy as possible. According to a press release sent to journalists, Android users are able to sign up for Apple TVs various subscriptions using their Google Play account, rather than needing to enter a separate email.Apple TVs non-subscription offerings will also be available to Android users, so youll be able to watch pay-per-view titles as well.Android devices arent the first non-Apple hardware to get access to Apple TVI personally watch via my PlayStation 5but the new cross-platform support should make mobile viewing much easier. Android TV did technically already have a version of Apple TV up for download, but now all Android devices will share the same privilege.Aside from Severance, which is currently in its second season, Apple TV+ also hosts popular shows including comedy Ted Lasso and sci-fi drama Silo, as well as original films like Killers of the Flower Moon and Coda. There are also more niche favorites like game-development sitcom Mythic Quest, which carries over much of the same creative team from Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Regarding sports, Apple TV+ fans get access to Friday Night Baseball and Sunday Night Soccer for free.The Major League Soccer Season Pass, meanwhile, is a separate purchase from Apple TV+ and allows viewers to watch all available MLS matches without blackouts, rather than only those featured on Sunday Night Soccer. To sweeten the pot, theres also an array of bonus content such as post-match analysis, highlights, and interviews with players. The league is set to kick off its 30th season on Feb. 22, which Im guessing might have influenced todays sudden announcement.As on Apple devices, Android users can get a seven-day free trial to Apple TV+ as soon as they download the app, although theres a number of more tempting deals out there that tend to rotate in and out of availability. If you decide to take the plunge, a subscription will run you $10 a month, or $19.95 a month if you decide to get it as part of an Apple One plan. The MLS Season Pass, then, costs $15 a month standalone, or $13 a month if you already have an Apple TV+ subscription.

Blizzard is making some major changes to Overwatch 2 for its Season 15 update, including adding all new gameplay in the form of a perks system and the return of loot box rewards, on top of the new heroes and skins.Overwatch 2 has been through several changes since it left early access in 2023, many of which brought the game from the revamped structure that made it a sequel to something that works more like a free-to-play version of the original Overwatch. Perks are legitimately new, though. Now during a match you'll be given two opportunities to pick a perk for your hero. One minor perk after leveling up for the first time, which adds smaller upgrades like a passive ability or a cooldown reduction, and one major perk that can alter the play style of your hero. For example, Torbjorn can pick from turrets that stick to ceilings and walls (a frankly diabolical upgrade) or an even more powerful "Level 3 turret."Blizzard EntertainmentAs a reward for your hard work in-game, Blizzard is also adding to Overwatch 2's battle pass system by reintroducing loot boxes as another way to get cosmetics. You can earn loot boxes by completely weekly and event rewards, and you'll get one Legendary Loot Box for having the Free Battle Pass or two Legendary Loot Boxes for having the Premium Battle Pass, as well. Beyond publishing drop rates for boxes, Blizzard is guaranteeing that "a Rare or better item will drop in every single box, with an Epic item within five consecutive boxes and a Legendary item within twenty consecutive boxes."Blizzard Entertainment Coming a bit later in Season 16, Overwatch 2 will get an entirely new "Stadium" game mode that draws clear inspiration from competing shooters Counter-Strike 2 and Valorant. In a Stadium match you'll be placed on a team of five fighting to earn currency across seven possible rounds. In-between rounds you can spend that currency to unlock upgrades and customize your abilities as you play. Stadium will also let you pick between the traditional first-person mode or a new third-person mode, which should make it easier to aim some of the wilder abilities you can unlock during a match.The cherry on top to all these changes are new quality of life features Blizzard plans to add this year, like the ability to ban specific heroes from a match, and vote on maps you want to play. Of course, there are also two new heroes in the works: Freja, "a former search and rescue operative turned bounty hunter" with an explosive crossbow who will be playable in a free trial weekend during Season 15 before joining the game in Season 16, and a hero currently being called "Aqua" who will land in Season 18 and can control water.Season 15 launches on February 18, while features like hero bans and map voting are coming later this year, in that order, according to Blizzard.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/overwatch-2s-next-update-overhauls-the-game-with-perks-and-loot-boxes-212409206.html?src=rss

OpenAI's upcoming GPT-5 release will integrate its o3 reasoning model and be available to free users, CEO Sam Altman revealed in a roadmap he shared on X. He said the company is also working to simplify how users interact with ChatGPT."We want AI to 'just work' for you; we realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten," Altman wrote. "We hate the model picker as much as you do and want to return to magic unified intelligence."In its current iteration, forcing ChatGPT to use a specific model, such as o3-mini, involves either tapping the "Reason" button in the prompt bar or one of the options present in the model picker, which appears after the chatbot answers a question. If you pay for ChatGPT Plus or Pro, that dropdown menu can get pretty long, with multiple models and intelligence settings to choose from.OPENAI ROADMAP UPDATE FOR GPT-4.5 and GPT-5:We want to do a better job of sharing our intended roadmap, and a much better job simplifying our product offerings.We want AI to just work for you; we realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten.We hate Sam Altman (@sama) February 12, 2025 As for the company's roadmap, Altman says GPT-4.5 will be OpenAI's "last non-chain-thought model," meaning everything that comes after will feature the capability to solve problems by breaking them down into a series of intermediate steps. Following the release of GPT 4.5, OpenAI's primary goal is "to unify o-series models and GPT-series models by creating systems that can use all our tools, know when to think for a long time or not, and generally be useful for a very wide range of tasks."Looking ahead to GPT-5, Altman says OpenAI will release the model "as a system that integrates a lot of our technology," including o3 and its recently released Deep Research feature. In a change of plans, OpenAI won't release o3 as a standalone model. Previously, Altman had said the new system would arrive "shortly after" o3-mini, which OpenAI made available for public use at the end of last month.Once GPT-5 arrives, OpenAI plans to offer free users unlimited access to the model, "subject to abuse thresholds," at "the standard intelligence setting." Plus users will get to run GPT-5 "at a higher level of intelligence," while Pro users will get to run the model at "an even higher level of intelligence."Altman did not provide an exact timeline for either GPT-4.5 or GPT-5, other than to say they could arrive within weeks or months.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-will-offer-free-chatgpt-users-unlimited-access-to-gpt-5-211935734.html?src=rss

The new ID.One is set to cost around $21,000 when it goes on sale.

Looking for Quordle clues? We can help. Plus get the answers to Quordle today and past solutions.

Cisco topped analysts' estimates and lifted its full year guidance due in part to orders for artificial intelligence infrastructure.