Until now, Apple Intelligence has been reserved for the cool kids aka, the people with the latest, most powerful iPhones. Now, the $599 (599, AU$999) iPhone 16E is here to shake that up.Apple's latest version of its budget phone line invariably cuts corners when it comes to design and camera specs, but it doesn't hold back with AI. Equipped with an A18 chip -- just like the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus -- the more affordable phone can power a suite of Apple Intelligence features including notification summaries, writing tools and a smarter Siri. That means more people will now get to tap into the incessant AI buzz, without breaking the bank.Apple packing this budget-friendly device with its most advanced AI capabilities demonstrates just how serious it is about getting these features into more people's hands. While AI has been used to lure people into upgrading to the latest and greatest (and most expensive) iPhones, Apple has suddenly created a fresh, less steep path for people to see what it's all about. Loading a budget phone with AI is nothing new; Google's Pixel 8A and Samsung's Galaxy S24 FE both pack AI-powered tools, as do various other lower-priced Android phones. But Apple stepping into the ring with its own supercharged, budget-friendly device only helps to expand AI's approachability and attainability.For many people, generative AI can come off as impractical, foreign or simply unnecessary. But if the barrier to entry is lowered, and you don't have to spend around $1,000 on an iPhone to see what all the fuss is about, then there's more of an opportunity for people to see if and how the tech fits into their lives.Making AI more practicalWhat makes the iPhone 16E stand apart from its pricier counterparts is its focus on delivering a solid baseline product, without all the frills -- or dollar signs. The inclusion of Apple Intelligence is undoubtedly a signal that from here on out, AI should be seen as a core component of the iPhone, whether you're spending $600 or $1,600.My hope is that this leads to AI feeling more practical and less superfluous as it develops. I'll hate on Genmoji until the day I die, but I doubt someone who simply wants the essential functions of an iPhone also wants to generate a custom emoji of a turtle on a skateboard smoking a pipe (If you do in fact want this, more power to you).Rather, it's those more useful AI functions like the Clean Up tool in Photos or a more conversational and helpful Siri that can really endear people to AI. While iPhone owners resolutely want longer battery life or better cameras over AI, there are some perks in Apple's toolbox that can make good iPhone features even better.And if Apple really is focused on making Apple Intelligence a core functionality of all its devices, it'll now have a wider audience to draw feedback from as it continues to shape those features.

February 20, 20255 min readSurprising Chimpanzee Signal Reveals Secrets of Ape CommunicationA rare and deliberate signal between a mother chimpanzee and her daughter raises new questions about ape communication, culture and the meaning of sharing a languageBy Avery Schuyler Nunn edited by Sarah Lewin FrasierA mother chimpanzee, Beryl, sits by her infant, Lindsay, in a remote forest in Uganda. Kevin C. LeeAn hours drive down a ragged dirt road, deep in the heart of Ugandas Kibale National Park, a small research camp sits in the middle of chimpanzee territory. Tangled vines drape ancient trees in the semi deciduous forest, and equatorial sunsets ignite the sky, savannas, lakes and misty mountain peaks in molten gold and ember red. For the primatologists stationed here, mornings begin with a map of yesterdays chimp movements, a tally of fruiting treesand an ear tuned to the forest. The apes calls start early with low, rolling pant-hoots that ripple through the canopy. On some days the chimps are close by. On others the researchers search for them for hours, winding through the Ngogo chimpanzee communitys home range of 35 square kilometers (an area about half the size of Manhattan), on a grid of well-worn trails.On one such morning in 2019, a few researchers spotted something curious: Lindsay, a chimpanzee around two years old, reached forward from her mother Beryls back to cover the older chimps only eye. At first, it seemed like a fleeting moment of play. But the scientists would later learn that Beryl, who moved attentively through the undergrowth with occasional pauses, responded the same way each timeby stepping forward. Within a few years, the gesture had clearly become an intentional lets get moving! signal. Again and again, she would lay her fingers over Beryls eye; each time, her mother would move forward.Chimpanzee Beryl and her infant, Lindsay, perform their hand-on-eye gesture.Kevin C. LeeOn supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.What may have started as Lindsays simple, spontaneous attempt to get her mothers attentionby blocking Beryls already limited visionbecame a ritualized and regularly used signal, a form of shared meaning akin to a secret handshake or inside joke. Among the Ngogo chimpanzees, researchers are coming to realize that such behaviors arent random quirks but part of a growing picture of how apes develop and transmit culture.This is fascinating from a [scientific] literature perspective because there had been no prior record of this gesture, says Bas van Boekholt, a primatologist now at the University of Zurich, who led a recent study in Animal Cognition to decipher the actions meaning. During his second field season at Ngogo in 2022, van Boekholt was reviewing video footage from his field assistant when he first noticed Lindsays hand-on-eye behavior. Among nonhuman primates, previous examples of gestures that were unique to particular individuals had only been documented in captive environments, he says. We havent had convincing evidence that they occur in the wild, van Boekholt adds.Lindsay covers Beryls eye.Bas van BoekholtCurious whether others had observed Lindsay making the same gesture, van Boekholt reached out to fellow researchers and field assistants. Isabelle Clark, a biological anthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin, recalled being among those who spotted the behavior as early as 2019. This is a big deal because this gesture isnt part of the common chimp repertoire. Its not in our chimp gesture dictionary, so to speak, she explains. Its a rare and compelling example of how gestures might be learned rather than hardwired. Im sure there are subtle, unrecorded ones between closely bonded individuals, but this one stood out; it was so striking and even a little funny.To investigate further, researchers from various field seasons conducted a collaborative quantitative analysis of 179 videos of Lindsay and Beryl that included 21 instances in which Lindsay used the gesture. Young chimps are known to be playful while riding on their mothers back, so the scientists scrutinized Lindsays behavior for markers of intentionality. Was she simply brushing her mothers eye by accident? The data suggested otherwise.Van Boekholts team also reviewed more than 1,020 video clips of 12 other mother-child pairs within the Ngogo community and found no evidence of the gesture occurring among themexcept for three isolated instances in which other chimps performed it just once, without the same intentionality markers present in Lindsay and Beryls interactions.Infants do play around on their mothers backs and sometimes touch their mothers eyes, but its different; theres no clear intent or consistent outcome, van Boekholt says. Maybe if we analyzed another 1,200 clips, wed find more cases, but at this point, we feel confident in saying this is an idiosyncratic gesture.Chimpanzees Lindsay and her mother, Beryl, in 2019.Kevin C. LeeClark, who specializes in social behavior development in juvenile and adolescent chimpanzees, says that chimps exhibit foundational elements of symbolic communicationhumans ability to create limitless symbols for different meaningsand that gestures like Lindsays could be the building blocks of eventual humanlike communication.There are multiple theories on how gestures develop in primates, particularly great apes, van Boekholt says. Tracking their development over a lifetime offers clues about the evolution of language and communication.The researchers note that if the hand-on-eye gesture exists in other chimpanzee communities, it likely carries a different meaning there. Cat Hobaiter, a primatologist and a field scientist, who was not involved in the study, cautions against drawing broad conclusions from a single chimpanzee group. Its like trying to describe human civilization after only visiting Paris, Shanghai, and Auckland, she says. Just as customs and traditions differ across human cultures, gestures among chimpanzees can vary widely; a signal of reassurance in one group might mean something entirely different, or nothing at all, in another.For instance, the long-recognized and well-documented gesture of leaf clippingin which a chimpanzee tears a leaf with its teethvaries in meaning across chimp communities. In some groups, leaf clippings distinctive sound serves as a mating call, while in others, it signals frustration or an alpha males display of dominance.Ape communication researchers have long debated whether gestures and signals such as these are innate or learned through social context and experience. Many scientists now recognize that while gestures may have biological roots, their meanings are shaped by social and environmental dynamics.Beryl and Lindsay on the move.Kevin C. LeeThe development of Lindsays gesture, Hobaiter explains, suggests that apeslike humanshave the capacity to form particular shared uses of a signal. It doesnt necessarily mean that it was created by them from scratch, she says. For instance, a baby chimp could see a gesture in another context and adapt it to have a new meaning.Hobaiter cautions against overemphasizing uniqueness at the expense of a broader insight: the more we observe, the more depth we see in ape cultures. Chimpanzees and bonobos share nearly 99 percent of their DNA with humans. And their traditions, social learning and communication reveal a continuum rather than a sharp divide between us and other great apes.Van Boekholt has returned to Uganda, where he is once again studying the mother-daughter duo. Lindsay, who is old enough to walk independently, still clings to her motherand continues to use the gesture. Van Boekholt suspects Beryl may be pregnant, and he is eager to see whether Lindsays potential future sibling will adopt the gesture and thus turn it into a family tradition. If social learning plays a role, he notes, the gesture is likely to persist. Any parent of a newborn understands the private language they share with their childmeanings that others would never recognize. Now were seeing a similar phenomenon unfold in the wild, he explains. For Lindsay, logically, blocking her mothers vision seems counterintuitive, the last thing shed want to do. Yet, for some reason, [Lindsay and Beryl have] created this shared meaning between them, and I think thats just really wonderful.Lindsay covers Beryl's eye.Kevin C. Lee

I'm quietly amazed by Solasta 2. Here's a Dungeons & Dragons role-playing experience like Baldur's Gate 3 that actually seems on a par with Baldur's Gate 3, for a change. The clarity with which French studio Tactical Adventures has transposed the hefty Dungeons & Dragons ruleset is astonishing; I actually prefer parts of this interpretation, which is a hell of a thing to say, given the quality of Larian's game. And I don't say that to foster an air of competition, but to stress how accomplished this is.Solasta 2Developer: Tactical AdventuresPublisher: Tactical AdventuresRelease: 2025 (early access)Download the demo on: SteamPresentation-wise, it impresses, too. In my preview build, there's sumptuous detail in the Shire-like village environment, which is all hazy sunshine and swaying meadow flowers, and there's high drama in the rocks and cliffsides suspended as if by magic around them. The characters look nice - this may be the most appealing interpretation of a halfling I've seen - and the kobolds bring humour with their harsh cockney accents and relentless wisecracks. I can't stress enough how much this feels like playing Baldur's Gate 3 - heck, Solasta 2's main villain is even voiced by Baldur's Gate 3 narrator Amelia Tyler - and for the team of 50 or so people making it, that's incredibly impressive.Solasta 2 was announced at The Game Awards. The game's villain is voiced by Baldur's Gate 3 narrator Amelia Tyler.Watch on YouTubeBut let's rewind a tiny bit because Solasta 2 hasn't come out of nowhere. The studio's previous game, Solasta: Crown of the Magister (which is very much the same thing), came out in 2021, and it amassed a lot of praise and goodwill for being a faithful video game recreation of Dungeons & Dragons. There's pedigree here, then, but there are big changes afoot, too.For starters, co-op multiplayer is the big new thing here, though it's not in the game yet and probably won't be until nearer its full 1.0 release. The plan, as it stands, is to launch into early access later this year. What I play (and what you can try in a Steam Next Fest demo) is a tiny two-hour-long pre-alpha portion of a presumably much larger game - and how much of the overall experience has been completed so far, I have no idea. Solasta 2 is a dainty and pretty game. It evokes high fantasy in a strong way. | Image credit: Eurogamer / Tactical AdventuresNevertheless, I like what I see. It's small details I appreciate, such as how all of your party members are included in conversations rather than just one of them. When you talk to someone, all of your team will proffer a response, often based on their individual strengths - charismatic characters might try to persuade someone or deceive them, whereas stronger characters might try to intimidate. This works a lot like in Baldur's Gate 3, by the way: you'll see their plusses and bonuses and decide which you want to use. Dice rolls, too, are done out front, with a big d20 die spinning on the screen as in Baldur's Gate 3.But I also like the confidence Solasta 2 shows in occasionally deviating from Dungeons & Dragons rules to provide a better video game experience. Take stealth, for example: it's a subtle change, but when you enter stealth, a wobbly circle appears around a character to denote their noise radius. Heavier armoured tanks will usually have large circles around them while nimble rogues will have small ones. There's also a notice-you gauge that fills before opponents actually notice you. Neither of these things are in the Dungeons & Dragons rules as written, but both make for a better and more intuitive playing experience, I think. There are a number of other "homebrew" rules pulled in like this (all of which are clearly labelled) and there are a number of homebrewed subclasses introduced, too. I've only read about these in blog posts, though, as it's a level of detail the demo doesn't offer yet.Generally, though, Solasta 2 is a rigorously researched and meticulously implemented Dungeons & Dragons affair. And on that note, there's a not-insignificant chance it will be the first major D&D video game to use the updated 2024 Dungeons & Dragons rules. Tactical Adventures is waiting on the official Systems Reference Document 5.2 to be released, which is expected to arrive within weeks of the 2025 Monster Manual coming out, the latter of which launched just this week on 18th February. I doubt menus will excite you like they excite me, but look how clear and organised these are. I particularly like the spell book and the little dice icons showing the damage you'll roll. Also - not a small point - but what kind of person names one of their central characters Knut? | Image credit: Eurogamer / Tactical AdventuresEverywhere in Solasta 2's demo there is detail and expertise to appreciate. The characters have strong personalities and decent voice work - the dwarf is posh and not Scottish! - and there are multiple approaches to solving situations you'll find yourself in. Do you talk, do you fight, do you sneak? Pathfinding is swift, with toggle-able click-to-move or direct-move controls, and you can jump and swim with the press of a button rather than having to select it as an ability, as in Baldur's Gate 3. There's a lot to like.But there's a lot to wonder about as well. I've seen but a glimpse of the game here, and I've no idea how much beyond this nicely realised area has actually been built. How much choice and consequence will there be in the wider world, for example, and how reactive will the story of the world and my companions be? All I know is there's an evil villain on the loose and that me and my pals are all orphans with the same (later-given) surname - none of which strikes me as particularly interesting or original. But perhaps it will be: it's so hard to tell. There's so much left to see.One thing is for certain though: there couldn't be a better time for a game like this to slip into the void left by Baldur's Gate 3. It arrives in a world both prepared and excited for exactly this kind of experience. Solasta 2 could do very well indeed.

Microsoft's generative AI model Muse isn't creating games - and it's certainly not going to solve game preservation, expert saysPlug in baby.Image credit: Adobe / Microsoft / Eurogamer News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief Published on Feb. 20, 2025 Last night, Microsoft trumpeted the announcement of Muse, a new "generative AI breakthrough" designed to aid "gameplay ideation".The company also published some grainy-looking gifs of AI-generated gameplay footage, based on Xbox studio Ninja Theory's multiplayer game Bleeding Edge. (The images were miniature in size, presumably to avoid highlighting some of the wonkiness AI is known for.)Finally, Microsoft made the claim that Muse would "radically change how we preserve and experience classic games in the future", and that the algorithm could be used to make older games compatible with "any device".Introducing Muse: Our first generative AI model designed for gameplay ideation.Watch on YouTubeReaction to Microsoft's announcement was swift, with social media awash with posts pointing out that, yes, Microsoft was absolutely jumping on the tech industry's AI buzzword bandwagon - but also the suggesting that Xbox was about to start using Muse to pump out AI slop. Thankfully, someone has done a better job than Microsoft itself of explaining what Muse is actually doing - and that person is AI researcher and game designer Dr Michael Cook.For background, Cook is an expert on the subject of AI in games - he's the guy who built an artificial intelligence to see if it could win a game jam a full decade ago, whose work Eurogamer has covered on several occasions. He's also a senior lecturer at King's College London, and has published and spoken extensively on the subject of AI.As Cook lays out in an extended blog post on Muse, the AI model is not generating gameplay or creating its own original ideas. In short, Muse was fed seven years of video footage of people playing a singular game - in this case, Bleeding Edge - to see if it could then generate further gameplay footage of it.(If this all sounds familiar, it's similar to the process Google used to generate footage of classic first-person shooter Doom last year.)So, what's the point of all this? Well, as Cook writes, it's so Microsoft researcher could ask Muse to predict what might come next if changes to a game were made."They made a tool that let game developers edit a game level using existing game concepts like adding in a jump pad to a place where there wasn't one before," Cook explains. "They then gave this new level to their model, and asked it to show what it thought the footage of a player playing from this new position would look like."In other words, the idea is Muse could be used as a shortcut tool for predicting and visualising how gameplay might adapt to a particular input by a developer. And, crucially, that developer is still a human. Muse's AI-generated gameplay footage of Ninja Theory multiplayer game Bleeding Edge. | Image credit: MicrosoftMicrosoft's research paper on Muse says the AI model is required to understand persistency, consistency, and diversity in order to succeed. In other words, if a human input is provided, the AI needs to ensure the effects of that input remain, whatever else is going on, and that the effects remain similar while adapting to a range of player behaviours.For example, say a human adds a jump pad to a game's level. The paper says Muse must predict gameplay footage to reflect this which also ensures the jump pad persists (no deleting it!), that it reacts the same each time (it should always make players jump), regardless of what else is happening (this should apply even if a different player activates it)."The paper is not really about 'generating gameplay' or 'ideas'," Cook continued. "It's about these researchers thinking about the implications of how people will work with these tools."Notably, there's nothing in the paper that discusses the implications of Muse being added to the development processes of teams with a strong aversion to using AI, Cook notes. That said, in Xbox's blog post on Muse yesterday, Microsoft gaming AI exec Fatima Kardar stated that the company had simply "empowered creative leaders here at Xbox to decide on the use of generative AI" - suggesting there was no specific mandate from Microsoft to use AI, for now.But even with Muse being just used for a limited purpose, Cook has further questions around whether it will ever be fully viable."This is not a practical process," Cook writes. "It's impressive that it can do this using visual information because things like lighting, camera angles, user interface and so on are a lot for an AI model to handle. "But ultimately, even with all of this data, all the time spent annotating datasets, and so on, it was still only just about able to generate footage predicting player behaviour."Such a system currently lacks any practical use, is enormously expensive, and requires any developer already have a vast vault of gameplay footage lying around for Muse to ingest in the first place."The research team behind this probably believe it will get more efficient over time, which might make it more affordable or tractable for small developers," Cook continues. "However, it still raises the question of how we get video footage of people playing our game in the first place. "If you've been in development for a couple of months then you won't have enough footage, and even if we make the systems able to run on less input data there must be a minimum level required to understand the full game logic. So I think there is a question here not just of whether it makes sense as a tool now, but whether it can ever make sense."Lastly, on game preservation."You could imagine a world where, from gameplay data and video, a model could learn old games and really make them portable to any platform where these models could run," Xbox chief Phil Spencer said yesterday in a video on Muse. "I feel that's really exciting."Bluntly, Cook calls Spencer's comments "idiotic"."I mean, in a sense anything is a preservation tool," Cook writes. "I could ask my friend's five-year-old son to draw a crayon picture of what he thinks the ending cutscene of Final Fantasy 8 looks like and that would still count as game preservation of a certain sort."Despite a decade of AI growth, Cook says, there's no method yet to measure what exactly an AI model has captured and what it has not. Muse is able to provide grainy gifs of one fairly simple video game based on seven years of footage, but it is not a solution for holding everything about a game or every possible outcome of what players could do."This is absolutely not a solution for game preservation," Cook concludes, citing a report by gaming archeologist Florence Smith Nicholls about the archiving of digital games. "What does it mean to preserve a gameplay experience? Even if this model was a perfect replication of the original executable software, this is not the be-all and end-all of game preservation. A generative model of what game footage maybe looked like once might be a nice curio on the side of a real preservation process, but it is always going to be inferior to other ways we approach the problem."Last month, Take-Two Interactive boss Strauss Zelnick weighed in with his opinion of AI, saying that "artificial intelligence is an oxymoron, there's no such thing".

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Contents hide The Finals Season 5 has largely been excellent with its Aztec theme plus the recent arrivals of Team Deathmatch and the temporary removal of an OP gadget. The game is in a very good place right now, and we can start looking ahead to Season 6. While we dont know the theme for Season 6 yet, The Finals fans have been begging for a Medieval theme since at least Season 2, and Embark has just teased the possibility of it one day becoming reality.The Finals dev teases Medieval mapEmbark recently conducted an AMA with The Finals community on Reddit. This involved a lot of discussions about plans for the future of the game.Although discussing their plans for the future, Embark didnt specifically promise things for Season 6. They didnt reveal the Season 6 location, theme, new maps, skins, or any other content specifically for the upcoming chapter. Save Up to $1,200 on the Samsung Galaxy S25! Pre-order now and save big with trade-in and Samsung credit. Limited time only! *Includes trade-in value + $300 Samsung credit. One theme a lot of players would love for Season 6 is Medieval. While the likelihood of it happening for Season 6 is very slim, Embark has at least teased the idea of it one day becoming reality. In response to a user asking, When is the medieval season dropping, Embark Rob said:Considering Sweden has a lot of history we would LOVE to make a medieval map set in Stockholm Old Town at some point, that would be so cool and anything is possible in THE FINALS. Must-Listen: Publishing Manor Lords w/ Joe Robinson VideoGamer Podcast Listen Now Image credit: The Finals Reddit AMA on February 19thWhile some maps in The Finals are modern day and others futuristic, the game has gone to the past before with 1568 Kyoto. It would be awesome to see The Finals revisit history once more by time travelling to a medieval map in Sweden, and it would be a great way for Embark to celebrate the history of the nation where their studio is located.Again, a Medieval season is something fans have regularly requested, and its obvious why as a map where you can blow up castles would be incredible. If a Medieval season does happen, it will be interesting to see if Embark keep it grounded in reality or if they venture into more fantasy.For more The Finals, check out our guide to thebest weapons in the game ranked, and we also have a guide to thebest gadgets. In addition, we have a guide to thebest FPS settingsto help you win matchesalong witharanking of the best classesin the game.The FinalsPlatform(s):PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Series XGenre(s):Action, First-Person Shooter, ShooterRelated TopicsThe Finals Subscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Contents hide GSC Game Worlds Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl is already quite hard with jammed guns, powerful weapons and those pesky bloodsuckers. However, for gamers who want to be punished even more, a brand-new mod is here to virtually push you back into the dirt.Created by modder DeadlyStr1ke, the new Stalker 2 Desolation mod aims to be a much more punishing take on the games core gameplay.Stalker 2 Desolation wants to hurt youAvailable to download right here, the mod aims to expand the game via in-depth mechanics, content additions and overall fluid blending of gameplay, world and lore with a major focus on realism. Save Up to $1,200 on the Samsung Galaxy S25! Pre-order now and save big with trade-in and Samsung credit. Limited time only! *Includes trade-in value + $300 Samsung credit. With the mod, almost everything has been overhauled with particular focus on NPCs and how they interact with the player. For example, weapon damage across the board is now more even with a single bullet being able to take out players with unprotected heads.NPC weapon properties are now mostly identical to the player, and they no longer spam grenades like firecrackers in a cliched school hallway. This also has an effect on the loot system which is not only more realistic, but aims to make the game feel more rewarding when you finally discover a really good gun. Must-Listen: Publishing Manor Lords w/ Joe Robinson VideoGamer Podcast Listen Now For its damage system, Stalker 2 Desolation is much more unforgiving than the main game. Bleeding is now much more dangerous, rapidly draining your health while medicine costs substantially more. Bandages also only exist to stop bleeding, no longer resulting in additional health, but there are now more ways to combat radiation poisoning.Other tweaks to Desolation include a much reduced pool of ammo to find across the world, and loot stashes that arent afraid to leave you disappointed. Mutants are also more powerful with their own loot such as meats, trophies and very expensive samples, and there are over 200 new items to find, including sleeping bags as sleeping is now essential to surviving.In the mods description, modder DeadlyStr1ke explains that the goal of Desolation is to provide Stalker 2 players with an experience where the Zone will be a being that will punish everyone inside of it mercilessly for their mistakes, bend and break them at every chance they give it, yet reward the curious and smart stalkers in moments of its grace.Stalker 2 Desolation is available right now in a beta form with huge improvements and changes planned for the future. Its a much more nihilistic take on the Stalker franchiseand maybe a style of experience many were expecting with the base gamebut its also incredibly rewarding.For more news on GSCs awesome survival game, check out our review. Additionally, read about how the studio is already hard at work on expansions for the new game as well as bringing back cut content from the base title.S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of ChornobylPlatform(s):PC, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Series XGenre(s):Action, Adventure, RPG, Shooter, Survival HorrorSubscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

That ethos remains at the heart of their gallery program, which spotlights the trace of the hand across art forms of all kinds. Our first love was ceramics, Burrows recalls. Thats where we started.Once a springboard for their business, the medium is now ever present in their homefrom the tiled surface of the 1950s Bjrn Wiinblad dining table to the svelte vintage Berndt Friberg vessels in nearly every room. Three years ago, their taste for stranger, more avant-garde piecesthe porcelain sea anemone by Eva Zethraeus on their hearth, for instancespurred them to open HB381, a second gallery with a focus on contemporary ceramics, much of it, again, from Scandinavia. Examples appear across the 35-acre upstate property, among them the Jakob Jrgensen totem outside the barn and the Jasmin Anoschkin sculpture of a hybrid creature floating on a dock in the pond.Totem, 2021, by Jakob Jrgensen, outside the barn.Photo: Joseph Kramm. Art: Jasmin Anoschkin/Hostler Burrows. Jakob Jrgensen/Hostler Burrows. Catherine Opie/Regen Projects, Los Angeles and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London.Bunch of Violets, 2023, by Jasmin Anoschkin, on the Ponds dock.Photo: Joseph Kramm. Art: Jasmin Anoschkin/Hostler Burrows. Jakob Jrgensen/Hostler Burrows. Catherine Opie/Regen Projects, Los Angeles and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London.Back inside their little handmade house, personal keepsakes abound, including 1970s leather stuffed animals, photographs by their friend Catherine Opie, and Guatemalan masks. In the kitchen stands an original Josef Frank cabinet that was once part of the designers personal collection. Its super meaningful and full of treasures, Burrows explains of the piece, which displays plastic tokens from the Jardin des Tuileries merry-go-round (souvenirs from a trip with one of their daughters) alongside miniatures by artists on their roster. Something about old thingsespecially the Swedish, Finnish, and Danishjust resonates with both of us, says Burrows. They feel like home.

IRS to fire 6,700 staff in Trump and Musks DOGE purge weeks before deadline to file taxesThe layoffs will impact more than one-third of probationary employees during tax seasonKatie Hawkinsonin New YorkWednesday 19 February 2025 23:10 GMTThe IRS is set to fire some 6,700 probationary employees starting Thursday (REUTERS)Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailGet our free Inside Washington emailI would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read ourprivacy policyThe Internal Revenue Service will lay off more than 6,000 employees Thursday as part of President Donald Trumps push to slash federal spending, a source familiar with the move told Reuters.The layoffs targeting 6,700 probationary employees that is, those employed for less than a year come in the middle of tax season. That group of workers represents a little over one-third of all probationary employees.Probationary employees across agencies have been targeted by Trump and Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency in recent weeks, with the Associated Press estimating hundreds of thousands of employees could be impacted.The IRS layoffs come in the middle of tax season (Getty Images)Managers already started ordering employees to report to the office with their issued equipment, The New York Times reports.Under an executive order, I.R.S. has been directed to terminate probationary employees who were not deemed critical to filing season, an email from an IRS manager reviewed by the Times reads. We dont have many details that we are permitted to share, but this is all tied to compliance with the executive order.The restructuring could strain the agency as they process returns through the April 15 filing deadline, Reuters reports. Not only is the Trump administration firing these employees, it has also prevented the IRS from hiring anyone indefinitely. The Department of Homeland Security has also ordered some IRS agents to assist with the administrations mass deportation efforts, according to the Times.While Trump issued an executive order the first day of his presidency ordering a 90-day hiring freeze for all federal agencies, he noted an exception for the IRS, placing it under the freeze until his administration determines that it is in the national interest to hire again.This could impact tax season especially because the IRS typically hires thousands of temporary workers to assist with processing filings. Former officials and Democratic lawmakers alike have warned these freezes and firings could disrupt Americans abilities to easily file their taxes and receive any potential returns, the Times reports.Join our commenting forumJoin thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their repliesMost PopularPopular videosSponsored Features

HP is trying to force consumer PC and print customers to use digital support channels by setting a minimum 15-minute wait time for anyone that phones the call center to get answers to troublesome queries.The wait time was added on Tuesday February 18, according to internal communications seen by The Register, and impacts retail patrons in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Italy, though we anticipate more countries could be added."We want to inform you of a change in the NL IVR (natural language IVR) in some countries and languages for Consumer Print and Consumer PC customers in EMEA, effective today," HP says in the memo.IVR, for the uninitiated, is Interactive Voice Response. The missive continues:"Objective is to influence customers to increase their adoption of digital self-solve, as a faster way to address their support question. This involves inserting a message of high call volumes, to expect a delay in connecting to an agent and offering digital self-solve solutions as an alternative."At the beginning of a call to telephone support, a message will be played stating: "We are experiencing longer waiting times and we apologize for the inconvenience. The next available representative will be with you in about 15 minutes. To quickly resolve your issue, please visit our website support.hp.com to check out other support options or find helpful articles and assistant to get a guided help by visiting virtualagent.hpcloud.hp.com."Those who want to continue to hold are told to "please stay on the line."On the fifth, tenth, and thirteenth minute, the recorded message will tell HP customers it is "experiencing longer waiting times and we apologize for the inconvenience," and again remind them they may switch to alternatives.To reaffirm the changes, HP says in the staff memo: "The wait time for each customer is set to 15 minutes - notice the expected wait time is mentioned only in the beginning of the call." The message will be read out three times during the wait time, after the initial reading.The reason for the change? "Encouraging more digital adoption by nudging customers to go online to self-solve" and "Taking decisive short-term action to generate warranty cost efficiencies."The staff email says Customer Experience metrics are being tracked weekly CSAT (customer satisfaction), Service Levels, Escalations. As are the number of phone calls that subsequently give up and move to social/live chat.For some Reg readers, 15 minutes might not seem like an eternity, especially if they are used to dealing with UK tax collector HMRC, which was found to have kept callers waiting on hold, collectively, for 798 years in the year to March 2023, something it was also recently criticized for again.An insider in HP's European ops told us: "Many within HP are pretty unhappy [aboout]the measures being taken and the fact those making decisions don't have to deal with the customers who their decisions impact."The Register asked HP for comment and will update this article when and if it responds.

Robot ActionSteel Hunters has an open beta kicking off later today, for all you noble mech lovers out therePlayers can unlock some rewards for the main game, as well as some special goodies for the very best.Image credit: Wargaming News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on Feb. 20, 2025 If you've been looking for a new mecha game to mess around in, or consider yourself a fan of more strategic-focused multiplayer shooters, an open beta for Steel Hunters may just be what you've been looking for. Good news! It starts later today.Running from today - the 20th of February - until the 24th, players will be able to try out a selection of varied mechs at no cost whatsover. In addition, all players that take part will be able to work towards a permanent reward for the full release: a skin for the Trenchwalker.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. It goes a little further than that too. Because Wargaming (the developers amd publisher of Steel Hunters) are having a big publisher weekend on Steam, those who land in the top 10 of the daily leaderboards will earn themselves Steam gift cards and some exclusive physical merch. Not a bad prize for those willing to really sink some time in this weekend.I was able to play a bit of Steel Hunters during a closed beta test earlier this year, and while I didn't take the opportunity to sing its praises back then, I will take this opportunity to say the game is quite engaging. It's still got that World of Tanks style DNA spread throughout it - you can feel it as you navigate online matches and pilot the various mechs - but it's also distinct enough to win other those more enticed by Sci-Fi over Mil-Sim games.Give it a try at least over the next few days. Who knows? You might just find your next big timesink.