The Chozo from the Metroid series play a huge role in shaping the Metroid universe, from colonising Tallon IV from Metroid Prime and Planet Zebes from Metroid, along with creating the metroid species to name a few of their feats.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is a dream for players looking for an immersive RPG that doubles as a medieval life simulator. While Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 excels at telling a compelling narrative of political intrigue and rebellion, it also does a great job of allowing players to roleplay life in 15th-century Bohemia with its commitment to authenticity in tasks like blacksmithing, alchemy, and managing the various systems that other RPGs take for granted. For players looking to get a different type of experience in a similar setting, developer Obsidian Entertainment may have the ideal title to play after Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.

Severance has been slow-playing the investigation into one of its most climactic reveals: Marks wife is alive. His innie found this out during the first season finale, and, before he had time to fully communicate it, he got cut off. A handful of episodes into the new season, Outie-Mark has discovered (on his own) that his wife is still alive, somewhere inside Lumon. Innie-Mark tried to pass out missing posters and got momentarily hampered by Mammalians Nurturable workers, who said they also took to Ms. Casey and wouldnt impede his search. Innie-Irv has even pieced together that the elevator we last saw her go down is called the exports hall.This is not nothing! But it has not satisfied my curiosity mostly because I want to watch Dichen Lachman really flex her acting muscles again.I first saw her in Dollhouse, a show where people are rented out to wealthy clients with temporarily uploaded personalities. The engagements for the dolls range from what youd expect (sex and romance) to the more imaginative (using a serial killer profile to track down an active serial killer; becoming a protective backup dancer to a singer whos being stalked) and the more nefarious (sleeper agents who dont even know theyre dolls who can be activated at the behest of powerful people).This is all to say: Dollhouse asked a lot of the actors who played the dolls. And Lachman always delivered. In her hands, the doll codenamed Sierra could remarkably and convincingly be anything. Whats more, as Dollhouse started layering on lore this might shock you, a fan of Severance, but it turns out the mind-wiping procedure might not be fully impermeable Lachman once again excelled, smoothly infusing even Sierras blank state with personality and character. In a show filled with strong performances and plenty of switching modes and even characters on a dime, Lachman stood out.Lachman seemed to excel at small, subtle nods. You didnt need to overwrite a scene for her because she could communicate depth and complicated (even scientific) internal machinations with just a tilt of her head. No matter what role Sierra was forced into, Lachman seemed to fluidly shift gears. I truly believed she could be anything.it wouldnt be a season 2 severance episode without ms casey serving face for two seconds and then disappearing #severance pic.twitter.com/cxIQ9OUtC3 vienna (@marsargosgf) February 14, 2025But when Dollhouse ended, she never quite got the same kind of meaty showcase her performance as Sierra should have paved the way for. She popped up here and there, occasionally as a guest or limited main role in TV, or beating up Bryce Dallas Howard. But none of these roles quite translated into the spotlight she so deserved. Then she appeared on Severance and I, once again, thought, Well, Im glad to see her, but this seems like a waste of her. But when the reveal of her being Marks wife came, it felt like we were really, finally cooking!Whatever is happening with Gemma/Ms. Casey is clearly tied up in the much larger, much more nefarious and byzantine game of Severance. I know its naive to expect answers any sooner. But mostly what I want is to watch Lachman go off again. Even as the composed Ms. Casey, Lachman held the Lumon line, at once seeming like a coiled snake who could turn on you at any moment and also like the soothing softness of a spa treatment. Its the sort of performance the show needs to quietly pivot around, an easy calm that you can completely believe people feel drawn to.But that is but one gear in a very versatile wheelhouse. Gemma is alive, and Ms. Casey is somewhere, and Lachman is marvelous. Now show me what her deal is, dammit.

Back in 2017, Studio Koba announced Narita Boy, a game named after Tokyos second-biggest airport that seemed custom built for Kickstarter. It had slim-fit pixel art characters in a neon side-scrolling world. It had nostalgic 80s anime vibes with modern visual effects. It had a story of a developer former Friend & Foe team member Eduardo Fornieles going back to his hometown to make the game he always dreamed of.It was just a concept at that point, but it was gorgeous, and that was enough to push the inevitable crowdfunding campaign over the top.Four years later, the game shipped and turned out to be one of the better Kickstarter video game success stories, looking like a playable cartoon and playing like a surreal version of a classic action-adventure game. With simple combat and text-heavy screens slowing the pace, though, it never felt quite as good as it looked.The teams follow-up, Haneda Girl, doesnt have that problem.Announced last year with a demo now on Steam, Haneda Girl named after Tokyos biggest airport isnt a direct sequel, despite the name. Its an action-platformer with faster movement, more responsive controls, and the kind of precision required when you have to bounce between wall jumps while avoiding shots from all directions.You play as a girl named Chichi Wakaba who has a sword and can dart around the screen in fractions of a second. She has no ranged attacks, so she has to sneak up on enemies, go into ghost mode to hide from lasers, or slice through panels to drop platforms on enemies below, BurgerTime-style. Shes also highly vulnerable and will die if hit by a single bullet.The twist is she has a mech partner, M.O.T.H.E.R., that she can hop in and out of. The mech moves slowly and cant jump as high, but has a machine gun turret and can absorb multiple shots before blowing up and respawning a few seconds later.Playing the demo, I found myself constantly jumping in and out of the mech, using it to charge Wakabas attacks, take the brunt of enemy attacks, or just spray bullets in an area and hope it worked out which it often did. The level designs pushed me to switch between the two styles, offering narrow paths or high walls that only Wakaba can fit through or climb, and rooms filled with enemies that M.O.T.H.E.R. was built to blast through. It feels like there might be a way to speedrun the game primarily using Wakaba, but the balance between the two is what made the demo work for me. I constantly felt the temptation to fly towards the goal, only to think better of it and settle for a few moments of planning, followed by a few moments of chaos.Or I just went for it and died. As the trailer suggests, thats going to happen a lot. Haneda Girls demo is available now on Steam. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygons ethics policy here.

ASUS has launched a new mouse that comes with an built-in fragrance compartment that can be filled with aromatic essential oils. We don't know why you'd want a mouse that's also an oil diffuser, but, well... the option (for some reason) now exists. If you want to change scents, you can just wash the vial and refill it with a different one. Just take note that the vial is in a bottom compartment, so you'll have to take care not to accidentally damage it and smear aromatic oils on your desk. You also cannot use 100 percent pure essential oils and will have to refill the vial with oils for reed diffusers, ultrasonic diffusers and aroma stones.The ASUS Fragrance Mouse has three adjustable DPI levels at 1200dpi, 1600dpi and 2,400dpi, letting you change sensitivity as needed across different screen resolutions or across different games. You'd want to use a higher DPI for games that need quick responses like first-person shooters. It also has both 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth connectivity that you can use to connect to different laptops and PCs. The mouse isn't rechargeable, but ASUS says an AA battery can power it for a year. In addition, the company says the model's switches can last for up to 10 million clicks. ASUS has yet to announce how much the Fragrance Mouse will cost and when it will be available, but you can easily get a diffuser from Amazon if you're after the fragrance part of the product.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/asus-new-mouse-has-a-built-in-aromatic-oil-diffuser-153100716.html?src=rss

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

Looking for NYT Strands answers and hints? Here's all you need to know to solve today's game, including the spangram.

The relentless hype around AI makes it difficult to separate the signal from the noise.So its understandable if youve tuned out recent talk about autonomous AI agents.A word of advice: Dont. The significance of agentic AI may actually exceed the hype. An Autonomous AI agent can interact with the environment, make decisions, take action, and learn from the process. This represents a seismic shift in the use of AI and, accordingly, presents corresponding opportunitiesand risks.The P in GPTTo date, generative AI tools, largely subject to human supervision, have been designed to function by being pretrained (the P in GPT) on vast amounts of data such as large language models (LLMs) or other defined data sources and then to provide responses to inputs or prompts (a question or instruction) provided by users. This has proven to be an impressive way to come up with humanlike responses to queries or promptslike a baby imitating sounds or words without really knowing what it is saying.Kind of adorable, but unlikely to conjure Newtons Principia or a Beethoven symphony. So, are these generative tools really functioning as creative, independent beings? Doubtful.But that may be changing dramatically.A new approach allows AI to interact directly and more autonomously with data and react in a dynamic waya lot more like what humans do. This technology relies on autonomous AI agents, which Bill Gates believes are going to upend the software industry, bringing about the biggest revolution in computing since we went from typing commands to tapping on icons. And that may be an understatement.AI AgentsAI agents are designed to make decisions without human intervention to perform predefined (for now) tasks. They can reach into the outside world, find data they hadnt previously encountered, analyze it, then take actionfar more like human interaction with the environment and less like relying on the fixed data universe of a chess program or a chatbot and an LLM that cannot go beyond its pretrained knowledge. Sounds great. What could possibly go wrong?This is a major step forward, replacing a clever statistical approach to replicating human expression with something capable of taking in previously unknown outside stimuli, processing it, and taking action without having to be pretrained or retrained. We are removing our intermediate role creating and governing AIs conceptual and decision-making universe.Thats both the point and the problem. Its fair to say the AI baby is not just on its way to taking a few steps; it could be speeding down the highway in your new car, music blaring, swigging a bottle of tequila.The upside is clear. Less need for specific training and oversight. Scalability is only limited by compute resources. You can remove the human intermediary and send out agents to go and complete vast amounts of tasks on their own. After all, they are agents, they have agencythe ability to make decisions and choices. And mistakes.What could possibly go wrong?As software rather than a human actor, AI agent mistakes can be instantly and almost infinitely compounded, replicated, and cascaded. It is also a target for hackers. There are obvious doomsday scenarios like a rogue AI agent improperly triggering a massive wave of securities trading or unintentionally launching a military retaliation. When it comes to decisions with potentially catastrophic consequences, human oversight is by no means perfect, but most of us feel at least a modicum of comfort knowing theres an expert human hand hovering over thegobutton.There are less dramatic yet still highly impactful effects in the legal and compliance sphere that pose significant business risk. More and more companies are using AI-driven tools across the entire employee lifecycle, from selecting candidates to interviewing and hiring and continuing through performance assessment (raises, promotions, and termination).These tools are increasingly deploying AI agents.Providers often tout AI agents as supporting and improving the quality of critical HR decisions.But subtle errors in system design or implementation could lead to unfair outcomes.Theres a name for this phenomenon: algorithmic bias. At the same time, states are adopting laws penalizing both developers and users of such tools if their use results in unfair treatment of employees. And naturally, litigation is likely to follow.Risky BusinessIt is undeniable that AI agents present a significant opportunity to increase productivity by automating routine tasks and freeing people up for more creativity and problem-solving.But the risks are just as undeniable.While jettisoning supervision and oversight may be a necessity with kids at a certain point, the metaphor only goes so far when it comes to the emancipation of AI through autonomous agents. For now, as we gleefully remove the training wheels, we should be mindful of balancing our understandable enthusiasm with reasonable caution to avoid any catastrophic crashes.

I dont know about you, but I tend to think about my favorite tech tools as being split into two separate saucepans: the classic apps weve known and relied on for ages and then the newer AI apps that have shown up over the past several months to serve some super-specific purpose.More and more, though, Im realizing that the most effective apps are the ones that seamlessly blend those two concepts and create a whole new recipe with the best of both worlds.Thats precisely what the tool Ive got for you today manages to do. Its a brand new app released just moments ago thats basically Google Maps combined with ChatGPT, Perplexity, Wikipedia, and more.And goodness gracious, will it bring some fascinating new flavor into your life.Be the first to find all sorts of little-known tech treasures with my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. One useful new discovery in your inbox every Wednesday!A modern mapping mashupLet me back up for one quick second: A moment ago, I told you todays tool is a brand new service. And it isjust released days ago and almost certainly something you havent yet seen.But its also connected to a standout service weve discussed in these quarters before. The service is called PamPam, and we talked about it last May and then again in December, when I featured it as one of my favorite finds from 2024.At the time, I described it as an AI map app thats actually worth your whileand thats still true today. But now, PamPam is even more useful, thanks to a massive upgrade that introduces a whole new ocean of actually-handy AI possibilities.Specifically, PamPams gained some really slick integrations that bring data from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Wikipedia, and other smart sources into its interactive map-exploring experience.So what does that actually look like in practice? Lemme show ya.When you open up the new PamPam app, youre prompted to describe what exactly you want to do or see. You can type out anything, in plain English and without any complicated formatting requirements.PamPam prompts you to ask anything, with a slew of new sources powering the results.By default, the service will pull info from ChatGPT and Wikipedia into its results. If you click the little pill area with the logos, though, you can also bring other info sources into the mixincluding, so far, Perplexity and Foursquare.Wikipedia, ChatGPT, Foursquare, and Perplexity are now a part of the PamPam picture.For one example, I asked the service to suggest stuff to do and places to eat for a day in Pasadena with a family of fourincluding a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old. In a matter of seconds, it served up all sorts of thoughtful and specific suggestions, with info available in a sidebar and locations visible in a large interactive map.PamPams results pull data from all your selected sources into a simple, map-embedded guide.Clicking on any item in the map or the sidebar pulls up more detailed info from Wikipedia, along with more suggestions for subsequent questions from ChatGPT and any other activated sources.You can keep asking more questions from all of your selected sources as you go.Everything happens right then and there, in that same single screen and without any external windows or sign-ins. Its about as polished and pleasant of an experience as you could ask for, with all sorts of helpful touches pulled from the different sources and presented in a sensible-seeming, streamlined setup.PamPams interface is a whole new experience that brings a blend of different info into a single map-centric spot. PamPam does require you to sign in with a Google account in order to use the service, but it takes all of seven seconds to doand youll be off to the races and exploring your results in another few seconds from there.The possibilities are practically endless, and best of all? It doesnt even cost a dime to try.PamPam works entirely on the web in any browser, on any device.Its completely free to use for these purposes, with evolving limits for the external sources. The site offers an optional Pro plan that raises those limits and unlocks extra features related to some of its other functions. (The company has a variety of corporate plans, too, which seem to be where the bulk of its money is made.)PamPam doesnt require any personal info beyond your initial Google sign-in, and its privacy policy doesnt include anything unusual about how it handles the limited amount of data involved.If you love these types of tools as much as I do, check out my free Cool Tools newsletter. Ill introduce you to an incredible audio app thatll tune up your days in delightful waysthen send you another new off-the-beaten-path gem every Wednesday!

The Saturn 4 Ultra from Elegoo is a top-tier resin printer that produces exceptional quality 12K resolution models, and has beginner-friendly features to make printing a breeze.