Monster Hunter Wilds is out in less than two days, with certain regions getting access as early as tomorrow, 9 PM PST. Capcom has revealed the size of the games day one update approximately 15 GB for physical edition owners, who must seemingly wait till release. Digital pre-orders can start downloading it now, though its about 18 GB on PS5.The day-one update was previously confirmed to add PS5 Pro support. Its other features are unknown, though it could contain performance improvements for all platforms, balance adjustments to the weapons, and much more. There may also be various fixes for bugs and other issues, so stay tuned for more details.Monster Hunter Wilds will be available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC on February 28th. Its received strong critical praise thus far we gave it an eight out of ten, praising the combat, art direction, and monsters while criticizing the lackluster difficulty and technical aspects. Check out our review for more details.Picking up a physical copy of Monster Hunter Wilds? Heads up, an update to the latest version of approximately 15GB is required to play. If youve preordered the digital version, you can download the latest update now. pic.twitter.com/uEQnijq3ST Monster Hunter (@monsterhunter) February 26, 2025

With Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition arriving next month, Nintendo has a new trailer outlining everything players need to know. Unlike other titles in the franchise, the story is standalone and sees humanity fleeing from a war between two alien factions in 2054.When the White Whale crashlands on Mira, you venture out as part of BLADE to assist and protect New Los Angeles. Whether its hunting dangerous monsters, rescuing citizens or detailing Miras expanses, theres a lot to do. Combat should also be familiar to series fans, though it offers a new feature, Overdrive, for quickly using Arts off cooldown for 20 seconds.You can also pilot Skells, mechs with their own unique abilities and functions dealing extensive damage. They also transform, making exploration that much easier.Alongside the single-player story, Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition offers online multiplayer where up to 32 players can partake in world missions to complete tasks. Four players can also squad up and take on challenging battles. If that wasnt enough, theres new post-story content with fresh threats to tackle.Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition launches on March 20th for Nintendo Switch.

Wednesday, February 26th, 2025Posted by Jim ThackerPlastic Software releases Plasticity 2025.1html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"Plastic Software aka tools developer Nick Kallen has released Plasticity 2025.1, the latest version of the lightweight NURBS modeler.The update reworks the softwares interface, adds new Slide and Section Analysis commands, and updates the sketching, modeling and surface toolsets.A lightweight NURBS modelling app for concept art, not industrial designReleased in 2023, and pitched as CAD for artists, Plasticity is a streamlined NURBS modeller.The software is intended to provide a low-cost, artist-friendly alternative to tools like MoI and Fusion 360, and is aimed at concept art as well as industrial design.It features a streamlined UI, with on-screen clutter reduced by context-sensitive widgets and pop-up UI panels, and uses key bindings and selection modes familiar to Blender users.Plasticity 2025.1: new modern, streamlined UIThe most visible change in Plasticity 2025.1 is the revamped user interface, described as a modern, streamlined UI that retain[s] key functional elements from previous versions.The redesign moves key features to more intuitive locations, makes it possible to toggle the sidebars to free up screen space, and makes panels in the right sidebar function as menus.It also improves in-app documentation, with 11 tools getting tooltips, and each command dialog getting an icon linking directly to its online documentation.Workflow improvements include the option to drag items from the Recent Files list to the viewport.New Slide and Section Analysis commandsNew features include a unified Slide command, for sliding CVs on spline curves and surface hulls, making it possible to make precise adjustments during modeling.A new Section Analysis command slices through a 3D model to reveal its internal structure, helping to check whether internal components are aligned properly.Updates to key toolsetsThere are also updates to the existing toolsets, with the sketching tools, the transformation tools and the surface tools getting new control options and workflow improvements.Users with Studio licenses get updates to the xNURBS library integrated in Plasticity 2024.1 and the features it powers, particularly the Square command.Price, system requirements and release datePlasticity 2025.1 is available for Windows 10+, Ubuntu 22.04+ Linux and macOS 12.0+.Perpetual node-locked Indie licences cost $149, and import and export files in OBJ, STEP, STL and Parasolid XT format. Studio licences support a wider range of file formats and cost $299.Read a full list of new features in Plasticity 2025.1 in the online release notesRead more about Plasticity on the product websiteHave your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.Latest NewsPlastic Software releases Plasticity 2025.1Check out the changes to the intuitive NURBS modeler, including a revamped interface, and a new Section Analysis command.Wednesday, February 26th, 2025Technicolor Group begins to shut down operationsFinancial problems of the owner of Mikros Animation and VFX Oscar-winners MPC and The Mill threaten thousands of artists' jobs worldwide.Tuesday, February 25th, 2025Download four free VDB clouds from VFX AssetsGet free volumetric 3D clouds for previs, motion graphics and VFX in CG apps and game engines like Blender, Maya and Unreal Engine.Tuesday, February 25th, 2025Artlist discontinues the FXhome apps: HitFilm and Imerge deadVideo editing, compositing and VFX app and still image editor had over 6 million users prior to buyout and switch to subscription pricing.Monday, February 24th, 2025Free tool: Mesh Cleaner for BlenderVFX artist Rob Dickinson's handy add-on fixes artefacts in 3D scans and models in one click, to prepare them for animation or rendering.Sunday, February 23rd, 2025Tutorial: Introduction to Lighting & Compositing for CinematicsMaster workflows used in cinematics and animation production with The Gnomon Workshop's improvers' guide.Saturday, February 22nd, 2025More NewsAdobe to raise the price of Substance 3D subscriptionsAdobe releases Substance 3D Sampler 5.0Chaos acquires architectural AI tools developer EvolveLABEpic Games releases Twinmotion 2025.1Assetify 2 converts Blender animations to game-ready formatsIs AI replacing render farms?5 key features in Blender 4.4SuperSplat 2.0 lets you create flythroughs of 3D Gaussian SplatsKeenTools releases KeenTools 2025.1 for Blender and NukeMaxon releases Red Giant 2025.3 and Universe 2025.2Maxon releases Redshift 2025.3Chaos releases Vantage 2.7Older Posts

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Bryant Francis, Senior EditorFebruary 25, 20252 Min ReadImage via Arrowhead Studios/Sony Interactive Entertainment.At a GlanceHelldivers 2 devs Johan Pilestedt and Mauricio Redondo discussed the future of the Galactic Campaign at the 2025 DICE Awards.The system will give players more tools to organize their effortsonly so the infamous 'Joel' can smash them to bits.The 2025 DICE Awards was a great night for Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Studios. The chaotic co-op action shooter scooped up four trophies across the evening, giving Arrowhead chief creative officer Johan Pilestedt and deputy game director Mauricio Redondo plenty of chances to swing through the press room. That in turn gave us a chance to snag insights on its creative ambitions following a year of big success (and occasional struggles).Our number one question had to do with the future of the game's "Galactic Campaign" system. Easily one of Helldivers 2's most defining characteristics, the "campaign" unites players with shared collective objectives that alter the ebb and flow of Super Earth's war against the giant bugs and murderous robots threatening Managed Democracy. The feature, stewarded by a "game master" named Joel creates a dynamic online space where Arrowhead can react to player surges in successor major defeatswithout requiring a new patch or content pack.At DICE, Pilestedt and Redondo said there's still plenty of more design space to mine in the Campaign system, and said the team is working on systems that will give the player community "more agency" to shape the galaxy in the months ahead. "The point is, we want the community to be able to build their sandcastles...and for Joel to stomp on them," Pilestedt said.Related:Player unification in Helldivers 2He elaborated that the Campaign's greatest strength is that it drives player "unification" and creates opportunities for players to organize as a kind of bullet-driven democracy. Some objectives in 2024 tasked players with the choice between liberating two different planets: saving one would grant everyone anti-tank mines, and saving the other would protect "Super Citizen Anne's Hospital for Very Sick Children" (with no gameplay award attached)." Players could either coordinate off-platform to direct efforts toward one planet or anotheror bicker and risk saving neither. They eventually rallied to save the kids.To drive more moments like that, Redondo explained that Arrowhead hopes to create new "chess pieces" players can move around the metaphorical board. Some will let them "counteract" whatever the infamous "Joel" is cooking up.The pair didn't provide specifics (Pilestedt is currently on sabbatical from the company and has handed off Helldivers 2's game direction), but their ambitions show that Arrowhead's innovative live service model still has boundless depths worth exploringby themselves, and by other developers too.About the AuthorBryant FrancisSenior Editor, GameDeveloper.comBryant Francis is a writer, journalist, and narrative designer based in Boston, MA. He currently writes for Game Developer, a leading B2B publication for the video game industry. His credits include Proxy Studios' upcoming 4X strategy game Zephon and Amplitude Studio's 2017 game Endless Space 2.See more from Bryant FrancisDaily news, dev blogs, and stories from Game Developer straight to your inboxStay UpdatedYou May Also Like

Death. Taxes. All your streaming services getting a little more expensive all the time. These are the new certainties in life, it seems.In recent years, as the streaming TV and movie business has gotten more competitive and companies around Hollywood have thrown billions into building their own platforms and libraries in order to compete with Netflix, participating in the streaming era has gotten steadily more expensive. Netflix has raised the cost of its subscription multiple times since its launch. Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus have all gotten more expensive as Disney has invested more in streaming. Paramount Plus, Peacock, Shudder, Starz practically any service you can name charges more per month than it did a few years ago. Even as many of these services add ads to their platforms, theyre still charging more.Whats behind all this wallet-raiding? A confluence of things. As more customers cancel cable, more quickly than anyone expected, the studios and distributors are looking for a way to make up the lost revenue. Good shows and movies are more in demand and thus more expensive than ever. And after a decade of spending money like it was going out of style because all investors cared about were subscriber numbers, Hollywood players of all sizes have found themselves needing to actually make money to stay in business.Companies are looking for any way they can to improve their bottom line. Theyre cracking down on password sharing, canceling shows for the tax breaks, and even selling their prized content to other platforms. But the most common strategy is simply to charge you, the viewer, more. A dollar here, two dollars there. Add it all up, and the golden era of TV suddenly has a pretty startling ticket price.Were tracking all the price increases and other changes from streaming services so you can make sure youre only paying for what you want. (Well also include discounts and deals, though those seem to happen less and less.) Heres the latest:Today, 8 seconds agoCharles Pulliam-MooreMaxs ad-supported tier is losing CNN and the Bleacher ReportImage: Cath Virginia / The VergeThough Max has always said that it planned to charge more for access to its CNN and Bleacher Report Sports add-ons, the price hikes are coming in a roundabout way targeted at subscribers to the streamers cheapest tier.Max announced today that it no longer intends to charge subscribers to its Standard ($16.99/month or $169.99/year) and Premium ($20.99/month or $209.99/year) tiers an extra $9.99 a month for CNN Max and Bleacher Reports Sports. The add-ons will be removed from Maxs ad-supported tier ($9.99/month or $99.99/year) beginning on March 30th, however, meaning that subscribers will have to move up to more expensive tiers should they want to keep watching live sports and news.Read Article >Jan 30Emma RothAmazon Music Unlimited is getting a price hikeIllustration: The VergeAmazon has raised the price of its Music Unlimited service in the US, Canada, and the UK, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. In an update on its website, Amazon says its raising the price for Prime members from $9.99 to $10.99 per month (or $99 to $109 / year), while the plan for non-Prime members is going from $10.99 to $11.99 per month.The Unlimited Family Plan, which lets up to six people listen to music at the same time, is also increasing from $16.99 to $19.99 per month (or $169 to $199 / year). The price change went into effect for new subscribers on January 29th, 2025, while existing customers will have to pay the updated pricing when their subscription renews, or on or after March 5th, 2025.Read Article >Jan 26David PierceNetflix won the streaming wars, and were all about to pay for itIllustration by Nick Barclay / The VergeWhenever Netflix raises its prices which seems to happen roughly as often as Ben Affleck falls in love with an A-list celebrity the company always gives the same reason. It needs the extra money, you see, in order to keep investing in the kind of programming and product its 302 million subscribers demand. Thats how the standard monthly price of ad-free Netflix jumped from $7.99 to $17.99 over the course of the last 13 years, including a $2.50 jump just announced during the companys recent earnings report. Theres still a $7.99 monthly plan, of course, but that one includes ads and its a dollar more expensive than it was a week ago.But lets be real with each other. You want to know why Netflix keeps raising its prices? Because it can. Because Netflix won. The rest of the streaming industry is competing ferociously over a finite pool of money, dealing with carriage disputes because of dwindling subscriber numbers, and panicking over the future of TV. Netflix is the future of TV. Read Article >Jan 25Wes DavisFubos cheapest streaming plan is now $85 per monthImage: Cath Virginia / The VergeFubo has raised its English-language streaming plan prices by $5 each, with a Fubo spokesperson citing rising costs from our programming partners, reported The Streamable yesterday. Fubos Essential and Pro plans now start at $85 a month, while its Elite plan has gone up to $95 monthly.We only make adjustments when necessary, a Fubo spokesperson said to The Streamable, and were committed to keeping Fubo competitive while ensuring our subscribers have access to the channels, features and live events they enjoy.Read Article >Jan 24Richard LawlerAmazons push to make Prime Video profitable.According to The Information, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was annoyed by the costs of shows like LotR: The Rings of Power and Citadel and has pushed for the video service to be profitable by the end of this year. As Netflix raises prices, Prime is promoting shows from competing services and focusing more on live sports than originals.Amazons betting that sports can more reliably draw audiences to the Prime Video service than new movies and shows, significantly boosting its ad revenue, according to multiple people familiar with its strategy.Amazons Prime Video Shifts to Profits, Promoting Rival Streamers[The Information]Jan 22Emma RothRemember when Netflix was just $7.99?The price of Netflixs standard plan has more than doubled since 2011, with its new price hike bringing it to $17.99 / month.Jan 21Emma RothNetflix is raising prices again, as the standard plan goes up to $17.99Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeNetflix is raising prices yet again. In its latest earnings report released Tuesday, the streaming service announced that we are adjusting prices today across most plans in the US, Canada, Portugal, and Argentina.As shown on Netflixs plans page, the ad-supported tier is increasing from $6.99 to $7.99 per month, while the standard ad-free tier will go from $15.49 to $17.99 per month. Its highest-priced premium tier is also increasing from $22.99 to $24.99 per month. The price hikes will go into effect during subscribers next billing cycle, according to Netflix spokesperson MoMo Zhou.Read Article >Jan 7Emma RothDiscovery Plus is raising its pricesPhoto Illustration by Jaque Silva/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesDiscovery Plus is going up in price, with its ad-supported plan going from $4.99 to $5.99 per month, and its ad-free plan increasing from $8.99 to $9.99 per month. The price hike will go into effect immediately for new subscribers, while existing subscribers will see the change during their next billing cycle or after February 7th.Discovery Plus raised the price of its ad-free plan for the first time in October 2023. Following the launch of Max, Discovery Plus remained a standalone subscription despite most of its content appearing in Warner Bros. Discoverys flagship streaming service. Discovery Plus has a mix of shows ranging from ultra binge-worthy to ultra cringe-worthy from channels like HGTV, TLC, the Discovery Channel, Investigation Discovery, Magnolia Network, and others.Read Article >Dec 14, 2024Wes DavisYouTube TV is letting some subscribers hold off that price hikeIllustration by Alex Castro / The VergeYouTube announced a hefty subscription price increase this week that will shoot the monthly cost up by $10 to $82.99 on January 13th for existing members (or now, if you sign up today). Some subscribers are staving off the hike using the time-honored tradition of threatening to cancel, as one Verge reader indicated in a comment on our original story about the price hike.Thats backed up by users in a Reddit thread that 9to5Google spotted, several of whom reported getting the offer to keep paying $72.99 for six more months when they tried to cancel their subscriptions, although some report that didnt work for them. Some who did get to keep the old price say it happened only when they logged in using a web browser on their computer and pushed through offers to pause their subscription instead.Read Article >Nov 22, 2024Umar ShakirSling TVs streaming TV price goes up by $5.99 next monthPhoto by Chris Welch / The VergeSling TV is increasing its monthly subscription prices by $5.99 for all of its plans starting in December. The streaming TV provider said rising costs are to blame for the price hikes without specifying why presumably, not all six of those bucks are intended to pay for its arcade library of interactive games that just added Pac-Man and Trivia Crack.There are two packages: Sling Orange, which includes Disney and ESPN networks, and Sling Blue, which includes Fox and NBC programming that previously cost $40 per month, individually. Now, they will cost $45.99 per month. Theres also the combo Sling Orange plus Blue, which offers a mix of both packages for $55 per month but will go up to $61. Current subscribers will see the price change with their billing date on or after December 20th.Read Article >Nov 7, 2024Sean HollisterGeForce Now Founders wont be subject to Nvidias upcoming 100-hour-a-month data cap.From Nvidias FAQ:No, Founders memberships will still have unlimited playtime hours for life, as long as there is no lapse in their membership. Also:Founders can upgrade to Ultimate and return to their prior Founders benefits at any time without penalty, as long as there is no lapse in their payments. Nvidia to cap game streaming hours on GeForce Now instead of raising feesTom WarrenNov 7Sep 23, 2024Wes DavisYouTube Premium subscribers are reporting price hikes around the globeIllustration: Alex Castro / The VergeYouTube is telling Premium subscribers outside the US that theyll be paying more for the service soon, social media users began reporting over the weekend. So far, the higher prices are being reported in regions that include the EU, the Middle East, and South America, according to Android Authority.The price increases affect both individual and family plans. In some EU countries, people have said they were told their family plans will be going from 17.99 to 25.99 (or 11.99 to 13.99 for individuals) starting on November 7th. Posts on social media are reporting similar increases in places like Singapore, Colombia, and Saudi Arabia. A Reddit user is tracking the amounts in one thread.Read Article >Aug 7, 2024Emma RothDisneys password-sharing crackdown starts in earnest this SeptemberIllustration by Nick Barclay / The VergeDisney Plus will soon no longer let you share your password with people outside your household. During an earnings call on Wednesday, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the crackdown will kick off in earnest this September.The timeline for Disneys password-sharing crackdown has been a bit confusing so far. In February, Disney announced plans to roll out paid sharing and also began notifying users about the change. It then launched paid sharing in a few countries in June but provided no information on when it would reach the US.Read Article >Aug 6, 2024Charles Pulliam-MooreThe price of Disney Plus is about to go upImage: DisneyThe next phase of Disneys plan to make its streaming services profitable is another round of price hikes served up with more news and new playlist features.Disney is rolling out a new wave of price hikes that its subscribers will probably be none too pleased to be hit with. Beginning October 17th, individual monthly and annual plans for Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN are all going up.Read Article >Jun 24, 2024Charles Pulliam-MooreParamount Plus is getting yet another price hikeImage: ParamountJust like it did last summer, Paramount Plus is getting ready to hike the prices on some of its streaming service subscriptions.Paramount announced today that, beginning August 20th, the monthly costs for its Paramount Plus with Showtime, Paramount Plus Essential, and Paramount Plus with limited commercials plans will increase for all new subscribers. Paramount Plus with Showtime will now cost $12.99 a month ($1 more expensive), Paramount Plus with limited commercials will now cost $7.99 a month, and Paramount Plus Essential will now cost $7.99 a month ($2 more expensive).Read Article >Jun 4, 2024Emma RothMax raises prices across its ad-free plansPhoto: Cath Virginia / The VergeMax has announced a price increase on the streaming services ad-free plans. The standard ad-free plan will cost $16.99 / month instead of $15.99, while the 4K ad-free plan will cost $20.99 / month instead of $19.99.The price increase will go into effect today for new subscribers. Existing subscribers can expect to see the increase from their next billing cycle on or after Thursday, July 4th. Maxs price hike also affects the services ad-free yearly plans, with the standard ad-free plan going up to $169.99 / year from $149.99 and the 4K ad-free plan going up to $209.99 / year from $199.99.Read Article >May 8, 2024Emma RothA Disney, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle is on the wayIllustration by Nick Barclay / The VergeTheres a new streaming bundle coming to town. Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery are teaming up to offer Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max in a bundle that will become available in the US this summer.The new bundle will include both ad-supported and ad-free options, but theres still no word on how much it will cost. Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery say they will share additional details about the bundle in the coming months. Once available, youll be able to purchase the bundle from Disney Plus, Hulu, or Maxs website.Read Article >May 8, 2024Emma RothMax price hike incoming.Ahead of Warner Bros. Discoverys earnings report on Thursday, Bloomberg reports that the company may announce more layoffs and raise prices on its Max streaming service, which already costs $9.99 per month with ads.Warner Bros. Discovery Plans Fresh Cost Cuts, Hike in Max Price[Bloomberg]Apr 29, 2024Emma RothPeacock is getting a $2 price increaseIllustration by Alex Castro / The VergePeacock is getting another price hike. Starting this summer, Peacocks ad-supported Premium plan will go from $5.99 to $7.99 per month, and its Premium Plus plan will increase from $11.99 to $13.99 per month.The $2 increase will take effect on July 18th for new customers, while current subscribers will see the price hike on August 17th. Meanwhile, the annual plans will cost $79.99 for Premium and $139.99 for Premium Plus. Peacock raised prices across both of its plans last year and that was after it took away its free membership for new users.Read Article >Apr 18, 2024Emma RothNetflix is all about the money, not the membersIllustration by Nick Barclay / The VergeNetflix is moving beyond subscriber numbers. In its first quarter earnings results released on Thursday, Netflix announced that it will stop reporting quarterly membership numbers in 2025 because subscribers are just one component of its growth. The change comes after a quarter where it added 9.3 million subscribers, growing to more than 270 million members globally.Subscriber count meant everything in the early days of streaming. It allows investors, studios, and everyone else to gauge just how well a streaming service is doing compared to the competition, and Netflix has leaned on its lead in that area.Read Article >Apr 16, 2024Emma RothWhats up with all the streaming price hikes?Weve written a lot about why the price of streaming services has gone up, but this video from our friends at Vox breaks it all down.Apr 4, 2024Emma RothThe Disney Plus password-sharing crackdown starts in JuneIllustration by Alex Castro / The VergeDisney Plus already has rules in place to prevent subscribers from sharing their passwords but now we have an idea when it will start making users pay to share them. In an interview on CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger says the company plans on launching our first real foray into password sharing in June.Iger says the rollout will start in just a few countries in a few markets before expanding to all subscribers in September. Disneys anti-password sharing rules initially went into effect for new subscribers on January 25th and were rolled out to existing members on March 14th. Netflix became the first streaming service to crack down on password sharing in 2023, as it began charging users an extra $7.99 per month to add an extra viewer outside their household.Read Article >Feb 27, 2024Wes DavisIn 2023, everyone was shopping around on streaming services.Thats according to data analytics firm Antenna, which reported that streaming subs grew year-over-year in 2023 albeit more slowly than previous years but cancellations were up by 36.2 million versus 2022, and werent far behind the number of new subscribers.That much churn isnt surprising, given all the rate hikes and crackdowns on password sharing.Growth, yes, but also churn. Image: AntennaFeb 27, 2024Sean HollisterNvidias free-tier GeForce Now will soon show ads while youre waiting to playNvidias GeForce Now is a cloud gaming platform that spans many devices. Image: NvidiaNvidias completely free, no-strings attached trial of its cloud gaming service GeForce Now is about to be very slightly less of a deal on March 5th, Nvidia tells The Verge, users will start seeing ads.Theyre only for the free tier not Priority or Ultimate and even then, it sounds like they wont interrupt your gameplay. Free users will start to see up to two minutes of ads while waiting in queue to start a gaming session, writes Nvidia spokesperson Stephenie Ngo.Read Article >Feb 27, 2024Wes DavisNetflix confirms its cutting off Apple billing for legacy subscribersIllustration by Alex Castro / The VergeNetflix confirms to The Verge that it has begun booting longtime subscribers off their Apple iTunes billing plans in some countries and will require them to pay Netflix directly using a credit card or debit card instead. As first reported by Cord Cutter News, Netflix has begun telling customers in some territories that their plans would need to be switched over. Netflix spokesperson MoMo Zhou told The Verge in an email that the change affects members on the basic plan who were using an iTunes method of payment, and later added that this includes Canadian and US users.Its been a good run for anyone who signed up before Netflix stopped accepting subscriptions through Apples payments system. One person indicated today on X that theyd kept the streaming services old $9.99 price for years.Read Article >More Stories

Though Max has always said that it planned to charge more for access to its CNN and Bleacher Report Sports add-ons, the price hikes are coming in a roundabout way targeted at subscribers to the streamers cheapest tier.Max announced today that it no longer intends to charge subscribers to its Standard ($16.99/month or $169.99/year) and Premium ($20.99/month or $209.99/year) tiers an extra $9.99 a month for CNN Max and Bleacher Reports Sports. The add-ons will be removed from Maxs ad-supported tier ($9.99/month or $99.99/year) beginning on March 30th, however, meaning that subscribers will have to move up to more expensive tiers should they want to keep watching live sports and news.As The Hollywood Reporter notes, Maxs decision reads very much like a sign of the streamer prioritizing live sports as part of its bundling strategy and responding to competitors like Peacock and Netflix getting more serious about live sports programming of their own. In a statement about the pivot, WBD head of global streaming and games JB Perrette said that Maxs new plan of action came after a year of assessing how users were engaging with sports content on the platform.We believe that the best place for that content for now is within the Standard and Premium tiers, Perrette said. This update ensures that subscribers can continue to enjoy that coveted access within Max, while also enabling ongoing investment in our premium sports and news portfolio.

Vision-language models (VLMs) have demonstrated impressive capabilities in general image understanding, but face significant challenges when processing text-rich visual content such as charts, documents, diagrams, and screenshots. These specialised images require complex reasoning that combines textual comprehension with spatial understandinga skill set critical for analysing scientific literature, improving accessibility features, and enabling AI agents to function effectively in real-world environments. Current VLMs struggle with these tasks primarily due to the scarcity of high-quality training data that realistically represents the diverse array of text-embedded visual formats encountered in practical applications. This data limitation has created a performance gap in scenarios requiring nuanced interpretation of structured visual information, hampering the deployment of these models in specialized domains where text-rich image processing is essential.Several approaches have been developed to enhance vision-language models for processing visual content. Early architectures explored different integration strategies including cross-attention mechanisms, Q-Former structures, and MLP projection layers to bridge visual and linguistic features. However, these models often suffer from significant imbalance i-e their language components substantially outweigh visual processing capabilities, leading to hallucinations when high-quality training data is scarce. Existing benchmarks for text-rich image understanding (charts, documents, infographics, diagrams, screenshots) remain limited in size, scope, and diversity, making them suitable for evaluation but inadequate for comprehensive training. Previous synthetic data generation efforts have typically focused on narrow domains using small sets of chart types with handcrafted question templates. Some approaches utilize text-only LLMs to generate annotations from tables or descriptions, while others explore code-based rendering of synthetic charts. Despite these advances, current synthetic datasets remain constrained in topic diversity, figure variety, and rendering methodologycritical limitations that hinder generalization to novel, out-of-distribution tasks.A team of researchers from University of Pennsylvania, and Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence introduced the Code Guided Synthetic Data Generation System (CoSyn) which offers a flexible framework to address the challenges in text-rich image processing by creating diverse synthetic multimodal training data. This innovative system utilizes the code generation capabilities of text-only LLMS to produce both data and rendering code for various text-rich visual formats using 11 supported rendering tools including Python, HTML, and LaTeX. CoSyn generates not only the images but also corresponding textual instructions grounded in the underlying code representation, creating comprehensive vision-language instruction-tuning datasets. The researchers used this framework to develop CoSyn-400K, a large-scale diverse synthetic dataset specifically designed for text-rich image understanding.The CoSyn system operates through a sophisticated four-stage workflow beginning with a natural language query like generate a dataset of book covers. First, the system selects one of 20 generation pipelines built on 11 diverse rendering tools including Matplotlib, Plotly, LaTeX, HTML, Mermaid, and specialized tools like Lilypond for music sheets and RDKit for chemical structures. The process starts with topic generation guided by sampled personas that enhance content diversity, followed by detailed data generation that populates content specific to the chosen topic. Next, the system generates executable code that renders the synthetic images using the appropriate tool. Finally, using only the code as context, the system prompts language models to generate corresponding textual instructions, including questions, answers, and chain-of-thought reasoning explanations. To enhance diversity beyond what sampling parameters alone can achieve, CoSyn incorporates 200K unique personas during topic generation, effectively countering the repetitive output tendencies of language models. The implementation leverages the DataDreamer library for robust multi-stage generation, using Claude-3.5-Sonnet for code generation and GPT-4o-mini for instruction data generation.The model trained on CoSyns synthetic data demonstrates exceptional performance across text-rich image understanding benchmarks. When evaluated against seven specialized datasets, the 7B parameter model achieves the highest average performance, surpassing the second-best model (Llama 3.2 11B) by a significant margin of 3.9%. The model ranks first in four out of seven benchmarks and second in the remaining three, highlighting its consistent capabilities across diverse text-rich image tasks. Perhaps most remarkably, even the zero-shot version of the model without any exposure to training instances from evaluation datasets outperforms most competing open and closed models, including those that had been fine-tuned on benchmark training data. This unexpected result provides compelling evidence that the skills acquired from CoSyns synthetic data transfer effectively to downstream tasks without requiring domain-specific training examples. Additional ablation studies demonstrate that combining synthetic data with auxiliary and evaluation datasets yields the best performance (80.9%), substantially outperforming models trained on evaluation data alone (75.9%).The CoSyn framework represents a significant advancement in vision-language model development, utilizing synthetic data generation to substantially improve performance on text-rich image understanding tasks. By harnessing the code generation capabilities of text-only LLMs, the system creates diverse, high-quality training data that enables models to generalize across domains with remarkable efficiency. Analysis confirms that CoSyn-generated data successfully mitigates biases present in existing datasets, resulting in models that perform robustly on realistic, human-written queries rather than just template-based questions. The demonstrated improvements in zero-shot learning, multi-hop reasoning, and novel domain adaptation highlight synthetic datas crucial role in developing VLMs capable of handling complex text-rich visual content in practical applications.Check outthe Paper andDataset here.All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,feel free to follow us onTwitterand dont forget to join our80k+ ML SubReddit. Mohammad AsjadAsjad is an intern consultant at Marktechpost. He is persuing B.Tech in mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Asjad is a Machine learning and deep learning enthusiast who is always researching the applications of machine learning in healthcare.Mohammad Asjadhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/mohammad_asjad/Why Do Task Vectors Exist in Pretrained LLMs? This AI Research from MIT and Improbable AI Uncovers How Transformers Form Internal Abstractions and the Mechanisms Behind in-Context Learning (ICL)Mohammad Asjadhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/mohammad_asjad/Scaling Language Model Evaluation: From Thousands to Millions of Tokens with BABILongMohammad Asjadhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/mohammad_asjad/The Role of Specifications in Modularizing Large Language ModelsMohammad Asjadhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/mohammad_asjad/Google Released State of the Art Veo 2 for Video Generation and Improved Imagen 3 for Image Creation: Setting New Standards with 4K Video and Several Minutes Long Video Generation Recommended Open-Source AI Platform: IntellAgent is a An Open-Source Multi-Agent Framework to Evaluate Complex Conversational AI System' (Promoted)

The Math Behind Supervised Learning: Making AI Less Mysterious 0 like February 26, 2025Share this postLast Updated on February 26, 2025 by Editorial TeamAuthor(s): Aleti Adarsh Originally published on Towards AI. Ever Wondered How AI Learns? Lets Break It Down!This member-only story is on us. Upgrade to access all of Medium.Have you ever looked at AI models and thought, How the heck does this thing actually learn? Youre not alone. Supervised learning, a cornerstone of machine learning, often seems like magic like feeding a computer some data and watching it miraculously predict things. But beneath the surface, its all math yes, the stuff many of us feared in school!If the mere mention of linear algebra and probability makes you want to run for the hills, stick around. I promise Ill make it painless (and maybe even fun!). Think of this as a friendly chat where we untangle the numbers that power AI because if you understand the math, you unlock the real secrets of machine learning.You can read this article for free :- LinkBefore we dive into the numbers, lets set the stage. Supervised learning is like training a pet you reward it when it gets something right and correct it when it messes up.Imagine teaching a toddler to recognize apples and oranges. You show them a picture of an apple and say, This is an apple. Then you show an orange and say, This 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