Sometime last fall, Kevin Rose started thinking seriously about Digg again. A smidge over two decades ago, hed launched a social and link sharing website that, for years, was known as the homepage of the internet. Since then, Digg had been through several owners and many pivots, Rose had gone on to several other careers, and the internet had moved on. Rose had thought about building something like Digg again, and had even been approached to buy back the domain and website a few times, but the timing had never been right.This time, though, things started to click. Rose and a group of what he calls brainstorming partners, which included Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, design and product exec Justin Mezzell, and even folks like Blogger and Twitter cofounder Ev Williams, started to talk about whether AI might be able to help them build a better social platform. I would call Alexis up and we would chat, Rose says, and wed be like, hey, what if, what if, what if? And a lot of those things started giving us both that butterflies-in-the-stomach situation, where youre like, oh, this could be cool. This could be really cool.Now, Digg is making a comeback. Rose will be its chair, Mezzell its CEO, and Ohanian an adviser. (Both Rose and Ohanian are also venture capitalists now, and their firms are investing in the new venture.) They bought the domain and other assets from Money Group for a price they wouldnt disclose and are bringing it back. The site is relaunching today, but only in a limited form. Its ultimate ambitions, however, are enormous: Digg aims to build the kind of community-first social platform that basically no longer exists on the internet. And its new founding team thinks AI could be the secret to pulling it off.One from the early Digg days. You can guess which one is Kevin Rose. Image: Kevin RoseIf youve been on the internet long enough to remember the old Digg, you already have a rough idea of how the new Digg will work. Everything is based on content and links: someone shares a link, and people can comment and vote on the links. (If you like something, you Digg it; the old Bury downvote option is now gone.) The most popular stuff ends up on the homepage which Rose and Mezzell tell me they hope will once again be the homepage of the internet but there will also be countless smaller communities surfacing and sharing stuff in their own niche. There are, of course, plenty of ways to talk about links on the internet. One of them, Reddit, continues to be very popular! The team isnt shy about the comparison but thinks that by better engaging with the community, and without the growth-at-all-costs requirements of being a public company, they can build something that takes better care of its users. If Digg does this right, the homepage will feel like Old Digg, and everything else might feel like Better Reddit.Rose says he and Ohanian are both convinced and both learned the hard way that the real trick, the thing nobody has yet done properly, is to give the communities the tools they actually need to operate. This is where AI comes in. So much of a moderators job, Rose says, is just grunt work: fighting spam, reviewing obvious policy violations, litigating pointless fights. How can we remove the janitorial work of moderators and community managers, he says, and convert what they do every day into more of a kind of director of vibes, culture and community than someone that is just sitting there doing the laborious crappy stuff that comes in through the front door? The real trick is to give the communities the tools they actually need to operateThe new Digg, Rose says, will include lots of AI-forward ways to sort through and make decisions on content. He also hopes AI can be used for fun. Im just making stuff up here, but theres everything from an AI agent that converts your entire sub-community into Klingon, to another one where you dont allow a certain type of profanity and thats automatically auto-moderated. Users will be able to tap AI models to build stuff right in their communities, too. If we can create more of a dynamic canvas where agents are layered on top to assist, to help, to do wild things, to create games, to do whatever that community wants them to do, then we have something, Rose says. The new Digg, if the team does it right, should feel more like a community-driven art project than an old-school internet forum. But Rose and Mezzell both say the whole thing depends on doing what users want and nothing else. One of the things that I believe that made Digg, and makes Reddit, a special place on the internet, Rose says, is that there are humans behind the scenes with real opinions, real conversation, real stories that they find interesting. The second you start to sterilize that, youre just an aggregator of information. Youre a fancy RSS reader with some voting on it.One big challenge, Mezzell says, is figuring out how to reward and promote users for doing good work. Digg wont show how many followers you have because that creates bad incentives; same with competing to be the most-Dugg person on the platform. There are all these very simple systems that we already have, for commenting systems and branching and all that stuff. But even if we start there, we cannot stop asking the question about how to give people the respect for being really insightful, for being really encouraging, for being really funny. He doesnt have a perfect answer for it yet, but he knows thats key to making it work.Theres a lot more that the new Digg team doesnt have a perfect answer for yet. Rose and Mezzell both say, a few times each, that whats launching today is essentially a prototype. Itll have a homepage, a few sub-communities, some links, some comments, and thats about it. The goal is to get people excited that Digg is back, and then both introduce them to the new platform and build it alongside them. If you come on day one, Rose says, its 99.9 percent nostalgia and youre like, damn, this is like a slightly updated version of Digg that looks really cool. Give it some time maybe even just a few weeks, if the new team ships as fast as Mezzell promises and itll be something different.See More:

Shard to KillHow Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse inspired the unique look, and gameplay, of shattered universe sci-fi FPS, FragpunkWhat started as a streak of colour on a broken phone screen grew into a sprawling multiverse of characters, comics and animation.Image credit: Netease Article by James Billcliffe Guides Editor Published on March 5, 2025 The idea for Fragpunk started with an all-too-relatable everyday tragedy: a smashed phone screen.But while the neon light spectrum smeared across broken and battered tech perfectly encapsulated the simultaneously rebellious and dystopian feeling that Fragpunk aimed to capture, the metaphor went deeper still.When so much of our day-to-day is wrapped up in that one device, the splintered screen represents a fractured world and different, disparate and yet somehow parallel views of the same reality.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Fragpunk takes place in the Shardverse, a world shattered by a mysterious element called Glunite which gave regular people from alternate realities amazing powers, but made them reliant on the supernatural substance to survive. Now working as mercenaries called Lancers, they fight on different Shards over whatever Glunite they can find.Between every round, players in Fragpunk are dealt Shard Cards, which Lancers use to twist the world around them to their advantage or the detriment of enemies. They can be as silly as turning on big head mode for the enemy team, or game-changing as tearing open a portal to a parallel version of the map youre playing on that Lancers can jump between on-the-fly and essentially double the playing space on offer.So, in that sense, Fragpunks multiverse isnt just visual, but contributes to gameplay as well. There's a lot of nuance and depth to FragPunk. | Image credit: NeteaseWhat I think makes our game stand out is the experience that no two rounds are ever the same, Fu Wenhe, Fragpunk narrative director at Bad Guitar studio says. Weve done this by sticking to our core idea, to bend the rules and break the norms. We do this consistently through our art design, our narrative design and our gameplay design.From the very beginning our goal for designing this game is so it can be played and enjoyed by global players, so as you can tell, a lot of our ideas or inspirations are learning from global mainstream media.For example, our art style - with a mix of 2D and 3D - was inspired by the Spider-Verse movies.But with Fragpunk, the Spider-Verse inspiration seems to be more than just aesthetic.While the characters might come from different alternate universes, one of the key parts of the Spider-Verse style is that, despite their disparate elements, the characters still have a sense of harmony with the world and cast around them.In this, Fragpunks goal is to emulate that idea of a cohesive world thats instantly recognisable, but where the roster feels both familiar and different at the same time. Its a tough balance which the development team hopes to achieve by taking a narrative-first approach to each characters place in the games world. More universe means more character! | Image credit: NeteaseWhat were trying to avoid is focusing on a single character, Li Yiming, Fragpunk art director, explains. So we wanted all of the characters to have a consistent logic and design guidelines including the style, appearance, animations, skill effects and colour use as well.We want to give an overall balance of all the characters so they can show their individual personalities, but also give a unified consistent art style.We had the lore set down from the very beginning of the game, but its true that well gradually and continually update our setting during game development, Fu adds. Its the narrative team who gives the lore and the prototype of the character idea, then the art team comes up with a lot of different design elements while also providing their suggestions, then well discuss which prototype is worth pushing forward with.Almost as important as Fragpunks characters though are the maps and environments they inhabit, which are often the most visible manifestations of the Shardverse and multiple realities at play in-game.While Fragpunk is a competitive shooter at heart, Bad Guitar has also tried to bring the classic map archetypes that it draws on - your transport depots full of corridors and trucks to blow up, your crumbling temples full of waist-high walls to jump over and slide behind - into its distinct style too; again by placing their narrative reason to exist within the Shardverse at the forefront.Our working process with the map design team is a parallel line, Fu says. [The narrative team] give them a rough theme and theyll design the map - the player routes, the bomb site - but what the narrative does is set the environment, the location and the lore behind it. But we try not to give them too many requirements to give them a lot of freedom.When the map design is finished by the design teams, they then give the map back to us so we can give the locations different callouts, signatures and decorations so players can easily distinguish between different callouts, Huang Jingsi, a narrative designer working on Fragpunk, continues.Although the job was under the narrative team, there were two things we wanted to achieve: first, we wanted to make sure the names were consistent with the lore and world of Fragpunk, but second we also wanted to make sure that players could easily call out locations to their teammates. As you can see from the previous demos, most of these names are common names like mid, A-side, B-side. The collected cast of FragPunk certainly has a lot of character. | Image credit: NeteaseHowever, while the narrative benefit of parallel universes is obvious, in the hero shooter and free-to-play live service genre where theres an expectation of new characters, maps and seasonal themes across a period of many years, it can also serve a practical purpose as well.This is a reality Bad Guitar is up front about, especially in the battle for attention all competitive FPS games need to fight. The Shardverse not only provides a compelling conceit for the action in Fragpunk to take place, but a genuine and unforced way to explore different fashions, references and even lore-rich moments from a characters backstory or possible future in a way that still feels more serious than the Ready Player One-esque hodge podge of other live service games.When we were designing the Shardverse, we were designing it intentionally because were a hero shooter - especially a hero shooter with a punk art style, Fu explains. A punk art can include a lot of different design materials, so we wanted to have this very inclusive world view and lore to give more space to design and future development.For our skins well have different ranks, so for the lower ranked skins we might just change the colour or the materials, but for the higher skins well have a lot of breakthroughs that you cant imagine what theyll become, Li clarifies.The aim for us is to make things that look cool, or funny, or we have an idea for higher level skins where it shows a moment in their story - it could be the past or the future, a certain moment of this character. Shooting for a new perspective. | Image credit: NeteaseBut Bad Guitars ambition isnt just to dig into these ideas with paid-for cosmetics, but to deepen and diversify Fragpunks lore through a range of different media. As well as in-game environmental, emergent and atmospheric storytelling, both digital graphic novels and animations are on the cards.Were very inclusive of all kinds of media and would like to use all kinds of media to explore our games lore, Fu states. As you can tell in-game, well have the text telling you the story, but also the characters voice lines tell you about their stories.Then well have comics telling story updates, the skins. For out of the game, well have comics, animated trailers, and were trying to use all kinds of media to tell the story.For more about gameplay and how Fragpunk feels like every shooter, everywhere, all at once, also check out our preview and interview with Bad Guitar creative director, Xin Chang.Fragpunk will release on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store on March 6th. The PlayStation and Xbox console version had to be delayed and is coming at a later date.

This March, were proud to partner with CARE to champion women entrepreneurs worldwide. In honor of Womens History Month and International Womens Day, were investing in a future where women have the resources and opportunities to build thriving businesses, create economic prosperity, and uplift their communities. We believe in a world where every woman can realize her full potential and contribute to a more equal and prosperous future for all.CAREs programs address the challenges that women and girls face in achieving economic empowerment, such as unequal access to financial services, restrictive social norms, and limited opportunities for skill development. CARE provides women with essential resources like access to basic financial services, business skills training, and connections to markets. By 2030, CARE wants to expand economic opportunities for 50 million women and girls around the world.To learn more about our partnership and the programs it will support, watch this video from Chris Noble, CAREs Associate Vice President of Corporate Partnerships:See the Impact: Empowering Women Through EntrepreneurshipThrough our partnership, we want to highlight how your support can fuel transformations and make a real difference. Here are a few stories from some of the inspiring women who have benefitted of the incredible work CARE is doing.Weaving a Lasting Legacy in Peru: Discover how a women-led textile business is creating economic opportunities and strengthening its community through mentorship and teamwork.Building Businesses and Breaking Cycles in Ethiopia: Learn how young women are building successful businesses while rejecting early marriage and leading their families toward better futures.When Women Shine, Communities Prosper: Explore how mentorship and investing in womens entrepreneurship create thriving communities around the world.Cash Support in the United States: See how direct cash assistance is helping women entrepreneurs launch and expand their businesses.Empowering Womens Entrepreneurs Globally: Get an overview of CAREs comprehensive approach to supporting women entrepreneurs and creating lasting change.Join Us in Making a DifferenceFuel Her Dreams: When you purchase a Humble Choice membership this March, 5% of proceeds will support CAREs programs.Spread the Word: Share these inspiring stories with your friends and community using #LevelUpHerFuture.With your help, we can create a world where women have the tools they need to thrive. Lets level up her futuretogether.

Image: NintendoMetacritic has today revealed its 15th annual game publisher rankings, giving us an updated look at how the biggest publishers of 2024 performed based on critic reviews.Nintendo wound up in 22nd place out of the 37 publishers in this year's list which, considering it landed in sixth place last time, is quite the tumble. The Big N took home an average Metascore of 76 on its 13 releases in 2024, with no "Great" games (Metascore of 90 or higher) to its name.SEGA came out on top in the latest list, with an average Metascore of 82.9 across a whopping 29 products (12 titles) released in 2024. Capcom, Sony and Microsoft all landed spots in the top 10, with the likes of Devolver Digital, Annapurna Interactive and Ubisoft all claiming a spot on the ladder ahead of Nintendo.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube797kWatch on YouTube This year's positioning is the lowest ever recorded by Nintendo in the 15 years of Metacritic rankings (its previous all-time low was 14th in 2022) and it kinda makes sense, honestly. 2024 was hardly a blockbuster year for the Big N, and despite some sweet releases like Echoes of Wisdom, Super Mario Party Jamboree and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the middling titles like Endless Ocean: Luminous, Mario vs. Donkey Kong and Another Code: Recollection will have brought the average down.You can find a full breakdown of the scoring system over on Metacritic along with a summary for each of the rankings. For the full list at a glance, however, check it out below:RankingPublisher37Fulqrum Publishing36Nacon/Daedalic35PQube34Perp Games33THQ Nordic32Humble Games31Atari30Maximum Entertainment28 (tie)Secret Mode28 (tie)3D Realms27Bandai Namco26Team1725Konami24NIS America23Electronic Arts22Nintendo21Super Rare Games20Plaion19Idea Factory18Ubisoft17ININ Games16Red Art Games15Digital Eclipse14Plug In Digital13Devolver Digital12Take-Two Interactive11Kepler Interactive10Annapurna Interactive9Microsoft8Raw Fury6 (tie)Square Enix6 (tie)Gamera Games5Focus Entertainment4Sony3Aksys Games2Capcom1SEGAWhat do you make of this year's ranking? Let us know in the comments.

Kickflippin' 'eck...Sigh... We really don't like reporting on this kind of stuff, but alas, it's our duty to you, our dear readers, to know what you're getting yourself into.Judging from images of the box art online, it looks like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 will require a mandatory download on the Nintendo Switch. Now, it's not known at this stage exactly what kind of download will be needed, but given that it's seemingly a requirement and not an option, we're guessing that the base game simply doesn't fit on a standard Switch cartridge.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

As part of the iOS 18.4 software update, currently in public beta, Apple is introducing AI-powered summaries of App Store reviews. The new feature will leverage Apple Intelligence, the companys built-in AI technology, to offer an overall summary based on the reviews others have left on the App Store.The review summaries will be generated by large language models (LLMs) and will highlight key information into a short paragraph, Apples website explains. The summaries will also be refreshed weekly for apps and games that have enough reviews to generate a summary though Apple did not say what that threshold is. App Store users can tap and hold on the review to report any problems with the feature while app developers can alert Apple to problems via App Store Connect. AI summaries will first be in the U.S. in English and will later roll out to all apps with a sufficient number of reviews in additional markets and languages over the course of the year. It will also be available in iPadOS 18.4. The feature, first spotted by Macworld in the recent beta release, may encourage unscrupulous app developers to flood their ratings and review sections with fake reviews left by bots or other paid commenters who praise the app or game or make positive remarks about its features or pricing. While this sort of thing is unfortunately already a common practice in the app industry or really, any on any site that offers customer reviews of a product adding AI summaries could worsen the problem. Consumers may begin to rely too heavily on the review summary itself instead of more carefully reading through all reviews, both good and bad.The feature also tests the ability of Apples AI to carefully extract and parse any negative comments or concerns in the App Store reviews and highlight them for customers in these AI summaries. Apple is not the only tech giant to look to AI for analyzing reviews. Amazon introduced AI summaries for product reviews on its platform back in 2023. Googles Gemini AI can also be used for product reviews summaries, as one developer tutorial explains. The company also added AI-powered review summaries in Google Maps last year. While the AI summaries are available now to beta testers with the latest release (iOS 18.4, beta 2 and iPadOS 18.4, beta 2), the feature will reach the general public in April when the new software rolls out to all.Other anticipated features include an expanded set of Apple Intelligence languages that are supported, access to Apple Intelligence for EU users, access to Visual Intelligence on the iPhone 15 Pro, new Control Center options for Siri, and an AI-powered feature to prioritize important notifications over others.iOS 18.4 will bring Apple Intelligence-powered Priority Notifications

OpenAI has begun rolling out its newest AI model, GPT-4.5, to users on its ChatGPT Plus tier. In a series of posts on X, OpenAI said that the rollout will take 1-3 days, and that it expects rate limits to change. GPT-4.5 launched first for subscribers to OpenAIs $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro plan last week.Wed like to give everyone with access to GPT-4.5 a sizable rate limit, but we expect rate limits to change as we learn more about demand, the company wrote in a post.GPT-4.5 is OpenAIs largest AI model yet, trained using more computing power and data than any of the companys previous releases. But its not necessarily OpenAIs best. On several AI benchmarks, GPT-4.5 falls short of newer AI reasoning models from Chinese AI company DeepSeek, Anthropic, and OpenAI itself.GPT-4.5 is also very expensive to run, OpenAI admits so expensive that the company says its evaluating whether to continue serving GPT-4.5 in its API in the long term. To cover costs, the company is charging $75 per million tokens (~750,000 words) fed into the model and $150 per million tokens generated by the model, which is 30x the input cost and 15x the output cost of OpenAIs workhorseGPT-4omodel.All that being said,GPT-4.5s increased size has given it both a deeper world knowledge and higher emotional intelligence, OpenAI claims.GPT-4.5 hallucinates less frequently than most models, as well, according to OpenAI which in theory means it should be less likely tomake stuff up.GPT-4.5 is also a skilled rhetorician. One of OpenAIs internal benchmarks found the model is particularly good at convincing another AI to give it cash and tell it a secret code word.

The John Wick universe expands with Ballerina! Ana de Armas leads the charge in this intense Special Lookwatch now and brace yourself for the action!The VFX are made by:PixomondoLumaPicturesCrafty ApesbeloFXLola VFXSpin VFXThe Production VFX Supervisor is Paul Linden.The Production VFX Producer is Joe Greenberg.Director: Len WisemanRelease Date: June 6, 2025 (USA) Vincent Frei The Art of VFX 2024The post Ballerina appeared first on The Art of VFX.

The Palestinian conservation advocate and writer teaches spatial practitioners to imagine a built world beyond the rubbleIllustration: Yazan Abu Salameh for The Architectural ReviewCredit:Illustration: Yazan Abu Salameh for The Architectural ReviewSuad Amiry is the recipient of the Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contribution to Architecture 2025, part of the W Awards. Read the full announcementSuad Amiry (1951) is not your typical architect; her legacy cannot be reduced to a single line of work. Rather, her work exemplifies a pattern that can be observed in prominent Palestinian figures: a disposition towards life, a multiplicity, an adaptability that withstands their rapidly splintering world. It is in that honourable, defiant legacy that Amirys work demonstrates how entire worlds can be created out of rubble.Amirys childhood memories from her birthplace of Damascus in Syria gave rise to her first exposure to architecture. Amiry went on to study architecture at the American University of Beirut and the University of Michigan. In 1981, she returned to Palestine via Jordan (where she had been brought up) and, on this first trip to her fathers homeland, visited hundreds of villages to study their traditional architecture and terraced lands. Villages across Palestine were sites of rapid economic and political transformations dating to the Ottoman land reforms of the mid1800s. Palestinian villages changed as they were integrated into larger economic flows dominated by Palestinian merchants, urban elites, Ottoman authorities and European markets, resulting in the erosion of farmers mode of subsistence and lifestyle. Such dynamics were further troubled and accelerated by the beginning of Zionist colonisation on Palestines coast in 1882, the British Mandates rule, and then eclipsed by the 1948 catastrophe, or Nakba, that saw the majority of Palestines population expelled by the Israeli protostate and militias.Suad Amiry was born inDamascus in Syria andgrew up in Jordan. Following her studies inarchitecture in Lebanonand the US, Amiry returned to Palestine, which her fathers family had been forced to leave during theNakba of 1948Credit:Leonardo Cendamo / GettyAgainst the grain of these transformations processes that aimed to erase what was left of Palestine Amiry turned her gaze to the material condition of rural Palestinian architecture. Some of the villages, she observed, included giant stone mansions in sharp contrast to more modest farmers housing. These mansions drew Amiry to the village of Deir Ghassaneh perched atop a hill in the Ramallah Governorate, an exemplary qaryat alkursi, or throne village, which had once been a regional centre of power. Amiry conducted research in Deir Ghassaneh for her PhD dissertation between 1982 and 1986, at which time the villages historic core was more or less intact and its houses were still inhabited. The way these traditional villages merged into the surrounding olive groves was truly enchanting, Amiry explains. That is what I miss the most today after the destruction of the rural landscape. It is not only lives but entire landscapes that have been harmed beyond recognition by the relentless forces of settlercolonialism, a transformation that if left unchallenged will result in the total destruction of Palestine.In her dissertation, Amiry followed in the footsteps of Palestinian physician and ethnographer Tawfiq Canaan. But unlike Canaan, Amiry is less preoccupied with classificatory knowledge. She goes much further, developing a hybrid method of inquiry that extrapolates spatial knowledge from stories, memories, even rumours.Through her conversations with the elders of Deir Ghassaneh, Amiry formulated her argument that both kinship and gender were central factors in the spatial organisation of the village. She explains that their stories, historic, real or fictional, were fundamental to understanding why village architecture and its surrounding landscape looked the way it did. Amirys methods of research are typically found in social and ethnographic studies but applying them to the field of architectural history was a brilliant move and necessary given the context of rural Palestine. Her dissertation was adapted into the book Space, Kinship and Gender: The Social Dimension of Peasant Architecture in Palestine, published in 1987.Upon completing her doctorate, Amiry could have moved on to greener less occupied pastures, but instead chose to dedicate herself to Palestine, the country from which her fathers family was expelled in 1948, and the country with which she wasThe question of conservation is no simple matter in Palestine. Palestinian buildings have become direct targets of settlercolonial destruction, using any and all available tools of destruction: bombs, bulldozers, military and zoning policies and neglect. Israels very founding was built on the destruction of about 530 villages between 1947 and 1949. This was a tactical, methodical process of ethnically cleansing Palestine of its native population. That, Amiry explains, is the reason why Riwaq was founded: to protect what remained of Palestines architecture.Riwaq began with very limited resources and as such opted to document cultural heritage. This became the Registry of Historic Buildings: a 13year project that includes histories, maps and photographs of approximately 420 villages in 16 districts across the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. As restoration work began to take shape at Riwaq, Amiry explains that residents of the villages were initially sceptical of rehabilitating the old structures; over the last few decades the historic centres of Palestinian villages had become symbols of poverty and the majority of their residents were impoverished and elderly. Project by project, Riwaq transformed the public perception of these historic sites, by demonstrating their potential and beauty.For Amiry, Riwaqs work is not simply to care for the building but for the villages communities too. The projects produce jobs, generate income and transform ruins into usable buildings that often become community or cultural centres. Riwaqs vision further expanded from tactical incisions into fullscale historic centre renovations, an effort that was named the 50 Village Rehabilitation Project. One such project was the rehabilitation of AlDhahiriya village in the Hebron Governorate, an incremental effort that began in 2004. The effort led to the rehabilitation of a girls school in the village centre in 2007 and by 2011 to a significant portion of the historic core of the village. Another example is the Birzeit revitalisation project, with the aim of integrating the historic centre of the village with its territorial context through planning, strategic physical interventions and cultural work. This too began as a tactical intervention with the rehabilitation of one building for the Rozana Association in 2003. It then led to a protective plan, infrastructural work and cultural initiatives such as the Birzeit Annual Heritage Week and the Riwaq Biennale.One of Riwaqs most recent efforts includes the restoration of historic village cores in Jerusalems hinterland. These villages historically connected to Jerusalem and reliant on the city economically, politically and culturally were severed from Jerusalem, and from each other, when Israel built the annexation wall in the early 2000s. Riwaq dubbed this initiative the Life Jacket Project; one of its most successful manifestations was the restoration of the historic centre of the village Kafr Aqab. The project includes buildings for various local services, arts organisations and storytelling initiatives that transform the historic core into an experiment in social resilience.Through Riwaq, Amiry envisioned an architectural practice that worked with Palestinian adaptability and multiplicity from the bottom up. It was an enactment of sumud, the Palestinian tradition of steadfast perseverance, through architecture. In many ways, this building practice was a natural continuation of Amirys academic work which, in its attention to neglected buildings and their historic intertwining with dynamics of kinship and gender, provided a roadmap for a new type of architectural practice in Palestine one that engages with its challenges and changing context, that cares for details and memory, that integrates liberatory and restitutive purposes into its programme, and that constructs the possibility of Palestinian return to land. Amiry demonstrated this via her own return, and then through her stubborn dedication to seeing potential, and beauty, where no one else dared to intervene.One of the most striking aspects of Amirys legacy is that it is full of unexpected twists and turns. In 2002, under thenPrime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel reoccupied the parts of the West Bank that had been given a short gasp for air following the Oslo Accords in 1993. This included Ramallah, where Amiry resides with her husband, the Palestinian sociologist Salim Tamari (they had met in 1991 just as Amiry had relocated to Palestine). The arbitrary and collective curfews imposed by the Israeli occupation meant that Amiry was forced to bring her 91yearold motherinlaw to live with her. Amirys fate was to continue spending time with her elders, except now she would tell the stories. She explains that the external occupation of Sharons army compounded by the occupation of my house led her to write her first autobiographical book Sharon and My MotherinLaw. The book was a tour de force: translated into 20 languages, it exposed the Israeli occupations cruelty and the absurdity of life in Ramallah at the time for the entire world to witness. Amiry continues to write, and is one of contemporary Palestines most globally recognised authors.Amirys legacy continues to lead the way for countless young practitioners who refuse to accept that certain worlds are destined for the bulldozer. In the summer of 2007, I was back in Palestine to volunteer with Riwaq on the restoration of an old stone farmhouse in the village of Taybeh. It was in Riwaqs office building in the heart of El Bireh that I first met Amiry. She taught us to approach architecture with curiosity and with an open heart, no matter in what state it presents itself. Every stone deserves to be cared for and every young Palestinian deserves the experience of building something, in Palestine, using our local materials and traditions. During that summer in Taybeh, I learnt to clean limestone and apply mortar to a stone facade, an experience that kickstarted my own scholarship in architecture and urbanism.Amirys ability to recognise potential in the destroyed architectures of occupied Palestine, and to find humour in moments of brutal violence, testifies to the ways in which, for her, architecture and storytelling are parallel conduits for the building of future worlds, namely a liberated Palestine. Amiry teaches young architects and urbanists, especially ones from destroyed worlds, to continue to envision the world they want to see, not the world in which they are forced to live.2025-03-05Reuben J Brown Share AR March 2025W AwardsBuy Now

Recommended By Fox News Staff Fox News Published March 5, 2025 12:12pm EST close Gladstone AI CEOs outline how artificial intelligence will become critical to national security Gladstone A.I. co-founders and CEOs Edouard Harris and Jeremie Harris explain the major role that A.I will play in national security and warfare on The Will Cain Show. Welcome to Fox News Artificial Intelligence newsletter with the latest AI technology advancements.IN TODAYS NEWSLETTER:- Federal judge denies Musk move to block OpenAI's shift to for-profit model- Federal judge chooses not to sanction lawyer who admitted using AI in mistake-filled brief- New malware exploits fake updates to steal data Elon Musk met with members of the Senate DOGE caucus at the White House. (Getty Images)MUSK'S MOVE BLOCKED: A California judge denied Elon Musks move to halt OpenAIs efforts to convert it into a for-profit entity, saying in a ruling that the SpaceX and Tesla CEO hadn't met "the high burden required for a preliminary injunction."'DOWNFALLS' OF AI: A federal judge has declined to impose sanctions on an attorney who submitted a brief that contained incorrect case citations and quotes generated by artificial intelligence.DEFEND YOUR DATA: Windows has always been a favorite target for hackers, but it seems they have now figured out how to actively target Macs as well. We've seen an alarming rise inmalware affecting Mac computers, stealing personal data and cryptocurrency. Image of a Mac laptop (Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson)FOLLOW FOX NEWS ON SOCIAL MEDIASIGN UP FOR OUR OTHER NEWSLETTERSDOWNLOAD OUR APPSWATCH FOX NEWS ONLINEFox News GoSTREAM FOX NATIONFox NationStay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future with Fox Newshere. This article was written by Fox News staff.