Let's make this simple: You want to know if there are any post- or mid-credits scenes in Final Destination: Bloodlines. The answer is no. There weren't any credits scenes in the first five movies and there isn’t one in the sixth either!There is some imagery that runs along with the credits which is fun to check out though.Full spoilers for the movie (and the entire Final Destination series so far) follow!Final Destination: Bloodlines manages to have fun with the formula of the series, both sticking to the basic scenario fans expect – someone’s premonition of an impending terrible tragedy leads them to escape that tragedy alongside a group of others, only for Death itself to kill those who escaped it one by one in elaborate ways – while also introducing its own specifics that make it feel a bit different and fresh. Let’s break down the ending of the film and how it relates to the series as a whole…The Best Final Destination DeathsThe Set-UpIn Bloodlines, Iris (played by Gabrielle Rose in the present and Brec Bassinger in the past), the woman who had the premonition of the collapse of the high-rise Skyview Restaurant Tower, did so way way back in 1968. And unlike in the previous films, where many still died in the actual disaster except the few people who left thanks to the premonition, in this situation, Iris saved all of the hundreds of people packing the restaurant that night, who were evacuated thanks to her warning. Slowly but surely, Death did come after them for escaping its grasp, except there were extenuating circumstances, since so many of these people went on to have children and sometimes grandchildren. So Death, always so tidy and persistent, has spent the last 57 years killing not only each survivor off but the entire bloodline that has resulted from each person, since by Death’s rules, they shouldn’t have existed in the first place.. Now, Death’s work on Project: Skyview (our term, not Death’s) is nearly complete, and Iris’ family remains his big unfinished task – all of which starts to become clear to Iris’ granddaughter Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) when she begins having nightmares of Iris’ Skyview premonition, leading her to seek out the grandmother she’d never met, and who she was always told was crazy. PlayFinal Destination: Bloodlines Ending ExplainedA Reunion to Die ForStefani is initially skeptical of Iris’ story and the reason she now has spent years barricaded inside a house she’s attempted to death-proof to protect herself the best she can, even as she tells Stefani she now is dying from cancer and thus won’t be able to escape Death much longer. But when the still disbelieving Stefani goes outside to leave, Iris impulsively runs after her to ensure Stefani takes the book in which Iris has collected her findings on what happened to all those who survived Skyview and how to try to avoid literal Death traps - and decides to prove what she knows about Death’s plan by staying outside long enough for a weather vane to snap off and impale her in front of Stefani. Soon enough, with Iris dead, Death now goes after everyone else in the family, which includes Stefani’s brother and her estranged mother, plus her uncle and three cousins (anyone who married into the family, like Stefani’s father or her aunt are safe, since they would have existed regardless of Skyview). And after Uncle Howard (Alex Zahara) and his daughter Julia (Anna Lore) both go out in classic Final Destination scenarios involving a lawnmower and a garbage truck, the rest of the family is suddenly much more onboard with the claims of both Stefani and her mother Darlene (Rya Kihlstedt) - the latter of whom returns after years in self-exile because her own erratic behavior thanks to her mother’s “Death is everywhere” teachings had made her fear how she was raising her kids. Tony Todd’s Final Appearance: One Last Message From an IconMaking an emotional final appearance as his second most famous horror character after Candyman, the late, great Tony Todd – who passed away a few months after production wrapped on Bloodlines – returns as Final Destination regular William Bludworth, who Stefani and her family encounter at a hospital, learning he is the “JB” Iris referred to in her book. It turns out JB is a nickname his friends use, based off of his full name being William John Bludworth. It’s a fun way to suddenly add some personal touches to a character who was so enigmatic in his previous appearances that this is the first time since we met him 25 years ago that his name has been spoken out loud. Bludworth is only in the one scene, which was the norm for Todd’s role in this franchise, but it’s a big one for several reasons, effectively bidding a well-earned fond farewell to both the character and the man who played him. PlayBeyond his middle name and a nickname we didn’t know before, Bludworth reveals much more, including that he was the little boy who Iris tried to help in her premonition in 1968, in which the two of them died last in the tower collapse, making him the other last target Death has been seeking among those who survived the Skyview. Now though, like Iris did, he has terminal cancer and his time is nearly up once Iris’ family are all gone. Todd himself was sadly in the final stages of stomach cancer when he shot Final Destination: Bloodlines and the filmmakers have noted all involved understood the situation and why it was important to properly say goodbye to the character while, most importantly, giving Todd his due. As Bloodlines co-director Zach Lipovsky explained to IGN, “We’re really grateful that we had the ability to, from the beginning, design that experience for the audience with Tony and with all the writers and everybody. We knew he was ill for quite a while and he was extremely excited to be in the movie. He was very grateful for the ability to participate in the film and he was so joyful on set when he was there and he was cracking jokes and really excited to just have his ability to be in the film and give his character a lot more backstory. We give a lot of answers to who Bludworth is in the film, which is something that during the franchise, people have been clamoring for for a really long time. But we also knew that this was also going to be a goodbye of the character. And that's something that we worked very closely with him, to figure out really the best way of doing that, because these films are about death and his mortality was very present as we were working with him.” Bludworth tells Stefani and the others there are two known methods to actually cheat Death, in a moment that is rather exciting for longtime Final Destination fans in terms of acknowledging previous lore. First, as established in Final Destination 5, you can take the life of someone else - basically using that other person as a sacrifice, with you now getting the “credit” for the time your victim naturally had left to live, or even potentially some extra credit if they had decades and decades more to go before they would have died. But perhaps more importantly, because it’s the only way Bludworth knows of to save everyone still alive involved in a situation like this, is the cheat introduced in Final Destination 2 where clinically dying but then being resuscitated breaks Death’s chain completely. Which means if one of the family can pull this off, they can all be saved. But Bludworth says only one person has ever done this successfully (more on that below). He had this sort of mischievous smile, even when he delivers that line and then says, ‘Good luck.’ -Co-director Zach Lipovsky on shooting Tony Todd's final scene“Todd’s scene ends with Bludworth revealing that he is going to retire and enjoy the time he has left and then his final words get notably poignant for a Final Destination film - something Lipovsky credits fully to Todd. “One of the unique opportunities that came up was that near the end of that scene, we asked him to actually throw away the script for a moment and just speak from the heart as to everything that he was thinking about as far as what the movie was about, what the franchise has been about, but also just what life's about and what is it all about in the end. And the take that's in the film where he says, ‘Life is precious. Cherish every second because you never know when…’ And the earnestness that he says that with all came in the moment from him. And I think you really feel that when you watch the movie that he's obviously speaking as a character who knows that their death is coming, but he's also speaking as an actor who's speaking to the audience as far as what's important in life. And that was a really powerful moment on set when we filmed that with him.” Not surprisingly, it was a highly emotional day on set when Todd shot his scene, but Lipovsky loves how Todd’s actual final words of “Good luck” to the other characters (and, essentially, to the audience) and how he delivers them let him also meld the actor and Bludworth together further.“He had this sort of mischievous smile, even when he delivers that line and then says, ‘Good luck’ in the way that he has – that sort of dark, mischievous way as he goes out the door – he knew exactly what he was doing and he relished [it].” Final Destination: Bloodline GalleryFarewell to the Family While still at the hospital, Stefani’s cousins Erik (Richard Harmon) and Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner) are the next to go. Technically, Erik wasn’t on Death’s list because he doesn’t share Iris’ bloodline – he’s shocked to discover he was the result of an affair his mother Brenda (April Telek) had – but he gets taken out too when he attempts to break the chain by “killing” his brother using Bobby’s peanut allergy before rushing him to the ER to be revived. However, an errant, Death-controlled MRI machine acting like it’s Magneto on a rampage pulls the piercing-laden Erik towards it, who is then snapped in half when a wheelchair shoves him into the MRI machine in a very unrecommended manner - and then Bobby is stabbed by a projectile-powered spring from a vending machine, which drills into his head. With Uncle Howard’s side of the family all gone, it’s just Stefani and her brother Charlie (Tio Briones) and Darlene left. Given all Iris did to keep it safe for herself inside, they decide to go to Iris’ abandoned cabin, with Darlene intending to now live the isolated life her mother did - because if Death can’t get to her, it can’t move on to her kids. But when they arrive, Death does its best to keep them out, with the RV crashing and Stefani submerged in water as a result, while the house itself gets set on fire and explodes. Darlene is then killed when a post falls onto her but Charlie gets to his sister, who has seemingly drowned, and performs CPR on her. He is able to save her, and in the process, seems to have finally stopped Death from continuing to hunt them. The siblings laugh, thinking they’ve escaped - before one of the train cars suddenly pivots, sending huge logs flying which crush and kill Stefani and Charlie.“Sometime later, Charlie is getting ready for prom night alongside his dad and sister and it’s mentioned to his date’s father, who’s a doctor, how Charlie brought Stefani back from the dead. However, the doctor then tells them that, considering how quickly Stefani was revived, she was unconscious but never actually clinically dead… which means Death was never truly thwarted.And that’s when a train passing by crashes and derails, skidding through the street and seemingly aiming right for Stefani and Charlie, who desperately try to outrun it. It comes to a stop and the siblings laugh, thinking they’ve escaped - before one of the train cars suddenly pivots on its side, sending huge logs it was carrying flying through the air, which crush and kill Stefani and Charlie, in a callback to one of the franchise’s most famous and most meme’d moments (from Final Destination 2). Does Final Destination Bloodlines Have a Mid- or Post-Credit Scene?Not really, but there are some visuals accompanying the closing credits that focus on articles Iris had collected in her book about various notable deaths through the years, intercut with quick footage from some of those tragedies - before we end on the newest article, reporting on Stefani and Charlie’s bizarre death. PlayBut Does Bloodlines Set Up Final Destination 7 in Any Way?The sixth Final Destination movie doesn’t really offer any set-up for a seventh installment… unless it does? This is a franchise that has never been about heavy serialization. Only the second movie was truly a direct sequel with explicit plot threads to the movie that preceded it, including a prominent returning character in the form of Ali Larter’s Clear Rivers. But following that film – and Clear dying in it – the series consisted of nearly entirely standalone stories that introduced a brand new group of characters each time, with the exception of a possible William Bludworth scene (he wasn’t in Final Destination 3 or 4, though Tony Todd made an audio cameo in FD3). And having new characters made sense, because Final Destination 3, 4 and 5, as with Bloodlines now, also made sure there were zero survivors among their crop of new Death targets. Along with Bludworth, the only real recurring element beyond the core concept was that the strange occurrences of the first film’s Flight 180 explosion and the ill-fated group who initially escaped that scenario were at least somewhat well known and would usually be brought up at some point, but even then, usually in a nebulous manner. (Though Final Destination 5 of course skipped a Flight 180 mention in order to mask its very fun Secret Prequel status, with that film’s ending looping back into the original movie in a thrilling manner.)To have Final Destination 2's Kimberly brought up makes it hard not to wonder if there might be plans for her going forward as someone with important information for those wishing to stop Death.“All of which is to say that it really stands out in Final Destination: Bloodlines when Bludworth, while explaining how you can actually cheat Death – and talking about the only person who did it – says the name Kimberly Corman. Played by AJ Cook, Kimberly Corman was the main character in 2003’s Final Destination 2, and following multiple mentions in Bloodlines of the “survivor” Iris wrote about “JB” finding in her book, Bludworth specifically mentions Kimberly as the one and only person who’s ever fully cheated Death without it coming back around on her. In Final Destination 2’s conclusion, Kimberly purposely drove into a lake and drowned and was truly clinically dead briefly before a doctor resuscitated her. (It’s worth noting that Kimberly’s actions also saved her friend, Thomas Burke, who would have died after her, but we’ll just assume Bludworth didn’t want to complicate matters and stuck to discussing the person whose actual decision affected the outcome.)Longtime mega-fans of the series may recall that the Final Destination 3 DVD had a “Choose Their Fate” interactive special feature where you could see alternate scenarios from what occurred in the film. And in one of them, a headline did report on Kimberly and Burke’s eventual deaths. But that version of the story was never canon and now Bludworth’s information in Bloodlines confirms Kimberly’s method really and truly worked and she’s still alive. It’s been 22 years since we’ve seen Kimberly or Burke but to have Kimberly’s name suddenly brought up in this manner makes it hard not to wonder if there might be plans for her going forward as someone with important information for those wishing to stop Death in the future - especially given that, with Bludworth no longer an option, this series is probably in need of a new Person Who Knows Things for the newbies to go to, given sticking only to internet searches for your characters just isn’t cinematically exciting. And look, AJ Cook’s been plenty busy for the past couple of decades as a cast member on Criminal Minds, but maybe she can still take a break to go deal with Death once again. Of course, there’s also Iris’ book and all of the information she’s gathered as a notable remaining element, and it does stand out that Stefani’s father Marty (Tinpo Lee) and Aunt Brenda are both alive at the end of the film, thanks to not being part of Iris’ bloodline. Could either one of them or Iris’ book play a role in the future, at least as far as briefly appearing to pass on what they know? We’ll have to see what Death’s – and the Final Destination producers’ – design is.What did you think of Bloodlines? Let’s discuss in the comments!Note: This story was updated with full spoilers on May 16, 2025.

There was never much hope that a game as technically and graphically intensive as Red Dead Redemption 2 would ever be able to run well enough on the aged hardware of the Nintendo Switch for Rockstar to even consider trying to make that happen, but the upcoming Switch 2 definitely is powerful enough- and sure enough, Rockstar’s title might be headed its way. That’s as per a Gamereactor report, which cites anonymous sources familiar with Rockstar’s plans and claims that Red Dead Redemption 2 is in development for the Nintendo Switch 2. Additionally, the Wild West epic allegedly also has native PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions in the works. Exactly when these versions will be official announced or when they will release is unknown. The report does vaguely offer details on the supposed enhancements, claiming the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions will tout graphics and performance improvements. A recent leak claimed that Rockstar Games has also had a current-gen version of Grand Theft Auto 4 in the works, along with plans of a Max Payne 3 remaster to go along with Max Payne 1 and 2 Remake, which is in development at Remedy Entertainment. Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto 6 is, of course, due out on May 26 next year for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Google’s new AlphaEvolve shows what happens when an AI agent graduates from lab demo to production work, and you’ve got one of the most talented technology companies driving it. Built by Google’s DeepMind, the system autonomously rewrites critical code and already pays for itself inside Google. It shattered a 56-year-old record in matrix multiplication (the core of many machine learning workloads) and clawed back 0.7% of compute capacity across the company’s global data centers. Those headline feats matter, but the deeper lesson for enterprise tech leaders is how AlphaEvolve pulls them off. Its architecture – controller, fast-draft models, deep-thinking models, automated evaluators and versioned memory – illustrates the kind of production-grade plumbing that makes autonomous agents safe to deploy at scale. Google’s AI technology is arguably second to none. So the trick is figuring out how to learn from it, or even using it directly. Google says an Early Access Program is coming for academic partners and that “broader availability” is being explored, but details are thin. Until then, AlphaEvolve is a best-practice template: If you want agents that touch high-value workloads, you’ll need comparable orchestration, testing and guardrails. Consider just the data center win. Google won’t put a price tag on the reclaimed 0.7%, but its annual capex runs tens of billions of dollars. Even a rough estimate puts the savings in the hundreds of millions annually—enough, as independent developer Sam Witteveen noted on our recent podcast, to pay for training one of the flagship Gemini models, estimated to cost upwards of $191 million for a version like Gemini Ultra. VentureBeat was the first to report about the AlphaEvolve news earlier this week. Now we’ll go deeper: how the system works, where the engineering bar really sits and the concrete steps enterprises can take to build (or buy) something comparable. 1. Beyond simple scripts: The rise of the “agent operating system” AlphaEvolve runs on what is best described as an agent operating system – a distributed, asynchronous pipeline built for continuous improvement at scale. Its core pieces are a controller, a pair of large language models (Gemini Flash for breadth; Gemini Pro for depth), a versioned program-memory database and a fleet of evaluator workers, all tuned for high throughput rather than just low latency. A high-level overview of the AlphaEvolve agent structure. Source: AlphaEvolve paper. This architecture isn’t conceptually new, but the execution is. “It’s just an unbelievably good execution,” Witteveen says. The AlphaEvolve paper describes the orchestrator as an “evolutionary algorithm that gradually develops programs that improve the score on the automated evaluation metrics” (p. 3); in short, an “autonomous pipeline of LLMs whose task is to improve an algorithm by making direct changes to the code” (p. 1). Takeaway for enterprises: If your agent plans include unsupervised runs on high-value tasks, plan for similar infrastructure: job queues, a versioned memory store, service-mesh tracing and secure sandboxing for any code the agent produces.  2. The evaluator engine: driving progress with automated, objective feedback A key element of AlphaEvolve is its rigorous evaluation framework. Every iteration proposed by the pair of LLMs is accepted or rejected based on a user-supplied “evaluate” function that returns machine-gradable metrics. This evaluation system begins with ultrafast unit-test checks on each proposed code change – simple, automatic tests (similar to the unit tests developers already write) that verify the snippet still compiles and produces the right answers on a handful of micro-inputs – before passing the survivors on to heavier benchmarks and LLM-generated reviews. This runs in parallel, so the search stays fast and safe. In short: Let the models suggest fixes, then verify each one against tests you trust. AlphaEvolve also supports multi-objective optimization (optimizing latency and accuracy simultaneously), evolving programs that hit several metrics at once. Counter-intuitively, balancing multiple goals can improve a single target metric by encouraging more diverse solutions. Takeaway for enterprises: Production agents need deterministic scorekeepers. Whether that’s unit tests, full simulators, or canary traffic analysis. Automated evaluators are both your safety net and your growth engine. Before you launch an agentic project, ask: “Do we have a metric the agent can score itself against?” 3. Smart model use, iterative code refinement AlphaEvolve tackles every coding problem with a two-model rhythm. First, Gemini Flash fires off quick drafts, giving the system a broad set of ideas to explore. Then Gemini Pro studies those drafts in more depth and returns a smaller set of stronger candidates. Feeding both models is a lightweight “prompt builder,” a helper script that assembles the question each model sees. It blends three kinds of context: earlier code attempts saved in a project database, any guardrails or rules the engineering team has written and relevant external material such as research papers or developer notes. With that richer backdrop, Gemini Flash can roam widely while Gemini Pro zeroes in on quality. Unlike many agent demos that tweak one function at a time, AlphaEvolve edits entire repositories. It describes each change as a standard diff block – the same patch format engineers push to GitHub – so it can touch dozens of files without losing track. Afterward, automated tests decide whether the patch sticks. Over repeated cycles, the agent’s memory of success and failure grows, so it proposes better patches and wastes less compute on dead ends. Takeaway for enterprises: Let cheaper, faster models handle brainstorming, then call on a more capable model to refine the best ideas. Preserve every trial in a searchable history, because that memory speeds up later work and can be reused across teams. Accordingly, vendors are rushing to provide developers with new tooling around things like memory. Products such as OpenMemory MCP, which provides a portable memory store, and the new long- and short-term memory APIs in LlamaIndex are making this kind of persistent context almost as easy to plug in as logging. OpenAI’s Codex-1 software-engineering agent, also released today, underscores the same pattern. It fires off parallel tasks inside a secure sandbox, runs unit tests and returns pull-request drafts—effectively a code-specific echo of AlphaEvolve’s broader search-and-evaluate loop. 4. Measure to manage: targeting agentic AI for demonstrable ROI AlphaEvolve’s tangible wins – reclaiming 0.7% of data center capacity, cutting Gemini training kernel runtime 23%, speeding FlashAttention 32%, and simplifying TPU design – share one trait: they target domains with airtight metrics. For data center scheduling, AlphaEvolve evolved a heuristic that was evaluated using a simulator of Google’s data centers based on historical workloads. For kernel optimization, the objective was to minimize actual runtime on TPU accelerators across a dataset of realistic kernel input shapes. Takeaway for enterprises: This clarity allows the agent to self-improve and demonstrate unambiguous value. 5. Laying the groundwork: essential prerequisites for enterprise agentic success While AlphaEvolve’s achievements are inspiring, Google’s paper is also clear about its scope and requirements. The primary limitation is the need for an automated evaluator; problems requiring manual experimentation or “wet-lab” feedback are currently out of scope for this specific approach. The system can consume significant compute – “on the order of 100 compute-hours to evaluate any new solution” (AlphaEvolve paper, page 8), necessitating parallelization and careful capacity planning. Before allocating significant budget to complex agentic systems, technical leaders must ask critical questions: Machine-gradable problem? Do we have a clear, automatable metric against which the agent can score its own performance? Compute capacity? Can we afford the potentially compute-heavy inner loop of generation, evaluation, and refinement, especially during the development and training phase? Codebase & memory readiness? Is your codebase structured for iterative, possibly diff-based, modifications? And can you implement the instrumented memory systems vital for an agent to learn from its evolutionary history? Takeaway for enterprises: The increasing focus on robust agent identity and access management, as seen with platforms like Frontegg, Auth0 and others, also points to the maturing infrastructure required to deploy agents that interact securely with multiple enterprise systems. The agentic future is engineered, not just summoned AlphaEvolve’s message for enterprise teams is manifold. First, your operating system around agents is now far more important than model intelligence. Google’s blueprint shows three pillars that can’t be skipped: Deterministic evaluators that give the agent an unambiguous score every time it makes a change. Long-running orchestration that can juggle fast “draft” models like Gemini Flash with slower, more rigorous models – whether that’s Google’s stack or a framework such as LangChain’s LangGraph. Persistent memory so each iteration builds on the last instead of relearning from scratch. Enterprises that already have logging, test harnesses and versioned code repositories are closer than they think. The next step is to wire those assets into a self-serve evaluation loop so multiple agent-generated solutions can compete, and only the highest-scoring patch ships.  As Cisco’s Anurag Dhingra, VP and GM of Enterprise Connectivity and Collaboration, told VentureBeat in an interview this week: “It’s happening, it is very, very real,” he said of enterprises using AI agents in manufacturing, warehouses, customer contact centers. “It is not something in the future. It is happening there today.” He warned that as these agents become more pervasive, doing “human-like work,” the strain on existing systems will be immense: “The network traffic is going to go through the roof,” Dhingra said. Your network, budget and competitive edge will likely feel that strain before the hype cycle settles. Start proving out a contained, metric-driven use case this quarter – then scale what works. Watch the video podcast I did with developer Sam Witteveen, where we go deep on production-grade agents, and how AlphaEvolve is showing the way: Daily insights on business use cases with VB Daily If you want to impress your boss, VB Daily has you covered. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI. Read our Privacy Policy Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here. An error occured.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is in the Works for Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X/S – Rumour Rockstar Games' acclaimed open world Wild West epic is headed for current-gen consoles and Nintendo's upcoming new hardware, it's claimed. Posted By Shubhankar Parijat | On 17th, May. 2025 There was never much hope that a game as technically and graphically intensive as Red Dead Redemption 2 would ever be able to run well enough on the aged hardware of the Nintendo Switch for Rockstar to even consider trying to make that happen, but the upcoming Switch 2 definitely is powerful enough- and sure enough, Rockstar’s title might be headed its way. That’s as per a Gamereactor report, which cites anonymous sources familiar with Rockstar’s plans and claims that Red Dead Redemption 2 is in development for the Nintendo Switch 2. Additionally, the Wild West epic allegedly also has native PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions in the works. Exactly when these versions will be official announced or when they will release is unknown. The report does vaguely offer details on the supposed enhancements, claiming the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions will tout graphics and performance improvements. A recent leak claimed that Rockstar Games has also had a current-gen version of Grand Theft Auto 4 in the works, along with plans of a Max Payne 3 remaster to go along with Max Payne 1 and 2 Remake, which is in development at Remedy Entertainment. Meanwhile, Grand Theft Auto 6 is, of course, due out on May 26 next year for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Tagged With: Elden Ring: Nightreign Publisher:Bandai Namco Developer:FromSoftware Platforms:PS5, Xbox Series X, PS4, Xbox One, PCView More DOOM: The Dark Ages Publisher:Bethesda Softworks Developer:id Software Platforms:Xbox Series X, PS5, PCView More Death Stranding 2: On the Beach Publisher:Sony Developer:Kojima Productions Platforms:PS5View More Amazing Articles You Might Want To Check Out! Red Dead Redemption 2 is in the Works for Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X/S – Rumour Rockstar Games' acclaimed open world Wild West epic is headed for current-gen consoles and Nintendo's upcoming... Switch 2 Won’t Support VRR in Docked Mode, Nintendo Confirms "The incorrect information was initially published on the Nintendo Switch 2 website, and we apologise for the ... Rockstar’s Next Move Might Be a GTA 4 Remaster, But a Basic Port Won’t Cut It If GTA 4 returns to the limelight, it needs to do so with more than a simple port. Elden Ring Nightreign Trailer Details the Guardian’s Passive and Skills Use Steel Guard to block massive amounts of damage or fly into the area to divebomb enemies and protect your a... Take-Two Interactive CEO is “Reasonably Confident” The Company Won’t be Affected by US Tariffs During a recent earnings call, Strauss Zelnick spoke about how the company already has a consumer base on ever... The First Berserker: Khazan Missed Internal Sales Targets But Nexon Doesn’t Mind In its recent earnings report, Nexon said that the game achieved its objective of bringing global attention to... View More

Max is changing its name back to HBO Max, and much like The Joker in one of Warner’s DC Universe films, I can’t stop laughing. Three years have passed since the mega-merger that birthed Warner Bros. Discovery and led to a new name for its flagship streaming service. The Max brand was supposed to emphasize a breadth of programming beyond the HBO catalog, but Warner’s executives now say the forthcoming rebrand (or unbrand) represents a return to quality over quantity. This would be easier to accept if HBO’s owners had any credibility left. But over the past few years, pretty much everything the Warner-Discovery merger was supposed to accomplish has failed. Now, the company can no longer articulate what it’s aiming for, other than to squeeze a little extra profit from a flailing enterprise. It’s as funny as it is sad. Max’s broken promises Let’s go back to when AT&T announced it would spin off WarnerMedia into a new company and merge it with Discovery. (The spin-off itself acknowledged that AT&T shouldn’t have bought Warner in the first place, but that’s a whole other story.) Here’s what the companies’ 2021 press release claimed the merger would accomplish: Increase investments in original programming for its streaming services. Enhance programming options “across its global linear pay TV and broadcast channels.” Create new opportunities for “under-represented storytellers and independent creators.” Give viewers “innovative video experiences and points of engagement.” Here’s what the company actually did: Became the first streamer to remove popular original programming from its catalog. Axed completed films for the sake of tax write-offs. Lost the rights to live NBA games, the crown jewel of its sports programming, starting next season. Quickly started cancelling shows that highlighted underrepresented communities. Did not deliver any notable video innovations, but did start charging extra for 4K video and will soon shake down password sharers for more money. Raised prices for ad-free streaming. Paying more for less (again) More broadly, Warner Bros. Discovery promised to deliver what CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels called a “blowout DTC (direct-to-consumer) product.” At a 2022 industry conference, Wiedenfels said this service would be “one of the most complete, sort of four quadrant, old-young-male-female products out there.” Over time, the company did take some steps to bulk up Max’s offerings. It brought in Discovery’s catalog of reality TV programming, launched a live feed of CNN programming, and added live sports from TNT and other Warner cable channels. But with the name reverting back to HBO Max this summer, Warner says completeness is no longer the goal. President and CEO of streaming JB Perrette said in a press release that HBO Max will offer “not everything for everyone in a household, but something distinct and great for adults and families.” That likely means less of what Max added over the past few years. Its sports offerings will be slim without the NBA; CNN will have its own separate subscription service, raising questions about the future of Max’s CNN programming; and cable channels such as Discovery could be spun off into a separate company. “The things subscribers want from us are HBO programming, scripted dramas, comedies, documentaries, the pay-one [licensing window] movies, library movies, and basically the Warner Bros. TV library,” CEO of HBO and Max Content Casey Bloys said. News, sports, and reality programming are conspicuously absent from that statement. While Warner hasn’t announced any immediate changes to HBO Max’s content, the likely outcome is that you’ll be paying more for less. If it makes you feel any better, this hasn’t worked out for Warner Bros. Discovery’s business, either. Like other TV programmers, Warner has been leaning on profits from traditional pay TV bundles to fund its forays into streaming. The merger was supposed to help, as the combined entity would have more bargaining power to increase pay TV carriage fees. But with the loss of NBA rights and the overall trend toward hollowing out original pay TV programming, those channels have become increasingly worthless. Carriage fees for TNT are now flat or in decline, and cable companies such as Comcast and Spectrum are getting Max thrown into their TV packages at no extra charge, hurting Warner’s streaming revenues. Last August, Warner took a $9 billion write-down on the value of its TV assets and may now look to spin them off; meanwhile, the company’s stock price has fallen from $24.88 on the day of the merger to $9.05 as of this writing. All this just so we can get back to where we started, with a service supposedly focused on quality again. Given what we’ve seen over the past three years, you’d be justified in seeing this as just an excuse to cut more corners and fatten executives’ pay packages instead. Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter weekly newsletter to get more streaming advice every Friday

The AI clones establish a rapport and then try to trick the target into clicking dirty links. Image: Moor Studio/Getty Images Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. If you recently received a voice message from an unusual number claiming to be your local congressperson, it’s probably a scam. The FBI’s crime division issued a warning this week about a new scheme in which bad actors use text messages and AI-generated voice clones to impersonate government officials. The scammers try to build a sense of connection with their target and eventually convince them to click on a malicious link that steals valuable login credentials. This scam is just the latest in a series of evolving attacks using convincing generative AI technology to trick people. “If you receive a message claiming to be from a senior US official, do not assume it is authentic,” the FBI crime alert reads.  How the scam works Government officials say the scam began around April of this year. Attackers either send text messages or use AI-generated voice clone technology to impersonate government employees. Many of the targets of these attacks, the alert notes, have been officials or close contacts of government officials. AI technology has improved rapidly in recent years, to the point where some systems can generate convincing fakes after analyzing just a few minutes, or even seconds, of a person’s voice recordings. Public officials—many of whom frequently give speeches or statements—are particularly vulnerable to voice cloning. Though the FBI notice is sparse on details, it says scammers typically use the supposed government official’s identity to create a sense of familiarity or urgency with their target. From there, they often ask the target to click a link to continue the conversation on a different messaging platform. In reality, that link is a trap designed to steal sensitive credentials like usernames and passwords. The FBI warns that this type of attack could also be used to target other individuals in government positions. If scammers gain access to a victim’s contacts, they could use that information to target additional officials. The stolen contact details could later be used to impersonate others in attempts to steal or transfer funds. “Access to personal or official accounts operated by US officials could be used to target other government officials, or their associates and contacts, by using trusted contact information they obtain,” the FBI notes.  Related: [That unpaid highway toll text message is a scam] Scammers are leaning into AI deepfakes  Increasingly convincing AI-generated audio and video are making phishing scams more effective. A 2024 report from cybersecurity company Zscaler found that phishing attempts increased by 58 percent in 2023, a surge attributed in part to AI deepfakes. While these scams can target anyone, seniors are often disproportionately impacted. In 2023, FBI data showed that scammers stole $3.4 billion from senior citizens through various financial schemes. AI, the agency notes, is worsening the problem by making scams appear more believable, tricking people who might otherwise recognize them as fraud. Some of these attacks can be shockingly targeted. Over the past two years, there have been numerous reports of attackers using voice cloning technology to trick parents into believing their child has been kidnapped. In a state of panic, the victims transfer large sums of money, only to later discover their loved one was never in danger. Voice clones are also being used in the political arena. Last year, voters in New Hampshire received a robocall featuring what sounded like former President Joe Biden, urging them not to vote in the state’s primary. The “Biden” voice was actually generated by AI. That audio was reportedly created by political consultant Steve Kramer, who was working with then-Democratic presidential primary challenger Dean Phillips. Kramer was eventually fined $6 million by the FCC and is facing criminal charges for alleged voter suppression.​​ The FBI urges people to exercise extreme caution if they receive a communication claiming to come directly from a government official. If that does happen, individuals should attempt to independently verify the person’s identity by calling a known, trusted phone number associated with them. The alert also advises the public to inspect email addresses and URLs for typos or other irregularities that could indicate a phishing attempt. In the case of deepfakes, the notice recommends watching for awkward pauses, unusual intonation, or other oddities that may be telltale signs of an AI-generated voice. That’s easier said than done. Today’s most sophisticated tools can produce manipulated content in ways that’s virtually indistinguishable to the average human observer.

What just happened? Bungie announced a reboot of the classic first-person shooter Marathon in 2023. It formally unveiled project footage just a few weeks ago. The multiplayer extraction shooter has already drawn criticism after someone spotted issues with some of the artwork used by the Sony-owned developer. Bungie is under fire for allegedly using stolen art assets in its extraction shooter Marathon. Independent artist Antireal caught the Washington-based studio "recycling" some of her designs, and Bungie is now downplaying the incident by shifting blame to former employees. The controversy has sparked broader conversations in the gaming community about creative ethics and the responsibility of major studios to respect independent artists' work. Antireal recently called out the studio on X, claiming the Marathon alpha build includes assets lifted from poster designs she created in 2017. She said someone at Bungie "drew overwhelmingly" from art pieces she had been refining for over a decade. Bungie presumably found her designs compelling enough to "inspire" the game but offered her no credit or compensation. Antireal said she doesn't intend to pursue legal action against Bungie, even though this isn't the first time a "major company" has copied or used her work without permission. "In 10 years, I have never made a consistent income from this work, and I'm tired of designers from huge companies moodboarding and parasitizing my designs while I struggle to make a living," she wrote. // Related Stories Within hours of Antireal's tweets going viral, the Marathon development team investigated the alleged unauthorized use of her decals. Subsequently, Bungie issued a s statement claiming a "former" artist included the assets in a texture sheet later used in the game. Bungie did not publicly reveal the former developer's identity but noted that Marathon's current team was unaware of the potential copyright violation. The studio says it takes these matters "very seriously" and has already contacted Antireal to resolve the issue and provide compensation, which is the right thing to do. Bungie's official employee policies forbid using external assets without permission. To prevent future issues, the Marathon team is now carefully reviewing all in-game assets – especially those created by the unidentified former artist. The studio will also enforce stricter checks to document all contributing artists in the future.

It began with a tip–an email from a San Francisco resident who had read The Secret, Byron Preiss’s 1982 book about hidden treasures. That message set off a chain of events that led to a 1974 building plan drawn by architect William Pereira, a visit to an underground pump room, and the eventual discovery, beneath six feet of concrete, of a long-lost time capsule buried deep within the Transamerica Pyramid. The capsule, a 14-by-16-inch metal cylinder, was unearthed during a recent renovation of the building. Buried in 1974, it offers a glimpse into life in San Francisco during the tower’s construction and reveals key details about the project itself. Its contents will be displayed in a new exhibit curated in partnership with Foster + Partners opening May 18 in the building’s lobby. The capsule was located based on an email tip and a 1974 building plan labeled “Time Capsule” drawn by architect William Pereira. (Courtesy SHVO) The capsule, a 14-by-16-inch metal cylinder, offers a glimpse into life in San Francisco during the tower’s construction and reveals key details about the project itself. (Courtesy SHVO) When the Transamerica Pyramid officially opened in 1972, it was hailed as a symbol of the city’s growth and ambition. Local media buzzed with anticipation. Two years later, as the Transamerica Corporation moved out of the building, the company assembled the capsule’s contents and commemorated its burial with a celebratory event. A plaque was installed above the site, instructing that the capsule remain untouched for 50 years. As decades passed and renovations altered the building’s layout, the plaque disappeared—and the capsule was (almost) forgotten. That is, until the email tip arrived. Fifty years after it was buried, just ahead of when it was intended to be opened, the capsule was located. This flyer was circulated in 1969 to stop the Transamerica Pyramid’s construction. It was among the objects inside the time capsule. (Courtesy SHVO) The timing of its burial coincided with a chaotic chapter in San Francisco’s history. In 1974, Mayor Joseph Alioto’s wife mysteriously vanished, only to reappear two weeks later claiming she’d staged her disappearance to punish him for ignoring her. Around the same time, 19-year-old heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped at gunpoint by members of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army. The Transamerica Pyramid too made headlines: The San Francisco Chronicle dismissed it as “the world’s largest architectural folly,” and the city’s own planner derided it as “an inhumane creation.” These turbulent moments, and the spirit of the era, were captured in the time capsule’s contents, along with a recipe for Pisco Punch, the famed cocktail invented at the nearby Bank Exchange Saloon. Once buried and nearly forgotten, the capsule now takes center stage in a curated exhibit in the building’s lobby, offering a vivid snapshot of a city in the midst of transformation. “Through moments of prosperity and periods of challenge, the Transamerica Pyramid has stood tall as one of the iconic silhouettes of San Francisco’s skyline. I see it now not just as a symbol of bold design, but of resilience–for this neighborhood, and for our city,” said San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. “Fifty years from now, my hope is that we will look back on this era–this exact moment in time–as the beginning of a new chapter for San Francisco,” he added. Opening to the public on May 18, the exhibition aims to honor the legacy of the Transamerica Pyramid while highlighting the design of its recent renovation. (Nikki Richter) SHVO and Deutsche Finance America purchased the Transamerica Pyramid in 2020 for $650 million, pledging to preserve its historic legacy. In 2024, the landmark reopened following extensive renovations by Foster + Partners, marking a major step in the broader revitalization of downtown San Francisco, which had been deeply impacted by widespread office closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. “This exhibition serves as a reminder of the significance of the Transamerica Pyramid as a global icon since its inception more than a half century ago,” said Michael Shvo, chairman and CEO of SHVO. “By sharing the contents of the time capsule publicly, as a thoughtfully designed exhibition, we are honoring Transamerica Pyramid’s legacy and seamlessly complementing our meticulous remastering.” The Time Capsule Exhibition opens to the public on May 18.

The Ontario Science Centre was shuttered on June 21, 2024, with the Ontario government claiming that a structural roof issue made it unsafe. New documents suggest that the engineers inspecting the roof didn’t agree. Photo by Canmenwalker via Wikimedia Commons New documents, obtained by Canadian Architect through a freedom of information request, appear to indicate that Rimkus—the structural engineers hired to assess the Ontario Science Centre’s roof before its closure—did not support closing the Centre for public safety reasons. The draft versions of the report instead recommend regular, routine maintenance to the roofs over the course of the coming 20 years. When read in conjunction with correspondence preceding the closure obtained by Global News, it seems likely that the engineers were pressured by the government to produce a report that would support the shuttering of the Ontario Science Centre. However, such a recommendation was not supported by their research and expertise. Canadian Architect obtained draft versions of parts of the Rimkus report from March, April, and May of 2024. The report, whose final version is dated June 18, 2024, was commissioned to assess the condition of the Science Centre’s reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) roof panels, an outdated form of construction that can pose problems over time if not properly maintained. It was based on on-site investigations conducted by Rimkus from December 2023 to March 2024. In a key section on RAAC Panel Recommendations, the March and April versions of the report clearly recommend to proceed with repairs to a set of panels identified as “high risk”—less than 2.5% of the Science Centre’s roofs—over the summer. It reads: “It is Rimkus’ recommendation to address all 2024 RAAC panel repair (amber risk) locations as a single project. As such, it is our opinion that the most cost effective strategy would be a consistent repair approach. Panel replacement rather than reinforcement is feasible at all areas, and presented in Table 7.” The government seems to have pushed the engineers to go further, asking how the RAAC risk could be entirely eliminated. The May version adds the sentences: “It is recommended that RAAC panels should be replaced at the time of the next scheduled roof replacement, to completely eliminate the RAAC panel risk. Recommended timelines for complete roof assembly and RAAC panel (where applicable) replacements, and budgetary costs, by roof area are shown in Table 8.” In the March, April, and May versions of the report, there is no provision for declining to do the repairs—simply because roof repairs are a relatively routine, straightforward undertaking. RAAC panels at the Science Centre had been routinely replaced in the past. At the time of the inspection, a half dozen panels were identified as being in critical condition, and were already being replaced while the report was completed. A building permit was in progress to repair a section of the roof over the rainforest room. The cost of the immediate repairs needed would amount to around $500,000—or just over $7 million, if coupled with replacing, repairing, and maintaining larger sections of the Science Centre’s roofs that year. And yet, the language apparently wasn’t strong enough for the Ontario government, whose communications staffers aimed to justify the closure as a public safety issue. For the final version of the report, government officials seem to have pressed the engineers to answer the question: what if we just don’t do the repairs? Wouldn’t the only totally safe option, in that case, be to close the building? As a result, the final version of the report included the following passage: “Where replacement or reinforcement cannot be completed within the recommended time frame, then one of the following supplemental risk mitigation options is recommended and should be implemented in conjunction with the snow/load monitoring program: Option 1: Restricted access or full closure to prevent any persons from walking in areas where high risk panels are present. Option 2: Installation of temporary shoring (reinforcement) supporting the underside of RAAC panels. Options 3: If shoring is not possible, installation of horizontal hoarding near the underside of hard ceiling levels, or other building interferences (sprinkler mains/process piping etc.) The above three recommended options are listed in order of preference, with option 1 completing [sic] eliminating the risk to public or staff.” As I have written before, while a quick reading of this passage may seem to suggest “full closure” of the Science Centre, a closer look shows that access would only need to be restricted at the areas “where high risk panels are present.” The high-risk panels represent a miniscule portion of the Science Centre’s roof, almost entirely in non-exhibition areas. Texts between Infrastructure Ontario minister Michael Lindsey and a top communications staffer, obtained by Global News, point to the Ministry’s communications with structural engineers Rimkus in the lead-up to the announcement of the Ontario Science Centre’s closure. The texts also show that the Ministry of Infrastructure was in tight communication with the Premier’s Office (PO) about the closure.   Text messages between Infrastructure Ontario CEO Michael Lindsay and the agency’s top communications staffer, from the run-up to the closure announcement, suggest that the agency was working closely with Rimkus and pressing executives to tailor its language before the report was submitted. “The executives at Rimkus look like survivors of the apocalypse. [laugh/cry emoji],” one of the texts reads. The presence of a typo in the report’s added section also suggests a rushed addition. When the final report was sent, a member of Rimkus’s team seems to have also referenced conversations that took place between the two parties. “Please refer to revised final summary report (R2) attached, with updated notes/paragraphs, as discussed,” they wrote on June 18. While some back-and-forth between consultants and public clients is expected, it is unusual that this contact would be with the Ministry’s top brass—particularly for a routine, technical report. Also notable is that while the Rimkus report released to the public by Infrastructure Ontario was signed by the engineers, it was not stamped—an indication that the engineers may not have felt entirely comfortable with how the report landed, and were unwilling to be professionally liable for it. In an email to top Ministry of Infrastructure and Infrastructure Ontario officials after the closure announcement, an Ontario Ministry director of communications shares a few questions that may arise. One is: “Q: Is this [closure] just a convenient excuse to move [the Ontario Science Centre] to Ont Place?” He suggests the reply: “This is a health and safety issue. Full stop.” But for the engineers that actually inspected the roof, closure should never have been on the table: the roof issue could—and should—have been addressed with routine repairs. The post New documents reinforce that Science Centre closure was not supported by engineers appeared first on Canadian Architect.