Lucia Member Oct 18, 2021 2,437 Argentina Developer: Capcom (original), NeoBards Entertainment (remaster) Publisher: Capcom Release date: May 23, 2025 Platform(s): PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC Genre: Action-adventure Price: $29.99 (US), €29.99 (EU), £24.99 (UK) Store links: System Requirements (PC)​ Minimum OS: Windows 10 (64-bit), Windows 11 Processor: Intel Core i3 8350K, AMD Ryzen 3 3200G Memory: 8 GB Graphic card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960 (VRAM4GB) or AMD Radeon™ RX560 (VRAM4GB) DirectX: 12 Hard drive space: 25 GB Recommended OS: Windows 10 (64-bit), Windows 11 Processor: Intel Core i3 8350K, AMD Ryzen 3 3200G Memory: 16 GB Graphic card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 (VRAM6GB) or AMD Radeon™ RX570 (VRAM4GB) DirectX: 12 Hard drive space: 25 GB Click to expand... Click to shrink... Troubleshooting guide & Issue reporting (Steam): Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny :: Steam Community steamcommunity.com About the Game​Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny was originally released on the PlayStation 2. Although it's a sequel to Onimusha: Warlords, the game features a complete new protagonist and supporting cast and the game can be enjoyed without prior experience of the first game.The game improves on various aspects of the original Onimusha: Warlords, increasing the action and replay value thanks to featuring 4 additional playable characters and a branching story. The remaster updates the game to HD format and brings various quality of life changes and extra features. Story & Cast The game tells the story of Jubei Yagyu and his revenge journey againts Oda Nobunaga and his demonic Genma army for the massacre of his clan. During his journey Jubei will meet and cross path with the mysterious woman Oyu, the young ninja Kotaro, the master spearwielder Ekei and the gunslinger Magoichi, they each have their own aims and their own connections that will lead them to fight each other, and sometimes fight together. Experience 100 different scenarios across the game's branching story. Completionist note: it's imposible to see all scenarios in one playthrough, for more details click here. Gameplay Like in the original Onimusha: Warlords, the game features a mix of exploration and combat but now to a greater degree. The player fights using a normal sword but as they progress through the story they will collect an assortment of short and long range weapons, from diverse element-based weapons to bows and firearms. Defeated Genma monsters will provide the player with demon souls that they can absorb to obtain various benefits depending on their color. Yellow souls will restore your health, blue souls restore magic power, red souls can be used to upgrade your gear and the rare purple souls can be used to unleash your 'Onimusha' transformation after absorbing five of them. The player can build and deepen Jubei's relationship with each of his allies by performing certain actions and exchangin gifts of their liking with them, this will unlock special scenarios and eventually giving you control to play as them during certain points of the story. For more details about the Gift Exchange system, click here. New Features & updates​ New "HELL" Mode : an extremely difficult mode where you die in a single hit. Gallery: the gallery from the original now supports higher resolution & zoom functions. Over 100 new special artworks have been added. You can listen all 43 songs of the original soundtrack. All assets updated to high definition Switch between 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratio on the fly during gameplay. Easy Mode is now available by default. All cutscenes can now be skipped from the start. Mini-games available from the start. Alternative costumes available from the start Added auto-save feature Weapons can be swapped without having to open the menu. Bonuses ​You can get a special outfit for Jubei if you have save data from Onimusha: Warlords. To switch Jubei's outfit select Special Features → Jubei's Outfit and select between Normal and Special from the title-screen menu. This will only alter the appearance. Your status will be the same as the armour you equip in-game. By pre-ordering the game you get the Onimusha 2: Orchestra Album Selection Pack. It includes five tracks selected from the Onimusha 2 Orchestra Album Taro Iwashiro Selection. Select Special Features → Gallery → Original Soundtrack to access these tracks from the title-screen menu. This product is also available as part of the Onimusha bundle. (Acquire this bundle before July 1, 2025, 04:00 (UTC), to receive a limited-time bonus!) You also get a pack of items that contains 3 herbs, 2 medicines, 1 secret medicine, 2 special magic liquid, 1 perfect medicine, 1 talisman and 10,000 red souls. The content will appear after meeting Takajo in the early game. If you have already met Takajo, the content will appear when you select "Load Game". While you can only get this item pack once, you can also get the items in-game. The content listed in the DLC may become available separately at a later date. Bundle ​You can purchase Onimusha: Warlords and Onimusha 2: SamuraI's Destiny together. Bundle links: Media​ Announcement Trailer​Pre-order Announcement Trailer​ ​ Message from the Director​Gameplay with the Director​   Last edited: Yesterday at 8:21 AM Threadmarks Gift Exchange guide New Index OP OP Lucia Member Oct 18, 2021 2,437 Argentina Gift Exchange​ A core gameplay mechanique introduced in Onimusha 2 is the Gift Exchange. Alongside the player's standard item inventory, there exists a separate inventory exclusive for gift items that can be given to Ekei, Magoichi , Kotaro and Oyu. A total of 125 gifts can be found throughout the game, and each will elicit a different response depending on who it is given to. All 125 Gift locations (items name may differ in the remaster). View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BopXanIz40 As said above, gifts will elicit different response to each character depending on how much they value it, for example the Vodka gift will have an A-rank value for Ekei but a B-rank value for Magoichi. As detailed in the video above, each character has a pool of unique gifts/items per rank that they can give you at random in exchange for a gift of that rank. The video and doc below details what rank value each gift has per character. Doc with each gift rating value (item names may differ in the remaster): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kYJJ7yifduP0IcRArk-xuBqTEVJKnOadTfEdagBEu1I/edit?usp=sharing View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiGmPPmrPAw  Last edited: Yesterday at 9:36 AM New Index Threadmarks Scenario Route guide New Index OP OP Lucia Member Oct 18, 2021 2,437 Argentina Scenario Route From the Onimusha wiki: While there are many scenarios that are guaranteed to occur throughout the game, many other optional scenarios can be triggered by raising the friendship of one or more characters by repeatedly giving them gifts that elicit positive reactions. These optional scenarios can provide additional character development of a certain sub-character, reward the player with additional items, and can unlock playable sections for those characters, though the playable section for Oyu is mandatory regardless of her friendship. While some optional scenarios can occur on their own, others are a part of a split route, with only one out of multiple scenarios being possible to trigger per-playthrough (E.g: Three separate characters can aid Jubei in the Imasho Gold Mine, but only one can do so per playthrough). However, there are restrictions to this system. Due to the split scenario routes, it is not possible to trigger all scenarios in a single playthrough as there are multiple instances of split scenario routes that can only trigger a single scenario, with it even being possible for none of them to trigger in one case. Another restriction is that even if the friendship level of all four sub-characters is at the minimum level required to trigger their optional scenarios, only one sub-character can have most of their optional scenarios triggered per playthrough, this depending on which sub-character has the highest friendship. The only exceptions are each sub-character's playable sections and some scenarios that also involve whoever has the highest friendship (E.g: Chapter 7-10 only requiring either Ekei or Magoichi to have high enough friendship). As a result of these restriction, at least four separate playthroughs are required to trigger every scenario in the game. -------------------------------- Note: the Scenario Route keeps track of all the scenarios you triggered in previous playthroughs so you can just focus on the ones you missed, you still have to meet their requirements to trigger them in your subsequent plays. The following guides contain spoilers, recommend to read after your first playthrough or for returning old players.   New Index shadowman16 Member Oct 25, 2017 41,569 Magoichi you swine! (for some reason that's been stuck in my head for decades... I love the cast for 2). Very excited to replay this one, it was always one of my absolute favourites in the series... Half because of Gorgandates (legend) and half because I felt legit robbed when you never got to defeat Nobunaga in Oni1.  KyouG Member Oct 26, 2017 642 I loved Onimusha HD, and I have been greatly looking forward to playing this. Will make use of the gift guide on my second playthrough, lol.   Tengrave Avenger Oct 26, 2017 1,108 Great OT! The best Onimusha.   ramenline Member Jan 9, 2019 1,673 Started playing the PS2 version yesterday, I played Oni 1 a few months ago and enjoyed it overall. Nice and breezy with great backgrounds. Will probably save 3 and 4 for when we're closer to Way of the Sword dropping  Aeana Member Oct 25, 2017 7,573 I love this game so much. Super excited.   Sumio Mondo Member Oct 25, 2017 10,746 United Kingdom A PS2 classic returns! Can't wait to play it this weekend.  Western Yokai Member Feb 14, 2025 172 This will not get a physical release, right?   RayCharlizard Member Nov 2, 2017 4,475 Western Yokai said: This will not get a physical release, right? Click to expand... Click to shrink... There isn't one announced but who knows if this gets a Limited Run or something down the line.   AlexDS1996 Member Jul 14, 2022 3,958 Excellent thread! Looking forward to playing it at midnight.   demi Member Oct 27, 2017 16,574 My name is Goooogandantessss   Sumio Mondo Member Oct 25, 2017 10,746 United Kingdom Tengrave said: Great OT! The best Onimusha. Click to expand... Click to shrink...   Chackan Member Oct 31, 2017 5,451 "Juuuubeeeeeeiiii" Fucking finally. Played Onimusha 1 HD when it came out on the Switch, and have been waiting since then for this one! Hope they don't take another 5 or 6 years with Onimusha 3...  ResinPeasant93 Member Apr 24, 2024 2,489 My favorite Onimusha. Still have my PS2 copy   Koivusilta Member Oct 30, 2017 629 Finland The best Onimusha and one of my overall favorite PS2 games, so glad it's finally getting a re-release! Can't wait to dig in tomorrow after work. Completed Clair Obscur just in time, too! Looking at the Motohide Eshiro gameplay video, I'm glad to see they changed the Onimusha transformation so that it's now manually activated like in Onimusha 3, so you don't waste your transformation if you accidentally collect the fifth purple orb. Attack charging is also a bit different now, since the game originally used the pressure sensitive shoulder buttons for it. PS. I really wish they go back and add Genma features into the Warlords remaster, even if it was paid DLC.  G_Shumi One Winged Slayer Member Oct 26, 2017 7,650 Cleveland, OH Great OP! I recently played Onimusha 2 & 3 on PS2 last year, so I'll probably wait for a sale (or an eventual physical release please!). But I do have one sage advice for Onimusha 2: rotate the analog sticks in order to open the heavy door! If you get far enough in the game, you'll know what I mean.  Tagovailoa Member Feb 5, 2023 1,586 Love this game! Just beat Oni 1 remastered in one sitting yesterday while home sick from work. Looking forward to getting to this sometime this weekend. I have beaten this game 5+ times and never got 100% scenario completion.  RiZ IV Member Oct 27, 2017 933 Wow, I didn't realize this was coming out tomorrow. Onimusha 2 was one of my favorite PS2 games. Will definitely pick this up.   GwyndolinCinder Member Oct 26, 2017 5,703 JUBEIIIIIIIIIIII   coldsagging AVALANCHE Member Oct 27, 2017 8,077 Tengrave said: Great OT! The best Onimusha. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Facts.   The Silver Member Oct 28, 2017 11,584 Haven't replayed this in so long. Hope the bring back and expand on the structure of Oni 2 in the new one, it has a lot of potential   Annie85x Member Mar 12, 2020 2,949 Oni 2 was my fav. Super excited to jump back in over the weekend 😍   Timodus Member Oct 27, 2017 383 My first and favorite Onimusha. I'm glad I can finally play it with the Japanese voices.   OP OP Lucia Member Oct 18, 2021 2,437 Argentina https://x.com/OnimushaGame/status/1925673157190463524 @OnimushaGame said: Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny launches tomorrow. Prepare to reclaim your destiny! Today, we're celebrating with this amazing piece from @hieumayart featuring our protagonist, Jubei! Click to expand... Click to shrink...   thetrin Member Oct 26, 2017 10,725 Grand Junction, CO Awesome game. Loved it when I played it on PS2. I am curious to see what people who are playing it with fresh eyes think of it.   stn Member Oct 28, 2017 6,414 Definitely getting this! I started playing the OG on PS2, but the controls are so bad that I'll play this instead.   OP OP Lucia Member Oct 18, 2021 2,437 Argentina https://x.com/OnimushaGame/status/1925703394737467771 @OnimushaGame said: The web manual for Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny is now live. Check it out to prepare for tomorrow's release! Access the manual here 👇 https://manual.capcom.com/onimusha2/ Click to expand... Click to shrink...   Zor Member Oct 30, 2017 14,095 So I was going to replay the first game before this as I own the remaster, but I just realised I own Genma Onimusha and never ever actually played it. Is Genma considered the best version just for people that like a more difficult experience or do its benefits/improvements range beyond that? Just wondering which the best version of the first is.  LetalisAmare Member Oct 27, 2017 4,363 Just started. The 16:9 is zoomed in or cropped whatever you call it. I'll stick to 4:3.   OP OP Lucia Member Oct 18, 2021 2,437 Argentina Zor said: So I was going to replay the first game before this as I own the remaster, but I just realised I own Genma Onimusha and never ever actually played it. Is Genma considered the best version just for people that like a more difficult experience or do its benefits/improvements range beyond that? Just wondering which the best version of the first is. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yeah, Genma is the best version of Oni 1 and it's an overall harder game than the OG, it has one new location, 2 new bosses (one of them is a RE-Nemesis type stalker).   Count of Monte Sawed-Off Member Oct 27, 2017 5,057 Best Onimusha.   Zetta The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 8,521 Buying it just to show support and will eventually play it much later on. Hoping this sells a lot so we can get 3.   Jawmuncher Crisis Dino Moderator Oct 25, 2017 44,845 Ibis Island Great OT, fixed the title though. No need to include the platforms in the title since they're in the OP   giancarlo123x One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 28,013 $30? That's easy money.   TΛPIVVΛ Member Nov 12, 2017 4,125 Surprised its out! Just crept up on me! View: https://youtu.be/D9joJuEcJAw  Type VII Member Oct 31, 2017 2,980 Downloaded on PS5 and ready to go when I get home from work this evening. It's a shame there's no physical release, but between this and Capcom Fighting Collection 2, I'll be partying like it's the early 2000s all weekend.   Aske The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 6,318 Canadia Golden Evil Statue!!!!!!   AlexDS1996 Member Jul 14, 2022 3,958 I've just played a little over an hour and it's perfect. That counter attack is always satisfying. The game looks great to me and the sound is really nice too.   Tagovailoa Member Feb 5, 2023 1,586 Aske said: Golden Evil Statue!!!!!! Click to expand... Click to shrink... New players are not going to have a good time  Zolbrod Member Oct 27, 2017 3,965 Osaka, Japan By far the best game in the series! Can't wait to play it again!  NovumVeritas Member Oct 26, 2017 11,143 Berlin I just played a little bit docked on Switch, this looks very oversharpend, any one else? Is that the use of the AI filter they used?   Hystzen Member Oct 25, 2017 2,674 Manchester UK It's best onimusha for a 1/3rd of game then they ditch the hub concept and character interactions it turns rushed and bland   OP OP Lucia Member Oct 18, 2021 2,437 Argentina I wish the 4:3 ratio also applied to cutscenes.   Pez Member Oct 28, 2017 1,422 If this gets a physical release, I'm there. Will hold out until then.   joyfoolish Member Aug 25, 2024 197 I was wondering if the PS4 version looks good on PS5? Is it at least 1440p?   Rust Member Jan 24, 2018 1,443 What the heck is this stupid random mini-game? I think I've died more often opening a garage door than throughout the rest of the game. I really enjoyed the first one - samurai game ala Resident Evil? Sign me up! Whereas this one started okay, now it's turned into an incredibly linear experience. I'm hoping it'll change back, but I'm thinking it's entering the final act.  Jawmuncher Crisis Dino Moderator Oct 25, 2017 44,845 Ibis Island Pez said: If this gets a physical release, I'm there. Will hold out until then. Click to expand... Click to shrink... No Physical release is a big hit on this. Especially after they did the 1st game. Not even a Japanese Physical is surprising. Capcom was one of the stronger JP publishers still doing that at least, so it's a shame to see them seemingly ditching it.  Pez Member Oct 28, 2017 1,422 Yeah, they never did them for the DMC games on Switch either. There's a good chance this never gets a physical release. We'll see!  

Mistral AI, the French company behind AI assistant Le Chat and several foundational models, is officially regarded as one of France’s most promising tech startups and is arguably the only European company that could compete with OpenAI. But compared to its $6 billion valuation, its global market share is still relatively low.  However, the recent launch of its chat assistant on mobile app stores was met with some hype, particularly in its home country. “Go and download Le Chat, which is made by Mistral, rather than ChatGPT by OpenAI — or something else,” French president Emmanuel Macron said in a TV interview ahead of the AI Action Summit in Paris. While this wave of attention may be encouraging, Mistral AI still faces challenges in competing with the likes of OpenAI — and in doing so while keeping up with its self-definition as “the world’s greenest and leading independent AI lab.” What is Mistral AI? Mistral AI has raised significant amounts of funding since its creation in 2023 with the ambition to “put frontier AI in the hands of everyone.” While this isn’t a direct jab at OpenAI, the slogan is meant to highlight the company’s advocacy for openness in AI. Its alternative to ChatGPT, chat assistant Le Chat, is now also available on iOS and Android. It reached 1 million downloads in the two weeks following its mobile release, even grabbing France’s top spot for free downloads on the iOS App Store. This comes in addition to Mistral AI’s suite of models, which includes:  Mistral Large 2, the primary large language model replacing Mistral Large. Pixtral Large, unveiled in 2024 as a new addition to the Pixtral family of multimodal models. Mistral Medium 3, released in May 2025 with the promise of providing efficiency without compromising performance, and best for coding and STEM tasks. Devstral, an AI model designed for coding and openly available under an Apache 2.0 license, meaning it can be used commercially without restriction. Codestral, an earlier generative AI model for code, but whose license banned commercial applications. “Les Ministraux,” a family of models optimized for edge devices such as phones. Mistral Saba, focused on Arabic language. In March 2025, the company introduced Mistral OCR, an optical character recognition (OCR) API that can turn any PDF into a text file to make it easier for AI models to ingest. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Who are Mistral AI’s founders? Mistral AI’s three founders share a background in AI research at major U.S. tech companies with significant operations in Paris. CEO Arthur Mensch used to work at Google’s DeepMind, while CTO Timothée Lacroix and chief scientist officer Guillaume Lample are former Meta staffers. Co-founding advisers also include Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve (also a board member) and Charles Gorintin from health insurance startup Alan, as well as former digital minister Cédric O, which caused controversy due to his previous role. Are Mistral AI’s models open source? Not all of them. Mistral AI differentiates its premier models, whose weights are not available for commercial purposes, from its free models, for which it provides weight access under the Apache 2.0 license. Free models include research models such as Mistral NeMo, which was built in collaboration with Nvidia that the startup open sourced in July 2024. How does Mistral AI make money? While many of Mistral AI’s offerings are free or now have free tiers, Mistral AI plans to drive some revenue from Le Chat’s paid tiers. Introduced in February 2025, Le Chat’s Pro plan is priced at $14.99 a month. On the purely B2B side, Mistral AI monetizes its premier models through APIs with usage-based pricing. Enterprises can also license these models, and the company likely also generates a significant share of its revenue from its strategic partnerships, some of which it highlighted during the Paris AI Summit. Overall, however, Mistral AI’s revenue is reportedly still in the eight-digit range, according to multiple sources. What partnerships has Mistral AI closed? In 2024, Mistral AI entered a deal with Microsoft that included a strategic partnership for distributing its AI models through Microsoft’s Azure platform and a €15 million investment. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) swiftly concluded that the deal didn’t qualify for investigation due to its small size. However, it also sparked some criticism in the EU.  In January 2025, Mistral AI signed a deal with press agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) to let Chat query the AFP’s entire text archive dating back to 1983. Mistral AI also secured strategic partnerships with France’s army and job agency, shipping giant CMA, German defense tech startup Helsing, IBM, Orange, and Stellantis. In May 2025, Mistral AI announced it would participate in the creation of an AI Campus in the Paris region, as part of a joint venture with UAE-investment firm MGX, NVIDIA, and France’s state-owned investment bank Bpifrance. How much funding has Mistral AI raised to date? As of February 2025, Mistral AI raised around €1 billion in capital to date, approximately $1.04 billion at the current exchange rate. This includes some debt financing, as well as several equity financing rounds raised in close succession. In June 2023, and before it even released its first models, Mistral AI raised a record $112 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Sources at the time said the seed round — Europe’s largest ever — valued the then-one-month-old startup at $260 million.  Other investors in this seed round included Bpifrance, Eric Schmidt, Exor Ventures, First Minute Capital, Headline, JCDecaux Holding, La Famiglia, LocalGlobe, Motier Ventures, Rodolphe Saadé, Sofina, and Xavier Niel. Only six months later, it closed a Series A of €385 million ($415 million at the time), at a reported valuation of $2 billion. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from existing backer Lightspeed, as well as BNP Paribas, CMA-CGM, Conviction, Elad Gil, General Catalyst, and Salesforce. The $16.3 million convertible investment that Microsoft made in Mistral AI as part of their partnership announced in February 2024 was presented as a Series A extension, implying an unchanged valuation. In June 2024, Mistral AI then raised €600 million in a mix of equity and debt (around $640 million at the exchange rate at the time). The long-rumored round was led by General Catalyst at a $6 billion valuation, with notable investors, including Cisco, IBM, Nvidia, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, and others. What could a Mistral AI exit look like? Mistral is “not for sale,” Mensch said in January 2025 at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Of course, [an IPO is] the plan.”  This makes sense, given how much the startup has raised so far: Even a large sale may not provide high enough multiples for its investors, not to mention sovereignty concerns depending on the acquirer.  However, the only way to definitely squash persistent acquisition rumors is to scale its revenue to levels that could even remotely justify its nearly $6 billion valuation. Either way, stay tuned. This story was originally published on February 28, 2025 and will be regularly updated.

Qualifications: Required: A minimum of 5 years of experience in capture management with a proven record of recent wins. In-depth knowledge of Army and/or Naval organizations and procurement behaviors. Strategic thinking skills to highlight unique differentiators in IT service delivery. Ability to translate past performance into compelling win strategies. Proficiency in project management with organizational and communication skills. Solid understanding of government contracts and contract vehicles. Extensive experience in the federal proposal process. Strong judgment in assessing bid/no-bid decisions. Preferred business development experience. Familiarity with CRM systems (e.g., Salesforce) and pipeline tools (e.g., TechnoMile) is advantageous. Desired: Training or certification in the Shipley Method for Proposal Writing & Capture. Bachelor's degree preferred; Master's degree is an advantage. Proven success in leading the capture of large federal contracts ($50M+), especially within DHA and DHS. Comprehensive knowledge of the federal acquisition lifecycle. Responsibilities: Lead efforts to secure major contracts ($50M+) within DoD organizations. Adhere to established business development and capture processes, ensuring compliance with Federal Procurement and Business Ethics Codes. Determine necessary resources for bids and estimate effort levels. Collaborate with various internal and external stakeholders (e.g., analysts, solution architects, proposal managers). Develop win themes and perform competitive analyses using available intelligence. Formulate price-to-win strategies in partnership with solution architects, program managers, and other team members. Implement best practices in capture management to improve success rates. Provide executive briefings on capture status and manage concurrent capture initiatives. Represent the organization externally and gather business intelligence to inform strategies. Cultivate positive relationships with internal teams to support seamless implementation of capture strategies. Build winning industry teams that address capability gaps and meet special requirements like small business utilization. Analyze performance requirements and competitor strengths to craft effective avoidance and mitigation strategies. Ensure the development of proposals that stand out and align with strategic goals. Maintain professional conduct and stewardship of resources while executing duties. Meet or exceed performance goals to contribute to overall organizational growth.Apply NowLet's start your dream job Apply now Meet JobCopilot: Your Personal AI Job HunterAutomatically Apply to Remote Full-Stack Programming JobsJust set your preferences and Job Copilot will do the rest-finding, filtering, and applying while you focus on what matters. Activate JobCopilot Executive 1st View company Jobs posted: 1 Tired of Applying to Jobs Manually?Let JobCopilot do it for you.No more spreadsheets. No more copy-pasting. Just set your preferences and let your Al copilot search, match, and apply to jobs while you sleep.Applies for jobs that actually match your skillsTailors your resume and cover letter automaticallyWorks 24/7-so you don't have to Activate JobCopilot

Want something sexy, silly, and scandalous? Then you'll treasure Honey Don't!, the latest collaboration between married filmmakers Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke. The pair, who've been collaborating since the 1990 Coen Bros movie Miller's Crossing, brought audiences the madcap mayhem of Drive-Away DollsDrive-Away Dolls star Margaret Qualley reunites with Coen and Cooke, playing a title character once more. Honey O'Donahue is a small-town private eye who keeps her cards close to her chest. When a new client turns up dead in a suspicious car crash, she quips to the crumpled police detective on the scene (Charlie Day, perfectly cast as an affable dope), but won't give up a single observation. Unspoken, this is her mystery to solve. Over the course of this murder investigation, she'll cross paths with a moped-riding femme fatale (Lera Abova), a surly sapphic cop (Aubrey Plaza), and an ultra-vain cult leader (Chris Evans). It's a wild ride with twists, sex, and murder!  You May Also Like Margaret Qualley is dynamite in Honey Don't!While this is the second offering in Coen and Cooke's proposed lesbian trilogy, Honey Don't! doesn'tDrive-Away Dolls. The key to both films is Qualley, who sets the tone. In the first film, she was a chaotically comical masc with a Southern accent as thick as molasses and a libido as powerful as the sun. The movie followed her frenzied energy through pacing and plotting, taking wild turns with madcap energy. In Honey Don't!, click-clacking heels, pencil skirts or tailored flowing slacks with tidy but never bland dress shirts — reflects these old-school inspirations. So does her frankness; she carries a Katharine Hepburn attitude without the Mid-Atlantic accent. So when the aforementioned police detective flirts with her, she says, smooth as butter, "I like girls." (To which Day replies with a cheery bemusement, "You always say that!") Whether playing the cool gay aunt to a small army of nieces and nephews, uncovering a kinky clue, or hooking up with a one-night stand, Honey is suave and sharp, but also warm. This temperament sets her apart from the fleets of male detectives who've come before her, all swagger and steely glares. Plus, her attitude reflects the atmosphere of Honey Don't!'s setting: Bakersfield, California, a sunny place with a dark appetite.   Mashable Top Stories Stay connected with the hottest stories of the day and the latest entertainment news. Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter By clicking Sign Me Up, you confirm you are 16+ and agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Thanks for signing up! Honey Don't! is a raw and refreshing caper.  Writer Tricia Cooke, actor Margaret Qualley and writer/director Ethan Coen on the set of their film "Honey Don't!" Credit: Karen Kuehn / © 2025 FOCUS FEATURES LLC The screenplay by Coen and Cooke is committed to dark humor, offering gleeful jokes about kinky sex, gruesome death, and the general idiocy of crooks and con men. As Coen directs Honey Don't!, it's tempting to look for comparisons in his shared filmography with his brother, Joel. Is Honey Don't! more Raising Arizona or The Big Lebowski? Burn After Reading or No Country for Old Men? But engaging in this debate risks overlooking the exciting exploration of crime stories that Coen and Cooke are building with their trilogy. Her stamp is clear and important here as the film's co-writer, producer, and editor. Yes, Honey Don't! pulls from film noir inspirations, as do several previous Coen Bros movies… and hundreds of other movies before that. But this crusty California setting gives fresh air to tropes like the femme fatale or the double cross. Where Drive-Away Dolls dug into the rich Americana and queer culture to be found in road trip attractions and lesbian bars, Honey Don't! embraces a less-familiar clutch of gnarly characters, sunbaked and deranged. Chris Evans is hilarious, freed from Disney constraints. Thank goodness that Chris Evans' MCU era has ended. Now the actor who has proven to be a sensational bastard in Knives Out can cut loose with characters who aren't remotely role models.  Related Stories In Honey Don't!, he plays Reverend Drew, a preacher who leads a congregation of dedicated minions who will grant any wish of sex or violence his twisted heart desires. Honey Don't! offers an array of beloved character actors, like Plaza, Day, Billy Eichner, and acclaimed theater performer Gabby Beans. And they are all game for whatever damned thing Cooke and Coen throw their way. Where Qualley plays the straight man to this cluster of kooky clowns, Evans is a ringmaster of his own circus. From the moment he flashes a comically insincere smile, there's a thrill of excitement. Playing punchlines with a gleeful obliviousness, Evans creates a sharp satire of a certain brand of religious leader who believes too much in his own bullshit. His physicality is suitably absurd. Whether he's barking orders in the nude or giving the most hysterical delivery of the word "oui" ever committed to screen, he moves like a cartoon caricature of an arrogant buffoon. Props to Evans for finding a new and fantastic way to continue being America's ass. What's most thrilling about Honey Don't! is perhaps also what's most frustrating about it. Coen and Cooke set up a mystery with a form that seems vaguely familiar at the start. But as Honey chases down the suspects and confounding clues, this story is anything but what you'd expect. And that comes down to the finale, which is sure to divide critics and audiences. Personally, I relished the final surprise of the film, as it suggests this story is bigger than one movie and maybe even one setting can contain. Instead of closure, Honey Don't! offers a taste of something sweet and wild, with the potential for more. And I'm not mad at that. Honey Don't! was reviewed out of the Cannes Film Festival. It will open in theaters on Aug. 22. Topics Film

The current era of Doctor Who has tried to shy away from resurrecting some of the series’ biggest bads for the 15th Doctor to face off against—but that’s not to say it has been devoid of classic villains. As we barrel towards the finale of the show’s latest season, we’ve been given another in the form of the Rani, a brief but brilliant icon of ’80s Who. Who Is the Rani? An amoral Time Lord scientist, the Rani, portrayed by Kate O’Mara, appeared in just two classic Doctor Who storylines in the 1980s: “Mark of the Rani,” where she teamed up with the Master to face off against the Sixth Doctor, and “Time and the Rani,” Sylvester McCoy’s debut storyline as the Seventh Doctor, responsible for his prior incarnation’s regeneration as she takes over an alien world in an attempt to manipulate evolution across the cosmos. O’Mara would appear onscreen once more as the Rani during the 1993 special Dimensions in Time, both a celebration for the then-cancelled show’s 30th anniversary and a charity drive for Children in Need that saw Doctor Who cross over with the long-running British soap EastEnders, and the Rani trap multiple incarnations of the Doctor and several of their companions in a time loop in Walford, for inexplicable reasons. Little is known about the Rani beyond her on-screen appearances. She was given a similar background and status as a foil to the Doctor as the Master: a sinister mirror that felt kinship with the Doctor for their shared status as renegades of Time Lord society, as well as contemporaries who studied at the Pyrdonian Academy on Gallifrey together in their youths. But while the Doctor fled their people in rebellion, the Rani was exiled from Gallifrey for engaging in radical experimentation as part of her obsession with science and evolution. An obsession she was willing to do anything for, at any cost. Unlike many classic Who villains, the Rani has a limited life in spinoff media, even more so than her already limited TV outings. O’Mara portrayed the Rani once more in the questionably licensed 2000 audio drama The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind, set after the events of “Time and the Rani,” and was set to reprise the role for Big Finish before her death in 2014. Instead, the Rani returned in a new incarnation for two Sixth Doctor audio stories, played by Siobhan Redmond—and was seemingly never to be heard of again until this year’s season of Doctor Who revealed that Anita Dobson’s mysterious “Mrs. Flood” character is in fact the latest incarnation of the Rani… before she herself promptly regenerated into another new incarnation played by Archie Panjabi. Camp and the Rani The Rani has perhaps an oversized imprint on Doctor Who fandom despite her extremely limited number of appearances. This is largely down to O’Mara’s performance as the character. While the Rani herself is absolutely dastardly, and Doctor Who itself never treats her as anything less than serious (even if her schemes are inevitably foiled), O’Mara played her as big and brash, vamping about the place in glamorous outfits as she snarls and shouts and cackles, woe betide any fool who gets in her way. A lot of classic Doctor Who has taken on a camp appreciation in recent years, but if that appreciation could be distilled into the embodiment of a single character, the Rani is exactly that. It’s that camp status as an obscure, yet loved favorite that also has led the Rani to take on a different kind of life in modern Doctor Who before her appearance last weekend. After the series’ return in 2005 made clear just how quickly it was willing to bring back monsters and antagonists from the classic era of the show, the Rani became a catch-all speculatory guess whenever the series presented a mysterious woman to its audience. The running joke was known not just among fans, but the creative team as well, who would jokingly acknowledge that she was always the first guess for any potential returning identity. That is, until modern Who‘s second showrunner, Steven Moffat, tried to clamp down on it. “People always ask me, ‘Do you want to bring back the Rani?’ No one knows who the Rani is,” Moffat said to SFX magazine in 2012. “They all know who the Master is, they know Daleks, they probably know who Davros is, but they don’t know who the Rani is, so there’s no point in bringing her back. If there’s a line it’s probably somewhere there.” Perhaps that was where the Rani fit best: known enough to be loved, not known enough to actually make her way back to TV… until 2025, that is. What Bringing the Rani Back Means for Doctor Who Aside from the end of a very long joke, the Rani’s awaited return simultaneously means a lot and very little. On the one hand, showrunner Russell T Davies has made it clear that while the Rani is a known name, her character is minor enough that the show can essentially do whatever it wants with Panjabi and Dobson’s iteration of the Rani, so whatever schemes they get up to in the final two episodes of this season, they don’t necessarily have to align with the kinds of things we’ve seen the Rani doing in the past. But at the same time, the Rani is very interesting for another reason beyond being herself: she is the first Time Lord to return since Gallifrey’s second sundering in contemporary Doctor Who continuity. The Time Lords were seemingly wiped out prior to the show’s 2005 return in an almighty war with the Daleks, only to be saved from that fate during the events of Doctor Who‘s 50th anniversary and following series, which saw Gallifrey isolated but returned to existence once more. During the climax of the 2020 season of Doctor Who, it was revealed that the Master had razed the returned Gallifrey and harvested the bodies of the Time Lords as a new army of Cybermen called the CyberMasters, only for those to be seemingly wiped out for good during the events of “The Power of the Doctor.” With the Doctor once again the “last” of the Time Lords, just how the Rani escaped not one, but two cataclysms on Gallifrey remains to be seen—as does whether or not her return could mean that the series is on the verge of restoring Gallifrey for a third time. Time will tell, and so will Time Ladies! Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

Macworld There’s something of a misconception when it comes to the Mac: that Mac apps cost more, just like the computer itself. While powerful tools like Photoshop or Final Cut Pro certainly have price tags commensurate with their robust feature sets, many of the greatest Mac apps won’t cost you anything more than the time they take to download them. A quick note before we begin. Apple has changed its security settings in macOS, so you’ll need to allow your system to open a couple of these apps. A dialogue box may pop up telling you a certain app “is an application downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?” Click Open to proceed with the installation. These are the best free Mac apps we use, in alphabetical order. Amphetamine – free anti-sleep app Foundry Amphetamine will keep your Mac awake. Featuring a menu bar-based interface, the app lets you temporarily override your Mac’s sleep schedule (even when your MacBooks’s lid is closed) and even adds a few useful features like activating only when connected to specific Wi-Fi networks and keeping only certain drives awake. Download Amphetamine. Audacity – free audio editor IDG Amateur Mac recording engineers have known about the power of Audacity for years. A robust desktop client for recording and editing multi-track projects, Audacity will let you edit and add effects just like you would with Logic Pro X without needing to spend hundreds of dollars on a bunch of features you won’t need. Granted, the interface is quite a bit outdated, but you need only spend a few minutes with it to see just how powerful it is. A killer tool for podcasting, recording audio books, and creating video voiceovers, Audacity will turn your Mac into a multi-track recording studio, and it won’t cost you a dime. Download Audacity. Backup and Sync from Google IDG Even the most stalwart Mac fans have to admit that Google does photos better than Apple, despite Apple’s improvements over the years. While there ids no longer the unlimited free storage there once was, with instant syncing across virtually any device, and an amazing search engine, Google Photos is everything we wish Apple Photos would be. But you might not know that there’s a super easy way to get photos from your Mac into your Google Photos library. Google offers a small utility called Backup and Sync that will automatically upload images stored on your Mac. The simple menu bar app works with your Google Drive to continuously scan for images in folders of your choosing to keep your photo library in sync. And it’s so efficient, you won’t even know it’s working. But thats not all! Backup and Sync makes an extremely effective cloud storage solution for all file types. In fact, if you use more than just Apple gear, it’s probably the best cloud storage solution. Get Backup and Sync. BBEdit – free HTML and text editor BBEdit Professional software developers have been singing BBEdit’s praises for years, but you don’t need to spend a bundle to get on board. The free version of BBEdit is a full-featured editor in its own right, sporting powerful features such as multiple clipboards, automatic backups, live search and syntax-highlighting support for more than 20 programming languages. But you don’t have to be a Swift coder to appreciate it—anyone who writes and edits large chunks of text on their Mac should grab a copy. Download BBEdit. Google Chrome – free web browser Foundry The debate over which is the Bbst web browser for Mac is one that won’t be settled anytime soon, but in the meantime, every Mac user should have a copy of Chrome alongside Safari in their Dock. Fast, smart, and endlessly customizable, Google’s browser is an excellent alternative to Apple’s, with speedy surfing, smart syncing, and Google Assistant-style voice searches. And with a dedicated store filled with extensions and themes, finding ways to enhance it is way easier than it is on Safari. Google has even added some intelligence to Chrome on Mac with AI-based search tools in a Chrome for Mac update. Download Chrome. ClearVPN – free Mac VPN IDG There are lots of VPN clients available for the Mac, but few of them are as straightforward and effortless as ClearVPN, which has a free plan. Rather than let you choose from a complicated list of servers, ClearVPN’s straightforward interface will automatically route you to the best option based on what you want to do, whether it’s private browsing or watching Netflix outside the U.S. Everything else happens in the background—protocols, servers, and encryption are handled in real-time using MacPaw’s Dynamic Flow Technology that automatically selects the best server for your needs. Heavy users will want to subscribe for $13 a month, but the free plan—which offers few shortcuts including Netflix streaming and ad-free browsing—is a great addition to any Mac. Read our review of ClearVPN for more information. Download ClearVPN. Duplicate File Finder – free duplicate file remover IDG If you’ve been using your Mac for a while, there’s a good chance you have accumulated duplicate files along the way. And some of them could be eating up precious space on your drive. You could run a full disk cleaner to find and root them out, but if you want to quickly find double files and get on with your day, make space for Duplicate File Finder in your Applications folder. Simply drag a folder onto its window and within seconds you’ll have a full report of the duplicates on your machine, letting you see what they are and where they’re hiding, and letting you delete them in a snap. Unless you opt for the $5 pro version, you’ll have to deal with the occasional ad, but it’s an indispensable tool nonetheless. Duplicate File Finder is part of MacCleaner Pro, which features in our Best Mac Cleaner roundup. Get Duplicate File Finder from the Mac App Store or Nektony. Foxit PDF Reader – Free PDF reader Foundry Foxit PDF Reader is a free document viewer that supports advanced annotation tools. This lets you control the size, color, and style of inserted text or shapes. The app also packs some handy customization features, such as support for changing the document’s background shade, reversing and rotating pages, signing forms, and more. Beyond tweaking the PDF file, this Mac app can read the text aloud, measure distances, calculate areas, magnify selected spots, and have AI analyze your document. It’s certainly more capable than Apple’s Preview app and most free PDF readers we’ve used. See how Foxit PDF Editor compares to other PDF tools in our round-up of the Best PDF editor for Mac. Get Foxit PDF Reader. GarageBand – Apple’s music maker IDG If you want to make music on your Mac there’s no better place to start than GarageBand. Loaded with loads of instruments, sounds, loops, and beats, GarageBand will help you make killer tracks whether they’re bound for a stage, screen, or just your ringtone. And in true Apple fashion, its interface is drop-dead simple, letting you record, scrub, and mix just by dragging and dropping. You can use real instruments or virtual ones, and an array of pre-recorded tracks and samples will let you compose a great song even of you can’t hold a tune. And if you’re clueless about where to begin, there are even a couple piano and guitar lessons to get you started. Get GarageBand from Apple. Grammarly – free grammar and spelling checker IDG Spell-check on our iPhone is awesome, but it’s not so great on our Mac. That’s where Grammarly comes in. Available as a Mac app or a Safari extension, it adds a powerful spelling and grammar engine to Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, or anywhere else you type words. (It even works in our CMS, which is why this blurb is free of errors.) Easy to use and basically restriction-free for most people, Grammarly will be a lifesaver for anyone with clumsy typing fingers—especially if you’re stuck using one of the problematic MacBook keyboards. Get Grammarly from the Mac App Store. IINA – free Mac media player IDG While VLC (above) will always have a place on our Mac, IINA is making a strong case for supremacy. Its sleek, minimal design makes it feel like a fresh and modern video player, while features like dark mode and picture-in-picture put VLC to shame. But IINA’s best feature is its uncanny ability to play basically any file type you throw at it, from years-old local files to YouTube playlists. Plus, it’s written in Swift and open-source, so you can bet the features—including native M1 Mac support—will keep on coming. Download IINA. Kindle – free book reader IDG Sometimes you just want to curl up with your Mac and read a good book. With the Kindle app for Mac you can do just that. Like iBooks, but for all of your Kindle books, comics, and Kindle Unlimited subscriptions, you’ll be able to access all fo your Amazon.com purchases  right on your desktop. With a full-screen mode, five font options, a dark theme, and adjustable point sizes, brightness, and page widths, you can customize your reading experience just the way you like it. There’s also a built-in dictionary and easy annotating, and Amazon’s Whispersync tech will let you pick up right where you left off on any device. Except, you know, from an actual book. Download Amazon’s Kindle app for Mac from the Mac App Store. Onyx – free Mac cleaner IDG Mac maintenance might not be as vital to the day-to-day operation of your Mac as it once was, but slowdowns still happen. And when they do, Onyx will clear them up. A general-purpose utility with more tools than a Swiss Army knife, Onyx packages maintenance scripts, cache cleaning, and permissions repairers to keep your Mac in tip-top shape. Its simple interface makes it quick and painless to run all kinds of cleaning solutions, but its best feature might be the individual optimized versions Titanium Software offers, going way back. Onyx is one of a number of Mac cleaners we review in our Best Mac Cleaners group test. Read our review of Onyx. Another free Mac cleaner worth a look is Piriform Software’s CCleaner. Download Onyx. Pages/Numbers/Keynote – the free office apps on every Mac Foundry Apple’s productivity suite has been a benefit to new Mac buyers for years, but now everyone can get them. Previously available for $20 apiece, for a while now they have all been free, and you won’t find a better set of tools without opening your wallet. With professional features, powerful collaboration, and tremendous cross-platform versatility, Apple’s office suite of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with apps sporting much higher price tags. Things like Touch ID protection and real-time tracking belie its free status, and of course, there are iOS companion apps that are also free so you can work wherever you are. And don’t worry if you have a mountain of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files—it’ll work with those, too. Get Pages, Numbers, and Keynote from the Mac App Store. Polarr Photo Editor – free photo editor IDG While most photo storage apps offer a rudimentary set of editing tools, serious Instagrammers are going to need a little more creativity. Look no further than Polarr Photo Editor. The free version of Polarr offers the same great interface as the subscription version, with enough tools, filters, brushes, and slides to turn your bland selfies into social-media worthy masterpieces. You’ll be able to add text, tweak colors, remove spots, and apply masks like you can with Photoshop, just without the subscription to Creative Cloud. We look at the best free photo editing apps for Mac separately. Download Polarr Photo Editor from the Mac App Store. Raycast – free shortcut app Foundry While Apple’s Spotlight technology tends to do a good job of quickly finding files of all kinds via its indexed, system-wide search engine, Raycast may just do it better. Raycast, developed by Raycast Technologies, functions as a quick, on-the-fly application launcher, wherein you can quickly access files by typing in a few keywords, tell Raycast what function to perform (such as searching user folders, etc.), and then let Raycast go to work. While you’ll need to permit Raycast to search through local drives the first time using it, the program is intuitive, simple, and, for many people, everything they wish Apple’s Spotlight technology could be. Download Raycast. Shazam – free music recognition app IDG We all know how great the Shazam app is on our phones, but it might be even better on the Mac. It does the same thing—identify songs that it hears and direct you to where you can buy them—but on the Mac it’s always listening for music. And as soon as the Shazam app hears a song, it’ll identify it for you, whether it’s played on your Mac or somewhere else in the room. And now that Apple owns Shazam, It’s kind of like a peek at what is almost certain to be a future macOS feature that you can play with right now. Get Shazam from the Mac App Store. Simplenote – free note taking app IDG Don’t let Simplenote’s name fool you—the only thing simple about it is the decision to download it. No matter how or what you write, Simplenote promises to fit neatly into your workflow, with a syncing and organizational system that rivals the most powerful note-takers around. The deceptively powerful app puts a premium on speed and efficiency, offering a clean, lightweight interface that lets you breeze in and out of your notes, organize your thoughts, and quickly find things buried under a mountain of text snippets. Get Simplenote from the Mac App Store. Slack – free team collaboration and messaging app IDG Since its launch in 2013, Slack has quickly become the first name in business collaboration and messaging, and its free Mac app is the best way to keep in touch with your team. Bringing everything you love about the web interface to your Dock, the Slack desktop app lets you quickly switch between groups, change your status, drag and drop files, and, of course, communicate with your team members. A lightning-fast search gives you instant access to buried messages, and granular notifications will keep you apprised of only the most important correspondences. It’s so good, you might not want to turn it off at the end of the work day. Download Slack. Spark – free email app IDG Apple’s default email client gets better with each macOS revision, but if you’re looking for something different, Spark will be a refreshing change of pace. Smart, stylish, and speedy, Spark will help you get control over your inbox with powerful filters that help you focus on the messages that need your attention. It works with Gmail, iCloud, Outlook, and just about any other email address, and its companion iOS apps will keep all of them perfectly synced. With a deceptively powerful interface and a slew of advanced features, Spark just might ignite your passion for email again. Or at least make you not hate it as much. Download Spark from the Mac App Store. Spotify – free music streamer IDG Apple Music might come free with every new Mac, but unless you subscribe for $10 a month, it’s kinda useless for listening to anything other than your purchased music (although there are ways to get Apple Music for free). That’s not the case with the Spotify app. Whether you’re a premium subscriber or a free one, the Spotify app for the Mac is chock full of tunes to get you through your workday. It also makes an excellent podcast directory and player. Just like the iPhone app, you can listen to anything you want with two limitations: shuffle mode is always on and visual and audio ads occasionally pop up. Download Spotify. VLC media player – free media player IDG Video formats are constantly changing, and you no doubt have all sorts of movie files littering your Mac’s drive. But if they haven’t been encoded in 64-bit or MPEG, QuickTime might not be able to play them. That’s where VLC comes in. Open-source and omnipotent, the media player will play, stream, or convert just about any video format you can throw at it, while sporting a clean, minimal interface that strips away unnecessary controls and puts the focus on the content. It’s so good, you might forget it didn’t cost you anything. Download VLC. The Unarchiver – free unzipper ZIPs and RARs might not be as prevalent as they were when the Mac operating system was named after big cats, but if you still have expanding and extracting needs, The Unarchiver’s immediate and inconspicuous processing will help you quickly get at the files hidden inside. With dozens of supported formats and drop-dead simple one-click operation, the app will dutifully extract and expand all sorts of extensions, in numerous languages and virtually any compression method. Get The Unarchiver from the Mac App Store or direct from MacPaw. Wake Up Time – free clock app with alarms IDG With no Clock app, setting an alarm on your Mac isn’t quite as easy as it is on your iPhone. But with Wake Up Time, it is. Featuring a skeuomorphic design that looks like a modern clock radio, the app will let you choose an alarm time and one of eight pre-loaded sounds (including a rooster and a cow), or pick one of your favorite songs to play when the time arrives. You can even download a helper app that will put your Mac to sleep until the alarm is ready to go off—because machines need some down time too.  Get Wake Up Time from the Mac App Store. WhatsApp Desktop – free text messaging WhatsApp If you send a lot of WhatsApp messages, you need to get WhatsApp Desktop on your Mac. There’s not all that much to it—it basically mimics the web interface in a floating window—but it’ll sync your chats so you don’t have to reach for your phone every time you want to read or respond to a message. You will, however, need to have your phone within range and connected to Wi-Fi, and you won’t be able to make calls, but if you’re a chromic Whatsapper, it’s a must-have. If you have an iPad and want WhatsApp on that read: How to get WhatsApp on iPad. Download WhatsApp Desktop Zoom – free video conferencing IDG Since 2020 we all need a copy of Zoom on our Macs, alongside Teams, no doubt. The Zoom Mac app is the best way to get hooked up with your colleagues or family. It has an easy interface for both joining and creating meetings, with quick audio and video settings and easy view options. And you’ll get a bunch of options that aren’t available on the web, such as chats, contacts, and a status icon. Download the Zoom Mac app.

Fortnite players know that lobbies aren’t entirely human. Some enemies have such stilted movement or perish in such deeply silly ways that the only logical conclusion is that you’re fighting a bot. The extent of Fortnite’s bot usage is difficult to discern in the middle of a match, however, which is where data miners come in. AllyJax, a Fortnite leaker with an accurate track record, periodically tests the number of bots generated by a match. And as of late May, anyone playing the OG version of Fortnite might find themselves barely surrounded by real players at all.According to AllyJax, the minimum number of human players OG Fortnite needs before starting a match is just eight. That means there’s a chance you could be in a lobby that has 92 AIs fighting for a chance at a victory royale. This doesn’t necessarily mean every match will be an army of bots, but it does mean that you cannot trust that every single character you kill in Fortnite’s nostalgia mode has another person on the other side of the interaction.To determine the number of bots, AllyJax uses a Discord bot know as The Dub, which, among other things, can be commanded to count the number of real players in any given lobby. Bots are largely identifiable by names retained across different matches.It’s also worth noting that Epic Games appears to adjust bot numbers all the time. Previously, AllyJax found that OG matches could be 25% bots one month and 40% bots the next month. Epic has also reverted course in the past and decreased the number of bots that a lobby might generate. The bot-heavy lobbies are also only present in social play, not ranked modes.Epic Games did not respond to a request for comment. With that said, games like Fortnite rely on bots for a variety of reasons, like ensuring short wait times. As of this writing, the older-season-replicating OG playlist is the fifth most popular Fortnite mode, which means that its player count is a fraction of what you might find in the main battle royale modes.Fortnite also eases new players into its gameplay by introducing them to bot-heavy lobbies at first, after which the game uses skill-based matchmaking to determine the prevalence of AI in any given match. At times, players might intentionally go on a losing streak to force Fortnite to generate a bot lobby.In short, Fortnite might thrust a player into a bot lobby for their enjoyment: It’s hard to have fun if all you do is lose. But does a victory royale feel as sweet if you know that you didn’t make a real person suffer for it? Much to think about.See More:

Mistral AI, the French company behind AI assistant Le Chat and several foundational models, is officially regarded as one of France’s most promising tech startups and is arguably the only European company that could compete with OpenAI. But compared to its $6 billion valuation, its global market share is still relatively low.  However, the recent launch of its chat assistant on mobile app stores was met with some hype, particularly in its home country. “Go and download Le Chat, which is made by Mistral, rather than ChatGPT by OpenAI — or something else,” French president Emmanuel Macron said in a TV interview ahead of the AI Action Summit in Paris. While this wave of attention may be encouraging, Mistral AI still faces challenges in competing with the likes of OpenAI — and in doing so while keeping up with its self-definition as “the world’s greenest and leading independent AI lab.” What is Mistral AI? Mistral AI has raised significant amounts of funding since its creation in 2023 with the ambition to “put frontier AI in the hands of everyone.” While this isn’t a direct jab at OpenAI, the slogan is meant to highlight the company’s advocacy for openness in AI. Its alternative to ChatGPT, chat assistant Le Chat, is now also available on iOS and Android. It reached 1 million downloads in the two weeks following its mobile release, even grabbing France’s top spot for free downloads on the iOS App Store. This comes in addition to Mistral AI’s suite of models, which includes:  Mistral Large 2, the primary large language model replacing Mistral Large. Pixtral Large, unveiled in 2024 as a new addition to the Pixtral family of multimodal models. Mistral Medium 3, released in May 2025 with the promise of providing efficiency without compromising performance, and best for coding and STEM tasks. Devstral, an AI model designed for coding and openly available under an Apache 2.0 license, meaning it can be used commercially without restriction. Codestral, an earlier generative AI model for code, but whose license banned commercial applications. “Les Ministraux,” a family of models optimized for edge devices such as phones. Mistral Saba, focused on Arabic language. In March 2025, the company introduced Mistral OCR, an optical character recognition (OCR) API that can turn any PDF into a text file to make it easier for AI models to ingest. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Who are Mistral AI’s founders? Mistral AI’s three founders share a background in AI research at major U.S. tech companies with significant operations in Paris. CEO Arthur Mensch used to work at Google’s DeepMind, while CTO Timothée Lacroix and chief scientist officer Guillaume Lample are former Meta staffers. Co-founding advisers also include Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve (also a board member) and Charles Gorintin from health insurance startup Alan, as well as former digital minister Cédric O, which caused controversy due to his previous role. Are Mistral AI’s models open source? Not all of them. Mistral AI differentiates its premier models, whose weights are not available for commercial purposes, from its free models, for which it provides weight access under the Apache 2.0 license. Free models include research models such as Mistral NeMo, which was built in collaboration with Nvidia that the startup open-sourced in July 2024. How does Mistral AI make money? While many of Mistral AI’s offerings are free or now have free tiers, Mistral AI plans to drive some revenue from Le Chat’s paid tiers. Introduced in February 2025, Le Chat’s Pro plan is priced at $14.99 a month. On the purely B2B side, Mistral AI monetizes its premier models through APIs with usage-based pricing. Enterprises can also license these models, and the company likely also generates a significant share of its revenue from its strategic partnerships, some of which it highlighted during the Paris AI Summit. Overall, however, Mistral AI’s revenue is reportedly still in the eight-digit range, according to multiple sources. What partnerships has Mistral AI closed? In 2024, Mistral AI entered a deal with Microsoft that included a strategic partnership for distributing its AI models through Microsoft’s Azure platform and a €15 million investment. The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) swiftly concluded that the deal didn’t qualify for investigation due to its small size. However, it also sparked some criticism in the EU.  In January 2025, Mistral AI signed a deal with press agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) to let Chat query the AFP’s entire text archive dating back to 1983. Mistral AI also secured strategic partnerships with France’s army and job agency, shipping giant CMA, German defense tech startup Helsing, IBM, Orange, and Stellantis. In May 2025, Mistral AI announced it would participate in the creation of an AI Campus in the Paris region, as part of a joint venture with UAE-investment firm MGX, NVIDIA, and France’s state-owned investment bank Bpifrance. How much funding has Mistral AI raised to date? As of February 2025, Mistral AI raised around €1 billion in capital to date, approximately $1.04 billion at the current exchange rate. This includes some debt financing, as well as several equity financing rounds raised in close succession. In June 2023, and before it even released its first models, Mistral AI raised a record $112 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Sources at the time said the seed round — Europe’s largest ever — valued the then-one-month-old startup at $260 million.  Other investors in this seed round included Bpifrance, Eric Schmidt, Exor Ventures, First Minute Capital, Headline, JCDecaux Holding, La Famiglia, LocalGlobe, Motier Ventures, Rodolphe Saadé, Sofina, and Xavier Niel. Only six months later, it closed a Series A of €385 million ($415 million at the time), at a reported valuation of $2 billion. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from existing backer Lightspeed, as well as BNP Paribas, CMA-CGM, Conviction, Elad Gil, General Catalyst, and Salesforce. The $16.3 million convertible investment that Microsoft made in Mistral AI as part of their partnership announced in February 2024 was presented as a Series A extension, implying an unchanged valuation. In June 2024, Mistral AI then raised €600 million in a mix of equity and debt (around $640 million at the exchange rate at the time). The long-rumored round was led by General Catalyst at a $6 billion valuation, with notable investors, including Cisco, IBM, Nvidia, Samsung Venture Investment Corporation, and others. What could a Mistral AI exit look like? Mistral is “not for sale,” Mensch said in January 2025 at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “Of course, [an IPO is] the plan.”  This makes sense, given how much the startup has raised so far: Even a large sale may not provide high enough multiples for its investors, not to mention sovereignty concerns depending on the acquirer.  However, the only way to definitely squash persistent acquisition rumors is to scale its revenue to levels that could even remotely justify its nearly $6 billion valuation. Either way, stay tuned. This story was originally published on February 28, 2025 and will be regularly updated.

If you’re a business of any size considering increased deployment of Apple products, perhaps for the first time, you don’t have to go it alone. Apple has a hidden army of experts ready to help you reach the right decision. They won’t force you to do anything, but they will try to help you identify the right solutions for your business. And their advice is completely free. What the team does is scale. They can help explain how Apple’s solutions can be used in any business, but they also offer personalized sessions in which they go in deep to figure out what you need. In the sessions I’ve sat through, there is of course a slant toward Apple, but the intention is to deliver valuable advice rather than maximize sales. If all your business needs is MacBook Airs, they’ll tell you so, even if you aspire to MacBook Pros. The team can also help you identify the right mobile device management system for your business, and they offer in-person group sessions if you choose. Those group sessions are intended to help you get you and your teams on board with new Apple deployments, but they can be scoped out differently to help you handle specific challenges.  Free advice or fee advice? Apple draws on skills from across the company to empower these sessions. You may get an in-depth look at what Macs can do from one of the product marketing team, or a really informative guide to using specific applications from Apple’s in-store creatives — usually people who have worked or still do work professionally in the creative arts. Apple’s business team can explain things like Apple Business Manager, Configurator, and zero-touch deployments. Security experts can be provided to help you understand if your top team should be using Lockdown Mode. The reason I’m mentioning this is because I don’t believe enough businesses considering making the move to widen their Apple deployments are accessing this free service — and they should, because what is available is solid integration advice to help you make better deployment decisions. I think it’s important to mention the availability of Apple’s business teams, given the sheer number of enterprises currently in the process or considering making the move from Windows to Mac. If you are a company making that move, Apple has teams to help. What can you expect? The sessions I’ve sat through follow what has become Apple’s established approach to any presentation.  You get four or five strands within one session. The most recent tutorial I attended looked at Apple’s general offer to business, a series of Mac and iPhone tips for business, an in-depth exploration of applications and how they can be used for business, and Apple Intelligence tools.  It was very much a whistle-stop tour, full of useful pointers. I particularly liked being reminded that you can use the camera on your iPhone to scan a document directly into an email you are writing on your Mac, so long as you are on the same Apple ID. I was also impressed by a tangible swoon that went through the attending crowd when one Apple trainer showed us how you could use the voice recording tools to automatically transcribe what is being discussed, and then tap the Summary tool in Apple Intelligence to build a highly accurate summary of the conversation. This built-in tech will massively improve the life of minute-takers in meetings everywhere, once people begin to use it — which I think they will once they understand that it all takes place on the device. Why this matters I remember when Apple opened its first US retail store. When it did, there was an overwhelming opinion the attempt would fail. It did not fail. Instead, these stores opened globally and became among the biggest revenue-creating stores on the planet. Crowds continue to flock to them to this day. People turn up because they like the free Wi-Fi and because they can learn more about the tech they own and aspire to. They also turn up to get help at the Genius Bar.  Opening the London Regent Street store in 2004, Apple’s then retail chief Ron Johnson told me, “We believe in doing well by doing good. We don’t talk about revenue, we talk about pleasing our customers.” The Regent Street store was designed by Peter Bohlin of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, who had flown into London to launch the store. He told me his perspective on the space: “This is really about people more than things,” he said. “Steve [Jobs] has always said he sees himself as at the nexus of technology and art, and I would add, people. We are at the point where technology, art and people meet.” But back when those stores first opened, things were different. There were no iPhones, and Apple’s Mac market share stood at just under 4%. Today, the iPhone is the best-selling consumer electronics product in history, and in some sectors, Mac market share stands at over 20%. Apple’s stores supported this growth by being designed to become places where customers can get good help and support without feeling intolerably marketed at, and without feeling forced to sale up. The principle is that if you treat people with respect, you will generate respect — respect that helps build customer loyalty, which is the most valuable commodity to any business. It’s also the most valuable commodity inside a business.  Choice and respect If you think about it, respect for others is an argument for employee choice when it comes to technology tools. It’s also why Apple’s approach to business users in its stores reflects the same qualities. It means that if you are interested in exploring your options for wider Apple deployment in your business, you can book a free appointment with the business team to gain valuable insights to help your decision, and guidance to put it into effect. When I’ve spoken to members of Apple’s business teams, they’ve always been resolute in saying that they aren’t interested in just selling you an Apple product, they want to help you identify the most appropriate solution for your needs. That means if it really makes sense for your company to stick with its existing legacy tech supplier (despite forced upgrades and CrowdStrike), they’ll tell you so. Though I don’t think they need to tell you that very often. The bottom line?  If you or your business is considering widening Apple adoption in your business, or if you are in the process of such a deployment and want to book a group session to help get your teams on board, or even if you just want advice to help you respond to growing demand from your staff for an employee choice scheme, then an experienced support team is available to you at a local store. That’s got to be a whole lot easier to budget for than employing a third-party IT consultant to advise you, who probably has a vested interest in keeping you on Windows anyway. The truth is that in today’s business environment, there is an alternative. It’s easy to explore, and excellent advice is available for free. You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

Fortnite players know that lobbies aren’t entirely human. Some enemies have such stilted movement or perish in such deeply silly ways that the only logical conclusion is that you’re fighting a bot. The extent of Fortnite’s bot usage is difficult to discern in the middle of a match, however, which is where data miners come in. AllyJax, a Fortnite leaker with an accurate track record, periodically tests the number of bots generated by a match. And as of late May, anyone playing the OG version of Fortnite might find themselves barely surrounded by real players at all. According to AllyJax, the minimum number of human players OG Fortnite needs before starting a match is just eight. That means there’s a chance you could be in a lobby that has 92 AIs fighting for a chance at a victory royale. This doesn’t necessarily mean every match will be an army of bots, but it does mean that you cannot trust that every single character you kill in Fortnite’s nostalgia mode has another person on the other side of the interaction. To determine the number of bots, AllyJax uses a Discord bot know as The Dub, which, among other things, can be commanded to count the number of real players in any given lobby. Bots are largely identifiable by names retained across different matches. It’s also worth noting that Epic Games appears to adjust bot numbers all the time. Previously, AllyJax found that OG matches could be 25% bots one month and 40% bots the next month. Epic has also reverted course in the past and decreased the number of bots that a lobby might generate. The bot-heavy lobbies are also only present in social play, not ranked modes. Epic Games did not respond to a request for comment. With that said, games like Fortnite rely on bots for a variety of reasons, like ensuring short wait times. As of this writing, the older-season-replicating OG playlist is the fifth most popular Fortnite mode, which means that its player count is a fraction of what you might find in the main battle royale modes. Fortnite also eases new players into its gameplay by introducing them to bot-heavy lobbies at first, after which the game uses skill-based matchmaking to determine the prevalence of AI in any given match. At times, players might intentionally go on a losing streak to force Fortnite to generate a bot lobby. In short, Fortnite might thrust a player into a bot lobby for their enjoyment: It’s hard to have fun if all you do is lose. But does a victory royale feel as sweet if you know that you didn’t make a real person suffer for it? Much to think about.