Blackbird Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth Member Oct 25, 2017 7,250 Brazil do you like to see damage numbers displayed on screen at each attack? i've started to dabble with JRPGs for the first time recently (FFXVI, P3 Reload), and i'm also interested on Clair Obscur, for sure. but this tiny little aspect bothers me, even in other genres, it just feels like that messes the visibility way too much and it becomes very busy. at the same time, i can see it being kind of a welcoming sign that makes you feel at home, as a JRPG fan. so, how do you feel about it?  Last edited: Today at 11:34 AM Twig Member Oct 25, 2017 8,392 i enjoyed seeing a bunch of 9999s in clair obscur turn into much bigger numbers once i got the limit break love damage numbers  texhnolyze Shinra Employee Member Oct 25, 2017 26,335 Indonesia I always turn them off when possible, JRPG or any other genre.   AviAvi ▲ Legend ▲ Member Jun 23, 2021 9,822 I just like knowing how much damage I'm doing to a boss, that can be through damage numbers or a health bar going down, as long as I can see that I'm actually making an impact. I don't get a hit of dopamine when I see big damage numbers though. That may also be why Balatro didn't grab me as much lol  ghostcrew The Shrouded Ghost Administrator Oct 27, 2017 31,776 Yup. From tabletop RPGing to video game ass JRPGs - i wanna see the literal number of damage I am doing (or taking). If I rolled my dice while playing D&D and the DM just said 'you dealt some damage to the goblin' I would be vwery unsatisfied.  RochHoch One Winged Slayer Member May 22, 2018 21,264 Absolutely Big numbers are satisfying, and they give you feedback on what you're doing  PlanetSmasher The Abominable Showman Member Oct 25, 2017 132,609 I think they're satisfying. Especially when they're done well.   steviestar3 One Winged Slayer Member Jul 3, 2018 5,436 Yeah, it's fun. I turn them on in other genres too when the option is available (Monster Hunter, Team Fortress 2) though that's more because the information is actually useful there while in JRPGs it's mostly just for the flavor.   Wrexis Member Nov 4, 2017 29,283 You know I was thinking about making this thread earlier after playing a bit of FFXVI and Clair Obscur. I do because it lets me see if damage is resisted or enhanced etc with elemental weaknesses, but I don't make it a game to hit ALL THE NUMBERS. Story wise in FFXVI it was very cool to see your character progress in the story itself as the numbers went up though. When you hit a 4 million damage on Titan you know things are getting serious. It definitely required knowledge of previous Final Fantasies though I think. They became useless in some games like Disgaea because you could hit trillions if memory serves. 99999999999999999 means nothing.  Geg Member Oct 25, 2017 6,588 It's good information to have most of the time, unless they just completely clutter the screen lol   Faiyaz Member Nov 30, 2017 6,613 Bangladesh Literally couldn't care less either way, but some of the best jRPG's in recent memory have them (Dragon Quest XI, Persona 5, Xenoblade 3, FF VII Remake, SMT V:Vengeance, Octopath Traveler 2, Metaphor, Trails games, etc.), so why not.   AaronMT Member Oct 27, 2017 8,365 Toronto I like them. They serve a purpose in demonstrating feedback from a game's mechanics and systems.   falcondoc Member Oct 29, 2017 7,978 Of course I want to see them   Ashes of Dreams Fallen Guardian of Unshakable Resolve Member May 22, 2020 19,580 It's pretty important to know if what you're doing is more or less effective than any other given thing. RPGs are about numbers, after all. You wouldn't close your eyes and ignore the damage you deal in D&D. Show them numbers.   Lumination Member Oct 26, 2017 15,973 I want to pick both yes options.   Desma "This guy are sick" Member Oct 27, 2017 6,731 Yeah, I need the numbers   Zekes Member Oct 25, 2017 7,926 Why wouldn't I want to see the numbers Show me the numbers  Dezzy Member Oct 25, 2017 3,784 USA Yes, but not in games where you see tons of numbers flying everywhere, or huge numbers like 9275739. it's just visual spam at that point because I can't actually do the math.   ConflictResolver Member Jan 1, 2024 4,775 Midgar The numbers are part of the genre. I hate the mentality that the numbers were only ever a stand in for actual action. Action games are action games. RPGs are RPGs. Lumination said: I want to pick both yes options. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Same lol  Cren Member Oct 3, 2024 103 Growing up playing Ragnarok Online and WoW made me love seeing my damage. The way damage is shown in COE33 feels so good to see.   Mobius and Pet Octopus Member Oct 25, 2017 16,722 It's important to see the damage. It doesn't necessarily have to get as obfuscating as it can be in certain games, even Clair Obscur. At least Clair Obscur has a damage total, although hard to see sometimes, that lets you know how much your move has done in totality. But even there I wish it was a bit clearer, or a total that is the entire turn. Seems like a good mod could really address that.   southwest Member Sep 15, 2022 2,724 for any genre if it's turn based, I want them on.   Kent Member Jun 4, 2018 1,198 Minneapolis, MN Yes - I need to see the functional impact of what I'm doing. I'm just waiting for a game to have it be thematically-appropriate enough to render damage numbers in hexadecimal or scientific notation.  Suede Gotham's Finest Member Oct 28, 2017 14,944 Scotland Yes, I like to see how much damage I'm doing. Also seeing 9999 damage always brings a burst of dopamine for me.  sderttreds Member Jan 6, 2023 1,238 yes, especially the game where you can respec your build unlimited times   OP OP Blackbird Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth Member Oct 25, 2017 7,250 Brazil Lumination said: I want to pick both yes options. Click to expand... Click to shrink... ConflictResolver said: The numbers are part of the genre. I hate the mentality that the numbers were only ever a stand in for actual action. Action games are action games. RPGs are RPGs. Same lol Click to expand... Click to shrink... i was thinking about that and it makes sense, added the ability to give 2 votes!  hydruxo ▲ Legend ▲ Member Oct 25, 2017 22,674 Yes. Number go up, brain happy.   foshy Member Nov 2, 2017 206 really depends on the game, i generally like them but at the same time i don't miss them in pokemon. i like how power & hp amount is implied with the difference in scroll speed of the health bar there.   Yam's Member Oct 27, 2017 4,547 It's a core part of seeing your team becoming stronger for me.   Bucca Member Oct 25, 2017 5,454 bigger number better person bigger number better person  Landmaster Member Jan 21, 2018 167 Love it. But I like it when developers show restraint with their damage numbers. Too large and they start to lose all meaning.   closer Member Oct 25, 2017 5,542 i like number   Titantodd Member May 3, 2023 2,766 hydruxo said: Yes. Number go up, brain happy. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yes, exactly this. Nubby's Number Factory is probably going to be on my top 10 games this year for exactly this reason.  WildArms Member Apr 30, 2022 2,819 Yeah, it's nice. Just don't get too ridiculous with fonts or extremely high numbers and we're good. (Probably the old school MMO player in me wanting that.)   twister926 Member Apr 28, 2022 771 No and I am really surprised by the results. I never felt any excitement from seeing big numbers. I definitely feel satisfaction when I pull some wild ability combo that eats health of boss' health bar.  RecipeforDisaster Member Jul 15, 2022 167 I don't really care if it's turn based, but if it's real-time then please for the love of god let me turn the numbers off.   RPGsandFGCs Member Jun 30, 2024 1,006 California Normally, yes, but there were so many popping up CONSTANTLY in Rebirth that I downloaded the mod to turn them off. I think it still had numbers pop when crits happened which was a great compromise.  psynergyadept Shinra Employee Member Oct 26, 2017 19,007 Yes it just feels right!   Dogui Member Oct 28, 2017 10,919 Brazil Would activate damage numbers in every game if I could. Want a health bar along with it as well, because info is never too much. This kind of stuff never affected my immersion with the game. Edit: Also, a Jrpg without option to show numbers would be almost a game breaker for me. Unless it's really really good, of course.  Last edited: Today at 12:22 PM Jonathan Lanza "I've made a Gigantic mistake" Member Feb 8, 2019 8,763 If they need to be there then I have no issue with em If they don't then I do.  Vincent Grayson Member Oct 27, 2017 7,321 Mount Airy, MD I don't need the damage numbers popping up all over as long as there's some kind of clear indication of how much damage I'm doing versus how much damage the enemies can take. Having just finished E33, so much of the damage information becomes overwhelming at a point...but I don't know that there's an easy solution that doesn't involve either burying more information or making much simpler combat/progression systems, and neither of those are good options.   OP OP Blackbird Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth Member Oct 25, 2017 7,250 Brazil twister926 said: No and I am really surprised by the results. I never felt any excitement from seeing big numbers. I definitely feel satisfaction when I pull some wild ability combo that eats health of boss' health bar. Click to expand... Click to shrink... that's kinda how i feel about it. a health bar is enough and preferable, although my most liked approach is minimal, more immersive UI. i usually get more satisfaction from the animation work itself, hit reactions and damage on models (blood splatter/cloud, sparks, ragdoll physics and/or gore if it is there).  Jibberhack Member Oct 30, 2017 1,385 It gives you instant feedback about how well a particular attack is doing against an enemy. Give me the health count of the enemy as well without needing to spend a turn to reveal them.   mattynunchucks Member Oct 27, 2017 644 Number get big.   Greywaren Member Jul 16, 2019 13,030 Spain Damage numbers are cool, I always want damage numbers.   Lumination Member Oct 26, 2017 15,973 Blackbird said: a health bar is enough and preferable, although my most liked approach is minimal, more immersive UI. i usually get more satisfaction from the animation work itself, hit reactions and damage on models (blood splatter/cloud, sparks, ragdoll physics and/or gore if it is there). Click to expand... Click to shrink... A well-constructed jrpg is essentially math in a trench coat. Seeing the solution to the formula you have concocted is part of the appeal. On the other end, I think of something like Bayonetta. No hp, no numbers, just model damage. And in that game, there is little to no math in my loadout. Two different inputs, two different outputs.  Fawz Member Oct 28, 2017 3,971 Montreal I always turn off Damage Numbers. Games just can't help themselves and fall for power creep all the time. Numbers start big only to get ridiculously bigger and more numerous. Total visual impairment Ragnarok Online (classic) is the only one where I enjoy the numbers, both because of the style/VFX/SFX and that they're generally quite low so actually insightful. Though even then when playing in large groups or doing large-scale AoE it turns to clutter I wish I could disable  OP OP Blackbird Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth Member Oct 25, 2017 7,250 Brazil Lumination said: A well-constructed jrpg is essentially math in a trench coat. Seeing the solution to the formula you have concocted is part of the appeal. On the other end, I think of something like Bayonetta. No hp, no numbers, just model damage. And in that game, there is little to no math in my loadout. Two different inputs, two different outputs. Click to expand... Click to shrink... i can see the appeal. not my cup of tea, but i understand it.  mute ▲ Legend ▲ Member Oct 25, 2017 29,306 I need to have some indication of how I am performing and watching health bars dwindle down (esp. with today's spongey enemies) isn't granular enough.   Infinite Barrels Member Mar 28, 2024 300 more numbers  

News Ghost of Yōtei’s Setting is “The Perfect Place to Tell Atsu’s Tale,” Says Game Director "If you’re going to tell a ghost story, do it in a dramatic location," says Sucker Punch's Nate Fox, who praised Hokkaido's beauty. Posted By Ravi Sinha | On 15th, May. 2025 It’s been a long wait for Ghost of Yōtei, the sequel to Sucker Punch’s critically acclaimed and commercially successful Ghost of Tsushima. Set over 300 years later, this time in Ezo (later known as Hokkaido), the narrative is about Atsu, who seeks revenge after the Yōtei Six slaughter her family. As with Ghost of Tsushima, Sucker Punch is aiming to “deliver a feeling of authenticity and believability to our fictional story.” On the PlayStation Blog, game director Nate Fox reveals that the team settled on Hokkaido because it’s “unbelievably beautiful.” “In 1603, it was the edge of the Japanese empire. Back then, it was called Ezo, a mysterious island to the north, sparsely populated by Wajin (Japanese) people bold enough to build a life for themselves in the cold wilderness. This combination of beauty and danger spoke to us.” Fox believes it’s the “perfect place to tell Atsu’s tale; a warrior so driven by revenge that locals start to believe she’s an onryō walking the land. If you’re going to tell a ghost story, do it in a dramatic location.” The development team undertook two trips to gather references, one to Shiretoko National Park, where the “natural beauty” of the ocean and cliffs coexist with predators like bears. “Suddenly we had to split our attention between gazing up at the beautiful snowcapped mountains and looking down at the nearby bushes in case there was a predator nearby. “That experience was magic! A perfect marriage of beauty and danger, that was the exact feeling we wanted for our game.” It’s ultimately what made Fox believe that the location was “the right choice” for the game. The second trip saw the team encounter the titular Mt. Yōtei or the “Female Mountain” as the Ainu called it. Fox felt that it was a “symbol of Hokkaido” and for Atsu, “It’s a symbol of home and of the family she lost. This process of being there, talking about the game with locales and then synthesizing new ideas is what made the trip so fulfilling.” Fox teased that the developer spoke to a “wealth of knowledgeable individuals and visited important cultural sites” to learn more about Japanese culture but that more will be revealed later. Stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks. Ghost of Yōtei launches on October 2nd for PS5, with pre-orders now available. Check out the latest trailer or learn more about how it’s Sucker Punch’s biggest map yet. 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! Nintendo Switch 2 Launch Might be the Most Important Console Ever – DFC Intelligence The fact that Grand Theft Auto 6 got pushed back to 2026 might result with hardware sales for PS5 and Xbox Ser... Ghost of Yōtei’s Setting is “The Perfect Place to Tell Atsu’s Tale,” Says Game Director "If you’re going to tell a ghost story, do it in a dramatic location," says Sucker Punch's Nate Fox, who pra... Nintendo Switch 2 Might Not Have Reviews on Launch Day – Rumour Publications have gotten word from Nintendo that they will not be sent Switch 2 review units until close to la... Persona 5: The Phantom X Launches June 26th for PC and Mobiles Worldwide The free-to-play RPG features the same setting and combat system as Persona 5 but tells a new story with new a... DOOM: The Dark Ages Accolades Trailer Highlights Critical Acclaim Set before the events of DOOM (2016) and featuring id's largest campaign yet, the shooter is available on Xbox... Ubisoft’s New Subsidiary Will Build Story-Based Single-Player, Live-Service Multiplayer, and Mobile Games The subsidiary was founded as part of a €1.16 billion deal between Ubisoft and Tencent, and was officially a... View More

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. You can now own a $1 gold coin celebrating one of America’s most revolutionary achievements: the NASA Space Shuttle program. The latest variant in the ongoing American Innovation $1 Coin series is available to order through the United States Mint. Selected to represent the state of Florida, the noncirculating legal tender is the third coin released this year and the 28th coin in the 15-year project first announced in 2018. While the coin’s front displays the series’ Statue of Liberty image, the back shows the shuttle launching above plumes of exhaust. United States Mint Medallic Artist Eric David Custer sculpted the image while Artistic Infusion Program (AIP) Designer Ron Sanders designed it. “The Space Shuttle, officially known as the Space Transportation System, remains one of the most iconic and influential spacecrafts in history,” explained US Mint acting director Kristie McNally in an accompanying announcement. “As the world’s first reusable spacecraft, it played a pivotal role in advancing space exploration. We are honored to celebrate this major achievement.” The Space Shuttle’s iconic design (including the image displayed on the new $1 coins) frequently featured not just the shuttle itself, but its large external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters. Those attachments detached after the shuttle reached a predetermined altitude. While the boosters included parachutes allowing them to be recovered and reused, the fuel tank was designed to disintegrate during its atmospheric reentry along a ballistic trajectory ensuring any remnants landed in the Indian or Pacific Oceans. The Space Shuttle coin is the 28th in the American Innovation series. Credit: US Mint NASA relied on the Space Shuttle to transport astronauts on missions from April 1981 until its retirement in July 2011. The spacecraft blasted off a total of 135 times from one of two launchpads in Florida, returning to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral at the end of 78 of those trips. During its tenure, the shuttle flew the first women and minority crew members into space, as well as delivered components for both the Hubble Space Telescope and International Space Station (ISS). The program was not without tragedy, however. The Challenger and Columbia disasters of 1986 and 2003, respectively,  collectively claimed the lives of 14 astronauts. In 2004, President George W. Bush announced plans to retire the Space Shuttle program following the completion of the ISS. Today, NASA primarily relies on private contracts with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin for astronaut and mission transport. The ongoing Artemis lunar program will use an Orion spacecraft designed by Lockheed Martin. The Space Shuttle’s influence today is far more than just symbolic. The Artemis program’s rocket booster engines, casings, and main engines are all repurposed and refurbished from Space Shuttle craft. The Artemis I mission alone utilized components previously employed on 83 shuttle missions. The United States Mint announced its American Innovation $1 Coin series celebrating American achievements across science and technology in 2018, and has already featured three space-related selections prior to the Florida coin. Delaware’s coin from 2018 showcases Annie Jump Cannon, the pioneering astronomer responsible for the star classification system still used today. Meanwhile, Maryland’s 2020 entry pays tribute to the Hubble Space Telescope, and Alabama’s 2024 release includes the Saturn V rocket. Later this year, Texas will become the fifth space-centric $1 gold coin with its Mission Control design.

The British automaker and US-based iPhone maker are collaborating on the new generation of CarPlay. Apple 2025-05-15T22:03:22Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Apple partnered with Aston Martin to launch CarPlay Ultra for its luxury vehicles. CarPlay Ultra integrates iPhone functions into the dashboard with customizable features and Siri. Available in Aston Martin's Vantage sports car, starting at $194,000, and additional models. Apple's CarPlay just got a James Bond-esque makeover.The tech giant partnered with luxury car brand Aston Martin for the initial rollout of CarPlay Ultra, the next generation of the program that allows iPhone owners to bring the Apple ecosystem to their car.Unlike its older sibling, which is restricted to the infotainment system in the center console, CarPlay Ultra gives your full dashboard the Apple treatment, including customizable features. The new program is like putting Siri in the passenger seat: It allows the voice-controlled assistant to manage functions like the radio, climate, and performance settings depending on the vehicle. Drivers can tailor what they see on their screens in the car using their iPhone, mixing information from the vehicle itself with widgets powered by Apple. CarPlay Ultra will span multiple screens, Apple said. Apple "With CarPlay Ultra, together with automakers, we are reimagining the in-car experience, making it even more unified and consistent," Bob Borchers, Apple's vice president of worldwide product marketing, said in a press release.CarPlay Ultra is available with US or Canada-based orders for Aston Martin's DBX SUV, Vantage, DB12, and Vanquish as of Thursday, with plans to expand to more of its lineup through a software update on compatible vehicles. If you're hoping for instant access to the new program, it'll likely be a six-figure splurge.A 2025 Aston Martin Vantage starts at $194,000, and the "Supercar of SUV's" DBX retails for $256,000 to start, according to Car and Driver magazine.company's first quarter earnings report.Apple first announced its plan for a second generation of CarPlay in 2022. In January, it amended the CarPlay webpage to remove its 2024 timeline without an updated launch date, according to MacRumors.Eventually, Apple said, CarPlay Ultra will roll out to other automakers, like Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis, which have already committed to launching the new program. Recommended video

IS IT REAL OR IS IT AI-GENERATED? FBI warns of ongoing scam that uses deepfake audio to impersonate government officials Warning comes as the use of deepfakes in the wild are rising. Dan Goodin – May 15, 2025 5:06 pm | 18 Credit: Getty Images Credit: Getty Images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more The FBI is warning people to be vigilant of an ongoing malicious messaging campaign that uses AI-generated voice audio to impersonate government officials in an attempt to trick recipients into clicking on links that can infect their computers. “Since April 2025, malicious actors have impersonated senior US officials to target individuals, many of whom are current or former senior US federal or state government officials and their contacts,” Thursday’s advisory from the bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center said. “If you receive a message claiming to be from a senior US official, do not assume it is authentic.” Think you can’t be fooled? Think again. The campaign's creators are sending AI-generated voice messages—better known as deepfakes—along with text messages “in an effort to establish rapport before gaining access to personal accounts,” FBI officials said. Deepfakes use AI to mimic the voice and speaking characteristics of a specific individual. The differences between the authentic and simulated speakers are often indistinguishable without trained analysis. Deepfake videos work similarly. One way to gain access to targets' devices is for the attacker to ask if the conversation can be continued on a separate messaging platform and then successfully convince the target to click on a malicious link under the guise that it will enable the alternate platform. The advisory provided no additional details about the campaign. The advisory comes amid a rise in reports of deepfaked audio and sometimes video used in fraud and espionage campaigns. Last year, password manager LastPass warned that it had been targeted in a sophisticated phishing campaign that used a combination of email, text messages, and voice calls to trick targets into divulging their master passwords. One part of the campaign included targeting a LastPass employee with a deepfake audio call that impersonated company CEO Karim Toubba. In a separate incident last year, a robocall campaign that encouraged New Hampshire Democrats to sit out the coming election used a deepfake of then-President Joe Biden’s voice. A Democratic consultant was later indicted in connection with the calls. The telco that transmitted the spoofed robocalls also agreed to pay a $1 million civil penalty for not authenticating the caller as required by FCC rules. Thursday’s advisory provided steps people can take to better detect these sorts of malicious messaging campaigns. They include: Verify the identity of the person calling you or sending text or voice messages. Before responding, research the originating number, organization, and/or person purporting to contact you. Then independently identify a phone number for the person and call to verify their authenticity. Carefully examine the email address; messaging contact information, including phone numbers; URLs; and spelling used in any correspondence or communications. Scammers often use slight differences to deceive you and gain your trust. For instance, actors can incorporate publicly available photographs in text messages, use minor alterations in names and contact information, or use AI-generated voices to masquerade as a known contact. Look for subtle imperfections in images and videos, such as distorted hands or feet, unrealistic facial features, indistinct or irregular faces, unrealistic accessories such as glasses or jewelry, inaccurate shadows, watermarks, voice call lag time, voice matching, and unnatural movements. Listen closely to the tone and word choice to distinguish between a legitimate phone call or voice message from a known contact and AI-generated voice cloning, as they can sound nearly identical. AI-generated content has advanced to the point that it is often difficult to identify. When in doubt about the authenticity of someone wishing to communicate with you, contact your relevant security officials or the FBI for help. The guidance is helpful, but it doesn't take into account some of the challenges targets of such scams face. Often, the senders create a sense of urgency by claiming there is some sort of ongoing emergency that requires an immediate response. It's also not clear how people can reliably confirm that phone numbers, email addresses, or URLs are authentic. The bottom line is that there is no magic bullet to ward off these sorts of scams. Admitting that no one is immune to being fooled is key to defending against them. Dan Goodin Senior Security Editor Dan Goodin Senior Security Editor Dan Goodin is Senior Security Editor at Ars Technica, where he oversees coverage of malware, computer espionage, botnets, hardware hacking, encryption, and passwords. In his spare time, he enjoys gardening, cooking, and following the independent music scene. Dan is based in San Francisco. Follow him at here on Mastodon and here on Bluesky. Contact him on Signal at DanArs.82. 18 Comments

On Thursday, Windsurf, a startup that develops popular AI tools for software engineers, announced the launch of its first family of AI software engineering models, or SWE-1 for short. The startup says it trained its new family of AI models — SWE-1, SWE-1-lite, and SWE-1-mini — to be optimized for the “entire software engineering process,” not just coding. The launch of Windsurf’s in-house AI models may come as a shock to some, given that OpenAI has reportedly closed a $3 billion deal to acquire Windsurf. However, this model launch suggests Windsurf is trying to expand beyond just developing applications to also developing the models that power them. According to Windsurf, SWE-1, the largest and most capable AI model of the bunch, performs competitively with Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4.1, and Gemini 2.5 Pro on internal programming benchmarks. However, SWE-1 appears to fall short of frontier AI models, such as Claude 3.7 Sonnet, on software engineering tasks. Windsurf says its SWE-1-lite and SWE-1-mini models will be available for all users on its platform, free or paid. Meanwhile, SWE-1 will only be available to paid users. Windsurf did not immediately announce pricing for its SWE-1 models but claims it’s cheaper to serve than Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Windsurf is best known for tools that allow software engineers to write and edit code through conversations with an AI chatbot, a practice known as “vibe coding.” Other popular vibe-coding startups include Cursor, the largest in the space, as well as Lovable. Most of these startups, including Windsurf, have traditionally relied on AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google to power their applications. In a video announcing the SWE models, comments made by Windsurf’s Head of Research, Nicholas Moy, underscore Windsurf’s newest efforts to differentiate its approach. “Today’s frontier models are optimized for coding, and they’ve made massive strides over the last couple of years,” says Moy. “But they’re not enough for us … Coding is not software engineering.” Windsurf notes in a blog post that while other models are good at writing code, they struggle to work between multiple surfaces — as programmers often do — such as terminals, IDEs, and the internet. The startup says SWE-1 was trained using a new data model and a “training recipe that encapsulates incomplete states, long-running tasks, and multiple surfaces.” 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 The startup describes SWE-1 as its “initial proof of concept,” suggesting it may release more AI models in the future.

🚀What's the position?We're looking for a dedicated Support Representative to join our growing team. This is full-time, remote position to help us provide great support for our two mobile apps.💫What will I be working on?We have two apps Pillow (https://pillow.app) and Today (https://neybox.com/today). These are two well-established, health and fitness mobile apps with millions of users worldwide. Our customers will reach out to us for help via email, our dedicated customer support service or social media. As a Support Representative for our team, you will be the front-line contact for our users, helping them navigate our applications, troubleshoot issues, and make the most of their features.🤹‍What will be my role and responsibilities?Respond to customer support requestsMaintain and update the content of our knowledge base.Coordination with the rest of the team to escalate issues to the right people or teams where necessary.Reply to reviews on App Store Connect.Help customers reaching out on Social Media.🌍 Can I work remotely?Of course! Our team is 100% remote. To ensure maximum availability of our support team, your working days and hours may include weekends or holidays.🙌 What is it like working at Neybox?Our team is smal and collaborate closely on a daily basis. Not everyone joins that the same time but we ensure a good overlap of our working hours. Our communication is mainly asynchronous using Slack and other communication tools and we keep meetings at a minimum. We work closely together and we encourage open communication and transparency.Requirements💼 What are the requirements?At least one year of experience in similar customer support positionsExcellent written and verbal communication skillsFamiliarity with customer support softwareProficient use of the English language.Good copywriting skills.Proficient in usage of MacOS and iOSReferences from previous employers in written or spoken form may be required.⚡️ Bonus skillsAn academic background or experience in software development is a plus.Benefits😌 BenefitsWorking as part of a small word-class friendly team to help people around the world live a better life.Being part of a growing multi-cultural team that values and supports each member.Access to many learning resources and sponsored learning opportunities.Great salary with bonuses.24 days of paid leave + public holidays.❌ Who should not apply?We don't work with outsourcing companies, HR agencies or headhunters. Please apply directly as an individual interested in the position.📥 Great! How can I apply?Just hit the button "Apply" button below!⚠️ Please note that this is the only acceptable way to apply. All other ways of contacting Neybox about the position (social media, LinkedIn, email etc.), will result in immediate rejection.Apply NowLet's start your dream job Apply now Meet JobCopilot: Your Personal AI Job HunterAutomatically Apply to Remote Customer Support JobsJust set your preferences and Job Copilot will do the rest-finding, filtering, and applying while you focus on what matters. Activate JobCopilot

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says Apple is keeping Fortnite’s return to the App Store in limbo, having “neither accepted nor rejected” the latest submission for review. The ongoing silence now threatens to delay Fortnite’s next major update, planned for this Friday. Judge ordered Apple to comply, but didn’t require Fortnite’s return The ink wasn’t even dry yet on Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ order for Apple to quit it and do what it was told in the original 2021 injunction, when Epic Games confirmed it would submit Fortnite for Apple’s approval as soon as humanly possible. Which they did, on May 9th. Then… nothing. After five days without response, Epic withdrew the original submission and filed a new version to accommodate a planned Friday update. Since Apple’s own guidelines state that 90% of app submissions are reviewed within 24 hours, this radio silence is highly unusual. But here’s the thing: this may not be radio silence at all, but rather a one-sided stalemate. When Judge Rogers issued her original decision in 2021, she said Apple was not obligated to let Fortnite return to the App Store. She concluded that Epic Games had willingly broken the rules it had agreed to when creating its developer account, so the ban was fair game. So far, Apple has not given any indication whether it will actually let Fortnite back into the App Store. Which is probably why Sweeney has been very active on X about it, knowing that Fortnite fans will pile on (often, mentioning Tim Cook directly). Apple is listening Adding to this entire predicament, Tim Sweeney posted earlier today about how a Fortnite knock-off was available at the App Store. A few hours later, the app was pulled, to which Sweeney posted about yet another knock-off making the rounds. For now, Fortnite fans on iOS remain in wait-and-see mode. Sweeney has not indicated what Epic’s next move will be if Godot never comes. However, with no communication from Apple and the Friday update at risk, the saga between both companies appears far from over. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed.  FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Mike Rupp (left) and Shawn Henderson debut Pyrion, a new lighting collection available through Hostler | Burrows.With the debut of Pyrion, designer Shawn Henderson and Mike Rupp of Rupp Studio introduce a lighting collection that transforms tactile yet minimal table and floor lamps into collectible design pieces. Rooted in sculptural minimalism, each piece takes the form of a pyramid, its surface hand-finished with a spray metal technique that mimics the rich patina of cast bronze. Complementing this architectural form are handwoven shades from Colombian atelier VERDI, crafted from Yaré vine and metallic threads. They infuse each fixture with a tactile contrast of earthiness and refinement.The collaboration is a study in balance, shaped by a shared design language. “Pyrion came out of a shared love for restraint and richness—how one shape, when made with intention, can feel both powerful and quiet,” says Rupp.Ethan HerringtonThe pyramid informs the collection’s hand-polished lamp bases and custom shades created in partnership with VERDI.In this exclusive Q&A, Henderson, a member of ELLE DECOR’s A-List, discusses the origins of Pyrion, his obsession with proportion, and how a unique design tête-à-tête helped create this notable collaboration. Available exclusively through Hostler | Burrows in both New York City and Los Angeles.ELLE DECOR: HOW DID YOU FIRST BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH MIKE? AND WHAT INSPIRED A LIGHTING-SPECIFIC COLLECTION?Shawn Henderson: Mike and I have been friends for many years and have collaborated on design throughout much of that time. Casual conversations gradually turned into a shared curiosity about doing something creative together. We both feel there’s a real void in the market for special lighting, so it felt like the right place to begin—designing lamps that sit at the intersection of architecture, sculpture, and atmosphere, all things we’re naturally drawn to in our work.Ethan HerringtonPyrion is made up of three distinctive lamps in three shade colors. Pictured above is the Pyrion Table Lamp.WHAT WERE YOUR MAIN SOURCES OF INSPIRATION FOR THE COLLECTION? We kept coming back to the idea of a singular, architectural shape—something clean and elemental, but not cold. We were thinking about ancient forms, like pyramids and obelisks, and how to reinterpret that kind of presence in a way that feels modern and quiet.HOW DID YOU BOTH BEGIN THE DESIGN PROCESS? It started with a shape—literally a triangle. We sketched, talked through proportions, passed ideas back and forth. It was very collaborative but intuitive. We were both aligned in wanting to do less, not more—to find strength in simplicity and let the materials do the work.AND, THIS LED TO PYRAMIDS. WHAT’S MEANINGFUL TO YOU ABOUT THIS SHAPE? There’s something timeless and grounded about a pyramid. It’s a shape that feels rooted and powerful, but also quiet. We liked that tension. Architecturally, it’s incredibly stable—and symbolically, it carries a sense of permanence and intention, which aligned with how we wanted these pieces to feel.Ethan HerringtonEach lamp is hand finished and features lamp shades made of Yaré threads.TELL US A BIT MORE ABOUT YOUR MATERIAL CHOICES FOR THE COLLECTION? We used Vero metal, which is a hand-applied liquid metal coating. It allowed us to get the feel and finish of cast metal, but with more control over weight and form. The process is incredibly hands-on—each base is polished by hand, so the surface has that human touch to it.THERE IS A TACTILITY TO THE CORDED LAMPSHADES. HOW DID YOU COME TO WORK WITH THIS UNIQUE MATERIAL? We partnered with VERDI, a Bogotá-based atelier that creates beautiful textiles from natural materials and metal. When we saw what they were doing with Yaré and metallic threads, we knew it was the right match. The fiber comes from the Colombian Amazon, and it has this amazing strength and texture—woven with copper or steel, it creates something that’s both wild and refined. It felt like the perfect counterpoint to the sculptural metal base.Ethan HerringtonThe Pyrion Floor Lamp transforms illumination into sculpture.WHAT'S IT LIKE TO WORK WITH A FELLOW INTERIOR DESIGNER?It’s kind of like finishing each other’s sentences—but visually. There’s a shorthand. We both understand proportion, materiality, restraint. There’s also a shared understanding of how pieces need to live in a room—not just how they look on a pedestal. That makes for a really fluid and grounded collaboration.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

VLMs have become central to building general-purpose AI systems capable of understanding and interacting in digital and real-world settings. By integrating visual and textual data, VLMs have driven advancements in multimodal reasoning, image editing, GUI agents, robotics, and more, influencing sectors like education and healthcare. Despite this progress, VLMs still lag behind human capabilities, particularly in tasks involving 3D reasoning, object counting, creative visual interpretation, and interactive gameplay. A challenge lies in the scarcity of rich, diverse multimodal datasets, unlike the abundant textual resources available to LLMs. Additionally, multimodal data complexity poses significant training and evaluation hurdles.  Researchers at ByteDance have developed Seed1.5-VL, a compact yet powerful vision-language foundation model featuring a 532 M-parameter vision encoder and a 20 B-parameter Mixture-of-Experts LLM. Despite its efficient architecture, Seed1.5-VL achieves top results on 38 out of 60 public VLM benchmarks, excelling in tasks like GUI control, video understanding, and visual reasoning. It is trained on trillions of multimodal tokens using advanced data synthesis and post-training techniques, including human feedback. Innovations in training, such as hybrid parallelism and vision token redistribution, optimize performance. The model’s efficiency and strong reasoning capabilities suit real-world interactive applications like chatbots.  The Seed1.5-VL architecture features a vision encoder, an MLP adapter, and an LLM. Its custom vision encoder, Seed-ViT, supports native-resolution image input using 2D RoPE and processes images through 14×14 patches, followed by average pooling and an MLP. Pretraining involves masked image modeling, contrastive learning, and omni-modal alignment using images, text, and video-audio-caption pairs. The model uses a Dynamic Frame-Resolution Sampling approach for video encoding that adapts frame rates and resolutions based on content complexity, balancing efficiency and detail. This method enables effective spatial-temporal understanding within a token budget, ensuring comprehensive video representation across varied lengths and complexities.  The pre-training of Seed1.5-VL involved curating 3 trillion high-quality tokens across diverse domains. Image-text pairs from the web were filtered using CLIP scores, size/aspect ratio checks, and deduplication to reduce noise. Using domain-based sampling and duplication strategies, rare visual concepts were overrepresented to address class imbalance. Specialized datasets were added for OCR using annotated and synthetic text-rich images, charts, and tables—object grounding and counting tasks utilized bounding boxes, points, and auto-labeled web data. Additional tasks included 3D spatial understanding using depth annotations, and video understanding through multi-frame captioning, QA, and temporal grounding to support dynamic content analysis.  The evaluation highlights Seed-ViT and Seed1.5-VL’s competitive performance across vision-language tasks. Seed-ViT, despite having significantly fewer parameters, matches or outperforms larger models like InternVL-C and EVA-CLIP on zero-shot image classification tasks, showing high accuracy and robustness on datasets such as ImageNet-A and ObjectNet. Seed1.5-VL demonstrates strong capabilities in multimodal reasoning, general VQA, document understanding, and grounding. It achieves state-of-the-art benchmarks, particularly in complex reasoning, counting, and chart interpretation tasks. The model’s “thinking” mode, which incorporates longer reasoning chains, further enhances performance, indicating its strong ability in detailed visual understanding and task generalization.  In conclusion, Seed1.5-VL is a vision-language foundation model featuring a 532 M-parameter vision encoder and a 20 B-parameter Mixture-of-Experts language model. Despite its compact size, it achieves state-of-the-art results on 38 of 60 public benchmarks and excels in complex reasoning, OCR, diagram interpretation, 3D spatial understanding, and video analysis. It also performs well in agent-driven tasks like GUI control and gameplay, surpassing models like OpenAI CUA and Claude 3.7. The model shows strong generalization to tasks beyond its training scope. The study outlines its architecture, data pipeline, and training methods and identifies future directions, including enhancing tool-use and visual reasoning capabilities.  Check out the Paper and Project Page. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also, feel free to follow us on Twitter and don’t forget to join our 90k+ ML SubReddit. The post ByteDance Introduces Seed1.5-VL: A Vision-Language Foundation Model Designed to Advance General-Purpose Multimodal Understanding and Reasoning appeared first on MarkTechPost.