Cool Finds Archaeologists Say They’ve Discovered a Hidden Chamber Where Elites Used Hallucinogens 2,500 Years Ago Unearthed in Peru, the small underground room may have been used for rituals involving psychoactive drugs. New research suggests these “exclusive” events were reserved for the elite An artistic rendering of the stone chamber where the tubes were discovered Daniel Contrera Long before the rise of the Inca empire, a group called the Chavín people thrived in ancient Peru. They’re known for their elaborate stone structures, which were located at an archaeological site now known as Chavín de Huántar in the Andean highlands. During recent excavations at the site, researchers found dozens of hollow bones packed with sediment. They think the artifacts could be ancient drug paraphernalia. “The tubes are analogous to the rolled-up bills that high-rollers snort cocaine through in the movies,” Daniel Contreras, an archaeologist at the University of Florida and a co-author of the study, tells Live Science’s Kristina Killgrove. The site of Chavín de Huántar, located in Peru at an elevation of 10,000 feet, holds the ruins of several monumental buildings. Daniel Contreras The tubes were found in small underground chambers, where experts think they may have been used by Chavín elites, according to a recent study published in the journal PNAS. Chemical and microscopic analyses of the tubes revealed traces of nicotine and vilca bean, a hallucinogen related to the drug DMT. Vilca was commonly used among pre-Columbian populations of the Andes. When smoked or consumed, vilca would bring about an altered mental state. Many ancient cultures used hallucinogens communally, but the Chavín rituals appear to have been “exclusive,” according to a statement from the university. These rituals may have taken place in rooms that held “only a handful of participants at a time, creating an air of mystique and control.” “This is compelling evidence that psychoactive plants were part of formalized and tightly-controlled rituals rather than individual vision-quests or shamanic healing practices,” Contreras tells CBS News’ Emily Mae Czachor. “As such, they seem to have been an important element in the long-term transition from small egalitarian societies to large stratified ones, where social, political and economic inequality were thought of as normal and to be expected rather than unusual.” Snuff tubes made from hollowed bones may have been used to inhale hallucinogenic drugs. Daniel Contreras The Chavín society flourished between roughly 900 and 200 B.C.E. Chavín de Huántar is known for its intricate stone carvings, which often depicted “animal-human hybrids or transformations of human into beast,” and its large network of tunnels, writes Science’s Lizzie Wade. The area is full of imported seashells and obsidian, and Chavín art has been discovered throughout the Andes and on the Peruvian coast, suggesting a “broad cultural reach.” “Chavín was part of the first big moment in Andean prehistory when people, ideas and goods were circulating quite extensively,” Contreras tells Science. Depictions of psychoactive effects in Chavín iconography PNAS For many years, historians assumed the Chavín people conducted rituals using drugs. “What’s exciting about this paper is that, for the first time, we have actual evidence,” José Capriles, an archaeologist at Pennsylvania State University who studies ancient psychoactive drug use but wasn’t involved in the study, tells Science. The researchers think the drugs may have influenced the Chavín society’s class system. By restricting access to these “profound, even terrifying” experiences, Chavín rulers could have convinced their people that “leadership was intertwined with mystical power and part of the natural order,” per the statement. “Taking psychoactives was not just about seeing visions,” says Contreras in the statement. “It was part of a tightly controlled ritual, likely reserved for a select few, reinforcing the social hierarchy.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Brace yourself, my fellow Android-appreciating amigos: By this time next week, we’re gonna be positively drowning in all things AI. All right — to be fair, we already are fairly suffocated by the scent of generative AI (genAI) these days. But with Google’s annual I/O developers’ conference kickin’ off this coming Tuesday, a whole new wave of over-the-top promises is about to hit hard. At this point, in fact, signs suggest the conference — which traditionally has featured Android and other associated areas as key parts of its keynote — will revolve mostly around Gemini and (a) breathless hype around feats the generative AI technology can theoretically achieve along with (b) demos of things the system can actually do but with ample factual errors and counterproductive inconsistencies (that conveniently won’t be mentioned as part of the conversation). For those of us still living in a land where accuracy matters — and if you’re using any of this stuff for professional purposes in particular, my goodness, I hope you’re among us — all this genAI gobbledygook should be interesting mostly just from a limited, carefully controlled perspective that doesn’t exactly jibe with how tech companies are fighting to framing it. The real meaningful progress here in the Android arena comes down to two key areas that have nothing to do with Gemini or any of the high-profile generative-AI ballyhoo we’ll be hearing about incessantly in the days ahead. If you’re relying on Android for your professional and/or personal life, these are the areas worth watching. [Get fresh Android insight in your inbox with my free Android Intelligence newsletter. Three new things to know and try each Friday!] 1. Stronger Android security It may not always be the sexiest subject around, but it’s hard to argue with the fact that Android security is one of the most important parts of the platform in front of us. And this year, amidst all the Gemini and genAI jibber-jabber, El Googeroo’s cookin’ up some significant improvements around Android security that’ll bring a big boost to our devices’ defenses. Now, for my standard caveat: Android security is far less scary than most headlines make it out to be. The operating system has long sported numerous layers of built-in protection, and the odds of encountering anything truly troubling in the real world are shockingly slim. (Consider: When’s the last time you or anyone you knew had a run-in with any of that nasty “Android malware” we’re always hearing about?) Generally speaking, you’ve really gotta go out of your way — and/or exhibit a complete lack of common sense — to see a serious problem. Even so, extra security can obviously only be a good thing, for business and casual use alike. And as we speak, Google’s sautéing up a slew o’ new security measures that’ll soon be sliding into our lives — including: A new Advanced Protection Mode that enables the most secure possible settings across the operating system itself as well as system-level apps and even third-party apps with a single simple switch An Android Intrusion Detection system that creates an encrypted, locally stored log of system actions and network activity and allows you to search it for potential weak points if you spot any signs of suspicious activity An elevated in-call scam detection option that seeks out signs of someone trying to trick you into sharing sensitive info (including banking access) and stops you before it’s too late A beefier on-device scam protection setup for sensing and warning you about all sorts of scams within messages, with privately and entirely local on-device processing Stronger protections around the factory reset and remote lock processes as well as one-time password access More extensive ongoing scans of already-installed apps to safeguard against any deceptive behavior A security-minded auto-restart system that automatically restarts a device — thus re-encrypting all of its data and requiring a password to unlock and get into anything — anytime it’s been inactive for three consecutive days And expanded access to an Identity Check option that requires biometric authentication to change any sensitive system security settings Some of these elements may be included in the upcoming Android 16 update, while others could show up separately via smaller subsequent rollouts. (Google sometimes even sends these sorts of improvements out through under-the-hood updates to Play-Store-housed Android system elements, which means they reach every device worldwide at the same time — without any reliance on notoriously unreliable device-makers to do the lifting. That happened just recently, in fact, with a new improvement that automatically revokes permissions for any apps that are deemed to be dangerous.) However and whenever they reach us, though, they’re all actively in the works and headed our way. And they’re all excellent illustrations of why, even outside of any more apparent surface-level considerations, Android system upgrades absolutely do matter and should always be a key consideration in any device-buying decision. 2. Smarter Android efficiency Aside from the important but not exactly visible under-the-hood enhancements, Google’s got a trio of truly tantalizing twists under development for Android — and they’re all things you’ll absolutely notice and almost certainly appreciate. First and most exciting for me, personally, is the advent of a platform-wide dock-style taskbar that could completely reimagine how we multitask and get around our devices. It’s seemingly the same concept introduced with the first Pixel Fold and Pixel Tablet and available in a limited capacity, in certain large-screen environments, already. If you’ve ever used a computer of any kind, it’ll immediately feel familiar. See for yourself: The Android taskbar, as seen on Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold phone.JR Raphael, IDG That’s it — the bar at the bottom of the screen. But mundane as it may seem, man alive, lemme tell ya: It makes a world of difference in your day-to-day Android experience. That bar, which in its current form can either be summoned on demand with a special swipe gesture or set to remain visible at all times, makes it as easy as can be to pull up any app, anytime — without having to first galumph back to your home screen and wade around to find it. You can hop instantly to any app you’ve got set as a favorite, swiftly switch to any app you’ve used recently, or access your entire app drawer on demand right then and there, even, with just one more tap. Maybe even more interesting yet is the way the taskbar puts Android’s long-out-of-sight and oft-forgotten screen-splitting system front and center for the first time in — well, ever. Just press and hold any icon in the taskbar and drag it up into the main screen area, and…poof: You’ve got both apps visible together. srcset="https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/google-pixel-9-pro-fold-taskbar.webp?quality=50&strip=all 600w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/google-pixel-9-pro-fold-taskbar.webp?resize=289%2C300&quality=50&strip=all 289w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/google-pixel-9-pro-fold-taskbar.webp?resize=162%2C168&quality=50&strip=all 162w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/google-pixel-9-pro-fold-taskbar.webp?resize=81%2C84&quality=50&strip=all 81w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/google-pixel-9-pro-fold-taskbar.webp?resize=463%2C480&quality=50&strip=all 463w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/google-pixel-9-pro-fold-taskbar.webp?resize=347%2C360&quality=50&strip=all 347w, https://b2b-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/google-pixel-9-pro-fold-taskbar.webp?resize=241%2C250&quality=50&strip=all 241w" width="600" height="622" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px">The Android taskbar lets you start a split screen simply by dragging an icon up.JR Raphael, IDG I’ve been begging Google to bring this same smart setup to all Android environments, regardless of their screen size, since we first saw the thing in action a couple years back. (You can technically force it to happen on any Android device, incidentally, but it requires some crafty configuring and awkward compromises.) Now, it looks like the company’s listening and we’ll likely see this one in front of us everywhere before long, even if the development hasn’t officially been announced just yet. If that isn’t enough, signs suggest Google’s also cookin’ up a new native Android Desktop Mode that’d let you plug a phone into an external monitor — with a keyboard and mouse connected — and use it like an actual computer. You’d see a fully functional desktop-style interface on the monitor while your phone remains in its standard usable state. It’s similar to systems certain Android device-makers are already offering, but as a native feature built into Android itself, it’d be more broadly available, standardized, and also actively (and consistently) developed and supported. Again, this one isn’t yet official, but it’s plainly being developed out in the open and where anyone can see it. Last but not least, a rather bold new design change is now officially comin’ our way — one that brings bulky elements, bright colors, and all sorts of wacky fonts into Android’s exterior. Like any interface evolution, it’s bound to be divisive. (To wit: I asked readers of my Android Intelligence newsletter what they thought about the look last Friday, following an early leak of the info. As of this writing, 17% say they hate it, 14% say they love it, and everyone else falls somewhere in the middle.) Google, for its part, is convinced the updated visuals will result in an easier-to-use, more efficient Android interface — with “time to tap on key actions decrease[d] by seconds” compared to the current approach. Only time will tell if that holds true for all of us, but combined with all the other incoming elements we just went over, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to say that the Android experience we know and love is on the brink of a near-total reinvention. And despite the all-consuming AI focus we’re certain to see at Google I/O next week, none of this has anything to do with Gemini. Want even more Googley knowledge? Join my Android Intelligence newsletter to get practical tips, personal recommendations, and plain-English perspective on the news that matters.

In a world saturated with intrusive marketing, Dan Knowlton has pioneered a refreshing approach. As co-founder of video and social media marketing agency Knowlton, Dan has perfected the art of what he calls Advertainment—a creative methodology that's transforming how businesses connect with their audiences. "Advertainment is our unique approach that fuses advertising with entertainment," he explains. "Instead of pushing traditional, sales-heavy content that people tend to scroll past, we create content that audiences actually want to watch. It's about being so engaging that it's impossible to ignore while still weaving in strategic messaging that drives results." Intriguing, right? We caught up with Dan to learn more about his journey, how Advertainment is created in practice, the role that Adobe Express plays in his workflow, and his tips for crafting marketable content yourself. Origin story Knowlton was born of humble origins. In 2017, Dan and his brother Lloyd started their agency from their parents' spare room after becoming "sick of intrusive, over-salesy marketing." They began by producing funny videos to promote their company. Then, gradually, they realised the need to structure these videos strategically to drive business. "For our clients, this approach has been a game-changer," Dan reflects. "It's helped us generate millions in trackable revenue and secure major contracts. Because people are not just seeing the content: they're enjoying it, sharing it, and taking action because of it." Today, their client list includes Wahl, Sunny D, Boston Consulting Group, BBC Storyworks, and Channel 4. And the timing couldn't have been better. After all, the social media marketing landscape has undergone significant shifts in recent years, requiring businesses to adapt their strategies accordingly. "Social media marketing has become way more visual and fast-paced," Dan observes. "It's no longer about just pushing out long-form content or polished ads. People want something that feels more authentic and real. Video is massive, and short, engaging clips are what people are looking for." The right tools Behind every successful creative is a toolkit that enables rapid ideation and execution. For Dan and his team, Adobe Express—the quick and easy content creation app for designers and non-designers alike—has become an indispensable resource for developing their content. "Adobe Express is a really practical tool for us, especially when we're working fast and need high-quality visuals," Dan enthuses. "One specific way I use it is to make quick edits to pitches that our designers have created using other Adobe software. As I'm not a professional designer, it's super-handy because it makes the process straightforward without needing advanced design skills." The team will also use Adobe Express to create social media graphics, video thumbnails and visual elements for campaigns. "It's great for maintaining brand consistency while still being flexible enough to adapt to different campaign needs," says Dan. Standout features The crucial thing is to boost speed and efficiency without sacrificing quality. Dan highlights specific features in Adobe Express that help square that circle. "The huge library of Adobe-quality templates is a lifesaver when we need to create visuals fast," he notes. We can easily tweak them to fit our brand or the specific campaign." He particularly values the Brand Kit feature. "This keeps our branding consistent, especially when we're working on multiple projects at once," he explains. We can store logos, fonts, and colour schemes and apply them with just a few clicks." Adobe Express also excels at quick edits. "Things like background removal and resizing are just really easy to do without any hassle," Dan points out. Finally, he praises the software's collaborative tools. "Since the team often works on projects together, these make it simple to pick up where someone else left off," he explains. In summary, Dan explains that "Adobe Express is not about overcomplicating things—it's a really practical tool that makes us more efficient." Real-world results So, how does this all work in practice? Dan shares a specific example of how Adobe Express transformed a marketing campaign. "We were working on paid creative assets for a large SaaS business we supported during their UK relaunch," he recalls. "The client needed some tweaks to their existing designs to make them more engaging. We used Adobe Express to quickly adjust layouts, update messaging, and test a few different variations." The results speak for themselves. "The refreshed ads we created significantly outperformed the original assets they were using: higher click-through rates and way more engagement," Dan reveals. "It just shows how making a few quick design tweaks can make a massive difference, especially when you're working with a tight turnaround." No surprise, then, that Dan is now an Adobe Express Ambassador: you can find details of the programme, and how you can join it, here. Content tips for small businesses Dan has some valuable insights for small businesses aiming to create engaging video content using tools like Adobe Express. "Tell a story," he urges. "Make your videos about people, stories, or real experiences rather than just products. That's what makes them relatable. But make them short and sweet: People don't have time for long-winded content. Get to the point quickly and make it punchy." Feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to create content? Then, step back and take a deep breath. "Don't try to reinvent the wheel every time," Dan stresses. "Some of our best content ideas come from seeing what's already working for other creators, particularly on platforms like TikTok. If you see a format or trend that's performing well, put your own spin on it rather than starting from scratch. Also, you don't need to be everywhere at once. Pick one platform where your audience hangs out and master it before branching out." Furthermore, he emphasises consistency over perfection: "Use tools like Adobe Express to quickly repurpose content. For example, if you make a great video, turn it into a few shorter clips or add some graphics to create a new post." Finally, Dan encourages businesses to: "show your personality. Don't be afraid to be a bit quirky or real; that's what people connect with. But at the same time, stay on-brand. Use consistent colours, fonts and logos to make sure people know it's you." The power of humour The thing Dan's best known for, of course, is his use of humour. And there's no reason you can't follow him down that route, too. "Humour is a game-changer when it's done right," he asserts. "Too many brands play it safe, but being funny is a great way to stand out and make people remember you." For inspiration, Dan suggests looking to the professionals. "Draw inspiration from comedy creators like Imogen Andrews, Al Nash, Jack Joseph, or even shows like Peep Show and Aunty Donna," he urges. "These creators have a knack for making relatable, funny content that people can't help but engage with." When it comes to creating your own content, he adds, "Don't overthink it. Humour is about having fun, and if your content feels too forced, it won't resonate. Experiment, learn from what works, and lean into that." A mission to transform marketing What began as a rebellion against intrusive marketing has evolved into a successful agency with an in-house team of 15 and a pool of over 50 trusted freelancers. Dan's mission is clear: "To rid the world of crap marketing". Through the power of Advertainment and with tools like Adobe Express at his disposal, Knowlton is showing that marketing doesn't have to be an interruption—it can be content that audiences genuinely enjoy. As Dan puts it: "We make audiences enjoy the process of being convinced to buy your products and services." And in today's competitive landscape, that might just be the most valuable skill a marketer can offer.

Taxi Studio has created a new visual and verbal identity for smart insurance platform Yoloh. The start-up, which currently offers home and car insurance, has adopted a new brand built around the idea of “dejumbling insurance” and its team credits the rebrand with a 10-fold surge in its valuation, leading to seed funding from investors across Europe, the Middle East and the US. https://d3faj0w6aqatyx.cloudfront.net/uploads/2025/05/01.Yoloh_Intro.mp4 CMO Manish Bhatt had previously worked with the Bristol-based studio on the Airbus rebrand, and he saw a similar opportunity to shake up a conservative industry. “I have no insurance experience,” Bhatt explains, “so the idea was that Taxi and I could both come to this with a fresh perspective, to add value and create a brand that’s going to make a lasting impact.” The company had previously been called Smartsurance, and originally the founders wanted to change the name to Yolo, to reflect its mission to “to ensure people spend time living, not form-filling.” But having been quoted $15million to buy the website domain, they landed instead on Yoloh (the extra letter stands for happiness). The old identity had been built around a dog mascot called Simba. Bhatt pointed out that they may well get a lawsuit from Disney if they persisted with that character, and, given that animals are a common visual trope in the sector, he convinced them that they needed to do something different. https://d3faj0w6aqatyx.cloudfront.net/uploads/2025/05/04.-TaxiStudio_Typefaces.mp4 “We wanted to disrupt the industry,” Bhatt explains. “Insurance is historically seen as a tax, so how could we flip that narrative around, and build a brand that can scale and resonate? We are trying to innovate, and so the new identity had to reflect that.” For Martin Fresle, Taxi’s associate creative director, the idea of dejumbling insurance – a world most people find complex and confusing – was the perfect foundation on which to build the identity. The team knew early on that they wanted to inject more playfulness, but they were also conscious that people feel very seriously about their finances. “You can only disrupt to a certain point,” Fresle says. “We had to be credible and trustworthy, and not make it seem too out-there.” Another challenge was the very broad target audience. Yoloh wants to build a multi-generational client base, from young people saving for their first home, to older people planning their retirement, and there is also a B2B market of banks and other lenders that are onboarded onto the platform. Starting with the brandmark, Taxi turned Yoloh into an ambigram, with the first ‘y’ and the final ‘h’ mirroring each other, so it can be read both ways, and flipped round in its motion design form. This was accompanied with the strapline, “Making life easier, whichever way you look at it.” https://d3faj0w6aqatyx.cloudfront.net/uploads/2025/05/07.-TaxiStudio_Yoloh_Andi_Hands.mp4 Taxi also created Andi, a four-fingered hand that interacts with the other visual assets to, “make complex insurance terms and concepts easier to understand.” “Andi was designed to add that human touch,” Fresle explains. “That’s really lacking across other insurance providers and big banks, who use a lot of stock imagery.” Both the typography and the colour palette were chosen to balance trust and playfulness. For the fonts, Jokker bought a more serious sensibility while Bunch Bold added what Fresle calls “a curvy fluid bounce” that mirrors Andi’s angles. And the navy blue much used in the financial industries is offset with pops of brighter colours. Another challenge was to create an identity that could still convey its personality in the scaled-down space of an app, which is where most people would encounter it. https://d3faj0w6aqatyx.cloudfront.net/uploads/2025/05/11.TaxiStudio_Yoloh_IphoneUX.mp4 Language played a big part in maximising the new brand’s impact. Taxi worked with brand writer Nick Carson to create a “warm, witty, and accessible tone of voice” in keeping with its mission. Working with start-ups can have its challenges, but Fresle says the pace of decision-making and direct access to key people makes these collaborations particularly dynamic. And for Bhatt, the new brand has already proved its worth in driving clear financial impact. He draws a very direct line between the identity and the company’s recent seed investment. “Securing seed funding was a pivotal moment for Yoloh, and our new brand identity played a key role in getting us there. Taxi Studio didn’t just give us a brand, they gave us a bold, ownable story that helped investors instantly ‘get’ what we’re about. “Now we are able to take this brand and scale it to any market around the world, which is very exciting,” he says. https://d3faj0w6aqatyx.cloudfront.net/uploads/2025/05/05.TaxiStudio_Yoloh_Logo.mp4 https://d3faj0w6aqatyx.cloudfront.net/uploads/2025/05/10.TaxiStudio_Yoloh_Icons-and-phone.mp4

What initially appeared to be a power play by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to take over the US Copyright Office by having Donald Trump remove the officials in charge has now backfired in spectacular fashion, as Trump’s acting replacements are known to be unfriendly — and even downright hostile — to the tech industry. When Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden last week and Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter over the weekend, it was seen as another move driven by the tech wing of the Republican Party — especially in light of the Copyright Office releasing a pre-publication report saying some kinds of generative AI training would not be considered fair use. And when two men showed up at the Copyright Office inside the Library of Congress carrying letters purporting to appoint them to acting leadership positions, the DOGE takeover appeared to be complete.But those two men, Paul Perkins and Brian Nieves, were not DOGE at all, but instead approved by the MAGA wing of the Trump coalition that aims to put tech companies in check. Perkins, now the supposed acting Register of Copyrights, is an eight-year veteran of the DOJ who served in the first Trump administration prosecuting fraud cases. Nieves, the putative acting deputy librarian, is currently at the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, having previously been a lawyer on the House Judiciary Committee, where he worked with Rep. Jim Jordan on Big Tech investigations. And Todd Blanche, the putative Acting Librarian of Congress who would be their boss, is a staunch Trump ally who represented him during his 2024 Manhattan criminal trial, and is now the Deputy Attorney General overseeing the DOJ’s side in the Google Search remedies case. As one government affairs lobbyist told The Verge, Blanche is “there to stick it to tech.”The appointments of Blanche, Perkins, and Nieves are the result of furious lobbying over the weekend by the conservative content industry — as jealously protective of its copyrighted works as any other media companies — as well as populist Republican lawmakers and lawyers, all enraged that Silicon Valley had somehow persuaded Trump to fire someone who’d recently criticized AI companies.Sources speaking to The Verge are convinced the firings were a tech industry power play led by Elon Musk and David SacksThe populists were particularly rankled over Perlmutter’s removal from the helm of the Copyright Office, which happened the day after the agency released a pre-publication version of its report on the use of copyrighted material in training generative AI systems. Sources speaking to The Verge are convinced the firings were a tech industry power play led by Elon Musk and “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar” David Sacks, meant to eliminate any resistance to AI companies using copyrighted material to train models without having to pay for it.“You can say, well, we have to compete with China. No, we don’t have to steal content to compete with China. We don’t have slave labor to compete with China. It’s a bullshit argument,” Mike Davis, the president of the Article III project and a key antitrust advisor to Trump, told The Verge. “It’s not fair use under the copyright laws to take everyone’s content and have the big tech platforms monetize it. That’s the opposite of fair use. That’s a copyright infringement.”It’s the rare time that MAGA world is in agreement with the Democratic Party, which has roundly condemned the firings of Hayden and Perlmutter, and also zeroed in on the Musk-Sacks faction as the instigator.In a press release, Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) characterized the hundred-plus-page report, the third installment of a series that the office has put out on copyright and artificial intelligence, as “refus[ing] to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.” Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who told The Verge in an emailed statement that the president had no power to fire either Hayden or Perlmutter, said, “This all looks like another way to pay back Elon Musk and the other AI billionaires who backed Trump’s campaign.”The agency’s interpretation of what is or isn’t fair use does not have binding force on the courtsPublications like the AI report essentially lay out how the Copyright Office interprets copyright law. But the agency’s interpretation of what is or isn’t fair use does not have binding force on the courts, so a report like this one functions mostly as expert commentary and reference material. However, the entire AI industry is built on an expansive interpretation of copyright law that’s currently being tested in the courts — a situation that’s created dire need for exactly this sort of expert commentary. The AI report applies the law of fair use to different kinds of AI training and usage, concluding that although outcomes might differ case by case, “making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries.” But far from advising drastic action in response to what the Office believes is rampant copyright infringement, the report instead states that “government intervention would be premature at this time,” given that licensing agreements are being made across various sectors.“Now tech bros are going to steal creators’ copyrights for AP profits”The unoffending nature of the report made Perlmutter’s removal all the more alarming to the MAGA ideologues in Trump’s inner circle, who saw this as a clear power grab, and were immediately vocal about it. “Now tech bros are going to steal creators’ copyrights for AP profits,” Davis posted immediately on Truth Social, along with a link to a CBS story about Perlmutter’s firing. “This is 100% unacceptable.” Curiously, just after Davis published the post, Trump reposted it, link and all. None of Trump’s purported appointees have a particularly relevant background for their new jobs — but they are certainly not DOGE people and, generally speaking, are not the kind of people that generative AI proponents would want in the office. And for now, this counts as a political win for the anti-tech populists, even if nothing further happens. “Sometimes when you make a pitch to leadership to get rid of someone, the person who comes in after isn’t any better,” said a source familiar with the dynamic between the White House and both sides of the copyright issue. “You don’t necessarily get to name the successor and fire someone, and so in many cases, I’ve seen people get pushed out the door and the replacement is even worse.”RelatedThe speed of the firings and subsequent power struggle, however, have underscored the brewing constitutional crisis sparked by Trump’s frequent firing of independent agency officials confirmed by Congress. The Library of Congress firings, in particular, reach well past the theory of executive power claimed by the White House and into even murkier territory. It’s legally dubious whether the Librarian of Congress can be removed by the president, as the Library, a legislative branch agency that significantly predates the administrative state, does not fit neatly into the modern-day legal framework of federal agencies. (Of course, everything about the law is in upheaval even where agencies do fit the framework.) Regardless, the law clearly states that the Librarian of Congress — not the president — appoints the Register of Copyrights.At the moment, the Library of Congress has not received any direction from Congress on how to move forward. The constitutional crisis — one of many across the federal government — remains ongoing. Elon Musk and xAI did not respond to a request for comment.Additional reporting by Sarah Jeong.See More:

A hardcore retro Roguelite Bullet-Hell Shooter RPG in a pixel art graphics! Posted by VortexMaster on May 3rd, 2025 The world of Undead Heirloom Nandariel, an ambitious necromancer, was convinced she could use the power of relics to amplify her necromancy abilities and create an army of the undead. Through clues, she discovered that one of the relics might be hidden in a Forgotten Cemetery. Deep within that crypt, she found the Lich's Wand and finally realized her desire to raise skeletons from their graves, something once considered a myth among necromancers. Darkness quickly spread throughout the region, and everyone began to notice that the dead had come back to life. Fearing that a greater evil was approaching, the Kingdom turned to the Hunters' Guild to solve this "little problem." Characters You will choose one of four hunters toto explore the Forgotten Cemetery in search of who awakened the dead in that area. Each hunter has her own status points and 5 different unlockable skills which can be improved with dropped items or purchased in the shop. Leveling system If you want to grow, you have to eat. Each food has its owns bonuses and some healing effects that will give you a permanent status up to level 10. Gear Progress Each item category has its rank and the deeper you go into the crypts, the better the rank. Stronger creatures will drop more crystals and gold. Items fall into several categories, such as weapons, helmets, relics, jewelry, boots, trinkets, and consumables that, when equipped, combined, or consumed, grant some effect or bonus. You can equip up to 4 weapons and carry 8 items in your backpack! In order to make the gameplay experience more diverse and fun, all dungeons, items and respawns are random. Every hunt is unique! Build Possibilities The demo has over 180 items and each character has their own unique skills, so there are endless possibilities to develop the character the way you want! Inspirations & Influences The game was based on the 16-bit generation of video games. The PC, SNES and Mega Drive consoles are its main inspirations, such as The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES), The Chaos Engine (Commodore Amiga/AMIGA) and the Mega Man X series and many others. What’s in the demo? The full first level Over 180 unique items Fanservice Exploration Easter Eggs & more! Have you made it this far? Why not join the hunters guild and start your own journey? Play our demo and let us know what you think!

What initially appeared to be a power play by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to take over the US Copyright Office by having Donald Trump remove the officials in charge has now backfired in spectacular fashion, as Trump’s acting replacements are known to be unfriendly — and even downright hostile — to the tech industry. When Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden last week and Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter over the weekend, it was seen as another move driven by the tech wing of the Republican Party — especially in light of the Copyright Office releasing a pre-publication report saying some kinds of generative AI training would not be considered fair use. And when two men showed up at the Copyright Office inside the Library of Congress carrying letters purporting to appoint them to acting leadership positions, the DOGE takeover appeared to be complete.But those two men, Paul Perkins and Brian Nieves, were not DOGE at all, but instead approved by the MAGA wing of the Trump coalition that aims to put tech companies in check. Perkins, now the supposed acting Register of Copyrights, is an eight-year veteran of the DOJ who served in the first Trump administration prosecuting fraud cases. Nieves, the putative acting deputy librarian, is currently at the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, having previously been a lawyer on the House Judiciary Committee, where he worked with Rep. Jim Jordan on Big Tech investigations. And Todd Blanche, the putative Acting Librarian of Congress who would be their boss, is a staunch Trump ally who represented him during his 2024 Manhattan criminal trial, and is now the Deputy Attorney General overseeing the DOJ’s side in the Google Search remedies case. As one government affairs lobbyist told The Verge, Blanche is “there to stick it to tech.”The appointments of Blanche, Perkins, and Nieves are the result of furious lobbying over the weekend by the conservative content industry — as jealously protective of its copyrighted works as any other media companies — as well as populist Republican lawmakers and lawyers, all enraged that Silicon Valley had somehow persuaded Trump to fire someone who’d recently criticized AI companies.Sources speaking to The Verge are convinced the firings were a tech industry power play led by Elon Musk and David SacksThe populists were particularly rankled over Perlmutter’s removal from the helm of the Copyright Office, which happened the day after the agency released a pre-publication version of its report on the use of copyrighted material in training generative AI systems. Sources speaking to The Verge are convinced the firings were a tech industry power play led by Elon Musk and “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar” David Sacks, meant to eliminate any resistance to AI companies using copyrighted material to train models without having to pay for it.“You can say, well, we have to compete with China. No, we don’t have to steal content to compete with China. We don’t have slave labor to compete with China. It’s a bullshit argument,” Mike Davis, the president of the Article III project and a key antitrust advisor to Trump, told The Verge. “It’s not fair use under the copyright laws to take everyone’s content and have the big tech platforms monetize it. That’s the opposite of fair use. That’s a copyright infringement.”It’s the rare time that MAGA world is in agreement with the Democratic Party, which has roundly condemned the firings of Hayden and Perlmutter, and also zeroed in on the Musk-Sacks faction as the instigator.In a press release, Rep. Joe Morelle (D-NY) characterized the hundred-plus-page report, the third installment of a series that the office has put out on copyright and artificial intelligence, as “refus[ing] to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.” Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who told The Verge in an emailed statement that the president had no power to fire either Hayden or Perlmutter, said, “This all looks like another way to pay back Elon Musk and the other AI billionaires who backed Trump’s campaign.”The agency’s interpretation of what is or isn’t fair use does not have binding force on the courtsPublications like the AI report essentially lay out how the Copyright Office interprets copyright law. But the agency’s interpretation of what is or isn’t fair use does not have binding force on the courts, so a report like this one functions mostly as expert commentary and reference material. However, the entire AI industry is built on an expansive interpretation of copyright law that’s currently being tested in the courts — a situation that’s created dire need for exactly this sort of expert commentary. The AI report applies the law of fair use to different kinds of AI training and usage, concluding that although outcomes might differ case by case, “making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries.” But far from advising drastic action in response to what the Office believes is rampant copyright infringement, the report instead states that “government intervention would be premature at this time,” given that licensing agreements are being made across various sectors.“Now tech bros are going to steal creators’ copyrights for AP profits”The unoffending nature of the report made Perlmutter’s removal all the more alarming to the MAGA ideologues in Trump’s inner circle, who saw this as a clear power grab, and were immediately vocal about it. “Now tech bros are going to steal creators’ copyrights for AP profits,” Davis posted immediately on Truth Social, along with a link to a CBS story about Perlmutter’s firing. “This is 100% unacceptable.” Curiously, just after Davis published the post, Trump reposted it, link and all. None of Trump’s purported appointees have a particularly relevant background for their new jobs — but they are certainly not DOGE people and, generally speaking, are not the kind of people that generative AI proponents would want in the office. And for now, this counts as a political win for the anti-tech populists, even if nothing further happens. “Sometimes when you make a pitch to leadership to get rid of someone, the person who comes in after isn’t any better,” said a source familiar with the dynamic between the White House and both sides of the copyright issue. “You don’t necessarily get to name the successor and fire someone, and so in many cases, I’ve seen people get pushed out the door and the replacement is even worse.”RelatedThe speed of the firings and subsequent power struggle, however, have underscored the brewing constitutional crisis sparked by Trump’s frequent firing of independent agency officials confirmed by Congress. The Library of Congress firings, in particular, reach well past the theory of executive power claimed by the White House and into even murkier territory. It’s legally dubious whether the Librarian of Congress can be removed by the president, as the Library, a legislative branch agency that significantly predates the administrative state, does not fit neatly into the modern-day legal framework of federal agencies. (Of course, everything about the law is in upheaval even where agencies do fit the framework.) Regardless, the law clearly states that the Librarian of Congress — not the president — appoints the Register of Copyrights.At the moment, the Library of Congress has not received any direction from Congress on how to move forward. The constitutional crisis — one of many across the federal government — remains ongoing. Elon Musk and xAI did not respond to a request for comment.Additional reporting by Sarah Jeong.See More:

Popular legal AI tool Harvey will now be using leading foundation models from Anthropic and Google, moving beyond strictly using OpenAI’s, Harvey announced in a blog post on Tuesday. This is noteworthy because Harvey is one of the OpenAI Startup Fund’s most successful early-backed portfolio companies. The OpenAI Startup Fund is an OpenAI-associated fund to back companies developing products on top of AI technologies, primarily OpenAI’s own. While Harvey says it’s not abandoning OpenAI, merely adding more models and clouds, this is still a huge coup for OpenAI’s big competitors.  Harvey is one of the first four startups that the OpenAI Startup Fund backed, it said in December 2022. That was back when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was still running the fund. (The others in that first cohort include Descript, Mem, and Speak.) Harvey, which has grown like mad since then, is now a $3-billion-valuation startup, it said in February, when it announced a $300 million Series D led by Sequoia, with other big names like Coatue, Kleiner Perkins, and the OpenAI Fund piling in. Interestingly, Google’s venture arm, GV, led Harvey’s $100 million Series C in July 2024 (and the OpenAI Fund participated in that round, too). But Harvey didn’t immediately adopt Google’s AI models after it put Google’s corporate venture firm on its cap table. (GV participated in Harvey’s Series D as well.) So, what convinced Harvey to move beyond OpenAI’s models now? The startup’s internally developed benchmark, dubbed BigLaw, showed that a wide variety of foundation models are growing increasingly adept at a range of legal tasks and some are better at specific tasks than others. Instead of spending its efforts training models, Harvey figured, it could simply embrace high-performing, reasoning foundation models from other vendors (e.g. Google and Anthropic via Amazon’s cloud) and then fine-tune them for the legal market. 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 Using a variety of models will also help as Harvey creates AI agents, the company says. “In less than a year, seven models (including three non-OAI models) now outperform the originally benchmarked Harvey system on BigLaw Bench,” Harvey wrote in the blog post. Harvey’s benchmark also showed that different foundation models are better at specific legal tasks than others. For instance, it says Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro “excels” at legal drafting but “struggles” with pre-trial tasks like writing oral arguments because the model doesn’t fully understand “complex evidentiary rules like hearsay.”  OpenAI’s o3 does such pre-trial tasks well, according to Harvey’s testing, with Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet following close behind. Results from Harvey’s internal benchmarking.Image Credits:Harvey In its blog post, Harvey says that it will also now join the growing ranks of those sharing a public leaderboard of model benchmark performance. Its board will rank how major reasoning models are doing on legal tasks. And the company won’t just boil rankings down to a single number, but will also publish research where “top lawyers provide nuanced insights into model performance not captured by single-score benchmarks.” So, not only is OpenAI-backed Harvey adopting competitors’ models, it is also amping up the pressure on its backers (including Google) to keep proving themselves. Not that OpenAI should worry much on that score. While AI benchmarking is growing increasingly complex and somewhat political, this is a world where OpenAI still shines.  “We are incredibly fortunate to have OpenAI as an investor in Harvey and key collaborator in our product,” Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg told TechCrunch in a statement. “And, we are energized to add to our options for customers as we continue to serve the needs of our customers globally.”

"Artificial intelligence, if we're being frank, is a con: a bill of goods you are being sold to line someone's pockets."That is the heart of the argument that linguist Emily Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make in their new book The AI Con. It's a useful guide for anyone whose life has intersected with technologies sold as artificial intelligence and anyone who's questioned their real usefulness, which is most of us. Bender is a professor at the University of Washington who was named one of Time magazine's most influential people in artificial intelligence, and Hanna is the director of research at the nonprofit Distributed AI Research Institute and a former member of the ethical AI team at Google.The explosion of ChatGPT in late 2022 kicked off a new hype cycle in AI. Hype, as the authors define it, is the "aggrandizement" of technology that you are convinced you need to buy or invest in "lest you miss out on entertainment or pleasure, monetary reward, return on investment, or market share." But it's not the first time, nor likely the last, that scholars, government leaders and regular people have been intrigued and worried by the idea of machine learning and AI.Bender and Hanna trace the roots of machine learning back to the 1950s, to when mathematician John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence. It was in an era when the United States was looking to fund projects that would help the country gain any kind of edge on the Soviets militarily, ideologically and technologically. "It didn't spring whole cloth out of Zeus's head or anything. This has a longer history," Hanna said in an interview with CNET. "It's certainly not the first hype cycle with, quote, unquote, AI."Today's hype cycle is propelled by the billions of dollars of venture capital investment into startups like OpenAI and the tech giants like Meta, Google and Microsoft pouring billions of dollars into AI research and development. The result is clear, with all the newest phones, laptops and software updates drenched in AI-washing. And there are no signs that AI research and development will slow down, thanks in part to a growing motivation to beat China in AI development. Not the first hype cycle indeed.Of course, generative AI in 2025 is much more advanced than the Eliza psychotherapy chatbot that first enraptured scientists in the 1970s. Today's business leaders and workers are inundated with hype, with a heavy dose of FOMO and seemingly complex but often misused jargon. Listening to tech leaders and AI enthusiasts, it might seem like AI will take your job to save your company money. But the authors argue that neither is wholly likely, which is one reason why it's important to recognize and break through the hype.So how do we recognize AI hype? These are a few telltale signs, according to Bender and Hanna, that we share below. The authors outline more questions to ask and strategies for AI hype busting in their book, which is out now in the US.Watch out for language that humanizes AIAnthropomorphizing, or the process of giving an inanimate object human-like characteristics or qualities, is a big part of building AI hype. An example of this kind of language can be found when AI companies say their chatbots can now "see" and "think."These can be useful comparisons when trying to describe the ability of new object-identifying AI programs or deep-reasoning AI models, but they can also be misleading. AI chatbots aren't capable of seeing of thinking because they don't have brains. Even the idea of neural nets, Hanna noted in our interview and in the book, is based on human understanding of neurons from the 1950s, not actually how neurons work, but it can fool us into believing there's a brain behind the machine.That belief is something we're predisposed to because of how we as humans process language. We're conditioned to imagine that there is a mind behind the text we see, even when we know it's generated by AI, Bender said. "We interpret language by developing a model in our minds of who the speaker was," Bender added.In these models, we use our knowledge of the person speaking to create meaning, not just using the meaning of the words they say. "So when we encounter synthetic text extruded from something like ChatGPT, we're going to do the same thing," Bender said. "And it is very hard to remind ourselves that the mind isn't there. It's just a construct that we have produced."The authors argue that part of why AI companies try to convince us their products are human-like is that this sets the foreground for them to convince us that AI can replace humans, whether it's at work or as creators. It's compelling for us to believe that AI could be the silver bullet fix to complicated problems in critical industries like health care and government services.But more often than not, the authors argue, AI isn't bring used to fix anything. AI is sold with the goal of efficiency, but AI services end up replacing qualified workers with black box machines that need copious amounts of babysitting from underpaid contract or gig workers. As Hanna put it in our interview, "AI is not going to take your job, but it will make your job shittier."Be dubious of the phrase 'super intelligence'If a human can't do something, you should be wary of claims that an AI can do it. "Superhuman intelligence, or super intelligence, is a very dangerous turn of phrase, insofar as it thinks that some technology is going to make humans superfluous," Hanna said. In "certain domains, like pattern matching at scale, computers are quite good at that. But if there's an idea that there's going to be a superhuman poem, or a superhuman notion of research or doing science, that is clear hype." Bender added, "And we don't talk about airplanes as superhuman flyers or rulers as superhuman measurers, it seems to be only in this AI space that that comes up."The idea of AI "super intelligence" comes up often when people talk about artificial general intelligence. Many CEOs struggle to define what exactly AGI is, but it's essentially AI's most advanced form, potentially capable of making decisions and handling complex tasks. There's still no evidence we're anywhere near a future enabled by AGI, but it's a popular buzzword.Many of these future-looking statements from AI leaders borrow tropes from science fiction. Both boosters and doomers — how Bender and Hanna describe AI enthusiasts and those worried about the potential for harm — rely on sci-fi scenarios. The boosters imagine an AI-powered futuristic society. The doomers bemoan a future where AI robots take over the world and wipe out humanity.The connecting thread, according to the authors, is an unshakable belief that AI is smarter than humans and inevitable. "One of the things that we see a lot in the discourse is this idea that the future is fixed, and it's just a question of how fast we get there," Bender said. "And then there's this claim that this particular technology is a step on that path, and it's all marketing. It is helpful to be able to see behind it."Part of why AI is so popular is that an autonomous functional AI assistant would mean AI companies are fulfilling their promises of world-changing innovation to their investors. Planning for that future — whether it's a utopia or dystopia — keeps investors looking forward as the companies burn through billions of dollars and admit they'll miss their carbon emission goals. For better or worse, life is not science fiction. Whenever you see someone claiming their AI product is straight out of a movie, it's a good sign to approach with skepticism. Ask what goes in and how outputs are evaluatedOne of the easiest ways to see through AI marketing fluff is to look and see whether the company is disclosing how it operates. Many AI companies won't tell you what content is used to train their models. But they usually disclose what the company does with your data and sometimes brag about how their models stack up against competitors. That's where you should start looking, typically in their privacy policies.One of the top complaints and concerns from creators is how AI models are trained. There are many lawsuits over alleged copyright infringement, and there are a lot of concerns over bias in AI chatbots and their capacity for harm. "If you wanted to create a system that is designed to move things forward rather than reproduce the oppressions of the past, you would have to start by curating your data," Bender said. Instead, AI companies are grabbing "everything that wasn't nailed down on the internet," Hanna said.If you're hearing about an AI product for the first time, one thing in particular to look out for is any kind of statistic that highlights its effectiveness. Like many other researchers, Bender and Hanna have called out that a finding with no citation is a red flag. "Anytime someone is selling you something but not giving you access to how it was evaluated, you are on thin ice," Bender said.It can be frustrating and disappointing when AI companies don't disclose certain information about how their AI products work and how they were developed. But recognizing those holes in their sales pitch can help deflate hype, even though it would be better to have the information. For more, check out our full ChatGPT glossary and how to turn off Apple Intelligence.

As a long-time VR gamer, I’ve always found myself in an awkward position. I’m certainly not a casual player at this point, but I’m also not quite a full-blown techie. I don’t spend my time studying the ins and outs of lens shapes or obsessing over resolution. I’m just happy to use whatever headset lets me play games comfortably and conveniently. That’s meant that for the past few years, my Meta Quest 3 (and Quest 3S) have been my go-to choice for gaming. That said, they haven’t always been a perfect fit for my needs. I’ve struggled to get the comfort level exactly where I need it and I often find that its visual barriers butt into my experiences more than I’d like. I’ve learned to live with those quirks over the years because it felt like there wasn’t any other option. That is, until I dusted off my PlayStation VR2 for the first time in over a year. After sitting down to play The Midnight Walk on my forgotten headset, I’m now wondering why I ever stopped using it in the first place. It’s a reminder that just because something is the shiny new toy doesn’t mean that it’s inherently the best choice for your needs. Recommended Videos Allow me to explain how I got in this mess first. Ever since I became interested in VR games, I’ve decided to stick to two ecosystems: Meta and PSVR. There was a simple logistical reason for that, as my PC is a little too outdated to properly power PC headsets. The plug and play nature of the PSVR and the wireless freedom of the Quest both fit my specific needs. I figured I’d keep up with Sony’s device to play its exclusives and use Meta’s devices for more general use. The reality, though, was that I started falling into the habit of just using whatever was newest for everything. That’s the sort of pitfall you can easily run into when you review tech for a living. Related At the end of 2022, I was happily using the Meta Quest 2. When the PlayStation VR2 rolled around in early 2023, I instinctively jumped ship — and for good reason. Sony’s second generation headset was impressive at the time, offering high resolution visuals and excellent eye-tracking. I was happy with that as my primary platform even if the promise of first-party support fell apart immediately after Horizon: Call of the Mountain. Then came the Meta Quest 3 later that year. I switched over to it in an instant, welcoming back a life of wireless play. Only one year later, I’d switch again to the Meta Quest 3S, which I use to this day because I appreciate its passthrough tech. My PSVR2 hadn’t been used in over a year as of last weekend. KIWI Design That’s not because the Quest is a better headset that solves all of my problems. In fact, I’ve had two major gripes with it over the past few years. The first is that I’ve struggled with its virtual boundaries. I live in a fairly compact apartment, so I don’t have a full room I can freely move around when I play. When I’m standing, I have to use a sliver of floor space in my bedroom. I’ve found that I’m constantly hitting the barrier grid when I try to play, as it triggers if I so much as brush up against it. The same is true for seated play, where I always find myself breaking out. My bigger gripe is with comfort. To this day, I can not get a Meta headset to fit my head right. It always squeezes my skull tighter than I’d like, which means that I need to play in shorter bursts. Loosening it to the point of comfort generally means that I have to live withy a blurrier image. I’m willing to make those compromises on both ends for a great game, but it makes it hard for me to get too invested in long games like Asgard’s Wrath 2. And hey, what is my other option? It turns out that I had one all along and just didn’t realize it. I received a review code for The Midnight Walk on PSVR2, which was incentive enough to bring it out of storage for another ride. As soon as I put it on, I couldn’t believe I had ever ditched it in the first place. For one, I find it far more comfortable that I’d remembered. Perhaps it’s just because I’d grown so accustomed to the Quest, but it rests so well on my head that I could sit for over two hours without even thinking about it. I also never found my game interrupted by the virtual boundaries I constantly see on Quest. PSVR2 feels less sensitive overall, allowing me to more easily immerse myself in its digital worlds (and I only punched a wall once while doing it!). Digital Trends In my head, I had convinced myself that the reason I dropped it was due to the Quest 3 being more technically impressive, but now I’m even questioning that. Yes, the Quest 3 is better on paper with higher resolution per eye, but the PSVR2 bridges that gap with its OLED display that creates a higher contrast image. As part of the tradeoff, I also get access to some incredibly impressive eye tracking, something I’d almost forgotten about entirely in the switch to Quest. In The Midnight Walk, I was able to close my eyes to control parts of the game, which the headset tracked with pinpoint accuracy. Going back to the PSVR2 felt like using it for the first time. I had taken so many of its great qualities for granted because I had convinced myself that new always meant better. It doesn’t, though that’s not to throw shade at the Quest 3 or 3S. Both are great gaming headsets and their wireless play can’t be beat. I still imagine that I’ll play a chunk of my VR games there so I have the freedom to move. But I’ve also come away having learned a valuable lesson about tech: Sometimes the device that suits you best is the one you already own.