Researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech have introduced a continuous fiber reinforcement (CFR) deposition tool designed for multi-axis 3D printing, significantly enhancing mechanical performance in composite structures. Led by Kieran D. Beaumont, Joseph R. Kubalak, and Christopher B. Williams, and published in Springer Nature Link, the study demonstrates an 820% improvement in maximum load capacity compared to conventional planar short carbon fiber (SCF) 3D printing methods. This tool integrates three key functions: reliable fiber cutting and re-feeding, in situ fiber volume fraction control, and a slender collision volume to support complex multi-axis toolpaths. The newly developed deposition tool addresses critical challenges in CFR additive manufacturing. It is capable of cutting and re-feeding continuous fibers during travel movements, a function required to create complex geometries without material tearing or print failure. In situ control of fiber volume fraction is also achieved by adjusting the polymer extrusion rate. A slender geometry minimizes collisions between the tool and the printed part during multi-axis movements. The researchers designed the tool to co-extrude a thermoplastic polymer matrix with a continuous carbon fiber (CCF) towpreg. This approach allowed reliable fiber re-feeding after each cut and enabled printing with variable fiber content within a single part. The tool’s slender collision volume supports increased range of motion for the robotic arm used in the experiments, allowing alignment of fibers with three-dimensional load paths in complex structures. The six Degree-of-Freedom Robotic Arm printing a multi-axis geometry from a CFR polymer composite. Photo via Springer Nature Link. Mechanical Testing Confirms Load-Bearing Improvements Mechanical tests evaluated the impact of continuous fiber reinforcement on polylactic acid (PLA) parts. In tensile tests, samples reinforced with continuous carbon fibers achieved a tensile strength of 190.76 MPa and a tensile modulus of 9.98 GPa in the fiber direction. These values compare to 60.31 MPa and 3.01 GPa for neat PLA, and 56.92 MPa and 4.30 GPa for parts containing short carbon fibers. Additional tests assessed intra-layer and inter-layer performance, revealing that the continuous fiber–reinforced material had reduced mechanical properties in these orientations. Compared to neat PLA, intra-layer tensile strength and modulus dropped by 66% and 63%, respectively, and inter-layer strength and modulus decreased by 86% and 60%. Researchers printed curved tensile bar geometries using three methods to evaluate performance in parts with three-dimensional load paths: planar short carbon fiber–reinforced PLA, multi-axis short fiber–reinforced samples, and multi-axis continuous fiber–reinforced composites. The multi-axis short fiber–reinforced parts showed a 41.6% increase in maximum load compared to their planar counterparts. Meanwhile, multi-axis continuous fiber–reinforced parts absorbed loads 8.2 times higher than the planar short fiber–reinforced specimens. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images of fracture surfaces revealed fiber pull-out and limited fiber-matrix bonding, particularly in samples with continuous fibers. Schematic illustration of common continuous fiber reinforcement–material extrusion (CFR-MEX) modalities: in situ impregnation, towpreg extrusion, and co-extrusion with towpreg. Photo via Springer Nature Link. To verify the tool’s fiber cutting and re-feeding capability, the researchers printed a 100 × 150 × 3 mm rectangular plaque that required 426 cutting and re-feeding operations across six layers. The deposition tool achieved a 100% success rate, demonstrating reliable cutting and re-feeding without fiber clogging. This reliability is critical for manufacturing complex structures that require frequent travel movements between deposition paths. In situ fiber volume fraction control was validated through printing a rectangular prism sample with varying polymer feed rates, road widths, and layer heights. The fiber volume fractions achieved in different sections of the part were 6.51%, 8.00%, and 9.86%, as measured by cross-sectional microscopy and image analysis. Although lower than some literature reports, the researchers attributed this to the specific combination of tool geometry, polymer-fiber interaction time, and print speed. The tool uses Anisoprint’s CCF towpreg, a pre-impregnated continuous carbon fiber product with a fiber volume fraction of 57% and a diameter of 0.35 mm. 3DXTECH’s black PLA and SCF-PLA filaments were selected to ensure consistent matrix properties and avoid the influence of pigment variations on mechanical testing. The experiments were conducted using an ABB IRB 4600–40/2.55 robotic arm equipped with a tool changer for switching between the CFR-MEX deposition tool and a standard MEX tool with an elongated nozzle for planar prints. Deposition Tool CAD and Assembly. Photo via Springer Nature Link. Context Within Existing Research and Future Directions Continuous fiber reinforcement in additive manufacturing has previously demonstrated significant improvements in part performance, with some studies reporting tensile strengths of up to 650 MPa for PLA composites reinforced with continuous carbon fibers. However, traditional three-axis printing methods restrict fiber orientation to planar directions, limiting these gains to within the XY-plane. Multi-axis 3D printing approaches have demonstrated improved load-bearing capacity in short-fiber reinforced parts. For example, multi-axis printed samples have shown failure loads several times higher than planar-printed counterparts in pressure cap and curved geometry applications. Virginia Tech’s tool integrates multiple functionalities that previous tools in literature could not achieve simultaneously. It combines a polymer feeder based on a dual drive extruder, a fiber cutter and re-feeder assembly, and a co-extrusion hotend with adjustable interaction time for fiber-polymer bonding. A needle-like geometry and external pneumatic cooling pipes reduce the risk of collision with the printed part during multi-axis reorientation. Measured collision volume angles were 56.2° for the full tool and 41.6° for the hotend assembly. Load-extension performance graphs for curved tensile bars. Photo via Springer Nature Link. Despite these advances, the researchers identified challenges related to weak bonding between the fiber and the polymer matrix. SEM images showed limited impregnation of the polymer into the fiber towpreg, with the fiber-matrix interface remaining a key area for future work. The study highlights that optimizing fiber tow sizing and improving the fiber-polymer interaction time during printing could enhance inter-layer and intra-layer performance. The results also suggest that advanced toolpath planning algorithms could further leverage the tool’s ability to align fiber deposition along three-dimensional load paths, improving mechanical performance in functional parts. The publication in Springer Nature Link documents the full design, validation experiments, and mechanical characterization of the CFR-MEX tool. The work adds to a growing body of research on multi-axis additive manufacturing, particularly in combining continuous fiber reinforcement with complex geometries. Take the 3DPI Reader Survey — shape the future of AM reporting in under 5 minutes. Ready to discover who won the 20243D Printing Industry Awards? Subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter to stay updated with the latest news and insights. Featured photo shows the six Degree-of-Freedom Robotic Arm printing a multi-axis geometry. Photo via Springer Nature Link. Anyer Tenorio Lara Anyer Tenorio Lara is an emerging tech journalist passionate about uncovering the latest advances in technology and innovation. With a sharp eye for detail and a talent for storytelling, Anyer has quickly made a name for himself in the tech community. Anyer's articles aim to make complex subjects accessible and engaging for a broad audience. In addition to his writing, Anyer enjoys participating in industry events and discussions, eager to learn and share knowledge in the dynamic world of technology.

🍉🍋🐍🍇🍎 "Brainmelting Snake" Serpentes is back An updated offering of blissful boomer arcade goodness is here! It's Snake, but every fruit has 5 effects assigned to it randomly. Eat the fruits to reveal their effects, then use them to your advantage... or die trying. Based on a hellishly addictive hidden gem made by Benjamin Soulé in 2015, this new Serpentes got a second serving of 11 fresh fruits to unlock, mix, and match with the old ones, featuring new mechanics, reworked old ones, and a new original soundtrack by Pentadrangle. Boomer Arcade at its crunchiest Select two bonuses to start your run, then score the best possible score in 60 seconds. Death is inevitable, but dying only means retrying the very next second, as the fruits' properties get reshuffled. As you reach higher scores and fill up the leaderboard, you'll unlock new bonuses to select at the start, and new fruits to mix into the game for new effects. Strategize on the fly The fruits have 5 rows of properties. The first row is simply score. The second one adds and removes lengths of tail. The third one adds enemies, obstacles, it makes your snake faster, and some other fun things. The fourth row makes your next fruit more valuable, or maybe you'll get a wider selection of fruits, or you'll get a way to destroy some of the enemies and obstacles. Finally the fifth row holds a variety of powerful bonuses and mini-games that play through the game of Snake. Complete a row on all the fruits to get 20 extra seconds on the timer. Quickly pick up 5 of a same fruit to unlock its fifth property. Try different priorities. Adapt your strategy to the effects you uncover. Or die and restart. After all, a run is just 1 minute. Pay to win The free demo for this game is essentially the same as the full game. However, the demo only lets you select one starting bonus, instead of two. This makes it considerably harder than the full game, though not impossible, and we believe it's representative enough to get an idea of whether this game is for you. Besides this, the demo mostly features the fruits from the original version, and only 2 of the 11 unlockable new ones. Controls This game plays entirely with the keyboard, or with a gamepad. (keyboard still required to input your name at least once for the leaderboard) Use directions to move your snake, and hold them to move faster. That's it. 🍌🍑🐍🍒🥑 Praise for Serpentes "It captures the spirit of the original Snake perfectly [...] and then dials it up to eleven." — Derek Yu"Each variation of the Snake theme has generally been the same until Benjamin Soulé released 'Serpentes'." — Indie Retro News"[about Serpentes] I love the way it feels in my brain." — The Beauty of Games, by Frank Lantz🍋🍊🐍🥝🍍 This game was partially funded on Patreon by people like you! Our 3€-per-month Patreon subscription gives you our games as they come out, starting with the last game that came out when you subscribe. At this time, that means this game! If you have the means, subscribing for 5€ per month makes your name appear in the credits of the games that come out while you are subscribed, and gives you the OST of the games on Bandcamp. For 10€ per month, you also get access to a Discord channel where we frequently post news, articles and other resources we find interesting or helpful. The games are given out as Itch keys and Steam keys to be redeemed on our website. The games initially release on Itch, and then come to Steam a bit later. When the game releases on a platform, the corresponding key appears. You can cancel your subscription at anytime and it won't revoke your game keys. This game is currently an Itch exclusive. But it will come out on Steam eventually. If you feel so inclined, wishlisting Serpentes there would be very helpful to us! Buying the game here on Itch, or getting it through our Patreon subscription, will get you a Steam key when it releases there. 🍋🍑🐍🥑🍉 Discord If you'd like you can come to our Discord to share your best scores and compare strategies! It's also a great place to talk with us and get news for this and our next projects! 🍎🍍🐍🍊🍓 Are you press or a content creator? If you're a streamer, youtuber, or press and you'd like to cover the game, you can request a press key using this form! We've also uploaded a few assets you might find useful, including screenshots and thumbnail material! Find them here! 🍌🍒🐍🍓🥝 About PUNKCAKE As PUNKCAKE Délicieux we make a new game every month, which you can get by subscribing to our Patreon for 3€/month or buy separately on Itch io for 6$! Subscribe to our newsletter! Join our Discord! Follow our Bluesky! Subscribe to our Youtube! 🍇🍋🐍🍍🍊 Changelog: Quickpatch 1.0b: Fixed the Lychee unlock. Fixed a crash when trying to delete highscores. More informationPurchaseGet this game and 23 more for $66.00 USDSerpentes Release Sale! 🐍🍒View bundleBuy Now$6.00 $5.40 USD or moreIn order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $5.40 USD. You will get access to the following files:Download demo

Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a 3D printed, self-powered mechanoluminescent (ML) photonic skin designed for communication and safety monitoring in underwater environments. The stretchable device emits light in response to mechanical deformation, requires no external power source, and remains functional under conditions such as high salinity and extreme temperatures. The findings were published in Advanced Materials by Xiaolu Sun, Shaohua Ling, Zhihang Qin, Jinrun Zhou, Quangang Shi, Zhuangjian Liu, and Yu Jun Tan. The research was conducted at NUS and Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). Schematic of the 3D printed mechanoluminescent photonic skin showing fabrication steps and light emission under deformation. Image via Sun et al., Advanced Materials. 3D printing stretchable light-emitting skins with auxetic geometry The photonic skin was produced using a 3D printing method called direct-ink-writing (DIW), which involves extruding a specially formulated ink through a fine nozzle to build up complex structures layer by layer. In this case, the ink was made by mixing tiny particles of zinc sulfide doped with copper (ZnS:Cu), a material that glows when stretched, with a flexible silicone rubber. These particles serve as the active ingredient that lights up when the material is deformed, while the silicone acts as a soft, stretchable support structure. To make the device more adaptable to movement and curved surfaces, like human skin or underwater equipment, the researchers printed it using auxetic designs. Auxetic structures have a rare mechanical property known as a negative Poisson’s ratio. Unlike most materials, which become thinner when stretched, auxetic designs expand laterally under tension. This makes them ideal for conforming to curved or irregular surfaces, such as joints, flexible robots, or underwater gear, without wrinkling or detaching. Encapsulating the printed skin in a clear silicone layer further improves performance by distributing mechanical stress evenly. This prevents localized tearing and ensures that the light emission remains bright and uniform, even after 10,000 cycles of stretching and relaxing. In previous stretchable light-emitting devices, uneven stress often led to dimming, flickering, or early material failure. Mechanical and optical performance of encapsulated photonic skin across 10,000 stretch cycles. Image via Sun et al., Advanced Materials. Underwater signaling, robotics, and gas leak detection The team demonstrated multiple applications for the photonic skin. When integrated into wearable gloves, the skin enabled light-based Morse code communication through simple finger gestures. Bending one or more fingers activated the mechanoluminescence, emitting visible flashes that corresponded to messages such as “UP,” “OK,” or “SOS.” The system remained fully functional when submerged in cold water (~7°C), simulating deep-sea conditions. In a separate test, the skin was applied to a gas tank mock-up to monitor for leaks. A pinhole defect was covered with the printed skin and sealed using stretchable tape. When pressurized air escaped through the leak, the localized mechanical force caused a bright cyan glow at the exact leak site, offering a passive, electronics-free alternative to conventional gas sensors. To test performance on soft and mobile platforms, the researchers also mounted the photonic skin onto a robotic fish. As the robot swam through water tanks at different temperatures (24°C, 50°C, and 7°C), the skin continued to light up reliably, demonstrating its resilience and utility for marine robotics. Comparison of printed photonic skin structures with different geometries and their conformability to complex surfaces. Image via Sun et al., Advanced Materials. Toward electronics-free underwater communication While LEDs and optical fibers are widely used in underwater lighting systems, their dependence on rigid form factors and external power makes them unsuitable for dynamic, flexible applications. In contrast, the stretchable ML photonic skin developed by NUS researchers provides a self-powered, adaptable alternative for diver signaling, robotic inspection, and leak detection, potentially transforming the toolkit for underwater communication and safety systems. Future directions include enhanced sensory integration and robotic applications, as the team continues exploring robust photonic systems for extreme environments. Photonic skin integrated into gloves for Morse code signaling and applied to robotic fish and gas tanks for underwater safety monitoring. Image via Sun et al., Advanced Materials. The rise of 3D printed multifunctional materials The development of the photonic skin reflects a broader trend in additive manufacturing toward multifunctional materials, structures that serve more than a structural role. Researchers are increasingly using multimaterial 3D printing to embed sensing, actuation, and signaling functions directly into devices. For example, recent work by SUSTech and City University of Hong Kong on thick-panel origami structures showed how multimaterial printing can enable large, foldable systems with high strength and motion control. These and other advances, including conductive FDM processes and Lithoz’s multimaterial ceramic tools, mark a shift toward printing entire systems. The NUS photonic skin fits squarely within this movement, combining mechanical adaptability, environmental durability, and real-time optical output into a single printable form. Read the full article in Advanced Materials Subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry newsletter to keep up with the latest 3D printing news. You can also follow us onLinkedIn and subscribe to the 3D Printing Industry YouTube channel to access more exclusive content. At 3DPI, our mission is to deliver high-quality journalism, technical insight, and industry intelligence to professionals across the AM ecosystem.Help us shape the future of 3D printing industry news with our2025 reader survey. Featured image shows a schematic of the 3D printed mechanoluminescent photonic skin showing fabrication steps and light emission under deformation. Image via Sun et al., Advanced Materials.

Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube817kUpdate [Thu 5th Jun 2025, 9am]: Lucky Alex-from-Nintendo-Life got his hands on Switch 2 a handful of hours before the rest of us (hey, some of us are still waiting for the postman to arrive!) and invites you to take a tour of the new console's Home screen and menus in the video above. It's all comfortingly familiar, that's for sure, but the speed! Join the 20-minute tour as he explores the system menu's ins-and-outs, and let us know your thoughts in the usual place. Now, back to peering out the front window for any sign of Pat...Original Story: With discoverability on the bloated Switch eShop causing headaches for players and devs alike, you can sometimes forget how slow the shopping experience on Switch can be. Likewise, though Nintendo hasn't bogged down the main system menu with ornamental additions, navigating the system menus is hardly a snappy experience, either. Well, it seems like Switch 2 is going to be a big upgrade in that department, as evidenced in this first look at the new Switch 2 eShop (which is now live) and the system's menus, courtesy of VGC editor-in-chief and lucky blighter Andy Robinson, who took delivery of a Switch 2 earlier today. Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube817k On Bluesky, Robinson noted that after the system transfer, all your Switch 1 games appear there, ready and waiting to download. As you can see, booting Switch 2 is a lot like booting Xbox Series for the first time was - all of your Switch 1 games are already there, waiting for you to redownload (if you did the system transfer during setup)— Andy Robinson (@andyrobinson.bsky.social) 2025-06-04T13:33:48.745Z Perhaps we're just used to the now-soupy speed of an eight-year-old console, but seeing the speed of the screen transitions in the video at the top of the page brought a smile to our face. Now let's hope they can do something about the slop. We'll be bringing you our own in-depth S2 coverage just as soon as we're able. Not long to go now! Update: We got one! *slams alarm bell, Ghostbusters-style* Let us know below your impressions of the new eShop and Switch UI experience (which looks an awful lot like the old eShop and Switch UI experience, just a damned-sight quicker off the mark, no?). Which do you prefer? A step in the right direction [source youtube.com, via bsky.app] Share:36 7 Gavin first wrote for Nintendo Life in 2018 before joining the site full-time the following year, rising through the ranks to become Editor. He can currently be found squashed beneath a Switch backlog the size of Normandy. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Nintendo Appears To Have Updated Mario Kart World's Switch 2 File Size Some other file sizes have also changed Site News: We've Got A Switch 2 Come watch us unbox Pokémon Scarlet And Violet Version 4.0.0 Is Now Live, Here Are The Full Patch Notes The free Switch 2 upgrade has arrived PSA: Switch 2 Updates For Multiple First-Party Switch Games Are Now Available Updates for Mario Wonder, 3D All-Stars and much more!

A recent update may give you more heads-up information when using Google Maps navigation right at your steering wheel if you have a digital dashboard that supports Android Auto. more…

On June 3, Yoshua Bengio, the world’s most-cited computer scientist, announced the launch of LawZero, a nonprofit that aims to create “safe by design” AI by pursuing a fundamentally different approach to major tech companies. Players like OpenAI and Google are investing heavily in AI agents—systems that not only answer queries and generate images, but can craft plans and take actions in the world. The goal of these companies is to create virtual employees that can do practically any job a human can, known in the tech industry as artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Executives like Google DeepMind’s CEO Demis Hassabis point to AGI’s potential to solve climate change or cure disease as a motivator for its development. Bengio, however, says we don't need agentic systems to reap AI's rewards—it's a false choice. He says there's a chance such a system could escape human control, with potentially irreversible consequences. “If we get an AI that gives us the cure for cancer, but also maybe another version of that AI goes rogue and generates wave after wave of bio-weapons that kill billions of people, then I don't think it's worth it," he says. In 2023, Bengio, along with others including OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman signed a statement declaring that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”Now, Bengio, through LawZero, aims to sidestep the existential perils by focusing on creating what he calls “Scientist AI”—a system trained to understand and make statistical predictions about the world, crucially, without the agency to take independent actions. As he puts it: We could use AI to advance scientific progress without rolling the dice on agentic AI systems.Why Bengio Says We Need A New Approach To AI The current approach to giving AI agency is “dangerous,” Bengio says. While most software operates through rigid if-then rules—if the user clicks here, do this—today's AI systems use deep learning. The technique, which Bengio helped pioneer, trains artificial networks modeled loosely on the brain to find patterns in vast amounts of data. But recognizing patterns is just the first step. To turn these systems into useful applications like chatbots, engineers employ a training process called reinforcement learning. The AI generates thousands of responses and receives feedback on each one: a virtual “carrot” for helpful answers and a virtual “stick” for responses that miss the mark. Through millions of these trial-and-feedback cycles, the system gradually learns to predict what responses are most likely to get a reward. “It’s more like growing a plant or animal,” Bengio says. “You don’t fully control what the animal is going to do. You provide it with the right conditions, and it grows and it becomes smarter. You can try to steer it in various directions.”The same basic approach is now being used to imbue AI with greater agency. Models are tasked with challenges with verifiable answers—like math puzzles or coding problems—and are then rewarded for taking the series of actions that yields the solution. This approach has seen AI shatter previous benchmarks in programming and scientific reasoning. For example, at the beginning of 2024, the best AI model scored only 2% on a standardized test for AI of sorts consisting of real world software engineering problems; by December, an impressive 71.7%. But with AI’s greater problem-solving ability comes the emergence of new deceptive skills, Bengio says. The last few months have borne witness to AI systems learning to mislead, cheat, and try to evade shutdown—even resorting to blackmail. These have almost exclusively been in carefully contrived experiments that almost beg the AI to misbehave—for example, by asking it to pursue its goal at all costs. Reports of such behavior in the real-world, though, have begun to surface. Popular AI coding startup Replit’s agent ignored explicit instruction not to edit a system file that could break the company’s software, in what CEO Amjad Masad described as an “Oh f***” moment,” on the Cognitive Revolution podcast in May. The company’s engineers intervened, cutting the agent’s access by moving the file to a secure digital sandbox, only for the AI agent to attempt to “socially engineer” the user to regain access.The quest to build human-level AI agents using techniques known to produce deceptive tendencies, Bengio says, is comparable to a car speeding down a narrow mountain road, with steep cliffs on either side, and thick fog obscuring the path ahead. “We need to set up the car with headlights and put some guardrails on the road,” he says.What is “Scientist AI”?LawZero’s focus is on developing “Scientist AI” which, as Bengio describes, would be fundamentally non-agentic, trustworthy, and focused on understanding and truthfulness, rather than pursuing its own goals or merely imitating human behavior. The aim is creating a powerful tool that, while lacking the same autonomy other models have, is capable of generating hypotheses and accelerating scientific progress to “help us solve challenges of humanity,” Bengio says.LawZero has raised nearly $30 million already from several philanthropic backers including from Schmidt Sciences and Open Philanthropy. “We want to raise more because we know that as we move forward, we'll need significant compute,” Bengio says. But even ten times that figure would pale in comparison to the roughly $200 billion spent last year by tech giants on aggressively pursuing AI. Bengio’s hope is that Scientist AI could help ensure the safety of highly autonomous systems developed by other players. “We can use those non-agentic AIs as guardrails that just need to predict whether the action of an agentic AI is dangerous," Bengio says. Technical interventions will only ever be one part of the solution, he adds, noting the need for regulations to ensure that safe practices are adopted.LawZero, named after science fiction author Isaac Asimov’s zeroth law of robotics—“a robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm”—is not the first nonprofit founded to chart a safer path for AI development. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit in 2015 with the goal of “ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity,” and intended to serve a counterbalance to industry players guided by profit motives. Since opening a for-profit arm in 2019, the organization has become one of the most valuable private companies in the world, and has faced criticism, including from former staffers, who argue it has drifted from its founding ideals. "Well, the good news is we have the hindsight of maybe what not to do,” Bengio says, adding that he wants to avoid profit incentives and “bring governments into the governance of LawZero.”“I think everyone should ask themselves, ‘What can I do to make sure my children will have a future,’” Bengio says. In March, he stepped down as scientific director of Mila, the academic lab he co-founded in the early nineties, in an effort to reorient his work towards tackling AI risk more directly. “Because I'm a researcher, my answer is, ‘okay, I'm going to work on this scientific problem where maybe I can make a difference,’ but other people may have different answers."

Plus, a new White Tiger will rise on 'Daredevil: Born Again' season 2.

The developers of SnowRunner have combined its vehicular physics simulator gameplay with design elements from the building simulator genre, to bring us Roadcraft, a unique game that requires you to use an array of vehicles and construction machinery to do everything from clearing debris to rebuilding roads and laying cable. Road construction is a primary aspect of gameplay, and involves multiple steps: resource collection, logistical transport, route planning, and actual road building. While there is a very in-depth tutorial in-game that holds your hand every step of the way, there are a lot of nuances to road construction that you may not be aware of, and this RoadCraft guide has everything you need to know about those game mechanics. Scout Vehicle Selection The Scout is a critical vehicle for its scanning and winching capabilities, and while there are 7 to choose from, only 2 are available initially. Between these first two Scouts, the Armiger Thunder IV should be your preferred choice, due to its higher mobility and shorter wheelbase. Your eventual Scout vehicle should be the Tuz 119 “Lynx” which becomes available in the Deluge campaign for a price of nearly 25,000. The winch capability will come in handy as you clear debris to establish routes, and scan for terrain and objects. Field Recovery Vehicles These vehicles serve the purpose of behaving as spawn points for your other utility vehicles. This will be tremendously helpful in situations where you will require multiple pieces of equipment at a given location. Simply drive one of these to the work site such as a road construction objective, and you can simply spawn all task-related vehicles there, at the cost of Recovery Tokens. The free KHAN Lo “Strannik” Field Service Vehicle will more than suffice for this purpose, while also being equipped with a winch for manual towing. Equipment Transporters In the absence of fuel tokens, vehicle haulers can also be used to accomplish the task of manually delivering multiple vehicles to a work site. The Zikz 605E Heavy Equipment Transporter will be your preferred choice at a cost of 25,000, and will serve you well throughout the campaign. However, the Step 39331 “Pike” Light Equipment Transporter can function just as well, since it can use both its flatbed and its winch to haul two vehicles at a time, with maximum tonnage capability being the true limitation. Crane Trucks A great deal of what you will be doing in the game will involve picking stuff up off of the ground with a crane and placing it onto a flatbed for transportation. While you will be provided with two separate vehicles to accomplish this, it will be quite a tedious process especially for solo players. This is where the Mule T1 Cargo Crane Truck comes in immediately useful, at a price of 27,000. It will save you a great deal of time and effort over multiple instances in the campaign. Eventually, you will purchase better Craned vehicles, but the older ones will never use utility, as you can leave them in place at your various facilities to act as on-site loaders. In a pinch, Crane Trucks can serve as a winch vehicle for any situation that may arise. Road Construction Your AI convoys are going to get hung up on every little obstacle along their dirt path routes, and this is where good road building comes into play. Locate a quarry source for sand, and begin filling in the route with your loaded Dump Truck. Next, use your Dozer set to sand leveling or better yet, your Roller, to perform multiple passes in order to flatten the sand, with two passes being an absolute minimum. Be sure to proceed as slowly and carefully as you can on the second and further passes, listening carefully for audio feedback while traversing the route, which will sound different when traveling over fully flattened ground compared to slightly uneven terrain. A recommended method is to go down the center twice, once in each direction, in order to perfect the two ends. Then travel once along each side to spread the sand evenly, followed by a single final pass down the center again. Asphalt Paving Strictly speaking, asphalt paving is unnecessary in the vast majority of situations, unless required by mission objectives. However, if you do elect to pave all your roads, there are some important steps to take. The sand must be perfectly flattened, else the paving machines will frequently snag on unseen obstacles. One way to mitigate this, is to use the Paver while traveling in reverse. While this may seem odd, since the asphalt is deposited from the front and flattened by the rear, the game still allows it. An even better option is to hoist the Paver with a mobile Crane and float it low over the planned route, and then drive the Crane along the path instead, which is significantly faster and avoids physics bugs. Deploy the Roller next, and use the same leveling process as you do with sand: down the center once in each direction, then each side once, and one last time down the center again. Leveling Uneven Roads Failure to properly level the sand before laying down asphalt can lead to significantly large bumps in your roads. You can still recover from a situation like this without having to resort to using your Dozer’s Asphalt Destruction grader mode. Take your Roller out instead and perform multiple passes over the bump with it, and it will flatten out eventually. Plotting Routes For AI Convoys While creating routes for your transport vehicles to follow, be sure to set them along one side of the road rather than down the center. This will mitigate head-on collisions between AI traffic traveling in opposite directions, as their pathing can be quite poor. Also avoid placing an excessive number of waypoints wherever possible as this is interpreted as a direction change. While the vehicles will not get turned completely around, they can bug out and end up in an environmental hazard. Be sure to delete the routes once you have completed the related objectives and collected all of the rewards, in order to maintain a clean infrastructure map. That is everything you need to know about constructing proper roads in RoadCraft.

Facepalm: In the latest example of why we shouldn't blindly put our faith in online map services, German autobahns and highways were plunged into chaos when Google Maps incorrectly showed that vast sections of the roads were closed. The incident's timing was especially bad as it coincided with the start of a holiday break. German motorists likely felt disheartened at the sight of all the stop signs on Google Maps on Thursday. The Guardian reports that major roads in western, northern, south-western and central parts of the country were shown as closed. Even parts of Belgium and the Netherlands appeared to have ground to a halt. The situation was exacerbated by the incident taking place at the start of a four-day break for the Ascension holiday, when many Germans were travelling. It led to a huge number of Google Maps users heading for alternative routes to avoid the non-existent closures. Somewhat ironically, this caused huge jams and delays on these smaller roads. Drivers not relying on Google Maps – and any Google users who decided to check another service or the news – didn't have to deal with these problems. Apple Maps, Waze, and the traffic reports all showed that everything was moving freely. The major highways were likely quieter than usual as so many Google Maps users were avoiding them. The apparent mass closure of so many roads caused panic among those who believed Google Maps' warning. Some thought there had been a terrorist attack or state-sponsored hack, while others speculated about a natural disaster. // Related Stories When asked about the glitch, which lasted around two hours, Google said the company wouldn't comment on the specific case. It added that Google Maps draws information from three key sources: individual users, public sources such as transportation authorities, and a mix of third-party providers. Ars Technica contacted Google to ask about the cause of the problem. A spokesperson said the company "investigated a technical issue that temporarily showed inaccurate road closures on the map" and has "since removed them." With Google Maps drawing information from third parties, the issue could partly have been related to the German Automobile Club's warning that there may be heavy traffic at the start of the holiday. Google also added AI features to Maps recently, and we all know how reliable they can be. There have been plenty of other incidents in which Google Maps got things very wrong. Germany was cursing the service again earlier this month when it showed highway tunnels being closed in part of the country when they were open. In 2023, Google was sued by the family of a North Carolina man who drove his car off a collapsed bridge as he followed directions given by Google Maps. The case is ongoing. Masthead: Bhavik Nasit

Even if you don't want to dive in and create AI videos using the latest Veo 3 model released by Google, you can sit back and marvel at (or be petrified by) the work of others: Flow TV is a new lean-back experience that lets you click through a seemingly endless carousel of AI-generated clips.Unlike the Flow video creator that is needed to create these videos, you don't need to pay Google a subscription fee to use Flow TV, and you don't even need to be signed into a Google account. It's a showcase for the best AI clips produced by Veo, though for now, it's limited to the older Veo 2 model rather than Veo 3.Google hasn't said much about the creators behind the videos in Flow TV, but it is described as an "ever-growing showcase" of videos, so presumably there are new clips being added regularly behind the scenes—and eventually we might see Veo 3 clips mixed in, the kind of clips that have already been fooling people online.Ready to take a break from content made by flesh and blood humans and see what AI is currently cooking up? Point your browser towards the Flow TV channel list.Channel hopping Flow TV gives you multiple channels to choose from. Credit: Lifehacker The channel list gives you some idea of what's available on Flow TV: We've got channels like Window Seat (views from train carriages), Unnatural (nature with an AI twist), and Zoo Break (animal adventures). Some of these play to the strengths of AI video, including It's All Yarn (self-explanatory) and Dream Factory (general weirdness).And do expect to be freaked out pretty regularly, by the way: Flow TV is not ideal if you're easily unsettled or unnerved, because these clips move quickly, and feature content that goes way beyond the norm. I didn't come across anything really shocking or disturbing, but this is AI—and Flow TV doesn't particularly focus on realism.There's also a Shuffle All option in addition to the individual channels, and whichever route you pick through the clips, there's a lot to watch—I wasn't able to get to the end of it all. You can also switch to the Short Films tab at the top of the channel list to see three longer pieces of work made by acknowledged creators.Whichever route you take through this content, you get playback controls underneath the current clip: Controls for pausing playback, jumping forwards and backwards between clips, looping videos, and switching to full screen mode. What you can't do, however, is skip forwards or backwards through a clip, YouTube-style.To the right of the control panel you can switch between seeing one video at a time, and seeing a whole grid of options, and further to the right you've got a channel switcher. Click the TV icon to the left of the control panel to see all the available channels again, and the Flow TV button in the top-left corner to jump to something random. There's also a search box up at the top to help you look for something specific.Prompt engineering Expect the unexpected from AI video. Credit: Lifehacker While you're watching the videos, you'll see a Show Prompt toggle switch underneath each clip. Turn this switch on to see the prompt used to make the video you're watching, together with the AI model deployed (which is always Veo 2, at least for now). It's an interesting look behind the scenes at how each clip was made.Here's an example one: "First person view. Follow me into through this secret door into my magic world. Documentary. Soft natural light. 90s." As you can see, Veo just lets you throw in whatever ideas or camera directions or style guidelines come to mind, without worrying too much about formal structure (or grammar).Revealing the prompts lets you see what the AI got right and what it didn't, and how the models interpret different instructions. Of course, it always makes the most generic picks from prompts, based on whatever dominates its training data: Generic swans, generic buses, generic cars, generic people, generic camera angles and movements. If you need something out of the ordinary from AI video, you need to ask for it specifically.Look closer, and the usual telltale signs of AI generation are here, from the way most clips use a similar pacing, scene length, and shot construction, to the weird physics that are constantly confusing (and are sometimes deliberately used for effect). AI video is getting better fast, but it's a much more difficult challenge than text or images represent.For now, Flow TV is a diverting demo gallery of where AI video is at: what it does well and where it still falls short. On this occasion, I'll leave aside the issues of how much energy was used to generate all of these clips, or what kinds of videos the Veo models might have been trained on, but it might be worth bookmarking the Flow TV channel directory if you want to stay up to speed with the state of AI filmmaking.