We’re delighted to reveal Monsters are Coming! Rock & Road, the next game from Ludogram, is being published by Raw Fury!  Just announced during The Mix Summer Game Showcase with a rip-roaring trailer, Monsters are Coming! Rock & Road is what we’re describing as a ‘Tower-Survivor’ game, mashing up tower defense with a horde survivor.   If you’re already liking what you’re seeing and hearing, you can sign up to the Closed Beta test which we’re aiming to start later this month. Just fill out the form here.  But let’s break this down and give you a grander overview of what the game is all about  Monsters are Coming: Rock & Road is an action rogue-lite where you begin each run controlling a peon, tasked with fighting back hordes and hordes (and hordes) of monsters attacking from all sides!  But the peon’s true objective is to protect a moving city – even at the expense of their own life – all while making sure its path isn’t obstructed by the environment, gathering enough resources to expand its potential. So where peons can respawn if they fall in battle, it’s only when the city is destroyed that your run is over!  Fortunately, the city can also protect itself through archery outposts, necromancy towers and even fire-breathing dragons. As long as you’ve got the coin, wood, gems and stone to fulfil the requirements, you can build a real fortress of destruction! Resources, by the way, you’ll have to gather while fighting and protecting the city, balancing risk versus reward.  Defeated monsters drop gems which you use to power up. And off the beaten path you can find even more, unexpected ways to give your Peon an edge in battle.   But despite the fast and furious pace of MaC: R&R, you will be able to find some respite at shelters. Here, you can take some time to decide what to spend your newfound wealth on and add even rarer buildings to your arsenal. Some of which affect your gold in-take or damage output, but you can also build towers that freeze monsters or spawn additional minions to repel the continued invasion.   Should you be defeated, at the end of each run you can also use your built up experience and resources to add permanent upgrades to your peon and city.   As you try to fight through four biomes, finding the right city build, selecting integral attributes to help you reach the Arch, you’ve definitely got your work cut out for you against some of the deadliest creatures you’ve had the misfortune to encounter.   Join the hordes BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/monsterscoming.bsky.social Twitter https://x.com/_MonstersComing Discord https://discord.gg/mqnTkZBf The post Monsters are Coming! Rock & Road Announced at The Mix appeared first on Raw Fury.

In 2025, it’s very difficult not to see gambling advertised everywhere. It’s on billboards and sports broadcasts. It’s on podcasts and printed on the turnbuckle of AEW’s pay-per-view shows. And it’s on app stores, where you can find the FanDuel and DraftKings sportsbooks, alongside glitzy digital slot machines. These apps all have the highest age ratings possible on Apple’s App Store and Google Play. But earlier this year, a different kind of app nearly disappeared from the Play Store entirely.Luck Be A Landlord is a roguelite deckbuilder from solo developer Dan DiIorio. DiIorio got word from Google in January 2025 that Luck Be A Landlord was about to be pulled, globally, because DiIorio had not disclosed the game’s “gambling themes” in its rating.In Luck Be a Landlord, the player takes spins on a pixel art slot machine to earn coins to pay their ever-increasing rent — a nightmare gamification of our day-to-day grind to remain housed. On app stores, it’s a one-time purchase of $4.99, and it’s $9.99 on Steam. On the Play Store page, developer Dan DiIorio notes, “This game does not contain any real-world currency gambling or microtransactions.”And it doesn’t. But for Google, that didn’t matter. First, the game was removed from the storefront in a slew of countries that have strict gambling laws. Then, at the beginning of 2025, Google told Dilorio that Luck Be A Landlord would be pulled globally because of its rating discrepancy, as it “does not take into account references to gambling (including real or simulated gambling)”.DiIorio had gone through this song and dance before — previously, when the game was blocked, he would send back a message saying “hey, the game doesn’t have gambling,” and then Google would send back a screenshot of the game and assert that, in fact, it had.DiIorio didn’t agree, but this time they decided that the risk of Landlord getting taken down permanently was too great. They’re a solo developer, and Luck Be a Landlord had just had its highest 30-day revenue since release. So, they filled out the form confirming that Luck Be A Landlord has “gambling themes,” and are currently hoping that this will be the end of it.This is a situation that sucks for an indie dev to be in, and over email DiIorio told Polygon it was “very frustrating.”“I think it can negatively affect indie developers if they fall outside the norm, which indies often do,” they wrote. “It also makes me afraid to explore mechanics like this further. It stifles creativity, and that’s really upsetting.”In late 2024, the hit game Balatro was in a similar position. It had won numerous awards, and made $1,000,000 in its first week on mobile platforms. And then overnight, the PEGI ratings board declared that the game deserved an adult rating.The ESRB had already rated it E10+ in the US, noting it has gambling themes. And the game was already out in Europe, making its overnight ratings change a surprise. Publisher PlayStack said the rating was given because Balatro has “prominent gambling imagery and material that instructs about gambling.”Balatro is basically Luck Be A Landlord’s little cousin. Developer LocalThunk was inspired by watching streams of Luck Be A Landlord, and seeing the way DiIorio had implemented deck-building into his slot machine. And like Luck Be A Landlord, Balatro is a one-time purchase, with no microtransactions.But the PEGI board noted that because the game uses poker hands, the skills the player learns in Balatro could translate to real-world poker.In its write-up, GameSpot noted that the same thing happened to a game called Sunshine Shuffle. It was temporarily banned from the Nintendo eShop, and also from the entire country of South Korea. Unlike Balatro, Sunshine Shuffle actually is a poker game, except you’re playing Texas Hold ‘Em — again for no real money — with cute animals (who are bank robbers).It’s common sense that children shouldn’t be able to access apps that allow them to gamble. But none of these games contain actual gambling — or do they?Where do we draw the line? Is it gambling to play any game that is also played in casinos, like poker or blackjack? Is it gambling to play a game that evokes the aesthetics of a casino, like cards, chips, dice, or slot machines? Is it gambling to wager or earn fictional money?Gaming has always been a lightning rod for controversy. Sex, violence, misogyny, addiction — you name it, video games have been accused of perpetrating or encouraging it. But gambling is gaming’s original sin. And it’s the one we still can’t get a grip on.The original link between gambling and gamingGetty ImagesThe association between video games and gambling all goes back to pinball. Back in the ’30s and ’40s, politicians targeted pinball machines for promoting gambling. Early pinball machines were less skill-based (they didn’t have flippers), and some gave cash payouts, so the comparison wasn’t unfair. Famously, mob-hating New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia banned pinball in the city, and appeared in a newsreel dumping pinball and slot machines into the Long Island Sound. Pinball machines spent some time relegated to the back rooms of sex shops and dive bars. But after some lobbying, the laws relaxed.By the 1970s, pinball manufacturers were also making video games, and the machines were side-by-side in arcades. Arcade machines, like pinball, took small coin payments, repeatedly, for short rounds of play. The disreputable funk of pinball basically rubbed off onto video games.Ever since video games rocked onto the scene, concerned and sometimes uneducated parties have been asking if they’re dangerous. And in general, studies have shown that they’re not. The same can’t be said about gambling — the practice of putting real money down to bet on an outcome.It’s a golden age for gambling2025 in the USA is a great time for gambling, which has been really profitable for gambling companies — to the tune of $66.5 billion dollars of revenue in 2023.To put this number in perspective, the American Gaming Association, which is the casino industry’s trade group and has nothing to do with video games, reports that 2022’s gambling revenue was $60.5 billion. It went up $6 billion in a year.And this increase isn’t just because of sportsbooks, although sports betting is a huge part of it. Online casinos and brick-and-mortar casinos are both earning more, and as a lot of people have pointed out, gambling is being normalized to a pretty disturbing degree.Much like with alcohol, for a small percentage of people, gambling can tip from occasional leisure activity into addiction. The people who are most at risk are, by and large, already vulnerable: researchers at the Yale School of Medicine found that 96% of problem gamblers are also wrestling with other disorders, such as “substance use, impulse-control disorders, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders.”Even if you’re not in that group, there are still good reasons to be wary of gambling. People tend to underestimate their own vulnerability to things they know are dangerous for others. Someone else might bet beyond their means. But I would simply know when to stop.Maybe you do! But being blithely confident about it can make it hard to notice if you do develop a problem. Or if you already have one.Addiction changes the way your brain works. When you’re addicted to something, your participation in it becomes compulsive, at the expense of other interests and responsibilities. Someone might turn to their addiction to self-soothe when depressed or anxious. And speaking of those feelings, people who are depressed and anxious are already more vulnerable to addiction. Given the entire state of the world right now, this predisposition shines an ugly light on the numbers touted by the AGA. Is it good that the industry is reporting $6 billion in additional earnings, when the economy feels so frail, when the stock market is ping ponging through highs and lows daily, when daily expenses are rising? It doesn’t feel good. In 2024, the YouTuber Drew Gooden turned his critical eye to online gambling. One of the main points he makes in his excellent video is that gambling is more accessible than ever. It’s on all our phones, and betting companies are using decades of well-honed app design and behavioral studies to manipulate users to spend and spend.Meanwhile, advertising on podcasts, billboards, TV, radio, and websites – it’s literally everywhere — tells you that this is fun, and you don’t even need to know what you’re doing, and you’re probably one bet away from winning back those losses.Where does Luck Be a Landlord come into this?So, are there gambling themes in Luck Be A Landlord? The game’s slot machine is represented in simple pixel art. You pay one coin to use it, and among the more traditional slot machine symbols are silly ones like a snail that only pays out after 4 spins.When I started playing it, my primary emotion wasn’t necessarily elation at winning coins — it was stress and disbelief when, in the third round of the game, the landlord increased my rent by 100%. What the hell.I don’t doubt that getting better at it would produce dopamine thrills akin to gambling — or playing any video game. But it’s supposed to be difficult, because that’s the joke. If you beat the game you unlock more difficulty modes where, as you keep paying rent, your landlord gets furious, and starts throwing made-up rules at you: previously rare symbols will give you less of a payout, and the very mechanics of the slot machine change.It’s a manifestation of the golden rule of casinos, and all of capitalism writ large: the odds are stacked against you. The house always wins. There is luck involved, to be sure, but because Luck Be A Landlord is a deck-builder, knowing the different ways you can design your slot machine to maximize payouts is a skill! You have some influence over it, unlike a real slot machine. The synergies that I’ve seen high-level players create are completely nuts, and obviously based on a deep understanding of the strategies the game allows.IMAGE: TrampolineTales via PolygonBalatro and Luck Be a Landlord both distance themselves from casino gambling again in the way they treat money. In Landlord, the money you earn is gold coins, not any currency we recognize. And the payouts aren’t actually that big. By the end of the core game, the rent money you’re struggling and scraping to earn… is 777 coins. In the post-game endless mode, payouts can get massive. But the thing is, to get this far, you can’t rely on chance. You have to be very good at Luck Be a Landlord.And in Balatro, the numbers that get big are your points. The actual dollar payments in a round of Balatro are small. These aren’t games about earning wads and wads of cash. So, do these count as “gambling themes”?We’ll come back to that question later. First, I want to talk about a closer analog to what we colloquially consider gambling: loot boxes and gacha games.Random rewards: from Overwatch to the rise of gachaRecently, I did something that I haven’t done in a really long time: I thought about Overwatch. I used to play Overwatch with my friends, and I absolutely made a habit of dropping 20 bucks here or there for a bunch of seasonal loot boxes. This was never a problem behavior for me, but in hindsight, it does sting that over a couple of years, I dropped maybe $150 on cosmetics for a game that now I primarily associate with squandered potential.Loot boxes grew out of free-to-play mobile games, where they’re the primary method of monetization. In something like Overwatch, they functioned as a way to earn additional revenue in an ongoing game, once the player had already dropped 40 bucks to buy it.More often than not, loot boxes are a random selection of skins and other cosmetics, but games like Star Wars: Battlefront 2 were famously criticized for launching with loot crates that essentially made it pay-to-win – if you bought enough of them and got lucky.It’s not unprecedented to associate loot boxes with gambling. A 2021 study published in Addictive Behaviors showed that players who self-reported as problem gamblers also tended to spend more on loot boxes, and another study done in the UK found a similar correlation with young adults.While Overwatch certainly wasn’t the first game to feature cosmetic loot boxes or microtransactions, it’s a reference point for me, and it also got attention worldwide. In 2018, Overwatch was investigated by the Belgian Gaming Commission, which found it “in violation of gambling legislation” alongside FIFA 18 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Belgium’s response was to ban the sale of loot boxes without a gambling license. Having a paid random rewards mechanic in a game is a criminal offense there. But not really. A 2023 study showed that 82% of iPhone games sold on the App Store in Belgium still use random paid monetization, as do around 80% of games that are rated 12+. The ban wasn’t effectively enforced, if at all, and the study recommends that a blanket ban wouldn’t actually be a practical solution anyway.Overwatch was rated T for Teen by the ESRB, and 12 by PEGI. When it first came out, its loot boxes were divisive. Since the mechanic came from F2P mobile games, which are often seen as predatory, people balked at seeing it in a big action game from a multi-million dollar publisher.At the time, the rebuttal was, “Well, at least it’s just cosmetics.” Nobody needs to buy loot boxes to be good at Overwatch.A lot has changed since 2016. Now we have a deeper understanding of how these mechanics are designed to manipulate players, even if they don’t affect gameplay. But also, they’ve been normalized. While there will always be people expressing disappointment when a AAA game has a paid random loot mechanic, it is no longer shocking.And if anything, these mechanics have only become more prevalent, thanks to the growth of gacha games. Gacha is short for “gachapon,” the Japanese capsule machines where you pay to receive one of a selection of random toys. Getty ImagesIn gacha games, players pay — not necessarily real money, but we’ll get to that — for a chance to get something. Maybe it’s a character, or a special weapon, or some gear — it depends on the game. Whatever it is, within that context, it’s desirable — and unlike the cosmetics of Overwatch, gacha pulls often do impact the gameplay.For example, in Infinity Nikki, you can pull for clothing items in these limited-time events. You have a chance to get pieces of a five-star outfit. But you also might pull one of a set of four-star items, or a permanent three-star piece. Of course, if you want all ten pieces of the five-star outfit, you have to do multiple pulls, each costing a handful of limited resources that you can earn in-game or purchase with money.Gacha was a fixture of mobile gaming for a long time, but in recent years, we’ve seen it go AAA, and global. MiHoYo’s Genshin Impact did a lot of that work when it came out worldwide on consoles and PC alongside its mobile release. Genshin and its successors are massive AAA games of a scale that, for your Nintendos and Ubisofts, would necessitate selling a bajillion copies to be a success. And they’re free.Genshin is an action game, whose playstyle changes depending on what character you’re playing — characters you get from gacha pulls, of course. In Zenless Zone Zero, the characters you can pull have different combo patterns, do different kinds of damage, and just feel different to play. And whereas in an early mobile gacha game like Love Nikki Dress UP! Queen the world was rudimentary, its modern descendant Infinity Nikki is, like Genshin, Breath of the Wild-esque. It is a massive open world, with collectibles and physics puzzles, platforming challenges, and a surprisingly involved storyline. Genshin Impact was the subject of an interesting study where researchers asked young adults in Hong Kong to self-report on their gacha spending habits. They found that, like with gambling, players who are not feeling good tend to spend more. “Young adult gacha gamers experiencing greater stress and anxiety tend to spend more on gacha purchases, have more motives for gacha purchases, and participate in more gambling activities,” they wrote. “This group is at a particularly higher risk of becoming problem gamblers.”One thing that is important to note is that Genshin Impact came out in 2020. The study was self-reported, and it was done during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a time when people were experiencing a lot of stress, and also fewer options to relieve that stress. We were all stuck inside gaming.But the fact that stress can make people more likely to spend money on gacha shows that while the gacha model isn’t necessarily harmful to everyone, it is exploitative to everyone. Since I started writing this story, another self-reported study came out in Japan, where 18.8% of people in their 20s say they’ve spent money on gacha rather than on things like food or rent.Following Genshin Impact’s release, MiHoYo put out Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero. All are shiny, big-budget games that are free to play, but dangle the lure of making just one purchase in front of the player. Maybe you could drop five bucks on a handful of in-game currency to get one more pull. Or maybe just this month you’ll get the second tier of rewards on the game’s equivalent of a Battle Pass. The game is free, after all — but haven’t you enjoyed at least ten dollars’ worth of gameplay? Image: HoyoverseI spent most of my December throwing myself into Infinity Nikki. I had been so stressed, and the game was so soothing. I logged in daily to fulfill my daily wishes and earn my XP, diamonds, Threads of Purity, and bling. I accumulated massive amounts of resources. I haven’t spent money on the game. I’m trying not to, and so far, it’s been pretty easy. I’ve been super happy with how much stuff I can get for free, and how much I can do! I actually feel really good about that — which is what I said to my boyfriend, and he replied, “Yeah, that’s the point. That’s how they get you.”And he’s right. Currently, Infinity Nikki players are embroiled in a war with developer Infold, after Infold introduced yet another currency type with deep ties to Nikki’s gacha system. Every one of these gacha games has its own tangled system of overlapping currencies. Some can only be used on gacha pulls. Some can only be used to upgrade items. Many of them can be purchased with human money.Image: InFold Games/Papergames via PolygonAll of this adds up. According to Sensor Towers’ data, Genshin Impact earned over 36 million dollars on mobile alone in a single month of 2024. I don’t know what Dan DiIorio’s peak monthly revenue for Luck Be A Landlord was, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that.A lot of the spending guardrails we see in games like these are actually the result of regulations in other territories, especially China, where gacha has been a big deal for a lot longer. For example, gacha games have a daily limit on loot boxes, with the number clearly displayed, and a system collectively called “pity,” where getting the banner item is guaranteed after a certain number of pulls. Lastly, developers have to be clear about what the odds are. When I log in to spend the Revelation Crystals I’ve spent weeks hoarding in my F2P Infinity Nikki experience, I know that I have a 1.5% chance of pulling a 5-star piece, and that the odds can go up to 6.06%, and that I am guaranteed to get one within 20 pulls, because of the pity system.So, these odds are awful. But it is not as merciless as sitting down at a Vegas slot machine, an experience best described as “oh… that’s it?”There’s not a huge philosophical difference between buying a pack of loot boxes in Overwatch, a pull in Genshin Impact, or even a booster of Pokémon cards. You put in money, you get back randomized stuff that may or may not be what you want. In the dictionary definition, it’s a gamble. But unlike the slot machine, it’s not like you’re trying to win money by doing it, unless you’re selling those Pokémon cards, which is a topic for another time.But since even a game where you don’t get anything, like Balatro or Luck Be A Landlord, can come under fire for promoting gambling to kids, it would seem appropriate for app stores and ratings boards to take a similarly hardline stance with gacha.Instead, all these games are rated T for Teen by the ESRB, and PEGI 12 in the EU.The ESRB ratings for these games note that they contain in-game purchases, including random items. Honkai: Star Rail’s rating specifically calls out a slot machine mechanic, where players spend tokens to win a prize. But other than calling out Honkai’s slot machine, app stores are not slapping Genshin or Nikki with an 18+ rating. Meanwhile, Balatro had a PEGI rating of 18 until a successful appeal in February 2025, and Luck Be a Landlord is still 17+ on Apple’s App Store.Nobody knows what they’re doingWhen I started researching this piece, I felt very strongly that it was absurd that Luck Be A Landlord and Balatro had age ratings this high.I still believe that the way both devs have been treated by ratings boards is bad. Threatening an indie dev with a significant loss of income by pulling their game is bad, not giving them a way to defend themself or help them understand why it’s happening is even worse. It’s an extension of the general way that too-big-to-fail companies like Google treat all their customers.DiIorio told me that while it felt like a human being had at least looked at Luck Be A Landlord to make the determination that it contained gambling themes, the emails he was getting were automatic, and he doesn’t have a contact at Google to ask why this happened or how he can avoid it in the future — an experience that will be familiar to anyone who has ever needed Google support. But what’s changed for me is that I’m not actually sure anymore that games that don’t have gambling should be completely let off the hook for evoking gambling.Exposing teens to simulated gambling without financial stakes could spark an interest in the real thing later on, according to a study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. It’s the same reason you can’t mosey down to the drug store to buy candy cigarettes. Multiple studies were done that showed kids who ate candy cigarettes were more likely to take up smoking (of course, the candy is still available — just without the “cigarette” branding.)So while I still think rating something like Balatro 18+ is nuts, I also think that describing it appropriately might be reasonable. As a game, it’s completely divorced from literally any kind of play you would find in a casino — but I can see the concern that the thrill of flashy numbers and the shiny cards might encourage young players to try their hand at poker in a real casino, where a real house can take their money.Maybe what’s more important than doling out high age ratings is helping people think about how media can affect us. In the same way that, when I was 12 and obsessed with The Matrix, my parents gently made sure that I knew that none of the violence was real and you can’t actually cartwheel through a hail of bullets in real life. Thanks, mom and dad!But that’s an answer that’s a lot more abstract and difficult to implement than a big red 18+ banner. When it comes to gacha, I think we’re even less equipped to talk about these game mechanics, and I’m certain they’re not being age-rated appropriately. On the one hand, like I said earlier, gacha exploits the player’s desire for stuff that they are heavily manipulated to buy with real money. On the other hand, I think it’s worth acknowledging that there is a difference between gacha and casino gambling.Problem gamblers aren’t satisfied by winning — the thing they’re addicted to is playing, and the risk that comes with it. In gacha games, players do report satisfaction when they achieve the prize they set out to get. And yes, in the game’s next season, the developer will be dangling a shiny new prize in front of them with the goal of starting the cycle over. But I think it’s fair to make the distinction, while still being highly critical of the model.And right now, there is close to no incentive for app stores to crack down on gacha in any way. They get a cut of in-app purchases. Back in 2023, miHoYo tried a couple of times to set up payment systems that circumvented Apple’s 30% cut of in-app spending. Both times, it was thwarted by Apple, whose App Store generated $1.1 trillion in developer billings and sales in 2022.According to Apple itself, 90% of that money did not include any commission to Apple. Fortunately for Apple, ten percent of a trillion dollars is still one hundred billion dollars, which I would also like to have in my bank account. Apple has zero reason to curb spending on games that have been earning millions of dollars every month for years.And despite the popularity of Luck Be A Landlord and Balatro’s massive App Store success, these games will never be as lucrative. They’re one-time purchases, and they don’t have microtransactions. To add insult to injury, like most popular games, Luck Be A Landlord has a lot of clones. And from what I can tell, it doesn’t look like any of them have been made to indicate that their games contain the dreaded “gambling themes” that Google was so worried about in Landlord.In particular, a game called SpinCraft: Roguelike from Sneaky Panda Games raised $6 million in seed funding for “inventing the Luck-Puzzler genre,” which it introduced in 2022, while Luck Be A Landlord went into early access in 2021.It’s free-to-play, has ads and in-app purchases, looks like Fisher Price made a slot machine, and it’s rated E for everyone, with no mention of gambling imagery in its rating. I reached out to the developers to ask if they had also been contacted by the Play Store to disclose that their game has gambling themes, but I haven’t heard back.Borrowing mechanics in games is as old as time, and it’s something I in no way want to imply shouldn’t happen because copyright is the killer of invention — but I think we can all agree that the system is broken.There is no consistency in how games with random chance are treated. We still do not know how to talk about gambling, or gambling themes, and at the end of the day, the results of this are the same: the house always wins.See More:

Facing huge fines, Apple on Monday began a legal challenge to the European Commission’s “unreasonable” demand that it open up its platforms to rivals, arguing any such move threatens the foundations of its platforms with a costly process that also undercuts its ability to serve customers. The company is, in a word, furious. It argued that it has cooperated with the Commission’s demands under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and points to the investments it has already made in complying with that act. What Apple said “At Apple, we design our technology to work seamlessly together, so it can deliver the unique experience our users love and expect from our products,” the company said in a statement. “The EU’s interoperability requirements threaten that foundation, while creating a process that is unreasonable, costly, and stifles innovation. These requirements will also hand data-hungry companies’ sensitive information, which poses massive privacy and security risks to our EU users.” The company also noted that there is a real risk that people’s most sensitive information could be accessed, partially because it becomes so much harder to defend. These attempts are already taking place, Apple said. “Companies have already requested our users’ most sensitive data — from the content of their notifications to a full history of every stored Wi-Fi network on their device — giving them the ability to access personal information that even Apple doesn’t see. In the end, these deeply flawed rules that only target Apple — and no other company will severely limit our ability to deliver innovative products and features to Europe, leading to an inferior user experience for our European customers. We are appealing these decisions on their behalf, and in order to preserve the high-quality experience our European customers expect.” A one-sided approach What seems to really upset Apple is that some aspects of the demands mean the company will effectively be forced to hand its innovations out to businesses with which it is in direct competition — at no charge. That means Apple does not get to draw the full benefits of its work and makes it far more difficult to introduce products in Europe. What makes matters worse is that while Apple is being forced to open up in ways that advantage competitors, quite literally at its expense, it is not being given the opportunity to do the same back. Apple is the only company that these demands have been made of, meaning it is being forced to give its intellectual property away to others who do not need to play by the same rules. Some data hungry companies are already attempting to exploit the DMA to gain unfettered access to sensitive customer data. All the while, Apple is left alone and isolated in its quest to ensure user privacy consistent with GDPR regulation. It’s attempts to protect privacy are about protecting customers. Compliance? We are compliant While critics will continue to sneer and jeer at the company in their quest to rid the world of the “Apple Tax” only the world’s largest developers actually pay, Apple would argue that it has been making serious efforts to comply with the DMA. The company has opened up a portal developers can use to request additional interoperability with hardware and software features inside iPhones and iPads. Apple consistently opens up API access to iPhone, including opening up SMS messaging to RCS, HomeKit features and messaging services support. It has also put in place numerous other enhancements in response to the DMA, and while the warning messages it places when using third-party stores may be stark, this makes them no less true. Europe seems to want customers to use third-party stores with no warning at all that this is what is going on, which seems weird. Malicious regulatory compliance There is a degree to which much of the situation seems to reflect political, rather than economic or moral pressures. The fact that Europe is using Apple as a high profile example, while also refusing to be totally transparent about what it wants before levying any fines, suggests that the Commission is not so much deciding on facts as implementing a political decision using a set of laws that seem designed almost solely to punish one company. That’s the kind of malicious regulatory compliance Apple is furious about — a compliance regime that will now be tested in the courts. Will it make a difference?  Who knows? But the existential battle will decide the future of technology in Europe, and if the market is worth doing business in when compared to the cost of doing so. It will also determine the future of Apple, which will use its considerable resources to find some way to change the nature of the game. One group it seems unlikely to help will be those of Apple’s European customers who are happy and accustomed to the Apple ecosystem, and don’t particularly want to use third-party services, as Apple’s right to offer that “pure Apple” experience seems a likely sacrifice to Europe’s politically-driven zeal. That is, unless cooler heads do curtail the Commission’s attacks. You can follow me on social media! Join me on BlueSky,  LinkedIn, and Mastodon.

Q: My question is how best to set up an Xbox for my kid. I want to know how to control use time and whether I should use my email to set up. – Guillermo from Utah A: You're in luck! Console parental controls have come a long way from the days of hiding NES systems (or their controllers) from unruly kids. Microsoft, in particular, has made it very easy through its Xbox Family Settings app for iOS and Android, which supports Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One systems. Once you've added your kids to your Xbox family group, you'll be able to manage and see reports of their playtime, restrict access to specific content, require parental approval for purchases and sort incoming friend requests. In typical Microsoft fashion, though, setting up Xbox family accounts can be a bit confusing, so let's go over it step by step. Microsoft How to set up an Xbox for your child Turn on your Xbox and sign in with your Microsoft account. Press the Xbox button on your controller, and head to Profile & system > Settings > account > Family settings > Manage family members. Choose Add to family > Add new. Unfortunately, Microsoft requires an email address for new accounts. You can either enter your child's existing email if they have one, or choose the Get a new email option to create an Outlook email address. (This may seem a bit absurd for younger children, so if you don't want to create an email for your 6 year old, you may be better off just physically controlling access to consoles like the old days.) Next, you'll have to verify the addition of a new family group member. You can do so by either choosing This Xbox on the next screen and entering your Microsoft account details, or selecting Their phone/PC to have an email sent to you. In either case, you'll have to consent to the new member. What is a Microsoft child account? In its documentation, Microsoft says "a child account is defined as any Microsoft account that’s affiliated with an adult Microsoft account when the age of the child or teen is less than the age of majority for their country or region." These accounts are broken into "Child" and "Teen" categories, which specify age ranges between eight and 12, and 13 to 17. Microsoft notes there can be differences depending on location, like in South Korea where teen accounts range from 13 to 18. Devindra Hardawar for Engadget Are there any issues with Microsoft child accounts? As useful as the Xbox Family app and child accounts may seem, they can also lead to problems while playing Minecraft, according to comments on Reddit. Reddit user "Microdad_" said they weren't able to gift a game to their child's account, they had to deal with a buggy website to allow them to play Minecraft and after all of that trouble their child still can't play in their realm. User "Electronic_Ocelot825" encountered similar issues, replying, "You are spot on. I go through same [sic] crap and it drives me to the point where I am furious.” Have a tech question you’d like Engadget to answer? As tech reporters, the Engadget staff is always answering questions from readers, friends and family about electronics, software, gaming, big tech policies and more. So we decided to write down our answers. This question came from a coworker from Yahoo, Engadget's corporate parent. If you’ve got a tech-related question you’d like us to answer for you, please email ask@engadget.com.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/ask-engadget-how-do-i-set-up-an-xbox-for-my-kid-110022860.html?src=rss

Key Takeaways AMD’s RX 9060 XT is set to launch on June 5th, 2025 in both 8GB and 16GB versions under the same name, creating confusion and backlash. Reviewers and gamers say 8GB of VRAM isn’t enough for modern gaming, especially at 1440p. AMD’s decision to showcase only the 16GB model in benchmarks raised concerns about transparency. This move mirrors Nvidia’s controversial RTX 4060 Ti rollout, suggesting an industry trend of misleading GPU marketing. It all started with a new GPU announcement. The AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT is set to launch, and on paper, it looks like a solid move. A $349 graphics card with 16GB of VRAM? Not bad. That’s more memory than some RTX 4070 cards. Sounds like AMD might finally be delivering some value again, right?  Well, yes and no.  Because right alongside that 16GB version, AMD is also releasing an 8GB version for $299. Same name, same chip, half the memory. And that’s where the internet lost it.  Déjà Vu: We’ve Seen This Trick Before If this sounds familiar, it’s because Nvidia pulled the same move with the RTX 4060 Ti.  They sold both 8GB and 16GB versions with the same branding, but a $100 price difference. The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB launched in May 2023, and the 16GB variant followed in July.  Source: Nvidia Gamers hated the confusion. Reviewers criticized the 8GB version’s lack of performance, especially in memory-heavy games, and the way Nvidia tried to sweep the difference under the rug.  Performance dipped significantly at 1440p, and stuttering was a problem even in some 1080p titles. The backlash was swift. Tech media slammed Nvidia for deceptive marketing, and buyers were left second-guessing which version they were getting.  We’ve seen this pattern before in Nvidia’s review restrictions around the RTX 5060, where early coverage was shaped by what reviewers were allowed to test – and what they weren’t.  It led to a mess of misinformation, bad value perceptions, and a very clear message: don’t confuse your customers. So naturally, AMD did it too.  It’s like watching two billion-dollar companies playing a game of ‘Who Can Confuse the Customer More.’ It’s not just about the money. It’s about trust, and AMD just dumped a bunch of it off a cliff.  Frank Azor Lights the Fuse on X The backlash started when AMD’s Director of Gaming Marketing, Frank Azor, took to X to defend the 8GB card.  He said that most gamers don’t need more than 8GB of VRAM and that the cheaper card still serves the mainstream crowd just fine.  It’s the same reasoning Nvidia used last year with the RTX 4060 Ti. That didn’t work then, and it isn’t working now.  Because when Steve from Hardware Unboxed sees a bad take like that, you know a flamethrower video is coming. And oh boy, did it come.  Hardware Unboxed Fires Back The backlash against AMD’s 8GB RX 9060 XT took off after a post from Hardware Unboxed on X called out the company’s defense of limited VRAM.  In response to AMD’s claim that most gamers don’t need more than 8GB of memory, Hardware Unboxed accused them of misleading buyers and building weaker products just to hit certain price points. The criticism gained traction fast. Tech YouTuber Vex picked up the story and added fuel to the fire by showing side-by-side gameplay comparisons.  In multiple games, the 8GB RX 9060 XT showed serious performance issues – stuttering, frame drops, and VRAM bottlenecks – while the 16GB version handled the same titles smoothly.  And yet, during the GPU’s official reveal, AMD only showed performance data for the 16GB card. There were no benchmarks for the 8GB version – not a single chart. That omission wasn’t lost on anyone. If AMD truly believed the 8GB model held up under modern gaming loads, they would have shown it. The silence speaks volumes.  Why This Actually Matters You might be thinking: ‘So what? Some games still run fine on 8GB. I only play Valorant.’ Sure. But the problem is bigger than that. Source: AMD Games are getting heavier. Even titles like Cyberpunk 2077, released in 2020, can eat up more than 8GB of VRAM. And with GTA 6 (still) on the horizon, do you really think game developers are going to keep optimizing for 8GB cards in 2025? That’s not how game development works. Developers target the most common setups, yes. But hardware also shapes software.  If everyone’s stuck with 8GB, games will be designed around that limit. That holds back progress for everyone.  It’s like trying to make a movie with a flip phone because some people still own one. Same Name, Different Game Another big issue is how these cards are named and sold.  The RX 9060 XT 16GB and RX 9060 XT 8GB are not clearly labeled as different products. They’re just two versions of the same GPU.  But that extra memory makes a huge difference.  In some games, the 8GB card performs dramatically worse. And yet, unless you know what to look for, you might walk into a store and buy the 8GB version thinking you’re getting the same performance.  You’re not. You’re getting a watered-down version with the same name and a silent asterisk. This isn’t just AMD’s Problem Nvidia started this mess with the 4060 Ti naming confusion. AMD just saw the outrage and decided to walk straight into the same buzzsaw.  It’s hard not to feel like both companies are treating consumers like they’re too dumb to notice. Spoiler: they noticed. And this whole ‘VRAM doesn’t matter’ argument? It’s already been debunked by dozens of reviewers.  If you’re spending over $300 on a graphics card in 2025, it needs to last more than a year or two. 8GB cards are already struggling. Buying one now is like buying a smartphone in 2025 with 64GB of storage. Sure, it works. Until it doesn’t. Steam Data Doesn’t Help AMD’s Case AMD and Nvidia both love to point at the Steam Hardware Survey. They say, ‘See? Most people still play at 1080p.’ And that’s true – for now. Source: Nvidia But what they leave out is that 1440p gaming is growing fast. More gamers are upgrading their setups because 1440p monitors are getting a lot more affordable.  Take the Pixio PXC277 Advanced, for instance – a 27-inch curved 1440p monitor with a 165Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time, all for $219.99. A few years ago, a screen like that would’ve cost you double. Now it’s entry-level. Gamers are ready to step up their experience. The only thing holding them back is GPU hardware that’s still stuck in 2020.  Planned Obsolescence in Disguise Here’s the worst part. Companies know full well that 8GB won’t cut it in 2026.  But they still sell it, knowing many gamers will only find out when it’s too late – when the stutters kick in, the textures disappear, or the next big title becomes unplayable. It’s planned obsolescence disguised as ‘choice.’ And while it’s great to have options at different price points, it should be clear which option is built to last – and which one is built to frustrate.  So, Is AMD Actually Screwed?  Not right now. In fact, they’re playing the game better than they used to.  They’ve learned from past pricing disasters and figured out how to get better launch-day headlines – even if it means faking the MSRP and letting street prices run wild.  But this kind of marketing comes at a cost. If AMD keeps making decisions that prioritize short-term wins over long-term trust, they’ll lose the very crowd that once rooted for them.  We don’t need two Nvidias. We need AMD to be different – to be better.  One Name, Two Very Different Cards The RX 9060 XT 16GB might be a good deal. But it’s being overshadowed by the 8GB version’s drama. And the longer AMD keeps playing games with memory and naming, the more it chips away at its hard-earned goodwill.  This whole mess could’ve been avoided with one simple move: name the 8GB card something else. Call it the RX 9055. Call it Lite or whatever. Just don’t make it look like the same card when it isn’t.  Until then, buyers beware. There’s more going on behind the box art than meets the eye.  Anya Zhukova is an in-house tech and crypto writer at Techreport with 10 years of hands-on experience covering cybersecurity, consumer tech, digital privacy, and blockchain. She’s known for turning complex topics into clear, useful advice that regular people can actually understand and use.  Her work has been featured in top-tier digital publications including MakeUseOf, Online Tech Tips, Help Desk Geek, Switching to Mac, and Make Tech Easier. Whether she’s writing about the latest privacy tools or reviewing a new laptop, her goal is always the same: help readers feel confident and in control of the tech they use every day.  Anya holds a BA in English Philology and Translation from Tula State Pedagogical University and also studied Mass Media and Journalism at Minnesota State University, Mankato. That mix of language, media, and tech has given her a unique lens to look at how technology shapes our daily lives.  Over the years, she’s also taken courses and done research in data privacy, digital security, and ethical writing – skills she uses when tackling sensitive topics like PC hardware, system vulnerabilities, and crypto security.  Anya worked directly with brands like Framework, Insta360, Redmagic, Inmotion, Secretlab, Kodak, and Anker, reviewing their products in real-life scenarios. Her testing process involves real-world use cases – whether it's stress-testing laptops for creative workloads, reviewing the battery performance of mobile gaming phones, or evaluating the long-term ergonomics of furniture designed for hybrid workspaces.  In the world of crypto, Anya covers everything from beginner guides to deep dives into hardware wallets, DeFi protocols, and Web3 tools. She helps readers understand how to use multisig wallets, keep their assets safe, and choose the right platforms for their needs.  Her writing often touches on financial freedom and privacy – two things she strongly believes should be in everyone’s hands. Outside of writing, Anya contributes to editorial style guides focused on privacy and inclusivity, and she mentors newer tech writers on how to build subject matter expertise and write responsibly.  She sticks to high editorial standards, only recommends products she’s personally tested, and always aims to give readers the full picture.  You can find her on LinkedIn, where she shares more about her work and projects.  Key Areas of Expertise: Consumer Tech (laptops, phones, wearables, etc.) Cybersecurity and Digital Privacy PC/PC Hardware Blockchain, Crypto Wallets, and DeFi In-Depth Product Reviews and Buying Guides Whether she’s reviewing a new wallet or benchmarking a PC build, Anya brings curiosity, care, and a strong sense of responsibility to everything she writes. Her mission? To make the digital world a little easier – and safer – for everyone.  View all articles by Anya Zhukova Our editorial process The Tech Report editorial policy is centered on providing helpful, accurate content that offers real value to our readers. We only work with experienced writers who have specific knowledge in the topics they cover, including latest developments in technology, online privacy, cryptocurrencies, software, and more. Our editorial policy ensures that each topic is researched and curated by our in-house editors. We maintain rigorous journalistic standards, and every article is 100% written by real authors.

When Anna Ginsburg opened her talk at OFFF Barcelona with her showreel, it landed like a punch to the heart and gut all at once. Immense, emotional, awesome. That three-word review wasn't just for the reel – it set the tone for a talk that was unflinchingly honest, joyously weird, and brimming with creative intensity. Anna began her career making music videos, which she admitted were a kind of creative scaffolding: "I didn't yet know what I wanted to say about the world, so I used music as a skeleton to hang visuals on." It gave her the freedom to experiment visually and technically with rotoscoping, stop motion and shooting live-action. It was an opportunity to be playful and have fun until she had something pressing to say. Then, Anna began to move into more meaningful territory, blending narrative and aesthetic experimentation. Alongside music videos, she became increasingly drawn to animated documentaries. "It's a powerful and overlooked genre," she explained. "When it's just voice recordings and not video, people are more candid. You're protecting your subject, so they're more honest." Talking genitals and creative liberation: The making of Private Parts A formative moment in Anna's personal and creative life occurred when she saw the artwork 'The Great Wall of Vagina' by Jamie McCartney at the age of 19. It followed an awkward teenage discovery years earlier when, after finally achieving her first orgasm (post-Cruel Intentions viewing), she proudly shared the news with friends and was met with horror. "Boys got high-fived. Girls got shamed." That gap between female pleasure and cultural discomfort became the starting point for Private Parts, her now-famous animated short about masturbation and sexual equality. It began as a personal experiment, sketching vulvas in her studio, imagining what their facial expressions might be. Then, she started interviewing friends about their experiences and animating vulvas to match their voices. When It's Nice That and Channel 4 emailed her looking for submissions for a late-night slot, Anna shared a clip of two vulvas in casual conversation, and they were immediately sold. With a shoestring budget of £2,000 and a five-week deadline, she rallied 11 illustrators to help bring the film to life. "I set up a Dropbox, and talking genitals started flooding in from the four corners of the world while I was sitting in my bedroom at my mum's," she laughed. One standout moment came from an Amsterdam-based designer who created a CGI Rubik's Cube vagina, then took two weeks off work to spray paint 100 versions of it. The result of what started as a passion project is an iconic, hilarious, and touching film that still resonates ten years on. From humour to heartbreak: What Is Beauty The talk shifted gear when Anna began to speak about her younger sister's anorexia. In 2017, during her sister's third hospitalisation, Anna found herself questioning the roots of beauty ideals, particularly in Western culture. Witnessing her sister's pain reframed how she saw her own body. This sparked a deep dive into beauty through the ages, from the Venus of Willendorf, a 28,000-year-old fertility goddess, to the Versace supermodels of the 1990s and the surgically sculpted Kardashians of today. "You realise the pace of the change in beauty ideals," she says. "If you revisit the skeletal female bodies which defined the super skinny era of the 2000s and compare it to the enhanced curves of today, you realise that trying to keep up is not only futile; it's extremely dangerous." She also explored the disturbing trend of dismemberment in advertising – shots taken where the heads are intentionally out of frame – and the impact this has on self-perception. Her response was What Is Beauty, released in 2018 on International Women's Day and her sister's birthday. The short film went viral, amassing over 20 million views. "It was a love letter to her," Anna said. "Because it didn't have English dialogue, it travelled globally. The simplicity made it resonate." And despite its runaway success, it brought her zero income. "Then I made the worst advert for a bank the world has ever seen," she joked. "I made money, but it broke my creative spirit." Enter the Hag: Animation, myth and millennial angst OFFF attendees were also treated to the world-exclusive first look at Hag, Anna's new animated short, three years in the making. It's her most ambitious and most personal project yet. Made with the support of the BFI, awarding National Lottery funding, Has is a 16-minute fantasy set in a surreal version of Peckham. The main character is a childless, single, disillusioned woman with snakes for hair. "I had just broken up with a lockdown boyfriend after struggling with doubts for nearly 2 years,"' she reveals. "The next day, I was at a baby shower surrounded by friends with rings and babies who recoiled at my touch. I was surrounded by flies, and a dog was doing a poo right next to me. I just felt like a hag." Drawing on Greek mythology, Anna reimagines Medusa not as a jealous monster but as a feminist figure of rage, autonomy and misinterpretation. "I didn't know she was a rape victim until I started researching," she told me after the talk. "The story of Athena cursing her out of jealousy is such a tired trope. What if it was solidarity? What if the snakes were power?" In Hag, the character initially fights with her snakes – violently clipping them back in shame and battling with them – but by the end, they align. She embraces her monstrous self. "It's a metaphor for learning to love the parts of yourself you've been told are wrong," Anna said. "That journey is universal." Making the personal political (and funny) Telling a story so autobiographical wasn't easy. "It's exposing," Anna admitted. "My past work dealt with issues in the world. This one is about how I feel in the world." Even her ex-boyfriend plays himself. "Luckily, he's funny and cool about it. Otherwise, it would've been a disaster." She did worry about dramatising the baby shower scene too much. "None of those women were horrible in real life, but for the film, we needed to crank up the emotional tension," she says. "I just wanted to show that societal pressures make women feel monstrous whether they decide to conform or not. This is not a battle between hags and non-hags. These feelings affect us all." Co-writing the script with her dear friend and writer Miranda Latimer really helped. "It felt less exposing as we'd both lived versions of the same thing. Collaboration is liberating and makes me feel safer when being so honest," Anna explains. Sisterhood, generations and the pressure to conform It was very clear from our chat that Anna's younger sisters are a recurring thread throughout her work. "They've helped me understand the world through a Gen Z lens," she said. "Stalking my youngest sister on Instagram was how I noticed the way girls crop their faces or hide behind scribbles. It's dehumanising." That intergenerational awareness fuels many of her ideas. "I definitely wouldn't have made What Is Beauty without Maya. Seeing what she was going through just unlocked something." She's also keenly aware of the gender gap in healthcare. "So many women I know are living with pain, going years without a diagnosis. It's infuriating. If I get asked to work on anything to do with women's health, I'll say yes." Medusa, millennials, and the meaning of self-love One of Hag's most biting commentaries is about millennial self-care culture. "There's a scene in the character's bedroom – it's got a faded Dumbledore poster, self-help books, a flashing 'Namaste' sign. It's a shrine to the broken millennial." She laughs: "Self-love became a commodity. An expensive candle, a jade roller, and an oil burner from Muji. Like, really? That's it?" Her film pokes at the performative of wellness while still holding space for genuine vulnerability. This same self-awareness informs her reflections on generational shifts. "Gen Z is going through the same thing, just with a different flavour. It's all about skincare routines now – 11 steps for a 14-year-old. It's wild." Feminism with fangs (and a sense of humour) Anna's feminism is open, intersectional, and laced with humour. "My mum's a lesbian and a Child Protection lawyer who helped to make rape within marriage illegal in the UK," she shared. "She sometimes jokes that my work is a bit basic. But I'm OK with that – I think there's space for approachable feminism, too." Importantly, she wants to bring everyone into the conversation. "It means so much when men come up to me after talks. I don't want to alienate anyone. These stories are about people, not just women." What's Next? Hag will officially premiere later this year, and it's likely to resonate far and wide. It's raw, mythic, funny and furious – and thoroughly modern. As Anna put it: "I've been experiencing external pressure and internal longing while making this film. So I'm basically becoming a hag while making Hag." As far as metamorphoses go, that's one we'll happily watch unfold.

27 May, 2025 Design, like almost every industry, runs on meetings. But are there too many? And how well do yours work? This article is part of our meetings series, looking at different types of design meetings, and how they could be improved. You can find all the articles here.  When Shopify’s employees came back to work after the Christmas break in 2023, their calendars looked very different. Bosses at the e-commerce company had decided to purge all meetings of more than two people. An estimated 12,000 meetings were removed at a stroke – all meetings were banned on Wednesdays too. “Uninterrupted time is the most precious resource of a craftsperson, and we are giving our people a ‘no judgment zone’ to subtract, reject meetings, and focus on what is most valuable,” Shopify’s chief operating officer Kaz Nejatian said at the time. Later that summer, they were at it again adding a “cost calculator” into employees’ calendar app, putting a dollar value on every meeting, based on who attends, and how long the meeting was. Asana did a similar thing to Shopify in 2022, removing all recurring meetings and asking employees to think carefully about whether they should be added back in. Through meetings becoming shorter, or removed entirely, they apparently saved the average employee 11.5 hours a month, or nearly four weeks across a working year. In The Guardian, one expert asked about the Shopify purge put it succinctly – “Most organisations have too many meetings, and most meetings aren’t good.” And there it is. Design, like most industries, runs on meetings – one-to-ones, company updates, team huddles, client pitches, brainstorms, creative check-ins, and more. In a hybrid or remote work culture, meetings have proliferated – one estimate says meetings jumped 70% during the pandemic. Of all the issues facing the industry, meetings may not seem like the most pressing (and it’s certainly not the most glamorous). But in thinking about day-to-day work, and the things that impact it, I’d suggest that meetings are right up there, both in terms of quantity and quality. “There’s no Mr Meeting coming to fix it for you.” The first thing, if you think your meetings culture could be better, is to take responsibility for it. Gillian Davis, an executive coach and leadership expert who works with many creative businesses, says she hears a lot of complaints about meetings. “People always tell me about these really bad meetings that everyone knows are bad,” she says. “Well, if a meeting isn’t working, put your hand up and say, ‘Hey, maybe we should redesign this meeting.’ There’s no Mr Meeting coming to fix it for you.” The key, Davis says, to an efficient and productive meetings culture, is to be intentional. What’s this meeting for? Who needs to be there? Who really needs to be there? Then you need an agenda to clearly and concisely set out the meeting’s aim, and at the end, you should agree on specific action points that reflect the intention set out in that agenda. “People might think this stuff sounds obvious,” says Stu Tallis, creative director at Taxi Studio who has helped rebuild the way his company runs meetings. “But agencies are fast and furious, and it’s easy for things like this to slip.” And if you put some of this best practice in place, then the idea of a meeting starts to shift. Many design leaders told me that it’s come to be seen as a dirty word in their studio – Tallis even avoids using the m-word altogether. Guanglun Wu, founding partner and chief digital officer at Made by On thinks this is an issue. “Many people are very protective of their focus time,” he says. “But that can lead to this mentality that meeting time is bad, that it’s unproductive. People become afraid of putting them in the calendar, and avoid them at all costs. “But it depends what the aim is. Making time to talk to people and collaborate is important – it’s not wasted.” Badberries’ managing director Natasha Szczerb wrote recently about the tricky balancing act of making time to focus on the clients, and the work, and making time to focus on the business itself. Recognising the tension between the two, Szczerb says, “was crucial to our survival.” And of all the operational decisions to make, and discussions to have, few leaders will feel their hearts fluttering at the thought of going deep on meetings. But take a moment to look at your calendar, and your team’s. How much time are they spending in meetings of one sort or another? And are you confident that time is being spent as efficiently and as effectively as possible? Meetings matter, and good leaders will make sure they are planned and used in the best possible way. And even if you’ve looked at this issue before, what worked for your studio in the past may not work any more. “Companies evolve,” Davis says. “Their rituals and systems evolve. So meetings should evolve too.” Industries in this article What to read next How to run better annual studio meetings 27 May, 2025 Features How to run better meetings 27 May, 2025

College graduates were left speechlessA video that has since gone viral on social media shows students having a QR on their smartphone scanned, only to have an AI read their name out loud — an irritating use of the tech that turned what should've otherwise been a proud moment in their academic career into what commenters likened to using the self-checkout counter at the supermarket.It's especially galling for an institution that charges north of $50,000 a year in tuition alone."So even public event speakers are getting replaced," one Reddit user wrote. As the New York Post points out, Pace University ostensibly performed the stunt for the sake of accuracy. Well ahead of the event, officials directed students to visit a website where they could phonetically spell their names and confirm how they were pronounced."To ensure your name is pronounced correctly, you must register to attend Commencement through Tassel by Wednesday, April 23," reads an FAQ on the university's website.Tassel is a private company that claims to have helped more than 600 schools "deliver the perfect moment for millions of students over 20+ years."The company offers "live ceremony stage-crossing software" designed to streamline convocation events and ensure "accurate pronunciation" of graduate names."With AI and our proprietary multilingual models — powered by a growing database of over 2 million names, phonemes, and linguistic patterns across multiple languages — our platform allows students to hear exactly how their names will be pronounced as they cross the stage," Tassel boasts on its website.If the AI butchers their name even after it was coached by the student, graduates can "submit an audio recording of their name" instead.The software raises some thorny questions about when it's truly appropriate to deploy an AI, particularly concerning jobs that could've easily been taken care of by a human."When I graduated, the person reading out the names had done a run through, just to check they were getting it right," one user wrote in a post on Threads. "It didn't take that long, and was less weird than showing your phone for them to scan."Worst of all, despite all those technical bells and whistles, Tassel reportedly still managed to butcher some names."They told us to write our names phonetically so it's said correctly, and they still said my name wrong, which is forever documented in videos," one user commented on Instagram.The use of AI to read student names has been met with significant blowback from college grads across the country.Student journalists at Northeastern University, which also deployed Tassel, published an op-ed arguing that the institution should "read our names at graduation, it’s the least you can do.""To many students like myself, a small switch from an AI voice bot to a physical person would mean the world," reads the op-ed, penned by student Henry Bova and published in The Huntington News. "A human can reciprocate our sense of joy and can understand the gravity of the moment and the academic rigor that we endured to get to this point.""All the AI voice does is reduce the recognition of our accomplishments as a menial task to push through with brute computations," Bova wrote.An online petition by students at the University of North Georgia called on the university to stop "using an AI speaker for graduation," garnering over 2,000 signatures.The backlash was so fierce in some parts of the country that West Chester University in Pennsylvania ditched the AI altogether, as Axios reported earlier this month.Other onlookers pointed out the irony of AI coming for the jobs of recent college graduates in particular."A whole lifetime of studies and 100k in debt just to have your name announced by the very entity that's going to make your studies useless," one Reddit user joked.However, not everybody was opposed to the use of the tech."I appreciate that everyone had the chance to hear their name pronounced correctly," one Reddit user argued. "Imagine being an international student and worried that someone will butcher your name. I'm ok with the solution the university gave here."Share This Article

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Marvel Rivals has finally released its thrilling Season 2.5 update, packed with a plethora of new content, the most notable of which is the addition of Ultron, the renowned Marvel villain, as a playable Strategist. Ultron delivers unrivaled battlefield presence, with skills such as flight and drone summoning that promise to disrupt team strategy. Along with him, the vivid Hellfire Gala: Arakko map is released, featuring a gorgeous new Convoy-style arena for furious clashes. The update also contains a new season event, Twitch Drops, and new features like as emoji communication, a mood system, and rank incentives. Players who reach Gold 3 will receive the coveted Golden Ultron skin. The patch notes highlight balancing changes for some heroes, with Doctor Strange and Storm receiving upgrades while others, like as Groot and Captain America, receive tweaks to maintain competitive balance. Ultron, on the other hand, steals the show with huge day-one changes that increase his supremacy. Marvel Rivals buffs Ultron’s Ult damage on Season 2.5 release day Marvel Rivals Season 2.5 debuted, with Ultron receiving a major buff to his ultimate ability, Rage of Ultron, on day one. This buff increased the ultimate’s damage output by 33%, from a maximum of 750 to 1000, while lowering its energy demand by 15%, from 4000 to 3400. Ultron’s Ult damage has received a massive buff after the new update. Image by VideoGamer. These adjustments, which were noticed during the early access period, make Ultron’s ultimate more powerful and accessible, allowing him to launch devastating drone barrages that do damage to adversaries or heal friends more frequently. This change establishes Ultron as a powerful force in the game’s meta, increasing his role as a versatile support with offensive abilities. Ultron’s equipment, as shown by leaks and trailers, prioritizes airborne mobility and tactical assistance. His primary attack, the Encephalo-Ray, is a long-range energy beam with six charges that deals burst damage, but his ability to deploy healing drones that passively restore teammates’ health from a distance adds strategic complexity. On the other hand, his health has been nerfed from 275 to 250 as seen in the teasers. Furthermore, you can also use a certain method to cancel Ultron’s reload to keep the action going on the battlefield. The Season 2.5 meta is about to shift, with Ultron’s capacity to fly indefinitely and give persistent healing or damage, making him an important addition, potentially changing competitive strategies as players adjust to his increased presence. Marvel Rivals Platform(s): macOS, PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X Genre(s): Fighting, Shooter Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share

Click to enlarge Housing build-ups in Dhaka. Image: Jeremy Smith 1 of 11 Marina Tabassum Architects’ Bait Ur Rouf Jame Mosque. Image: Jeremy Smith 2 of 11 Marina Tabassum Architects’ Bait Ur Rouf Jame Mosque. Image: Jeremy Smith 3 of 11 Marina Tabassum Architects’ Bait Ur Rouf Jame Mosque. Image: Jeremy Smith 4 of 11 Marina Tabassum Architects’ Bait Ur Rouf Jame Mosque. Image: Jeremy Smith 5 of 11 Old Dhaka and 45,000 people per square kilometre. Image: Jeremy Smith 6 of 11 Buses collage life on the roads. Image: Jeremy Smith 7 of 11 Lattice-work roofing of the informal settlements, viewed from Salauddin Ahmed’s Atelier Robin Architects studio. Image: Jeremy Smith 8 of 11 The colour and vibrancy of Dhaka life. Image: Jeremy Smith 9 of 11 The colour and vibrancy of Dhaka life. Image: Jeremy Smith 10 of 11 The colour and vibrancy of Dhaka life. Image: Jeremy Smith 11 of 11 Architects Jeremy Smith and Murali Bhaskar go looking for water and hard-to-find buildings in what is already one of the world’s most populous mega-cities, Dhaka. Architecture here is rarely properly lost. Even now, as we navigate a way to higher-density living, we tend not to misplace buildings. There’s still the space to eye-spy our most wayward elevations. At worst, we might GPS a tricky driveway or pull out an Andrew Barrie map to pinpoint some retiring architecture. But what happens if you really diamond-up the density. At our country-wide 19-people-per-square-kilometre or even downtown Auckland’s sky-high 2500, you can see what’s coming and cities mostly plan out as planned. Teleport forward though to 45,000-people-per-square-kilometre and cities accelerate lives of their own. Here, anything and everything can be lost in the crowd, even buildings. So, on a 2024 invitation from the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscape and Settlements to share some Unfinished & Far Far Away adventures in “the toughest city in the world”,1 I pack some extra compassing in architect buddy Murali Bhaskar and go architectural orienteering in Dhaka. It’s hot hot; architecture can wait. We start by looking for water. This, after all, is the land of rivers. Following on from Aotearoa in 2017 being the first to give a specific river, Te Awa Tupua, legal rights, Bangladesh in 2019 became the first country to grant all of its some 700 rivers the same legal status that humans have.2 But the count varies. Protections readily miss smaller tributaries and, with all that water pouring out of the Himalayas and delta-ing into the Bay of Bengal, the land is accretional. The colour and vibrancy of Dhaka life. Image:  Jeremy Smith From the million or so starters in a newly independent 1971 Dhaka, today, it is the fourth-most-populated city in the world with somewhere near 25 million people. Whether for disaster relief, economics or just the bright lights, urbanisation draws more than 400,000 new residents annually to the city. Throw in some family time and, with Tokyo and Shanghai shrinking, Dhaka’s population is predicted to be an eyewatering 35 million by 2050 (and outnumbered only by Delhi and, in some books, Mumbai). When every possible place looks inhabited, it’s not just water that can quickly go to ground. Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, who heads the Bengal Institute, has some learned thinkers in tow in trying to keep pace architecturally. Throw in societal and climatic concerns, and questions about how contextualisation might operate at such speed and the inquiry takes global precedence. Kenneth Frampton, Rounaq Jahan, Suha Özkan, Shamsul Wares and, formerly, BV Doshi, sit on the advisory panel and have drawn other such worldly thinkers as Juhani Pallasmaa, David Leatherbarrow and, even, Peter Stutchbury from down our way to come experience an urban existence “symptomatic of the gravest environmental challenges”.3 It’s serious stuff. Ashraf researches “hydraulic flow in which horizontal and vertical movements of water may direct architectural and landscape formations”.4 This ‘form follows water’ mantra isn’t just free planning Le Corbusier’s ‘form follows function’ with some Charles Correa’s ‘form follows climate’ to connect to life outside, it’s a watery warning to the navigations quickly necessitating within our collective future. Ashraf’s timely prompt that “Embankment is a barrier. How can we deconstruct it”5 can be seen in the way we increasingly plan the separation of wet and dry in our cities. Main streets like Queen Street and Cambridge Terrace already run down streams and our remaining water edges risk becoming increasingly marginalised by infrastructure rising with the water. But the steering is different at density and Dhaka’s rapid growth has meant letting go of the controls with which we still understand cities to flow. As Ashraf puts it, “Dhaka builds furiously”. While we dutifully plan buildings as if crawling a length or two at the aquatic centre, architecture in Dhaka must high-dive into a torrent. Its buildings must learn to surface and really start kicking. Anything trying to hold ground risks being swept away. Dhaka has become a river. As if to university-entrance the swimming lesson to densification, we’ve arrived only a few months after an Indian helicopter plucked Bangladesh’s president from a student-led flood of unrest amongst civil rights and corruption demonstrations. We might think of universities as offering time for trying things on but, sink or swim, the students here now run the country. With the parliament dissolved, there’s no chance of us seeing inside Louis Kahn’s 1982 National Assembly Building, which, like many of Dhaka’s institutional buildings, took on something of a freshening in the coup. Remembering our government’s pre-departure, bold-italic travel advisory, we head out to practise avoiding street demonstrations and are rewarded with a fenced-off view of Kahn’s epic, which brought global architectural discourse to post-independent Bangladesh. No such authoritative access issues back at the university, where, amongst the student political murals, we visit Muzharul Islam’s 1953–1956 Fine Arts Institute. Islam introduced modernism to the then East Pakistan6 and, in testament, the school still functions as a school, with its external verandah circulation and louvred ventilating classrooms. The rallying extends to getting around with cars sporting dodgem bumpers. Travelling 10 kilometres takes an hour, a million beeps and some financial socialising out the windows. Public transport may be working hard to keep pace with the kinetic city but it starts at the back of the grid, as the panelwork to the buses visibly collage. Getting to where we want to go takes some effort. An above-ground subway system has been started but not finished and the folk enticingly riding on top of trains typically aren’t off looking for architecture. There’s the three-wheeled rickshaw option, of course: formerly pedalled but, in recent months, souped-up with the allowance of car batteries to the back axle. Even so, manoeuvring further than nearby takes more than any rider is up for. So, as we head out for lunch with architect Marina Tabassum and then beep beep beep out further to her extraordinary Bait Ur Rouf Jame Mosque in Dhaka’s northern expansion, we learn that having everything close helps. Neighbourhoods remain important in megacities. Marina Tabassum Architects’ Bait Ur Rouf Jame Mosque. Image:  Jeremy Smith The mosque deserves the full medley and gently uplifts as all great architecture does, be it for the community or off-the-street visitors like us. Marina Tabassum Architects is, of course, internationally renowned for its architectural stand against globalised buildings that are out of place and context, notably winning an Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2016 and being selected to undertake the 2025 Serpentine Pavilion in London. With the site at 13 degrees to the axis of qibla in Mecca, Tabassum sits the mosque on a five-step plinth with a squared, ventilating brick jali and a circular ceilinged prayer space rotated off centre. In a lesson to building only what you need, the spaces between remain unroofed and the perimeter daylight illumination provides a diminished and equalling light to the prayer space. It needs no explanation: look up and there are constellations in the sky; look outwards and find community; look to the mihrab notching the outside wall and orientate to Mecca. Tabassum’s dive is splashless, for the mosque has self-navigated being enveloped by the city. The entry pond may have gone and the mihrab now reveals buildings rather than fields but the light still shines the way. Four hundred people take prayer several times a day within the inner circle, and the weekend Friday crowd spreads outwards to the borders and plinth. We are two days in at this point and our not-getting-lost-practice is going well. We meet architect Salauddin Ahmed whose Atelier Robin Architects studio and gallery in a former tannery building is so hidden away that it feels both lost and right at home. It’s surrounded by the latticing roofs of informal settlements and, remarkably, feels quiet and yet, genuinely, part of the city. No mean feat in a city, “living”, as Ahmed puts it, “as if this is the last day on earth”. Noise is life in Dhaka; Ahmed’s windows are open and the river is flowing. We talk the same language of architecture understanding existing context and needing to accommodate change in shorter and shorter time frames. Where I say “participate”, Ahmed terms “navigate” and without any sense of overseeing for there is just so much life in Dhaka. We mean the same thing and get there from very different landscapes. The next morning, we go where transport can’t. Old Dhaka’s alleyways require some extra eyes, so Ahmed calls in his friend, photographer Khademul Insan, who has lived this labyrinth. This is the densest part of Dhaka and there’s a lot in the air. “Wear this,” says Ahmed, passing a mask. “Otherwise, you’ll cough for four weeks.” It is deep. There’s so much WiFi that it strands like some kind of underworld sun-shading. Our service provider isn’t expecting this kind of roaming and we have no connection. If our collective Kiwi wayfinding skills might have fluked a way in, we certainly need leading out. As the lanes narrow, the industry broadens into some kind of Mad Max circular economy where everything of anything has value and the fires that keep these people afloat run continuously. Mercifully, it’s not raining or there’d be a different type of river afoot. Fifteen kilometres and all day later, we’ve walked to search for culturally significant mosques, houses, courtyards and schools. Some we locate; others, there’s just no finding. Maybe they are there, maybe they aren’t. Occasionally, there are scripts cautioning against graffiti or carving a name into the stonework at the risk of imprisonment, but there are few clues to any architectural history. In the pinch, buildings jostle to just about every possible place a building might go: on top, under, in front, behind. They infill courtyards, hang over laneways, squeeze into gaps, even penalising what’s left of a football field. Every seat is taken, literally. Whenever we find public space off the street, there are couples dating. There’s a lot of romance in 25 million. Eventually, we exit and finally see a river. I remember the swimming lessons are strictly metaphoric and look but don’t touch. You don’t need to get wet to learn how to swim. As Ahmed guides, and he speaks with Ashraf, Tabassum, Insan and experience to what we must remember in densifying our own cities. “I belong to one of the last generations that truly understand what it means to have neighbours.”7 Context counts no matter the size. Our rivers are not yet streams. REFERENCES 1 Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, ‘Note from the Director General: Land, Water and Settlements’. bengal.institute/about Accessed 29.12.2024. 2 Ashley Westerman, 2019, “Should rivers have same legal rights as humans? A growing number of voices say yes”, National Public Radio. npr.org/2019/08/03/740604142 3 August 2019. 3 Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, ‘Note from the Director General: Land, Water and Settlements’. bengal.institute/about Accessed 29.12.2024. 4 Kazi Khaleed Ashraf, ‘Wet Narratives: Architecture Must Recognise that the Future is Fluid’ in The Mother Tongue of Architecture: Selected writings of Kazi Khaleed Ashraf. ORO Editions and Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscape and Settlements, China: p. 251. 5 Ibid. 6 Adnan Morshed, 2017, ‘Modernism as Postnationalist Politics: Muzharul Islam’s Faculty ofFine Arts (1953–1956)’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2017. 7 Salauddin Ahmed, 2024, “Design must not be a superimposed idea, but a logical one”, The Daily Star, Dhaka, 25 December 2024.