It's one thing to have the skills and motivation to break into the industry, but how do you move from learning and personal projects to building a real career? To help you kickstart or expand your search, here are some global internships for artists and developers that are currently accepting applications. Take a look, there might be something for you.Teamfight TacticsRiot GamesWould you like to get an inside look at Riot Games? They offer an annual Remote US Summer Internship program, which lasts 10-12 weeks. During this internship, you'll collaborate on Riot projects with teams across the company. The program also includes a week at their global headquarters in Los Angeles.The internship applications open in September, and opportunities will be posted from September to November, organized by discipline. However, some of their global offices provide internships year-round, with varying durations depending on the role. These positions are posted on their jobs board on a rolling basis and may be available in locations like Barcelona, Dublin, Istanbul, Mexico City, Paris, Reading, and São Paulo, so keep an eye out.At the moment, Riot Singapore is looking for a Motion Graphics Artist Trainee on the Teamfight Tactics team.In this role, you'll create motion graphics that enhance the overall game experience and increase player engagement with Teamfight Tactics cosmetic content. You'll then bring your creative ideas to life within the game engine, ensuring a balance of aesthetics, functionality, and performance to deliver outstanding results.Requirements:1-2 years of professional experience as a Motion Graphics Artist/Designer in the UI space for games or apps.Portfolio demonstrating proficiency in motion graphics fundamentals, including easing, pacing, timing, composition, and legibility.Portfolio showcasing experience creating motion graphics for real-time UI, such as celebrations/ceremonies, design systems, notifications, HUDs, interactive states, and screen transitions.Experience using the Adobe Creative Suite, including After Effects, along with industry-standard plugins (e.g., VFX particle plug-ins, Trapcode Suite, X-Particles).Understanding of mobile development limitations, best practices, and how to adapt executions across different form factors.Clair Obscur: Expedition 33Epic GamesEpic Games is currently offering a Physics Programmer Intern position, an exciting opportunity to join the core physics team behind Unreal Engine. In this role, you'll build tests and debug the physics interface, investigate and resolve engine-related bugs, and collaborate with team members to maintain and improve existing systems.Requirements:Degree work in CS or related fields.Strong C++ skills.Excellent math and/or physics skills preferred.An analytical mind with strong problem-solving skills.Demonstrated interest in games.Experience with multiple core system tasks, such as graphics, tools, audio/video, networking, memory handling, script compilers, I/O, etc.Examples of projects in gaming or game engine technology are a plus.GameloftGameloft Brisbane, part of the global Gameloft family, is looking for a Game Artist Intern to help create and improve visual assets, environments, and character designs. You'll work closely with the design directors and senior artists to bring the game's art to life while gaining practical experience in concept art, asset creation, and polishing in-game visuals.This is a full-time internship that will last for six months.Requirements:A strong portfolio showcasing your artistic skills, creativity, and understanding of game art styles.Completed or currently pursuing a degree in Game Art, Illustration, 3D Art, or a related field.A strong passion for game art, with a keen eye for detail and composition.Familiarity with industry-standard art tools such as Photoshop, Blender, Maya, or Substance 3D Painter.Basic knowledge of game engines (preferably Unreal Engine or Unity).Strong creative and problem-solving abilities.Ability to work well within a team and effectively communicate artistic ideas.Carmen SandiegoGarenaGarena, a game developer and publisher based in Singapore, is looking for a Game Developer Intern. You'll help build and implement game features, fix bugs, and ensure smooth gameplay. The role also involves testing, gathering feedback, and suggesting improvements based on your findings.Requirements:Proficiency in game development tools and platforms such as Unity, Unreal Engine, or other relevant engines.Programming skills in relevant languages such as C#, C++, Python, etc.Basic understanding of game design principles, mechanics, and user experience.Strong communication skills to collaborate effectively with team members and staff.Time management and organizational skills to meet weekly deliverables and deadlines.Experience in game development (academic projects, personal projects, or professional experience) is a plus.VirtuosVirtuos Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian branch of Virtuos video game development company, is offering two internship opportunities: one for a Game Designer Intern and another for a Game Programmer Intern.As a Game Designer Intern, you'll quickly learn the current project's design and workflow, complete assigned tasks to a professional standard, and help document key design decisions. You'll collaborate across departments, respond to feedback, and focus on creating fun, player-focused content while continuously learning and growing in game development.Requirements:Open to Game or Level Design students who are preferably in their final semester of university with a requirement to undergo industrial training.Good communication skills in English and ability to work in an English-speaking working environment.Good problem-solving resilience.An innovative force in the profession.Passionate about games and game development.This position is open to Malaysians only. As a Game Programmer Intern, you'll design, implement, test, and debug code and write technical documentation. You'll also help develop tools and features, research and analyze project needs, optimize performance, and explore new algorithms and techniques.Requirements:Basic knowledge of C++ language.Any experience in Unreal Engine 4 or Unreal Engine 5.Good communication skills in English and ability to work in an English-speaking working environment.Good problem-solving resilience.An innovative force in the profession.Passionate about games and game development.This position is open to Malaysians only. OddsparksHandyGamesHandyGames, a German video game developer and publisher, is seeking a Game Artist Intern to support their ongoing in-house project, a story-driven, science fiction game with a strong emphasis on combat. As an intern, you'll collaborate closely with their team of artists, designers, and software engineers to help bring the game's vision to life.Requirements:You have strong illustration skills in the areas of game art, digital art, and concept art.You have a particularly good feel for architecture, colors, light, and form.You can adapt to different illustration styles with ease and show great talent, especially in the stylized area.The design of visual concepts through to the final 2D and 3D game assets is no obstacle for you.Ideally, you are already familiar with 3D modeling software such as Maya, 3D Studio Max, or Blender and the Physically Based Rendering (PBR) workflow.Perhaps you already have hands-on experience creating effects and animations with the Unity game engine.Knowledge in other graphic and technical areas is a plus.Your self-motivation is convincing, and you have a strong sense of responsibility and a clean and team-oriented way of working.You're passionate about video gamesYou have an excellent command of written and spoken English.FuncomAt Funcom, a video game developer and publisher specializing in online games, several internships are available across various locations: Animator Intern, VFX Artist Intern, Environment Artist Intern, Lighting Artist Intern, and Technical Animator Intern.Animator Intern Requirements (Lisbon, Portugal):Familiar with MotionBuilder or Maya.Demonstrates fundamentals of animation.Team-driven, able to share and receive feedback.Has a desire to learn from the team.Ability to communicate easily outside of the team with designers or programmers.Ability to adapt to new technologies and technical challenges.VFX Artist Intern Requirements (Bucharest, Romania):A strong willingness to learn and a desire to improve your skills in VFX Art.Basic understanding of 3D art fundamentals, including effects, particles, textures, lighting, materials, and technical limitations in game development.Knowledge of Houdini and/or EmberGen, Photoshop, 3ds Max, After Effects, or other 3D software, with an eagerness to expand your expertise.Strong communication and collaboration skills.Ability to work efficiently within deadlines.Creativity and artistic vision.Bachelor's degree in a related field or currently pursuing a Master's degree.Environment Artist Intern Requirements (Bucharest, Romania):A strong willingness to learn and a desire to continuously improve your skills in Environment Art.Basic understanding of 3D art fundamentals, including modeling, materials, textures, lighting, modularity, technical constraints, and game limitations.Familiarity with 3D software such as Blender, 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya, Substance 3D suite, Terrain Generation tools, or similar, with a keen eagerness to expand your expertise.Strong communication and collaboration skills.Ability to work efficiently within deadlines.Creativity and artistic vision.Bachelor's degree in a related field or currently pursuing a Master's degree.Lighting Artist Intern Requirements (Lisbon, Portugal):A strong eye for light, color, and composition.Basic experience with a game engine (Unreal Engine preferred).Portfolio demonstrating lighting in 3D scenes (real-time or offline renders).Eagerness to learn, take feedback, and grow in a collaborative team environment.Current student or a recent graduate in game art, VFX, CG, or a related field.Technical Animator Intern Requirements (Lisbon, Portugal):Familiar with Maya, MotionBuilder, or equivalent animation software.Experience with skinning and rigging, either characters or assets.Team-driven, able to share and take work.Has a willingness to learn information from peers and receive feedback.To be able to talk with animators, programmers, and designers.Able to adapt to new technologies and technical challenges.Metal: HellsingerVelan StudiosVelan Studios, an independent game developer, is looking for a Technical Artist Intern. They have one serious requirement for the applicants: You must be deeply curious about something and have some evidence of that curiosity.A perfect candidate should demonstrate a pattern of persistent and self-motivated exploration, specifically in shaders, cinematics (pipeline, workflow), lighting and rendering tech (lens flares, light baking, etc.), Environment Tech Art, VFX adjacent things (smoke/fluid simulation, animated shaders, etc.).Outfit7Outfit7, a Slovenian video game developer best known for creating the Talking Tom & Friends app and media franchise, is currently seeking an Animator Intern and a VFX Artist Intern.Animator Intern Requirements:Reel displaying examples of 3D (or 2D) animations.Experience working with game engines (Unity, Unreal, etc.) is a plus.Passion for gaming and experience working within a team is a plus.Experience working on game projects (personal, demos, game jams) is a plus.Experience in other art fields, such as 3D modeling and rigging, 2D is a plus.Valid student status.VFX Artist Intern Requirements:Portfolio or reel with examples of real-time VFX.Experience working on game projects (personal, demos, game jams) is a plus.Experience in 2D or 3D animation is a plus.Valid student status.CGMABonusIf you're looking to further develop your skills with expert guidance, consider exploring these courses that can support your progress and help you build a strong portfolio.CG Master Academy offers free portfolio reviews to help you enroll in courses that match your current skill level while also challenging you in areas that need improvement, supporting you in reaching your goals. Below are some of their courses that may be of interest to you:At CG Spectrum, you'll find many industry-focused courses in animation, VFX, digital art, game development, 3D visualization, and virtual filmmaking. Choose from beginner-friendly programs with hands-on projects and mentorship or advanced courses designed to help you master a specific area and build a portfolio that showcases your expertise and prepares you for the job market.CalArts offers continuing education arts courses designed to meet the needs of both emerging artists and lifelong learners. We've gathered a few options for you here:Think Tank Training Centre also has several programs for artists with prior experience, helping them build strong portfolios and prepare for careers in the creative industry:We're here to support artists by frequently sharing job opportunities, so keep an eye on our site and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

May 23, 20255 min readThe Creepy Calculus of Measuring Death RiskMeet micromorts and microlives, statistical units that help mathematicians to calculate riskBy Manon Bischoff edited by Daisy Yuhas M-SUR/Alamy Stock PhotoPeople are generally bad at assessing probabilities. That’s why we have irrational fears and why we overestimate our odds of winning the lottery.Whenever I have to travel by plane, for example, my palms sweat, my heart races and my thoughts take a gloomy turn. I should be much more worried when I get on my bike in Darmstadt, Germany, where I live. Statistically, I’m in much greater danger on the road than in the air. Yet my bike commute doesn’t cause me any stress at all.Recently, a friend told me about a concept within decision theory that is supposed to help people get a better sense of hazards and risks. In 1980 electrical engineer Ronald Arthur Howard coined the micromort unit to quantify life-threatening danger.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.One micromort corresponds to a one-in-a-million chance of dying during a certain activity. Do you want to run a marathon? The risk is seven micromorts. Are you going under general anesthesia? That’s 10 micromorts. To arrive at these figures, you first need detailed statistics. How many people engaged in these activities and died in the process? And the results depend heavily on the group of people being studied (their age, gender, and so on), as well as the geographic location.Better Living through StatisticsSurprisingly, the history of statistics doesn’t go back very far. In the 17th century, British demographer John Graunt pioneered mortality statistics by analyzing records of deaths and baptisms. But it would take another 200 years for society to recognize the social benefits of these approaches.Today the utility of this mathematical subfield is undisputed. Insurance companies and banks use statistics to carry out risk assessments. Statistical surveys make it possible to investigate psychological and sociological phenomena. Physical research would be unthinkable without statistics.Thanks to Howard and the micromort, the risks in our everyday lives can also be estimated with the help of statistics. By examining the proportion of people who die while undertaking a particular activity, he was able to create a general mortality risk for those activities.But more recently, mathematician David Spiegelhalter noticed something missing in Howard’s analysis: the micromort unit merely indicates how likely it is that a very specific action will kill us. This may make sense for a one-off activity such as climbing a mountain. But for long-term habits, such as regularly eating fast food, the measure is of only limited use.For example, smoking a cigarette causes just 0.21 micromort and would therefore be significantly less risky than getting out of bed in the morning at the age of 45 (which results in six micromorts). Smoking, however, has long-lasting negative consequences for the body that getting up in the morning does not. The long-term risk is therefore not recorded.So Spiegelhalter introduced the “microlife” measure to take into account the long-term effects of different activities. This quantifies how much life you lose on average by carrying out an activity. Each microlife that is lost reduces your life expectancy by half an hour. Two hours of watching TV each day might cost one microlife, for instance.One of the most significant differences between micromorts and microlives is that one of the two types of units compounds over time, and the other does not. If I survive my morning bike ride to the Darmstadt train station, my micromort count for that ride drops back to zero. The next day I start the journey again with the same risk.It’s different with microlife data: if I smoke a cigarette and then a second one an hour later, the time I’ve lost adds up. And of course, the mere ticking of the clock also shortens my available years of life. Every day 48 microlives are lost.But unlike micromorts, I can regain microlives. For example, a 20-minute walk provides me with around two microlives—that is, an extra hour of life expectancy. And eating a healthy diet with fruits and vegetables could gain you four microlives daily.Reality CheckAll these facts and figures are entertaining to read about and can make for interesting conversation starters—“Hey, did you know that this beer shortens your life by about 15 minutes?”—at least with the right crowd. But how do you calculate the microlives you lose as a result of an action?First, you have to compare the life expectancy of different people. For example: How does the life expectancy of smokers and nonsmokers differ? By taking this difference and dividing it by the average number of cigarettes smoked, we can calculate the average amount of time that each cigarette robs us of.This result is clearly inexact. The difference in life expectancy will also depend on factors such as a person’s gender, place of residence and age. These data can still be captured, but when it comes to general lifestyle factors, things get complicated. For example, studies show that many smokers generally have an unhealthier lifestyle and exercise less.Such correlations cannot always be calculated and accounted for. When it comes to smoking, however, there have been long-term studies that followed many people, some of whom stopped smoking at some point in their life, over several decades.These data make it easier to isolate the effect that smoking has on a person’s life expectancy. Such research suggests that a single cigarette is likely to rob a person of slightly less than the originally calculated 15 minutes of life if they have the other lifestyle habits of a nonsmoker. So should we be consulting statistics at the start of every day to maximize our lifespan? Perhaps we should be studying these analyses to engage in activities with as few micromorts as possible and try to gain, rather than lose, microlives?Not exactly. Micromorts and microlives can help you better assess risks. But you shouldn’t attach too much importance to them. After all, our world is complex. You may gain back two microlives during a walk, but you could also get in an unlucky accident along the way and be hit by a car. Ultimately, micromorts and microlives are just too simple a tool to evaluate the full range of consequences associated with an action. Exercise can improve your state of mind, which has a positive effect not only on your quality of life but also on your lifespan.That said, it can still be a source of comfort to turn to statistics—particularly when we want to understand if our fear is rational or not. For my part, I will try to remind myself of how few micromorts are associated with flying. Maybe that will help.This article originally appeared in Spektrum der Wissenschaft and was reproduced with permission.

Mount Holly, Blue PrinceThis year’s surprise hit Blue Prince is a proper video game wonder. It’s an architectural puzzler in which you explore a transforming mansion left to you by an eccentric relative. The place is filled with secrets, and whenever you reach a door you get to pick the room on the other side from a handful of options. The whole game is a rumination on houses and how we live in them. Nostalgic and melancholic, it feels designed to make us look harder at what surrounds us.The Edison mansion, Maniac Mansion Photograph: Lucasfilm GamesThis Addams’-style Queen Anne with clapboard facades and dark windows is a classic haunted house, reportedly inspired by the Skywalker Ranch. The great twist of this early LucasArts adventure is that all kinds of spooky things are happening, but the fiends and monsters you meet are often surprisingly charming – the odd hamster-in-a-microwave incident aside. Maybe not a great place to live, but these guys would make memorable neighbours.Spencer mansion, Resident Evil Photograph: CapcomNestled amid the foreboding Arklay mountains outside Raccoon City, the Spencer mansion is what would have happened if the murderer from the Saw movies had become an architect. This vast country pile in the Second Empire style is lusciously adorned with oil paintings, antique furniture and hidden rooms. However, any potential buyers should know it’s essentially a vast trap, filled with puzzles and monsters, designed to kill anyone wanting to investigate the massive bio-research facility beneath it.Finch house, What Remains of Edith Finch Photograph: Giant SparrowBased on Goose Creek Tower in Alaska, Finch house is a monument to the doomed family who once lived there, which explains why the bedrooms are sealed off like museum exhibits. Floors are piled up haphazardly and navigating the interior can feel like moving through the transformations of a pop-up book. Living here would be fascinating, but you’d need good joints, what with all the stairs. On the plus side, the bookcases are filled with works such as Gravity’s Rainbow, Slaughterhouse-Five and House of Leaves, so you’d get to catch up on your postmodernist reading.The mansion, Jet Set Willy Photograph: YouTubeOne of the great video-game homes, this strange mansion is left in disarray after an almighty booze-up. The rooms feel very much like a lurid hangover, incorporating stomping boots, chomping toilet seats and at one point, an entire tree. What makes this classic platformer so haunting is the juxtaposition of domesticity and surreal horror. The bedroom is out of bounds and the refrigerator threatens to extend for miles. Oh, and there’s an entrance to Hades on the floorplan.Island cottage, Animal Crossing: New Horizons Photograph: NintendoNintendo’s dreamy deconstruction of capitalism is so close to being a doll’s house for adults that it makes sense that you get your own home to decorate. Beyond choosing the wallpaper and adding just the right indoor plants, you also have an option to fill the air with recordings of music performed by a local dog. This sounds childlike, but the compulsion to refine layouts feels like a very middle-aged kind of obsession, and in one of many brutal lunges at realism, you don’t even get to enter your house without first being handcuffed to a gigantic mortgage.Snowpeak ruins, Zelda: Twilight Princess Photograph: NintendoWhat’s your favourite Zelda dungeon? Allow us to make the case for Snowpeak ruins, from the slightly under-loved Twilight Princess. There have been better puzzles in Zelda, and better rewards for beating a boss, but this cosy getaway high in the mountains is easily the most warmly domestic space in the entire series. It’s not just down to the warmth radiating from the many hearths or the juxtaposition to the icy chill outside. It’s the presence of two gentle Yetis, wandering around despite your dramatic arrival, tending to bubbling pots of stew.Croft Manor, Tomb Raider Photograph: Square EnixLara Croft’s country house may have started as a place for the games to tuck away a tutorial section, but the Manor quickly evolved into a vital part of the series’ appeal. Croft isn’t just gymnastic and deadly, she’s absolutely minted. Her house is filled with the strangely proportioned rooms you often got when PS1 games ventured indoors, and there’s often a hedge maze alongside a gymnasium. Croft has a room just for her harpsichord! And she has a butler who’s happy to wearily plod along behind her and endure an eternity locked in the freezer.Luigi’s Mansion Photograph: NintendoLuigi’s Mansion was the first game to give either one of Nintendo’s plumbers much in the way of a personality. It’s tempting to argue that’s because Luigi’s thrown in among ordinary domestic clutter here, rather than being let loose to jump and dance through worlds of colourful whimsy. The mansion in question may be filled with ghosts, but it’s also filled with bookshelves, hallway carpeting, light fixtures and a decent-sized kitchen. It’s the perfect place for the ever-roving Marioverse to settle down for a moment and offer a sustained depiction of a single place.The lighthouse, Beyond Good and Evil Photograph: MobygamesJade is a photojournalist rather than a soldier, exploring a fantasy world that’s based on Europe rather than the US or Japan. No wonder, then, that instead of a mansion or hi-tech HQ, she gets to live in a lighthouse on the misty shores of a quiet water world. The lighthouse doubles as a refuge and orphanage, and it’s a delight to spot the little details the designers have included, whether it’s the chummy mess in the living spaces, or the crayon drawings on the woodwork.Botany Manor Photograph: Whitethorn GamesPlayers are drawn to Botany Manor by the puzzles, which revolve around uncovering the conditions required to allow a series of flowers to grow and thrive. But the space itself is arguably the thing that draws everyone back until the game is complete. Here is a version of early 20th-century English elegance pitched somewhere between the worlds of Jeeves and Flora Poste. The colours and sense of expectant stillness, meanwhile, could come from a piece of Clarice Cliff Bizarre Ware pottery.The Carnovasch Estate, Phantasmagoria Photograph: SierraWhen novelist Adrienne Delaney moves into this remote New England property seeking inspiration, she loves the giant fireplaces, labyrinthine corridors and authentic gothic chapel but isn’t so keen on the presence of a wife-murdering demon intent on decapitating, stabbing or squashing residents to death. Heavily inspired by The Shining and the works of Edgar Allen Poe, adventure designer Roberta Williams built this mansion to be the ultimate gore-splattered horror house. Viewing recommended.

This is the eighth blog in our Games Focus series, which highlights key product development initiatives for the year ahead and beyond. In this installment, we cover the status, upcoming release plans, and future vision for Unity Multiplayer Networking.Hi there, my name’s Kiki Saintonge and I’m a product manager on the multiplayer team – the one focused on delivering Unity’s Netcode for GameObjects solution.I’ve been at Unity for about a year, but I’ve been a hobbyist and indie Unity developer since 2013. My passion lies in games, particularly playing the inspiring things y’all make. I’m pretty excited to chat about our multiplayer solutions in this post today, especially since so many of you have voiced the need and desire to have a more complete and accessible solution to multiplayer development. We’re closer than you think.Let’s be honest: Making multiplayer games can be really hard, from designing the mechanics to implementing and testing. You have to account for so much – latency, packet loss, handling scene management, what should or shouldn’t be sent over the network – much of which is difficult to track or simulate. Even our third-party networking solutions need third- (fourth?) party tools just to see what the heck is going on.Building a complete networking system for your game should be just like the game itself: unique and refined to fit your game’s experience.With that in mind, we wanted to build a netcode solution that’s flexible enough to accommodate every core aspect of your multiplayer game, while also making it easier for you to use third-party tools or services if you need to. This is the fundamental goal of our netcode solutions.It’s also important to keep in mind that with multiplayer development comes services and scale, two things you might not have thought about in the context of single player or co-op. Unity Gaming Services is our recently launched platform that includes Game Server Hosting (Multiplay), Matchmaker, Relay, and Lobby services. It was designed to give you all the tools you need to build solid foundations, create engaging player experiences, and drive game growth, all within the same integrated ecosystem.We announced some amazing netcode solution releases this year. Our first major release of Netcode for GameObjects is now available in 2020 and 2021 LTS.This GameObject-based Netcode solution helps you get started building small-scale co-op multiplayer games. However, if you’ve built your experience using DOTS (Entities), we’re also pleased to announce our Netcode for Entities solution coming to the 2022 Tech Stream, which helps you get set up for a larger-scale multiplayer experience. Look for our next post in this series to learn more about that release.These stacks cover a wide foundational start to multiplayer development. Together, they make up one step of many to get you on your feet with multiplayer games. These releases also are focused specifically on critical networking scenarios, like abstracting how to communicate to servers and clients, sending object data across the network, and input handling.This release also supports some essential tools that allow you to track the packet loss, size, and latency of networked objects. Network Profiler is an extension to the Profiler that’s built into the Editor, and Runtime Network Stats Monitor(RNSM) is a customizable lighter-weight “Profiler” view of the network states that can be run on standalone builds for playtests.You can install these tools through our com.unity.multiplayer.tools package in-Editor.All of our Netcode stacks – yes, that includes Entities – are built on top of our Transport layer. This layer is netcode-agnostic and can be utilized with any solution.Unity Transport Protocol (or UTP) extends the user datagram protocol with added support for Unity Relay and extra security using DTLS. This layer works across Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and all major consoles.We also provide some light network simulation capabilities through our transport package’s Debug Simulator properties. This allows you to throttle or simulate latency or bandwidth issues when testing in-Editor.If you’re looking to get direct access to this lower-level networking library you can install it directly via the com.unity.transportpackage.Although Netcode for GameObjects is relatively new, there are already games being built with it.The wonderful team over at Fika Productions with Team17 are working on a beautifully hand-drawn game, Ship of Fools. It’s a fast-paced multiplayer co-op game of nautical persuasion developed completely in Netcode for GameObjects.We’re constantly looking to cover gaps and demystify what’s happening on the network with multiplayer tooling.Multiplayer Play Mode would be a big first step in making multiplayer development a first-class Editor experience.The goal of this multiplayer tool is to “just work” once you enter play mode. It offers the same experience as the single-player workflow, but now you can have up to four clients running within the same Editor session, each receiving its own console information and able to be differentiated with a network-based tagging system.Network Simulator is another feature we’d like to bring up from the Transport layer and expand into a more fully functional tool with a UI that lets you introduce lag spikes, set ping rates, trigger connections/disconnections at will, and even customize certain networking scenarios to run during playtests.We’re looking at getting our Transport package better integrated with Burst, as well as supporting WebSockets.Having a dedicated server is the core to many multiplayer games, and it comes with the need for more fine-grained control of what kind of headless server you’re building.We’ve begun to investigate the dedicated server workflow. This starts with giving you more control and clarity over which assets you want within a server and which you do not. Essentially, you’re selecting the content you want in your server builds, which saves you time and potentially bandwidth in the long run.Want to see the status of these features and more on Netcode for GameObjects?Check out our multiplayer networking roadmap to see what’s included in 1.0 and what’s in the works for future releases. You can also check out our recent Unite 2022 Roadmap session for an overview across the Unity ecosystem.Creating multiplayer games is not easy, and it’s common to feel overwhelmed when exploring the development of a multiplayer game – even with SDK docs provided.It’s our goal to equip and support you with the tools to build great multiplayer gaming experiences for your players. Part of that promise involves providing not only the foundational networking technology but also the documentation and educational templates, such as Boss Room, you’ll need to understand its application.There are many resources available today that you can use to learn more about Unity multiplayer solutions.Boss Roomis a small-scale cooperative game sample project built with Netcode for GameObjects. It’s designed to be used in its entirety to help you explore the concepts and patterns behind a multiplayer game flow.We’re continuing to develop in-house projects as well, to highlight new features and the general capabilities of what you can do with Netcode for GameObjects.Our latest game is Galactic Kittens, a 2D, multiplayer, playable, open source, co-op shooter.To start, check out these blog posts to learn about Unity’s multiplayer suite:Empower great multiplayer experiences with Relay and LobbyEnter the Boss Room: our new multiplayer sample gameState of disruptive behavior in multiplayer gamesChoosing the right netcode for your gamePlus some amazing resources created by our incredible community:COMPLETE Unity Multiplayer Tutorial (Netcode for Game Objects) | CodeMonkeyHow to: Unity Online Multiplayer | TarodevWe hope you’ll stay engaged with our Games Focus series by giving your feedback. Post your questions and comments for this blog in the multiplayer forum or in this dedicated thread.Visit our Productboard for full details on the roadmap. You’ll need to log in with your Unity ID and accept to use functional cookies. Each card on this interactive board is clickable, giving you more details about each topic while providing you with the option to share your feedback. Click on a card, select the level of importance of the topic to you, add your point of view, and submit. This feedback is then directly routed to the proper product teams.Netcode for GameObjects is a capable netcode solution, but if you’re looking to build something much bigger – think galaxies or multi-server MMOs with thousands of players active at once – you’ll want to stay tuned for the release of our next blog in the Game Focus series, which will be all about how to create larger worlds and richer environments.

Sloths once came in a variety of sizes and lived in multiple settings in many parts of the world. A study in the journal Science examined sloth evolution over the past 35 million years, investigated multiple factors driving their growth and expansion throughout the world, and concluded that human hunting starting around 15,000 years ago drove their dramatic decline.Today, only six species within two genera remain. All are relatively small (especially compared to their largest ancestors) tree-dwellers that primarily live in the tropical rainforests of South and Central America.“These species are a tiny remnant of a once diverse American clade that was mostly made up of large-bodied species,” according to an editorial summary that accompanied the paper. Ancient Sloths Were Once WidespreadThat’s a huge contrast to sloth life during the late Cenozoic. During that period, more than 100 genera of sloths lived in a wide range of habitats and a variety of sizes, topping out at nearly 20 feet tall and weighing several tons.To investigate this diversity — and to track where, when, and why it collapsed — a team of scientists examined fossil measurements, DNA and protein sequences, and advanced evolutionary modeling. In doing so, they reconstructed sloth evolutionary history across 67 genera. They then investigated whether evolutionary changes in size were linked to habitat, diet, climate, predation, or other ecological pressures.Habitat Drove Sloth SizeThe findings show that habitat appeared to be a major driver in shaping their body size evolution. The earliest sloths were large and grazed on the ground. Some species adapted to tree dwelling and developed smaller body sizes. However shifts in both sloth size and dwelling didn’t happen in a straight line. The species size grew or shrunk as the climate warmed and cooled, and as ecosystems shifted from grasslands to woodlands.The species thrived for tens of millions of years, exhibiting the most variety in body sizes in the Pleistocene, which began about 2.6 million years ago.Ancient Humans Caused Dramatic DeclineThen, starting about 15,000 years ago, the creature experienced “a sudden and dramatic decline,” according to a press release.The researchers report that decline doesn’t mesh with any major known climate events. "Size disparity increased during the late Cenozoic climatic cooling, but paleoclimatic changes do not explain the rapid extinction of ground sloths that started approximately 15,000 years ago,” according to the paper. However, it does coincide with the expansion of humans into the Americas. The likely conclusion is that human hunting drove the extinction of the larger, ground-based sloths, while the smaller ones related to today’s creatures escaped by taking to the trees.Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in newspapers, but switched to scientific magazines. His work has appeared in publications including Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.If you have a workshop in your house or enjoy doing DIY projects, you probably know that tools were already expensive way before tariffs entered the picture. Anyone who works with tools on a regular basis is generally happy to pay a bit more for something that doesn’t fall apart after a few uses, so defaulting to a major brand that’s still in the low- to mid-budget range like Black and Decker (Stanley Black and Decker also owns the Craftsman and DeWalt brands) always made sense.As predicted, the company just announced higher prices in response to the tariff situation, which means buying tools from Stanley Black and Decker may now be beyond a lot of people’s budgets. If that’s you, it’s time to investigate some of the more affordable tool brands that can still get the job done for you. It’s important to note that almost all the major tool brands manufacture most, if not all, of their tools overseas, and so will be subject to some amount of tariffs—but if you’re starting at a lower price point to begin with, an additional tax in the form of a tariff may not price you out. Here are your best affordable alternatives to Black and Decker tools.BauerIf you buy tools regularly, you know that Harbor Freight is a company known for tools that are often suspiciously cheap. The mystery of Harbor Freight is that sometimes its tools seem to turn into their component atoms right before your eyes the moment you use them, but sometimes its tools are surprisingly robust. Bauer is one of Harbor Freight’s in-house tool brands that gets decent reviews for longevity and usefulness, but Bauer tools are almost always much cheaper than Black and Decker tools and other competing brands. For example, as of this writing I found this 6-amp B&D Hammer Drill for $85, whereas a slightly more powerful one from Bauer is just $45.RidgidRidgid tools are exclusively sold at physical Home Depot stores, though you can buy them online from a variety of places. It’s long been considered a solid mid-tier brand—you’re not passing a Ridgid tool down to your children, maybe, but you’re probably going to get a lot of use out of them, and they’re generally good enough for most jobs. Plus, they’re significantly cheaper than most Stanley Black and Decker brands. Ridgid and Black and Decker tools have generally been in the same price category, but with Stanley Black and Decker raising prices, Ridgid might be a cheaper buy—for now.SkilSkill is the budget-friendly offshoot of the more professional-oriented Skilsaw brand. Most of its tools have solid reputations for quality, but are typically cheaper than Black & Decker tools. A 15-amp, 7-1/4 inch circular saw like this one, for example, goes for about $70, whereas a comparable Black and Decker version was listed for about $80. That’s not a huge difference, but with tariff price increases, you can expect that gap to widen a bit.HartHart is Walmart’s exclusive power tool brand—and as you might imagine, anything sold in Walmart is going to be relatively affordable. You can pick up this cordless 4.5-inch angle grinder for just $50, for example—about half the price of this DeWalt version. One thing to consider when buying Hart power tools is that most of its tools don’t come with batteries, so that’s an added cost—and they aren’t compatible with any other brand’s batteries, so you’re not going to be able to use them interchangeably. But Hart’s quality and performance are pretty decent for the price, making them a great alternative to Black and Decker.WENThis brand always comes up in conversations about affordable tools (it’s normal to have those conversations frequently, yes?). If you’re finding Black and Decker tools to no longer be the budget win they once were, WEN is a solid alternative. Its tools are considered well-built, with acceptable performance for the price—and they tend to be cheaper than comparable B&D products. For example, this variable speed jigsaw from WEN will get the job done for less money than this Black and Decker offering.If your main consideration when buying tools is price, tariffs are going to cause some chaos—but if Black and Decker is pricing you out, you have a few options to look into.

For the past few years, Six One Indie has been delivering stellar showcases that highlight an often overlooked category of games: indies. Though these titles might be made by smaller teams working on a much smaller budget compared to their AAA counterparts, you'd be wrong to think they don't contain every bit the charm and artistry of those promoted all across your social media timelines--and the games below serve as irrefutable proof.Though the team at Six One Indie featured nearly 50 games in its May showcase--the entirety of which you can watch here--we decided to round up just a few dozen of our favorites. From cozy titles like Bobo Bay to the hilariously bizarre Dinoblade, these are some of the indie that we immediately added to our Steam wishlist. Shadows of Chroma TowerShadows of Chroma Tower combines stylish, high-contrast art direction with "the best features of dungeon crawlers and ARPGs" to create a frenetic experience you can play by yourself or with friends. You'll be able to join factions, choose from five classes and six professions, upgrade a robust skill tree, and truly tailor your experience as you make your way up the tower in search of the game's big bad. Mouse: P.I. For Hire"Steamboat Willie-meets-John Wick" is probably one of the strangest combination of words I've ever used to describe a game, but when it comes to Mouse: P.I. For Hire, it just makes sense. In it, players take on the role of Jack Pepper, a hyper-violent private investigator with a strong right-hook and an arsenal of weapons at his disposal, one of which is quite literally a ray gun that causes heads to explode. Its gritty, blood-splattering content is in stark contrast to game's visuals, which draw inspiration from 1930s cartoons, making the whole experience even more over-the-top. All that plus some neo-noir vibes and a jazzy soundtrack make this a game all you shooter fans should definitely keep an eye on. LeilaUbik Studio's Leila is one of the handful of games Six One Indie showed off that is available now--and for only $12, I might add. The hand-animated, story-driven puzzle game sees you relive a woman's "fragile memories" as she undergoes a deeply personal and transformative journey. It's worth noting that Leila features strong adult themes and some body horror, so don't go in expecting something "cozy." However, if you're looking for a dark, cerebral experience, this might be a great pick. Muffles' Life SentenceMuffles' Life Sentence is another game that is already available to play on Steam for the low price of $0, so there's really no reason to not give it a lil' whirl. The "darkly quirky" RPG take place in a prison where inmates are "remade" to match their crimes, and features gameplay stylings that are sure to delight fans of Paper Mario or Undertale. DinobladeSometimes, you can come up with an extremely cool idea for a game just by taking two really cool ideas and mashing 'em together. Such is the case with Dinoblade, a new action RPG that sees players take on the role of a young, blade-wielding Spinosaurus who must fight off other dinosaurs in order to prevent an extinction. It's ridiculous, yes, but what's not ridiculous is how much developer Team Spino commits to the bit--the game looks extremely cool and seems like it'll be a blast for fans of over-the-top action titles like Devil May Cry. Bobo BayHave you ever wished you could stay in Sonic the Hedgehog's chao gardens just a bit longer? Bobo Bay might be the game for you. The pet simulation title sees you care for, collect, breed, train, and accessorize adorable little creatures, all while readying them up for fun competitions such as races and wrestling matches. Though the game isn't scheduled to release until next year, those interested can play its alpha build now. Oscuro Blossom's GlowIf you're looking for a delightful-looking puzzle platformer accompanied by gorgeous, 2D, illustrative art, you should check out Oscuro Blossom's Glow. In it you play as Selene, a young girl with the ability to emit light; naturally, this power helps her traverse the lush woodlands she find herself in by creating life, dispelling creatures, and more. The game currently has a demo available to play over on its Steam page. Truth ScrapperInsertdisc5, the studio behind 2023's indie gem In Stars and Time, is back with a new game that looks every bit as lovely as its predecessor. In Truth Scrapper you play as Sosotte, a member of the Truth Scrapper guild who is sent to investigate a mysterious sinkhole that has destroyed the community's "sense of will." The only problem? The vast majority of your memories reset at the end of each day, and you're the one responsible for choosing which ones stay and which ones to abandon. 1000 Deaths1000 Deaths is a "gravity-bending 3D platformer" that features some truly fun visuals and an early 2000s, Adult Swim feel. However, to relegate it to just another platformer is a disservice, as 1000 Deaths also features a unique spin: the ability for players to make choices that completely alter the game's mechanics, story, and level design. This chaotic, hardcore, action game aims to set the stage for some fun speed-running opportunities--if its players can stay alive. Sound interesting? Fortunately, you can check out 1000 Deaths' demo now. Cast n ChillA massive departure from the previous entry on this list, Cast n Chill features a far more relaxing gameplay loop. The cozy idle game sees its players explore serene lakes, rivers, and ocean with their loyal pup, their only goal being to catch some fish. As they play, they'll get the chance to upgrade their gear, granting them the ability to reel in more impressive catches. It's a low stakes experience accompanied by some truly picturesque pixel-art, and best of all, you can play the game's demo right now. Future Vibe CheckEven if you've played automation games before, I can almost guarantee that you've never played one quite like this. In Future Vibe Check, players are tasked with slowly building a factory that doesn't just create products--it creates music, too. As they rebuild the given area, the structures they place create their own unique sounds whenever energy courses through them. Curious as to how that will play out? Fortunately, you can try Future Vibe Check's demo now. Scratch the CatFor all the Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Sly Cooper, Croc, and other 3D mascot platformer fans out there, here's a new game to keep on your radar. In Scratch the Cat, players take on the role of DJ Scratch, a sleek-looking cat who is on a journey to reclaim his stolen records. The adventure game features some remarkable visuals that are absolutely on par other games in the genre, and seems like it'll be ripe with collectibles, unique bosses, and plenty of ways to traverse and explore. Jump the TrackBilled as an "explosive comedy that blends visual novel with pachinko," Jump the Track looks like an incredibly charming game with plenty of style and humor. When not dishing out some pinball action, the game unfolds in an almost comic book-style way, as it tells the story of Sam, "a young dreamer struggling in the gig economy" whose fortune might just change tonight. Jump the Track currently has a demo available to play on Steam, as well as an extremely close release date: May 28, 2025. Rogue EclipseIn Rogue Eclipse, players get the chance to traverse stunning seas of stars and comets as they take down starfighters, armadas, and otherworldly behemoths. That said, it's not just a flight-based shooter, as Rogue Eclipse features an "epic roguelike campaign" as well. Developer Huskraft calls the game "easy to learn, tricky to master, and impossible to put down," and after this first-look, it's easy to see why. Guilty as Sock!One of the more bizarre games in the showcase, Guilty as Sock! looks incredible and I cannot wait to force my friends play it with me. The multiplayer, court simulator sees you and your pals jump into a chaotic trial where each person plays a sock puppet bound to a specific role--lawyer, judge, etc.--and must then present evidence cards that help support their agenda. While your friends testify, you can choose to throw paper balls and mock them in an attempt to shake them up and sway the verdict in your favor--it'll be up to the judge to call the behavior out, or encourage it. All in all, it's some real Among Us-style nonsense that I will absolutely be playing later this week, thanks to its new demo. Rue ValleyRue Valley is yet another title on this list with a demo I downloaded immediately. The gritty-looking narrative RPG follows a man trapped in a time loop and whose choices are bound by his mental state; if he is introverted, for example, even if you want him to go up and talk to a woman at a bar, he might not be able to muster up the courage. It will then be up to you to figure out how to deal with his various mental hurdles, form relationships with complex characters, and break out of the loop. Carimara: Beneath the Forlorn LimbsThere were a lot of game shown at Six One Indie's May showcase that featured some truly fantastic art direction, and Carimara: Beneath the Forlorn Limbs is absolutely one of them. The bleak, horror-adjacent title sees players take on the role of the Cariamara, a mysterious figure whose mission is to conjure up ghosts and answer their questions using a deck of cards. Described as a "short and creepy fairytale," this one might not be for the easily perturbed--but looks potentially delightful for those of us who love disturbing little creatures and moody, PS1-era visuals. A Week in the Life of Asocial GiraffeHave you ever just wanted to be left alone? That's precisely how this giraffe feels, and is the conceit behind A Week in the Life of Asocial Giraffe. In it, your goal is simple: avoid all social contact. However, the citizens of Friendly City do make things a bit harder thanks to their chatty nature. It is up to you to help our giraffe friend do all his chores and live his best life, all while avoiding people by solving point-and-click puzzles and utilizing stealth. If you're looking to give it a go, the game's demo is now live on Steam. InkshadeAnother visually remarkable entry on this list, Inkshade is turn-based tactics game that sees players take control of strange wooden miniatures that are "wrapped in a web of locked rooms and orchestrated by an otherworldly game master." The end goal of Inkshade is to guide these tokens to a mysterious realm known as the abyss, but they'll first need to conquer the continent, procure an airship, and sail through "cursed skies," and none of that will be easy. However, if you're interested in giving it a shot, you can play the game's demo now. One Way HomeBased on its trailer, One Way Home reminds me a lot of Limbo or Inside, albeit with realistic visuals, more horror, and some cool "choose-your-own" adventure elements. The game follows Jimmy Taylor, a 12-year-old boy who gets involved in a car accident on his walk home from school. When he comes to, Jimmy finds himself thrust into a mysterious version of his world that, while seemingly devoid of humans, is filled to the brim with monstrosities and disturbing visuals. What ensues is a tense-looking puzzle platformer in which player-choice dictates the skills, locations, enemies, and endings Jimmy stumbles upon--and thanks to its new demo, you can get a first glimpse at how this will all play out now. Kabuto ParkWith its playful visuals and adorable premise, Kabuto Park looks perfect for those seeking a game with a bit of whimsy and childlike wonder about it. At its core, the game revolves around bugs: finding them, catching them, training them, and ultimately winning the Summer Beetle Battle Championship with them. As players bug-catch and battle, they'll also gain the ability to upgrade their equipment, allowing them to find even "rarer, stronger, and shinier little friends" to use in the game's card-based competitions. Sounds cute, right? If you think so, I've got great news for you: the game comes out on May 28. Oh and if you're feeling really antsy, you can play the demo right now. Quite a RideIt's just you, your bicycle, a half-charged cellphone, and one very good boy against the world in the upcoming psychological horror game Quite a Ride. In it, you play as someone whose quick trip to their friend's house is derailed by the sudden presence of a dense, oppressive fog filled with eldritch horrors. As such, you have no choice but to keep pedaling--even as the beings following you grow so close you can hear them breathe and the world shifts around you. And though this and the game's beautiful, Pacific Northwest vibes are already enough to make me extremely interested in it, Quite a Ride also has another thing going for it: collective progress. This means that player's collective, global efforts will change the game over time by introducing new characters, locations, and secrets. We'll see if I am actually brave enough to play it, but wow am I eager to try. OddbatOddbat likens itself to Celeste in that it is an extremely challenging platformer filled with secrets and over 700 unique levels. That said, it is immediately obvious that its personality, humor, and style are all its own. In Oddbat, you play as a vampire on a mission to perform an elaborate ritual. However, you'll need to drain the blood of seven bosses and make your way through five unique dungeons to do so. Naturally, you'll need to rely on one of your most iconic vampiric powers--the ability to become a bat--to help you accomplish your goals. With its cheeky tone and monochromatic color scheme, Oddbat looks to be shaping up into a viciously fun and stylish platformer.

May 23, 2025Ravie LakshmananCloud Security / Vulnerability The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday revealed that Commvault is monitoring cyber threat activity targeting applications hosted in their Microsoft Azure cloud environment. "Threat actors may have accessed client secrets for Commvault's (Metallic) Microsoft 365 (M365) backup software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution, hosted in Azure," the agency said. "This provided the threat actors with unauthorized access to Commvault's customers' M365 environments that have application secrets stored by Commvault." CISA further noted that the activity may be part of a broader campaign targeting various software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers' cloud infrastructures with default configurations and elevated permissions. The advisory comes weeks after Commvault revealed that Microsoft notified the company in February 2025 of unauthorized activity by a nation-state threat actor within its Azure environment. The incident led to the discovery that the threat actors had been exploiting a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2025-3928), an unspecified flaw in the Commvault Web Server that enables a remote, authenticated attacker to create and execute web shells. "Based on industry experts, this threat actor uses sophisticated techniques to try to gain access to customer M365 environments," Commvault said in an announcement. "This threat actor may have accessed a subset of app credentials that certain Commvault customers use to authenticate their M365 environments." Commvault said it has taken several remedial actions, including rotating app credentials for M365, but emphasized that there has been no unauthorized access to customer backup data. To mitigate such threats, CISA is recommending that users and administrators follow the below guidelines - Monitor Entra audit logs for unauthorized modifications or additions of credentials to service principals initiated by Commvault applications/service principals Review Microsoft logs (Entra audit, Entra sign-in, unified audit logs) and conduct internal threat hunting For single tenant apps, implement a conditional access policy that limits authentication of an application service principal to an approved IP address that is listed within Commvault's allowlisted range of IP addresses Review the list of Application Registrations and Service Principals in Entra with administrative consent for higher privileges than the business need Restrict access to Commvault management interfaces to trusted networks and administrative systems Detect and block path-traversal attempts and suspicious file uploads by deploying a Web Application Firewall and removing external access to Commvault applications CISA, which added CVE-2025-3928 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog in late April 2025, said it's continuing to investigate the malicious activity in collaboration with partner organizations. Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter  and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post. SHARE    

Weapon of choice? Musk’s DOGE used Meta’s Llama 2—not Grok—for gov’t slashing, report says Grok apparently wasn't an option. Ashley Belanger – May 22, 2025 5:12 pm | 19 Credit: Anadolu / Contributor | Anadolu Credit: Anadolu / Contributor | Anadolu Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more An outdated Meta AI model was apparently at the center of the Department of Government Efficiency's initial ploy to purge parts of the federal government. Wired reviewed materials showing that affiliates of Elon Musk's DOGE working in the Office of Personnel Management "tested and used Meta’s Llama 2 model to review and classify responses from federal workers to the infamous 'Fork in the Road' email that was sent across the government in late January." The "Fork in the Road" memo seemed to copy a memo that Musk sent to Twitter employees, giving federal workers the choice to be "loyal"—and accept the government's return-to-office policy—or else resign. At the time, it was rumored that DOGE was feeding government employee data into AI, and Wired confirmed that records indicate Llama 2 was used to sort through responses and see how many employees had resigned. Llama 2 is perhaps best known for being part of another scandal. In November, Chinese researchers used Llama 2 as the foundation for an AI model used by the Chinese military, Reuters reported. Responding to the backlash, Meta told Reuters that the researchers' reliance on a “single" and "outdated" was "unauthorized," then promptly reversed policies banning military uses and opened up its AI models for US national security applications, TechCrunch reported. "We are pleased to confirm that we’re making Llama available to US government agencies, including those that are working on defense and national security applications, and private sector partners supporting their work," a Meta blog said. "We’re partnering with companies including Accenture, Amazon Web Services, Anduril, Booz Allen, Databricks, Deloitte, IBM, Leidos, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Oracle, Palantir, Scale AI, and Snowflake to bring Llama to government agencies." Because Meta's models are open-source, they "can easily be used by the government to support Musk’s goals without the company’s explicit consent," Wired suggested. It's hard to track where Meta's models may have been deployed in government so far, and it's unclear why DOGE relied on Llama 2 when Meta has made advancements with Llama 3 and 4. Not much is known about DOGE's use of Llama 2. Wired's review of records showed that DOGE deployed the model locally, "meaning it’s unlikely to have sent data over the Internet," which was a privacy concern that many government workers expressed. In an April letter sent to Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, more than 40 lawmakers demanded a probe into DOGE's AI use, which, they warned—alongside "serious security risks"—could "have the potential to undermine successful and appropriate AI adoption." That letter called out a DOGE staffer and former SpaceX employee who supposedly used Musk’s xAI Grok-2 model to create an "AI assistant," as well as the use of a chatbot named "GSAi"—"based on Anthropic and Meta models"—to analyze contract and procurement data. DOGE has also been linked to a software called AutoRIF that supercharges mass firings across the government. In particular, the letter emphasized the "major concerns about security" swirling DOGE's use of "AI systems to analyze emails from a large portion of the two million person federal workforce describing their previous week’s accomplishments," which they said lacked transparency. Those emails came weeks after the "Fork in the Road" emails, Wired noted, asking workers to outline weekly accomplishments in five bullet points. Workers fretted over responses, worried that DOGE might be asking for sensitive information without security clearances, Wired reported. Wired could not confirm if Llama 2 was also used to parse these email responses, but federal workers told Wired that if DOGE was "smart," then they'd likely "reuse their code" from the "Fork in the Road" email experiment. Why didn’t DOGE use Grok? It seems that Grok, Musk's AI model, wasn't available for DOGE's task because it was only available as a proprietary model in January. Moving forward, DOGE may rely more frequently on Grok, Wired reported, as Microsoft announced it would start hosting xAI’s Grok 3 models in its Azure AI Foundry this week, The Verge reported, which opens the models up for more uses. In their letter, lawmakers urged Vought to investigate Musk's conflicts of interest, while warning of potential data breaches and declaring that AI, as DOGE had used it, was not ready for government. "Without proper protections, feeding sensitive data into an AI system puts it into the possession of a system’s operator—a massive breach of public and employee trust and an increase in cybersecurity risks surrounding that data," lawmakers argued. "Generative AI models also frequently make errors and show significant biases—the technology simply is not ready for use in high-risk decision-making without proper vetting, transparency, oversight, and guardrails in place." Although Wired's report seems to confirm that DOGE did not send sensitive data from the "Fork in the Road" emails to an external source, lawmakers want much more vetting of AI systems to deter "the risk of sharing personally identifiable or otherwise sensitive information with the AI model deployers." A seeming fear is that Musk may start using his own models more, benefiting from government data his competitors cannot access, while potentially putting that data at risk of a breach. They're hoping that DOGE will be forced to unplug all its AI systems, but Vought seems more aligned with DOGE, writing in his AI guidance for federal use that "agencies must remove barriers to innovation and provide the best value for the taxpayer." "While we support the federal government integrating new, approved AI technologies that can improve efficiency or efficacy, we cannot sacrifice security, privacy, and appropriate use standards when interacting with federal data," their letter said. "We also cannot condone use of AI systems, often known for hallucinations and bias, in decisions regarding termination of federal employment or federal funding without sufficient transparency and oversight of those models—the risk of losing talent and critical research because of flawed technology or flawed uses of such technology is simply too high." Ashley Belanger Senior Policy Reporter Ashley Belanger Senior Policy Reporter Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience. 19 Comments

Designing human-centered AI products can be arduous.Keeping up with the overall pace of change isn’t easy. But here’s a bigger challenge:The wildly different paces of change attached to the key elements of AI product strategy, design, and development can make managing those elements — and even thinking about them — overwhelming.Yesterday’s design processes and frameworks offer priceless guidance that still holds. But in many spots, they just don’t fit today’s environment.For instance, designers used to map out and user-test precise, predictable end-to-end screen flows. But flows are no longer precisely predictable. AI generates dynamic dialogues and custom-tailored flows on the fly, rendering much of the old practice unhelpful and infeasible.It’s easy for product teams to feel adrift nowadays — we can hoist the sails, but we’re missing a map and a rudder. We need frameworks tailored to the traits that fundamentally set AI apart from traditional software, including:its capabilities for autonomy and collaboration,its probabilistic nature,its early need for quality data, andits predictable unpredictability. Humans tend to be perpetually surprised by its abilities — and its inabilities.AI pace layers: design for resilienceHere’s a framework to address these challenges.Building on Stewart Brand’s “Shearing Layers” framework, AI Pace Layers helps teams grow thriving AI products by framing them as layered systems with components that function and evolve at different timescales.It helps anticipate points of friction and create resilient and humane products.Each layer represents a specific domain of activity and responsibility, with a distinct pace of change.* Unlike the other layers, Services cuts across multiple layers rather than sitting between them, and its pace of change fluctuates erratically.Boundaries between layers call for special attention and care — friction at these points can produce destructive shearing and constructive turbulence.I’ll dive deeper into this framework with some practical examples showing how it works. But first, a brief review of the precursors that inspired this framework will help you put it to good use.The foundationsThis model builds on the insights of several influential design frameworks from the professions of building architecture and traditional software design.Shearing layers (Duffy and Brand)In his 1994 book How Buildings Learn, Stewart Brand expanded on architect Frank Duffy’s concept of shearing layers. The core insight: buildings consist of components that change at different rates.Shell, Services, Scenery, and Sets. (Frank Duffy, 1992).“…there isn’t any such thing as a building. A building properly conceived is several layers of longevity of built components.” — Frank DuffyShearing Layers of Change, from How Buildings Learn: What Happens after they’re built (Stewart Brand, 1994).Expanding on Duffy’s work, Brand identified six layers, from the slow-changing “Site” to the rapidly evolving “Stuff.”As the layers move at different speeds, friction forms where they meet. Buildings designed without mindful consideration of these different velocities tear themselves apart at these “shearing” points. Before long, they tend to be demolished and replaced.Buildings designed for resiliency allow for “slippage” between the moving layers — flexibility for the different rates of change to unfold with minimal conflict. Such buildings can thrive and remain useful for hundreds of years.Pace layers (Brand)In 1999, Brand drew insights from ecologists to expand this concept beyond buildings and encompass human society. In The Clock Of The Long Now: Time And Responsibility, he proposed “Pace Layers” — six levels ranging from rapid fashion to glacially-slow nature.Brand’s Pace Layers (1999) as sketched by Jono Hey.Brand again pointed out the boundaries, where the most intriguing and consequential changes emerge. Friction at the tension points can tear a building apart — or spur a civilization’s collapse–when we try to bind the layers too tightly together. But with mindful design and planning for slippage, activity along these boundary zones can also generate “constructive turbulence” that keeps systems balanced and resilient.The most successful systems survive and thrive through times of change through resiliency, by absorbing and incorporating shocks.“…a few scientists (such as R. V. O’Neill and C. S. Holling) have been probing the same issue in ecological systems: how do they manage change, how do they absorb and incorporate shocks? The answer appears to lie in the relationship between components in a system that have different change-rates and different scales of size. Instead of breaking under stress like something brittle, these systems yield as if they were soft. Some parts respond quickly to the shock, allowing slower parts to ignore the shock and maintain their steady duties of system continuity.” — Stewart BrandRoles and tendencies of the fast (upper) and slow (lower) layers. (Brand).Slower layers provide constraints and underpinnings for the faster layers, while faster layers induce adaptations in the slower layers that evolve the system.Elements of UX (Garrett)Jesse James Garrett’s classic The Elements of User Experience (2002) presents a five-layer model for digital design:Surface (visual design)Skeleton (interface design, navigation design, information design)Structure (interaction design, information architecture)Scope (functional specs, content requirements)Strategy (user needs, site objectives)Structure, Scope, and Strategy. Each layer answers a different set of questions, with the questions answered at each level setting constraints for the levels above. Lower layers set boundaries and underpinnings that help define the more concrete layers.Jesse James Garrett’s 5 layers from The Elements of User Experience Design (2002)This framework doesn’t focus on time, or on tension points resulting from conflicting velocities. But it provides a comprehensive structure for shaping different aspects of digital product design, from abstract strategy to concrete surface elements.AI Pace Layers: diving deeperBuilding on these foundations, the AI Pace Layers framework adapts these concepts specifically for AI systems design.Let’s explore each layer and understand how design expertise contributes across the framework.SessionsPace of change: Very fast (milliseconds to minutes)Focus: Performance of real-time interactions.This layer encompasses real-time dialogue, reasoning, and processing. These interplays happen between the user and AI, and between AI agents and other services and people, on behalf of the user. Sessions draw on lower-layer capabilities and components to deliver the “moments of truth” where product experiences succeed or fail. Feedback from the Sessions layer is crucial for improving and evolving the lower layers.Key contributors: Users and AI agents — usually with zero direct human involvement backstage.Example actions/decisions/artifacts: User/AI dialogue. Audio, video, text, images, and widgets are rendered on the fly (using building blocks provided by lower levels). Real-time adaptations to context.SkinPace of change: Moderately fast (days to months)Focus: Design patterns, guidelines, and assetsSkin encompasses visual, interaction, and content design.Key contributors: Designers, content strategists, front-end developers, and user researchers.Design’s role: This is where designers’ traditional expertise shines. They craft the interface elements, establish visual language, define interaction patterns, and create the design systems that represent the product’s capabilities to users.Example actions/decisions/artifacts: UI component libraries, brand guidelines, prompt templates, tone of voice guidelines, navigation systems, visual design systems, patterns (UI, interaction, and conversation), content style guides.ServicesPace of change: Wildly variable (slow to moderately fast)Focus: AI computation capabilities, data systems orchestration, and operational intelligenceThe Services layer provides probabilistic AI capabilities that sometimes feel like superpowers — and like superpowers, they can be difficult to manage. It encompasses foundation models, algorithms, data pipelines, evaluation frameworks, business logic, and computing resources.Services is an outlier that behaves differently from the other layers:• It’s more prone to “shocks” and surprises that can ripple across the rest of the system.• It varies wildly in pace of change. (But its components rarely change faster than Skin, or slower than Skeleton.)• It cuts across multiple layers rather than sitting between two of them. That produces more cross-layer boundaries, more tension points, more risks of destructive friction, and more opportunities for constructive turbulence.Key contributors: Data scientists, engineers, service designers, ethicists, product teamsDesign’s role: Designers partner with technical teams on evaluation frameworks, helping define what “good” looks like from a human experience perspective. They contribute to guardrails, monitoring systems, and multi-agent collaboration patterns, ensuring technical capabilities translate to meaningful human experiences. Service design expertise helps orchestrate complex, multi-touchpoint AI capabilities.Example actions/decisions/artifacts: Foundation model selection, changes, and fine-tuning. Evals, monitoring systems, guardrails, performance metrics. Business rules, workflow orchestration. Multiagent collaboration and use of external tools (APIs, A2A, MCP, etc.) Continual appraisal and adoption of new tools, protocols, and capabilities.SkeletonPace of change: Moderately slow (months) Focus: Fundamental structure and organizationThis layer establishes the foundational architecture — the core interaction models, information architecture and organizing principles.Key contributors: Information architects, information designers, user researchers, system architects, engineersDesign’s role: Designers with information architecture expertise are important in this layer. They design taxonomies, knowledge graphs, and classification systems that make complex AI capabilities comprehensible and usable. UX researchers help ensure these structures fit the audience’s mental models, contexts, and expectations.Example actions/decisions/artifacts: Taxonomies, knowledge graphs, data models, system architecture, classification systems.ScopePace of change: Slow (months to years)Focus: Product requirementsThis layer defines core functional, content, and data requirements, accounting for the probabilistic nature of AI and defining acceptable levels of performance and variance.Key contributors: Product managers, design strategists, design researchers, business stakeholders, data scientists, trust & safety specialistsDesign’s role: Design researchers and strategists contribute to requirements through generative and exploratory research. They help define error taxonomies and acceptable failure modes from a user perspective, informing metrics that capture technical performance and human experience quality. Design strategists balance technical possibilities with human needs and ethical considerations.Example actions/decisions/artifacts: Product requirements documents specifying reliability thresholds, data requirements (volume, diversity, quality standards), error taxonomies and acceptable failure modes, performance metrics frameworks, responsible AI requirements, risk assessment, core user stories and journeys, documentation of expected model variance and handling approaches.StrategyPace of change: Very slow (years)Focus: Long-term vision and business goalsThis foundation layer defines audience needs, core problems to solve, and business goals. In AI products, data strategy is central.Key contributors: Executive leadership, design leaders, product leadership, business strategists, ethics boardsDesign’s role: Design leaders define problem spaces, identify opportunities, and plan roadmaps. They deliver a balance of business needs with human values in strategy development. Designers with expertise in responsible AI help establish ethical frameworks and guiding principles that shape all other layers.Example actions/decisions/artifacts: Problem space and opportunity assessments, market positioning documents, long-term product roadmaps, comprehensive data strategy planning, user research findings on core needs, ethical frameworks and guiding principles, business model documentation, competitive/cooperative AI ecosystem mapping.Practical examples: tension points between layersTension point example 1: Bookmuse’s timeline troubles(Friction between Sessions and Skin)Bookmuse is a promising new AI tool for novelists. Samantha, a writer, tries it out while hashing out the underpinnings of her latest time-travel historical fiction thriller. The Bookmuse team planned for plenty of Samantha’s needs. At first, she considers Bookmuse a handy assistant. It supplements chats with tailored interactive visualizations that efficiently track character personalities, histories, relationships, and dramatic arcs.But Samantha is writing a story about time travelers interfering with World War I events, so she’s constantly juggling dates and timelines. Bookmuse falls short. It’s a tiny startup, and Luke, the harried cofounder who serves as a combination designer/researcher/product manager, hasn’t carved out any date-specific timeline tools or date calculators. He forgot to provide even a basic date picker in the design system.Problem: Bookmuse does its best to help Samantha with her story timeline (Sessions layer). But it lacks effective tools for the job (Skin layer). Its date and time interactions feel confusing, clumsy, and out of step with the rest of its tone, look, and feel. Whenever Samantha consults the timeline, it breaks her out of her creative flow.Constructive turbulence opportunities:a) Present feedback mechanisms that ensure this sort of “missing piece” event results in the product team learning about the type of interaction pothole that appeared — without revealing details or content that compromise Samantha’ privacy and her work. (For instance, a session tagging system can flag all interaction dead-ends during date choice interactions.)b) Improve timeline/date UI and interaction patterns. Table stakes: Standard industry-best-practice date picker components that suit Bookmuse’s style, tone, and voice. Game changers: Widgets, visualizations, and patterns tailored to the special time-tracking/exploration challenges that fiction writers often wrestle with.c) Update the core usability heuristics and universal interaction design patterns baked into the evaluation frameworks (in the Services layer), as part of regular eval reviews and updates. Result: When the team learns about a friction moment like this, they can prevent a host of future similar issues before they emerge.These improvements will make Bookmuse more resilient and useful.Tension point example 2: MedicalMind’s diagnostic dilemma(Friction between Services and Skeleton)Thousands of healthcare providers use MedicalMind, an AI-powered clinical decision support tool. Dr. Rina Patel, an internal medicine physician at a busy community hospital, relies on it to stay current with rapidly evolving medical research while managing her patient load.Thanks to a groundbreaking update, a MedicalMind AI model (Services layer) is familiar with new medical research data and can recognize newly discovered connections between previously unrelated symptoms across different medical specialties. For example, it identified patterns linking certain dermatological symptoms to early indicators of cardiovascular issues — connections not yet widely recognized in standard medical taxonomies.But MedicalMind’s information architecture (Skeleton layer) was tailored to traditional medical classification systems, so it’s organized by body system, conditions by specialty, and treatments by mechanism of action. The MedicalMind team constructed this structure based on how doctors were traditionally trained to approach medical knowledge.Problem: When Dr. Patel enters a patient’s constellation of symptoms (Sessions layer), MedicalMind’s AI can recognize potentially valuable cross-specialty patterns (Services layer). But these insights can’t be optimally organized and presented because the underlying information architecture (Skeleton layer) doesn’t easily accommodate the new findings and relationships. The AI either forces the insights into ill-fitting categories or presents them as disconnected “additional notes” that tend to be overlooked. That reduces their clinical utility and Dr. Patel’s trust in the system.Constructive turbulence opportunities:a) Create an “emerging patterns” framework within the information architecture (Skeleton layer) that can accommodate new AI-identified patterns in ways that augment, rather than disrupt, the familiar classification systems that doctors rely on.b) Design flexible visualization components and interaction patterns and styles (in the Skin layer) specifically for exploring, discussing, and documenting cross-category relationships. Let doctors toggle between traditional taxonomies and newer, AI-generated knowledge maps depending on their needs and comfort level.c) Implement a clinician feedback loop where specialists can validate and discuss new AI-surfaced relationships, gradually promoting validated patterns into the main classification system.These improvements will make MedicalMind more adaptive to emerging medical knowledge while maintaining the structural integrity that healthcare professionals rely on for critical decisions. This provides more efficient assistants for clinicians and better health for patients.Tension point example 3: ScienceSeeker’s hypothesis bottleneck(Friction between Skin and Services)ScienceSeeker is an AI research assistant used by scientists worldwide. Dr. Elena Rodriguez, a molecular biologist, uses it to investigate protein interactions for targeted cancer drug delivery.The AI engine (Services layer) recently gained the ability to generate sophisticated hypothesis trees with multiple competing explanations, track confidence levels for each branch, and identify which experiments would most efficiently disambiguate between theories. It can reason across scientific domains, connecting molecular biology with physics, chemistry, and computational modeling.But the interface (Skin layer) remains locked in a traditional chatbot paradigm — a single-threaded exchange with responses appearing sequentially in a scrolling window.Problem: The AI engine and the problem space are natively multithreaded and multimodal, but the UI is limited to single-threaded conversation. When Dr. Rodriguez inputs her experimental results (Sessions layer), the AI generates a rich, multidimensional analysis (Services layer), but must flatten this complex reasoning into linear text (Skin layer). Critical relationships between hypotheses become buried in paragraphs, probability comparisons are difficult, and the holistic picture of how variables influence multiple hypotheses is lost. Dr. Rodriguez resorts to taking screenshots and manually drawing diagrams to reconstruct the reasoning that the AI possesses but cannot visually express.Constructive turbulence opportunities:a) Develop an expandable, interactive, infinite-canvas “hypothesis tree” visualization (Skin) that helps the AI dynamically represent multiple competing explanations and their relationships. Scientists can interact with this to explore different branches spatially rather than sequentially.b) Create a dual-pane interface that maintains the chat for simple queries but provides the infinite canvas for complex reasoning, transitioning seamlessly based on response complexity.c) Implement collaborative, interactive node-based diagrams for multi-contributor experiment planning, where potential experiments appear as nodes showing how they would affect confidence in different hypothesis branches.This would transform ScienceSeeker’s limited text assistant into a scientific reasoning partner. It would help researchers visualize and interact with complex possibilities in ways that better fit how they tackle multidimensional problems.Navigating the future with AI Pace LayersAI Pace Layers offers product teams a new framework for seeing and shaping the bewildering structures and dynamics that power AI products.By recognizing the evolving layers and heeding and designing for their boundaries, AI design teams can:Transform tension points into constructive innovationAnticipate friction before it damages the product experienceGrow resilient and humane AI systems that absorb and integrate rapid technological change without losing sight of human needs.The framework’s value isn’t in rigid categorization, but in recognizing how components interact across timescales. For AI product teams, this awareness enables more thoughtful design choices that prevent destructive shearing that can tear apart an AI system.This framework is a work in progress, evolving alongside the AI landscape it describes.I’d love to hear from you, especially if you’ve built successful AI products and have insights on how this model could better reflect your experience. Please drop me a line or add a comment. Let’s develop more effective approaches to creating AI systems that enhance human potential while respecting human agency.Part of the Mindful AI Design series. Also see:The effort paradox in AI design: Why making things too easy can backfireBlack Mirror: “Override”. Dystopian storytelling for humane AI designStay updatedSubscribe to be notified when new articles in the series are published. Join our community of designers, product managers, founders and ethicists as we shape the future of mindful AI design.AI Pace Layers: a framework for resilient product design was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.