Alibaba has unveiled Wan2.1-VACE, an open-source AI model designed to shake up how we create and edit videos.VACE isn’t appearing out of thin air; it’s part of Alibaba’s broader Wan2.1 family of video AI models. And they’re making a rather bold claim for it, stating it’s the “first open-source model in the industry to provide a unified solution for various video generation and editing tasks.”If Alibaba can succeed in shifting users away from having to juggle multiple, separate tools towards one streamlined hub—it could be a true game-changer.So, what can this thing actually do? Well, for starters, it can whip up videos using all sorts of prompts, including text commands, still pictures, and even snippets of other video clips.But it’s not just about making videos from scratch. The editing toolkit supports referencing images or specific frames to guide the AI, advanced video “repainting” (more on that in a sec), tweaking just selected bits of your existing video, and even stretching out the video. Alibaba reckons these features “enable the flexible combination of various tasks to enhance creativity.”Imagine you want to create a video with specific characters interacting, maybe based on some photos you have. VACE claims to be able to do that. Got a still image you wish was dynamic? Alibaba’s open-source AI model can add natural-looking movement to bring it to life. For those who love to fine-tune, there are those advanced “video repainting” functions I mentioned earlier. This includes things like transferring poses from one subject to another, having precise control over motion, adjusting depth perception, and even changing the colours.One feature that caught my eye is its ability to “supports adding, modification or deletion to selective specific areas of a video without affecting the surroundings.” That’s a massive plus for detailed edits – no more accidentally messing up the background when you’re just trying to tweak one small element. Plus, it can make your video canvas bigger and even fill in the new space with relevant content to make everything look richer and more expansive.You could take a flat photograph, turn it into a video, and tell the objects in it exactly how to move by drawing out a path. Need to swap out a character or an object with something else you provide as a reference? No problem. Animate those referenced characters? Done. Control their pose precisely? You got it.Alibaba even gives the example of its open-source AI model taking a tall, skinny vertical image and cleverly expanding it sideways into a widescreen video, automagically adding new bits and pieces by referencing other images or prompts. That’s pretty neat.Of course, VACE isn’t just magic. There’s some clever tech involved, designed to handle the often-messy reality of video editing. A key piece is something Alibaba calls the Video Condition Unit (VCU), which “supports unified processing of multimodal inputs such as text, images, video, and masks.”Then there’s what they term a “Context Adapter structure.” This clever bit of engineering “injects various task concepts using formalised representations of temporal and spatial dimensions.” Essentially, think of it as giving the AI a really good understanding of time and space within the video.With all this clever tech, Alibaba reckons VACE will be a hit in quite a few areas. Think quick social media clips, eye-catching ads and marketing content, heavy-duty post-production special effects for film and TV, and even for generating custom educational and training videos.Building AI models this powerful usually costs a fortune and needs massive computing power and tons of data. So, Alibaba making Wan2.1-VACE open source? That’s a big deal.“Open access helps lower the barrier for more businesses to leverage AI, enabling them to create high-quality visual content tailored to their needs, quickly and cost-effectively,” Alibaba explains.Basically, Alibaba is hoping to let more folks – especially smaller businesses and individual creators – get their hands on top-tier AI without breaking the bank. This democratisation of powerful tools is always a welcome sight.And they’re not just dropping one version. There’s a hefty 14-billion parameter model for those with serious horsepower, and a more nimble 1.3-billion parameter one for lighter setups. You can grab them for free right now on Hugging Face and GitHub, or via Alibaba Cloud’s own open-source community, ModelScope.(Image source: www.alibabagroup.com)Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with other leading events including Intelligent Automation Conference, BlockX, Digital Transformation Week, and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo.Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

YouTube Shopping is an affiliate program that helps creators and brands earn money by sharing products their audience will love?and actually buy. Last year, the 'Holiday House' event brought together a group of creators to explore the program's newest features and learn how to integrate them into their content. We produced a wide range of materials, including a main presentation and several motion pieces that captured the spirit of the brand while adding a fresh, dynamic layer. By combining 3D elements, vibrant colors, and playful icons, we shaped an engaging visual system that elevated the content and made the overall experience more memorable and fun.

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. The first US hub for experimental medical treatments is coming The news: A bill that allows clinics to sell unproven treatments has been passed in Montana. Under the legislation, doctors can apply for a license to open an experimental treatment clinic and recommend and sell therapies not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to their patients. Why it matters: Once it’s signed by the governor, the law will be the most expansive in the country in allowing access to drugs that have not been fully tested. The bill allows for any drug produced in the state to be sold in it, providing it has been through phase I clinical trials—but these trials do not determine if the drug is effective.The big picture: The bill was drafted and lobbied for by people interested in extending human lifespans. And these longevity enthusiasts are hoping Montana will serve as a test bed for opening up access to experimental drugs. Read the full story. —Jessica Hamzelou Google DeepMind’s new AI agent cracks real-world problems better than humans can Google DeepMind has once again used large language models to discover new solutions to long-standing problems in math and computer science. This time the firm has shown that its approach can not only tackle unsolved theoretical puzzles, but improve a range of important real-world processes as well. The new tool, called AlphaEvolve, uses large language models (LLMs) to produce code for a wide range of different tasks. LLMs are known to be hit and miss at coding. The twist here is that AlphaEvolve scores each of Gemini’s suggestions, throwing out the bad and tweaking the good, in an iterative process, until it has produced the best algorithm it can. In many cases, the results are more efficient or more accurate than the best existing (human-written) solutions.Read the full story. —Will Douglas Heaven Research cuts are threatening crucial climate data —Casey Crownhart Over the last few weeks, there’s been an explosion of news about proposed budget cuts to science in the US. Researchers and civil servants are sounding the alarm that those cuts mean we might lose key data that helps us understand our world and how climate change is affecting it. Long-running US government programs that monitor the snowpack across the West are among those being threatened by cuts across the US federal government, as my colleague James Temple’s new story explores. Also potentially in trouble: carbon dioxide measurements in Hawaii, hurricane forecasting tools, and a database that tracks the economic impact of natural disasters.  It’s all got me thinking: What do we lose when data is in danger? Read the full story. This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Donald Trump doesn’t want Apple building iPhones in India The US President claims Apple will be upping their US production as a result. (Bloomberg $)+ He also said that India was willing to “literally charge us no tariffs.” (WSJ $)2 Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot ranted about white genocide  In response to completely unrelated queries. (FT $)+ It’s not the first time Grok has shared questionable responses. (Bloomberg $)+ Grok told users it was instructed to accept white genocide as real. (The Guardian) 3 RFK Jr doesn’t think we should take his medical advice Which begs the question: why is he US Health and Human Services secretary? (NY Mag $)+ Kennedy said his opinions on vaccines are irrelevant. (NYT $)+ He defended his decision to downsize the health department amid protests. (The Guardian)4 GM’s new EV battery can power a truck for more than 400 miles  Its lithium manganese-rich cells use cheaper minerals than lithium-ion ones. (Fast Company $)+ Tariffs are bad news for batteries. (MIT Technology Review) 5 Anthropic has been accused of using AI-generated evidence in a legal case A lawyer for Universal Music Group claimed an expert cited a source that didn’t exist. (Reuters)+ A judge in another case reportedly caught fake AI citations, too. (Ars Technica)+ AI companies are finally being forced to cough up for training data. (MIT Technology Review)6 AI won’t put human radiologists out of a job any time soonThe technology is helpful, but is unable to do everything trained human experts can. (NYT $) + Why it’s so hard to use AI to diagnose cancer. (MIT Technology Review) 7 The US Defense Department wants faster aircraft and missiles And startups are more than willing to answer the call. (WP $)+ Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review)8 SpaceX has successfully tested its Starship rocket 🚀Clearing a major hurdle ahead of its planned launch later this month. (Wired $)9 YouTube will start inserting ads into videos’ crucial moments Wow, that doesn’t sound annoying at all. (TechCrunch)10 Apple’s Vision Pro headset is a pain in the neckAnd early adopters are regretting shelling out $3,500 apiece. (WSJ $) + Maybe the ability to scroll using their eyes will change their minds. (Bloomberg $) Quote of the day “To say a professor is ‘some kind of monster’ for using AI to generate slides “is, to me, ridiculous.” —Paul Shovlin, a professor at Ohio University, reacts to student backlash against professors using AI to create teaching materials, the New York Times reports. One more thing Who gets to decide who receives experimental medical treatments?There has been a trend toward lowering the bar for new medicines, and it is becoming easier for people to access treatments that might not help them—and could even harm them. Anecdotes appear to be overpowering evidence in decisions on drug approval. As a result, we’re ending up with some drugs that don’t work. We urgently need to question how these decisions are made. Who should have access to experimental therapies? And who should get to decide? Such questions are especially pressing considering how quickly biotechnology is advancing. We’re not just improving on existing classes of treatments—we’re creating entirely new ones. Read the full story.—Jessica Hamzelou We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.) + Food nostalgia is the best nostalgia, and this Bluesky account of discontinued foods doesn't disappoint.+ Don’t even think of calling your newborn baby King if you live in New Zealand.+ Actor Jeremy Strong just loves a bucket hat.+ Watch out Swiss drivers—a duck has been caught speeding 🦆

How is the discipline of sports analytics evolving to deliver marginal gains to the performance of players and teams? Rugby football is no stranger to analytics. But what difference does it make at an elite competitive level? Dan Biggar (pictured above) is a Welsh professional rugby player, primarily known for his role as a fly-half – a position that is known as the creative brain of a rugby team, like the number 10 position in football. Biggar is currently playing for French Top 14 side Toulon, and has twice been selected to tour with the British and Irish Lions. He earned his first cap for Wales in 2008 and has been a mainstay in the national team, representing his country in Rugby World Cups and Six Nations Championships. With 112 caps, he is the most-capped fly-half for Wales and has scored over 600 points in his career. Over his international career, he has won three Six Nations titles and a Grand Slam with Wales, and was captain for the 2022 Six Nations campaign. What does Biggar think of the role of analytics in rugby? Compared with, for example, more traditional aspects of team sports, like the culture of a specific group of players at a particular moment in time? “I’m always really intrigued by the word ‘culture’ because you can’t coach it. As soon as you start coaching culture, it becomes forced, and some people, especially in a team environment, may not agree, or it’s difficult to get,” he said. Wales bucked the culture of being the underdogs, but we only did that because of the hard work we put in Dan Biggar, professional rugby player “And culture is very difficult to measure. How do you measure the All Blacks’ culture against England’s culture, or Wales’s culture, or Scotland’s culture? It’s just something that you create without knowing you’re creating it,” added Biggar. “The culture of Welsh rugby is always wanting to be, or always thinking of ourselves as, the underdogs. Wanting to punch above your weight. Now, one thing I will say on that is, when we had our most successful years, 2011 to 2021, we bucked every cultural trend of Wales because, during those 10 years, we were not underdogs very often. We weren’t expected to punch above our weight. We were the guys who were the standard bearers in a sense, certainly in the northern hemisphere,” he recalled. “It’s a fascinating discussion, which probably can’t be measured. But what can be measured is how hard you work, how many metres you’ve run, how many minutes you’ve spent on the training pitch, and so on. If you combine those numbers and put them into, say, a Welsh culture of being hard-working underdogs, that’s where you’d find an overlap between the two. “So, we bucked the culture of being the underdogs, but we only did that because of the hard work we put in. If you have a hard-working culture with the stats to back it up, you have an overlap. But if the stats say you are way off it compared with other teams, you don’t have a hard-working culture.” He also says you can hold team members to account with data, and vice versa. “I used to act on what I felt, and I think that has stood me in good stead in general. But then, when you go back and look at the data, or the video analysis, or whatever, you can think that probably wasn’t the right way to handle this or that situation. Wales had a culture where we could hold each other to account. And if we had a heated disagreement on the field, in the moment, we were brilliant as a group by the time we’d got off the pitch or showered or had dinner together in the hotel afterwards – it was gone,” said Biggar. “It’s always helpful if you’ve got something to back [your theory] up, whether that’s a video analysis, a stats pack, data analysis, whatever it is” Dan Biggar, professional rugby player “We could then look back and say, ‘What do you think here? What do you think the stats say here? If we did it that way, we’d have been better off. Or if we did it the other way, we would have got more success out of it’, you know? “It’s always helpful if you’ve got something to back it up, whether that’s a video analysis, a stats pack, data analysis, whatever it is. If you’ve got something to make your point more valid, and you do it in the right way, you’re generally going to get a lot more out of your players, employees, workers, whatever.” On the question of whether data analytics is landing with professional rugby players better than it might have done 10 to 15 years ago, Biggar says 100% yes. “The game has changed dramatically in the last 25 years, but the game has changed even from five to 10 years ago. And I think nowadays players are very much more wanting to look at certain examples on laptops or get provided with stats and analysis pieces,” he said. And that is especially true of his position, he says, which is a playmaker position. “[Others can] go through the whole game and just know their role, just know their positions and what they need to do individually. Probably positions like myself, I need to know, ‘What does Dan Biggar need?’ But also, ‘What does the number 12 for Australia do? What does the number 6 for Argentina do? And how often do Ireland lose playing into the wind?’ When you are in a position of real leadership, you probably need to know more about the data and the analytics.” Biggar was speaking at a recent media event where the possible data analytics generated by Sportable’s “smart ball” were being demonstrated. Sage, which provides accounting, financial, HR and payroll technology for small and medium-sized businesses, set up the event alongside Sportable, a global data collection and analytics platform. Sage has been sponsoring Six Nations Rugby since October 2022, bringing fans of the game real-time data and analytics captured through the smart ball technology and advanced predictive analytics. Sage has been collaborating with Sportable, which specialises in technology that tracks balls and players across various sports, including rugby, Australian rules football, American football and soccer. Its hardware is underpinned by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), which turn thousands of data points into real-time, automated insights on how players and the ball move during a game and in training.  The Gilbert x Sportable Smart Ball, which has been used in elite professional-level rugby games since 2022, works with wireless beacons around the field to show live game data, such as how far the ball is kicked or passed, and how much territory a team gains as they attack. The technology helps players, coaches and teams use these insights to make performance improvement, tactical and recruitment decisions, while broadcasters and fans benefit from immediate game analysis.Raphael Brandon, director of performance science at Sportable, spoke at the Sage event about the novelty of the use of the analytics generated by the ball. “The chip in the ball provides new sets of data that cannot be got manually. For example, Arsenal coaches are able to put objectivity on many things, using the smart ball data, against which they are judging players and looking for improvement” Raphael Brandon, Sportable “The chip in the ball provides new sets of data that cannot be got manually. For example, Arsenal coaches, who use our system, are able to put objectivity on many things, using the smart ball data, against which they are judging players and looking for improvement,” he said. “It can be as simple as, ‘We want our midfield player to move the ball faster’. The chip means they can put a number on that. You can put a level of specificity on player technical performance, say comparing the tempo of the first team and the under-18s,” added Brandon. “Also, the automation of the game analysis [with the smart ball analysis] is novel. Otherwise, you either have a person doing manual analysis or semi-automated computer vision from a camera, which can’t track the movement of the ball sufficiently well. The smart ball makes the analysis fully automated. And that means the democratisation of advanced sports analytics down the levels. So, not just Six Nations or the Premiership, but, say, Dutch Division Two, or youth or many women’s sports where advanced analytics is not affordable.” Read more about data analytics in sport Football players are seeking to gain more control of their performance data through ‘stop processing’ requests, in an attempt to strike a better balance between firms’ commercial interests and the data rights of footballers. Spain’s La Liga has turned to Databricks’ Lakehouse Platform to analyse footballer performance and engage with fans. Leicester City Football Club was the surprise winner of the 2016 season’s English Premier League, thanks, in part, to data analytics.

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Part antiques dealer, part architect, this Belgian maverick is an unlikely source of lessons for contemporary material reuse Marcel Raymaekers (1933–) never qualified as an architect. This did not stop him from procuring the materials for, designing and building around 150 villas across Belgium. The exact number is unknown: Belgium’s architectural establishment mostly ignored and rejected Raymaekers just as he ignored and rejected them, and as a result his work has never been collated or taken seriously. Raymaekers himself never kept records of his work; he regarded the drawing board as a ‘torture device’, preferring sketches and improvisation on site, determined by the material batches he had to hand. The extent of Raymaekers’ oeuvre is also hard to fathom because he wanted to keep it under the radar of the tax authorities. They caught up with him eventually; he was bankrupted in 2014. Today, Raymaekers is a 92‑year‑old tenant living inside what was once his personal empire, Queen of the South, in the Limburg countryside in north‑western Belgium. This compound was – and to a limited extent, still is – a vast salvage yard packed with components scavenged from aggressive postwar demolition. This puzzling place, completed in 1972 but constantly expanded, is stuffed with billowing pitched roofs, impossible archways, numerous appendages and antechambers. In its heyday – the 1970s and ’80s – Queen of the South also had a nightclub, a restaurant, a jazz venue, Raymaekers’ own ultra‑luxe apartment, and an estaminet – a plush, wood‑panelled, banquet‑seated, mirror‑pillared café‑bar. Marcel Raymaekers was born in 1933 near Leuven in Belgium. In 1950, he enrolled to study architecture at the Sint-Lukas School in Brussels but left a year later without a degree. Though not officially an architect, Raymaekers proceeded to design around 150 projects, from suburban homes to hotels and music venues – in 1986, he completed the Orlando discotheque, which burned down in 2014 Credit: Roger Dyckmans It was here that Raymaekers would sit – when he was not criss‑crossing Belgium scouting for materials – scoping out clients as they stumbled giddily into his world, overwhelmed by the aspiration and status anxiety that Queen of the South was designed to induce. The project was also a cultural hub attracting misfits and eccentrics, wheelers and dealers, experts and charlatans. The novelist Hugo Claus had his 50th birthday at Queen of the South, honouring Raymaekers in his speech. Raymaekers and his wife Hilde did interviews for newspapers, magazines and TV, often while reclining on their bed. The media was not interested in him as an accomplished architect, but as a purveyor of kitsch, an absurdity.  What Raymaekers had to sell his clients was more than simply antiques or even houses composed of them (buy enough materials and he would design you a house for no charge: that was always the deal). What Raymaekers was really selling were dreams of nobility: the life of a lord and lady of the manor, set apart (and above) from an increasingly modernised, homogenised world. Sensuality and hedonism, expressed through haptic, resplendent materials, was a big part of the allure too – the promise of a new way of life. One of Raymaekers’ bigger projects was a love hotel, Rubensexclusief, near Diest, completed in 1979. Each chamber was bestowed with an excess of padded velvet upholstery, often creeping up the walls and curving onto the ceilings. In the lobby, a salvaged confession booth was intended as a hiding place for guilty parties. Raymaekers brought several clients here to celebrate a successful transaction or to introduce them to his material language before starting design negotiations. His clients were middle‑class professionals – teachers, dentists, entrepreneurs, doctors, engineers, florists, pharmacists. Wealthy, but not extraordinarily rich. Many of his houses allowed them to live and work – interfacing with the public – on the same property. House Kelchtermans from 1970, for example, designed with architect Jos Witters, is composed of three pyramids – a home, a doctor’s office and a garage – structured with reclaimed oak beams. The roof tiles were salvaged by the client himself, Dr Kelchtermans, who received tips on where to find them from his patients, many of whom were farmers whose buildings were undergoing modernisation or demolition. Inside, it is all split‑levels, enormous fireplaces and complex, spiralling spaces. But the house’s biggest flourish is the skylights: 23 cupolas from decommissioned Lockheed T‑33 fighter jet cockpits. Raymaekers had found them languishing in a salvage yard on the other side of Flanders, saw their architectural potential and persuaded the client to buy them. Client participation was everything. The Boncher family’s house, completed in 1984, is a mash‑up of components from a derelict slaughterhouse in the city of Tienen and an army barracks in Verviers. The Bonchers themselves spent weeks carefully dismantling the bricks, Gobertange white stone and fleur‑de‑lis roof tiles from the slaughterhouse. Raymaekers had the grand entrance and guardhouses from the barracks available in his stock at Queen of the South, probably at a time‑sensitive discount. Many of the construction and final design decisions for House Boncher were left to happenstance; as the contractors built the walls up row‑by‑row, whenever a hole was needed for a window, Raymaekers would decide the dimensions only at that moment, based on whatever blue limestone window frame he happened to have in stock. Occasionally, the masons had to deconstruct part of a wall if a larger‑than‑anticipated window became available.  ‘Raymaekers’ houses are intelligent, instinctive assemblages of unpredictable material streams’ The interior, too, required improvisation. A white stone staircase, salvaged from a church pulpit, was meant to spiral up to the main bedroom of House Boncher but turned out to be about 200mm too short. The solution? Raymaekers and the contractors decided to build a hefty bump into the floor, consisting of cobbles and decorative tiling. It gave the staircase the necessary boost to reach up to the bedroom. It was typical of how designing exclusively with old materials required Raymaekers to empower and trust his contractors. Their design contributions, extemporisation and management of materials and how they might fit together were intrinsic to the realisation of every project. Working with large batches helped simplify matters – or allowed further complexity. When the Antwerp townhouse of art nouveau architect Joseph Bascourt was demolished to make way for the extension of a car park, Raymaekers snapped up the facade. Without knowing or caring how the pieces were originally composed, Raymaekers shuffled them into a new configuration for the facade of a flower shop a client had commissioned in the Brussels hinterland, completed in 1987. Raymaekers moved Bascourt’s decorative entablature from the top of the facade down to eye level, the better to be enjoyed; that this meant the windows on the top floor would now poke strangely above the roofline was fine with both Raymaekers and the client. The shreds of Raymaekers’ reputation that survive today, and what can be retrieved and reconstructed of his private and professional habits, are complex at best. His charisma and determination enabled him to convince artisans, contractors, labourers and clients to stretch themselves beyond what they thought possible, adding their own talent to his difficult buildings. But Raymaekers could also be intimidating and domineering. Collaborators often stepped away from his all‑consuming process; clients who considered him too pushy and found themselves running out of money could cease working with him. But this was not the case for his spouses, sons, grandchildren and daughters‑in‑law. They were bound to him by more than his business practice and art, and some of them suffered enduring and even unbearable distress. Their suffering is the shadow behind Raymaekers’ work. When researchers from Belgian design practice Rotor and the University of Ghent – also the authors of this article – started showing up at Queen of the South in 2011, it was not because of Raymaekers’ reputation; it was merely to include Queen of the South on Opalis’s database, a roster of salvage dealers covering much of north‑western Europe. We only realised the extent and importance of his work after several years and at least three visits. Raymaekers had refused all interviews since his bankruptcy, but after some persuasion, a meeting was scheduled in the courtyard on a grey winter day. Triggered by newspaper cuttings, his own limited archive of photographs and strolls through the stock, a picture emerged of the rich reuse ecosystem in which he was active in his glory days. It is this ecosystem, along with the remarkable and necessary fluidity of Raymaekers’ practice with old building materials, that was critical to his success. Belgium was blessed in the postwar period with a remarkably robust network of demolition contractors who were also salvage dealers, antiques dealers who were also designers, industrial scrapyards willing to let architects pick through their mountains of waste. The landscape was ripe for reuse. So was the legislative field. Raymaekers’ oeuvre could be mistaken, at a cursory glance, for just more Ugly Belgian Houses (several of them have indeed appeared on Hannes Coudenys’ infamous blog). His houses appear to be kitsch, chaotic, brazen, overstuffed with mixed metaphors. But they are much more than that. They are intelligent, instinctive assemblages of unpredictable material streams. They are bracing, never boring. And though they are wildly out‑of‑step with today’s tastes, the houses – and moreover, the kind of innovative practice that built them – have a lot to teach spatial practitioners about reusing architectural materials and circularity in the construction industry. And as with any of those so‑called ‘ugly’ Belgian houses, the label is a trivialisation (and an elitist one) of something systemic and generative. What makes possible such expressionistic and characterful suburban houses in Belgium – whatever one thinks of their quality – is government policy since the postwar era. While other European countries went all in on standardised social housing, in Belgium, the 1948 De Taeye Law offered construction grants and a state guarantee on mortgages, triggering families to initiate, help design and sometimes even execute the construction of their own homes, tapping into a rural tradition of self‑reliance. Raymaekers worked at a time when modernisation – and the demolition it demanded – was churning out a constant flow of antique materials. It was also a time when the merger and exchange of roles in the architectural process – from material procurement, to design and collaboration live on site – was still possible. Material reuse today is much harder. It must work precisely against the linear flows of extraction, capital, efficiency and predictability – all supercharged by the digital and its requirement of an almost omniscient predictability, and by increasingly demanding rules around compliance and liability. But to explore the wild potential of material reuse – not just to reduce embodied carbon, but to unleash new design potential and a richer culture around material (heritage) and practice – it must be possible to imagine ways in which material procurement, construction sites and the architects’ role can change fundamentally again.  Illustration: Laslo Antal for The Architectural Review. Read more about the process of making this portrait here 2025-05-15 Justinien Tribillon Share AR May 2025CircularityBuy Now

Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube812k Yes, you read that headline correctly. Cookie Clicker, the infamous idle game about clicking a cookie, is coming to Switch, fresh out of the oven, on 22nd May. We'd imagine that you will be familiar with Cookie Clicker already. This one was initially released by one-man dev Julien 'Orteil' Thiennot back in 2013 and quickly built up a huge following thanks to its addictively simple gameplay loop: click the cookie to get more cookies. If you've never sampled it before, then we'd wager that synopsis sounds a little dry. But trust us, it's the ultimate time sink. Each cookie you gain gives you the chance to get even more cookies, with unlockable auto-clickers and a whole host of other weird and wonderful ways to keep the baked goods rolling in.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube812kWatch on YouTube The Switch version was teased on Orteil's BlueSky account, and the corresponding eShop page revealed it would be arriving next week for just £4.29 / $4.99 — a small price to pay to risk losing all your free time. Here's the official rundown of the game's features and a handful of eShop screenshots from publisher DashNet, so you can see what you're letting yourself in for: * Collect cookies and spend them to earn even more cookies * Over 600+ upgrades * Pet your dragon* Mini-games * Unlock heavenly perma-upgrades * Music by C418 Images: DashNet Look, we can't imagine that this will be rocketing to the top of our Game of the Year lists come December, but it runs the risk of scoring highly in the 'Most Played' category if we're not careful. Just one more Do you have fond memories of Cookie Clicker? Will you be picking it up on Switch? Click down to the comments and let us know. Related Games See Also Share:0 0 Jim came to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, despite his insistence that The Minish Cap is the best Zelda game and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (yes, really), he has continued to write news and features on the site ever since. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Nintendo Reconfirms Release Windows For Major Switch 2 Games And original Switch, of course Here's A Look At The Back Of Mario Kart World's Switch 2 Box Art The race begins next month The First Review For Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time Is In A fantasy score? SNK Announces ACA NEOGEO Selection Vol. 5 And Vol. 6 For Switch Update: Multi-language release confirmed Review: 1000xRESIST (Switch) - A Sci-Fi Narrative Masterpiece, Hair To Hair You can (not) Resist

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. The first US hub for experimental medical treatments is coming The news: A bill that allows clinics to sell unproven treatments has been passed in Montana. Under the legislation, doctors can apply for a license to open an experimental treatment clinic and recommend and sell therapies not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to their patients. Why it matters: Once it’s signed by the governor, the law will be the most expansive in the country in allowing access to drugs that have not been fully tested. The bill allows for any drug produced in the state to be sold in it, providing it has been through phase I clinical trials—but these trials do not determine if the drug is effective.The big picture: The bill was drafted and lobbied for by people interested in extending human lifespans. And these longevity enthusiasts are hoping Montana will serve as a test bed for opening up access to experimental drugs. Read the full story. —Jessica Hamzelou Google DeepMind’s new AI agent cracks real-world problems better than humans can Google DeepMind has once again used large language models to discover new solutions to long-standing problems in math and computer science. This time the firm has shown that its approach can not only tackle unsolved theoretical puzzles, but improve a range of important real-world processes as well. The new tool, called AlphaEvolve, uses large language models (LLMs) to produce code for a wide range of different tasks. LLMs are known to be hit and miss at coding. The twist here is that AlphaEvolve scores each of Gemini’s suggestions, throwing out the bad and tweaking the good, in an iterative process, until it has produced the best algorithm it can. In many cases, the results are more efficient or more accurate than the best existing (human-written) solutions.Read the full story. —Will Douglas Heaven Research cuts are threatening crucial climate data —Casey Crownhart Over the last few weeks, there’s been an explosion of news about proposed budget cuts to science in the US. Researchers and civil servants are sounding the alarm that those cuts mean we might lose key data that helps us understand our world and how climate change is affecting it. Long-running US government programs that monitor the snowpack across the West are among those being threatened by cuts across the US federal government, as my colleague James Temple’s new story explores. Also potentially in trouble: carbon dioxide measurements in Hawaii, hurricane forecasting tools, and a database that tracks the economic impact of natural disasters.  It’s all got me thinking: What do we lose when data is in danger? Read the full story. This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Donald Trump doesn’t want Apple building iPhones in India The US President claims Apple will be upping their US production as a result. (Bloomberg $)+ He also said that India was willing to “literally charge us no tariffs.” (WSJ $)2 Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot ranted about white genocide  In response to completely unrelated queries. (FT $)+ It’s not the first time Grok has shared questionable responses. (Bloomberg $)+ Grok told users it was instructed to accept white genocide as real. (The Guardian) 3 RFK Jr doesn’t think we should take his medical advice Which begs the question: why is he US Health and Human Services secretary? (NY Mag $)+ Kennedy said his opinions on vaccines are irrelevant. (NYT $)+ He defended his decision to downsize the health department amid protests. (The Guardian)4 GM’s new EV battery can power a truck for more than 400 miles  Its lithium manganese-rich cells use cheaper minerals than lithium-ion ones. (Fast Company $)+ Tariffs are bad news for batteries. (MIT Technology Review) 5 Anthropic has been accused of using AI-generated evidence in a legal case A lawyer for Universal Music Group claimed an expert cited a source that didn’t exist. (Reuters)+ A judge in another case reportedly caught fake AI citations, too. (Ars Technica)+ AI companies are finally being forced to cough up for training data. (MIT Technology Review)6 AI won’t put human radiologists out of a job any time soonThe technology is helpful, but is unable to do everything trained human experts can. (NYT $) + Why it’s so hard to use AI to diagnose cancer. (MIT Technology Review) 7 The US Defense Department wants faster aircraft and missiles And startups are more than willing to answer the call. (WP $)+ Phase two of military AI has arrived. (MIT Technology Review)8 SpaceX has successfully tested its Starship rocket 🚀Clearing a major hurdle ahead of its planned launch later this month. (Wired $)9 YouTube will start inserting ads into videos’ crucial moments Wow, that doesn’t sound annoying at all. (TechCrunch)10 Apple’s Vision Pro headset is a pain in the neckAnd early adopters are regretting shelling out $3,500 apiece. (WSJ $) + Maybe the ability to scroll using their eyes will change their minds. (Bloomberg $) Quote of the day “To say a professor is ‘some kind of monster’ for using AI to generate slides “is, to me, ridiculous.” —Paul Shovlin, a professor at Ohio University, reacts to student backlash against professors using AI to create teaching materials, the New York Times reports. One more thing Who gets to decide who receives experimental medical treatments?There has been a trend toward lowering the bar for new medicines, and it is becoming easier for people to access treatments that might not help them—and could even harm them. Anecdotes appear to be overpowering evidence in decisions on drug approval. As a result, we’re ending up with some drugs that don’t work. We urgently need to question how these decisions are made. Who should have access to experimental therapies? And who should get to decide? Such questions are especially pressing considering how quickly biotechnology is advancing. We’re not just improving on existing classes of treatments—we’re creating entirely new ones. Read the full story.—Jessica Hamzelou We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.) + Food nostalgia is the best nostalgia, and this Bluesky account of discontinued foods doesn't disappoint.+ Don’t even think of calling your newborn baby King if you live in New Zealand.+ Actor Jeremy Strong just loves a bucket hat.+ Watch out Swiss drivers—a duck has been caught speeding 🦆

May 15, 2025The Hacker NewsCompliance / Penetration Testing Imagine this: Your organization completed its annual penetration test in January, earning high marks for security compliance. In February, your development team deployed a routine software update. By April, attackers had already exploited a vulnerability introduced in that February update, gaining access to customer data weeks before being finally detected. This situation isn't theoretical: it plays out repeatedly as organizations realize that point-in-time compliance testing can't protect against vulnerabilities introduced after the assessment. According to Verizons 2025 Data Breach Investigation Report, the exploitation of vulnerabilities rose 34% year-over-year. While compliance frameworks provide important security guidelines, companies need continuous security validation to identify and remediate new vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them. Here's what you need to know about pen testing to meet compliance standards — and why you should adopt continuous penetration testing, if your penetration testing goals go beyond minimum standards. The current state of pen testingCompliance-driven pen testing If your organization is like many, you might conduct penetration tests primarily to satisfy regulatory frameworks like PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2, or ISO 27001. But if your pen testing focuses on simply checking off compliance boxes — instead of developing comprehensive security postures — you're creating a dangerous disconnect between security theater and actual threat protection. Limitations Compliance-focused pen testing has several limitations that leave organizations vulnerable. Surface-level security: Compliance-focused penetration testing typically addresses only compliance-relevant vulnerabilities. If your organization focuses its pen testing exclusively on meeting compliance requirements, you're just scratching the surface — and missing the chance to identify vulnerabilities that fall outside the scope of regulatory frameworks. These undetected weaknesses can give attackers an attack vector into your systems, potentially leading to devastating data breaches and operational disruptions. Static nature: Cyber attackers and the digital landscape move fast. Compliance standards? Not so much. During the months (or years) it takes for regulatory frameworks to catch up with new threats – and the gaps between compliance-focused penetration tests – malicious actors are actively developing exploits for emerging vulnerabilities. By the time these weaknesses appear on compliance checklists, attackers may have already compromised countless systems. False sense of security: Organizations often mistake compliance for security, believing a passing audit score means they're sufficiently protected. But the reality is that compliance certifications represent minimum standards that sophisticated attackers can easily bypass. Companies with successful audits may lower their guard when they should be working on strengthening their defenses beyond basic requirements. The importance of continuous pen testing Embracing continuous security testing offers organizations numerous benefits. Beyond compliance: Proactive and continuous penetration testing can reveal vulnerabilities that scheduled compliance checks might miss. Skilled human testers can uncover complex security flaws in business logic, authentication systems, and data flows, while automated scans keep an eye on any changes that might happen over the development cycle. By implementing regular, comprehensive testing, your organization can stay ahead of attackers rather than merely satisfying auditors. You'll be doing much more than passing the next compliance review — you'll be developing a resilient security posture capable of withstanding more sophisticated threats. Continuous improvement: Security threats constantly change, forcing organizations to adopt ongoing testing instead of point-in-time assessments. And regular penetration tests can expose vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them. For example, Pen Testing as a Service (PTaaS) helps organizations achieve continuous security validation without overwhelming internal teams. With PTaaS, your organization can detect new threats in time and quickly take steps to remediate them. Instead of reacting to breaches after they occur, PTaaS lets you stay a step ahead of attackers by using real-world testing to continuously strengthen your security. Key components of a pen testing strategy with security in mind To implement penetration testing that truly helps safeguard your systems, focus on these key strategic components: Regular or continuous testing To effectively address vulnerabilities in real time, your organization should regularly conduct penetration tests — including after significant system changes and before major deployments. Ultimately, your ideal pen testing frequency and depth will depend on your assets — their complexity, criticality to your business operations and external exposure. For example, if you have an online store that holds critical customer data and payment information — and is regularly updated with changes and plugins — you may want to employ continuous testing. On the other end of the spectrum, your marketing department's fall-campaign microsite may only need quarterly or annual assessments. Integration with other security measures Want to maximize your organization's security effectiveness? Combine penetration testing with External Attack Surface Management (EASM). By identifying your digital footprint and testing critical applications based on the latest threat data, your team can prioritize high-risk vulnerabilities while ensuring no internet-facing assets remain unmonitored, unprotected or untested. Customization and threat-led penetration tests Your organization faces unique security challenges based on your industry, technology stack, and business operations. By tailoring penetration testing, you can focus on your business's specific threat profile — testing the areas where breaches are most likely to occur based on the most active threat actors and those that would cause the most damage — rather than wasting time and resources on cookie-cutter assessments. Overcoming challenges Despite the clear benefits, many organizations struggle with common penetration testing implementation challenges related to resources and culture. Resource allocation Resource issues — including budget constraints and shortage of qualified security personnel — prevent many organizations from implementing adequate penetration testing programs. But PTaaS and combined discovery and testing services like Outpost24s CyberFlex service solve these challenges by providing access to certified testers through a predictable subscription model, eliminating budget spikes and the expense of maintaining specialized in-house expertise. Cultural shift To move beyond compliance-driven security, your organization's leadership must champion a cultural shift prioritizing continuous testing and proactive risk management. When security becomes embedded in your organizational culture, pen testing transforms from a periodic checklist item into an ongoing process of discovering and addressing vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them. Taking action with integrated solutions For the greatest level of security, your organization must know every application in your environment and test each one thoroughly. And a combined solution like Outpost24's CyberFlex can help. Integrating EASM and PTaaS on a platform level, allows cybersecurity experts to identify all internet-facing applications, use detailed categorizations to prioritize risks, and test business-critical applications with flexible, human-led assessments. By shifting to proactive penetration testing, your organization can prevent attacks before they happen — and satisfy compliance requirements. Ready to go beyond compliance and elevate your application security? Request your CyberFlex live demo today. Found this article interesting? This article is a contributed piece from one of our valued partners. Follow us on Twitter  and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post. SHARE    

When a Toronto legal eagle who happens to be a hardcore design hound moved into a new home in the city’s Rosedale neighborhood, she knew exactly what she wanted: something moodier and edgier than her last place. She was done with the white wall living that defined her previous home. “I wanted a feel of age and patina,” she says. “The last thing I wanted was a new-build vibe.”So she enlisted Montana Labelle, the rock star of the city’s design scene, to renovate her 1911 Dutch Colonial–style home. The interior designer, who has long Hitchcock-blonde hair and intricate wrist tattoos (her Canadian parents named her Montana “just because they liked the sound of it”) is a graduate of the Parsons School of Design in New York, and she has a wait list among Toronto’s young professional set. She also has a lifestyle brand featuring objects she creates largely out of her favorite material, marble—everything from richly veined salad spoons to toothbrush holders to toadstool-shaped side tables.Patrick BillerA custom bookcase holds the homeowner’s collection of Montana Labelle Lifestyle and vintage ceramics. The chair is by Adrian Pearsall.“Montana is a bit of an outsider, and as such she has attracted the right kind of people.”—Tommy Smythe Despite her firm’s growth, Labelle is selective about the clients she takes on, and she keeps a relatively low profile. “She has managed to remain a bit of a mystery,” says Tommy Smythe, a Toronto decorator and television personality. “Montana is a bit of an outsider, and as such she has attracted the right kind of people. She’s working with clients who want her to create a world for them. She’s truly an artist.”Patrick BillerThe living room mantel in the 1911 home was covered in volcanic ash–glazed tile by Formafantasma for Dzek. Custom cocktail table; Montana Labelle Lifestyle bowl; Samsung Frame TV.Labelle’s face lights up when she speaks of her passion for craftsmanship and objects with beautiful imperfections. “People are craving authenticity and connection in their spaces more than ever,” she says. “Cookie cutter decor is being swapped out for unique pieces that tell a story and add personality to a home.”Patrick BillerThe dining room’s Cresco table by Acerbis is framed by 1970s Mobil Girgi chairs and a vintage Fritz Hansen settee. Sconces by RBW; Venetian plaster walls in Benjamin Moore’s Natural Cream; artwork by Michael J. Kuczer.For this 4,000-square-foot residence she created a bathroom vanity out of a midcentury brutalist dresser, clad a living room mantel in Formafantasma volcanic tiles, and planted a deep clay soaking tub in the primary bathroom. She also enlisted decorative painter Jeanne Shemilt to sheath the walls in rich Venetian plaster finishes. “I wanted every room to feel warm and curated,” Labelle says.Patrick BillerIn the primary bath the clay soaking tub is by Studio Loho. Vintage Pierre Chapo chair; walls in Benjamin Moore’s Masada. The hands-on approach extended to the client, who appears to be as conversant in French designers from the 1960s and in midcentury Italian lighting fixtures as she is in the law. She and Labelle, together with Shemilt, put their heads together, and within a year (which in design terms is basically the blink of an eye) they had created a richly realized and one-of-a-kind monument to the power of women who know what they want—and what they don’t. “What can I say?” says the homeowner, whose first project with Labelle was eight years ago. “We are very efficient.”Tour this Handcrafted, Patina-filled Toronto HomeThe lawyer had no desire for a house that looked like the neighbors’ homes. “She is moody in a good way,” Labelle says. “She likes rooms that are dark and interesting. We wanted to create something that would reflect her personality.”Walls were knocked down, curios were purchased, and each room became a modern yet eminently livable refuge. There were vintage wall tapestries, a midcentury Italian modular sofa now re-covered in earthy Dedar stripes, and in the family room Labelle designed white shutters and had them customized with polka dot cutouts. The goal was to nail down the cool factor but with nothing cold about it.The goal was to nail down the cool factor but with nothing cold about it.Labelle found many of the home’s vintage pieces on Etsy, as well as at Texas and Massachusetts antiques fairs, from which she livestreamed her favorite finds to the client. “I’d send a picture, and within minutes she’d say yes or no,” the designer says. Labelle pushed her to accept groovy finds. For her part, the owner insisted on a bathtub and a laundry room sink ample enough for her goldendoodle, along with a long harlequin-tiled hall corridor where her dog could frolic on freezing winter days.Though the project wrapped two years ago, Labelle and the client still text daily—about their pets or cool design images they spot on the internet. The homeowner now has a dream home as well as a friend and thought partner—and no regrets. “It’s a very different house,” she says of her place. “Every time somebody comes over, they say it’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. And I know if I ever had to move out of this house for whatever reason, it would be okay, because Montana would help me make the next one equally amazing—if not more.” ◾This story originally appeared in the May 2025 issue of Elle Decor. SUBSCRIBE