Nintendo will reportedly not send out review units of Switch 2 hardware until the console's launch date, meaning buyers will need to cough up before they'll know if it's any goodTech14:55, 15 May 2025Updated 15:04, 15 May 2025You will need to act fast to get a Switch 2(Image: Nintendo)The Nintendo Switch 2 launches in just a few weeks, and brings with it Mario Kart World and a whole host of fantastic third-party ports and Switch 1 upgrades.We went hands on with the system last month and came away mightily impressed, and it's just as well we did—as a new report from The Game Business suggests that gamers won't be able to read or watch any hardware reviews until launch day at the earliest.‌That means fans will have to hope that their preorders haven't been in vain if it turns out there's some issues with the console (although we'd be very, very surprised).‌While it's never a given that media outlets (like yours truly) will receive hardware ahead of time, it does make it difficult to know just how much we'll be able to say about the Switch 2 to help our readership make an informed purchasing decision, especially to the tune of £400 in today's economy.Switch 2 is just weeks away(Image: AFP via Getty Images)In the latest issue of The Game Business newsletter, Christopher Dring said: "Some media have even been warned they will not have their machine until launch day. Nintendo has told journalists that this is due to the requirement of a significant day one patch."Article continues below“It’s really frustrating,” one editor is quoted as saying.“We will need to cover Switch 2 while also working across Summer Game Fest. How are we supposed to do that?”Indeed, Summer Game Fest, which has essentially replaced E3, will be held from June 6 to June 8, and will include heavy-hitters like Summer Game Fest Live, an Xbox Games Showcase, and the PC Gaming Show.‌"Anyone who can get hold of a console early from a dodgy retailer will have a head start in terms of coverage," another editor is quoted as saying. "I know the console will be sold out at launch, but what about all the other games?”On the subject of other games, it appears third-parties are concerned about the chance to get a look in from reviewers ahead of launch, too.Mario Kart World is Nintendo's big Switch 2 launch title(Image: Nintendo)‌As Dring explains: "One PR boss said they feel they have 'something special' for the launch of Switch 2 for those that 'want something else in addition to Mario Kart'."But the lack of independent critical validation is going to make it very hard for us. Maybe we would have been better off waiting a few weeks.”So, when can you expect the Daily Star review? We've got the console preordered, and postage permitting will be able to share our thoughts shortly after launch.‌We've also reached out for comment from Nintendo, and will update this story if we receive one.For what it's worth, we were mighty impressed by the Switch 2 when we went hands on, praising both its form-factor, unique controller options, and more.I said:‌"The Switch 2 is a more impressive upgrade than I (and perhaps others) had given credit for, and while I’m sure Nintendo has much more to show us in the months to come, I feel like the launch window line-up is strong enough to warrant a purchase already.""We’ll have a full review up on Daily Star when my pre-order arrives in a couple of months, but for now, I really wish I could’ve taken one home."For more on Nintendo Switch 2, be sure to check out our favourite Switch 1 games, as well as our most-wanted Switch 2 ports.Article continues belowFor the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.‌‌‌

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said he was hopeful that any long-term policy will address foods that the US doesn't produce, like bananas. Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images 2025-05-15T19:09:37Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Walmart says tariffs remain "too high," even after recent reductions. The company warned that it will have to raise some prices if import costs don't come down further. It's not yet clear how already-pressured shoppers will respond to price hikes. President Donald Trump's shifting trade policy is causing headaches for America's largest retailer.While Walmart CFO John David Rainey welcomed the recent reduction in tariffs, he said the company is not out of the woods yet."Let me emphasize, we still think that's too high," he said of the latest rates during Walmart's earnings call on Thursday. Walmart says it imports about one-third of what it sells in the US from other countries, namely China, Mexico, Canada, Vietnam, and India, and that cargos are currently flowing."There are certain items, certain categories of merchandise, that we're dependent upon to import from other countries, and prices of those things are likely going to go up, and that's not good for consumers," Rainey said.Rainey also said shoppers are showing signs of being more financially pressured, evidenced by their spending shifting away from general merchandise and more toward food and essentials.CEO Doug McMillon added that he doesn't expect shoppers will tolerate additional price hikes on their grocery bills, which would limit the retailer's ability to shift import costs to other goods in its assortment."The first thing that goes through my mind is food inflation," he said. "We've been through a number of years here where prices have gone up on food, and our customers have felt that, and they don't want any more food inflation."He also said he was hopeful that any long-term policy would address foods that the US doesn't produce in significant amounts, like bananas.An additional wrinkle for Walmart management is the question of what economists call "price elasticity," or the change in purchasing patterns in response to changes in cost.American consumers proved surprisingly resilient during recent years of high inflation, and kept on spending even though prices were climbing.But Rainey said tariffs make it "more challenging to anticipate demand by item," since it's not clear how shoppers will respond to new tariff-related price hikes and retailers are wary of getting stuck holding large amounts of expensive merchandise."We'll watch where our price gaps are," McMillon said, "but we'll also watch what customers are telling us and the response that we get from pressure that they're feeling."While that puzzle is a little more solvable with high-turnover items like food, it's considerably more difficult to predict for seasonal sales events like back-to-school or the holidays — and Walmart has to place those orders now.And thanks to a quirk of retail accounting, a significant fluctuation in shelf prices could have an outsized impact of the company's financial results in the coming quarters if it has to make large adjustments to its inventory valuation."How do you make a quantity call, and what tariff number do you use?" McMillon asked. Recommended video

The world is awash in data about, well, the world — thanks to satellites and environmental sensors. But there’s still a lot we can’t see, and Fieldstone Bio thinks microbes can change that. “They’ve evolved to sense and respond to information. It’s just trillions of calculations going on at all times all around us,” Brandon Fields, Fieldstone Bio’s co-founder and chief science officer, told TechCrunch. “How do we take that and actually manipulate that to gain benefits for us?” Fieldstone’s technology emerged from that question. The startup was founded in 2023 after spinning out of MIT, where professor Chris Voigt’s lab had developed a way to turn microbes into sensors. The scientists programmed the microbes to change color when they encountered something of interest, whether it be nutrients in soil or landmines hidden in the dirt, and then figured out how to detect them. “The key technology out of Chris’ lab is this idea of, ‘How do we actually visualize these cells from really far away?’” Fields said. Fieldstone Bio recently raised $5 million in seed funding led by Ubiquity Ventures with participation from E14 and LDV Capital, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. The startup has been testing its technology in the lab, and the funding will let it test those microbes in the real world. Each strain is tailored to sense a particular compound, such as nitrogen on a farm field or TNT residue from a landmine.  “We isolate microbes from the environments we want to sense,” Fields said. “We build our sensors the DNA pieces, and we just drop them into these different ones and see which ones behave the best, which ones can last the longest.” Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Once the microbes are ready, Fieldstone will broadcast them using drones. After the microbes have some time to sense their environment — several hours to days, depending on the target — the company will have another drone snap photos of the area. The images aren’t the usual aerial photography seen on Google Maps. Rather, they’re taken using what’s known as a hyperspectral camera, which divide visible and infrared light into as many as 600 different colors. Because Fieldstone’s microbes will reflect light at a very specific wavelength, it can train AI models to look for those signals amid a torrent of data. “That’s where the power of AI comes in, because we can start using that information to tease out these really faint signals to produce really cool heat maps of the microbe sensing the environment,” Fields said. In addition to agriculture and national security applications, Fieldstone is also programming microbes to detect environmental contaminants like arsenic, CEO Patrick Stone said. “Instead of going to do core soil samples over every 100 feet — and then you have 100 foot resolution — we could get a one-inch resolution and really map out exactly where they need to go clean up stuff,” he said. Gene edited microbial sensors broadcast over farm fields are sure to raise the eyebrows among people who oppose genetic modification. Fields said that the company has been in contact with the EPA to ensure that the company follows regulations. Fields said that, over time, he hopes the company’s database will become large enough that it can train models to associate other signals in the environment with whatever data is returned by the microbes. That would allow hyperspectral cameras to detect, say, arsenic contamination without needing to spread the engineered microbes. “Eventually, you don’t need to apply the microbe at all,” Fields said. “You have drones, planes, and satellites now collecting information about chemical information on a global scale.”

Staying In Shadows Assassin's Creed Shadows' delay turned out well, so Ubisoft's bigwigs are pushing some of the biggest games it has in the works further down the road If it ain't broke, give it an extra year or so just to allow you to really make sure it ain't broke. Image credit: Ubisoft News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 15, 2025 Assassin's Creed Shadows was good. So, Ubisoft's decided to do the same thing with some of the "biggest productions" it currently has in the works, pushing several unnannounced games back in the hopes that more development time will yield more success. This was announced in the publisher's latest earnings release, in which it also reflets on what's been a pretty turbulent year for one of the world's premiere providers of massive games with maps chock full of s**t to do, and has seen it produce a weird subsidiary baby with Chinese giant Tencent. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. After bigging up Shadows' launch as a "defining moment" that re-affirmed the entire concept of people liking Assassin's Creed, the release revealed that the publisher's been reviewing the portfoloio of stuff it's currently working on. "After a thorough review of its pipeline that took place from October to December, the Group decided to provide additional development time to some of its biggest productions in order to create the best conditions for success," Ubisoft wrote. "This decision has already been beneficial to the quality of Assassin’s Creed Shadows. As a consequence, FY2026-27 and FY2027-28 will see significant growth vs. FY2025-26 on the back of strong content coming from the Group’s largest brands." Well, at least it's doing the same thing over and over again with the expectation of getting similar results, rather than different results - the latter being the thing Vaas warned us all about repeatedly during the course of Far Cry 3. Is this strategy the definition of sanity? We'll have to see. Meanwhile, Ubisoft declared that the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake - the game it teased last year by showing off a 30 second clip of a candle doing candle things - will come out during the current financial year that ends in March 2026. It had already been given a broad 2026 date in that candle teaser, so you can pencil it in for sometime in the first few months of next year. Anno 117: Pax Romana, Rainbow Six Mobile, and The Division Resurgence are all also set to come out in the upcoming biz year, along with some more games that remain unnannounced for now but with these delays, it's looking like there could be a bit of a fallow period after that. Do you think Ubi's on to a winner by applying its Shadows strategy to these other games? Let us know below!

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here The Nintendo Switch 2 is already expected to outsell the original console’s first year within its three-month launch period, but analysts are also predicting the console to sell over 100m units in just five years. DFC Intelligence, a market research group, has not only claimed that the new console will see rapid sales across the next half-decade, but is also “arguably the most important product launch in video game history” which seems a bit much. Switch 2 sales predictions go haywire According to the research firm’s latest report, via GamesRadar, the new console/handheld hybrid will be “the key driver of industry growth for 2025”, especially following the delay of Rockstar Games’ GTA 6 into next year. The firm explains that the console should sell around 16 million units over the course of 2025, but could hit a yearly milestone of 20 million. If supply and demand are kept in check—which the firm expects they will be—Nintendo will manage to sell 100 million consoles in just five years. This would match the life cycle of the original Nintendo Switch which managed to sell 100 million units by 2022. However, that console’s sales were massively boosted by the higher-than-usual sales of consoles and games as a whole during the COVID-19 pandemic, a fact that has likely affected the later-than-expected release of the Switch 2. As for the console’s importance, the analyst firm claims that the device could be the most important launch of any product in video game history. “The Switch 2, along with the growth of mobile PC game devices, is redefining the landscape of the video game industry.” the firm wrote in its report. “DFC forecasts that by the end of 2029, the Switch 2 will have sold over 100 million units, making it the leading console system by a wide margin.” The firm also claims that the Switch 2’s success over “the next few years could see Nintendo for the first time becoming the primary partner for third-party game publishers.” With the industry already catering to lower-power hardware like the Xbox Series S, this could have actually led the way for Nintendo’s new console to keep pace with third-party releases on next-gen only hardware. Demand for the new console is certainly extremely high, so much so that Nintendo underestimated how many gamers were willing to buy the new machine. With the company recognising the high cost of the handheld in comparison to its predecessor, Nintendo has admitted that it needs to ramp up production on the console. For more Nintendo Switch 2, read about how the console’s popularity caused MicroSD Express cards to sell out. Additionally, read about why VRR might not be possible on the console via its Docked Mode output. Subscribe to our newsletters! By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime. Share

May 15, 20253 min readLawmakers Push to Legalize Emissions-Heavy ‘Supersonic’ PlanesA bill to repeal the ban on supersonic flights over the U.S. could increase the demand for the gas-guzzling jets from around a dozen to as many as 240By Corbin Hiar & E&E News The Concorde, seen above as it is returned to the Intrepid Museum last year, was last in commercial operation in 2003. Lawmakers want to help bring back supersonic flights by legalizing it in U.S. airspace, as United Airlines and others invest in the planemaking startup Boom Supersonic. Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | Lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol are seeking to repeal a half-century-old regulation that prevents civilian aircraft from traveling faster than the speed of sound over the United States.The "Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act" could vastly increase the potential market — and emissions — of Boom Supersonic, a planemaking startup backed by United Airlines; Japan Airlines; and Sam Altman, the billionaire CEO of the artificial intelligence firm OpenAI.No commercial supersonic planes have been in operation since the Concorde ceased flights between New York and London in 2003. But aviation analysts estimate that the jets Boom is developing would consume at least two times more fuel per passenger than flying on commercial airplanes in operation now.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.The bill is from Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), whose state is home to Boom's manufacturing plant, and Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), the chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation. It's co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Mike Lee of Utah and Tim Sheehy of Montana as well as Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas."Supersonic flight without an audible sonic boom should obviously be allowed," said Blake Scholl, Boom's founder and CEO, in statements released by the bill's lead sponsors. "I urge Congress to pass the Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act supersonically, so we can all enjoy faster flights and maintain American leadership in aviation."The legislation would order the Federal Aviation Administration to scrap or update a 1973 regulation that prohibits non-military-related supersonic flight over the U.S. within a year of the bill's passage. It specifically calls for the agency to allow for civilian flights in the national airspace "at a Mach number greater than 1 so long as the aircraft is operated in such a manner that no sonic boom reaches the ground in the United States."The congressional push to undo the overland flight ban comes as NASA prepares to conduct its first test flights of a supersonic jet developed by Lockheed Martin to produce sonic "thumps," rather than booms, when traveling faster than the speed of sound. The United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization is also set to develop new noise standards that member states could adopt.In February, Boom completed a series of supersonic test flights in a prototype plane that it claimed did not produce sonic booms that were audible from the ground. The speed of sound, or Mach 1, varies based on atmospheric conditions but is generally around 767 mph at sea level.The following month, Scholl visited Washington to lobby Trump administration officials to repeal the supersonic flight ban, POLITICO Pro reported at the time.The International Council on Clean Transportation, an environmental research group, estimated in 2022 that dropping overland flight prohibitions for supersonic aircraft in the U.S. and other major markets could increase the demand for the gas-guzzling jets from around a dozen to as many as 240. The company has already reported inking deals with airlines to produce 130 planes.Boom is designing its engines to run on sustainable aviation fuel, which has a fraction of the carbon emissions of traditional jet fuel. But operating the supersonic jets with SAF would be uneconomic for most airlines given the higher cost of SAF and the greater fuel consumption required to break the sound barrier.Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.

Though even the best AI models struggle to solve the majority of coding problems, that didn't stop one man's penny-pinching employers from replacing him with the tech anyway.Shawn Kay was a software engineer of 20 years who went from earning $150,000 in upstate New York to living out of a trailer, after he says his former boss outsourced his job to AI.As Fortune reports, he now does odd jobs to make ends meet, like gig work on meal delivery apps, and flipping his stuff on eBay.To make matters worse, Kay's been spat out into a noxious job market for highly trained tech workers. Out of 800 job applications he's placed since losing his income, he's only received ten interviews. As if to add insult to injury, a handful of those, he says, have been with AI."I feel super invisible. I feel unseen. I feel like I'm filtered out before a human is even in the chain," Kay told Fortune.At 42 years old, the engineer has been around long enough to prove his mettle. He's survived hiring downturns before, like the 2008 global financial crisis, and the brief recession brought about by the pandemic. This time, something's different.Though AI makes a great boogeyman — a narrative which, coincidentally, helps AI tycoons convince lawmakers to let the industry regulate itself — there are other factors at play in the tech job market.During the pandemic, tech companies became more profitable than they had been in years. Fueled by a society that quickly became dependent on tech and software companies to keep things afloat, the sector grew substantially throughout the public health crisis, triggering an industry-wide hiring spree.But as COVID-19 abated, many of those same companies found they had over-hired. Soon, waves of layoffs began rocking tech workers, coinciding with a flood of fresh STEM graduates entering the scene. That brought about a chaotic job market, where work is hard to find, and job quality is only getting worse.AI certainly didn't help things. Many tech moguls bought into promises that the buzzy new tech is going to "revolutionize work" — despite plenty of evidence that it's far from ready. It also irreparably damaged the job search; those seeking work like Kay now have to stand out amidst a sea of AI spam to have their resumes even read by a human.So, where are all the high-value tech jobs going? The answer, it seems, is to the bottom.While error-prone AI isn't ready to go it alone, it is ready to increase the productivity of untrained workers. A growing body of scholarship on AI and labor suggests that AI isn't simply taking over — it's enabling tech corporations to outsource high-paying jobs in the West to low-wage workers in the global south.This shift in tech job quality could be a part of the reason why we see AI having an effect on the tech labor market, despite the fact that 59 percent of developers experience consistent deployment errors when using AI to code. Why pay one worker in the US $150,000 a year, plus benefits, to sort through junk AI code when you could outsource a dozen workers in the Philippines for the same cost?The dystopian tale that AI is making us obsolete is bad enough, but it's nothing compared to the reality: AI isn't taking over the tech industry; it's turning it into a sweatshop.Share This Article

Some decorating trends will come and go (see millennial pink) while others have longevity, no matter what era we're in. One such aesthetic? Tasteful horse decor. Between Netflix's recent hit Ransom Canyon, the U.S. Polo championships back in April, and the many home tours we've published featuring horse motifs, everyone, including the design world, is enthralled with these creatures right now. While luxury fashion brands such as Ralph Lauren and Hermès may have introduced equestrian vibes into interiors (horses being an instantly recognizable part of both brands' identities), the look has evolved beyond just their ateliers. "Horses have always been a popular subject in the art and design world, going back to early cave drawings in the Lascaux Cave, France. It is so fun to see them back in the spotlight in interiors," designer Maria Burke says. "We have definitely seen a resurgence in layered, British interior style, so I think it is fitting that all sorts of equestrian subjects and patterns have also seen a rise in popularity." While several designers we spoke with mentioned the influence of British style in homes right now, others link our current fascination with the Wild West to a yearning for a different time. manufoto llcA horse sculpture nestled amongst candle holders is the perfect final decorative touch.Anson SmartMix and match art mediums, like textured pieces and a photo, in a room."Across the board, we're seeing a major shift back to traditional, cozy, old-world design. I think it's everyone's desire for comfort and reassurance during these rocky political and technological times. A return to our roots. It's the antithesis to AI," award-winning interior designer Lindsay Gerber Northart says. "The resurgence [of horse decor] seems to stem from a deep-seated yearning for connection with nature and a romanticized notion of freedom and open horizons," L.A.-based designer Jennifer Miller adds. "Horses embody both untamed beauty and a sense of serene strength in their powerful yet graceful presence. This inherent duality resonates with contemporary desires for authenticity and a touch of the organic within our living spaces." Indeed, in a world where we are scrolling endlessly on TikTok, checking our work emails while on vacation, or being spammed with fake phone calls daily, returning to a world that ran at a slower pace seems idyllic. Designers everywhere, from Los Angeles to Virginia, are seeing an uptick in client requests for incorporating horse decor into their homes. Burke notes that in one of her projects, they recently took the client's collection of riding crops and turned them into a gallery on their second-floor hallway. Meanwhile, Jeanne Barber, founder of Camden Grace Interiors, recalls a client in the New York City suburbs asking them to adorn her husband's office in oil paintings featuring hunts and horses. As you may be able to tell, if you love these majestic animals, there are plenty of ways to capture their essence in your home. "There's a romanticism to equestrian imagery that evokes both rustic countryside charm and old-world luxury, making it incredibly versatile across styles, from modern farmhouse to classic traditional and even minimalist spaces," designer Katie McCaffrey says. Tasteful horse decor is here to stay—forever—so check out the expert styling tips ahead on achieving the look seamlessly in your home. Related Story Make It Feel Modern Patrick BillerThe office is a great place to show off your love of the equestrian sport.Mixing new pieces with vintage finds is a tried-and-true furnishing method that gives your home its character. Even though this takes time, we're firm believers in slow decorating. When it comes to horse decor, Burke recommends employing the same method by merging "old master-style oil paintings with horse subjects above more modern pieces of furniture." If you already have such works of art, you're one step ahead of everyone else. However, if you're sourcing art from scratch, Burke says, "These works can easily be found on auction sites and even consignment stores if you are up for the challenge, and they make for a wonderful mix with newer pieces." We suggest checking out places like Chairish, 1stdibs, LiveAuctioneers, and Everything But the House.Related StoryLean Into Antique SculpturesJeanne BarberSculptures can be placed anywhere, including on a bar cart.Besides framed artwork, designers suggest adding horse sculptures to your space, whether that's a small statue of a stallion nestled on your bookshelf or a giant horse head that commands attention near your staircase. The best part about these pieces is that you can move them around the house anytime without having to deal with annoying photo hooks or adhesive strips. "In my own home, I have a large, cast-iron horse head that meanders through my house, depending on my mood," Barber says. "Lately, he's hanging out on our porch bar, greeting guests with a cocktail." Opt for Striking Photography© Rustic White Photography,LLCBuy a big print from your favorite photographer and hang it where everyone can admire it.Whether you dabble in photography or follow a National Geographic photographer who shoots the most amazing wildlife, if this is your art medium of choice, incorporating a stunning visual of a horse in your space is a no-brainer. "Professional equine photographers are increasingly producing some spectacular large-format images in both black and white and color. These can be striking statements alone or as a collection, and really set a sophisticated, luxurious vibe to any space," says designer and passionate equestrian Megan Winters. Don't Be ObviousAlanna HalePlaid, iron, brass, and leather can help you tap into the look more subtly.Yes, you can display tasteful horse decor without horses! If you're not into the animalcore look, you can instead hint at your love for them through horse-adjacent decor. "I think horse decor needs to be more of a nod and hint rather than literal...otherwise you're very easily getting into a tacky decor situation," Gerber Northart says. "Introduce patinated old leather pieces and brass accent pieces, which hint at the look and feel of horse tack. Wool and plaids hint at a fox hunt." Similarly, McCaffrey suggests using "checks, plaids, natural materials such as woven baskets to evoke equestrian style without being too literal." Related StoryLittle Touches Go a Long Way Michael CliffordShow restraint when leaning into the equestrian theme.All the designers we spoke with agree on one thing when it comes to making your horse decor feel tasteful: moderation is key. "I like to try to limit the use of a 'themed' element to one or two items per room," Burke says. "Instead of layering all sorts of prints with an actual horse on it [throughout the home], we will use one and then draw inspiration from other sorts of horse-related items, such as leather, thick wool blankets, and dark iron [for the other spaces].""The key is to ensure the execution feels intentional and contributes to the overall narrative of the space," Miller adds. "In our Sun Valley project, we incorporated a few horse drawings and a red horse painting I created myself, which felt especially fitting for the setting and served as a nod to the Western heritage and natural beauty of the area. The artwork reflects the landscape’s rustic spirit while adding a personal layer of storytelling." Shop Our Favorite Horse Decor PicksHermès Cheval Deco Ashtray$800 at HermesGucci Velvet Cushion With Horsebit$1,150 at GucciCharles MARECHAL (1865-1931), Horses in landscape oil on canvas$300 at liveauctioneers.comCarol Walker Leopard Appaloosa - Limited Edition of 100 Photograph$1,830 at saatchiart.comRalph Lauren Home Dalton Accent Table$18,790 at Ralph LaurenWilliams Sonoma Cashmere & Wool Equestrian Throw$499 at Williams SonomaKathy Kuo Monty French Country Black Aged Metal Round Side End Table$141 at kathykuohome.comRalph Lauren Home Brennan Clock$1,195 at Ralph LaurenArt Deco Style Silvered Brass Etruscan Horse Sculpture$4,250 at 1stDibsJoon Loloi Morison Leather Wrapped Table Lamp$199 at joonloloi.comFollow House Beautiful on Instagram and TikTok.

Level Up 5K World Building Assets Humble Bundle / News / May 15, 2025 / Humble, Unreal The Level Up 5K World Building GameDev Assets Humble Bundle is a collection of game ready 3D environmental assets for world building. Most of the assets are for Unreal Engine with a few Unity assets. That said, using the guides below you can export to other game engines, such as the Godot Engine as you can see in the video below. There are also SpaceNova and StarNova Unreal Engine bundles running right now for Unreal Engine on Gumroad (use code SN70 and SN40 for massive discounts). 1$ Tier Medieval Dinnerware Pack Medieval Village Props Package Buildings VOL.3 – Attachments (Nanite and Low Poly) Buildings VOL.9 – Modular Pipes & Gutters (Nanite & Low Poly) Buildings VOL.10 – Air Pipes and Vents (Nanite and Low Poly) Average Tier Book Generator Gothic Furniture Props Vol1 Medieval Village Houses Pack Vehicles VOL.7 – Retro Cars (Low Poly) Buildings VOL.2 – Electric & Air (Nanite and Low Poly) Vehicles VOL.6 – Hitches & Trailers (Low Poly) Retro 80’s VOL.2 – Electronics (Nanite and Low Poly) Lighting VOL.3 – Industrial (Nanite and Low Poly) 30$ Tier Apocalyptic Hospital Apocalyptic Hospital (Unity) Brooke Industrial The Bazaar Cyber-Town Pack Fafnir’s Keep Research Tent Environment Quarry Environment Cyberpunk Night Street Nordic Medieval Tavern CCA Subway Train Terminal Auge Mountaintop Observatory Industrial VOL.1 – Worksite (Nanite and Low Poly) Medieval VOL.3 – Church Cathedral Using the links to Humble provided on this page helps support GFS (and thanks so much if you do!). If you have an issue with the link, try opening it in a new tab and it should work just fine. If you are looking at using the Unreal or Unity assets in another game engine, be sure to check out the following conversion guides:

Rejected by Museums Around the World, This New Art Exhibition Explores the Historical Roots of the Term ‘Homosexual’ “The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939” is a sprawling collection of more than 300 works at Chicago’s Wrightwood 659 gallery An 1890 photo by Alice Austen titled The Darned Club Collection of Historic Richmond Town / Wrightwood 659 In 1868, the Hungarian writer and activist Karl Maria Kertbeny coined the terms “homosexual” and “heterosexual” in a letter to his friend, the pioneering sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. Kertbeny was arguing against a German anti-sodomy law that made sexual contact between members of the same gender punishable by up to four years in prison. He reasoned that humans had innate desires—some homosexual, some heterosexual—that could not be regulated by the state. Although Kertbeny had just used the terms for what scholars believe is the first time, the language was already charged with the same imprecision that exists today. An expansive label like “homosexual” could describe actions; desires; and, crucially, an entire identity. The artistic and social “sea change” that accompanied the birth of the term “homosexual” is the subject of “The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939,” a sprawling, ambitious exhibition at the Wrightwood 659 gallery in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood. It is on view until July 26.The scale and scope of the exhibition is staggering. It gathers more than 300 works by 125-plus artists from 40 countries, on loan from private collections and major institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée d’Orsay. “It is the kind of exhibition that a massive institution like the Met regularly pulls off,” curator Jonathan D. Katz, an art historian at the University of Pennsylvania, tells the Chicago Sun-Times’ Courtney Kueppers. “But for a small, fairly new institution like Wrightwood 659 to pull off, [it] is kind of extraordinary.” “Before the Binary,” the first of eight sections in the exhibition, begins decades before Kertbeny’s letter. Its focus is on longstanding cultural, sexual and romantic practices that modern language occludes. Dance to the Berdash is an 1835-1837 oil painting by George Catlin, a 19th-century artist known for his paintings of Indigenous life and the American frontier. It depicts a real feast Catlin witnessed in which members of the Sac and Fox tribe paid tribute to a Two-Spirit leader, a person who was born male but who dressed, performed and lived as a woman. Non-Indigenous observers applied the term “berdache,” now considered derogatory, to identities and practices they considered foreign. Catlin’s painting depicts what language could not capture. Dance to the Berdash, George Catlin, 1835-1837 Smithsonian American Art Museum “Art can tell this story uniquely well,” Katz says in a statement. “While written narratives must necessarily use specialized words to describe ideas, visual imagery is more elastic, allowing for coincident layers of meaning.” More modern works by well-known artists like Jean Cocteau, the Lumière Brothers, Gustave Moreau, John Singer Sargent, Egon Schiele and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec also convey those nuances with tact across the seven other sections of the exhibition. In “Portraits,” Katz and associate curator Johnny Willis assemble a 1907 portrait of Gertrude Stein, the only full-size portrait of Oscar Wilde painted in his lifetime and Thomas Eakins’ celebrated oil portrait of Walt Whitman. Some portraits explore sexuality more overtly than others, but all can be read in the spirit of the exhibition. Where do actions become identity? Do modern audiences have the right to retroactively apply labels to celebrated past figures who may have never embraced them? Another section of the show explores relationships through the photography of Alice Austen, a Victorian-era photographer in New York City who trained her lens on women’s lives. Still others examine how nude portraits have shifted with changing understandings of sexuality and how same-sex desire converged with colonialism and resistance. Gertrude Stein, Félix Vallotton, 1907 The Baltimore Museum of Art / Mitro Hood / Wrightwood 569 Wrightwood 659’s ability to land an exhibition like “The First Homosexuals” is in part due to its controversial subject matter. “Queer art is the third rail of the art realm,” Katz tells Block Club Chicago’s Web Behrens. “One very highly placed museum director told me, ‘This is exactly the exhibition I want to show, and therefore exactly the exhibition I can’t.’” Katz estimates that between 80 and 90 percent of the museums and art collectors he asked to contribute art to the exhibition rejected his requests, per Fast Company’s Grace Snelling. Later, nearly all of the museums Katz approached to host the multimillion dollar exhibition declined, even when he offered it to them for free, the Sun-Times reports. Besides Wrightwood 659, the only museum to express interest was the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland, which is in talks to bring part of the show to Art Basel 2026. Despite enduring prejudice toward queer art, the exhibition at Wrightwood 659 has been a roaring success, with the gallery selling more advance tickets to it than any other show in its seven-year history. The final piece in the exhibition is an archway full of photographs of the Nazis burning thousands of books at Berlin’s Institute for Sexual Science, the first sexology research center in the world, in 1933. “The idea that everything that flowers over the course of the exhibition can so quickly be destroyed, is, of course, a metaphor for where we are now,” Katz tells Fast Company. While Kertbeny’s terms became twisted into means of isolating “homosexuals” from the rest of the population, as the persecution and mass murder of queer people during World War II exemplifies on a horrific scale, the exhibition strikes a unified note about belonging, even in the midst of confusion and fear. “We wanted to show how art offered numerous positions along that spectrum, positions that literally had no words to describe them,” Katz tells Block Club. “Art could figure what language could not.” “The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939” is on view at the Wrightwood 659 in Chicago through July 26. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.