A Bridgehampton home that Susan Breitenbach, a Hamptons real estate agent, sold for more than $14 million in May 2025. Courtesy of Susan Breitenbach 2025-06-05T08:07:01Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Hamptons home sales are booming despite stock market volatility and recession fears. Home sales were up about 86% in the first quarter over the same time period in 2024. Prices and sales are soaring in the beach destination despite Wall Street volatility. As Wall Street reels with every twist and turn in President Donald Trump's trade war, there's little sign of economic uncertainty in Manhattan's favorite beach destination just 100 miles east.Demand for luxury real estate in the Hamptons is only growing. Sales and home prices have surged over the last year.Rising prices in the tony enclave are nothing new. The pandemic ushered in a surge of buyers looking to escape the city. The median sales price of homes in the Hamptons in the first quarter of 2025 was more than $2 million, a 13% increase over the previous year and nearly double what it was five years ago, according to a recent Douglas Elliman report.Perhaps more notably, the pace of sales is also soaring this year. Sales were up about 86% in the first quarter over the same time period last year, according to the Douglas Elliman report. That's after home sales fell in the wake of the pandemic buying frenzy, and haven't returned to the highs of 2020."The tired story of the housing recovery coming out of the pandemic is high prices, low sales," Jonathan Miller, who leads the real estate appraisal and consulting firm Miller Samuel and authored the Douglas Elliman report, told Business Insider. "The Hamptons doesn't fit that pattern. It's high prices and high sales."Miller added that the sharp rise in sales is "unusual and counter to the prevailing trends."Susan Breitenbach, a top Hamptons real estate agent with the Corcoran Group, said she's closed more deals so far this year than in all of 2024. She's sold a slew of luxury homes, including a $17.5 million oceanfront property in Bridgehampton, an Amagansett home for $13 million, a Sag Harbor home on less than an acre for $21 million, and a Southampton house for $5.6 million. "It was really very surprising," Breitenbach, who's been selling property in the Hamptons for more than 30 years, told BI. A Southampton home Breitenbach sold for $5.6 million in May 2025. Courtesy of Susan Breitenbach While some agents like Breitenbach are closing deals at the highest end of the market, the middle of the Hamptons market — homes between $1 million and $5 million — has driven the uptick in sales. These "meat and potatoes" sales, Miller said, are way up.So-called "tangible assets," like luxury real estate in very in-demand markets, can be particularly attractive to certain investors when markets are wobbly.Global stocks plummeted following Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs announcement, and while they've mostly rebounded since the administration walked back some of their tariffs, markets are on edge. In early June, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development cut its forecast for the US economic growth rate in 2025 from 2.8% to 1.6%, citing Trump's trade policies."Hamptons real estate has a long history of appreciating over time," Andrew Saunders, president of the Hamptons real estate brokerage Saunders & Associates, told BI. Some more cautious buyers "might look at what's happening in the world at large and say, 'You know what, I'm going to wait a month or two and let the world take a few spins and see what happens.' But we're not seeing that occur en masse."Miller credited big Wall Street bonuses in 2024 for some of the spike in sales and agreed that market volatility could be pushing some to diversify their investments.The Hamptons rental market might be more sensitive to economic uncertainty. Breitenbach said rental interest was much higher than usual in January but has since fallen off. Miller, who doesn't track rentals in the Hamptons, added that an increase in sales would naturally lead to a drop in rental demand.Breitenbach recently listed a home on 2.5 acres of oceanfront property in Water Mill, which sits between Southampton and Bridgehampton, for $44.5 million. "It's not about the house, it's about the land," she added. "And that's a deal." A Southampton home Breitenbach sold for nearly $12.7 million in January. Courtesy of Susan Breitenbach Hamptons buyers are from all over. Breitenbach said she's seen an uptick in California buyers this year, and she still has foreign buyers. But a large share of her clients are still Manhattanites."A lot of it is the high-end New York — Manhattan — buyers, because there aren't many places they can go on the weekends," she said.Breitenbach said Memorial Day weekend this year felt more packed than ever out east, even with cooler-than-normal weather. "It looked like Fourth of July," she said.She doesn't expect market volatility and even threats of a recession to change that."It's going to be a busy summer in the Hamptons regardless," Breitenbach said. "People keep coming out here no matter what's going on."

Thrempshs npmopw apnn Oblmpmphon Rmphstrpmshrd mphd aphmt etmphing rshks. Sorry, I've finished chewing. There's now an Oblivion Remastered mod that lets you, the almighty Hero of Kvatch and saviour of the empire (well, in the short-term), eat rocks. Leave room for dessert - there are gemstones too. Read more

Start SlideshowStart SlideshowImage: The Pokémon Company / KotakuRefreshing the Pokémon Center to see what new items have been added each day has become something of an obsession for me. The site adds new stock so incredibly frequently as to be constantly astonishing, and today is no different. The latest arrivals on the store are a new collection of plushies that feature Ditto in 22 new disguises. And they are adorable.Ditto is a Pokémon who is capable of taking on the size, shape and color of any other creature, and even mimicking its attacks. However, its weakness is faces, where it gives itself away with its two little round eyes and a curved-line smile. The result is the derpiest version of every Pokémon, and that gets even cuter when created in a cuddly form.Before I started working with Kotaku, I knew almost nothing about Pokémon. Five years ago, I’d started playing Pokémon GO with my then-five-year-old, and was beginning to learn the names of a few of the monsters. Now, I sit in front of a shelving unit filled with Pokémon plushies, tins, collection boxes, and more plushies. Which is to say nothing of the far larger cuddly pocket monsters around the bedroom, and the Squishmallow Gengar and Snorlax that now live in our living room. Last week I couldn’t stop myself from buying the sleeping Snorlax with a sleeping Pikachu on its belly. Today a finger-puppet Munchlax arrived in the mail. I’m 47 years old. I’m now staring at this wall of Ditto cuddlies, between 6 and 9 inches tall, and doing all in my power not to buy the lot. There’s a Snorlax one! There’s a Leafeon! Oh my goodness, there’s a Mimikyu. This isn’t fair. Let alone a Gengar and a Magikarp Ditto! And Dragonite! And Mew!This isn’t the first time the site has sold Ditto plushies. Mimikyu and Mareep Ditto previously appeared in 2020, along with other forms that aren’t included in the new collection: Misdreavus, Furret, Poipole, Lapras and Morelull. All have been sold out for years, and sadly show no sign of being restocked. Which is to say, if one of these is something you really want, it’s generally a good idea not to wait—the Pokémon Center is as peculiar and mercurial as the whole company, and there’s a good chance it’ll sell this lot and then never make them again. These Ditto plushies are undoubtedly going to be on sale at future card shows for three times the price, and you’ll kick yourself.Click on to have a look at all 22 of the new Ditto cuddlies, and be prepared to use up your entire week’s supply of “Awwww!”s.Previous SlideNext Slide2 / 23List slidesLucario DittoList slidesLucario DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide3 / 23List slidesDragonite DittoList slidesDragonite DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide4 / 23List slidesEevee DittoList slidesEevee DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide5 / 23List slidesPikachu DittoList slidesPikachu DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide6 / 23List slidesMareep DittoList slidesMareep DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide7 / 23List slidesFlareon DittoList slidesFlareon DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide8 / 23List slidesJolteon DittoList slidesJolteon DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide9 / 23List slidesVaporeon DittoList slidesVaporeon DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide10 / 23List slidesGengar DittoList slidesGengar DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide11 / 23List slidesJigglypuff DittoList slidesJigglypuff DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide12 / 23List slidesLapras DittoList slidesLapras DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide13 / 23List slidesEspeon DittoList slidesEspeon DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide14 / 23List slidesUmbreon DittoList slidesUmbreon DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide15 / 23List slidesMimikyu DittoList slidesMimikyu DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide16 / 23List slidesVulpix DittoList slidesVulpix DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide17 / 23List slidesLeafeon DittoList slidesLeafeon DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide18 / 23List slidesSylveon DittoList slidesSylveon DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide19 / 23List slidesGlaceon DittoList slidesGlaceon DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide20 / 23List slidesMew DittoList slidesMew DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide21 / 23List slidesSnorlax DittoList slidesSnorlax DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / KotakuPrevious SlideNext Slide22 / 23List slidesMagikarp DittoList slidesMagikarp DittoPhoto: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku.

Bringing Mojang’s beloved blocky sandbox videogame to the big screen posed a wide range of creative and technical challenges for Sony Pictures Imageworks. In this in-depth conversation, VFX Supervisor Seth Maury breaks down the studio’s work on Jared Hess’ hit The comedy adventure from Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures stars Jack Black, Danielle Brooks, Sebastian Hansen, Jason Momoa, Jennifer Coolidge, and Emma Myers. Hess directs; Roy Lee, Jon Berg, Mary Parent, Cale Boyter, Momoa, Jill Messick, Torfi Frans Ólafsson and Vu Bui produce, with Todd Hallowell, Jay Ashenfelter, Kayleen Walters, Brian Mendoza and Jon Spaihts serving as executive producers. Oscar winner Dan Lemmon serves as the production VFX supervisor. The film is based on the hugely popular game Minecraft, first released by Sweden’s Mojang Studios in 2011 and purchased by Microsoft for $2.5 billion in 2014, which, immerses players in a low-res, pixelated “sandbox” simulation where they can use blocks to build entire worlds.  Here's the final trailer: The studio handled environments and character animation for a number of key scenes in the movie, including Welcome to Midport Village, the attack on Midport Village, the Elytra wingsuit canyon chase, the diamond mines, Woodland Mansion – including the zombie baby atop a chicken fight and Endermen showdown. They also handled the Nitwit work where Jennifer Coolidge’s Vice Principal Marlene hit a Nitwit with her car… the romantic dinner they shared afterwards, and the scene in her office. “In the diamond mines, Garrett wants to take a bit of a detour because he wants to sneak some diamonds into his pocket as he needs the money,” Maury says. “Then the piglins chase him through the mine very briefly. We also did the creeper farm stuff where the big Great Hog and some piglins were chasing Henry, Garrett and Steve before it all blows up.” Maury says that the production relied on a combination of boards, previs, stuntvis, and live-action plates to build sequences. One example is the wingsuit chase. “They had boarded it, prevised it, then shot it based on the previs,” he explains. “They had Jack and Jason and some stunt guys for stuff that was a little more problematic physically to do. They shot plates for all of that.” Imageworks took those plates and roughed out the animation. “We were basically mocking up or doing postvis for those shots… moving cameras through the environments with those plates so that we had something that was more representative of what the final shots were going to look like.” While not fully animated at that stage, the postvis helped inform the cut. Maury notes, “It’s so rough that it’s not like, ‘Oh look at all the time I spent animating this character.’ It was like, ‘Hey look, we got this working so that you could say it’s moving through the environment in a real way.’” The goal was to create animation-ready sequences that could maintain spatial consistency. “You don’t want the actors going 500 kilometers an hour here and now going 20 kilometers an hour over there,” Maury elaborates. “Why does this feel weird? Because the clouds are suddenly blurry on one and not in the other.” To help populate complex sequences, Imageworks used motion capture for background animation - especially for piglins during the village raid. “We were lucky to have Derek Tannahill as a supervisor on the show,” Maury says. “He had access to the mocap suit. So a lot of the piglins in the background are actually Derek. A lot of the villagers are actually Derek too.” Maury adds, “I think there were three pigs that were kind of medium-sized, which would be the closest to a human. There were three smaller ones and three that were a little bit bigger. And then there was a couple that were just really, really, really big.” Rather than guessing what would be needed later, they mocapped a wide batch of piglin behaviors in advance, like “Do one as a heavy pig, do one as a light pig, do one as a twitchy pig, do one as, you know, a really, really frantic pig.” Those were then applied to characters of different sizes to keep variation high and repetition low. “If you’ve got a guy swinging his arm, then another guy swinging his arm in the exact same way, it’s obvious,” he says. “So even if we had a great take, we didn’t want to overuse it.” For stunt-heavy scenes like the Midport piglin raid, the production had actors perform full choreography ahead of filming. According to Maury, “They shot the whole thing with stunt actors in a fake version of the set at the proper scale and size. It was really great. So when they actually shot the sequence itself on set with the real actors, we had that choreography to work from.” Maury says they focused on matching the stunt choreography with CG characters. “If the stunt actors did something that looked great, there’s no need to replace them. We just needed to find a way to get the piglins to fit in the same space.” Of course, blocky piglin characters take up more room than humans. “If you’ve got two humans side by side and then you put in a piglin that’s twice as wide, sometimes you had to copy the performance but move them over so that they would fit,” he says. “It’s like trying to put a bunch of cars on an elevator - they're so big they can’t fit in that space. So, you copy the motion, but sometimes you have to shift them over a bit to make it work.” Maury continues, “Those shots were pretty straightforward in the sense that they had practical actors in those costumes, right? So, we were doing head replacements on those characters because those costumes were quite large. You didn't put a little tiny Beetlejuice head on this big body. But, there's not a lot of guesswork in there as far as what needs to go into the shot. It's put the heads on the characters and then if they want more characters in the background, you add them in the same kind of style as they are in the practical costumes.” The infamous Garrett - baby zombie fight atop a chicken drew attention from early trailers - and required a very specific approach. “That was all keyframe animation except for the characters outside,” Maury says. “You can’t mocap a baby with really, really short limbs and a giant head riding a chicken.” Still, the production had live-action reference. “They shot this sequence again with the stuntvis team,” Maury explains, “then boarded it, shot it as best they could with the actors and stunt performers they had, and then gave us plates.” Using that as a base, the team refined it for animation. He adds, “It was just a lot of keyframe work. You look at it and go, ‘Okay, what’s the funniest, silliest thing that we can have in here?’” Creating motion that felt faithful to the game’s aesthetic while viewable on screen required experimentation. “For example,” he says, “trying to get the Great Hog to move in a way that felt aggressive… it didn’t have the body structure to move fast. That was a bit of an experiment.” The Endermen posed similar challenges. “In the game, they’re very static,” Maury notes. “They don’t bend their legs. So, there was a lot of back and forth. Do the limbs bend? Do they not bend? Do we have them take real steps?” Maury goes on to explain that character proportions created their own physical logic. “Imagine my head is this big [he gestures]. If I turn that too fast, it’s not going to feel like it weighs 40 kilograms. It’s going to feel like Styrofoam. So, we slowed stuff down.” These kinds of adjustments helped translate the game’s visual shorthand into something legible on film. Maury and his team had to figure out how to get needed weight and feel without the characters seeming too stiff. In the game, they slide almost like chess pieces. A number of characters, particularly villagers, were shot in partial costume and composited later. “They had their arms like this, with blocky stuff on them,” Maury gestures again. “We were doing head replacements because the costumes were quite large.” In some cases, the studio extended background crowds digitally. “They might have only had six costumes available for any given shot,” he continues. “If they wanted more characters, we’d add them in the same style in CG. That’s not overly complex - you’re populating a background to feel natural.” He goes on to say that all animals were fully CG. “There wasn’t anyone in an animal costume. They were added in after.” With so many characters and objects flying through the air, matching the logic of physical motion was essential. If cameras show characters flying past things really fast and then stop on a dime, they start to feel fake. “We tried to keep the camera behaving with the same rules as the flying characters. It has to feel like it’s within the same physical constraints.” That required close coordination between layout and animation. “Our initial blocking passes for flying sequences really helped because we didn’t want to reinvent each one of those shots later.” Looking back, Maury says one of the most rewarding aspects of the show was the team itself. “It might have been the longest show I’ve worked on. But because of the timing - the streaming pullback, the strikes - a lot of VFX folks I hadn’t worked with in years became available. So, I ended up working with Derek and a bunch of leads and artists I already knew.” “It wasn’t just my department,” he continues. “It was lighting, comp. The show was really stacked. And I got to work with people I’d normally only see in the coffee line.” Maury also got to enjoy the film with his family. “It was the first time I went to the theater with my kids for something I worked on. They’re Minecraft fans. That was great.” As for the reception, he’s measured. “It’s a fun, silly film. And if you laugh at it because it’s silly, then great. But it’s not Shawshank Redemption. Why would someone review it like it was going to be? Sometimes you just want to go [to the movies] and have a good time.” Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.

“Most people can recognise the Plough…”VCG/VCG via Getty Images Some of my earliest stargazing memories involve the same seven stars. Whether you call it the Plough or the Big Dipper – or even the saucepan, the panhandle or the wagon – the stars that form this asterism are ones I think many people learn to recognise from an early age. But just because most people can recognise the Plough, and, by extension, Ursa Major, the constellation in which it lies, doesn’t mean we have explored everything in this patch of the sky. And May is as good a time…

The LUMINOR course is slated to release this summer (2025). Join the CG Cookie newsletter for the most up-do-date info: https://b3d.cgcookie.com/065p53 Vintage cameras are an excellent project to refine your hard surfaced modeling, texturing, materials and rendering skills. There's no better candidate to teach this than Ewa Wierbik-Ziąbka; an accomplished professional 3D artist won best product design in 2024 for her Leica M2 vintage camera render over at Blender Artists. See more of Ewa's work: https://www.artstation.com/ewawierbik "WHO IS CG COOKIE?" We are real people! (OK, maybe some of us are cyborgs - we don't ask.) CG Cookie is a small crew of Blender artists, baking fresh videos for the Blender community. 🍪 If you love what we do, consider enrolling to http://cgcookie.com to stream 100's of Blender courses with passionate Blender instructors there to answer your questions. "WHERE SHOULD I START LEARNING BLENDER?" For Blender beginners, we have a free tutorial series "Getting Started with Blender" https://rb.gy/khqdl7 "I WANT MORE CG COOKIE IN MY LIFE!" Got it. Here's where you can reach us! http://instagram.com/cgcookie http://twitter.com/cgcookie http://facebook.com/cgcookieinc Want Blender news in your mailbox? Sign up here for spam-free newsletter https://cgcookie.com/newsletter #CGCookie #blendertutorial #b3d

Cutting corners: Now that Samsung has unveiled the Galaxy S25 Edge, attention has turned to Apple's upcoming ultra-thin rival handset, the iPhone 17 Air. The device is expected to debut this fall with a thickness almost half that of a normal iPhone. According to rumors, this doesn't mean every element will have compromises, but there will be areas that could disappoint, especially the battery life. Samsung has made a lot of headlines with the release of the Galaxy S25 Edge, which measures just 5.8mm thick, not counting the camera bump. But Apple's iPhone 17 Air – expected to launch this fall – is said to be even thinner at 5.5mm. That level of thinness means the Air won't be able to match the model it's replacing, the iPhone 16 Plus, in every area. However, it will have a 6.6-inch OLED display with LTPO, making it the first non-Pro iPhone to do so. There will also be features such as 120Hz ProMotion and always-on functionality. Elsewhere, the iPhone 17 Air is expected to pack the same A19 chip as the rest of the iPhone 17 lineup. It will also come with 8GB of RAM and MagSafe wireless charging. Finally, the price of the iPhone 17 Air is believed to be under $1,000, possibly around $899. But it was recently reported that Apple is going to increase the prices of its next generation of iPhones, though it will avoid blaming Trump's tariffs for the hikes, so this rumor may prove wrong. That's the good news. The bad news is that the iPhone 17 Air will have a single rear camera: a 48MP sensor with 2x optical zoom. Something else the iPhone Air will only have one of is a speaker. There will be a single, enhanced earpiece speaker as the phone is too thin for a second speaker to be placed at the bottom. // Related Stories Another potential disappointment is the iPhone 17 Air's lack of support for mmWave 5G. The handset will be one of the first iPhones to use Apple's in-house 5G modem, the C1. The iPhone 16 Plus uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon X75 5G modem, which supports mmWave 5G. Then there's what could be the biggest drawback of them all: the battery life. Reports state that between 60% and 70% of users will be able to use the handset for a full day on a single charge, whereas that figure is between 80% and 90% for other iPhones. Apple may use Apple Intelligence to improve the Air's battery life, and Cupertino plans to introduce a new battery case accessory specifically for the iPhone 17 Air.

Persona! Atlus teases something Persona 5-related with a cryptic social media post, though what it actually is remains a mystery The most likely outcome is a Western release of Persona 5: The Phantom X, which would certainly be nice! News by Connor Makar Staff Writer Published on May 13, 2025 Atlus has teased something Persona 5-related on social media, which as you've probably assumed has sent the fans' hearts aflutter. While it's not explicitly stated what this is teasing (that being the standard tease protocol), there's a solid chance it's a hint towards a Western port of Persona 5: The Phantom X The post itself, a simple image with the words "retake your desire" plastered across it beneath a top hat and distinct pair of shades, appears to keep things vague enough. But those with their finger on the Persona pulse may recognise those glasses as being very similar to the glasses worn by the protagonist of PSX. This, for many, is all the confirmation needed. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Though this is more evidence to support that theory. In the Sega 2024 financial report, the company expressed a desire to expand its IP on mobile platforms as well as its presence in the Games as a Service (GaaS) space. PSX, a free-to-play mobile game, fits this description perfectly, and an expansion to the West would certainly do wonders in expanding the SEGA's mobile output to more users. Oh, and there's a big Persona 5: The Phantom X livestream taking place on the 15th (which you can watch here) that will likely reveal its version 1.0 release date, so when you step back and look at all the clues, it's fairly clear what this announcement will be. Unless it's somehow Persona 5 Arena, in which case I'll scream. For those who aren't aware, Persona 5: The Phantom X is a spinoff game created by Perfect World, released back in April 2024 in early access for players in China, South Korea, and Hong Kong. There's been no word of a Western release since last year, but given the popularity of Persona 5 over here, it makes sense to bring that game over. It's also worth noting that the game has been recieved positively! It managed to bring various Persona staples over to the mobile platform, including dungeon delving and social mechanics. If this is Persona 5: The Phantom X, would you give it a try once it releases in the West? Let us know below!

"Artificial intelligence, if we're being frank, is a con: a bill of goods you are being sold to line someone's pockets."That is the heart of the argument that linguist Emily Bender and sociologist Alex Hanna make in their new book The AI Con. It's a useful guide for anyone whose life has intersected with technologies sold as artificial intelligence and anyone who's questioned their real usefulness, which is most of us. Bender is a professor at the University of Washington who was named one of Time magazine's most influential people in artificial intelligence, and Hanna is the director of research at the nonprofit Distributed AI Research Institute and a former member of the ethical AI team at Google.The explosion of ChatGPT in late 2022 kicked off a new hype cycle in AI. Hype, as the authors define it, is the "aggrandizement" of technology that you are convinced you need to buy or invest in "lest you miss out on entertainment or pleasure, monetary reward, return on investment, or market share." But it's not the first time, nor likely the last, that scholars, government leaders and regular people have been intrigued and worried by the idea of machine learning and AI.Bender and Hanna trace the roots of machine learning back to the 1950s, to when mathematician John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence. It was in an era when the United States was looking to fund projects that would help the country gain any kind of edge on the Soviets militarily, ideologically and technologically. "It didn't spring whole cloth out of Zeus's head or anything. This has a longer history," Hanna said in an interview with CNET. "It's certainly not the first hype cycle with, quote, unquote, AI."Today's hype cycle is propelled by the billions of dollars of venture capital investment into startups like OpenAI and the tech giants like Meta, Google and Microsoft pouring billions of dollars into AI research and development. The result is clear, with all the newest phones, laptops and software updates drenched in AI-washing. And there are no signs that AI research and development will slow down, thanks in part to a growing motivation to beat China in AI development. Not the first hype cycle indeed.Of course, generative AI in 2025 is much more advanced than the Eliza psychotherapy chatbot that first enraptured scientists in the 1970s. Today's business leaders and workers are inundated with hype, with a heavy dose of FOMO and seemingly complex but often misused jargon. Listening to tech leaders and AI enthusiasts, it might seem like AI will take your job to save your company money. But the authors argue that neither is wholly likely, which is one reason why it's important to recognize and break through the hype.So how do we recognize AI hype? These are a few telltale signs, according to Bender and Hanna, that we share below. The authors outline more questions to ask and strategies for AI hype busting in their book, which is out now in the US.Watch out for language that humanizes AIAnthropomorphizing, or the process of giving an inanimate object human-like characteristics or qualities, is a big part of building AI hype. An example of this kind of language can be found when AI companies say their chatbots can now "see" and "think."These can be useful comparisons when trying to describe the ability of new object-identifying AI programs or deep-reasoning AI models, but they can also be misleading. AI chatbots aren't capable of seeing of thinking because they don't have brains. Even the idea of neural nets, Hanna noted in our interview and in the book, is based on human understanding of neurons from the 1950s, not actually how neurons work, but it can fool us into believing there's a brain behind the machine.That belief is something we're predisposed to because of how we as humans process language. We're conditioned to imagine that there is a mind behind the text we see, even when we know it's generated by AI, Bender said. "We interpret language by developing a model in our minds of who the speaker was," Bender added.In these models, we use our knowledge of the person speaking to create meaning, not just using the meaning of the words they say. "So when we encounter synthetic text extruded from something like ChatGPT, we're going to do the same thing," Bender said. "And it is very hard to remind ourselves that the mind isn't there. It's just a construct that we have produced."The authors argue that part of why AI companies try to convince us their products are human-like is that this sets the foreground for them to convince us that AI can replace humans, whether it's at work or as creators. It's compelling for us to believe that AI could be the silver bullet fix to complicated problems in critical industries like health care and government services.But more often than not, the authors argue, AI isn't bring used to fix anything. AI is sold with the goal of efficiency, but AI services end up replacing qualified workers with black box machines that need copious amounts of babysitting from underpaid contract or gig workers. As Hanna put it in our interview, "AI is not going to take your job, but it will make your job shittier."Be dubious of the phrase 'super intelligence'If a human can't do something, you should be wary of claims that an AI can do it. "Superhuman intelligence, or super intelligence, is a very dangerous turn of phrase, insofar as it thinks that some technology is going to make humans superfluous," Hanna said. In "certain domains, like pattern matching at scale, computers are quite good at that. But if there's an idea that there's going to be a superhuman poem, or a superhuman notion of research or doing science, that is clear hype." Bender added, "And we don't talk about airplanes as superhuman flyers or rulers as superhuman measurers, it seems to be only in this AI space that that comes up."The idea of AI "super intelligence" comes up often when people talk about artificial general intelligence. Many CEOs struggle to define what exactly AGI is, but it's essentially AI's most advanced form, potentially capable of making decisions and handling complex tasks. There's still no evidence we're anywhere near a future enabled by AGI, but it's a popular buzzword.Many of these future-looking statements from AI leaders borrow tropes from science fiction. Both boosters and doomers — how Bender and Hanna describe AI enthusiasts and those worried about the potential for harm — rely on sci-fi scenarios. The boosters imagine an AI-powered futuristic society. The doomers bemoan a future where AI robots take over the world and wipe out humanity.The connecting thread, according to the authors, is an unshakable belief that AI is smarter than humans and inevitable. "One of the things that we see a lot in the discourse is this idea that the future is fixed, and it's just a question of how fast we get there," Bender said. "And then there's this claim that this particular technology is a step on that path, and it's all marketing. It is helpful to be able to see behind it."Part of why AI is so popular is that an autonomous functional AI assistant would mean AI companies are fulfilling their promises of world-changing innovation to their investors. Planning for that future — whether it's a utopia or dystopia — keeps investors looking forward as the companies burn through billions of dollars and admit they'll miss their carbon emission goals. For better or worse, life is not science fiction. Whenever you see someone claiming their AI product is straight out of a movie, it's a good sign to approach with skepticism. Ask what goes in and how outputs are evaluatedOne of the easiest ways to see through AI marketing fluff is to look and see whether the company is disclosing how it operates. Many AI companies won't tell you what content is used to train their models. But they usually disclose what the company does with your data and sometimes brag about how their models stack up against competitors. That's where you should start looking, typically in their privacy policies.One of the top complaints and concerns from creators is how AI models are trained. There are many lawsuits over alleged copyright infringement, and there are a lot of concerns over bias in AI chatbots and their capacity for harm. "If you wanted to create a system that is designed to move things forward rather than reproduce the oppressions of the past, you would have to start by curating your data," Bender said. Instead, AI companies are grabbing "everything that wasn't nailed down on the internet," Hanna said.If you're hearing about an AI product for the first time, one thing in particular to look out for is any kind of statistic that highlights its effectiveness. Like many other researchers, Bender and Hanna have called out that a finding with no citation is a red flag. "Anytime someone is selling you something but not giving you access to how it was evaluated, you are on thin ice," Bender said.It can be frustrating and disappointing when AI companies don't disclose certain information about how their AI products work and how they were developed. But recognizing those holes in their sales pitch can help deflate hype, even though it would be better to have the information. For more, check out our full ChatGPT glossary and how to turn off Apple Intelligence.

A brief teaser for Fallout Season 2 has hit the internet, showing a new look at New Vegas.The clip, shown during the Amazon Upfront livestream overnight, was captured and uploaded on reddit. It shows Lucy (Ella Purnell) and The Ghoul (Walton Goggins) 50 miles out from what was Las Vegas. We hear the famous Geiger Counter sound, signifying radiation is in the air. The Ghoul and Lucy look at each other before heading towards New Vegas, and we get a good look at the post-apocalyptic city skyline.New Vegas is of course the setting for the Obsidian-developed Fallout: New Vegas, and the setting for Season 2 of the Fallout adaptation.So, what can we learn about the show's take on New Vegas from this teaser? Well, it’s more detailed than the brief look we got at New Vegas at the end of Season 1, which stands to reason. It will look familiar to anyone who's played New Vegas, although it appears more densely packed with buildings (the video game New Vegas was a relatively sparse location).The standout is of course the Lucky 38 Resort and Casino, which is on the New Vegas Strip. In the New Vegas video game, the Lucky 38 is the pre-War casino from which Mr. House runs the city. Fans also believe they can make out the Ultra-Luxe, but in truth it’s hard to discern individual video game locations from the shot here.PlayWarning! Potential spoilers for the Fallout TV show follow.The show is confirmed to be heading to New Vegas for Season 2, and it's not just about the location itself. Mr. House is set to be a part of the new season, though how involved he'll be is unclear. We've already seen the tease of some familiar sights thanks to previous set leaks, including this video that shows part of New Vegas and the iconic Lucky 38 resort and casino, all bright and lit up. It's certainly far from the rusty place you might expect.It’s worth remembering where we are in the Fallout timeline: the TV show is set in the year 2296, after all the Fallout video games. Fallout 4 takes place in the year 2287, while Fallout: New Vegas is set in the year 2281, a full 15 years prior to the events of the show.So, what happened in the 15 years since we last saw New Vegas? Co-showrunners Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet have said the setting has changed, and explained why that is important for fans to note.“All we really want the audience to know is that things have happened, so that there isn't an expectation that we pick the show up in Season 2, following one of the myriad canon endings that depend on your choices when you play [Fallout: New Vegas],” Wagner said last year.“With that post-credits stuff, we really wanted to imply, guys, the world has progressed, and the idea that the wasteland stays as it is decade-to-decade is preposterous to us. It’s just a place [of] constant tragedy, events, horrors — there's a constant churn of trauma. We're definitely implying more has occurred.”But what will happen when the Power Armor-clad Overseer Hank, played by Kyle MacLachlan, turns up (potentially after a dustup with a Deathclaw)? Some speculate Mr. House, the enigmatic ruler of New Vegas in the video game and dastardly boss of RobCo Industries in the TV show’s flashbacks to before the bombs fell, may enlist the help of Hank to restore New Vegas to its former glory. Perhaps, if that’s the way the story goes, the forces of Mr. House and New Vegas will end up taking on the Brotherhood of Steel in yet another Fallout faction battle, with Lucy, Maximus, and The Ghoul caught in the middle.Overnight, Amazon announced a December 2025 release window for Season 2, and confirmed Season 3. Last week, Aaron Moten, who plays Brotherhood of Steel hopeful Maximus, said the “endpoint” of the Fallout TV show has it running until Season 5 or Season 6.We had a great time with Season 1, writing in IGN's Fallout The Series review that the show is "a bright and funny apocalypse filled with dark punchlines and bursts of ultra-violence [and is] among the best video game adaptations ever made," slapping it with a well-earned 9/10.To help tide you over until Season 2, here's our interview with Todd Howard and Jonathan Nolan covering all our burning questions after the end of Season 1.Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.