Deal  When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Buy Windows 11 Pro for 2 devices with a copy of Office 2021 Pro for only $55 Neowin Deals · May 14, 2025 13:00 EDT Today's highlighted deal comes via our Apps + Software section of the Neowin Deals store, where you can save 86% on Windows 11 Pro (for 2 devices) + Microsoft Office Pro 2021. Upgrade your computing experience with Windows 11 Pro. This cutting-edge operating system boasts a sleek new design and advanced tools to help you work faster and smarter. From creative projects to gaming and beyond, Windows 11 delivers the power and flexibility you need to achieve your goals. With a focus on productivity, the new features are easy to learn and use, enhancing your workflow and efficiency. Whether you're a student, professional, gamer, or creative, Windows 11 Home has everything you need to take your productivity to the next level. 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html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" We seem to have more video footage and still images than ever before, thanks to smartphones, GoPro cameras and the backlog of older ones collected across a lifetime. Managing all these formats, as well as making sure they look their best, can be a frightening proposition. Thankfully, Winxvideo AI is a powerful all-in-one solution that not only uses advanced Artificial Intelligence software to upgrade the quality of your content but can rescue old photos and footage too. The newly updated version 4.0 also brings huge improvements to speed, plus a special price offer, so you can save both time and money while you upgrade your photo and video library. Grab your discount on Winxvideo AI Winxvideo AI comes with an impressive array of features that can turn tired, old, blurry videos into something far more professional. For example, if you have footage of a significant event that was shot on an old device and only displays in low resolution, then the AI upscaling tool can cleverly convert it to 720p ,1080p or even 4K! It offers dedicated AI models for different video types – whether enhancing fine details, smoothing low-detail footage, refining animations, or upscaling photorealistic content. Digiarty Winxvideo AI significantly improves video quality thanks to its advanced AI models that remove noise, sharpen footage, and clean up compression artifacts caused by low light or poor equipment. This means that the unimpressive video you shot of an important occasion can instantly look better than you thought possible, and play back in glorious 4K with realistic detail, revealing textures like skin, hair, fur, and fabric with impressive clarity. Is a great shot spoiled by the camera shaking? No problem, the AI Stabilization capabilities in Winxvideo AI can fix that in only a few clicks. If you find that your video is jerky and stutters due to a low frame rate, that’s fixable too thanks to the AI frame interpolation that can boost frame rates for smooth footage or allow you to convert it to slo-mo instead. Alongside these tools there’s also a full suite of video editing features so you can put together your own films, remove noise from audio tracks, the option to convert video to and from a wide range of formats, plus the helpful ability to compress file sizes to make them easier to share over email or messaging services. Restore and enhance photos and images  It’s not only video that you can improve with Winxvideo AI, as it also brings serious enhancements to still images. The AI upscaler technology instantly improves low-quality images by up to 10x, removing noise and blurriness to give you pin-sharp results. If you want to enhance portraits, Winxvideo AI’s Face Recovery restores fine details like eyelashes, pupils, and skin texture, while removing blemishes. It works perfectly for both individual portraits and group photos.Digiarty The same thing works on old photographs, which you can scan and then make them look like they were taken yesterday. Should you want to modernize old black and white pictures, then the colorize feature in Winxvideo AI makes this incredibly simple, bringing old images to life with full color versions. Everything is handled by the simple-to-use software that does all the heavy-lifting for you. Winxvideo AI version 4.0 takes things to a new level Thanks to big improvements in two of the AI models used in version 4.0, the latest iteration of Winxvideo AI boasts incredible performance gains, with upscaling speeds increased by up to 80% over version 3.9! Digiarty Not only that, the finished results also come with enhanced quality and details too. All this, while the CPU/GPU usage has been lowered, so your PC won’t be punished while working on the video or images. Grab time-limited special deals for Winxvideo AI This year also marks the 19th anniversary of Winxvideo AI’s creators Digiarty, which is being celebrated by a superb deal on the software where you can buy it for only $29.95, saving you $40 off the normal price. Hurry, though, as this is a time-limited deal to accompany the Digiarty festivities. With so many useful tools to upgrade your video and photo library, there’s never been a better time to buy Winxvideo AI, and thanks to the special deal there’s never been a cheaper time either. View Offer

Figma announced 'Sites' at Config 2025, which lets users create simple static websites from designs. Imagine a website generator like Framer or Webflow, but embedded inside Figma.The buzz is serious. Sites could become the de facto tool for quick marketing campaigns or small personal websites. But what if you need Sites to integrate with your existing design systems, custom components, and production code?Figma SitesFigma Sites is a visual developer tool similar to Webflow or Framer. It's focused on letting designers build websites without coding or leaving Figma.Its greatest strength is its integration with the Figma ecosystem. For designers already comfortable with the platform, Sites offers a path to deploy a design as a live website quickly.Easy interactivity and AI-enhanced codeFigma Sites includes numerous presets for everyday website interactions and effects. For instance, you can add a hover effect to a button or a typewriter effect to a text block.A future version of Sites will also include an AI tool for generating code.Responsive design and hands-off infrastructureFigma Sites can also display your design in desktop, tablet, and mobile layouts side by side. The preview version (press shift + space) and the published version are both fully responsive websites.Press the Publish button in the top-left corner once you’re ready to deploy the design into a working website. After some quick validations (it can even help with auto layout), Figma Sites will deploy your project to a generated URL. For a fee, you can wire up a custom domain.Coming soon: CMS and Code LayersRight now, Figma Sites translates your design into HTML and CSS. The team's future improvement, "Code Layers,” will take a user prompt and transform it into React and Tailwind CSS.Another future improvement is a CMS feature inside Figma Sites. This would allow users to manage their website content more efficiently. The idea of a fully integrated design-to-publish tool with an internal CMS is very appealing.Going from Figma to website to complete applicationSimple site builders are great for getting something online, but aren’t great at creating fully integrated applications that mesh with an existing codebase. This is a familiar problem.The challenge lies in moving beyond a static page built with HTML and CSS. What happens if you need this new site to use the Next.js framework and the App Router patterns that your team has adopted? Can you leverage your company's custom components? Is there a way to add complex user interactions? These limitations become significant hurdles for any product beyond a basic landing page or marketing campaign.Visual Editor: stepping beyond simple sitesBuilder.io's Visual Editor satisfies this larger need. Figma Sites gets you something fast without ever leaving the Figma ecosystem. Visual Editor gets you something nearly as fast, but it connects designs directly to your production codebase on one canvas.The core idea is different. Visual Editor is for feature-rich applications where your existing production codebase and design systems are first-class citizens.Figma Sites was engineered to transform a Figma design into a static site using no third-party tools and the most minimal toolchain possible. Visual Editor was engineered to transform designs into production applications at the enterprise scale:Figma-like precisionVisual Editor gives you a familiar, precise visual editing experience, but you're building interactive applications, not just static mockups. Use prompts to generate UI, then fine-tune it visually. The output isn't just a picture; it's code that works.Solving handoffsImport Figma designs with a click, and Builder translates them into interactive code using your component library. The CLI deeply integrates with your specific framework and codebase patterns, generating clean, maintainable code that developers want to work with. It respects your tech stack.On-brand generation, every timeStop worrying about brand drift. Because Builder understands your codebase, it uses your actual design system context—your colors, typography, spacing, and components—automatically ensuring everything generated is consistent and on-brand. No more manual checking.Dual workflows (develop & publish)Builder offers flexibility. Developers can use it to build new UIs that integrate directly with application code. Marketers or designers can use the 'Publish' workflow to create and update content visually using pre-built components, without needing a developer or a new deployment. This addresses the content bottleneck, too.Smashing workflow silosVisual Editor provides a unified canvas for design, development, and content updates. It fits into existing developer workflows (like Git) rather than trying to replace them, enabling better collaboration across the entire digital team.Getting started with Visual EditorReady to see the difference? You can try Visual Editor and experience how it connects to a real codebase.Open the Visual Copilot Figma plugin. Install it from the Figma Community if you haven't already.Select a layer or design in your Figma file that you want to bring into Builder.io.Click the "Export Design" button within the plugin.Click the "View Code in Builder" button. This will open your design directly in the Builder.io Visual Editor.(Optional) Enhance in the Visual Editor: Use AI prompts or manual controls to add interactivity, connect data, or refine the design within Builder.Generate code with the CLI: Copy the provided CLI command from Builder.io and run it in your local project's terminal. The CLI will analyze your codebase and generate the integrated, production-ready code components.The best way to understand the power of Visual Editor is to experience how it generates code that uses your components and fits your workflow.ConclusionFigma Sites is a big step forward for Figma. If you already work with the platform, you get all your favorite Figma features and a near-frictionless path to simple, real websites.Sites fills an essential market need. But you might find the tool underpowered if your team faces the challenges of integrating designs with a complex codebase, maintaining brand consistency across an extensive application, or enabling collaboration between large, diverse teams. In those cases, Builder's Visual Editor is the enterprise-grade solution. It provides a robust, integrated visual development environment that respects your code and scales with your product.Further reading Introducing Visual Copilot: convert Figma designs to high quality code in a single click.Try Visual CopilotGet a demo

Proton Mail4.5 ExcellentBottom LineProton Mail is an easy-to-use webmail service that brings zero-access encryption to your local message store and end-to-end encryption for message transmission, along with an impressive posse of related programs.US Street Price$47.88Learn MoreProton Mail ReviewVSPreVeil4.5 ExcellentBottom LineWith PreVeil, you get free end-to-end encrypted secure cloud storage along with secure email that’s tough enough for business but extremely easy to use, all while keeping your existing email address.Learn MorePreVeil Review Table of ContentsPricing and Pricing TiersDo I Need a New Email Address?Authentication and Security OptionsCloud Storage and File SharingEmail Client IntegrationTemporary Email AddressesAdvanced Security FeaturesFeatures Beyond Email Encryption Pricing and Pricing TiersPreVeil’s pricing system is as simple as can be—it’s free. Period.You can use ProtonMail for free, too, but a free Proton Mail account lacks some features and limits others. For example, you can only send 150 messages per day and only manage a single email account. When you pay $47.88 per year for a Proton Mail Plus account, the limit on messages per day vanishes, but there’s still a cap on the number of email addresses you can use.There’s one more option, Proton Mail Ultimate, which costs $119.88 per year and includes the full pantheon of Proton’s products. This one makes sense if you want your email encryption served up along with fully functional instances of Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, Proton VPN, and the Proton Pass password manager. Ultimately, everything’s better when it’s free, so PreVeil wins.Winner: PreVeilDo I Need a New Email Address?I’ve had the same personal email address for more than 20 years, and I’ve grown fond of it. I could sign up for PreVeil and keep that address. But if I wanted to rely on Proton Mail to safeguard my email secrets, I would have to pick a new address and share it with all my contacts.On the flip side, my 20-year-old email address has accumulated quite a collection of spam. It’s been revealed in dozens of data breaches and captured by who knows how many data brokers. If you want to level up your security game by using email encryption, you might prefer switching to a pristine new address, too.Here’s the thing. You can do the same thing with PreVeil. Just set up a new, clean email address before you start using PreVeil. But you simply can’t use Proton Mail with your existing address, except in one rare case. If you own your own domain, and if you host your email on that domain, and if you're up for such domain-management tasks as changing MX records and reconfiguring settings for DNS, DKIM, DMARC, and SPF, then you can use your own email. PreVeil wins on flexibility.Winner: PreVeilAuthentication and Security OptionsIt doesn’t matter how thoroughly your email is encrypted if an evildoer gains access to your encrypted inbox. Proton Mail offers multiple levels of protection, starting with using a strong password and an optional account recovery email. On top of that basic password protection, you can optionally configure it for multi-factor authentication (MFA) using Google Authenticator or a compatible authenticator app. You can advance to expert-tier authentication by configuring Proton Mail to require a hardware security key.(Credit: Proton/PCMag)PreVeil doesn’t use passwords at all, presuming that the security of your email account is sufficient. Yes, an attacker would need access to both your email account and a trusted device, which fits the definition of MFA, barely. But you can only use an authenticator app or hardware key to authenticate your email account, not PreVeil itself. When it comes to actively protecting access to your encrypted email system, Proton Mail takes the prize.Winner: Proton MailCloud Storage and File SharingIf you want to share a file or picture securely with someone, you can add it as an attachment to an encrypted email message. That’s a workable solution, but it’s not always the most convenient. Proton Mail and PreVeil both go beyond simple attachments by allowing you to store files in the cloud and share them securely.Your PreVeil account comes with 5GB of encrypted cloud storage that’s easily accessible from Windows Explorer. You also get the option to securely share folders (but not individual files) and to set each recipient’s permission level, from full Edit & Share permission down to View Only, which merely lets the recipient peek at the file’s content in a browser window.(Credit: PreVeil/PCMag)Proton Mail users at all pricing tiers get access to the separate Proton Drive app for cloud backup. Non-paying customers get a tenth of what PreVeil offers, just 500MB. However, at the commercial Plus level that storage rises to 15GB, and if you go all out with Proton Mail Ultimate, you can store 500GB of files. If you’re keeping score, those storage figures are three times and 100 times what PreVeil gives you.Proton Drive lets you share files directly with other Proton users and control their level of access in much the same way you do with PreVeil. You can also create a public link, optionally setting a password and an expiry date. PreVeil’s similar links only work for someone with whom you’ve already shared the folder.It’s true that PreVeil offers more storage than Proton Mail’s free tier, but there’s no easy path if you want more from PreVeil. And Proton Mail’s full backup app has more flexibility. This one goes to Proton Mail.Recommended by Our EditorsWinner: Proton MailEmail Client IntegrationEven if you’ve grudgingly switched to a new email address, you can at least keep the email client that you’ve used for years, right? Well, not necessarily. To get your Proton Mail messages into Apple Mail, Outlook, or Thunderbird, you must install a separate “bridge” app and go through a configuration routine that can get complicated. It doesn’t work with the latest Outlook because it requires access to IMAP and SMTP. And you don’t get full access to encryption features in your old familiar email app.(Credit: PreVeil/PCMag)With PreVeil, integration can be as simple as installing a plug-in for Gmail or Outlook. The plug-in adds a few handy controls, like an encryption on/off switch for the messages you compose, and clearly separates encrypted messages from those you’ve sent without encryption.Winner: PreVeilTemporary Email AddressesI mentioned earlier that being forced to spin up a new email address can be a blessing in disguise, as doing so frees you from any spam and baggage associated with the old address. But if you use a temporary email address service, you can avoid accumulating those problems in the first place. Using such a service lets you communicate with online merchants and other possibly shady connections without ever revealing your actual email address. You see and respond to the messages in your normal inbox, but they see only an email alias. And if one of your connections sells you out to a spam cartel, you just delete the corresponding alias.Sounds convenient, right? The Proton team agrees. At the Unlimited subscription level, you get full access to SimpleLogin, a four-star temporary email service. Yes, that’s the most expensive level, but PreVeil doesn’t offer email aliases at any level. (Don’t feel too left out if you’re using PreVeil or haven’t opted for the expensive Proton Mail Unlimited. You can supplement your email encryption for free with email aliases from ManyMe or Bulc Club.)Winner: Proton MailAdvanced Security FeaturesAfter going to the trouble of switching to encrypted email, you’d feel pretty dumb if you lost your login and couldn’t get access to your important messages. Proton Mail encourages you to save a recovery key in the form of a lengthy code and a QR code, but that recovery key itself now becomes a weakness. Someone who acquires your code owns your account.PreVeil offers a similar recovery code system, but encourages you to use its Recovery Group system instead. This is a high-tech solution more commonly seen in Enterprise-level security. With PreVeil, your recovery key resides with multiple friends, and the recovery process requires participation by several of them. For example, you might enlist six friends to hold your secret and require any three of them to activate recovery.PreVeil’s wrapped keys encryption system is proprietary, but Proton Mail relies on the venerable and widely used PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption system. Proton Mail users can set up encrypted communication with users of other encryption tools that rely on PGP, such as Private-Mail and StartMail. For those with the tech chops, using PGP opens up immense possibilities.(Credit: Proton/PCMag)Proton Mail also actively protects your privacy against tracking that relies on images. When your email client displays an image, it necessarily requests that image from a server. From that request, the sender can learn your IP address, among other things. Proton Mail wipes out web beacons, which are images that have no purpose beyond penetrating your privacy. And it acts as an intermediary for normal images, so the sender gets the IP address of a Proton Mail server, not your personal address.Both services have clever, high-tech features. And in both cases, most users won’t use or pay attention to these features. I call this a draw.Winner: TieFeatures Beyond Email EncryptionI’ve already mentioned that both services offer encrypted file storage and secure sharing. For PreVeil, that’s about it.Proton Mail, on the other hand, offers several other significant security features. These include the already-mentioned Proton Drive, Proton VPN, Proton Calendar, and the Proton Pass password manager.(Credit: Proton/PCMag)Like Proton Drive, Proton Calendar and Proton Pass are available to free users, but with limitations. Free users of Proton VPN can use it to protect one device at a time and can’t choose which country the VPN connects through. Paying for Proton Mail lifts some of these limitations. And if you choose Proton Unlimited, you get the maximum from all the Proton apps.Winner: Proton Mail

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More Google DeepMind today pulled the curtain back on AlphaEvolve, an artificial-intelligence agent that can invent brand-new computer algorithms — then put them straight to work inside the company’s vast computing empire. AlphaEvolve pairs Google’s Gemini large language models with an evolutionary approach that tests, refines, and improves algorithms automatically. The system has already been deployed across Google’s data centers, chip designs, and AI training systems — boosting efficiency and solving mathematical problems that have stumped researchers for decades. “AlphaEvolve is a Gemini-powered AI coding agent that is able to make new discoveries in computing and mathematics,” explained Matej Balog, a researcher at Google DeepMind, in an interview with VentureBeat. “It can discover algorithms of remarkable complexity — spanning hundreds of lines of code with sophisticated logical structures that go far beyond simple functions.” The system dramatically expands upon Google’s previous work with FunSearch by evolving entire codebases rather than single functions. It represents a major leap in AI’s ability to develop sophisticated algorithms for both scientific challenges and everyday computing problems. Inside Google’s 0.7% efficiency boost: How AI-crafted algorithms run the company’s data centers AlphaEvolve has been quietly at work inside Google for over a year. The results are already significant. One algorithm it discovered has been powering Borg, Google’s massive cluster management system. This scheduling heuristic recovers an average of 0.7% of Google’s worldwide computing resources continuously — a staggering efficiency gain at Google’s scale. The discovery directly targets “stranded resources” — machines that have run out of one resource type (like memory) while still having others (like CPU) available. AlphaEvolve’s solution is especially valuable because it produces simple, human-readable code that engineers can easily interpret, debug, and deploy. The AI agent hasn’t stopped at data centers. It rewrote part of Google’s hardware design, finding a way to eliminate unnecessary bits in a crucial arithmetic circuit for Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). TPU designers validated the change for correctness, and it’s now headed into an upcoming chip design. Perhaps most impressively, AlphaEvolve improved the very systems that power itself. It optimized a matrix multiplication kernel used to train Gemini models, achieving a 23% speedup for that operation and cutting overall training time by 1%. For AI systems that train on massive computational grids, this efficiency gain translates to substantial energy and resource savings. “We try to identify critical pieces that can be accelerated and have as much impact as possible,” said Alexander Novikov, another DeepMind researcher, in an interview with VentureBeat. “We were able to optimize the practical running time of [a vital kernel] by 23%, which translated into 1% end-to-end savings on the entire Gemini training card.” Breaking Strassen’s 56-year-old matrix multiplication record: AI solves what humans couldn’t AlphaEvolve solves mathematical problems that stumped human experts for decades while advancing existing systems. The system designed a novel gradient-based optimization procedure that discovered multiple new matrix multiplication algorithms. One discovery toppled a mathematical record that had stood for 56 years. “What we found, to our surprise, to be honest, is that AlphaEvolve, despite being a more general technology, obtained even better results than AlphaTensor,” said Balog, referring to DeepMind’s previous specialized matrix multiplication system. “For these four by four matrices, AlphaEvolve found an algorithm that surpasses Strassen’s algorithm from 1969 for the first time in that setting.” The breakthrough allows two 4×4 complex-valued matrices to be multiplied using 48 scalar multiplications instead of 49 — a discovery that had eluded mathematicians since Volker Strassen’s landmark work. According to the research paper, AlphaEvolve “improves the state of the art for 14 matrix multiplication algorithms.” The system’s mathematical reach extends far beyond matrix multiplication. When tested against over 50 open problems in mathematical analysis, geometry, combinatorics, and number theory, AlphaEvolve matched state-of-the-art solutions in about 75% of cases. In approximately 20% of cases, it improved upon the best known solutions. One victory came in the “kissing number problem” — a centuries-old geometric challenge to determine how many non-overlapping unit spheres can simultaneously touch a central sphere. In 11 dimensions, AlphaEvolve found a configuration with 593 spheres, breaking the previous record of 592. How it works: Gemini language models plus evolution create a digital algorithm factory What makes AlphaEvolve different from other AI coding systems is its evolutionary approach. The system deploys both Gemini Flash (for speed) and Gemini Pro (for depth) to propose changes to existing code. These changes get tested by automated evaluators that score each variation. The most successful algorithms then guide the next round of evolution. AlphaEvolve doesn’t just generate code from its training data. It actively explores the solution space, discovers novel approaches, and refines them through an automated evaluation process — creating solutions humans might never have conceived. “One critical idea in our approach is that we focus on problems with clear evaluators. For any proposed solution or piece of code, we can automatically verify its validity and measure its quality,” Novikov explained. “This allows us to establish fast and reliable feedback loops to improve the system.” This approach is particularly valuable because the system can work on any problem with a clear evaluation metric — whether it’s energy efficiency in a data center or the elegance of a mathematical proof. From cloud computing to drug discovery: Where Google’s algorithm-inventing AI goes next While currently deployed within Google’s infrastructure and mathematical research, AlphaEvolve’s potential reaches much further. Google DeepMind envisions applications in material sciences, drug discovery, and other fields requiring complex algorithmic solutions. “The best human-AI collaboration can help solve open scientific challenges and also apply them at Google scale,” said Novikov, highlighting the system’s collaborative potential. Google DeepMind is now developing a user interface with its People + AI Research team and plans to launch an Early Access Program for selected academic researchers. The company is also exploring broader availability. The system’s flexibility marks a significant advantage. Balog noted that “at least previously, when I worked in machine learning research, it wasn’t my experience that you could build a scientific tool and immediately see real-world impact at this scale. This is quite unusual.” As large language models advance, AlphaEvolve’s capabilities will grow alongside them. The system demonstrates an intriguing evolution in AI itself — starting within the digital confines of Google’s servers, optimizing the very hardware and software that gives it life, and now reaching outward to solve problems that have challenged human intellect for decades or centuries. Daily insights on business use cases with VB Daily If you want to impress your boss, VB Daily has you covered. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI. Read our Privacy Policy Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here. An error occured.

In Brief Posted: 10:22 AM PDT · May 14, 2025 Image Credits:Thomas Trutschel/Photothek / Getty Images (Image has been modified) SoundCloud backtracks on AI-related terms of use updates SoundCloud says it’s revising its terms after widespread backlash over a clause related to AI model training. Earlier this year, SoundCloud quietly updated its usage policies, adding wording that many users interpreted as legal cover to allow the company to train AI on audio uploaded to its platform. SoundCloud was quick to assert that it wasn’t developing AI by using its users’ content, but the company’s PR statement didn’t allay fears that SoundCloud might do so in the future. On Wednesday, SoundCloud CEO Eliah Seton published an open letter admitting that the wording of the changes to the company’s terms “was too broad and wasn’t clear enough.” The updates were intended to focus on other uses of AI internally at the company, Seton said — including recommendations and tools to help prevent fraud — but missed the mark. SoundCloud has now revised its terms “to make it absolutely clear [that] SoundCloud will not use [user] content to train generative AI models that aim to replicate or synthesize [a] voice, music, or likeness,” said Seton. Topics

Senior Gameplay ProgrammerEpic GamesLondon, England, United Kingdom2 hours agoApplyWHAT MAKES US EPIC?At the core of Epic’s success are talented, passionate people. Epic prides itself on creating a collaborative, welcoming, and creative environment. Whether it’s building award-winning games or crafting engine technology that enables others to make visually stunning interactive experiences, we’re always innovating.Being Epic means being a part of a team that continually strives to do right by our community and users. We’re constantly innovating to raise the bar of engine and game development.PROGRAMMING - SPECIAL PROJECTSWhat We DoThe Special Projects team at Epic is responsible for executing high-impact projects that push the envelope to define the future of real-time graphics and gaming technology (The Matrix Awakens, Lumen in the Land of Nanite). In collaboration with the Unreal Engine team, we strive to put our technology and knowledge into the hands of users, empowering developers and content creators with the most powerful suite of real-time tools in the world.What You'll DoEpic Games is looking for a Senior Gameplay Programmer to join the team. As a member of our team, you will play a critical role in driving future projects that push boundaries, explore new technology, and help define the future of Unreal Engine. As a Senior Gameplay Programmer, you will define and implement the technical aspects of interactive projects and systems while collaborating with Programming teams and content creators to create cutting-edge interactive experiences.In this role, you willDesign, implement, and support new features or systems that interact with or extend Gameplay, Game AI, Sound, and Animation systemsExperiment with game design and use rapid prototyping while ensuring that strong architectural and algorithmic decisions are madePrototype and iterate on features and be willing to accept and respond to critical feedback while ensuring that strong architectural and algorithmic decisions are made; write robust, maintainable codeWork closely with art and design to create and iterate on gameplay featuresCollaborate with Unreal Engine teams to help guide ongoing feature developmentOptimize and fix bugs in existing gameplay systemsContribute ideas toward all aspects of the game’s production and developmentWhat we're looking forExperience developing games professionally and shipping AAA titlesFearless when it comes to diving into complex systems and existing code basesA keen analytical mind with strong problem-solving skillsStrong C++ skills and the ability to code and architect gameplay mechanics and systemsWell-versed in games and the ability to articulate what is strong/weak about the design of existing gamesAdept at delivering and responding to constructive feedbackSelf-motivated, strong work ethic, and the ability to work independentlyCreativity in problem-solving and the ability to think outside of the established solutionsKnowledge of ML/AI and its potential applicationsSomeone who is user-focused, passionate, solutions-focused, and innovative. These traits equal success at Epic and influence everything we doEPIC JOB + EPIC BENEFITS = EPIC LIFEWe pay 100% for benefits for both employees and dependents and offer coverage for supplemental medical, dental, vision, critical illness, telemedicine, Life and AD&D, long term disability insurance as well as weekly indemnity (short term disability) and a retirement savings plan with a competitive employer match. In addition to the EAP (employee assistance program), we also offer a robust mental well-being program through Modern Health, which provides free therapy and coaching for employees & dependents.ABOUT USEpic Games spans across 25 countries with 46 studios and 4,500+ employees globally. For over 25 years, we've been making award-winning games and engine technology that empowers others to make visually stunning games and 3D content that bring environments to life like never before. Epic's award-winning Unreal Engine technology not only provides game developers the ability to build high-fidelity, interactive experiences for PC, console, mobile, and VR, it is also a tool being embraced by content creators across a variety of industries such as media and entertainment, automotive, and architectural design. As we continue to build our Engine technology and develop remarkable games, we strive to build teams of world-class talent.Like what you hear? Come be a part of something Epic!Epic Games deeply values diverse teams and an inclusive work culture, and we are proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. Learn more about our Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Policy here.Note to Recruitment Agencies: Epic does not accept any unsolicited resumes or approaches from any unauthorized third party (including recruitment or placement agencies) (i.e., a third party with whom we do not have a negotiated and validly executed agreement). We will not pay any fees to any unauthorized third party. Further details on these matters can be found here. Create Your Profile — Game companies can contact you with their relevant job openings. Apply

This game is the work of a solo developer with years of experience in storytelling design, and worldbuilding. Leveraging AI in every form— from procedural content generation to rapid prototyping and voice acting. This stage is focused entirely on proving the core concept of the game which will be linked to the book that the story is based on.Some of the current game assets are placeholders and will be replaced with original high-quality art in later stages of development.Stay tuned! Posted by seekertheguardian10 on May 5th, 2025 This game is being developed by a solo creator with over a decade of experience in storytelling, worldbuilding, and interactive media. Passionate about immersive narratives and sci-fi worlds, the developer is using AI in every form possible—from concept art and writing to prototyping and asset generation—to bring this vision to life quickly and efficiently. The game is based on an upcoming original sci-fi novel titled The Guardian of the Rift, set to release in the future. The story-driven experience will eventually span over 27 explorable planets, each with its own factions, environments, and secrets. For now, development is focused on building out the first playable world, the planet of Thal`ros, as a proof of concept. Some of the current visuals, audio, and animations are temporary, AI-assisted placeholders. Once the concept is solidified, every asset will be revisited or fully replaced to meet a high production standard, hopefully by a larger development team. A free, playable demo is expected to release in 2025 or 2026, giving players an early look into this vast, evolving universe. The demo will include a mission that will portray the first 4 pages of the book, and for extended replayability multiple side missions will be added that are linked to the story. This project is both a creative endeavor and a technical experiment-proving that with modern tools and a strong vision, a single developer can build something truly ambitious. But this journey isn't one I can complete alone. Without your support, feedback, and passion for unique storytelling, this universe can't reach its full potential. Whether you're here to follow the development, share your thoughts, or just explore a new world-you are a vital part of this project. Every download, comment, and share brings this vision one step closer to reality. Together, we can shape something truly special. Thank You!

The Department of Commerce (DOC) has slammed the brakes on the sweeping “AI Diffusion Rule,” yanking it just a day before it was due to bite. Meanwhile, officials have laid down the gauntlet with stricter measures to control semiconductor exports.The AI Diffusion Rule, a piece of regulation cooked up under the Biden administration, was staring down a compliance deadline of May 15th. According to the folks at the DOC, letting this rule roll out would have been like throwing a spanner in the works of American innovation.DOC officials argue the rule would have saddled tech firms with “burdensome new regulatory requirements” and, perhaps more surprisingly, risked souring America’s relationships on the world stage by effectively “downgrading” dozens of countries “to second-tier status.”The nuts and bolts of this reversal will see the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), part of the DOC, publishing a notice in the Federal Register to make the rescission official. While this particular rule is heading for the shredder, the official line is that a replacement isn’t off the table; one will be cooked up and served “in the future.”Jeffery Kessler, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, has told BIS enforcement teams to stand down on anything concerning the now-canned AI Diffusion Rule.“The Trump Administration will pursue a bold, inclusive strategy to American AI technology with trusted foreign countries around the world, while keeping the technology out of the hands of our adversaries,” said Kessler.“At the same time, we reject the Biden Administration’s attempt to impose its own ill-conceived and counterproductive AI policies on the American people.”What was this ‘AI Diffusion Rule’ anyway?You might be wondering what this “AI Diffusion Rule” actually was, and why it’s causing such a stir. The rule wasn’t just a minor tweak; it was the Biden administration’s bid to get a tight grip on how advanced American tech – everything from the AI chips themselves to cloud computing access and even the crucial AI ‘model weights’ – flowed out of the US to the rest of the world.The idea, at least on paper, was to walk a tightrope: keep the US at the front of the AI pack, protect national security, and still champion American tech exports.But how did it plan to do this? The rule laid out a fairly complex playbook:A tiered system for nations: Imagine a global league table for AI access. Countries were split into three groups. Tier 1 nations, America’s closest allies like Japan and South Korea, would have seen hardly any new restrictions. Tier 3, unsurprisingly, included countries already under arms embargoes – like China and Russia – who were already largely banned from getting US chips and would face the toughest controls imaginable.The squeezed middle: This is where things got sticky. A large swathe of countries, including nations like Mexico, Portugal, India, and even Switzerland, found themselves in Tier 2. For them, the rule meant new limits on how many advanced AI chips they could import, especially if they were looking to build those super-powerful, large computing clusters essential for AI development.Caps and close scrutiny: Beyond the tiers, the rule introduced actual caps on the quantity of high-performance AI chips most countries could get their hands on. If anyone wanted to bring in chips above certain levels, particularly for building massive AI data centres, they’d have faced incredibly strict security checks and reporting duties.Controlling the ‘brains’: It wasn’t just about the hardware. The rule also aimed to regulate the storage and export of advanced AI model weights – essentially the core programming and learned knowledge of an AI system. There were strict rules about not storing these in arms-embargoed countries and only allowing their export to favoured allies, and even then, only under tight conditions.Tech as a bargaining chip: Underneath it all, the framework was also a bit of a power play. The US aimed to use access to its coveted AI technology as a carrot, encouraging other nations to sign up to American standards and safeguards if they wanted to keep the American chips and software flowing.The Biden administration had a clear rationale for these moves. They wanted to stop adversaries, with China being the primary concern, from getting their hands on advanced AI that could be turned against US interests or used for military purposes. It was also about cementing US leadership in AI, making sure the most potent AI systems and the infrastructure to run them stayed within the US and its closest circle of allies, all while trying to keep US tech exports competitive.However, the AI Diffusion Rule and broader plan didn’t exactly get a standing ovation. Far from it.Major US tech players – including giants like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Oracle – voiced strong concerns. They argued that the rule, instead of protecting US interests, would stifle innovation, bog businesses down in red tape, and ultimately hurt the competitiveness of American companies on the global stage. Crucially, they also doubted it would effectively stop China from accessing advanced AI chips through other means.And it wasn’t just industry. Many countries weren’t thrilled about being labelled “second-tier,” a status they felt was not only insulting but also risked undermining diplomatic ties. There was a real fear it could push them to look for AI technology elsewhere, potentially even from China, which was hardly the intended outcome.This widespread pushback and the concerns about hampering innovation and international relations are exactly what the current Department of Commerce is pointing to as reasons for today’s decisive action to scrap the rule.Fresh clampdown on AI chip exportsIt wasn’t just about scrapping old rules, though. The BIS also rolled out a new playbook to tighten America’s grip on AI chip exports, showing they’re serious about guarding the nation’s tech crown jewels. The latest clampdown includes:A spotlight on Huawei Ascend chips: New guidance makes it crystal clear: using Huawei Ascend chips anywhere on the planet is now a no-go under US export controls. This takes direct aim at one of China’s big players in the AI hardware game.Heads-up on Chinese AI model training: A stark warning has gone out to the public and the industry about the serious consequences if US AI chips are used to train or run Chinese AI models. The worry? That American tech could inadvertently supercharge AI systems that might not have US interests at heart.Guidance on shoring up supply chains: US firms are getting a fresh batch of advice on how to batten down the hatches on their supply chains to stop controlled tech from being siphoned off to unapproved destinations or users.The Department of Commerce is selling today’s double-whammy – axing the rule and beefing up export controls – as essential to “ensure that the United States will remain at the forefront of AI innovation and maintain global AI dominance.” It’s a strategy that looks to clear the runway for domestic tech growth while building higher fences around critical AI technologies, especially advanced semiconductors.This policy pivot will likely get a thumbs-up from some quarters in the US tech scene, particularly those who were getting sweaty palms about the AI Diffusion Rule and the red tape it threatened. On the flip side, the even tougher export controls – especially those zeroing in on China and firms like Huawei – show that trade policy is still very much a frontline tool in the high-stakes global chess game over who leads in tech.The whisper of a “replacement rule” down the line means this isn’t the final chapter in the saga of how to manage the AI revolution. For now, it seems the game plan is to clear the path for homegrown innovation and be much more careful about who gets to play with America’s latest breakthroughs.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.

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. Google DeepMind's new tool, called AlphaEvolve, uses the Gemini 2.0 family of 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. “You can see it as a sort of super coding agent,” says Pushmeet Kohli, a vice president at Google DeepMind who leads its AI for Science teams. “It doesn’t just propose a piece of code or an edit, it actually produces a result that maybe nobody was aware of.” In particular, AlphaEvolve came up with a way to improve the software Google uses to allocate jobs to its many millions of servers around the world. Google DeepMind claims the company has been using this new software across all of its data centers for more than a year, freeing up 0.7% of Google's total computing resources. That might not sound like much, but at Google’s scale it’s huge. Jakob Moosbauer, a mathematician at the University of Warwick in the UK, is impressed. He says the way AlphaEvolve searches for algorithms that produce specific solutions—rather than searching for the solutions themselves—makes it especially powerful. “It makes the approach applicable to such a wide range of problems,” he says. “AI is becoming a tool that will be essential in mathematics and computer science.” AlphaEvolve continues a line of work that Google DeepMind has been pursuing for years. Its vision is that AI can help to advance human knowledge across math and science. In 2022, it developed AlphaTensor, a model that found a faster way to solve matrix multiplications—a fundamental problem in computer science—beating a record that had stood for more than 50 years. In 2023, it revealed AlphaDev, which discovered faster ways to perform a number of basic calculations performed by computers trillions of times a day. AlphaTensor and AlphaDev both turn math problems into a kind of game, then search for a winning series of moves. FunSearch, which arrived in late 2023, swapped out game-playing AI and replaced it with LLMs that can generate code. Because LLMs can carry out a range of tasks, FunSearch can take on a wider variety of problems than its predecessors, which were trained to play just one type of game. The tool was used to crack a famous unsolved problem in pure mathematics. AlphaEvolve is the next generation of FunSearch. Instead of coming up with short snippets of code to solve a specific problem, as FunSearch did, it can produce programs that are hundreds of lines long. This makes it applicable to a much wider variety of problems.     In theory, AlphaEvolve could be applied to any problem that can be described in code and that has solutions that can be evaluated by a computer. “Algorithms run the world around us, so the impact of that is huge,” says Matej Balog, a researcher at Google DeepMind who leads the algorithm discovery team. Survival of the fittest Here’s how it works: AlphaEvolve can be prompted like any LLM. Give it a description of the problem and any extra hints you want, such as previous solutions, and AlphaEvolve will get Gemini 2.0 Flash (the smallest, fastest version of Google DeepMind’s flagship LLM) to generate multiple blocks of code to solve the problem. It then takes these candidate solutions, runs them to see how accurate or efficient they are, and scores them according to a range of relevant metrics. Does this code produce the correct result? Does it run faster than previous solutions? And so on. AlphaEvolve then takes the best of the current batch of solutions and asks Gemini to improve them. Sometimes AlphaEvolve will throw a previous solution back into the mix to prevent Gemini from hitting a dead end. When it gets stuck, AlphaEvolve can also call on Gemini 2.0 Pro, the most powerful of Google DeepMind’s LLMs. The idea is to generate many solutions with the faster Flash but add solutions from the slower Pro when needed. These rounds of generation, scoring, and regeneration continue until Gemini fails to come up with anything better than what it already has. Number games The team tested AlphaEvolve on a range of different problems. For example, they looked at matrix multiplication again to see how a general-purpose tool like AlphaEvolve compared to the specialized AlphaTensor. Matrices are grids of numbers. Matrix multiplication is a basic computation that underpins many applications, from AI to computer graphics, yet nobody knows the fastest way to do it. “It’s kind of unbelievable that it’s still an open question,” says Balog. The team gave AlphaEvolve a description of the problem and an example of a standard algorithm for solving it. The tool not only produced new algorithms that could calculate 14 different sizes of matrix faster than any existing approach, it also improved on AlphaTensor’s record-beating result for multipying two four-by-four matrices. AlphaEvolve scored 16,000 candidates suggested by Gemini to find the winning solution, but that’s still more efficient than AlphaTensor, says Balog. AlphaTensor’s solution also only worked when a matrix was filled with 0s and 1s. AlphaEvolve solves the problem with other numbers too. “The result on matrix multiplication is very impressive,” says Moosbauer. “This new algorithm has the potential to speed up computations in practice.” Manuel Kauers, a mathematician at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, agrees: “The improvement for matrices is likely to have practical relevance.” By coincidence, Kauers and a colleague have just used a different computational technique to find some of the speedups AlphaEvolve came up with. The pair posted a paper online reporting their results last week. “It is great to see that we are moving forward with the understanding of matrix multiplication,” says Kauers. “Every technique that helps is a welcome contribution to this effort.” Real-world problems Matrix multiplication was just one breakthrough. In total, Google DeepMind tested AlphaEvolve on more than 50 different types of well-known math puzzles, including problems in Fourier analysis (the math behind data compression, essential to applications such as video streaming), the minimum overlap problem (an open problem in number theory proposed by mathematician Paul Erdős in 1955), and kissing numbers (a problem introduced by Isaac Newton that has applications in materials science, chemistry, and cryptography). AlphaEvolve matched the best existing solutions in 75% of cases and found better solutions in 20% of cases.   Google DeepMind then applied AlphaEvolve to a handful of real-world problems. As well as coming up with a more efficient algorithm for managing computational resources across data centers, the tool found a way to reduce the power consumption of Google’s specialized tensor processing unit chips. AlphaEvolve even found a way to speed up the training of Gemini itself, by producing a more efficient algorithm for managing a certain type of computation used in the training process. Google DeepMind plans to continue exploring potential applications of its tool. One limitation is that AlphaEvolve can’t be used for problems with solutions that need to be scored by a person, such as lab experiments that are subject to interpretation.    Moosbauer also points out that while AlphaEvolve may produce impressive new results across a wide range of problems, it gives little theoretical insight into how it arrived at those solutions. That’s a drawback when it comes to advancing human understanding.   Even so, tools like AlphaEvolve are set to change the way researchers work. “I don't think we are finished,” says Kohli. “There is much further that we can go in terms of how powerful this type of approach is.”