Mario Kart World – is it a backwards step? (Nintendo) The Friday letters page is surprised the Sony State of Play didn’t go down better with more people, as readers share images of the Switch 2 midnight launches. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk Initial experience I’ve spent a few hours playing Mario Kart World in single and multiplayer, and my first impression is that it’s a bit… boring.The free roam aspect of the game seemed like it had heaps of potential but, for the most part, it feels aimless. Sure, there are things to collect and discover, but in-between there’s just driving. Lots and lots of driving. It’s not exactly a world brimming with things to do in the same way as the sandbox areas in Super Mario Odyssey, for example. As for the races, in principle it makes sense that the tracks need to be wider to accommodate 24 racers. However, the races themselves don’t generally feel any busier because you’re still, generally, just competing against those closest to your level of ability. Consequently, I felt the game lacks the chaotic energy of jostling your rivals to get ahead because there’s so much space on the otherwise well-designed courses. I know it’s unfair to compare Mario Kart World to Mario Kart 8 at this point, given the latter spanned two consoles, with a plethora of content reflecting that. But it’s hard not to feel that while the free roam section is a solid demonstration of technical advancement (even if the inability to integrate it with Grand Prix mode seems like a missed opportunity), the core gameplay is consistent, at best. In some respects, I’d say it’s more of a step backwards, if anything. That being said, I don’t think this is the same version of Mario Kart World we’ll be playing five years from now. Free roam mode feels like a playground in which Nintendo can experiment, and I fully expect them to do so. There’ll undoubtedly be a slew of DLC and perhaps better integration of the various modes into one seamless experience. Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. In the unlikely event that this is the final iteration of Mario Kart World, it’s currently a six or (generous) seven out of 10 and probably the least enthralled I’ve ever been with a new Mario Kart title. But I’ll give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt for now because this doesn’t feel like a game that’s even close to being finished.Needlemouse Just add SonyFirstly, I’m surprised by the relatively lukewarm response to the State of Play from some people; I thought it was one of the best in recent memory and there were only a few games that I personally had little interest in. The main reason for writing in is the recent addition of Destiny 2: The Final Shape to PS Plus subscription. In short, I played a lot of Destiny 2 back in the day but have subsequently not played any of the most recent DLCs/additions. Can The Final Shape be played as a standalone? (both logistically and in terms of the story)?John GC: We think people were upset that Sony themselves had nothing to show from their first parties, even though we agree it was overall a good show. As far as we understand, you don’t need any other expansions to play The Final Shape. Only one Just a quick heads up for anyone buying digital content on either a Switch or Switch 2 console, if you are Switch online subscriber you can purchase a voucher for £84 that lets you purchase any two titles from a list of games.This reduces each game to a reasonable £42 and the vouchers are valid for a year. I didn’t get an alert about this until after I’d purchased Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which I paid £59.99 for. I did at least then go on to buy a voucher for £84 and redeemed each token for Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Super Mario 3D Land + Bowser’s Fury.Charlie H. GC: It’s important to note these can’t be used for Switch 2 exclusive games. Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk Midnight gathering I’ve seen a lot of pictures from the Switch 2 launch, so I thought I’d send you a picture of the queue at Smyth’s in Dublin city centre, a couple of minutes after midnight.I think there were a couple of hundred people there when I arrived. if I’d known then that I wouldn’t get out of the store until 2:30am, I might have gone home and tried again in the morning. But in the end, I’m glad I waited. I’ve just been tinkering with it so far, hooked it up to the TV, and played a little bit of Mario Kart World and Cyberpunk 2077, so I can’t really give any conclusions. But when my (dedicated non-gamer) wife saw it, her reaction was, ‘Oh, it looks much better! Can I play it?’ So I think Nintendo are on to another winner.Mickah Night-time rendezvous (Mickah) American retail I was on my way down to Smyths Leeds to collect my Switch 2 Mario Kart bundle, that I had pre-ordered a month ago.I called in at Costco on the way and was surprised to find they had the Mario Kart bundle for £419.99, so I decided to get one from there. It was late afternoon Thursday and they looked to have plenty left. It is limited to one per customer. I will let my pre-order lapse so it will cancel in two days.Martin GC: We had no idea Costco existed in the UK. Maybe we’re not the only ones and that’s why they have so many left. C’mon DoreenSomebody (not me, don’t know how) should start a petition to get Squirrel Girl in that Marvel game for you guys. How good did it all look? How good was that showcase? What have Sony been up too? That’s what. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is already on my wishlist. That surfing sword game wasn’t bad either. With Nintendo too, great times ahead.Indiegaz (PSN ID) GC: At least she’s in Marvel Rivals. Autumnal purchase So I won’t be buying the Nintendo Switch 2 at launch. I’ll be instead visiting Tenerife in August. But I do hope the system reviews well and those who have purchased it are zooming around on Mario Kart World. I’ll be hopefully purchasing the device before autumn of this year. But you never know what could happen.So my sister paid for my ticket and it of course must be paid back. A debt is a debt. Which is quite fitting, since I just finished my playthrough of Red Dead Redemption and just as John Marston paid his debt to a life of crime and Edgar Ross paid his debt to a vengeful son. I’ll be hopefully paid up in less than three months, then I’ll be purchasing the Switch 2 and with more information on the games, reviews, and what’s to come for the future. For now however, I look towards a week spent in the beaches of Spain and my focus on the remainder of my maths course. Also, a playthrough of Resident Evil 3 remake. Only six hours long. Can’t complain.Shahzaib Sadiq Free for all Borderlands 2 and Hellslave are currently free on Steam on PC. Hellslave is available for free until Sunday, 15th June. Also, Deathloop is currently free on Epic Games Store.I hope everyone who gets a Switch 2 enjoys it. I will have to probably get one next year now, as I need to buy a new gaming computer because my current gaming PC will not upgrade to Windows 11, unfortunately.Andrew J. Old reliable Just writing this after a couple of hours with the Switch 2. I always end up with whatever Nintendo’s latest console is at some point in its lifetime (going back to the Game Boy Advance) but for the first time I decided to jump onboard day one.The price rises for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X have shown that the assumption consoles will get cheaper in the medium term isn’t a guarantee, and the feature list for the Switch 2 ticked pretty much every box I wanted from an upgrade to the original. Bump in specs, sturdier Joy-Con, and a new interface with the mouse controls. What I’ve not seen many people comment on yet is the set-up experience. It isn’t always a given with Nintendo that this is going to be smooth, but I found that the transfer from my original to Switch 2 was seamless. I had one error message in setting up GameChat, but restarting the process fixed that, and now I can settle into at least another few years of Nintendo gaming joy. As I approach the business end of 40 years old, it’s a comfort to know that the likes of Mario, Yoshi, and the other inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom are still karting away 30-odd years after the SNES original.Electric Crocosaurus GC: That’s a cool name. Inbox also-rans Yes! My Switch 2 has turned up and have the rest of the week off, and it’s Summer Game Fest on Friday night. Now that is what I call eating well for games fans!LemptonAs promised, here is the pic from the queue at Smyths toy store at midnight. Sorry I couldn’t get one from inside but they were only letting two at a time in. Not a bad turn out. I had about 20 people behind me too.woz_007 (NN ID) The way launches used to be (woz_007) Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk More Trending The small printNew Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content. 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Since its announcement in January, anticipation has been building for the Nintendo Switch 2 – the followup to the gaming titan’s most successful home console, the 150m-selling Nintendo Switch. Major console launches are rarer than they used to be; this is the first since 2020, when Sony’s PlayStation 5 hit shelves. Whether you’re weighing up a purchase or just wondering what all the fuss is about, here’s everything you need to know.The basicsThe Switch 2 is out today, 5 June, priced at £395.99 (US$449.99/A$699/€469.99) or at £429.99 (US$499.99/A$766/€509,99) bundled with its flagship game, Mario Kart World. Like its predecessor, it’s a portable games machine with a built-in screen – you can use as a handheld mini-console when you’re out and about, or slide it into the dedicated dock device and plug it into your TV via an HDMI cable for a big-screen experience at home. A little bigger than the original Switch, with a crisp, clear 7.9in LCD touch screen, as opposed to the old 6.2in display, it comes with two Joy-Con controllers, which are chunkier than the previous versions. These now attach magnetically to each side of the screen with a pleasing clunk, replacing the fiddly sliding mechanism that most Switch owners disliked. They’ve also got bigger L and R buttons on the top, which sounds like a minor detail but is a huge deal for anyone trying to perfect their Mario Kart power-slides.The specBig tech advances … Nintendo Switch 2. Photograph: NintendoThe tech inside the Switch 2 is a lot more advanced than the previous console, featuring a custom nVidia processor, and a screen capable of displaying at 4K resolution (when plugged into a compatible TV) or 1920x1080 resolution in portable mode. It’s also got 5.1 surround sound, and supports high-dynamic range lighting (HDR) graphical effects at frame rates of up to 120hz. This brings the Switch 2 almost up to scratch with other modern consoles: most experts are placing its tech specs somewhere between the PS4 and PS5, or between Xbox One and Xbox Series X.In the boxThe Nintendo Switch 2 comes with the console itself, two Joy-Con controllers, a power adaptor and USB-C charging cable, a dock, a Joy-Con grip (which allows you to connect the two Joy-Cons together to create a traditional-looking games controller), and two Joy-Con wrist straps to stop them flying out of your hands.Out of the boxNintendo is going big on the social features of the console. Its GameShare function will allow you to play compatible games with other people who don’t own a copy – they just need their own Switch or a Switch 2, and can play along in the room with you or connect online. This is particularly important for families sharing one copy of a game. Meanwhile, GameChat is kind of like Zoom, but for games: you can invite a bunch of pals into a group video chat session where you can talk to each other while playing the same game, playing different games, or just hanging out. If you all buy the Nintendo Switch 2 Camera you’ll be able to see little video windows of each other on the screen, too. GameChat requires a paid subscription to Nintendo’s online gaming service, which costs £17.99 (US$19.99/€19.99/A$29.95)The gamesBig news … Mario Kart World game. Photograph: NintendoThe console is launching with around 25 games, though many of these are enhanced versions of older Switch titles. The big newcomers are Mario Kart World, an open-world take on the classic karting game; the introductory game Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour; the co-op survival challenge Survival Kids and anti-gravity racer, Fast Fusion. Some favourites making it across are Fortnite, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom. Most games will retail for between £45–£70 and will be available to buy and download online, or as physical boxed copies. You can also still play almost all your old Switch games on the new console, and there’s a huge back catalogue of retro NES, Nintendo 64, SNES and GameCube classics from the 1980s, 90s and 00s available to play with a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.The accessoriesAdd-ons … Nintendo Switch 2 Pro controller and camera. Photograph: NintendoThere are three things you may want to buy alongside the console. The Nintendo Switch 2 Pro controller is a traditional console joypad intended for serious play. Then you have the Nintendo Switch 2 camera, basically a webcam compatible with the GameChat service, but also with any games that might use camera features. You may also want a microSD Express card to provide additional storage for your games.Where can I buy one?If you haven’t pre-ordered, you may have to be patient and shop around. Some of the larger retailers including Amazon, Argos, Currys and John Lewis are saying they may have a few in stock today and it’s worth trying Nintendo’s online store. Be extremely wary of buying from private sellers on eBay or similar sites – there will be a lot of con artists out there. Remember when people found their PlayStation 5 deliveries were instead full of bags of rice?

Giant Squid’s upcoming title, Sword of the Sea, is a well-crafted union of all the titles the studio and Game Director Matt Nava have worked on. The aquatic wonder of Abzû, The Pathless’s sense of adventure, and Journey’s beautiful desert world. Sword of the Sea weaves those influences together so skillfully that it feels like this atmospheric surfing adventure was the goal all along.  I got a chance to go hands-on with Sword of the Sea and talk with Giant Squid about the new game, coming day one to PlayStation Plus Game Catalog on August 19. Surfing across the sands and sea The game begins as the player awakens as The Wraith, a vessel waiting to be filled, who is given the task of bringing the oceans back to the world. Appearing to be the last being left alive to get the job done, you receive a mystical surfboard and hit the dunes.  The starting area is a vast playground where you can get accustomed to the board, perform tricks, and learn how to interact with the world. As you zoom across the desert, you come across different nodes known as Ocean Seeds that allow you to cleanse the land and restore parts of the ocean and marine life.  Beyond pleasing aesthetics, water and sea life directly impact gameplay. The Wraith is significantly faster on water, leading to greater speed for bigger jumps and more tricks. Some sea life create new paths, like buoyant jellyfish that make great jump pads and long strands of climbable seaweed. Watching the landscape terraform was a highlight, as was searching for all the land’s secrets.  “Sword of the Sea is really all about the spiritual magic of surfing,” Nava explains. “ It’s inspired by my own experiences snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfing throughout my life. When you think of these extreme sports, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the high speed and the danger. But there’s more to it than just an adrenaline rush. When you are surfing on waves in the ocean, you are literally on the boundary between our world and the world beneath the waves, a world beyond our understanding.”  Golden triangles known as Tetra populate the world, acting as currency you can trade to mysterious vendors to learn more tricks, acquire skills, and open new paths. Want to see it all? You’ll have to detour off the main path to see and afford it all. Different vendors, triangles, and Trick Attack arenas are hidden throughout the world.  Show off your tricks and feel the terrain Pulling off stylish moves in Sword of the Sea is straightforward. When surfing, once you jump you can press X again to perform a variety of double jump tricks. Once you acquire advanced tricks from the vendor, you hold L1 and press Triangle, Square, Circle, or X to do special grabs, flips, and spins. They score more points, and combining grabs and flips in different ways create new tricks. While the timing is a little trickier, you can give yourself a much-needed jump boost and score high-point combos when performed just right.  Sword of the Sea constantly keeps score of the tricks you pull and how advanced they are. Hidden Trick Attack arenas let you put those skills to good use. What does racking up a high Trick Score lead to? Yet another mystery we’ll have to wait to uncover. Though the game takes place in the desert, there are plenty of different objects to grind on besides sea and sand. I came across ruins, ceramic tile roofs, and helpful aquatic life. The team at Giant Squid takes full advantage of the DualSense controller haptics to ensure every surface feels and sounds distinct. As I surfed along rooftops, I could hear the melodic tones of tiles underneath and the tingle in my fingers. The sand offers a coarse sensation, and you feel and hear the rushing water as you speed through on the makeshift highways parts of the ocean create. “The haptic feedback of the DualSense controller reacts to each surface differently so you can feel it when you cross from one to the next,” says Nava.  “Combined with special sound effects that play from the controller, it gives a very realistic sense of touching the surfaces you see in the game. We are very excited by the extra layer of detail the haptics adds to the experience of surfing in Sword of the Sea.” You’re free to explore in any given direction, and hard-to-reach places usually reward you with something appropriate for the time and skill it takes to reach them. However, as you explore, you will discover murals and other environmental elements that keep the story ever-present. A tale of loss and destruction, and trying to find out how you fit into it all is an intriguing thread to follow. Especially since at the end of my session, it was clear that a mysterious character was following me. It appeared to be another wraith, but whoever the pursuer was didn’t give vibes of good intentions.  It’s easy to compare Sword of the Sea to its predecessors, but the game truly feels like an evolution of everything the Giant Squid team has worked on to this point. The game’s sights, sounds, and feel connected me with the land, and I can’t wait to hop on the board again and see what’s really out there.  “Our games have a really recognizable and unique art style, and tell atmospheric stories with their bold color and music,” says Nava. “We start with a feeling, an experience, and a message that we want the player to feel. Really, all our games are all about movement, and how it can connect you with nature and the world in different ways. Sword of the Sea builds on the ideas in all our previous games to create something that is both very Giant Squid and an exciting new adventure.” Looking to reel in more Sword of the Sea details? Check out the latest trailer and more details from State of Play. More from June’s State of Play State of Play June 2025: all announcements, trailers 

Sangral Powered by Friendship™ Member Feb 17, 2022 8,649 From one of the biggest and most dedicated HDR analysis channels out there. Thought that's a big enough topic on its own, because of the analysis, for a separate thread. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N637VB4FYxg 450 nits maximum peak brightness (personal comparison, Switch OLED without any HDR has 340 nits, an LG C2 TV in HDR has 800 nits, Steam Deck OLED screen has 1000 nits, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra 2600 nits.) Games like Zelda Breath of the Wild have raised blacks even in Docked HDR gameplay with a raised black level floor and the game looking washed out HDR docked can be good if games are optimized for it like Cyberpunk, which he refers to being exactly like on PS5 and PC, HDR wise or Fast Fusion as one of the rare games that actually have a good black level floor in HDR   Last edited: 39 minutes ago blueredandgold Member Oct 25, 2017 8,739 Could you please translate for those of us who haven't been able to watch or digest after we saw this posted in the other thread please?   gabdeg Member Oct 26, 2017 7,420 🐝 Sadly what I expected since the moment we learned it was edge-lit LCD. Would've at least expected nigher peak nits though.   Kouriozan Member Oct 25, 2017 25,072 A shame, because Switch 2 is like the first time I'll see HDR, as my old TV isn't compatible :/   Paper Cheese Member Oct 9, 2019 558 I've got to assume this is the sort of thing that most of us hi-fi tech illiterate lot won't notice until they bring out a better screen model in a few years.   Fortinbras Member Oct 27, 2017 2,073 Well that sucks but it's Nintendo...did anyone expect anything different? I'm only going to use it docked so hopefully they can fix the HDR via update.  Universal Acclaim Member Oct 5, 2024 2,482 Not surprised, but not a big issue for me personally.   Antony Member Oct 25, 2017 4,054 Ahhh the obligatory Nintendo Crap Display (Before You Buy a Whole New Model to Get a Decent One) it's positively tradition at this point   Friendly Bear Member Jan 11, 2019 4,162 I Don’t Care Where (Just Far) Even with an edge lit LCD, I was expecting brighter highlights. A lot of the preview event coverage made it sound like the screen was insanely bright, and that's clearly not the case.   NoSpin Member Nov 1, 2017 83 As so often with gaming, I am relieved to have this person to tell me the thing I am enjoying looking at is bad actually. :)   Mivey Member Oct 25, 2017 20,753 Paper Cheese said: I've got to assume this is the sort of thing that most of us hi-fi tech illiterate lot won't notice until they bring out a better screen model in a few years. Click to expand... Click to shrink... the raised blacks on dark content is pretty clear if you play in any kind of darker environment, if you have any kind of OLED screen to compare. Case in point, if you own a Switch 1 OLED, you'll notice the stark differences for certain kinds of content right away. OTOH, if you have been using a launch Switch 1 and never had any issues with how it looks, you'll be fine. Just make sure to stay away from OLED screen, lest you gain the ability to see the differences.   Decarb Member Oct 27, 2017 9,280 HDR on edge-lit LCD is kind of a scam anyway. Kouriozan said: A shame, because Switch 2 is like the first time I'll see HDR, as my old TV isn't compatible :/ Click to expand... Click to shrink... If you have a phone made in last couple of years you've probably seen HDR.   horkrux Member Oct 27, 2017 6,531 Well, kinda expected, so I'm not too bothered by it. Not like you can change it.   Maximo Member Oct 25, 2017 11,041 Nintendo saving that sweet sweet OLED for a refresh.   Buddy Member Oct 25, 2017 1,773 Germany I have mine in my hands right now.... don't know about HDR stuff too much but Mario Kart looks gorgeous on it.   DieH@rd Member Oct 26, 2017 12,083 Decarb said: HDR on edge-lit LCD is kind of a scam anyway. Click to expand... Click to shrink... ^ this.   cw_sasuke Member Oct 27, 2017 30,321 Most of this stuff was clear from the Preview Events, at least DF talked about it. Didn't seem to bother a majority of people playing though. Was pretty much set when it wasn't going to be OLED.  John Frost Member Oct 27, 2017 9,658 Canada Well, that's disappointing..   Milk Prophet of Truth Avenger Oct 25, 2017 4,301 NoSpin said: As so often with gaming, I am relieved to have this person to tell me the thing I am enjoying looking at is bad actually. :) Click to expand... Click to shrink... It's not a personal attack on you. Pointing out objective shortcomings about the technology is a good thing for consumers.   345 Member Oct 30, 2017 10,410 it's about as good as i was expecting. HDR on an LCD basically means "we're actually going to tune content for the screen's color gamut", and it does the job on that level. mario kart does look punchier and more vibrant than it would in SDR while obviously not offering the same contrast as an OLED. dunno who this guy is but if he's really "very disappointed" i'm not sure he knows very much about screens. i'm sure it's just ragebait  JimNastics Member Jan 11, 2018 1,607 345 said: 'm sure it's just ragebait Click to expand... Click to shrink... No way!! :D You could tell just from the thumbnail.  Aleh Member Oct 27, 2017 20,238 "crap display" is a huge exaggeration. Everyone who has actually seen it in person says it looks really good, HDR isn't everything, however disappointing that is.   cw_sasuke Member Oct 27, 2017 30,321 Milk said: It's not a personal attack on you. Pointing out objective shortcomings about the technology is a good thing for consumers. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Seems to be on par what you would get with an LCD. The OG Switch 1 has a bad LCD Screen, the OG Steam Deck has an even worse.....this video is making it seem like Switch 2 Screen is as bad as these screens or even worse. When it seems to be quite solid for an LCD, but in certain areas it can compete with an OLED.  Alex840 Member Oct 31, 2017 5,373 And yet most of the games media doing previews have been like "oh I can barely tell the difference compared to the OLED". Am really sad they took a step back with this, how much more could an OLED screen have cost them?  Universal Acclaim Member Oct 5, 2024 2,482 SDR low brightness in a dark room then   Dranakin Member Oct 27, 2017 2,999 Ooof. Although, I will admit, I probably can't tell between good and bad sceens. I mean, I have the Ayaneo Pocket DMG and everyone says it's an amazing screen. It looks normal to me? Alex840 said: Am really sad they took a step back with this, how much more could an OLED screen have cost them? Click to expand... Click to shrink... An OLED 120hz? The Odin 2 Portal has one (smaller size and without VRR), but I don't have a sense of the component cost.  Kabuki Waq Member Oct 26, 2017 6,034 The screen is a pretty big downgrade from oled but a huge upgrade from the OG. I really miss the perfect blacks. MKW is gorgeous but would have looked so much better on an oled screen  Harmen Member Aug 30, 2023 1,462 The HDR and lifted black should not come as a surprise. But the video doesn't really analyze why it would be below average for an LCD screen? Colours? Pixel response time? For example the original Switch 1 LCD look reaaally bad to me these days, but my Steam Deck LCD screen (similar resolution) looks good to me outside of raised blacks in dark scenes (which I do get used to).   nogoodnamesleft Member Oct 25, 2017 8,605 Yep. I fucking knew it. Knew it was going to be trash. LCD is trash as a standard (yes miniled included with its trash ass pixel response time) Will wait for oled version.  cw_sasuke Member Oct 27, 2017 30,321 Aleh said: "crap display" is a huge exaggeration. Everyone who has actually seen it in person says it looks really good, HDR isn't everything, however disappointing that is. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Focus of the whole channel is HDR. Dude is likely just used to comparing HDR content on very expensive OLED Screens. So HDR bad = everything trash for him. Something that won't be the case for 99% of users out there. Its the single voter issue again, disregarding everything else because of one focus point and expecting every one to feel the same way about it.  Serif Member Oct 31, 2024 410 Alex840 said: Am really sad they took a step back with this, how much more could an OLED screen have cost them? Click to expand... Click to shrink... An OLED 1080p HDR VRR 120 Hz screen does not sound like it would be cost-effective. It makes sense to establish baseline specs like 120 Hz support for developers to target and upgrade to OLED in the future instead of trying to add 120 Hz support later on.  fourfourfun Member Oct 27, 2017 9,149 England Aleh said: "crap display" is a huge exaggeration. Everyone who has actually seen it in person says it looks really good, HDR isn't everything, however disappointing that is. Click to expand... Click to shrink... If you're an enthusiast display platform, you're going to be benchmarking against the absolute best. So comparatively it could not be as good. Obviously it doesn't take into account what the entire platform delivers as a whole and the price it was trying to hit. It's a rather zoomed in look at just one thing.  RailWays One Winged Slayer Avenger Oct 25, 2017 18,449 Still sounds like an upgrade from the launch Switch LCD, though those nits are pretty low   Koklusz Member Oct 27, 2017 3,971 blueredandgold said: Could you please translate for those of us who haven't been able to watch or digest after we saw this posted in the other thread please? Click to expand... Click to shrink... The screen is bad, and the native HDR implementation in the games he tested is shoddy.   NoSpin Member Nov 1, 2017 83 Milk said: It's not a personal attack on you. Pointing out objective shortcomings about the technology is a good thing for consumers. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I didn't see it as a personal attack, I just imagined him reviewing the Game Boy Pocket or the OG DS screes and how disappointed he would have been, whilst we were all busy enjoying video games.  Wasp Member Oct 29, 2017 351 It's a shame they couldn't release an OLED SKU at launch. I would have happily paid an extra $100 for an OLED model and I'm sure many are the same. I know I'll be keeping my box in pristine condition to get maximum value when I trade the console in for a Switch 2 OLED in hopefully a few years.  Last edited: 51 minutes ago pswii60 Member Oct 27, 2017 28,932 The Milky Way This means that for handheld purposes, Switch 2 is actually a downgrade on Switch 1 OLED, for any games that aren't taking advantage of the additional power/resolution. So basically, you might want to hold on to your Switch 1 OLED for all your pixel art indies, and any games not getting a patch/upgrade.  Shadow One Winged Slayer Member Oct 28, 2017 4,837 Kinda what I expected. Being LCD with HDR especially on portable device at that is never a good combo. I'll just play on my OLED TV when I want to get the full experience, which again, is what I expected. I hope it's a bit usable outside at least. I was hoping closer to 600 nits for that alone, as the Deck OLED is JUST usable on a sunny day. But you can't have everything I guess.  UnderJollyRoger Member Jun 16, 2023 648 Germany The screen is also my biggest concern of the unit. The og switch has an absolutely atrocious screen and LCDs just dont cut it anymore for me. The low nits will make it again pretty difficult to properly play outside. I am commuting a lot and sitting on a train with a bit of sun outside was already too much for the og switch. Here is hoping that an OLED variant will come earlier this time.  Milk Prophet of Truth Avenger Oct 25, 2017 4,301 NoSpin said: I didn't see it as a personal attack, I just imagined him reviewing the Game Boy Pocket or the OG DS screes and how disappointed he would have been, whilst we were all busy enjoying video games. Click to expand... Click to shrink... You're implying being critical means you're not also enjoying the video games. I'm critical of tons of my favorite games. I'm still having a fun time with the games 🤷  HandsomeCharles Member Oct 26, 2017 4,717 Disappointing to hear, but as someone who thinks his OG switch's screen is fine, I'm sure it won't really bother me.   OP OP Sangral Powered by Friendship™ Member Feb 17, 2022 8,649 blueredandgold said: Could you please translate for those of us who haven't been able to watch or digest after we saw this posted in the other thread please? Click to expand... Click to shrink... I'm trying to add some bullet points to the OT.  Ghost Slayer Member Oct 30, 2017 1,433 is it like PS Portal LCD screen? Because I think the Portal LCD screen is really good   Decarb Member Oct 27, 2017 9,280 pswii60 said: This means that for handheld purposes, Switch 2 is actually a downgrade on Switch 1 OLED, for any games that aren't taking advantage of the additional power/resolution. So basically, you might want to hold on to your Switch 1 OLED for all your pixel art indies, and any games not getting a patch/upgrade. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Oh I don't think there's any doubt from pure IQ perspective its a downgrade from Switch 1 OLED. Even without HDR support at max brightness that screen pops like nothing else.   Maximo Member Oct 25, 2017 11,041 NoSpin said: I didn't see it as a personal attack, I just imagined him reviewing the Game Boy Pocket or the OG DS screes and how disappointed he would have been, whilst we were all busy enjoying video games. Click to expand... Click to shrink... This is a silly comparison since he's not reviewing a screen from 1996 when it first came out, screen technology has exploded since the first iPhone, seems like a needless jab.  Melhadf Member Dec 25, 2017 2,528 My understanding is that 400nits is the minimum for HDR. So it's technically HDR, but usually dismissed by purists as not "real HDR" such as this vid with his HDR10 testing (1000nits standard). So it's a definite improvement over SDR content, but Nintendo then used an LCD instead of OLED so it most likely looks worse than the OLED switch. Feels like Nintendo is using minimum HDR as a crutch to cheap out on the screen and people are saying it's not "TRUE HDR" even though it's completely within spec.  vegtro Member Oct 25, 2017 808 Aleh said: "crap display" is a huge exaggeration. Everyone who has actually seen it in person says it looks really good, HDR isn't everything, however disappointing that is. Click to expand... Click to shrink... When I first booted the Switch 2, I wanted to believe the screen will be ok from the news. Nope, the screen pretty much is pretty bad compared to OLED.   Alvis Saw the truth behind the copied door Member Oct 25, 2017 12,148 EU A bit of a shame, meh NoSpin said: As so often with gaming, I am relieved to have this person to tell me the thing I am enjoying looking at is bad actually. :) Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yes indeed, this dude is set on a mission to personally ruin your experience, and he's now crying in a corner knowing that he failed.   fourfourfun Member Oct 27, 2017 9,149 England Shadow said: But you can't have everything I guess. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I think that's the thing, they went for resolution and VRR as a priority. I'm sure I also read on here a while ago that it also centres around the availability of appropriate screens. OLED only became viable after a certain point.  Pargon Member Oct 27, 2017 14,110 I thought I had appropriately-low expectations, but I was thinking it would be a 600 nit 1800:1 panel. Not 450 nits and 900:1. The only thing "HDR" about it is probably that content will be authored to make use of a wider color gamut. 

Once again, Sam Altman wants to show you the future. The CEO of OpenAI is standing on a sparse stage in San Francisco, preparing to reveal his next move to an attentive crowd. “We needed some way for identifying, authenticating humans in the age of AGI,” Altman explains, referring to artificial general intelligence. “We wanted a way to make sure that humans stayed special and central.” The solution Altman came up with is looming behind him. It’s a white sphere about the size of a beach ball, with a camera at its center. The company that makes it, known as Tools for Humanity, calls this mysterious device the Orb. Stare into the heart of the plastic-and-silicon globe and it will map the unique furrows and ciliary zones of your iris. Seconds later, you’ll receive inviolable proof of your humanity: a 12,800-digit binary number, known as an iris code, sent to an app on your phone. At the same time, a packet of cryptocurrency called Worldcoin, worth approximately $42, will be transferred to your digital wallet—your reward for becoming a “verified human.” Altman co-founded Tools for Humanity in 2019 as part of a suite of companies he believed would reshape the world. Once the tech he was developing at OpenAI passed a certain level of intelligence, he reasoned, it would mark the end of one era on the Internet and the beginning of another, in which AI became so advanced, so human-like, that you would no longer be able to tell whether what you read, saw, or heard online came from a real person. When that happened, Altman imagined, we would need a new kind of online infrastructure: a human-verification layer for the Internet, to distinguish real people from the proliferating number of bots and AI “agents.”And so Tools for Humanity set out to build a global “proof-of-humanity” network. It aims to verify 50 million people by the end of 2025; ultimately its goal is to sign up every single human being on the planet. The free crypto serves as both an incentive for users to sign up, and also an entry point into what the company hopes will become the world’s largest financial network, through which it believes “double-digit percentages of the global economy” will eventually flow. Even for Altman, these missions are audacious. “If this really works, it’s like a fundamental piece of infrastructure for the world,” Altman tells TIME in a video interview from the passenger seat of a car a few days before his April 30 keynote address.Internal hardware of the Orb in mid-assembly in March. Davide Monteleone for TIMEThe project’s goal is to solve a problem partly of Altman’s own making. In the near future, he and other tech leaders say, advanced AIs will be imbued with agency: the ability to not just respond to human prompting, but to take actions independently in the world. This will enable the creation of AI coworkers that can drop into your company and begin solving problems; AI tutors that can adapt their teaching style to students’ preferences; even AI doctors that can diagnose routine cases and handle scheduling or logistics. The arrival of these virtual agents, their venture capitalist backers predict, will turbocharge our productivity and unleash an age of material abundance.But AI agents will also have cascading consequences for the human experience online. “As AI systems become harder to distinguish from people, websites may face difficult trade-offs,” says a recent paper by researchers from 25 different universities, nonprofits, and tech companies, including OpenAI. “There is a significant risk that digital institutions will be unprepared for a time when AI-powered agents, including those leveraged by malicious actors, overwhelm other activity online.” On social-media platforms like X and Facebook, bot-driven accounts are amassing billions of views on AI-generated content. In April, the foundation that runs Wikipedia disclosed that AI bots scraping their site were making the encyclopedia too costly to sustainably run. Later the same month, researchers from the University of Zurich found that AI-generated comments on the subreddit /r/ChangeMyView were up to six times more successful than human-written ones at persuading unknowing users to change their minds.  Photograph by Davide Monteleone for TIMEBuy a copy of the Orb issue hereThe arrival of agents won’t only threaten our ability to distinguish between authentic and AI content online. It will also challenge the Internet’s core business model, online advertising, which relies on the assumption that ads are being viewed by humans. “The Internet will change very drastically sometime in the next 12 to 24 months,” says Tools for Humanity CEO Alex Blania. “So we have to succeed, or I’m not sure what else would happen.”For four years, Blania’s team has been testing the Orb’s hardware abroad. Now the U.S. rollout has arrived. Over the next 12 months, 7,500 Orbs will be arriving in dozens of American cities, in locations like gas stations, bodegas, and flagship stores in Los Angeles, Austin, and Miami. The project’s founders and fans hope the Orb’s U.S. debut will kickstart a new phase of growth. The San Francisco keynote was titled: “At Last.” It’s not clear the public appetite matches the exultant branding. Tools for Humanity has “verified” just 12 million humans since mid 2023, a pace Blania concedes is well behind schedule. Few online platforms currently support the so-called “World ID” that the Orb bestows upon its visitors, leaving little to entice users to give up their biometrics beyond the lure of free crypto. Even Altman isn’t sure whether the whole thing can work. “I can see [how] this becomes a fairly mainstream thing in a few years,” he says. “Or I can see that it’s still only used by a small subset of people who think about the world in a certain way.” Blania (left) and Altman debut the Orb at World’s U.S. launch in San Francisco on April 30, 2025. Jason Henry—The New York Times/ReduxYet as the Internet becomes overrun with AI, the creators of this strange new piece of hardware are betting that everybody in the world will soon want—or need—to visit an Orb. The biometric code it creates, they predict, will become a new type of digital passport, without which you might be denied passage to the Internet of the future, from dating apps to government services. In a best-case scenario, World ID could be a privacy-preserving way to fortify the Internet against an AI-driven deluge of fake or deceptive content. It could also enable the distribution of universal basic income (UBI)—a policy that Altman has previously touted—as AI automation transforms the global economy. To examine what this new technology might mean, I reported from three continents, interviewed 10 Tools for Humanity executives and investors, reviewed hundreds of pages of company documents, and “verified” my own humanity. The Internet will inevitably need some kind of proof-of-humanity system in the near future, says Divya Siddarth, founder of the nonprofit Collective Intelligence Project. The real question, she argues, is whether such a system will be centralized—“a big security nightmare that enables a lot of surveillance”—or privacy-preserving, as the Orb claims to be. Questions remain about Tools for Humanity’s corporate structure, its yoking to an unstable cryptocurrency, and what power it would concentrate in the hands of its owners if successful. Yet it’s also one of the only attempts to solve what many see as an increasingly urgent problem. “There are some issues with it,” Siddarth says of World ID. “But you can’t preserve the Internet in amber. Something in this direction is necessary.”In March, I met Blania at Tools for Humanity’s San Francisco headquarters, where a large screen displays the number of weekly “Orb verifications” by country. A few days earlier, the CEO had attended a $1 million-per-head dinner at Mar-a-Lago with President Donald Trump, whom he credits with clearing the way for the company’s U.S. launch by relaxing crypto regulations. “Given Sam is a very high profile target,” Blania says, “we just decided that we would let other companies fight that fight, and enter the U.S. once the air is clear.” As a kid growing up in Germany, Blania was a little different than his peers. “Other kids were, like, drinking a lot, or doing a lot of parties, and I was just building a lot of things that could potentially blow up,” he recalls. At the California Institute of Technology, where he was pursuing research for a masters degree, he spent many evenings reading the blogs of startup gurus like Paul Graham and Altman. Then, in 2019, Blania received an email from Max Novendstern, an entrepreneur who had been kicking around a concept with Altman to build a global cryptocurrency network. They were looking for technical minds to help with the project. Over cappuccinos, Altman told Blania he was certain about three things. First, smarter-than-human AI was not only possible, but inevitable—and it would soon mean you could no longer assume that anything you read, saw, or heard on the Internet was human-created. Second, cryptocurrency and other decentralized technologies would be a massive force for change in the world. And third, scale was essential to any crypto network’s value. The Orb is tested on a calibration rig, surrounded by checkerboard targets to ensure precision in iris detection. Davide Monteleone for TIMEThe goal of Worldcoin, as the project was initially called, was to combine those three insights. Altman took a lesson from PayPal, the company co-founded by his mentor Peter Thiel. Of its initial funding, PayPal spent less than $10 million actually building its app—but pumped an additional $70 million or so into a referral program, whereby new users and the person who invited them would each receive $10 in credit. The referral program helped make PayPal a leading payment platform. Altman thought a version of that strategy would propel Worldcoin to similar heights. He wanted to create a new cryptocurrency and give it to users as a reward for signing up. The more people who joined the system, the higher the token’s value would theoretically rise. Since 2019, the project has raised $244 million from investors like Coinbase and the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. That money paid for the $50 million cost of designing the Orb, plus maintaining the software it runs on. The total market value of all Worldcoins in existence, however, is far higher—around $12 billion. That number is a bit misleading: most of those coins are not in circulation and Worldcoin’s price has fluctuated wildly. Still, it allows the company to reward users for signing up at no cost to itself. The main lure for investors is the crypto upside. Some 75% of all Worldcoins are set aside for humans to claim when they sign up, or as referral bonuses. The remaining 25% are split between Tools for Humanity’s backers and staff, including Blania and Altman. “I’m really excited to make a lot of money,” ” Blania says.From the beginning, Altman was thinking about the consequences of the AI revolution he intended to unleash. (On May 21, he announced plans to team up with famed former Apple designer Jony Ive on a new AI personal device.) A future in which advanced AI could perform most tasks more effectively than humans would bring a wave of unemployment and economic dislocation, he reasoned. Some kind of wealth redistribution might be necessary. In 2016, he partially funded a study of basic income, which gave $1,000 per-month handouts to low-income individuals in Illinois and Texas. But there was no single financial system that would allow money to be sent to everybody in the world. Nor was there a way to stop an individual human from claiming their share twice—or to identify a sophisticated AI pretending to be human and pocketing some cash of its own. In 2023, Tools for Humanity raised the possibility of using the network to redistribute the profits of AI labs that were able to automate human labor. “As AI advances,” it said, “fairly distributing access and some of the created value through UBI will play an increasingly vital role in counteracting the concentration of economic power.”Blania was taken by the pitch, and agreed to join the project as a co-founder. “Most people told us we were very stupid or crazy or insane, including Silicon Valley investors,” Blania says. At least until ChatGPT came out in 2022, transforming OpenAI into one of the world’s most famous tech companies and kickstarting a market bull-run. “Things suddenly started to make more and more sense to the external world,” Blania says of the vision to develop a global “proof-of-humanity” network. “You have to imagine a world in which you will have very smart and competent systems somehow flying through the Internet with different goals and ideas of what they want to do, and us having no idea anymore what we’re dealing with.”After our interview, Blania’s head of communications ushers me over to a circular wooden structure where eight Orbs face one another. The scene feels like a cross between an Apple Store and a ceremonial altar. “Do you want to get verified?” she asks. Putting aside my reservations for the purposes of research, I download the World App and follow its prompts. I flash a QR code at the Orb, then gaze into it. A minute or so later, my phone buzzes with confirmation: I’ve been issued my own personal World ID and some Worldcoin.The first thing the Orb does is check if you’re human, using a neural network that takes input from various sensors, including an infrared camera and a thermometer. Davide Monteleone for TIMEWhile I stared into the Orb, several complex procedures had taken place at once. A neural network took inputs from multiple sensors—an infrared camera, a thermometer—to confirm I was a living human. Simultaneously, a telephoto lens zoomed in on my iris, capturing the physical traits within that distinguish me from every other human on Earth. It then converted that image into an iris code: a numerical abstraction of my unique biometric data. Then the Orb checked to see if my iris code matched any it had seen before, using a technique allowing encrypted data to be compared without revealing the underlying information. Before the Orb deleted my data, it turned my iris code into several derivative codes—none of which on its own can be linked back to the original—encrypted them, deleted the only copies of the decryption keys, and sent each one to a different secure server, so that future users’ iris codes can be checked for uniqueness against mine. If I were to use my World ID to access a website, that site would learn nothing about me except that I’m human. The Orb is open-source, so outside experts can examine its code and verify the company’s privacy claims. “I did a colonoscopy on this company and these technologies before I agreed to join,” says Trevor Traina, a Trump donor and former U.S. ambassador to Austria who now serves as Tools for Humanity’s chief business officer. “It is the most privacy-preserving technology on the planet.”Only weeks later, when researching what would happen if I wanted to delete my data, do I discover that Tools for Humanity’s privacy claims rest on what feels like a sleight of hand. The company argues that in modifying your iris code, it has “effectively anonymized” your biometric data. If you ask Tools for Humanity to delete your iris codes, they will delete the one stored on your phone, but not the derivatives. Those, they argue, are no longer your personal data at all. But if I were to return to an Orb after deleting my data, it would still recognize those codes as uniquely mine. Once you look into the Orb, a piece of your identity remains in the system forever. If users could truly delete that data, the premise of one ID per human would collapse, Tools for Humanity’s chief privacy officer Damien Kieran tells me when I call seeking an explanation. People could delete and sign up for new World IDs after being suspended from a platform. Or claim their Worldcoin tokens, sell them, delete their data, and cash in again. This argument fell flat with European Union regulators in Germany, who recently declared that the Orb posed “fundamental data protection issues” and ordered the company to allow European users to fully delete even their anonymized data. (Tools for Humanity has appealed; the regulator is now reassessing the decision.) “Just like any other technology service, users cannot delete data that is not personal data,” Kieran said in a statement. “If a person could delete anonymized data that can’t be linked to them by World or any third party, it would allow bad actors to circumvent the security and safety that World ID is working to bring to every human.”On a balmy afternoon this spring, I climb a flight of stairs up to a room above a restaurant in an outer suburb of Seoul. Five elderly South Koreans tap on their phones as they wait to be “verified” by the two Orbs in the center of the room. “We don’t really know how to distinguish between AI and humans anymore,” an attendant in a company t-shirt explains in Korean, gesturing toward the spheres. “We need a way to verify that we’re human and not AI. So how do we do that? Well, humans have irises, but AI doesn’t.”The attendant ushers an elderly woman over to an Orb. It bleeps. “Open your eyes,” a disembodied voice says in English. The woman stares into the camera. Seconds later, she checks her phone and sees that a packet of Worldcoin worth 75,000 Korean won (about $54) has landed in her digital wallet. Congratulations, the app tells her. You are now a verified human.A visitor views the Orbs in Seoul on April 14, 2025. Taemin Ha for TIMETools for Humanity aims to “verify” 1 million Koreans over the next year. Taemin Ha for TIMEA couple dozen Orbs have been available in South Korea since 2023, verifying roughly 55,000 people. Now Tools for Humanity is redoubling its efforts there. At an event in a traditional wooden hanok house in central Seoul, an executive announces that 250 Orbs will soon be dispersed around the country—with the aim of verifying 1 million Koreans in the next 12 months. South Korea has high levels of smartphone usage, crypto and AI adoption, and Internet access, while average wages are modest enough for the free Worldcoin on offer to still be an enticing draw—all of which makes it fertile testing ground for the company’s ambitious global expansion. Yet things seem off to a slow start. In a retail space I visited in central Seoul, Tools for Humanity had constructed a wooden structure with eight Orbs facing each other. Locals and tourists wander past looking bemused; few volunteer themselves up. Most who do tell me they are crypto enthusiasts who came intentionally, driven more by the spirit of early adoption than the free coins. The next day, I visit a coffee shop in central Seoul where a chrome Orb sits unassumingly in one corner. Wu Ruijun, a 20-year-old student from China, strikes up a conversation with the barista, who doubles as the Orb’s operator. Wu was invited here by a friend who said both could claim free cryptocurrency if he signed up. The barista speeds him through the process. Wu accepts the privacy disclosure without reading it, and widens his eyes for the Orb. Soon he’s verified. “I wasn’t told anything about the privacy policy,” he says on his way out. “I just came for the money.”As Altman’s car winds through San Francisco, I ask about the vision he laid out in 2019: that AI would make it harder for us to trust each other online. To my surprise, he rejects the framing. “I’m much more [about] like: what is the good we can create, rather than the bad we can stop?” he says. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to avoid the bot overrun’ or whatever. It’s just that we can do a lot of special things for humans.” It’s an answer that may reflect how his role has changed over the years. Altman is now the chief public cheerleader of a $300 billion company that’s touting the transformative utility of AI agents. The rise of agents, he and others say, will be a boon for our quality of life—like having an assistant on hand who can answer your most pressing questions, carry out mundane tasks, and help you develop new skills. It’s an optimistic vision that may well pan out. But it doesn’t quite fit with the prophecies of AI-enabled infopocalypse that Tools for Humanity was founded upon.Altman waves away a question about the influence he and other investors stand to gain if their vision is realized. Most holders, he assumes, will have already started selling their tokens—too early, he adds. “What I think would be bad is if an early crew had a lot of control over the protocol,” he says, “and that’s where I think the commitment to decentralization is so cool.” Altman is referring to the World Protocol, the underlying technology upon which the Orb, Worldcoin, and World ID all rely. Tools for Humanity is developing it, but has committed to giving control to its users over time—a process they say will prevent power from being concentrated in the hands of a few executives or investors. Tools for Humanity would remain a for-profit company, and could levy fees on platforms that use World ID, but other companies would be able to compete for customers by building alternative apps—or even alternative Orbs. The plan draws on ideas that animated the crypto ecosystem in the late 2010s and early 2020s, when evangelists for emerging blockchain technologies argued that the centralization of power—especially in large so-called “Web 2.0” tech companies—was responsible for many of the problems plaguing the modern Internet. Just as decentralized cryptocurrencies could reform a financial system controlled by economic elites, so too would it be possible to create decentralized organizations, run by their members instead of CEOs. How such a system might work in practice remains unclear. “Building a community-based governance system,” Tools for Humanity says in a 2023 white paper, “represents perhaps the most formidable challenge of the entire project.”Altman has a pattern of making idealistic promises that shift over time. He founded OpenAI as a nonprofit in 2015, with a mission to develop AGI safely and for the benefit of all humanity. To raise money, OpenAI restructured itself as a for-profit company in 2019, but with overall control still in the hands of its nonprofit board. Last year, Altman proposed yet another restructure—one which would dilute the board’s control and allow more profits to flow to shareholders. Why, I ask, should the public trust Tools for Humanity’s commitment to freely surrender influence and power? “I think you will just see the continued decentralization via the protocol,” he says. “The value here is going to live in the network, and the network will be owned and governed by a lot of people.” Altman talks less about universal basic income these days. He recently mused about an alternative, which he called “universal basic compute.” Instead of AI companies redistributing their profits, he seemed to suggest, they could instead give everyone in the world fair access to super-powerful AI. Blania tells me he recently “made the decision to stop talking” about UBI at Tools for Humanity. “UBI is one potential answer,” he says. “Just giving [people] access to the latest [AI] models and having them learn faster and better is another.” Says Altman: “I still don’t know what the right answer is. I believe we should do a better job of distribution of resources than we currently do.” When I probe the question of why people should trust him, Altman gets irritated. “I understand that you hate AI, and that’s fine,” he says. “If you want to frame it as the downside of AI is that there’s going to be a proliferation of very convincing AI systems that are pretending to be human, and we need ways to know what is really human-authorized versus not, then yeah, I think you can call that a downside of AI. It’s not how I would naturally frame it.” The phrase human-authorized hints at a tension between World ID and OpenAI’s plans for AI agents. An Internet where a World ID is required to access most services might impede the usefulness of the agents that OpenAI and others are developing. So Tools for Humanity is building a system that would allow users to delegate their World ID to an agent, allowing the bot to take actions online on their behalf, according to Tiago Sada, the company’s chief product officer. “We’ve built everything in a way that can be very easily delegatable to an agent,” Sada says. It’s a measure that would allow humans to be held accountable for the actions of their AIs. But it suggests that Tools for Humanity’s mission may be shifting beyond simply proving humanity, and toward becoming the infrastructure that enables AI agents to proliferate with human authorization. World ID doesn’t tell you whether a piece of content is AI-generated or human-generated; all it tells you is whether the account that posted it is a human or a bot. Even in a world where everybody had a World ID, our online spaces might still be filled with AI-generated text, images, and videos.As I say goodbye to Altman, I’m left feeling conflicted about his project. If the Internet is going to be transformed by AI agents, then some kind of proof-of-humanity system will almost certainly be necessary. Yet if the Orb becomes a piece of Internet infrastructure, it could give Altman—a beneficiary of the proliferation of AI content—significant influence over a leading defense mechanism against it. People might have no choice but to participate in the network in order to access social media or online services.I thought of an encounter I witnessed in Seoul. In the room above the restaurant, Cho Jeong-yeon, 75, watched her friend get verified by an Orb. Cho had been invited to do the same, but demurred. The reward wasn’t enough for her to surrender a part of her identity. “Your iris is uniquely yours, and we don’t really know how it might be used,” she says. “Seeing the machine made me think: are we becoming machines instead of humans now? Everything is changing, and we don’t know how it’ll all turn out.”—With reporting by Stephen Kim/Seoul. This story was supported by Tarbell Grants.Correction, May 30The original version of this story misstated the market capitalization of Worldcoin if all coins were in circulation. It is $12 billion, not $1.2 billion.

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By CHRIS McGOWAN This image of Jupiter from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) shows stunning details of the majestic planet in infrared light. (Image courtesy of NASA, ESA and CSA) Special effects have been used for decades to depict space exploration, from visits to planets and moons to zero gravity and spaceships – one need only think of the landmark 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Since that era, visual effects have increasingly grown in realism and importance. VFX have been used for entertainment and for scientific purposes, outreach to the public and astronaut training in virtual reality. Compelling images and videos can bring data to life. NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) produces visualizations, animations and images to help scientists tell stories of their research and make science more approachable and engaging. A.J. Christensen is a senior visualization designer for the NASA Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. There, he develops data visualization techniques and designs data-driven imagery for scientific analysis and public outreach using Hollywood visual effects tools, according to NASA. SVS visualizations feature datasets from Earth-and space-based instrumentation, scientific supercomputer models and physical statistical distributions that have been analyzed and processed by computational scientists. Christensen’s specialties include working with 3D volumetric data, using the procedural cinematic software Houdini and science topics in Heliophysics, Geophysics and Astrophysics. He previously worked at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications’ Advanced Visualization Lab where he worked on more than a dozen science documentary full-dome films as well as the IMAX films Hubble 3D and A Beautiful Planet – and he worked at DNEG on the movie Interstellar, which won the 2015 Best Visual Effects Academy Award. This global map of CO2 was created by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio using a model called GEOS, short for the Goddard Earth Observing System. GEOS is a high-resolution weather reanalysis model, powered by supercomputers, that is used to represent what was happening in the atmosphere. (Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) “The NASA Scientific Visualization Studio operates like a small VFX studio that creates animations of scientific data that has been collected or analyzed at NASA. We are one of several groups at NASA that create imagery for public consumption, but we are also a part of the scientific research process, helping scientists understand and share their data through pictures and video.” —A.J. Christensen, Senior Visualization Designer, NASA Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) About his work at NASA SVS, Christensen comments, “The NASA Scientific Visualization Studio operates like a small VFX studio that creates animations of scientific data that has been collected or analyzed at NASA. We are one of several groups at NASA that create imagery for public consumption, but we are also a part of the scientific research process, helping scientists understand and share their data through pictures and video. This past year we were part of NASA’s total eclipse outreach efforts, we participated in all the major earth science and astronomy conferences, we launched a public exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History called the Earth Information Center, and we posted hundreds of new visualizations to our publicly accessible website: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov.” This is the ‘beauty shot version’ of Perpetual Ocean 2: Western Boundary Currents. The visualization starts with a rotating globe showing ocean currents. The colors used to color the flow in this version were chosen to provide a pleasing look. (Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) The Gulf Stream and connected currents. (Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) Venus, our nearby “sister” planet, beckons today as a compelling target for exploration that may connect the objects in our own solar system to those discovered around nearby stars. (Image courtesy of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center) WORKING WITH DATA While Christensen is interpreting the data from active spacecraft and making it usable in different forms, such as for science and outreach, he notes, “It’s not just spacecraft that collect data. NASA maintains or monitors instruments on Earth too – on land, in the oceans and in the air. And to be precise, there are robots wandering around Mars that are collecting data, too.” He continues, “Sometimes the data comes to our team as raw telescope imagery, sometimes we get it as a data product that a scientist has already analyzed and extracted meaning from, and sometimes various sensor data is used to drive computational models and we work with the models’ resulting output.” Jupiter’s moon Europa may have life in a vast ocean beneath its icy surface. (Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) HOUDINI AND OTHER TOOLS “Data visualization means a lot of different things to different people, but many people on our team interpret it as a form of filmmaking,” Christensen says. “We are very inspired by the approach to visual storytelling that Hollywood uses, and we use tools that are standard for Hollywood VFX. Many professionals in our area – the visualization of 3D scientific data – were previously using other animation tools but have discovered that Houdini is the most capable of understanding and manipulating unusual data, so there has been major movement toward Houdini over the past decade.” Satellite imagery from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows the Sun in ultraviolet light colorized in light brown. Seen in ultraviolet light, the dark patches on the Sun are known as coronal holes and are regions where fast solar wind gushes out into space. (Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) Christensen explains, “We have always worked with scientific software as well – sometimes there’s only one software tool in existence to interpret a particular kind of scientific data. More often than not, scientific software does not have a GUI, so we’ve had to become proficient at learning new coding environments very quickly. IDL and Python are the generic data manipulation environments we use when something is too complicated or oversized for Houdini, but there are lots of alternatives out there. Typically, we use these tools to get the data into a format that Houdini can interpret, and then we use Houdini to do our shading, lighting and camera design, and seamlessly blend different datasets together.” While cruising around Saturn in early October 2004, Cassini captured a series of images that have been composed into this large global natural color view of Saturn and its rings. This grand mosaic consists of 126 images acquired in a tile-like fashion, covering one end of Saturn’s rings to the other and the entire planet in between. (Image courtesy of ASA/JPL/Space Science Institute) The black hole Gargantua and the surrounding accretion disc from the 2014 movie Interstellar. (Image courtesy of DNEG and Paramount Pictures) Another visualization of the black hole Gargantua. (Image courtesy of DNEG and Paramount Pictures) INTERSTELLAR & GARGANTUA Christensen recalls working for DNEG on Interstellar (2014). “When I first started at DNEG, they asked me to work on the giant waves on Miller’s ocean planet [in the film]. About a week in, my manager took me into the hall and said, ‘I was looking at your reel and saw all this astronomy stuff. We’re working on another sequence with an accretion disk around a black hole that I’m wondering if we should put you on.’ And I said, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve done lots of accretion disks.’ So, for the rest of my time on the show, I was working on the black hole team.” He adds, “There are a lot of people in my community that would be hesitant to label any big-budget movie sequence as a scientific visualization. The typical assumption is that for a Hollywood movie, no one cares about accuracy as long as it looks good. Guardians of the Galaxy makes it seem like space is positively littered with nebulae, and Star Wars makes it seem like asteroids travel in herds. But the black hole Gargantua in Interstellar is a good case for being called a visualization. The imagery you see in the movie is the direct result of a collaboration with an expert scientist, Dr. Kip Thorne, working with the DNEG research team using the actual Einstein equations that describe the gravity around a black hole.” Thorne is a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist who taught at Caltech for many years. He has reached wide audiences with his books and presentations on black holes, time travel and wormholes on PBS and BBC shows. Christensen comments, “You can make the argument that some of the complexity around what a black hole actually looks like was discarded for the film, and they admit as much in the research paper that was published after the movie came out. But our team at NASA does that same thing. There is no such thing as an objectively ‘true’ scientific image – you always have to make aesthetic decisions around whether the image tells the science story, and often it makes more sense to omit information to clarify what’s important. Ultimately, Gargantua taught a whole lot of people something new about science, and that’s what a good scientific visualization aims to do.” The SVS produces an annual visualization of the Moon’s phase and libration comprising 8,760 hourly renderings of its precise size, orientation and illumination. (Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) FURTHER CHALLENGES The sheer size of the data often encountered by Christensen and his peers is a challenge. “I’m currently working with a dataset that is 400GB per timestep. It’s so big that I don’t even want to move it from one file server to another. So, then I have to make decisions about which data attributes to keep and which to discard, whether there’s a region of the data that I can cull or downsample, and I have to experiment with data compression schemes that might require me to entirely re-design the pipeline I’m using for Houdini. Of course, if I get rid of too much information, it becomes very resource-intensive to recompute everything, but if I don’t get rid of enough, then my design process becomes agonizingly slow.” SVS also works closely with its NASA partner groups Conceptual Image Lab (CIL) and Goddard Media Studios (GMS) to publish a diverse array of content. Conceptual Image Lab focuses more on the artistic side of things – producing high-fidelity renders using film animation and visual design techniques, according to NASA. Where the SVS primarily focuses on making data-based visualizations, CIL puts more emphasis on conceptual visualizations – producing animations featuring NASA spacecraft, planetary observations and simulations, according to NASA. Goddard Media Studios, on the other hand, is more focused towards public outreach – producing interviews, TV programs and documentaries. GMS continues to be the main producers behind NASA TV, and as such, much of their content is aimed towards the general public. An impact crater on the moon. (Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) Image of Mars showing a partly shadowed Olympus Mons toward the upper left of the image. (Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) Mars. Hellas Basin can be seen in the lower right portion of the image. (Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) Mars slightly tilted to show the Martian North Pole. (Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio) Christensen notes, “One of the more unique challenges in this field is one of bringing people from very different backgrounds to agree on a common outcome. I work on teams with scientists, communicators and technologists, and we all have different communities we’re trying to satisfy. For instance, communicators are generally trying to simplify animations so their learning goal is clear, but scientists will insist that we add text and annotations on top of the video to eliminate ambiguity and avoid misinterpretations. Often, the technologist will have to say we can’t zoom in or look at the data in a certain way because it will show the data boundaries or data resolution limits. Every shot is a negotiation, but in trying to compromise, we often push the boundaries of what has been done before, which is exciting.”

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We may earn a commission from links on this page.While most people think of smart cameras as just a part of their security system, they’re also a good way to monitor the things growing in your yard. In most cases, the cameras you already have set up for security can be doing double duty as a tool to keep track of what's happening in your garden.I believe we’re on the cusp of smart cameras becoming a much bigger part of the gardening experience. For the last few years, smart bird houses have exploded in popularity. One of those companies, Bird Buddy, has launched an entirely new line of cameras specifically for micro-viewing experiences in the garden. Their Petal cameras, expected to be available next year, should be positioned closer to the ground than most security cameras, and are meant to capture bees, insects, and butterflies, as well as the growth of your plants. Using AI (as a subscription service), the camera will allow you to assign names to your plants and even communicate with them. Still, there is a lot you can do with security cameras already on the market. Remote monitoring Credit: Amanda Blum In an ideal world, you could pack up for vacation and your yard would take care of itself—but a smart camera can allow you to remotely keep an eye on what’s happening and monitor for any damage. What’s impressive to me is how well my solar-powered cameras maintain their connection, even during low temperatures and freezing rain.  I've been impressed at how much detail I can get from small plants through my cameras. Credit: Amanda Blum Cameras allow you to keep an active watch on your yard. Not only will your security camera let you know if your trusted waterer drops by while you're gone as promised, but you can actually see how your plants are doing and if additional help is needed.  I’m always impressed at how good the zoom is on the cameras I use around my yard; I can actually tell if a tomato is ripe or if broccoli is ready to be picked. Last year, when I couldn’t get outside because of a sprained ankle and had someone helping in the garden, being able to see what they were doing and communicate with them via my security camera was invaluable. It’s much more effective than trying to describe what you need or want. Catch pestsGarden pests are frustrating for a wealth of reasons. To start with, you often don’t know what kind of pest you’re dealing with, and it’s nearly impossible to catch them in the act. Smart cameras are perfect for this, because they give you fly-on-the-wall ability to passively watch. Motion detection does most of the work for you. My security camera let me know I had raccoons in my yard last winter. They weren’t doing any damage (yet), but it helped influence how I design my garden and chicken coops. The cameras identified the cat that had chosen my garden to use as a litter box, checking in each night around 1 a.m. I’ve been chasing down a rat for the last two weeks, and the cameras do a spectacular job of catching his activity, which tells me where to add traps and what I may be doing that is enabling him. Other uses for smart cameras in your yard Credit: Amanda Blum The most invaluable service I’ve gotten from my cameras are how I use them to monitor backyard pets. I could not figure out how my newly adopted doberman was escaping from the yard, so I installed security cameras, and discovered she was climbing a five-foot tall chain link fence. I’ve got three cameras installed in my chicken coop, and they tell me when there are eggs to be grabbed, if a chicken is becoming broody, if everyone got into the coop at night, and if that pesky rat has cracked into the chicken food. When I first got my chickens, I couldn’t figure out which bird was laying which color egg, but the cameras helped. And now that I have a beehive, being able to see the activity going in and out of the hive is a helpful to monitor the health of the hive, and if a rodent of any kind tries to get in, I’ll know immediately. How to choose a camera for your yardI’ve tried smart cameras from almost every major brand, and I’ve figured out some things. First, in almost all cases, I want a PTZ (point, tilt, zoom) camera. These allow you to use your phone as a remote control and move the camera around, often almost 360 degrees, to zoom in on what you want. This is far superior to a fixed range camera. It’s simply annoying to have something going on just outside of the range of your camera and not be able to do anything to adjust it remotely. Additionally, I look for an app that makes it easy to watch clips. While I think Reolink cameras are affordable and functional, their app forces you to watch a horizontal clip on a vertical screen, so details are incredibly small. The Ring app has a lot of bloat, bringing neighborhood alert notifications to your phone. I enjoy the Aqara, Switchbot, and Eufy apps for getting to the video quickly and easily. Lastly, as you add cameras to your collection, being able to remain free from subscription costs is a real bonus. For that reason, I have largely switched over to Eufy cameras, which—if connected to a Home Base—don’t need a subscription. What I use in my yard: I replaced all my floodlights with this camera for overhead views Eufy Wired Floodlight Cam $199.99 at Amazon $219.99 Save $20.00 Shop Now Shop Now $199.99 at Amazon $219.99 Save $20.00 I place these wireless cams anyplace I want a 360 view of what's happening in my yard. Eufy Solar Powered Wireless Camera $259.99 at Amazon $349.99 Save $90.00 Shop Now Shop Now $259.99 at Amazon $349.99 Save $90.00 I have this epoxied into three spots in my chicken coop. Eufy Indoor PTZ Camera $34.88 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $34.88 at Amazon Just added this to monitor my beehive. Eufycam S3 Pro $439.99 at Amazon $549.99 Save $110.00 Get Deal Get Deal $439.99 at Amazon $549.99 Save $110.00 All my cameras sync to the homebase so I don't need a subscription. Eufy HomeBase $149.99 at Amazon Get Deal Get Deal $149.99 at Amazon SEE 2 MORE Where to place your camera Credit: Amanda Blum All security cameras are either hardwired or wireless. You might already have exterior floodlights on your home, and wired security cameras can use those connections, replacing the lights (many units come with floodlights). In this case, your connection is likely high up, and can’t be moved easily. So long as it’s high up, you likely have a good field of vision of your yard, but make sure to consider plants that grow in the summer, and if they’ll block your view. If you don’t have these connections available and don’t want to pay an electrician to create them, you need wireless cameras. But I actually prefer my wireless cameras. First, the solar power on most of them is astounding. I live in the Pacific Northwest, a place with seven months of gloom, and my cameras always stay powered. Second, being wireless means you can move your camera around to find the perfect spot. Usually all you need is to screw the base into the spot you want the camera. Don’t be afraid to try different spots, when I was chasing down how my dog escaped, I had to keep moving the camera. I attached the camera to a 2x4, and moved the wood around the yard, leaning it against whatever was near until I found the right range of vision.