A Hasbro executive said the company halted price increases and production changes after Trump announced a deal with China. Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images 2025-05-14T18:30:11Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? A Hasbro exec said the company's plans drastically changed after tariffs on China were paused. She said the company halted pricing changes and plans to halt some production entirely. Still, the toymaker exec said the environment is uncertain and "every day is a new adventure." On Sunday, the toy maker Hasbro wasBy Monday, all of those calculations were different.Gina Goetter, Hasbro's Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer, said that President Donald Trump's decision to temporarily lower tariffs on China from 145% to 30% drastically altered the company's plans. She called the announcement a "pleasant surprise" at JP Morgan's Technology, Media, and Communications Conference. "A 30% world is very different from a 145 on how we're treating decisions like pricing, how we're treating allowances, how we're working with our retailers on promotions," Goetter said at the conference on Wednesday.Agility, she said, has been key in making decisions in the current environment.Hasbro, which produces Nerf guns and Play-Doh, had been planning to change the pricing of some products when the 145% tariffs were in place, Goetter said.Now, many of the pricing moves have been paused, though Goetter said some will still go through where it makes sense."What Monday's announcement allows us for is to go back to those products where we were taking pricing and be very thoughtful," she said.Beyond upping some prices, Hasbro had planned to stop making some products altogether because the new manufacturing math simply didn't work. Goetter said on Wednesday that thePlans to reconsider manufacturing are now themselves being reconsidered, Goetter said. Hasbro makes many of its board games in the US, she said, and though the company is "actively exploring" what else it can produce domestically, Monday's announcement changes that calculus as well.Ultimately, Goetter said the math is just quite different, at least for now. Hasbro had previously predicted that 145% tariffs could shave off $180 million from the company's yearly net profits, and Goetter said that the new 30% tax brings that closer number to between $50 and $70 million.Given that the current agreement is temporary and the trade environment remains volatile, Goetter acknowledged that no decision is final."In the tariff world, every day is a new adventure," she said. Recommended video

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Why climate researchers are taking the temperature of mountain snow The Sierra’s frozen reservoir provides about a third of California’s water and most of what comes out of the faucets, shower heads, and sprinklers in the towns and cities of northwestern Nevada. As it melts through the spring and summer, dam operators, water agencies, and communities have to manage the flow of billions of gallons of runoff, storing up enough to get through the dry summer months without allowing reservoirs and canals to flood. The need for better snowpack temperature data has become increasingly critical for predicting when the water will flow down the mountains, as climate change fuels hotter weather, melts snow faster, and drives rapid swings between very wet and very dry periods. In the past, it was hard work to gather this data. Now, a new generation of tools, techniques, and models promises to ease that process, improve water forecasts, and help California and other states manage in the face of increasingly severe droughts and flooding. However, observers fear that any such advances could be undercut by the Trump administration’s cutbacks across federal agencies.Read the full story. —James Temple MIT Technology Review Narrated: What’s next for our privacy? The US still has no federal privacy law. But recent enforcement actions against data brokers may offer some new protections for Americans’ personal information. This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 The US is warning other countries not to use Huawei’s chips If they do, they may face criminal penalties for breaching US export controls. (FT $)+ The Trump administration has axed the ‘AI Diffusion Rule’ for chips. (WSJ $)+ It may move towards negotiating deals with countries directly. (Bloomberg $) 2 US tech firms are inking AI deals with the Middle EastAmong the biggest of which is Nvidia. (The Guardian) + Tech leaders accompanied Trump on his trip. (WP $)3 A new treatment for inherited breast cancer was trialed successfully The drug olaparib can help to significantly improve survival rates. (BBC)4 TikTok workers fear a new messaging feature could be exploited But the company is pressing ahead with it anyway. (The Information $)5 Apple is working on brain-computer interfaces for its products People with brain implants could one day use them to control their devices. (WSJ $)+ Brain-computer interfaces face a critical test. (MIT Technology Review) 6 What’s next for NASA? The agency is poised for its most radical shakeup in decades. (Ars Technica)+ NASA has made an air traffic control system for drones. (MIT Technology Review)7 Finland is harvesting heat from its data centersBloomberg $) + The next data center hub? India. (FT $)+ These four charts sum up the state of AI and energy. (MIT Technology Review)8 Airbnb wants to become the next everything-appWired $) + Hotel-like services, anyone? (NYT $)+ Its host features have been overhauled, too. (The Verge)9 The FBI is buying new tech to help it see through wallsThanks to radar. (New Scientist $) 10 Baidu is planning to launch its robotaxis in Europe 🚗 In a bid to extend its competitive advantage overseas. (WSJ $)+ How Wayve’s driverless cars will meet one of their biggest challenges yet. (MIT Technology Review) Quote of the day “It's literally Einstein's proverbial definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” —Entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand reflects on America’s latest attempt to rein in Huawei in a post on X. One more thing How DeepSeek ripped up the AI playbook—and why everyone’s going to follow its lead When the Chinese firm DeepSeek dropped a large language model called R1 at the start of this year, it sent shock waves through the US tech industry. Not only did R1 match the best of the homegrown competition, it was built for a fraction of the cost—and given away for free. DeepSeek has now suddenly become the company to beat. What exactly did it do to rattle the tech world so fully? Is the hype justified? And what can we learn from the buzz about what’s coming next? Here’s what you need to know.   —Will Douglas Heaven We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.)+ Happy birthday to the one, the only Stevie Wonder—75 years young this week.+ A scooped bagel? Not on my watch. 🥯+ A few tips on how to navigate some of life’s trickier conversations with ease.+ Everyone’s got a random junk drawer. Here’s how to get it under control.

Eres tú For the first time, an Australian rocket will take aim at low-Earth orbit With its first launch, Gilmour Space is "looking for 10 to 20 seconds of stable flight." Stephen Clark – May 14, 2025 3:33 pm | 0 Gilmour's Eris rocket inside a hangar at the launch site in northeastern Australia. Credit: Gilmour Space Gilmour's Eris rocket inside a hangar at the launch site in northeastern Australia. Credit: Gilmour Space Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Gilmour Space, a venture-backed startup based in Australia, is about to launch a small rocket from its privately owned spaceport on a remote stretch of the country's northeastern coastline. It's the first time anyone has attempted to reach orbit with a rocket designed and built in Australia. Gilmour's three-stage rocket, named Eris, could launch at any time during a 10-hour window Thursday, local time. In the United States, the launch window runs from 5:30 pm EDT Wednesday until 3:30 am EDT Thursday. The debut launch of Gilmour's Eris rocket is purely a test flight. Gilmour has tested the rocket's engines and rehearsed the countdown last year, loading propellant and getting within 10 seconds of launch. But Gilmour cautioned in a post on LinkedIn early Wednesday that "test launches are complex." Gilmour added on social media that "weather, systems checks, or technical issues may delay the flight—sometimes by hours, days, or longer." Gilmour, based in Gold Coast, Australia, was founded in 2012 by two brothers—Adam and James Gilmour—who came to the space industry after careers in banking and marketing. Today, Gilmour employs more than 200 people, mostly engineers and technicians. Most are recent engineering graduates in their 20s, along with a handful of space industry veterans with experience at companies like Rocket Lab, Firefly Aerospace, Avio, and Airbus. The company has raised approximately $90 million, primarily from venture capital firms, to get the first Eris rocket to the launch pad. The funding also paid for construction of Bowen Orbital Spaceport, Gilmour's launch site in the Australian state of Queensland. Apart from launch vehicles, Gilmour is working on its own satellite platform, which could launch on Eris or foreign rockets. Looking for stable flight But Eris is the core of Gilmour's business. Built to haul small satellites to orbit, the rocket stands 82 feet (25 meters) tall and has an unusual design for a modern launcher, with three stages, each powered by hybrid engines burning a proprietary solid fuel mixed with a liquid oxidizer. Hybrid engines are an unconventional choice. They have a low thrust density, meaning they produce less thrust per unit area of the engine's nozzle. Effectively, hybrid engines produce relatively little thrust for their size. Hybrid rocket engines also burn fuel more slowly than traditional solid- or liquid-fueled rockets, making it difficult to reach high thrust levels. Gilmour's Eris rocket stands on its launch pad in Queensland, Australia. Credit: Gilmour Space There are some advantages to hybrid engines. They are less complex (and probably cheaper) than a liquid-fueled rocket engine, and unlike a solid rocket motor, hybrid engines can be throttled or turned off in the event of a problem. For these reasons, Virgin Galactic's commercial suborbital rocket plane uses a hybrid engine burning a rubber-based solid fuel and liquid nitrous oxide. Gilmour's rocket uses hydrogen peroxide for an oxidizer. The company hasn't released details about the rocket's solid fuel, citing proprietary reasons. Four of Gilmour's Sirius engines power the first stage of the Eris rocket, collectively generating more than 100,000 pounds of thrust. A single Sirius engine is mounted on the second stage, and Eris' third stage is driven by a smaller liquid-fueled engine named Phoenix, also designed by Gilmour Space. Like many launch startups, Gilmour is setting modest expectations for the inaugural flight of Eris. The first time Gilmour will ignite four of its Sirius engines at the same time will be in the final moments before liftoff. "Eris is a first-of-its-kind rocket," Gilmour wrote on social media. "While it’s capable of reaching orbit, that’s not the expectation this time. (For context: SpaceX made orbit on its fourth try.) This mission is all about gathering critical data to improve future flights." Michelle Gilmour, the company's head of marketing and communications, told Ars the first milestone of the test flight "would simply be getting off the pad. Then, we’d be looking for 10 to 20 seconds of stable flight." A “manageable” drop zone If the rocket makes it that far, it will clear the coastline and head northeast, soaring over the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea. This flight path raised concerns about environmental impacts to the Great Barrier Reef, but the government of Queensland determined the environmental risk "would likely be manageable" with drop zones for the first and second stages of the rocket outside the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. The Eris rocket will fly northeast from Bowen Orbital Spaceport over the Great Barrier Reef. Credit: Queensland Government Australia's government approved a launch facility license for Gilmour Space in April of last year, and the Australian Space Agency granted a launch permit for the first flight of the Eris rocket in November. Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority gave Gilmour airspace approval in February. But then, Gilmour encountered more regulatory issues as a tropical cyclone churned off the coast of the launch site. The regulatory and weather delays abated, and the Australian Space Agency issued its final approval for Gilmour's launch last week. This is all uncharted territory for not just Gilmour, but also Australia's government. Australia hosted a handful of satellite launches with US and British rockets from 1967 through 1971, but Gilmour's Eris is the first all-Australian launch vehicle designed for orbital flight. The Eris rocket is capable of delivering about 670 pounds (305 kilograms) of mass into low-Earth orbit, a payload capacity roughly equivalent to Rocket Lab's Electron launch vehicle, which flies from New Zealand, home of the world's only other operational commercial spaceport in the Southern Hemisphere. A perfect flight for the Eris rocket would see it reach an orbit around 120 miles (200 kilometers) high at an inclination of 33 degrees to the equator, according to Gilmour. Just in case, the company has placed a jar of Vegemite, a popular food spread in Australia, on Eris' third stage in a tongue-in-cheek nod to Aussie culture. Stephen Clark Space Reporter Stephen Clark Space Reporter Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet. 0 Comments

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) has been reintroduced into Congress. If passed into law, this bill could impose some of the most significant legislative changes that the internet has seen in the U.S. since the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998. As it currently stands, KOSA would be able to hold social media platforms legally accountable if it’s proven that these companies aren’t doing enough to protect minors from harm. The bill includes a long list of possible harms, such as eating disorders, sexual exploitation, substance abuse, and suicide. Though it overwhelmingly passed through the Senate last year, the bill was stifled in the House. KOSA has faced much backlash since its introduction in 2022. Human rights groups like the ACLU raised concerns that the bill could be weaponized as a tool for censorship and surveillance. While amendments to KOSA have mitigated some of these concerns, groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Fight for the Future have remained against the bill. “The bill’s authors have claimed over and over that this bill doesn’t impact speech. But the Duty of Care is about speech: it’s about blocking speech that the government believes is bad for kids,” Fight for the Future wrote in a statement. “And the people who will be determining what speech is harmful? They are the same ones using every tool to silence marginalized communities and attack those they perceive as enemies.” However, KOSA has garnered support from companies like Microsoft, Snap, and X; X CEO Linda Yaccarino even worked with Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) on the most recent draft of the bill. Google and Meta have remained opposed to the bill, but Apple announced today that it will support the legislation. “Apple is pleased to offer our support for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). Everyone has a part to play in keeping kids safe online, and we believe [this] legislation will have a meaningful impact on children’s online safety,” Timothy Powderly, Apple’s Senior Director of Government Affairs, said in a statement. Techcrunch event Join us at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot for our leading AI industry event with speakers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere. For a limited time, tickets are just $292 for an entire day of expert talks, workshops, and potent networking. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW

May 13, 20255 min readVenus Isn’t (Geologically) DeadA reappraisal of decades-old data suggests that strange circular formations on Venus could be volcanic “rings of fire” created by ongoing geological activityBy Elise Cutts edited by Lee BillingsThe northern hemisphere of Venus, as captured in radar data from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft. Some of the circular features seen in this image are coronae, mysterious formations that recent studies suggest could be sites of ongoing geological activity. NASA/JPL-CaltechEarth’s geology is downright vital. Here, giant “plates” of the crust rift apart and smash together like pieces of an ever changing planetary jigsaw puzzle. Mountains rise, volcanoes spew, and Earth itself quakes as the crust constantly remakes itself in the ceaseless cycle of plate tectonics. This is a process that controls the flow of carbon through our planet and stabilizes its climate; were it not for plate tectonics, Earth might not be habitable at all.No other rocky world in our solar system has anything approaching Earth’s degree of geological activity. At least, that’s what scientists used to think. Mercury, Mars and the moon appear essentially inert. But Venus, our closest neighbor and the only other large rocky world around the sun, is now starting to look far livelier than once thought. A fresh look at decades-old data from NASA’s Magellan probe has found evidence of active tectonics—around dozens of circular volcanic features called coronae—on Venus today. The finding, published on Wednesday in Science Advances, provides some of the best evidence to date that Venus isn’t dead—at least, not when it comes to tectonics.“Venus works differently than the Earth but not as different as what was originally assumed,” says the study’s co-lead author Anna Gülcher of the University of Bern in Switzerland. “We should think of tectonics as not just a black-and-white picture.”On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.“Questions as fundamental as ‘Is Venus alive today?’ are extremely hard to answer,” says planetary scientist Paul Byrne of the University of Washington in St. Louis, who wasn’t involved in the study. This new evidence of geological activity around the coronae suggests “the heart of Venus still beats today. I think that’s extremely invaluable for us to understand the big, rocky world next door.”Venus is called “Earth’s evil twin” for good reason: the planet is almost exactly as large as the Earth and is made of roughly the same stuff. But while Earth is a verdant water world, Venus is a scorched hellscape with temperatures hot enough to melt lead, a dreary, permanently overcast sky and air so thick that it crushes spacecraft as if they were tin cans.For a while, Venus was widely assumed to be just as dead on the inside as it is on the outside. Lacking any obvious plate tectonics—which can help release a world’s internal heat—Venus’s interior was thought to instead just simmer like the contents of a tight-lidded pot on a stove. According to one popular hypothesis, the pot had eventually boiled over: after eons of frustrated heating, some 800 million years ago, the planet’s outer shell buckled, and Venus’s entire surface was paved over with immense outpourings of fresh lava. And, the thinking went, with all that heat dissipated, the planet’s geology basically shut down.But evidence is mounting that Venus is, geologically at least, still kicking. Most notably, in 2023 two researchers scrutinizing 30-year-old Magellan data realized that the probe had caught a volcanic eruption in the act: radar images of the volcano Maat Mons that were taken months apart showed what looked like a caldera collapse and subsequent lava flow. Venus, it seems, still has active volcanoes. Some researchers now think it could have active tectonics, too. And in 2020 Gülcher and her colleagues showed via simulations of Venusian tectonics that the planet’s mysterious, ring-shaped coronae could be a good place to look for such activity.Tectonics refers to the processes that deform a rocky planet’s brittle outer shell. On Earth, this outer shell—the lithosphere, which includes the crust and part of the upper mantle—is broken into tectonic plates that drift over the hot, plastic mantle. When two plates collide, one of them can slide below the other and dive down into the mantle in a process called subduction. On Earth, subducting plates start melting as they sink, feeding volcanoes along plate boundaries. Such volcanoes include Japan’s Mount Fuji and western North America’s Cascade Range.Unlike Earth, Venus doesn’t have global plate tectonics. The new study suggests, however, that around coronae, something quite similar to subduction could be happening.Gülcher and her colleagues simulated several tectonic processes that might be occurring around coronae and compared their predictions to real observations collected by the Magellan probe 30 years ago. The comparisons were more than skin-deep: the researchers used gravity data to take a peek underground. Hot rock is generally less dense than cold rock, and these density variations from place to place can correspondingly alter the strength of a planet’s gravitational field. So Magellan’s spatial mapping of Venus’s gravity can “see” if there’s hot, light material under a corona—a sign that rock is actively rising up from the mantle below.Of the 75 coronae that the team could resolve in Magellan’s gravitational maps, 52 seem to be geologically active. The predicted and real data lined up so well for some coronae that “we could hardly believe our eyes,” says the study’s other co-lead author Gael Cascioli of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Most of the active coronae were encircled by trenches, a hint that old crust dives into Venus’s mantle around these rocky rings, where it is driven downward as buoyant rock rises from below in the middle of each corona’s ring structure. “Basically, if something goes down, something goes up,” Gülcher says. Where the lithosphere is softer and more pliable, bits of it could break off and “drip” down into the mantle in globs. In places where the lithosphere is stiffer, entire slabs of crust could subduct in a small-scale, circular mirror of Earth’s subduction zones, like those that form the Pacific Ocean’s famed volcanic Ring of Fire.Working with 30-year-old data comes with an obvious limitation: the data quality often isn’t very good compared with newer observations. The new study’s researchers did well with what they had, Byrne says. But NASA’s upcoming VERITAS (Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy) mission could do much better—and the team predicted exactly how much better in the paper. “The improvement would be extraordinary,” Cascioli says. Instead of being limited to analyzing 75 coronae, VERITAS’s gravity dataset should allow scientists to examine hundreds of the strange ring-shaped features.For the foreseeable future, Venus is the only other large, rocky world that we or our robotic emissaries will ever reach. Understanding why Earth and Venus ended up so different despite having so much in common helps us understand our own planet—and whether the rocky worlds we’re beginning to glimpse around other stars are more like Earth or instead resemble its evil twin.“Venus is the world that we probably understand least,” Byrne says. “Yet it’s the one, arguably, I think, that’s the most important.”

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Why climate researchers are taking the temperature of mountain snow The Sierra’s frozen reservoir provides about a third of California’s water and most of what comes out of the faucets, shower heads, and sprinklers in the towns and cities of northwestern Nevada. As it melts through the spring and summer, dam operators, water agencies, and communities have to manage the flow of billions of gallons of runoff, storing up enough to get through the dry summer months without allowing reservoirs and canals to flood. The need for better snowpack temperature data has become increasingly critical for predicting when the water will flow down the mountains, as climate change fuels hotter weather, melts snow faster, and drives rapid swings between very wet and very dry periods. In the past, it was hard work to gather this data. Now, a new generation of tools, techniques, and models promises to ease that process, improve water forecasts, and help California and other states manage in the face of increasingly severe droughts and flooding. However, observers fear that any such advances could be undercut by the Trump administration’s cutbacks across federal agencies.Read the full story. —James Temple MIT Technology Review Narrated: What’s next for our privacy? The US still has no federal privacy law. But recent enforcement actions against data brokers may offer some new protections for Americans’ personal information. This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 The US is warning other countries not to use Huawei’s chips If they do, they may face criminal penalties for breaching US export controls. (FT $)+ The Trump administration has axed the ‘AI Diffusion Rule’ for chips. (WSJ $)+ It may move towards negotiating deals with countries directly. (Bloomberg $) 2 US tech firms are inking AI deals with the Middle EastAmong the biggest of which is Nvidia. (The Guardian) + Tech leaders accompanied Trump on his trip. (WP $)3 A new treatment for inherited breast cancer was trialed successfully The drug olaparib can help to significantly improve survival rates. (BBC)4 TikTok workers fear a new messaging feature could be exploited But the company is pressing ahead with it anyway. (The Information $)5 Apple is working on brain-computer interfaces for its products People with brain implants could one day use them to control their devices. (WSJ $)+ Brain-computer interfaces face a critical test. (MIT Technology Review) 6 What’s next for NASA? The agency is poised for its most radical shakeup in decades. (Ars Technica)+ NASA has made an air traffic control system for drones. (MIT Technology Review)7 Finland is harvesting heat from its data centersBloomberg $) + The next data center hub? India. (FT $)+ These four charts sum up the state of AI and energy. (MIT Technology Review)8 Airbnb wants to become the next everything-appWired $) + Hotel-like services, anyone? (NYT $)+ Its host features have been overhauled, too. (The Verge)9 The FBI is buying new tech to help it see through wallsThanks to radar. (New Scientist $) 10 Baidu is planning to launch its robotaxis in Europe 🚗 In a bid to extend its competitive advantage overseas. (WSJ $)+ How Wayve’s driverless cars will meet one of their biggest challenges yet. (MIT Technology Review) Quote of the day “It's literally Einstein's proverbial definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” —Entrepreneur Arnaud Bertrand reflects on America’s latest attempt to rein in Huawei in a post on X. One more thing How DeepSeek ripped up the AI playbook—and why everyone’s going to follow its lead When the Chinese firm DeepSeek dropped a large language model called R1 at the start of this year, it sent shock waves through the US tech industry. Not only did R1 match the best of the homegrown competition, it was built for a fraction of the cost—and given away for free. DeepSeek has now suddenly become the company to beat. What exactly did it do to rattle the tech world so fully? Is the hype justified? And what can we learn from the buzz about what’s coming next? Here’s what you need to know.   —Will Douglas Heaven We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.)+ Happy birthday to the one, the only Stevie Wonder—75 years young this week.+ A scooped bagel? Not on my watch. 🥯+ A few tips on how to navigate some of life’s trickier conversations with ease.+ Everyone’s got a random junk drawer. Here’s how to get it under control.

Author(s): Towards AI Editorial Team Originally published on Towards AI. Over the past two years, we’ve helped teams design and deploy real-world LLM systems — RAG pipelines, copilots that actually reduce load, PoCs that became products, and cut down hallucinations. One year ago, we decided to put everything we knew about building architectures around LLMs — the stack, the mistakes, the gotchas, the strategies — into a single guide: Building LLMs for Production — “the most comprehensive textbook to date on building LLM applications,” as Jerry Liu (Founder & CEO, LlamaIndex) put it. The response was amazing. People read it. People built with it. People shared it. But a few months in, our DMs started filling up: “Has the book been updated?” “Does it cover the latest models like o3 or Gemini 2.5?” “Can I use [X vector DB] instead?” “How do I choose the right model for my use case?” “What if I want to do [insert new approach] that isn’t in the book?” Fair. The landscape’s shifting fast. Inference got scaled. SLMs showed up. Context windows stretched. Costs dropped. Everything moved. If AI has taught us anything, it’s to think AI-first — not just to keep up, but to build in ways that scale. So instead of answering each DM (which we still do), we took a step back. And we decided to build something that answers all of it, now and as things evolve. The result? From Beginner to Advanced LLM Developer A 60+ hour, hands-on course that takes you from “I can prompt ChatGPT” → to deploying a production-grade RAG system with a real front end. But we didn’t just pack it with knowledge — we designed it to evolve with the field. Here’s what you walk away with: ✅ A repeatable pipeline that adapts with tools, not trends ✅ A deep instinct for how to think like an AI engineer ✅ Lifetime access and weekly updates as the ecosystem changes ✅ A private Slack for graduates + a 70,000+ builder community on Discord Because staying current isn’t enough — you also need confidence that what you ship today still holds tomorrow. That’s why we’re now running monthly live cohorts — so you stay sharp, supported, and up to date. The next cohort kicks off June 1 with a live welcome call with our CEO. Launch price: $249 (75 % off) — zero risk thanks to a 30-day money-back guarantee. 👉 Join the course here The results speak for themselves: “The course greatly expanded my knowledge of building and assessing RAG pipelines.” — Eoin McGrath “Best course out there to become an AI engineer. Planning to build my own startup based on the learnings.” — Abhijit L. “From zero to hero as an LLM Developer — a clear path to build LLM applications that can change your career.” — Luca Tanieli Even industry voices you know have shared support: “A resource I’ll return to again and again, no matter how fast the AI landscape shifts.” — Tina Huang, Lonely Octopus This course is for you: You know Python but haven’t taken an LLM past the notebook. If you’re frustrated by shallow tutorials and fragmented docs… If you want to build things that work, not just read about them… If you’re ready to take LLMs seriously and want a proven structure… There’s a roadmap. And it’s working. The next cohort starts June 1st. As soon as you join, you get full access to all course material — no need to wait for the live kickoff. You can start building right away. What You’ll Learn: 🧠 LLM Basics & Prompt Mastery Transformers, tokenization, and prompting that actually reduces hallucinations 🔍 Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) Chunking, embedding models, re-ranking, query rewriting, eval, and feedback loops 🎨 Fine-Tuning LoRA, adapters, and domain-specific models that actually perform 🤖 Tool & API Integration Function calling, external tools, and chained agent workflows 🚀 Deployment & Cost Control Gradio, Streamlit, latency fixes, caching, logging, monitoring, cost tracking 🏆 Capstone Project & Certification Build and ship your own LLM app — get feedback, and leave with a portfolio-ready build If you’re thinking, “This sounds great, but what if it’s not for me?” — we get it. That’s why the course comes with a 30-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. Try it. Dive into the material. If it doesn’t meet your expectations, we’ll refund you in full. 👉 Secure your spot for the June 1st cohort Join thousands of data leaders on the AI newsletter. Join over 80,000 subscribers and keep up to date with the latest developments in AI. From research to projects and ideas. If you are building an AI startup, an AI-related product, or a service, we invite you to consider becoming a sponsor. Published via Towards AI

Sony told investors that it is considering to "pass on" the cost of the US tariffs imposed by the Trump administration to hardware prices—including the PlayStation 5 and affiliated devices—which is currently projected to be a 100 billion yen ($680 million) impact.As noted during the company‛s investors call around the fiscal report for the 12 months ended March 31, 2025, Sony CFO Lin Tao said that tariffs include the hardware business, which includes games and semiconductors. This is in reference to the 145 percent tariff imposed on China, where Sony manufactures the majority of its hardware, which includes TVs, cameras, microphones, and of course the PlayStation product line. "We‛re not just simply calculating the tariff to come up with 100 billion yen, but thinking about the currently available information and also looking at the market trend, we might pass on to the price and also shipment allocation, so we‛re taking different measures in managing to come up with the 100 billion figure," Tao said via a translator.As pointed out by senior vice president Sadahiko Hayakawa, the 100 billion figure may not be reflecting this week‛s reduction between China and the US. This is referencing an announcement on May 12 that led to a temporary US tariff reduction of 145 to 30 percent on Chinese imports, which will be in effect for 90 days.Related:In addition, president and CEO Hiroki Totoki answered a question regarding the possibility of moving hardware manufacturing to the US, saying that "these hardwares [sic] of course can be produced locally," and that "it would be an efficient strategy.""But PS5 are [sic] being manufactured in many areas, whether it's going to be manufactured in the US or not it needs to be considered going forward. We‛re not in such a critical situation," he added.Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad recently noted to Game Developer in an interview that Sony has "some" PlayStation 5 console manufacturing in Japan, but that it's "limited." "That will take months to convert everything for US production," he added.He described Sony as being "one year behind" Switch 2 developer Nintendo in terms of diversifying its manufacturing capabilities, with the bulk of its production taking place in China. Nintendo—which is still grappling with the impact of the Trump administration-imposed tariffs—moved much of its US-focused manufacturing to Vietnam after 2019.Sony noted in its presentation that it is "diversifying" PlayStation 5 manufacturing hubs and stockpiling inventory in the US.Related:Throughout the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025, Sony shipped 18.5 million PS5 consoles, bringing the total to 77.7 million lifetime shipments since November 2020. This is down from last year‛s 20.8 million units. The company saw an increase in sales of non-first-party games, including add-on content, as well as sales from network services, resulting in a nine percent increase in the gaming sector. As noted in the previous quarterly fiscal report, first-party titles sales saw a decline.Despite a decline in sales, Sony has already increased the price of the PS5 in other marketsThe decline in PS5 sales traces back to Sony Q1 FY24's fiscal report back in August 2024, a period in which hardware sales totaled 2.4 million units compared to 3.3 million in Q1 FY23. In November 2024, a report stated that Sony is working on a standalone handheld device capable of running PS5 games on the move—as opposed to the PlayStation Portal, which relies on cloud streaming. The company didn't mention the reported console in its plans for the upcoming fiscal year.Meanwhile, the company raised the price of the PS5 in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, EMEA, and the UK in April of this year as a response to a "challenging economic environment," pointing out "high inflation" and "fluctuating exchange rates" in the announcement post. A few days later, Xbox announced an increase in consoles, accessories, and some upcoming first-party titles.Related:When Sony announced the decline in PS5 sales during Q1 FY24, it said that it was offset by first-party game sales. Now, it's third-party games that helped to tip the scale. After the company won't have a projected revenue from several cancelled live service games, it seems it will have to adapt.Upcoming first-party titles includes Bungie's Marathon and Sucker Punch Productions Ghost of Yōtei, in addition to a multiplayer game with live service elements from new first-party studio teamLFG, which was spun out of Bungie.

Ubisoft's FY24-25 financials report "solid balance sheet" despite hefty drops in revenue and back-catalog sales CEO says Ubisoft will "provide additional development time to some of our biggest productions in order to create the best conditions for success" Image credit: Ubisoft News by Vikki Blake Contributor Published on May 14, 2025 Ubisoft has released its financial results for the full 2024-25 fiscal year, reporting a "solid balance sheet" and "very strong praise" for Assassin's Creed Shadows - which delivered the second-highest Day One sales in franchise history after Valhalla - despite hefty drops in revenue, net bookings, digital net bookings, and back-catalog net bookings across the year. CEO Yves Guillemot confirmed Ubisoft would "provide additional development time to some of our biggest productions in order to create the best conditions for success" and notably missed FY2025-26 from his announcement that "FY2026-27 and FY2027-28 will see significant content coming from our largest brands." In FY2025-26, the firm "expects to maintain a consolidated net debt position of around zero." Ubisoft's headcount dropped by 1230 over the last 12 months. Here's what you need to know: The numbers: For the full 2024-25 financial year ending March 31, 2025 Revenue: €1899.2 million (down 17.5% year-on-year) Net bookings: €1846.4 million (down 20.5%) Digital net bookings: €1585.4 million (down 20.2%) Back-catalogue net bookings: €1296.3 million (down 13.5%) The highlights: Ubisoft said its brands have "continued to perform strongly this quarter," with the Top 10 brands posting year-over-year net bookings growth, leading to a record fourth quarter at €902m. Console and PC "activity metrics" are reported as "broadly stable" year-on-year. Despite an overall year-on-year drop, back-catalog net bookings for Q4 were "up double-digit," with noted performance from Ubisoft's other tentpole franchise, Rainbow Six Siege, with The Crew Motorfest also posting a strong performance. The company said it was continuing its strategic focus on open world adventures and native GaaS "experiences," resulting in "reshaping its operating model with the objective to better meet player needs, deliver superior game quality, and drive discipline capital allocation." This will see a new organization structure announced by the end of the year (it's not clear if Ubisoft is referring to calendar or financial year here). It also reaffirmed its commitment to its three "iconic IPs," Assassin's Creed, Rainbow Six, and Far Cry, hinting at a "very powerful five-year line-up to come" in partnership with Tencent. Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six brands’ unique active players both stood at around 30 million for the 4th consecutive year, with Far Cry at around 20 million per year over the same period. Other brands continued to "drive strong community appeal, with more than 100 million unique active players in FY2024-25." "The transaction with Tencent crystalizes the true economic value of three of Ubisoft’s leading franchises. The minority nature of the transaction enables Ubisoft to maintain control of these IP, retain financial consolidation as well as safeguard strategic alignment with the Group and maintain upside on these franchises while immediately strengthening its balance sheet," the company said. "It will be steered by a dedicated leadership, with a team that will include external hires, and that will be advised by industry veterans. With this transaction, Tencent will invest €1.16bn in a primary issuance by the New Subsidiary, acquiring an approximate 25% economic interest. At closing, at least €500m will be upstreamed to Ubisoft, ensuring sufficient working capital needs of the New Subsidiary at start." "This year has been a challenging one for Ubisoft, with mixed dynamics across our portfolio, amid intense industry competition. Despite these headwinds, Ubisoft managed to deliver positive free cash flow generation over the fiscal year, reflecting the discipline applied across the Group," said CEO Guillemot. "Aware of the challenges ahead, we took decisive steps to continue strengthening the company’s future [... and] we also completed our initial cost savings program ahead of schedule. We are committed to going further, with additional savings of at least €100m over the next two years to drive structural efficiencies and reinforce the foundations of our organization. "This continued focus on discipline will support our growth ambitions and the profound transformation of Ubisoft. We are currently working on reshaping the Group’s operating model and plan to announce a new organization by the end of the year," he added. "A major step in this transformation was the announcement in March of the creation of a new subsidiary, backed by Tencent as a core strategic partner. "Additionally, after a review of our pipeline, we have decided to provide additional development time to some of our biggest productions in order to create the best conditions for success. As a consequence, FY2026-27 and FY2027-28 will see significant content coming from our largest brands," Guillemot concluded. "Ubisoft is entering a new chapter, and I am confident in our ability to build a stronger, more resilient company for the benefit of all our stakeholders.”

New Research Step Into a Painstakingly Recreated 3D Model of the Parthenon, Now Restored to Its Ancient Glory A researcher simulated the Athenian temple’s lighting conditions at different times of the day, discovering that its interior was actually “quite dark and dim” The reconstructions show that the Parthenon’s internal appearance was constructed to provoke maximum awe—and even fear. Juan de Lara By combining archaeology and technology, a researcher has shed light on a longstanding architectural mystery: how the ancient Greeks experienced the inside of the Parthenon, the Athenian Acropolis’ largest temple, built and dedicated to the goddess Athena in the fifth century B.C.E. Today, the Parthenon is a broken-down rectangle of grand marble columns, and its interior is largely vacant. But when the temple was constructed between 447 and 438 B.C.E., designed in part by the legendary architect Phidias, it hosted a 40-foot-tall, gilded statue of Athena. For many centuries, historians assumed that in ancient times, the chamber was brightly illuminated by the Grecian sun. But now, Juan de Lara, an archaeologist at the University of Oxford, has created a virtual model of the Parthenon that upends such beliefs. As he writes in the journal Annual of the British School at Athens, the temple’s interior was actually “quite dark and dim.” This lighting might have emphasized the space’s religious purpose.“Imagine entering the Parthenon—your eyes still weary from the bright sun outside, slowly adjusting to the gradual darkness within,” says de Lara in a statement. “As sunlight filters through the temple’s doorway, it strikes the gold of the goddesses’ robes with a luminous vertical beam. This was the effect the architects and Phidias intended to create. It must have been magical.” De Lara spent four years on the project, using 3D modeling tools and conducting physical simulations to calculate paths of light and reflection. He has “precisely recreated how both natural and artificial lighting interacted with the elements of the Parthenon,” including the massive ivory and gold statue of Athena, the statement notes. He accounted for openings in the temple’s roof, windows, interior pools of water and the reflection potential of polished white marble. “I’ve long been fascinated by spaces that no longer exist, and by the challenge of imagining how they might have felt,” de Lara tells classicist Jeremy Tanner in an interview for the “Cambridge Core” blog. “Given my background in 3D modeling and [computer-generated imagery], this project offered a unique opportunity to explore that question.” A hypothetical reconstruction of the temple's artifact-filled chamber Juan de Lara The resulting reconstructions show that the Parthenon’s internal appearance was constructed to provoke maximum awe—and even fear—by presenting a monumental golden goddess emerging from darkness. The temple’s architects were “working with special effects in a sense,” de Lara tells IFLScience’s Russell Moul. De Lara’s project simulates how the temple’s interior would have looked at different times of the day, as well as at night, when it might have been filled with people holding torches. According to the statement, de Lara discovered that the sun probably shined directly onto the statue during summer mornings, meaning that during the Panathenaea, a summer festival celebrating Athena, the goddess’ likeness acted as a shining beacon at the start of each day. The ancient Greeks built many, many temples dedicated to gods or goddesses. Though it’s the most famous, the Parthenon isn’t the only temple on the Acropolis, the ancient complex of buildings nestled atop a hill in Athens. The site also hosts the Temple of Athena Nike—whose name refers to a hybridization of Athena and Nike, the goddess of victory—and the Erechtheion, which was dedicated to Athena, the mythical king Erechtheus and Poseidon, the god of the sea. A rendering of how the temple might have looked on a morning in late August Juan de Lara As de Lara explains to Tanner, each Greek temple’s visual experience was different. They varied based on the location and the deity being worshipped. But from the fifth century B.C.E. onward, “There is a marked increase in a conscious staging of the religious experience.” Still, “we know little about what actually took place inside the Parthenon,” de Lara tells Artnet News’ Richard Whiddington. “What rituals were performed? Who was allowed to enter and when?” In general, de Lara says to Tanner, temples “acted as museums, safeguarding objects of both material and emotional value.” Thanks to ancient inventories, researchers have been able to discern the Parthenon’s probable interior furnishings, like numerous incense burners that would have enhanced a visitor’s sensory experience. “Given that the Acropolis and the Parthenon are among the most visited monuments in the world,” de Lara tells IFL Science, “… it becomes even more relevant to offer [people] a more complete image of the site. If visitors can carry a richer, more accurate vision in their minds, the encounter with the monument becomes far more meaningful.” How the light of torches might have illuminated the Parthenon Juan de Lara Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.