The first word found and translated from an unopened carbonized scroll from the Roman town of Herculaneum was announced this week, as part of the $1,000,000 Vesuvius Challenge to read the papyri from the settlement that was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79.
Source: Gizmodo – AI Is ‘Unwrapping’ Burnt Scrolls From Herculaneum
Horror master John Carpenter’s interests have tilted away from directing for some years now, as he’s preferred to focus on other interests like music and his comics company. He’s back in the chair for new Peacock series John Carptenter’s Suburban Screams—and it’s too bad the occasion isn’t a more memorable one.
Source: Gizmodo – John Carpenter’s Suburban Screams Is Unfortunately Lacking in Screams
Enlarge (credit: Getty Images / Benj Edwards)
On Thursday, Google announced that it plans to defend users of its generative AI systems on Google Cloud and Workspace platforms against intellectual property violation claims, reports Reuters. The move follows similar commitments by Microsoft and Adobe, but Google claims its approach is more comprehensive, covering both the use of copyrighted works for training AI and the output generated by the systems.
“The generated output indemnity means that you can use content generated with a range of our products knowing Google will indemnify you for third-party IP claims, including copyright,” Google writes in its announcement post.
Specifically, the new policy will cover software like its Vertex AI development platform and Duet AI system, which are used for generating text and images in Google Workspace and Cloud programs. Notably, the Google announcement did not mention Bard, Google’s more well-known generative AI chatbot.
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Source: Ars Technica – Google will shield AI users from copyright challenges, within limits
The world of ants is a mysterious one, as we’re still learning new stuff about the most populous insect on Earth. Soon we’ll be able to get a more hands-on approach with everyone’s favorite picnic-ruiners, thanks to the forthcoming insect sim Empire of the Ants. The game’s based on the hit sci-fi book series and has you controlling a heroic ant to protect your massive colony.
Publisher Microids and developer Tower Five just dropped a trailer and these are perhaps the most photorealistic ants ever seen in a video game. As a matter of fact, the whole trailer’s teeming with eye candy, which makes sense given the title was built using Epic Games’ powerful Unreal Engine 5. Plus it’s not just one or two ants on screen, as in-game footage shows hundreds of the little buggers doing their thing, complete with a photorealistic forest down to the pebbles and dirt on the floor.
As for gameplay, the devs liken it to a real-time strategy title, with some 3rd-person adventuring peppered throughout. The makers say that “strategy planning, exploration, combat skills, but most of all, setting up local wildlife alliances will be necessary to survive the many challenges awaiting.”
The developers tout scalable difficulty levels to suit players of varying skill, a day-night cycle and gameplay that changes depending on the season. Each season will present players with different attributes, adding some light RPG elements, impacting “speed, resistance, buffs and more,” according to an email sent to Engadget.
There’s no release date yet, other than sometime in 2024, but the game’s coming to both PC and unnamed consoles (likely PS5 and Xbox S/X.) Publisher Microids previously released a smaller-scale adaptation of Empire of the Ants, back in 2000. Developers Tower Five previously worked on the strategy game Lornsword Winter Chronicles and the ill-fated 2020 remake of XIII.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/this-gorgeous-looking-game-lets-you-control-a-colony-of-photorealistic-ants-191034408.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – This gorgeous-looking game lets you control a colony of photorealistic ants
Enlarge / NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is seen on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in April 2022. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann)
In recent years NASA has acknowledged that its large Space Launch System rocket is unaffordable and has sought to bring its costs down to a more reasonable level. The most recent estimate is that it costs $2.2 billion to build a single SLS rocket, and this does not include add-ons such as ground systems, integration, a payload, and more.
Broadly speaking, NASA’s cost-reduction plan is to transfer responsibility for production of the rocket to a new company co-owned by Boeing and Northrop Grumman, who are key contractors for the rocket. This company, “Deep Space Transport,” would then build the rockets and sell them to NASA. The space agency has said that this services-based model could reduce the cost of the rocket by as much as 50 percent.
However, in a damning new report, NASA’s own inspector general, Paul Martin, says that is not going to happen. Rather, Martin writes, the cost of building the rocket is actually likely to increase.
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Source: Ars Technica – NASA should consider commercial alternatives to SLS, inspector general says
Spicy food is a lifelong adventure. Even for the wary, the sensitive, the adamantly spice-less, there’s usually a moment when unexpected spice makes its way into the hors d’oeuvres at an event or at a family gathering–and it’s pretty good. Fear strikes, but after that moment passes, you kind of don’t hate what just…
Source: LifeHacker – How to Add Heat to Your Food Without Scorching Your Tastebuds
One of the biggest unanswered questions regarding Microsoft’s $67.8 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard concerned the role of Bobby Kotick at the company. Now that the deal is finally complete and the publisher is officially a part of Microsoft, the future of the Activision Blizzard CEO is a little clearer.
In a memo to employees, Kotick wrote that he is “fully committed to helping with the transition.” He’ll remain at the helm “through the end of 2023” and he’ll report to Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. “We both look forward to working together on a smooth integration for our teams and players,” Kotick wrote.
Kotick is widely expected to step down from the role he has held for over three decades as soon as January 1, though Activision Blizzard has declined to confirm an exact date for his departure. In any case, his contract runs until April.
Other changes are expected at the top of Activision Blizzard. In his own memo to the publisher’s staff, Spencer wrote that “we will share more updates on our new organizational structure in the coming months.”
Kotick shaped his company into a financially successful enterprise after leading a group of investors to buy Mediagenic for a bargain-basement price in 1991. He restructured the company and restored its previous name of Activision. In 2008, following a string of successful games, acquisitions and investments, Kotick engineered a merger with the games division of Vivendi, which owned Blizzard.
However, Kotick’s stewardship of the company has long been a controversial one. As far back as 2010, Kotaku called him “the most hated man in video games,” partly because of the perception that Kotick places a heavy focus on monetizing Activision Blizzard’s games as much as possible. That’s not to mention his reported treatment of employees at his various companies.
Over the last few years, observers have been paying more attention to Activision Blizzard’s culture under Kotick. In 2021, the California Civil Rights Department, sued the company, alleging that it fostered a culture where discrimination and widespread harassment were rife. Later that year, a report by The Wall Street Journal indicated that Kotick had long been aware of sexual misconduct and assault allegations at Activision Blizzard, and that he neglected to share some of those (or details about settlements that were agreed with alleged victims) with the board.
The report led to many Activision Blizzard workers walking out and demanding Kotick’s resignation. The following year, months after Microsoft made its blockbuster bid for Activision Blizzard, the publisher’s shareholders voted to let Kotick keep his board seat.
In fact, the turmoil over Activision Blizzard’s toxic workplace culture (and resulting pressure on the company that sent its stock tumbling) was what prompted Microsoft to buy the company. Kotick had claimed that Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV delays resulted in a fall of the stock price. But workers pushed back on those assertions.
Overwatch producer Tracy Kennedy claimed in early 2022 that Kotick pushed “random projects” onto the development team. Kennedy said the team worked overtime only to see those projects canceled and that “entire teams are turning over” and blaming Kotick.
It’s not only at Activision where Kotick has spurred controversy. In 2007, the flight attendant of a private jet he was co-owner of sued him. The attendant alleged that, after she informed the plane’s other owner that the pilot had sexually harassed her, Kotick fired her. The case resulted in a $200,000 settlement for the flight attendant.
Kotick has long been one of the highest-paid CEOs in North America and he’s not exactly going to be retiring with only a nice watch to show for his time at Activision Blizzard. A report last year suggested that he stood to make $375.3 million from the sale to Microsoft. He’s also expected to receive a golden parachute payment of $14.6 million when he departs.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bobby-kotick-will-remain-activision-blizzard-ceo-until-the-end-of-2023-184419538.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Bobby Kotick will remain Activision Blizzard CEO until the end of 2023
Enlarge / Aerial photo taken at night shows the TSMC plant area in Nanjing, Jiangsu province. (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto)
The US Commerce Department announced today that key foreign chipmakers can continue receiving critical US chipmaking tools at China-based plants, Reuters reported.
This decision extends special authorizations that were granted to foreign chipmakers—including South Korea’s SK Hynix and Samsung, as well as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC)—after the Biden administration curbed shipments of advanced chips and chipmaking equipment to China last October.
Those export controls were intended to slow down China’s rapid advancement of AI and military technologies, but the new rules also ended up negatively impacting US chip production. To overcome those inadvertent impacts on US chip supplies, the Biden administration granted limited special authorizations to allow some chipmakers to continue shipping equipment into China. Now, those chipmakers will be able to continue operating Chinese plants “without the headache of applying for US licenses,” Reuters reported.
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Source: Ars Technica – TSMC, Samsung seeking permanent US licenses to operate China chip plants
Polish video game developer CD Projekt used AI technology in its latest release to recreate the voice of an actor who passed away, the company said. From a report: The voice of the late Milogost Reczek, a popular Polish voice actor who died in 2021, was reproduced by an AI algorithm for the Polish-language release of Phantom Liberty, the new expansion to CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077. In a statement to Bloomberg, the company said it received permission from Reczek’s family to do this and that it had considered replacing him in the expansion and rerecording his lines in the original game but decided against it.
“We didn’t like this approach,” CD Projekt localization director Mikolaj Szwed said in the statement, as Reczek “was one of the best Polish voice talents” and his performance in the game as the doctor Viktor Vektor “was stellar.” Instead, CD Projekt hired a different voice actor to perform new lines for the role and then used a Ukraine-based voice-cloning software called Respeecher to create an algorithm that would alter the dialogue to sound like Reczek. “This way we could keep his performance in the game and pay tribute to his wonderful performance as Viktor Vektor,” Szwed said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Video Game Cyberpunk 2077 Uses AI To Replace Deceased Voice Actor
Astropad has recently released an app, Slate, that lets you use your iPad as a drawing tablet that you can connect to your Mac to see the results. Apple’s Sidecar has allowed you to do this for years now, but the new app leaves your iPad as a blank canvas rather than mirroring or extending your display.
Source: Gizmodo – Astropad’s Slate App Can Turn Your iPad and Apple Pencil Into a Budget Wacom Tablet
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has blasted off and begun a six-year, 2.2-billion-mile journey to a peculiar asteroid. Astronomers have speculated that the space rock, also named Psyche, was once the partial core of a small planet in the early days of the Solar System. The seemingly iron- and nickel-rich asteroid may hold clues to the formation of planets, including our own.
On Friday, the uncrewed Psyche spacecraft lifted off at 10:19AM ET aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After successfully jettisoning its fairings and separating from the rocket, ground controllers established two-way communication. Telemetry reports indicate it made it to space in good health. The mission had faced numerous delays before finally lifting off.
Psyche (the asteroid) rotates around the sun in a belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Researchers estimate it’s made of 30 to 60 percent nickel-iron core, allowing them a rare glimpse into a (possible) planetary core. “My best guess is that it’s more than half metal based on the data that we’ve got,” Lindy Elkins-Tanton, an Arizona State University professor working as the mission’s principal investigator, told The New York Times. “We’re really going to see a kind of new object, which means that a lot of our ideas are going to be proven wrong.”
The spacecraft will take around six years to reach Psyche. At that point, NASA’s Psyche craft will orbit the asteroid for 26 months, studying it with various instruments. The craft will use cameras to get an up-close peek, a magnetometer to look for an ancient magnetic field, a gamma-ray spectrometer to detect high-energy gamma rays and neutrons and a radio antenna to map the space rock’s gravity.
“I am excited to see the treasure trove of science Psyche will unlock as NASA’s first mission to a metal world,” said Nicola Fox, a NASA Science Mission Directorate associate. “By studying asteroid Psyche, we hope to better understand our universe and our place in it, especially regarding the mysterious and impossible-to-reach metal core of our own home planet, Earth.”
The spacecraft will also test NASA’s deep space laser communications, an experimental communications method that could increase deep space bandwidth 100-fold over the current standard, radio waves. “It’s exciting to know that, in a few short weeks, Deep Space Optical Communications will begin sending data back to Earth to test this critical capability for the future of space exploration,” said Dr. Prasun Desai, Associate Administrator (Acting), STMD at NASA HQ. “The insights we learn will help us advance these innovative new technologies and, ultimately, pursue bolder goals in space.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/nasas-psyche-spacecraft-embarks-on-a-six-year-journey-to-its-asteroid-namesake-183819998.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – NASA’s Psyche spacecraft embarks on a six-year journey to its asteroid namesake
It’s the most wonderful and perhaps only acceptable time of the year to be wandering the halls of the Javits Center in New York City: Comic Con is back, and that means, aside from big news and celebrity panels, there’s so much wonderful, wonderful cosplay to take in! Check out a few of our favorites from wandering the…
Source: Gizmodo – The Most Spectacular Cosplay of New York Comic Con Day 1
Salt and (good) pepper can get you pretty far in your cooking, but true grown-up cooks use an arsenal of herbs and spices to flavor their meals. How you stock your spice cabinet will depend on the type of cuisine you want to enjoy—a “basic” Anglo spice cabinet is quite different from an East Asian one—but knowing how…
Source: LifeHacker – How (and When) to Use Fresh Vs. Dried Herbs in Your Cooking
On October 13, Microsoft completed its nearly two-year-long process of consuming Activision Blizzard King. And while it will take months and years for Xbox and all the parties involved to sort everything out and start bringing past Activision Blizzard games to Game Pass, for now, we can tally up everything Microsoft…
Source: Kotaku – Every Franchise Xbox Now Owns After Buying Activision
Canon has begun selling its nanoimprint semiconductor manufacturing systems, seeking to claw back market share by positioning the technology as a simpler and more attainable alternative to the leading-edge tools of today. From a report: The Tokyo-based company’s new chipmaking machines can produce circuits equivalent to 5-nanometer scale when using extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV), a field dominated by industry leader ASML Holding NV. Canon expects its device to reach next-generation 2nm production with further advances and improvements, it said in a statement on Friday. Like domestic peer Nikon Corp., Canon has fallen far behind ASML in the EUV race, but its nanoimprint lithography approach may help it close the gap.
Canon’s machinery may also add a new front in the US-China trade war, as the import of EUV machines — so far the only reliable method for fabricating 5nm chips and smaller — into China is prohibited by trade sanctions. The Japanese firm’s technique skips photolithography altogether and instead impresses the desired circuit pattern onto the silicon wafer. Because of its novelty, it’s unlikely to be expressly forbidden by existing trade curbs.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Canon Begins Selling Chip Machines To Rival World’s Best by ASML
Interview With the Vampire, one of the few projects from a major network that has been able to resume production during the continued SAG-AFTRA strike, (and one of my personal favorite TV shows), has finally gotten a new teaser. Yesterday at New York City Comic Con, audiences got a first taste of season two only…
Source: Gizmodo – Interview With the Vampire Teases Out a Bloody Seduction
A Starfield player on Reddit noticed recently that the temperate, agreeable planet Schrodinger III is “made of XP,” something the sci-fi role playing game’s players are increasingly stumbling upon on their own. The planet—and the entire Schrodinger system it belongs to—is heavy with resources, making it a great place…
Source: Kotaku – Starfield Planet Schrodinger III Is The XP Farm You’ve Been Dreaming Of
You want to get fat paid by Microsoft without having to sign a pesky employment contract? Just find a major security hole in one of the company’s many new AI-powered services. That’ll earn you a cash prize of between $2,000 and $15,000, depending on the severity and ease of the exploit.
To be clear, simply getting Bing to generate chat
Source: Hot Hardware – Trip Up Bing AI And You Could Score A ,000 Payday From Microsoft
Enlarge / Look into my eyes… all three of them. (credit: Meta)
You’d be forgiven for not realizing that the Quest 3 is actually the fourth headset in Meta’s popular Quest line. In fact, Meta would probably prefer that everyone forget about last year’s ill-considered Quest Pro, which paired a handful of minor improvements with an absolutely massive $1,500 starting price. Even a quick price drop to $1,000 couldn’t save this over-engineered stopgap gadget.
What a difference a year makes—or three years, for VR aficionados who wisely stuck with 2020’s Quest 2 until now. The Quest 3 offers distinct improvements over previous Quest headsets in the areas that matter most (resolution, form factor, etc.) without many of the Pro’s more expensive, heavy, and least necessary indulgences (eye-tracking cameras, rechargeable controllers, charging dock, etc.). The Quest 3 also offers a usable (but rough) suite of new mixed-reality features, providing an intriguing glimpse of a world where VR content is routinely layered over our view of reality.
Most importantly, the Quest 3 does this all at a mass-market price (starting at $500) and in a way that ensures continuity with Quest’s existing software. While there’s nothing here that will usher in the long-sought virtual reality revolution, this is the kind of incremental improvement the space needs if it’s going to continue to increase the size of its niche.
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Source: Ars Technica – Meta Quest 3 hands-on review: VR rejoins the real world
The immutable openSUSE Leap Micro 5.5 is out with SELinux enhancements, Quadlet for Podman, and an improved Cockpit management interface. More about that here!
Source: LXer – openSUSE Leap Micro 5.5 Released, Leap Micro 5.3 EOL
