Investment in subsea cable projects is expected to reach around $13 billion between 2025 and 2027, almost twice the amount invested between 2022 and 2024, according to telecommunications data provider TeleGeography. Tech giants Meta, Google, Amazon and Microsoft now represent about 50% of the overall market, up from a negligible share a decade ago.

The companies are expanding their subsea infrastructure to connect growing networks of data centers needed for AI development. Meta announced Project Waterworth in February, a 50,000-kilometer cable connecting five continents that will be the world’s longest subsea cable project. Amazon announced its first wholly-owned subsea cable called Fastnet, connecting Maryland to Ireland. Google has invested in over 30 subsea cables. Over 95% of international data and voice call traffic travels through nearly a million miles of underwater cables.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It’s arriving too late to be part of a Sam Porter Bridges Halloween costume this year, but Kojima Productions has a new collaboration lined up that could be just the ticket for cosplayers or anyone who may wish to enhance their lower-body strength and stability. The studio has teamed up with exoskeleton maker Dnsys for a limited run of a model based on Death Stranding 2: On The Beach.

Dnsys claimed this was the first collaboration between an exoskeleton maker and a game studio. Kojima Productions art director Yoji Shinkawa worked with the company on the design, which draws from the color palettes of the game and is based on an existing Dnsys model. It has lights similar to the exoskeleton Sam wears in the game, and they indicate the battery level. 

The Dnsys Z1 Exoskeleton Pro – Death Stranding 2: On The Beach Limited Edition (to give its full name) is said to mimic the game’s load-balancing system by offloading up to 200 percent of the wearer’s body weight from their knees to help protect the joints. Dnsys said it adds 50 percent more power to steps and “intelligent gait control” to improve balance on stairs and uneven terrain. According to the company’s press release, you’ll “instantly feel up to 44 lbs lighter during vertical movements.” The exoskeleton is slated to offer over four hours of continuous support and there’s a quick-swap battery system.

Exoskeletons can be very useful, particularly for those who could do with extra support and/or have mobility issues. Or maybe you want to look the part while you carry some very heavy cargo on your back and listen to Chvrches and Bring Me the Horizon.

This limited-edition exoskeleton will be available on December 2. Pricing will be announced then. The regular price of a dual-leg Dnsys Z1 system is $1,500, so you can probably expect the Death Stranding 2 variant to be in that ballpark. You can also try your luck at scoring the exoskeleton for free through a giveaway.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-latest-death-stranding-collab-is-an-actual-exoskeleton-151215509.html?src=rss

I’ve defined a ton of slang since I started posting this column in 1878, but this week, I’m going all in on the funny little words the kids use among themselves. That’s right: It’s all-slang week! From “clock that” to “rawdoggin boredom,” consider this a crash course in what the kids are babbling to each other. As always, remember, you shouldn’t use these slang words because they’re not your words. Stick to calling things da bomb and saying “23-skidoo,” gramps.

(If this isn’t enough slang, somehow, check out my constantly evolving glossary of Gen-Z and Gen A slang.)

What does “clock that” mean?

I’m old enough to remember when “clock” was slang for either punching someone or it meant “watch” or “see,” so “I clocked that guy” would mean either “I punched that guy” or “I saw that guy.” But times have changed—slightly, anyway. My sources tell me that kids now used “clock that” to mean “I understand and agree.”

What does “fujoshing” and “fujoshing TF out” mean?

For a rare treat, here’s a slang word that didn’t derive from African American Vernacular English! “Fujoshing” comes from Japan, and is the verb form of the slang term “fujoshi” that combines the word for “rotten” and the word for “girl.” It’s used to describe women/girls who are fans of media that depicts romantic relationships between men (also called “yaoi.”) It was apparently originally intended as an insult, but was adopted as a badge of honor. So “Fujoshing” or “fujoshing tf out” was Japanese slang for enjoying yaoi, and it has since migrated to English-speaking fandom communities, where it’s often used in memes like this, to jokingly describe overanalyzing or giddily reacting to male characters’ interactions in media that are not explicitly romantic:

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It’s not in wide use outside of fandom communities.

What is a “slopper?”

I’ve previously defined “slopcore,” and “slopper” is related. It describes a person who uses ChatGPT or other AI programs too much. You could apply it to anyone who takes conversations with LLMs seriously, and/or people who have basically offloaded their thinking to an algorithm.

The term was first used online by @intrnetbf, who reports that his friend coined the term. “That’s incredible verbiage. Slopper! That’s such a good slur, bro. Slopper!”

It’s not in wide use, and I know you can’t predict what slang words will actually catch on, but I’m rooting for “slopper.” Like the dude says, it is such a good slur.

What does “cracked” mean?

“Cracked” is a slang term that used to describe someone who was weird or crazy, but it now means two different things: to have sex, as in “I got cracked last night,” and to be really good at something, like “he’s cracked at Fortnite.”

What does “doi doi doi” mean?

“Doi doi doi” is piece of brain-rot slang that’s burning through our nation’s elementary schools. Like a lot of brain-rot slang, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s correctly pronounced by putting your hand up to your mouth and saying “doi doi doi” because it sounds funny. “Doi doi doi” was created by Twitch streamer Kai Cenat, apparently to annoy Howie Mandel. Here’s a video of its moment of origin that demonstrates proper doi doi doi technique:

What is “rawdoggin boredom?”

“Rawdoggin” began as slang word for having sex without a condom, but has come to mean something like “doing something with no safeguards or support.” So “rawdoggin boredom” is consciously doing nothing, and it’s becoming a TikTok trend. Young people are posting 15-minute-long videos of themselves … not doing anything. Here’s one you can look at (which is honestly more boring than rawdoggin boredom.)

Many boredom-rawdoggers say they’re doing it to fix their attention span, but some seem to be more about the challenge than anything else.

Not doing anything consciously is not a new trend, of course. As this X user puts it, “they reinvented meditation from first principles.”

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Viral video of the week: What Happens If You Abuse a Robot?

This week’s viral video comes from longtime Youtuber whistlindiesel, whose channel generally consists of videos of dudes smashing up cars. This week, they’re smashing up a robot with a car—specifically, an $85,000 humanoid robot from Unitree Robotics. The video has been viewed over six million times about in about a week, and for good reason. It’s hilarious to watch a robot fail at things like cooking and walking into a mirror, but for me, the truly inspired bits are where the whistlindiesel crew do unwise things like putting a machete in the barely controllable robot’s hand, or (at least pretend) to give it a loaded gun. Inspired lunacy! Especially the ending where the robot is smashed to bits by a huge pickup truck. I’ll deny I ever laughed at this video to our overlords when the robot takeover happens, but until then, I dig it. Clock that.

Amazon is in the middle of rolling out Alexa+, the long-awaited, AI-infused update for its voice assistant. At the same time, the company has also been giving a fair bit of attention to Amazon Music, adding things like Alexa+ integration and AI-powered playlists. And as of today, Amazon is rolling out a new community-focused feature called Fan Groups. As the name suggests, Fan Groups are a way for users to connect around different musical interests — and what makes this more fun to me is that these aren’t limited to Amazon-curated groups.

Once Fan Groups fully rolls out, anyone will be able to create a public group in Amazon Music based around a genre, region, time period or anything else you want to focus the group on. Right now, Fan Groups are only available in Canada during a a beta period, but they’ll come to other countries (including the US) early next year. Amazon has had testers building out some Fan Groups in the meantime so that testers don’t walk into a ghost town.

When you first open the Groups tab, which will be part of Amazon Music’s bottom navigation, you’ll see a top rail with Groups you’ve joined and a scrolling list of ones you can check out. Some of the examples Amazon showed off include “K-pop Now,” “Red Dirt Americana” and “Indie Insiders,” all of which feel pretty self-explanatory. Each group includes a “featured” playlist at the top and then a scroll of posts by people who’ve joined the group.

Members can share any song, album or playlist on Amazon Music along with a comment; you can then have a discussion on the post. It’ll be familiar to anyone who has used a Facebook Group over the years. Somewhat interestingly, Amazon is also letting you share external links Beyond the “posts” view, there’s also a music-only tab that just shows everything that has been shared to the group. One of the more intriguing features in Fan Groups is the ability to just hit “play” and listen to everything that’s been shared over time — it’s something that should be good for exploration as well as just seeing if the group’s tastes are aligned with your own.

In the quick demo I saw of Fan Groups, it felt like the rare new social tool that could be useful. Music is obviously an extremely social art, one that so many love sharing with other fans. Discovery is also a huge part of being a music fan, and I appreciate the fact that Amazon is building a way to get recommendations from other human beings and not just algorithms and AI. The only issue is that getting traction for a social network built inside of a specific service isn’t the easiest thing to do — you could just as easily share music on Facebook or any number of other apps. But the potential for finding new music and sharing what you’re into with other fellow obsessives make this feature worth a look once it fully launches.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/amazon-musics-fan-groups-are-a-refreshingly-old-school-way-to-share-and-find-tunes-150000084.html?src=rss