Xbox Promises More Gaming Consoles In The Future And Throws Shade At PS5 Pro
Microsoft’s latest holiday marketing campaign is all about how you can play Xbox games even without the actual console. “This is an Xbox,” the slogan reads as it lists laptops, smartphones, VR headsets, and other platform-agnostic devices. But despite doubling-down on the virtues of “play anywhere,” the company is…
The Rabbit R1 now lets you remake its whole interface
Photo: David Pierce / The Verge
The Rabbit R1 can now use AI to redesign the device’s entire interface based on a prompt. Some examples shared by Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu show a Legend of Zelda-inspired interface, another made in the style of Windows XP, and one using a “dark green scanline background.”
Though this seems like a fun way to customize the R1, Rabbit says responses on the AI-generated interfaces are “slower than the default UI on R1 and can take over 30 seconds to appear.” It suggests disabling this feature if you want the fastest responses possible.
''Generate UI in the style of The Legend of Zelda'' pic.twitter.com/uDGhgg5pbg
— Jesse Lyu (@jessechenglyu) November 14, 2024
You can turn on generative UI by logging into your rabbithole account, selecting...
The Verge’s 2024 holiday gift guide for new parents
Photo: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Some of us freshly anointed moms and dads pooled together our top tech picks that make early days with baby just a touch easier (or more fun and nerdy).
Ubisoft's Splinter Cell Movie Is Dead
Despite a recent spate of successful games-to-screen transitions—such as Fallout, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and Arcane—publisher Ubisoft continues its endless run of cinematic misfortune. The latest blow comes in the form of the long-planned Splinter Cell movie, which is now not going to happen.
Reblogged by kornel ("Kornel"):
rail_@bark.lgbt ("rail :neofox::therian:") wrote:
Many of you might already know that due to historical reasons, Japan uses two incompatible power systems with mismatched frequencies
That has its consequence in railways too
Meet Tokyo Central station. As you can see, western and eastern Shinkansen lines terminate here. They're not connected with each other and use different electrification depending on which part of the country the line goes to – 25kV 50Hz or 60Hz
Normal-speed lines use 1.5kV DC electrification
This small infodump was brought to you by @aroma who brought my attention to that detail
Attachments:
- Open Railway Map electrification layer. Shows Tokyo Central station with lines using 1.5kV (pass-tbrough normal speed lines) and two terminating Shinkansen lines, one using 25kV 50Hz and the other 25kV 60Hz (remote)
- Open Railway Map infrastructure layer showing details of lines going through/terminating at Tokyo Central station (remote)
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
How cloud computing became a global monopoly - Investors' Chronicle https://www.investorschronicle.co.uk/content/7ee67f8b-8f54-56f8-ae2e-ea649ee698ae
Amazon’s Fire TV Stick 4K Max has plunged to a record-low for Black Friday
Amazon’s latest Fire TV Stick 4K Max is a snappy streaming stick with impressive Alexa integration. | Image: Amazon
If you missed out on Amazon’s fall Prime Day event, the retailer’s early Black Friday sale is offering everybody another chance to score steep discounts on Amazon devices. One of the best deals currently available is on the latest Fire TV Stick 4K Max, which has dropped to an all-time low of $32.99 ($25 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.
Amazon’s latest streaming device is nearly identical to the last-gen model — which was once one of our top recommendations — only it features a number of iterative upgrades, including Wi-Fi 6E support and twice the storage (16GB). It can also display widgets and artwork when idle, much like recent TV offers from Hisense and TCL, and you can use it to create your own backgrounds using voice prompts...
Bluesky’s quest to be the next Twitter
Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge
Bluesky hit 15 million users this week. And then 16 million. The vibes on Bluesky are immaculate, and it seems to have a real and renewed chance to be the place that replaces Twitter for a lot of people. But then there’s Threads, which grew by approximately one Bluesky just this month. There’s also Mastodon, which is still hanging around, and of course there’s X. There are more options than ever, and it’s more confusing than ever.
On this episode of The Vergecast, we try and make sense of all this change. Will all this new growth and momentum help Bluesky grow not just as an app but as a decentralized protocol? Is it a real threat to ActivityPub and the notion of the fediverse? Do we know yet what kind of social network wants to be? And...
Dune: Prophecy is a slow and cerebral meditation on the power of patience
Image: HBO
HBO’s new Dune prequel series sharpens the Bene Gesserit’s history into pointed drama that calls for some patience.
fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻") wrote:
Computational Power and AI - AI Now Institute https://ainowinstitute.org/publication/policy/compute-and-ai#h-what-is-compute-and-why-does-it-matter
He's 14. He loves soccer. He's the sole caregiver for his little twin brothers
Mahamat Djouma is one of the millions displaced by the civil war in Sudan. He is part of an especially vulnerable group — unaccompanied minors. Here is his story.
Bitfinex hacker receives five-year sentence for record-breaking crypto heist
Nick Barclay / The Verge
The hacker behind one of the biggest-ever cryptocurrency heists will serve five years in prison for conspiring with his wife to launder billions in stolen Bitcoin. Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein was sentenced in Washington federal court Thursday after he admitted to hacking the Bitfinex crypto exchange in 2016 and stealing almost 120,000 Bitcoin tokens.
Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Morgan were arrested in 2022, and in August last year both pled guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering. The stolen cryptocurrency, worth around $71 million at the time of the theft, had soared in value to approximately $4.5 billion by the time Lichtenstein and Morgan were arrested. Valued at today’s prices, the stolen funds would be worth an even more...
Google Photos Partner Sharing is less of a snitch now
Illustration: The Verge
Google has placed some new limitations on a Google Photos feature that allows users to automatically share images and videos in their library with a partner. The update to Partner Sharing now means that users can only share photos or videos that were taken using their device’s default camera app, meaning partners are unable to see screenshots or images shared on services like WhatsApp.
Some Reddit users who utilize Partner Sharing initially reported the issue as a bug, but several comments made by a presumed Google employee say the change was intentionally made “to better align with most users’ expectations.” This is backed up by an updated Partner Sharing help article that says “photos from other apps on Android aren’t shared with your...
Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
ianwelsh@mstdn.social ("Ian Welsh") wrote:
"The last time a government seriously slashed government workers, under Clinton, all that happened is that contractors were hired to do the work: and contractors cost more. Nor has there been any real increase in federal employees in decades."
https://www.ianwelsh.net/doge-will-wind-up-costing-the-government-more-money/
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
the power of the President to adjourn the Houses of Congress has never been exercised:
“Article II, Section 3:
… may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper”
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S3-1/ALDE_00013550/
RFK Jr. tapped to run HHS. And, the bond market's impact on Trump's economic plans
President-elect Donald Trump taps RFK Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services. Here's why experts are worried. And, how the U.S. bond market could upend Trump's economic plans.
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
yup:
“By tapping Gaetz to be the highest law enforcement official in the land, Trump has done us the favor of stripping away whatever plausible deniability remained about his intentions. It’s a show of dominance directed more at Republicans than Democrats, meant to make them abase themselves by acquiescing to a nomination they know is indefensible.”
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
a powerful voice:
pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:
My respect for Mike Tyson just shot upwards.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/11/15/thats-beautiful-man/
How to approach the holidays with people you deeply disagree with
Code Switch weighs in on how to prepare for difficult political conversations and when to draw the line and uninvite yourself from that family potluck.
Police welcome Trump's return to the White House
Police officers backed Trump's reelection, but police reform advocates wonder what that will mean for police accountability
Trump’s Defense Secretary Pick Hopes for a Christian Crusade
On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump announced former Fox News host Pete Hegseth was his pick for secretary of defense. The choice is iconoclastic to say the least. Although Hegseth served as an Army National Guard officer, he has no experience in government leadership that could inform the management of the federal government’s largest agency. What […]
Oil Industry Openly Encourages Trump to Roll Back Crucial Climate Policies
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. America’s oil industry released its wish list for the incoming Trump administration on Tuesday, a five-point plan that would eliminate many of the Biden administration’s most far-reaching efforts to reduce climate pollution and limit the warming that is driving ever […]
The treaty between Russia and North Korea signals a new era on 2 continents
The recently signed mutual defense treaty could be used to justify thewidening of the war in Ukraine, as the U.S. says North Korean and Russian troops are already battling Ukrainian forces.
What's behind defense secretary pick Hegseth's war on 'woke'
The selection of Fox News host Pete Hegseth to lead the Trump Defense Department has renewed scrutiny of his political and religious views and his aggressive criticism of the military he would be leading.
At Tiananmen Square, tight security with metal detectors reflects a changing China
There's a police check to exit the subway, another to get in line, a third while standing in line, and metal detectors and X-ray machines before you finally reach the Beijing landmark.
One thing Trump and Obama have in common: a fondness for 'czars'
Trump is the latest president to appoint a czar to deal with a particular issue — in this case, the border. But what does that mean? A look at the controversial history of government czars.
Outspent 4-to-1, Republicans still made gains in state legislative elections
Despite outspending Republicans, Democrats didn't achieve some ambitious goals in state legislative races. The GOP continues to control more legislatures, though Democrats notched some victories.
Sen. Chris Murphy: Democrats need to listen to working and poor people
Steve Inskeep speaks with Senator Chris Murphy about how the democratic party rebuilds after its election loss.
Don't give your family food poisoning this holiday season. Follow this illustrated guide
Protect your loved ones from foodborne illnesses with this refresher course on food safety. Experts offer guidance on how long to leave food out, when to toss leftovers and more.
Reblogged by nadim@infosec.exchange ("Nadim Kobeissi"):
soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:
A while ago, I announced that I was going to build #E2EE for the Fediverse, so that we might have private direct messaging.
Then I stumbled over the lack of available tooling for Key Transparency in a federated environment. So I started working on a specification for a Public Key Directory server.
I'm happy to announce that I finally have all my ideas on paper.
https://github.com/fedi-e2ee/public-key-directory-specification/tree/main
This specification is not complete. It still needs:
- Additional rounds of copy-editing, to ensure terms are consistent and easily understood.2. Peer review, especially from cryptography experts.3. A reference implementation.4. Machine-verifiable security proofs of the security of the protocols described.5. More peer review.6. Third-party testing of the reference implementation.7. Other people's ideas.
That last one is optional, but if anyone identifies an opportunity to make this project more successful, I'd love to hear it.
nadim@infosec.exchange ("Nadim Kobeissi") wrote:
I'm not exactly convinced (yet!) that Bluesky will end up meaningfully replacing X, but I could be wrong, and it's not a bad platform! So, consider following me there in case you use it. I'll try to use it more. https://bsky.app/profile/nadim.computer
South Africa's government won't help the illegal miners inside a closed mine
Miners are believed to be suffering from a lack of food, water and other basic necessities after police closed off the entrances used to transport supplies.
Masses of residents flee homes in Haiti's capital as gangs ratchet up violence
Violence has exploded in Port-au-Prince since Sunday when the Haiti's interim prime minister was fired amid political infighting.
Reblogged by jakedel@mamot.fr ("S. Delafond"):
rhertzog@hachyderm.io ("Raphaël Hertzog") wrote:
Saying hi to the fediverse (with my brand new account) from the #minidebconf #toulouse where we had a pleasant first day of mini-debcamp. Picture is from early in the morning when it was not yet crowded and with a majority of persons involved in @freexian (and a #debian project leader on the right).
Attachments:
slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
#perfnow slides will be up at some point, but the TL;DR is toot-sized: the web is losing, in part because the frontend discourse has been captured by charlatans and fabulists. It's hurting users, and drawing attention away from urgent problems that are keeping the web from competing.
The #webperf community is a rare island of sanity where still evidence beats bluster. We owe it to our future selves to help clients reject the lemons the JS-industrial-complex keeps trying to pass off as gems.
Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
heatherhorns_lite@plush.city ("spiders") wrote:
PSA: You're not allowed to mock people for asking a question instead of using Google now. Maybe they want a quick and correct answer, you know?
Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
exchgr@mastodon.world ("elle mundy") wrote:
the derplomat https://journa.host/@w7voa/113483735579256708
Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):
lcamtuf@infosec.exchange ("lcamtuf :verified: :verified: :verified:") wrote:
I keep coming back to this, but *hug your content creator today*.
The internet has a bystander problem. We discover insightful content on the web, we assume the author already received the spoils - and we move on.
To offer a personal anecdote, I'm the author of afl-fuzz. It's been used by tens of thousands of folks - for hobby, for work, to elevate academic careers. I fielded hundreds of bug reports and feature requests - and perhaps two or three personal "thank you" notes.
Today, I'm running lcamtuf.substack.com. Some articles get 50k+ views. It works the same: there are far more folks keen to point out errors or post contrarian takes on HN.
I'm not fishing for compliments for myself. It's just that, the next time you come across a useful OSS project or an interesting blog, drop the author a note. No one else does.
internetarchive@mastodon.archive.org wrote:
New update from @brewsterkahle on how the Internet Archive is learning from recent cyberattacks.
🔗 https://blog.archive.org/2024/11/14/learning-from-cyberattacks/
So far I've only made it halfway through "A", but I can confirm my suspicion that this book is the 1863 edition of the Monster Manual.
"Burned alive for building a clockwork robot" is a surprisingly recurrent theme.
Attachments:
davidgerard@circumstances.run ("David Gerard") wrote:
Ed Zitron yelling abuse at CEOs for twenty-three minutes
luckytran@med-mastodon.com ("Dr. Lucky Tran :verified:") wrote:
So... now would be a really bad time to risk having another pandemic start *stares in bird flu*
I'm totally going to rename the devices in my home network. ugod, raekwon, method, dirty, rza, gza, ghostface, etc. Wu-Tang LAN.
Trump picks North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to lead the Interior Department
Burgum ran in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. He then became a vocal supporter of Preesident-elect Donald Trump and was shortlisted for the GOP vice presidential nomination.
The world’s biggest battery maker says Elon Musk’s 4680 cell ‘is going to fail’
Image: Tesla
Robin Zeng, the founder of the world’s largest EV battery company, says Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s big bet on 4680 cylindrical cell technology “is going to fail and never be successful.” Zeng, the chairman of China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), tells Reuters that when Musk visited China in April, “We had a very big debate, and I showed him. He was silent. He doesn’t know how to make a battery.”
Tesla’s “tabless” 4680 cells, which are used in some of its cars, including the Cybertruck, are supposed to have “five times” more energy capacity, and the company announced in September it had produced 100 million of them. A recent report by The Information said Musk had given the team working on the batteries an end of the year deadline...
Trump names former Georgia congressman Doug Collins as his pick to lead the VA
Collins served in the House from 2013 to 2021 and was a key defender of the president-elect during his first impeachment proceedings.
Texas company, supervisor indicted in fatal 2021 trench collapse
A Bastrop, Texas, man was working in a trench when it collapsed. He died a week later.
Trump picks his lawyer, Todd Blanche, as deputy attorney general
Blanche, a former federal prosecutor, represented Trump in several of his legal cases, including in his landmark federal conviction in New York.
Decentralised social media site Bluesky has gone down under the load of new users.
Not to worry, I'll just use one of the other decentralised instances. One of the many wonders of decentralisation.
... What do you mean, there aren't any?
... If a central server goes down, I can't get onto this oh-so-decentralised network?
I guess this must just be how decentralisation works!
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary-Designate of Health and Human Services:
“There is no vaccine that is safe and effective.”
The best instant cameras you can buy right now
Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge
We found the best cameras for your budget and needs.
Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
oliphant@oliphant.social ("Oliphantom Menace") wrote:
I don't know. People want to be in "the place" and they want to be where the other people are and AOC isn't joining Mastodon and Barack Obama isn't joining Mastodon and my ex-wife just found out that Mastodon exists at all like...yesterday? Because I told her?
You are comparing a place that is basically a single user experience, where the tech and the user experience itself, the entirety of "The Bluesky experience" is created by a small, tight, and apparently very well-paid team of technical experts. They have literally millions of dollars at their disposal.
Meanwhile, over here we have the dinky little DIY nerd internet, where people write code for free and host the infrastructure for fun and have ZERO millions of dollars and most of us are getting paid almost nothing, and there's no single shared software, much less anything you could truly call a single contiguous place even as we refer to this as "the fediverse" or "this place" or "on here" it's really not, it's truly decentralized, and my slice of the fedi looks different than yours because we follow different people.
There's no well-paid onboarding team or user experience team or fuck, there's not even a "design team" because that would imply a centralized staff (ie., bluesky or X or Meta developers).
There's people making software so people can host their own social media. Many are almost doing this work for free. They have no large investment capital, and often are doing this in addition to their real day job, for the love of it, because they believe in a mission of social media anyone can use and host, and a space that truly isn't owned by anyone, which no one can shut down.
And this little DIY nerd vehicle, "this place" it still gains more users, every month, little by little. Sometimes an ebb, sometimes a flow, but this is without a marketing department, without an MBA, without VC funding, honestly, largely without capitalism.
It's a miracle, and I think we should be realistic about what we should expect.
Not seeing "the big numbers" doesn't really mean anything to me. We were never going to compete with the "new place" and the "one experience" and if you've ever used an iPhone you'll understand the advantages of centralization, and controlling an entire technical ecosystem, and how onboarding and UX is utilized to make adoption easier.
Also, how easily you can use millions of dollars of investment to look like a 'serious bet' to the rest of the world, or get your name in the media, and to drive recognition and adoption.
What the fedi can do better than just about anything else is be affordable self-hosted ownerless ad-free social media in perpetuity. That will always have an appeal and it will still be here, waiting, when the other platforms (from which we can steal all their good ideas while jettisoning all the predatory bad ones) have enshittified or changed ownership to baby Hitler.
Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
codewiz@mstdn.io ("Bernie") wrote:
While visiting the Smithsonian Space Museum in DC, I spotted something I had never seen before: the console of the mythical Apollo Mission Simulator.
It's the first "multiplayer game", running on mainframes, flight computers and other ground equipment networked across multiple buildings.
Attachments:
Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
digiphile ("Alex Howard") wrote:
After discovering it was targeted by a disinformation campaign, REPORTERS SANS FRONTIÈRES flagged accounts responsible. X did not remove posts. Now, RSF is suing X in France “for its complicity in disseminating false information, misrepresentation and identity theft.” https://rsf.org/en/rsf-presses-criminal-charges-against-x-formerly-twitter-its-participation-identity-theft-and
Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
willoremus@threads.net ("Will Oremus") wrote:
Not as dramatic as Threads or Bluesky, but Mastodon creator Eugen Rochko told me Mastodon is also growing, with signups up 27% so far in November. From my chat with him yesterday:
Attachments:
- Text of chat message from Mastodon creator Eugen Rochko to Washington Post reporter Will Oremus on Nov. 13, 2024: Our sign-ups are about 27% higher within the last 30 days compared to the preceding 30 days. I am counting about 90k new user accounts in that period. The total number of registered accounts on all Mastodon servers is 9M today, and the most recent MAU number is 886K. These are numbers for Mastodon servers only -- the fediverse which Mastodon is part of may be bigger. While Mastodon may not be the biggest by numbers today, it's proven itself to be an effective and reliable communications platform over the course of the last 8 years, and does not depend on venture capital to survive. Our small team is working continuously on making this social media app easier and more delightful to use. (remote)
Reblogged by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
EuromaidanPress ("Euromaidan Press") wrote:
The EU Parliament passed a resolution urging the EU to impose sanctions on Russia's ''shadow fleet'', which enables the country to sell oil while circumventing sanctions.
The resolution calls for restrictions on anyone involved with this shadow fleet.
📷 European Parliament
Attachments:
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
there seems to be another out-migration from theBirdSite alla-sudden. a bunch of my old group from there have suddenly shown up on BlueSky, & The Guardian has finally abandoned Musk’s no longer shiny new toy.
Fortnite's Default Texture Looks Like 'Mold' Because Of A Choice Tim Sweeney Made In The '90s
A confused Fortnite player noticed something while playing the popular free-to-play battle royale shooter and posted a screenshot on Twitter. In the shared image, it looked as if a weird picture of mold had popped up in the game. Why was there mold in Fortnite? Turns out, you can blame Epic CEO Tim Sweeney and a…
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
but but but… I thought that was a satire site?
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-nominates-head-of-cia?r=4mlta7&utm_medium=email
Reblogged by cmiksche ("Christoph Miksche"):
Review of "Facebook - Weltmacht am Abgrund" (4 stars): Very Detailed
Attachments:
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
huh, BlueSky is running at the speed of snail…
jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:
from a Guardian email:
“…we are no longer posting from any official Guardian editorial accounts on the social media site X (formerly Twitter). We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our content elsewhere.”
good.
Oklahoma City cop is investigated for slamming 70-year-old man to the ground
Lich Vu has been in the hospital since the Oct. 27 incident that left him with a brain bleed and a broken neck. The altercation with the police officer involved a dispute over a traffic ticket.
NASA’s AI Earth Copilot will take your questions about our planet
Image: NASA
NASA is teaming up with Microsoft to create an AI chatbot designed to make it easier to access and understand scientific data about the Earth. The tool, called Earth Copilot, will be able to answer questions about our planet by condensing NASA’s wide swath of geospatial information into easy-to-digest responses.
To create the tool, NASA is integrating AI into its data repository, allowing Earth Copilot to refer to this information when answering questions, such as “What was the impact of Hurricane Ian in Sanibel Island?” or “How did the COVID-19 pandemic affect air quality in the US?”
NASA aims to “democratize” access to scientific data with the launch of Earth Copilot, as obtaining and understanding the information within NASA’s...
One of the Greenest States Just Voted Against Electrification
Voters in Washington state narrowly passed a measure to preserve “energy choice” and block the state from discouraging natural gas—delivering a significant blow to climate efforts in one of the country’s greenest states. After days of counting, the measure, I-2066, passed Thursday with about 52 percent support, according to the Associated Press. I-2066, as I […]
Posting just to show I’m alive 🙂
Attachments:
Pokémon TCG Pocket will let you trade cards starting early next year
The Pokemon Company
Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has been a big hit since its worldwide launch last month, and the team behind it has shared a brief roadmap of a couple updates to come — including the ability to trade cards with other people.
“We are aiming to add a feature that allows certain cards to be traded starting in January, 2025,” according to an update from the team on the official Pokémon forums. “We are planning to gradually expand the selection of cards that are able to be traded.” It’s unclear what cards will initially be available to trade, and hopefully the expansion of the list doesn’t take too long.
The game will also get new booster packs by the end of this year. And there are other new features in the works in addition to trading,...
This Cozy Open-World Sim Could Still Become One Of 2024's Biggest Games
Infinity Nikki was cutting it close, but it turns out the cozy open-world game will sneak out right in time to close out 2024. The game looks like Just Cause inside an anime cottagecore feed and it’s coming out on December 5.
Two Of Mortal Kombat 1's Three Ghostfaces Are Existing MK Characters (But They Won't Say Who)
Ghostface arrives in Mortal Kombat 1 later this month. The iconic killer from the Scream films is a bit of a horror movie oddball as each one has been a different person, often working with others. And that’s true in Mortal Kombat 1, too. Plus two of the killers are actually mysterious Mortal Kombat characters.
Are debt collectors calling you about a zombie 2nd mortgage?
Old loans that homeowners thought were long dead have been rising from the grave as debt buyers move to collect. Some are allegedly breaking the law. If this is happening to you, tell us your story.
Game of Thrones' Sophie Turner Is About To Become Lara Croft For Tomb Raider Series
The Queen of the North is about to become a gun-toting British archeologist. According to recent reports, Game of Thrones Sophie Turner is set to play the lead role of Lara Croft in Amazon’s Prime Video’s upcoming Tomb Raider TV series.
Overwatch Classic Has Players Once Again Killing Each Other With A Basketball
Overwatch 2 is running a limited-time event called Overwatch Classic that reverts the game to its original roster, rulesets, and hero kits. It’s miserable to go back to, especially if you have no nostalgia for Overwatch as it existed in 2016. However, it is bringing back some old meme-y strategies from back in the…
Teenage Engineering’s new OP–XY makes me wish I had a bigger budget for music gear
The Teenage Engineering OP-XY feels like an upgraded version of the company’s six-year-old OP-Z. | Image: Teenage Engineering
Teenage Engineering’s new OP-XY is a portable synthesizer and sequencer that looks similar to the company’s OP–1 Field. But functionally it’s instead a more capable upgrade to the company’s six-year-old OP-Z, with a stronger focus on layering sounds with various effects and a steeper $2,299 price tag.
With an “anodized, all-black finish,” the OP-XY is yet another delightful example of Teenage Engineering’s design chops. Its black and white motif accented with a grayscale gradient running across its 16 sequencer inputs is the antithesis of the bright yellow Playdate handheld that Teenage Engineering helped Panic design. Unlike the $429 OP-Z that relied on a mobile device like a smartphone for its screen, the OP-XY now has a black and...
Argentina's Leader Celebrates Trump's Election; a Possible New Country in Europe
In Argentina, President Javier Milei is celebrating both the success of this radical cost cutting in lowering inflation and the re-election of Donald Trump in the U.S. The ultra-libertarian has said that he wants to "make Argentina great again" and is travelling to Florida to congratulate Trump in person. We hear how Argentinians are reacting. And without a war, a revolution or even a debate, plans for a brand new country were announced by Albania's prime minister. We learn why.
Trump picks RFK Jr. for health role
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a former presidential candidate who has a history of spreading conspiracy theories, including about vaccines — is poised to have a key health role in the Trump administration.
Targets of Trump's threats brace for the new administration
President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly promised to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived enemies during his campaign. Now, some of his targets are preparing.
TikTok plugs Getty Images into its AI-generated ads and avatars
Image: The Verge
TikTok will let advertisers pull in content from Getty Images when using the platform’s AI ad creation tool. With the integration, advertisers can use Getty’s licensed images and videos to make ads containing AI-generated content, including AI avatars that look like real people.
The integration will be available through TikTok’s Symphony Creative Studio — an AI-powered video generation tool that rolled out today for all advertisers. This tool can generate a video based on a product description, add an AI avatar to “speak” about it, and even incorporate AI-powered dubbing in different languages. Advertisers can also use the tool to generate multiple versions of an ad, as well as “remix” an existing one.
GIF: TikTok
T...
'Historic' drop in U.S. overdose deaths accelerates as fentanyl crisis eases
A new CDC report shows at least 16,000 lives were saved over a 12-month period. Experts say the U.S. is experiencing the biggest drop in fatal overdoses seen since the opioid crisis began in the 90s.
dnalounge@sfba.social ("DNA Lounge") wrote:
♬️ MINKA at DNA Lounge tonight: Thu Nov 14, 8pm!
https://www.dnalounge.com/calendar/2024/11-14d.html
#dnalounge #minka #hottakes #topsecretrobotalliance #indie #synthfunk #nextwave #synthpop #livemusic #concert #sanfrancisco
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You can save up to $270 on the Garmin Fenix 7S Pro and other Garmin watches
It’s hard to find a fitness watch that tracks as many workouts and metrics as the Fenix 7 Pro series. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Garmin makes some of the best traditional multisport fitness watches, and one of its top models still commands a spot on our list of the best fitness trackers: the Garmin Fenix 7S Pro. Now through Cyber Monday, you can get that watch for just $529.99 ($270 off) at Wellbots when using the Verge-exclusive code VERGEBF270. That code will also work on the base Fenix 7 Pro ($529.99 after the discount), the Fenix 7X Pro (down to $629.99), and the Garmin Tactix 7 ($829.99). These are some of the lowest prices recorded yet.
Wellbots is also offering all-time low prices on other Garmin wearables and devices as part of its early Black Friday promotion. You can save $120 on the Garmin Forerunner 265 (now just $329.99) and Forerunner 965 ($479.99)...
pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:
What was this juvenile orbweaver doing outside, in Minnesota, in November?
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/11/14/they-just-gravitate-to-me-i-guess/
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Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
cwebber@social.coop ("Christine Lemmer-Webber") wrote:
Time for an #introduction... again!
My name is Christine Lemmer-Webber, I'm co-author/co-editor of the ActivityPub standard which connects together the fediverse (Mastodon, Peertube, Sharkey, GotoSocial, etc). In other words, I'm one of several people who worked on the specification by which you're getting this very message!
I'm also Executive Director of the Spritely Institute! We're making next-generation decentralized tech https://spritely.institute
I moved here from @cwebber@octodon.social! Hello again!
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Twinkly’s smart holiday string lights have dropped to a new low price
Twinkly’s colorful string lights are more than half off at Amazon.
Believe it or not, but it’s almost time to put up the holiday lights. If you’re looking for string lights that’ll really make your house stand out this year, Twinkly’s Strings deliver some of the most dazzling effects available. They typically run $199.99, but right now, you can buy the 105-foot string with 400 LED lights at Amazon for a new low of $79 thanks to an on-page coupon.
Each of Twinkly’s LED lights can display more than 16 million colors and are individually addressable, allowing them to produce a festive “twinkly” effect. You can also choose from dozens of universal effects, along with some more advanced animations that are unique to Twinkly’s platform. You can, for instance, create your own effects, and Twinkly will even...
Fortnite’s new TMNT roguelike shows the potential for user-made games
Image: Epic Games
Fortnite’s next big partnership with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is here. Epic Games already lets players dress up as the Turtles, and now, creators can publish experiences built with TMNT assets and the Unreal Editor for Fortnite.
As a demonstration of what’s possible, Paramount teamed up with Spiral House (which has made other Fortnite experiences), to make a TMNT-themed beat-em-up / roguelike, TMNT Dimensions [Rougelike], that you can play inside Fortnite right now. (You can find it by searching for code 8651-4809-2485.) A lot of user-made Fortnite experiences look somewhat amateur, but this seems like a game you might actually want to play outside of Fortnite, especially if you’re already a fan of TMNT’s other arcade-y brawlers.
E...
Lady Gaga Appearing In Wednesday Season 2 Is A Match Made In Weirdo Heaven
The next stop on Lady Gaga’s years-long tour through the weirdest corners of film and television could be Nevermore Academy. According to Variety, the Oscar-winning star is set to appear in the second season of Netflix’s Wednesday, yet not as it was originally planned.
Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):
ajroach42@retro.social ("Andrew (Television Executive)") wrote:
One thing about 80s and early 90s pre-internet counterculture that current internet counterculture misses pretty hard is the culture of publication and curation.
I don't know what's got me thinking about this so much this morning, but I am, so it's time to talk about it.
In the 80s and 90s, if you wanted other people to find something you had to put in some effort. You had to make a physical artifact, a mixtape or a zine or whatever, and you had to include all the information they'd need on that artifact, because there was no way to bootstrap discovery from nothing. All discovery was dependent on either a social layer or a publication layer or a social publication layer.
They told insurers a bear damaged their car. But it was actually a person in a costume
Four LA residents allegedly defrauded multiple insurance companies of over $141,000. A wildlife expert who reviewed footage of the incidents said that the culprit was "clearly a human in a bear suit."
How the CDC could change under the next Trump administration
If the new administration embraces proposals to cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's budget and its mission, the public health agency could look very different than it does today.
Apple's Video Game Industry Satire Gets Season 4 Release Date And Spin-Off
Mythic Quest season 4 finally has a release date. Apple TV’s workplace comedy starring Rob McElhenney and Charlotte Nicdao about a video game studio and its lovable but emotionally stunted staff returns for another raft of episodes in January. This time around, however, the show is also getting a micro-spin-off series…
10 Games To Play After Metaphor ReFantazio
Metaphor: ReFantazio is a stunning RPG that exemplifies almost everything that makes Atlus-developed games great. With the social elements of Persona, battle mechanics from Shin Megami Tensei, a mix of real-time and turn-based combat, and a traditional RPG class system, there is an enormous amount to love about Metapho…
That Half-Life 2 Remaster Is Looking Really Good In New Trailer
Last year, Nvidia announced that a group of talented modders were working on fully remastering Half-Life 2, including adding new textures, models, and ray-traced visuals. And now, a new trailer shows us more of this impressive-looking project that turns Half-Life 2 into a sleek-looking modern FPS.
The Best Cards from Pokémon TCG Pocket’s Genetic Apex Expansion
Pokémon TCG Pocket has introduced a decent amount of cards through its Genetic Apex expansion. And even though all of its many currencies and systems can make for a confusing impression, it didn’t take long for players to figure out metas. And now we can share that information with you! From the three available…
Everything We Learned About The Next Big Trails RPG
The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II will arrive in the West early next year, less than 12 months after its predecessor finally found its way stateside. While the sequel doesn’t sound like it will be as good of a jumping-on point as the first Trails Through Daybreak was, it will bring some meaningful…