Last week at the Zurich Film Festival, Eline Van der Velden – founder and CEO of AI production house Particle6 and its subsidiary talent studio Xicoia – said that a number of talent agents had expressed interest in working with Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated “actress” created by the companies. Van der Velden has not gone […]
Recently, I dug out my old Nintendo 3DS because I was craving simpler times. Really, I just wanted to play some games; to chip away at the mystery of Majora’s Mask, or solve a few puzzles in BoxBoy, without the headaches of system updates or subscriptions or any of that stuff. It’s been refreshing. And […]
Electronic Arts just announced that it is going to be acquired and taken private in a massive $55 billion deal led by an investor group composed of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners. The deal, expected to close in Q1 of EA’s 2027 fiscal year (which takes place from April […]
This week, Amazon will launch new Echo hardware designed to supercharge Alexa Plus, the AI-powered upgrade to its voice assistant. I’ve been using Alexa Plus for the last few months as part of its Early Access program, and while the new assistant is off to a promising start, it’s still clearly a work in progress. […]
We watched LA burn this year. If you’re not from around here, you might have seen it unfold in the news like so many other infernos. Neighborhoods in ashes. People in shock. I was nearby when it happened in January, visiting home from New York to attend a family member’s funeral. As a climate journalist, […]
When Microsoft announced the launch date of its first Asus-powered handhelds without announcing prices, I had hoped it was a sign the leaked prices were too high. I had hoped Microsoft would subsidize them the same way it subsidized the Xbox itself. Maybe it would send a shockwave through the handheld market like the Steam […]
Microsoft is making advances with a new way to cool microchips that it says could lead to more energy-efficient data centers in the future. It’s a method called microfluidics that involves liquid coolant flowing directly into the silicon. After lab tests, Microsoft found that this strategy can remove heat up to three times better than […]
In the past few Pokémon games for the Nintendo Switch, the character customization options have been so limited that they sometimes felt like an afterthought. Though there were plenty of hair styles and clothes to choose from in Sword / Shield, Legends: Arceus put more emphasis on standardized outfits that made your trainer look more […]
Even if AI turns out not to be as much of an energy hog as people are making it out to be, it could still spell out trouble for power grids across the US. Tech companies are already burning through increasing amounts of electricity to train and run new AI models. And they’re asking for […]
When Disney-owned ABC put Jimmy Kimmel Live on indefinite suspension, the broadcaster’s logic was easy to understand: Kimmel’s joke – a riff on the way Donald Trump started talking about construction on the White House’s new ballroom after being asked how he felt about Charlie Kirk being shot – was mild. But the bit prompted […]