ShareSaveCommentInnovation Gaming‘The Last Of Us’ Season 2, Episode 4 Recap And Review: So Much For Happy Proud Rainbow TownByErik Kain Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights entertainment & culture.Follow AuthorMay 04 Season 2 of The Last Of Us has been a bit of a mixed bag so far with some really gripping moments and some odd choices that got the season off to a wobbly start I’m pleased to say that it’s finally found its footing in the fourth episode I’ve had many complaints about the casting in this show and like many others have worried about Bella Ramsey’s ability to play an older The Season 2 premiere really had me worried though I still blame odd writing choices more than Ramsey reckless and obnoxious teenager rather than the older version of the character she ought to be by now it appears the writers were doing exactly what I suspected: Making Ellie act that way so that her change following Joel’s death would be more obvious I still think we could have done without that degree of contrast but at least we’ve gotten to a point where the show’s version of Ellie is more in line with the game the show is based on The scene that really won me over this episode is taken straight from the game Ellie finds a guitar in a music shop that her and Dina come to tunes it up and begins playing Take On Me by a-ha Dina’s reaction – at first happily listening in before wiping away tears – really nailed the tone down I’ve often described the video game as overly bleak but I sometimes forget that it also had these really terrific character moments Little pockets of beauty to give us a breather from all the horror and one thing I’ve really enjoyed about this season compared to the first is the doubling-down on the sheer number of infected our heroes encounter The Battle Of Jackson certainly had plenty intense scene in the Seattle subway as Ellie and Dina run first from the Wolves and then from a horde of zombies Ellie ends up saving Dina as they try to push through a jammed turnstyle by thrusting her arm into an infected’s mouth having never revealed her immunity to Dina this leads to some tense moments where it looks as though Dina might shoot her on the spot Ellie is forced to tell her the truth at this point and when Dina has no choice but to accept it she makes her own confession: She’s pregnant with Jesse’s baby She was throwing up a lot and it was pretty obvious that she found a pregnancy test at the beginning of the episode Ellie is understandably worried about her and tells her she doesn’t have to come with her to find Abby The two end up making out after these revelations I found this a bit awkward only because Ramsey still looks like she’s fourteen it’s nice to see these two find some happiness and release in such dire straits The Wolves and the Scars are killing each other left and right as the two ride through Seattle they notice some rainbow flags “Why are there so many rainbows?” Dina asks since neither of them know the LGBTQ symbolism they represent when they find a bunch of dead FEDRA soldiers Ellie quips: “So much for happy proud town.” I got a good chuckle out of that This is a show that very much needs all the comic relief it can scrape together the factions are also what bother me the most right now They were a rebel force fighting against FEDRA earlier in the apocalypse and in many ways they’ve become the very thing they once hated Isaac – played by Westworld alum Jeffrey Wright – who was once a FEDRA commander until he turned on his own men we see him torturing and interrogating a Scar fanatic burning his flesh away with hot copper pans because Wolves are joining the Seraphite cult every day They fight with knives and bows and arrows They don’t use electricity or modern technology if you go up against a force with machine guns you’re going to lose History is littered with such confrontations the war provides some extra layers of conflict for our heroes to navigate as they search for Abby Speaking of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) we still haven’t seen her or her pals since Episode 2 The big question I have is whether we’ll see her at all until the finale and whether that means Season 3 will follow the same route as the video game That seems more and more likely given the time we have left in the season this was a very strong episode which definitely helped deepen the chemistry and dynamic between the two main characters and gave us some really great zombie action (I know they’re not actually zombies but they may as well be) The musical moment was by far my favorite and gives me hope that other big musical bits from the game will appear later on in flashbacks ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingNew Report Explains Why The MCU Has Been Mostly Bad Since ‘Endgame’ByPaul Tassi movies and the internet.Follow AuthorMay 04 01:48pm EDTShareSaveCommentThunderbolts: Not bad Thunderbolts is currently on pace to be a big win for Marvel and what looks like it’s going to be a solid box office haul That of course, has been something of a rarity in the post-Endgame era, with perilously few exceptions. Now, a new Wall Street Journal report dives into what apparently happened here speaks onstage during the Marvel Studios Panel in .. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney) The idea overall appears to be…make less stuff but I think we’re still in a questionable era at the moment Thunderbolts and Daredevil: Born Again aside and we may have to get through a bunch of mucky productions before this full reset happens And the thing I’m worried about the most right now is Avengers Doomsday and Secret Wars Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase ShareSaveCommentInnovation Gaming‘The Walking Dead: Dead City’ Season 2, Episode 1 Review — How Much Stupid Can You Fit In One Episode?ByErik Kain 11:05pm EDTShareSaveCommentThe Walking Dead Dead City It’s become quite clear that the entire strategy and point of The Walking Dead: Dead City is just to capitalize on Negan nostalgia There are far more reasons not to waste your time I think the best way to talk about this episode is to just go through the list of silly This isn’t the most ridiculous show in the Walking Dead universe but it shares all the other spinoffs’ habits of inserting all kinds of nonsensical crap into the plot Let’s list some of this episode’s headscratcher moments: but one of those little throwing knives you use for target practice But what would have happened if he’d hit the deer with that tiny knife it might have cut the deer if he threw it with enough force to penetrate its hide you cannot hunt deer with tiny throwing knives You could probably have killed that stupid CGI deer with a throwing knife Maggie agrees to go back to NYC with the New Babylon group if they agree not to conscript anyone for the mission and then sends them on dangerous missions the very next day If anyone tries to get out of conscription being a good upstanding individual with morals One of the New Babylon leaders ask the marshal from last season if she’s really “worth twenty people” and he says he thinks so they round up about twenty zombies in a little horse corral which Maggie has to fight to “prove” herself the teenager who Negan was protecting last season so the two of them fight the zombies together they don’t try to kill any from across the fence they just barrel into a corral filled with nearly two dozen zombies and fight them with knives why would you “test” one of your most prized soldiers who is volunteering for your mission and has valuable intel about the target and location by putting them in a situation that (if it weren’t for plot armor) almost certainly means death The plot armor really evaporates any possible tension in this scene so it all just feels like a waste of time and yet another moment to make New Babylon leadership look like mustache-twirling cartoon villains the mustache-twirling villains have locked Negan up in a cell for the past year I guess he turned them down when the Dama gave him an opportunity within the organization at the end of Season 1 they threaten his family this time around and so he’s forced to help out the vying factions of NYC thugs into one unified force to fight off the New Babylon army who wants their zombie fuel Negan meets these two other factions at a zombie fight Remember when the Governor would have people fight zombies for sport and have the whole town watch these guys skip the human component and have two zombies fight How they get zombies to fight one another is We’ve never seen zombies fight one another before now but I guess when they’re put in a little makeshift arena they just ignore all the living flesh and brains around them and fight each other instead appear to be The Breastplate Gang and the Homeless People The New Babylonians all dress like Civil War reenactment actors They must have found a stash of uniforms somewhere Negan’s job is to give a speech and convince the other two factions to join the Dama’s group The Croat has made him a brand new Lucille bat (I guess Negan must have blabbed about it) but with a twist He’s included…some kind of button-activated zapper that knocks one of the faction leaders down I guess a nonlethal upgrade to a bat covered in barbed wire and nails is though I’m not sure why the Croat would want that when he wanted to go and she wanted him to say was just such painful melodrama Maggie looks cool and she’s a tough fighter but I still can’t handle her accent and it gets much worse when she’s in a Very Dramatic Scene I’m left wondering: What’s the point of this show It’s just another faction war between groups of people we care nothing about This entire franchise is just the same thing over and over again Factions fighting other factions endlessly No real arcs or tension because there are no real stakes flailing from one humdrum conflict to another It’s like the writers only have one idea and they just recycle it over and over again with a new batch of characters in a new location that we could frankly care less about It’s all so dreadfully generic and boring at this point ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingToday’s ‘Wordle’ #1416 Hints, Clues And Answer For Monday, May 5thByErik Kain but that just means the week is fresh and new It’s the day of the moon and a lovely day to solve some puzzles The Clue: This Wordle has double double letters Every day I check Wordle Bot to help analyze my guessing game. You can check your Wordles with Wordle Bot right here My first guess was CRIME and if there’s one thing I’ve learned using this particular word as an opener I was left with zero grey boxes and 463 remaining solutions This would have been a problem if SHOUT hadn’t made me want to twist and shout with joy because only one word remained: SHUSH for the win I get 1 point for guessing in three and 0 for tying the Bot and the Bot gets the exact same thing The word shush is an imitative or onomatopoeic term which comes from the very sound it’s imitating The word first appeared as a verb and interjection in the 19th century though the sound itself goes back to time immemorial ShareSaveCommentLeadership CareersIt’s Time To Get Concerned, Klarna, UPS, Duolingo, Cisco, And Many Other Companies Are Replacing Workers With AIByJack Kelly job market and workplace trends.Follow AuthorMay 04 09:52am EDTShareSaveCommentA human silhouette with a circuit-board pattern replacing the head reflects the intersection of .. The bold blue background highlights themes of artificial intelligence and the merging of human intuition with digital logic there is a big concern over whether or not their jobs will be impacted We’ve seen numerous occasions in which AI was used in corporate announcements with reports suggesting that AI now handles a significant portion of its customer interactions United Parcel Service (UPS) announced plans to lay off 20,000 workers marking one of the largest workforce reductions in its 116-year history CEO Carol Tomé highlighted that new technologies enabled these cuts by automating tasks like proposal generation for sales teams which previously required human pricing experts outlined a future whereby AI drives content creation Intuit aims to enhance efficiency and stay competitive in the rapidly evolving fintech sector Cisco Systems previously announced plans to lay off 7% of its workforce as part of a strategic pivot toward high-growth areas like AI and cybersecurity The company has been integrating AI into its networking solutions such as predictive analytics for network management and automated customer support systems ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingThe Final ‘Marathon’ Closed Alpha Review: How Did It Go?ByPaul Tassi movies and the internet.Follow AuthorMay 03 We are just 24 hours away from the end of the Marathon Closed Alpha a controversial outing for Bungie’s first new (well What was originally supposed to be an NDA-ed Alpha turned into one that ditched those NDAs seemingly to move past a recent gameplay showcase that many deemed underwhelming how did players getting hands-on with the game go I think there are two things to break down here namely the content of the Alpha itself and how it felt and then the larger reaction and story coming out of the Alpha in terms of impressions and reception while yes more action-focused extraction shooter than other entries in the genre This means attempting to please both existing extraction players and trying to pull in new players but splitting the difference has produced mixed results but it doesn’t exactly stand out if we’re talking about all-time shooter-maker Bungie and ran into controversy when PC players found they had intense aim assists where pushback was so forceful to that Bungie removed it entirely halfway through the Alpha More time is needed to see how that shakes out feel at least somewhat akin to Apex Legends fights “Hero” kits have special moves with long cooldowns but some have crazy bursts of mobility that don’t quite seem to connect with the style of play of the genre But “heat” stamina limits are a hard wall if you’re trying to make this a great-feeling Bungie actioner I don’t think the hero idea is a net positive for the game or a good twist on the genre and a custom character feels like it would have been the more engaging idea and this concept feels like it was jammed into the game because the Valorant director took over which make for solid sections of combat when other teams are not around can introduce a wild dynamic that makes things more intense I can see this expanded more broadly (though this also makes me wish this was a PvE extraction game like Helldivers The game is just brutal for solo players where future plans do not seem like they will meaningfully address that issue as the game relentlessly focuses on team games for launch Playing with randoms often results in counter-goals or teammates running off or dying easily Playing solo when everyone else is in 2s or 3s is a recipe to die when running into practically any other team so you’re just hiding and skulking around the entire time and this very much seems like a game you’re supposed to play with two friends or else you may not have a very good time at all But how often is that possible for many players The visuals are one aspect that are clearly unfinished but the exteriors and player models need an exceptional amount of work I still love the aesthetic even if it’s not quite what it’s been in Blender renders or cinematic trailers I expect this to improve pretty dramatically by launch can this sell the concept of an extraction shooter to players who have avoided the genre Getting in a death spiral of running into players loading into matches with stellar loot compared to default black market kits made many fights almost impossible Bungie has already started to try to narrow that gap but losing a farmed loadout every couple of games remains unappealing to me as does an end of season wipe erasing all of that plus your contract/upgrade progress even though it’s sort of necessary for the genre There is certainly something to be said about what’s missing the last of which promises to be some sort of higher-end endgame map and the whole game supposedly has more secrets to find when it’s live So that’s certainly worth circling back around for and once again the reception to this Closed Alpha was not positive but taking the temperature of the gaming community demonstrated the core components of the game Other players did not because…they were not given codes This was immensely frustrating for a huge portion of players hundreds of thousands attempting to get codes in a Discord That bodes well for interest for the beta or launch but it resulted in a lot of people angry at Bungie and new code waves that went out barely seemed to move the needle The trendlines haven’t been great over the course of the Alpha The literal numbers do not matter given that the Alpha is in fact closed The game quickly sunk to around 20% of its launch players and stayed there high profile streamers were very interested in giving it a shot but almost immediately moved on within a day or two and few were raving about it Twitch viewership was somewhere in the range of 1-6K These figures are not the end-all be all of success but I wouldn’t say they’re positive indicators of sentiment existing extraction shooter players thought the game was too dumbed down to be something that improved the genre A lot of casuals were turned off by the entire extraction shooter concept of losing loot or unbalanced fights Geared up players got bored of stomping on default kit players default kit players got tired of being stomped on There was of course a middleground of players who did like the game and are excited for it but this was not the majority view I found across social media ARC Raiders arrived a few days ago at the worst possible time for Marathon It is a much more traditional extraction shooter in the vein of Tarkov making it at least a little more accessible seeming ready for release despite it also being a Closed Alpha and kept extraction concepts in place Bungie didn’t solo play and just the general feel of the genre The reaction to that Alpha was visibly more positive than to Marathon’s but this does not seem like it’s going to be enough to convert me personally into an extraction player even if I plan to still put a lot of time in at launch (granted It will be the first Bungie game I’m not going to be heavily engaged with though knowing this type of game was coming as there is so much potential here with this world Reaction to the gameplay showcase was negative and attempting to prove that wrong with a hands-on Alpha seemed like it cemented that narrative more than it didn’t It feels like it’s splitting the difference between multiple genres but not doing anything better than each of them It felt like there was pretty clear interest drop-off quickly among most players who did have access I cannot buy the idea that this was “just” a Closed Alpha as this was a large chunk of content and at its core The Open Beta will be a better judge of sentiment with way more players poking around but the idea that at the end of this road players will be asked to play $40 is daunting That may not be the solution for all its issues but racing toward a September release just five months from now does not seem wise given what we’re seeing here ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingToday’s NYT Mini Crossword Clues And Answers For Monday, May 5thByErik Kain 08:05pm EDTShareSaveCommentLooking for help with today's NYT Mini Crossword puzzle Here are some hints and answers for the .. In case you missed Sunday’s NYT Mini Crossword puzzle It’s Monday and the birds are chirping and the sirens are wailing and the students are crunching their finals and the teachers are dreaming of summer and I’m still waiting for George R.R Martin to finish Winds Of Winter and GTA6 has been delayed into 2026 You’re just lucky I didn’t list all the insane political shenanigans going on or we’d be here all day you’ll need an NYT Games subscription to access previous puzzles in the archives If you need a little help solving the Mini Crossword as fast as possible 7 — Silent but deadly sort — NINJA (you were thinking farts pen name of the Victorian writer Mary Ann Evans — ELIOT 4 — Waiter’s “Hope you like the food!” — ENJOY This was pretty easy but some of the answers are though I suppose wine and a wine pairing are part of dining There’s a bit of a food theme here with the waiter and already having plans I imagine the waiter saying ENJOY to the NINJA who responds ICILY because they’re busy reading George ELIOT If you also play Wordle, I write guides about that as well. You can find those and all my TV guides, reviews and much more here on my blog ShareSaveCommentBETAThis is a BETA experience. opt-out hereInnovation CybersecurityGoogle’s Gmail Password Attack Warning — You Have Just 7 Days To ActByDavey Winder Davey Winder is a veteran cybersecurity writer ShareSaveCommentGmail users told they have 7 days to respond to password hack attacks has been updated with a new report regarding the use of passkeys in the face of weak password use as well as details of AI-powered threats that email users need to be aware of as Gmail password hackers attack a whole week — in which you can get that access back even if the attacker has changed your recovery telephone number given my experiences as a hacker and the fact that I have been writing about cybersecurity matters for more than 30 years now I receive a lot of emails and messages from people who have fallen victim to attacks and are looking for help By far the most common of these pleas for help is along the lines of “Gmail password hackers have compromised my account and locked me out — what the heck can I do?” these kinds of password-hacking compromises against Gmail users have become increasingly popular as threat actors of all types employ AI-driven attacks to access those highly valuable email accounts Read on to discover how some of these AI attacks are evolving as details emerge in a new Check Point Research report As long as you have had the forethought to provide a recovery telephone number or email address before the attack took place then you have seven days in which you can regain access to your hacked Gmail account even if the attacker has changed them Everyone uses a seatbelt when driving or being driven because it has been proven to dramatically improve safety and reduce the chances of fatality if involved in an accident when compared to not wearing one Now replace seatbelt with recovery options and accident with incident to arrive at a similar conclusion: having a recovery telephone number in place improves your chances of getting your account back if a hacker attacks using a phishing-resistant authentication technology instead of a password decreases the likelihood of an attacker being successful in the first place a passkey is like a car protected by driveway bollards and a remote kill switch rather than parking on the street and relying on an easily bypassed door lock “We recommend all users to set up a recovery phone as well as a recovery email on their account,” Gmail spokesperson Ross Richendrfer told me “these can be used in cases where users forget their own passwords or an attacker changes the credentials after hijacking the account.” And therein lies the rub for any hacker: if you are the original account holder despite the best efforts of an attacker to lock you out of your own account by changing all the security options you can get access back as long as you act within seven days “Our automated account recovery process allows a user to use their original recovery factors for up to 7 days after it changes,” Richendrfer said “provided they set them up before the incident.” better known within and without the cybersecurity industry as FIDO has a proud 13-year tradition of addressing the issues that creating and managing passwords bring to the threat landscape It was formed in 2012 specifically to find a better way when it came to strong authentication technology especially seeing as a lack of interoperability between players was such an issue What FIDO does is create authentication standards that interoperable set of mechanisms that reduce reliance on passwords.” FIDO knows a thing or two about the password problem and how it can best be mitigated Which is why you should take note when it issues the results of a new global survey into understanding how consumer attitudes towards passkeys are evolving The FIDO report got off to a sadly all too familiar and yet still shocking start: across the last 12 months some 35% of people have had at least one of their accounts hacked due to a password compromise of one kind or another That’s a lot of people and a heck of a lot of passwords so that’s the bad news; the good news is that passkeys are coming to the rescue and consumers have started accepting them in greater numbers than ever before The FIDO research found that nearly three-quarters of those surveyed were now aware of what passkeys were quite correctly considered them to be more secure than passwords that 69% had already enabled a passkey to protect at least one of their online accounts and it’s news that should be hailed as promising to make Gmail accounts more secure over the coming year as 38% of those consumers who have used a passkey already said they now do so for every account that enables them some 48% of the world’s top 100 websites now support integrated passkey use is also great news for anyone who cares about security if the number were 100% and not just the world’s top 100 websites executive director and CEO of the FIDO Alliance that “organizations of all shapes and sizes are taking action upon the imperative to move away from relying on passwords and other legacy authentication methods that have led to decades of data breaches which imperil the very foundations of our connected society.” is among those at the forefront of passkey protection availability The strongest level of protection you can give to your Google account is to enroll in the Advanced Protection Program which adds several layers to safeguard the security of those most at risk from Gmail hackers Google announced that it was making enrollment even more attractive for a wider audience by doing away with the need to purchase a hardware security key and instead enabling the use of passkeys the product lead of Google’s Advanced Protection Program said at the time that passkeys are “phishing resistant so users are provided protection against things like fraudulent emails.” Chatterjee wasn’t wrong then When you sign into your Google account on any device even one in possession of your username and password credentials from signing in and compromising your Google services an attacker would need the device it is enrolled on and the means to access it by way of your biometrics or PIN code “threat actors exploit this shift in two key ways: by leveraging Al to enhance their capabilities and targeting organizations and individuals adopting Al technologies.” It’s the former that I’m concerned about in the context of this article about losing control of your Gmail account that the same AI threats apply to whatever email platform you use and beyond to most online service accounts in fact The use of social engineering is the de facto tactic employed by most attackers looking to compromise a Gmail email account even those attacks that are looking to exploit a known security vulnerability will often begin by exploiting human nature first attacks will leverage every possible media type to convince the victim it is a genuine communication that needs to be interacted with as a matter of urgency attackers can create authentic-looking materials at scale and hold real-time audio and video conferences while impersonating others.” No wonder so many people are taken in The Check Point Report warned that AI-driven tools now proliferate on criminal forums leading to a critical compromise of our ability to rely upon audio and visual clues to determine fact from fiction “Fully autonomous audio deepfake tools for large-scale phone scams are already available,” Check Point said “meaning that recognizing a familiar face or voice is no longer sufficient proof of identity; instead interactions must be reinforced by additional authentication measures.” Don’t let Gmail password hackers lock you out of your account Be alert to every communication and question everything — no matter how realistic it looks or sounds ShareSaveCommentInnovation Gaming‘Thunderbolts’ Review: The Best Marvel Movie In A Long Time, With One Big ProblemByErik Kain entertainment & culture.Follow AuthorMay 03 Thunderbolts has rekindled some of the magic lost in the MCU At least this one seems to understand what audiences want better than most post-End Game efforts from the studio Outside of a few exceptions – Spider-Man: No Way Home Deadpool & Wolverine and Shang Chi – the film side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been pretty lackluster in its fourth and fifth phases Some of the Disney+ shows have been excellent – WandaVision Agatha All Along and especially Loki – but many of those have misfired as well And a big problem with the project as a whole is tying everything together which makes it much harder for audiences to keep up especially as more and more fans burn out and start skipping lackluster offerings Thunderbolts feels a bit more like old-school MCU fare It’s leaps and bounds better than the other most recent Marvel movie the cumbersome and unsatisfying Captain America: Brave New World The plot follows Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) one of the Black Widows and sister to Natasha Romanoff She’s burnt out in her job as a “cleaner” for Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and wants a more “public facing” role Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian (David Harbour) who dreams of bigger things so long as she’ll complete one final mission She’s busy cleaning house while under a congressional investigation and wants all evidence of her misdeeds scrubbed who she pits against one another in a remote lab deep underground and our rag-tag band of heroes escapes with a mysterious man named Bob (Lewis Pullan) with equally mysterious powers and an adorably affable demeanor and the reluctant band of anti-heroes ends up teaming up to take down de Fontaine Other members of the “Thunderbolts” include Wyatt Russell’s John Walker aka U.S the once-Captain America whose rage issues led to his downfall and recruitment into de Fontaine’s cabal; Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost an assassin who can turn invisible and phase through walls; and Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier who becomes the de facto leader of the group though he has no patience for his colleagues’ committees and red tape with a great blend of humor thanks to Harbour’s over-the-top Red Guardian and Yelena’s acerbic wit And Sebastian Stan gets to have one very cool action sequence to remind us how much of a badass the Winter Soldier really is and how much he really deserves his own movie (I’m still pulling for a Sebastian Stan Luke Skywalker movie also .) The action is great throughout the film When things take a terrible turn for the worse our heroes have to face off against Sentry a superhero more powerful than all the original Avengers combined (according to de Fontaine) but everything that follows feels rushed and the resolution is too neat and tidy Given the pretty fascinating history of these dueling personas a lot more could have been done with the Sentry/Void character this felt like too many other MCU films with strong opening arcs and a rushed conclusion I often complain that superhero movies are too long but this one might have benefited from a bit more screen time or more economical use of time earlier on in the picture I enjoyed this a great deal even if I wouldn’t include it with S-Tier MCU films like The Avengers Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Spider-Man: No Way Home a great sense of humor and enough action to keep you on the edge of your seat And be sure to stick around for both the mid-credits and post-credits scene I’ve seen some people saying the film engages too much in “girlboss” stuff or makes the male characters seem stupid compared to the female characters While this has definitely been an issue in some MCU products (ahem She-Hulk) I really don’t think it’s a very good critique of Thunderbolts Characters like John Walker and Red Guardian are definitely played for laughs but they also get some really great moments with heart and badassery It felt like a pretty solid balance across the cast with everyone flawed but ultimately likeable and heroic And I’m so glad that we aren’t doing multiverse stuff anymore Only Loki and No Way Home handled this really well Even Deadpool & Wolverine was bogged down by the multiverse garbage shaped by overuse of the gimmick over the years ShareSaveCommentLeadership Leadership StrategiesDon’t Look Now. Recession Seems Imminent. Job Market In DangerByEli Amdur 04:08pm EDTShareSaveCommentStock Market Graph next to a 1 dollar bill (showing former president Washington) More indicates the stock market recession period an economic downturn is not a recession until there are two consecutive quarters of GDP shrinkage The American economy shrank in the first quarter of this year by 0.3% Economic and job data orthodoxy says you don’t make a statement like mine until it’s official Corporate executives don’t want to destroy morale; government agencies must retain reserve; and those of us in the job market – coaches But we all know what’s in front of us; the trouble is we’re already six months in and headed for more This is typically where everyone’s hindsight becomes so damned good What we should be saying is:" It’s not my fault but it is my problem." April’s Jobs Report seemed good – not great but certainly better than expected: 177,000 jobs created and an unemployment rate unchanged at 4.2% Nearly half of those jobs occurred in just two sectors: health care (51,000) and transportation and warehousing (29,000) When we take into account the fact that Americans spend one out of every six dollars on health care and that there was a panic-like atmosphere in moving goods around before tariffs took hold job creation has slowed and is expected to continue slowing when we can accurately measure the losses initiated by DOGE but not yet tallied or challenged in court due out on June 6 (D-Day – how symbolic) will tell a much starker story The New York Times ran a piece by Joe Rennison heading up the Business section on May 1 entitled In the Trump Economy The accompanying graphic by Alvaro Dominguez showed an incredibly jagged graph line which took a precipitous drop and ended up in Donald Trump’s incredibly jagged signature The graph line was red – a picture indeed worth a thousand words as an independent career coach and job market observer I’ve been insisting for more than two decades that in times of uncertainty the only thing we can be certain of is ourselves That means being prepared for something before it happens rather than reacting to it once it’s happening or futures) abhor uncertainty just as nature abhors a vacuum – and they dramatically showed it over the last few weeks and if I can’t say so as an economist (which I’m not) I’m more than confident in my expectation as a job market observer (which I have been for 28 years) The advice I offer to my clients (7,000 and counting over 28 years) and to my readers (22 years) is that one step taken in advance is longer than 10 steps taken to catch up Don’t expect things to work themselves out “The history of failure in war can almost always be summed up in two words: ‘Too late.’ Too late in comprehending the deadly purpose of a potential enemy Too late in uniting all possible forces for resistance.” It’s not too late to see that our recession has begun ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingSome Disappointing News About ‘Shogun’ Season 2’s Release DateByPaul Tassi Shogun was not meant to be an ongoing series but score enough Emmy wins and grab sky-high ratings for your network The problem is after spending most of a decade attempting to get a project off the ground and adapt one specific book how do you move into a second season from there and this recent news does not hold much hope for Shogun season 2 (or 3 which has been greenlit) releasing anywhere close to soon It’s just been announced that production will begin on the show in January of 2026 in Vancouver and just under two years after when Shogun season 1 aired in February of 2024 Shogun season 1 began filming in September in 2021 and wrapped in June of 2022 which was said to be two months later because of some COVID related delays But starting with production starting in September of 2021 and airing in February of 2024 that could mean the show does not air until January of 2028 And that would be just under four years after season 1 aired In an era when 3 years is often the ultimate this would be one of the longest we’ve seen if production times are even close to what they were in season 1 Cut that production time in half and it’s still three years There is of course some debate about whether two more seasons of Shogun should exist at all as it may be trying to make lightning strike twice (or three times who could only appear in some sort of flashback or dream sequence A large chunk of the cast overall ended up dead by the end of season 1 Given the extremely high quality of the first season I still believe they can make a second fantastic outing especially if they are giving a full four years to do so That seems like more than enough time to come up with something to sweep the Emmys again Okay maybe expectations are a bit too high there ShareSaveCommentTrending CryptoViralTop 10 CryptoTop 10Trending NFTsNFTsForbes Digital AssetsTrump’s Crypto Czar Issues Surprise Prediction As The Bitcoin Price Suddenly SoarsByBilly Bambrough president Donald Trump’s crypto czar David Sacks has predicted a coming “Trump boom.” Sign up now for the free CryptoCodex—A daily five-minute newsletter for traders investors and the crypto-curious that will get you up to date and keep you ahead of the bitcoin and crypto market bull run president Donald Trump's crypto czar David Sacks has predicted a bitcoin and crypto "boom" as .. More the bitcoin price approaches $100,000 per bitcoin “I do think that this sets us up for a Trump boom in the future," Sacks said pointing to “other things that that have been done on the economy as well," and predicted “a lot of these changes take time to to play out.” The bitcoin and crypto market has lost steam since Trump’s inauguration with the bitcoin price dropped from its January all-time high of almost $110,000 per bitcoin plummeting along with the stock market as the Trump administration embarked on a global trade war Sign up now for CryptoCodex—A free The bitcoin price has rocketed over the last year More Donald Trump's return to the White House in January “This renewed risk-on mood is setting the stage for bitcoin to make a run at $100,000,” Matt Mena “The $95,000 level had been a key resistance zone in recent weeks and once bitcoin cleared it with strong volume With equities pushing higher and liquidity expectations rising bitcoin is behaving like a high-beta macro asset–closely tied to investor appetite for risk and reflation trades.” Other bitcoin and crypto investors have cheered the latest bitcoin price rebound emboldening them to double-down on their bullish bitcoin price predictions “I definitely would not be surprised [to see bitcoin reach] $200,000, or $250,000 this year," Joe Burnett, director of market research Unchained, said during an X broadcast “If the price gets going soon and breaks a new all-time high Information about working in or operating early childhood education services including outside school hours care information for parents including how to choose a service and supporting your child for their transition to school Skills NSW helps post high school students find courses in vocational training across a wide variety of industries and course providers The NSW Department of Education is committed to employing the best and brightest teachers who can teach and make a difference in NSW public schools NSW Department of Education's information on curriculum taught in NSW schools Aboriginal education and communities & personalised support staff and students at Forbes Public School are now enjoying new upgraded and permanent facilities Students and staff at Forbes Public School are celebrating as they return to their upgraded school two and a half years on from the destructive 2022 Central West floods with school improvements making way for the return of play space and the removal of demountables Forbes Public School’s flood rebuild project 12 new air conditioning units and two new bubbler stations The school’s toilet facilities have also been upgraded with new water-saving toilets and taps The project also included updating 11 school buildings with new doors and essential electrical infrastructure upgrades These improvements involved repainting and refurbishment of the shade structure 1,050 litres of fresh paint was applied across interior and exterior walls and surfaces and 1,080 square metres of new flooring was installed 25 demountable classrooms used temporarily to support the school during the works will begin to be removed next month with works on track for completion by Term 3 returning outdoor space for students and the school community to enjoy The Minns Labor Government is investing a record $8.9 billion investment to build and upgrade schools across NSW including a historic $1.4 billion for school infrastructure projects in regional NSW Minister for Education and Early Learning Prue Car said: it is fantastic that we are now welcoming students and teachers back to permanent upgraded facilities at Forbes Public School “The floods have been particularly impactful for our regional communities and the Minns Labor Government has worked hard to restore these important schools “The Minns Labor Government is committed to upgrading vital infrastructure like schools to communities in the Central West so all young people and families have the high-quality facilities they need in their local area.” “I am pleased to see this important local school upgraded and returned to the Forbes community “This has been a difficult time for Forbes and the wider Central West community as we chart the long road to recovery from the 2022 floods.” Duty MLC for Orange Stephen Lawrence said: “The return of this school to the Forbes community will give local students families and teachers a welcome boost as we continue the long recovery from the floods “I am proud to be part of the Minns Labor Government that is focused on returning vital infrastructure to local communities and rebuilding public education across the state.” “The devastating floods of November 2022 had a significant impact on our school and the wider community forcing us to relocate to temporary facilities “The time since has been an incredible testament to the dedication of our staff the resilience of our students and the wonderful support from our wider school community “We cannot wait for students to resume their learning journeys today and embark on an exciting new chapter for Forbes Public School.” We recognise the Ongoing Custodians of the lands and waterways where we work and live We pay respect to Elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander learner in NSW achieves their potential through education ShareSaveCommentInnovation Gaming‘Thunderbolts’ Has The Third-Best MCU Audience Score EverByPaul Tassi movies and the internet.Follow AuthorMay 02 and hopefully the final product would match a much-needed MCU win not just among critics Thunderbolts has landed a stunning 95% “Certified Hot” audience score on Rotten Tomatoes something we have rarely seen even in the crowd-pleasing MCU That 95% puts it as one of the highest of all time these were also people who rushed out to see Thunderbolts last night or this morning when it first premiered in addition to be the best critic-reviewed MCU film in several years now it’s one of the all-time best audience-scored ones which is impressive in an age of relative superhero fatigue and an era of Marvel that has not exactly lived up to past ones in terms of quality as these are not the big A-list characters of the universe And word of mouth seems likely to spread with these scores Marvel has confirmed that all members of the Thunderbolts (minus Taskmaster including villain Sentry) will appear in Avengers: Doomsday so they were already planning for this scenario This situation seems like the opposite of what just happened with Captain America: Brave New World with a rotten-scored film and an underwhelming audience and box office reaction Thunderbolts at least has two of those three as positives right now The idea here is that this is more of a “grounded” Marvel film not filmed 100% in front of a greenscreen like we’ve seen with recent offerings like Quantumania or The Marvels It has real stunts and real action and while obviously some amount of VFX they’ve really tried to make it a different kind of Marvel movie ShareSaveCommentInnovation CybersecurityMicrosoft Issues June 1 Warning — Do Not Wait, Save Your Passwords NowByDavey Winder 07:09am EDTShareSaveCommentMicrosoft Authenticator to stop saving new passwords June 1 has been updated with further information on the use of passkeys by Microsoft as well as details of dedicated password manager apps as password management features are removed from the official Authenticator app Microsoft has warned users of its authenticator app that they will no longer be able to save new passwords I guess I’d better try to answer that “what the heck” question then… The Microsoft Authenticator app has been more than just a 2FA code generator for quite some while now many would argue that it has been gradually positioned as the default password manager for Microsoft users What with it able to save passwords and autofill them across both Android and iOS platforms is about to come crashing down as Microsoft announces a dramatic shift in security emphasis from app to browser Microsoft has confirmed massive changes to how the Authenticator app works These changes are all part of a move by Microsoft to apparently streamline the password autofill process across devices users of the Microsoft Authenticator app will no longer be able to save any new passwords Microsoft will phase out the use of autofill in the app “your saved passwords will no longer be accessible in Authenticator,” Microsoft has said and Microsoft has advised that “if you have set up Passkeys for your Microsoft Account ensure that Authenticator remains enabled as your Passkey Provider.” If you disable Authenticator Microsoft really wants you to embrace the password management functionality of the Edge browser stating that “your saved passwords (but not your generated password history) and addresses are securely synced to your Microsoft account and you can continue to access them and enjoy seamless autofill functionality with Microsoft Edge.” Because the public key is used to create a challenge that can only be solved by the private key “passkeys are nearly impossible for hackers to guess or intercept because the keys are randomly generated and never shared during the sign-in process.” You can have a gym yourself and use the simple Passkey simulator as a demo at Passkeys.io if you are still to be convinced as to how easy they are to deploy and use there’s no turning back once you have tried and seen for yourself “which is why they’re desperately accelerating password-related attacks while they still can.” For Windows 11 users, Katherine Holdsworth, a partner group product manager at Microsoft, said this will mean being able to “navigate to a website that supports passkeys and get prompted to select how you want to save your passkeys.” Proper support for third-party passkey providers using an application programming interface will mean that password managers such as 1Password and Bitwarden will be able to allow users to connect directly to the Windows 11 platform Users will be able to use “the same passkey on Windows 11 that you’ve created on your mobile device,” Holdsworth said the Microsoft Authenticator app was never a password manager in the accepted sense of the word Itv was a code-generating authentication app Microsoft added a few bells and whistles along the way but you can’t turn a bush into a Christmas tree just by adding tinsel I’m sure I will ruffle a few feathers here but purely browser-based password vaults aren’t proper password managers either I can understand why Microsoft wants people to use the Edge browser as if it were but the bush and tinsel argument still applies if you replace the bush with anything other than a genuine Christmas tree Here’s the thing: there’s no real reason for you to use your browser in this way when a dedicated password manager application can not only autofill your credentials when logging in to an account but can also support passkeys and generate 2FA codes s someone who made the switch from a Microsoft Windows and Google Android ecosystem to the Apple one for my primary work usage a few years ago I can heartily recommend Apple’s own Passwords app This supercharges existing login management provided by the iCloud Keychain It is free to use and competes very nicely with other password managers provided you are using Apple platforms and don’t want too many additional features outside of the basic essentials of credentials management If you do want a bit more by way of additional feature sets and cross-platform usage which I use with my Windows and Android devices but it is feature-packed and has been a long-time player in the industry which means you can trust your passwords and your data with it no matter what operating system or machine you are on and I’d encourage you to do your own research to find which best meets your needs and price point ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingToday’s ‘Wordle’ #1415 Hints, Clues And Answer For Sunday, May 4thByErik Kain CHOIR smashed that big number down to just 7 That's when I got really lucky and tried TROUT to juggle some of my yellow boxes I get 1 point for guessing in three and so does the Bot The word trout comes from the Old English truht which in turn comes from Late Latin tructa It’s likely that tructa was derived from the Greek trōktēs which means “a gnawer” (from trōgein ShareSaveCommentInnovation CybersecurityMicrosoft Confirms Password Spraying Attack — What You Need To KnowByDavey Winder 09:28am EDTShareSaveCommentBeware these Microsoft password sparaying attacks has been updated with advice from security experts for securing your password by getting rid of it altogether as well further information about the evolution of the password-spraying attack threat now Microsoft has issued a warning of a new password spraying attack by a hacking group identified only as Storm-1977 that is targeting cloud tenants The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team has published a new warning after observing hackers taking particular advantage of unsecured workload identities in order to gain access to containerized environments With Microsoft research showing that 51% of such workload identities being completely inactive over the past year it’s no wonder that threat actors are exploiting this attack surface “As the adoption of containers-as-a-service among organizations rises,” the report said “Microsoft Threat Intelligence continues to monitor the unique security threats that affect containerized environments.” One of these is the password spraying attack specifically targeting cloud tenants in the education sector that has now been pinned on the Storm-1977 threat group accepted an accounts.txt file containing username and password combinations used for the attack “The threat actor then used the information from both files and posted the credentials to the target tenants for validation,” Microsoft explained The successful attack enabled the Storm-1977 hackers to then leverage a guest account in order to create a compromised subscription resource group and more than 200 containers that were used for cryptomining Talk to just about any cybersecurity professional I should know as I communicate with dozens of them every day and the solution to the problem of password spraying attacks is simple: eliminate passwords that’s easier said than done in many instances but the move towards a passwordless future has already begun for many as they start on the passkey journey Passwords are no longer enough to keep us safe online head of professional services at Pentest People director of external cyber assessments at BlueVoyant is no less adamant when it comes to going passwordless “Due to both low multi-factor authentication adoption and inherent human weakness in the security chain,” Janssen-Anessi said “businesses should also consider passwordless solutions.” Authentication methods using biometrics and secure tokens will “become increasingly mainstream going forward.” said that the teams who are building the future of passwords are the same ones that are building and managing the login pages of their apps “Some of them are getting rid of passwords entirely,” Pontarelli said adding that a survey of teams building authentication on their own showed that “passkeys were the feature that teams were both most familiar with and least familiar.” In other words passkeys are a polarizing issue amongst developers but that doesn’t mean they are the way forward and AI increasingly helping such threats to evolve and defences start to look quite weak in many cases Now throw in the fact that buying passwords on the criminal underground be that by the way of dark web marketplaces or surface web criminal forums apart from the fact that credential combo lists are often swapped for free between cybercriminals they are not going to break the bank when compared to the potential return from just a handful of successful breaches using them “Educate teams not just on stronger passwords but on phasing them out altogether,” Patel said and uniqueness are also aligned with the need to explore post-password approaches.” “Defender for Cloud now offers enhanced discovery providing agentless visibility into Kubernetes environments and applications.” These updates strengthen security posture through a process of continuous and granular scanning from build to runtime which helps to maintain compliance and secure configurations I have reached out to Microsoft for further information regarding the Storm-1977 password spraying attack campaign I’m a tech journalist living and working in New York City I worked at the University of Iowa English Department before diving head-first into tech journalism I have spent over five years learning everything there is to know about consumer technology with a special focus on home entertainment you can find me packing my tech and grabbing my boarding passes An all-in-one computer (AKA an AIO) is a personal computer that integrates all its components thus eliminating the need for a separate tower and a separate monitor “These devices are no longer just about combining a monitor and CPU into a single unit,” says Plam “They’re designed to handle the needs of modern users who demand both performance and flexibility.” An all-in-one computer is ideal for someone working from a smaller home office for use in workspaces with limited square footage available for each employee and for school computer labs and classrooms What Are The Disadvantages Of An All-In-One Computer While some all-in-one computers are suitable for gaming they are not considered an ideal choice for the use given the outsized data and graphics processing required by the most advanced online games A dedicated gaming computer or gaming laptop is currently a better choice if you want to upgrade any of the internal components as many times the components are soldered onto the display The best all-in-one computers place the monitor speakers and other components all behind .. Display size: 31.5 inches | Resolution: 4K | Processor: 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900H | Memory: 16GB | Storage: 512GB | Camera: 5MP | Port count: 6 Its 5MP camera is good enough for taking meetings or recording a casual video. The Integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics can’t run heavy games, but you should be able to enjoy an occasional round of Solitaire or Stardew Valley session. This all-in-one computer has two built-in speakers and two woofers, and the Dolby Atmos surround sound technology helps to create a surprisingly immersive experience given that narrow device in which everything is housed. Display size: 23.5 inches | Resolution: 1080p | Processor: Intel U300 E-Core Max | Memory: 8GB | Storage: 256GB | Camera: 5MP | Port count: 8 Display size: 27 inches | Resolution: 1080p | Processor: Intel Core 7-150U | Memory: 16GB | Storage: 1TB | Camera: 5MP | Port count: 6 For a computer at this price, the 16GB of memory and 1TB of storage space are both quite good, though the conspicuous absence of a USB-C port is a miss here. Its narrow and broadly-set legs free up lots of desk space, which is a plus if you’re working in cramped quarters. Be sure to look through your shipping box carefully, as we read reports of some Inspiron 7730s arriving without the included keyboard, while others shipped without charging cables. Screen size: 24 inches | Resolution: 4.5K | Processor: M4 | Memory: 16GB | Storage: 256GB | Camera: 12MP | Port count: 4 Display size: 31.5 inches | Resolution: 4K | Processor: Intel Core Ultra 7 7 155H | Memory: 16GB | Storage: 1TB | Camera: 5MP | Port count: 8 The computer has a total of eight different ports, so you can connect it to plenty of external hardware. We did note multiple reports about some of those ports not working properly. And word among many customers is that HP’s customer support is terrible, so if you do have an issue, you may experience a frustrating ride. That said, most verified buyers rave about this all-in-one and with that screen and that storage space, we’re hardly surprised. Display size: 23.8 inches | Resolution: 2.5K | Processor: Intel Core i5-1335U | Memory: 16GB | Storage: 1TB | Camera: 5MP | Port count: 8 There are only three ports on this computer, a USB-A, USB-C and HDMI, which feels like too few. There’s no audio jack, which is too bad, as the speakers are pretty weak. Chances are good that you are not looking to buy an effectively portable all-in-one to be rocking out to music, but rather to be getting work done, so odds are this won’t be too much of a detriment when you’re working. The Forbes Vetted tech editorial team includes multiple experts with years of experience researching, testing, and reporting on all sorts of tech hardware, digital products, online platforms and more. To choose the best all-in-one computers, we took a multitude of factors into account. All-in-one computers save space, process data fast, have large screens and offer ready compatibility with external accessories. Here’s what to consider when you’re looking for your next all-in-one computer. An all-in-one computer (AKA an AIO) is a personal computer that integrates all its components, including the monitor, CPU and speakers, into a single unit, thus eliminating the need for a separate tower and a separate monitor. “These devices are no longer just about combining a monitor and CPU into a single unit,” says Plam. “They’re designed to handle the needs of modern users who demand both performance and flexibility.” An all-in-one computer is ideal for someone working from a smaller home office, for a college student, for use in workspaces with limited square footage available for each employee and for school computer labs and classrooms. While some all-in-one computers are suitable for gaming, at present, they are not considered an ideal choice for the use, given the outsized data and graphics processing required by the most advanced online games. A dedicated gaming computer or gaming laptop is currently a better choice. Additionally, if you want to upgrade any of the internal components, it can be next to impossible to do so, as many times the components are soldered onto the display. job market and workplace trends.Follow AuthorApr 25 09:16am EDTShareSaveCommentArtificial intelligence will soon dominate the job market Artificial intelligence is advancing at breakneck speed The big question is how long it will take until technology dominates the job market You should start thinking about your own career the specter of disruption from AI adds urgency for workers to protect themselves Artificial intelligence is expected to fundamentally transform the global workforce by 2050 Estimates suggest that up to 60% of current jobs will require significant adaptation due to AI Automation and intelligent systems will become an integral part of the workplace invest in skills like critical thinking and digital fluency Target AI-resilient sectors like healthcare or education Advocate for retraining programs to reinvent your career As macro investor and founder of the Bridgewater hedge fund Ray Dalio warns the economy’s future hinges on balancing AI’s power with human potential He says those who prepare now will shape the world of tomorrow Goldman Sachs previously estimated that 300 million jobs could be lost to AI AI is least threatening to labor-intensive careers in construction Dalio warns of a “great deleveraging” where AI accelerates productivity but displaces workers faster than new roles emerge speaking at the Economic Club of New York this month cautioned that AI’s impact is already visible in sectors like finance and legal services predicting a “restructuring” of white-collar work by 2035 estimates in his shareholder letter that AI will dominate repetitive tasks within 15 years The actual pace depends on technological breakthroughs argues that corporate adoption of AI is accelerating due to cost pressures Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent counters that AI could bolster U.S AI will likely automate or transform 50% to 60% of jobs with full dominance (80% and higher) possible by 2050 and customer service are already being overtaken by AI tools like chatbots and robotic process automation A 2024 study by the Institute for Public Policy Research found 60% of administrative tasks are automatable Fink notes that BlackRock is streamlining back-office functions with AI face near-term obsolescence as AI’s accuracy and scalability improve and basic data analysis are highly vulnerable AI platforms like Bloomberg’s Terminal enhancements can already crunch numbers and generate reports faster than humans Dimon warns that JPMorgan is automating routine banking tasks with 20% of analytical roles at risk by 2030 as AI tools like Harvey and CoCounsel automate document analysis with 90% accuracy Dalio highlights AI’s ability to parse vast datasets threatening research-heavy roles in academia and consulting Senior legal strategy and courtroom advocacy will resist longer due to human judgment needs and basic journalism face disruption from tools like DALL-E and GPT-derived platforms A 2024 Pew Research Center report notes that 30% of media jobs could be automated by 2035 predicts AI-generated content will dominate advertising soon but argues human creativity in storytelling and high art will endure longer Bessent sees growth in AI-adjacent roles like cybersecurity but standardized STEM work will gradually cede to algorithms like breakthrough research and development Diagnostic AI and robotic surgery are advancing A 2023 Lancet study estimates 25% of medical administrative tasks could vanish by 2035 but patient-facing care requires human trust especially in nuanced fields like philosophy or early education and high-level management jobs rely on emotional intelligence and adaptability A 2024 OECD report suggests only 10% of teaching tasks are automatable by 2040 Dimon and Ackman stress that strategic leadership ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingNYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Sunday, May 4thByErik Kain 12:03pm EDTShareSaveCommentConnections hints and answers are here Looking for Saturday’s NYT Connections hints my colleague Paul Tassi and I are taking over the weekend desk for Connections guides from our colleague Kris Holt I’m excited to expand my puzzling endeavors to this extra challenging I’ll also have to come up with a nickname for you Connections puzzle-solvers I call my Wordle players Wordlers and my Strands players some version of Strandistarians or Strandistas (etc) Maybe Connectioneers will suffice (as in Musketeers) unless I come up with something better which is Star Wars Day (because May the 4th be with you) and today’s Connections has some words that just might be from a galaxy far You can skip the next section and jump right to today’s hints if you already know how to play Connections is the second-most popular NYT Games puzzle game outside of the main crossword itself, and an extremely fun, free offering that will get your brain moving every day. Play it right here. The goal is to take a group of 16 words and find links between four pairs of four of them They could be specific categories of terms or they could be little world puzzles where words may come before or after them you need to figure out There is only one set of right answers for this and you only get a certain number of tries so you can’t just spam around until you find something blue/green to purple as difficulty increases so know that going in and when you start linking them together You pick the four words you think are linked and either you will get a solve and a lit up row that shows you how you were connected but if you want to know the answers without failing you can get an NYT Games subscription to access the full archives of all past puzzles These are the hints that are laid out on the puzzle board itself we will get into spoiler territory with some hints and eventually the answers Today’s Bonus Clue: You’ll notice some words that call to mind Star Wars in this grid (maybe calling to mind a Sith lord the full spoilers follow here as we get into what the groups are today: The full-on answers are below for each group finally inserting the four words in each category Spoilers follow if you do not want to get this far I actually got this one pretty quickly today mostly because I knew that the Star Wars words – DARTH Once I spotted BOBA I just looked for other Boba Tea words and found SUGAR I tried to think of words with multiple meanings NOODLE has several different meanings and as soon as I imagined noodling on a guitar the guitar player in me figured this one out but I basically just took four words that seemed a bit off I didn’t know how they fit together but I knew they were different from the rest of the words Earth and Venus – and this left me with only yellows ShareSaveCommentInnovation CybersecurityMicrosoft’s AI Starts Reading All Your WhatsApp, Signal MessagesByZak Doffman surveillance and privacy.Follow AuthorApr 29 02:55pm EDTShareSaveCommentBe very careful what you send Update: Republished on April 28 with news that Meta’s AI will also read messages Timing is everything. Just weeks after America’s NSA warned about the hidden dangers with secure messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Signal especially when users link phone apps to PCs and other devices Microsoft has decided to release its controversial Recall to Copilot PCs which then continually screenshots and optically reads everything on screen to be saved behind a simple PIN It doesn’t matter how secure you think you are if you message someone who has a Windows PC with this feature enabled As Ars Technica explains they have no control over the setting on the machines of Users B through Z That means anything User A sends them will be screenshotted processed with optical character recognition and Copilot AI and then stored in an indexed database on the other users’ devices.” That means anything Users B through Z sees on screen bar some specific data types Microsoft will try (and sometimes manage) to redact such as passwords that will “indiscriminately hoover up all kinds of User A’s sensitive material Unlike with new options to record phone calls there is no warning here that your content is being saved and stored by someone else that your secrets are now dependent on the security of countless Microsoft’s Windows PCs to stay secret once set up the only security protecting all that data is a simple PIN “I tasked my partner with using my device while I was away from desk to use Recall to find out who’d I’d been talking to the previous day in Signal and what I’d been saying.” She guessed the PIN and was in a non-technical person had access to everything I’d ever done on the PC including disappearing Signal conversations (as Recall retains anything deleted) The idea that every interaction you have with a Recall user is screenshot and kept forever without you knowing feels — at its core — very wrong the linked device warning and Recall’s launch means it’s time for Signal and WhatsApp and others to end their linked device options or provide some way for messages to be tagged so as only to appear on primacy devices — meaning phones The simple truth is that secure messaging and staccato screenshotting don’t mix In the meantime — and this is a serious warning — do remember that anything you send may not disappear into the chat archive on a phone indexed and stored by AI in an easily searchable database on a device you do not control “Recall still captures and stores things after deletion Disappearing Signal and WhatsApp messages are still captured I would recommend that if you’re talking to somebody about something sensitive who is using a Windows PC that in the future you check if they have Recall enabled first.” “We’re sharing an early look into Private Processing,” the team posted “an optional capability that enables users to initiate a request to a confidential and secure environment and use AI for processing messages where no one — including Meta and WhatsApp — can access them To validate our implementation of these and other security principles independent security researchers will be able to continuously verify our privacy and security architecture and its integrity.” Per Wired “the whole effort raises a more basic question about why a secure communication platform like WhatsApp needs to offer AI features at all that users expect the features at this point and will go wherever they have to to get them.” That’s the crux of this new debate for billions of users “What makes me more nervous,” crypto expert Matthew Green posted on X Or will they begin to share summarized private data with providers like Meta There’s a huge risk of a total privacy unraveling here.” Despite assurances that “Private Processing will allow users to leverage powerful AI features while preserving WhatsApp’s core privacy promise,” there are clear privacy concerns here While Meta insists “no one except you and the people you’re talking to can access or share your personal messages not even Meta or WhatsApp,” this is the grey area where AI is currently changing how we think about our privacy And even if Meta’s engineers achieve this level of private processing Recall will take its snapshots of all these private messages and will store them outside WhatsApp ShareSaveCommentBETAThis is a BETA experience. opt-out hereInnovation GamingNaoya Inoue Vs. Ramon Cardenas Results & Full Fight Card ResultsByBrian Mazique Brian Mazique has covered combat sports and video games since 2011 NEVADA - MAY 04: Undisputed junior featherweight champion Naoya Inoue (R) punches Ramon .. More Cardenas in the first round of their title fight at T-Mobile Arena on May 04 On Sunday night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas 27 KO) successfully defended his undisputed junior featherweight championship by eighth-round TKO He scored a knockdown with a vicious left hook in the second round and he had a strong game plan to counter the undisputed champion Inoue began delaying his entry just enough to draw out the counter attempt to land his own power shots It was a beautiful adjustment by a truly special fighter Inoue is the most consistently entertaining champion in the sport Cardenas deserves credit for pushing an all-time great Here is the round-by-round analysis from Inoue–Cardenas He hurt Cardenas with some beautifully placed body shots Cardenas came back with his own body shots but Inoue dropped him with a straight hand to give him control of the fight “This is the way it’s supposed to look,” and he’s right There were so many exchanges that raised the level of entertainment and brilliance Inoue won the round with cleaner shots and two key rallies to take the round Round 5: That round was excellent and close Cardenas has begun to counter more straight Round 4: That was a wildly impressive round from Inoue He has made the adjustment to draw out Cardenas’ counter hooks and he is subsequently countering the challenger’s attempt to counter Inoue won the round with a serious barrage at the end He is landing the more telling shots through three and Inoue is the one who must make the adjustment The Monster landed a couple of solid 1-2 combinations but Cardenas’ power shots won him the round Round 2: Cardenas just exploded with the left hook that we knew was the available shot he dropped The Monster with an explosive left hook NEVADA - MAY 04: Undisputed junior featherweight champion Naoya Inoue is knocked down by .. More Ramon Cardenas in the second round of their title fight at T-Mobile Arena on May 04 Round 1: Inoue took control of the first round with a steady jab and good body work Inoue and Cardenas’ ring walks are happening now is a legit problem for anyone at featherweight or in the weight region He lacked the power and length to give the champion anything to be concerned about The referee made the right decision stopping the fight midway through the seventh frame Round 6: Espinoza appeared to have taken his foot off the gas a bit in that round Vazquez might have even stolen the round on some cards I’d still lean to Espinoza with the better combinations Round 5: Vazquez’s corner or referee Harvey Dock should step in soon and stop this fight and there is no point in this going much further I’d expect Dock or the corner to step in and stop it if we see another flurry Round 4: Espinoza’s body work has been exquisite He hurt Vazquez on multiple occasions with body shots in the fourth round After Vazquez landed a couple of solid left hooks early in the round Espinoza nearly dropped him with a straight right hand to the stomach pushing the challenger to the corner just before the bell Espinoza worked behind his jab more and maintained control of the fight Vazquez is going to have to find a consistent entry point to engage Round 1: Espinoza’s length and his use of the uppercut gave him the advantage in the opening frame Vazquez seemed to find a way inside in the final 30 seconds Jimmy Lennon is in the ring addressing the crowd about the remaining two fights We’re in the pre-walkout stage for the co-main event I will have round-by-round analysis for this one and the main event between Inoue and Cardenas Edward Vazquez for Espinoza’s WBO featherweight title is underway… Fabian Maidana via unanimous decision (100-89 x3) He has a knack for making slower opponents miss and making them pay with sharp combinations he appeared to quickly convince Maidana he had no chance to win this fight Polanco scored a knockdown with a body shot in the final round Maidana showed his desire to finish the fight and was seemingly satisfied with making it through the fight but Maidana shelled up in a way that allowed him to survive the final 20 seconds It’ll be interesting to see who’s next for Polanco at welterweight With Teofimo Lopez looking at Jaron “Boots” Ennis Polanco is walking to an easy victory here through eight-plus rounds Maidana is looking to survive but not fighting to win We’ll move into round-by-round analysis beginning with the co-main event The second-generation prospect is the truth The young Vargas has outstanding punching accuracy and undeniable power A 1-2 combination led to a knockdown in the second round Leon got to his feet but was floored again moments later The referee mercifully called the fight off The 29-year-old consistently hurt Marquez with punches through the guard Nakano scored five knockdowns before referee Harvey Dock waived off the remainder of the fight following the last knockdown Keep an eye out for this featherweight contender Nakano came in ranked by all governing bodies I wonder if it makes sense for him to challenge Bruce “Shoo Shoo” Carrington down the road as the final hurdle before a matchup with Inoue and persistent power punches pushed the referee to call an end to the fight in the final frame Guerra landed hard shots a little too frequently early in this fight That’s a little concerning at this stage of his career Aleem had to re-establish his status as a legit title contender at featherweight but he put up a solid and competitive fight the class difference between the two fighters was apparent Garcia is unranked by any of the governing bodies ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingToday’s NYT Mini Crossword Clues And Answers For Saturday, May 3rdByErik Kain entertainment & culture.Follow AuthorMay 02 10:34pm EDTShareSaveCommentLooking for help with today's NYT Mini Crossword puzzle In case you missed Friday’s NYT Mini Crossword puzzle Fresh month and fresh face as your NYT Mini Crossword sherpa but I’m back now and we have the biggest crossword of the week to knock down 1- Greiner of "Shark Tank" — LORI 9- Convenience hidden in “get that money” — ATM 1- Appropriate anagram of 5-Across — LISTEN 2- Mount where Zeus and Hera reigned — OLYMPUS 3- __ league (amateur sports organization) — REC Another pretty challenging Mini Crossword today especially if you—like me—don’t know anything about “Shark Tank” and thus do not know that it’s LORI Greiner 1-Down doesn’t work unless you have 5-Across first and that could have been QUIET as easily as SILENT so I just kept skipping ahead to words like NEPTUNE that I was sure about Then it was just a matter of working backwards and filling in the blanks so my brain was stubbornly refusing to blast on all cylinders and this one took me 2:56 to complete ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingNYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Saturday, May 3ByPaul Tassi 12:00pm EDTShareSaveCommentConnections hints and answers are here Looking for Friday’s NYT Connections hints This is my first time writing a guide for the puzzle and I’m hoping I will be able to help you out as much as our friend Kris Before we begin for the Connections hints and answers for Saturday The hints for the Connections groups today are: I’ve been playing this long enough to know when I’m being tricked HELL and SMOKE were too obvious to pair together and ultimately that ended up with the first yellow group which wasn’t so bad again because SMOKE seemed like it could be elsewhere but LICK and CREAM didn’t have any other ice cream-like clues I actually got the blue group pretty quickly today maybe because I write for a living but I certainly use all of those contractions all the time I thought ORGO and COMP were college classes and I did get NETI but I thought that was maybe a class abbreviation that I didn’t know Hope you enjoyed today’s puzzle and my first guide ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingOne Of The Best Zombie Movies Ever Made Lands On Netflix TodayByErik Kain After years of The Walking Dead and countless zombie movies and TV shows it can be tricky to find a truly gripping entry in the genre But Netflix just released one of the best zombie movies ever made and it’s worth a watch even if you’re burnt out on undead horror Train To Busan is a South Korean thriller that mixes terrifying zombies cowardly betrayal and some genuinely great characters with something a lot of these types of movies are sorely lacking: A lot of heart but it remains one of my favorite zombie films of all time Su-an (Kim Su-an) wants to spend her birthday with her mother in Busan Feeling guilty over missing his daughter’s singing recital Seok-woo grants her wish and they board a train at Seoul Station Things very rapidly start to spiral when a sick woman boards the train and attacks a train attendant The woman was already infected and had turned into a zombie more passengers are turning and things are just as bad in the city Other passengers on the train include blue-collar worker Sang-hwa (Ma Dong-seok) and his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong (Jung Yu-mi) Yon-suk (Kim Eui-sung) whose selfishness leads to all sorts of terrible twists down the line Train To Busan follows these and other passengers as they hurtle through a rapidly devolving civilization overrun by the dead Most of the action takes place aboard the train itself leading to claustrophobic tension and mayhem battling not only the zombies but other passengers to make their way to safety as he finally learns what’s really important in life even if that realization comes a little too late and every situation our heroes find themselves in is a horrific each character is so well-drawn that it’s impossible not to care about their fates do yourself a favor and add it to your watchlist this weekend South Koreans do zombies better than just about anybody For perhaps the best zombie TV show I’ve ever seen but this time set during 17th century three years after the end of the Imjin War The show blends a zombie plague with feudal politics worthy of Game Of Thrones It’s harrowing and brilliant and filled with intense action and a phenomenal cast The story is set during the Joseon Dynasty three years after a massive invasion fromt he Japanese Not only is the kingdom still recovering from the war The series follows Crown Prince Lee Chang (Ju Ji-hoon) as he tries to find out what’s happened to his father stymied at every turn by the Queen Consort Cho Beom-il (Kim Hye-jun) and her father the leader of the Haewon Cho clan and de facto ruler hoping that she gives birth to a son who would become heir physician Seo-bi (Bae Doona) treats patients at Lee Seung-hui’s Jiyulheon clinic outside Dongnae When the surgeon returns with his assistant’s body a tiger hunter named Yeong-sin (Kim Sung-kyu) boils Dan-i’s body and feeds it to the starving patients reasoning that human meat is better than no meat at all The zombies in this show are unlike any I’ve seen they have mysterious behavior patterns that I won’t spoil here Seo-bi and the rest of the cast must navigate not only the zombie plague but also the conspiracy of the Haewon Cho clan and the mystery of the zombie outbreak with its roots in the war from three years earlier I’d rank it among the top 10 best shows on Netflix I figured since this post was getting quite a bit of traction I’d add a few more recommendations for everyone looking to Netflix and chill with some zombies We’ll kick the list off with a couple related movies Peninsula is actually a standalone sequel to Train To Busan The film follows an entirely new cast on an entirely new adventure through zombie-infested South Korea This is a little less focused and doesn’t pack the same emotional punch as the first film but if you like zombie action and plenty of it Just don’t expect quite the same level of greatness I won’t say too much about Kingdom: Ashin of the North other than this: It’s a prequel to Kingdom but you absolutely should not watch it until after you watch the show This gives you a ton of new insight into the zombie plague and its origins but you’ll want to save those reveals until after you watch Lee Chang’s story and definitely a great addition to the story I wish they’d make more shows or movies in this time period either after the events of Kingdom or expanding the Japanese invasion that preceded the main story I’m not kidding when I say the South Koreans do the best zombie content #Alive released in 2020 and remains one of the more unique takes on the undead apocalypse out there The story follows a video game streamer who ends up trapped alone in his apartment in Seoul during a zombie outbreak that ravages the city leaving everyone else dead – until he encounters another survivor in a nearby apartment building dealing with high school drama and all the crap that entails Add a zombie outbreak to the mix and you have get All Of Us Are Dead a terrifying and genuinely great zombie series that flew a bit under the radar when it came out back in 2022 Combining the coming-of-age high school genre with zombies is pretty clever and it’s done very well here It’s still unclear when Season 2 is releasing We’ll leave South Korea for our lest entry in this list a story about a man who finds himself infected during a zombie pandemic who needs to get his infant daughter to safety before he turns This post was updated on 05/03/25 and 05/04/25 ShareSaveCommentInnovation CybersecurityMalware Steals 1.7 Billion Passwords — Now For Sale On The Dark WebByDavey Winder 08:59am EDTShareSaveCommentThe infostealer malware threat has just grown dramatically has been updated with advice from security experts on securing your passwords this World Password Day as well as warnings across the security bows as password reuse plagues Generation Z I have been warning readers of the dangers of infostealer malware for the longest time now that this single malware threat has a disproportionate impact on the attack landscape they can exploit unpatched vulnerabilities but the easiest method is to use your login credentials Stealing passwords is big business; in fact there’s a whole sector within the cybercrime industry that has been built around it At the center of this industry is malware: infostealer malware Now, the 2025 Global Threat Landscape Report from FortiGuard Labs has confirmed what many of us already knew: the infostealer malware threat is growing at a rapid rate a snapshot of cybercrime activity across the planet during 2024 has revealed that the infostealer malware threat has grown by an incredible 500% in just 12 months Hackers are using the malware to compromise systems have made 1.7 billion stolen passwords available in dark web criminal marketplaces With cybercriminals having access to more than 100 billion compromised credentials in total on underground forums representing a 42% spike from the year before the FortiGuard Labs report warned that this has enabled groups like BestCombo and ValidMail to package and validate stolen passwords usernames and email addresses into “combo lists” used to populate automated credential-stuffing attacks These groups have helped fuel “a surge in account takeovers financial fraud and corporate espionage,” the report said “The traditional security playbook is no longer enough,” Derek Manky chief security strategist at Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs intelligence-led defense strategy powered by AI and continuous threat exposure management to stay ahead of today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape.” And that includes taking better care of your passwords to prevent the rapidly-evolving infostealer malware threat what can security experts teach us that will help prevent becoming the next password compromise victim they often require frequent changes which can “frustrate users and lead to them making small changes to the original password or make them easier to remember and "World Password Day is not just important for individuals; organizations also have a role to play,” Michela Resta data privacy and cybersecurity solicitor at CyXcel good password hygiene is not just having a password policy but enforcing it “If a policy mandates ten-character passwords with a mix of symbols “it is fundamental that your systems back this up and does not let users bypass the rules or recycle their old passwords.” However Resta concedes that we should all remember that no matter how strong passwords are never going to be hacker-proof risks like device compromise and social engineering can lead to a breach “It is essential that organizations not only implement strong cybersecurity measures but also maintain a well-developed and regularly tested incident response plan.” in terms of what has become known a password fatigue as well as password reuse it was the zoomers that stood out as being particularly poor Not only did 72% Generation Z respondents admit to recycling passwords across accounts and services compared to “just” 42% of my boomer compadres but 79% of them even admitted they knew that doing so was risky but the zoomer ability to totally ignore common security sense knows no bounds: 59% admitted to reusing an existing password when updating an account with an organization that had recently reported a security breach hence the need to change the password in the first place 44% have changed a streaming password out of spite after falling out with someone they shared the account with A mere 10% of Generation Z users said that they always updated a password in response to it being compromised anyway fewer than 25 unique passwords at any given time 38% of the zoomer contingent only changed a single character in a password when prompted to change 30% said they often forget their account passwords anyway If I’m not already on some zoomer hit list I soon will be: 25% share passwords in body text way less than those who actually use a password manager actually use a password manager to share credentials securely ShareSaveCommentInnovation AIBig Bets On Which Of These Pathways Will Push Today’s AI To Become Prized AGIByLance Eliot Eliot is a world-renowned AI scientist and consultant.Follow AuthorMay 04 03:15am EDTShareSaveCommentLaying out the pathways from today's convention AI to reach the vaunted AGI I examine the most likely pathways to get us from today’s contemporary AI to the vaunted AGI (artificial general intelligence) This is a mighty big open question and there are AI makers and humongous tech firms all making bets on which path will be the winner-winner chicken dinner when it comes to attaining AGI This analysis of an innovative AI breakthrough is part of my ongoing Forbes column coverage on the latest in AI, including identifying and explaining various impactful AI complexities (see the link here) some fundamentals are required to set the stage for this weighty discussion There is a great deal of research going on to further advance AI The general goal is to either reach artificial general intelligence (AGI) or maybe even the outstretched possibility of achieving artificial superintelligence (ASI) it is unknown as to whether we will reach AGI or that maybe AGI will be achievable in decades or perhaps centuries from now The AGI attainment dates that are floating around are wildly varying and wildly unsubstantiated by any credible evidence or ironclad logic ASI is even more beyond the pale when it comes to where we are currently with conventional AI Since attaining AGI seems to be a greater chance in the relatively near-term versus achieving ASI let’s put our minds to trying to foresee how AGI is going to be reached I will use some strawman dates to help illuminate the murky matter The strawman we will use here is the year 2040 It is useful to put some thought into how those fifteen years are going to play out we are currently sitting just about mid-way through the year 2025 Trying to envision arriving at AGI in the year 2040 seems like a daunting task It is quite a long distance in time from our present-day AI status we will do a divide-and-conquer approach to see what we can come up with One possibility is that the advances in AI occur smoothly on a year-by-year basis which ultimately culminates in AGI Assume that each year there is an incremental advancement and the advancement is roughly the same amount of progression each year AGI will become a reality by 2040 (I’m using rounded numbers for this thought exercise) Here’s what vocal critics of the incremental approach say is potentially going to happen Their hope is pinned on the idea that an enterprising AI developer will miraculously see beyond the bounds of existing AI and derive a groundbreaking new approach that no one has yet even imagined This breakthrough will be the Holy Grail that gets us to AGI Shortly after inventing or figuring out this incredible innovation Consider how this gives a different perspective on the timeline Maybe the incremental approach muddles along for a dozen years and ongoing self-congratulations are occurring Investors in this AI are getting perturbed and asking hard questions about when AGI is finally going to be had the enterprising AI developer comes up with an incredible breakthrough this breakthrough is rapidly nursed into becoming AGI there are twelve years of modest incremental progress that is then suddenly punctuated by a new way of devising AI in relatively short order the vaunted AGI is figured out Variations on that timeline are roughly the same in the sense that over the fifteen years there is a sudden transformative eureka about AI that puts AGI in the picture Perhaps this happens in year 10 instead of year 13 A disconcerting problem with that timeline is that it is a bet on a kind of miracle occurring during the AGI pursuit You might have seen a popular cartoon of two scientists standing at a chalkboard that is filled with arcane equations The response is that a miracle goes in that spot I’ve come up with seven major pathways that AI is going to advance to become AGI The first listed path is the incremental progression trail The AI industry tends to refer to this as the linear path The idea of a sudden miracle happening is usually coined as the moonshot path Here’s my list of all seven major pathways getting us from contemporary AI to the treasured AGI: You can apply those seven possible pathways to whatever timeline you want to come up with I used the fifteen years of reaching AGI in 2040 as an illustrative example It could be that 2050 is more likely and this will play out over 25 years If 2028 is going to be the AGI arrival year the pathway is going to be markedly compressed How does a belief in one pathway over another pathway shape the placing of your bets If the linear path is where you are putting your poker chips it would seem that all that needs to happen is to continue doing what is already being done right now Keep the ship steady and presumably on course Don’t let anything distract from that direction The sudden leap to AGI via the moonshot path would appear to necessitate a maverick departure from what is being done at this time Do whatever is feasible to think outside the prevailing box Nurture them along and do not let the myopic pressures of others convince you otherwise Similar strategies apply to each respective pathway I’m betting you are avidly curious as to which of the seven pathways is thought to be the most likely you might be mildly interested in which of the seven is seen as the least likely In talking with many of my fellow AI researchers a casual and highly informal sense is that the S-curve is the most likely This generally aligns with high-tech development curves It also abides by the belief that what we are doing now isn’t going to scale up some new change is going to nudge us forward and open the door to scaling up ingenuity and novelty will help move the needle Which of the seven pathways suits your fancy In terms of the least likely of the pathways the same ad hoc semblance of AI colleagues speculates that the moonshot won’t be the rescuer to get us to AGI the miracle cure gets worse odds than lighting striking you while a meteor lands on your head Maybe this skepticism reflects a belief that what we know is what we know and that there isn’t something else extraordinary that we haven’t yet devised I certainly don’t want that sentiment to dampen any AI innovators from stretching boundaries and trying outsized new ideas Do not let naysayers stop you from your heart’s pursuit As the famous American art historian remarked: “Miracles happen to those who believe in them.” The same might happen with attaining AGI ShareSaveCommentBusiness Aerospace & DefenseUnique Ukrainian Drone Bomber Mission Rescues CaptivesByDavid Hambling I'm a South London-based technology journalist 04:58am EDTShareSaveCommentStill from the drone video showing Ukrainian captives led by a Russian soldier under trees showing how the drone operators carried out a mission remotely which would previously have needed boots on the ground Clearly this particular operation was cherry-picked for propaganda purposes and shows a ‘best case’ outcome it gives a valuable glimpse into the current state of the art of multi-drone close-quarter action The mission is described in a news release from Ukraine’s Border Guards press officer for the Sumy border detachment He states it took place ‘the other day’ in the Sumy region “Border patrol operators of reconnaissance drones discovered an enemy group with three captured Ukrainian defenders,” according to Tkach The video from a recon drone shows the group moving through light forest in single file with two more Russians bringing up the rear Because of the spring foliage individuals can only be seen intermittently through the greenery The drones have thermal imagers as well as daylight cameras and these can see through leaves to some degree but cannot distinguish uniforms or whether somneone is armed several UAV crews of the 1st Separate Tank Siversk Brigade immediately flew out,” states Tkach Thermal imaging view as a drone-dropped grenade falls towards a Russian sheltering under a tree The drone operators carried out a joint operation with the Border Guards scout drones guiding the Tank Brigade team’s light bombers These appear to be Mavic-type drones armed with hand grenades “They managed to separate the enemy from Ukrainian soldiers and force the enemy to flee with the help of [grenade] drops The drops were so accurate that the enemy had no chance he left the prisoners and retreated,” states Tkach As soon as the grenades start coming down, the men below start running and taking cover. At some point (1:30 on this video) the captives make a break for it and run away A Russian soldier holds on to a tree trunk to avoid drone bombs He knows that the trees gives some cover from observation and the branches can deflect or prematurely explode falling grenades he must hear it coming down through the tree as he runs away and escapes just before it hits The Russians are now separated from their prisoners, and we a different type of drone in action, a heavy bomber or Baba Yaga This has a munitions display showing how many of its weapons have been used and the falling bombs are visibly larger being converted mortar bombs or purpose-designed antipersonnel weapons Thermal imaging view from a from the heavy drone bomber during the rescue “The Russians were destroyed,” claims Tkach It is not possible to confirm this from the video but given that the survivors are being pursued by several drones which do not seem to have any difficulty following them Drone operations often require an extended planning process with targets precisely located and units assigned specific roles well in advance this one seems to have been carried out on the fly with at least four drones of three different types of drone operated by two different units This suggests a high degree of professionalism and co-ordination The speed of the drones also means they were able to intercept the moving group when a ground-based unit would have been too slow The escaped Ukrainians (at top left) are led to safety The Russian soldiers lack effective counter-drone armament They do not even try to shoot down the drones bombing them Hitting a small drone with an automatic rifle is challenging and makes the shooter an obvious target A shotgun may be useful against FPVs at close range Anti-drone jammer weapons like this German system are rare and not always reliable Portable ‘trench jammers’ effective against FPV attack drones typically have a range of 100 yards of less That is enough to make the FPV operator lose control of their drone and force a miss But it is not effective against a drone which can drop bombs from an altitude of more than 300 feet especially with enough batteries for prolonged operations Russian forces also have some radio-frequency anti-drone weapons There is more than one video of a Russian pointing such a weapon at a drone with no effect right up until impact It takes a lot of grenades to ensure a kill produced more than 50 million hand grenades in WWII which at a highly optimistic estimate caused a million casualties Ukrainian DJI Mavic 3 used as a bomber with two improvised munitions They can hit targets with greater precision than mortars or artillery and can keep attacking for as long as they have ammunition This was a bold mission which could easily have gone wrong. There are numerous cases of Russians summarily executing Ukrainian PoWs and after coming under attack the captors might have decided that shooting the prisoners was safer than guarding them But the Ukrainians made the right call and rescued the captives Ukraine is looking to increasing the number of drones and robots at the front line keeping their human operators back out of danger This example shows that even with existing technology complex and demanding missions can be successfully executed from a distance ShareSaveCommentBETAThis is a BETA experience. opt-out hereInnovation Gaming‘Destiny 2’ Content Vaulting Causes More Legal Problems For BungieByPaul Tassi Bungie is in the middle of what seems like a pretty far-fetched lawsuit filed by a man who believes story and lore aspects of Destiny 2 were stolen from work he posted on WordPress well before Destiny 2 launched in an attempt to show the court that the concepts being cited in content like the D2 Red War campaign and Curse of Osiris DLC are different than his With the release of the Beyond Light expansion Bungie threw large portions of the game in its unplayable “content vault,” which encompasses the Red War Osiris and Warmind DLCs and the Forsaken campaign The problem is that because that content cannot be played anymore they are unable to produce a working copy to show the judge they’ve had to submit things like Wikipedia entries and creator lore videos The judge has now said that’s not good enough The thrust of the issue here is that the Plantiff’s lawsuit is not about wikis or lore videos the game that is not able to be produced as actual evidence who have long been annoyed that Bungie removed all this content with the rationale that it had just become technically unsustainable to keep it in the game but seeing this erased content turning into a roadblock is…somewhat amusing for fans This doesn’t mean Bungie is about to lose the lawsuit the claims the Plaintiff had made about what was taken seem often seem like very very generalized science fiction concepts (a large object over the earth) The Plaintiff is claiming outright plagiarism which seems like it will be exceptionally hard to prove given his claims if they cannot produce a working copy of the content in question Some fans are wondering out loud if Bungie must now literally rebuild the content to be playable and then they can also throw it in the game again which…seems almost as far-fetched as the lawsuit itself We’ll see what happens from here with the case but certainly do not expect that to happen ShareSaveCommentBETAThis is a BETA experience. opt-out hereLifestyle Spirits$80 Million Scotch Whisky Cask Investment Firm Goes BustByFelipe Schrieberg ShareSaveCommentScotch whisky casks in 1950 Investors are now scrambling to find casks sold by Whisky Merchants .. More Limited Ltd through the Cask 88 and Braeburn Whisky entities May 3rd update: There may be some hope for cask owners Van Putten said: “I’ve spoken with administrators today and Whisky Merchants Trading Limited is in the process of ensuring that all owners have access to their casks and proper paperwork (and that) potentially casks might be moved physically to facilitate that.” Other warehouse managers that had worked with Whisky Merchants Trading Ltd have also made cautiously optimistic statements on social media that casks purchased through the firm could eventually be reunited with their owners and have issued calls for investors who purchased casks through Whisky Merchants Trading Ltd to get in touch Risky Business: The Scotch Whisky Cask Investment Scam Many scotch whisky cask investment firms sell casks that don't exist They start by using social media — and sometimes advertise in established publications – to cast a wide net targeting victims ranging from curious investors to the elderly and financially vulnerable consistent returns and pitch so-called "multiple exit strategies" to make the investment seem low risk they often refer to historical sales of rare whisky even though the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has ruled many of these claims as misleading they’re typically handed a “certificate of ownership.” But in reality this document is often meaningless; it neither guarantees legal ownership nor proves the cask even exists the most important principle in legitimate cask ownership is that the investor must have direct contact with the warehouse storing the cask usually via a document called a Delivery Order If that line of communication doesn’t exist The promise made to prospective investors by most Scotch whisky cask investment firms of “multiple exit strategies” as detailed by the BBC and also in other cases I have seen when a cask is allegedly resold — real or not — it’s usually to another buyer found by the same investment firm this kind of approach resembles a pyramid scheme rather than a legitimate investment practice but only by offloading the cask to another buyer and offloading the risk at the same time These occasional “success stories” are then used to create the false impression that these firms are reputable and acting responsibly in the interests of its clients Gary Stoller is an award-winning travel and investigative journalist 10:04am EDTShareSaveComment@font-face{font-family: "Schnyder"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/schnyders/schnyders-bold-webfont.woff2") format("woff2") url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/schnyders/schnyders/schnyders-bold-webfont.woff") format("woff"); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal;} @font-face{font-family: "Merriweather"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/merriweather/merriweather-bold-webfont.woff2") format("woff2") url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/merriweather/merriweather-bold-webfont.woff") format("woff"); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal;} @font-face{font-family: "Graphik"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/graphik/graphik-bold.woff2") format("woff2") url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/graphik/graphik-bold.woff") format("woff"); font-weight: 700; font-style: normal;} @font-face{font-family: "Schnyder"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/schnyders/schnyders-light-webfont.woff2") format("woff2") url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/schnyders/schnyders-light-webfont.woff") format("woff"); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal;} @font-face{font-family: "Merriweather"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/merriweather/merriweather-regular-webfont.woff2") format("woff2") url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/merriweather/merriweather-regular-webfont.woff") format("woff"); font-weight: 400; font-style: normal;} @font-face{font-family: "Graphik"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/graphik/graphik-regular.woff2") format("woff2") #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .color-accent{color: #000000;} #article-stream-0 .headline-embed.bg-accent #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .bg-accent{background-color: #000000;} #article-stream-0 .headline-embed.color-base #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .color-base{color: #FFFFFF;} #article-stream-0 .headline-embed.bg-base #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .bg-base{background-color: #FFFFFF;} #article-stream-0 .headline-embed.font-base #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .font-base{} #article-stream-0 .headline-embed.font-size #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .font-size{font-size: 54px;} #article-stream-0 .quote-embed.color-accent #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .color-accent{color: #FFFFFF;} #article-stream-0 .quote-embed.bg-accent #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .bg-accent{background-color: #FFFFFF;} #article-stream-0 .quote-embed.color-base #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .color-base{color: #000000;} #article-stream-0 .quote-embed.bg-base #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .bg-base{background-color: #000000;} #article-stream-0 .quote-embed.font-accent #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .font-accent{font-family: Schnyder,"Noto Sans","Droid Sans","Helvetica Neue",Corbel,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;} #article-stream-0 .quote-embed.font-size p #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .font-size p{font-size: 36px;} #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed.color-accent #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed .color-accent{color: #333333;} #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed.bg-accent #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed .bg-accent{background-color: #333333;} #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed.font-accent #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed .font-accent{font-family: Graphik,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;} #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed.font-size #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed .font-size{font-size: 26px;} #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed.color-body #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed .color-body{color: #333333;} #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed.color-body-border{border-top-color: rgba(51,51,51 #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed .color-body-border{border-top-color: rgba(51,51,51 0.8);} .bg-body{background-color: #333333;} #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed.font-accent #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed .font-accent{font-family: Graphik,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;}The hazy IPA category attracted the most entries at this year's World Beer Cup and the gold medal went to California brewery Everywhere for its Shifted Visions (not the beer shown in the photo) A California brewery emerged as the king of hazy IPAs at the annual World Beer Cup awards Thursday in Indianapolis Everywhere brewery of Orange California copped the gold medal in the Juicy or Hazy India Pale Ale category with its Shifted Visions beer The brewery describes the 7.1% ABV beer as a “hazy India pale ale made with oats and premium pilsner malt and hopped with nectaron More entries—290—were received in the popular Juicy or Hazy India Pale Ale category than in any other category The contest was comprised of 112 categories in the beer competition and five in the cider competition More than 8,300 entries from 49 countries were judged by 265 judges The West Coast-Style India Pale category received the second-highest number of entries—253. The gold medal was won by Austin-based Pinthouse Brewing for Mosaic Takedown The Texas brewery has a unique description of its award-winning brew whole leaf and 702) battle it out with chinook The match result is a powerhouse of bright blueberry Breweries submitted 208 entries in the American-Style India Pale Ale category the nonprofit trade association representing small and independent brewers "The World Beer Cup competition continues to showcase the global industry's dedication to innovative craftsmanship diverse flavors and technical excellence,” said Chris Williams “This roster of 2025 winners represents the pinnacle of craft brewing and cideries demonstrating what’s achievable through dedication and passion.” Judges from 37 countries evaluated beers from 1,751 breweries and cideries over the course of seven days. All of this year’s medalists can be found here ShareSaveCommentInnovation CybersecurityNew Windows Account Password Alert As Microsoft Deletes Them AllByDavey Winder 04:47am EDTShareSaveCommentNew Windows accounts now passwordless by default there was the surprise announcement from Microsoft confirming the sudden disappearance of Windows account passwords altogether starting May 1 That move towards a passwordless experience has just taken a massive surge forward In a May 1 announcement Microsoft confirmed that it is suddenly removing passwords from all new Windows accounts with immediate effect We’re changing the default behavior for new accounts,” Microsoft's president for identity and network access the corporate vice president for Microsoft security All new Microsoft accounts will now be password-free by default “New users will have several passwordless options for signing into their account,” Chick and Jakkal continued “and they’ll never need to enroll a password.” This will be accompanied by an automated process called passwordless-preferred sign-in Microsoft has said it will determine the optimal method of securely signing in on your device and present it to you by default “If you have a password and one-time code set up on your account we’ll prompt you to sign in with your one-time code instead of your password,” the announcement confirmed you will then be prompted to enrol a passkey and this will be used for future sign-in prompts ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingA Reported Reason Why ‘GTA 6’ Has Been Delayed So LongByPaul Tassi The stated reasons Rockstar gave were the usual things like “we want to exceed your expectations” and “deliver the level of quality you deserve,” but behind the scenes a new report from the ever-reliable Jason Schreier gets into specifics responding to pushback about the crunch issue This has not been without pain on Rockstar’s end as this announcement to push GTA 6 out of the fiscal year after repeated assurances to investors it would be out this fall has resulted in a nearly 7% stock drop in the past day albeit Take-Two has avoided the crushing declines in other areas of the market with its stock up 50% over the course of the past year It is currently in the highest window it’s ever been There are no real downsides to the GTA 6 delay Rockstar employees will hopefully not be worked quite as relentlessly Other developers can now breathe a sigh of relief that it’s not out this fall And we finally have an actual release date ShareSaveCommentInnovation Gaming‘Andor’ Season 2 Review: A Masterpiece, Some Of The Best ‘Star Wars’ Ever MadeByErik Kain entertainment & culture.Follow AuthorApr 21 There has never been anything quite like Andor in the Star Wars universe which makes sense given that Andor is a prequel to that film how do you craft a story that still has stakes you know the lead character has to survive in order to appear in Rogue One Few prequels succeed for these very reasons One of the most successful prequels ever made is Better Call Saul which takes place in the years leading up to Breaking Bad but instead of focusing on Walter White or Jesse Pinkman Better Call Saul works not only because it’s incredibly well-written but because it introduces a whole cast of new characters to the story While we know what happens at the end of Breaking Bad we don’t know the fates of characters like Nacho Andor succeeds as a prequel for similar reasons we not only dig deep into the life and times of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) but a host of other characters many of which are introduced in the series We don’t know what the fate of any of them will be There is the ruthless spymaster Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) and his mysterious assistant Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau) Andor meets other spies like Vel (Faye Marsay) and Cinta (Varada Sethu) And he has friends like Bix (Adria Arjona) and Brasso (Joplin Sibtain) On the other side of the revolutionary divide the show introduces us to some terrific new villains Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) is perhaps the most complex and fascinating female character ever written for Star Wars and certainly one of its most compelling bad guys an Imperial agent whose ambitions outstrip his capabilities Plenty of new characters were introduced and killed off in Season 1 Nemik (Alex Lawther) the idealistic revolutionary whose writing about the brittle nature of authority I still find inspiring Maarva (Fiona Shaw) posthumously gave one of the most rousing speeches in Star Wars history Kino Loy (Andy Serkis) helped lead the prisoner revolt on Narkina 5 The fate of all of these characters is a mystery to us going in and Andor succeeds by making us care about each and every one of them and plenty of what comes in the future of Star Wars but we don’t know where all these characters end up and this keeps us invested in each of their stories toward the Battle of Yavin and the destruction of the Death Star The first season of Andor was all about Cassian’s transformation from smuggler to revolutionary Andor was drawn into Luthen’s network of spies joining an impossible heist to rob an Imperial payroll on Aldhani to the tune of over 80 million credits This was still not enough to revolutionize him When he was arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and sent to a labor prison on Narkina 5 he began to see the true depth of injustice the galaxy faced under Imperial rule where the death of Maarva spurs an all-out rebellion in the streets The events of Season 2 pick up roughly a year later and each “chapter” of three episodes leaps a year closer to the Battle of Yavin and we march closer and closer to Luke Skywalker’s victory at the Death Star every three episodes in Season 2 but the time-jumps make the second season feel even more like several interconnected stories It was one of the best parts about Season 1 as Imperial agents both in and out of the ISB spin their webs on the planet Ghorman while nascent rebel groups attempt to push back against the Empire Luthen and the other rebel spies are desperately trying to figure out what the Empire is up to while Dedra and other Imperial spies try to uncover rebel sects we continue to follow Senator Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) as she navigates the perilous halls of Chandrila and Coruscant aiding the rebel cause both in the shadows and from her lofty Alliances are tested and fractious rebels rarely see eye-to-eye Nowhere is this more apparent than in the strained relationship between Andor and Luthen each block of three episodes forms its own contained story but larger narrative threads bind each chapter together ramping up the action and tension as the season progresses with little pockets of mayhem scattered throughout as we learn where each character has been and what they’ve been up to since we last saw them in the explosive Season 1 finale Nor will I spoil the fates of these heroes and villains though I will say that while you might see some of them coming Skarsgard never has quite the moments he has in Season 1 but Luthen Rael remains one of the most complex and fascinating characters ever written for a Star Wars offering Dedra’s arc is quite brilliant from start to finish as well and Gough is mesmerizing in every scene-stealing moment We get more from some of the characters who were glossed over a bit in Season 1 Kleya is perhaps the character that benefits most from more screentime and fleshed out backstory Young Wilmon Paak (Muhannad Bhaier) is also given a much larger role this season We also revisit some characters from Season 1 like the mad rebel leader Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) as well as other Star Wars characters I can’t mention without spoiling things This is still not a show about Jedi or Skywalkers or Darth Vader though we do get some delicious moments with Director Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) Bix also gets a larger role throughout Season 1 though for much of it she is living with the trauma of her torture in Season 1 at the hands the nefarious Doctor Gorst (on orders from Dedra Meero) who still haunts her dreams This is an even darker season than the first It’s certainly more adult than any other Star Wars show or film I’ve seen with drug use and the threat of sexual assault it doubles down on the nature of authoritarianism and the power of resistance laying bare the Empire’s use of lies and propaganda but a great political thriller regardless of its fictional universe or genre The costume design is simply without parallel I was especially impressed by the scenes taking place on Mon Mothma’s home planet of Chandrila but all throughout the season we are constantly rooted in a sense of place thanks to the brilliant costume and set design whether we’re wandering the halls of the ISB on Coruscant hurrying through the hushed streets of Ghorman And Season 2 takes us to various other locations I won’t name here The introduction of video in a couple different scenes earlier on in the series feels very out of place in Star Wars I’m trying to remember if videos were ever shown in previous shows or movies in this universe you only see people watching holograms But this is a small (if somewhat jarring) addition here that I think is easy enough to look past My only other complaint is that this is it that we’ll get no more Andor and it’s unclear if Tony Gilroy and his team will make any other Star Wars content in the future simply because this is so much better than anything else we’ve seen in this universe While that holds powerful nostalgia over me and while I love Luke Skywalker and Han Solo and Princess Leia and the droids and Chewbacca all so much and find their adventures thrilling and magical Andor just takes all of this and strips away the epic hero’s journey and the magical Force and leaves us with a political thriller that is at once intense and deeply human complicated people struggling for survival willing to risk everything for a chance at freedom The final scene of the Season 2 finale left me deeply emotional Andor is a perfect Star Wars show and a masterclass in crafting a prequel making not only Rogue One but the original trilogy itself more powerful and meaningful in the process Andor’s second season is brimming with intense action suspenseful spy games and a tremendous cast of rich characters all in a power struggle for the future of the galaxy that will leave you breathless terrified and emotionally devastated by its powerful conclusion I’m always excited to discuss these shows with readers Watch my video review below: ShareSaveCommentInnovation AIThe Brewing Controversy Over The Proposition That AI Is Nothing More Than Just Normal TechnologyByLance Eliot Eliot is a world-renowned AI scientist and consultant.Follow AuthorMay 01 03:15am EDTShareSaveCommentIs AI just a normal technology or does it deserve to be considered extraordinary I examine a rapidly expanding controversy that AI is nothing more than just normal technology We are overstating the underlying nature and impact of AI and allowing ourselves to be deluded into a false sense of AI as superhuman This causes us to then fail to suitably deal with conventional AI and become hopelessly mired in fanciful daydreams of what AI might someday become let’s recalibrate our mindset and view AI as normal technology The AI community is quite strongly divided on both sides of this assertion Some heartily insist that it is about time that the emperor with no clothes was finally revealed while others vehemently disagree with the idea that AI is merely normal technology The general goal is to either reach artificial general intelligence or maybe even the outstretched possibility of achieving artificial superintelligence An intriguing question arises about the status of conventional AI Is conventional AI merely the same as other “normal” technologies such as on par with the internet or electricity Observe that the comparison of AI is being made to tremendous and transformative technologies including the advent of the internet and the discovery and harnessing of electricity The point is that the word “normal” should be level-set as outsized tech that has been wholly disruptive and a huge change to how humankind operates Do not fall into the mental trap of construing the word “normal” as meaning akin to a normal toaster or a normal mouse trap Mull over whether you believe that AI is normal or exceedingly extraordinary Assume for the sake of discussion that you or someone you know is on the side of believing that AI is normal technology One perspective is that conventional AI is running on everyday computer servers uses everyday aspects of inputs and outputs and employs cleverly devised algorithms but all of this is well within human craftsmanship There aren’t any magical incantations involved Hard-nosed AI insiders who are fed up with the fakery and over-the-top proclamations about modern-era AI are declaring that enough is enough Set aside all this nonsense about AI that walks on water and leaps tall buildings in a single bound An April 15 paper entitled “AI as Normal Technology,” co-authored by researchers Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor under the auspices of Columbia University and their Knight First Amendment Institute Their viewpoint has stirred a hornet’s nest If you are someone who ardently believes that all the zany headlines stirring the fearmongering gaslighting and breathless existential risks of AI have got to come to a halt you are likely to embrace and applaud the contention that AI is normal technology Others would disagree with the contention and assert that this is nothing more than a form of gaslighting about the alleged gaslighting about AI As an aside, the paper goes into great detail about their rationale that AI is a normal technology and you might consider reading the full paper if this is a matter of direct interest to you One worry about conceiving AI as normal technology is that this might slide society into a semblance of complacency about AI the talk of AI as possibly being able to cure cancer and wipe out humanity provides a potent focus on what AI is and where AI is headed but the only way to get society to be attentive often necessitates going over the top If we all agree to henceforth say that AI is normal technology perhaps AI will no longer garner headlines and no longer gain the attention of policymakers We will relegate AI to the realm of the techies Looming societal effects will undoubtedly be unexplored since AI techies either aren’t thinking about those heady matters or assume that it will all get figured out when AI emerges once again into the global consciousness That could be like letting the horse out of the barn You could have kept the horse in the barn or at least prepared to smartly release the horse you kept your head deeply buried in the sand (two metaphors for the price of one) There is another twist on why the premise that AI is normal technology seems worrisome let’s go ahead and place the matter of AGI and ASI completely outside our purview Just go along with the supposition that AGI and ASI are not in the picture Only conventional AI as we know it today is inside the big picture One argument is that the impacts of even conventional AI are You can proceed to assume that AI is a normal technology but the societal impacts go beyond those of other normal technologies There are normal technologies that lead to normal impacts there are normal technologies that lead to abnormal impacts Lumping AI into the normal technology’s classification can falsely lead to thinking that AI has just normal impacts In the excerpts above from Narayanan and Kapoor’s paper regarding the propositional case of AI as a normal technology some inquisitors have noted a make-or-break assertion in there The premise includes a crucial underpinning about predicting the foreseeable future of AI (note: I have italicized that portion here so you can readily observe it here): throughout history there have been numerous instances of predictions concerning so-called foreseeable futures that were significantly off base The upshot is that the foreseeable future for conventional AI could be that we continue to bump along and see modest advances that aren’t especially surprising the normalcy of the said-to-be normal technology of AI retains its normalcy the potential for AI to go far beyond conventional human control might catch us by surprise Imagine we all agreed to treat conventional AI as a normal technology and applied normal scrutiny accordingly and breaking our assumptions about the foreseeable future AI suddenly gets bigger than we can handle Betting heavily on the presumed foreseeable future of AI might be quite a gamble There has also been heartburn about the lay-low aspects of nullifying a willingness or readiness to employ potential drastic interventions associated with conventional AI As noted in one of the excerpted points (portion italicized here for ease of visualization): If we establish a mindset that no drastic policy interventions will be needed do we undercut the chances of spotting a need for drastic interventions and thus delay or fail to identify and adopt such interventions on a timely basis Perhaps conventional AI gets infused into critical systems that we all rely upon for daily existence and survival The AI placed into that posture puts us at risk It could be that we need to perform some form of drastic policy intervention But the normal technology perspective possibly has convinced us that nothing drastic is needed and that otherwise conventional interventions will suffice Do you consider 2027 to 2030 as within the rubric of a foreseeable future or is it outside that range many in the AI community believe that we are either just a few years away from AGI or at most about a dozen or so years away You can certainly disagree with those predictions AGI would have such an enormous consequential impact that we cannot sensibly lump AGI into the conventional AI bucket we are stipulating that AGI is not superhuman This sets aside the superhuman AI conflating It sure would be nice if we could have our cake and eat it The circumstances would be that we could keep two fundamental dimensions in our heads at the same time extraordinarily challenging non-normal task 12:04pm EDTShareSaveComment@font-face{font-family: "Schnyder"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/schnyders/schnyders-bold-webfont.woff2") format("woff2") #article-stream-0 .headline-embed .font-size{font-size: 54px;} #article-stream-0 .subhead-embed.color-accent #article-stream-0 .subhead3-embed .font-accent{font-family: Graphik,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;} #article-stream-0 .quote-embed.color-accent #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .font-size p{font-size: 36px;}MrBeast posted a joke thumbnail in response to the viral question a single man cannot defeat a gorilla in combat but the internet is curious—would 100 men stand a chance The viral question has spread through the internet this week Who would win in a fight between 100 ordinary The question has been asked on the internet before, but it emerged again on TikTok and X (Twitter) It’s not looking good for the solitary gorilla—100 men is an absurd amount of opponents Perhaps the gorilla has a chance if its opponents were staggered in a series of one-on-one battles until one of the men defeats the great ape all 100 men are battling the gorilla at once but some interpreted it as a fairer fight—perhaps the question's ambiguity is the secret to its success The question has been asked on the internet before and bears an uncanny resemblance to an old meme that used to circulate through Reddit—would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses the user that posts the question begins with an acknowledgment that “this question has been posed many times with many different numbers of men” but proposes that the subreddit “get some fresh perspective.” ape is a question that has plagued many over the years—it’s a concept that has been discussed in great detail on The Joe Rogan Experience to the point where it became a meme (although Rogan tends to focus on one-on-one bouts between humans and chimpanzees) terrifying strength of our great ape cousins seems to horrify and fascinate us but gorillas are better known in the natural world as gentle giants An iconic moment in wildlife television saw Sir David Attenborough relaxing with a peaceful group of mountain gorillas as one of the babies playfully tries to steal his shoe “There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than any other animal I know,” Attenborough said of his encounter ShareSaveCommentInnovation CybersecurityGoogle’s Gmail Warning—Upgrade Your Email Account TodayByZak Doffman surveillance and privacy.Follow AuthorMay 04 01:02am EDTShareSaveCommentWhy you need to change your account today Update: Republished on May 4 with a critical new fix that impacts Gmail users and more information on passkeys and plans to delete passwords altogether Google has confirmed the latest warnings — that Gmail accounts are under attack But it’s difficult for users to dive beneath all the headlines to work out exactly what they should do you must upgrade your email account to keep it safe from attackers Google is second only to Microsoft in its likelihood to be aped in an attack “As we progress through 2025,” Check Point says “organizations and users must stay alert to the evolving threat of phishing attacks.” Google’s first piece of advice follows on from that warning — it will never contact users to discuss to account security “Reiterate to your readers,” the company tells me “that Google will not call you to reset your password or troubleshoot account issues.” The second piece of advice is to upgrade your account security. “Passkeys provide the strongest protection,” Google says you can use it to easily sign in to your Google Account as well as some third-party apps or services You can also use that passkey to verify it’s you when you make sensitive changes.” Per FIDO Alliance the organization charged with promoting passkey adoption: “A password is something that can be remembered and typed and a passkey is a secret stored on one’s devices unlocked by the user the same way they unlock their device (biometrics and are designed so that there are no shared secrets Passkeys simplify account registration for apps and websites and even other devices within physical proximity.” Unlike Microsoft, which pushes users to delete passwords as an account vulnerability if kept alongside passkeys Google is keeping passwords and two-factor authentication as a backup you should change your password and ensure that 2FA is device linked either through an authentication app or a trusted device login Google has said it wants to do the same, to be rid of passwords altogether, but that’s not happening quickly. Per one Google “Techspert” when the security upgrade was released: “Yes I’d say our vision for passkeys is to not only get rid of passwords but also eliminate all the Band-Aids the industry has designed to make up for the fact that passwords are so vulnerable.” This is especially critical now, with the rise in AI attacks that are harder to detect and defend, as the FBI has just warned You’re less likely to see them coming and so you should do all you can to make it impossible for an attack to hit its mark “AI threats are no longer theoretical — they’re here and evolving rapidly.” and even if you missed the over-hyped day itself Ignore the worst passwords in the world stories so much so that Microsoft and others are dubbing this year security jamboree World Passkey Day It’s a timely reminder to upgrade your Gmail and other accounts before it’s too late The FIDO Alliance is charged with pushing passkeys and its latest research shows adoption is accelerating “The establishment and growth of World Passkey Day,” its CEO Andrew Shikiar said today “reflects the fact that organizations of all shapes and sizes are taking action upon the imperative to move away from relying on passwords and other legacy authentication methods that have led to decades of data breaches You can find details on setting up your Google/Gmail passkey here. Microsoft warns “the number of password-based cyberattacks has increased dramatically Bad actors know that the password age is ending and that the number of easily compromised accounts is shrinking these bad actors are devoting considerable resources to automating brute force and phishing attacks against any account still protected by a password we observed a staggering 7,000 password attacks per second (more than double the rate from 2023) expect increased pressure from cyberattackers on any accounts still protected by passwords or other phishable sign-in methods.” But it’s not all that simple. “Left out of Microsoft’s announcement,” says Ars Technica “is that even after users create a passkey they can’t go passwordless until they install the Microsoft Authenticator app on their phone a choice that needlessly inconveniences users and undermines the whole ‘passwordless by default’ marketing message.” “Microsoft has resolved an issue with a machine learning model that mistakenly flagged emails from Gmail accounts as spam in Exchange Online.” “we’ve identified that our machine learning (ML) model which safeguards Exchange Online against risky email messages is incorrectly identifying legitimate email messages as spam due to their similarity to email messages used in spam attacks Microsoft says “we’re continuing to investigate opportunities to improve our ML detection process to reduce false positive detections and prevent similar future impact.” the core message for Gmail users it to upgrade your account with a passkey and to make those other changes remains especially with your Gmail account being the gateway to so many other platforms ShareSaveCommentBETAThis is a BETA experience. opt-out hereLeadership Careers7 Resume Red Flags Hiring Managers Spot InstantlyByCaroline Castrillon entrepreneurship and women at work.Follow AuthorApr 27 04:21pm EDTShareSaveCommentResume red flags instantly turn off hiring managers Do you think you have a minute to impress a hiring manager? Try just 7.4 seconds. According to research from Ladders that's all the time recruiters typically spend on an initial resume scan one mistake could mean the difference between a callback and the rejection pile To help you stand out for the right reasons I've compiled the seven most damaging resume red flags that instantly turn off hiring managers—and how to fix them with 20% seeing it as a critical problem that could prevent them from hiring you The issue isn't using AI as a starting point - it's submitting content that sounds mechanical and fails to showcase what makes you uniquely valuable to employers Leverage AI tools for initial brainstorming or creating a basic framework but invest time in customizing your resume with specific accomplishments and relevant experiences that highlight your distinct value Edit thoroughly to ensure your resume reflects your authentic voice rather than sounding like an algorithm mass-produced it Employment gaps aren't automatically disqualifying—but unexplained gaps raise questions When hiring managers see periods of unemployment with no context they may assume the worst—that you were fired or weren't doing anything productive during that time They might also worry that these gaps indicate problems adapting to industry changes or suggest you need additional training Be transparent about employment gaps and frame them positively This approach demonstrates to hiring managers that you remained committed to your professional development and continued building valuable skills even during periods without traditional employment Recruiters are immediately turned off by poor resume design In a document meant to showcase your professional capabilities sloppy formatting signals a lack of attention to detail and poor judgment • Resumes longer than 1-2 pages (depending on experience level) professional resume template with consistent formatting throughout Ensure adequate white space and avoid tables text boxes or overly stylized formatting to ensure your resume is ATS-friendly Keep your resume to one to two pages unless you work in an industry that specifically requests longer documents or have extensive relevant experience that warrants the additional space One of the most common resume mistakes is listing job duties rather than accomplishments Hiring managers already know the basic responsibilities associated with your job title What they really want to see is how well you performed them Highlighting your achievements demonstrates your actual impact and value to previous employers Transform duty-based statements into achievement-focused bullets by including specific metrics and the value you brought to previous employers Instead of: "Responsible for managing social media accounts and creating content for Instagram and TikTok." Write: "Grew Instagram following from 5K to 25K in six months through targeted content strategy resulting in a 40% increase in social media-driven sales." While job-hopping isn’t the taboo it once was—especially in fast-paced industries—a pattern of short stints without clear progression can still raise eyebrows Employers often hesitate to hire candidates with a history of job-hopping as it suggests you might quickly leave their organization—wasting their investment in your onboarding and training Many hiring managers interpret frequent job changes as a sign of potential commitment issues or difficulty adapting to new workplace cultures consider grouping similar roles under one heading (e.g. "Freelance Marketing Consultant") or highlighting the strategic purpose behind each move prepare to explain specifically how each position contributed to your professional development and why you're now seeking a stable Frame your varied experience as a strength that brings diverse perspectives to your work In a document meant to showcase your attention to detail and professionalism Even a single error can signal to hiring managers that you either lack basic communication skills or didn't care enough about the position to proofread your application materials Don't rely solely on spell-check tools which often miss contextual errors like using "their" instead of "there." After writing your resume and ask a trusted friend or colleague to review it Consider using professional proofreading tools like Grammarly as an additional layer of protection against embarrassing mistakes Including too much personal information on your resume looks unprofessional and exposes you to potential discrimination Hiring managers should focus solely on your professional qualifications—not personal details that are irrelevant to your ability to perform the job Focus your resume exclusively on professional qualifications If you want to include interests or hobbies only mention those that demonstrate skills relevant to the position include "Volunteer coding instructor for underprivileged youth" for a software engineering role but leave out your weekend hiking adventures unless they directly connect to the job requirements Remember that the purpose of your resume isn't to document everything you've ever done It's to market yourself effectively for a specific position When you craft it with precision and purpose you transform it from a mere list of experiences into a powerful tool that showcases your unique value When you invest the time to create a resume free of these red flags you're not just applying for a job—you're positioning yourself for success ShareSaveCommentBusiness SportsMoneyHulk Hogan And Eric Bischoff Talk Cena’s Heel Turn, Unveil Real American FreestyleByAlfred Konuwa I write about men in tights & the billions they make for men in suits.Follow AuthorApr 30 09:02am EDTShareSaveCommentHulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff launch Real American Freestyle Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff have launched Real American Freestyle an unscripted freestyle wrestling league injected with storytelling and colorful characters Real American Freestyle looks to blend the drama of pro wrestling and reality shows with the unscripted competition of freestyle wrestling Real American Freestyle has already announced former UFC fighter Ben Askren former Olympian and world champion Kennedy Blades and former national champion Zahid Valencia Hogan and Bischoff turned back the clock this past week with a vintage black-and-white promo in the spirit of the NWO The disruptive tandem once posed the biggest threat to WWE in history during the peak of WCW Nitro in the mid-nineties Hogan and Bischoff teased a new wrestling promotion with a third man Despite wild speculation of what Hogan and Bischoff were up to the WWE Hall of Famers finally have an answer: decorated wrestling coach Israel Martinez who will serve as the upstart brand’s Chief Operating Officer “Real American wrestlers are some of the most disciplined elite athletes in the world — but until now they haven’t had a true professional stage to showcase their greatness,” said Hulk Hogan “Eric and I know how to build the kind of heat that grabs attention and we’re going to make Real American Freestyle wrestling a must-see for fans.” “I intimately understand and appreciate what it takes to perform at the level these athletes do and I was always curious why this sport wasn’t recognized for the potential it has,” said Eric Bischoff Chief Media Officer of Real American Freestyle “The stories we have to tell at Real American Freestyle and the accomplishments of the wrestlers are extraordinary Not only will the audience be entertained by the product but the entire sport will be lifted as a result.” “I’ve been an athlete and a coach in the sport of wrestling and couldn’t be more proud of what the Real American Freestyle team has built,” said Israel Martinez Chief Operating Officer of Real American Freestyle wrestlers have not had the opportunity to seek a professional career as there was not adequate funding or attention being paid to it This league will provide them with a platform to not only do that Real American Freestyle will receive a venture capital investment from Left Lane Capital Shaun White’s Snow League and League One Volleyball I sat down in an exclusive interview with Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff to talk Real American Freestyle their plan to transcend the sport of freestyle wrestling and the current landscape of professional wrestling How would you guys compare the John Cena heel turn to the Hulk Hogan heel turn I'm going to let Eric comment on that, because if I talk first, I could say something that's not appropriate. He’s a good man and I consider him a friend but I’d say the differences are pretty substantial John Cena was a babyface throughout the majority of his career the “who’s the third man?” storyline that played out for weeks John Cena’s change of character to heel was spontaneous but it wasn't part of a storyline that was being built and creating anticipation and then delivering at that moment and surprising people along the way John surprised everybody because they didn't know it was coming but it just wasn't the same because it wasn't part of a story I've met with all the station producers So John stepped up and really ran with the ball and he did a really great job I think he saw more Make-A-Wish kids than anybody's ever seen And then John Cena came out and there was no Rock 'cause I was expecting the characters to keep rolling out like we did So I know everybody’s got movies and obligations and stuff but it didn't feel like that big tidal wave coming at you we just cleaned house and beat everybody's ass All the babyfaces were crying and complaining and AEW has surpassed Nitro as the longest weekly prime-time show on the Turner networks And even though it did surpass Nitro in longevity Do you think AEW or WCW left a bigger impact I'm happy for Tony Khan and the people that work at AEW He's earned his way to be able to say that he outlasted Nitro I got nothing but respect for what he's done and how he's pushed and created opportunities for these guys And you can get hooked into some of those storylines I started watching some of those girls grind out there and I've never seen people work so hard in my life some of bloodbaths and some of the stuff I've seen is kind of really cool stuff But I like the grit and the real aggressive stuff Do you have a favorite women’s wrestler in AEW I kind of like was all over the place until I watched that Toni Storm when I saw her start grinding in there and digging and when I saw her gaffe through her hairline when she pulled that blade through her hairline and she needed about 10 staples this girl ain’t playing." And the girl she was wrestling It was like a protege or a really hot blonde… I would not want to be in that match with them What do you think AEW needs to be cool again I put it in a little box and I'd send it to Tony along with an invoice They need a young Hulk Hogan with a full head of hair that the wrestling audience wants great story They want great action and they want characters that could deliver it it's just an exhibition and it doesn't seem to be connecting John Cena turned heel at Elimination Chamber on March 1 What is Real American freestyle and what makes it so revolutionary I’d like to thank you for checking the video out That's really going to be an electric shock to everybody so we're excited that we've got such a great response already your commentary… You’re one of my favorites for a lot of reasons The video was really Hulk’s idea in the very beginning that’s kind of cool news for people who are fans of the Monday Night Wars and all that but we wanted to get their attention and that was such a cool way to do it one of the things that really changed professional wrestling the way it was being presented at the time it all started with those black and white kind of video montage promos And given what our challenges are and our goals are here at Real American Freestyle that's exactly what we're going to bring to freestyle wrestling of entertainment while maintaining the credibility of the product And there's such fascinating stories from these athletes that have never been told and I don't care whether it's golf And that's what we're going to focus on here So this is going to be a shoot freestyle wrestling product but in a professional environment with a lot more entertainment I think Eric described it the best when he said if you think of The Voice and the injuries and what type of family background they have I think that kind of sets people up to care for the athletes And that's where we're going to begin with the people warming up and getting to know the athletes and then it's up to the athletes to perform I’m looking at some of the athletes you have on your roster It’s going to be over 40 athletes on the roster they’re the type of athletes who are elite-level performers in terms of athleticism but also great performers in terms of their charisma and how they jump off the screen and tell stories what is the ideal athlete who you're trying to recruit for this brand that was one of the first things I told Eric when I called Eric 'cause Eric knows how to beat everybody And we've got a track record together and it wasn't like just plain white toast It was like these guys have a Conor McGregor swagger already They're smartened up way ahead of their time And I think once you get them out there and they get in front of that light they're going to turn into monsters as far as searching for greatness and victories I don’t know how many amateur wrestlers you’ve ever gotten to know well or close to but I had a little bit of experience in amateur wrestling as a kid and a couple of years after college And one thing that I learned along the way and I was really—on a good day—I was pretty average And I think one thing that is consistent throughout and this is probably true for a lot of the individual sports you've got to be wired a little differently to reach the elite level that some of our athletes have really interesting individual personalities and characters and the things that these people have to overcome to get…And it's true with all athletes and the people in it are incredibly tough and very unique individuals And I’m glad you mentioned that because you have pro wrestlers or amateur wrestlers who go into pro wrestling who was one of the best in the world and was able to tap into that entertainment side You could argue the best college heavyweight ever and I think it would’ve worked out had they stuck with him but I think his issue was being so stoic and not necessarily more of a boisterous personality would you rather have somebody with that pedigree and an Olympic type background that you could mold into a great performer Or would you rather have somebody who maybe doesn’t have that background but they jump off the page immediately I hate either/or questions 'cause I want them both and all of these athletes are going to be the best in class It doesn't matter to me as much if somebody comes with kind of built-in charisma But I also really enjoy helping people find their characters There's just sometimes a barrier between what you feel and what you're comfortable articulating And once we kind of cross that barrier and people get a real feel for how much fun it can be to just take their own personalities maybe turn the volume up just a little bit on a couple of things it just blooms right in front of your face sometimes Watching that transition and people getting confidence is fun And they each provide different challenges I remember when Brock Lesnar first came to the WWE And so I wrestled him probably 10 or 12 times And I remember being in Madison Square Garden the only way I could get him to lighten up on me at all Broccoli." I’d call him Broccoli instead of Brock Lesnar you're going to end up in here by yourself." I saw him be able to just shoot in there like a monster and grab a single leg And what we called in the wrestling business a good worker where you could work with a guy every night and he wouldn't break your neck or cripple you He was like a freight train running over you different guys that have stepped in that have really turned into great actual entertainers on top of having that grit and that athleticism that we all look for You see these purebreds turn into entertainers as they learn their craft and they're getting paid for it That's an incentive too they haven't had So I’d like to know more about what's the business model for Real American Freestyle. Do you guys plan to secure a TV deal or have you secured any type of broadcasting rights We haven't even produced our first show so we haven't done anything yet in terms of TV we know that right now the market for sports rights It's a very healthy market and we're glad to be in it is driving a lot of this along with Left Lane But my take on it right now is let's showcase our abilities let's put on the absolute best show we can on every level from production values bringing in the entertainment that we know we need to bring into it to go mainstream and to build this league into the powerhouse that it should be We're going to put forth our best effort and we're going to see where the chips fall I can assure it won't be Vince McMahon as the third man It's pretty clear that Vince is kicking some tires and looking around and maybe got that billionaire boredom setting in "Let's just let the cameras roll and see what happens." And I think what you saw is 75% of the first take and 25% of the second take And as fun as that is and entertaining as it can be And for this league to grow into what it can grow into as a legitimate sports franchise What is your guys' proudest accomplishment as a tandem 'Cause I'm sure there'll be two different answers why don't you go first so I can think about it Probably the fact that I didn’t miss an opportunity because I was out in LA filming a movie and I had enough of the red and yellow Hulk Hogan thing and it had worn itself out in the WWE a little bit "eh." I really didn't click with those guys at first And then as I was watching TV and Scott Hall came in and when he stepped through the ring and goes but you don’t know why I’m here," it looked like it was a shoot Like he was from the other production invading "hold on a minute." And so I made sure I watched the next week and the next week when Big Sexy came and Kevin Nash and powerbombed Eric off the stage and this is the biggest thing for me is not missing that opportunity 'cause I was doing the chin "I don’t know if I want to turn heel." I said "I'm the third man." And when I called Eric and told him I was the third man It took off like a lightning bolt and we changed that whole wrestling business again And so that was the greatest moment for me was getting that second shot of adrenaline only it’s just a little different version of it So distant that it might as well have been number 22 And struggled for such a long time to try to figure out a way "we got to figure out a way to make wrestling cool again." Well And when Hulk jumped in with both feet and the nWo happened Hulk Hogan joining the nWo and turning heel changed the business of the wrestling business The nWo changed it because we looked at where wrestling was It was at that point in time that I looked at the male 18-49-year-old demo WWE's business model was all teen and preteen If you go back and you look at their advertisers all of their merchandising was geared towards teens and preteens but I saw that 18-49-year-old audience that was completely underserved Much like the amateur wrestling audiences today around the world they're underserved in the sense that they don't have their product And there's a real similarity of parallel between where professional wrestling And we intend to change the landscape for amateur wrestling in a very positive way by creating more opportunities and giving these athletes the showcase that they've worked all their lives and deserve to take advantage of the storytelling is going to be so organic that once these guys get in that gladiator arena and they start tugging and pulling for position I think the storytelling is going to get really crazy as to how far these guys are going to go to win and push and stay on top of their game I think it's going to fall into our laps just by their very nature and the reason they're amateur wrestlers to begin with And a lot of these athletes started when they were five or six years old and it's a 365 day a year life for wrestlers and that's where the stories are going to come from these are not sports entertainment stories Cool." You don't really care until you find out what it took for them to get there You learn about the people in their church who inspired them and kept them going Those are the stories that matter the most Much more than something a Hollywood writer could come up with because a lot of people forget that professional wrestling is a work they boo him out of the building and everybody A lot of people have advice and a lot of people have opinions about why I got booed or stuff that I should fix or not fix But then I’ll go to New York or I’ll go to Chicago and they'll cheer me out of the building and I should probably turn to those same people that gave me advice for their opinions before and ask them "what do I do about people cheering me now?" And so I'm so used to being cheered or booed it's kind of like if you don't get a reaction I think the return of Hollywood Hogan would help I think a lot of people are nostalgic for that Real American Beer is just a whole nother thing that some people think is a good idea say your prayers and drink a beer?" There’s always going to be somebody that jumps in there that if they weren't nipping at my heels I wouldn't feel alive or wouldn't even feel relative what would you guys consider for a catchphrase "Welcome to the black and blue of professional freestyle wrestling brother!" I was going to say “broken bones,” but I didn’t want to scare some of the organizations off and not let us steal some of their wrestlers for a while "welcome to the broken bones and the black and blue of professional freestyle wrestling," but we left off the broken bones When I got the call from Hulk and he laid this thing out to me about two minutes in we’ve got Left Lane capital behind us," and I didn’t know who Left Lane was in that moment you couldn't hope for a better partner because they're interested in building sports leagues and they understand it All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted ShareSaveCommentInnovation Consumer TechMeta Quest 3 And 3S Finally Get Important Mixed Reality UpgradeByAndrew Williams but it has taken until now for third-party developers to truly get their hands on the hardware proper The latest version of the Meta Quest software development kit finally unlocks API access to the passthrough camera This has been part of the experimental version of the platform for a few weeks, but the full release means developers can now use it to publish Quest 3 and Quest 3S software to the official store Why does this matter for the average Quest 3 owner It means we’re likely to see a slew of third-party apps and games that make much smarter use of passthrough tech The developer can get access to your video feed and analyze the world around you beyond its basic structure to enrich apps and games It may not take long for the first these apps to appear either given developers have been able to experiment with the API for a short while Before you start picturing a sudden revolution of mixed reality experiences The quality of the feed available is quite limited a 1280 × 960 resolution image at 30 frames per second This is going to limit its visual acuity — it won’t be able to recognise fine detail or small objects from any grand distance Meta announced this upcoming capability in late 2024 as part of its Meta Connect conference and made a pitch we now hope to see realised “This will enable all kinds of cutting-edge MR experiences. You've got tracked objects, AI applications, fancy overlays, scene understanding, and so much more,” said Meta, as reported at the time by Upload VR The future may see more of the onus for keeping the Meta Quest 3 ecosystem healthy placed on third parties too Meta announced more than 100 layoffs associated with its Oculus Studios in-house developments teams and the Supernatural team Meta acquired VR fitness app Supernatural’s creator Within back in 2023 for a deal worth a reported $400 million In February, gamesindustry.biz reported Meta’s Reality Labs losses for the preceding 12 months amounted to $17.7 billion While huge losses from its mixed reality and metaverse division have been its core characteristic since its inception in 2020 the restructure suggests even Meta has had to get real in the current climate ShareSaveCommentInnovation Gaming‘Borderlands 4’ Just Moved Its Release Date, Raising ‘GTA 6’ QuestionsByPaul Tassi movies and the internet.Follow AuthorApr 29 10:31am EDTShareSaveCommentGTA 6/Borderlands 4 Take-Two has no qualms with messing with the entire industry as everyone sits around and waits for a GTA 6 release date what was considered a “safe” spot to launch somewhere around the release of Take-Two’s Borderlands 4 on September 23 Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford just announced in a now-deleted soon-to-be reposted video that the new Borderlands 4 release date is now almost two weeks earlier on September 12 and obviously this now raises questions about the pending release date of GTA 6 which is looking more and more likely to hit its fall 2025 release date Bungie’s Marathon was set to launch the same day on September 23 I’ve heard that the date was picked because there were internal rumblings that Borderlands 4 would in fact be moved other games may now be biting their nails a bit PlayStation’s Ghost of Yotei just announced an October 2 release date which still seemed close enough to Borderlands 4 to be safe But if Borderlands “has” to move that date in late September it seems increasingly likely GTA 6 may arrive in October for one) have refused to announce dates and may not until GTA 6 finally pulls the trigger on an announcement I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that GTA 6 is imminently about to release a second trailer and a subsequent release date much less timing something to go alongside a Borderlands 4 announcement I was planning to play both a lot of Borderlands 4 and Marathon so almost two weeks with BL4 means I won’t have to make a tough choice even if yes I’ll probably put a few hundred hours into BL4 eventually as I’ve done with all the past games a lightswitch gets flipped and that’s essentially the only thing that exists This move by Borderlands does seem like a harbinger of things to come announced Saturday he will leave his role as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO by the end of the year telling investors about his decision at the firm’s annual shareholder meeting where he addressed President Donald Trump’s tariffs discussed Berkshire Hathaway’s business strategies and the larger economy The annual shareholder meeting began Saturday morning (Photo by JOHANNES EISELE/AFP via Getty .. Buffett closed the meeting by announcing he will step down as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO by the end of the year saying Berkshire Hathaway Energy CEO Greg Abel should take over the position who became CEO of Berkshire Hathaway in 1970 was met with a standing ovation after making the announcement It comes as Buffett opened the meeting’s first Q&A session addressing Trump’s tariffs against longtime trade partners saying “trade should not be a weapon” and that the U.S “should be looking to trade with the rest of the world.” who characterized tariffs as “an act of war echoed his statement Saturday and said the U.S has already “won,” adding it has “become an incredibly important country starting from nothing.” When asked about America’s strength and status as an economic powerhouse The veteran investor also told shareholders he would like Berkshire Hathaway to have less cash on hand potentially down to about $50 billion from the whopping $334 billion it reported having at the end of last year and said he does not do anything to manage currency risk “We wouldn’t want to be owning anything in a currency we really thought was going to hell.” Buffett said the market volatility that has dominated the first quarter of 2025 “is really nothing,” later noting “this is not a huge move” in comparison to historic market crashes like the Wall Street crash of 1929 Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts: We’re launching text message alerts so you'll always know the biggest stories shaping the day’s headlines. Text “Alerts” to (201) 335-0739 or sign up here We estimate Buffett’s net worth at $168.2 billion making him the fifth wealthiest person in the world behind Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison ($187.9 billion) Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg ($206.4 billion) Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos ($206.7 billion) and Tesla chief Elon Musk ($389.4 billion) is in a period of economic transition and will ultimately turn positive the chief economist at asset management Apollo Global Management have warned the cost of Trump’s tariffs will primarily bear down on consumers hit small businesses hard and could cause large retailers to go bankrupt Morgan Stanley forecasted recession odds at 40% Goldman Sachs placed predicted 45% odds and JPMorgan Chase gave a 60% chance of a recession over the next year ShareSaveCommentBusiness Hollywood & EntertainmentLady Gaga May Be Just Days Away From Making HistoryByHugh McIntyre with a focus on the global charts.Follow AuthorMay 04 09:00am EDTShareSaveCommentLady Gaga and Bruno Mars’s "Die With a Smile" holds No ENGLAND - JULY 29: (Exclusive Coverage) Lady Gaga performs on stage during The Chromatica Ball Summer Stadium Tour at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on July 29 (Photo by Samir Hussein/Getty Images for Live Nation ) Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars scored the hit of a lifetime with “Die With a Smile” — and that’s saying a lot considering both musicians have already produced dozens of smashes individually the track is not only still performing well — it’s leading the charge on several Billboard charts The song still stands out as the biggest in the world it comes within striking distance of an all-time record The Gaga/Mars collaboration has now dominated Billboard’s ranking of the most-consumed songs throughout the world for 18 nonconsecutive weeks That feat makes it the second-longest-running No 1 in the history of the Billboard Global 200 and the cut may soon break the previously-set record If “Die With a Smile” can hold on for just one more frame it will match “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey for the most weeks spent at No That holiday smash has racked up a total of 19 stays at the summit with those stints spread out across more than half a decade The tune returns to the peak position at the end of each year and continues adding to its growing total The fact that Gaga and Mars have been able to stitch together their 18 weeks at No 1 in one promotional run — if not in a single streak — speaks to the track’s incredible global popularity “Die With a Smile” is also in charge of the Billboard Global Excl though it still has a way to go before matching the all-time record on that ranking it passes the 14 that “All I Want for Christmas Is You” managed That honor belongs to “Apt.,” a collaboration between Blackpink singer Rosé and The track led the list — which excludes sales and streaming data from America and reflects what the rest of the world is consuming — for 19 frames The two tracks came out around the same time and If “Die With a Smile” can remain at the top for another month it could match “Apt.” That’s a tall order for a tune that has already been out for so many months and has now ruled for 15 weeks ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingYes, ‘ARC Raiders’ Makes ‘Marathon’ Look BadByPaul Tassi movies and the internet.Follow AuthorMay 01 but the new race toward live multiplayer games appears to be the genre of extraction shooters and this week brought an unusual situation with two upcoming 2025 extraction games both running Closed Alphas and so far are Bungie’s Marathon and Embark Studio’s ARC Raiders both entries in the extraction genre that are allegedly being released in 2025 There’s no getting around it. The reaction to the Marathon Alpha has mostly been mixed to underwhelming The initial reaction to the ARC Raiders Alpha has visibly skewed more positive ARC Raiders is a much more traditional extraction shooter in the vein of Tarkov but at least somewhat more accessible and better-looking It’s a Fallout-esque concept of scavenging a ruined wasteland populated by hostile robots and other players either avoiding or killing enemies along the way It’s got all the traditional extraction-y things and it just…plays much more like a traditional extraction shooter with its grounded combat Add in some great visuals and truly fantastic sound design and it’s not a mystery why this positive reception is occurring Marathon has ditched a lot of this in an attempt to be unique but in many ways that doesn’t feel like it’s the case taking out hardcore elements extraction players want while also perhaps not being all that accessible to the wider playerbase they want to attract Community conversations with Bungie are not terribly promising saying they’ll get around to things like proximity chat and Solos eventually as neither are an urgent priority according to them The end result here is an odd mix of traditional extraction elements slow moving looting and stamina roadblocks but paired with often Apex-like firefights with less mobility The Marathon Alpha feels less polished and more feature-light it’s a Closed Alpha” don’t exactly match up with the fact that ARC is also doing a Closed Alpha which seems more substantive and finished and is likely to be out a good bit after Marathon Marathon has been in development for six years and this will be Sony’s biggest upcoming live service game after a string of cancellations and failures And of course its famed shooter-maker Bungie’s new IP after massive hits Halo and Destiny spanning 20+ years ARC’s Embark has the same amount of devs in the entire studio as are working on Marathon at Bungie but a portion of those are managing The Finals the studio’s other multiplayer game that may not be the talk of the town these days The reception here has almost been night and day There’s no telling if ARC will for sure be a hit or if Marathon will for sure be a failure it’s impossible not to compare the two and say this has been a much better week for ARC ShareSaveComment@font-face{font-family: "Schnyder"; src: url("https://i.forbesimg.com/assets/fonts/schnyders/schnyders-bold-webfont.woff2") format("woff2") #article-stream-0 .quote-embed .font-size p{font-size: 36px;}Ukrainian army trainees In the same month, Ukrainian losses were “minimal,” concluded analyst Konrad Muzyka of Rochan Consulting in Poland Ukraine sprawls across 233,000 square miles the Russians would capture the rest of Ukraine in the year 2256 at the cost of 101 million casualties The current population of Russia is 144 million Since many of the wounded eventually return to the front line the Russian armed forces recruit more people every month than they lose the Russian force in Ukraine is actually growing It now numbers no fewer than 600,000 troops “the highest level over the course of the war and almost double the size of the initial invasion force” in February 2022 deputy head of the Eastern Europe and Eurasia Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs Whether the money and good vibes are sustainable is an open question Russia’s defense budget will account for 40% of all government expenditures which is at its highest level since the Cold War,” Cavoli said the United States spends just 13% of its federal budget on the military The spending has buoyed Russians’ attitude toward the war even as total casualties exceeded 800,000 earlier this year “As a direct result of its defense spending Russian investments in its industrial base have reduced national unemployment to 2.4%,” Cavoli said “The Russian economy is on a war footing and will remain so for the foreseeable future.” an analyst with the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington Losing a lot to gain very little in Ukraine and sustaining the costly effort through massive spending Russian leaders are walking an economic and political tightrope Putin and his ministers and generals are committed to a long war—one that could widen beyond Ukraine “The Russian regime has refashioned its military economic and social structures to sustain what it describes as a long-term confrontation with the West—systemic changes that illustrate Russia’s intention to confront us into the foreseeable future,” Cavoli warned ShareSaveCommentInnovation Social MediaPope Donald The First? White House Shared AI-Generated Image Of Trump As PopeByPeter Suciu Peter Suciu covers trends in social media.Follow AuthorMay 03 09:51am EDTShareSaveCommentThe AI-generated image of Trump in papal attire which will begin on May 7 to select a new pope the White House shared an AI-generated image of President Donald Trump in papal regalia on X the social media platform formerly known as Twitter It comes just days after Trump joked that he would like to be considered to head the Catholic Church "I'd like to be pope. That would be my number one choice," Trump told reporters outside the White House on Tuesday Trump was in Rome for the funeral of the late Pope Francis his first foreign trip during his second term in office it had been viewed more than 17.5 million times It was also posted following a Rose Garden event celebrating National Prayer Day on Thursday in which the president signed an executive order that established a presidential commission on religious liberty "They said separation of church and state I said let's forget about that for one time It would be highly unlikely that Donald Trump would even be considered by the College of Cardinals who are set to gather in Vatican City for the conclave to choose the next pope the conclave must begin 15 to 20 days after the pope’s chair becomes "lawfully vacant." A new pope is chosen by a two-thirds majority of the ballots cast by the cardinals the most recent being Pope Urban VI in 1378 While any baptized Catholic male could in theory be elected to head the church Trump was raised in his Scottish-born mother’s Presbyterian faith and he publicly identified with it for most of his adult life he would be the first from the United States despite the country’s large Catholic population it is unlikely that this conclave will select any U.S though Trump did offer another name besides his own Even as Trump "joked" last week that he could be pope we have a cardinal that happens to be out of a place called New York who's very good so we'll see what happens," he said likely referring to Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York Cardinal Dolan is not believed to be on any shortlist of possible contenders to succeed Pope Francis Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was the first cardinal from South America and the first Jesuit to be elected pope in March 2013 ShareSaveCommentInnovation Consumer TechWhat To Expect Inside Apple’s Evolutionary M5-Powered MacBook ProByEwan Spence Ewan Spence covers the digital worlds of mobile technology.Follow AuthorMay 03 07:03pm EDTShareSaveCommentMacBook Pro laptops are on display in the Apple store on Kurfürstendamm More Skolimowska/picture alliance via Getty Images) With the launch of the M4-powered MacBook Air in March 2025, Apple saw a spike in Mac sales, with the second fiscal quarter of 2025 up 16 percent year on year over 2024 Thanks to the delay in the MacBook Air’s upgrade to M4 some nine months after the chipset was announced the demand for the consumer-focused laptop was sated With the Apple Silicon M5 expected to debut at next month’s Worldwide Developers Conference a new round of updates to the Mac platform in general Although those looking to reach the new definition of cutting-edge Mac hardware may have to wait some time Apple is not expected to launch the new powerful laptops until later this year If Tim Cook and his team follow the same pattern as 20254 expect to see the first M5-powered MacBook Pro machines in October and M5 Max chipsets—should launch at the same event Don’t expect any significant design changes While the M5 chipset will bring more performance and capability to the macOS platform (which will no doubt be welcomed by the Apple Intelligence team working hard to bring competency to Apple’s generative AI project) the overall design and hardware specifications will likely remain static If performance is your only demand in a new MacBook Pro But if you are looking for something more than a simple bump in the numbers Now read the latest iPhone, MacBook Pro, and App Store headlines in Forbes’ weekly Apple Loop news digest... ShareSaveCommentInnovation GamingI Hate Turn-Based Games, I Love ‘Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’ByPaul Tassi 10:13am EDTShareSaveCommentClair Obscur: Expedition 33 I wasn’t expecting the best game of all time but after a day of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 And the most surprising thing the game has done has turned me into someone who positively loves the system they’ve come up with here And if other people like me are asking if they should play this as a turn-based game when they normally avoid the genre you build up an AP meter that lets you do better attacks But each character has their own little minigame to increase their power and make their strategies more complex but it’s not the main reason it works for me That would be the stellar addition of real-time combat with the turn-based aspects I understand this is not the first game to do this but it’s more central to combat and better executed than I’ve seen before Perfect Attack Or Defense – Almost all special attacks have a quick-time event that when landed correctly 1-3+ times can dramatically increase damage or add extra healing or defense with those types of moves All have a different cadence you will learn the more you use the move Dodge – This is the basic aspect of combat where you learn the timing of each enemy move and are able to real-time dodge them as they come in with things like Perfect Dodge sometimes offering you things like bonus AP It’s a way to take on tough enemies or win seemingly impossible battles if you’re simply good enough at this system There are also “jump” dodges later that allow you to counterattack at the same time where if you manage to deflect a move perfectly or every hit of a combo you will retaliate with a massive attack that turns an offensive enemy turn into them receiving a huge chunk of damage weapons and upgrades for the manual turn selection portion but defense is almost entirely turn-based and if you lose fights it’s not purely because of bad skill selection strategy and gives a different kind of player a leg-up I know it’s technically “quick-time events” which a lot of people hate Among the states whose wealthiest person changed in 2025 is Missouri IT mogul David Steward (estimated net worth: $11.4 billion) of St has surpassed John Morris ($9.6 billion) of Springfield-based Bass Pro Shops Bentonville-based Walmart heir Rob Walton ($113 billion) takes the title from his brother Jim Walton ($112 billion) who moved to the Lone Star State from California in 2020 former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer ($118 billion) beats out his old boss Bill Gates ($108 billion) after Forbes upped its estimate of the 2021 divorce settlement secured by Gates’ ex-wife Melinda French Gates ($30.2 billion) French Gates now ranks as the third richest person in the Evergreen State one spot ahead of MacKenzie Scott ($26.7 billion) whose ex-husband Jeff Bezos ($206 billion) of Amazon has been Florida’s wealthiest resident since announcing his move from Washington to Miami in 2023 Diane Hendricks ($21.9 billion) is one of 10 women who are the richest residents of their respective states The Republican megadonor and cofounder of Beloit-based roofing giant ABC Supply who founded the Eau Claire-based home improvement chain Menard’s where hedge fund tycoon John Overdeck ($7.4 billion) reclaims his state’s top spot from cable TV mogul Rocco Commisso ($5.8 billion) an Italian immigrant who moved with his family to New York City at age 12 in 1962 While at least one of America’s 868 billionaires can be found in almost every state nearly two-thirds of them live in just four: California (194) where the competition for the top spot is particularly tough That’s especially true in the Golden State which is home to four of the seven richest Americans including Oracle’s Larry Ellison ($175 billion) and Alphabet’s Larry Page ($135 billion) and Sergey Brin ($129 billion) who are all too poor to make this year’s list given Palo Alto resident Mark Zuckerberg’s $189 billion fortune 10 states have just one billionaire: Alabama but the proposal underscores the administration’s priority of returning to the moon before China and putting an American on Mars Painters refurbish the NASA logo on the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in .. (Photo by Gregg Newton / AFP) (Photo by GREGG NEWTON/AFP via Getty Images) Published Friday the White House's President’s budget for Fiscal Year 2026 would mean reducing the ambition of the space agency’s plans to return humans to the moon and canceling the flagship Mars Sample Return mission to bring Martian rock back to Earth It would also mean “an end to climate-focused ‘green aviation’ spending.” The White House’s $1.7 trillion spending plan means $163 billion of cuts to federal spending for the next fiscal year There are plans to reduce NASA’s science budget by 47% NASA's Earth Science Division includes satellite missions that monitor climate change “We urge Congress to swiftly reject this destructive proposal and instead pursue a path consistent with the President’s vision This is an opportunity for a bipartisan agreement to secure an efficient and balanced national space program worthy of the nation it aims to represent.” It will see four astronauts launch in NASA's Orion capsule on its Space Launch System rocket and travel beyond the moon Both missions are preserved in the new proposals but follow-up Artemis missions would be canceled and both Orion and the SLS would be scrapped According to The Planetary Society NASA’s current budget of $25.4 billion is about 0.3% of federal spending This proposal by the White House to reduce it to $18.8 billion is the initial step in a process that ultimately leads to Congress passing legislation During the Apollo missions to the moon in the 1960s Since many research efforts can require years to decades “will lose at least a generation of talent to other countries that are increasing their investments in facilities and workforce development,” continued the statement “These proposed cuts will result in the loss of American leadership in science.” Many Voices. 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ShareSaveCommentBETAThis is a BETA experience. opt-out hereInnovation GamingToday’s NYT Mini Crossword Clues And Answers For Sunday, May 4thByErik Kain 07:00pm EDTShareSaveCommentLooking for help with today's NYT Mini Crossword puzzle In case you missed Saturday’s NYT Mini Crossword puzzle Lazy Sunday is here at last and I’m pretty prepared to take advantage of it though I’m sure I’ll spend most of the day doing chores and working I at least plan on blocking out the evening to binge some good shows and maybe getting some video game time in Maybe since it’s May 4th—aka Star Wars Day—I’ll watch something Star Wars related I’ve been playing a bunch of great games lately but man oh man do they take time I highly recommend both Blue Prince and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 to anyone who likes genuinely unique games The former is perhaps the best puzzle game I’ve played since Myst and the latter is a terrific new take on the JRPG made by a small French developer with so many cool new ideas we have a Mini Crossword to solve and I’m rambling on 1- Items of clothing that may be worn backward — CAPS surgeon with the #1 New York Times best seller “Being Mortal” — ATUL 3- Hasbro toy with a pull handle and a twistable crank — BOPIT 7- Channel with “2” and “U” spinoffs — ESPN though fortunately 1-Across and 1-Down were pretty easy and others like PUPILS basically give us the answer for SLIPUP The toughest ones for me today were 5-Across (it took me a second to even realize what ATONCE means because I’m not familiar with Atul Gawande or “Being Mortal.” Still