The Lego Mario & Yoshi set is an homage to 1990’s Super Mario World. The Lego Group From the front, it looks like a fairly straightforward re-creation of the game’s 16-bit sprites. The Lego Group Behind the facade are complex mechanics that move Yoshi’s feet and arms and bob his body up and down, to…
Enlarge (credit: sasha85ru | Getty Imates) In 2012, an industry-wide coalition of hardware and software makers adopted Secure Boot to protect against a long-looming security threat. The threat was the specter of malware that could infect the BIOS, the firmware that loaded the operating system each time a computer booted up. From there, it could…
Enlarge In June, Runway debuted a new text-to-video synthesis model called Gen-3 Alpha. It converts written descriptions called “prompts” into HD video clips without sound. We’ve since had a chance to use it and wanted to share our results. Our tests show that careful prompting isn’t as important as matching concepts likely found in the…
Enlarge / CrowdStrike’s Falcon security software brought down as many as 8.5 million Windows PCs over the weekend. (credit: CrowdStrike) Security firm CrowdStrike has posted a preliminary post-incident report about the botched update to its Falcon security software that caused as many as 8.5 million Windows PCs to crash over the weekend, delaying flights, disrupting…
Enlarge / Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., during a fireside discussion on artificial intelligence risks with Rishi Sunak, UK prime minister, in London, UK, on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. (credit: Getty Images) On Monday, Elon Musk announced the start of training for what he calls “the world’s most powerful AI training cluster”…
Enlarge / The cityscape from the tower of the Lviv Town Hall in winter. (credit: Anastasiia Smolienko / Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images) As Russia has tested every form of attack on Ukraine’s civilians over the past decade, both digital and physical, it’s often used winter as one of its weapons—launching cyberattacks on electric utilities…
Enlarge (credit: Benj Edwards / Getty Images) In the AI world, there’s a buzz in the air about a new AI language model released Tuesday by Meta: Llama 3.1 405B. The reason? It’s potentially the first time anyone can download a GPT-4-class large language model (LLM) for free and run it on their own hardware….
Enlarge / Access to first-party games on launch day remains a major selling point for the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier. Microsoft The FTC says the across-the-board price increases that Microsoft recently announced for its Xbox Game Pass subscription service tiers represent “exactly the sort of consumer harm from the merger the FTC has alleged”…
The Epic Games Store released two more free games for PC users this Thursday. The titles this time are Arcade Paradise e Maid of Skerwhich will be available for redemption until July 24th at 12:00 p.m. (Brasília time). Don’t miss out on the opportunity to add these games to your library without spending a dime….
Nintendo’s Joy-Con Charging Stand (Two-Way) seems useful, but it’s coming out at a strange time in the console’s lifecycle. Nintendo The stand can charge the Switch Online NES controllers, something that Nintendo’s charging grip can’t do because the handles get in the way. Nintendo The charging stand can be removed from the stand part to…