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Electronic Arts has canceled its in-development Black Panther game and shut down Cliffhanger Games, marking its third round of layoffs this year. IGN reports: In an email sent to staff from EA Entertainment president Laura Miele, Miele said that these changes, alongside other recent cancellations and layoffs, are being done to "sharpen our focus and put our creative energy behind the most significant growth opportunities." In addition to closing Cliffhanger and canceling Black Panther, EA is also laying off some individuals on both its mobile and central teams. [...] As with past rounds of layoffs, EA is endeavoring to place affected individuals in other roles across the company. [...] To that end, Miele's email continues, the company is focusing on a small handful of franchises going forward: Battlefield, The Sims, Skate, and Apex Legends. Miele also reassures EA will continue to invest in its Iron Man game at Motive and the third Star Wars: Jedi game, as well as it maintain its mobile business despite today's cuts, while Bioware works on the next Mass Effect. Additionally, last year, CEO Andrew Wilson announced the company would be "moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry." The email doesn't mention EA Sports, but this is due to Miele running EA Entertainment, while EA Sports is a separate division. IGN understands that the sports division is unaffected by these changes for now. Notably, Marvel and EA's agreement for Black Panther was part of a three-game deal that included Iron Man and a third, unannounced title. IGN understands this partnership will continue, with Motive Studios leading future Marvel titles. EA provided the following statement regarding the deal with Marvel to IGN, attributed to Miele: "Our partnership with Marvel remains strong and our multi-title, long-term collaboration continues."

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Discord is testing "Discord Orbs," a new in-app currency that rewards users for engaging with interactive ads and promotional Quests. The Verge reports: In addition to spending Orbs on regular items on the Discord Shop, users can exchange the digital tokens for Orb exclusives like special badges or 3-day passes to try out Discord's subscription service, Discord Nitro. Discord says Orbs are rolling out globally to a "small number" of its users to start before a wider rollout. If you're part of the beta test for Orbs, you will get a notification like the one below. Before this, publishers or brands that offered Quests had to provide their own rewards -- things like avatar decorations or in-game bonuses. They can still do that if they want, Discord spokesperson Bradley Sheets tells The Verge in an email; awarding Orbs is simply an alternative option.

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A security researcher has discovered an exposed database containing 184 million login credentials for major services including Apple, Facebook, and Google accounts, along with credentials linked to government agencies across 29 countries. Jeremiah Fowler found the 47-gigabyte trove in early May, but the database contained no identifying information about its owner or origins. The records included plaintext passwords and usernames for accounts spanning Netflix, PayPal, Discord, and other major platforms. A sample analysis revealed 220 email addresses with government domains from countries including the United States, China, and Israel. Fowler told Wired he suspects the data was compiled by cybercriminals using infostealer malware. World Host Group, which hosted the database, shut down access after Fowler's report and described it as content uploaded by a "fraudulent user." The company said it would cooperate with law enforcement authorities.

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CD Projekt Red's (CDPR) sequel to Cyberpunk 2077, which the studio is now calling Cyberpunk 2, has moved from a "conceptual phase" into preproduction, according to an earnings report released on Wednesday. The Verge: Cyberpunk 2 isn't the official title, CDPR senior PR manager Ola Sondej tells The Verge. "'Cyberpunk 2' just means it's another game in the Cyberpunk universe." The game has had the codename of "Project Orion" since it was announced in 2022. CDPR hasn't shared many details about the game, but did describe it on Wednesday as "the next big game set in the Cyberpunk universe." There are 96 developers working on the title as of April 30th, according to a slide deck. There's no official release date, either, though on an investor call, joint chief executive officer Michal Nowakowski said that the company would deliver the game "in due time."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday that the U.S. would restrict visas for "foreign nationals who are responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States." He called it "unacceptable for foreign officials to issue or threaten arrest warrants on U.S. citizens or U.S. residents for social media posts on American platforms while physically present on U.S. soil" and "for foreign officials to demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States." It's not yet clear how or against whom the policy will be enforced, but seems to implicate Europe's Digital Services Act, a law that came into effect in 2023 with the goal of making online platforms safer by imposing requirements on the largest platforms around removing illegal content and providing transparency about their content moderation. Though it's not mentioned directly in the press release about the visa restrictions, the Trump administration has slammed the law on multiple occasions, including in remarks earlier this year by Vice President JD Vance. The State Department's homepage currently links to an article on its official Substack, where senior advisor for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Samuel Samson critiques the DSA as a tool to "silence dissident voices through Orwellian content moderation." He adds, "Independent regulators now police social media companies, including prominent American platforms like X, and threaten immense fines for non-compliance with their strict speech regulations." "We will not tolerate encroachments upon American sovereignty," Rubio says in the announcement, "especially when such encroachments undermine the exercise of our fundamental right to free speech."

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According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman (paywalled), this year's iOS update won't be called iOS 19. "Instead, Apple is planning to call it 'iOS 26' as part of a new year-based naming strategy," reports 9to5Mac. The new naming scheme will apply to all of Apple's software platforms. From the report: Bloomberg explains that Apple is making this change to "bring consistency to its branding and move away from an approach that can be confusing to customers and developers." The branding alignment comes as Apple is also reportedly planning dramatic redesigns for all of its platforms. The goal seems to be to unify everything both in terms of naming and design.

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Telegram has partnered with xAI to integrate the Grok chatbot into its platform for one year, with xAI paying $300 million in cash and equity. Telegram will also receive 50% of subscription revenue from Grok. TechCrunch reports: Earlier this year, xAI made the Grok chatbot available to Telegram's premium users. It seems Grok might now be made available to all users. A video posted by [Telegram CEO Pavel Durov] on X suggested that Grok can be pinned on top of chats within the app, and users can also ask questions to Grok from the search bar. Notably, Meta has also integrated Meta AI into the search bar on Instagram and WhatsApp. The video also shows that you will be able to use Grok for writing suggestions, summarizing chats, links, and documents, and creating stickers. Grok will supposedly also help answer questions for businesses and assist with moderation. UPDATE: In a response to Durov's X post outlining the partnership, Elon Musk said: "No deal has been signed." "Musk's denial, however, raises questions about the status and structure of the agreement," reports TheStreet. "It's unclear whether the partnership has been formalized or if Durov was announcing a framework that remains under discussion. Neither Telegram nor xAI has issued a follow-up clarification."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from 9to5Google: Google Photos was announced at I/O 2015 and the company is now celebrating the app's 10th birthday with a redesign of the photo editor. Google is redesigning the Photos editor so that it "provides helpful suggestions and puts all our powerful editing tools in one place." It starts with a new fullscreen viewer that places the date, time, and location at the top of your screen. Meanwhile, it's now Share, Edit, Add to (instead of Lens), and Trash at the bottom. Once editing, Google Photos has moved controls for aspect ratio, flip, and rotate to be above the image. In the top-left corner, we have Auto Frame, which debuted in Magic Editor on the Pixel 9, to fill-in backgrounds and is now coming to more devices. Underneath, we get options for Enhance, Dynamic, and "AI Enhance" in the Auto tab. That's followed by Lighting, Color, and Composition, as well as a search shortcut: "You can use AI-powered suggestions that combine multiple effects for quick edits in a variety of tailored options, or you can tap specific parts of an image to get suggested tools for editing that area." The editor allows you to circle or "tap specific parts of an image to get suggested tools for editing that area." This includes the subject, background, or some other aspect. You then see the Blur background, Add portrait light, Sharpen, Move and Reimagine appear in the example below. We also see the redesigned sliders throughout this updated interface. This Google Photos editor redesign "will begin rolling out globally to Android devices next month, with iOS following later this year." We already know the app is set for a Material 3 Expressive redesign. Meanwhile, Google Photos is starting to roll out the ability to share albums with a QR code. This method makes for easy viewing and adding with people nearby. Google even suggests printing it out when in (physical) group settings. Google shared a few tips, tricks and tools for the new editor in a blog post.

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Japanese police referred five individuals and a company to prosecutors last week for allegedly operating a website that published detailed movie plots without permission from rights holders. The Miyagi Prefectural Police Headquarters and Minamisanriku Police Station sent the case to the Sendai District Public Prosecutors Office on suspicion of violating the Copyright Act. The Content Overseas Distribution Association described the case as having "very few precedents for a corporation being referred to the prosecutor's office on suspicion of violating the Copyright Act, making this an extremely rare case." The website posted detailed content from films including "Godzilla Minus One" and four others copyrighted by Toho, "Shin Kamen Rider" and two others by Toei, "Neck" and one other by KADOKAWA, and "Shin Ultraman" by Tsuburaya Productions. The site listed more than 8,000 films with complete storylines, character names, dialogue, and scene descriptions.

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The world faces an 80% probability of breaking another annual temperature record within the next five years, according to a forecast released Wednesday by the World Meteorological Organization and the UK Meteorological Office. The projections, derived from more than 200 computer simulations run by 10 global scientific centers, indicate an 86% chance that one of the next five years will surpass the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming threshold established by the Paris climate accord, with a 70% chance that the entire five-year period will average above that milestone. For the first time, the agencies identified a slight possibility that global annual temperatures could reach the more alarming 2 degrees Celsius benchmark before the decade's end.

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A fairly comprehensive look at the early personal computer culture reveals that from 1975 through early 1977, personal computers remained "almost exclusively the province of hobbyists who loved to play with computers and found them inherently fascinating," according to newly surfaced historical research. When BYTE magazine launched in 1975, its cover called computers "the world's greatest toy," reflecting the recreational rather than practical focus of early adopters. A BYTE magazine survey from late 1976 showed these pioneers were remarkably homogeneous: 72% held at least a bachelor's degree, had a median annual income of $20,000 ($123,000 in 2025 dollars), and were overwhelmingly male at 99%. Rather than developing practical software applications, early users gravitated toward games, particularly Star Trek simulations that appeared frequently in magazine advertisements and user group demonstrations. The hobbyist community organized around local clubs like the famous Homebrew Computer Club, retail stores, and specialized magazines that helped establish what one researcher calls "a mythology of the microcomputer." This narrative positioned hobbyists as democratizing heroes who "ripped the computer and the knowledge of how to use it from the hands of the priests, sharing freedom and power with the masses," challenging what they termed the "computer priesthood" of institutional gatekeepers. This self-contained hobbyist culture would soon be "subsumed by a larger phenomenon" as businessmen began targeting mass markets in 1977.

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Japan Post has launched a "digital address" system that links seven-digit combinations of numbers and letters to physical addresses. From a report: Under the system, users can input these seven-digit codes on online shopping websites, and their addresses will automatically appear on the sites. People can obtain digital addresses by registering with Japan Post's Yu ID membership service. Their digital addresses will not change even if their physical addresses change. Their new addresses will be linked to the codes if they submit notices of address changes.

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The recent surge in cyberattacks is pushing cyber insurers toward a fundamental reassessment of premium pricing, Bloomberg reports, with industry analysts warning of an impending "inflection point" that could reshape the market. Marks & Spencer's impending $404 million hit to its operating profit from a recent hack underscores claims that will "attract intense scrutiny from insurers," according to cybersecurity expert Adam Casey. While incidents like this might not trigger immediate premium hikes across the board, they might likely contribute to an upward pricing trend. Panmure Liberum analyst Abid Hussain said that premiums have recently been falling as policy coverage has tightened, but the industry now faces a critical decision point. "There's going to be another step change, either in the policy wording or in the premiums, or both," Hussain said.

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Sales of blue book exam booklets have surged dramatically across the nation as professors turn to analog solutions to prevent ChatGPT cheating. The University of California, Berkeley reported an 80% increase in blue book sales over the past two academic years, while Texas A&M saw 30% growth and the University of Florida recorded nearly 50% increases this school year. The surge comes as students who were freshmen when ChatGPT launched in 2022 approach senior year, having had access to AI throughout their college careers.

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Great swathes of the planet's oceans have become darker in the past two decades, according to researchers who fear the trend will have a severe impact on marine life around the world. From a report: Satellite data and numerical modelling revealed that more than a fifth of the global ocean darkened between 2003 and 2022, reducing the band of water that life reliant on sunlight and moonlight can thrive in. The effect is evident across 75m sq km (30m sq miles) of ocean, equivalent to the land area of Europe, Africa, China and North America combined, and disturbs the upper layer of water where 90% of marine species live. Dr Thomas Davies, a marine conservationist at the University of Plymouth, said the findings were a "genuine cause for concern," with potentially severe implications for marine ecosystems, global fisheries and the critical turnover of carbon and nutrients in the oceans. Most marine life thrives in the photic zones of the world's oceans, the surface layers that allow sufficient light through for organisms to exploit. While sunlight can reach a kilometre beneath the waves, in practice there is little below 200 metres.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: Without seeking approval of the San Francisco Board of Education, Superintendent of Schools Maria Su plans to unveil a new Grading for Equity plan on Tuesday that will go into effect this fall at 14 high schools and cover over 10,000 students. The school district is already negotiating with an outside consultant to train teachers in August in a system that awards a passing C grade to as low as a score of 41 on a 100-point exam. Were it not for an intrepid school board member, the drastic change in grading with implications for college admissions and career readiness would have gone unnoticed and unexplained. It is buried in a three-word phrase on the last page of a PowerPoint presentation embedded in the school board meeting's 25-page agenda. The plan comes during the last week of the spring semester while parents are assessing the impact of over $100 million in budget reductions and deciding whether to remain in the public schools this fall. While the school district acknowledges that parent aversion to this grading approach is typically high and understands the need for "vigilant communication," outreach to parents has been minimal and may be nonexistent. The school district's Office of Equity homepage does not mention it and a page containing the SFUSD definition of equity has not been updated in almost three years. Grading for Equity eliminates homework or weekly tests from being counted in a student's final semester grade. All that matters is how the student scores on a final examination, which can be taken multiple times. Students can be late turning in an assignment or showing up to class or not showing up at all without it affecting their academic grade. Currently, a student needs a 90 for an A and at least 61 for a D. Under the San Leandro Unified School District's grading for equity system touted by the San Francisco Unified School District and its consultant, a student with a score as low as 80 can attain an A and as low as 21 can pass with a D.

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A former Minnesota waitress unknowingly helped North Korean workers steal $17.1 million in wages from over 300 American companies through an elaborate remote work scheme, federal prosecutors said this week. Christina Chapman operated a "laptop farm" from her home, managing dozens of computers that allowed North Koreans using stolen U.S. identities to work as legitimate tech employees. The FBI estimates this broader infiltration involves thousands of North Korean workers generating hundreds of millions annually for the sanctions-hit regime. Chapman, recruited via LinkedIn in 2020 to serve as "the U.S. face" for overseas IT workers, handled logistics including receiving company laptops, installing remote access software, and processing falsified employment documents. The North Korean workers accessed the devices daily from overseas, with some maintaining jobs for months or years at major American corporations. Chapman earned just under $177,000 before the FBI raided her Arizona operation in October 2023, seizing over 90 computers. She pleaded guilty in February to wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering charges, facing up to nine years in prison at her July sentencing.

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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes in an op-ed for The Register: I use AI a lot, but not to write stories. I use AI for search. When it comes to search, AI, especially Perplexity, is simply better than Google. Ordinary search has gone to the dogs. Maybe as Google goes gaga for AI, its search engine will get better again, but I doubt it. In just the last few months, I've noticed that AI-enabled search, too, has been getting crappier. In particular, I'm finding that when I search for hard data such as market-share statistics or other business numbers, the results often come from bad sources. Instead of stats from 10-Ks, the US Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) mandated annual business financial reports for public companies, I get numbers from sites purporting to be summaries of business reports. These bear some resemblance to reality, but they're never quite right. If I specify I want only 10-K results, it works. If I just ask for financial results, the answers get... interesting. This isn't just Perplexity. I've done the exact same searches on all the major AI search bots, and they all give me "questionable" results. Welcome to Garbage In/Garbage Out (GIGO). Formally, in AI circles, this is known as AI model collapse. In an AI model collapse, AI systems, which are trained on their own outputs, gradually lose accuracy, diversity, and reliability. This occurs because errors compound across successive model generations, leading to distorted data distributions and "irreversible defects" in performance. The final result? A Nature 2024 paper stated, "The model becomes poisoned with its own projection of reality." [...] We're going to invest more and more in AI, right up to the point that model collapse hits hard and AI answers are so bad even a brain-dead CEO can't ignore it. How long will it take? I think it's already happening, but so far, I seem to be the only one calling it. Still, if we believe OpenAI's leader and cheerleader, Sam Altman, who tweeted in February 2024 that "OpenAI now generates about 100 billion words per day," and we presume many of those words end up online, it won't take long.

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In an interview with Wired (paywalled), OnePlus co-founder and Nothing CEO, Carl Pei, said the future of smartphones will center around the OS and AI to get things done -- rendering traditional apps a thing of the past. 9to5Google reports: Pei says that Nothing's strength is in "creativity," adding that "the creative companies of the past" such as Apple "have become very big and very corporate, and they're no longer very creative." He then dives into what else but AI, explaining that Nothing wants to create the "iPod" of AI, saying that Apple built a product that simply built a better user experience: "If you look back, the iPod was not launched as 'an MP3 player with a hard disk drive.' The hard disk drive was merely a means to a better user experience. AI is just a new technology that enables us to create better products for users. So, our strategy is not to make big claims that AI is going to change the world and revolutionize smartphones. For us, it's about using it to solve a consumer problem, not to tell a big story. We want the product to be the story." Pei then says that he doesn't see the current trend of AI products -- citing wearables such as smart glasses -- as the future of the technology. Rather, he sees the smartphone as the most important device for AI "for the foreseeable future," but as one that will "change dramatically." According to Pei, the future of the smartphone is one without apps, with the experience instead just revolving around the OS and what it can do and how it can "optimize" for the user, acting as a proactive, automated agent and that, in the end, the user "will spend less time doing boring things and more time on what they care about."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: Advanced robots don't necessarily need to look like C3PO from "Star Wars" or George Jetson's maid Rosie, despite all the hype over humanoids from Wall Street and Big Tech. In fact, some of the biggest skeptics about human-shaped robots come from within the robotics industry itself. [...] The most productive -- and profitable -- bots are the ones that can do single tasks cheaply and efficiently. "If you look at where robots are really bringing value in a manufacturing environment, it is combining industrial or collaborative robots with mobility," ABB managing director Ali Raja tells Axios. "I don't see that there are any real practical applications where humanoids are bringing in a lot of value." "The reason we have two legs is because whether Darwin or God or whoever made us, we have to figure out how to traverse an infinite number of things," like climbing a mountain or riding a bike, explains Michael Cicco, CEO of Fanuc America Corp. "When you get into the factory, even if it's a million things, it's still a finite number of things that you need to do." Human-shaped robots are over-engineered solutions to most factory chores that could be better solved by putting a robot arm on a wheeled base, he said. "The thing about humanoids is not that it's a human factor. It's that it's more dynamically stable," counters Melonee Wise, chief product officer at Agility Robotics, which is developing a humanoid robot called Digit. When humans grab something heavy, they can shift their weight for better balance. The same is true for a humanoid, she said. Using a robotic arm on a mobile base to pick up something heavy, "it's like I'm a little teapot and you become very unstable," she said, bending at the waist.

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