Google DeepMind has just revealed Genie 2, a world-modelling AI capable of creating 3D worlds and sustaining those environments for significantly longer. Genie 2 isn’t a game engine. It’s a diffusion model that generates images as the player (either a human being or another AI agent) moves through the world the software is simulating. All it needs to start is a single image prompt either generated by AI or from a real-world photo.
Let’s be honest: shopping for a gaming monitor can feel like wading through mud. As soon as you decide to buy a display for gaming instead of regular productivity use, a whole host of new considerations come into the equation. Should you go for an LCD or OLED monitor? What about the differences between NVIDIA G-Sync and AMD FreeSync? How about refresh rates?
If you’ve been on the fence about buying the urban landscape sim Cities: Skylines II (and given the response following its launch, who could blame you?), here’s your chance to take it for a free test run. Paradox Interactive announced on Bluesky that players can play the city building game for free for a limited time.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has no business being as entertaining as it is. Outside of the superhero genre, there aren’t many high-quality licensed games out there, and this one comes with decades of film lore to live up to. And, frankly, it’s a little bit of a mess on Xbox Series S. Some of its scenes are stunning, but it’s also infested with resolution issues, mechanical glitches and silly animation bugs. In most other games, the combination of these problems would make me throw down the controller and uninstall.
California is introducing new requirements aimed at protecting young passengers traveling alone in taxis and rideshares. The California Public Utilities Commission is requiring drivers to pass a fingerprint background check in order to provide a ride to an unaccompanied minor.
NASA announced a new schedule for its upcoming Artemis missions to send astronauts to the moon. This is the second delay to these crewed missions after NASA's postponed the timeline in January of this year.
What happens when you combine the satiric spirit of filmmaker Mel Brooks and cram into a parody of the galaxy exploring No Man’s Sky? You get something like Journey to the Savage Planet, a funny, world conquering blaster fest that proves Ian Malcolm’s chaos theory of colonization while also providing a healthy dose of good, ol’ fashioned fart jokes.
Brendan Greene is largely credited with making the iconic PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, also known as PUBG, and inventing the entire battle royale genre. We knew he left PUBG’s publisher to form an independent studio back in 2021, but now we know what he’s been working on the past few years.