Tag: spent
EA’s triple-A Immortals of Aveum isn’t just an RPG-shooter: “We spent a lot of time on puzzles, too”
“Puzzle designing is a very challenging thing to do as a designer,” says Bret Robbins, Ascendant Studios founder, and boss of the whole Immortals of Aveum operation. The game – as well as being a ‘Doctor Strange-like magic first-person shooter’ – contains puzzles; tricky brainteasers you’re going to need to apply skills and abilities to in order to progress. It’s something we’ve seen in the likes of Doom and Doom Eternal, as well as in the combat sandboxes of the Halo games: smart ways of extrapolating FPS tools to make you think about the world in a deeper way than you would in a CoD or a Battlefield.
“My hats off to games that do puzzle design in a very good way,” continues Robbins. “We spent a lot of time on the puzzles in Aveum. It really has a huge impact on how you do the level design – they tend to be very dependent on how you build out the area, so it’s not an easy thing to just put into a level. You have to design the level with it in mind.”
Robbins goes on to explain that the game has some “pretty unique mechanics that come out of your spellcasting abilities”, and gives us a little teaser about the sort of trickery we can expect to solve once the game is in our hands. The most intriguing example comes in the form of a ‘beam-spliiting’ puzzle, where you will need to refract light in order to hit certain targets and open up new passageways as you flow through the level.
Duke of Sussex ‘spent 30 minutes at the Royal residence’ after his father’s coronation
‘Demon’ who spent £12k on extreme body mods gets SPIDERS implanted under his skin
Users spent 24% more time on Instagram thanks to Reels
Unfortunately, it turns out we actually kind of like watching Instagram Reels.
When Instagram first launched Reels and promised to pivot the social media platform to video, users were livid. We threw fits. Kylie Jenner demanded that we “make Instagram Instagram again.” And, at first, Reels flopped as a lame version of TikTok.
Zuckerberg backtracks after Horizon Worlds backlash, claims Meta is ‘capable of much more’
But, at Meta’s earnings call on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg reported that time spent on Instagram had risen by 24 percent, an engagement increase he blames on Instagram Reels.
“Reels continues to grow quickly on both Facebook and Instagram,” Zuckerberg said in the earnings call. “Reels also continue to become more social with people resharing Reels more than 2 billion times every day, doubling over the last six months. Reels are also increasing overall app engagement and we believe that we’re gaining share in short-form video too.”
Reels aren’t just doing well because we’re seeing our friends and favorite influencers post them, though. A big part of the reason we’re all so sucked into Reels is, Zuckerberg said, because of artificial intelligence. He said the ranking systems and AI recommendations have “driven a lot of the results that we’re seeing today across our discovery engine, Reels, and ads.”
While Zuckerberg didn’t give us any daily breakdown of Reels users, he said the monthly active users rose for all of Meta’s apps combined. Meta CFO Susan Li said on the call that the company isn’t quantifying “expected engagement growth” for Reels, but it is happy with what they’ve seen. “It’s clear that people value short-term video,” Li said, according to Business Insider.
This comes just a few weeks after Instagram launched new tools for Instagram Reels creators, including new metrics, gifts, and a space designed for users to “find inspiration” through trending audio and hashtags. It’s surely a ploy for continued engagement, but, hey, it seems to be working.
Meta also reported a $28.6 billion first-quarter revenue — showing 3 percent year-on-year revenue growth. But the company also noted a $5.7 billion net profit — a $523 million decline — partly due to the restructuring costs related to some 21,000 job cuts. Shares jumped a mighty 12 percent following the meeting.
British IS recruit who claimed he spent time in Syria ‘on Playstation’ admits terror offence
Mars scientists spent 6 years making the most detailed image of the planet
There’s no Google Earth for Mars — no way to zoom in for a closer look at your Martian neighbors’ new deck or pickup truck — but Caltech scientists have spent six years composing a 3D image of the Red Planet with the feel of the popular computer app.
The new tool, called the Global CTX Mosaic of Mars, has 5.7 trillion pixels of data — enough that mapmakers would need the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California, to lay out a complete printed version, according to NASA. Each pixel covers about a parking space-size patch of Martian terrain, providing unprecedented image resolution. The highest resolution available at a global scale before this was 100 meters per pixel, making the new mosaic 20 times sharper.
Anyone can now zoom in on the planet and get a close-up of meteorite craters, dust devil tracks, extinct volcanoes, former riverbeds, and seemingly bottomless caves. The creators sought to make Earth’s neighbor, on average 140 million miles away, more accessible to researchers and the public, said Jay Dickson, the scientist who led the project.
“Schoolchildren can use this now. My mother, who just turned 78, can use this now,” he said in a statement. “The goal is to lower the barriers for people who are interested in exploring Mars.”
Buttons on the tool (found here) let users jump to popular landmarks, like the Gale and Jezero craters where NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers are exploring.
“Schoolchildren can use this now. My mother, who just turned 78, can use this now. The goal is to lower the barriers for people who are interested in exploring Mars.”
The mosaic covers 99.5 percent of the planet using nearly 87,000 separate images taken between 2006 and 2020 by a camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The robotic spacecraft flies up to 250 miles above the red planet, while its black-and-white Context Camera captures expansive views.
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
The team designed the tool so that each image in the mosaic connects directly to its original data. The scientists presented a paper on the tool at the 2023 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.
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To create the new mosaic, Dickson developed an algorithm to match images. The photos also needed to have similar lighting conditions and clear skies. Then, what the program couldn’t match — about 13,000 remaining pictures — he manually stitched together, a time-consuming three-year undertaking. Any leftover gaps in the mosaic represent areas blocked by clouds or areas that hadn’t been photographed before he started working on the project.
Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS
So far, over 120 peer-reviewed science papers have used a test version of the map, released in 2018, for research purposes.
“Ideally, image mosaics should be held to the same scientific standards of traceability as the science that they facilitate,” the authors said in the paper. “All derived data should be traceable back to their source, all methods for the construction of the mosaic should be reported and known artifacts and other limitations of the product should be communicated. These standards have long been applied to the instruments that collect the data, and the science derived from image mosaics, but not to mosaic products themselves.”
Muggers almost killed me on holiday in London – I spent four years in hospital and had 65 operations but now I’m home
A TOURIST who almost died after a violent mugging on holiday in Britain spent the next four years in hospital and had 65 operations to rebuild his shattered skull.
Ben Finlan, from Toronto in Canada, suffered multiple skull fractures and brain bleeds after he was mugged outside a bar in central London – with his attackers still at large today.
Ben with his girlfriend Katherine before the brutal attack[/caption]
Medics told Ben’s family to fly from Canada to London immediately, as they were unsure whether he would survive the night.
Part of his skull was removed in an emergency brain decompression surgery to save his life – but the titanium mesh it was replaced with became infected, leading to more life-threatening complications.
Ben’s family and his girlfriend Katherine Smith moved to London to be with him during his four-year recovery in hospital following the brutal attack on December 3, 2018.
Posting on TikTok, Katherine said: “Ben was attacked in London in December 2018.
“His mum got a call from the police and the Canadian embassy to let us know that Ben was in life-threatening condition due to a severe brain bleed.
“They told us to get there right away because they weren’t sure if he was going to make it through the night.
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“Then the surgeons called us and asked if they could actually remove his skull to take some of the pressure off his brain.
“We took the overnight flight to England the next day.”
She added: “Ben was in a coma for ten days, and was eventually moved out of the ICU.
“Ben continued to decline really quickly so we had to put in a titanium mesh plate – because he didn’t have a skull, the skin was starting to push down on his brain.
“Unfortunately, the skin and the mesh became entwined and developed an infection, so we had to take out the mesh as well as a lot of the skin.
“Over the next four years, we had to replace the skull multiple times and try to reconstruct his scalp.
Ben’s surgeries included two vein grafts on his arm, two failed transplant of back muscles to replace his scalp, over ten skin grafts from his thighs, facial reconstruction, twenty blood transfusions and an operation on a collapsed lung.
“There were just so many complications in that time – about 65 surgeries which left scarring on his wrists, legs and of course his head.”
“But he’s doing fantastic now and is in rehab. Once upon a time they didn’t think he was going to survive and here he is.
“The people who did this to Ben were never caught but we’re not focused on those losers – we’re focused on Ben’s recovery.”
The Metropolitan Police has been contacted for comment.
Ben is due his 66th surgery in a few weeks to remove the large flap of muscle on his neck.
But the Canadian has returned home at last after stunning doctors with the extent of his recovery.
Katherine said: “After 4 year, 3 months, 65 surgeries, and countless sleepless nights, on March 2nd Ben moved home.
“The journey is not over though. Ben will participate in outpatient therapy – physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy – for the next while, and will undergo another surgery to remove the large portion of excess muscle from his neck.
“We’ve said a million times before but a process like this is impossible without the love and support of those around you.
“We are so honoured to finally share this news with you all, and while we still have a long way to go, this is a milestone that we have all waited so long to reach.”
Ben needed emergency decompression surgery on his brain[/caption]
Ben was mugged outside a bar in central London[/caption]
Spotify hasn’t spent much of its $100 million diversity fund
Spotify has spent less than 10 percent of its $100 million Creator Equity Fund in its first year, Bloomberg reported. The fund’s purpose is to bolster diversity in music and podcasts through licensing, developing, and promoting work by marginalized creators.
Last year, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced the creation of the fund following controversy surrounding podcaster Joe Rogan, who has a $200 million exclusive deal with the music streaming service. Rogan has used the n-word and other racist language on his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience and has spread misinformation regarding COVID vaccines as well. Employees and musicians like Neil Young called on Spotify to cut ties with Rogan, but instead, they removed dozens of episodes and committed $100 million to the equity fund.
The figure of $100 million was meant to be symbolic, as Rogan was rumored to receive $100 million from the platform — but later, it was revealed Rogan is actually paid double that.
The money was supposed to be distributed over three years, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, but due to a lack of structure and shifting priorities at the company, that plan hasn’t materialized. According to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg, the fund was still determining its 2023 budget at the start of the year and hadn’t yet determined priority projects.
A Spotify spokesperson told Bloomberg that over $10 million of the fund has been spent, however. They cited GLOW, an initiative to support LGBTQ creators, and Nailing It, a podcast hosted by three Black women, as avenues where the money has been spent. Additionally, this week Spotify announced a partnership with Spelman College, a historically Black women’s college, to provide scholarships for students interested in podcasting.
The spokesperson told Bloomberg in an emailed statement: “The Spotify Creator Equity Fund is dedicated to a variety of initiatives that help elevate and support an inclusive and diverse portfolio of artists and creators on the platform…We are able to empower and uplift underrepresented voices around the world.”