ArduinoMania

After a slow month in the world of video game marketing, things are starting to pick up. The past week has given us a first look at the new Fallout TV show, a few release dates and a trailer for a little game called Grand Theft Auto VI — and the Game Awards are still to come. What good timing for us to launch a weekly video game show to dig into the news.

This week’s stories

The Game Awards

The Game Awards

The Game Awards will go live on Thursday, December 7, at 7:30PM ET. Expect a few hours of game announcements, new trailers, awkward interviews and musical performances, including one by the fictional band from Alan Wake 2.

Amazon MGM Studios

Fallout, but on TV!

Amazon dropped the first trailer for its live-action Fallout series — and, man, it sure does look like Fallout. The show is set in Los Angeles 200 years after the nuclear apocalypse, and it stars Yellowjackets actor Ella Purnell, plus Walton Goggins, Aaron Moten and Kyle MacLachlan. It’s heading to Prime Video on April 12, 2024.

GTA VI is coming in 2025

The biggest news item this week, pre-The Game Awards, was the first official trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI. As of writing it's already reached 105 million views on YouTube — a pace usually reserved for only the finest K-Pop videos. GTA VI is set in Vice City, it’s coming out in 2025 and I'm sure we’ll hear a lot more about it before then.

Nexon

What is an indie game?

The meat of this week’s episode focuses on the longstanding debate about what “indie” actually means. One of the titles nominated for Best Independent Game at the Game Awards, Dave the Diver, was commissioned and bankrolled by Nexon, one of the largest video game studios in South Korea. It’s not indie, and its inclusion in this category highlights how little consensus there still is around the definition.

This is kinda my area of expertise — it’s my 13th year as a video game journalist and indie games have always been a core feature of my reporting. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I mean when I say “indie,” so I sat down and formalized this thought process. There are three questions that can help define a game in an indie gray area: Is the team on the mainstream system’s payroll? Is the game or team owned by a platform holder? Do the artists have creative control? I dug into these questions this week, and discuss how having a publisher isn’t related to the indie label at all.

But when all else fails in the indie debate, there’s one ultimate question to ask: Can this team exist without my support? This is why the distinction matters: The indie label helps to identify the artists that would not exist without game sales, crowdfunding or word-of-mouth support from players. It exists to determine the teams that are truly living and dying on game sales, and it helps players decide where to spend their money. If Dave the Diver didn’t sell well, its team would likely have the chance to try again. If, say, Pizza Tower didn’t sell well, its studio could have folded.

I think this is an important conversation, so give that story a read and let us know in the comments if you think my questions help or just make things more confusing. It’s probably a little bit of both.

Now playing

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood on Steam Deck — it’s the latest game from Deconstructeam, the indie studio that made The Red Strings Club and Gods Will Be Watching. The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is a game about building tarot decks, manipulating elections, betraying a coven of witches and seducing everyone; it’s sexy and well-written, and I highly recommend it. Another game I’m looking forward to is A Highland Song from indie studio Inkle; it just came out this week and I’m excited to dive in.

Let us know in the comments what you’re playing! Also, we still don’t know what to call this weekly video game news show, so leave us some name suggestions, too. Thanks!

OpenAI's spot atop the generative AI heap may be coming to an end as Google officially introduced its most capable large language model to date on Wednesday, dubbed Gemini 1.0. It's the first of “a new generation of AI models, inspired by the way people understand and interact with the world,” CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a Google blog post.

“Ever since programming AI for computer games as a teenager, and throughout my years as a neuroscience researcher trying to understand the workings of the brain, I’ve always believed that if we could build smarter machines, we could harness them to benefit humanity in incredible ways,” Pichai continued.

The result of extensive collaboration between Google’s DeepMind and Research divisions, Gemini has all the bells and whistles cutting-edge genAIs have to offer. "Its capabilities are state-of-the-art in nearly every domain," Pichai declared. 

The system has been developed from the ground up as an integrated multimodal AI. Many foundational models can be essentially though of groups of smaller models all stacked in a trench coat, with each individual model trained to perform its specific function as a part of the larger whole. That’s all well and good for shallow functions like describing images but not so much for complex reasoning tasks.

Google, conversely, pre-trained and fine-tuned Gemini, “from the start on different modalities” allowing it to “seamlessly understand and reason about all kinds of inputs from the ground up, far better than existing multimodal models,” Pichai said. Being able to take in all these forms of data at once should help Gemini provide better responses on more challenging subjects, like physics.

Gemini can code as well. It’s reportedly proficient in popular programming languages including Python, Java, C++ and Go. Google has even leveraged a specialized version of Gemini to create AlphaCode 2, a successor to last year's competition-winning generativeAI. According to the company, AlphaCode 2 solved twice as many challenge questions as its predecessor did, which would put its performance above an estimated 85 percent of the previous competition’s participants.

While Google did not immediately share the number of parameters that Gemini can utilize, the company did tout the model’s operational flexibility and ability to work in form factors from large data centers to local mobile devices. To accomplish this transformational feat, Gemini is being made available in three sizes: Nano, Pro and Ultra. 

Nano, unsurprisingly, is the smallest of the trio and designed primarily for on-device tasks. Pro is the next step up, a more versatile offering than Nano, and will soon be getting integrated into many of Google’s existing products, including Bard.

Starting Wednesday, Bard will begin using a especially-tuned version of Pro that Google promises will offer “more advanced reasoning, planning, understanding and more.” The improved Bard chatbot will be available in the same 170 countries and territories that regular Bard currently is, and the company reportedly plans to expand the new version's availability as we move through 2024. Next year, with the arrival of Gemini Ultra, Google will also introduce Bard Advanced, an even beefier AI with added features.

Pro’s capabilities will also be accessible via API calls through Google AI Studio or Google Cloud Vertex AI. Search (specifically SGE), Ads, Chrome and Duet AI will also see Gemini functionality integrated into their features in the coming months.

Gemini Ultra won’t be available until at least 2024, as it reportedly requires additional red-team testing before being cleared for release to “select customers, developers, partners and safety and responsibility experts” for testing and feedback.” But when it does arrive, Ultra promises to be an incredibly powerful for further AI development.

Undoubtedly, 2023 has been the year of generative AI, and Google is marking its end with even more AI developments. The company has announced the creation of its most powerful TPU (formally known as Tensor Processing Units) yet, Cloud TPU v5p, and an AI Hypercomputer from Google Cloud. "The growth in [generative] AI models — with a tenfold increase in parameters annually over the past five years — brings heightened requirements for training, tuning, and inference," Amin Vahdat, Google's Engineering Fellow and Vice President for the Machine Leaning, Systems, and Cloud AI team, said in a release.

The Cloud TPU v5p is an AI accelerator, training and serving models. Google designed Cloud TPUs to work with models that are large, have long training periods, are mostly made of matrix computations and have no custom operations inside its main training loop, such as TensorFlow or JAX. Each TPU v5p pod brings 8,960 chips when using Google's highest-bandwidth inter-chip interconnect.

The Cloud TPU v5p follows previous iterations like the v5e and v4. According to Google, the TPU v5p has two times greater FLOPs and is four times more scalable when considering FLOPS per pod than the TPU v4. It can also train LLM models 2.8 times faster and embed dense models 1.9 times faster than the TPU v4. 

Then there's the new AI Hypercomputer, which includes an integrated system with open software, performance-optimized hardware, machine learning frameworks, and flexible consumption models. The idea is that this amalgamation will improve productivity and efficiency compared to if each piece was looked at separately. The AI Hypercomputer's performance-optimized hardware utilizes Google's Jupiter data center network technology.

In a change of pace, Google provides open software to developers with "extensive support" for machine learning frameworks such as JAX, PyTorch and TensorFlow. This announcement comes on the heels of Meta and IBM's launch of the AI Alliance, which prioritizes open sourcing (and Google is notably not involved in). The AI Hypercomputer also introduces two models, Flex Start Mode and Calendar Mode. 

Google shared the news alongside the introduction of Gemini, a new AI model that the company calls its "largest and most capable," and its rollout to Bard and the Pixel 8 Pro. It will come in three sizes: Gemini Pro, Gemini Ultra and Gemini Nano. 

Google is bringing Gemini, the new large language model it just introduced, to Android, beginning with the Pixel 8 Pro. The company’s flagship smartphone will run Gemini Nano, a version of the model built specifically to run locally on smaller devices, Google announced in a blog post. The Pixel 8 Pro is powered by the Google Tensor G3 chip designed to speed up AI performance.

This lets the Pixel 8 Pro add several smarts to existing features. The phone’s Recorder app, for instance, has a Summarize feature that currently needs a network connection to give you a summary of recorded conversations, interviews, and presentations. But thanks to Gemini Nano, the phone will now be able to provide a summary without needing a connection at all.

Gemini smarts will also power Gboard’s Smart Reply feature. Gboard will suggest high-quality responses to messages and be aware of context in conversations. The feature is currently available as a developer preview and needs to be enabled in settings. However, it only works with WhatsApp currently and will come to more apps next year.

“Gemini Nano running on Pixel 8 Pro offers several advantages by design, helping prevent sensitive data from leaving the phone, as well as offering the ability to use features without a network connection,” wrote Brian Rakowski, Google Pixel’s vice president of product management.

As part of today’s AI push, Google is upgrading Bard, the company’s ChatGPT rival, with Gemini as well, so you should see significant improvements when using the Pixel’s Assistant with Bard experience. Google is also rolling out a handful of AI-powered productivity and customization updates on other Pixel devices, including the Pixel Tablet and the Pixel Watch, although it isn’t immediately clear what they are.

Google

Gemini Nano is the smallest version of Google's large language model, while Gemini Pro is a larger model that will power not just Bard but other Google services like Search, Ads and Chrome, among others. Gemini Ultra, Google's beefiest model, will arrive in 2024 and will be used to further AI development.

Although today’s updates are focused on the Pixel 8 Pro, Google spoke today about AI Core, an Android 14 service that allows developers to access AI features like Nano. Google says AI Core is designed run on “new ML hardware like the latest Google Tensor TPU and NPUs in flagship Qualcomm Technologies, Samsung S.LSI and MediaTek silicon.” The company adds that “additional devices and silicon partners will be announced in the coming months.”

Algoriddim’s djay Pro software has always had close ties to Apple and often been at the forefront of new DJ tech, especially on Mac, iOS or iPadOS. Today marks the launch of djay Pro version 5 and it includes a variety of novel features, many of which leverage the company’s AI and a new partnership with the interactive team at AudioShake.

There are several buzzy trademarked names to remember this time around including Next-generation Neural Mix, Crossfader Fusion and Fluid Beatgrid. These are the major points of interest in djay Pro 5, with only a passing mention of improved stem separation on mobile, UI refreshes for the library and a new simplified Starter Mode that may cater to new users on the platform. The updates include some intriguing AI-automated features that put the system in control of more complex maneuvers. Best of all, existing users get it all for free as part of their subscription.

AudioShake and Algroiddim have been working on their audio separation tech (like many other companies) and are calling this refreshed version Next-generation Neural Mix. We’re told to expect crisp, clear separation of elements from vocals, harmonies and drums. The tools have also been optimized for mobile devices, as long as they run a supported OS.

Fluid Beatbrid is perhaps one of the easiest to understand and seems to be an underlying part of the crossfader updates. Anyone who’s used beatgrids knows they’re rarely perfect on first analysis and often take a bit of work to lock in, especially on tracks that need it. Songs with live instrumentation that tend to shift tempo naturally, EDM with varying tempo shifts during breakdowns and even just older dance tracks that tend to meander slightly throughout playback have been pain points. Fluid Beatgrid is supposed to use AI to accommodate for those shifts and find the right points to mark.

Crossfader Fusion is where stems, automation and those beatgrids all come into play. There are now a variety of settings for the crossfader beyond the usual curves. One of the highlighted modes is the Neural Mix (Harmonic Sustain) setting. This utilizes stem separation and automated level adjustments as you go from one track to the next.

For those who enjoy cutting and scratching, there are crossfade settings that use automated curves and spatial effects so, for example, outgoing track vocals can be dropping out as you cut into the next track automatically. The incoming track’s vocals can be highlighted for scratching and as your mix completes the transition, things are blended together further with AI.

There's even an example provided that shows how you can mix across vastly different BPMs, where the incoming song matches up with a slower outgoing track, but its original tempo is slowly integrated during the transition leaving you with the new faster tempo. 

Existing users should be alerted to the update, but newcomers can find djay Pro version 5 starting today at the App Store. While there will continue to be a free version, the optional Pro subscription costs $7 per month or $50 per year and gives you access to all the features across Mac, iOS and iPhone. Support for the app includes devices running MacOS 10.15 or later and iOS 15 / iPadOS 15 or later.

And as a side note, we’re told that djay Pro for Windows users were leveled up in September and will get Fluid Beatgrid in an update for that platform as soon as next week. Newer features like Crossfader Fusion are expected in the near future.

Half of London's black cab fleet is now made up of zero-emission vehicles, manufacturer LEVC and Transport for London (TfL) announced. Of the 14,690 licensed taxis in the capital, 7,972 are battery electric vehicles (BEVs), with most manufactured by Geely's LEVC, according to the latest figures. The number of those models grew a fairly dramatic 10 percent in the last month alone. 

"Reaching this milestone is a great reflection of how London is working hard to be a greener, more sustainable, environmentally friendly city," said TfL's Helen Chapman. "London's black taxis are recognized worldwide and we are proud to see that so many drivers are helping clean up the air." 

New drivers haven't had a choice in the matter, though, as since 2018, TfL has required that all new cabs licensed in the city be zero emissions cable (the rule was extended to private minicabs last year). Cabbies with existing licenses have been motivated to change, too, as any still using less efficient vehicles have been required since 2020 to pay a daily rate (now £12.50) to operate in central London's Ultra Low Emission Zone.

Many of London's larger taxi and minicab operators have committed to fully-electric fleets by 2025. That includes the city's largest operator, Addison Lee (which uses VW ID 4s) saying it would reach that goal by 2023. London's Black Cabs are generally independently owned and licensed under strict rules by TfL. Uber recently announced that London's black taxis would be listed on its app and while some drivers have signed up, many decried the plan. 

As a controversial COP28 continues in Dubai, a new report emphasizes that "the world is on a disastrous trajectory." The Global Tipping Points report emphasized the need for an immediate phasing out of fossil fuels and a commitment to beneficial solutions. Tipping points are small thresholds that, when crossed, spark a series of events, including the passage of other tipping points. 

The report, led by the University of Exeter and the Global Systems Institute, looked at 26 negative tipping points and the Earth's chances of breaching them as it heads towards a global warming of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists from the European Union have declared 2023 as the hottest year on record. As things stand, researchers found five tipping points are currently at risk of being hit, such as major ice sheets collapsing and warm-water coral reefs dying off. Another three are possible in the 2030s (when that 2.7 F marker is crossed).

The Global Tipping Points report bluntly states: "The existence of tipping points means that 'business as usual' is now over. Rapid changes to nature and society are occurring, and more are coming. If we don't revise our governance approach, these changes could overwhelm societies as the natural world rapidly comes apart." It also emphasizes the importance of pursuing positive tipping points, such as the massive rollout of EVs.

The report lays out six key recommendations to avoid negative tipping points and pursue positive ones:

• Phase our fossil fuels and land use emissions now, certainly way before 2050

• Strengthen adaptation and loss-and-damage governance, with a particular focus on vulnerable communities

• Include tipping point risks, positive tipping point possibilities and related action in the Global Stocktake and Nationally Determined Contributions

• Coordinate policy efforts on activating positive tipping points, especially ones that could create a beneficial domino effect

• Have the UN Secretary General convene a meeting on tipping point risks and activating positive tipping points

• Invest in deepening the scientific knowledge of tipping points and helpful actions

The controversies surrounding the ongoing COP28 are one of the barriers to implementing these initiatives. Reports have indicated that the United Arab Emirates planned to use the conference to make deals for its oil and gas companies with other countries. In fact, at least 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists have access to COP28's climate negotiations, the Guardian reports. This number is larger than any country's delegation other than Brazil and UAE and more than those traveling from the top ten most climate vulnerable countries.

Then there's Sultan Al Jaber, COP28's president and the chief executive of Adnoc, UAE's state oil company, who added fire to his already controversial opinion. In a livestream conversation with Mary Robinson, the chair of the Elders group and a former UN special envoy for climate change, Al Jaber stated, "There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what's going to achieve 1.5C." His comment came after Robinson told Al Jaber that he had the "credibility" as head of Adnoc to work towards ending fossil fuel use.

Robinson then questioned Al Jaber about reports that Adnoc is increasing its fossil fuel use, which he denied. "Please help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves," Al Jaber added and told her to stop pointing fingers. He later called out the press for misinterpreting his statements.

Microsoft says its Copilot AI chatbot is integrating with OpenAI’s latest GPT model and the image generator DALL-E 3, among other upgrades. GPT-4 Turbo integration will help Copilot users tackle even more complex tasks. While the last generation allowed for up to 50 pages of text as a data input, GPT-4 Turbo accepts up to 300 pages, which should make for more meaningful (and accurate, I hope) responses to queries. The newest DALL-E 3 image generation model should generate higher-quality images, with better accuracy for your prompts.

Beyond the OpenAI collaborations, Copilot’s Inline Compose tool now includes a rewrite menu, so you can select a block of text (in Edge) and get a bot-edited version. Code Interpreter will apparently help users perform complex tasks like “data analysis, visualization, math” and plain old coding.

— Mat Smith

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Lenovo Legion Go review

When the Steam Deck feels small.

Engadget

Lenovo is putting its spin on the handheld gaming PC category with the Legion Go. It combines high-level performance with an 8.8-inch OLED display and with some design traits from the Nintendo Switch. The result is a powerful, though somewhat bulky, $700 gaming machine. It has a big 49.2Wh battery, which lasts between an hour and a half and three hours, depending on your power settings. But boy, is it big.

Continue reading.

Fiat’s tiny electric car is coming to the US in early 2024

The Fiat 500e will start at $32,500.

Fiat

Fiat will soon start selling the 500e hatchback EV stateside in 2024 for $32,500 ($34,095, including the destination fee). It hasn’t been available in the US since 2019, but the latest model is a big update with more range, a nicer interior, better tech and more. The 500e is tiny by EV standards, particularly in the weight department. It puts just 3,000 pounds on the pavement, making it what the manufacturer calls “the lightest passenger BEV in the segment.” Still, it’s more expensive than Tesla’s Model 3 after federal tax credits.

Continue reading.

Pixar’s Disney+ pandemic movies are hitting theaters

You can catch Soul, Turning Red and Luca in cinemas in early 2024.

Many major movies skipped US theaters and went straight to streaming services. Pixar somehow released three titles: Soul, Luca and Turning Red, all of which debuted on Disney+. In 2024, though, you’ll get the chance to see those animated films on the big screen. Soul will get a theatrical release on January 12, Turning Red will hit cinemas on February 9 and Luca launches on March 22.

Continue reading.

Let AI Jimmy Stewart put you to sleep with a new Calm bedtime story

It’s a computer-generated version of the late actor’s voice.

Calm

The mindfulness app Calm, already known for its Sleep Stories read by celebrities, including Harry Styles and Idris Elba, has digitally revived Jimmy Stewart’s iconic voice to ‘read’ “It’s a Wonderful Sleep Story” for its Premium subscribers. Tina Xavie, chief marketing officer of CMG Worldwide (the company that manages Stewart’s estate) said that makes this AI recreation a great fit for Calm’s bedtime series — the project received the green light from both Stewart’s family and his estate.

Continue reading.

Everyone's favorite hooved menace is back on mobile with the launch of Goat Simulator 3 for iOS and Android, Swedish developer Coffee Stain Studios announced. As before, you play in an open world as a mayhem-loving goat in order to cause maximum chaos and ruin the day of as many NPC's as possible. The latest version dials up the destruction with accessories like jetpacks, rocket launchers and supercharged headbutts, while letting you kit out your goats with dubious fashion accessories. 

The mobile versions offers much the same feature set found on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, particularly the co-op multiplayer support. Other mobile features include multiple goat options (tall, fishy, with hats), an "OK amount" of quests in the open world, mini-games, "ragdoll physics that slap Newton in the face" and more, according to the Play Store listing. 

Goat Simulator famously started as a jokey demo for Global Game Jam 2014, replete with bugs, bizarre physics and just a weird, weird concept. Flocks of players loved the alpha version, though, so Coffee Stain elected to release it as a full game, leaving the floppy necks and ability to use your goat's tongue to somehow walk up construction cranes. 

Goat Simulator 3 is actually the second game in the series (the developer famously skipped over 2), appearing last year a full eight years after the original. The original version appeared shortly after the alpha, and basically left most of the bugs in — part of the charm or terribleness of the game, depending on your point of view. It turns out that "buggy and stupid" is hard to do on purpose though, as GS3's creative director put it, hence the long delay. In any case, it's now available on Android and iOS for $13. 

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