GT7 players will be able to access a special “Gran Turismo Sophy Race Together” mode from February 21st at 1am ET, when the update arrives. Players will face off against four separate GT Sophy AI opponents, all of whom’s vehicles are specced slightly differently so you’re not going up against a quartet of clones, in a four-circuit series striated by difficulty (beginner-intermediate-expert).
“The difference [between racers] is that, it's essentially the power you have versus the other cars on the track,” Michael Spranger told Engadget. “You have different levels of performance. In the beginning level, you have a much more powerful vehicle — still within the same class, but you're much faster [than your competition].” That performance gap continues to shrink as you move up in difficulty until you reach the one v one against GT Sophy in identically specced vehicles.
Sony AI
The Sophy you race here is the exact same Sophy that’s been winning against the pros, Peter Wurman explained. The AI has not been hobbled or dumbed down in any way ahead of this release. “The power the player has is a car advantage, which allows them to be competitive, but otherwise, GT Sophy is the same. Really good driver, just all across the board.”
This is a limited-time event. The GT Sophy races will only be available until the end of March. The Sony AI team is time-limiting this initial release on account of a few technical reasons but, “mostly this is a new game design and we want to try it out, get feedback, and then take what we learned and iterate on that,” Wurman explained. The team can’t share any specifics about where the program goes from here
Sony AI
“We believe this technology has a huge potential to really elevate player experience across different game types, different experiences,” Wurman continued. He notes that agent AIs like GT Sophy can accomplish a lot in terms of interacting with players but also sees related AI systems playing an expanded role as well. The “technology is really crucial for the content creation itself,” he said. “They're going to these race tracks, doing detailed capturing in order to create the environment and, speaking generally, you can imagine AI has a really big potential to help with many of those processes.”
Sony AI
If you’re thinking about grabbing a copy of the game ahead of tomorrow’s release, you’ll want to get some laps in before the update arrives. Only players who’ve reached Collector Level 6 will be qualified to race against the AI.
The OnePlus 11 is a powerful phone, but the design isn't what you'd call thrilling. Now, the company has teased a version called the OnePlus 11 Concept designed to counteract that narrative with... lots of LED lights. The "flowing back" has meandering stream-type LED lighting pattern with a ring around the camera module, along with a unibody glass design. It will be revealed on February 27th at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023 in Barcelona, OnePlus announced.
With the design, OnePlus is adopting a gaming PC-type approach with the use of LED lighting. That's reasonable considering the OnePlus 11 is one of the better gaming phones out there, with features like a 120Hz display, extremely fast 100W charging and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor.
OnePlus
OnePlus has done special edition phones before, including Star Wars and Pac-Man themed devices. However, this looks like its first with external LED lighting that takes a page from the Nothing Phone 1's transparent, light-up back. It also borrows a bit from the OnePlus 8T concept that used a color-changing back.
In case you need a reason for the lighting, the company says it's to "show the engineering breakthroughs of the OnePlus 11 Concept by highlighting the icy blue pipelines which run through the entire back of the phone, almost like OnePlus 11 Concept has its own series of blood vessels."
It's not clear if it's called "Concept" because it's a one-off concept product, or if that's the name for a special edition phone that will go on sale. If it's the latter, it would certainly stand out from other smartphones. In any case, we should learn more when it's unveiled on February 27th at 3PM ET.
Hey, if Twitter is making money from it, why not? Facebook’s parent company, Meta, announced its own Twitter Blue-like subscription called Meta Verified on Sunday morning. Mark Zuckerberg took to his newly launched broadcast channel to share the news, saying the subscription service would give users a blue badge, additional impersonation protection and direct access to customer support. Meta plans to test the subscription first in Australia and New Zealand before rolling it out to other countries. When Meta Verified does come to the US, it will cost $15 per month through the company's apps on iOS and Android. On the web, where app store commissions don't apply, the service will be $12 per month.
The company told Engadget the subscription will only be available to users 18 years or older. Meta will also require a government-issued ID that matches the Facebook or Instagram account’s profile name and photo. Once you're verified, you’re locked in to that profile name, username, date of birth and photo. If you want to change, you’ll have to go through the verification process again.
The blue tick on Twitter does come with the cringe-inducing text of: “This account is verified because it’s subscribed to Twitter Blue.” (And you know I click to check.) Will Meta take a similar approach? And can we stop our egos from chasing that Instagram blue tick? And by “we,” I mean… me.
– Mat Smith
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While tablets don’t always get the same level of attention as smartphones or laptops – landing right in the middle in size and specs – they’ve become an increasingly important device for many, particularly with the shift to working and learning from home. There are a lot of options, so it can be difficult to pick the right one. We’ve done a bunch of the hard work for you, and we’ve got our top picks across a range of categories and prices, smartly timed after the release of the latest slates from both Apple and Samsung.
Viz Media has put a lot of free anime up on its YouTube channel.
Viz Media has uploaded some of the most well-known anime series to YouTube, for free. You can watch Sailor Moon – the old series that aired in the ‘90s – Naruto, Death Note, Inuyasha, Hunter X Hunter and others on the publisher's account. Viz has organized the episodes into playlists. However, you’ll have to be in the correct region (North America, it seems) to get access. No free anime for us Brits at the moment.
The company will test the feature on Messenger and Facebook as well.
Meta has set its sights on copying a new messaging app: Telegram. Mark Zuckerberg just showed off “broadcast channels,” a new Instagram feature that brings one-way messaging to the app. The company is testing the feature with a handful of creators and plans to bring the Telegram-like functionality to Facebook and Messenger as well. Broadcast channels allow creators to stream updates to their followers’ inboxes, much like channels on Telegram. Those who join the channels can react to messages and vote in polls, but can’t participate in the conversation directly.
He plugged EthereumMax on Twitter without disclosing payments he received.
NBA Hall of Famer Paul “The Truth” Pierce agreed to pay $1.4 million to settle charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission over a cryptocurrency he promoted on Twitter. The government agency found Pierce violated anti-touting and antifraud provisions of federal securities laws. Pierce’s case echoes Kim Kardashian’s $1.26 million settlement in October for plugging the same currency. Pierce and Kardashian were also sued last year for their involvement in the scheme.
A strong amateur Go player has beat a highly-ranked AI system after exploiting a weakness discovered by a second computer, The Financial Times has reported. By exploiting the flaw, American player Kellin Pelrine defeated the KataGo system decisively, winning 14 of 15 games without further computer help. It's a rare Go win for humans since AlphaGo's milestone 2016 victory that helped pave the way for the current AI craze. It also shows that even the most advanced AI systems can have glaring blind spots.
Pelrine's victory was made possible by a research firm called FAR AI, which developed a program to probe KataGo for weaknesses. After playing over a million games, it was able to find a weakness that could be exploited by a decent amateur player. It's "not completely trivial but it's not super-difficult" to learn, said Pelrine. He used the same method was to beat Leela Zero, another top Go AI.
Here's how it works: the goal is to create a large "loop" of stones to encircle an opponent's group, then distract the computer by making moves in other areas of the board. Even when its group was nearly surrounded, the computer failed to notice the strategy. "As a human, it would be quite easy to spot," Pelrine said, since the encircling stones stand out clearly on the board.
The flaw demonstrates that AI systems can't really "think" beyond their training, so they often do things that look incredibly stupid to humans. We've seen similar things with chat bots like the one employed by Microsoft's Bing search engine. While it was good at repetitive tasks like coming up with a travel itinerary, it also gave incorrect information, berated users for wasting its time and even exhibited "unhinged" behavior — likely due to the models it was trained on.
Lightvector (the developer of KataGo) is certainly aware of the problem, which players have been exploiting for several months now. In a GitHub post, it said it's been working on a fix for a variety of attack types that use the exploit.
It appears SpaceX is preparing to offer global roaming. As first reported by PCMag, the company recently began emailing customers in countries where Starlink service isn’t available yet to invite them to try a new $200 per month package that allows its terminals to provide internet access “from almost anywhere on land in the world.”
As The Verge notes, it’s not clear how SpaceX will follow through on the promise to provide internet from nearly anywhere. Despite the company’s growing constellation of small satellites, it’s still waiting to obtain regulatory approval to offer internet access in many key markets, including India and Pakistan. To that point, the email SpaceX sent out notes global roaming services are “contingent on regulatory approvals.” It adds customers may experience “brief periods of poor connectivity, or none at all” while it works to expand its satellite network. Potential customers should also be prepared to pay an import fee for their Starlink terminal, on top of the kit’s $599 price.
SpaceX already offers a few, more limited roaming options. Most notably, there’s the company’s Portability package for existing residential users, which allows those customers to use their Starlink terminal while traveling within their home continent. At $25 per month on top of the company’s $110 monthly subscription fee, the package is cheaper than the global roaming service SpaceX recently began emailing potential customers about, but the company requires those who spend “an extended period of time” away from home to change their permanent address.
Starting in May, Amazon will require employees to work out of the office at least three days per week. The company announced the plan in a memo published on Friday and attributed to CEO Andy Jassy (viaCNN). In advocating for the policy, Jassy said a hybrid work arrangement would “strengthen” Amazon’s corporate culture and lead to better collaboration among its workforce.
“It’s not simple to bring many thousands of employees back to our offices around the world, so we’re going to give the teams that need to do that work some time to develop a plan,” Jassy said. “We know that it won’t be perfect at first, but the office experience will steadily improve over the coming months (and years) as our real estate and facilities teams smooth out the wrinkles, and ultimately keep evolving how we want our offices to be set up to capture the new ways we want to work.”
Shortly after the pandemic began, Amazon said it expected employees to return to the office in October 2020. The company went on to push back that date multiple times as successive waves of the coronavirus forced cities around the world to lock down. Amazon’s announcement comes in the same week that Activision confirmed it would require Blizzard employees to work out of the office at least three days per week starting in July. Like Blizzard, Amazon has seen many of its workers move to organize in response to the company’s policies. Most notably, there was JFK8, the Staten Island facility that became the first unionized Amazon workhouse when the majority of its workers voted to unionize last year. The move also comes after Amazon confirmed, at the start of the year, it would lay off more than 18,000 employees.
More than six years following the most recent entry in the series, Firaxis has confirmed it’s working on a new Civilization game. The studio didn’t share many details about the new title, but it did say that Ed Beach is the creative director of the project. Beach has more than 15 years of experience working on the franchise, including, most recently, as lead designer of Civilization VI.
Firaxis parent company Take-Two Interactive shared the news this week in a press release announcing a handful of staffing changes at the studio (via Eurogamer). Studio head Steve Martin is leaving Firaxis after serving nearly 17 years as the company’s president, a position he inherited from Firaxis co-founder Jeff Briggs in 2006. Heather Hazen, previously the studio’s chief operating officer, is taking over the day-to-day operations of Firaxis.
“I’m thrilled to have this opportunity to carry on the studio’s storied legacy, beginning with the announcement that Firaxis is in development on the next iteration of the legendary Civilization franchise,” Hazen said. “I’m lucky to be working with some of the best developers in our industry, and we have plans to take the Civilization franchise to exciting new heights for our millions of players around the world.”
On Friday, Firaxis also announced the departure of Jake Solomon. After 23 years, the designer, who was one of the studio’s best-known employees thanks to his work on the XCOM franchise and Marvel’s Midnight Suns, is leaving to pursue new opportunities. "I loved designing tactical turn-based games, but it's time for other, smarter people to push that space forward,” Solomon said on Twitter. “My brain is on fire with a new dream. Time to go chase it."
The rumors were true: Facebook parent company Meta is preparing to launch a Twitter Blue-like subscription called Meta Verified. On Sunday morning, Mark Zuckerberg took to his newly launched broadcast channel to share the news. He said the subscription service would give users a blue badge, additional impersonation protection and direct access to customer support. "This feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services," Zuckerberg said, adding Meta would test the subscription first in Australia and New Zealand before rolling it out to other countries. Meta Verified will cost $15 per month when users subscribe through the company's apps on iOS. On the web, where Apple's up to 30 percent commission on in-app purchases doesn't apply, the service will cost $12 per month. The subscription will cover both Instagram and Facebook accounts.
12 bucks a month to be verified on Facebook... I wonder if people will keep that same Twitter Blue outrage energy 😅 pic.twitter.com/ZPJsIHBerO
Rumors that Meta was preparing to trial a paid verification service started to swirl at the beginning of February when reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi discovered code referencing "paid blue badge" and "identity verification."
Some of us are destined to lead successful lives thanks to the circumstances of our birth. Some of us, like attorney Bruce Jackson, are destined to lead such lives in spite them. Raised in New York's Amsterdam housing projects and subjected to the daily brutalities of growing up a black man in America, Jackson's story is ultimately one of tempered success. Sure he went on to study at Georgetown Law before representing some of the biggest names in hip hop — LL Cool J, Heavy D, the Lost Boyz and Mr. Cheeks, SWV, Busta Rhymes — and working 15 years as Microsoft's associate general counsel. But at the end of the day, he is still a black man living in America, with all the baggage that comes with it.
In his autobiography, Never Far from Home(out now from Atria), Jackson recounts the challenges he has faced in life, of which there are no shortage: from being falsely accused of robbery at age 10 to witnessing the murder of his friend at 15 to spending a night in lockup as an adult for the crime of driving his own car; the shock of navigating Microsoft's lillywhite workforce following years spent in the entertainment industry, and the end of a loving marriage brought low by his demanding work. While Jackson's story is ultimately one of triumph, Never Far from Home reveals a hollowness, a betrayal, of the American Dream that people of Bill Gates' (and this writer's) complexion will likely never have to experience. In the excerpt below, Jackson recalls his decision to leave a Napster-ravaged music industry to the clammy embrace of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.
In the late 1990s, the digital revolution pushed the music business into a state of flux. And here was Tony Dofat, sitting in my office, apoplectic, talking about how to stop Napster and other platforms from taking the legs out from under the traditional recording industry.
I shook my head. “If they’re already doing it, then it’s too late. Cat’s out of the bag. I don’t care if you start suing people, you’re never going back to the old model. It’s over.”
In fact, lawsuits, spearheaded by Metallica and others, the chosen mode of defense in those early days of the digital music onslaught, only served to embolden consumers and publicize their cause. Free music for everyone! won the day.
These were terrifying times for artists and industry executives alike. A decades-old business model had been built on the premise that recorded music was a salable commodity.
Artists would put out a record and then embark on a promotional tour to support that record. A significant portion of a musician’s income (and the income of the label that supported the artist) was derived from the sale of a physical product: recorded albums (or singles), either in vinyl, cassette, or compact disc. Suddenly, that model was flipped on its head... and still is. Artists earn a comparative pittance from downloads or streams, and most of their revenue is derived from touring, or from monetizing social media accounts whose numbers are bolstered by a song’s popularity. (Publicly, Spotify has stated that it pays artists between $.003 and $.005 per stream. Translation: 250 streams will result in revenue of approximately one dollar for the recording artist.)
Thus, the music itself has been turned primarily into a marketing tool used to entice listeners to the product: concert and festival tickets, and a social media advertising platform. It is a much tougher and leaner business model. Additionally, it is a model that changed the notion that record labels and producers needed only one decent track around which they could build an entire album. This happened all the time in the vinyl era: an artist came up with a hit single, an album was quickly assembled, often with filler that did not meet the standard established by the single. Streaming platforms changed all of that. Consumers today seek out only the individual songs they like, and do it for a fraction of what they used to spend on albums. Ten bucks a month gets you access to thousands of songs on Spotify or Pandora or Apple Music roughly the same amount a single album cost in the pre-streaming era. For consumers, it has been a landmark victory (except for the part about artists not being able to create art if they can’t feed themselves); for artists and record labels, it has been a catastrophic blow.
For everyone connected to the music business, it was a shock to the system. For me, it was provocation to consider what I wanted to do with the next phase of my career. In early 2000, I received a call from a corporate recruiter about a position with Microsoft, which was looking for an in-house counsel with a background in entertainment law — specifically, to work in the company’s burgeoning digital media division. The job would entail working with content providers and negotiating deals in which they would agree to make their content — music, movies, television shows, books — available to consumers via Microsoft’s Windows Media Player. In a sense, I would still be in the entertainment business; I would be spending a lot of time working with the same recording industry executives with whom I had built prior relationships.
But there were downsides, as well. For one thing, I was recently married, with a one-year-old baby and a stepson, living in a nice place in the New York City suburbs. I wasn’t eager to leave them—or my other daughters—three thousand miles behind while I moved to Microsoft’s headquarters in the Pacific Northwest. From an experience standpoint, though, it was almost too good an offer to turn down.
Deeply conflicted and at a crossroads in my career, I solicited advice from friends and colleagues, including, most notably, Clarence Avant. If I had to name one person who has been the most important mentor in my life, it would be Clarence, “the Black Godfather.” In an extraordinary life that now spans almost ninety years, Clarence has been among the most influential men in Black culture, music, politics, and civil rights. It’s no surprise that Netflix’s documentary on Clarence featured interviews with not just a who’s who of music and entertainment industry superstars, but also former US presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
In the early 1990s, Clarence became chairman of the board of Motown Records. As lofty a title as that might be, it denotes only a fraction of the wisdom and power he wielded. When the offer came down from Microsoft, I consulted with Clarence. Would I be making a mistake, I wondered, by leaving the music business and walking away from a firm I had started? Clarence talked me through the pros and cons, but in the end, he offered a steely assessment, in a way that only Clarence could.
“Son, take your ass to Microsoft, and get some of that stock.”
