Liz Reid, the Head of Google Search, has admitted that the company's search engine has returned some "odd, inaccurate or unhelpful AI Overviews" after they rolled out to everyone in the US. The executive published an explanation for Google's more peculiar AI-generated responses in a blog post, where it also announced that the company has implemented safeguards that will help the new feature return more accurate and less meme-worthy results. 

Reid defended Google and pointed out that some of the more egregious AI Overview responses going around, such as claims that it's safe to leave dogs in cars, are fake. The viral screenshot showing the answer to "How many rocks should I eat?" is real, but she said that Google came up with an answer because a website published a satirical content tackling the topic. "Prior to these screenshots going viral, practically no one asked Google that question," she explained, so the company's AI linked to that website.

The Google VP also confirmed that AI Overview told people to use glue to get cheese to stick to pizza based on content taken from a forum. She said forums typically provide "authentic, first-hand information," but they could also lead to "less-than-helpful advice." The executive didn't mention the other viral AI Overview answers going around, but as The Washington Post reports, the technology also told users that Barack Obama was Muslim and that people should drink plenty of urine to help them pass a kidney stone. 

Reid said the company tested the feature extensively before launch, but "there’s nothing quite like having millions of people using the feature with many novel searches." Google was apparently able to determine patterns wherein its AI technology didn't get things right by looking at examples of its responses over the past couple of weeks. It has then put protections in place based on its observations, starting by tweaking its AI to be able to better detect humor and satire content. It has also updated its systems to limit the addition of user-generated replies in Overviews, such as social media and forum posts, which could give people misleading or even harmful advice. In addition, it has also "added triggering restrictions for queries where AI Overviews were not proving to be as helpful" and has stopped showing AI-generated replies for certain health topics. 

Sony’s lovable robo-mascot is getting a new game. During its PlayStation State of Play on Thursday, Sony dropped a trailer for the upcoming PS5 title Astro Bot. The 3D Mario-esque title, a sequel to the beloved pack-in, Astro’s Playroom, arrives on September 6.

The trailer sees our pal Astro wading through puddles full of pink flamingos, grappling across platforms like Bionic Commando and summoning a PS5 console to help fight a giant green alien in a UFO (as one tends to do). In a nod to old-school PlayStation, the trailer even includes a cameo from PaRappa the Rapper.

Sony describes Astro Bot as a “supersized adventure” that spans over six galaxies and 80 levels as you search for your lost crew. You’ll have over 15 new abilities, and, like in its predecessor, it will serve as a showcase for the various sensors and haptics in the DualSense controller.

Astro Bot will be available for pre-order on June 7 ahead of its September 6 release date.

Save for Destiny 2, it's been a long time since there's been a first-person shooter from a PlayStation studio. As such, there's been quite a bit of interest in Firewalk Studios' Concord since it was announced a year ago. 

We learned more details about the sci-fi game during Sony's State of Play showcase, including a release date and the first look at gameplay. It's coming to PS5 and PC on August 23, and there will be a beta in July. (Heads up: You will need a PlayStation Network account to play on PC.) 

Firewalk says it focused on making sure Concord has tight movement, precise gunplay and a range of abilities — just as you might expect from a studio led by former Destiny developers. Given that it's a five vs. five hero shooter, there are plenty of similarities with Overwatch 2 as well (Microsoft now owns that game, for what it's worth).

As you might imagine, there are several roles to choose from, while each of the initial 16 characters, who are dubbed Freegunners, has unique abilities. Firewalk aimed to make Concord approachable for a wide range of players, no matter their preferred play style or skill level. There should be at least one or two Freegunners whose abilities you can get to grips with relatively quickly. 

You might throw exploding knives, deploy spores that grant speed boosts, drop a healing pad, cast a wall of fire or block an entire lane with a wall. Some of these abilities will persist on the map between rounds and respawns, and others are designed for more spontaneous use.

There will be six different game modes at launch. Firewalk plans to add more modes, Freegunners, maps and cinematic vignettes as free post-launch updates. 

There's a lot of competition in this genre and in the live-service market overall. But Sony already has a hit shooter this year in Helldivers 2. Concord has made a solid impression to date, so it has a fair chance of being successful too.

Instagram launched Notes in December 2022 as a way for people to share statuses (not so dissimilar to Facebook) on the platform. Now, the Meta-owned app is taking inspiration from its sister site for more features, with the addition of Note Prompts. 

Instagram first experimented with Note Prompts earlier this year, and the feature allows users to share questions such as "What should I eat?" or "Who is going to be in X city this weekend?" Friends can then respond with tips, suggestions and random thoughts on the subject. It feels very Facebook circa 2012, as does another new feature, Mentions, in which users can tag a friend directly in their Notes. The example Instagram gives, "Hanging with @user later," would be right out of the early 2010s with just adding "Text! :)" Instagram also announced Note Likes, which works similarly to how likes function everywhere else on Instagram — all users need to do is double tap a note or click the heart. 

Notes have only emerged on Instagram in the past couple of years. They mirror stories in many ways, lasting only 24 hours and with controls as to who can see them (such as just mutual followers). Notes are visible in a user's inbox and on profiles. 

GeForce Now subscribers will be able to stream and play World of Warcraft (WoW) through the service if they want to. NVIDIA's cloud gaming service is adding World of Warcraft Classic, Dragonflight and even Cataclysm Classic, which launched just a few days ago, to its library of games. WoW and its extensions will be available starting this week, along with a bunch of other titles such as the newly released Rogue Prince of Persia. In June, NVIDIA is also adding Resident Evil Village and Street Fighter 6, among other games, to the service. 

The service gives members a way to access games across platforms, including Android and iOS devices, PCs and Macs. It's worth noting that WoW does not support controllers for consoles, and players typically need a keyboard and a mouse to be as accurate and as fast as possible, so it may not be easy to play on certain devices. The game's addition to GeForce Now means subscribers can play it on Chromebooks, though, eliminating the need for players to jump through hoops just to be able to install the game on their computers. 

In addition to announcing new titles for GeForce Now, NVIDIA also revealed that the service will release a new members reward for Elder Scrolls Online as part of the game's 10th year anniversary celebrations. Subscribers have to opt into the service's rewards program in order to claim the new in-game mount for free.

While Minecraft was officially released in 2011, it was first introduced to the public back in 2009. This year, Minecraft is celebrating its 15th anniversary, and as part of the festivities surrounding that milestone, Netflix and Mojang Studios have announced that they're making an animated series based on the iconic sandbox game. It's a computer graphic-animated show that's being developed by Canadian studio WildBrain, which was also behind the animated Netflix shows Carmen Sandiego and Sonic Prime.

The companies said the series will feature an original story based on new characters that show "the world of Minecraft in a new light." We'll most likely find out what that means exactly before the series launches when they start releasing previews and trailers. The video Netflix and Mojang have published only announces their collaboration — we'll just have to wait for more information on whether the show will still include characters we all know from the game, like Steve, creepers and zombies, or if it will truly only feature characters we've never seen before. If the long-delayed Minecraft movie ever gets made, we'll still see Steve in an adaptation anyway. Earlier this year, Deadline reported that Jack Black is set to star as the game's blocky protagonist alongside Jason Momoa. 

Over the past couple of weeks, Minecraft has also released special items to celebrate its 15th anniversary, including free party add-ons, a free map, a cape and wallpapers. You can see all of Mojang's anniversary items and announcements on the Minecraft website.

Last week, Sony published a seemingly innocuous bit of fluff, touting its long-term "creative entertainment vision" in broad terms, along with some interviews of key employees. Neil Druckmann, studio head of Sony's Naughty Dog, was one of those — and his interview made waves in the game world. According to the interview, Druckmann said AI could "create nuanced dialogues and characters" and also said that the new game Naughty Dog was developing (but hasn't officially announced) "could redefine mainstream perceptions of gaming." Some mighty strong and potentially controversial statements from the head of a studio beloved for its The Last of Us and Uncharted franchises. 

Problem is, Druckmann was wildly misquoted by his own employers. A few days after Sony published its interview, Druckmann took to X and said "this is not quite what I said." He then went full Ellie-in-revenge-mode on Sony, posting a section of the original interview transcript. (He was actually pretty polite if we're being honest — even the powerful can only bite the hand that feeds so hard.) Regardless, things here do not add up.

Gaming reporter Stephen Totilo shared his own comparison of what Druckmann said and what Sony published, bolding the words in Sony's answer that Druckmann never said — and those words were the majority of the quote. Sony basically put words in his mouth and published them, kicking off a classic gamer freakout. 

To be fair, if I was Druckmann, I'd be pretty pissed too. Look at this butchery!

Now, five days later, Sony has removed the interview from its site entirely. However, they didn't just delete the page — they left it up with an apology to Neil and the Naughty Dog team "for any negative impact this interview might have caused." 

My favorite bit is easily this: 

In re-reviewing our recent interview with Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann, we have found several significant errors and inaccuracies that don't represent his perspective and values (including topics such as animation, writing, technology, AI, and future projects).Sony

So everything he said about animation, writing, technology, AI and future projects had errors. Hey, at least they nailed his name and title.

For the morbidly curious, you can still read the "interview" on archive.org.

Square Enix has largely kept its lips sealed about the Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D remake since announcing it three years ago, but the publisher has now revealed which platforms it's coming to. When it eventually arrives, you'll be able to play it on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC (via Steam).

Since Square Enix started using its distinctive HD-2D tech with Octopath Traveller, the company has put it to use in a string of titles, including that game's sequel, Triangle Strategy, the Live A Live remake and Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster's opera scene. Based on the reveal trailer from 2021, the HD-2D engine is set to give Dragon Quest 3 a serious visual upgrade, nearly three decades after the original game arrived in 1988.

The new version may not be too far away either. The teaser suggested that the Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D remake "draws near," several months after series creator Yuji Horii said he was playtesting it. With Summer Game Fest and all its associated events just around the corner, we could find out more details about the remake very soon.

Square Enix released the teaser on Dragon Quest Day, which marks the anniversary of the very first game in the series debuting in Japan in 1986. Horii took the opportunity to provide an minor update on the next mainline entry as well. Square Enix announced Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate back in 2021, but there's been no sign of a release date as yet. That said, Horii wants it to live up to the legacies of key Dragon Quest creatives Akira Toriyama and Koichi Sugiyama.

“Thank you so much to everyone for the many [Dragon Quest Day] congratulations!” Horii wrote on X, according to a Gematsu translation. “There has been some worry about Dragon Quest XII, but I was actually in a meeting [about it] until just a bit ago. While I can’t share any details yet, I want it to be something worthy of the posthumous work of the two [Toriyama and Sugiyama] who passed away. I’ll do my best!”

The following contains spoilers for “73 Yards.”

Russell T. Davies admits his writing eschews narrative formalism in favor of things that just feel right. Two decades ago, his critics pointed to his use of deus ex machina endings as a stick to beat his reputation with. But we’re in a different era now, where vibes matter just as much as logic — both inside the show’s new more fantastic skew, and in the real world. “73 Yards” is the vibiest episode of new Doctor Who so far, but I even found it easy to sit back and enjoy what it was doing.

Doctor Who is a complicated show to make, and some series have started production on Day 1 a week or more behind schedule. To combat this, the show started making “-lite” episodes that didn’t need the leads to be as involved. There are “Doctor-lite” episodes like “Love and Monsters” and “Blink,” and even “companion-lite” episodes like “Midnight.” This production process enables the star, or stars, to be off shooting Episode A while a guest cast takes the spotlight for the bulk of Episode B.

Production of the new series began while star Ncuti Gatwa was still finishing the last of his work on Netflix’s Sex Education. So while he appears in the opening and closing moments of "73 Yards", he’s otherwise absent as the Doctor has been erased from history. It gives us the chance to see what a modern companion would do if left stranded in uncertain territory without her alien ally. The episode takes hard turns from folk and rural horror to kitchen-sink drama before becoming a light homage to Taxi Driver. Suffice to say, this is another episode you wouldn’t watch with small kids.

Bad Wolf / BBC Studios

The TARDIS lands on a cliff edge in Wales, with the Doctor pointing out it’s another liminal space where magic is allowed to creep in. He even mentions the war between the “land and the sea,” name-checking a rumored spin-off fans discovered after scouring production documents. The Doctor talks about how great a country Wales is, except for Roger ap Gwillam, a Welsh politician who, two decades hence, will lead the UK to the brink of nuclear armageddon. He then steps into a fairy ring, disturbing its web, and disappears while Ruby reads the paper notes tied to it. The notes mention a Mad Jack, a scary figure that sounds like a villain from folklore.

Suddenly, Ruby is alone on the cliff but can now see the blurry figure of an old woman waving her arms at her in the distance. Ruby tries to approach her but the figure remains the same distance away (the titular 73 yards) no matter where she goes. Believing the Doctor has ghosted her, she tries to solve the quandary of this figure on her own. Ruby approaches a hiker (Susan Twist) and tries to work out where she’s seen her before (every episode thus far), but can’t quite put her finger on it. She asks the hiker if she’d be willing to speak to the old woman who is following her, but when the hitchhiker gets there, whatever she says is so horrifying that she sprints away from the scene in terror.

Ruby heads to a pub in the nearby town where the locals mock her — mistaking her hesitancy for condescension. She asks one of the patrons to go speak to the woman and, when he does, the same thing happens. Ruby gets home and asks her mum to try, this time holding a phone so Ruby can hear what she’s saying. But the phone call is disrupted and her mum is similarly horrified by what she hears — locking Ruby out of her home soon after. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT are next to offer aid, right up until they encounter the woman, when they all abandon her.

Bad Wolf / BBC Studios

All the time, the old woman remains 73 yards away from wherever Ruby is, unnoticed by everyone else unless Ruby directs their attention to her. She can’t photograph the woman's face — it's blurry — and can’t get close enough to hear her ominous warning. In fact, even to the end of the episode, there’s a lot of unknowns that are never resolved.

Ruby’s strangely resilient, and once she’s gotten beyond the abandonment, she looks to build a new life for herself. She treats her stalker as a friend, wishing her well as we cycle through a montage of the next chapter of Ruby’s life. She gets a job, moves into her own flat and goes through a series of breakups as she gently ages past 30, and then 40. Then, on the TV, she sees Roger ap Gwillam on the TV, who even mentions Mad Jack, and remembers both the Doctor’s warning and the messages in the fairy ring. It takes Ruby no time at all to be sure that her purpose in life is to save the world, and to avert Gwillam’s nuclear catastrophe.

She signs up to Gwillam’s fascist political party as a volunteer and eventually reaches a position where she’s close to the top. Gwillam’s rise is quick and it’s not long before he’s promising to secede from NATO and put his itchy trigger finger on the UK’s nuclear arsenal, ready to wage war on the rest of the world. Gwillam’s inauguration will take place at Cardiff City Stadium, while Ruby follows the politician along, lurking in the crowd.

Bad Wolf / BBC Studios

Ruby then starts to approach Gwillam, walking across the off-limits pitch at the stadium, and you expect her to pull out a weapon. But instead, she whips out her phone and starts measuring the distance between her and Roger until she reaches 73 yards. When she does, she gestures to the villain to notice the woman, and when he notices her, he hears the horrifying thing she says. The shock is enough to send Gwillam racing out of the stadium, resigning from the role of Prime Minister and preventing nuclear armageddon.

But while Ruby hoped that would be the end of it, the figure remains with her for the rest of her life. It’s only on her deathbed she realizes she can project herself back in time to act as a warning for the Doctor to not step in the fairy ring. She does so, preventing the accident in the first place and paradoxically nullifying the entire time stream in the process. History carries on its merry way and all is well… for now. But given the risks of paradoxes in Doctor Who, and the general sense that history is unraveling, it might not augur too well for what’s going to happen in the future.

Bad Wolf / BBC Studios

“73 Yards” is an exercise in putting your character in a hostile world and seeing what they’ll do to deal with it. It’s an episode that, when written down, doesn’t feel like a lot happens, because so much of its runtime is an exploration of Ruby as a character. Doctor Who thrives when the companion role is occupied by someone who wants to grab a fistful of narrative for themselves. And Ruby Sunday seems almost too perfect in her ability to draw out the logic from what she’s experienced and work within it.

Much as you can draw narrative and thematic parallels between the new series and Davies’ original tenure, this episode pulls from “Turn Left.” Both tell the story of what happens to a companion when the Doctor is withdrawn from the narrative and what they do to fix that wrong. And it’s no surprise both suggest that the UK, without the intervention of the Doctor, is only a few days away from tipping over into fascism.

Ruby’s humanity shines, even to the point where she’s trying to treat her tormentor with care. She refuses to fly, or travel by boat, lest she endanger the life of the apparition that’s following her, despite how much damage it causes to her life. And when she sees Roger ap Gwillam on the TV, she’s certain that her destiny is to prevent the nuclear armageddon the Doctor warned her about. This is another useful thread — the idea that Ruby has an instinctive grasp of the genre she exists in — much as she did in “Space Babies.”

As for the ending, it’s probably best we talk about those “vibes,” or the sort of slightly skewed associations in the show’s logic. Ruby, at the end of her life, realizes that she’s able to travel, or project herself somehow, through time to avert the Doctor’s fall. There’s nothing in the episode that points to it, no hint that the ghostly figure is Ruby, or if this is tied to the snow or anything else. But perhaps, the trick to an episode like this is simply to let yourself relax and enjoy seeing the character evolve, rather than anything more.

Susan Twist Corner

Obviously, Susan Twist plays the hiker that Ruby first encounters after the Doctor disappears and, for the first time, Ruby notices the familiarity. In the materials that Disney sends along that Susan Twist’s character is named the “mystery woman.”

And on the subject of twists, you’ll recall at the end of “Church on Ruby Road” that, in the post-credits, Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson) breaks the fourth wall. The annoying neighbor character, who lives next to Ruby’s mum’s flat, turns to the camera and asks if we’ve “Never seen a TARDIS before?” (Given her surprise at seeing it earlier in the episode, it’s clear her history may have been changed during the course of the show.) When Ruby heads back to her mum’s house, Anita Dobson’s Mrs Flood is back sitting on her step with her deckchair out. Interestingly, when she notices the ghostly figure — and Ruby and her Mum’s attempts to deal with it, she declares that it’s “nothing to do with me” and goes inside. Which, again, feels like a hint that Mrs Flood and the mystery woman are separate

YouTube Music for Android is finally releasing a long-awaited tool that lets people hum a song to search for it, in addition to singing the tune or playing the melody on an instrument, according to reporting by 9to5Google. The software has been in the testing phase since March.

All you have to do is tap the magnifying glass in the top-right corner and look for the waveform icon next to the microphone icon. Tap the waveform icon and start humming or singing. A fullscreen results page should quickly bring up the cover art, song name, artist, album, release year and other important data about the song. The software builds upon the Pixel’s Now Playing feature, which uses AI to “match the sound to the original recording.”

The tool comes in a server-side update with version 7.02 of YouTube Music for Android. There doesn’t look to be any availability information for the iOS release, though it’s most likely headed our way in the near future.

This type of feature isn’t exactly new, even if it’s new to YouTube Music. Google Search rolled out a similar tool back in 2020 and the regular YouTube app began offering something like this last year. Online music streaming platform Deezer also has a “hum to search” tool, released back in 2022.