This Alienware gaming laptop with RTX 4080 is $600 off today
This Alienware gaming laptop with RTX 4080 is $600 off today
For an incredible experience at a reasonable price, consider gaming laptop deals from Dell, such as this offer for the Alienware x16 R2. This particular configuration with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card has a sticker price of $3,300, but you can currently buy it for $2,700. That’s $600 in savings that you can either pocket or spend towards video games and accessories, but you’re going to have to finish your purchase for this gaming laptop quickly because we’re not sure how much longer the discount will remain available.
Why you should buy the Alienware x16 R2 gaming laptop
The Alienware x16 R2 is the upgraded version of the Alienware x16 that equips the gaming laptop with the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card, alongside 32GB of RAM that’s the sweet spot for high-end gamers, according to our guide on how much RAM do you need. It won’t have any trouble running the best PC games at their highest settings, and it will be ready for the upcoming PC games of the next few years.
All that power would be wasted on a mediocre screen, but that’s fortunately not the case with the Alienware x16 R2 and its 16-inch display with Full HD+ resolution and a 480Hz refresh rate. You’ll be able to install multiple titles at the same time on the gaming laptop because it has a massive 2TB SSD, and with Windows 11 Home pre-loaded, you can start doing so right after you unbox it. The Alienware x16 R2 also features the brand’s AlienFX lighting system, so you’ll be playing video games in style.
If you’re willing to spend a significant amount of cash on a powerful gaming laptop, you can’t go wrong with the Alienware x16 R2, especially now that its configuration with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card is on ***** at $600 off. From $3,300, it’s down to $2,700, which is still pretty expensive, but we assure you that it’s worth every single penny. It would be a shame to miss out on the savings though, so we highly recommend pushing through with your transaction for the Alienware x16 R2 gaming laptop as soon as possible.
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This Alienware gaming laptop with RTX 4080 is $600 off today
This Alienware gaming laptop with RTX 4080 is $600 off today
For an incredible experience at a reasonable price, consider gaming laptop deals from Dell, such as this offer for the Alienware x16 R2. This particular configuration with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card has a sticker price of $3,300, but you can currently buy it for $2,700. That’s $600 in savings that you can either pocket or spend towards video games and accessories, but you’re going to have to finish your purchase for this gaming laptop quickly because we’re not sure how much longer the discount will remain available.
Why you should buy the Alienware x16 R2 gaming laptop
The Alienware x16 R2 is the upgraded version of the Alienware x16 that equips the gaming laptop with the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor and the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card, alongside 32GB of RAM that’s the sweet spot for high-end gamers, according to our guide on how much RAM do you need. It won’t have any trouble running the best PC games at their highest settings, and it will be ready for the upcoming PC games of the next few years.
All that power would be wasted on a mediocre screen, but that’s fortunately not the case with the Alienware x16 R2 and its 16-inch display with Full HD+ resolution and a 480Hz refresh rate. You’ll be able to install multiple titles at the same time on the gaming laptop because it has a massive 2TB SSD, and with Windows 11 Home pre-loaded, you can start doing so right after you unbox it. The Alienware x16 R2 also features the brand’s AlienFX lighting system, so you’ll be playing video games in style.
If you’re willing to spend a significant amount of cash on a powerful gaming laptop, you can’t go wrong with the Alienware x16 R2, especially now that its configuration with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card is on ***** at $600 off. From $3,300, it’s down to $2,700, which is still pretty expensive, but we assure you that it’s worth every single penny. It would be a shame to miss out on the savings though, so we highly recommend pushing through with your transaction for the Alienware x16 R2 gaming laptop as soon as possible.
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Five people shot at in attack at Swedish school: police
Five people shot at in attack at Swedish school: police
Swedish police say five people have been shot in an attack at a school in the city of Orebro 200km west of Stockholm, triggering a massive response by rescue services.
“Five persons are confirmed shot,” police said in a statement.
“This is currently seen as attempted *******, arson and aggravated weapons offence.”
The extent of the victims’ injuries were not immediately clear.
Ambulances, rescue services and police are onsite, a spokesperson for local rescue services said.
A police spokesperson declined to comment further when reached by Reuters.
Police did not immediately say whether a suspect had been apprehended.
Students are being sheltered in nearby buildings.
Other parts of the school were evacuated following the violence.
“The reports of violence in Orebro are very serious. The police are on site and the operation is in full swing. The government is in close contact with the police, and is closely following developments,” Justice Minister Gunnar Str?mmer told Swedish news agency TT.
with AP
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Last of Us showrunners explain why Abby isn’t muscular in season 2
Last of Us showrunners explain why Abby isn’t muscular in season 2
The Last of Us showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin have explained why Abby actor Kaitlyn Dever won’t be as muscular as her video game counterpart.
HBO’s The Last of Us returns in April and will cover some, but not all of Naughty Dog‘s second game. Kaitlyn Dever will join the cast as Abby, the co-protagonist of The Last of Us Part 2.
Since the casting was announced, fans have questioned why Dever, who usually sports a slim build, would be cast to play Abby, who in the video game is very muscular. Now, ahead of the show’s premiere, showrunners Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin have explained the choice.
“We value performance over anything else,” Druckmann said to Entertainment Weekly. “We need someone to really capture the essence of those characters…. We don’t value as much, ‘Do they look exactly like the character with their eyebrows or their nose or their body?’ Whatever it is. It’s not nowhere on the priority list, but it’s below a bunch of other things that we consider.”
Druckmann claims that part of the reason for Abby’s physique in the game is that when playing as Abby in The Last of Us Part 2, she’s supposed to be more akin to playing as Joel, whereas Ellie was supposed to feel weaker, but much more agile.
“We would’ve struggled to find someone as good as Kaitlyn to play this role,” Druckmann explains. “In the game, you have to play both characters [Ellie and Abby] and we need them to play differently. We needed Ellie to feel smaller and kind of maneuver around, and Abby was meant to play more like Joel in that she’s almost like a brute in the way she can physically manhandle certain things.
“That doesn’t play as big of a role in this version of the story because there’s not as much violent action moment to moment. It’s more about the drama. I’m not saying there’s no action here. It’s just, again, different priorities and how you approach it.”
Other new additions to the cast include Young Mazino as Jessie, Danny Ramirez as Manny, Tati Gabrielle as Nora, Ariela Barer as Mel, and Spencer Lord as Owen.
It’s been confirmed that the season will run for seven episodes, which is two fewer than in season one. Season two won’t cover the entirety of The Last of Us Part 2, and series co-creator Craig Mazin has said the series could run beyond three seasons.
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This Lenovo ThinkPad laptop with 32GB of RAM is 45% off
This Lenovo ThinkPad laptop with 32GB of RAM is 45% off
If you’re looking at laptop deals for a machine that won’t let you down in terms of performance, we’ve found an offer from Lenovo that you should check out. The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, which is originally sold at $2,739, is on ***** at 45% off, bringing it down to nearly half-price at $1,506. You need to be quick in completing your transaction for the laptop if you don’t want to miss out on the $1,233 in savings though, as it may return to its sticker price sooner than you expect.
Why you should buy the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 laptop
Lenovo inherited the ThinkPad line of laptops from IBM, and maintained its iconic look, sturdy design, and business features, according to our explainer on Lenovo brands. All of these are on full display in the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6, which is powered by the AMD Ryzen AI 7 Pro 360 processor and AMD Radeon 880M graphics card, alongside 32GB of RAM that our guide on how much RAM do you need says is the sweet spot for professionals. With these specifications, you’ll be able to carry out demanding processes and multitask between several apps with ease.
The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is equipped with a 14-inch WUXGA screen for portability, and it ships with Windows 11 Pro pre-loaded so that you’ll have access to the operating system’s more advanced features. You’ll have plenty of space for your software and files on its 1TB SSD, and your confidential documents will be protected by Lenovo’s ThinkShield system that safeguards your data with encryption. The Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 also has a fingerprint reader, a facial recognition system through its infrared camera, and a webcam privacy shutter for additional safety.
In one of the most attractive Lenovo laptop deals we’ve come across recently, the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 is available with a 45% discount that almost halves its price from $2,739 to $1,506. That’s huge savings of $1,233 from Lenovo, but we’re not sure how much time is remaining before you lose your chance at this bargain. If you’re interested, you have to act fast — finalize your purchase of the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 immediately to get the powerful laptop for a much more affordable price.
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Grieving families of war heroes face £180k death duty bills
Grieving families of war heroes face £180k death duty bills
Grieving families of war heroes face inheritance tax bills of up to £180,000 under Labour, analysis shows.
Death in service payments – lump sums given to the families of deceased Armed Forces members – are currently tax-free.
But changes announced in Rachel Reeves’s Budget last year mean payments for off-duty deaths in service will be subject to inheritance tax for the first time, if it is not going to a spouse or civil partner.
Children or partners of unmarried servicemen and women will have to pay death duties on the benefit April 2027 as a result of the policy.
Death in service payments are usually a lump sum paid to named beneficiaries of a worker who dies while on the company payroll. It is typically the equivalent of four-times the late individual’s salary.
Inheritance tax is levied at a rate of 40pc on an estate above the “nil-rate band”, which is currently set at £325,000.
A new recruit in the regular army earns at least £25,200 from day one of basic training, meaning a potential death in service payment of £100,800.
This would result in an inheritance tax bill of £40,320 if their nil-rate band has already been used up.
The family of a Royal Navy captain on a typical minimum salary £110,500 could face a death duty bill of up to £176,800.
Relatives of deceased police officers also face losing as much as 40pc of the money they receive. The family of a Metropolitan Police sergeant on the lowest pay rung of £51,408 would face a tax charge of £82,253 on a death in service payment of £205,632.
For members of the Armed Forces, death in service payments are paid whether or not the individual was “on duty” at the time of their death. Those who die “on duty” will continue to benefit from a separate tax-free arrangement on their death in service payments from 2027.
The Government ‘has made a mistake’
But a military worker who dies while technically “off duty”, such as by sudden illness or accident, will be stung by the new inheritance tax rules.
Ministry of Defence (MOD) figures show that there were 2,922 regular Armed Forces personnel and on-duty reservist deaths between January 1 2000 and August 31 2023. The MOD does not publish data on off-duty deaths.
Matthew Lowe, chief operating officer of the Forces Pension Society (FPS), told The Telegraph he believed “up to a hundred” families of army personnel were likely to be affected by the rule change every year.
He added: “The Government had made a mistake. We don’t believe this is malicious. But service personnel whose deaths are not attributable to on-duty activities or who die off-duty are being disadvantaged compared to their civilian counterparts, whose death benefits would have been put in trust.”
Maj Gen Neil Marshall, the chief executive of the FPS, has written to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) urging the Government to reverse the decision. He said the threat of a tax bill would be “corrosive” to the commitment of personnel towards the Armed Forces.
Alicia Kearns MP, shadow minister for foreign affairs, said: “It is disgraceful that Labour is going to subject the grieving families of military personnel with such an extreme tax bill.
“This is an outright betrayal of members of our Armed Forces, who sacrifice everything they have – including their lives – to keep this country safe and their loved ones who support them to serve.”
The Treasury was approached for comment.
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I tried Opera Air, Opera’s new browser for mindfulness
I tried Opera Air, Opera’s new browser for mindfulness
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Opera Air’s tools for mental relaxation
Did Opera Air truly ease my stressful day?
Opera, the company behind one of the best web browsers we know, has released a new browser designed to escape the overwhelm of the limitless web. Called “Opera Air,” the browser arrives as another option from the company instead of replacing the primary Opera browser or the gaming-centric Opera GX.
The browser, Opera says, is built around the principles of minimalism and will aid in managing stress, enhancing focus, and maintaining emotional clarity through tools built into the browser. I spent a couple of days, including a few stressful work days with tight deadlines, and here’s how Opera Air helped — or didn’t help — me bound back to a calmer and more productive state of mind.
Opera Air’s tools for mental relaxation
Opera sent me a pre-release build of Opera Air a few days before launch. So, I wouldn’t judge the browser for its stability or visual perfectness — though there weren’t any significant glitches to call out.
Audio tracks for enhanced thinking
Tushar Mehta / Digital Trends
There are primarily four striking bits of Opera Air compared to the standard Opera browser. The first one is called Boosts, which offers a collection of soundscapes to elevate your mood or help improve focus. There are 19 such soundscapes with different intended objectives, and each of them has three facets — essentially three differently purposed tracks layered together.
Each “Boost” comprises three elements. The first one is an ambient soundtrack, such as the sounds of rain, forest, or city noise. The second is music, mostly from a synthesizer or electronic lo-fi. And the third is a set of binaural beats segmented into alpha, beta, gamma, and delta frequencies to stimulate the brain. All of these are stacked to create one audio track, with a total of 19 defaults for better mood, more focus, relaxation, and overall better cognitive functioning.
Tushar Mehta / Digital Trends
In addition to the defaults, the browser lets you choose the ambient and the music tracks from a ******* domain or change the frequency of the binaural beats. You can also individually adjust the volumes of each of the three elements based on your liking, and each of these tracks can be played for variable durations from 15 to 60 minutes or set to infinity for non-stop playback.
Before being introduced to Opera Air, I would typically spend several minutes each trying to find new binaural beats, lo-fi tracks, or different white or brown noise on YouTube. I need to do so because anything with vocals distracts me, impeding my train of thought. Although Opera Air does not provide a unique solution, having easy access within a browser makes the scenario slightly more convenient.
Guided meditation and breathing exercises
Tushar Mehta / Digital Trends
Besides soundscapes, Opera Air makes guided experiences such as breathing exercises, body scans, or meditations more accessible. These practices are clubbed under the browser’s “take a break” section, available on the sidebar.
Each practice gets a designated time and comes with audio cues, letting you close your eyes while instructions are spoken to you. Besides choosing the length of the practices, you can choose between two narrators. When it comes to breathing exercises, for instance, the browser offers common de-stressing techniques, such as 4-7-8 or the popular box breathing technique used by the U.S. Navy SEALs.
Tushar Mehta / Digital Trends
Likewise, guided meditations and different body scans have variable durations and can be useful for decompressing after or even during work to help you be more present. Besides reducing stress, regular meditation is also known to improve our emotional awareness, reduce compulsive behaviors, and improve our attention span. Even if the other benefits sound too witchy-woo, the last one is certainly worth seeking, especially as vertical scrolling is impairing our attention.
Neck exercises
Tushar Mehta / Digital Trends
In addition to nourishing the mind, Opera Air also claims to keep your neck healthy. Constantly looking down at our phones or laptop screens, being fixated on desktop screens, slouching while sitting continuously, and not taking breaks can all contribute to stiffness or sprain in the neck.
Opera Air offers exercises of varying lengths based on how much you feel your neck is mobile or conversely needs attention. Along with audio cues, the browser also prompts you to turn on your camera so it can detect your face and ensure you do those stretches properly.
Tushar Mehta / Digital Trends
While I did notice the stiffness in my shoulder muscles recede with these neck exercises, I did not find the camera scanning any useful apart from the browser continuously reminding me that my face wasn’t fully visible. Perhaps Opera plans to improve it in the future. Thankfully, the face data is processed locally, eliminating concerns about privacy.
Did Opera Air truly ease my stressful day?
The short answer is yes. As someone who is easily distracted, I found Opera Air’s mindfulness features convenient and easy to figure out, primarily because I didn’t have to poke around too much or spend too much time finding the perfect soundtrack or guided meditation.
With these features, I believe Opera Air qualifies to be a good backup browser. It may even be your primary browser if you are willing to embark on the cumbersome journey to migrate all your browsing history, saved passwords, bookmarks, etc. and get you to log in to all saved accounts again. I may need a few more days — or weeks — of frequent breathing exercises and guided meditations before I can brace for that change.
The more compelling part is that the browser is available for free — at least for now. In addition, it gets all the benefits of Opera, including a built-in ad blocker that also works on YouTube videos, a VPN, multiple workspaces for your different personas, and quick access to AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, and messaging apps such WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, directly accessible from the sidebar.
If you want to give Opera Air a spin yourself, it is available for desktops. There’s no word on the availability of mobile apps yet.
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The Sims Re-Release is an Utterly Unsurprising, Inevitable Disappointment
The Sims Re-Release is an Utterly Unsurprising, Inevitable Disappointment
Electronic Arts‘ popular free-to-play life-simulation video game franchise “The Sims” is breaking from tradition, with the gaming company confirming Tuesday that there are no plans for a “The Sims 5” game as the successor to the current edition, “The Sims 4.”
Instead, “The Sims 4,” now a 10-year-old title and the longest-running installment in the franchise’s 25-year history, will continue to receive updates and paid expansions, most notably a multiplayer mode and partnering with some “Sims” players who develop their own custom content for the game to sell it through the EA store as “Creator Kits.”
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HR unicorn Deel prepares for IPO as soon as 2026
HR unicorn Deel prepares for IPO as soon as 2026
Alex Bouaziz, CEO and co-founder of Deel, onstage at the Collision 2022 conference at Enercare Centre in Toronto, Canada.
Vaughn Ridley | Sportsfile | Getty Images
Human resources software firm Deel said it has hit an annual revenue run rate of $800 million and is ramping up preparations to go public with a view to IPO as early as next year.
The startup, which aims to simplify the process of hiring, paying and managing employees remotely, told CNBC that it hit the milestone after a 70% year-over-year bump in revenue in December. A revenue run rate is an estimation of a company’s future annual revenue, extrapolated from a monthly data point.
Deel has also added to its capitalization table with two new major shareholders following a $300 million secondary share ***** conducted last year.
The company said that General Catalyst and an unnamed sovereign wealth fund — which CNBC understands is Mubadala Investment Company, the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi — joined the round as new investors.
It comes after Deel in 2022 hit a $12 billion valuation. Following the secondary share transaction, the company’s valuation was boosted to $12.6 billion, according to two sources familiar with the matter, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
In an interview with CNBC, Deel CEO and co-founder Alex Bouaziz said the company is developing robust financial audits, compliance processes and infrastructure as it looks to ensure it’s in a good position to IPO.
“We are getting ready to go out, potentially next year or a bit later,” Bouaziz told CNBC, adding that the firm recently added two new board members including former Illumina CEO Francis deSouza and former Coupa Chief Financial Officer Todd Ford. “We believe we have the right reasons to go public.”
Bouaziz said that a public listing could help the firm further along on its mission to build a recognizable brand in HR and payroll software.
“When it comes to HR and payroll, I’ve never truly felt like someone captured the essence of a great brand,” he said. “No one really [builds] a brand that you feel resonates with people.”
“This is really what we want to build. This is, I think, a big part of the experience that we can bring to people. Being a public company can reinforce that sentiment, be part of the story and be part of the business,” Bouaziz added.
The CEO said that Deel is under no pressure from its financial backers to go public despite its large size. The firm currently has about 5,000 employees globally.
Founded in 2019, Deel is a platform that helps businesses with HR services such as onboarding, compliance, performance management, payroll and immigration support. It became popular during Covid-19 shutdowns in 2020 and 2021, which drove the trend of hiring staff remotely.
Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, managing director of General Catalyst, said Deel’s “focus on enabling large enterprises to navigate the complexities of a global workforce fits seamlessly with our mission to back bold ideas that create enduring value.”
Zu Fürstenberg previously backed Deel in a seed investment when she was with European venture capital fund La Famiglia, which merged with General Catalyst in October 2023.
Motion to dismiss ‘baseless’ lawsuit
Against the backdrop of financial milestones and progress toward an IPO, Deel is currently facing litigation over claims that it facilitated money laundering transactions.
Last month, Deel was served a lawsuit in a Florida court which alleges it processed payments without proper licensing and enabled money laundering in relation to ******** payment transactions worth at least $2.27 million made on behalf of a former client, Surge Capital Ventures. It also accuses Deel of facilitating payments to Russia in violation of U.S. sanctions.
Deel strongly denies the claims and has fired back with a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, describing it as “riddled with baseless allegations, gross inaccuracies, conjecture, and downright falsehoods.”
Deel also alleged the suit was part of a “coordinated effort by a major investor in Deel’s primary competitor seeking to tarnish Deel’s stellar reputation.”
The plaintiff’s lawyer, Thomas Grady, is named as the incorporator of Waveling Insurance Services in a Florida Department of State filing. Waveling Insurance Services is now known as Ripple Insurance Services, which is a subsidiary of HR and payroll software firm Rippling. Grady is reportedly an investor in Rippling, according to Florida newspaper Naples Daily News, although CNBC was unable to confirm this.
Neither Thomas Grady nor Rippling were immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
Bouaziz told CNBC he feels “pretty confident” about Deel’s chances of dismissing the lawsuit.
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Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Review | TheSixthAxis
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 Review | TheSixthAxis
Erina Rose writes, “Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a masterclass in historical RPGs, delivering an unforgettable story, deep role-playing mechanics, and a living world that reacts to your every choice. With improved combat, stunning visuals, and rich, morally complex quests, it’s an absolute must-play—our first ever 10/10.”
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DE-CIX upgrades New York’s largest internet exchange backbone
DE-CIX upgrades New York’s largest internet exchange backbone
For network operators building a platform for the digital future, the only assumption is that data is likely to explode through rapid uptake of cloud, and as part of its response to these issues, premium interconnection services provider DE-CIX is to upgrade the backbone network of its internet exchange (IX) in New York, the largest of its kind in the city and in the US Northeast region, to 400 Gigabit Ethernet (GE).
DE-CIX claims to be the world’s leading operator of carrier and datacentre-neutral IX services, offering interconnection services in more than 40 metro-markets in Europe, Africa, North America, the Middle East and Asia. Accessible from datacentres in over 600 cities worldwide, the company connects thousands of network operators (carriers), internet service providers (ISPs), content providers and enterprise networks from more than 100 countries; and offers peering, cloud and interconnection services.
The New York exchange is connected to all other DE-CIX locations in North America, enabling remote peering and access to an ecosystem of networks not present in other local exchanges. The DE-CIX internet and cloud exchanges in New York, Dallas, Chicago, Richmond, Houston and Phoenix – plus the dedicated cloud exchange in Seattle – are said to form the largest carrier and datacentre neutral interconnection ecosystem in North America. In addition, DE-CIX New York is directly connected to DE-CIX’s locations in Europe, in Frankfurt – the largest IX in the region – and beyond.
Assessing the reasons for the deployment, DE-CIX North America said the upgrade is designed to allow the firm to future-proof its platform to best serve the New York market and start 2025 on-track for further growth.
“With the number of datacentres that we integrate, it is imperative that we have a state-of-the-art transport network with scalable capacity,” said DE-CIX vice-president Ed d’Agostino. “DE-CIX New York is the largest IX in New York and the youngest internet exchange in the top five largest IXs in the US. The platform covers an area spanning Long Island to the East and Piscataway and Edison to the South and West. It connects over 265 networks from across the city, with an infrastructure that spans over 40 datacentres served.”
The upgrade is based on Nokia optical technology, redesigned in a ring topology, redundantly interconnecting the 10 datacentre facilities where DE-CIX infrastructure is housed and enhancing the resiliency of the platform for all participants.
The Nokia optical offering is also designed to enable 800GE support for anticipated further growth of the IX and employs reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) technology to ensure greater routing flexibility, faster reaction times in the case of incidents and what is described as a “seamless” customer experience without any service interruptions.
Within a dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) system, the ROADM technology in Nokia’s 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS) is said to make it possible to automatically reroute waves at the optical layer in any direction around the backbone. This, said Nokia, means incidents at any location in the network can be mitigated more rapidly, and less capacity is required at the IP layer to guarantee the same level of resilience.
“When we began planning the upgrade of our New York backbone, we wanted to simplify our network, while also increasing the resilience of the platform,” said DE-CIX chief technology officer Thomas King. “We took a detailed look at the options in the market, and Nokia was the best choice for us. We have worked with Nokia globally for more than 10 years now, and the capacity, reliability and innovative strength of their hardware has always impressed us.”
James Watt, senior vice-president and general manager of Nokia’s optical business, said: “In today’s connected world, staying resilient and ready to scale is a must. This upgrade to DE-CIX New York’s backbone isn’t just about supporting the largest internet exchange in the Northeast – it’s about shaping the future of connectivity in one of the world’s biggest markets.”
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Is Global Diversification Still the Right Move in 2025?
Is Global Diversification Still the Right Move in 2025?
The long-run expected return for the Global Market Index (GMI) remained above 7% for a third straight month in January, ticking higher vs. . The revised forecast, based on three models defined below, continues to reflect the highest return outlook in recent history for this multi-asset-class global benchmark.
US equities are still the lone downside outlier for expected return relative to the market’s history and the various asset classes that comprise GMI. The average forecast for American shares is printing well below its trailing 10-year performance. The implication: US shares are expected to earn noticeably softer results in the years ahead vs. the market’s realized return over the past decade. By contrast, the rest of the continue to post return forecasts above their trailing 10-year records. On that basis, the case for a globally diversified portfolio looks more attractive compared to the past decade.
GMI represents a theoretical benchmark for the “optimal” portfolio that’s suited for the average investor with an infinite time horizon. Accordingly, GMI is useful as a starting point for customizing asset allocation and portfolio design to match an investor’s expectations, objectives, risk tolerance, etc. GMI’s history suggests that this passive benchmark’s performance is competitive with most active asset-allocation strategies, especially after adjusting for risk, trading costs and taxes.
It’s likely that some, most or possibly all of the forecasts above will be wide of the mark in some degree. GMI’s projections, however, are expected to be somewhat more reliable vs. the estimates for its components. Predictions for the specific markets (US stocks, commodities, etc.) are subject to greater volatility and tracking error compared with aggregating the forecasts into the GMI estimate, a process that may reduce some of the errors through time.
Another way to view the projections above is to use the estimates as a baseline for refining expectations. For instance, the point forecasts above can be adjusted with additional modeling that accounts for other factors not used here — current valuation, such as dividend yield.
For perspective on how GMI’s realized total return has evolved through time, consider the benchmark’s track record on a rolling 10-year annualized basis.
The chart below compares GMI’s performance vs. the equivalent for US stocks and US bonds through last month. GMI’s current return for the past ten years is 7.8%, a strong but middling performance relative to recent history.
Here’s a brief summary of how the forecasts are generated and definitions of the other metrics in the table above:
BB: The Building Block model uses historical returns as a proxy for estimating the future. The sample ******* used starts in January 1998 (the earliest available date for all the asset classes listed above). The procedure is to calculate the risk premium for each asset class, compute the annualized return and then add an expected risk-free rate to generate a total return forecast. For the expected risk-free rate, we’re using the latest yield on the Inflation Protected Security (TIPS). This yield is considered a market estimate of a risk-free, real (inflation-adjusted) return for a “safe” asset — this “risk-free” rate is also used for all the models outlined below. Note that the BB model used here is (loosely) based on a methodology originally outlined by Ibbotson Associates (a division of Morningstar).
EQ: The Equilibrium model reverse engineers expected return by way of risk. Rather than trying to predict return directly, this model relies on the somewhat more reliable framework of using risk metrics to estimate future performance. The process is relatively robust in the sense that forecasting risk is slightly easier than projecting return. The three inputs:
* An estimate of the overall portfolio’s expected market price of risk, defined as the Sharpe ratio, which is the ratio of risk premia to volatility (standard deviation). Note: the “portfolio” here and throughout is defined as GMI
* The expected volatility (standard deviation) of each asset (GMI’s market components)
* The expected correlation for each asset relative to the portfolio (GMI)
This model for estimating equilibrium returns was initially outlined in a 1974 paper by Professor Bill Sharpe. For a summary, see Gary Brinson’s explanation in Chapter 3 of The Portable MBA in Investment. I also review the model in my book Dynamic Asset Allocation. Note that this methodology initially estimates a risk premium and then adds an expected risk-free rate to arrive at total return forecasts. The expected risk-free rate is outlined in BB above.
ADJ: This methodology is identical to the Equilibrium model (EQ) outlined above with one exception: the forecasts are adjusted based on short-term momentum and longer-term mean reversion factors. Momentum is defined as the current price relative to the trailing 12-month moving average. The mean reversion factor is estimated as the current price relative to the trailing 60-month (5-year) moving average. The equilibrium forecasts are adjusted based on current prices relative to the 12-month and 60-month moving averages. If current prices are above (below) the moving averages, the unadjusted risk premia estimates are decreased (increased). The formula for adjustment is simply taking the inverse of the average of the current price to the two moving averages. For example: if an asset class’s current price is 10% above its 12-month moving average and 20% over its 60-month moving average, the unadjusted forecast is reduced by 15% (the average of 10% and 20%). The logic here is that when prices are relatively high vs. recent history, the equilibrium forecasts are reduced. On the flip side, when prices are relatively low vs. recent history, the equilibrium forecasts are increased.
Avg: This column is a simple average of the three forecasts for each row (asset class)
10yr Ret: For perspective on actual returns, this column shows the trailing 10-year annualized total return for the asset classes through the current target month.
Spread: Average-model forecast less trailing 10-year return.
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Five people shot at school in central Sweden
Five people shot at school in central Sweden
BBC
Five people have been shot at a school in central Sweden, police say.
The shooting happened in Örebro, 200km west of Stockholm, on Tuesday afternoon.
Police say the extent of the injuries is unclear.
The incident took place before13:00 local time and officials are urging residents to stay away from the school.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
You can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on X to get the latest alerts.
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Albion Online’s Rogue Frontier update launches today, bringing cunning new challenges
Albion Online’s Rogue Frontier update launches today, bringing cunning new challenges
Albion Online’s Rogue Frontier update is out now!
It offers new ways for small-scale players to establish bases at new Smuggler’s Dens
New activities let you align with the Smuggler faction and gain enticing rewards
Ah, rogues. Depending on who you ask, they’re either the class of choice for the smart and cunning or a complete pain in the backside. But there’s no denying that within the realm of gaming, the classic rogueish activities of criminality and skullduggery are great fun. And Albion Online agrees, which is why the new Rogue Frontier update lets you live out your skulking fantasies.
But seriously, the main crux of Rogue Frontier is the introduction of a new faction in the form of the Smugglers. Their Smugglers Dens allow solo and small-scale players to set up a base of operations in the Outlands, empowering them to evade their more powerfully-armed peers.
Meanwhile, the Smuggler’s Network is a new Outlands market system that encourages you to sneak your ill-gotten goods to this faction for enhanced rewards. And new Smuggler activities further the opportunities for skullduggery amongst you aspiring ne’er do wells.
Sneaky sneaky, slicey throaty
There’s also a whole lot more for you braver and front-facing players too. Whether that’s the new Bank overview system to let you track your loot where it’s stored, three new Crystal weapons and a journal category to track creatures you’ve encountered, the Rogue Frontier update has something for everyone.
Given the focus on constant conflict in survival MMOs like Albion Online, I think it’s interesting (and very welcome) that they’re offering more for players who want to actively avoid conflict. Of course, there’s a risk and reward element here too, which I think is just as exciting; after al,l trying to evade those who’d risk your ill-gotten gains for a ******* payday is as pulse-pounding as a head-on assault against monsters.
Meanwhile, if you’re looking for more options in social gaming on smartphones why not check out our list of the top 15 best MMOs for Android?
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Artificial reef set for Hedland to reel in new fishing opportunities
Artificial reef set for Hedland to reel in new fishing opportunities
A new artificial reef off the coast of Port Hedland is in the works aimed at attracting popular recreational fishing species
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Nintendo sees sales dip as Switch 2 debut looms
Nintendo sees sales dip as Switch 2 debut looms
Nintendo is caught between its eight-year-old Switch console and the next-gen Switch 2 — a purgatory that usually hits sales. Sure enough, the company announced that it now expects to sell just 11 million consoles this fiscal year instead of the 12.5 million it originally forecast. That’s in light of a fairly dismal holiday ******* that saw sales and profit drop by a third from last year, with consumers likely awaiting the Switch 2 launch sometime next year instead of buying the current lame-duck version.
The company hasn’t been able to keep sales momentum with new games either, as revenue in that area is down 24.4 percent compared to the same three-month ******* last year. The company is only releasing a couple of new titles early in 2025 (Donkey Kong Country Returns, Xenoblade Chronicles X), before its reveal of the Switch 2 on April 2.
That reveal will be done on a special Nintendo Direct event and will be followed up with first-look experience events in cities around the world. The first ones will take place in New York City and Paris from April 4 to April 6, and more cities around North America, Europe, Oceania and Asia will follow. The company hasn’t said much about the new model so far, other than that it will be backwardly compatible with current Switch games.
So far, Nintendo investors haven’t been too worried about falling sales due to high expectations for the Switch 2. However, Nintendo will have to convince buyers that its next-gen console is a significant upgrade over the current Switch, ensure it has enough stock available to meet demand and keep current Switch owners happy.
That’s no easy job, given that Nintendo has sold 150.86 million units since launch and boasts 129 million users playing annually. The Switch should become Nintendo’s all-time best selling console later this year when it passes the Nintendo DS, which has the company’s all-time sales record of 154.02 million units.
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Inmotion Hosting VPS and Shared Hosting Review
Inmotion Hosting VPS and Shared Hosting Review
U.S.-based InMotion launched back in 2001 and it provides web hosting solutions with data centers (servers) in the U.S. and Europe and support based in the U.S. The company offers a wide range of plans, from shared hosting to VPS (Virtual Private Server) and dedicated servers. Its prices are very competitive, with VPS starting at just $5.99 (with some added fees) a month for a one-year subscription that nabs you very strong specs (4 vCPU Cores, 8GB of RAM). Shared hosting goes for as little as $2.75 a month with 12-month commitment.
We tested both the basic VPS and Shared plans to see how InMotion compares to the competition and found that performance was noticeably worse than many competitors. We also had issues with slow, unhelpful support that couldn’t get us set up with an SSL connection on our VPS account. The shared plan, thanks to its included cPanel software, was much easier to set up, but neither of the plans we tested belongs on our list of the best web hosting services.
Inmotion Hosting Managed VPS
Four managed VPS plans are available from Inmotion, each offering a slightly different hardware spec and price to match.
The VPS 4 vCPU is the plan we chose for review. This has 4 virtual CPUs, 8GB of RAM, and 160GB SSD storage. Note that this doesn’t just provide storage for website files (content management systems, uploads, etc.) but also for databases. A conversation with the Inmotion sales team confirmed that “the only [database] limit will be the total storage if it’s a VPS.” Keeping the web project within the storage capacity will ensure the website runs well.
Note that the VPS 16 vCPU plan offers NVMe SSD storage, which should result in a faster experience for visitors (and administrators). It is not clear what type of SSD storage is in use for the other plans.
Our selected VPS 4 vCPU plan also provides 5TB of bandwidth, that is, the data used by visitors to your website. This should suit most websites that have just switched to using a VPS, but the other plans have unlimited bandwidth.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Managed VPS Plans
Header Cell – Column 0
VPS 4 vCPU
VPS 8 vCPU
VPS 12 vCPU
VPS 16 vCPU
Price (monthly for 1 year / renewal)
$5.99 / $26.99
$12.99 / $56.99
$26.99 / $86.99
$39.99 / $121.99
CPU
4 vCPU
8 vCPU
12 vCPU
16 vCPU
RAM
8GB
16GB
24GB
32GB
Storage
160GB SSD
260GB SSD
360GB SSD
460GB NVMe SSD
Bandwidth
5TB
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
We’ve listed the prices with a 12-month commitment and the renewal prices for months 13 and beyond. However, the best prices overall are if you pay for a three year plan up front. Our 4 vCPU plan is $9.99 a month if you pay for 36 months and then, in month 37, renews at $16.99 a month.
It’s important to note that there are a couple of additional fees you need to pay in addition to the advertised price. At checkout, you’ll be charged some hidden fees: $35.88 per year for Backup Manager (which backs up your stuff) and $60 per year for CWP (Control Web Panel), the default management software. You can pay a lot more for the superior cPanel software, which is $306 per year or you can choose no Control Panel, but then you get nothing but a command line for management. We went with CWP because it’s relatively cheap.
As Inmotion Hosting offers a managed VPS, various advantages are included in the price. This includes support for free website transfers from other hosts, SSH access, DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack protection, and easy management of resources from a dedicated monitoring dashboard. Inmotion Hosting offers 99.99% uptime, with triple storage redundancy and other features ensuring your site stays up 24/7, with minimal disruptions.
Inmotion Hosting’s servers run Linux, although no specific distro is listed. Our chat with the Inmotion sales support agent revealed that its VPS offerings use AlmaLinux 8.
VPS plans also get free SSL certificates and dedicated IP addresses. The VPS 8 vCPU plan and above includes the choice of a data center location, and the VPS 12 vCPU and VPS 16 vCPU plans both include 10GB of free backup storage.
We found the CWP interface usable but not nearly as intuitive as the combination of cPanel and WHM you get if you pay a lot more. CWP has both User Panel that, like cPanel, operates at the site level and Admin Panel, which controls the server itself. The Admin panel was pretty good, with a left nav that allowed us to easily get to everything from managing user accounts to setting up email.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
However, enabling SSL – which is pretty much required for a modern website – which is a feature of CWP just didn’t work for us, no matter how many times we tried it. At first, we tried using the AutoSSL feature and got error messages saying it had failed.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Then we filed a support ticket and included a description and screen shots of the problem. It took InMotion’s support 11 days to get back to us, after which they claimed to have solved the problem. Indeed, we no longer got error messages when attempting to use the AutoSSL signing feature in CWP, but it only produced a self-signed certificate which web browsers don’t consider secure. So, even after all that, we were unable to get our site to load with the https:// prefix. Annoyed, with both the wait and lack of functionality, we finally gave up.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Considering how important it is to have https, the difficulty we had in setting it up is a major red flag. We have also never had to wait anywhere close to 11 days to have a support ticket answered. Most other sites would turn around support queries in less than a day.
Inmotion Hosting Shared
The key challenge for anyone considering a VPS hosting plan is budget. This is where shared hosting typically comes into play. Inmotion Hosting also offers four shared plans, all suitable for limited budgets. Aside from the basic Core plan (which has 12 and 36 month options), these are available with a rolling monthly contract, 1 year, or 3 years.
(The Core package works out at $2.75/month with a 1 year plan, or $3.19/month with the 3 year plan.)
As with the VPS plans, the Inmotion Hosting Shared plans have a 90-day money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied.
We chose the Core plan to test the service, which offers quite a big chunk of storage for a basic plan. 100GB is more than most other shared hosting providers offer for the price, and is enough to store multiple backups. For database storage, the sales support agent told me “the site and database’s storage will not be limited,” but this only applies to the plans with unlimited storage. For the Core package, the physical storage limits of the SSD’s capacity apply.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Shared Hosting Plans
Header Cell – Column 0
Core
Launch
Power
Pro
Price (monthly)
1 year and 3 years only $2.75 / month
$4.75 / month
$4.75 / month
$10.75 / month
Storage
100GB
Unlimited NVMe SSD
Unlimited NVMe SSD
Unlimited NVMe SSD
Monthly Traffic Max
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
DB Size Limit
Storage-limited
Unlimited
Unlimited
Unlimited
While shared hosting might seem like a good option for low budget projects, they do have shortcomings. As mentioned, sharing resources can prove a problem if another site (or your own) gets a spike in traffic, as this can affect other sites on the server.
Cheap, shared hosting is suitable for startup projects, WordPress blogs, and a few other content management systems (CMS). They can also be used with smaller online stores, if required.
The Core plan supports 2 websites, 1 parked domain, unlimited subdomains, and 10 email addresses (1GB limit per inbox), with the option of a dedicated IP address. A free SSL certificate is also included, along with a website building tool, BuildGrid. The Core plan also has a 40-SQL database limit.
With the more expensive plans, more options are included. Caching, improved UltraStack optimization, and phone support are available with the Power and Pro plans.
Inmotion Hosting’s shared plans also include one-click install for over 400 web apps, optional Google Workspace, SSH access, and hack and malware protection. With a 1 or 3 year package, the price includes a free domain. As with the VPS plan, you have at least one hidden fee: $35.88 per year for Backup Manager at checkout.
Perhaps more importantly, all of the shared plans use cPanel as their control panel and, by far, that’s the easiest and most powerful control panel software around. And, unlike with the VPS plans, you don’t have to pay extra for it.
Database, WordPress and Scripting Performance
In reviewing these hosting plans, we’ve undertaken some testing to ascertain how they suit the day to day running and use of a website. These tests have been designed to measure server performance and how long it takes to run bulk MySQL database queries.
We installed WordPress on each of the test sites (VPS 4 vCPU and Shared Core), and populated them with ****** data.
Our first test inserted 87 million rows of data into the WordPress databases (page view data from Tom’s Hardware). The test is looking for a fast response.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Here, InMotion’s VPS placed in the middle of the pack, but was still several minutes behind the leaders. Its shared plan was way behind.
Following this test, we dropped random numerical values into the 87 million rows, again looking for fast completion of this action.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Here, both InMotion plans trailed their competitors by significant margins. This is not the kind of performance we like to see.
WordPress plugins are known to occasionally add database rows and tables, or even return data from multiple tables. To test the server’s ability to handle such demands, we joined two tables of traffic and article data with the MySQL JOIN command, then queried the SUM of article page views for different dates.
If the server is as good as advertised, a fast response is expected.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Again, both of InMotion’s plans were well behind the competition. At least its shared plan completed the test as some competitors’ shared plans timed out.
Discovering how a WordPress site benchmarks is possible thanks to the WordPress Hosting Benchmark Tool (WPB). Installed as a plugin, it works on any installation and provides benchmarking data for both the server and WordPress. Benchmarking data is scored 0 to 10, the higher the better. We’ve tested both of our selected Inmotion Hosting plans for database speed, file system speed, and network performance.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The overall score of 6.9 for the Shared hosting plan places InMotion Hosting in the upper half of all of the shared plans we’ve evaluated in this way. This affords a certain amount of confidence that the plan can handle most WordPress-based challenges. However, while the file system-based benchmarks score highly, Inmotion Hosting doesn’t seem optimized to deal with WPB’s math problems.
Meanwhile, the VPS hosting plan’s overall WordPress Benchmark score of 6.3 came as a surprise. The highest score in this is LiquidWeb with 8.4 – most VPS plans manage a score of around 7. As with the shared hosting plan, the VPS did well with file system challenges, but less well with math and importing data with WPB.
We also measure how long each hosting plan can run a basic shell script that logs the time every minute. The goal is to see whether the service places any time limits on scripts as some services have short limits that could kill an important process. Fortunately, the shared plan’s script lasted for 5 hours while the VPS plan’s script endured for 5 days before we terminated it.
Inmotion Hosting Traffic Handling
As Inmotion Hosting offers 99.9% uptime, it should be able to accommodate spikes in traffic without impacting performance. Similarly, it should handle attacks and outages without the site experiencing any serious offline time.
We conducted some Apache web server tests to see how Inmotion Hosting managed these performance demands. The first test sends 500 simultaneous requests to the server, via the WordPress site’s home page. With this test, the server’s response time, rather than the website’s load time, is the metric we’re looking at.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Inmotion Hosting’s shared plan did well here, responding with 77 requests per second. This is a little bit ahead of some competitors. The VPS plan was not quite as good.
We also hit each domain’s home page with Dotcom-Tools’ Website Speed Test to see how long it takes the page to load, to first paint and to issue a network response. Since we use the same default Wordpress template on each site, each one delivers the same amount of text and images.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
InMotion’s Shared plan was middle-of-the-pack, which really is not bad at all. The VPS plan was just a little slower, but still acceptable.
Inmotion Hosting Support
Running a website comes with a number of challenges. Often, you’ll find it’s straightforward to uncover and apply solutions without referring to the experts. But when the issue is too complicated, speaking to the hosting company’s support team is a good idea.
Things like backups, managing WordPress, and other standard admin tasks should be self-explanatory. Where this is not the case, Inmotion Hosting has a good collection of documentation and guides to help you get to the bottom of your problem. On the other hand, if you want a human response, you can contact the support team over live chat or by opening a support ticket. (If you have one of the two more expensive VPS packages, telephone support is also available.)
We spoke to the Inmotion Hosting sales support team and were got a fast, knowledgeable response. The sales agent understood the question (concerning database size limits) perfectly, with a quick and informative reply. They also let us know about the imminent end of a discount.
On the other hand, when we had a serious problem enabling SSL on our VPS account, we weren’t so lucky. We filed a ticket which, at first, went to someone in sales who wrote us back within a day to say our query had been escalated to the tech team. We then waited 11 days for a response, which didn’t really fix the problem. We stopped getting error messages when we tried to enable SSL on the site, but SSL still wasn’t working and we finally just gave up trying to get our site working with If we were running a real site, we’d engage in more back and forth to try to get it working, but after 11 days and non-working response, we were done with our testing. We didn’t have this kind of slow response or lack of problem solving with any other hosting service we tested.
Bottom Line
If you try InMotion hosting, your mileage may vary. The company offers a wide variety of plans at competitive prices, though their renewal fees are pretty high so we would recommend going with a three year commitment if you choose them.
However, based on our experience, we cannot recommend InMotion’s VPS hosting. Our support experience and inability to enable SSL were frustrating, performance on database tests often lagged the competition and you still end up paying extra for control panel software and backup. The shared hosting plans are a better value, but their performance on database tests also was lacking, making them a less-than-stellar choice. If you’re looking for a high-performing VPS, LiquidWeb is a much better choice and, for value, Hostinger VPS takes the crown. HostGator and Namecheap are both solid options for shared hosting.
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Woman sets boyfriend’s car on fire after he threatens to reveal relationship, police say
Woman sets boyfriend’s car on fire after he threatens to reveal relationship, police say
LANTANA — A Riviera Beach woman has been arrested and charged with arson after she set fire to her boyfriend’s car when he threatened to tell her employer about their policy-forbidden relationship, police said.
“She lit it up and ran away,” the victim told police. Geneva Facon, 52, was arrested by Lantana Police for the alleged torching of her boyfriend’s car last July 3. According to the Lantana Police Department, Facon met the victim a year ago while she was employed at a rehab center where he was receiving treatment.
The victim, according to a probable cause affidavit used to arrest Facon, began dating and were involved in a romantic relationship. The victim threatened to tell her employer about the relationship, which is against company policy. Police said the victim was angry with Facon because he believed she had been unfaithful.
Facon was in the passenger seat of the man’s car when he drove to a house in Lantana where he was planning to move, police said. The victim told investigators he saw Facon leaning into the back seat of the car and “lighting his stuff on fire.”
The car quickly became engulfed in flames. By the time firefighters arrived, the car was burned so badly that it was beyond repair. Facon admitted she started a small fire in the back seat of the car, and never expected to grow “to a large fire,” according to the police report.
Police said that there was no accelerant used but “there was still an intentional fire created by an individual, causing damage and harm to life and property.”
From a nearby 7-Eleven, police said Facon watched the fire engulf the car and observed firefighters trying to extinguish it. At no point did she return to the scene and offer a statement to first responders, police said.
Mike Diamond is a journalist at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. He covers Palm Beach County government and issues impacting homeowner associations. You can reach him at *****@*****.tld. Help support local journalism. Subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Riviera Beach woman set boyfriend’s car on fire, Lantana police say
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Snake Pass & Sonic Racing developer Sumo will no longer work on original IP
Snake Pass & Sonic Racing developer Sumo will no longer work on original IP
Sumo Digital has announced that it will no longer pursue working on original IP titles and will instead focus entirely on working as a studio for hire for development partners.
In a statement shared with employees on Tuesday, Sumo said that it had made the decision due to pressures to “balance our creative ambitions and the commercial realities to ensure the long-term stability and success of our business”.
Sumo Digital is best known for games based on partner IP, such as Sackboy: A Big Adventure and Team Sonic Racing. However, it previously created original titles like Snake Pass, and VGC understands that multiple original projects were recently in development at the company.
It’s currently unknown if the developers assigned to those projects will be reassigned, but Tuesday’s statement implies that layoffs are likely.
“After careful consideration, we have made the strategic decision to focus Sumo Digital exclusively on development services for partners – our core strength and the foundation of our success,” its statement reads.
“This will strengthen our position as a premium development partner, leveraging our expertise to contribute to and create great games for our clients. Whether collaborating on new or established games, co-developing games, providing specialist engineering, or porting services; we are confident in our teams’ exceptional talent and our ability to thrive in this next chapter.”
It adds: “Unavoidably this transition will have an impact on our studios and people. We are committed to minimising this impact as much as possible, exploring all options to retain talent, and supporting those affected with transparency, care, and compassion.”
Last year, the Sumo Group laid off 15% of its employees. Sumo Group, which was wholly acquired by ******** tech giant Tencent in January 2022, counts Sumo Digital (Sackboy: A Big Adventure, Team Sonic Racing) and The ******** Room (Dear Esther, Little Orpheus) among its studios.
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What It Means for Nvidia and AI Stocks
What It Means for Nvidia and AI Stocks
Commitments for data center spending keep rising. That is good news for any company connected to the artificial intelligence (AI) bonanza.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella just reaffirmed his plan to spend $80 billion on AI data centers in 2025, mostly in connection with its OpenAI partnership and cloud computing division. For reference, the company had around $50 billion in total capital expenditures (capex) in 2024.
This is a huge step up in spending. And it isn’t just Microsoft; other companies are also planning a capex blowout in 2025.
Who will benefit from this spending? You guessed it: Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). The AI chip champion is lining up to increase supply to fulfill all these customer needs, and the company should see revenue jump yet again in 2025. But it won’t be the only business cheering on these spending commitments from big tech.
Here’s what Microsoft’s $80 billion promise means for Nvidia and other AI stocks in 2025 and beyond.
Investing in AI comes with uncertainty. If anyone tells you what this fast-growing sector will look like in 2030, they are overconfident. One thing we do know for certain, though: Spending on data centers related to AI will grow aggressively in 2025.
Microsoft is spending $80 billion. Meta Platforms plans to spend $60 billion to $65 billion, which would be close to double its 2024 figure.
We don’t have the plans from Amazon or Alphabet yet, but I would expect similar jumps as they hope to stay competitive in the AI race.
Let’s not forget OpenAI or Project Stargate, either. The new initiative is set to invest $500 billion in data centers in the United States over a multiyear *******, an eye-watering figure no matter how you slice it. SoftBank is planning to invest upward of $25 billion into OpenAI to keep the party going.
Add it altogether, and we could see hundreds of billions in fresh data center investments from just the largest technology companies in 2025. This is fantastic news for their suppliers such as Nvidia.
The majority of spending on these new AI data centers will be going to computer chips, which are used to run the intensive computing in AI software tools that are seeing rapid customer adoption. Microsoft said its AI revenue is already at an annualized rate of $13 billion in just a few short years, and growing quickly.
Nvidia is the dominant provider of computer chips for these data centers at the moment. Therefore, when data center spending increases, its revenue should increase.
Story Continues
This is why its sales have grown by close to 1,000% in the last five years, hitting $113 billion in the last 12 months. With this jump in capex planning and the release of Nvidia’s state-of-the-art Blackwell chip, the company’s revenue should soar yet again in 2025.
Investors are optimistic about Nvidia. It is now one of the largest companies in the world with a market cap of $3 trillion. It trades at a trailing price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of 48, which is well above the S&P 500 index average of 30. This doesn’t mean the stock will do poorly, but investors have placed high expectations on its future growth.
NVDA PE ratio; data by YCharts.
Nvidia is clearly a good business, and its customers are planning to spend a boatload on its products in 2025. However, I think there is a more durable AI semiconductor stock that is cheaper to buy at the moment.
It’s Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE: TSM), or TSMC for short. The leader in computer chip manufacturing is the company that actually builds Nvidia’s products (Nvidia designs them). It also works with other companies such as Apple, another top customer.
There are two reasons to like TSMC over Nvidia as a long-term bet on AI stocks. First, it will benefit even if the competition for Nvidia increases. Its customers such as Alphabet and Amazon are investing heavily to vertically integrate and build their own AI computer chips.
This could hurt Nvidia’s business over the long run but will have no effect on TSMC since it is the only one that can build these chips, regardless of whether it’s for Nvidia or Amazon. This makes TSMC a safer bet over the long term.
Second, TSMC trades at a cheaper valuation than Nvidia with a P/E below 30. Again, this means that TSMC has lower expectations from investors for future growth.
Add it altogether and I think TSMC is a great buy-and-hold for investors looking to play the AI theme. Spending on data centers is set to ***** in 2025, and a lot of that money will eventually make its way back to TSMC.
Before you buy stock in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, consider this:
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Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Brett Schafer has positions in Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s $80 Billion Promise: What It Means for Nvidia and AI Stocks was originally published by The Motley Fool
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Pelican News
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When Bianca Censori’s ‘confidence’ turned to ‘fear’ at Grammys 2025 red carpet: body language expert – Page Six
When Bianca Censori’s ‘confidence’ turned to ‘fear’ at Grammys 2025 red carpet: body language expert – Page Six
When Bianca Censori’s ‘confidence’ turned to ‘fear’ at Grammys 2025 red carpet: body language expert Page SixIn a world of naked dresses, did one take it too far? CNNKanye West tears into ‘dull & boring’ Grammys, defends Bianca Censori’s ‘nude outfit’ amid huge outcry Hindustan Times
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#Bianca #Censoris #confidence #turned #fear #Grammys #red #carpet #body #language #expert #Page
Pelican News
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Pokémon TCG Pocket’s Space-Time Smackdown Emblem event is now underway
Pokémon TCG Pocket’s Space-Time Smackdown Emblem event is now underway
Pokemon TCG Pocket’s latest emblem event is underway
Themed around Space-Time Smackdown it lets you accrue non-consecutive wins to complete quests
The reward? Nifty new emblems to show off your battle prowess!
While the hotly-anticipated trading feature for Pokémon TCG Pocket may not have proved to be everything that fans hoped for, there’s still plenty to enjoy in this adaptation of the hit trading card game. And now if you want to show off your Pokémon prowess, there’s a brand-new emblem event underway to let you do just that!
How does it work? Well, these new emblems (themed after the Space-Time Smackdown event) are available once you earn a certain number of victories. Fortunately, these aren’t consecutive as with previous emblem events, however, that means the rank you’ll need to acquire some of the top emblems is even higher with a whopping 45 wins needed!
Your reward? Well, obviously a new way to show off your battle prowess with emblems that can be displayed on your player profile. But hurry! Because these emblems are only available until February 25th, so you’ll have to get in more than a few wins to nab that enticing Gold emblem.
Gameified
I’m a little mixed on the idea of these emblems, and I think it shows a sort of strange way to adapt the TCG. I think also goes for the trading feature and its implementation, it seems as if TCG Pocket isn’t sure whether it wants to offer all the features of a physical TCG or merely emulate them.
But at the same time, I think that events like this do help to motivate people who might otherwise grow a bit bored to keep playing and shoot for even greater achievements.
Speaking of which, if you want to jump in and get those wins but struggle to beat your opponents why not take a gander at some of our guides? We’ve got a list of the best decks for Pokémon TCG Pocket that’ll give you top tips and tricks for beginners and pro players alike.
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#Pokémon #TCG #Pockets #SpaceTime #Smackdown #Emblem #event #underway
Pelican News
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Port Hedland councillor Adrain McRae to run for Senate seat, doubles down on conspiracy theories
Port Hedland councillor Adrain McRae to run for Senate seat, doubles down on conspiracy theories
Port Hedland councillor Adrian McRae, who praised Vladimir Putin’s election victory and quoted a nazi on Russian state TV, has announced his candidacy for a Upper House seat in the March State election
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#Port #Hedland #councillor #Adrain #McRae #run #Senate #seat #doubles #conspiracy #theories
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Huntbound is a co-op monster hunting experience, out now on Android
Huntbound is a co-op monster hunting experience, out now on Android
Huntbound is a co-op monster hunting experience, out now
Track monsters, slay them and convert their remains into powerful equipment
Go alone or with up to four friends!
If you’ve been looking for a new co-op experience, there’s something new on the horizon with Huntbound. Out now on Google Play, this cooperative monster hunter sees you taking out powerful critters and beasties before converting their constituent parts into more powerful weapons! Go it alone, or with friends, to take on ******* and badder monsters.
And if this is sounding familiar there’s a reason that I drew comparisons to Monster Hunter in our initial coverage of Huntbound. Not to say that’s a bad thing, though, as Huntbound is distinctive enough to be different, and manages to take many of the entertaining aspects of that series and make it their own.
In that way then, Huntbound looks more like Castle Crashers mixed with Monster Hunter and still boasts many of the features of the latter. Whether that’s studying creatures to get an upper hand or the aforementioned creation of new weapons and armour out of their remains, you can go it alone or take on these monsters with up to three friends!
Hunting season
I’m cautiously intrigued by Huntbound, and while I’m not sure it’ll shoot into the stratosphere it does make me eager to see what else developer Tao Team can come up with. And as I wrote above, it’s got a bevvy of features for you to enjoy, so there hardly seems to be much harm in giving it a go. You can find Huntbound over on Google Play, but unfortunately, there’s no iOS release on the cards, yet.
If you’re looking to see what we have ranked at the top of our leaderboards, why not check out our ongoing list of the best mobile games of 2025 (so far)? We started this new tradition last year where we rank some of the top releases, so you can always look back to find something to play.
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#Huntbound #coop #monster #hunting #experience #Android
Pelican News
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