Home sales surged in October before mortgage rates jumped
Home sales surged in October before mortgage rates jumped
A home with a “Sold” sign from a real estate company in North Patchogue, New York.
Steve Pfost | Newsday | Getty Images
A sharp drop in mortgage rates brought homebuyers off the fence in October after a slow summer.
Sales of previously owned homes last month rose 3.4% from September to a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 3.96 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales were 2.9% higher than October of last year, marking the first annual increase in over three years.
This count is based on signed contracts, meaning most of the deals were made in August and September. During that time, the average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage was falling. It started August around 6.6% and fell to a low of 6.11% by mid-September, according to Mortgage News Daily.
“The worst of the downturn in home sales could be over, with increasing inventory leading to more transactions,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, in a release. “Additional job gains and continued economic growth appear assured, resulting in growing housing demand. However, for most first-time homebuyers, mortgage financing is critically important. While mortgage rates remain elevated, they are expected to stabilize.”
There were 1.37 million units for ***** at the end of October, an increase of 19.1% from October 2023. That puts inventory at a 4.2-month supply at the current sales pace. It is still on the leaner side, as a 6-month supply is considered balanced between buyer and seller.
Tight supply continues to put upward pressure on prices. The median price of an existing home sold in October was $407,200, an increase of 4% from the year before. By price category, the higher end of the market is seeing more activity than the lower end.
“We still need another 30% in inventory just to get us back to the pre-Covid conditions,” Yun said.
The share of all-cash buyers pulled back to 27%, down from 29% in October 2023. That is still high historically, but lower mortgage rates likely caused that share to drop.
First-time buyers made up 27% of sales, down from 28% the year before and still historically low. They usually make up 40% of sales.
Mortgage rates are much higher now, at 7.05% on the 30-year fixed. A new report from Redfin, however, showed a recent surge in the number of potential buyers contacting its agents, particularly after the election. Its so-called demand index rose 17% year-over-year during a one-week ******* in mid-November to the highest level since August 2023.
“The burst of buyers and sellers jumping into the market is the result of pent-up demand from people who were waiting for the election to pass, and for the Fed to cut interest rates a second time,” said Chen Zhao, Redfin’s economic research lead. “Now we’re keeping a close eye on whether this is a short post-election *****, or if it translates into a steady improvement in pending sales,”
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Crown of Bones is Century Games’ newest release, now in soft launch
Crown of Bones is Century Games’ newest release, now in soft launch
Century Games, the developer behind Whiteout Survival, has just soft-launched a new strategy game
Called Crown of Bones, it sees you step into the shoes (toe bones?) of a skeleton king
Lead your army of skeletal minions, upgrade them and duke it out with mortals
With the success of Whiteout Survival, it’s little surprise that Century Games is continuing to branch out. But you may not have spotted their latest release, Crown of Bones, which has quietly slipped into soft launch in a number of regions, including the US and Europe. As for what it’s about? Well, that’s another story entirely.
Going off of what info is available, Crown of Bones is a very casual-focused strategy title that sees you taking on the role of a Skeleton King leading an army of equally thin-looking warriors. As you journey through the land duking it out with enemies you’ll slowly upgrade your skeletal horde and experience a variety of environments, from temperate farmland to arid deserts.
Like Century Games’ Whiteout Survival, this is very much on the family-friendly side of things, as they’re eager to point out, with cutesy and inoffensive graphics. There’s a big focus on upgrades, collectibles and the constant increase of challenges and levels, allowing you to even pit yourself against friends and strangers on the leaderboards.
Zandri Dust anyone?
There’s not too much to say about Crown of Bones at the moment, apart from the fact that if Whiteout Survival is anything to go by I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes significant inspiration from other strategy releases. At the same time, I can hardly blame them for that, as the casual-focused take on cold survival that emulated Frostpunk in their previous release proved to be a major success for the developer.
As we see more of Crown of Bones, however, I think I’ll get more of a sense of where this new release sits. After all, Whiteout Survival proved to be a major hit, so maybe Crown of Bones is going to be their new flagship?
Either way, once you’ve had a chance to try it, if you’re hankering for more to play why not check out the latest entry in our regular feature of the top five new mobile games to try this week?
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Putting food waste in the bin felt wrong until I learned where it went
Putting food waste in the bin felt wrong until I learned where it went
Allerton Waste Recovery Park
A.P.S. (***)/Alamy
A few years ago, I spent an interesting if pungent day visiting two of Europe’s most advanced waste processing facilities, a state-of-the-art rubbish dump near Espoo in Finland and a power station in nearby Vantaa. Together, they are playing a pivotal role in greater Helsinki’s push towards a circular economy, ensuring that every scrap of the city’s municipal waste is either recycled or turned into energy or heat, so nothing is sent to landfill. I remember thinking, “How brilliant, I wish we could do that”.
It turns out we in the *** can,…
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Walmart Stock Soars After Q3, Uptrend Shows No Signs of Slowing
Walmart Stock Soars After Q3, Uptrend Shows No Signs of Slowing
Walmart outperformed in Q3 and raised guidance for the year: the outlook for Q4 is likely cautious.
Resilient consumer spending drove strength in all segments and categories, suggesting the holiday quarter will be merry and bright.
Analysts’ trends point to a $100 price tag for Walmart, which may be reached before the end of the year.
Walmart’s (NYSE:) Q3 and guidance for Q4 revealed that the tailwinds driving its business remain strong and steady, driving outperformance and another increase to the outlook. The news sent shares to a new all-time high, ******* a strong technical signal that suggests this market will continue to trend higher. It is a strong signal because the stock is already in an uptrend; it is showing support at a high price point with rising volume, and the stochastic and MACD indicators show a healthy market with room to move higher. The post-release move created a gap driven by fundamental qualities, not hype, and new highs are likely.
Walmart Results Point to a Merry Holiday Season for Retailers
Walmart had a strong quarter. The company grew revenue by 5.5% to outpace MarketBeat’s reported consensus by nearly 200 basis points. The strength was driven by growth in all segments and product categories, with Walmart U.S. up 5%, Sams up 7.2% ex-fuel, and International up 8%. eCommerce, ads, volume, and membership revenue underpinned the growth and are expected to remain solid moving forward. eCommerce is up 27%, ads revenue 28%, and volume is up by a low single-digit amount in all segments. Membership revenue at Sam’s Club, an indicator of future sales growth, rose 15%.
Margin news is also good. The company widened its ****** margin incrementally and reduced costs to drive leverage gains on the bottom line. The company’s operating income rose nearly 9%, free cash flow by 45%, and adjusted earnings by 13.7%. The adjusted earnings also outpaced the consensus figure, outpacing the top-line strength by 800 basis points, leaving the balance sheet and capital return in fortress condition.
The guidance is bullish but may also be cautious because it is the third increase this year. The company increased its revenue, margin, and earnings forecast, expecting all to be above the consensus. Comments about the consumer include resilience, stability, and steady, which all suggest sustained consumer momentum through the end of the year and holiday spending growth above the low-single-digit consensus figure—good news for retailers.
The critical detail is that this massive company continues to grow and produce free cash flow growth. The free cash flow is important because it helps to sustain the robust capital return outlook. Walmart pays dividends and buys back significant shares, reducing the count by 0.35% so far in fiscal 2025. It is also a dividend compounder, increasing its dividend distribution annually.
Analysts’ Sentiment Strengthens the Tailwinds for WMT Stock Price
The analysts’ sentiment trends in 2024 support the price action in Walmart stock. Since early 2024, the stock has garnered numerous price target increases, new coverage, and upgrades, lifting the consensus sentiment to Strong Buy from Moderate Buy and the price target by 45%. These trends are unlikely to end now that Q4 guidance is in. Analysts’ sentiment will be leading this stock to even higher highs. The freshest targets put Walmart stock near $100 or more than 10% above the critical support target, and the high end will likely rise over the next two quarters. The risk is that consumer trends will weaken in early 2025, but there is no sign of that in Walmart’s results or the economic data.
The likely scenario is that consumer health will remain solid through President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration and into the spring. After that, economic tailwinds are expected to form due to falling interest rates and a relaxed tax and regulatory environment that will benefit Walmart and other retailers. In this scenario, Walmart can sustain its growth, the analysts’ upgrade cycle, and the uptrend in its stock price through the end of 2025 and perhaps longer.
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Teen who attacked gurdwara given hospital order
Teen who attacked gurdwara given hospital order
A teenager who launched an ******* at a gurdwara in Kent has been detained in hospital.
The 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was held by police after the disturbance inside the Sri Guru Nanak Darbar Gurdwara in Gravesend on 11 July.
Two women were also assaulted outside the building and police recovered a bladed *******.
The boy was handed a hospital order at his sentencing at Westminster Magistrates Court.
Nobody was seriously injured during the *******, Kent Police previously said.
Officers also said the incident was “not terrorism-related”, but was being treated as “religiously aggravated”.
At a previous hearing on 5 November, the teenager was found to have committed seven charges of affray, actual bodily harm, threatening a person with a blade, two counts of threats to ***** and two counts of possession of a blade without the mental element of the offences.
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I played 2 hours of Avowed entirely in third-person
I played 2 hours of Avowed entirely in third-person
When I first played Avowed back in August, it was only through a first-person perspective. The RPG’s third-person camera wasn’t available in that build. While developer Obsidian Entertainment revealed the game through its first-person camera, the developer confirmed that third-person was an accessibility feature planned from day one and wouldn’t be treated as an afterthought.
I remembered those words as I went into my second preview round with Avowed. I wanted to see if Obsidian was able to back those words up — and it has. I spent my entire time in the demo playing from the third-person perspective, and Obsidian was able to translate the weight and heaviness of movement and combat from first to third-person perfectly. Digital Trends spoke with Obsidian’s lead VFX artist Ashwin Kumar and director Ryan Warden to discuss how the studio was able to direct the game’s magic and combat systems for both camera perspectives.
More Dragon’s Dogma than Dragon Age
After recently coming off Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s smooth art direction and lightweight combat, Avowed’s more realistic approach is a refreshing change of pace. Whereas in The Veilguard, where the main protagonist can throw shields effortlessly like frisbees, my character in Avowed has to be more cautious before throwing out attacks due to a stamina meter that I need to manage.
Obsidian Entertainment
The game’s combat is reminiscent of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s when playing in third-person, where different weapons have their own sense of weight that can deeply impact the pace of battle due to their varying stamina costs. Wielding a giant two-handed ******* does more damage per hit, but they sacrifice speed and require more stamina to ******** them. It’s a typical kind of trade-off you’d see in the best RPGs, but what makes Avowed much more appealing is its character-building system, which isn’t locked to classes.
For my own personal build, I decided to wield an ax in one hand and a grimoire book in the other so that I could have both physical and magical prowess. One of my biggest regrets when playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard was that I was stuck playing as a Warrior, a class I picked at the beginning of my journey. Toward the end, my skills and layout became boring, and I wished I picked either the Ranger or Mage instead.
With the flexibility of Avowed’s classless system, I could switch between any ******* I wanted, whether it’d be a bow or a wand. I wasn’t pigeonholed into just going up close with swords. With skill points I earned leveling up, I could invest in a wealth of skills. Charge let me ****** into enemies, while Minor Missiles shot magical bolts that hone in on them. It’s incredibly freeing to know that I could tailor my playstyle and not have to be stuck playing a specific archetype or class.
A change in perspective
One big change I notice when going from the first-person camera to the third-person one is that I’m better able to better gauge the distance between myself and the ******. This was paramount when ********* a stream of ***** from my grimoire. In first-person, I kept missing the initial few seconds of my hit because I wanted to keep my distance but I was too far away. In third-person, I was much more accurate and was able to get all of my hits in.
Obsidian Entertainment
Ryan Warden tells me that perfecting the cameras could be as subtle as moving it a certain direction. “It was just a lot of iteration and adaptation,” he says. “We had to change the camera slightly. What does that do for our sort of sense of hitting, and what does that do for the degree to which the player is going to fill in the gaps with their learned behaviors?”
Kumar chimed in and said that for every interaction Avowed has — whether its combat, locomotion, or abilities — they all have two sets of animations. For example, visual effects in first-person can feel a bit more constrained compared to making them in third-person. “When we’re developing effects for first-person, it needs to be in the view. And if you’re pulled back, you can go full Monty and just have all the effects like surrounding you,” he says.
Locking in
Later in my demo, I decided to experiment with more ranged weapons, such as the ******* and wand. I was surprised at how natural they felt in both camera perspectives. With my *******, the reticles were perfectly centered, making ********* a smooth experience. Aiming down the sights felt just as natural as it does in Call of Duty.
“One of the biggest things about that specific instance is we wanted to not obscure the screen when you’re aiming at something that should be visible down the side,” Kumar says. “So balancing player readability in third-person with ****** readability and having the reticle on the ****** was the biggest concern.”
Obsidian Entertainment
Wands take a slightly different approach. Instead of a reticle, there are half crescents centered on the screen, indicating the general direction of where your magic bolts will *****. Each bolt is satisfying to unleash, as their homing capabilities always hit the target. When charging the shot, I can see the magic building up at the tip of my wand, but it’s never so big that it obscures the screen.
“At one point, the effect of charging it up was a bunch of embers that were flying down the barrel towards the player’s sights and that just wasn’t airing on the side of readability,” Kumar says.
Throughout my time with the demo, it became increasingly clear that Obsidian put equal amounts of effort into both camera perspectives to appeal to a wider playerbase. They both have their unique advantages, with the first-person one tending to be more immersive while the third-person one lets me be more aware of my surroundings. I was skeptical before, but like the camera itself, the demo shifted my perspective and I can’t wait to play more of Avowed.
Avowed launches on February 18, 2025, for PC and Xbox Series X/S.
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Is this the pettiest it is possible to be in an academic article?
Is this the pettiest it is possible to be in an academic article?
Revenge on referees
Our news colleagues Jacob Aron and Michael Le Page have drawn Feedback’s attention to a post on social media site BlueSky, which highlighted a scientific paper in awed tones.
The study in question was recently published in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. There are seven authors. It is about the ways hydrogen atoms can infiltrate certain metal alloys and make them brittle. It focuses on calculating exactly where the hydrogen atoms place themselves in the crystal structure of the metal, in order to understand the mechanism of this embrittlement.
At this point, you may be wondering what this piece of research is doing in Feedback. Well, the introduction concludes with the following paragraph: “As strongly requested by the reviewers, here we cite some references [[35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47]] although they are completely irrelevant to the present work.”
For anyone who hasn’t worked in academia, the best way we can explain this is that the authors are being gloriously petty. Their article has been examined by anonymous peer reviewers, who (among other suggestions) have urged them to cite the 13 older studies in the list. The authors, left with no choice but to insert the supposedly irrelevant studies, have refused to incorporate them into their actual text, but instead included them while simultaneously drawing attention to their irrelevance.
Or, as BlueSky user @Dave nʎ=2dsinɵ :protein: put it: “Absolute shots fired”. By the way, kudos to @Dave nʎ=2dsinɵ :protein: for having a username that pushed New Scientist‘s font to its limits and sent Feedback to a search engine. The little equation in the middle is, we discovered, Bragg’s law, which describes how crystal lattices scatter incoming waves.
Anyway, once Feedback had stopped having flashbacks to our brief time in academia, in which this kind of thing happened to us but we didn’t have the nerve to kick back in print, we did our due diligence and looked up all 13 references.
All are concerned with alloys and other composite materials, but none of them seems to be about hydrogen embrittlement. Most are so technical that Feedback was rather defeated in our attempt to fully comprehend them: any readers more familiar with composite materials are welcome to weigh in at the usual address. Still, even with our poor understanding, none of the references seems directly relevant.
However, Feedback did notice something curious. Again and again, the same authors appear in the 13 studies’ author lists – and one author was involved in all of them.
Feedback doesn’t want to put on a tinfoil hat, especially if it has been embrittled by hydrogen. But we wonder if we might have identified the anonymous peer reviewer. Our question now is: how did this get into print? Did the editors not notice the prank – or did they allow it for reasons of their own? Enquiring minds want to know.
A fishy tale
Speaking of taking ideas from colleagues, assistant news editor Sam Wong flagged an intriguing study in Water Resources Research. This journal is not, we confess, one of Feedback’s daily reads, but we seem to have been missing out.
The study is about the biblical miracle of loaves and fishes, in which ****** apparently fed 5000 people using five loaves and two fish. The authors propose a naturalistic explanation: a seiche or standing wave. The idea is that waves blowing over a lake sometimes create a standing wave, causing deep water to rise to the surface. In Lake Kinneret, the Sea of Galilee from the ******, this deep water is low in oxygen – so if it rises to the surface, it can cause fish to asphyxiate en masse.
The authors document two such events in Lake Kinneret in 2012. They also note that they seem to be quite rare: there hasn’t been one since 2012. That means most people may not have been aware of the possibility, especially if they had travelled to listen to a charismatic speaker and lacked local knowledge.
Feedback is adding this to the long list of scientific explanations for apparent supernatural events, like the manna from heaven being crystallised honeydew from scale insects and the tendency of infrasound to cause spooky sensations that can be interpreted as hauntings. We have also removed our tinfoil hat, as we worry it might act as a conductor for a divine lightning bolt.
Moon of Uranus
News reaches us from the front of this issue that Voyager 2’s visit to Uranus in 1986 came when the planet wasn’t its usual self, thanks to a gust of solar wind. As a result, many of our ideas about Uranus will have to be rethought – and some believe it is even possible there is life on one or more of its moons.
Life on Uranus, you say? Actually, life on Uranus’s moon? We hope it isn’t Klingons. Or as writer Tess Stenson put it: NASA, “get your **** to Uranus”.
Feedback spent more time than we should trying to think of puns, but our slate has been wiped clean. Some bright spark, conscious of jokes about the planet’s name, decided to name all Uranus’s moons after Shakespeare characters, choosing respectable names like Rosalind and Oberon. This does mean we can rule out life on one of the moons: Juliet is definitely lifeless, there was a play about it. Meanwhile, astronomers urgently need to find some more satellites so Uranus can be orbited by Bottom.
Got a story for Feedback? Send it to *****@*****.tld or New Scientist, 9 Derry Street, London, W8 5HY Consideration of items sent in the post will be delayed
You can send stories to Feedback by email at *****@*****.tld. Please include your home address. This week’s and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.
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Russia uses intercontinental ballistic missile: Ukraine
Russia uses intercontinental ballistic missile: Ukraine
Russia has fired an intercontinental ballistic missile during an ******* on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, Ukraine’s air force says, in what would be the first use in war of a ******* designed to deliver long-distance nuclear strikes.
The launch, if confirmed, highlights rapidly rising tensions in the 33-month-old war after Ukraine fired US and *** missiles at targets inside Russia this week despite warnings by the Kremlin that such action would be a major escalation.
Security experts said it would be the first military use of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
ICBMs are strategic weapons designed to deliver nuclear warheads and are an important part of Russia’s nuclear deterrent.
“Today there was a new Russian missile. All the characteristics – speed, altitude – are (of an) intercontinental ballistic (missile). An expert (investigation) is currently underway,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video statement.
The Ukrainian air force said the missile was fired from the Russian region of Astrakhan, more than 700km from Dnipro in central-eastern Ukraine.
It did not specify what kind of warhead the missile had or what type of missile it was.
There was no suggestion it was nuclear-armed.
Asked about the air force statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters to contact Russian military for comment.
During a weekly briefing, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova received a phone call in which she was told by an unidentified man not to comment, video footage showed.
Ukrainska Pravda, a Kyiv-based media outlet, cited anonymous sources saying the missile was an RS-26 Rubezh, a solid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 5800km, according to the Arms Control Association.
The RS-26 was first successfully tested in 2012 and is estimated to be 12 metres long and weigh 36 tonnes, according to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
It said the RS-26 can carry an 800-kg nuclear warhead.
The RS-26 is classified as an ICBM under a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the ******* States and Russia but it can be seen as an intermediate-range ballistic missile when used with heavier payloads at ranges below 5500km, CSIS said.
The Russian missile ******* targeted enterprises and critical infrastructure in the central-eastern city of Dnipro, the air force said.
Ukraine’s air force did not say what the ICBM targeted or whether it had caused any damage but regional governor Serhiy Lysak said the missile ******* damaged an industrial enterprise and set off fires in Dnipro.
Two people were hurt.
Russia also fired a Kinzhal hypersonic missile and seven Kh-101 cruise missiles, six of which were shot down, the Ukrainian air force said.
The NATO military alliance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The US ********* Command said it had nothing on the reported use of an ICBM and referred questions to the US Department of Defense.
“If true this will be totally unprecedented and the first actual military use of ICBM. Not that it makes a lot of sense given their price and precision,” Andrey Baklitskiy of the ******* Nations Institute for Disarmament Research posted on X.
******* security expert Ulrich Kuehn posted: “It looks as if Russia has today used an intercontinental ballistic missile in a war for the first time in history, against the civilian target Dnipro.”
Some military experts said the ICBM launch, if confirmed, could be seen as an act of deterrence following Ukraine’s strikes into Russia with foreign weapons this week.
“An ICBM launch can certainly be seen as a threatening gesture, potentially in response to the lifting of restrictions on ATACMS and Storm Shadow. It’s a means of deterrence,” a ********* military source said.
Russian war correspondents on Telegram and an official speaking on condition of anonymity said Ukraine fired *** Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia’s Kursk region bordering Ukraine on Wednesday.
Russia’s defence ministry, in its daily report of events over the previous 24 hours on Thursday, said air defences had shot down two Storm Shadow cruise missiles but did not say where.
The ******* Kingdom had previously let Ukraine use Storm Shadows within Ukrainian territory.
Russia has said the use of foreign weapons to strike Russian territory far from the border would be a major escalation in the conflict.
Ukraine says it needs the capability to defend itself by hitting Russian rear bases used to support the February 2022 invasion.
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Neuralink gets approval to start human trials in Canada
Neuralink gets approval to start human trials in Canada
The first Neuralink clinical trials outside the US will take place in Canada. Neuralink has secured Health Canada’s approval to launch human trials in the country, with the Toronto Western Hospital being the “first and exclusive surgical site” for the procedure. The company first opened its ********* patient registry in March this year, but now it’s actively looking for potential participants. “Recruitment is now open,” it has announced on X.
Under the CAN-PRIME study, Neuralink will embed its implant in the brain of the participant so that it can interpret their neural activity. The implant will allow them to control a computer or a smartphone with their brain without the need for wires or any kind of physical movement. Neuralink says the study aims to “evaluate the safety of [its] implant and surgical ****** and assess the initial functionality of [its Brain Computer Interface] for enabling people with quadriplegia to control external devices with their thoughts.” What it learns from the trials could help the company find safer ways to place the implant inside the brain, as well as to enhance the technology’s capabilities.
Neuralink’s first human patient (pictured above) received his implant earlier this year. He experienced some issues, wherein the implant’s threads retracted from his brain, though he seems to be doing well these days. On X, he said that he will soon challenge himself to use Neuralink for 72 hours to demonstrate what the technology can do. For its second patient, Neuralink employed mitigation measures to prevent thread retraction. That patient was already using computer-aided design (CAD) software mere weeks after his surgery in July. At the moment, Neuralink is specifically looking for patients who “have limited or no ability to use both hands due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)” for its trials in Canada.
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We’re happy to announce that Health Canada has approved the launch of our first clinical trial in Canada! Recruitment is now open.
If you have quadriplegia due to ALS or SCI, you may qualify. Visit our Patient Registry to learn more and apply.[Hidden Content]
— Neuralink (@neuralink) November 20, 2024
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Deadly ***** cyclone hits Pacific Northwest, bringing high winds and devastating damage
Deadly ***** cyclone hits Pacific Northwest, bringing high winds and devastating damage
At least two people have ***** after a ***** cyclone slammed into the Pacific Northwest, snapping tree limbs and damaging homes and roads around Seattle. In northern California, a second powerful system, known as an atmospheric river, is fueling the storm there.
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Avowed Is Full Of Discoveries And The Freedom To Find Them–Or Not
Avowed Is Full Of Discoveries And The Freedom To Find Them–Or Not
Much has been made about Avowed’s approach to its setting, the Living Lands, and the fact that it is not an open-world game. Instead, Avowed’s world is made up of “open zones”–large geographical areas that are interconnected with other large areas, much like a previous game from developer Obsidian, The Outer Worlds.
At least in the first of Avowed’s areas, that means that Obsidian has put a focus on making sure that the entire space provides interesting adventures. Whether you’re chasing side quests handed out by random characters populating the Living Lands’ biggest city, Paradis, or just rambling through the area to see what’s there, there are plenty of rewards for exploration. There are bandit camps, ruins, half-destroyed hovels, and groups of ***** soldiers surrounding the corpses of huge bears. The Living Lands is a place dense with stories and thick with secrets to uncover, and even wandering aimlessly through the wilderness feels like an adventure unto itself.
“We have these open zones, and they’re expansive, they have a lot of breadth of them, but they’re manageable enough for our team size to be able to handcraft every part of them and to fill them to the adequate amount of density that we want in that environment,” said region director Berto Ritger in an interview with GameSpot. “So we don’t want big, big, long expanses, of just grass, that has nothing going on. There are moments of serenity and calm in the environment, but there’s always a little bit of something. And we try to have enough variety as well with those things where you’re not finding the same corpse of the potion in his hand over and over.”
We recently played the first two hours of Avowed during a preview event at Obsidian, which provided a sense of the way your path through the game’s world begins to unfold. Notably, it’s not long before you wind up with more or less complete freedom about what to do and how to do it, and even in the early going, Avowed provides you with a ton of freedom about how you want to approach the game, its story, and its combat systems.
Avowed has a bunch of open zones instead of one giant open world.
After delving into Avowed’s expansive character creator, you’re thrown into the world. Obsidian has previously detailed the setup for the story: You play a character named the Envoy, traveling to the Living Lands by the orders of the leader of a major nation of humans and elves, the Aedyr Empire. The empire has interest in the Living Lands, a somewhat isolated island known for its harsh wilderness and harsher denizens. The place has a sort of Wild West frontier vibe–people head there when they are searching for a better life, or when they want to disappear. It’s not a completely uncivilized place, but plenty of the people who’ve made the Living Lands their home are the kind of rough-and-tumble folks you wouldn’t want to tangle with.
Into this individualistic, slightly lawless society comes the Aedyr Empire, establishing a foothold in the Living Lands that the locals view suspiciously as the first steps of colonization and the establishment of order. As the emperor’s Envoy, most people immediately view you with anything ranging from mild distrust to outright hostility.
You don’t pick a class that determines your fighting style–you’re free to ****** as you please.
But the Living Lands also have a major problem: the Dream Scourge, a “soul plague” that’s infecting people, wildlife, and the island itself. Essentially, those afflicted succumb to madness and fungal growths, and with no indication as to what it even is, much less how to stop it, the emperor has dispatched you to conduct an investigation and find a way to deal with the problem. The Dream Scourge is a major threat to life in the Living Lands, and you get a first-hand look at the effects of the madness it inflicts when the Aedyran outpost–filled with your allies–fires its cannons on your approaching Aedyran ship. You survive the wreck and find another crewmate on the beach, and together head to the outpost to find a way to continue your journey to the Living Lands.
This early tutorial section is mostly about fights with Xaurip lizard people who’ve taken up residence in the outpost after all the soldiers seem to have lost their minds and murdered each other. Right from the start, Avowed emphasizes its open class approach to combat. Part of character creation is picking your backstory as the Envoy, with options like setting yourself as a war hero or arcane scholar, and what you pick determines your starting *******. You’re not locked into that choice, however, and as soon as you start finding other options, like spears, pistols, swords, shields, and spell-slinging grimoires, you can wield them with no prerequisites or requirements.
The demo I played saw me deal with a quite a few of Avowed’s lizard-like Xaurip.
I previously got to try Avowed’s combat during an hour-long preview at a Los Angeles Gamescom event, but that demo provided a shorter and more focused look at fighting within the game, with character builds that were set ahead of time by developers. Starting from scratch, things felt a lot more open. I quickly tossed aside my starting dagger for a sword and grimoire, so I was able to slice through enemies or blast them with a flamethrower from my hand, watching their health tick away as they smoldered and charred.
Fighting enemies is snappy, fluid, and cinematic. As Obsidian worked out how to do first-person combat that felt good, while also utilizing elements from its top-down Pillars of Eternity games (Avowed and the Pillars series are set in the same world), developers found that getting the right feel for combat meant tuning the timings of attacks so they became quicker, making the whole system feel more responsive.
“Because we started with [a] first-person [perspective], first-person almost necessitates a little bit of brevity in what you do, because if it’s third-person, you can see everything that’s happening,” said senior combat designer Max Matzenbacher in an interview with GameSpot. “With a limited perspective, there’s your hands, and there’s only so much that you can do there. If you lose control of your character because they’re recovering for a long time, that’s a major forcing function of just making it feel responsive.”
Each of the game’s many zones are quite distinct.
There are a lot of options for any given ******, too. You can store two ******* loadouts at a time and swap between them instantly, even mid-******* combo, which means it’s easy to alternate between two completely different setups. Hitting enemies damages their health while also pushing up a meter that tracks their stamina; when it maxes out, your opponent will be stunned, leaving them open for a *******-specific special move that triggers automatically for a ton of damage. Stealth is also always an option–enemies often won’t detect you right away and you can sneak up and clobber them from behind by moving through tall grass or avoiding their sightlines. And there are environmental elements you can utilize to help you out as well, like fiery berries you can ****** with a bow to start a blaze.
In both previews I’ve played, I’ve vibed pretty well with Avowed’s combat–although even in the tutorial area, it can be tough. The moment-to-moment thrust is in managing a stamina meter that dictates your attacks and, more critically, your quick, agile dodges that can get you out of harm’s way. Some enemies come at you with unblockable attacks, leaving you no option but to get clear, and staying alive means a lot of sidestepping to slip past a ***** and land one of your own. Most attacks land quickly so you can strike back and then get clear or block an incoming *******, although you can also gamble with stronger charged-up blows using most weapons. Everything is quick and fluid, though, and the ability to constantly dual-wield weapons, whether two of the same blade or a main ******* like a spear and an off-hand ******* like a ******* or grimoire, means it always feels like you have something up your sleeve.
Creepy crawlies of all shapes and sizes populate Avowed’s world.
While you’re given a lot of freedom in how you want to engage with enemies, the leveling system is more structured. You can spend skill points in any of several skill trees, each named for a different character class, like Fighter or Ranger. That makes it a little easier to get a sense of how you’re building your character along traditional lines, without Avowed locking you into a particular class. You also unlock special abilities that run on cooldown timers, and these give you easy ways to mix together the capabilities of different disciplines without really worrying about the skill tree at all. For instance, you can get the Fighter’s dash-tackle ability, which you can use to wallop enemies for a big stun, or the Ranger’s entangling magic vines that temporarily root enemies to a specific spot.
Uncovering the mystery of what happened in the outpost quickly brings you to your first major RPG choice in Avowed. You discover a local resident of the Living Lands locked inside with a ***** soldier. As a representative of the Aedyr Empire, she’s immediately distrustful of you and gives you a sense of how the residents of the island see outsiders. Your crewmate doesn’t think it’s a great idea to let the smuggler out, but you need a boat to reach the Living Lands proper. Whether you choose to trust the smuggler or leave her to rot, however, is up to you.
The fungal-like ******** spreading through the world is an ongoing problem for your character.
With the smuggler in tow and some more sneaking around and assassinating Xaurips, we eventually made it to Paradis. After parting with your crewmate pal and reluctant smuggler buddy, your journey in Avowed gets its real start, and almost immediately, you’re let off the leash to do as you will. Landing at the Paradis docks, you’re met by a local militia representative, a put-upon guard captain who makes it sarcastically clear she’s not thrilled to see you, and Kai, a guy who’s looking for the “clavager”–essentially Paradis’s mayor, such as there is one. It turns out that the Aedyran ambassador, who you need to speak to, has headed out to investigate some possible Dream Scourge-related weirdness with the clavager, so Kai decides to join you in going to track them down.
Paradis is a big place, but for the main point of civilization in the Living Lands, it immediately gives a strange impression. It’s both a bustling city full of people and a place that looks like it’s half-collapsing, combining new structures and crumbling ruins.
“One of the things that I was trying to say, the story I was trying to tell, was that this is a really, truly untamed, untamable place,” said lead environment artist Dennis Presnell. “There have been numerous civilizations that have tried to stake their claim, and they have come and gone, and you see evidence of that at the start of the game. When you get to the docks, you see it’s new built on old. But even the new looks like it’s old, and it’s trying to weather the storm, but it’s barely holding on. And when you get to Paradis, you see the same thing. It’s new built on old, and it’s a collection of different cultures that are all trying to make their way in what is probably the safest and most secure place in all of the Living Lands, and yet, it’s not.”
The people of the Living Lands don’t like the protagonist very much. Not at first anyway.
You’re ostensibly sent to find the ambassador to advance the plot, but once you have Kai with you, you’re free to wander off the beaten path. As you set out, you start to get a sense of what the Living Lands are really like. Presnell described the location as more of a living organism than a location, and part of Avowed’s personality is how it treats the Living Lands as something of a strange place that’s not easily understood.
“Treating the environment itself as a character is so helpful, and that’s true for any component of the game, because you’re trying to empathize with a piece of land or a particular tree or whatever, but kind of putting yourself in the position of, ‘Okay, if I was this tree and I was **** that I had new neighbors and I had the agency to do something about it, how would I go about that?'” art director Matt Hansen said. “And so there’s a lot of that that’s going into it, as far as how to push that sense of a weird and wondrous frontier.”
Side quests are available immediately–I ran into a woman not far from the docks who needed a hand with Xaurips invading her house on some nearby sea cliffs. After clearing them out, I found a strange mural they’d painted in her living room. When I confronted the woman about it, she told the story of how she has dreams about the Xaurip and is worried that, more or less, the Xaurip is her literal soulmate. I offered her some useless words of encouragement, took my reward, and wandered off, wondering what the ***** that could have been all about. (I asked developers about that quest, and apparently there’s more to the tale of the Xaurip soulmate.)
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“Side quests very much, especially the larger ones, will impact your main story and vice versa,” Ritger said. “Companions will react to those things in real time. Those choices will also heavily impact individual characters, groups of characters, and entire settlements, factions of people, and the states of the regions that you go through. They will also impact the choices that are even available to you. Later in the game, you’ll be locked or locked out of or presented with new choices based on the choices you made much earlier in the game.”
Even on the short walk to the next location for the main story, though, there was plenty to see. The area around Paradis is objectively not huge, as I discovered wandering around it, but it’s not especially small, either. Importantly, though, it feels ******* than it is, thanks to how much interesting stuff Obsidian has packed into it. Cutting to one side of the area, I stumbled on a tall ruined building or tower of some kind. It wasn’t marked by an icon or any other clues, but just looked interesting. Climbing in, I found tripwires that triggered huge swinging blades, a set of barely working traps designed to keep people out that were now exposed to sunlight and easy to dodge. Further on, I was attacked by phantoms, which look like spectral, smokey ghosts, and ******** them allowed me to reach a chest filled with a high-quality piece of armor. The entire affair took around 10 minutes and was totally optional, but exploring that little tower was a rewarding diversion that gave a little more of a sense of the Living Lands.
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Avowed appears to be littered with situations like this. I found a decrepit, abandoned house not far away on the river, where journals told me about the struggles of the farmer who used to live there. A little way down the stream was another set of ruins where bandits had set up camp. They promptly ******* me as Kai yelled in the background to warn me my weak starting armor couldn’t handle their much better weapons. And that was all just stuff I happened across on my way back to town.
The two-hour demo we played also included some early bits of Avowed’s story–you track down the ambassador, have a weird encounter with a voiceless entity that seems to be the spirit of the Living Lands, and ***** a huge bear afflicted with the Dream Scourge that’s ****** and covered in beautiful, horrific mushrooms.
Those points are compelling, but maybe even more so are the little things that Obsidian has seeded throughout the Living Lands that you might miss, like that ailing farmhouse or those weird ruins. That also goes for the time you can spend with your companions; it’s possible to set up camp at certain places where you can tend to things like improving your gear, and during those moments, you can also talk to your pals about whatever’s going on in the plot, their backstories, and more. Even 10 steps off the dock, I was surprised at how deep and expansive my camp conversations with Kai could be. There’s a ton of story material in these moments, but it’s all optional, allowing you to dig as deeply into the narrative and characters as you want.
“Ultimately, what we want is for the player to make the experience that they want to have, and that means being able to dig really deep into conversations if they want to, or to minimally engage with them,” said narrative designer Kate Dollarhyde. “And that does, you know, create some design challenges. But ultimately, I think having content that’s missable or skippable or that can be done out of order is ultimately better than the best, most polished linear presentation, because at the end of the day, it just feels more personal. And to me as an RPG player, that is almost always more important to me than a really linear experience.”
Though we still have only seen a small portion of Avowed, it’s the freedom to explore and the density of things to find, whether in combat, out in the world, or in conversations, that has me most intrigued. Avowed feels packed with things to discover for yourself, whether you’re following the story or making your own way through the world. What we’ve seen of the Living Lands is full of life, and Obsidian’s willingness to give you so much to discover that you’ll miss some makes Avowed seem like the kind of game it’ll be great to get lost in.
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Nectar-loving ********** wolves may be the first carnivore pollinators
Nectar-loving ********** wolves may be the first carnivore pollinators
An ********** wolf licks nectar from the ********** red hot poker flower
Adrien Lesaffre
********** wolves feed on the sweet nectar of a local flower, picking up pollen on their snouts as they do so – which may make them the first carnivores discovered to act as pollinators.
The ********** wolf (Canis simensis) is the rarest wild canid species in the world and *******’s most threatened carnivore. Endemic to the ********** Highlands, fewer than 500 individuals survive.
Sandra Lai at the University of Oxford and her colleagues observed wild ********** wolves lapping up the nectar of ********** red hot poker (Kniphofia foliosa) flowers. Local people in the mountains have traditionally used the nectar as a sweetener for coffee and on flat bread.
The wolves are thought to be the first large carnivore species ever to be recorded regularly feeding on nectar.
“For large carnivores, such as wolves, nectar-feeding is very unusual, due to the lack of physical adaptations, such as a long ******* or specialised snout, and because most flowers are too fragile or produce too little nectar to be interesting for large animals,” says Lai.
The sturdy, nectar-rich flower heads of the poker plant make this behaviour possible, she says. “To my knowledge, no other large carnivorous predator exhibits nectar-feeding, though some omnivorous bears may opportunistically forage for nectar, albeit rarely and poorly documented.”
Some of the wolves were seen visiting as many as 30 blooms in a single trip. As they lick the nectar, the wolves’ muzzles get covered in pollen, which they could potentially be transferring from flower to flower as they feed.
Nectar feeding is very unusual among carnivores
Adrien Lesaffre
“The behaviour is interesting because it shows nectar-feeding and pollination by non-flying mammals might be more widespread than currently recognised, and that the ecological significance of these lesser-known pollinators might be more important than we think,” says Lai. “It’s very exciting.”
Lai and her colleagues at the ********** Wolf Conservation Programme now hope to dig deeper into the behaviour and its ramifications. “Trying to confirm actual pollination by the wolves would be ideal, but that would be quite challenging,” she says. “I’m also very interested in the social learning aspect of the behaviour. We’ve seen this year adults bringing their juveniles to the flower fields, which could indicate cultural transmission.”
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Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl review – transfixing Ukrainian dystopia built on underlying tragedy | Games
Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl review – transfixing Ukrainian dystopia built on underlying tragedy | Games
When Ukrainian developer GSC Game World released the apocalyptic adventure Stalker in 2007, it was considered a bleakly improbable piece of speculative fiction. Heavily inspired by cult novel Roadside Picnic, it imagined an alternative timeline in which a scientific experiment in 2006 caused a second Chornobyl disaster and a vast irradiated zone filled with powerful space-time anomalies, in which the only inhabitants were mutants and the titular stalkers: men who wandered the wastelands looking for valuable artefacts.
The sequel, however, arrives in a very different world, its lengthy development ******* having been affected by both the Covid pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now the Stalker vision is a lot less improbable and its speculation has a much greater sense of urgency and authenticity.
As if to illustrate the point, Stalker 2 begins with an apartment building being torn apart in a huge **********. As a consequence, the now homeless lead character Skef is drawn into the Zone, carrying a powerful piece of scanning kit that could aid him in his quest for retribution and escape – until he’s beaten unconscious by an unknown gang and wakes to find the scanner has been stolen and now he is alone in the irradiated wastelands.
‘A game of lonely exploration.’ Photograph: GSC Game World
What follows is a remorselessly challenging survival adventure in which you must navigate monster-infested landscapes and marauding gangs of feral warriors, looking for your tech and trying to stay alive. The odds are constantly stacked against you: your guns often jam and require constant repair, your food and ammo run dangerously low, each building you come across could be filled with vital recourses or rabid dogs or ****** traps or all of the above. Scattered about the map are various safe houses where stalkers and ne’er-do-wells gather, offering trading opportunities, ******* upgrades, side quests and other resources. You gather what you can before heading back out into the unknown.
Photograph: GSC Game World
The world of Stalker 2 is starkly beautiful: a hazardous, ever-changing patchwork of grasslands, swamps and forests; the natural world overgrowing the leftovers of civilisation. One moment you’re wandering a rocky pathway in blinding sun, the next, a storm moves in and a howling wind sends leaves and garbage swirling into the darkening sky. Everywhere you go are anomalies – sometimes blobs of floating antimatter, sometimes explosive mini volcanoes in your path – all deadly if you don’t learn to spot and avoid them. Like ****** Stranding, this is very much a game of lonely exploration; of wandering for many minutes with your backpack too full of loot and your energy dwindling, hoping for some shack to hide in for a few quiet moments. It’s so tense, so immersive, you can’t help but get sucked in.
The plot is its own sort of swampy landscape. There is so much lore – so many warring factions, religious cults and paramilitary organisations – that your head spins and all the characters, plotlines and allegiances become utterly incomprehensible. It’s not helped by some terribly wooden voice acting and thudding dialogue, nor by the fact that this is a world almost entirely populated by irritable bald men with identical goatee beards. It’s like being trapped in a post-apocalyptic real ale festival. When I finally encountered a woman after several hours of play, it felt like a stumbling upon a desert oasis.
I also encountered dozens of bugs during the pre-release *******, from incomplete character models, to side quests that wouldn’t trigger their finish states, to cinematic sequences that slowed toward a near stop. Major patches have since fixed many of these faults, though I can’t imagine the game will run completely smoothly for a few more weeks.
But the thing is, I played through them, often deep into the night, transfixed by this flawed, idiosyncratic universe. There is, in this game – perhaps more than any other dystopian fiction the industry has produced in the past few years – a stark sense of desperation and of underlying tragedy. It is hard to wander the scrublands, past the skeletal ******** of obliterated villages, past downed helicopters and the rusted ******** of tanks, and not think of what the makers of this game have seen and lived through. For those in any doubt, GSC Game World commissioned a documentary, War Game, to explore the process.
Has Stalker 2 become an allegory for the Russian invasion? Well, one of the main military factions in the game, named the Ward, has invaded the Zone, claiming to be bringing stability but actually more interested in annexing the land into its own state. Interpret that how you like.
Photograph: GSC Game World
At the very least the game is an exploration of trauma that resonates with a similar fury to Elem Klimov’s Come and See and Michael Herr’s Dispatches. As you keep going, discovering new weapons, upgrading them, making new allies, opening new hubs and map areas, the narrative draws you ever closer to the heart of the Zone and whatever terrors await there. The sense of foreboding, the atmosphere of solitude and the image of humanity just hanging on by a thread are bleak and astonishing.
Stalker 2 is a strange, brave and sometimes broken paean to resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. It is utterly uncompromising in its vision, often to a fault, and envelopes you in its dark spell of science, ********* and chaos. Certainly, if you loved Dragon’s Dogma 2, which similarly edged towards self-parody with its offbeat systems, eccentric characters and overall jankiness, you will cope fine with this game’s technical and narrative inconsistencies. Indeed, like the stalkers that inhabit its damaged world, you may shrug, improvise, and carry on. If you thought developers weren’t making vast, outlandish, utterly singular open-world games any more, you were wrong: they are. And some of them have been through ***** to do it.
Stalker 2 is out now on PC and Xbox
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Crypto investor pays $6 million for a banana — and plans to eat it
Crypto investor pays $6 million for a banana — and plans to eat it
Italian visual artist Maurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped Banana entitled “Comedian,” is on display during a media preview at Sotheby’s in New York, on November 8, 2024.
Kena Betancur | Afp | Getty Images
A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
Crypto investor Justin Sun paid $6.2 million for a banana duct-taped to a wall, highlighting the soaring values of crypto and viral art.
Sotheby’s last night auctioned off the infamous banana, titled “Comedian,” created by Italian artist and cultural prankster Maurizio Cattelan. After a heated battle with six others, Sun emerged as the winner, bidding online and paying in crypto.
“This is not just an artwork,” Sun said in a statement. “It represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community. I believe this piece will inspire more thought and discussion in the future and will become a part of history. I am honored to be the proud owner of this iconic work and look forward to it sparking further inspiration and impact for art enthusiasts around the world.”
People look at Italian visual artist Maurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped Banana entitled “Comedian,” during a press preview at Sotheby’s in New York, on October 25, 2024. The viral artwork was unveiled in 2019, and one of the artwork’s three “editions” is going back on ***** on November 20, 2024, and is estimated by Sotheby’s to sell for between $1m and $1.5m.
Timothy A. Clary | Afp | Getty Images
“Comedian” shot to fame at its debut at Art Basel Miami in 2019, priced at $120,000. The image of a banana duct-taped to wall, and and priced at six figures, went viral over social media and attracted such massive crowds that the work had to be removed. There were three editions of “Comedian” created and sold, with one going to the Guggenheim Collection thanks to an anonymous donor, and the other two purchased.
The seller of the Sotheby’s banana had purchased it from one of the original buyers and was reselling it. For his $6 million, Sun will get a roll of duct tape, instructions on how to “install” the banana and (most importantly) a certificate of authenticity guaranteeing it as an original work of Cattelan’s. The banana is not included, since it will quickly rot and need to be constantly changed for display.
In his statement, Sun said he plans to eat the banana “as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture.”
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Because the value of the banana is derived from the certificate, rather than the object itself, many in the crypto community likened it to an NFT. The seller, clearly understanding the appeal, accepted crypto as a form of payment.
The ***** was part of a series of auctions in New York this week, featuring more than $1 billion worth of art for *****. After two years of declines, the sales suggest a rebound for the art market, driven by the recent stock market rally and increased post-election confidence by wealthy collectors.
Sotheby’s on Monday sold a Monet water lilies painting for $65.5 million, and Christie’s on Tuesday sold a painting by the Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte for $121 million.
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******** farmer has near miss with tiger
******** farmer has near miss with tiger
Surveillance footage captured the moment a Siberian tiger rammed into a farm gate, moments after a man closed it.
News website China Daily reported that another villager suffered a fractured wrist in a separate encounter with the animal.
Authorities in north China’s Heilongjiang province warned people to be wary of wild tigers after the moment was shared on social media.
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Fortnite is Reportedly Gearing up for a Cyberpunk 2077 Collab
Fortnite is Reportedly Gearing up for a Cyberpunk 2077 Collab
According to Fortnite Leakers, the next game collaboration will be with Cyberpunk 2077.
Popular Fortnite ***** source SamLeakss, via HYPEX, has revealed that Fortnite and Rocket League will soon collaborate with Cyberpunk 2077. In a separate tweet, the leaker clarified that this collaboration is with CD Projekt Red’s game and not the Edgerunners anime. Additionally, the partnership is expected to introduce more content than just vehicles.
Given that Fortnite has already incorporated one of CD Projekt Red’s properties into the game (The Witcher), it isn’t unrealistic to expect the possible introduction of another. Players are already speculating what Cyberpunk 2077 content might come to Fortnite, such as new weapons, vehicles, cybernetic enhancements, or a new point of interest (POI) inspired by Night City.
It will be interesting to see which Cyberpunk 2077 skins are introduced in Fortnite. While the main character won’t be part of the collection, we could see characters like Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves, and Solomon Reed, portrayed by Idris Elba, join the fray. The Witcher collab also introduced the main characters from the series, Geralt, Ciri and Yennefer.
In other news, Fortnite will increase its Battle Pass price next month. Also, the Kicks Update and Juice WRLD update will arrive soon in the game. What are your thoughts on the Fortnite x Cyberpunk 2077 collaboration? Let us know in the comments or our new community forum!
For more information from Insider Gaming, read about Cyberpunk 2077 not receiving a PS5 Pro Enhanced Update. Don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter.
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We’ve taken a photo of a star in another galaxy for the first time
We’ve taken a photo of a star in another galaxy for the first time
Left: An image of the star WOH G64 taken with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile. Right: An artist’s impression of the star
ESO/K. Ohnaka et al., L. Calçada
Astronomers have taken the first detailed picture of a star in another galaxy, more than 160,000 light years away. The giant star may be showing signs that it is just years away from exploding, a process we have never seen in detail.
The largest stars we know of are red supergiants, which are stars that have run out of hydrogen fuel in their cores. A shell of hydrogen gas surrounding the core burns instead, massively expanding the volume of the star.
One of the largest red supergiants we know of is WOH G64, sometimes called the behemoth star. It is between 1540 and 2575 times the size of the sun and resides in a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, the Large Magellanic Cloud. The star has been a target for astronomers since it was discovered in the 1970s, but its distance has made it hard to examine closely.
Now, Jacco van Loon at Keele University, ***, and his colleagues have taken a close-up picture of WOH G64 using the Very Large Telescope Interferometer in the Atacama desert in Chile, a collection of four individual telescopes linked together to function as if they were a single 200-metre telescope. “In this image, we can see detail which would be equivalent to seeing an astronaut walking on the moon,” says van Loon. “You can’t see that through a normal telescope pointing at the moon.”
The image, which was taken using infrared light, shows a bright ball of gas and dust, more than 1000°C (1832°F), that the star has pumped out and that now surrounds it as a dense cocoon. “It’s really a structure we had not expected to actually see,” says van Loon. “We had expected just to see the star in the middle.”
The star appears dimmer than when it was last observed, so the gas and dust probably appeared relatively recently, says van Loon. It might have been produced by the star blowing off its outer layers, which astronomers have never captured in a red supergiant.
If that is what happened and the process resembles one seen in similar stars called blue supergiants, then it might be a sign that the star is decades or years away from exploding. “If we can see this star explode, we have much more detail about a star before it’s exploded than ever before,” says van Loon.
“It’s technically extremely impressive to be able to reconstruct an image of this object given its extreme distance,” says Paul Crowther at the University of Sheffield, ***.
However, it is ******* to say for certain whether the observed gas and dust, and the associated dimming in brightness, are a sign of an imminent **********. “Stars like this object are well known to be highly variable,” says Crowther. “It’s simply what happens in these objects where they have this dense, slow outflow that doesn’t go very far from the star. They’re well known to be dust factories.”
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ChatGPT Live Video Feature Spotted on Latest Beta Release, Could Launch Soon
ChatGPT Live Video Feature Spotted on Latest Beta Release, Could Launch Soon
ChatGPT might soon gain the ability to answer queries after looking through your smartphone’s camera. As per a report, evidence for the Live Video feature, which is part of OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode, was spotted in the latest ChatGPT for Android beta app. This capability was first demonstrated in May during the AI firm’s Spring Updates event. It allows the chatbot to access the smartphone’s camera and answer queries about the user’s surroundings in real-time. While the emotive voice capability was released a couple of months ago, the company has so far not announced a possible release date for the Live Video feature.
ChatGPT Live Video Feature Discovered on Latest Beta Release
An Android Authority report detailed the evidence of the Live Video feature, which was found during an Android package kit (APK) teardown process of the app. Several strings of code relating to the capability were seen in the ChatGPT for Android beta version 1.2024.317.
Notably, the Live Video feature is part of ChatGPT’s Advanced Voice Mode, and it lets the AI chatbot process video data in real-time to answer queries and interact with the user in real-time. With this, ChatGPT can look into a user’s fridge and scan ingredients and suggest a recipe. It can also analyse the user’s expressions and try to gauge their mood. This was coupled with the emotive voice capability which lets the AI speak in a more natural and expressive manner.
As per the report, multiple strings of code relating to the feature were seen. One such string states, “Tap the camera icon to let ChatGPT view and chat about your surroundings,” which is the same description OpenAI gave for the feature during the demo.
Other strings reportedly include phrases such as “Live camera” and “Beta”, which highlight that the feature can work in real-time and that the under-development feature will likely be released to beta users first.
Another string of code also includes an advisory for users to not use the Live Video feature for live navigation or decisions that can impact users’ health or safety.
While the existence of these strings does not point towards the release of the feature, after a delay of eight months, this is the first time a piece of conclusive evidence that the company is working on the feature has been found. Earlier, OpenAI claimed that the feature was being delayed in order to protect users.
Notably, Google DeepMind also demonstrated a similar AI vision feature at the Google I/O event in May. Part of Project Astra, the feature gives Gemini to see the user’s surroundings using the device’s camera.
In the demo, Google’s AI tool could correctly identify objects, deduce current weather conditions, and even remember objects it saw earlier in the live video session. So far, the Mountain View-based tech giant has also not given a timeline on when this feature might be introduced.
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Here's the impact of Trump's tax and tariff plan
Here's the impact of Trump's tax and tariff plan
CNBC’s Robert Frank reports on news regarding President-elect Trump’s tariff and tax plan.
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Dozens ***** in ******* on passenger vehicles in Kurram
Dozens ***** in ******* on passenger vehicles in Kurram
At least 38 people – including women and children – have been ******* after unidentified gunmen opened ***** on a convoy of 200 passenger vehicles traveling through a remote area of Pakistan.
The vehicles were attacked as they travelled through the tribal district of Kurram in Pakistan, close to the Afghan border, according to the area’s deputy police commissioner.
The gunmen initially targeted the convoy’s police *******, the provincial spokesman said in a statement.
Police were protecting the convoy following months of sectarian ********* in the area, which has claimed dozens of lives this year.
Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry, the chief secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told Reuters news agency Thursday’s ******* was “a major tragedy”, with the ****** toll “likely to rise”. At least 11 people were injured, he said.
Details of exactly what happened are still emerging, but Javed ullah Mehsud, a senior administration official, told AFP “approximately 10 attackers” were involved, “******* indiscriminately from both sides of the road”.
Women and children had hidden in nearby houses, while police hunted for the attackers, he added.
Most the passengers travelling in the convoy through the mountainous area were Shia, he said in an earlier statement.
Sunni and Shiite ******* tribes have clashed repeatedly this year. An earlier series of attacks ended after a tribal council called for a ceasefire, according to Reuters news agency.
Then last month, there was another ******* on passenger vehicles along a road in the region which ******* 15 people.
Sectarian ********* is often linked to land disputes in the region.
However, Kurram, in Pakistan’s north-west, also borders several Afghan provinces which are home to anti-Shia militant groups, including the Islamic State group and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
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One Orbital Stratagem Idea is the Ultimate Anti-Terminid Doomsday *****
One Orbital Stratagem Idea is the Ultimate Anti-Terminid Doomsday *****
When it comes to spreading managed democracy across the galaxy in Helldivers 2, there’s no such thing as “too much firepower.” While Arrowhead has blessed us with an impressive arsenal of stratagems to deal with the bug menace, some players think we could use a bit more… chemical persuasion.
The recent Chemical Agents Warbond may have given us new tools for dispensing liberty in gaseous form, but one particularly enthusiastic defender of Super Earth thinks we can do better. Much better.
Helldivers want more… toxicity. | Image Credit: PlayStation/YouTube
And after seeing their suggestion, we have to admit—they might be onto something that would make even the most hardened veterans of chemical warfare raise an eyebrow in respect.
A Helldivers 2 Stratagem to Make History Proud
The suggestion in question? An Orbital Gas Barrage that would turn entire sections of the battlefield into a bug-suffocating nightmare:
While the current Orbital Gas Strike does an admirable job of creating localized zones of freedom, a barrage version could potentially blanket entire sections of the battlefield in democracy-spreading chemicals. Think about it: multiple gas clouds, strategically placed to create chokepoints or completely deny areas to the bug menace.
It would be particularly effective during those hectic extraction moments or when defending objectives against overwhelming odds. And let’s be honest, there’s something poetic about watching waves of Terminids succumb to the green mist of liberty.
The Helldivers 2 community’s reaction to this suggestion has been, shall we say, enthusiastically supportive:
Comment byu/Yurishenko94 from discussion inHelldivers
Comment byu/Yurishenko94 from discussion inHelldivers
Some players are already imagining the possibilities of combining such a stratagem with existing equipment, reminiscent of that one gas-themed loadout that would make ****** Haber himself proud:
Comment byu/Yurishenko94 from discussion inHelldivers
The enthusiasm has even inspired some impromptu musical tributes to the cause:
Comment byu/Yurishenko94 from discussion inHelldivers
Of course, implementing such a powerful stratagem would require careful consideration from Arrowhead to maintain game balance. But given their recent track record of implementing community suggestions while keeping the spirit of the game intact, an Orbital Gas Barrage doesn’t seem entirely out of the realm of possibility.
Expanding Super Earth’s Arsenal
It’s time to take things to the next level. | Image Credit: PlayStation/YouTube
The discussion has sparked broader conversations about the potential for more barrage-type stratagems in general:
Comment byu/Yurishenko94 from discussion inHelldivers
It’s a valid point. While our current arsenal is impressive, there’s always room for more ways to spread managed democracy. After all, variety is the spice of life, and nothing spices up a battlefield quite like multiple overlapping clouds of freedom-ensuring gas.
Some might argue that such a stratagem would be too powerful. To them, we say: isn’t that exactly what Super Earth would want? Besides, when you’re fighting for democracy, there’s no such thing as overkill—there’s only “open *****” and “I need to reload.”
Whether Arrowhead will add this particular suggestion to their arsenal ******** to be seen. But one thing’s for sure: the community’s creativity when it comes to new ways of spreading managed democracy knows no bounds. And honestly? We’re here for it.
What do you think about the idea of an Orbital Gas Barrage? Would you like to see more barrage-type stratagems added to the game? Let us know in the comments below!
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Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Series Listed on BIS, FCC, Energy Star Certification Websites: Report
Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Series Listed on BIS, FCC, Energy Star Certification Websites: Report
Samsung Galaxy Book 5 series could be the next entrant in the brand’s laptop lineup, and details of these devices have been found via certification websites. it is expected to comprise the Galaxy Book 5 and Galaxy Book 5 Pro were spotted in on the Energy Star website as well as a few other listings including the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). As of now, Samsung has not shared any information on the existence of the Galaxy Book 5 series.
Samsung Galaxy Book 5 Series Specifications (Leaked)
An unannounced Samsung laptop with model number NP940XHA is listed on the Energy Star certification website. This model number is presumed to belong to the Galaxy Book 5 Pro. The listing suggests it will run on Windows 11, and it could be equipped with 32GB of RAM and an octa-core Intel core Ultra 7 258V processor with a 2.2GHz base clock speed.
The Energy Star listing first spotted by 91Mobiles was verified by Gadgets 360 on the certification website.
Further, the report states the Galaxy Book 5 surfaced on the FCC database with model number NP750QHA. The screenshots of the listing shared by the publication indicate the presence of 65W wired charging support.
On the BIS database, it reportedly popped up with model numbers NP750QHA, NP750QHZ, and NP754QHA, hinting at a possible launch of the Galaxy Book 5 in India.
Another Samsung laptop model has also been listed with the model numbers NP940XHA, NP940XHZ, and NP944XHA on the BIS database. These model numbers are thought to be different variants of the Galaxy Book 5 Pro. Samsung followed a similar model number — NP940XGK — for last year’s Galaxy Book 4 Pro.
Samsung has not shared any information on the Galaxy Book 5 and Galaxy Book 5 Pro yet, but all these certifications suggest that the company may be planning to unveil the lineup soon.
Like the recently launched Galaxy Book 5 Pro 360, the upcoming lineup is expected to be Copilot+ PCs with several Galaxy AI capabilities. They could run on Windows 11 and include neural processing units (NPU) to enable on-device AI features.
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Novogratz warns that there will be a bitcoin correction, says crypto is ‘levered to the gills’
Novogratz warns that there will be a bitcoin correction, says crypto is ‘levered to the gills’
Bitcoin is poised to breakthrough the long-awaited $100,000 level after its postelection rally, but that doesn’t mean the leading cryptocurrency will go up in perpetuity, said Galaxy Digital CEO Michael Novogratz. Bitcoin was trading at about $97,000 on Thursday morning, after setting a new record high of $98,367.00, according to Coin Metrics. Novogratz said on ” Squawk Box ” that reaching the six-figure mark felt “inevitable” and that bitcoin could continue to rally from there, but a pullback will come eventually. “There’s a ton of leverage in the system right now. … The crypto community is levered to the gills, and so there will be a correction,” Novogratz said. BTC.CM= 1M mountain Bitcoin was trading at new highs on Thursday. However, Novogratz said he did not expect bitcoin would ever fall back below $80,000, which is where it was before the election of Donald Trump. He did caution that the correction could be greater in stocks, like MicroStrategy , that are trading like leveraged versions of bitcoin. Shares of MicroStrategy are up 650% year to date as the software company’s bet on crypto has sparked a frenzy of retail trader interest. The company took out more debt this week in the form of convertible bonds to increase its bitcoin holdings. The success of MicroStrategy appears to be tempting some other companies to explore adding bitcoin to their balance sheets, including Acurx Pharmaceuticals . “I personally would tell my investors to buy straight bitcoin” instead of plays like Microstrategy, Novogratz said. Bitcoin has rallied sharply since the election, as President-elect Trump and his administration are seen as more friendly to the crypto industry. The rally has continued despite a mystery seller that has been dumping crypto in recent days, Novogratz said. “There had been a giant seller for the last week, between 92, 93 and 94. Probably $14-15 billion of bitcoin sold there,” Novogratz said. Novogratz is a long-time crypto investor. His firm Galaxy Digital invests in both digital assets and companies that specialize in that space.
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Europe’s best days must lie ahead of us | News
Europe’s best days must lie ahead of us | News
6th Trilateral Business Forum
Address by the President of the ********* Parliament Roberta Metsola
Paris, 21st November 2024
Président du MEDEF, Monsieur Patrick Martin,
Presidente di Confindustria, Signore Emanuele Orsini,
Hauptgeschäftsführerin des BDI, Frau Tanja Gönner,
Minister Tajani, caro Antonio,
Members and participants to this Trilateral Business Forum,
Thank you for the opportunity to address you today. Let me start by saying how important it is for the ********* Parliament to have these discussions with ********* industry. Particularly at the start of a new legislative cycle, they help us understand what works, what does not, and more importantly, where we need to go next.
The backdrop against which we meet is not an easy one. We are entering the fourth winter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; we are seeing isolationism becoming more attractive and geopolitical divides deepening, technology rapidly advancing, and the way global economic powers perceive their industries relative to ours shifting – Europe’s place on the world stage is facing extraordinary pressure. We cannot afford to stand still or be squeezed.
We must act. Not just with an economic vision, but with a political willingness to learn, adapt and reform.
Europe’s best days must lie ahead of us.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am by nature an optimist, but I am here to speak today as a realist. We know the challenges, we know what is required. We just need to find the right path there.
I say this, to give context to what I think needs to be our priority and focus over the course of the next legislative cycle. To be clear, you will not find anyone more pro-********* than the President of the ********* Parliament. But I think, that a degree of self-critical analysis, of listening more, of changing course when needed, is precisely what will strengthen our ********* project in the long-term and help us regain our competitive edge.
When we talk about boosting Europe’s competitiveness, productivity must be our starting point. Over the past decade, Europe’s labour productivity grew by just 0.8% per year. This is not just a statistic – it is a wake-up call. With an aging population and fewer hands each year to drive our industries, even as we invest in the reskilling and upskilling of our people, improving productivity is not just an option – it is necessary.
The key to closing this gap ***** in innovation, in predictability and in ensuring profitability for our industries. It is our ticket to making-up lost ground. By accelerating our digital transition and investing in strategic sectors like clean tech, pharma, transport and semiconductors, we can drive sustainable growth and future-proof our industries.
********* industry, can only thrive in the right environment with the right framework. And that means smart and effective regulation. It means focusing on implementation and predictability, not shifting the goal posts too often.
Too often, we see well-intentioned policies unintentionally stifling progress. With heavy, excessive and ever changing reporting or compliance burdens often hitting our microenterprises and SMEs the hardest.
I want the ********* Union to be known for its efficient regulation, rather than the red tape we still see too much of. And as co-legislator, the ********* Parliament has a key role to play in ensuring a predictable and simplified regulatory framework and faster access to funding.
If there is one thing we learnt as candidates for the ********* Parliament elections is that we need smarter, more efficient, more predictable rules. We will also need your help to speak to the other side of the table, to the Council, to the Minister, to the Heads of Governments when taking decisions on the legislative instruments that we have mentioned.
Over the past two weeks, we have held Commissioner-designate hearings and the aim was to have a new Commission on the 1st of December. It was not easy but the timing that we had envisaged will be the same like it was 5 and 10 years ago. We are not later, we are not earlier, but we are on time. The idea behind the scrutiny of these candidates is precisely to make sure that our plans, our platforms are implemented.
We also know that energy costs are holding us back. It is a critical part of the puzzle that we must solve. EU companies face electricity costs up to three times higher than in other regions, which drives up production costs, lowers margins and damages competitiveness. In the immediate term, we need to do more to diversify our energy sources through predictable and reliable partnerships – knowing that we need to be predictable and reliable too.
The situation across the Atlantic has only made this more urgent to tackle quickly.
My view is that when we talk about energy, we need to do more than just progress – we need integration. A fully interconnected ********* electricity market could reduce investment needs for storage and back-up capacity by around 20 to 30%. By adopting common policies – like the EU electricity market reform that the ********* Parliament voted on this year – we can create a system where we all benefit. That is what true strategic autonomy looks like.
Of course, none of this happens without funding. The ********* Union’s Multiannual Financial Framework will expire in 2027, giving us a critical opportunity to design a modern budget that is flexible, responsive to crises, and aligned with the investments we need. As budgetary authority, the ********* Parliament will play its part here as well.
Now public funding can take us far, but the reality is that it will not be enough. That is why completing our Savings and Investments Union is an urgent priority. It is how we are able to incentivise our companies to stay and scale-up in Europe.
How we are able to mobilise private capital to invest in our priorities and how we make it easier for the public sector to finance its share.
And here allow me a short moment to make a point on fragmentation in our markets.
Simply put: it is our own worst ******. We see its consequences in the energy, banking and capital markets sectors. But we also see it in other industries like telecoms and defence.
Last year we celebrated 30 years since the creation of our Single Market. Obstacles and challenges have never stopped but its true test has been and will always be how able it is to continue adapting. We need to continue to ensure that the Single Market is able to deliver on its promise.
And with the necessary political will, I am confident that it can. Simple because we are running out of time.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The ********* Parliament is not afraid of change. We embrace it. Because we understand the responsibility that we bear not just to Europe’s economy, but to every single person relying on it as well.
I want to assure you that in the next five years, the ********* Parliament will continue to focus on a Europe that serves its businesses, its industries, its families, its factories and its farmers.
A Europe that defends ********* interests, that drives growth and ensures stability. A Europe ready for today’s challenges and equipped for tomorrow’s uncertainties.
Thank you.
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