Final Fantasy XIV Mobile brings the beloved MMORPG to the palm of your hand
Final Fantasy XIV Mobile brings the beloved MMORPG to the palm of your hand
Final Fantasy XIV is officially coming to mobile, looking set to slowly bring in years of content
It’s being developed by Tencent’s Lightspeed Studios in partnership with Square Enix
You’ll soon be able to enjoy Final Fantasy XIV and adventure through Eorze in the palm of your hand!
Final Fantasy fans can rejoice because the rumours and speculation have finally ceased, with the official announcement that Final Fantasy XIV for mobile is in the works! And, as we noted before, it will be coming courtesy of Tencent subsidiary Lightspeed Studios, set to work closely in concert with Square Enix.
Final Fantasy XIV should need little introduction as one of the most disastrous launches, and subsequently well-earned returns to prominence, in the franchise’s history. Originally released back in 2012, the initial version of Final Fantasy 14 met with a huge amount of criticism for its lacklustre nature, leading to a complete revamp of the development team and the release of a ground-up rebuild fittingly called, A Realm Reborn.
Set in the familiar world of Eorzea, Final Fantasy XIV Mobile looks set to promise a good amount of content when it launches. You’ll be able to enjoy nine different jobs at release, switching freely between them using the Armoury system. And naturally, minigames such as Triple Triad will also make a return.
Limit break
I think this is genuinely a bit of a landmark moment considering how big of a release Final Fantasy XIV was and the very intriguing nature of its fall and subsequent rise. It’s become a cornerstone of Square Enix’s catalogue so the decision to work with Tencent to bring Final Fantasy XIV to mobile represents a seemingly quite close partnership.
The only wrinkle I can see is that it seems that Final Fantasy XIV Mobile may not have as much in the way of initial content as some might like. Although I’d guess that the intent is to slowly work their way through incorporating expansions and updates over time, instead of trying to bring in all of Final Fantasy XIV’s quite considerable content from over the years.
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Trump administration picks Matt Gaetz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk have ******* misconduct allegations in their past
Trump administration picks Matt Gaetz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth and Elon Musk have ******* misconduct allegations in their past
Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Elon Musk are all in line to serve as top government leaders.
All have faced varying degrees of ******* misconduct allegations.
The president’s picks to carry out his agenda reflect an incoming administration hostile to the norms of the “Me Too” movement. Behavior that might have gotten a person fired or canceled (or not nominated to a cabinet position) over the last several years, appears to be less problematic in the Trump 2.0 era.
Combo file: Former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida (top left), Pete Hegseth (top right), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (bottom left), Elon Musk (bottom right)
Gaetz (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images); Hegseth (John Lamparski/Getty Images); Kennedy (Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images); Musk (ALLISON ROBBERT/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
To be clear: three of the men — Gaetz, Hegseth and Musk — have consistently denied the allegations against them.
Gaetz, Trump’s attorney general pick, said he did not have a ******* relationship with a minor, a 17-year-old, while he was a member of Congress, despite sworn witness testimony to the contrary. Gaetz allies also point to a Justice Department investigation that yielded no charges.
A 2017 ******* ******** investigation into the man Trump plans to nominate to be defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, resulted in no charges, according to Hegseth’s lawyer. Hegseth reached a confidential settlement with the woman involved.
Eight employees of SpaceX filed a lawsuit earlier this year accusing CEO Elon Musk of fostering a hostile work environment that the plaintiffs say was rife with ******* harassment. The eight plaintiffs said that during the course of their employment with SpaceX, they were exposed to “unwanted conduct and comments of a ******* nature by Elon Musk that created a hostile and abusive work environment,” their lawsuit said. Musk denied the allegations, according to the Associated Press. Musk has been tapped to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, a government agency Trump intends to establish.
Kennedy, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, is the only one of the four who indicated it was possible that he had acted inappropriately, apologizing to a former nanny for allegations of unwanted ******* advances in the 1990s.
He told CBS News that he does not recall the conduct in question, but does not want to “leave anybody in the world feeling like I did something that was insensitive or inappropriate.”
Asked whether he might have to make a similar apology to someone else in the future, Kennedy replied, “It’s quite possible. I’m 70 years old. I had a very rambunctious life.”
Trump himself has been accused of ******* misconduct by at least 15 women. In 2023, a jury found him civilly liable for ********* abusing writer E. Jean Carroll.
The Trump transition team has not responded to a request for comment.
Machismo was often a centerpiece of Trump’s appeal to voters during the 2024 campaign. He regularly spoke about toughness — whether that trait applied to his immigration policy, combating illicit ***** trade or surviving two ************** attempts.
Wrestler Hulk Hogan delivered a ********** speech at the *********** National Convention, ripping off his shirt while lavishing praise on the nominee.
And Trump also spent time on right-leaning podcasts with largely male audiences.
His entreaties to male culture paid off in November. He had a ******* advantage among male voters against Kamala Harris, winning this group by 13 percentage points, compared to the 8-point advantage he had against President Biden in 2020, and the 11-point margin over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The Senate will have final say on whether Gaetz, Hegseth and Kennedy become confirmed cabinet secretaries. Ahead of their confirmation hearings, *********** senators, who are likely to have to provide nearly all of the votes for these four nominees, did not say much about their prospects.
Louisiana Senator John Kennedy was uncertain Tuesday on whether Gaetz could get the 51 votes he’ll need for confirmation. “I wouldn’t bet my house on it one way or the other. And if I were ******** your house, which would be a lot easier, I’d say ‘I don’t know,'” he said.
Several Republicans interviewed by CBS News had a similar message: let the vetting and confirmation process proceed, and don’t jump to conclusions, even if the allegations are troubling.
“We are going to have conversations,” Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said.
“There needs to be legitimate vetting,” Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said. “That’s what committees do. This is our job.”
Arden Farhi
Arden Farhi is the senior White House producer at CBS News. He has covered several presidential campaigns and the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. He also produces “The Takeout with Major Garrett.”
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Bitcoin hits new record near $95,000 as investors monitor Trump transition: CNBC Crypto World
Bitcoin hits new record near $95,000 as investors monitor Trump transition: CNBC Crypto World
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CNBC Crypto World features the latest news and daily trading updates from the digital currency markets and provides viewers with a look at what’s ahead with high-profile interviews, explainers, and unique stories from the ever-changing crypto industry. On today’s show, Andrew O’Neill of S&P Global Ratings discusses how crypto policy changes under Trump could affect crypto prices.
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Meta’s latest features for Messenger Calling include AI backgrounds
Meta’s latest features for Messenger Calling include AI backgrounds
If you’re one of the people out there making calls with Meta’s Messenger app, its latest update adds a bunch of new features for making video and audio calls, according to .
When you make a video call, you can add an AI-generated background to your screen by tapping on the effects icon in the sidebar and selecting “Backgrounds.” So instead of showing your friends and family your grungy apartment or your car that you haven’t cleaned out since you bought it, you can replace the background with a field of sunflowers or an alien landscape as one of its suns is setting. That’s something we’ve seen from basically every other video calling platform, so it’s not a big surprise to see Meta add it here.
Meta also added some new features for video calls including high definition video, background noise suppression and voice isolation “to help you make clearer, higher-quality calls directly from Messenger,” according to the blog.
The HD video feature will be the default mode for Messenger calls made over W-iFi connections. HD calls can also be made on cellular data in settings by turning on “Mobile data for HD video.” Background noise suppression and voice isolation can also be turned on and off in Messenger’s call settings section.
You can also leave voice and video messages for your contacts beyond just a line of text and maybe a cheeky emoji or two. Simply tap the “record message” button on the lower right side of the screen to leave a video or audio message if the person you are contacting doesn’t pick up the call.
Finally, if you don’t have a free hand but need to make a call, iPhone users can ask Siri to make calls and messages for them on Meta’s Messenger app. Simply activate Siri and say “Hey Siri, send a message to [contact name] on Messenger” and dictate the message you want to send them.
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Nvidia Stock Must Break 149.77 to Pave Way for Further Rise
Nvidia Stock Must Break 149.77 to Pave Way for Further Rise
NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:). engages in the design and manufacture of computer graphics processors, chipsets, and related multimedia software. It operates through the following segments: Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) and Compute & Networking. Nvidia designs and sells GPUs for gaming, cryptocurrency mining, and professional applications; the company also sells chip systems for use in vehicles, robotics, and more. Nvidia’s Compute and Networking business segment, which includes artificial intelligence (AI), is the company’s biggest revenue generator. The Graphics business segment is Nvidia’s second largest revenue generator.
Put/Call ratio for Nov. 22 expiry is 0.7866% more calls than puts which suggests the following three scenarios:
With Put/Call ratio is around 0.80-0.72 for the next 2 upcoming expiries suggest that the traders are mildly bullish.
Earning miss or lower guidance could trigger a short-lived sell-off. As the veteran tech investor won’t sell – regardless of earnings.
Earning and guidance in line or better than estimates trigger a sharp rally.
Key Highlights:
Analysts expect the chipmaker to deliver revenue growth driven by demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure, with record data center sales.
All eyes will be on the updates Nvidia’s Blackwell AI chip shipments.
Big Tech’s AI spending continues to accelerate at a pace not seen in the past many years. MSFT, AMZN, META (NASDAQ:) & Alphabet (NASDAQ:) have set a huge CAPEX for AI in 2025.
NVDA is a cash-rich company with a strong balance sheet as its total debt to total capital of 0.16 is significantly lower than the industry average of 0.30.
Technical Analysis Perspective:
NVDA has been hovering insider a symmetrical triangle from April 2024 to early October 2024.
Typically, these types of triangles form 5 points.
Point 1 = April 15, 2024, to June 21 (from 75.61 to 140.76)
Point 2 = June 17, 2024, to August 09, 2024, (from 140.76 to 90.69)
Point 3 = August 09, 2024, to August 30, 2024, (from 90.69 – 131.26)
Point 4 = August 30, 2024, to September 06, 2024 (from 131.26 – 100.95)
Point 5 = September 06, 2024, to October 07, 2024 (from 100.95 to 125) breakout point.
The upside target of this triangle is 185 – 195 in the coming weeks to months.
NVDA needs to break the recent high 149.77 high pre-earnings or during the earnings volatility to pave the way for further rise.
A ******** to break 149.77 would suggest a dip to 139 -137 support zone.
NVDA 19 years seasonality suggests that it closes 6.9% higher in November 80% of the time.
Conclusion:
NVDA has been in an uptrend since October 2022, a breakout of a bullish symmetrical triangle is adding fuel to the current rising trend and earnings could be a catalyst force. Fundamental and technical parameters are supporting additional rallies. Let’s see how the earnings and guidance play later this evening.
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Business spending on AI surged 500% this year to $13.8 billion, says Menlo Ventures
Business spending on AI surged 500% this year to $13.8 billion, says Menlo Ventures
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Business spending on generative AI surged 500% this year, from $2.3 billion in 2023 to $13.8 billion, according to data released by Menlo Ventures on Wednesday.
The report also found that OpenAI ceded market share in enterprise AI, declining from 50% to 34%. Anthropic doubled its market share from 12% to 24%. The results came from a survey of 600 enterprise IT decision-makers from companies with 50 or more employees, per the report.
Menlo is an investor in Anthropic. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tim Tully, a partner at Menlo Ventures, told CNBC in an interview that the power shift is thanks in part to the advancement of Claude 3.5 and because the majority of companies are using three or more large AI models. Although OpenAI and Anthropic dominated companies’ AI model use, he said, people are “juggling models” and that habit is “not a well-understood piece of data.”
“Developers are pretty savvy — they know how to go back and forth between models fairly quickly,” Tully explained. “They’re choosing the model that fits their use case best… and that’s likely Claude 3.5.”
Meta’s market share stayed at 16% and Cohere’s share remained at 3%. Google’s rose from 7% to 12%, and Mistral’s lost one percentage point, declining to 5% in 2024.
Foundation models — such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude and others — still dominated enterprise spend, the report found, with large language models receiving $6.5 billion in enterprise investment.
Menlo’s report was bullish on AI agents, a leading AI trend and area of investment in 2024. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, OpenAI and Anthropic are pursuing the technology. AI agents are viewed as a step beyond chatbots. They can perform multistep, complex tasks on a user’s behalf, and generate their own to-do lists, so that users don’t have to walk them through the process step-by-step.
“The agent stuff is real — it’s not hype,” Tully told CNBC. “I don’t think it’s going to cure *******, necessarily, but is it going to make people more productive and help companies generate revenue? Yes.”
The report found code generation is the leading use case for generative AI, with more than half of survey responses naming that as a dominant use. Support chatbots came next, at 31%, followed by enterprise search and retrieval, data extraction and transformation, and meeting summarization.
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Chewbacca 2,319-Piece Star Wars Lego Set Gets $55 Discount At Amazon For ****** Friday
Chewbacca 2,319-Piece Star Wars Lego Set Gets $55 Discount At Amazon For ****** Friday
Amazon has a fantastic ****** Friday deal on the Chewbacca Star Wars Lego set, dropping the price from $200 down to $145. This is very close to the all-time low price ($140) for the 2,319-piece Chewie model kit. We expect this offer to sell out pretty fast, just like earlier this month when Amazon matched Target’s $160 early ****** Friday deal. Thankfully, Walmart also has the $145 Chewbacca deal in stock, so if it sells out at your preferred retailer, make sure to check the other.
$145 (was $200)
After piecing it all together, you’ll have an 18-inch model of the Wookie hero with his iconic Bowcaster Rifle and bandolier. Like many Lego Star Wars model sets designed for adults, it comes with a display plaque with key details about Chewie and a minifigure. Chewbacca was one of the marquee Lego Star Wars sets released for Return of the Jedi’s 40th anniversary.
Chewbacca isn’t the only large-scale Star Wars Lego set on ***** for a big discount right now. Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder is up for grabs for $175 at Walmart. Normally $240, this highly detailed 1,890-piece model is part of Lego’s Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series. It’s one of the most eye-catching and realistic Lego sets that recreates an iconic vehicle from the movies. Amazon was matching this deal but sold out fast, so you be speedy if you want the Landspeeder.
Star Wars Lego Deals at Amazon
Amazon has a wide variety of Star Wars sets on ***** for great prices right now. Some of the highlights include Ahsoka’s Ghost & Phantom II Starships set for $138 (click the coupon box) and the Emperor’s Throne Room from Return of the Jedi for $80. For the ambitious and dedicated Star Wars fan, The Ultimate Collector Series Mandalorian set featuring a 6,187-piece model of The Razor Crest is $88 off.
If you’re looking for a gift for a young Star Wars fan this holiday, Walmart has restocked its exclusive Lego Star Wars 3-in-1 Gift Set. This unique package comes with three popular playsets that are normally sold separately for only $50 total, which saves you $35 overall.
$50
Here’s what you get with this Walmart-exclusive Lego Star Wars gift set:
The Clone Wars: Yoda’s Jedi Starfighter (253 pieces) — $35 value
Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Jedi Starfighter (282 pieces) — $30 value
501st Clone Troopers Battle Pack (119 pieces) — $20 value
All told, the gift set includes two buildable starships, an AV-7 anti-vehicle cannon, seven minifigures , and two droids.
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Trump sent two stimulus checks in his first term. Here’s what experts say about another payment.
Trump sent two stimulus checks in his first term. Here’s what experts say about another payment.
President-elect Donald Trump in his first term as president sent out two stimulus checks to millions of Americans during the pandemic, part of the federal government’s goal of keeping consumers financially afloat during the crisis. Now, some social media posts are claiming that Trump, once he takes office next year, may issue another check — a likelihood that experts say is extremely slim.
Posts on TikTok are suggesting Trump might issue another round of checks, while on X, some users are questioning if they’re in line for a payment.
When the COVID-19 health emergency shuttered the economy in 2020, millions of Americans lost their jobs, sending the jobless rate to almost 15% and causing financial hardship for many. As a result, Trump signed two bills that sent stimulus checks to eligible households, while President Biden authorized a third.
Even though many Americans feel the economy is faring badly, with some pointing to the impact of the pandemic’s high inflation, the U.S. isn’t anywhere close to the situation of the early 2020s, economists say.
“Stimulus checks typically only happen when the economy is in really bad shape and consumers need a push to start spending money again,” LendingTree senior economist Jacob Channel told CBS MoneyWatch. “That’s not really the case in the present.”
Is the economy bad enough for a new stimulus check?
While a majority of Americans give the economy poor ratings, economists say that it’s in good shape overall, with solid GDP growth, inflation that is inching closer to the Federal Reserve’s 2% annual goal and a jobless rate of 4.1% — which is near a 50-year low.
“Despite some pain points and general ‘bad vibes’ expressed by some people, the economy is currently in remarkably good shape and consumer spending is relatively strong,” Channel said.
Even so, many inflation-weary consumers say they haven’t yet seen the benefit of that growth. The November 5 presidential election was viewed as a mandate from voters for a new economic direction.
Could Trump issue a stimulus check?
While some consumers might believe that Trump or Biden alone was responsible for sending out stimulus checks — perhaps because Trump put his name on the memo line of the first check — the payments were part of three bills passed by Congress, which were then sent to the sitting president for his signature.
“A president can’t unilaterally issue stimulus checks, and the ones sent out during his last administration were largely the result of a push from Democrats in the House and Senate,” Channel noted. “Though Trump ultimately did sign the bill that sent stimulus checks to Americans, he isn’t solely responsible for them.”
In other words, there would first need to be legislation passed by Congress to authorize another stimulus check, something that currently isn’t on the horizon.
Would a stimulus check impact inflation?
With the Federal Reserve still aiming to pare inflation to a 2% annual rate — it stood at 2.6% last month — policymakers are likely to be cautious about any actions that could reignite inflation. Some economists have pointed to the surge in federal spending during the pandemic as helping to create the conditions that led to the hottest inflation in 40 years.
“Because inflation is still such a big concern at the moment, the last thing a reasonable government would want to do is further stimulate consumer demand with stimulus checks because doing so would unnecessarily risk causing a resurgence in inflation,” Channel noted.
That being said, Trump’s economic policies, including adding tariffs to imports and deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, could cause an inflation bump of as much of 1 percentage point, economists have said. That would push inflation to a range of about 3.6%, which Wall Street cautions could cause the Fed to hold off on further rate cuts.
Could the IRS issue stimulus checks in 2024?
The IRS sent the three rounds of pandemic stimulus checks after they were authorized by Congress and signed into law by Trump and Biden. In other words, without Congress’ approval, the IRS won’t be sending any stimulus checks in 2024.
Currently there is no legislation in the works for stimulus spending, and such legislation is also considered extremely unlikely to occur in 2025. Instead, Trump and *********** lawmakers are likely to focus on tax legislation to extend the tax cuts in his 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act, as well as tackling other spending issues, experts say.
Aimee Picchi
Aimee Picchi is the associate managing editor for CBS MoneyWatch, where she covers business and personal finance. She previously worked at Bloomberg News and has written for national news outlets including USA Today and Consumer Reports.
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Congolese false alarm after mausoleum vandalised
Congolese false alarm after mausoleum vandalised
AFP
The gold tooth was placed in this mausoleum after its return to DR Congo in 2022
The gold-capped tooth of Patrice Lumumba, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s independence hero, is safe and has not been stolen, his daughter has told the BBC.
The news comes as a relief to a nation gripped by ***** that the only ******** of the country’s revered first prime minister had been swiped after his mausoleum in the capital, Kinshasa, was vandalised on Monday night.
But Juliana Lumumba said previous concerns about the security of the site had prompted the family to move the tooth to a more secure location.
The tooth was only returned to the Lumumba family by former colonial power Belgium two years ago – and had been placed in the special memorial building.
Lumumba was much loved not just by many at home but across ******* for his outspoken criticism of colonialism – and he became an icon of pan-Africanism.
He was seen as a symbol of change and hope after the harrowing years under Belgian rule, during which millions of Congolese people ***** or were brutalised.
But within months of the country’s independence from Belgium in 1960 he was toppled as prime minister.
At the age of 35 he was shot by a ******* squad in January 1961, with the tacit backing of Belgium.
His body was then dissolved in acid, but Belgian police officer Gerard Soete, who oversaw the destruction, took the tooth as a macabre memento.
The return of Lumumba’s gold tooth in June 2022 was a cause for celebration in DR Congo – and it was taken on a tour of the vast country so people could pay their respects.
The vandalism of the mausoleum has caused outrage – and when Culture Minister Yolande Elebe Mandembo announced on Tuesday that an investigation had been launched, many feared the worst.
Footage circulated showing that a glass door had been smashed to get access to the chamber where a coffin could be seen.
But Ms Lumumba sought to reassure people on Wednesday – saying her father’s tooth had not been there at the time of the break-in.
Nonetheless she told the BBC she felt “anger and sadness” that her father’s grave had been disrespected.
Jelle Vermeersch
The gold tooth of Patrice Lumumba – pictured here in 2016 – had been preserved in a padded box by Belgian police officer Gerard Soete
Now 69, she spent years lobbying Belgium for the return of the tooth.
“Patrice Lumumba sacrificed himself for the sovereignty and independence of his country and the Congolese,” she said.
“This is so unrepresentative of our culture, which respects the graves of our dearly departed.”
Local authorities say four suspects have been arrested over the desecration, but their identities have not been made public.
Ms Lumumba said the Lumumba Foundation wanted to take over management of the mausoleum because of security worries and had been lobbying the government to do so.
You may also be interested in:Getty Images/BBC
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STALKER 2 Developers Address Early Issues With The Game
STALKER 2 Developers Address Early Issues With The Game
After first being announced in 2010, STALKER 2 is out now for Xbox Series and PC. And despite more positive reception than negative, there are still technical issues with STALKER 2 that have caused some problems for players.
In a statement on social media, the game’s developers at GSC Game World expressed their joy of the game finally being available to players. That said, they did acknowledge that the game has some “rough edges” that will be worked on as they monitor the feedback of players.
“We understand that in such a game, there may still be rough edges: we literally haven’t released anything of this scale before,” they said. “We’re absolutely committed to being here, monitoring your feedback, and quickly fixing any issues that need our attention.”
GUIDES: Improve Your STALKER 2 Experience
They continued to say that over the next few days, they will be working on various hotfixes for the game and will release them “as precisely as possible” while still being as frequent as they can. After those are out, the focus will move to larger updates for the game.
“There will also be free in-game content — we’ll share its roadmap later in December,” they said. “We have big plans for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe. In a way, today is both a return and the beginning of a grand new journey.”
Insider Gaming’s Grant Taylor-Hill reviewed the game, and says that despite any technical hiccups early on, STALKER 2 is “the cream of the crop, and it’s a bar to which every developer in the genre should aspire to reach.”
Have you had any major issues with STALKER 2 in your early play? Let us know down below, and join the discussion in the official Insider Gaming forums.
For more Insider Gaming, check out our exclusive on what EA is doing to prevent another disastrous launch for the next Battlefield game. And don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter.
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DJI’s next trick could be a surprise ****** vacuum – and no, it sadly won’t fly upstairs
DJI’s next trick could be a surprise ****** vacuum – and no, it sadly won’t fly upstairs
A leaked image suggests DJI could be planning to launch a ****** vacuum
It could be called the DJI Romo and combine a vacuum and mop
It’s early days for rumors but DJI has been entering new markets lately
From e-bikes to power stations, DJI has been dipping its toes into new waters this year – and it could soon make a particularly surprising leap into ****** vacuums, according to new rumors.
According to a leaked image from @JasperEllens (picked up by DroneNR and Notebookcheck) the so-called DJI Romo vacuum seemingly exists, in prototype form at least.
Whether the Romo actually makes it to production ******** to be seen, but given DJI’s recent record of branching out from making the best drones, it certainly wouldn’t be a huge leap. A ****** vacuum would also, on paper, combine a lot of its existing tech.
DJI currently makes robots like the RoboMaster S1, drones with advanced obstacle-avoidance systems like the DJI Mavic 3 Pro, and cameras with advanced Lidar-based autofocus like the DJI Ronin 4D. The only thing that’s really missing from the tech mix is the cleaning powers of the best ****** vacuums.
I can’t stop laughing.@DJIGlobal actually made the #DJIROMO. The vacuum cleaner they registered a year ago. What will it do? Fly up the stairs? And the key question, will it come with LiDAR? That’s it guys, I am out… hahahaha pic.twitter.com/9BcvJjQscCNovember 1, 2024
Given this is the only ***** we’ve seen so far, the DJI Romo ******** highly speculative, but it seems we can expect a combined ****** vacuum and mop with features like individual room controls and **** detection.
The only thing we’re pretty confident of ruling out is a flying ****** vacuum with propellors (which the leaked image appears to back up). That is unless DJI has quietly absorbed some of the team behind the bonkers Ring Always Home Cam (below), a flying security cam that never saw the light of day.
Why a ****** vacuum?
The Ring Always Home Cam (above) never landed officially – and we feel confident in ruling out a flying DJI ****** vacuum. (Image credit: Ring)
DJI has never been shy about barging into new markets and disrupting them with its consistently impressive tech – and while the DJI Romo may ultimately be just another of its wild prototypes, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see DJI launch a ****** vacuum in 2025.
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The move towards diversifying its product lineup seems to have coincided with the increasing heat it’s been feeling from US regulators about its flying cameras and the supposed security risks they pose.
A full DJI ban has fortunately never materialized, but the rumblings seem likely to continue under the new Trump administration in 2025 – which means we can expect to see it continue to branch out next year beyond its Avinox Drive System for e-bikes.
Disrupting the ****** vacuum market may also seem more appealing since Amazon’s iRobot takeover bit the dust earlier this year, which means there’s no clear dominant player. Our best ****** vacuums guide contains a wide mix of brands, from Ecovacs to Narwal (pictured at the top of this page).
Another rumor that’s much closer to DJI’s home turf is that it could soon gate-****** the world of the best 360 cameras with a rival to Insta360 and GoPro. That’s just one of the many rumored DJI launches we’ve seen recently, which have also included an Osmo Mobile 7 phone gimbal, Mavic 4 drone, and a Mic Mini microphone – which now looks likely to be launched on November 26, according to DJI’s own teaser.
That’s quite the roll call of new tech – and who knows, maybe it’ll be crowned in 2025 by a new rival for the likes of Eufy, iRobot, Narwal, and Roborock.
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Man who drugged wife in French mass ***** case told: You’ll **** alone
Man who drugged wife in French mass ***** case told: You’ll **** alone
CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP
Caroline Darian accused her father of lying to the court, saying she was convinced he abused her
Tensions at the French mass ***** trial burst into the open on Wednesday when Dominique Pelicot’s daughter Caroline shouted at her father from across the courtroom that he would “**** alone like a dog”.
Caroline Darian, 45, has repeatedly said she is convinced her father drugged and abused her after semi-****** photos of her asleep were found on his laptop.
He has denied abusing her but has admitted drugging his wife Gisèle for a decade and recruiting men online to ***** her in their home when she was unconscious.
Dominique Pelicot and 50 other men have been on trial since September, and a verdict is expected on 20 December.
During an emotional day in court in Avignon, Gisèle Pelicot’s lawyers gave their closing arguments, describing the historic nature of the trial and paying tribute to her courage in waiving her anonymity to bring the mass ***** trial into the open.
In her statements to the court Caroline spoke of her anguish at what she says are persistent ***** by her father.
Earlier this week, with a voice full of emotion, she told the court her life had “stopped” when police first showed her photos from her father’s laptop in 2020.
On Wednesday, Dominique Pelicot was given a chance to address his daughter while taking the stand for the final time in this trial.
The main defendant said he most wished he still had Caroline’s support.
“Some may laugh but it’s my daughter I wish I could look at in the face. It hurts to see her like this,” he said, sitting in a glass box only metres away from his daughter and the rest of his family.
“I would love to see her, I would love to talk to her,” he added. As his voice faltered, Caroline’s rose: “I will never come see you. Never. You will **** alone like a dog,” she shouted.
“We all **** alone,” he replied. “You especially,” she hit back.
It was the last public exchange between a father and daughter who by all accounts had had, for many years, a loving and close relationship.
Mr Pelicot recalled visiting her in hospital when she was recovering from surgery as a child so he could hold her and comfort her, and shared memories of her teenage years.
When he repeated that he would always love her even if she had stopped loving him, she looked ahead silently, tears streaming down her face – but did not respond.
It was only later, when the session ended, that she approached the box her father sat in and shouted: “You had two months [to tell the truth]!”
During questioning, Mr Pelicot also stated that he was a **** ******* and that getting found out by police in November 2020 had “unburdened him”.
He denied that his ******* against his wife had been sparked by an inferiority complex or by a ******* for revenge for an affair she had in the 1980s.
Asked what he thought about chemical submission – drugging someone for the purposes of coercion or ******** – he answered: “It’s *****. It annihilates everything. It should never be done.”
Mr Pelicot’s statements were followed by closing arguments from Gisèle Pelicot’s legal team.
Lawyers for the 50 other defendants will give their own closing arguments from next week. They are expected to explore more deeply the defence that many of the men cannot be guilty because they did not realise Ms Pelicot was unconscious and therefore did not “know” they were ******* her.
Over almost three hours Ms Pelicot’s lawyers, Antoine Camus and Stéphane Babonneau, retold the horrific story of Dominique Pelicot’s *******, peppering their account with literary references.
“Everyone contributed to this monstrosity on their own level, and allowed a woman’s ordeal to go on. It’s the banality of evil of [philosopher] Hannah Arendt,” said Mr Camus.
Getty Images
Gisèle Pelicot gave evidence for the final time on Tuesday
They pleaded with the judges to hand down sentences that reflected the extent of the suffering of Gisèle Pelicot and her family.
Mr Camus said he was aware of the “expectations and hopes in this room and beyond” for the trial, which he said he described as historic, because “we badly, urgently want and need it to be”.
Leaning heavily on the notion of free will, he dismissed the defence’s argument that many of the men who allegedly ****** Ms Pelicot did so because they were intimidated, manipulated or tricked by her husband. “Manipulation is not hypnosis,” he said.
The fact they were all aware that Mr Pelicot was “recruiting” many other men too should be taken into account by the judges, he added.
“Everyone who came into that house of horrors knew that others had come before him and others would follow,” Mr Camus said.
His colleague painted a devastating picture of Ms Pelicot’s life since her husband’s ******* had become known.
Stéphane Babonneau then described what had led Ms Pelicot – who by then was living in a small village under her maiden name – to give up her anonymity and open the trial to the public and the media.
It was in 2023, he said, when French media began reporting on the Pelicot case using pseudonyms that “a feeling of rebellion started to take hold of Gisèle Pelicot”.
“She decided to take back control of her life. The moment had come for shame to change sides.”
The will to stop hiding had awoken in her, he said, because she hadn’t done anything wrong. And she thought the details of her case and the videos of the alleged assaults would help expose the reality of *****.
“For her story to be useful and to help other women she understood she had to give up the anonymity that had served her for years,” Mr Babonneau explained. “She had to accept she would forever be the victim of the Mazan rapes.”
The lawyer also urged judges not to accept that the defendants had made a “mistake” when – as some have said – they ****** Ms Pelicot involuntarily or “out of stupidity or ignorance”.
“If you accept the right to make a mistake, what will stop another man tomorrow from saying that when a woman told him ‘no’ he actually understood ‘yes’? That he also made a mistake?”
“I ask you to ******* the right to make mistakes which would put society in danger – and at the risk of seeing more Gisèle Pelicots,” Mr Babonneau said.
He ended by paying tribute to Ms Pelicot and said the trial would be a “legacy” for future generations: “They will hear the name Gisèle Pelicot, they will hear about her courage and about the price she paid.”
Turning to look at Ms Pelicot, he said: “You did your job. You went beyond what was expected of you.”
“Now, pass on the torch to the others to carry on the ****** you never chose.”
Gisèle Pelicot, to his right, wiped her eyes.
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Nintendo Missed Out on a Major Game of the Year Title But Switch 2 May Finally be Powerful Enough to Run it
Nintendo Missed Out on a Major Game of the Year Title But Switch 2 May Finally be Powerful Enough to Run it
Recently, the nominations for the prestigious Game of the Year title were announced, and to the disappointment of many, Nintendo was completely absent from the list. Not a single original Nintendo game made it through to this year’s GOTY race. While the company has consistently delivered excellent titles and great experiences, it’s clear that the Switch’s hardware is the limitation factor.
The anticipation for the upcoming Switch 2 is palpable. | Image Credit: Nintendo
With the rumors speculating the upcoming Switch 2‘s performance, things may be about to change. Leaks suggest that the next-generation console will be much more powerful than the current Switch. This means that even if it does not break the drought in GOTY nominations for Nintendo, it will be able to run games like beloved Baldur’s Gate 3, GOTY of 2023.
The Switch’s Hardware Limitations May Be Holding Nintendo Back
If the Switch 2 is powerful enough, it will be able to run AAA-demanding titles like BG3. | Image Credit: Larian Studios
One of the most notable games missing from the Switch library is Baldur’s Gate 3. This game has captivated players with its deep storytelling, complex character progression, and immersive gameplay. However, despite the Switch’s success with many genres, it’s simply not powerful enough to run a game like BG3 or most AAA titles.
It is clear that Switch’s selling point is its portability and unique hybrid design. However, with the industry’s recent push towards high graphic fidelity and increasing processing demands of modern titles, the Switch is showing its age. Fortunately for Nintendo, the Switch 2 is close and could change all of that.
The nominees for GAME OF THE YEAR at #TheGameAwards on December 12.
Vote Now: pic.twitter.com/75AZeqo6KS
— The Game Awards (@thegameawards) November 18, 2024
Recent leaks and rumors surrounding the new system suggest that it will have a significantly more powerful GPU and CPU, along with enhanced memory that will be able to run even modern AAA games. If these leaks hold true, the Switch 2 could finally have the performance needed to handle demanding titles, including Baldur’s Gate 3 and other popular AAA titles.
Although Larian Studios has stated they are moving away from the Baldur’s Gate franchise, the introduction of a much more capable device like the Switch 2 can encourage the studio to rethink its decision. While everything is still speculation (including the Switch 2’s performance), it would present an enticing opportunity for both Larian and fans of the game.
However, this also raises another question, what if leaks are not true and Switch 2 is also not powerful enough? In that case, the fans will need to get accustomed to the fact Nintendo consoles are only good for portability and their hybrid features, rather than for playing AAA games.
Switch 2 May Hold the Key to the Future
Switch 2 has a lot riding on its shoulders and it must deliver on most of its promise. | Image Credit: Nintendo
Nintendo may have missed out on a GOTY nomination this time around, but with the Switch 2 on the horizon, the company has a chance to recover from that disappointment. It can not only try to deliver an engaging new title but also showcase its new console’s hardware capabilities.
It is uncertain that the new system will change the outcome of the following GOTY awards, but it could help usher in an era where Nintendo consoles are much more capable and can finally run the kinds of ambitious, cutting-edge games that have been out of its reach for years.
As for the players who believe that the Switch 2 may just be the breakthrough that the company needs to push more innovative games. The leaks give them good news as it suggest that the handheld will offer significant performance improvements. If it can deliver on these promises, it will become the key to the future of the company and might even convince Larian to make a port.
In the end, who knows? The Switch 2 might be the key for Nintendo to start delivering games that are worthy of being nominated for GOTY awards once again.
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Stalker 2 PC performance testing and settings analysis — another demanding game that uses frame generation and upscaling as a crutch
Stalker 2 PC performance testing and settings analysis — another demanding game that uses frame generation and upscaling as a crutch
Stalker 2 returns to the zone after a long absence
Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl finally marks a return to the zone after a 15 year absence. It leverages Epic’s Unreal Engine 5 for some impressive visuals, and it also punishes lesser PCs. We’ve been running benchmarks and this is a game that needs both GPU and CPU horsepower — and don’t neglect the VRAM if you’re planning to run with maxed out settings. Our testing will look at many of the latest Nvidia, AMD, and Intel GPUs that are among the best graphics cards, and we’ll provide a few CPU benchmarks as well. Let us know in the comments what other hardware you’d like to see tested, and we’ll try to make it happen.
A lot has changed since Call of Prypiat, Clear Sky, and the original Shadow of Chornobyl came out in the late 00s (note that the spelling was officially updated after the Russian invasion of Ukraine). A state-of-the-art PC back in 2009, when Prypiat launched, consisted of a Core i7-965 or 975 Extreme Edition, or an overclocked i7-920 that was just as fast. The top graphics cards of the era were Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 285 AMD’s newly launched Radeon HD 5870. Windows 7 was also brand-spanking-new, having launched in October 2009, which means DirectX 11 had also just gone live. Call of Prypiat was one of the first (or perhaps the first) games to use DirectX 11, though it was also compatible with DX9 and DX10 GPUs.
Now, Windows 7 has officially been retired, along with the Windows 8 sequel, and Windows 10 is on its last legs. GPUs that were top of the line models 15 years ago often can’t even run modern games. Stalker 2 as an example (and yes, we’re going to skip the caps and periods rather than writing “S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2” every time, since it’s not even an acronym) requires at least a GTX 1060 6GB or RX 580 8GB graphics card — those arrived in 2016 and 2017, respectively. It also requires a Core i7-7700K or Ryzen 5 1600X or better, 16GB of RAM, and 160GB of disk space. That’s for a target of 1080p with the low preset and 30 fps.
The recommended hardware — and based on our testing, you don’t want to come up short — lists a Core i7-11700 or Ryzen 7 5800X, GeForce RTX 3070 Ti / 4070 or Radeon RX 6800 XT, and 32GB of RAM. That’s for the high preset and 60 fps at 1440p. Also, an SSD is “required” — though I suspect the game can still load (slowly) from a hard drive. And those framerate targets? That’s with TSR, DLSS, FSR, or XeSS upscaling and related technologies, including framegen.
Steep requirements might be an understatement, and once again we can only shake our heads sadly at the default enablement of upscaling and frame generation. We prefer to have those as ways to boost performance to higher levels and smooth out framerates, not as baseline requirements. To that end, we’ll be testing at native resolution, as well as with upscaling only, and finally with upscaling and frame generation. So let’s see how Stalker 2 runs on current PC hardware.
Stalker 2 Test Setup
Stalker 2 comes with the full complement of upscaling technologies from Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and Unreal Engine 5: DLSS (3.7.0), FSR 3.1, XeSS 1.3.1, and TSR (Temporal Super Resolution). Or you can turn off all of those and run with TAA (Temporal Anti-Aliasing), still with the option to enable (a rather poor looking) scaling if you want.
Our main test PC consists of our soon-to-be-retired from active duty Core i9-13900K, 32GB of DDR5-5600 CL28 memory, an MSI Z790 Ace motherboard, and a 4TB Crucial T700 SSD. We’ll have additional results for the 4090 and 7900 XTX running on some other CPUs, to show just how CPU limited the game can be.
GPU drivers for our initial testing are Nvidia 566.14, Intel 6299, and AMD 24.10.1. This is an Nvidia promoted game, and AMD hasn’t released any new drivers since October 18. Which is a bit concerning, given the number of new games coming out right now, like Flight Simulator 2024. AMD will probably drop new drivers right after we post this, but we didn’t see any noteworthy issues in our testing.
Our aim here isn’t to test every current generation GPU. We’ll skip the Nvidia RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 Ti, for example, as well as the Arc A770 8GB and A380. We’ll see about adding some previous generation cards as well in the next couple of days, just as a point of reference to help line up where such cards rank compared to newer offerings.
Our typical testing consists of using medium settings at 1080p, and then 1080p, 1440p, and 4K with ultra — or in this case, “epic” — settings. We’ll do all of the baseline testing with TAA and 100% scaling, and then run some additional tests at 1440p and 4K with upscaling, and all three resolutions with upscaling and framegen. Upscaling alone won’t help the fastest cards, as we’ll hit CPU limits (at least on the 13900K), so keep that in mind.
Our benchmark sequence consists of a manual run through the starting village of Zalissya. The map, as in previous Stalker games, is effectively completely open from the start and you can wander seamlessly throughout the exclusion zone… assuming you can survive. The first town makes for a decent benchmark sequence as there are no mutants or enemies, but there are plenty of NPCs wandering about as well as buildings and trees. We run each GPU at each setting at least twice, using the higher score, and three times for the first run on each preset (i.e. medium and epic), discarding the first result.
We’ll have screenshots and a discussion of image fidelity at the various settings further down the page, after the benchmarks. Stalker 2 does not utilize ray tracing hardware, opting instead for software-based rendering using Unreal’s Lumen and Nanite technologies. It’s plenty heavy even without using hardware RT, though, as we’ll soon see.
[Note: We’re still testing additional GPUs and will periodically update these charts. Let us know in the comments if there are any GPUs in particular that you’d like to see tested.]
Stalker 2 1080p Medium GPU performance
1080p medium represents our baseline performance metric. Yes, you can go much higher, and you can also go lower — on resolution and settings. You can enable upscaling and framegen as well. But we feel 1080p and medium settings represent a target that most “reasonable” gaming PCs should be able to manage. Here are the results.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
One thing that’s immediately obvious is that we’re hitting CPU bottlenecks here. AMD’s top GPUs run slightly faster than Nvidia’s top GPUs, but everything lands right around the 100 fps mark. Considering the relatively low target, that’s a bit surprising, but Stalker games have often pushed the hardware of their time to the limit.
Some of this is also due to the use of Unreal Engine 5. It’s possible to hit much higher framerates, with the right settings and game optimizations, but from the games we’ve tested it seems that UE5 is usually quite heavy on both the CPU and GPU fronts.
Stalker 2 1080p Epic GPU performance
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The CPU bottleneck becomes far more obvious at 1080p and epic settings. Now, the three fastest GPUs are all tied at 85~86 fps, and the next two GPUs aren’t too far off that pace. The 1% lows are also pretty consistent at less than 60 fps.
This is, sadly, the state of many games these days, particularly those using Unreal Engine 5. Running at native resolution like we’re doing is no longer the goal. Instead, developers are using upscaling and frame generation technologies as crutches that allow them to post higher performance numbers.
Sure, Stalker 2 looks good graphically, but not amazing. UE5 also has a lot of pop-in where you’ll see the geometry on objects massively shift — especially on trees, in this particular game. It’s distracting and not something I like to see on top-end hardware with maxed out settings. Dragon Age: The Veilguard has similar quality graphics in my book, and manages to do away with a lot of the level of detail scaling pop-in that’s so common with UE5 games. (And if it’s not clear, no, Veilguard isn’t using UE5.)
We also dropped the 8GB GPUs from testing. 1080p high settings seems to be viable, but 1080p epic exceeds their VRAM capacity and performance absolutely tanks. The RTX 4060 Ti 8GB card initially ran at around 48 fps, but after a minute or so it had dropped to around 20~25 fps with frequent dips into the single digits. The RTX 4060 never showed higher performance and ran in the single digits as well. AMD’s RX 7600 likewise started at a higher level (~20 fps) but then dropped to <10 fps after a minute or so running around the game world.
Stalker 2 1440p Epic GPU performance
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
1440p epic settings finally starts to move away from the CPU bottleneck, but the 4090 at least is still clearly being held back. Power use for many of the faster Nvidia GPUs is also quite low, a key indicator of CPU limitations. The 4090 used 294W, 4080 Super drew 242W, and the 4070 Ti Super needed 241W. In contrast, AMD’s top GPUs were still close to their rated power limits, with 360W on the 7900 XTX, 317W for the 7900 XT, and 256W on the 7900 GRE.
In the overall standings, the 4090 and 4080 Super now take the top two spots, though the 7900 XTX matches the latter with only a 0.8 fps difference (a 1.1% difference, which is within the margin of error). The 7900 XT matches the 4070 Ti Super as well, which means it has the value advantage given its current price — you can check our GPU price index for current values, but right now the 4070 Ti Super costs around $780 while the 7900 XT only costs $640.
Similar discrepancies in price to performance exist throughout much of the current GPU landscape. The 4080 Super costs $950 or more while the 7900 XTX starts at $840. The 4070 and 7900 GRE both have a $550 MSRP, but here Nvidia undercuts AMD with a $500 card versus a $530 card — albeit with slightly lower performance. Nvidia’s 4060 Ti 16GB doesn’t look too good either, with a $450 price tag and performance that falls below the $390 7700 XT, never mind the $470 RX 7800 XT that’s 30% faster at these settings.
Stalker 2 4K Epic GPU performance
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Native 4K at maxed out settings as usual proves to be too much for most of the GPUs. Even the mighty RTX 4090 only manages 57 fps — definitely playable, but not quite perfectly smooth. And while there are less demanding areas in Stalker 2, we’re sure there are also regions that will be even more taxing and would push framerates even lower.
The 4090 leads the second string 4080 Super by 20%, which still isn’t as large of a gap as we often see — and the 4090 still only pulls 346W, so something is keeping it from reaching higher levels of performance. The RTX 4080 Super in turn beats the RX 7900 XTX by a couple of FPS in average performance, though minimums are more stable on the AMD cards. That’s actually something we saw throughout our testing: AMD’s GPUs, probably thanks to having more VRAM at most levels, end up with better minimum FPS.
VRAM also proves to be an issue on GPUs with less than 16GB now. The RTX 4070 falls below both the 7800 XT and 7900 GRE, but AMD’s RX 7700 XT likewise takes a tumble down to the low 20s.
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Stalker 2 with upscaling
Given the obvious CPU bottlenecks at lower resolutions, it shouldn’t be too surprising that those same limitations show up when we turn on upscaling. We skipped 1080p testing for that reason, focusing on the 1440p and 4K results. They’re still pretty underwhelming at times.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
At 1440p epic settings with quality mode upscaling (67% render resolution), the top six GPUs all land in the 80–85 fps range, with minimums of 48–52 fps. So, the 13900K isn’t able to keep the GPUs fully saturated with work. We’ll be testing a Ryzen 7 9800X3D shortly to see how that changes things, and maybe a few other CPUs as well, so stay tuned.
Lower tier GPUs do benefit from upscaling, and the further they are from 80 fps, the ******* the potential boost. the 7600 XT for example sees a 37% increase over native 1440p, and the 4060 Ti 16GB improves by a similar 35%. Everything from the RX 7800 XT and up manages to break 60 fps as well, and all of the tested cards are definitely playable (of course, we already dropped GPUs like the 8GB cards from our testing at 1080p due to performance issues).
But we do need to mention that DLSS, FSR3, and XeSS are not the same. That’s part of why we stick to TAA 100% resolution as the baseline. Software algorithms to improve performance can be beneficial, but fundamentally the 7700 XT using FSR3 upscaling does not look the same as the 4060 Ti 16GB using DLSS upscaling. We would say both are viable, particularly if you’re not too finicky, but DLSS continues to look better. (FSR3 upscaling looked noticeably worse at 1080p as well, if you’re wondering.)
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
4K epic with upscaling reduces the CPU bottleneck, though many of the positions still look closer than normal. The 4090 for example only beats the 4080 Super by 12%, which is basically in line with our larger GPU benchmarks hierarchy results for 1440p ultra in pure rasterization performance. But AMD’s 7900 XTX shows a 13% lead over the 7900 XT, compared to just 7.4% in our hierarchy.
In games where we’re clearly not CPU limited, though? The RTX 4090 can be up to 30–35 percent faster than the 4080 Super. That often requires the use of hardware ray tracing features, or at least a game that doesn’t run into clear CPU limitations.
Stalker 2 with upscaling and frame generation
Frame generation is often a highly controversial feature, and rightly so. Some people refer to the generated frames as “fake frames,” and they’re not really wrong. Because there’s no additional sampling of user input, and with the added overhead of framegen, it often feels more like two steps backward for two steps forward.
Stalker 2 supports FSR 3.1 and DLSS 3 framegen, which means if you really want to, you can use DLSS upscaling with FSR framegen. That can result in higher performance on Nvidia’s cards — and of course you’d only have the option for FSR framegen if you have an RTX 30- or 20-series GPU, or anything else for that matter. But with pure FSR upscaling and framegen, we checked the 4070 Super and found that DLSS 3 upscaling and framegen was 38% faster than FSR 3 upscaling and framegen.
That’s a critical point that many overlook. Yes, FSR 3.1 is technically open source, but that doesn’t mean AMD didn’t do a lot of work optimizing it to work better on its own hardware. Nvidia doesn’t want FSR to be better than DLSS, so it’s not actively working to improve performance with the technology. And so, we have apples and oranges that we get to compare and debate. Here are the results with both quality upscaling and framegen enabled.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Starting with 1080p, because of the heavy CPU bottleneck, framegen gives some significant improvements to perceived FPS. However, as we’ve said in the past, this is basically “frame smoothing” rather than “frame generation” — because no new user input gets factored into the generated frames. It’s not inherently bad, an in Stalker 2 the overall performance uplift can make it worthwhile, but the user input sampling rate will be half of the shown FPS values.
And again, as we’ve seen in some other games, FSR3 gives AMD a ******* boost in overall performance than DLSS gives to Nvidia. It’s not a “fair” comparison in that the GPUs are not running the same workloads, and using FSR3 on Nvidia doesn’t fix things as it’s only getting optimizations for AMD GPUs as far as we can tell. 1080p with upscaling and framegen absolutely looks worse on the AMD cards, even if it runs faster.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The higher output resolution of 1440p does make some of the rendering issues that were clearly visible at 1080p go away for FSR3. You have to start pixel peeping to really see differences, so in some sense this is a win. But this is also why we don’t like games or graphics card companies using upscaling and framegen as the default comparison. That’s ripe for ****** by using only the optimal results to make one company’s products look better.
The important thing, insofar as Stalker 2 goes, is that every GPU in this chart is still imminently playable. Yes, user input still happens at half the rate shown in the chart, but it does look smoother and that tends to trick your brain into the game feeling smoother as well. When framegen only yields a 20–30 percent improvement in FPS, that’s not very good, but here we’re getting much better scaling.
The RTX 4060 Ti 16GB went from 53.3 to 76.3 fps, a 43% improvement. The higher tier 4090 on the other hand gets a 75% boost. So perhaps memory bandwidth or some other factor is holding back the lower tier cards.
AMD, as expected, gets an even larger boost from FSR3 framegen. The RX 7600 XT goes from 43.3 to 77.7 fps, a 79% increase. The 7900 XTX at the top of the chart sees an even larger 90% overall performance boost. That’s very near to the theoretical 100% boost that framegen can offer (which shouldn’t ever be realized unless there’s other wonkiness involved).
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
4K with upscaling and framegen also yields mostly playable results on all the GPUs we tested — we say “mostly” because the 4060 Ti 16GB and 7600 XT at just 44–45 fps definitely start to feel sluggish. That’s because the input sampling rate is only around 22 fps. But the 4070 and above all break 60 fps of generated performance, which works fine overall.
Note that 12GB cards can still struggle at these settings, especially over longer play sessions. So the 4070 and 7700 XT (and 4070 Super and 4070 Ti) become more likely to see short bursts of highly unstable framerates — meaning, you might get individual frames falling into the single digit FPS range.
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
Stalker 2 settings and image quality
We haven’t had time to do a full image quality analysis, so check back and we’ll update this section.
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(Image credit: GSC Game World)
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
(Image credit: GSC Game World)
Stalker 2 closing thoughts
There’s a lot to digest, but as far as performance and system requirements go, our advice is to make sure you exceed the minimum recommendations. Also, plan on using upscaling and framegen for most GPUs, especially at higher resolutions.
We still need to test some CPUs, plus additional GPUs, and we’ll be updating the article with that information in the next day or two (and testing Flight Simulator 2024 at the same time, assuming it continues to work). But if you’re wondering if Stalker 2 properly carries forward the Stalker legacy, it does — in both good and bad ways.
The graphics have improved compared to the older games, as well they should after 15+ years. But a lot of the gameplay so far feels quite similar. You’re constantly running into enemies that have PDAs that reveal stash locations, anomalies are all over the place, and you have to try and walk the fine line between the various factions. If you like the post-apocalyptic (-esque) setting of the Chornobyl area, returning to it again after all these years will almost certainly hit all the right pleasure centers of your brain.
It’s still frustrating to see Unreal Engine 5 apparently requiring so much help to reach higher levels of performance. Framegen in particular should not be the baseline recommendation. It has some clear drawbacks, and tends to be more useful as a marketing feature. We’d rather have slightly less advanced graphics that run well over interpolated frames to smooth out some of the choppiness. Other games and game engines seem to manage this much better than UE5, but Unreal Engine gets used a lot because it makes life easier on the game developers — often at the cost of performance.
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US envoy heads to ******* after progress on Hezbollah ceasefire
US envoy heads to ******* after progress on Hezbollah ceasefire
Reuters
Amos Hochstein (L) held talks with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (R) for a second day in Beirut
A US envoy has arrived in ******* to continue negotiations on a ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, after reporting “additional progress” during a second day of talks in Beirut.
Amos Hochstein, who has led the Biden administration’s efforts to end more than one year of conflict, was expected to meet ******** Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday amid cautious optimism in Lebanon.
In what was seen as a positive development, he returned to Beirut on Tuesday after the Lebanese government and Hezbollah accepted a US-drafted proposal, although with some comments. He unexpectedly extended his visit by a day for further discussions.
After meeting Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who has Hezbollah’s support to negotiate, Hochstein said he would go to ******* “to try to bring this to a close if we can”.
Details of the ceasefire proposal remained unclear, but some of the earlier differences included the formation of a supervision mechanism and *******’s demand to be able to strike Lebanon if a deal was violated, which had been rejected by Lebanon.
Addressing foreign ambassadors in Jerusalem, ******** Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that, in any agreement, ******* “will have to maintain our freedom to act if there will be violations”, but he did not give details about what that would entail.
Reuters
The Lebanese army said three of its soldiers were ******* in an ******** strike on their position in the southern town of Sarafand on Tuesday
Since the conflict intensified in late September, Lebanese authorities have said any deal should be based on the ******* Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Hezbollah and *******.
The resolution includes the removal of Hezbollah’s fighters and weapons in areas between the Blue Line – the unofficial frontier between Lebanon and ******* – and the Litani river, about 30km (20 miles) from the boundary with *******.
******* says that was never fully respected, while Lebanon says ******* has violated the resolution by carrying out military flights over the country.
A potential deal would likely establish a timeline for the withdrawal of ******** forces from the south of Lebanon and include the deployment there of thousands of additional troops of the Lebanese army.
But questions remain about how the Lebanese troops would operate against Hezbollah, which is heavily armed and backed by Iran, amid fears this could exacerbate sectarian tensions.
*******’s stated goal in its war against Hezbollah is to allow the return of about 60,000 residents who have been displaced from communities in the country’s north because of the group’s attacks.
In Lebanon, the conflict has ******* more than 3,500 people, forced more than one million from their homes, Lebanese authorities say. It has also caused an estimated $8.5bn (£6.7bn) in economic damages and losses, according to the World Bank.
Reuters
Rockets fired by Hezbollah damaged an apartment block in the northern ******** town of Kiryat Shmona on Wednesday
Speaking in a pre-recorded televised speech, Hezbollah’s Secretary General Naim Qassem said the group had received the US proposal, clarified its reservations, and that it was allowing the talks to go ahead to see if they produced any results.
Qassem, whose speech was broadcast shortly after Hochstein made his comments, said the conditions for a deal were a complete cessation of hostilities and the preservation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, and that Hezbollah was ready for a ******.
******** air strikes have destroyed large parts of Hezbollah’s infrastructure and ******* many of its leaders, including long-time chief Hassan Nasrallah.
But after the initial shock, the group has reorganised itself. It continues to carry out daily attacks on *******, although not with the same intensity, and confront invading ******** soldiers in Lebanon’s south.
Amid the negotiations, ******* has stepped up its air campaign across Lebanon but, after three consecutive days of strikes on Beirut, there were no attacks on the capital during Hochstein’s visit.
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Game Pass Has These 10 The Game Awards-Nominated Titles To Play Right Now
Game Pass Has These 10 The Game Awards-Nominated Titles To Play Right Now
Korea Game Awards 2024 ended just a few days ago, on November 13. During the event, various games were competing for prizes in this prestigious event, hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and organized by the Korea Game Industry Association.
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Rust premieres at Polish film festival three years after *********
Rust premieres at Polish film festival three years after *********
BBC
The film premiered on Wednesday in Torun, central Poland
The western Rust has premiered in Poland, three years after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was accidentally shot and ******* on set in New Mexico.
Organisers of Poland’s Camerimage International Film Festival said the screening was a tribute to the 42-year-old Ukrainian-born cinematographer, who was a fan of the event and had attended in the past.
The movie’s star Alec Baldwin was not invited and did not attend the premiere.
Writer and director Joel Souza, who was wounded in the *********, told the BBC at the premiere that at one point he “couldn’t even conceive of ever being back on the set ever again, it just hurt too much”.
He said he changed his mind and decided to complete the film after speaking to Hutchins’ husband, Matt.
But the announcement that Camerimage in the northern Polish city of Torun was going to give the movie its international debut has been criticised by some prominent cinematographers in Hollywood for being disrespectful to Hutchins’ memory.
Hutchins’ mother, Olga Solovey, who is suing the production and Alec Baldwin in a civil action, didn’t attend either.
In a statement issued by her lawyer she said she regards the premiere as an attempt to profit from her daughter’s ******.
“Alec Baldwin continues to increase my pain with his refusal to apologise to me and his refusal to take responsibility for her ******,” she said.
People ****** for the screening, which wasn’t completely full
In October 2021, Mr Baldwin was rehearsing a scene on set with a ****, which was supposed to be loaded with ****** rounds, when the ******* fired live round, ******** Hutchins and wounding the movie’s writer and director Joel Souza.
How a live bullet got into the **** ******** a mystery.
In July, a judge dismissed an involuntary manslaughter case against Baldwin after police and prosecutors withheld evidence from the defence.
In February, the armourer on the film set, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and is serving an 18-month prison sentence. She has appealed against the verdict.
Set in 1882 in Wyoming, Rust tells the story of a 13-year-old boy who is sentenced to be hanged after he accidentally ****** a rancher. He goes on the run with his grandfather, Baldwin’s Harlan Rust.
Getty Images
Halyna Hutchins pictured at a filmmakers event in 2019
Souza, who attended the premiere with Cline who replaced Hutchins as the film’s cinematographer, refused several requests to complete the film after the tragic *********, saying he “couldn’t even conceive of ever being back on the set ever again because it just hurt too much”.
He said Hutchins’ husband, Matt, convinced him to complete the film, which is dedicated to her.
“At first I didn’t really know if I wanted to do this to be honest, but as I found out that this is what Matt wanted, this is what the family wanted, it started to change the equation for me,” he told the BBC.
“It was going to be more about honouring her legacy and her memory, saying that her final work was completed and that began to change my mind on things,” he added.
Both he and Cline acknowledged that many in the industry were uncomfortable with his decision.
“Everybody’s ******, we’re ****** as well. It’s something tragic and it’s hard to deal with. Some people think it’s better to deal with that through not participating and other people think it’s honourable like we do. I don’t think there’s any right or wrong answer to this,” Cline told the BBC.
Cinematographer Bianca Cline with the film’s writer and director Joel Souza, centre
Before the screening, Rachel Mason, a close friend of Hutchins who filmed a documentary about the making of Rust, recalled how difficult it was to complete the movie with all the controversy surrounding it.
She said some crew members told her not to film them on the closed set, in case, she said, it was discovered they had worked on Rust “and I might never get a job again”.
Crew came back to finish the filming after they realised it might help Hutchins’ family.
“She had this amazing gift of becoming friends very, very fast with people. And they all fell in love with her,” she said.
Ms Mason also recounted a conversation with Hutchins’ mother 18 months ago during which she told her she wanted the film to be completed because it was her daughter’s “big work”.
Rust depicts the manhunt for grandfather and grandson amidst a backdrop of snow-capped mountains and tumbleweed dirt towns.
It knowingly acknowledges classic westerns including John Ford’s ‘The Searchers’ and Sergio Leone’s ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’.
Souza was very close to his own grandfather, who, he said, loved westerns.
Several people I spoke to after the screening enjoyed the movie with Jan, a film colourist from Warsaw calling it “a classic western”.
Leonora, a cinematographer from Belarus said it was brilliant and she had cried all the way through Ms Mason’s speech.
EPA
Halyna Hutchins’ friend Rachel Manson also spoke to the audience
One viewer noted the many gunfight scenes involving Alec Baldwin could be distracting.
“All the time as I was thinking about it, especially during the gunfight scenes, it was hard not to get pulled back out of the movie, especially when Alec Baldwin’s holding a ****, but most of the time it was just a really, really enjoyable experience,” Maciej from Torun said.
In a statement, Melina Spadone, representative for Rust Movie Productions, defended the festival against some of the criticism.
“The Camerimage festival celebrates the artistry of cinematographers; it is not a festival for buyers.
“None of the producers of Rust stand to benefit financially from the film. The suggestion that those involved in completing Halyna Hutchins’ film were motivated by profit is disrespectful to those who worked tirelessly to honor her legacy.”
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Warframe: 1999 gets a prequel comic to prep you for the major expansion
Warframe: 1999 gets a prequel comic to prep you for the major expansion
Warframe: 1999 is getting a new prequel comic ahead of launch
Learn more about the six protoframes and their relation to rogue scientist Albrecht Entrati
Grab a free poster to decorate your landing pad and more!
You may remember a few weeks ago that I wrote up a lot about the Sea of Conquest comic that was being produced by Studio Ellipsis. As I observed then, it seemed an interesting project to support a piece of new media with something more traditional. And it seems I didn’t have to wait long to see another studio take the same tack, as the upcoming expansion Warframe: 1999 has also received a prequel comic!
Available directly from the Warframe website, the comic will cover the origins of the six Protoframes forming the Hex Syndicate that serve as protagonists of the expansion. You’ll find out more about the lives of these six misfits and the experiments they suffered at the hands of rogue scientist Albrecht Entrati, and how things connect to the wider Warframe universe, all gorgeously rendered by Warframe fan artist Karu.
But that’s not all! Aside from this 33-page prequel comic, you can also grab the cover as a decoration for your landing pad. Free printable 3D miniatures of all the Protoframes are also being made available for players to build and paint.
Frame job
Warframe: 1999, despite being technically an expansion, does seem to be a real next step in the development of Warframe. I think it’s also quite admirable to see the team at Digital Extremes bring on a fan artist like Karu who’s contributed to the vibrancy of Warframe’s fandom with their work and provided an outlet for their art to be shown to a wider audience.
If you’re curious to learn more about Warframe: 1999 and the work that’s gone into it, why not check out our interview with some of the voice actors? We spoke with Ben Starr, Alpha Takahashi and Nick Apostolides to discuss their roles in Warframe: 1999 and what you can expect from the full expansion!
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Extreme heat is now making cities unlivable. How can we survive it?
Extreme heat is now making cities unlivable. How can we survive it?
Humidity makes Shanghai’s heat more unbearable
lukyeee1976/Getty Images
“My office felt like a steamer on Monday morning,” wrote ******** influencer *** Dao in a social media post in August. He fetched a drink from a supposed cold-water dispenser – it was 40.8°C (105°F). ***, who lives in Hangzhou, a regional capital on China’s east coast, decided to roam the city with a temperature ****, pointing it at things to find out exactly how hot they had got. “The ground was 72.6°C, the seat of a sharing bike was 56.5°C, the handrail in the metro station was 45°C, even the tree bark was 38.7°C,” he wrote. He ended his post by thanking Willis Carrier for inventing the air conditioner.
Hangzhou is known for its beautiful lake, large pagoda and rolling green tea farms – not for heat. But what *** witnessed was only one of the 60 “high-temperature days” – ones that topped 35°C (95°F) – that grilled the city and its 12.5 million inhabitants this year. Hangzhou isn’t alone. Many cities worldwide are feeling the heat. Things are getting so bad that growing numbers of people face temperatures that are beyond human endurance.
Already, such conditions ***** around half a million each year. That will inevitably rise as climate change increases the number and intensity of heatwaves around the globe. Cities are on the front line of this unfolding crisis. And China’s vast, densely packed megacities are leading the way. As well as providing a glimpse of what we are in…
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Trans Athlete Battle at San Jose State Escalates National Debate: Here’s What Trump Promised to Do
Trans Athlete Battle at San Jose State Escalates National Debate: Here’s What Trump Promised to Do
The women’s volleyball team at San Jose State University is putting a spotlight on transgender athletes in an unexpected way. The school suspended its assistant coach for joining a federal lawsuit against the NCAA. The suit focuses on a reported trans athlete who plays for the coach.
Associate Head Coach Melissa Batie-Smoose, of the San Jose State Spartans women’s volleyball team, is under indefinite suspension after filing a Title IX complaint against the school. She says that player Blaire Fleming is transgender and should not be allowed to play.
“Safety is being taken away from women, fair play is being taken away from women, we need more and more people to do this and ****** this ****** because women’s sports as we know it right now will be forever changed,” said Smoose to Fox News.
In a statement, the university said, “The associate head coach of the San Jose State University women’s volleyball team is not with the team at this time, and we will not provide further information on this matter.” San Jose State has not responded about whether there is a trans athlete on the roster although several schools have forfeited games refusing to play against the Spartans.
Spartans’ co-captain Brooke Slusser and other team members are suing their head coach, the school, and their Mountain West Conference for allowing a transgender athlete on the team. Slusser also joined a lawsuit against the NCAA spear-headed by activist Riley Gaines.
“It’s amazing that other teams in the conference can just stand up and just say, no, we are not doing this, and yet our school is still okay with having one person on our team that is causing all of these issues and yet will not get rid of them,” Slusser told Fox.
She says the overall situation has left her feeling unsafe and there have been multiple threats on her life.
“Well, it’s retaliation – that’s the message that’s being sent loud and clear, do not oppose us, do not even dare to question our motives or else we will get rid of you,” said women’s sports activist Riley Gaines to Fox News.
President-elect Donald Trump said this issue will be solved immediately when he returns to the Oval Office. No men in women’s sports.
“You just ban it, the president bans it, and you just don’t let it happen,” Trump told Fox News Host Harris Faulkner during a pre-election town hall meeting.
That would likely happen in the form of an executive order according to The Heritage Foundation’s Sarah Parshall Perry.
“That effectively undoes the initial executive order from the Biden-Harris administration, which told all of the cabinet secretaries to take all of their federal laws on **** discrimination and expand them to include gender identity discrimination. From that point, a host of ills was birthed, so now the President-elect is going to have a lot of work to do, but the first thing he can do is issue an executive order, making sure that **** means male and female,” Perry said.
And she adds that it would allow Title IX to revert back to its original intent. “It leveled the playing field by the feminists 52 years ago. Unfortunately, it has been turned on its head,” Perry said.
Former NFL reporter Michele Tafoya told Fox News, “This is insane, not only has it taken spots away from women on teams and awards away from women on teams, it has asked normal people to deny the truth that men and women are different. It is forcing people to shut up and not say what is true.”
Meanwhile, athletes from several other universities have filed Title IX lawsuits for forcing schools to compete against transgender players. A case is also now before the Supreme Court and Perry says this will not be over until there’s a ruling that “****” in federal law means male and female. The High Court could make a decision as early as next spring.
***Please sign up for CBN Newsletters and download the CBN News app to ensure you keep receiving the latest news from a distinctly ********** perspective.***
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NYT Strands today: hints, spangram and answers for Wednesday, November 20
NYT Strands today: hints, spangram and answers for Wednesday, November 20
Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.
Like Wordle, Connections, and the Mini Crossword, Strands can be a bit difficult to solve some days. There’s no shame in needing a little help from time to time. If you’re stuck and need to know the answers to today’s Strands puzzle, check out the solved puzzle below.
How to play Strands
You start every Strands puzzle with the goal of finding the “theme words” hidden in the grid of letters. Manipulate letters by dragging or tapping to craft words; double-tap the final letter to confirm. If you find the correct word, the letters will be highlighted blue and will no longer be selectable.
If you find a word that isn’t a theme word, it still helps! For every three non-theme words you find that are at least four letters long, you’ll get a hint — the letters of one of the theme words will be revealed and you’ll just have to unscramble it.
Every single letter on the grid is used to spell out the theme words and there is no overlap. Every letter will be used once, and only once.
Each puzzle contains one “spangram,” a special theme word (or words) that describe the puzzle’s theme and touches two opposite sides of the board. When you find the spangram, it will be highlighted yellow.
The goal should be to complete the puzzle quickly without using too many hints.
Hint for today’s Strands puzzle
Today’s theme is “For our furry friends”
Here’s a hint that might help you: things for pets.
Today’s Strand answers
NYT
Today’s spanagram
We’ll start by giving you the spangram, which might help you figure out the theme and solve the rest of the puzzle on your own:
Today’s Strands answers
BALL
BONE
LASER
CATNIP
LITTER
COLLAR
KIBBLE
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Google DeepMind AI can expertly fix errors in quantum computers
Google DeepMind AI can expertly fix errors in quantum computers
Quantum bits, or qubits, can be thought of as representing data on a sphere
Google DeepMind
Google DeepMind has developed an AI model that could improve the performance of quantum computers by correcting errors more effectively than any existing method, bringing these devices a step closer to broader use.
Quantum computers perform calculations on quantum bits, or qubits, which are units of information that can store multiple values at the same time, unlike classical bits, which can hold either a 0 or 1. These qubits, however, are fragile and prone to mistakes when ********** by factors like environmental heat or…
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Business spending on AI surged 500% this year to $13.8 billion, says Menlo Ventures
Business spending on AI surged 500% this year to $13.8 billion, says Menlo Ventures
Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Business spending on generative AI surged 500% this year, from $2.3 billion in 2023 to $13.8 billion, according to data released by Menlo Ventures on Wednesday.
The report also found that OpenAI ceded market share in enterprise AI, declining from 50% to 34%. Anthropic doubled its market share from 12% to 24%. The results came from a survey of 600 enterprise IT decision-makers from companies with 50 or more employees, per the report.
Menlo is an investor in Anthropic. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tim Tully, a partner at Menlo Ventures, told CNBC in an interview that the power shift is thanks in part to the advancement of Claude 3.5 and because the majority of companies are using three or more large AI models. Although OpenAI and Anthropic dominated companies’ AI model use, he said, people are “juggling models” and that habit is “not a well-understood piece of data.”
“Developers are pretty savvy — they know how to go back and forth between models fairly quickly,” Tully explained. “They’re choosing the model that fits their use case best… and that’s likely Claude 3.5.”
Meta‘s market share stayed at 16% and Cohere’s share remained at 3%. Google’s rose from 7% to 12%, and Mistral’s lost one percentage point, declining to 5% in 2024.
Foundation models — such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude and others — still dominated enterprise spend, the report found, with large language models receiving $6.5 billion in enterprise investment.
Menlo’s report was bullish on AI agents, a leading AI trend and area of investment in 2024. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, OpenAI and Anthropic are pursuing the technology. AI agents are viewed as a step beyond chatbots. They can perform multistep, complex tasks on a user’s behalf, and generate their own to-do lists, so that users don’t have to walk them through the process step-by-step.
“The agent stuff is real — it’s not hype,” Tully told CNBC. “I don’t think it’s going to cure *******, necessarily, but is it going to make people more productive and help companies generate revenue? Yes.”
The report found code generation is the leading use case for generative AI, with more than half of survey responses naming that as a dominant use. Support chatbots came next, at 31%, followed by enterprise search and retrieval, data extraction and transformation, and meeting summarization.
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******* officials demand right to strike Hezbollah in any Lebanon ceasefire deal – National
******* officials demand right to strike Hezbollah in any Lebanon ceasefire deal – National
******** officials demanded Wednesday the freedom to strike Lebanon’s Hezbollah as part of any cease-***** deal, raising a potential complication as a top U.S. envoy was in the region attempting to clinch an agreement.
The development came as an airstrike hit the historic Syrian town of Palmyra, ******** 36 people, according to Syrian state-run media, which blamed the ******* on *******. The ******** military declined to comment.
******** Defense Minister ******* Katz and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar each said ******* sought to reserve the right to respond to any violations by Hezbollah under an emerging proposal, which would push the militant group’s fighters and ******** ground forces out of a U.N. buffer zone in southern Lebanon.
There have been signs of progress on the cease-***** deal, with Hezbollah’s allies in the Lebanese government saying the militant group had responded positively to the proposal.
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“In any agreement we will reach, we will have to maintain our freedom to act if there will be violations,” Saar told dozens of foreign ambassadors in Jerusalem. “We will have to be able to act in time, before the problem will grow.”
Katz, in a meeting with intelligence corps officers, said “the condition for any political settlement in Lebanon” was the right for the ******** military “to act and protect the citizens of ******* from Hezbollah.”
Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s point man on ******* and Lebanon, has been working in recent days to push the sides toward agreement. He has been meeting this week with officials in Lebanon and said Wednesday he would travel to ******* in an attempt to “try to bring this to a close if we can.”
0:19
Katz says ******* has ‘defeated’ Hezbollah, ******** of Nasrallah was ‘crowning achievement’
On Tuesday, Hochstein said an agreement to end the *******-Hezbollah conflict is “within our grasp.”
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The emerging cease-***** deal would push Hezbollah and ******* out of southern Lebanon
Hezbollah began ******* into ******* on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with ****** after its ******* on southern ******* that sparked the conflict in the Gaza Strip. ******* has been responding with strikes in Lebanon, and dramatically escalated its bombardment in late September by launching a ground invasion just inside the border.
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In the more than a year of exchanges, more than 3,500 people have been ******* in Lebanon, most in the past month, the Health Ministry reported, and over 1 million people have been displaced. It’s unknown how many of the ***** were Hezbollah fighters.
In *******, more than 70 people have been ******* by Hezbollah *****, and tens of thousands have fled their homes.
2:02
Hezbollah chief says indirect truce talks possible only if ******* stops attacks on Lebanon
Hochstein’s proposal is based on U.N. resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Hezbollah and *******. The resolution stipulates that only the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers should operate in southern Lebanon.
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Still, after 2006, Hezbollah never fully ended its presence in the south. Lebanon accuses ******* of also violating the resolution by maintaining hold of a small, disputed border area and conducting frequent military flights over Lebanon.
******* says that since then, Hezbollah build up a military infrastructure throughout villages and towns in southern Lebanon.
The proposal currently being discussed would include an implementation plan and a monitoring system to ensure each side follows its obligations to fully withdraw from the south. That could involve the U.S. and France, but details are still unclear.
There’s been progress, but the deal isn’t done yet
The ******** ministers did not outline what *******’s demand to maintain freedom of operation would entail. Since the 2006 war, ******* has struck Hezbollah on the few occasions when border ********* did flare up, but any larger scale response could push the region back into turmoil.
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It is also unlikely that Lebanon would agree to a deal that permits ******** violations of its sovereignty.
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And although the proposal attempts to nail down an implementation mechanism, the ******** to fully implement the U.N. resolution after the 2006 war could point to the difficulties in getting the sides to uphold a sustainable cease-***** that would bring long-term quiet.
******* has continued to pound Hezbollah throughout the cease-***** attempts, and rockets have continued to rain down on northern *******. Any perceived escalation could derail the talks.
The conflict in Gaza would grind on even if ******* and Hezbollah cease *****
Even if a cease-***** between ******* and Hezbollah is reached, the conflict in Gaza grinds on into its 14th month.
******* is still battling ****** there, sending the ****** toll soaring to nearly 44,000 ***** — over half of them women and children, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants in their count.
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While Hezbollah throughout the conflict in Gaza said it wouldn’t stop ******* at ******* until the fighting in the ************ territory ends, that condition was dropped in September after ******* intensified its offensive on the militant group, ******** its top leadership and degrading its military capabilities.
That leaves Gaza waiting for a cease-***** of its own, as people there continue to endure a humanitarian crisis that has displaced much of the territory’s 2.3 million people and prompted widespread hunger, especially in the north, where the U.N. says virtually no food or humanitarian aid has been delivered to for more than 40 days because of the ******** military’s siege there.
1:57
New ******** airstrikes pound southern Beirut
International mediation efforts have stalled repeatedly over disagreement between ******* and ****** over whether the conflict should end as part of a cease-***** deal, with ******* insisting it wants to maintain troop presence in certain areas.
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****** ignited the conflict in Gaza when its fighters stormed into ******* on Oct. 7, 2023, ******** some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of them believed to be *****.
Other tumultuous areas of the Middle East won’t likely be affected by a Hezbollah-******* cease-*****, including Syria.
******* frequently targets military sites and facilities associated with Iran-linked groups in Syria but rarely acknowledges the strikes. The ****** toll from Wednesday’s strike in Palmyra was unusually high.
The Syrian news agency SANA said that along wit the 36 *******, the strike on Palmyra also wounded more than 50 people and caused “significant material damage to the targeted buildings” and the surrounding area. Palmyra is known for the historic Roman temple complex nearby, but it was not immediately clear if the ruins were damaged.
The temple complex already suffered significant damage years ago from the Islamic State group in its rampage across Syria.
—Chehayeb reported from Beirut.
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