‘Animal Well’ Demonstrates What Gaming Stands to Lose Amid Indie Studio Closures - Technology news - NewsLocker (2024)

Shared Memory’s pixelated game Animal Well relies on players joining online communities to solve its puzzles. It’s also an indie gem that’s becoming all too rare as studios close.

Spotify is increasing US prices again

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge A year after Spotify first increased the price of Spotify Premium in the US, it’s happening again. Next month subscribers to Spotify in the US will start receiving an email detailing the price increases to Premium, Duo, and Family plans. Spotify Premium will now cost $11.99 a month, up from the $10.99 increase announced last year.
If you’re a subscriber to Spotify Duo then it’s jumping $2 a month, from $14.99 to $16.99 a month. Family wi

How Donald Trump Could Weaponize US Surveillance in a Second Term

Donald Trump has vowed to go after political enemies, undocumented immigrants, and others if he wins. Experts warn he could easily turn the surveillance state against his targets.

Apple’s ‘I’m a Mac’ guy returns to promote Windows on Arm PCs

Image: Qualcomm Apple’s former “I’m a Mac” actor Justin Long defected to Intel a few years ago, and now he’s looking to switch to a Qualcomm-powered Windows PC. During Qualcomm’s Computex 2024 keynote today, Long appeared in a brief 30-second skit where he was bombarded by macOS notifications and nag screens causing him to start searching for a Snapdragon-powered PC instead.
Justin Long used to star in Apple’s “Get a Mac” TV commercials nearl

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Adobe scolded for selling ‘Ansel Adams-style’ images generated by AI

World-famous photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams (pictured, 1983) is best known for his black-and-white landscape photographs. | Photo by Barbara Alper/Getty Images Adobe found itself in hot water this weekend after the Ansel Adams estate publicly scolded the company for selling generative AI imitations of the late photographer’s work. On Friday, Adams’ estate posted a screenshot to Threads showing AI-generated images available on Adobe Stock that were labeled as “Ans

Adobe scolded for hosting ‘Ansel Adams-style’ images generated by AI

World-famous photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams (pictured, 1983) is best known for his black-and-white landscape photographs. | Photo by Barbara Alper/Getty Images Adobe found itself in hot water this weekend after the Ansel Adams estate publicly scolded the company for selling generative AI imitations of the late photographer’s work. On Friday, Adams’ estate posted a screenshot to Threads showing AI-generated images available on Adobe Stock that were labeled as “Ans

AMD’s next generation of AI laptop processors have a new name too

Image: AMD AMD announced at Computex 2024 its next generation of Ryzen laptop processors for generative AI workloads: the Ryzen AI 300 Series. It’s a re-brand of its top-tier Ryzen 9 chips. The new naming convention still includes the HX suffix AMD introduced in 2022, but it doesn’t indicate how many watts of power the chip draws. Instead, HX will simply refer to “top of stack” or the best and fastest Ryzen AI 300 chip.
The new Ryzen AI chips are built on AMD’s late

AMD’s first Zen 5 CPU is the ‘monster’ Ryzen 9 9950X

Image: AMD AMD is launching its first Zen 5 desktop processors in July, with the Ryzen 9 9950X flagship leading the pack as “the world’s most powerful desktop consumer processor.” Based on AMD’s existing AM5 platform, the new Ryzen 9000 series of CPUs include the Ryzen 9 9950X, Ryzen 9 9900X, Ryzen 7 9700X, and Ryzen 5 9600X.
The flagship Ryzen 9 9950X is a 16-core, 32-thread CPU, with 80MB of L2+L3 cache and a 5.7GHz boost clock. AMD is promising around a 16 percent inst

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Here is what’s happening at Computex 2024

Getty More chips, more AI. Continue reading…

PewDiePie ‘avenged’ as MrBeast becomes YouTube’s most-subscribed channel

MrBeast is now the most-subscribed YouTube channel. | Photo: Chris Unger / Zuffa LLC via Getty Images Bollywood music label T-Series had the most-subscribed YouTube channel for years after Felix Kjellberg, aka PewDiePie, conceded his protracted and problematic fight for the top spot to it. But now that honor belongs to YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, who posted yesterday that his MrBeast YouTube operation had ‘avenged’ PewDiePie by overtaking T-Series.
The news apparently prompted a rush,

Billionaire who booked a SpaceX flight around the Moon cancels after delays

Maezawa in 2022. | Photo: Yoshikazu Tsuno / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa had once planned to take eight artists on a flight around the Moon aboard SpaceX’s Starship. But now, with Starship still in development the flight already indefinitely delayed, Maezawa says he has canceled the trip.
The X account for the flight, called dearMoon, announced the news on Friday, followed by posts from the billionaire himself. In those, he said he had signed on in 2018

Hyundai’s first US-built EV will be the tax credit-ready Ioniq 5

Image: Hyundai The Hyundai Ioniq 5 will reportedly be the first car rolling out of the company’s new Georgia factory this fall. Moreover, company CEO Jose Muñoz tells Automotive News he expects the US-made version will net buyers the full $7,500 federal EV tax credit, which the South Korea-made vehicle isn’t otherwise eligible for (outside of a leasing loophole).
Hyundai will start producing the Ioniq 5 at the Georgia plant in October, but the company won’t be making bat

Apple’s non-AI WWDC plans include Settings and Control Center revamps

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge It sounds like Apple’s WWDC plans go beyond sprinkling AI fairy dust on everything (though that’s going to be a big part of it, too). Besides Siri gaining new AI-powered app control, the company also plans to overhaul things like the Settings apps for iOS and macOS, Control Center, Messages, Mail, and more.
A new, “cleaner” Settings app UI will mean better organization and improved search, Mark Gurman writes in his Power On Newslet

16 Best Festival Accessories and Gear (2024): Fanny Packs, Inflatable Couches, and More

No matter the genre or location, these gadgets will upgrade your experience.

Dyson Supersonic Nural Hair Dryer Review: Fast Drying and New Smart Attachments

It’s not just hot air. Dyson’s new dryer has impressive smart features and attachments, in addition to the high price tag.

Nubia Flip 5G Review: Cute, Cheap, and Flawed

Compact, cute, and fairly cheap, Nubia’s Flip 5G could be your first foldable, but the software lets it down.

Nvidia’s small GPU initiative will keep graphics cards large — but I’m glad it exists

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Nvidia just gave the PC gaming industry a reason to shrink its biggest graphics cards and produce smallish cases. It’s not what I expected, but I think it might actually help. Read before you judge, friends — I was definitely ready to call out some Nvidia BS, but I’ve mostly come around.
When leakers revealed last month that Nvidia would help steer its graphics card partners toward smaller gaming PCs, I began to daydream. Might we finally see a g

Nvidia’s G-Assist is an AI chatbot that guides you through games and optimizes your PC

G-Assist is a real tech demo from Nvidia. | Image: Nvidia When Nvidia first announced G-Assist it was an April Fools’ prank in 2017 that joked about an AI assistant being able to help you play a game while you ran to the door for your pizza delivery. Now, seven years later, G-Assist is back as a real demo of a powerful GeForce AI assistant that Nvidia might eventually bring to life for game developers and RTX GPU owners.
Project G-Assist is only a tech demonstration right now, but it&rsquo

Nvidia unveils inference microservices that can deploy AI applications in minutes

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, gave a keynote at the Computex trade show in Taiwan about transforming AI models with Nvidia NIM.Read More

Nvidia unveils GeForce RTX enhancements for AI PC digital assistants

Nvidia unveiled new RTX technology to power AI assistants and digital humans running on new GeForce RTX AI laptops.Read More

Nvidia recruits Taiwan’s electronics makers to its digital twin strategy

Taiwanese electronics makers are using Nvidia's industrial digitalization, or digital twin, technology to transform their factories into more autonomous facilities.Read More

Nvidia and AMD are bringing Microsoft’s Copilot Plus AI features to gaming laptops

Nvidia leans into RTX AI PCs. | Image: Nvidia Nvidia and AMD are gearing up to launch gaming laptops that include the AI Copilot Plus features that Microsoft just announced for Qualcomm-powered laptops. At Computex today, Nvidia briefly teased that “RTX AI PC” laptops are on the way from Asus and MSI that will eventually include Copilot Plus PC features.
“Newly announced RTX AI PC laptops from ASUS and MSI feature up to GeForce RTX 4070 GPUs and power-efficient systems-on-a-chi

Computer makers unveil Nvidia Blackwell systems for AI rollouts

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced at Computex that the world’s top computer manufacturers today are unveiling Nvidia Blackwell architecture-powered systems featuring Grace CPUs, Nvidia networking and infrastructure for enterprises to build AI factories and data centers. Nvidia Blackwell graphics processing units (GPUs), which have 25 times better e…Read More

A better way to take video on your phone

Image: David Pierce / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 40, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, send me all your recommendations immediately, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)This week, I’ve been reading about Shein and Reese Witherspoon and Hollywood Ponzi schemes, journaling in Papery, testing Lazy for all my link dumps and notes, drinking a lot of Poppi soda, developing a mac and

6 Best Linen Sheets (2024): Breathable, Soft, Affordable

Linen might not be your first choice for bed sheets, but give it a try, especially in the warmer months. Here’s the linen we love sleeping on.

The Hunt for Ultralight Dark Matter

Perhaps dark matter is made of an entirely different kind of particle than the ones physicists have been searching for. New experiments are springing up to look for these ultra-lightweight phantoms.

The Asus ROG Ally X is official — and I took a peek inside

$799 for twice the battery, twice the storage, and loads of small improvements.Continue reading…

Lego debuts its first Minecraft set for adults

Minecraft is 15 years old, so it’s only natural that Lego should honor the anniversary with a set just for the game’s many adult fans. The company has started taking preorders for The Crafting Table, a 1,195-piece 18-and-up build, as Jay’s Brick Blog writes. The set will cost $89.99 in the US when it’s released on August 1st.
Lego says the set will include “familiar biomes, favorite mobs and hidden Easter eggs.” As the name suggests, the kit looks like an in-

Netflix says Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft arrives October 10

Netflix and Crystal Dynamics revealed the October 10 premiere date for the upcoming anime series Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft.Read More

How to watch NASA and Boeing’s first Starliner launch

Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty Images Boeing, NASA, and the United Launch Alliance (ULA) are now targeting a June 2nd, 12:03PM ET crewed launch for Boeing’s Starliner capsule after scrubbing it just minutes before liftoff on June 1st. If the Sunday launch happens, it will be the first time Starliner, which has faced multiple delays, will have flown with human beings on board.NASA says the ULA is currently investigating why a computer, called a ground launch sequencer, didn’t enter “