Gaming in San Francisco. Reviews, Walkthroughs, News

Samsung Electronics Co. has delayed mass production plans at its new chip plant in Taylor, Texas, the Seoul Economic Daily said, potentially dealing another blow to the Biden administration's ambition to increase domestic semiconductor supplies. te

Today is Christmas and, as expected, most businesses and governments have shut down for the day and people are enjoying a holiday. Yet artificial intelligence developments have found a way to emerge even today. In a shocking development, the parent company of Paytm, One97 Communication, has fired more than 1000 employees. The underlying reason behind the Paytm layoff is reported to be the AI advancement of the company that has caused a few positions to be surplus to requirements. This and more in today's AI roundup. Let us take a closer look.

We lost Twitter and got X. We tried out Bluesky and Mastodon (well, some of us did). We fretted about AI bots and teen mental health. We cocooned in private chats and scrolled endlessly as we did in years past. For social media users, 2023 was a year of beginnings and endings, with some soul-searching in between.

In a year marked by groundbreaking advancements, 2023 has proven to be a pivotal moment for Artificial Intelligence (AI), reshaping industries and capturing public attention. While ChatGPT laid its foundations in late 2022, it was in 2023 that generative AI truly seized the spotlight with all the tech majors looking to muscle in and dominate the segment with their new tools. Amidst the highs and lows, the AI landscape witnessed transformative events, from competitive launches to unexpected scandals. As we bid farewell to this remarkable year, let's revisit the five defining moments that shaped the AI narrative in 2023.

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Miklos Daniel Brody, a cloud engineer formerly employed at a bank, has been sentenced to two years in prison for «a network intrusion and for making false statements to a government agency» following a secret service investigation. Seemingly angered by his employer taking disciplinary action against him, Brody kept his work laptop under false pretences after being fired, and used his network access to damage his former employer's internal IT systems.

Thirsty Suitors started out as a concept surrounding a playable card game, its director has revealed.

The latest rumors for seem to suggest that and will be appearing in the film and fans are curious if there’s any truth to the rumors. Here is all you need to know.

The trailer is packed with plenty of small details, but there's one thing in particular that helps explain the series as a whole. as a franchise has always been somewhat unlike anything else out there, despite the slew of imitators that it's inspired. With a long history of pushing the boundaries of open-world gameplay and public outcry alike, developer Rockstar Games knows how to spin a series that has no trouble attracting attention at every turn.

Epic Games came out victorious in the monumental legal battle against Google over the company's monopoly over the Android app marketplace and alleged the company used off-handed tactics to keep its control over the space thereby denying a fair chance for others to participate in the business on an equal footing. The San Francisco jury on Monday, December 11 unanimously delivered the decision in the Google antitrust case, deciding Google's tie between the Google Play app store and its Google Play Billing payment services was illegal, and Project Hug deals with game developers and OEMs, which dictated the distribution agreement were all noncompetitive. Now, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has given an interview explaining the details of the lawsuit and the main reason why the company lost against Apple but managed to win against Google.

Sony Pictures Virtual Reality and nDreams announced the post-launch roadmap for on Tuesday, including what to expect in the coming months.

Given that there's only about two weeks of 2023 left, it probably shouldn't be a surprise that Read Only Memories: Neurodiver has been pushed back into 2024, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little sad about it. The original Read Only Memories—which somehow turns nine years old next year, god help us—was an excellent cyberpunk visual novel I still think about from time to time

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Google's legal defeat at the hands of Fortnite maker Epic Games Inc. threatens to roil an app store duopoly with Apple Inc. that generates close to $200 billion a year and dictates how billions of consumers use mobile devices. 

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Alphabet's Google on Monday will try to persuade a federal jury in San Francisco to reject antitrust claims by "Fortnite" maker Epic Games in a case that threatens Google's app store and transaction fees imposed on Android app developers.

Doctor Who’s final anniversary special, 'The Giggle', introduced the concept of 'bi-generation', and it’s thrown the whole Whoniverse into chaos. Now, we’re going to get into spoiler specifics below, so make sure you’re up to date on all things Who before going any further.

A federal court jury is poised begin its deliberations in an antitrust trial focused on whether Google's efforts to profit from its app store for Android smartphones have been illegally gouging consumers and stifling innovation.

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Tekken director, Katsuhiro Harada, has revealed that he and producer Michael Murray discussed adding Donald Trump to Tekken 7 as DLC, and even thought up some fighting moves and Rage Arts for him.

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The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in the last few months has been astronomical. One of the primary applications of this technology has been in the creation of AI conversational chatbots, programs that mimic human interaction via text or voice. However, there is one more underrated application of AI - image generation. Using AI image generation tools, artists can create visually striking artworks in a short span of time. While there is a sea of AI image generators out there, one of the best among them is Midjourney. But what is it?

By Andrew Webster, an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.

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Hearst Newspapers has acquired puzzle games hub Puzzmo.

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Saltburn has shaped up as one of 2023’s most divisive love-it-or-hate-it movies. Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to her 2020 writer-director debut, Promising Young Woman, is radically different from that movie in look and tone, but her talent for pushing boundaries and demanding a response is still front and center, and Saltburn is the kind of button-pusher that generally either thrills people or makes them angry. Critics have responded both ways: “Superficially smart and deeply stupid,” Mick LaSalle grumps in the San Francisco Chronicle, while Entertainment Weekly’s Maureen Lee Lenker calls it “a triumph of the cinema of excess, in all its orgiastic, unapologetic glory.”

OpenAI is delaying the launch of an online store for people to interact with an array of chatbots customized by its users, citing the interruption caused by the ousting and reinstatement of Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman. 

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Ever since Alan Turing's “imitation game,” we've been acutely aware of the importance of measuring the capabilities of computers against our own miraculous brains. The British pioneer's method, outlined in 1950, is primitive today, but it sought to answer a persistent question: How will we tell when a machine has become as (or more) intelligent than a human being?

Unity has confirmed plans to cut 265 jobs or 3.8% of its global workforce as part of a company “reset”.

Unity are chopping 265 jobs - around 3.8% of their global workforce - and ending an agreement with digital effects company Wētā FX as part of a company "reset", following an awful year for the game engine provider. Unity also plan to close offices in 14 locations, including Singapore and Berlin, and cut costs at offices in San Francisco and Bellevue, Washington.

Spider-Man 2 voice actor Tony Todd has fuelled speculation that a Venom spin-off game or DLC featuring the character could be in the works by claiming that only 10 per cent of his voice lines were used in the final release.

Engine giant Unity is making more layoffs as part of a company "reset".

Tony Todd has revealed that a huge amount of the work he did for was cut from the final game. The horror icon appeared at Fan Expo San Francisco over the past weekend to talk about his role as Venom in the acclaimed superhero sequel and offered an insight into another storyline involving the symbiote and Miles Morales.

Unity is making further cuts to its workforce as it ends an agreement with Weta FX.

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launches during the 20th anniversary of the long-running franchise, and the 14th anniversary of Sledgehammer games. It offers a brand-new campaign that introduces sandbox-style gameplay in Open Combat Missions and a multiplayer suite that revitalizes classic maps from (2009); longtime franchise faithful can enjoy a return to locations like Rust, Estates, and Sub Base. also brings the ever-popular Zombies mode to the series for the first time.

Reddit Inc. is again holding talks with potential investors for an initial public offering for the social media company, according to people familiar with the matter, as hopefuls prepare for a long-awaited reopening of the market for new listings. The San Francisco-based firm, whose users helped fuel the meme-stock frenzy that made 2021 a banner year for equities, is weighing an IPO as soon as in the first quarter, the people said. Reddit was working with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. on the listing, Bloomberg News reported last year, and was considering a valuation of as much as $15 billion.

November of 2013 was a big one for games, with two major consoles launching opposite one another after years of discourse about the surely imminent demise of the console market.

Many processes go into making video games, and a byproduct of that is that not everything planned gets used in the final product. Many video game developers can tell you about cut levels, shelved ideas, and how they had to “rework things” to get a final product that they were really proud of. For Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, they were so dedicated to getting the sequel to their hit PS4 title ready that they didn’t talk about it for almost two years after its announcement. Thankfully, the game was a huge hit and is the best-selling game on PS5 in terms of its launch numbers.

Spider-Man 2 voice actor Tony Todd has reportedly said that 90% of the dialogue he recorded for Venom wasn’t included in the final game.

Mark Hamill has doubled down on his retirement from voicing the Joker – and it's for a personal, pretty heartbreaking reason.

A Marvel's Spider-Man 2 actor has claimed the game only used roughly 10% of Venom's recorded dialog.

Venom's voice actor, Tony Todd, has revealed that Spider-Man 2 was originally going to include scenes where Miles Morales was wearing a Symbiote suit, but that they got cut from the final game.

Venom being Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s main antagonist was among the bigger reasons the game generated as much excitement in the lead-up to its launch as it did, and with the game now more than a month old, it’s fair to say that the iconic villain lived up expectations. Interestingly, however, it seems only a fraction of the voice recording that voice actor Tony Todd did for Venom made it into the final game.

 Artificial intelligence is likely to transform our world in many ways, but one that hasn't received much attention is the technology's looming impact on real estate. As AI becomes an essential component of both business and daily life, the value of places where those who work on AI want to live will rise, provided these locales have reasonable infrastructure. At the same time, the value of lower-tier cities left out of the AI boom will diminish.

A few hours ago, publisher THQ Nordic shared a new gameplay trailer for South Park: Snow Day. A cooperative action game in development at Question (the California-based studio behind the Stranger Things-like game The Blackout Club), South Park: Snow Day will launch next year on PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X for a price of €29.99 / $29.99 / £24.99. The premise is very simple: a blizzard has landed in town, and school is canceled for the day, allowing for all sorts of mayhem to happen.

It's been quite a week for ChatGPT-maker OpenAI — and co-founder Sam Altman.

NetEase Inc. has announced that the Beta Test for its new game, Racing Master will begin November 11, 2023, at 9 PM Eastern time. This comes ahead of the game’s full release in 2024 for mobile devices and PC via emulators. Racing Master is a new mobile game built upon the physics engine produced by Code Masters and runs on Unreal Engine 4. Which combine to give a realistic game feel both as you drive on the go and at home.

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Asobo Studio - the Bordeaux-based developer behind the extremely different Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and A Plague Tale: Innocence - are working on something "new" and "major" with Plague Tale publisher Focus Entertainment, according to a release portfolio update sent to investors this week.

A London tribunal has ruled that a lawsuit filed last year accusing Sony of breaching competition law over store prices will continue, Reuters reports.

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A new Subnautica game is under development at San Francisco-based developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment for a planned release in the first half of 2025. The news comes from the recent Q3 2023 earnings report issued by KRAFTON, the company behind PUBG. As you might recall, KRAFTON acquired Unknown Worlds Entertainment in October 2021 for an undisclosed sum.

Healthy companies led by competent, commercially successful and globally beloved founders generally don't tend to fire them. And, as Sam Altman walked on stage in San Francisco on Nov. 6, all those things could have described his role at OpenAI.

After turning the AI market upside down by ousting Sam Altman from OpenAI, reports suggest that the board may actually do a U-turn and reinstate him. The company's position is under threat as of now. Reports are also surfacing that the company's board might resign. Amid the rumors of his return, Altman was seen visiting Opena AI's San Francisco headquarters for talks on November 19.

While President Biden was in San Francisco finalizing an agreement between the US and China to open a dialogue on artificial intelligence, among other issues, a who's who of AI and military leaders gathered nearly 800 miles away for a secretive event in the Utah mountains. Over the course of three days last week, more than 100 AI executives and insiders, venture capitalists and government officials listened to talks about the AI arms race between the US and China, and mulled the impact of Biden's sweeping executive order on the industry. They discussed how AI could be used by bad actors and considered the next possible tectonic shifts in the industry. 

OpenAI's biggest investors are pressing the company to reinstate Sam Altman as chief executive officer after the board's stunning decision to fire him on Friday, according to people with knowledge of the matter. 

 A federal judge reprimanded Alphabet Inc.'s chief legal officer over allegations that Google intentionally destroyed sensitive internal communications relevant to two ongoing antitrust lawsuits despite court orders to preserve evidence.

Godzilla and Kong spinoff show hits Apple TV Plus with a double dose of Russell and monsters galore. But does it have a stronger bite than its big-screen brothers?

With another new weekend comes another fresh batch of streaming recommendations, so you can sit back, kick your feet up, and be safe in the knowledge that there's no shortage of movies and TV shows to watch. 

The cosy relationship between Elon Musk's Tesla Inc. and China was on display again on Wednesday when President Xi Jinping expressed support for the US electric carmaker in China and Musk in turn expressed his gratitude for that warm reception.

AI is coming to disrupt game art production whether artists like it or not. And Layer AI is the latest startup to raise $1.8 million to bring AI to game art.

Unity is joining the rest of the gang in providing generative AI tools for its users, but has been careful (unlike some) to ensure those tools are built on a solidly non-theft-based foundation. Muse, the new suite of AI-powered tools, will start with texture and sprite generation, and graduate to animation and coding as it matures.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI moved to entice developers with lower prices and the ability to easily tailor artificial intelligence "agents" to help with anything from laundry advice to contract negotiations.

Executives from Microsoft Corp., Citigroup Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp. and other large multinationals are converging on San Francisco this week for an audience with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other Asian leaders as long-frosty US-China relations show only tentative signs of warming.

Last week, San Francisco-based startup Humane, which is focused towards building artificial intelligence-powered gadgets, unveiled the Ai Pin, a gadget that is widely touted as having the potential to replace smartphones. The Ai Pin is a clothing-based wearable gadget, that can do tasks like a smartphone, but does not require the user to continuously interact with it or to download apps. Humane was founded by Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, husband, and wife, who ventured into the entrepreneurial dream after working with Apple for years. Let us take a closer look at who they are.

 Google agreed to pay $8 billion over four years to Samsung Electronics Co. to make its search engine, voice assistant and Play Store the default on the company's mobile devices, according to testimony presented by Epic Games Inc. 

Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai immediately faced aggressive questioning when he took the witness stand at an antitrust trial over the Google Play app store. A lawyer for Epic Games Inc. grilled Pichai in San Francisco federal court Tuesday over accusations that he has encouraged internal communications to be hidden from enforcers scrutinizing the company for antitrust violations. 

In an era of rapid technological advancements and changing consumer behaviors, the worlds of sports and gaming are colliding in fascinating new ways. How can game and sports industry leaders can bridge the divide between the two markets, attract new audiences and find innovative ways to cater to today’s dynamic consumer landscape?

By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.

The Transcend Fund is announcing the closing of its second seed fund of nearly $60 million to invest in games and digital entertainment.

India is considering tax cuts on the imports of completely-built units of electric vehicles, for a period of up to five years, as it tries to entice the likes of Tesla Inc. to sell and eventually make its cars in the country.

 Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai is set to face a jury next week to defend Google Play app store policies that are at the heart of a high-stakes antitrust fight with Epic Games Inc.

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Cruise is recalling 950 driverless cars from the roads across the United States following a crash involving one of its robotaxis and will likely issue more recalls, General Motors' self-driving unit said.

Activision Blizzard Inc. accepted a package of incentives worth $360 million in 2020 to ensure its games launched on the Google Play store just as they did on rival platforms, jurors were told in an antitrust trial over Alphabet Inc.'s dominance in Android mobile apps.

Major Outage across ChatGPT and API: The extreme popularity of Sam Altman-led OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot may well have suffered a big dent in its teflon-coated image today as the platform suffered a massive outage and remained down for over an hour. In fact, it was down for as long as 90 minutes. Not just that, OpenAI's API services too were down along with ChatGPT. It is back up now, but not before furious users vented their feelings on various social media platforms.