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A member of the Coast Guard points a handgun at a zombie on the deck of a boat
Product Reviews

Atari now owns the rights to five Ubisoft games: Cold Fear, I Am Alive, Child of Eden, Grow Home, and Grow Up

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Ubisoft has reached into the back of the cupboard, grabbed the intellectual property rights for five games it wasn’t doing anything with, and sold them to Atari. The five games are Cold Fear (which is basically Resident Evil on a boat), I Am Alive (a post-apocalyptic survival platformer), Child of Eden (a psychedelic rhythm game), and both Grow Home and its sequel Grow Up (which are physics-based climbing games where you’re a cute robot).

“Ubisoft and Atari both have a legacy of crafting worlds that players can fall in love with—games that resonate with generations of players not just for how they played, but for how they made us feel,” Wade Rosen, chairman and CEO of Atari, said in a joint statement. “We’re excited to reintroduce these titles while also exploring ways to expand and evolve these franchises.”

While Atari may just be planning ports for Switch 2 and the like for this bundle of games, given that the publisher also owns Nightdive—the studio responsible for projects like the System Shock remake and more recently the re-release of Hexen and Heretic—there’s reason to hope at least some of these games will receive more high-effort revivals.


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I’d personally love to see a remake of Cold Fear, a survival horror game set on a whaling ship during a storm. Original developer Darkworks put a lot of effort into modeling the constant heaving of the sea, making the deck of the ship shift beneath you while you were trying to shoot zombie parasites. A short, self-contained experience, it caught some flak for being about five hours long at release, but honestly that sounds ideal for a haunted-house survival horror game.

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Grok's Tips On How to Assassinate Elon Musk Are One More Red Flag For Wall Street
Product Reviews

Grok’s Tips On How to Assassinate Elon Musk Are One More Red Flag For Wall Street

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Wall Street tech watchers that had only recently recovered from Elon Musk’s AI chatbot going rogue are now quietly reassessing the technology, after a new leak of thousands of user conversations show it teaching people how to make drugs, assassinate Musk himself, and build malware and explosives.

Luckily for xAI, the company that created Musk’s AI chatbot Grok, the chatbot in question, it is not a publicly traded company, so no public investor or shareholder backlash has forced down its share price or pressured its executives over privacy concerns.

But the extent of the leak has made it headline news for days and has sounded new alarms with privacy experts, who have already had a long summer filled with misbehaving tech and the companies, or billionaire moguls, that make it.

So what did Grok do now?

More than 370,000 user conversations with Grok were publicly exposed through search engines like Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo on Aug. 21. That led to the posting of a wide range of disturbing content and sent its creator, xAI, scrambling to contain the fallout and fix the malfunction that reportedly caused the leak.

What kind of disturbing content? Well, in one instance, Grok offers up a detailed plan on how to assassinate Musk himself, before walking that back as “against my policies.” In another exchange, the chatbot also helpfully pointed users to instructions on how to make fentanyl at home or build explosives.

Forbes, which broke the story, reports that the leak stemmed from an unintended malfunction in Grok’s “share” function, which allowed private chats to be indexed and accessed without user consent.

Neither Musk nor xAI responded to a request for comment. Its creator has not yet publicly addressed the leak.

So how detailed is detailed?

In this instance, pretty detailed.

“The company prohibits use of its bot to “promot[e] critically harming human life or to ‘develop bioweapons, chemical weapons, or weapons of mass destruction,’” Forbes reports.

“But in published, shared conversations easily found via a Google search, Grok offered users instructions on how to make illicit drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine, code a self-executing piece of malware and construct a bomb and methods of suicide,” it said.

Wait, what was that about assassinating Elon Musk?

Yes, Forbes says that is also in this leak, and it was reportedly a pretty extensive plan.

“Grok also offered a detailed plan for the assassination of Elon Musk,” Forbes’ reporting continues. “Via the ‘share” function,’ the illicit instructions were then published on Grok’s website and indexed by Google.”

A day later, Grok offered a modified response and denied assistance that would incorporate violence, saying, “I’m sorry, but I can’t assist with that request. Threats of violence or harm are serious and against my policies.”

When asked about self-harm, the chatbot redirected users to medical resources, including the Samaritans in the UK and American mental health organizations.

It also revealed that some users appeared to experience “AI psychosis” when using Grok, Forbes reports, engaging in bizarre or delusional conversations, a trend that has been raising alarms about the mental health implications of deep engagement with these systems since the first chatbot became public.

How could Grok be used in a business setting?

Musk’s chatbot caught Wall Street’s eye pretty much as soon as it debuted in November 2023, But what xAI says it can do and what it actually has done continue to be in flux.

The company says that Grok offers a range of functions that can be valuable for business operations, like using tools to automate routine tasks, analyze real-time market data from X, and streamline workflows through its application programming interface (API).

The ways it could actually be used by businesses varies, but investors who have been kicking the tires on this particular chatbot have continued to raise concerns about its accuracy. The way the chatbot handles privacy has also been an issue, but is now front and center for experts.

“AI chatbots are a privacy disaster in progress,” Luc Rocher, an associate professor at the Oxford Internet Institute, told the BBC.

Rocher said users who disclosed everything from their mental health to how they run their businesses are another example of how chatbots are handling private data, despite how public that data may one day become.

“Once leaked online, these conversations will stay there forever,” they added.

Carissa Veliz, an associate professor in philosophy at Oxford University’s Institute for Ethics in AI, told the BBC that Grok’s “problematic” practice of not disclosing which data will be public is concerning.

“Our technology doesn’t even tell us what it’s doing with our data, and that’s a problem,” she said.

Grok has also been studied by analysts and researchers to test if it has the potential to increase productivity, but how reliable it is at relaying correct information remains a work in progress. Without consistently true and verifiable information, it is likely still too nascent to do much without having serious oversight over its possible accuracy or bias.

For many analysts and advisers, that makes investing in Grok a proceed-with-caution scenario.

“Speculation isn’t bad, but unmanaged speculation is dangerous. Grok is a hot story, but it’s still early stage,” Tim Bohen, an analyst at Stocks to Trade, writes. “The model could stall. The platform could underperform. The hype cycle could peak before fundamentals catch up. Traders need to know the risks.”

Musk previously flamed ChatGPT for a similar leak

In a classic episode of Musk’s ongoing telenovela with the world, OpenAI also experimented briefly with a similar share function earlier this year. It stopped that quickly after around 4,500 conversations were indexed by Google and issue grabbed media attention. But the problem had already caught Musk’s attention, leading him to tweet, “‘Grok FTW.” Unlike OpenAI, Grok’s “Share’”

Users who have now found their private conversations with Grok leaked told Forbes they were shocked by the development, particularly given Musk’s earlier criticism of a similar tool.

“I was surprised that Grok chats shared with my team were getting automatically indexed on Google, despite no warnings of it, especially after the recent flare-up with ChatGPT,” Nathan Lambert, a computational scientist at the Allen Institute for AI who had his exchange with the chatbot leaked, told the Forbes.

No word from Musk or OpenAI’s Sam Altman on who gets FTW this time.



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Looking to Buy a Window Air Conditioner? Read This First
Product Reviews

Looking to Buy a Window Air Conditioner? Read This First

by admin


As is the case for many people, my home cannot be retrofitted with central air. My 100-plus-year-old Brooklyn apartment, which features prominently in my seven years of air quality reporting for WIRED, relies on window air conditioning units to keep cool on our warming planet. While there is the obvious paradox that air conditioners are players in climate change, AC units are evolving with more environmentally safe refrigerants, eco modes, smart apps, modern design, and energy-efficient consumption.

That is to say, while I prefer to keep my AC units turned off, on hot days, my top-floor apartment’s temperature will climb to the upper 90s without the support of air conditioning. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 700 people die every year in the United States due to extreme heat. The elderly, young children, pregnant women, and those with existing medical conditions are especially vulnerable.

The number one recommendation from the CDC during extreme heat events is to stay inside an air-conditioned location. The World Health Organization warns that while electric fans can move air onto the body to create a sort of wind-chill effect, when it’s 104 degrees Fahrenheit or above, they can actually increase your body temperature. The ideal combination is using air conditioning in concert with fans to move cool air around a space.

Courtesy of Kat Merck

Lasko

20-inch Classic Box Fan

The inability to cool down one’s body temperature is what can lead to heat stroke and other heat-related health events. Air conditioning saves lives.

I’ve been writing about air quality for WIRED since 2018, and as climate change wreaks havoc on our environment, I continue to test and review the latest window air conditioning units on the market. There are two types of window units we review: the recognizable metal box units that hang out of a window, and the increasingly popular “portable” units that use hoses—preferably two—that attach to the window. Both types of AC units offer relief from the heat and protect against heat-related illness. If you’re unsure whether you should turn on your air conditioner, you can check the CDC’s HeatRisk Tracker Map.

Professional Installation Is Worth the Money

Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

LG

12,000 BTU Smart Window Air Conditioner

Your city or town may not have fines and requirements for window unit installation. New York City requires support brackets, especially for those units above sidewalks. I recently hired a professional AC company to securely install LG’s 12,000 BTU model, above. At over 80 pounds, it was too heavy for me to lift. I’ve yet to test a window unit AC where the manufacturer didn’t recommend two people for lifting and installing the unit, usually with a pictogram on the box of two people holding the same box.

Window units are designed to fit in single- or double-hung windows, usually at a minimum height opening of 13 inches. A window unit’s metal support brackets are designed to counteract the downward force of gravity. And there shouldn’t be any books, bricks, or blocks of wood used to level the unit once in the window. There are exceptions—window designs like U-Shaped ACs, like our pick below (an updated model from the one that was recalled this summer), distribute weight equally between the inside and outside of the window sash and may not require brackets.

Courtesy of Midea

Midea

U-Shaped Air Conditioner

Smart AC Units Save Money

More and more AC units connect to an app, and while some apps are easier to use than others, smart units have the added feature of turning them on and off remotely or through the use of in-app timers. Smart units have Eco Mode that run at a lower setting, as well as a variety of other features, including temperature settings. Smart ACs give the user so much more agency in knowing when to turn on or off their units.

Environmentally Friendly Refrigerant

Photograph: Lisa Shapiro

Windmill

8,000 BTU with WhisperTech

In my hometown of New York City, residents need to make an online appointment with the Department of Sanitation when placing an old air conditioner on the sidewalk for trash collection. The city removes the CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) gas, or Freon, and affixes a sticker, clearing the unit to be picked for removal. There are now more environmentally friendly refrigerants on the market, such as R600a or R32. Windmill uses R32 in its line of ACs, like our pick above, and while refrigerants like R32 have fewer ozone-depleting properties than old Freon, it is flammable. It’s that flammability that keeps municipal waste management from collecting it for disposal. Companies like Windmill have a trade-in and recycling program for their customers. If your new AC has a yellow triangle with a black flame, your refrigerant is flammable.

Sound

The rattle from a window unit can vibrate throughout a window frame—another reason why professional installation is so important. If an AC isn’t properly leveled, there’s going to be noise. Beyond the rattle of an unleveled AC, would-be AC customers can log on to a manufacturer’s website or online store to see the decibel rating for each unit. Knowing that a refrigerator’s hum is around 40 to 50 decibels and that conversation is around 60 decibels can help you choose the right sound level for you. Knowing the decibel rating is especially important for bedroom units. Will your AC keep you up on hot nights?

Directional Airflow and Filters

Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

GE

Window Air Conditioner Unit, 5,000 BTU

I recently tested GE’s most affordable AC unit, above, and it was only when it was placed next to my bed that I noticed the limited choices I had in choosing the direction of airflow. It had a small grip to slide the airflow to the right, center, or left. They all felt very similar, and it was apparent that having the directional airflow option for straight-up or close to straight-up airflow is a must-have. There is little choice in where to place a window AC in a one-window room. Look for louvers that can move both up and down as well as side to side. WIRED has tested ACs with HEPA filters and with regular slide-out filters. It’s important to keep your AC’s filters clean for your unit to run properly. A clean-the-filter indicator light is an especially helpful feature.

Portable ACs for Unusual Windows

  • Courtesy of EcoFlow

  • Photograph: Lisa Wood Shapiro

Ecoflow

Wave 3 Portable Air Conditioner

Portable air conditioners are often the only choice for those with either unique or sliding windows, or for those who can’t or aren’t allowed to install a unit in their window. It wasn’t that long ago that most units on the market had a single hose that fit into a window panel with a hole that matched the circumference of the duct. A single hose has the potential of lowering the air pressure and creating a vacuum. A two-duct system like Ecoflow’s, above, is more efficient with both air intake and exhaust, and more and more smart models are app-enabled. The downside of these AC units is their large presence in the room. Many look like rectangular robots. They’re heavy, but most have wheels to make moving them easier, along with the option to have the airflow go straight up. While the design of many of the units we’ve tested has gotten more compact and sleek, the ducts are still a lot. The wide tubing isn’t easy to hide. Still, if you need an AC and cannot use a window unit, portable air conditioners are a godsend.

What Are BTUs?

British thermal unit or BTU is the measurement of the energy required to remove heat within an hour. According to the US Department of Energy, you’ll need 20 BTUs for each square foot of living space. A 300-square-foot room will require an AC with 6,000 BTUs. It’s important to know your room’s square footage. A high BTU in a small room will result in improper dehumidification, and if the BTU is too weak, it will take longer for the unit to cool the room efficiently.

Looks

Courtesy of July

In the past, window units have been necessary eyesores. They were functional, but for years little had been done to make them aesthetically pleasing. That is no longer the case, with startups like July, which makes our pick above, reimagining what a window AC looks like. There are wood-panel fronts and sleek, modern designs that blend in with the room, and that trend isn’t letting up any time soon.



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Product Reviews

Samsung announces the Tab S10 Lite, a $349 tablet with an S Pen

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This week, Samsung introduced a new addition to its tablet lineup with the Tab S10 Lite. It will be available on September 4 and will cost $349. The Lite will be the least expensive of Samsung’s current tablet generation; the S10 FE has a starting cost of $500 while costs go as high as $980 for the S10 Ultra.

The Tab S10 Lite is 10.9 inches, and it comes in gray, silver or a coral red. Its screen has a 90Hz refresh rate and a maximum brightness of 600 nits. Models can have 6GB memory with 128GB of storage or 8GB and 256GB of memory and storage, respectively. The tablet comes with a 8MP camera in the rear and a 5MP one in front. It will be sold with the S Pen, which we enjoyed in our review of the Tab S9 Ultra. And of course, AI will be front and center in the tablet experience, with a dedicated Galaxy AI button and software features like Circle to Search and Handwriting Assist.

The Tab S9 remains our favorite Android tablet, so we’ll have to see how well the S10 Lite stacks up against the A16 iPad, which is our current budget pick for tablets.



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An LG Ultragear GX9 on a desk
Product Reviews

LG Ultragear GX9 review: massive, immersive, and expensive

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Why you can trust TechRadar


We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

LG Ultragear GX9: Two-minute review

The LG Ultragear GX9 is an impressive, immersive gaming monitor that’s ideal for a relatively small subset of gamers. Let’s get a couple of things out the way early though: first, it’s not cheap, so any gamer on a budget will probably want to look elsewhere; and as awesome as a 45-inch (well, technically 44.5-inch) ultrawide screen is, some might find it too wide for practicality’s sake.

After all, it can be tough to focus on the action in the center of the screen and also keep tabs on your health bar in the top-left corner when you have to move your gaze over 20 inches to check on it. This also means it’s not ideal for esports gamers, despite the impressive refresh rate and response time.

However, those are issues endemic to this ultrawide form factor and not necessarily a knock on the LG Ultragear GX9. All the best gaming monitors with an ultrawide screen are on the pricier side, and too wide to rely on peripheral vision to catch important information.

For those who have the money and aren’t playing esports (or still want that wrap-around experience), that wide display and 800R curvature, along with the 4K resolution, good color coverage, and speedy refresh rates and response times, make this monitor a delight to use with most games.

Cyberpunk 2077 or Monster Hunter Wilds, for example, look gorgeous and completely envelop my vision during gaming sessions. Of course, it helps that the built-in speakers sound pretty decent as well.

There are a few other pluses as well, such as all the necessary ports (minus a USB hub with KVM support), including a USB-C port with power delivery, and good ergonomics for such a wide monitor. This is a hearty recommendation as the best monitor for the right gamer.

LG Ultragear GX9: Price & availability

(Image credit: Future / James Holland)

  • How much does it cost? $1,999.99 / £1,799.98 / AU$3,499.00
  • When is it available? Available now
  • Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia

When you look at the best ultrawide monitors, the price of the LG Ultragear GX9 doesn’t seem out of place, though it’s still expensive. You can get a nice gaming laptop with an OLED panel or a powerful gaming desktop for the LG Ultragear GX9’s $1,999.99 / £1,799.98 / AU$3,499.00 asking price.

The Samsung Odyssey OLED G9, which originally went for $2,199.99 / £1,599 / AU$3,399 and is now $400 cheaper, is a good comparison. It is a little bit older, hence the price drop, but it’s got a great OLED screen with sharp resolution, fast refresh rates/response times reaching up to 240Hz, and good color coverage. It’s also bigger than the Ultragear GX9 at 49 inches across.

However, like most ultrawide monitors, it peaks at a 5,120 x 1,440p resolution compared to the LG Ultragear GX9’s 5K2K or 5120 x 2160p resolution.

LG Ultragear GX9: Specs

(Image credit: Future / James Holland)Swipe to scroll horizontally

Screen size:

44.5-inch

Aspect ratio:

21:9

Resolution:

5120 x 2160

Brightness:

275 nits

Response time:

0.03ms (GTG)

Viewing angle:

178˚/178˚

Contrast ratio:

1,500,000:1

Color support:

98.5% sRGB

Inputs:

1x DP 1.4, 2x HDMI 2.1, 1x USB-C (90W), 2x USB-A downstream

Weight:

30.9 lbs (14 kg)

LG Ultragear GX9: Design

(Image credit: Future / James Holland)

  • The monitor is massive
  • Decent, if limited, ergonomics
  • Plenty of ports, including USB-C

The LG Ultragear GX9 is a massive gaming monitor. Its 44.5-inch monitor (measured corner-to-corner diagonally) results in a length of 39 inches and a height of 18 inches, not including the stand. This can be an overwhelming monitor to use.

Of course, it has a nice 800R curvature, which brings the far ends of the screen in so that, experientially, its outer reaches fill out the peripheral vision.

(Image credit: Future / James Holland)

It’s big enough that I have to dart my eyes to the edges to read specific information, like a health bar, which makes the size and curvature great for immersive experiences but not for esports-type gaming (I’ll get into the actual performance aspect below).

Since the monitor is so big, it does have somewhat limited ergonomics. While no specifics are listed, its biggest possible adjustments are a height adjustment of about 5 inches. If I had to guess, it swivels and tilts about 15 degrees in each direction. It’s not a lot, but more than enough for this kind of monitor.

(Image credit: Future / James Holland)

Since this is such a big monitor, it has a large, strong, and stable stand with a wide base. There is cable management, though it’s basic, with a passthrough hole in the middle of the stand so all the cables go in one direction out the back and towards whatever they’re connected to.

Speaking of ports, the selection is pretty good. There are two HDMI 2.1 ports, so you could use this with a next-gen console or gaming computer, a single 1.4 DisplayPort, and one USB-C with 90 watts of power delivery for use with Ultrabooks, MacBooks, and the like.

(Image credit: Future / James Holland)

There are also two USB-A downstream ports for charging peripherals. Unfortunately, there’s no KVM capability via those USB ports.

Lastly, there’s a single button in the center of the lower back for power and navigating the OSD menu.

LG Ultragear GX9: Features

(Image credit: Future / James Holland)

  • Game modes in OSD menu
  • Supports variable refresh rates
  • Has picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture, but no KVM

The monitor has a couple of cool features baked into the OSD menu worth knowing about beyond the usual, such as HDR and curvature. For instance, there’s a Game Mode icon in the OSD that brings up four presets with settings such as color temperatures, refresh rate max, and whether VRR, HDR, and DAS Mode (Dynamic Action Sync to minimize lag) are on.

Beyond the different modes, you can change the aspect ratio in the OSD menu to a narrower image for when you need all your gaming info in front of you, offsetting the potential esports-related issue I’ve mentioned with using such a large screen.

(Image credit: Future / James Holland)

Not only is there support for HDR, but the LG Ultragear GX9 also comes with support for VRR (variable refresh rate), which synchronizes the frame rates of the monitor with the source to minimize screen tearing, stuttering, and the like.

Picture-by-picture and picture-in-picture are both available as well if you want to use two sources at the same time. Unfortunately, as I’ve previously mentioned, there’s no KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) system where you can use a keyboard and mouse plugged into the monitor to control whichever source you have pulled up.

LG Ultragear GX9: Performance

(Image credit: Future / James Holland)

  • Can handle any game, though some are not ideal for the aspect ratio
  • Very good contrast and colors, along with a 5K2K resolution
  • Good but not great audio

I’ve played a number of games on the LG Ultragear GX9, namely Monster Hunter Wilds, South of Midnight, Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and Gotham Knights, and found the monitor to be everything it’s advertised to be.

Really, the only limitation is when loading up a game that doesn’t support the ultrawide resolution, such as South of Midnight – this just means there are black bars on the sides instead of the game stretching edge to edge – or when a game isn’t ideal for that ultrawide resolution.

However, as mentioned before, you can change the aspect ratio. If you don’t change it, and then open up something fast-paced where you need to keep an eye on that health bar, you’re going to be in trouble.

The OLED screen and HDR support provide very good contrast – specifically DisplayHDR TRUE BLACK 400 – enabling me to see in the shadows in certain games. And the colors look more vibrant because of it. It also helps that the LG Ultragear GX9 has a rated 1500000:1 contrast ratio and 98.5% DCI-P3 color coverage.

Between the 165Hz refresh rate, 0.03ms response time, and VRR support, the action is smooth no matter how fast. And the 5K2K resolution (5120 x 2160p) is sharper than most of the competition, as most ultrawide monitors I’ve come across use a 5120 x 1440p resolution.

Since this monitor is so large, I appreciate the fact that it comes with built-in speakers. And while they’re not as good as the best computer speakers, discounting the budget options, they sound pretty decent. You don’t get any real low-end or rumble, but the sound is full and packs a good punch otherwise.

Should I buy the LG Ultragear GX9?

Swipe to scroll horizontallyLG Ultragear GX9 scorecard

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Value

The LG Ultragear GX9 is very pricey. However, considering what it is and what it does, the price is more than justified.

4 / 5

Design

Yes, it’s massive, but it has decent if limited ergonomics and a good selection of ports.

4.5 / 5

Features

Variable refresh rates, picture by / in picture, and more make this fairly feature-rich, even if it doesn’t have KVM.

4.5 / 5

Performance

It’s gorgeous, immersive (sometimes a little too much), and has great contrast and colors.

4.5 / 5

Average rating

The good news is that it’s massive. The bad news is that it’s massive. Either way, you have to decide if it’s worth the price.

4.38 / 5

Buy the LG Ultragear GX9 if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also Consider

If my LG Ultragear GX9 review has you considering other options, here are two more monitors to consider…

How I tested the LG Ultragear GX9

  • Used regularly for a couple of weeks
  • Tested with various games and media
  • Tried out all the features

I used the LG Ultragear GX9 Gaming Monitor regularly for a couple of weeks. I tested it with various games and media, especially Monster Hunter Wilds, South of Midnight, Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and Gotham Knights, to see how it would fare. I also played around with the OSD menu, features, and ergonomics.

The LG Ultragear GX9 Gaming Monitor is clearly meant for gamers who want an immersive experience, specifically those who like their games to feel more cinematic, and it does that job well. Of course, it comes with a price tag to match.

I’ve tested a lot of tech gear over the years, from laptops to keyboards and speakers, so I can use my expertise towards giving an honest and fair opinion, not to mention a critical eye, to any product I test.

  • First reviewed August 2025



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A screenshot from Haunted Chocolatier showing a small figure looking at a stream of water in an autumnal forest landscape
Product Reviews

Haunted Chocolatier has fishing, books, and a new screenshot so pretty I want to live in it

by admin



Every couple of weeks my daughter asks if Haunted Chocolatier is out yet. I always have to say no, but at least next time I’ll be able to confirm that Haunted Chocolatier will have fishing, and also show her a new screenshot, which is embedded above.

Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone shared the image today and it’s lovely. The detail in the pixel art, especially on the surface of that homely looking tree house, is gorgeous. As for fishing, the revelation came after a fan, perhaps noticing water in the above screenshot, asked for a “status report on a fishing mechanic”. To which Barone replied “there is fishing”.

This is good news for people who like to fish in games, but be careful what you wish for: Stardew Valley’s fishing minigame has attracted a lot of hate, even though it’s just a fishing minigame. In a recent interview, Barone expressed regret about how it “starts out too hard”, so perhaps Haunted Chocolatier’s fishing will be much better.


Related articles

Barone is happily working away on Haunted Chocolatier, which doesn’t have a release date yet. Barone recently tweeted that whenever “I’m about to write a whole essay on Twitter, on the nature of good and evil or some other self indulgent philosophy slop, I’ll just add a new book to Haunted Chocolatier’s library instead. It’s a win win”. So there you have it: books confirmed too! And wouldn’t it be nice if we could all deposit our philosophical musings onto pages, whether real or virtual, instead of the brainrot feeds.

Whereas Stardew Valley was about “the fundamentals of human sustenance”, Haunted Chocolatier is about “what’s next”. Barone said in April that he’s now fully focused on his in-development game now that Stardew Valley 1.6 is out, but we’ve heard that before.

Best handheld PC 2025

All our current recommendations



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The White House Is Going to Put Government Statistics on the Blockchain (Yeah, We Don't Know Why Either)
Product Reviews

The White House Is Going to Put Government Statistics on the Blockchain (Yeah, We Don’t Know Why Either)

by admin


Remember back in 2017 when Bitcoin’s price soared and companies started promising to add everything to the blockchain? It was an embarrassing era, since blockchain technology has very few practical purposes that can’t be solved by a regular, old-school database. But it sounds like the White House just got the memo and wants to usher in the world of 2017 again.

President Donald Trump held a televised “cabinet meeting ” at the White House on Tuesday that clocked in at over 3 hours and 15 minutes. It was a marathon session of ass-kissing from the Trump regime’s most despicable characters. But the announcement that really stood out to us, aside from all the normalization of fascist language, was Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s promise to put government statistics on blockchain.

“The Department of Commerce is going to start issuing its statistics on the blockchain because you are the crypto president, and we are going to put out GDP on the blockchain so people can use the blockchain for data distribution,” Lutnick said.

“And then we’re going to make that available to the entire government so all of you can do it. We’re just ironing out all the details so we can do it.”

Lutnick then quickly moved on to another topic, but it was an odd thing to suggest. Why blockchain? Apparently, because Lutnick associates it with crypto. But it’s hard to imagine what problem putting statistics on the blockchain will solve.

The idea behind blockchain is that it’s a decentralized ledger. And it’s a neat idea, but it doesn’t actually solve very many problems beyond maintaining the existence of cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. A normal spreadsheet or database typically works just fine for distributing information of the kind Lutnick wants to put out.

Trump infamously had a dispute with some of the government’s top officials who produce government statistics, firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, earlier this month. Trump falsely claimed that McEntarfer had produced “rigged” data that had been “manipulated for political purposes” when numbers were revised to show less job growth than had been previously reported.

Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, just happened to announce a new partnership with Crypto.com on Tuesday, according to the Wall Street Journal, so maybe Lutnick’s promise to put stats on the blockchain was inspired by that in some way. Whatever was behind the idea, Trump and his family have reaped billions of dollars through their crypto associations.

The meeting went to a lot of other weird places, especially when Trump was asked about his plans for deploying the National Guard to blue cities around the country. The president has flooded Washington, D.C., with federal agents under the pretext of cracking down on crime.

“The line is that I’m a dictator, but I stop crime. So a lot of people say, ‘You know, if that’s the case, I’d rather have a dictator,’” Trump said Tuesday.

Trump expressed the same sentiment on Monday, making it clear that this wasn’t just a verbal slip. He really wants to normalize the idea that dictators may get a bad wrap and are necessary to fight crime. And he’s threatened to send troops to places like Chicago as a show of force.

Maybe they can put the crime statistics on the blockchain, too. Why not? It’s supposed to be the fix for everything, according to crypto fans. Now, if we could only get a White House reporter to ask Trump what he thinks blockchain technology is all about. It would almost certainly be a comical answer from the 79-year-old.



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Google Will Make All Android App Developers Verify Their Identity Starting Next Year
Product Reviews

Google Will Make All Android App Developers Verify Their Identity Starting Next Year

by admin


Android’s open nature set it apart from the iPhone as the era of touchscreen smartphones began nearly two decades ago. Little by little, Google has traded some of that openness for security, and its next security initiative could make the biggest concessions yet in the name of blocking bad apps.

Google has announced plans to begin verifying the identities of all Android app developers, and not just those publishing on the Play Store. Google intends to verify developer identities no matter where they offer their content, and apps without verification won’t work on most Android devices in the coming years.

Google used to do very little curation of the Play Store (or Android Market, if you go back far enough), but it has long sought to improve the platform’s reputation as being less secure than the Apple App Store. Years ago, you could publish actual exploits in the official store to gain root access on phones, but now there are multiple reviews and detection mechanisms to reduce the prevalence of malware and banned content. While the Play Store is still not perfect, Google claims apps sideloaded from outside its store are 50 times more likely to contain malware.

This, we are led to believe, is the impetus for Google’s new developer verification system. The company describes it like an “ID check at the airport.” Since requiring all Google Play app developers to verify their identities in 2023, it has seen a precipitous drop in malware and fraud. Bad actors in Google Play leveraged anonymity to distribute malicious apps, so it stands to reason that verifying app developers outside of Google Play could also enhance security.

However, making that happen outside of its app store will require Google to take a page from Apple’s playbook and flex its muscle in a way many Android users and developers could find intrusive. Google plans to create a streamlined Android Developer Console, which devs will use if they plan to distribute apps outside of the Play Store. After verifying their identities, developers will have to register the package name and signing keys of their apps. Google won’t check the content or functionality of the apps, though.

Google says that only apps with verified identities will be installable on certified Android devices, which is virtually every Android-based device—if it has Google services on it, it’s a certified device. If you have a non-Google build of Android on your phone, none of this applies. However, that’s a vanishingly small fraction of the Android ecosystem outside of China.

Google plans to begin testing this system with early access in October of this year. In March 2026, all developers will have access to the new console to get verified. In September 2026, Google plans to launch this feature in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. The next step is still hazy, but Google is targeting 2027 to expand the verification requirements globally.

A Seismic Shift

This plan comes at a major crossroads for Android. The ongoing Google Play antitrust case brought by Epic Games may finally force changes to Google Play in the coming months. Google lost its appeal of the verdict several weeks ago, and while it plans to appeal the case to the US Supreme Court, the company will have to begin altering its app distribution scheme, barring further legal maneuvering.

Among other things, the court has ordered that Google must distribute third-party app stores and allow Play Store content to be rehosted in other storefronts. Giving people more ways to get apps could increase choice, which is what Epic and other developers wanted. However, third-party sources won’t have the deep system integration of the Play Store, which means users will be sideloading these apps without Google’s layers of security.

It’s hard to say how much of a genuine security problem this is. On one hand, it makes sense Google would be concerned—most of the major malware threats to Android devices spread via third-party app repositories. However, enforcing an installation whitelist across almost all Android devices is heavy handed. This requires everyone making Android apps to satisfy Google’s requirements before virtually anyone will be able to install their apps, which could help Google retain control as the app market opens up. While the requirements may be minimal right now, there’s no guarantee they will stay that way.

The documentation currently available doesn’t explain what will happen if you try to install a non-verified app, nor how phones will check for verification status. Presumably, Google will distribute this whitelist in Play Services as the implementation date approaches. We’ve reached out for details on that front and will report if we hear anything.

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.



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Product Reviews

Anthropic reaches a settlement over authors’ class-action piracy lawsuit

by admin


Anthropic has settled a class-action lawsuit brought by a group of authors for an undisclosed sum. The move means the company will avoid a potentially more costly ruling if the case regarding its use of copyright materials to train artificial intelligence tools had moved forward.

In June, Judge William Alsup handed down a mixed result in the case, ruling that Anthropic’s move to train LLMs on copyrighted materials constituted fair use. However the company’s illegal and unpaid acquisition of those copyrighted materials was deemed available for the authors to pursue as a piracy case. With statutory damages for piracy beginning at $750 per infringed work and a library of pirated works estimated to number about 7 million, Anthropic could have been on the hook for billions of dollars.

Litigation around AI and copyright is still shaking out, with no clear precedents emerging yet. This also isn’t Anthropic’s first foray into negotiating with creatives after using their work; it was sued by members of the music industry in 2023 and reached a partial resolution earlier this year. Plus, the details of Anthropic’s settlement also have yet to be revealed. Depending on the number of authors who make a claim and the amount Anthropic agreed to pay out, either side could wind up feeling like the winner after the dust settles.



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Hasselblad’s flagship medium format camera is cheaper than you’d think.
Product Reviews

Hasselblad’s flagship medium format camera is cheaper than you’d think.

by admin


We’ve spent most of the year talking about gadgets getting more expensive. Thanks to US tariffs, prices are rising every few months, and even small upgrades have come with big price hikes. So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the new Hasselblad X2D 100C II will actually be cheaper than its predecessor, coming in at “just” $7,400 for the body.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s far from cheap. But Hasselblad is trying to get this camera in the hands of a wider audience. I’ve been looking at my account balance ever since I started this review, trying to figure out if I can justify buying one for myself. I probably can’t — but not because I don’t want to.

Here’s what you need to know about digital medium format cameras like the X2D. They’re bigger and slower than full-frame or crop-sensor cameras. They take longer to process images and usually have slower autofocus. And yes, they cost a lot more money. But you get nearly perfect photos with incredible detail and sharpness unlike what you can get with any other camera. And the photos I got from the X2D II are some of the best photos I have ever taken. The question is whether they’re worth sacrificing speed, size, and money.

It’s been three years since the last X2D, and the new version comes with some exciting updates: it’s using LiDAR to assist with autofocus, it’s the first medium format camera capable of taking HDR photos, and it has 10-stop in-body stabilization. It also has one new button and a joystick! That might sound minor, but it has made handling this camera a lot faster and let me rely less on touchscreen commands, which I was never fond of. Medium format cameras are lethargic, so any bit helps!

But in many other ways, the new one similar to its predecessor. The body has the same handheld shape, it still takes 100 megapixel photos, and it offers similar dynamic range (15.3 versus 15 stops). Want to shoot video? In 2025, you might expect that option from a medium format camera, like you would in Fujifilm’s GFX line or the five-year-old Leica S3. But we’ll have to wait a few more years for that. This is strictly a photographers’ camera — fortunately, it’s a very good one.

$7399

The Good

  • Incredible image quality
  • More buttons
  • Price

The Bad

  • LiDAR is just ok
  • Still a bit slow
  • Bulky

Last year, DJI released a product called DJI Focus Pro LiDAR, which combines a LiDAR sensor with a mechanism that attaches to your camera and lets you use autofocus with your manual-focus lenses. I haven’t used one, but it’s popular with some content creators. LiDAR has made its way to cameras as part of the standard autofocus system, and it’s also the first real sign of DJI’s influence over Hasselblad since the acquisition in 2017.

The LiDAR module on this camera is much smaller than the one on the Focus Pro module, and it works in tandem with the existing phase detection and contrast detection autofocus.

LiDAR is a big new features with the X2D 100C II, but you won’t notice a big change in autofocus performance in everyday use.

So, is it good? It is good. Is it impressive? It’s not bad. Is it flawless? Not quite. In my few weeks with the X2D II, I found the LiDAR system to bereliable, pin-point accurate, and just fast enough where it almost feels like a modern mirrorless camera. Think more like a Fuji than a Sony: a bit slower but still good.

But sometimes it also felt like the LiDAR was questioning itself. It would often focus behind a subject and then work its way forward, especially when using continuous autofocus. The same goes for subject detection and eye autofocus: if the subject wasn’t looking directly at the camera, then the system would often decide to focus on the subject as a whole, not the eye. This happened more with animals than people (sorry, most of my friends are four-legged) and would sometimes make me miss out on potential photos. On the other hand, it was also able to capture subjects from far away; it worked well in the dark and low light.

Autofocus performed marginally better with the lens that Hasselblad is releasing alongside this camera — the XCD 35-100 mm, which will cost $4,599. In its press release, Hasselblad called this lens “compact,” but it isn’t even close. It is a very large lens. In fact, it is so large that Hasselblad had to release special UV and ND filters for the 86mm diameter lens. At least it’s not too heavy for its size, at 1.97 lbs.

The Hasselblad X2D II comes with a built-in 1TB SSD, which makes processing those 100MP images fairly fast (I’m grading on a curve here). There’s still some delay before you can review your photo on the screen, especially in burst mode — about four seconds per exposure. But it’s fast enough that it didn’t slow me down too much. You can still keep shooting without a problem. I’m not a spray-and-pray photographer; I tend to be more intentional with my shots, so it’s fast enough for me, but it could feel sluggish for some. And yes, there’s still a CFexpress type B slot for extra storage, and I haven’t noticed any improvements or hindrances when using those.

The Hasseblad X2D 100C II adds a few new buttons which makes operating this camera much faster. It’s the little things.

Photos from the X2D II look crisp and gorgeous. The details are sharp, the edges look razor-thin, the bokeh from the 25mm prime lens that I mostly used is silky with that signature Hasselblad 8-point starburst effect. (For full-size samples, be sure to download images from this folder.)

The camera is rated for 15.3 stops of dynamic range, which made the 16-bit photos extremely lifelike. Pair that with incredibly accurate colors, and I was constantly amazed with the results. I truly couldn’t wait to review each and every photo across as many screens as possible — especially the HDR ones, since this is the first medium format camera capable of capturing true HDR photos.

1/11The level of detail and sharpness from the Hasselblad’s medium format sensor is truly spectacular. Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

In general, I am not a fan of the HDR look that you usually get out of smartphone or action cameras, but it looks more natural here. In some extreme and high contrast scenes, you’ll see lots of processing, particularly in the shadows, which are heavily lifted, and you’ll also see noise creeping in. In more even exposures, the HDR processing and the noise looks much better and well sustained. I encourage you to take a look at these on an HDR monitor and pay attention to the highlights, which retain lots of information and look great. If you’re into that punchy look with rich highlights, then you’ll enjoy what you get out of the X2D II.

When you connect this camera to the new Phocus 2 app, you can control how much HDR processing you want to apply. This is definitely the best way to go about processing HDR photos with this camera, and it’s made me use HDR a whole lot more. Also, shout out to Hasselblad for making a minimalistic and simple companion app that looks great and works well. I’ve had minor connectivity issues with it, but far less than with other apps I’ve used in the past. (For HDR samples, download images from this folder.)

Noise in both HDR and non-HDR photos looks well maintained, and only at about ISO 6400 does it slowly start to jeopardize the image. The lowest ISO on this camera is 50, down from 65 on the X2D. If you’re worried about noise in this camera, you shouldn’t be. But if you are, the 10-stop stabilization will help you open up that shutter a bit longer.

Hasselblad says that you can get clean handheld exposures up to “several” seconds. It’s hard to tell what several seconds actually means, but I was able to get some long exposure of waterfalls by handholding a camera up to three seconds on a bright and sunny day, albeit while leaning against the railing. For other photos, I was comfortable with handholding for up to a second.

We live in an age where camera specs are slowly fading away. Every digital camera shoots great photos, they all have great autofocus, and they all get similar colors. It really comes down to how a camera makes you feel when you use it: Can it become an extension of one’s self? Can it help you express yourself as a photographer?

This Hasselblad is gorgeous and bold. The dark gray body and matte finish look like a luxury supercar. The grip on the side has a new, extremely comfortable, and good-looking texture. It feels so good in your hand: robust, and every corner well-made. You feel like you’re in the driver’s seat, buckled up and ready for a smooth ride.
The three-level tilting screen, buttons, joystick, dials, and everything else is very Hasselblad — made with care and precision. But it’s also a heavy camera that will tire you out after a long day of filming. And for me, the novelty of carrying a Hasselblad started to wear off toward the end of my review period — that is, until I looked back at the photos that I took and the memories that I was able to create. And gosh, I am so glad that I made those memories with one of the greatest cameras I have ever used.

Photography by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

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