Vice reports: The AI-powered story generator AI Dungeon has come under fire from fans recently for changes to how the development team moderates content. Notably, the player base is worried that the AI Dungeon developers will be reading their porn stories in the game. Separately, a hacker recently revealed vulnerabilities in the game that show that roughly half of the game's content is porn.

AI Dungeon is a text based adventure game where, instead of playing through a scenario entirely designed by someone else, the responses to the prompts you type are generated by an AI... This week, AI Dungeon players noticed that more of their stories were being flagged by the content moderation system, and flagged more frequently. Latitude, the developers of AI Dungeon, released a blog post explaining that it had implemented a new algorithm for content moderation specifically to look for content that involves "sexual content involving minors... We did not communicate this test to the Community in advance, which created an environment where users and other members of our larger community, including platform moderators, were caught off guard... Latitude reviews content flagged by the model for the purposes of improving the model, to enforce our policies, and to comply with law."

Latitude later clarified in its Discord at what point a human moderator would read private stories on AI Dungeon. It said that if a story appears to be incorrectly flagged, human moderators would stop reading the inputs, but that if a story appeared to be correctly flagged then they "may look at the user's other stories for signs that the user may be using AI Dungeon for prohibited purposes." Latitude CEO Nick Walton told Motherboard that human moderators only look at stories in the "very few cases" that they violate the terms of service...

All of this has been compounded by the fact that a security researcher named AetherDevSecOpsjust published a lengthy report on security issues with AI Dungeon on GitHub, which included one that allowed them to look at all the user input data stored in AI Dungeon. About a solid third of stories on AI Dungeon are sexually explicit, and about half are marked as NSFW, AetherDevSecOpsjust estimated.

Microsoft is shaking up the world of PC gaming today with a big cut to the amount of revenue it takes from games on Windows. From a report: The software giant is reducing its cut from 30 percent to just 12 percent from August 1st, in a clear bid to compete with Steam and entice developers and studios to bring more PC games to its Microsoft Store. "Game developers are at the heart of bringing great games to our players, and we want them to find success on our platforms," says Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios at Microsoft. "A clear, no-strings-attached revenue share means developers can bring more games to more players and find greater commercial success from doing so."

These changes will only affect PC games and not Xbox console games in Microsoft's store. While Microsoft hasn't explained why it's not reducing the 30 percent it takes on Xbox game sales, it's likely because the console business model is entirely different to PC. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo subsidize hardware to make consoles more affordable, and offer marketing deals in return for a 30 percent cut on software sales. Microsoft's new reduction on the PC side is significant, and it matches the same revenue split that Epic Games offers PC game developers while also putting more pressure on Valve to reduce its Steam store cut. Valve still takes a 30 percent cut on sales in its Steam store, which is reduced to 25 percent when sales hit $10 million, and then 20 percent for every sale after $50 million.

Epic Games is holding back Fortnite from being available on Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service, according to a new deposition made public as part of the Epic case against Apple. From a report: The Fortnite developer views Microsoft's xCloud service as competition to its PC offerings, and the company is deliberately not offering Fortnite on xCloud as a result. Joe Kreiner, Epic's vice president of business development, was questioned over why Fortnite isn't available on xCloud, and confirmed it was a deliberate choice. "We viewed Microsoft's efforts with xCloud to be competitive with our PC offerings," says Kreiner in the deposition. The court document makes it appear like Kreiner may go on to explain why, but the next part of the questioning has been redacted.

More game developers have had projects delayed than in past years due to COVID-19, according to a recent state of the industry survey from Game Developer Conference organizers. From a report: Delays are an inevitable part of development, but there's been a noticeable jump since pandemic's arrival. According to GDC's findings, 44 percent of the over 3,000 respondents polled said their games have been subject to delays. Compare that to last year's responses at 33 percent. The impact of working from home ranges from lost collaboration opportunities, to the added pressures of childcare.

An anonymous reader writes: Some weeks ago, in a shady move, Humble Bundle silently removed the ability for customers to define the breakdown of their payments to charity -- a key aspect of Humble Bundle since its inception. Since that time, they refused to explain to customers why their sliders weren't appearing, and investigation by some users, who reenabled the sliders client-side, showed they were also being ignored server-side even if reenabled, such that for a $14 donation only a pathetic $0.72 was going to be split in half between two charities.

Humble Bundle has now finally admitted what everyone feared -- that they're formally and significantly reducing the amount of the purchase value that can go to charity, from a default value of 5% to a maximum of 15%. Given it was previously possible to contribute as much as 100% to charity, this is a significant reduction in the amount that Humble Bundle will allow to go to charity going forward, changing it from a humble effort to do good, to a cynical for-profit cash grab off the backs of the reputation of the charities whose names they use.

Sony looks set to roll out movie and television content into PlayStation Plus subscriptions, according to images briefly uploaded to its website on Wednesday. From a report: A logo for 'PlayStation Plus Video Pass' was published on Sony's official website today, along with its description on its Polish website (now removed). From the report: "A new benefit available for a limited time on PlayStation Plus... PS Plus Video Pass is a trial service active 22.04.21 - 22.04.22. The subscription benefit is available to PS Plus users in Poland." It's not clear if the listing is describing a global or local service, but weâ(TM)ve requested clarification from Sony Interactive Entertainment.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: A trio of researchers from Monash University and Deakin University has found that teaching children to play chess can reduce their aversion to risk. In their paper published in Journal of Development Economics, Asad Islam, Wang-Sheng Lee and Aaron Nicholas describe studying the impact of learning chess on 400 children in the U.K. The researchers found that most of the children experienced a decrease in risk aversion in a variety of game playing scenarios. They also noticed that playing chess also led to better math scores for some of the students and improvements in logic or rational thinking.

The researchers note that the game of chess is very well suited to building confidence in risk taking when there is reason to believe it might improve an outcome. In contrast, students also learned to avoid taking risks haphazardly, finding that such risks rarely lead to a positive outcome. They [...] line between good and poor risk-taking is especially evident in chess, which means that the more a person plays, the sharper their skills become. The researchers also found that the skills learned during chess playing appeared to be long lasting -- most of the children retained their decrease in risk aversion a full year after the end of their participation in the study. The researchers [...] did not find any evidence of changes in other cognitive skills, such as improvements in grades other than math or general creativity.

Audi has revealed its all-electric A6 E-tron concept, a luxury sedan that will come packed with tech including the ability to project video games on to a wall. Tom's Guide reports: The A6 E-tron, which was unveiled at Auto Shanghai 2021 today, is built on the new Premium Platform Electric (PPE) chassis architecture that Audi is developing in collaboration with Porsche. And though a production version of the car isn't likely to be available until later in 2022, its development is well under way; the car you see here shouldn't be miles away from the final version.

The A6 E-tron Concept boasts almost 435 miles of range and comes armed with a 100 kWh battery, which can be replenished from 5 to 80% in under 25 minutes as well as being able to accept fast 270kW charging. Featuring a motor on each axle, with a combined power output of 469 bhp and 590lb ft of torque, the Audi A6 E-tron should be quick, too, with a 0-62 mph time of under 4 seconds. However, Audi also plans PPE-based models with a single motor mounted on the rear axle to keep energy efficiency and prices in check.

Standout cosmetic touches include digital matrix LED headlights, which have the party trick of being able to project images. Audi suggests that owners can park facing a wall during recharging and pass the time playing a video game using the technology, or watch a movie. Audi has even developed a game, which is playable via a smartphone, to show how the concept works. Four more LED projectors are housed in the corners of the car to shine animated turn signals on the road. OLED technology in the taillights promises more electrical trickery and there are additional projectors that switch on when the doors are opened. These, suggest Audi, can be used to issue greetings to passengers or warnings to passing cyclists when the doors are opening.

Last month, Sony said that PlayStation Store access for the PS3, PS Vita, and PSP would end this summer. Today, Sony has partially reversed course, announcing on the PlayStation Blog that the PlayStation Store would remain open on the PS3 and PS Vita. CNET reports: "It's clear we made the wrong decision here," Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan wrote on the PlayStation Blog. "We see now that many of you are incredibly passionate about being able to continue purchasing classic games on PS3 and PS Vita for the foreseeable future, so I'm glad we were able to find a solution to continue operations."

Commerce functionality for the PlayStation Portable will still expire on July 2, meaning that the PSP will no longer be able to buy any content on the digital storefront. Users should, however, still be able to re-download any previously purchased games or media.

Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming service, previously known as xCloud, will begin rolling out in beta to iPhones, iPads and PCs this week. The service will be invite-only to start, Microsoft said in a blog post on Monday. From a report: Xbox Cloud Gaming was on track to launch for iPhones and iPads earlier, but Apple updated its App Store rules in September that impacted services like Xbox Gaming and Google Stadia. Apple's move forced the companies to use web browsers to redesign their services so that they could circumvent the App Store rules. Under the rules, Microsoft, Google and other companies with similar services would have had to offer each game as an individual download instead of offering a complete library the way Netflix does for movies.

Xbox Cloud Gaming is sort of like Netflix for games. People who subscribe to Microsoft's $14.99/month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate plan can access more than 100 titles. The cloud gaming aspect lets you stream the games without having to download them, provided you have a fast enough internet connection. The streaming option is already available for Android phones.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from IGN: In its first five months on the market, The PlayStation 5 has become the fastest-selling console in U.S. history in both unit and dollar sales. As revealed by The NPD Group's Mat Piscatella, this news arrives one month after the PS5 became the fastest-selling console in U.S. history in dollar sales. Despite that new record, the Nintendo Switch has continued its reign as the best selling hardware platform in both units and dollars during March 2021. However, the PS5 did rank first in hardware dollar sales in Q1 2021.

According to app developer Kosta Eleftheriou, Apple's App Store hosted a kid's game that's actually a front for gambling websites. "The secret password isn't one you'd be likely to guess: you have to be in the right country -- or pretend to be in the right country using a VPN," writes Sean Hollister via The Verge. "But then, instead of launching an ugly monkey-flipping endless runner game filled with typos and bugs, the very same app launches a casino experience." From the report: The app, "Jungle Runner 2k21," has already disappeared from the App Store, presumably thanks to publicity from Gizmodo and Daring Fireball, who each wrote about Eleftheriou's finding earlier today. It's not the only one, though: the same developer, "Colin Malachi," had another incredibly basic game on the App Store called "Magical Forest - Puzzle" that was also a front for gambling. [...] I accessed them from a VPN server in Turkey; While Daring Fireball notes that users in other non-US countries like Italy also seem to have been able to access the gambling sites, I tried them with a number of other locations including Italy without success.

Unlike the multi-million dollar App Store scams that Eleftheriou uncovered earlier this year, it's not hard to see why Apple's App Store review program might have missed these -- they largely look like your typical shovelware if you don't know the trick, with only a handful of tells... like the fact that Jungle Runner uses a Pastebin for its privacy policies. It's not necessarily clear to me that they'd be violating very many of Apple's App Store policies, either. Gambling apps are permitted by Apple, as long as they're geo-restricted to regions where that gambling is permitted by law, and you could maybe argue that's exactly what this developer did by checking your IP address.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Unless something changes, an issue lurking in older PlayStations' internal timing systems threatens to eventually make every PS4 game and all downloaded PS3 games unplayable on current hardware. Right now, it's not a matter of if but when this problem will occur. [...] The root of the coming issue has to do with the CMOS battery inside every PS3 and PS4, which the systems use to keep track of the current time (even when they're unplugged). If that battery dies or is removed for any reason, it raises an internal flag in the system's firmware indicating the clock may be out of sync with reality. After that flag is raised, the system in question has to check in with PSN the next time it needs to confirm the correct time. On the PS3, this online check happens when you play a game downloaded from the PlayStation Store. On the PS4, this also happens when you try to play retail games installed from a disc. This check has to be performed at least once even if the CMOS battery is replaced with a fresh one so the system can reconfirm clock consistency.

Why does the PlayStation firmware care so much about having the correct time? On the PS3, the timer check is used to enforce any "time limits" that might have been placed on your digital purchase (as confirmed by the error message: "This content has a time limit. To perform this operation go to settings date and time settings set via internet"). That check seems to be required even for downloads that don't have any actual set expiration date, adding a de facto one-time online check-in requirement for systems after their internal batteries fail. On the PS4, though, the timing check is apparently intended to make sure PSN trophy data is registered accurately and to prevent players from pretending to get trophies earlier than they actually had. You'd think this check could be segregated from the ability to load the non-trophy portions of the game, but player testing has shown that this seems to be a requirement to get PS4 games to load at all. Last month, Sony shut down PlayStation Store access for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable. Sony will eventually shut off the PSN servers that power the timing check for hardware it no longer considers important. "After that, it's only a matter of time before failing CMOS batteries slowly reduce all PS3 and PS4 hardware to semi-functional curios," adds Ars.

Sony could release a firmware update that limits the system functions tied to this timing check, but Sony hasn't publicly indicated it has any such plans.

Epic Games may lose millions after struggling to recuperate costs from the Epic Games Store, following its fight to gain market share from Steam. From a report: The Fortnite giant spent around $444 million in 2020 on making the storefront more lucrative to PC gamers, mainly through giving away titles for free and exclusivity deals. The company dug deep to offer "minimum guarantees" to developers releasing games exclusive to the Epic Games Store. Under this arrangement, titles must remain exclusive to the PC storefront for one year, even if they're released on console platforms. This means that the developer will receive a guaranteed advance from Epic whether or not their game sells enough to recoup the number. As an example, the company spent over $10 million securing PC exclusivity for Remedy's Control in 2019. A report by IGN that shows players spent $700 million on the Epic Store in 2020, but only $265 million of that was spent on third-party games exclusive to it. According to predictions made by Apple, the Epic Store will not see any profitability until 2027 if it continues to operate this way. Apple also projects that the store could lose around $600 million by the end of the year. While Apple claims that the figure is a loss, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney confirmed on Twitter that he considers it a "fantastic investment into growing the business."

Space.com writes: Tank battles and history will collide this month as the makers of the free-to-play game "World of Tanks" honors the legacy of famed cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin for the 60th anniversary of his historic launch into space... "World of Tanks" developer Wargaming has launched its "To The Stars!" event, which recruits Gagarin into the game along with Vostok 1 themed goodies for players. The event launched Wednesday (April 7 ) and runs through April 19. Gagarin will be an in-game commander, dressed in his iconic orange flight suit, who will represent the U.S.S.R. nation.

"World of Tanks" creators worked with Gagarin's daughter, Galina Gagarina, to launch a commemorative website for the 60th anniversary of Vostok 1. You can see that "To The Stars! website here, where players can also track their progress in the event.

"Yuri Gagarin proved that humans can live and operate in space. His flight encouraged and gave hope to all those who dreamed of this! It kickstarted the deep understanding of humanity's role in preserving and developing our cosmic home — Earth," Galina Gagarin said in a statement. "I'm happy to know that, through the millions-strong audience of World of Tanks, the memory of mankind's first foray into space will be preserved for years to come!"
The press release promises a "shower of cosmic activities," including return of "Gravity Force Mode" between April 12 and April 18 with a new ability that "allows tanks to jump up and operate in the air."

And the Wargaming/MS-1 team behind the mobile tank game "World of Tanks Blitz" commemorated Gagarin's historic flight by launching a tank model into the stratosphere.

Four times in recent weeks, the White House press secretary was relayed questions from someone that Mediate describes as "a gag persona for a former Secretary of State made of Legos."

The reporters believed they were helping a real reporter who was prohibited by Covid protocols from attending. Politico reports: That colleague, who goes by the name Kacey Montagu, doesn't exist — at least not as an actual reporter. Since late last year, Montagu has taken on the identity of a White House correspondent extraordinaire with a fictional outlet to boot: White House News, shortened in emails to WHN... In communications with confidants, Montagu has posed as a member of White House Correspondents Association, claiming to be a reporter for The Daily Mail, the British tabloid known for its gossipy coverage of celebrities and political figures. Montagu also communicates regularly with top White House reporters and has had several exchanges with White House officials.

But Montagu never joined WHCA and The Daily Mail. There is no Kacey Montagu, except as a digital impersonation of a White House correspondent...

Montagu's activity is a remarkable illustration of how the online landscape, along with the age of pandemic-related virtual work, has opened up avenues for the mischievous-minded to infiltrate the top echelons of power. What's perhaps more remarkable is that he or she did it all without raising a solitary eyebrow... until Thursday.
Montagu had started a Twitter account showing the schedules of White House officials, which ultimately attracted a following by actual White House correspondents and even some minor government staffers, according to the article.

Acquaintances...believe Montagu's White House moonlighting began as something to boast about in the online global gaming platform called ROBLOX, where users jokingly call themselves "Legos." Within that platform is a role-playing group called nUSA, where people from across the world engage in a mock U.S. government exercise...

Another longtime member of the community in touch with Montagu said they suspected that they created the account "just for the memes" and never assumed things would progress this far.

Rei writes: Having moved from pigs to rhesus macaques in pursuit of the goal of hopefully beginning human trials by the end of the year, Neuralink has continued their recruitment drive with a pair of videos showing their latest progress. In the first video, they show how they train the macaque to control a joystick with its mind, and how after associating the neural signals with intent, they can disconnect the joystick and the macaque continues to be able to operate the training interface solely through Neuralink. They then switch it over to controlling a cursor in Pong (picture-in-picture showing synapses here). Even with the game set to high speed and with the distraction of his banana-milkshake reward, the macaque puts out an impressive gaming performance.

Musk expects the first commercial product to enable a paralyzed person to interact with a smartphone faster than a healthy person using their thumbs. ["Later versions will be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters, thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again," adds Musk. "The device is implanted flush with skull & charges wirelessly, so you look & feel totally normal."]

Intel is launching an artificial intelligence application that will recognize and redact hate speech in real-time. It's called Bleep, and Intel hopes it'll help with one of gaming's oldest and most intractable problems -- people can be real pieces of shit online. From a report: A video of the app shows that it will allow users to customize what kind and how much hate speech they want to see, including "Racism" and "White Nationalism" sliders that can be set to "none," "some," "most," or "all," and a separate on and off toggle for the "N-word." "While we recognize that solutions like Bleep don't erase the problem, we believe it's a step in the right direction -- giving gamers a tool to control their experience," Roger Chandler, Vice President and General Manager of Intel Client Product Solutions, said during a virtual presentation at 2021's Game Developers Conference.

According to Intel Marketing Engineer Craig Raymond, Bleep is "an end-user application that uses AI to detect and redact audio based on your user preferences." In footage of the application, Bleep presented users with a list of sliders so gamers can control the amount of hate and abuse they encounter. The list included ableism and body shaming, LGBTQ+ hate, aggression, misogyny, name-calling, racism and xenophobia, sexually explicit language, swearing, and white nationalism. As Chandler explained, Intel can't "solve" racism or the long-running and well-documented problems in gaming culture (and culture more broadly). At the same time, Bleep is techno-AI solutionism that feels pretty dystopian, pitching racism, xenophobia, and general toxicity as settings that can be tuned up and down as though they were graphics, sound, or control sliders on a video game. It is also a way of admitting defeat: if we can't stop players from being incredibly racist in chat, we can simply filter out what they say and pretend they don't exist.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Live-streaming service Twitch will ban users for offenses such as hate-group membership or credible threats of mass violence that occur entirely away from the site, in a new approach to moderating the platform, the company said on Wednesday. The Amazon-owned platform, which is popular among video gamers, said under its new rules it would take enforcement actions against offline offenses that posed a "substantial safety risk" to its community.

It said examples of this "severe misconduct" include terrorist activities, child sexual exploitation, violent extremism, credible threats of mass violence, carrying out or deliberately acting as an accomplice to sexual assault and threatening Twitch or its staff. "Taking action against misconduct that occurs entirely off our service is a novel approach for both Twitch and the industry at large, but it's one we believe -- and hear from you -- is crucial to get right," the company said in a blog post. The company said users will be able to report such behaviors but it may also investigate cases proactively, for instance if there is a verified news report that a user has been arrested. Twitch said it would rely more heavily on law enforcement in "off-service" cases and is partnering with an investigative law firm to support its internal team. It declined to name the firm. The new standards will apply even if the target of the offline behaviors is not a Twitch user or if the perpetrator was not a user when they committed the acts. Perpetrators would also be banned from registering a Twitch account, it said.

Twitch said it would take action only when there was evidence, such as screen shots, videos of off-Twitch behavior or police filings, verified by its internal team or third-party investigators. Users who submit a large amount of frivolous reports will face suspension. The company said in cases where the behavior happened in the distant past, users had gone through rehabilitation such as time in a correctional facility, and they no longer presented a danger to the community, it might not take action or might reinstate users on appeal. It said it would share updates with the involved parties but would not share public updates about actions under this policy.

E3 will return in 2021 as a "reimagined, all-virtual" event, organizers announced Tuesday. E3 2021 will take place June 12-15, and will feature content from Nintendo, Xbox, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, Warner Bros. Games, and Koch Media, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) said in a news release. From a report: Game developers and publishers will showcase their games at E3 2021 "directly to fans around the world," the ESA said. E3 2021 content will be free to access, thanks to unannounced global media partners. "We are evolving this year's E3 into a more inclusive event, but will still look to excite the fans with major reveals and insider opportunities that make this event the indispensable center stage for video games," said Stanley Pierre-Louis, president and CEO of the ESA. While this year's E3 will be virtual, organizers say they are planning for an in-person E3 2022.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In the world's largest gaming market, China, console games play a relatively small part as their revenue has been meagre compared to mobile and PC games for years -- at least by the official numbers. There remains a community of hardcore console lovers, but they are finding it harder to get hold of devices and cartridges recently. A handful of grey market videogame console vendors on Taobao stopped selling and shipping this week, according to checks by TechCrunch and online posts by gamers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The popular and entirely legal Steam Database has found itself in a precarious position following two erroneous DMCA notices from SEGA. Steam Database's host is being asked to suspend the platform due to a claimed lack of response to the first notice. This prompted the site to take down entirely legal content in an effort to address the problem. [...]

TorrentFreak was able to review the notice sent by SEGA to SteamDB's host and it pulls no punches. SEGA doubles down by stating that SteamDB is illegally distributing the game Yakuza: Like a Dragon, noting that it has tried to inform SteamDB but was "not able" to resolve the issue. Worryingly, it then implies that legal action might be taken against SteamDB for non-compliance, adding that the host should "immediately suspend" SteamDB due to the alleged ongoing infringement. Which, of course, is not taking place.

This puts SteamDB's host in a tough position. Failure to act against an allegedly infringing customer can put the host at risk in terms of liability but disabling a customer's website can cause a whole new set of problems, especially when that customer has not infringed anyone's rights. In an effort to sort the problem out, SteamDB's host asked for additional input from the operators of SteamDB but nevertheless warned that if that information was not received, it may still block the SteamDB server within 24 hours, as demanded in the SEGA takedown notice. In order to defuse the situation, SteamDB took down the allegedly-infringing page which as far as SEGA goes (and at least in theory) should solve the disconnection threat problem. However, the entire situation has proven counterproductive for SEGA too.

Sony confirmed on Monday that PlayStation Store access for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable will end this summer. From a report: The PS3 and PS Vita stores close Aug. 27, 2021; the PSP's remaining purchase functions will end on July 2, 2021. PS3, Vita, and PSP owners will still be able to re-download and play any games they've purchased through the PlayStation Store. Users can still redeem voucher codes for games and PlayStation Plus, too. Additionally, multi-platform cross-buy purchases are still possible, meaning users can still buy content made available to both PlayStation 4 and PS3, PS Vita, and/or PSP. Players can still access their content by way of the Download List, on their respective device. Sony also specified that these store closures will not affect any user's PlayStation Now subscription, or their access to PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Vita titles they claimed through their PlayStation Plus subscription.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: The video in this story will be familiar to anyone who's played the 3D world-building game Minecraft. But it's not a human constructing these castles, trees, and caterpillars -- it's artificial intelligence. The algorithm takes its cue from the "Game of Life," a so-called cellular automaton. There, squares in a grid turn black or white over a series of timesteps based on how many of their neighbors are black or white. The program mimics biological development, in which cells in an embryo behave according to cues in their local environment.

The scientists taught neural networks to grow single cubes into complex designs containing thousands of bricks, like the castle or tree or furnished apartment building above, and even into functional machines, like the caterpillar. And when they sliced a creation in half, it regenerated. (Normally in Minecraft, a user would have to reconstruct the object by hand.) Going forward, the researchers hope to train systems to grow not only predefined forms, but to invent designs that perform certain functions. This could include flying, allowing engineers to find solutions human designers would not have otherwise foreseen. Or tiny robots might use local interactions to assemble rescue robots or self-healing buildings. The researchers presented their system in a paper posted on arXiv.

Microsoft is rebranding Xbox Live to Xbox network. Instances of the new branding started appearing in the Xbox dashboard recently for beta testers, with clips being uploaded to "Xbox network" instead of Xbox Live. Microsoft has now confirmed the name change. From a report: "'Xbox network' refers to the underlying Xbox online service, which was updated in the Microsoft Services Agreement," says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. "The update from 'Xbox Live' to 'Xbox network' is intended to distinguish the underlying service from Xbox Live Gold memberships." Microsoft has used Xbox Live to refer to its underlying Xbox service since its original launch 18 years ago. Larry Hryb, better known as Major Nelson, has been known as "Xbox Live's Major Nelson" for years, but Hryb now refers to himself as "Xbox's Major Nelson."

Nintendo plans to adopt an upgraded Nvidia chip with better graphics and processing for a new Switch model planned for the year-end shopping season, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The new Switch iteration will support Nvidia's Deep Learning Super Sampling, or DLSS, a novel rendering technology that uses artificial intelligence to deliver higher-fidelity graphics more efficiently. That will allow the console, which is also set for an OLED display upgrade, to reproduce game visuals at 4K quality when plugged into a TV, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plan is not public. The U.S. company's new chipset will also bring a better CPU and increased memory. DLSS support will require new code to be added to games, so it'll primarily be used to improve graphics on upcoming titles, said the people, including multiple game developers. Bloomberg News previously reported that the new Switch is likely to include a 7-inch OLED screen from Samsung Display and couple the console's release with a bounty of new games.

As VGC notes, the preservation group Hidden Palace has obtained 752 PS2 game prototypes and demos from collectors, shuttered developers and defunct media outlets as part of a Project Deluge initiative. Engadget reports: The mix includes prototypes of classics like God of War II, Katamari Damacy, Okami and the Ratchet & Clank series. There are also E3 demos, including big titles like Shadow of the Colossus, as well as very rough alpha previews for titles like Def Jam: Fight for New York and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. It's not a complete look at the PS2's history, but it could easily make you nostalgic. Hidden Palace stressed it checked for differences from retail versions, and that most of these prototypes will run in emulators.

There's no tentative release date. Another batch is coming "real soon," though. If nothing else, this is already useful as a snapshot of gaming culture in the early 2000s. You can see breakthrough games before they were finished, or remember just how many extreme sports games were on store shelves.

Long-time Slashdot reader theshowmecanuck writes: A grandmother let her 13 year old grandson use her credit card to buy added content for one of his games for which she thought would be a $15 charge. After the account opened up because of the credit card on it, he started downloading other things not realizing they were adding substantial charges to her credit card. She asked Sony to refund the charges, it's not like they can't disable the added content if they wanted, but they told her basically too bad so sad.
From the article: When CTV News Toronto reached on to PlayStation on Liscoumb's behalf a spokesperson said "We reviewed this case at your request and determined that it did not qualify for a refund as outlined in our terms of service and user agreement."

"I'm just heartbroken and Visa said they can't do anything, because I'm the one that put the credit card into the system," [the grandmother, Diana] Liscoumb said... Liscoumb said it will be difficult to pay back the $1,400 in charges and says her grandson is upset too. "He even offered to get a job when he turns 14 to help pay for it."
This story drew a range of reactions from Slashdot readers:

• "This was a $1400 lesson that hopefully they both learned. Never trust a corporation to do the right thing."

• "This is not on the vendor it is on the grandson, his parents and his grandmother... This should not be a news story at all. This should be a private learning lesson for the child, and his guardians."

• "The real problem is still that companies are putting addictive gambling mechanics into games."

• "Someone at Sony should fix the problem."

Sony is revealing its new VR controllers for the PS5 today. The Verge reports: The orb-shaped controllers look more like typical VR controllers than existing PlayStation Move motion controllers, and they also include the same adaptive trigger technology found on the DualSense PS5 controller. Each controller has tensions in the triggers, and Sony is aiming to use this tech in future VR games. The controllers also have haptic feedback, and finger touch detection that will let them detect fingers without having to press areas where you rest your thumb, index, or middle fingers.

Naturally, these controllers will also include tracking to Sony's new VR headset via a ring at the bottom of the controller. These certainly look far improved over what's currently available on the PS Move controllers, with better ergonomics, too. Sony hasn't shown off the design of its next-gen VR headset for the PS5 just yet, but the company did reveal it has an improved field of view, resolution, and even a single cord to make it easier to use. Sony isn't planning to launch its VR headset for the PS5 in 2021, but it's clear the company is getting ready to test it with game developers soon. Don't expect an Xbox virtual-reality headset anytime soon. Yesterday, a Microsoft representative reiterated that "VR for console is not a focus for us at this time."

MojoKid writes: AMD just unveiled its latest RDNA 2-based GPU that targets 1440p PC gamers, known as Radeon RX 6700 XT. The Radeon RX 6700 XT is built around the company's Navi 22 GPU. In terms of core counts, Navi 22 is effectively a Navi 21 -- the "Big Navi" GPU used on the powerful Radeon RX 6900 XT -- lopped in half. AMD's Radeon RX 6700 XT has fewer CUs and Ray Accelerators (40 vs. 80), and 50% of the total number of Stream Processors (2,560 vs. 5,120). Other parts of the of Navi 22, however, aren't scaled back quite as far. For example, the Radeon RX 6700 XT has 96MB of Infinity Cache, down from 128MB of on the 6900 XT. And the 6700 XT's memory interface is 192-bits wide versus 256-bits on Radeon RX 6800 / 6900 series cards. The 6700 XT also features 12GB of GDDR6 memory (versus 16GB).

AMD has set the MSRP for its Radeon RX 6700 XT at $479. That puts its price higher than the competing GeForce RTX 3060 Ti ($399 MSRP), but somewhat lower than the RTX 3070 ($499 MSRP). Looking at the numbers, that's right where the Radeon RX 6700 XT falls in terms of performance with traditional rasterization. Factor ray tracing into the mix, however, and the Radeon falls behind both of NVIDIA's competitive products. Radeon RX 6700 XT card should be available starting today but for sure demand will be very high, so supply will likely be limited.

Microsoft has once again reiterated that VR support for Xbox was not a focus for the company, following reports earlier today that hinted it was working on a VR headset compatible with the Xbox Series X/S. The Verge reports: The rumor first surfaced after IGN Italy reported that some Italian Xbox users received messages, which translated to "[a]n update for the VR headset is available" and "[u]pdate VR headset," when connecting the recently released Xbox Wireless Headset to their Xbox Series X or Series S consoles. A Microsoft representative told The Verge that "the copy in this error message is inaccurate due to a localization bug," while again reiterating that "VR for console is not a focus for us at this time."

Microsoft has yet to explore the VR space for its Xbox consoles. In 2018, the company pulled back on plans to support virtual reality headsets for Xbox in 2018, explaining that it wanted to focus "primarily on experiences you would play on your TV." In late 2019, Xbox boss Phil Spencer tweeted out that although he played "some great VR games" such as Half-Life: Alyx, console VR was not Xbox's focus ahead of the Xbox Series X / S release.

Rockstar Games has paid a modder $10,000 for identifying a way to make Grand Theft Auto Online load significantly faster. From a report: The modder, who goes by the handle 't0st,' recently posted their discovery of a single-thread CPU bottleneck that occurs in the PC version of the hit multiplayer mode. They created a fix they claim enables the game to load 70% faster, and included a message for Rockstar, advising that the issue "shouldn't take more than a day for a single dev to solve." Reports spread of t0st's discovery and Rockstar has confirmed not only that this works, but that it will release an official fix in a future update for the game. In a statement to PC Gamer, the company said: "After a thorough investigation, we can confirm that player t0st did, in fact, reveal an aspect of the game code related to load times for the PC version of GTA Online that could be improved. "As a result of these investigations, we have made some changes that will be implemented in a forthcoming title update."

On Friday, NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella tweeted that the PS5 is currently the fastest selling hardware platform" in U.S. history, in terms of total dollar sales. CNET reports: Piscatella didn't share an exact dollar amount for the PS5 but noted that consumer spending across video game hardware, software and accessories has already totaled $9.3 billion this year. Sony didn't include specific sales figures in its earnings report last month, but the company did indicate it shipped 4.5 million PS5 consoles in 2020 alone. Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki said at a February news conference that Sony is aiming to sell upward of 14.8 million units in the coming fiscal year, which begins this month.

The PS5 did fall to second place for the month of February, according to NPD. It was superseded only by the Nintendo Switch, which may have seen a sales boost on the heels of Super Mario 3D World -- Bowser's Fury, the latest Switch title, released last month.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Yesterday, Roblox made good on its plans to go public, with employees and previous investors selling hundreds of millions of shares in a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange. In a private funding round in January, those shares were worth $45. When the market closed Wednesday, they were selling at $69.50, a price that valued Roblox Corp. as a whole at $45.3 billion (as of this writing, Roblox Corp.'s stock price peaked at $77.30 and currently sits at $72.72 in Thursday morning trading).

How did this company, whose single title has become a game platform unto itself, become worth more than major game publishers like Electronic Arts and Take-Two? To help answer that question, we put together this deep dive into the numbers that are powering the Roblox revolution. They paint a picture of a company with an extremely young and incredibly engaged user base that has ballooned during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. But Roblox is also a company that is struggling to convert its huge and growing annual revenues into profitability. Here are the valuations of Roblox and how it compares to the other gaming companies:

Roblox
- Jan. 2017: $500 million
- July 2018: $2.3 billion
- Feb. 2020: $3.9 billion
- Jan. 2021: $29.5 billion
- March 10, 2021: $45.3 billion

Other gaming companies (current valuations)
- Ubisoft: $9.58 billion
- Take-Two: $19.43 billion
- Electronic Arts: $38.09 billion
- Roblox: $45.3 billion
- Activision: $72.23 billion
- Tencent: $843.86 billion

Visit Ars' article for the full deep dive into the numbers, which are sourced from SEC documents and Roblox's own website.

Google Stadia has a "State Share" feature that lets people click on a screenshot or video clip of a game to play the level that was captured -- providing they own the game themselves. Andy Kelly reports via PC Gamer: This week I've been playing PixelJunk Raiders, a new roguelike developed exclusively for Stadia by Q-Games, which makes particularly good use of this feature. Levels in this game are procedurally generated, so if the algorithm spits out something especially cool, you can take a screenshot and share it online, letting people experience it for themselves. A small community has sprung up around this feature, with people sharing interesting, challenging, or otherwise interesting levels in public spreadsheets.

There's also an asynchronous multiplayer element to it. You can go into someone's game state and drop weapons or handy gadgets like turrets or jump pads, then share the state again, creating a chain of people helping each other. Some players are even using states as supply drops, dumping weapons that you can scoop up then take back to your own missionsâ"which is very handy for PixelJunk Raiders in particular, a game that is both punishingly difficult and frequently stingy with its loot drops. You'll take any help you can get. Players can also use emotes to silently communicate across these chains. "Only a handful of Stadia games support State Share right now, including the Hitman trilogy," notes Kelly. "But even at this early stage it's impressive. Being able to show a friend something in a game and not just say 'look at this,' but actually let them play it themselves, feels kinda like the future."

Asus, best known for its PC and gaming enthusiast gear, launched the latest in its Republic of Gamers smartphone line targeting Android gamers in markets like China. From a report: The ROG Phone 5 maintains the heritage of over-the-top specs and design: its exterior is decorated with angular motifs and its interior is populated with up to 18GB of memory and Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 888 processor. It has a custom-made 6.8-inch Samsung OLED display, contains two battery cells and is cooled by a vapor chamber system -- and its higher-tier models bundle an attachable fan cooler for even more performance. In the commodified Android device market, Asus is betting on its brand association with gaming and the broad enthusiasm for a tailored user experience. The ROG Phone 5 comes with an app providing a console-like interface and Asus is working with game makers to add support for the highest refresh rates its display is capable of. Though to break past its 0.2% global market share, the company will need some help, according to Neil Mawston of Strategy Analytics.

Asus has found success partnering with Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings. The two companies have collaborated on the marketing of ROG Phones and certification of games in China for several generations and the country is one of Asus' main focus markets, the Taiwanese manufacturer said. Unlike the PC market, where higher clock speeds and more memory can translate into being able to play at higher fidelity or on larger screens, in the mobile realm practically every company relies on the same basic architecture. And the leading duo of Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics consistently tout their devices' gaming capabilities, pushing brands like Asus to focus on hardcore gaming fans.

The European Commission has approved Microsoft's $7.5 billion deal to acquire ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Doom and Fallout studio Bethesda Softworks. The Verge reports: Microsoft's deal has been approved by the EU without conditions, as it "does not raise serious doubts as to its compatibility with the common market." The acquisition required EU approval before Microsoft could finalize the Bethesda deal and bring future games to its Xbox Game Pass subscription. "The Commission concluded that the proposed acquisition would raise no competition concerns, given the combined entity's limited market position upstream and the presence of strong downstream competitors in the distribution of video games," says a European Commission statement. "The transaction was examined under the normal merger review procedure."

Once the deal is fully closed, Microsoft's list of first-party studios will jump to 23, following the addition of Bethesda sub-studios like Dishonored developer Arkane, Wolfenstein studio MachineGames, Doom maker id Software, and The Evil Within studio Tango Gameworks. Microsoft appears to be planning to keep Bethesda running separately, with its existing leadership. Microsoft originally announced its plans to acquire Bethesda in September, promising to honor PS5 exclusivity commitments for Deathloop and GhostWire: Tokyo. Games like The Elder Scrolls: Online will also "continue to be supported exactly as it was." How Microsoft handles future Bethesda titles will come down to a "case-by-case" basis, according to comments from Microsoft's gaming chief Phil Spencer in September.

According to Bloomberg, Nintendo is planning to unveil a model of its Switch gaming console equipped with a bigger Samsung OLED display and support for 4K. It's expected to arrive before Christmas. From the report: Samsung Display Co. will start mass production of 7-inch, 720p-resolution OLED panels as early as June with an initial monthly target of just under a million units. The displays are slated for shipment to assemblers around July. The gaming community has speculated online about the introduction of an OLED or organic light-emitting diode screen, but Nintendo has stayed mum and President Shuntaro Furukawa said in February his company has no plans to announce a new Switch "anytime soon." Samsung's involvement is the strongest indication that Nintendo is serious about updating the console, and on a large scale.

Nintendo decided to go with rigid OLED panels for the new model, the people said, a cheaper but less flexible alternative to the type commonly used for high-end smartphones. The latest model will also come with 4K ultra-high definition graphics when paired with TVs, they said. That could intensify a longstanding complaint of developers, who have struggled with the difference in resolution between handheld and TV modes and now face a bigger gap between the two.

linuxwrangler shares a report from PetaPixel: A programmer who goes by the name Turtius has managed to install and run a Minecraft server on a Canon SL2 DSLR camera. Turtius was working on reverse-engineering Canon's network processor when he decided to try and see if it could be done. [You can view it in action here on YouTube].

It is important to note that the camera is just the server, not the client. The game itself is running on the computer, the "world" that is displayed in-game is simply connected to the camera. Theoretically, others could connect to the camera's network and join this same Minecraft server via their own computer. [...] The SL2 does seem to be at the limits of its capability, however, as Turtius says that it can barely make photos and videos in this state and sometimes will crash. He believes that if the camera processor were a bit more powerful, custom world generation could be supported. "It's avrcraft," Turtius explains on Reddit. "It's fully running on the camera. I reverse-engineered the network module used by Canon which just so happens to expose Unix-like sockets and integrated avrcraft with Magic Lantern. It's running a custom implementation provided by Canon's operating system and using custom code to interact with the stuff provided by Canon on a lower level."

You can find the full source code here on GitHub. Just be warned that you could brick your camera if you try this yourself.

E3's physical event for 2021 has been cancelled, according to Los Angeles city documents published last week. From a report: In a new report published by the Board of Los Angeles Convention and Tourism Development Commission, a sales update lists E3 2021 as a "cancelled live event." The document states that the Convention board is working with E3 organiser The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) on broadcast options at the Los Angeles Convention Center and the nearby LA Live complex. The City board also claims it's "working" on a 2022 and 2023 license for E3. The cancellation would mark the second year in a row the E3 event has been called off due to the coronavirus pandemic. As exclusively revealed by VGC this month, The ESA has been pushing forward with plans for a digital E3 event this summer, but it still requires the backing of major games companies. [...] "We can confirm that we are transforming the E3 experience for 2021 and will soon share exact details on how we're bringing the global video game community together," an ESA spokesperson said. "We are having great conversations with publishers, developers and companies across the board, and we look forward to sharing details about their involvement soon."

The tech giant likes to test and tweak. Stadia promised to change the industry and failed to deliver. From a report: Google's streaming video game service Stadia had ambitious plans to disrupt the gaming industry, which is dominated by consoles. The tech giant had planned to pack Stadia with original content, announcing two years ago that it was hiring hundreds of game developers and starting studios in Los Angeles and Montreal. But those teams barely had time to get started before they were dismissed earlier this month as Google shut down in-house game development. From the beginning, Google's approach to video games wasn't very Google-like. The Alphabet company tends to launch bare-bones products and test them as they grow. With Stadia, it came out big. Flashy press conferences and ad campaigns promised high-quality games with innovative features playable on Android smartphones or on the TV through Chromecast. Gamers would have access to a library of exclusive titles and well-known favorites like Assassin's Creed without having to dish out $500 for Sony Corp's PlayStation or Microsoft's Xbox.

So when Stadia launched in 2019, gamers were expecting the complete package, not the beta model. While the cloud streaming technology was there, playing to Google's strengths, the library of games was underwhelming and many of the promised features nonexistent. Other platforms offer hundreds of games a year, but Stadia offers fewer than 80, according to Mat Piscatella, an analyst at the NPD Group, which tracks video game sales data. Players also didn't like Stadia's business model, which required customers to buy games individually rather than subscribe to an all-you-can-play service a la Netflix or the Xbox's Game Pass. Paying as much as $60 for a single game, for it only to exist on Google's servers rather than on your own PC, seemed a stretch to some. After all the hype, gamers were disappointed. Stadia missed its targets for sales of controllers and monthly active users by hundreds of thousands, according to two people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. A Google spokesperson declined to comment for this story. "I think it would be fair to say the messaging leading up to and around the launch was inconsistent," with the final product, Piscatella says. Further reading: Stadia Leadership Praised Development Studios For 'Great Progress' Just One Week Before Laying Them All Off.

Video game publisher Electronic Arts has canceled a game that was in development at its Montreal office for nearly six years, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. From a report: The game, code named Gaia, was first hinted at in 2015, but was never officially announced or given a title. Since then, EA executives have released a drip feed of information, sharing tidbits every few years on what it described as a brand new franchise. Last summer in a video showcasing future games, EA provided a few seconds of footage from Gaia, describing it as "a highly ambitious, innovative new game that puts the power and creativity in your hands." The cancellation is part of a recent resource shift by the company as it evaluates projects and decides which ones will move forward. Earlier this month, the publisher reviewed in-progress games including Gaia and a new iteration of the poorly received online game Anthem, which was also canceled. Gaia's development was turbulent and the game went through at least one major reboot, which may have been a factor behind its demise, according to the people, who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk to the press.

Sony is winding down original game development at its oldest first-party developer, Japan Studio, game news outlet VGC reported, citing sources. From the report: The iconic developer behind Ape Escape, Gravity Rush and Knack has seen the vast majority of its development staff let go, the sources said, after their annual contracts were not renewed ahead of the company's next business year, which begins April 1. Localisation and business staff will remain in place and ASOBI Team -- the group responsible for the Astro Bot games -- will continue as a standalone studio within Sony Japan, it's claimed. Some Japan Studio staff will join ASOBI, we were told, while others have followed Silent Hill and Gravity Rush director Keiichiro Toyama -- who left Japan Studio last year -- to his new studio Bokeh. It's not entirely clear if the restructure has affected the studio's External Development Department, which collaborated on games such as last year's Demon's Souls, but one person VGC spoke to suggested it would continue.

Koreantoast writes: With the number of carjackings more than doubling in the city of Chicago during 2020, one lawmaker knows who to blame: the video game "Grand Theft Auto." According to Chicago ABC 7, Democratic State Representative Marcus Williams believes the video game is causing the rise in carjackings, stating that "Grand Theft Auto' and other violent video games are getting in the minds of our young people and perpetuating the normalcy of carjacking. Carjacking is not normal and carjacking must stop." He plans on introducing a bill to ban sales of the game in the state of Illinois.

Some are skeptical of Rep. Williams claims however. Columnist Joe Jurado of the Root points out that the franchise is hardly new and widely distributed, with the latest iteration, GTA V, released eight years ago and having sold 130 million copies. He adds that attempting to ban the game would be incredibly difficult writing, "Let me entertain this stupid-a** notion for a second. Say they're successful and get the game off store shelves in Illinois. What are you going to do about digital sales? You're telling me that the state of Illinois is willing to expend the time, money, and technical know-how to block the game off of PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, Epic Games, and the Rockstar storefront? I've worked for the state government, and I know damn well those Windows XP-using a**es ain't built for this life."

The PlayStation 5 will have its own virtual reality headset, however, consumers may face ongoing difficulties obtaining a PS5 console given a supply chain shortfall. From a report: Ryan revealed both developments in a Monday interview with The Washington Post. Ryan said developments kits for the PS5-specific VR headset will be sent out soon, though the company isn't ready to talk about the device's horsepower or specs. He did say the next headset will be considerably less cumbersome, as opposed to the current PSVR setup that requires wires running through a PlayStation 4, the TV and a separate black box called the PSVR processor. "Generational leaps allows you to sweep up the advances in technology that have taken place," Ryan said. "Given this was our first foray into virtual reality, it gives us a chance to apply lessons learned. One of the very vivid illustrations of that is that we will be moving to a very easy single-cord setup."

The next version of PlayStation VR will also borrow from its groundbreaking DualSense controllers, which debuted with the PS5 and provide super specific haptic feedback from the game to the palms of a player's hands. "One of the innovations we're excited about is our new VR controller, which will incorporate some of the key features found in the DualSense wireless controller, along with a focus on great ergonomics," Senior Vice President, Platform Planning & Management Hideaki Nishino wrote in a post on PlayStation's website Tuesday. There's no set launch date for the new VR device, according to Ryan. In an October 2020 interview with The Post, Ryan said while Sony was still very much interested in VR, any more news about the company's VR investments may not come in 2021.

Worried that the GeForce RTX 3060 will be sold out as cryptocurrency miners snap up every GPU in sight? NVIDIA thinks it has a simple way to help: make the new card unattractive to the crypto crowd. From a report: The company has revealed that it's cutting the hash rate (mining efficiency) of the RTX 3060 in half for Ethereum miners. The driver software can detect the Ethereum mining algorithm and throttle performance in response. The rationale is simple: NVIDIA wants to put GeForce cards "in the hands of gamers," not just those hoping to turn a profit by generating digital money. While the extremely high demand from miners has been good for NVIDIA's bottom line in the short term, it has frustrated gamers, professionals and everyday users who just want better than integrated graphics -- NVIDIA even brought back years-old GPUs just to give customers some options. Scalping and price gouging have been all too common for those GPUs that do become available.

It's not leaving miners empty-handed. The firm is launching a new CMP (Cryptocurrency Mining Processor) line of add-in cards that doesn't do graphics, but is fine-tuned for crypto mining performance. The absence of video ports allows for greater airflow and more densely-packed cards, for example. The first CMP designs are the 26 megahash per second 30HX and 36 megahash 40HX, both of which should be available this quarter from vendors like ASUS, EVGA and Gigabyte. More powerful 50X (45MH/s) and 90HX (86MH/s) boards are due in the second quarter. The company said it won't limit the performance of GPUs that are already sold.

Science magazine: As Samuel West combed through a paper that found a link between watching cartoon violence and aggression in children, he noticed something odd about the study participants. There were more than 3000 -- an unusually large number -- and they were all 10 years old. "It was just too perfect," says West, a Ph.D. student in social psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. Yet West added the 2019 study, published in Aggressive Behavior and led by psychologist Qian Zhang of Southwest University of Chongqing, to his meta-analysis after a reviewer asked him to cast a wider net. West didn't feel his vague misgivings could justify excluding it from the study pool. But after Aggressive Behavior published West's meta-analysis last year, he was startled to find that the journal was investigating Zhang's paper while his own was under review. It is just one of many papers of Zhang's that have recently been called into question, casting a shadow on research into the controversial question of whether violent entertainment fosters violent behavior. Zhang denies any wrongdoing, but two papers have been retracted. Others live on in journals and meta-analyses -- a "major problem" for a field with conflicting results and entrenched camps, says Amy Orben, a cognitive scientist at the University of Cambridge who studies media and behavior. And not just for the ivory tower, she says: The research shapes media warning labels and decisions by parents and health professionals.

The investigations were triggered by Illinois State University psychologist Joe Hilgard, who published a blog post last month cataloging his concerns about Zhang's work. Hilgard was initially impressed when he came across a 2018 paper of Zhang's in Youth & Society, another study with 3000 subjects. "I was like, holy smokes!" he says. The study found some teenagers were more aggressive after playing violent video games. Given the huge sample size, it had the potential to be a "powerful chunk of evidence," Hilgard says. But he found the paper's statistics mathematically impossible. Zhang and his co-authors reported high levels of statistical significance for their finding, but the reported differences in the effects of violent games versus nonviolent games were too small for that high statistical significance to be possible. Hilgard alerted Zhang and the journal, and Zhang submitted a correction. Hilgard says that made the statistics seem more plausible, but they were still incorrect. Hilgard says he found problems in other papers of Zhang's, such as nearly identical results reported in three different papers. He emailed Zhang and asked to see his data, but he says Zhang refused. Hilgard then contacted Dorothy Espelage, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and co-author with Zhang on multiple papers. She told Hilgard that Zhang had refused to send her the data, too. It was only after Hilgard asked Southwest University to investigate that Zhang sent Hilgard data for a Youth & Society paper on movie violence. But the data were odd, Hilgard says, and missing features normally found in similar experiments.

Developers at Google's recently formed game studios were shocked February 1 when they were notified that the studios would be shut down, Kotaku reported Tuesday, citing four sources with knowledge of what transpired. From the report: Just the week prior, Google Stadia vice president and general manager Phil Harrison sent an email to staff lauding the "great progress" its studios had made so far. Mass layoffs were announced a few days later, part of an apparent pattern of Stadia leadership not being honest and upfront with the company's developers, many of which had upended their lives and careers to join the team. "[Stadia Games and Entertainment] has made great progress building a diverse and talented team and establishing a strong lineup of Stadia exclusive games," Harrison's January 27 email read, according to sources. "We will confirm the SG&E investment envelope shortly, which will, in turn, inform the SG&E strategy and 2021 [objectives and key results]."

Five days later, Harrison appeared to reverse course completely, announcing in a public blog post that the head of Stadia Games and Entertainment, Jade Raymond, left the company, and Google would "not be investing further in bringing exclusive content from our internal development team SG&E." Stadia developers learned the news, first reported by Kotaku, at almost the same time as everyone else via an internal email and conference call with Harrison. The messy rollout came after an already grueling year working through the pandemic. It was reminiscent of Stadia's own launch, which appeared rushed and left out many features promoted during the service's reveal, only to be added months later. In this case, however, Stadia's own developers were the ones impacted by the botched planning. Released in November 2019, Stadia initially struggled due to its monetization model and a lack of games.

Some movie theaters around the world are renting out their screens to gamers to bring in a new revenue stream amid the coronavirus pandemic. The BBC reports: With many cinemas across the country closed due to coronavirus restrictions meaning that they can only open with 50% capacity, and far fewer movies being released to tempt cinemagoers, CGV [South Korea's largest cinema chain] came up with the idea of renting out its auditoriums to gamers to bring in a new revenue stream. Before 6pm up to four people can hire a screen for two hours for around $90. This then rises to $135 in the evening. Users have to bring their consoles, games and controllers with them. The auditoriums being hired out have between 100 and 200 seats, and by comparison CGV movie tickets cost around $12 each. So a 100-seat screen half filled for a film would bring in revenues of $600, rising to $1,200 for a 200-seat one at 50% capacity. And that is before the filmgoers buy their drinks and popcorn.

Yet while CGV isn't making anywhere as much money from the gamers, it is bringing in some additional income. The scheme is called Azit-X after "azit," the Korean word for hideout. Since the new service launched at the start of this year, auditoriums have been booked more than 130 times so far. While the majority of customers are said to be men in their 30s or 40s, couples and families have also taken part.

Korea's CGV is not the only cinema chain now letting gamers book cinema screens, as U.S. group Malco Theatres has been doing the same since November. Memphis-based Malco allows up to 20 people to hire a screen at its 36 cinemas across Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee. The prices for service, which is called Malco Select, are $100 for two hours or $150 for three. Other U.S. chains, such as AMC and Cinemark, have been allowing customers in small groups to book auditoriums for private screenings.

The hackers behind this week's ransomware attack on Cyberpunk 2077 studio CD Projekt Red appear to have found a buyer for the stolen data. Engadget reports: They ran an auction on a hacking forum but, as The Verge notes, they shut it down after reportedly accepting an offer from elsewhere. The starting price for the auction was said to be $1 million and there was the option for an interested party with a spare $7 million to buy the data outright. It's not clear who has acquired the data, how much they paid for it or what they're planning to do with the information.