Posted by Zack Zwiezen from Kotaku
Black Mesa, the fan developed remake of the original Half-Life, is currently only $2 on Steam. This is the cheapest the fantastic reimagining of Valve’s first game has ever been on the store, the big sale in honor of Black Mesa being on Steam for 10 years.

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the smoother-future department: Intel has certified Shell's lubricant-based method for cooling servers more efficiently within data centers used for AI. From a report: The announcement on Tuesday, which follows the chipmaker's two-year trial of the technology, offers a way to use less energy at AI facilities, which are booming and are expected to double their electricity demand globally by 2030, consuming as much power then as all of Japan today, according to the International Energy Agency.

So far, companies have largely used giant fans to reduce temperatures inside AI data centers, which generate more heat in order to run at a higher power. Increasingly, these fans consume electricity at a rate that rivals the computers themselves, something the facilities' operators would prefer to avoid, Intel Principal Engineer Samantha Yates said in an interview.

Posted by Chris from Tokunation
Our friends at Tokusatsu Republic have posted their latest newsletter for May 2025!  Check it out to pre-order the latest items, to order previously released items, and to find that missing piece to your tokusatsu collection. Check out Tokusatsu Republic today!

The post Tokusatsu Republic Newsletter For May 2025 appeared first on Tokunation.

Posted by George Yang from Kotaku
Doom: The Dark Ages is here and the game has plenty of collectibles including Secret Paths, Dolls, Codexes, and more. There are 22 levels throughout The Dark Ages’ campaign, so there’s a healthy amount of items to grab and hidden stuff to find. Here’s where to find every secret and collectible for the first level:…

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the ticket-closed department: Linux creator Linus Torvalds has abandoned his six-month experiment with a quieter low-profile keyboard in favor of his old mechanical one with Cherry MX Blue switches. In a post about Linux 6.15-rc6 on LKML.org, Torvalds explained that his typing accuracy suffered without the tactile feedback.

"It seems I need the audible (or perhaps tactile) feedback to avoid the typing mistakes that I just kept doing," Torvalds wrote. The famously outspoken developer couldn't recall why he initially switched to the quieter keyboard, as he doesn't work in a shared office where the noise would disturb others. After the failed experiment with the unnamed quiet keyboard, Torvalds has now returned to what he describes as a "noisy clackety-clack" input device. He joked that since he can no longer blame his keyboard for typos, "going forward, I will now conveniently blame autocorrect."

Posted by Kenneth Shepard from Kotaku
Looks like we’re getting a new Persona game soon. No, not the long-awaited Persona 6, but another Persona 5 spin-off. Well, it’s not even “new,” per se; it’s just finally getting a proper worldwide release. I’m talking about Persona 5: The Phantom X, a mobile spin-off of the series set in an alternate timeline to the…

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Posted by Ethan Gach from Kotaku
Fans are collectively shitting their pants and racing back to defend Super Earth as one of Helldivers 2's most consequential updates since launch hits the galactic airwaves. The latest content drop adds weapon customization options, new enemies, and a bunch of fresh fixes, as everyone prepares to defend against a new…

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the more-cuts department: Microsoft is laying off 3% of employees across all levels and geographies, the company said Tuesday. "We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company for success in a dynamic marketplace," a spokesperson told CNBC. Microsoft had 228,000 employees worldwide at the end of June, meaning that the move will affect thousands of employees.

Posted by Ethan Gach from Kotaku
Fans won’t have to wait long to see the Fallout TV show tackle the setting of one of the best RPGs in the series. Amazon announced Fallout season 2 will start airing in December 2025 with a teaser trailer that shows Lucy and Ghoul set out across the Mojave desert to the irradiated ruins of New Vegas.

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the closer-look department: Gaming pioneer John Carmack believes we're not nearly as dependent on cutting-edge silicon as most assume -- we just lack the economic incentive to prove it. Responding to a "CPU apocalypse" thought experiment on X, the id Software founder and former Oculus CTO suggested that software inefficiency, not hardware limitations, is our greatest vulnerability. "More of the world than many might imagine could run on outdated hardware if software optimization was truly a priority," Carmack wrote, arguing that market pressures would drive dramatic efficiency improvements if new chips stopped arriving.

His solution? "Rebuild all the interpreted microservice based products into monolithic native codebases!" -- essentially abandoning modern development patterns for the more efficient approaches of earlier computing eras. The veteran programmer noted that such changes would come with significant tradeoffs: "Innovative new products would get much rarer without super cheap and scalable compute."

Posted by Kotaku Bot from Kotaku
Cosplay season is in full bloom, and the epic team at Mineralblu have once more captured some of the very best outfits at this year’s LVL UP Expo in Las Vegas.

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Posted by John Walker from Kotaku
Imagine a modest No Man’s Sky set in Proteus. That gets you a long way toward understanding the splendid Miro, both in style and substance. This is a vast game of exploring planets, combined with a solid sci-fi storyline told to you as you progress, all presented in super-lo-fi graphics that allow everything to feel…

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Posted by Keith Nelson Jr from Kotaku
If you haven’t been outside much over the first 4 1/2 months of 2025, it’s totally understandable; some of the best TV shows in years have been released, giving you plenty of reason to stay indoors. With The Studio, Adolescence, and Severance, Apple TV+ and Netflix have produced the year’s most talked-about shows,…

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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the moving-forward department: Apple is embracing the world of brain computer interfaces, unveiling a new technology that one day could revolutionize how humans interact with their devices. From a report: The company is taking early steps to enable people to control their iPhones with neural signals captured by a new generation of brain implants. It could make Apple devices more accessible to tens of thousands of people who can't use their hands because of severe spinal cord injuries or diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

[...] Historically, humans interacted with their computers mechanically, using keyboards and mice. Smartphones introduced touch, a behavioral input, but still an observable physical movement. The new capability means Apple devices won't need to see the user make specific movements, the devices can detect user intentions from decoded brain signals. Apple has worked on the new standard with Synchron, which makes a stent-like device that is implanted in a vein atop the brain's motor cortex. The device called the Stentrode has electrodes that read brain signals. It translates the signals into selecting icons on a screen.

Posted by Joe Moore from The Toyark


Pre-orders will open today for the X-Men ’97 – Nightcrawler 1/6 Scale Figure from Mondo. The new figure stands approximately 10.75″ tall, and includes multiple portraits, swap out hands, multipel swords, a bendable tail, a swap out fencing tail, “Bamf” ...

The post X-Men ’97 – Mondo Nightcrawler Figure appeared first on The Toyark - News.

Posted by Joe Moore from The Toyark


A few of the Target Haulathon figures from NECA are now available to pre-order from additional retailers. These include the Wedding Tuxedo Beetlejuice, and a few of the black and white TMNT comic series figures. While available now in Target ...

The post General Pre-Orders for NECA Haulathon Figures – Beetlejuice and TMNT appeared first on The Toyark - News.

Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the closer-look department: Amazon's decade-old acquisition of Annapurna Labs has emerged as a pivotal element in its AI strategy, with the once-secretive Israeli chip design startup now powering AWS infrastructure. The $350 million deal, struck in 2015 after initial talks between Annapurna co-founder Nafea Bshara and Amazon executive James Hamilton, has equipped the tech giant with custom silicon capabilities critical to its cloud computing dominance.

Annapurna's chips, particularly the Trainium processor for AI model training and Graviton for general-purpose computing, now form the foundation of Amazon's AI infrastructure. The company is deploying hundreds of thousands of Trainium chips in its Project Rainier supercomputer being delivered to AI startup Anthropic this year. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who led AWS when the acquisition occurred, described it as "one of the most important moments" in AWS history.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the heads-up department: Dutch researchers have recalculated the timeline for cosmic decay via Hawking-like radiation and found that the universe may end much sooner than previously thought -- around 10^78 years, rather than 10^1100. Phys.Org reports: The research by black hole expert Heino Falcke, quantum physicist Michael Wondrak, and mathematician Walter van Suijlekom (all from Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands) is a follow-up to a 2023 paper by the same trio. In that paper, they showed that not only black holes, but also other objects such as neutron stars, can "evaporate" via a process akin to Hawking radiation. After that publication, the researchers received many questions from inside and outside the scientific community about how long the process would take. They have now answered this question in the new article.

The researchers calculated that the end of the universe is about 1078 years away, if only Hawking-like radiation is taken into account. This is the time it takes for white dwarf stars, the most persistent celestial bodies, to decay via Hawking-like radiation. Previous studies, which did not take this effect into account, put the lifetime of white dwarfs at 101100 years. Lead author Heino Falcke said, "So the ultimate end of the universe comes much sooner than expected, but fortunately it still takes a very long time."

The findings have been published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the reasonable-demands department: Over 400 prominent UK media and arts figures -- including Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Ian McKellen -- have urged the prime minister to support an amendment to the Data Bill that would require AI companies to disclose which copyrighted works they use for training. The Register reports: The UK government proposes to allow exceptions to copyright rules in the case of text and data mining needed for AI training, with an opt-out option for content producers. "Government amendments requiring an economic impact assessment and reports on the feasibility of an 'opt-out' copyright regime and transparency requirements do not meet the moment, but simply leave creators open to years of copyright theft," the letter says.

The group -- which also includes Kate Bush, Robbie Williams, Tom Stoppard, and Russell T Davies -- said the amendments tabled for the Lords debate would create a requirement for AI firms to tell copyright owners which individual works they have ingested. "Copyright law is not broken, but you can't enforce the law if you can't see the crime taking place. Transparency requirements would make the risk of infringement too great for AI firms to continue to break the law," the letter states.
Baroness Kidron, who proposed the amendment, said: "How AI is developed and who it benefits are two of the most important questions of our time. The UK creative industries reflect our national stories, drive tourism, create wealth for the nation, and provide 2.4 million jobs across our four nations. They must not be sacrificed to the interests of a handful of US tech companies." Baroness Kidron added: "The UK is in a unique position to take its place as a global player in the international AI supply chain, but to grasp that opportunity requires the transparency provided for in my amendments, which are essential to create a vibrant licensing market."

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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the happy-birthday department: ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols marks Reddit's 20 years of being "the front page of the internet," recalling its evolution from a scrappy startup into a cultural powerhouse that shaped online discourse, meme culture, and the way millions consume news and entertainment. Slashdot is also given a subtle nod in the opening line of the article. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt: In 2005, if you were into social networks focused on links, you probably used Digg or Slashdot. However, two guys, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, recent graduates from the University of Virginia, wanted to create a hub where users could find, share, and discuss the internet's most interesting content. Little did they know where this idea would take them. After all, their concept was nothing new. Still, after Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator and seed capital firm, had shot down their first idea -- a mobile food-ordering app -- they pitched what would become Reddit to Graham, and he gave it his blessing. Drawing inspiration from sites like Delicious, a now-defunct social bookmarking service, and Slashdot, Huffman and Ohanian envisioned Reddit as a platform that would combine the best aspects of both: a place for sharing timely, ephemeral news and fostering vibrant community discussions of not just technology, but any topic users cared about. Their guiding mission was to build "the front page of the internet," a simple, user-driven site where anyone could submit content, and the community, not algorithms or editors, would decide what was most important through voting and discussion. They deliberately prioritized user participation and conversation over flashy features or heavy editorial control.

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