Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the back-in-the-day department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: After 20 years, being able to look at any corner of the planet in Google Earth doesn't seem that impressive, but it was a revolution in 2005. Google Earth has gone through a lot of changes in that time, and Google has some more lined up for the service's 20th anniversary. Soon, Google Earth will help you travel back in time with historic Street View integration, and pro users will get some new "AI-driven insights" -- of course Google can't update a product without adding at least a little AI. [...] While this part isn't new, Google is also using the 20th anniversary as an opportunity to surface its 3D timelapse feature. These animations use satellite data to show how an area has changed from a higher vantage point. They're just as cool as when they were announced in 2021.

The AI layers are launching in the coming weeks in Google Earth web and mobile as part of Google's Professional Advanced offering. If you use that version of Earth, you should have access to a collection of so-called "AI-driven insights." For instance, you can find the average surface temperature or tree canopy coverage in a given area. This could be of help in urban planning or construction, but it's unclear how many of these insights the app will have. Google says the AI angle here is that the new layers use machine learning to categorize pixels. It's possible Google has just reached the "AI as a buzzword" stage.

Posted by Joe Moore from The Toyark


A preview photo shared by Storm Collectibles gives us a look at some of the upcoming figures in the Storm Arena King of Fighters ’98: Ultimate Match line. The Storm Arena versions of the figures are smaller than traditional Storm ...

The post King of Fighters ’98 – Storm Arena Kyo, Goro, and Benimaru Preview appeared first on The Toyark - News.

Posted by Joe Moore from The Toyark


Pre-orders are open for the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin – Casey Marie Ultimate 7″ Scale Figure with Baby Odyn and Uno from NECA. Along with the two baby turtles, interchangeable hands, a mop, and candles are ...

The post TMNT: The Last Ronin – NECA Casey Marie with Baby Odyn and Uno appeared first on The Toyark - News.

Posted by Black Convoy from TFW2005


Via Yolopark social media accounts we have the official announcement of their new Yolopark AMK PRO Bumblebee Movie Soundwave & Ravage Official Announcement. Soundwave will be released under the AMK PRO line which means this easy-to-build kit will have die-cast parts, premium finishing, LED lights, and several accessories. He will come with his partner Ravage as seen in the movie. According to the information shared, pre-orders for this figure will go live in the next 24 hours via Yolopark webstore. See the first promotional image after the jump and then sound off on the 2005 Boards! » Continue Reading.

The post Yolopark AMK PRO Bumblebee Movie Soundwave & Ravage Official Announcement appeared first on Transformer World 2005 - TFW2005.COM.

Posted by from MMO Champion
Dastardly Duos Week 4: Tyrannotort Mount, Cosmetic Staff & Winner's Podium Upgrades

Week 4 of the Dastardly Duos event is here! In this post, we quickly go over how to unlock this week's rewards: Tyrannotort's Treat, Dastardly Pinchzapper, and Winner's Podium toy upgrades.

Take the quest Week 4: They've Heard of You from Vinnie Sweets.

Win the Dastardly Duos match to complete the weekly quest and turn it in to gain the Average Item Level measure for your Winner's Podium.

Speak with Wodim the Troll-Servant to purchase the newly unlocked rewards:

New Mount: Tyrannotort's Treat

New Cosmetic Staff: Dastardly Pinchzapper





Players can unlock the last four remaining podium upgrades required for the Winner's Podium achievement starting with Week 4 of the Dastardly Duos world event. The upgrades are random drops, there are no special requirements. Simply clear the trash, defeat the bosses, loot the Prize Chest, and hope for upgrades.

< This article continues on their website >

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the no-more-couch-potatoes department: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a major federal campaign to promote wearable health tech, aiming for every American to adopt a device within four years as part of a broader effort to "Make America Healthy Again." Gizmodo reports: RFK Jr. announced the initiative Tuesday afternoon during a House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee meeting to discuss the HHS' budget request for the upcoming fiscal year. In response to a question from representative Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) about wearables, Kennedy revealed that HHS will soon conduct one of the agency's largest ever advertising campaigns to promote their use. He added that in his ideal future, every American will be donning a wearable within the next four years. "It's a key part of our mission to Make America Healthy Again," RFK Jr. stated in an X post following the question.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the one-cup-away-from-immortality department: alternative_right shares a report from Phys.Org: In new research published by scientists studying fission yeastâ"a single-celled organism surprisingly similar to human cellsâ"researchers found that caffeine affects aging by tapping into an ancient cellular energy system. A few years ago, the same research team found that caffeine helps cells live longer by acting on a growth regulator called TOR (target of rapamycin). TOR is a biological switch that tells cells when to grow, based on how much food and energy is available. This switch has been controlling energy and stress responses in living things for over 500 million years. But in their latest study, the scientists made a surprising discovery: Caffeine doesn't act on this growth switch directly. Instead, it works by activating another important system called AMPK, a cellular fuel gauge that is evolutionarily conserved in yeast and humans.

"When your cells are low on energy, AMPK kicks in to help them cope," explains Dr. Charalampos (Babis) Rallis, Reader in Genetics, Genomics and Fundamental Cell Biology at Queen Mary University of London, the study's senior author. "And our results show that caffeine helps flip that switch." Interestingly, AMPK is also the target of metformin, a common diabetes drug that's being studied for its potential to extend human lifespan together with rapamycin. Using their yeast model, the researchers showed that caffeine's effect on AMPK influences how cells grow, repair their DNA, and respond to stress -- all of which are tied to aging and disease. The study has been published in the journal Microbial Cell.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the black-hole-of-energy-use department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: A massive data center for Meta's AI will likely lead to rate hikes for Louisiana customers, but Meta wants to keep the details under wraps. Holly Ridge is a rural community bisected by US Highway 80, gridded with farmland, with a big creek -- it is literally named Big Creek -- running through it. It is home to rice and grain mills and an elementary school and a few houses. Soon, it will also be home to Meta's massive, 4 million square foot AI data center hosting thousands of perpetually humming servers that require billions of watts of energy to power. And that energy-guzzling infrastructure will be partially paid for by Louisiana residents.

The plan is part of what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said would be "a defining year for AI." On Threads, Zuckerberg boasted that his company was "building a 2GW+ datacenter that is so large it would cover a significant part of Manhattan," posting a map of Manhattan along with the data center overlaid. Zuckerberg went on to say that over the coming years, AI "will drive our core products and business, unlock historic innovation, and extend American technology leadership. Let's go build! " What Zuckerberg did not mention is that "Let's go build" refers not only to the massive data center but also three new Meta-subsidized, gas power plants and a transmission line to fuel it serviced by Entergy Louisiana, the region's energy monopoly.

< This article continues on their website >

Posted by Randall Munroe from XKCD
'This HAZMAT container contains radioactive material with activity of one becquerel.' 'So, like, a single banana slice?'

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the what-to-expect department: The Register's Simon Sharwood reports: Huawei's chairman Xu Zhijun -- aka Eric Xu -- has called out China's enormous lead in fiber-to-the-room (FTTR) installations. Speaking at last week's Mobile World Congress event in Shanghai, Xu shared his views on the telecommunications industry's future growth opportunities and said by the end of 2025 China will be home to 75 million FTTR installations -- but just 500,000 exist outside the Middle Kingdom. Xu said FTTR will benefit businesses by increasing their internet connection speeds, helping them address spotty Wi-Fi coverage, allowing them to deploy tech in more places, and therefore creating more opportunities to adopt productivity-boosting devices and services. FTTR will also help carriers to sell more expensive packages, he said. Xu also urged telecom carriers to target high-growth user groups like delivery riders and livestream influencers, citing their above-average data consumption and revenue potential. Delivery riders, who will make up 5% of the global workforce by 2030, use four times more voice minutes and double the data of average users, while influencers generate five times the data usage and four times the revenue.

He also pushed for greater collaboration between carriers and platforms to deliver more high-res video content, and called for improved efficiency in networking equipment and device power use. "Xu said Huawei is here to help carriers deliver any of the scenarios he mentioned," concludes Sharwood. "And of course it is, because the Chinese giant has a thriving business selling to telcos -- or at least to telcos beyond the liberal democracies that have largely decided Huawei's close ties with Beijing mean the company and its products represent an unacceptable threat to the operation of critical infrastructure."

Posted by Tony_Bacala from The Toyark


The Loyal Subjects have listed a slew of pre-orders for San Diego Comic Con 2025 today. Most are brands and lines we don’t normally cover here, but there are some crossover and related items that may peak some’s interest. The ...

The post The Loyal Subjects SDCC 2025 Exclusives appeared first on The Toyark - News.

Posted by Tony_Bacala from The Toyark


A new Mattel Creations Club Grayskull deep cut is live today with the drop for Sharella. In addition, an updated version of the Fright Zone playset will be dropping on July 1st as well (and possibly at other retailers).  Read ...

The post Masters of the Universe Origins Fright Zone Playset & Sharella appeared first on The Toyark - News.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the new-and-improved department: Longtime Slashdot reader williamyf writes: Firefox 140 just landed. Some user-facing features include: Vertical Tabs: You can now keep more -- or fewer -- pinned tabs in view for quicker access to important windows. Just drag the divider to resize your pinned tabs section.
Unload Tabs: You can now unload tabs by right-clicking on a tab (or multiple selected tabs) and selecting "Unload Tab." This can speed up performance by reducing Firefox's memory and CPU usage.

But the most important feature? This release is an Extended Support Release (ESR). Why are ESRs so important? ESR is the Firefox version that ships as the default with many Linux distributions. Some downstream projects (like Waterfox) depend on the ESR version. Many enterprise software systems are tested only against ESR. When features are dropped -- like support for older operating systems or Flash -- ESR keeps that functionality around for longer.

And speaking of old operating systems: If you are using Windows 7, 8.1, or macOS 10.12~10.15, note that FireFox ESR 115 (the last version supporting these OSs) will continue to receive patches until at least September 2025. So one can see why ESR is very important for some people. The release notes are available here.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the on-device department: Google DeepMind has launched Gemini Robotics On-Device, a new language model that enables robots to perform complex tasks locally without internet connectivity. TechCrunch reports: Building on the company's previous Gemini Robotics model that was released in March, Gemini Robotics On-Device can control a robot's movements. Developers can control and fine-tune the model to suit various needs using natural language prompts. In benchmarks, Google claims the model performs at a level close to the cloud-based Gemini Robotics model. The company says it outperforms other on-device models in general benchmarks, though it didn't name those models.

In a demo, the company showed robots running this local model doing things like unzipping bags and folding clothes. Google says that while the model was trained for ALOHA robots, it later adapted it to work on a bi-arm Franka FR3 robot and the Apollo humanoid robot by Apptronik. Google claims the bi-arm Franka FR3 was successful in tackling scenarios and objects it hadn't "seen" before, like doing assembly on an industrial belt. Google DeepMind is also releasing a Gemini Robotics SDK. The company said developers can show robots 50 to 100 demonstrations of tasks to train them on new tasks using these models on the MuJoCo physics simulator.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the what-to-expect department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Microsoft is planning to cut jobs in the company's Xbox gaming business, as early as next week. I first reported in Notepad earlier this month that Microsoft was planning Xbox layoffs "potentially by the end of the month," and now Bloomberg says a round of "major layoffs" is due next week.

I understand managers at Microsoft have been briefed about Xbox cuts and wider layoffs in other parts of Microsoft's businesses. The upcoming cuts are also expected to hit Microsoft's sales organization, just at the start of a new financial year. Microsoft is planning to restructure parts of its Xbox business as it looks ahead to its next generation of consoles. One source tells me Microsoft is restructuring Xbox distribution across central Europe, resulting in some Xbox operations ceasing in some regions. The expected layoffs will be in addition to the 6,000 cuts Microsoft already made in May, and on top of the more than 300 job cuts earlier this month.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the rolling-out department: Waymo and Uber have launched a robotaxi service in Atlanta, allowing users to book autonomous rides through the Uber app across a 65-square-mile area. They will not yet travel on highways or to the airport. CNBC reports: The vehicles feature Waymo's driverless technology, known as the Waymo Driver, integrated into battery electric Jaguar I-PACE SUVs. [...] In Atlanta and Austin, Waymo rides are only available through Uber's app, while in San Francisco and Los Angeles, passengers book through the Waymo One app.

Waymo said it would start with dozens of robotaxis live in Atlanta. The company says it currently has more than 1,500 autonomous vehicles in its U.S. fleet. The Waymo-Uber partnership only covers passenger rides, not Uber Eats deliveries.

Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the what-a-delight department: Microsoft has released a modern, open-source version of its classic MS-DOS Editor -- built with Rust and compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux. It's now simple called "Edit." Ars Technica reports:
Aside from ease of use, Microsoft's main reason for creating the new version of Edit stems from a peculiar gap in modern Windows. "What motivated us to build Edit was the need for a default CLI text editor in 64-bit versions of Windows," writes [Christopher Nguyen, a product manager on Microsoft's Windows Terminal team] while referring to the command-line interface, or CLI. "32-bit versions of Windows ship with the MS-DOS editor, but 64-bit versions do not have a CLI editor installed inbox." [...]

Linux users can download Edit from the project's GitHub releases page or install it through an unofficial snap package. Oh, and if you're a fan of the vintage editor and crave a 16-bit text-mode for your retro machine that actually runs MS-DOS, you can download a copy on the Internet Archive. [...]

At 250KB, the new Edit maintains the lightweight philosophy of its predecessor while adding features the original couldn't dream of: Unicode support, regular expressions, and the ability to handle gigabyte-sized files. The original editor was limited to files smaller than 300KB depending on available conventional memory -- a constraint that seems quaint in an era of terabyte storage. But the web publication OMG! Ubuntu found that the modern Edit not only "works great on Ubuntu" but noted its speed when handling gigabyte-sized documents.

Posted by Mechafire from TFW2005


Rounding off a busy day of big TF news is a very interesting rumor coming to us from Bleeding Cool, claiming that a cartoon series based on Skybound’s Transformers & GI Joe Energon Universe may be in the works: “• Robert Kirkman’s Skybound is bringing Transformers and GI Joe together in a new animated streaming series. • The show will be based on the hit Energon Universe comic books now published through Image Comics. • Transformers and GI Joe comic rights moved to Skybound after Hasbro pulled them from IDW Publishing. • Announcement expected at San Diego Comic-Con, with » Continue Reading.

The post Rumor: Skybound Energon Universe Transformers & GI Joe Cartoon Series Coming? appeared first on Transformer World 2005 - TFW2005.COM.

Posted by from MMO Champion
WoW Hotfixes - June 24, 2025

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Achievements

I'm Bringing Nerub-ack and Can You Please Spell "Gobanna?" now count towards earning Azeroth's Next Top Model.

Delves

Overcharged Titan Console now spawns in Shadow Realm.

Adjusted some Durable Information Storage Container belt effects:

Critical Chain increased by 25%.

Static Charge increased by 50%.

Charged Crystal decreased by 24%.

Charged Bolt decreased by 62%.

Developers’ notes: A couple of bug fixes alongside tuning changes caused the power of the Charged Bolt effect to go far beyond the other choices, so we’re bringing it more in line with the other choices in this week’s restarts. This will remain top for specs that favor damage procs, but may adjust desired choices for other specs. We’re also buffing Static Charge a bit after the internal cooldown change put it well behind.

Items

Fixed an issue where some BFA Timewalking drops had primary and stamina stats that were higher than intended.

Lorewalking

Fixed an issue occasionally causing players to be stuck in Ny'alotha during Xal'atath Lorewalking.

Fixed an issue that would occasionally cause players in Xal'atath Lorewalking to be removed from the Blade in Twilight artifact acquisition scenario instance after turning in “Lorewalking: The Blade and the High Priest”.

Fixed an issue causing players in Xal'atath Lorewalking to be teleported to Dalaran after viewing certain cutscenes.

Quests

Danath and Geya'rah will no longer be invisible while you are on the quest "Faerin's Request".

On “Return to Stromgarde”, Marran's jail cell door should no longer inexplicably open for seemingly no reason.

< This article continues on their website >

Posted by from MMO Champion
Patch 11.2 PTR - Build 61624

Build 61624 has been deployed to the Public Test Realms.

Build Highlights

Blizzard added several player housing decor

New Brann's Delver's Race for Horde and Alliance with faction-themed rewards

Improvements to the Spell Density system for better combat visibility

Keystone Deserter system strings have been datamined

Ghosts of K'aresh Development Notes - June 24, 2025

Blizzard has posted the Development Notes for Build 61624.



Spell Density Visual Updates

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hello!

This week’s Ghosts of K’aresh PTR includes changes and improvements to the Spell Density graphics setting. Previously, this option would dynamically reduce the amount of spell visuals being displayed, based on your current framerate. This has been helpful to players with lower-performance systems, but we want to improve it, with the goal of giving players more control over how spell visuals in combat look, regardless of performance.

The Spell Density system is first designed with a focus on improving players’ visibility of important information in combat, so that players can better see and respond to combat mechanics. The new system provides game designers and artists with improved controls over which spell visuals get displayed and how, so that there can be a reduction of visuals that do not convey useful information to the player about the state of combat.

How It Works

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