Development of Path of Exile 2 has been an adventure for Grinding Gear Games, with several major reworks and redesigns happening since the ambitious free-to-play ARPG sequel’s debut at Exilecon in 2019. Its latest big pivot is a literal game-changer. What started out as a gimmick for a single class has become what feels like the primary way to play for every class—an action-oriented control system, controlled like a top-down shooter on WASD and mouse. Or a gamepad, if that’s your jam.

This more action-style control method was technically unveiled last year. It’s the result of an attempt to make the game’s new mercenary class feel like it was lifted from an action game, with an assortment of fantasy crossbows that serves as analogues to classic shooter weapon archetypes like SMGs and shotguns, able to run and gun at the same time. It worked almost too well. So instead of cutting it back, Grinding Gear upgraded every other class to match.

According to…

Payday is going live-action. Again. In what I’ve decided is the prophesied second coming of 2013’s Payday: The Web Series, developer Starbreeze is once more committing to a filmic adaptation of its popular heist-em-up. In a statement released earlier today, the studio announced that it had entered into a partnership with Stockholm Syndrome, an LA-based production company, with the goal of developing a Payday project “for TV or film”.

As I noted before, it’s not the first time Starbreeze has translated Payday for the silver screen (or, well, YouTube). The company dipped its toe into celluloid waters a whole decade ago with the web series it made to promote the release of Payday 2, although I suspect a full-fledged “TV or film” project might get a slightly higher budget than those shorts. 

Starbreeze has made plenty of live-action trailers for the series over the years, too, so I suppose it’s only natural it’d eventually decide to greenlight a full-on production effor…

Everyone’s getting very excited about a few numbers, and rumoured codenames, that have ‘leaked’ around the upcoming Nvidia Blackwell graphics silicon set to launch in 2025. As usual, this has descended into a lot of folk attempting to read these alpha-numeric runes and come up with their own theories on the next generation of GeForce GPUs.

All told, this latest generation of graphics cards has been a bit of a disappointment. Because of the way the Nvidia lineup has been stratified each seems to be at least one level too expensive for the GPU specs and performance they’re offering. Well, apart from the top-end RTX 4090, which is the ludicrous GPU you’d always hope the top chip would be, though it could be said that it’s just be so much silicon smoke and mirrors obscuring the mess of cards below it.

On the AMD side, we’re eight months into its Radeon RX 7000-series generation and we’ve still only got three (and a half) cards to show for it. With rumours of failed chips and…

Update: The creator of the tool has posted a Twitter thread better explaining how it works and reiterating that it does not function as intended with non-AI generated images. They also note that “clearly there’s a lot of room for improvement here”, and that not everything is operating yet in the public-facing tool.

Stable Attribution does appear a rocky tool in practice for it, but it’s still in beta today. It’s not a simple process to discern where exactly an AI has learned to create what it creates, or how much any one image out of billions plays into the creation of another. Perhaps we’ll see this tool materialise into something useful for attribution with time, or the companies behind these AI image generators will find another way to calm artists demanding some token for their work in making it all happen. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking from me on the artists’ behalf.

Original story: AI art tools have enjoyed a meteoric …

Last week, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority announced that it is launching a review of artificial intelligence models to ensure that “AI continues in a way that benefits consumers, businesses, and the UK economy.”

That is of course the same CMA that blocked Microsoft’s $69 billion Activision acquisition just two weeks ago. It’s now looking to conduct an assessment that will “best guide the development of foundation models and their use in the future.” The regulatory body says its review will focus on the effects of the development of AI foundation models (aka AI like GPT-3 or DALL-E 2, which are trained on vast datasets and have multiple uses).

The UK government has asked the regulators to “think about how the innovative development and deployment of AI can be supported against five overarching principles.”

Those five principles are:

• Safety, security, and robustness
• Appropriate transparency and explainability
• Fairness
• Ac…
  

A game developer and software modder has done what Microsoft has steadfastly refused to do for years: Add a layers function to Microsoft Paint. That’s right, you can now arrange separate parts of a drawing into separate groups and interact with them separately. What a concept! You can get mspaintcompanion free on itch.io, even.

The mod is a creation of 17-year-old game developer Talon Zane, and is available along with its source code for free. It’s a beautiful concept as an update to the 38 year old app, and more than anything just kind of an obvious upgrade that I think we all agree is confusing on Microsoft’s part.

“That’s right, you can now pile on as many layers as you need to perfect your silly little doodles,” says Zane, “no longer will you be confined to creating simple, one-layered monstrosities!” A lovely thing for myself, as I am a simple, one-layered monstrosity and need all the uniqueness I can get.

At this point there is someone reading this who does n…

The Bigscreen Beyond is an upcoming VR headset that claims to be the world’s smallest. I don’t doubt the claim, either—this thing is smaller than your average pair of ski goggles, and that could help make VR a lot more comfortable. I’m not kidding about its lightweight nature, this thing is said to weigh just 127 grams. That’s nearly four times lighter than the Meta Quest 2.

It’s also only 49.2mm deep, which is much thinner than most headsets on the market today. That means the headset protrudes out from your face a lot less, which could make it a whole lot more comfortable and less fatiguing to wear. That’s the aim, anyways.

It’s achieved through a few key components. Firstly, MicroOLED displays. These compact panels deliver a total resolution of 5,120 x 2,560, or 2,560 x 2,560 per eye, at up to 90Hz refresh rate. That’s impressive considering the Valve Index’s resolution is 2,880 x 1,600, or 1,440 x 1,600 per eye. The Beyond’s lenses fit into a much more compact …

You’ll find a helpful clue for today’s Wordle on this very page, alongside a selection of tips and tricks designed to make not only the April 23 (673) game, but also every other one more successful. You’ll find the answer here, too, ready and waiting if you need it.

Looking at today’s Wordle answer, this one feels like it should’ve been more difficult than the done-in-three result I ended up with. I owe all of my success to my opening guess, which somehow revealed four out of today’s five letters in one fell swoop. As starts go, I couldn’t have wished for more.

Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Sunday, April 23

You perform the answer to today’s Wordle when you open a coat, bag, or any other item that has been closed using a zip. There are two vowels today. 

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Is there a double letter in today’s Wordle? 

No letters are used twice in today’s puzzle. 

Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day&…

However much or little help you need with your daily Wordle, you’ll find everything you need waiting below. We’ve got a few quick tips if you’d like to refresh your general guesses, as well as a guided hint for the May 1 (1047) game—and today’s answer too.

My first attempt at uncovering some of the letters found in today’s Wordle answer couldn’t have gone much worse, but at least my second guess more than made up for it. This was a nice, simple game in the end: a problem, a puzzle, then a pleasant Wordle win.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Wednesday, May 1

Today’s answer refers to a sort of personal journal, the kind of place someone would write about their private thoughts and feelings, or just record what happened to them that day. There are two different vowels hiding in today’s Wordle. 

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Is there a double letter in Wordle today? 

No letters are used twice in today’s puzzle. <…