Images of Diablo 4's in-game cosmetic store have revealed some hefty price tags, and it is causing some concern among fans of Blizzard's ARPG series.
Diablo IV has received rave reviews ahead of its early access launch on June 2, but what hasn't been officially disclosed as of yet is how much some of the game's microtransactions will cost. Fans anticipating Diablo IV have known for quite some time that Blizzard's new ARPG would include a microtransaction store, one that Blizzard has stressed will be for cosmetics only.
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Thanks to the images of Diablo IV's in-game store posted to Reddit, fans now have a better idea of what to expect from the game's optional cosmetics. One image shows a set of armor for the Necromancer selling for around 2,800 platinum, Diablo IV's premium currency. Blizzard has previously stated that the game's premium battle pass would sell for around 1,000 platinum, which is the equivalent of roughly $10. That means the cosmetic armor set in the image costs around $28. Another image shows the price of an in-game mount and armor set at 1,600 platinum, or $16.
Fans point out that it's rare that players can buy the exact amount of a premium currency they want, meaning players in Diablo IV will likely need to buy $30 or $20 worth of platinum in order to buy the $28 or $16 cosmetics respectively.
The Diablo subreddit seems divided on the topic. On one hand, fans seem okay with the idea of some microtransaction cosmetics, but feel like the prices are too high. Several players note that the prices aren't all that different compared to the prices of premium cosmetics in Path of Exile, another popular ARPG, though fans are quick to point out that Path of Exile is free-to-play, while Diablo IV costs $70.
It's worth mentioning that this isn't the first time the franchise has sold battle passes and premium cosmetics. Diablo Immortal, Blizzard's free-to-play, mobile entry in the franchise that released roughly a year ago, sells premium cosmetics, too. A cosmetic armor set in Diablo Immortal sells for 1,000 eternal orbs, with 1,500 eternal orbs going for $25. Players are unable to buy exactly 1,000 eternal orbs, and instead must either buy the $25 package, two $10 packages of 650 eternal orbs, or a $10 package, a $5 package, and two $1 packages to hit the 1,000 eternal orbs needed. Players worry that Diablo IV might adopt a similar strategy.
Blizzard has said Diablo IV's shop is "intended to be an avenue of self-expression for our players, and they can interact with it as much or as little as they desire during their time in Sanctuary." Unlike the battle pass, which will offer class-agnostic rewards, the shop will sell cosmetics tailored to "class-specific fantasies" that will rotate in and out on a regular basis.
Diablo IV arrives June 2 for those who preorder the Deluxe or Ultimate edition of the game, or on June 6 for those purchasing the standard edition. It will support cross-play and cross-progression between platforms. GameSpot's Diablo IV review declared the latest entry in the series "confidently delivers gameplay that has been carried forward and refined from both Diablo II and III, while also establishing a strong foundation for the franchise's future."
The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. GameSpot may get a share of the revenue if you buy anything featured on our site.
Did you get ChatGPT to write a hilarious story? Have you been debating philosophy or riffing jokes? OpenAI is making it easy to share these exchanges with a new "shared links" feature that generates a unique URL at the push of a button.
"Shared links offer a new way for users to share their ChatGPT conversations, replacing the old and burdensome method of sharing screenshots," says(Opens in a new window) OpenAI. "With shared links, users can let others see—and continue—interesting, funny, or insightful exchanges with ChatGPT."
OpenAI is in the process of "turning on shared links for users on a rolling basis" and says it will be available to all users soon on desktop (chat.openai.com). The company has not set a timeline for the feature on its iOS mobile app, though it's "coming soon."
Beyond entertaining your friends, "shared links can be used to share content with people outside of your organization," says OpenAI. "This is useful when you have collaborators, such as contractors or clients, who need to see specific messages or conversations."
Link recipients can also keep the conversation going, which could be useful for collaborators who are working together on a spreadsheet, or planning a summer vacation, for example.
How Do You Create a Shared Link in ChatGPT?
To create a shared link, hover over the conversation in the side menu and click on the button with an arrow pointing up.
(Credit: OpenAI)
That will generate a preview link to review before sending. You can name the conversation, and select whether you'd like to share it anonymously or with your name by clicking on the three dots on the bottom right.
When you're ready, copy the link by pressing the green button. This generates a URL with the following structure: https://chat.openai.com/share/<conversation-ID>. When the recipient opens it up, they can view a snapshot of your conversation and build on it if they choose.
"This is particularly useful when you want to share a specific piece of information or a discussion with someone who is not part of the original conversation," says OpenAI. "This could be a notable example of a conversation, a specific discussion that needs to be referenced, or an important message that needs to be highlighted."
(Credit: OpenAI)
This feature is relatively basic, without bells and whistles like the ability to set a time limit someone can view the link, or the ability to limit who can open it. But ChatGPT will store the history of shared links in Settings and makes it easy to delete them.
Deleting shared links in Settings. (Credit: OpenAI)
"Shared links can be used to create a reference point for future discussions," says OpenAI. "This can be particularly useful when you want to refer back to a previous conversation or message in the future."
Nikon has announced the Nikkor DX 24mm f/1.7 lens, a fast aperture, compact prime for its Z-mount APS-C cameras that promises to bring bokeh to the DX format for $280.
The new 24mm f/1.7 Nikon’s first prime lens for the APS-C Z-mount and is being positioned as capable of providing creators the ability to both create blurred backgrounds and boost low light performance.
“The quality of the out-of-focus area, also known as the bokeh, is unique to fast maximum apertures and allows users to dramatically emphasize their subjects in still-life and portrait photography,” Nikon says. “The new 24mm f/1.7 also enables the capture of beautiful, high-resolution photos and video in dimly lit conditions, by allowing more light to enter the lens.”
The lens is small and measures 2.8 by 1.6 inches and weighs 135 grams. Nikon says that the 24mm focal length was chosen because of it versatility: the company says it is ideal for a wide variety of scenes including tabletop photos, portraits, and landscapes.
The 24mm f/1.7 features a construction of nine elements arranged into eight groups, which includes two aspherical elements. The lens has an aperture range of f/1.7 through f/11 via a seven-bladed diaphragm. It features a minimum focus distance of 0.59 feet (about seven inches), has a maximum reproduction ratio of 0.19x, and has a maximum angle of view (in DX format) of 61 degrees. The front filter measures 46mm.
The lens features manual and autofocus options (there is no switch to move between these modes though, so it will have to be toggled from the camera’s menu) and the autofocus is driven by a stepping motor (STM). Nikon doesn’t go into more detail on the actual motor, but does mention that it enables quiet autofocusing performance that is suitable for photos and videos.
On that note, Nikon says that the lens was designed with consideration for the suppression of focus breathing, and the lens enables smooth focusing with less change in the angle of view, even when the focus point changes during video recording.
Below are a few sample images taken with the lens, provided by Nikon:
The Nikkor Z DX 24mm f/1.7 lens is set to be available in mid-June for $279.95.
Update 5/31: The original story stated that the lens weighed 540 grams, but that referred to the lens and the body combined. The correct weight has been updated.
In an interview with The Guardianmore than a decade ago, Warren Spector, the director and producer of Deus Ex, said his dream game would take place in one city block. “There are people who are trying to simulate massive worlds at a level of an inch per mile,” Spector told journalist Keith Stuart. “I don’t get it. I really want deep worlds that you can interact with.”
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about those comments while playing Diablo IV. Blizzard’s latest is easily one of the best games the studio has released in about a decade, but I can’t help imagining what Diablo IV could have been if it were a smaller, more focused experience.
The story of Diablo IV opens decades after the end of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, with the world of Sanctuary still reeling from the events of that game. Structurally, the narrative that unfolds is similar to Diablo II. Following a visit to a remote village, your character sets off after the demon Lilith – who is the daughter of Mephisto, one of the Prime Evils you defeated in Diablo II. More often than not,your character finds they’re one step behind Lilith, leading to predictably dire results.
I won’t say much more about Diablo IV’s story other than to note Blizzard smartly grounded it in the tragedy of its human characters. When the narrative calls on elements from past games, it does so in ways that feel natural and earned. Lilith is also a great antagonist. Every time she appeared on-screen, I felt a sense of unease waiting to see what kind of calculated cruelty she’d inflict on those unlucky enough to cross her path. If you only end up playing Diablo IV for its story, I think you will enjoy the experience, but if you decide to veer off itscritical path, be prepared to play through a lot of uninspired content.
If you tried Diablo IV during one of the open betas Blizzard held in recent months, you’ve seen most of what the game’s open world has to offer as you’re leveling your character. Did you encounter a world event in the Fractured Peaks that tasked you with protecting a group of villagers hiding under their carts? Guess what – you’ll find another group just like that one again in Scosglen, the game’s second zone, and in other areas, too. I bet you played through a few optional dungeons. Well, there are more than 100 in the full game, and most feature a limited combination of layouts and objectives. World bosses and camps are more fun to complete, but there are far fewer of them than all the other content present in the game. The post-campaign adds more things to do like helltides and nightmare dungeons, but those increase the difficulty of the content, rather than introducing something substantially new.
Sometimes you’ll discover some interesting lore, a nifty bit of environmental storytelling or a named enemy that will drop an item with unique flavor text, but those moments are few and far between. I kept waiting for Diablo IV’s worldto surprise me, to do something unexpected. The closest the game came to scratching that itch was when it sent the Butcher, a boss that shows up in nearly every Diablo game, to murder my character in an optional dungeon I was exploring. Even though my barbarian didn’t survive the encounter, I wanted more moments like that. Instead, the game seemed dead set on offering me an endless checklist of samey content if I ever decided to strike off on my own.
Blizzard Entertainment
That frustration is palpable while playing Diablo IV because so much of the game is immediately compelling. Nearly every inch of itsopen world is striking, with some of the most detailed and creative assets Blizzard has ever produced. Add to that a soundtrack that is haunting and evocative, and you have an experience that’s begging for players to inhabit it.
Maybe it’s my fault for expecting a live service game to offer something more substantive, but everywhere in Diablo IV, you see evidence that the people who spent years of their lives working on this project wanted the same thing. Just look at character creation. Clearly, the intention here was to allow players to make their druid, barbarian, sorcerer, rogue or necromancer look exactly like they’ve always appeared in their imaginations. Diablo IV offers a dizzying amount of visual customization for each class. In addition to all of the items, you can give your character different hairstyles and tattoos, and modify their skin tone, eye color and other attributes. Add in the transmog system, which allows you to transform the appearance of items to make them look like ones you’ve found in the past, and I can guarantee no two characters will look alike.
Blizzard obviously also put a lot of thought into player agency, allowing each class to be played in a variety of ways. The Aspects system is one of Diablo IV’s most compelling features: By completing dungeons and finding legendary items, you will collect item affixes that modify how skills work, and they’re transferable among your inventory. Some of these can completely change how your build functions. After some initial frustration, I found a build that allowed my barbarian to make short work of both hordes of monsters and Diablo IV’s spongy bosses, and I had a lot of fun with the game. I just wish there was more to do in Diablo IV’s world other than kill countless monster hordes. After all, role-playing has always been part of the ARPG genre.
Blizzard Entertainment
One last thing I want to note is that I played a version of Diablo IV that did not include any of the microtransactions the final build will feature. If you haven’t followed that aspect of the game’s development, I wrote about Blizzard’s monetization plans for Diablo IV last year. In short, Diablo IV is a full-priced game that also happens to feature an in-game shop and seasonal passes. Blizzard has promised that none of the cosmetic items you can buy in the shop or earn by completing the paid track of a season pass will grant “direct or indirect” gameplay advantages. The studio was also quick to note the shop and season pass will offer “more diversity of choices, not systematically better choices” for customizing your character. After Diablo Immortal, I’m fine with this setup, but I know some people will be put off by the presence of a season pass.
I don’t want to give you the wrong impression of my time with Diablo IV; I enjoyed nearly every moment of it. In a lot of ways, it’s the Diablo game I’ve been dreaming of ever since I first set foot in the world of Sanctuary back in 1997. But it is also a reminder of all the ways Blizzard has changed since I first encountered its games. There’s no way the company that released Diablo II in 2000 and even Diablo III in 2012 could have created a game of Diablo IV’s scale, but sheer size is not what makes Diablo IV enjoyable. So often, that scale works against the game, resulting in a world that is, as Warren Spector might say, simulated at a level of an inch per mile.
Diablo IV will be available on PC, PlayStation and Xbox on June 6th.
Traditional photo booths at weddings are old news. Sebastian Staacks, who describes himself as someone who loves to “create stuff,” built a bullet time video booth for his cousin’s wedding.
On his website, There Oughta Be, Staacks decided that there ought to be bullet time at a family wedding reception. Not one to let ideas stay ideas, Staacks got to work.
Staacks is now the “proud owner” of quite a few Canon EOS Rebel XTi camera kits.
“I have created a bullet time video booth. Not a typical photo booth that you can find at many wedding receptions where guests take pictures, but a video booth that uses the bullet time effect as a transition between clips,” Staacks tells PetaPixel.
“It uses an array of old Canon EOS 400D DSLR cameras and automatically generates preview clips on-site with an old laptop,” Staacks continues. Outside Europe, the 400D is known as the Rebel XTi (North America) and the Kiss Digital X (Asia).
The bullet time booth isn’t Staacks’ first foray using video instead of still photography at a wedding.
“The story of this project begins in 2017 when I created a video booth for my wedding. At many wedding receptions, you can find photo booths, which are simple camera setups with a remote trigger to allow guests to create some memories of the special day. Usually this involves silly props like hats, wigs, and giant glasses and it is as much about creating photos as a memory as it is about the fun of being creative while doing so,” he explains. “For my wedding, I mixed it up a bit by putting my Sony NEX-5T on a tripod and allowing guests to take short five-second clips instead of static photos. Later, I cut all the clips into one long video with upbeat music, and we still enjoy watching this memory today.”
The video booth setup got a second chance a few years later at another family wedding, and this year, another family member wanted the booth but Staacks wanted to “try something new by adding a bullet time effect.”
Bullet time was made famous in the 1999 blockbuster hit, “The Matrix.” In that movie, numerous scenes included slow-motion and frozen time with rotating camera perspectives. While this can be achieved using computer-generated graphics, it can also be shot in-camera by using an array of multiple still cameras surrounding the subject. Multiple cameras make it possible to create a “virtual” camera that rotates around the subject.
While popularized by “The Matrix,” the bullet time technique arguably owes a debt to Eadweard Muybridge’s chronophotography work in 1878, Harold Edgerton’s images of bullets in the 1940s, and Tim Macmillan, a cinematic pioneer who created a circular arrangement of pinhole cameras in the 1980s. Similar techniques have also been shown in animation, including the “Speed Racer” anime series in the 1960s.
These days, it’s hard to find action movies and video games that don’t employ some slow-motion bullet time-esque effect. As Staacks writes, “It pretty much became a movie cliché.”
As he also explains, while the effect is easily achieved using computer rendering, users must have many cameras to capture bullet time video clips in real life. In his case, he grabbed over a dozen Canon 400D DSLR cameras online from numerous sellers. Staacks offered each seller around $50, and they either accepted or he moved onto the next seller.
The cameras need a lot of power.Using DaVinci Resolve, Staacks performs basic stabilization onsite using a connected laptop.
Staacks set up the Canon cameras on stands partially encircling where people would stand for their video portraits. He also needed a bundle of power supplies, a Raspberry Pi, an on-site laptop, and a Sony a5000 to capture b-roll.
His full breakdown of the setup includes detailed information about wiring, lighting, and the software, which proved quite challenging to design. Staacks ran DaVinci Resolve on an old Dell XPS notebook, complete with some simple repeatable trackers in the video editing app, which proved quite effective.
I have suffered from chronic insomnia since the start of the second intifada in Israel, in the fall of 2000.
As military helicopters flew over my home in southern Jerusalem, night after night, my anxiety grew each time I heard the propellers whir. Racked with dread, I became completely unable to fall asleep and my doctor recommended a short course of sleeping pills.
That short course lasted more than 20 years.
During that time, as I’ve developed tolerance to the sleeping meds, I’ve repeatedly searched for non-pharmacological alternatives to help me get to sleep and stay snoozing the whole night.
I’m hardly alone: The Sleep Foundation estimates that between 10 and 30 percent of American adults struggle with chronic insomnia. For older adults, the rate jumps to as high as 48%.
Two Israeli startups, IntoSleep and NYX, are working on promising solutions that could change sleep medicine forever and provide much-needed relief to insomniacs like me.
Haifa-based NYX is further along, having already raised close to $4 million for its EEG-studded, sleep-promoting headband incubated at Joy Ventures.
IntoSleep hasn’t raised any cash yet but has some big names in Israeli sleep-tech as cofounders and advisers for its biofeedback-based approach.
Goddess of the night
NYX (named after the Greek goddess of the night) developed a headband that you just have to put on, and that’s it.
“We don’t care what your gender or age is, if cognitively you’re in good shape or not, if you take meds are not. You just have to want to sleep,� CEO Eyal Lewin tells ISRAEL21c.
NYX team, from left: Inbal Agur, Assaf Amiaz, Louann Henselijn, Dana Shik, Maxim Holodilin, Ron Katz, CEO Eyal Lewin, CTO and cofounder Ophir Orenstein. Photo by Sam Henselijn
The headband uses tACS (transcranial alternating current stimulation, a form of neuromodulation to treat disease or enhance brain function) and EEG, which Lewin describes as “the language the brain understands.�
“We are just amplifying your own biology,� Lewin explains. “If we help you fall asleep in a good way, without pills or meds; your overall sleep cycles will be better.�
When you first don the headband, it checks your brain’s theta waves via the EEG connection. To fall asleep, you need theta waves that are about 60% higher than normal.
NYX’s goal is to use tACS “to get you to N1, the gateway to falling asleep,� Lewin says.
“You’re training your brain in how to create more theta waves to fall asleep. From time to time, you’ll need to train again. But you won’t need us every day.�
Image courtesy of NYX
A short “threshold test� asks you to indicate when you feel a tickle. “Once you say you feel it, it’s taken down so that the currents used by the device will always be below the level that can be sensed by human beings,� Lewin reassures us.
After a night of stellar sleep, the headband downloads all the information from the night into the NYX mobile app. The data is then uploaded to the cloud, so that it can be compared with other insomniacs “to set the right program for your next night,� Lewin says.
The headband’s stimulation is personalized to the user. “Ten people will likely get 10 different kinds of stimulation,� Lewin points out.
NYX CEO Eyal Lewin. Photo courtesy of NYX
The idea is not to use the headband forever. You don’t even need to wear it the entire night, although you probably will since you’ll be asleep before you realize it.
The company tested the headband in 300 sessions on people with insomnia due to Parkinson’s disease. These tests showed lasting results, Lewin tells us. Currently, NYX is running a double-blind clinical trial with 100 insomniacs at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.
Lewin hopes a commercial product, available by prescription with FDA approval, will be out by the end of 2024.
Biofeedback to the sleepy rescue
IntoSleep’s approach also involves a wearable, although not on your head but on your finger. The company’s techno “thimble� monitors respiration rate, blood pressure, heart rate, sweat gland activity and skin temperature to put together a program tailored for you based on biofeedback.
Biofeedback is a technique that bypasses the thinking mind to address the autonomic nervous system. According to Harvard Medical School, biofeedback teaches you “to control automatic body functions [in order to] relieve chronic pain, reduce stress, or improve your physical or mental performance.�
Image courtesy of IntoSleep
In traditional biofeedback, sensors detect changes in your pulse, brain waves and other physiological functions. These changes trigger a visual or auditory signal. Over time, you can learn to alter the signal by taking conscious control of your automatic body functions.
IntoSleep’s original idea was to have users watch images or patterns of lights and dots projected onto their bedroom ceiling. The images changed based on the feedback from the finger sensor.
But asking people to lie in bed with their eyes open was kind of antithetical to the goal, so the projected images were transformed into audio tones that guide users, with the help of the thimble, toward increased relaxation.
IntoSleep CEO Carmit Lev-Solash. Photo courtesy of IntoSleep
You can listen using your device’s speakers or wear headphones to sleep. IntoSleep CEO Carmit Lev-Solash says that once you’ve used IntoSleep for a while, you’ll be able to achieve the same calming just from the thimble’s tactile biofeedback vibrations.
Biofeedback and sleep training have long gone together, but it’s always required the insomniac to visit the therapist’s office during the day and be hooked up to electrodes.
“It’s not done at night, which is when you want to go to sleep!� Lev-Solash points out.
“We take what organizations like the Cleveland Clinic have done with biofeedback and convert it to in-bed use, with no electrodes required, just an app and a finger sensor. We don’t need an expensive clinician, either. In the future, we’ll add live chat.�
The next step is clinical trials, once funds have been raised.
Noam Hadas, CTO of IntoSleep. Photo courtesy of IntoSleep
Lev-Solash has a business background and formerly was marketing manager for The Kitchen FoodTech Hub. Her CTO and cofounder, Noam Hadas, is an engineer and serial entrepreneur who has been building sensors to investigate sleep disorders for 30 years. He founded SLP (SleepSense), whose sensors track apnea.
“This is his first startup to solve insomnia,� Lev-Solash notes.
Also on the IntoSleep scientific dream team: Dr. Arnon Rolnick, “one of the pioneers of biofeedback in Israel,� Lev-Solash says. Rolnick established the Israeli Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback and has served on the board of the American Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback.
Neither IntoSleep’s Lev-Solash nor NYX’s Lewin suffer from insomnia, by the way. As for me, I’m already losing sleep waiting for the next generation of Israeli-made sleep-soothing wearables to come to market.
Israel’s Diamond Exchange District has gained yet another new addition with the completion of the Amot Tower, designed by renowned architect Moshe Zur. Situated at the entrance to Tel Aviv’s Ramat Gan major business district, it greets visitors with a beautifully detailed and lively façade. The glass skyscraper, which stands 158 meters tall and contains 38 floors of retail space, has received LEED platinum certification, making it the first of its sort in Israel.
Every floor of the Amot Tower is divided into two wings that surround a central elevator core visible from the outside. The north-facing atrium volume spans the whole height of the skyscraper, giving controlled streams of natural light onto the floor lobbies. This provides building users with a panoramic view while waiting for and using the lift.
The building derives its name from the atrium entrance hall, which was designed by Oded Halaf. Halaf came up with the idea to build a tornado-shaped staircase, a sculptural component that would provide movement and intrigue to the orthogonal, glass-encased, four-story lobby. Halaf also desired that the staircase be devoid of all visible support – a hard and seemingly impossible task that needed to be outsourced to a specialist with the perfect combination of knowledge, experience, and enormous inventiveness.
Tomer Gelfand is a skilled artisan who specializes in providing design solutions to engineering challenges. Gelfand has been practicing design implementations in wood, stainless steel, and glass since inheriting his father’s 1976-founded studio. Halaf gave his preliminary drawings of the stairs to Gelfand 18 months ago, who was then able to design, execute, supervise, and finalize all stages of construction, making Halaf’s dream a reality. Two interlocking parts make up the stair structure: a metal skeleton staircase and a hardwood envelope. From the reception desk, they soar fourteen meters into the first-floor mezzanine, appearing as an expressive whirlwind. Gelfand designed an arrangement of continuous hardwood profiles that appear fluid and flexible but are exceedingly strong and stable.
He began by scanning the skeleton with an MRI scanner, cutting vertically across the framework, and generating sections the width of the given wooden profile. The resultant number of cross-sections, each exported with a different radius requirement, resulted in an apparently infinite number of arches. This prompted Gelfand to limit it to “master arches,” whose radius and angle were determined by their average bending tolerance, which was calculated from the wooden profile.
The radial shapes were then cut from the material itself. 9,000 linear meters of tulipwood were cut by CNC machines to generate the stock for the master arches, each coded and labeled to fit precisely in the grand design. As no single item was interchangeable, each measurement had to be done beforehand to ensure the final installation’s success. A seamless transition was achieved by completing each connecting point between the modules with a reversed radius.
Halaf and Gelfand chose American tulipwood for the project because it met the color requirements. Other considerations included the material’s cost, performance, and workability. This project required 120 cubic meters of tulipwood, which was obtained from local sources.
Gelfand contends that freshly cut tulipwood displays a range of natural colors, which would have compromised the seamless nature of the structure. For the modules, 12 average colors from the tulipwood pieces were chosen and applied. Finally, the coded profiles were brought to the site for the final puzzle work: a precise, four-month-long delicate assembly overseen and coordinated by Gelfand himself. The end result reflected the contradiction of modern creation: what looks to be an aesthetic, hand-drawn gesture is, in fact, the outcome of computational data processing and the output of numerous interchangeable bits.
Nature’s matter harnessed by today’s true artists of technology, seemingly arbitrary yet completely computerized Halaf and Gelfand have produced a remarkable building that is not only a work of art due to its distinctive shape but also demonstrates how modern design and traditional woodwork can coexist for modern use. Their vision has resulted in a structure that is as resilient as it is aesthetically pleasing, providing a glimpse into a future where engineering and art come together to create something truly unique.
Japan-based private firm ispace, on April 25, said that its lander most likely crashed onto the Moon while landing, and this has now been confirmed. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has photographed the impact site which shows prominent pieces of debris that were produced after the lander HAKUTO-R's crash. The lander was launched on December 11 by SpaceX last year and entered the lunar orbit after a seven-month-long journey. Had it successfully landed on the Moon, Japan would have become the fourth country after the US, USSR and China to safely land on the lunar surface.
Our Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera has imaged the impact site of the ispace HAKUTO-R Lander, which experienced an anomaly on April 26 during its landing attempt. https://t.co/GvggIeEZt1pic.twitter.com/EBVlOUZ3FN
NASA says the crash site was found after the LRO took images before and after the landing attempt. On April 26, the orbiter acquired 10 images around the landing site and found four large pieces of debris. When compared to the pre-landing pictures, the new images featured several bright pixels suggesting that it could be a small crater or debris from the HAKUTO lander's body.
(Artistic representation of HAKUTO lander; Image: ispace)
"This site will be further analyzed over the coming months as LRO has the opportunity to make additional observations of the site under various lighting conditions and viewing angles," NASA said in an official statement. According to ispace officials, the lander went into a free fall when it was around 5 km above the lunar surface. The mission controllers traced the issue to a software glitch prior to the landing. ispace CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada said that the company is still on track to attempt another moon landing in 2024 and a third attempt in 2025. The HAKUTO lander was also carrying a small rover 'Rashid' by the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre of the UAE which was supposed to operate for one lunar day (14 Earth days).
TikTok is the latest app to jump on the generative artificial intelligence bandwagon.
The social networking service is testing out a chatbot named Tako, which can answer questions and have conversations with users of the app, according to screenshots seen by Bloomberg. When asked about the feature, a representative said it was trying "new ways to power search and discovery on TikTok” in select markets.
"We're always exploring new technologies that add value to our community,” the spokesperson said in a statement. "We look forward to learning from our community as we continue to create a safe place that entertains, inspires creativity and drives culture.”
TikTok follows tech peers such as Snap Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Google in developing chatbots and other generative AI tools - the buzziest technology to sweep the internet in recent years. The Tako test is currently available to a small number of employees, according to Daniel Buchuk, an analyst at Watchful, a company that tracks apps' development testing for competitors.
TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance Ltd., is making the push into AI at a contentious time. Policymakers in the US and Europe are looking to crack down on the app, fearing that data could be used by the Chinese government. This month, Montana became the first US state to approve a measure banning TikTok - legislation that faces legal challenges.
For now, Tako appears as a small ghost-like icon on the top right of the app's screen. After tapping that icon, users are taken to an instant messenger, where they can ask questions.
Buchuk told Bloomberg that Tako can also provide recommendations for content based on users' interests and preferences.
"Tako is an experimental chatbot,” reads a screen on one of the screenshots shared with Bloomberg. "It can answer questions, and have conversations with you.”
Despite having an in-house AI team, any information users put into Tako is collected and shared with unnamed "third-party service providers in order to provide you with answers to your questions,” according to the feature's privacy terms. Tako is only available to TikTok users over 18, Buchuk added.
Users can choose to delete their data, but are warned not to share any personal information with the chatbot. They're also advised not to rely solely on the bot for its medical, legal or financial advice because "feedback from Tako is AI generated and may not be true or accurate.”
Overall, Tako will allow "TikTok to obtain ever more precise data to deliver personalized and highly targeted content to individual users,” Buchuk said, adding that it had "the potential to revolutionize how people use TikTok.”
