British qualifier Jan Choinski threatened to produce a memorable victory from two sets down on his US Open main draw debut before running out of steam in a thriller. Choinski, who won three qualifying matches to reach the main draw in New York, lost 6-2 6-3 5-7 6-7 (5-7) 6-3 to Spain's Roberto Carballes Baena in the first round. The British men's number 10 ultimately paid the price for making too many unforced errors, particularly in the opening two sets. He will also rue being unable to take any of five break points in the first game of the deciding set, having led 0-40. Choinski, ranked 276th in the world, was the first British player in action on day one at Flushing Meadows. British women's number three Harriet Dart plays France's Chloe Paquet about 23:30 BST. Dart, 28, is aiming to back up her encouraging run to the Wimbledon third round in July. Four other Britons - Jack Draper, Katie Boulter, Emma Raducanu and Dan Evans - play their opening matches on Tuesday. The US Open is the first major tournament since former world number one Andy Murray retired in an Olympic farewell at Paris 2024 last month. Regret for Choinski but satisfaction too For any player ranked outside of the world's top 250, qualifying for the main draw of a major is a huge deal and Choinski will ultimately take lots of satisfaction from his time in New York. The prize money of £75,000 will also be very useful as Germany-born Choinski looks to climb back up the rankings. However, there will also be a sense of regret at not taking his chances to claim the second major win of his career. Having switched allegiance to Great Britain in 2019, he reached a career-high ranking of 123rd last year but has struggled for consistency this season. But the big server with an aggressive forehand played his way into a Grand Slam first round for the first time - having previously been given wildcards to play at Wimbledon - by beating Argentina's Pedro Cachin, France's Valentin Vacherot and American Maxime Cressy in New York qualifying. Choinski - whose English mother and Polish father met while attending ballet dancing school in Germany - looked to maintain his rhythm against 55th-ranked Carballes Baena. While admitting he had "little expectation" going into Monday's first-round match, Choinski promised he would leave everything on court. That's what he did. Trailing by two sets and a break, Choinski looked to be heading for a quick exit as Carballes Baena's doggedness and ability to put lots of balls back from the baseline led him to make a flurry of wild unforced errors. Suddenly, midway through the third set, the British player began to find his range with winners now outweighing the mistakes. Demonstrating his physical and mental toughness, Choinski recovered from early breaks to win the third and fourth sets, levelling the match and forcing what had seemed an unlikely decider. Carballes Baena left the court for an extended bathroom break, returning calmer and more composed as Choinski became erratic again on the way to losing in four hours and 31 minutes. Source

Russia launched a massive missile and drone attack against Ukraine on the morning of Aug. 26, killing seven people, injuring nearly 50 others, and targeting the country's energy infrastructure once again. In a post on Telegram, President Volodymyr Zelensky said more than 100 missiles and 100 drones had been used in the "dastardly" attack. Rescue operations were completed by 8:30 p.m., the State Emergency Service said. Almost 740 rescue workers were involved in the response to the attacks. Across Ukraine, seven people were killed and 47 were injured, according to the State Emergency Service. Among the wounded were four children, with the youngest less than a year old. Air raid sirens sounded across the country just before 6 a.m., with the alert in Kyiv lasting nearly 8 hours. Kyiv Independent reporters heard explosions in the city shortly before 8:30 a.m, with several more a few minutes later. More explosions were heard just after 9:00 a.m. shortly after Ukraine's Air Force said Russian MiG-31s, used to launch Kinzhal ballistic missiles, were in the air. Explosions were also reported in Kharkiv, Odesa, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, Dnipro, Khmelnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Kryvyi Rih, as well as in Lviv, Rivne and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts. Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said 15 of the country's 24 oblasts had been targeted during the attack "primarily targeting critical civilian infrastructure and our energy system." "There have been civilian deaths and injuries, as well as damage to energy facilities," he said in a post on X, adding: "Russia continues to wage a cowardly war against civilians, which constitutes war crimes." In the city of Lutsk in northwestern Ukraine, an apartment building was damaged, the city's mayor, Ihor Polishchuk, said. He later reported that one person in Lutsk had been killed. In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Governor Serhii Lysak said a 69-year-old man had been killed as a result of the attack. In Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Governor Ivan Fedorov said a man had been killed when a private residence was struck. "The world must stop the terrorist country," he added. In Zhytomyr Oblast, Governor Vitaliy Bunechko said one woman had been killed. And in Kharkiv Oblast, Governor Oleg Sinegubov said a man had been killed in the Izyum district. In Mykolaiv Oblast, Governor Vitalii Kim said three people had been injured. Four people including a 10-year-old boy were injured in Odesa Oblast, Governor Oleh Kiper said, and three people were injured in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. Three people are reported injured in Kyiv Oblast, the police said in a statement. One of those injured was hurt when a downed drone fell on a road, "completely destroying" a car, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on Telegram. Shortly after 9:00 a.m., DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy company, said emergency power shutdowns were in place across Ukraine. "The desire to destroy our energy sector will cost the Russians dearly, (it will cost them) their infrastructure," Ukraine's Presidential Office head, Andriy Yermak, said in a post on Telegram. Klitschko said there were power outages in "several districts" of the capital, and later added there were problems with the water supply on the right bank of the city. Ruslan Kravchenko, head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, said infrastructure facilities in Kyiv Oblast had been hit, adding authorities were setting up "points of invincibility," communal station points that provide phone charging facilities and internet access for residents affected by power cuts. In a later post, he confirmed two infrastructure facilities were damaged, along with 22 houses. Later on Aug. 26, Tymofiy Mylovanov, an adviser to Zelensky's office, said a dam in Kyiv, part of the Kyiv Hydroelectric Plant, had been hit during the attack. Source

A team of electrical and computer engineers at Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, working with one colleague from City University of Hong Kong and another with Fudan University, has developed a new two-dimensional, low-power-consumption field-effect transistor (FET) that could allow smartphones to need recharging less often. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes how they overcame problems with high gate leakage and low dielectric strength that have stymied other researchers looking to create smaller and thinner computer chips. Two of the team members (Ziao Tian and Zengfeng Di) have published a Research Briefing, summarizing their work in the same journal issue. Over the past several years, computer engineers have been searching for new materials that will allow further miniaturization of silicon field-effect transistors. This will enable the addition of more features in phones and other devices without making them bigger. It is also a necessity for the development of 5G devices that will come with AI applications that are still in development. There is also expected to be a need to reduce the size of devices used in IoT applications. Notably, current materials have already begun to suffer from short-channel effects. Many in the field have seen 2D materials as the future for such devices because they would allow for reducing thickness to just a few atoms. Unfortunately, most such efforts have had issues with smooth interactions between the 2D materials and other parts that must connect to them. More recently, some researchers have begun to look at thin metal oxides as a possible solution. In this new effort, the research team has used single-crystalline aluminum oxide just 1.25 nm thick. The researchers note that each of the FETs they created had an aluminum gate just 100 µm wide and 250 nm long. To ensure complete insulation, they left a gap between the gates. To create their FETs, they used standard van der Waals transfer methods to properly align the materials on the underlying wafer before moving the stack over as a single step. The team describes the resulting product as a 2D FET with high-quality dielectric interfaces. Source

No one ever said flying a drone was easy, but that goes double for anyone with physical impairments in their hands. Thankfully we have brilliant makers like Gustavs Andersons around to help bridge the gap and make flying more accessible. Andersons has created a project he calls AeroCommand that uses one of our favorite SBCs—the Raspberry Pi—to allow anyone to pilot a drone hands-free. According to Andersons, he's a student from Latvia and created this project to submit to a contest called the Build2GetherV2 Contest. The goal of the project was specifically to help people who have various forms of limitations in their hand dexterity by creating a system that uses AI to interpret other methods of input to control, in this case, a DJI Mavic Pro drone. The controller uses a camera to capture images of the pilot's face and then parses through an AI system to monitor different movements. Things like facial expressions and tilting your head can be translated into input signals. For example, you can nod your head forward to adjust the throttle while winking your eyes to signal yaw. However, these options aren't always possible for everyone, so he threw in a voice-control option, as well. Andersons is using a Raspberry Pi 3B+, proving you don't need the latest model to pull this project off ,but you could still get away with using a Pi 5 if you wanted to and would likely see a performance boost. The Pi communicates wirelessly with the drone remote and an Android smartphone. It's also connected to a Seeed Studio Sense that helps with the speech-to-text functions. To pull everything together, Andersons created a custom PCB. In the spirit of making drone flying more accessible, Andersons has made the project entirely open source so anyone can recreate it at home. All of the source code is available over at GitHub. Be sure to follow Andersons for future updates, as plans are in the works to capture a demo video once a broken motor has been repaired. If you'd like to get a closer look at this Raspberry Pi project, you can find a full build guide over at Hackster. Source

Towerborne is a pretty drastic departure from the Banner Saga series, developer Stoic Studio's impressive set of story-driven strategy games. But even with just a short look at it, it's easy to see some of the familiar Stoic DNA in Towerborne. It carries a beautiful art style that recalls a hand-drawn aesthetic, similar to Banner Saga, and that gives it a powerful vibrancy. I played a short demo of Towerborne at Xbox's recent Gamescom event in Los Angeles, which gave a very quick look at its moment-to-moment combat gameplay. Towerborne is a side-scrolling co-op action-RPG that takes its inspiration from beat-em-ups. There's clearly a lot of inspiration being drawn from old-school arcade entries in the genre, but Towerborne separates itself through a combat system that includes a variety of combos and special moves, offering something a little deeper than just mashing buttons. First, Towerborne lets you adjust your fighting style based on the weapons your character uses, and from the sound of things, you can change those weapons frequently to give yourself new options. I teamed up with another journalist to run through the demo, starting with a character who dual-wielded daggers. The fighting style for that character was pretty fast and frenetic, slashing away at close range and mixing in kicks for heavy attacks. Each character has access to light and heavy standard attacks, which can be linked together to create combos that trigger different attack animations. For instance, I could cut up opponents with my daggers using light attacks, or fire off a heavy combo with a series of kicks, but linking them together triggered a new set of combos in which I could kick some enemies up in the air. The combo ability was even more notable for the second character in the build who carried a heavy club with two hands. The blunt end of the club contained something like a furnace that could be used to belch flame and set enemies on fire with certain attacks. Light attacks jabbed with the staff end of the club, while slower heavy attacks swung the club around for big damage. The combination of light and heavy, however, caused the character to take a knee and start using the club like a shotgun, belching flame and setting enemies ablaze. In addition to the damage done by the attack, the flaming enemies also burned for a short period, demonstrating that your weapons and their abilities can have a lot of different uses against enemies. In addition to standard attacks, you charge up special abilities that are specific to your weapons, all of which run on cooldown timers. My dagger character had a special ability that allowed her to throw a knife at an enemy and then teleport to its location to start an attack, making it easy to cross the battlefield and kick off a fight. I could also throw a series of daggers ahead of me for big damage against a single target, or leap into the air and throw daggers downward, with the knives lingering in the ground to hurt opponents who walked across them. The strongest attack in my arsenal was a magic area-of-effect attack that would cause a massive explosion after a short period. Leaving the trap behind was great to catch small enemies as they charged toward us. The club character had some similar moves, one which caused him to spin around like a top and slam enemies with the club for extended damage, and another that had him leaping in the air and blasting the ground with flame to create a damaging effect. Instead of a magic explosion, his AOE attack caused the ground ahead of him to erupt in a straight line. The demo's level was a short one, with the two of us working our way across grasslands, fighting off enemies like moles and bandits on our way from right to left. Occasionally, we'd fight off multiple waves that would keep coming, requiring us to smash up an enemy spawn point like a tent. It's fairly standard beat-em-up stuff, but with the variety of moves Towerborne offers in combat, alongside a dodge quickstep and a roll, the game takes on more of a feeling of an ARPG played from a side-scrolling viewpoint. And like in an ARPG, the combat loop in Towerborne puts a big focus on finding the right times to maximize the effectiveness of your abilities and managing their cooldowns. The final moment of the demo culminated in a big boss fight with Pangojira, a huge pangolin creature flanked by a bunch of smaller burrowing monsters. With the two of us, we naturally gravitated toward dividing the labor of the fight--focusing on the boss when possible, and splitting up to take out the smaller enemies as they appeared. If we were quick, we could stop the smaller enemies from attacking at all by hitting them as they were burrowing out of the ground, knocking them out in one hit. That became an important way to manage their numbers, as the game would throw what felt like 30 pangolins at us at a time. In addition to the boss, it could be tough to manage, especially because each pangolin could weather a pretty significant beating before dying. The boss itself rolled out the kinds of attacks you might expect to see in a beat-em-up like this. It would jump around the arena, sending shockwaves across the ground that we needed to jump over, or throw rocks into the air that would fall all around the battlefield and force us to dodge away. It attacked pretty frequently, too, which meant that it was important for us to get our hits in as fast as possible before getting clear of its very long reach. Towerborne punishes you if you're not paying attention--big hits will send you flying, leaving you stunned on the ground for a while. Movement is a bit clunky and slow, too, which means that you can't rely on just running and dodging to get around enemy attacks; instead, you have to watch your opponents, understand how they move, and anticipate their biggest and fastest blows so that you have enough time to get clear of them. If we hit the pangolin boss hard enough, however, we could stun it for a bit, allowing us to deal massive damage with all our abilities. The pyroclast could also use its abilities to set the boss on fire for a little extra chip damage, as well. We tended to divide our labor between me, with my daggers, cleaning up the little guys, while my partner laid into the boss with his harder-hitting moves. There were a few points where the fight got a little hairy--take too much damage and, like in most games, you'll drop to your knees, requiring either a teammate to revive, or burning what seemed to be a spare life to revive yourself. For the most part, though, smart use of our special moves was enough to keep the arena clear of enemies while we whittled down the boss's health to finish it off. Our look at Towerborne was pretty brief, focusing only on moment-to-moment combat. We know Towerborne has a lot of live-game systems, is heavily focused on chasing loot, and has a very Destiny-like feel for a lot of its systems--Bungie alumni are among the development team and a few of the choices that evoke the decade-old MMO. What we saw, though, has promise. It took a bit to get used to the game, especially in its movement and dodge systems, which are slower than you might expect and thus aren't conducive to twitchy, reactive play, instead requiring you to be more deliberate about how you engage enemies. But that's also in keeping with the arcade beat-em-ups of the '90s that Stoic is riffing on, and the ARPG additions to the gameplay like lots of special moves, alongside deploying interesting combos you can use to exploit enemy weaknesses, feel like smart updates to classic gameplay, at least in our short look at it. Source

Arsenal's match at Aston Villa may have been only their second of the new Premier League season, but for manager Mikel Arteta it groaned under the weight of significance. Arsenal and Arteta are now painfully aware of the levels of perfection required to cross the bridge from second place to champions, having fallen short to Manchester City in the past two seasons. And if there is one opponent guaranteed to bring that task into even sharper focus it is Aston Villa, who inflicted the biggest damage on the Gunners' title aspirations with a league double last season. The loss at Villa Park in December came only days after Manchester City suffered a similar fate in this hostile environment. It was the 2-0 defeat by Villa at Emirates Stadium in mid-April that effectively ended Arsenal's chances, handing the initiative back to Pep Guardiola's side with inevitable results. So Arsenal wanted to make an early statement of intent while proving lessons have been learned and the improvements required - in this case, actually beating Aston Villa - are in place. It was achieved in a 2-0 win that was a mixture of grit, good fortune and moments of brilliance, namely goalkeeper David Raya's stunning second-half save from Ollie Watkins, with the score goalless, that proved to be the game's pivotal moment. Watkins, uncharacteristically wasteful in front of England interim manager Lee Carsley, had already fired a golden chance wide in the first half when he thought his moment of redemption had arrived after 54 minutes. Watkins was perfectly placed to score with a diving header when Amadou Onana's shot bounced out after deflecting on to the bar off Gabriel. Raya was grounded and stranded at his right-hand post. The finish looked a formality. Instead, Raya recovered brilliantly, springing to his left to make a magnificent one-handed save, special not just for the execution but for the way he retrieved his position and refused to give up what looked like a lost cause. Raya said: "Everyone is a hero because we work together. It's not just me saving the ball. It was a crucial moment in the game when it was 0-0. They had chances and I was there. "I'm on the floor so I try to get up and I can't reach it. I just see Ollie going in so I react quickly. It's just a repetition of things. You do drills and have to save one ball and get up to save another. This time it paid off. It was a reaction one. I don't think it's my best save.” Watkins should have scored but take nothing away from Raya, showing once again why Arteta ruthlessly moved England goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale aside last season. On such moments, matters can be decided. And so it proved. And in matches of such fine margins, the vital signs are always examined for the qualities that can make champions. Arsenal produced them by cashing in on Raya's work to carve out a win that will taste especially sweet after the treatment meted out to them by Villa last season. Source

German police have arrested a second person as they investigate Friday's stabbing attack that killed three people and injured eight in the western city of Solingen. A man was detained late on Saturday in a building housing refugees close to the site of the attack in the city centre. Earlier on Saturday, a 15-year-old boy was detained in connection with the stabbing that shocked Germany. He is not the main suspect - but is alleged to have known about the attack. Two men, aged 56 and 67, and a 56-year-old woman were stabbed to death during a festival, in what Chancellor Olaf Scholz described as a "horrific act". A spokesperson for police in Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia state - where Solingen is located - said the second arrest was made late on Saturday. The spokesperson provided no details about the individual being held. Bild website reported that special task force (SEK) officers stormed the refugee centre, arresting a suspect. It said the building was located about 300m (984ft) from Fronhof - Solingen's central market square where people were stabbed on Friday night. Earlier in the day, investigators found a knife they believe was used by the attacker. The Islamic State group on Saturday claimed responsibility for the attack. It did not immediately provide any evidence and it was not clear how close any relationship with the attacker was. The attacker reportedly stabbed passers-by at random during a festival to celebrate 650 years since the industrial city of Solingen was founded. The situation in the square after the attack was "very hectic", which made it difficult to find the perpetrator, the police said. They also confirmed that the attacker "targeted" people's throats and necks. Solingen - a city famous for its steel industry - has about 160,000 inhabitants. It lies about 25km (15 miles) east of Düsseldorf. The city's authorities asked people to leave the Fronhof area after the attack at about 22:00 local time (21:00 BST) on Friday. The planned three-day celebrations of the city anniversary - for which about 75,000 people had been expected - were cancelled after the attack. Solingen Mayor Tim Kurzbach later said that "all of us in Solingen are in shock, horror and great sadness. "It breaks my heart that an attack has happened in our city. I have tears in my eyes when I think of those we've lost. "I pray for all those still fighting for their lives. Also my greatest sympathy for all those who had to experience this, these images must have been horrific." The entrance to Fronhof is now being guarded by police. People have been bringing flowers and candles to the site of the attack that shocked the entire country. Players from Germany's top Bundesliga football league wore black armbands during Saturday's matches. Source

Over the past couple of decades, computer scientists have developed a wide range of deep neural networks (DNNs) designed to tackle various real-world tasks. While some of these models have proved to be highly effective, some studies found that they can be unfair, meaning that their performance may vary based on the data they were trained on and even the hardware platforms they were deployed on. For instance, some studies showed that commercially available deep learning–based tools for facial recognition were significantly better at recognizing the features of fair-skinned individuals compared to dark-skinned individuals. These observed variations in the performance of AI, in great part due to disparities in the training data available, have inspired efforts aimed at improving the fairness of existing models. Researchers at University of Notre Dame recently set out to investigate how hardware systems can contribute to the fairness of AI. Their paper, published in Nature Electronics, identifies ways in which emerging hardware designs, such as computing-in-memory (CiM) devices, can affect the fairness of DNNs. "Our paper originated from an urgent need to address fairness in AI, especially in high-stakes areas like health care, where biases can lead to significant harm," Yiyu Shi, co-author of the paper, told Tech Xplore. "While much research has focused on the fairness of algorithms, the role of hardware in influencing fairness has been largely ignored. As AI models increasingly deploy on resource-constrained devices, such as mobile and edge devices, we realized that the underlying hardware could potentially exacerbate or mitigate biases." How hardware contributes to the fairness of artificial neural networks Fairness of neural networks. a. Illustrative example of neural network fairness awareness in dermatological disease detection. b. Process of model training with fairness awareness. c. New objective to be considered in system design. Fairness awareness adds a new objective goal we are looking for, extending a new dimension of the problem. Over the past couple of decades, computer scientists have developed a wide range of deep neural networks (DNNs) designed to tackle various real-world tasks. While some of these models have proved to be highly effective, some studies found that they can be unfair, meaning that their performance may vary based on the data they were trained on and even the hardware platforms they were deployed on. For instance, some studies showed that commercially available deep learning–based tools for facial recognition were significantly better at recognizing the features of fair-skinned individuals compared to dark-skinned individuals. These observed variations in the performance of AI, in great part due to disparities in the training data available, have inspired efforts aimed at improving the fairness of existing models. Researchers at University of Notre Dame recently set out to investigate how hardware systems can contribute to the fairness of AI. Their paper, published in Nature Electronics, identifies ways in which emerging hardware designs, such as computing-in-memory (CiM) devices, can affect the fairness of DNNs. "Our paper originated from an urgent need to address fairness in AI, especially in high-stakes areas like health care, where biases can lead to significant harm," Yiyu Shi, co-author of the paper, told Tech Xplore. "While much research has focused on the fairness of algorithms, the role of hardware in influencing fairness has been largely ignored. As AI models increasingly deploy on resource-constrained devices, such as mobile and edge devices, we realized that the underlying hardware could potentially exacerbate or mitigate biases." After reviewing past literature exploring discrepancies in AI performance, Shi and his colleagues realized that the contribution of hardware design to AI fairness had not been investigated yet. The key objective of their recent study was to fill this gap, specifically examining how new CiM hardware designs affected the fairness of DNNs. "Our aim was to systematically explore these effects, particularly through the lens of emerging CiM architectures, and to propose solutions that could help ensure fair AI deployments across diverse hardware platforms," Shi explained. "We investigated the relationship between hardware and fairness by conducting a series of experiments using different hardware setups, particularly focusing on CiM architectures." As part of this recent study, Shi and his colleagues carried out two main types of experiments. The first type was aimed at exploring the impact of hardware-aware neural architecture designs varying in size and structure, on the fairness of the results attained. Source

On the livestreaming service Kick, gameplay of Star Wars Outlaws has been streamed a full week before its official release, which doesn't come out until August 30. The streamer account with the username "thisisnotanaccount" has had their stream turned on and off over the past day according to Reddit Users. As of this writing, "thisisnotanaccount" has yet to be banned and viewers spoke of the gameplay shown being major story spoilers. Clips and videos from the stream have been making the rounds on other platforms such as TikTok. Twitch and YouTube streaming have quickly banned accounts or taken faster measures to mitigate circumstances such as this--even a Twitter/X account exists for updating users about which Twitch users are banned, with timestamps--but Kick will "terminate accounts in cases of repeated violations" and "ban individuals and accounts for more severe violations" as per its community guidelines. It seems that Kick may not deem this leaker as causing "severe violations," since the account still exists, with more than 20 followers, as well. This also is not the first time Star Wars Outlaws gameplay has been leaked online. Several months ago, an almost-15-minute video of Star Wars Outlaws gameplay was uploaded to YouTube before Ubisoft had it taken down swiftly. Viewers had said this video was extremely light on story spoilers. Be sure to check out our Star Wars Outlaws preview from Summer Game Fest. Source

Accepted , just let me know which genre you want to make the battle about, because you just wrote song .

If that's the case then your request would of been directly rejected . We need staff members + he is an old GM Pro.

The day is finally here. The first group of laptops that meet Microsoft's new Copilot+ PC standard are hitting store shelves today, complete with their Qualcomm Snapdragon X series processors. This is a big day for Windows on Arm and for Qualcomm. There's been a ton of hype over the last few months and no shortage of controversy. Microsoft and Qualcomm claim that these PCs will have longer battery life than Intel and AMD-powered laptops. They also are the first laptops to have built-in NPUs (Neural Processing Units) that surpass 40 TOPS (Total Operations Per Second), making them powerful enough to run a set of new Windows features, including Cocreator (text-to-image generation), Windows Studio Effects (webcam blur), live captions with translation and Recall, an activity tracker which is not in the initial build. Meanwhile, Microsoft has chosen to leave long-time partners Intel and AMD in the dust as they will not be getting these features until later in the year, even after their own AI-enabled chips come out. Today, we're getting our hands on at least one Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PC -- we bought a Surface Laptop 15-inch with Snapdragon Elite X (pictured above) -- and we'll be sharing our impressions and early benchmarks here on this live blog. Let's see if these systems live up to even half of the hype Source

Massive public and private investments are being made to support the buildout of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure in the United States, but efficient planning and deployment requires sophisticated analysis to ensure convenient, reliable, affordable, and equitable charging for all Americans. This is where the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) comes in. Leveraging its decades of EV charging infrastructure expertise, the laboratory developed the EVI-X Modeling Suite of EV Charging Infrastructure Analysis Tools, the most sophisticated and comprehensive set of integrated charging infrastructure analysis tools available today. "Each tool in the EVI-X modeling suite shares the same philosophy: to accelerate convenient and affordable EV adoption by lowering every possible barrier to EV charging infrastructure deployment," said NREL's Eric Wood, a senior EV charging infrastructure researcher who plays a key role in developing and refining the suite. "We've added everything we understand about human behavior and charging preferences to simulate what an EV charging network should look like to meet peoples' needs, whether they drive a small sedan or a heavy-duty tractor trailer." "We take the stance that EV adoption needs to be a no-compromise solution," he continued. "EV charging, as we see it, should be easy, convenient, and never fail to meet drivers' needs." In addition to identifying the necessary number and type of EV chargers—ranging from fast, high-power public charging stations to slower, Level 1 (120 volts AC) and Level 2 (208–240 volts AC) charging ports—to support large-scale EV adoption, the EVI-X suite enables researchers, partners, and others to pinpoint locations best suited for EV charging station installation, estimate associated costs and charging loads, and develop optimal solutions for effective integration—all before monetary and time investments are made. "While some of the tools in the EVI-X suite were developed years ago, others are relatively new," Wood said. "Originally, each tool in the suite was developed independently, but as they matured, we began to realize that linking them together would enable us to answer deeper questions. And today, we can even link tools in the EVI-X suite with other tools in NREL's portfolio to explore EV adoption scenarios, power systems modeling, and more." The EVI-X suite has the unparalleled ability to answer the most complex questions addressing every aspect of EV charging—from network planning and site design to financial analysis—for every vehicle weight class—from sedans and SUVs to delivery vans, buses, freight trucks, and more—and at wide-ranging geographic scales—from a small town to the entire nation. Because it is agile enough to account for changing variables, such as improving EV technologies and growing consumer adoption, the EVI-X suite can provide accurate EV charging analysis for today and in the decades to come. Source & Read More

Name of the game: Conan Exiles Price: $4.74 USD Link Store: https://store.steampowered.com/app/440900/Conan_Exiles/ Offer ends up after X hours: June 24 Requirements: MINIMALE : Système d'exploitation et processeur 64 bits nécessaires Système d'exploitation : Windows 10 64bit Processeur : AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel Core i5-10400F Mémoire vive : 8 GB de mémoire Graphiques : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 or Radeon RX 580 DirectX : Version 11 Réseau : connexion internet haut débit Espace disque : 115 GB d'espace disque disponible

Video Author : Rush Name Of The Game : League Of Legends Video Link :

Announced through June's Nintendo Direct, Among Us' newest major update brings two new crewmate roles, one new imposter role, improved UI features, additional lobby presets, and more. The two new crewmate roles are the Tracker and the Noisemaker. The Tracker is able to track and locate a crewmate's position on the map to sus out the Imposter. The Noisemaker, on the other hand, sends out a distress signal when killed. The visual indicator from the Noisemaker's death is able to easily rally and pinpoint the Noisemaker's location to more readily deduce the Imposter. The Phantom is the final role added in this update: an Imposter role able to vanish for a short amount of time. Using this vanishing ability to escape or secure a kill makes the Phantom a swift assassin who can open up new strategies. Game Presets from the Lobby Settings option can allow players to simplify the game without additional roles, while the Roles Galore option can change how often roles like Tracker, Guardian Angel, and Engineer appear. Hide N Seek now has two presets available, with Pitch Dark and Flashlights for darkness and light playstyles, respectively. Among Us has not just seen new updates in the core game recently, but at Summer Game Fest, Innersloth showcased an upcoming animated series based on the game with Randall Park, Yvette Nicole Brown, Kimiko Glenn, Phil Lamarr, and more included in the cast. Be sure to update Among Us, so you can play and interact with the breadth of the game's new features out now. The full patch notes are below. Patch Notes : That’s a lot of newness happening, but it wasn’t just new items the team was working on. We also have a lot of patches so be sure to update your game to v2024.6.18 for these fixes: The Fungle – Crewmates won't be stuck in the ladder climb animation if a Mushroom Mixup happens while climbing a ladder Shapeshifters who are climbing a ladder when a meeting is called will no longer get stuck in the climbing animation Airship and The Fungle as Shapeshifter – The Shapeshift duration timer now counts down correctly under all conditions Classic and Hide N Seek – Desolation of Skeld Pet will now appear in the actual game and not guard their hoard in the dropship Quick Chat – Text in the chat field will have the same colors as the quick chat builder iOS – The “Pending Account Deletion” message is no longer hidden by the Friend List bar Child Accounts that become old enough to be full accounts will now receive permissions correctly Scientist – The battery duration timer is no longer blocked by the settings icon on some resolution settings The Great Goalie visor now layers correctly with certain hats Skeld – An extra button no longer appears on the screen during the second part of the Inspect Sample task Source

ord is now taking applications from UK customers for its new 800bhp Mustang GTD supercar, with pricing expected to start from £315,000. That lofty price tag sends the GTD well clear of the similarly conceived Porsche 911 GT3 RS (£193,000) and puts it in league with the likes of the Ferrari 296 GTB. The GTD is primarily designed and engineered for track use but is currently being evaluated for approval to be registered as a road vehicle in the UK and Europe. "If this cannot be obtained, the Mustang GTD will be a track-only vehicle in certain markets," Ford said, adding that WLTP fuel consumption data will be published before market launch. The application window is open until 19 July, a week after the GTD makes its UK debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Production of Europe-bound cars is scheduled to begin in spring next year, but Ford hasn't yet confirmed whether it will offer the GTD in right-hand drive. Nor has Ford said how many examples it will send to the UK, but it will be a highly limited proposition - likely far more so than the GT supercar, which bowed out in 2022. The GTD is said to have been conceived “after hours” by “a handful” of engineers in an anonymous storage garage at Ford’s Michigan headquarters, with the aim of creating “a Mustang to take on the best of European sports cars”. Ford is targeting a sub-7min lap time at the Nürburgring – a feat that would put the GTD on a par with European supercars including the Porsche 911 GT2 RS, Lamborghini Aventador SVJ and Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series. Ford CEO Jim Farley said: “[The] Mustang GTD shatters every preconceived notion of a supercar. This is a new approach for us. We didn’t engineer a road car for the track, we created a race car for the road. “This is our company. We’re throwing down the gauntlet and saying ‘come and get it’. We’re comfortable putting everybody else on notice. I’ll take track time in a Mustang GTD against any other auto boss in their best road car.” Designed and engineered in partnership with motorsport outfit Multimatic, which built the Ford GT supercar, the new arrival is effectively a road-legal reworking of the Mustang GT3 that will race at Le Mans next year. It has been named for the IMSA Sportscar Championship's GTD classification, for cars built to the FIA's GT3 specifications. A targeted output of more than 800bhp from the supercharged V8 makes the GTD the most powerful Mustang yet created, outpunching even 2019’s snarling 700bhp Shelby GT500. It's even more powerful than the £1.4 million, track-only Ford GT MK IV revealed in 2022. The bespoke 5.2-litre engine is larger than that fitted to the standard road-going Mustang and packs a suite of motorsport-derived modifications – including dry sump lubrication, dual air inlets and a titanium active-valve exhaust system (which generates “exceptional notes”) – in pursuit of Lamborghini-aping performance figures. Drive is taken directly from the back of the engine to a rear transaxle gearbox by a carbonfibre propshaft. The material reduces weight overall, but also reflects the fact that because it’s taking the drive directly from the engine rather than a gearbox, it spins at engine speeds of over 7500rpm. So too is the chassis radically different to that of the standard Mustang. Up front, the GTD's suspension set-up is a sophisticated take on the classic unequal-length double-wishbone design, with a single triangular wishbone at the top and two individual links at the bottom. The two front coilover suspension units also incorporate Multimatic’s Adaptive Spool Valve (ASV) damper technology, which can select from an array of damper settings on the fly in milliseconds under software control. The coilovers have two coil springs each rather than the usual single spring. One is softer than the other, and for track mode, completely compressing it with a hydraulic mechanism increases the spring rate by leaving only the single, stiffer spring in play. Doing so also reduces the ride height by 40mm compared with the road setting. The steering is rack and pinion and a hefty anti-roll bar runs across the front of the V8. The eight-speed dual-clutch gearbox and rear suspension are mounted on a tubular steel frame in an altogether more race-like set-up, with horizontal in-board coilover units hooked up to the rear, integral-link double-wishbone suspension by pushrods and rocker arms. Like the front coilover units, the rears are based on ASV technology and are linked to the front. They are also fitted with two coil springs each. Thanks to the rear-mounted transaxle, weight distribution is 50% front, 50% rear and there’s a variable traction control system the driver can adjust without moving their hands from the wheel. Source

Harry Kane’s role in Sunday’s Euro 2024 win against Serbia was different to what we are used to seeing him do for England, but it was just as important for the team. We know Kane can drop deep and play wonderful passes forward for runners to get behind the opposition but, whether we were on top in the game or under pressure, he had another job to do in Gelsenkirchen. As he explained afterwards, he stayed high early on because Serbia were defending deep and marking man-to-man. If he had dropped into midfield he would have brought a defender back with him, when we wanted to give our midfielders and other forwards as much room and time on the ball as possible. The plan was to leave the midfield to it because, although Kane was not getting the ball, he was still drawing defenders to him, which allowed our other players more space. Kane only touched the ball once in the first 35 minutes, when we were dominating the game, but he was still providing the focal point England needed up front. That is something he is very good at and it became especially important when we were under pressure in the second half. When he was coming deep to try to help out, there was no-one to hit for an out-ball when we did win it back, and Serbia were very quickly on the attack again. He was better off staying high up the pitch, holding the ball up and protecting it, and winning free-kicks - and he did that well later in the game. Unfortunately one of the problems we had was we were often in too much of a hurry to take them, and ended up losing the ball again straight away. That showed a lack of experience because in those situations, when you are under pressure, you have just got to be clever, take your time and take the sting out of the game. 'Part of the job for any centre-forward' As Kane said himself, there will still be England games when he will drop deep but the way this one went dictated that things were done differently. What he did instead was just part of the job for any centre-forward, whoever you are. When you are not touching the ball, let alone getting chances, you have still got to do your bit for the team. It is something I did all the time myself, running the channels or moving defenders around. You know you have got to affect the game somehow and, even if you are not getting involved at all in an attacking sense, you can play your part. At the same time, of course you are always thinking about scoring too - which is what I kept saying about Kane in my match commentary. You willingly do all that other work, but you are also just waiting for that one chance that might come your way. Kane had to be very patient but he got one in the end, from a lovely ball from Jarrod Bowen. Unfortunately for him, Predrag Rajkovic made a great save to keep out his header. For a long time, Kane’s role for England was similar to the way he often played for Tottenham Hotspur. Go back to the 2018 World Cup and he was coming back to the halfway line to collect the ball and linking play with wide forwards who would hug the touchline and fly forward. That worked, but this is a different England team, and we do not need Kane to be the playmaker now we have got such gifted midfielders behind him. Players like Jude Bellingham and Trent Alexander-Arnold can do that too so, instead, part of Kane’s role is to bring them into the game as much as possible. We will still need him to score goals, of course, but I am not worried about that side of his game either on the back of one difficult match at these Euros. Source

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has temporarily paused any new exports of mangoes and avocados out of Michoacán, Mexico after an incident that reportedly sparked security concerns for its safety inspectors on the ground. A spokesman for the agency said Monday that the inspection program will remain paused until it can ensure its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service inspectors working in Mexico are safe. While the USDA did not elaborate on the nature of the specific security threats, Reuters first reported the suspension stemmed from a protest in support of local police in the municipality of Paracho. "The programs will remain paused until the security situation is reviewed and protocols and safeguards are in place for APHIS personnel," the USDA spokesman added. The USDA first alerted the Avocado Exporting Producers and Packers of Mexico of its decision to suspend new exports out of the western Mexican state earlier this month. Any produce that has already been inspected and is in transit will not be blocked or impacted by the suspension, the agency said. This marks the second time in just over two years that inspections have been suspended following an incident in February 2022 that dealt with USDA employee safety, which was resolved within a week of the ban and had no severe impact on the avocado supply in the U.S. The USDA has inspectors working in Mexico to ensure the products meet U.S. standards, without whose signoff the avocados and mangos cannot be sent north. Michoacán and Jalisco are the only two Mexican states allowed to export avocados to the U.S., an industry worth billions of dollars each year. Michoacán is known as one of Mexico's most dangerous states, which has been dominated by organized crime for decades. The avocado industry has been no exception, with extortion rampant in the lucrative produce industry. Source

In a decidedly old-school format, the latest Skoda Superb follows the theme set by its predecessors. Available in both estate and hatchback format, the Superb has plenty of equipment, is cavernous inside and offers a range of pure-combustion, mild hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains. Including a diesel, even. Crikey. The estate version has typically been received well in the UK, which is among the biggest markets. But Skoda is clear that the hatch version still has a place in its line-up, with fleets being its main customer base, taking up 85% of sales. Skoda is hoping that the continuation of the hatch will draw in former lovers of the Ford Mondeo, Vauxhall Insignia and Volvo S90 now that all of these models are no longer sold in Europe. Even Volkswagen has ditched the Passat saloon, a car once viewed as the king of the business park. “That gives us the opportunity to fill the gap for customers looking for a traditional offering,” says Tatiana Cizmar, from Skoda’s product marketing team. She says they want “roominess, practicality, usability, a good range of equipment". I mean, that does sound quite straightforwardly compelling. So is the Superb now the leader in the mid-size B-segment class? Let's find out. The Mk4 Superb (if you don’t count the one they made in 1934) is built, like the latest Volkswagen Passat Estate, on the Volkswagen Group’s MQB Evo platform and has grown a little over its predecessor. The estate is 40mm longer than before, at 4902mm, but pleasingly 15mm narrower, at 1849mm across the body. Hallelujah. Height is up only 5mm, so it will have a slightly smaller frontal area than before and, with the drag coefficient down from 0.30Cd to 0.25Cd, Skoda reckons it’s up to 15% more efficient than before. Meanwhile, the hatch is 43mm longer, 59mm wider and 12mm taller than before. This is to create more room inside and increase boot capacity. It's likewise more aerodynamic, too, at 0.23Cd. In the UK, the Superb offers a a 1.5-litre petrol (mild hybrid) with 148bhp, a 2.0-litre diesel with 148bhp, a 2.0-litre diesel with 190bhp and four-wheel drive and a 1.5-litre plug-in hybrid with 204bhp and an official electric-only range of 62 miles. A 201bhp 2.0-litre petrol engine and a 262bhp 2.0-litre petrol engine are set to join the line-up later this year, with the latter offered in four-wheel drive only. Inside? Well, let’s start with the rear, because a voluminous boot has always been front and centre of the Superb Estate's appeal, and that’s no different this time. Luggage capacity with seats in place is 690 litres, up 30 litres from before. There's a storage cubby to the left, latches by the tailgate to drop the rear seats, luggage hooks, Velcro barriers to secure loads from sliding around and even now an electric load-bay cover. If you want the best estate boot in the business, there’s a strong chance that this is it. The hatchback impresses for boot space too, and it's better than its predecessor, with 645 litres of room available. That’s significantly more than in the Peugeot 508 hatch, which offers only up to 487 litres. There's room for large suitcases and golf clubs and you get the same storage compartments as the estate. Higher-spec models also get a multipurpose storage pocket. It’s a shame the hatch's loading lip is so big and there’s no height-adjustable boot floor like you get in the estate. Still, the wide aperture of the boot makes lifting luggage inside a bit easier. If you opt for a PHEV estate, you get 80 litres less capacity, due to the drive battery raising the load floor. There's credibility to Skoda’s claims of more rear cabin space, too, which will be important to buyers who will regularly be carrying passengers. Those rear seats offer large amounts of leg room and head room is good. This takes us up to the front seats: also spacious, comfortable, with a roomy and straight driving position. The business end of the cabin is mostly successful. “We have closely listened to our customers and brought haptic controls back,” says Johannes Neft, Skoda’s technical development chief. Sometimes it feels like listening to customers is a novelty. So, as well as a large, 13in landscape-oriented touchscreen in the dashboard's centre, there are three multi-function rotary dials with inbuilt screens, plus some supplementary buttons beneath. You can preset what the dials do, then give them a push to change the function, then rotate them to change the settings. Adjusting the temperature or driving mode, for example, is a doddle, especially on the move. The round, broadly adjustable steering wheel has real buttons too, plus two pushable scroll wheels. (A press of one button brings up the driver assistance systems and the scroll wheel pings them off.) The gear selector has been moved to the right-hand stalk to free up space on the centre tunnel, so the left handles indicators and wipers. There’s a separate light-switch panel. Mirrors and even each individual window get actual buttons. Yes, we shouldn’t have to say this, but here we are. If Skoda has been less successful, it’s in the feel of some of the interior materials. All look good and most feel solid – stuff you touch regularly, like the doors, particularly. But those rotary dials feel a bit flimsy, and if you push some places on the dash, it will creak and move a bit, not unlike in a modern Mercedes-Benz (likewise more about show than solidity). It's not a big deal, but it feels worth mentioning, because it’s unusual. Source

England bowler Jofra Archer says he sometimes "felt like a burden" during his lengthy injury struggles over the last four years. Archer made a stunning start to his international career in 2019, bowling the super over in England's World Cup win and impressing in the Ashes later that summer. But Tuesday's washout against Scotland at the T20 World Cup was just the 29-year-old's 10th international in more than three years because of back and elbow issues. "I've seen a few comments, people saying he's on the longest paid holiday I've ever seen," said Archer. "You try to not let it get to you but you can ignore 100 of them but sometimes that 101st is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Sometimes you feel like a burden not playing." Archer was speaking at the Winward Cricket Club in the south of Barbados as England trained before their second match of the World Cup on Saturday against Australia. His family, plus his dogs and two parrots Jessie and James - named after Pokemon characters - live just 150m away and it is where he did much of his rehab as he recovered from the elbow injury that kept him out from March 2023. The Scotland washout, in which Archer bowled two overs for 12 runs and afterwards was invited to a hospitality box by the Barbados prime minister, was the first international he has played in the country of his birth, and he received a warm ovation from the Bridgetown crowd. It included cheers from around 100 schoolchildren from his former school, Foundation, who had all been given the day off to attend. "It was really, really emotional," said Archer, who also played club cricket in Barbados for Wildey as part of his rehab. "I had a little bit of water in my eye and it wasn't the rain." Despite his injury issues, which have included a recurring stress fracture in his elbow and a back stress fracture, Archer received a two-year England contract last year. "I made a joke with Keysy [England manager director of men's cricket Rob Key] earlier where I said I'm really glad I'm back playing because I reckon I would have lost my contract in October," added Archer. "He laughed and said, no you're all right'." Archer will only play white-ball cricket this year but it is hoped he will return to the Test side next year in the run-up to the 2025-26 Ashes in Australia. "I've got a PDF file of every single game I'm supposed to play in from now 'til next summer anyway," said Archer, who has felt fit since November but has been carefully managing his return. "[England] have really planned out almost everything. "Probably the only thing they haven't planned out is the showers I take. "It's been really, really good. It was really planned out and even when I wasn't playing they made me feel really involved as well." Source

Israeli forces have bombed a United Nations-linked school in central Gaza where forcibly displaced Palestinians are sheltering, killing at least 40 and wounding more than 70. Officials from Gaza’s government media office and the Health Ministry confirmed the death toll, which included 14 children and 9 women, following Thursday’s predawn strikes which hit al-Sardi school and homes in Nuseirat camp. Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, condemned the attack on Thursday as a “horrible massacre” and said many women and children were among those killed and wounded. The Palestinian Wafa news agency said that thousands of displaced Palestinians were sheltering at al-Sardi school, which is linked to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), when it came under attack. Ismail al-Thawabta, a spokesman for Gaza’s government media office, said “huge numbers of dead and wounded” were arriving at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, which had reached three times its clinical capacity. “This horrible massacre committed by the Israeli occupation is clear evidence of genocide, ethnic cleansing against civilians, including women and children and displaced people in the Gaza Strip,” he told reporters. The dead and wounded were overwhelming the hospital, “which is filled with wounded patients three times beyond its clinical capacity”, he added. “This portends a real disaster that will lead to an even greater increase in the number of martyrs.” ‘Apocalyptic’ violence : Israel’s military confirmed the bombing, saying its fighter jets struck a “Hamas compound embedded inside an UNRWA school in the area of Nuseirat”. It claimed the bombing “eliminated terrorists who were planning to carry out attacks” against its forces. Hamas rejected the Israeli statement. “The occupation uses lying to the public opinion through false, fabricated stories to justify the brutal crime it conducted against dozens of displaced people,” al-Thawabta told the Reuters news agency. The attack on al-Sardi came as Israeli forces stepped up their bombardment of Gaza even as the United States and mediators continued to press ahead with an effort to secure a ceasefire deal. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said prior to the latest attack on Nuseirat, Israeli forces had killed at least 102 people in 24 hours. These included attacks on the Bureij and Maghazi refugee camps, also located in central Gaza. Doctors Without Borders, in a statement earlier on Wednesday, described the situation in Gaza as “apocalyptic”. The group, which is known by its French acronym MSF, said the Al-Aqsa Hospital had received 70 dead people and more than 300 injured since Tuesday, and that the majority of the casualties were women and children. “The odour of blood in the hospital’s emergency room this morning was unbearable. There are people lying everywhere, on the floor, outside … bodies were being brought in plastic bags. The situation is overwhelming,” said Karin Huster, an MSF official. The “insane escalation of violence” across the Gaza Strip and the closure of the Rafah border crossing – which has halted most humanitarian deliveries into the Palestinian enclave – has stretched the health system to the “point of collapse”, she said. “This man-made catastrophe needs to stop now,” she added. At least 36,586 Palestinians have been killed and 83,074 have been wounded in Israel’s eight-month war on Gaza. The brutal assault, which some countries and UN experts say amounts to genocide, began after Hamas fighters launched attacks inside Israel on October 7 of last year, killing at least 1,139 people and taking dozens of others captive. Source