As a veteran PC gamer with a preference for Sony’s PlayStation consoles, I’m a late convert to the delights of Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription service. I often play the same games for weeks, but my Steam library is bristling with unplayed titles, and my kids have an insatiable thirst for new games. I was skeptical about the quality and depth of Game Pass (and game subscription services generally). But buying a steady stream of games for me, my wife, and my two kids was getting expensive.Paying out $60 for a game they simply must have, only to find…
Author: National Tone
Octavia E. Butler’s 1979 Kindred was a transcendent science-fiction novel, following Dana, a young Black writer who time travels from 1970s Los Angeles to 19th century Maryland. The literary offering was lauded for its exploration of time, history, and ancestry. Decades after the success of Butler’s novel comes an FX-ordered series, created by showrunner and writer Branden Jacobs-Jenkin. Staying close to its original material, Kindred stars Mallori Johnson as Dana, who faces past secrets seeping into the present. The show also stars Micah Stock, Gayle Rankin, Austin Smith, David Alexander Kaplan, Sophina Brown, and Sheria Irving. “The thing I’m always…
IBM wants to scale up its quantum computers to over 4,000 qubits by 2025 — but we’re not quite there yet. For now, we have to make do with significantly smaller systems and today, IBM announced the launch of its Osprey quantum processor, which features 433 qubits, up from the 127 qubits of its 2021 Eagle processor. And with that, the slow but steady march toward a quantum processor with real-world applications continues. “The new 433 qubit ‘Osprey’ processor brings us a step closer to the point where quantum computers will be used to tackle previously unsolvable problems,” said Darío…
The layoffs announced by Zuckerberg are the largest in Meta’s history as a company.Photo: Fabrice Coffrini / AFP (Getty Images)Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company would be laying off 11,000 employees, 13% of its workforce. The cuts are part of an effort to become leaner after the company reported declined in revenue for two straight quarters, encountered stagnating user growth and a sluggish pivot to “the metaverse,” and saw its stock lose 70% of its value this year. The company is expecting another decline in revenue for the fourth quarter.In a blog post on Wednesday, Zuckerberg took responsibility…
We’re often told to “be here now.” Yet the mind is rarely tethered in place. We take mental trips to our past, revisiting what happened yesterday or when we were children, or we project into an imagined future: tomorrow’s dinner date, the trajectory of our career at age 50.Rather than a diversion from the norm of mindful presence, this tendency to internally visit other time lines, called “mental time travel,” is common; young adults, for example, think about their future an average of 59 times a day. Psychologists have suggested that this ability to time travel from the confines of…
The reports were true.Facebook’s umbrella company Meta is laying off 11,000 workers, or about 13 percent of its workforce. The company also plans to cut discretionary spending, and it will extend its hiring freeze throughout the next quarter. Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared the news in a blog post Wednesday, saying the decision was among the “most difficult” in Meta’s history. “I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here. I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted,” he wrote. In the post, Zuckerberg blames his reaction to the…
Edge computing cloud and global data network Macrometa has raised $38 million led by Akamai Technologies, as the two announce a new partnership and product integrations. The funding also included participation from Shasta Ventures and 60 Degree Capital. Akamai Labs CTO Andy Champagne will join Macrometa’s board. Macrometa founder and CEO Chetan Venkatesh told TechCrunch that its GDN enables cloud developers to run backend services closer to mobile phones, browsers, smart appliances, connected cars and users in edge regions, or points of presence (PoP). That reduces outages because if one edge region goes down, another one can take over instantly.…
A Pakistan supporter at the SCG hung a banner that read, “History repeats itself, 1992-2022.” Several others repeated the same theme on their banners. The parallel is irresistible: As in 1992, en route to winning the 50-over World Cup at SCG, Pakistan were on the brink, doomed to a group-stage exit. But a slice of fortune winked—their league game against England, wherein they were bundled out for 74, was abandoned due to rain and they escaped with a valuable point, enough to scrape through to the last four. Here, they were almost certain to catch an early flight back home,…
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday granted three weeks to the Centre to file its response to a petition concerning the disclosure of information on state-sponsored electronic surveillance under the Right To Information Act. Senior advocate Trideep Pais, appearing for petitioner Apar Gupta, told the court that despite the Centre being asked to convey its stand on earlier occasions, it is yet to file its reply and emphasised that he does not want the “actual intercepts” but only the “statistical data” on the matter. Advocate Anurag Ahluwalia, representing the Centre, sought more time from the court to respond to the…
A meeting among senior officials of Delhi government, the Centre, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and leading banks is slated to be held on Thursday, to discuss modalities on payment of the balance arbitral award to the Reliance Infrastructure-owned Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited. The managing director and director (finance) of the DMRC and representatives of several banks are expected to take part in the meeting to be held at Nirman Bhawan, they said. The DMRC on October 31 had told the Delhi High Court that a meeting with the Centre and the city government was…