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As fans eagerly await the arrival of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, bringing another corner of George R.R. Martin’s Westeros to HBO, the showrunner of the Game of Thrones spinoff is teasing the return of a familiar character. Sort of. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms takes place about a century before Game of Thrones, so it would have to be someone we met on the latter show very, very late in their life. Someone like, say… Walder Frey. The Lord of the Crossing—very well known to fans of both Martin’s books and the HBO series for hosting the…

Heads up, indie game fans: 1000xResist will arrive on Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 on November 4. The title, which is already out for PC and Nintendo Switch, will also be available through Xbox Game Pass on the same date. The game is also adding more localization support, bringing Brazilian Portuguese, French and Korean languages, so more players around the world can experience the story. And the story is the highlight of 1000xResist. This was an indie hit from 2024 that won a lot of fans for its innovative and branching story of a future timeline where the remaining members…

A new study from MIT suggests the biggest and most computationally intensive AI models may soon offer diminishing returns compared to smaller models. By mapping scaling laws against continued improvements in model efficiency, the researchers found that it could become harder to wring leaps in performance from giant models whereas efficiency gains could make models running on more modest hardware increasingly capable over the next decade.“In the next five to 10 years, things are very likely to start narrowing,” says Neil Thompson, a computer scientist and professor at MIT involved in the study.Leaps in efficiency, like those seen with DeepSeek’s…

South Korea is nearing a decision on whether to allow Google and Apple to export high-resolution geographic map data to servers outside the country. The detailed maps, which use a 1:5,000 scale, would show streets, buildings, and alleyways in far greater detail than currently available on these platforms. However, several regulatory and security hurdles remain unresolved. Earlier this week, South Korea’s National Assembly Defense Committee held a parliamentary audit of Google Korea. Lawmakers questioned the company’s requests for local map data, raising concerns over national security and digital sovereignty. The session comes two months after Seoul postponed its decision on…

Last month, OpenAI published a usage study showing that nearly 15 percent of work-related conversations on ChatGPT had to deal with “making decisions and solving problems.” Now comes word that at least one high-level member of the US military is using LLMs for the same purpose. At the Association of the US Army Conference in Washington, DC, this week, Maj. Gen. William “Hank” Taylor reportedly said that “Chat and I are really close lately,” using a distressingly familiar diminutive nickname to refer to an unspecified AI chatbot. “AI is one thing that, as a commander, it’s been very, very interesting…

Google has released a new update to its Veo AI video generation model that should make it do a better job of sticking to prompts and converting images into videos. Veo 3.1 is available to try today through Google’s Gemini API and is now also powering the company’s Flow video editor.Veo 3.1 builds on the new capabilities Google introduced with launch of Veo 3 at Google I/O 2025. The new model offers better “prompt adherence,” according to Google, and should have an easier time creating videos based on the image “ingredients” you upload alongside your written prompt. Veo 3.1 also…

In the last few years, photo-sharing apps have capitalized on the idea that Instagram has become too curated, creating spaces for users to share unfiltered photos from their camera rolls. Locket tapped into lockscreen-based sharing, Retro took a photo journaling route, and Yope is building Instagram for private groups. Now, Mayank Bidawatka, co-founder of Indian social network Koo, which was shut down last year after collapsed buyout talks, is releasing a new photo-sharing app called PicSee. The app, released Thursday, both on iOS and Android, aims to automatically detect and share photos of friends that are in your camera roll…

If you know where to look, you can often score discounts on Apple’s ever-expanding AirPods lineup. Both the newer AirPods Max and AirPods 4 (with and without ANC) now consistently receive discounts, as do the second-gen AirPods Pro with USB-C. Events like Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday often bring the steepest discounts, though you can still find great deals throughout the year.Below, we’ve rounded up the best deals currently available on each model, including both iterations of the AirPods 4, the second- and third-gen AirPods Pro, and the AirPods Max.At the end of last year, Apple introduced the…

In an embarrassing error, PayPal blockchain partner Paxos accidentally minted 300 trillion of the PYUSD token today. PayPal’s stablecoin, which it debuted in 2023, is supposed to be redeemable at a 1:1 rate for US dollars. $300 trillion is more than double the entire world’s current GDP of $117 trillion. In short, that’s a really bad mistake from Paxos.At least the action did appear to be a mistake. Paxos acknowledged the issue in a post on X, assuring clients that their funds are secure and stating that it burned the excess reserves of stablecoins. The company claimed that “this was…

Several of Samsung’s Galaxy phones and tablets are now stuffed with AI features — whether you use them or not. While some can be helpful if you remember to use them, many may be enabled but are left unused, potentially taking up space and RAM on your phone. Luckily, Samsung makes it a fairly simple and straightforward process of limiting or turning off features you don’t want on your phone when it comes to Galaxy AI. If you’re looking to lighten your AI load or even turn it off completely, you’ve come to the right place. Below, we’ll show you down…