Take it from someone who’s used many a gaming laptop as a day-to-day machine—what you’re looking for is balance. You’ll want a set of components that the cooling system can handle, a decent amount of storage space, a good-looking chassis, and a great screen. All for a price that won’t make your bank manager call you just to make sure you’re feeling ok.
Which is why this Acer Predator Helios 16 is such a good deal, currently available at Newegg for $1,400. For a very reasonable price, you get some components that make a lot more sense than some of the overpowered (and as a result, immensely hot) combinations we see in some of the more expensive lappies on the market.
Let’s start out with that display. This 240Hz IPS LED backlit panel is, unfortunately, not the Mini-LED model you get in the ultra high-end version with the RTX 4080. Boo. Still, with that refresh rate and a 500 nits peak brightness rating, it’s still mega-fast and plenty punchy, and will st…
Improve your daily Wordle with our helpful tips, dig yourself out of a rut with a helpful clue written especially for the July 12 (753) game, or take a cheeky peek at today’s answer—it’s only a single click away, after all.
Well, this Wordle certainly took some time. I eventually uncovered a few letters, but they refused to behave and for a worryingly long while I wasn’t sure what to do with them. In these situations, all you can do is stick at it and keep guessing until a vital green or precious spark of inspiration hits, so I kept on trying until today’s Wordle answer revealed itself.
Today’s Wordle hint
A Wordle hint for Wednesday, July 12
The answer today refers to a type of movement—a sort of swift circular spin, performed by anything from trained dancers to leaves on the wind. The same word can also mean “giving something a go” too. There’s just one vowel in this one.
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Is there a doub…
In 2023, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, along with digital identity company Yoti and “youth marketing solutions” provider Superawesome, filed a proposal with the FTC for a new “verifiable parental consent mechanism” called Privacy-Protective Facial Age Estimation. The FTC has now issued its response to that proposal, and the answer is “no”—for now.
The ESRB’s proposed technology stirred feathers almost immediately, and understandably so: The idea of having to essentially submit a selfie to prove to a machine that you’re old enough to play GTA 6 is inherently intrusive, and that’s before you even get into questions of technological bias and whether or not the thing would work well enough to justify the headaches that would inevitably erupt for at least some users.
The ESRB moved quickly to reassure the public that the system is not meant to identify individuals but simply to estimate age, and that it would not store any data after the analysis was complete…
AI is obviously the topic of the moment and, while we seem to have gotten past the dichotomy of Terminator / saviour, a major source of concern remains the safety of this technology. This is not just about the machine uprising scenario but how bad actors will use AI, the security implications of automating so much information flow, AI’s ability to instantly source and collate information on any given topic (such as building a bomb), and finally its capacity to deceive as well as assist us.
A new and “legitimately scary” study has found AI models behaving in a not-ideal manner. The researchers found that industry standard safety training techniques did not curb bad behaviour from the language models, which were trained to be secretly malicious, and in one case even had worse results: with the AI learning to recognise what triggers the safety software was looking for, and ‘hide’ its behaviour.
Researchers had programmed the various large language models (LLMs) to act…
Player First Games, the developers of MultiVersus, has been acquired by Warner Bros. “We have worked with Player First Games over several years to create and launch MultiVersus, and we are very pleased to welcome this talented team to Warner Bros Games,” said David Haddad, president of Warner Bros Games, in a statement to IGN.
The development and release of MultiVersus, the free-to-play Smash Bros if Smash Bros. was Warner Bros, has been a real rollercoaster. MultiVersus released in July 2022 in open beta, eventually attracting millions of players with platform fighter brawls and the raw magnificence of Ultra Instinct Shaggy. But in March 2023, after MultiVersus had been playable for almost a year, Player First Games announced that—unbeknownst to most players—it had actually been in a prolonged public test and closed the servers.
MultiVersus disappeared for nine months, forcing fans to speculate about its continued existence based solely off o…
Valve might have sprung a leak. A handful of screenshots supposedly from Valve’s next big game, allegedly a competitive shooter called Deadlock, appeared on 4Chan and Twitter yesterday. The word from multiple dedicated Valve sleuths on Twitter is that Deadlock is a 6v6 third-person shooter that takes inspiration from Overwatch, Team Fortress 2, and Dota 2.
The most confident descriptions of Deadlock are coming from Gabe Follower, a Valve-focused content creator.
“6 vs 6 battling on huge maps with 4 lanes. Usable abilities and items. Tower defense mechanics,” he said of the project yesterday on Twitter. “Fantasy setting mixed with steampunk. Magicians, weird creatures and robots. Fast travel using floating rails, similar to Bioshock Infinite.”
Gabe Follower also claims that Deadlock is the up-to-date title for a Valve project we already knew existed: Neon Prime. The name change could be explained by a previous version of Deadlock supposedly having a sci-fi art style…
Lightspeed Studios, best known for co-developing PUBG Mobile, and Will Smith, best known for slapping comedian Chris Rock on live television, have teamed up for a free-to-play open world survival shooter called Undawn.
Jokes aside, Will Smith is one of the biggest movie stars in the world, an Academy Award winner (and 4-time nominee) whose films have earned nearly $9 billion worldwide. Except for a Fortnite skin, this appears to be Smith’s first real videogame role, and if I were to picture him as the face of a game I guess it would be something a little more grand—like Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077, or Liam Neeson in Fallout 3, or one of the many Hollywood actors who have performed in the Call of Duty series.
Instead, Will Smith is now the face of a free-to-play mobile shooter that’s also coming to Steam. So, yeah, I’m as confused as you are. Go ahead and watch the star of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air wordlessly deliver a smackdown on some monsters making trouble …
At least once a year, the stars perfectly align and all the multiplayer shooters have a big update at the same time. This year, the stars decided that time is March. Everywhere I look, an FPS I’m excited about or want to get back to is beckoning me with promises of new gadgets, maps, exclusive betas, or overpowered guns that’ll be nerfed in a week.
Some of the biggest hitters, like Call of Duty: Warzone 2 and Apex Legends, missed the whole March memo and had their first big 2023 updates in mid-February. Overwatch 2 season 3 is in full swing too, but without a new hero this time there’s not much to get excited about. Fine by me, because I’ll be busy enough checking out the newest operators of Rainbow Six Siege and Valorant, plus the closed beta for The Finals, a promising destruction-heavy FPS from ex-DICE devs.
Another theme of March is redemption: both Battlefield 2042 and Halo Infinite are kicking off new seasons this week—classes are officially back in Battlefie…
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Thursday has proposed that the valuation of unlisted securities held by Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) be carried out as per the guidelines issued by the eligible industry association, and not as per Mutual Fund Regulations.
The AIF industry association has endorsed the International Private Equity and Venture Capital Valuation Guidelines (IPEV Guidelines) for the proposed change. However, valuation of securities other than unlisted securities, non-traded, thinly-traded and those below investment grade, will continue to be done as per Mutual Fund (MF) regulations.
“There are fundamental differences between MFs and AIFs on holding and valuing their investment portfolio…it is felt that the ask of the AIF industry to the extent of exempting unlisted securities from the applicability of calculation norms under MF Regulations and opting for a methodology under IPEV guidelines, merits consideration,” S…
On July 10, Maruti Suzuki rallied 3.7% to hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 13,300 from its previous close of Rs 12,827.70. In the last two days, the stock of India’s largest passenger vehicle manufacturer surged almost 10% and raised the investors’ health by more than 28.4% in the past six months. Meanwhile, Mahindra & Mahindra is one of the big losers on the index with a fall of 7.8% intraday.
Similarly, TVS Motors’ shares rose around 2% in the last two days and gave a return of over 20% in the past six months.
But are these auto stocks value buys at current levels? Here are some of the top brokerages’ reports to help identify it:
RVNL up 2.3%; Signs pact with Dhaya Maju Infra for railway projects in ASEAN region Markets rally! Nifty ends near 24,550, Sensex gains 1300; IT stocks shine Stocks To Watch: Eicher Motors, LIC, Cochin Shipyard, Biocon, Oil India, SJVN, Grasim, Alkem Lab, OLA Electric Mobility Markets end at intra-day h…