“There are no plans for ESRB to allow any factors outside the content and context of a game to influence the age rating,” says organisation
Category: entertainment
The Secret Life of Claude Code: Reading Code You Didn’t Write
How to orient yourself in an unfamiliar codebase — and how Claude Code can help you find your footing without losing your judgment.
Margaret is a senior software engineer. Timothy is her junior colleague. They work in a grand Victorian library in London — the kind of place where inherited collections are treated with respect, and where no one pretends to have read something they haven’t. Timothy has arrived today with someone else’s problem.
Episode 6
Your PC could soon play old Xbox and Xbox 360 games officially
Microsoft may soon allow PC players to enjoy original Xbox and Xbox 360 games thanks to an official emulator for Windows. While the talk of the town is the upcoming Project Helix, a new report suggests that we might get the classic Xbox experience before the next-gen Xbox platform.
It seems like the company is exploring emulation as a way to improve backwards compatibility across platforms, especially as the company continues to blur the lines between Xbox consoles and Windows PCs.
Over the last decade or so, Microsoft has been slowly pushing toward a unified gaming ecosystem that spans Windows PCs, handhelds, and Xbox consoles. And it seems that emulation could be a new part of this strategy, particularly for games that aren’t easily accessible on modern platforms.
Promoting cooperation in the public goods game using artificial intelligent agents
Hintze, A., Adami, C. Promoting cooperation in the public goods game using artificial intelligent agents. npj Complex 3, 3 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44260-025-00065-9
Movies reconstructed purely from mouse brain activity
Scientists have successfully reconstructed videos purely from the brain activity of mice, showing what the mice were seeing, in a new study led by University College London (UCL) researchers. The findings, published in eLife, could help shed light on the intricate workings of how the brain processes visual information and open new avenues for exploring how different species perceive the world.
Over recent years, there has been a growing interest in understanding exactly how the human brain interprets signals from the eye. Images and movies have been played to people in fMRI machines and researchers around the world have tried to decode the brain’s representations of visual information on a pixel level.
Samsung Brings Glasses-Free 3D Gaming and HDR10+ to GDC
Samsung is expanding its 3D gaming ecosystem and HDR10+ pipeline through partnerships with major games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Crimson Desert, alongside new Odyssey monitor technology.
Large area MoS₂ reduces energy loss in magnetic memory films
Scientists at the University of Manchester have discovered that placing magnetic films on atomically thin molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) fundamentally changes how they lose energy, a finding that could bring 2D‑material spintronics a step closer to real devices. The team found that growing a widely used magnetic alloy, permalloy, on ultra‑thin MoS₂ alters the film’s internal crystal structure, changing how and where energy is lost as magnetic spins move. By separating energy losses that occur at the surface of the film from those arising within its internal structure, the researchers provide new design insights for devices that use two‑dimensional (2D) materials to control magnetism more efficiently.
Crucially, the work uses large‑area, manufacturing‑compatible MoS₂, showing that these effects are not confined to laboratory‑scale samples but are relevant for real, scalable spintronic technologies. The study, published in Physical Review Applied, demonstrates that transition‑metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) can alter the fundamental properties of magnetic films. The results highlight the importance of careful comparison with control materials when assessing the impact of 2D layers on magnetic behavior.
Spintronics is an alternative to conventional electronics that uses not only the charge of electrons, but also their spin, to store and process information. This approach underpins emerging technologies for magnetic memory and has potential applications in energy‑efficient, high‑speed computing. A major challenge in spintronics, however, is energy loss: as magnetic spins move, some energy is inevitably dissipated as heat, limiting device speed and efficiency.
MultiGen: Level-Design for Editable Multiplayer Worlds in Diffusion Game Engines
Think of a video game that doesn’t just run on code, but is “dreamed up” in real-time by an AI—much like how AI generates videos or images today. While this technology (known as a Diffusion Game Engine) is incredibly exciting, it has long faced two major hurdles: you couldn’t easily “edit” the world once it was generated, and you couldn’t play in that world with friends because the AI couldn’t keep the environment consistent for everyone at once.
Traditional AI game engines work like “next-frame predictors.” They look at what’s happening right now and guess what the very next split-second should look like. Because they have a short memory (a “context window”), the world often feels like a shifting dream—turn around, and the door you just walked through might have disappeared or changed color. This makes it impossible to design a specific “level” or play with others, as the AI can’t keep a steady map in its head.