Category: 4. Technology

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RESEARCHERS at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a membrane they believe could replace energy-intensive distillation processes to fractionate crude oil in refineries.

The researchers used interfacial polymerisation – widely employed since the 1970s to make thin films for reverse osmosis desalination – to produce their polyimine membranes, suggesting the method is scalable for refining applications.

Oil refining is the world’s third-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for nearly 5% of global emissions. Instead of the conventional energy-intensive distillation columns that separate crude oil according to the different boiling points of gasoline, diesel, kerosene and other components, membranes can filter hydrocarbons based on molecular size. Membrane-based separation could significantly lower the energy requirements of fractionation, which uses around 1% of global energy demand for the heat-driven distillation. 

The research, part-funded by US oil giant ExxonMobil, was published in Science in May. They tested the membranes by filtering a mixture of toluene and triisopropylbenzene (TIPB) hydrocarbons and achieved a concentration of toluene 20 times greater than in the original mixture.

Andrew Livingston, a chemical engineering professor at Queen Mary University of London, who was not involved in the study, said the research was “an important step toward reducing industrial energy consumption”.

Zachary Smith, an associate professor of chemical engineering at MIT and a senior author on the study, said they had developed “a whole new way of envisioning a separation process”. He believes a series of their membranes could one day be used to remove the heat-intensive fractionation process in a refinery. “You can imagine that with a membrane like this, you could have an initial stage that replaces a crude oil fractionation column. You could partition heavy and light molecules and then you could use different membranes in a cascade to purify complex mixtures to isolate the chemicals that you need.”

No swell

Membrane-based separation of crude oil is estimated to be capable of reducing the energy requirements of fractionation by 90% compared to heat-driven processes, and the MIT team are not the first to have investigated the technology. However, most previous efforts produced membranes that tended to absorb some hydrocarbons as they passed through, leading to swelling that impairs their separation power.

The MIT team used interfacial polymerisation to create an MPD-TMC membrane, similar to those used in desalination. They then replaced the amide bonds in the MPD-TMC structure with imine bonds, which are more rigid and hydrophobic – making them better suited for filtering hydrocarbon molecules. When tested on a mixture of naphtha, kerosene, and diesel, the membranes did not cause swelling.

The team believes their process can become a commercially viable way of fractionating oil in refineries. Taehoon Lee, who led the study as a postdoctoral researcher at MIT and is now an assistant professor at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea, said: “The main advantage of interfacial polymerisation is it’s already a well-established method to prepare membranes for water purification,” adding that the “existing scale of manufacturing lines” was already set up to produce MPD-TMC-based membranes.  

Call of Duty HQ is the default launcher or hub app for the modern CoD titles in the market right now. As of now, this app features Black Ops 6, Modern Warfare II & III, and Warzone altogether, under the same roof.This approach was taken by Activision to make everything seamless for the fans, as players will be able to access all the recent Call of Duty games at one place. However, things didn’t go the way it was supposed to as the app is hugely infested with bugs, ads, and UI issues. And that is why, Activision might be omitting some modern CoD titles from the app to make it clutter-free.

Call of Duty HQ app is reportedly excluding two popular titles

According to credible gaming insider Reality, Call of Duty Modern Warfare II and Modern Warfare III are available outside the main Call of Duty HQ app. Initially, it was mandatory to install that app because from there, those two titles would launch. But the insider has claimed that if players redownload those two games, then they can be played directly, without the help of any launcher.However, this potential from Activision was quite evident, keeping in mind Call of Duty HQ’s poor reception among the fans. First of all, the app is a huge storage-junker, and when someone downloads all the games in this launcher, then it gets out of hand. Secondly, the HQ app is clubbed with so many titles that its complex UI makes everything confusing for the fans.Not only that, because of the huge load on the single app, the server of Call of Duty HQ often finds it tough to maintain all the games at once, often resulting in server outages. On June 25, fans faced a similar situation where servers of several titles went down and out. Another reason for this chaos is because of different developers for different sub-series in Call of Duty. For example, Warzone and the Modern Warfare series are mainly developed by Infinity Ward. On the other hand, the Black Ops series is taken care of by Treyarch. So, it is obviously going to be tough to stick all the items in a single place by different development teams. Opening a game from a certain launcher is itself a tedious job. First, you have to open the Call of Duty HQ app, then load a list of the available games and find the one you want to play from there. At last, launching the desired one. All of these could have been done in just a double-click on a separate icon on the desktop.So, now it’s clearly understood why Activision is taking this potential approach to remove two of the most popular games from the Call of Duty HQ app. However, it can go the other way around too. Recently, many classic CoD titles got updates out of nowhere after more than a decade. So, were those updates implemented to club those titles in the HQ app? Only time will give the answer.Read More: Call of Duty Black Ops 7 leaks suggest a new team-based game mode might be coming

Smartphones sensors can detect major forms of psychopathology and could provide a promising way to identify early symptom deterioration and deliver “just-in-time” tailored interventions, research suggests.

The findings, in the journal JAMA Network Open, provide further evidence that passively collected information from these devices can relate to transdiagnostic dimensions of these mental disorders.

The study further suggests that the devices could one day be used as symptom monitoring tools and lead to more precise and effective treatment.

In an editorial accompanying the study, Massachusetts-based researchers Christian Webb, PhD, from McLean Hospital in Belmont, and Hadar Fisher, PhD, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, suggest that smartphones and wearables could provide low-burden support aligned to a person’s real-time state.

“Passive sensing via smartphones and wearables offers a powerful lens on individuals’ lives beyond the research laboratory and clinic walls,” they maintained.

“When used wisely, it may augment our understanding of psychopathology—capturing aspects of functioning that matter for mental health, enabling personalized monitoring, and potentially prompting earlier interventions.”

For example, smartphone sensors that detected a notable increase in time spent at home, decreased physical activity, and reduced initiation and response to communication could trigger a brief assessment of either depressive symptoms or a lack of appreciation for activities typically enjoyed.

The researchers note that current, in-person clinical observation provides only a narrow snapshot of a patient’s status, with lengthy patient-reported outcome measures only administered episodically.

Digital phenotyping using mobile sensing could address these limitations, collecting key information on symptoms and daily functioning that occur in the days and weeks between clinical encounters that is missed in current monitoring practices.

To investigate further, Whitney Ringwald, PhD, from the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis, and co-workers examined which forms of psychopathology relate to behavior that can be assessed through smartphone sensors.

The team continuously collected data from 557 adults using smartphone sensors for 15 days, following baseline assessments of psychopathology.

The study used six types of smartphone sensors: global positioning system (GPS); accelerometer; motion; screen on/off; battery; and call logs. These were used to derive 27 behavioral metrics.

Results showed that passively sensed behaviors were associated with all six major transdiagnostic psychopathology domains, with the strongest associations for detachment and somatoform symptoms.

Even after accounting for shared variance across domains, all but one domain—thought disorder—retained unique associations with smartphone-derived variables. For example, detachment was linked with lower physical mobility and disinhibition to lower telephone battery charge.

The p-factor, which reflects general impairment and is a general psychopathology dimension, was associated with a distinctive cluster of behaviors that included later bedtimes, reduced physical mobility, more time spent at home, and less telephone charge.

“These findings suggest that smartphone sensors can detect not only domain-specific behavioral patterns but also broad behavioral signatures of general psychopathology, with potential applications for monitoring and intervention,” the editorialists noted.

Ringwald and team concluded: “These results suggest that the findings from this study may advance research on day-to-day maintenance mechanisms of psychopathology and inform development of symptom monitoring tools.”

Google has officially rolled out Veo 3, its latest AI-powered video creation tool, to Gemini users across the Middle East, marking a major expansion in the region for its generative media technology. Now available to paying users of Gemini, Veo 3 allows people to generate cinematic video clips from simple text prompts, complete with synchronized sound, music, dialogue, and realistic visuals.

Veo 3: From Prompt to Production

Initially unveiled at Google I/O 2024, the company’s annual developer conference in May, Veo 3 has quickly drawn attention for its high realism, advanced physics simulation, and precise lip-syncing capabilities.“From prompt to production, Veo 3 delivers best-in-class realism, physics, and lip syncing,” said Eli Collins, Vice President of Product at Google DeepMind, during the launch event at Google I/O.Users can input a short description of a scene, such as “a foggy street in old Tokyo with neon lights and light rain,” and Veo 3 responds by generating an eight-second, 720p video that integrates ambient sound, spoken dialogue, realistic effects, and visual elements that closely mirror the input description.According to Collins, Veo 3 not only performs standard text-to-video generation, but also supports image prompting and introduces a new benchmark in responsive AI video design. He wrote in a blog post:“Veo 3 excels from text and image prompting to real-world physics and accurate lip syncing,” highlighting its strengths in realism, responsiveness, and user control.

Competing with Sora and Raising the Bar

With its ability to generate native audio, including background noise, soundtracks, and voiceovers, Veo 3 positions itself as a direct rival to OpenAI’s Sora, which is also in the race to dominate the generative video space.What sets Veo 3 apart is the combination of multi-modal generation (text, image, sound) and its physics-aware rendering, making it capable of crafting scenes that feel lifelike and cinematic, whether it’s for a dreamlike short film, a product concept, or even a viral meme.One example that gained popularity on social media involved a surreal AI-generated clip of Will Smith eating spaghetti, which drew attention across platforms like X (formerly Twitter).

Transparency Through Watermarking

To ensure content authenticity, all Veo 3 videos come with an embedded SynthID watermark, Google’s invisible digital signature designed to label AI-generated content. This helps in tracing and verifying the origin of synthetic media, particularly in an era of increasing deepfake risks.In addition to the hidden watermark, Veo-generated videos, except those created by Ultra-tier members using Google’s new Flow filmmaking platform, will also carry a visible watermark to clearly indicate that the video was AI-generated. Google is also testing a SynthID Detector tool to help individuals and platforms identify synthetic media with greater ease.

Expanding Global Access

Having made its debut in other markets earlier this year, Veo 3’s launch in the Middle East opens the door for regional creators, filmmakers, marketers, and digital storytellers to explore high-end AI video creation without the need for traditional equipment or editing tools.The rollout is part of Google’s broader strategy to integrate generative AI into everyday creative workflows, especially through its Gemini platform, which continues to gain traction among professionals and hobbyists alike.

Irish studio Romero Games has seemingly laid off a number of employees after suddenly losing project funding.

Notably, a number of Romero Games workers claim the cutbacks at Romero are a direct result of Microsoft’s latest layoff spree—which saw the company make significant redundancies across its video game division.

Romero Games detailed the situation in a post on Bluesky but didn’t name Microsoft directly.

“We have some difficult news to share. Last night, we learned that our publisher has cancelled funding for our game along with several other unannounced projects at other studios,” reads the post.

“This was a strategic decision made at a high level within the publisher, well above our visibility or control. We deeply wish there had been something, anything, we could have done to prevent this outcome.”

Romero Games working to support employees after publisher pulls funding

Studio CEO Brenda Romero explained the company is currently evaluating next steps and working to support its team. “Many of us have worked together for more than a decade, some for over 20 years,” she added. “It’s an extremely difficult day.”

It’s currently unclear how many people have been impacted by the cuts. According to job listings posted online, Romero Games had been working on a brand new shooter featuring an original IP. 

Related:Xbox closes The Initiative and cancels its Perfect Dark reboot

A number of employees impacted by the layoffs shared the news on Linkedin and laid the blame firmly at Microsoft’s door.

“Unfortunately, I was affected by the recent layoffs from Microsoft and have lost my role as a material and texture artist at Romero Games, a studio full of incredibly kind, talented, and inspiring people,” reads one post. 

“With a heavy heart, my time at Romero Games has come to an end as a result of our publisher’s layoffs,” reads another, this time from a producer and project manager. 

One environment artist claimed Romero Games is “closing down,” but it’s unclear whether that statement is accurate at the time of writing. Meanwhile, another environment artist stated their time at the studio ended “due to the recent layoffs that happened within Microsoft.”

Game Developer reached out to Romero Games for comment and was referred back to the public statement shared online. We have also reached out to Microsoft for more information on the status of the company’s publishing operations. 

Despite the non-disclosure agreements, Battlefield leaks are still coming fast and freely via its closed playtest. The most recent leak has revealed a peek at the upcoming shooter’s free-to-play battle royale mode.

Battlefield dataminer Temporyal (via Insider Gaming), took to social media to share more unannounced details, including evidence that the map is set in California, insertion is via a CH-47 Chinook, and the “destructive ring [is] made of a compound called NXC.” We’re not yet clear on the lore behind why it’s there yet, though.

The info comes attached to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it seven-second introductory cutscene that seems to show a squadron of helicopters heading towards a battle zone in a way that’ll look familiar to anyone who’s spent time with Call of Duty battle royale Warzone.

Here’s a short video clip showing the start of a Battlefield 6 Battle Royale match:

☀️ Map set in California
🚁 Insertion via CH-47 Chinook
🔥 Destructive ring made of a compound called “NXC”

This work-in-progress material is based on the BF Labs “Alpha” client. pic.twitter.com/uzsIR8lRuJ

— temporyal (@temporyal) July 3, 2025

The Battlefield playtest has proven to be leaky indeed, and developer DICE has “loads of feedback from the very active testers selected.” Unlike Battlefield 2042’s lukewarm reception, fans seem pretty pleased with what they’ve seen so far, and for some time EA wasn’t even trying to take them down. That’s changed somewhat since, however, although there’s still plenty of information around if you’re quick enough to catch it before the takedown notices go out.

So far, we’ve seen evidence of a new drag mechanic and the ability to cling on to vehicles, as well as improved in-game movement, 3D maps, and improved destruction.

EA has been playing its cards pretty close to its chest about the new Battlefield, and we still don’t know when, exactly, it will launch. But EA’s last financial report suggested it’ll come out by the end of March 2026.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.