Category: 4. Technology

Google Home’s latest update will make it easier to decide who in your household can control your smart home. It comes with a new feature, which Google first started testing last year, that will let you assign people “Admin” and “Member” roles.

People with Admin status have full control of all the devices, services, and users within their smart home, while Members can only use “basic” device controls, like watching the live view of a security camera. However, admins can grant Members additional privileges by giving them “Settings” access, allowing for control over device and home-wide settings. Admins can also turn on “Activity” access so Members can keep tabs on device history and recent events, such as a visitor picked up by a doorbell camera.

Google is also simplifying the process of adding a child under 13 to the Home app. Once you set up your kid with a Google account through Family Link, you can invite them to your Google Home, which will add them as a Member by default.

The previous process involved using either Family Link, Google Home, or Google Assistant settings to add your child’s voice to your smart home before inviting them to your home, and many users struggled to get it to work. It seems Google is now streamlining the process by letting you invite a child to your home through the Google Home app, so long as you add them to your Google family group.

Today, Crucial has sent over their brand new T710 2TB Gen5 NVMe SSD for review. This is the successor to the very fast Crucial T705 that I previously reviewed. Like that drive, the T710 is making a play for the high-end Gen5 SSD market and intends to push the limit of the Gen5 interface, and Crucial is claiming some big performance uplifts from the T705. The high-end market space now has ample competition, so I am interested to see how the T710 holds up. Let us get to the review!

Crucial T710 2TB PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSD

The Crucial T710 2TB comes in a single-sided M.2 2280 (80mm) form factor.

The T710 is available both with and without a heatsink, and as you can see my test drive is the bare drive. The controller is a key difference compared to the T705. The T710 includes a Silicon Motion SM2508 controller, whereas the T705 was based on a Phison chip. This controller is paired with Micron TLC and a 2GB DRAM cache.

The backside of the Crucial T710 2TB contains nothing but labels.

Crucial T710 2TB SSD Specs

The Crucial T710 2TB is available between 1TB and 4TB capacity points.

This 2TB model is rated for 14500 MB/s sequential reads and 13800 MB/s writes. These numbers put the T710 at the top-end of claimed Gen5 performance and outpace both the T705 and the Samsung 9100 PRO, at least on paper. Endurance sits at 600TBW per 1TB of capacity, or 1200TBW for my 2TB drive which is perfectly in line with my expectations. And the warranty is the industry standard 5-years for a top-end drive. All of the specs position the T710 at the very top-end of Gen5 drives, and Crucial is also a very long-lived and respected brand.

Crucial is claiming 42% higher random writes, 28% higher random reads, and 9% higher sequential write performance compared to the T705. They are also claiming a 24% reduction in average power use. When we get to testing we will see how the two stack up.

CrystalDiskInfo can give us some basic information about the SSD and confirms we are operating at PCIe 5.0 x4 speeds using NVMe 2.0.

Test System Configuration

We are using the following configuration for this test:

• Motherboard: MSI MAG X670E Tomahawk
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7900X (12C/24T)
• RAM: 2x 16GB DDR5-6000 UDIMMs

Our testing uses the Crucial T710 2TB as the boot drive for the system, installed in the M.2_1 slot on the motherboard. This slot supports up to PCIe Gen 5 x4. The drive is filled to 85% capacity with data, and then some is deleted, leaving around 60% used space on the volume.

Next, we are going to get into our performance testing.

The digiKam team has announced the official release of digiKam 8.7.0. The major update for the free open-source digital photo manager promises significant improvements to face management capabilities, GPU processing, AI-driven tools, and overall system performance.

PetaPixel has followed digiKam’s journey from inital release and rise, to recent updates. The software is a completely free option for photographers in a space where big software names with high-cost subscriptions and cancellation fees begin to wear on users. Additionally, as a free software available in 16 languages, digiKam offers photo management with little to no barrier to entry, whether through price, language, or skill level.

What Exactly Is digiKam?

digiKam is a powerful open-source digital photo management software designed for photographers and photo enthusiasts. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools for organizing, editing, and sharing photos. With new 8.7.0 features like face recognition, metadata editing, and support for a wide range of image formats, digiKam makes it easy to manage large photo collections. Additionally, it offers advanced capabilities for RAW image processing, batch editing, and integration with external plug-ins. Whether organizing a personal photo library or managing a professional archive, digiKam promises users an intuitive and customizable solution for photo management needs.

After four months of maintenance and bug fixes, digiKam 8.7.0 is now available, offering an improved user experience for both hobbyist photographers and professionals alike.

Key New Features and Improvements

Enhanced Face Management

digiKam 8.7.0 introduces several upgrades to its Face Management feature, which utilizes artificial intelligence to automatically detect and tag faces in images. A new setting enables the automatic start of face recognition whenever a new face is confirmed or tagged, streamlining the tagging process for users. Additionally, improvements to the face recognition workflow now allow for better match suggestions and an overall more reliable tagging experience.

AI Auto-Rotation Tool

One of the most notable additions is the AI Auto-Rotation Tool, which utilizes deep learning to automatically correct the orientation of images in batches. This feature significantly enhances the efficiency of processing large sets of photos, saving users time and effort compared to manual rotation methods.

OpenCL and CUDA GPU Support

For users with compatible hardware, digiKam 8.7.0 now supports OpenCL and CUDA acceleration, allowing the software to take full advantage of the GPU for faster processing. By utilizing GPU resources for tasks such as resizing and color format conversion, this new functionality boosts performance, especially when working with large image libraries.

Internal Updates and Bug Fixes

DigiKam 8.7.0 also includes updates to several key internal components. The RAW decoder has been updated to the latest Libraw snapshot, supporting over 1260 camera models. The ExifTool has been updated to the latest 13.29 release for better metadata management, and the Qt framework has been updated to versions 6.8.3 (Linux and Windows) and 6.9.0 (macOS).

Additionally, the update includes various bug fixes aimed at improving the software’s stability, including fixes for issues related to face management workflows, database functions, and application crashes. Over 240 bugs were resolved in this release, further enhancing the user experience.

Future Plans and Upcoming Releases

Looking ahead, the digiKam team is already planning for future improvements. The next maintenance update, targeted for October 2025, will focus on additional bug fixes and feature enhancements. The team also aims to explore the use of deep neural networks for tasks such as noise reduction and color adjustments. Another exciting development is the potential integration of a Large Language Model (LLM) engine, which would enable natural language queries for searching image collections.

Major Step in Free, Open Source Solutions For Photographers

digiKam 8.7.0 represents a major step forward for the open-source photo management software, bringing cutting-edge AI and GPU support to the forefront of its feature set. The improvements in face recognition, batch editing, and hardware acceleration are sure to enhance the workflow for both casual users and professional photographers. The update is available for Linux, Windows, and macOS and can be downloaded from the official digiKam repository.

Image credits: digiKam

Postapocalyptic open-world survival game Once Human is launching its Annual Version 2.0: Dreamveil, and developer Starry Studio is hosting a special program to mark the occasion. There will be a celebration of all the game has achieved so far, as well as news and updates about what’s coming in the future. IGN will carry a livestream of the full program, so here’s all the details for how you can watch and what to expect as part of the show.

Once Human Special Program Date, Time, and How to Watch

If you’re in the United States, the program will be streaming at night. It’ll begin on Wednesday, July 2 at 9 p.m. Pacific, which means it’ll be at midnight that night in the Eastern time zone. You can watch it live on any of these IGN channels:

IGN.com (our homepage)

IGN’s Facebook

IGN’s Twitter

IGN’s Twitch

IGN’s YouTube

If you can’t stay up late to watch it live, don’t worry. We’ll save the show in its entirety on our YouTube page, so it’ll be waiting for you the next morning.

What to Expect from the Once Human Special Program

This being the game’s annual version, there’s sure to be a look back at the past year and what’s happened in the Once Human universe since release. That includes the game’s four scenarios so far: the PVE-focused Manibus and The Way of Winter, and the PVP-focused Evolution’s Call and Prismverse’s Clash. It also includes the game’s mobile version that was released in April. There have been rumblings of a console version also being in the works, but nothing official has been confirmed so far. Could that be part of this show?

There have been trailers and dev logs that have given some sense of new content that’s on the horizon, but the special program will go into more detail. We know a nightmare-themed scenario called Endless Dream is already in Early Access, but if you haven’t played it for yourself, expect a deep dive into the new story and deviants you’ll face and new content and locations being added.

We also know a new class system is being introduced with three classes available: Chef, Gardener, and Beastmaster. Expect a breakdown of each of the classes and what makes them unique. There also will be announcements of new events, in-game rewards, and other updates to celebrate the new annual version. Plus, the developers are likely to reveal a roadmap of future content. If you haven’t played Once Human yet and want to give it a try before seeing the updates, you can play it for free right now on PC and mobile.

Meta’s adding another way to help Threads users stay in touch with the latest trending chatter, with new in-stream markers of trending topics that will help to guide users towards rising discussions.

As you can see in this example, Threads is looking to drive more in-the-moment engagement around key events, by signifying trending topics in the Threads feed.

As explained by Meta:

“The Threads highlighter elevates and emphasizes unique perspectives that lead to thoughtful conversations. To start, you’ll see the highlighter in important parts of the app where you discover content, and to mark Trending topics – with more placements coming soon.”

It’s another way to drive more trending discussion, with Threads still working to improve its in-the-moment feel as it seeks to take on Elon Musk’s X.

Which, despite X’s challenges, and Threads’ relative growth, remains a big challenge.

X is still the spiritual home for many live discussion groups, with sports fans, in particular, still heavily aligned to the app.

Indeed, sport remains the single biggest driver of discussion on X, and it’s these groups of embedded, habitual X users that will be tough for Threads to win over.

Because people have made connections on Twitter/X, they’ve established behaviors that align with the platform, they’ve built expanded, international groups of friends and fellow fans, to the point where it’ll be difficult to get them all to migrate to a new app.

So they’ll keep using X, until there’s a clear reason not to. And with Threads thus far not being the greatest facilitator of live, in-the-moment chats, it clearly hasn’t been able to get these audiences across as yet.

Maybe an emphasis on trending topics will help, in driving more topical discussion and engagement, while Meta’s also investing in sports partnerships to bring unique, live content to the app, and improving its algorithmic approach to better emphasize live discussion.

There’s no singular answer on this front, but maybe, through an accumulation of these efforts, Threads will be able to make inroads on this, and build the app into a more active hive of real-time discussion, and a valuable facilitator of trending chats.

It’s not there yet, but elements like this are another small step in that larger direction.    

Finding Fortnite’s Academy Tech Lab locations is a good idea in general, thanks to the loot you can pick up, but you’ll also need to enter them several times to complete one of Chapter 6 Season 3 week 4’s quests. Finding them isn’t enough, though. Clearing the quest also requires you to increase your hero rank first.

Below, we explain where to find Fortnite’s Academy Tech Labs and what to expect inside.

Where to find Academy Tech Labs in Fortnite

The Academy Tech Lab can spawn in a variety of locations around the map, but there is always one guaranteed location — Supernova Academy. The basement of the southeastern building on the Supernova Academy campus counts as an Academy Tech Lab, and, as it’s a POI, will be there every game. In this Academy Tech Lab, you can find the following:

As for the other Academy Tech Labs, their locations can be found on the map. They’re marked on the map by an academy symbol next to a test tube at the beginning of every game.

These labs are underground, and you can enter it via a small staircase that leads you into the side of a drum-shaped structure. Inside, you’ll find the following:

How to increase Hero Rank in Fortnite

To complete the week 4 quest, you’ll need to increase your Hero Rank first and then enter a lab.

You and your squad gain points toward a higher Hero Rank every time you do the following:

We recommend returning a Sprite to a shrine to get a large amount of points in one go or visiting a Scout Spire and defeating henchman as they’re easier to eliminate than other players.

Sega president and COO Shuji Utsumi recently spoke about the company’s push for making its Games as a Service (GAAS) business model global, as it’s a sign of a company’s “good record.”

In an interview with The Game Business, Utsumi said that game companies with “a good record tend to have a strong [global] GAAS business.” In regards to Sega, while the console and PC standalone business is “getting better,” the publisher and developer is still working on making its GAAS business global. “That’s one of the biggest challenges,” he added.

Currently, Sega’s GAAS focus is on free-to-play mobile games, including the likes of Sonic Rumble, which is free to play but offers in-app purchases. In a 2024 interview with Automaton, which was translated from Japanese, game director Makoto Tase said that “monetization models that use gacha mechanics have not been very successful when it comes to games targeted towards worldwide audiences of all ages,” and that these mechanics “tend to be shunned overseas,” leading to ultimately deciding not to include them in Rumble.

While Utsumi didn’t specifically mentioned gacha mechanics, he sees developer Rovio, which Sega acquired back in August 2023, as the candidate for this business push. “Rovio has deep knowledge of the global mobile business, and very strong IP with Angry Birds,” Utsumi said. “We feel like the fit between Rovio and Sega is good. We are working closely with Rovio to have a Sonic mobile game, and we are giving them access to IPs, including Sonic, to come up with nice, welcoming GAAS titles.”

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Sega’s plans of expansion also include developing properties beyond games, with Utsumi referencing the success of the Sonic movies, which topped $1 billion at the global box office on January of this year. According to the president, the films have had a major impact on the franchise, leading to a significant boost to Sonic game sales.

“When I started to get involved in the video game business, I picked up Crash Bandicoot and started asking some of the movie studios if they were interested in turning that property into a movie,” he said. “But I was treated like… ‘hey, video games is like a toy business’. They didn’t really take it seriously.”

Live service games aren’t going through a healthy phase

Even though Utsumi said that game companies with strong GAAS business show a good record, studios have been struggling around live service launches.

Sony reportedly poured $200 million into live service shooter Concord, which was released late last year and pulled from sale within weeks, shuttering the studio behind it in the process. In January of this year, it canceled two first-party live service titles in development at Bluepoint Games and Bend Studio. Weeks later, contractors were reportedly cut at the latter.

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Mere weeks later, Warner Bros. Games announced it would be shutting down free-to-play brawler Multiversus on May 30. There’s still an interest around live-service models—Pragma, a backend engine for live-service games like Spectre Divide and Predecessor, secured a $12.75 million investment in March. Despite the decisions in the preceding months, previous PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst said that Bungie’s upcoming live-service shooter, Marathon, won’t be making the same mistakes as Concord.

“I think that some really good work went into that title,” Hulst said during a fireside chat aimed at investors. “Some really big efforts. But ultimately that title entered into a hyper-competitive segment of the market. I think it was insufficiently differentiated to be able to resonate with players. So we have reviewed our processes in light of this to deeply understand how and why that title failed to meet expectations—and to ensure that we are not going to make the same mistakes again.”

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