Have you given the Hitman games a try before? If you haven't, now would be an excellent chance to give my favorite stealth series a try. One of the episodes for Hitman: World of Assassination has become free to keep forever for a limited time, but before you get too excited, there's just one little catch you'll need to wrap your head around before you're met with disappointment.

There are plenty of features in Windows 11 that are notably better than previous versions. However, while improving the OS overall, some features still need a significant overhaul, so they provide a better experience. For instance, many users still use alternative solutions to replace Windows features. Notable features like File Explorer, the Settings app, Task Manager, and others still need work.

AI could soon surpass Bitcoin mining in energy consumption, according to a new analysis that concludes artificial intelligence could use close to half of all the electricity consumed by data centers globally by the end of 2025.The estimates come from Alex de Vries-Gao, a PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Institute for Environmental Studies who has tracked cryptocurrencies' electricity consumption and environmental impact in previous research and on his website Digiconomist. He published his latest commentary on AI's growing electricity demand last week in the journal Joule. AI already accounts for up to a fifth of the electricity that data centers use, according to de Vries-Gao. It's a tricky number to pin down without big tech companies sharing data specifically on how much energy their AI models consume. De Vries-Gao had to make projections based on the supply chain for specialized computer chips used for AI. He and other researchers trying to understand AI's energy consumption have found, however, that its appetite is growing despite efficiency gains - and at a fast enough clip to warrant more scrutiny."Oh boy, here we go."With alternative cryptocurrencies t …Read the full story at The Verge.

In dribs and drabs, we’re starting to get a better idea of what Tesla’s robotaxi service will look like when it launches in Austin, Texas, in just a few weeks. But it’s not nearly enough given what’s at stake.The company is considering June 12th as a possible date to launch its robotaxi service in Austin, Bloomberg reports — though that date could change. Tesla has yet to publicly announce a date, nor has it clarified who will be able to access the vehicles.The news comes as CEO Elon Musk said that the company has begun to test vehicles without safety drivers. “For the past several days, Tesla has been testing self-driving Model Y cars (no one in driver’s seat) on Austin public streets with no incidents,” Musk said on X. “A month ahead of schedule. Next month, first self-delivery from factory to customer.”“No incidents.”But before you give Musk too much credit for the milestone, keep in mind that we still know next to nothing about how this service will operate. Tesla has never publicly demonstrated that its vehicles can operate fully driverless, without a human safety driver behind the wheel, on public roads. We have seen them drive themselves within the confines of Tesla’s factory, which is an environment totally controlled by the company and nowhere near as complex as an active city street with pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users.We know that Tesla plans to launch the service with 10–20 Model Y vehicles. Are these vehicles meaningfully different from the Model Ys that Tesla sells to its customers? It seems very likely, given that Ashok Elluswamy, VP of Autopilot and AI software, said in a recent earnings call that they would have “audio inputs” so they can pick up sirens from emergency vehicles, for example.These vehicles will also be heavily teleoperated, meaning there will be remote operators watching the vehicles through their embedded cameras, ready to take control should a problem arise. But keep in mind this came from a research note published by Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, not from Tesla itself. Jonas also said the service will be invite-only at launch. So unless you’re a Tesla investor, a social media influencer with a sizable following, or a close personal friend of Elon Musk’s, don’t make any immediate plans to travel to Austin next month.Tesla’s approach to its self-driving service is a major departure from how robotaxi companies typically handle these types of launches. Waymo, which it should be noted operates the only publicly available robotaxi service in the US, tests its driverless vehicles for weeks, sometimes months, before opening them up to members of the public. And even then, the company only allows specific people, usually from a waitlist, to ride in its vehicles.Tesla’s approach to its self-driving service is a major departure from how robotaxi companies typically handle these types of launchesBut before that, Waymo spends months driving manually around a city, gathering data about the streetscape and driving habits of other drivers. Sometimes it uses that information to launch a commercial robotaxi service; other times that data is just fed into Waymo’s central computer to make general improvements to its automated driving software.Waymo is also relatively transparent about its process. Before it launched a robotaxi service in Phoenix, Arizona, the company invited journalists from dozens of outlets to its testing facility in Castle, California, allowing them to ride in the vehicles on a closed course. Waymo has also released its own safety case, posted numerous blog posts about its approach to safety, and published a handful of peer-reviewed studies that demonstrates how its technology routinely behaves safer than human drivers. Tesla, on the other hand, has said very little about the safety of its vehicles beyond the hype-filled statements of its chief executive. Even the federal government, of which Musk was most recently a quasi-member as part of DOGE, has a lot of questions about the imminent launch. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which operates under the US Department of Transportation, recently sent the company a barrage of questions, including about the number of vehicles, their ability to operate in poor weather conditions, and on what timetable Tesla owners will be able to access the supposed driverless technology.A lingering concern for NHTSA is that Tesla is basing its robotaxi service on its Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver assist feature. Tesla’s first-gen driver assist system, Autopilot, has been linked to hundreds of nonfatal incidents and 51 reported fatalities as of October 2024. At least two of those fatalities have been linked to FSD. NHTSA has been investigating these crashes for a number of years now.Self-driving technology is built on a lot of stuff — cameras, software, AI, engineering, probability — but the success of any public robotaxi service will ultimately come down to trust. Do people trust the company building the technology enough to get inside a vehicle with no one in the front seat? Numerous public opinion polls have shown declining support for autonomous vehicles over the years and a rise in outright hostility toward the technology.On top of that, Tesla’s own brand problems come into focus. The company is clearly struggling under the yoke of Musk and his hard turn to the right. His online antics, his support of far-right political parties, and his fascist gestures at Trump rallies have all turned the Tesla brand toxic. A recent survey gauging the reputations of top companies ranked Tesla 95th, down from the 8th highest-rated brand four years ago.Tesla will always have its fans — many of them fill my inbox with predictions of the company’s future success as well as personal insults for daring to question Musk’s leadership — but it will take more than a few reply guys to make a successful robotaxi business. Especially one we know very little about.

Amazon has a new ZeroOne team focused on “breakthrough” devices, and it’s led by Xbox cofounder and former Microsoft executive J Allard, CNBC reports. Based on a job listing for the team, one of those products is a smart home device.J Allard was one of the main faces of the original Xbox and Xbox 360 consoles, and during his nearly 20-year tenure at Microsoft, he also worked on the Zune MP3 player, Kin phones, and Courier tablet prototype. He joined Amazon to focus on “new ideas” in late 2024.Job listings for his ZeroOne team at Amazon include senior roles in applied science, product marketing, and customer insights. The description for the applied scientist role says the person will work on “a new smart-home product,” while the product marketing job description vaguely mentions work on “an Amazon device.”It’s unclear when a product from ZeroOne might actually be released.Smart home tech isn’t anything new for Amazon, as the company already has various product lines within its Alexa ecosystem, including Echo devices, and even other brands it owns, like Blink and Eero. Amazon’s Alexa event in February was focused almost solely on its new AI-powered Alexa Plus smart assistant, which is still invite-only and carries a $20 per month subscription fee.

WhatsApp is developing a solution for users to take a break from the messaging service without nuking their account data. A new “Logout [internal]” option spotted in the WhatsApp 2.25.17.37 beta release by Android Authority presents users with the choice to sign out on their primary WhatsApp device while either retaining or erasing their app data and preferences.For all intents and purposes, the only way that users can currently sign out of WhatsApp’s mobile app is to either wipe the app data from Android device settings or delete WhatsApp entirely on iOS. Linked devices running the web and desktop app versions of WhatsApp make it far easier by comparison, providing a clear log out button under the user profile.The new Logout button is located in WhatsApp’s user settings below the account deletion button. The “Erase all Data & preferences” option does exactly that, according to Android Authority, while the “Keep all Data & preferences” option is better for taking some temporary respite from the service, or for users without dual-SIM devices who need to switch accounts, as the account will be exactly as it was left when you sign back in.It isn’t clear when (or if) this developmental feature will be rolled out to the public, or if it will be available on both Android and iOS, given each currently has a different logout process. We have asked Meta for more information.

The Xbox 360 was a console that marked a turning point in the home console market. It not only had a great library of games released throughout its lifetime, but it was also the console that helped usher in a new period of competition between game companies. While the PlayStation 3 had its own collection of hits, Xbox 360 owners were seeing original games that would go on to become major franchises, as well as an amazing online experience for the time. To me, the Xbox 360 is one of the great consoles of modern gaming that many Xbox fans look back fondly on as a high point for the company.

A reverse proxy is one of the best ways to access your self-hosted services, as tools such as Caddy and Nginx Proxy Manager will enable you to host services on various subdomains of a domain that you own, complete with their own SSL certificates. The downside of this is that, if hosted on a public IP address, your connections will be routed out of your home and then back in, or they may require you to keep a VPN like Tailscale always connected. There's a way around that, though; a Pi-hole.

Driving a 2026 Ioniq 9 SUV around the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant in Georgia can feel like a victory lap for the South Korean automaker. Hyundai's electric flagship carves out room for three America-centric rows of seats, from a booming brand whose EVs and hybrids already make up one in every four US sales. Even better, the Ioniq 9 and smaller Ioniq 5 are emerging from a futuristic new factory in America, giving Hyundai a defensible bulwark against the tariffs and onshoring fervor of Donald Trump's administration. As I watch these electric SUVs roll off a surgically clean assembly line, Hyundai's opportunistic timing looms as large as the hulking robots that help build its cars.A tour of the $7.6 billion factory also underlines how many automakers are plowing ahead with long-laid EV plans, regardless of Category 5 Washington winds that threaten to blow away Joe Biden-era support for EV manufacturing, consumer tax credits, and public charging. Hyundai's opportunistic timing looms as large as the hulking robots that help build its carsSeen from the air en route to Savannah, the Metaplant resembles a printed circuit board on a green background, blown up to epic scale. Eleve …Read the full story at The Verge.

Instagram now supports photos that have a 3:4 aspect ratio, meaning that when you upload a photo with that ratio, “it’ll now appear just exactly as you shot it,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri says in a Threads post. He also notes that “almost every phone camera defaults to” that format.An image from Instagram’s broadcast channel shows how the change makes a difference. You can already post images with a rectangular aspect ratio of 4:5, but with 3:4, your photo won’t be cropped at the ends. 3:4 photos are supported with single-photo uploads and with carousels, according to the channel.If you want, you can still post photos with a square or 4:5 aspect ratio.The change follows Instagram’s move in January to make profile grids feature rectangles instead of squares. “At this point, most of what’s uploaded, both photos and videos, are vertical in their orientation,” Mosseri said at the time.

You can circle, highlight, or tap the item you want to search for. | Image: YouTubeYouTube is bringing Lens to Shorts. The feature, which will roll out in beta in the coming weeks, will let you search for more information about the animals, plants, and items you spot within a video.If you’re watching a Short with a landmark in the background, for example, YouTube says you can use Lens to search for the specific landmark and find out more about where the video was filmed.You’ll be able to use the feature by accessing Shorts from within YouTube’s mobile app. After you pause the Short, tap the Lens button in the top menu, and then circle, highlight, or tap the item you want to search for.  YouTube will then show visual matches and search results overlaid on the Short. The platform notes that when you select one of these results, you can “quickly jump back into the content you were watching.”Google has begun expanding Lens in recent months, as it now lets you search with video and can even help you figure out what to buy in store.YouTube says that while Lens doesn’t use “biometric facial recognition” to identify specific people, it may show results for “notable public figures.” It also won’t show ads in results during the pilot, and will also not be available on Shorts with shopping affiliate links to start.

While mobile phones usually get the newest version of Wi-Fi connectivity before anything else, the PC market is never far behind. With Wi-Fi 7 arriving and being fully supported in Windows, the majority of new motherboards equipped with wireless connectivity will feature Wi-Fi 7 chips. The (slightly) older Wi-Fi 6E is being phased out, and you might be wondering if you need to upgrade your motherboard to stay current.