Have you heard the news? A renowned leaker has claimed that a new Half-Life project is going through playtesting, hopefully, Half-Life 3. While that seemed like proof enough that Valve is working on something, another hint has just appeared from a more official source. The voice actor for G-Man has posted a video claiming that we'll be learning more about this new game this coming year.

There's something fun about getting games running on devices they really shouldn't be on. It's why people have been getting Doom running on every device under the sun. Well, if you want to watch someone boot up a PS1 game on a Gamecube, today's your lucky day. The emulation community has managed to get OG PlayStation games running on Nintendo's purple box, and you can do the same if you're willing to put in the time and effort.

Popeye’s first appearance in E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre comic strip. | Image: King Features It’s a new year, and that means more works are headed to the public domain. This year, thousands of copyrighted works created in 1929, including the earliest versions of Popeye and the Belgian comic book character Tintin, are now free to reuse and repurpose in the US.Duke Law School’s Center for the Study of Public Domain has once again rounded up all the most iconic works that have been freed from the bounds of copyright, which also includes sound recordings from 1924. As pointed out by Duke Law School, 1929 was a particularly pivotal year for film, as it was the first with sound. These are just some of the works entering the public domain this year (you can view the full catalog here):The Skeleton Dance from Disney’s Silly Symphonies short film seriesAlfred Hitchcock’s first sound film BlackmailNacio Herb Brown’s Singin’ in the Rain and the film it appeared in, The Hollywood Revue of 1929On With the Show, the first all-talking feature-length film in colorWilliam Faulkner’s The Sound and the FuryAgatha Christie’s Seven Dials MysteryErnest Hemingway’s A Farewell to ArmsVirginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s OwnVarious works from Salvador Dali, including Illumined Pleasures, The Accommodations of Desire, and The Great MasturbatorThe list also includes Popeye, who first appeared in E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre comic strip, with a story titled “Gobs of Work.” But this Popeye isn’t the one that eats spinach to grow big muscles; the brawny sailor didn’t start eating spinach to gain strength until 1932 (though the very first Popeye could still pack a punch). “Everything that he says, all of his characteristics, his personality, his sarcasm… that’s public domain,” Jennifer Jenkins, the director of Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, told NPR. “The spinach, if you want to be on the safe side, you might want to wait.”The earliest version of the young reporter Tintin and his pup Snowy (or “Milou” if you speak French) from Hergé’s Les Aventures de Tintin are also headed to the public domain. But folks in the European Union, where protections apply throughout an author’s life and 70 years after death, will have to wait a little longer for a copyright-free Tintin. Since Hergé died in 1983, the EU won’t see Tintin in the public domain until 2054, according to Duke University.As with previous years’ works, this latest round of media could’ve appeared in the public domain much earlier, but US lawmakers in 1998 extended copyright protections to works from 1923 and beyond for an additional 20 years — conveniently protecting Disney’s mascot Mickey Mouse. But Disney couldn’t keep its iconic mouse all to itself forever, as the Steamboat Willie-era Mickey entered the public domain last year. We’re getting even more Mickey Mouse animations in 2025, including the short film The Karnival Kid, where Mickey Mouse dons his white gloves for the first time and speaks his first words: “hot dogs.”Just like with Mickey and Winnie the Pooh, we’re bound to see games and movies starring Popeye and Tintin as people try to draw attention with the freshly available characters. Even Netflix is preparing an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1929 novel The Seven Dials.There will be an even wider range of classic characters to use next year, with Betty Boop and Pluto set to enter the public domain in 2026.

A sojourn though the heaviest music I could find | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Tee Pee Records An attempt to crush myself to death. Read the full story at The Verge.

You are busy during the day with tons of tasks to complete. You want to discover ways to save time while using your Windows PC while working. The good news is that Windows has evolved, and Microsoft has included new ways to save you time with your workflow.

If you use your PC every day, there may be several tasks you perform repeatedly. They might be as simple as launching your favorite browser or opening a set of apps you use for work. Regardless of the type of actions, manually performing steps to recreate the scenario every single time takes up time. Instead, you can use certain tools for automation on your Windows desktop or laptop. These automation tools can be programmed to perform any function or a set of functions using commands and triggers.

With the end of 2024 comes a recap of everything that happened prior, and Steam is no different. For a while now, gamers have been nominating and voting on titles to win the esteemed Steam Awards for 2024. Now that the dust has settled, one game has managed to snag Game of the Year 2024, alongside two more awards.

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos from Getty Images The US has issued sanctions on organizations in Russia and Iran for attempting to interfere with the 2024 presidential election. The Treasury Department said on Tuesday that the groups tried to “stoke socio-political tensions” and influence voters.One group, the Moscow-based Center for Geopolitical Expertise, has ties to Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), and built a server to host its own AI tools “to avoid foreign web-hosting services that would block their activity.” The organization then used these tools to “quickly create disinformation” that it spread across dozens of fake online news outlets, while also providing US-based companies with money to maintain its AI server and operate a network of “at least 100 websites” used in its campaign.Additionally, the Russian organization manipulated a video to “produce baseless accusations concerning a 2024 vice presidential candidate”. In October, the US accused Russia of creating a video that attempted to smear Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, Tim Walz.The Treasury Department also sanctioned the Cognitive Design Production Center, a subsidiary of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), for planning to interfere with the election “since at least 2023.” In the weeks leading up to the election, the US Department of Justice indicted Iranian nationals accused of waging a cyberattack against President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign, while OpenAI reported banning ChatGPT accounts linked to an Iranian influence operation.“The Governments of Iran and Russia have targeted our election processes and institutions and sought to divide the American people through targeted disinformation campaigns,” Bradley Smith, the Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in the press release.

PC builders are often left with a spare CPU and motherboard when moving to a newer processor and motherboard socket. Other components, such as the graphics card, RAM, storage, cooler, and power supplies, are easily carried over to the new system as long as they're compatible with the new CPU and motherboard. This leaves users wondering whether to scrap their old CPU & motherboard combo or find an alternative.

Blender is a fantastic tool for 3D modeling, rendering, and animation. Since Blender is an open-source tool, you benefit from better privacy and cost — although Blender is totally free — but if, for any reason, you need an alternative to Blender for 3D modeling, there are options. Most creative software has great alternatives, whether you have to pay more for better features, or you can find them for free for more straightforward offerings.

If you use a work-issued laptop or desktop computer, you can safely expect employee monitoring software to be installed on it. This software, as the name suggests, allows your workplace to view every site you visit, every email you’ve sent, and even all the personal passwords you save. In the most watchful of workplaces, this may also include keyloggers that can see everything you type or screenshot tools that track your productivity. How strictly your employer monitors your activity depends largely on the nature of your job, but you still shouldn’t store certain things on your work PC.

Photoshop has had competitors against it for years, and many often fall short compared to Photoshop’s power and historical development. With new and upcoming proprietary creative software like the Affinity suite, there are some that are dangerously close to being better than Photoshop. Pixelmator Pro gives Photoshop a run for its money with creative features, big-name development, and integrated AI.