When a massive earthquake hit Myanmar last month, centuries of sacred history tumbled down — towering Buddha idols, sky-scraping stupas and the pure-white pagoda where 83-year-old Khin Sein has prayed for most of her life. The magnitude-7.7 tremor razed Nagayon Pagoda in the central city of Mandalay, Myanmar’s last royal capital where ancient heritage was … Read more
A decade has passed since a massive earthquake ripped through Nepal, but in Ram Bahadur Nakarmi’s home the damage is still visible — and so is the fear another might strike. Ten years ago, on April 25, 2015, the ground beneath Nepal shuddered with a magnitude-7.8 earthquake, killing nearly 9,000 people, injuring over 22,000, and … Read more
AI tools are suddenly everywhere, and you’ve probably tried out using an AI program to generate text and images, or perhaps even audio and video. But AI isn’t just coming for media you passively experience: Companies are also using interactive entertainment, including video games. We’ve seen examples of this over the past year or so. … Read more
Microsoft has created a playable “interactive space inspired” by Quake II using AI, and it’s sparked a vociferous debate online. As spotted by PC Gamer, the demo is powered by Microsoft’s recently announced Muse and the World and Human Action Model (WHAM) AI system, and “can dynamically create gameplay visuals and simulate player behavior in … Read more
Microsoft released an interactive real-time gameplay experience of Quake II in Copilot Labs last week. To build the artificial intelligence (AI) gameplay, the Redmond-based tech giant used its recently released Muse AI models and a new approach dubbed World and Human Action MaskGIT Model (WHAMM). The game demo is currently available as a research preview … Read more
Just last month, Phil Spencer talked at length about the good AI could bring to the gaming space. Mainly, he referenced its incredible ability to preserve games. Microsoft research has already taken its first steps. Haiyan Zhan posted a demo of this technology in action: an early attempt at AI running Quake 2 via browser. … Read more
The head of Myanmar’s junta arrived in Bangkok on Thursday for a regional summit as the death toll from his country’s devastating earthquake passed 3,000. Min Aung Hlaing will join a BIMSTEC gathering — representing the seven littoral nations of the Bay of Bengal — where he will raise the response to Friday’s 7.7-magnitude quake. … Read more
Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao donated over half a million dollars worth of crypto to the earthquake disaster relief effort in Thailand and Myanmar, in another testament to the growing utility of blockchain-based emergency charity efforts. Zhao donated 1,000 BNB (BNB) tokens worth almost $600,000 to the disaster relief funds for the region on March … Read more
Rescuers on Wednesday pulled a man alive from the rubble five days after Myanmar’s devastating earthquake, as calls grew for the junta to allow more aid in and halt attacks on rebels. The shallow 7.7-magnitude earthquake on Friday flattened buildings across Myanmar, killing more than 2,700 people and making thousands more homeless. Several leading armed … Read more
Only one building in Bangkok fell during the earthquake on Friday that rocked Myanmar, hundreds of miles away. Recovery efforts continue with at least 15 people killed and dozens still missing. Determining the cause could take months. But interviews with workers who had been on the site, together with early official findings, highlighted potential problems … Read more