One year to the day since Unity announced its runtime fee pricing model, the software developer is canceling that program effective immediately. “After extensive consultation with our games community and customers, we’ve decided to cancel the Runtime Fee,” said Unity CEO Matt Bromberg in the blog post announcing the news. Instead of the runtime fee, Unity will return to a per-seat subscription model. Last year, Unity caused a stir within the game development community with a controversial update to its pricing model. Instead of charging developers a set monthly rate based on the number of users utilizing the software, it would implement a pay-per-download scheme that charged developers every time their game was downloaded. That meant...

The "VP" on the cab light is a nice touch. into the Dreamcast classic driving game. "Rumor has it that Tim Walz played Crazy Taxi so much his wife took his Dreamcast away from him... so I decided to put him in the game," modder Edward La Barbera wrote on the game's Itch.io page. Unfortunately, the pay-what-you-want mod can't just be burned to a CD-R and played on actual Dreamcast hardware. Currently, the mod's visual files are tuned to work only with Dreamcast emulator Flycast, which includes built-in features for replacing in-game textures.

The ChatGPT maker reveals details of what’s officially known as OpenAI o1, which shows that AI needs more than scale to advance.

OpenAI is releasing a new model called o1, the first in a planned series of “reasoning” models that have been trained to answer more complex questions, faster than a human can. It’s being released alongside o1-mini, a smaller, cheaper version. And yes, if you’re steeped in AI rumors: this is, in fact, the extremely hyped Strawberry model. For OpenAI, o1 represents a step toward its broader goal of human-like artificial intelligence. More practically, it does a better job at writing code and solving multistep problems than previous models. But it’s also more expensive and slower to use than GPT-4o. OpenAI is calling this release of o1 a “preview” to emphasize how nascent it is. ChatGPT Plus and Team users get access to both o1-preview and...

Enlarge Federal authorities have seized more than 350 websites after an undercover investigation revealed that the sites were used to illegally import gun parts into the US from China. To get the illegal items through customs, the sites described the items as toys, necklaces, car parts, tools, and even a fidget spinner. The sites violated import bans and the National Firearms Act by selling switches—which are "parts designed to convert semiautomatic pistols into fully automatic machineguns"—and silencers—which "suppress the sound of a firearm when discharged," a Department of Justice press release said. Some sites also marketed counterfeit Glock parts, infringing trademark laws, including a phony Glock switch that Glock confirmed to investigators was "never manufactured."

Lake Mungo, a movie very much about mid-2000s cell phone cameras, may not need a glossy upgrade, but it deserves the honor just the same.

Gary Dauberman's adaptation of the vampire tale arrives October 3 on Max.

"It’s Okay to Poo at Work" is a new health campaign that highlights a common source of anxiety, while offering practical advice to help.

A US judge has overturned a moratorium that stopped gambling companies from letting people bet on election results.

Google has unlisted an impressive Gemini demo video it posted last December that seemed remarkably conversational. BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division (NAD), an ad industry watchdog, inquired whether the video “accurately depicts the performance of Gemini in responding to user voice and video prompts.” Google chose to end the inquiry by ending its promotion of the video that showed Gemini quickly responding to various spoken prompts, such as identifying parts of drawings and creating a geography game on the fly. Buried in the description was a disclaimer indicating the demo might not be as good as it seemed: “For the purposes of this demo, latency has been reduced and Gemini outputs have been shortened for brevity.” A...

Just days after Apple announced a new hearing aid feature for the second-generation AirPods Pro, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized the software that powers this functionality. In a press release, the FDA describes Apple’s solution as “the first over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid software device.” The feature “was evaluated in a clinical study with 118 subjects with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss,” according to the FDA, and “the results demonstrated that subjects who used the HAF self-fitting strategy achieved similar perceived benefit as subjects who received professional fitting of the same device.” Enabling the AirPods Pro to double as clinical-grade hearing aids is one of several new features that...

After releasing a 24-inch-long scale replica of the McLaren P1 earlier this year, Lego has now debuted a full-size drivable version of the hypercar built from over 342,817 Technic pieces and powered by hundreds of Lego electric motors. That eclipses the 3,893 pieces that go into building Lego’s 1:8-scale McLaren P1 model. The company says the full-scale version used 393 types of Technic components, including 11 specifically manufactured for the replica. That would make it hard to build a copy yourself, but you’d also struggle to find the time. Lego says it took 6,134 hours to design and plan its P1 and 2,210 hours to assemble it. Lego opted to build with Technic components instead of its standard bricks as it allowed the company’s...