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Beijing held whats being called the worlds first half-marathon for robots, allowing bipedal bots to compete alongside human runners, and as one might expect, ridiculousness ensued. The robots, which had human operators running with them, for the most part struggled to make it through the course at all, let alone complete the full 13 miles within the four-hour cutoff time. One fell at the starting line, Bloomberg reports. Anothers head fell off and rolled on the ground. And one collapsed and broke into pieces. They may not be gold medalists just yet, but the videos sure are entertaining. The humanoid robot half-marathon in Beijing just started! pic.twitter.com/8vr2nXQwuR The Humanoid Hub (@TheHumanoidHub) April 19, 2025 According to Bloomberg, 21 robots participated in the race, but the winner X Humanoids five-foot-ten Tiangong Ultra was one of only four to make it all the way to the end in the allotted time. And at two hours and 40 minutes, its finishing time was more than double that of the winning human runners. The teams were allowed to do battery swaps (Tiangong Ultra reportedly finished on its third battery) and even switch out their robots mid-race for substitutes, though doing that came with time penalties. Along with Tiangong Ultra, which ran at around five miles per hour, the robot runners included Noetix Robotics N2, a Gundam-inspired robot, a female-looking bot called Huan Huan, and the 30-inch-tall Little Giant robot made by local college students, Bloomberg reports. Many of them were wearing human running shoes.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/a-bunch-of-robots-ran-a-half-marathon-alongside-humans-and-it-was-incredibly-goofy-215134524.html?src=rss
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Spoilers for Lux. Its an interesting time to be a long-running science fantasy media property in the streaming TV age. Star Trek is in the grip of an existential crisis as it (wrongly) fears its too old-aged to be relevant. Star Wars became a battlefield in the culture war and, to duck all future bad faith criticism, gave us The Rise of Skywalker. And then theres Doctor Who, which is somehow managing to plough a 62-year furrow and still fill it with original ideas. Dont believe me? This week the Doctor and Belinda go up against a sentient cartoon holding the patrons of a 1950s cinema hostage. James Pardon / BBC Studios / Disney / Bad Wolf Its 1952 in a sparsely populated cinema as the audience watches a breathless newsreel on the power of the atomic bomb. The projectionist flips over to a Merrie Melodies-style cartoon of Mr. Ring-A-Ding (voiced by Alan Cumming), an old-timey song-and-dance character. Just then, a beam of moonlight shines through the window, reflecting off a teaspoon and strikes the screen. Mr. Ring-A-Ding comes to life, talking directly to the scoffing audience before emerging into the theater to the sound of screams. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Belinda are in the TARDIS trying to work out why its refusing to land on May 24, 2025. Belinda asks why he doesnt just take the ship back to his home planet for a fix, but she doesnt get a satisfactory answer. Instead, the Doctor has built a gadget that will help pull the TARDIS back to the present day, it just needs to land in a few other places first. The pair wind up in Miami in 1952 and while the Doctor initially insists Belinda stay indoors, shes eager to see what its like. They step out into the night (slash early morning) of 1952 Miami, outside the cinema from the pre-credits, albeit three months after Mr. Ring-A-Ding came to life. Since then, the theater has been locked shut, with the 15 patrons in the audience going missing; the projectionist, Reginald Pye, has stayed behind to act as caretaker, playing films to an empty room. They visit the diner across the street and meet the mother of one of the missing patrons, Mrs. Lowenstein, who fills in the backstory. They head into the cinema and Mr. Ring-A-Ding makes it clear hes about to trap them in film before a Mr. Ring-A-Ding short stays playing on the screen. While hes distracted, the Doctor and Belinda hot-foot it to the projection room where they meet Pye, who has been looking after the cinema patrons, all of whom have been trapped in a strip of film. Pye has been keeping Mr. Ring-a-Ding alive and appeased by playing movies for him every night. But the sinister cartoon has also given Pye something in return: He has a film of his late wife who Mr. Ring-A-Ding can bring back as a real person, at least for a few moments each night. Following on the theme of coercion from last week, the carrot is also a stick, since Mr. Ring-A-Ding also threatens to destroy that film if Pye steps out of line. Naturally, Mr. Ring-A-Ding isnt just a beloved old-timey cartoon character but a god, one of the same pantheon as the Toymaker, Maestro and Sutekh. His real identity is Lux Imperator, or Lord of Light, and he's determined to consume all the light he can, including the most delicious (potential) meal of all the atom bomb hes been learning about in the newsreels. To prevent the Doctor and Belinda frustrating his plans, he manages to trap them in a cartoon. The Doctor and Belinda are turned into two-dimensional drawings, with two-dimensional minds and characterizations. In their panic, they confess their anxieties, including the Doctors worries he cant get Belinda home. As they do so, they acquire physical depth until they return to their normal selves, and then break (okay, knocking over) the fourth wall into someones living room. The Doctor and Belinda are greeted by a trio of Doctor Who fans watching the episode who are shocked and delighted to meet their heroes. The fans, Hassan Chowdry (Samir Arrian), Lizzie Abel (Bronté Barbé) and Robyn Gossage (Steph Lacey) explain, uh, Doctor Who to the Doctor. The seasons subconscious theme of Steven Moffat envy continues, with the trio saying their favorite episode is Blink. Robyn also points out that the end of the episode is pretty obvious given that celluloid is highly explosive. Theres even time for the fans to be called annoying a facet they (like all good Doctor Who fans) will admit to with a heavy dose of self-awareness. The trio ready to kick the Doctor out as the episode hits the 30-minute mark, which means its time for the third act. But theyre also sad, realizing that theyre the fictitious ones, not the Doctor and Belinda, as they dont have surnames. They know the characters that dont have surnames are unimportant, incidental figures in the story that will die when the time travelers crawl back through the screen. (Aside: They do in the closing credits, something that Davies alluded to in his most recent column for Doctor Who Magazine talking about the realities of giving one-shot characters names for the credits.) The Doctor and Belinda return to the cinema, where the previously kind Mrs. Lowenstein has hauled a police officer in to arrest the pair for trespassing in a whites-only cinema. The Doctor fairly instantly calls BS, especially since the police officer is wearing a New York-style uniform: Theyre still in the film, and when they break out, the Doctor and Belinda meet Lux / Mr. Ring-A-Ding once again. Lux magically summons up long lengths of filmstrips that act like ropes, wrapping them around his wrists and raising him up high. He turns on the projector which draws the Doctors regeneration out as light, projected onto Mr. Ring. A Ding. Belinda, meanwhile, heads off to a storage cupboard, pulls out lots of film and throws it on the floor. But Reginald the projectionist wont give her the matches she needs to start the fire until, uh, the ghost of his wife, briefly returning as a solid person, hands him the matches. Belinda then blows a hole in the roof of the cinema big enough to expose Mr. Ring-A-Ding to sunlight, which causes him to exponentially grow until hes not just bigger than the planet but bigger than the universe itself. Or something. In the daylight of Miami, Belinda asks the Doctor how exactly Lux / Mr. Ring-A-Ding was destroyed. Were 60 percent water and we can still drown, he explains as the formerly trapped patrons of the cinema emerge from their three month imprisonment. The Doctor and Belinda have bonded over their shared worries, and Belinda is a lot more comfortable with her slightly longer route home. As they head into the TARDIS, Mrs. Flood greets the crowd and tells them if they want to see a really exciting sight, they should watch the ship disappear. Sadly, she adds, its a limited run, which will end on May 24th. BBC Studios / Disney / Bad Wolf Eight disconnected thoughts about Lux. Density Like The Robot Revolution before it, Lux is packed full of concepts and themes that could easily be the sole subject of a story. This thematic density has always been a part of Doctor Who a show that has often worn its deep political and literary ambitions on its sleeve but it can be both a blessing and a curse. Just think about the sheer number of ideas this one episode is playing with, touching upon: How time travel as a plot device can be implicated by race. How media habits and consumption have changed in the last century. How human nature hasnt changed in the last century. How awful it is to be held hostage by your own desire. What it would be like if a fictional character discovered they were fictional. Thats a hell of a lot of stuff to get through in 45 minutes, even if youre not going to explore any of them. Though it may be a thrilling high-wire act Davies is pulling off, the result doesnt have anything weighty to say. Not that I expect or need every episode to be About Something In A Very Special Way, but these themes arent meant to be just window dressing. Ironically, and to contradict what I just wrote, I found Lux to be far more enjoyable than The Robot Revolution. Free of the burden of having to introduce Belinda and lay down the shape of this years overarching storyline, the episode is able to focus on just being itself. Everything here joins up in a more satisfying way, and the emotional beats, while rushed, at least make sense. Rhyming history As soon as Ncuti Gatwa was held aloft by moving filmstrips, I realized how closely the scene mirrored the conclusion of The Devils Chord. Im not surprised, given both episodes feature the Doctor fighting a member of the Pantheons roster of rogue gods. After all, our heroes turn up in what is ostensibly the past of our living memory (60s last year, 50s here) to battle a god using pop culture as a vehicle (music then, cinema now). For the filmstrips here, Maestro dragged the Doctor and Ruby around Abbey Road with ribbons of music notation. Soft Elbows In the few times Doctor Who has acknowledged its fanbase, its with a loving elbow to their ribcages. It helps that the series is so tied to the UKs cultural DNA that everyone is a fan, even if theyre not a fan. Perhaps more importantly, Davies, Moffat and Chibnall were all prominent fans before they had TV careers. All of us are capable of conceding we are (or can be) bloody annoying at times and insufferably smug at others. One thing did occur to me: All three times Doctor Who has acknowledged its fanbase Whizzkid in Greatest Show", the members of LINDA in Love and Monsters and here the themes are the same. Doctor Who fans are always kind-hearted, a little bit annoying and they get taken advantage of by a bad faith figure (Captain Cook, Victor Kennedy and Lux). Isnt that interesting? Importance A key trait of Ncuti Gatwas Doctor is his compassion, even going so far as to kiss a Roomba to apologize for turning it off. When Hassan, Lizzie and Robyn say they're "not important" as surname-less side characters, it irked me that the Doctor didn't push back. Production Much like last weeks episode, Lux is wonderfully well-made with every quarter of the production team operating at their peak. Mr RingA-Ding is a triumph, capturing the rubber hose style of animation from that era utterly perfectly. The 2D version is great, and the 3D edition he tries to evolve into at the conclusion is the right sort of horrifying. Belinda After The Robot Revolution, plenty of fans online suggested Belinda knew a little more than she was meant to. Specifically, she knew the name of the TARDIS despite the Doctor calling it his spaceship earlier in the episode. At the start of Lux, Belinda says the Doctor is a Time Lord so his people should be able to fix the malfunctioning TARDIS. I can see why fans, trained on mystery box shows, would be intent on mining lines of dialog in this fashion. But I think theyre chasing shadows: Davies has never been that sort of writer and probably isnt going to start seeding his dialog with hints that subtle now. The way I read it, the Doctor has probably gotten used to giving new friends an (off-screen) introduction of the basics. You could easily imagine a cut-for-necessity scene where the Doctor rattles off the whole time lord with their own time and space machine spiel. And youd expect them not to race toward the more trauma-dump-y elements of their biography, like being the last of them still alive. Belinda was also surprised to see the TARDIS land in 1950s Miami, even after seeing it in space last week. Given the theme of the episode was Belinda slowly embracing her time with the Doctor it makes more sense. That said, its interesting that Davies specifically focused on the surnames of minor characters for his column in this months Doctor Who Magazine. Naturally, he was wrapping a tease for a future episode inside an anecdote about having to clear even minor character surnames with the shows legal department. And when the Doctor meets the fans, Robyn points out she knows how the episode ends because she read the leak about it online. I should admit, too, that I read the fairly detailed leak about this episode that included the reveal of this fourth-wall-destroying scene. I would never suggest Davies is playing four-dimensional chess with the audience, but if the detailed leak of this episode came from the production office as a further tweak of the metafiction then, bravo. Queer representation The awning outside the cinema is advertising a Rock Hudson movie, and Belinda comments that she learned about the late actor on a HIV training course. He was one of the first people in the public eye to pass away from AIDS, causing a shift in public attitudes. Before Hudsons death, the US had refused to sanction additional funds to support research into combatting the disease. Doctor Who has shied away from directly addressing plenty of social issues during its long run, or even allegorically. Despite the vast number of queer people who were involved in its creation and production, such topics were treated as taboo. That the show can now make such a direct reference to Hudson feels refreshing, especially if it prompts some folks to read up on the issue. The politics of race There are better qualified writers who can discuss the issues around race and racism that the episode features. Lux is set in 1952, two years before Brown v. Board of Education, in a Miami that is segregated. Its not the first episode of Doctor Who to deal with this, nor the first of Ncuti Gatwas tenure that has intentionally highlighted that the Doctor is played by an actor of color. I suspect that one moment in particular will provoke discussion: When Belinda is outraged to learn the diner is segregated. The Doctor shuts down her objections, saying that he has toppled worlds, and has someimes lived in worlds and let them topple themselves. For the latter, his approach is to shut up and shine, suggesting he sits on the respectability politics-end of the spectrum. Its perhaps here that we see the limits of what stories Doctor Who can tell given these events took place in our own recent history. The lead character can topple other worlds in any era, but given were all aware of human history, cant act to rid the world of this injustice. Which affirms the theory that the show is fundamentally conservative in nature since one of the Doctors main driving forces is to protect the course of history as it presently is. Mrs. Flood corner Now we know Mrs. Flood can appear wherever the TARDIS is, so its likely shell be popping up in every episode, just like Susan Twist did last year. Here, she simply repeated her ominous threat that the Doctors time is running out, which is due to happen on May 24th. May 24th is when this seasons seventh and penultimate episode will air.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/doctor-who-lux-review-hope-can-change-the-world-190033447.html?src=rss
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A NASA spacecraft will make a close approach to an asteroid in the main belt on Sunday afternoon, in the second of several asteroid flybys planned for its 12-year mission to study remnants of the early solar system. The Lucy spacecraft will be 596 miles (960 km) from asteroid Donaldjohanson named after the paleoanthropologist who discovered the Lucy hominin fossil at the closest point of its pass, which will occur at 1:51PM ET, according to NASA. Lucy will use three instruments to capture detailed observations as the object gets closer, rotating with the asteroid over a few hours to get the full picture. It will stop tracking just before the asteroid is nearest, when itll have to shield its instruments due to the position of the sun to prevent damaging them. The spacecraft previously visited a small asteroid called Dinkinesh in 2023, and its observations revealed that the asteroid is orbited by whats known as a contact binary, or a peanut-shaped double moon made of two smaller objects touching each other, NASA explained at the time. After Donaldjohanson, Lucy will move on to its main targets, a handful of Trojan asteroids orbiting the sun in the same path as Jupiter. Its expected to reach the first of those objects in 2027. Every asteroid has a different story to tell, and these stories weave together to paint the history of our solar system, Tom Statler, Lucy mission program scientist, said in a press release. The fact that each new asteroid we visit knocks our socks off means were only beginning to understand the depth and richness of that history. Telescopic observations are hinting that Donaldjohanson is going to have an interesting story, and Im fully expecting to be surprised again.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasas-lucy-spacecraft-is-about-to-have-its-second-close-encounter-with-an-asteroid-180735995.html?src=rss
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EA and Lucasfilm shared first look at Star Wars Zero Company, a new single-player strategy game set in the Star Wars universe, at Star Wars Celebration in Japan. The game was originally announced in 2022 as one of three new Star Wars titles being developed or co-developed by Respawn Entertainment, the studio behind Jedi: Fallen Order and Jedi: Survivor, including a new first person shooter and another entry in the Jedi series. There isn't a firm release date yet, but Star Wars Zero Company will be available on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 in 2026. "In Star Wars Zero Company, players will step into the shoes of Hawks, a former Republic officer, to command an elite squad of cunning operatives through a gritty and authentic story set in the twilight of the Clone Wars," according to a press release published alongside the announcement trailer. Star Wars Zero Company was born out of a collaboration between Respawn and a new studio called Bit Reactor. The inspiration the game clearly draws from XCOM: Enemy Unknown and other Firaxis strategy games didn't happen by accident. Bit Reactor's staff includes some former Firaxis' employees, and the founder and creative director of Bit Reactor, Greg Foertsch, was a senior art director on XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2. "Our vision for Star Wars Zero Company is grounded in gameplay design pillars that weave in the immersive Star Wars galaxy with engaging turn-based tactics gameplay," Foertsch said in a statement. "Its our aim to deliver a game with an original Star Wars story from the Clone Wars era that has meaningful outcomes from player choices, and deep turn-based tactical combat with an approachable and cinematic presentation." Striking some kind of balance between the mass appeal of Star Wars and the niche expectations of strategy and tactics fans has always been the goal of Zero Company. In an interview with PC Gamer in 2024, Foertsch and Bit Reactor's lead animator Hector Antunez (another XCOM alum) suggested that they wanted their Star Wars game to have the cinematic storytelling of Respawn's games without missing out on a satisfying strategy experience. "I don't think that complexity equals depth," Foertsch said, "and I think that that's really what we're focused on. Differentiating that nuance between those two things."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/star-wars-zero-company-looks-like-xcom-with-jedi-and-droids-135850369.html?src=rss
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Tempest Rising, a real-time strategy game that's being called a "spiritual successor" and an homage to Command & Conquer, is now available to everyone. It was supposed to be released on April 24, but according to its developers, it was "unexpectedly made available" on April 17 for all players who pre-ordered the game. Instead of pulling it back, they've decided that the best and most seamless solution was to just release it a week early. The game was developed by Danish studio Slipgate Ironworks and Polish studio 2B Games. In its Steam page, the developers said it was "inspired by RTS (real-time strategy) greats of the 90s and 2000s." It's set in a modern day alternative history scenario, wherein the world is at war to control the "Tempest vines" growing across the planet. The player takes on the role of Commander for either the "highly mobile and advanced" Global Defense Forces peacekeeping corps or the Tempest Dynasty, which the developers describe as "hard-hitting and desperate." A third faction will be available in multiplayer mode. Each faction has different strategies and combat techniques players can choose from, and players will be able to customize their army for each mission in the two 11-mission campaigns. Players can still get the "Commander Pack" pre-order bonus if they buy the game before April 24, giving them access to all bonus content. And since getting access to the game a week early was supposed to be an exclusive perk for those who've pre-ordered the Deluxe Edition, the developers are making it up to them with new in-game bonuses that will be revealed "as soon as possible." This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/real-time-strategy-game-tempest-rising-has-been-released-early-to-all-users-130033479.html?src=rss
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