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Sony has used AI to imbue a PlayStation character with the ability to converse with a player, The Verge reports. A source shared a since-deleted video with the publication featuring an AI-powered version of Aloy from Horizon Forbidden West. Engadget viewed the video before it was pulled. In the demo, Aloy can hold a conversation with voice prompts during gameplay, and respond to questions with a synthesized voice and facial movements. It starts with a delay from Aloy, after being asked how they are, followed by the character stating they are "managing alright, just dealing with a sore throat," a weird aside. The technology appears to work both within a controlled demo as well as the entire Horizon Forbidden West game. During gameplay, Aloy answers queries about where they are and what the time is, though Aloy states it's afternoon and hot, rather than a specific time. After the game, Aloy returns to interview mode and gives an overview of what just happened. The creepy bit, at least to me, came when Aloy is prompted to say goodbye to the audience and thank everyone. The character does, but the robotic voice creates an eerie vibe. Sony used a few different models to create this prototype, including GPT-4 and Llama 3 for powering decision making and conversation, along with OpenAI's Whisper allows for speech-to-text. In the demo, Sony reportedly said it is using its own Emotional Voice Synthesis (EVS) system and Mockingbird technology for speech generation and audio to face animation, two technologies that the company hasn't talked about much yet publicly. NVIDIA and Microsoft have been working on similar technology. The former has used ACE, its suite of technology for enlivening game characters with AI, to create AI-powered conversations for NPCs. Engadgets senior editor, Devindra Hardawar, was far from impressed, stating in January, that seeing several NVIDIA ACE demos back-to-back made me genuinely sick to my stomach.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/sony-demos-an-ai-powered-playstation-character-133052902.html?src=rss
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Lena Raine, who composed most of the music for the beloved indie game Celeste, has released a concept album for Earthblade. Extremely OK Games announced in 2022 that it was developing Earthblade as its next project after Celeste, but it ultimately cancelled the project in January this year. Raine wrote in the description of EARTHBLADE ~ Across the Bounds of Fate that she cobbled together "every bit of music [she'd] written for the game to the point of its cancellation in order to tell [her] own version of it." While there's no game to dictate the tracks' sequence for the album, Raine said she arranged them "into the emotional arc of their progression, much like [she] would for any soundtrack release." The composer cited older animation and film as inspiration for the album, such as the synths and live strings in Joe Hisaishis score for Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, as well as Yoko Kanno's use of saxophones and percussives for Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. In addition to Celeste, Raine also wrote music for the soundtracks of Minecraft and Guild Wars 2. Earthblade was supposed to be a 2D exploration-action game, wherein you play as Névoa, an "enigmatic child of Fate" who's returning to Earth. "Noel and Ibegan to reflect on how the game has felt for us to work on day-to-day, and realized that it has been a struggle for a long time," studio director Maddy Thorson said when Extremely OK cancelled the game. Programmer Noel Berry and Thorson parted ways with Extremely OK co-founder Pedro Medeiros last year, but Thorson said in her announcement of Earthblade's cancellation that Medeiros and the team for his new project "aren't the enemy." You can now purchase the album for $7 from Bandcamp.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/lena-raine-released-a-soundtrack-for-celeste-studios-cancelled-follow-up-game-earthblade-120029888.html?src=rss
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At the risk of repeating myself from Engadget's MacBook Air M1, M2 and M3 reviews: The M4-equipped MacBook Air is a nearly flawless ultraportable. Even better, it now starts at $999, which is $100 less than before. While I'd still like to see more ports and a faster screen refresh rate, the MacBook Air still remains heads and shoulders above the competition. And when companies try to one-up Apple, as ASUS did with its 2.2-pound Zenbook A14, it only proves how much better-designed Apple's hardware actually is. It's easy to take the MacBook Air for granted, since its design hasn't changed since the M2 model arrived in 2022. It's still a remarkable machine today, one that's fast, light and well-built. The only major downside is that there's a bit of a learning curve for Windows users jumping ship for the first time. But aside from that, the MacBook Air is a no-brainer purchase if you're looking for a new ultraportable. Hardware Once again, both the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models feel impressively thin (measuring 0.44 inches thick) and light, weighing in at 2.7 pounds and 3.2 pounds, respectively. Last year, I noted "Its unibody aluminum case feels as smooth a river stone yet as sturdy as a boulder. It's a computer I simply love to touch." All of that remains true with the M4 models. In fact, it's even more impressive that Apple holds such a commanding design lead when competitors have had a chance to catch up. As much as we like the Surface Laptop, XPS 13 and ASUS' Zenbook S14, Apple still maintains a level of polish that PC makers can't quite match. The MacBook Air's case feels more luxurious than the rest, its keyboard is a dream to type on and it has one of the best trackpads around. (And before you go calling me an Apple fanboy, I'm still primarily a Windows desktop user.) Devindra Hardawar for Engadget Apple's M4 chip which sports a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine (or what you'd call an NPU in a PC) is the main upgrade with these new MacBook Airs. It's also worth noting that the base $999 13-inch model has a slightly slower 8-core GPU, which will slightly hamper gaming and media creation performance. Aside from a new Sky Blue option, there aren't any physical design changes. Apple also upgraded the webcam to a new 12-megapixel Center Stage shooter, which could be particularly helpful if you want to show off the contents of your desk. (More on that later.) The 13-inch MacBook Air features a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina Display, which practically feels like a 14-inch screen, while the larger model has a 15.3-inch display. They're still limited to 60Hz an annoyance since plenty of PC ultraportables are shipping with faster and smoother screens but they're impressive displays nevertheless, with support for the P3 wide color gamut and 1 billion colors. Both screens can also reach up to 500 nits of brightness, which is enough to be usable on a sunny day. Devindra Hardawar for Engadget In use: Fast and light Both the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Airs handled my basic workflow without a sweat: juggling browsers with a ton of open tabs, Slack, Spotify, messaging apps and the Pixelmator photo editor. But that was no surprise, as the previous models were similarly zippy. Still, after testing the sluggish Zenbook A14 recently, it felt refreshing to be using laptops that seemed eager to get to work. I couldn't actually feel a difference with the jump to the M4 chip, but according to the Geekbench 6 benchmark, its 19.5 percent faster than the M3 for single-threaded tasks, and 21 percent faster for multi-threaded tasks. That's a typical incremental jump for CPU improvements, so I won't knock Apple too much there. The M4's GPU gains were far less impressive, scoring just 6 percent higher than the M3 in the 3DMark Wildlife Extreme benchmark and 16.3 percent better in the Geekbench GPU test. Geekbench 6 CPU Geekbench 6 GPU Cinebench 2024 Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M4, 2025) 3,784/14,745 36,273 172/660 GPU: 3,465 Apple MacBook Air 15-inch (M4, 2025) 3,874/14,873 36,131 171/748 GPU: 3897 Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (M3, 2024) 3,190/12,102 30,561 N/A Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch (M4, 2024) 3,797/14,571 37,869 172/979 GPU: 3770 Surface Laptop 7 (Snapdragon X Elite) 2,797/14,400 19,963 123/969 GPU N/A You likely won't be doing much serious creative work on the MacBook Air, especially since there's no fan to cool things down. But you can still squeeze out a bit of performance in a pinch. I was able to transcode a 4K clip to 1080p in 27 seconds using the M4's CPU in Handbrake, while using the GPU took just 17 seconds. In comparison, the Dell XPS 13 Copilot+ system took 32 seconds with its CPU and 24 seconds with its GPU. The graphically intense Lies of P ran at a smooth 60 fps in 1080p with high settings. That was also true of the M3 MacBook Air, but this time around the performance seemed a bit more consistent. While I'd never recommend buying a MacBook Air with gaming in mind, it's nice that it can handle a bit of playtime, at least. While jumping between the 13-inch and 15-inch models, I found a lot to like about them both. The smaller one is definitely easier to travel with, but I also loved the immersive screen on the 15-inch. Ultimately, choosing between them comes down to what's most important to you. Similarly, the leap to a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera isn't exactly Earth-shattering, but I appreciated having a slightly better picture during video call. I typically turn off the actual Center Stage feature on Macs, but I'm sure some will appreciate its ability to track you around a room. The new camera also supports Desk View, which projects a slightly skewed view of the area directly in front of the MacBook Air. As for battery life, both MacBook Air models lasted for more than 18 hours while playing an HD video. The 13-inch Air lasted for 18 hours and 15 minutes, while the 15-inch notebook went for 18 hours and 23 minutes. Devindra Hardawar for Engadget How can Apple improve the MacBook Air? As much as I love the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air, there are still plenty of ways Apple can refine them down the line. As I mentioned above, it'd be great to have higher refresh rate displays, which makes scrolling through documents far easier on your eyes. And while I don't need Apple to go all-out with ports, it'd be nice to have at least one USB-C connection on the right side of the Air to allow for easier charging. Right now, you're stuck with a MagSafe charging port and two USB-C connections on the left side. Of course, I don't really expect Apple to actually deliver those upgrades anytime soon. I'd bet the company would nudge more demanding users to the $1,599 14-inch MacBook Pro, which has a ton of ports and a high refresh rate ProMotion screen. Still, a geek can dream. Devindra Hardawar for Engadget Should you buy the M4 MacBook Air? If you can't tell by now, I think the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air are the ideal ultraportables for most people. So sure, if you're in the market for a sleek laptop, they're worth considering. And if you're a Windows user who's hesitant to make the jump, I'd recommend trying an Air for a while. It's not that hard to learn the basics of macOS, and if you're not satisfied you can always return it (just be sure to double-check retailer return policies). While I'd bet most users would be fine with the base $999 13-inch MacBook Air with 256GB of storage, it may be worth jumping up to the $1,199 model with a 10-core GPU and 512GB SSD if you plan to do light media work. Or just jump straight to the $1,199 15-inch model, which comes with a 10-core GPU. As usual, I'd also recommend avoiding paying Apple's absurd upgrade fees for components. If you're considering spending $400 more for 32GB of RAM, you should probably be considering a MacBook Pro instead. If you're looking to save some cash, several retailers are still selling the M2 MacBook Air at a steep discount of $700. Even though it's an older chip, that laptop could still serve most users well for several years (just make sure you're getting 16GB of RAM). Devindra Hardawar for Engadget Wrap-up Once again, the 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air are basically everything we want from ultraportable notebooks. Theyre zippy, wonderfully light and can last well beyond a full day of work. While the M4 chip isnt a transformative upgrade, it helps Apple keep pace with evolving PC notebook chips. And now that the MacBook Air starts at $999, even Windows users should consider making the jump.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/apple-macbook-air-m4-13-inch-and-15-inch-review-minimal-upgrades-at-a-much-better-price-130002570.html?src=rss
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