Tech Boys

Hades II announced its third update today. The sequel to 2020 indie game darling Hades is technically still in early access on PC and Mac, but has been getting some beefy updates ahead of its expected official release later this year. The Unseen Update is a free, automatic update that mostly focuses on new combat development. There's a new Vow of Rivals that allows players to challenge more powerful Guardian foes. All of the main weapons have received hidden aspects that offer new forms and fighting styles. There's also new hexes and blessings, some fresh artwork, and new story events to help grow your relationships with the many members of the ancient Greek pantheon. When Hades II does exit early access with the launch of v1.0 — and developer Supergiant said that it doesn't have a timeline for that yet — the game will follow its predecessor's launch schedule. Switch 2 and Switch will be the first consoles to get the full release alongside PC and Mac, with Pl...

Social media company X has filed a lawsuit against the state of New York over a law governing hate speech. The social network's Global Government Affairs account posted about the suit, claiming the law's required disclosures infringe on First Amendment protections for free speech. The Stop Hiding Hate Act, which is slated to take effect this week, would require social media companies to report on how they define and moderate content including hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, harassment and foreign political influence. X sued California in 2023 about a similar state-level law regarding content moderation. A panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals put a hold on the lower court's initial ruling in favor of California. While the law did endure, a settlement between the state and the company at the start of 2025 led to the elimination of the provisions that X claimed were unconstitutional. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/B...

Meta's Llama model has memorized Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone so well that it can reproduce verbatim excerpts from 42 percent of the book, according to a new study . Researchers from Stanford, Cornell, and West Virginia University analyzed dozens of books from the now-infamous Books3 dataset , a collection of pirated books used to train Meta's Llama models. Books3 is also at the center of a copyright infringement lawsuit against Meta, Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc . The study's authors say their findings could have major implications for AI companies facing similar lawsuits. According to the research paper, the Llama 3.1 model "memorizes some books, like Harry Potter and 1984 , almost entirely." Specifically, the study found that Llama 3.1 has memorized 42 percent of the first Harry Potter book so well that it can reproduce verbatim excerpts at least 50 percent of the time. Overall, Llama 3.1 could reproduce excerpts from 91 percent of the book,...

Netflix looks to take a bite out of Shark Week with its upcoming shark-centric reality competition show, All the Sharks . SEE ALSO: Summer TV preview: All the TV shows you need to know, and where to stream them The series, hosted by Tom "The Blowfish" Hird, pits four teams of shark experts against one another. Their goal? To photograph as many types of shark as they can. We're not just talking about some sharks. We're talking about — say it with me — All the Sharks . Whichever team wins will earn $50,000 for their marine charity of choice. To snap their shark pics, these teams will dive into shark habitats in six stunning locations: the Maldives, the Galápagos Islands, the Bahamas, South Africa, Japan, and Australia. Every shark contestants get on camera earns them points. The rarer the shark, the more points you get. Simple, right? Well, wait until you throw challenging diving conditions and fast-moving currents into the mix. As someone with a crushing fea...

Borderlands 4 , the latest entry in Gearbox Software's popular looter shooter franchise, is available to pre-order now for $70, a good $10 less than many assumed it would cost. The game's price first came into question when its September 12 release date was announced without pre-order details, and Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford suggested that whether the game came with a $80 price tag was out of his hands. Pitchford put his foot in his mouth in a thread on X sharing a behind-the-scenes video about bringing Borderlands 4 to the Switch 2. A fan replied to the video asking Pitchford to not charge $80 for the game, to which Pitchford responded , "A) Not my call. B) If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen." A) Not my call. B) If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen. My local game store had Starflight for Sega Genesis for $80 in 1991 when I was just out of high school working minimum wage at an ice cream parlor in Pismo Beach and I ...

Oh hey there! If you're here, it must be time for Wordle . As always, we're serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today's answer. If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for today's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you. SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable SEE ALSO: NYT Connections today: Hints and answers for June 15 Where did Wordle come from? Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble , music identification game Heardle , and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once .  Word...

There's no shortage of reasons to stay off the Meta ecosystem, which includes Facebook and Instagram, but there are some places where WhatsApp remains the main form of text-based communication. The app is a great alternative to SMS, since it offers end-to-end encryption and was one of the go-to methods to send uncompressed photos and videos between iPhone and Android users before Apple adopted RCS . Even though Facebook, which later rebranded to Meta, acquired WhatsApp in 2014, it doesn't require a Facebook or Instagram account to get on WhatsApp — just a working phone number. How to create a WhatsApp account without Facebook or Instagram To start, you need to download WhatsApp on your smartphone. Once you open the app, you can start the registration process by entering a working phone number. After entering your phone number, you'll receive a unique six-digit code that will complete the registration process. From there, you can sort through your contacts on your attache...

If you're reading this, you're looking for a little help playing Strands , the New York Times ' elevated word-search game. Strands requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There's always a theme linking every solution, along with the "spangram," a special, word or phrase that sums up that day's theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically. SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections . If you're feeling stuck or just don't have 10 or more minutes to figure out today's puzzle,...

Oh hey there! If you're here, it must be time for Wordle . As always, we're serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today's answer. If you just want to be told today's word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for today's Wordle solution revealed. But if you'd rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you. SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable SEE ALSO: NYT Connections today: Hints and answers for June 15 Where did Wordle come from? Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble , music identification game Heardle , and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once .  Word...

This is a spoiler-free preview of the first five episodes of season three. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ended its second season with arguably the single strongest run of any streaming-era Trek. The show was made with such confidence in all departments that if there were flaws, you weren’t interested in looking for them. Since then, it’s gone from being the best modern Trek, to being the only modern Trek. Unfortunately, at the moment it needs to be the standard bearer for the show, it’s become noticeably weaker and less consistent.  As usual, I’ve seen the first five episodes, but can’t reveal specifics about what I’ve seen. I can say plenty of the things that made Strange New Worlds the best modern-day live-action Trek remain in place. It’s a show that’s happy for you to spend time with its characters as they hang out, and almost all of them are deeply charming. This is, after all, a show that uses as motif the image of the crew in Pike’s quarters as the captain cooks for h...