All posts tagged: ecosystem

Beyond the Phone Screen: Why the Xtra Camera Ecosystem is the Ultimate Coachella 2026 Essential

Beyond the Phone Screen: Why the Xtra Camera Ecosystem is the Ultimate Coachella 2026 Essential

Published by skeptic

The countdown to the Empire Polo Club is on. Coachella 2026 is shaping up to be a historic milestone—the festival’s 25th anniversary, headlined by Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, and Karol G. But as you finalize your packing list of desert-ready outfits and hydration packs, there is one “essential” that might actually be sabotaging your weekend: your smartphone. We have all witnessed the “sea of screens”—thousands of fans watching a career-defining performance through a 6-inch glowing rectangle, desperately trying to keep the artist in frame while missing the actual energy of the crowd. This festival season, Xtra is helping fans put the phone away without missing a single beat. By leveraging the Xtra Muse, Atto, and 360, you can capture a professional-grade festival after-movie while staying completely immersed in the music. The Xtra Muse: Cinematic Vlogging for the Fashion-Forward Coachella is as much about the “fit checks” and art installations as it is the music. For the moments that require a professional, cinematic touch, the Xtra Muse ($379 – $419*) is the ultimate choice for creators. …

The shocking fossils that show T. rex wasn’t the king of the dinosaurs

The shocking fossils that show T. rex wasn’t the king of the dinosaurs

Published by skeptic

When you come for the king, you best not miss – particularly if the king in question is a 9-tonne dinosaur with the biggest teeth of any known land predator in history. “Tyrannosaurus rex: the tyrant lizard king. That name is so cool, and it’s just developed tremendous loyalty,” says Greg Paul, an independent dinosaur researcher based in Maryland. “There’s even a rock band named for the animal.” Decades of settled science suggest the famous dinosaur was so formidable that it had a stranglehold on its ecosystem. It wasn’t just an apex predator; it was the apex predator of its time, having out-muscled everything else. Late last year, however, a small number of palaeontologists attempted to cut T. rex down to size. Based on incredible new fossils, they argued that the so-called king actually coexisted with at least two other tyrannosaurs – meaning it was just one hunter among several that stalked North America in the dying days of the Mesozoic Era. When these scientists came for the king, they didn’t miss. Just months after …

New Xbox boss: “We will not flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop”

New Xbox boss: “We will not flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop”

Published by Daniella Wilson

You may have already seen that Xbox has a new CEO, Asha Sharma, and she’s pledged not to “flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop”. The news was announced on the Microsoft website, and it’s sparked no shortage of passionate discussion among the gaming community. The fact that Matt Booty, a familiar face to Xbox fans, was promoted to CCO in the same announcement, doesn’t seem to have dampened the discourse at all. These are very passionate responses we’re seeing from Xbox players. If you dig a little deeper into the Microsoft announcement blog, you’ll find a lengthy statement from Sharma that explains her priorities for Xbox going forward. There’s a lot of sense being spoken here, we’d argue. There are three key priorities that Sharma outlines for her new regime – great games, the return of Xbox, and the future of play. She makes some good points in each section, in this writer’s opinion. Under ‘great games’, Sharma says, “Everything begins here. We must have great games beloved by players before we do anything. …

Microsoft’s new gaming CEO vows not to flood the ecosystem with ‘endless AI slop’

Microsoft’s new gaming CEO vows not to flood the ecosystem with ‘endless AI slop’

Published by skeptic

Microsoft announced a major gaming shakeup on Friday, with Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer departing the company, along with Xbox President Sarah Bond. Spencer will be replaced by former Instacart and Meta executive Asha Sharma. With Sharma’s most recent role as the president of Microsoft’s CoreAI product, these moves suggest that Microsoft might be doubling down on bringing AI into video games. The company had already been experimenting with ways to combine AI and gaming, for example developing an AI gaming companion and releasing a buggy, AI-generated level from “Quake II.”  Indeed, in an internal memo published by The Verge, Sharma wrote that Microsoft “will invent new business models and new ways to play” and said that “monetization and AI” will both “evolve and influence this future.” At the same time, she said that the company “will not chase short-term efficiency or flood our ecosystem with soulless AI slop.” “Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us,” Sharma added. That’s just one of …

Nvidia deepens early-stage push into India’s AI startup ecosystem

Nvidia deepens early-stage push into India’s AI startup ecosystem

Published by skeptic

Nvidia is stepping up efforts to court India’s artificial intelligence startups earlier in their lifecycle, unveiling a string of partnerships this week aimed at reaching founders even before their companies are formally established. The push is intended to help the AI chipmaker cultivate relationships with future customers in one of the world’s fastest-growing developer markets. The latest move comes through a partnership with early-stage venture firm Activate, which plans to back about 25 to 30 AI startups from its $75 million debut fund while giving portfolio companies preferential access to Nvidia’s technical expertise. The collaboration follows other India-focused efforts unveiled this week, including work with nonprofit AI Grants India to support early-stage founders and new ties with venture firms focused on the South Asian nation. The flurry of activity comes as India hosts its AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, drawing top technology companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang was slated to attend but skipped the event due to what the company called unforeseen circumstances. A senior delegation led by …

Building the HPC ecosystem for tomorrow’s ARM-based supercomputers

Building the HPC ecosystem for tomorrow’s ARM-based supercomputers

Published by skeptic

EUPEX Pilot aims to demonstrate Europe’s readiness to build fully sovereign ARM-based supercomputers from chip to software. High Performance Computing (HPC) has quietly become one of the key pillars of modern societies. From climate modelling and weather forecasting to drug discovery, artificial intelligence, industrial design, or energy optimisation, supercomputers now underpin some of the most critical scientific, economic, and societal advances. As data volumes grow exponentially and computational demands continue to rise, access to powerful, efficient, and scalable HPC infrastructures is no longer a luxury; it is a strategic necessity. Beyond its many applications, HPC has also become a strategic asset. The ability to build and operate powerful supercomputers increasingly affects technological independence and Europe’s position on the global stage. With major investments coming from the United States and Asia, Europe faces the challenge of developing its own technologies while staying competitive at the highest level. EUPEX, a European project funded by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, tackles this challenge head-on. Its goal is to create a pilot supercomputing platform entirely based on European technologies, from …

The failure of ecosystem services: Why putting a price tag on nature hasn’t worked

The failure of ecosystem services: Why putting a price tag on nature hasn’t worked

Published by skeptic

Ryan Wills for New Scientist Richard Branson, Jane Goodall and Edward Norton might seem like strange bedfellows. But in 2012, at the Earth Summit in Brazil, they stood together on stage making the case that putting a price tag on nature was the only sensible way to prevent its destruction. Goodall, who spent decades studying chimps in Tanzania, took the microphone and wavered a bit: “It’s a bit shocking to me that we have to do that. I know why we have to do that. It makes perfectly good sense… But we mustn’t forget, for the sake of our children and great-grandchildren, to keep alive that reverence for the natural world.” Her words held an ambivalence that many biologists felt towards the idea of recasting coral reefs, tundra and tropical forests in terms of dollar bills, says environmental scientist and anthropologist Daniel Suarez at Middlebury College in Vermont. But they hoped that by speaking the same language as financial markets and the boardroom executives who live by them, they could help plummeting wildlife populations to flourish. Needless …

Huge fossil bonanza preserves 512-million-year-old ecosystem

Huge fossil bonanza preserves 512-million-year-old ecosystem

Published by skeptic

An artist’s illustration of life in Earth’s oceans at the time of the Huayuan biota Dinghua Yang An extraordinary 512-million-year-old fossil site has been discovered in southern China, preserving in vivid detail almost an entire ecosystem from a time shortly after Earth’s first mass extinction event. The fossils date from the Cambrian period, which began 541 million years ago. The early Cambrian saw an explosion of diversity in animal life which gave rise to most of the major groups alive today. But this flourishing came to a halt with the Sinsk event around 513.5 million years ago, when oxygen levels in the ocean fell, killing off several groups of animals. Han Zeng at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology in China and his colleagues began finding fossils at a quarry in the mountainous region of Huayuan County in Hunan Province in 2021. So far, they have analysed 8681 fossils from 153 species, nearly 60 per cent of which are new to science. The team has christened this ancient ecosystem the Huayuan biota and say …

FoodTech Challenge 2026 winners to advance agri-tech ecosystem

FoodTech Challenge 2026 winners to advance agri-tech ecosystem

Published by skeptic

The third edition of the UAE FoodTech Challenge, a global competition that identifies and scales the world’s most promising agri-tech innovations, concluded at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week with the announcement of four winning startups. From an initial pool of 1,215 submissions from 113 countries, ten finalists advanced to the final stage of the competition, presenting their agri-tech solutions in live pitches to an international judging panel. The four teams will share a $2m prize and will be invited to scale their solutions in the UAE, where they will receive tailored in-kind support, including pilot opportunities, access to research facilities, market-entry guidance, mentorship, and investor introductions through an extensive network of local and international partners. From this base, the winners will work to deploy and scale their solutions across key markets in the Global South, supporting more resilient and sustainable food systems. Advancing agri-tech innovations across the entire food system This year’s FoodTech Challenge is organised by the International Affairs Office at the UAE Presidential Court and Tamkeen, in partnership with the Gates Foundation, ne’ma (The …

AI has helped break news ecosystem, but could also fix it – says agency boss

AI has helped break news ecosystem, but could also fix it – says agency boss

Published by Sam Flores

Michael Leidig. Picture: Press Gazette News agency boss Michael Leidig has launched a not for profit company which he hopes could fix what he sees as a broken news ecosystem. Leidig wound up four news agencies which previously provided coverage in Europe and Asia last year citing falling budgets. Many independent news agencies have closed around the UK in recent years because fees paid by national newspapers have barely risen in 40 years. “The job used to be introducing people to perspectives they wouldn’t otherwise hear,” Leidig said. “Now the whole system, from the way stories are commissioned to the way they’re distributed, is designed to reinforce whatever the audience already believes.” Leidig has spent three decades running news agencies across Europe. He has watched the old infrastructure stripped away piece by piece: local papers closing, specialist freelancers disappearing, and the newsroom “supply chain” that once fed the nationals reduced to a handful of overstretched generalists. At each stage, discovery, verification, editing, distribution and usage, the moving parts that kept journalism functioning have seized up. …