Epic Games’ New Technologies Promise Best Video Game Graphics Yet

Epic Games (the studio behind Fortnite and other titles) introduced its newest generation of game-developing software, the Unreal Engine 5. Demoed on the forthcoming PlayStation 5, the Engine’s newest technologies—nanite and lumen—allow developers to craft intricate, hyper-realistic gameplay scenes. The innovation bridges the vast divide between visuals of user-explored realms and those without interactivity, which historically have more closely resembled big-budget movies. Previous generations of …

Exponential Improvements in AI-Made Music Prompt Copyright Concerns

San Francisco-based AI research organization OpenAI released its music-generating code Jukebox this week. Complex code synthesizes hours upon hours of music, usually from one artist or one genre, and reproduces tracks that touch on the signature sounds listeners recognize most. The resulting tracks—which replicate the essence of music by Jay-Z, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and others—are obviously AI-made, but worrying. With repetitive learning, AI could …

The Perilous Relationship Between Antarctic Conditions + Scientific Equipment

This January, 18 days into a research initiative across Antarctica’s Outer Recovery Ice Fields, the last of the team’s specialized equipment failed. This mission (held around the 200th anniversary of the discovery of the continent) aimed to recover a hypothesized cache of iron-rich meteorites. The failure was just one more blockade on the path to scientific discovery among the ice. Though its history can be …