Kalakshar US

Take me to Phoenix Springs. 

I didn’t make it all the way to the remote desert oasis and its mysterious community of misfits while playing the Phoenix Springs demo at Summer Game Fest, but after spending a brief time in Iris Dormer’s neo-noir world, I’m desperate to get there. I want to find out what happened to Iris’ brother, a man I’ve only heard about in strange, sad tales. I want to hear Iris’ voice articulating in my ear, providing brusque context for every scene. I’m ready to get lost again in the game’s sickly green shadows. I’m wildly curious to find out what awaits me in the desert. Take me back.

Phoenix Springs is a point-and-click detective game starring Iris Dormer, a reporter who’s looking for her estranged brother, Leo. Her search eventually leads beyond the city’s crumbling skyscrapers and across the desert, to an oasis community called Phoenix Springs. Iris investigates the area and its people using an inventory of mental notes, collecting ideas instead of physical objects as clues.

The Summer Game Fest demo covered the game’s initial stages, featuring Iris on a train and in the city, only teasing the oddities that might be hiding in the desert community of Phoenix Springs. Each scene in the game is a work of art and Iris is its historian, revealing threads of relationships and storylines as she reads documents and picks up information from strangers. In any situation, she has three options for interaction: talk to, look at, use.

Iris’ mental inventory fills with names, dates, places and obscurities as she unpacks boxes, searches the net and tries to speak with her brother’s former neighbors. Leo’s last address is a building that’s been boarded up, abandoned by its landlords mid-remodel, and here she encounters the people that have been left behind. There’s a young boy making a plant dance with some kind of electronic box, and a middle-aged man sprawled, unconscious, on top of a shipping container. They’re called the orphans and neither of them are up for conversation. On the other side of the building, an intercom houses a separate voice that shares the history of the area, filling Iris’ inventory with words. Selecting an idea allows Iris to investigate her surroundings with that information, narrowing her focus and often unlocking solutions. It’s a clean and familiar investigation mechanic presented in a starkly beautiful format.

Phoenix Springs is gorgeous. Undeniably. Its canvas is menacing — dark green backgrounds are striped with even-deeper shadows, while pops of yellow, red and blue define the edges of important set pieces. The inventory bursts onto the screen as a bright white screen with black text, individual ideas separated by delicate thought bubbles. There’s a papery sheen to the entire experience, as if it’s an interactive interpretation of a mid-century sci-fi novel cover.

Where the game lacks color, Iris provides it via narration, and her verbal palette is just as stark as the game’s appearance. She speaks dispassionately and with a posh nihilism that would feel at home in an Orson Welles detective noir. Her voice is comforting and foreboding, and it’s a welcome, near-constant companion in the demo.

In the middle of a busy trade show packed with compelling games, I wanted to keep playing Phoenix Springs, and that’s pretty much the highest praise I can give. Phoenix Springs feels utterly unique. It’s coming to Steam on September 16, developed and published by London-based art collective Calligram Studio.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/phoenix-springs-offers-breathtaking-beauty-in-a-desolate-neo-noir-world-130046288.html?src=rss 

Last year, LinkedIn began experimenting with AI-powered tools for job seekers on its platform. Now the company has added a bunch of new capabilities for its premium subscribers who are #OpentoWork, including personalized resumé, AI-assisted cover letters and more conversational job searches.

The changes are meant to speed up some of the most tedious aspects of looking for a new role. For example, the revamped job search feature now allows you to look for roles with queries like “find me a marketing job that’s fully remote and pays at least $100,000 a year,” or “find business development roles in biotech.” Those are all relatively simple descriptions but anyone who has searched for jobs on LinkedIn (without the help of AI) knows that it can often be a struggle to narrow down job listings with keywords.

Once you find a role you’re interested in, the built-in assistant can give you feedback on your qualifications and help with your application. You can upload a copy of your current resumé and LinkedIn’s AI will provide tips on what to update based on the job description. This can include suggestions on specific experiences to highlight or the ability to rewrite entire sections of the document. Likewise, LinkedIn can generate cover letters based on your experience and the job you want to apply for.

The company gave me a preview of these tools and I thought it did a surprisingly decent job for a first attempt at a cover letter. It incorporated specific details from my profile and the tone didn’t feel as robotic as much of the AI-written text I’ve encountered. Of course, as a journalist, I like to believe I can still write a better cover letter than an AI. But, I can see how the tool could be useful for people applying to dozens of jobs at once, especially since many companies use AI software to whittle down applications anyway.

LinkedIn product manager Rohan Rajiv says that these tools are meant to be more of a jumping off point for users rather than an all-in-one solution. “What we want to do is make it easy for folks who have a difficult time telling their story, have a difficult time staring at a blank screen trying to put something together to at least get started,” he tells Engadget.

But he also notes that the company is still in the relatively early stages of its AI push and it could eventually automate more of the job application process. “The next horizon is going to be … can you just do that for me,” he says. “You can almost imagine people thinking about it from an agent standpoint, and helping you get things done.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/linkedins-ai-job-coach-can-write-your-cover-letters-and-edit-your-resume-130033553.html?src=rss 

If you’re looking for a discreet action camera that can take Dolby Vision-ready 4K resolution videos, Insta360’s latest model is a great candidate. The Insta360 GO 3S is an updated version of the GO 3 action camera the company released last year, and it comes with several upgrades in addition to its capability to capture 4K 30fps footage. It’s equipped with a chip that has 50 percent more computing power than its predecessor’s, and it has a new wide-angle lens that enables videos with less distortion and straighter edges. The model can also take smoother slow-motion footage with a 1080p resolution at 200fps or a 2.7K resolution at 100fps. 

Insta360’s new action-camera is compatible with Apple’s Find My network, which sounds incredibly useful for such a small device that could be easily misplaced. It also has native waterproofing for up to 33 feet, or twice that of the GO 3. If you want to switch from horizontal to vertical shooting, you can simply twist the camera. And if the device is out of reach, you can use its new hand gesture feature to start or to stop shooting, as well as to take photos. 

For hands-free shooting, you can set a recording frequency and length if you want the camera to automatically record your day, thanks to its new Interval Video mode. Plus, you can use its app’s new Auto Edit function to get an AI to combine several clips into one long video, with scoring, in case you’d rather not edit your footage manually. 

The model’s Action Pod serves as its all-in-one housing, remote control and charger, and you can still preview your shots on its 2.2-inch touchscreen that you can flip up or down. Aside from the Action Pod, the Insta360 GO 3S standard bundle also comes with a magnet pendant and an easy clip that you can use to attach the camera to your cap, clothes, your pet’s collar or anywhere else you want to. It also ships with a pivot stand and a lens guard. The standard bundle is now available for purchase around the world via the Insta360 website and retailers like Amazon. You can choose between the 64GB and the 128GB variant, which will set you back $400 and $430, respectively. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/insta360s-go-3s-is-its-new-tiny-wearable-camera-with-4k-video-130044121.html?src=rss