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Alan Wake is coming to Fortnite in a cross-promotional event ahead of the 2010 game’s long-awaited sequel. Alan Wake: Flashback “reimagines Remedy Entertainment’s iconic story in Fortnite” as Epic Games and Remedy Entertainment introduce younger players to a franchise that faded in and out of public consciousness before some of them were born.

The game within a game appears to provide a quick recap of the events of the first title within Fortnite. “Troubled author Alan Wake embarks on a desperate search for his missing wife, Alice,” Epic’s description reads. “Following her mysterious disappearance from the Pacific Northwest town of Bright Falls, he discovers pages of a horror story he has supposedly written, but has no memory of.”

The surreal pairing becomes more logical when you consider Epic and Alan Wake developer Remedy have a working relationship. Remedy signed a publishing agreement with Epic in 2020 in a program covering up to 100 percent of a title’s development costs, including paying for quality assurance, localization and marketing. Once a game recovers its development costs, the companies split their profits 50/50. So, the Fortnite tie-in is a win-win for both companies’ bottom lines.

Alan Wake will also be a playable character via an Alan Wake Outfit. It will launch in the “Waking Nightmare” set available on the Fortnite shop beginning on October 26. Meanwhile, Alan Wake 2 launches for $50 on October 27 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC via the Epic Store.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/alan-wake-brings-his-flashlight-to-fortnite-155907947.html?src=rss 

Netflix is getting into live sports streaming, but it’s not shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars on NFL games, Formula 1 races or the English Premier League quite yet. The company’s first live sports event is a pro-am golf tournament that features athletes from its Formula 1: Drive to Survive and Full Swing docuseries.

The Netflix Cup will see four pairs of Formula 1 drivers and PGA Tour golfers pairing up in a match play tournament that will take place in Las Vegas. You’ll be able to watch the event starting at 6PM ET on Tuesday, November 14 — just a few days before F1’s inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix.

As things stand, The Netflix Cup is set to feature F1 drivers Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz. The golf pros who have lined up to take part are Rickie Fowler, Max Homa, Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas. The tournament will see the pro-am pairs play an eight-hole match. The top two teams will duke it out on a final hole to try and win the Netflix Cup.

“The continued success of Drive to Survive has played a significant role in the growth of Formula 1 in the US, which has ultimately led to the addition of a third American race,” Emily Prazer, chief commercial officer of Las Vegas Grand Prix, Inc, said in a statement. “It’s only fitting that we kick off our inaugural race weekend with a fun event that can be streamed by F1 and PGA Tour fans around the globe.”

This is a logical way for Netflix to dip its toes into live sports streaming. It means that the company doesn’t have to immediately snap up expensive rights to high-profile leagues (many of which have deals with rival streaming services anyway) or to showcase lower-tier sports.

It’s also another example of Netflix’s cross-branding coming to the forefront. The company is placing more focus on its own properties with things like a Squid Game reality competition series and branded retail stores that will feature an obstacle course based on its biggest hit to date. Netflix is also said to be developing more video game adaptations of its shows and movies, such as Extraction and Black Mirror.

Netflix’s first livestreamed event was a Chris Rock standup special. However, the company ran into technical problems with its second planned livestream, a Love is Blind cast reunion. The company instead filmed the reunion and uploaded it to the platform as quickly as it could. Netflix will be hoping things go more smoothly this time around.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/netflixs-first-live-sports-event-is-a-golf-tournament-featuring-f1-drivers-and-pga-tour-pros-160042770.html?src=rss 

ERNIE, Baidu’s answer to ChatGPT, has “achieved a full upgrade,” company CEO Robin Li told the assembled crowd at the Baidu World 2023 showcase on Tuesday, “with drastically improved performance in understanding, generation, reasoning, and memory.”

During his keynote address, Li demonstrated improvements to those four core capabilities on-stage by having the AI create a multimodal car commercial in a few minutes based on a short text prompt , solve complex geometry problems and progressively iterate the plot for a short story on the spot. The fourth-gen generative AI system “is not inferior in any aspect to GPT-4,” he continued.

ERNIE 4.0 will offer an “improved” search experience resembling that of Google’s SGE, aggregating and summarizing information pulled from the wider web and distilled into a generated response.The system will be multimodal, providing answers as text, images or animated graphs through an “interactive chat interface for more complex searches, enabling users to iteratively refine their queries until reaching the optimal answer, all in one search interface,” per the company’s press. What’s more, the AI will be able to recommend “highly customized” content streams based on previous interactions with the user.

Similar to ChatGPT Enterprise, ERNIE’s new Generative Business Intelligence will offer a more finely-tuned and secure model trained on each client’s individual data silo. ERNIE 4.0 will also be capable of, “conducting academic research, summarizing key information, creating documents, and generating slideshow presentations” as well as enable users to search and retrieve files using text and voice prompts.

Baidu is following the example set by the rest of the industry and has announced plans to put its generative AI in every app and service it can manage. The company has already integrated some of the AI’s functions into Baidu Maps, including navigation, ride hailing and hotel bookings. It is also offering “ow-threshold access and productivity tools” to help individuals and enterprises develop API plugins for the Baidu Qianfan Foundation Model Platform.

Baidu had already been developing its ERNIE large language model for a number of years prior to the debut of ChatGPT in 2022, though its knowledge-base is focused primarily on the Chinese market. Baidu released ERNIE Bot, it’s answer to ChatGPT, this March with some 550 billion facts packed into its knowledge graph, though it wasn’t until this August that it rolled out to the general public.

Baidu’s partner startups also showed off new product series that will integrate the AI’s functionality during the event, including a domestic robot, an All-in-One learning machine and a smart home speaker.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/baidus-ceo-says-its-ernie-ai-is-not-inferior-in-any-aspect-to-gpt-4-162333722.html?src=rss 

While many of the flashy, marquee mobility and transportation demos that go on at CES tend to be of the more… aspirational variety, Honda’s electric cargo hauler, the Autonomous Work Vehicle (AWV), could soon find use on airport grounds as the robotic EV trundles towards commercial operations. 

Honda first debuted the AWV as part of its CES 2018 companion mobility demonstration, then partnered with engineering firm Black & Veatch to further develop the platform. The second-generation AWV was capable of being remotely piloted or following a preset path while autonomously avoiding obstacles. It could carry nearly 900 pounds of sutff onboard and atow another 1,600 pounds behind it, both on-road and off-road. Those second-gen prototypes spent countless hours ferrying building materials back and forth across a 1,000-acre solar panel construction worksite, both individually and in teams, as part of the development process. 

This past March, Honda unveiled the third-generation AWV with a higher carrying capacity, higher top speed, bigger battery and better obstacle avoidance. On Tuesday, Honda revealed that it is partnering with the Greater Toronto Airports Authority to test its latest AWV at the city’s Pearson Airport. 

The robotic vehicles will begin their residencies by driving the perimeters of airfields, using mounted cameras and an onboard AI, checking fences and reporting any holes or intrusions. The company is also considering testing the AWV as a FOD (foreign object debris) tool to keep runways clear, as an aircraft component hauler, people mover or baggage cart tug. 

The AWV is just a small part of Honda’s overall electrification efforts. The automaker is rapidly shifting its focus from internal combustion to e-motors with plans to release a fully-electric mid-size SUV, as well as nearly a dozen EV motorcycle models by 2025, and develop an EV sedan with Sony. Most importantly, however, the Motocompatco is making a comeback. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/honda-to-test-its-autonomous-work-vehicle-at-torontos-pearson-airport-153025911.html?src=rss 

Elgato’s Stream Deck MK.2 is on sale for $130, a discount of $20 from the MSRP of $150. That’s 13 percent off and actually beats the sale price from last week’s Amazon Prime Day event. If you’re a podcaster or a livestreamer, this is a pretty good time to snag this highly useful streaming device.

This is the latest and greatest Stream Deck, and we said it sets a new standard for the industry when we placed it in our list of the best game streaming gear. Not to be confused with Valve’s Steam Deck, this similarly-named device boasts a hub of 15 LCD hotkeys that you can customize to your liking to simplify livestreaming, podcasting and related activities.

For instance, one button press can turn on a connected accessory, instantly mute a microphone, adjust the lights, trigger on-screen effects or activate audio clips, to name a few examples. You have 15 of these keys, and each can be customized as you see fit. You can even set them to perform in-game actions, like any standard keyboard shortcut.

Additionally, many users have found these devices useful for programming, media editing and any other profession/hobby that could use a bit of hotkey simplification. The buttons are also really satisfying to press.

The main reason you’d get this, however, is right in the name. It’s for streamers that have to moderate a fast-moving chat all while gaming or performing some other task. Each button has a tiny display to let you know at a glance the end result of each press. Over time, you won’t even need these mini displays, instead relying on simple muscle memory, just like keyboard hotkeys. Each of the major streaming platforms, like Twitch and YouTube, offer their own plugins for the device complete with a set of commonly-used adjustment options.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-stream-deck-mk2-is-on-sale-for-just-130-152539642.html?src=rss