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UPDATE 11.45pm: As fury among developers continues to mount following Unity's dramatic changes to its Unity Engine business model, the company has taken to social media to "provide clarifying answers to the top questions" being asked.

"Yes, this is a price increase and it will only affect a small subset of current Unity Editor users," the company insisted in its statement. "Today, a large majority of Unity Editor users are currently not paying anything and will not be affected by this change. The Unity Runtime fee will not impact the majority of our developers.

"The developers who will be impacted are generally those who have successful games and are generating revenue way above the thresholds we outlined in our blog. This means that developers who are still building their business and growing the audience of their games will not pay a fee. The program was designed specifically this way to ensure developers could find success before the install fee takes effect."

Unity has also clarified the changes are "not retroactive or perpetual", noting it will only "charge once for a new install" made after 1st January 2024. However, while it won't be charging for previously made installs, fees do indeed apply to all games currently on the market, meaning should any existing player of an older game that exceeds Unity's various thresholds decide to re-install it after 1st January, a charge will still be made.

We’ve noted a few times how the political push to ban TikTok is a dumb performance largely designed to distract people from our failure to pass even a basic internet privacy law or regulate data brokers. We’ve also noted how college bans of TikTok are a dumb extension of that dumb performance, and don’t accomplish anything of meaningful significance.

When the college bans first emerged we noted they’d be trivial to bypass, given the bans only apply to the actual college network. They obviously don’t apply to personal student use over cellular networks. And, not surprisingly, students are finding it extremely easy to bypass the bans, either by simply turning off Wi-Fi when they want to access the social network, or using a VPN:

“The student body, quietly, in unison, added Wi-Fi toggling to their daily routine. “Everyone was so nonchalant about it,” Pablo says. “They really just did not care.”

“There wasn’t a whole lot of pushback, aside from a lot of grumbling and groans,” says Ana Renfroe, a sophomore at Texas A&M. Some of her professors are still showing TikToks in class. They’ll just ask students to download the videos at home she explains, or will upload them to another platform like Instagram Reels.”

The folks who spent several years hyperventilating about how TikTok was some unique threat to the public (on an internet where countless international companies, ISPs, app makers, and data brokers over-collect and fail to secure consumer data) are, of course, nowhere to be found.

Radeon RX 7800 XT vs. GeForce RTX 4070, 45 Game Benchmark @ 1080p, 1440p & 4K - today we're going much more in depth with a 45 game sample

Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa was acquitted of a final tax evasion charge Tuesday though she still faces two remaining legal cases she believes the former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte used to muzzle her critical reporting.

Ressa and her online news organization Rappler had faced five tax evasion charges but a court acquitted her of four of the charges in January. A different court heard the fifth charge and acquitted her Tuesday.

"Facts wins, truth wins, justice wins," she told reporters outside the courthouse.

Ressa and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov were awarded the 2021 Nobel for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression by fighting for the survival of their news organizations and defying government efforts to shut them.

During the first two years of the pandemic, from March 2020 to March 2022, there were approximately 90,000 more deaths in the United States attributed to cardiovascular disease than were expected for that span of time.

The majority of these occurred in people 65 and older — the age group with the highest risk for cardiovascular complications. But heart-related deaths also increased dramatically in younger adults. In fact, a study found that the sharpest rise in deaths from heart attack during that period occurred in 25- to 44-year-olds.

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The potential for cardiovascular complications doesn’t go away after someone has recovered from Covid. A large 2022 study tracking medical records of 691,455 patients in the United States found that people had a significantly higher risk of developing virtually all heart-related diseases in the year after a Covid infection. According to the research, people were 1.5 times more likely to have a stroke, nearly twice as likely to have a heart attack, and had between 1.6 and 2.4 times the risk of developing different types of arrhythmias.

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Research has shown that people who are vaccinated are roughly 40 to 60 percent less likely to have a heart attack or stroke following a Covid infection than those who are unvaccinated. This may be because vaccinated people are less likely to develop severe Covid, which in turn lowers the risk of many of these heart-related issues. Or the vaccine may help protect the cardiovascular system itself — by reducing the inflammatory effects of Covid, for example.

At least 2,300 have been killed, according to the ambulance authority in Derna, the worst affected city.

Two dams and four bridges collapsed in Derna, submerging much of the city when Storm Daniel hit on Sunday.

About 10,000 people are reported missing, the Red Crescent says, and the death toll is expected to rise further.

Some aid has started to arrive, including from Egypt, but rescue efforts have been hampered by the political situation in Libya, with the country split between two rival governments.

The US, Germany, Iran, Italy, Qatar and Turkey are among the countries that have said they have sent or are ready to send aid.

Sebastian Karl Greenwood colluded with others, including the so-called "Cryptoqueen" who is now on the FBI's top 10 Most Wanted list, officials say.

They are accused of scamming more than $4bn (£3.2bn) from investors.

Greenwood, 46, a citizen of the UK and Sweden, was arrested in Thailand in July 2018. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering in December.

Officials say OneCoin, which was founded in 2014 in Bulgaria, functioned as a global pyramid scheme.

Greenwood started and ran the company with Ruja Ignatova, the so-called Cryptoqueen who has not been seen since vanishing in Greece in 2017.

OneCoin sought to benefit from the success of Bitcoin, officials say, and "used the notoriety of Bitcoin to convince investors that OneCoin was the next 'can't miss' investment opportunity".

The company said Bernard Looney, who had led the company since 2020, was stepping down with immediate effect.

BP said it had recently started an investigation into alleged relationships Mr Looney had with colleagues, the second such review in two years.

The firm said Mr Looney had admitted he was not "fully transparent" initially.

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At the time, the company said Mr Looney disclosed "a small number of historical relationships with colleagues prior to becoming CEO" and it found no breach of company conduct.

The board said it had received similar allegations "recently", prompting another review.

"Mr Looney has today informed the company that he now accepts that he was not fully transparent in his previous disclosures," BP said. "He did not provide details of all relationships and accepts he was obligated to make more complete disclosure."

The next Sims game currently goes under the name Project Rene rather than The Sims 5, but that aside, we know a growing amount about EA Maxis' next social simulation. During today's latest Behind The Sims community update, they shared more, including the news that the next entry in the series would be free-to-play and without energy mechanics or a subscription.

Valve launched Steam on September 12, 2003, and we're super proud and incredibly grateful for what we've been able to do in the 20 years since. Steam's success is a direct result of the players and developers around the world who use it.

We thought it would be fun to look back at the top releases on Steam each year (many of which are on sale as part of this celebration, including all Valve titles!) and added some fun facts for both Steam and pop culture in general (in art or text form, or both). But, like, give us the same leeway you might with an aging grandparent: the dates and facts below are as correct as our collectively aging memories will allow.

New York City’s pension funds have sued Fox Corp., alleging the company neglected its duty to shareholders by airing false statements about the 2020 election that exposed it to defamation lawsuits.

“Fox’s board of directors has blatantly disregarded the need for journalistic standards and failed to put safeguards in place despite having a business model that invites defamation litigation,” New York City Comptroller Brad Lander said in a statement to The Hill. Lander oversees the pension funds.

“A lack of journalistic standards and a proper strategy to mitigate defamation has clearly harmed Fox’s reputation and threatens their bottom line and long-term profitability,” he continued.

The Hill has reached out to Fox for comment.

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She's coming for them all.
In this wicked series from Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House) and based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, ruthless siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher have built Fortunato Pharmaceuticals into an empire of wealth, privilege and power. But past secrets come to light when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dying at the hands of a mysterious woman from their youth.