Chris is unmasked as The Corporate Body. Tam talks about anime and waifus. Kelley is excited about text size. Josh explains the meaning of "time to shipwreck." Subscribe to our latest offering, The Monthly Litterbox.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 744: “11.5-Bit Graphics” appeared first on RPGamer.

Chris eats around dirty grapes. Kelley plays the goose class of Monster Hunter. Ryan runs out of disc space until he deletes a Rogue Trader save file. Don't get distracted by salsa.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 745: “The Shipwreck Ending” appeared first on RPGamer.

Chris gets killed by Dick Van Dyke. Kelley is done with VR now. Sam had a busy work week of dressing up as a blanket ghost. And Josh sails into invisible walls.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 746: “Extra Life 2024” appeared first on RPGamer.

Chris plays real life PC building simulator. Kelley is shocked there's a bug in the Switch version. Josh has a heart episode while retrieving a necktie. And we all learn what true chicken love is.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 747: “Cute Little Cow Boxes” appeared first on RPGamer.

Billionaire Bill Ackman spent days after the ABC presidential debate promoting false claims that a network “whistleblower” had allegedly uncovered collusion between ABC and Kamala Harris’ campaign. Now, a month and multiple denials later, he sees the claims differently.

“It seems pretty clear that the alleged @abc whistleblower debate story claiming that @KamalaHarris was given questions in advance and other advantages was a fake,” Ackman posted on X alongside a blog post by Megyn Kelly discussing the dubious claims.

What Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, did not acknowledge, however, is that he was one of falsehood’s early boosters. After an X account named “Black Insurrectionist” claimed it had been in touch with a whistleblower who alleged the Harris campaign had been given debate topics ahead of the showdown with Donald Trump and had demanded Trump—and Trump alone—be fact-checked.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is TV’s best soap opera, week after week offering twists more shocking than secret twins and characters returning from the dead. That’s because it’s all real, happening in the most haunted suburb in the continental United States.

Where else do two women connect over knowing the long-lost birth father of one’s child? Is there another city where women squabble over body positivity in a parking lot off the side of a snowy mountain? Surely, there’s no other place on Earth where Lisa Barlow could come across anywhere near a voice of reason.

But that all happens here in Salt Lake City. Five episodes in, Season 5 has continued to evolve into the most captivating season in modern Real Housewives history, carried by the ever-changing bonds between our OGs and a team of wonderfully bizarre newbies.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called his party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, a “stupid,” “ill-tempered,” and “despicable human being,” according to his own records.

McConnell made the withering assessments in a series of private “personal oral histories” that he gave to Michael Tackett, the deputy Washington bureau chief of the Associated Press, who has a forthcoming biography about the Kentucky senator called The Price of Power. The AP conveniently reported the book’s juicy details.

McConnell’s remarks were made after the 2020 election that Trump lost, and the senator was apparently elated to see the backside of the former president, musing, “it’s not just the Democrats who are counting the days” until he leaves office.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

One of my favourite satires is the Screwtape Letters, an epistolary novel by Narnia scribe C.S. Lewis. It consists of messages from an oily elder demon to his nephew about how to correctly groom the soul of an unsuspecting human being. It's a claustrophobic send-up of managerial politics and nepotism, with World War 1 unfolding in the background. A real pick-me-up. Sintopia is the Two Point incarnation of that premise - in other words, brighter and breezier and definitely more slapstick than Christian. It puts you in charge of a world divided between Earth and hell, and challenges you to ensure a steady movement of optimally sinful souls between one and the other. Say your prayers and watch the trailer.

Read more

Today in "person you already like says something you already agree with, but it’s still good to hear them say it" news, Arkane founder and im-simmy RPG studio WolfEye head Raphael Colantonio has spoken on Microsoft’s decision to shutter Prey (2017) studio Arkane Austin - alongside a handful of others - back in May.

Colantonio, who founded Arkane in 1999 and departed in 2017 to form Weird West studio WolfEye, recently chatted to Jeremy Peel for PC Gamer about Arkane’s closure, saying:

I think if you look a little bit, it's obvious that Arkane Austin was a very special group of people that have made some cool things and that could pull it off again. I think it was a decision that just came down to, 'We need to cut something.' Was it to please the investors, the stock market? They're playing a different game.

Read more

Stroll on down to Uncle Capcom's garage, girls and boys, because it's time to meddle with a cat's voicebox, ride a combat peacock and meticulously injure a vast, blubbery teddybear. By which I mean, the Monster Hunter Wilds beta is now live on Steam through to 4th November at 2.59am GMT. That's 2.59am sharp. If you're hurrying along at 3am on Monday absolutely desperate to polish the aesthetics of a small enslaved catperson, you can sod off and play Dragon Age: The Veilguard instead.

Read more

Typing Of The Dead released in arcades 25 years ago remains a masterpiece - funny, absurd, tense, and novel. I am keen on any game that aims to follow in its footsteps, and there are a few. The latest is Blood Typers, a horror game where you tippity-tap on your keyboard to fight montsters in a spooky mansion, but this isn't a rail shooter, so you'll be typing to explore and navigate, too.

It's now got a release of February 2025, and there's a demo you can play now.

Read more

I was excited for Slitterhead, an action adventure game by Bokeh Studio, a studio founded by none other than your boy Keiichiro Toyama: the creator of Silent Hill, Gravity Rush, and the Siren series. And within that first hour, Slitterhead's body-possessing and Hong Kong-inspired streets had me thinking, "Is this it, the sleeper hit of 2024?!"

No, sadly not. It's no doubt built a compelling universe filled with brain-sucking aliens that masquerade as humans, and it attempts plenty else besides: bouncing between bodies as you stealth around dingy apartment blocks, fighting with blood katanas, and gorging on pools of red plasma to refuel skills, many of which require more body-flitting. Thing is, they are ultimately just attempts, attempts that fall victim to an emptiness and jitteriness that quickly reveals Slitterhead's true, irritating form.

Read more

Much the same as anyone with a soul, I find ants deeply fascinating and, much the same as anyone who occasionally drops small pieces of sandwich on the floor, I will continue to uphold my respect for them as long as they come nowhere near my feet. Yes. I admit it: I am a bug hypocrite, loudly extolling their virtue and beauty at a distance then getting irritated if they decide to come sit on me.

Fortunately, real time strategy Empire Of The Ants understands that the best place for insects to be is inside a screen, where they can be appreciated but cannot under any circumstances touch you. It’s out this week, as it happens, and here’s a new launch trailer to celebrate. Follow your pheromone trail to the video below.

Read more

Hori's latest addition to its controller lineup, the "Horipad Wireless for Steam," is now available for preorder on Amazon. After already releasing in Japan at the end of October, now the gamepad is coming to the US.

Read more

GeForce Now, Nvidia’s PC-focused game streaming service, will begin calling time on its most muscular of power users. A post on the GFN subreddit announced the introduction of a 100-hour monthly cap (or "allowance"), effective from January 1st 2025 for anyone who signs up after that date. Existing streamists, or anyone who signs up by the end of 2024, will get a year’s grace period before the limit kicks in from January 2026.

Read more

In all honesty, Toads Of The Bayou could have been several notches less ribbet-ing than its Steam demo ended up being, because its stylised pixel fly-snatchers are just that good. There’s only one of the three characters available in the freebie (one of the others is a toad nun with a shotgun), but he’s got a little cutlass, a flintlock pistol, and a can-do attitude - at least when it comes to either stabbing or shooting things. The game itself is a little bit deckbuilder, a little bit Into The Breach: turn based strategy with perfect information and various tricks you can pull to make enemies hit each other instead of the thing you’re trying to protect. Indulge yourself on the gourmet tray-tray below.

Read more

Update:

The RPS 100 is our list of the best games to play on PC. It encompasses the full breadth and width of PC gaming stretching back to 1873, but focuses solely on those games that remain great to play today. It's updated yearly by our crack team of writers, and the first half of the 2024 edition is live now.

Read more

It was the 20-year anniversary of Halo 2 at the weekend, which saw the shooter's modern counterparts celebrating with classic multiplayer maps and long-lost levels. But also emerging from the dust of time are insights to the sequel's development back in 2004. Rolling Stone interviewed two key designers of the game and made a fun discovery. The Flood (the sickly pale alien infestation that briefly turns Halo into sci-fi horror) was partly inspired by a colourful and innocent children's book about a nice elephant.

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"Imagine you buy a pinball machine, and years later, you enter your den to go play it, only to discover that all the paddles are missing, the pinball and bumpers are gone, and the monitor that proudly displayed your unassailable high score is removed". As reported by Polygon, that's an argument put forth by a new lawsuit against Ubisoft, filed by two Californian players of The Crew. They're suing the company in a proposed class action lawsuit over shutting down the racing game's servers, rendering it unplayable.

Read more

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JUDY WOODRUFF: Firefighters say they are making some progress battling the wildfires in Northern California. In all, the fires have consumed more than 220,000 acres, an area larger than New York City.

More than 5,700 structures have been destroyed. And at least 41 people have died, making it the deadliest wildfire in the state’s history.

The wine industry and the tourism business connected with it are trying to take stock. More than $50 billion in California’s economy comes from the wine business. And nearly 24 million people visit the region for that reason every year.

Special correspondent Joanne Jennings reports from Napa County.

JOANNE JENNINGS, Special Correspondent: The Mayacamas mountain range creates a natural barrier between Sonoma and Napa Counties. And it is here where the massive Nuns fire is posing a tough challenge for some 11,000 firefighters who are taming the blaze with aircraft and units on the ground.

CAPT. MARK BRENNERMAN, Viejas fire Department: We’re going around and making sure none of these fires that are still smoldering and smoking, we’re not going to get another big fire out of them.

JOANNE JENNINGS: Even as firefighters are battling shifting winds, owners and workers in Wine Country are trying to determine just how much damage has been done.

The tony Highlands gated community was among the first to be consumed by flames when the Atlas fire raced through this canyon, leaving several mansions in rubble. Down the hill, at the Silverado resort, charred remnants of the Safeway PGA Tour remain. The major golf event had just wrapped up last Sunday afternoon, a few hours before flames engulfed tents and grandstands, forcing spectators and athletes to evacuate.

MAN: Do you see how it burned right up to the retaining wall here?

JOANNE JENNINGS: Silverado resident Steve Messina stayed behind and shot video of fire crews containing the flames, which consumed some condos. Within minutes, flames raced three miles down Silverado Trail, home to several storied hillside vineyards.

Most wineries in the region have been spared the worst. But hundreds suffered some damage. And at least eight vineyards have been significantly damaged or destroyed.

Pierre Birebent, who has been making wines for the family-owned Signorello estate for 20 years, rushed to his winery as quickly as he could.

PIERRE BIREBENT, Signorello Estate Vineyards: I jumped right in my truck, came down, and then when I was riding down, I saw the hill all flaming.

JOANNE JENNINGS: Two vineyard workers joined him to help save the estate’s tasting room.

PIERRE BIREBENT: But the smoke was getting very thick, and the wind was very strong. And after an hour, we couldn’t breathe anymore. At the moment, I was so upset. It was rage to see that I couldn’t do anything. But it was like fighting a giant.

JOANNE JENNINGS: The tasting room, which also housed the winery’s office and a dining room, burned to the ground. But Birebent says he wants to focused on what survived.

Fortunately, he said, the fire stopped short of reaching the vineyard, the crush pad, or any of the barrels of wine stored on site; 95 percent of this year’s grapes were already picked.

But, to be on the safe side, Birebent is taking these samples to a lab to make sure the juice is not too acidic for winemaking. If the crops are OK, a staff of 25 employees will have jobs to return to.

As the fires begin to recede and the smoke clears, people here are beginning to wonder when the tourists, who fuel much of the economy, will return.

It’s a serious concern for Andrew and Jeni (ph) Schluter, who are self-employed and are raising a young family.

ANDREW SCHLUTER, Andrew’s Tours and Transportation: I do wine tours and transportation for people. And my business started to do really, really well. I was on track to have the best month ever.

JOANNE JENNINGS: Andrew just bought this new SUV, which has been idle in his driveway collecting ash. Jeni is a personal trainer and has family who lost their homes in the fires. She’s just not sure how they’re going to make ends meet.

WOMAN: I think we’re just overwhelmed, you know? And uncertainty is kind of scary.

ANDREW SCHLUTER: We will hopefully get by for awhile, but we might make — have to make some hard decisions shortly.

JOANNE JENNINGS: While fires burn nearby, some vineyards are already open to tourists. At the Raymond Vineyard, workers are crushing grapes at a feverish pitch. The tasting room is open for the first time since the fires started.

Jeremy and Erika Moore arrived from Tennessee yesterday. They considered canceling their trip, but decided the best way they could help people here is to give them their business.

JEREMY MOORE, Tourist: On the one hand, a few hundred yards from here, you can see them shuttling up with the helicopters fighting fires, but then here it’s beautiful. They are doing some great tastings, and they are working outside on the crops. So, it’s a weird combination of tragedy, but then at the same time business must go on, too.

JOANNE JENNINGS: Proprietor Jean-Charles Boisset owns several wineries in California, France and Canada, but like many other people here, he and his family had to evacuate their home when the flames came dangerously close.

Still, he is bullish about the future of the wine industry in this region.

JEAN-CHARLES BOISSET, Boisset Collection: Napa has been one of the most amazing agricultural places in California for a long time, so it will survive those fires. What I love, as a Frenchman here in California, is that amazing American positive attitude.

We will recover. We will walk again, run again, and we will welcome all our guests and give them the dreams of fine wine.

JOANNE JENNINGS: For the PBS NewsHour, I’m Joanne Jennings in Napa Valley, California.

The post California wine country tries to get back to business despite wildfire destruction appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

A grand jury has formally charged a 22-year-old man with capital murder and rape in the death of Nabra Hassanen, who was killed on her walk back to a Virginia mosque.

The Fairfax County Circuit Court indicted Darwin Martinez-Torres of Sterling, Virginia, on Monday on four counts of capital murder for killing Nabra, who was with friends while they had a meal before Ramadan services. Dozens of people had gathered outside the courthouse today, chanting “Justice for Nabra.”

Virginia law has specific conditions for pursuing the death penalty, but the Associated Press reported that the grand jury’s indictment described in graphic detail how Nabra’s killing was grounds for a death penalty against Martinez-Torres. The indictment appears to acknowledge for the first time that the 17-year-old Muslim teen was raped. Under state law, the combination of a rape charge with a premeditated murder charge means the death penalty can be pursued.

Police have said that Martinez-Torres, who is an undocumented immigrant, got into a confrontation on June 18 with a group of teens walking back to the All Dulles Area Muslim Society after grabbing a late meal. He is accused of returning later and beating Nabra with a baseball bat. Police said Nabra’s body was later discovered in a pond. A search warrant affidavit revealed that Martinez-Torres admitted to killing Nabra and had led authorities to where he dumped her body, AP reported.

Nabra’s parents and Muslim advocates have said that Nabra’s death was motivated by hate, but police has said that they will not treat the killing as a hate crime. Instead, police have said it was a road rage incident.

“The reason this guy he hit my daughter is because she’s Muslim,” Nabra’s father Mahmoud Hassanen told WAMU. “Why [didn’t he] hit the boy who bothered him?”

Nabra’s father added that he hoped for the death penalty, while her mother said she wanted Martinez-Torres to serve life in prison.

“I just want people to remember her, and don’t forget her,” Mahmoud told WAMU. “I think nobody can forget her too, for what she did in her life.”

A preliminary hearing for Martinez-Torres reportedly turned emotional on Friday, with Nabra’s parents both shouting at the suspect in court. Nabra’s mother Sawsan Gazzar apparently threw a shoe at Martinez-Torres during the proceedings.

READ MORE: D.C. memorial for slain Muslim teen was set on fire, officials say

The post Man accused of killing Muslim teen indicted on capital murder charges appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

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HARI SREENIVASAN: Let’s turn to the continuing fallout and reaction to the Harvey Weinstein story.

Yesterday, Weinstein resigned from the board of his production company following numerous revelations of sexual harassment and several allegations of assault.

More than three dozen women have said Weinstein harassed them. While Weinstein has admitted to behaving inappropriately, he has said he didn’t physically assault anyone.

One of those women is Katherine Kendall. She was a 23-year-old actress who met Weinstein in 1993. She alleges that he invited her to his apartment in New York, where, she says, he took off his clothes and asked for a massage.

As other actresses began coming forward about their painful experiences, she also went public with her own story.

She joins me now from Los Angeles.

First, thanks for joining us.

And I don’t want to relive something that’s painful for you, but you are taking a public stance on it.

For people who don’t know your story, what happened?

KATHERINE KENDALL, Actress/ Photographer: Well, I was you know, a young actress, and I had had a formal meeting at the Miramax office earlier that day.

And then, at the end of the meeting, which I thought went really well, he invited me to come to screenings. He said: “Welcome to the Miramax family. You know, come to premieres, screenings, et cetera. In fact, there’s one this afternoon. Would you like to come?”

And I said, “Sure.”

And I ended up going to see a movie with him. It ended up just being a movie, not a screening, but the film “Red Rock West.” And, you know, that’s right when I had this sort of sinking feeling that something wasn’t going right.

And then, after the movie, we walked for a few blocks. And he said he needed to go up to his apartment to get something, and would I just come with him real quick? And I sort of said no, and we went back and forth on that for a minute. It was sort of a negotiation with him always, trying to sort of stand my ground, but then be convinced it was OK.

I did go into his apartment. Once there, we talked for a long time about art and movies. And I felt like he was treating me like an intellect.

And I felt like the meeting was going really well, and sort of continued. I didn’t feel unsafe once I was in there. And, at one point, then, he got up to go to the bathroom. And he came back in a robe and asked me to give him a massage.

And I was extremely uncomfortable. And I was like, oh, God, no, I’m not comfortable with that. And we went back and forth on that.

And then he went back to the bathroom again, and came back this time completely naked. And, you know, that changed it entirely for me, too. It just took it to the next place. It was completely disorienting. And I was scared, you know? I was really scared.

And then it became sort of a cat-and-mouse game of, like, how am I going to get out of there?

And I’m — it’s hard to make sense of what someone is trying to do to you when they’re fully naked, and they’re…

HARI SREENIVASAN: Yes.

KATHERINE KENDALL: You know, I’m 105 pounds. He’s a large man standing between me and the door.

And, I mean, I felt very resolute, like, I will definitely get out of here somehow. But I’m not — I’m not sure — I’m not sure what’s going to happen here. You know, a lot was going through my head.

And he said, well, if you won’t give me a massage, will you at least show me your breasts? And it was just — you know, it was, all in all, an extremely humiliating experience for me.

And even though I got away, I felt like something had still — like something horrible had just happened to me.

HARI SREENIVASAN: You know, in the immediate aftermath, did you tell someone about it? Because you have said before that you felt ashamed…

KATHERINE KENDALL: I did.

HARI SREENIVASAN: … even though you were the victim.

KATHERINE KENDALL: I did.

It’s really interesting how that happens. And I think — you know, I’m older now, and I have done some work on myself. And I have learned that a lot of people feel that way.

It’s — it’s not — it wasn’t just me. But the just me feeling that this is my fault, this must have only happened to me, there’s something wrong with me, is so common when someone perpetrates against you.

HARI SREENIVASAN: What were the…

KATHERINE KENDALL: And I did. I told my mom.

And I told some good friends. But, you know, one of the things that happened was, I didn’t want them to tell anybody. You know, people wanted to help me, but they didn’t know how, and I didn’t want them to try too hard, because I didn’t want it to backlash.

I was scared. And I think that it’s important to remember that we don’t really come from a culture that supports women in talking about sexual harassment, in my — in my experience, that is. And, you know, I just haven’t felt like it was something I was going to get support on…

HARI SREENIVASAN: You know, how long…

KATHERINE KENDALL: … in the bigger picture.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Yes.

How long did this feeling last? Or, I guess, what are the longer-term ripple effects here? Did it shake your confidence in your abilities?

KATHERINE KENDALL: I think it did. I think it did. I think it did.

I think it made me feel like, wow, you know, that was a wash. He wasn’t interested at all in what I had to say, or, you know, he didn’t see any talent there or intellect there. He was assessing the situation the whole time for something else.

And I think that — that did hurt. You know, I wish it didn’t.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Yes.

KATHERINE KENDALL: But he had produced so many movies that I thought were wonderful. And it was — it’s hard when someone has made art that you love, and how do you stay attached to liking their art, but feeling conflicted about them?

And, yes, I think it does have long-term effects. I think you tuck it away. And then, for me, also, I realized that it came back when I would see his name or see him in person. I would start to sort of tremble all over again.

I mean, I wouldn’t think about him on a daily basis or anything for years, and then I would see him, and I would think, oh, I don’t feel well. I got to get out of here.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Right.

KATHERINE KENDALL: You know, it would bring up so much emotion.

And the most recent one was the woman in New York, the Italian model. I felt so, so enraged when I saw what happened there, and that they sort of — the police had him, and that then he got away. And then she was being dragged through the press as somebody who just, you know, wanted a payout, et cetera.

HARI SREENIVASAN: You know, in the wake of that, there was — a friend of yours had tweeted, “At some point, all the women who have been afraid to speak out about Harvey Weinstein are going to have to hold hands and jump.” This was back in 2015.

And from your Twitter account, you said, “Agreed.”

It seemed like you almost had the opportunity to come forward.

What made you want to come forward now? Has this become a turning point in the industry?

KATHERINE KENDALL: This is a turning point. It’s a turning point.

There are so many times when I thought about it, and then felt like — there were times when I thought about it and said, well, I have nothing to lose, I will just do it. And then I thought, I — I just didn’t have the strength or the courage yet.

And I think somebody like Jodi Kantor doing the story for The New York Times, the fact that she thought it was a story at all was startling to me and made me feel like, wow, something is going to be done.

And I knew she had told me — I mean, they were looking for women that this had happened to, because they’d been hearing rumors for so long that it happened to so many people. And she had told me other people were coming out.

And I thought, I can’t — when I watched Rose McGowan or any of the other actresses come forward, I just — or Ashley Judd — I just thought, they look strong to me, and I don’t want to be the one that stays silent.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Well, Katherine Kendall…

KATHERINE KENDALL: I want to stand beside them.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Katherine Kendall, thank you very much for speaking with us.

And, hopefully, there are other people that are empowered by you coming forward.

KATHERINE KENDALL: I hope so. Thank you.

The post Escaping Harvey Weinstein was a ‘cat-and-mouse game,’ says Katherine Kendall appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

A DWP employee who has been working in the welfare system for 42 years has shared some key advice for new claims for the likes of PIP and Attendance Allowance

A Labour minister confirmed that the application process for Personal Independence Payment is being 'kept under review'

Astronomers have been spotting strange banana-shaped galaxies and the evidence seems to indicate that filaments of dark matter make them take this shape

Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, has signs of an enormous ancient impact that would have redistributed its mass, changing its orientation in relation to Jupiter

A newly spotted asteroid named 2024 RW1 burned up in the atmosphere over the South Pacific, creating a spectacular bright flash in the sky over the Philippines just hours after first being detected

In between two spacecraft visiting Jupiter’s moon Io, a volcano spreading material over hundreds of kilometres has appeared

The largest and most ambitious Martian drone yet could carry kilograms of scientific equipment over great distances and set itself down on the Red Planet unassisted

Combining two neural networks has helped researchers predict potentially disastrous collapses in complex systems, such as financial crashes or power blackouts

AlphaProof, an AI from Google DeepMind, came close to matching the top participants in a prestigious competition for young mathematicians

What if tech bros ruled the world, asks Asif Kapadia's 2073. This docudrama is captivating and disturbing, but lacks enough heft to stand out

Motion sensors in smartphones can be turned into makeshift microphones to eavesdrop on conversations, outsmarting security features designed to stop such attacks

Gears just a few micrometres wide can be carved from silicon using a beam of electrons, enabling tiny robots or machines that could interact with human cells

An off-the-shelf millimetre wave sensor can pick out the tiny vibrations made by a smartphone's speaker, enabling an AI model to transcribe the conversation, even at a distance in a noisy room

Former FIA race director Niels Wittich has rejected the motorsport governing body's version regarding his departure.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

ICRA@40: 23–26 September 2024, ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

IROS 2024: 14–18 October 2024, ABU DHABI, UAE

ICSR 2024: 23–26 October 2024, ODENSE, DENMARK

Cybathlon 2024: 25–27 October 2024, ZURICH

Enjoy today’s videos!

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and ETH Zurich have developed a robotic leg with artificial muscles. Inspired by living creatures, it jumps across different terrains in an agile and energy-efficient manner.

[ Nature ] via [ MPI ]

Thanks, Toshi!

ETH Zurich researchers have now developed a fast robotic printing process for earth-based materials that does not require cement. In what is known as “impact printing,” a robot shoots material from above, gradually building a wall. On impact, the parts bond together, and very minimal additives are required.

[ ETH Zurich ]

How could you not be excited to see this happen for real?

[ arXiv paper ]

Can we all agree that sanding, grinding, deburring, and polishing tasks are really best done by robots, for the most part?

[ Cohesive Robotics ]

Thanks, David!

Using doors is a longstanding challenge in robotics and is of significant practical interest in giving robots greater access to human-centric spaces. The task is challenging due to the need for online adaptation to varying door properties and precise control in manipulating the door panel and navigating through the confined doorway. To address this, we propose a learning-based controller for a legged manipulator to open and traverse through doors.

[ arXiv paper ]

Isaac is the first robot assistant that’s built for the home. And we’re shipping it in fall of 2025.

Fall of 2025 is a long enough time from now that I’m not even going to speculate about it.

[ Weave Robotics ]

By patterning liquid metal paste onto a soft sheet of silicone or acrylic foam tape, we developed stretchable versions of conventional rigid circuits (like Arduinos). Our soft circuits can be stretched to over 300% strain (over 4x their length) and are integrated into active soft robots.

[ Science Robotics ] via [ Yale ]

NASA’s Curiosity rover is exploring a scientifically exciting area on Mars, but communicating with the mission team on Earth has recently been a challenge due to both the current season and the surrounding terrain. In this Mars Report, Curiosity engineer Reidar Larsen takes you inside the uplink room where the team talks to the rover.

[ NASA ]

I love this and want to burn it with fire.

[ Carpentopod ]

Very often, people ask us what Reachy 2 is capable of, which is why we’re showing you the manipulation possibilities (through teleoperation) of our technology. The robot shown in this video is the Beta version of Reachy 2, our new robot coming very soon!

[ Pollen Robotics ]

The Scalable Autonomous Robots (ScalAR) Lab is an interdisciplinary lab focused on fundamental research problems in robotics that lie at the intersection of robotics, nonlinear dynamical systems theory, and uncertainty.

[ ScalAR Lab ]

Astorino is a 6-axis educational robot created for practical and affordable teaching of robotics in schools and beyond. It has been created with 3D printing, so it allows for experimentation and the possible addition of parts. With its design and programming, it replicates the actions of #KawasakiRobotics industrial robots, giving students the necessary skills for future work.

[ Astorino ]

I guess fish-fillet-shaping robots need to exist because otherwise customers will freak out if all their fish fillets are not identical, or something?

[ Flexiv ]

Watch the second episode of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission—Europe’s ambitious exploration journey to search for past and present signs of life on Mars. The rover will dig, collect, and investigate the chemical composition of material collected by a drill. Rosalind Franklin will be the first rover to reach a depth of up to two meters below the surface, acquiring samples that have been protected from surface radiation and extreme temperatures.

[ ESA ]

This is a sponsored article brought to you by Khalifa University of Science and Technology.

A total of eight intense competitions to inspire creativity and innovation along with 13 forums dedicated to diverse segments of robotics and artificial intelligence will be part of the 36th edition of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2024) in Abu Dhabi.

These competitions at the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region’s first-ever global conference and exhibition from 14-18 October 2024 at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center (ADNEC) will highlight some of the key aspects of robotics. These include physical or athletic intelligence of robots, remote robot navigation, robot manipulation, underwater robotics, perception and sensing as well as challenges for wildlife preservation.

This edition of IROS is one of the largest of its kind globally in this category because of active participation across all levels, with 5,740 authors, 16 keynote speakers, 46 workshops, 11 tutorials, as well as 28 exhibitors and 12 startups. The forums at IROS will explore the rapidly evolving role of robotics in many industry sectors as well as policy-making and regulatory areas. Several leading corporate majors, and industry professionals from across the globe are gathering for IROS 2024 which is themed “Robotics for Sustainable Development.”

“The intense robotics competitions will inspire creativity, while the products on display as well as keynotes will pave the way for more community-relevant solutions.” —Jorge Dias, IROS 2024 General Chair

Dr. Jorge Dias, IROS 2024 General Chair, said: “Such a large gathering of scientists, researchers, industry leaders and government stakeholders in Abu Dhabi for IROS 2024 also demonstrates the role of UAE in pioneering new technologies and in providing an international platform for knowledge exchange and sharing of expertise. The intense robotics competitions will inspire creativity, while the products on display as well as keynotes will pave the way for more community-relevant solutions.”

The competitions are:

• 2nd AI Olympics With RealAIGym: Is AI Ready for Athletic Intelligence in the Real World? focusing on the physical or athletic intelligence of robots

• The Earth Rovers Challenge on remote robot navigation

• Robotic Construction Challenge and the euROBIN Manipulation Skill Versatility Challenge (MSVC) on robot manipulation

• Underwater Robotics Challenges on innovation and problem-solving in underwater robotics and artificial intelligence

• ROAD-IROS: Automatic Data Annotation Challenge for ROAD Dataset on perception and sensing

• 21st F1Tenth Autonomous Racing Competition

• IEEE RAS Quadruped Robot Challenge (QRC), focusing on navigation

In addition to these competitions, the Falcon Monitoring Challenge (FMC) will focus on advancing the field of wildlife tracking and conservation through the development of sophisticated, noninvasive monitoring systems.

Khalifa University

IROS 2024 will also include three keynote talks on ‘Robotic Competitions’ that will be moderated by Professor Lakmal Seneviratne, Director, Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems (KU-CARS), Khalifa University. The keynotes will be delivered by Professor Pedro Lima, Institute for Systems and Robotics, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of. Lisbon, Portugal; Dr. Timothy Chung, General Manager, Autonomy and Robotics, Microsoft, US; and Dr. Ubbo Visser, President of the RoboCup Federation, Director of Graduate Studies, and Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of Miami, US.

The forums at IROS 2024 will include:

• Robotics in Africa Forum

• Marine Robotics in Ocean Decade Initiative for Sustainable Development

• Robots for Sustainability and Sustainable Robots

• Government Forum: Funding for Robotics Research, Human-Avatars Symbiosis: Can you imagine a future society where you can remotely control multiple avatars?

• Moonshot R&D Program Goal 3 Forum. Envisioning a Future of Human-Robot Co-living: Potential for Robotics to Transform Human Lives

Other forums include:

• Sustainable Medical and Surgical Robotics

• Empowering Diverse Voices in Robotics, Robotics & AI in the UAE: Research Innovation and Entrepreneurship

• Europe Regulates Artificial Intelligence: the Challenge for Robotics, Industrial Opportunities and Socio-Economic Impact of Medical Robotics

• The Future of Work: AI-Enhanced Robotics and Human Interaction Research in M3S

• Robots for a Better Tomorrow: Wellbeing Through Advanced Technology.

One of the largest and most important robotics research conferences in the world, IROS 2024 provides a platform for the international robotics community to exchange knowledge and ideas about the latest advances in intelligent robots and smart machines. A total of 3,344 paper submissions representing 60 countries, have been received from researchers and scientists across the world. China tops the list with more than 1,000 papers, the US with 777, Germany with 302, Japan with 253, and the UK and South Korea with 173 each. The UAE remains top in the Arab region with 68 papers.

One of the largest and most important robotics research conferences in the world, IROS 2024 provides a platform for the international robotics community to exchange knowledge and ideas.

For eight consecutive years since 2017, Abu Dhabi has remained first on the world’s safest cities list, according to online database Numbeo, which assessed 329 global cities for the 2024 listing. This reflects the emirate’s ongoing efforts to ensure a good quality of life for citizens and residents. With a multicultural community, Abu Dhabi is home to people from more than 200 nationalities, and draws a large number of tourists to some of the top art galleries in the city such as Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, as well as other destinations such as Ferrari World Abu Dhabi and Warner Bros. World™ Abu Dhabi.

Because of its listing as one of the safest cities, Abu Dhabi continues to host several international conferences and exhibitions. Abu Dhabi is set to host the UNCTAD World Investment Forum, the 13th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference (MC13), the 12th World Environment Education Congress in 2024, and the IUCN World Conservation Congress in 2025.

IROS 2024 is sponsored by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, Abu Dhabi Convention and Exhibition Bureau, the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ), the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers (SICE), the New Technology Foundation, and the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES).

More information at https://iros2024-abudhabi.org/

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