Science and Tech

Uh Oh! The Crypto Collapse Has Reached The Real Financial System

Published

2 weeks ago

March 5, 2023

admin

uh-oh!-the-crypto-collapse-has-reached-the-real-financial-system

Liquidity trouble? | Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Silvergate, one of the most important banks in crypto, is in big trouble. Maybe existential trouble.

Silvergate didn’t start in crypto. It started in real estate. But in January 2014, the bank jumped into Bitcoin, a volatile year — Bitcoin started the year at $770 and closed above $300 in December. “Some of the companies that were being formed at the time to provide services to this budding Bitcoin space, many of them were struggling to find and maintain bank accounts,” said Silvergate CEO Alan Lane in a June 2022 episode of the Odd Lots podcast. “So that was really where we started.”

The focus at the bank was institutions — other companies, some of which work with…

Science and Tech

Three Months Later, Epic Is Still Silent About Free “Unreal Tournament 3 X”

Published

7 days ago

March 15, 2023

admin

three-months-later,-epic-is-still-silent-about-free-“unreal-tournament-3-x”

Gritty sci-fi warriors running with space guns. — Image: Epic Games

Remember when I told you how Epic Games accidentally revealed a new version of 2007’s Unreal Tournament 3 that would be completely free on Steam, EGS and GOG with “no microtransactions and no strings attached?” That was three months ago. Unreal Tournament 3 X still hasn’t been announced, and the company still declines to confirm or deny whether it’s happening at all.

“Thank you for checking in. We have no new information to share on this,” Epic Games comms director Dana Cowley tells The Verge.

As of this writing, an extensive description of the unreleased Unreal Tournament 3 X still appears on Steam. I check almost daily, and I don’t think the page has changed at all in the past three months. The game’s apparently been in the works…

Science and Tech

Google-Backed Anthropic Launches Claude, An AI Chatbot That’s Easier To Talk To

Published

7 days ago

March 15, 2023

admin

google-backed-anthropic-launches-claude,-an-ai-chatbot-that’s-easier-to-talk-to

An image showing a repeating pattern of brain illustrations — Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company founded by ex-OpenAI employees, has launched its AI chatbot, Claude. While the tool does much of what OpenAI’s ChatGPT can, Anthropic says its early clients report the tool’s “less likely to produce harmful outputs” and is “easier to converse with.”

Like OpenAI, Anthropic also has big tech backing: Google invested $300 million into Anthropic in February. The company’s chatbot — similar to ChatGPT — can provide summaries, answer questions, provide assistance with writing, and generate code. You can also tweak the chatbot’s tone, personality, and behavior, which sounds a bit more comprehensive than the “creative, balanced, and precise” settings Bing’s chatbot offers.

After working for the…

Science and Tech

Will You Be The Bearer Of Magic: The Gathering’s One Ring?

Published

7 days ago

March 15, 2023

admin

will-you-be-the-bearer-of-magic:-the-gathering’s-one-ring?

Image from the Magic: The Gathering Card the One Ring featuring a close up of a gold ring with Elvish script engraved in it. — Image: Wizards of the Coast

I’m usually immune to the charms of Magic: The Gathering’s special crossover sets (although the Bob Ross lands collection almost got me). But this Lord of the Rings-themed collection has pretty much obliterated all of my willpower because these cards are. so. frigging. cool!

I love seeing Frodo and Sam and Aragorn and Arwen rendered in cards that pay homage to their personalities and their big hero moments in the story. I think it’s really clever that Sam’s card, Samwise the Stouthearted, can be flashed in at any time and will return a dead creature to the battlefield, just like when he showed up to rescue Frodo from Shelob’s clutches.

Image: Wizards of the Coast

The card for Tom Bombadil — who is either whimsical…