Month: August 2021

Enlarge / Deep Rock Galactic is a bug-killing, gold-mining good time. (credit: Ghost Ship Games)

I've never loved online multiplayer games. I'm always up for a few rounds of Smash Bros. or Towerfall on the couch with a couple beers and a couple buds, but when it comes to playing online, I never put in the work to find a group I could play with regularly. I also never wanted to invest the time it would take to really get good at highly competitive first-person shooters or MOBAs or battle royale games. But like so many things—working, parenting, my relationship to the concept of time—that began to change when the pandemic hit. Couch multiplayer was no longer an easy option, but I was starving for human interaction, so I turned to my PC.

What began with me and one other person intermittently dabbling in Age of Empires II eventually became a group of three-to-four people who were meeting to play games once or twice a week, every week. We started with group Geoguessr sessions and a sort of pass-the-controller-style thing where we'd chat while we took turns streaming American Truck Simulator. Then we played Ultimate Chicken Horse until we'd unlocked all the levels, and we stuck with Fall Guys through a couple of seasons. But it wasn't until a group replay of Left 4 Dead 2 that we realized what we really wanted was a game where we could work together. And when we were done with that, at long last, we landed on the game this piece is actually about: Deep Rock Galactic.

Deep Rock Galactic (hereafter DRG) is a co-op game where between one and four players suit up to explore the planet Hoxxes IV, collecting its resources and fighting its hostile insectoid inhabitants on behalf of a comically heartless, hypercapitalist space mining corporation. You only have a few distinct mission types to choose from, but the tunnels of Hoxxes IV (and the enemy encounters) are all procedurally generated and you can play as any one of four classes, making each playthrough unique. Also, you're all dwarves.

In the world of the new artsy, sci-fi film Strawberry Mansion, society has developed the technology to record dreams. And in typical over-the-top Silicon Valley fashion, if someone can track people's thoughts and actions, they'll definitely try to monetize it. The government now has a team of auditors that reviews these dreams and applies a small tax on certain goods that appear. Dreaming about a hot air balloon? That'll be $0.52. Have thoughts of maple trees dancing through your head? A modest $0.08, please.

James Preble (played by writer/director Kentucker Audley) works as a dream auditor. And he's been assigned to audit the dream inventory of an older woman named Bella (Penny Fuller). Unfortunately, Bella hasn't kept up with technology very well and all her dreams have been stored on old VHS tapes instead of the more modern (and USB-like) dreamstick technology. So, this audit will take a bit longer than usual. Accordingly, Preble ends up staying with Bella for a few days in the spare room of her giant, countryside house.

While Preble stays with Bella and inventories her dreams, however, he starts to take up some kind of relationship with the young Bella he meets in these dreams. And the longer he stays with present day Bella, the more he begins to learn there may be more to this dream inventory technology than he originally believed. "Do you believe your dreams are your own?" she asks one day over ominous afternoon tea.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Samsung is using artificial intelligence to automate the insanely complex and subtle process of designing cutting-edge computer chips.

The South Korean giant is one of the first chipmakers to use AI to create its chips. Samsung is using AI features in new software from Synopsys, a leading chip design software firm used by many companies. “What you're seeing here is the first of a real commercial processor design with AI,” says Aart de Geus, the chairman and co-CEO of Synopsys.

Others, including Google and Nvidia, have talked about designing chips with AI. But Synopsys’ tool, called DSO.ai, may prove the most far-reaching because Synopsys works with dozens of companies. The tool has the potential to accelerate semiconductor development and unlock novel chip designs, according to industry watchers.