Month: November 2022

Director James Cameron has spent more than a decade making the first of a planned four sequels to his 2009 blockbuster film Avatar. We got our first peek at the first of those sequels, Avatar: The Way of Water, in May with a brief, visually stunning teaser that showcased Cameron's undisputed skill at world-building. Yet despite enthusiasm for the visuals, the overall response was fairly muted. Perhaps more audience excitement for the upcoming film will emerge now that we have the full official trailer.

As we've reported previously, Cameron wrote a treatment for Avatar way back in 1994, and it was supposed to be the director's next big project after he wrapped his blockbuster Titanic. But Cameron realized the technology did not yet exist to make the film he envisioned. He spent several years working to develop what he needed, including a cutting-edge virtual camera system to direct the motion-capture scenes. (He compared it to "a big, powerful game engine.")

The finished film set new box office records upon its release; it was the highest-grossing film until Avengers: Endgame briefly took the top spot in 2019. (A March 2021 Chinese rerelease put Avatar back on top.) Critics were mostly positive, praising the technological achievements, although some pointed out that the storytelling suffered. Cameron also consulted with multiple scientists while designing the world of Pandora (a moon orbiting a gas giant exoplanet called Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri A system). Avatar was nominated for nine Oscars, ultimately winning Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Visual Effects.

Enlarge (credit: ASRock)

Adding a secondary monitor to your setup is an easy office hack for boosting productivity. But not every desk or office has room for another display, even a small portable monitor. That's why we're intrigued by a new ASRock kit, as niche as it may be.

ASRock's 13.3-inch Side Panel Kit, spotted by Tom's Hardware on Tuesday, includes a 13.3-inch IPS display meant to attach to the inside of a desktop PC's side panel. This is a convenient design for people who are low on space but still keep their tower on a desk. The kit provides a 1920×1080 display with a 60 Hz refresh rate, 300 nits of brightness, and an 800:1 contrast ratio, making its specs comparable to dedicated portable monitors in the $200 range, such as Lenovo's ThinkVision M14 (although, when we tested the M14, we recorded a notably higher contrast ratio, 1,064:1, than ASRock's panel claims).

The installation kit comes with two long and two short brackets, plus double-sided tape strips and five cable clips. (credit: ASRock)

There are some major caveats, though.

Enlarge / Two views of a Dwarf Fortress scene, in the original graphics and in the upcoming Steam/Itch.io release. (credit: Kitfox Games / Kevin Purdy)

The version of Dwarf Fortress that looks and sounds more like a game than a DOS-era driver glitch will be unearthed on December 6, the creators and its publisher announced Tuesday.

There's a trailer, a $30 price, and, should things go as planned, versions for Steam and Itch.io arriving that day. Buying these editions gets you a version with graphics, music, an improved UI and keyboard shortcuts, and—perhaps most importantly—a tutorial. It also supports the brothers who have worked on the game for more than 16 years, offering it for free and subsisting on donations. That free version of the game, ASCII graphics and all, will remain available.

You can see the difference in looks in the release trailer:

Enlarge / Two views of a Dwarf Fortress scene, in the original graphics and in the upcoming Steam/Itch.io release. (credit: Kitfox Games / Kevin Purdy)

The version of Dwarf Fortress that looks and sounds more like a game than a DOS-era driver glitch will be unearthed on December 6, the creators and its publisher announced Tuesday.

There's a trailer, a $30 price, and, should things go as planned, versions for Steam and Itch.io arriving that day. Buying these editions gets you a version with graphics, music, an improved UI and keyboard shortcuts, and—perhaps most importantly—a tutorial. It also supports the brothers who have worked on the game for more than 16 years, offering it for free and subsisting on donations. That free version of the game, ASCII graphics and all, will remain available.

You can see the difference in looks in the release trailer:

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | NurPhoto)

Twitter won't restore banned accounts until after next week's midterm election, Elon Musk wrote in a tweet early on Wednesday. That means former President Donald Trump and others banned by the pre-Musk Twitter won't be allowed back just yet.

"Twitter will not allow anyone who was de-platformed for violating Twitter rules back on platform until we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks," Musk wrote. "Twitter's content moderation council will include representatives with widely divergent views, which will certainly include the civil rights community and groups who face hate-fueled violence."

Twitter banned Trump after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, explaining that "we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence." Musk said in May that Twitter's decision to ban Trump was "morally wrong and flat-out stupid" and that he would reverse the ban if he completed his then-pending acquisition of Twitter. He also said that "permanent bans should be extremely rare and really reserved for accounts that are bots or spam."