Shane Wighton of StuffMadeHere spent months poring over his robotic golf club’s algorithms, fine-tuning the improvement to truly understand ball physics. It now allows the thing to completely comprehend the complexities of ball movement and plot paths to overcome notoriously difficult mini golf holes designed to confound even the best players. The cameras installed around the course monitor the club, ball, and cup with laser-like precision at all times, feeding into the raw data that the system utilizes to make choices.

To complete the initial scan of each hole, someone must sit there and carefully drag a ball covered in reflective markings along each wall, ramp, and floor, while another person activates the optical sensor to only focus on the portions he actually needs. This keeps the captured geometry from becoming disorganized and full of errors. All scan data is then sent into a physics engine named MuJoCo. This program does forward simulations of the ball after impact, accounting for each bounce, skid, and roll that the ball makes, all of which is influenced by surface friction and bounciness levels.

However, matching the simulation to reality has proven to be a challenge. To ensure accuracy, he conducted a series of repeated tests, using motion capture recordings of real balls as a benchmark. An automatic solution attempted to get the numbers correct, but Wighton had to go in and manually change things until the virtual bounces matched exactly what the cameras observed in the real world.

Speed became the next issue he had to address. As it stands, a full simulation would take too long to complete while a player swings the club, so Wighton ended up running thousands of possible club angles and swing speeds ahead of time, for every possible ball starting position, and then each successful sequence that ended up in the cup was added to a large database of stored sequences.

When a real person swings the club, the cameras record the motion from the moment they begin the backswing, and the program takes action. It instantly compares the observed path of the club to a database of stored sequences, selects the winning one, and sends a signal to the motor on the club shaft. The motor whips the club head round in less than a second to the exact angle required for that sequence, and because the club head can swivel around a vertical axis without digging into the ground, the adjustment is seamless even during a quick swing.

Bounces on the ball, however, provide a whole new level of complexity. Following a collision with a wall, the ball’s spin might cause it to fly off at an angle or curve. The simulation accounts for this by considering the whole contact dynamics, rather than simply treating it as mirror reflections. Wighton devised a grid of measured points to capture slight slopes and abnormalities on the ground surfaces he dealt with, as they were not always perfectly level. This means that the physics engine may treat the landscape precisely as it is, rather than assuming everything is smooth as silk.

The heat from the lights and bodies in the room causes the camera tripods to expand somewhat, which would otherwise throw the camera’s precision off. To counteract this, he placed certain fixed reference markers in view, allowing the program to detect these little shifts and correct the entire coordinate system on the fly, ensuring that positions remain accurate even in difficult scenarios. Players simply push a button on the grip, swing the club as usual, and see the club head rotate in midair. The ball follows the predetermined course, soars past obstructions, and lands in the cup, even on holes that appear to be engineered to end your winning streak.

Qualcomm’s next flagship chip is starting to take shape as early leaks suggest the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 might be far less of a compromise than expected.

According to regular tipster Digital Chat Station, Qualcomm is preparing both a standard and Pro version of the chipset. But based on the latest details, the gap between the two may not be as wide as in previous generations.

The biggest takeaway is that the standard model is tipped to use a new-generation Oryon CPU, which could be shared with the Pro variant. That’s a notable shift. It hints that both chips will be built on the same core architecture. They will not split performance tiers as aggressively. The main difference, at least so far, comes down to cache, with the standard chip said to feature 6MB of system-level cache. Meanwhile, the Pro model is expected to push higher.

Jay from the Plasma Channel wanted to take cooking off the grid, eliminating gas and those pesky open flames in the process. He pulled off the trick by putting together a portable burner that generates plasma discharges using rechargeable batteries and blasts them directly into a metal pan. Result? Slap this thing down on a table or picnic blanket and you’ll have a sizzling hot meal in minutes, like scrambled eggs or crispy bacon.

Jay’s plasma research resulted in a system of four distinct high-voltage sources arranged in a square formation. Each starts with a spark bouncing between electrodes that are only one centimeter apart. When the spark forms and is pushed up by the heat rising from it, it strikes the pan sitting on top, and voilà! Four of them functioning together means that the heat is uniformly distributed across the bottom of the pan. It’s a 600-watt beast that can cook two complete dinners on a single charge.

Fire-Maple “Fixed Star 1” Backpacking and Camping Stove System | Outdoor Propane Cooking Gear | Portable…

• HIGHLY EFFICIENT – Our industry leading heat exchange technology minimizes wind impact and reduces boiling times by up to 30% compared to traditional…
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The batteries power everything, in this case two massive lithium-polymer packs with a total output of twenty amp-hours. That implies the stove does not require a wall outlet to operate. A cooling fan prevents the electronics from overheating during extended operation. The outside shell is held together with strong adhesive and 3D printed elements, and the translucent panels let you to watch the arcs burning while the stove is in action.

The custom coils, however, are the true core of the system. Jay created resin formers, coiled thousands of turns of thin wire on a machine, and then sealed it all up with more resin, making sure to remove all air bubbles. Trapped air would simply generate a rapid flashover, frying the coil. He upgraded the driver circuits to higher-quality capacitors and transistors because the off-the-shelf ones were failing under load.

One of the initial issues was that the system kept burning up the circuit boards because all four drivers were attached to the same ground ring and were essentially battling each other. So Jay realized he needed to rewire each coil output to its own dedicated electrode pair; voila, no more electrical coupling and smooth sailing. Then there was the issue with the stainless steel bolts; at first, they were producing problems because the surface oxides were making poor connections and melting under current, but swapping to brass resolved that quickly.

When you turn this device on, you hear a continuous hum from the drivers and fan, but when it’s at full power, the arcs produce a wilder, louder sound. The plasma channels are stretching and stabilizing. A thermal camera will show you the pan transitioning from cold to cooking temperature in about a minute. Water tests also proved that energy is being transferred: fifty milliliters of water being heated from seventy to one hundred seventy degrees in just over six minutes, even at reduced power. The plasma itself is a warm 6000 degrees Fahrenheit.
[Source]

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s the super-long one as always on Saturdays, and a few of the clues are tricky. But if you play all the other New York Times games, 13-Across will be easy. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: What people pay Extra for?
Answer: GUM

4A clue: Pre-meal prayer
Answer: GRACE

6A clue: Physicist Bohr
Answer: NIELS

7A clue: Line up a shot
Answer: AIM

8A clue: Photo ___ (P.R. events)
Answer: OPS

10A clue: “Zootopia,” but not “Zoolander”
Answer: PGMOVIE

12A clue: TV show with the initials “TV”
Answer: THEVIEW

13A clue: New York Times game with weaving, interconnected answers
Answer: STRANDS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: More bleak
Answer: GRIMMER

2D clue: Dubai’s country, for short
Answer: UAE

3D clue: Nickname of Seth and Evan’s friend in “Superbad”
Answer: MCLOVIN

4D clue: “See you in the mornin’!”
Answer: GNIGHT

5D clue: Fancy term for “noticed”
Answer: ESPIED

7D clue: Many N.Y.C. addresses: Abbr.
Answer: APTS

9D clue: Uses a needle and thread
Answer: SEWS

11D clue: Egg cells
Answer: OVA

Hastings will not stand for re-election to the company board at its June AGM and will instead ‘focus on his philanthropy and other pursuits’.

Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings is to step aside as chair of the company’s board in June, the streaming giant announced in a first-quarter earnings letter to shareholders yesterday (16 April) that caused stocks to fall with its lower-than-expected forecasts for Q2.

For Q1, the company declared revenue of $12.25bn, year-on-year growth of 16.2pc, operating income of $3.96bn at a margin of 32.3pc and net income of $5.28bn, while diluted earnings per share (EPS) was reported at $1.23. Each of these metrics was higher than the forecast given in the company’s Q4 earning report.

However, the letter’s forecasts for the April, May and June quarter – in terms of, for example, revenue ($12.57bn), year-on-year growth (13.5pc) and diluted EPS ($0.78) – are pessimistic in comparison to stock market predictions, according to Bloomberg, which noted that Netflix shares fell by around 9pc as a result of the Q2 estimates.

In delivering its results and forecasts, the quarterly letter also outlined three “areas of focus” for achieving the company’s “goals”: delivering “more entertainment value” to customers, leveraging technology to improve its service and “improving monetisation”.

Netflix is co-led by dual CEOs Ted Sarandos, who earned $53.9m in 2025, and Greg Peters, who made $53.19m last year; departing chair and co-founder Reed Hasting was the CEO for 25 years after Netflix was created in 1997.

The letter referenced the abandoned deal for Netflix to buy Warner Bros, suggesting the price wasn’t “right” – rival Paramount agreed to buy Warner for $110bn in February in a deal awaiting shareholder and regulatory approval.

Sarandos and Peters paid tribute to the departing Hastings in the letter, calling him “a true history-maker”, the entertainment platform’s “biggest champion” and “part of our DNA”.

Hastings co-founded Netflix in 1997 with Marc Randolph and brought it from an online DVD rental delivery service that went public in 2002 into the realm of streaming. He is a board member of Bloomberg, Anthropic and various educational nonprofit organisations.

The shareholders’ letter said he would not stand for re-election to the company board at its June AGM and would instead “focus on his philanthropy and other pursuits”.

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from the flood-the-zone-with-shit dept

Two trends that I’m very interested in are about to collide and it’s going to be a mess.

By now, some of you will be tired of my calling for a more nuanced discussion about the use of AI and machine learning tools in the video game industry. I get it, but I’m also not going to pretend like I don’t still hold that very same view. AI tools are just that: tools. If the tools are good and used at the behest of the artists in the industry to make better games, that’s a good thing. If they upend artistic intent or simply suck, that’s a bad thing. And on the matter of jobs within the industry, if there is a net reduction in jobs, that’s bad! If AI lowers the barriers of entry for otherwise creative people and the result is even more jobs within the industry spread over more studios and, importantly, more cultural output in the form of games, that’s good!

Except when it’s not. And even if the AI evangelists are right, or those of us who see the possibility that AI use will ultimately result in more people in the industry and more games released to the public are right, that can still present very real problems within the industry. And I think there could be a serious one looming for storefronts like Steam.

This concern calcified in my head somewhat when I came across indie publisher Mike Rose, known for producing Yes, Your Grace, talking about just what all of this output could mean on Steam specifically.

“From a publisher perspective specifically, it’s mega annoying,” Rose tells GamesRadar+ in an interview, echoing other publishers like Hooded Horse. “If we thought the number of games being launched on Steam was crazy before, now it’s just impossible. During the last Next Fest, it seemed like around 1/3 of the demos had either AI generated key art, and/or AI-generated content. So now we have that to compete with too. Hurray!” Publishing lead John Buckley of Palworld developer Pocketpair called out the same AI trend in the latest Steam Next Fest.

Steam, as a focal point for the more open PC gaming market, is the clearest barometer for the rising quantity of games, with over 20,000 releases fighting for space every year. Even with Valve sticking to AI content disclosures for games listed on Steam, the rise of AI tools will only contribute to the torrent of content flooding the platform as games – or at least AI-made things game-shaped enough to be sold – become easier to produce.

Claims that there are too many games being released on Steam certainly isn’t new, nor has it historically been tied to anything to do with artificial intelligence. There have been complaints about this, as well as Valve’s apparent lack of interest in playing any real curation role, going back to 2023. Wait, make that 2020. Oh, wait, it actually goes back to 2015.

But while Steam hasn’t yet collapsed under the weight of its own volume of releases on the platform to date, the through line to all of that criticism has been Valve’s stoic apathy towards keeping up with the volume when it comes to helping its customers navigate the flood.

And that could be a very real problem for the platform. Steam’s value to the consumer, besides being the most recognizable outlet for PC gaming, is in its curation capabilities. To date, other than providing some search filters and a few tools to personalize the recommendations it makes for new titles to you, Steam has mostly left curation up to the customer themselves, or third-party list-makers. Meanwhile, the process for listing a game on Steam has not changed appreciably in the past several years. It’s still the same $100 entry fee to get your title listed. You still have to jump through all the registration steps with Steamworks, generate an app ID, build the store page, upload your assets. Then you wait for Valve to do its own review before you can publish your game, but that mostly amounts to ensuring that you’re compliant with Steam policies, that the game can launch successfully, and that’s about it.

With a potential flood of PC games coming, that sure doesn’t feel like enough to keep the platform from becoming an unnavigable wasteland where you can’t tell the gems from the slop. And, barring any new rules limiting to what degree AI can be used in game creation, that tidal wave is coming.

On this point, Rose focuses on “the elephant in the room” here: “It’s probably never going away again.”

“People can now make stuff by telling a bot to make it for them, and you know, the thing is that humans are mega lazy,” he reasons. “I don’t even mean that as an insult! We just are. So for a lot of people, if there’s a choice between ‘spend a bunch of time and money making a cool thing,’ vs ‘type some prompts into a program and the thing is made for me very quickly’ – the average person is going to pick the latter.

And that’s the thing really: Our feelings on it don’t matter. It doesn’t matter that a bunch of us don’t like genAI. It’s gonna get used now, and it’ll get used more and more. As the kids say: Video games are cooked.”

I don’t think that video games are cooked, but his point that AI will be in use in the industry is the one I’ve been making for months now. We have to be talking about how it will be used, not if. That ship has sailed.

And if Steam is still going to be of any value at all to the consumer, Valve better be thinking right damned now how it’s going to get more involved in the curation of what shows up on its platform.

Filed Under: ai, curation, filtering, steam, video games

Companies: valve