Macbeth, William Shakespeare’s iconic play, is being reimagined as an interactive video game with a neo-noir vibe — and it’s being developed in part by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The game, titled Lili, is a “screen life thriller video game” where you’ll have access to a modern-day Lady Macbeth’s personal devices, according to a press release.

“Players will be immersed in a stylized, neo-noir vision of modern Iran, where surveillance and authoritarianism are part of daily life,” the release says. “The gameplay will feature a blend of live-action cinema within an interactive game format, giving players the chance to immerse themselves in the world of Lady Macbeth and make choices that influence her destiny.” It sounds kind of like a version of Macbeth inspired by Sam Barlow’s interactive thrillers.

The Royal Shakespeare Company is making the game in collaboration with iNK Stories, a New York-based indie studio and publisher that also made 1979 Revolution: Black Friday. It stars Zar Amir as “Lady Macbeth (Lili),” per the press release.

Lili is set to release “later in 2025.”

A software engineer has bought the website “OGOpenAI.com” and redirected it to DeepSeek, a Chinese AI lab that’s been making waves in the open source AI world lately.

Software engineer Ananay Arora tells TechCrunch that he bought the domain name for “less than a Chipotle meal,” and that he plans to sell it for more.

The move was an apparent nod to how DeepSeek releases cutting-edge open AI models, just as OpenAI did in its early years. DeepSeek’s models can be used offline and for free by any developer with the necessary hardware, similar to older OpenAI models like Point-E and Jukebox.

DeepSeek caught the attention of AI enthusiasts last week when it released an open version of its DeepSeek-R1 model, which the company claims performs better than OpenAI’s o1 on certain benchmarks. Outside of models such as Whisper, OpenAI rarely releases its flagship AI in an “open” format these days, drawing criticism from some in the AI industry. In fact, OpenAI’s reticence to release its most powerful models is cited in a lawsuit from Elon Musk, who claims that the startup isn’t staying true to its original nonprofit mission.

• Anthropic CEO has promised several updates to Claude, including one that gives it memory.
• This means the AI can remember things and bring it up in future conversations.
• It remains to be seen how this performs and is slated to arrive in the coming months.

The Claude AI chatbot will receive major upgrades in the months ahead, including the ability to listen and respond by voice alone. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei explained the plans to the Wall Street Journal at the World Economic Forum in Davos, including the voice mode and an upcoming memory feature.

Essentially, Claude is about to get a personality boost, allowing it to talk back and remember who you are. The two-way voice mode promises to let users speak to Claude and hear it respond, creating a more natural, hands-free conversation. Whether this makes Claude a more accessible version of itself or will let it mimic a human on the phone is questionable, though.

Google has agreed to acquire a part of HTC’s extended reality (XR) business for $250 million, expanding its push into virtual and augmented reality hardware following the recent launch of its Android XR platform.

The deal involves transferring some of the HTC VIVE engineering staff to Google and granting non-exclusive intellectual property rights, according to the Taiwanese firm. HTC will retain rights to use and develop the technology.

The transaction marks the second major deal between the companies after Google’s $1.1 billion purchase of HTC’s smartphone unit in 2017.

Google said the acquisition will accelerate Android XR platform development across headsets and glasses. The move comes as tech giants race to establish dominance in XR technology, with Apple and Meta maintaining their lead in the virtual reality market.

Google and HTC will explore additional collaboration opportunities, they said.

• It’s an ultra-wide zoom lens designed for full-frame cameras like the Canon EOS R8
• Practically identical design to the RF 28-70mm F2.8 IS STM
• A £1,249 list price – we’ll confirm US and Australia pricing asap

Canon has unveiled its latest ultra-wide angle zoom lens for it’s full-frame mirrorless cameras, the RF 16-28mm F2.8 IS STM, and I got a proper feel for it during a hands-on session hosted by Canon ahead of its launch.

It features a bright maximum F2.8 aperture across its entire 16-28mm range, and is a much more compact and affordable option for enthusiasts than Canon’s pro RF 15-35mm F2.8L IS USM lens. Consider the 16-28mm a sensible match for Canon’s beginner and mid-range full-frame cameras instead, such as the EOS R8.

Scale AI is facing its ​​third lawsuit over alleged labor practices in just over a month, this time from workers claiming they suffered psychological trauma from reviewing disturbing content without adequate safeguards.

Scale, which was valued at $13.8 billion last year, relies on workers it categorizes as contractors to do tasks like rating AI model responses.

Earlier this month, a former worker sued alleging she was effectively paid below the minimum wage and misclassified as a contractor. A complaint alleging similar issues was also filed in December 2024.

This latest complaint, filed January 17 in the Northern District of California, is a class action complaint that focuses on the psychological harms allegedly suffered by six people who worked on Scale’s platform Outlier.

The plaintiffs claim they were forced to write disturbing prompts about violence and abuse — including child abuse — without proper psychological support, suffering retaliation when they sought mental health counsel. They say they were misled about the job’s nature during hiring and ended up with mental health issues like PTSD due to their work. They are seeking the creation of a medical monitoring program along with new safety standards, plus unspecified damages and attorney fees.

One of the plaintiffs, Steve McKinney, is the lead plaintiff in that separate December 2024 complaint against Scale. The same law firm, Clarkson Law Firm of Malibu, California, is representing plaintiffs in both complaints.

Clarkson Law Firm previously filed a class action suit against OpenAI and Microsoft over allegedly using stolen data — a suit that was dismissed after being criticized by a district judge for its length and content. Referencing that case, Joe Osborne, a spokesperson for Scale AI, criticized Clarkson Law Firm and said Scale plans “to defend ourselves vigorously.”

“Clarkson Law Firm has previously — and unsuccessfully — gone after innovative tech companies with legal claims that were summarily dismissed in court. A federal court judge found that one of their previous complaints was ‘needlessly long’ and contained ‘largely irrelevant, distracting, or redundant information,’” Osborne told TechCrunch.

Osborne said that Scale complies with all laws and regulations and has “numerous safeguards in place” to protect its contributors like the ability to opt-out at any time, advanced notice of sensitive content, and access to health and wellness programs. Osborne added that Scale does not take on projects that may include child sexual abuse material. 

In response, Glenn Danas, partner at Clarkson Law Firm, told TechCrunch that Scale AI has been “forcing workers to view gruesome and violent content to train these AI models” and has failed to ensure a safe workplace.

“We must hold these big tech companies like Scale AI accountable or workers will continue to be exploited to train this unregulated technology for profit,” Danas said. 

• A new ‘Circle to Search’ trick is available on Samsung’s latest Galaxy phones
• It lets you sing or hum songs that you want to identify
• The feature worked well in our early hands-on demos

Sure, Shazam and the Google Assistant, or even Gemini, can help you identify a song that’s playing in a coffee shop or while you’re out and about. But what about that tune you have stuck in your head that you’re desperate to put a name to?

Suffice it to say, that’s not a problem I have for anything by Springsteen, but it does happen for other songs, and Samsung’s latest and greatest – the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra – might just be able to cure this. It’s courtesy of the latest expansion of Google’s Circle to Search on devices.

Caffeinated Capital, a San Francisco venture firm started by a solo capitalist Raymond Tonsing, is raising a fifth fund of $400 million, according to a regulatory filing.

The firm, an early investor in software company Airtable and defense startup Saronic, has already raised $160 million toward the fund. If Caffeinated hits its target, it will be the 15-year-old firm’s largest capital haul date. Although the outfit didn’t announce its previous fund, PitchBook data estimates that Caffeinated closed its fund four with a total of $209 million in commitments.

Although Tonsing was Caffeinated’s only general partner until four years ago, Varun Gupta, who led data science and machine learning at Affirm, joined him as a second general partner in 2020.

Tonsing was an early investor in Affirm, a buy-now-pay-later platform that went public in 2021. The firm’s other notable exits include A/B testing startup Optimizely, which PitchBook estimates was sold for $600 million in 2020.

Strands is the NYT’s latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it’s great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc’s Wordle today page for the original viral word game.