The story of Sung Jinwoo in Solo Leveling is characterized by his special power of creating a shadow army. He is capable of using his System power to pull out shadows from enemies who are defeated and command them using the word “Arise.” From being called the weakest hunter, Jinwoo becomes the powerful Shadow Monarch and creates his own army. In this article, we will rank all of Jinwoo’s shadows based on their powers.
11. Kaisel
Kaisel is a wyvern-type shadow obtained by Sung Jinwoo during his journey in the Demon Castle arc of Solo Leveling. He was originally known as Kaisellin and served as a demon baron. After defeating them in battle, Jinwoo extracted the wyvern’s shadow and added him to his growing army. He was later given the name Kaisel and classified as a Knight Grade shadow.
However, Kaisel’s biggest drawback is his limited role in the story. Instead of fighting, he is mostly used as a flying mount. This means fans never get to see his full combat potential. Even though he looks like a powerful dragon, his lack of action makes him rank lower compared to shadows like Igris or Beru.
10. Min Byung-Gyu
Min Byung-Gyu stands out as one of the most emotional cases in Solo Leveling. As an S-Rank hunter, he was respected for his combat ability, stealth, and healing powers, making him one of the best support-type fighters in Korea.
After he died during a raid, Sung Jinwoo temporarily extracted his shadow. Jinwoo did this mostly because he wanted to use his healing skill at this critical moment. Yet, rather than forcing him to stay as his shadow, Jinwoo chose to let him go, which demonstrates his respect for Byung-Gyu.
9. Greed
In the story Solo Leveling, the character Hwang Dongsoo is portrayed as an S-Rank hunter who seeks revenge by killing Sung Jinwoo because of the death of his brother. His greed makes him do crazy things, even hurting innocent people like Yoo Jinho.
After being defeated, Jinwoo turned him into a General Grade shadow. While Greed is one of the stronger shadows in terms of raw power, he does not get enough opportunities to shine in battle compared to top-tier shadows.
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8. Jima
In Solo Leveling, Jima was originally the Boss Naga of a high-end A-Rank Gate. During a joint raid between the Ahjin Guild and the Knights Guild, Sung Jinwoo faced this powerful serpent-like enemy and defeated him with ease.
After his extraction, Jima still possessed his core skills, making him an Elite Knight Grade shadow, which proves his high value in battle. His durability, regeneration, and ability to change size make him suitable for fighting on the front lines. Although he might not be as popular as other powerful shadows, such as Igris or Beru, Jima is a powerful warrior in Jinwoo’s army.
7. Iron
Iron, also known as Kim Chul, is a tank-type shadow in Solo Leveling. He was made a shadow by Sung Jinwoo after the Red Gate incident. Iron’s high durability, defense, and regeneration skills make him suitable for use as a damage absorber in battles. As an Elite Knight Grade shadow, Iron might not be the best attacker, but he makes a great protector in the army of Jinwoo.
6. Kamish
Kamish was a legendary dragon in Solo Leveling, known as humanity’s greatest calamity. He was incredibly powerful and required five top S-Rank hunters to defeat him. Much later, Sung Jinwoo used Shadow Extraction on Kamish’s preserved body and successfully revived him. However, the revival was only temporary because Kamish’s mana had faded over time. As a result, the dragon vanished shortly after. Despite this, Kamish’s legacy remains as one of the most powerful and feared monsters in the series.
5. The Ant Queen
In the world of Solo Leveling, the Ant Queen was the last boss of the dangerous Jeju Island S-Rank Gate. She played a crucial part in the creation of the ant army by constantly producing more powerful and advanced ants over the course of time. This made the Ant Queen one of the biggest threats to hunters.
During the raid, she showed impressive durability and strength by surviving against a team of S-Rank hunters. Later, Sung Jinwoo attempted to turn her into a shadow. However, due to interruptions, she could not remain a permanent shadow soldier. Despite this, she was powerful enough to be considered equal to a high-level S-Rank fighter.
4. Tusk
Tusk is one of the strongest mage-type shadows in the army of Sung Jinwoo in Solo Leveling. He was originally Kargalgan, a powerful High Orc shaman and the boss of a Hunters Guild Gate. After defeating him in a tough battle, Jinwoo extracted his shadow and renamed him Tusk.
Tusk is a master of magic-based attacks, including fire, shields, and size-related spells. As a General Grade, with the enhancement of the Orb of Avarice, he is arguably the strongest and most potent shadow in the entire army.
3. Igris
Igris is a very vital character in the Solo Leveling series, being the very first shadow that Sung Jinwoo gets. He was once a loyal knight of Ashborn, sent to evaluate whether Jinwoo was worthy of becoming the new Shadow Monarch.
However, after being defeated, Igris joins Jinwoo and remains loyal throughout the series. He also becomes increasingly stronger, achieving Marshal Grade, which is a testament to his potential. Igris is arguably the best close-range fighter that Jinwoo has, owing to his proficiency in sword fighting, speed, telekinesis, and regeneration.
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2. Beru
Beru is considered one of the strongest and most popular shadows of Sung Jinwoo in Solo Leveling. He was once an Ant King, a fearsome monster that was born from the Ant Queen, who commanded the ant army in the Jeju Island arc. Beru was already strong enough to win against several S-Rank hunters with ease, even before becoming a shadow.
However, he was defeated by Sung Jinwoo in a fierce fight, turning him into a shadow. After that, Beru became one of the most trusted soldiers of Sung Jinwoo. Beru has the abilities of super speed, super strength, flying, and healing, which make him a complete character. This is why he is considered one of the top three strongest shadows.
1. Bellion
Bellion is the strongest shadow in the army of Sung Jinwoo in Solo Leveling. He was originally the Grand Marshal of Ashborn’s shadow army and is considered the first shadow ever created using Ashborn’s power. When Jinwoo inherited the Shadow Monarch’s abilities, Bellion became part of his army as well.
As soon as Bellion arrives, he proves his superiority by defeating Beru in a fight, earning himself a higher rank than even the title of Marshal- Grand Marshal Grade. His power, speed, and proficiency with his weapons make him one of the best fighters, and his leadership skills make him Jinwoo’s right-hand man in a fight.
Finally, we conclude our ranking of the strongest shadows of Sung Jinwoo in Solo Leveling. From powerful warriors like Igris and Beru to the unmatched power of Bellion, Jinwoo’s army is filled with powerful warriors that make his journey even more exciting.
For years, existing consumer platforms have tried to keep users within their app by offering more services. After the rise of the AI chatbot, the trend is to have people use the assistant for both queries and actions without leaving the conversational flow. With its latest update, Yelp is letting people ask questions, get restaurant reservations, order food delivery, and book service professionals, all through its updated AI assistant.
In a demo seen by TechCrunch, the company’s SVP of product, Akhil Kuduvalli Ramesh, searched for hiking places to go with a dog without a leash; looked for takeout places along the way, with an option to place an order on Doordash; looked for restaurant recommendations for a weekend plan, with an option to check out availability and book a table; and queried about painting a friends’ new Victorian house without leaving the chat.
“We would really like consumers to reconceive Yelp as a place where they can ask questions and get answers, not just that, but also complete the action. That’s Yelp reconceiving from a review platform to an answers and action platform,” he told TechCrunch over a call. “Some of the investments we’re making will be in that lane.”
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Users can select a specific page for a restaurant or service when they tap on it, or ask more questions about the business. Yelp said that as the knowledge is grounded in details of the business on the platform, the business’s website, and user reviews, there is a scant chance of getting wrong answers.
The company is hosting the assistant in a new tab in the app, which is now placed in the center of the bottom navigation bar, so users are likely to visit it more often. The assistant will be available on iOS and Android at launch and will work with all businesses, including restaurants, retail shops, and attractions. The company said that the desktop version and rollout across all kinds of businesses are slated for later in the year.
Apart from fetching information, Yelp also announced integration with external providers to complete an action, like place an order or appointment. Users can now order food through DoorDash and Grubhub, book fitness or beauty appointments through Vagaro, a doctor’s appointment through ZocDoc, and a car repair through Repairpal. Plus, it also offers a Calendly integration for other kinds of businesses that allow appointment booking.
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Notably, all these actions will lead you to a specific provider’s app or page, meaning this is not “agentic” in nature, where the entire transaction is completed within the chat window. Kuduvalli mentioned that while the redirections are the way Yelp is set up now, it might not “remain that way” in the future.
However, it’s hard to say how agentic pipelines might work with other services for cases when the user doesn’t specify whether they want to order food through DoorDash or Grubhub.
Besides the new AI assistant, Yelp is rolling out a few quality-of-life updates to the app. Last year, it launched the ability for people to scan a menu and see what dishes look like through photos other users posted. Now, users can look at those dishes within the app as they are scanning a menu.
Image Credits: YelpImage Credits:Yelp
What’s more, Yelp said that users will be able to search the media gallery of a business using natural language queries instead of keywords. Plus, the company will offer an AI-powered tagging and grouping feature for before and after photos to business owners to avoid manual work.
Electron Impressions encountered a problem that every aluminum foundry is all too familiar with: hydrogen gas seeping into molten aluminum and forming small gaps as the metal cools and hardened. Most people strive to remove those bubbles, but he chose to put them to good use instead.
Liquid aluminum absorbs hydrogen in much the same manner that water absorbs carbon dioxide. Water vapour in the air reacts with the hot metal surface, forming aluminum oxide and free hydrogen. At that point, the liquid metal breaks down the hydrogen molecules into individual atoms, which then dissolve directly into the melt. Sieverts’ law describes how much hydrogen is allowed in, and it all boils down to the square root of the gas pressure above it. So, if you boost the pressure slightly or keep the metal hot long enough, a lot of hydrogen will flow in.
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However, once the melt begins to cool, solubility plummets dramatically. The gas in the solution just leaves and creates bubbles. And then, as the metal hardens, every last bit of hydrogen is pushed back out. The surrounding solid then retains the bubbles, making them permanent voids. Foundries typically consider this as a fault and attempt to eliminate it, but Electron Impressions saw a chance to intentionally create the holes and then fill them with something far superior.
He chose to work with an aluminum-copper alloy because it responds well when cooled. The combination reaches a temperature where one phase, known as theta or Al2Cu, begins to form first. So, by keeping the hydrogen-rich melt molten for a little longer, he ensured that the gas was absorbed thoroughly and uniformly. A steady steam of water vapor bubbled in through the crucible, providing both the necessary reaction and fresh hydrogen. Every single bubble left behind a thin layer of aluminum oxide. However, the majority of the action occurred within the liquid itself.
Once the alloy had absorbed enough hydrogen, he reduced the cooling rate. As the gas left the solution, the first huge voids appeared. Inside those enclosed regions, the theta phase could expand without influence from the surrounding liquid. Crystals began to form on the walls of the hydrogen bubble gradually, while the remainder of the alloy remained liquid for a little longer since its composition had not yet reached the final eutectic point. Then he poured out the remaining liquid, leaving the crystals in their own hollow chambers.
What you get resembles a metal geode. Slice it open to reveal a cavity lined with shiny metallic crystals looking back at you. These crystals only formed in the reducing environment provided by the hydrogen, thus they remained clean and free of any excess oxide layers. The amount and size of crystals vary depending on the copper content and cooling speed. More copper yields fewer thicker crystals. Less copper yields many smaller ones. Slow cooling favors the hydrogen-bubble approach, whereas quicker cooling is useful when you merely want to get the liquid out of the way and drain it out quickly. [Source]
A new research paper from Nvidia describes how an in-development update to ReSTIR (Reservoir Spatiotemporal Importance Resampling) path tracing addresses several of its flaws. While the technology is not quite ready for implementation in commercial games, it could enhance path tracing performance by 100% to 200%. Read Entire Article Source link
Every business seems to think that its customers want more AI. Yelp is the latest to add more artificial intelligence tools. The review site has upgraded its Yelp Assistant, an agentic AI chatbot, to work across all of Yelp’s categories. Yelp Assistant was initially launched in 2024 with a limited scope and then expanded in 2025.
With the latest update to its chatbot, Yelp Assistant can handle natural language queries for finding a specific local business. It can also be used to take some additional actions, such as making a restaurant reservation or ordering takeout. Yelp’s spring product updates introduced new third-party integrations with Vagaro, ZocDoc and Calendly. Yelp Assistant can also use these integrated services for booking appointments in related fields. The chatbot now has a dedicated Assistant tab in the iOS and Android apps, and it can also be accessed directly from business pages for certain fields, such as restaurants and retail shops. Support for all business types and a desktop version are planned for later in 2026.
Other AI features coming to Yelp include a personalized home page on mobile and extra photo discovery tools.
41-year-old Angelo Martino, a former employee of cybersecurity incident response company DigitalMint, has pleaded guilty to targeting U.S. companies in BlackCat (ALPHV) ransomware attacks in 2023.
Together with two other Sygnia and DigitalMint ransomware negotiators (33-year-old Ryan Clifford Goldberg and 28-year-old Kevin Tyler Martin), Martino was charged with conspiracy to interfere with interstate commerce by extortion, interference with interstate commerce by extortion, and intentional damage to protected computers.
Martino was initially identified only as “Co-Conspirator 1” in an October 2025 indictment, but was named in court documents unsealed in March. Martin and Goldberg also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct commerce by extortion and are facing up to 20 years in prison each.
According to court documents, while working as a negotiator for five victims, Martino shared confidential information about the victims’ negotiation positions and insurance policy limits with BlackCat ransomware operators, helping the cybercriminals extort the maximum possible amount.
Between April 2023 and April 2025, he was also involved in BlackCat ransomware attacks alongside accomplices Kevin Tyler Martin and Ryan Goldberg.
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While operating as BlackCat affiliates, the three defendants demanded ransom payments and threatened victims to leak data stolen before encrypting their systems. Prosecutors added that the three accomplices paid the BlackCat administrators a 20% share of all ransoms proceeds for access to the ransomware and extortion portal.
Their victims included at least five U.S. organizations, among them a financial services firm that paid $25,660,000 and a nonprofit that paid a $26,793,000 ransom, as well as law firms, school districts, medical facilities, and other financial services companies.
DigitalMint CEO Jonathan Solomon told BleepingComputer that the company condemned the previous malicious conduct and noted that Martin and Martino were fired after their actions were discovered.
“We strongly condemn these former employees’ criminal behavior, which violated our values, ethical standards, and the law. When we learned about the conduct, we immediately terminated both individuals,” Solomon said.
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The BlackCat ransomware operation has been linked by the FBI to more than 60 breaches between November 2021 and March 2022. In a separate advisory, the bureau added that the cybercrime gang collected at least $300 million in ransom payments from over 1,000 victims through September 2023.
AI chained four zero-days into one exploit that bypassed both renderer and OS sandboxes. A wave of new exploits is coming.
At the Autonomous Validation Summit (May 12 & 14), see how autonomous, context-rich validation finds what’s exploitable, proves controls hold, and closes the remediation loop.
Rooms come alive as thousands of LEDs illuminate in perfect time over a large 50×50 panel. Chris Maher took on this task by converting regular light strips into that massive display without breaking the bank or requiring several controllers. His finished presentation plays well on a single 12-volt power supply and some pretty tiny gear, offering professional-looking animations, text, and patterns.
Chris purchased 18 5-meter rolls of 12-volt SK6812 strips, each with 30 LEDs per metre, so obtaining the necessary components was simple. He then sliced each roll into three 50 LED portions, for a total of 54 segments, plus a few spares for safety. To provide support, he built a simple wooden frame out of one-by-two boards and some board-and-batten panels. The rest of the kit consisted of a few short sections of 18-gauge silicone wire, lever-style connections, rubber grommets, and a Gledopto 4D-EXMU controller loaded with WLED firmware, as well as a standard 12-volt power supply.
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First, he had to get the strips ready to go, so he carefully removed the connections from the ends, soldered the exposed pads, stripped, tinned, and prepared all of the wires for connection. This preliminary work made the final assembly a lot simpler. Next came the frame, which he built by stacking and screwing the boards together to form a solid rectangle the same size as the finished grid. He added some board-and-batten panels to the front to provide a firm surface to screw the strips to. He painstakingly wrote out the places of each strip, ensuring that they were perfectly spaced from edge to edge. He then placed the strips down in a zig-zag pattern, alternating direction row by row, to form a single long continuous data channel.
Holes were drilled above and below each strip, and rubber grommets were inserted to allow the wires to pass through to the back side while keeping the front of the display neat and free of connections. At several spots, lever-style connectors were utilized to connect the power and data lines, and separating the grid into four distinct data runs ensured that everything remained in sync.
The wiring was rather simple, as you just connect the voltage, ground, and data wires in that order. He utilized colored wire markers to keep track of which was which during assembly. The controller and power supply were fastened to the back with simple clips and wooden blocks. A French cleat system on the back makes it simple to mount the complete panel to a wall. Once he had everything configured inside the WLED interface, it was only a matter of selecting the SK6812 type, validating the 12-volt system, and specifying the 50×50 pattern with a vertical zig-zag orientation. Some brightness limitations were set to protect the power supply, and four data outputs were allocated to each block of LEDs. Once everything was saved, the display would respond promptly to requests for colors, effects, or scrolling messages. [Source]
Getting to try snippets of new games without having to spend extra money at your local rental store was awesome, and it was doubly cool for PC games, since rental outlets for such titles weren’t a thing. Some of my earliest PC gaming memories involved demo discs, and now thanks… Read Entire Article Source link
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is reportedly developing smart glasses that could be used to collect intelligence on immigrants and US citizens, journalist Ken Klippenstein reported. The devices would help ICE agents identify “illegal aliens” from a distance by capturing video and comparing it to biometric data like facial recognition and walking gait, according to budget documents seen by Klippenstein. The DHS wants to deploy the “ICE Glasses” by September 2027.
“The project will deliver innovative hardware, such as operational prototypes of smart glasses, to equip agents with real-time access to information and biometric identification capabilities in the field,” the document states. The glasses could allow agents to compare observed subjects against existing biometric databases and identify them in real time during interactions.
Such devices could help make surveillance of US residents “ubiquitous,” according to the report. “It might be portrayed as seeking to identify illegal aliens on the streets, but the reality is that a push in this direction affects all Americans, particularly protestors,” a DHS lawyer speaking on the condition of anonymity told Klippenstein.
The deployment of such devices is worrying to civil liberty groups, particularly in light of recent law enforcement activities under the Trump administration. The FBI was reportedly directed by the Department of Justice to “compile a list of groups or entities” who demonstrate “anti-Americanism,” according to a previous Klippenstein investigation.
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It’s not the first time smart glasses have come up in reports about the DHS. An investigation by The Independent last month found that ICE and Border Patrol agents in six states were using Meta’s AI smart glasses of their own accord, in possible violation of DHS rules. Congress has reportedly been notified of the DHS’s Ice Glasses project but has yet to comment publicly.
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Once a pioneer in videocards, S3’s legacy is today mostly found in details like texture compression as well as the strong presence of S3-branded videocards in the retro-computing world. There’s however a bit of a funny issue with some of these S3 cards in what is often called a ‘brightness bug’, but which as [Bits und Bolts] covers in a recent video was actually a hardware feature that we can once again blame composite video for.
This issue appears with AGP cards like the Trio 3D, Trio64 and ViRGE, where the brightness on the output signal is set too high, easily seen with the washed out look on boot, where especially on CRTs you’d expect to see the nice deep black background. Using an S3 Trio 3D 2X card that was saved from the e-waste pile this so-called Pedestal Bit responsible is investigated and tweaked to show what difference it makes.
At the core is adjusting the black level to make scanline changes easier to detect for TVs, which is no longer relevant for CRTs, LCDs, etc., while adjusting the brightness for one videocard in a system can cause issues elsewhere, such as when using said card alongside a 3dfx Voodoo II card or with inconsistent brightness levels inside 3D games.
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Fortunately S3 provided in-depth datasheets on their chips, including how to address the responsible bit. After demonstrating the principle, the BIOS is then patched to set this Pedestal Bit to the value of 0 on boot, solving the issue once and for all.
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