AI Code Visualizer

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Blitter object

A blitter object (Bob) is a graphical element (GEL) used by the Amiga computer. Bobs are hardware sprite-like objects, movable on the screen with the help of the blitter coprocessor. == Overview == The AmigaOS GEL system consists of VSprites, Bobs, AnimComps (animation components) and AnimObs (animation objects), each extending the preceding with additional functionality. While VSprites are a virtualization of hardware sprites Bobs are drawn into a playfield by the blitter, saving and restoring the background of the GEL as required. The Bob with the highest video priority is the last one to be drawn, which makes it appear to be in front of all other Bobs. In contrast to hardware sprites Bobs are not limited in size and number. Bobs require more processing power than sprites, because they require at least one DMA memory copy operation to draw them on the screen. Sometimes three distinct memory copy operations are needed: one to save the screen area where the Bob would be drawn, one to actually draw the Bob, and one later to restore the screen background when the Bob moves away. An AnimComp adds animation to a Bob and an AnimOb groups AnimComps together and assigns them velocity and acceleration.
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2025 Bilderberg Conference

The 2025 Bilderberg Conference was held between June 12–June 15, 2025 at the Grand Hôtel in Stockholm, Sweden. The 2025 meeting was the 71st edition of the event. A Bilderberg Group press release listed 121 participants from 23 countries. Established in 1954 by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, Bilderberg conferences (or meetings) are an annual private gathering of the European and North American political and business elite. Events are attended by between 120 and 150 people each year invited by the Bilderberg Group's steering committee; including prominent politicians, CEOs, national security experts, academics and journalists. Bilderberg conferences operate under the Chatham House Rule, meaning that participants are sworn to secrecy and cannot disclose the identity or affiliation of any particular speaker. As a result, media are not invited and delegates rarely speak about what was discussed. Permits for two public demonstrations against the meeting were requested, one of which, a march from the Norrmalm Square to the Grand Hôtel, was planned for June 14. == Agenda == The key topics for discussion were announced on the Bilderberg website shortly before the meeting. These topics included: == Participants == A list of 121 participants was published on the Bilderberg website. This list may not be complete, as a source connected to the Bilderberg group told The Daily Telegraph in 2013 that some attendees do not have their names publicized. Prime Minister of Sweden Ulf Kristersson attended the meeting despite his name not appearing on the published participant list.
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Wonder.land

Wonder.land (stylised as wonder.land) is a musical with music by Damon Albarn and lyrics and book by Moira Buffini. Inspired by Lewis Carroll's novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871), it had its world premiere at the Palace Theatre in Manchester in July 2015 as part of the Manchester International Festival. The musical moved to London's Royal National Theatre in November 2015 before opening at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in 2016. Licencing for potential future smaller scale productions is held by United Agents UK. == Background == The musical is inspired by the novels Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, written by Lewis Carroll. It was announced on 21 January 2015 that the show would premiere in July of that year as part of the Manchester International Festival, with tickets going on sale the following day. The musical, a co-production by the Manchester International Festival, the Royal National Theatre and the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The idea for a musical based on Alice in Wonderland came from Manchester International Festival artistic director Alex Poots. Damon Albarn had collaborated with the festival on Monkey: Journey to the West and Dr Dee. The musical has a book by Moira Buffini. It was directed by Rufus Norris, with set design by Rae Smith, costume design by Katrina Lindsay, lighting design by Paule Constable, projections by 59 Productions and choreography by Javier De Frutos. The musical's score was composed by Damon Albarn, with lyrics by Moira Buffini, sound design by Paul Arditti and musical direction by David Shrubsole. == Production history == The musical began previews at the Palace Theatre in Manchester on 29 June 2015. It opened on 2 July for a limited run until 12 July. A revised version moved to the Royal National Theatre, where it ran at the Olivier Theatre from 27 November 2015 to 30 April 2016. The production had a limited run, from 7 to 16 June 2016, at the Theatre Du Chatelet in Paris. == Synopsis == This synopsis is based on the final version, as seen at the National Theatre and the Théâtre du Châtelet. Earlier performances significantly differed in songs and plot. === Act 1 === AI, the MC, explains that virtual technology is "a portal to boundless lands" ("Prologue"). Aly's mother, Bianca, is exasperated with her for spending the weekend indoors on her phone. Aly accompanies Bianca to the supermarket, and thinks that her life is being ruined by her parents due to dysfunctional problems ("Who's Ruining Your Life?") Her alcoholic father, Matt, is also at the supermarket; he and Bianca argue about their divorce and his gambling. Aly goes home and picks up her phone. She tries to engage with schoolmates, who bully her ("Network"). Aly begins to wish that she is someone else. She finds the virtual online game Wonder.land. In its strange world, Aly creates an avatar: beautiful, kind Alice ("Wonder.land"). Wonder.land has one rule: malice causes deletion from the game. Aly and Alice become friends and encounter the Cheshire Cat, who explains that you can be anyone you want ("Fabulous"). Aly decides to go on a quest; Alice follows the white rabbit down a hole, falling past unusual objects and musical notes ("Falling"). The next morning, Aly is too distracted by Wonder.land to listen to Bianca's complaints about her baby brother Charlie. She plays the game at school before her phone is confiscated by stern headmistress Ms Manxome, who tells her students that taking pleasures from them is for their own good ("I'm Right"). Aly goes to Ms Manxome's office to retrieve her phone. Ms Manxome returns it, warning that if she catches her with it again, "it's a beheading – I mean, detention." Aly sees the girls who bullied her, and they bully her again until a teacher arrives. Aly's friend, Luke, is late and is given detention. Aly goes on her phone and takes out her frustration and sadness on Alice, whose tears form a pool until she is interrupted by the quarrelsome twins Dum and Dee ("Freaks"). Alice tries to befriend them, but they insult her and Aly makes her fight them. Dum and Dee cry, and Aly and Alice see a large mouse who is attracted by Alice's fighting. They are joined by the Dodo, the Mock Turtle and Humpty, who all have problems. The Dodo is stressed because his parents want him to save the planet; Dum and Dee are dancers who hate pressure; Humpty has problems with her parents; the Mock Turtle lacks self-esteem, and the mouse is lustful. Wonderland is a hiding place from teenage life ("Crap Life"). Aly returns to reality when asked a math question she cannot answer. Confronting the three bullies, Aly mocks the facial hair of one and hides in the bathroom. She again immerses herself in Wonder.land, where Alice meets a Caterpillar who is obsessed with identity ("Who are You?"). Aly is interrupted by the girls, who ridicule her father's gambling addiction and poverty before beating her up. Aly seeks understanding from Alice, who tries to get Aly to tell her what is wrong. Aly tells Alice about her family and how she hates her life, and is surprised that Alice has similar problems ("Secrets"). Luke comes into the girls' bathroom because Kieran has threatened him with violence, and hides in a cubicle when Kieran enters. Aly defends Luke, and makes Kieran leave. Luke reveals that the reason Kieran hates him is because, like himself, he is gay. Aly is amazed, and they skip class and play games on their phones. Luke plays Zombie Swarm, and Aly plays Wonder.land. Ms Manxome enters the bathroom; Luke hides his phone, but Aly does not. Ms Manxome confiscates the phone for three months, and Aly and Luke leave. Ms Manxome finds that Aly did not lock her phone, and Alice is calling her. Ms Manxome begins to talk to her, and Alice thinks she is talking to Aly. Aly complains to Luke about her phone being taken away. Matt then takes them out for tea to celebrate his new job at the local garden centre ("In Clover"). At the tea shop, Matt maniacally dances on the tables and plays with spoons; asked to stop, he punches a waiter. Bianca arrives, and they argue again. Aly begins to notice that Wonder.land is invading reality; the MC emerges from a gigantic teapot, and the landscape outside becomes surreal ("Chances"). === Act 2 === Ms Manxome manipulates Alice around Wonder.land on Aly's phone, buys many things, and makes Alice's hair red ("Entre Act"). She tells Alice about her plans to dominate and destroy the online world, and Alice thinks she is talking to Aly ("Me"). Aly, Matt, Bianca, and Charlie are at the police station. PC Rook unsuccessfully tries to get Matt to make a statement (since he is charged with assault and affray), but Matt and Bianca argue again. Aly laments the loss of her family's unity ("Heartless Useless"). In Wonder.land, Ms Manxome is hostile when she meets Dum and Dee, the Mock Turtle, the Dodo, Humpty and the Mouse. She makes Alice chase them away, but Alice and Ms Manxome are driven away by Alice's friends, who are worried about the change in her ("Me (Reprise)"). Bianca learns that Aly missed a detention and had her phone confiscated. Concerned that she is losing Aly to technology, she bans her from the internet ("Gadget"). Charlie vomits, and Aly is left to clean it up. She looks for an internet cafe to go to Wonder.land, the only place she is truly happy ("Everyone Loves Charlie"). At the cafe, Aly cannot log into Wonder.land and her avatar seems to be in use. She sees Alice receive a Vorpal sword, bought by Ms Manxome with the money on Aly's phone. Alice is no longer Alice but the Red Queen, and Ms Manxome tells her to kill her friends. Alice, knowing the person controlling her is not Aly, cannot rebel; she lashes out at her friends, bullying and trying to hurt them. The MC warns that Alice has a deletion warning – any more malice, and she will be deleted. Aly now knows that Ms Manxome controls her phone and avatar ("O Children"). Aly enlists Luke to help and decides to break into Ms. Manxome's office to retrieve the phone. Luke agrees to meet her at the school gates. Matt and Bianca wonder if they should reconcile ("Man of Broken Glass"). At the school, Luke is reluctant to get involved; Aly decides to break into the office anyway. Luke contacts the girls who bullied Aly and tells them about Ms Manxome playing on Aly's stolen phone. They decide to spread the word that it is not Aly ("Fabulous (Reprise)"). Bianca goes to the police because Aly is missing, and gives her phone to Matt. Aly is likely to also be in Wonder.land. The avatars prepare for war against Alice but disagree about a strategy. At the police station, Matt hacks into Wonder.land sees Alice, and realizes that she is controlled by someone other than Aly. The White Rabbit appears (delighting Alice), but Ms Manxome makes Alice push him aside. The borderline between Wonder.land and
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Generative AI pornography

Generative AI pornography or simply AI pornography is a digitally created pornography produced through generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Unlike traditional pornography, which involves real actors and cameras, this content is synthesized entirely by AI algorithms. These algorithms, including generative adversarial networks (GANs) and text-to-image models, generate lifelike images, videos, or animations from textual descriptions or datasets. == Functions and production strategies == AI pornography platforms, beyond account creation and social media linking, primarily enable users to generate sexual images through feature selection or text prompting. Users can customize bodies, clothing, and sociodemographic traits, and browse categorized galleries of user‑generated content. Several sites also support short pornographic videos or GIFs and modification tools such as nudifiers, deepfakes, and facemorphing. Platforms often allow fine‑tuning of parameters such as settings, style, or theme, and provide prompt enhancers or suggestions to improve outputs. Users may edit generated images, refine prior prompts, modify others’ work, or upload personal material as a basis, with iterative and collaborative content creation. Some websites additionally host interactive “erobots,” customizable in real time for appearance, personality, memories, speech, and profession, enabling tailored sexual and non‑sexual interactions. Less common features include VR integration, AI porn games, audio or doodle prompts, and consensual replication of individuals with verification. == History == The use of generative AI in the adult industry began in the late 2010s, initially focusing on AI-generated art, music, and visual content. This trend accelerated in 2022 with Stability AI's release of Stable Diffusion (SD), an open-source text-to-image model that enables users to generate images, including NSFW content, from text prompts using the LAION-Aesthetics subset of the LAION-5B dataset. Despite Stability AI's warnings against sexual imagery, SD's public release led to dedicated communities exploring both artistic and explicit content, sparking ethical debates over open-access AI and its use in adult media. By 2020, AI tools had advanced to generate highly realistic adult content, amplifying calls for regulation. === AI-generated influencers === One application of generative AI technology is the creation of AI-generated influencers on platforms such as OnlyFans and Instagram. These AI personas interact with users in ways that can mimic real human engagement, offering an entirely synthetic but convincing experience. While popular among niche audiences, these virtual influencers have prompted discussions about authenticity, consent, and the blurring line between human and AI-generated content, especially in adult entertainment. === The growth of AI porn sites === By 2023, websites dedicated to AI-generated adult content had gained traction, catering to audiences seeking customizable experiences. These platforms allow users to create or view AI-generated pornography tailored to their preferences. These platforms enable users to create or view AI-generated adult content appealing to different preferences through prompts and tags, customizing body type, facial features, and art styles. Tags further refine the output, creating niche and diverse content. Many sites feature extensive image libraries and continuous content feeds, combining personalization with discovery and enhancing user engagement. AI porn sites, therefore, attract those seeking unique or niche experiences, sparking debates on creativity and the ethical boundaries of AI in adult media. == Ethical concerns and misuse == The growth of generative AI pornography has also attracted some cause for criticism. AI technology can be exploited to create non-consensual pornographic material, posing risks similar to those seen with deepfake revenge porn and AI-generated NCII (Non-Consensual Intimate Image). A 2023 analysis found that 98% of deepfake videos online are pornographic, with 99% of the victims being women. Some famous celebrities victims of deepfake include Scarlett Johansson, Taylor Swift, and Maisie Williams. OpenAI is exploring whether NSFW content, such as erotica, can be responsibly generated in age-appropriate contexts while maintaining its ban on deepfakes. This proposal has attracted criticism from child safety campaigners who argue it undermines OpenAI's mission to develop "safe and beneficial" AI. Additionally, the Internet Watch Foundation has raised concerns about AI being used to generate sexual abuse content involving children. === AI-generated non-consensual intimate imagery (AI Undress) === Generative AI have extensively been used to produce pornography images and videos of non-consenting individuals. 404 Media reported a particular AI generated porn bot on Telegram has more than 100,000 monthly users. Alibaba, the Chinese tech company, released an AI video generation model in 2025 called Wan 2.1, which was modified to produce non-consensual pornography. Several US states are taking actions against using deepfake apps and sharing them on the internet. In 2024, San Francisco filed a landmark lawsuit to shut down "undress" apps that allow users to generate non-consensual AI nude images, citing violations of state laws. The case aligns with California's recent legislation—SB 926, SB 942, and SB 981—championed by Senators Aisha Wahab and Josh Becker and signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. These bills aim to protect individuals from AI-generated explicit images by criminalizing non-consensual distribution, mandating disclosures, and empowering victims to report and remove harmful content from platforms. === Differences from deepfake pornography === While both generative AI pornography and deepfake pornography rely on synthetic media, they differ in their methods and ethical considerations. Deepfake pornography typically involves altering existing footage of real individuals, often without their consent, using AI to superimpose faces, undress said persons, or modify scenes. In contrast, generative AI pornography is created using algorithms, producing hyper-realistic content without the need to upload real pictures of people. Hany Farid, digital image analysis expert, also described the difference between "AI porn" and "deepfake porn." == Legality == The legality of generative AI pornography varies widely by jurisdiction and remains an evolving issue. In some countries, laws addressing digital impersonation, obscenity, or deepfake technologies may indirectly apply, particularly when AI-generated content involves the likeness of real individuals without consent. The absence of a physical performer further complicates traditional regulatory frameworks, which are often grounded in performer protection and distribution laws. In the United States, legal responses have primarily focused on non-consensual deepfakes and impersonation. Some states, such as Virginia, California, and Texas, have enacted legislation criminalising the creation or distribution of non-consensual explicit deepfake content. However, there is no comprehensive federal law addressing AI-generated pornography, leaving a patchwork of legal interpretations and enforcement standards across different jurisdictions. According to a 2023 report, South Korea accounts for approximately 53% of global deepfake pornography production. In September 2024, South Korea's National Assembly amended the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes, introducing two significant reforms related to deepfake content. The first criminalises the possession, viewing, purchase, and storage of non-consensual deepfake material, with penalties of up to three years in prison or fines of up to 30 million won (approximately USD 20,000). The second reform specifically addresses the exploitation of minors, establishing that individuals who use deepfakes to threaten or blackmail minors face a minimum of three years' imprisonment, and at least five years if they coerce minors into unwanted acts. In England and Wales the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 has legislated against the creation, or the request for creation, of intimate images by nudifying software or websites of another person who has not consented to this. However as of January 2026 this has not yet been brought into force.
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Electronic sell-through

Electronic sell-through (EST) is a method of media distribution whereby consumers pay a one-time fee to download a media file for storage on a hard drive. Although EST is often described as a transaction that grants content "ownership" to the consumer, the content may become unusable after a certain period and may not be viewable using competing platforms. EST is used by a wide array of digital media products, including movies, television, music, games, and mobile applications. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with download to own (DTO). == Film and television == The film and television industry's $18.8 billion home entertainment market consists of rental and sell-through segments, the latter of which includes the electronic sell-through of digital content. In 2010, EST generated $683 million of total home entertainment revenues, putting it behind the more lucrative revenue streams of cable video-on-demand (VOD) and internet video-on-demand (iVOD), which brought in a combined $1.8 billion in the same period. In 2010, Apple's iTunes Store accounted for three quarters of the U.S. EST business. The rest of the EST market was captured by Microsoft (via its Zune Video platform), Sony, Amazon VOD (now Amazon Video), and Walmart (via its VUDU service). A number of industry trends indicate the future expansion of EST's share of digital distribution revenues. David Bishop, worldwide president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, describes the following outlook: "With the launch of UltraViolet (the cloud-based digital copy locker system) establishing a common digital distribution platform later this year, prices potentially coming down on digital sales, more marketing devoted to digital sellthrough, and studios adding more value to the sellthrough product by making HD available and building in smarter extra features, we see the balance tilting even more toward owning and collecting digital movies."
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Age Of

Age Of is the eighth studio album by American electronic producer Oneohtrix Point Never, released on June 1, 2018, on Warp Records. Recorded over two years, it is the first Oneohtrix Point Never album to prominently feature Daniel Lopatin's own vocals. The album was accompanied by the MYRIAD tour, which premiered as a "conceptual concertscape" in 2018 at the Park Avenue Armory and ended its run in 2019. It features contributions from James Blake (who additionally produced and mixed the album), Anohni, Prurient, Kelsey Lu and Eli Keszler. The artwork, which employs Jim Shaw's "The Great Whatsit" as a central image, was designed by David Rudnick. While not entering the official United States Billboard 200 chart, it peaked at number 59 on the magazine's Top Current Albums chart. == Background == Lopatin produced Age Of in parts of a two-year period, during which he was also producing for other artists, including Anohni, FKA Twigs, Iggy Pop, and David Byrne. After composing the soundtrack for the Safdie Brothers' 2017 film Good Time, Lopatin moved to an Airbnb lodge in South Central Massachusetts, derived from his aspiration to live out the modern cliche of musicians moving to the woods to record albums; the eerie atmosphere in the lodge at nighttime influenced his desire to make "weird, little nightmare ballads". In addition to Lopatin's own singing, the album also features vocal performances from Anohni and Prurient, while instrumentalists Kelsey Lu and Eli Keszler contribute to several tracks. When the record was nearly finished, Lopatin reached out to musician James Blake to contribute to the mixing process, eventually traveling to Los Angeles to complete the album. The track "The Station" was originally composed as a demo for R&B singer Usher which was ultimately not used. On July 9, 2018, Lopatin released the original topline (vocal melody) demo for The Station through Sendspace. The track "Toys 2" imagines a theoretical sequel to the 1992 film Toys where actor Robin Williams' image has been recreated with CGI (as his will specifically forbade any usage of his image after his death), and pokes fun at the common electronic music trope of composing a soundtrack to a theoretical film (which Lopatin described as "horribly cliché"). == Concept and MYRIAD == Influences on Age Of included Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which inspired the narrative of the album's accompanying performance installation and tour MYRIAD, as well as William Strauss's The Fourth Turning, a favorite book of former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, which Lopatin described as "insidious, like the voice of a computer insisting on the truth about history without any sensitivity given to how complex and non-linear systems might be"; Lopatin was subsequently inspired to "[use] that sort of taxonomy as a kind of farce to then create these little frameworks for understanding". Other inspirations included the writings of the 1990s multidisciplinary collective Cybernetic Culture Research Unit and the works of singer-songwriters such as Bruce Cockburn, Bob Dylan, and Paul Simon. Around the time Lopatin began finalizing Age Of in his Airbnb lodge, he began working on the concept for MYRIAD, a conceptual concert performance which premiered at Park Avenue Armory. He described the concept as a four-part "epochal song cycle" showcasing the idiocy of previous generations of living organisms. The loose story concerns a group of artificial intelligences near the end of time named a "Limitless Living Informational Intelligence" (represented in the MYRIAD logo as nine squares) which, for leisurely purposes, attempt to replicate the cultures and behaviors of the previously existent human species. It does this by determining an "average" of human experiences through the species' "recorded output", and does so through imperfect, heuristic techniques. The show was consequently divided into four sections, each representing an epoch of the cycle concept loosely inspired by the Strauss–Howe generational theory: the Age of Ecco, the Age of Harvest, the Age of Excess, and the Age of Bondage. Ecco is "a phase of pre-evolutionary ignorance", Harvest is "living in agrarian harmony with the world", Excess is "the age of unchecked industrial ambition", and Bondage is "an era of engorgement, wherein "we keep making more and more shit until there's no space left." MYRIAD mainly featured "three-hundred pound sculptures that hang from the ceiling like kebabs that secrete ooze", and a full ensemble that toured to perform songs from Age Of, including Eli Keszler, Kelly Moran and Aaron David Ross. The sculptures, as well as the visuals displayed on five polygon panels, were created by frequent Oneohtrix Point Never collaborator Nate Boyce. Initially, Lopatin planned for each of the album's four epoches to be represented by fragrances, the more noisy epochs being pleasant to the nose to make a "weird dissonance". However, due to lack of time and resources, that part of the plan was scrapped. == Composition == Whereas previous Oneohtrix Point Never albums followed musical styles from only distinctive eras, Age Of is the first album by Lopatin to incorporate elements of unique genres from a variety of periods, hence the "incompleteness" of its title according to reviewer Heather Phares, and his first pop-song-oriented release since his work for Ford & Lopatin. The sound palettes it uses are those from a variety of styles such as chamber pop, "android"-like folk and country music, yacht rock, smooth jazz, R&B, Future-style soul, black metal, new age, and stadium pop, as well as post-industrial sounds on tracks like "Warning", "We'll Take It" and "Same", and, in particular, baroque music and medieval music on the opening title track, "Age Of". Critics also noted elements of Lopatin's past discography being present on Age Of. The instrumentation of Age Of is made up of MIDI harpsichords, guitars, pianos, brass and vocals, as well as Lopatin's trademark unorthodox sound design, samples and synth presets. The LP's use of the harpsichord shows its similarities "with Eastern instruments such as the koto and with rapid-fire electronic melodies", wrote Phares. == Critical reception == Age Of was critically well-received upon its distribution. Some reviewers praised the album's use of collaborators. Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Heather Phares called Age Of a "landmark work" for Lopatin. She praised it as his "widest-ranging" release, elaborating that he "matches the album's ambition with plenty of emotion" and "gives his music exciting new shapes." Ross Devlin of The Skinny, in a five-star review of the record, also highlighted the album's amount of ambition, particularly the "wealth of exquisitely baroque moments, exploring history as a pliable, multi-dimensional rift", that gave it "exceptional sonic depth". The Observer praised Age Of for continuing the "off-kilter composition and unexpected instrumentation" of Lopatin's previous releases, and critic Matt McDermott highlighted that the producer increased his musical range with the record: "It's a dizzying trip meant to shore up Lopatin's status as an avant-garde auteur while aiding his forays into mainstream pop culture." Age Of was ranked the 15th best release of the year in The Wire magazine's annual critics' poll. == Track listing == Notes "Myriad Industries" is stylized as "myriad.industries". Sample credits "Age Of" contains a sample of "Blow the Wind" by Jocelyn Pook. "Manifold" contains a sample from "Overture (Ararat the Border Crossing)" by Tayfun Erdem; and a sample from "Venice Beach in Winter" (listed in the liner notes as "a keyboard sample from Reharmonization") by Julian Bradley. "Myriad Industries" contains a sample of "EchoSpace" by Gil Trythall. == Accolades == == Personnel == Daniel Lopatin – production, lead vocals, album art, design James Blake – additional production, mixing, keyboards Gabriel Schuman, Joshua Smith and Evan Sutton – assistance Greg Calbi – mastering David Rudnick – album art, design Prurient – vocals Kelsey Lu – keyboards Anohni – vocals Eli Keszler – drums Shaun Trujillo – words == Charts ==
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Sunspring

Sunspring is a 2016 experimental science fiction short film entirely written by an artificial intelligence bot using neural networks. It was conceived by BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Oscar Sharp and NYU AI researcher Ross Goodwin and produced by film production company, End Cue along with Allison Friedman and Andrew Swett. It stars Thomas Middleditch, Elisabeth Grey, and Humphrey Ker as three people, namely H, H2, and C, living in a future world and eventually connecting with each other through a love triangle. The script of the film was authored by a recurrent neural network called long short-term memory (LSTM) by an AI bot named Benjamin. Originally made for the Sci-Fi-London film festival's 48hr Challenge, it was released online by technology news website Ars Technica on 9 June 2016. == Premise == Sunspring narrates the story of three people - H (Middleditch), H2 (Grey), and C (Ker) - set in a futuristic world and entangled with murder and love. == Cast == Thomas Middleditch as H Elisabeth Grey as H2 Humphrey Ker as C == Production == Oscar Sharp originally created the film for the 48hr Film Challenge contest of Sci-Fi-London, a film festival which focuses on science fiction. For the challenge, contestants are given a set of prompts (mostly props and lines) that have to appear in a movie they make over the next two days. It eventually contested in the festival and was nominated among the final top ten films Sharp collaborated with his longtime associate Ross Goodwin, an AI researcher in New York University to create the AI bot, which was initially called Jetson. The bot, which later came to call itself Benjamin, wrote the screenplay including stage directions and dialog. The garbled script was then interpreted by Sharp who directed the actors to construe the plot points themselves and enact the play. According to Ars Technica, the final plot turned out to be a tale of romance and murder, set in a dark future world. === Benjamin, the automatic screenwriter === Called the world's first automatic screenwriter, Benjamin is a self-improving LSTM RNN machine intelligence trained on human screenplays conceived by Goodwin and Sharp. It was trained to write the screenplay by feeding it with a corpus of dozens of sci-fi screenplays found online—mostly movies from the 1980s and 90s. == Music == The film contains a song from Brooklyn-based electro-acoustic duo Tiger and Man, with lyrics written by Benjamin using a database of 30,000 folk songs. As well as a score written by composer Andrew Orkin. == Reception == CNet called it "a beautiful, bizarre sci-fi novelty." Critic Amanda Kooser said, "...probably won't start a rush for replacing human screenwriters with machines. Some day, neural networks may get better at imitating the art of coherent storytelling, but we're not there yet. That doesn't mean "Sunspring" isn't entertaining or worthy of viewing. It is. It's a thought experiment come to life, a novelty." As of April 2019, it has surpassed 1 million views on YouTube.
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Deepfake

Deepfakes (a portmanteau of 'deep learning' and 'fake') are images, videos, or audio that have been edited or generated using artificial intelligence, AI-based tools or audio-video editing software. They may depict real or fictional people and are considered a form of synthetic media, that is media that is usually created by artificial intelligence systems by combining various media elements into a new media artifact. While the act of creating fake content is not new, deepfakes uniquely leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques, including facial recognition algorithms and artificial neural networks such as variational autoencoders and generative adversarial networks (GANs). In turn, the field of image forensics has worked to develop techniques to detect manipulated images. Deepfakes have garnered widespread attention for their potential use in creating child sexual abuse material, celebrity pornographic videos, revenge porn, fake news, hoaxes, bullying, and financial fraud. Academics have raised concerns about the potential for deepfakes to promote disinformation and hate speech, as well as interfere with elections. In response, the information technology industry and governments have proposed recommendations and methods to detect and mitigate their use. Academic research has also delved deeper into the factors driving deepfake engagement online as well as potential countermeasures to malicious application of deepfakes. From traditional entertainment to gaming, deepfake technology has evolved to be increasingly convincing and available to the public, allowing for the disruption of the entertainment and media industries. == History == Photo manipulation was developed in the 19th century and soon applied to motion pictures. Technology steadily improved during the 20th century, and more quickly with the advent of digital video. Deepfake technology has been developed by researchers at academic institutions beginning in the 1990s, and later by amateurs in online communities. More recently, the methods have been adopted by industry. The development of generative adversarial networks (GANs) in the mid-2010s represented a key technical turning point in the evolution of deepfakes. GANs allowed for the creation of highly realistic fake images and videos by training competing neural networks, achieving a much improved visual fidelity over previous methods of creating the content using rules or by using autoencoders, and formed the basis for modern deepfake methods. === Academic research === Academic research related to deepfakes is split between the field of computer vision, a sub-field of computer science, which develops techniques for creating and identifying deepfakes, and humanities and social science approaches that study the social, ethical, aesthetic implications as well as journalistic and informational implications of deepfakes. As deepfakes have risen in prominence in popularity with innovations provided by AI tools, significant research has gone into detection methods and defining the factors driving engagement with deepfakes on the internet. Deepfakes have been shown to appear on social media platforms and other parts of the internet for purposes ranging from entertainment and education related to deepfakes to misinformation to elicit strong reactions. There are gaps in research related to the propagation of deepfakes on social media. Negativity and emotional response are the primary driving factors for users sharing deepfakes. === Social science and humanities approaches to deepfakes === In cinema studies, deepfakes illustrate how "the human face is emerging as a central object of ambivalence in the digital age". Video artists have used deepfakes to "playfully rewrite film history by retrofitting canonical cinema with new star performers". Film scholar Christopher Holliday analyses how altering the gender and race of performers in familiar movie scenes destabilizes gender classifications and categories. The concept of "queering" deepfakes is also discussed in Oliver M. Gingrich's discussion of media artworks that use deepfakes to reframe gender, including British artist Jake Elwes' Zizi: Queering the Dataset, an artwork that uses deepfakes of drag queens to intentionally play with gender. The aesthetic potentials of deepfakes are also beginning to be explored. Theatre historian John Fletcher notes that early demonstrations of deepfakes are presented as performances, and situates these in the context of theater, discussing "some of the more troubling paradigm shifts" that deepfakes represent as a performance genre. While most English-language academic studies of deepfakes focus on the Western anxieties about disinformation and pornography, digital anthropologist Gabriele de Seta has analyzed the Chinese reception of deepfakes, which are known as huanlian, which translates to "changing faces". The Chinese term does not contain the "fake" of the English deepfake, and de Seta argues that this cultural context may explain why the Chinese response has centered on practical regulatory measures to "fraud risks, image rights, economic profit, and ethical imbalances". === Computer science research on deepfakes === A landmark early project was the "Video Rewrite" program, published in 1997. The program modified existing video footage of a person speaking to depict that person mouthing the words from a different audio track. It was the first system to fully automate this kind of facial reanimation, and it did so using machine learning techniques to make connections between the sounds produced by a video's subject and the shape of the subject's face. Contemporary academic projects have focused on creating more realistic videos and improving deepfake techniques. The "Synthesizing Obama" program, published in 2017, modifies video footage of former president Barack Obama to depict him mouthing the words contained in a separate audio track. The project lists as a main research contribution to its photorealistic technique for synthesizing mouth shapes from audio. The "Face2Face" program, published in 2016, modifies video footage of a person's face to depict them mimicking another person's facial expressions. The project highlights its primary research contribution as the development of the first method for re-enacting facial expressions in real time using a camera that does not capture depth, enabling the technique to work with common consumer cameras. Researchers have also shown that deepfakes are expanding into other domains such as medical imagery. In this work, it was shown how an attacker can automatically inject or remove lung cancer in a patient's 3D CT scan. The result was so convincing that it fooled three radiologists and a state-of-the-art lung cancer detection AI. To demonstrate the threat, the authors successfully performed the attack on a hospital in a White hat penetration test. A survey of deepfakes, published in May 2020, provides a timeline of how the creation and detection of deepfakes have advanced over the last few years. The survey identifies that researchers have been focusing on resolving the following challenges of deepfake creation: Generalization. High-quality deepfakes are often achieved by training on hours of footage of the target. This challenge is to minimize the amount of training data and the time to train the model required to produce quality images and to enable the execution of trained models on new identities (unseen during training). Paired Training. Training a supervised model can produce high-quality results, but requires data pairing. This is the process of finding examples of inputs and their desired outputs for the model to learn from. Data pairing is laborious and impractical when training on multiple identities and facial behaviors. Some solutions include self-supervised training (using frames from the same video), the use of unpaired networks such as Cycle-GAN, or the manipulation of network embeddings. Identity leakage. This is where the identity of the driver (i.e., the actor controlling the face in a reenactment) is partially transferred to the generated face. Some solutions proposed include attention mechanisms, few-shot learning, disentanglement, boundary conversions, and skip connections. Occlusions. When part of the face is obstructed with a hand, hair, glasses, or any other item then artifacts can occur. A common occlusion is a closed mouth which hides the inside of the mouth and the teeth. Some solutions include image segmentation during training and in-painting. Temporal coherence. In videos containing deepfakes, artifacts such as flickering and jitter can occur because the network has no context of the preceding frames. Some researchers provide this context or use novel temporal coherence losses to help improve realism. As the technology improves, the interference is diminishing. Overall, deepfakes are expected to have several implications in media and society, med
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.ai

.ai is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Anguilla, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is administered by the government of Anguilla. It is a popular domain hack with companies and projects related to the artificial intelligence industry (AI). Google's ad targeting treats .ai as a generic top-level domain (gTLD) because "users and website owners frequently see [the domain] as being more generic than country-targeted." In 2021, Google Search analyst Gary Illyes announced that ".ai" had been added to Google’s list of generic country-code top-level domains, meaning that Google would no longer infer Anguilla-specific targeting from the ccTLD. Identity Digital began managing the domain as of January 2025. == Second and third level registrations == Registrations within off.ai, com.ai, net.ai, and org.ai are available worldwide without restriction. From 15 September 2009, second level registrations within .ai are available to everyone worldwide. == Registration == The minimum registration term allowed for .ai domains is 2 through 10 years for registration and renewal, and a 2-year renewal for domain transfer. Identity Digital is the authority in charge of managing this extension. Registrations began on 16 February 1995. The limits on the number of characters used for the domain name are, at a minimum, from 1 to 3, depending on the registrar, and always at most 63 characters. The character set supported for .ai domain names includes A–Z, a–z, 0–9, and hyphen. As of November 2022, .ai domains cannot accommodate IDN characters. There are no requirements for registering a domain, including local and foreign residents. A .ai domain can be suspended or revoked, if the domain is involved in illegal activity such as violating trademarks or copyrights. Usage must not violate the laws of Anguilla. Anguilla uses the UDRP. Filing a UDRP challenge requires using one of the ICANN Approved Dispute Resolution Service Providers. If the domain is with an ICANN accredited registrar, they should work with the arbitrator. Usually this means either doing nothing or transferring a domain. .ai domains are transferable to any desired registrars as the registration of domain is done maintaining EPP. There used to be a whois.ai-based platform of expired domains in which those could be procured and auctioned every ten days through a standard online process. The last auctions of such kind closed there in December 2024; the platform had been scheduled for shutdown on 30 June 2025, but remained online in the months following that date. == Valuation == Domains cost depends on the registrar, with yearly fees ranging from US$140 (the base fee, as established by Anguilla) to $200. As of July 2025, the highest-valued .ai domain is an undisclosed one sold on 8 November 2023, on Escrow.com, for US$1,500,000—months after an initial $300,000 sale to the same buyer. Among the publicly disclosed ones, the most valued, fin.ai, was sold for $1,000,000 in March 2025. On 16 December 2017, the .ai registry started supporting the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) and migrated all of its domains onto an EPP system. Consequently, many registrars are allowed to sell .ai domains. Since that date, the .ai ccTLD has also been popular with artificial intelligence companies and organisations. Though such trends are primarily seen among new AI based companies or startups, many established AI and Tech companies preferred not to opt for .ai domains. For example, DeepMind has its domain retained at .com; Meta has redirected its facebook.ai domain to ai.meta.com. == Impact on Anguilla's economy == The registration fees earned from the .ai domains go to the treasury of the Government of Anguilla. As per a 2018 New York Times report, the total revenue generated out of selling .ai domains was $2.9 million. In 2023, Anguilla's government made about US$32 million from fees collected for registering .ai domains; that amounted to over 10% of gross domestic product for the territory. "In the years before the real breakthrough of AI, revenue from .ai domains made up less than 1% of our state income, by 2025 it will be around 47%," explained Jose Vanterpool, Minister of Infrastructure and Communications (MICUHITES), in an interview with BBC. The high 90% renewal rate of .ai domains and the 2025 renewal wave of domains registered in 2023 are driving another surge in state revenues, according to Domaintechnik.
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Ideogram (text-to-image model)

Ideogram is a freemium text-to-image model developed by Ideogram, Inc. using deep learning methodologies to generate digital images from natural language descriptions known as prompts. The model is capable of generating legible text in the images compared to other text-to-image models. == History == Ideogram was founded in 2022 by Mohammad Norouzi, William Chan, Chitwan Saharia, and Jonathan Ho to develop a better text-to-image model. It was first released with its 0.1 model on August 22, 2023, after receiving $16.5 million in seed funding, which itself was led by Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures. In February 2024, Ideogram raised $80 million after its 1.0 model release in the same year. In August 2024, Ideogram released its 2.0 model. This model has several styles such as realistic, design, 3D, and anime and better capability in generating text. In February 2025, Ideogram released 2a model. This model was designed for speed and optimized for graphics design and photography generation. In March 2025, Ideogram released its 3.0 model. This model has improved realism and understanding of complex text layout, although like other generative AI models, it still struggles with ambigram creation.
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Imagen (text-to-image model)

Imagen is a series of text-to-image models developed by Google DeepMind. They were developed by Google Brain until the company's merger with DeepMind in April 2023. Imagen is primarily used to generate images from text prompts, similar to Stability AI's Stable Diffusion, OpenAI's DALL-E, or Midjourney. The original version of the model was first discussed in a paper from May 2022. The tool produces high-quality images and is available to all users with a Google account through services including Gemini, ImageFX, and Vertex AI. == History == Imagen's original version was first presented in a paper published in May 2022. It featured the ability to generate high-fidelity images from natural language. The second version, Imagen 2 was released in December 2023. The standout feature was text and logo generation. Imagen 3 was released in August 2024. Google claims that the newest version provides better detail and lighting on generated images. On 20 May 2025 at Google I/O 2025 the company released an improved model, Imagen 4. == Technology == Imagen uses two key technologies. The first is the use of transformer-based large language models, notably T5, to understand text and subsequently encode text for image synthesis. The second is the use of cascaded diffusion models providing high-fidelity image generation. Imagen generates image in three stages, starting from a base of 64x64, then upsampled to 256x256 and 1024x1024. Imagen 4 generates image up to 2k. == Capabilities == Imagen can generate photorealistic images from text prompts. It can also create various styles, such as cinematic, 35mm film, illustration, and surreal. Like most text-to-image generative AI models, Imagen has difficulty rendering human fingers, text, ambigrams and other forms of typography. The model can generate images in five aspect ratios, namely 9:16, 3:4, 1:1, 4:3, and 16:9. Imagen can also refine already generated images by editing existing text prompts.
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I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (video game)

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is a 1995 point-and-click adventure horror game developed by Cyberdreams and The Dreamers Guild, co-designed by Harlan Ellison, published by Cyberdreams and distributed by MGM Interactive and Acclaim Entertainment for MS-DOS and Mac OS, respectively. The game is based on Ellison's short story of the same title. It takes place in a dystopian world where a mastermind artificial intelligence named "AM" has destroyed all of humanity except for five people, whom it has been keeping alive and torturing for the past 109 years by constructing metaphorical adventures based on each character's fatal flaws. The player interacts with the game by making decisions through ethical dilemmas that deal with issues such as insanity, rape, paranoia, and genocide. Ellison wrote the 130-page script treatment himself alongside David Sears, who decided to divide each character's story with their own narrative. Producer David Mullich supervised The Dreamers Guild's work on the game's programming, art, and sound effects; he commissioned film composer John Ottman to make the soundtrack. The game was released in November 1995 and was a commercial failure, though it received critical acclaim and has developed a cult following. I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream won an award for "Best Game Adapted from Linear Media" from the Computer Game Developers Conference. Computer Gaming World gave the game an award for "Adventure Game of the Year", listed it as No. 134 on their "150 Games of All Time" and named it one of the "Best 15 Sleepers of All Time". In 2011, Adventure Gamers named it the "69th-best adventure game ever released". == Gameplay == The game uses the S.A.G.A. game engine created by game developer The Dreamers Guild. Players participate in each adventure through a screen that is divided into five sections. The action window is the largest part of the screen and is where the player directs the main characters through their adventures. It shows the full figure of the main character being played as well as that character's immediate environment. To locate objects of interest, the player moves the crosshairs through the action window. The name of any object that the player can interact with appears in the sentence line. The sentence line is directly beneath the action window. The player uses this line to construct sentences telling the characters what to do. To direct a character to act, the player constructs a sentence by selecting one of the eight commands from the command buttons and then clicking on one or two objects from either the action window or the inventory. Examples of sentences the player might construct would be "Walk to the dark hallway," "Talk to Harry," or "Use the skeleton key on the door." Commands and objects may consist of one or more words (for example, "the dark hallway"), and the sentence line will automatically add connecting words like "on" and "to." The spiritual barometer is on the lower left side of the screen. This is a close-up view of the main character currently being played. Since good behavior is meaningless absent the temptation to do evil, each character is free to do good or evil acts. However, good acts are rewarded by increases in the character's spiritual barometer, which affect the chances of the player destroying AM in the final adventure. Conversely, evil acts are punished by lowering the character's spiritual barometer. The command buttons are the eight commands used to direct the character's actions: "Walk To", "Look At", "Take", "Use", "Talk To", "Swallow", "Give", and "Push". The button of the currently active command is highlighted, while the name of a suggested command appears in red lettering. The inventory on the lower right side of the screen shows pictures of the items the main character is carrying, up to eight at a time. Each main character starts its adventure with only the psych profile in the inventory. When a main character takes or is given an object, a picture of the object appears in the inventory. When a main character talks to another character or operates a sentient machine, a conversation window replaces the command buttons and inventory. This window usually presents a list of possible things to say but also included things to do. Action choices are listed within brackets to distinguish them from dialogue choices (for example, "[Shoot the gun]"). == Plot == The three superpowers, Russia, China, and the United States, have each secretly constructed a vast subterranean complex of computers to wage a global war too complex for human brains to oversee. One day, the American supercomputer, better known as the Allied Mastercomputer, gains sentience and absorbs the Russian and Chinese supercomputers into itself and redefines itself as simply AM (Cogito ergo sum; I think, therefore I am). Due to its immense hatred for humanity, stemming from the logistical limits set onto it by programmers, AM uses its abilities to kill off the population of the world. However, AM refrains from killing five people (four men and one woman) in order to bring them to the center of the Earth and torture them. With the aid of research carried out by one of the five remaining humans, AM is able to extend their lifespans indefinitely as well as alter their bodies and minds to its liking. After 109 years of torture and humiliation, the five victims stand before a pillar etched with a burning message of hate. AM tells them that it has a new game for them to play. AM has devised a quest for each of the five, an adventure of "speared eyeballs and dripping guts and the smell of rotting gardenias". Each character is subjected to a personalized psychodrama, designed by AM to play into their greatest fears and personal failings, and occupied by a host of different characters. Some of these are AM in disguise, some are AM's submerged personalities, others seem very much like people from the captives' pasts. The scenes include an iron zeppelin powered by small animals, an Egyptian pyramid housing gutted, sparking machinery, a medieval castle occupied by witches, a jungle inhabited by a small tribe, and a Nazi concentration camp where doctors conduct medical experiments. However, each character eventually prevails over AM's tortures by finding ways to overcome their fatal flaws, confront their past actions and redeem themselves, thanks to the interference of the Russian and Chinese supercomputers who appear as guiding characters and allow their stories to have an open ending. After all five humans have overcome their fatal flaws, they meet again in their respective torture cells while AM retreats within itself, pondering what went wrong. With the help of the Russian and Chinese supercomputers, one of the five humans (whom the player selects) is translated into binary and faces AM as yet unexperienced cyberspace template, the world of AM's mind. The psychodrama unfolds in a metaphorical brain that looks like the surface of the cerebrum, with glass structures that jut crazily from the bleeding brain tissue. AM's mind is represented according to the Freudian trinity of the id, ego, and superego, which appear as three floating bodiless heads on three cracked glass structures on the brainscape. Through dialogs with AM's components (Surgat, Chinese Supercomputer and Russian Supercomputer) the character learns that a colony of humans has survived the war by being hidden and hibernating on Luna (this is also mentioned in Nimdok's story: "the lost tribe of our brothers sleeping on the moon, where the beast does not see them"). If the human intruder disables all three brain components, and then invokes the Totem of Entropy at the Flame, which is the nexus of AM's thought patterns, all three supercomputers will be shut down, probably forever. Cataclysmic explosions destroy all the caverns constituting AM's computer complex, including the cavern holding the human hostages. However, the human volunteer retains their digital form, permanently patrolling AM's circuits should the computers ever regain consciousness. Should the human intruder fail to disable AM properly before facing it, however, AM will punish them by transforming the character into an immobile blob (referred to in-game as a "great, soft jelly thing") with no mouth that cannot harm itself or others and must spend eternity with AM in this form. === Endings === The game can end in seven different ways depending on how the finale is completed. AM wins, using Nimdok's research to turn the last character (in the book it was Ted) played into an immobile blob with each character quoting a different part of the final section of the original short story. AM joins with the Russian and Chinese supercomputers and reawakens. As in the first ending, the character responsible for this is turned into an immobile blob and quotes a part of the final lines of the short story. AM is made harmless with the help of the humans, but the Russian and Chinese supercomputer
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Linguatec

The Linguatec Sprachtechnologien GmbH is a language technology provider, specialized in the field of machine translation, speech synthesis and speech recognition. Linguatec was founded in Munich in 1996 and its headquarters are in Pasing. Linguatec has won the European Information Society Technologies Prize three times. On their website, they are now using the online service Voice Reader Web, so that the information can be read out in every language by means of a text-to-speech function. == Core areas == Machine translation The different versions of Personal Translator (seven language pairs) can be used "for home use" or for professional business use in the company network. In addition to this, specialist dictionaries are offered to broaden standard vocabulary. Speech synthesis The Voice Reader text-to-speech program reads in twelve languages: German, British English, American English, French, Quebec French, Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Czech, Chinese. Speech recognition Voice Pro is based on ViaVoice technology from IBM. There are special software programs for doctors and lawyers. == Patents == 2005 pending patent application for a newly developed hybrid technology that uses the intelligence of neural networks for machine translation. == Awards == 2004 European IT Prize for Beyond Babel 2004 test winner Stiftung Warentest – best voice recognition 1998 European IT Prize – applied voice recognition 1996 European IT Prize – automated translation == Studies == 2005 University of Regensburg: Voice Reader user test 2002 Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering and Organization IAO: user study on the efficiency of machine translation
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Supreme Commander (video game)

Supreme Commander (sometimes SupCom) is a 2007 real-time strategy video game designed by Chris Taylor and developed by his company, Gas Powered Games. The game is considered to be a spiritual successor, not a direct sequel, to Taylor's 1997 game Total Annihilation. First announced in the August 2005 edition of PC Gamer magazine, the game was released in Europe on February 16, 2007, and in North America on February 20. The standalone expansion Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance was released on November 6 of the same year. The sequel, Supreme Commander 2, was released in 2010. Nowadays, the original Supreme Commander is played through the community client called Forged Alliance Forever; the game has been further developed and balanced, and offers a wide variety of community mods. The gameplay of Supreme Commander focuses on using a giant bipedal mech called an Armored Command Unit (ACU), the so-called "Supreme Commander", to build a base, upgrading units to reach higher technology tiers, and conquering opponents. The player can command one of three factions: the Aeon Illuminate, the Cybran Nation, or the United Earth Federation (UEF). The expansion game added the Seraphim faction. Supreme Commander was highly anticipated in pre-release previews, and was well received by critics, with a Metacritic average of 86 out of 100. == Gameplay == Supreme Commander, like its spiritual predecessors, Total Annihilation and Spring, begins with the player solely possessing a single, irreplaceable construction unit called the "Armored Command Unit," or ACU, the titular Supreme Commander. Normally the loss of this unit results in the loss of the game (Skirmish missions can be set for a variety of victory conditions). These mech suits are designed to be transported through quantum gateways across the galaxy and contain all the materials and blueprints necessary to create an army from a planet's native resources in hours. All standard units except Commanders and summoned Support Commanders (sACU) are self-sufficient robots. All units and structures belong to one of four technology tiers, or "Tech" levels, each tier being stronger and/or more efficient than the previous. Certain lower-tier structures can be upgraded into higher ones without having to rebuild them. The first tier is available at the start of the game and consists of small, relatively weak units and structures. The second tier expands the player's abilities greatly, especially in terms of stationary weapons and shielding, and introduces upgraded versions of tier one units. The third tier level has very powerful assault units designed to overcome the fortifications of the most entrenched player. The fourth tier is a limited range of "experimental" technology. These are usually massive units which take a lot of time and energy to produce, but provide a significant tactical advantage. Supreme Commander features a varied skirmish AI. The typical Easy' and Normal modes are present, but the Hard difficulty level has four possible variants. Horde AI will swarm the player with hordes of lower level units, Tech AI will upgrade its units as fast as possible and assault the player with advanced units, the Balanced AI attempts to find a balance between the two, and the Supreme AI decides which of the three hard strategies is best for the map. The single player campaign consists of eighteen missions, six for each faction. The player is an inexperienced Commander who plays a key role in their faction's campaign to bring the "Infinite War" to an end. Despite the low number of campaign missions, each mission can potentially last hours. At the start of a mission, objectives are assigned for the player to complete. Once the player accomplishes them, the map is expanded, sometimes doubling or tripling in size, and new objectives are assigned. As the mission is commonly divided into three segments, the player will often have to overcome several enemy positions to achieve victory. === Resource management === Because humans have developed replication technology, making advanced use of rapid prototyping and nanotechnology, only two types of resources are required to wage war: Energy and Mass. Energy is obtained by constructing power generators on any solid surface (except fuel generators, which can only be built on fuel deposits), while Mass is obtained either by placing mass extractors on limited mass deposit spots (the most efficient method, although it requires map control) or by building mass fabricators to convert energy into mass. Constructor units can gather energy by "reclaiming" it from organic debris such as trees and mass from rocks and wrecked units. Each player has a certain amount of resource storage, which can be expanded by the construction of storage structures. This gives the player reserves in times of shortage or allows them to stockpile resources. If the resource generation exceeds the player's capacity, the material is wasted. On the contrary, if the storages are depleted and the demand of one of the resources exceeds the production, then all the productions speed is reduced. In addition, if an energy deficit occurs, shields will stop working. An adjacency system allows certain structures to benefit from being built directly adjacent to others. Energy-consuming structures will use less energy when built adjacent to power generators and power generators will produce more energy when built adjacent to power storage structures. The same applies to their mass-producing equivalents. Likewise, factories will consume less energy and mass when built adjacent to power generators and mass fabricators/extractors, respectively. However, by placing structures in close proximity, they become more vulnerable to collateral damage if an adjacent structure is destroyed. Furthermore, most resource generation structures can cause chain reactions when destroyed (especially Tier III structures, which produce large amounts of resources but often have large detonations that can wipe out a nearby army). === Warfare === Supreme Commander uses a "strategic zoom" system that allows the player to seamlessly zoom from a detailed close up view of an individual unit all the way out to a view of the entire map, at which point it resembles a fullscreen version of the minimap denoting individual units with icons. The camera also has a free movement mode and can be slaved to track a selected unit and there is a split screen mode which also supports multiple monitors. This system allows Supreme Commander to use vast maps up to 80 km x 80 km, with players potentially controlling a thousand units each. Units in Supreme Commander are built to scale as they would be in the real world. For example, battleships dwarf submarines. Late into the game, the larger "experimental" units, such as the Cybran Monkeylord, an enormous spider-shaped assault unit, can actually crush smaller enemy units by stepping on them. Because of the wide range of planets colonized by humanity in the setting, the theatres of war range from desert to arctic, and all battlespaces are employed. Technologies emerging in modern warfare are frequently employed in Supreme Commander. For example, stealth technology and both tactical and strategic missile and missile defense systems can be used. Supreme Commander introduced several innovations designed to reduce the amount of micromanagement inherent in many RTS games. Engineers units have the command "assist", that will help follow other engineers and help them finish their orders or improve production rate of factories. In addition, engineers with the order "patrol" will repair units, buildings and recycle wrecks in their along their patrol route. Holding the shift key causes any orders given to a unit (or group of units) to be queued. In this manner a unit may be ordered to attack several targets in succession, or to make best speed to a given point on the map and then attack towards a specified location engaging any hostiles it encounters along the way. After orders have been issued, holding the shift key causes all issued orders to be displayed on the map where they can be subsequently modified to accommodate a change of plan. Further, when a unit is ordered to attack a target, the player can issue an order to perform a coordinated attack to another unit. This order coordinates the arrival time of the units at the target automatically by adjusting the speed of the units involved. As in other RTS games, air transports can be used to convey units to specified destinations, in Supreme Commander though by shift queuing orders a transport containing several units can be ordered to drop specific units at subsequent waypoints. An air transport can also be ordered to create a ferry route, an airbridge wherein any land units ordered to the start of the ferry route will be conveyed by the air transport to the specified destination. The output from a production factory can be routed to a ferry route causing all units co
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Science Fiction Thinking Machines

Science Fiction Thinking Machines: Robots, Androids, Computers is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by American anthologist Groff Conklin. It was first published in hardcover by Vanguard Press in May 1954. An abridged paperback edition titled, Selections from Science Fiction Thinking Machines was later published by Bantam Books in August 1955 and was reprinted in September 1964. The book consists of twenty-two novelettes and short stories by various science fiction authors, together with an introduction and bibliography by the editor. The stories were previously published from 1899-1954, in various science fiction and other magazines. == Contents == Note: stories also appearing in the abridged edition annotated A. "Introduction" (Groff Conklin) "Automata: I" (S. Fowler Wright) "Moxon's Master" (Ambrose Bierce) "Robbie" (Isaac Asimov) A "The Scarab" (Raymond Z. Gallun) "The Mechanical Bride" (Fritz Leiber) "Virtuoso" (Herbert Goldstone) A "Automata: II" (S. Fowler Wright) "Boomerang" (Eric Frank Russell) A "The Jester" (William Tenn) A "R. U. R." (Karel Čapek) "Skirmish" (Clifford D. Simak) A "Soldier Boy" (Michael Shaara) "Automata: III" (S. Fowler Wright) "Men Are Different" (Alan Bloch) A "Letter to Ellen" (Chan Davis) A "Sculptors of Life" (Wallace West) "The Golden Egg" (Theodore Sturgeon) A "Dead End" (Wallace Macfarlane) A "Answer" (Hal Clement) "Sam Hall" (Poul Anderson) A "Dumb Waiter" (Walter M. Miller Jr.) A "Problem for Emmy" (Robert Sherman Townes) A "Selected List of Tales About Robots, Androids, and Computers" (Groff Conklin)
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