Palworld’s coming for the kneecaps of all of Steam’s most popular games. Within days of its early access launch it’s sold 6 million copies, rocketed to the top of Steam concurrent player lists, and now it can add another milestone, amassing 1.864 million players to beat Counter-Strike’s all time peak player count.
Funnily enough, Palworld’s peak player count only barely edged out Counter-Strike’s all time high by roughly 50,000 players. Impressive numbers aside, Palworld’s got a tough row to hoe if it hopes to ever beat reigning champion PUBG’s all-time player count of 3 million.
Andy Carvin, the managing editor and research director of the Digital Forensic Research Lab, tells WIRED that his organization, which conducts a vast amount of research into disinformation and other online harms, has been tracking Doppelganger for more than two years. The scope of the operation should surprise few, he says, given the fake news sites follow an obvious template and that populating them with AI-generated text is simple.
“Russian operations like Doppelganger are like throwing spaghetti at a wall,” he says. “They toss out as much as they can and see what sticks.”
Meta, in a written statement on Tuesday, said it had banned RT’s parent company, Rossiya Segodnya, and “other related entities” globally across Instagram, Facebook, and Threads for engaging in what it called “foreign interference activity.” (“Meta is discrediting itself,” the Kremlin replied Tuesday, claiming the ban has endangered the company’s “prospects” for “normalizing” relations with Russia.)
Testifying on Wednesday, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, stressed the industry-wide nature of the problem facing voters online. “People trying to interfere with elections rarely target a single platform,” he said, adding that Meta is, nevertheless, “confident” in its ability to protect the integrity of “not only this year’s elections in the United States but elections everywhere.”
Warner appeared less than fully convinced, noting the use of paid advertisements in recent malign influence campaigns. “I would have thought,” he said, “eight years later, we would be better at at least screening the advertisers.”
He added that, seven months ago, over two dozen tech companies had signed the AI Elections Accord in Munich—an agreement to invest in research and the development of countermeasures against harmful AI. While some of the firms have been responsive, he said, others have ignored repeated inquiries by US lawmakers, many eager to hear how those investments played out.
While talking up Google’s efforts to “identify problematic accounts, particularly around election ads,” Alphabet’s chief legal officer, Kent Walker, was halted mid-sentence. Citing conversations with the Treasury Department, Warner interrupted to say that he’d confirmed as recently as February that both Google and Meta have “repeatedly allowed Russian influence actors, including sanctioned entities, to use your ad tools.”
The senator from Virginia stressed that Congress needed to know specifically “how much content” relevant bad actors had paid to promote to US audiences this year. “And we’re going to need that [information] extraordinarily fast,” he added, referring as well to details of how many Americans specifically had seen the content. Walker replied to say that Google had taken down “something like 11,000 efforts by Russian-associated entities to post content on YouTube and the like.”
Warner additionally urged the officials against viewing Election Day as if it were an end zone. Of equal and great importance is the integrity of the news that reaches voters, he stressed, in the days and weeks that follow.
A new update for Mortal Kombat I (MK1) is less than a week away from release that will add new character skins, new finishing moves and (eventually) new fighters to its “kombatant” selection screen. NetherRealm Studios released a preview of the “karnage” that’s “koming” around the “korner” (OK, we’ll stop with the unnecessary K’s).
The new trailer released on shows some of the new stuff MK1 players can expect from the Khaos Reigns pack scheduled for release on September 24 and future updates. The base game costs $49.99 for the , and and $39.99 on the . The Khaos Reigns DLC costs (gasp!) $49.99 for the , and and $39.99 for the The Khaos Reigns Kollection bundle that includes the Khaos pack and base game will set you back $89.99 for the and or $69.99 for the .
The MK1 add-on adds a brand new story mode to the game in which the newly apotheosized Liu Kang battles the evil Titan Havik with his band of fighters and EarthRealm defenders. The new pack also comes with the “Kombat Pack 2” of new fighters available on the release day including the cyborgs Cyrax and Sektor and the shadow assassin Noob Saibot.
The pack will also provide access to Ghostface from the Scream movies, the T-1000 voiced by Robert Patrick and Conan the Barbarian once they are released. If you can’t wait for a release date or you just don’t like watching whole trailers for one moment, footage of one of Ghostface’s fatalities . The video shows the infamous Scream villain eviscerating an opponent with the help of another Ghostface killer, a loving nod to Scream VI starring Jenna Ortega and Hayden Panettiere.
MK1 is also bringing back an old favorite finisher known as “animalities” that first appeared in the Mortal Kombat 3 arcade game. Every fighter in the game has a finishing move where they turn into an animal and vivisect their opponent in a number of creative ways. of Kitana’s animality in which she transforms into a giant, bloodthirsty hummingbird and turns her opponent into a bloody flesh flower.
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The cover of a U.S. Passport is displayed in Tigard, Ore., Dec. 11, 2021. Americans can now renew their passports online, bypassing a cumbersome mail-in paper application process that often caused delays. The State Department announced Wednesday that its online passport renewal system is now fully operational.
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Jenny Kane/AP/AP
WASHINGTON — Americans can now renew their passports online, bypassing a cumbersome mail-in paper application process that often caused delays.
The State Department announced Wednesday that its online renewal system is now fully operational, after testing in pilot programs, and available to adult passport holders whose passport has expired within the past five years or will expire in the coming year. It is not available for the renewal of children’s passports, for first-time passport applicants for renewal applicants who live outside the United States or for expedited applications.
“By offering this online alternative to the traditional paper application process, the Department is embracing digital transformation to offer the most efficient and convenient passport renewal experience possible,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
The department said it estimated that about 5 million Americans would be able to use this service a year. In 2023, it processed 24 million passports, about 40% of which were renewals.
After staffing shortages caused mainly by the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in lengthy passport processing delays, the department ramped up hiring and introduced other technological improvements that have reduced wait times by about one-third over last year. It says most applications are now completed in far less than the advertised six weeks to eight weeks and the online renewal system is expected to further reduce that.
The system will allow renewal applicants to skip the current process, which requires them to print out and send paper applications, photos and a check by mail, and submit their documents, photo, and payment through a secure website, www.Travel.State.Gov/renewonline.
There will be no change to the existing passport processing fees, which are currently $130 for a regular renewal.
Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Rena Bitter, whose bureau oversees passport processing said the department hoped to expand the program in the coming years to possibly include Americans living abroad, those seeking to renew a second passport and children’s passports.
“This is not going to be the last thing that we do,” she told reporters. “We want to see how this goes and then we’ll start looking at ways to continue to make this service available to more American citizens in the coming months and years.”
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a campaign event in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday. At the event, he continued to criticize migrants from Haiti, saying those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) or other authorized immigration status are “illegal aliens” who should be deported.
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RALEIGH, N.C. — Republican vice presidential nominee, Sen. JD Vance said Wednesday that Haitian migrants with legal immigration status, living in Springfield, Ohio and across the U.S. are “illegal aliens” who have been unlawfully protected from deportation, suggesting that would change if Trump wins the election.
Immigration is a top issue for Republicans, and one of Trump’s hallmark campaign promises is to enact the “largest-ever deportation” in American history on day one of his presidency if he’s elected.
Asked what the Trump administration would do about migrants that are already in the country legally after a speech in Raleigh Wednesday, Vance suggested that those migrants were granted protection unlawfully and attacked Vice President Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, over the current administration’s use of mass parole and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people that arrive from specific countries.
“What is fundamentally illegal is for Kamala Harris to say we’re going to grant parole, not on a case by case basis, but to millions of illegal aliens who are coming to this country,” Vance said. “That does not magically make them legal because Kamala Harris waved the amnesty wand. That makes her border policy a disgrace, and I’m still going to call people illegal aliens.”
The Biden administration recently extended the temporary legal protected status for unauthorized migrants from Haiti living in the U.S. through Feb. 3, 2026, a designation that protects against deportation but does not confer permanent legal status. While Vance speaks about Haiti specifically, nationals from more than a dozen other countries including Venezuela, Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan can also be awarded TPS.
The community of Springfield, a mid sized city between Dayton and Columbus, has been roiled by bomb threats, evacuations and harassment towards its residents after Vance, Trump and other Republicans spread lies that Haitian immigrants there were stealing pets and eating them, among other false claims
The Wall Street Journalreported Wednesday that Vance’s staff reached out to the Springfield city manager to inquire about the veracity of the provocative claims, learned those claims were false and shared them anyway.
“He asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” City Manager Bryan Heck told the outlet. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”
The harassment and attention reached a fever pitch after Trump mentioned Springfield on the presidential debate stage last week, as part of the Republican push to highlight the Biden administration’s unpopularity in its handling of illegal immigration and border security issues.
In North Carolina, Vance continued to play the role of Trump campaign attack dog, saying the “disgraceful” stance of the Biden-Harris administration on immigration has been, “we’re going to let in millions of illegal aliens to make your housing costs higher, to make your hospitals overwhelmed, to make your local schools impossible for your children to learn in.”
“Who consented?” Vance asked. “Who in this room, who in this country consented to allowing millions of aliens to come into this country unchecked, unvetted? None of us did.”
Vance also deflected a question about how the administration would grapple with the economic aftermath of mass deportations that would disproportionately affect industries like agriculture and construction that rely on migrant labor.
“Well, first of all, if you talk to farmers, farmers are as upset about the open borders as almost anybody else,” he said. “So I think farmers, and certainly I reject the idea that the only way to have a productive farm economy is to allow 25 million legal aliens into this country, it doesn’t make enough sense.”
Google is adding a new daily calendar overview in newly opened Chrome tabs for Workspace users with easy access to schedules and video calls. That way, when you’re signed in with your organization’s account, the first thing you’ll see is your appointments and meetings, in addition to files stored in Google Drive.
Regular Chrome users could already set up site shortcuts for themselves — for instance, you could program it to bring up a site search for Reddit just by typing “red.” Now, a group policy can be applied to departments and automatically get workers the most useful shortcuts without asking them to figure it out on their own.
Site shortcuts can be programmed by IT now.Image: Google
IT teams are also getting more granular management controls, including profile-level security policies and managed browsing designed to keep personal and work data separate in BYOD environments. On the end user side, when people sign in to their work accounts, there will be a new UI to more clearly show users what data the company has access to on the device and help keep personal bookmarks, extensions, and browser data in separate profiles.
It’s hard not to feel the ripple effect when big shifts happen. One such shift came Wednesday when Lionsgate—the studio responsible for the John Wick, Hunger Games, and Twilight franchises—announced it had teamed up with artificial intelligence firm Runway for a “first-of-its-kind partnership” that would give the AI firm access to the studio’s archives in order to create a custom AI tool for preproduction and postproduction on its film and TV shows.
Runway’s forthcoming tool will “help Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, directors, and other creative talent augment their work” and “generate cinematic video that can be further iterated using Runway’s suite of controllable tools,” according to a press release announcing the deal.
If that sounds like it might pique the interest of those who have been watching AI’s influence on creatives’ work, it did. Hours after The Wall Street Journal broke the story, writer-director Justine Bateman, who was vocally critical of AI during the Hollywood strikes last year, made a post on X that almost felt like a warning: “Over a year ago, I told you that I assumed the studios were NOT sending lawyers to the #AI companies over their models injesting [sic] their copyrighted films, because they wanted their own custom versions. Well, here you go.”
If anything, the new deal could serve as a test of the AI protections that unions like the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) got in their contract negotiations with studios last year. Under those protections, studios must get consent from actors before making a digital replica of them. Because, according to Lionsgate and Runway, the tool will be used only for preproduction and postproduction work, it’s within the realm of that agreement, says Matthew Sag, a professor of law and AI at Emory University.
“It seems like a significant development, but the movie industry has been using all sorts of technology and automation for years,” Sag says. “So you could also see this as a natural evolution. The difference is that now we are seeing more things we had thought of as creative and artistic being automated.”
The announcement came the day after California governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation aimed at protecting actors from having their work cloned without consent. Set to take effect next year, Newsom’s move comes at a time when video game workers, specifically voice and motion-caption actors, are on strike, partially over AI protections.
“We continue to wade through uncharted territory when it comes to how AI and digital media is transforming the entertainment industry,” the California governor said in a statement. “This legislation ensures the industry can continue thriving while strengthening protections for workers and how their likeness can or cannot be used.”
Even if actors’ and other performers’ work won’t be impacted by the new tools, it’s hard not to wonder about what effect new generative AI tools could have on those who work in preproduction and postproduction. Per the WSJ report, Lionsgate initially plans to use Runway’s custom tool for things like storyboarding. Eventually, the studio plans to use it to create visual effects for the big screen. According to Sag, “it’s impossible to know for sure which productivity tools will be job creators or destroyers,” but it does seem possible these tools could impact jobs.
According to Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela, though, they will not. “Our core belief is that AI, like any powerful tool, can significantly accelerate your progress through creative challenges,” Valenzuela says. “It achieves this by helping to solve specific tasks, not by replacing entire jobs. Artists are always in control of their tools.”
Like Valenzuela, Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns sees AI as a boon to moviemaking, one that will help the studio “develop cutting edge, capital efficient content creation opportunities,” he said in a statement, noting that several of Lionsgate’s filmmakers were excited about the new tools without naming which filmmakers. “We view AI as a great tool for augmenting, enhancing, and supplementing our current operations.” What it will do to their future operations remains unknown.
In an effort to quell monopoly concerns in the EU, Google reportedly offered to sell its AdX advertising marketplace. Sources told that European publishers rejected Google’s offer, arguing that the company would have to divest more in order to dismantle the conflicts of interest in its online advertising operations. Lawyers familiar with the antitrust cases said this was the first time Google had offered to sell off an asset in response to this type of lawsuit.
Despite this alleged sale offer, Google is publicly standing firm about its adtech business. “As we have said before, the European Commission’s case about our third-party display advertising products rests on flawed interpretations of the ad-tech sector, which is fiercely competitive and rapidly evolving. We remain committed to this business,” a Google rep told the publication. We’ve reached out to Google and will update this story if we receive any additional comment from the company.
Google’s control over online advertisements has raised concerns around the globe. Regulators have questioned whether the company’s activity in multiple stages of the adtech supply chain allows it to favor its own businesses, creating an unfair advantage that could hurt competition and increase advertising prices.
The European Commission began this push against the company’s ad arm . The UK’s competition watchdog also raised the alarm over a possible Google ad monopoly earlier . Google is also being sued by the Department of Justice over the same topic in the US.
Simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law.
There must be an independent, thorough and transparent investigation as to the circumstances of these mass explosions, and those who ordered and carried out such an attack must be held to account.
At Made on YouTube on Wednesday, Sept. 18, in New York, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan announced various new AI tools for creators on the platform.
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YouTube to add tools to detect AI-generated faces and voices
The AI tools aim to “support creators at every step of the journey” and range from AI-powered inspiration to AI video generators. Mohan emphasized AI’s ability to further YouTube’s mission of being “the best home for creators” and ensured creators that it will build on its “track record of responsibility.” He added that 92 percent of creators already use AI tools. The new features will become available to creators in the coming months and by early 2025.
Johanna Voolich, YouTube’s chief of product, told Mashable that the team prioritized the full creative lifecycle when building these products. Here’s a breakdown of the tools that were announced.
Veo
Perhaps the biggest announcement of the event was Veo, six-second AI-generated video clips designed for YouTube Shorts, the platform’s TikTok competitor. It runs on Google’s DeepMind technology and uses text prompts to produce clips.
Following a demonstration from Joe Ano, the creator and fashion designer behind Ella Emhoff’s Democratic National Convention dress, where he used Veo to generate dresses in motion, Sarah Ali, senior director of product, side-stepped potential criticisms of the feature by saying, “[Veo] only works because of Joe’s creative vision.” Other demonstrations included an AI-generated video of a dog and sheep becoming friends.
Veo Shorts will be watermarked with SynthID ensuring AI-generated content clearly is labeled. “Over time, how people think of this may change, but right now, we want to have that level of transparency so people can make their own judgments about what they’re watching,” said Voolich.
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Veo’s announcement comes on the heels of other platforms launching AI-generated video abilities like OpenAI’s Sora.
Inspiration tab
YouTube wants to make the creative process easier and aims to do so with the Inspiration tab, an AI-generated hub that helps creators come up with video ideas, titles, thumbnails, and outlines. User comments will also be incorporated into the AI-idea inspiration. Users will not be able to opt out of their comments’ inclusion. “The way YouTube works is based on contributions, the contributions from creators are their videos, but viewer’s contributions are what they are watching and what they are commenting on. That’s what makes the platform work,” said Voolich.
Users are already involved in what Voolich calls the “invisible AI.” “That’s the AI we have been using forever at YouTube to build out our search and recommendation systems,” she said. “That’s what you see on your home feed and your up next. That’s the user-focused AI.”
Engaging with audiences
YouTube also announced the use of AI to help creators keep up with their audiences. The tool will highlight key commenters, show creators their “profile cards” and past comments, and provide AI-enhanced reply suggestions in the creator’s voice.
It also announced another way to engage viewers, “Communities.” Reminiscent of Substack’s Chat, Communities allow creators to post directly to their audiences and viewers can post their own photos and text posts too.
Additionally, YouTube is launching “Hype,” a way for viewers to support their favorite up-and-coming creators by suggesting that their videos be brought to a wider audience. The tool gamifies liking a creator and will only be available for videos posted in the last 7 days by a creator with 5,000 subscribers or less. Users will receive a limited number of Hypes a week, but the platform is exploring selling more hypes for a new revenue stream for creators.
Auto-Dubbing
Using AI, YouTube is transforming automatically-generated captions into dubbing in different languages. A feature called “expressive speech” aims to make the dubbing as close to the original speech as possible by mimicking tone, pitch, and external noise. It will expand to 100,000s of creators in coming months.
In non-AI news, YouTube is expanding its rewards for livestreaming by launching a model similar to TikTok and Twitch of “gifts” given by viewers to creators. It will also allow creators to sort their videos into Seasons and Episodes as more people watch YouTube on television screens and YouTubers strive to win Emmy Awards.
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