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After spending many years as the public face of Overwatch, Jeff Kaplan stayed well out of the limelight after leaving Blizzard in 2021. Five years later, the former Blizzard vice president and Overwatch lead director is back with his own studio and a new game, which you might be able to play pretty soon.The Legend of California is billed as an open-world, action-survival shooter. It looks like a mix of Red Dead Redemption and Rust (Rust Dead Redemption, if you will). It's set during the gold rush era, but Kaplan says he and his team at Kintsugiyama were not aiming for historical accuracy. For one thing, this version of California is an island. Still, the developers wanted to make the game feel authentic to the time period.There are cowboys and prospectors, and you'll be able to go hunting, build mines and stables, craft tools and weapons, build out your homestead and raid hostile camps. There are "challenging" player vs. environment encounters (Kaplan says there are four difficulty tiers available to start with) and optional player vs. player battles. You'll be able to form a company with up to three other players and share progress, resources, buildings and other things with them.Kaplan says his 34-strong team hand-crafted the world, though there's a degree of randomization at play. A certain biome (say, the game's version of the Mojave Desert) might be the easiest, most beginner-friendly area of the game on one server, and the endgame, tier four section on another. The points of interest might pop up in unexpected spots too an Alcatraz-inspired structure will appear in a Bay Area-style region in some world seeds, and in snowy mountains in others.The Legend of California is being published by Blizzard co-founder and former CEO Mike Morhaime's company Dreamhaven. It's slated to enter early access on Steam and the Epic Games Store later this year, with closed alpha playtests expected to start soon.Kaplan announced The Legend of California in unusual fashion. Not during a splashy showcase, but in a five-hour appearance on Lex Fridman's podcast. Kaplan discussed his life and career, including his work on World of Warcraft, the ill-fated Titan and, of course, Overwatch. In his first public appearance since stepping down as Overwatch director, Kaplan revealed his reasons for leaving Blizzard, where he spent 19 years and previously had no intention of leaving. Business pressures related to the Overwatch League and Overwatch 2 played a part in his departure, but the final straw came in 2020 during a meeting with Blizzard's then-chief financial officer. Kaplan says he was told that if Overwatch didn't reach certain revenue targets, the publisher would lay off 1,000 people and that would be on Kaplan's shoulders.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/former-overwatch-director-jeff-kaplan-returns-with-a-western-survival-shooter-161221852.html?src=rss
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With Claude enjoying a moment of newfound popularity among regular people, Anthropic is previewing an update designed to make its chatbot better at explaining some concepts. Starting today, Claude can generate charts and diagrams as part of its responses, either when asked directly or when it decides visuals might be helpful to the user. For example, try asking Claude what's the best way to fold a paper plane. Where previously it was limited to text, now it can show you step by step how to fold a Nakamura lock plane. Anthropic is quick to point out what it's introducing today isn't image generation. When producing visual aids, Claude will use HTML code and XML vector graphics. Anthropic likens it to giving Claude access to its own whiteboard. The new feature is available to all Claude users, regardless of whether you pay for one of Anthropic's subscriptions. However, the company does warn it's releasing beta software, so expect some quirks along the way. The feature also isnt available on mobile just yet. This release comes just days after OpenAI made ChatGPT capable of generating interactive visuals when explaining science and math concepts. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/claude-can-now-generate-charts-and-diagrams-160000369.html?src=rss
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Honda has announced it is canceling three electric vehicles it was months from starting production on at its EV Hub in Ohio. The Honda 0 SUV, the Honda 0 sedan and the Acura RSX are all being wound down. The company showed off all three models, and touted them as in near-production form at CES 2025. Unlike the Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX, which run on GM's Ultium platform, the scrapped models were built on Honda's own Zero platform and would have been its first fully in-house EVs. Honda in part blamed the elimination of federal EV tax credits, eased fossil fuel regulations and US tariffs for the decision. The company said US demand for electric vehicles had slowed because of the policy changes. In China, it admitted it could not match the value offered by newer manufacturers building software-driven vehicles on shorter production cycles. CEO Toshihiro Mibe said at a press conference that the demand shift had made EV profitability "very difficult," according to Reuters. The company said it will redirect resources toward next-generation hybrids and only bring EVs to market when demand justifies it. It also shared plans to expand in India, where it expects the hybrid market to expand. Honda is not alone in pulling back from EV production, with brands like Hyundai, Kia, Volkswagen, Porsche and Ford having all scrapped or delayed major US EV projects since federal policy shifted. The total restructuring of its EV business could cost Honda up to 2.5 trillion yen ($15.7 billion), with the company set to lose money for the first time since going public in 1957. Mibe and Executive Vice President Noriya Kaihara will forgo 30 percent of their compensation for three months, with other senior executives giving up 20 percent. Honda said it plans to share a detailed long-term strategy at a press conference in May.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/honda-cancels-three-evs-that-were-months-away-from-us-production-155523384.html?src=rss
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Flash floods are notoriously difficult to predict, but Google might have a novel solution. The company just revealed Groundsource, a prediction tool for flash floods that uses Gemini to source data from old news reports. This is the first time it has used a language model for this type of work. Flash flood prediction models need historical data and model training that often doesn't exist. Our solution: Groundsource, a new AI-powered methodology that uses Gemini to transform 5M+ global reports into a precise dataset of 2.6M+ flood events.This provides a massive, Google Research (@GoogleResearch) March 12, 2026 Google tasked Gemini with sorting through 5 million news articles from around the world and isolating flood reports. It transformed this data into a geo-tagged series of chronological events. Next, researchers trained a model to ingest current weather forecasts and leverage the Groundsource data to determine the likelihood of a flash flood in a given area. We don't have any concrete information as to how accurate Google's forecast model is, though that should come over time. One trial user did say it helped his organization respond quicker to localized weather events. For now, the company is highlighting risks for urban areas in 150 countries via its Flood Hub platform. Google is also sharing its data with emergency response agencies in these locations. Google There are some limitations here. The model can only identify risk across a 20-square-kilometer area. It's also not quite as precise as the US National Weather Service's flood alert system, because Google's model doesn't integrate local radar data. This data typically enables real-time tracking of precipitation. However, the platform's been designed to work in areas that don't typically have access to that kind of weather-sensing infrastructure. Juliet Rothenberg, a program manager on Google's Resilience team, hopes that this technology can eventually be used to predict other tricky phenomena. This includes stuff like heat waves and mudslides. "Were aggregating millions of reports, she told reporters this week. "It enables us to extrapolate to other regions where there isnt as much information." This is Google's first use of a language model for weather forecasts, but not its first time it has relied on AI for this type of thing. The company's DeepMind WeatherNext 2 forecasting model has proven to be extremely accurate.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-built-a-flash-flood-prediction-tool-using-gemini-and-old-news-reports-154542963.html?src=rss
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Microsoft has unveiled Copilot Health, an AI-powered tool it claims can help make sense of your medical records, health history and fitness data from wearables, should you grant it access to that information. The company said it will be in a "separate, secure space" in the Copilot app and that the idea is to help provide you with more context and insights so you can ask your doctor the right questions when you see them.Copilot Health is designed to help you better understand your medical information as a whole, Microsoft says. It is not "intended to diagnose, treat or prevent diseases or other conditions and is not a substitute for professional medical advice," the company pointed out in a blog post.The tool can pull in activity, fitness and sleep data from more than 50 devices, including Apple Watch, Oura and Fitbit. Through HealthEx, it can access health records that include visit summaries, medication details and test results from more than 50,000 hospitals and provider organizations in the US. It can tap into lab test results from Function, should you allow it to do so.Copilot Health can take all those details and apply "intelligence to turn them into a coherent story," such as helping you pinpoint the reasons why you don't sleep too well, the company suggested. It can access real-time provider directories in the US to help users find clinicians based on factors like location, specialty, spoken languages and insurance coverage.Microsoft says that, across AI-powered consumer products like Copilot and Bing, users ask more than 50 million health-related questions every day. "Weve improved the quality and reliability of answers by elevating information from credible health organizations across 50 countries, as verified by our clinical team using principles independently established by the National Academy of Medicine," the blog post states. "Responses include clear citations with easy links to source material, alongside expertwritten answer cards from Harvard Health." As far as privacy is concerned, Microsoft says Copilot Health data and conversations are siloed from the broader Copilot app and there are extra access and safety controls in place, including "encryption at rest and in transit." You can delete your information and cut off the app's access to health records and wearable data at any time. Microsoft also notes that it won't use your Copilot Health information to train its models.The company explained that Copilot Health was informed by its responsible AI principles. Microsoft built the tool in collaboration with its own clinical team and with the expertise and feedback of more than 230 physicians from dozens of countries. "Copilot Health has achieved ISO/IEC 42001 certification, the worlds first standard for AI management systems, meaning an independent third party has verified how we build, govern and continuously improve the AI behind this service," it noted.Microsoft has opened up a waitlist for those interested in trying Copilot Health. The tool will initially be available in English in the US for those aged 18 and over. The company is working on adding support for more language and voice options and it will announce availability for those and other territories down the line. While users will be able to try Copilot Health for free at first, Microsoft plans to charge for access via a subscription, according to The New York Times. The company has not yet disclosed pricing details.The Copilot Health announcement comes just a couple of days after Amazon expanded its Health AI tool beyond One Medical. It's now available on the Amazon website and app. Prime members in the US have the option to chat about certain conditions with a One Medical provider via direct message at no extra cost. Earlier this year, OpenAI announced that it was testing ChatGPT Health. Anthropic has healthcare tools as well.Given how tough it is for many folks to access affordable healthcare and the fact their data and health records are often spread across a number of providers, some might believe there are benefits of using such tools from AI companies. However, there's a big difference between tracking your sleep or calling your doctor after an Apple Watch detects signs of atrial fibrillation and entrusting all of your medical information to a chatbot. There are also issues like AI hallucinations and chatbots providing users with straight-up bad advice, as well as the possibility that an LLM-based tool might downplay or exaggerate potential risks.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/microsofts-copilot-health-can-use-ai-to-turn-your-fitness-data-and-medical-records-into-a-coherent-story-152000621.html?src=rss
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