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A tortoise miraculously managed to escape its home and climb on to train tracks, sparking delays for commuters.

After a global IT outage caused havoc for many trying to travel on Britain’s trains on Friday morning, more delays were reported between Ascot and Bagshot later that evening.

South Western Railway told Sky News a train driver spotted the culprit - a tortoise named Solomon - on the track near Ascot station just after 6pm.

Engineers carried Solomon off the tracks - and staff “moved the tortoise to a position of safety on the platform at Ascot, which included a short ride on the train itself”.

While staff had planned to leave the reptile with a vet in Staines, the tortoise’s owner identified Solomon and collected him at around 8pm.

Network Rail added on X: "While we are delighted that this story has a happy ending and can reassure passengers that our everyone home safe, every day ambitions extend to pets, we must remind everyone that the railway is dangerous.

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A wealth of promising home-grown titles from the Xbox Games Showcase 2024 back in June gave existing users plenty of reasons to stay subscribed.

Xbox Game Pass has had a really solid July for content, and it’ll get even sweeter if the rumors of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 hitting the service soon pan out.

I wrote recently about how games might not be enough to find those elusive “new” users in an article linked below, revolving around the dilemma that the overall number of “core” console players simply isn’t growing.

While speaking to developers at shows over the past year, a lot of the discourse revolves around “black hole” games like Fortnite and Roblox, which vacuum up users and turn them into mono-gamers with no interest in playing anything else.

Xbox Game Pass is an attempt to cut through that trend in the name of supporting and showcasing the variety of art the industry has to offer — meeting new customer cohorts halfway.

The vastness of its Activision-Blizzard purchase seems to have led to a lost couple of years of momentum for Xbox as a brand, with attention focused solely on its variety of court cases.

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Recently, a newsletter by Tom Warren over at The Verge suggested that Microsoft has been exploring giving up on marketing its Xbox brand in Europe and other regions, in favor of the United States and other territories where it is more entrenched.

Flatt described his team’s efforts as “scrappy,” which is not exactly what I would personally want to hear from one of the world’s top three most valuable companies, but Microsoft does find itself in a difficult macroeconomic confluence.

Microsoft’s lack of visible urgency when it comes to Surface, Xbox, and even Windows itself, could be blamed for the struggles of an entire raft of products in recent years, even before we discuss things like software quality and customer service.

I felt like Hellblade 2 marketing was quite visible when I visited London recently, as well as across social media, but sales for the game have reportedly been quite poor.

It would be convenient if we could split into multiple timelines and examine the outcomes of binary decisions, but it’s true that the overall global console user base hasn’t really grown in years, despite the marketing from whoever is involved.

Despite all this, Microsoft has been touting its biggest ever Xbox presence for Europe’s big Gamescom convention later this summer in Cologne, Germany.

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On 18 July, Sanrio, the Japanese entertainment company that created Hello Kitty, made an astounding revelation for the iconic character’s 50th anniversary.

In an appearance on the Today Show, Sanrio director of retail business development Jill Koch said: “Hello Kitty is not a cat.”

The revelation sparked a myriad of emotions in fans, ranging from denial to shock, and later, confusion.

“I have never seen a human being with real life whiskers and cat ears,” another commenter posted.

Created by Sanrio employee Yuko Shimizu in 1974, Hello Kitty first appeared on a children’s coin purse in 1975, and in the subsequent decades, the character has become a beloved character, globally known for her sweet and wholesome disposition.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the truth was unearthed by Hello Kitty scholar Christine R. Yano, who devoted her studies to the cultural phenomenon.

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They found that over time, inactive commuters had a much higher risk of death, disease, and mental health issues compared with those who cycled or walked.

“The more you do it, the safer you are,” Jim Walker, the founder and director of the UK-based Walk21 Foundation which advises national and local governments on pedestrian-friendly policies, told Euronews Health.

Researchers accounted for potential factors that could affect the results, such as people’s pre-existing conditions, age, gender, and socioeconomic traits.

The findings align with previous studies that show a strong link between the built environment and health outcomes such as diabetes and obesity.

Study authors said the finding “reinforces the need for safer cycling infrastructure,” and the overall results have “wider global relevance to efforts to reduce carbon emissions and shift to more active and sustainable travel modes”.

Paris, for example, has added bike lanes and aims to make the entire city suitable for cyclists by 2026, though the plan has faced some delays.

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Country singer Ingrid Andress has apologised and admitted being drunk while performing a much-derided rendition of the US national anthem, at a baseball stadium.Andress’s erratic performance of The Star-Spangled Banner was widely shared after Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby, in Texas, on Monday.

“I was drunk last night,” wrote Andress, external, who has previously received four Grammy Award nominations.

"Andress’s a-capella version of the anthem was called “painful” and “one of the worst national-anthem renditions ever”, on social media.The Daily Beast headline said: “America unites over new all-time worst national-anthem performance.”

Some people posted clips of Philadelphia Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm apparently smirking as Andress was singing.But she also received sympathy and support following her apology.

"Country star Martina McBride said: "Sending lots of love and positivity.

"And one fan posted a video of Andress on stage at a concert, external, to show her “true talent”.Andress appeared as an a-cappella singer on NBC series The Sing-Off, in 2010 - and after forging a solo career, was nominated for the 2021 Grammy Award for Best New Artist.She also co-wrote Charli XCX’s hit song Boys and Bebe Rexha’s Girl in the Mirror.

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Microsoft is integrating Nvidia’s GeForce Now service into its store pages for Xbox games.

At the time of publication, the new “play with cloud” button isn’t available just yet, so it’s not clear whether this is simply a link to the main homepage of GeForce Now or whether this deep links and launches the game directly on Nvidia’s cloud gaming service.

Nvidia’s GeForce Now RTX 4080 tier is the most impressive cloud gaming service available right now, with Nvidia even claiming the end-to-end latency beats an Xbox Series X running locally on a 60Hz TV.

Microsoft and Nvidia are no strangers when it comes to cloud gaming partnerships, though.

Both companies signed a 10-year deal to allow Nvidia to license Xbox PC games for GeForce Now, including Activision Blizzard titles.

Nvidia also rolled out an update to GeForce Now earlier this year that allows members to sync their Xbox accounts and Microsoft Store purchases to the cloud gaming service.

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Fourteen high school students in Tokyo were admitted to hospital after eating “super spicy” potato crisps, police said.

Around 30 students ate the fiery snacks after one of them brought them to school on Tuesday, Japanese local media reported.

Soon, some of them started complaining of nausea and acute pain around their mouth, prompting emergency calls to the fire department and police.The 13 girls and one boy who were taken to hospital were conscious and reportedly had minor symptoms.The company that makes the snack, Isoyama Corp, put out a statement, apologising for “any inconvenience” to customers, and wished the students a swift recovery.

It “forbids” those under 18, external from consuming the crisps which are called “R 18+ curry chips”, because of how spicy they are - and it warns even those who love hot food to “eat with caution”.

The kick from your chilli can have side effectsThe Japanese firm, in fact, advises people not to "eat the chips when they are alone” and says they could cause diarrhoea if eaten “excessively”.

In one video, external, a user who appears to be wincing, described it as “painful” and said it reminded him of the time he had urinary stones.X owner Elon Musk also weighed in, saying “they must be next-level spicy!”

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2024 has had plenty of upsets.

Games from small teams — like Palworld, Balatro, and Animal Well — rocketed up the sales charts, outstripping titles with much larger budgets.

Meanwhile, the pace of big releases from major companies like Sony and Nintendo has slowed, as mass layoffs have continued to rattle the increasingly consolidated industry.

As perilous as the year has been for people who make games, it’s offered a diverse bounty for those who play them.

NPR network staffers and contributors have explored this breadth, from cozy puzzlers like Botany Manor to meditative adventures like 1000xResist to updated juggernauts like Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.

Sortable by platform and genre, we invite you to find your next favorite game on the list below.

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"I’m very aware that I could wake up tomorrow and my job could be gone,” says Jess Hyland.The video game artist says the industry she’s spent almost 15 years working in is on “shaky” ground at the moment.A boom in players and profits during the pandemic sparked a flurry of investments, expansions and acquisitions that, in hindsight, now look short-sighted.Gaming remains profitable, but thousands of workers worldwide have lost their jobs, and successful studios have been shut down over the past two years.More closures and cuts are feared.

There’s lots of worry about the future," says Jess.Some bosses are talking up the potential of generative AI - the tech behind tools such as ChatGPT - as a potential saviour.Tech giant Nvidia has shown off impressive development tool prototypes, and gaming industry heavyweights such as Electronic Arts and Ubisoft are investing in the tech.It’s claimed AI tools can save development time, free workers up to focus on creativity and provide a more personalised user experience.With budgets at the blockbuster end of the industry spiralling as audience expectations rise with them, it sounds like a perfect solution.But not to everyone.

Publicly available AI image generators, for example, can quickly output impressive-looking results from simple text prompts, but are famously poor at rendering hands.

It’s a view echoed by Chris Knowles, a former senior engine developer at UK gaming firm Jagex, known for its Runescape title.

Copyright concerns over generative AI - currently the subject of several ongoing legal cases - are one of the biggest barriers to its wider use in gaming right now.Tools are trained on vast quantities of text and pictures scraped from the internet and, like many artists, Jess believes it amounts to “mass copyright infringement”.Some studios are exploring systems trained on internal data, and third parties advertising ethical tools that claim to work off authorised sources are springing up.Even then, the fear is that AI will be used to turn out assets such as artwork and 3D models at scale, and the expectation on workers will be to produce more output.

The AI industry is currently trying to reassure governments and regulators over concerns about its future use, as shown by a recent law passed by the EUIt will also have to work hard to win over another group - gamers.Online shooter The Finals received a backlash over its use of synthesised voice lines, and developer Square Enix was criticised for the limited use of generated art in its multiplayer game Foamstars.Jess believes growing talk about AI has made gamers “think about what they love about games and what’s special about that - sharing experiences crafted by other humans”.

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True, the Linux Foundation events all now come with child support for young parents, but my expert guestimate is the average age is still well into the 30s.

More specifically, the Cloud Native Computing Foundations (CNCF)'s KubeCons have many tracks for people who want to learn the ins and outs of Kubernetes and other cloud-native programs.

The OSPO for Good conference proposed solutions that have been suggested before, such as hackathons, to engage young developers in open source coding.

As David Nalley, president of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) and director of open source strategy at Amazon Web Services (AWS), said at the conference: "Getting people to maintain old code isn’t easy.

… I thought if I could hold on just a bit longer, I could help maintain the focus on long term development to improve the user experience.

She also runs the LFX Mentorship program, which seeks to sponsor and train the next generation of open source developers and leaders.

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An England football fan who had “Euro Winners” tattooed on his leg before the final says he will not cover it up and has no regrets.Dan Thomas, from Swindon in Wiltshire, received a tattoo of the Henri Delaunay Cup and the words “England Euro 2024 Winners” ahead of the final that England went on to lose 2-1 against Spain on Sunday.Mr Thomas, 29, now says he is confident the Three Lions will win the next Euros tournament in 2028 - when the UK and Ireland are the hosts - and may get an alteration.He said he “still loves” the tattoo and has urged other England fans to get their own to show their support ahead of the next tournament.

"Spain substitute Mikel Oyarzabal scored in the final four minutes to inflict a second successive European Championship final defeat on Gareth Southgate’s side in three years.

Mr Thomas described the results of the match as “bittersweet” and praised the team for reaching the final.

“The result wasn’t what we wanted, but a great achievement to reach yet another final,” he said.

Tattoo artist Tinashe Chikerema applied the ink to Mr Thomas’s skin, not before he “triple checked” he wanted it done.

Fair play to him for being so confident in the team," Mr Chikerema told PA.Mr Thomas’s friend, Jack Wilkinson, who owns Reign Barbers and Tattoos, did not believe Mr Thomas would go ahead with the tattoo “until the needle actually touched the skin”.

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Switzerland won the right to host the world’s largest live music event after the Swiss singer Nemo triumphed in Sweden with The Code.

The Christian conservative Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland (EDU) party, however, has said it will seek to make use of the country’s direct democracy system to put the bidding cities’ loan applications to the vote.

Samuel Kullmann, a senior EDU politician, told the Swiss broadcaster SRF his party was disturbed by Eurovision’s increasing “celebration, or at least tolerance of … satanism and occultism”.

The Irish singer Bambie Thug’s stage show at the 2024 contest involved a devil-like horned dancer and a circle of candles containing a pentagram, which in its inverted form is a common satanic symbol.

In the final in Malmö, Nemo became the first non-binary artist to win the contest in its 68-year history with a song celebrating their identity beyond male and female gender norms.

Any referendums against Swiss cities hosting Eurovision would not necessarily swing in the political right’s favour, but the threat of plebiscites introduces immense uncertainty for planners.

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One of the telltale signs of these stability issues on Raptor Lake is the “out of video memory” error message that pops up in games such as Fortnite.

Cassells claims that his studio has received thousands of crash reports from players using 13th and 14th-gen Core chips and that his development team has personally experienced “frequent instability” on their own Raptor Lake-powered PCs.

But Cassells reckons there’s a more substantial underlying problem here than mere glitches of instability solved by motherboard configurations.

“Over the last 3–4 months, we have observed that CPUs initially working well deteriorate over time, eventually failing,” he claims.

This 13900K went into a gaming PC with a lower-end motherboard that by design can’t max out the chip’s power usage.

Cassells also recommends players, whether they’re hosting their own servers or just playing a game, to avoid Raptor Lake processors.

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In what has been a financially difficult year for the industry, which has seen mass layoffs, many of the world’s largest video game companies and influencers have quietly partnered with the oil-rich Saudis.

Some critics have labeled the investments “games washing,” an attempt to polish the country’s reputation and human rights abuses with entertainment and tourism, as it has been accused of doing with its professional golf and soccer leagues.

“Three years ago, I would have had my own prejudices as well, thinking about what Saudi is and what it is not,” said Ralf Reichert, the chief executive officer of the Esports World Cup Foundation.

Once a country that effectively banned movie theaters and strictly restricted tourism, Saudi Arabia has poured wealth into sports and entertainment at a staggering rate.

The fund recruited Brian Ward, a former director at Electronic Arts and vice president at Activision Blizzard, to be the company’s chief executive officer.

“Participating in a region of the world with a pretty egregious track record of human rights is difficult,” said Steve Arhancet, the team’s co-chief executive officer.

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In its place, Microsoft will “in the coming months” roll out a new $14.99 “Xbox Game Pass Standard” tier.

Quick and dirty chart by me to display the new Xbox Game Pass structure (subject to correction).

But it’s the launch day access to Microsoft’s system-selling first-party titles that really sets the Ultimate tier apart now, and which will likely necessitate a costly upgrade for many Xbox Game Pass subscribers.

Since then, loyal Game Pass subscribers have been able to play dozens of brand-new first-party titles at launch, from major franchises like Halo, Forza, and Gears of War to indie darlings like Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, and Ori and the Will of the Wisps and much more.

Including first-party titles with cheaper, console-focused Game Pass subscriptions probably seemed like a good idea when Microsoft was still trying to attract subscribers to the service.

“Let’s put it this way: If 7 million Xbox Game Pass subscribers were planning to buy ‘Call of Duty’ for $70 but now have no reason to (as it’s part of their subscription), that leaves almost half a billion dollars of revenue on the table,” MIDia analyst Rhys Elliott told The Daily Upside by way of illustrating the significant numbers involved.

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A man has been caught trying to smuggle more than 100 live snakes into mainland China by cramming them into his trousers, according to the country’s customs authority.

“Upon inspection, customs officers discovered that the pockets of the trousers the passenger was wearing were packed with six canvas drawstring bags and sealed with tape,” the statement said.

An accompanying video showed two border agents peering into transparent plastic bags filled with squirming red, pink and white snakes.

China is one of the world’s biggest animal trafficking hubs, but authorities have cracked down on the illicit trade in recent years.

The country’s biosecurity and disease control laws forbid people from bringing in non-native species without permission.

“Those who break the rules will be … held liable in accordance with the law,” the customs authority said, without specifying the man’s punishment.

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SiegedSec, a collective of self-proclaimed “gay furry hackers,” has claimed credit for breaching online databases of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that spearheaded the right-wing Project 2025 playbook.

On Wednesday, as part of a string of hacks aimed at organizations that oppose transgender rights, SiegedSec released a cache of Heritage Foundation material.

In a post to Telegram announcing the hack, SiegedSec called Project 2025 “an authoritarian Christian nationalist plan to reform the United States government.” The attack was part of the group’s #OpTransRights campaign, which recently targeted right-wing media outlet Real America’s Voice, the Hillsong megachurch, and a Minnesota pastor.

In his foreword to the Project 2025 manifesto, the Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, rails against “the toxic normalization of transgenderism” and “the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology.” The playbook’s other contributors call on “the next conservative administration” to roll back certain policies, including allowing trans people to serve in the military.

They included an archive of the Heritage Foundation’s blogs and a Heritage-aligned media site, The Daily Signal, as of November 2022.

SiegedSec targeted the Heritage Foundation in early June, according to vio, who denied involvement in the earlier attack.

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After years of fan pressure, the American hip-hop group reached out to the LSO over social media and a deal was struck.The one-night only performance in London is based around their acclaimed Black Sunday album.

It sold more than three million copies in the US and spent a whole year on the UK charts.The LSO will perform unique orchestral arrangements of the band’s most iconic songs including Insane in the Brain and I Wanna Get High.Cypress Hill have sold more than 20 million albums worldwide and are one of hip-hop’s biggest acts.

“It’s been something that we’ve talked about for many years since the Simpsons episode first aired,” B-Real (real name Louis Mario Freese) told the BBC.

"They’re still waiting for a reply.LSO first violin and board vice-chair Maxine Kwok said “people are beyond excited at the idea of these diverse musicians mixing on the stage”.

This isn’t the first time an event in The Simpsons has accurately predicted what has happened in reality many years in the future.In a March 2000 episode, Bart is shown a vision of the future in which his sister Lisa becomes US president and declares: “We’ve inherited quite a budget crunch from President Trump.” This was a full 16 years before Donald Trump became president.Springfield had their own equivalent of the Las Vegas magicians Siegfried and Roy, a duo called Gunter and Ernst.

Exactly a decade later, during a show at the Mirage casino, Roy Horn survived an attack by one of their white tigers.Winter Olympics Curling was the subject of a 2010 storyline, with Homer and Marge being selected for the US team.

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On Sunday the Observer magazine published a sensitive piece about video game addiction, speaking to therapists working in the sector and one affected family.

The article asked, “why are so many young people addicted to video games?”, which no doubt struck a chord with many parents who despair at the amount of time their children spend in front of computers and consoles.

Parents will reminisce about how they spent whole days outside, cycling the neighbourhood, but at the same time they’re treating their children’s smartphones like tracking devices, demanding regular check-ins, infiltrating their social media feeds and databasing their activities and friend groups.

No wonder then, that teens withdraw to online video game worlds, the last spaces they have left that remain unmediated by their parents or other authority figures – the last places where they are mostly beyond the reach of adult control.

You can travel freely, and for free, in Elden Ring or Legend of Zelda; no elderly relatives can suddenly vote to restrict your access to the continent in Euro Truck Simulator.

There is massive despair and disillusionment at a world in which home ownership is a fantasy, where steady careers for life are increasingly rare and where young people are accused of being lazy and complacent.

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