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Are new characters for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe out?

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Mario Kart 8, a game that many have loved since it was launched a decade ago on the Wii U, does not stop getting better for players. And Mario Kart 8 Deluxe new characters are proof of that.

The 2017 Switch version of the game is ready to launch not just new courses to the game but also new drivers. 

“The Mario Kart 8 Deluxe game has 42 characters to choose from—the biggest roster in the series!” reads the homepage of the Mario Kart 8 website.

In the latest update, alongside a Yoshi’s Island course, there is Birdo to be welcomed. But that is not it, there are five more! To have five more characters in a first-party Nintendo game has to be one of the most exciting things to gamers. 

But why these changes? Kotaku speculates.

The previous series of the game kept things in the Mushroom Kingdom. But now, with the latest Mario Kart 8 updates, things are changing and new characters are being introduced from other Nintendo franchises. This is exciting because this means the new characters could be coming from anywhere.

It could be someone new but expected at the same time, like Samus, an obvious choice, especially as a car based on her ship would be such an obvious combination. A metered-themed course would be even better.

There could also be a different take on existing characters. There are several Mario’s, so is there room for a second Link? Maybe a Wind Water Link? But it could be someone else too.

Considering the long history of Nintendo, the possibilities for Mario Kart 8 DLC characters are endless. It is a bit weird that characters from a Nintendo series racing car game F-zero are not featured anywhere in Mario Kart 8 which is about racing cars. There is even an F-Zero course plus vehicle in the game.

“Two upcoming waves of DLC are still to come, featuring more returning courses and characters from across the Mario Kart series,” Nintendo said in a press release. 

This is why Nintendo-related speculation is genuinely difficult. 

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YouTube Shorts joins AI race with new ‘Dream Screen’ feature. But how does it work?

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YouTube on Thursday announced a new feature on its short-form video platform Shorts, called Dream Screen, which enables users to create unique videos using AI tools.

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, during the company’s live event “Made on YouTube,” revealed that users can use the AI feature to create an AI-generated video or image in YouTube Shorts by simply typing in the desired background.

Mohan demonstrated how this works by typing in “a panda drinking coffee” to show how the video image appears on the screen.

The company offered further examples as well, such as underwater castles or things you could have dreamed about, like dragons or sci-fi moonrises.

Mohan expressed his belief that the technology will enable more people to publish on YouTube without feeling as though they need a whole production studio or a thorough understanding of YouTube analytics, TechCrunch reported.

This screengrab from a demonstration video from YouTubes blog shows a panda drinking coffee, as demonstrated by the companys CEO, Neal Mohan. — YouTube/Blog/File
This screengrab from a demonstration video from YouTube’s blog shows a panda drinking coffee, as demonstrated by the company’s CEO, Neal Mohan. — YouTube/Blog/File

Over 70 billion daily views are currently being averaged on the Shorts platform, up from 50 billion in January and the biggest video-creating app anticipates that these figures will rise even higher with AI.

“At YouTube, we want to make it easier for everyone to feel like they can create and we believe generative AI will make that possible,” said Mohan.

The feature is currently being presented to a small group of artists, and it will presumably then go live early next year.

According to YouTube, in the future, the tool will allow users to enter ideas for how to alter or remix their content in order to create entirely new and unique videos.

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What you should know about asteroid sample landing Earth soon?

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Researchers have been waiting on Earth to receive the biggest asteroid sample which will be sent from space by Nasa’s OSIRIS-Rex probe, as astronomers are gaining more understanding about the evolution of the solar system and the alien rocks that are to impact our planet in future. 

Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-Rex) will be releasing a sample of the Bennu asteroid which is likely to touch down in Utah weighing an estimated 8.8 ounces.

The event will be live-streamed starting at 10am ET Sunday.

The capsule is likely to enter Earth’s atmosphere at 10:42am ET, with a speed of about 27,650 miles per hour (44,498 kilometres per hour), landing 13 minutes later.

The probe — launched in 2016 — will continue its space journey in the solar system to collect further information about asteroid named Apophis.

The samples from space may assist scientists to gain more insight into the origins and evolution of the solar system as asteroids are the “leftovers” from those early days 4.5 billion years ago.

The analysis will also help gain more insight into Bennu, which is expected to hit Earth in the future.

After surveying the Bennu — a rubble-pile asteroid shaped like a spinning top, is about one-third of a mile (500 meters) wide and composed of rocks held together by gravity.

During the sample collection, OSIRIS-REx went 1.6 feet (0.5 meters) deep into the surface — loosely packed — of the asteroid.

After saying goodbye to Bennu in May 2021, Nasa’s probe has been on its way to Earth, circling the sun twice so it can fly by Earth at the right time to release the sample.

The capsule will land within an area of 36 miles by 8.5 miles on the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range.

Sandra Freund, OSIRIS-REx program manager at Lockheed Martin Space, said: “Parachutes will deploy to slow the capsule to a gentle touchdown at 11 miles per hour, and recovery teams will be standing by to retrieve the capsule once it is safe to do so.”

Details about the sample, after undergoing the necessary process will be revealed through a Nasa broadcast from Johnson on October 11.

According to scientists, carbonaceous asteroids such as Bennu crashed into Earth early during their formation, delivering elements like water.

“We’re looking for clues as to why Earth is a habitable world — this rare jewel in outer space that has oceans and has a protective atmosphere,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

“We think all of those materials were brought by these carbon-rich asteroids very early in our planetary system formation.”

“We believe that we’re bringing back that kind of material, literally maybe representatives of the seeds of life that these asteroids delivered at the beginning of our planet that led to this amazing biosphere, biological evolution and to us being here today,” Lauretta added.

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Google supercharges Bard as OpenAI’s ChatGPT leads chatbot race

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Alphabet Inc’s Google announced on Tuesday that Bard, its generative artificial intelligence, is being equipped with the capability to fact-check responses and analyse users’ personal Google data, CNN reported. 

This move is part of Google’s efforts to keep up with the popularity of ChatGPT.

The debut of ChatGPT, a chatbot developed by Microsoft-backed OpenAI, last year triggered a competitive race within the tech industry to provide consumers with access to generative AI technology. 

At the time, ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer application in history and currently ranks among the top 30 websites globally.

However, Bard hasn’t experienced the same level of success.

 In August, it received 183 million visits, which is only 13% of what ChatGPT received, according to Similarweb, a website analytics firm.

To make headway in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, Google is introducing Bard Extensions, allowing users to import their data from other Google products. 

For example, users can request Bard to search their files in Google Drive or provide a summary of their Gmail inbox.

For now, Bard users will only be able to pull information in from Google apps, but Google is working with external companies to connect their applications to Bard in the future, Google senior product director Jack Krawczyk said.

Another new feature in Bard seeks to alleviate a nagging problem for generative AI: inaccurate responses known as “hallucinations”. 

Bard users will be able to see which parts of Bard’s answers differ from and agree with Google search results.

“We are presenting (Bard) in a way that it admits when it’s not confident,” Krawczyk said, explaining that the intention is to build users’ trust in generative AI by holding Bard accountable.

A third new feature allows users to invite others into Bard conversations.

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