Light Start: The Force is with Fortnite, call the lonely eels, the best Zoom background and this AI makes better songs than you
Marcé
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You can now get lightsabers in Fortnite (again)
Sick of the pew-pew shooty way of going about things in Fortnite, the battle royale game? Developers, Epic Games has announced that it is bringing back lightsabers, Star Wars skins and emotes to celebrate Star Wars Day on 4 May. Late last year, the game saw some stellar Star Wars content to help promote Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Today, Fortnite tweeted: “Feel like a Jedi as Lightsabers have returned for a limited time! Drop in game now and show off your skills.” Along with this, the game featured an exclusive scene premiered at Risky Reels, an in-game drive-in movie theatre after which players were able to wield lightsabers for a limited time. Along with making players look awesome, lightsabers prove to be competent weapons in a game that focuses on ranged weapons (read: guns). Lightsabers are capable of dealing heavy damage to both players and structures and can block up to 30 incoming bullets before being knocked back. Players will now have access to four variants of lightsabers, including the blue, green, purple and Kylo Ren’s red sabre with hand-guards. They all deal the same amount of damage though, so you can be any one of the famous sabre-wielding Star Wars characters your heart desires. According to reports, the lightsabers will be available until 6 May, so you have two days to relive your Star Wars fantasy.
We know everyone’s struggling during these times of self-isolation. But you know who else is struggling? The fish in aquariums across the world. A particular aquarium in Tokyo, Japan, the Sumida Aquarium has put out a request for the people of the world to Facetime its lonely eels. Eels need some love too during the coronavirus pandemic, and we’re here to help. The aquarium closed to the public on 1 March, after which its 300 spotted garden eels are becoming wild again. The long lonely interval has had an impact on the eels, meaning they have gotten “used to a non-human environment and have forgotten about people.” This has resulted in increasingly shy eel-behaviour, as when the workers come around the eels tend to bury themselves under the sand. In a bid to make them more comfortable with humans again, the aquarium has published a plea for help using digital technology. They are urging humans across the world to take some time to Facetime the little sad bois. The aquarium installed five tablets around the eels’ tank and urge callers to stay quiet as it might frighten the eels. If you are bored enough (we’re sure most are), give ‘em a call.
Check out this Zoom background of a sci-fi ship blasting coronavirus particles
If you haven’t played around with Zoom’s personalised background feature, it’s about time you do. Just keep in mind that it won’t work on a computer or laptop with an Intel Core i5 and below. But if you’ve used it, you’ve probably found your own personal conference call esthetic. Throw that out of the window and check out what may be the coolest Zoom background to ever grace pour screens. Found by The Verge, a designer called Mike Winkelmann (also known as Beeple) revealed what may be the geekiest Zoom background around. “Now instead of some random photo of an island getaway, you can sit in the 3D rendering of a super futuristic craft cockpit traveling through micro-space. On either side of you are laser canons that will decimate coronavirus particles as you get through your morning huddle. There is so much amazing detail in this animated scene you never really feel like it’s looping,” The Verge describes the mesmerising background. It’s easy enough to set up if you’re keen to download the .mov file, head right here.
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AI can now make its own songs including vocals, music and lyrics
We understand that artificial intelligence resources should be allocated to finding a vaccine for COVID-19. Not these guys, though. Scientists at the AI startup called OpenAI designed a system called Jukebox that can write and compose songs complete with lyrics and music. The system can design and compose music in a variety of genres, using a massive dataset of songs. It learned how to mimic the songwriting process in a way that’s proper impressive, just listen to this sample. “We show that our models can produce songs from highly diverse genres of music like rock, hip-hop, and jazz. They can capture melody, rhythm, long-range composition, and timbres for a wide variety of instruments, as well as the styles and voices of singers to be produced with the music,” OpenAI explains on its website. Although we’re quite certain musical AI won’t take over the top billboard hits anytime soon, it’s clear that human creativity can definitely be replicated in a lab. And that’s the concerning thought we’ll leave with you today.
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