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• Disney has created a fun, free, interactive game within Galaxy's Edge.
• With a MagicBand+ and smartphone, you can join the Bounty Hunters’ Guild.
• Thanks to technology in the band and around the land, you can explore and find bounty.

One of the best things about a Disney Parks visit is that you get immersed into the storyline of whichever park you’re in, and the company is known for going the extra mile. One of the best examples is Galaxy’s Edge, found at Disneyland in California and Disney World in Florida.

The Imagineering arm spared no detail; I mean, you can walk right up to the Millennium Falcon – and pilot it or part of it with Smuggler’s Run – go on a mission in Rise of the Resistance, or simply walk around Batuu spending credits and drinking blue or green milk. You may even spot a Wookie, a resistance hero, or a Stormtrooper.

However, one of the more hidden-in-plain-sight, immersive aspects is the ability to become a bounty hunter, much like Mando in The Mandalorian. You can use your MagicBand+ with an iPhone or Android app (or just the latter) to join Bounty Hunters’ Guild and scour around Batuu searching for bounty.

It’s one of the many perks of a MagicBand+, which there’s a good chance you already have to gain entry in the park and can use to interact with other aspects around parks, including other attractions and even performing a mini light show during fireworks and parades.

(Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

How does this work in Batuu, though? Well, when you enter Batuu at either Disney World or Disneyland, your MagicBand+ will glow, and you’ll need to find a terminal to enroll in the Bounty Hunters’ Guild. You’ll tap your band to the terminal and get a Bounty assigned. From there it’s sort of a treasure hunt – rather, bounty hunt – around the Black Spire Outpost area of Galaxy’s Edge at either park. As you get near where a bounty could be hiding, your MagicBand+ will light up and vibrate – either faster or slower – to basically tell you if you’re hot or cold.

Once you identify an area, you’ll take out your iPhone or Android phone and open up the ‘Play Disney’ app, which in turn transforms your phone into a Data Pad Scanner that the epic tech lets you scan and see behind doors or walls. You might just encounter the bounty you're after and can capture it. This is all possible thanks to AR (augmented reality) overlaying on your phone’s camera, but when you’re in the park, it pulls you further into your own Star Wars story.

(Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

It’s also an example of when technology isn’t front and center but creating some sense of wonder or magic behind the scenes, like Disney Imagineer’s lovely road to success. Through the power of the tech in wearable sensors that can interact with sensors throughout the land – while also simultaneously being your ticket into the park, payment, reservation unlocker, and more – it can also be used to deliver an interactive game.

If you’re at Galaxy’s Edge with a MagicBand+, I’d encourage you to give the Bounty Hunters’ Guild a go, and while it might not be as thrilling as a true ride, of which there are two to go on, it’s a bit more adventurous in that you never know what you might encounter.

After you’ve caught some bounty, you can go back to the terminal and see how many credits you might score. And the best thing? You can get another bounty and explore more of Batuu, and it’s very repeatable, with many different bounties to potentially score. And considering Star Wars: Batuu Bounty Hunters first hit the scene in 2022, it’s sort of a sleeper hit and leads me to wonder what experience might be cooked up next.

@jakekrol

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• 15% of Steam users' playtime dedicated to 2024 games
• 47% of playtime on games up to eight years old
• Many reasons for this, including more older games to play

Steam’s end-of-the-year review has always revealed some fascinating PC gaming trends and this year’s is no exception. According to 2024’s stats, only 15% of Steam users spent their total playing time on games that launched in 2024.

Looking further at the data that PC Gamer reports on, 47% of the total playing time on Steam was spent on games released in the last seven years, while 37% of that time was spent on games that launched eight years or more ago. Now the question is, why and what does this mean?

One possible explanation is that gamers could be focusing more on their backlogs rather than new releases. We do know that playtime for current releases is higher this year than in 2023, as there was an increase from 9% to 15%, which means players are buying new titles at least. There are other possibilities for this trend as well.

Other possibilities for this statistic

One reason could be that older games are easier to access due to their cheaper prices, especially due to the many Steam sales. There’s also the influence of the Steam Deck and what’s considered ‘Steam Deck playable,’ since many recent AAA games may be too demanding for a portable PC.

There’s also the fact that older live service games like Counter-Strike, Dota 2, and PUBG have made up Steam's Most Played charts, while newer titles have an incredibly difficult time breaking through and building a player base.

Another reason is that Steam has over 200,000 titles released over the course of decades, compared to the relatively paltry 18,000 games released in 2024 according to SteamDB. So naturally, more users will spend more time playing older games versus recent ones.

Regardless, 15% of playtime dedicated to new games is rather impressive, compared to 2022’s 17% stat. It means that the numbers are recovering after the massive dip in 2023. Hopefully next year we’ll see another increase, as gamers delve into more new titles.

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• OpenAI announced upcoming o3 and o3-mini AI models.
• The new models are enhanced "reasoning" AI models that build on the o1 and o1-mini models released this year.
• Both models handily outperform existing AI models and will roll out in the next few months.

The final day of the 12 Days of OpenAI, brought back OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to show off a brand new set of AI models coming in the new year. The o3 and o3-mini models are enhanced versions of the relatively new o1 and o1-mini models. They're designed to think before they speak, reasoning out their answers. The mini version is smaller and aimed more at carrying out a limited set of specific tasks but with the same approach.

OpenAI is calling it a big step toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), which is a pretty bold claim for what is, in some ways, a mild improvement to an already powerful model. You might have noticed there's a number missing between the current o1 and the upcoming o3 model. According to Altman, that's because OpenAI wants to avoid any confusion with British telecom company O2.

So, what makes o3 special? Unlike regular AI models that spit out answers quickly, o3 takes a beat to reason things out. This “private chain of thought” lets the model fact-check itself before responding, which helps it avoid some of the classic AI pitfalls, like confidently spewing out wrong answers. This extra thinking time can make o3 slower, even if only a little bit, but the payoff is better accuracy, especially in areas like math, science, and coding.

One great aspect of the new models is that you can adjust that extra thinking time manually. If you’re in a hurry, you can set it to “low compute” for quick responses. But if you want top-notch reasoning, crank it up to “high compute” and give it a little more time to mull things over. In tests, o3 has easily outstripped its predecessor.

This is not quite AGI; o3 can't take over for humans in every way. It also does not reach OpenAI's definition of AGI, which describes models that outperform humans in the most economically valuable projects. Still, should OpenAI reach that goal, things get interesting for its partnership with Microsoft since that would end OpenAI's obligation to give Microsoft exclusive access to the most advanced AI models.

New year, new models

Right now, o3 and its mini counterpart aren’t available to everyone. OpenAI is giving safety researchers a sneak peek via Copilot Labs, and the rest of us can expect the o3-mini model to drop in late January, with the full o3 following soon after. It’s a careful, measured rollout, which makes sense given the kind of power and complexity we’re talking about here.

Still, o3 gives us a glimpse of where things are headed: AI that doesn’t just generate content but actually thinks through problems. Whether it gets us to AGI or not, it’s clear that smarter, reasoning-driven AI is the next frontier. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see if o3 lives up to the hype or if this last gift from OpenAI is just a disguised lump of coal.

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• Asus' latest monitor releases come with a kit to mount a mini PC at the back
• There's also a groove to place your smartphone, plus an integrated USB hub
• Sadly it is not a 4K display, merely a full HD+ one

As Mini PCs are becoming increasingly powerful, offering a compact design and a wealth of ports, they offer a versatile solution for users who need a powerful setup but don’t necessarily have the workspace to dedicate to a traditional desktop PC.

Recognizing this trend, Asus has introduced two 24-inch monitors, the BE248CFN and BE248QF, which are designed to accommodate these miniature marvels. Each monitor includes a mounting kit to securely attach a mini PC at the back of the stand, positioned closer to the base for easier access.

The two monitors offer other practical features, including a groove at the base that you can use to stash a smartphone. There’s also an integrated USB hub for users managing multiple devices.

Not 4K, sadly

(Image credit: Asus)

Both models offer ergonomic adjustments to suit various viewing preferences. The stands support tilt from -5 to 35 degrees, swivel 180 degrees left and right, pivot 90 degrees in either direction, and 130mm of height adjustment. The IPS panels deliver wide 178-degree viewing angles and 16.7 million colors, with a 5ms response time, 350cd/m² brightness, and a contrast ratio of 3,000:1.

Rather disappointingly, the display resolution of the two screens is Full HD+ (1,920 x 1,200), rather than 4K upwards, which may limit their appeal to those requiring higher detail or sharper visuals, such as content creators, or those who like to have a lot of windows open on screen at the same time.

Connectivity varies slightly between the two models. The BE248CFN includes HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.4, USB Type-C with a 96W power delivery function, a four-port USB 3.2 Gen 1 hub, and Gigabit Ethernet. The BE248QF adds a mini D-Sub 15-pin connector, catering to users with legacy hardware.

Both monitors incorporate 2W stereo speakers and Asus Eye Care technologies, such as Flicker-Free and Low Blue Light, which should make them comfortable to use during extended work sessions.

There’s no word on pricing or global availability as yet, but they should be on sale soon, starting in Japan, before hopefully heading to other countries.

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• Google Chrome is testing a new AI-powered scam detection feature
• It seemingly uses an on-device Large Language Model (LLM) to maintain user privacy
• AI-driven safety tools, including scam detection, help to fight the rise of AI-powered threats online

The world’s most popular browser, Google Chrome, is experimenting with a new AI-powered tool designed to help you avoid online scams.

The feature is currently being tested and apparently uses AI tech, specifically a Large Language Model (LLM) on the device, to analyze web pages and determine if they seem suspicious or scam-related.

This development was spotted by Leopeva64 on X, who regularly highlights web browser features which are being tested. What they actually discovered was a flag that can be enabled called ‘Client Side Detection Brand and Intent for Scam Detection,’ which is present in the latest version of Chrome’s experimental browser, Canary.

It looks like Chrome will also use AI to detect scams, there's a new flag in Canary that suggests this:https://t.co/uQb84zbqeW pic.twitter.com/7CyK5y4gtODecember 19, 2024

The new flag leverages an on-device LLM to investigate the content of any given web page and figure out what it's trying to do, and whether that content falls in line with the website’s supposed purpose or brand.

This is explained in the flag’s description, which reads: “Enables on-device LLM (large language model) output on pages to inquire for brand and intent of the page.”

(Image credit: Robinraj Premchand from Pixabay) On device is key to privacy

One key detail about this process is that it uses an on-device LLM, which means that the analysis of web pages happens on your device (as opposed to in the cloud somewhere, which would involve sending your browsing data to a third-party). In short, this means your data will stay private.

To try this feature out, you would have to install the latest Google Chrome Canary release, which is not something I’d generally recommend, unless you’re really keen (if so, you can follow Neowin’s advice on how to enable the new flag).

This is the latest in a series of AI-powered tools coming to Chrome, which also includes a ‘Store reviews’ feature that’s currently in testing. This capability uses AI to summarize reviews from platforms like Trustpilot or ScamAdvisor, helping users quickly check if an online store is reliable.

As ever, we don’t know if features in testing will make it through to release, but it’s likely these will - Google is keen on building out AI powers for its browser, and I expect we’ll see this scam warning system rolled out before too long. Unless the Google Chrome team finds some good reasons to go back to the drawing board.

Even though Chrome is the dominant web browser by a long way, Google shouldn’t rest on its laurels, and I think it’s very savvy of the company to keep improving its browser to stay in pole position. And with scammers and hostile actors now having AI-powered tools at their disposal, it’s good to see Google (hopefully) bringing LLMs in to help defend Chrome users from the unwanted attention of these nefarious types.

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• Lenovo Legion Go S may run SteamOS
• The handheld is also pictured with a Steam button
• Steam Deck designer attending Lenovo CES 2025 conference

There have been plenty of rumors surrounding Lenovo’s upcoming successor to its PC gaming handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go, being equipped with SteamOS. And now it seems there’s credit to these rumors, according to a new report.

One possible successor to the original handheld, the Lenovo Legion Go S, seems to feature SteamOS instead of the Windows 11 operating system that the Legion Go used. A new email circulating around Lenovo (shared by The Verge) may confirm that one of the designers of the Steam Deck — Pierre-Loup Griffais — will attend a Lenovo presentation at CES 2025 called ‘Lenovo Legion x AMD: The Future of Gaming Handhelds.’

The key takeaway is that Valve will have a presence at this event in the first place, which is what hints at the SteamOS news. There’s also another piece to the email, which allegedly shows a Legion handheld with a Steam button on it. Keep in mind that this SteamOS will most likely be for the Legion Go S, as previous rumors insist that the Legion Go 2 will stick with the Windows 11 OS.

What are Lenovo and AMD planning?

There will apparently be two Lenovo Legion Go sequels, the first being the Legion Go S and the second the Legion Go 2. The former is reported to have an AMD Ryzen Z2G APU with Zen 3+ CPU cores and Radeon 680M integrated graphics. It’ll also feature 16GB of LPDDR5 memory and an 8-inch IPS display with 1920×1200 resolution and 120 Hz refresh rate.

The latter is more of a direct successor as it will be equipped with a more powerful APU, possibly the rumored Ryzen Z2 Extreme that features a Zen 5-based CPU and an RDNA 3.5-based iGPU. The Verge also stated that Legion Go 2 will also have an OLED display with deeper blacks, more vibrant colors, and improved contrast over the original's IPS display.

This model will also keep the detachable controller from the original Legion Go but will have a more ergonomic design. However, there’s no mention of a dedicated Steam button on this handheld, which means it’ll most likely have Windows 11.

CES 2025 will also be an interesting event for AMD, as it’s planning to announce new tech like graphics cards and processors, including new RDNA 4 graphics cards. The tech giant might also drop some new mini gaming PC designs at the conference.

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