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Google has confirmed restrictions on its Gemini chatbot in relation to responses to queries on crucial general elections to take place this year, including the race for the White House.
The Alphabet-owned company is taking steps to control the dissemination of misinformation (and to prevent it as much as possible) by limiting the output of its generative AI assistant. Images, video, and audio have recently been created to maliciously impact the democratic process or for electioneering purposes.
Concerns around the spread of such content have led to governments sitting around the table, often with the involvement of the big tech firms, to find solutions to the challenges and regulate the overall AI landscape.
For the upcoming US presidential election later this year, Google previously stated it would be taking action, and that has materialized. If you attempt to ask Gemini about the face-off between incumbent President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, it will respond with:
“I’m still learning how to answer this question. In the meantime, try Google Search”.
A Google spokesperson was quoted by Reuters on the motivation for limiting their chatbot service.
“In preparation for the many elections happening around the world in 2024 and out of an abundance of caution, we are restricting the types of election-related queries for which Gemini will return responses.”
What other elections are taking place, and what has already happened?
Crucial national polls are set to take place worldwide, in addition to the US.
The UK’s general election will take place later in the year, with a date still not fixed, while important elections will take place in South Africa and India, the world’s largest democracy.
In the case of the latter, tech companies have been prompted to secure government approval before releasing AI software that is “unreliable” or still in development.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan blasted fake AI-powered audio, which had the potential to incite trouble on the streets, while deepfake electioneering saw the return of the feared dictator Suharto for the recent election in Indonesia, with a video address to the electorate.
Google’s collective focus on this issue will have been sharpened recently after its CEO Sundar Pichai sent an internal memo to staff, stressing Gemini errors were “completely unacceptable” after the artificial intelligence (AI) app embroiled the company in controversy.
The tech giant suspended its image creation function on Gemini after it generated offensive and historically inaccurate results.
Image credit: Ideogram
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Sometimes you just don’t need a team of 250 people and a budget in the multi-millions to make a great game that people love playing. Balatro, Infinite Craft, and the like have made it big already in 2024, and now this, one of the best arcade racing games I have ever played bursts onto the scene.
New Star GP comes from a stable you may not be familiar with, but if you are you will love their work. I couldn’t tell you the hours of travel time I have sunk into playing Retro Bowl and New Star Soccer on my iPhone while getting to and from places. Before that, I was hooked on New Star Manager. Yes, New Star Games is probably one of my favorite small game developers ever, and I probably didn’t even realize it.
These games though were great little addictive titles that you could pick up and play for a few minutes here and there, even though that was rarely what happened. New Star GP is different. It’s like somebody took the classic Virtua Racing from the 90s and said, we are going to make one of the best racing games in years. 
New Star GP has no flashy F1 licenses. Max Verstappen is not on the title screen as it loads and it somehow doesn’t matter a jot.

First playing on my actual PC was a lot of fun. Big screen, flashy arcade graphics and sound and care handling like an arcade racing dream with an Xbox Elite controller. Then I had a brainwave – I thought, I bet this will be good on my ROG Ally. I was not wrong.
New Star GP positively shines on a handheld PC. The ROG Ally’s 1080p screen looks amazing, and the Steam Deck’s OLED screen is like an arcade dopamine hit you are not expecting.

Never mind 2024 this could be one of the best racers ever
New Star Games is already a BAFTA award-winning studio for its previous work, but New Star GP is its biggest project to date and they have smashed it out of the park and then some. New Star bills itself as making the sports games other companies don’t dare to make, well more fool them.
Here you can choose to start your own race team back in the 1980s if you want and work your way up to modern times, or simply start a Championship and amend just about every factor of the season to play it as you want to play it.
Of course, nothing would matter if the car was handled like it was in mud. It doesn’t. It feels amazing to throw it around the track while the music pumps. Amazing I say.  There will be a full review coming in the next few days but we felt it was worth bringing this to the attention of the PC handheld crew before then.

And if you don’t have a handheld like the Steam Deck or Rog Ally, it is even better on a big screen. You can even play it as a four-player split screen with all of you on the same couch and set handicaps for the better players. Oh, stop it. Watch the trailer and give them your money.
New Star GP is available on Steam now priced at £24.99 / $29.99 – It is also available for the Nintendo Switch and on Xbox.
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Hearthstone turned ten yesterday (Mar. 11, 2024), and they’re celebrating a decade of adventure with numerous events in both Hearthstone and World of Warcraft.
The collectible card game based on the Warcraft universe, created by Blizzard Entertainment, was first unveiled in 2014. Since then, it has amassed a solid following with over 100 million registered players worldwide and has become one of the most popular and successful games in its genre.
In an effort to give back on its anniversary, the team behind the game has released 12 special cards are available to everyone, with a ‘gift’ card included for each class.
There’s also an exclusive card for Harth Stonebrew, the innkeeper, who guides the player in learning the ropes.
Alongside this, you can now play the Hearthstone soundtrack in your daily life as they’ve released the ‘Music from the Tavern,’ which is available on platforms like YouTube and Spotify. This includes the full 31 tracks, largely from well-known composer of video game music by Peter McConnell.

They’ve opened up another gift, too, in the form of World of Warcraft players being able to enjoy an actual Hearthstone game within the MMORPG.
With the Tavern now open for a decade, the expansions aren’t stopping any time soon. Later this week (Mar. 19), the Whizbang Workshop will be released, featuring 145 new cards and a new keyboard.
Reactions and thanks from fans across the world
When a gamer tagged them in a post expressing her thanks via X, Hearthstone responded with gratitude for their fans: ‘Our incredible community is the reason we do what we do. Thank you @dawniedk and all the creators around the world who contributed to this lovely video.’

Our incredible community is the reason we do what we do. Thank you @dawniedk and all the creators from around the world who contributed to this lovely video https://t.co/17JqfU04Ct
— Hearthstone (@PlayHearthstone) March 11, 2024

The outpouring of love didn’t stop there. Over the last few days, people have been tagging and replying to the Hearthstone account to congratulate them on the anniversary.
One user said, ” I’m Honored to be a part of the community. Happy birthday!! Here’s to another 10.”

My favorite game was released 10 years ago today! I’m a very different person than I was when I was 18, but I still play Hearthstone every day. Pretty cool. https://t.co/XoBwunVd49
— Cora (@SongbirdCora) March 11, 2024

Another person looks back to when the game was first launched by saying: “My favorite game was released 10 years ago today! I’m a very different person than I was when I was at 18, but I still play Hearthstone every day. Pretty cool. :)”
Featured image: From PlayHearthstone Twitter
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With the new 2024 F1 season getting underway within the last fortnight or so it is no surprise that we have just got the announcement unveiling F1 Manager 2024 lining up on the race grid.
With F1 Manager 23 (and indeed the 22 iteration) underperforming and eventually leading to layoffs at development studio Frontier, nerves must be jangling a bit that they have finally nailed it with F1 Manager 24.
With Electronic Arts laying off staff at Codemasters after a similar disappointment with the racing version – F12023 after a similarly poor showing, somebody needs to get an F1 game right and get it right soon.
But for now, at least we should look on the bright side and we have a suitably glamorous announcement trailer that shows off some pretty nice-looking graphics. Of course, all of F1’s race graphics come as part of the standard package. You see the same stuff on the TV broadcasts of real-life races, so it all hangs on how the management side of things plays out rather than its prettiness ultimately.

The game will be released on PC, PS4/5 Xbox One, and Series X/S in “the summer” and for the first time will allow you the chance to create your own team to go up against the established F1 team names. From there on in you will be dealing with car design, sponsorships, and crying drivers, and hopefully, no Christian Horner-esque scandals like Red Bull has seen so far this year.
More importantly Frontier is promising improved race behaviours and the return of Race Replay, which allows you to see if you can get a better result for a team than happened in the corresponding real-life race.
We have our fingers crossed that this will be the race-management sim we have been waiting for from Frontier at the third time of asking. They still have another year on the F1 deal until next you so it would be good to see them get it right and then have one last hurrah in 2025.
 
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Elon Musk has confirmed X is on its way to your smart TV, in the next stage of the social media platform’s ambition to develop into an app for everything.
It appears the Tesla billionaire has Netflix, Amazon Prime and other streaming services in his sights with the rollout of the new medium for X. In recent days, Musk replied “Coming soon” to a post indicating you will soon be able to watch long-form X videos on a TV app.
A report has suggested the launch will first be hosted on Samsung TVs as well as Amazon’s Fire TV platform.

Coming soon https://t.co/JlnlSL7eS9
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 9, 2024

What will X TV look like?
X on TV will not be rivalling the heavyweight streamers with its offerings immediately but it is likely to have some similarities to those platforms, with an initial focus on video hosting like YouTube, whilst it could aim to later bid for live events and other forms of entertainment, as found on Netflix or Amazon Prime to establish itself within the market.
In the ongoing diversification of X, since Musk completed his takeover of Twitter, it was announced in December 2023 that his Grok AI chatbot would be opened up to premium subscribers on the app. It also has Twitch in its crosshairs with the hosting of monetized live streams.
X has also introduced audio and video calling, now available to all users on Android and iOS. Any user of the social media platform can receive a call but only paid users can make a call.
This targeted upscaling is likely to be influenced to some extent by WeChat, the Chinese app which acts as a one-stop shop combining social media and instant messaging with a mobile payment functionality and more.
Musk has frequently remarked on his intentions to deliver “the everything app,” when he acquired Twitter.
He stated, “In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird.”
Featured image: Ideogram
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