Arriving just 10 months after the disastrous Madame Web, Sony Pictures’ Kraven the Hunter landed in theaters in December with a resounding critical and commercial thud. Kraven’s failure to draw in fans of Spider-Man’s most famous villains helped underscore a simple fact: Apart from Venom, audiences simply don’t care about Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, known internally […]

Sony is furthering its partnership with AMD so they can create more AI-powered technology to make games look and play better — and not just on PlayStation hardware. The two companies are establishing a “deeper collaboration” to work on “Machine Learning-based technology for graphics and gameplay,” lead architect of the PS5 and PS5 Pro Mark Cerny announced on Wednesday.

The two already partner on the PS5 and PS5 Pro’s GPUs, which are based on AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture, and the PS5 Pro uses a feature called PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) to improve image clarity and frame rates.

Sony also released a 37-minute presentation by Cerny discussing technical aspects of the PS5 Pro and some additional information about the “multi-year” project with AMD, which is codenamed “Amethyst.” The two are vague about how, when, and where the tech resulting from Project Amethyst will be used, but general it sounds like it’s something we could see on the next PlayStation and other future hardware that AMD is a part of.

The companies have two goals with Project Amethyst, according to Cerny. “The first goal is a more ideal architecture for machine learning,” Cerny said, including something that’s particularly good at dealing with the lightweight convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for game graphics.

The second goal is to develop “a set of high-quality CNNs for graphics,” Cerny said. “Both SIE and AMD will independently have the ability to draw from this collection of network architectures and training strategies, and these components should be key in increasing the richness of game graphics as well as enabling more extensive use of ray tracing and path tracing.”

Sony and AMD don’t want this technology to be exclusive to PlayStation. “Through this technology collaboration we’re looking to support broad work and machine learning across a variety of devices,” Cerny said. That means “something that can be used broadly across PC and console and cloud,” Cerny said to IGN.

The fruits of this work seem like they’re a ways out, though: “Don’t expect some massive hardware announcement immediately coming out of this,” Cerny told Digital Foundry. And since creating a console is “roughly a four year-journey,” Cerny said during the presentation, it’s possible we might not see hardware that uses tech from Project Amethyst until the PlayStation 6. (Cerny dodged a direct question from IGN about when we should expect a potential PS6.)

If you want to read more of what Cerny said about Amethyst in his presentation, here’s the transcript of that part (which starts at around 34:32 in the video):

I have some very exciting news to share. We have begun a deeper collaboration with AMD. For the project name we’re taking a hint from AMD’s red and PlayStation’s blue. The code name is Amethyst.

With Amethyst, we’ve started on another long journey and are combining our expertise with two goals in mind.

The first goal is a more ideal architecture for machine learning. Something capable of generalized processing of neural networks but particularly good at the lightweight CNNs needed for game graphics and something focused around achieving that Holy Grail of fully-fused networks.

In going after this we’re combining the lessons AMD has learned from its multi-generation RDNA road map and SIE has learned from the custom work in PS5 Pro.

But ML use in games shouldn’t and can’t be restricted to graphics libraries. We’re also working towards a democratization of machine learning something accessible that allows direct work in AI and ML by game developers both for graphics and for gameplay.

Amethyst is not about proprietary technology for PlayStation. In fact it’s the exact opposite. Through this technology collaboration we’re looking to support broad work and machine learning across a variety of devices.

The other goal is to develop, in parallel, a set of highquality CNNs for game graphics. Both SIE and AMD will independently have the ability to draw from this collection of network architectures and training strategies, and these components should be key in increasing the richness of game graphics as well as enabling more extensive use of ray tracing and path tracing.

We’re looking forward to keeping you posted throughout what we anticipate to be a multi-year collaboration.

Harry McCracken / Fast Company:
Flipboard launches Surf, an app to create custom feeds from Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, RSS, podcasts, and YouTube, in beta on iOS, Android, and iPadOS  —  Fourteen years ago, when the iPad was new and bursting with unfulfilled promise, an app called Flipboard debuted.

They said smart home hubs were dead, but 2024 has seen a resurgence of these multi-protocol machines that work with every smart home radio out there. Case in point: this week, Homey announced the launch of the Homey Pro Mini.

The Mini is a cheaper and pint-sized version of the $400 Homey Pro smart home hub, offering built-in support for Ethernet, Zigbee, Thread, and Matter. It runs the same Homey OS software as the Pro but ditches a few radios and cuts the processing power to reduce the price. It’s available for pre-order today for $199 in the US and Canada, with Europe following later in 2025 and shipping slated for April 2025.

A smart home hub is the brains of your smart home, and third-party options from companies like Homey, Home Assistant, Hubitat, and others let you set up and manage your connected devices locally in your home without relying on proprietary platforms, such as Apple Home, Google Home, or Amazon Alexa. Athom, the company behind Homey, was recently bought by LG. The Korean electronics giant plans to use Homey software to run its ThinQ smart home platform on its own recently announced smart home hub. However, LG has said Homey will continue to operate independently.

Image: Homey

The Pro Mini runs on Homey OS, a smart home platform for controlling your connected devices, such as smart lights, locks, robot vacuums, and thermostats. Similar to Apple Home or Amazon Alexa, you use an app on your phone to set up automations and routines (called Flows in Homey) that connect your gadgets. Homey claims over 1,000 integrations with devices and services, including Ikea, Sonos, Lutron, Roomba, Nest, Philips Hue, Aqara, and Yale. However, just under 300 are “official” integrations; the rest are community-generated.

Adding a Homey hub like the Pro Mini to Homey lets you run smart home automations locally, without relying on cloud connections, as well as bring devices that use specific radios, including Thread and Zigbee, into the platform. Unlike the Pro, the Mini doesn’t include Z-Wave, BLE, or IR support, but you can link it to a Homey Bridge ($69) to add those.

The Pro Mini is also less powerful than the Pro, and Homey recommends it for running up to 20 integrations, which Homey calls Homey Apps. The company says the typical user runs 14 integrations, so 20 should be sufficient for most people. If you have a more complicated smart home setup, though, Homey recommends upgrading to the Pro.

I’ve tested Homey using the Homey Pro and found it intuitive for beginner smart home users while offering plenty of features for power users. However, some integrations are limited, and many community-created smart apps may not do exactly what you want.

Athom, which was founded in the Netherlands in 2014, recently released new Homey OS Dashboards, designed to make it easier to control your smart home devices, plus a new Home Energy Management System to help keep track of energy use. With these additions — plus the power of LG behind it — Homey is shaping up to be a significant player in the smart home.

Since 2020, a Black pizza delivery driver has been awaiting justice after his route was rudely interrupted one evening by a group of Seattle police officers. Now, the city has settled to pay up big time.

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