When Lunar debuted in North America in 1993, it was a standout in the emerging Western market for Japanese RPGs. Lunar featured detailed, animated cinematic cutscenes, plenty of voice acting, high-quality music, and-most importantly-an endearing story packed with engaging and memorable characters. While it wasn't the first CD-ROM-based JRPG to hit the market, it was one that left a powerful impact on everyone who played it. A sequel, two PlayStation remakes, a PSP outing and more further broadened the audience for Lunar. More than 30 years after the series' debut, Lunar and Lunar 2 are coming back to the realm of PlayStation with the Lunar Remastered Collection. To give some insight into what makes the Lunar games special—and to stir fond memories among longtime fans—we talked to Matthias Pergams, producer over at GungHo Online Entertainment America.

Silver Standard
"LUNAR was one of the first JRPGs on the CD-ROM format, with animated cutscenes, in-game voice acting, and even an opening theme song," Pergams explains. "The series gained a dedicated following both within and outside Japan, paving the way for the genre as a whole. It's a work that has a unique historical significance." The original Lunar has been remade and re-released a few times for various platforms (along with Lunar 2, to a lesser degree), so we were curious as to why the PlayStation 'Complete' versions of the two games were chosen as the base for the remasters. "Each version is different and possesses unique merits, so we actually struggled quite a bit with this question. Ultimately, the choice came down to which version we felt represented the series best. For us, it was the PlayStation version."

Timekettle, a global leader in AI-powered communication technology, is thrilled to introduce the enhanced W4 Pro Earbuds with bidirectional call functionality. Powered by its first proprietary software system, also announced at CES, Babel OS, the new W4 Pro sets a new benchmark for cross-language communication, offering seamless two-way real-time translation during phone and video calls on any communication platform.

The newly launched feature allows two-way translations to facilitate effortless cross-lingual conversations through any telecommunication application or traditional phone system. It provides bidirectional synchronous translations without disrupting the original voice quality.

Mobile tech tipster, Revegnus, has highlighted an interesting Samsung presentation slide—according to machine translation, the company's electronics division is already responding to an anticipated growth of "client-side large language model" service development. This market trend will demand improved Universal Flash Storage (UFS) interface speeds—Samsung engineers are currently engaged in: "developing a new product that uses UFS 4.0 technology, but increases the number of channels from the current 2 to 4." The upcoming "more advanced" UFS 4.0 storage chips could be beefy enough to be utilized alongside next-gen mobile processors in 2025. For example; ARM is gearing up "Blackhawk," the Cortex-X4's successor—industry watchdogs reckon that the semiconductor firm's new core is designed to deliver "great Large Language Model (LLM) performance" on future smartphones. Samsung's roadmap outlines another major R&D goal, but this prospect is far off from finalization—their chart reveals an anticipated 2027 rollout. The slide's body of text included a brief teaser: "at the same time, we are also actively participating in discussions on the UFS 5.0 standard."

NVIDIA's Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) has long been the de facto standard programming interface for developing GPU-accelerated software. Over the years, NVIDIA has built an entire ecosystem around CUDA, cementing its position as the leading GPU computing and AI manufacturer. However, rivals AMD and Intel have been trying to make inroads with their own open API offerings—ROCm from AMD and oneAPI from Intel. The idea was that developers could more easily run existing CUDA code on non-NVIDIA GPUs by providing open access through translation layers. Developers had created projects like ZLUDA to translate CUDA to ROCm, and Intel's CUDA to SYCL aimed to do the same for oneAPI. However, with the release of CUDA 11.5, NVIDIA appears to have cracked down on these translation efforts by modifying its terms of use, according to developer Longhorn on X.

"You may not reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble any portion of the output generated using Software elements for the purpose of translating such output artifacts to target a non-NVIDIA platform," says the CUDA 11.5 terms of service document. The changes don't seem to be technical in nature but rather licensing restrictions. The impact remains to be seen, depending on how much code still requires translation versus running natively on each vendor's API. While CUDA gave NVIDIA a unique selling point, its supremacy has diminished as more libraries work across hardware. Still, the move could slow the adoption of AMD and Intel offerings by making it harder for developers to port existing CUDA applications. As GPU-accelerated computing grows in fields like AI, the battle for developer mindshare between NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel is heating up.

A boundless sea of adventure and discovery awaits you in Ys X: Nordics! Join Adol Christin and his unlikely ally, the pirate Karja Balta, as they learn to work together to save the people of Obelia Gulf from the mysterious immortal monsters known as the Griegers. Exhilarating, fast-paced combat, a moving story of unexpected bonds, and naval exploration await you! Coming Fall 2024 to Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC!

About Ys X: Nordics
This journey takes place in the northern islands collectively known as Obelia Gulf. In this harsh land, the young adventurer, Adol Christin, encounters the Normans, a seafaring tribe, and is quickly drawn into the conflict between them, the townsfolk of Obelia Gulf, and the Griegr, undying monsters with mysterious agenda. Partnering up with the Norman warrior, Karja, Adol must take to the waters of Obelia Gulf, navigating vast stretches of ocean, consulting maritime maps, and even getting into naval battles with enemy ships. This latest title in the Ys series takes us back to a younger Adol, as he sets out on the open sea. Join him in his pursuit of the thrill of adventure!