We introduce a modular harness design for LLM agents that composes of perception, memory, and reasoning components, enabling a single LLM or VLM backbone to tackle a wide spectrum of multi turn gaming environments without domain-specific engineering. Using classic and modern game suites as low-barrier, high-diversity testbeds, our framework provides a unified workflow for analyzing how each module affects performance across dynamic interactive settings. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the harness lifts gameplay performance consistently over un-harnessed baselines and reveals distinct contribution patterns, for example, memory dominates in long-horizon puzzles while perception is critical in vision noisy arcades. These findings highlight the effectiveness of our modular harness design in advancing general-purpose agent, given the familiarity and ubiquity of games in everyday human experience.

Some of the world's most popular apps are likely being co-opted by rogue members of the advertising industry to harvest sensitive location data on a massive scale, with that data ending up with a location data company whose subsidiary has previously sold global location data to US law enforcement. The thousands of apps, included in hacked files from location data company Gravy Analytics, include everything from games like Candy Crush and dating apps like Tinder to pregnancy tracking and religious prayer apps across both Android and iOS. Because much of the collection is occurring through the advertising ecosystem--not code developed by the app creators themselves--this data collection is likely happening without users' or even app developers' knowledge. This article was created in partnership with 404 Media, a journalist-owned publication covering how technology impacts humans. "For the first time publicly, we seem to have proof that one of the largest data brokers selling to both commercial and government clients appears to be acquiring their data from the online advertising'bid stream,'" rather than code embedded into the apps themselves, Zach Edwards, senior threat analyst at cybersecurity firm Silent Push and who has followed the location data industry closely, tells 404 Media after reviewing some of the data.

Microsoft bosses are slated to meet with Jeremy Hunt this week as Britain attempts to stop the company from purchasing the publisher of Call of Duty. The tech firm launched a bid to acquire video game Activision Blizzard, but British antitrust regulators have blocked the roughly £55billion ($69billion) purchase. If Microsoft moves forward with the purchase, gamers in the UK would be unable to purchase or download any titles from the Activision catalogue, including COD, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, and Candy Crush. Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, has arranged to meet with the Chancellor this week to discuss the proposal, as well as the'potential of AI' and the'need for thoughtful regulation of it', a spokesperson told Bloomberg. Analysts predict the Government and Microsoft will reach an agreement before'extreme measures', like prohibiting access to Activision games, take place.

Activision Blizzard Inc. reported earnings and revenue that missed analysts' estimates just weeks after Microsoft Corp. announced its $69 billion acquisition of the video game publisher. Adjusted revenue fell 18% to $2.49 billion in the fourth quarter, Activision Blizzard said in a statement Thursday. Analysts had expected $2.84 billion, according to an average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Adjusted earnings per share were $1.25, compared with analysts' forecasts for $1.31. The company cited "lower than expected performance" in its Activision division, which produces Call of Duty. Microsoft swooped in at a crucial time for Activision Blizzard, which is behind hit games such as Candy Crush and World of Warcraft.

This week we speak to Andrew Day, chief executive of computer games developer Keywords Studios. Andrew Day knows from personal experience just how addictive some computer games can be. "I have one of those horrible personalities, that if I open a game, I find, before I know where I am, that I have spent tens of hours on it," says the 56-year-old. I went for a little break, I was lying beside a swimming pool with nothing to do. So I picked up my phone and started playing Candy Crush.

Simulating a human gamer has enabled Candy Crush developer King to speed up its release cycles. The evolution of DeepMind's AlphaGo deep learning algorithm was the inspiration behind mobile games developer King's work to build a simulation of a games player using Google's TensorFlow. AlphaGo beat Go world champion Lee Sedol in 2016. To simulate the ancient game of Go, AlphaGo needed to play the game over and over again, applying a technique called a Monte Carlo search, which uses a deep neural network to "learn" what is the best play move to make. At the time, artificial intelligence (AI) researcher Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMinds, which Google acquired in 2014, described how open source libraries for numerical computation using data flow graphs, such as TensorFlow, allow researchers to efficiently deploy the computation needed for deep learning algorithms across multiple CPUs or GPUs. According to GitHub's Octoverse 2018 report, TensorFlow was by far the most popular open source project in 2018.

I only got a "smart" television set 18 months ago, so I have already avoided years of covert surveillance by the CIA, the FBI, MI5, CI5 and NWA. No one is safe from Samsung's all-seeing Eye of Sauron. Apparently, a deeply embedded program currently enables the intelligence agencies to note and monitor anyone who is watching ITV's The Nightly Show, in the belief that they must be a weird loner-misfit, inexplicably fascinated by human suffering, a ticking social time bomb just waiting to explode. I am a late adopter of new technology. If I had played the ape at the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, I would have thrown the bone up in the air, and then Stanley Kubrick would have cut, not to a similarly shaped satellite swooping through the cosmos in the far future, but to me, some years later, still throwing the bone up in the air, and obstinately refusing banana-based inducements to upgrade to a more aerodynamic bone.

When Tencent Holdings finalized its 8.6 billion acquisition of "Clash of Clans" developer Supercell from Japan's Softbank on Tuesday, it was just the latest strategic move from what is rapidly becoming one of the biggest power players in the global video game industry. In fact, most of your favorite games are connected in some way to the Chinese internet giant -- whether you know it or not. When people think of smartphone games, in addition to "Clash of Clans," titles such as "Candy Crush," or maybe "Kim Kardashian Hollywood," come to mind. Supercell has also developed "Clash Royale," "Boom Beach" and "Hay Day." It turns out Tencent has invested in all of those companies, developing games that are being played every day.

Activision Blizzard Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI) beat analysts' expectations Thursday with revenue of 1.46 billion, the company revealed in its earnings report for the first three months of 2016. Analysts had forecast around 1.3 billion. The beginning of the year is notoriously sleepy for video games due to the lack of major releases, but the completed acquisition of King in February added intrigue as investors saw the first returns in the 5.9 billion investment in the developer of "Candy Crush." Activision Blizzard's adjusted revenue of 908 million was up 29 percent year-over-year. The company reported King had 463 monthly active users with a net revenue of 207 million, accounting for 23 percent of Activision Blizzard's total sales.