This paper introduces a framework for representing information about entities that do not exist or may never exist, such as those involving fictional entities, blueprints, simulations, and future scenarios. Traditional approaches that introduce "dummy instances" or rely on modal logic are criticized, and a proposal is defended in which such cases are modeled using the intersections of actual types rather than specific non existent tokens. The paper positions itself within the Basic Formal Ontology and its realist commitments, emphasizing the importance of practical, implementable solutions over purely metaphysical or philosophical proposals, arguing that existing approaches to non existent entities either overcommit to metaphysical assumptions or introduce computational inefficiencies that hinder applications. By developing a structured ontology driven approach to unreal patterns, the paper aims to provide a useful and computationally viable means of handling references to hypothetical or non existent entities.

Properly evaluating the ability of Video-Language Models (VLMs) to understand long videos remains a challenge. We propose a long-context video understanding benchmark, Causal2Needles, that assesses two crucial abilities insufficiently addressed by existing benchmarks: (1) extracting information from two separate locations (two needles) in a long video and understanding them jointly, and (2) modeling the world in terms of cause and effect in human behaviors. Causal2Needles evaluates these abilities using noncausal one-needle, causal one-needle, and causal two-needle questions. The most complex question type, causal two-needle questions, require extracting information from both the cause and effect events from a long video and the associated narration text. To prevent textual bias, we introduce two complementary question formats: locating the video clip containing the answer, and verbal description of a visual detail from that video clip. Our experiments reveal that models excelling on existing benchmarks struggle with causal 2-needle questions, and the model performance is negatively correlated with the distance between the two needles. These findings highlight critical limitations in current VLMs. The dataset is available at: https://huggingface.co/datasets/causal2needles/Causal2Needles

The world may be going to hell, but the writer and director James Gunn has graced it with a sunshine "Superman." The most recent installments in the franchise--Zack Snyder's diptych "Man of Steel" (2013) and "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" (2016)--had a hectic, howling, near-apocalyptic sense of tragedy, but Gunn's vision is bright, chipper, and sentimental. A title card announces that Superman has endured his first defeat, and the hero (played by David Corenswet) is shown tumbling from the sky and slamming with a sickening thud onto the surface of a frozen wasteland, where he lies prostrate, spitting red blood on the snow. Fear not: no sooner does the wounded combatant put his lips together and whistle for Krypto than his faithful and frisky canine companion arrives and drags his master back to the Fortress of Solitude. There, loyal robots examine the patient and, by exposing him to sunlight, begin to heal him.

One of the more amusing TikToks that followed the announcement of the forthcoming Legend of Zelda movie riffs on a scene from the animated series Drawn Together. In it, the blue-caped Captain Hero sits in a wheelchair at the bottom of a staircase next to the text "Zelda fans when the movie was announced." One beat later, the words "it's live action" appear, and Captain Hero screams. Another beat, then "it's produced by Avi Arad (Morbius)" flashes up, this time to a louder scream. Finally, "It was written by the writer of Batman v Superman, Rise of Skywalker, and Jurassic Worlld [sic]," and Captain Hero unleashes one last wounded wail.

Most comic book superheroes have a secret identity, usually to protect their friends and family from retribution. However, today's computer technology would make it impossible for a superhero to maintain their secret identity. Take Spider-Man, who has a habit of diving into an alley to change into costume. However, video cameras are pervasive in New York City, which could easily capture video of him donning his mask. The New York City Police Department operates over 15,000 surveillance cameras,1 but there are thousands more Webcams controlled by residents and commercial entities.

The other way is to recognise that quantum computing itself is literally in its infancy and that if the same laws of accelerating returns apply to them, then that massive jump of performance will itself double and multiply very rapidly. It is widely believed that the rate at which our tech will advance when powered by quantum computers will be double as exponential as what we have seen with Moore's law. Quantum computers will become 65,000-fold more powerful in those short five years. This is 65,000 times more powerful than what is already 1.5 trillion times faster than the world's fastest computer. AlphaGo Zero won 1,000 to zero against StockFish, the AI that held the world championship in chess.

Most of DC Fandome's big reveals today have focused on its upcoming films, but there was still time to squeeze in a video game announcement or two. Earlier today we got a look at Warner Bros. Montreal's new Bat-Family title, Gotham Knights. Now we've finally gotten more details on Rocksteady's upcoming Suicide Squad title after it was teased earlier this month. The game's relationship to James Gunn's movie, which was also showcased during Fandome, is mostly nonexistent. The game will highlight a smaller roster of Harley Quinn, Deadshot, King Shark and Captain Boomerang.

Microsoft and Warner Bros. have collaborated to successfully store and retrieve the entire 1978 iconic "Superman" movie on a piece of glass roughly the size of a drink coaster, 75 by 75 by 2 millimeters thick. It was the first proof of concept test for Project Silica, a Microsoft Research project that uses recent discoveries in ultrafast laser optics and artificial intelligence to store data in quartz glass. Machine learning algorithms read the data back by decoding images and patterns that are created as polarized light shines through the glass. The hard silica glass can withstand being boiled in hot water, baked in an oven, microwaved, flooded, scoured, demagnetized and other environmental threats that can destroy priceless historic archives or cultural treasures if things go wrong. It represents an investment by Microsoft Azure to develop storage technologies built specifically for cloud computing patterns, rather than relying on storage media designed to work in computers or other scenarios.

Microsoft said its researchers had produced a piece of glass that is 7.5 centimeters long and 2 millimeters thick and contains the entire 1978 film "Superman." The feat is the culmination of years of research, made possible by recent advances in ultra-fast laser optics and artificial intelligence, Microsoft said on Monday. Researchers used lasers to carve tiny three-dimensional etchings into the glass's surface that could be read by machine-learning algorithms trained to look at the patterns created when a light is shined through the glass. The research builds on other Microsoft projects that aim to store data more efficiently in the long term. A concurrent project is centered on an invention dubbed Pelican that uses cold storage to preserve dozens of disk drives, The Register reported.

Artificial intelligence enabled automation is sweeping through society and it will have a species level impact on humanity during this century. During a keynote address on August 22, 2019, at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture in Kolkata, we explore this evolution and the nuances of humanity's future. It's a great honor and immense pleasure for me to return to this forum after three years to discuss a topic that I had spoken on back in October 2016: The Future of Capitalism. Some of you may have heard that talk either here, in person, or on YouTube. Let me summarize the basic premise of what we discussed, before I address today's topic, Man and Superman. I had said that I am optimistic about the next couple of decades. I believe, strongly, that entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial capitalism can be democratized, and wealth can be created in the middle of the pyramid using capitalistic principles. In the next 2-3 decades, the potential for distributed capitalism is very high and the outcome should be extremely positive around the world. That is the mission upon which my current work with One Million by One Million is based. We're trying to help a million entrepreneurs achieve a million dollars in annual revenue and beyond, thereby creating a trillion dollars in global GDP and 10 million jobs. However, beyond our entrepreneurship development work, there is tremendous inequality due to technology and automation on the horizon.