Latest news with #Tetris
Mint
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
6 gadgets from 90s we all used, loved, and lost: How many do you remember?
Do you ever stop and wonder what happened to all those gadgets we couldn't live without in the 90s, and running into the early 2000s? It's wild to think how quickly they vanished from our lives and how far we've come in terms of speed, design, and efficiency. Back then, every new device felt like a doorway to the future. Now, most are just memories, sometimes tucked away in a drawer, sometimes just a story we tell. Ready for a little trip down memory lane? Let's see which classics made the list. Walkman Who remembers popping in a cassette and heading out for a walk, headphones on, feeling like the star of your own movie? The Walkman was pure magic. You'd rewind, fast forward, maybe even untangle a tape with a pencil. Crazy, right? Streaming was a distant dream. That click when you pressed play was all you needed to escape for a while. Floppy disc Saving a school project or swapping games with friends meant one thing, floppy discs. They could barely hold a single photo by today's standards, but back then, they were everything. Most people would label floppy discs with a marker because of how easy it was to mix them up. The suspense of waiting to see if your files survived, that was real drama. Now, the floppy lives on as the save icon on our screens. Who would've guessed? Of course we can't forget this one. Before everyone had a phone, the pager was king. Doctors, business folks, even teenagers clipped these little buzzers to their belts. You'd get a beep, see a number, and then rush to find a payphone. It sounds slow now but back then, getting a page felt urgent and important. Did you ever try to use one just to feel cool? Taking a photo was an act of faith. You'd line up the shot, snap the picture, and then wait days to see if it turned out. Picking up a fresh envelope of prints from the photo lab was like opening a present. Sometimes you'd get a masterpiece, sometimes just a blurry mess. But that surprise was half the fun, wasn't it? Game Boy The Game Boy was the ultimate sidekick. Chunky, a little heavy, but always ready for Tetris or Pokémon. Swapping cartridges with friends, hunting for batteries, and playing by the window for better light, those were the days. Can you believe how simple it all felt? No updates, no downloads, just pure fun. Here's one that probably got you in trouble at school. Tamagotchis were everywhere. These tiny digital pets needed constant feeding, cleaning, and attention. If you forgot about them for a few hours, you'd come back to a sad screen and a virtual mess. The obsession was real. Did your Tamagotchi ever survive more than a week? It's funny how fast things change. The gadgets that once felt futuristic are now relics of another time. But every so often, it's good to pause and remember those clicks, buzzes, and beeps that made the 90s feel so alive. Makes you wonder which of today's tech will be tomorrow's nostalgia, right?
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Business Standard
a day ago
- Automotive
- Business Standard
UK car theft crisis near 15-year high as manufacturers face high-tech gangs
To the untrained eye, the red shipping container at Felixstowe looked no different to the thousands of others stacked up at Britain's busiest seaport. Destined for Africa, its contents were listed as 'household goods,' but to police officer Adam Gibson, something didn't add up. So workers broke into the container. Gibson was right. Inside were four sport utility vehicles—three Toyota RAV 4s and a Lexus RX 450h. Two were on the ground and the others were dangling from the roof, squeezed in like Tetris blocks. After they were lifted out on a forklift, Gibson ran checks. The cars were all stolen and their license plates had been changed. The thieves he's up against are not just opportunists or joyriders. Most vehicle theft nowadays is orchestrated by organized gangs cashing in on overseas demand for SUVs. And with numbers climbing, police have struggled to stop it: for each stolen car Gibson and his colleagues intercept, he estimates that another nine slip through their fingers. 'It's not amateurs that are playing at this,' Gibson said. 'This is proper business.' As cars have become increasingly high-tech, a technological arms race has also kicked off between manufacturers and thieves. Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that 58 per cent of vehicle thefts in England and Wales in the year ending April 2024 happened with the help of 'signal-jammers'—electronic tools capable of disrupting remote locking devices. That was up from 40 per cent the previous year. Toyota, which also owns Lexus, said theft in recent years had reached 'almost epidemic proportion in the UK.' In response, carmakers have introduced keyless technology that 'goes to sleep' when not in use, trackers to keep tabs on a stolen vehicle's location and other security measures. Toyota said it's invested millions in combatting signal jammers, which can cost as much as £30,000 apiece. Jaguar Land Rover, whose luxury SUVs are so attractive to thieves that insurance companies have been reluctant to cover them, recently rolled out a software upgrade for some models that makes it impossible to drive a car without having its keys. 'It's like a game of tennis,' Gibson said. 'Criminals come out with a new bit of kit, manufacturers will get round it, sometimes by buying it on the dark web and reverse-engineering it. But five minutes later, once they've stopped it, they've come out with a new bit of kit.' By the time a stolen car arrives at a port, owners have usually already filed a claim with insurers, which tend to quickly write off a vehicle and pay up. Those hoping to recover their cars, however, stand the best chance of doing so while they're still in the UK. Even if trackers do locate the vehicle abroad, it can be difficult to get a foreign country's authorities to collaborate, and repatriation costs are not cheap. According to data from NaVCIS and analysts at Thatcham Research, nearly 40 per cent of stolen cars intercepted at British ports between 2021 and 2024 were destined for the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose centralized location and access to seaports makes it a good hub for distributing cars across Africa. An additional 20 per cent were headed to the United Arab Emirates, which saw normal delivery channels disrupted last year following a flood. Almost 7 per cent were to be sent to Cyprus and nearly 6 per cent to Jamaica, both countries where cars drive on the left, like in the UK. Another 5 per cent were headed to Georgia, which offers easy access to Russia, where cars are sold on the black market to bypass international sanctions. At Felixstowe, Gibson relies on intuition and red flags to spot suspicious shipments. A container registered to a person associated with previous criminal activity might set off an alarm, for instance, as would a container that's heavier or lighter than its listed contents suggest. Yet with around 60,000 containers moving through UK ports every day, gangs exploit the fact that the vast majority of them will never be checked. 'They know there's a very slim chance of actually being caught,' said Simon Hurr, a vehicle security expert at Ford. And among those who were caught and charged with vehicle theft between 2022 and 2023, the conviction rate was just 2 per cent. Alongside Gibson, NaVCIS employs just two other patrol officers to cover four ports in the south of England, and about nine additional office staff. After the Home Office cut support for the agency, it has relied entirely on private funding—primarily from the Finance & Leasing Association, the trade body for motor finance—to cover its costs. As car theft has become more organized, however, 'policing hasn't kept pace,' said Mark Kameen, project lead for the recently established National Vehicle Crime Reduction Partnership (NVCRP). The joint initiative, put together by police, the Home Office and automakers like JLR and Toyota, helps coordinate the response to vehicle thefts, including by organizing raids on gangs. While owners are compensated when their cars are taken, vehicle theft isn't a victimless crime. The more cars are stolen, the more insurance premiums go up. In the first three months of the year, British car owners were quoted an average of almost £800 a year for insurance—down from a peak 18 months ago but still far higher than the historical average. The government has taken steps to crack down on car theft. As well as helping set up and fund the NVCRP, it proposed measures in February that would impose a maximum sentence of five years in prison on anyone in possession of a signal jammer. Carmakers are also starting to see their own efforts pay off. JLR said the theft rate of its vehicles has fallen by over 50 per cent since it introduced new security measures in November 2022, and that fewer than four out of every 1,000 of its new cars are stolen. Toyota carried out its own trial last year, fitting some cars with tracking systems. Of those that went missing, 96 per cent were recovered thanks to the trackers, the company said. It now plans to roll them out in certain models as an optional feature. These changes have also had ripple effects on the black market, according to Gibson. While SUVs are still most in demand, he's noticed a move away from luxury vehicles. 'Five years ago, it was Range Rovers, BMW X5s, high-end Mercedes. In the last two or three years, we've started to see Hyundais, Kias and Toyotas.' Cutting open his final container after a busy day at Felixstowe, Gibson discovers a mess of valuable car parts alongside a more curious item: a London ambulance that he suspects is on its way to Ukraine. It's hauled out with a forklift, revealing chopped-up cars stuffed in back of the container that can be sold on for parts. More valuable components are crammed into the ambulance to make use of the space. Gibson's work here is finished. What happens next is up to the insurer.
The Star
a day ago
- Automotive
- The Star
UK car theft crisis pits manufacturers against high-tech gangs
To the untrained eye, the red shipping container at Felixstowe looked no different to the thousands of others stacked up at Britain's busiest seaport. Destined for Africa, its contents were listed as 'household goods,' but to police officer Adam Gibson, something didn't add up. So workers broke into the container. Gibson was right. Inside were four sport utility vehicles – three Toyota RAV 4s and a Lexus RX 450h. Two were on the ground and the others were dangling from the roof, squeezed in like Tetris blocks. After they were lifted out on a forklift, Gibson ran checks. The cars were all stolen and their license plates had been changed. Car theft is a growing problem in the UK. Almost 130,000 vehicles were stolen in the year ending March 2024 – near a 15-year high – costing insurers £640mil (RM 3.67 bil), according to the most recent data. And at least some of them are ending up overseas. As one of the few specialist officers at the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NaVCIS), an industry-funded police unit focused on car-related crime, Gibson's job is to scour containers and keep stolen cars from leaving the country. The thieves he's up against are not just opportunists or joyriders. Most vehicle theft nowadays is orchestrated by organised gangs cashing in on overseas demand for SUVs. And with numbers climbing, police have struggled to stop it: for each stolen car Gibson and his colleagues intercept, he estimates that another nine slip through their fingers. 'It's not amateurs that are playing at this,' Gibson said. 'This is proper business.' As cars have become increasingly high-tech, a technological arms race has also kicked off between manufacturers and thieves. Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that 58% of vehicle thefts in England and Wales in the year ending April 2024 happened with the help of 'signal-jammers' – electronic tools capable of disrupting remote locking devices. That was up from 40% the previous year. Toyota, which also owns Lexus, said theft in recent years had reached 'almost epidemic proportion in the UK'. In response, carmakers have introduced keyless technology that 'goes to sleep' when not in use, trackers to keep tabs on a stolen vehicle's location and other security measures. Toyota said it's invested millions in combatting signal jammers, which can cost as much as £30,000 (RM 172,143) apiece. Jaguar Land Rover, whose luxury SUVs are so attractive to thieves that insurance companies have been reluctant to cover them, recently rolled out a software upgrade for some models that makes it impossible to drive a car without having its keys. 'It's like a game of tennis,' Gibson said. 'Criminals come out with a new bit of kit, manufacturers will get round it, sometimes by buying it on the dark web and reverse-engineering it. But five minutes later, once they've stopped it, they've come out with a new bit of kit.' By the time a stolen car arrives at a port, owners have usually already filed a claim with insurers, which tend to quickly write off a vehicle and pay up. Those hoping to recover their cars, however, stand the best chance of doing so while they're still in the UK. Even if trackers do locate the vehicle abroad, it can be difficult to get a foreign country's authorities to collaborate, and repatriation costs are not cheap. According to data from NaVCIS and analysts at Thatcham Research, nearly 40% of stolen cars intercepted at British ports between 2021 and 2024 were destined for the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose centralised location and access to seaports makes it a good hub for distributing cars across Africa. An additional 20% were headed to the United Arab Emirates, which saw normal delivery channels disrupted last year following a flood. Almost 7% were to be sent to Cyprus and nearly 6% to Jamaica, both countries where cars drive on the left, like in the UK. Another 5% were headed to Georgia, which offers easy access to Russia, where cars are sold on the black market to bypass international sanctions. At Felixstowe, Gibson relies on intuition and red flags to spot suspicious shipments. A container registered to a person associated with previous criminal activity might set off an alarm, for instance, as would a container that's heavier or lighter than its listed contents suggest. Yet with around 60,000 containers moving through UK ports every day, gangs exploit the fact that the vast majority of them will never be checked. 'They know there's a very slim chance of actually being caught,' said Simon Hurr, a vehicle security expert at Ford. And among those who were caught and charged with vehicle theft between 2022 and 2023, the conviction rate was just 2%. Alongside Gibson, NaVCIS employs just two other patrol officers to cover four ports in the south of England, and about nine additional office staff. After the Home Office cut support for the agency, it has relied entirely on private funding – primarily from the Finance & Leasing Association, the trade body for motor finance – to cover its costs. As car theft has become more organised, however, 'policing hasn't kept pace,' said Mark Kameen, project lead for the recently established National Vehicle Crime Reduction Partnership (NVCRP). The joint initiative, put together by police, the Home Office and automakers like JLR and Toyota, helps coordinate the response to vehicle thefts, including by organising raids on gangs. While owners are compensated when their cars are taken, vehicle theft isn't a victimless crime. The more cars are stolen, the more insurance premiums go up. In the first three months of the year, British car owners were quoted an average of almost £800 (RM4,590) a year for insurance – down from a peak 18 months ago but still far higher than the historical average. The government has taken steps to crack down on car theft. As well as helping set up and fund the NVCRP, it proposed measures in February that would impose a maximum sentence of five years in prison on anyone in possession of a signal jammer. Carmakers are also starting to see their own efforts pay off. JLR said the theft rate of its vehicles has fallen by over 50% since it introduced new security measures in November 2022, and that fewer than four out of every 1,000 of its new cars are stolen. Toyota carried out its own trial last year, fitting some cars with tracking systems. Of those that went missing, 96% were recovered thanks to the trackers, the company said. It now plans to roll them out in certain models as an optional feature. These changes have also had ripple effects on the black market, according to Gibson. While SUVs are still most in demand, he's noticed a move away from luxury vehicles. 'Five years ago, it was Range Rovers, BMW X5s, high-end Mercedes. In the last two or three years, we've started to see Hyundais, Kias and Toyotas.' Cutting open his final container after a busy day at Felixstowe, Gibson discovers a mess of valuable car parts alongside a more curious item: a London ambulance that he suspects is on its way to Ukraine. It's hauled out with a forklift, revealing chopped-up cars stuffed in back of the container that can be sold on for parts. More valuable components are crammed into the ambulance to make use of the space. Gibson's work here is finished. What happens next is up to the insurer. – Bloomberg
New Indian Express
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Build a rewarding settlement with Drop Duchy
In a post-Balatro world, the roguelike deckbuilders have seriously upped their game. So when 'Drop Duchy' was released a few months ago, I couldn't help but try it out. Drop Duchy is exactly what you would expect from a game in the same genre — it's a simple, but well-built idle game. An idle game is what I can play when I listen to a podcast or an audiobook. It takes up half of your focus, because it is mostly just a combination of muscle memory and inconsequential decisions. And in a post-Balatro world, it needs a shiny new gimmick. So while Poker largely inspires Balatro, Drop Duchy chooses Tetris as its baseline mechanic. You would assume that Tetris has an easier learning curve when compared to Poker. Because Poker requires you to know maths, and Tetris just wants you to understand shapes. But Drop Duchy is cooler than that — it adds five additional layers of complexity to your normal game of Tetris, so that it barely resembles the original game. So what is it? As the name suggests, you must expand your duchy. You own a small piece of land that needs to be carved out to provide you with the right combination of resources. If you are someone familiar with board games like I am, you might notice that creating a continuous strip of similar terrain forms will reap higher benefits. Think Carcassonne. Similarly, the game incentivises you to group shapes of a similar terrain together - rivers bind with rivers, forests with other trees, and plains with fields.
Hypebeast
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hypebeast
ADER ERROR x Converse Ready Third Collaboration Featuring Reinterpreted Wave Trainer
Summary Following two successful collaborations,ADER ERRORreunites withConversefor a third collection — this time spotlighting the Wave Trainer silhouette along with select apparel styles. Under the theme 'Re-found,' the collection breathes new life into heritage designs, presenting a 'New Classic' that bridges archival influence with forward-thinking aesthetics. The Wave Trainer is the hero product of this collaboration. Doused in ADER ERROR's emblematic blue color, the sneaker boasts curved design elements and a dynamic blend of materials. The mesh upper is layered with cowhide, suede and shaggy suede, creating a retro yet unique mood. Additional design features include an asymmetrical leather detail on the heel with a knotted string, allowing for a detachable cover that offers two distinct styling options. A dubrae inspired by ADER ERROR's Tetris logo, along with custom-developed eyelets and hand-painted midsole further embody the brand's experimental spirit. The collaboration extends into lifestyle territory with a capsule of apparel and accessories, including a blazer jacket, a graphic T-shirt and a cap. The pieces follow an understated color palette, all imbued touches of cobalt blue that nod to ADER ERROR's signature. Retailing between ₩59,000 and ₩189,000 KRW (approx. $43 – $139 USD), the collection will pre-release via ADER ERROR'swebstoreon June 26. Following this, the pieces will be available to shop through Converse as well as ADER ERROR's offline store. From June 27, the collection will also be released through global retailers likeHBX.
