Russian brothers top Gaming Rich List, Canterbury UK’s slowest broadband city
The Sunday Times has revealed the UK’s top 30 richest game developers and players. The inaugural edition of the Gaming Rich List – a video game themed version of its long-running Rich List – leads with Russian-born brothers Igor and Dmitry Bukhman, with an estimated fortune of £12.5 billion. The pair, who were also placed 27th in the overall Sunday Times Rich List 2024, are the co-founders of Playrix, creators of popular mobile games Township, Fishdom, and Homescapes. While the list is largely dominated by game developers – other names include Game retail boss Neil Taylor, who co-founded the chain of stores. Video Games Chronicle
Performers working in the games industry have spoken of their distress at being asked to work on explicit content without notice, including a scene featuring a sexual assault. Sex scenes are common in modern games – and are often made by filming human actors who are then digitised into game characters. But performers have told the BBC a culture of secrecy around projects – where scripts are often not shared until the last moment – means they frequently do not know in advance that scenes may involve intimate acts. They describe feeling “shaken” and “upset” after acting them out. BBC
A song about immigrants whose music, vocals and artwork were entirely generated using artificial intelligence has made the Top 50 most listened to songs in Germany, in what may be a first for a leading music market. Verknallt in einen Talahon is a parody song that weaves modern lyrics – many of them based around racial stereotypes about immigrants – with 60s schlager pop. The song is No 48 in Germany, the world’s fourth largest music market. The Guardian
A blue supermoon will appear on the horizon tonight, kicking off a series of astronomical events. Supermoons occur when a full moon rises during its closest point in its orbit to Earth. A blue moon happens when there are two full moons within a single calendar month or four full moons within a season. They’re fairly rare – hence the saying, “once in a blue moon” – and occur once every two to three years. Sky News
“Superhighway” has an impressive ring to it. It sounds like a definitive solution that will put bottlenecks firmly in the rear-view mirror. Yet the UK’s new electricity superhighway, approved by the energy regulator this week, is a more contained undertaking. The £3.4bn Eastern Green Link 2 does mean a significant step-up in electricity transport capacity. When operational in 2029, it will provide 2 gigawatt of capacity over 436km, from Scotland to Yorkshire, a near-30 per cent increase compared with peak availability across the border today. FT.com
Canterbury has been named the UK’s slowest city for the second consecutive year, in the annual ‘Slickest Cities’ research from Broadband Genie. The historic city clocked in with broadband speeds of 22Mb, which is around the bare minimum offered by the most basic superfast packages. Despite being one of the most expensive UK cities to live in, Canterbury currently lacks the otherwise widely available Virgin Media and almost a third (30%) of premises don’t have access to full-fibre broadband. Tech Digest
