Technologies

Get Into the Holiday Spirit and Share Your Steam Library With Friends

Feeling generous? Steam’s Family Library Sharing gives you a chance to share your gaming library with other people on specific devices.

This story is part of 12 Days of Tips, helping you make the most of your tech, home and health during the holiday season.

With its no-strings-attached approach and frequent sales, Steam — Valve’s digital gaming distribution service — makes it easy for gamers to build up sizable gaming libraries. Unlike game subscription services (Xbox Game Pass, Apple Arcade, Google Play Pass), you can purchase individual games on Steam without a monthly commitment.

Another perk? Steam Family Sharing lets you share your game library with others. Even though this feature is aimed at helping parents distribute and monitor what their kids play, it also lets you lend games to your friends. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to share your Steam library.

How to protect your account with Steam Guard

Safeguarding your game library should be your top priority. This way, even if you share your account, everything will still be protected and within your control. To do that, you need to enable Steam Guard. Steam Guard — which is free to turn on — provides an additional level of security that protects your account from unauthorized access.

Here’s how to enable Steam Guard on your account with the desktop app or in browser:

1. Go to Steam’s homepage and make sure you’re logged in.

2. In the upper right corner, click your username.

3. In the drop-down menu, click Account Details.

4. Scroll down to Account Security and click Manage Steam Guard.

From there, you can choose between having Steam Guard codes sent to your phone or email, or you can turn Steam Guard off entirely. You’ll also see the option to deauthorize all other computers or devices other than the one you’re currently using that might have saved your login information. Steam recommends sending Guard codes to your phone as a form of two-factor authentication.

How to share your Steam game library

Log into your family member or friend’s computer with your Steam account to get started. You can do this from your app, here’s how:

1. In the top left corner, click Steam.

2. Select Settings (on Windows) or Preferences (on Mac) from the drop-down menu.

3. Select Family in the side menu

4. Click the box that says Authorize Library Sharing on this computer.

This gives you the option to authorize any accounts that have also logged into the same computer. If no one else has, you’ll get a message saying «No other local accounts found.» After this is complete, log out of your account and your friend or family member can log back into theirs. They should now have the ability to download and install select games from your library.

You can select up to five users who can access and use your library across 10 devices that you’ve authorized. While you can’t set up Family Sharing in a browser, you can check which devices and accounts have access to your Steam Library. You can also revoke access.

Here’s how to check in the Steam app:

1. In the upper right corner, click your username.

2. In the drop-down menu, click Account Details.

3. Scroll down to Family Settings and click Manage Family Library Sharing.

4. If any accounts or devices have access that you no longer wish to, you can click Revoke under Sharing Status.

Checking in a browser is essentially the same, once you log into the Steam site:

1. Go to Steam’s homepage and make sure you’re logged in.

2. In the upper right corner, click your username.

3. In the drop-down menu, click Account Details.

4. Scroll down to Family Settings and click Manage Family Library Sharing.

5. If any accounts or devices have access that you no longer wish to, you can click Revoke under Sharing Status.

Pros of sharing your gaming library with Steam Family Sharing

Sharing your games with others.
Being able to try out games when your family or friends share their account with you.
Parents can have a bit more control over games their younger children may play.
Easy to view and revoke access to who has access to your library.
Gives the user you’re sharing with a chance to try a game without investing money right away.

Cons of sharing your gaming library with Steam Family Sharing

Steam’s sharing features aren’t perfect.
Only five accounts can access your gaming library from up to 10 different computers.
You need an internet connection to access the shared libraries.
Libraries can only be shared in their entirety.
Some games don’t qualify for sharing because they require a subscription.
Shared games can only be accessed by one person at a time, so you won’t be able to easily play games together.
The account holder has priority access to their games. If you start playing a game while another person is already playing, they’ll have the option to buy the game or end the session.

Technologies

You Can Watch an Exclusive Avatar: Fire and Ash Scene on TikTok Right Now

Disney and TikTok partner on an immersive content hub for James Cameron’s latest movie about the alien Na’vi.

If you’re not quite ready to head to the theater to watch Avatar: Fire and Ash, an exclusive scene preview might sell you on the visual spectacle. As part of a new collaboration with the social media giant, Disney is posting snippets of its new movie to its TikTok account.

This scene isn’t part of any trailer and won’t be posted to other social media accounts, making TikTok the only place you can view it — unless you buy a movie ticket. A first look at the new movie’s scenes isn’t the only Avatar-related bonus on the social media platform right now, either. TikTok has partnered with the house of mouse to bring an entire «immersive content hub» to the app.

A special section of TikTok includes quizzes and educational videos that explore the alien world of Pandora shown off in the movies. On TikTok, you can take a personality quiz to find out what Na’vi clan you most closely align with and unlock a special profile picture border to use on your account.

Science and fiction blend together with a series of videos from real doctors who explain the basis for some of Avatar’s world-building. If you want to learn about exoplanets or how realistic the anatomy of the movie’s alien animals is, these videos will feed your brain while still providing entertainment value.

Perhaps the most enticing part of Disney’s latest social media collaboration is the opportunity for fans to win prizes and trips. TikTok creators who make edits with the #TikTokAvatarContest hashtag are entered into a competition to win Avatar merchandise. The biggest winners will be able to take a trip to visual effects studio Wētā Workshop in New Zealand or visit Avatar director James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment Studio in Los Angeles.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is the third installment in director Cameron’s cinematic passion project. While the first Avatar movie was released in 2009, Cameron didn’t release another entry in the franchise until 2022. In total, there is a five-movie arc planned for the indigo alien Na’vi on the moon of Pandora.

The Avatar movies are known for pushing the boundaries of CGI visual effects in cinema. They are also historically big winners at the box office: the original Avatar is the highest-grossing film of all time, earning $2.9 billion across its theatrical releases. Its sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, is the third-highest-grossing film of all time, trailing Avengers: Endgame. You can stream those movies on Disney Plus.

It remains to be seen whether Avatar: Fire and Ash will financially live up to its predecessors. The film currently has mixed reviews from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Technologies

Brain-Inspired Algorithms Could Dramatically Cut AI Energy Use

A new study dives into a major redesign for AI architecture.

One major issue facing artificial intelligence is the interaction between a computer’s memory and its processing capabilities. When an algorithm is in operation, data flows rapidly between these two components. However, AI models rely on a vast amount of data, which creates a bottleneck.

A new study, published on Monday in the journal Frontiers in Science by Purdue University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, suggests a novel approach to building computer architecture for AI models using brain-inspired algorithms. The researchers say that creating algorithms in this manner could reduce the energy costs associated with AI models.

«Language processing models have grown 5,000-fold in size over the last four years,» Kaushik Roy, a Purdue University computer engineering professor and the study’s lead author, said in a statement. «This alarmingly rapid expansion makes it crucial that AI is as efficient as possible. That means fundamentally rethinking how computers are designed.»

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Most computers today are modeled on an idea from 1945 called the von Neumann architecture, which separates processing and memory. This is where the slowdown occurs. As more people around the world utilize data-hungry AI models, the distinction between a computer’s processing and memory capacity could become a more significant issue.

Researchers at IBM called out this problem in a post earlier this year. The issue computer engineers are running up against is called the ‘memory wall.’

Breaking the memory wall

The memory wall refers to the disparity between memory and processing capabilities. Essentially, computer memory is struggling to keep up with processing speeds. This isn’t a new issue. A pair of researchers from the University of Virginia coined the term back in the 1990s.

But now that AI is prevalent, the memory wall issue is sucking up time and energy in the underlying computers that make AI models work. The paper’s researchers argue that we could try a new computer architecture that integrates memory and processing.

Inspired by how our brains function, the AI algorithms referred to in the paper are known as spiking neural networks. A common criticism of these algorithms in the past is that they can be slow and inaccurate. However, some computer scientists argue that these algorithms have shown significant improvement over the last few years.

The researchers suggest that AI models should utilize a concept related to SNNs, known as compute-in-memory. This concept is still relatively new in the field of AI.

«CIM offers a promising solution to the memory wall problem by integrating computing capabilities directly into the memory system,» the authors write in the paper’s abstract.

Medical devices, transportation, and drones are a few areas where researchers believe improvements could be made if computer processing and memory were integrated into a single system.

«AI is one of the most transformative technologies of the 21st century. However, to move it out of data centers and into the real world, we need to dramatically reduce its energy use,» Tanvi Sharma, co-author and researcher at Purdue University, said in a statement.

«With less data transfer and more efficient processing, AI can fit into small, affordable devices with batteries that last longer,» Sharma said.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Dec. 17, #450

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Dec. 17, No. 450.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is pretty challenging. How well do you know French soccer? If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Put it on your noggin.

Green group hint: Goes before a division of the year.

Blue group hint: French football.

Purple group hint: Think Louisville Slugger.