Technologies

How to Get the Map in Silksong and Unlock Shakra’s Full Shop

Your first stop in the game should be finding this map and getting access to Shakra’s shop.

When it comes to Metroidvania games like Hollow Knight: Silksong, the map is arguably the most important item to have, as it shows where you’ve explored and where you need to go next. And, like a lot of aspects of this game, it’s not meant to be easy.

Silksong, like its predecessor Hollow Knight, has a map feature you can expand as you play, but you have to find one particular NPC to unlock it. Once you find that character, the game will feel slightly easier in getting around its nooks and crannies — until it crushes you with difficult sequences and boss fights.

Read more: Hollow Knight Silksong Guide: Read These 11 Tips Before Starting

How to find the map in Silksong?

To get a map, you’ll need to go from the hub center of Bone Bottom to The Marrow, which is directly to the east. While exploring the area, the sound of someone singing will quietly echo. Following the singing will take you to Shakra, the bug warrior who also does cartography.

Shakra will introduce herself, and if you continue to talk to her, she will tell you about her map-making skills. This is when she’ll officially become a merchant and sell all the map items you could want.

What does Shakra sell?

At the start, Shakra has several items for sale, but the most important ones are maps, a Compass and the Quill.

There will be two maps for sale when you first meet Shakra: The Mosslands map and The Marrow map. The first will cost you 40 rosaries — the in-game currency — and the other will cost 50 rosaries. As you progress into a new area of the game, return to Shakra, and she will have the map for that area available for purchase.

The next item to buy from Shakra is the Quill. It costs 50 rosaries, and whenever you rest at a bench, Hornet will quickly mark on the map where she’s been.

The last item you’ll want to buy is the Compass. It’s an equipable tool that will show an icon of Hornet’s current location on the map, giving you a clear idea of where you are. This will cost 70 rosaries.

Shakra also has other items available to buy, such as Bench Pins that show where you can rest at a bench and Shell Markers to indicate where something important is on the map.

This will cost a lot of rosaries to get them all, but luckily, if you continue exploring The Marrow, you will find a bench as well as a passage to loop back to the Mosslands, where a shortcut to Bone Bottom will be waiting. This creates an easy setup to kill enemies for rosaries, rest and repeat. This is a good opportunity to get these important items without risking much and also developing your combat skills.

How does the map work?

Depending on the platform, there is a map button (it’s left bumper on the Xbox). Hold the button and the map overlay will appear. You can even move Hornet around while you’re viewing the map.

One thing to note is that the map doesn’t auto-populate as you explore. Maps come with an outline of the area, and you still need to go through the area to fill it in. Once Hornet rests at a bench, she will mark up the map to indicate where she’s been, what markers she’s come across and so on.

How do I find more maps and pins?

When you take out the next boss, the Bell Beast, Shakra will move her store to Bone Bottom. She’ll be located in a section above the other denizens that you can reach by following the hanging metal rings. She will hang out here until you find her again throughout the game. Even when you meet her somewhere else, once you finish interacting with her and rest at a bench or die, she will head back to the Bone Bottom.

As you explore more areas, Shakra will also have more maps and more items, so always make sure to head back to Bone Bottom.

Hollow Knight: Silksong is out now on PC, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, PS4 and PS5. It’s also available for Xbox Game Pass subscribers.

Technologies

Google races to put Gemini at the center of Android before Apple’s AI reboot

Google is using its latest Android rollout to position Gemini as the AI layer across phones, Chrome, laptops and cars.

Google is using its latest Android rollout to make Gemini less of a chatbot and more of an operating layer across the phone, browser, car and laptop, just weeks before Apple is expected to show its own Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence reboot at WWDC.
Ahead of its Google I/O developer conference next week, the company previewed a number of Android updates, including AI-powered app automation, a smarter version of Chrome on Android, new tools for creators, a redesigned Android Auto experience, and a sweeping set of new security features.
Alphabet is counting on Gemini to help Google compete directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for artificial intelligence models and services, while also serving as the AI backbone across its expansive portfolio of products, including Android. Meanwhile, Gemini is powering part of Apple’s new AI strategy, giving Google a role in the iPhone maker’s reset even as it races to prove its own version of personal AI on the phone is further along.
Sameer Samat, who oversees Google’s Android ecosystem, told CNBC that Google is rebuilding parts of Android around Gemini Intelligence to help users complete everyday tasks more easily.
“We’re transitioning from an operating system to an intelligence system,” he said.
As part of Tuesday’s announcements. Google said Gemini Intelligence will be able to move across apps, understand what’s on the screen and complete tasks that would normally require a user to jump between multiple services. That means Android is moving beyond the traditional assistant model, where users ask a question and get an answer, and acting more like an agent.
For instance, Google says Gemini can pull relevant information from Gmail, build shopping carts and book reservations. Samat gave the example of asking Gemini to look at the guest list for a barbecue, build a menu, add ingredients to an Instacart list and return for approval before checkout.
A big concern surrounding agentic AI involves software taking action on a user’s behalf without permissions. Samat said Gemini will come back to the user before completing a transaction, adding, “the human is always in the loop.”
Four months after announcing its Gemini deal with Google, Apple is under pressure to show a more capable version of Apple Intelligence, which has been a relative laggard on the market. Apple has long framed privacy, hardware integration and control of the user experience as its advantages.
Google’s Android push is designed to show it can bring AI deeper into the device experience while still giving users control over what Gemini can see, where it can act and when it needs confirmation.
The app automation features will roll out in waves, starting with the latest Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones this summer, before expanding across more Android devices, including watches, cars, glasses and laptops later this year.
The company is also redesigning Android Auto around Gemini, turning the car into another major surface for its assistant. Android Auto is in more than 250 million cars, and Google says the new release includes its biggest maps update in a decade and Gemini-powered help with tasks like ordering dinner while driving.
Alphabet’s AI strategy has been embraced by Wall Street, which has pushed the company’s stock price up more than 140% in the past year, compared to Apple’s roughly 40% gain. Investors now want to see how Gemini can become more central to the products people use every day.
WATCH: Alphabet briefly tops Nvidia after report of $200 billion Anthropic cloud deal

Technologies

Waymo recalls 3,800 robotaxis after glitch allowed some vehicles to ‘drive into standing water’

Waymo issued a voluntary recall of about 3,800 of its robotaxis to fix software issues that could allow them to drive into flooded roadways.

Waymo is recalling about 3,800 robotaxis in the U.S. to fix software issues that could allow them to “drive onto a flooded roadway,” according to a letter on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website.
The voluntary recall is for Waymo vehicles that use the company’s fifth and sixth generation automated driving systems (or ADS), the U.S. auto safety regulator said in the letter posted Tuesday.
Waymo autonomous vehicles in Austin, Texas, were seen on camera driving onto a flooded street and stalling, requiring other drivers to navigate around them. It’s the latest example of a safety-related issue for the Alphabet-owned AV unit that’s rapidly bolstering its fleet of vehicles and entering new U.S. markets.
Waymo has drawn criticism for its vehicles failing to yield to school buses in Austin, and for the performance of its vehicles during widespread power outages in San Francisco in December, when robotaxis halted in traffic, causing gridlock.
The company said in a statement on Tuesday that it’s “identified an area of improvement regarding untraversable flooded lanes specific to higher-speed roadways,” and opted to file a “voluntary software recall” with the NHTSA.
“Waymo provides over half a million trips every week in some of the most challenging driving environments across the U.S., and safety is our primary priority,” the company said.
Waymo added that it’s working on “additional software safeguards” and has put “mitigations” in place, limiting where its robotaxis operate during extreme weather, so that they avoid “areas where flash flooding might occur” in periods of intense rain.
WATCH: Waymo launches new autonomous system in Chinese-made vehicle

Technologies

Qualcomm tumbles 13% as semiconductor stocks retreat from historic AI-fueled surge

Semiconductor equities reversed sharply after a broad AI-driven advance, with Qualcomm suffering its worst day since 2020 amid inflation concerns and rising oil prices.

Semiconductor stocks fell sharply on Tuesday, reversing course after an extensive rally that had expanded the artificial intelligence investment theme well past Nvidia and driven the industry to unprecedented levels.

Qualcomm plunged 13% and was on track for its steepest single-day decline since 2020. Intel shed 8%, while On Semiconductor and Skyworks Solutions each lost more than 6%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF, which benchmarks the overall sector, fell 5%.

The sell-off came after a key gauge of consumer prices came in above forecasts, and as conflict in Iran pushed crude oil higher—prompting investors to shift away from riskier assets.

The preceding advance had widened the AI opportunity set beyond longtime industry leader Nvidia, which for much of the past several years had largely carried the market to new peaks on its own.

Explosive appetite for central processing units, along with the graphics processing units that power large language models, has sent chipmakers to all-time highs.

Market participants are wagering that the shift from AI model training to autonomous agents will lift demand for additional AI hardware. Among the beneficiaries are memory chip producers, which are raising prices as supply remains tight.

Micron Technology slid 6%, and Sandisk cratered 8%. Sandisk’s stock has surged more than six times over since January.