More than half of the nine developers who worked on the game have either obtained a US visa or tried and failed to do so. Most of them are from China, but the team also intentionally recruited talent from other countries in the hopes of incorporating more diverse immigrant perspectives.

“Everybody knows somebody that’s on a visa, but not all of them are vocal about that part of their identity,” says Andrea Saravia Pérez, an immigrant from Colombia who joined the team in February as a narrative designer. “How can we develop a project that’s interactive and shows people this immigration system that a lot of Americans are not familiar with?”

There’s growing interest across the gaming industry in making political games, says Yang. When her team brought H1B.Life to the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week, she says they received a tremendous amount of interest and support because they are tackling an important societal issue without expecting to make much profit. (The game was supported by a philanthropic organization and the developers also plan to raise additional funding from a future Kickstarter campaign.)

Yang says she has also heard from people in Germany and Australia interested in licensing or adapting the game for different countries. “The whole world is turning right, and life is getting more difficult for all immigrants,” she says.

“If we can just put people in our shoes, I think it can create a very positive impact,” says Saravia Pérez. “As long as players come to have fun and are able to sympathize and understand it a little bit more, I think that we’ve done our job as a team.”

Technicalities Versus Emotions

The H-1B visa program, created in 1990, is one of the most reliable US immigration pathways for white collar workers with college degrees. In recent years, the program issued about 85,000 visas annually, but since there are often more applicants than slots, a lottery system determines who ultimately is chosen. And if you don’t get it, you have to wait an entire year before you try again. Every person who has gone through the process has their own success or failure story to tell, me included.

The team behind H1B.Life started developing the game by interviewing immigrants. So far, Yang says they have talked to over two dozen people about their H-1B journeys and used those interviews to make the game more realistic and accurate. The biggest challenge now is to figure out how to balance explaining complicated immigration rules accurately and ensuring the game is still entertaining.

When I started hiking, big leather boots were the only real option. They were burly, stiff, and difficult to break in, but one pair would last you decades. Technology has mercifully caught up, however. If you head to the trails today, most hikers and backpackers are opting for more lightweight, low-cut options. While an influx of new shoes from brands like Hoka, Merrell, Danner, and Salomon has transformed the footwear industry, that doesn’t mean the hiking boot has had its day. It just depends on what you’re looking to do and when you’re doing it.

Which shoes should you pick to go out for the day? I tested countless pairs of great hiking boots, trail runners, and hiking shoes across a variety of terrain, from forest trails and coastal paths to high alpine terrain. To get a better understanding of the differences between the many options available—and which is right for you—I grilled Ingrid Johnson, a leading footwear product specialist at REI. (For what it’s worth, Johnson’s personal recommendation is the Salomon XA Pro).

When you’ve chosen your next pair of trail running shoes (or hiking boots), be sure to check out more of WIRED’s outdoor guides, like the Best Gravel Running Shoes, the Best Merino Wool T-Shirts, and the Best Electric Bikes.

Update March 2026: We added links to recent coverage, added the On Running Cloudrock Low, and updated links and prices.

Here’s When You Need Boots

If you’re carrying a heavy pack over rough terrain, or if it’s wet or snowy, you need hiking boots. They tend to be higher at the ankle, with stiff midsoles and protective toe caps, and they are generally made from very durable materials like leather and tough synthetic fabrics like Cordura. Hiking boots prioritize stability, protection, and durability.

Boots generally have thick, deep lugs, tougher soles, stronger toe guards, and sturdier ankle support. They protect you from rock impact, uneven ground, moisture, and often colder conditions. The high-cut designs also offer more ankle support, something I found reassuring when coming back from a recent injury.

But don’t think that hiking boot brands are stuck in the dark ages. Borrowing lightweight features and materials from trail running, brands are able to offer technical boots with cushioning, grip, and stability. They’re still heavy, but featherweight compared to a traditional leather boot. Hoka’s Kaha 3 GTX ($240) is one of the best boots available, blending soft nubuck leather, Vibram Megagrip sole, and bags of cushioning. Here are a few other picks:

Perennially popular for good reason, these Salomons boast superb levels of comfort and support without the bulk typically associated with traditional walking boots. They feel like ski boots, but that’s not a criticism; the height and support is most welcome when walking all day carrying a full pack.

As artificial intelligence (AI) evolves from being centred around training to inference, HPE has announced a range of compute and network products powered by Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) that it says will redefine how AI is delivered by moving intelligence to where data and users are based, and making the network a dependable fabric to support real-time experiences.

One of the standouts in the range is HPE AI Grid, designed to transform distributed AI factories into an intelligent AI infrastructure powered by Nvidia. These are said to offer a “critical” application for AI services and use cases that rely on low-latency, real-time connectivity, including retail personalisation and predictive maintenance in industries such as manufacturing, localised edge inference in healthcare and carrier-grade AI services.

HPE believes that AI‑native applications require predictable, low‑latency, distributed infrastructure. The HPE AI Grid service, part of the Nvidia AI Computing by HPE portfolio, is claimed to deliver predictable, “ultra‑low” latency performance at scale for real‑time AI services, zero‑touch provisioning and automated security with integrated orchestration.

The end-to-end system is built on an Nvidia reference architecture, and is designed to securely connect AI factories and distributed inference clusters across regional and far‑edge sites. It can facilitate the deployment and operation of as many as thousands of distributed inference sites, turning AI installations into a single intelligent system.

Looking at the intended use cases, HPE envisioned implementation from retail personalisation and predictive maintenance to edge healthcare and carrier‑grade AI services which all require predictable, ultra‑low latency connectivity. The AI Grid is also designed to allow operators to convert existing sites with power and connectivity into RAN‑ready AI grids, enabling distributed inference and new services at scale.

As well as aligning with the AI Grid reference architecture to provide a unified hardware and software stack for service providers, HPE AI Grid is said to be differentiated by the ability to offer full-stack AI servers and AI networks.

The HPE AI Grid includes HPE Juniper’s multi-cloud routing and coherent optics for predictable long-haul and metro connectivity; cloud-native and multi-tenant security; firewalls; WAN automation; and orchestration to deliver zero-touch deployment and lifecycle operations. It also contains ProLiant Compute edge and rack servers with Nvidia accelerated computing, including Nvidia RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPUs, as well as Nvidia BlueField DPUs, Spectrum-X Ethernet switches, Connect-X SuperNICs, and AI blueprints for rapid AI inference.

Neil McRae, chief technology information officer at CityFibre, said: “Our customers increasingly expect millisecond responsiveness, low-latency connectivity and comprehensive security to support their applications and services.

“We’re exploring how AI Grid from HPE, based on Nvidia’s reference architecture, could support distributed AI inferencing, and bring intelligence closer to users and data. By leveraging our fibre network assets, we see potential to combine high-performance connectivity with intelligent services for customers.”

Chris Penrose, global vice-president for telco at Nvidia, said: “An AI Grid unifies geographically distributed AI clusters to place AI workloads where they run best – balancing performance, cost and latency across AI factories, regional sites and the edge.

“Together with HPE, we’re bringing that vision to life by combining Nvidia’s accelerated computing and networking with HPE’s telco‑grade multi-cloud routing and edge infrastructure to create a single, intelligent fabric for distributed inference.”

As part of advancing its AI grid strategy, operator Comcast has begun AI field trials on its distributed network for real-time edge AI inferencing to unlock faster, more responsive experiences for the next wave of AI applications. The initial trials addressed several use cases, including leveraging HPE ProLiant servers running small language models from Personal AI, part of HPE’s Unleash AI partner programme, on Nvidia GPUs.