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Last year, over half a million U.S. bankruptcies were filed.

While entering bankruptcy can be painful and leave a financial scar, it’s often a necessary last resort for those trapped in a cycle of debt. Studies have shown that a successful bankruptcy — when a court wipes away a portion of outstanding debt — improves not only the lifetime earnings of bankruptcy filers, but the lifetime earnings of their children as well.

But while roughly 1 in 10 Americans file for bankruptcy at some point in their life, nonwhite bankruptcy filers face higher odds of actually receiving any benefit from the process, a study found.

A recent working paper published in the National Bureau of Economic Research found that minority filers are roughly 13 percentage points more likely to have their bankruptcy cases dismissed without debt relief in Chapter 13 bankruptcy cases.

Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection is typically designed for debtors hoping to retain significant assets, like a home or car. Last year, 200,000 households filed for Chapter 13.

“We found not only are minorities much more likely to have their bankruptcy cases dismissed without debt relief, we found that the race of the legal officials that they interact with in the bankruptcy process can be predictive of success in their bankruptcy case,” said Sasha Indarte, a study co-author and an assistant professor of finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

When the study controls for other characteristics, like income level or whether a filer hires an attorney, the racial disparity narrows to 3.5 percentage points.

But Indarte said that disparity is still meaningful and indicates implicit bias may be unfairly punishing minority bankruptcy filers.

“When you’re not able to get that debt relief after experiencing financial hardship, that can allow you to experience new hardships going forward,” said Indarte.

The study pins much of the bias in bankruptcy outcomes on trustees, the legal officers in charge of overseeing Chapter 13 bankruptcy proceedings.

In order to keep bankruptcy protections, debtors must make monthly payments on a court-approved payment plan for up to five years. Trustees make sure debtors make those payments, and they have considerable discretion on when to recommend to a judge that a debtor should be kicked out of their plan because of missed payments.

Lon Jenkins, head of the National Association of Chapter 13 Trustees, doesn’t buy the study’s conclusions.

“This determination to file a motion and dismiss, if we get to that point, is purely an objective process,” said Jenkins, who administers bankruptcy proceedings in Salt Lake City. “It’s ‘Here’s the case, here’s the case number and the name, and they’ve missed three payments.’ So we’re going to file a motion, but we don’t pay attention to what the race of the debtor might be.”

Jenkins argues that no Chapter 13 trustee keeps a record of a debtor’s race. And the staff that interacts with the debtor at the beginning of a bankruptcy case is often different than the staff that simply checks whether payments are being made.

Jenkins also said since trustees make their money from a percentage of those monthly bankruptcy payments, there’s no benefit to a Chapter 13 trustee to dismiss cases prematurely.

“We are definitely not incentivized to dismiss cases,” said Jenkins.

Jenkins points to systemic factors that may make minority debtors more likely to miss payments, such as less access to family wealth.

Whether implicit or explicit bias from trustees is partly to blame for racial disparities in bankruptcy outcomes, minority debtors that lose bankruptcy protections will confront a host of new financial problems.

“So bankruptcy for those individuals is a way to have that lifeline,” said Elizabeth Gonzalez, a consumer attorney for the nonprofit law firm Public Counsel. “That I don’t have to worry about my wages being garnished or my bank account being levied, or, frankly, just being hounded by creditors.”

Thousands of workers at the Department of Health and Human Services suddenly found themselves unemployed this week.

The layoffs reportedly include about 20 employees who oversaw a program that helps low-income Americans pay their energy bills: the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP. It provides money to states, territories and tribes so they can help families keep their homes warm or cool.

Congress appropriated about $4 billion for LIHEAP this fiscal year.

Every state, tribe and territory gets a set amount, said Mark Wolfe, head of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, or NEADA.

How much depends on several factors, including climate.

“A state that’s extremely cold will receive more money than, say, a state that’s more moderate in its temperature,” Wolfe said. “Same thing with a state that becomes extremely hot.”

In many states, people who qualify for LIHEAP apply for assistance through local nonprofits. 

“And then we request money from the state, and the state issues payment to us, and we, in turn, make those payments to utility vendors primarily,” said Jean Logan, executive director of the Community Action Agency of Siouxland in Sioux City, Iowa. 

LIHEAP recipients end up with a credit that offsets part or all of the utility bill for heating or cooling their home. Logan said it can be a financial lifeline.

“It makes the difference between whether or not people have their medicines and they fall behind on their other bills, whether or not they even eat,” she said. 

So a lot of the day-to-day work of LIHEAP happens at the state and local levels. But federal administrators play a crucial role, said Mark Wolfe at NEADA.

“There is no way to allocate the funds without the federal staff, there’s no way to oversee the program.”

Wolfe said nearly $400 million appropriated by Congress for this year has not yet been distributed.

The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.

In Minnesota, Lissa Pawlisch at the state’s Division of Energy Resources said if those funds aren’t released, “in very real terms, this means that potentially, thousands of households won’t be able to get the energy assistance that they need to pay their energy bills.”

It’s still winter heating season in Minnesota. Temperatures in the Twin Cities on Wednesday were in the 30s.

The Switch 2 is bigger, more powerful and more expensive than the original Switch, but the tech specs for the new console reveal at least one key way it's worse: The Switch 2's battery life is shorter.

Nintendo says that battery life on the Switch 2 varies depending on the game you play, but that it estimates the console should last approximately "2 – 6.5 hours." That's notably shorter than the battery life you'll get out of a current Switch or Switch OLED, based on the company's support page. Nintendo estimates that a Switch OLED "with a serial number that starts with 'XT'" should last around "4.5 to 9 hours." Non-OLED Switch consoles "with a serial number that starts with 'XK'" are expected to last the same amount of time. Even the original Switch, which has "a serial number that starts with 'XA'," gets a minimum of 2.5 hours of battery life. Apparently, the extra power of the Switch 2 comes with a price.

Nintendo's tech specs confirm a few other notable details. The Switch 2 supports Wi-Fi 6, which should mean you'll get faster internet speeds when the console isn't docked and connected over ethernet. Based on Nintendo's guarantee that the console "supports 120 fps when 1920x1080/2560x1440 resolutions are selected," it seems like the Switch 2 won't support HDMI 2.1.

As far as controllers are concerned, Amiibo support remains, but if you have special place in your heart for the Wii-esque motion controls you could use on the original Switch, it looks like you're out of luck on the Switch 2. Neither the left or right Joy-Con 2 controllers have an IR sensor, one of the ways Nintendo tracked motion on the Wii and Switch. That doesn't mean you can't use motion controls on the Switch 2, just that Nintendo isn't using IR to make them work. (At least in Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, it seems like "mouse control" fills the role motion controls used to on older games.) 

Do any of these changes dramatically alter the calculus on whether the Switch 2 is worth buying? Maybe not, but it is interesting to see some of the compromises and decisions Nintendo made to offer what is effectively "the Switch, but better."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-switch-2s-battery-life-is-shorter-than-the-current-switch-211753028.html?src=rss

While some of us were anticipating news from the White House, gamers had their eye on a different hyped-up Wednesday announcement: Japanese gaming giant Nintendo unveiled details about its new Switch 2.

It’s the successor to the now eight-year-old Switch, which is among the best selling video game consoles of all time. The release is set for June 5, and there’s a lot riding on it, in a stalled gaming industry with booms and busts that can depend on new hardware. 

This time five years ago, Nintendo was having a moment. The company’s profits tripled between March and September of 2020. 

“We saw a massive influx of new players, hours and dollars into gaming,” said Mat Piscatella, an analyst at research group Circana.

He said Nintendo and other gaming companies have held onto most of those players, but they’ve got a lot more competition for their hours and dollars. Now that we can, y’know, go outside. 

“Getting back to that growth has been a big priority and a big challenge,” Piscatella said.

So the industry is looking for a jump start. The hour long video preview of the Switch 2 shows off new video chat and game-sharing features. 

Audrey Chee-Read, an analyst at Forrester, said the industry wants us to think of gaming as social.

“It’s about entertainment not just for yourself but how you can share that experience with your friends and your family,” she said.

And turn the people around you into gamers who will also spend money on new titles and consoles. Like, a lot of money. 

“The announced price point of $450 is, I think, pretty rich,” said Joost Van Druenen, a video game expert at New York University, who had predicted more like $400 for the new Switch. 

If you were hoping to get through one story without saying the “T” word, it’s time to cover your eyes. 

“I think that that has to do with tariffs,” Van Druenen said.

The Switch, like other major gaming consoles, is manufactured in China. 

Van Druenen said the higher price tag won’t keep diehards from standing in line on release day. But it could put off the more casual gamers the industry is really trying to reach.

One subset of the population that’s having a tough time in the labor market is young adults, especially those born between 1997 and 2012 — members of Generation Z.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for February, the unemployment rate for 20-to-24-year-olds was 8.3%, more than double overall U.S. joblessness. But why is Gen Z having such a hard time breaking in?

Bloomberg columnist Conor Sen attributes it largely to high interest rates, which he said have frozen many parts of the economy. “So, if you’re a company, you might say, well, things aren’t bad enough for me to have to lay people off, but they’re not good enough to make me hire either.”

Economic uncertainty is also a factor in constraining hiring, Sen said.

He joined “Marketplace” host Kimberly Adams to discuss his piece on Gen Z’s job frustration and what it says about the broader economy. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kimberly Adams: So how does Generation Z view this economy?

Conor Sen: Very poorly. We saw that in November’s elections, and they’ve had a reason to feel negative because they’re experiencing not just the same inflation and high interest rates that everybody else has been having to deal with over the past couple years, but also because we’re in this labor market best characterized as low hiring, low firing. If you’re 40 or 50, you might care more about the low firing part. It’s like, OK, I have a job. Layoffs aren’t that high. I’m safe. But if you’re in your early 20s, what really matters to you is that hiring rate because you’re entering the workforce, trying to move up in your career. And right now, that’s just very difficult.

Adams: So you write that unemployment rates are higher for younger workers right now. But is there anything else to suggest that Gen Z is worse off than, you know, other generations when they first entered the workforce?

Sen: Higher housing costs and interest rates are probably the big ones. I would characterize myself as an elder millennial. So, in the late 2000s, early 2010s we had it pretty tough too on the job market side, but at least interest rates were low and rents were relatively low — or at least they hadn’t gone up like crazy yet — and housing prices were too. Whereas now Gen Z has both the low hiring, the tough labor market, plus high costs, so they’re getting squeezed on both sides.

Adams: What in particular makes this labor market so hard for Gen Z to break into?

Sen: It’s because interest rates are so high as the Fed seeks to control inflation, which means that a lot of parts of the economy are frozen and waiting for lower rates or something to pick up. And so if you’re a company, you might say, well, things aren’t bad enough for me to have to lay people off, but they’re not good enough to make me hire either. If you’re 21 or 22 looking to get hired, there’s just not a lot of demand for you right now. You have the federal government that’s been cutting back, and there’s no reason to think they’re going to be hiring anytime soon. Universities are cutting back. And also, there’s the looming threat of [artificial intelligence] and what that means for workers, especially in white-collar sectors. So maybe companies that ordinarily would have hired might say, well, let’s try to figure out a way to do this with AI, rather than taking on a 20-something-year-old.

Adams: Now, you and I are both elder millennials, and we entered the workforce during a pretty tough economic period. People found a way around that. But what are the long-term consequences for this group of not being able to find a job right away?

Sen: So to your point, I think because many of us went through this 10 or 15 years ago, it feels like it’s kind of a bad deja vu of knowing that if you don’t move up in your career when you’re young, it tends to have long-term consequences on your lifetime earning potential. You get more into debt. You’re not saving, you’re not building networks and you’re not getting experience. And so it really is a big setback, and it’s hard to know exactly right now what makes things get better, certainly this year. I think corporate America came into the year with a lot of optimism about a maybe deregulation or tax cut agenda that would be good for growth, and instead, it feels like it’s uncertainty and tariffs instead. And so there’s not really a reason to think that hiring will pick up this year. And so now you’re already thinking about 2026 and it’s only early April. So if somebody were 22 and said, what should I do? It’s hard to say, well, wait for next year, but that kind of feels the story for hiring managers right now.

Adams: You point out in your piece that when the job market for young workers has looked like this in the past, it’s a bit of a warning sign for the broader economy. Why is that?

Sen: Well, typically, young people just sort of feel the trends in the labor market more significantly. Again, most people in their midcareer aren’t switching jobs as much, and they’re kind of more settled. But if you’re young, it’s often kind of last hired, first fired. And so, if companies aren’t hiring and if they are trying to lay people off, they might be cutting their youngest, least experienced workers who aren’t yet providing a lot of value to their companies. And so if that’s the kind of decision that companies are making, it might say, well, we’re trimming a little bit now, but if things get worse, we’ll have to do bigger cuts later. So, if we’re in that phase of trimming the young people now, you worry what would the next leg down look like for workers more generally.

Companies haven’t had much of an appetite for mergers and acquisitions over the last few years. Some of that was down to an uncertain economy, elevated interest rates and the hard line the Biden administration took against deals that it argued would reduce competition.

Dealmakers had hoped that 2025 would be the year that M&A finally roared back. But so far, that hasn’t happened. The first quarter of this year was the slowest in more than a decade when it comes to mergers and acquisitions, according to the research company Dealogic.

Shelling out billions of dollars to buy another company can be an extremely risky move. Drew Pascarella, who teaches finance at Cornell University, said for one, the companies might find out they have bad chemistry.

“In M&A, you’re taking on something you don’t really fully understand, at the time you’ve acquired it,” Pascarella said. “There are a lot of employees that have not worked under your employ, there’s a different culture.”

There’s also the risk that after the companies tie the knot, the broader economy turns south. Pascarella said that’s why companies have to be confident that the opportunity to increase sales or expand a product line through a merger or acquisition, for example, is worth the risks.

“But if that opportunity is a little bit murkier, if you don’t exactly know what tomorrow is going to look like, your desire to take on those downside risks becomes lessened,” Pascarella said.

Problem is, figuring out what tomorrow’s going to look like this year has not been easy. For instance, the stock market has been volatile day-to-day. Pascarella said that’s made it harder for companies to agree on purchase prices.

“If you think a stock is worth $100, and you make an offer for $100, and the stock drops to $80, or goes up to $120, that conversation becomes a lot more difficult,” Pascarella said.

And then, of course, there’s all of the uncertainty around tariffs.

“If I’m going to buy a company, and I suddenly see that it’s selling products in jurisdictions that are going to impose tariffs on those products, then the value of that company is going to come down,” said Afra Afsharipour, a law professor at University of California, Davis.

Afsharipour said countries might respond to the Trump administration’s tariffs by cracking down on M&A deals.

“You could see this coming from Canada, you could see this coming from the UK,” Afsharipour said. “There are a lot of other regulatory tools that other jurisdictions have as well that will sometimes have an impact on M&A deals, even if it’s two large U.S. companies.”

Afsharipour said the regulatory situation in the U.S. isn’t clear, either. In February, the Trump administration said it’s holding on to the Biden administration’s 2023 merger guidelines, which call for a stricter look at deals that could reduce competition.

But then, in March, President Trump fired two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, which is partially responsible for enforcing those guidelines.

“I think people expected that there would be a lot more regulatory certainty,” Afsharipour said. “And I think that is not bearing out so far.”

As a result, companies that might be interested in making an acquisition are basically just sitting on their hands right now — which might be what U.S. regulators are hoping for.

“A lot of these mergers and acquisitions are actually within the same industry, and these often result in larger market power for a single firm,” said John Bai, a finance professor at Northeastern University.

Bai said on the other hand, a slow M&A market can make the economy less efficient. That’s because companies often buy other firms to try to run them better.

“From the acquiring firm’s perspective, if they spot an inefficiently managed firm, they know they can do something with it,” Bai said. “Is it distribution? Is it brand image building? Is it management practices?”

All of that means less M&A activity could take a chunk out of corporate profits.

In 2002, Microsoft launched Xbox Live with built-in voice chat as one of the main selling points of the then new service. Now, nearly 25 years later, Nintendo is finally giving its fans an easy way to talk to their friends online over a friendly match of Mario Kart World.

Considering some of the solutions Nintendo has offered in the past, GameChat is surprisingly elegant. A tap of the Switch 2's new C button, conveniently located below the Home button on the right Joy-Con, brings up a dedicated interface that allows you to quickly start screensharing, mute and unmute your mic and, if you decide to buy the optional Switch 2 Camera, enable video.

What's more, the Switch 2 has a built-in mic. We'll need to test the handheld to see how well the microphone performs in a noisy environment; Nintendo touted its noise-reduction features in today's introduction. But if nothing else, kudos to Nintendo for realizing it couldn't release a new console in 2025 without voice chat built-in and making that feature standard on all models.

However, if the demo Nintendo showed off today is any indication of the final product, the company has some work to do. Voice chat looks like it works well enough, with users allowed to invite up to 11 other people to join their conversation. That said, screen sharing and video chat look very rough. 

When everyone in the video started streaming their gameplay, it looked like the games were running at less than 30 frames per second, making it difficult to see how it would be possible to use the feature to guide a friend through a tricky section, like Nintendo suggested in the demo. Video chat was equally janky, with the footage from the Switch 2 Camera looking like something captured by a webcam from the mid-aughts. Moreover, if you want to see your friend's screen, there's an additional tradeoff. 

Nintendo showed off three different interface options, with two of them devoting a fair amount of screen space to tiles for your friends. I imagine this won't be a problem if you're playing on a TV, but even on the Switch 2's large 7.9-inch screen, the interface looks like it could get cramped fast.

To Nintendo's credit, the company has thought a lot about parental controls, with features that allow parents and guardians to decide who their kids can chat with online and if they can join a session with video. But the thing is none of GameChat’s capabilities are new. They've existed in apps like Discord for years, which begs the question why some of them look so rough this close to launch.

Nintendo has time between now and June 5 to polish GameChat, but in 2025, making a technically competent chat app shouldn't be so hard. Of course, I imagine most of the Switch 2's audience won't care if some of GameChat's features are half-baked. For the rest of us, the company plans to offer the feature for free until the end of March 2026. One would hope that's enough time for the company to catch up on two decades worth of progress in online gaming.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/gamechat-is-decades-late-and-looks-pretty-janky-202309823.html?src=rss

Sonos has given two of its audio products price cuts. The Era 100 smart speaker and Ray soundbar now retail for $199. The change offers new customers a $50 savings for the Era 100 and $80 on the Ray. Both speakers would frequently show up on sale, but Sonos has confirmed that this is a permanent pricing change for the products.

These items have been available for a few years, so the price drop might signal that a refresh is in store for both. When it debuted in 2023, the Era 100 was an upgrade on the Sonos One, bringing overhauled touch controls and even better audio quality to the same cylindrical form factor. At $200, it's now selling for what the Sonos One cost, making it a solid choice for a home speaker. The Ray came out in 2022, offering a solid home theater performance without the most high-end audio or accompanying high-end price tag. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/sonos-cut-retail-prices-for-its-era-100-speaker-and-ray-soundbar-201049055.html?src=rss

It seems fitting that Nintendo didn’t reveal the Switch 2’s $450 price during its Direct stream this morning — it would have just bummed everyone out. After spending an hour hearing about how the Switch 2 practically fixes almost every problem we had with the original console, and seeing teasers for exciting games like Mario Kart World, why spoil the good vibes with the harsh reality of market economics? Instead, Nintendo revealed the console’s price in the lowliest of media communications: A simple press release.

My first reaction was shock. $450 for a mostly portable console? That’s the same retail price as the PlayStation 5, a system that’s also currently on sale for $400 together with Astro-Bot. Sure, the Switch 2 is vastly superior to the original Switch, but it likely doesn’t have PS5-level hardware. The price jump is also surprising since the original Switch launched at $300 in 2017. Can you imagine we thought the $350 Switch OLED was too high-priced?

Unfortunately, it’s not 2017. NVIDIA now has mid-range GPUs selling for upwards of $600, the cost of almost every product has gone up, and massive companies like Nintendo are bracing for the potential impact of the Trump administration’s long-threatened tariffs.

A $450 Switch 2 is expensive, I’m not denying that. But in the current economic landscape, I would hesitate to call it too expensive.

Nintendo

Consider this: The Switch 2 is just $50 more than the cheapest Steam Deck, a portable PC gaming handheld with significantly slower hardware, a smaller and lower quality (7-inch, 1280 by 800, 60Hz) screen, and a much bulkier frame. The Switch 2, meanwhile, is just as thin as the original model, it has a 7.9-inch 1080p screen that can run up to 120fps with HDR, and it’s powerful enough to play games at up to 4K/60fps while docked. Based on the games we’ve seen so far, the Switch 2 seems surprisingly powerful for its size.

The Switch 2 also improves on its controls with the Joy-Con 2, which now magnetically attach to the consoles, feature larger analog sticks and can also work as mice across a variety of services. You won’t be removing the Steam Deck’s controls without the use of a small saw. And I’ve yet to see a handheld PC maker deliver removable controls that are as comfortable and easy to use as the original Switch (that means you, Lenovo). Nintendo’s original Joy-Con were far from perfect, but they did the job, and I’d wager the company has learned enough to make the Joy-Con 2f even better.

Nintendo

And while you can technically dock other PC gaming handhelds, they won’t see the performance upgrade Nintendo is claiming with the Switch 2. The company says its new console can reach up to 4K/60fps for some titles, thanks to an additional fan in the dock. We don’t know exactly what’s powering the Switch 2 yet, so Nintendo could be drastically overselling its capabilities. But given how seamless docking worked on the first Switch (where it also delivered a bit of a performance upgrade, sans an additional fan), it’s also something I think Nintendo has optimized more than PC companies, who are only just now dipping their toes into portable gaming.

Maybe I’m just trying to justify my own purchases (I just realized I’ll probably need a second Switch 2 for my kid), but I just can’t get too angry about a $450 Switch 2. If we see many more $80 games like Mario Kart World, though, we should absolutely riot in the streets.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/is-the-450-nintendo-switch-2-too-expensive-195750206.html?src=rss

The Nintendo Switch 2 had its big debut on Wednesday, and the new console looks to be a sizable, if mostly straightforward, upgrade over its mega-popular predecessor. Tucked between the new Donkey Kong and (pricier) Mario Kart games, mouse mode and overhauled party chat features, though, was another significant update: The device supports faster microSD Express cards. This may not be the sexiest feature, but it should bring quicker load times and generally improved storage performance to the upcoming handheld. The company briefly showed new 256GB cards from Samsung and SanDisk during its presentation, complete with Mario logos printed on.

However, the news came with a major caveat: The console is only compatible with microSD Express. The cards most people use today — which are based on the older UHS-I bus interface — will only work for loading videos and screenshots from an original Switch, not playing games, according to Nintendo’s support site. Nintendo says this restriction is necessary to preserve the Switch 2’s performance upgrades, and it’s worth noting that the console itself comes with a much more generous 256GB of space by default. But if you ever need to expand the device’s storage, this change will likely make doing so cost extra, while drastically shrinking the options you have to choose from.

Unlike traditional UHS-I cards, a microSD Express card like the SanDisk model on the right comes with a second row of pins on the back. Jeff Dunn for Engadget What are microSD Express cards?

SD Express is a relatively recent but seldom-used standard that lets SD cards take advantage of the NVMe protocol and PCIe interface, which is the underlying tech used by SSDs. A microSD Express card has a second row of “pins” on its back and can utilize a single lane’s worth of PCIe bandwidth. As a result, it can produce dramatically faster read and write speeds than its UHS-I counterparts. Whereas the latter advertise sequential transfer rates up to 104 megabytes per second (MB/s), microSD Express cards have a theoretical maximum of 985 MB/s.

That’s far behind the NVMe SSDs used by the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, but in theory, it makes Express cards faster than some older SATA-based SSDs when it comes to loading game levels, retrieving saves or copying games to the external storage. It’s worth noting that many UHS-I microSD cards can exceed the 104 MB/s limit with proprietary card readers, but they still fall well short of microSD Express levels even with those. The same goes for speedier UHS-II cards, which are mostly used by professional types with select cameras and PCs and max out at 312 MB/s. (There’s also a UHS-III interface, but nobody uses it. Getting all of this?)

Prior to Wednesday, the only reliably available microSD Express card we could find was this model from SanDisk. We recently tested it for our microSD card buying guide, and the upgrade was pretty dramatic. In the synthetic benchmark CrystalDiskMark, the SanDisk card achieved sequential reads up to 899.12 MB/s and sequential writes up to 650.41 MB/s. For comparison, the absolute fastest UHS-I card we’ve tested (Lexar’s Professional Silver Plus) topped out at 209.25 MB/s for reads and 193.93 MB/s for writes — so, three to four times slower.

In one of our “real-world” tests, the SanDisk Express card took an average of 20 seconds to move a 12GB folder containing various file types and subfolders to a PC and 52 seconds to write the folder back to the card. The Lexar card averaged 67 and 76 seconds, respectively. The gulf in random speeds — which measure how quickly a card can read and write small bits of data scattered throughout a device and tend to be particularly important for gaming — was similarly large, and in some benchmarks even greater.

SanDisk's microSD Express card is one of the (very) few options you can actually buy today. Jeff Dunn for Engadget

Nintendo has not provided any official transfer speed ratings for the new console just yet, but all of this suggests that the Switch 2’s storage should be much faster than before, even if it’s not on par with the speeds of a PS5 or Xbox Series X. It’s also possible that, like those other consoles, the Switch 2 has hardware dedicated to decompressing files, which could make the real-world improvements over the original Switch’s storage performance even greater. (We’ve reached out to Nintendo and will update this post if we receive any further details.)

The original SD Express standard was released in 2018, but the tech has mostly gone nowhere in the years since. There’s been the SanDisk card noted above, a full-size SD card from ADATA and not much else. Previously, Samsung and Lexar announced microSD Express cards that wound up missing their original release windows — though Samsung’s card may just be the same one unveiled today, and Lexar did release a new “Play Pro” microSD Express card on Wednesday.

Host devices that support the standard, which are required to even see any improved speeds, have been highly uncommon over the same time frame. (If you put a microSD Express card in a device that doesn’t support the underlying tech, such as the original Switch, it’ll be limited to standard UHS-I speeds.) And while compatible card readers can deliver the faster transfer rates on certain PCs, they aren’t cheap, so at that point most people have been better off buying a faster external SSD.

The SD Association pointed us to a LinkedIn page (!) with other compatible devices when reached for comment, but the pickings are still slim, and very few of those support microSD Express cards specifically. The Switch 2 is by far the highest-profile device to embrace the standard, so it could be the thing that finally takes these cards from “cool idea” to “useful niche.”

The Samsung and SanDisk microSD Express cards Nintendo quickly teased during its Switch 2 unveiling on Wednesday. Nintendo Questions of price and heat

That said, there are multiple reasons why SD Express has failed to take off before this week, and it remains to be seen whether the Switch 2 will truly fix them. First and foremost is price. We’ve reached out to SanDisk and Samsung for confirmation, but for now we don’t know how much the microSD Express cards that Nintendo has teased will cost. If the couple other Express models available today are any indication, though, they’re likely to be much more expensive than the conventional cards you may have bought for the previous Switch.

SanDisk’s Express card, for instance, costs $45 for a 128GB model and $60 for the 256GB version. The 256GB Lexar Play Pro is $10 cheaper, but its 512GB and 1TB versions cost a whopping $100 and $200, respectively. For reference, Samsung’s Pro Plus — another UHS-I card we recommend in our buying guide — costs $17 for 128GB, $23 for 256GB, $38 for 512GB and $80 for 1TB as of this writing. That’s a huge difference. 

What’s more, the Play Pro is the only purchasable microSD Express card we’ve seen thus far that even supports capacities greater than 256GB. Nintendo says the console can support up to 2TB of external storage, but no Express card with that capacity appears to exist yet. The Switch 2 will be one of the first mainstream devices to truly push SD Express in earnest, so we’d expect it’ll drive prices down and increase competition over time. But how quickly, and by how much, remains up in the air.

Nintendo

The other concern relates to thermal management. MicroSD Express cards can pump out significantly faster transfer speeds, but they’re still working with tiny little frames that don’t leave much room to dissipate heat. When we tested SanDisk’s microSD Express model for our guide, we noticed that it slowed down under longer, more sustained loads — not enough to fall behind than UHS-I cards, but still below its peak by a few hundred MB/s.

The SD Express spec does have mechanisms for keeping heat in check, and manufacturers like SanDisk advertise similar protections. Nintendo presumably has come up with ways to further avoid severe throttling with the Switch 2. (We already know that the new dock comes with a cooling fan built in, for instance.) But it’ll be something to keep an eye on once we can move large game files around the device.

In a developer Q&A posted to Nintendo’s website on Wednesday, Switch 2 producer Kouichi Kawamoto notes that the move to microSD Express will help the console’s performance hold up better in the long-term. With the new Mario Kart World, for instance, he says the faster transfer speeds will help make far-off destinations in the game’s open world visible faster. He also notes that Switch 2 games will have larger file sizes, but that he “doubt[s] most people will need a microSD Express card immediately after buying the system” thanks to the Switch 2’s larger built-in capacity.

Hopefully that’s the case. It’d be unfair to call this a PlayStation Vita situation, as that portable console relied solely on proprietary memory cards, and the Switch 2 will support options from several third-party manufacturers. But as it stands now, storage upgrades for the new console look like they’ll be much pricier and more limited to start. And just how much of an advantage the new tech provides is something we won’t know until the console arrives in June.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-nintendo-switch-2-promises-major-storage-upgrades-but-itll-cost-you-193758964.html?src=rss

Hear me out. I too rolled my eyes when A Minecraft Movie was announced. We're all tired of seeing Jack Black in video game movies — he was fine in Super Mario Bros., but good god Borderlands was a disaster. And the Minecraft film's trailers did it no favors, another soulless movie produced on a virtual set about a game that's completely open-ended and plotless. But it turns out A Minecraft Movie is actually good.

Honestly, I'm as surprised as you are.

A Minecraft Movie isn't exactly groundbreaking, to be clear. It certainly never reaches the heights of The Lego Movie. But it's surprisingly funny for a children's movie, and it delivers a decent message about championing creativity in a world that wants to beat down free-thinking non-conformists. And if you were around for the inexplicable Napoleon Dynamite craze of the mid-2000's, you'll notice plenty of that film's quirky sensibility from director Jared Hess.

From the beginning, A Minecraft Movie seems well aware of the ridiculousness of its own existence. The story starts off with Jack Black's Steve (dressed just like the game's default skin) retelling his obsession with "the mines," and his inability to go digging while he was a kid. He later grows up, gets a boring office job and remembers his erstwhile calling to make holes in the earth. Once he makes his way into a cave, he stumbles into a portal that brings him to the blocky "Overworld" of the Minecraft universe. It's classic isekai stuff — the genre of anime where the main character is transported to another (often digital) world.

And yes, I know all of this sounds incredibly contrived as I write this, but Black's zaniness really sells the absurdity of the film. It's as if he's saying out loud, "Yes, I know the idea of a Minecraft movie is beyond dumb, but at least you get to spend time with me in classic Jack Black mode!" Now if you're tired of his schtick, that may be a major knock against the film. But for me, it was a nice reminder of his Tenacious D days.

Warner Bros.

The film eventually focuses on two siblings, Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and Natalie (Emma Myers), who are moving to a small Midwestern town after the death of their mother. Natalie is gearing up for a social media producer role at a local business, while Henry is forced to adapt to a new school. Coincidentally, a former gaming superstar lives in their town, Jason Mamoa's Garret "The Garbageman" Garrison, who befriends Henry as another outcast. Danielle Brooks' Dawn, a struggling local realtor/mobile zookeeper, ends up taking Natalie under her wing after seeing how much she's sacrificing for her brother.

Inevitably, thanks to a glowing MacGuffin, those four characters also stumble into the same portal that sent Steve to the Overworld. They quickly run into Steve, break their glowing MacGuffin and then head off to find a way to fix it and return home. If any of this sounds boring, don't worry, it's not really important. What works best in A Minecraft Movie is the humor and personality Hess stuffs in between the trappings of a big budget Hollywood game adaptation.

Warner Bros.

The majority of the film hinges on Jack Black's persona, but I also enjoyed seeing Jason Mamoa play an egotistical manchild who's in love with video games. He's decked out in an absurd wig and hot pink jacket, and Mamoa hams it up just as well as he did Fast X. He's a jerk at times, but he's also kind to Henry and clearly doesn't care what anyone thinks of his personal style. The rest of the cast mostly plays it straight against the force of Black and Mamoa's personalities, but they each get a few moments to shine.

Whenever the core story starts to fall flat, A Minecraft Movie veers into more interesting territory, like a hapless Minecraft villager who stumbles into the real world. For those who don't play the game, villagers are simple NPC who can't speak, and often find themselves in danger. I got a kick out of seeing him navigate traffic and have a meet-cute with Jennifer Coolidge's Vice Principal Marlene, a relationship that gets weirder than you'd think. (Again, it's like something straight out of Napoleon Dynamite.)

Warner Bros.

I’m no Minecraft devotee, but I wish the film’s interpretation of the game’s blocky graphics were a bit more pixelated. While the characters and animals we see resemble their game counterparts, their over-designed look clashes with the beautiful simplicity of Minecraft’s aesthetics. I’m sure it’s tough to unite the low-poly look with live action, while also delivering polished CG that audiences expect, but the path A Minecraft Movie took just feels over-cooked. That being said, the film’s game world seems more alive than the empty virtual sets in Quantumania. There are tons of characters milling about, and the environments all feel distinctly Minecraft.

The kids in my press screening didn’t seem to mind the shift in visual language. They loved seeing the game’s creatures in any form — a family of pandas got a theater-wide “awww.” And they also loved seeing in-game Minecraft tricks represented on the big screen, like using a water block to cushion a fall.

My daughter Sophia’s verdict? “I liked it, but I don’t think I’d want to see it again,” she said. But I know she’s lying. We’ll likely end up seeing this thing hundreds of times at home, and even more so once her brother jumps aboard the Minecraft bandwagon. I won’t mind, though. As far as kid’s movies go, it’s a world I wouldn’t mind revisiting.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/a-minecraft-movie-review-its-good-actually-190035499.html?src=rss

Following its big Switch 2 presentation, Nintendo revealed in an interview with the team behind the console that one of the (arguably better) names the company was considering before it landed on Switch 2 was "Super Nintendo Switch."

"There were a lot of ideas for the name, and we really struggled to find the right one," Kouichi Kawamato, the producer on the Switch 2, says. "We even considered ideas like 'Super Nintendo Switch.'" The issue with the name was that even though drawing a parallel to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) was fun, it was also potentially confusing. The SNES was the successor to the NES, but it couldn't play NES games. "Since Switch 2 can play Switch games, it didn't feel right to use the same naming convention as Super NES."

Adding a number to the end of the original console's name (the general strategy Nintendo's competitor Sony has taken with the PlayStation) just made things a lot simpler and easier to understand. Nintendo's caution isn't totally unfounded. The Wii U was more powerful than the Wii and featured a unique controller in the Wii U GamePad. Because it's name was so similar to Nintendo's older console, it was backwards compatible with the Wii and it supported pre-existing accessories like Wii Remotes, though, it was viewed as an add-on rather than a new device worth upgrading to.

There were other problems that helped do the Wii U in, like a steep decline in support from third-party game developers and a failure on Nintendo's part to explain what made the console distinct, but the name certainly didn't help. The Switch 2 is much better set up for success than the Wii U, but "sticking to what works" seems like the defining idea of the new console, so the name is following suit.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-switch-2-was-almost-called-the-super-nintendo-switch-184243089.html?src=rss

The entry-level laptop from modular computing company Framework, which we first saw in February, is almost ready to roll. Founder and CEO Nirav Patel said on Wednesday that you can reserve the Framework Laptop 12 on April 9 at 11AM ET.

The Framework Laptop 12 is a colorful 12.2-inch notebook with a 360-degree hinge that lets you fold it back into a (chunky) tablet. This zillionth iteration of that form factor stands out because of Framework's ethos of modular repairability. If you decide it's time for an upgrade in a couple of years, there's no need to fork out $1,500 for a new device; you can simply upgrade its modular parts.

The Framework Laptop 12 has a 12.2-inch, 1,920 x 1,200 touchscreen display that, at 400 nits, gets "much brighter than you typically see from an entry-level or lower-cost laptop." It will be available with a 13th-gen i3 or i5 Core processor and up to 48GB of DDR5 RAM. You can also get up to a 2TB 2 TB M.2 2230 SSD, Wi-Fi 6E and the company's standard choice of Windows 11 or Linux.

Framework

Although it's helpful to have those general spec guidelines, Framework says it won't share the modular machine's full spec breakdown, ship date or pricing until it's available for pre-order. So, you won't know how "entry-level" it is until the clock is ticking to reserve one. Although seeing Big Tech marketers weaponizing FOMO to increase sales numbers isn't exactly a rarity these days, it stands out all the more coming from a startup that, in other ways, is among the most consumer-friendly.

Patel even cautioned in today's announcement, "We have a hunch that the early batches are going to go very quickly." In other words, you'd better not take too long scanning that spec sheet and weighing it against pricing before the train pulls out of the station.

Regardless, you can learn more about the Framework Laptop 12 in the video below before checking out its full specs on April 9 at 11AM ET. Patel advises pre-order customers to create an account on the company website in advance.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/you-can-pre-order-frameworks-entry-level-2-in-1-touchscreen-laptop-on-april-9-182310021.html?src=rss

Amazon has reportedly joined the growing list of suitors angling to acquire TikTok as a new ban deadline approaches. According to The New York Times, the retailer has made a “last-minute bid” to buy the app, and has approached Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about the offer.

It’s not clear why Amazon is making an offer this late in the process. TikTok is currently facing an April 5 deadline to strike a deal, though President Donald Trump has said he would likely extend it if necessary. The Times reports that White House officials don’t seem to be “seriously” considering the longshot bid. Amazon declined to comment.

Amazon joins several other companies and investors that have proposed bids. The group includes YouTuber MrBeast (with backing from a group that includes Roblox CEO David Baszucki), Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian (who joined a group of investors known as “Project Liberty”) and Perplexity AI, which has proposed integrating the shortform video into its search engine.

Even with the deadline just days away, we still don't know exactly when a decision will be made about TikTok’s future. Trump has said he wants to announce a deal before the Saturday deadline.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/amazon-reportedly-wants-to-buy-tiktok-now-too-173957102.html?src=rss

Nintendo just dropped a boatload of Switch 2 news, including the release date, price and a launch title or two. It also announced a bevy of accessories that’ll be available for the console on June 5. Let’s go over the most notable of these doodads.

For my money, the Nintendo Switch 2 Camera is the highlight here. This was featured heavily in the company’s livestream, as the Switch 2 will allow for in-game video chat. This is thanks to the magical “C” button on the right Joy-Con controller. The camera will also shrink down your head to use as a live avatar in certain games. It costs $50.

It wouldn’t be a Nintendo console without a pro controller. The Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller will cost $80, but it includes the aforementioned “C” button, a screen capture button, an audio jack and HD rumble 2. It also allows for motion controls and Amiibo functionality. The GL/GR buttons can be mapped to suit different playstyles.

The company also announced a dedicated GameCube controller for use with Nintendo Online. It comes in iconic purple and also includes a “C” button. It charges via USB-C so you won’t burn through AA batteries like Wall-E or something. We don’t have a price on this yet, but Nintendo did say it’s launching with the console. We do know, however, that it’s only available to Nintendo Online subscribers.

The Switch 2 is launching with a new Mario Kart game, so you know what that means. The Joy-Con wheel controllers are back. The Joy-Con 2 Wheel ships in a two-pack, which costs $20. The set includes one blue wheel and one red wheel.

There are two official carrying cases. There’s one just for the console, for handheld mode, that costs $35. There’s also a much larger one that holds everything, including the console, dock, cables and game cards. That one costs $80.

Those are the most interesting items, but Nintendo also announced the usual replacement components. An AC adapter costs $30, while a dock set costs $110. A pair of Joy-Cons will set you back $90 and replacement straps cost $13.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-official-switch-2-accessories-include-a-camera-a-gamecube-controller-and-more-173912613.html?src=rss

According to a recent Digital Education Council survey, as many as 86 percent of university students globally use artificial intelligence to assist with their coursework. It’s a staggering statistic that’s likely to have far-reaching consequences for years to come. So it’s not surprising to see a company like Anthropic announce Claude for Education, an initiative it says will equip universities to "play a key role in actively shaping AI's role in society."

At the heart of Claude for Education is a new Learning mode that changes how Anthropic’s chatbot interacts with users. With the feature engaged, Claude will attempt to guide students to a solution, rather than providing an answer outright, when asked a question. It will also employ the Socratic method in conversations, asking questions like “What evidence supports your conclusion?” as a way to guide users to understanding. All of this is powered by 3.7 Sonnet, Anthropic’s new hybrid reasoning model, and tied to Claude’s Projects feature, which gives you a way to organize your chats around specific topics.

Claude for Education is available to all Pro users with an .edu email address. Additionally, Anthropic is partnering with Northeastern University, the London School of Economics and Political Science as well as Champlain College to make Claude available to all students at those institutions. 

At the same time, the company is launching two new programs. The first, Claude Campus Ambassadors, gives students the chance to work directly with Anthropic to launch educational initiatives at their school. The second, meanwhile, will see Anthropic award API credits to students working on projects involving Claude. Separately, the company says it will work with Instructure, the company behind the Canvas learning software, to increase access to tools universities are using to integrate AI into their teaching.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/claudes-new-learning-mode-will-prompt-students-to-answer-questions-on-their-own-172057828.html?src=rss

It's almost time to pre-order the Nintendo Switch 2, now that we finally know how much it'll cost, when it comes out, some of the games it's getting, and the fact that you can use the new Joy-Con as a mouse, even on top of your pants. The Nintendo Switch 2 costs $450, it comes out on June 5, and pre-orders are set to go live on Wednesday, April 9. If you're pre-ordering from a third-party retailer, your best bet is to make an extra cup of coffee that morning and get your clicking fingers ready — an exact time for pre-orders to activate hasn't been announced yet, but it'll likely be around 9AM ET, as these things often are.

If you're ordering directly from Nintendo, things will work a little differently.

Nintendo's US and Canada purchasing site asks interested customers to register to receive an emailed invitation to order the Switch 2. These invites will start going out on May 8, giving each recipient 72 hours to complete their purchase. The fine print clarifies that invites will be sent first to people who meet the following criteria as of April 2, 2025:

• They've purchased any Nintendo Switch Online membership

• They've had any paid NSO membership for a minimum of 12 months

• They've opted in to share gameplay data and have logged at least 50 hours of total play time

Registrants who fit these criteria will be included in the priority group and receive email invites in the initial batches. All other hopeful customers will get in line on a first-come, first-served basis behind them. The UK pre-order guidelines are similar. 

On the negative side, this means folks who have opted out of Nintendo's data-sharing program or never used NSO will be lumped in with the non-priority group, even if they've played their Switch every day for the past eight years. This also makes it harder for non-playing people to pre-order a Switch 2 from Nintendo as a surprise for a friend or family member. That's a bummer.

On the positive side, this seems to be Nintendo's attempt to thwart scalpers, and it should be an effective roadblock. It'll simply be harder for profit hunters to receive the initial batch of Switch 2 consoles directly from Nintendo, which should curtail the influx of price-jacked resales — at least a little bit, and at least for a little while. 

On the most positive side, this is a nice, unexpected benefit for people with a track record of actually playing the Switch. Sure, the benefit is simply enabling them to more easily spend their money on Nintendo products, but as far as capitalistic ploys go, this one's pretty kind.

That said, retailers including Gamestop, Walmart and Best Buy won't have these restrictions on pre-orders, so things should operate as usual there. This means you won't have to prove you're a Real Gamer in order to pre-order a Switch 2 from a third-party store, but neither will the scalpers.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendo-is-prioritizing-switch-online-subscribers-in-its-switch-2-pre-orders-171645498.html?src=rss

Last spring, Ooni debuted the dual-zone Koda 2 Max outdoor oven that can cook lots of things, including pizzas up to 20 inches. Now the company is expanding the gas-powered Koda line with the new Koda 2 and Koda 2 Pro. Like the Max, these two models feature Ooni's latest burners, improved heat efficiency, a more resilient stone and compatibility with the Ooni Connect Digital Temperature Hub. 

The Koda 2 Pro will be the midrange option in Ooni's revamped gas-burning lineup. The oven can accommodate pizzas up to 18 inches thanks to 30 percent larger capacity than the Koda 16. The Koda 2 Pro offers a temperature range of 320-950 degrees Fahrenheit, which gives you the ability to sear, roast and bake in addition to the intense heat needed for pizzas. Twin gas burners are equipped with Ooni's G2 tech for improved heat distribution thanks to a powerful tapered flame. 

While you're cooking, the Koda 2 Pro has a glass visor that helps keep heat inside while also giving you a clear view of your progress. The Ooni Connect Digital Temperature Hub puts a clearly visible display on the front of the oven, and its food probes can keep tabs on things like meat and fish. What's more, this device has Bluetooth connectivity, which can send temperature updates to your phone. Session logs are stored in the Ooni app, where you'll find recipes, tips and other useful info. 

Ooni's Koda 2 Ooni

The Koda 2 is the smallest option in Ooni's overhauled gas-only line. It's only 33 pounds, which the company says makes it portable enough for camping, tailgates and cookouts. And since the Koda 2 can also hit 950 degrees Fahrenheit, you can cook pro-level pizza in about a minute. This model is also equipped with the newest G2 burners for maximum efficiency and the 14-inch cooking area is larger than that of the previous comparable model, the Koda 12. What's more, the Koda 2 is compatible with the Ooni Connect smart hub, but it doesn't come in the box like the Koda 2 Pro and Koda 2 Max. The extra purchase will cost you $99.

The Koda 2 is available now for $449 while the Koda 2 Pro will be available May 1 for $749. Those prices are $150 more than the existing Koda 12 and Koda 16 models. And for the first time, Ooni ovens will be available in something other than the company's trademark Foundry Black. You'll also be able to choose a Slate Blue option with these new models. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/ooni-debuts-koda-2-and-koda-2-pro-pizza-ovens-with-new-burners-and-bluetooth-smarts-170056892.html?src=rss

There’s a trailer for the upcoming third season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and it’s absolutely filled with goodies. It looks like there will be an episode soaked in the 1960s retro vibes of the original show, complete with period-accurate costumes and sets.

This is an episodic show, meaning that each episode is (more or less) standalone. The trailer shows off a few of the sci-fi concepts that will populate this third season. There’s a clip of the crew trying to connect dial-up phones to the ship (?!) and one that involves a murder mystery.

There are also two puzzling TNG-era additions. The famous Holodeck will be incorporated this season, or something that looks a whole lot like it. For the uninitiated, this is like VR but way, way better. Also, the trailer strongly indicates that Rhys Darby (Our Flag Means Death) will be playing a version of the prankster alien Q. It's the finger snap that gives it away. We knew he was going to be in the show, but didn’t know who he’d be playing.

Now for some bad news. There’s no release date, other than summer. That could mean June. It could mean August. We’ll keep you updated when Paramount+ drops some new info.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a prequel series that follows Christopher Pike, the captain of the Enterprise prior to Kirk. However, the show has begun working in elements of the original iteration. Spock and Uhura have always been in it, but now Kirk, Bones and Scotty are starting to show up.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-3-trailer-has-some-serious-retro-vibes-164425733.html?src=rss

England's top-tier soccer league will soon use optical tracking to automate portions of offside calls. The Premier League said on Tuesday it will adopt semi-automated offside technology (SAOT) in live matches beginning on April 12. The league said the new tech won't change the accuracy of offside calls, but it will make them 30 seconds faster on average.

SAOT uses sensors from up to 30 cameras mounted high above the field in each Premier League stadium. They track the ball's precise location and up to 10,000 surface data points for each player. The sports tech company Genius Sports explains that the tech "provides more efficient placement of the virtual offside line, using optical player tracking, and generates virtual graphics to ensure an enhanced in-stadium and broadcast experience for fans."

Premier League

For the uninitiated, offsides is called in soccer when the attacking team's lead player is closer to the opponent's goal line than both the ball and the second-last defender. (The last defender is usually the goalie.) In recent years, the Premier League defaulted to the offsite Video Assistant Referee (VAR) team, which would determine the kick-point (the moment the lead attacker's teammate passes it) and add calibrated lines with a crosshair for the attacker and defender's locations at that time.

SAOT cuts a big chunk out of this (often lengthy) process by suggesting the kick-point and automatically creating offside lines based on the relevant defender and attacker's positions. The VAR team still has a chance to review the algorithm's suggestion before approving it.

At that point, a "decision visual" like the one below will roll for the fans in the stadium and those watching the broadcast at home to help clarify the call. The animation shows a white vertical wall representing the offside line, with a red (offside) or green (onside) line indicating whether the player crossed it.

This SAOT decision visual shows the attacker's right arm crossing the offside line.Premier League

VAR will still be available as a backup for offside calls. "Most offside decisions will be quicker, but VAR will still have the option to draw crosshairs as a backup to the SAOT system if required," the Premier League explained. "This process may be necessary in 'edge cases' where several players block the view of the ball or other players for the system's cameras."

This isn't the first use of the tech. The Premier League has tested it in non-live matches and in live FA Cup games. The BBC notes that SAOT was also used in the 2022 World Cup, Serie A, La Liga and the Champions League. The Premier League's version is a custom offshoot that Genius Sports developed with PGMOL (the referees' organization) and the league itself. Unlike previous adaptations, the Premier League's version doesn't put a chip inside the ball.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/the-premier-league-will-speed-up-offside-calls-with-optical-tracking-tech-starting-next-week-163327195.html?src=rss