Feed aggregator

Meta is bringing its “teen accounts” to Facebook and Messenger. Like on Instagram, the company will begin automatically moving younger teens to the new accounts, which come with mandatory parental control features and restrictions on who they can message and interact with.

The company first introduced the feature on Instagram last fall and now has 54 million teens with the more locked-down accounts. (Instagram requires teens between the ages of 13 and 15 to use a teen account and has in-app tools meant to catch those lying about their ages.) Teen accounts on Facebook and Messenger will operate similarly. Teens won’t be able to interact with unknown contacts or change certain privacy settings unless a parent approves the action. Parents will also be able to monitor their child’s screen time metrics and friends list.

Meta is also adding new safety features to teen accounts on Instagram. With the change, teens under 16 will need parental permission to start a live broadcast. The app will also prevent younger teens from turning off nudity protection — the feature that automatically blurs images in direct messages that contain “suspected nudity” — unless they get parental approval.

Those may seem like obvious safeguards (they are) but they at least show that Meta is closing obvious gaps in its teen-focused safety features. The company has come under intense scrutiny over the effect its apps, particularly Instagram, have on teens in recent years. Dozens of states are currently suing Meta over alleged harms to younger users.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-brings-teen-accounts-to-facebook-and-messenger-100042497.html?src=rss

You don’t need a set of AirPods to get wireless audio from your iPhone, iPad or Mac, but Apple’s earbuds and headphones offer a lot of convenient integrations with its other products that you won’t find anywhere else. After helping popularize true wireless earbuds with its original AirPods, the company has expanded its lineup to include noise-canceling models and a set of over-ear headphones. Here’s what you need to know about AirPods in general, along with the best overall, budget and over-ear picks from Apple’s current slate of products.

Table of contents

• What you need to know about AirPods

• Best AirPods for 2025

• Best AirPods specs comparison chart

• Other AirPods we tested

What you need to know about AirPods

When it comes to Apple’s earbuds and headphones, there are several things you’ll want to keep in mind before making your final decision. First, the standard AirPods are the open-design earbuds with no tip that allow some environmental noise to come into your ears at all times. The Apple AirPods Pro are the model with the soft ear tips that completely close off your ear canal, which enables features like more powerful noise cancellation and the hearing test. Lastly, the Apple AirPods Max are the company’s over-ear noise-canceling headphones preferred by audiophiles, and currently the company’s only option for wireless headphones at all that aren’t made by Beats.

There are a few features that are available across all models as they’ve become inherent to the AirPods experience. First, you can expect connectivity perks like Automatic Switching between Apple devices that are synced with your iCloud account. This means that a pair of AirPods will automatically change to your phone when you get a call while you’re listening to music on a MacBook, for example. It’s functionally similar to multipoint Bluetooth, but the feature isn’t limited to two devices like most earbuds and headphones. Second, hands-free access to Siri is the default, allowing you to ask the assistant for help without touching your AirPods. And lastly, Personalized Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking is available across the entire lineup, even on the most affordable version and the AirPods 4 with active noise cancellation.

If you don’t think any of the AirPods options are right for you, consult our recommendations on the best wireless earbuds and best wireless headphones for some alternatives.

Best AirPods for 2025

Best AirPods specs comparison chart

AirPods 4

AirPods Pro 2

AirPods Max

Price

$129

$249

$549

Design

In-ear

In-ear

Over-ear

H2 chip

Yes

Yes

Yes

ANC

No

Yes

Yes

Spatial audio with dynamic head tracking

Yes

Yes

Yes

Hearing test

No

Yes

No

Rated battery life

5 hours

6 hours

20 hours

Durability

Dust, sweat, and water resistant (IP54)

Dust, sweat, and water resistant (IP54)

N/A

Other AirPods we tested AirPods 4 with ANC

The AirPods 4 with ANC represent the first time active noise cancellation has been available on the open-wear, “regular” AirPods. Design-wise, they’re the same as the non-ANC model, so the difference is entirely in the features list. This more expensive version adds Adaptive Audio, Transparency mode, Conversation Awareness and a wireless charging case. The ANC isn’t as powerful as the AirPods Pro 2, partially due to the fact that the AirPods 4 doesn’t completely seal off your ears. The noise-canceling performance is definitely useful though, working best with constant, low-frequency annoyances like fans and white noise machines. Lastly, you won’t get access to Apple’s hearing test and hearing aid features, partially due to the fact that the AirPods 4 with ANC doesn’t seal off your ears, which would affect accuracy and effectiveness.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/best-airpods-100041810.html?src=rss

President Donald Trump’s tariffs — and the anxiety they are creating — have sent the stock market into a nosedive. But it’s not just stocks. Uncertainty is spreading throughout the economy.

There are several ways these concerns are showing up in the labor market, Elizabeth Crofoot, a senior economist with Lightcast, told “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal.

“There’s not a lot of job opportunity that people are seeing recently, and that’s really where you start to see uncertainty come in, at least from the consumer side,” she said. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kai Ryssdal: As the trained economist in this conversation, what do you make of everything that’s going on right now?

Elizabeth Crofoot: Oh, you know, I’m a labor economist, so I think about things from the perspective, obviously, of the labor market, and just all the uncertainty that we’re seeing is really manifesting itself in several ways throughout the labor market. First of all, we see this frozen labor market, right? There are hirings that have stalled out, quits and layoffs are relatively steady, job openings have been moving sideways since essentially the summer of 2024. So there’s not a lot of job opportunity that people are seeing recently, and that’s really where you start to see uncertainty come in, at least from the consumer side, right? Because at the end of the day, it’s, do you have a job? Are you bringing income into your household, and what does that mean for your household budget and your financial situation? So if you don’t have that job and that solid income, that’s going to manifest itself in the real economy in terms of your spending power and your ability to be a consumer.

Ryssdal: Am I wrong if I take your use of the word “uncertainty” and flip it and talk about economic confidence? Because it seems to me that what is happening now, like, since last Wednesday, is that, subject to the whims of one man, the global economy now has no confidence in anything. There’s literally no stability.

Crofoot: In terms of that stability, it is definitely the whims of one person, right? It can change on any given day. The whole uncertainty around tariffs, all of that hits consumers as well. It hits people in their jobs. My neighbors, for example, are big travelers and asking them about what plans you have for the summer, and they’re saying, “I don’t know. We’re actually going to hunker down and start saving a little bit more because we don’t know what’s going to happen to our jobs.” So that’s really hitting everybody on so many levels.

Ryssdal: If you were a business person, which is not to say that economists aren’t business people, but if you were, like, running a manufacturing company, and you had to think about starting a new plant here, what would your set of considerations look like present day?

Crofoot: That’s a really good question. And actually, in my current position at Lightcast, I do talk to a lot of companies, especially those that are in Canada, having the same exact conversation about “What am I going to do? I need to move operations quickly.” But they need to be in an area of the country that’s going to make sense for them financially, not only from a labor standpoint, but from other costs as well, in terms of energy availability, there’s so much that goes into that, rents. So it’s a huge equation. It’s the whole gamut of starting to run a business from a different country, and what are all of the considerations that they need to make.

Ryssdal: What is your — this is sort of a squishy question — but what’s your overall level of concern right now about what you see, again, as the economist in this conversation?

Crofoot: I mean, the real economic data so far is still really solid. I mean, the jobs report from last week —

Ryssdal: That’s a super important point, actually, right?

Crofoot: Yeah, I mean, unemployment is still very low, historically low, 4.2%, really solid job gain. If this was pre-pandemic times, we’d be all celebrating this huge uptick in jobs. But, yeah, I mean, it’s all the uncertainty around that, and we’re just in such a vulnerable position. And the thing is that it changes so quickly.

Rumors circulated today that robotaxi company Waymo might use data from vehicles' interior cameras to train AI and sell targeted ads to riders. However, the company has tried to quell concerns, insisting that it won't be targeting ads to passengers.

The situation arose after researcher and engineer Jane Manchun Wong discovered an unreleased version of Waymo's privacy policy that suggested the robotaxi company could start using data from its vehicles to train generative AI. The draft policy has language allowing customers to opt out of Waymo "using your personal information (including interior camera data associated with your identity) for training GAI." Wong's discovery also suggested that Waymo could use that camera footage to sell personalized ads to riders.

Later in the day, The Verge obtained comments on this unreleased privacy policy from Waymo spokesperson Julia Ilina. "Waymo's [machine learning] systems are not designed to use this data to identify individual people, and there are no plans to use this data for targeted ads," she said. Ilina said the version found by Wong featured "placeholder text that doesn’t accurately reflect the feature’s purpose" and noted that the feature was still in development. It "will not introduce any changes to Waymo’s Privacy Policy, but rather will offer riders an opportunity to opt out of data collection for ML training purposes."

Hopefully Waymo holds to those statements. Privacy and security are huge concerns as AI companies try to feed their models as much information as possible. Waymo is owned by Alphabet and Google is developing its own AI assistant, Gemini, as well as other AI projects with its DeepMind division.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/waymo-has-no-plans-to-sell-ads-to-riders-based-on-camera-data-225340265.html?src=rss

The European Union is open to a trade deal with the U.S., European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said today.

But the giant economic bloc could also impose retaliatory tariffs of its own on U.S. goods. Some imports from across the pond are already caught in the crossfire.

Audi is holding recently arrived cars at U.S. ports, and Jaguar Land Rover plans to pause vehicle shipments from the U.K. for a month.

European car companies have a bit of time to plot their next move because they’ve got cars on dealer lots that entered the U.S. before the tariffs.

Sean Tucker at Kelley Blue Book said Audi could keep those cars sitting in port for a while “because at this point they have more than a three-month supply before their dealers reach a point where they’re having to pay the post-tariff cost.”

But pretty quickly, they’ll have to make a choice.

Selling internal combustion engine cars to the U.S. had been a steady source of revenue in a global market that’s leaning electric, said Karl Brauer at ISeeCars.com. But now?

“They can’t really sell even their internal combustion cars that still have plenty of profit built in to U.S. consumers because of the tariffs,” he said.

So what are their options, if the new tariffs stay in place? Brauer said they could shift more production to the U.S. to avoid import taxes. 

Or, said Mary Anne Madeira, an assistant professor of international relations at Lehigh University, “the best option for these firms is to divert trade away from the U.S. and towards consumer markets elsewhere in the world.”

European leaders, she said, have already been looking to open up trade to South America and other parts of the globe. But they’re also preparing to respond with retaliatory measures, if they don’t reach a deal with the U.S. 

The problem is, Madeira said, balancing all the competing interests and politics across 27 EU member countries would be really tricky.

One example: “The automobile industry, you know, is really located in Germany, but a lot of parts and suppliers are in Central and Eastern European countries like Czech Republic and Hungary,” she said.

So hurting the exports of one country in the name of standing up for the bloc could hurt relations among partners.

Consumer electronics brand Framework announced today on X that it will temporarily suspend US sales of select laptop models as a result of the global tariffs enacted for the country last week. The company said it will remove the Ultra 5 125H and Ryzen 5 7640U versions of its Laptop 13 systems from its website. At the time of publish, that Ultra 5 Intel model is not listed, but the Ryzen 5 one with the AMD chip appears to still be available for purchase.

In a follow-up post, the company said that it originally priced its laptops based on a 0 percent tariff for goods from Taiwan. With the current 10 percent tariff, the products would be sold at a loss. "Other consumer goods makers have performed the same calculations and taken the same actions, though most have not been open about it," Framework said.

Given the language of the initial post, this doesn't seem to be the end of US customers' chances to buy Laptop 13 models. But the sweeping tariffs on imports enacted by President Donald Trump last week have already sparked other industries to rethink their US sales and pricing. UK-based Jaguar Land Rover also paused shipments to the US as a result of the tariffs, while Japan's Nintendo has delayed pre-orders for the Switch 2 gaming console, although the launch date appears unchanged.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/framework-pauses-some-us-laptop-sales-due-to-tariffs-221115971.html?src=rss

Two weeks ago, the price of U.S. copper surged to a new record high as buyers stocked up, only to collapse after last week’s tariff blitz. 

Yes, other commodity markets took a similar hit: The price of oil; cash crops like soybeans and cotton; and precious metals like gold are also plummeting. 

But copper markets have a special reputation for helping us predict the macroeconomic future. You need copper to make or build just about anything in this economy. Almost every sector relies on it. 

“From construction, infrastructure and also defense,” said chief market strategist Phillip Streible at Blue Line Futures.

He said those are the traditional markets for copper. But the material also in high demand for various kinds of emerging tech. 

“EV vehicles, which use four times more copper than traditional gas vehicles; AI which is energy intense — computing requires copper in order to perform its function,” said Streible. 

All of this is why demand for copper, both the actual metal and copper futures, usually portends healthy economic growth. 

But the recent run on the 29th element doesn’t quite fit that pattern, said Trevor Yates, senior analyst at Global X ETFs. 

“Copper prices were almost synthetically high because of this pre-buying,” said Yates.

Pre-buying ahead of last week’s tariff announcements, which ultimately did not target copper. 

Craig Pirrong, a professor of finance at the University of Houston, said copper is on a short list of products, including lumber and semiconductors, exempted by the White House.

“One possible reason would be that they surmised that Americans would bear most of the cost of a tariff on copper,” and decided against a specific tariff for now, said Pirrong. 

So, why have copper prices been tanking? 

“This is a verdict about the overall prospects for the economy and not something specific to the copper market,” said Pirrong. 

He said slowing demand for copper could foreshadow a broader slowdown around the world, especially in China, the world’s top buyer of the metal. 

The S&P 500 stock index has lost almost 20% of its value since February. Over in the bond market, alarm bells are flashing too. Particularly in a type of Treasury debt we don’t talk about very often — the two-year note. Investors in that market are particularly looking at what’s gonna happen to the economy and interest rates in the next two years. 

Almost everyone in this economy is touched in some way by interest rates. 

“It’s what people pay to lease their cars and their home mortgages and their credit card bills,” said Harry Mamaysky, a professor at Columbia Business School.

The Federal Reserve influences these interest rates based on what it thinks the economy needs. And what it does is gonna depend a lot on what tariffs do to the economy. Right now, economists expect tariff policy is going to hit in two big ways.

“One is it’ll probably push inflation up, at least for a while, and the other is it will push output and employment down,” said Bill English, professor of finance at Yale School of Management. 

So, tariffs equal inflation. Tariffs also equal economic slowdown or recession. Here’s the tricky part: the Federal Reserve can’t fight both of those at the same time. It keeps interest rates higher to fight inflation. It keeps rates lower to fight an economic slowdown. The bond market has to guess which one the Fed will do.

“Markets seem to think that the Fed will respond more to the weak economy than to the high inflation,” said English. 

Yields on two-year notes, which look two years out into the future, have dropped in the past couple of days. Investors think the Fed will have to cut interest rates more than expected because the economy is going to be worse than expected.

“Investors believe growth is going to slow and we are potentially going to enter recession,” said Ruben Hovhannisyan, a fixed-income portfolio manager at the TCW Group. 

At the beginning of the year, markets expected the Fed to cut rates maybe once this year. But expectations have changed. “Something like two to three rate cuts by the end of the year,” said Harry Mamaysky.

So interest rates could fall by three-quarters of a percentage point this year. So far, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said the Fed’s not in a hurry. 

Collin Martin, a fixed-income strategist at Charles Schwab, said that may be because tariffs aren’t something the Fed can address. Schwab is a Marketplace underwriter.

“If the Fed were to cut rates, I don’t know how much that’s going to encourage companies to invest more,” said Martin. “I don’t think it’s the level of borrowing costs that’s necessarily affecting business behaviors right now. It’s the uncertainty.”

After an internal investigation, The White House has come up with a likely explanation for how Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was included in a Signal chat filled with Trump officials planning to bomb the Houthis. The Guardian reports that the issue came down to National Security Advisor Mike Waltz not understanding how his iPhone works.

Apparently, after Goldberg attempted to contact the Trump campaign about a separate issue in 2024, Brian Hughes, a Trump spokesperson, shared Goldberg's contact information and email signature with Waltz. It only took a few wrong taps after that to lay the groundwork for "Signalgate," The Guardian writes:

Waltz did not ultimately call Goldberg, the people said, but in an extraordinary twist, inadvertently ended up saving Goldberg’s number in his iPhone – under the contact card for Hughes, now the spokesperson for the national security council.

So Waltz didn't realize his iPhone was updating a contact rather than creating a new one, and meant to add Hughes to the group chat rather than Goldberg. This explanation doesn't change the fact that the kind of planning happening in the "Houthi PC small group" probably shouldn't have taken place on an encrypted messaging app — and especially without Congress weighing in. But this discovery does add a new flavor of grim stupidity to the whole affair.

Not long after Signalgate, the Pentagon warned against using Signal because it's vulnerable to Russian phishing attacks, but clearly the Trump administration likes the app's security and the instantaneous communication it allows. Having a more secure option reportedly hasn't stopped Waltz from using Gmail, though.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/the-white-house-has-reportedly-settled-on-an-explanation-for-how-signalgate-happened-212107380.html?src=rss

Players are gearing up for the arrival of the Switch 2 this summer, and we've been piecing together details about how game ownership and sharing will work. The picture is coming together, and in true Nintendo fashion, it's a bit odd.

Developers who release projects on the Switch 2 will have the option to sell their work as a "Game-Key card," which looks like a traditional physical game cartridge, but has no game data stored on it. Instead, when slotted into a Switch 2, game-key cards will automatically present instructions on how to download the title in question. The hardware will need an Internet connection and enough space for the game files on its system memory or microSD Express card. Once the download is complete, that Switch 2 can run the game whenever the game-key card is inserted into the system. The Switch no longer needs an Internet connection once the title has been downloaded, unless the game separately requires you to be online to play. We've now learned via GameSpot that game-key cards won't be automatically connected to a single console or to a user's Nintendo account.

It's an unusual hybrid approach, and with many hybrid concepts, you get the best and worst of both worlds. For instance, storage is going to be at a premium in the Switch 2 and game-key card downloads will eat into that limited space. And unfortunately, game-key cards don't future-proof customers against the day when Nintendo might decide to shut down the servers for the Switch 2, as it did with other sunsetted hardware like the Wii U and 3DS in 2024. If and when that happens, the game-key cards will be essentially useless.

But there are some upsides, particularly when it comes to sharing or reselling games. We already knew that Nintendo would have an option called GameShare that supports local multiplayer with only a single purchased copy of the title, while Virtual Game Cards offer digital sharing (if in a convoluted way). The addition of game-key cards that aren't tied to a single person's Nintendo account makes it easier to pass a game off to a friend once you've finished with it, or to resell it and recoup some of the $80 price tag of major releases.

And in case you were wondering: yes, the game cartridges will still taste terrible.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/switch-2-game-key-cards-wont-be-tied-to-your-nintendo-account-204735286.html?src=rss

Dozens of workers at a shoe factory in southern China’s Dongguan city glue, sew and buff foam slippers and canvas shoes.

They punch every hole and lace every shoe by hand.

“Every lacing is [done] manually. There is no robot. I think the big brands tried and failed,” James Gau, whose company ShoeBot owns the factory, said. Sixty percent of his clients are from the U.S.

Shoe manufacturing is labor-intensive, according to Gau, especially when clients want their brand tags attached to the shoes, and to have them wrapped in tissue paper before boxing up.

Last week, President Donald Trump announced a new round of tariffs on foreign exports to the United States as part of a plan to bring more manufacturing back to the U.S. China was hit with an extra tariff of 34%, bringing total levies on Chinese exports to 54%.

China has been here before. During Trump’s first term, he hiked tariffs on things like Chinese solar panels, computers and footwear. So, many manufacturers expanded their operations. Under the ‘China plus one’ strategy, production takes place in China plus a neighboring nation such as Vietnam, Cambodia or Indonesia. That strategy did not always work out well and for a variety of reasons; China is still the best place to produce quality products at a scale and speed unmatched by other exporting countries.

In shoemaking, when local wages get too high, Gau said manufacturers like him and his cofounder must relocate. That has been the pattern ever since shoe manufacturing started out in the west.

“The footwear started from Europe and then America,” Gau said. He has been in the athletic and casual shoe industry, mostly in the shoemaking hub of Dongguan, since 1995 and has worked with big brands including Adidas, Crocs and Timberland.

By the 1960s, Gau said shoe factories had shifted to Japan and Brazil, then Korea and Taiwan. For the past three decades, the industry has been based largely in mainland China, until President Trump’s first term when he hiked tariffs on China. China hit back with tariffs on U.S. goods.

So, seven years ago, more companies started to look at relocating production to Southeast Asia.

“We actually looked at Vietnam,” cofounder Lena Phoenix of Colorado shoe brand Xero, said. Xero did not end up moving production to Vietnam because of the complexity of manufacturing their products. The company specializes in shoes meant to mimic the sensation of being barefoot.

“We make everything from casual sandals to technical hiking boots to professional quality basketball shoes, to lifestyle and kids footwear,” Phoenix said. “So, because we have such a wide range of styles requiring different technical capabilities, we use a number of different factories.”

Those factories are in China because that is where the skilled workforces are. Phoenix’s company is doing business with Gau’s ShoeBot.

The manufacturer works with small- and medium-sized brands. ShoeBot also makes shoes in Vietnam, though its operations there are small.

“Vietnam is already overloaded. It’s [got] limited capacity, limited labor force,” Gau said. “The larger brands already took over all the best resources.

He said Indonesia is also another shoe manufacturing hub and the situation is similar. Still, he said most raw materials and parts must be shipped from China.

One of ShoeBot’s clients is a Portland shoe start-up, Avoli, which makes volleyball shoes for women and girls. ShoeBot was an early investor in Avoli.

Cofounder Mark Oleson said Vietnam may be good for big brands but not for niche ones like his.

“Vietnam is where China was maybe 15 years ago,” Oleson, who has over two decades’ experience working with Adidas, Under Armour and Lululemon, said.

China has so-called industrial clusters, which means everything shoe-related, from raw materials to foam manufacturers, knitwear, lacing and embroidery groups are all within driving distance of Chinese shoe factories.

“It’s just set up to do it right,” Oleson said.

He said as a startup, footwear production is difficult because most manufacturers are not willing to pick up his small orders.

“The [first] barrier of entry is getting into a factory that is not going to kick you out,” Oleson said. “A reasonably large manufacturer is looking at 5,000-plus units per color.”

In contrast, Avoli wants only hundreds of pairs per color and ShoeBot was willing to do it by finding more cost-effective ways. Oleson gave an example of ShoeBot using a different way of integrating color by painting from the back side of the outsole or using small embroidery lines.

“It’s the little detailed pieces that actually change the look of the entire shoe without having to create a whole new model,” Oleson said.

He said Chinese factories are innovative. They find new materials, upgrade machines and cut down production times.

Manufacturing in China makes it easier to roll out and test different colors for new volleyball shoe styles.

“There’s nothing more satisfying than being at one of these tournaments and having our product on display and you hear those four words as [volleyball players] pass by, ‘Oh, those are cute,’” Avoli’s other cofounder, Rick Anguilla, said.

He has over two decades of experience in the shoe industry working for major brands like Nike and Under Armour. Anguilla said they’ve thought about manufacturing in the U.S. but decided the challenges were too great.

Phoenix of Xero shoes agrees.

“There isn’t an opportunity to move footwear manufacturing back to the United States,” she said. “It would take hundreds of millions of dollars of factory investment, training of a workforce that does not exist. It would take an enormous amount of time.”

When it was clear Trump would be the Republican party’s nominee for the 2024 election, Vietnam seemed like a more attractive option to Phoenix, despite its less skilled workforce.

Phoenix said her company had hoped to shift manufacturing there in phases. 

Since Trump increased tariffs on Vietnamese exports by 46% last week, she has been having second thoughts.

“One of the things that’s critical for us to know is whether or not these are in fact the final tariffs, given all of the changes that have come out of this administration, we are, to some extent, waiting for the dust to settle,” Phoenix said.

In these uncertain times, some manufacturers remain optimistic.

As an entrepreneur, Gau said he feels excited because the tough economic climate and uncertainty means larger players do not hold all the advantages.

“Everyone is considering or exploring what a new model should be. [This] puts a giant company [and a] small company like us on the same starting line,” Gau said.

He said small manufacturers like him are more agile and can help clients pivot quickly for whatever may come next.

Additional research by Charles Zhang

There is a blinding beacon of light at the top of a tower in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

It’s a solar power facility called Ivanpah. It’s been supplying enough juice to power 140,000 homes for more than a decade. But it doesn’t generate electricity directly like rooftop solar panels do. It’s surrounded by a bunch of mirrors in concentric circles.

“Those mirrors reflect the heat of the sun to a receiver that’s mounted at the top of a big tower,” said Ed Smeloff, a clean energy consultant. “And then that receiver heats up, and the fluid in the receiver is used to drive the energy through a conventional steam turbine.”

Ivanpah opened 11 years ago, and it’s run by a company called NRG Energy. It cost $2.2 billion to build, $1.6 billion of which came in the form of loans from the U.S. Department of Energy.

“The cost of the project compared to other renewable technologies looked reasonable,” said Smeloff. “That, of course, has changed dramatically over the last 15 years or so.”

The hundreds of thousands of mirrors in the Ivanpah project, called heliostats, track the sun so they can reflect light to the beacon in the middle throughout the day. (Cliff Ho/DOE)

Because over that period, the cost of photovoltaic solar power, or solar panels, has fallen about 70%. Now it is significantly cheaper than the energy that Ivanpah generates. The main buyer of the plant’s power — California utility PG&E — released a statement saying it’s pulling out to save its customers money. Ivanpah’s set to close early next year.

Whether that counts as a failure depends on how you view the mission of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, said Jigar Shah, its former director.

“It was clearly successful in that we gave them money and they commercialized the technology here in the United States,” he said. “It didn’t catalyze a trillion dollars’ worth of investment. So from that perspective, it wasn’t successful. Whereas, the solar PV [photovoltaic] investments that we made did catalyze a trillion dollars of investment.”

He also said taxpayers will get most of their money back. The Department of Energy declined to say exactly how much. 

“Long term, the reason we’re doing all of this is to get the technologies that succeed to get successful at scale,” Shah said.

Concentrated solar power won’t die when Ivanpah shuts down. There are still people and companies who think the plant has value.

Fred Morse is one of them. He’s the guy who wrote up the report 55 years ago on whether it made sense to put solar on the roof of the White House. Today, he runs a startup called SolStor Energy that develops concentrated solar.

“I was there two months ago. It’s a beautiful facility. It works,” said Morse. “Clean, carbon-free. You really want to shut that down?”

He said sure, PV solar panels are cheaper in the day time. But a concentrated solar plant can pump that superheated liquid it generates into an insulated tank so the plant can provide electricity at night.

But Morse said the future investments, like the one Ivanpah needed to get off the ground, are more uncertain as the new trade war and the shrinking of the federal government make investment less likely.

Jackbox has been making fun party games for well over a decade at this point, but it just held its first-ever direct livestream event. The company had plenty of news to share, including the pending release of both a new minigame collection and a standalone trivia title.

The Jackbox Party Pack 11 includes "five brand-new game concepts to bring the party game experience to the next level." These include an audio-based game in which players compete to make the best sound effects. There’s also a fantasy-themed trivia title and a head-to-head joke-writing game.

The pack is rounded out by a social deduction game that’s centered around a court trial and a "cozy drawing game." That last one tasks players to create designs based on "bizarre prompts." If it’s anything like Drawful, which is a fantastic drawing-based game by Jackbox, we will be extremely pleased. The Jackbox Party Pack 11 will be available this fall for just about every platform.

If you feel like you haven't heard from Jackbox Games in a while, that’s because it didn’t release a party pack last year. The company said it took a year off to "innovate and deliver some long-requested products for fans."

The showcase concluded with the reveal of Trivia Murder Party 3, the next entry in the franchise. This one brings online matchmaking into the mix, though folks can still play locally via the classic Jackbox room code. This installment is set in a summer camp with a serial killer on the loose. Only answering trivia questions can stop the murderous rampage. It will be available as an early access title on Steam later in the year, with a general release date set for 2026.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/jackbox-is-back-with-new-party-games-including-one-based-on-sound-effects-184524066.html?src=rss

With the last Mission: Impossible film, Dead Reckoning, the long-running franchise officially entered science fiction territory by making intelligent AI its villain. We've seen Tom Cruise's Ethan hunt jump off of buildings and hang from the side of planes, but how can he fight a computer program? The latest trailer for the series' next film, and potentially the last to feature Hunt, doesn't answer that question, but clearly it will involve even more death-defying stunts (like hanging on to a flipping bi-plane!), geeky gadgets and Tom Cruise running inhumanly fast.

As I wrote in my review of Deck Reckoning: "As much as I love other action film franchises – like John Wick’s increasingly elaborate choreography, or the sheer ridiculousness of the Fast and the Furious – Mission: Impossible remains uniquely enjoyable. It’s committed to delivering astonishing practical stunt work. It’s self-aware just enough to poke fun at itself. And a part of me hopes that somehow, a team of geeks can also fight back against the excesses of AI."

Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning hits theaters on May 23.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/tom-cruise-gears-up-to-save-us-from-ai-in-the-latest-mission-impossible---the-final-reckoning-trailer-181032815.html?src=rss

When the AirPods Max arrived in late 2020, there wasn’t much spatial audio content for Apple’s high-end headphones. What’s more, there wasn’t any support at all for lossless audio. The company hadn’t added Dolby Atmos and lossless tunes to Apple Music yet, but even when those arrived, Apple still hadn’t solved my biggest problem with the $549 headphones. With iOS 18.4 and a firmware update for the AirPods Max with USB-C, Apple has finally put the finishing touches on its only headphones with lossless audio.

Let’s back up a few months. Last September, Apple gave the AirPods Max its only significant update since the original launch: it swapped the Lightning jack for a USB-C port. The headphones are still running on the aging H1 chip when the rest of the current AirPods lineup has moved on to the more recent and more capable H2. I wasn’t upset that the company didn’t take the opportunity to update the AirPods Max design, but the failure to upgrade that chip was a head scratcher.

Now that lossless audio is here on the lightly refreshed AirPods Max, the headphones feel more complete. But that took over four years to finally happen, and if you bought the 2020 model you won’t be able to use this newly added capability. You’ll need the USB-C version of the AirPods Max that arrived last year and either iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4 or macOS Sequoia 15.4 to unlock lossless and ultra-low latency audio.

How to get lossless audio on AirPods Max with USB-C Billy Steele for Engadget

Once you’ve updated one of your Apple devices to iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4 or macOS Sequoia 15.4, connect your AirPods Max to it via Bluetooth. You’ll then want to plug the headphones into a power outlet or USB-C port with the included cable. If you keep the two gadgets in close proximity for about 30 minutes, the AirPods Max firmware update should download. To check, hop into the AirPods Max settings and scroll down to the About section. Here, you’ll want to see version 7E101 to confirm you’ve got the goods.

You’ll want to keep that cable handy. Lossless audio on the AirPods Max is only available for wired use. You will still need to establish a Bluetooth connection for all of the smart features like hands-free Siri. Apple also sells a new $39 USB-C-to-3.5mm cord if you want to go that route, but either way, you’ll need a cable due to the limitations of high-res audio over Bluetooth.

Why isn’t lossless audio available on the original AirPods Max?

If you bought Apple’s $549 headphones in 2020, I can understand your frustration that you aren’t privy to this update. However, I wouldn’t assume Apple made this decision just to drive sales. There are hardware limitations with the Lightning port that hinders lossless audio, specifically a data throughput constraint on the previous version. Apple made some changes to the DAC (digital-to-analog converter) inside the AirPods Max to make lossless happen, which wasn’t possible on the older model either.

Does lossless audio make a difference?

I’ve heard some people say they can’t tell the difference between normal songs and lossless tunes. I’d argue it depends on what you’re listening to. If it’s a recent pop tune from Dua Lipa or Sabrina Carpenter, you’re better off with the Dolby Atmos mix and likely won’t pick up any more detail for high-resolution streaming. For bass heavy, chaotic genres like metal, I notice a better balance to the mix. Vocals on Spiritbox’s Tsunami Sea rise above the booming drums and thrashing guitar, and the bass is a little more subdued. Same for Underoath’s The Place After This One, where all the instruments seem to have more separation from the vocals. And overall, the bombastic tracks on this album feel bigger and more immersive.

Lossless audio on the AirPods Max particularly elevates acoustic genres like bluegrass and folk, in addition to other mellow styles like jazz. I might as well have been inside the acoustic guitar on Julien Baker & TORRES’ “Sugar in the Tank” as I felt like I could hear every percussive detail on every string. I can’t imagine the sound would’ve been much better on Jason Isbell’s Foxes in the Snow if I was actually in the room at Electric Lady Studios during the recording. That 1940 Martin 0-17, the only instrument on the album, is so pure and true. Jump to Miles Davis’ Birth of the Blue where the horns, piano, bass and drums all seem a little livelier and a little more energetic, with Davis’ trumpet belting out its verse-like cadence throughout.

Do you have to use Apple Music? Apple

First, let’s talk about what’s available on Apple Music. Since June 2021, the service has offered lossless audio to subscribers at no additional cost. This starts at CD quality, which is 16 bit at 44.1 kHz, and goes up to 24 bit at 48 kHz. That latter rate is the maximum that AirPods Max can now support via the USB-C connection, and Apple says there are now 100 million songs available on its service in lossless quality. There is also a collection of Hi-Resolution Lossless content on Apple Music, which goes up to 24 bit at 192 kHz. You’ll need extra gear like a USB DAC in order to listen at that level, though.

You aren’t limited to just Apple Music. Anywhere you can stream lossless audio up to 24 bit at 48 kHz you can do so with these headphones. There are other services that offer this (like Tidal), or you can play locally stored files. The only requirement is a USB-C cable; your source isn't limited to Apple.

Wrap-up

It’s always nice when a company directly addresses one of your complaints. It’s not great when it takes over four years to do so. Now that lossless audio is here for the AirPods Max, I can no longer argue that the headphones feel incomplete, which is a big improvement from where they were at launch.

I keep going back and forth over whether or not this update is enough, though. It’s the first time Apple has expanded the capabilities of the AirPods Max in over four years, and it could only do so for the minimally updated 2024 version. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who has a solid track record with Apple product scoops, reported in November that the company had “no real plan to meaningfully update AirPods Max.” He said the headphones don’t sell well enough to justify much R&D, but they’re not a big enough failure to be permanently shelved.

With that in mind, this update, which adds ultra-low latency for gamers in addition to lossless audio, is actually a lot bigger than it ordinarily would be. But to continue to demand $549 for what’s essentially 2020 hardware, Apple needs to trot out these types of updates regularly. While you can find these headphones on sale for as low as $449, that's still a steep investment. Even then, the AirPods Max would be tough to recommend to anyone other than iPhone and Mac die-hards with deep pockets.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/how-to-use-lossless-audio-on-the-airpods-max-180026218.html?src=rss

The Hugo Awards began honoring video games for the first time back in 2021. This week, the organization revealed the list of six finalists for the 2025 awards ceremony. It’s a cornucopia of critically-acclaimed titles from the past year or so.

Let’s go over the nominations. Two AAA titles are up for the award. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Echoes of Wisdom changes up the franchise formula, casting players as the titular Zelda. The gameplay involves summoning monsters and items to solve puzzles and do battle. It’s pretty awesome.

We especially loved Dragon Age: The Veilguard, calling it "BioWare at its best." The graphics are fantastic and the gameplay is more action-oriented than previous entries in the franchise. It continues the story of the decade-old Dragon Age Inquisition.

The Hugos are also honoring a spate of smaller titles. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes got a nom, and this was one of our favorite games of 2024. It’s a near-perfect puzzle game that subverts the genre at every turn. We said it was the perfect game "for fans of puzzles, narrative twists and David Lynch."

Caves of Qud is an incredibly deep and lore-heavy roguelike set in a fantasy realm. It was actually in early access for a full 15 years before getting an official release last year. 1000xRESIST is a sci-fi adventure game that was praised primarily for its engaging story. Finally, Tactical Breach Wizards is a turn-based RPG starring, you guessed it, wizards. Some reviews have called it the best strategy game since XCOM 2.

The final winner will be announced at the 83rd World Science Fiction Convention in Seattle on August 16. Previous winners include Hades and Baldur’s Gate 3.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/2025-hugo-award-game-finalists-include-zelda-echoes-of-wisdom-and-dragon-age-the-veilguard-171135638.html?src=rss

Google is bringing AI Mode to more people in the US. The company announced on Monday it would make the new search tool, first launched at the start of last month, to millions of more Labs users across the country.

For uninitiated, AI Mode is a new dedicated tab within Search. It's essentially Google's answer to ChatGPT Search. It allows you to ask more complicated questions of Google, with a custom version of Gemini 2.0 doing the legwork to deliver a nuanced AI-generated response. Labs, meanwhile, is a beta program you can enroll your Google account in to gain access to new Search features before the company rolls them out to the public.

In addition to bringing AI Mode to more people, Google is unlocking the tool's multimodal capabilities. Starting today, you can snap and upload images to AI Mode, allowing you to ask questions about what you see. The feature brings together AI Mode with Google's Lens technology.

"With Gemini's multimodal capabilities, AI Mode can understand the entire scene in an image, including the context of how objects relate to one another and their unique materials, colors, shapes and arrangements," Google explains. "Using our query fan-out technique, AI Mode then issues multiple queries about the image as a whole and the objects within the image, accessing more breadth and depth of information than a traditional search on Google."

AI Mode's new Lens integration is available through the Google app on Android and iOS.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-ai-mode-rolls-out-to-more-testers-with-new-image-search-feature-160054334.html?src=rss

On Monday, we’ll get the Federal Reserve’s February report on consumer credit — that’s borrowing on all different kinds of loans, like mortgages, credit cards, auto and student loans. 

Consumer credit was up 4.3% in January, after rising by double that in December. 

Here’s the glass-half-empty scenario, brought to you by Bankrate senior industry analyst Ted Rossman “Credit card balances are at record highs, up more than 50% from 2021.”

Delinquency rates have been rising since 2022, and more than 10% of credit card bills are more than 90 days late. 

“We’re seeing more people using cards just to get by for groceries and gas,” Rossman said.

OK, now for the glass-slightly-more-full perspective: “Overall levels of debt-to-income — it looks pretty good,” said Curt Long, deputy chief economist at America’s Credit Unions.

Most consumers can still afford to keep up, even with interest rates topping 20%. But that could change, he warned “if the labor market really starts to deteriorate.” Delinquencies tend to rise in lock-step with unemployment. 

And Ted Rossman’s biggest worry? “Auto loans. Delinquencies there are worse than they were during the financial crisis.”

People really try to pay that bill first. Because if you don’t, they repossess.

Major economic transformations often gather momentum slowly. That is, until accumulated data add up into clear signs of change. That’s the story arc of the more than three-decade-long rise in older Americans holding debt.

Older Americans are increasingly carrying debt into retirement, and the amount of debt is also on the rise.

“In 1989, about 58% of older adults over the age of 50 carry that in retirement. And in 2020, that percentage has jumped to 78%,” said Mingli Zhong, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute.

This series is in partnership with Next Avenue, a nonprofit news platform for older adults produced by Twin Cities PBS.

Owing money isn’t necessarily bad. Even upper income households, earning, say, $260,000 or more, take out loans to buy homes, cars and appliances. Young adults borrow to pay for their education and to start a family.

That said, the standard personal finance recommendation is to eliminate debt around retirement. Everyday life at older ages is financially riskier with debt, especially for people of modest means. Yet fewer near-retirees and retirees are debt-free.

“We’ve seen an uptick in debt, including mortgage debt, among older adults for a long time, for a couple decades now. It has to do with several factors,” said Odette Williamson, senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center. “It has to do with cutback and some safety net provisions. It has to do with [the] increase in expenses, most recently due to inflation. And it has to do with the fact that older adults are aging with just fewer resources.”

The combination of debt and low savings among older adults is pushing more households into the ranks of the financially precarious. Three major factors are driving the trend.

“We found that the debt-creating institutions overwhelmed our wealth-creating institutions,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor of economics at the New School of Social Research.

The value of home equity for the bottom 90% measured by wealth has barely increased over the past 40 years, Ghilarducci said. Lenders made it easier to borrow from home equity, lowered downpayment requirements and spearheaded other similar innovations. People also borrow to pay for the basics of modern life.

“People were able to also get car loans and other kinds of durable consumer purchases on loans rather than cash,” Ghilarducci noted.

In the series “Buy Now, Pay Later” Marketplace senior economics contributor Chris Farrell looks into the risks debt holds for older people. (Courtesy Farrell)

Debt is also the other side of the lack-of-retirement-savings coin. Nearly half of private-sector workers and some two-thirds of lower-wage workers don’t have access to a retirement savings plan at work. Finally, wages rose slowly for most workers in recent decades — especially for Black and Latino workers, and for women in all categories. All the while, the costs of everyday living went up.

“I’m seeing the debt increase for everyone, but it’s a matter of whether you have the resources to deal with the debt,” said Odette Williamson. “And for those, especially people of color, older adults who have faced a lifetime of discrimination in the job market and other types of discrimination, they simply have aged with little or no resource to meet these mounting expenses.”

Nearly half of older adults surveyed by AARP use credit cards to cover basic living expenses. Toss in home-equity loans, medical debts, student loans, auto loans and mortgages. The accumulation of debt signals that too many older adults are living on a financial precipice.

The situation is reminiscent of these lyrics from Woody Guthrie’s “The Debt I Owe” sung by Lou Reed: “Every day, several times a day, a thought comes over me/ I owe more debts than I ever can pay back, more money than I’ll ever see.”

Hear or read the latest installment of Chris Farrell’s “Buy Now, Pay Later” series every Monday morning. This series is in partnership with Next Avenue, a nonprofit news platform for older adults produced by Twin Cities PBS.

While the Nintendo Switch 2 had its splashy debut last week, including details about the hardware and launch games, there's still lots about the console that Nintendo has yet to clear up. For instance, the company hasn't gone into specifics about the CPU and GPU that are powering the Switch 2, other than to touch on the performance enhancements that they offer over the Switch (NVIDIA separately confirmed that the Switch 2 uses its Deep Learning Super Sampling tech).

However, since last Wednesday's blockbuster Direct, Nintendo has touched on some new Switch 2 details in interviews with the press. For one thing, Nate Bihldorff, Senior Vice President of Product Development & Publishing at Nintendo of America, told Nintendo Life that the console's Joy-Con 2 controllers do not use Hall effect tech. "The Joy-Con 2's controllers have been designed from the ground up," Bihldorff said. "They're not Hall effect sticks, but they feel really good."

Switch 2 producer Kouichi Kawamoto separately said that the Joy-Con 2 joysticks "are quieter and don’t make noise, even when they’re moved quickly to the edge." The company is referring to them as "smooth-gliding sticks."

Engadget has asked Nintendo why the company opted not to use Hall effect tech in the Joy-Con 2. We've also asked whether the Switch 2 Pro Controller foregoes Hall effect sensors as well.

This technology is becoming increasingly common in the thumbsticks of third-party gamepads, but Nintendo has yet to implement it in its own joysticks (nor have Sony or Microsoft, for that matter). The idea behind Hall effect sensors is that they reduce the likelihood of stick drift. This problem was so pervasive on the original Switch's Joy-Cons that Nintendo offered free, unlimited repairs for stick drift in Europe. So it's not clear why Nintendo would opt out of having Hall effect sensors in the Joy-Con 2 to help mitigate such problems.

Meanwhile, Nintendo has confirmed US pricing for a few Switch 2 experiences. The company told IGN that the upgrades for two The Legend of Zelda games — Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom — cost $10 each for those who already own either game. However, Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers get access to the upgrades at no extra cost.

The Switch 2 upgrades include visual fidelity and framerate enhancements, along with the inclusion of HDR support and faster loading times. You'll also be able to use the Switch mobile app as a Sheikah Slate of sorts, helping you to find hidden items with voiced directions.

In addition, Nintendo has revealed that Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, which seems like a tech demo that will take you through all the features of the console, will cost $10. As for why Nintendo is charging 10 bucks for this as opposed to offering it for free (like Valve did with the fun Steam Deck tech demo, Aperture Desk Job, or Sony did with Astro's Playroom on PS5), Nintendo of America's Vice President of Product and Player Experience Bill Trinen had this to say to IGN:

For some people, I think there are people who are particularly interested in the tech and the specs of the system and things like that, for them I think it's going to be a great product. It's really for people that want more information about the system rather than necessarily a quick intro to everything it does. And for that reason and just the amount of care and work that the team put into it, I think it was decided that, 'Yeah, this feels like $9.99 is not an exorbitant price. It feels like a good value for what you're getting out of the product.'

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendo-says-the-switch-2-joy-con-controllers-dont-have-hall-effect-thumbsticks-145541771.html?src=rss