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We’ve talked about tariffs plenty in the context of manufacturing and consumer goods — the stuff people buy. But what about that much larger chunk of the economy: services? 

Growth in the service sector declined in March, compared to the month before, according to a report out Thursday from the Institute for Supply Management. 

The report showed the slowest growth for services since last June. That’s in part because business leaders were concerned about — yes — tariffs. 

Let’s start with tech. Software services aren’t subject to tariffs. But they will be affected, said Dan Ives, a tech analyst at Wedbush Securities.

“It’s about the recessionary and global growth fears weighing on ‘em,” said Ives. 

Take digital advertising. When the cost of the stuff in the ads goes up, people buy less of it.

“If you cannibalize 10 to 15% of demand, that could cut digital advertising for Meta, Google and other players in social media,” said Ives. 

Next, there’s food service. Rich Shank with consulting firm Technomic said restaurant owners are feeling OK right now, in part because their ingredients are more substitutable than, say, a clothing retailer’s. 

If you run a burger joint and your imported patties get more expensive, “you can make swaps on your cheeses or your lettuce,” said Shank. “You might be able to soften the blow a little bit.”

Then there are bigger-ticket services.

Jan Freitag, a travel analyst with the CoStar Group, said international travelers put off by the whole trade war thing might not come to the United States at all. 

“ We’ve already seen some of that close to the Canadian border, where room demand has actually declined,” said Freitag. 

He said domestic travel could slump too, because it’s a nice-to-have service. And tariffs could raise the cost of must-have items, like food and fuel.

“That then eats into people’s discretionary spending,” said Freitag. 

He said that doesn’t bode well for the hotel industry heading into the summer travel season.

After a January announcement that it would spend $80 billion on data center construction, Microsoft may already be adjusting its future plans. Sources told Bloomberg that Microsoft has delayed or slowed data center efforts in Indonesia, the UK, Australia, Illinois, North Dakota and Wisconsin. Some of the cases meant withdrawing from negotiations, while others have involved delays on planned construction projects, according to these insiders. These data centers would be central to Microsoft's efforts to develop more capabilities around artificial intelligence.

Despite the apparent shift in its approach, a Microsoft rep told Bloomberg that the company still plans to hold to its $80 billion spending budget on data centers during its 2025 fiscal year. Engadget has reached out for confirmation and will update if we receive comment from Microsoft. That was the figure laid out in a blog post attributed to Vice-Chair and President Brad Smith. The post, published days before President Trump's inauguration, included some ingratiating language for the new administration. "The country has a unique opportunity to pursue this vision and build on the foundational ideas set for AI policy during President Trump’s first term," it reads. "At Microsoft, we are excited to take part in this journey."

Microsoft's plans could have been influenced by looming tariffs, which had been threatened and were finally introduced this week by President Trump. The trade policy is likely to make large infrastructure plans more expensive and has already caused uncertainties on Wall Street. It could be that the company will still spend in the ballpark of $80 billion but will not be able to complete as many locations as it had previously calculated. Or it could be that in the months since presenting its forecast, Microsoft has already seen a reduction in expected demand. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/microsoft-is-reportedly-walking-back-some-data-center-plans-210406748.html?src=rss

Traeger's only gas-powered grill is its Flatrock flat-top griddle. Besides this one model, everything else in the company's lineup runs on wood pellets. Since griddles continue to be insanely popular backyard cooking tools, Traeger is expanding its Flatrock line with a smaller, two-burner option. The Flatrock 2 Zone has all of the features from the larger version, which is now called the Flatrock 3 Zone, in a griddle that takes up less space on your deck, patio or porch. 

As the name suggests, the Flatrock 2 Zone has two separate cooking areas with precise heat control for each one. U-shaped burners consistently heat the entire cooking surface and an edge-to-edge, wind-blocking design helps keep the flame running smoothly without burnouts or flare-ups. Like the Flatrock 3 Zone, there are folding side shelves for resting tools and trays, plus the Pop-And-Lock (PAL) rail system allows you to add the snap-on accessories you need to complete your griddle setup. The EZ-Clean grease keg from other recent Traeger grills is here as well, making it easy to get rid of liquids and debris after cooking. 

Traeger

The main appeal of the Flatrock 2 Zone is that it's smaller than the original model. You'll still have the ability to make breakfasts, smash burgers, fajitas and more with the griddle's 468 square inches of cooking surface, but this new version will fit better in smaller outdoor spaces. It's also $200 cheaper at $700. Unfortunately, there's no word on availability just yet: Traeger says the Flatrock 2 Zone is coming "soon" to its website and retailers in the US and Canada. 

If you're looking for an alternative, Weber's Slate griddles are well-built and offer various options depending on the size and features you're after. Starting at $549, you can get the three-burner, 28-inch base model that comes on a basic cart similar to the company's gas grills. Even this smallest Weber option offers more cooking area than the Flatrock 2 Zone at 504 square inches. At the top end, there's a four-burner, 36-inch version that comes with an easy-to-read digital temperature gauge and enclosed storage for $999. What's more, Weber offers a 30-inch size in between those two, with various storage configurations and an the option to include that battery-powered temperature gauge. This one is 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/traeger-built-a-smaller-flatrock-griddle-for-smaller-outdoor-spaces-210057199.html?src=rss

Economic uncertainty, like we are living through right now, can make regular purchasing decisions challenging. Even more so decisions around big life moments, like changing your job, buying a house or deciding when or if to get married.

These choices have major consequences in our lives and finances; can a better understanding of economic theory help us make better life choices?

Daryl Fairweather is chief economist at Redfin and author of “Hate the Game: Economic Cheat Codes for Life, Love, and Work.” She joined “Marketplace” host Kimberly Adams to talk about how to apply economic theories to our choices in order to get winning results. A transcript of their conversation is below.

Kimberly Adams: I chuckled when I saw the title of your book because obviously it’s a play on the “don’t hate the player, hate the game,” idea. But why should people be thinking about economics and a lot of these decisions in our lives as games that you can apply economic principles to?

Daryl Fairweather: Well, the way that economists view different scenarios like an interaction between an employee and a boss or an interaction between a home seller and a home buyer is similar to the way that board games or video games work, where players have objectives, they have skills, and they interact with one another to win. But also, I think it can help people overcome some of the anxiety they have about achieving their goals in their career or their life because seeing it as a game, I think, just takes the pressure off, and I think it gives you more agency to just find a winning strategy.

Adams: You write a lot about sort of using these concepts of economics and game theory and strategizing how you play various games, and a big part of that is what information you have versus what information the other parties in any kind of negotiation have. And you use a really interesting example in the book about job hunting and gamifying that experience to have the most edge. Can you talk about the decision that you made about how you set up your resume?

Fairweather: So my name is Daryl Fairweather, which is a gender-ambiguous name and also kind of a racially-ambiguous name. Most people think about Daryl Strawberry, the famous Black baseball player, a man, or Daryl Hannah, the white woman actress. So depending on how people interpret my gender, it also dictates how they interpret my race. My middle name is Rose. So if I want people to know that I’m a woman, I include my middle name: Daryl Rose Fairweather. But I know it also makes people less likely to think of me as Black, even though I am biracial and Black. So when I submitted my resume last time I was applying for a job, I included Daryl Rose Fairweather to signal that, because the economic research shows that white women are more likely to be called back for interviews than Black men. So I use that information to help give myself a little bit of an edge, even though, you know, it is an unfortunate thing that I did to have to kind of manipulate how people perceive my race and gender.

Adams: You use a lot of pop culture references in this book to demonstrate how these economic games play out in real life, and you use a lot of examples from Destiny’s Child and their breakup. It comes up many times throughout the book. Can you give us a rundown of how that breakup went down and why it resonated with you so much that it ends up scattered throughout your book on sort of how economics play into regular life?

Fairweather: Well, I love Beyoncé; I consider myself a member of the Beyhive. But the Destiny’s Child example stuck with me. It was, I think, the most salient example of a negotiation gone wrong. Back when Destiny’s Child was early in their careers, they were a four-member group with Beyoncé, Kelly, LaTavia and LeToya, but LaTavia and LeToya started to feel like they were being not as appreciated as Beyoncé, and they thought that it was their management, Beyoncé’s dad, Matthew Knowles was their manager and giving Beyoncé preferential treatment. So they came to the group and issued an ultimatum that it was either them or Matthew Knowles, the manager. And I think they thought that, given that they were early in their career, the top priority would be keeping the group together. But I think what they misunderstood was what the actual goals were of Matthew and perhaps Beyoncé, that Beyoncé was the star, and that the group would survive without them. And that, I think, is something that I related to, especially early in my career. I thought that my value was my potential, but I came to realize that my employer valued me because I would work hard and work long hours, and once I realized that, it made me understand that I needed to find a new job opportunity in order to get the career that I really wanted.

Adams: You say at the end of the book that you titled it “Hate the Game” because you don’t want people hating themselves for playing the game of capitalism in its current unfair form, because it’s kind of what we’ve got. But playing to win doesn’t necessarily make you complicit in the system’s flaws, and I think that’s something a lot of people really struggle with; like you can see the problems in this economy, but at the same time, you still kind of have to work within it if you’re going to be individually successful. How do you encourage people to navigate that?

Fairweather: Well, I think that capitalism, or the current form of capitalism that we have, is unfair. It does reward people who already have wealth, who already have connections. And going from the bottom to the top is incredibly challenging, but I think that just having an understanding of economics, understanding your place in the economy, understanding at a very micro level how negotiations will go or how asking for a promotion might turn out for you, can help you just move through the economy faster and get to where you want to be faster. And I think holding on to your own values, to your own vision of where you want to be, is really important in terms of not letting capitalism change you. I think a lot of people, they get caught up and playing in the career game, and then that’s all they know how to play when there are other games out there to play like the family game, or traveling, if that’s what you’re into, whatever it is that you are working towards, making sure you hold onto it.

Yesterday, we learned a lot about the Switch 2 we didn't know before, including the fact Nintendo that will offer a webcam alongside the new console. As far as accessories go, the $50 Switch 2 Camera looks boring, and judging from the footage the company shared on Wednesday, not particularly great at its intended purpose of, you know, capturing moving pictures. 

The good news? Nintendo is allowing third-party manufacturers to make their own webcams for the new console. Enter the Hori Piranha Plant Camera. 

Hori

Hori's Switch 2 camera has a couple of features you won't find on Nintendo's first-party offering. First, the pot the Piranha Plant sits in functions as both as a stand and USB extension for the device. The part of the Piranha that houses the webcam can detach from the pot, allowing you to, ahem, plant it directly on the top of the Switch 2. In that way, you can take your new buddy on the road. Want to trash talk your friends over video in GameChat while on a domestic flight? With the Piranha Plant and in-flight Wi-Fi, you can. 

Second, the Piranha Plant camera has a built-in privacy shutter. You can simply close its mouth to obscure the lens. If that's not clever, functional design, I don't know what is.

Hori

Hori has yet to list the Piranha Plant camera on its US website, but over in Germany, retailer Media Markt has the accessory priced at €40 or €20 less than the official Switch 2 Camera from Nintendo. Practical, stylish and affordable, what's not to love? 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/horis-piranha-plant-switch-2-camera-is-a-work-of-art-194430377.html?src=rss

Now that we have at least a little more clarity on what the President’s tariffs will look like, businesses are going to have to figure out how the tariffs will affect their input costs and if they need to react or do anything differently.

So we called up a couple small businesses to find out what they’re thinking right now.

Over the past 24 hours or so, Pat Whelan, president of the grocery store Sahadi’s in Brooklyn, said he’s been feeling a tad regretful that he didn’t do more to get ahead of the tariffs.

“Maybe I should have pre-ordered some product, and stocked up on inventory and got some stuff in here before the shoe dropped,”

But Whelan said on the other hand, there’s not much he could have done. After all, imported food has a shelf life. Take olive oil, for example.

“Once you press it, the clock starts ticking. So you want to turn that stuff, you don’t want it to be sitting in the warehouse for 9 months, and oxidizing and degrading,” he said.

Whelan said it’s hard to make any plans right now, because he still doesn’t know how his products will be affected.

“Alright, so you have some clarity on what the tariffs are. Does that mean it’s going to change in two months? I don’t know,” he said.

In South Carolina, Cathrine Reynolds, who handles imports for Palmetto Tile Distributors, said she’s expecting to learn how her products will be affected in the coming days.

“Currently, I have three containers about to hit port, so I’m waiting to see what happens there, if I see a jump in my duty fees or anything like that,” she said.

Whatever happens, Reynolds said she already has a gameplan: She’ll simply tack on a tariff surcharge to her prices, just like she did during the pandemic when supply chains were congested.

“I just keep changing what we’re calling it. It’s like OK, this is the increase for now, and this is just the label we’re going to put on it,” she said.

Reynolds said over the last few years, her customers have been willing to pay up.

YouTube is updating the video editor for Shorts to better compete with the likes of TikTok and Instagram Reels, and teasing some AI-powered features that are coming later this year that might make it stand out.

The new and improve editor will let users "make precise adjustments and edits to the timing of each clip with zooming and snapping," along with the usual option to rearrange and delete your footage. YouTube says you'll also be able to add music and timed text, and preview your video at any point while you're editing.

At some point in the future, the editor will gain the ability to automatically sync clips to a song. And "later this spring," YouTube says the editor will be able to create stickers from photos in your image gallery or with a built-in AI image generator. As part of this update, the process of using templates is also getting simplified. Creators of templates will now be automatically credited when anyone uses their work, and templates themselves can now include things like image overlays and filter effects.

YouTube is clearly trying to reach some kind of parity with the creative tools offered by TikTok and Instagram. TikTok's editing tools and the standalone CapCut video editor have long been the gold standard for creating videos on your phone. Given the uncertain future of TikTok in the US, making YouTube Shorts a more appealing alternative makes sense. It's also not the first time YouTube has drawn inspiration from TikTok. YouTube added a robotic, text-to-speech narration feature to Shorts, clearly inspired by TikTok's popular version, in 2024.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/youtube-is-updating-the-shorts-video-editor-to-make-it-a-better-alternative-to-tiktok-182932945.html?src=rss

This week's Nintendo Direct provided much more info about the Switch 2 but didn't go too deep into the nitty-gritty details of what powers the console. That left NVIDIA, the Mario maker's hardware partner on the console's processor and GPU, to fill in some blanks with a blog post published on Thursday — including the first confirmation that it uses Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) tech.

NVIDIA said the Switch 2's DLSS support helps to give the console "ten times" the graphical performance of the original Switch. The tech lets games render games in a lower resolution, then uses trained AI models and dedicated Tensor Cores to fill in detail.

Saying a system has ten times the graphics performance is likely a simplified marketing claim, and its graphical prowess could vary greatly depending on the title. The console has also yet to be scrutinized with extended real-world use. However, in Engadget's Sam Rutherford hands-on, he found that the system handled the new Switch 2 versions of Street Fighter 6, Cyberpunk 2077 and Civilization 7 well, with all running "really smooth."

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

In docked mode, the Switch 2 supports up to 60fps at 4K resolution or 120fps at 1440p or 1080p resolutions. In handheld mode, the 7.9-inch, 1080p screen supports a variable refresh rate (via G-Sync) of up to 120Hz.

"The new RT Cores bring real-time ray tracing, delivering lifelike lighting, reflections and shadows for more immersive worlds," NVIDIA explained. "Tensor Cores power AI-driven features like Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), boosting resolution for sharper details without sacrificing image quality. Tensor Cores also enable AI-powered face tracking and background removal in video chat use cases, enhancing social gaming and streaming."

For more on the new system, check out Engadget's Switch 2 hands-on and deep dive into everything we know about it.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nvidia-confirms-the-switch-2-has-dlss-175033677.html?src=rss

Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former Facebook policy director behind a best-selling memoir about her time at the company, will testify at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing next week. The testimony will be Wynn-Williams’ first public remarks since Meta initiated emergency arbitration proceedings in an attempt to prevent her from promoting the book.

Wynn-Williams’ upcoming appearance at Congress was confirmed by Senator Josh Hawley, who said in a statement that she would testify about “allegations that Facebook cooperated with the Communist regime in China to build censorship tools, punish dissidents, and make American users’ data available for Chinese use.”

Big News — Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams will testify NEXT WEEK in public, under oath, before my judiciary subcommittee re: her explosive evidence of Facebook’s cooperation with the Communist regime in China, including FB’s plans to build censorship tools, punish…

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) April 2, 2025

In her book, Careless People, Wynn-Williams recounts Meta executives’ interactions with world leaders and government officials as Facebook’s influence expanded globally in the early 2010s. Her account has resurfaced information about Facebook’s attempts to operate in China, and revealed new details about its overtures to Chinese government officials.

“We do not operate our services in China today. It is no secret we were once interested in doing so as part of Facebook’s effort to connect the world,” Meta spokesperson Dani Lever said in a statement. “This was widely reported beginning a decade ago. We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we'd explored, which Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2019."

Prior to her book’s publication, Wynn-Williams also filed whistleblower complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice about alleged misconduct at the company. While the precise details of those complaints haven’t been made public, next week’s hearing will be a significant opportunity for her to speak publicly about what she witnessed.

The hearing, titled, “A Time for Truth: Oversight of Meta’s Foreign Relations and Representations to the United States Congress,” is scheduled for April 9, at 2:30pm ET.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/careless-people-author-sarah-wynn-williams-will-testify-at-a-senate-hearing-next-week-172509027.html?src=rss

Google’s Pixel Buds Pro 2 earbuds are on sale via Amazon for just $179. This is a record-low price, as they normally cost $229. This deal is available for multiple colorways, including black, pink, beige and green.

These little cuties easily made our list of the best wireless earbuds. We admired the comfortable and secure fit and the addition of the Tensor chip to handle audio and ANC processing. They also offer a hands-free way to initiate Gemini AI.

However, the main reason we recommend these earbuds is that they sound great. They provide a good low-end, which is tough to do with earbuds, and crunchy highs. Google says it redesigned the entire audio system and it shows. We called out the “noticeable improvement” over the original Pixel Buds Pro earbuds in our official review.

There are plenty of nifty features to set these earbuds apart from the competition. They can detect conversations and automatically adjust audio accordingly. Find My Device support is also included. They offer spatial audio with certain apps. The buds get around eight hours of use per charge, but 30 hours when considering the included charging case. 

There are only two downsides here. The Pixel Buds Pro 2 earbuds are incredibly small, which is cool, that means making adjustments on their equally tiny touch panels can be difficult. Also, the original asking price of $229 is certainly high. This sale alleviates that particular issue.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/googles-pixel-buds-pro-2-are-back-on-sale-for-an-all-time-low-price-164743950.html?src=rss

TikTok will reportedly face a fine of over €500 million ($553 million) for transferring Europeans' private data to China. Bloomberg said on Thursday that Ireland's data protection commission, which regulates TikTok owner ByteDance's EU operations, could dish out the penalty before the end of April.

The fine results from a four-year investigation of TikTok's data handling practices. The probe reportedly concluded that ByteDance broke Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws by transferring private user data to China to be accessed by engineers. The country is known for its widespread, high-tech surveillance.

"TikTok tells us that EU data is transferred to the U.S. and not to China, however we have understood that there is possibility that maintenance and AI engineers in China may be accessing data," former Irish Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon said in March 2021 when the probe began.

Ireland is taking the lead because, under the GDPR, the country where a company's European operations are located oversees compliance and enforcement. ByteDance's European headquarters are in Dublin. Bloomberg says the decision date and amount of the fine aren't yet finalized and could still change.

Of course, this isn't even ByteDance's biggest drama unfolding this week. The fate of TikTok's US operations hangs in the balance as it approaches an April 5 deadline to find a buyer or face a ban in America. The list of likely outcomes ranges from finding a buyer (Amazon has even thrown its hat in the ring) to its US investors rolling over their stakes into a new independent global company or the deadline passing with another deadline extension.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/tiktok-reportedly-faces-a-%E2%82%AC500-million-fine-for-sending-private-user-data-to-china-162214079.html?src=rss

Engineers at Northwestern University have developed the world’s smallest pacemaker. It’s so small, as a matter of fact, that it fits inside the tip of a syringe. This means that it’s injectable, so patients could potentially avoid a painful surgery.

It safely dissolves into the bloodstream after a time, so it’s a temporary solution. It’s designed for folks who need heart help on a short-term basis, like newborn babies with congenital defects. However, it can work with hearts of all sizes.

It’s also powered by light, which is pretty darned cool. The pacemaker is paired with a wireless wearable device that mounts to a patient’s chest. When that small device detects an irregular heartbeat, it shines a light that activates the pacemaker. These light pulses can penetrate a patient’s skin, bones and muscles.

Even though the pacemaker is tiny, measuring one millimeter in thickness, it still delivers as much stimulation as a full-sized unit. The engineers published their findings in Nature and noted that the device works with both animal and human hearts. The team also reiterated that pediatric care is the primary use case here.

“About one percent of children are born with congenital heart defects,” said Northwestern experimental cardiologist Igor Efimov, who co-led the study. “The good news is that these children only need temporary pacing after a surgery. In about seven days or so, most patients’ hearts will self-repair. But those seven days are absolutely critical. Now, we can place this tiny pacemaker on a child’s heart and stimulate it with a soft, gentle, wearable device. And no additional surgery is necessary to remove it.”

The development of this medical device was co-led by John Rogers, which is a familiar name in biomedical circles. Rogers has been behind a number of astounding innovations throughout the years. He’s advanced technology that could eventually give us invisibility cloaks and health-tracking tattoos. He also built a thumbnail-sized UV sensor and a circuit that dissolves in the body. That last one eventually led to this innovative pacemaker.

Rogers imagines a world in which physicians inject a number of these pacemakers simultaneously, to enable sophisticated synchronization. This could help terminate arrhythmias, as different parts of the heart could be paced at unique rhythms.

“Because it’s so small, this pacemaker can be integrated with almost any kind of implantable device,” Rogers said. “Here, the tiny pacemakers can be activated as necessary to address complications that can occur during a patient’s recovery process.”

This versatility could eventually open up a diverse array of medical possibilities. The tech could be used to help nerves heal, treat wounds and block pain.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/the-worlds-smallest-pacemaker-is-injectable-and-powered-by-light-153302491.html?src=rss

While we wait for the big jobs report coming out Friday, there’s lots of uncertainty in the air as the impacts of tariffs and other policies shape the labor market. But in recent years, we’ve seen a somewhat puzzlingly resilient job market despite higher interest rates set by the Federal Reserve.

Now, a new report by the Dallas Fed offers some clarity, showing how certain sectors — like health care — may be behind that resilience.

Among labor economists and monetary policy wonks, Luke Pardue, policy director at the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, said that there’s still an open question: “Why do we still continue to see that really strong jobs growth relative to pre-pandemic levels when the Federal Reserve just went through this whole tightening cycle?” 

The Dallas Fed report had an answer: Job growth has happened in sectors that are less cyclical. 

“Sectors like health care or the federal or state governments aren’t as sensitive to interest rates, because they don’t need to rely on investment or sort of credit,” Pardue said. “In this post-pandemic time, a lot of the employment growth is coming from areas that just aren’t as responsive to interest rates.” 

But there are other theories about labor market resilience.

“What looks like strength is just the normal process of recovery from very, very sharp decline employment that occurred during COVID period,” noted economist V.V. Chari with the University of Minnesota.

But he suspects there’s also something else at play. “Certainly, strong employment growth is probably due to the unprecedented surge in immigration.” 

Mitchell Barnes, an economist at The Conference Board, agrees.

“Immigration is a key piece to this puzzle,” he said. “When you really just look at the population growth that we’ve seen, that is not only adding to the worker pool, but that’s adding to households, adding to spending.” 

Immigrants increase the demand for products and services. 

Barnes added that public investments during the Biden administration also supported the labor market. 

“I think there are some one-offs where you start to look at some of the policy impacts that are underlying these numbers,” he said. “Non-residential construction — you know, potentially a beneficiary of a lot of that federal investment — has been pretty strong over that same time.” 

For each sector, he said, there are different reasons for resilience. 

What do modern speakers need? Good sound quality? As little distortion as possible? Longevity? Well, yes. Plus, according to Bang & Olufsen, marble plinths. Bang & Olufsen is debuting a partnership with Italian marble and granite company Antolini at Milan Design Week. The Beosound Balance Natura speaker features a sculptural base from Antolini that the audio company says elevates the device to its optimal height. Apparently, the plinth isn't just there for aesthetic — it's a functional audio element.

Let's face it, though: You wouldn't buy a speaker with a marble stand unless you wanted that marble pedestal. And that is why they're making the model available with various Antolini stones. You can get it with natural quartz, as well as with petrified wood and fossilized wood, if you're looking for something with earthy colors. The options have different translucency and color depth, but one common feature is the anodized aluminum ring that serves as the transition between the plinth and the bottom of the speaker. 

In addition to the Natura version of the Beosound Balance speaker, Bang & Olufsen is also presenting a Beovision Theatre 55-inch TV and a pair of Beolab 28 speakers customized with Antolini's Amazon quartite at Milan Design Week. All the products it's showcasing during the event are made to order with prices available upon request, which says all you need to know about its price range, especially since the basic Beosound Balance isn't cheap to begin with and will set you back $3,300.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/speakers/bang--olufsens-new-beosound-balance-speaker-model-comes-with-a-marble-plinth-131555070.html?src=rss

The original Switch started a revolution when it combined the portability of handhelds with the ability to play games on your TV at home like a traditional console. But with the Switch 2, even though it's physically bigger, it feels like a sleeker, faster and more refined take on its predecessor — to the point that Nintendo should have called it the Super Switch (which apparently almost happened). And after getting a chance to try it out, I'm sold on its abilities, even with its significantly higher starting price of $450.

Design and display: No OLED, no problem

The Switch 2 has the same basic shape and layout as the original, including its signature detachable Joy-Con. But it looks more polished all around, thanks to tapered edges and slimmer bezels. Nintendo also increased the size of its joystick caps and the face buttons on the left controller, though the latter still doesn't feel quite like a traditional D-pad.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

That said, the biggest upgrade is its larger 7.9-inch 1080p LCD display, which now supports a 120Hz refresh rate with VRR and high dynamic range. Frankly, it's super bright and very colorful to the point where I don't really miss having an OLED screen. Now there's a fair bit of grumbling that Nintendo, despite the existence of the OLED Switch, didn't opt for a similar panel type on the Switch 2. But if you remember, that model didn't support HDR, so it's not like we're looking at a downgrade in display quality, though the super deep blacks you get from OLED screens would have been nice.

Also, the Switch 2 feels like it defies its dimensions because even though its display is larger than the 6.2-inch version on the base Switch, it doesn't feel that much bigger. It's only half an inch taller (4.5 inches) and a little over an inch wider (9.4 vs 10.7 inches). And while its weight has also increased to 1.18 pounds with its Joy-Con attached (up from 0.88 pounds), it never felt too heavy.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

Elsewhere, there are a ton of quality-of-life upgrades, including a second USB-C port (though the one on the bottom is the only one that can do video out), a built-in mic and support for microSD Express cards. That last one is a big deal, because even though the cards are more expensive, they're also significantly faster than your standard fare and they should be a major boon to download speeds and load times. I admit the lack of analog shoulder buttons is a small downer, though Nintendo says it made that choice because analog buttons would introduce a tiny bit of input lag and it wanted to go with the more responsive solution.

Joy-Con features: Expanded detachables

During its livestream, Nintendo spent a lot of time talking about the C button on the right Joy-Con, which feels like a first-party solution that looks to recreate everything people like about Discord. But at Nintendo's hands-on experience, there weren't any chances to test out the console's new social features, so I wasn't able to dive deeper into that.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

That's ok, though, because I think the Joy-Con's new magnetic mounting system is the hidden star. Not only is there a larger button around back for popping them off, they now detach simply when you pull them left or right. There's no need to slide anything up or down first. Granted, this sounds like a small change, but it makes the whole process so much simpler and the Joy-con seem to be more securely attached as well.

Then there's the Joy-Con's ability to function as a mouse (for both the left and right controllers). I thought it was pretty gimmicky, until I played Metroid Prime 4: Beyond where I suddenly found myself favoring the mouse mode over standard gamepad controls. Everything feels a bit more precise and if you're a fan of shooters on PC, it's definitely worth trying out. The obvious limitation is that while you can use the Joy-Con on your leg, you really ought to have some sort of flat surface like a table, which may not be an option if your favorite place to game is on the couch.

Performance: Nintendo's move to next-gen tech Sam Rutherford for Engadget

Nintendo has kept relatively quiet regarding the Switch 2's processor and memory. But the company has said the system does support DLSS and hardware-based ray tracing. Now those features might not get used in every game, but it does seem to make it way easier for third-party developers to port their titles over to the company's upcoming console. When I played the new Switch 2 versions of Street Fighter 6, Cyberpunk 2077 and Civilization 7, they all ran really smooth. And without doing a straight-up side-by-side comparison next to a proper gaming PC, it was really hard to tell if the Switch 2 was cutting corners graphically, if it was even doing it at all. The only hiccup I noticed was rather long loading times in Civ, which isn't exactly uncommon for a Sid Meier game.

The flipside to this is if you told me that some of Nintendo's new first-party games like Donkey Kong Bananza and Mario Kart World were actually being run on an original Switch, I wouldn't have blinked. In some ways, Nintendo's ability to wring every last bit of performance out of its hardware and its habit of eschewing hyperrealism in favor of more stylized graphics has almost put a ceiling on the company's ability to really show off its chops. But when you pay attention, you'll really appreciate how delightfully satiny Mario Kart looks when it's running at 120 fps.

I still have questions about what's going on inside the Switch 2's new dock and how it's leveraging its increased performance to deliver 4K resolutions when connected to a TV. I also think it's a travesty that Nintendo is charging money for the Switch 2 Welcome Tour. It's barely a game, but it is a genuinely useful way to introduce the console's features to new owners and it really should be pre-installed on every system for free. It also remains to be seen how the Switch 2's battery life holds up. Nintendo says it has a larger power pack than the original Switch, but it also has increased performance and a larger screen, while the company claims runtimes may vary between two and six and half hours depending on the title. 

But all told, the Switch 2 is exactly what you want from a successor to Nintendo's legendary hybrid console. Aside from the price, that is, because in addition to the console starting at $450, almost all of its standard accessories cost more than before, too. From the Pro Controller, which now goes for $80 ($10 more than for the original Switch) or additional pairs of Joy-Con that cost $90 (another $10 hike). And that's before you factor in the cost of games like Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza that start at $80 and $70 as digital downloads (or $90 and $80 if you want physical carts).

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/nintendo-switch-2-hands-on-no-oled-no-problem-130002712.html?src=rss

Mario Kart 8 and its Deluxe update have been around so long it's easy to forget that the game actually predates the Switch and can trace its origins way back to the Wii U. But every good run must come to an end, and with the forthcoming arrival of the Switch 2 on June 5, Mario Kart World is looking like the ideal launch partner.

Now there hasn't really ever been a bad Mario Kart game, but World feels like Nintendo has jammed nitrous into every corner and crevice. Even during my demo session where not all the characters were unlocked, I got the sense that its roster is massive. All the big names are there like Peach and Yoshi, but you also have baby versions of many of them alongside Toadette, Pauline, Nabbit and so much more. This feeling extends to a range of vehicles too, which includes standard karts in addition to stuff like jet skis and scooters.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

But more importantly, the world feels huge. Not only can you freely roam around tracks as they seamlessly connect from one to another, there are also little details like weather effects and day/night shifts that make things feel more alive. And there's also a seemingly huge range of tracks to choose from, organized into several Grand Prix circuits.

The most fun I had, though, was when I got a chance to play the Knockout Tour mode, which is like Mario Kart meets F-Zero 99. In this setting, you have 24 people in a single race that progresses across multiple tracks. Every few laps, the last four places get eliminated, so it's your job to dodge shells and use every last mushroom boost, shortcut and power slide to stay at the front of the pack. It's a non-stop frenzy that just keeps going and, though I don't have the same reaction speed I did when I was younger, this old-head still got first place. And even after a win, I just wanted more. (For the record, Nintendo's photography policy required me to have a person in the frame, so a friendly staff member stood in my place, but here's my receipt.)

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

I also need to call out that Mario Kart World has a 120 fps mode and it's damn good. Racing has never looked this smooth on any Nintendo console and this game might be the best first-party showcase of the Switch 2's upgraded display and performance.

That said, the best part is that I'm sure I missed some features because I didn't even have a chance to try out the outfit customization Nintendo teased in World's trailer. And I was so focused on winning that I didn't fully explore the expanded list of tricks like grinding on rails and hopping off vertical walls.

Granted, it's a bummer that Nintendo has raised the price of many Switch 2 games, particularly with Mario Kart World coming in at $80 for a digital copy or $90 for a physical cart. But that can be largely avoided by purchasing the Switch 2 bundle that comes with the game, which effectively brings its price back down to $50. So if you are planning on getting a Switch 2 at launch, opting for this combo feels like a no-brainer.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/mario-kart-world-hands-on-the-perfect-launch-game-for-the-switch-2-130003924.html?src=rss

Following recent tests, Amazon is finally ready to launch its Project Kuiper space internet project in a bid to rival Elon Musk's Starlink, the company announced. The first batch of 27 satellites on the KA-01 (Kuiper Atlas 1) mission are set to launch into low earth orbit (LEO) aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on April 9th next week from Cape Canaveral if conditions allow. Amazon hopes to start offering the high-speed internet service "later this year," it said.  

Amazon's network will eventually comprise 3,200 satellites launched from partners including ULA, Arianespace, Blue Origin and even SpaceX. Much like that company's Starlink, Project Kuiper's service will cover the entire planet when completed. It will work with a dish as small as seven inches that will deliver speeds up to 100Mbps, smaller than Starlink's Mini, or up to 1Gbps with larger dishes. The company said the cost of terminals will be under $400. 

The satellites will cruise at 17,000 mph at 392 miles above earth, circling the planet in about 90 minutes. They'll use a dialectic mirror film coating that's supposed to scatter light and make them less visible to ground-based astronomers, Amazon said. SpaceX's constellation currently uses over 7,000 satellites, so the Project Kuiper and Starlink fleet will use over 10,000 LEO satellites once Amazon's network is complete. 

Amazon

Amazon launched two test satellites in October 2023 and proclaimed its early tests a success, with the pair sending and retrieving data at speeds of up to 100 gigabits per second. Later in December, it bolstered the network with a network of high-speed laser cross-links that promise further speed boosts. The company claims its mesh network can move data about 30 percent faster than terrestrial fiber optic cables. 

Project Kuiper’s first launch will be the heaviest payload yet for the Atlas V, which will fly in its most powerful configuration. The rocket will include five solid rocket boosters in addition to the main booster, and a payload fairing 77 feet high and 16.4 feet wide.

Despite past successful tests, the mission isn't without risk. "We’ve done extensive testing on the ground to prepare for this first mission, but there are some things you can only learn in flight, and this will be the first time we’ve flown our final satellite design and the first time we’ve deployed so many satellites at once," Project Kuiper vice president Rajeev Badyal wrote. "No matter how the mission unfolds, this is just the start of our journey, and we have all the pieces in place to learn and adapt as we prepare to launch again and again over the coming years."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/amazon-will-start-launching-its-project-kuiper-starlink-rival-next-week-123011012.html?src=rss

After years of lagging behind rivals when it comes to video capture (and then suddenly buying cinema camera manufacturer RED), Nikon is pushing new boundaries in that area. Its latest salvo is the $1,699 24-megapixel full-frame Z5 II, perhaps the cheapest mirrorless camera so far to support internal RAW video. It also offers improved autofocus with new AI powers, cleaner images and enhanced image stabilization. 

The Z5 II is a wholesale remake of the original Z5 and that starts with video. While still limited to 4K 30 fps and cropped 4K 60 fps, it can now capture those formats internally using the company's 12-bit N-RAW format with N-log, along with 10-bit H.265 and 8-bit H.264. Interestingly, it will record in N-RAW to SDXC UHS-II cards, since the camera lacks high-speed CFexpress slots. That likely means you'll need to buy very fast (and expensive) cards and that the N-RAW video will be highly compressed. Still, it's a feature available on no other camera in this price range. 

Nikon

Nikon is also promising much-improved autofocus bolstered by a new image-processing engine and tech borrowed from its high-end Z9 and Z8 models. The Z5 II can now lock onto subjects more quickly, particularly human eyes, faces and bodies, and works in lower light down to -10 EV, compared to -3 EV before. Meanwhile, the AI system can detect up to nine subject types ranging from animals (including a Bird Detection mode) to bicycles. When working in Auto-Area AF, these subjects can be detected, focused on, and tracked automatically. 

Native ISOs have been boosted to 100-64000 (50-204,800 in expanded modes), up from a maximum 51,200 before. That should improve noise levels across the ISO ranges, the company said. However, resolution is still limited to 24 megapixels. 

Nikon

In-body stabilization has been boosted to 7.5 stops with supported lenses, way up from five stops on the Z5. That's paired with electronic stabilization designed to keep handheld video steady. 

The Z5 II's viewfinder still offers a decent 3.69-million dots of resolution, but brightness has been boosted to 3,000 nits with 13 levels of brightness control. And it now comes with a 1.7-million-dot vari-angle display that's a big improvement from the previous model's tilt-only screen. The body now has a deeper grip to improve handling and comes with a one-touch Picture Control button for previewing and switching between color profiles in real time, matching a recent trend started by Fujifilm's X100 VI.

Other features including dual SD UHS-II card slots, 3.5mm headphone and mic jacks, camera to cloud connectivity via Nikon's Imaging Cloud and a new weather-proof build "on par with the Z6 III," according to Nikon. 

The Z5 II looks to be an impressive hybrid full-frame camera for the money and rivals Sony and Canon don't really have anything in the same price range that can match it. However, it also comes at a price $300 higher than the Z5 was at launch. Still, it could tempt filmmakers and others away from similarly priced crop sensor cameras from the likes of Fujifilm and Sony. The Z5 II is now on pre-order for $1,699 (body only) or $1,999 with a 24-50mm f/4-6.3 kit lens. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cameras/nikons-z5-ii-is-the-cheapest-full-frame-camera-yet-with-internal-raw-video-113041486.html?src=rss

Mark Moore is the co-founder & CEO of Mana Nutrition, an organization that produces nutritional peanut paste distributed to children experiencing malnutrition. Mana now employs roughly 130 people and has a production plant located in Fitzgerald, Georgia.

By and large, USAID has been Mana’s largest customer. But since the start of the year, it’s been “a kind of a yo-yo effect,” Moore told Marketpace’s Nancy Marshall-Genzer last month.

Back in January, Moore was informed that his contracts with USAID were on pause. Then, they were unpaused, then abruptly canceled before finally being restarted. The government currently owes him north of $20 million.

Moore spoke extensively with Marketplace’s Nancy Marshall-Genzer in late March about Mana, how the organization is faring amid the confusing back-and-forth status of USAID contracts, what the costs and benefits of life-saving peanut paste are, as well as what could happen if supply lines are disrupted this summer. USAID funding for Mana’s shippers and distributors has been cut.

The following are selected comments from Moore’s extended interview:

We make ready-to-use therapeutic food. It is a peanut paste that is fortified with micronutrients and milk powder. Essentially, it’s an infant formula that’s stabilized in the peanut paste, so it doesn’t have to be reconstituted where you might not have quality water. And it has a long shelf life — it has a two-year shelf life.

We serve, gosh, all over Africa. But from Central and East Africa, [we serve] the Sahel region — Chad, Sudan, South Sudan (the northern part of that), all the way across to Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria.

You eat it straight out of the packet — pull that little corner off and squeeze it into the mouth. So a mom can be taught in minutes to feed their child, and the child doesn’t have to be put into a clinical setting. That’s another big win. It’s really expensive to check kids into a clinical setting, and MANA stands for mother-administered nutritive aid.

It’s targeted for kids under six. It’s formulated for brain growth and for the important kind of neurological pathway stuff that’s going on in a kid’s brain. If we miss that window, then it’s too late. If you miss those early years, then there’s no way to catch up.

A box [of therapeutic food packets] is about $40, and that has 150 sachets. We’re not making a dollar a box. For us, break-even is a success because then we can keep going.

We make about 4,000 boxes, so half a million packets a day — 600,000. And really, we just expanded too to where we’ll be making 4x that. So we have a brand new factory. We’ve invested a couple hundred million dollars — philanthropic dollars — in lowering the price. When we started in 2010, one box was $57, something like that. And today, that box is around $42. So, in real dollars, it should be $80-some. We’ve essentially lowered the price by half. We’re feeding twice as many kids. So it’s a pretty cool story, and we’re scaling more. The future is bright, if we can keep the U.S. from bailing on their partnerships.

There’s supply and demand and all of these forces happening that we talk about in our economics classes. And in this case, you have a massive demand, right? You have children that are severely, acutely malnourished — if you want to call that a demand — but these are children that don’t have the resources to purchase it. So that means humanitarian efforts have to step in, notice the child waving their arm in the marketplace saying, “I really need this.” In their case, if they don’t get it, they’re not going to survive. So it’s incumbent upon us, as a government and as just — I don’t know — a human family, to say, “This is one place where the marketplace really doesn’t seem to be working well, and we’re going to step in and provide this food for these kids.”

A mother feeds her son a ready-to-use therapeutic food supplement pouch, similar to the ones made by Mana, in Kenya in July 2022. (Simon Maina/AFP via Getty Images)

We were last paid — I have to laugh, because that’s the depressing part — I think it was Dec. 10 or 15, or something like that was the last time we got a significant payment from the system. They owe us what we bill them — when we ship, we bill them. So that’s closing in on $20 million. But we have a bunch more that we’ve actually made that we still are waiting to get picked up that we will then bill them for. So somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million to $25 million is what the government owes us at this point, if you count actual invoices and then what we have stacked up that we’re waiting to ship. I can’t take the proverbial toothpaste back out of the tube, right? It’s in a packet that says “gift of the American people,” so those have to go. I can’t squeeze it out and put it in a different packet.

[Business from USAID] is still at 90% and we’re hoping to, if we can, find other sources, but that’s hard. Who are those other sources? Who’s going to spend $50 million a year buying this stuff in the marketplace where these kids don’t have any money? A lot of these customers don’t have ongoing budgets, so we might raise it this time — “we’re just hoping to get the money together.” It’s not a great plan going forward, but it’s the best we can do for emergency scenarios.

We are making a product, producing it, adding value, using American inputs. American farmers are benefiting. These dollars are not leaving America. They’re going to South Georgia. They’re buying peanuts from farmers. They’re buying milk from dairy in Wisconsin, packaging from a great group in Indiana. So, to cut it — you would imagine that it’s not “America first” to cut these programs.

We’re not trying to feed the whole world. We’re just trying to ask these strategic questions: Where are these kids wasted? Where are they likely to die? That’s where we need to get it. Kids who are severely, acutely malnourished aren’t hungry. They’ve ceased to be hungry because their bodies have such deficiencies. So, you can’t miss a week. You have to step in. And if you or I or any adult misses a week, there’s weight loss involved, but for a child under six — especially these children — it’ll cost them their life if we don’t act.

President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs of at least 10% on practically all goods coming into the United States on Wednesday. Many countries, along with the European Union, promised to respond with sanctions of their own.

One of the president’s goals with all these tariffs is to get more companies to make more products here in the U.S. To do that, many would need to build new factories and hire a whole lot of people to work at those factories. 

But are there enough workers with the right skills to fill all those potential new manufacturing jobs? The United States once led the world in manufacturing. These days, China does.

But Willy Shih, a professor at Harvard Business School, said we still make plenty of things.

“We do have a large auto industry, we do do vehicle assembly,” he said.

So it wouldn’t be hard to make even more cars here, he said. The workforce already exists. 

But there are lots of other things that we don’t make much of in the U.S., like semiconductor chips.

“Some of the most advanced packaging in semiconductors requires things like advanced ceramics,” Shih said. “We lost those skills, or actually, especially for some of the newer materials, we never developed those skills in the first place.”

That’s true of other high-tech products too, said Ben Armstrong at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Industrial Performance Center.

“Things like magnets, which are really critical for batteries and other core electronic technologies. We’ve really lost the capacity to build in the U.S.,” he said.

Armstrong said it’s possible to build that capacity here, either again or from scratch. “But it takes a long time, and it takes really significant investment,” likely from the government and from companies. 

They’ll need to recruit and train thousands of workers in new kinds of manufacturing.

“What they often do is they bring people who are experts from where they’re based, often in Asia, and they come to the U.S. to train this new workforce and get them up to speed,” he said. “This is a yearslong process.”

There is already some infrastructure for large-scale workforce development, said Arthur Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

“You have unions … a lot of them have apprenticeship programs that are designed already … and partnerships with community colleges across the country have been very beneficial,” he said.

But, he said, companies will probably wait until U.S. policy is clear to make a move.

“The tariffs would need to be in place for an extended period of time with some expectation that they won’t change,” Wheaton said, for companies to feel like it’s worth investing in workforce development, and for workers to feel like it’s worth training for those jobs.