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The Nintendo Direct livestream on Thursday brought some unexpected news for Tamagotchi fans: the Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop game series of the early 2000s is being resurrected with a new entry, Tamagotchi Plaza. But it seems the announcement trailer left out the best part. As spotted by Tama-Palace, Bandai Namco says on the game’s official website that Tamagotchi Plaza will be compatible with the Tamagotchi Uni. Players will be able to link their Uni devices to the game to access special perks — kind of like how the beloved, defunct TamaTown worked. Tamagotchi Plaza comes out on June 27.

In Tamagotchi Plaza, players will act as shopkeepers and help get the town ready for the big Tamagotchi festival. Some shops will include the option for local two-player. As for connecting your Uni, Bandai says:

Tamagotchi Plaza features a linkage function with the Tamagotchi Uni. For the first time, players can connect with the latest toy model, the Tamagotchi Uni. By linking the Tamagotchi Uni, they will gain access to exclusive items, special events, and unique conversations not available in the base game, while supplies last.

Considering the Tamagotchi Uni is nearing two years old now, anything that will inject some newness into the experience is welcome. For anyone who grew bored of the Uni and has been neglecting it, Tamagotchi Plaza seems like a pretty compelling reason to dust it off and get playing again. Of course, you don't need a Uni device to play; it has enough appeal on its own as a super cozy game that'll tug at franchise fans' nostalgia. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-new-tamagotchi-game-for-nintendo-switch-will-connect-with-tamagotchi-uni-160639100.html?src=rss

Back in 2022, Sony hired Garrett Fredley to join its then newly formed Preservation team, which has been working to find and save documentation of PlayStation's 30-year history since then. Now, Fredley spoke at Game Developers Conference to give an update about his team's efforts. In his Game File newsletter, Stephen Totilo has shared the details about Fredley's talk. Apparently, the team formed what it's calling the PlayStation Studios Vault to store everything it could find about Sony's game-making history. 

The Vault now houses game builds, source code and source art, but it has all kinds of other files, as well. Fredley explained that it was created to preserve "everything that is ever related to a project you can possibly find: from documentation to audio assets, to prototype information, anything under the sun, even cultural artifacts." If it's adjacent to a PlayStation studio game, the team will store it in the Vault — even photos of developer teams that made the game. Currently, the oldest item in the team's collection has a 1994 timestamp and was from the tactical RPG Arc the Lad. The latest files include every customer-facing PS5 build of every PlayStation Studios game, as well as every debug, testing, alpha, beta and milestone releases. It has over 1,000 builds saved.

At the moment, the Vault has two main servers located in Las Vegas, Nevada and Liverpool, England, which store 650 terabytes of data, or around 200 million files. That's almost double the 350 terabytes of data Fredley said the team gathered during another one of his talks last year. He expects to quickly go over the 1 petabyte of cloud server storage data the team's current setup can handle, especially since more and more games are being developed. 

The preservation team uses tools to help its work, including a robot called Vaultron that can read thousands of discs to find files. But it still hasn't been easy, since most studios don't exactly store their files in a way that makes them understandable and accessible decades from now. Going forward, Fredley and his team will have to solve a few problems that they're expecting to pop up. They'll need to have good indexing tools, for instance, and figure out a way to maintain the ability to use the files they collect.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/sony-has-been-backing-up-its-ps5-game-builds-as-part-of-a-preservation-effort-150025423.html?src=rss

The reviews train rolls on at Engadget. We've had another busy couple of weeks, and more new devices are arriving for testing every day. For now, catch up on our in-depth analysis of the new base-model iPad, Nothing Phone 3a duo, some incredible sounding headphones and more. 

iPad (2025) with A16

Apple has been busy updating several devices over the past few weeks, including the "regular" iPad. The company's entry-level tablet now has an A16 chip that offers plenty of power for most people. The iPad Air is still a better option if you can afford to spend more, according to buying advice senior reporter Jeff Dunn. "But for $250 less than the latest Air, the iPad (A16) does well to meet most iPad users where they live," he writes. "It’s not the most delightful iPad, but it’s good enough for the masses." 

Nothing Phone 3a and 3a Pro

The Nothing Phone 3a is much more than an update to the 2a when you consider the company opted to debut a new Pro model alongside it. There are concerns about a limited warranty in the US, but the 3a is a great budget device and the Pro has better-than-midrange cameras. "It's really hard to criticize Nothing for any of the component choices, and if you're willing to take a risk on the company's limited US warranty and want something unique, these are the phones to buy," senior reporter Igor Bonifacic explains.

Noble Audio FoKus Apollo

$649 is a lot to pay for a pair of wireless headphones. But if you're searching for the absolute best available sound quality, perhaps money is no object. Noble Audio's FoKus Apollo has a unique driver setup that offers a more expansive and detailed soundstage than the competition and long battery life, but that's about it. "For me, to pay $649 I expect more in terms of features," I argue. "The first item would be better ANC performance, but I don’t feel like spatial audio support and wear detection are too much to ask."

Assassin's Creed Shadows and a cheap tablet battle

Contributing reporter Kris Holt spent some time with the new Assassin's Creed title and came away with some mixed feelings on the game. "Assassin's Creed Shadows has impressive technical work, great performances and an expansive, well-drawn story but it's unfortunately weighed down by some frustrating decisions and antiquated gameplay systems," he writes. "Still, I'm eager to keep exploring."

In addition to reviewing the latest iPad, Jeff also pit the Amazon Fire HD 8 against Walmart Onn 8 in a battle of the sub-$100 tablets. After a few weeks with the matchup, his biggest takeaway is you should probably just try to spend a little more on a new tablet. "Get an iPad, buy an older refurbished one if you have to, pay even a little bit extra for a more powerful tablet from Samsung, Lenovo or another name brand — it shouldn’t really matter," he says. "It’ll run better, both today and into the future."

Upcoming reviews

The busy reviews season continues for the team at Engadget. Coming up next, we've got the Pixel 9a, ASUS ROG Flow Z13 and AMD Ryzen 9950X3D. I'll also be taking a look at the Weber Smoque smart grill and Audio-Technica's ATH-CKS50TW2 earbuds. Spring is also the time we typically see a lot of the devices that were announced at CES go on sale, especially home theater gear, so look for some of those items to appear soon as well. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-review-recap-ipad-nothing-phone-3a-assassins-creed-shadows-and-more-130057384.html?src=rss

This is just one of the stories from our “I’ve Always Wondered” series, where we tackle all of your questions about the world of business, no matter how big or small. Ever wondered if recycling is worth it? Or how store brands stack up against name brands? Check out more from the series here.

Reader Ali Asghar-Ali from Houston asks: 

When people talk about savings and expenditures, like “save 20% of your income” or “spend no more than 30% of your income on rent/mortgage,” are they referring to your net or gross income? 

When you’re deciding which apartment you should rent, some experts advise using your pre-tax, or gross income as a baseline.  

“It’s just much simpler to use gross income in any kind of calculation because it’s a stable number,” said Vanessa Perry, interim dean at the George Washington University School of Business.

Using take-home pay can complicate your budgeting plans because everyone’s tax obligation is different and subject to change, Perry said. But while gross income is a great starting point, experts say you can adjust your budget to your take-home pay depending on your goals and any major life changes you experience.

“People need to realize that these are rules of thumb. They are not intended to be precise,” Perry said. 

If you’re about to have a baby, for example, your tax bill may drop because you’re adding a dependent to your household, Perry said. “You may actually have a bit more flexibility than is captured in one of these rules of thumb,” Perry said. 

But when that child grows up and moves out, you lose your dependent, which could lead to a higher tax bill, Perry said. 

There are some budgeting models, like the 50-30-20 rule, that do recommend using take-home pay. This plan suggests allocating 50% of your income toward your needs, like shelter, transportation and insurance. That leaves 30% for wants, like vacations and clothing, and 20% for savings and/or debt. 

Some experts say that 20% should go toward savings even if you’ve already contributed to your 401(k) or similar retirement account, like WealthBuild CEO Ramona Ortega.

If you can, Ortega recommends setting aside 20% of your after-tax income for emergency savings and investment vehicles like a Roth individual retirement account. Unlike a traditional IRA or 401(k), a Roth allows you to invest post-tax dollars and withdraw your earnings tax-free after age 59.5 (provided you’ve had the account five years). 

“Money has to actually be put to work so that you’re beating inflation and you’re beating the value of the dollar,” Ortega said. 

These investments have historically beat inflation in the long run, even when the stock market gets volatile. Recent market turmoil has dinged retirement accounts in the short-term, but there are always fluctuations in your 401(k). Most people just don’t look at it, Ortega said. 

“Investing in the market is still the most viable option for a return on your dollar,” Ortega said. 

These rules don’t make sense for everyone’s personal finance goals, and you may decide to deviate from the recommended amount. 

Many Americans are struggling to limit the portion of their income that goes toward housing. Conventional wisdom often says 30% of gross income is a good target. More than 21 million renters spent more than that in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

If Americans are spending more of their paycheck on housing, there’s little headroom for unexpected expenses, said personal finance expert Zina Kumok. Your water heater could break down, or you might live in a hurricane-prone area and need repairs, she said. 

That 30% target can also adjust down in an area with a lower cost of living. Don’t feel pressured to spend more in that case — instead you could earmark extra funds for other major expenses, like child care, Kumok said.

So these budget guidelines are just that. But  they can be useful to create “habits or systems that make it less overwhelming,” Ortega said. 

Whichever rules you use, Kumok said you may have to revise your budget as you better understand  your spending habits.

Many people end up “disappointed and disillusioned” if they’re not meeting unrealistic goals they’ve set for themselves, Kumok said. 

“So what I say is, ideally, look at the past three months of spending. Get that average for each basic category, and then build your budget around that,” Kumok said.

Submit a form.

At a single-family home in the LA suburb of Canoga Park, installers are parading in and out of Jake Olson and Amy Ball’s house, tossing anything that uses water, and installing brand new fixtures.

Olson applied to be part of a pilot project after seeing an ad in a utility newsletter. His is one of 30 homes in Los Angeles chosen for the project. Half stay the same. The other half get free, brand new water-efficient appliances, faucets, showerheads and toilets, plus detergents and cleaning supplies optimized for low water use. In exchange, Olson has released full access to his household’s water usage data.

“I was in an apartment for 17 years and didn’t have a water bill. They paid the water and then we got this house and we were watering grass and water bills would come and I was like, ‘Wow, how is this reality? What is this life? I do not want this,'” he said.

The people looking at his data are part of an international coalition of companies, water agencies and nonprofits called 50L Home. And they have a bold claim: It’s possible to reduce water consumption to just 13 gallons per day — or 50 liters — and not feel like you’re sacrificing anything.

Jake Olson and Amy Ball received new, water-efficient appliances to test how low their water use could go without trying harder to conserve. (Caleigh Wells/Marketplace)

“We’re doing behavioral analysis, we’re looking at every end use. We’re in their homes kind of on a regular basis,” said project manager Maureen Erbeznik with the United States Green Building Council California.

The World Health Organization says each person needs a minimum of 13 gallons of water a day to meet basic needs such as drinking, bathing, washing dishes and cleaning clothes. But the average American uses more than 80 gallons of water per day. In many parts of the country, that’s simply unsustainable.

Since this project is all about seeing how little water a typical family can use while behaving typically, Ball and Olson were under strict orders not to try harder to save water. They were already trying pretty hard. They replaced their lawn with drought tolerant plants, they try to only run the dishwasher when it’s full. Although, Ball admits she tends to “luxuriate” in the shower.

“I like to turn up the heat really hot and just be in there,” she said. Olson said that with a toddler in the house, some of the only alone time they get is while showering.

One year later, the homes in the study used half as much water as the average home in Los Angeles. Olson did notice some differences in the appliances. But he said none of them were bad.

“The showerhead itself is actually two inches larger than the one that we had before. And honestly, that’s one of my favorite things that got swapped out. The water pressure is the same, if not better,” Olson said.

But that reduction still wasn’t enough to hit that 13-gallon mark. After a year, they were using about 23 gallons per person.

“Our name is definitely aspirational. There’s a lot more savings to be had. We are just getting started,” said Gregory Holliday, director of 50L Home. “We didn’t tell anybody about how to use these products. We didn’t encourage them to try to save water.”

Holliday said this study isn’t over yet. In phase two, it will introduce recycling water to get that usage number down even more.

Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, has purchased X, according to a post shared by Musk. Besides their similar names and owner, the companies are already connected through xAI's chatbot Grok, which is integrated into X.

X was acquired by xAI through an all-stock transaction. "The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt)," Musk writes. "xAI and X’s futures are intertwined." The companies plan on combining "data, models, compute, distribution and talent," using X's reach as a social platform to spread "xAI’s advanced AI capability." The post offers little detail beyond that, but the motivations could be as financial as they are practical.

@xAI has acquired @X in an all-stock transaction. The combination values xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion ($45B less $12B debt).

Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centers at…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 28, 2025

X, then Twitter, was acquired by Musk in 2022 for $43 billion. xAI, like many leading AI companies, has been raising money as often and as quickly as possible. Combining the two companies, besides the fuzzy potential benefits social media posts could have for training AI, helps ease some of the debt that Musk took on taking Twitter private. The billionaire pulled a similar stunt in 2016 with Tesla, when the car maker merged with SolarCity for $2.6 billion. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/xai-elon-musks-ai-company-just-purchased-x-elon-musks-social-media-company-221503759.html?src=rss

Lenovo has the honor of releasing the first SteamOS handhelds not made by Valve, and it looks like you won't have to wait long to get them. Legion Go S handhelds with SteamOS ship May 25, according to a new Best Buy listing spotted by The Verge, but go for at least $50 more than the original $499.99 price Lenovo promised.

The Legion Go S powered by SteamOS now starts at $549.99, which gets you an 8-inch, 120Hz OLED display, comfortable controls, a fingerprint reader / touchpad, 16GB of RAM and the AMD Ryzen Z2 Go chip. If you're willing to pay $749.99, you can get the same package, but with the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme, which originally appeared on the Legion Go, and 32GB of RAM.

PC-class gaming, now in your hands. Pre-order the new Lenovo Legion Go S with Steam OS at https://t.co/3jqjW1logY pic.twitter.com/5qb5nyzcTn

— Lenovo Legion (@LenovoLegion) March 28, 2025

Perhaps more important than the specs, both handhelds come pre-loaded with SteamOS, which means they should be as easy to setup and use as the Steam Deck, and be able to play the vast majority of games thanks to Valve's Proton compatibility software.

Lenovo already released its first Windows 11 version of the Legion Go S back in February for $730. We found it expensive and a bit hampered by Windows in our review, but otherwise solid. At the time, a SteamOS version for $500 seemed like a promising alternative. But for $50 extra, some of that shine has come off, particularly when you can get the already excellent Steam Deck OLED for the same price. 

It'll take a full review to suss out how different SteamOS makes the Legion Go S, whether paired with the Ryzen Z2 Go or the more powerful Ryzen Z1 Extreme. At the very least, it's nice to have more SteamOS devices in the wild.

The Legion Go S powered by SteamOS is available to pre-order now for $549.99, and will ship on May 25. The Ryzen Z1 Extreme model ships on the same date for $749.99. Lenovo is also offering a version of the Ryzen Z1 Extreme Legion Go S with Windows 11 for $829.99, too.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/lenovo-legion-go-s-with-steamos-will-land-may-25-for-50-more-than-expected-213820420.html?src=rss

There is some good news in Friday morning’s data from the Commerce Department: American households’ income is still growing. It was up 0.8% in February — twice what analysts were expecting. 

But there’s a bit of a red flag buried in the report. Consumer spending came in weaker than expected and the personal savings rate is up, both of which are signs consumers could be feeling the need to hang on to their money. 

Over the past few years, consumers have been telling pollsters how fed up they are with inflation. Then they keep right on buying stuff, said Stephen Brown, deputy chief at Capital Economics. 

“You know, the link between consumer confidence and spending has broken down in recent years,” said Brown.

But in Friday’s data on income and spending, he sees clues about ways consumer behavior could be catching up with our anxious mood. 

Clues like a bump in spending on certain goods — like vehicles, appliances and furniture — all of which could be affected by tariffs.

And, said Shannon Grein, an economist at Wells Fargo, there was a dip in spending on services. 

“That’s considered a weakness just because services consumption is typically very steady, even in the worst of times,” said Grein.

It’s steady because services in this context include housing and health care, which don’t fluctuate much.

This pullback is driven in part by slower spending on discretionary services, like traveling and going out to eat. 

“It’s no longer this whole YOLO, revenge spending kind of thing,” said Ted Rossman, an analyst at Bankrate. Those forces that have helped buoy economic growth in recent years, he said, even through a pandemic, global conflicts and high inflation.

“It feels like something new is happening, that the story is starting to change,” he said.

Rossman said U.S. consumers might finally be running out of steam. And if prices keep rising, they might not come to the rescue this time.

YouTube is testing turning off notifications from channels viewers don't engage with in attempt to tame the number of notifications they receive. The video platform says the test will specifically impact viewers who've chosen to receive "All" notifications from a channel.

During the experiment, notifications will still appear in the notification inbox, but "viewers who haven’t recently engaged with a channel despite having been sent recent push notifications will not receive push notifications," YouTube says. The goal is to get viewers to not disable notifications entirely just because they've received too many.

Many YouTube creators specifically ask people to subscribe and enable notifications so they know when a new video has been uploaded. The problem is, when you agree to receive "All" notifications, you'll also get pestered about things that aren't new uploads. There are ways to manage your notifications, but YouTube claims it's common for people to disable them at the app-level once they get annoyed (impacting every channel they're subscribed to), rather than try and tweak things. For a creator who wants to maximize the number of people that watch their videos, not being able to rely on push notifications to grab subscribers' attention is a problem.

YouTube deciding that some viewers shouldn't receive notifications from a given channel seems like an extreme solution, though. The company describes this test as "small," but it certainly feels like there could be a more nuanced way to weed out the push notifications people don't need.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/youtube-may-mute-notifications-from-channels-you-dont-watch-202802028.html?src=rss

The latest image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, pictured above, also happens to be a stunning illustration of Einstein's theory of general relativity. So much so that the cosmic phenomenon is called an "Einstein ring." 

Einstein rings happen when light from one distant object is bent around the mass of another, slightly closer and even larger object. The effect is normally too subtle to observe up close on a local level, "but it sometimes becomes clearly observable when dealing with curvatures of light on enormous, astronomical scales," NASA writes. In the case of this image, when the light from one distant galaxy is warped around the mass of another.

This "gravitational lensing," as it's technically called, is Einstein's general relativity in practice. Spacetime (the fusion of space and time that makes up the fabric of the universe) curving around an object's mass, with the curve itself being gravity. Objects like the ones pictured in the image — an elliptical galaxy wrapped in a spiral galaxy — are "the ideal laboratory in which to research galaxies too faint and distant to otherwise see."

This Einstein ring was captured by the "Strong Lensing and Cluster Evolution (SLICE) survey" conducted at the University of Liège in Belgium. The survey is led by a team of astronomers looking "to trace eight billion years of galaxy cluster evolution," according to NASA.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/latest-webb-telescope-image-shows-a-cosmic-phenomenon-called-an-einstein-ring-185911553.html?src=rss

Score another one for regulatory scrutiny. Following a 2022 Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation, Google said on Friday that it's adding the UK to the list of countries where it supports user choice billing. This lets Android developers in the nation allow users to pay for in-app purchases using alternative billing systems.

Google says the UK will get user choice billing beginning on March 29. It will start with non-gaming apps, which aligns with how Google has handled these rollouts in other regions. Areas where alternate billing is already available include the US, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa and European Economic Area (EEA) markets.

Developers who enroll in the program can only offer alternative payments in addition to — not in place of — Google Play billing. They'll receive a four percent discount from Google's service fees.

The move is closely tied to the nation's regulations. In 2023, the company floated user choice billing as a concession to help settle a UK CMA antitrust investigation that began the previous year.

Although Google acknowledged the CMA's influence on its decision in its announcement, the company framed the move in a blog post as giving the people (in this case, developers) may want. "While over 90% of our developers are 'satisfied' or 'very satisfied' with Google Play's billing, which provides a secure way for people to buy subscriptions and digital goods in apps, we recognise that some developers may want more choice in how they process payments," Google Competition Counsel Myrto Tagara wrote.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/google-play-will-offer-user-choice-billing-in-the-uk-180145121.html?src=rss

Mushroom fans rejoice. Adult Swim has ordered a second season of its animated hit Common Side Effects. This is happening just ahead of the finale of the first season, which airs this weekend.

For the uninitiated, Common Side Effects is something of an odd duck. It’s a cartoon, but it’s more of a thriller than a comedy. Mike Judge (Silicon Valley, King of the Hill) and Greg Daniels (The Office, Parks and Recreation) are onboard as executive producers, so there are some jokes. I guess it could be called a dramedy, but comedic thriller seems more apt.

The plot follows two former high school lab partners who discover a mystical mushroom that can cure just about every disease. This forces them to go on the run from the DEA, big pharma and shadowy business entities. The animation style is certainly unique, and may not be for everyone, but the show really comes into its own after a few episodes.

The voice cast includes Mike Judge, who played both Beavis and Butt-Head, and Martha Kelly, who starred in the animated Carol & the End of the World. She’s also fantastic in Baskets and absolutely terrifying in the second season of Euphoria. The remaining cast includes Joseph Lee Anderson, Dave King and Emily Pendergast.

Along with the renewal announcement, Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen called the show a “boundary-pushing and genre-defining piece of television.” He also praised fans for “lighting up socials to spread the word.”

Common Side Effects was created by Steve Hely, who wrote for American Dad and 30 Rock, and Joe Bennett, who made the criminally underrated (and now cancelled) Scavenger’s Reign. The pair said their goal for the show is “to transform planet Earth and restore the human spirit” but that they’ll “settle for a second season.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/common-side-effects-has-been-renewed-for-a-second-season-by-adult-swim-173256630.html?src=rss

Legislators in Florida have advanced a bill that would loosen child labor laws in the state. 

It would allow all 16- and 17-year-olds — and some 14- and 15-year-olds — to work full time, including on school days, and work overnight shifts, as well as making other changes.

Kids can work in Florida now, if they’re at least 14. 

But there are restrictions on how many hours they can work per day and per week when school’s in session, according to Robert Latham at the University of Miami. 

“We also limit the time that they can work, capping it off at 11 o’clock on a school night,” he said. 

This bill would lift many of those limits.

Florida has a shortage of workers, and Gov. Ron DeSantis has said teenagers could fill some of that gap rather than immigrants.  

Latham is skeptical. “Our immigrant workforce is in fields and farming and agriculture, in kitchens,” he said. “These are hard jobs.” 

But teenagers in struggling families might sign up for long hours at hard jobs. 

Sadaf Knight at the nonprofit Florida Policy Institute said that having fewer protections for them could be harmful. 

“Juggling school and juggling a job, coming to school exhausted and tired, not able to focus, will really hamstring them in their academic achievement,” said Knight. 

And, she added, that could have lifelong economic consequences.

Student loans and repayments remained stable through the end of last year. That’s the headline from the latest New York Federal Reserve report.

Not terrible news, and yet student loan experts aren’t celebrating. They’re bracing for bad news to come.

There are a few reasons the total $1.6 trillion in U.S. student loan debt hasn’t gone up much: Biden-era forgiveness programs are one. A decline in higher education enrollment is another.

But Dalié Jiménez, who runs the Student Loan Law Initiative at the University of California, Irvine, said the biggest reason was the pandemic-era interest pause.

“For three-plus years, student loan borrowers who had federal loans didn’t have to make any payments on their student loans, and their balances weren’t increasing because interest wasn’t being assessed,” said Jiménez. 

But that relief ended at the end of September. Now, nearly 10 million student loan borrowers are past due.

“This isn’t bad news relative to, I think, the really bad news that are coming,” said Jiménez. 

Because once you’re 90 days late on a loan payment, it can hurt your credit score. At that point, the debt is reported as “delinquent.”

The Fed said that, based on these numbers, delinquency rates of 90 days or more will likely be higher than they were before the pandemic.

“I’ve had a lot of borrowers be like, ‘Oh my goodness, my credit just dropped, and I wasn’t paying any attention to my student loans until I saw my credit score start to drop,’” said Betsy Mayotte, founder of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors. 

She said the delinquency spike is serious.

“The 90-day delinquency numbers are not just a canary in that coal mine. That’s a whole flock of birds in that coal mine. So we have a big concern about future default,” said Mayotte. 

Default is what comes after delinquency. For most loans, that happens after it’s delinquent for 270 days. The loan can get sent to collections, and the government can garnish social security benefits or wages — it’s way worse.

And that rate wasn’t great before the pandemic either.

“Before the pandemic, a student loan borrower defaulted every 26 seconds, more than a million people defaulted on a loan every year,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Loan Protection Center. 

He points to two recent executive orders from President Donald Trump. One restricts a program that forgives debt for workers in nonprofit and public sector jobs after a decade of service. The other pauses affordable repayment plans. These two moves are not reflected in this data, and Pierce said they will make even more borrowers default.

“We expect that to be double or triple in the best case scenario here, it’s possible that 5 million student loan borrowers could default this year,” said Pierce.

It takes about nine months to default on a student loan, so those notices likely won’t start showing up until later this year.

Crocs recently reported record annual revenue of $4.1 billion for 2024, up 4% from the year prior. The company’s rising numbers are partly due to its resurging popularity among younger consumers. 

Crocs, the slip-on plastic clogs with a bunch of holes on top, were marketed as boat shoes when they launched back in 2002 — and were once named one of the “50 Worst Inventions” of all time by Time magazine — but in recent years they’ve become a Gen Z fashion staple.

Anthony Russo is a 17-year-old student at McLean High School in Northern Virginia. He owns five pairs of Crocs, which he likes to wear in what he calls “sport mode” by sliding the heel strap that normally rests on top of the shoes to sit behind his heel.

“I like how you can put them into sport mode, so you can like, run and also just wear them leisurely,” Russo said. 

Pricing and comfort are the biggest reasons why Russo’s age group loves Crocs. Classic clogs cost just $50 a pair, making them a cheaper alternative to sneakers that take more effort to put on.

“I think people more nowadays are preferring the more comfortable wear over wearing nicer clothing that might be uncomfortable,” Russo said. 

Russo and his friends don’t think Crocs are ugly, in fact, one of his friends owns over 30 pairs. But they might be in the minority. Some researchers even say Crocs are part of a larger trend called “ugly fashion.”

Emily Brayshaw, who studies fashion culture at the University of Technology Sydney, says the idea started as a high fashion trend back in 1996 when Prada released its “Ugly Chic” collection. That concept has since trickled down to casual wear, with young consumers still buying ugly clothes almost 20 years later. 

“Ugly dressing is kind of a sartorial backlash against, like this super slick, corporate marketing sort of world,” Brayshaw said. “Day-to-day life is kind of ugly, and comfy, and messy, and fun, and why not lean into that?”

The trend includes a wide range of funky styles, such as clothes that are several sizes too big, exaggeratedly flared jeans and mismatched colors. 

Apart from coming in different colors, most Crocs look about the same. They can be customized with another product Crocs sells called Jibbitz, small plastic charms that pop into the clogs’ holes. 

Anthony Russo says his Jibbitz mainly consist of things he likes, like pizza and Marvel’s Avengers. The 500-plus different Jibbitz available on Crocs’ website include everything from professional sports logos to Hello Kitty. 

“It’s all about, if you like, creating your own ugly, curating your own aesthetic, and really sort of expressing yourself,” Brayshaw said. 

Ugly dressing aside, 91% of Gen Z consumers say that they want to buy from sustainable companies, according to PDI Technologies. But Crocs are made of a plastic that is bad for the environment called ethylene vinyl acetate, more commonly known as EVA. 

“When we do surveys, 80% of Gen Z tells you that ‘I’m willing to pay 15-20% more for a pair of shoes if they’re sustainable and biodegradable.’ We sold no shoes to Gen Zers,” said Stephen Mayfield, a professor at UC San Diego who is also CEO of the biodegradable shoe brand Blueview. 

Gen Z isn’t alone. A 2024 PwC study found that consumers of all ages claim they are willing to spend 9.7% more for sustainably produced goods, but notes that doesn’t always translate into actual spending due to other factors like inflation. Some researchers refer to this difference between moral values and spending habits as the intention-behavior gap or ethical consumption gap.

According to a study by researchers at Konkuk University in South Korea, wearing plastic shoes releases microplastics into the environment over time. This means that Crocs made of EVA also shed microplastics as they wear out. Crocs did not respond to a request for comment. 

“Like when you walk around in your sneakers and the bottoms are wearing out, you’ve ground them into microplastic which has now entered the environment,” Mayfield said. 

New research shows that these microplastics eventually make their way into human bodies, with a University of New Mexico study finding rising concentrations of plastic in our brains. 

Crocs has promised that by 2030 at least 50% of the materials that go into its shoes will be more environmentally friendly. Although that doesn’t necessarily mean the clogs will be biodegradable, it’s a step in the right direction.

Google's Pixel 9a, a candidate to be the "midrange smartphone king," was announced last week but delayed at the last second due to a component problem. Today, we finally know when the handset will arrive: April 10 in North America.

In an update to a Pixel 9a support page (via 9to5Google) on Friday, Google wrote that the phone will arrive on April 10 in the US, Canada and the UK. On April 14, it will land in a long list of European countries: Germany, Spain, Italy, Ireland, France, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, Poland, Czechia, Romania, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Finland. Meanwhile, Australia, India, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia have to wait until April 16.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

Pre-announcement reports suggested the phone would arrive on March 26, but Google said on the day of its unveiling that it was delayed into April. An unverified leak hinted that the pushback was related to camera-related heating problems, but Google only said it was to address a "component quality issue that’s affecting a small number of Pixel 9a devices." Regardless of the specifics, at least the problem ultimately only amounted to a short delay.

The Pixel 9a has dual cameras, a Tensor G4 chip and AI tools like Magic Editor, Magic Eraser, Best Take and Photo Unblur. (However, an Ars Technica report suggests it runs an "extra extra small" version of Gemini.) In his hands-on, Engadget's Sam Rutherford found the midrange phone to offer compelling features and performance relative to its $499 and up pricing. The phone isn't yet available for pre-order.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/the-pixel-9a-launches-on-april-10-in-the-us-161940732.html?src=rss

Jennifer Salke is stepping down as the head of Amazon MGM Studios, according to reporting by Deadline. She’s been at the post for over seven years, which is a ripe old age for a studio head. Before Amazon, Salke was president of NBC Entertainment.

She will not be replaced. Instead, the head of studio role will be eliminated as part of a new structure for the division. Prime Video honcho Mike Hopkins said in a memo that the company "decided to flatten our leadership structure a bit." The studio will split into two distinct arms, with one focusing on TV and the other handling films.

"We will be taking a couple of weeks to have thoughtful conversations with Jen’s directs and others to finalize the ideal long-term structure for the Amazon MGM Studios organization as a whole, and we’ll have more to share on that work soon," Hopkins said.

Salke isn’t leaving the studio entirely. She’s transitioning to a first-look film and TV deal with the company. However, industry rumors suggest that it’s more like a firing than a voluntary career change. She was largely absent from the deals that brought in Amy Pascal and David Heyman as the producers of the next James Bond film.

Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson sold creative control of 007 to Amazon for around $1 billion earlier this year. Insiders have suggested that Broccoli and Salke didn’t get along, which Jeff Bezos allegedly caught wind of. It has been reported that one condition of Pascal and Heyman signing on was that the pair would not report to Salke.

We don’t know what any of this means for James Bond, other than new movies are most definitely coming. It’s also been suggested that the platform could be prepping an affiliated TV show.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/jennifer-salke-steps-down-as-head-of-amazon-mgm-studios-161856700.html?src=rss

Trevor Milton, the founder of electric truck company Nikola, has received a full and unconditional pardon from President Donald Trump. A jury found Milton guilty of one count of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud in October 2022. In 2023, he was sentenced to four years in prison.

Milton announced the pardon in a press release and the White House confirmed it to CNBC. It came two weeks after prosecutors asked a judge to order Milton to pay $680 million in restitution to Nikola shareholders as well as $15.2 million to a wire fraud victim. However, due to the pardon, the judge is unable to order any restitution.

Prosecutors argued that Milton pumped up his company's stock by lying to investors about "nearly all aspects" of Nikola's business, such as having a fully functional electric truck. Nikola (which filed for bankruptcy last month) released a video in 2018 that appeared to show a Nikola One prototype moving by itself, but prosecutors claimed the truck was rolling down a hill and that Milton had a hand in the video's creation. Following a damning report by short-selling firm Hindenburg Research that prompted an SEC investigation, the company said in 2020 it never claimed that the "truck was driving under its own propulsion in the video," which has been made private on YouTube. Milton now plans to release a documentary to tell his side of the story.

Milton has given Trump and his associates millions of dollars in political donations, according to reports. Filings show he donated $750,000 to MAHA Alliance — now-Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr's political action committee — in September and $920,000 to the Trump 47 Committee in October, just ahead of the election. CNBC notes that Milton did not make any six-figure political contributions before 2024, per federal campaign finance records. 

Trump has pardoned hundreds of people in the first couple of months of his second term, including around 1,500 who were convicted or charged with crimes related to the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. On his second day in office, Trump pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison after being charged with money laundering, narcotics trafficking and computer hacking.

Meanwhile, the family and associates of Sam Bankman-Fried are reportedly campaigning for Trump to pardon him. The founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX was sentenced in 2024 to a 25-year prison sentence after he was found guilty of seven fraud and conspiracy charges.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/nikola-founder-trevor-milton-receives-a-full-pardon-from-president-trump-160107880.html?src=rss

Grab your popcorn. Nintendo just announced the official release date of the live-action Legend of Zelda movie. It hits theaters on March 26, 2027, which is just about two years from now. The film was first announced back in 2023.

The company dropped this bombshell on the official Nintendo Today! app that was surprise-released during a recent Direct livestream. The stream promised that the app would be a constant source of news and information. It looks like that promise was not hyperbole.

The Legend of Zelda live-action film releasing on March 26, 2027 (via Nintendo Today!) pic.twitter.com/8DzgH5e1YF

— Wario64 (@Wario64) March 28, 2025

Anyone who opened up the app this morning saw a short video of a Tri-Force floating alongside the iconic Zelda theme music. After that, text confirmed the release date for the movie. Now we’ll all have to check that darned app every day for more news.

The release date, however, is pretty much all we know about the film. It’s being directed by Wes Ball, who made Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and the Maze Runner trilogy. There’s no casting information yet, or a look at sets or anything like that. We don’t even know who is writing it. Ball has said that he envisions the film as “live-action Miyazaki," referring to the legendary Studio Ghibli director.

Will Nintendo ready a Zelda game to accompany the film? We have no idea, but Super Mario Bros. Wonder followed the release of the Super Mario Bros. Movie a couple of years back.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-legend-of-zelda-movie-hits-theaters-on-march-26-2027-150145662.html?src=rss

Google is revamping its smart home lineup, ending production on two of its devices in favor of integrations with third-party manufacturers. First, it will sunset the Nest Protect smoke & CO alarms. Existing products will continue to function and receive security updates until their expiration dates. They will also remain available for purchase while supplies last. Second, it will end production for the Nest x Yale smart lock. As with the Nest Protect, the remaining inventory will still be available for purchase and the devices will continue receiving security updates.

Rather than manufacture its own smoke alarm, Google announced that it will take a partnership approach. The company is teaming up with First Alert for a new smart smoke and carbon monoxide alarm that will integrate with existing Nest Protect devices and can be controlled from the Google Home app. First Alert hasn't provided an exact release date, but says the new alarm coming soon to the US and Canada and will be priced at $130. It'll be available in both Google and First Alert's stores, and also sold through retail stores and "professional distribution partners."

And on the lock side, Google will again partner with Yale. The pair is developing the Yale Smart Lock with Matter, which is meant to work with the Google Home ecosystem just as well as the Nest-branded lock. As the name suggests, it'll play nice with all manner of devices using the Matter smart home protocol, and Yale says its battery will last for up to a year. It'll be available "later this summer" at $170 in a variety of finishes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/smart-home/google-will-stop-making-the-nest-protect-smoke-alarm-150024379.html?src=rss