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Today β€” 11 April 2025Tech News

Why Nintendo can get away with a $450 Switch 2 price

11 April 2025 at 05:00

When Nintendo announced the Switch 2 would cost $450, my initial reaction was disappointment. Γ’Β€ΒœWhy does it cost so much more?Ҁ I thought to myself. Γ’Β€ΒœWhy does Japan get it cheaper?Ҁ my brain jealously added, once I learned that Nintendo would sell a Japan-only model for the equivalent of just $333.

It felt like Nintendo was about to overcharge the entire rest of the world for a modest improvement to its original $300 console, one that doesnҀ™t come with an OLED display or anti-drift magnetic sticks. Surely it canҀ™t cost Nintendo that much more to make, especially seeing how itҀ™s selling the exact same hardware for so much Γ’Β€ΒœlessҀ in Japan?Β 

But while Nintendo might be charging more than IҀ™d like to spend, particularly with its $80 games and its button that makes you pay extra, I no longer think the companyҀ™s being distinctly unfair to gamers outside of Japan. The $450 price makes more sense when you consider whatҀ™s happened to the dollar and the yen.Β 

Since its March 3rd, 2017, debut, Nintendo basically hasnҀ™t changed the price of the original Switch in either the US or Japan. The portable console cost $300 USD or Γ‚Β₯32,378 in 2017; it costs the same $300 …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Apple Maps on the web leaves beta, now works on mobile devices

11 April 2025 at 04:42

Apple last year introduced a beta version of Apple Maps on the web, which allowed users of other platforms to access the company’s mapping service for the first time. However, Apple Maps on the web was labeled as β€œbeta” β€” until now. And as the platform is no longer beta, it has also gained support for mobile devices.

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The Trek Madone SLR 9 Gen 8 tears up the roads and conquers climbs

When a cyclist sees the Trek Madone SLR 9 Gen 8 AXS for the first time, the following thoughts run through their head, usually in this order:

"What a beautiful bike."

"Damn, that looks really fast."

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Β© Eric Bangeman

WhatsApp gets a dozen new features inspired by others

11 April 2025 at 04:49

WhatsApp has rolled out a dozen new features across chats, calls, and channels that make it easier to manage group conversations, alongside other general quality-of-life improvements. One of the more notable additions is a new β€œOnline” indicator for groups, which displays how many participants are currently using the app in real time.

This is one of several new features that are similar to capabilities on competing communications platforms like Discord, which highlights the online status of server participants. WhatsApp hasn’t mentioned if users will be able to override their own status indicator to manually set themselves as online/offline, but it should make it easier to see how many users are actively reading the chat.

Notifications in group chats will now be easier to manage and organize if you find them overwhelming. Users can select the new β€œNotify for” setting and tap β€œHighlight” to place specific limitations on notifications for replies, @mentions, and messages from saved contacts, or select β€œAll” to receive every notification. Group chat participants can also tap on reactions that other users have left on messages to add the same reaction, much like Discord and Slack users can.

A phone displaying some of WhatsApp’s new features, like online indicators and event channel pinning.

Events have been updated to allow users to RSVP as β€œmaybe,” invite a plus one, and specify an end date and time. Events can now also be created in direct messages, and pinned in group chats to make them easier to find.

Two features that are exclusively for iPhone users include a built-in document reader that allows users to scan, crop, and save document files without opening a separate app, and the ability to set WhatsApp as the default app for calls and messages. iPhone users can make the switch by opening their device settings, tapping on β€œDefault Apps,” and selecting WhatsApp.

In the WhatsApp updates tab, users will now find transcriptions of voice messages that they’ve received, and a voice notes feature that allows channel admins to record videos of up to 60 seconds that can be instantly shared with followers. Channel admins can now also link people directly to their channels via a QR code.

Finally, WhatsApp says that video calls have been upgraded to make them β€œmore reliable and higher quality.” WhatsApp users can be added to an ongoing call directly within a chat thread by tapping the call icon, and call participants can now pinch to zoom in to get a closer look at the live video.

Digg will let you reserve your username (for a price)

11 April 2025 at 04:27
The new Digg might look a little like this.

Digg’s return to the modern internet is one step closer with the launch of an β€œearly access” group called Groundbreakers. For a one-off $5 fee you can claim your username before someone else does and get a behind the scenes look at the new Digg as it comes together.Β 

Digg says that the $5 fee β€œkeeps the bots at bay,” and that proceeds will go to a nonprofit to be chosen by the Groundbreakers community. It’s a one-off charge, not an ongoing subscription.

In addition to locking down their username, members of Groundbreakers will get early access to mockups and previews of the new Digg, with the chance to give feedback directly to the development team. They’ll also get a permanent Groundbreakers badge on their profile once Digg goes live. It’s worth noting that this isn’t actually early access to Digg itself just yet, but a group on the Circle community platform.

The rebooted Digg was announced last month, with original founder Kevin Rose returning alongside a group that includes Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian. It will still be centered around sharing and voting on links, but takes inspiration from the rise of Reddit and will incorporate AI to help user-led communities with moderation.

Invites to join Groundbreakers were initially sent out to Digg’s mailing list, but you can now sign up without an invite. There’s apparently a limited number of spaces, though Digg hasn’t said how many.

Researcher uncovers dozens of sketchy Chrome extensions with 4 million installs

Google is hosting dozens of extensions in its Chrome Web Store that perform suspicious actions on the more than 4 million devices that have installed it and that the developer has taken pains to carefully conceal.

The extensions, which so far number at least 35, use the same code patterns, connect to some of the same servers, and require the same list of sensitive systems permissions, including the ability to interact with web traffic on all URLs visited, access cookies, manage browser tabs, and execute scripts. In more detail, the permissions are:

  • Tabs: manage and interact with browser windows
  • Cookies: set and access stored browser cookies based on cookie or domain names (ex., "Authorization" or "all cookies for GitHub.com")
  • WebRequest: intercept and modify web requests the browser makes
  • Storage: ability to store small amounts of information persistently in the browser (these extensions store their command & control configuration here)
  • Scripting: the ability to inject new JavaScript into web pages and manipulate the DOM
  • Alarms: an internal messaging service to trigger events. The extension uses this to trigger events like a cron job as it can allow for scheduling the heartbeat callbacks by the extension
  • <all_urls>: This works in tandem with other permissions like webRequest, but allows for the extension to be functionally interact all browsing activity (completely unnecessary for an extension that should just look at your installed extensions

These sorts of permissions give extensions the ability to do all sorts of potentially abusive things and, as such, should be judiciously granted only to trusted extensions that can’t perform core functions without them.

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Β© Getty Images

β€œWhat the hell are you doing?” How I learned to interview astronauts, scientists, and billionaires

I recently wrote a story about the wild ride of the Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station last summer. It was based largely on an interview with the commander of the mission, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore.

His account of Starliner’s thruster failuresβ€”and his desperate efforts to keep the vehicle flying on courseβ€”was riveting. In the aftermath of the story, many readers, people on social media, and real-life friends congratulated me on conducting a great interview. But truth be told, it was pretty much all Wilmore.

Essentially, when I came into the room, he was primed to talk. I'm not sure if Wilmore was waiting for me specifically to talk to, but he pretty clearly wanted to speak with someone about his experiences aboard the Starliner spacecraft. And he chose me.

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Β© Lee Hutchinson

Rocket Report: β€œNo man’s land” in rocket wars; Isaacman lukewarm on SLS

Welcome to Edition 7.39 of the Rocket Report! Not getting your launch fix? Buckle up. We're on the cusp of a boom in rocket launches as three new megaconstellations have either just begun or will soon begin deploying thousands of satellites to enable broadband connectivity from space. If the megaconstellations come to fruition, this will require more than a thousand launches in the next few years, on top of SpaceX's blistering Starlink launch cadence. We discuss the topic of megaconstellations in this week's Rocket Report.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

So, what is SpinLaunch doing now?Β Ars Technica has mentioned SpinLaunch, the company that literally wants to yeet satellites into space, in previous Rocket Report newsletters. This company enjoyed some success in raising money for its so-crazy-it-just-might-work idea of catapulting rockets and satellites into the sky, a concept SpinLaunch calls "kinetic launch." But SpinLaunch is now making a hard pivot into small satellites, a move that, on its face, seems puzzling after going all-in on kinetic launch, and even performing several impressive hardware tests, throwing a projectile to altitudes of up to 30,000 feet. Ars got the scoop, with the company's CEO detailing why and how it plans to build a low-Earth orbit telecommunications constellation with 280 satellites.

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Β© United Launch Alliance

Startups Weekly: Enjoying the reprieve

By: Anna Heim
11 April 2025 at 04:05
Welcome to Startups Weekly β€” your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. Startups aren’t isolated from the world. But this week, funding news felt positively uncorrelated from the overall news cycle, offering somewhat of a reprieve β€” or perhaps […]

Writing Tools needs one feature to make it an essential part of Apple Intelligence

By: Zac Hall
11 April 2025 at 04:00

The most recent instance of benefiting from Apple Intelligence with about 70% satisfaction just occurred. I’m writing another piece using an and Magic Keyboard. I selected the opening paragraph, invoked Writing Tools, and selected Proofread.

This is how the proofread version was presented:

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