Castlevania: Nocturne season 2 gets philosophical about what it means to be a monster who loves.

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Falling debris from the SpaceX Starship explosion yesterday created what looked like a meteor shower, or a colorful fireworks show based on videos shared by people in the area, but it also delayed flights.

Eight and a half minutes after launch yesterday, the upper stage of the SpaceX Starship “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly,” following the separation from its booster and the start of its ascent to space.

The footage of the explosion’s aftermath was shared to social media and Reddit. Some of it was recorded inside planes flying nearby, and many flights were diverted around the debris field, or delayed until all the fragments touched down.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it had “briefly slowed and diverted planes around the area where space debris was falling,” according to Reuters.

The 7th test flight of Starship was at least a partial success, marking the second time SpaceX successfully caught the Super Heavy booster with its launch tower. It was also the first time one of the booster’s Raptor engines was reused from a previous flight.

The launch was a testbed for a redesigned propulsion system, an improved flight computer, and the craft’s heat shield. It’s unclear if any of these were factors in the failure, but SpaceX says that, according to “initial data,” the explosion was potentially the result of a fire that developed in the ship’s rear section.

The company says that “Starship flew within its designated launch corridor” and “any surviving pieces of debris would have fallen into the designated hazard area.” The falling debris put on a show in the evening sky over the Caribbean and was captured by several tourists who seemed both amazed and slightly anxious about what they were witnessing.

A screenshot shared by the flight tracking website FlightRadar24 to its X account yesterday showed several aircraft in holding patterns or being diverted following the incident, while another showed flight departures from Miami and For Lauderdale airports being delayed by 45 minutes.

The last time SpaceX lost the Starship was during its third test flight last March. Although it was the first flight where the Starship completed its full-duration ascent burn, SpaceX lost contact with the spacecraft shortly before it was expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean.

Now that TikTok has finally reached the end of its legal options in the US to avoid a ban, somehow its future seems less clear than ever.

The Supreme Court couldn’t have been more direct: the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, as applied to TikTok, withstands First Amendment scrutiny and can take effect on January 19th. The court agreed that the government had a compelling national security interest in passing the law and that its rationale was content neutral. The solution proposed — forcing Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok or see it ousted from the US — was ruled appropriately tailored to meet those ends.

Yet the government’s response hardly feels like a victory lap. In fact, despite being still under ByteDance’s control, it’s not clear that anyone in the US government will even act like TikTok is banned on the 19th.

“TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement after the Supreme Court ruling today. “Given...

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In his first statement since the Supreme Court upheld a law that could ban TikTok from the US on Sunday, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew offered no insight into what would happen to the app in just a few days. Instead, he took the opportunity to appeal to President-elect Donald Trump.

“I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States,” Chew says in a video on the platform. “We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a President who truly understands our platform — one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process.”

In discussing Trump’s TikTok views, Chew is speaking his language. After all, the incoming president is famous for keeping close tabs on his TV ratings, and recently declared he had a “warm spot” for TikTok after seeing how the platform played a role in his campaign. It’s TikTok’s most public attempt to butter Trump up before he takes over the Oval Office on Monday (one day after the ban takes effect), but Chew has already visited him at Mar-a-Lago and plans to attend his inauguration, along with several other tech CEOs.

Trump has previously declared his intention to save TikTok, but has not said how he’d do so. After Friday’s Supreme Court ruling, he asked the public to “respect it” and said, “My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation.” Earlier on Friday he said he’d spoken with China’s President Xi Jinping about TikTok among other things, calling it a “very good” call.

Chew’s statement seems to indicate that TikTok believes appealing to Trump is now its most promising path to remaining viable in the US. Even so, Trump’s options are somewhat limited. The most effective path, if he could achieve it, would be to somehow broker a deal to get ByteDance (with China’s allowance) to sell TikTok and comply with the law’s divestiture requirements. Otherwise, he could instruct his Justice Department not to enforce the ban, possibly through an executive order — but that might not be enough to reassure companies like Apple, Google, and Oracle that they won’t risk serious penalties continuing to provide service for TikTok.

In the meantime, we still don’t know how TikTok itself will handle the impending ban, which takes effect the day before Trump is sworn in. The company has reportedly planned to go dark in the US in that case. “Rest assured, we will do everything in our power to ensure our platform thrives as your online home for limitless creativity and discovery, as well as a source of inspiration and joy for years to come,” Chew says. “More to come.”

Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and even TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew are among the powerful tech leaders lined up to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, but Nvidia’s CEO won’t be joining them.

Reuters reports that when asked about his attendance, Jensen Huang said he would instead be celebrating the Lunar New Year “on the road” with employees and their families.

While Huang won’t be present at the President-elect’s ceremony, he said he will “look forward to congratulating the Trump administration when they take office.” Huang also told reporters outside Nvidia’s New Year party in Taipei that he discussed increasing the production of Nvidia’s advanced Blackwell artificial intelligence chips with Chung Ching Wei, the chairman of Nvidia’s main supplier, TSMC.

Nvidia is estimated to control 90 percent of the market share of AI chips. The company criticized a new AI framework announced by the Biden administration last week that would limit how many AI chips companies can send to different countries. In its blog post, Nvidia praised the more lax regulatory environment put in place by the first Trump administration and said it looks forward to “a return to policies that strengthen American leadership.”

Nvidia is notably not among the list of companies and tech execs to have donated to Trump’s inauguration, with Meta, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and Apple’s Tim Cook having each pledged $1 million to fund the ceremony. Huang also hasn’t appeared at Mar-a-Lago to schmooze Trump directly, unlike top execs from other companies like Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Samsung is sweetening the benefits for some subscribers of its extended warranty plans with a new deal: unlimited same-day glass repairs at no extra cost. Previously, a busted screen would cost subscribers $29 — and those on Samsung’s less-expensive Care Plus plan will continue to pay that price. But if you’re prone to breaking screens and you’re on the Care Plus Theft and Loss plan, you won’t pay anything extra.

The new policy includes cracked glass on your phone’s outer screen, back panel, and even the inner screens on folding phones, according to Samsung spokesperson Dale Hogan.

That’s a big deal, considering that repairing a cracked inner screen can cost hundreds of dollars without an extended warranty. Just one inner screen repair would probably make the Care Plus plan worth it, though the value is a little fuzzier for slab-style phones.

Image: Samsung

Samsung groups its phones into tiers and sets pricing for repairs based on those groups. You can also pay monthly for a three-year term or once upfront, but your policy will only cover two years. The monthly cost for a Tier 4 device, which includes the likes of the Galaxy S24 Ultra or any of Samsung’s folding phones, is $18. The Galaxy S24 Plus costs a little less, at $15 per month, and the regular S24 is $10.

That’s not exactly cheap, and you’d have to crack your screen a lot to justify the price difference between Care Plus and Care Plus Theft and Loss. A two-year Care Plus plan for the Galaxy S24 Ultra costs $259 if you pay upfront; that’s $90 less than the Care Plus Theft and Loss plan. You’d have to get three screen repairs to break even between the two plans.

Theft and Loss includes a lot of other benefits, of course, like replacing your device for a flat fee if it goes missing. And if you’re worried about your folding phone’s inner screen, the pricier Care plan could certainly give you some more peace of mind. In any case, benefits like these getting better are the kind of inflation we like to see.

Nintendo’s taking the Switch 2 on tour. With the console now revealed, the next question on everyone’s mind (outside of what games will be available at launch) is when will we be able to get our hands on it. While Nintendo hasn’t shared the release date for the console, it is offering the chance for the public to preview it before launch at a series of live events held across the world. Here’s what you need to know in order to demo the Switch 2.

The Switch 2 will be demoed in several cities across North America: New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Toronto. You can see the exact dates and locations on Nintendo’s website here. (There will also be events across Europe and Asia with registration for London and Tokyo already live.) But getting the chance to play for yourself isn’t as simple as showing up and waiting in line. There’s a registration process to go through first and registering doesn’t guarantee you’ll get in.

First, anyone who wishes to attend must have a Nintendo account, including children aged seven years or older. If you don’t have an account, they’re free to make and young children can be registered under a Nintendo family account. Children younger than seven don’t need to register.

For families or folks who want to attend as a group of up to six people, all members must have a Nintendo account that’s linked to a Nintendo Family group and everyone in the group must attend the same session.

Registration opens on Friday January 17th at 12PM PT / 3PM ET and closes on January 26th. Tickets are free but awarded by lottery, similar to what Nintendo does for admission to its museum. So once you’ve registered, you have to wait. There are multiple hour-long sessions for each day of the event but you can only register for one time slot. (Really, Nintendo?) Trying to sign-up for additional time slots will require you to cancel your previous registration.

The website doesn’t indicate exactly when folks will be notified if they’ve been selected, just that it should happen shortly after the registration window closes.

As with anything Nintendo, demand will be high so if you’re vying for a chance to see the Switch 2 early, good luck. You’ll need it.

Microsoft made a trio of announcements this week that are going to be very important for how the company approaches its big AI bet in 2025. It started off by creating a new AI engineering group to focus its developers on building an AI platform and tools for both Microsoft and its customers. Microsoft then announced pay-as-you-go agents for its relaunched Copilot Chat for businesses, and it finished the week by bundling Office AI features into Microsoft 365 for consumers and raising the subscription price.

All three of these announcements are linked to Microsoft’s insatiable hunger to win at AI. The company still prioritizes security through employee performance reviews, but it increasingly feels like promoting AI is an equally high priority.

The new engineering group is a good example of Microsoft’s priorities. Led by former Meta engineering chief Jay Parikh, the new CoreAI – Platform and Tools division will combine Microsoft’s Dev Div and AI platform teams together. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described the reorganization as “entering the next innings of this AI platform shift” and said it will “reshape all application categories.” Nadella has regularly said that the pace of...

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Every January, fitness tech and wearable companies love to remind us about New Year’s Resolutions. For a small number of people, New Year’s features, challenges, and marketing campaigns will be exactly the push they need. For everyone else, they’re another reason to feel bad about yourself.

The start of the new year is when Peloton Bikes go on sale, Apple trots out its annual Ring in the New Year Challenge badge and new Fitness Plus content, and anecdotally, it’s when I see a lot of friends suddenly start logging miles in Strava. But this year, I saw a new marketing tactic: Quitter’s day.

Quitter’s day is the second Friday in January — the day when most people throw in the towel on New Year’s Resolutions, fitness related or otherwise. Apple rolled out an Apple Watch commercial around it, encouraging people to “quit quitting” with a little extra wrist-based motivation. Popular strength training app Ladder also jumped on the trend with a humorous ad hinting that, if you just have Ladder coaches in your ear, you too can avoid quitting.

I was on the ground at the giant CES trade show during this year’s Quitter’s day. CES is a week where I’m lucky if I get one workout in, eat three...

Read the full story at The Verge.

Much of Amazon’s experimentation in the Kindle line has generally led to bigger devices that are easier to read, but the Kindle Colorsoft is the first that ventures beyond a fully monochromatic viewing experience. Of course, that comes with a higher price tag than comparably sized Kindles, but if you’re a Prime member, you can finally save a bit. The Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition has dropped to $229.99 ($50 off) at Amazon in its first sale.

We feel the Kindle Colorsoft’s 7-inch display offers the best color available in an ebook reader yet, thanks to better-than-average vividity and contrast. It makes browsing and reading books more pleasant, if nothing else. But there are other improvements we like, such as faster page-turning performance and smoother zooming. Those benefits aren’t necessarily exclusive to the Colorsoft, however, as all of Amazon’s newer Kindles have achieved similar results, thanks to performance bumps and software updates. This includes the 2024 Kindle Paperwhite, which the Colorsoft takes its design cues from.

But like most newer Kindles, it’s still lacking physical page turn buttons. That’s a bit of a damper for something that costs considerably more and has a display that needs to be kept pristine. And while the color is great, the display’s maximum 300ppi resolution is halved when using it — something to keep in mind, especially if you already have trouble reading standard text sizes on the Kindle’s display at full resolution. Its advertised eight-week battery life also falls short of the 12 weeks you can squeeze out of the Paperwhite. That’s still plenty, though, and you have convenient charging options between USB-C and wireless (the latter requires a separately sold $39.99 dock).

Finally, before you decide whether to purchase one, it’s worth noting that early Kindle Colorsoft units suffered from a display issue that caused yellow discoloration. Amazon says it has since addressed the issue with a combination of hardware and software tweaks. It even halted shipments temporarily while it investigated the issue and has allowed buyers to refund or replace their devices. If you buy one and happen to encounter the defect, Amazon should provide a remedy without much fuss.

A fire broke out at the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in Central California Thursday. The battery power plant is the largest in the world according to the company, Vistra, that owns it.

The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office issued evacuation orders for nearby residents and closed parts of Highway 1 in response. County Health officials have asked other residents to shelter indoors with windows and doors closed and to switch off ventilation systems.

“There’s no way to sugarcoat it. This is a disaster, is what it is,” Monterey County Supervisor Glen Church told KSBW-TV.

The company will investigate the cause of the fire once it’s out, Vistra spokesperson Jenny Lyon told The Mercury News. Vistra did not immediately respond to an email from The Verge. It completed an expansion of the facility in 2023, adding more than 110,000 battery modules needed to store renewable energy. Energy storage facilities like this one are essential for power grids to be able to keep enough excess solar and wind energy so it’s available when the sun goes down and winds wane.

This isn’t the first battery fire in the area. A nearby Pacific Gas & Electric battery plant stocked with Tesla batteries caught fire back in 2022. The year prior, Vistra had to temporarily shut down its battery plant at Moss Landing after a malfunctioning smoke detector and heat-suppression system sprayed water on its batteries, Canary Media reported.

The current blaze is unrelated to fires burning further south that have devastated Los Angeles County.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) are putting pressure on big tech firms to explain their motives for donating to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration fund. In letters to Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Uber, the lawmakers express concerns about the companies making contributions to “avoid scrutiny, limit regulation, and buy favor.”

Over the past several weeks, Google, Microsoft, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman all donated $1 million apiece to Trump’s inauguration, while Uber and its CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, each contributed $1 million. Many of these tech execs have already met with Trump, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is even hosting an inauguration party for the incoming president, according to The New York Times.

These sizable donations surpass the amount most of these companies contributed to President Joe Biden’s inauguration fund in 2021. A filing with the Federal Election Commission shows Uber donated $1 million to the event, followed by Microsoft with a $500,000 contribution, Google at $337,500, and Amazon at $276,509. Apple donated just $43,200 to Biden’s inauguration, while Meta and OpenAI didn’t contribute at all.

In the letters, Sens. Warren and Bennet draw attention to the regulatory scrutiny the Biden administration has directed toward big tech firms. “You have a clear and direct interest in obtaining favors from the incoming administration: your company and many other Big Tech donors are already the subject of ongoing federal investigations and regulatory actions,” the lawmakers write. “These donations raise questions about corruption and the influence of corporate money on the Trump administration, and Congress and the public deserve answers.”

Biden echoed these concerns in a farewell message this week, saying he was particularly worried about the “potential rise of a tech industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country.”

Sens. Warren and Bennet have posed several questions to Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Uber, asking for their “rationale” behind the contributions as well as “when and under what circumstances” the companies decided to make a donation. They’re giving the companies until January 30th to respond.

Update, January 17th: Added post from Altman.

During the Switch 2 reveal, Nintendo teased the next entry in its Mario Kart series. We likely won’t know more details about the follow-up to Mario Kart 8 until Nintendo’s Switch 2 Direct event in April, but Nacon has already announced some of the first accessories for the new handheld designed to improve the ergonomics of its Joy-Con controllers for racing games, as spotted by Nintendo Life.

Several companies were prepping peripherals for the Switch 2 well before Nintendo officially revealed its new design, including Dbrand, Genki, and smaller accessory makers whose cases and screen protectors gave us our first peeks at the console’s redesign.

Nacon’s Switch 2 lineup features several accessories similar to what’s been available for the original Switch for the past seven years. These include carrying cases, screen protectors, silicone wraps, USB-C chargers, and even tiny steering wheels for individual Joy-Cons for using motion controls in Mario Kart.

Image: Nacon

Most interesting is a more elaborate steering wheel accessory for the Switch 2 that looks similar to racing wheels available for PC simulators, but without features like force feedback. For €29.90 (about $30) it features suction cups on the base so it can be secured to a desk or table and a folding design allowing the wheel, which houses both the Switch 2’s left and right Joy-Cons, to be used at different angles.

Unfortunately, while all the new accessories are listed on Nacon’s UK site, none of them are available for preorder or include shipping dates that could give a hint of when Nintendo plans to release the Switch 2.

Instagram is bringing back one of its more chaotic features, now reworked for the short-form video era.

A new tab in the Reels feed will serve up videos that a user’s friends have liked or added commentary to, Instagram leader Adam Mosseri announced in a video message today. Users will be able to see which friends have liked a video — a callback to the old Instagram “activity” feed that was killed in 2019.

“We want Instagram to not only be a place where you consume entertaining content, but one where you connect over that content with friends,” Mosseri says. In the new feed, you’ll be able to see which friends have liked a post and which have left a temporary “note” on a Reel.

Image: Meta

That sounds nice in a ideal world, but given the way that the previous “activity” feed was scrutinized, I’m willing to bet a lot of users actually don’t want their friends to see all the Reels they’ve liked. (I’m not sure what benefits or insights my friends would get from seeing that I liked every single Shohei Ohtani post that crossed my feed, but OK.) It also might discourage people from engaging publicly with content in this way to avoid it being shown to all of their friends. It’s also not a given that you share interests or hobbies just because you’re friends with someone — for many people, it’s the hyper personalized nature of TikTok that makes the experience interesting in the first place.

Other platforms like X have gone the opposite route by hiding users’ liked posts, in part because people kept getting caught liking embarrassing things (if someone catches Ted Cruz liking thirst trap Reels, please email me immediately). Meta didn’t immediately respond to questions about whether users can opt out of having their activity shown in the new Reels feed.

Instagram stands to benefit if its biggest rival, TikTok, is forced to pull out of the US this weekend. Reels is Instagram’s answer to TikTok, but many creators and users say the atmosphere on Reels doesn’t live up to the environment TikTok has cultivated. While the new feature might stoke drama and pull some users into the Reels feed, it could also have the opposite effect for those who don’t want all their interests broadcast out.

If you’re looking for a way to protect yourself from porch pirates, it’s a good idea to invest in a solid smart video doorbell. The Ring Battery Doorbell Pro is one of the best on the market, and is available at an all-time low price of $149.99 ($80 off) at Woot until February 1st at 12:59AM ET.

The snappy battery-powered video doorbell is packed with a number of features that provide peace of mind. Its high-resolution 1536p video features a square aspect ratio, which is helpful as it allows you to get a complete view of your entire porch. The doorbell also supports motion detection using three sensors — radar, video analysis, and passive — for an impressive level of accuracy. Other standout features include good color night vision, dual-band Wi-Fi, and smart responses so you can talk to your visitor. The doorbell also integrates well with Amazon devices, allowing you to do things like pull up a live feed of your front door on an Echo Show or Fire TV-enabled television.

The downside is some features are paywalled. So if you want smart alerts for people and packages or recorded footage, you’ll have to fork out at least $4.99 a month (or $49.99 a year) for a subscription. But if you don’t mind that, the Ring Battery Doorbell Pro is an excellent video doorbell that’s particularly ideal for those embedded in Amazon’s ecosystem.

A couple more deals and discounts

• You can buy the Vornado MVH Whole Room Heater for $49.99 ($10 off) at Amazon, which is just $2 shy of its all-time low price. The portable heater is easy to use and does a good job of quietly and evenly warming up medium-sized rooms. It also offers three heart settings so you can dial in your ideal temperature and automatically shuts off when it reaches the set temperature.
• The 45mm, GPS-enabled Apple Watch Series 9 is down to an all-time low price of $279 ($50 off) at Walmart. The Series 9 lacks the Series 10’s Apple wide-angle OLED display and doesn’t offer built-in water temperature and depth sensors, but is otherwise similar. Like its successor, it sports Apple’s second-gen ultra wideband chip and the speedy S9 SiP, which allows for onboard Siri processing and the double tap gesture. It also supports watchOS 11 so you can take advantage of the new Training Load feature and pause your Activity Rings. Read our review.
• The Anker 511 charging adapter is on sale for $12.99 ($10 off) at Amazon and Anker when you apply the code WS7DV2M1LIOU, which matches its all-time low price. The USB-C charger can deliver 30-watts of power to smartphones, tablets, consoles, and other electronics and is small with a collapsible plug, making it travel-friendly.

The Supreme Court ruled that the law that could oust TikTok from the US unless Chinese parent company ByteDance sells it is constitutional as applied to the company.

“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community,” the court wrote in a per curiam ruling, which is not attributed to any particular justice. “But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.”

The ruling means that TikTok is still on track to be banned in the US on January 19th, unless President Joe Biden extends the deadline or ByteDance manages to sell the company in time. The Biden administration now appears poised to hold off on enforcement and leave it to the next administration once President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in on Monday — though even that promise might not be enough to overcome the risk service providers like Apple, Google, and Oracle could face if they choose not to comply with the law by continuing to service TikTok once the ban technically takes effect.

Trump has said he’d try to save the app, though it’s not clear how — and he won’t be sworn into office until a day after the sale deadline. The app won’t just disappear from users’ phones; TikTok has reportedly planned to go beyond the law’s requirements and go dark should the ban be upheld.

The justices caution that their ruling should be “understood to be narrowly focused” given that the case involves “new technologies with transformative capabilities.” They emphasized that even though it’s common for companies to collect data, “TikTok’s scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment to address the Government’s national security concerns. A law targeting any other speaker would by necessity entail a distinct inquiry and separate considerations.” Ultimately, the government “had good reason to single out TikTok for special treatment.”

The justices found that the law as applied to TikTok is “content neutral” and “justified by a content neutral rationale,” citing the government’s concern over the alleged potential for China to collect vast amounts of data on Americans through the app. They found that the law does not need to satisfy the highest possible form of First Amendment scrutiny and that, as applied to TikTok, it does satisfy intermediate scrutiny because the law furthers “an important Government interest unrelated to the suppression of free expression” and doesn’t burden much more speech than necessary to accomplish that.

The court was not swayed by TikTok’s assurances that the Chinese government was “unlikely” to “compel TikTok to turn over user data for intelligence-gathering purposes, since China has more effective and efficient means of obtaining relevant information.” The justices said that even if China had not already sought to use ByteDance’s relationship with TikTok to access US data, TikTok didn’t offer any good reason for the court to conclude that the US government’s determination that China might seek to exploit that relationship “is not at least a ‘reasonable inferenc[e] based on substantial evidence.’” In the end, the justices afforded a great deal of deference to the government’s assessments, noting, for example, “We are especially wary of parsing Congress’s motives on this record with regard to an Act passed with striking bipartisan support.”

There are some buyers waiting in the wings for this ruling, hoping it will change ByteDance’s calculus on a sale. Billionaire Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty, for example, wants to buy the app without the algorithm to run on its own social network protocol. But it’s still not clear if China would allow a sale, even without the coveted algorithm — perhaps betting that the US will eventually relent or that it can continue to thrive in other countries around the world. Still, reports this week indicate that might be starting to change, as unnamed sources told several outlets that Chinese officials were mulling the idea of getting billionaire Elon Musk to act either as a buyer or broker of a potential deal.

The case pitted free expression and national security concerns against each other. The justices heard oral arguments in the case last Friday, where lawyers for TikTok and a group of creators on the platform described why they believe the law would violate the First Amendment. The US government defended the law, which was passed overwhelmingly by Congress and signed by Biden, as important to national security.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Neil Gorsuch offered their own statements, concurring in the final judgment. Sotomayor disagreed that the court need not determine that the law implicates the First Amendment because she thinks it’s obvious it does. Even so, she agrees that the law can survive such scrutiny.

Gorsuch points out the unusual speed of the case, writing that, “We have had a fortnight to resolve, finally and on the merits, a major First Amendment dispute affecting more than 170 million Americans.” He writes that he’s “pleased” the court did not consider the classified evidence presented to Congress to justify the law in this case, writing that, “Efforts to inject secret evidence into judicial proceedings present obvious constitutional concerns.”

Gorsuch also says he has “serious reservations” about whether the law is actually content neutral, though he finds the government’s interest compelling and the law appropriately tailored to meet its goals. Whether it will actually do so is another matter, he points out. “A determined foreign adversary may just seek to replace one lost surveillance application with another. As time passes and threats evolve, less dramatic and more effective solutions may emerge. Even what might happen next to TikTok remains unclear,” Gorsuch writes. “But the question we face today is not the law’s wisdom, only its constitutionality. Given just a handful of days after oral argument to issue an opinion, I cannot profess the kind of certainty I would like to have about the arguments and record before us. All I can say is that, at this time and under these constraints, the problem appears real and the response to it not unconstitutional.”

Cash App is closing out the week on the hook for $255 million in multiple settlements around its consumer protections.

Block, the company that owns Cash App, agreed Wednesday to pay $80 million to 48 states that fined the company for violating laws intended to keep illicit activity off the platform.

“State regulators found Block was not in compliance with certain requirements, creating the potential that its services could be used to support money laundering, terrorism financing, or other illegal activities,” a press release from the Conference of State Bank Supervisors says.

Separately, the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reached a settlement with Block on Thursday, in which the company agreed to pay $120 million to Cash App customers and another $55 million to the CFPB. According to the bureau, Cash App’s weak security measures put consumers at risk and made it difficult for users to get help after experiencing fraud on the platform. Cash App is also accused of tricking consumers into thinking that their bank, not Cash App, was responsible for handling disputes and that Cash App didn’t offer “meaningful and effective” customer service, which “left the network vulnerable to criminals defrauding users.”

How to regulate peer-to-peer money-transferring apps like Cash App is an ongoing fight. This week, NetChoice and TechNet sued to challenge the CFPB’s handling of such platforms like banks, calling it an “unlawful power grab.” Google filed a similar suit in December.

I added controllers to a 13-inch gaming tablet and I don’t regret it.

Read the full story at The Verge.

The Switch 2 exists. We know that for sure. It’s bigger — seems like we know that, too. But what else do we know about the sequel to one of Nintendo’s most innovative and bestselling consoles? Maybe not as much as you might think.

On this episode of The Vergecast, we run down everything we know, and don’t know, about the Switch 2. The Verge’s Richard Lawler, Ash Parrish, and Andrew Webster join the show to explain all the new stuff we saw in Nintendo’s trailer, all the things we’re still wondering about, and why exactly Nintendo chooses to launch its consoles this way. It’s all a little odd, but let’s be honest: it’s the Switch 2. What else did you need to know?

After that, The Verge’s Adi Robertson joins the show to talk about the week’s whipsawing policy news. The TikTok ban — or non-ban, or later-ban, or kinda-sorta ban — is closer than ever, and there’s another tech-related case in front of the Supreme Court that could prove just as consequential. We debate whether Elon Musk might save TikTok, whether anything at all is likely to happen on Sunday, and whether RedNote and Lemon8 are the future of anything.

Finally, in the lightning round, Richard and David run down some of the week’s other news, from the ousting of Sonos CEO Patrick Spence to the first successful Blue Origin launch. There’s also some news about the iPhone 17 Air being a thing, a new streaming destination for the Super Bowl, and some Drake updates.

If you want to know more about everything we discuss in this episode, here are some links to get you started, beginning with the Switch 2:

• Nintendo Switch 2 announcement: all the news on the next console
• The Nintendo Switch 2 has officially been announced
• Everything we know about the Switch 2’s Joy-Con controllers
• The Nintendo Switch 2 supports original Switch cartridges
• Nintendo teases a new Mario Kart for the Switch 2
• Nintendo announces Switch 2 Direct for April
• The Switch 2 is boring — and that’s exactly what Nintendo needs
• The Switch 2’s bigger screen is just what I wanted

And on TikTok and the Supreme Court:

• TikTok reportedly plans ‘immediate’ Sunday shutdown in the US if it’s banned
• TikTok ban: Sen. Markey tries to give a 270-day extension
• TikTok says it’s planning for ‘various scenarios’ ahead of possible US ban
• Elon Musk is reportedly trying to save TikTok
• Donald Trump is reportedly considering an executive order to delay the TikTok ban
• Duolingo is the real winner in the TikTok ban
• What is RedNote? The Chinese app gaining popularity as TikTok ban approaches
• RedNote: what it’s like using the Chinese app TikTokers are flocking to

And in the lightning round:

• Sonos CEO Patrick Spence steps down after disastrous app launch
• Sonos’ interim CEO hits all the right notes in first letter to employees
• The iPhone Air could be coming later this year
• Super Bowl LIX will stream for free on Tubi
• Drake sues his label, UMG, saying ‘Not Like Us’ is defamatory
• Bezos’ Blue Origin successfully launches SpaceX rival

It’s been more than four years since Donald Trump first moved to expel TikTok from the US — and now, just days before a second Trump presidency begins, it just might happen.

President Joe Biden signed legislation last April that officially began the countdown that would force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the US business. But even afterward, the atmosphere on the video powerhouse was mostly nonchalant, with a handful of stray jokes about “this app disappearing” slotted between the usual fare.

In the last week, though, the vibe has shifted — my favorite creators are posting links to their other social accounts, audiences are making highlight reels of the most viral moments on the app, and they’re saying goodbye to their “Chinese spy” and threatening to hand over their data to the Chinese government. A Chinese-owned app Xiaohongshu, known as RedNote, topped the App Store this week, driven by a wave of “TikTok refugees” trying to recreate the experience of the platform. It’s feeling a bit like a fever dream last day of school.

For many creatives online, this wouldn’t be the first time they’ve had to migrate to new spaces: reach, engagement, and visibility are constantly shifting even on the largest and most stable platforms. But the possibility that a social media site of this size would disappear — or slowly break down until it’s nonfunctional — is a new threat. For small creators especially, TikTok is like playing the lottery: you don’t need thousands of followers for your video to get big, and this unpredictability incentivized the average person to upload content.

It’s still unclear what will happen to TikTok after January 19th. I asked content creators what their game plan is. (Responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.)

Noelle Johansen, @astraeagoods (89K followers)

“At the peak, I was making approximately 70 percent of my sales through TikTok from December 2020 to January 2022. Now, it drives at most, 10 percent of my sales,” says Noelle Johansen, who sells slogan sweatshirts, accessories, stickers, and other products.

“At my peak with TikTok, I was able to reach so many customers with ease. Instagram and Twitter have always been a shot in the dark as to whether the content will be seen, but TikTok was very consistent in showing my followers and potential new customers my videos,” Johansen told The Verge in an email. “I’ve also made great friends from the artist community on TikTok, and it’s difficult to translate that community to other social media. Most apps function a lot differently than TikTok, and many people don’t have the bandwidth to keep up with all of the new socials and building platforms there.”

Going forward, Johansen says they’ll focus on X and Instagram for sales while working to grow an audience on Bluesky and Threads.

Kay Poyer, @ladymisskay_ (704K followers)

“I think the ease of use on TikTok opened an avenue for a lot of would-be creators,” Kay Poyer, a popular creator making humor and commentary content, says. “Right now we’re seeing a cleaving point, where many will choose to stop or be forced to adapt back to older platforms (which tend to be more difficult to build followings on and monetize).”

As for her own plans, Poyer says she’ll stay where the engagement is if TikTok becomes unavailable — smaller platforms like Bluesky or Neptune aren’t yet impactful enough.

“I’m seeing a big spike in subscribers to my Substack, The Quiet Part, as well as followers flooding to my Instagram and Twitter,” Poyer told The Verge. “Personally I have chosen to make my podcast, Meat Bus, the flagship of my content. We’re launching our video episodes sometime next month on YouTube.”

Bethany Brookshire, @beebrookshire (18K followers)

Bethany Brookshire, a science journalist and author, has been sharing videos about human anatomy on TikTok, Bluesky, Instagram, and YouTube. Across platforms, Brookshire has observed differences in audiences — YouTube, for example, “is not a place [to] build an audience,” she says, citing negative comments on her work.

“I find people on TikTok comment and engage a lot more, and most importantly, their comments are often touching or funny,” she says. “When I was doing pelvic anatomy, a lot of people with uteruses wrote in to tell me they felt seen, that they had a specific condition, and they even bonded with each other in the comments.”

Brookshire told The Verge in an email that sharing content anywhere can at times feel fraught. Between Nazi content on Substack, right-wing ass-kissing at Meta, and the national security concerns of TikTok, it doesn’t feel like any platform is perfectly ideal.

“Sometimes I feel like the only ethical way to produce any content is to write it out in artisanal chalk on an organically sourced vegan stone, which I then try to show to a single person with their consent before gently tossing it into the ocean to complete its circle of life,” Brookshire says. “But if I want to inform, and I want to educate, I need to be in the places people go.”

Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, @woodstocksanctuary (117K followers)

The Woodstock Farm Sanctuary in upstate New York uses TikTok to share information with new audiences — the group’s Instagram following is mostly people who are already animal rights activists, vegans, or sanctuary supporters.

“TikTok has allowed us to reach people who don’t even know what animal sanctuaries are,” social media coordinator Riki Higgins told The Verge in an email. “While we still primarily fundraise via Meta platforms, we seem to make the biggest education and advocacy impact when we post on TikTok.”

With a small social media and marketing team of two, Woodstock Farm Sanctuary (like other small businesses and organizations) must be strategic in how it uses its efforts. YouTube content can be more labor-intensive, Higgins says, and Instagram Reels is missing key features like 2x video speed and the ability to pause videos.

“TikTok users really, really don’t like Reels. They view it as the platform where jokes, trends, etc., go to die, where outdated content gets recycled, and especially younger users see it as an app only older audiences use,” Higgins says.

The sanctuary says it will meet audiences wherever they migrate in the case that TikTok becomes inaccessible.

Anna Rangos, @honeywhippedfeta (15K followers)

Anna Rangos, who works in social media and makes tech and cultural commentary videos, is no stranger to having to pick up and leave a social media platform for somewhere else. As a retired sex worker, she saw firsthand how fragile a social media following could be.

“You could wake up one day to find your accounts deactivated, and restoring them? Forget it. Good luck getting any kind of service from Meta,” Rangos said in an email. Having an account deleted means lost income and hours of trying to rebuild a following. “Over my time in the industry, I went through three or four Instagram accounts, constantly trying to recapture my following.”

Sex workers and sex education creators regularly deal with their content being removed, censored, or entire accounts deleted. Rangos says that though the community on TikTok is more welcoming, she’s working to stake out her own space through a website and a newsletter. She also plans to stay active on YouTube, Pinterest, and Bluesky.

“I don’t plan on using Meta products much, given [Mark] Zuckerberg’s recent announcements regarding fact-checking,” she wrote in an email.

Amanda Chavira, @lost.birds.beads (10K followers)

“I have found so much joy and community on TikTok mostly through Native TikTok,” says Amanda Chavira, an Indigenous beader who built an audience through tutorials and cultural content. “It’s sad to see TikTok go.”

Chavira says she plans to reupload some of her content to YouTube Shorts to see how her videos perform there but otherwise will be waiting to see if another viable video platform comes along. Chavira won’t be pivoting to Meta: she says she plans to delete her accounts on Threads, Instagram, and Facebook.

“I’d been considering leaving my Meta accounts for a long time,” she said in an email. “Facebook felt like a terrible place through election cycles, and then the pandemic, [and] then every other post I was seeing was a suggested ad or clickbait article. For Instagram, I’ve really been struggling to reach my target audience and didn’t have the time available to post all the time to try to increase engagement.” Her final straw was Meta’s decision to end the fact-checking program and Zuckerberg’s “pandering to the Trump administration,” she says.