Today, Adult Swim announced today that Lazarus will debut on April 5th with encores hitting Max on Thursdays beginning April 10th. Along with the announcement, Adult Swim also dropped a new Lazarus trailer teasing how the show’s story is kicked into motion when people start discovering that a popular, seemingly-harmless painkiller is actually a deadly poison designed to eliminate humanity.
In a statement about the show, Adult Swim president Michael Ouweleen sand Watanabe’s praises and said the network was “lucky to be able to watch this genius do his thing.”
“We’re talking Watanabe here — this show is an amazing mix of great characters, super fun high-stakes, brilliant directing, and of course, some pretty great music,” Ouweleen said.
When we spoke with Watanabe about Lazarus last year, he didn’t want to share too much about how the show will be a rumination on the real world opioid crisis, but he promised that “all my thoughts about the future are reflected pretty strongly in the series, and I want people to experience it for themselves.”
The air traffic control tower after the American Airlines crash at Reagan National Airport on February 3rd, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia. | Image: Getty Images
While Elon Musk hacks away at the federal bureaucracy in the name of “efficiency,” his company Starlink appears poised to steal a multibillion-dollar government contract from Verizon.
The Federal Aviation Administration is on the cusp of canceling a $2.4 billion contract to overhaul the communication system for the nation’s air traffic control system and handing it to the SpaceX subsidiary instead, TheWashington Post reports, citing two unnamed sources briefed on the plans. The news was also confirmed by Bloombergand The Associated Press.
It’s unclear exactly how this would unfold — whether the FAA would hand some of the work to Starlink while allowing Verizon to continue its own effort or simply cancel the contract with Verizon and award it to Starlink. Whatever the outcome, it is sure to raise accusations of favoritism, cronyism, and conflicts of interest, as Musk continues to serve as the face of the Department of Government Efficiency-run effort to slash spending and lay off federal workers, despite the structural damage that causes.
It is sure to raise serious accusations of favoritism and conflicts of interest
Musk has been sowing doubt about the Verizon system for several days, claiming without evidence that it’s “not working and so is putting air travelers at serious risk.” Earlier today, he posted on X that the Verizon communication system is “breaking down very rapidly” and that the “FAA assessment is single digit months to catastrophic failure, putting air traveler safety at serious risk.” He also claimed that Starlink terminals would be provided at “NO COST to the taxpayer on an emergency basis to restore air traffic control connectivity.”
This, of course, follows a pattern, in which Musk posts on X about something regarding the FAA and then seems to will it into existence. Previously, the billionaire called for FAA administrator Michael Whitaker’s resignation, after the agency fined SpaceX for failing to get approval for rocket launch changes. After his repeated comments, Whitaker resigned on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration.
A team from SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company, has been working within the FAA in recent weeks to help modernize the agency’s aging technology system. US Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said they were tasked with developing “a new, better, modern and safer system.”
Several SpaceX employees now have FAA email addresses, the Post reports. One SpaceX employee posted a photo of the team on X, with the statement, “Working to improve the safety of the national air space system.”
The FAA was scheduled to make a decision to start paying out the Verizon contract next month. But the SpaceX team reportedly recommended it be awarded to Starlink instead, the Post reports, citing an unnamed source with knowledge of the plans. So far, the formal process of unwinding one contract and awarding it to another company has reportedly not been followed. Several senior FAA officials have refused to sign the contract, leading Musk’s team to seek help from a Trump appointee within the agency.
Much of Musk’s wealth comes from government largesse. According to the Post, his companies have received approximately $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits over the years.
There have been four commercial aircraft crashes globally in the last 11 weeks, as well as a handful of private plane crashes and several near misses. Meanwhile, the air traffic control system appears to be in chaos, with hundreds of employees cut. Despite air travel being safer than it has ever been before, many people are left with the perception of a global aviation system that’s coming apart at the seams.
President Donald Trump says his 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, and additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese imports will go into effect as scheduled on March 4th, unless imports of drugs including fentanyl are stopped or “seriously limited.”
“Drugs are still pouring into our Country from Mexico and Canada at very high and unacceptable levels,” Trump writes in a Truth Social post, without elaborating on the source of his information. “A large percentage of these Drugs, much of them in the form of Fentanyl, are made in, and supplied by, China.”
Earlier this month, the President agreed to pause tariffs on Canada and Mexico for one month, but the new post indicates that the Trump administration is preparing for those agreements to expire. He adds that a separate April 2nd deadline for reciprocal tariffs on countries that impose their own fees on US imports remains in effect. That later wave of tariffs could include a 25 percent tax on computer chips.
If you play Roblox on a Chromebook, things could feel faster soon. Roblox is rolling out an x86 version of the game “built specifically for Chromebooks,” where players can expect “up to 2x faster performance on x86 devices across all your favorite games and experiences,” according to a ChromeOS blog post.
This will translate to “smoother gameplay, quicker load times, and an overall better Roblox experience,” the blog post says, and it includes a few vague charts to help support that. Frame rates in two popular experiences, Adopt Me! and Brookhaven RP, will increase by 99 percent and 67 percent, respectively, but the post doesn’t include the specific frame rate counts. Load times in those games will apparently be reduced by 54 percent and 55 percent, too, but there aren’t specifics on exactly how many seconds those improvements will shave off.
The blog post also says that Chromebook players will be able to get a “special Chrome jetpack for your avatar” and an item in Bloxburg, another popular Roblox game. And YouTube Shorts creators can try out a new Shorts effect that gives you a Roblox-themed head.
Heart rate monitoring on the Powerbeats Pro 2 isn’t fully baked yet. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Bad news for folks hoping the Powerbeats Pro 2 can replace their chest strap at the gym: while the workout buds are great at playing music and can connect to various gym equipment to track heart rate, they can’t do both at the same time. At least, not on iOS.
The issue was pointed out in YouTuber DC Rainmaker’s review of the buds. Rainmaker, who’s trusted by fitness enthusiasts for his rigorous heart rate and GPS testing, says that Apple confirmed the issue. The Verge also reached out for further clarification, but did not immediately receive a response.
In my testing, I unfortunately couldn’t get the Powerbeats Pro 2 to connect with the treadmills or bikes at my local gym (because it’s hard to get any peripherals to connect to the ancient machines there). Regardless, it’s counterintuitive to make users choose between heart rate and music on gym equipment. The whole draw of adding heart rate to headphones is that you can theoretically consolidate workout peripherals.
Rainmaker, and other fitness influencers like Shervin Shares, also maintain that the Powerbeats Pro 2 don’t track heart rate on iOS apps as reliably as they do on Android apps. On that front, Apple and Beats told The Verge in a press briefing that heart rate features on iOS were limited to seven partner apps at launch: Runna, Nike Run Club, Open, YaoYao, Slopes, Peloton, and Ladder. We were told that apps like Strava, Zwift, and even Apple’s own Fitness Plus are incompatible with heart rate tracking, but that Apple hopes to expand the partner list in the future.
In the iOS partner apps, the heart rate function is supposed to start up automatically without the user having to do anything. I tested the Powerbeats Pro 2 with Peloton and Ladder on iOS and had zero issues with connectivity and accuracy, though I stuck to low-to-mid intensity workouts like yoga and strength training.
These app limitations, however, don’t apply to Android — the buds work with any Android app that supports a Bluetooth heart rate tracker. One could argue this all traces back to Apple wanting things to “just work” within its ecosystem — and the complications arising from that. For example, the buds are programmed so that if you use them with an Apple Watch, the Apple Watch’s heart rate data will always take precedence even if you’d prefer to use the Powerbeats instead. Users aren’t given a choice. The buds don’t, however, impose that limitation on other third-party headphones with heart rate tracking, like the Sennheiser Momentum Sport or chest straps.
For these reasons, plus the fact that it’s unwieldy to view the Powerbeats Pro 2’s heart rate data in the Health app, we noted in our review that the heart rate feature isn’t particularly useful — especially for athletes who use Apple Watches or want the greatest freedom over their heart rate peripherals.
Update, February 27th:Clarified that the gym equipment and music issue affects iOS only.
Disney Plus will begin exclusively airing a bite-sized version of ESPN’s SportsCenter, the company announced on Thursday. The show, called SC Plus, will feature a “fast-paced” update with the day’s most important moments in sports. It debuts on March 3rd.
SC Plus will be based on SportsCenter’s top 10 format, offering a quick rundown of notable plays and other highlights. SportsCenter’s Gary Striewski and Randy Scott will host the show weekdays at 9AM ET, while Hannah Storm and Jay Harris will take over on weekends. Each episode will run for around 15 minutes, according to Variety, and will be aimed at more casual sports fans.
The move continues to blur the line between Disney Plus and ESPN Plus, as Disney already added an ESPN tile to Disney Plus in December 2024. The new SC Plus show could also give viewers a taste of what to expect from the more expansive ESPN streaming service coming later this year, which will include live content from the network’s linear channels, along with additional features like betting.
DoorDash is paying restitution after keeping tips from as many as 63,000 of its New York delivery workers thanks to a settlement with the New York Attorney General’s office, The New York Times reports. Attorney General Letitia James announced on Monday that DoorDash will pay $16.8 million, which will be spread across workers who were subjected to the company’s “guaranteed pay” model that subsidized payments against customer tips.
DoorDash will additionally pay up to $1 million in administrator costs to help make the payments happen. Some workers are expected to get several thousand dollars, others as much as $14,000, a spokesperson for the New York Attorney General’s office told The New York Times. The Office of the Attorney General will determine which workers are eligible and how much they’re repaid. DoorDash also made similar settlements with Illinois for $11.3 million in November and with Washington DC for $2.5 million in 2020.
From May 2017 through September 2019, DoorDash’s payment model would “guarantee” a certain payout to workers whether customers tipped or not. However, what the company didn’t make clear was that it was really giving a base pay of $1 and would use tips from customers before doling out money towards the guaranteed amount. For instance, if a delivery job had guaranteed payment of $10 to the worker and the customer tipped $6, DoorDash would pay the worker $1 plus the $6 tip, then fill in the remaining $3 to add up to the guarantee. If they tipped $7 or $8, the worker wouldn’t be paid anything extra — DoorDash would pocket the difference instead.
DoorDash’s model of using tips for workers’ base pay came into light in July 2019 and was met with scrutiny by the workers and customers which pushed the company to promise change in the policy. In an August 2019 response to the situation, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu tweeted that they thought they were “doing the right thing for Dashers by making them whole if a customer left no tip, but the feedback we’ve received recently made clear that some of our customers who were leaving tips felt like their tips didn’t matter.”
Not only was the guaranteed pay system deceitful to workers, the state complaint alleged, but it was also misleading to customers since the app promised “Dashers will always receive 100 percent of the tip,” which is only technically accurate. The New York Attorney General’s office also noted that disclosures of how tips work were buried to the point of inaccessibility during the ordering process.
During the 2021 pandemic, DoorDash and Grubhub were also sued by the city of Chicago for unfair fees and tipping policies. The case is ongoing.
Ideal for small and medium sized jobs, from smartphone repairs to PC builds.
Many years ago, I built my first PC inside a repurposed Gateway chassis with just a regular old screwdriver and a grounding bracelet. I’ll spare you the ugly details, but let’s just say I wish I had tools specially made for the job. If you want to avoid pain in your own projects, you should consider picking up Hoto’s 48-in-1 Electric Precision Screwdriver set. It has everything you need to pry open gadgets for fine adjustments, yet costs just $69.99 ($40 off) on sale at Amazon and Walmart. That price matches the record low from Black Friday.
The cordless electric screwdriver is a bit skinnier but longer than some of the other Hoto variants we’ve recommended, which is what you want in tighter quarters. It offers two torque speeds, allowing you to dial it up for stubborn screws or down for softly reassembling fragile items.
Among the included magnetic screwdriver bits are half a dozen options with 45mm shafts for extra reach. You’ll get 20 more 28mm bits to cover a range of common screw heads. The package also contains a variety of spudgers, picks, priers, and tweezers, along with a suction cup, a magnetic pad that doubles as a ruler, and things to help you stay grounded to protect yourself and your electronics. Everything is neatly secured in the included storage case, which also has a dedicated magnetizer and demagnetizer, plus an external USB-C port to charge the screwdriver while it’s docked.
Other deals you might like
Samsung just announced a blistering fast PCIe Gen 5 SSD, but if you’re buying an SSD purely for gaming, you can get by just fine and save money with the last-gen Samsung 990 EVO Plus. The 1TB model is down to $74.99 ($35 off) at Amazon, or you can step up to 2TB for $129.99 ($55 off) — both are new record lows. The M.2 NVMe drives are primarily limited to PCIe Gen 4 speeds, with read/write values of 7.2GBps and 6.3GBps, respectively. That’s still very fast for heavy file transfers and more than enough for SSD-optimized PC games to play their best. You can also install one inside a PlayStation 5 for expanded storage.
Prime members can get Ugreen’s MagFlow 2-in-1 charging stand for $23.99 ($36 off) at Amazon, which is an all-time low price. It has a magnetic holder for your MagSafe iPhone, but note: it doesn’t have Qi2’s 15W charging speed. That might be fine if you’re just using it as a bedside stand for overnight charging, however. The stand features a ball join that lets you adjust the viewing angle. There’s also a Qi pad in the base to charge your wireless earbuds. Be aware that the package doesn’t include the required 20W wall adapter.
The JBL Authentics 200 is available at a new all-time low of $199.95 ($150 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. The smart speaker sounds really good for its small stature, but surprisingly, it doesn’t have a battery to make it truly portable like the bigger and more powerfulAuthentics 300 does, which is also on sale for a record low $299.95 ($150 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. Both take on a retro-inspired appearance, but include modern smarts with both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant built in, plus diverse connectivity options including Wi-Fi (supporting AirPlay, Chromecast, and the like), Bluetooth, and aux. Read our hands-on impressions.
The DJI Dock 3 is small enough to fit a couple into the back of a pickup truck. | Image: DJI
DJI has announced the third iteration of its drone-in-a-box solution designed for autonomous missions like safely inspecting power lines and emergency response. As with previous versions, the DJI Dock 3 is small enough to be transported in the back of a pickup truck, but it’s the first that allows DJI’s new Matrice 4D and Matrice 4TD drones to be launched from a moving vehicle using an optional gimbal mount accessory.
Although the company hasn’t revealed how much that special mount for mobile launches will cost, the new DJI Dock 3 will be available in two bundles priced for enterprise customers with sizable budgets. It can be purchased with the DJI Matrice 4D drone for $21,059, or with the Matrice 4TD for $23,409. Those prices don’t include installation, deployment services, or optional hardware upgrades and software features.
The new dock carries forward several features from previous versions like a built-in weather station, antennas, surveillance cameras, and an internal backup battery. It still needs access to power and the internet, but can be upgraded with a cellular 4G dongle for remote deployment.
The DJI Dock 3 has an improved IP56 rating for dust and water-resistance and its operational temperature range has been expanded to as hot as 50 degrees Celsius, or as cold as -30 degrees Celsius — although DJI says preheating will be needed when temperatures are that cold.
It can communicate with drones on missions as far as 10 kilometers away, but that range can be extended to up to 25 kilometers for fixed deployments (such as on a highrise building) through the use of relays mounted at elevated locations. But that’s assuming your local jurisdiction allows drones to be operated autonomously or at those distances. In the US, the FAA requires drone operators to obtain a Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waiver for remote operation at extended distances.
The Dock 3 is designed to work with new IP55-rated water and dust-resistant versions of the DJI Matrice 4 Series of drones that launched earlier this year. The Matrice 4D and 4TD both feature ant-ice propeller blades, 47 minute flight times, and a combination of wide-angle, medium tele, and telephoto cameras. The Matrice 4TD has expanded night time capabilities with the addition of an infrared thermal camera and a near-infrared auxiliary light for added illumination.
Amazon is making its foray into quantum computing with the launch of a new chip designed to make quantum error correction more efficient. In an announcement on Thursday, Amazon Web Services (AWS) said the chip, called Ocelot, can “reduce the costs of implementing quantum error correction by up to 90%, compared to current approaches.”
Quantum computing errors are one of the biggest challenges in the industry. Unlike traditional computers, quantum computing replaces binary 1s and 0s with qubits, a unit that can exist in multiple states at the same time. As noted by Amazon, qubits are “sensitive to the smallest changes, or ‘noise’ in their environment,” such as vibrations, heat, and electromagnetic interference, making it “extremely challenging to build quantum computers that can perform reliable, error-free calculations of any significant complexity.”
Instead of adding more qubits to correct these errors, Amazon built error correction into its Ocelot chip with what it calls “cat qubits” (named after the Schrödinger’s cat experiment). These qubits are supposed to reduce the amount of energy and resources used for quantum error correction as they “intrinsically suppress” certain kinds of errors.
“We didn’t take an existing architecture and then try to incorporate error correction afterwards,” Oskar Painter, Amazon Web Services’ director of quantum hardware, said in the press release. “We selected our qubit and architecture with quantum error correction as the top requirement.”
The approach differs from what Google and Microsoft are doing to reduce errors in quantum computing. In December, Google announced its Willow quantum computing chip, which can perform a computing challenge in less than five minutes. The company’s researchers also found that introducing more qubits into the system can help reduce errors. Meanwhile, Microsoft recently announced its Majorana 1 quantum computing processor, which it claims can “scale to a million qubits on a single chip” while reducing errors.
Amazon says its Ocelot chip is still a prototype, but the chip’s more efficient architecture could potentially allow for smaller quantum computers that use less resources.
Crypto is, once again, exploding. Momentum born of a potentially friendlier regulatory atmosphere has met rising coin values, with Bitcoin more than doubling in value last year. Meanwhile, powered by advances to the underlying infrastructure, crypto is evolving beyond speculation and into real utility. Thatâs driving new use cases for AI and enabling seamless experiences across gaming and more.
Saga has emerged as a key enabler of these shifts, providing scalable, on-demand blockspace for AI, gaming, and decentralized finance (DeFi). The companyâs efforts are facilitating industry acceleration â âmore, faster,â as Saga puts it â expected to continue throughout 2025. With that in mind, here are a few predictions for whatâs to come.
AI will unlock new possibilities
Artificial intelligence continues to work its way into more and more of our daily lives. Itâs getting better at automating tasks and enhancing our work, and continued investments will only keep growing AIâs influence. But when it comes to certain real-world datasets, AI runs into some limitations. It would never be trusted with the keys to its own bank account, for instance.
Hey, and welcome to Decoder. This is Alex Heath, deputy editor at The Verge. I’m guest hosting today’s episode for Nilay.
Today, we’re diving into the bromance between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, and more specifically, how it’s impacting the changing right-wing political movement here in the United States.
There’s no better place to get that temperature check than the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. Musk showed up there this year for a wild interview — you may have seen clips of him waving around a literal chainsaw.
Since Musk got close to Trump, I’ve been curious to know how MAGA diehards really feel about that relationship. I’ve also been wondering if this administration will go easier on tech companies now that so many of their CEOs have kissed the ring.
Thankfully, The Verge’s policy reporter, Gaby Del Valle, was on the ground for us at CPAC this year. As you’ll hear her say, she barely slept. But she got a front-row, fascinating look at how the world of MAGA really feels about Musk, his Department of Government Efficiency, and regulating big tech. Even if you’re already sick of hearing about the current state of American politics, I think you’ll learn something from our conversation. I know I did.
If you’d like to learn more about the topics we discussed in this episode, check out the links below:
I cannot describe how strange Elon Musk’s CPAC appearance was | The Verge
At CPAC, the world’s populists parrot the leader who inspired them | Politico
Government still threatening to ‘semi-fire’ workers who don’t answer Musk email | The Verge
In 2022, I watched a video of mine and wanted to hide under a rock. My skin looked sallow, the dark circles under my eyes pronounced. Loved ones reassured me I was seeing things, but commenters confirmed my worst insecurities. While relating my woes to a friend, she interrupted my pity party to say I was using the wrong foundation color. Did I know my undertone? Choosing the wrong color, she warned, could make me look far more jaundiced on camera than in real life.
About three years later, I finally found the right shade of foundation. I didnât find it at Sephora, Ulta, or the K-beauty counter at my local H Mart. I custom-printed it using the $295 BoldHue.
BoldHue is a foundation printer that pairs with your phone. The back panel hides six cartridges: five for pigments (red, blue, yellow, white, and black), and a sixth containing a base with skincare ingredients, including glycerin, propanediol, vitamin E, vegan squalane, and antioxidants like tremella mushroom and rice bran extract. These are popular ingredients to hydrate and protect the skin. Unlike most commercial foundations, which use four pigments, BoldHue adds blue to the mix, increasing the number of possible shades. …
Like its predecessor, Pokémon Legends: Z-Ais bringing back three classic starter pokémon to get you started on your next adventure.
Though Pokémon Legends: Z-A will likely introduce a number of new creatures, Chikorita, Tepig, and Totodile will be the first three partner pokémon you can choose between as you journey into the depths of Lumiose City. The starters were the stars of the Pokémon Legends: Z-A teaser The Pokémon Company debuted during this year’s Pokémon Presents. Details about the game are still sparse, but we now know a little bit more about how its battles will work.
Like other Pokémon games, you will be able to fight wild pokémon found throughout certain areas, but rather than just launching attacks turn by turn, Legends: Z-A will require players to think strategically about the range moves have and where their monsters are on the battlefield. The video — which focuses on how moves can have different effects and levels of damage depending on a pokémon’s position on the field — makes Legends: Z-A’s battles look a bit like fighting in Diablo.
The video also emphasizes how, because the game is set entirely in Lumiose, many of the areas where wild pokémon can be found are special locations like alleys and rooftops, where the creatures are learning to cohabitate with humans. Like in Pokémon Legends: Arceus, players will be able to catch monsters without battling in some cases by simply throwing pokéballs at them from a distance.
That mechanic, in particular, should make the game feel much more fluid than Scarlet and Violet, but we won’t know for sure until Pokémon Legends: Z-A debuts for the Switch family of systems sometime later this year.
To celebrate the day when Pikachu pika’d his way into our hearts and minds almost 30 years ago, The Pokémon Company held a Pokémon Presents showcase highlighting what games and experiences to expect in the coming months. There were updates on Pokémon Legends: Z-A, a new season of Pokémon Concierge, and a totally new multiplayer gameplay: Pokémon Champions.
While the reveal was light on the specifics, Champions appears to a game focused solely on battling. Players will be able to import their pokémon from Pokémon Scarlet or Violet, Pokémon Home, and other games into Champions to use in battles against players around the world. There are restrictions, however, on the pokémon you can use. The fine print says that not every pokémon available in Home and elsewhere will be available in Champions and those obtained in Champions cannot be ported back to Home.
It seems like Champions is a gamified version of the online battle simulators competitive Pokémon players use to test team composition and monster builds. The Pokémon Company was specific in that the game is coming to “the Nintendo Switch family of systems,” indicating this game might make an appearance on the forthcoming Switch 2. It’s also coming to Android and iOS.
Pokémon is a very malleable franchise, able to fit a wide variety of game genres that The Pokémon Company seems keen to experiment with. There was Pokken Tournament for the fighting game community, Pokémon UNITE for the MOBA fans, all the casual co-op and 1v1 experiences in the mainline games, and so much more. (Anybody remember Pokémon Conquest, the strategy RPG that was essentially Pikachu meets Nobunaga’s Ambition?) With Pokémon Champions, The Pokémon Company has found yet another way to reach gamers outside of its core games.
Sony is cutting the price of its PlayStation VR 2 headset in March. The VR 2 will be discounted to just $399.99, down from the original $549 pricing when it launched in February 2023. The headset will also see a price cut in Europe (€449.99), the UK (£399.99), Japan (¥66,980), and other regions.
Sony is positioning the price cut as a “fantastic time to dive into the exciting world of PS VR2,” but it also comes nearly a year after the company reportedly paused PSVR 2 production to clear excess inventory nearly . A Bloomberg report in March suggested Sony was trying to shift unsold inventory of the VR2 headset, and this fresh price cut suggests that the PS5 accessory still isn’t selling as well as Sony had hoped.
At $549, it was more expensive than the PS5 itself, and a lack of content has certainly held it back. The $399 pricing could certainly help shift units, particularly as you can also use the VR 2 headset on a PC now thanks to Sony’s $60 adapter. Sony is also reportedly working on Apple Vision Pro support for its PSVR 2 controllers, which we might hear about at some point this year.
Each Pokémon Presents stream is special in its own way, but we’re expecting big things from this year’s showcase given the imminent arrival of the Switch 2. A new console means a new generation of games like Pokémon Legends: Z-A and the franchise’s next mainline title. But there should also be some major updates for more casual games like Pokémon TCG Pocket, Pokémon Sleep, and Pokémon Go. We’ve already gotten a little (animated) taste of what Nintendo has been cooking up, but there are even more reveals in store, which you can follow along with right here.
Instagram is reportedly considering spinning its Reels feature into a standalone short-form video app to take advantage of TikTok’s uncertain future in the US. Instagram head Adam Mosseri was overheard discussing the plans with staff this week according to an anonymous source cited by The Information.
The Reels app is reportedly part of a Meta initiative code-named Project Ray which aims to help Instagram better compete against TikTok. Plans include improving how Instagram content is recommended and bringing more three-minute-long Reels videos to users in the US.
TikTok has around 170 million US users and still faces a ban after being given a 75-day extension by President Donald Trump in January. During TikTok’s temporary removal from app stores last month, Instagram released Edits — a blatant riff on the CapCut video editing app owned by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance — and allegedly tried to lure creators to its own platform with cash bonuses.
It’s unclear if Reels would still be integrated into Instagram if it does get its own separate app, but a dedicated short-form video platform would be closer to the curated scrolling experience provided by TikTok. This would be Meta’s second attempt to launch a direct TikTok competitor after releasing the standalone video-sharing app Lasso in 2018 — and later shutting the app down in 2020 to focus on Reels.
Xiaomi has announced its 15 Ultra flagship phone at a launch event in China, where it’s going on sale starting at 6,499 yuan (around $893). The Android phone joins the company’s Xiaomi 15 and 15 Pro, which went on sale there in October 2024. It is a mostly iterative upgrade on last year’s model, but the big change is the addition of a 200-megapixel periscope camera that the company says excels in low light. The 15 series, including the Ultra, is getting an international launch this Sunday, March 2nd, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Exactly which markets it will go on sale in remains to be seen, but it’s a safe bet that this one won’t be coming to the US.
Xiaomi’s Ultra line has always been camera-centric, even more so than Samsung or Apple’s top models, and the 15 Ultra is no different. Like last year’s 14 Ultra, the quad rear camera is arrayed in an enormous circular module on the phone’s rear. It’s designed to resemble photography partner Leica’s dedicated camera hardware, right down to the two-tone silver and black finish, and compact “Ultra” corner logo found on one of the phone’s three versions. There are also simpler black or white models.
The 200-megapixel 4.3x periscopic lens follows similar periscopes in Vivo’s X100 Ultra and X200 Pro, and Honor’s Magic 7 Pro. This is a shorter zoom than the 5x periscope on the 14 Ultra, but uses a larger sensor, faster aperture, and higher resolution, which Xiaomi says results in better light capture, bringing improvements in zoom photography, especially in lower light. Xiaomi even codenamed the phone “Night God” internally, so low light photography is clearly a focus this year.
The other three rear sensors are all 50-megapixel, and are set up similarly to last year’s model, albeit with small variations. The most noteworthy change is to the main camera, which has dropped the variable aperture tech featured on the previous model in favor of a fixed — but fast — f/1.63.
The photography focus is enhanced by the release of Xiaomi’s third-generation Photography Kit, an optional extra that includes a case and a camera grip. Beyond a new red finish, not much has changed here either: the internal battery is a little larger at 2,000mAh(allowing this to double as a small power bank for the phone), and there’s a new thumb rest, but the core camera controls remain the same: a shutter button, video button, zoom lever, and exposure dial.
Beyond the inevitable upgrade to the current-generation Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, there are few other upgrades or design changes. The 6.73-inch displayis again 1-120Hz but a little brighter at 3,200 nits peak HDR brightness.An IP68 rating returns, too. The 6,000mAh battery is significantly larger, but the 90W wired charging and 80W wireless speeds are unchanged. As with other recent Android flagships, there’s still no sign of Qi2 adoption.
I thought the 14 Ultra was last year’s best phone camera by some distance, and my colleague Allison called it “a photography nerd’s dream,” so Xiaomi has set itself a high bar to live up to. This was such a strong camera, it’s understandable that the company has kept changes to a minimum this time around. But we’re looking forward to finding out whether its one big upgrade, the periscope, will deliver.
Europe has an electric bike problem. Direct-to-consumer e-bikes from inexpensive Chinese brands like Engwe and countless others can be easily purchased online despite openly flouting EU restrictions. They feature throttles and powerful motors that can be easily unlocked to far exceed the 25km/h (16mph) legal speed limit â no pedaling required.
Engweâs new Mapfour lineup is the companyâs attempt at going legit by expanding from souped-up electric fat bikes and foldables into âpremium commuterâ e-bikes. And because theyâre the first e-bikes that Engwe has designed exclusively for European roads, the company swears they canât be unlocked for more speed.
Iâve been riding the new Mapfour N1 Pro model for the last few weeks. It lists for â¬1,899 (almost $2,000), or â¬1,799 during the initial launch â a price that brings heightened expectations.
The N1 Pro is slathered in premium capabilities like GPS/GSM tracki …
