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 best-selling 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?
If you’ve ever owned a Galaxy device, you’ve likely heard Samsung’s “Over the Horizon” song as a part of the default ringtone on your device. For 2025 and just in time for the Galaxy S25 launch, Samsung is giving “Over the Horizon” a jazzy reimagining.
A much-awaited feature is coming to the Pokémon TCG Pocket app sometime this month: Trading. In the game, which The Pokémon Company brought to mobile late last year, players can collect cards by opening digital booster packs. They can then use the Pokémon cards they get to battle each other. When the trading feature goes live, they'll also be able to improve their decks by trading with other people, though the feature will come with a set of limitations.
Players will only be able to trade cards with their friends, and the cards must be of the same rarity. Both criteria potentially limit the cards players can obtain. To note, the game has eight rarity levels, and cards from the three highest tiers — the ones most difficult to draw — cannot be traded for now. In addition, The Pokémon Company has revealed that "items must be consumed in order to trade," though it didn't specify what those items are and how many will be expended per transaction. Finally, while only certain cards from the Genetic Apex and Mythical Island booster packs can be traded at launch, the company said that it's planning to expand the pack selection players can trade from.
There's no specific release date for trading yet, but the company seems to be open to suggestions when it comes to improving the feature. It's inviting everyone to try the feature and send in feedback when it becomes available, so that "the game can continue to evolve in an enjoyable way for everyone."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/card-trading-is-coming-to-the-pokemon-tcg-app-133009689.html?src=rss
Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Brendan Hoffman, Getty Images
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.)
“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.
“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, 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.”
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.”
Walt and Waldo escapd separate slaughter operations in different towns over the summer. We were able to rescue both, and they became each other’s comfort as they adjusted in quarantine. Usually, the quarantine period is only a few weeks and then new residents move in with existing groups, but Walt experienced some serious medical emergencies that took him a long time to heal from, and Waldo stayed by his side during those months. Finally, we were able to move this pair into the main sheep barn and watch them integrate into their new family, which was so special to watch. #whywoodstock
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, 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.
“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.
Later this month, a FireAid Benefit Concert is being held in support of the victims of the Los Angeles wildfires. Headlined by the likes of Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Dave Matthews, and Katy Perry, the concert aims to raise donations for wildfire relief efforts.
Bloomberg now reports that the FireAid Benefit Concert will be streamed on all major streaming services, including Apple TV+.
Apple’s incoming CFO didn’t get much time to settle in before he found himself in court defending the company against a class action lawsuit. Kevan Parekh yesterday claimed that the company that it has no clue about its App Store profit margin.
This is a stance the company has taken before. Indeed, Apple Fellow Phil Schiller even went as far as to claim he didn’t even know whether the App Store made a profit at all …
9to5Mac Security Bite is exclusively brought to you by Mosyle, the only Apple Unified Platform.Making Apple devices work-ready and enterprise-safe is all we do. Our unique integrated approach to management and security combines state-of-the-art Apple-specific security solutions for fully automated Hardening & Compliance, Next Generation EDR, AI-powered Zero Trust, and exclusive Privilege Management with the most powerful and modern Apple MDM on the market. The result is a totally automated Apple Unified Platform currently trusted by over 45,000 organizations to make millions of Apple devices work-ready with no effort and at an affordable cost. Request your EXTENDED TRIAL today and understand why Mosyle is everything you need to work with Apple.
Between the rapid news cycle around the TikTok ban, the vulnerability found in the iPhone’s USB-C port controller, and the overruling of net neutrality protections (again), it’s felt like a rollercoaster of a month so far. But this week, I want to step back and share what’s on my growing reading list for this year, as well as some other resources that I recommend for those just starting their Apple security journey in 2025.
Security Bite is a weekly security-focused column on 9to5Mac. Each week, I share insights on data privacy, discuss the latest vulnerabilities, and shed light on emerging threats within Apple’s vast ecosystem of over 2 billion active devices.
Sony has canceled two more live-service games, one from its remake and remaster studio Bluepoint and another from Days Gone developer Bend Studio in Oregon, the company confirmed to Bloomberg. Neither studio will be closed, though the company has yet to say if any layoffs will occur. "We are working closely with each studio to determine what are the next projects," a spokesperson said.
Bluepoint is the studio that created the much-lauded remakes of Demon’s Souls and Shadow of the Colossus. The company reportedly helped with God of War Ragnarok from 2022-2022, and following that, was working on the live-service project canceled yesterday, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier said in a post on BlueSky. Bend Studio has been a first-party developer for Sony since 2000, with its most recent project being the action-adventure game Days Gone, released for PS4 in 2019.
The cancelations are the latest failures for Sony in the GaaS (games as a service) arena, following the spectacular flameout of Concord in September 2024. While the company did have a hit with Helldivers II last year, it reportedly canceled several other live-service games in the last several years, including one based on Spider-Man. Sony Interactive Entertainment cut around 1,120 jobs in 2024 across various studios, including Bungie, Naughty Dog and Insomniac — part of an unfortunate trend in the industry.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/sony-axes-two-more-live-service-games-130048000.html?src=rss
So it looks like the TikTok ban may actually be happening, barring a last-minute Supreme Court decision. In this episode, Senior Writer Karissa Bell joins Devindra and Ben to discuss the potential finale of TikTok in America, as well as why some users are finding refuge in RedNote, a Chinese Instagram clone. They also dive into why Meta is giving up on third-party fact checkers, and how this relates to Mark Zuckerberg's descent into the right-wing world. Finally, we explore the tidbits of information from Nintendo's Switch 2 unveiling.
Stay tuned to the end of this episode for Devindra’s chat with Dan Erickson, the creator of Severance, about season two of his hit show.
Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!
Meta abandons fact checking, loosens hate speech rules on its platforms – 22:21
We finally have confirmation of the Switch 2, full unveil scheduled for April 2 – 40:57
Pop culture picks – 49:29.187
Credits
Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Karissa Bell Producer: Ben Ellman Music: Dale North
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/engadget-podcast-the-tiktok-ban-zucks-lost-soul-and-nintendos-switch-2-reveal-123027317.html?src=rss
Heavy drinking is clearly bad for your health. But it's long been questioned whether moderate drinking is also risky—and, if so, how risky, exactly.
Health researchers have consistently found links between alcohol consumption and several types of cancers (namely mouth, throat, colon, rectal, liver, and breast), as well as liver diseases, injuries, and traffic accidents. But nailing down the health risks from the lower levels of drinking has been tricky. For one, much of the data on moderate drinking are from observational studies in different countries, cultures, and populations. They cannot determine if alcohol is the direct cause of any given association, and they may be swayed by other lifestyle factors. The resulting data can be noisy and inconsistent.
Moreover, many studies rely on people to self-report whether they drink and, if so, how much, which is problematic because people may not accurately assess and/or report how much they actually drink. A related problem is that studies in the past often compared drinkers to people who said they didn't drink. But, the trouble is, non-drinking groups are often some mix of people who are lifelong abstainers and people who used to drink but quit for some reason—maybe because of health effects. This latter group has the potential to have lingering health effects from their drinking days, which could skew any comparisons looking for health differences.
Google has notified the European Union that it won’t integrate work from fact-checking organizations into Search or YouTube, ahead of the bloc’s plans to expand disinformation laws. Google had previously signed a set of voluntary commitments that the EU introduced in 2022 to reduce the impact of online disinformation, which are in the process of being formalized into law under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
In a letter written to the European Commission’s content and technology czar Renate Nikolay seen by Axios, Google’s global affairs president Kent Walker affirmed that Google won’t commit to the fact-checking requirement as it “simply isn’t appropriate or effective for our services.” Google will also “pull out of all fact-checking commitments in the Code” before the rules become law in the DSA Code of Conduct, according to Walker.
Currently, the EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation commits signatories to work with fact-checkers in all EU countries, make their work available to users in all EU languages, and cut financial incentives for spreading disinformation on their platforms. The code also compels companies to make it easier for users to recognize, understand, and flag disinformation, alongside labeling political ads and analyzing fake accounts, bots, and malicious deep fakes that spread disinformation. The commitments are not legally binding, however.
Fact-checking isn’t currently included as part of Google’s content moderation practices. The company objected to some of the code’s requirements in its agreement, saying that “Search and YouTube will endeavour to reach agreements with fact checking organizations in line with this measure, but services will not have complete control over this process.”
It’s unclear whether all of the code’s requirements will be formalized into official rules under the DSA — EU lawmakers have been in discussions with signatories regarding which commitments they will agree to follow. The Commission has yet to announce when the code will officially become law, having said in November that it’s expected to come into force by January 2025 “at the earliest.”
