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Nintendo Switch 2 is officially coming to stores on June 5. In just over two months, you might have the opportunity to own Nintendo's newest (and most expensive) console and play the latest Switch 2 exclusives (Mario Kart World looks ridiculously fun), assuming you can snag one of them. Because if you want to boot up a Switch 2 on launch day, you'll almost certainly need to preorder it. Unless you're lucky enough to find a store that has extra consoles in stock, or there turns out to be exceptionally low demand (unlikely given eight years of building anticipation among the Nintendo faithful), these things are going to be a rare commodity. One option, of course, is to preorder a system directly through Nintendo—but the company's requirements to do so are anything but orthodox. How to "register your interest" for a Switch 2Nintendo doesn't consider theirs a "preorder" program, per se. Instead, the company invites you to "register your interest" in buying a Switch 2. Assuming you're at least 18 years old, you'll need to head to Nintendo's official interest registration site, then sign into your Nintendo Account. Once Nintendo has confirmed your eligibility, it will send an invitation to the email address registered with your Nintendo Account. This invitation gives you the option to buy one Switch 2 console—either the standalone unit or the bundle with a digital copy of Mario Kart World. This invite will be good for 72 hours. Easy enough, right? It's not that simple. Only experienced gamers need applyThis is first come, first serve program, so the sooner you are able to register, the better your chance of being selected. On top of that, this...let's call it a "purchasing opportunity" is only open to registrants who have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription with at least 12 months of paid service. But the requirement that seems most out of left field to me is this: You also need to have at least 50 hours of gameplay associated with the Nintendo Account you use to register, as of April 2, 2025. If you don't meet any of these criteria, you'll be put on an overflow list. Nintendo will only start sending invites to members of this waitlist once the registrants who meet the requirements have all been invited. Fifty hours of gameplay is a bizarre requirement (can't I just give you money, Nintendo?) but you can see the company's reasoning. As a mega-hyped piece of hardware, the Switch 2 is a prime target for scalpers. By setting strict requirements for who can register for an invitation to purchase one (and by limiting each registration to one console purchase) Nintendo is trying to ensure that only true Nintendo fans get first crack. Scalpers won't even be able to make multiple Nintendo Accounts in order to get around these limits, as the aforementioned 50 hours of gameplay had to be logged before today, April 2. Unless scalpers knew the rules well ahead of time, any dummy accounts they make leading up to the Switch 2 launch will be useless. Even as someone with well over 50 hours of gameplay on my Nintendo Account, this all feels a bit weird. Perhaps its the data privacy geek in me, but it doesn't sit well with me that I need to share my gameplay with Nintendo in order to prove that I am, indeed, worthy of buying a Switch 2. Tie the purchase to my Nintendo Account, fine, but I'm not sure I like the precedent here. Because even if you have those 50 hours, you might not be eligible, since you also need to have opted in to share that data with Nintendo. Nintendo's language isn't totally clear here, so it's not obvious to me if it counts to if you opt in today, or if you had to have already opted in before the program was announced. If you want to maximize your chances of being selected to buy through Nintendo, it's time to check your Nintendo Account privacy settings and ensure that you are sharing your usage information with Nintendo under Data Usage – Opt-Out Preferences. When do invitations to buy a Switch 2 go out?Strange privacy implications aside, here's what happens after you register: Nintendo says the first round of invites will go out May 8, 2025, with subsequent rounds sending off "periodically" until purchases are available for all. The email will come from no-reply@noa.nintendo.com, so consider adding that to your email whitelist if you have an overzealous spam filter. If selected, you'll be able to buy your chosen Switch 2 console or bundle (the standalone system is $449, while the Mario Kart World bundle is $499) as well as a "variety of additional items." My guess is that will include the new Pro Controller, the retro GameCube controller, and perhaps additional Joy-Cons, as well as any other types of accessories Nintendo dreams up. As with the system itself, you'll only be able to purchase one of each of these additional items. Nintendo accepts Visa, Mastercard, Google Pay, and Apple Pay—but not Nintendo eShop gift cards. The company will also only ship products directly to customers, and will not make orders available at its two retail locations. Of course, Nintendo isn't the only company you can order a Switch 2 from. You can sign up for similar alerts from other retailers, including Best Buy and GameStop, and I imagine more retailers will add their own opportunities soon enough. View the full article

Zelle has been around as a convenient digital payment platform since 2017, but has now closed down payments inside its standalone apps for Android and iOS, as it promised it would last October—though the move is a sign of Zelle's success rather than its failure, and most Zelle users aren't going to need to change anything. If you're one of the 150 million or so people who make use of Zelle, you're no longer going to be able to use the Zelle app to send money to friends, family, and businesses. However, Zelle lives on as a platform: It's now integrated into the operations of more than 2,200 financial institutions, so you'll still be able to use it through your banking app. The Zelle apps are no more because Zelle has expanded its integrations so successfully. The peer-to-peer payment system says less than two percent of transactions were being made through these apps by the end of last year, so it didn't make sense to keep them going. Nothing is changing in terms of the links to banks and credit unions—if this is how you already do your Zelle business, you might not even have noticed the standalone app has been pulled. Zelle users shifted $1 trillion in payments over the course of 2024, so as a platform it's not going anywhere anytime soon. Another reason for the switch is security. As Zelle's YouTube page is testament to, users of the app were frequently targeted by scammers—via dating apps, ticketing platforms, rental listings, online marketplaces, job boards, and so on. Having Zelle work through banking systems makes it more secure as well. How to switch Zelle is popular for peer-to-peer payments. Credit: Zelle Given that two-percent figure mentioned above, chances are that you've already set Zelle up through your bank. If not, you'll need to register a Zelle account with your bank, or switch to a financial institution that offers Zelle: You can search through this comprehensive list. Until you set up Zelle somewhere else, you won't be able to make and receive payments. The specifics will of course depend on your bank and its app, but if you click through from the list then you'll be taken to the relevant sign-up page—here's the one for Wells Fargo, for example. You need to provide your registered email address or mobile number, and the bank will do the rest (you can use the existing details already registered with Zelle). If you know your bank or credit union supports Zelle, you can also dig through the options in the official app or the official website, and you should be able to register that way too: Most of the time it'll only be a couple of steps to get Zelle set up, and you can then register the people and businesses you want to enable transactions with. Unfortunately, your payment history isn't going to move along with you, though it will be available in the Zelle app until August 11, 2025. Although payments are now blocked, the app isn't going to stop working entirely, so you've got a few months to note any records you want to keep. There are plenty of other payment platforms you can turn to, if you do want to stay out of your banking app, including Venmo, PayPal, Cash App, Google Wallet, and Apple Pay—though they don't have quite the same tight bank-account integration that you get with Zelle, and which Zelle is now focused on. View the full article

The measure applies to mortgages closed in the months prior to the Southern California wildfires, which are now experiencing early-stage distress. View the full article

For decades, the only way to buy a car was to physically go to a dealership. If that idea gives you an anxiety attack, you’re not alone, so it’s a relief to know that the industry is finally embracing online shopping—even Amazon has gotten in on the act, and about half the buyers in one survey shopped for their car online. But just like anything else on the internet, buying a car online comes with the risk of fraud. Scammers are setting up entire fake online dealerships and ripping people off to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. You might think you’re too savvy to get fleeces like that (who buys a $50,000 car sight unseen anyway?), but the risk is real. These fake online car dealership scams are fairly sophisticated and can be difficult to spot—it’s gotten so bad that some states, like Wisconsin, have issued official warnings about it. How online car dealership scams workAt its core, the scam is pretty simple: A scammer sets up a fake dealership website. Sometimes it’s an entirely fictional dealer, and sometimes the scammers hijack a real dealership's name and set up a fake site for it, often scraping the dealership’s legitimate website for graphics, text, and photos to make everything look legit. Sometimes they claim to sell classic cars, but just as often they pose as regular dealers. Step two is to adjust all the pricing on the vehicles so they’re incredibly attractive to potential buyers. In the current economic environment, where cars—used and new—are majorly expensive, folks who stumble on an amazing deal are more likely to get sucked into the scammers’ sales funnel. The "dealer" will be very responsive to messages from marks, and will provide everything you would expect a legitimate car dealership to provide—including photos and documentation. It can be extremely difficult to tell that you’re not interacting with an actual car dealership. The scam really kicks into gear when it comes time to make a down payment or negotiate a sale. Scam dealerships will usually require payment in unusual ways—typically via wire transfer—and then cease responding once they've got your money. A man in North Carolina lost $40,000 last year when he tried to buy a truck from a site claiming to sell “repossessed” vehicles at extremely low prices, while a California resident lost $24,000 to a fake online dealer when he thought he was buying a classic car. And this guy on Reddit apparently lost $55,000 to a sophisticated fake online dealer. What to look forThe scam works for a few reasons: People are increasingly comfortable making large purchases online, the in-person car buying experience is kind of terrible, and it’s relatively easy to set up a website that looks exactly like a real car dealership. If you’re thinking about buying a car online, there are a couple of things you should look for when considering an online dealership: Check with your state’s Department of Motor Vehicles or Department of Transportation to see if it maintains a list of authorized car dealers in the state, and if the dealership you’re considering is on the list. If it’s a local dealership, look up the phone number independently and contact them to ensure the website is legitimate. Be wary of unusually low prices, an inability to physically inspect and test-drive the car, and an unusual payment process. Buying a car online is convenient and less obnoxious than doing it in person—but it’s also a little more dangerous. A little extra due diligence can save you a lot of trouble. View the full article

Even a sector in secular decline can generate a lot of cash via advertising and subscriptionsView the full article

US president told confidants the billionaire’s role at Doge could end sooner than expected View the full article

In all, 42% of sales in the borough were financed, a larger share than in many recent quarters in the cash-heavy Manhattan market. View the full article

If you’re in need of some good and satisfying news, Chipotle has got you covered. The beloved burrito brand is bringing back its free burrito promotion for April 3rd’s National Burrito Day. According to the chain’s March 31 announcement, Chipotle Rewards members will once again be able to play the popular Burrito Vault game at UnlockBurritoDay.com. The game, which involves customers trying to guess exact burrito order combinations, is easy to play but comes with delicious prizes. Players will get four attempts to win BOGO (buy-one-get-one) codes. Each hour, the first 2,500 members to choose burrito orders with the correct ingredients will win free food. “Last year, our Burrito Vault drove unprecedented fan engagement that resulted in our highest digital transaction day of all time,” Chris Brandt, chief brand officer, said in the announcement. “Now, we are giving them another chance to crack the code and score more free burritos.” In addition to the BOGO deals, Chipotle is also giving Rewards Members $0 delivery fee offer for orders placed on National Burrito Day. Customers just have to use the code DELIVER on Chipotle’s app or website. The reprised promotion comes shortly after rumors about Chipotle restaurants being shuttered have swirled online. Chipotle dispelled bankruptcy rumors in a statement to Good Morning America. “The claim that Chipotle is closing restaurants is false,” a spokesperson for Chipotle told the outlet. “The false information stemmed from an inaccurate online article confusing Chipotle with a venture it tested in 2023. The story has since been corrected.” Despite rumors about the brand’s demise, it seems the reverse is actually true. In February, Fast Company reported that Chipotle was breaking records in terms of its growth. In 2024, the brand opened 304 new restaurants—the most in a single year for the chain. View the full article

There are many ways to copy text that can't be easily selected, but few that are as simple and fast as Text Lens ($6)—a new Mac app by prolific developer Sindre Sorhus. Text Lens lets you select any part of your Mac's screen and automatically copy all of the text from that part. This makes it easy to copy text from images, videos, scanned pages, settings menus, and other types of text that are otherwise impossible to grab. Text Lens vs. Apple's Live TextLive Text, which is built into macOS, allows you to capture text from screenshots. While it's good enough to get you started, it works only with Safari, Preview, and the built-in screenshot tool. You can't select text from other apps without taking a screenshot first, which adds an extra step to the process. With tools such as Text Lens, you can instantly go into selection mode to capture and copy text. There's no need to take a screenshot and then extract text. Using Text Lens on your Mac Credit: Pranay Parab Text Lens is simple and fast, but you should take a moment to configure it to make the most of the app. Once you've installed the app, click its menu bar icon and go to Settings. In the General tab, enable the following options: Launch at login Click menu bar icon to capture [you can right-click it to open the menu] Next, go to the Shortcuts tab and record keyboard shortcuts for this app. You can even use Raycast's Hyper Key to quickly create unique shortcuts. Once this is done, you're ready to use the app. Try either its keyboard shortcut or click the menu bar icon to fire up the selector. Click and drag to cover the area you want to copy text from, and release the mouse when you're done. Text Lens will show a popover to confirm if the text has been copied to your clipboard. (In case it fails to copy, the same popover will tell you that no text was detected.) Once it's successful, you can now paste the text in any app and carry on with your day. This app supports 18 languages including English, French, and Spanish. Text Lens will also allow you to copy text from saved files on your Mac: You can import images, PDFs, or other files, and Text Lens will copy everything on the page. The app can also copy text from images in your clipboard. Credit: Pranay Parab While I was quite impressed with Text Lens' accuracy with smaller bits of text, I imported a few larger batches of text to see how it works. For this, I compared it with the results from TextSniper ($11.99 for unlimited license) and Cleanshot X($29), two other Mac apps that let you copy text from images. I used one of my invoices to see how all three apps handle formatting challenges, and at the end of the quick test, TextSniper did the best job with the file. Text Lens and Cleanshot X were able to capture text from the invoice fairly well, but they both included a few typos and messed up the formatting. Both these apps listed all the items and dates first, and lumped together the prices at the end. Meanwhile, TextSniper listed each item, its date, and the price together. It also had the fewest typos. Still, for basic text copying, Text Lens does a fairly good job and is priced quite well. I hope that it gets better at copying large amounts of text in the future, but for copying a few lines here and there, it will do what you need it to do without much of a fuss. View the full article

The Nintendo Switch 2 is quite a bit different than the OG Switch: The Joy-Cons are beefier and connect via magnets; when docked, the console supports 4K 60fps output; and you can finally charge the console when playing in tabletop mode. But at the end of the day, what matters most about a new console like the Switch 2 is the games: If there's nothing new to play, what's the point? Of course, Nintendo shared a number of Switch 2 exclusives during its big Direct on Wednesday. This isn't a repeat of the Nintendo 3DS launch: There are games to play if you buy a Switch 2 on day one. But there are also a number of interesting titles coming soon and later this year. (There's even a new From Soft title coming in 2026!) Games launching the same day as Nintendo Switch 2 Whoa. Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube Nintendo Switch 2 launches on June 5. While many of the games announced today do not launch alongside the console, there are also many that do—including Mario Kart World. True to its name, this game offers an open-world Mario Kart experience. You can drive around the world, with friends, as you travel to different races. Not that every game needs to be open-world, but this one's kind of a no brainer. It just seems like fun to drive around a giant Mario Kart map. You don't even need to drive anywhere in particular: Nintendo encourages you to drive around leisurely, taking selfies as you do. Of course, the core gameplay is still the same: Race other drivers around a track. But now, you can compete in races with up to 24 people at a time, and part of the competition is driving to the next race. There's even a new "Knockout Tour," where you race non-stop from one side of the map to the other. If you pass through a checkpoint in too low a position, you're eliminated. Plus, you can bounce off walls like Mario in a platformer, grind on rails, and play as a cow, for some reason. Here are the rest of the games that you can play on launch day: Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour Street Fighter 6 Split Fiction Hogwarts Legacy Hitman World of Assassination Brave & Default Flying Fair (HD Remaster) Yakuza 0 Director's Cut The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Nintendo Switch Online) Soulcalibur II (Nintendo Switch Online) F-Zero GX (Nintendo Switch Online) Deltarune 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 Civilizations VII Survival Kids Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition Fortnite Arcade Archives 2 RIDGE RACER Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening Complete Edition Fast Fusion Upcoming Nintendo titlesThere are a number of first-party games and upgrades Nintendo announced during its presentation that won't be ready for launch on June 5. Drag X Drive (Summer 2025) Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube This is an entirely new game for Nintendo. Drag X Drive is wheelchair basketball that uses the new mouse controls on the Switch 2 Joy-Cons. You can push both controllers forward, as your character pushes both wheels forward on their wheelchair. You can also swing the Joy-Con to throw a basket, similar to the experience with Wii Sports. Donkey Kong Bananza (TBA) Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube After a number of remasters, Donkey Kong is finally getting a new game. This was the last announcement of the Direct, and was worth the wait: Bananza looks like Donkey Kong's version of Super Mario Odyssey—3D platforming in an open environment (though I'm not sure if it's "open world.") The biggest difference? You smash your way through just about anything you can see in the world. Hyrule Warriors Age of Imprisonment (Winter 2025) Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube This is the third entry in the Hyrule Warriors series, and takes place prior to the events of Tears of the Kingdom. I won't go into spoiler territory here, but you will get to play out the events of the Imprisoning War, and even get to play as Zelda. Kirby Air Riders (2025) Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube It looks like we're finally getting a sequel to 2003's Kirby Air Ride. We don't have a lot of details yet, other than seeing stars, bikes, and space ships as rideable vehicles. But Kirby Air Riders is directed by Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of both Kirby and Super Smash Bros., which bodes well. Nintendo Switch 2 EditionsLike other consoles, Nintendo is now offering Switch 2 users upgraded versions of certain Switch 1 titles. These can include better visuals, faster performance, or new features that take advantage of the Switch 2's controllers. These upgrades include: Super Mario Part Jamboree + Jamboree TV (July 24, 2025) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (TBA) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (TBA) Kirby and the Forgotten Land + Star Crossed World (TBA) Metroid Prime 4 Beyond (TBA) Pokémon Legends ZA (TBA) GameCube gamesNintendo Switch Online is finally adding support for GameCube games—but only for Nintendo Switch 2. (Why my 2017 Nintendo Switch is incompatible with games that ran on a system from 2001 is beyond me, but I digress.) In addition to the three aforementioned GameCube titles that will be available at launch, here's what's coming down the line, none of which have release dates yet: Super Mario Sunshine Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness Super Mario Strikes Chibi-Robo Luigi's Mansion Pokémon Colosseum Third-party titles Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube Nintendo ran through a number of third-party titles that are making their way to Switch 2. They include: Elden Ring Tarnished Edition (2025) Hades II (TBA) Daemon X Machina Titanic Scion (Sept. 5, 2025) Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 (Summer 2025) Project 007 (TBA) Borderlands 4 (2025) WWE 2K (TBA) NBA 2K (TBA) Enter the Gungeon 2 (TBA) Starseeker Astoneer Expeditions (2026) Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (TBA) Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess Hollow Knight: Silkson (2025) Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar (Aug. 27, 2025) Goodnight Universe (2025) Silksong (2025) Two Point Museum (2025) Wild Hearts S (July 25, 2025) Witchbrook (Holiday 2025) Marvel Comic Invasion (Holiday 2025) Star Wars Outlaws (2025) Shadow Labyrinth (July 18, 2025) RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army (June 19, 2025) No Sleep For Kaname Date - From AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES (July 25, 2025) REANIMAL (2025) Professor Layton and The New World of Steam (2025) Tamagotchi Plaza (June 27, 2025) Human Fall Flat 2 (TBA) The Duskbloods (2026) View the full article

In both countries, the mood is newly sober as a system of vested interests fights backView the full article

Producing video content is a particular challenge for generative AI models, which have no real concept of space or physics, and are essentially dreaming up clips frame by frame. It can lead to obvious errors and inconsistencies, as we wrote about in December with OpenAI's Sora, after it served up a video with a disappearing taxi. It's these specific problems that AI video company Runway says it's made some progress in fixing with its new Gen-4 models. The new models offer "a new generation of consistent and controllable media" according to Runway, with characters, objects, and scenes now much more likely to look the same over an entire project. If you've experimented with AI video, you'll know that many clips are brief and show slow movement, and don't feature elements that go out of the frame and come back in—usually because the AI will render them in a different way. People merge into buildings, limbs transform into animals, and entire scenes mutate as the seconds pass. This is because, as you might have gathered by now, these AIs are essentially probability machines. They know, more or less, what a futuristic cityscape should look like, based on scraping lots of futuristic cityscapes—but they don't understand the building blocks of the real world, and can't keep a fixed idea of a world in their memories. Instead, they keep reimagining it. Runway is aiming to fix this with reference images that it can keep going back to while it invents everything else in the frame: People should look the same from frame to frame, and there should be fewer issues with principal characters walking through furniture and transforming into walls. The new Gen-4 models can also "understand the world" and "simulate real-world physics" better than ever before, Runway says. The benefit of going out into the world with an actual video camera is that you can shoot a bridge from one side, then cross over and shoot the same bridge from the other side. With AI, you tend to get a different approximation of a bridge each time—something Runway wants to tackle. Have a look at the demo videos put together by Runway and you'll see they do a pretty good job in terms of consistency (though, of course, these are hand-picked from a wide pool). The characters in this clip look more or less the same from shot to shot, albeit with some variations in facial hair, clothing, and apparent age. There's also The Lonely Little Flame (above), which—like all Runway videos—has reportedly been synthesized from the hard work of actual animators and filmmakers. It looks impressively professional, but you'll see the shape and the markings on the skunk change from scene to scene, as does the shape of the rock character in the second half of the story. Even with these latest models, there's still some way to go. While Gen-4 models are now available for image-to-video generations for paying Runway users, the scene-to-scene consistency features haven't rolled out yet, so I can't test them personally. I have experimented with creating some short clips on Sora, and consistency and real-world physics remains an issue there, with objects appearing out of (and disappearing into) thin air, and characters moving through walls and furniture. See below for one of my creations: It is possible to create some polished-looking clips, as you can see from the official Sora showcase page, and the technology is now of a high-enough standard that it is starting to be used in a limited way in professional productions. However, the problems with vanishing and morphing taxis that we wrote about last year haven't gone away. Of course, you only have to look at where AI video technology was a year ago to know that these models are going to get better and better, but generating video is not the same as generating text, or a static image: It requires a lot more computing power and a lot more "thought," as well as a grasp of real-world physics that will be difficult for AI to learn. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. If you’ve been eyeing a Nintendo Switch OLED but haven’t wanted to pay full price, you might want to check out this refurbished model (with white Joy-Cons) going for $249.99 on Woot—that’s a solid chunk cheaper than Amazon’s $289 sale-price tag. However, this price is only live for four days or until it sells out, whichever comes first. This is a refurbished unit (tested and certified to work like new), so it may show light cosmetic wear, but performance-wise, you’re getting the same console that PCMag called the “Best Gaming Console of the Year” in 2021. Nintendo Switch OLED Model $249.99 at Woot $339.99 Save $90.00 Get Deal Get Deal $249.99 at Woot $339.99 Save $90.00 Its seven-inch OLED screen is brighter, crisper, and more vibrant than the original’s LCD. Games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Super Mario Odyssey just pop in handheld mode—this is especially noticeable when you’re gaming outdoors or in a room with lots of natural light. There’s also a wider kickstand that actually supports the console now (so tabletop play isn’t a balancing act anymore), and a slight bump in storage (64GB instead of 32GB), though you’ll still probably need a microSD card eventually, notes this PCMag review. And while the Joy-Cons are the same in terms of function, the dock has been tweaked with a wired LAN port if you want a more stable internet connection. It’s not a performance boost under the hood—same processor, same RAM—but it feels like an upgrade if you’re using it mostly as a handheld or tabletop device. That said, this deal has a few fine-print caveats. It only ships to the 48 contiguous U.S. states (so if you’re in Alaska, Hawaii, or elsewhere, no dice), and unless you’re an Amazon Prime member, you’re tacking on $6 for shipping. The 90-day Woot limited warranty is decent enough, too. If you’ve been debating whether the OLED version is worth the extra money over the base Switch, this refurbished deal narrows the price gap enough to make it more appealing. View the full article

Nintendo just wrapped up its long-awaited Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, and the experience was almost surreal. The company has avoided talking about the console for so many years, and even after it shared an early preview a few months ago, it's still odd to see Nintendo walk us through the console in such depth. Mind games aside, it's finally official-official, and we now know a lot about Nintendo's upcoming console. The Direct didn't answer every question about its capabilities, but if you're interested in the hardware specs, here's everything there is to know right now. How powerful is the Switch 2?From games to accessories, there's a lot to get excited about with any new console launch, but the biggest unknown for the Switch 2 has always been the hardware capabilities, or lack thereof: The Switch 1 was arguably already underpowered when it launched in 2017, though that didn't stop Nintendo from running with it for eight years to great success. If you were hoping the Switch 2 would take a different tack and offer a more powerful, modern gaming experience, you're probably going to be disappointed, though we don't actually know anything about the hardware itself just yet. Rumors suggest the Switch 2 is running a chip based on Nvidia' GeForce RTX 30 series, which dates from 2020, but we likely won't know for sure until someone tears the console down. The new design Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube We now know the Switch 2 has a 7.9-inch display—0.9 inches larger than the Switch OLED, and 1.7 inches larger than the standard Switch screen. That display is 1080p, as opposed to 720p on the OG Switch, but like the latter, the Switch 2 sports an LCD screen. Though that's what the rumors suggested, I'm personally a bit bummed about it, since I've been enjoying the OLED display on my current Switch. That said, I might get over it once I actually see the display in action with my own eyes—the Switch 2 supports HDR, something the first Switch did not, as well as refresh rates of up to 120Hz. The console has a redesigned kickstand, which we knew about already; It supports a greater variety of angles, which should offer more flexibility when playing in tabletop mode. Speaking of which, you can finally charge the Switch in tabletop mode, as that second USB-C port on the top of the console is indeed a charging port as well. You can also use it to connect to the new Switch 2 Camera. (Oh yes, Nintendo will now sell you a camera for your Switch 2.) There's also a microphone, which you can use for GameChat, built into the console itself (more on that later). It's noise cancelling, which should help when using it in loud environments. Switch 2 supports "3D Audio," which promises to make it seem like sounds are coming from where they would be in the game world. (If a monster roars behind you, you'll hear it "behind" you.) Switch 2 comes with 256GB of internal storage, with options for expansion via microSD Express cards. These are different than the microSD cards supported on Switch 1, so you won't be able to use your existing Switch cards on the new console. Bummer. Dock mode mow supports 4KThe OG Switch runs at 720p in handheld mode, but when docked, can boost up to 1080p. The Switch 2 also will look better on a bigger screen: The console runs at 1080p up to 120fps in handheld mode, but can run at 4K and 60fps when docked. The dock also has a built-in fan to keep the console cool when outputting at the higher resolution. Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube The Joy-Cons can do more Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube The Switch 2's Joy-Cons are pretty different from the OG controllers. These things are larger and more rounded, which I imagine will make gameplay more comfortable. They also look different: The updated Joy-Cons are almost entirely black, save for some colorful accents. We finally know what that new C button is for: a new feature called GameChat, which lets you chat with friends directly through the Switch 2. When you press the button, you pull up the GameChat menu, which lets you control the chat experience, including turning on or muting your mic, and turning your camera on or off. Unlike the original Switch, you don't connect these Joy-Cons to Switch 2 by sliding them into the rails. Instead, their pair magnetically. Nintendo says the magnets are strong enough to not break off with force. To release them, you need to press in a button on the Joy-Cons first, similar to how you need to push the button on the existing Joy-Cons before you can slide them out of the rails. Perhaps the biggest change to the Switch 2's controllers is that they support mouse mode. That was a rumored feature that some might have dismissed at first glance, but it's true: Both the left and right Joy-Cons can be used on a table top to enable mouse controls in compatible games. There are mini games in the new Switch 2 expansion of Super Mario Party Jamboree, for example, that utilize these movement controls. New Pro Controller and GameCube controllers are on the way Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube While not a component of the Switch 2 itself, a new Pro Controller is coming, optimized for the Switch 2. It looks similar to the Switch 1 Pro Controller, but you'll notice the new C button at the bottom, white buttons at the top, an audio jack, and new GR and GL buttons on the rear handles, for remapping controls. Similarly, Nintendo is releasing a GameCube controller for Switch 2, as the new console supports GameCube games as part of its retro online library. This controller looks nearly identical to the original GameCube controller, save for some small features, including the new C button at the top, a tiny ZL button on the left, a screenshot button, a pairing button, a Home button, and a USB port on top. You'll also notice a player number indicator along the top of the controller. Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube The Switch 2 still uses game cards Credit: Nintendo of America/YouTube The Switch 2 game cards are similar to the OG Switch's, with some small differences. While they're the same size and shape, the new carts are red, not black. They also read faster. Exciting! When does Nintendo Switch 2 launch?The new console launches June 5 of this year. You can buy it as-is, or in a bundle with a digital copy of Mario Kart World—the newest game in the Mario Kart lineup. We don't know what this thing costs yet, but we will update this piece once Nintendo officially reveals that information. View the full article

CCC has urged ministers to limit aviation emissions to ensure Britain meets its net-zero targetView the full article

Purchase applications reached their highest level since January despite the average 30-year fixed rate falling by just 1 basis point last week. View the full article

Google search has steadily been getting worse, but most of its free alternatives just aren't as good at surfacing the things I'm looking for. Since Google makes money through advertising, its primary incentive is to boost revenue by showing you better ads. Of late, this has resulted in a noticeable decline in the quality of my search results. That brought me to the idea of using a paid search engine instead of Google. Enter Kagi. What is Kagi?Kagi is a paid search engine developed by the people behind the Orion browser. It lets you make 100 searches for free, but after that, you can pay between $5/month and $25/month for different tiers of its service. Thanks to search giants and AI companies, the idea of paying for web searches might seem absurd at first glance, but Kagi promises an ad-and tracker-free experience, which is tempting. Is it worth it to pay for a search engine?Kagi has lots of useful features (and no ads) that make it worth the price to me. After all, when the business model is to charge people for a service, the company is incentivized to create good products. I hope that Kagi is able to continue to do so in the long run. I've been using Kagi as my default search engine for the past few months and I've begun to really like it. Up until now, all my attempts to get away from Google search have failed, but with Kagi, I've finally found a good alternative to the search giant. Here are some of my favorite ways to use Kagi, all of which have convinced me that, sometimes, it's worth it to pay for a search engine. See AI results only when you need toI am so tired of AI being forced into everything, but Kagi's approach to AI is refreshing. The search engine has kept it opt-in, which is great to see. If you use Kagi, you won't encounter AI unless you manually trigger it. To do this, just add a question mark to your search query. This will show an AI answer above the search results. Remove AI generated images from search resultsKagi allows you to block AI generated images from your search results. This is a hard feature to implement effectively because the internet is absolutely filled with low-effort AI slop nowadays, but Kagi does an acceptable job. Just go to Kagi settings by clicking the hamburger menu icon in the top-right corner of the homepage and selecting Settings. Now, go to Search > AI and enable Exclude AI generated images. Kagi says it blocks AI images on a "best-effort" basis, which means that there's a chance that some may slip through the cracks. Kagi automatically labels AI generated images in its search results and, in addition to the settings option, provides search filters that let you show only AI images or remove them altogether. In my tests, it was able to identify about 50-60% of AI-generated images in the search results, and you can always block domains that serve up too many of these kinds of results to supplement the rest. You can read more about how Kagi implements AI image filters in its documentation. Try search filters to fine tune resultsWhen you search for something on Kagi, you'll see a list of suggested filters to help you fine tune your query right above the first result. While these buttons are displayed prominently, there's also a drop down menu right next to them with more options. These filters allow you to look for results from a different region, sort results by relevance, or by the number of trackers on the website, or recency, plus filter results by time period. Plus, there's an advanced search tab that lets you further refine results, if that's not enough. Hide clickbait from videosKagi also lets you search for videos, and it has two interesting features to reduce clickbait. First, you can replace clickbait thumbnails with screenshots from the actual video. Second, you can change titles to lower case or sentence case. This removes awful thumbnails and those annoying all caps titles from your results, making it easier to find useful videos. To enable these features, go to Kagi Settings > Search > General. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see Video Search Settings. Click the drop-down menus next to the two options here and select what you need. Create lenses to refine results Credit: Pranay Parab If you want to limit your search results to a handful of trusted sites, try using Kagi's "search lenses." Each of these lenses lets you filter out unwanted results by focusing only on some sites. By default, Kagi has a few interesting lenses such as Small Web, which limits results to smaller websites, and Forums, which searches only forums. This allows you to surface some hidden gems that you may not otherwise find. You can also create your own lens by going to Kagi Settings > General > Lenses > Create New. I've created one to search for posts on websites that I write for and assigned a bang to it (!lh). Now I just need to append !lh to any search to look for results on these websites, which helps me find my own articles much faster. Tweak results to your likingYou can raise or lower the rankings of various domains in Kagi's search results (although only for your account). This feature also lets you see specific domains less, or block them entirely. To tweak this, simply go to Kagi Settings > Search > Personalized Results > Add Domains. You're also free to view Kagi's Domain Leaderboard to see which sites its users are raising, lowering, or blocking. Learn all the keyboard shortcutsOpening Kagi's website and pressing the ? key will reveal a full list of all supported keyboard shortcuts. Learning a few of these can speed up your workflow significantly, and I highly recommend doing so. I really like using !bang operators, which allow you to perform searches faster. For instance, you can append !v to any search term to look for videos. Similarly, !i does an image search, !n does a news search, and so on. I use two other keyboard shortcuts regularly: Shift-~ (tilde) to open the Kagi Control Center, and / to quickly return to the search bar and type another query. Open links in the same tabIt annoys me when websites open links in a new tab without asking me if I want to do the same. By default, Kagi is no different in that regard, because its default setting is to open links in a new tab. However, you can go to Kagi's General Settings page (Settings > Search > General) and disable Open Links in a New Tab to change this preference. Use redirects to reduce annoyancesKagi has a useful Redirects feature that lets you replace certain URLs with preferred alternatives. You can use this to bypass Google AMP links and go directly to the source website, or to open old Reddit every time you click a Reddit link in Kagi. This feature is under Kagi Settings > Search > Advanced > Redirects. It's worth going through Kagi's Redirects support page to learn how to make the most of them. Use the Privacy Pass for anonymityIf you want a more private Kagi search experience, you can use its Privacy Pass feature. Since Kagi requires you to be logged in to use the product, you can't actually do anonymous searches on the service. To get around that limitation, you can try the Kagi Privacy Pass, which authenticates your account using a token system and keeps your searches anonymous. The install process varies by browser, and this feature isn't supported in some browsers (such as Safari). There are many more advanced features that you can try in Kagi, but these are the ones that I find the most helpful. But as a bonus before I go, I'll also mention Kagi Translate, which is a good alternative to Google Translate. It displays alternative translations below each result, and if you hover over the translation, it explains what is different about it. This lets you pick the best variant of a sentence to share with others, or makes it easier to understand the context of a quote in another language. View the full article

An Internal Revenue Service division that helps authorize the release of tax transcripts used in lending through form 4506-C is tied to core functions. View the full article

Want to turn a video file into an MP3? Or any video into an MP4? If you have PowerToys installed on Windows, you don't need a third-party application—a quick copy-and-paste will do the job. We've talked about Powertoys, the longstanding Windows utility that offers all kinds of customizations to the operating system. One of the many tweaks added is the Advanced Paste feature, which can convert copied text into other formats. This is triggered by using the keyboard shortcut Windows-Shift-V to paste, instead of the usual Ctrl-V. A pop-up window asks which format you'd like to paste your text as—Markdown, HTML, and JSON are all offered. You can optionally set this up to use AI, useful if you want to convert text to a format not offered. It's very useful for anyone who regularly needs to convert text from one format to another. But now it can convert more than just text. A new feature means that Advanced Paste can turn any copied audio or video file into either an MP3 or an MP4 file. To use this feature, you need at least version v0.89.0 of PowerToys—open the application and check the General tab to make sure. Credit: Justin Pot If you have the feature, all you need to do is copy a video or audio file in File Explorer, then attempt to paste it using the keyboard shortcut Windows-Shift-V. Note that if you "Copy as Path," the feature won't be offered, as you haven't copied the file itself. There are two conversion options: "Transcode to MP3" and "Transcode to MP4." The MP3 option will extract the audio of any media file, including a video, and save it as an MP3. The "Transcode to MP4" option converts the video to use the H.264 video codec and the AAC audio codec. Now, there are use cases where this won't work—if you want to create an AAC audio file, for example, or convert a video to some other format. In those cases, software like Handbrake is essential. But it's nice to have a simple option built into PowerToys; give it a try next time you want to turn a video into an audio file. View the full article

A trailer for Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third film in James Cameron’s galactically successful series, starts by delivering on the title’s promise. Rivers of lava cascade through the forests of Pandora, reducing it to charred rubble. Soon, the score swells to epic proportions as the hulking, Smurf-colored Na’vi survey their ruined territory and swear vengeance on an unseen enemy. Released back in January, this trailer already has 3.5 million views. Not bad, considering it contains not one second of footage from the actual film. Whenever Cameron and 20th Century Studios do release the official first trailer for Avatar: Fire and Ash, which is headed to theaters in December, they certainly won’t release it through “KH Studio,” one of two video channels YouTube just demonetized to crack down on a larger issue. The fake Avatar trailer, which relies on some truly abysmal AI, is part of a scourge of similar videos designed to trick movie lovers into thinking they’ve found a first look at an upcoming flick. Crafty editors with access to Adobe Premiere take existing footage from previous media, splice in a dash of AI, and—voilà—a steady stream of clicks and views from eager film buffs. Google any major movie coming out later this year, and whether an actual trailer for it is already out there or not, the search will surface an impostor or two. Want a fake first glimpse of Edgar Wright’s upcoming reboot of The Running Man? It’s available on a channel called T Studio Movie’s (sic). How about a pirated preview of the next Conjuring movie? It can be conjured up on one called Skynet Studios. The most successful operators out there, though, appear to be the two that have newly attracted YouTube’s ire: KH Studio and Screen Culture. YouTube’s move comes as a result of Deadline investigating the fake movie trailer epidemic. The publication reports that movie studios such as Warner Bros. Discovery were quietly lobbying YouTube to send any ad revenue from those fake movie trailers their way, but YouTube opted instead to suspend heavyweights Screen Culture and KH Studio from its partner program. Apparently, these channels violated the video giant’s policies forbidding content doctored in such a way that it misleads viewers. “The two impacted channels were correctly suspended from the YouTube Partner Program following violations of our monetization policies,” says Jack Malon, Policy Communications Manager at YouTube. “Content isn’t eligible for monetization that uses metadata to deceive viewers into believing the content is different from what it actually is. For example, this could include a video title or description that alleges an official affiliation with a company. These suspensions are unrelated to any Content ID, or other copyright, enforcement.” The two channels’ differing approaches highlight the level of variety in this strangely popular space. Screen Culture has 1.4 million subscribers and offers three tiers of membership. As Deadline reports, the channel’s founder employs a team of a dozen editors, whose fake movie trailers are viewed so often, they occasionally outrank real trailers in YouTube’s search results. Screen Culture trailers are often slick and authentic-looking at first glance, mirroring the cadence and sound cues of typical Hollywood trailers with impressive alacrity. Only in the moments when the AI gets a touch shoddy, or the exposition extra disjointed, is it clear that these are forgeries. The other newly demonetized channel, KH Studio, is a bit goofier. Its more amateurish trailers feature robotic AI-voice narration and graphics that look like ancient video game cutscenes. Beyond fake trailers for soon-to-be-blockbusters like the next Avatar, it also offers trailers for movies that will never be released, such as Interstellar 2, a Millie Bobby Brown-led remake of Nightmare on Elm Street; and Titanic 2: The Return of Jack. The trailers on both channels offer warnings to viewers that these are merely “concept trailers.” The warnings come buried underneath the view count and a flood of hashtags, though; by the time the average viewer sees them, they will have already clicked on a link and inflated the view count that bit further. Although KH Studio claims in the warning that its videos are “created solely for artistic and entertainment purposes,” the channel’s trailers don’t seem to have enough artistry or originality in their use of borrowed material to meet YouTube’s monetization standards. They appear more like vehicles for siphoning off search traffic for notable movie titles. While the output of neither of those channels may rise to the level of art or originality, there’s a whole cottage industry of bait-and-switch trailers operating around them on YouTube. Channels like Blend FX and Dynatic Films publish videos about movies like the upcoming Naked Gun reboot starring Liam Neeson and simply add the word “trailer” in the title, guaranteeing at least some search-based traffic. The creators of those trailers can’t even bother cobbling together a semi-coherent narrative to bolster their deception. Both KH Studio and Screen Culture are entitled to appeal YouTube’s decision. If they lose, we may never know what the trailer for Eraserhead 2: Revenge of the Lady in the Radiator looks like. If they win, all the other fake trailers may just be a sneak preview of what’s to come. View the full article

‘Supranational’ vehicle would purchase for participating states at more favourable borrowing rates View the full article

If you ask me, graphic design peaked in 2001 with Windows XP's bright blue taskbar and green start button. Every UI design choice since was made by cowards. OK, you might not share my passion for the Windows XP taskbar, which is fine (I guess). But maybe you miss the simple grey aesthetic of Windows 2000, or the comforting orb of Vista. Whatever your taskbar preference, you can bring it back with RetroBar, a free, open source application that replaces the taskbar in Windows 11 with something better. (It will also work if you're running an older version, including Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10.) To get started, download the application from Github. There's an installer and a portable application—use whichever you prefer. Note that Windows may prevent you from running the application because of an unknown publisher, which is a commonsense safeguard, but you can click the Run anyway button should you choose to use the software regardless. Once you do, you will immediately see the classic grey taskbar of yore. Credit: Justin Pot You can right-click an empty area in the taskbar and then click Properties to bring up the options menu, which allows you to choose from a wide variety of taskbars. (The one you're probably looking for is named "Windows XP Blue.") Credit: Justin Pot Obvious aesthetic benefits aside, the Windows XP taskbar does work differently from the Windows 11 taskbar in a few ways I find helpful: Every window is represented on the taskbar, not just each application. The launcher icons, to the left, are kept seperate from the currently open windows. You can also change the size of the taskbar to make more room, just like you could back in the day. You can customize what happens when you click the clock—I prefer seeing the calendar. If you decide you want the Windows 11 taskbar back after all, you can right-click an empty space on the taskbar and choose Exit Retrobar. You can always launch the application again, the next time you decide to reject modernity and embrace tradition. View the full article

Company loses crown of world’s best-selling electric-vehicle maker to China’s BYDView the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. The Max streaming app has always benefitted from being the home for HBO hits like Game of Thrones, The White Lotus, and The Last of Us, but the streamer has also produced some quality original programming. Hacks is a buzzy award winner, and shows like Peacemaker and The Sex Lives of College Girls have drawn eyeballs toward the former "HBO Max." More recently, The Pitt is burning up social media, and Spanish-language import When No One Sees Us is drawing critical acclaim. Given the volume of streaming content out there, and the number of shows Max has already produced, there are some great choices that might have flown under your radar. In our current streaming era, in which good shows aren’t just canceled but erased from existence (farewell, Raised by Wolves), it never hurts to take a moment to consider the slightly less talked-about shows that are equally worthy of your attention. (The shows found below are all Max originals, which means they were either initially produced for and/or are currently distributed exclusively by the streamer, at least in North America. Stuff that originally premiered elsewhere in the U.S., like Adult Swim's recent buzzy hit Common Side Effects, don't qualify.) The Pitt (2025 –, renewed for a second season) E.R.'s Noah Wyle is back in scrubs as Dr. Michael "Robby" Rabinavitch, senior attending at the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital’s emergency room. Robby’s mentor died during the height of COVID-19, and he’s only just recovering from his traumatic experiences. It's gonna be a long day, though: Each episode represents a single hour of a tumultuous 15-hour shift, peppered by tragedies including a mass shooting. It feels like medical dramas are a dime a dozen, but this one is quite a bit more interesting, and a lot buzzier, than most. You can stream The Pitt here. Hacks (2021 –, fourth season coming April 10) After getting canceled over a tweet, 25-year-old writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) struggles to get her career back in order, reluctantly taking a job for Deborah Vance (Jean Smart)—a comedy trailblazer who remains popular with an older Vegas crown, but whose career is largely on autopilot. They're an entirely mismatched pair, but their chemistry is ultimately explosive, with Jean Smart doing some of the best work of her incredible career as the (often) deeply unlikeable Vance, and Einbinder more than holding her own in return. It's funny, bitchy, and surprisingly moving when it wants to be. You can stream Hacks here. When No One Sees Us (2025, first season ongoing) A distinctive police thriller imported from Spain, When No One Sees Us stars Mariela Garriga (Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning) as a Cuban-American special agent of the U.S. Army, and Maribel Verdú (Pan’s Labyrinth) as a Spanish Civil Guard sergeant, both investigating an apparent death by extremely violent suicide on an air base during Holy Week. It's a twisty-turny mystery, but the performances and the emphasis on character over plot make it an absolute standout. You can stream When No One Sees Us here. Trixie Motel (2022 – 2024, two seasons) A pick-up in its second season from Discovery+, Trixie Motel poses that all-important question: how would a drag queen with disposable income run a hotel? In the first season, RuPaul alum Trixie Mattel and then-partner David Silver buy a run-down Palm Springs motel and turn it into a campy desert destination; in the second the two buy and decorate a new home. Celebrity guests stop by to help the pair drag up their accommodations. It's fluffy, flashy, and fun. You can stream Trixie Motel season one here, and Drag Me Home, the second season, here. Doom Patrol (2019 – 2023, four seasons) Max’s early DC show was originally ported from the now-defunct DC Universe streamer (past and future episodes are now Max-exclusive), a largely forgotten effort. Thank goodness it survived; though ended after four seasons, it was an uncharacteristically bold and freaky entry in the superhero canon. Nearly indescribably weird, the show includes characters like the non-binary Danny the Street (a literal street), paranormal investigators the Sex Men, Imaginary Jesus, and orgasm-generating body builder Flex Mentallo—while also grounded in some really excellent, frequently emotional character work from the entire cast, including Brendan Fraser, Matt Bomer, Michelle Gomez, and Timothy Dalton. It’s also very queer and sex positive, making it a standout among the usually chaste and straight world of superhero cinema. You can stream Doom Patrol here. Full Circle (2023, miniseries) Creator Ed Solomon (Now You See Me) and director Steven Soderbergh navigate a big cast and a labyrinthine plot involving murder, kidnapping, corporate espionage, and magic—the title refers to a murder ritual conducted by a Guyanese crime lord (played by CCH Pounder) that involves drawing a literal circle in New York, centered on the scene of a murder. There are a few too many balls in the air at any given time, but watching the chaos unfold is addictive. Pounder is joined by Zazie Beetz, Claire Danes, Timothy Olyphant, and Dennis Quaid. You can stream Full Circle here. Scavengers Reign (2023, one season) A qualified recommendation for this one, only because it was cancelled after its first season with plenty left unresolved. Nevertheless! It's a smart, impressively voice acted, and beautifully animated sci-fi epic following the stranded survivors of the crashed interstellar cargo ship Demeter 227. The web of natural life on the world on which they find themselves is unusually complex, an the rules they're used to don't seem to apply. The creators are shopping a second season around, but it seems likely we'll be left with a few questions—which is maybe not the worst thing. You can stream Scavengers Reign here. The Flight Attendant (2020 – 2022, two seasons) Kaley Cuoco plays hard-living (i.e. alcoholic) flight attendant Cassie Bowden, who, in the first episode, wakes up in a Bangkok hotel room with no memory of the night before. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing, given that she's sharing a bed with a dead passenger from her last flight. Afraid to call the police, she tries, on her own, to piece together the increasingly convoluted memories of that last night. Impressively twisty-turny, but also with a hallucinogenic sense of fun, it's an impressively unique show that earned several Emmy nominations, including for a great Cuoco. Despite generating plenty of buzz and seemingly good numbers, it was canceled after two seasons—which will become something of a theme with Max. You can stream The Flight Attendant here. The Sex Lives of College Girls (2021 – 2025, three seasons) Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) is an endlessly naïve scholarship student; Bela (Amrit Kaur), is an aspiring comedy writer on the make for the hottest guys; Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) is an overachieving athlete and senator’s daughter; Leighton (Reneé Rapp) is a closeted sorority girl. They're randomly assigned to room together as freshmen at the fictional Essex College in Vermont, a mismatched quartet exploring young adulthood together. Created by Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble, the comedy-drama isn't nearly as salacious as its title suggests: There's sex, for sure, but like Sex and the City before it, the funny and queer-friendly show is more about female friendship. You can stream The Sex Lives of College Girls here. Jellystone! (2021 – 2025) The Hanna-Barbera cartoon pantheon has been largely dormant in recent decades, but this is a fun revisit, with the titular town serving as home to dozens of characters from back in the day, led by Mayor Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear (now a doctor at Jellystone Hospital), Augie Doggy, Jabberjaw, Top Cat, and dozens more, with out-of-towners like The Jetsons and Space Ghost popping in now and again. The show's silly, anarchic style is definitely not a one-for-one match to the source material, but it's not a terrible thing that the show is focused on appealing to modern kids rather than their parents (or grandparents, at this point). It's fun for that older elementary age group. You can stream Jellystone! here. Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai (2023 –, second season ongoing) It was weird, but kinda cool, that the original Gremlins movie was marketed toward kids, given that the plot turns on moments like a Mogwai blowing up in a microwave and an anecdote about someone's dead dad mouldering in a chimney dressed like Santa Claus. That all being said, this animated prequel is legit kid-friendly, even if it doesn't shy away from the Looney Tunes-esque style of the live-action movies. It also takes the awkward Orientalism of those movies and makes it a virtue: Sam Wing (played by Hollywood legend Keye Luke in Gremlins) is, here, a 10-year-old boy who meets Gizmo and is then forced to join him on a journey through the Chinese countryside, sometimes encountering mythical creatures. The stacked voice cast includes Izaac Wang, Ming-Na Wen as Fong Wing, B. D. Wong, and the great James Hong. You can stream Secrets of the Mogwai here. The Other Two (2019 – 2023, three seasons) Heléne Yorke and Drew Tarver stars as a couple of meandering siblings whose lives are turned upside down when their younger brother becomes a viral sensation. The show has a lot of fun dissecting modern pop culture, and, though it has a sweet side, it’s some of the best cringe comedy you'll find on Max. As class satires go, it never quite achieved Succession levels of obsession, but deserves a bit more love. You can stream The Other Two here. Tokyo Vice (2022 — 2024, two seasons) Your tolerance for Ansel Elgort may vary (given assault allegations), but he stars here alongside always-welcome Japanese actors Ken Watanabe and Rinko Kikuchi as a young journalist who becomes embedded with veteran detectives in Tokyo’s vice squad circa 1999. The show pays tribute to both the glitzy and wonderfully seedy aspects of the title city, while also working as an effective crime drama set in a very different context from more typical America-set shows. You can stream Tokyo Vice here. Rap Sh!t (2022 — 2023, two seasons) Issa Rae follows up Insecure with the story of socially conscious Miami rapper Shawna (Aida Osman), who winds up selling out, at least in her own eyes, when she teams up with her friend Mia (KaMillion), whose popular OnlyFans brings the new rap group a built-in fanbase. Meanwhile, Shawna’s boyfriend Cliff (Devon Terrell) has to come to terms with the fact that Shawna’s more commercial career path might put his dreams of political success in danger. Like Insecure, it’s deeply funny, but also has plenty to say about friendship and ambition between young Black women. You can stream Rap Sh!t here. The Big Brunch (2022, one season) Finally: a reality show for people who love brunch (some of whom, I’m informed, might even be straight). Schitt’s Creek’s Dan Levy hosts the cooking show involving ten chefs competing for the money to make all their dreams come true (to the tune of $300,000)—but only if they can make the perfect brunch. The show avoids the stressful elements of a Gordon Ramsey-type competition, while being quite a bit funnier than a GBBO. It’s a solid entry in the reality-cooking world with a unique style, though its one-and-done single season (at least so far) will be a pro or a con depending on how hooked you find yourself. You can stream The Big Brunch here. It’s a Sin (2021, miniseries) Russell T. Davies (Queer as Folk, Doctor Who) revisits the 1980s through the story of a group of friends living in London during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The miniseries brings an impressive cast to bear on a story that tracks them through the early days of queer liberation through the developing menace of a disease that no one in the broader world was willing to talk about, much less do anything about. You can stream It's a Sin here. Peacemaker (2022 –, renewed for a second season) A funny and violent bright spot in the wildly convoluted onscreen world of DC Comics, Peacemaker spins out of James Gunn's snarky 2021 entry The Suicide Squad, with John Cena reprising his role. Having survived the events of that film, he's recruited once again by the United States government to join a team trying to stop mysterious butterfly creatures inhabiting human hosts. It's got the same bloody comic tone of the movie, but adds just enough dimension, and an emotional arc, to the the jingoistic superheroes' story that it's easy to root for him, even as his self-awareness remains limited. It also seems to be a bit of a bridge between the old DC movie universe and the upcoming, James Gunn-lead one—the upcoming second season will follow the events of the new Superman movie, and there's also a Viola Davis-lead Waller spin-off in the works. You can stream Peacemaker here. South Side (2019–2022, three seasons) Creators/writers Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle (who also have parts in the series) brought a unique style to their three-season sitcom set in Englewood—the close-knit cast and production crew (Bashir’s brother, Sultan, plays one of the leads) give the show a familial vibe. it follows two mismatched friends (Sultan Salahuddin and Kareme Young) trying to find success while running a rent-to-own store amid a widely diverse ensemble, and trying to find some kind of accord with the local PD. You can stream South Side here. Through Our Eyes (2021, miniseries) An original production from Sesame Workshop, each episode of the docuseries deals with a distinctive issue facing children, and each is directed by a different talented and acclaimed director. The four current episodes engage with kids with incarcerated parents, families displaced by climate crises, the children of veterans relying on caregivers, and those without permanent housing. The series offers a rare perspective, and takes an appropriately straightforward and honest approach without feeling the need to manipulate our emotions. It’s a miniseries at the moment, although there might be more coming. You can stream Through Our Eyes here. Equal (2020, one season) The well-done docuseries pulls in some star power to tell stories around some of the most significant events in LGBTQ+ history during the 20th century. The combination of talking head-style discussions alongside scripted reenactments is particularly effective. You can stream Equal here. Julia (2022 – 2023, two seasons) I’m increasingly drawn to stories of people who made it later in life, probably unrelated to being solidly middle-aged while having accomplished (as yet) nothing of note. Sarah Lancashire plays Julia Child magnificently, capturing much of her distinctive style and patter, and the show has a lot of fun with the production woes of early public television. Even though it has a light touch, the show’s also an important reminder of the importance of a woman like Julia, a woman in her 50s who become an unlikely trailblazer as not just an on-camera personality, but also as an innovative producer. Another one that deserved more than two seasons, but still delightful. You can stream Julia here. Expecting Amy (2020, one season) Not a stand-up special (although it does interweave with the development of one), but instead, another in Max’s impressive and (fairly) diverse docuseries offerings. What might otherwise be a vanity project (a doc about comedian Amy Schumer’s complicated pregnancy) is buoyed by a real sense of honesty, and by discussion of her husband Chris’s autism diagnosis around the same time. It probably requires a bit of an appreciation for Schumer going in, but it’s a fairly fascinating journey. Titans (2018–2023, four seasons) There’s an almost relentless “edginess” to an awful lot of the movies and shows based on DC superheroes, feeling at times as though they’re apologizing for the source material. Titans is right there, but with swearing, fucking, and some fairly intense violence. What it has, though, that some of the movies lack, is an addictive quality that mimics the feel of getting really into a good long-form superhero comic book storyline—but more swearsy. You can stream Titans here. Young Justice (2010–2022, four seasons) This is the little cartoon that could: canceled way back in 2013, picked up by the defunct DC Universe streamer for season 3, and then getting a final season as a Max original (those first three seasons are also on Max). There’s a reason it has hung in there, even without the name recognition of some of DC’s other stuff: It’s an impressively animated series that draws from any number of comics sources while scrupulously developing its characters. Unlike a lot of cartoons (or comics), it’s also allowed its characters to grow up over the years and introduced new generations of heroes along the way. You can stream Young Justice here. Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults (2020, one season) It’s not always an easy watch (the ending episode, not surprisingly, is downright harrowing), but it’s not a terrible time to revisit the story of the Heaven’s Gate UFO-worshipping cult and its leader, Marshall Applewhite. The group had come to believe strongly in ideas that are fundamentally goofy, with deeply tragic consequences. Which is all sounding a little familiar lately. The doc makes use of never-before-released footage. You can stream The Cult of Cults here. Station Eleven (2021, miniseries) The miniseries, based on the Emily St. John Mandel novel, was released at either the best time or the worst possible time, the story of a flu pandemic landed on the former HBO Max right in the middle of the first phase of COVID. The show follows Kirsten Raymonde, a young stage actor whose performance in a production of King Lear is cut short by the onset of a virus with a 99% fatality rate. We meet Kirsten at the outset of the pandemic, and then visit her 20 years on, still an actor, in a world very much changed. It’s a slow burn, but ultimately, the series makes a moving case for the power of art, even (or especially) in moments when survival is on the line. You can stream Station Eleven here. Harley Quinn (2019– , renewed for a sixth season) Kaley Cuoco voices Harley in this very adult cartoon series starring the anti-hero who made her debut in Bruce Timm and Paul Dini’s Batman: The Animated Series way back in the day. Don’t expect traditional superheroics—it’s very much a zany comedy, but it’s often funny and delivers some solid queer representation. A Kite Man spin-off is in the works. You can stream Harley Quinn here. The Staircase (2022, miniseries) Going beyond the standard true crime tropes, The Staircase stars Colin Firth as Michael Peterson, the real-life novelist convicted of murder after his wife, Kathleen, was found dead at the bottom of the title’s staircase. Uniquely, the miniseries deals not primarily with the events surrounding the death, but instead the aftermath, and the filming of a French documentary during Peterson’s legal battle. The result is a smart look at the media’s impact on crime and punishment in our true-crime obsessed world. You can stream The Staircase here. Love & Death (2023, miniseries) The story of 1970s housewife Candy Montgomery has been told several times before, most memorably via a 1990 TV movie and a Hulu series from just last year. Here, Elizabeth Olsen gives a stellar performance as the woman who kills her lover’s wife, maybe in self-defense? It hits plenty of the expected true crime notes, but Olsen’s performance is top-tier, humanizing the lead character. You can stream Love & Death here. Search Party (2016–2022, five seasons) This very dark comedy became an HBO Max/Max original following its cancellation by TBS—but it still counts, kicking off with a Veronica Mars vibe involving Alia Shawkat’s Dory and her hunt for a missing college friend. The largely narcissistic characters are hunting for meaning and attention as much as for the missing friend, while the show grows weirder, funnier, and more interesting with each season, becoming a convincing chronicle of the absurdities of modern millennial existence. You can stream Search Party here. Our Flag Means Death (2022 – 2023), two seasons I think everyone probably knows about this one already—at least those of you who are extremely online—but the swashbuckling pirate comedy isn’t only wonderfully goofy and funny, it also features, unexpectedly, one of the most believable and compelling gay romances of the last several years, so I just wanted to give it a little extra love. Max cut it short after a mere two seasons which, boo! But that doesn't mean it's not worth diving in. You can stream Our Flag Means Death here. View the full article

Glen Powell has done it all on screen—from battling storms in Twisters to trading banter in the rom-com Anyone but You. But his latest role? It’s a little unexpected: reinventing the American pantry. The actor is stepping into the food world as a cofounder of Smash Kitchen, a new condiment brand hitting Walmart shelves nationwide on April 2. The line includes ketchup, mustard, mayo, and BBQ sauce—all made with better-for-you ingredients like organic tomatoes and mustard seeds, cage-free organic eggs, and none of the usual suspects like high-fructose corn syrup or artificial additives. The goal? To bring all your favorite condiments under one cleaner, tastier brand. “We’re trying to give you the flavor that you love and you’re used to, with more integrity,” Powell tells Fast Company. “When you look at these legacy brands, they don’t evolve because they don’t have to evolve.” The Powell-backed brand is leaping into the $12 billion U.S. condiments category, which is projected to grow an additional $1 billion by 2029, according to market researcher Mintel. Unlike other food categories like coffee, soda, and yogurt where upstart brands have made inroads, Unilever’s Hellmann’s mayonnaise, Kraft Heinz’s namesake ketchup, and McCormick’s French’s mustard are the market leaders and have easily retained those positions for decades. “We have a tremendous sense of loyalty to these brands,” says Matthew Barry, food and beverage insight manager at researcher Euromonitor International. “People are really attached to Hellmann’s and Heinz ketchup.” Smash Kitchen is the first business venture that Powell has announced outside of his career as an entertainer, which began with his big screen acting debut in the 2003 film Spy Kids 3: Game Over. Powell has since racked up dozens of film and TV credits and recently formed his own production company called Barnstorm. The creation of Smash Kitchen, Powell says, was inspired by his affinity for hosting dinner parties and barbecues in Los Angeles and his home state of Texas. “My family life and my favorite memories always evolved around the kitchen,” says Powell. “Food is how we show our love.” Smash Kitchen is backed by venture capital firm Collaborative Fund, an early investor in Olipop, Sweetgreen, and Blue Bottle Coffee. Powell’s co-founders Smash Kitchen CEO Sameer Mehta, a cofounder of dog food brand Jinx and former VP of strategic partners at mattress company Casper, and President Sean Kane, who co-founded consumer goods purveyor the Honest Company. The trio were brought together through a mutual connection with venture capital fund Iconiq Capital founder Divesh Makan. “Ultimately, you shouldn’t have to choose what’s better for your budget and and better for your health, and Glenn is super excited to be able to bring that to not only his family, but people everywhere,” says Kane. Smash Kitchen’s pitch to shoppers is not only a focus on a “cleaner” nutritional label that avoids high fructose corn syrup and tomato concentrate, but prioritizing the creation of condiments that taste good. Retailers, Mehta says, told the team that “people aren’t picking up condiments for health benefits. They are picking it up for the flavor.” The more distinctive flavors from Smash Kitchen, like hot honey BBQ sauce and spicy mayo, may have greater success luring shoppers, as those flavor profiles aren’t as intrinsically linked to childhood memories as the classic Heinz ketchup. “We’ve seen hot honey get household recognition within the pizza category,” says Mehta. “Nobody has infused it with ketchup. It’s a flavor profile that we know consumers are wanting.” “There’s no hot honey sauce that is so emotionally resonant and widespread among the American consumer,” says Barry. “It’s open to disruption. Anyone could be the hot honey sauce of America.” Smash Kitchen’s range is priced slightly above what larger rivals command. The classic 20-ounce ketchup has a standard list price of $3.97 versus Heinz’s $3.48 at Walmart.com. Smash’s yellow mustard is priced at $3.47, compared to $2.54 for French’s. Barry says inflation-wary shoppers remain particularly sensitive to grocery prices, but may be willing to spend a bit more on a “cleaner” ingredient label. The organic claim, he adds, has lost some luster because it has become so ubiquitous across the grocery store. “If you can be a little fun treat for people, a little moment of happiness and joy at a reasonable price point, that’s really prominent right now,” says Barry. View the full article