Apple CEO Tim Cook. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images 2025-04-03T14:08:19Z SaveSaved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? Donald Trump's tariffs are about to hit Apple hard.Tariffs are set to hit Apple's key manufacturing hubs, including China, Vietnam, Thailand, and others.It could mean more expensive iPhones if Apple passes the costs on to consumers.Tim Cook might be out of luck this time: Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs look like they're about to hit Apple hard.A long-expected executive order signed by the president on Wednesday introduced a 34% tariff on goods from Apple's most important manufacturing hub China. It adds to an existing 20% tariff, meaning the effective tariff rate on the country is now 54%.China has long been its central hub for manufacturing and assembling everything from iPhones to MacBooks. Tariffs now threaten to raise the cost of Apple goods imported from the center of its supply chain universe.Although the sweeping tariffs are also set to hit other tech companies with sprawling supply chains such as Tesla or Nvidia it's a particularly big hit for Apple.Jamie MacEwan, senior analyst at Enders Analysis, previously told Business Insider he estimates that "almost half of Apple's revenue is exposed to China through direct sales and the supply chain."It is also a blow to Cook, who has spent years trying to build a tight-knit relationship with Trump. The Apple CEO met the president for dinner at Mar-a-Lago in December, attended his inauguration in January, and pledged a $500 billion investment in the US in February.Apple has made moves in recent years to diversify its supply chain away from China in the face of geopolitical tensions, but Trump's levies appear to diminish even those efforts.The countries Apple has increasingly shifted manufacturing and assembly operations to India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Ireland have all been hit with tariffs above Trump's baseline 10% rate.Though Cook managed to secure an exemption for the company when Trump first escalated a tariff-led trade war in 2018, as things stand, Apple has no escape from the latest wave of tariffs.Apple did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.The reality facing Apple is already being digested by markets. Apple shares fell by about 9% on Thursday as investors triggered a panic sell-off over fears of the implications of Trump's plans.In a note, analysts at investment bank Citi wrote that "if Apple cannot get exempted this time and assuming Apple gets hit by the accumulative 54% China tariffs and does not pass it through, we estimate about 9% negative impact to the company's total gross margin."Analysts at Jefferies, meanwhile, wrote in a Thursday note that in their worst-case scenario one in which the 27 million iPhones made in China and imported to the US are subject to the 54% tariff Apple's net profit for the fiscal year could be reduced by 14%.This all paints a less-than-pretty picture for Apple and, potentially, its consumers. Without an exemption, there could be more expensive iPhones on the way, Apple's margins could take a hit or both.Recommended video

Democratic voters just won a 10-point landslide in a state that Trump won last year. How?The answer is a defining trend of modern elections: There are two different kinds of electorates who come out to vote in the Trump era.On Tuesday night, the liberal, Democrat-aligned Judge Susan Crawford defeated her Republican-backed opponent by nearly 300,000 votes a 10-point margin less than a year after President Donald Trump carried the state on his way to a battleground sweep.She achieved that victory as more than 2.3 million people turned out to vote, about two-thirds of last years electorate. Thats significantly more than the last time a high-profile court seat was up for grabs and nearly matches the level of turnout in the 2022 midterms.Crawfords victory has been cast as symbolic for many reasons. Its both a referendum on the months-old Trump administration and on Elon Musk for his involvement and spending in the race. It was a test of liberal organizing and Democratic enthusiasm ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, as the partys base demands their leaders do more and they look for ways to resist Trump.But Wisconsins weird voting dynamics in the Trump era, combined with other national special and off-year elections, also demonstrate the role Trump has played in scrambling electoral coalitions and see-sawing the balance of power both in Washington and in the states. Two different electorates, polarized by education, class, and political engagement, have emerged one which benefits Democrats broadly, another which benefits solely Trump himself.Wisconsins recent see-sawingWisconsin in the age of Trump has been a curious place to watch. As a battleground for presidential and state-level contests, it has swung wildly between barely electing a Republican or Democratic presidential candidate, and delivering comfortable margins for liberals and Democrats running in off-year or midterm cycles. 2016: Red. Trump flipped the state, long a part of the Democratic Blue Wall (the Rust Belt, overwhelmingly white working-class states that used to elect Democrats) by a tiny margin of 0.7 percent, or about 20,000 votes. White working-class and non-college educated voters came out to vote for Trump, while minority voter turnout dropped, dooming Hillary Clinton.2018: Blue. Just two years later, the states progressive Democratic senator, Tammy Baldwin, won reelection by about 10 points, boosted by high Democratic enthusiasm and Trump disaffection. Suburbs and urban centers boosted Baldwins win, as college-educated, wealthier, and suburban voters around the country moved away from the Trump Republican Party and felt comfortable voting for a Democrat.2020: Blue. Joe Biden flipped the state back from Trump, but just barely. He won with a 0.62 percent margin, much closer than expected, as Trump was able to again get out more votes from his Republican base of white non-college educated voters. Turnout in cities and suburbs helped the Democrats outpace the number of new rural and non-college educated voters going for Trump. 2022: Red (barely). Two years later, during midterm elections that went much better than expected for Democrats, the states other senator, the conservative, ultra-MAGA loyalist Ron Johnson, retained his seat with a 20,000 vote or 1 percent margin. Most counties in the state shifted right during that election compared to 2020, making it a bit of an outlier among battleground states.2024: Red again. Trump would then go on to win the state in 2024, beating Kamala Harris by about 30,000 votes, or 0.86 percent, as he turned out even more rural voters. All but four highly urban and college-educated counties would shift to the right that year.What explains these wild pendulum swings?A clear story emerges when looking at overall turnout, county-specific demographics, Democratic enthusiasm, and polling in Wisconsin. And that story fits into a pattern of elections in the state. Wisconsins 2025 electorate was deeply Democratic: made up of not just the most informed and engaged voters, but also some lower-propensity voters who were persuaded to flip. As the data journalist Steve Kornacki pointed out ahead of the election, in off-year contests when Trump isnt on the ballot, pro-Trump blue-collar white voters have been less motivated to vote than have anti-Trump college-educated voters. That dynamic leads to results like Tuesday nights, when turnout in the most highly educated, Democratic parts of the state was much higher than turnout in the more non-college educated, pro-Trump places. An emblematic location was Dane County, home of Madison: Crawford received more net votes and a higher share of the vote than the Democrats 2022 Senate nominee Mandela Barnes.This dynamic may continue to repeat itselfWisconsin is just the latest example of how two different electorates are determining the balance of power in America. When Trump is on the ballot, lower-propensity, non-college educated, and (more recently) disaffected voters of color are more likely to turn out and vote for him, even if they dont necessarily vote for other Republicans. That was a factor that contributed not just to Harriss loss in 2024, but also to Senate and House Democrats overperformance in swing states. Democratic Senate candidates like Elissa Slotkin in Michigan, Ruben Gallego in Arizona, and Baldwin in Wisconsin all outran Harriss performance and won their respective races, in part because Republican turnout for Trump didnt trickle its way down the ballot.When Trump is not on the ballot, highly motivated, high-information, and disaffected anti-Trump voters (some of them former Republicans) still turn out, or turn out at even higher rates for Democratic candidates and those candidates still win over some share of Republicans who can be persuaded to vote for a Democrat. At the same time, lower-propensity Trump voters stay home. This is a historic shift. For most of the last 30 years, its been the Republican Party that has had the more attuned, higher-propensity voters who would turn out in off-year elections, and so would benefit from a smaller electorate. Democrats were the ones struggling to get their voters to the polls when Barack Obama wasnt on the ballot. But the Republican Party has been trading away many of those higher-propensity, college-educated, and wealthier voters to the Democrats in the Trump era, as Democrats lost more white, non-college educated voters.This pattern was again demonstrated in Wisconsin this week, but also in special elections across the country. In Floridas First and Sixth Congressional Districts, a share of Republican voters who turned out voted for Democratic candidates, particularly in the First District, which has more of a college-educated electorate. This was also a factor in the 2022 midterms, when states like Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia had plurality-Republican electorates that still ended up sending Democratic Senate candidates to Congress.Democrats are celebrating this most recent win in Wisconsin, and there are clear signs that the next year stands to see a score of Democratic victories in statewide and House elections. But the dynamic that is saving them in off years might not rescue them in the next presidential election (in which Trump will presumably not be on the ballot). They may have more lessons to learn about how to take advantage of the fundamentals that benefit them right now, and they surely have lessons to learn about how to counter Trumps influence before the next presidential cycle.See More:

After Nintendos intriguing hour-long live stream on Wednesday, we now know a lot more about its follow-up to the phenomenally successful Switch. But how does the Switch 2 play? After the online presentation, I got to spend about four hours road-testing the new console at a press event in the Grand Palais, Paris, the box-white exhibition hall adorned in Nintendo red and lined with rows of high-end TV screens and Switch 2 consoles. There was also a 90-minute roundtable with three of the masterminds behind the console: Tetsuya Sasaki (hardware design lead), Kouichi Kawamoto (producer) and Takuhiro Dohta (director). Heres what I learned.The gamesSmooth ride Mario Kart World for the Nintendo Switch 2. Photograph: NintendoMario Kart WorldThe headline feature here (playable cow aside) is Knockout Tour mode, which replaces the traditional three-lap circuits with hefty sprints across a sprawling world map. There are 24 racers, double that of its predecessor, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. As you progress, large checkpoints emerge on the horizon and at each of these the bottom four racers drop out. This continues until the final stretch, when the final four duke it out for first place. Think Mario Kart does battle royale. Its intense. Its exciting. It runs incredibly smoothly and will reinvigorate even the most hardened dare I say jaded Mario Kart player.Elsewhere there is a more traditional Mario Kart experience where everyone gets to finish the race. Youre still sprinting across some configuration of a world map one moment youre driving through Boos cinema, the next youre hurtling through a Toad-branded manufacturing plant. Tweaks from the previous game include: a few new weapons, skidding feels less agile, the tracks feel less claustrophobic and theyve styled Waluigi like Steven Van Zandt.Super Mario Party JamboreeQuirky Super Mario Party Jamboree. Photograph: NintendoMario Party is Nintendos party game franchise board games, mini games, screwing each other over, players taking it far too seriously you get the drill. This series has always allowed Nintendo to showcase the quirkier aspects of its hardware, and the camera works well in the mini games I played. I enjoyed the goomba-catching mini game (named Goombalancing Act): you stand in front of the console and camera, then marvel as youre projected on to the TV, now with a red pedestal on your head; as goombas begin falling from the sky you bob and weave to catch, stack and balance. The player with the most goombas at the end wins.Elsewhere, theres a squatting/standing decision based game (I can already see the camera being incorporated into the next Ring Fit/Wii Fit title) and a game that rewards those who move and shout the most, making use of the inbuilt microphone (this one might quickly grow old). Its all very reminiscent of PlayStations EyeToy. The mouse functionality gets a run-out too tagging Bob-ombs with spray scans is the standout (you literally shake the Joy-Con like a canister when you run out of spray).At the roundtable were told that Nintendo developed the microphone to remove unwanted external noise, but the sound of clapping will still get picked up, to allow the full emotion of the experience to come through. Nintendo is clearly trying to keep the spirit of local multiplayer gaming alive at a time where people are more isolated and less inclined to leave their homes. Theres an option to have your friends appear via camera at the bottom of your screen too. Being able to look people in the eye as you stab them in the back at a digital board game thats what makes life worth living.Drag x DriveDrag x Drive is Nintendos combination of Rocket League and wheelchair basketball. You hold the Joy-Con in mouse mode, one in each hand, and then manouvre as though youre operating a wheelchair. Theres a tutorial which takes some getting used to and at times it makes your arm ache a bit, but thankfully the game itself is less taxing and much more about smaller motions and precision. If you dont have a table in front of you to use the mouse then its designed to work on your lap. I gave this a try, but quickly became conscious of the fact that I was a 35-year-old man furiously rubbing his legs under a table.And the rest There have been concerns that the more iterative approach to the new Switch marks a new age for Nintendo, one where its less weird. Well, look no further than Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour. Picture the Switch 2 on its side, then enlarge it to the size of the airport, then turn buttons into kiosks with digital receptionists that you can explore: essentially its a playable guide to your console through the medium of mini games, explainers, tutorials and quizzes. It is more fun that it sounds just.In Donkey Kong Bananza you run around and destroy a lot of rocks. Maybe it was just the early levels I played, but it feels as if it skews toward a beginner audience. It looks amazing though. Then theres Metroid Prime 4. The opening sequence was playable here and all Ill say is it looks and feels exactly like Metroid Prime Remastered (complimentary) but slightly more vibrant, cinematic and busy, with mouse functionality for those who play their shooters that way.The hardwareAn iterative hop Nintendo Switch 2. Photograph: NintendoThe Switch 2 is more of an iterative hop than a grand redesign. The focus is on pragmatic changes that improve quality of life. Its a wider model than its predecessor, and though it feels sturdier it doesnt feel that much heavier in handheld mode. The bigger screen pops, as youd expect; and it all looks very sleek and less like a toy. It all feels like marginal gains, but together adds up to a much slicker, more modern device.The Joy-Con feels more durable, weightier than their predecessors and more comfortable to hold, with bigger buttons that are less awkward to press (the shoulder buttons in particular). I wasnt able to test out the magnetic attach/detach aspect, but I was able to detach the thin case that goes over the edges once theyre no longer docked in the system what a relief to no longer be messing about with those cheap black sliders. As for the dreaded Joy-Con drift, we were told during the roundtable that the new models have been designed from the ground up to account for bigger and smoother movements.The pro controller feels exactly as it did before, albeit with joysticks that feel slightly more durable and comfortable. I have minor concerns about accidentally hitting the new buttons at the base of the controller in the heat of karting battle accidentally firing off a premature red shell maybe but Im sure Ill get used to it. In the developer roundtable it was also confirmed that Joy-Con and pro controllers from the previous generation would be compatible with the Switch 2 (though presumably with some obvious restrictions on functionality).A note on the performance of the Switch 2: in my four hours playtime I remember seeing one loading screen. That was for Cyberpunk and it lasted maybe five to 10 seconds. I only had a few minutes to play, so immediately began shooting Night City cops to start a riot and my brief impressions are that the hardware coped pretty well with the ensuing carnage. Likewise for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I immediately loaded the save marked Korok Forest and sprinted under the Deku Tree, witnessing the forest for the first time without a single frame dropping.The verdictWhether or not Nintendo can convince diehard fans like me isnt the question here. Nintendo has often struggled with following up its triumphs in the home console market, lurching from runaway success to squandered opportunities. When the original Switch came out in March 2017, it was off the back of the dismal performance of the Wii U, a device that sold 13.5m units in its lifetime. Its job was to move devotees on from a failing system and convince casual gamers to come back. Nintendo has a different job this time around: it now has to convince perhaps the largest install base in its history (150m units sold and counting) to make the switch (Im sorry) to its reasonably similar new model. Its a big ask for Nintendo, and in this climate of home console uncertainty, for the entire industry.

By any estimation, Minecraft is impossibly successful. The bestselling video game ever, as of last December it had 204 million monthly active players. Since it was first released in 2011, it has generated over $3bn (2.3bn) in revenue. Whats more, its players have always been eager to demonstrate their fandom outside the boundaries of the game itself. In 2021, YouTube calculated that videos related to the game tutorials, walk-throughs, homages, parodies had collectively been viewed 1tn times. In short, it is a phenomenon.The Guardians journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.Learn more.Such is the strength of feeling, almost all of it positive, about Minecraft that it was only a matter of time before someone tried to turn it into a film. After all, you have a historically popular product and a highly engaged fanbase: what could possibly go wrong? Turns out, quite a lot. Last September, the first trailer for the film titled A Minecraft Movie was released, and the reaction was instant and violent. Minecraft fans devastated by awful live-action trailer read one headline the following day. Some called it a crime against humanity; others a soulless neon abomination. In less than 24 hours, the website GamingBible had called it a curse on my eyes and pure nightmare fuel. Within three days of its release, the trailer had been downvoted more than 1m times.If youre familiar with Minecraft, you can probably understand why. Minecraft is a game with a highly distinctive look; everything is made of square blocks, and theres a muted palette. The trailer, however, is insanely garish. Everything looks like it is made of Haribo and, worse, the blocks have slightly rounded edges. Worse still, there are humans in it. Heightened, ironic-looking humans. Jason Momoa is in it, in an unflattering blond wig and hot-pink leather jacket. In other words, it looks like a film made by people who dont understand Minecraft.This is Jumanji but with a Minecraft skin, was the first reaction of Argentinian YouTuber ElVitt0ri0 on seeing the teaser. Minecraft offers an infinite number of narrative possibilities. And yet they decided to go with the we go to another universe and learn about it storyline? What is this? Space Jam 3?ElVitt0ri0s response was to create A Movie About Minecraft (That Doesnt Exist), a version of what the film should have been. The trailer was created with the open-source animation software Blender that was used to make Flow, which won best animated feature at this years Oscars; its a fully animated trailer that retains the look of the original game and features characters recognisable to players. Underneath the video is the comment: This is everything the Minecraft movie should have been, the game elements, the history, the community its so perfect.And ElVitt0ri0 is not alone. Dozens, maybe even hundreds, of fan-made Minecraft trailers have sprung up online since the official teaser went live, each trying to find their own way to undo the damage it caused. Vicky Fernandes, who runs the channel Gloomy Animations, made one entitled Minecraft Movie Trailer But Its Actually Good. Her video is explicitly a fix rather than a reimagining; a shot-for-shot remake where everything is animated in a more immediately recognisable Minecraft style. And it is good; so good that the comments beneath the video are full of relieved now-thats-what-I-expected sentiment.For a certain type of fan, the Minecraft look is gospel. Photograph: MojangI think the movie should have been animated, not live action, Fernandes says over email. Mixing CGI cube-looking characters with real humans looks very weird. The CGI characters also look oddly realistic while keeping the cube proportions, making it look creepy. Overall, the film does not have an appealing art style.What ElVitt0ri0 and Fernandes have in common is that they are Minecraft fans first and foremost. Fernandes first started playing the game in 2014, when she was eight years old, and began making fan videos four years later. ElVitt0ri0 started playing at age 11, and quickly got swept up in its peripheral YouTube content. One thing fans have proved again and again is that Minecraft can function as an amazing platform to tell a story, ElVitt0ri0 says. Not just through animation either you can look at whole series and movies that were made in-game.Both YouTubers lament that this sense of history and appreciation seems to have been lost in the official movie. But perhaps that is to be expected, since Warner Bros has been trying to get a Minecraft movie off the ground for over a decade now. In 2014, when the studio first announced a film, it hired Shawn Levy to direct it. But that fell through, so Rob McElhenney stepped in to replace him. When he too stepped away shortly afterwards, Peter Sollett best known for 2008s Nick & Norahs Infinite Playlist briefly took his place. It was only in 2022 that the film found all of its pieces, with Napoleon Dynamites Jared Hess stepping in to direct a script from Masterminds writers Chris Bowman and Hubbel Palmer.In truth, Hess had his work cut out for him. Minecraft is a game without a traditional narrative. A sandbox game, where players are plunged into a procedurally generated landscape and are free to do whatever they like. If they want to extract raw materials from their surroundings to craft tools, they can. If they want to start fights with hostile creatures, they can. If they want to spend four days using the game to build a giant chicken (as my 10-year-old did this week), then thats up to them.A corpo-vomited product? The Minecraft film. Photograph: Courtesy Warner Bros Pictures/APThe film nods to this with its title its A Minecraft Movie, not The Minecraft Movie, because it would be reductive to be so definitive and, yet, Hess does appear to have taken the easy path, padding the bones of a Jumanji-style offering with blockier skin. Worse still, Hess has a distinctive visual style (he is essentially the Wes Anderson of ironic haircuts) that doesnt intuitively mesh with the Minecraft look.And for a certain type of fan, that look is not only gospel, but in part fan led. For instance, Element Animation, a YouTube outfit that made its name with lushly animated, absurd Minecraft spoofs were so successful that they ended up being hired by game developer Mojang to make official Minecraft videos. Minecraft is now ultimately a feedback loop between the game and the people who play it, and the movie needed to reflect that.However, the story goes that Hess basically stumbled into making the film when another project he was working on for Legendary fell through, they asked him to pitch for Minecraft and perhaps this lack of familiarity shows. After all, Phil Lord and Chris Miller went out of their way to reassure people that theyd played with Lego all of their lives before making 2014s rigorously faithful The Lego Movie. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic went as far as saying that Super Mario Bros was their main source of entertainment as children when they were announced as directors for 2023s Super Mario Bros Movie.This is the level of familiarity that fans have come to expect, and things have a habit of going wrong whenever directors try to impose themselves too forcefully on a beloved property. The first live-action Mario movie fell apart when it replaced Bowser (a gigantic muscular turtle) with Dennis Hopper in a shiny blazer. Paramount was forced to spend $5m redesigning Sonic the Hedgehog after his appearance in a movie trailer, all tiny eyes and human teeth, horrified viewers. But Minecraft is still a relatively new game. People like Fernandes and ElVitt0ri0, who have been playing the game for long enough to truly understand it, are still only in their early 20s. Maybe one day theyll make a perfectly faithful Minecraft movie that satisfies the fans, but it wont be for years.But, again, this is A Minecraft Movie, not The Minecraft Movie. Warner Bros may have done enough to prevent this one from completely flopping there is wall-to-wall promotion, both in-game and in the real world, plus a second trailer that seems slightly more faithful to the source material. But hardcore devotees may still feel that its time to put the fans in charge of any future big-screen offerings. An Element Animation Minecraft film is exactly what my children want to see, but perhaps the reins will be passed to someone else with an innate understanding of the game. As ElVitt0ri0 says, a film based on something as beloved as Minecraft should be an actual piece of love towards the fans by fans, not just some corpo-vomited product by a big company.

F-Zero GX is making a comeback (Nintendo)Nintendo has announced GameCube games are heading to its online service, led by F-Zero GX and The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker.The Nintendo Direct for the Switch 2 was stuffed with new games and details around the console, but for anyone old enough to be nostalgic about the GameCube, one announcement might have trumped them all.After it was rumoured ahead of the presentation, Nintendo officially announced GameCube games will be added to Nintendo Switch Online when the Switch 2 launches on June 5, 2025. The service, depending on the tier youre subscribed to, currently offers access to Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, Sega Mega Drive, NES, SNES, and Game Boy titles.Access to GameCube games on the service will be exclusive to Switch 2 owners who have a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription, which currently costs 34.99 for 12 months individually, or 59.99 for a year-long family subscription.At the Switch 2s launch, there will be three GameCube games available: The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker, F-Zero GX, and SoulCalibur 2 with Link as a playable character.While all three are great games, the highlight of the line-up is F-Zero GX, although some might be disappointed its not a proper remaster. This version, however, does include small visual improvements and the ability to play with up to four players either locally or online.The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker has already been remastered for the Wii U, with significant gameplay and visual improvements. A Switch port of this remaster has been heavily rumoured for a while, but its unclear if the existence of this GameCube version on Switch makes a port of the Wii U version unlikely. Nintendo also teased several other GameCube titles coming to the service in the future, although no specific release dates were given. These are listed below.All GameCube games coming to Switch 2Confirmed at launch:F-Zero GXThe Legend Of Zelda: The Wind WakerSoulCalibur 2Coming soon:Super Mario SunshineSuper Mario StrikersChibi-RoboPokmon XD: Gale of DarknessPokmon ColosseumLuigis MansionFire Emblem: Path Of RadianceBeyond the games themselves, Nintendo also announced a wireless GameCube controller will be released on the same day as the Switch 2 on June 5, 2025. This will be available from the My Nintendo Store and will be exclusive to Nintendo Switch Online members, like the previous Nintendo 64 and NES controllers.More TrendingAs noted on the stores website though, it will only be initially available to those who are invited to pre-order the Switch 2 console, with the controller priced at 58.99.While it certainly isnt cheap to access these games, this does present a viable way to play some GameCube obscurities which are currently very expensive to buy physically, such as Chibi-Robo and Pokmon XD: Gale of Darkness.Its harder to excuse the price of actual Switch 2 games though, with the physical edition of Mario Kart World set to cost 74.99, while the digital version costs 66.99. If youre looking to secure a Switch 2 console, meanwhile, you can check out where to pre-order here. Sadly, it isnt the Wii U version (Nintendo)Emailgamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below,follow us on Twitter, andsign-up to our newsletter.To submit Inbox letters and Readers Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use ourSubmit Stuff page here.For more stories like this,check our Gaming page.GameCentralSign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

A barrel of destruction (Nintendo)The rumours are true and not only has Donkey Kong had a major makeover but his new Nintendo Switch 2 game is like nothing hes ever starred in before.Although there were plenty of educated guesses about what games might arrive early in the Switch 2s line-up the only one based on an actual rumour was a new 3D Donkey Kong game. That rumour has turned out to be absolutely correct, although its not quite the game many expected.It was imagined that it might be a de facto 3D Mario game, featuring both characters and made by the same Nintendo EPD team responsible for Super Mario Odyssey. Its not yet clear whos making the game, but while the latter may well be true there was no sign of Mario or any other existing characters from either the Mushroom Kingdom or the Donkey Kong Country games.And while the annoucement trailer did suggest there will be some traditional platforming sections, including 2D stages reminiscent of Donkey Kong Country Returns, everything we played was completely different to that and revolved destroying everything in your path, up to and including the scenery itself.The story seems to involve Donkey Kong digging for jewel-like bananas, with an army of enslaved monkeys, that look very similar to Diddy Kong, working for a group of currently unnamed bad guys. The larger bananas appear to function similarly to moons in Super Mario Odyssey, in that theyre the tangible reward for exploration but, really, youre just encouraged to experiment and play around with the level and your abilities.DK can punch through solid rock, but he can also punch downwards and upwards and seemingly climb over any surface, allowing him to batter a level to smithereens, in his search for smaller ingots of gold and other collectables (including fossils which apparently unlock costumes in a shop we never saw).He also has his signature hand slap that can collect nearby objects and act like a sort of echo location to reveal nearby hidden secrets. Plus, he can do a ground pound type move, a forward roll, and rip up a chunk of the ground at any moment, like the Hulk, and either hurl it at enemies (including via an optional first person aiming view) or use it like a rotating surfboard (that doesnt make any more sense in context). A big world to destroy (Nintendo)Initially, Donkey Kong appears ridiculous overpowered and its hugely entertaining to just demolish everything you can get your hands on and tunnel through the underground mines you start in, like an angry mole. The demo then fast-forwarded us to later in the game, where there are more substantial enemies and obstacles including exploding rocks, which are crucial for taking down a tough mini-boss.Its all hugely entertaining and the scale of destruction, and the amount of damage you can do to each stage levelling it down to the water table, is hugely impressive. There seems to be a lot more to the game than we ever got into too, as theres a weird purple rock sitting on your shoulder in the second part of the demo and we have no idea who they are or what they do.As positive as the first impressions are though, the demo was surprisingly janky for a Nintendo title. Its not finished, so the frame rate issues and skittish controls will probably be fixed in the final game, but the camera really struggles to show a sensible view of the action when you start taking apart the scenery. Doing it Country style (Nintendo)Or rather it does usually manage to do so but this often involves weird views where its clipping through the floor or walls. We think most of this is intentional though and theres probably no other way to do it, given theres so few limits on what you can destroy. This makes us even more interested in seeing the finished product and how Nintendo manages to mitigate what is probably an intractable problem.More TrendingEven if the game ends up seeming somewhat clumsy at times that suits the great ape and his big new makeover. His new look is also featured in Mario Kart World but here you can see how vastly more expressive he is, compared to the stoic Rare version.Some will no doubt complain at the change but were all for it, in terms of both how Donkey Kong looks and how much this new game plays in a totally different manner to his previous titles and indeed any other game weve ever played.Formats: Nintendo Switch 2Price: TBAPublisher: NintendoDeveloper: NintendoRelease Date: 17th July 2025Age Rating: 7 Donkey Kong in Hulk mode (Nintendo)Emailgamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below,follow us on Twitter, andsign-up to our newsletter.To submit Inbox letters and Readers Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use ourSubmit Stuff page here.For more stories like this,check our Gaming page.GameCentralSign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. 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Storage is a hot commodity. No one knows this better than the professionals working with large files on a regular basis. Be it you are a photographer, videographer, or even a gamer, you may be interested in this new offering at Amazon. Right now, the Seagate One Touch portable SSD has been marked down by 18%. This brings this 5TB SSD down from $140 to just $115.The Seagate HDD is designed for portability. For all the videographers, photographers, or any professional on the go, youll have access to a full 5TB of data right in your pocketwithout sacrificing speed. Its compact and lightweight so you can take it with your wherever you need. Its only about the size of your wallet at about 2.5 inches. The HDD has a lovely aesthetic, featuring a minimalist brushed metal enclosure to keep the disc protected from the elements while looking stylish.See at AmazonThis portable HDD uses a USB 3.0 interface so you can transfer files to and from Window, Mac, and Chromebooks right out of the box without needing to reformat the drive. For use with USB-C computers, an adapter will be necessary.Backup Your Data and Stay ProtectedThe backup software utilizes folder mirroring and can be enabled for on-demand backups to happen automatically on an hourly, daily, weekly or monthly basisits up to you! This will help prevent you from losing your data if you ever run into an issue with your Mac or PC , corrupting your files. Youll always have the backup handy in case of an emergency. Mirroring software will allow you to seamlessly access files across multiple devices. The drive also comes with a Dropbox backup plan. Enjoy a six month free trial to keeping copies of your files in the cloud. Youll also get a six month free trial to Mylio Photos to help organize, declutter, and enhance your pictures.Seagate puts your security at the forefront, offering an advanced password option with hardware encryption to ensure your files and photos are protected from those you do not wish to give access.Keep up to 5TB of photos, videos, documents, and more safely secure with the help of this password-activated portable external hard drive from Seagate. The Seagate One Touch HDD is normally priced at $140. However, as part of an ongoing Amazon deal, the price has been reduced by 18%. That brings the total down to just $115making for a savings of $25.See at Amazon

Youll have to forgive Luke Skywalker for calling the Millennium Falcon a pile of junk, because he clearly did not see the LEGO Star Wars version thats on sale for just $70 right now at Amazon. This amazingly detailed 921-piece model of the most famous spaceship in sci-fi history (Sorry, USS Enterprise) celebrates the 25th anniversary of the long and extremely fruitful collaboration between LEGO and the Star Wars franchise.LEGO Star Wars has turned out hundreds of awesomely fun playable kits for kids, but the 25th anniversary Millennium Falcon is an adults-only endeavor. Its incredibly intricate, with the emphasis more on detail and aesthetics than playability no mini figures or shooting pieces here. It comes with a display stand, nameplate, and a commemorative LEGO Star Wars 25th Anniversary brick to complete the tableau.See at AmazonFun and NostalgicIts almost impossible to believe that Star Wars is approaching its 50th anniversary in just 2 short years, but its longevity asthe iconic sci-fi franchise means there are millions upon millions of adult Star Wars fans out there, many of whom also cherish the memory of building LEGO Star Wars kits when they were kids. Thats clearly who this Millennium Falcon kit is aimed at. As part of the mid-scale LEGO Star Wars Starship Collection, its a fun and detailed kit to build now and very likely will become a sought-after collectors item in the future.The 921 LEGO bricks that come together to create the Millennium Falcon are amazingly detailed, from the cannons used to blow away Imperial TIE Fighters to the blue glow of the lightspeed engines in the rear. (When they work, of course Luke may have had a point about the Falcons mechanical integrity.)Use the ForceTheres more than a little fun escapism involved when you unpack the LEGO Star Wars Millennium Falcon and set yourself up for a long and rewarding building experience. Its an excellent stress-buster, and working with a LEGO kit brings back great childhood memories. LEGO may be one of the only brands thats even more universal than Star Wars, and their collaboration is still going strong after 25 years.Theres definitely a place of honor on your bookshelf or mantel for the Millennium Falcon as rendered in LEGO form, and Amazons sale cutting 18% from the price of this beautiful 921-piece LEGO Star Wars Millennium Falcon 25th Anniversary kit with display stand is your opportunity to fill it.See at Amazon

House bo / driearchitectenSave this picture! Klaas VerdruHouses, RenovationBelgiumArchitects: driearchitectenAreaArea of this architecture projectArea:175 mYearCompletion year of this architecture project Year: 2024 PhotographsPhotographs:Klaas Verdru Lead Architects: Barbara Ostyn, Steven Oost More SpecsLess SpecsSave this picture!Text description provided by the architects. For this project, we built upon a place with a rich history. We were inspired by Le Corbusier, who elevates functions and redefines the ground floor as a service level. Therefore, on the ground floor, we accommodated the essential functions: a space for cars and bicycles, an entrance hall, a cloakroom, a laundry room, a utility room, storage, office space, and an indoor garden.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!The first floor is reserved for sleeping and bathing, while the second floor houses the living spaces, with expansive terraces. The focus was on maximizing the use of sun and light, given the northern orientation of the existing house. The new top floor opens up to the south to make the most of natural sunlight.Save this picture!This architectural intervention is conceived as a palimpsest: a subtle balance between reuse and renewal, where the original monastic atmosphere is preserved, and the spaces are revitalized. The project creates a new world atop a rich history, with a careful harmony between preservation and innovation. Existing techniques were reused, where necessary supplemented with new technologies to make intensive living and working in an urban context possible.Save this picture!Save this picture!Everything valuable was preserved to the maximum. A green garden with chickens brings a touch of rural life to the city. The house, with three facades a square facade, a street facade, and a garden facade offers a unique experience. On the square side, the intervention is very subtle and almost invisible, allowing the church to stand out. On the street side, the overhanging volume is very much present and forms a surprising dialogue with the old church facade, bringing an unexpected tension to the streetscape.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!From the inside, the presence of the church is very tangible, almost touchable, and part of the space itself. Therefore, we chose to make the volume completely transparent in glass, allowing the light, the view, and the history to merge into a unique whole. This project symbolizes an intense symbiosis between the past and the future, city and green, and history and modernity.Save this picture!Project gallerySee allShow lessAbout this officePublished on April 03, 2025Cite: "House bo / driearchitecten" 03 Apr 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1028563/house-b-star-o-driearchitecten&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save!ArchDaily?You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

If you matched a Swiss singer against a monkey vocalist in a yodeling contest, the non-human primate would win handily, according to a study published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.It turns out apes and monkeys possess vocal membranes in their throats that humans lack. Scientists suspect these structures slowly disappeared through evolution to allow for more stable speech. So what evolutionary advantages do these throat structures provide monkeys and apes? How do these membranes work? And why do monkeys need them?Yodeling, by definition, requires rapid back-and-forth shifts in pitch between a low note from the chest and a high one from the throat. The study explains what gives monkeys the competitive edge.How Monkeys Can YodelA team of researchers first recorded the calls of several primate species at La Senda Verde Wildlife Sanctuary in Bolivia. The recorded primates included the black and gold howler monkey (Alouatta caraya), tufted capuchin (Sapajus apella), black-capped squirrel monkey (Saimiri boliviensis), and Peruvian spider monkey (Ateles chamek).Next, they used software to visualize and analyze the calls frequencies. They also performed CT scans on some primates to better understand the membrane structure in their throats. Finally, they observed how the primates used different kinds of calls, depending on the situation.Their analysis revealed that extremely thin vocal membranes sit above folds in the larynx that allow the monkeys to introduce what the scientists call voice breaks into their calls. Those breaks happen because sound production oscillates between the folds and membranes. Unlike the traditional Swiss yodeler, they dont need to shift between chest and throat for the quick pitch shifts which resembles the classic Tarzan yell.The mechanism is so effective that some monkeys can make what the researchers call ultra-yodels, with jumps in frequency up to five times what a human can deliver. In terms of octaves, New World monkeys can span three, while most human voices can barely extend beyond a single.Read More: How Similar Are Humans and Monkeys? Why do Monkeys Yodel?Although the researchers now know what mechanisms the monkeys use to make the sounds and how they deliver such dynamic vocal range, they are still left with why?Jacob Dunn, an evolutionary biology research at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) in Cambridge, England and an author of the paper, hypothesizes that the monkeys leverage their larynxes for social reasons.This might be particularly important in primates, which have complex social lives and need to communicate in a variety of different ways, Dunn said in a press release. Its highly likely this has evolved to enrich the animals call repertoire, and is potentially used for attention-grabbing changes, call diversification, or identifying themselves.Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Monkey yodels frequency jumps in New World monkey vocalizations greatly surpass human vocal register transitionsBefore joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in newspapers, but switched to scientific magazines. His work has appeared in publications including Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.