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 Octoberthough 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 unionsif 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 scammersvia 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 pagehere'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 Paythough they don't have quite the same tight bank-account integration that you get with Zelle, and which Zelle is now focused on.

For decades, the only way to buy a car was to physically go to a dealership. If that idea gives you an anxiety attack, youre not alone, so its a relief to know that the industry is finally embracing online shoppingeven 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 youre 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 spotits 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 its 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 dealerships 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 theyre incredibly attractive to potential buyers. In the current economic environment, where carsused and neware 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 provideincluding photos and documentation. It can be extremely difficult to tell that youre 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 waystypically via wire transferand 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 its relatively easy to set up a website that looks exactly like a real car dealership. If youre thinking about buying a car online, there are a couple of things you should look for when considering an online dealership:Check with your states 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 youre considering is on the list.If its 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 personbut its also a little more dangerous. A little extra due diligence can save you a lot of trouble.

Hear me out. I too rolled my eyes when A Minecraft Movie was announced. We're all tired of seeing Jack Black in video game movies he was fine in Super Mario Bros., but good god Borderlands was a disaster. And the Minecraft film's trailers did it no favors, another soulless movie produced on a virtual set about a game that's completely open-ended and plotless. But it turns out A Minecraft Movie is actually good.Honestly, I'm as surprised as you are.A Minecraft Movie isn't exactly groundbreaking, to be clear. It certainly never reaches the heights of The Lego Movie. But it's surprisingly funny for a children's movie, and it delivers a decent message about championing creativity in a world that wants to beat down free-thinking non-conformists. And if you were around for the inexplicable Napoleon Dynamite craze of the mid-2000's, you'll notice plenty of that film's quirky sensibility from director Jared Hess.From the beginning, A Minecraft Movie seems well aware of the ridiculousness of its own existence. The story starts off with Jack Black's Steve (dressed just like the game's default skin) retelling his obsession with "the mines," and his inability to go digging while he was a kid. He later grows up, gets a boring office job and remembers his erstwhile calling to make holes in the earth. Once he makes his way into a cave, he stumbles into a portal that brings him to the blocky "Overworld" of the Minecraft universe. It's classic isekai stuff the genre of anime where the main character is transported to another (often digital) world.And yes, I know all of this sounds incredibly contrived as I write this, but Black's zaniness really sells the absurdity of the film. It's as if he's saying out loud, "Yes, I know the idea of a Minecraft movie is beyond dumb, but at least you get to spend time with me in classic Jack Black mode!" Now if you're tired of his schtick, that may be a major knock against the film. But for me, it was a nice reminder of his Tenacious D days.Warner Bros.The film eventually focuses on two siblings, Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and Natalie (Emma Myers), who are moving to a small Midwestern town after the death of their mother. Natalie is gearing up for a social media producer role at a local business, while Henry is forced to adapt to a new school. Coincidentally, a former gaming superstar lives in their town, Jason Mamoa's Garret "The Garbageman" Garrison, who befriends Henry as another outcast. Danielle Brooks' Dawn, a struggling local realtor/mobile zookeeper, ends up taking Natalie under her wing after seeing how much she's sacrificing for her brother.Inevitably, thanks to a glowing MacGuffin, those four characters also stumble into the same portal that sent Steve to the Overworld. They quickly run into Steve, break their glowing MacGuffin and then head off to find a way to fix it and return home. If any of this sounds boring, don't worry, it's not really important. What works best in A Minecraft Movie is the humor and personality Hess stuffs in between the trappings of a big budget Hollywood game adaptation.Warner Bros.The majority of the film hinges on Jack Black's persona, but I also enjoyed seeing Jason Mamoa play an egotistical manchild who's in love with video games. He's decked out in an absurd wig and hot pink jacket, and Mamoa hams it up just as well as he did Fast X. He's a jerk at times, but he's also kind to Henry and clearly doesn't care what anyone thinks of his personal style. The rest of the cast mostly plays it straight against the force of Black and Mamoa's personalities, but they each get a few moments to shine.Whenever the core story starts to fall flat, A Minecraft Movie veers into more interesting territory, like a hapless Minecraft villager who stumbles into the real world. For those who don't play the game, villagers are simple NPC who can't speak, and often find themselves in danger. I got a kick out of seeing him navigate traffic and have a meet-cute with Jennifer Coolidge's Vice Principal Marlene, a relationship that gets weirder than you'd think. (Again, it's like something straight out of Napoleon Dynamite.)Warner Bros.Im no Minecraft devotee, but I wish the films interpretation of the games blocky graphics were a bit more pixelated. While the characters and animals we see resemble their game counterparts, their over-designed look clashes with the beautiful simplicity of Minecrafts aesthetics. Im sure its tough to unite the low-poly look with live action, while also delivering polished CG that audiences expect, but the path A Minecraft Movie took just feels over-cooked. That being said, the films game world seems more alive than the empty virtual sets in Quantumania. There are tons of characters milling about, and the environments all feel distinctly Minecraft.The kids in my press screening didnt seem to mind the shift in visual language. They loved seeing the games creatures in any form a family of pandas got a theater-wide awww. And they also loved seeing in-game Minecraft tricks represented on the big screen, like using a water block to cushion a fall.My daughter Sophias verdict? I liked it, but I dont think Id want to see it again, she said. But I know shes lying. Well likely end up seeing this thing hundreds of times at home, and even more so once her brother jumps aboard the Minecraft bandwagon. I wont mind, though. As far as kids movies go, its a world I wouldnt mind revisiting.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/a-minecraft-movie-review-its-good-actually-190035499.html?src=rss

Following its big Switch 2 presentation, Nintendo revealed in an interview with the team behind the console that one of the (arguably better) names the company was considering before it landed on Switch 2 was "Super Nintendo Switch.""There were a lot of ideas for the name, and we really struggled to find the right one," Kouichi Kawamato, the producer on the Switch 2, says. "We even considered ideas like 'Super Nintendo Switch.'" The issue with the name was that even though drawing a parallel to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) was fun, it was also potentially confusing. The SNES was the successor to the NES, but it couldn't play NES games. "Since Switch 2 can play Switch games, it didn't feel right to use the same naming convention as Super NES."Adding a number to the end of the original console's name (the general strategy Nintendo's competitor Sony has taken with the PlayStation) just made things a lot simpler and easier to understand. Nintendo's caution isn't totally unfounded. The Wii U was more powerful than the Wii and featured a unique controller in the Wii U GamePad. Because it's name was so similar to Nintendo's older console, it was backwards compatible with the Wii and it supported pre-existing accessories like Wii Remotes, though, it was viewed as an add-on rather than a new device worth upgrading to.There were other problems that helped do the Wii U in, like a steep decline in support from third-party game developers and a failure on Nintendo's part to explain what made the console distinct, but the name certainly didn't help. The Switch 2 is much better set up for success than the Wii U, but "sticking to what works" seems like the defining idea of the new console, so the name is following suit.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/the-switch-2-was-almost-called-the-super-nintendo-switch-184243089.html?src=rss

Nikon's Z5 II latest entry-level full-frame mirrorless camera brings flagship features and a higher price tag to boot is it too much camera?

Pokmon Colosseum and other fantastic GameCube rereleases might convince me to pre-order a Nintendo Switch 2.

The announcement, which came alongside a set of sweeping new tariffs, gives customs officials, retailers and logistics companies a month to prepare.

For Jews in Canada, much like their American counterparts, Manischewitz kosher wine has become a staple of Passover and other religious celebrations.But now many are struggling to find the New York state-made drink for the wine-heavy spring holiday as Canadian government retailers and wholesale monopolies pull American-made products from shelves in protest of U.S. President Donald Trumps tariffs and annexation threats.The missing wine illustrates how Trumps instigation of a trade war with Canada and his bellicose talk is causing pain for Canadian consumers and U.S. beverage companies like Manischewitz owner E & J Gallo Winery, as well as potential opportunities for Canadian competitors.Many Canadian consumers are embracing a Buy Canadian movement and avoiding U.S.-made goods, but for some specialized products like sweet and fruity Manischewitz kosher wine, there is no true alternative, kosher goods retailers and consumers say.Canadas provincial governments control liquor sales and wholesaling, and since early March have all banned U.S. alcohol imports as well as most distribution and sales, including Manischewitz wine and Jack Daniels bourbon whiskey.Existing stocks have been yanked from shelves across the sprawling nation. Private stores, allowed to sell existing supplies, told Reuters their Manischewitz bottles were snapped up by shoppers soon after the provincial governments bans were announced.People are freaking out, said Louise Waldman, a Winnipeg Jew who associates the particular taste of Manischewitz wine with a lifetime of Passover meals.Manischewitz and Gallo did not respond to requests for comment.During Passover, which begins on April 12, Jews gather for traditional meals, called seders, and eat specific foods including horseradish, parsley and eggs. Traditionally, each participant drinks four glasses of wine throughout the meal.Aaron Bernstein of family-owned Bernsteins Delicatessen, a Jewish food store and restaurant in Winnipeg in Western Canada, said he has had to tell patriotic Canadian shoppers that there are not domestically made versions of some kosher products.Theres no other product like Manischewitz wine, he said.Made kosher in CanadaCanadian Jews seeking kosher wine to fulfill the ceremonial obligation might still find some Israeli wine in some government-operated liquor stores. Manitoba Liquor Marts offer three kosher wines, such as both red and white from the Galil Mountain Winery, a spokesperson said.But for some kosher foods producers in Canada, the upsurge in patriotic pride and the desire for Made in Canada goods is a chance to expand business.Ritesh Patel, the director of operations for Elmans Food Products, a Winnipeg kosher foods processor since 1938, hopes to capture more of the domestic kosher market.The company is in talks with major national chains about carrying their pickled products like sauerkraut, eggs and horseradish, he said.To replace some American products, Bernstein said his deli has been ordering more products from Israel, but imports take longer to arrive because of the extended supply chain.For some Canadian Jews who keep kosher, the concern goes beyond missing holiday foods and extends to the risk of tariffs and higher prices on other staple products making groceries unaffordable.Were very concerned in general. The price of food is astronomical and the price of kosher food is even more concerning, said Richard Rabkin, the managing director of the Kashruth Council of Canada, the countrys largest kosher certification agency.Ed White and Leah Douglas, Reuters

When the Biden administration set new auto emissions standards, it was a landmark climate move; passenger vehicles currently account for more than a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. But the new standards also included fuel efficiency elements that would save drivers money.President Trump has said he wants to roll back both emissions and fuel economy standards, calling the regulations an EV mandate. If he does roll those back, drivers of new models may end up spending thousands more just to fill their gas tanks.Speaking to reporters at the Oval Office this week, Trump reiterated his plan to roll back the regulations, saying Were going to go back, probably, to a 2020 standard. Doing so could result in consumers paying at least $8,000 more to fuel a vehicle in 2029, than they would have if the standards stayed in place, says Chris Harto, a senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports who focuses on energy efficiency.Under Biden, the EPA enacted the emissions standards and and the Department of Transportation enacted the fuel economy standards. Both help clean up combustion vehiclesand both are in Trumps crosshairs, as the standards were created in coordination with each other. Making vehicles more efficient, Harto explains, comes with the very fortunate side benefit of making the vehicle cheaper to fuel. Biden announced the newest standards in 2024; they phase in over model years 2027 to 2032. They built on standards the EPA put in place in 2021 that cover model years 2023 to 2026. The standards established a 50.4 miles per gallon average for light-duty vehicles by model year 2031. Those combined rules, a Consumer Reports analysis found, would deliver more than $2 trillion in consumer fuel savings by 2050. Thats a massive amount of money thats at stake, Harto says.In the past three years, the new standards have already delivered $2,200 in fuel savings for new vehicles (and over the next five years, theyre on track to deliver another $6,000 in savings). Thats a stark difference from the four years prior, 2018 to 2021, when standards were being rolled back during Trumps first term. Over those four years, consumers saw less than $500 in savings delivered per vehicle.Though Trump says the standards promote EVs, Harto says they help drive all sorts of efficiency technology, including hybrids and plug-in hybrids, that can save consumers a lot of money without having to change the way they drive their vehicle. If those standards get frozen in the past, he adds theres a strong chance well see a pull back [from automakers] in some of those newer technologies across the board.Speaking to reporters, Trump said that the new auto emissions standards dont mean a damn bit of difference for the environment but make it impossible for people to build cars. Harto contests both those claims. The Consumer Reports analysis also found that by 2050, the auto emissions standards would reduce pollution by 12 billion tons. Its the single most impactful piece of climate regulation that the U.S. has ever put in place, he says.As for how difficult it is for automakers to comply, Harto says research shows that over the past two decades, automakers have been able to deliver $9,000 in consumer fuel savings for the average new vehicle, without an increase to that vehicle price, once adjusted for inflation. Every time regulation is on the table, the industry screams that its going to drive up costs for consumers, he says. In the end, they deliver significant savings to consumers with very little or no detectable cost. . . . It really is a win-win in terms of consumer and climate benefits. Though Harto said he couldnt speak for automakers about the future of these rules, he said most industries tend to like fewer regulations.Consumers broadly dont support a roll back in emissions standards. In a January 2025 Consumer Reports survey, 96% of American drivers said fuel economy is at least somewhat important to them when considering a new vehicle, and nearly two-thirds agree that the government should continue to increase fuel-economy standards.The Big Three U.S. automakers didnt respond to requests for comment about whether they support the rolling back of standards. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation said in a statement that the current emissions rules are extremely challenging to achieve and that a balanced approach to emission in the U.S. is key to preserving vehicle choice. Since not all model years that the standards cover are in full production yet, carmakers could also adapt to regulatory changes by canceling upcoming vehicles or adjusting production volumes. Some U.S. automakers have already pulled back on EV plans, canceling some future models, and the U.S. significantly lags behind markets like China that have accelerated EV technologies.Whether the standards are rolled back or not, Harto says Consumer Reports will continue to test vehicles for fuel economy and environmental impact and include those predominantly in their ratings. At a time when consumers pocketbooks are already stretched, basically locking in larger fuel bills for consumers for decades to come is a really bad idea, he adds.

Apple, Amazon, and other tech companies reliant on global supply chains stand to lose the most from Trump's trade policies, but some software firms expect more demand for their services.