Season 3 of Gangs of London brings back the raw, unfiltered chaos fans love — and Flaming Frames was right in the thick of it. Known for their expertise in high-impact visual effects, the studio delivered a visceral punch with blood, bullets, and brutally realistic gore.From close-quarters shootouts to explosive action sequences, Flaming Frames pushed the boundaries of mayhem with precision and artistry. Their work not only amplified the intensity of the show but helped maintain its signature gritty realism. The post Gangs of London S3 – VFX Breakdown by Flaming Frames appeared first on Vfxexpress.

Inside a warehouse in Santa Clara, California, a company called Vintage Electric Bikes builds sleek e-bikes with retro styling, customized for each customer’s order. But like other bike brands, the components it uses come from a global supply chain. “The bicycle industry, there’s just no f***ing way we can survive 100% [made in] America,” says Eddie Johnson, sales director at the company. “It’s not possible.” That means that tariffs, if they stay in place, will hit the industry hard. Last year, 115 electric bike brands left the market after another round of tariffs went into effect, according to Peter Woolery, who analyzes bike industry data. (Those tariffs were put in place during the first Trump administration, but e-bikes had a temporary exemption that expired last summer and President Biden did not renew.) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Vintage Electric Bikes (@vintageelectric) When Vintage Electric Bikes first launched more than a decade ago, it tried to do as much as possible locally, working with local welders and machine shops to make parts like frames and handlebars. But when one key local foundry closed—after Google bought out its lease to expand the tech company’s offices—Vintage Electric Bikes couldn’t find another local partner to replace it. It had to begin using a supplier in Taiwan, where most of the world’s high-end bikes are now made. Other parts, like e-bike batteries and motors, always came from other countries like China. “There’s no way around it,” Johnson says. There’s an argument that more bike assembly could happen in the U.S., Johnson says. But the hundred or so parts that go into making a bike—spokes, chains, wheels, tires, saddles, seat posts, bearings, etcetera—are unlikely to be made here. In the short term, it isn’t feasible. And if it happened over the long term, he argues that it would make products unaffordable for consumers because of higher American wages. He makes the comparison to shoes. “Do you really think American workers are going to want to build Nike shoes? No. And if they are going to make Nike shoes, you need to invest in that factory. You need to invest in the training. And then all of a sudden, your Nike shoe has all of this added cost. Do you think the American consumer is going to buy your average Nike sneaker for a few hundred dollars?” Still, there are already some efforts to bring back some parts of bike manufacturing. Bloom, a Detroit-based startup, is working with bike brands and other types of companies to connect them with American factories. A factory that used to do TV assembly, for example, is now working on bike assembly. Another factory that used to make car parts, like dashboards, is also working on e-bikes. There are advantages to doing the work in the U.S. beyond supporting jobs, says Chris Nolte, Bloom’s cofounder. “If you were to assemble that product domestically, you could really reduce your stock that you need to keep on hand by probably 70%, maybe even more,” Nolte says. “There’s a significant benefit there if a company doesn’t have much cash available. They can still give the consumer the choices that they want, but have that flexibility.” It also makes it easier to take back parts, including batteries, for recycling and reuse. There’s a chicken-and-egg problem, says Nolte: Some companies have found that doesn’t make sense to assemble in the U.S. if components aren’t made here, and conversely, it also doesn’t make sense to make components in the U.S. if assembly is happening somewhere else. But he says some large bike brands are working on plans for American manufacturing. Factories that are shared by multiple brands might be another possibility. (More complicated solutions may also be possible, like building foreign trade zones where some foreign parts could legally be imported tariff-free if a certain percentage of the other work happens in the U.S. But this type of zone is expensive to set up.) Reshoring bike manufacturing “is going to be a pretty painful process,” says Ash Lovill, vice president of government relations at the nonprofit People for Bikes. “It just costs significantly more right now to manufacture in the U.S. All of the companies that were manufacturing in the U.S. in the ’80s and ’90s moved out; moving them back is going to be really difficult.” To support American bike manufacturing, the government should help the industry build the infrastructure that’s necessary, she says. A bill that’s currently in Congress, the Domestic Bike Production Act, could help if it moves forward. In the meantime, bike prices are going to jump higher. Trump’s current tariffs on China—which may change—add up to around 90% for bikes now, says Lovill. Trump also removed the “de minimis” exemption that allowed products under $800 to be imported from China without tariffs, so if companies import smaller bike parts, those will also now cost more. Some companies still have inventory, so can wait a little longer before changing prices. (One e-bike company has been scrambling to receive a shipment that just arrived in order to avoid an unexpected $1 million tariff charge.) Others have already raised the price of their bikes. And it’s unclear how much consumers will be willing to pay at a time when the overall economy is so shaky. “There’s going to be a shakedown,” says Johnson. “I don’t see how certain brands survive.” Vintage Electric Bikes makes a premium product; lower-end e-bikes are more at risk. “I know the margin that this industry operates on, and I know that those $1,500 bikes are already operating on a fairly thin margin. I don’t understand how overnight the e-bike consumer is going to accept the fact that they need to spend $3,500 on what was a $1,500 bike, just because of these tariffs. How do these brands survive when the consumer can’t afford the product anymore?”

In an era increasingly conscious of sustainability and the quality of our resources, innovative solutions for everyday needs are constantly emerging. Among these, Spout Water is making waves with its revolutionary approach to providing clean drinking water. This company is transforming how we think about water access with its atmospheric water generator, a sleek countertop device that pulls water from the air around us. Spout’s core technology lies in atmospheric water generation. This process involves extracting moisture present in the air and then purifying it through a sophisticated filtration system. Unlike traditional water sources that rely on municipal supplies or bottled water, Spout generates water directly in your home or office. Designer: Spout The Spout water generator is designed to be user-friendly and efficient. It can produce up to 2.5 gallons (approximately 9 liters) of filtered, alkaline water each day. This capacity is ideal for households, small offices, or even those embracing van life and seeking off-grid water solutions. Spout emphasizes the purity and safety of the water it produces. The device employs a comprehensive 6-level filtration system. This includes air filters that capture dust and particles, along with advanced filtration stages to remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other potential contaminants, ensuring the water is fresh and safe to drink. A significant advantage of Spout Water is its commitment to sustainability. By generating water from the air, it reduces reliance on plastic water bottles, which contribute significantly to environmental pollution. It also eliminates the need for delivery trucks, further minimizing its carbon footprint. This eco-friendly design resonates with consumers who are looking for ways to reduce their environmental impact. It is able to produce up to 2.5 gallons of pure water everyday, right on your countertop. The 6-level system also ensures that impurities and contaminants are removed before you drink it. Also, the water it produces is alkaline so you are assured of its health benefits. Design-wise, it fits comfortably on most countertops, making it suitable for various living situations. It also reduces reliance on plastic bottles and eliminates water delivery needs so it’s a much more convenient and eventually cost-effective way of getting your every day drinking water. Spout Water is not just providing a convenient source of clean water; it’s also redefining our relationship with this essential resource. Their innovative technology offers a glimpse into a future where access to pure drinking water is more sustainable and independent. As Spout continues to develop its technology and expand its reach, it has the potential to significantly impact how individuals and communities access clean water worldwide. The post Spout Water brings pure drinking water from thin air first appeared on Yanko Design.

Who’s the mystery character?

With inauguration donations and Mar-a-Lago visits, leaders of the biggest tech companies sought favor with the president in an attempt to steer regulation and tariffs, to little avail.

Over the weekend, Meta took the opportunity to launch Llama 4, a new series of AI models trained on a large amount of text, images and videos. According to Meta, Llama 4 is better than its competitors GPT-4o and Gemini 2.0 in a number of areas, including programming, reasoning and language translation. The two variants Llama 4 Scout and Llama 4 Maverick are available on Llama.com and Hugging Face now, while the top-of-the-line Llama 4 Behemoth will take a little longer. Techcrunch points out that Meta has chosen to limit the use of the Llama 4 multimodal models within the European Union, likely due to the EU’s AI and data protection rules.

Somewhere in the northern US, drones fly over a 2,000-acre preserve, protected by a nine-foot fence built to zoo standards. It is off-limits to curious visitors, especially those with a passion for epic fantasies or mythical creatures. The reason for such tight security? Inside the preserve roam three striking snow-white wolves—which a startup called Colossal Biosciences says are members of a species that went extinct 13,000 years ago, now reborn via biotechnology. For several years now, the Texas-based company has been in the news for its plans to re-create woolly mammoths someday. But now it’s making a bold new claim—that it has actually “de-extincted” an animal called the dire wolf. And that could be another reason for the high fences and secret location—to fend off scientific critics, some of whom have already been howling that the company is a “scam” perpetrating “elephantine fantasies” on the public and engaging in “pure hype.” Dire wolves were large, big-jawed members of the canine family. More than 400 of their skulls have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits in California. Ultimately they were replaced by smaller relatives like the gray wolf. In its effort to re-create the animal, Colossal says, it extracted DNA information from dire wolf bones and used gene editing to introduce some of those elements into cells from gray wolves. It then used a cloning procedure to turn the cells into three actual animals.  The animals include two males, Romulus and Remus, born in October, and one female, Khaleesi, whose name is a reference to the TV series Game of Thrones, in which fictional dire wolves play a part. Two of the “dire wolves” at three months old.COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES Each animal, the company says, has 20 genetic changes across 14 genes designed to make them larger, change their facial features, and give them a snow-white appearance. Some scientists reject the company’s claim that the new animals are a revival of the extinct creatures, since in reality dire wolves and gray wolves are different species separated by a few million of years of evolution and several million letters of DNA. “I would say such an animal is not a dire wolf and it’s not correct to say dire wolves have been brought back from extinction. It’s a modified gray wolf,” says Anders Bergström, a professor at the University of East Anglia who specializes in the evolution of canines. “Twenty changes is not nearly enough. But it could get you a strange-looking gray wolf.” Beth Shapiro, an expert on ancient DNA who is now on a three-year sabbatical from the University of California, Santa Cruz, as the company’s CSO, acknowledged in an interview that other scientists would bristle at the claim. “What we’re going to have here is a philosophical argument about whether we should call it a dire wolf or call it something else,” Shapiro said. Asked point blank to call the animal a dire wolf, she hesitated but then did so. “It is a dire wolf,” she said. “I feel like I say that, and then all of my taxonomist friends will be like, ‘Okay, I’m done with her.’ But it’s not a gray wolf. It doesn’t look like a gray wolf.” Dire or not, the new wolves demonstrate that science is becoming more deft in its control over the genomes of animals—and point to how that skill could help in conservation. As part of the project, Colossal says, it also cloned several red wolves, an American species that’s the most endangered wolf in the world. But that isn’t as dramatic as the supposed rebirth of an extinct animal with a large cultural following. “The motivation really is to develop tools that we can use to stop species from becoming extinct. Do we need ancient DNA for that? Maybe not,” says Shapiro. “Does it bring more attention to it so that maybe people get excited about the idea that we can use biotechnology for conservation? Probably.” Secret project Colossal was founded in 2021 after founder Ben Lamm, a software entrepreneur, visited the Harvard geneticist George Church and learned about a far-out and still mostly theoretical project to re-create woolly mammoths. The idea is to release herds of them in cold regions, like Siberia, and restore an ecological balance that keeps greenhouse gases trapped in the permafrost. Lamm has unexpectedly been able to raise more than $400 million from investors to back the plan, and Forbes reported that he is now a multibillionaire, at least on paper, thanks to the $10 billion value assigned to the startup. From left to right: Beth Shapiro, George Church, and Ben Lamm pose with the pups.COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES As Lamm showed he could raise money for Colossal’s ideas, it soon expanded beyond its effort to modify elephants. It publicly announced a bid to re-create the thylacine, a marsupial predator hunted to extinction, and then, in 2023, it started planning to resurrect the dodo bird—the effort that brought Shapiro to the company. So far, none of those projects have actually resulted in a live animal.  Each faced dire practical issues. With elephants, it was that their pregnancies last two years, longer than those in any other species. Testing out mammoth designs would be impossibly slow. With the dodo bird, it was that no one has ever figured out how to genetically modify the pigeon, the most closely related species from which to craft a dodo via editing. One of Lamm’s other favorite targets—the Steller’s sea cow, which disappeared around 1770—has no obvious surrogate of any kind.    But bringing back a wolf was feasible. Over 1,500 dogs had been cloned, primarily by one company in South Korea. Researchers in Asia had even used dog eggs and dog mothers to produce both coyote and wolf clones. That’s not surprising, since all these species are closely enough related to interbreed. “Just thinking about surrogacy for the dire wolf … it was like ‘Oh, yeah,’” recalls Shapiro. “Surrogacy there would be really straightforward.” Dire wolves did present some new problems. One was the lack of any clear ecological purpose in reviving animals that disappeared during the Pleistocene epoch and are usually portrayed as ferocious predators with slavering jaws. “People have weird feelings about things that, you know, may or may not eat people or livestock,” Shapiro says. The technical challenge was there was still no accurate DNA sequence of a dire wolf. A 2021 effort to obtain DNA from old bones had yielded only a tiny amount, not enough to accurately decode the genome in detail. And without a detailed gene map, Colossal wouldn’t be able see what genetic differences they would need to install in gray wolves, the species they intended to alter. Shapiro says she went back to museums, including the Idaho Museum of Natural History, and eventually got permission to cut off more bone from a 72,0000-year-old skull that’s on display there. She also got a tooth from a 13,000-year-old skull held in another museum. which she drilled into herself. This time the bones yielded far more DNA and a much more complete gene map. A paper describing the detailed sequence is being submitted for publication; its authors include George R.R. Martin, the fantasy author whose books were turned into the HBO series Game of Thrones, and in which dire wolves appear as the characters’ magical companions. In addition to placing dire wolves more firmly in the Canidae family tree (they’re slightly closer to jackals than to gray wolves, but more than 99.9% identical to both at a genetic level) and determining when dire wolves split from the pack (about 4 million years ago), the team also located around 80 genes where dire wolves seemed to be most different. If you wanted to turn a gray wolf into a dire wolf, this would be the obvious list to start from. Crying wolf Colossal then began the process of using base editing, an updated form of the CRISPR gene-modification technique, to introduce some of those exact DNA variations into blood cells of a gray wolf kept in its labs. Each additional edit, the company  hoped, would make the eventual animal a little more dire-wolf-like, even it involved changing just a single letter of a gene. Shapiro says all the edits involve “genetic enhancers,” bits of DNA that help control how strongly certain genes are expressed. These can influence how big animals grow, as well as affecting the shape of their ears, faces, and skulls. This tactic was not as dramatic as intervening right in the middle of a gene, which would change what protein is made. But it was less risky—more like turning knobs on an unfamiliar radio than cutting wires and replacing circuits. That left the scientists to engineer into the animals what would become the showstopper trait—the dramatic white fur. Shapiro says the genome code indicated that dire wolves might have had light coats. But the specific pigment genes involved are linked to a risk of albinism, deafness, and blindness, and they didn’t want sick wolves. That’s when Colossal opted for a shortcut. Instead of reproducing precise DNA variants seen in dire wolves, they disabled two genes entirely. In dogs and other species, the absence of those genes is known to produce light fur. The decision to make the wolves white did result in dramatic photos of the animals. “It’s the most striking thing about them,” says Mairin Balisi, a paleontologist who studies dire wolf fossils. But she doubts it reflects what the animals actually looked like: “A white coat might make sense if you are in a snowy landscape, but one of the places where dire wolves were most abundant was around Los Angeles and the tar pits, and it was not a snowy landscape even in the Ice Age. If you look at mammals in this region today, they are not white. I am just confused by the declaration that dire wolves are back.” Bergström also says he doesn’t think the edits add up to a dire wolf. “I doubt that 20 changes are enough to turn a gray wolf to a dire wolf.  You’d probably need hundreds or thousands of changes—no one really knows,” he says. “This is one of those unsolved questions in biology. People argue [about] the extent to which many small differences make a species distinct, versus a small number of big-effect differences. Nobody knows, but I lean to the ‘many small differences’ view.” Some genes have big, visible effects—changing a single gene can make a dog hairless, for instance. But it might be many more small changes that account for the difference in size and appearance between, say, a Great Dane and a Chihuahua. And that is just looks. Bergström says science has much less idea which changes would account for behavior—even if we could tell from a genome how an extinct animal acted, which we can’t. “A lot of people are quite skeptical of what they are doing,” Bergström says of Colossal.  “But I still think it’s interesting that someone is trying. It takes a lot of money and resources, and if we did have the technology to bring species back from extinction, I do think that would be useful. We drive species to extinction, sometimes very rapidly, and that is a shame.” Cloning with dogs By last August, the gray wolf cells had been edited, and it was time to try cloning those cells and producing animals. Shapiro says her company transferred 45 cloned embryos apiece into six surrogate dogs. That led to three pregnancies, from which four dogs were born. One of the four, Khaleesi’s sister, died 10 days after birth from an intestinal infection, deemed unrelated to the cloning process. “That was the only puppy that didn’t make it,” says Shapiro. Two other fetal clones were reabsorbed during pregnancy, which means they disintegrated, a fairly common occurrence in dogs. These days the white wolves are able to freely roam around a large area. They don’t have radio collars, but they are watched by cameras and are trained to come to their caretakers to get fed, which offers a chance to weigh them as they cross a scale in the ground. The 10 staff members attending to them can see them up close, though they’re now too big to handle the way the caretakers could when they were puppies. The pups are being monitored through the different stages of their development but will not be put on public display.COLOSSAL BIOSCIENCES Whatever species these animals are, it’s not obvious what their future will be. They don’t seem to have a conservation purpose, and Lamm says he isn’t trying to profit from them. “We’re not making money off the dire wolves. That’s not our business plan,” Lamm said in an interview with MIT Technology Review. He added that the animals would also not be put on display for the public, since “we’re not in the business of attractions.” At least not in-person attractions. But every aspect of the project has been filmed, and in February, the company inked a deal to produce a docuseries about its exploits. That same month it also hired as its marketing chief a Hollywood executive who previously worked on big-budget “monster movies.” And there are signs that de-extinction, in Colossal’s hands, has the potential to generate nearly out-of-control of attention, much like that scene in the original King Kong when the giant ape—captured by a filmmaker—breaks its chains under the flashes of the cameras. For instance company’s first creation, mice with shaggy, mammoth-like hair, was announced only five weeks ago, yet there are already unauthorized sales of throw pillows and T-shirts (they read “Legalize Woolly Mice”), as well as some “serious security issues” involving unannounced visitors. “We’ve had people show up to our labs because they want the woolly mouse,” Lamm says. “We’re worried about that from a security perspective [for] the wolves, because you’re going to have all the Game of Thrones people. You’re going to have a lot of people that want to see these animals.”   Lamm said that in light of his concerns about unruly fans, diagrams of the ecological preserve provided to the media had been altered so that no internet “sleuths” could use them to guess its location.

After a rush-job getting tons of iPhones to the US from India just before a trade deadline, Apple may be considering getting more of its US supply from the country to pay less in tariffs than it would if it imported the devices from China.Tim Cook in a previous visit to India. Image Credit: AppleApple's stock prices continue to decline, as the Trump administration's tariffs have affected nearly every country in the company's supply chain. The iPhone maker won't just stand idly by, however, as reports indicate Apple has taken measures to combat the impact of President Trump's tariffs.On Monday, a report claimed that Apple was stock-piling current-generation products, in an attempt to keep prices at their current level for as long as possible. In the last week of March, over three days, the company reportedly shipped five flights worth of products into the United States. The devices in question were allegedly shipped from China and India. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

The "inclusive, community-driven" model of architecture pursued by the Boston Public Library has been enshrined with the 2025 AIA Collaborative Achievement Award. The citation reads: "By consistently aligning design excellence with public service and community identity, the Boston Public Library continues to redefine what a 21st-century library can be: a civic anchor, a cultural landmark, and a welcoming home for all." Recent designs, such as the new Mattapan and East Boston Branch libraries by William Rawn Associates Architects and 2020 Roxbury Branch renovations from Utile, were mentioned for their "human-centered" applications of the core principles of universal design and demonstrated sustainability, accessibility, and adaptability upon their completion overall. Boston Public Library follows Parks for Downtown Dallas as the AIA Collaborative Achievement Award's second all-time winner.

Nintendo has fully lifted the lid on the Switch 2, which means a tidal wave of fresh details has come crashing in. New information has emerged on the upcoming console’s hardware, its games, its new features, its launch, and more, and here, we’re going to round up all of those details. Without further ado, let’s jump in. PRICE AND RELEASE DATE Let’s get the most crucial info out of the way right off the bat- when exactly is the Nintendo Switch 2 releasing, and how much is it going to cost? Nintendo’s long-awaited next-gen console is out a couple of months from now, on June 5. In the US, it will be sold at a price of $449.99, while a bundle including a digital code for Mario Kart World will also be available for $499.99. That’ll be £395.99 and £429.99 in the UK, ¥49,980 and ¥53980 in Japan, and €469.99 and €509.99 in the EU. Interestingly, however, in Japan, Nintendo will also sell a Japan-only version of the console that will be roughly $340 cheaper than the regular base SKU, with its price set at ¥49,980. WHAT’S IN THE BOX? Let’s stick with the basics and talk about what we’re going to get for the aforementioned price of entry- what exactly will be in the box? There will, of course, be a Switch 2 with Joy-Con 2 controllers, as well as a dock and a Joy-Con 2 Grip. Other contents will include an ultra-high speed HDMI cable, a USB-C charging cable, an AC adapter, and Joy-Con 2 controllers. Oh, and speaking of the Joy-Con 2 controllers… JOY-CON 2 The Switch 2 is retaining its predecessor’s core form factor while making several improvements, which means we can expect improved Joy-Con controllers as well. The Joy-Con 2 controllers, as Nintendo officially calls them, will come with several upgrades over the Switch 1, chief among them being the ability to place them on a surface sideways and use them as a mouse. The feature was leaked previously and hinted at in the Switch 2’s announcement trailer, and has now finally been officially confirmed. Another major new feature that the Joy-Con 2 controllers boast is the new C button, which is tied to the new GameChat feature. GameChat will allow you to instantly jump into a chat with up to 12 other players. Voice chats will be the default, though those with a Switch 2 camera accessory can also do video chats. Meanwhile, GameChat will also let you stream your gameplay to everyone in your group- even if you’re all playing different games. GameChat will be available to everyone for free while in its early access period, which will run from June 5 to March 31, 2026. Following that, it will only be available to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers. GAMESHARE Another new feature that Nintendo is introducing Switch 2 is GameShare, which, in a nutshell, will let you share a game that you own with anyone, allowing you to play multiplayer even with someone who doesn’t own it. The feature will be available only with select, compatible games, though interestingly enough, even players on the Switch 1 will be able to receive them, as long as they’re being shared locally. Meanwhile, Switch 2 to Switch 2 sharing will also feature GameChat integration. So far, Nintendo has confirmed only a handful of games that will feature GameShare support, including Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Super Mario Party Jamboree, Big Brain Academy: Brain vs Brain, and Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics. HARDWARE DETAILS So what exactly do we know about the Switch 2’s hardware? As the name suggests, it’s a better, more powerful Switch. It touts a 7.9 inch LCD screen that’s capable of 1080p output, and features support for HDR, 120 FPS, and VRR. When docked, it will feature 4K support for compatible games. The tablet’s rear kickstand is larger and sturdier, it features 256 GB of internal storage, and 3D audio support has also been confirmed. Meanwhile, there’s now an additional USB-C port on the tablet’s top, which means you can now also charge when playing in tabletop mode, while the dock will also include an internal fan to keep things from getting too toasty when you’re playing in console mode. Where the Joy-Con 2 controllers are concerned, in addition to their mouse functionality (which we’ve already discussed), the controllers will also feature larger SL and SR buttons when playing with a single controller, while both analog sticks are also larger. As previously confirmed, the Joy-Con controllers will also now attach to the console with magnets. BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY The original Switch boasts one of the best, largest, and most varied game libraries that any console has ever had, so we really cannot overestimate the importance of the Nintendo Switch 2’s backward compatibility support. Confirmed several months back, Nintendo has now provided more details- including the fact that Switch 1 titles that are played on the Switch 2 will have some enhancements by default from time to time. Some, for instance, will feature faster loading times thanks to the console’s more powerful hardware. Nintendo has also confirmed that GameChat will be usable will all games that you play on the Switch 2, including Switch 1 titles running via backward compatibility. GAME CARDS, EXTERNAL STORAGE, AND SYSTEM TRANSFER Miscellaneous details about the Switch 2’s physical media and data management features have also been revealed. Where the former is concerned, the console will still use cartridges, just as its predecessor does. Cartridges will be the exact same size and shape as the Switch 1, though they’re now going to be red- and that changed colour scheme will apply to physical game boxes as well. Meanwhile, the Switch 2 will not support regular microSD cards, with microSD Express Cards being required (which likely means we can expect faster memory, streaming, and loading). Nintendo has also confirmed that a System Transfer feature will also be available, allowing players with a Switch 1 to easily transfer over all of their data to a Switch 2 device. SWITCH 2 GAME PRICES This is one of the more controversial pieces of information that has emerged related to the Switch 2. While the console’s own price is ultimately fairly reasonable, its game prices are shooting up quite significantly. Nintendo has revealed that first-party games could be priced as high as $80 on the Switch 2. That won’t be the case with all games, mind you. For instance, Donkey Kong Bananza is going to be a $70, and presumably, Nintendo will also continue to release cheaper $60 titles from time to time as well (depending on their stature, that is). The biggest releases, however, are going to be $80- which is the price that Mario Kart World is going to be sold at, for instance. That is higher even than what has become the standard AAA price for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S games. NINTENDO SWITCH 2 EDITION TITLES The vast majority of the Switch 1’s library will be playable on the Switch 2 via backward compatibility by default, and, as mentioned previously, will tout some minor upgrades here and there. Certain other, select games, however, will come with a wider gamut of enhancements. Known as Nintendo Switch 2 Edition releases, these will be handpicked Switch 1 titles that will tout several enhancements exclusive to the Switch 2- for a price. A number of Switch 2 Edition releases have been confirmed- Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which will be playable at either 4K/60 FPS or 1080p/120 FPS, feature enhanced resolutions and load times, tout HDR support support and more; Pokemon Legends: Z-A, which will feature improved frame rates and resolution; The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, which will both have HDR support, faster load times, improved frame rates and resolution, and support for a new external mobile app called Zelda Notes; Kirby and the Forgotten Land + Star-Crossed World, which will boast a new story mode (i.e. the titular Star-Crossed World) and performance and visual enhancements; and Super Mario Party Jamboree + Jamboree TV, which will add new modes with support for Joy-Con 2 mouse functionalities, the Switch 2 camera, and microphone, GameShare, and several technical enhancements. Nintendo Switch 2 Edition releases will be sold individually, but those who already own the game on Switch 1 will be able to pay to upgrade to the Switch 2 version. BATTERY LIFE AND CHARGING TIME “How long will the battery last?” is usually one of the first things people tend to ask about portable devices. With the Switch 2, the answer to that question is… well, about what you would have expected. Nintendo has revealed that the console will last anywhere between two to six and a half hours on a full charge, depending on exactly how you’re using it. Meanwhile, charging your Switch 2 to a hundred percent charge will take approximately three hours on average when in sleep mode. GAME-KEY CARDS Do you hate it when physical editions of games are just empty boxes that include download codes? Nintendo has come up with… well, a pretty strange solution (though solution may not be the right word). Switch 2 games will also be sold in the form of physical game cards, which will essentially be physical editions with cartridges that will not have the game or any of its data itself, but will instead require a full download of whatever game you have purchased. That, of course, means you’ll need an internet connection. Once you have downloaded the game, you will no longer need to be connected to the internet, though bafflingly enough, you will still need to insert the game-key card to be able to play the game that you have just downloaded. UI Nintendo has thus far showcased a few glimpses here and there of the Nintendo Switch 2’s home UI and system OS, and there isn’t much there that’s too different from the Switch 1. In fact, it is pretty much exactly the same. Other than a few tiny and largely negligible differences here and there, the UI largely seems to be the same as the Switch 1, right down to the basic light and dark themes. Whether we can expect any additional bells and whistles or even more than just two themes remains to be seen. GAMES Arguably the most important detail about any console- what games will it run? Obviously, the full lineup of titles set to launch for the Switch 2 over its first couple of years hasn’t been revealed, but Nintendo has unveiled a bunch of games for the system already nonetheless, including both exclusives and multiplatform titles. Where the latter are concerned, the Nintendo Switch 2 is going to receive the likes of  Reanimal, Split Fiction, Star Wars Outlaws, Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Cyberpunk 2077, Wild Hearts, Street Fighter 6, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Borderlands 4, NBA 2K, WWE 2K, Civilization 7, EA Sports FC, Madden NFL, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster, Deltarune, Fortnite, Hades 2, Hitman: World of Assassination, Project 007, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, Sonic X Shadow Generations, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, and many others. Of course, as you’d expect for a Nintendo console, plenty of exclusives are also already confirmed. These include the likes of Mario Kart World, the 3D platformer Donkey Kong Bananza, a Masahiro Sakurai-led Kirby’s Air Riders, FromSoftware and Hidetaka Miyazaki’s The Dustbloods, Yakuza 0 Director’s Cut, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, Drag x Drive, and Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour. A handful of Nintendo Switch 1 exclusives will also get simultaneous Switch 2 releases, with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Pokemon Legends: Z-A, and Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. GAMECUBE TITLES Here’s another major new feature that Nintendo is rolling out with the Switch 2. Exclusively on the next-gen console, Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscribers can look forward to GameCube titles in the service’s growing library of legacy games. Several have been officially confirmed already, including The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi’s Mansion, F-Zero GX, Soulcalibur 2, Pokemon Colosseum, Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, and Super Mario Strikers, among others. PRE-ORDERS With the Switch 2 due out in a couple months’ time, its pre-orders are also going live imminently, on April 9. Pre-orders will obviously be available via several retailers, though Nintendo itself will also accept pre-orders, for which you can begin registering your interest now- but with a caveat… NINTENDO STORE ORDERS Nintendo Account holders can register their interest for Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders now, but only in the United States and Canada. When purchases are available, Nintendo will send out invitational emails to account holders who have registered their interest, but these will be prioritized (and sent on a first-come-first-served basis) to Nintendo Switch Online subscribers with a minimum of 12-month old subscriptions, as well as at least 50 gameplay hours.