The upshot of Sony making its PS5 console more expensive is that the Switch 2 actually becomes a more affordable console by comparison – here's why you might want to take another lookTech22:00, 14 Apr 2025You will need to act fast to get a Switch 2(Image: Nintendo)Nintendo’s April 2 Switch 2 Direct gave us a whole host of information about Nintendo's console, but one thing that's kept coming up since is the pricing.Nintendo's new console is pricey to begin with, and Trump’s tariffs aren't likely to help things. Add in the £75 Mario Kart World will cost at launch, and the potential of some expensive Switch 2 Editions of games, and you could end up forking out plenty.‌Article continues belowAfter cries of "drop the price" have reverberated around Nintendo's social channels and YouTube comments in the weeks since, Sony seemingly chose not to read the room, announcing a price hike on PS5's base, digital-only console in the early hours of this morning.And now, if you're looking for a new console, the Switch 2 might look more appealing than it did 24 hours ago.Start your engines - Switch 2 isn't that far away(Image: Nintendo)‌In case you missed it, Sony increased the price of the PS5 Digital Edition for the second time since the start of the console generation in 2020, citing a "challenging economic environment" as its reason for doing so.The increase of £40 puts the base PS5 at £430 (and that's not even looking to the pricier Pro model), while the Nintendo Switch 2 will launch at £395.The PS5's disc drive is dropping in price, too, but that's another £70 to be able to play physical media – money you could spend on a couple of backward compatible Switch games or even Mario Kart World (almost)‌It's not an "apples to apples" comparison, of course. The Switch 2 is a hybrid system that packs a whole host of family-friendly titles, while the PS5 is still arguably the best console to buy for the sheer range of first and third-party titles.Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders are now open at most UK online stores(Image: AFP via Getty Images)‌Still, there's an argument that a customer experiences "sticker shock" when the 2020 console costs more than the one launching in 2025, and that this price discrepancy could play into Nintendo's hands.It could even help Microsoft push on, especially with the value found in its Game Pass service which offers a whole host of games (including first-party exclusives) for a monthly fee.For more on the Nintendo Switch 2, be sure to check out our preview of the system when we went hands-on. Here's what we said:Article continues below"The Switch 2 is a more impressive upgrade than I (and perhaps others) had given credit for, and while I’m sure Nintendo has much more to show us in the months to come, I feel like the launch window line-up is strong enough to warrant a purchase already".For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.

Call Of Duty: Warzone devs say Verdansk map is here to stay… for now Michael Beckwith Published April 14, 2025 2:19pm Updated April 14, 2025 2:19pm Verdansk’s return brought a lot of players back to Call Of Duty (Activision) There was a lot of fan demand for Call Of Duty: Warzone to bring back the Verdansk map and yet Activision could still take it away a second time. Amid chatter of dwindling player counts and a possible shutdown, Call Of Duty: Warzone reintroduced its original map, Verdansk, as part of its season three update earlier this month. Considering there have been fan demands for Verdansk to return to Warzone ever since it was removed in 2021 (with it even being nuked in-game and replaced with a new map), you’d think long-time players would be thrilled to see it back. Apparently, that has been the case, with Verdansk’s return proving successful for publisher Activision. However, it doesn’t sound like its inclusion is guaranteed to be permanent. IGN recently spoke with Warzone game director Pete Actipis and creative director Etienne Pouliot about how they approached bringing back Verdansk and how they felt about the response from players. While there’s no way to check exact player numbers for Warzone, Call Of Duty’s overall player numbers on Steam did see a noticeable jump once season three began on April 3. Beforehand, there were under 59,000 players, but that leapt up to almost 140,000 over the following weekend, according to SteamDB. No doubt Verdansk’s return was a big part of that and Actipis and Pouliot were naturally asked if the map will remain a permanent inclusion this time or if this is just a one-off. They kept their answer vague, but while fans shouldn’t worry about Verdansk suddenly vanishing any time soon, it doesn’t sound like there are plans to keep the map around forever. ‘We brought Verdansk back for a reason. It wasn’t just to bring it back for a season and kind of say goodbye to it again,’ explained Actipis, pointing out that a lot of work went into recreating the map. More Trending As a reminder, Verdansk had to be rebuilt from the ground up and while it’s mostly a 1:1 recreation, some minor changes and quality-of-life additions were made. ‘So for the time being Verdansk is sticking around and this is just the beginning of the Verdansk 2025 journey, and then we’ll see how things go from there,’ continued Actipis, adding, ‘So again, no confirmation or anything on the strategy on the maps moving forward.’ At the very least, it seems Activision has more plans for Verdansk throughout the rest of the year, though Actipis and Pouliot naturally kept quiet about what those are. As such, you can expect the map to stick around even after this year’s Call Of Duty game launches. No official information has been shared yet, but rumours say it’s surprisingly another Black Ops game despite Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 only launching last year. Has the return of Verdansk got you playing Call Of Duty: Warzone again? (Activision) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. GameCentral Sign 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

Sometimes disruptions in movie theaters are spontaneous, like the current frenzy among audiences watching A Minecraft Movie. Other times, they’re planned, as with the upcoming “second screen” experience that Blumhouse crafted with Meta’s help for a special “Halfway to Halloween” screening of M3GAN. In the second example, at least, fans of the communal movie-going ritual that traditionally emphasizes leaving the world behind to focus on the big screen have a major movie chain in their corner. The M3GAN gimmick, which encourages audience members to use their phones to interact with the movie as it’s playing, goes in direct opposition to the Alamo Drafthouse’s long-standing “no phones” rule. In a news report from Variety, the company will not be allowing access to the “Movie Mate” M3GAN chatbot during screenings. If you try to light up your phone for pop-up trivia mid-screening, you’re risking being booted from the theater. So if you’re excited to revisit M3GAN on the big screen—Blumhouse’s “Halfway to Halloween” revival series also includes Annabelle and Ma, neither of which come with a chatbot add-on—but you don’t want to be interrupted by your neighbor’s flashing phone screen, Alamo Drafthouse seems the best bet. Truly, it’s getting dire out there with the etiquette of the movie theater experience getting ripped apart in order to potentially keep theaters going. I’m not sure if it would help if its turns people off from going unless now screenings add specific ones for “second screen” users alongside ones that strongly discourage phone use or talking. The Alamo Drafthouse already holds “rowdy” screenings for titles that elicit communal crowd reactions. But when it comes to Meta trying to follow users with work arounds to advertise to them while in the movies, we’re happy to see the steadfast rejection. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

Patterns exist all around the world, creating unforgettable designs exhibited by organisms and acts of nature. Some of these designs even share surprising connections, like a spiral shape seen in both marine mollusks and a newly discovered structure of light that moves like a vortex. A recent study found that the movement of this light vortex — called an optical rotatum — occurs in a way that is very similar to the Fibonacci sequence, the mathematical concept behind many of nature’s most iconic designs. The study, published in Science Advances, shows an unprecedented perspective on how light demonstrates parallels with nature. With its unorthodox movements, the optical rotatum could open new possibilities for matter manipulation. New Behavior of LightThe shape of a vortex emerges in familiar phenomena such as tornadoes and whirlpools, and it’s even responsible for the formation of galaxies. Beams of light can be twisted to form optical vortices that take a similar shape; optical vortices are often used for wireless transmission of data, the creation of holograms, and numerous other applications. The new study describes the optical rotatum as a distinct type of optical vortex beam that not only twists as it moves, but also expresses the unique spiral shape seen so often in nature. The rotatum part of its name explains the gradual change of the light’s torque; similarly, in Newtonian physics, the term refers to the change in torque on an object over time. “This is a new behavior of light consisting of an optical vortex that propagates through space and changes in unusual ways,” said Federico Capasso, a Harvard physicist whose lab made the discovery, in a statement. “It is potentially useful for manipulating small matter.”Growing With the Golden Ratio The researchers involved with the study were surprised to find that the optical rotatum grew in a pattern that is close to the Fibonacci sequence, a series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two previous numbers (it starts as 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21). The sequence is closely associated with the golden ratio, a mathematical relationship that is closely linked with compositions across nature and art. The optical rotatum grows in a spiral shape that is also present in the shell of a nautilus (a type of mollusk), sunflower seeds, and branches of trees. “That was one of the unexpected highlights of this research,” said first author Ahmed Dorrah, a physicist at Eindhoven University of Technology who was previously a research associate at Capasso’s lab. “Hopefully we can inspire others who are specialists in applied mathematics to further study these light patterns and gain unique insights into their universal signature.”Prior to this discovery, the research team had focused on working with a metasurface (an artificial sheet that has light-bending nanostructures) to create light beams that could convert into other structures that change as they move. An Easier Way to Control LightThe optical rotatum extends the utility of light by providing another option for manipulating matter. For example, the light could give researchers access to a precise optical tweezer that could handle very small particles. The researchers also note the particular method used to create the optical rotatum, through a single liquid crystal display and a low-intensity light beam. Different than other demonstrations involving high-intensity lasers and bulkier setups, this simpler method could prove to be beneficial for future research on changing the torque of light. 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:Science Advances. Rotatum of lightJournal of Applied Mathematics and Physics. The Most Irrational Number that Shows up Everywhere: The Golden Ratio Jack Knudson is an assistant editor at Discover with a strong interest in environmental science and history. Before joining Discover in 2023, he studied journalism at the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University and previously interned at Recycling Today magazine.

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 A new large language model AI system may soon allow humans to converse with dolphins. Scheduled to debut in the coming months, researchers will test to see if DolphinGemma and its companion Cetacean Hearing Augmentation Telemetry (CHAT) system can translate and mimic some of the mammal’s own complex vocalizations. If successful, the breakthrough may represent the culmination of over four decades’ worth of work, documentation, and conservation efforts.. Dolphins are some of the Earth’s smartest and most communicative animals. Their social interactions are so complex that researchers at the Wild Dolphin Project (WDP) have spent the last 40 years attempting to decipher them. In the process, WDP has amassed decades’ worth of underwater audio and video documenting a single community of Atlantic spotted dolphins in the Bahamas. In the process, they have been able to correlate sounds with behavioral aspects like courtships, unique names, and dolphin squabbles. Experts have long theorized it may be possible for humans to  actually communicate with the cetaceans, but lacked technology advanced enough to parse and mimic the species’ underwater whistles, clicks, and burst pulses. With the rise of large language models (LLMs), researchers recently wondered if the same principles underlying LLMs  could be applied to dolphin interactions. To test this possibility, WDP recently partnered with Google and the Georgia Institute of Technology, supplying engineers with a massive, labeled dataset of dolphin whistles, clicks, and burst pulses for use in LLM training. The result is DolphinGemma, an AI model built using the same technology that runs Google’s Gemini systems. DolphinGemma is designed on roughly 400 million parameters to function in essentially the same way as predictive LLMs like ChatGPT—but for dolphins.  (Left) Early DolphinGemma spectrograms of clicks and burst pulses. (Right) Spectrogram illustrating a mother’s unique call for their calf. Credit: Google DolphinGemma first receives and interprets audio inputs, then predicts likely subsequent sounds for recreation. It is next partnered with the CHAT system installed on modified Google Pixel smartphones. CHAT isn’t designed to fully translate a dolphin’s natural language, but help humans convey and establish a more simplified, shared vocabulary. The plan is to ostensibly teach members of the WDP’s Atlantic spotted dolphin community a series of synthetic whistles with their favorite objects such as seagrass, sargassum, and even researchers’ scarves. Over time, experts hope that the dolphins will even learn to request desired items when they want to play. There’s still a lot of work to be done before humans and dolphins bridge the interspecies communication gap. But with this creative use of LLMs, those underwater conversations are another step closer.

Nature, Published online: 14 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01214-9A prototype wearable system uses machine-learning to guide users around obstacles.

Up to 18 "shooting stars" per hour may be visible during the peak of the Lyrid meteor shower on April 21-22.

Photo Credit: Bethesda/ MachineGames Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will feature ray tracing on both PS5 and PS5 Pro Highlights Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming to PS5 on April 17 The game will support 3D audio and 60fps performance on PS5 Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will come in physical editions for PS5 Advertisement Indiana Jones and the Great Circle launches on PS5 later this week. Ahead of the game's PlayStation release, publisher Bethesda has detailed PS5 specific features coming to the latest version of the game, including DualSense controller features and visual enhancements on the PS5 Pro like native 4K resolution and advanced ray tracing.Indiana Jones and the Great Circle PS5 FeaturesFollowing its launch on PC and Xbox Series S/X, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is finally coming to PS5 on April 17. Bethesda debuted a release trailer for the game on Friday and detailed the platform specific features that will be present at launch.On PS5 Pro, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will come with enhanced visuals, higher and more consistent frame rates, native 4K resolution, and advanced ray tracing features.“Playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle at a native 4K resolution really is the best way to appreciate the level of detail the team at MachineGames has poured into every corner of the world,” production director John Jennings said in a Bethesda blog post. “You could spend hours just walking around the different environments admiring every little thing, from each artifact in Marshall College's impressive collection to the verdant beauty of Sukhothai's jungles.”PS5 users will also be able to able to enjoy immersive DualSense controller features like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers while in combat, traversal, or while using tools. On PS5, the game also comes with faster load times and runs at 60fps.Ray tracing is supported on both the standard PS5 and PS5 Pro, and both consoles also enable 3D audio and HD rumble during cutscenes and gameplay.Indiana Jones and the Great Circle launches on PS5 on April 17. Players who have pre-ordered the Premium Edition can access the game two days early on April 15. The action-adventure title was released on PC and Xbox Series S/X on December 9, 2024. KEY SPECSNEWSGenre Action-AdventurePlatform GeForce Now, PlayStation 5 (PS5), Xbox Series S/X, PC: WindowsModes Single-playerPEGI Rating 16+More Bethesda Games For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube. Further reading: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, PS5, PS5 Pro, Bethesda, MachineGames, Sony Manas Mitul In his time as a journalist, Manas Mitul has written on a wide spectrum of beats including politics, culture and sports. He enjoys reading, walking around in museums and rewatching films. Talk to Manas about football and tennis, but maybe don’t bring up his video game backlog. More Related Stories

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After images and the official name leaked weeks ago, Respawn Entertainment and Bit Reactor have officially announced Star Wars Zero Company. The single-player turn-based tactics title lacks a release date or platforms, but a reveal is scheduled for Star Wars Celebration Japan 2025 on April 19th. A developer panel hosted by Bit Reactor provides the world’s first look at the title, which could include gameplay. In the meantime, the first key art is available and highlights what could be the player’s squad. There’s a Jedi, a Clone Trooper, and a Mandalorian while a man, potentially their commander, sits on a ledge, peering at a hologram of a Republican Droid Trooper. Perhaps it’s set between Episode 2: Attack of the Clones and Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith, when the Republican Army and Trade Federation waged war on multiple fronts. The leaked screenshots indicated XCOM-like gameplay, from cover-based shooting to hit chances and skills like Overwatch. It won’t be long before we receive more details, so stay tuned for official updates.