Nintendo has added another classic title to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service. The acclaimed strategy RPG Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is now available to play through the service's Game Boy Advance library.Originally released in 2005, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones marked the second Fire Emblem game to be localized and released outside of Japan. The game follows royal twins Eirika and Ephraim as they each set out across the continent of Magvel on a quest to halt the militant Grado Empire. As previously mentioned, the Game Boy Advance library is available exclusively as part of the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack plan. This premium tier offers all of the features of the base Switch Online plan along with additional perks, including access to select DLC, as well as classic Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games.Continue Reading at GameSpot

When it comes to open-world games, few things are as satisfying as throwing logic out the window and bending the rules for pure, unfiltered chaos. Whether it’s spawning sports cars in the middle of a desert, becoming a god among NPCs, or unlocking a secret wardrobe full of pirate coats, cheats can turn even the most grounded experience into a playground of mayhem.

Morelull, the illuminating Pokémon from Alola, can be found in the wild in Pokémon Go. Yes, Morelull can be shiny in Pokémon Go! Neither of these mushroom Pokémon see any use in raids, gyms, or PvP content. Their shinies are great, since they go from a spring coloring to a nice autumn red-yellow-brown. What is the shiny rate for Morelull in Pokémon Go? As per old research by the now-defunct website The Silph Road (via Wayback Machine), the shiny rate for Pokémon on a regular day is approximately one in 500. Morelull is not a confirmed Pokémon that gets a “permaboost” (meaning that it’s a rare spawn and thus gets a boosted shiny rate). What can I do to attract more shiny Pokémon? Not much, unfortunately. It appears to be random chance. Shiny Pokémon catch rates are set by developer Niantic, and they are typically only boosted during special events like Community Days or Safari Zones, or in Legendary Raids. There are no consumable items that boost shiny Pokémon rates. Where can I find a list of available shiny Pokémon? LeekDuck maintains a list of currently available shiny Pokémon. It’s a helpful visual guide that illustrates what all of the existing shiny Pokémon look like. For more tips, check out Polygon’s Pokémon Go guides.

Not everybody has the same reaction to noticing a new muscle pop up on their body. Some love it: “Great, I’m getting jacked!” Some are discouraged: “Oh no, I’m getting bulky.” But everyone should know that building muscle has its benefits, both beyond looks and in spite of looks. Here are seven ways your newfound muscle is a big plus, both for your health and your fitness goals.Strength and muscle size go togetherThe first big benefit is simply that a growing muscle tells you that you're getting stronger. Being strong makes us more athletic, more functional in everyday life, and may help to prevent injury, as I'll talk about shortly. So if you notice some muscle growth, that tells you you're making progress in strength. And, yes, size and strength are linked. We’ve all met people who are stronger than they look, and this has led to a myth that there are different “kinds” of muscle or strength, as if bodybuilders’ muscles are full of water or fat instead of contractile tissue. (I’m not sure exactly where this myth comes from, but it’s absolutely not true. Muscle is muscle.) Think of it this way: The bigger the muscle, the harder it can contract. But what you do with that muscle is a matter of skill. Gymnasts are strong, but not every strong person can do a backflip. Boxers are strong, but not every strong person will be able to deliver a knockout punch. If you train to build muscle size, you will end up increasing your strength. And if you train to build strength, chances are you will end up increasing your muscle size. That doesn’t mean you have to become huge if you don’t want to be; your diet is the main thing that determines whether you look “bulky” or not. But it's reasonable to expect at least a little bit of muscle gain anytime you're challenging your body to get stronger and fitter.Muscle burns more caloriesMuscle’s effect on our metabolism is one of the most frequently-cited benefits of gaining muscle mass, and honestly, I think it’s one of the least important. But let’s dive in, because I know you’re wondering about it.Yes, the more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you burn, even at rest. Muscle is a metabolically “expensive” tissue, using a lot of your food as fuel, which means that you can eat more food. Besides just being able to enjoy more food, this also improves your nutrition! The more you burn, the better you can eat. You have the calorie "budget" to fit in lots of vitamins, protein, fiber, and other useful nutrients.Every pound of muscle you gain will burn an extra 10 or so calories at rest each day—so if you gain 10 pounds of muscle over the course of a few years’ strength training, you’re burning an extra 100 calories each day. This may not make a huge contribution to your daily calorie burn, but it’s something. What’s less appreciated is that the more muscle you have, the more likely you are to take on harder workouts, thus burning even more calories. I burn about 500 more calories each day now than I did years ago, when I was sedentary, and I certainly haven’t gained 50 pounds of muscle. But the more muscle you have, the more work you can do, and that snowballs. Remember, exercise is good for your health, so the more of it your body can handle, the healthier your heart and your metabolism can become.Muscle benefits your health even if you don’t lose weightLosing weight is often said to benefit our health, especially for people who have diabetes, other health conditions, and/or a high BMI. Losing weight can be tough, but gaining muscle can help those same health outcomes whether you end up losing weight or not. For example, this study found that having more muscle mass is associated with lower mortality rates, lower body fat, and a lower likelihood of having diabetes. People with high BMIs and high muscle mass were, in this study, healthier than people who had similarly high BMIs but low muscle mass. So even if gaining muscle doesn’t come with reduced body fat, it’s still helping you to be healthier. The researchers also speculate that some of the health outcomes we associate with high body fat may actually have more to do with low muscle mass.Muscle keeps us in better shape as we ageIt’s dangerous to be weak and frail as you age. An extreme loss of muscle mass is called sarcopenia, and it’s a known factor in all kinds of things you want to avoid. The less muscle mass you have, the greater your risk of falls, fractures, being unable to live independently, and generally poorer health. Older adults with less muscle are more likely to die when they have conditions like kidney disease and heart failure, and they may have a harder time withstanding treatments like chemotherapy. This isn’t just an issue for the grey-haired crowd: We lose 3-8% of our muscle every decade starting around age 30, if we don’t train to keep it. The rate of loss typically speeds up after age 60—but, again, people who strength train tend to hang onto their muscle. If you start strength training when you're older, you might even build more muscle than you had in your youth. Even if you haven’t hit age 30, think of yourself as putting muscle in the bank that you can use later. Somebody who is strong at age 25 is building the muscle (and the habits that keep them exercising!) that will keep them from being frail at age 75.Strength training improves bone densityBesides sarcopenia, osteoporosis (a loss of bone mineral density) also contributes to the risk of devastating fractures and to a loss of independence, especially as we age. Muscle loss and bone density loss have been referred to as “musculoskeletal aging,” a phenomenon that is at least partially preventable with strength training. Bone grows stronger when you put stress on it, which is why “weight bearing” activities are commonly recommended for people at risk of osteoporosis. That doesn’t refer specifically to weight training, but rather to activities where you’re supporting your own weight. Walking, running, and jumping are weight bearing. (Swimming is not weight bearing).But weight training does also improve bone density. Unless you’re great at walking or even jumping on your hands (which, I must note, requires a lot of strength and muscle), a good way to get healthy stress on the bones of your upper body is to do plenty of resistance training. That could include training with barbells, dumbbells, resistance machines, or other tools. Strong muscles may prevent injuryInjury prevention is a big and nebulous topic, so it’s hard to point at specific evidence that strength training in general reduces injuries in general. But ask any good coach, or any good physical therapist, and they’ll tell you that they encourage their players and patients to build strength to prevent injuries and to recover from them when they happen. Strength training gives you stronger muscles, bones, and connective tissue like tendons. In a sports context, stronger athletes seem to be more resistant to injury. And even in everyday life—let’s say a person who might slip and fall—being strong and agile makes it easier to avoid unexpected obstacles. You may also have an easier time catching yourself when you begin to fall. There’s also evidence that exercise, including strength training, is a useful tool in managing back pain, arthritis, and other conditions. Muscle makes you better at running, yoga, and other activitiesMaybe you’re cool with exercise, but still a bit skeptical of the benefits of strength training specifically. You just want to run the trails, take a barre class, maybe do some yoga. Well, muscle helps with those things, too. If you’re a runner, for example, strength training helps to prevent injuries (including those nagging “overuse” injuries like shin splints and achy knees). More muscle in your legs also means a better ability to run up the hills of those trails and dodge rocks and tree roots on the way down. Stronger runners tend to be better runners.Or let’s say you’re more into yoga. More strength and muscle will help you to be able to do more advanced poses, to do the medium-difficulty ones more confidently, and to do the easy ones with true ease. Or to put it another way: nobody ever thinks, in the middle of a yoga class, “I wish I had less core strength.” You get the idea. Rock climbing is more fun when you’ve got more upper body muscle. Cycling is more fun when you have powerful legs. Even outside the formal sports world, muscle helps you to carry mulch in your garden, to load your suitcase overhead without endangering your fellow airplane passengers, to help a friend move without spending the next two days on the couch popping Advil. So when you notice your body gaining a little bit of muscle, just think of all the opportunities it opens for you—not just how it looks.

The Federal Trade Commission has decided to take formal action against ride-hailing service Uber over what it describes as "deceptive billing and cancellation practices." The FTC's lawsuit, filed on Monday, specifically takes issue with the Uber One service, which lets subscribers earn cash back on rides, get free deliveries and avoid cancellation fees. According to the FTC, Uber made it easy for subscribers to join Uber One, but much harder to cancel. "Users can be forced to navigate as many as 23 screens and take as many as 32 actions to cancel," the commission claims. The company also reportedly charged some users before their bill their free trial was up, and misrepresented the savings Uber One offered by not taking its subscription fee into account. The lawsuit says that Uber's actions violated the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, which "requires online retailers to clearly disclose the terms of the service they are selling, obtain consumers' consent before charging them for a service and provide a simple way to cancel a recurring subscription."  Uber intends to fight the lawsuit and believes that the FTC has misrepresented the facts in some key ways. The company says that it "does not sign up or charge consumers without their consent" and that subscription cancellations can happen in-app, at any point. Uber does acknowledge that subscriptions previously had to be cancelled 48 hours before a charge through the company's support team, but that's apparently no longer the case. Despite the best efforts of tech executives, the Trump administration has maintained a level of animosity towards tech companies. New FTC chair Andrew Ferguson suggested that censorship would be a major concern for the FTC under President Donald Trump, but the commission is still moving forward with an antitrust case against Meta, for example. The possibility for the (technically) independent organization to be wielded as a weapon by Trump feels a lot more likely without any Democrat members.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/ftc-sues-uber-over-claims-the-company-makes-subscriptions-hard-to-cancel-191552906.html?src=rss

Bluesky unveils official account verification system and a few wrinkles to the process.

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. AI is no longer a side project. It now sits at the heart of how companies grow, compete, and make decisions. Yet many leaders still struggle to separate hype from value and wonder how to invest wisely without wasting time or resources.  A key challenge lies at the top: a lack of AI literacy among executive teams. Research covering nearly 7,000 executives across 645 firms shows a clear pattern: Companies led by AI-literate teams are more likely to identify where AI can create value and act on it.  Rethink responsibility  Many executive teams still treat AI as a tech issue—something for IT or data teams to figure out. But AI is a leadership issue. It belongs on the agenda of every CMO, CFO, CHRO, and CEO.  More importantly, it’s not about a single role. It’s about the collective literacy of the top team. Research rooted in upper echelons theory confirms this: AI-literate leadership teams are more likely to build strategic visions that integrate AI and translate that vision into tangible action, from capability building to execution.  So appointing a chief AI officer (CAIO) without a broader shift in understanding won’t be enough if the rest of the executive team can’t grasp the art of the possible and actively shape the direction AI takes in the business. As one leader put it, “Hiring a CAIO is like hiring a pilot for a crew that doesn’t believe in flying.”  The cost of poor AI literacy  As MIT Sloan Management Review points out, “The overall low literacy rate is a problem for today’s executives, who will face more and more processes or products that claim to be “powered by AI.”” Making informed decisions about these AI tools requires leaders to understand how they align with strategy and operations—and to know which questions matter.  Without a clear understanding of what AI can do—or where it breaks down—executive teams fall into familiar traps:  Buying into hype they can’t evaluate   Investing in tools without understanding their fit   Setting expectations AI (or teams) can’t meet   Focusing on flashy pilots instead of long-term capability building  The result is often pilot purgatory, or initiatives that stall. Missed opportunities. And in some cases, the slow decline of companies that once dismissed digital as a passing trend.  From confusion to competence: The AI literacy ladder  To help executive teams assess where they stand and what to do next, we use a five-step model: the AI literacy ladder. Think of it as a five-step staircase representing the typical journey executive teams take as they build fluency in AI, moving from scattered perspectives to a shared understanding and strategic alignment:  Confusion: AI feels like a buzzword. There’s no shared understanding or agreement on relevance.   Curiosity: Interest is rising, but views are fragmented. There’s little clarity on where to begin.   Comprehension: The team develops a common language around AI’s potential and risks.   Confidence: Teams ask sharper questions and align on use cases that matter.   Competence: AI becomes part of strategic planning and decision making.  [Graphic: Philippe De Ridder, CEO at BOI] Why AI-literate teams outperform  When executive teams build AI fluency together, they unlock a dynamic we call the AI fluency flywheel: Teams that move beyond confusion and start learning together gain momentum. They stop treating AI as an isolated initiative and start treating it as a core strategic capability. Over time, this fluency allows them not just to respond, but to lead. [Graphic: Philippe De Ridder, CEO at BOI] So where do executive teams learn AI?  Despite the flood of AI training programs, few are built for leadership teams. Most are either too technical, too long, or designed for individuals. What’s missing is a shared learning experience. One that helps leadership teams:  Understand what’s possible and what’s not  Cut through noise and inflated promises  Align on use cases worth pursuing  Build a common language across roles  Closing the gap starts at the top  As AI reshapes how organizations operate and compete, executive teams can’t afford to stay on the sidelines. The journey toward AI maturity isn’t about becoming technical experts. It’s about building shared fluency across the leadership team. It starts with honest reflection: Where are we on the AI literacy ladder? What will it take to move forward, together?  The first step is simple but powerful: Make space for the conversation. Invite different perspectives. Commit to learning together. Teams that do this won’t just keep up. They’ll help shape what’s next.  Philippe De Ridder is founder and CEO of BOI (Board of Innovation) and AUTONOMOUS. Laura Stevens, PhD is managing director, Data & AI at BOI.  

Workout gear often starts with ambition and ends in dust. That pull-up bar you bought with every intention of sculpting your upper body? It’s now holding three jackets, a tote bag, and last week’s laundry. Instead of ignoring this all-too-common evolution, RAK embraces it by design. RAK isn’t trying to hide the fact that home gym gear often becomes a glorified hanger. Instead, it leans into the reality and transforms it into a strength. This hybrid training system functions as both a pull-up bar and clothing rack, designed to support your workouts and your wardrobe. Designer: Hyunbin Seo and Samsung Design Membership Need to exercise? Just slide the clothes aside. When you’re done, shift them back into place. No guilt, no clutter – just a product that moves with your rhythm. Most exercise equipment announces its presence with bulky frames and an aggressive design language. RAK takes a different path. Its form is minimal, its silhouette clean. The width is calculated for maximum workout efficiency without interrupting your room’s flow. When it’s not in use, it fades naturally into your space, like it belongs there. Hidden at the core of RAK is a clever motion sensor that quietly counts your reps. No apps, no wearables, no setup. It measures movement directly from the equipment itself, delivering accuracy that wrist-based trackers often miss. It’s smart without being needy. Whether you’re perfecting your pull-up form or checking your posture, RAK adapts to your needs. Its central module allows attachments, dip bars, mirrors, and more, giving you full control over how it functions and how it looks. It’s not just about exercise; it’s about creating a space that reflects you. RAK takes the pain out of setup. With a reduced number of parts and a straightforward joining system, it’s ready to go in no time. But don’t let the simplicity fool you, this thing is solid. Thanks to a steel plate at its base, RAK remains steady even under pressure. Performance tests showed that it could handle 150kg, with only 14mm of deformation and a safety factor of 6.14, well beyond industry norms. Translation: it’s more than strong enough to support real workouts, day after day. RAK didn’t start as a concept, it started as a problem. The creator, tired of clunky home gear, measured their own equipment, studied how clothes naturally hung on it, and reverse-engineered a better solution. That practical origin lives on in every design decision, from dimensions to material choice. Forget oversized packages filled with endless bolts. RAK arrives in a single, sleek box, thoughtfully packed for both safety and style. The branding and unboxing experience align with the product’s mission: to reimagine fitness as something that fits into your life, not the other way around. It respects your space, adapts to your habits, and supports your goals, without trying to take over your home. Whether you’re mid-routine or mid-laundry day, it’s ready. One product, endless possibilities.The post This Clever Minimalist Pull-Up Bar Doubles as a Stylish Clothes Rack first appeared on Yanko Design.

Goodbye, minimalism.

As PC vendors continue to launch multiple variations of AI PCs, the promises of Microsoft Copilot and Copilot+ PC have demonstrated little relevance to enterprises, who are yet to see enough use cases to justify the purchase. However, Lenovo is trying to change that with its own AI assistant, AI Now. Based on Meta’s Llama 3.0, Lenovo AI Now is a small language model that focuses on a limited number of tasks such as document organization and device management, but does it locally, so users don’t have to worry about exposing their data to the outside world, and tasks such as document summaries can be done even on an airplane, without an internet connection. The inspiration for AI Now comes from Copilot’s limited success as a PC assistant. “I think at the launch of Copilot in June last year, there was a promise of more, and they had to pull back. I think it’s going to take some time for us to see wide-scale deployment, especially for some of the features like Recall, which they [Microsoft] showed and then came back off of,” said Tom Butler, VP for worldwide commercial portfolio and product management at Lenovo. “For AI Now, we have used a very focused local model experience. We’re not trying to be cloud. We’re demonstrating just really two things. One is the knowledge assistant, which uses your personal knowledge base; you put specific sets of files, documents into that knowledge base. Then you can run queries, comparisons, summarizations, and work through just that set of documents,” Butler said. The other aspect is that of a PC assistant that the user can instruct to change their PC settings without having to navigate the Settings app, by simply telling it, for example, “turn on dark mode.” Challenges with Copilot+ PC Privacy issues related to Microsoft Recall, which was touted as one of the key use cases for Microsoft Copilot+ PC over a typical AI PC, have put a dent in Microsoft’s positioning, said Udit Singh, vice president, Everest Group. “As such, the business case for Microsoft Copilot+ is weak today. However, this is not uncommon with Microsoft, as it has a tendency to start with a weak business case initially, but then beef up its offering over time,” Singh said. Other experts also struggle to see why enterprises would want to buy an AI PC. “At this stage, AI PCs do not offer enough compelling value to justify large-scale investment, particularly for enterprises with existing AI capabilities in cloud or data center environments,” said Eric Helmer, CTO at Rimini Street. “Many AI workloads can already be effectively managed without requiring a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) on every employee’s device.” As many enterprises are already cautious with IT spending, initiatives that provide immediate and measurable ROI will remain their priority. Helmer pointed out that investing in AI PCs today could mean paying a premium for capabilities that may soon become accessible through standard hardware and software advancements. “Instead of reacting to vendor-driven cycles, CIOs should assess whether AI PCs align with their broader IT modernization strategies and whether the investment makes sense given their organization’s specific needs,” he said. PC vendors like Lenovo are moving in the right direction by developing on-device AI solutions, arguably the most secure form of genAI, said Himani Reddy, PC research manager at Canalys. “This approach addresses enterprises’ top concern: data privacy,” Reddy argued.“At this stage, the market has limited options, and consumers must choose to either adopt the available solutions or wait for future developments. Unless vendors develop their own personal AI for PCs, like Lenovo’s aggressive push in AI with applications like ‘AI Now’ and HP’s ‘AI Companion,’ Copilot+ PC remains the primary option. Although there are privacy concerns associated with Copilot, it remains a more secure option compared to publicly available generative AI models, which enterprises may be hesitant to adopt.” Move to agentic AI While Lenovo’s entry into the AI PC world has started with a localized AI assistant, the company plans to transform this into a platform that will allow enterprises to choose from multiple LLMs and agentic AI offerings from vendors such as OpenAI, Meta, or even DeepSeek. “When you think of the North Star vision that we have as a company, we have two statements. One is smarter AI for all; we want to deliver this at every price point,” Butler said. The other thing that Lenovo is trying to achieve is to turn the PC into the digital twin of the user. “If each of these devices is operating as our bespoke, unique voice, our digital twin, and I can go ask AI Now, ‘plan my flight to the US,’ and it just goes off and does that for me, that time saving can be immense,” Butler said. To create the digital twin, Lenovo plans to take the agentic AI path. With agentic AI, Butler said, AI Now will move from being merely a personal assistant to a digital twin that can extract the maximum value out of the hardware. Butler said that Lenovo is working with multiple software vendors to integrate more LLMs and AI agents to make the digital twin a reality.