February 20, 20253 min readMicrosoft Claims Quantum-Computing Breakthroughbut Some Physicists Are SkepticalWith its topological quantum computers, Microsoft aims to reach useful scales faster than competing technologiesBy Davide Castelvecchi & Nature magazine Microsoft has unveiled its Majorana 1 quantum chip. John Brecher for MicrosoftMicrosoft has announced that it has created the first topological qubits a way of storing quantum information that the firm hopes will underpin a new generation of quantum computers. Machines based on topology are expected to be easier to build at scale than competing technologies, because they should better protect the information from noise. But some researchers are sceptical of the companys claims.The announcement came in a 19 February press release containing few technical details but Microsoft says it has disclosed some of its data to selected specialists in a meeting at its research centre in Santa Barbara, California. Would I bet my life that theyre seeing what they think theyre seeing? No, but it looks pretty good, says Steven Simon, a theoretical physicist at the University of Oxford, UK, who was briefed on the results.At the same time, the company published intermediate results but not the proof of the existence of topological qubits on 19 February in Nature.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.Superconducting wireTopological states are collective states of the electrons in a material that are resistant to noise, much like how two links in a chain can be shifted or rotated around each other while remaining connected.The Nature paper describes experiments on a superconducting nanowire device made of indium arsenide. The ultimate goal is to host two topological states called Majorana quasiparticles, one at each end of the device. Because electrons in a superconductor are paired, an extra, unpaired electron will be introduced, forming an excited state. This electron exists in a delocalized state, which is shared between the two Majorana quasiparticles.The paper reports measurements suggesting that the nanowire does indeed harbour an extra electron. These tests do not, by themselves guarantee that the nanowire hosts two Majorana quasiparticles, the authors warn.According to the press release, the team has carried out follow-up experiments in which they paired two nanowires and put them in a superposition of two states one with the extra electron in the first nanowire, and the other with the electron in the second nanowire. Weve built a qubit and shown that you can not only measure parity in two parallel wires, but a measurement that bridges the two wires, says Microsoft researcher Chetan Nayak.Theres no slam dunk to know immediately from the experiment that the qubits are made of topological states, says Simon. (A claim of having created Majorana states, made by a Microsoft-funded team based in Delft, the Netherlands, was retracted in 2021.) The ultimate proof will come if the devices perform as expected once they are scaled up, he adds.Early announcementSome researchers are critical of the companys choice to publicly announce the creation of a qubit without releasing detailed evidence. If you have some new results not connected to this paper, why dont you wait until you have enough material for a separate publication?" says Daniel Loss, a physicist at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Without seeing the extra data from the qubit operation, there is not much one can comment, says Georgios Katsaros, a physicist at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria in Klosterneuburg.We are committed to open publication of our research results in a timely manner while also protecting the companys IP [intellectual property], says Nayak.Microsoft has also shared a roadmap for scaling up its topological machines and demonstrating that they can perform quantum calculations2. Vincent Mourik, a physicist at the Helmholtz Research Centre in Jlich, Germany, whose concerns helped to lead to the earlier retraction, is sceptical of the whole concept. At a fundamental level, the approach of building a quantum computer based on topological Majorana qubits as it is pursed by Microsoft is not going to work.As we perform more types of measurements, it will become harder to explain our results with non-topological models, says Nayak. There may not be one single moment when everyone will be convinced. But non-topological explanations will require more and more fine-tuning.This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on February 19, 2025.

Unlike the majority of its peers, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 launched as a complete, polished game - one that's old-school in the best possible way. That's a welcome relief from the usual, and certainly worthy of praise despite a few lingering issues. Perhaps one reason why KCD2 is in such a great state is down to its choice of engine. CryEngine made its name powering large, open-ended levels like those in the original Far Cry and Crysis, and it was tapped for the original Kingdom Come Deliverance game back in 2018. The new game uses a DirectX 12 version of the engine, but unlike most DX12 titles the game doesn't suffer from the stutter, hitches or otherwise troublesome frame-times that we've come to expect from modern PC releases. Rather than playing on a high-end PC, I spent most of my time with KCD2 using medium settings on a mainstream build, complete with a Ryzen 5 3600 CPU and RTX 4060 or RTX 4070 Super graphics card. Even with the older and/or mid-range components, frame-times remained solid when targeting 60fps. Most notably, the game doesn't exhibit shader compilation stutter, so seeing new effects never triggered frame-time hitches over hours of play. Here's the full AB test - that's Alex Battaglia test, obviously - of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 on PC. Watch on YouTubeBased on what I know from interviews with Crytek, the necessary PSO caching can be accomplished during loading screens between chapters or asychronously in the backgroud, with delayed visibility of a shader if it's ever needed but not ready. Regardless of the mechanism, the results speak for themselves, and it's refreshing to see a game make such a solid first impression. After around eight hours of gameplay on the Ryzen 5 3600 system, I only found two instances of a frame-time spike which broke the 60fps cap, and both came in the prologue - once while moving forward into the pond, and once later on wwhile moving from the stream to Bozhena's house. I'm not sure what caused them, but they're fairly forgiveable given their rarity. As you might have guessed, the game also doesn't seem to suffer from open world traversal stutter as we'd normally expect even from relatively polished Unreal Engine releases, nor does it have frame-time issues in areas with large numbers of NPCs. Running through the game world through areas of varying density did nothing to dent the frame-time graph (or frame-rate graph for that matter) on the Ryzen 5 3600. Even when hitting the NPC- and object-dense mid-game area of Kuttenberg, the 3600 produced a perfectly flat frame-time graph with zero issues and impeccable smoothness. Of course, the game isn't at its most demanding on medium settings, but it is still running real-time software ray-traced global illumination, which is no small feat. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Moreover, the base gameplay design - with all the dense open world quests, realistic NPC schedules and AI, and bigger population densities - are not intensely CPU-limited in a way which produces bad frame-times. This is definitely not the norm in modern high production value releases like Dragon's Dogma 2 or Avowed, where choosing similarly mid-range or even lowest settings still results in poor frame-time health in city environments. DD2, for example, constantly has frame-times above 33ms, while having NPCs appear out of thin air right next to your character. Avowed has much less interactivity and NPC density, but there are still big frame-time spikes when crossing terrain, while performance dips to the 40s in towns. I'm actually in awe over how well KCD2 runs in these areas, and the game is an extreme outlier - even compared to its own predecessor, being more CPU-friendly despite a more ambitious design. Bravo, Warhorse - audentes fortuna iuvat! While running quite well, KCD2 manages to do a number of things to stand out graphically too. The core look of the game is heavily influenced by the technology powering the indirect lighting, one of the more advanced modes of CryEngine's sparse voxel octree global illumination (SVOGI). The 3D geometry is simplified into blocky voxels of increasing coarseness at a distance, which are then cone traced against in software to give the game real time diffuse global illumination. Like games with hardware RT, this gives the game a realistic colour palette, albeit on a coarser scale. This means you can see realistic natural occlusion, so recessed areas in large structures have darkened interiors, while a courtyard lit by the sky but not direct sunlight have dark indirect shadows for their overhangs and inlays. SVOGI also simulates light bounce, with the highest "experimental" setting in-game using two real bounces before falling back to a light cache. For example, an area under a thatched roof picks up yellowish bounce light from the light tan ground nearby, while sunlight falling on a building painted light red transfers that colour to a wall opposite. Here are some examples of the indirect lighting at work, including ambient occlusion, indirect shadows and colour transfer. | Image credit: Warhorse Studios/Digital FoundryOutside of the cities, SVOGI combines with very naturalistic and minimal post-processing, like that of the original Crysis, producing some exceptional landscapes. The density, variety and lighter hues of the games foliage play extremely well with its indirect lighting solution - and I truly think these are the best looking central-European forested areas and rolling hills that I have seen in gaming. Something about the hues and the natural encroaching darkness caused by denser areas of underbrush is very compelling to me. It helps too that there are a lot of artistic flourishes here, like the way streams and brooks crisscross the entire area, or the way the developers allow dusk and night to become extremely dark. Have you ever walked along the edge of a forest at dusk and shuddered at how impenetrably dark it looks? This game does that very well. In total, the combination of vegetation and lighting gives the game impeccable ambience in its more rural areas that needs to be experienced first hand. Often I found myself wandering and engaging in incidental virtual tourism - inspecting the landscape and appreciating how light bounces around on a larger scale.So Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 can look great as well run well, but a number of visual aspects don't scale as far as they do in other games - and there are a few legacy CryEngine idiosyncrasies that Warhorse has left in that degrade graphical quality. As in Crysis 3, back in 2013, plant physics and animations run at lower frame-rate than the rest of the world - eg at 60fps they run at 30fps - but with improper animation pacing, so they sometimes update at uneven intervals. I'd love an ultra high-end setting for plants to make their movement 1:1 with the game frame-rate. The same is true of water interactions, something that's been in the engine since 2011's Crysis 2, which gives the 30fps water a frame-y look at times and would likewise benefit from an ultra high-end setting. The game's natural environments are worthy of praise, with beautifully rendered forests, meadows and streams. | Image credit: Warhorse Studios/Digital FoundryThe most glaring 30fps limitation though is the cutscenes. I can only guess why Warhorse chose to do this, but I imagine it's for consistency with the few pre-rendered cutscenes which are used to mask loading. I don't think this is always a great choice though, as the pre-rendered cutscenes can have have bursts of uneven frame-times - and the same is true of 30fps in-engine cutscenes on occasion. Mods exist to unlock the in-engine cutscenes and they run without issue even on low-end hardware, so I hope this option is officially added in the future. The game also has some odd issues if your desktop and in-game resolution aren't matched, with frame-rate capping becoming ineffective. For example, if the desktop is set to 1080p but the display maxes out at 4K, then a 60fps frame-rate cap operates at 30fps instead. Moving over to graphical quality itself, KCD2 doesn't scale as far as it could in some areas, most notably reflections and lighting precision. For reflections, the game seems to use cubemaps and screen-space reflections (SSR), as SVOGI only applies to diffuse lighting. As a result, materials like metal or water often look out of place, either glowing strangely in comparison to the surrounding darkness or just poorly shaded, while the rougher surfaces near by look more natural. Due to a reliance on cubemaps for specularity, the game can at times look overly diffuse, with reflections missing on surfaces where you would expect them. The lack of scaling in the reflections is perhaps most obvious around bodies of water, where SSR disocclusion artefacts are commonplace. Given this weakness, an optional RT reflections option would do wonders, and CryEngine does support this at some level as we saw from the Crysis remasters - though this is no guarantee that implementing a similar system in KCD2 would be trivial. The game's shinier surfaces, like water and polished armour, are occasionally lit strangely or exhibit SSR artefacts. | Image credit: Warhorse Studios/Digital FoundryAnother less than great looking aspect of the visuals comes from SVOGI's lack of precision - while it works for occlusions on a large scale and rolling hills, it is not fine-grained enough for smaller, thinner things. For example, it's quite common to see light leaking through the wall of a barn or stall, or observe that smaller dynamic objects don't seem to fit the lighting of the rest of the environment. There is only so much can do here on a technical level given how big the voxels being traced are, but it's fun to dream about how KCD2 could look with a more fine-grained per-pixel GI solution or even path tracing. The game also completely lacks HDR support. This would be a big upgrade given the game's visuals strengths, so I hope it's something the team could consider down the line. This is more of a nitpick, but the game's graphical quality options are named a bit strangely for my tastes. Ultra feels like the default setting, with options below ultra often coming with obvious visual shortcomings. For example, medium shadow quality produces rough results when speaking to NPCs during the day, with a very last-gen look. The same is true of volumetric quality, where medium produces blotchy aliasing inbetween the leaves of trees and only experimental really solves the issue. Skin shading is another one, with striated lines on any setting below ultra. Given this, ultra feels more like medium, with the game scaling lower than other titles. This could be useful for extremely low-powered devices, but I found better results from keeping ultra as a baseline and adjusting resolution and upscaling instead. This results in less obvious visual degradation for a given level of performance. While the game looks great at ultra for the most part, choosing lower settings often results in noticeable downgrades - such as striated lines on skin, blocky shadows with light leaking, or volumetric artefacts. | Image credit: Warhorse Studios/Digital FoundryFor the CPU side of things there are limits to hitting 60fps, with the 60fps Kuttenberg run requiring medium settings on the Ryzen 5 3600. Bringing the game up to ultra increases the CPU burden, but thankfully given the level of optimisation here, there are only a few drops below 60fps - and none are noticeable stutters, they're just a gentle waxing and waning of the frame-rate. If you have a Ryzen 5000 series CPU or later, ultra settings should be completely unproblematic for performance.Regarding the experimental preset, I think most settings - other than volumetric quality - should be reserved for properly ultra high-end PCs. Choosing experimental tends to mostly affect graphical quality at a distance, with longer draw distances that increase CPU costs significantly. Here, the Ryzen 5 3600 is largely in the 40s and 50s on the Kuttenberg run, so you'll need a much stronger CPU for this setting to run at a locked 60fps.Overall then, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is a very polished release which Warhorse Studios should be very proud of. I imagine the game will continue to be updated and improved in the future given its reported success, and I would be grateful if the developers considered adding on some higher-end graphics options in the areas I highlighted above. Even without that though, I think most people will have a blast playing the game, and it certainly gets the DF recommendation.

Pokmon Go fans launch campaign to protect game's future, as concerns mount over sale"This potential shift personally fills me with dread."Image credit: The Pokmon Company News by Tom Phillips Editor-in-Chief Published on Feb. 20, 2025 Pokmon Go fans concerned about the game's future under new ownership have launched a campaign highlighting the need to protect the app and its community from the addition of predatory monetisation practices.Yesterday, a Bloomberg report stated that Pokmon Go developer Niantic was looking to sell its gaming portfolio to Scopely, the Saudi-backed mobile publisher behind Monopoly Go.The news sent shockwaves through Pokmon Go's community, and generated fears that the move would be a profoundly negative one for the game's long-term future and its players.Why? Well, while criticising Pokmon Go developer Niantic is a common past-time for many of the game's fans, it didn't take long for players of other Scopely games to sound the alarm that things were likely to get a whole lot worse. "For those unfamiliar, Scopely is known for games like Marvel Strike Force and Star Trek Fleet Command," reads a thread by user Tetrylene on top Pokmon Go fan reddit TheSilphRoad. "Many from those communities have voiced concerns over the overtly aggressive monetisation tactics, including paywalls and pay-to-win mechanics. I know this potential shift personally fills me with dread.""Oh... dear..." wrote Pokmon Go fan misskass, responding to the initial report that Niantic's games were up for sale. "I play another Scopely game (Marvel Strike Force) and the quality is declining year after year. Pokemon Go is effectively free to play, but Strike Force is powerfully pay to win. Like, no access to any of the top characters for 6+ months after they release kind of pay to win. And then when you can access them, they're instantly powercrept."Another fan pointed back to a post on the Marvel Strike Force reddit from five years ago, similarly warning fans of that game what Scopely would likely change based on how it had previously taken on Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem and tightened the screws of monetisation."Was coming here to say the exact same thing," agreed reddit user Todd999430. "I played Marvel Strike Force prior to Scopely acquiring the game and then a year or two afterwards. Marvel Strike Force went from a game for light spenders to compete to 'unless you're dropping $500 a month, you can't be in a top alliance'."For Pokmon Go players, many of whom play the game as part of real-world communities made up of friends and acquaintances met over the past nine years, the idea of the game's ownership changing is real concern."Beyond being the only real game I play anymore, it serves as a major conduit for me and my friends socially to connect and meet-up over," Tetrylene's post continues. "I run a local group with them, and the idea of the group eventually dwindling as people are alienated (instead of slowly and gradually growing as is now) is genuinely bleak to think about. "I'm sure it's the same for many of you here - the game is a big reason a lot of us have been motivated to exercise, make friends and explore new places. I know I don't want to lose that to a faceless group of investment fund board members."In response, the Pokmon Go community is being encouraged to make its feelings known to The Pokmon Company - the franchise's overall owner, who will undoubtedly have an opinion on which company takes on the still lucrative and high-profile game."The World of Warcraft and old school RuneScape communities have shown several times that it's worth kicking up fuss about negative changes. Those communities have managed to redirect the course of their respective games on several occasions," Tetrylene continued."Yes, trying to exert some influence on such large-scale business deals between entities like these might seem daunting, but we have to try. Bad press / user complaints will at least be a factor of consideration, however small, it will surely be noted in discussions. If nothing else, it might make TPC more cautious and tighten the reigns of a new representative of their carefully managed brand."Tetrylene's thread encourages Pokmon Go players to message The Pokmon Company to express the need to preserve the game's integrity without additional monetisation features, highlight the community-driven nature of the game, and flag the potential damage to The Pokmon Company's own brand should Scopely be allowed to do to the game what it has already done to others.Eurogamer has contacted The Pokmon Company for comment on the potential sale, but did not receive a response. A Niantic spokesperson declined comment.

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Contents hide When GTA V released its next-next-gen edition on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles, the epic open-world game included a bunch of graphical options not available on PC. Now, after three years, GTA V PC players finally have access to the games advanced graphical features.GTA V PC gets a big graphics updateComing in the March 5th update to the game, GTA V PC players will finally be able to turn on advanced features, including ray-traced shadows and even higher traffic density than normal. With GTA 6 on PC coming after the console version, at least players will be able to finally experience a more intensive version of the game theyve had access to for years.On March 4, Grand Theft Auto V on PC is getting a free upgrade with sought-after features previously only available in the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of GTA Online, reads Rockstars official announcement. Save Up to $1,200 on the Samsung Galaxy S25! Pre-order now and save big with trade-in and Samsung credit. Limited time only! *Includes trade-in value + $300 Samsung credit. The update will add all the latest vehicles and performance upgrades available at Haos Special Works, animal encounters, and access to purchase a GTA+ Membership alongside improved graphics options, faster loading times and more.Of course, GTA V PC players will have access to this upgrade for free, as expected. However, this is an entirely new version of the game, and players will have to migrate both their Story Mode and Online progressan annoying pain that console players also had to deal with when their upgrades arrived. Must-Listen: Publishing Manor Lords w/ Joe Robinson VideoGamer Podcast Listen Now As hilarious as it is, this kind of delayed release structure is normal for Rockstar Games. After all, it took the massive game studio over 14 years to bring Red Dead Redemption to PC, and it took a year after the games port to Nintendo Switch to happen. With GTA 6 on PC expected to release in early 2026, that might be the fastest Rockstar port in the past ten years.For more Grand Theft Auto news, read about the amazing fan-made Vice City remake in the GTA 4 engine, that also runs amazingly on Steam Deck. Additionally, read about the latest release date fan theory for the next game in the series.Grand Theft Auto 5Platform(s):PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox 360, Xbox OneGenre(s):Action10VideoGamerSubscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you're reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games here Contents hide A lot of Dead By Daylight players are looking ahead to Chapter 35. The PTB shouldve already come out on February 18th, but BeHaviour announced it had been delayed so they can focus on developing some big updates. While we have to wait awhile longer for the paragraph killer to be revealed, an upcoming DBD event further hints at the Chapter 35 killer belonging to an iconic anime.Dead By Daylight Japan event possibly hints at anime killerAs per Dvveet on X, BeHaviour Interactive is conducting a Dead By Daylight event in Tokyo, Japan, on March 12th. Tickets for this event will go on sale on February 25th.Image credit: BeHaviour Interactive via Dvveet on XNo other details are provided about the DBD event. However, it could be seen as another hint that the leaks are accurate about the Chapter 35 killer being Ken Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul. Save Up to $1,200 on the Samsung Galaxy S25! Pre-order now and save big with trade-in and Samsung credit. Limited time only! *Includes trade-in value + $300 Samsung credit. There are newly discovered Easter Eggs in Dead By Daylight that possibly allude to Ken Kaneki, and this event is just another cherry on top of the icing leaks. The event is taking place in Tokyo, which is obviously relevant to an anime called Tokyo Ghoul, and the event is happening on March 12th, which correlates with the date of the PTB happening on March 11th thanks to time differences.This doesnt confirm that the Chapter 35 killer is Ken Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul, but this is what leaks have suggested, with his powers allegedly involving tentacles. While the prospect of Tokyo Ghoul seems high, there is the chance it could be a killer from an entirely different Japanese IP. Must-Listen: Publishing Manor Lords w/ Joe Robinson VideoGamer Podcast Listen Now Originally, there was speculation that it could be Kayako from The Grudge, especially with DBD already having Sadako from Ringu. However, leaks have only pointed to Ken from Tokyo Ghoul, so that is the safest bet right now aside from the killer just belonging to a Japanese IP.For more Dead By Daylight content, check out ourranking of the top 10 DLC expansions to buyalong with a ranking of thebest killer perksandbest survivor perks.Dead by DaylightPlatform(s):Google Stadia, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series XGenre(s):Action, Survival Horror7VideoGamerRelated TopicsDead by Daylight Subscribe to our newsletters!By subscribing, you agree to our Privacy Policy and may receive occasional deal communications; you can unsubscribe anytime.Share

Materials and firmness: It is a lyocell fiber shell and a recycled PET fill. It is soft and lightweight.Styles available: It comes in standard or king size and soft, medium, or firm fill. I picked standard size and medium fill.Care instructions: It is dry-clean only.What kind of sleeper are you? I was a die-hard stomach sleeper until a few years ago when I started having neck pain. Now I find that sleeping on my side is best, and I am always in search of a supportive pillow that offers the right height to keep my neck in alignment.What attracted you to these pillows? I have seen ads for Buffy all over the subway and was curious about their products. This pillow was described as soft-yet-supportive which is exactly what Im looking for.Whats it like sleeping on these pillows? This pillow is great! It truly lives up to what is says. I feel like my head is sinking into it and yet somehow my head remains supported. My neck has been feeling great.Did the pillows live up to your expectations? It surpassed them. It arrived in a super thin box and feels really soft and light when you handle it. I thought for sure it was going to be too thin and soft for me.Would you recommend this pillow? Id definitely recommend it to anyone who is a fellow side sleeper, or anyone who likes a soft feel but craves support. I do think it is worth the priceespecially since a good nights sleep is priceless.Best Cooling: Original Casper PillowCasper Sleep Original PillowPillow reviewer: Madeleine Luckel, contributorMaterials and firmness: Caspers pillow is a polyester microfiber fill with a cotton coverits on the firmer side.Styles available: Standard and king sizes are available with mid loft and low loft pillow options.Care instructions: This pillow is machine-washable.What kind of sleeper are you? In terms of sleep position, I sleep in lots of different wayson my back, on my right or left side, or partially on my stomach.Whats attractive to you about this pillow? This is actually my boyfriends pillow. I usually like really soft pillows, while he likes firmer ones. However, I like this product so much that I try to steal it all the time.Whats it like sleeping on these pillows? The Original pillow is really nice. Somehow the pillow stays pretty cool and it really is at some indescribable sweet spot in terms of its firmness. But the real key is that the pillow is thick enough to work perfectly as a stand-alone sleep piece. And this is coming from someone who usually swears by sleeping with two pillows.Did the pillows live up to your expectations? For me, it exceeded them!Would you recommend this pillow? Yes! Even to a skeptical friend.Best Memory Foam Pillow: The Pillow By MarlowThe Pillow By MarlowPillow reviewer: Rachel Fletcher, commerce directorMaterials and firmness: The Marlow pillow is made out of polyester and shredded memory foam fill that is meant to also be cooling. The shell is 100% cotton. Its definitely pretty firm and also has an adjustable fill option.

Estimating the cost to Apple of paying President Trump's import tariffs, Bank of America believes that a 9% price hike for the iPhone and all other devices, would prevent losses. It's a fiction that other countries will pay tariffs, as instead all such costs will always be borne by US companies. In the case of Apple, it has previously earned an exemption though not consistently and it has tried to reduce the impact of tariffs by moving manufacturing to different countries.According to CNBC, this time that spreading of the manufacturing around various locations is not going to help. Bank of America now estimates that whatever Apple does with manufacturing, and wherever it does it, the company will face a minimum of a 10% tariff.In the short term, Apple could absorb that cost and may well chose to rather than raise prices. Once a customer goes to Android because of the price, it is that much harder to get them back to the iPhone.Should Apple simply pay the tariffs and take that hit itself, the Bank of America calculates that it would face a loss of 26 cents in earnings per share. That equates to a drop of around 3% across calendar year 2026.One option is for Apple to increase prices, but not enough to cover its tariff costs. Bank of America says that if, for instance, it raised prices by 3%, that would mean a 2.4% slide and a per-share earnings drop of 21 cents.The calculation is based on both the tariffs expected to affect goods or components made in various countries, and an estimate of how higher prices would mean lower sales. If Apple passes on its increased costs to buyers, and sales decrease, Bank of America estimates that the company would need to raise prices by 9%.As yet, it's not known what Apple will do, beyond presumably continuing to lobby for exemptions. But Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan says that the tariffs seem "manageable."

For Five Minutes!GTA 5 on PC's free upgrade to match current-gen consoles finally has a concrete arrival date, giving people a distraction from GTA 6 chatter for all of 0.5 secondsCue the scene of Shrek calmly asking Donkey if he can be quiet for literally five minutes.Image credit: Rockstar Games News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on Feb. 20, 2025 There's GTA news! No, sit your bum down, it's not GTA 6 trailer news. It's GTA 5 news. The free update that'll finally bring the PC version of the most lucrative game ever to game has just been given a concrete release date - it's dropping on March 4.Having teased this update was coming towards the end of last year, Rockstar's just revealed the date via a fresh newswire post, in which it details all the sparkly additions and tweaks the new spec will bring PC folks so they can on longer be mocked by their PS5 and Xbox Series X/S cousins.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. So, what are you getting? Well, "a range of new vehicles and upgrades at Haos Special Works", ambient animal encounters, and a "refreshed Landing Page", as well as access to a career progress tracker and the ability to sign up for a GTA+ membership on PC. I'm sure you're absolutely stoked about that last one.Hardware-wise, the update will also bring all or some the following, depending on what kind of rig you're packing:Ray tracing features only available on PC such as ambient occlusion and global illumination plus ray traced shadows and reflections first debuted on consolesSupport for AMD FSR1 and FSR3, and NVIDIA DLSS 3Faster loading times using SSD and DirectStorage on supported devices and configurationsEnhanced support for higher resolutions, higher aspect ratios, and higher frameratesDualSense controller support, with adaptive triggersEnhanced audio with support for Dolby Atmos and improved fidelity of speech, cinematics, and music To see this content please enable targeting cookies."Support for the previous version of GTA V will continue, allowing anyone whose hardware does not currently meet the minimum requirements of the new upgrade to keep playing," Rockstar adds, "This also ensures that support for FiveM will continue uninterrupted while we work to extend support for it on the upgraded version."That said, it makes clear that "the original version of GTA Online on PC will be a separate instance, and players who remain on that version will not be able to play in sessions together with those on the upgraded version". It sounds like if you upgrade, you'll be able to opt to revert to the old version in order to play with mates who're stuck on it.Will you be taking advantage of this excuse to jump back into GTA 5? Did you manage to stop thinking about GTA 6 while reading this article? Let us know below!

James SlopAmazon MGM Studios now has full creative control of the James Bond franchise, and you're almost certainly gonna get those spinoffs that you didn't ask forCan't wait for the Young James Bond Adventures.Image credit: Amazon MGM Studios News by Fran Ruiz Contributor Published on Feb. 20, 2025 The future of 007 and the James Bond franchise as a whole has been a point of contention for years now, especially after the MGM library was absorbed by Amazon. After months of back-and-forth regarding the expansion plans for the IP, longtime Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli are "stepping back from the creative process."The news dropped via Deadline, with both the producers and Amazon MGM Studios and Prime Video's Mike Hopkins confirming the new arrangement. "Amazon and the producers have formed a new venture to house the James Bond intellectual property rights", he said, with Wilson and Broccoli remaining on board as co-owners of the franchise.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Of course, that amy well prove to be elaborate corpo talk for 'We've trampled over the producers that were blocking the franchise from becoming another interchangeable property we can mine to death'. In late 2024, it was reported that Broccoli even went as far as to call Amazon's execs "f**king idiots," which suggests difficult conversations concerning the future of not only the next James Bond, but also potential spinoffs movies and/or shows had been happening for a while."Insiders add that no decisions have been made on the future Bond films including who will star, direct or write the next film," Deadline wrote. Of course, getting a new Bond movie off the ground (something that Broccoli and Wilson were interested in doing in the near future) should be the priority, as No Time To Die, Daniel Craig's final outing as the iconic British spy, was released in late 2021 and will turn four this year. Even if a writing and directing team was locked this year, Amazon would be looking at a 2027 release at the earliest."With the conclusion of No Time to Die and Michael retiring from the films, I feel it is time to focus on my other projects," said Broccoli at the end of her comments. If you can read between the lines, she sounds well aware that a major plundering will now begin. There have been rumblings in the past of Amazon being interested in spinoffs based on other characters from the 'Bond mythos' (since everything must be considered a universe now) and even prequel shows. Broccoli and Wilson, on the other hand, always pushed for Bond to remain a theatrical 'event' movie series.While excitement surrounding a new James Bond and the respective rebooted movie saga remains high no matter what, fans will understandably be more cautious moving forward as Amazon looks for new ways to mine the series for quick profits, and the initial reactions online to this major Hollywood development are anything but positive.

Image: Lego / NintendoShortly before Nintendo lifted the lid on the upcoming Switch 2, the company announced that it would once again be teaming up with Lego. We've had the NES, we've had Animal Crossing sets, and now we're getting the Game Boy.No further information was provided beyond the brief, tantalising debut teaser, but according to a new leak from Falconbrickstudios (thanks, Eurogamer), the set may actually be a bit more affordable than we were expecting.In short, we're looking at what sounds like a fairly small set at just 421 pieces, which is considerably fewer than the NES at 2646 pieces. Now, yes, it's obvious that a Game Boy is going to be smaller than an NES, but our inner pessimist was half-expecting Lego and Nintendo to beef up the set with some unnecessary extras, thus increasing the brick count and, of course, the price.Alas, it looks like we may be looking at a price of just $59.99 (about 48) for this thing, which for a Lego set really isn't all that bad. Oh, and it's also supposedly due to launch on 1st October 2025.Though Falconbrickstudios has been rated as being fairly reliable when it comes to Lego leaks, we'd nevertheless recommend approaching this with a healthy degree of scepticism. Hopefully we'll hear more in the coming weeks, but for now, colour us intrigued. Now you're playing with buildable powerWhat do you think would be a reasonable price for a Lego Game Boy? Let us know your thoughts with a comment down below.[source instagram.com, via eurogamer.net]Share:13 Nintendo Lifes resident horror fanatic, when hes not knee-deep in Resident Evil and Silent Hill lore, Ollie likes to dive into a good horror book while nursing a lovely cup of tea. He also enjoys long walks and listens to everything from TOOL to Chuck Berry. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related ArticlesNintendo Is Discontinuing Gold Points, One Of The Switch's Best IncentivesNoooo, don't do it!Nintendo Has Renewed Some TrademarksIncluding its famous 'Seal of Quality'Nintendo Power Artist "Hadn't Actually Played Any Zelda Games" Before Creating His Take On HyruleAnd he'd like to turn his talents to MetroidSwitch 2 Units Are Reportedly Selling For $40,000 On The Chinese Black MarketOr $50 trade-in at GameStopFeature: "I Was Seeing Him In My Dreams" - Nintendo Veteran Just Can't Shake Shigeru Miyamoto"He got a good laugh out of that"