At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Powerful chip that brings the Switch 2 up to the level of a PS4 (Pro) Better frame rates and faster loading times Useful improvements such as HDR and 4K support Light and handy despite larger screen Cons Low battery power No OLED screen and therefore no real HDR in handheld mode Console edges are slightly sharp-edged and uncomfortable Our Verdict The Nintendo Switch 2 is a smart and meaningful upgrade, offering better graphics, faster load times, and modern features like HDR. But weaker battery life, an LCD screen, and a high price make it more suitable for hardcore fans than casual players. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today The Nintendo Switch 2 officially launched on June 5th and aims to win over both longtime fans and newcomers. Rather than reinventing the wheel, Nintendo has opted to modernize the familiar concept of the original Switch. With significantly better hardware and detailed improvements, the Switch 2 feels like a thoughtful upgrade. But much like the PlayStation 5 Pro, the big question remains: Is it worth it and who is it really for? We break it down in our review. Nintendo Switch 2: A big boost in performance This time around, Nintendo installed more powerful hardware in the Nintendo Switch 2. Together with Nvidia, Nintendo installed a specially customized processor and GPU, which together deliver around ten times more power than the original Nintendo Switch. Both old and new titles benefit from this and now run more smoothly and with shorter loading times, even if not always at 60 fps. While titles such as Mario Kart World definitely reach the golden frame rate mark, other titles such as Cyberpunk 2077 are even more demanding, which means they tend to run at 30 to 40 FPS. However, the fact that Cyberpunk runs so well on the Switch 2 is a success in itself. And even with games like Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the higher FPS figures work wonders to significantly enhance the gaming experience. The use of DLSS plays a large part in making such performance possible on the Switch 2. Nvidia’s upscaling technology can generate more frame rates with the help of AI. However, image artefacts do occur from time to time as a result of the AI calculation, but these usually occur in the background and aren’t noticeable. The Nintendo Switch 2 comes with the console itself, two joy cons, a controller holder, the docking station and a power supply unit including charging cable.Hannah Cowton-Barnes / Foundry In terms of resolution, the Switch 2 now delivers 1080p in handheld mode, which also ensures that you can feel a significant improvement in quality. In TV mode, however, it depends on the game which resolution is possible. While titles such as Mario Kart World run natively at 1440p, other games are only upscaled to this value. For the first time it’s possible to upscale titles up to 4K resolution. This is a significant improvement compared to the first Nintendo Switch, which reached a maximum of Full HD. This is remarkable, especially as the Switch 2 also supports HDR, which makes for really beautiful scenes in TV mode. Nintendo has also given the Switch 2 a full 256 GB of internal memory, which is significantly more than the meagre 32 GB of the first Nintendo Switch or 64 GB of the OLED Switch. This should give most people enough space to transfer their game library (or fill it with new titles). If required, the memory can also be expanded with a microSD card. Incidentally, not all microSD cards are now compatible with the console. With the Switch 2, the memory card must fulfil the microSD Express standard. The Nintendo Switch 2 is larger than its predecessor, and also larger than the OLED Switch (not pictured).Hannah Cowton-Barnes / Foundry In terms of battery life, the Nintendo Switch 2 takes one step forward and two steps back. Even though the battery now delivers 5220 mAh instead of 4310 mAh, the battery life is noticeably shorter due to the higher performance. For demanding games, the console lasts just two hours, which can be a major disadvantage when traveling. At best, the console lasts six and a half hours, which is still not too much. The Nintendo Switch OLED, by comparison, managed four and a half to nine hours of battery life. So if you often play in handheld mode, you’ll get significantly less playing time here. Of course, this is less relevant in docked mode on the TV, but it still feels like a step backwards. The Switch 2 makes perfect sense as an upgrade, as it delivers many improvements that Nintendo titles urgently need… Unfortunately, the Switch 2 has not become a must-have despite some useful improvements. Nintendo Switch 2: Build quality and handling As usual from Nintendo, the workmanship of the Nintendo Switch 2 is of a very high standard. Everything looks very high-quality and the console feels really good in the hand, despite the larger form factor. Not much else has changed compared to the first Switch. In terms of design, the Switch 2 is very well done.PC Welt / Foundry The joy cons are also very similar, apart from the fact that they are now magnetically attached to the console. This works very well. However, be careful not to accidentally pinch a finger because that hurts like hell. If necessary, the joy cons can either be released at the touch of a button or you can pull them off directly with a little force. This is only recommended if you have a firm grip on the console, otherwise it will quickly end up on the floor. Conveniently, it’s also possible to put the joy cons on upside down. They then work just as well and the console simply rotates with them. Apart from that, there are only a few changes to the familiar design. The console is less colorful, as there are only a few blue and red accents instead of the completely colored joy cons on the first Nintendo Switch. However, we hope that Nintendo will release a few chic special editions in the future to spice things up a bit. Incidentally, Nintendo has not changed the sticks on the Nintendo Switch 2, which can still lead to the infamous stick drift. An omission that many rightly criticize, as the problem has been known for years. Nintendo Switch 2: The screen falls short We were somewhat disappointed when Nintendo announced that the Switch 2 would only have an LCD screen and not an OLED screen like the Nintendo Switch OLED. This was a real highlight and made games on the console look even more colorful and stylish, not to mention the better contrasts. Although Nintendo has installed a really good LCD screen (which at 7.9 inches is also significantly larger than on the first Switch), it still can’t keep up with a good OLED screen. The colors look good, but in a direct comparison you can tell that the OLED Switch is still ahead. The differences between the Switch 2’s LCD screen and the OLED screen aren’t easily visible, but they exist. The grass looks rich and green in both, though the Switch 2 is weaker in contrast.Foundry Anyone who played with the OLED Switch for a long time will notice the difference. It’s a real shame because Nintendo could’ve simply launched a more contemporary OLED version straight away. This would have at least justified the price of the Switch 2. In dark scenes, the picture lacks depth.Foundry However, the biggest weakness of the LCD screen becomes clear when you realize that one of the Switch 2’s functions is no longer available. This is because the highly praised HDR support is not guaranteed in handheld mode. While it’s certainly possible to use the technology in TV mode to achieve a wider range of color values and brightness levels, the latter in particular fall completely flat in handheld mode, as independent analyses show. In docked mode, the Switch 2 can receive and output HDR signals, but these simply cannot be displayed on the LCD screen. Ultimately, this means that good black levels and brightness values aren’t possible in handheld mode, especially where games have to support HDR in the first place. This only applies to a handful of titles. The Nintendo Switch 2 may therefore benefit from somewhat richer colors, but when it comes to contrasts, which are only achieved through deep black and white values, it cannot keep up with the almost four-year-old OLED Switch, which is an incredible shame. Nintendo Switch 2: Game lineup highlights At least Nintendo doesn’t let itself down with the selection of launch titles and presents its own releases such as Mario Kart World or Donkey Kong Bananza, which will be released in July, to show what the console is capable of. Mario Kart World is probably the Switch 2’s most important launch title.Foundry We’ve already had the chance to test Mario Kart World extensively, and the game looks simply fantastic. The new worlds are lovingly designed, with action happening everywhere on the tracks, and the characters and their animations look great. On some maps, high waves build up when a player’s blue tank crashes into a waterway, players behind can even feel the impact. Elsewhere, you speed over sand dunes, surrounded by sandstorms that impair visibility. Mario Kart also has an open world for the first time on the Switch 2, which is a special innovation for the racing game and probably wouldn’t have been possible on the original Switch. Just like the option to compete with 24 players instead of just 12, which is chaotic but fun. In the new Free Roam mode, you can explore the open game world of Mario Kart World, complete smaller missions and practice for the next race.Foundry In Donkey Kong Bananza, you can unleash your destructive fury and smash most of the map into its individual parts, which then fly around and have to be calculated accordingly by the console. Players who prefer less family-friendly titles will also get their money’s worth. Cyberpunk 2077 is an example of this, appearing directly as a launch title for the Switch 2. Other titles include Hitman, Hogwarts Legacy, Street Fighter, and Yakuza. However, Switch 2 games are notably more expensive. Mario Kart World costs up to $80, for instance. Nintendo will also offer free updates for some games you already own on the original Switch, allowing them to benefit from the Switch 2’s improvements. For other titles, like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, this will require an additional charge (unless you already have the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass). Nintendo Switch 2: GameChat online function The new GameChat function is aimed specifically at online gamers and is designed to allow them to communicate with others directly via the console. No separate microphone is required as this is already built into the console. That said, a camera is required, which Nintendo also offers for for $54.99. GameChat can be selected via the new C button on the Switch 2 joy cons or the Switch 2 Pro controller. You can invite friends to join the chat and then play games like Mario Kart or Mario Party together in online multiplayer, which is a lot more fun as you can also see your fellow players. Hannah Cowton-Barnes / Foundry The implementation of this function still seems rather rudimentary. You do have the option of blurring the background so that only the person themselves is clearly in focus. Even apps like Teams can do this much better. The console also provides little help on how to start an online game with the camera. The noise filtering during the game itself works quite well, which is why you have no problems hearing all participants in the conversation over their game sound. Nintendo has also deliberately chosen to blur the gameplay of the other participants so that you are less distracted. However, the blurred and choppy images are more distracting than less in our eyes. It’s also important to know that GameChat can only be used free of charge until March 31st, 2026. After that, it requires a paid Nintendo Switch Online membership. But the real question is: How much added value does GameChat bring? You can just use Discord or Teamspeak for free. This makes it seem like more of a gimmick than a real improvement. Nintendo Switch 2: How effective is mouse control? Another new feature of the Switch 2 is the ability to use the new, magnetic joy cons like a mouse with the help of special sensors. All you have to do is lay the joy cons flat. Although this mouse control works in principle with all games, it’s not always useful. In our preview of the Switch 2, which was created at an event, we were able to try out the function before release and felt it was more of a gimmick than a real selling point. High-caliber titles such as Metroid Prime 4: Beyond are said to make particularly good use of mouse control, but the game has not yet been released. Other titles such as Drag X Drive or Super Mario Party: Jamboree are already benefiting from the new technology, but these are only smaller mini-games. After all, shooters like Cyberpunk 2077 or strategy games like Civiliation7 can now be controlled properly on the console. Another use case for the function is the Nintendo eShop itself. Here you can use the mouse control to search for specific titles, which is much more practical than the normal input via the controller. Hannah Cowton-Barnes / Foundry To use the joy cons as a mouse, you need a smooth surface with plenty of space–something not everyone has readily available. According to Nintendo, you can simply place the joy con on your lap, but this doesn’t work in practice. You also shouldn’t have sensitive wrists, especially if you already spend a lot of time on a PC. Your hands rest very uncomfortably on the joy cons when playing, which can lead to fatigue and pain after just a few hours. Nintendo does offer a solution (for an extra charge) in the form of grips where you can place the joy cons to make them feel more like a mouse. However, even this isn’t truly ergonomic and therefore not really recommended. To put it in a nutshell: The mouse control of the joy cons is clear and precise, as it should be. But it’s not a real game changer. It doesn’t turn the Switch 2 into a PC and feels like a quirky idea that offers real advantages for a few select titles, but no major added value overall. Nintendo Switch 2: Specs SpecsValueSize116 mm x 272 mm x 13.9 mm (with joy cons connected)Weight401 g (with connected joy cons: approx. 534 g)DisplayCapacitive touchscreen / 7.9 inch / resolution 1920 x 1080 / LCD screen with wide color spectrum and HDR10 support/VRR up to 120 HzCPU/GPUCustomized processor from NVIDIASystem memory256 GB (UFS)Communication functionsWLAN (Wi-Fi 6) / BluetoothVideo outputMaximum resolution: 3840 x 2160, 60 fpsSupports 120 fps when 1920 x 1080 / 2560 x 1440 resolutions are selectedAudio outputSupports linear PCM 5.1, output via HDMI cable in TV modeSpeakersStereoMicrophoneIntegrated microphone (monaural)ButtonsPOWER button / volume buttonsUSB ports2 USB Type-C portsHeadphone socket4-pin 3.5 mm stereo mini plug (CTIA standard)Card slotBoth Nintendo Switch 2 and Nintendo Switch software cards can be inserted.microSD Express Card slotOnly compatible with microSD Express Cards (up to 2 TB)SensorsThe acceleration sensor, the gyro sensor and the mouse sensor are located in each Joy-Con 2 controller. The brightness sensor is located in the console.Operating environmentTemperature: 5 – 35°C / Humidity: 20 – 80%Internal batteryLithium-ion battery / battery capacity: 5220 mAhBattery life2 – 6.5 hoursCharging time3 hoursPower consumptionTV modeActive gaming: 19 W*2*3HOME menu: 8 W*3Sleep mode (WLAN is connected, wired LAN connection is not active): 0.5 WSleep mode (wired LAN connection is active): 5 WSwitched off: 0.5 WEstimated annual energy consumption*4: 14 kWh*5 / 50 kWh*6Data according to the manufacturer (Nintendo) Nintendo Switch 2: Conclusion If you’ve been itching to get the Nintendo Switch 2 since it was first announced, you’ve probably already pre-ordered or plan to buy it anyway. The Switch 2 makes sense as an upgrade, with better frame rates, faster loading times, 4K support, and more memory. While it’s not on par with the PS5 or Xbox Series X/S, it holds its own. Still, it’s not a must-have. The LCD screen, weak battery, and underwhelming features like mouse mode or game chat hold it back. If you’re unsure, it may be worth waiting for a Lite or OLED model to address its biggest shortcomings. Read...

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ChatGPT is rapidly changing the world. The process is already happening, and it’s only going to accelerate as the technology improves, as more people gain access to it, and as more learn how to use it. What’s shocking is just how many tasks ChatGPT is already capable of managing for you. While the naysayers may still look down their noses at the potential of AI assistants, I’ve been using it to handle all kinds of menial tasks for me. Here are my favorite examples. Write your emails for you Dave Parrack / Foundry We’ve all been faced with the tricky task of writing an email—whether personal or professional—but not knowing quite how to word it. ChatGPT can do the heavy lifting for you, penning the (hopefully) perfect email based on whatever information you feed it. Let’s assume the email you need to write is of a professional nature, and wording it poorly could negatively affect your career. By directing ChatGPT to write the email with a particular structure, content, and tone of voice, you can give yourself a huge head start. A winning tip for this is to never accept ChatGPT’s first attempt. Always read through it and look for areas of improvement, then request tweaks to ensure you get the best possible email. You can (and should) also rewrite the email in your own voice. Learn more about how ChatGPT coached my colleague to write better emails. Generate itineraries and schedules Dave Parrack / Foundry If you’re going on a trip but you’re the type of person who hates planning trips, then you should utilize ChatGPT’s ability to generate trip itineraries. The results can be customized to the nth degree depending on how much detail and instruction you’re willing to provide. As someone who likes to get away at least once a year but also wants to make the most of every trip, leaning on ChatGPT for an itinerary is essential for me. I’ll provide the location and the kinds of things I want to see and do, then let it handle the rest. Instead of spending days researching everything myself, ChatGPT does 80 percent of it for me. As with all of these tasks, you don’t need to accept ChatGPT’s first effort. Use different prompts to force the AI chatbot to shape the itinerary closer to what you want. You’d be surprised at how many cool ideas you’ll encounter this way—simply nix the ones you don’t like. Break down difficult concepts Dave Parrack / Foundry One of the best tasks to assign to ChatGPT is the explanation of difficult concepts. Ask ChatGPT to explain any concept you can think of and it will deliver more often than not. You can tailor the level of explanation you need, and even have it include visual elements. Let’s say, for example, that a higher-up at work regularly lectures everyone about the importance of networking. But maybe they never go into detail about what they mean, just constantly pushing the why without explaining the what. Well, just ask ChatGPT to explain networking! Okay, most of us know what “networking” is and the concept isn’t very hard to grasp. But you can do this with anything. Ask ChatGPT to explain augmented reality, multi-threaded processing, blockchain, large language models, what have you. It will provide you with a clear and simple breakdown, maybe even with analogies and images. Analyze and make tough decisions Dave Parrack / Foundry We all face tough decisions every so often. The next time you find yourself wrestling with a particularly tough one—and you just can’t decide one way or the other—try asking ChatGPT for guidance and advice. It may sound strange to trust any kind of decision to artificial intelligence, let alone an important one that has you stumped, but doing so actually makes a lot of sense. While human judgment can be clouded by emotions, AI can set that aside and prioritize logic. It should go without saying: you don’t have to accept ChatGPT’s answers. Use the AI to weigh the pros and cons, to help you understand what’s most important to you, and to suggest a direction. Who knows? If you find yourself not liking the answer given, that in itself might clarify what you actually want—and the right answer for you. This is the kind of stuff ChatGPT can do to improve your life. Plan complex projects and strategies Dave Parrack / Foundry Most jobs come with some level of project planning and management. Even I, as a freelance writer, need to plan tasks to get projects completed on time. And that’s where ChatGPT can prove invaluable, breaking projects up into smaller, more manageable parts. ChatGPT needs to know the nature of the project, the end goal, any constraints you may have, and what you have done so far. With that information, it can then break the project up with a step-by-step plan, and break it down further into phases (if required). If ChatGPT doesn’t initially split your project up in a way that suits you, try again. Change up the prompts and make the AI chatbot tune in to exactly what you’re looking for. It takes a bit of back and forth, but it can shorten your planning time from hours to mere minutes. Compile research notes Dave Parrack / Foundry If you need to research a given topic of interest, ChatGPT can save you the hassle of compiling that research. For example, ahead of a trip to Croatia, I wanted to know more about the Croatian War of Independence, so I asked ChatGPT to provide me with a brief summary of the conflict with bullet points to help me understand how it happened. After absorbing all that information, I asked ChatGPT to add a timeline of the major events, further helping me to understand how the conflict played out. ChatGPT then offered to provide me with battle maps and/or summaries, plus profiles of the main players. You can go even deeper with ChatGPT’s Deep Research feature, which is now available to free users, up to 5 Deep Research tasks per month. With Deep Research, ChatGPT conducts multi-step research to generate comprehensive reports (with citations!) based on large amounts of information across the internet. A Deep Research task can take up to 30 minutes to complete, but it’ll save you hours or even days. Summarize articles, meetings, and more Dave Parrack / Foundry There are only so many hours in the day, yet so many new articles published on the web day in and day out. When you come across extra-long reads, it can be helpful to run them through ChatGPT for a quick summary. Then, if the summary is lacking in any way, you can go back and plow through the article proper. As an example, I ran one of my own PCWorld articles (where I compared Bluesky and Threads as alternatives to X) through ChatGPT, which provided a brief summary of my points and broke down the best X alternative based on my reasons given. Interestingly, it also pulled elements from other articles. (Hmph.) If you don’t want that, you can tell ChatGPT to limit its summary to the contents of the link. This is a great trick to use for other long-form, text-heavy content that you just don’t have the time to crunch through. Think transcripts for interviews, lectures, videos, and Zoom meetings. The only caveat is to never share private details with ChatGPT, like company-specific data that’s protected by NDAs and the like. Create Q&A flashcards for learning Dave Parrack / Foundry Flashcards can be extremely useful for drilling a lot of information into your brain, such as when studying for an exam, onboarding in a new role, prepping for an interview, etc. And with ChatGPT, you no longer have to painstakingly create those flashcards yourself. All you have to do is tell the AI the details of what you’re studying. You can specify the format (such as Q&A or multiple choice), as well as various other elements. You can also choose to keep things broad or target specific sub-topics or concepts you want to focus on. You can even upload your own notes for ChatGPT to reference. You can also use Google’s NotebookLM app in a similar way. Provide interview practice Dave Parrack / Foundry Whether you’re a first-time jobseeker or have plenty of experience under your belt, it’s always a good idea to practice for your interviews when making career moves. Years ago, you might’ve had to ask a friend or family member to act as your mock interviewer. These days, ChatGPT can do it for you—and do it more effectively. Inform ChatGPT of the job title, industry, and level of position you’re interviewing for, what kind of interview it’ll be (e.g., screener, technical assessment, group/panel, one-on-one with CEO), and anything else you want it to take into consideration. ChatGPT will then conduct a mock interview with you, providing feedback along the way. When I tried this out myself, I was shocked by how capable ChatGPT can be at pretending to be a human in this context. And the feedback it provides for each answer you give is invaluable for knocking off your rough edges and improving your chances of success when you’re interviewed by a real hiring manager. Further reading: Non-gimmicky AI apps I actually use every day Read...

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I’ve been trying to disentangle my online life from Google for a while. And as someone who wrote about Android professionally for years, it hasn’t been easy. I’ve ditched Chrome, but I still use a Samsung Galaxy phone and Google Pixel Watch, for example. But when I finally got off the big daddy, Google Search, and switched to DuckDuckGo, it had a surprising effect: Google got better. That’s a broad statement, so let me be more particular right away. Switching to DuckDuckGo made parts of Google better, specifically Google Discover and Google News. And since I cover news for hours every morning as part of my job, that’s kind of a big deal for me. No need for Incognito Mode I’ll give you a scenario. I’m having a dinner with a friend, and they tell me that Sabrina Carpenter’s music video in an NYC church was scandalous. This is something I had no idea about, because I don’t follow pop music. But just for the sake of keeping the conversation going, I’d search (or as I would have said at the time, I’d Google) for something like “Sabrina Carpenter NYC church scandal.” If I’m being careful, I’d switch my browser over to Incognito/private mode first…because if I don’t, I’ll be seeing nothing but news about Sabrina Carpenter for the next few days in Google Discover. If I’m being lazy, I just search in the URL bar and deal with my adjusted algorithm. Ditto for some things I just don’t want Google to know about me. Say I break my toe and I’m looking for a good podiatrist. (I have not broken my toe, but you get the idea.) If I search for “podiatrist near me” on Google, I’ll be seeing ads full of feet for a long time, because medical services are big business in the backwards capitalist wasteland of the United States. Again, I’ll dip into Incognito mode (even though I know Google’s still going to watch me, through fingerprinting if not through blatant history monitoring) for anything vaguely medical or private. Google Google’s recent demand to shove generative “AI” into every aspect of customers’ lives, whether they want it or not, has given me some very pointed reasons to look for alternatives. And it’s not as if I was super happy with Google before that — it’s a poster child for the enshittification of everything digital, and the declining quality of search results is probably the most visible part of that. The fact that Google seems to want to destroy my career surely doesn’t help. DuckDuckGo is the most obvious choice, so it’s the first one I switched to. I changed the default search in my Vivaldi browser, on my desktop, laptop, and phone. And I’d be lying if I said that it was seamless. DDG uses a different crawler and algorithm for search ranking, of course things will be different. And to my disgust, it’s still trying to use “AI.” But it wasn’t so different that I was lost — after all, we’re talking about a list of links, which is what Google looked like years ago, and what I was really looking for now. So I don’t “Google” (verb) anymore, I search on DuckDuckGo, which doesn’t flow quite as well. And after a little adjustment, I was surprised at how little it took to, well, adjust. DuckDuckGo is committed to the privacy bit, so it doesn’t even ask for you to log in — I don’t have an account and haven’t felt the need for one at all. (You do get some more advanced options if you log in, FYI.) DDG doesn’t track anything, according to its promotional materials, and so far I haven’t been able to find anything that contradicts that claim. Discovering a better news feed But all that wasn’t half as surprising as when Google Discover started getting better. Google Discover, the algorithmic feed of news and other topics that’s easily accessible on most Android phones, is a huge driver for traffic all over the web. That includes PCWorld and its sister sites. So even if I wanted to quit it, I’d still need to take a gander at Google Discover and Google News several times every workday. That’s why I have a separate app to make it work with my custom Android launcher, Nova. Google The biggest immediate improvement is that I can search for pop star gossip via DuckDuckGo without suddenly seeing my Discover feed turn into Us Weekly. For that matter, I can search for Us Weekly (because I didn’t know if it was capitalized ‘US Weekly’ or not!) without it affecting Discover or News, either. It’s freeing! And now, the primary determiner of my Discover feed is…what I tap on in Discover. Imagine that. So Discover has more and more tech news, and a bunch of sci-fi and gaming stuff, the things that I actually like to read about on my phone. It’s reverse enshittification. Amazing. And since I’ve uninstalled Chrome on my phone, I can click on it and read in the Android version of Vivaldi, which is a far superior experience. Another fun bonus: Google doesn’t know what targeted ads to show me in Discover anymore. So I’m getting some real random stuff, scraping the bottom of the barrel for things like robot puppies with blatantly fake AI video trailers, or discrete nipple covers. Google is getting very bad at advertising to me, specifically, and I’m enjoying it a lot. Google If you’re not aware, I’m a 37-year-old cis man. I’m not necessarily opposed to either robot puppies or covered nipples, but the idea that someone paid Google to try and sell me either is entertaining. I wouldn’t say that poorly-targeted advertising from Google is a plus of using DDG in the conventional sense, but hey, I’m enjoying it. Less Google is better Google If you’re wondering, I’ve asked a representative at DuckDuckGo if the company plans to introduce anything equivalent to the Google Discover or News algorithmic feed. They told me no. DuckDuckGo News only works if you search for something specific, and if you enter a blank query, it goes back to the main search page. DuckDuckGo is far from perfect, too — whenever I search for anything that’s even remotely related to a product I can buy, I get the same “There’s One Clear Winner Now” ad, and dammit, there’s no way there’s “one clear winner” for the best backpack for a million people making that search. DuckDuckGo’s entire primary search page, for any product-related info, is advertising. And not good advertising. DuckDuckGo But there is one clear winner for a basic, no-frills search, that doesn’t want to steal a bunch of data and keep me on the page for every possible second. And it isn’t Google. Google still knows a hell of a lot about me. I’m still using Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps, YouTube, even searching with Google Images, because DuckDuckGo just isn’t quite there yet. And I’m still signed into my account at basically all times. Heck, Google still has a lot of my health data, because my Pixel Watch uses FitBit to track exercise and sleep, and that’s also Google. But between ditching Chrome and Search, the fact that other Google services get better when you don’t use them is both interesting and imminently satisfying. Maybe some high-profile antitrust court losses will make for a slightly better internet, for users if not for megacorps. It makes me wonder how some other changes might improve things — maybe I’ll try for a Google Maps alternative next. Read...

The Windows 11 Start menu is a functional menu, but not much more. Does that mean that Microsoft never had any better ideas? Of course not! In fact, they recently shared the Start menus that could have been. Four years ago, in 2021, my review of Windows 11 called it “unnecessary,” in part because of the unappealing Start menu that carried over from Windows 10X. Microsoft has since tweaked the Start menu, testing a “categories” view of Start and then bringing it to Windows alongside a new “phone companion” dashboard. A new blog post (via Windows Central) in the Microsoft Design “Beyond the Surface” series shows something else the company has been thinking about: bringing in notifications and functionality from other areas of Windows. For example, at least one concept notified the user about an upcoming meeting, along with a warning to turn off their out-of-office message. Microsoft said that it had four “guiding stars”: that the user’s entire apps library should be “right there;” that you should be able to “make it yours;” that “each pixel must earn its keep” in accelerating your day; and icon memory must be maintained. Each design concept was created using whiteboards, then tested via 300 Windows 11 fans, Microsoft said. “We watched eye-tracking heat maps swirl, counted scroll wheels, and listened for ‘Oh!’s of delight to know where we were hitting the mark,” the team wrote. Windows 11 Start: What could have been As someone who actually uses Phone Link regularly, the idea of a slide-out phone dashboard appeals to me. Even then, however, I’m using other apps within the Windows ecosystem far more. Microsoft’s concepts highlight these apps. At least one concept provides a pretty radical re-design of the current layout, like this one: Here, the “recommended” apps and documents are also entirely replaced, and Windows is emphasizing the creative and productive elements first. Note the meeting reminder as well. Others, such as the concept below, take a more conventional view. There’s a bit of a throwback to the lists of apps in older versions of Windows, such as XP and 7, with what looks like an expandable list of apps to the left, as well as shortcuts to the top. One Windows 11 Start concept (below) looks similar to the way things look now. The downside is that this Start menu appears to take up most of the visible screen and beyond. That’s probably not what Microsoft wanted. Incidentally, none of these Start concepts indicate anything about being able to resize or move the Start menu. This next Start concept provides a nice mix between a traditional Start menu and one that feels a bit more informative. It leans heavier on showing off apps, rather than documents, to the user. Again, a Start menu that attempts to communicate information feels more useful than the current layout, even if some of this could be replicated in the notifications that appear in the Action Center to the lower left of the Windows screen. This last concept (below) also doesn’t feel too different than what Microsoft already provides within Start. But again, note that it least highlights the upcoming meeting. Being able to know that there was a meeting due in two minutes—and being able to quickly click that meeting to join it—feels valuable. To me, anyway! I don’t mind the inclusion of Stranger Things. One of the things I’ve always wanted Microsoft to lean in on was more unique configurations. Remember how the Windows setup process asks whether you’ll be using the PC for gaming, creative work, or in a professional sense? More customized Start layouts would be a nice approach to that. Of course, none of these Start designs are being used. It’s possible that Microsoft considered these prototypes to be cluttered and confusing—some definitely are—but they also have a sense of energy about them, with an attempt to place more useful information in front of the user. That’s something Windows 11’s Start menu still lacks, robbing it of the personalization of Windows 10. For now, it’s up to third-party developers like Stardock Software and its Start11 software to step in. Read...

Tauranga property owners have had a “significant win” after the council agreed to update flood maps, a developer says. Read...

Landowners can override council maps with a `simple` stormwater assessment. Read...

If you’ve ever used your phone to navigate from one appointment to the next, then you’ve probably never used Windows Maps. That’s basically why Microsoft is getting rid of it. In an ongoing calendar of deprecated features within Windows, Microsoft has targeted Maps for deprecation by April. It will be removed from the Windows Store by July and will no longer be supported, the company said. In July, a new update will turn the Maps app off. “Any personal data or files you have saved, such as guided navigation or URLs to maps, won’t be removed, but they’ll no longer function in the Maps app past July 2025,” Microsoft said. The Maps app won’t come preinstalled on new PCs past the current Windows 11 24H2 release, either. Maps will still be supported within Windows, however. You’ll simply have to visit Bing’s own maps page to access them. Maps is a legacy app that was invaluable on Windows Phones, though that platform died years ago. Now, there’s no real reason to hold on to Maps, or to add those few kilobytes to the install size of Windows. Maps, whose data is credited to both TomTom and Microsoft itself, also previously agreed to change the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America.” So if that riles you up, you’ll be glad to see Maps go. Read...

Google has a monopoly, and that’s the official line of the US federal government. In fact, it has two of them, losing two separate antitrust cases that threaten to cripple the tech giant. The Department of Justice has proposed forcing Google to sell or otherwise divest itself of the Chrome browser as its first and preferred remedy. But who would buy it? Unsurprisingly, there are beaucoup business beaus lining up around the block for this browser bachelorette. We’ve already heard that ChatGPT maker OpenAI is very interested, as testified in court by an executive. And another notable name in the AI space, search engine Perplexity, told a judge much the same thing. Bloomberg reports that Yahoo, which almost feels like legacy media at this point, would also be interested if Chrome becomes available. That’s three potential new homes for the world’s most popular browser. But it’s important to note that federal judge Amit Mehta hasn’t yet made a determination on how Google will be punished for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. Just because prosecutors suggest breaking off Chrome doesn’t mean that he’ll agree it’s an appropriate end. And whatever happens, Google will certainly exhaust its legal options with enough money to make Solomon blush. Google losing control of Chrome is not a foregone conclusion, even if it feels that way from recent reports. But let’s proceed under the assumption that Google does have to sell off Chrome, along with the open-source Chromium project that underpins it. Who’s actually capable of buying it? Well, that first depends on the price. The value of Chrome—a free download for all desktop and mobile platforms—is hard to pin down to a dollar amount. I’m no business guru, but if you’d asked me a year ago, I would have guessed somewhere between 50 and 100 billion dollars. But that’s the value of Chrome to Google, incorporated with its search, advertising, and mobile properties, to say nothing of the entire Chromebook market segment, ancillary products like Google Maps and YouTube, etc. Divorced from all that, Chrome still has tons of value as the most popular browser on the planet (and the Chromium guts of many others, including Edge), but it’s undeniably less. For the sake of simplicity, let’s cut my conservative estimate in half and call it $25 billion USD. IDG / Ashley Biancuzzo Who could afford that? OpenAI could probably manage it, though it would be taking on a lot of debt to do so. The leading “AI” product maker is valued at over $150 billion, but that’s based on various investment rounds. The company has yet to turn a profit and doesn’t expect to for years (though that’s not necessarily a mark of shame in the tech world—just look at Amazon). And it’s undeniable that gaining billions of browser users would give ChatGPT an even bigger audience… and a massive treasure trove of data to train on. Perplexity is the newest player in this equation, officially releasing its large language model-powered search less than three years ago and using OpenAI’s GPT system. The latest valuation of Perplexity puts it at under $10 billion USD… which wouldn’t be enough to buy Chrome without huge debt. It would be more like Perplexity shifting its entire business model to browser-first instead of search. Not impossible, but considering that Perplexity has also made some overtures towards buying TikTok, it strikes me as a startup desperate for a new angle or identity. And Yahoo. Poor, poor Yahoo. Some of you reading this might not be able to remember when Yahoo was the dominant search engine before Google came along—it’s been that long since Yahoo was truly relevant. These days, Yahoo is more of a media amalgamation after being tossed around between several parent companies, and was most recently bought for $5 billion. Its most notable remaining products are probably sports news and fantasy sports platforms. The company still owns tech site Engadget and what remains of the AOL brand, but it sold the finance-focused TechCrunch to private equity firm Regent last month. (Full disclosure: Regent also bought PCWorld parent company Foundry the day before. Hi, business daddy!) Anyway, I don’t doubt Yahoo would love to get its hands on Chrome, if only to claw its way back into relevancy for a massive amount of internet users. But I simply don’t think it has the money, not when OpenAI is splashing around investor cash like it’s puttin’ on the Ritz. Microsoft makes the most sense to me as a new home for Chrome, as it’s been trying to regain browser dominance ever since Internet Explorer lost it two decades ago. The company has been so insistent that people switch to Edge that it’s been willing to engage in some, ahem, questionable activities to get them off Chrome. If Chrome was shifted into the “official” Windows browser—to say nothing of its dominance on other platforms—Microsoft would be pleased as punch. But Microsoft is no stranger to browser controversy or run-ins with monopoly regulation. That might be enough of an issue to keep the company at a safe distance from the proceedings, especially if it’s clear that the Department of Justice under a Trump administration isn’t afraid to swing a big stick against monopolies. Read...