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It’s been a long eight years.

Since the Nintendo Switch launched in early 2017, we’ve collectively experienced the worst pandemic in a century. Presidents have come, gone, and come back again. In our personal lives, we've all experienced a tremendous amount of growth and change, whether we realize it or not. And through it all, we had the Switch, arguably the best Nintendo console ever made, and one of the best game consoles of all time. 

So, how do you follow that up? It turns out the answer is “make it again, but better.” The Nintendo Switch 2 launched on June 5, and it's already my new favorite Nintendo console, purely from a hardware perspective. Switch 2 sales have also smashed Nintendo records with 3.5 million units sold in a week. The new console/handheld hybrid is a souped-up sequel with added horsepower to make games look and perform better than ever. But that’s only part of what makes it great. 

Put simply, the Switch 2 is full of so many thoughtful little considerations that I’ve frequently found myself amazed at how often it just works. For much of its recent history, Nintendo hardware has been an active impediment to enjoying Nintendo software because basic things like “playing video games on the internet with your friends” were often maddeningly arcane. That’s not the case anymore…for the most part.

While there are definitely quirks with the setup process, the new virtual game cards, and the $450 price tag (not counting games and peripherals), I’m confident these problems will soften in time. I believe that eight years from now, we’ll probably talk about the Switch 2 the same way we talk about its predecessor.

Nintendo Switch 2 review: The basics Birdo is the coolest. Credit: Nintendo

To start, I want to get something out of the way: I will not be analyzing the Switch 2’s lineup of launch games in this hands-on review. The way I feel about the launch titles now will be irrelevant in a month or two. I will say that Mario Kart World is a ton of fun, but if that’s not enough for you, you can wait a bit to get a Switch 2. That is all I will say on the matter.

Anyway, in case you’ve been living an ascetic off-the-grid existence for the last six months, the Switch 2 is a lot like the Switch 1. It’s a handheld game console with detachable controllers that can be placed into a dock, which then outputs the image to a television. It’s mostly compatible with Switch 1 games, and a decent number of them are actually better on Switch 2 thanks to paid upgrade packs, free patches, or, most surprisingly, the fact that the hardware inside the Switch 2 makes games better by itself, in some cases. 

In other words, if you’ve been a Switch devotee for the past several years, you can pick up right where you left off without even buying any new games. That’s rad, but it’s also just following the precedent set by the PS5 and Xbox Series X five years ago, so I don’t want to give Nintendo too much praise for this. This is the bare minimum we should expect from new gaming consoles.

Before I get into discussing each granular part of Switch 2, I’d like to say it feels great in the hands. I personally like that it’s bigger than the first Switch, which eventually started to feel a bit like a child’s toy after I got used to the Steam Deck. Nintendo made the vital decision to maintain the exact same level of thinness as the first Switch, so while it has a larger surface area, it’s not anywhere near as bulky as handheld gaming PC alternatives. At 1.18 pounds, it’s noticeably heavier than the first Switch, but I wouldn’t call it burdensome to hold at all. It just feels more substantial, which I like.

The display looks good, but not OLED good The display will be disappointing to some, but it's not terrible by any means. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

For some, the Switch never plugged into a TV at all. For others (like myself), it never left the dock. I largely fell out of love with handheld gaming as a teenager, as that was around the time TVs started to get really big and swanky. It didn’t help that I lived in a place with no public transit at the time, either. There just wasn’t much room for it in my life anymore. The Switch 2 display is changing that equation for me.

• 1080p resolution

• 120Hz refresh rate

• HDR support

• LCD panel

• 7.9 inches

For comparison's sake, this display is about an inch bigger than the first Switch’s LCD display, which also had no HDR support, topped out at 720p, and didn’t go beyond 60Hz. 

You may have noticed I didn’t say “OLED.” This is likely going to be one of the first sources of disappointment for people, especially those with a Switch OLED or Steam Deck OLED. While the Switch 2’s LCD is good, it definitely lacks the wider color range and more defined whites and blacks that an OLED offers. Games simply don’t look as vibrant as they could on the Switch 2’s display, especially if you frequently go between playing on a nice TV and playing in handheld mode. 

Brightness, too, is just OK. To be clear, the positives outweigh the negatives here; it’s still a better display in terms of resolution and refresh rate than any Steam Deck model. Having a 120Hz panel is especially vital because it enables developers to include 40Hz performance modes in their games, which is a way to compromise between visual fidelity and smoothness in more demanding AAA blockbuster titles. Switch 2 games such as Cyberpunk 2077 make especially good use of this feature in handheld play.

Still, I wouldn’t blame anyone who wanted to wait for the inevitable OLED model in a year or two.

The controllers are a big upgrade Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

Just like the Switch 1, there are multiple control options with Switch 2. 

The new Joy-Con 2 controllers attach and detach from the display using magnets, rather than a sliding rail mechanism, which is infinitely more satisfying. It’s also more secure thanks to a clever release lever you have to pull to detach each Joy-Con. The previous console’s Joy-Cons had a distinct little wiggle to them, even when attached, but the new ones feel locked in. 

As I said in my day one Switch 2 review, attaching and detaching the new magnetic Joy-Con 2 controllers feels so good the first time you do it. Trust me.

The Switch 2 Joy Cons are also bigger, which is nice for people like me who have adult-sized hands. Admittedly, in handheld play, I still get a bit uncomfortable during long sessions. You don’t get much of a grip on either side by default, so I specifically felt my right hand cramp up to a small extent while playing in bed. I’ve heard other people complain about how the Joy-Cons feel when placed into the little grip accessory that turns them into more of a regular game controller, though I actually find that more comfortable than using them in handheld mode.

The new Pro Controller is great. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

Minor cramping issues aside (I was able to alleviate a good deal of it by just adjusting my bodily position), the buttons are more satisfying to press, and the new analog sticks are notably more responsive. They’re very smooth in a way that’s hard to articulate without just telling you to try them. We will have to wait and see if stick drift becomes an issue over time. 

Like a lot of people, I have always preferred the Pro Controller, and the new Switch 2 Pro Controller is…basically the same as the first one. That’s not a bad thing! It’s a little more dense and heavy, presumably due to improved internal mechanisms, but that’s fine. Buttons and analog sticks feel great across the board on the Pro Controller, and it brings back gyro controls for games that benefit from those, so you aren’t missing out on anything by using it. I highly recommend picking one of these up, if you can.

Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller $84 at Walmart
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Going back to my earlier point about how much of the Switch 2 “just works,” this can first be seen with controllers. You can actually pair your Switch 1 Joy-Cons or Pro Controllers with a Switch 2. According to Reddit, you can even use a Switch 1 Joy-Con and a Switch 2 Joy-Con together as a pair. You don’t really have to jump through any weird hoops to make any of this happen, either. I went to a friend’s place for a Mario Kart night, and using a Switch 1 Pro Controller worked seamlessly. It’s great that your old accessories aren’t immediately useless on the new console.

The dock The dock isn't a looker, but it doesn't need to be. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

There isn’t a ton to say about the Switch 2’s dock because, like before, it’s meant to sit underneath or next to a TV, where ideally you’ll barely ever think about it. It’s more bulky than its predecessor thanks to some additional processing power and more fans inside of it, but it’s still smaller than your average game console by a wide margin.

Unlike the original Switch dock (and like the Switch OLED dock), there’s an included Ethernet port now. Hell yes. I wired it up to my router right away and will never change that, at least not until the Switch 3 comes around. You should do the same.

The software

From a system-level software standpoint, the Switch 2 is a lot like the Switch 1. The main menu looks more or less identical, save for some new icons on the bottom row. There are still only two themes, a light one and a dark one. Aside from a couple of amusing little sound effects here and there, it’s very sterile and lacks the pizzazz of previous Nintendo console operating systems. 

There’s definitely a part of me that resents this. The UI is quick and snappy, yes, but it’s possible to marry efficiency of use with fun aesthetics. Even some fun themes would help a lot, but alas, they aren’t here. 

I don’t want to paper over the “quick and snappy” part, though, especially as it relates to the new eShop. Nintendo’s digital storefronts have been nightmarishly sluggish to use for basically as long as they’ve existed, across various DS consoles, the Wii, the Wii U, and the first Switch. The new eShop isn’t flashy (or even very different at all) in appearance, but my God, does it work so much better than before. You can get in, purchase a game, and get out in less than a minute. Praise be.

The social features: GameChat is a godsend

Revisiting the theme of Switch 2’s thoughtfulness and elegance, let’s talk about its online features.

Yes, I can imagine you’re a little shocked to see the words “thoughtfulness” and “elegance” anywhere near “online features” as they relate to a Nintendo console. But nothing surprised me more about the Switch 2 than GameChat. This is a voice and video chat feature you can activate by pressing the “C” button, the only new button on every Switch 2 controller. Doing so prompts you to either start a room or join an existing one being hosted by one of your friends, and up to 12 people can be in a GameChat room at once.

Of course, this is similar to what has been on offer on Xbox and PlayStation consoles for nearly two decades. Nintendo didn’t reinvent the wheel here. What it did do, however, is create a voice chat service that moves beyond pure utility and into the realm of actively being enjoyable to use. Nintendo achieved this by placing a big priority on open-room microphone use, and everything that makes GameChat great starts from there.

There’s a mic built into the Switch 2 itself that is simply remarkable at picking up human voices and filtering out everything else. It feels like magic, especially considering a docked Switch’s microphone is usually closer to your TV speaker. I tested GameChat while sitting next to a loud window air conditioner unit, and the people on the other end swear they couldn't hear it. Likewise, I’ve never heard anything other than their voices, either.

This also opens up more possibilities for group play, as several people can physically be in a room together and talk into the same microphone. That’s the kind of thing that headset-centric voice chat can't do. 

That said, you can also plug a headset into your Pro Controller’s new headphone jack, too. One of the most “oh my god I can’t believe that worked” moments for me was when I connected the official wireless PlayStation headset to my Switch 2, and it worked natively, with the console even correctly labeling it as a PlayStation headset. I wasn’t shocked that the audio would output to the headset (you can also do that on a Switch 1, funnily enough), but the fact that the microphone worked without any fuss whatsoever felt miraculous to me.

And if you're a parent who's worried about young children playing GameChat, check out the new parental controls for the Switch 2.

GameChat makes social livestreaming possible Credit: Nintendo

Unbelievably, there’s way more to GameChat than merely talking to people. Up to four people in one GameChat session can actually stream their gameplay feed to everyone else, and those feeds are arranged horizontally in a row along the bottom of the screen. You can blow up someone’s feed to full-screen to watch them play or turn off any individual user’s feed if it’s distracting to you.

Yes, of course, the feed is very choppy, running at what I estimate to be about 10 frames per second. However, the picture is clear enough to see what’s going on, at least. You don’t want to stare at one of these streams for very long, but it’s actually pretty handy (and more importantly, fun) to be able to see what your friends are doing. It even works across games. Over the weekend, my friend sold me on an indie game called Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo using game streaming, while I simultaneously showed them Vectorman for the Sega Genesis. We wound up spending about half an hour chatting about whatever while occasionally checking in on each other’s feeds, and it felt like I was in a Nintendo commercial.

GameChat offers webcam support The webcam is pretty plain to look at. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

For my Switch 2 review, I tested out webcam support using the official Nintendo camera. Don’t worry if you don’t want to spend $54.99 on that, though, because it sounds like basically any old USB-C camera will work. By default, the camera will try to cut out your face/body from the background of your little GameChat window, though it had a hard time doing that cleanly in my limited testing. To be honest, I don’t see myself using this very much, but it’s nice that it’s there, especially for folks who use online gaming as a way to spend time with loved ones whose faces they don’t get to see that often. 

Opens in a new window Credit: Ninten Nintendo Switch 2 Camera $54.99 at Target
Shop Now SEE ALSO: The best Nintendo Switch 2 accessories include an irresistible Piranha Plant webcam

Beyond that, GameChat has a fairly incredible speech-to-text window that's astoundingly fast and accurate. It even labels individual speakers! My favorite part is that it doesn’t censor curse words, either. Amusingly, it also properly capitalizes many brand names, even those from competing game publishers like “The Last of Us” and “Sega Dreamcast.” 

And that still isn’t everything! There’s a new feature called GameShare that you can use to, well, share a game digitally with friends who are in a GameChat session with you. I tested this out with a rather fun futuristic racing game called Fast Fusion. All I had to do was create a room, send an invite to my friend, and they were almost instantly playing with me. Remarkably, they didn’t have to download anything beforehand. I’m guessing this is using some newfangled streaming tech because my friend noted that their feed was a little blurry. That said, the frame rate was apparently smooth and the game was perfectly responsive. It should be noted that it’s up to developers to support GameShare, and you can’t just do it with any game. However, I can at least confirm that it works amazingly well where it’s supported.

I don’t want to say something I can’t take back like “Nintendo has finally figured out the internet,” but…maybe Nintendo has finally figured out the internet? I will say this: I love GameChat.

The hidden costs and headaches 95 whole dollars for a pair of these. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

I’ve been effusively praising the Switch 2 for most of this review, but because this is still a Nintendo console at the end of the day, there are a handful of very irritating things about it. 

Most unexpected of all is pricing. I maintain that $450 for the console, while not inexpensive, is reasonable given its technical specs. It’s the accessories and other accoutrements that get out of control, partially due to President Trump’s tariff policies, according to Nintendo.

The camera is $54.99. A pair of new Joy-Cons is $94.99. A Pro Controller is $84.99. And Mario Kart World, the console’s lone flagship launch title, is $79.99, which really stings, even if someone was going to do that eventually. There are plenty of reasons why video game prices have gotten so high, but all the context in the world doesn’t matter when that charge hits your bank account.

Switch 2’s internal storage capacity of 256GB is also problematic because the only way to expand the storage is to buy a microSD Express card. That’s a relatively new kind of external storage that most regular people probably don’t know about and isn’t always super clearly labeled when you go to buy a microSD card. For context, microSD Express has substantially faster data read speeds than the regular microSD card you used in your Switch 1, which I feel the need to emphasize will not work in your Switch 2.

Opens in a new window Credit: SanDisk SanDisk microSD Express Card, 256GB $71.99 at Amazon
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If Nintendo allowed the use of normal microSD cards, the Switch 2 would be a less capable machine. Unfortunately, given that we’re probably at least a year or two away from microSD Express cards being more affordable, we’re in this awkward period where the Switch 2 is future-proofed, but not necessarily present-proofed. It doesn’t help that a few launch games, namely Cyberpunk 2077 and Hitman approach 60GB install sizes.

Speaking of digital game installs, Nintendo has introduced a new “virtual game card” system for tying digital purchases to a user’s account. If you download a game from the store, it gets “loaded” onto your console, where it will live exclusively until you delete it, load it onto a different Switch console, or virtually loan it to a friend for up to two weeks. Just so I’m being perfectly clear: If you loan a virtual game card to someone, you can’t play that game you bought until it’s returned to you. 

There's a dedicated menu for virtual game cards and it looks like this. Credit: Screenshot: Nintendo

For childless people like me, this is an arcane nuisance that’s easy enough to overlook. For anyone who lives in a multi-Switch household (and there are a lot of those), this could be a logistical nightmare for competitive siblings. I shudder to think about the inevitable fights over who gets to have the Mario Kart virtual game card for the next two weeks. Godspeed, parents.

The last (and to be honest, least) of these problems regards the initial setup process for Switch 2. Most of it is standard stuff: connect to WiFi, log into your account, set the time zone, etc. On top of that, you’ll also be given the opportunity to transfer data from a Switch 1 to your new Switch 2, which, again, is normal and fine. What’s not normal and fine is that apparently you only get one shot to do this, so if you say no out of expediency, that’s it. 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Pokémon: Scarlet and Violet players need to take note of this because those are two of the only major Switch 1 games that don’t allow for the use of cloud saves. If you don’t transfer your save data from a Switch 1, you will have to start over. I really hope Nintendo fixes this and allows for post-setup data transfers soon.

The Switch 2 battery life

Oh yeah, the Switch 2 is a handheld console, so battery life is worth examining. Nintendo rates the console's battery life at two to 6.5 hours. My testing has been far from scientific (I'll update this hands-on review after spending more time with the console), but I haven’t been able to get more than three or so hours out of a full charge. We knew ahead of time that it would have a worse battery life than Switch 1, so this isn’t some huge rug-pull or anything. 

Your mileage may vary depending on the games you play. An old Switch 1 game that doesn’t make use of any advanced Switch 2 hardware features will probably get more juice out of a full charge than Cyberpunk 2077, which just annihilates the battery in an almost impressive fashion. It definitely sucks for a product to have a worse battery life than its predecessor, but in fairness, it’s not very different from any other modern gaming handheld. They’ve all sacrificed longevity for power.

The verdict: I can't stop playing my Switch 2 The whole shebang. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

I’m going to keep this short because I just spent more than 3,500 words explaining my thoughts: The Nintendo Switch 2 is great. This is a fabulous console/handheld hybrid with hugely improved system software, much beefier horsepower for playing games, and a more premium form factor that doesn’t succumb to the same bulk as its handheld PC counterparts. 

Sure, the Switch 2 isn’t without some hangups. Pricing will continue to be a topic of conversation. I’m also nervous about future price hikes, in light of Xbox recently doing that in the middle of a console generation. The virtual game card system also feels like it will create more problems than it solves, and Switch 2 owners are going to have to get stingy with storage space until microSD Express cards become cheaper.

But all of that is lessened in my mind because I know Nintendo’s first-party games for the new Switch console will largely be excellent, and its capacity for third-party support is greatly expanded. Switch 2’s online social features could also be legitimately game-changing for Nintendo, a company that is finally willing to acknowledge that not everyone can or wants to play multiplayer games locally.

At any rate, I think the next seven or eight years of Nintendo will be just fine.

Nintendo Switch 2 $449.99 at Best Buy
Shop Now Opens in a new window Credit: Nintendo Nintendo Switch 2 + Mario Kart World Bundle $499 at Walmart
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Now that Apple's iOS 26 has been properly introduced and seeded to developers, it's time to really dig into the new stuff.

We're not talking the obvious features, such as the Liquid Glass redesign and Apple Intelligence upgrades — we cover those at length here, here, and here, and we have an overview of everything new in iOS 26 over here.

However, like every major Apple software release, iOS 26 also comes with a number of minor new improvements and upgrades, both documented and undocumented. We've gone through Apple's docs and took the iOS 26 dev beta for a spin, and we're back with a list of not-so-obvious iOS 26 features you're gonna love.

Lens cleaning hint

This isn't something that we expect to use very often, but it's a cool little feature that can improve your photo quality in certain scenarios. "Lens cleaning hint" is exactly what it says: When your iPhone detects that your camera lens is dirty, it will let you know so you can clean it. It's one of those tasks that the iPhone can't do for you, but now it can at least warn you before your photos come out smudgy.

Snooze Duration

We've all been there: That early morning alarm fires up only for you to shut it down with the speed of lightning and continue your well-deserved rest as if nothing happened. Then comes the snooze. But this isn't your first rodeo; you shut the alarm down once more and go back to dreamland. The third snooze is, perhaps, crucial. This is where your subconscious tells you, "Better wake up, buddy, or else." This is where you have to decide: Are you just going to throw the phone through a window and continue sleeping, all your responsibilities be damned, or will you finally succumb to the alarm?

We can't give you guidance on what to do in that situation (sure we can, you need to friggin' wake up, buddy). But now, in iOS 26, you can set snooze duration for each of your alarms. Yes, the standard 9-minute Apple snooze will soon be gone. If you really need to wake up, you might want to set your snooze to 1 minute, meaning the alarm will repeat every minute. If you're feeling chill, perhaps you'd like to set it to be a little longer. Either way, you can find the setting by tapping on an alarm and setting Snooze Duration to anywhere between 1 and 15 minutes. Good luck.

Battery drain warning iOS 26 introduces a new look in the form of Liquid Glass. Credit: Apple

Ever felt like your iPhone is suddenly draining its battery twice as fast as normal? Sometimes, it's just a feeling, but it can also be an app gone crazy and chugging that battery life like there's no tomorrow.

In iOS 26, your iPhone will warn you if you're using more battery than usual, and it'll even tell you which app is the culprit.

Additionally, the Battery portion of the iPhone's settings has been revamped, and it now gives you some additional info, such as the remaining charge time while charging.

Keep Audio in Headphones

There's nothing more awkward than listening to a macrame podcast on your AirPods only to have it suddenly switch to your car's speakers for everyone nearby to hear. OK, there are plenty of scenarios that are more awkward, but we'll let you figure them out yourself.

In any case, this issue is solved in iOS 26 with one simple setting. Go to Settings - General - AirPlay & Continuity and tap "Keep Audio in Headphones." It will do what it says, and it'll also reduce the mess that sometimes happens when there are multiple Bluetooth audio devices nearby.

Playlist Folders in Apple Music A new Apple Music experience. Credit: Apple

My Playlist tab in Apple Music is a mess. It consists of birthday playlists, automatically generated stuff, a bunch of playlists I don't ever recall creating, and, finally, some of the actual playlists that I use on a daily basis.

In iOS 26, you can organize all those playlists into folders. Go to Playlists, tap on the + icon in the upper right corner, and choose New Folder. Now, you can finally turn your Playlists folder into a well-organized, genre-based library it deserves to be.

Apple Music is getting a few more exciting changes with iOS 26. In addition to Lyrics Translation, the new AutoMix feature will mix together your favorite songs just like a real DJ would. We'll report back once we get to try AutoMix.

New Background Sounds You can find Background Sounds under Accessibility on your iPhone. Credit: Apple

If you've never heard of Background Sounds, boy, do we have a treat for you. It's an accessibility feature that plays a variety of soothing sounds through the iPhone's speakers. You can add them into your Control Center for easy access and fine-tune them in Settings (go to Settings - Accessibility - Background Sounds), where you can add a timer, change the volume, decide if you want the sounds to continue while media is playing, and even adapt the sounds themselves with an equalizer.

All of this was there in iOS 18, but in iOS 26, Apple is adding eight new Background Sounds options, including Quiet Night, Fire, Rain, Babble, and even Airplane, if you're into that sort of thing. Some of these are perfect for soothing a baby, while some can even be used to create a certain mood.

Keep the Liquid Glass but make it opaque You'll be able to use Icon Composer to customize Liquid Glass settings on iPhones, MacBooks, and iPads. Credit: Apple

This one is for the folks who like Apple's new Liquid Glass look but feel like the transparency/blurring effects are too much. Go to Settings - Accessibility - Display & Text Size and tap "Reduce Transparency." Even though it's an accessibility feature, it's actually quite subtle, as it will keep the glassy look of your icons and folders, but it will reduce the transparency, as well as blurring on certain backgrounds. Incidentally, this simple feature also "fixes" the issue for all the folks who think Apple went too far with Liquid Design.

To try these out now, you'll have to sign up for Apple's developer program here and download the latest iOS 26 beta, which we don't recommend for the vast majority of users. The public beta is coming in July, so it shouldn't be too long a wait until you can try all the new iOS 26 features out on a more stable release.

Kindle users might be the most passionate sect of BookTok, coming up with hacks to maximize the device's potential — through page turners or Stuff Your Kindle Day events. And we get it, they're the best e-readers out there. In 2024, Amazon released a new line-up of Kindles that improved upon the previous generation, which we already loved.

I've tested the Kindle Paperwhite, and spoiler alert, I do think it's a better value than the Signature Edition. However, the SE isn't without its merits. Let's get into the Signature Edition and if you should buy it over the basic Kindle or Kindle Paperwhite.

It has all the perks of the Paperwhite and more It's nearly impossible to tell the difference between the Kindle Paperwhite and Paperwhite Signature Edition. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

The Kindle Paperwhite and Paperwhite Signature Edition are essentially the same device, the Signature Edition just has the addition of a few special features. You can read all the in-depth details about why we like the Paperwhite in my review, but here's the TL;DR.

The 2024 Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition is lightning fast. In comparison to the 2021 edition, the difference is noticeable, not hesitating when flipping through pages. However, the biggest improvement comes when switching between books in your library, as it zips through tasks.

With a 7-inch screen, the SE got a slight size increase, while the resolution of 300 ppi and maximum brightness of 94 nits remain the same between generations. That being said, the display on this generation looks higher contrast, making it sharper and easier to read. Plus it remains waterproof, perfect for taking along to the bathtub, beach, or pool.

SEE ALSO: I've read hundreds of free Kindle books with this app. Here's how.

Not to mention it comes with 32GB of storage. If you're thinking in terms of phones or tablets, that amount of storage might seem small but keep in mind that 32GB has the potential to hold up to 32,000 e-books.

You get all of these great features in both the Kindle Paperwhite and Paperwhite Signature Edition, so what makes the SE unique?

The same great battery life as the Kindle Paperwhite

Kindles are unbeatable on one front: battery life. The Kindle Paperwhite and Signature Edition boast the same battery life of up to 12 weeks. The Signature Edition can go months without charging, but it doesn't have a longer life than the standard Paperwhite. The only battery life bonus you get with the Signature Edition is its wireless charging capabilities.

The Paperwhite vs. Signature Edition: What does $40 extra get you?

The Paperwhite Signature Edition has several added features that come with its $40 increase in price. For $199.99, it comes with an ad-free lock screen, 32GB of storage, auto-adjusting brightness, and wireless charging. Plus it comes in metallic versions of the Kindle Paperwhite's black, jade, and raspberry.

The Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition offers a more vibrant twist on jade. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable No lockscreen ads

Among the added features, the lock screen is the biggest draw. On a standard Kindle, ads pop up on the lock screen, forcing Amazon's recommendations on you. Not necessarily a dealbreaker, but still plenty annoying. So the Signature Edition does away with the ads, freeing you from the chains of capitalism (sort of). However, this does come with one catch. The ad-free lock screen tends to unlock easily when tossing it into a bag since there's no 'swipe to unlock' mechanism that the ad-enabled devices have. So if you're going to get the Signature Edition, make sure to get a case with a cover.

Auto-adjusting brightness

In terms of the other features, I didn't think they were anything to write home about. The auto-adjusting brightness didn't work consistently, even when I went from reading next to a lamp to turning off the lights, the auto-adjustment didn't kick in and I always had to manually turn the brightness down.

Wireless charging

The wireless charging while nice, didn't feel like the most necessary addition since you need to charge the device every three months. Plus, with most devices using USB-C these days, I'm never in short supply of chargers.

Magsafe chargers even work on the Paperwhite Signature Edition. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable 32GB of storage — is it necessary?

Now let's address the 32GB in the room. For an e-reader, that is an exorbitant amount of storage. It's double the amount of the standard Kindle Paperwhite, and again, 32,000 books worth of storage. That is a lot of books. Is that much necessary? In my professional opinion, no, especially when you can remove downloaded books from your device, and redownload from the Kindle cloud at any time. So if you think you need all that storage, you probably don't, and it's not worth splurging an extra $40 on it.

Is the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition worth it? Is 32GB worth the $200 price tag? We're unconvinced. Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable

For the average user, I don't think the Signature Edition is a worthy upgrade. The Kindle Paperwhite is far better bang for your buck, packed with everything you need for the ultimate reading experience. It might be worth the splurge if you do have storage concerns — maybe you've maxed out on 16GB on previous Kindle models. Otherwise, 16GB will be fine. And if you're really put off by lock screen ads, then the Signature Edition is going to be your preferred device.

However, if you are going to swing for the Amazon Kindle Signature Edition, look for it on sale. During Black Friday 2024, the Signature Edition was down to $154.99, cheaper than the listing price of the standard Paperwhite.

Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition (2024 model, 12th generation) $199.99 at Amazon
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For nearly three decades he has created mesmerizing planetarium shows at the American Museum of Natural History. But other galaxies await.

Generative A.I. chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some people, conversations with the technology can deeply distort reality.

Sam Altman has been a blogger far longer than he's been in the AI business. 

Now the CEO of OpenAI, Altman began his blog — titled simply, if concerningly, "Sam Altman" — in 2013. He was in year 3 of working at the startup accelerator YCombinator at the time, and would soon be promoted to president. The first page of posts contains no references to AI. Instead we get musings on B2B startup tools, basic dinner party conversation openers, and UFOs (Altman was a skeptic). 

Then there was this sudden insight: "The most successful founders do not set out to create companies," Altman wrote. "They are on a mission to create something closer to a religion." Fast-forward to Altman's latest 2025 blog post, "The Gentle Singularity" — and, well, it's hard not to say mission accomplished.

"We are past the event horizon; the takeoff has started," is how Altman opens, and the tone only gets more messianic from there. "Humanity is close to building digital superintelligence." Can I get a hallelujah?

To be clear, the science does not suggest humanity is close to building digital superintelligence, a.k.a. Artificial General Intelligence. The evidence says we have built models that can be very useful in crunching giant amounts of information in some ways, wildly wrong in others. AI hallucinations appear to be baked into the models, increasingly so with AI chatbots, and they're doing damage in the real world.

There are no advances in reasoning, as was made plain in a paper also published this week: AI models sometimes don't see the answer when you tell them the answer.  

SEE ALSO: 'The illusion of thinking': Apple research finds AI models collapse and give up with hard puzzles

Don't tell that to Altman. He's off on a trip to the future to rival that of Ray Kurzweil, the offbeat Silicon Valley guru who first proposed we're accelerating to a technological singularity. Kurzweil set his all-change event many decades down the line. Altman is willing to risk looking wrong as soon as next year: "2026 will likely see the arrival of systems that can figure out novel insights. 2027 may see the arrival of robots that can do tasks in the real world … It’s hard to even imagine what we will have discovered by 2035; maybe we will go from solving high-energy physics one year to beginning space colonization the next year."

The "likely", "may," and "maybe" there are doing a lot of lifting. Altman may have "something closer to religion" in his AGI assumptions, but cannot cast reason aside completely. Indeed, shorn of the excitable sci-fi language, he's not always claiming that much (don't we already have "robots that can do tasks in the real world"?). As for his most outlandish claims, Altman has learned to preface them with a word salad that could mean anything. Take this doozy: "In some big sense, ChatGPT is already more powerful than any human who has ever lived." Can I get a citation needed? 

Did Sam Altman just invite an AI environmental audit?

Altman's latest blog isn't all future-focused speculation. Buried within is the OpenAI CEO's first ever statement on ChatGPT's energy and water usage — and as with his needless drama over a Scarlett Johansson-like voice , opening that Pandora's Box may not go the way Altman thinks. 

Since ChatGPT exploded in popularity in 2023, OpenAI — along with main AI rivals Google and Microsoft — have stonewalled researchers looking for details on their data center usage. "We don't even know how big models like GPT are," Sasha Luccioni, climate lead at open-source AI platform HuggingFace, told me last year. "Nothing is divulged, everything is a company secret."

SEE ALSO: How much is AI hurting the planet? Big tech won't tell us.

Altman finally divulged, kinda. In the middle of a blog post, in parentheses, with the preface "people are often curious about how much energy a ChatGPT query uses," the OpenAI CEO offers two stats: "the average query uses about 0.34 watt-hours ... and about 0.000085 gallons of water."

There's no more data offered to confirm these stats; Altman doesn't even specify which model of ChatGPT. OpenAI hasn't responded to multiple follow-up requests from multiple news outlets. Altman has an obvious interest in downplaying the amount of energy and water OpenAI requires, and he's already doing it here with a little sleight-of-hand. It isn't the average query that concerns researchers like Luccioni; it's the enormous amount of energy and water required to train the models in the first place.

But now he's shown himself to be responsive to the "often curious," Altman has less of a reason to stonewall. Why not release all the data so others can replicate his numbers, you know, like scientists do? Meanwhile, battles over data center energy and water usage are brewing across the US. Luccioni has started an AI Energy Leaderboard that shows how wildly open source AI models vary.

This is serious stuff, because companies don't like to spend more on energy usage than they need to, and because there's buy-in. Meta and (to a lesser extent) Microsoft and Google are already on the board. Can OpenAI afford not to be?

In the end, the answer depends on whether Altman is building a company or more of a religion.

Materialists, Celine Song's highly anticipated follow-up to her critically heralded debut feature Past Lives, may be too clever for its own good. 

On paper, Materialists is perfection. It's a love triangle romantic comedy, headlined by three movie stars with which the Internet is absolutely obsessed: Chris Evans, Dakota Johnson, and Pedro Pascal. 

SEE ALSO: Please stop killing Pedro Pascal!

The plot feels like something out of a Golden Age Hollywood movie. A cynical career girl (Johnson) in New York City plays matchmaker to the rich and shallow. But when she meets a suave, handsome, and outlandishly wealthy man of her own (Pascal), will she choose him? Or will her heart lead her to the struggling artist (Evans) with no savings, no prospects, and only annoying roommates and a cater-waiter gig to his name?

Such a humorous heroine role used to go to the likes of Jane Russell (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), Lauren Bacall (How to Marry a Millionaire), or Katharine Hepburn (The Philadelphia Story). In the '90s revitalization of rom-coms, you might have seen Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts in such a part. Though she has done romantic dramas (Fifty Shades of Grey) and comedies (How to Be Single), casting Dakota Johnson now in such a role is a spiky choice. 

It's not that Johnson doesn't have the range to play the hard-nosed career girl who might, at her core, be a hopeless romantic. However, her public persona is one of a snarky cynic, who refuses to take anything Hollywood too seriously. And this attitude has been embraced by Materialists' beguiling promotional campaign, which flaunts her and co-stars Evans and Pascal's chaotic chemistry. Yet her attempt at earnest romanticism in the movie itself hits shallow at best because of this persona — and similar problems afflict her co-stars as well. 

While the actors in these lead roles might be performing them well, their personas are so big beyond the movie that they overshadow what Song is attempting to do with Materialists. Let's break it down.

Dakota Johnson is not believable as a girl who has ever been broke.  Credit: A24

As Lucy M., Johnson is the kind of sleek sophisticated Manhattanite that Sex and the City fans aspire to be. Like Carrie Bradshaw, Lucy can wax poetically with a broad smile to sell the concept of perfect love and great sex to her hungry clientele. But she's not a true believer like Carrie. When she speaks with her coworkers, it's all about numbers: height, salary, and BMI. 

When she lectures coolly on matters of matchmaking, it's as if she's talking about interlocking puzzle pieces that just need to fit. Talk of actual love is shunted to the side as inconvenient, which is reflective of Lucy's background. Nine years before, she was an aspiring actress with no rich parents to supplement her ambitions. Like many a romantic heroine (reaching back to Jane Austen), Lucy doesn't want to end up poor. To her, being poor guarantees being unhappy, because she's been both. So a future with John (Evans), who is still pursuing his dream of acting all these years after they broke up, seems a foolish move. 

In a telling flashback, Johnson throws herself into a public argument over money, but her desperation feels like a performance. The sight of her wide eyes drinking in the lavish gifts of her millionaire boyfriend is funny, but likewise it also feels false because of what we know of Johnson herself. Her persona is one of no-bullshit, fueled by the glimmering privilege of being born into a wealthy and very famous Hollywood family. Her sophisticated, surly attitude toward movie press for years has bolstered this persona, along with her pushback on daytime TV's former queen of nice, Ellen DeGeneres. Here, this persona works against her. 

In this movie, though she wears less chic clothing than a movie star might on a nighttime talk show, she is very recognizable as sleek and meticulously groomed Dakota Johnson, queen of fuck-you money and its accompanying attitude. So even if she dons an off-the-rack sundress, it just doesn't feel real with a haircut that costs more than John's rent. 

Casting Chris Evans as a struggling actor challenges suspension of disbelief to its breaking point.  Credit: A24

It might have helped if Johnson had the kind of chemistry in the film that she and her co-stars share on their promotional tour, which has been full of cheeky videos of reciting lines from famous romances and challenging each other to trivia or light-hearted questions. However, Lucy has such a devoted distance to the idea of love that even when she's falling, it's hard to feel it from her. 

This is further frustrating, because both of her options are dazzling. John, played by Evans, is a pretty familiar figure in New York City. A struggling actor who's taking survival jobs in waitering gigs, he has a mischievous smile and a worldweary stare. Evans uses this to express the willpower and sheer exhaustion of daring to be a dreamer in a city that has no patience for the poor. 

Choosing John is meant to seem like a risk, because he can't promise Lucy financial security. It's a cliché that most couples fight about money, but it's a cliché for a reason. And yet it's hard to think of choosing John as a leap of faith when Song cast one of the world's biggest movie stars to play the struggling actor. It's impossible to look at Chris Evans' face, even bulked down from his MCU days and covered by an inviting sheen of scruffy facial hair, and not think that John's gonna make it. Even if Evans convincingly plays the role of working-class actor, such glossy optimism fights the realistic tone of what Song is doing with this movie. 

Pedro Pascal is perhaps too charming for the will-they-won't-they to work.  Credit: A24

Pascal plays Harry, a hedge fund manager who takes Lucy to astonishingly expensive restaurants, and then his jaw-droppingly luxurious apartment. (With a $12 million price tag!)  He's a gentleman. He's tall, dark, handsome, and generous, or as Lucy puts it “a unicorn.” The catch is that while he is a rational choice for what Lucy says she wants, she fears that neither of them are really in love with each other as much as they think they could be good partners. To choose Harry would be a business decision.  

What's fascinating about Materialists is that the casting of Pascal might seem intended to cover up some sort of horrible secret that Harry is hiding. (For evidence of this, just see how fans of The Last of Us will excuse all of Joel's crimes because of just how much they fawn over Pascal). That to choose him would be, White Lotus-style, a kind of complicity. Thankfully, Song doesn't take such an easy out in structuring her conflict. Harry is not a bad guy. He just might not be the right guy. But to be perfectly frank, when the whole world is deeply, deeply obsessed with Pedro Pascal, it is a wild choice to cast him as the guy we're supposed to root against when it comes to getting the girl. 

Don't mistake me, I deeply admire what Song is doing with this movie. She sets up a traditional rom-com in scenario and characters, but then rejects the buzzy optimism and whimsy of standard Hollywood romantic comedies to create something cuttingly modern. 

The tone of this comedy is not broad. The banter is not bouncy. Instead, Song commits to an earnest indie understanding of love and relationships. Her characters are not necessarily looking for love as much as they are fleeing from loneliness. Desperation mixes with hope, cynicism with rationale. New York City is not a heaven of designer shoes and an endless supply of eligible bachelors. As John shows, it is a place of bustling bodegas, grimy street corners, hole-in-the-wall theaters, and embarrassing squabbles that interrupt Times Square traffic.

Through all the film's conversations about money, the undercurrent is about worth. What do we think we are worth, and what will we risk to be with someone who really sees that? In that, Materialists is a deeply romantic film. Rather than opening with a typically glossy Manhattan rom-com montage, Materialists opens with a strange scene, where a caveman and cavewoman exchange gifts and bind themselves together with a ring made of a small flower.

This suggests that marriage has always been about what we can offer each other in a relationship. Song bolsters the sincerity over Hollywood romanticism by choosing a color palette that's less vivid than those of the '90s rom-com heyday. Likewise, a subplot about one of Lucy's clients going on a truly heinous date risks derailing the film's potential feel-good energy. There's a sense that Song is making a romance comedy for cynics. And in an online dating scene that seems increasingly bleak, with people lying on their profiles or gaming the system by choosing sexual inclinations that don't actually appeal to them or even dating AI in lieu of other humans, perhaps we've all become cynics. 

SEE ALSO: Is dating an AI chatbot considered cheating?

Others may be able to watch Materialists and divorce themselves from the immense and immensely charming personas of the cast. For me, I struggled to feel the movie as it truly is, as opposed to the movie the marketing campaign with its flashy stars had me expecting it to be. I suspect years from now, I'll rewatch this movie and think more kindly of it. For now, I admire that it's a big swing, with big stars, who might be, despite their incredible charm and sincere performances, its biggest flaw. For as grounded and real as Materialists aims to be, it's hard to overlook its big, shining stars to see that gritty authenticity. 

In the end, Materialists feels like it's trying to check all the boxes of a rom-com, much like Lucy's clients aim to check the boxes of what they think they want. But Song wants to give us what we need. And as much as I wish she pulled that off, I was left cold. 

Materialists is now in theaters.

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Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple MacBook Air 13.3" (2017) 1.8GHz i5 8GB RAM 128GB SSD Silver (Refurbished) $199.97
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How to Train Your Dragon, the beloved tale of unconventional Viking teen Hiccup, adorably misunderstood dragon Toothless, and the remote Isle of Berk, has been given the live action treatment — 15 years after the first film hit cinemas. A longtime rewatch favourite, Dean Dublois and Chris Sanders' adaptation of Cressida Cowell's novels earned both personal household praise and multiple Oscars. And now, among the wave of live action adaptations flying out of Disney, from Lilo and Stitch to The Lion King, Dreamworks is entering the arena.

SEE ALSO: 'Lilo and Stitch' review: If you have to watch a Disney remake, make it this one

How does the live action How to Train Your Dragon fare in comparison to the original? With Dublois back behind the wheel here, it's almost impossible to separate the two, with shot-for-shot sequences, Gerard Butler mightily rendering his voiced role in person, and John Powell returning with that treasured score. Though not reinventing the wheel, the film manages to recreate the magic of the original through impeccable visual effects, faithful cinematography, and intricate production design. 

Fans, if you've missed the Isle of Berk, it's time to revisit.

How to Train Your Dragon is almost shot-for-shot identical to the original Whatcha doooin? Credit: Universal Pictures

If you're going into How to Train Your Dragon expecting a highly different film from the original, it's adamantly not that. Dublois and production designer Dominic Watkins have made some subtle tweaks here — the design of the formidable Red Death dragon; the intricate, rustic detail of the Viking village and its massive longhouse (the animated Berk is more polished); and some of Dublois' dialogue — but for the most part, the film intentionally goes shot-for-shot, line-for-line with the original film. How to Train Your Dragon wouldn't be the first live action adaptation to do this, with Disney knowing very well where to anchor their money-shot IP (Ariel's iconic hair flick in The Little Mermaid will not be changed, thank you). However, the similarity might polarise viewers, whether you're hoping to see such replication or seeking something more.

Arguably the most famous scene from the franchise, Toothless and Hiccup genuinely connecting for the first time through a hand-to-snoot boop, is faithfully recreated down to the very last detail — and it's simply beautiful to watch in live action (though it was frustratingly included in the trailer). Wearing the pressure of such iconic moments with grace, The Black Phone's Mason Thames is well cast as beloved protagonist Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, nailing the awkward physicality, empathy, and wise-cracking nervousness of Berk's least Viking-like Viking.

The crew. Credit: Universal Pictures

Alongside Thames, The Last of Us' Nico Parker finds her own kickass interpretation of dragon-fighting ace Astrid Hofferson (originally voiced by America Ferrera), consistently frustrated by Hiccup's privilege and casually crushing dragon teeth with her double-handed axe. Nick Frost takes up the mantle of Craig Ferguson-voiced blacksmith Gobber the Belch, bringing his own signature comedy stylings to the role. As for our banter-laden group of hopeful Viking dragonslayers, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James, and Harry Trevaldwyn give fun, snappy performances as the not-so-battle-ready teens of Berk.

But if you can find an actor having more fun in this adaptation than Gerard Butler, I'll eat my Viking helmet.

No one seems to be having a better time in How to Train Your Dragon than Gerard Butler "Let's send these devils back to Hell!" Credit: Universal Pictures

Decked out in enormous Viking garb by costume designer Lindsay Pugh (including one of those myth-busted two-horned helmets), Butler seems to relish every scene he's in as Berk's mighty chieftain, Stoick the Vast, a role he voiced for all three How to Train Your Dragon movies. 

In full Viking "This is Sparta" mode without the blood spatter, Butler roars through Stoick's familiar lines and grandiose "when I was a boy…" speeches while being magnificently magnified through Bill Pope's tightly framed cinematography. When Butler's Stoick gets awkward, it's hilarious; when he goes into battle mode, it's impressive as hell, roaring lines like, "Let's send these devils back to Hell!" with all the gusto we expect. Butler thrives in the visual splendour of the live arena, surrounded by some impressive action sequences both within Gobber's dragon-fighting arena and out on the battlefield.

And it's this visual challenge of How to Train Your Dragon that sees the live action soar.

How to Train Your Dragon boasts spectacular visual effects, bringing Toothless to life  Every scale. Credit: Universal Pictures

Probably the element of How to Train Your Dragon fans will be most keen to see is the rendering of the various dragons themselves, including the world's cutest Night Fury, Toothless. Using rideable puppetry and visual effects from Framestore, How to Train Your Dragon crafts impeccable versions of the franchise's mythical beasts. Framestore — who've worked on a string of the Disney live action films including The Little Mermaid and Snow White, as well as plenty of MCU films alongside the likes of Wicked, Gladiator II, Paddington — really showcases its skills in this project, particularly through the animation of Toothless. 

Essentially, Toothless is magnificent in live action. Every scale glimmers, every muscle moves, and the franchise's beloved dragon's signature expressiveness shines through every scene. Supported by a heartfelt performance from Thames, who is essentially working with a puppet, the Hiccup-Toothless friendship of all friendships is lovingly rendered.

How to Train Your Dragon sees Dublois sticking like glue to his original film, which exposes the franchise's timelessness in a way. If you've dreamed of seeing a version of Toothless living, breathing, and gobbling fish in a real world (on screen), the live action adaptation is a treat. 

How to Train Your Dragon hits cinemas in the UK June 9 and in the U.S. June 13.

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Opens in a new window Credit: Koofr Koofr Cloud Storage: Lifetime Subscription (1TB) $119.97
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Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Amazon Fire TV 32-inch 2-Series $129.99 at Amazon
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SEE ALSO: Snag a 65-inch Toshiba C350 Fire TV for its lowest price yet at Amazon

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Climate.gov may soon shut down, putting the end to an important U.S. government climate and weather resource used by countless people every year. The Guardian reports that the website's entire content production team was let go at the end of May, becoming some of the latest workers impacted by the Trump administration's widespread layoffs of federal employees.

Run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Climate.gov publishes scientific data on the Earth's climate, including maps, educational material, and articles aimed at informing the general public. According to the website, Climate.gov's mission is to "provide science and information for a climate-smart nation." 

Sadly, this flow of climate information is likely to soon become a trickle at most, with Climate.gov's editorial team of 10 having reportedly all been dismissed by May 31. 

SEE ALSO: How do we navigate climate disinformation online?

The cuts began shortly after President Donald Trump's inauguration in February, with three of Climate.gov's editorial team members dismissed in the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) mass purge of probationary employees. The remaining seven were subsequently axed in recent weeks, though all 10 remain on Climate.gov's now outdated list of staff at time of writing.

"[The current U.S. administration] think that climate change isn't real, and they don't want anybody talking about it," Climate.gov's former program manager Rebecca Lindsey told NPR. Lindsay was one of the three workers who were dismissed in February.

Trump has actively hindered efforts to combat climate change for years, withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement and scrapping the Clean Power Plan during his first term as president in 2017. This week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed reports that it is working to abolish all restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants that use fossil fuels. The EPA further revealed that it intends to weaken regulations which limit power plants' emissions of toxic air pollutants such as mercury.

The NOAA is one of the many government agencies struggling under extensive staffing cuts implemented by Elon Musk's DOGE this year. Approximately 1,000 former NOAA workers have reportedly been axed since Trump took office, making up 10 percent of the NOAA's workforce. This includes over 150 critical roles which have been left empty as of May.

NPR reports that Climate.gov will cease publishing new content on July 1, though it remains unclear what will happen to the content currently available. The website could be completely shuttered, left to rot, or even reappropriated to host less scientific articles that are more in line with Trump's views on climate change. Whatever happens, it seems clear that climate education and action are not high priorities for the Trump administration.

What if one day, when you opened the front door of your apartment, you found that you'd been completely walled in?

That's the premise for Netflix's upcoming mystery/thriller Brick, which sees a strange black wall enveloping an apartment block and trapping the residents inside.

Writer/director Philip Koch's movie looks like a twisty, claustrophobic ride.

Brick is streaming on Netflix July 10.

The Mini is a bite-sized version of The New York Times' revered daily crossword. While the crossword is a lengthier experience that requires both knowledge and patience to complete, The Mini is an entirely different vibe.

With only a handful of clues to answer, the daily puzzle doubles as a speed-running test for many who play it.

So, when a tricky clue disrupts a player's flow, it can be frustrating! If you find yourself stumped playing The Mini — much like with Wordle and Connections — we have you covered.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable

Here are the clues and answers to NYT's The Mini for Friday, June 13, 2025:

AcrossHouse and Doogie Howser, for short

• The answer is MDs.

Dessert wine

• The answer is Port.

Mugful after a sledding excursion

• The answer is Cocoa.

Desert whine?

• The answer is I'm hot.

"Like, yesterday!"

• The answer is ASAP.

DownChocolate-and-coffee drink

• The answer is Mocha.

Sag

• The answer is Droop.

Three-point percentage, e.g.

• The answer is Stat.

Poofy toy dogs, familiarly

• The answer is Poms.

Org. that employs Jack Ryan in Tom Clancy novels

• The answer is CIA.

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Scientists have scored a pristine view of a pair of exotic worlds orbiting a star more than 300 light-years away — one with sand-like clouds and another surrounded in space by moon-making material. 

The discoveries come from YSES-1, a star system in the deep southern sky. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, a collaboration of NASA and its European and Canadian counterparts, a team of astronomers saw so-called "silicate clouds" directly for the first time on an exoplanet, a world far beyond our own solar system. The team's detection of a dusty disk around the sibling planet is also rare, perhaps just the third time scientists have seen one so clearly. 

Webb usually observes exoplanets through indirect methods, such as transmission spectroscopy, a technique for studying a planet's atmosphere by analyzing how starlight filters through it. What distinguishes this new research is that the two worlds — YSES-1b and YSES-1c — were directly imaged, meaning the telescope captured light from the planets themselves. 

Sitting far from their host star, these young planets glow from the leftover heat of their formation. Thanks to their temperature, size, and distance, the result is a clean picture of the exoplanets in thermal infrared, allowing scientists to get much more data. 

"What's really cool about this system is that unlike most planets, we can actually take a picture of them!" said Evert Nasedkin in a post on the social media platform Bluesky. You can see the image further down in this story.

SEE ALSO: A tiny star gave birth to an absolute giant. Scientists are puzzled.

The idea for this groundbreaking project began long before Webb was even open for business, said Kielan Hoch, lead author of the research recently published in the journal Nature. 

Scientists hypothesized the telescope could get both worlds in a single shot, "essentially giving us two for the price of one," Hoch said in a statement. 

What's really cool about this system is that unlike most planets, we can actually take a picture of them! We used the NIRSpec and MIRI instruments on JWST to observe nearly the full spectra of each of these exoplanets.

[image or embed]

— Evert Nasedkin (@evertnasedkin.bsky.social) June 10, 2025 at 1:15 PM

These two gas giant planets weigh five to 15 times the mass of Jupiter and orbit far from their host, a star similar to the sun. What's different is that it's only about 16.7 million years old, a mere whippersnapper compared to our middle-aged, 4.6 billion year-old sun. The planets are also in extremely distant orbits. YSES-1b, the innermost of the two, is still perhaps four times farther from its star than Pluto is from the sun.  

But given only a handful of known exoplanets can be directly imaged, the study has offered scientists a unique opportunity to see an early stage of a developing star system. From these observations of the YSES-1 system — the letters in its name stand for Young Suns Exoplanet Survey — astronomers can gain insight into how planets and moons form and evolve. 

SEE ALSO: Webb discovers a distant moon has an intriguing similarity to Earth

Few distant worlds meet the criteria for direct imaging because planets are often millions of times fainter than the stars they circle. And if they are orbiting close by, their own light usually gets swamped.  

The James Webb Space telescope captures a direct image of exoplanets YSES-1b and YSES-1c with its Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument. Credit: NASA/ ESA / CSA / Hoch et al. / Nature

But scientists want these images because there is so much to learn from them. Molecules within a planet's atmosphere absorb certain colors of light, so when astronomers study a planet's spectrum, they can look for what's missing from the rainbow to determine which gases — like water, methane, and carbon dioxide — are present in the planet's air. For the YSES-1 system, scientists not only saw molecules in the direct imaging but detected cloud particles and a dust disk. 

On YSES-1c, rather than water vapor, the clouds are made of hot, ultra-fine rock grains. While Earth's clouds are often white and pillowy, these are probably hazy and dark, filling the sky with something akin to a glass powder. You can think of these silicate clouds sort of like the plumes of mineral ash that vent out of volcanoes. 

YSES-1b is even "weirder," said Nasedkin, one of the coauthors. Around it is a so-called circumplanetary dust disk that could serve as a birthplace for moons, similar to those seen around Jupiter. Scientists used computer models to figure out that the dust is hot — about 400 to 600 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Because this particular disk is much older than two previously found around other unrelated exoplanets, what is creating or sustaining it is a mystery. The original disk of planet-building material around the star is long gone, so the researchers have ruled that out as the source. 

"It's possible that we're seeing the dust emitted by collisions of moons and other small, rocky bodies left over from the planet's formation!" Nasedkin said.

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TL;DR: Live stream Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (Game 4) in the 2025 NBA Finals for free on YouTube. Access this free live stream from anywhere in the world with ExpressVPN.

The 2025 NBA Finals continue to surprise and entertain, with the Pacers taking a 2-1 lead after the first game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. The pressure is now all on the Thunder. The pre-Finals favorites need to win Game 4, otherwise the Pacers will be one step away from lifting the trophy.

If you want to watch Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (Game 4) in the 2025 NBA Finals for free from anywhere in the world, we have all the information you need.

When is Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (Game 4)?

Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (Game 4) starts at 8:30 p.m. ET on June 13. This game takes place at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

How to watch Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (Game 4) for free

Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (Game 4) in the 2025 NBA Finals is available to live stream for free on YouTube.

This content is geo-restricted to India, but anyone can access this free live stream with a VPN. These tools can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to a secure server in India, meaning you can live stream the 2025 NBA Finals from anywhere in the world.

Live stream the NBA for free by following these simple steps:

1. Sign up for a VPN (like ExpressVPN)

2. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

3. Open up the app and connect to a server in India

4. Visit YouTube

5. Watch Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (Game 4) for free

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The best VPNs for streaming are not free, but they do tend to offer money-back guarantees or free trials. By leveraging these offers, you can watch NBA live streams without actually spending anything. This clearly isn't a long-term solution, but it does mean you can watch select games from the NBA Finals before recovering your investment.

If you want to retain permanent access to free live streams from around the world, you'll need a subscription. Fortunately, the best VPN for streaming sport is on sale for a limited time.

What is the best VPN for YouTube?

ExpressVPN is the best service for accessing free live streams on platforms like YouTube, for a number of reasons:

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A two-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $139 and includes an extra four months for free — 61% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee. Alternatively, you can get a one-month subscription for just $12.95 (with money-back guarantee).

Live stream Indiana Pacers vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (Game 4) for free with ExpressVPN.

Ice cream makers have had their moment in recent years. TikTokkers have taken a liking to these machines — and who can blame them? Ice cream is just plain yum — making the ice cream maker an on-trend appliance for cool kitchens.

Indeed, ice cream makers are having their moment in the sun (well, not quite the sun, because that would melt the ice cream, of course). And that's definitely a good thing. Because who doesn’t want a constant supply of the tasty frozen treat?

But there are things to know about making your own ice cream. It isn’t like rushing up to the ice cream van and ordering a 99 with a flake. Using an ice cream maker isn't quite that simple. Especially if you’ve never owned one before. Allow us to get you started with some info on ice cream makers, plus a round-up of the best models.

How does an ice cream maker work?

It’s easy. In most case you simply add the mixture into a bowl (cream, milk, sugar, and any flavouring), which the machine then stirs with a rotating paddle. The machine will then drop the temperature, freezing the mix. Some premium-level machines have a built-in freezer, others have a bowl that you need to pop in the freezer beforehand. The mix will also expand during the process. The amount of ice cream you’ll get depends on the bowl capacity. Other models, such as those by Ninja, have a different method but the principle is the same: Put your mix in the bowl and let the machine do the work.

How long does it take to make ice cream?

As you’ll see below, different ice cream makers will work with different timescales — somewhere between 20 and 50 minutes. It’s worth noting that pre-freezing a bowl can take around eight hours or more. Up to 24 hours in some cases, in fact. So, if you live in a household with kids who are likely to start demanding ice cream at any given time, it might be worth keeping that bowl in the freezer permanently, so it’s always ready.

What other features do ice cream makes have?

On more expensive models you’ll find literally cool features, such as built-in freezing or settings to control the consistency of your ice cream (or other frozen dessert). One feature that’s always welcome — and found in cheaper models — is a chute in the lid to add ingredients, whether it’s flavouring or nuts, while the ice cream is being made.

What else can ice cream makers make?

Ice cream makers don't only make ice cream. Certain models will make ice cream variations, such as sorbet and gelato, or frozen yoghurt. What’s not to like? The Ninja model below offers an impressive ten different varieties of frozen dessert, so these machines can be very versatile.

What is the best ice cream maker?

There are plenty of top-quality models on offer from well-known brands like Cuisinart and Sage. We have checked out customer reviews, features, and specifications to put together a very chill list. Whether you're a total beginner looking to whip something up, or a professional ice cream maker-in-the-making, there’s something for you here.

These are the best ice cream makers in 2025.