As consumers around the world have gotten their hands on the Switch 2 in the last day or so, we’re still working hard to fully test the system here at the Ars Orbiting HQ. As we do, we thought we’d share some initial impressions after having Nintendo’s new console in hand for 48 hours or so. Consider these first thoughts an extended version of our notes from a review in progress and a starting point for discussion of the first completely new Nintendo platform in over eight years.

The Switch 2 Joy-Cons feel great

There’s something incredibly satisfying about the magnetic “snap” when you plug the new Joy-Cons into the Switch 2 horizontally, and the handy release lever makes it much easier to disconnect the controllers from the tablet with one hand. Even without a physical rail holding the Joy-Cons to the system (as on the Switch), the magnetic connection feels remarkably sturdy in portable mode.

The Switch 2 Joy-Con (left) and a right-side original Switch Joy-Con.

Though the Switch 2’s expanded Joy-Cons generally feel more comfortable for adult hands, I have noticed that the analog stick encroaches a little more on the space for the face buttons on the right Joy-Con. I’ve found myself accidentally nudging that analog stick with the bottom of my thumb when pressing the lower “B” button on the Joy-Con, a problem I never recall encountering on the original Switch.

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The techs over at iFixit have completed their teardown of the Nintendo Switch 2, which launched this week. After completing a thorough analysis of the newest Nintendo console, it appears this generation of Switch is even harder to repair than its predecessor. iFixit has assigned the Switch 2 a repairability score of three out of 10. This represents an even lower score than the retroactive four out of 10 they awarded to the original model.

A substantial consideration in iFixit’s scoring system is the availability of repair parts from the manufacturer for the device in question. While there was some hope that Nintendo would have to comply with Right to Repair laws, sufficiently stringent versions of these regulations have yet to materialize, and OEM parts are almost impossible to come by.

Further complicating the repairability is that the charge ports, main storage and a game card reader that are all soldered to the board. The USB-C charge ports are a particular pain point here, as disconnecting and reconnecting the charging cable wears on the charge port over time. A bad yank on the charging cable or a fall while it’s connected could damage the charge port, which would require re-soldering a new one.

iFixit found that the battery was also frustratingly difficult to remove — another major detractor to repairability, as batteries by their nature degrade over time. Beyond being difficult to access without the proper tools, it’s held down with strong adhesive that requires a lot of effort (and isopropyl alcohol) to remove.

So if you happen to get your hands on a Switch 2, buy a case and baby that battery, because if it needs any repairs you’ll likely be shipping it to Nintendo and paying a pretty penny.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/nintendo/you-probably-wont-be-fixing-your-own-nintendo-switch-2-180833765.html?src=rss

In the past week, users across Reddit have been raising alarms about a significant shift in how Strava is pulling workout data from your Garmin, Runna, or TrainingPeaks entries. What once appeared as generic activity titles like “Morning Run” are now showing detailed workout descriptions, pacing notes, and even personal coach comments that users never intended to share publicly. And if you’ve been on Strava for a minute, you know it can be a pretty competitive place. It’s social media, after all.

If you wanted your Garmin and Strava titles to be in sync, that’s great. However, for those of us who would prefer to keep our easy days or workout flubs private, here’s what to know about your data being shared for all your Strava friends to see.

The perfect storm of acquisitions and integration

Strava has made two major acquisitions in recent months—first purchasing running training app Runna in April, followed by cycling app The Breakaway in May. And the integration of these apps appears to be happening rapidly and without clear user notification. Runna recently began pushing through workout images and detailed training data to Strava, while Garmin users are seeing their custom workout titles and descriptions automatically imported into their Strava activities.

“Definitely feels like a violation of privacy and also intellectual property as a coach,” wrote one TrainingPeaks user on Reddit. “Pulling through the descriptions of the workouts, where sometimes I write personal notes for athletes, and now it’s showing on Strava for the world to see. I’m going to have to change how I set workouts up in TrainingPeaks.”

Sadly, this sort of privacy concern is nothing new for Strava users. The company has been at the center of several data privacy controversies, including the famous heatmap incident that exposed the location of numerous secret military facilities. The network’s global heatmap showed the locations of sensitive military bases because personnel at those facilities did not switch on privacy settings.

Beyond the military base controversy, users have always called out the app’s “creepy” privacy settings, which can automatically add other runners’ data onto your phone unless changed. As a longtime fan of Strava, I’ve personally watched the company face ongoing criticism about how users can track each other and the default visibility of personal fitness data.

And now, the Runna integration reveals how these acquisitions are creating unexpected data flows. Runna users can now access routes saved in Strava—even all those little nonsense routes created for planning purposes that were never intended for actual use or sharing.

What’s being shared (and what wasn’t before)

If you use a Garmin device, you may find that workouts with specific pacing instructions, training notes from coaches, and personalized workout descriptions are now appearing in your public Strava feeds. This includes:

• Custom workout titles from Garmin devices

• Detailed training descriptions from TrainingPeaks

• Coach notes and pacing guidance

• Personal performance targets and training phases

The change appears to affect data that was technically always present in activity files but was previously filtered out by Strava’s display logic. Now, that data is being surfaced automatically, catching users off guard.

The frustrating aspect of this situation is that enhanced workout data integration could be genuinely valuable. Seeing detailed training information, coach notes, and structured workout data in Strava could help athletes better track their progress and share meaningful training details with their community.

“This is a very cool feature that I think we would all love if it weren’t implemented by surprise,” captures the sentiment of many users. The technology exists to make fitness data more useful and connected—but only when users understand and consent to what’s being shared.

Plus, for coaches and trainers, this represents a professional concern. Training plans and workout descriptions often contain proprietary methodologies and personalized guidance that coaches consider intellectual property. When these details suddenly become public without warning, it affects how they can do their work.

The bottom line

As a loyal Strava user, the core issue isn’t just about privacy settings or data visibility—it’s about trust and communication. When platforms make significant changes to data-sharing without clear notification, they erode the trust that users need to feel comfortable sharing their fitness activities.

Stay tuned for how exactly to opt out of this data sharing, or whether Strava plans to make a formal announcement. When you log a support ticket with the Strava help desk, you get redirected to this thread as the place where they are currently “collecting feedback.”

Until then, it looks like us athletes are left checking privacy settings more frequently and wondering what other personal details might appear in our public feeds tomorrow.

Galaxies are far more than the sum of their stars. Long before stars even formed, dark matter clumped up and drew regular matter together with its gravity, providing the invisible scaffolding upon which stars and galaxies eventually grew.

Today, nearly all galaxies are still embedded in giant “halos” of dark matter that extend far beyond their visible borders and hold them together, anchoring stars that move so quickly they would otherwise break out of their galaxy’s gravitational grip and spend their lives adrift in intergalactic space.

The way dark matter and stars interact influences how galaxies change over time. But until recently, scientists had mainly only examined one side of that relationship, exploring the way dark matter pulls on normal matter.

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A robotic lander developed by a Japanese company named ispace plummeted to the Moon’s surface Thursday, destroying a small rover and several experiments intended to demonstrate how future missions could mine and harvest lunar resources.

Ground teams at ispace’s mission control center in Tokyo lost contact with the Resilience lunar lander moments before it was supposed to touch down in a region called Mare Frigoris, or the Sea of Cold, a basaltic plain in the Moon’s northern hemisphere.

A few hours later, ispace officials confirmed what many observers suspected. The mission was lost. It’s the second time ispace has failed to land on the Moon in as many tries.

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The latest Apple iPad Mini is on sale via Amazon, bringing the 128GB model down to a record-low price. Each Wi-Fi-only model has been discounted by $100, so the 128GB version is $399, the 256GB tablet is $499 and the beefy 512GB model is $699. This deal applies to multiple colorways. 

This is one of the best Apple tablets, and the only choice for those looking for a compact iPad. It’s the company’s most powerful tablet in this size, as the A17 Pro chip is plenty capable. An M-series chip would have been nice, but it’s not in the cards just yet. Having said that, this is still a full-featured iPad that can hang with its larger cousins.

It offers support for the Apple Pencil Pro, which is handy, and the 12-megapixel camera on the rear takes decent shots, even in low light. The camera is also a decent choice for scanning documents and QR codes, as noted in our official review. The speakers sound much better than one would expect, though this has become the norm with recent Apple products.

The display looks nice, but it is just a standard LCD with a 60Hz refresh rate. Apple tends to reserve its best screen technology for the higher-end tablets. There’s no Face ID here, but that’s not a deal breaker for me, as I actually prefer Touch ID or just quickly typing in a four digit security code.

Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-latest-ipad-mini-drops-to-a-record-low-price-170558317.html?src=rss

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off on Monday with the company’s standard keynote presentation—a combination of PR about how great Apple and its existing products are and a first look at the next-generation versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and the company’s other operating systems.

Reporting before the keynote rarely captures everything that Apple has planned at its presentations, but the reliable information we’ve seen so far is that Apple will keep the focus on its software this year rather than using the keynote to demo splashy new hardware like the Vision Pro and Apple Silicon Mac Pro, which the company introduced at WWDC a couple years back.

If you haven’t been keeping track, here are a few of the things that are most likely to happen when the pre-recorded announcement videos start rolling next week.

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Once they’ve found a place they love, most home shoppers shift to considering the hard numbers: The selling price or the monthly rent, the estimated taxes, the square footage, their mortgage rate, etc. Often lost in the shuffle are questions about the utilities—the gas, electricity, water, and internet services that power a home and make it comfortable and livable.

Utilities exist in the background of our lives, and if you previously rented, some may have been folded into your monthly payment, so many buyers don’t think about them much before moving in. After all, it’s not like your new home just won’t have gas and water, right? But there’s a lot more to your utilities than simply having them. Here are the questions you should be asking about the utilities in any home you’re thinking of buying.

How much will my bills be every month?

The most obvious question that a lot of homebuyers neglect to consider is what the average bill will be for each utility. The cost of natural gas, electricity, water, and internet varies considerably from place to place—often just within a few miles or based on time of usage. If your utility costs have previously been hidden in your rent payments, you might not even be aware of what you’ve been paying for these services, because the landlord is definitely passing the costs along to you. Even if you know very well what your utilities cost you in your old place, there’s no guarantee those bills will be similar in the new house.

The best way to know what you’re getting yourself into, budget-wise, is to ask the current owners what their monthly bills are on average. Better yet, ask to see a year’s worth of utility bills for each relevant service so you can get an idea of what you’ll be paying. The average overall cost for electricity, water, gas, and internet around the U.S. is about $330 per month, so if the number you hear is significantly higher than that, you might need to dig in deeper to find out why.

Does the home share resources with another?

Something few think to ask is whether the home they’re considering shares any gas or electric supply (or any other utility you might have to pay for, like sewage or water) with a neighboring property. When my own next-door neighbor launched a major renovation of his house, he discovered (to his dismay) that he shared a gas supply pipe with his neighbor on the other side, which the local utility then insisted had to be separated. This significantly delayed the project as he struggled to coordinate with the city and the utility company to get the work done.

It’s not uncommon for attached row homes or homes that were originally built as duplexes (or twin homes) to have at least one shared electric meter, often in the garage. One homeowner on Reddit posted a worry about charging an electric car in the future because his garage shared electricity with his next-door neighbor in what is essentially a two-owner condominium situation. Making sure your utilities are wholly separate from your neighbors’ can spare you trouble down the line—or at least prepare you for future problems.

What type of meters does it have?

Smart meters now make up more than 70% of utility meters in the U.S.—but that leaves a lot of old-fashioned meters out there that need to be read manually. That means someone will come to your house once a month, physically enter it to read your meters if they are located inside, or you’ll be stuck reading and self-reporting your meters. And if you forget or the utility workers can’t gain access for a while, the utility will estimate your bills, which can lead to unexpected balloon payments later.

The kind of smart meter matters, too. Some smart meters must be read from outside your home via a wireless signal, which means a utility worker may still need limited access to your property in order to get close enough, while others send the information directly to the utility with no interaction necessary. Knowing all this will prepare you for a small but important aspect of living in that home.

Is the home eligible for any subsidies?

If you’re buying a house, your finances are probably in order—today. But none of us know what’s coming tomorrow, and you wouldn’t be the first person to become house poor after the fact. Asking about the availability of subsidies or utility bill assistance programs in your area is good due diligence. You may never need to worry about paying the power bill, but if you find yourself struggling after a layoff, medical procedure, or other financial emergency, having that information on hand can make things a lot less stressful.

Is the service reliable?

It’s almost a cliche for house hunters to run the water in every bathroom and the kitchen to judge the water pressure—but this isn’t really an effective way to test that aspect of your new home. Bringing a water pressure gauge as part of your house hunting tool kit will give you a better idea, but you should also ask the current owners whether the water pressure is consistent.

Getting a good reading when you’re touring the place is just a single data point. Other things to ask about in terms of the quality of the utilities include:

• Does the water pressure plunge when more than one appliance is running?

• How are the internet speeds? Are there slowdowns during heavy-usage periods, or dead spots in the house that might require you to buy a mesh router system?

• Does the electricity ever flicker, or does the home experience frequent brownouts or blackouts?

• Is the water hard? Will you need a softener?

• How often does the area experience water main breaks?

• How quickly do the local utility companies respond to problems (especially emergencies)?

Where are the mechanicals located?

The location of your appliances is important, but is often overlooked. Some questions you should ask about the placement of the water heater, furnace, and other aspects of your potential new home’s utilities. Check out the mechanical area if you can, and consider whether it’s easily accessible—will workers (or you) be able to get in there to make repairs or perform maintenance? Will there be difficulties getting replacement units in and old units out?

Another consideration is the level your appliance will be located on. If they’re in the basement or crawl space, does the area flood? Will their air filters have to work overtime due to dust and other environmental factors? And if utility workers will need to read your meters—where are they located? Will you have to give someone a tour of your messy house every time the meters are read?