Nintendo is going after the company that showed off unauthorized mockups of the not-yet-announced Switch 2 at CES 2025. In a lawsuit filed on Friday, Nintendo accuses accessory maker Genki of trademark infringement, unfair competition and false advertising, arguing that Genki “embarked upon a strategic campaign intended to capitalize on the public interest surrounding Nintendo’s next-generation console.” According to Nintendo, Genki promoted accessories it claimed are compatible with the Switch 2 despite not having official access to the console, and used the Switch logo to do so.

Following the initial reports in January that Genki brought Switch 2 mockups to CES and published a video said to show a 3D render of the console, Nintendo released a statement to say that neither the hardware nor imagery were official, per IGN. While Genki reportedly claimed it had access to a Switch 2 at first, the company later wrote on X that it does “not own or possess a black market console,” and told Game*Spark (translated by Automaton) that its mockups were based solely on leaked information. In the lawsuit, Nintendo says Genki’s “statements were contradictory and inconsistent,” yet the company “maintained its representation to consumers that its accessories will be compatible with the Nintendo Switch 2 upon the console’s release.”

Nintendo officially announced the Switch 2 on January 16, a little over a week after the mockups made their CES appearance. Even in the months since, Nintendo alleges, Genki “continues to exploit the attention of the media and fan base and usurp and threaten sales of Nintendo’s own accessories,” through means including piggybacking on Nintendo Direct with its own “Genki Direct” event immediately after. In a statement shared on X following the filing, Genki said it is “taking [the lawsuit] seriously and working with legal counsel to respond thoughtfully.”

“What we can say is this: Genki has always been an independent company focused on building innovative gaming accessories for the community we love,” Genki’s post continued. “We’re proud of the work we’ve done, and we stand by the quality and originality of our products. While we can’t comment in detail, we’re continuing preparations to fulfill orders and showcase our newest products at PAX East this week.”

The Nintendo Switch 2 arrives after years of rumors and speculation. In the lawsuit, Nintendo notes that it began planning the next-gen console shortly after the release of the first. Pre-orders for the Nintendo Switch 2 opened in April, and the console will be available on June 5.

The votes are in and residents of a small swath of southern Texas are in favor of Starbase becoming a real city. The newly-designated city is home to SpaceX and many of its employees, and it’s where Elon Musk’s company builds rocket engines, launches spacecraft and manufactures other space-related tech. According to the final vote tally, 212 residents voted in favor of incorporating as Starbase, while six voted against the measure — but, it’s worth noting that most of the eligible voters in the locale are SpaceX employees and only 143 votes were needed to make Starbase a city.

Musk celebrated on X, while the city also made its first post, stating that “becoming a city will help us continue building the best community possible for the men and women building the future of humanity's place in space.” The idea for Starbase dates back to March 2021, when Musk first teased the idea on what was then Twitter. Now that the vote has taken place, Starbase will be separated from Cameron County as its own roughly 1.5-square mile city. This designation is particularly important considering SpaceX may be able to circumvent governmental red tape when it comes to scheduling rocket launches. Previously, Musk’s company had to get permission from county authorities to close a nearby highway or restrict public access to Boca Chica Beach and Boca Chica State Park for rocket launches.

While the vote to designate Starbase as an official Texas city passed, county commissioners and judges still need to declare the election results official, according to Remi Garza, the elections administrator for Cameron County. Even though SpaceX may get a helping hand with Starbase handling its own building and permitting processes, Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino told NBC News that any changes to the existing procedures that SpaceX has to go through would be unnecessary.

A space observatory designed to map the entire sky over a period of two years to further our understanding of the early universe has started snapping images. SPHEREx, which launched in early March, got started with its observations this past week after over a month of setup procedures and system checks, according to NASA. The space telescope will complete about 14.5 orbits of Earth per day, capturing roughly 3,600 images daily and observing the sky in an unprecedented 102 wavelengths of infrared light. Its observations will eventually be combined to create four “all-sky” maps.

SPHEREx’s 25 month survey will be a comprehensive one. The spacecraft “orbits Earth from north to south, passing over the poles, and each day it takes images along one circular strip of the sky,” NASA explains. “As the days pass and the planet moves around the Sun, SPHEREx’s field of view shifts as well so that after six months, the observatory will have looked out into space in every direction.” Researchers will use the SPHEREx observations to study the universe’s expansion in the moments after the big bang, and search for the ingredients for life elsewhere in the Milky Way.

Instead of deciding between four new models of iPhones every fall, you may have to choose among three in both the spring and the fall. A new report from The Information claims that Apple will change the release cycle for its smartphones, starting with the iPhone 18 in 2026. According to The Information, three unnamed supply chain sources detailed that the more expensive models will launch first, meaning the Pro models will keep the fall release window and the standard model iPhones will get pushed to the following spring.

It’s a notable departure from the typical all-at-once release schedule, but it could indicate that Apple wants to make room for other models, like the long-rumored foldable iPhone. If the report is accurate, Apple would release the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max and potentially the foldable iPhone in fall 2026, followed by the iPhone 18 base model, the iPhone 18 Slim and the iPhone 18e in spring 2027.

If you’ve been paying close attention to Apple’s releases, this change may not be much of a surprise. While the company has been releasing its annual batch of new iPhones in September or October since the iPhone 5, Apple started breaking from the schedule with the introduction of the iPhone SE models, which were usually released in March or April. More recently, Apple introduced the iPhone 16e in February to replace the SE range. As for the iPhone 17, we’re still expecting Apple’s regularly programmed schedule with four new devices to be revealed this September.

Computex 2025 is approaching, and it’s sure to bring a ton of announcements about the latest chips, laptops, gaming devices and more from leading brands. The event in Taipei will kick off on Monday, May 19 with a keynote from NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang at the Taipei Music Center. There will be a livestream for anyone not attending in person, so you can watch along on the Computex website or YouTube channel.

Huang’s keynote is scheduled for 11PM ET/ 8PM PT on May 18 (11AM on May 19 in Taiwan Time), and we can expect to hear all about the company's developments in the AI space. It’ll be followed that same day by a keynote from Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon. Computex this year will, perhaps unsurprisingly, focus heavily on AI, with the overall theme being “AI Next.” It’ll also highlight products in three categories: AI & Robotics, Next-Gen Tech and Future Mobility.

An estimated 1,400 exhibitors will be in attendance, including ASUS, Acer and AMD, all of which have previously made big announcements at the annual expo. Computex 2025 will run from May 20 to May 23.

Spoilers for “Lucky Day.”

When the writers for this season of Doctor Who were announced, one name in the roster put me instantly on edge. Pete McTighe may have a distinguished filmography but, in this house, he’s known as the person who wrote “Kerblam.” That’s the Chibnall-era episode summed up as “Space Amazon is great and the people protesting poor working conditions and mass-layoffs are the real villains.” Imagine then, my delighted surprise when “Lucky Day” doesn’t just get its politics right, but it does so with molotov cocktails in hand.

James Pardon/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf

It’s 2007 and the Doctor and Belinda land in London as the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Day. The Doctor, Vindicator in hand, gets another set of coordinates before realizing a small boy, Conrad Clack, saw the TARDIS land. He hands Conrad a 50 pence piece and tells him it’s his “lucky day,” before the boy sprints back to his mother. But she’s not interested in his story about a magical blue box, striking the boy and saying she’s had enough of his lies.

Conrad next encounters the TARDIS 17 years later when he spots it parked down a dark alley. There's a nearby door with a broken lock and he ventures inside to a closed down department store, where he’s stalked by an unseen monster. After a few seconds, the monster brushes past Conrad, leaving green slime on his neck — which is how it marks its prey. When the creature, the Shreek, emerges into the open ready to strike, it’s zapped away by the Doctor and Ruby.

From the shadows, Conrad watches the Doctor hand Ruby a vial of antidote as she, too, was marked as prey. He stalks them back to the TARDIS and overhears their conversation — half an hour prior, she was hanging out with the Beatles, putting this just after “The Devil’s Chord.” He snaps a picture of Ruby and puts it online, asking the internet if anyone has seen this woman.

He tracks down Ruby at some point after she stops traveling in the TARDIS, and invites her onto his podcast. Conrad tries to flirt with his guest, and a quick montage shows them date and start to get serious about each other. He even confesses he was present during that first encounter with the Shreek, and Ruby hands him a vial of antidote. She says the Shreek, which had tagged him with green slime, was preparing to return to this dimension to hunt him again. But UNIT — the Doctor’s military allies here on Earth — captured it (off-screen).

The pair go to a countryside village where Conrad introduces her to his friends in a quiet pub. But, as night draws in, the lights begin to flicker, and the blink-and-you-miss-it blurs of scary monsters appear outside. One of Conrad’s friends, Sparky, goes missing, and Ruby calls UNIT who leap into action despite no signs of a Shreek incursion. Conrad confesses to Ruby he didn’t take the antidote, wanting to prove to her he was as brave as the Doctor to win her heart.

When UNIT arrives, soldiers face off with a pair of Shreek monsters until they reveal they’re just Conrad’s stooges in rubber suits. Conrad isn’t an innocent caught up in a crisis he can’t comprehend, he’s a conspiracy theorist streamer claiming UNIT is a sham organization. He’s the type to engineer stunts and deceptively edit the resulting footage to smear his targets. I won’t name the real world figures Conrad is inspired by as we’d get angry emails from their lawyers, but I’m sure you can work out who they are.

Conrad’s encounter with UNIT was livestreamed, and there’s another montage of people talking to their generic social media followers decrying the organization. He’s arrested, but quickly released, and given a welcome press tour by the British media, including a favorable BBC News report and a joke on the UK version of The Masked Singer. Conrad even gets consoled during an interview on The One Show — a prime time talk / magazine show — by its real presenter Alex Jones (not that one).

UNIT’s overseers in the UK government and Geneva buckle to public pressure to put UNIT under close scrutiny. As its head, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart says, imagine the fate of the world if any dictator got their hands on UNIT’s arsenal of captured alien technology. Someone senior at UNIT demands the caged (and real) Shreek captured off-screen be removed from London and brought up to the helipad ready for transit. Meanwhile, Conrad has a man on the inside, who has been radicalized into believing his own employers are a sham, who helps him break into UNIT HQ.

Kate refuses to lock the building down, insisting that it’s time the issue was solved once and for all. Conrad, with a stolen UNIT rifle in hand, tries to bait Kate into attacking her on camera with some vicious slander about her father, the legendary Brigadier. Kate is happy the Doctor isn’t here, since he won’t stop her from doing what the audience has been demanding she do for the last few minutes. She opens the cage holding the Shreek and lets it go for Conrad.

Like all two-bit bullies, Conrad crumbles in the face of real danger and starts begging for mercy but Kate refuses. Sadly, Shirley hands Ruby a taser, which she uses to knock out the Shreek before it can bite Conrad’s head off. Now that his life has been saved, Conrad goes back to playing up for the livestream, boasting that UNIT’s “special effects” have gotten better. At which point the Shreek wakes up and bites his arm off.

There’s a sharp cut, and next we see Conrad waking up in a prison cell with a contraption around his arm, presumably keeping it joined to his elbow. Suddenly, he hears the TARDIS noise and is brought aboard for the Doctor to tell him that he’s a bitter, sad person who will die in prison. But Conrad is unrepentant and says he “rejects” the Doctor’s “reality.” After he’s returned to the cell, he’s visited by Mrs. Flood, who confirms what he saw was real, and that she’s letting him free as it’s his “lucky day.”

Lara Cornell/BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf

It does appear as if I owe Pete McTighe a fulsome apology and must assume he isn’t at fault for all of the reactionary politics of “Kerblam.” “Lucky Day” is both a worthy sequel to “73 Yards” and a sign that, if Doctor Who is just weeks from an enforced hiatus, then it’s going out swinging. It’s got a lot of targets, including the BBC’s habitual reputation-laundering of unsavory characters. The notion of who is in “the wrong” is made explicitly clear here, too, and Conrad occupies the same political (and narrative) circles as Roger ap Gwillam (Albion TV gets a reference).

Like a lot of this year’s run, the episode feels like an overstuffed script which was then cut down to fit a specific runtime. But the structural work underpinning things feel more solid here, so while a lot of the connective tissue is absent, it’s not to the detriment of the story. Kate’s decision to unleash the Shreek may have been well-telegraphed but it’s better than the solution appearing out of nowhere because there’s five minutes left to run.

There’s an element of the show playing to its strengths, and the genre savviness of its audience here as well. If you know the beats of a girl-meets-boy romance movie, then you’ll spot this is a cracked-ish mirror version of that. And we don’t need much evidence of Conrad’s villainy — calling the Doctor, UNIT and Kate a bunch of frauds to make money from his online audience — since we know they are our heroes. Plus, anyone who slanders Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, after all, deserves to get what’s coming to them.

“Lucky Day” is smart about how it introduces us to Conrad, too, giving us obvious red flags from the get-go. Adult Conrad has no reservations about taking a picture of a stranger and sharing it online for the internet to identify on his behalf. There’s a hint of judgment in how he asks about her relationship to and with the Doctor, mirroring the way Alan Budd flirted with Belinda in “The Robot Revolution.” In fact, it’s an interesting counterpoint to that episode, since we get enough time with Conrad early on to learn to at least be wary of him, rather than it being a fairly unsupported third-act twist.

If there’s one downside, it’s that the episode leans on the trope that survivors of abuse perpetuate that cycle of abuse. Conrad gets hit in the head by his mother and while it’s hard to assume a pattern of behavior from one scene, it didn’t seem like it was the first time. Much as we saw in “Lux,” there are limits to the storytelling possibilities inherent in a series about an immortal science clown traveling anywhere in time and space in a blue box.

This episode is also focused on Ruby’s post-TARDIS life, which has left her in a vulnerable position. As she admits at the end of the episode, her time with the Doctor was spent in a constant state of panic and peril. She’s tired, she’s alone and the first man she tried to form a relationship with turned out to be using her. That’s bound to leave a scar, but the after effects of a trip in the TARDIS is rarely discussed in the context of the series itself. The majority of the classic series' companions lacked detailed interior lives, while modern day ones often move on to other “exciting” things rather than back to a normal life.

Mrs. Flood Corner 

BBC Studios/Disney/Bad Wolf

It does appear as if the structure of the series isn’t just Russell T. Davies relying on a familiar rhythm but something more deliberate. “Lucky Day” is the fourth in a row that shares themes and elements with the same numbered episode in last year’s lineup. It’ll be interesting to see how much of next week’s “The Story and the Engine,” and the following week’s “The Interstellar Song Contest” shares with their counterparts from the first series.

It’s plausible that the time fracture that was featured in “The Robot Revolution” has, somehow, knocked the series off its previously-planned course. That either within the show’s fiction or in its metafiction, we’re explicitly seeing parallel versions of those previous episodes. If you recall from that episode, too, the Doctor says he was told to meet Belinda by an unknown person. What if he was chasing down Conrad’s lead, and if so, would that be enough to create a paradox (even if the TARDIS can avoid such obstacles)?

Then there’s the fact Conrad says he explicitly rejects the Doctor’s “reality,” which feels like a telling way of wording things. Especially as this season’s two-part finale is titled “Wish World” and “The Reality War,” although that title is hardly a massive clue. After all, last season’s finale was “Empire of Death,” as opposed to “The one in which it turns out Stuekh has been clinging to the TARDIS roof for God knows however long.”

I’m not sure I want to read too much into Mrs. Flood releasing Conrad since that, like last week, could simply be a topper to the story. It may be that she’s simply letting him out to wreak more havoc and undermine UNIT and the Doctor’s goals rather than anything specific. Not to mention that if Mrs. Flood is a dimension-surfing entity hell-bent on destroying the Doctor, she’s hardly going to have much use for a schmucky YouTuber.

This week, the BBC announced that “The Reality War” would not be getting its customary early in the day stream online. Instead, it’ll hit the iPlayer and Disney+ at the same time as the UK broadcast, and both episodes are being lined up for a small cinema release. That’s reserved for big event episodes, and it adds more weight to the rumor Gatwa has already left the show. Not to mention he’s starring in the play Born With Teeth from August 13 through November 11 — which would prevent him from shooting a season for 2026.

Outside the mystery box elements of the show, this season feels as if it’s having a meta conversation with itself. “Lucky Day,” for instance, takes a similar premise as “Love and Monsters,” a Doctor-lite episode focusing on one of the so-called ordinary people who are peripherally involved in the Doctor’s adventures. Conrad is initially presented as one of the lost souls who are drawn to the Doctor — you could almost describe them as fans — but who don’t shine brightly enough to get the Time Lord’s special attention.

Oh, and I can’t think of any reason beyond silly fan service that Conrad’s streaming outfit is called “Think Tank” beyond a deep cut nod to 1974’s “Robot.” After all, there’s almost nothing in common between the two entities and their goals are ostensibly in conflict.

Cue a new batch of “Half-Life 3 confirmed” memes. The latest rumor surrounding Valve’s long-awaited next installment in the Half-Life series claims that the game is currently “playable, end-to-end” and could even be announced in the summer, followed by a release in winter of this year. The speculation comes from Tyler McVicker, who’s known for reporting on Valve rumors, during his latest Q&A livestream. According to McVicker, the game is currently playable from beginning to end, which he guesses could put it on track for an announcement and release this year.

Besides McVicker’s hours-long livestream, there have been other recent hints about Valve’s progress on its highly anticipated title. In March, Valve concept artist Evgeniy Evstratiy claimed that he was in the room where Valve made Half-Life 3 on CG Voices Podcast. In the same month, another Valve leaker, Gabe Follower, claimed that Half-Life 3 would be the “end of Gordon’s adventure,” potentially signaling a non-cliffhanger ending to one of gaming’s best franchises. Outside of these rumors, internet sleuths discovered code referencing HLX, which is widely thought to be the codename for Half-Life 3, in major updates to Deadlock and Dota 2.

While these rumors are unconfirmed, they are promising signs of life for Half-Life 3. McVicker said during his livestream that the HLX project won’t be another virtual reality game like Half-Life: Alyx and that there are procedural generation features that aren’t for terrain generation or roguelike mechanics. Before you get your hopes up, remember that Half-Life 2 recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary, and we still don’t have any official confirmation from Valve about a follow-up game.

Google Gemini is adding nannying to its chatbot skillset. According to a New York Times report, Google will make Gemini available to users under 13, so long as they’re under a parent-managed Google account using Family Link. In an email sent to parents, Google said that kids will get access to Gemini to “ask questions, get homework help and make up stories.” This expanded availability will come with guardrails for its new user base, Google spokesperson Karl Ryan told NYTimes, adding that it would prevent Gemini from offering up unsafe content to kids.

In the email, Google acknowledged that “Gemini can make mistakes” and recommended that parents teach their kids how to fact-check Gemini’s responses. Along with double-checking, Google suggested reminding younger users that Gemini isn’t human and to not enter any sensitive or personal data into conversations. Even with those measures, the email still warned that children could “encounter content you don’t want to see.”

With the staggering pace of AI chatbot adoption, concerns about underage users have been bubbling up to the surface thanks to instances of factually incorrect or suggestive responses. In a report published last week, Common Sense Media warned that AI chatbots were “encouraging harmful behaviors, providing inappropriate content, and potentially exacerbating mental health conditions” for users under 18. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta’s AI chatbots were able to engage in sexual conversations with minors. On top of dodging unsafe conversations, Google said it won’t use any data from its younger Gemini users to train its AI models. For now, Google said it’s gradually rolling out access to Gemini for supervised accounts.

It’s the first Saturday of May, which means Free Comic Book Day is here, and this year, even Tamagotchi is getting in on the fun. Bandai has released a limited edition comic for the event, and it sports the new moniker that’s been fueling fan speculation for months: Tamagotchi Paradise. The comic will only be available in physical form, so if you want one, you’ll have to take a trip to your local comic store to pick it up. You can find participating shops using the FCBD store locator.

Internet sleuths first spotted a trademark filing for Tamagotchi Paradise earlier this year, sparking theories about the company’s plans for an upcoming device. The comic doesn’t outright confirm anything — there’s no official statement about whether the device and previously unseen characters pictured in its pages will be brought to market — but it sure does seem to suggest that something really cool is on the way.

Per the Tamagotchi website:

For the first time, you'll explore a new Tamagotchi Planet, a vibrant, magical world.

Meet brand-new Tamagotchi friends as they live, grow, and thrive on their home planet! You'll discover how they navigate their everyday lives in this whimsical world, interacting with their environment, forming bonds, and experiencing their own unique challenges. It's an inside look at their adorable existence in Tamagotchi Paradise.

I’m kind of getting Pokémon Snap vibes from it all, at least in the idea of observing Tamagotchi characters in the wild, which would be a pretty fun and fresh approach to the Tamagotchi universe. But we don't know for sure what any of this means yet. If the purpose of this comic was just to drum up the hype around a new version of the virtual pet toy… well, it’s working. I’m now dying to know more.

In a few months, you'll no longer be able to rent a Nintendo 3DS to guide you around the Louvre and tell you about the pieces exhibited in it. The website Nintendo Everything has spotted a notice in Louvre's official website, stating that the Nintendo 3DS console audio guides "will go out of operation in September 2025." It also stated that the 3DS will be replaced by a new system, but the museum has yet to reveal more details about it. Is the Louvre swapping the 3DS for the Switch or a more traditional audioguide device? Guess we'll find out in a few months. 

The Louvre has been offering Nintendo 3DS audio guides since 2012 as a €6 rental. It can tell you about exhibits in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. It can also tell you about the history of the palace and not just the artworks inside it, as well as give you access to high-resolution images of select artwork so you can zoom in and see the smallest details. But if you've ever gotten lost inside big museums, you may perhaps consider its geolocation tracking capability its best feature. The Louvre is massive, and with 782,910 square feet of space to explore, it's very much possible to lose your way and not find an exit when you need it the most. 

Nintendo's Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrated how the 3DS worked as a Louvre audio guide and location tracker over a decade ago, and you can watch it below.