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Nintendo says its Switch successor will be backward compatible with Switch games

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What’s this new mystery Nintendo device?

Nintendo hasn’t announced its Switch successor yet, but we do know one thing for sure: it will be able to play current Switch games and have carryover for your Nintendo Switch Online services and account. The news was announced during Nintendo’s midyear policy briefing, with further information promised “at a later date.”

Nintendo also talked about numbers for the current Switch (PDF), noting that it sold 4.72 million units in the past three months, a drop of 31 percent compared to the same period last year but well above previous consoles eight years after they launched.

That adds up to 146 million Switch units sold and a new record for software sales on a Nintendo platform, which reached 1.3 billion units as of September 30th, 2024. It also noted that Switch Online subscriptions dropped slightly from last year to about 34 million members. At the same time, the number of people opting for the pricier version with the Expansion Pack library of games continues to increase.

According to the presentation, “More software has been played on Nintendo Switch than on any other Nintendo hardware.”

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All three of the major console manufacturers have had spotty records with backward compatibility. Both the Xbox Series X and the PS5 are mostly backward-compatible. But since the transition from the Wii U involved going from discs to cartridges, the Switch is not. Playing a game from previous Nintendo consoles at the moment is a function of optimism, involving the hope that either Nintendo releases a remastered Switch port or brings the game to its Switch Online library, but that won’t be the case this time around.

According to Nintendo, the Switch 2 (or whatever it’s actually called) is still on schedule to be revealed during this fiscal year, which runs until the end of March 2025, without interrupting Nintendo’s existing connection with over 100 million annual Switch players.

The conversation about backward compatibility isn’t just about player satisfaction but also video game preservation. A report from the Video Game History Foundation found that over 87 percent of games released before 2010 are “critically endangered” or unavailable for purchase. While Nintendo has brought some of its back catalog to the Switch, there are still a lot of inaccessible games. Nintendo also directly contributed to the increasing scarcity of older games by shutting down the Wii U / 3DS e-shop last year.

Update, November 5th, 2024: Added additional details.

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Swiggy IPO nets $606 million from institutional investors

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Invesco raises its valuation of Swiggy to $13.3B

Swiggy has raised around $606 million from a set of more than 75 anchor investors as part of its $1.35 billion initial public offering, as the Indian food delivery and quick commerce startup prepares for the country’s second-largest listing of the year next week.

The Bengaluru-based startup, which is seeking an $11.3 billion valuation in the IPO, received bids worth $15 billion for the $600 million portion. Indian institutional investors received about 56% of the overall anchor allocation, sources familiar with the matter said. Eight of the top 10 Indian mutual funds have invested in the anchor round.

The anchor investors include BlackRock, Fidelity, Norges Bank, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Nomura, Jane Street, Citadel, Motilal Oswal, Kotak, and 360 One, as well as mutual funds and insurance units operated by Indian lenders SBI, ICICI, Kotak, and HDFC, the sources said, requesting anonymity.

In an exchange filing, following the publication of the story, Swiggy confirmed the fundraise.

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Swiggy, which counts Prosus, SoftBank, Accel, and Coatue among its backers, competes with firms including Zomato and Nexus-backed Zepto.

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How to stop the Electoral College from invading your home screen

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How to stop the Electoral College from invading your home screen

Some iOS users with the Washington Post app installed may have looked down at their device tonight only to find an undismissable black toggle hovering on their screen, with electoral vote counts in the 2024 presidential race slowly ticking upwards. (On my own iPhone it appears as the dynamic island.) If you tap on it it merely expands to give you more information about the race, along with little drawn portraits of the candidates, which is decidedly not the content you want if you were just trying to find the button to make the whole thing go away.

It took me a little bit of jumping around to figure out how to get rid of it, but this is how to dismiss the Electoral College hell-toggle on iOS:

Go to your Settings. Select Apps towards the bottom. Scroll down to the Wash Post app. Click on Live Activities. Turn off the toggle Allow Live Activities. The hell-toggle should vanish.

Turn off “Allow Live Activities” if you want to get rid of the electoral count toggle.
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If you want to bring it back, turn on Allow Live Activities again, and then go into the Washington Post app. Click on the gear wheel icon in the upper right to access your settings. Select Live Activity Settings and turn on the toggle to allow live updates from the presidential election. You may need to also click on “Start Presidential Activity” beneath that.

Apparently Apple News also has a hell-toggle, and it presumably can be dismissed in your iOS settings in a similar fashion. I am not plagued with the Apple News hell-toggle, so I wouldn’t know.

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Quordle today – hints and answers for Wednesday, November 6 (game #1017)

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Quordle on a smartphone held in a hand

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,000 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today – or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my Wordle today, NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles.

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Solar stocks tumble overnight as Trump leads in election results

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Solar stocks tumble overnight as Trump leads in election results


Copper Mountain Solar in El Dorado Valley, pictured on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in Boulder City, Nevada. (Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Bizuayehu Tesfaye | Tribune News Service | Getty Images

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Solar stocks sold off overnight as investors see Donald Trump leading in the U.S. presidential election.

Solar stocks are falling on fears that a possible Trump victory would spell trouble for the Inflation Reduction Act, which has fueled a clean energy boom in the U.S. through tax credits to expand solar energy.

The benchmark Invesco Solar ETF was down 7% in overnight trading on brokerage Robinhood. The solar panel manufacturer First Solar tumbled 8% overnight. Residential solar stocks Sunrun and Sunnova fell 6% and 2.6%, respectively. Inverter manufacturer Enphase tumbled 5% and Nextracker was down nearly 5%.

Trump’s campaign platform calls for the termination of the IRA, which he refers to as the “Socialist Green New Deal.” The IRA is one of President Joe Biden’s signature achievements. The law passed on party-line vote in 2022 without any Republican support.

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Trump is leading in the electoral college and is projected to win the key swing state of North Carolina, according to NBC News. The future of the IRA, however, will depend not only on whether Trump wins the White House, but whether Republicans also secure control of Congress.

Kamala Harris’ campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told staff in an email Tuesday that the clearest path to victory for the vice president lies in the so-called Blue Wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.



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World’s first wooden satellite launched to space

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World’s first wooden satellite launched to space

Japan has just launched the first-ever wooden satellite to space.

The LignoSat cubesat was sent skyward by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday and arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Dragon supply ship the following day. The satellite will stay in orbit for about six months once it’s deployed from the ISS later this year.

Created by scientists at Kyoto University in partnership with homebuilder Sumitomo Forestry, each side of the cubesat measures a mere 4 inches (about 10 centimeters). It’s made of honoki, a type of magnolia tree native to Japan, and has been constructed using traditional Japanese techniques that forgo the use of screws or glue.

The idea behind the mission is to test the effectiveness of using wooden materials for satellites as a way to reduce space junk and protect the environment. When a satellite is decommissioned in low-Earth orbit, operators will try to dispose of it by burning it up in Earth’s atmosphere. But the large metal objects don’t always entirely disintegrate, with chunks of metal sometimes making it to the surface of our planet. Tiny metal particles can also end up in the environment.

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Sensors aboard LignoSat will send back data that will allow scientists to learn about how well the wooden satellite is able to deal with the harsh conditions of space, which include huge fluctuations in temperature.

Digital Trends first reported on plans for the wooden satellite four years ago. Speaking to the BBC at the time, Takao Doi, a professor at Kyoto University and a former Japanese astronaut who has been to the ISS, said: “We’re very concerned with the fact that all the satellites which reenter the Earth’s atmosphere burn and create tiny alumina particles which will float in the upper atmosphere for many years.”

Speaking more recently, Doi said that if a wooden satellite design is found to be a viable alternative to metal ones, the team behind LignoSat plans to pitch it to SpaceX.


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EU to slap a fine on Apple for its ‘anti-steering’ App Store policies

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Samsung's latest "documentary" ad stars former Apple Geniuses

Apple may soon be facing a hefty fine from the EU over its App Store policies. It would be the first time the iPhone maker will be penalized under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Apple to be the first company penalized under the EU’s DMA for its App Store policies

Apple was declared guilty of enforcing “steering” policies on its App Store by the EU earlier this year. The European Commission also started a new investigation into Apple’s lackluster support for alternative iOS marketplaces in Europe.

The EU alleged Apple is undermining alternative iOS app stores. However, Apple is to face a hefty fine under the EU’s DMA, Blomberg has reported. This would make Apple the first company to face financial penalties under the DMA.

The Commission is gearing up to levy the penalty after it found that Apple’s “anti-steering” practices harmed competition on the App Store. Simply put, the EU concluded Apple does not wholly support the concept of allowing developers to guide or point users to cheaper purchases outside the App Store. EU deemed this behavior illegal under the DMA back in March.

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How much fine Apple may have to pay the EU?

Incidentally, it is not just Apple that is facing heat or steep fines from the EU. Other tech giants such as Google and Meta are also under scrutiny, and they are facing some very hefty fines.

Back when Spotify had complained to the EU, the latter had slapped a €1.84 billion (about $2 billion) fine on Apple over its App Store policies. Incidentally, Spotify’s complaint about Apple’s anti-steering practices predates the DMA.

Currently, Apple is facing fresh proceedings into the company’s support for alternative iOS and iPadOS app stores. The EU has objected to Apple’s Core Technology Fee, its eligibility requirements for developers, and also its outlook towards third-party accessories. Additionally, the EU continues to allege Apple hasn’t made it easy for iPhone users to switch to third-party marketplaces.

The DMA rules state companies can be charged up to 10 percent of annual global revenue and up to 20 percent for repeat offenses. This reportedly translates to a $38 billion fine. Apple is yet to comment on the development. However, Apple would most likely contest whatever amount the EU decides.

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