When I reviewed the Nintendo Switch 2 launched earlier this June, my assessment was that it would be worth buying eventually, but probably not right away. The console then went on to have the biggest gaming launch of all-time, so there’s egg on my face, but I stand by what I said: Until now, the Switch 2 has been a great way to play enhanced Switch 1 games, but hasn’t had many exclusives, so you could generally still play Nintendo’s newest titles without upgrading your device (unless you’re an impatient Mario Kart or Donkey Kong fan).

But now, it seems that’s about to change, and if you haven’t gotten the Switch 2 yet, it might finally be time to take the plunge. In a financial results briefing on Wednesday, Nintendo admitted that “going forward, we will shift our primary development focus to Nintendo Switch 2 and expand our business around this new platform.”

That doesn’t mean the original Switch is being discontinued right away, but despite the latest Pokémon game having come out for it just half a month ago, it does mean the system is getting prepped for retirement. Despite the Switch’s success (154.01 million lifetime sales so far!), the transition makes sense. That console is eight years old at this point, and was already using older hardware than that when it came out. Continuing to make the latest first-party Nintendo games compatible with the original Switch as well could hold Switch 2 development back—and with such a large player base having upgraded to the Switch 2 already (the successor system has sold 10.36 million as of Sept. 30), the company probably doesn’t see it as necessary.

Can I still buy a Switch 1?

Hardware sales won’t be affected for now, if you want to play the existing original Switch library and somehow don’t own one already. In the same report, Nintendo said it will continue to sell the original Switch, “while taking consumer demand and the business environment into consideration.” This also lines up with Nintendo’s previous behavior, as Nintendo waited three years until after the launch of the original Switch to discontinue the 3DS.

When should you get the Nintendo Switch 2?

Nintendo didn’t give too many more hints at its plans in its briefing, but we can take the company’s statement to mean that it won’t start development on any new Switch 1 games that haven’t already been announced. That means we probably already have a good idea of what the Switch 1’s final first-party game will be—after which content for the console will probably start to dry up.

And, to be fair, the Switch’s swan song is fitting. Releasing on December 4, the final first-party game for Nintendo Switch is likely to be Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. It’s the fruition of a troubled development that has taken almost as long as the Switch lasted, with the game’s announcement coming just a few months after the console debuted. Not a bad way to go. Like other recent Switch 1 games, Metroid Prime 4 is also getting a Switch 2 edition that will improve performance and add features like mouse controls, but as it stands, you won’t need to upgrade to play it.

If you’re as stubborn as me, that means you can probably hold off on a Switch 2 until 2026, but to play Nintendo’s big new releases after that, you’ll need to move on.

What about third-party games?

The one exception to the Switch’s impending retirement might be third-party games, which according to this helpful chart from redditor u/ieatdragonz, are planned through at least late next year. Even those are starting to be impacted, though, as many of these games are ports of titles that have already been released elsewhere, while more demanding third-party games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are already starting to skip Nintendo’s last-gen system.

Which Nintendo Switch 2 exclusives are coming out before next year?

While those looking to keep up with Nintendo’s games after December will probably no choice but to upgrade, there are reasons to upgrade before then, depending on your tastes. Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza are both exclusive to the Switch 2, and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, which launched today, is also unavailable on the original Switch. Later this month, these titles will also be joined by Kirby Air Riders.

If any of these games strike your fancy, they already present a compelling reason to upgrade. If not, Nintendo will probably get you at some point now that it’s moved the full force of its development to its new console.

What about the Switch 2’s smaller player base?

In moving development focus to Switch 2 games, Nintendo is making its studios’ lives a bit easier, but also shrinking its active player base. More than 10.3 million players is a lot, but it’s a fraction of the over 150 million players on the original Switch. That means sales for new Nintendo games could be held back by a smaller total possible audience, at least for a while. But at the same time, making its shiny new releases exclusive to its new console could also easily push sales of the new system even further. Plus, it’s not like every original Switch owner is buying every new release now, anyway.

At $450, the Switch 2 is an expensive bit of kit compared to its predecessor (though to be fair, the onld system recently got a tariff-related price increase that made the difference smaller), so it is unclear if its strong early performance will keep up long enough to rebuild Nintendo’s player base from its last generation. But it’s clear the company’s going to be giving the system its all going forward, and based on recent success, it’s got a lot of money to throw at it.

That means that if you don’t want to be left behind when the next Zelda or Mario comes out, it’s finally time to consider opening up your wallet. I still prefer competing hardware like the Steam Deck, to be honest, but I also like that little red plumber, so I guess I’ve got no choice now but to start saving up my gold coins.

Anna’s Archive, a popular website for pirating books and articles, seems to be square in Google’s sights, according to copyright and digital rights publication TorrentFreak. The search giant is said to have blocked some 749 million Anna’s Archive URLs from showing up in search results, TorrentFreak found, after combing through a recent transparency report.

The removal wasn’t necessarily targeted, as Google regularly delists content at the request of copyright holders. At time of this writing, has taken down links to 15,125,359,564 pages since 2011. But this is the latest in an ongoing, AI-prompted saga that is seeing copyright holders crack down on so-called “shadow libraries,” and it already represents around 5% of Google’s overall takedowns.

Anna’s Archive is a platform for pirated e-books

Personally, I hadn’t heard of Anna’s Archive, which makes sense—it’s a newer player in the field. The platform popped up in 2022, shortly after its predecessor, Z-Library, had its domains seized by the U.S. Department of Justice. Since then, it’s been quietly operating on its own little corner of the internet, serving as an open-source search engine for literary works that links to free publicly available sources when they exist, and pirated uploads when they don’t. Like Z-Library, it’s been blocked by German ISPs and sued in the U.S., but remains operational.

You can think of it kind of like the Pirate Bay, but for literary works—but on a larger scale (impressive given how new it is). TorrentFreak notes that only 4.2 million Pirate Bay URLs have been taken off Google, which is paltry compared to Anna’s Archive’s numbers.

AI scraping could be a factor

That discrepancy could be due to more aggressive takedown filing from publishers and authors, as more than 1,000 separate users have issued takedown requests to date, according to the Google data. These include both individuals and larger names like Penguin Random House, and their diligence could be related to Anna’s Archives’ stance on AI, as the site has admitted that it has freely provided access to 30 LLM developers to train on its “illegal archive of books,” and still openly hosts freely accessible pages for others to access.

Where copyright holders and readers will go from here is still up in the air. It’s important to note that, despite all appearances to the contrary, Google does not own the internet. Removing a site from its search engine does not prevent users from visiting it directly, and all three Anna’s Archive domains—annas-archive.org, annas-archive.se, and annas-archive.li—remain live.

Additionally, Anna’s Archive does not host any pirated content itself, but simply provides users to links where they can find it. All of this puts it in a legal gray area, which, when backed by the site’s open-source nature and strong commitment to the ideal that “preserving and hosting these files is morally right,” means it’s likely to continue in some form or another for years.

Still, as companies like Meta are found to have used pirated content to train its AI models, it’s likely actions that Google’s will become more common, and other sites, or even legal entities, might follow suit. Plan accordingly. (And if, like me, you’ve been asking yourself “Who the heck is Anna?” the archive’s FAQ has an answer: “You are Anna.” It’s a nod at the anonymous uploaders who provide it with much of its material.)

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If you have a Fitbit, or if you use the Fitbit app with a compatible device like a Pixel watch, you’ve probably seen “zone minutes” or “active zone minutes” pop up on your screen. So what exactly are active zone minutes, and how do they compare to the other ways we measure exercise, like steps? 

Zone minutes relate to the U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines

Before we get into how zone minutes are measured, I think it will be most useful to look at why we’re counting up minutes at all. Fitbit’s purpose here is actually pretty neat: They’re trying to give you an automated way of telling whether you are keeping up with public health guidelines for exercise, like the World Health Organization’s recommendations for exercise, and the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (which, conveniently, use the same numbers).

As I explain here, these guidelines state that we should all get at least 150 minutes of exercise each week. “Moderate” exercise counts for the guidelines, which includes light activities like walking and housework. I have more here on what counts as “moderate” for these purposes.

The guidelines also say that if you’re getting “vigorous” exercise, like running, you only need 75 minutes to meet the guidelines. Another way of thinking of these numbers is to consider vigorous exercise as counting double. If you’ve done 100 minutes of moderate exercise (like walking), you only need 25 minutes of vigorous exercise to meet your weekly goal. 

And while 150 minutes is a target, it’s actually only the entry level target. The U.S. and World Health Organization guidelines both say that if you’re hitting 150 minutes just fine, you should set your sights on a 300-minute target. In general, more exercise is better (within reason), so it’s handy to keep tabs on how many minutes’ worth of exercise you’ve done this week. Fitbit keeps track of that for you. 

Active zone minutes are detected based on your heart rate

Now we can talk about where active zone minutes come from, and why they’re called “zone” minutes. Your Fitbit (or compatible gadget) can measure your heart rate pretty easily, so the app simply marks you down as completing a “zone minute” any time your heart rate seems to be in a zone that suggests you’re exercising.

There are many ways of dividing up heart rates into zones, and I have a rundown of the most common schemes here. Fitbit likes to use a system where, instead of numbers, your heart rate can be at rest, or in one of these zones. “Heart rate reserve” refers to the difference between your resting and maximum heart rates. 

• Moderate (previously “fat burn”): 40% to 59% of your heart rate reserve (each minute here earns you one zone minute)

• Vigorous (previously “cardio”): 60% to 84% of your heart rate reserve (each minute here counts double)

• Peak: 85% or more of your heart rate reserve (each minute here counts the same as vigorous)

To be totally clear, the Physical Activity Guidelines are not based on heart rate, but on a different measurement called METs. In the MET system, walking is always moderate and jogging is always vigorous. (More about that system here.) On the other hand, in the “active zone minutes” system, an experienced runner may find that jogging is so easy for them that their heart rate stays in the moderate zone. 

So zone minutes are not a perfect match to the guidelines, but they’ll get you pretty close without having to ask you what you’re doing or for how long. Your gadget counts up the minutes, and at the end of the week you can see whether you beat your 150-minute (or whatever) target. For example, my app is telling me that I logged 349 zone minutes last week. Great! And I didn’t have to do anything to count them.

If your zone minutes don’t make sense, check your heart rate settings

Here’s my main complaint about zone minutes: they only make sense if your zones are set correctly. By default, Fitbit calculates your heart rate zones from what it guesses your maximum heart rate probably is. And as I’ve explained before, no formula can accurately tell you what your maximum heart rate actually is. It’s very common for these calculations to be off by 10 or more beats in either direction, which screws with your zones. 

So go into your app, and take a look at the zone minutes you’ve earned each day. Are you getting “moderate” zone minutes when you walk or do light exercise, and “vigorous” zone minutes for jogging or anything strenuous? If so, your zones are probably close enough to accurate, and you can assume they’re giving you a reasonable estimate of how much exercise you’re getting. 

But if you’re getting “vigorous” minutes from walks, or “moderate” minutes from hard exercise, you may want to adjust your zones. Tap your profile picture in the FItbit app, then select Fitbit Settings, then Heart Rate, then Heart Rate Zones, and enter a Custom Max Heart Rate. 

That will let you manually enter a max heart rate. If you’ve done a max heart rate field test, use that. Otherwise, enter the highest number you’ve seen when doing a hard workout. If you haven’t done a hard effort, but your zones seem really off, you can experiment with putting in different numbers and seeing what that does to your zones. As long as you’re getting moderate minutes when doing moderate exercise, and vigorous or peak minutes when you’re doing harder exercise, you’re getting useful metrics to track how active you are.

As Lifehacker’s smart glasses and virtual reality expert, I spend a lot of time flooding my eyes with bright light. Last night, I was testing a pair of soon-to-be released display style glasses that blast out 1,200 nits of light. That’s roughly car-headlight-bright, squeezed into a postage-stamp-sized image projected on glass about a half inch from my eyes. I thought to myself, “Wait, am I frying my eyeballs?” 

So I called up Dr. Sunir Garg, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology and professor of ophthalmology at Wills Eye Hospital, and asked him point blank: What am I doing to my eyes with this stuff? “We think not much,” Garg replied. “If the light is not physically causing you to look away—if it’s a bright screen but it’s not uncomfortable—we don’t think that that’s going to cause any harm to the eye.”

There’s not a ton of research on the long-term effects of VR headsets on vision, but the data out there isn’t raising alarms among eye professionals. According to the AAO, ophthalmologists agree that there is no reason to be concerned that VR headsets and/or smart glasses will damage eye health, function, or development. 

To close the case, I asked Garg whether he’d ever seen or heard of any eye injuries from virtual reality, and he said, “The only scenario [in which] we’ve seen eye injuries is when people were doing something like boxing and tripped over the coffee table and fell down and hit their head.”

How young is too young for using virtual reality? 

“But what about the children?” you might be asking (you hand-wringer, you). Good news there too: Virtual reality headset manufacturers may have age-based guidelines for their products—Meta recommends a minimum age of 10 years for its headsets, and Apple says its Vision Pro should not be used by children under 13—but they aren’t based on research about eyesight. “There’s not a lot of data that suggests that the VR headsets are problematic for kids,” Garg said. “I think we’ll have to kind of hit [Meta and Apple] up for where that justification is coming from,” Garg said, ”because it’s not something that we are really concerned about, per se.”

There’s also no reason to think virtual reality helmets cause long-term vision problems in kids, but if a child is inside all day using VR, it could lead to nearsightedness. It’s not from the VR though—it’s the “being inside” part. “Something about being outside with natural sunlight seems to help regulate the growth of the eye and helps to reduce the amount of near-sightedness that people could be at risk of developing,” Garg said.

So it seems there’s some truth to the old trope of bookworms wearing glasses. Exactly why being an indoor-kid correlates with nearsightedness isn’t clear though; more research needs to be done. 

Virtual reality can cause eyestrain, though

Even if VR gear and smart glasses don’t damage your eyes, they can still cause uncomfortable eyestrain. According to Garg, when you’re using VR or staring at any digital screen, your eyes are not moving much and you tend to blink less, so your eyes dry out, and that can lead to irritation and eyestrain. 

“The fix for that is either moving your eyes around consciously, blinking a bit more consciously, or following the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s ’20/20/20 rule.’” That is: When using any kind of screen, every 20 minutes you should look at something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds.

Motion sickness and dizziness in virtual reality 

Along with eyestrain, common pitfalls of using VR can include headaches, dizziness, and nausea. While your vision might have something to do with these things, the main cause of general VR sickness seems to be the inner ear, not the eyes. “Some people are just really sensitive to the motion component of virtual reality,” Garg said, “It’s less clear to me how much of it is from the eyeballs.” 

Your eyes can handle 1,200 nits because they are tough

To sum up: Available evidence suggests your eyes will not be damaged if you go crazy with the VR, as long as you take breaks every once in a while and blink enough to avoid discomfort. It’s too late for us to save our 20/20 vision by soaking up more sunlight as a child, but at least we’re not frying our eyeballs—and it’s reassuring to know that the biggest health risk from using virtual reality is barking your shins on the coffee table.

Google’s NotebookLM, by far my favorite AI tool, rolled out two new features this week. The app that can turn your notes into a podcast can now generate an educational video based on your study materials. It can also create a report or document from suggested, pre-made templates.

How the new NotebookLM tools work

If you’re unfamiliar, NotebookLM is a large language model akin to the better-known chatbot ChatGPT, but instead of pulling information from all over the internet (with all the risks of inaccuracy that creates), it relies only on material you input directly. You can upload PDFs, links, YouTube videos, plain text, and more, then ask the chatbot questions and it will answer based only on what you’ve given it, even providing links to where it finds the answers in the source material. As noted, it can also generate AI podcasts, which feature two voices discussing your materials, as well as flashcards, mind maps, or practice quizzes.

Video and report generation are the latest additions to NotebookLM’s toolset. You can try them out by locating the appropriate tile along the right side of the screen within your NotebookLM notebook. (Though the app is, frankly, underwhelming, so I recommend always using a desktop computer or mobile browser instead.)

How video generation works

The educational videos are excellent for students or anyone trying to learn something new. I generated one based on the materials I’ve been using within NotebookLM to study for an upcoming certification exam, and though it definitely took over the promised five minutes to create, it came out surprisingly good:

Content from my study guides and materials is included, with key information highlighted visually and with further explanation from a voiceover.

How to generate reports with NotebookLM

The reports are a little more complex. When I pressed Report, I got options like, “Anatomy Explainer” and “Business Development Plan” as suggested choices based on my material. “Briefing,” “Study Guide,” and “Blog Post” are standard suggestions that are always available. I asked a friend who also uses NotebookLM to study for school, and their suggested formats for their Management Concepts class materials were “Strategic Analysis” and “Leadership Profile.”

So it seems that based on what your materials include, the software will create outlines in downloadable document format. I selected “Anatomy Explainer” and, after waiting a few minutes, got a detailed study doc divided into sections like “The Command Center: Your Nervous System” and “The Framework: Your Skeletal System.” It was outlined clearly, like a study guide with more explanation and context.

Why I love these new features

I am a major proponent of using NotebookLM for studying, particularly, because it’s such an easy way to organize your materials and make sure that your work aligns with what your teacher is looking for. Plus, unlike ChatGPT, you can’t exactly use it to do all the work for you; instead, it shows you where it got the information (from materials you provided), enabling you to study more efficiently. The videos and reports are another way to do that, so whether you study best by listing to audio, watching videos, mind-mapping, drilling flashcards, or reading summaries, it’s an ideal choice. You can even ask the chatbot followup questions on anything you don’t grasp.

The reports, especially, have implications for other kinds of work, beyond studying. I use NotebookLM to help me organize my files and materials for my job all the time, so the ability to create a briefing doc or business plan is an added bonus that could be helpful to people in a variety of fields.

For me, part of the appeal of TikTok is seeing smaller, less polished videos from people who don’t fashion themselves as influencers. But what do I know? The company has announced it is holding its first U.S. awards show later this year. It seems the Oscars-ification of short form video is here.

In a blog over on the TikTok site, the company said the show, fittingly called the TikTok Awards, will be held in the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles on Dec. 18, 2025, and will “honor the creators who have inspired, entertained, and connected communities across the country.”

To that end, the site also says it will invite users to “vote for their favorite creators” starting on Nov. 18. So, how will all of this go down?

Who is nominated for the TikTok Awards?

TikTok says it will have announce nominees in 14 categories, including Creator of the Year, Video of the Year, Breakthrough Artist of the Year, and Muse of the Year, whatever that means. But don’t assume you can put forward any old channel for an award.

Towards the end of its announcement post, TikTok included a “Meet the Nominees” section that makes it clear the company has already chosen the competitors—and it might not be anyone you recognize. As someone who has spent a total of 13 hours on TikTok over last week (the things I admit for this job), I only recognize one of them.

To be fair, the company says there are “more to come,” so it’s possible someone I recognize will get added to the list of options. Regardless, it seems like the nominees are being chosen by some internal board, so your mileage may vary on whether you agree with the picks. Personally, I’ll admit that a lot of my favorite channels are journalists, spicy comedians, and political commentators, so it’s possible they’re not showing up here due to an effort to appear apolitical and family friendly. (Justice for Dave the cat, though).

You can vote

Voting for the TikTok Awards will start on Nov. 18, and the company says you can cast your votes using the in-app TikTok Awards hub. While it’s currently unclear how you’ll find the hub, my guess is it will show up as a pop-up over your feed when you first open the app, as it did with prior TikTok giveaways. I’m sure nominated creators will also be quick to link users to the hub.

It’s unclear at the moment how many votes users will get to cast. Some sites, like Crunchyroll, like to let users vote on their awards once per day, likely to encourage engagement or discourage dummy accounts. Whether TikTok will implement a similar system remains to be seen.

How to watch the TikTok Awards

If all you want to know is who wins, then you’ll be able to watch the TikTok Awards themselves live on Dec. 18 starting at 6 p.m. PT, with a “red carpet livestream” starting an hour before. If you’re comfortable watching from your phone, you’ll be able to tune in via the TikTok app, but for better TV integration, TikTok says Tubi will also host the program. If you happen to show up late, Tubi will also have an archive of the Awards available to watch on demand “the next day.”

Can I go to the TikTok Awards In Person?

While TikTok is promising “an immersive IRL experience with interactive moments,” it’s not posting any links to purchase tickets, which means the event is likely invite-only. That’s probably important for creator safety, but a bummer for anyone looking to help bring “the For You Feed to life,” as TikTok puts it.

Are these really the First TikTok Awards?

While 2025 is the first year the U.S. has had TikTok Awards, prior years have seen them come to countries including Korea, Japan, Australia, and Brazil. Likely, the delay has been due to the app’s uncertain future in the U.S., but with a final deal now reached transferring control of the company to U.S. entities, it’s likely TikTok is looking to make up for lost time by amping up its presence in the country.

So, will you be watching the TikTok Awards? Personally, I’m not sure they jibe with what I like most about the app—there’s a whole category celebrating people who sell via commission with the TikTok shop, something I immediately scroll by whenever I see it—but it could be a funny way to spend an evening, I suppose. So, basically the same approach I take with the Oscars—and at least it should make for some good hot takes on the accounts I do watch.