The rumors are true…there is a Nintendo Switch 2 on the way. In a YouTube video, Nintendo officially teased the long-awaited Switch 2. Engadget.com reports that we will learn a lot more about the new portable console on April 2nd, during the Nintendo Direct presentation. Nintendo didn’t disclose a release date with the video. There IS backwards compatibility for existing Switch games. The Switch has been out since 2017, and has and some minor upgrades, but this is the first real successor to the popular handheld console. 

The FTC is suing John Deere over its repair monopoly. According to gizmodo.com, this comes as for years, Deere has made it hard for farmers to fix their equipment. Today the Federal Trade Commission announced it’s going to sue to try to stop them. The FTC and the Attorneys General of the states of Illinois and Minnesota are suing John Deere over unfair business practices related to repair. According to the complaint, Deere has unlawfully restricted farmers from fixing their own farm equipment. Under the scheme, farmers had to return tractors to John Deere-authorized dealerships to make official repairs. Sometimes those can take weeks or more, just when farmers need their equipment to harvest, for example. Letting independent shops do the work would free the backlog, so farmers and stockmen could have their Deere gear back in the fields when they need them most. Deere is saying that letting outsiders do the work interferes with their protection of the rights of proprietary software. The FTC wants Deere to make the tools to fix the software available to farmers and indy repair shops. 

If you are a refugee from Meta’s apps like Instagram, and are jonesing for a photo sharing app now, you are in luck. Techcrunch.com says an independent developer is building a photo-sharing app for Bluesky called Flashes. It is powered by the same tech that runs Bluesky, the AT Protocol. As Meta drops real moderation like X did, a lot of people are wanting to used decentralized apps like Bluesky and Mastodon. A lot of the younger users are joining Chinese App RedNote as a possible shutdown of TikTok looms. RedNote is more heavily controlled by the Chinese government, but some younger users feel that US apps have spied on us and stolen data since day one, so no big deal. Back to Flashes, though…at launch it will support photo posts of up to 4 images and videos of up to a minute, just like Bluesky. The posts will appear on Bluesky, too. 

Google and YouTube are kicking in $15 million to LA area relief organizations for fire relief. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan are sending a $4 million contribution, and Snap CEO and co-founder Evan Spiegel said that he and co-founder Bobby Murphy have already distributed $5 million in ‘immediate aid’ to LA relief organizations. According to variety.com, they said they plan to donate more.  Disney, Paramount, CAA, Comcast and NBCUniversal, Netflix, Amazon and Warner Bros. Discovery have also ponied up to help LA fire victims. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.