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The best-selling video game console this Black Friday was the PlayStation 5. That surprised no one. The number-two spot went to the Nintendo Switch 2. Again, that was expected. But the bronze position wasn’t held by Microsoft’s Xbox, as you might suppose. Instead, it was claimed by the Nex Playground, a small gaming system that almost no one had heard of two years ago. The Playground has since grown into one of 2025’s hottest gifts. In 2023, just 5,000 units of the controller-free small cube were sold. In 2024, that number spiked to 150,000. This year, the company is on track to sell 600,000 units. While it has a loyal (and growing) fan base, there are still a number of people scratching their heads at the Playground’s sales surge. If you’re one of them, we’ve got answers to all of your questions about this little gaming device that’s managing to carve out a new market in the video game world. What is the Nex Playground? The Nex Playground is an Android-powered console that utilizes a motion camera, meaning you control the onscreen action with movements, rather than a controller. The system uses AI to detect player movements, with a focus on keeping things simple. That’s a strategy Nintendo embraced several years ago with the Wii, offering a gaming console for the masses rather than one that was focused on the core gaming customer (though one that didn’t eschew those financial whales either). [Photo: Nex Playground] The Playground doesn’t look like any gaming system you’ve seen before. It’s a three-inch multicolor cube with a camera lens staring at you. Instead of sitting on the couch, slumped back and passively enjoying a game, Playground players jump around and burn calories as they play their favorite titles. And they can play communally, rather than being isolated or playing with strangers online. [Photo: Nex Playground] It’s a system designed for people aged five and upbut the younger focus doesn’t mean the games aren’t fun for adults. (You won’t, however, find shooters or mature titles.) How much does a Nex Playground cost? The Playground carries a suggested retail price of $249, though it has sold for less than that during some periods this holiday season. That’s roughly half the price of a PS5 or Switch 2. That affordability has made it a popular choice for families, especially those with young children this year. The trick, these days, is finding one in stock and available before the holiday. Who created the Nex Playground? David Lee is cofounder and CEO of Bay Area-based Nex. A father of two daughters, he initially wanted to create a company that would use games to strengthen bonding time between family members, rather than turning kids into screen zombies. As he worked on the Playground, he used his daughters and his mother for feedback, looking for ways to make it accessible to a wide range of players. What games are available on the Nex Playground? The Playground’s catalog leans more toward family-friendly titles, bypassing action games like you’d find on traditional consoles. The system comes with five titles installed: Fruit Ninja, Party Fowl, Whack A-Mole Deluxe, Goal Keeper, and Starri. The full catalog has more than 30 options, with new releases coming every month. How did the Nex Playground become so popular? Two things contributed substantially to Nex’s success: TikTok and the pandemic. The company initially made a basketball shot-tracking app, but when families were stuck at home in 2020, the team began offering more gamified activity, which brought a surge of new downloads. That led the company to begin work on what would become the Playground. Once it launched, word of mouth began to slowly spread, then TikTok cast its eye upon the Playground and things changed fast. The TikTok Shop couldn’t keep it in stock. Retailers began having trouble doing so as well. The harder it became to find, the more people talked about it. And by Black Friday, it had reached a tipping point. Is the Nex Playground sold globally? Not yet. The Playground is not sold on sites like Amazon UK. Given its domestic success, though, an international expansion in the months or years to come seems a logical assumption. Does the Nex Playground have a monthly subscription fee? Yes and no. You don’t have to sign up for any of the company’s PlayPass program, but that’s the only way to get new games added to your Playground. Once you tire of the core five titles, you can get a 12-month subscription to PlayPass for $89. That will get you a new catalog of game titles ever month, along with things like workouts for adults.
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E-Commerce
Its been a rough year for American workers. Unfortunately, 2026 isnt looking all that much better. The year began with tariffsjust as inflation was finally starting to coolfollowed by AI anxiety and headline-grabbing layoffs, before ending with Americas longest ever government shutdown. Surveys suggest many American workers didnt get a raise in 2025, and most are unsatisfied with their current compensation. They feel, however, as though they cant leave their jobs or ask for more moneydespite an increasing cost of livingfor fear of making themselves vulnerable to future layoffs. Instead, most relied on secondary sources of income to make ends meet, further fueling disengagement and burnout at their day jobs. The story of the U.S. job market this year is definitely one of struggle and strife, says Jasmine Escalera, a career expert with the résumé-building platform Zety. That sense of desperation is largely the result of a tough job market, where layoffs are on the rise, job openings are declining, and more Americans are falling into long-term unemployment. We have employees that are in survival mode, feeling as though they can’t make any requests because they don’t want to rock the boat, Escalera says, adding that there could be negative repercussions for employers as well. When you are in survival mode, you cannot also be in creativity and innovation mode. Youre just thinking about how to keep this job. Americans are feeling underpaid, but afraid to ask for a raise According to a recent survey of 1,000 American workers by Zety, 41% of American workers havent had a meaningful raise in more than two years. Overall, 36% feel underpaid, but 66% have avoided asking for more money. And half say theyre grateful just to have a job in this economy, in a trend known as job hugging. The cost of living is still increasing, and we have employees that are unfortunately not feeling as though they can ask for a pay raise, Escalera says. Theyre incredibly concerned about job security and will do whatever it takes to stay in the role they have. The Zety study is consistent with a global survey conducted by online résumé and cover letter builder Kickresume, which found that only 28% of workers are satisfied with their current compensation. Among those who feel underpaid, over a third believe they should be earning 30% or more than their current salary. Only about half of Americans who took part in our survey have had a raise in the past year, and more than 25% havent had a raise in more than two years, says Martin Podu¹ka, editor-in-chief at Kickresume, who co-authored the study. Further adding to workers frustration is the feeling that employers don’t sympathize with their financial struggles, with 80% saying theyre skeptical that their boss comprehends the cost-of-living strain theyre under. People who have a job should probably hang on to it and wait it out if they can, Podu¹ka advises. There will be a day where we will be able to complain again, but this is probably not the year. Instead, theyre turning to side gigs to make ends meet Unable to find a new full-time gig that offers a higher salary, and unable or unwilling to ask for a raise in a difficult economy, many are instead turning to gig work and side hustles to make ends meet. According to a recent survey conducted by MyPerfectResume, 71% of workers relied on secondary income to stay afloat. Among them, 42% say they use the extra earnings to pay off debts, and more than a third relied on it for essentials like housing and groceries. When you feel like you dont have control over whether or not youre going to get laid off, you can take control or just soften the blow by figuring out a way to make more money with a side hustle, explains MyPerfectResume career expert Toni Frana. That was a big deal for people in 2025, and it allowed them to be more resilient. How to prepare for the worst (while hoping for the best) The challenges workers faced in 2025 had many causesranging from tariffs and AI anxiety to inflation and recession fearsand unfortunately, few of those underlying causes appear poised for a resolution in the new year. “Struggle and strife may be the new normal for many American workers, but that doesnt mean theyre helpless to improve their situation. Some, for example, will continue to turn to those side hustles to up their earnings in lieu of a raise or a higher paying job in a difficult economy. Others may want to advance their skills or add new capabilities that can help them stand out in a tight job market. If youre worried, make sure youre taking care of yourself and your career, Frana advises. Are you tracking your career accomplishments and wins? Do you know where you bring value to your organization and what that value proposition could be for your next role? Do you have a good handle on your career story? Those can make for a softer landing if you suddenly lose your job, she says.
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E-Commerce
As AI data centers spring up across the country, their energy demand and resulting greenhouse gas emissions are raising concerns. With servers and energy-intensive cooling systems constantly running, these buildings can use anywhere from a few megawatts of power for a small data center to more than 100 megawatts for a hyperscale data center. To put that in perspective, the average large natural gas power plant built in the U.S. generates less than 1,000 megawatts. When the power for these data centers comes from fossil fuels, they can become major sources of climate-warming emissions in the atmosphereunless the power plants capture their greenhouse gases first and then lock them away. Google recently entered into a unique corporate power purchase agreement to support the construction of a natural gas power plant in Illinois designed to do exactly that through carbon capture and storage. So how does carbon capture and storage, or CCS, work for a project like this? I am an engineer who wrote a 2024 book about various types of carbon storage. Heres the short version of what you need to know. How CCS works When fossil fuels are burned to generate electricity, they release carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for centuries. As these gases accumulate in the atmosphere, they act like a blanket, holding heat close to the Earths surface. Too high of a concentration heats up the Earth too much, setting off climate changes, including worsening heat waves, rising sea levels, and intensifying storms. Carbon capture and storage involves capturing carbon dioxide from power plants, industrial processes, or even directly from the air and then transporting it, often through pipelines, to sites where it can be safely injected underground for permanent storage. The carbon dioxide might be transported as a supercritical gaswhich is right at the phase change from liquid to gas and has the properties of bothor dissolved in a liquid. Once injected deep underground, the carbon dioxide can become permanently trapped in the geologic structure, dissolve in brine, or become mineralized, turning it to rock. The goal of carbon storage is to ensure that carbon dioxide can be kept out of the atmosphere for a long time. Types of underground carbon storage There are several options for storing carbon dioxide underground. Depleted oil and natural gas reservoirs have plentiful storage space and the added benefit that most are already mapped and their limits understood. They already held hydrocarbons in place for millions of years. Carbon dioxide can also be injected into working oil or gas reservoirs to push out more of those fossil fuels while leaving most of the carbon dioxide behind. This method, known as enhanced oil and gas recovery, is the most common one used by carbon capture and storage projects in the U.S. today, and one reason CCS draws complaints from environmental groups. Volcanic basalt rock and carbonate formations are considered good candidates for safe and long-term geological storage because they contain calcium and magnesium ions that interact with carbon dioxide, turning it into minerals. Iceland pioneered this method using its bedrock of volcanic basalt for carbon storage. Basalt also covers most of the oceanic crust, and scientists have been exploring the potential for sub-seafloor storage reservoirs. How Iceland uses basalt to turn captured carbon dioxide into solid minerals. In the U.S., a fourth option likely has the most potential for industrial carbon dioxide storagedeep saline aquifers, which is what Google plans to use. These widely distributed aquifers are porous and permeable sediment formations consisting of sandstone, limestone, or dolostone. Theyre filled with highly mineralized groundwater that cannot be used directly for drinking water but is very suitable for storing CO2. Deep saline aquifers also have large storage capacities, ranging from about 1,000 to 20,000 gigatons. In comparison, the nations total carbon emissions from fossil fuels in 2024 were about 4.9 gigatons. As of fall 2025, 21 industrial facilities across the U.S. used carbon capture and storage, including industries producing natural gas, fertilizer, and biofuels, according to the Global CCS Institutes 2025 report. Five of those use deep saline aquifers, and the rest involve enhanced oil or gas recovery. Eight more industrial carbon capture facilities were under construction. Googles plan is unique because it involves a power purchase agreement that makes building the power plant with carbon capture and storage possible. Googles deep saline aquifer storage plan Googles 400-megawatt natural gas power plant, to be built with Broadwing Energy, is designed to capture about 90% of the plants carbon dioxide emissions and pipe them underground for permanent storage in a deep saline aquifer in the nearby Mount Simon sandstone formation. The Mount Simon sandstone formation is a huge saline aquifer that lies underneath most of Illinois, southwestern Indiana, southern Ohio, and western Kentucky. It has a layer of highly porous and permeable sandstone that makes it an ideal candidate for carbon dioxide injection. To keep the carbon dioxide in a supercritical state, that layer needs to be at least half a mile (800 meters) deep. A thick layer of Eau Claire shale sits above the Mount Simon formation, serving as the caprock that helps prevent stored carbon dioxide from escaping. Except for some small regions near the Mississippi River, Eau Claire shale is considerably thickmore than 300 feet (90 meters)throughout most of the Illinois basin. The estimated storage capacity of the Mount Simon formation ranges from 27 gigatons to 109 gigatons of carbon dioxide. The Google project plans to use an existing injection well site that was part of the first large-scale carbon storage demonstration in the Mount Simon formation. Food producer Archer Daniels Midland began injecting carbon dioxide there from nearby corn processing plants in 2012. Carbon capture and storage has had challenges as the technology developed over the years, including a pipeline rupture in 2020 that forced evacuations in Satartia, Mississippi, and caused several people to lose consciousness. After a recent leak deep underground at the Archer Daniels Midland site in Illinois, the Environmental Protection Agency in 2025 required the company to improve its monitoring. Stored carbon dioxide had migrated into an unapproved area, but no threat to water supplies was reported. Why does CCS matter? Data centers are expanding quickly, and utilities will have to build more power capacity to keep up. The artificial intelligence company OpenAI is urging the U.S. to build 100 gigawatts of new capacity every yeardoubling its current rate. Many energy experts, including the International Energy Agency, believe carbon capture and storage will be necessary to slow climate change and keep global temperatures from reaching dangerous levels as energy demand rises. Ramesh Agarwal is a professor of engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
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