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In our list of the best streaming services we crowned Paramount+ as the best platform for classic movies, and it still is – however, it’s broadening its library of 21st century features in its list of new titles for June 2025.

With over 80 new movies landing on June 1, among the list of new Paramount+ movies lies modern titles that over time have earned modern classic status, starting with No Country for Old Men (2007) – a western thriller from the Coen brothers starring Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin.

As long as I can remember, my wife has started each day with 30 minutes of a Candy Crush game. As long as she can remember, I have started each day by telling her it is pointless casual gamer cack. Now I write for the Guardian, I need to find a more eloquent way of putting that, so I thought I would have a go myself. I am begging you: do not do the same. Candy Crush Soda Saga nearly ruined me in a week.

I like the game mechanics. As Oscar Wilde said, the man who doesn’t love sliding stuff to form chains of three or more matching shapes does not love life itself. This one is wrapped in a cute candy veneer, all fizzy bottles and gummy bears. And that makes the visuals so alluring. When you slide a Colour Bomb into a Candy Fish all the candies that colour get Candyfished and your eyes are treated to a bazillion of them fizzing around the screen destroying everything, while the firm yet gentle haptic feedback makes it a multisensory burst of pure, effervescent joy.

“What’s that clicking noise?” my wife asks.

“Don’t you play it with the haptic feedback on?”

“Oh, I turned that off because I thought it was hurting my phone.”

“In what way?”

“I felt it was putting too much … pressure on it.” She says, like her phone is the USS Enterprise and she is Scotty diverting a dangerous amount of power away from the shields.

We had many chats about Candy Crush while we both played the game in bed. I’m all for increased interspousal communication, but we used to do this kind of thing with broadsheet newspapers and now we’re matching jelly beans on phones. Luckily, you just need one hand to play, so the other is free to punch yourself repeatedly in the face as you realise how pointless your life has become.

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And this game is utterly pointless in the long run. There is no story, no real achievements. It uses a board game path to fake big-time progression, but whether it’s me on level 150 or my wife on level 8,452 (gulp!) the pattern is the same: a few easy levels then a super hard one which, if you haven’t accumulated enough power-ups, is virtually impossible.

That’s when the game drops its trousers and flashes its microtransactions. And by that stage you are so hooked by the mechanics and the colour you hand over your few quid for some extra virtual visual bobbins quicker and easier than those crazy kids getting drugs in The Wire. Oh yes! Candy Crush Soda Saga is the game Stringer Bell went to business school to invent. The cigarette was once hailed as the most efficient poison delivery system ever invented. Not now.

This game “suggests” moves to you. These are frequently not the best ones. That is no accident. This is a game designed to make you fail. It’s a compulsion loop, sure, but one that encourages you to pay for the pleasure. It’s not gambling per se, because you know what you are buying, but, while gambling company ads now scream about setting limits and walking away, this game screams at you to have one more go.

I have been addicted to so many things in my life that I stopped counting. (I became addicted to counting my addictions as well.) But this ranks as one of the worst. It only takes three days until I am dangerously hooked. Last Sunday I played Candy Crush Pop Saga for three solid hours. I nearly missed the Scottish Cup final as a result. Unlike my wife, I was dipping into it during the rest of the day as well, thinking, “Oh it’s been 15 minutes, I may have ended up getting a power-up via the Bake a Cake sub game my Candy Crush team are helping me with.”

The self-loathing of the addict envelopes me. I know this is not nurturing me in any way, but I cannot stop. At least cocaine was quick. In terms of time? In one week I wasted what could have been, in Zelda terms, one third of a Breath of the Wild, one half of a Twilight Princess or an entire Majora’s Mask. And at least they tell stories. If the deadline for this article hadn’t made me stop, I would have had to have buried my phone in a lime pit and set it on fire to escape from Candy Crush.

The irony is that there’s no real difference between this and the arcade offerings that made me fall in love with gaming as child. Pacman, Frogger, Space Invaders et al were all designed to make you pump another coin in the slot when it winked CONTINUE Y/N at you. They were even more repetitive. So I guess by the definition detailed in this Candy Crush castigation, those games were also a waste of time.

But why didn’t they feel like that?

Because back then, all I had was time. It wasn’t the dwindling commodity it is in my 50s. Maybe if I played Galaxian now it would feel like playing Candy Crush: a descent into a gaming horror world so uncomfortable it’s like watching that Event Horizon movie on treadmill while wearing Lego pants. A game that offers nothing repeatedly. Waiting for Godot with gummy bears instead of tramps. Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes – it’s awful.

Google has spent the last two years building up its AI capabilities and infusing it into every possible platform and service, and the Gmail AI summaries are no different. While the Gmail summary cards have been around for a while, with the latest update, Google revealed that its AI-generated summaries will now automatically show up for some users on Android and iOS. Instead of waiting for you to tap and ask the AI to read your private emails for you, you can have automatic email summaries generated to avoid the embarrassment of asking.

We’re sure there are many who do find these Gmail auto email summaries useful for long email chains that have a lot of cumbersome conversation to read through, but we’re not the biggest fans of Google Workspace updates. If you’re among those who would prefer to turn the Gmail AI summaries off, then it is currently possible to do so, although it’s unclear for how long the company will allow users the choice.

Gmail AI Summaries—Want to Offload the Task of Engaging with Your Emails to AI?

Much like Instagram offers to summarize your chat conversations so you don’t have to actually read what your friends and families have to say, Google’s AI summaries offer users a quick bullet-point recap of an email to help them understand what was said in an email. Google showed off the different ways it was ramping up the AI invasion during its Google I/O 2025 event held on May 20-21, and this is only a small part of its advancements.

Gemini’s integration into Gmail isn’t just evident in the email summaries—the AI can also help you write an email if you want to skip building that particular skill or are in a rush to get a response out. These AI tools simplify life as we know it and manage to help with tasks that take forever to get through. There is a concern that infantilizing users and making them overly reliant on tools will leave them helpless in the long run. These AI functions are free now but there will be a day when they will slowly slip behind a paywall, and customers will have no choice but to pay because they don’t know another way to get things done.

How Will Automatic Email Summaries Work On Gmail?

The Gmail summary cards will appear automatically for some users, but they won’t show up for all emails—just the longer ones where Google’s systems think you could use some help. These automatic summaries will primarily show up on smartphones for both iOS and Android users, and considering how difficult it can be to navigate a long email chain on these platforms, the AI summaries will be immediately beneficial.

“Gemini will synthesize all the key points from the email thread and any replies thereafter will also be a part of the synopsis, keeping all summaries up to date,” Google said in its post. The automatic email summaries have already been rolled out and users should start seeing them with their emails in the next 15 days.

If the auto email summaries don’t show up for a particular email but you want it to be condensed into a more consumable form, you can also choose to find the “Summarize” button and summon a summary yourself.

The Gmail AI Summaries Can Be Turned Off

Despite users having already protested the automatic AI summaries on Google searches, the company remains convinced that its customers cannot live without the perks of AI, and hey, what better way to convince users other than desensitizing them to its presence as much as possible?

If you’re among those who don’t want Gmail to summarize threads, you can disable it, but beware that this means losing out on other Gemini features as well. The Google Workspace updates bring AI as a package deal. To disable the auto email summaries and other Gemini features, you can try the following steps:

• Click on the gear settings icon on the top right corner of the Gmail interface
• Then click on the “See All Settings” option and you will be redirected to the “General” settings tab
• Scroll down to the Google Workspace smart features and click on “Manage Workspace smart feature settings”
• Disable the “Smart features in Google Workspace” using the toggle and click on “Save”

You can find the same Smart feature settings on your Android device as well. On iOS, you’ll have to go through the Data Privacy setting to find the Smart features. Following these steps will disable the large majority of Google Smart features so you’ll have to consider whether you’re willing to function without these features, but you can always turn them back on if you want.

Are You a Fan of Google’s Workspace Updates?

The Gmail AI summaries are only one part of the large-scale shift towards artificial intelligence. The company is making a very dedicated attempt to lead in the category of AI and it isn’t allowed in championing the tool as the future of technology. Many users are big fans of the shift towards convenience and the simplification of everyday tasks while on the other hand, many are extremely resistant to this callous use of AI and its impact on the environment.

Regardless of the resistance however, there is no denying that we are headed towards an AI-powered future and most will have to get used to the idea that they will have to use AI in some capacity, especially within the workplace.

Have thoughts to share on Gmail’s AI summaries or other Gemini tools? Let us know what you think. Subscribe to Technowize for more updates on all things tech and gaming.

There was a time when certain shops would resemble nightclubs at about midnight: a long queue of excitable people, some of them perhaps too young to be out that late, discussing the excitement that awaits inside.

The sight of throngs of gamers looking to get their hands on the latest hardware when the clock strikes 12 is growing increasingly rare. But if you happen to walk by a Smyths toy shop at midnight on 4 June, you may encounter a blast from the past: excitable people, most in their teens or 20s, possibly discussing Mario Kart.

They will be waiting to buy the Nintendo Switch 2, the first major games console launch since 2020 and potentially the biggest of all time.

What’s particularly notable about this launch isn’t the queues but just how few there will be. About 10 years ago, the midnight launch fad started to fade away. More and more players were buying digital copies of games, which meant they could download and start playing them straight away without leaving their homes.

It means that this time around, Smyths is the only UK chain taking part. Even in the States, the home of frenzied launch-day consumerism, only Best Buy and Nintendo’s own stores in San Francisco and New York have confirmed midnight openings.

This is a stark contrast to the noughties and early 2010s. Back then, thanks to the vast global success of the PlayStation, Wii and Xbox consoles, video game launch events for titles such as Call of Duty, Halo and Grand Theft Auto were supported by thousands of stores around the world, and the biggest were extravagantly stage-managed.

Microsoft’s Halo 3 launch events in the US were accompanied by dozens of actors dressed as space marines; Bill Gates himself showed up at the Seattle branch of Best Buy. In the UK, the Call of Duty Ghosts event at the Westfield in Stratford hired a drill sergeant to yell at customers.

“My favourite was Skyrim,” says Greg Weller, who was then the UK marketing manager for Bethesda Softworks. “We got the specs of Game’s flagship store on Oxford Street and covered the whole front with Elder Scrolls artwork. We put a snow machine on the roof, so we made it snow in November on Oxford Street. We had press there, we had a cosplay competition, there was a humongous queue, and so many people were dressed up – they wanted to be part of the story, part of the community.”

Console launches were a major phenomenon on a par with any movie premiere. For the launch of the Xbox One in 2013, Microsoft took over Leicester Square, building a vast Xbox-branded globe in the centre where the musicians Plan B and Katy B performed. A fortnight earlier, Sony took over the Standard High Line hotel in New York and turned it into a giant video game arcade with developers showing off their wares to thousands of gamers.

For the stores and game publishers, these lavish launch events increased footfall and generated word of mouth and press coverage. For the fans, they were a way to feel part of something. “Growing up as a gamer in the 90s, we were quite ostracised for the hobby,” says Rich Thompson, now a developer and founder of Black Rose Studio in Hull. “But then having shops opening at midnight, it was mind-blowing. When Fallout 4 came out, our local Game store hired a DJ; it was a party atmosphere, there were hundreds of us there. I vividly remember people swapping contact details in the queue – you were among your people.”

It wasn’t all fun and games, however. Midnight launches sometimes descended into chaos. “The problem was, you’d have one shop open in a city centre that’s full of people coming out of the pub,” says Thompson. “Drunk people would come into these launches, cause a scene and refuse to leave. I remember a huge fight breaking out at one Fifa launch night. Getting thrown out of a midnight game launch became a badge of honour.”

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In 2006, a man was shot by masked thieves while queueing to pick up his new PlayStation 3 at an event at a Walmart in Putnam, Connecticut. (He later told a local newspaper that, though seriously injured, he still staggered into the store to pick up his console.) In London, the Metropolitan police were so concerned about violence that they banned PlayStation 3 midnight launch events at all shops throughout the city apart from the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street.

The transition to digital media, stiff competition from online firms such as Amazon and the disaster of the Covid lockdowns meant specialist high street chains began to close. Game once had more than 600 shops in the UK; now it has about 240. According to data from the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association, UK physical game sales dropped by 35% last year.

Will the Nintendo Switch 2 launch turn things around? As we’ve seen with the vinyl revival and the unexpected incline of Blu-ray sales (due in part to consumer frustration with ad-riddled streaming sites), physical media is gaining popularity once more.

There does seem to be a growing revival of interest in physical games. Boutique publishers such as Strictly Limited and Limited Run are producing beautifully packaged editions of modern and classic titles, while game cafes and retro arcades are on the rise.

And, after all, the experiential nature of the launch event, the buzz, the social pleasures, is not something that can be replicated by an online purchase.

“I got my dad to drive me to a store at midnight for the Xbox launch,” recalls Thompson. “He’d just finished a 12-hour shift. He thought it was just going to be us, but there was a huge queue. The staff were handing out drinks, Limp Bizkit were playing on a stereo system – for 13-year-old me it was just the coolest thing I could imagine. I looked up at my dad and he wasn’t a gamer but he was excited too – there was an energy. All these people just turning up at midnight for a party in a shop.”

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Donald Trump said he would double tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from 25 per cent to 50 per cent in a fresh escalation of his global trade war.

The US president unveiled the increased levies as he touted a $15bn partnership between Nippon Steel and US Steel at a rally in Pennsylvania, promising to erect a tariff “fence” around domestic metals production.

“We’re going to bring it from 25 per cent to 50 per cent, the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry,” he told the crowd in West Mifflin.

“Nobody is going to get around that . . . At 25 per cent, they can sort of get over that fence. At 50 per cent they can no longer get over the fence.”

The new levies will take effect from June 4, the president wrote in a Truth Social post following the rally.

Trump has sought to revitalise America’s industrial heartlands by aggressively targeting what he sees as dumping by foreign importers. In March, he slapped 25 per cent levies on steel and aluminium imports in one of the first broadsides of his global trade war.

Pennsylvania was one of crucial swing states Trump won in last year’s presidential election after he and Joe Biden courted blue-collar voters with competing promises to protect manufacturing jobs.

“Whatever the legal barriers or economic fallout, Trump is clearly determined to continue using tariffs as a policy tool to protect American smokestack manufacturing from the ravages of foreign competition,” said Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University.

The Canadian steel industry, the biggest source of US imports, slammed Trump’s move.

“Unwinding the efficient, competitive and reliable cross-border supply chains like we have in steel and aluminum comes at a great cost to both countries,” said Candace Laing, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

The European Commission said that Trump’s decision “adds further uncertainty to the global economy and increases costs for consumers and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic”.

As the tariff “undermines ongoing efforts to reach a negotiated solution” Brussels is “prepared to impose countermeasures” which will come into effect on 14 July “or earlier, if circumstances require”, it said.

Gareth Stace, director-general of trade body UK Steel, said the tariffs were “yet another body blow”. UK steel exports to the US are worth £400mn a year. “Uncertainty remains as to whether and when our second biggest export market will be open for business or is being firmly shut in our faces,” Stace said.

Friday’s announcement increases trade tensions once again two days after a US trade court ruled many of the president’s tariffs illegal, though this did not include sectoral levies, such as those on steel and aluminium. The White House has vowed to fight the decision.

Trump’s volatile approach to tariffs — repeatedly announcing new levies before later dialling them back — has caused confusion among companies and led to huge swings in markets in recent months.

The Trump administration reached a deal with China two weeks ago to lower tariffs between the two countries, which had reached as much as 145 per cent. But tensions appeared to be rising again on Friday when Trump accused Beijing of reneging on the arrangement.

The steel tariff escalation comes after Trump last week endorsed Nippon Steel’s “partnership” with US Steel, reversing his campaign trail opposition to a deal between the Japanese company and the American producer.

The president on Friday hailed what he called a “blockbuster agreement” with a “great partner” that he said would “ensure this storied American company stays an American company”.

Trump said Nippon Steel had made a “monumental commitment” to invest $14bn in the company, including more than $2bn to increase steel production in Pennsylvania’s Mon Valley and $7bn to modernise mills and build facilities in Indiana, Minnesota, Alabama and Arkansas.

Additional reporting by Ilya Gridneff in Toronto, Alice Hancock in Brussels and Gill Plimmer in London

A MAJOR UK retailer has been slammed by gamers after cancelling pre-orders for new Nintendo Switch 2 consoles.

Several hopeful gamers have reported receiving out of the blue emails from the retailer cancelling their pre-orders.

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Game has since confirmed that they have cancelled an unspecified number of Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders.

No reason for the cancelled orders has been given by the retailer leaving hopeful customers in the dark.

Game took to social media to offer an apology to disappointed customers following a wave of online anger.

Successor to one of the best selling consoles in history the Switch 2 has been hotly anticipated for years.

The new model will be released to the public on June 5 with eager gamers pre-ordering the console.

Several gamers who placed their pre-order through Game however will be sorely disappointed on release day.

Game said in a statement on social media: “We sincerely apologise for the recent cancellation of some Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders.

“We understand how disappointing this is, especially for those who have been eagerly awaiting their order.

“We’re currently working hard to reinstate as many cancelled orders as possible.

“If your order was impacted please know that we are doing everything we can and will be in touch with further updates and next steps.”

The retailer sent out a slew of emails in recent days to notify hopeful customers of their cancelled orders.

A wave of fury against the retailer was launched online as upset gamers flocked to social media to complain.

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Game went on to say: “Thank you for your patience and understanding while we work to resolve this. We truly appreciate your support.”

Several retailers have had problems with Switch 2 pre-orders, in the US Walmart, Target and GameStop have all cancelled some pre-orders.

Further disappointment was reported when it was revealed that most retailers are no longer able to take on fresh pre-orders so close to launch day.

Smyths Toys in has stepped up amid the controversy and said that it will have a “limited” number of consoles ready for sale in store on release day.

Customers who have had their pre-orders cancelled were left outraged.

One took to social media to say: “This is why I didn’t pre-order from GAME.

“They have disappointed me countless times over the last 2 years. Smyth’s all the way.”

Game has been contacted for comment.

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The message Zia Yusuf wanted to send was clear. With a backdrop of the City of London behind him, from the 34th floor of the Shard, the Reform UK chair laid out an economic policy designed to show his party meant business.

In a briefing over a full English breakfast for some of the nation’s journalists on Friday morning, Yusuf reiterated an announcement the Reform leader, Nigel Farage, had made overnight from another hotel 5,000 miles away in Las Vegas: the party would now accept donations in bitcoin, and if elected to power would make tax and regulatory changes to bolster Britain’s adoption of cryptocurrency.

As far as settings go for a press conference, commanding views over St Paul’s Cathedral and the banks and asset managers of the Square Mile, it is straight out of the Westminster playbook, even if the policy idea is pure Donald Trump.

However, the trouble with Yusuf’s message to the City was not the questionable credibility of crypto – viewed with unease at the Bank of England as the wild west of finance – but the party’s broader tax and spending policies.

Riding high in the opinion polls, scrutiny of Reform and its plans for the economy is growing – led this week by an attack from Keir Starmer who claimed that Farage’s tax and spending policies were grounded in the same “fantasy economics” used to devastating effect by Liz Truss.

The accusation Labour makes is that Yusuf and Farage would spook the City with unfunded tax cuts, sparking a meltdown akin to the ill-fated former prime minister’s mini-budget. And despite the posturing from the heights of the Shard, the verdict from many economists is that Starmer could have a point.

Reform has made expansive tax pledges worth at least £60bn – with most of the costs relating to a promise to raise the income tax personal allowance to £20,000 a year, a substantial increase on its current £12,570. Reform has also pledged to increase the threshold for the 40% higher rate of income tax in England from £50,271 to £70,000.

In the argument about whether Reform’s sums add up, Richard Tice, the party’s finance spokesperson, has suggested most politicians have no idea about the Laffer curve. Named after the US economist Arthur Laffer, it is an illustration of a theory that there are optimal tax rates at which government revenue is maximised.

The idea is that tax cuts could stimulate economic activity, thus bringing in more revenue. While a tax rate of 100% would clearly stop dead economic activity, the idea that tax cuts pay for themselves has also been widely debunked including by Greg Mankiw, the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W Bush, who has described Laffer advocates as “charlatans and cranks”.

Tice acknowledges that there is an “optimum point”, while Yusuf said that in government Reform would prioritise tax cuts “in the right sequential order and make sure that the numbers add up”. Many economists, too, warn tax rises announced by Labour will undermine economic growth.

However, the criticism remains that Reform has mostly promised sweeping tax giveaways without credible corresponding measures to avoid widening the country’s already £100bn-plus budget deficit and £2.7tn debt pile.

Add to this Britain’s low economic growth rate, above-target inflation, elevated national debt and rising borrowing costs for governments around the world linked to investor fears over Donald Trump’s trade war, and the argument is that room for additional borrowing is pretty slim.

After Farage’s welfare pledges this week, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said Reform’s announced fiscal policies so far would cost the exchequer between £60bn and £80bn a year in foregone income and additional outlays. The IFS warned this was not yet balanced by corresponding spending cuts or tax rises elsewhere, which it said would be needed for the plan to be implementable.

Yusuf said Reform’s plans were a work in progress and were liable to change as the party developed its 2029 manifesto. “You shouldn’t just transfer or copy and paste all of that [policies from the 2024 document] into an assumption about what the manifesto would be for the next general election,” he added.

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It could be a fair point given the distance to the next election, and how much the economy is likely to change between now and then. Labour also stands accused of reneging on its early 2024 promises. However, voters may expect better from a putative party of government – especially one trading on public anger at politicians for moving the goalposts.

However, Yusuf insisted that savings could credibly be made from “scrapping net zero”, slashing overseas aid to zero, stripping 5% from “quango spending” each year and removing all funding for “asylum hotels”.

“The numbers I just gave you there add up to 78 odd billion, right? And that would be £350bn-£400bn over the course of Nigel’s first term,” he said.

“Economists at the Institute for Government have questioned whether these savings would ever be deliverable, highlighting that most of the £45bn of net zero savings promised by Reform was money being spent not by the government, but the private sector.

When Truss brought forward her mini-budget, she used a Treasury document running to more than 40 pages to justify her tax plans – yet still tested the confidence of City investors.

For Reform, there could be a danger of history repeating.

A RARE “severe” warning has been issued for a massive solar storm due to arrive at Earth tomorrow.

The storm risks causing major disruption to internet, phone signals and power grids.

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The warning has been put in effect by the Space Weather Prediction Centre.

It comes after a coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted from the Sun yesterday evening.

The authority says it will likely lead to “immediate geomagnetic disturbances”.

A statement says: “Confidence in an Earth-arrival component to this CME is good.

“However, timing and intensity are more uncertain. These watches represent potential based on our best analyses.

“We will not know the true nature of this CME’s geomagnetic storm potential until the CME arrives at our solar wind observatories located 1 million miles from Earth.

“Upon arrival at those spacecraft, we will know the magnetic strength and orientation that are very important to what levels and duration of geomagnetic storm conditions are expected to occur.

“As always visit our website for the latest information and updates.”

The Space Weather Prediction Centre adds that impacts to technological infrastructure are “possible” but could be mitigated.

Its impact might also mean the aurora could be visible in the northern half of the United States.

This could be visible as far south as Alabama and Northern California.

The CME erupted from the Sun on the evening of May 30 and is expected to arrive at Earth on June 1.

The “severe” storm watch is in effect through to June 2.

MICROSOFT is warning users that their passwords will disappear soon from a popular free app.

The tech giant is removing the password storage tool within its Microsoft Authenticator app.

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While many use the platform to verify their identity there is also a useful password autofill capability.

The feature allows users to securely store all their passwords in one place and summon them from any mobile device or computer you’re logged into.

But it’s being phased out, with the first stage commencing in days.

From June, you’ll be blocked from saving any new passwords on the app.

Then in July, the autofill function that automatically adds your login details onto webpage will stop working.

Finally, the entire saved passwords tool will cease in August with any login data stored on the app deleted.

Microsoft has ramped up warnings to users, with a banner now appearing in the app.

“Autofill via Authenticator ends in July 2025,” the app says.

“You can export your saved info (passwords only) from Authenticator until Autofill ends.

“Access your passwords and addresses via Microsoft Edge at any time.

“To keep autofilling your info, turn on Edge or other provider.”

The popular passkeys and two-factor authentication features on Microsoft Authenticator will continue to work as normal.

It all comes as tech firms shift away from the dreaded password which are easily hacked, due to common mistakes like re-used passwords or easily guessed terms.

By comparison, passkeys can’t be guessed and they’re impossible to re-use too.

A number of tech companies such as Google are shifting people from passwords to passkeys.

Over the last few months U.S.-China trade relations have been pretty hard to make sense of – unless you look at what’s happening through the lens of game theory. Game theory is all about how decisions are made, based not just on one side’s options and payoffs, but on the choices and incentives of others.

So, are Donald Trump and Xi Jinping competing in a simple game of chicken? Or is the game more like the prisoner’s dilemma? On today’s show, we try to decide which of four possibilities might be the best model for this incredibly high-stakes game. And we take a look at who is playing well and who might need to adjust their strategy.

For more on the U.S.-China trade war:

This show was hosted by Keith Romer and Amanda Aronczyk. It was produced by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Kwesi Lee with help from Robert Rodriguez and Cena Lofreddo. Additional production help from Sylvie Douglis. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money‘s executive producer.

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Music: Universal Production Music – “Better Weather,” “Two Can Play,” and “Time to Spare”