April 5 tech news roundup: Amazon’s “Buy for Me” could revolutionize online shopping, Nintendo Switch 2 announced, Windows Start Menu is getting a redesign

Amazon’s ‘Buy for Me’ feature could change the way you shop online

Amazon is testing a new AI-powered feature in its shopping app. This isn’t merely a chatbot, the company has come up with an option that lets users order products that are not available on Amazon.

The feature is called “Buy for Me“, it uses an AI Agent, to perform certain operations on behalf of the user. While using the Amazon Shopping app, users may come across some items that have a “Buy for Me” button, under “Shop brand sites directly”. Interacting with the button will allow the user to purchase the product from a third-party brand/website. The product’s description is fetched from the third-party store, along with the item’s price, shipping, and applicable taxes. It automates the process of visiting the retailer’s website, and ordering the item directly from Amazon’s app.

Amazon’s AI will automatically use the customer’s saved data, and provide their name, address, and payment details on the checkout page. This data is encrypted. However, returns and refunds are not handled by Amazon, buyer’s will need to sort out the issues with the retailer. Amazon’s Buy For Me is an innovative feature, and could impact how online shopping works, and other services could follow this trend to streamline the experience for users.

Windows 11 is getting a redesigned Start Menu, and a Taskbar improvement

Microsoft is testing a new Start Menu design in the Windows Insider Program. The new Windows 11 Start Menu combines the Pinned apps and Recommended apps into a single section. The Start Menu’s layout is wider, and this change will allow users to pin more apps, and also let them view all pinned apps at once. Windows 11 users will finally be able to remove the recommended section from the Start Menu, if they don’t want quick access to their recently accessed files.

The Windows 11 Taskbar is also getting an upgrade. Microsoft is testing a new feature for it called Taskbar Icon Scaling. As the name suggests, this option is related to the size of the icons on the Taskbar. When users pin several shortcuts, or open many apps, the Taskbar gets filled up, and some icons won’t be displayed anymore. Windows displays an overflow button that you can click on to access the other apps that are hidden. The new Taskbar Icon Scaling is aimed to address this issue.

It reduces the size of the icon automatically, i.e. it scales it down, as more apps opened. Microsoft offers three options to configure the Icon Scaling behavior. It can be set to never, which basically disables the function, or set to always to only display smaller icons. The third option, which is the default setting, scales the icons when the Taskbar is full.

Nintendo Switch 2 announced: will go on sale from June 5

It’s finally official. The much-awaited handheld console, the Nintendo Switch 2 has been officially announced.  The Switch 2 has a custom Nvidia chipset, 256GB of storage. It sports a 1080p LCD screen that is 7.9-inches in size, and supports 4K at 60 fps in TB mode. Nintendo says that the 5220 mAh battery on the Switch 2 will deliver up to 6.5 hours of battery life. The console supports Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth, has a 3.5mm headphone jack, stereo speakers, a built-in mic, and 2 USB-C ports. One interesting change is that the new Joy-Cons attach magnetically to the Switch 2. Additionally, they also work like a mouse in some games. Another interesting change is that the Switch 2 only supports microSD Express cards.

Nintendo is keeping mum about the chip that powers the console, but NVIDIA has confirmed that the Switch 2 supports DLSS, Ray-Tracing and G-Sync. The Nintendo Switch will be available for pre-order from April 9, the console will start shipping on June 5.

Nintendo Switch 2 games cost over $80, and fans aren’t happy about this

AAA games normally cost $60, but Nintendo averted the trend in 2024, and slapped a $70 price tag on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. If you think that was expensive, wait till you hear this. Mario Kart World has an $80 MSRP in the U.S., and that is for the digital edition of the game. It’s worse in Europe, digital editions of games are priced at €80, and physical versions will cost €90. However, this pricing strategy may not apply to all games. Donkey Kong Bananza costs $70 in the U.S., and €70 in Europe, while the physical edition costs an extra ten Euros. This suggests that flagship franchises like Mario or Zelda could be priced higher than games from other franchises.

Naturally, these prices have earned the ire of gamers. Several fans have criticized the pricing, calling it absurd, and said that the company is artificially hiking the price of digital products. But the tariff changes announced by the Trump administration could affect the prices of the console and games even further. This may negatively impact the rest of the gaming industry, and games on PlayStation, Xbox and PC platforms could become more expensive. Gaming could become a luxury that not everyone can afford.

AMD says Ryzen 9000 failures were due to faulty BIOS

Over the past few weeks, a hundred reports about Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPUs failing prematurely have surfaced online. This has led to some concern among users who were worried about the reliability of their PCs. AMD has confirmed that some Ryzen 9000 processors were failing because of a faulty BIOS. The issue seems to affect ASRock AM5 motherboards, which were failing to complete PST. The two companies began investigating the problem, and have identified a memory compatibility issue as the underlying cause. This issue has been resolved in a newer version of the firmware.

ASRock has released a beta version of the BIOS which users can download to fix the boot failures. But, some users argue that a memory issue could not have caused CPUs to be damaged physically. AMD is advising users to update their BIOS as soon as possible. And in case that does not resolve the problem, users will need to reach out to AMD for assistance, and may have to RMA the CPU.