Shoppers on Amazon looking for products from the portable gadgets maker Anker are already seeing the effects of US tariffs against China, with an 18% average increase across 127 products since April 3, according to the Reuters news agency.

Reuters was citing information from the product research company SmartScout, which tracked pricing on the retailer for the products, which are manufactured in China. The 127 products account for about one-fifth of Anker’s products on Amazon, Reuters said.

Anker did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Consumers are being advised to shop carefully for products that are manufactured in or include components from countries affected by tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, ranging from smartphones to vehicles to cameras and TVs. The US is currently holding China, where many electronics are made, to a 145% tariff rate. China has retaliated with 125% tariffs on US goods sold in China. 

Is now the time to buy?

Consumers who are planning to make purchases this year need to avoid panic buying and plan ahead to time their purchases, said Stephanie Carls, a retail analyst with the discount-finding service RetailMeNot and video host for Ziff Davis Shopping.

A barrage of news about tariffs is causing lots of uncertainty for buyers.

«This week in general, it’s been kind of wild,» she said. «Are we doing (tariffs) or are we not doing them?»

Carls said, «I think it’s really making people sit and almost like wonder ‘what do I need to prepare myself for?’ As the tariffs are rolling out, these prices are then rising behind the scenes and shoppers are having to then be much smarter and I think savvier.»

Outside of Black Friday, the best time for heavy discounts on items such as electronics tends to be during back-to-school season and, for products like Anker’s, during Amazon’s Prime Day events. The next one is expected to be in July, and Carls said it will be interesting to see if discounts will be as high as they’ve been during previous shopping events.

She suggests checking out sites such as CamelCamelCamel to track historical pricing for items on Amazon. Stacking savings with credit cards or sites that offer cashback on top of sales prices and promo codes, if they’re available, can help offset price increases, she said. 

«Smart shoppers are watching these trends and then they’re shopping accordingly,» Carls said. «So we’re in a window where planning ahead can really help your wallet. And I think that that’s just going to be a situation where you have start paying attention to that timing mixed with those different sale events that are happening.»

The Hellfire Gala isn’t the only reason for Marvel Rivals PC players to party in Season 2. The hit hero shooter just got a new experimental performance setting that aims to speed up load times and prevent crashes.

PC players have been plagued with issues since the release of Marvel Rivals. Even with adequate memory and beefy GPUs, the game’s performance has been shaky for many players. The new mode aims to solve these issues, especially for any players who have 16GB of RAM or less installed in their rig.

Toggling Switch Shader Compilation Mode will ensure that the game only goes through the shader compilation on the first startup after a new patch or graphics driver update, rather than every time you launch the game.

The developers also have optimized the game’s memory usage, cutting down on severe frames per second drops, visual stutters and crashes caused by memory shortages.

Here’s how you can turn on the new Switch Shader Compilation Mode and optimize your Marvel Rivals performance.

How do I turn on Switch Shader Compilation Mode for Marvel Rivals?

You don’t actually turn on the new performance setting from the in-game settings menu. Because Switch Shader Compilation Mode affects load times, you need to toggle this option within the Marvel Rivals launcher before you start the game.

The Switch Shader Compilation Mode setting appears in a long rectangular box directly to the left of the «Launch» button. To turn on the mode, simply check the box on the left side of the rectangle and run the game.

Known bugs that can occur with the Switch Shader Compilation Mode

This new performance feature was released in an experimental state, which means you might run into some bugs. None of these are game-breaking, nor are they permanent, so you don’t have to worry about running Marvel Rivals with this option toggled.

When Switch Shader Compilation Mode is turned on, some textures may render abnormally at the beginning of a match but will return to their normal state after several frames.

As these textures properly load, you may also experience momentary stutters before the game once again settles into a continuous picture. Both of these bugs are supposed to last for only a few frames at the start of each match, well before players step outside of the spawn doors.

A heads-up for those using older silicon: On systems with lower end CPUs (those with six or fewer threads), enabling Switch Shader Compilation Mode alongside AMD FSR3 Frame Generation could potentially create stutters that will last throughout a match.

This doesn’t mean players with less powerful CPUs can’t use Switch Shader Compilation Mode but it does mean that they should disable AMD FSR3 Frame Generation while they do so. It’s unclear whether there will be a fix for this bug — but development will continue on this experimental performance feature nonetheless.

Pop star Katy Perry may need to update the lyrics to her hit song Firework to «Baby, you’re an astronaut.» On Monday, Perry is set to become one of the latest celebrities to visit space. Author and former journalist Lauren Sanchez is also part of Blue Origin’s NS-31 mission. Sanchez is the fiancé of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin. 

NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist Amanda Nguyễn, film producer Kerianne Flynn and CBS host Gayle King (Oprah Winfrey’s bestie) fill out the roster for the all-female crew. 

This will be the first all-female spaceflight since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s historic solo spaceflight in 1963. Tereshkova was the first woman in space.

How to watch Katy Perry go to space

The New Shepard spacecraft will launch from West Texas. The launch window opens at 8:30 am CT on Monday, April 14. Blue Origin’s live coverage kicks off at 7 am on Youtube and on X.

Does New Shepard reach space?

There’s an ongoing debate about what represents space. For example, everyone agrees the International Space Station is in space but commercial rocket rides like what Blue Origin operates fall into a gray zone. One benchmark is the Karman line, an imagined line 62 miles above the Earth’s surface.

NASA recognizes «there’s really no clear boundary between where Earth’s atmosphere ends and outer space begins,» but says most scientists recognize the Karman line as the transition point to space. So unless you want to get into a nitpicky argument, Perry and the rest of the crew will be making a brief visit to space.

The crew will experience weightlessness after the spacecraft passes the Karman line. The return trip involves a parachute-assisted landing.

This will be the 11th human flight for the New Shepard program. Blue Origin has already flown 52 people into space, including Star Trek’s William Shatner, Good Morning America host Michael Strahan and Bezos.