Gadgets

Several wacky keyboard designs have been showcased by Google Japan every October for the last few years. Each has their own challenges for practical typing, but especially this new conveyor belt-inspired creation. You’ll learn patience by waiting for the keys you need to roll around — such a moving design.

Seen in leaks last month, the Buds On are Samsung’s first foray into open earbuds, joining the likes of Sony and Bose. They’re powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S7 Gen 1 chip, and have 9.5 hours of battery per charge. South Korea gets them first, on October 27th for ₩299,000 (about $220), with more markets to follow.

The chip company said it pulled in a record $39.8 billion in quarterly revenue from DRAM, which has been in short supply. Micron also reported record quarterly revenue for its data center business at $18 billion, up from $1.57 billion in the same quarter last year. Its quarterly NAND revenue also shot up 526 percent to $14.1 billion.

I just finished editing a new Today I’m Toying With video — and later today, I’ll pack up our biggest giveaway prize yet for one lucky winner. We don’t keep the gadgets we review, and I’m experimentally giving away the ones from my videos every Wednesday! Here’s how to enter TITW Giveaway #14.

Chase Bliss has made the unfortunate decision to discontinue the instrument because of production costs. But it has decided to open-source the entire project, including the hardware, and even released a new, simplified firmware as a jumping-off point for any would-be tinkerers. This also means you could build your own Chompi if you really wanted.

Is Förlig the Swedish translation for lightsaber? Because it’s impossible to see anything but a Jedi’s weapon when looking at Ikea’s new $25 USB-powered LED lamp. It cycles through multiple colors at the push of a button and can be used standing up with an included stand, hung on a wall, or swung around while you make sound effects.

Instead of eliminating screens altogether, the $199 Freckle is a phone designed for kids’ smaller hands that trades distracting social media for apps that entertain through scavenger hunts, stories, music, walkie-talkie functionality, and a camera that can describe what it sees. It’s available for preorder today with a flat $25-per-month fee for connectivity with shipping expected in December.

We don’t know when (or where) DoorDash Air will start piloting deliveries in its launch location of Northern California, but we do now have our first look at the purpose-built drone systems it’ll be using. It features six slow-spinning propellers, and at cruising delivery height it reportedly emits a noise comparable to that of a passing car.

The Gen 2 version of Shure’s MV6 USB Gaming Microphone carries forward the original’s Auto Level Mode and Real-Time Denoiser but makes both features adjustable so you can dial in how loud your voice is in the mix and how much background din is heard. For $169, the MV6 Gen 2 also includes a longer 2-meter USB-C cable and introduces a new all-white color option.

The Wi-Fi 8 standard isn’t expected to be finalized until 2028, but that’s not stopping TP-Link from opening preorders for its previously announced Archer 8 Ultra tri-band router. Pricing ranges from around $907 (€799.90) in Germany to around $1,190 (£899.99) in the UK, but preorder discounts are being offered.

The Zone Vibe Pro wireless headphones cost $259.99 and come in several colors (black, white, blue, pink), and have a very plain design that some may like. They’re meant to be a stylish alternative to IT-supplied work headsets, and they feature mics that can suppress noises from an open office environment.

The toothbrush launched earlier this month, but some users found that it broke quickly. A Dyson spokesperson told Bloomberg that “one production batch of jet tubes experienced a process issue, creating a potential for water seepage which affected the performance of a small number of products.”

Last night I saw a few episodes of season 3 of Color Matters, a YouTube series from Portrait Displays that explores the often underrated role of the film colorist, and how color affects what we feel. Highly recommend all seasons for anyone curious about the use of color in films.

The $99.99 Essential Solar Security Camera is a 2K/24fps camera with an integrated 1.2-watt solar panel so you don’t need to run any wires. Just two hours of sunlight per day can charge its capacious 14,790mAh battery that can keep the camera running for up to six months between top-ups. A subscription starting at $9.99 per month isn’t mandatory but adds features like cloud storage and AI-powered smart detection.

A major update for Final Cut Camera is now available that introduces a redesign with customizable overlays and easier access to popular settings like shutter angle, white balance, and the iPhone 18 Pro’s new variable aperture. Apple Creator Studio has also been updated with new template collections and advanced selections for Pixelmator Pro plus trigonometry, statistics, and logic functions for Numbers spreadsheets.

Google has now confirmed what we reported this spring: ChromeOS is done in 2034. The company says it’s committed to its 10-year-support promise, but for those Chromebooks that can’t be turned into Googlebooks, it might have to get creative.

Blaze Entertainment’s handheld remakes of the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum were supposed to launch in October but the company has “made the decision to move the release date from 15th October 2026 to 22nd April 2027” for all versions following production issues where it “identified areas where the product construction was not meeting our high standards.”

Accessory-maker Rolling Square has launched a new sister-brand called Await whose first product is a screen-free 8-megapixel digital camera that emulates the functionality and limitations of film cameras. You shoot on a simulated roll with 24 exposures but you don’t get to see your pics until they’re “processed” on a mobile app that gives you the option to download the results or order physical 4x6 prints.

Following the 52-pound Bromley 750 that launched last year and the 27-pound Bromley 450 announced in March, the new 14-pound Bromley 150 is now the lightest and cheapest Bluetooth party speaker that Marshall makes, and it still features the array of white LED stage lights hidden behind its front speaker grill. You can preorder it from Marshall’s online store for $499.99 with shipping starting next month.

The July Digital Markets Act ruling required Google to share search data with rival search engines by January 2027, and give third-party AI assistants equal access to Android by that July. Google’s Oliver Bethell told Bloomberg that sharing user search data “would cause irreversible harm to user privacy.”

In the works since earlier this year, plans to go public were only announced a week ago, but are already on the rocks. The smart ring company blames the postponement on “uncertainty in the IPO market,” and CEO Tom Hale suggests it will still go ahead eventually:

The Samsung Art Store’s first cinematic collection includes 38 stills from A24 films that users can display like art on The Frame and other compatible TVs, including shots from I Saw the TV Glow and Midsommar.

The Pixel 11 Pro light is so far underwhelming, only working for calls from favorite contacts or Gemini interactions. Google always said message support is on the way, but a report from Android Authority suggests new colors are coming too, expanding on the five available now. That’s still behind what other devs have done with it.

Sony’s keynotes were once a highlight of the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But the company’s presence has shrunk in proportion to its slow exit from consumer electronics. And with Bravia now a TCL brand, and the Afeela EV joint venture with Honda scrubbed, there’s little reason to attend.

We’d been told the 15-inch laptop would start at $1,299, but preorders just opened for a much friendlier $1,149.99. It’s the biggest of the first five Googlebooks, with an Intel Core Ultra 5 325 processor inside, 16GB of RAM and 512GB storage, and an HDMI port. It ships from October 4th.

Googlebooks will be available at retailers later this week, but you might not need to buy a new device to get Google’s latest laptop OS. “Many of our newest Chromebook devices will be eligible to transition over to Googlebook OS,” says Google in a support note targeted at Chromebook enterprise and education customers. Google hasn’t shared migration paths or device eligibility yet, but it’s encouraging to see the search giant sticking to what it announced earlier this year.