Gadgets

A huge portion of the tech industry has decided that smart glasses are the next big thing. But why? Smart glasses are incredibly hard to make, hugely socially complicated, and require users to want to wear a gadget on their face. The Verge’s Victoria Song helps us figure out which features, if any, will make smart glasses worth all the trouble.

The original HP 16c launched in 1982 as a calculator programmers could use for coding and debugging. Production stopped in 1989, but Moravia Education has resurrected the HP 16c with a faster processor and the ability to now save and load programs. Only 10,000 are being made for $129.95 each.

Virtuix announced a new version of its Omni One treadmill that now supports the Meta Quest 2 and Quest 3 headsets directly as part of the Made for Meta program. For $2,595 you can physically run, walk, jump, and crouch to navigate VR games using the Omni One for Quest without crashing around your living room.

Thirty years ago today the N64 was released in Japan. To help mark the occasion, 8BitDo has announced new clear blue versions of its Ultimate 2 Wireless controller and Retro 87 Keyboard. The $59.99 controller is available today, while preorders are now open for the $99.99 keyboard, which won’t ship until August 14th.

If you’re looking for a compact Switch 2 travel dock, go with GuliKit’s new $30 option. If you want more functionality, Jsaux’s new $60 6-in-1 solution can connect the Switch 2 to a TV, access the internet over ethernet, charge four additional Joy-Cons plus Nintendo’s Pro controller, and fold up for travel.

Sure, you could buy a smart scale for a body composition breakdown, but why bother?

The redesign, which is a huge improvement, was announced at CES this past January and has been slowly rolling out across devices. It’s now on Ember TVs, the Fire TV 4K Select, and Fire TV Cube. Partner TVs from Hisense recently got the update, with additional manufacturers’ TVs being added later this summer.

Valve has been trying to crack the living room for more than a decade, and the new Steam Machine is its best attempt yet. It’s a little bit PC, a little bit console, and a lot pricy — starting at $1,049, it had a lot to live up to. The Verge’s Sean Hollister has been testing the device, and shares his findings on whether the Steam Machine can hang with PlayStation and Xbox. He also explains why, despite a never-ending list of challenges, Valve is still trying to make this device work.

It costs $129.95, ships late July, and includes a few goodies beyond the dedicated chassis for Steam’s upcoming console. You can save $30 by buying the “Poverty Cube,” which ditches the extras, but you’ll have to wait until October to get it. Does this mean the Steam Machine itself is imminent?

Days after confirming there won’t be a new budget CMF-branded phone because of RAMageddon, Nothing has started teasing… a new budget Nothing-branded phone. We’re not sure how the economics work there, but it certainly looks like the Phone 4B is on the way, presumably cheaper than the midrange Phone 4A.

The $799 MPC One G2 has an 8-core processor with 4GB RAM, and 64GB of internal storage. That means you can run 32 plugin instances and 16 audio tracks simultaneously, up from eight of each in the previous model, and polyphony is now 256 notes, up from 64.

Cait Dooley, Apple Watch and Health Product Marketing Manager, was quick to tell TechRadar that older Apple Watch models will still work with newer iPhones and receive security updates. It’s just that Siri AI and some other watchOS 27 features require a bit more horsepower.