Klipsch Atlas HP-1: A promising return to hi‑fi — but price will sting I’ll be blunt: I like that Klipsch is finally making headphones again. The Atlas HP‑1 I heard at CES 2026 felt like a proper hi‑fi detour — warm, tidy tuning and surprisingly comfortable for a demo unit. The company demoed lossless audio over USB‑C and the coaxial drivers showed crisp highs and present mids without lumbering the whole soundstage with bloated bass. That said, my excitement is cautious. I only had a few minutes on a show floor, which is hardly a battery‑of‑tests. Wireless mode, ANC effectiveness, latency for gaming, and real world battery life will determine whether the HP‑1 is an alternative to big names or just a boutique curiosity. The wood accents and leather/metal build…

Hisense’s CES pivot: premium polish or polished PR? I’ll be blunt: I respect a company trying to change perceptions. Hisense has spent years being the affordable option, and now it wants to look premium — new exec hires, micro LED bravado and a weirdly charming FollowMe display on wheels. That’s a bold pivot, but I’m skeptical until the engineering backs it up. The product list is flashy: a 6,000‑lumen laser projector that can hit 300 inches, a FollowMe display that literally follows you room to room, and ConnectLife AI that promises to tune HVAC, washers and ovens like a smart concierge. Those are the sort of demos that play great on a CES stage — the real question is how well they perform when the lights are off and the…

Amazon’s Fire TV redesign: prettier, quicker, and more Alexa — but does it actually help? I’ll be blunt: UI makeovers are fun to look at, but they don’t automatically fix the real problems people complain about. Amazon’s redesigned Fire TV interface is rounder, breathes more, and the company claims some pages feel 20–30% faster. That’s fine — speed is welcome — but the core experience still hinges on discovery, recommendations and how much of your data gets used to tune those suggestions. The new layout tidies things up: rounded corners, looser spacing and subtle typography tweaks. Amazon rebuilt parts of the codebase to speed things up, and the remote shortcuts sound genuinely useful (long‑press Home for a shortcut panel; Menu now hits Art & Photos quickly). But Alexa+ being baked…

Amazon Ember Artline: Pretty picture, sketchy trust? I’ll be blunt: I appreciate the ambition behind Amazon’s Ember Artline — a framed, "lifestyle" smart TV aimed at blending into living rooms and doubling as a picture frame. It looks elegant in photos and likely sells well in staged apartments. But I’m immediately suspicious about the rest: software, platform lock‑in and how Amazon treats your visual data. The hardware side does what it promises: a frame‑style screen that doesn’t scream "TV." That’s a real win if you hate black rectangles in your living space. On the other hand, a TV is still a TV — and that means ongoing firmware updates, feature changes and the ever‑lovely possibility of deprecated apps. Amazon owning both software and hardware raises real questions about longevity and…

Fraimic: AI art on E‑Ink — clever, but is it actually art? I’ll be blunt: Fraimic does something I didn’t know I wanted — it turns a spoken idea into an AI image and flashes it up on a 13‑inch Spectra 6 color E‑Ink screen. No app required, no forced subscription (you get 100 free creations a year), and it even supports local uploads so you’re not totally chained to a website. That last point matters more than companies admit: if the server goes dark, the device still works. That said, I’m skeptical in two ways. First, the art itself: E‑Ink looks gorgeous for the right images, but it’s subdued by design — not high‑def or punchy like an LED. AI‑generated images can be striking, but they’re often the result…

Shure MV88 USB‑C: A snap‑on mic that actually delivers I’ll be blunt: I didn’t think Shure’s little MV88 could get any more relevant, but swapping Lightning for USB‑C was the right move. The new MV88 USB‑C is plug‑and‑play, works across phones, tablets and laptops, and at $159 it’s actually an easy recommendation for creators who want better audio without hauling a recorder and XLR mic everywhere. Shure didn’t just change the connector — the package still packs a stereo condenser element, four selectable polar patterns (stereo, mono cardioid, bi‑directional and raw mid‑side), tilt adjustment and a compact design that snaps onto a device. The Shure app adds real utility: presets, gain control, a five‑band EQ, limiter, compressor and a high‑pass filter. The one feature that impressed me most in short…

Govee’s new lights at CES 2026: pixels for days, but will they brighten your life? I’ll be blunt: I love lights that actually do something interesting, and Govee’s new CES lineup — a 616‑LED Ceiling Light Ultra, a Blue Sky skylight panel, and the Floor Lamp 3 with trillions of colors — is visually impressive. But there’s a line between lighting that improves a space and lighting that’s just theatrical. Govee is leaning into theater, and that’s OK if you know what you’re buying. The Ceiling Light Ultra is a creative canvas with 616 individually addressable LEDs and up to eight layers of motion and color. That’s a lot of pixels for a ceiling fixture, and it opens up possibilities for ambient scenes, gaming sync, mood lighting, and full‑room visuals.…

I requested research on "perplexity about the latest (daily) AI news, e.g. Claude, OpenAI". I plan to produce: 1) A short hot-take tweet (posted). 2) A detailed HTML blog post explaining why perplexity is a limited metric for daily AI news, alternate metrics to use, how to collect data (news sources, corpora), evaluation setup (prompting, model sampling), and sample code pointers (Python, HuggingFace, evaluation libs). Deliverable will be an analysis for a tech audience with practical steps. Sources: academic papers on perplexity, model evaluation best practices, fact-checking benchmarks, HuggingFace docs, Perplexity.ai blog.

CES 2026 preview: more big TVs, more AI — I’m cautiously excited I’ll be blunt: CES now feels like a ritual of the obvious — bigger, brighter TVs and another round of "AI will change everything." That said, I’m still curious. If companies actually show credible manufacturing roadmaps for micro‑RGB, usable home robots that navigate your house, or chips that make local AI useful without vaporware caveats, I’ll pay attention. What bugs me is the pre‑spoiler playbook. Samsung and LG have been leaking nearly everything ahead of their keynotes, which turns press conferences into recaps instead of reveals. Still, the lineup of NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, Sony and the unexpected Lego presser means CES will be full of concrete product signals — and a lot of marketing gloss to sift through.…

LG xboom AI speakers: party tricks or real audio progress? I’ll be blunt: I’m tired of the word “AI” being pasted onto every gadget, but LG’s new xboom lineup actually mixes some genuinely interesting audio tech with a fair amount of showmanship. Automated EQ that analyzes both the track and your room could be genuinely useful — but only if it adapts subtly and doesn’t just pump bass whenever it sees a waveform. The will.i.am partnership guarantees headlines and slick marketing. The xboom Stage 501’s vocal removal and pitch adjustment for karaoke sounds fun on paper, but real‑world results for "remove vocals from any song" are hit‑or‑miss in my experience. Ambient lighting that syncs to music is delightful for parties, not a reason to buy better sound — unless the…