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Playdate is having a sitewide games sale, like a real grown-up console
Panic is holding a sitewide sale on Playdate titles, the first in the console’s history. This sale is to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the online store.
You can now buy a Playdate console without an obscene waiting period
The Playdate console has been tough to get a hold of since being released, as pre-orders have vastly outnumbered current orders. However, Panic says you can order now and have it immediately shipped.
A big Analogue Pocket restock is coming, but cart adapters are delayed again
Analogue just announced a forthcoming restock of its Pocket portable gaming console. You’ll be able to order one on December 4 and the company promises to have them shipped to homes by Christmas.
1010music’s Tangerine is a charmingly orange and ridiculously tiny sampler
1010music’s colorful and portable Nanobox line just gave birth to a brand-new sampler, the Tangerine. This orange and portable sampler lets users trigger one shots, play synced loops or even record live loops.
Sonicware’s SmplTrek is a battery-powered groovebox for on-the-go beatmaking
You can use the sampler's built-in mic to capture audio pretty much anywhere.
Samsung's portable Freestyle projector focuses and levels automatically
The floodlight-style device weighs just 1.83 lbs.
Dell’s new monitor lineup includes a $350 portable second screen
Dell has unveiled a range of new monitors including a 4K display with USB-C and its first 14-inch portable secreen.
Analogue Pocket portable console delayed again, this time until October
The $199 Analogue Pocket will play old portable games from their original cartridges, once it ships in October.
Playdate's mirror app links the handheld to a PC for streaming and control
When Panic's Playdate portable console ships, you'll be able to plug it into a PC to mirror the screen for streaming, or control it from the computer.
Samsung's fingerprint-secured T7 Touch SSD drops to $160 for 1TB
It's the lowest price we've seen to date for the external storage device.
Analogue's portable Pocket console is delayed until May 2021
It's been nine months since Analogue announced the Pocket, a $199 portable console that can play Game Boy, Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color and Atari Lynx games from original cartridges. The console was scheduled to launch in 2020, but Analogue now says, due to the “unfortunate global state of affairs and supply chain challenges," the retro portable will ship in May 2021. The Pocket, like all of Analogue's consoles, is built around a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chip.
Bang & Olufsen adds Alexa to its Beosound A1 Bluetooth speaker
B&O says this is the first Bluetooth-only speaker with Alexa built-in. The first A1 sounded great for its size, but B&O says it improved the sound quality for the 2nd-gen model. The 2nd-gen Beosound A1 is available now in black and grey color options from B&O and select retailers.
Teenage Engineering’s IKEA collection lands in stores next month
If IKEA's Sonos speakers are a little bland for your taste, you might be happy to know that the FREKVENS line, a collaboration between IKEA and Teenage Engineering, arrives in February. The collection is meant to get funky house parties started, and it includes everything from speakers to spotlights, spill-resistant furniture and a raincoat -- all with Teenage Engineering's signature colorful quirkiness.
Samsung’s T7 Touch SSD can be locked with a fingerprint
Security is especially important for portable SSDs, which might carry tons of sensitive information yet end up tossed in a bag. Samsung recognizes this. To make its latest portable SSD more secure, it has added a fingerprint sensor to the new T7 Touch, which was named a CES 2020 Innovation Awards honoree.
Mophie’s latest wireless charging station can jumpstart your car
Mophie has been a leader in wireless charging for years. It even beat Apple to the punch. Now, the company is upping the ante. Not only does its new Powerstation Go offer USB-A and wireless charging, it can also jumpstart your car.
The best portable (and affordable) USB MIDI controllers
Whether you're a musician always on the go or just tight on space, there are plenty of reasons to pick up a portable MIDI controller. I've been on the hunt for the perfect portable and affordable controller. (You don't want to lose or break something expensive while you're traveling, after all.) But honestly, there is no perfect controller. There are some very good ones out there, but none has ticked every box for me. Similarly, you'll need to figure out which one best addresses your specific needs, with the fewest trade-offs. None of these controllers rises head and shoulders above the rest to make it the clear winner. So I've laid out the strengths and weaknesses of what I think are the five best options currently on the market.
Amazon unveils a portable battery-powered Echo
Amazon hasn't built a portable Echo device since the little-loved Tap, but that situation has now changed. The retail giant has unveiled the Echo Input (Portable Smart Speaker Edition) exclusively for the Indian market. It has 360-degree sound and comes with a 4800mAh battery that powers it for 10 hours of continuous music playback and 11 hours of standby life.
The Organelle is a music computer that can do almost anything
Not long ago, "portable" was basically a synonym for "toy" when it came to keyboards and synthesizers. Sure, a classic Casio like the VL-1 is not without its charms. But it's not exactly a serious musical instrument. That's changed a lot in recent years, partially due to miniaturization and clever engineering but mostly thanks to the relentless march forward of computing power. Perhaps no device is more emblematic of this than Critter & Guitari's Organelle. It is, at its core, a computer, and I don't mean that in the same broadly defined way that almost all electronics are computers. I mean that inside there's a Raspberry Pi running Linux. It's this fact that makes the Organelle so unique and flexible. Unlike other portable music gadgets, like the Pocket Operator, that focus on being a drum machine or a sampler, the Organelle tries to be all the things. It's a synthesizer, a sampler, a sequencer, an effects processor -- almost anything someone with the right coding skills can dream up. But there is a danger in trying to be a jack-of-all-trades: You often end up as a master of none.
Senate bill aims to make user data 'portable' across social networks
Three senators think they have a way to address some of the antitrust concerns around social media companies. Today, Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia), Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) will introduce a bill that would force social media companies to make user data "portable," so that it can be easily transferred to competing (read: smaller) services.
These are all of the Alexa devices Amazon unveiled today
Today, Amazon held its second-annual hardware deluge. Like last year, the company had a lot to unveil. It revealed a slew of Echo devices, Alexa-powered wearables, Ring's first indoor security cam and a smart oven. The company also shared Alexa updates -- like the voice assistant's ability to impersonate celebrities.
