Every major tech conference eventually finds its thesis statement. CES landed on “everything is connected.” SXSW staked out culture-meets-technology. BEYOND Expo‘s thesis for 2026 is more specific, and honestly more timely: AI has spent years proving itself in software, and the interesting question now is what happens when it leaves the screen. The official theme, “AI: Digital to Physical,” takes over from last year’s theme of Transforming Uncertainty into a Trigger for Innovation. Timed perfectly around the global speculation that AI’s a bubble, it’s a genuine reflection of where the most consequential AI work is actually happening right now, in robotics labs, automotive platforms, wearables, and manufacturing floors across the Greater Bay Area.

BEYOND has been building toward this moment since Dr. Lu Gang launched it during a global lockdown in 2021, a decision he’s called delusional in hindsight during an interview with Yanko Design, but with the kind of grin that says he’d do it again. The original problem he was solving was simpler than people realize: Asia’s most interesting founders kept showing up at CES and Web Summit as attendees rather than headliners. A hardware startup out of Shenzhen with genuinely world-class AI chops would get a 3×3 booth on a back wall while the stage went to the usual suspects. BEYOND was built to fix that imbalance, and five years in, it’s working.

Click Here to know more about the BEYOND Expo 2026

The 2026 edition is aiming for 30,000 attendees, a significant jump from 2024’s 20,000, and the programming reflects a maturing event that knows its own strengths. The summit lineup spans Humanoid Robotics and Embodied AI, Enterprise Agentic Workflows, Autonomous Driving, AI-Integrated Wearables, and a PayFi and Decentralized AI track that will either feel prescient or premature depending on your priors. What ties all of it together is the through-line of AI becoming something you interact with physically, not just through a chat interface. That’s a meaningful editorial choice, and one that puts BEYOND in a different conversation than conferences still treating large language models as the whole story.

The most interesting addition this year is the GBA Innovation Tour, which gives international attendees direct access to Greater Bay Area manufacturing infrastructure. This matters more than it might sound. Lu Gang has argued for years that what makes Asia’s tech ecosystem genuinely different isn’t just the innovation pipeline, it’s the compression of the distance between idea and physical product. Watching an AI concept move from prototype to production in a Shenzhen facility in weeks rather than months is something you can describe in a keynote, but apparently you need to see it to really understand the scale and speed involved. The tour is BEYOND’s way of making that argument visceral rather than theoretical.

Last year’s theme, “Unveiling Possibilities,” was about reframing uncertainty as creative fuel, which was the right message for a chaotic moment. “AI: Digital to Physical” is more declarative, more confident. It names a specific transition that the industry is mid-stride through, and plants BEYOND squarely in the middle of it. Registration and exhibition details are live at beyondexpo.com.

Click Here to know more about the BEYOND Expo 2026

The post BEYOND Expo 2026: Asia’s Biggest Tech Event Just Told the World That AI Software Was Only the Warm-Up first appeared on Yanko Design.

The open-source community has a long history of doing more with abandoned hardware than the original manufacturers ever did. The PSP got emulators Sony never approved. The Wii got homebrew loaders that ran software Nintendo pretended didn’t exist. The pattern repeats because the hardware is always fine; it’s the corporate support structure around it that evaporates. The Spotify Car Thing joined that lineage in December 2024 when Spotify killed server-side authentication and turned every unit into an expensive knob with a screen attached.

Nocturne picked up where Spotify dropped off. The project launched in October 2024, anticipating the shutdown, and has shipped four major versions since. V4.0.0, currently in beta with a public release imminent, finally delivers true Bluetooth connectivity without phone tethering, a companion app, and a feature set that makes the original Spotify firmware look like a rough draft.

Developer: Nocturne Team (Brandon Saldan, Dominic Frye, and contributors)

The Car Thing runs a 512MB RAM, 4GB storage Amlogic S905D2 SoC, which is a polite way of saying it has the processing power of a mid-range router from 2015. Early versions of Nocturne required a Raspberry Pi as a co-processor just to get the thing online, which was a heroic workaround but not exactly mainstream-friendly. V3 replaced that with Bluetooth tethering through your phone’s hotspot. V4 cuts the tether entirely, pairing directly via Bluetooth through the new Nocturne Companion app, which requires a Nocturne+ subscription to fund the team’s continued development.

What the photos make immediately clear is how clean the UI actually looks in practice. The now-playing screen pulls album art and renders it as a full bleed gradient background, the same visual logic Spotify used but executed with noticeably more polish in edge cases. The typography is large and glanceable. The playlist browser view is dense but organized, using album thumbnails and track titles in a layout that navigates naturally with the knob. Image 3 shows a subtle ambient lighting effect around the screen border, a rainbow glow that responds to the current track, which is the kind of detail you wouldn’t expect from a community firmware project running on 2021 budget hardware.

The gesture control, OTA updates, Spotify Connect device switcher, podcast support, local file playback, and DJ mode all carried over from V3. The V4 architecture also bakes in full offline functionality, meaning the firmware survives without Spotify’s servers being cooperative, which was precisely the failure mode that bricked every original unit in the first place.

Nocturne’s GitHub currently lists V3.0.0 as the stable release, with V4.0.0 accessible to donors via Discord while the team finishes the public build. If you’ve got a Car Thing in a drawer, the installation guide at usenocturne.com is the next tab you should open.

The post Nocturne’s Free App Turns Your Bricked Spotify Car Thing Into Something Better Than the Original first appeared on Yanko Design.

You currently have two options if you want to apply effects and filters to your photos: use an app that will inevitably harvest your data for training their AI model (we’re watching you, Instagram), or actually edit your photos manually, which requires time, software subscriptions, and the patience of a saint. Reddit user sharkbiscuit101 unlocked a third option, and it involves a Raspberry Pi 4, a rotary encoder, a gamepad, and a frankly unreasonable amount of ingenuity. The build produces glitch photography on the pixel level, in real time, through a custom script running entirely offline on hardware you can source yourself. No cloud upload, no terms of service, and crucially, no algorithm deciding what your creative output should look like. This is your camera, running your parameters, answering to nobody.

The camera itself works exactly how you’d want a dedicated glitch tool to work. Hit the shutter button, but before you do, twist the rotary dial to control how aggressively the Pi’s script mangles the RGB channels of whatever you’re pointing at. The result lands somewhere between a corrupted memory card and a fever dream, and the specific character of the glitch is entirely yours to tune through on-screen sliders before you commit to a shot. A small preview screen shows you the live feed so you can watch the image fall apart in real time, which is exactly as satisfying as it sounds. The rotary encoder also handles preset saves, so when you find a combination of settings that produces something genuinely beautiful and broken, you can lock it in and recall it later.

Designer: sharkbiscuit101

The physical design is wonderfully unashamed about what it is. A transparent acrylic chassis sandwich holds the Pi 4 and an Arducam module at the center, with a small HDMI screen on the front face showing the preview, and a Adafruit gamepad breakout board mounted beside it for navigation. A Sharge battery pack, the rectangular kind you’d find at Amazon, clamps to the side and handles power duties. Since the Pi 4 has no dedicated power button, the battery’s own switch becomes the on-off toggle, which is one of those practical workarounds that somehow feels more elegant than a purpose-built solution. Brass standoffs hold the whole sandwich together, giving the build a satisfying mechanical solidity that belies its component-bin origins.

Sharkbiscuit101 hasn’t released the script or component list publicly yet, though the Reddit thread is essentially one long, enthusiastic demand that they do exactly that. The sample images they’ve posted, saturated cascades of cyan and red over a person’s silhouette, a park scene dissolved into chromatic noise, a building rendered in kaleidoscopic symmetry, make a compelling case for why people want to replicate this. When the files do drop, expect a flood of variations, because this is precisely the kind of open-ended hardware that the maker community will run with in seventeen different directions simultaneously.

The post DIY Raspberry Pi Camera Turns Your Photos into Glitch Art, and the Results Are Incredible first appeared on Yanko Design.

The George Foreman Grill sold more than a hundred million units, which tells you everything about how badly people want to cook without the setup, the smoke, and the outdoor requirement. What that number fails to explain is why, after thirty years of competing products, the fundamental problem remains unsolved. Every electric contact grill since 1994 has operated on the same basic principle: a hot plate pressing food against another hot plate, dripping grease onto a heating element, producing varying degrees of smoke and varying degrees of disappointment. The category has iterated endlessly on that geometry, adding digital timers and non-stick coatings and fold-flat designs, without ever questioning the physics underneath. Hong Kong startup COZYTIME is questioning them with the LUMO, a grill that cooks with focused far-infrared light instead of contact heat, and the approach changes the smoke problem by addressing it at the source.

Four precision reflectors focus infrared energy at food from multiple angles simultaneously, creating 360-degree heat coverage that cooks evenly from edge to center while retaining moisture, unlike hot-air convection heating, which dehydrates food. The side-mounted heating elements keep grease physically separated from any heat source, so drippings fall into a grease tray rather than the heating tube, preventing smoke from forming at the source. No filters, no fans, no workarounds. An AI system called CookPilot uses AI Vision and two built-in sensors to automatically detect food type, thickness, surface area, temperature, and weight, then selects the ideal cooking program from a library covering over 40 food types. A swappable Flavor Module lets you add authentic smoked taste to any cook by loading pellet fuels into the module, inserting it into the LUMO, and switching to Indoor Smoker Mode, where the enclosed chamber traps and circulates smoke around the food while a tight seal keeps the home clean. COZYTIME is pricing the LUMO at $329, against a retail price of $499. This pricing is exclusively available to crowdfunding backers, and the campaign will end on May 23! If you’re interested in LUMO, pledge now before it’s gone!

Designer: COZYTIME

Click Here to Buy Now: $329 $499 (34% off). Hurry, only 159/500 left! Raised over $344,000.

We covered LUMO hands-on at CES 2026 and came away calling it “genuinely novel in a category that’s seen mostly incremental tweaks for decades.” Far-infrared radiation transfers energy directly into food molecules rather than heating surrounding air first, which is how the LUMO reaches cooking temperature in a fraction of a second, using four precision reflectors to deliver full surround heating from multiple angles, cooking up to 4x faster than traditional appliances, without long preheat times or outdoor setups. Traditional contact grills heat the plate and then conduct that energy into the protein surface, a fundamentally different thermal pathway that drives more moisture out of food in the process. COZYTIME claims the infrared approach locks in 76.6 percent of natural food juices compared to conventional methods, a figure that, if it holds in real kitchen conditions, represents an actual cooking outcome improvement rather than a specification exercise. The four-reflector geometry is the physical enabler: each reflector focuses infrared energy at the food surface from a distinct angle, eliminating cold zones and removing any need to flip.

The unit handles thick steaks, skewers, quick snacks, large dinners, and even pizza, thanks to its TriForma StateShift System that allows for three different grill modes. In Indoor Smoker Mode, enclosed heating circulates warmth evenly to a maximum of 230°C (446°F), mimicking a full oven capable of pizza, casseroles, and slow-roasted steaks, and pairs with the Flavor Module for authentic smoked dishes like tender beef brisket. Fast Grill Mode hits a maximum of 270°C (518°F), where the semi-open lid concentrates heat for rapid grilling and juice-locking, delivering steakhouse-quality flavor in minutes, ideal for weeknight meals when time is short but standards aren’t. Flat Grill Mode opens to 180 degrees, creating two independent heating zones, so you can grill steaks on one side at high heat while roasting vegetables on the other, with no batch cooking and no waiting, which makes it particularly suited to dinner parties. Two heat zones running independently in a single countertop footprint is the kind of practical design decision that sounds obvious in retrospect but rarely makes it into a consumer appliance.

LUMO’s most compelling trick may be how seriously it treats flavor, because this is one of the more thoughtful attempts yet at bringing authentic charcoal-style cooking indoors. Plenty of indoor grills promise grill marks, very few deal convincingly with the taste itself. COZYTIME approaches that problem with a dedicated Flavor Module that burns pellets inside the unit’s enclosed chamber, allowing smoke to circulate around the food while the side-heat architecture keeps grease from hitting the heating elements and creating unwanted kitchen smoke. That separation is what makes the idea work. You get the smoky, grilled character people actually associate with charcoal cooking, without turning the room into part of the process. With the Flavor Module attached, the Heat Slider heats wood pellets to release rich smoky flavor during cooking, and when slid out with the griddle plate, it doubles as a high-heat searing surface for deep browning, crisp crusts, and smaller tasks like melting cheese or simmering sauces. LUMO also uses AI Vision to recognize different meats and automatically adjust heat and cooking time to match preferred doneness, from blue rare to well-done. Food-contact surfaces are made exclusively of premium food-grade stainless steel.

The LUMO app adds a layer of control that makes the grill feel more like a connected cooking platform than a standalone appliance. It offers three recipe paths, including curated official recipes from a cloud library, fully custom recipes with adjustable time and temperature for each step, and one-click AI-generated recipes created by CookPilot, with any recipe shareable through a code or posted to the LUMO community. From the app, users can track cooking progress and food status in real time, adjust temperature and timing remotely, and get notified when food is ready. That flexibility extends to the accessory ecosystem too. COZYTIME currently offers nine add-ons in total, including six cooking accessories and three additional accessories designed to broaden what the LUMO can do day to day. On the cooking side, there’s a wireless meat thermometer for real-time core temperature tracking, flavorwood pellets for smoke infusion through the Flavor Module, an extra stainless grill grate for back-to-back cooking, a fine mesh grill grate for smaller foods like shrimp and asparagus, and a Heat Slider griddle plate for intense high-heat searing up to 450°C.

Outside the cooking accessories, COZYTIME also offers a travel bag for transport and storage, plus extended coverage options for added peace of mind. Cleanup remains refreshingly low-friction, with food only touching stainless grill grates and grease trays that lift out for a quick wipe or rinse, while detachable parts are dishwasher-safe and the side-heat architecture keeps grease away from chamber walls, minimizing residue elsewhere in the unit. At 14.3 pounds, the LUMO is still portable enough to move between kitchen counter, balcony, and dining table without feeling like a project.

Retail pricing sits at $499, with the current order price at $329 – that’s a 34% reduction off the MSRP.Every unit ships with the LUMO itself with built-in Heat Slider, a region-appropriate power cord, a user manual, two stainless steel grill grates, the Flavor Module, two detachable grease trays, and a grill grate lifter. Shipping is free across the United States (excluding PR, HI, and AK), Canada, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Europe starting July 2026.

Click Here to Buy Now: $329 $499 (34% off). Hurry, only 159/500 left! Raised over $344,000.

The post The LUMO Grill Cooks With Light, Heats in Seconds, and Brings Charcoal Flavor Without the Smoke first appeared on Yanko Design.