Installing a jetted tub usually means a new tub, a plumber, a dedicated electrical circuit, and some tile you never planned on replacing. That’s a lot of renovation for the simple pleasure of moving water. WAVORA’s Z1 shrinks the whole idea into a cordless puck that fits in your palm and suction-mounts inside the tub you already own. It’s roughly a hockey puck’s chubbier cousin, and it runs on a rechargeable battery, so there’s no cord dangling over the edge or near the water. Think of it as a jetted tub’s greatest hit with the remodel left out.

WAVORA, a Louisville, Kentucky brand, sealed the Z1’s motor away from the bath water entirely, so there’s no spinning shaft poking through a rubber seal and waiting to leak. Most compact pumps use a rotating shaft that passes through the housing, guarded by a dynamic seal that rubs and wears every time the motor spins. The Z1 separates the drive from the transmission and closes everything up with static seals, which have no moving surfaces to grind down. The surrounding water doubles as coolant, pulling heat off the housing while it runs, which is a neat bit of free engineering. Your bath, in other words, is also the radiator.

Designer: WAVORA

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A Grapefruit-Sized Jet That Mounts on the Wall or the Floor

The Z1 measures 4.3 by 3.5 inches (109 x 89mm) and weighs about 19 ounces (545g), which puts it in medium-sized citric fruit territory. Its form is a soft, cream-white drum with a slatted grille where the water exits and two control buttons on its flank. Small indicator LEDs glow through the shell, so you can check the setting without fishing the thing out. Most cordless bath jets on Amazon are taller cylinders with swiveling nozzles, and they tend to look like pool equipment. The Z1 reads closer to a diffuser or a candle, which helps when it’s sitting on a shelf between soaks.

A double-sided suction mount does the holding, sticking to the tub on one face and the Z1 on the other. It grips best on smooth, non-porous surfaces, which covers acrylic, enamel, glass, polished stainless steel, and glazed tile, so most American tubs qualify. Mount it on the side wall and you get a directional stream that sweeps across the tub like a classic jet aimed at your back. Set it on the floor and the water pushes upward through the bath instead, closer to a spring welling up from below. Swapping between the two takes seconds, which means you pick where the movement starts every night, something a built-in jet can never do.

Three Flow Modes and Up to Five Hours Per Charge

Gentle Flow keeps a soft, steady current moving around you, perfect for a bath with a book in one hand. Power Flow cranks up circulation and shoves water and existing bath foam around the whole tub, which is the setting for sore legs after a long run. Spa Rhythm pulses the intensity up and down in waves, mimicking the ebb and surge of a proper spa jet. One button cycles through all three, so switching moods doesn’t require reading a manual with wet hands. The Z1 moves water rather than injecting air, so the fizzy, aerated feel of a whirlpool comes from your bath bombs, which the launch bundle conveniently includes.

Gentle Flow runs for up to five hours on one charge, Power Flow for about two, and the pulsing Spa Rhythm for around an hour. Five hours in the gentlest mode covers several evening soaks before you need to think about a cable, unless you’re the type who refills the hot water three times. Charging happens over the included USB cable outside the tub, so the only thing near the water is a sealed puck on battery power. Being cordless also frees the Z1 from the nearest outlet, which in most bathrooms sits over by the sink. Corded rivals solve that with a 13-foot cable, which is a lot of wire to drape around a tub of water.

An Outlet You Can Rinse in the Sink, and a $129 Launch Price

Built-in jets have a reputation, and anyone who has fired one up after months of disuse has seen the flakes that come out of the plumbing. The Z1’s outlet section detaches completely, so hair, petals, and bath bomb debris get rinsed out at the sink instead of building up inside. Smaller snags come off by hand without removing anything. The entire water path lives inside a body you can hold under a faucet, so there’s no hidden pipework for gunk to colonize. Budget bath jets on Amazon run about $30 to $70, and their swiveling nozzle assemblies offer more nooks for that gunk to settle into.

The Z1 launches at $129 in a Spa Ritual Set, against a $235 MSRP, bundled with a USB charging cable, the double-sided suction mount, and a manual. WAVORA throws in six botanical bath bombs, six bath liners, and a mesh pouch, which turns the box into a ready-made gift. A single cream-white finish appears across the launch materials, with no other colors announced. Orders ship worldwide, including the US, with delivery estimated for January 2027. WAVORA hasn’t listed warranty terms yet, so check the product page before ordering. That’s a jetted tub’s worth of moving water for the price of a nice dinner, and the tile gets to stay exactly where it is.

Click Here to Buy Now: $129 $235 (45% off) Hurry! Only 6 days left.

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In 1999, LEGO sold an official McDonald’s restaurant brickset through its Shop at Home catalog in the US, and it was adorably tiny. Set 3438 used 98 pieces to build a little drive-through window, a car, and an umbrella table, with stickers doing most of the branding work. The employee was basically a standard LEGO chef with the logo slapped on his chest. One collector paid $75 for a sealed copy back in 2011, for a set that cost around ten bucks new. Twenty-seven years later, a fan builder thinks the next LEGO McDonald’s should skip the building entirely and go straight for the food.

Called McDonald’s Menu, brickbybrick_’s LEGO Ideas submission rebuilds a classic combo big enough to hold its own on a shelf. There’s a red tray with giant Golden Arches in the middle, a cheeseburger, a red carton overflowing with fries, and a white cup loaded with transparent ice and a striped straw. Zero minifigures, zero drive-through, all lunch. The project went up on October 29 and is already sitting at 1,440 supporters, which tells me a lot of AFOLs (adult fans of LEGO) are hungry. I’m one of them, and I’m writing this before lunch.

Designer: brickbybrick_

Red plates form the tray, finished with a raised, rounded rim and a handle at each end, so it reads as molded plastic instead of a stack of bricks. A big yellow set of Golden Arches sits dead center, breaking up what would otherwise be a whole lot of red. The food is arranged in the classic triangle: burger front left, cup at the back, fries off to the right. It’s the exact layout you’d find on any table at your local McDonald’s around noon. That framing makes the build look like a meal someone just set down, which is half the fun of it.

The cheeseburger starts with a dome of tan curved elements, smooth on top like a plain hamburger bun. Under it sits a red layer that reads as tomato, then bright green leaf pieces fanning out as lettuce, a slice of yellow cheese, and a dark brown patty. Those leaves are a nice bit of NPU (nice part usage, for the uninitiated), taking foliage meant for LEGO gardens and jungles and turning it into a salad. Each layer sticks out at slightly uneven angles, giving the burger that freshly squished look of something just pulled from its wrapper. Real fast food never comes perfectly stacked, and this one looks like it survived a lunch rush.

A pile of yellow plates and bricks spills out of the red fry carton at every angle, some standing tall and some flopped over the edge the way the last few always are. The carton gets the real thing’s shape right, the one McDonald’s introduced in 1970 with a wide mouth for quick scooping and a profile that keeps the fries from falling out. The Golden Arches appear on its face in yellow, the same red-and-yellow combo that has been selling fries for over five decades. Building fries in LEGO is easy, but making them look casually messy takes real effort. My only complaint is that I can’t salt them.

My favorite detail, though, is the drink. The white cup’s top is left open, showing a load of transparent pieces packed in as ice, with a red-and-white striped straw sticking out at a jaunty angle. That straw does three jobs at once. It gives the composition its tallest point, adds a splash of red to an otherwise white element, and nods to a real McDonald’s quirk, since the chain says its straws are slightly wider than average so more Coke hits your taste buds. The ice tells its own story, because McDonald’s pre-chills its syrup and sets the ratio expecting the ice to melt. Leaving the lid off is what lets you see all of it.

Back in 2021, adammark’s McDonald’s Franchise 1955-1969, a walk-up burger stand with a Speedee System kitchen, hit 10,000 supporters and reached the Third 2021 Review. It was one of 36 projects in that round, and Hocus Pocus ended up as the only one approved. brickbybrick_ takes a different route, shrinking the subject from a restaurant down to a single meal sized for a shelf. The build is unlicensed, so those Golden Arches are a fan’s tribute, and any official version would need McDonald’s on board. The two companies have teamed up before, going back to LEGO’s first Happy Meal promotion in 1983, so the precedent exists.

McDonald’s Menu currently has 1,440 supporters and 599 days left to reach its next milestone of 5,000. LEGO Ideas runs on community momentum: fans submit their builds, supporters rally behind the ones they love, and projects that hit 10,000 get reviewed by LEGO for a shot at becoming real sets. It’s a long climb for a lunch order, but every Ideas set on store shelves started at zero votes. If you’d like to see this combo in a box, head to the LEGO Ideas page and give it your vote. Personally, I’m holding out for a Super Size edition, which McDonald’s retired in 2004 but LEGO is more than welcome to bring back.

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Tesla is pulling the plug on the Cybertruck, and the official reason involves real estate. Elon Musk posted on X on November 6 that production at Gigafactory Texas will wind down around the middle of 2027 to make room for more Cybercab production. That would be a reasonable explanation if Giga Texas were a studio apartment. The factory has more than 10 million square feet (roughly 929,000 square meters) of floor space, and the Cybertruck line has been running at a fraction of its installed capacity. Call it the most polite breakup text in automotive history.

The less polite version is that nobody’s buying it. Electrek estimates Tesla is moving around 30,000 Cybertrucks a year on a line built for 250,000, and Cox Automotive counts just 11,586 US sales through the first nine months of 2026. This is the same truck that debuted in 2019 with a promised $39,900 price tag and a pair of freshly shattered “Armor Glass” windows. Back then I called it a Toblerone on wheels, and being right seven years later brings me zero joy. Okay, maybe a little. The truck peaked on a stage in 2019, and nothing it did on the road ever topped that.

Price cuts, price hikes, and a convenient excuse

A cheaper rear-wheel-drive Cybertruck launched in 2025 and vanished within months, setting the tone for two years of Tesla trying one pricing strategy after another. A more affordable dual-motor trim reached customers this summer, then Tesla raised prices by $5,000 in August, putting that version at $74,990. Some of the most dependable demand came from inside the family, with S&P Global Mobility data showing SpaceX bought 1,279 Cybertrucks in the last quarter of 2025. Musk’s companies accounted for roughly 19% of US Cybertruck registrations that quarter. When your rocket company is one of your best customers, the truck has a demand problem.

Tesla used the same “make room” framing earlier this year, when it ended Model S and Model X production to free up its Fremont factory for Optimus humanoid robots. Retiring a product sounds a lot better when it’s framed as making space for the future. The Cybertruck’s exit also leaves plenty unanswered: no firm end date, no word on outstanding orders, and nothing yet on parts and service for existing owners. Tesla hadn’t responded to Gizmodo’s request for comment, either. The closest thing to an official goodbye came from lead engineer Wes Morrill, who posted that the truck “lives on through Cybercab.” Engineers write better eulogies than CEOs, apparently.

A mood board of movie cars met a real winter

The Cybertruck’s problems started on the mood board. A photo Walter Isaacson shared from Tesla’s design studio shows a wall of film and game vehicles, including James Bond’s submarine Lotus Esprit and the Back to the Future DeLorean, and Musk has openly credited Blade Runner as a major influence. Movie cars only have to look incredible for the length of a shot. Chief designer Franz von Holzhausen later conceded that most of the studio hated the final faceted shape, and Musk shot down every attempt to soften it, famously declaring he doesn’t do focus groups. One man’s taste beat an entire design team, and the market eventually sided with the team.

In early 2024, owners in rain-soaked California started posting photos of orange rust specks on their stainless panels after just a couple of days of driving. Morrill blamed surface contamination that cleans right off, which is technically reassuring and terrible marketing for a truck sold as indestructible. A year later, Tesla recalled 46,096 trucks because a stainless trim panel called the cant rail, bonded with structural adhesive, could delaminate and detach. Owners had reported failures in cold weather. In between, 3,878 trucks were recalled because an unapproved dab of soap during assembly let the accelerator pedal pad slip loose and get trapped in the trim. Armor, it turns out, still depends on glue.

The Cybertruck became a statement about its creator

No other Tesla carried Elon Musk’s fingerprints like the Cybertruck. The Model 3 is a mainstream sedan, while the Cybertruck was one person’s vision, pushed through over his own design studio’s objections. That made it the most personal object Tesla ever sold, and its meaning shifted with its creator’s public image. As Musk became one of the most polarizing figures in American politics, buying a Cybertruck started reading as a political statement. One Yahoo Finance commentator put it bluntly, calling it a middle finger on four wheels. Tesla even tried controlling who owned one, briefly threatening early buyers with a $50,000 penalty for flipping their trucks.

A Yale study put a number on that effect, estimating Musk’s “polarizing and partisan actions” cost Tesla between 1 million and 1.26 million US sales from October 2022 to April 2025. Rival EV and hybrid makers saw their sales rise 17% to 22% over the same stretch. CleanTechnica argued the headline figure was far too high, while agreeing that the partisan effect was real. Federal Election Commission data also shows Musk as the 2026 midterm cycle’s biggest individual donor, at roughly $446 million to Republican-aligned groups. That money came from his own pocket, and the Cybertruck got its end date three days after Election Day. A car built as a personal statement eventually gets judged as one.

The engineering lives on in Cybercab, and so does the playbook

The Cybertruck did introduce some significant engineering changes for Tesla, starting with the company’s first 800-volt architecture. Higher voltage means less current for the same power, which can allow thinner cables and faster charging. It also swapped the industry-standard 12-volt low-voltage system for a 48-volt one, reducing wiring requirements. Its steer-by-wire setup eliminated the mechanical steering connection entirely, a first for a production car and something even the Infiniti Q50 retained as a backup. Morrill’s farewell points straight at the Cybercab, the gold two-seat robotaxi with no steering wheel, pedals, or mirrors that Tesla started building in April. The truck basically served as a very large, very shiny test bench.

Last month, Tesla unveiled a new Roadster with cold-gas thrusters, asking for $50,000 deposits for the Performance version and $250,000 for the Thrust version, under a reservation agreement that says Tesla can’t guarantee when, or if, the car will be delivered. That’s nine years after Tesla first took deposits on a next-gen Roadster that never shipped. The Semi, unveiled that same year with production promised for 2019, only reached volume production this September, and the Cybercab is already facing two NHTSA reviews. Back in 2019, I wrote that the only number that would matter for the Cybertruck was its sales. I’d like to think Elon’s announcement is the proof I was looking for.

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Picture a blender with a stovetop hidden in its base, so it can turn soybeans into hot soy milk or rice into congee without you touching a pot. Heated blenders like this are a breakfast staple across China, and most share one annoying flaw: the drink comes out scalding, leaving you to blow on it like it owes you money. Midea’s Fully Automatic Air Flow Blender targets that wait with an airflow system designed to help with both cooking and cooling. Midea claims it brings drinks down to 131°F (55°C) within five minutes of finishing. That’s roughly where breakfast stops being a dare and starts being breakfast.

The machine comes from Guangdong Midea Consumer Electric, with a design team led by Peng Xi and Wang Jin, and it received a Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2026 in the Ready for Market track. That track recognizes near-finished products that haven’t reached shelves, judged partly on whether they can realistically ship within a year. Midea says the airflow lets the motor blend at full power without soy milk foaming over. A built-in water tank sits alongside the blending jar, and the linen-textured shell looks ready for a Scandinavian café. The Chinese-language interface suggests a launch in China first, though there’s no word yet on US availability.

Designers: Peng Xi, Wang Jin, Li Qianlun, Jo Jeongmin, Ru Guanhong & Wang Xingzhe

Soybeans contain saponins, compounds that contribute to soy milk’s bubble-bath foam when heated. Heated blenders typically manage this by blending in short bursts and pausing the heat to keep the foam from reaching the lid. That stop-start rhythm helps explain why a batch of soy milk on Midea’s existing machines takes around 30 minutes. The company credits its airflow system with cutting prep time in half, though it hasn’t detailed how the system controls foam.

A freshly cooked batch of soy milk or congee can come out near 212°F (100°C), then sit in the jar cooling a degree at a time while you wait. Midea’s existing heated blenders hold drinks at 131°F (55°C) on keep-warm for up to six hours, so the target is familiar territory for the brand. The new machine’s trick is getting there fast: Midea says cooling takes about five minutes. That’s roughly the time it takes to find your shoes and your keys. Paired with overnight scheduling, it could have freshly made soy milk ready to drink when you wake up.

Visually, the appliance splits into two towers that share a figure-eight footprint. On the left, a linen-textured column holds a water tank that lifts straight out from the top, with a corrugated grip that echoes the ribbed base beneath the glass jar. On the right, the jar wears a copper-colored lid ring that appears to double as a status light. Midea’s description of the surface as a linen texture suggests a molded finish rather than real cloth, a sensible call next to a jar of hot congee. The touch panel flips up for easier reading and carries illustrated buttons for soy milk, juices and milkshakes, porridges, and cleaning, including one porridge program labeled for better sleep.

The closest thing US readers will recognize is the Ninja Foodi Cold & Hot Blender, which pairs an 800-watt heating element with a 64-ounce glass pitcher and sells for around $200 at Walmart. It can cook soup from raw ingredients, but you’re still the one pouring in water and waiting for everything to cool. Midea’s pitch is to automate more of that work, drawing water from the built-in tank and offering a high-temperature wash and drying cycle through the menu. The tank will still need refilling, of course. There’s no price or US release date yet, so this one stays on the wishlist.

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Hollywood loves a sequel, and so does the watch world, though watch sequels trade explosions and cameos for colorways. Nubeo’s Ecliptic Retrograde Dual Time first landed in October 2024, and the square-cased space watch is back for 2026 in six new colorways, from the blue-strapped Firewater Blue to the moodily named Steel Phantom. The core recipe stays put: a 45mm steel case, a matte black dial, and a second time zone displayed by a hand that sweeps a retrograde arc before snapping back to zero.

That hand crawls from 0 to 24 across the lower dial, then flies back to the start like it just remembered it left the stove on. Nubeo pairs it with a big date, a 24-hour subdial, and a caseback engraved with the sun, Earth, and the ecliptic plane. That last detail explains the name, since the ecliptic is the path the sun appears to trace across our sky over a year. Every colorway runs on a Japanese quartz movement and lists for $250, with an advertised 20% launch discount bringing it to $200.

Designer: Nubeo

A Dial Built Like a Spacecraft Control Panel

Nubeo stacks this dial in layers, starting with a matte black honeycomb mesh at the base. A raised chapter ring sits above it with a printed 05 to 55 minute track, while an oversized applied 12 anchors the top. The 24-hour subdial sits near 9 o’clock, the framed date window is at 4, and the dual time arc wraps across the bottom third. Applied indices and hands carry Japanese lume for low-light visibility. Each colorway also changes the accents on a few of these elements.

Putting the second time zone on its own arc separates it from the main time display, a useful distinction on a dial this busy. A traditional GMT, like the Rolex GMT-Master, adds a fourth hand that points to a 24-hour scale around the edge. The Ecliptic moves that reading to the lower dial instead. On the blacked-out version, green lume emphasizes the hands and markers. The coil-spring details at the four corners are decorative, reinforcing the spacecraft-control-panel look. Honestly, this dial looks like it should come with a launch sequence.

Square, Steel, and 155 Grams of Attitude

The stainless steel case measures 45mm across (about 1.77 inches), 45mm lug to lug, and 16mm thick (0.63 inches). Square cases tend to wear larger than round ones of the same width because the corners fill out more of the wrist. The matching width and lug-to-lug measurements keep the case from extending farther along the wrist, but this is still a substantial watch at 155 grams (5.5 ounces), paired with a 26mm rubber strap. An anti-reflective mineral crystal covers the dial, and water resistance is rated at 5 ATM.

The square sports case has plenty of precedent, from Bell & Ross’s cockpit-instrument BR 03 to Hublot’s Square Bang. Nubeo takes a similar instrument-panel approach, adding recessed channels with exposed screws along the case flanks and a crown finished in each colorway’s accent shade. Inside sits a Japanese quartz movement, though Nubeo doesn’t name the specific caliber. Quartz makes sense for a dual time watch that might spend a week in a drawer between trips, keeping both time displays running without winding.

Six New Colorways, Same Cosmic Recipe

The 2026 lineup includes Firewater Blue, Cardinal Teal, Forest Veil, Royal Twilight, Dark Alloy, and Steel Phantom, all built on the same matte black dial. The differences are in the dial accents, crown color, case finish, and rubber strap. Across the lineup, you’ll find yellow straps, blue straps, gray straps with yellow details, and a blacked-out case for anyone allergic to shiny things. The original 2024 variants included Space Blue, Hazard Red, and Golden Black, which Nubeo sold as limited editions. The caseback in the press images carries a limited-edition marking too, though Nubeo hasn’t listed an edition size for the new run.

The Ecliptic fits into Nubeo’s catalog, which leans heavily on space and pop culture with collaborations like the Space Invaders Automatic and the Atari Asteroids watches. This one draws on astronomy rather than a licensed property and costs considerably less than those collaborations. Citizen’s Eco-Drive BR0120 offers retrograde dual time too, wrapped in a classic round case for the buttoned-up crowd. The Ecliptic is the more conspicuous option, with its square case, layered dial, and bright strap choices. Nubeo lists it at $250 before the launch discount, with free shipping and a two-year warranty.

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The Snapmaker U1 drops to $699 this Black Friday, down 30% from its $999 list price, and it might be the smartest buy on your holiday list, mostly because it can make plenty of the gifts on it. The U1 is a four-toolhead 3D printer that prints in up to four colors or materials in a single go. That covers personalized ornaments, figurines, and fidget toys, all printed in multicolor on your desk. It ships with four spools of PLA and 30 ready-to-print models, so after unboxing and automatic calibration, you can print your first model on day one. A good chunk of your Christmas list, sorted.

Four-head printers are rare at this price. Tool changers like the Prusa XL have historically cost well north of $2,000. Snapmaker’s SnapSwap system keeps four print heads loaded and swaps between them in about five seconds, while single-nozzle setups like Bambu’s AMS flush filament at every color change. Fewer purges mean faster prints and, by Snapmaker’s count, up to 85% less wasted plastic. More than 20,000 Kickstarter backers already bought in, making the U1 the most-funded 3D printer campaign in the platform’s history, with now more than 150,000 users worldwide.

Designer: Snapmaker

Click Here to Buy Now: Black Friday Sale. Hurry, deal ends soon!

Five-Second Swaps and a Lot Less Printer Poop

Each of the U1’s four print heads sits docked and preheated with its own filament. When a print calls for a new color, the printer parks the active head and grabs the next one. A steel-ball coupling and a mechanical lock seat each head in the exact same spot every time, and Snapmaker says the mechanism survived over a million continuous swaps with zero mechanical failures. The printer then auto-calibrates all four heads to within 0.04mm (about 0.0016 inches) of each other. That keeps the white trim on a Santa hat right where it belongs.

Single-nozzle printers handle color changes by shoving the old filament out until the new one runs clean. Snapmaker pegs that process at roughly two minutes per swap, and on a busy multicolor model the purged plastic can outweigh the model itself. The U1 only purges small amounts at the start of a job and during calibration. Print a tray of four-color ornaments and those savings stack up fast, in both hours and filament. Your filament budget ends up on the tree instead of in the trash.

A Personalized Ornament, From Download to Gift Box

Four heads can hold four different materials as easily as four colors, so flexible TPU or dissolvable supports can share a print with rigid plastic. For most holiday gifts, though, four colors of PLA do the heavy lifting. Snapmaker’s Full Spectrum feature stretches that palette by stacking thin alternating layers of your four filaments, which your eye reads as new in-between shades. Results depend on the filament, the model’s shape, and your settings, so a quick test print helps. Load red, green, white, and gold, and you’ve basically got Christmas in a box.

Personalizing a gift takes about as much skill as sending a text. Open an ornament model in Snapmaker Orca, add a name with the slicer’s text tool, and assign one of your four colors to each part. A palm-sized ornament uses only a few grams of filament, so each one costs pocket change in plastic. Hit print, and the U1 handles every color swap on its own while you get on with your evening. Repeat for each name on your list, and nobody else at the party will show up with those.

Smart Enough for First-Timers, Cheap Enough for Black Friday

Snapmaker Space, the company’s model library (currently in open beta), offers ready-to-print multicolor models, so beginners can skip 3D modeling entirely. Auto bed leveling helps your first layer stick, and input shaping reduces vibration for smoother walls, with speeds topping out at 500mm/s (about 20 inches per second). Filament loads itself, RFID tags on Snapmaker spools fill in settings for you, and Backup Mode switches to a matching spool when one runs dry. A built-in camera with AI monitoring can flag spaghetti failures and ping your phone. Tinkerers get Klipper firmware and OrcaSlicer support.

Click Here to Buy Now: Black Friday Sale. Hurry, deal ends soon!

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MoMA owns The Starry Night, The Persistence of Memory, and a set of LEGO bricks designed by Godtfred Kirk Christiansen in the 1950s. The museum brought two of those together in 2022, when it partnered with LEGO on the Starry Night set that grew out of a LEGO Ideas submission. A new Ideas project wants to complete the triangle. BrickRelativity has rebuilt Salvador Dalí’s 1931 painting of melting clocks as a 3D brick diorama, complete with the dead tree, the ant-covered watch, and the weird sleeping figure sprawled across the beach. If MoMA wanted a sequel, it wouldn’t even need to leave the building.

Dalí’s original is tiny, just 9.5 by 13 inches (24 by 33 cm), which catches plenty of first-time visitors off guard. The brick version spreads the scene across a black display base with a gallery plaque and a sky built from horizontal bands of blue, aqua, and sunset-yellow plates. BrickRelativity says the central blob was one of the toughest challenges, since soft, shapeless forms and rigid LEGO elements get along about as well as cats and bathtubs. The clocks came a close second, their faces rebuilt from tile grids that warp along with the melt. LEGO Art has already worked through Hokusai, Van Gogh, and Monet, so Surrealism feels overdue.

Designer: BrickRelativity

Three clocks melt across the scene, and each gets its own construction trick. The one hanging off the tree branch wears a pearl-silver bezel that folds over the wood, with a small silver ball at its lowest point standing in for the drip. The pocket watch sliding off the orange ledge swaps silver for pearl-gold tube elements that kink around corners, with a transparent fly perched on its face. The third clock drapes over the sleeping figure in the middle, following the curve of the body underneath it. Numerals were applied as decals directly to the curved surfaces, while every clock hand is built from LEGO elements.

My favorite detail, though, is the face of that gold pocket watch. BrickRelativity built it from a grid of light-blue tiles, and as the face slumps over the ledge, the seams between them bend with it. The result looks like graph paper caught in a heat wave. The grid also gives the numerals a place to sit and recalls the stud-by-stud mosaics of LEGO Art, now visibly coming apart. A warped coordinate system feels very Einstein, which is funny, because Dalí insisted his soft watches came from cheese rather than relativity.

Dalí reportedly based the sleeping figure on a rock formation at Cap de Creus, and it’s generally read as a squashed self-portrait. BrickRelativity layered curved slopes in tan and pale flesh tones until the blob looked properly boneless. Dark gray bars and curves form a closed eye with long lashes, and a wing-like membrane of stacked plates trails off behind it. Back on the ledge, the closed orange pocket watch is a ring of curved elements with a little crown nub. A cluster of tiny ants made from dark clip plates swarms its lid, turning Dalí’s recurring symbol of decay into a minifig-scale infestation.

The landscape skips a printed backdrop entirely. Horizontal bands of blue, aqua, pale yellow, and orange plates build up the sunset sky. The Cap de Creus cliffs on the right use stepped wedges and slopes in tan, dark tan, orange, and gray, placed at different depths to make the coastline recede. Dark brown tiles cover the beach, with patches of exposed studs breaking up the flat surface like scrubby ground. Viewed head-on, that depth collapses back into the painting’s flat composition. BrickRelativity has some practice with perspective tricks: previous Ideas projects turned M.C. Escher’s impossible staircases into bricks.

Down in the front corner, a tiny Dalí minifig with swept gray hair, a patterned tie, and that famous upturned mustache paints at an easel holding a miniature copy of the painting. It’s a direct callback to the Van Gogh minifig and easel that shipped with the Starry Night set. A black base and a small plaque bearing the artist’s name, the title, and the year finish the gallery look. Fan builders have been chasing this museum energy all year, from a 1,117-piece Picasso portrait to a Brick Dangerous melting clock that just qualified for LEGO’s third 2026 review. Dalí’s copyright is managed by the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, so any official version would need the estate’s blessing.

The project currently sits at 1,849 supporters, with 602 days left to hit the next milestone of 5,000. LEGO Ideas lets fans submit builds and rack up supporters, and projects that reach 10,000 move on to LEGO’s official review for a shot at becoming a real set. You can head to the LEGO Ideas page and give BrickRelativity your vote, which costs nothing but a LEGO account. Dalí already turned this painting into floating bricks once, in his 1954 sequel The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory. Seems only fair to let someone finish the job properly, with clutch power this time.

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Severance did something no tech company has managed in decades: it made people want a trackball again. The MDR terminals on Lumon’s severed floor, with their cream shells, tiny glowing screens, and built-in trackballs, have become weird objects of desire for a show about corporate horror. Designer Shaun Wellens has dreamed up the computer I imagine Lumon would roll out for its next rebrand. The P1 Terminal is a CGI concept from a made-up 1970s company called Push / Pull, designed as a shared computer for people living in a communal space. It has a soft white clamshell body, a phosphor-style display, and a blue trackball that looks good enough to lick (please don’t).

Wellens says the P1 was inspired by a computer used to support experiments aboard the Space Shuttle, which makes sense once you notice the clamshell form. Then he wraps the whole thing in fake history. In his story, the P1 launched in 1972 for people living in underground communities called “pockets,” where it handled mail, bulletin boards, and shopping. It sold badly, its users adored it, and it got a sequel, which is basically the life story of every cult-classic gadget ever made. He also admits to sneaking deliberate flaws into his fictional designs so the imaginary engineers can fix them in the next version, and I love that level of commitment.

Designer: Shaun Wellens

The shell is a rounded off-white pod, with a sage-gray handle module sitting on top like the carrying grip on a vintage TV. That handle has a recessed slot and a tinted window that recall the iMac G3 and the 1999 clamshell iBook. The open renders show the two halves joined by a stacked metal hinge at the center, the one visibly mechanical part on an otherwise pebble-smooth body. The Space Shuttle inspiration was the GRiD Compass, a magnesium clamshell designed by Bill Moggridge that flew aboard Columbia in 1983 as the Shuttle Portable Onboard Computer, or SPOC.

Inside the lid sits a dark, rounded-rectangle display with cyan-green text that recalls an old phosphor CRT. A camera pokes through a tiny notch at the top center, which is a hilarious thing to find on a computer that supposedly shipped in 1972. Perforated speaker grilles flank the screen. The interface boots to a pixel-font “hello” and drops you into a numbered menu of services, a text-only setup that would sit comfortably next to a Lumon file full of scary numbers. Wellens calls it a lightning-fast graphical interface anyway. In his fictional timeline, it arrived a full year before the Xerox Alto, the pioneering 1973 GUI computer.

The bottom half is a dark oval tray holding a full keyboard, with the blue trackball parked dead center below the keys. That ball is the loudest color on the entire product, and it deserves to be. Trackballs have appeared in early terminals, arcade cabinets, and Logitech’s TrackMan, while Severance gave them another memorable role on the MDR desks. Putting it in the middle also makes sense for a shared machine, since lefties and righties get equal access. The oval keyboard looks a little cramped at the edges, but it matches the pebble shell so neatly that I’m happy to call it one of his intentional flaws.

A chunky, multi-jointed arm that looks borrowed from a robotics lab supports the terminal. It’s designed to let the P1 swing out, tilt, and tuck away, useful movements for a shared machine in a cramped communal space. In one render, the cable drops in from above, suggesting a ceiling- or wall-mounted setup like a dental lamp waiting for its next patient. Residents could walk up, pull it down, check their mail, and push it back, which might explain the Push / Pull name (my theory, Wellens hasn’t confirmed it). That setup makes the P1 feel closer to a payphone or a library catalog terminal than a personal computer.

Wellens’ conceptual history lands surprisingly close to the real thing. In August 1973, the Community Memory Project put a public bulletin board terminal in Leopold’s Records in Berkeley, with later terminals appearing in libraries and laundromats around town. A decade later, France was distributing free Minitel terminals that let people shop, bank, and message each other from home. The service lasted until 2012. The P1 mashes both ideas into one glossy pod for people living underground. Wellens even mocked up a period magazine ad with a big serif headline over a violet product shot, and it’s convincing enough that I briefly wanted to mail away for one.

Severance production designer Jeremy Hindle already gave us the most covetable fake office tech on television, so consider this a friendly nudge. Somebody on the show’s crew should get Wellens on the phone, because the P1 looks like a terminal Lumon would install somewhere much friendlier than the Break Room. He has form here too, having already dreamed up the Kriket 3000, a pastel retro robot that would look right at home wandering the severed floor’s hallways. The guy clearly loves building machines for a timeline that never happened, which is more or less the Lumon design brief. Hire him, throw him a waffle party, and let him build whatever strange hardware the next season needs.

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There was a time when a computer’s biggest annoyance was a progress bar inching slowly or a dial-up modem screeching and hissing its way online. Nobody pinged you on Teams, Copilot didn’t offer to rewrite your emails, and the worst thing your PC could do was crash in the middle of Solitaire. Benlywatch’s Desktop 95 bottles that era and straps it to your wrist. The limited-edition analog watch puts a Windows 95-style desktop on its dial, complete with teal wallpaper, beveled windows, and a dialog box that reads “Loading memories…” Honestly, that progress bar is the most accurate thing anyone has written about millennials.

Two pixel cursors serve as the hands, a SYSTEM “Ready” dialog sits near the center, and a taskbar runs along the bottom of the dial. It all lives in a 39mm-wide, 10mm-thick case made from 316L stainless steel, with a Swiss quartz movement and a 5 ATM water-resistance rating. You get a blue or white dial with a leather strap, Milanese mesh, or steel bracelet, plus a numbered caseback. The edition is limited to 500 pieces. Pre-orders are open at $159, with shipping slated for November 2026. The only notification it will ever send you is the time.

Designer: Benly Watch

Pixel Cursor Hands and Two Desktop Dials

One hand is a classic arrow pointer, and the other is the little pointing hand that appeared whenever you hovered over a link. Together they move around the dial telling the time, which is the most productive thing a cursor has done since the invention of the screensaver. Everything else on the dial stays put. On the blue version, an ARCHIVE window with File, Edit, and View menus holds WORK, PHOTOS, and NOTES icons, while DESK, SAVE, and FILES shortcuts line the left edge. Chunky pixel numerals mark 12, 3, 6, and 9, and the taskbar reads MENU, ARCHIVE, and READY, speaker icon included.

The white dial swaps teal for a creamy beige and renames the main window DESKTOP, with COMPUTER, FILES, and DISK icons and a simpler “Loading…” bar. Its numerals almost disappear into the background, so it looks like a screenshot someone shrank down and laminated. I like that the two dials feel like two moods of the same machine. Blue is the cheerful default everybody remembers from the family PC. White is the office computer in accounting that never got its wallpaper changed. Both keep that SYSTEM “Ready” box parked near the center like a promise.

The Windows 95 Design Behind the Dial

Windows 95 launched on August 24, 1995, backed by a $300 million marketing push, a launch event hosted by Jay Leno, and people lining up at midnight to buy an operating system. Its startup sound was composed by Brian Eno, which remains a wild sentence to type. The interface reflected the work of a design team led by Virginia Howlett, a painter by training. Those teals, royal blues, and medium grays came partly from the limited color palettes of graphics cards at the time. Hardware limits, basically, turned into an aesthetic people now pay money to recreate.

Three decades later, Windows comes with Copilot, Teams, and a Solitaire that serves you ads, and Howlett herself has called the Windows 95 years a “kinder, gentler time.” The Desktop 95 taps into that feeling. It’s a desktop with no updates, no pop-ups to dismiss, and no assistant asking how it can help. The only thing missing is Clippy, though in fairness he didn’t arrive until Office 97, and the dial is probably better off without a backseat driver.

Case Specs, Pricing, and Availability

The case measures 39mm across and 44.5mm long, and at 10mm thick it should slip under a shirt cuff without a fight. It’s made from 316L stainless steel, with a matching steel caseback engraved with the Desktop 95 name and an individual edition number. The leather strap is 20mm wide and fits wrists from 5.3 to 8.1 inches (13.5 to 20.5cm), with Milanese mesh and steel bracelet versions also available. Inside is a Swiss quartz movement, which suits the theme, because nobody in 1995 wanted to wind anything except a VHS tape. Water resistance is rated at 5 ATM.

Most of Benlywatch’s catalog is retro-futurist digital hardware with OLED and LCD screens, from the Cybertruck-inspired Future Warrior to its 1970s-style Stargazer. The Desktop 95 takes a different approach, recreating a screen on an analog dial. It’s listed at $159 on pre-order through Benlywatch’s website, limited to 500 pieces, with shipping expected in November 2026. Free worldwide shipping is included, and the brand covers import taxes and duties.

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Every Green Lantern has the same annoying chore. Once a day, the ring needs a top-up, so our cosmic cop has to press his fist against a glowing green lantern and recite a whole poem before it’ll charge. Imagine your iPhone demanding spoken word every night before you plug it in.

Xedge’s NoxTi TRI skips the ritual. It’s a pocket-sized lantern in Grade 5 titanium that hangs off your keys or around your neck, with three glow tubes tucked inside. Fit it with tritium tubes and it glows without charging, a switch, or poetry, slowly dimming over a couple of decades. Prefer something non-radioactive? Photoluminescent tubes absorb light and glow after dark. Hal would be jealous.

Designer: Xedge

Click Here to Buy $35 $55 (36% off). Hurry, only a few left! Raised over $81,000.

Three Tubes, One Glowing Core

NoxTi TRI holds three 3 x 22.5mm glow tubes spaced 120 degrees apart to keep the glow visible from more angles, whether the capsule is dangling from a keyring or lying in a cupholder. The tubes sit in a custom carrier made of optical-grade PMMA acrylic, for which Xedge claims around 97 percent light transmission. The carrier is designed to use total internal reflection to distribute the light, making the three tubes appear as one luminous core behind the titanium windows.

Six colors are on the menu: Apple Green, Ice Blue, Ocean Blue, Red, Violet, and Sunset Orange. Run one across all three slots for a uniform glow, or mix them. Yes, that means three Lantern Corps on one keyring. Tritium is the set-and-forget option. Its half-life is about 12 years, so the glow gradually dims rather than switching off, with Xedge describing a usable lifespan of about two decades. That’s still a better deal than any battery I own. The tritium is sealed inside glass vials, and Xedge reports a radiation-meter reading of 0.07 µSv/h. Photoluminescent tubes are the cheaper, non-radioactive option, recharging through exposure to light.

Titanium Outside, Shock Absorbers Inside

The shell is CNC-machined from Grade 5 titanium, an alloy also used in aircraft parts and bone implants. Its corrosion resistance should suit the sweat and daily handling of life on a crowded keyring. It measures 47mm long and 14.3mm across, and weighs 15.8 grams, roughly the weight of three US nickels. Inside, a quartz sleeve surrounds the glowing core to help keep dust out and the view clear, while O-rings seal the threaded body. Xedge says it tested the design at temperatures from minus 20°C to 100°C. It comes in sandblasted raw titanium or a stealthier Black DLC finish. I’d pick the black, purely because the glow stands out more against it.

The more interesting detail is how the design cushions those glass tubes. Each one rests on a 3mm silicone ball, and a stainless steel spring under the core is intended to absorb jolts from dropped keys or a swinging pendant. That spring sits on a magnetic base to help keep it in place when you unscrew the body to swap tubes, reducing the chance of tiny parts bouncing across the kitchen floor. A machined Tri-Index Cap keeps all three tubes aligned with their windows. Xedge says every component is accessible and replaceable, giving the titanium shell a chance to outlive several sets of tubes.

Wear It, Clip It, Break Glass With It

The attachment hole at the top takes a split ring, a quick-release clip, or a chain, so the TRI can live on your keys, hang off a bag zipper, dangle from a phone strap, or ride around your neck as a pendant. The kit supports both single-tube and triple-tube setups, so you can switch between them. On the opposite end sits a ceramic glass-breaker bead, intended for breaking car windows in an emergency, which I sincerely hope nobody ever needs. Keep expectations calibrated, though: this is a locator glow for finding your keys or bag in the dark. It won’t light up a trail.

The NoxTi TRI Kickstarter campaign lists a retail price of about $55 (HK$429) per unit. Pledge pricing starts at $35 for the launch special, followed by $39 for Super Early Bird and $45 for Early Bird, with two-packs from $65 and a four-pack at $119. Glow tubes are separate add-ons: tritium costs $20 per tube or $60 for three, while photoluminescent tubes are $7 each or $15 for three. Extras include the Black DLC upgrade ($15), a stainless steel necklace ($12), a titanium quick-release clip ($15), and titanium split rings ($12 for three). Shipping is listed as free worldwide, with deliveries planned for February 2027. Xedge hasn’t published warranty terms yet.

Click Here to Buy $35 $55 (36% off). Hurry, only a few left! Raised over $81,000.

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Jackery’s new Explorer 100D looks like it should play AM radio. The squat little cube has a framed front panel, orange slatted vents down its sides, and a webbing strap you’d expect on a vintage transistor set. Instead of tuning into ballgames, it stores 96Wh of energy and delivers up to 158W across two USB-C ports and one USB-A port. It measures 4.67 by 3.25 by 3.37 inches (11.9 x 8.3 x 8.6cm), making it roughly softball-sized, and weighs 1.87 pounds (850g). It’s the smallest power station Jackery has ever built.

Jackery’s D-series models skip the AC outlet entirely, and that decision explains much of the design. They don’t need an inverter, a bulky component that generates heat and often requires a cooling fan. Leaving it out lets the box shrink to desk-friendly proportions, while the 96Wh battery sits just below the FAA’s 100Wh threshold for batteries carried without airline approval. Jackery estimates more than four charges for an iPhone 17 or Galaxy S26, or roughly one full recharge for a 14-inch MacBook Pro. That’s a useful reserve in something that weighs less than the laptop it’s charging.

Designer: Jackery

One Button Runs the Whole Show

A TFT display on the front tracks input and output wattage, battery level, and estimated runtime, with additional screens for battery health, cycle count, and internal temperature. One DISPLAY button handles it all. Tap once to flip between status screens, double-tap to keep the screen on or switch it off, and hold for three seconds to enter Low-Power Charging Mode. That last trick is for smartwatches and earbuds. Some power banks stop supplying power when a device draws too little current, leaving you with AirPods stuck at 40%. Jackery’s dedicated mode is designed to keep power flowing to those smaller gadgets.

The screen resembles a car’s instrument cluster, with a circular battery gauge in the middle and input and output readouts flanking it. A glossy, framed front panel groups the display and ports into a single face, which is where the transistor-radio vibe comes from. Port labels are printed directly on the panel, and a small bracket under the two USB-C ports marks their 140W maximum. The horizontal vent slats carry Jackery’s signature orange. Four rubber feet help keep it steady on a café table, and the strap fastens to round studs on either side.

140 Watts That Fit in a Tote Bag

The USB-C ports offer up to 140W and support three fast-charging protocols: USB Power Delivery (PD), Programmable Power Supply (PPS), and Adjustable Voltage Supply (AVS). PD serves modern laptops, PPS fine-tunes voltage for compatible devices, including Samsung phones, and AVS is the newer addition Jackery highlights for Apple gear. Jackery claims the 100D can charge an iPhone 17 to 50% in 21 minutes. Total output across all three ports reaches 158W, allowing a laptop, phone, and pair of earbuds to share it. The 18W USB-A port handles whatever legacy cable is still living in your bag.

Recharging options include a 140W USB-C wall charger, a 100W car charger, or a 100W solar panel. Jackery quotes 1.7 hours from zero to 80% on solar. Car charging supports both 12V and 24V sockets, covering semi-truck cabs as well as hatchbacks. Car and solar charging use a USB-C to DC8020 adapter connected to C1, the only port that accepts input. When charging the battery and powering devices simultaneously, input and output are capped at 100W each, worth knowing if you plan to use it as a desk hub. Jackery rates the LFP cells for 3,000 cycles before capacity drops to 80%, equivalent to more than eight years of daily cycles.

The Pocket-Size Panic Buy

The 100D replaces the Explorer 100 Plus, Jackery’s previous smallest station, with several improvements. Weight drops from 2.13 pounds to 1.87, output climbs from 128W to 158W, and rated cycles rise from 2,000 to 3,000, with a 3Wh reduction in capacity. The one step back: only one USB-C port accepts input, whereas the 100 Plus could charge through either. Anker’s Solix C200 DC is an obvious rival, offering 192Wh for $149. That doubles the energy but exceeds the FAA’s 160Wh upper limit for spare lithium-ion batteries in passenger baggage, ruling it out for air travel.

Walmart is scheduled to start selling the 100D for $99 on November 15, Costco already offers a two-pack for $179.99, and Jackery lists it at $119 on its own site, with sign-ups for preorder alerts. It’s a compact entry into 2026’s power-station panic buy. Large home-backup stations are built to keep appliances running during an outage. The 100D is for the laptop deadline at an airport gate where every outlet is taken, or the campsite with no plug for miles. It’s a power station you might actually use on a Tuesday.

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Five layers of paint. That’s how many Norton applied to the bodywork of its new Manx R, enough that the engineers had to factor paint thickness into how the panels fit together. It’s the sort of obsessive detail you’d expect from Bentley, and a RevZilla tester floated the “Bentley of bikes” comparison after riding it. The Manx R is the 206-horsepower V4 flagship of Norton’s comeback under TVS Motor, and it’s already rolling into UK and European dealerships. It has also picked up an IDEA Bronze and a Red Dot: Best of the Best this year.

Norton’s in-house team in Solihull designed it under Head of Design Simon Skinner, with Range Rover and Defender design veteran Gerry McGovern steering the creative direction. The surfaces are free of winglets and exposed bolts, with the only visible bodywork fasteners on the front fender. Even the switchgear buttons are metal, a small luxury you can feel every time you use them. Under all that paint sits a new 1,200cc, 72-degree V4 tuned for the midrange, where most real riding happens. The base bike starts at £20,250 (about $27,600) in the UK, with US pricing still under wraps ahead of an expected early 2027 launch.

Designers: Simon Skinner & Gerry McGovern (Norton Motorcycles)

Norton’s original Manx was a racing single built from 1947 to 1962, named after the Isle of Man and its legendary TT. In 1950, it gained the Featherbed frame, designed by Belfast brothers Rex and Cromie McCandless, and riders like Geoff Duke used it to collect world championships and TT wins in the early fifties. Resurrecting that badge carries real pressure, and plenty of brands would have answered it with spoked wheels and a round headlamp. Norton went the other direction entirely, replacing the curvy, retro-tinged V4SV with something sharp and forward-looking. I think that was the right call.

Skinner builds the design around four principles he calls modernity, integration, drama, and connection, and he describes the result as reductive. His favorite explanation compares a new-build estate house with a 20-year-old glass-and-steel home that still looks like it arrived from the future. The Manx R lands firmly in the second camp. Its nose is a smooth, wingless shell with split chevron LED headlights tucked under a tall smoked screen, and the mirror stalks grow straight out of the fairing shoulders. Clean volumes, precise gaps, and reflections define the front end, rather than the winglets and vents found on rival bikes.

Carbon infill panels on each flank frame a window onto the top of the V4, its covers dressed in carbon plates, making the engine part of the display. Three angled gills on the upper fairing vent heat from the electronics, and the repeated-line motif runs across the seat and side panels. Out back, a three-bar LED taillight sits above a stack of black louvers, while the exhaust hides under the belly and the single-sided swingarm leaves the rear wheel fully on show. The fuel cap carries an embossed Manx R badge, a detail most owners will notice at the pump. If I could change one thing, I’d lose those tail louvers, which look a touch like a space heater on an otherwise clean rear end.

Norton rates the V4 at 206 hp at 11,500 rpm and 96 lb-ft at 9,000 rpm. Those peak figures trail a few rivals, which Norton says is deliberate. Its engineers logged roughly 135,000 miles of data on Ducati, Aprilia, and BMW superbikes and found riders spent 99% of their time below 8,000 rpm, so the engine’s tuning prioritizes the middle of the rev range. According to RevZilla, it can run as a 600cc twin at deep lean angles and small throttle openings, and it shuts down the rear cylinders at idle to reduce heat around the rider’s legs. The narrow V layout also helped fit everything into a 56.5-inch (1,435mm) wheelbase.

At the 2026 International Design Excellence Awards, the Manx R took Bronze in Automotive and Transportation, and Norton says it’s the first combustion-engined production motorcycle to win an IDEA. Two months later, it collected Red Dot: Best of the Best in the Design Concept competition, aimed mainly at concepts and prototypes, despite already being in dealerships. Both prizes come from design juries, not lap-time comparisons. The Ducati Panigale V4, Aprilia RSV4, and BMW M 1000 RR all wear visible aero on their fairings, and Norton is betting some superbike buyers would prefer a cleaner look.

Norton sells the Manx R in four trims. The base bike gets manually adjustable Marzocchi suspension, cast aluminum wheels, and room for a passenger, while the Apex adds semi-active Marzocchi suspension and forged wheels. The Signature goes single-seat with carbon fiber bodywork and Rotobox carbon wheels, and the First Edition piles on titanium fixings, a numbered top yoke, and a quilted leather seat. Every version gets Brembo Hypure brakes and an 8-inch TFT touchscreen. UK pricing runs from £20,250 (about $27,600) for the base bike to £38,750 (about $52,800) for the Signature, with the First Edition priced on request. US pricing hasn’t been announced ahead of an expected early 2027 arrival, so American riders have a few months to save up for all that paint. US pricing hasn’t been announced ahead of an expected early 2027 arrival, so American riders have a few months to save up for all that paint.

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The traffic cone is basically a Rorschach test for the internet generation. Construction workers see a long night shift, college kids see dorm decor, and anyone who’s ever downloaded a movie sees VLC. I mostly see something to swerve around. Xinhao Guo saw a robot. Guo led a student team at the Beijing Institute of Technology that developed SkyCone, a drone concept designed to fly to a highway incident, land in position, and fold itself into a traffic cone.

Guo’s teammates were Songyan Pan, Zixu Zhang, and Wanzheng Liu, and their concept won in the Conceptual Industrial Product Design category at the 2026 European Product Design Award. SkyCone is designed to fly as an X-shaped quadcopter, with each of its four triangular arms housing a ducted propeller. After landing, the arms would tilt up and lock together at magnetic tips, forming a four-sided pyramid with the familiar orange and white stripes. The goal is to keep workers out of live lanes. The team cites a figure that 57% of frontline highway personnel consider manual cone placement their most dangerous task.

Designers: Xinhao Guo, Songyan Pan, Zixu Zhang & Wanzheng Liu

A square central hub anchors SkyCone, carrying a downward-facing camera on a gimbal, with an LED strip and a non-slip mat built into its underside. The four arms are what the team calls Triangular Prism Buckets, hollow orange wedges that each surround a ducted propeller. Red magnetic locks with integrated indicator lights cap the arm tips, which meet at the cone’s apex when everything folds shut. Reflective strips trace the arm edges to improve visibility. My favorite detail is graphic: the white cone bands sit on the faces that point outward after folding, so the drone only looks like a cone once it actually is one.

Charles D. Scanlon, a Los Angeles street painter, designed the modern traffic cone to keep cars away from his wet paint, building it from rubber and fabric salvaged from old tires. His patent was granted in November 1943, and Interstate Rubber Products began manufacturing the design in 1947. The cone eventually made it into the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the federal traffic-control manual. Materials and reflective collars have evolved over eight decades, yet the silhouette has barely budged. SkyCone largely keeps that familiar shape while changing how it gets into position, a sensible approach for an object drivers need to recognize quickly.

Placing those cones is still mostly manual work, with crews riding the back of a slow-moving truck or walking beside it and setting cones down a few feet from passing traffic. The US recorded 850 work zone deaths in 2024, an average of more than two a day. In March 2023, a single crash on I-695 outside Baltimore killed six roadway workers. The SkyCone team describes the first few minutes of an emergency or maintenance call as the most critical stretch, when crews are particularly exposed. A fleet of drones that could position cones before anyone steps out of the truck might reduce that initial exposure.

Brisbane-based Arrowes has already built an Automated Cone Truck that drops a cone every five seconds. On Melbourne’s Eastern Freeway, it handled 65,000 cones while cutting worker exposure to live traffic by roughly 500 hours. Caltrans and UC Davis developed a cab-operated cone machine back in the 2000s, and Spain’s Sacyr and GMV set out to prototype a self-driving trailer with an AI-guided robotic arm. Each system relies on a truck or trailer. SkyCone proposes making each cone responsible for its own delivery. Chris Chang’s Apiece showed in 2022 that a cone could be assembled from flat triangles, and SkyCone basically gives those triangles propellers.

The team’s renders place SkyCone at a nighttime highway repair, an incident scene behind an arrow-board truck, a rockfall on a mountain road, a snowed-over highway, and the crumbling edge of an open-pit mine. The mine scenario sold me, since walking a crumbling pit edge to place cones sounds like a genuinely terrible afternoon. SkyCone joins a line of highway concepts that propose sending machines into hazardous places. The Highway Patrol Drone was designed to wait on light towers and fly to crash scenes ahead of responders, while the Median AMB proposed riding the road divider like a monorail to skip traffic. SkyCone’s role would be marking off the scene so responders can work.

The European Product Design Award is a global, open-entry program run by Farmani Group. SkyCone won in its conceptual tier as a student project, so the award recognizes a design proposal rather than proven roadside performance. Guo and his team want the cone to get into position on its own; whether it can do that reliably beside live traffic remains to be demonstrated. My brain will probably keep saying VLC whenever I see a cone, but now it’s going to add “robot” right after.

 

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Petoi has been shrinking Boston Dynamics down to desk size for almost a decade now. Dr. Rongzhong Li started the company in his dorm lab in 2016, after a video of his open-source robot cat prototype went viral. That cat became Nybble, a laser-cut wooden kitty, and it was followed by Bittle, a palm-sized robot dog that ended up in classrooms, research labs, and a surprising number of home offices. Petoi says it has shipped more than 30,000 robots to over 60 countries, all running its open-source OpenCat framework. Each new model has gotten smaller, smarter, and easier to build, which brings us to the newest pup in the litter.

Meet Quaddle, a palm-sized robot dog that walks, glides, spins, and does backflips using just four servos. That’s half what Bittle uses in its legs and roughly a third of what most quadrupeds need, thanks to a spring-loaded linkage Petoi calls the MinDoF leg, which lets one motor drive both the shoulder and the knee. It weighs about 6 ounces, snaps together without screws, and takes LEGO bricks on its back. You can teach it tricks by physically moving its legs, chat with it, or code it in anything from beginner blocks to ROS. Prices start at $179, which is pretty reasonable for a dog that never needs walking.

Designer: Petoi

How one servo runs an entire leg

Each of Quaddle’s legs hangs off a single servo, with a spring and a four-bar linkage doing the job a second motor normally would. As the servo swings the upper leg, the linkage folds the knee up and straightens it again, turning one rotating shaft into a proper step. Petoi calls this the MinDoF leg, short for Minimal Degrees of Freedom, a degree of freedom being one independent way a joint can move. The spring clips onto different anchor points, changing how stiff or bouncy each leg feels. In Petoi’s tabletop tests, Quaddle walks about one body length per second, turns 90° in a single step cycle, and climbs onto a ledge as tall as its own knee.

Walking machines driven by a single crank go back to Pafnuty Chebyshev, the Russian mathematician whose 1870s linkage turned rotation into a surprisingly lifelike stride. Theo Jansen’s wind-powered Strandbeests on Dutch beaches run on the same basic idea, and Quaddle feels like their tiny, battery-powered cousin. Petoi added one more trick by fitting small bearings to the tips of the feet. Angle the legs just right and those bearings become wheels, letting Quaddle glide across a smooth desk at around three body lengths per second without a single extra motor. Fewer motors also means less weight, less cost, and less battery drain, which is how the whole dog comes in at roughly 6 ounces.

Teach it tricks by hand, then teach it in code

On the Buddy and Scout models, every leg servo reports its position back to the robot, so you can teach Quaddle a move by simply grabbing its legs. Tap to start recording, guide the legs through whatever silly dance you have in mind, and tap again to have it play the motion back. There’s no app or code involved, and Petoi says you can teach it a basic walk in about ten seconds. Recorded moves can be pulled into Petoi’s Skill Composer software for fine-tuning and shared with other Quaddle owners. For a kid, this is probably the fastest route from “I wonder if” to a robot actually doing the thing.

Buddy and Scout split their thinking across two ESP32-S3 chips, one for motion and balance and one for voice chat and smart home control. A physical slide switch cuts power to the AI chip entirely, which is great for privacy and for days when your robot dog gets a bit too chatty. Coding starts with drag-and-drop blocks, moves to Python or MicroPython, and eventually reaches the Arduino C++ firmware. Bigger projects can mount a Raspberry Pi Zero on its back or plug into ROS, the software framework most research robots run on. A browser-based simulator runs the same code as the real robot, so you can test ideas on a laptop or even a phone with no robot in sight.

LEGO bricks, a Nokia battery, and three Quaddles to pick from

The top of Quaddle’s shell takes LEGO bricks, and Petoi will publish printable shells and mounts for anyone with a 3D printer. Petoi’s own demos have turned it into a walking LEGO AT-AT, a waddling biped called the NanoDuck, and a rover on Mecanum wheels, which use angled rollers to slide sideways. Power comes from a swappable Nokia-format phone battery, the same BL-5C shape that lived inside Nokia’s famously indestructible early-2000s handsets. Quaddle ships with the bigger 1,800 mAh BL-10C cell, good for roughly 1 to 1.5 hours of walking depending on the model. Plug it into USB-C while you code and it charges as it runs, so marathon debugging sessions are fair game.

Builder PLUS ($179) handles walking and coding, Buddy ($219) adds AI chat and teach-by-hand, and Scout ($269) adds a sensor head that detects gestures, light, distance, and people. All three are priced at $144, $175, and $215, with deliveries starting in December. For context, Petoi’s own Bittle X lists at $279, Unitree’s Go2 starts around $1,600, and Sony’s Aibo launched in the US at $2,900. Petoi spent a decade shrinking big robots down to desk size, and Quaddle shows the smartest way to shrink one further is to give it fewer parts.

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For five years, Arrowmax has been teaching screwdrivers to read people. The SES Pro in 2021 watched your wrist, so a twist left or right told the motor which way to spin. The SES Max added app control, and the M1 Pro stretched output to 10 kgf·cm with a manual fallback for stubborn screws. Its little screen could report torque and battery level all day. Your screwdriver got smarter and you got lazier, in the best possible way. The obvious next question was why the tool still had no idea what screw it was holding.

The Arrowspace S1, built by the same team under a new brand name, answers that with a camera on the tail end of the screwdriver. Image recognition names the screw’s drive type and exact size, while a small probe holds the lens at a fixed distance so tiny heads stay sharp. The smart case then lights the slot of the matching bit, and Auto mode picks a safe torque for that fastener. It keeps the 10 kgf·cm ceiling of the M1 Pro, which is plenty for everything from earbuds to e-bike parts. Early pricing starts at $119, and the kit includes the case, 52 S2 steel bits, and a power tip extension.

Designers: LAU YIN / XU YU

Click Here to Buy Now: $129 $215 (40% off). Hurry, only 40/400 left! Raised over $119,000.

The Screwdriver That Squints So You Don’t Have To

The camera sits at the rear of the S1, right behind a small contact probe, and the two work as a team. You rest the probe on the screw head, which locks the lens at one fixed distance, so every shot lands sharp. A screw this small turns to mush if the camera drifts even 1mm. Arrowmax fixed that blur problem with a metal pin instead of more code, which is a very hardware-person way to win an argument. I love it, because it means recognition survives a messy bench and shaky hands instead of working only in a demo video.

Once the shot is sharp, the driver sends it to the companion app on your phone, which works out the drive type and exact size. Everything runs locally with no internet involved, so your screw photos stay on your phone. Arrowmax trained the model, a YOLO object detector, on its own collection of tens of thousands of real screw photos, currently covering 12 common head profiles. The app shows the actual camera image next to the verdict, so you can see what the S1 sees and judge the call yourself. Only the reading step needs the phone, since motor control, torque, and the displays all work on their own.

A Case That Points at the Right Bit

The smart case turns the app’s verdict into something you can see across the bench. A 2-inch TFT screen with Arrowspace’s purple interface shows the recognized screw type and size, while an LED glows under the slot holding the matching bit. Reach, grab, done. Compare that with the usual ritual of squinting at tiny codes on dozens of near-identical shafts, and the old way starts to look like a part-time job. It is the same idea as a warehouse pick-to-light shelf, shrunk down to a tray of S2 steel bits.

The 52 bits are S2 steel hardened to HRC60, which keeps the tips from rounding off after repeated use, and extended bits reach screws buried in deep holes. A magnetic holder keeps bits seated while you work. The case itself is a CNC-machined frame in aerospace-grade aluminum with EVA protection inside, a build the M1 Pro’s CNC aluminum box would recognize. That solid metal feel suits a bench that sees daily use. One box ends up holding the driver, the bits, and the answer to which bit you need.

Gentle With Earbuds, Firm With E-Bikes

Electric torque runs from 1 to 10 kgf·cm, roughly 0.1 to 1 N·m, and Arrowspace’s own chart maps that range to real jobs. The low end suits earbuds, smart bands, and glasses. Around 3 you are into laptops and camera bodies, 6 covers RC cars, drones, and game consoles, and the full 10 handles e-bike parts and large appliances. Auto mode matches a conservative preset to the screw it just identified and remembers your last setting between jobs. Prefer to drive? The app lets you tune the torque for each mode yourself.

When electric mode runs out of muscle, the S1 switches to manual on its own, a trick it inherits from the M1 Pro. The mechanism is rated for 30 kgf·cm of hand-twisted force, which handles the factory screw that laughs at motors. A 600mAh LiPo battery covers 900+ screws or about 90 minutes of continuous use, and USB-C refills it in roughly 70 minutes. An OLED on the body shows torque level, spin direction, and battery, and it even animates while charging. A full session of fiddly repairs fits comfortably inside one charge.

The Price of Never Guessing Again

The S1 suits anyone who repairs often enough to own a drawer of bits but not often enough to have a veteran’s eye, meaning RC builders, scale modelers, drone owners, and the friend who gets every laptop question. Arrowspace says the AI handles identification while your hand keeps the control, and that split feels right to me. My one wish is friendlier recognition for oddballs like JIS cross-head screws, the Phillips look-alikes in plenty of Japanese electronics. Arrowmax says updates will keep widening the 12 profiles covered today, so the wish has a path. A screwdriver that learns new screws over time is a fun idea for a tool that used to be a metal stick.

Pricing for a single S1 kit starts at $119, listed at 45% off, with $129 and $149 tiers also available. Every tier includes the driver, the illuminated smart case, 52 S2 steel bits, and a power tip extension. Shipping is an estimated $16 by air freight to anywhere in the world, so US buyers are covered, with delivery expected in April 2027. Two kits run $238 and three run $339, with shipping at $30 and $45. The optional Angle Screw attachment is sold separately, so check the product page for its price. A stripped screw can cost you a whole device, which makes $119 look like cheap insurance.

Click Here to Buy Now: $129 $215 (40% off). Hurry, only 40/400 left! Raised over $119,000.

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Every crisis has its panic buy. In 2020 it was toilet paper and N95 masks, in 2021 it was graphics cards, in 2025 it was RAM chips, and in 2026 my money is on lithium iron phosphate. With Iran attacking tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, gas sitting at a record-for-October $4.36 a gallon, and heating oil bills forecast to climb 21% this winter, the case for keeping your own stash of electrons has never been stronger. A portable power station from Anker, EcoFlow, or Jackery keeps your fridge cold and your lights on when the grid gives up. It also runs indoors without trying to poison you, and it never needs a trip to the gas station.

Stockpiling toilet paper made you look a little unhinged. Owning a power station makes you the neighbor everyone suddenly wants to befriend during an outage. Black Friday could knock a few more dollars off, sure, but fall sale prices are already the best we’ve seen this season, and winter storms rarely wait for a coupon code. I’ve narrowed the field to one value pick from each brand, all hovering around the 2kWh mark, enough to keep a fridge humming for well over a day. Anker gets first crack, because its S2000 squeezes 2,010Wh into a 35.7-pound body that costs less than a decent espresso machine.

[Editor’s Pick] Anker S2000 2,010Wh Portable Power Station: $699.99

Anker announced at IFA 2026 that its SOLIX power station brand is folding into the Anker name, so you’ll still spot “SOLIX” on boxes and Amazon listings while the switch plays out over the next couple of years. Same company, same warranty, simpler logo. The S2000 makes a great poster child for the new identity, because it looks like it wandered over from the home appliance aisle. At 8.2 x 11.1 x 12.7 inches (208 x 282 x 323mm) and 35.7 pounds (16.2kg), it takes up roughly the counter space of a coffee maker. That makes it nearly 4 pounds lighter than Jackery’s Explorer 2000 v2 and 9 pounds lighter than EcoFlow’s DELTA 3 Max.

Inside are 314Ah lithium iron phosphate cells rated for 6,000 cycles to 80% capacity and 10,000 to 60%, the same chunky format used in grid-scale storage. Anker estimates a 15-year design life, so this thing could easily outlast your fridge. Output tops out at 1,500W continuous with a 3,000W surge, plenty for a fridge, router, lights, laptops, and a CPAP. The real magic is efficiency, with idle draw of just 6W, which helped it keep a fridge running for 34 hours and 15 minutes in GearJunkie’s testing. At $599.99 for subscribers, that works out to roughly $300 per kilowatt-hour, the cheapest of our three picks by a wide margin.

Click Here to Buy Now

What we like

• At 35.7 pounds, it’s the lightest 2kWh station you can buy right now, and compact enough to live on a kitchen counter.
• A UPS switchover of 10ms or less keeps your router and desktop online the moment the grid drops.
• Long-life cells and roughly $300 per kWh make it the best value of the three.

What we dislike

• Solar input caps at 400W, which means about five hours of ideal sunshine to refill, and winter rarely delivers ideal.
• It isn’t expandable, so 2kWh is your ceiling.
• 1,500W of output rules out running a space heater alongside much of anything else.

Jackery Explorer 2000 v2 2,042Wh Portable Power Station: $899

Jackery’s orange-trimmed Explorers were the default power station for years, long before Anker, EcoFlow, and Bluetti started crowding the category. The Explorer 2000 v2 keeps that familiar look but trims the bulk, measuring 13.2 x 10.4 x 11.5 inches (335 x 264 x 292mm) and weighing 39.5 pounds (17.9kg). Its proportions are squatter and more cube-like than the Anker’s, which makes it easier to tuck under a desk or beside a fridge. Jackery marketed it as the lightest and most compact 2kWh LiFePO4 station around, a crown the S2000 snatched this year by shedding nearly four more pounds. The two brands are basically locked in a very nerdy weight-loss competition.

Output is where the Jackery pulls ahead of the Anker, with 2,200W continuous and a 4,400W peak spread across three AC outlets. That’s enough headroom for a sump pump, a fridge compressor, or a microwave without the station breaking a sweat. Jackery’s ChargeShield 2.0 system layers in 62 protection mechanisms, and Silent Charging Mode keeps noise under 30dB, roughly a whisper, which is handy if it ends up in your bedroom during an outage. The cells are rated for 4,000 cycles and a 10-year lifespan, fewer than Anker promises but still plenty for daily use well into the 2030s. At $899, you’re paying about $440 per kilowatt-hour, dropping to $416 when it dips to $849.

Click Here to Buy Now

What we like

• 2,200W of continuous output handles bigger appliances than the Anker can.
• Silent Charging Mode stays under 30dB, so it won’t keep you up at night.
• A 3-year standard warranty plus a 2-year extension covers you for five years total.

What we dislike

• Only three AC outlets, so a power strip becomes part of the kit.
• It isn’t expandable, and solar input maxes out at 400W.
• It won’t charge below 32°F (0°C), so an unheated garage in January is a bad home for it.

EcoFlow DELTA 3 Max 2,048Wh Portable Power Station: $899

EcoFlow’s DELTA family is the brand’s bread and butter, and the DELTA 3 Max is the 2kWh sweet spot of the current lineup. It’s also the chunkiest of our three picks, measuring 19.45 x 9.41 x 12.01 inches (494 x 239 x 305mm) and weighing 44.8 pounds (20.3kg). That long, low, suitcase-like shape belongs on the floor next to the fridge, and you’ll want two hands whenever you move it. EcoFlow spends that extra bulk on muscle, and the trade feels fair once you see the output numbers. The Halloween sale has it at $899, down from $1,199, which puts it neck and neck with the Jackery on price.

You get 2,400W continuous across four AC outlets, the most of our three picks, plus EcoFlow’s X-Boost mode for resistive appliances up to 3,400W. X-Boost works by dropping the voltage, so a kettle or hair dryer runs a little slower instead of tripping the station. That’s enough headroom to run a 1,500W space heater with the fridge and router still plugged in. EcoFlow also rates it at 25dB or less when charging or discharging at 600W, which is quieter than a library. At $899, it lands at about $439 per kilowatt-hour, essentially tied with the Jackery, so the choice comes down to extra watts versus a lighter box.

Click Here to Buy Now

What we like

• 2,400W continuous output, with X-Boost up to 3,400W, makes it the most powerful of the trio.
• Four AC outlets, one more than the Jackery.
• It stays under 25dB at moderate loads, so it’s easy to live with indoors.

What we dislike

• At 44.8 pounds, it’s the heaviest of the three, roughly 9 pounds more than the Anker.
• The long footprint eats more floor space than its boxier rivals.

The post Do yourself a favor and buy a power station now, before the energy crisis gets worse first appeared on Yanko Design.

During World War II, Americans planted millions of victory gardens in backyards, vacant lots, and rooftops, and by most estimates those plots supplied roughly 40% of the country’s fresh vegetables. Today’s enemy is the grocery receipt, which now runs roughly 35% higher than it did in 2019. Prices have cooled lately, but they never came back down, and the herb aisle still charges luxury rates for a handful of leaves. Norwegian brand Auk has a counterattack in the Mini 2, a countertop garden that takes the victory garden indoors and shrinks it to fit beside the coffee maker. Your war effort is now four pots of basil, and honestly, I respect it.

The Mini 2 is the sequel to Auk’s best-selling Auk Mini, and it comes from a team in Oslo, where December daylight is more rumor than fact. Lead designer Johan Schreiner and his team just took home a 2026 European Product Design Award in the Kitchen Appliances category. That’s a jury-judged international competition with more than 800 categories, so call it a solid nod rather than an Oscar. The pitch is simple: herbs, salad greens, even chilies and tomatoes, grown from seed on your counter all year. It’s 12% smaller than the first model, holds 25% more water, and starts at $239.

Designers: Johan Schreiner, Jostein Kvitvang, Magnus Bjørnstad & Didrik Dimmen

A Grow Light That Stops Turning Your Kitchen Into a Nightclub

Anyone who has shared a kitchen with a grow light knows the deal: the plants get their sunshine, and so does everyone trying to eat dinner. The Mini 2 fixes that with an optical lens system that aims light down at the leaves instead of spraying it across the room. Auk’s spec sheet lists output between 300 and 1,000 µmol/m²/s of PPFD depending on mode, which is the number plants actually care about. Average power draw runs from about 5 W in slow mode to 17 W in fruit and vegetable mode. That’s somewhere between a night light and a modest LED bulb, so your electric bill barely flinches.

Scandinavian designers have been fighting glare since Poul Henningsen’s PH lamps for Louis Poulsen in the 1920s, which hid the bulb behind layered shades so light landed where people needed it. The Mini 2 carries that instinct into horticulture, and it makes a neat contrast with Lettuce Grow’s Counterstand and Glow Lamp, which tames its grow light by tuning the color temperature until it looks warm and livable. Auk controls where the light goes, while Lettuce Grow controls what the light looks like when it arrives. Henningsen was Danish, so Norway gets a polite asterisk on the heritage claim. Either way, nobody has to live under a purple haze anymore.

Walnut, Oak, and Ash: A Garden Dressed Like Furniture

Pull the Mini 2 out of the box and it reads as furniture first, appliance second. A wraparound sleeve of FSC-certified, oil-treated European wood (walnut, oak, beech, or ash) rolls around softly radiused corners, and Auk keeps the seams flush so nothing catches the eye or your sleeve. Two slim wooden dowels, 0.63 in thick, hold up a light bar made from 100% recycled Norwegian aluminum, its ribbed top borrowing the look of heat sink fins. The base and pots are recyclable ABS plastic. Even the 5.9 ft braided USB-C cable comes in green, so the wire looks like it belongs to the plant kingdom.

Five colorways run from Espresso Walnut to Sage Ash, so the Mini 2 can slip into a moody dark kitchen or a pale Scandinavian one without making a scene. The footprint shrinks from the original’s 17.5 x 8.5 in to 16.9 x 7.5 in, and Auk’s own math calls the whole unit 12% smaller. Yet the tank holds 0.9 gallons on the first fill, 25% more water than before, which means fewer refill trips and fewer “oops, I forgot” moments. Longer dowels and wider Big Plant Pots, bundled in a chili and tomato kit, let the Mini 2 grow fruiting plants too. Smaller box, bigger ambitions.

Does a $239 Garden Actually Beat the Produce Aisle?

A clamshell of basil runs about $3.50, so if you buy one a week, the Mini 2’s $239 price covers roughly 68 of them, or about 16 months of Sunday-night pesto. Power is cheap, with Auk listing 3.6 to 12.2 kWh a month, which works out to a buck or two at typical US electricity rates. Seeds, coco fiber, and nutrients add a little, so treat 16 months as the friendly estimate. Past that point, every snip is free basil with a side of smugness. Better yet, you cut exactly one sprig and leave the rest alive, so the cilantro funeral in your fridge never happens.

Nobody is quitting the grocery store over this, but cutting a few herb runs a month adds up to a real taste of food independence. Pod-based systems like Click & Grow sell you plant capsules, while the Mini 2 grows from any seeds you like in coco fiber, with no pump and no pods. The optional Bluetooth app handles light cycles and modes, and Slow Mode keeps plants from outgrowing the light while you’re away on vacation. The victory gardeners of the 1940s never had it this easy. You can order the Mini 2 at Auk’s site, and the first basil is about four to five weeks out.

The post The Auk Mini 2 brings your grocery store’s herb aisle to your kitchen counter (with zero human effort) first appeared on Yanko Design.

Apple’s October has turned into a full-on home makeover. First came HomeView, a $299 smart display for the kitchen with a generous helping of iMac nostalgia baked into its design. Now the iMac itself is back with the M6 chip, which feels a bit like the original star showing up after the spinoff already aired. The two aren’t rivals at all, because a 7-inch hub and a 24-inch desktop live very different lives. They play for the same team, with HomeView running the house while the iMac sits on the desk handling homework, taxes, and the occasional late-night gaming session.

The new iMac skips the M5 generation and goes straight to Apple’s 2nm M6 chip, with two more CPU and GPU cores than before. It starts at $1,499 for the 10-core, two-port model, while $1,699 gets you 12 cores, four Thunderbolt ports, and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet living inside the power brick. Apple also swapped in its own N1 wireless chip for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread, which fits neatly with all that smart home energy. Those prices match what the M4 iMac cost after June’s price hike, so the extra cores are basically a free upgrade. Pre-orders open October 28, and the first deliveries land November 6.

Designer: Apple

The iMac skipped M5 and went straight to 2nm

The M6 is built on TSMC’s first-generation 2nm process, swapping the M4’s FinFET transistors for gate-all-around nanosheets that leak less power at these tiny sizes. The $1,499 model gets a 10-core CPU split into two super cores, three performance cores, and five efficiency cores. The $1,699 model bumps that to 12 cores, with two super, four performance, and six efficiency cores. Both get a matching GPU with a Neural Accelerator in every core, plus two 16-core Neural Engines totaling 32 cores. Memory bandwidth climbs from 120GB/s to up to 170GB/s, and the SSD now supports PCIe 5.0 for up to twice the read and write speed.

Apple’s own numbers put the M6 iMac up to 1.5 times faster than the M4 in Microsoft Excel and up to twice as fast for photo editing in Affinity. Ray-traced gaming performance doubles too, which is great news for anyone secretly using the family computer as a gaming rig. The biggest jump is on-device AI, with prompt processing in LM Studio up to five times faster than M4. Apple’s press release even name-drops vibe coding as an iMac use case, a very 2026 thing to say about a computer that comes in pink. If you’re coming from an Intel iMac, Apple claims up to 18 times faster performance, which should feel like time travel.

The Ethernet port lives in the power brick now

The $1,699 model comes with a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port as standard, and the $1,499 model can add one for $30. Apple builds that jack into the power adapter instead of the computer itself. That keeps the iMac’s 11.5mm-thin body free of a chunky network port, and your cable clutter ends up under the desk where it belongs. The previous model used the same brick trick, but it topped out at 1 Gigabit. At 2.5 Gigabit, pulling a giant photo library off a home server should feel a lot less like waiting for a kettle to boil.

Apple’s own N1 wireless chip replaces Broadcom, bringing Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread, the low-power mesh network behind a lot of Matter smart home gear. External display support gets generous on the four-port model, which can drive two 6K screens at 60Hz, two 4K screens at 165Hz, or a single 4K panel at 240Hz. It can even run both external displays off a single Thunderbolt port. Everything you see and hear stays the same, from the 24-inch 4.5K Retina display at 500 nits to the 12MP Center Stage camera and six-speaker system. The seven colors carry over too, along with color-matched keyboards and mice that charge over USB-C.

Same $1,499 price, two more cores

The M4 iMac launched at $1,299 back in 2024, then jumped to $1,499 in June when Apple raised prices across the Mac lineup to cope with soaring memory and storage costs. The M6 model keeps that $1,499 starting price, but the base chip now has 10 CPU and GPU cores instead of eight. Compared to yesterday, that’s two extra cores of each for the same money. Compared to two years ago, the cheapest iMac costs $200 more. The four-port model at $1,699 is the one I’d point most people toward, since it bundles Ethernet, more display options, and the full 12-core chip.

If you bought an M4 iMac, enjoy it, because the display, camera, speakers, and design are identical and your browser tabs won’t notice the difference. Families still running an Intel or M1 iMac are the real audience here, and the jump will feel enormous. Pre-orders open October 28, with deliveries starting November 6. That makes it the third new Apple product in two days, after the iPad mini and alongside the M6 MacBook Pro, with touchscreen Macs still on deck. HomeView may have gotten the nostalgic looks this month, but the iMac is still the one doing the family’s homework.

The post Apple’s new M6 iMac is faster, not different first appeared on Yanko Design.

On Monday, the day the new iPad mini landed, I begged John Ternus to take a break. On Tuesday morning, Apple responded by dropping a brand-new 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M6 chip, roughly 24 hours before its Pro and Tell event in Los Angeles. That’s the event literally named after the MacBook Pro, by the way. It’s like a band releasing a single the night before the album drops, if the single cost $1,999. At this point I’ve stopped asking for rest and started stretching before I open my inbox.

The new MacBook Pro starts at $1,999 with 16GB of unified memory and 1TB of storage, the same price the M5 model has carried since Apple’s June price hike. Inside sits the M6, a 2nm chip with a 12-core CPU and 12-core GPU, two more cores apiece than before. Apple claims up to 30 percent faster graphics than M5, with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 arriving through its own N1 chip. Pre-orders open October 28, with deliveries starting November 6 in silver and space black. Even funnier, Wednesday’s rumored touchscreen MacBook Pros reportedly run M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, so the cheapest Pro in the lineup now has the newest silicon.

Designer: Apple

Two more cores, 2nm silicon, and a reshuffled CPU

The M6 is built on TSMC’s first-generation 2nm process, and it first showed up in the Mac mini back in August. It swaps the old FinFET transistors for gate-all-around nanosheets, which wrap the gate around the channel on every side so less power leaks away at these tiny sizes. The CPU layout changes too, from four super cores and six efficiency cores to two super, four performance, and six efficiency cores. The GPU climbs to 12 cores, each with its own Neural Accelerator, while the Neural Engine doubles up to a dual 16-core setup totaling 32 cores. Apple claims up to 1.3 times faster Blender ray tracing and Xcode builds than the M5 model.

Apple ditched the M5 model’s Broadcom wireless chip for its own N1, which brings Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread support. Thread is the low-power mesh network a lot of Matter smart home gear runs on, which fits neatly with the HomeView push Apple kicked off earlier this month. External displays get a bump as well, with two 4K monitors now running at up to 165Hz instead of 144Hz. Memory bandwidth rises to 170GB/s, though only on the 24GB and 32GB configurations. The base 16GB model stays at 153GB/s, so if you plan on running local AI models, spring for the extra memory.

Same $1,999 price tag, same body, same 24 hours

The M5 model launched at $1,599 with 512GB of storage last October, jumped to $1,699 in March when 1TB became standard, then hit $1,999 in June when Apple raised prices across the Mac lineup. Apple blamed AI data centers hoovering up the world’s memory supply, saying it had never seen component costs climb so far so fast. So the M6 costs exactly what the M5 did yesterday, while sitting $400 above where the 14-inch Pro started a year ago. That 1TB base is generous at this tier, though it also means there’s no 512GB option to save a few bucks. Students and educators can knock the price down to $1,899.

Everything outside the chip carries over from the M5 model. The Liquid Retina XDR mini-LED display still peaks at 1,600 nits in HDR, with a nano-texture option for anyone working beside a sunny window. The 12MP Center Stage camera, six-speaker sound system, HDMI port, MagSafe 3, SDXC slot, headphone jack, and three Thunderbolt 4 ports all return untouched. Battery life holds at up to 24 hours, matching the M5, so Apple’s “longest ever in a Mac” line describes a tie. Coming from a 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro, though, that’s up to four extra hours, plus up to 13 times faster AI prompt processing.

The cheapest MacBook Pro now has the newest chip

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Wednesday’s 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros will bring OLED touchscreens, a Dynamic Island in place of the notch, and a lighter build. They’ll also reportedly stick with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, which means the $1,999 model you can’t touch has a newer chip generation than the flagships you can. Gurman says the mini-LED models stay on sale for now before eventually being phased out. Apple announced the M6 model on October 27, exactly ten years after it unveiled the Touch Bar, its last attempt at putting touch on a MacBook Pro. I refuse to believe that timing is an accident.

For an M5 owner, the M6 is an easy skip, since the design, display, and battery are identical. For anyone still hanging onto an Intel MacBook or an early M1 machine, this is the most sensible Pro you can buy, and it costs $500 less than the $2,499 M5 Pro model. Pre-orders for the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 open October 28 at 10:10 a.m. Pacific, with deliveries starting November 6. That’s an iPad mini, an iMac, and a MacBook Pro in two days from the guy I asked to take a break, with touchscreen Macs queued up next. At this rate we’ll get that Apple Car announcement by the end of the week.

The post Apple just launched a MacBook Pro 24-hours before its MacBook Pro event first appeared on Yanko Design.

We put glow on everything we are afraid of losing in the dark. Watch hands, exit signs, stair edges, light switches, and those plastic stars on a kid’s ceiling all got the memo decades ago. The carabiner, an object whose entire job is hanging onto things in low light, somehow missed it. It sits there, smug in anodized aluminum, daring you to find it. That is the oversight of the century, and I will happily defend that claim at any campsite.

OBORO, from Maruhachi Kasei, a plastics factory in Nagoya, Japan that has been molding resin since 1974, closes the loop. The large D carabiner is glow-infused polycarbonate, measures about 3 by 1.7 inches, weighs 0.42 ounces, and is rated for 66 pounds. Leave it in sunlight or under a lamp for a bit and it shines for hours, with no battery, no charging, and no app (thankfully). A one-handed clip joins it for towels and tarps, rated for 55 pounds, and both come in green or a cooler blue. It is accessory gear rather than climbing gear, so keep your rope work on the real stuff.

Designer: Maruhachi Kasei

Click Here to Buy Now: $73 $91 (20% off) for 12 pieces. Hurry! Only 5 days left.

The Glow Is Baked Into the Plastic Itself

The glow pigment is mixed into the polycarbonate itself, so the entire body is the light source. There is no paint layer to chip or flake, which matters on an object that spends its life banging against rocks, zippers, and other gear. Polycarbonate is the same family of plastic used in bulletproof glazing, and the maker claims five times the impact resistance of ABS and 250 times that of ordinary glass. It also handles weather and heat better than most plastics. The gate is a nickel-plated metal wire, the one part that has to flex thousands of times, so it makes sense that it is not resin.

In the maker’s own test, twenty minutes under a blacklight gave about three hours of visible glow. Brightness peaks in the first 10 to 20 minutes and fades gradually from there, the way every glow-in-the-dark thing you have ever owned behaves. Sunlight and ordinary LED room lighting both recharge it, as many times as you like. Long-afterglow pigments like this trace back to a 1993 breakthrough at Japan’s Nemoto & Co., the lineage behind Super-LumiNova on Swiss watch dials, though the maker does not name its exact pigment. Water is the weak spot: the maker says wet pigment loses its charge and the surface can cloud, so this belongs in the tent, not out in the rain.

A Bigger Gate, Beefier Numbers, and a Clip for Towels

The large D measures about 3 by 1.7 inches and 0.28 inches thick, which the maker says is 30 percent bigger than a standard carabiner. That extra room is the whole point of the redesign. The gate opens wide enough for thick camp rope, so a mug, a kettle, and a lantern can all hang without a game of Tetris. The working load is rated at 66 pounds, while the maker’s pull test ended at 213 kilograms, roughly 470 pounds. That gap is deliberate, since the rating sits near 15 percent of breaking load, and at 0.42 ounces you will forget the thing is on your bag until you need it.

The clip is built for flat, floppy things like towels and tarps. It opens and closes with one hand, using serrated jaws and a sliding block with a toothed lock, and a thin metal loop up top lets it hang from a line or a bag. The wide mouth takes thick fabric where a standard clothespin gives up. Its 55-pound rating sits a bit under the D carabiner, which is plenty for a soaked camp towel. Two clips and a rope between trees give you a glowing clothesline you can actually find after dark.

Two Colors, Endless Things to Hang, and Roughly $6 a Piece

Green is the classic and the brighter of the two, while blue is the rarer, cooler color that I find more fun to look at. By day neither looks like it does at night, since green reads pale yellow-green and blue looks milky white. Blue is dimmer after dark, which seems a fair trade for the novelty. The use cases click once the idea sinks in: a tent guyline, a go-bag handle, a kid’s school backpack, a dog’s leash, a key hook by the front door.

The 12-piece set (six large D carabiners and six clips) is ¥11,616, about $73, against a ¥14,520 (about $91) retail price, which works out to roughly $6 a piece. Singles run about $6 for a D carabiner and about $7 for a clip. Pink versions of both ($40 for six of each), a three-pack of Suncheck glow carabiners ($33), and the older Ouroboros Carabiner Clip ($4) are available as add-ons. OBORO ships worldwide with delivery estimated for January 2027.

Click Here to Buy Now: $73 $91 (20% off) for 12 pieces. Hurry! Only 5 days left.

The post This $6 Glow-in-the-dark Carabiner might be Camping EDC’s biggest upgrade first appeared on Yanko Design.