The satellite technology has become a vital communications lifeline after the government shut down the internet last week. Read...

The Trump Administration said Wednesday that it will place tariffs on certain “advanced computing chips,” such as the Nvidia H200, to address what the government referred to as national security concerns. The additional tariffs didn’t name a specific country, referring only to “national security concerns with respect to imports of semiconductors, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and their derivative products.” What those products are weren’t specified, there were a few exceptions. The government said that a 25 percent tariff will apply to “certain advanced computing chips, such as the Nvidia H200 and AMD MI325X. This tariff will not apply to chips that are imported to support the buildout of the U.S. technology supply chain and the strengthening of domestic manufacturing capacity for derivatives of semiconductors.” The fact sheet announcing the tariffs didn’t link to any additional list of products. The government also warned that the Trump administration may impose broader tariffs on semiconductor imports and their derivative products, in a push to promote domestic semiconductor manufacturing. Trump and his administration used the prospect of tariffs as leverage to push major chip manufacturers to invest in U.S. production. For example, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) announced a $100 billion investment in U.S. chip plants. In August 2025,Trump threatened a 100 percent tariff on all imports of computer chips, unless they were made in the United States. Before today, the administration had placed a 50 percent tariff on chips originating in China. Read...

While wandering the show floor at CES 2026, I was struck by the future of living room gaming. What was once the realm of gaming consoles seems to be turning into PC territory. Handheld gaming PCs are now a mainstay in PC showcases alongside laptops, and lots of companies have third-party docks for TV gaming (à la the Nintendo Switch). Just as Valve’s Steam Deck kicked off the age of handheld PC gaming, Valve’s forthcoming Steam Machine will probably kick off another battle over living room gaming, with future Xbox hardware widely expected to be based on Windows. Meanwhile, Intel and AMD are also squabbling over handheld gaming hardware. And GeForce Now ensures that even if you don’t have a PC in your living room, there’s a good chance your smart TV can stream PC games from Nvidia’s cloud servers. We know that PCs are the future for living room gaming. The question is whether Windows or SteamOS will emerge as king. Handheld PCs and docks everywhere When you see all the new hardware from companies like Asus and Lenovo, you’ll find handheld gaming PCs right alongside their gaming laptops. It’s awesome. Handheld gaming PCs are everywhere now, even in demonstrations showing off fanless cooling technology. But they’re also sneaking into the living room. This year, in the far corners of the Las Vegas Convention Center show floor, I saw quite a few docks intended for machines like the Steam Deck, Lenovo Legion Go, Asus ROG Xbox Ally, and other handhelds. They’re a hot product. Chris Hoffman / Foundry According to Valve, 20 percent of Steam Deck owners use the official docking station with their Deck, and that number doesn’t count all the other Steam Deck owners who use third-party docks. I own a Steam Deck and the official docking station, and it delivers a nice living room gaming PC experience, albeit with some quirks. Learn more about how I turned my Steam Deck into a living room console. GeForce Now brings PC games to TVs Back at CES 2015, Razer announced the Razer Forge: an Android-based living room gaming console. With Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo absent from CES 2015 and not showing off their consoles, this was the type of machine you found in those days. Indeed, back then, the future of living room gaming seemed to look toward mobile platforms. Apple has its Apple TV hardware, which can install games from the App Store. With smart TV platforms running operating systems—both the Google Chromecast and Amazon Fire Stick run Android-derived operating systems under the hood—it seemed like living room gaming on smart TVs might hit their peak with Flappy Bird-style hypercasual games from mobile app stores. But that never even took off. Instead, we’re now seeing Nvidia make big inroads with GeForce Now. Your future smart TV won’t have powerful PC gaming hardware built into it—rather, it’ll connect to Nvidia’s servers and stream PC games directly from the cloud. Nvidia At CES 2026, Nvidia brought GeForce Now to Amazon Fire TV devices. On the show floor, I walked by a variety of smart TVs that proudly advertised built-in GeForce Now support. With a Bluetooth controller, a smart TV, and a fast internet connection, you can now play high-end modern 3D PC games directly on a TV. I prefer running PC games locally on my gaming PC, but if I was going to game on a smart TV in my living room, I’d rather play “real” PC games running in the cloud than Candy Crush Saga running on the TV. The Steam Machine vs. future Xbox The one thing that still isn’t common is serious desktop PC hardware that plugs into the TV, console-style, delivering a living room gaming experience with more power. Valve’s forthcoming Steam Machine will deliver that gaming PC experience that’s optimized for the living room. Meanwhile, rumor is that Microsoft’s next Xbox will be a Windows PC. Forget the customized Xbox system and proprietary hardware. Microsoft already feels like it’s giving up on the Xbox as a console platform, with Xbox hardware sales at an all-time low. Microsoft wants the Xbox to be a cross-device gaming platform, not a console like a PlayStation or Nintendo Switch. I’m surprised no PC manufacturer has leaped ahead of Valve and Microsoft with their own console-style machine that runs Windows. But competition is ramping up. There’s a new full-screen Xbox experience that’s coming to all Windows PCs, and Lenovo has delivered a full-screen gaming interface optimized for the Legion Go since 2023. PCs are the future of living room gaming Sony’s PlayStation 5 owns the traditional console market now that Microsoft no longer seems interested. And as long as Nintendo keeps its games exclusive, there will always be a place for Nintendo’s own consoles like the Switch 2. But aside from that, where are the alternatives? Apple has never been interested in gaming, so it’s no surprise that the Apple TV hardware isn’t a particularly interesting gaming platform, despite stronger hardware than the average living room streaming box and integration with the Apple Arcade subscription service. For smart TVs, the dream of simple mobile games on the TV has been dead for years. TV manufacturers would rather wow you with PC games on GeForce Now than show off mobile games on their 4K TVs—and for good reason. Meanwhile, docked handheld PCs are all the rage now. But I bet there are a lot of desktop PCs and gaming laptops plugged directly into TVs out there, too. For more than a decade, I’ve plugged gaming laptops and desktops right into my TV and had a great experience in the living room. Now, everyone is realizing how awesome PCs are as a living room gaming platform—and I’m excited to see where this goes. Read...

Last week at CES 2026, AI-capable Copilot+ PCs were all over the convention show floor, with many PC makers promoting their so-called “AI PCs” with NPUs and other cutting-edge features. AI PCs have been hyped since 2024 as the next evolution of home computing, but it appears consumers aren’t buying into the new technology. That’s according to Dell’s sentiment at CES 2026, where an executive confirmed that the company would shift its focus away from AI PCs and re-center itself on the areas consumers care about: “We’re getting back to our roots with a renewed focus on consumer and gaming.” In other words, very few users seem to be buying new computers solely for the ability to run AI models and features locally. Dell might just be the first of many makers who are catching on to the lack of consumer interest in AI PCs. This goes hand in hand with Dell’s other refocusing efforts after listening to its consumers: the bringing back of its XPS line. Going forward, Dell will continue to sell computers with Copilot+ PC branding to comply with its partnership agreement with Microsoft, but the company’s marketing efforts won’t emphasize AI. It’s unclear how this shift will affect the pricing and availability of Dell PCs, as current market conditions and AI-driven RAM shortages are expected to drive up the costs of PCs by up to 20 percent. Read...

CES 2026 is in full swing and I’ve been surrounded by PC hardware all week. Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm are proud of their new platforms. PC manufacturers have unveiled lots of impressive new laptops, and I even saw fanless air-cooling technology for handhelds. But one thing I haven’t seen is pricing—from anyone I’ve talked to. “Have you announced pricing on this yet?” is a question I kept asking, and so far I haven’t gotten any answers. So, I stopped asking. CES often isn’t a place where you hear about pricing, but things are especially chaotic for the PC industry this year. Skyrocketing RAM prices are confusing the entire industry RAM prices are skyrocketing. Some stores are even selling it at “market price,” like it’s lobster or something. Rising memory prices also mean that SSD prices are up, although less dramatically. Research firm IDC expects PC prices to increase by 20 percent in 2026. Foundry There’s a lot of uncertainty in the air and no one wants to announce prices because of it. For one thing, it’s unclear how expensive RAM is going to be in the months ahead. But also, I feel like no manufacturer wants to go first—if you announce a price, your competitor can use that to undercut you. PC manufacturers are figuring out how to spread price increases across their hardware lineup, too. When I talk to people about pricing, they all shrug and say the RAM situation is chaotic. No one knows exactly how it will affect PC prices. The tariff story no one wants to talk about The PC industry suffered through quite the mess last year. PC manufacturers announced a lot of pricing prior to the unveiling of the tariffs—and then they had to walk it all back. In early 2025, I had one PC manufacturer tell me, point blank, that a laptop’s MSRP had gone up by $200 due to tariffs. After that, everyone was extremely quiet. Many PCs arrived with higher than expected prices. In 2025, I reviewed a lot of budget laptops that felt like they had a few too many corners cut for their retail prices. PC manufacturers moved manufacturing between countries to minimize the impact of tariffs. Pexels / Edit by Foundry This week, the US Supreme Court is expected to rule on tariffs. It’s unclear what the ruling will be and what its effects will be. Who wants to announce pricing before the dust settles on that? Here’s another story that people rarely talk about when it comes to PC pricing: the US dollar had a big decline in 2025, falling 9 percent against other major currencies. If you’re setting PC hardware prices in dollars and those dollars are falling against other currencies, that’s a big factor. These PCs weren’t designed for this chaotic RAM market It takes a significant amount of time to design and manufacture a PC or any other kind of hardware device. Truth is, the hardware being shown off by PC manufacturers at CES 2026 was designed for a different world—one where RAM and SSD prices remained stable. In an alternate world where RAM prices were knowingly headed for the moon, Microsoft may have spent the last few years optimizing Windows 11 to work well with 8GB of RAM rather than setting 16GB as the de facto standard with its Copilot+ PC requirements. We’d probably see fewer premium laptops with 32GB of RAM, which is often unnecessary for many workloads but desirable for manufacturers who want to include it as a flex to sell higher-spec models. Asus Zenbook A16 at CES 2026Matt Smith / Foundry We might’ve also seen more user-upgradeable RAM on laptops. This is a feature that’s often confined to business laptops, some gaming laptops, and tinkerer-friendly hardware like the Framework laptops. Instead, 2025 saw a lot of laptops with non-user-upgradeable RAM. Intel integrated RAM into Lunar Lake’s SoC design, and many laptop manufacturers stuck with soldered RAM that wasn’t user-upgradeable. The future of PCs may be operating systems that are more efficient with RAM, more hardware that gives users the ability to easily upgrade, and—unfortunately—higher prices all around. Do MSRPs mean anything in 2026? The fixed “manufacturer suggested retail price” may not make sense anymore in 2026. It already didn’t make much sense in 2025. RAM is just the latest chaotic element here. The forces of supply and demand are at work in the component market, and the industry is buying up so much memory for AI data centers that consumers and the PC industry are no longer the priority. That’s why Crucial stopped selling RAM to consumers and focused on data centers instead. Nor Gal / Shutterstock.com The idea that a PC manufacturer could set a fixed price for hardware when manufacturing and import costs are in such flux may be outdated now. For example, Microsoft keeps raising Xbox hardware prices. Instead of an MSRP that drops, as in previous hardware generations, we’re now seeing MSRPs that increase over time for a wide variety of reasons that all keep driving costs up. Companies like CyberPowerPC have raised prices in response to RAM costs going up, too. There’s still value to be found Hardware prices are going up. While that sucks, it’s not a reason to avoid purchasing a machine you really love. People often talk about investing in quality items that really matter, like a good pair of shoes or a mattress. I’d say the same for laptops and PCs: if you use it a lot, you should prioritize your PC and get something you’re really happy with. If you’re looking for value, it’s still out there. Despite the fact that RAM prices are up, there are still lots of great deals you can find on laptops and pre-built desktop PCs. The same will likely be true for next-generation hardware… if you can wait. I’m thankful there’s still a PC industry making awesome products, even if some manufacturers like Crucial are pulling out of it. At least Nvidia still makes consumer GPUs, even if they just had software advances like a new version of DLSS to unveil this year. I look forward to hearing more about the pricing on these machines and peripherals in the months ahead. I’m just not hearing much about it on the ground at CES 2026. Further reading: The best of CES 2026 and what blew us away Read...

The technology secretary said it would be illegal for companies to supply the tools designed to make them. Read...

When it comes to gaming gear, Razer is a household name—and the Huntsman Mini is a keyboard you have to try. Now on sale for just $69 (was $130), this is a new all-time low price for this model on Amazon. If you’re in the market for a wired tenkeyless board that’s designed for gamers, you can’t go wrong with this one at this price. View this Amazon deal With this incredible 47% discount, the Razer Huntsman Mini is a keyboard that deserves your attention, especially if you’re a gamer who needs to free up more desk space. The compact 60% form factor eliminates the function row and number pad, lopping off a good chunk and freeing up valuable desk space for more mouse movement. The Huntsman Mini uses Linear Optical Switch technology that ensures fast and quiet keystrokes, and this type of switch is perfect for gaming, offering instant response without delay. This keyboard has an aluminum frame that’ll survive daily abuse, while the doubleshot PBT keycaps were built for durability. Also, it’ll be a while before those labels wear off. The Huntsman Mini comes with onboard memory that allows you to designate and switch between 5 different profiles, choose between preset RGB lighting effects, and so on. The keyboard comes with a detachable USB-C cable that conveniently disconnects when not in use—like when you want to pack it up for travel. Note, however, that this isn’t a wireless keyboard! It has no battery and draws power via USB. Getting the Razer Huntsman Mini for $69 is an absolutely fantastic deal, so hurry up and get your order in! Save a whopping 47% on Razer`s compact tenkeyless gaming keyboardBuy now at Amazon Read...

The world’s largest gadget show promised a future in which technology handles everything. Outside the Las Vegas bubble, reality had other plans. Read...

Samsung has dabbled in the smart speaker space before, but the company’s all-new Music Studio 5 and Music Studio 7 Wi-Fi speakers pose serious competition for the likes of Amazon, Apple, Bose, and Sonos—at least at the higher-end of the market. Unveiled this week at CES and planned for a March release, both models present a distinctively modern, “dot-faced” industrial design by noted French artist Erwan Bouroullec, along with some equally interesting features destined to set them apart from the pack. (Don’t get too excited about all the colors shown in the photo above, however; they’re just trial balloons. Initial shipments will be in black or white only.) Alexa, are you in there? While it probably won’t be there at launch—and voice assistants in general warrant  just a single mention in Samsung’s press release—I’ve been told the Music Studio 5 (model LS50H) and Music Studio 7 (model LS70H) will support Alexa+, the generative-AI-powered digital assistant that Amazon promises is more capable and more conversational than the original Alexa. Alexa Plus also provides advanced smart home control options and new capabilities, such as automatically ordering food it knows you’ll like from Uber Eats, or standing in a virtual line for concert tickets from TicketMaster while you do something less tedious.   Not an Alexa fan? The new speakers will also answer to voice commands spoken to Google Assistant, as well as Samsung’s own Bixby, which is optimized for interaction with other Samsung products. Spotify Tap and Spotify Connect The Music Studio series also works with Spotify Tap, which leverages Spotify Connect over Wi-Fi, so you can jump-start a favorite playlist with just a touch on the speaker cabinet—no need to pull out your phone. The spiffier Music Studio 7 is adept at delivering the new, lossless rendering of Spotify Premium music content, streaming FLAC files at up to 24-bit/44.1 kHz resolution, as well as other content at resolutions up to 24-bit/96kHz. A CES booth tender also told me that Music Studio buyers who adopt Alexa as their voice assistant will get Amazon Music as their default music-streaming service, while those who choose Google Assistant will get YouTube Music as their default. As for other services—Tidal, Qobuz, and what have you—I’m told they’ll be able to use those services’ respective apps, Apple’s AirPlay, or—ugh—a Bluetooth connection.   For those who don’t mind wires, the Music Studio 5 is equipped with a Toslink digital audio input, while the beefier Music Studio 7 boasts an HDMI port as well. I presume that will be HDMI ARC, but no one at the booth could answer my question for sure. I know for certain that up to five Music Studio speakers can be synchronized with recent Samsung TVs via Bluetooth, thanks to the company’s Q Symphony surround-sound processing. This will mix those speakers’ output with the TV’s built-in speakers. Q Symphony will also let you mix and match some Music Studio speakers with a Samsung soundbar and/or wall-hanging Music Frame speakers. Q Symphony smarts will tonally balance the bunch. Multi-room audio options Another option, for whole-home audio devotees, will be to stream music—the same or different tracks—to as many as 10 Music Studio speakers at once, including grouped speakers. Samsung’s SmartThings app will manage that trick. Unfortunately, it won’t be possible to configure two speakers as a stereo pair, as both the Music Studio 5 and Music Studio 7 output two channels on their own. With its sculpted dome and sloped back, the smaller Studio 5 ($249) offers a more distinctive look than its core competition: the $219 Sonos One, Gen 2 and the $199 Bose Home Speaker 300. The Studio 5 packs two high-performance left/right front tweeters beneath a 4.2- inch woofer (Samsung’s people insisted on calling it a “subwoofer”). An integrated wave guide and dynamic bass control contributed to the bigger and better-than-expected performance I heard in the challenging environment of Samsung’s CES exhibit space, but I’ll reserve final judgement for a full listening session in private. The Music Studio 7 ($499) is an all-in-one,  3.1.1-channel, spatial-audio speaker featuring Samsung’s own signal-steering methodology (not Dolby Atmos). Its tweeters fire separate channel information from the front, left, and right sides, as well as the top the boxy, perforated metal wrapped enclosure, while a 5-inch front-firing, rear-ported) “sub” delivers all the non-directional low-frequency information. Samsung enhances the four-direction throw and clarity of the channels with what it calls Pattern Control Technology and AI Dynamic Bass Control. Samsung is clearly appealing to the same “I only have room for one box” music/smart home buffs who are also considering the rest of the spatial audio-adept, smart-speaker competition: the $479 Sonos Era 300, the $299 Apple HomePod, and the $220 Amazon Echo Studio. I can’t wait to hear what these puppies can do in the real world. This news story is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart speakers. Read...

If you thought Micro RGB would be the only new TV tech proliferating throughout TV lineups in 2026, think again. Dolby Vision 2 is also coming to many new TVs this year. Hisense announced its intention to support the technology in 2025, with Philips and TCL joining the party at CES this week. First unveiled in September 2025, Dolby Vision 2 promises to alleviate some of the flaws in the original proprietary protocol; namely, Dolby Vision’s overly dark scenes, which will be corrected with an AI-powered feature Dolby calls Precision Black. AI will also redeem the original protocol’s unrealistic sports and video game rendering, via Dolby Vision 2’s Sports and Gaming Optimization, which promises to deliver both malleable white point and motion info. Motion artifact reduction, meanwhile, will be handled by an Authentic Motion element of the protocol, but that feature will be limited to an advanced version called Dolby Vision 2 Max and will likely be found only on higher-end TV models. Additionally, Dolby Vision 2 will adjust the entire color and contrast scheme according to ambient lighting conditions, though obviously this will only work on TVs with ambient light sensors. What’s all this about metadata? Well, Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HDR10+ are relatively small streams of data that piggyback on the actual picture data stream and tell a TV that understands them how to render the content. This can be as granular as frame by frame (in the case of HDR10+ and Dolby Vision 1 and 2), or all at once up front, as with HDR10. Caveats Dolby Vision 2 will only deliver its benefits with content that was created with it. (the movie studio Canal+ was among the first to announce support for it). There was a bit of a brand-war noise at the onset of this piggyback metadata technology, but it was so easy (and free) for content creators and publishers to implement all the protocols, that it became a tempest in a teapot. Hopefully, it will be the same this time around. That said, Samsung will undoubtedly stick with the royalty-free HDR10/HDR10+, as it has in the past. Meanwhile, both LG and Sony have been mum about implementing the new tech; however, if Dolby Vision 2 lives up to the hype and catches buyer’s attention, both industry giants are sure to follow at some point. Sadly, Dolby Vision 2 won’t be an upgrade for existing TVs that support Dolby Vision, as the tech requires new hardware. For now, that means new TVs equipped with a MediaTek Pentonic 800 with MiraVision Pro PQ Engine chipset. Read...