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Govee Floor Lamp Smart
Game Reviews

Amazon Clears Out Govee Smart Lamp Stock, Now Selling for Less Than a Basic Floor Lamp

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Your living room deserves smart lighting that doesn’t drain your wallet. Smart floor lamps have become incredibly popular for transforming spaces with dynamic colors and voice control but the price tags often make people think twice. Not anymore. Right now, the Govee RGBIC floor lamp has dropped to just $64 on Amazon, down from its usual $99 price. This Prime Big Deal Days offer marks an all-time low for one of the most popular smart lamps on the market.

See at Amazon

This is not another mood-decorating, color-changing lamp: The Govee floor lamp is 136cm high and produces 1000 lumens of light which means it genuinely functions as actual light for your room (rather than mood decoration). At that level of brightness, it places it on a par with standard floor lamps so you can employ it for reading, working or ambient room light when it’s day, then shift over to bright color modes when night falls.

What Makes This Smart Lamp Worth Your Money

The RGBIC tech (that IC means Independent Control) distinguishes this lamp from less expensive ones: Each of the light strip segments is capable of showing disparate colors at the same time which lets you have flowing rainbow effects or gradients or multi-color schemes that plain RGB lamps aren’t up for. At your fingertips, you’re looking at 16 million different available colors and 58 dynamic built-in scenes named Cheerful, Romantic, and the like. Want your lamp pulsing red and orange, like a campfire? Done. Want a chilly blue-to-purple gradient for a late gaming marathon? Easy. The range goes deep enough that you’ll be able to fine-tune your lamp with holiday decorations or a party theme or just your mood of the moment without ever using the same look twice.

Voice command with Alexa or Google Home allows you never to have to rummage for your phone. Simply ask your smart speaker to turn the lamp on, change the hue, or reduce the brightness while cooking, working, or already settled on the sofa. The Govee Home app (installable through QR code on the box) adds additional control features with scheduling, so your lamp automatically wakes you gently with morning hues or unwinds with warm hues at bedtime. The app interface makes it simple to create custom scenes, allowing you to set specific hues for varying segments of a scene and then save your favorite sets for instant recall.

With sync mode, this light springs to life at parties, movie nights, or when playing video games. Inner microphones detect sound in the room and translate it into dynamic, real-time changes in brightness. Thump-heavy tunes create pulsing results, dialogues stay gentle, and action scenes erupt with corresponding changes in color. This dynamic lighting delivers real immersion for entertainment without cluttered setup.

The physical build makes this lamp suitable for real homes: Aluminum construction makes it firm (non-wobbling, non-tipping) yet light enough for simple transport from one room to another. Sections on the base fasten immediately without tools. At 136cm tall, it comfortably inhabits a corner, behind a sofa or next to a desk without overwhelming your space.

Stock sells out fast on Prime Big Deal Days, so this all-time-low pricing won’t last indefinitely.

See at Amazon



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Crypto Trends

Morning Minute: Bitcoin Clears $120,000 as Uptober Begins with a Bang

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Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

  • Crypto majors continue to grind up as Bitcoin breaks $120,000
  • BNB hits new ATH over $1,100 kicking off BNB SZN (Cake + memes soar)
  • CME 24/7 will launch 24/7 crypto futures and options trading in early 2026
  • Moonbirds tease BIRB token for first time, floor passes 4 ETH before retracing
  • Art Blocks announces Quine by Larva Labs as final Art Blocks Curated

🟠 Bitcoin Clears $120K as Uptober Starts With a Bang

The bears were loudly calling for $90k before $120k. Their “guts” said crypto had topped.

Well, looks like they were wrong.

📌 What Happened

BTC pushed above $120,000 on Thursday, hitting a level not seen since August 13.

That’s a full 10% up move on the week.

So what’s driving the action?

ETFs inflows are certainly helping, with over $2.25B in inflows so far this week.

The other key factor?

Saylor’s tax bill (or lack thereof).

Strategy and the rest of the U.S. got news on Wednesday that a Biden-era AMT tax of up to 15% on unrealized asset gains would not come to fruition, as digital assets were excluded.

That likely freed up a lot of cash for Saylor and it will be very interesting to see next Monday if he has indeed put that to work this week (or maybe it was more ETF driven).

Plus the government shut down means no more economic data to come before FOMC, likely meaning a rate cut is a done deal (90% on Polymarket).

But it wasn’t just Bitcoin.

Taking a look at the rest of the majors and their weekly gains:

  • ETH +15% to $4,480
  • BNB + 18% to $1,100 (new ATH)
  • SOL +20% to $230

And some other top winners on the week:

  • Zcash + 180% to $151
  • PUMP +42% to $0.00714
  • SPX +33% to $1.28

So while Bitcoin is grinding up, it’s not a Bitcoin-led rally. All the majors are moving.

🗣️ What They’re Saying

“The steep rise in the gold price over the past month has made bitcoin more attractive to investors relative to gold, especially as the bitcoin to gold volatility ratio keeps drifting lower to below 2.0. By taking into account this volatility ratio, which implies that bitcoin currently consumes 1.85 times more risk capital than gold, then mechanically the market cap of bitcoin at $2.3tr currently would have to rise by close to 42% (implying a theoretical bitcoin price of $165k), to match on a vol-adjusted basis the around $6tr of total private sector investment in gold via ETFs or bars and coins… …This mechanical exercise thus could imply significant upside for bitcoin.” – JPMorgan

🧠 Why It Matters

Breaking $120k again sure feels good.

And the speed of its reclaim, along with October seasonality + the broader q4 setup (more rate cuts, more money printing) seems like a very strong one for higher.

Don’t just take my word for it though.

Major banks have put out some serious forecasts for Bitcoin’s near and mid-term future.

  • Citi: $133K by year-end, $181K in 12 months, driven by ETF demand and broader adoption
  • JPMorgan: ~$165K on a catch-up trade versus gold and the “debasement trade”

Great point by JPMorgan there, as Bitcoin has been seriously lagging Gold over all of 2025.

Simply catching Gold on yearly increase (+45% on the year) would mean another 16% from here for Bitcoin ($140,000), and that doesn’t take into account any other factors.

The writing is on the wall for a big October (Uptober).

Now we just have to fade any big monkey wrenches or (bad) surprises…



🌎 Macro Crypto and Memes

A few Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

  • Crypto majors are green again, as Bitcoin breaks $120k; BTC +1% at $120,350, ETH +2% at $4,480, XRP +2% at $3.03, SOL +2% at $230
  • CAKE (+24%), ETHFI (+15%) and ASTER (+8%) led top movers
  • BNB hit a new ATH over $1,100 while Pancake Swap (CAKE) was the top mover on the day and BNB memes outperformed
  • Trump said he is considering giving taxpayer rebates of $1,000-$2,000 using tariff money
  • The Bitcoin ETFs have seen $2.25B in net inflows so far this week, with ETH seeing $1.06B
  • The CME is set to launch 24/7 crypto futures and options trading in early 2026
  • In Arthur Hayes’ latest blog he argues Eurozone money printing could drive the next leg up for Bitcoin
  • New York lawmakers moved to tax Bitcoin miners, proposing an energy-use excise tax to fund affordability programs
  • FG Nexus is partnering with Securitize to tokenize Nasdaq-listed equities on Ethereum, offering on-chain stock trading with real-time settlement

In Corporate Treasuries / ETFs

  • Avalanche Treasury Co. announced a $675M SPAC merger with Mountain Lake, creating a public vehicle to accumulate $200M AVAX from the Foundation with more plans to add $1B AVAX post-IPO

In Memes

  • Memecoin leaders are mostly red; DOGE -1%, Shiba -2%, PEPE -1%, PENGU -3%, BONK -3%, TRUMP even, SPX +5%, and FARTCOIN -5%
  • BSC memes exploded led by 4 (+100% to $140M), Giggle (+140% to $80M), 1 (+550% to $9M), Priceless (+250% to $21M) and PUP (+43x to $4M)

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here’s a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

  • DoubleZero launched its mainnet beta, effectively providing a new internet for blockchains to communicate (2Z token at $5.2B fdv)
  • Sui TVL hit a new ATH at $2.43B, now 9th amongst all blockchains
  • Moonbirds teased the BIRB token coming soon on Solana, which briefly drove Moonbirds NFTs over 4 ETH before retracing (now 3.24 ETH)
  • Justin Sun touted Tron’s perps exchange “SunPerp” with private dark pools and subsidized fees as Tron’s answer to Hyperliquid and Aster

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

  • ETH NFT leaders were mostly red; Punks even at 47.3 ETH, Pudgy -4% at 9.5, BAYC -5% at 8.3 ETH; Hypurr’s even at 1,520 HYPE
  • Memeland Potatoz +23% were a notable top mover
  • Art Blocks announced the final Art Blocks Curated release titled ‘ Quine’ from Larva Labs; 500 total supply, 477 available and starting at 0.25 ETH, coming Oct 9
  • OpenSea added $500k to its prize pool on Thursday across 5 different memecoins
  • A gold Plush Pepe sold for ~$50,000 on Thursday as TON NFTs continue to see success

Daily Debrief Newsletter

Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.





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Zane, from Borderlands 4, pinches his fingertips expressively as he tries to communicate something so someone off screen.
Gaming Gear

Borderlands 4 dev clears up the difference between Skill Damage and Action Skill damage, and I feel like a combat log is in order so I didn’t have to find this out on a Reddit thread

by admin



Borderlands 4 has a ton of possible builds to choose from—it’s one of the strengths I highlighted in my Borderlands 4 review—but I do have one teensy-tiny complaint, and it’s that I would like some of the tooltips to be a smidge more straightforward about what is what.

This feeling has returned full-force after seeing a developer kindly explaining the difference between Skill Damage and Action Skill damage on the game’s subreddit (thanks, TheGamer), which probably isn’t the place you should have to go for this sort of clarification.

Turns out, it’s a rectangles/squares situation. Except this is Borderlands, so lead character designer Nicholas Thurston uses guns and shotguns as the metaphor: “Skill Damage and Action Skill Damage is like Gun Damage and Shotgun Damage. All Skills are skills, but only some are Action Skills. Same as all Guns are Guns, but only some are Shotguns.” Simple, then.


Related articles

Thurston then explains that Skill Damage impacts basically everything involving the word “Skill”, including passive skills and traits and, you guessed it, Action Skills. However, Action Skill damage only boosts whatever’s on the Action Skill itself.

Other modifiers, like Melee Damage and Minion Damage, can apply to an Action Skill if it also does those things. For example: “Amon’s ‘Onslaughter’ does Melee Damage with his fist, this would get Skill Damage, Action Skill Damage, and Melee Damage … Forgedrones (as an example) only benefit from Skill Damage, as they come from Passive Skills, as well as Melee Damage.”

In a separate comment, Thurston also explains that there’s no real difference between “status chance” and “status application chance”, and that all instances of the former should be the latter: “if something doesn’t, that’s a goof on our part that we’ll need to investigate and correct.”

And hey, props to Thurston for coming in and clearing some of this up, but it does beg the question whether or not the series needs a little more transparency on just how everything works.

Most ARPGs, a genre which Borderlands shares most of its DNA with, have combat logs that let you mouse over your damage and get a peek at the math going on underneath the hood, allowing you to test whether all those floating modifiers are actually being fed into the machine properly.

And while BL4 does have training dummies, not having any proper mouseovers for its various tooltips—or a way to check on your damage after the fact—does hamper the otherwise stellar buildcraft somewhat. I probably shouldn’t be having to do napkin math to figure out why a non-legendary gun is causing Total Existence Failure.



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Kingstonssd
Game Reviews

Amazon Clears Out 4.8-Star Kingston SSD in All Capacities at Record Low, Cheaper Than Samsung or Crucial

by admin


Lots of awesome games came out this year from Hollow Knight: Silksong to Blue Prince to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Silent Hill f and Borderlands 4 just dropped along with the 1.0 release of Hades 2. If you want to play all of these plus all the other cool stuff that came out in 2025 and hang onto all of your other games, you may want to expand your storage. Over the past decade or longer, game file sizes have really started to balloon larger and larger. Some titles even clock in over 100GB. So get yourself a solid internal SSD like the Kingston NV3 drive. It’s available in sizes up to 4TB and is currently on sale.

Breaking down the different models and discounts, let’s start with the smallest. Kingston has 500GB option for its Gen 4×4 SSD. That one normally goes for $54, but it’s now down to just $39 — saving you $15. Going up, we have the 1TB model. That’s usually $80, but the sale has it to just $58 — a savings of $22. The 2TB is $43 off, bringing it from  $158 to just $115. Then lastly we have the massive 4TB model going for $230. That’s a $91 discount off of the starting price of $320. All discounts work out to between 27-28%.

See at Amazon

Fast Load Times

The Kingston NV3 SSD has remarkable read and write speeds, coming in at up to 6,000 MB/s for read speeds and up to 5,000 MB/s for write speeds. That means quick load times in all your games. Hope you’re good at them because you’ll have hardly any time to read those quick tips that appear while waiting for levels to load. Those speeds will also help with plenty of non-gaming tasks ranging from video editing to working with large datasets — really any kind of hardware intensive workflow.

Check the specs of what you’re looking to install it on. So long as your laptop, tower, or mini PC has support for PCle 4.0, you’ll be good to go.

If you’re not a PC gamer and are instead looking to expand to storage of your PlayStation 5, it is compatible but with a catch. You will have to separately pick up a heatsink. These little metal casings are used to help dissipate heat to prevent overheating. They’re pretty easy to install into your PS5. You can just follow any number of video tutorials on YouTube.

For a limited time, you can save up to $91 on this internal SSD from Kingston. Choose between four different capacities, starting at just $39.

See at Amazon



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NFT Gaming

SEC Clears Path for ‘Waves’ of Crypto ETFs With New Listing Standards

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In brief

  • The standards bar leveraged and inverse trusts from using the generic path.
  • Eligible assets must already be traded on regulated, surveilled markets or backed by an existing ETF.
  • Solana and Litecoin ETFs could arrive within weeks, with Dogecoin and others in line, Decrypt was told.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission signed off Wednesday on new generic listing standards for commodity-based trusts, a move that analysts say could swing the door wide open for crypto products beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The new standards, approved for Nasdaq, Cboe BZX, and NYSE Arca, allow trusts that meet defined criteria to list without a separate Commission order. They bar leveraged and inverse structures, but create a pathway for commodity or crypto-linked products to qualify more quickly.

“It was expected, but big, because it’s gonna mean that about 12 to 15 coins are good to go,” Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, told Decrypt in a call. “You start getting the coins coming in waves,” he said, adding that this factor is “pretty big” considering that “right now, only two really exist under the 33 Act.”



Balchunas was pointing to the Securities Act of 1933, often shortened to the ’33 Act. It is a U.S. statute that governs the initial offer and sale of securities to the public and requires issuers to register their products with the SEC and provide full, fair disclosure in a prospectus.

That statute has long been “the more appropriate place to file them,” for commodity-style funds like SPDR Gold Shares and BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, Balchunas explained.

“It’s going to be real nice for investors to have 33 Act spot ETFs with reasonable fees and low trading spreads in the ETF wrapper, which has been vetted by the SEC. It’s a beautiful thing,” Balchunas said.

In a section on the discussions around the standards, the SEC said the rules are “designed to help prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices” while improving market transparency and investor protection. These steps help “perfect the mechanism of a free and open market and a national market system,” the discussion reads.

In any case, the standards would require underlying assets to trade on surveilled markets, have a futures history, or already back an exchange-traded fund with significant exposure.

Trusts must also publish daily holdings, net asset values, and liquidity policies, while market makers face trading limits and firewalls to block misuse of non-public information.

Still, Balchunas thinks the SEC’s latest action sets the stage for the broadest expansion of crypto ETFs since spot Bitcoin products debuted last year.

Asked about ETF expectations for the near term or within the year, Balchunas said he sees Solana and Litecoin leading the next wave of approvals.

“You’re not going to see everything on one day,” Balchunas said. Solana and Litecoin ETFs could be the “ones that come out first, probably within a month,” he said, adding that Dogecoin could follow soon after.

An XRP ETF, meanwhile, may lag a bit, because “the futures aren’t exactly six months old, which is a criterion, so they might be a little later than the other ones,” he said.

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Apple Watch Series 11 on display on a stand among people.
Gaming Gear

The FDA Clears the Apple Watch for Hypertension Alerts

by admin


On Thursday the Food and Drug Administration cleared a new hypertension detection tool for the Apple Watch. The health feature was one of the highlights at Apple’s September iPhone event and will alert Apple Watch owners of potential signs of high blood pressure, a condition that goes undiagnosed in millions of people.

In addition to the FDA clearing Apple’s chronic high blood pressure tool, the Cupertino company announced that it will be available on its watches starting next week in 150 countries including the US, European Union, Hong Kong, and New Zealand.

Hypertension alerts were unveiled as part of the announcements for Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3. Many (including myself) assumed it would be exclusive to the newest high-end models. But Apple Watch Series 9 and newer and Apple Watch Ultra 2 and newer will support the new high blood pressure detector.

The features arrives at a time when wearable competitors like Oura, Google and Samsung are releasing more features aimed at health, wellness and preventative care. For example, the Galaxy Watch 8, which released earlier this summer, has a skin-based antioxidant index. But Apple’s hypertension tool isn’t the only new health addition to the company’s watches. There’s also Sleep Score that grades the quality of your rest on a 0–100 scale.

Both these features will be coming with the WatchOS 26 update next week.

Watch this: New Apple Watches Are Raising Our Blood Pressure With Their New Features

05:22

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Hypertension alerts

While it’s not the full blood pressure monitoring that many Apple Watch fans were hoping for, hypertension alerts use existing sensors to tackle a serious health concern: a potentially fatal, silent condition that many people don’t even realize they’re living with. According to Apple the feature is expected to notify over 1 million people with undiagnosed hypertension within the first year. 

Much like Apple’s irregular heart rhythm and sleep apnea notifications, hypertension alerts work in the background and don’t require any extra steps. After a 30-day analysis period, the watch will send an alert if it detects patterns consistent with high blood pressure. Apple is clear that this is not a diagnosis. The feature has been cleared by the FDA, but the goal is to provide an early warning that sparks a conversation with a physician.

If an alert does appear, the Apple Watch will recommend that you confirm the results with a traditional blood pressure cuff. All related data can be logged in the Health app on your iPhone, and exported as a PDF for your doctor. That extra step cuts out the typical “wait and track” cycle often required after a doctor’s visit and instead lets you walk in with actionable data in hand.

The feature will be preloaded onto the new Series 11 and Ultra 3 and will be part of the WatchOS 26 update on Sept. 15 for the Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10 and Ultra 2. 

Decoding Sleep Score

The Apple Watch has tracked sleep for years, measuring duration, sleep stages and overall consistency. But it stopped short of giving you an actual score the way competitors like Samsung, Oura and Garmin do. That changes with Sleep Score.

Sleep Score takes your nightly data and assigns a rating from 0–100 (or from “low” to “excellent”) based on three main criteria: duration, number of interruptions (e.g. kids and pets) and bedtime consistency — which Apple says is one of the biggest contributors to quality sleep.

The timing of this rollout is no accident. Apple has a track record of waiting until it has both the scientific backing and enough of its own data to justify launching a new health feature. Sleep Score uses new guidance from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the National Sleep Foundation and the World Sleep Society. The algorithm itself was built and validated using over 5 million nights of sleep data from the ongoing Apple Heart and Movement Study.

Each morning, Apple Watch owners will see their score in the Sleep app on their iPhone, as a complication on their watch face, or directly within the Health app. A deeper breakdown reveals how each of the three factors influenced your score, along with explanations of what went wrong (or right). For example, going to bed later than usual could dock points in the bedtime category and pull your overall score down. While it’s not directly prescriptive, the added context helps take the mystery out of what those numbers mean.

Even better, Sleep Score works retroactively. If you’ve been logging sleep for a while, past data will be automatically updated with scores once you install the new software.

Sleep Score will be available on the Apple Watch Series 6 and later, SE 2 and later, and all Ultra models when paired with an iPhone 11 or newer running iOS 26.



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Lenovodeal
Game Updates

Lenovo Clears Out Its 4.8-Star Copilot AI Laptop (40GB RAM, 1TB SSD) at 73% Off, You Could Buy Several for the Price of One

by admin


If you’re out there looking for a solid laptop that can handle basic, everyday tasks, then Lenovo is a manufacturer worth consideration. Maybe you’re a college student in need of something to build out documents and slideshow presentations for your classes. Maybe you’re a small business owner in need of something to, err, build out documents and slideshow presentations for your clients. Web browsing, email drafting, YouTube video watching. You know, computer stuff! Well, take a look at the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3. Right now, Amazon has it on sale for 73% off. It’s listed at $2,999 but after the discount, the price comes to just $800. That’s a savings of $2,200.

Okay, but let’s hold our horses for just a moment. A $2,200 discount on a $2,299 laptop? Sounds too good to be true. So yeah, if we take a look at this items price history, we’ll see this listing has only existed on Amazon since the beginning of August. After about two weeks it dropped to the price it’s at now. It briefly went back up when September hit, but now it’s back down to $800.

See at Amazon

When we take a look at the specs on offer here, you can tell this is not a three thousand dollar machine. Lenovo’s own website has various builds of the IdeaPad Slim 3 in this $600 to $800 range. This listing is trying to trick you into thinking you’re saving a lot more than you are. And that’s a shame because these specs at this price point is a pretty good deal in its own right.

Deep Dive

What we have here is a 15.3-inch laptop capable of displaying in 1920 by 1200 HD. The anti-glare non-touch display has 300nits of brightness and a refresh rate of 60Hz. With DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4, you can display on two additional monitors (three displays total including the laptop screen).

It’s got a built-in webcam that can record in 720p HD with a shutter so you can maintain privacy when not in use. For added connectivity, you have two USB-A ports and one USB-C port to transfer data or charge your other devices. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 are also supported.

The real story is its RAM and storage. It’s working with 40GB of memory and an SSD containing a full 1TB of storage space. Great for backing up photos and working with large file types like 4K video.

All and all, this Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 is a worthwhile laptop. At $2,999? Heck no. But at $800? Not bad.

See at Amazon



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Google antitrust ruling clears the way for Apple’s Gemini push
Gaming Gear

Google antitrust ruling clears the way for Apple’s Gemini push

by admin


Eddy Cue deserves a raise.

As the executive overseeing Apple’s services division, he’s highly incentivized to protect the tens of billions of dollars a year that Google pays to be the default search engine in Safari. “I’ve lost a lot of sleep thinking about it,” he said from the witness stand during Google’s antitrust trial earlier this year.

Luckily for Cue, his court testimony appears to have had a significant impact on Judge Amit Mehta, who ruled this week that Google’s default payments to Apple and others can continue. You can see Cue’s arguments at trial mirrored in Mehta’s ruling: the Apple SVP said it would be “crazy” to punish the iPhone maker by restricting Google’s ability to pay for default status, and that the rise of AI companies was remaking the search market anyway. In an attempt to downplay the significance of Apple and Google’s deal, Cue went so far as to say that Google searches in Safari were declining for the first time, which temporarily caused Google’s stock price to drop.

Those are the exact arguments Mehta ultimately made in his ruling. He acknowledged that default payments continue to “shape the market for general search services in Google’s favor,” but that banning them would have “crippling” downstream effects on the recipients of those payments. One specific effect he cited was “fewer products and less product innovation from Apple,” one of the world’s richest companies. (Google’s payments to Apple are estimated to make up about 15% of its annual profit.)

Mehta cited the rise of generative AI companies like OpenAI and Perplexity as evidence that there is finally competition in the search market. “The money flowing into this space, and how quickly it has arrived, is astonishing,” he wrote. “These new realities give the court hope that Google will not simply outbid competitors for distribution if superior products emerge.”

As Mehta well knows, the reality of Google and Apple’s financial relationship is much more complicated than that. Google has historically paid Apple a percentage of the ad revenue it earns via Safari. This aligns incentives between two of the most powerful companies on earth, both of which have shared in the upside of this arrangement for the better part of two decades.

It’s likely not a coincidence that, right after Mehta’s ruling was released, news broke that Apple is now collaborating with Google to potentially have Gemini power the AI search engine it’s developing for Siri. Apple executives have been discussing the integration of Gemini into iOS for over a year, but have held back due to obvious optics reasons. The US government has just given them permission to proceed.

“This outcome is a home run for the status quo, and the status quo has been very favorable to both Google and Apple,” the tech and media stock research firm MoffettNathanson wrote in a note to its clients this week. “We’re not suggesting that the future of search or devices is now free from competitive threat, but this decision allows the transition ahead to unfold on their terms rather than through a disruptive and damaging judgment.”

Apple and Google’s search deal should have been undone, and perhaps it still will be if Apple eventually gets its turn under the antitrust spotlight. I’ve spoken with many would-be Google Search rivals over the years who have pointed to the deal as a key factor in stifling competition. You could argue that no deal has had a greater impact on Silicon Valley over the long arc of time, in fact. The most sinister aspect is that it has enabled the two companies that already control how most people access the internet to become richer and more powerful together.

The relationship being allowed to continue now sets the stage for Apple and Google to extend their shared dominance into the age of AI. Apple is behind on AI, but remains a powerful source of distribution for Gemini via iPhones, iPads, and Macs. With search payments from Google continuing to roll in, why would Apple need to acquire a startup like Mistral or Perplexity to play catch-up? It’s already getting paid to work with one of the world’s leading AI companies and now has carte blanche to forge deeper ties.

This week’s ruling also puts OpenAI’s distribution deal with Apple for ChatGPT in a tough spot. I’m sure Apple likes having optionality, but it’s not going to jeopardize the Google relationship with the money from search continuing. OpenAI doesn’t yet have an ads business to give Apple a competitive cut from, either. Despite what Mehta thinks, it’s hard to imagine any other company being able to exceed Google’s default payments with a superior product (sorry, Microsoft). This all leaves Google and Apple where they’ve been all along: two de facto monopolies feeding each other at the expense of everyone else.

  • A seating chart for the ages: If you have intel on who decided where all the tech leaders sat for last night’s big AI dinner at the White House, please reach out. Placing Alexandr Wang directly across the table from Sam Altman was certainly a choice, as was Mark Zuckerberg’s placement between Donald Trump and David Sacks. I’ll leave the jokes about Chamath Palihapitiya’s presence to everyone who is already making them on social media.
  • Lambos coming to the OpenAI HQ garage: It can be challenging to grasp the magnitude of a $10.3 billion tender offer, which OpenAI made available this week to eligible employees. So here’s a narrower number: $30 million. That’s how much my sources say that OpenAI employees (who have been at the company for at least two years) can elect to sell by the end of this month. It’s three times more than the previous maximum cap. Let the good times roll!
  • Fidji Simo gets the band back together: Speaking of OpenAI, it’s remarkable how much its C-suite is starting to resemble that of mid-2010s Facebook. Vijaye Raji, an early Facebook engineering leader, is rejoining his former colleague, Fidji Simo, as CTO of OpenAI applications, which means he’s going to oversee the rollout of the company’s imminent browser release. His company, Statsig, is being acquired as part of the deal but will seemingly stay independent. Srinivas Narayanan, who previously ran engineering at OpenAI and is also an early Facebook leader, is now CTO of “B2B applications.” Yes, OpenAI has two CEOs and two CTOs.

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Figure Technologies CEO Mike Cagney (CoinDesk archives)
NFT Gaming

DOGE/BTC Triangle Breakout Flags Potential Rally if $0.22 Resistance Clears

by admin



News Background

  • DOGE swung 4% intraday between $0.207 and $0.215 in the 24h session from Sept. 2 at 02:00 to Sept. 3 at 01:00.
  • Trading volume surged to 949M, about 21% above weekly averages, signaling strong market participation.
  • ETF speculation remains a catalyst: Polymarket odds of DOGE ETF approval rose to 71% from 51% ahead of October deadlines.
  • Broader macro backdrop supports risk flows: traders now price in four Fed rate cuts by year-end, starting September.

Price Action

  • DOGE opened near $0.211 and closed at $0.213, up about 1% despite sharp intraday swings.
  • Midday selloff (12:00 GMT) pushed price to $0.207, with 811M tokens traded on the decline.
  • A recovery phase into 21:00 GMT lifted DOGE to $0.215, backed by 949M tokens across the rally.
  • Final-hour action (01:50–02:00) saw a 2% spike from $0.21 to $0.22 on 21M tokens, showing late-session buying interest.

Technical Analysis

  • Support: $0.207–$0.210 held multiple times with high-volume demand.
  • Resistance: $0.215–$0.220 capped upside moves across repeated tests.
  • Momentum: Short-term momentum gauges tilted positive after the recovery; RSI near neutral range but rising.
  • Patterns: Descending triangle on DOGE/BTC pairs broke upward, flagged by CryptoKaleo, pointing to potential continuation if $0.22 clears.
  • Volume: 21% surge above weekly averages confirms strong participation, likely institutional plus retail dip-buying.

What Traders Are Watching

  • A clean breakout above $0.22 to open $0.25–$0.30 upside range.
  • Whether $0.21 base continues to hold under pressure; a breakdown reopens $0.20 test.
  • ETF speculation flows and Fed policy shifts as near-term catalysts.
  • Whale behavior — if accumulation sustains during consolidation, bias leans bullish.



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Alienwarecurved
Game Updates

Forget Samsung Odyssey, Alienware Clears Out Its 34-Inch Curved Gaming Monitor at Prime Day Pricing for Labor Day

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If you haven’t ever used a curved monitor, it may feel like it’s just a gimmick. As an curved display gamer myself, I can assure you it’s so much more. When sitting at the right angle and distance, the curvature really sucks you in. Prices have been coming down over the pas few years too so they’re really not too much to add to your gaming desk. The Alienware 34 curved gaming monitor right now is 20% off too. It’s listed on Amazon at $400, but with the discount, it comes down to just $320. That’s an extra $80 you get to keep in your bank account.

See at Amazon

Designed for Gamers

The Alienware monitor measures in at a massive 34 inches. It’s ultra-wide and comes in at a curvature of 1500R. This better reflects the way we perceive our surroundings through our eyes. Our environment isn’t just in front of us, it’s all around us. As overused as the term has becomes, a curved display like this one really does allow your gaming to feel more immersive.

The display is working with a QHD resolution of 1440p and maximum refresh rate of 180 Hz. You can expect smooth and clear responsive gameplay with a low response time of 1ms. AMD FreeSync Premium and VESA Adaptive Sync help improve performance and eliminate screen tearing while you game.

I think we all know at this point staring at a bright screen for hours on end isn’t exactly good for you. If you like to marathon gaming session, the Alienware curved display comes with hardware-based tools in its dedicated console to limit blue light. This can help reduce eyestrain during those long hours of play or work while still preserving a wide depth of color.

Breaking down the various ports and slots, along the read you’ll find two HDMI ports along with one DisplayPort. This will let you connect multiple sources to your Alienware monitor at once. You can use it primarily for your gaming PC but also choose to hook up a console like your Nintendo Switch 2. Just hop between input instead of having to disconnect and rearrange anything on your desk. The display also has two USB-A ports. The display makes cable management simple in its stand design.

Speaking of the stand, it’s fully adjustable. Raise and lower it or tilt the screen toward you with ease. The footprint base is small to save space on your desk despite the massive size of the screen itself.

For a limited time, you can pick up the Alienware 34 curved gaming monitor for just $320.

See at Amazon



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