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Groov-e's Wave Glow with illuminated ELD lights on it's end, lying on its side in a garden

Groov-e Wave Glow review: a portable, budget Bluetooth speaker that sadly doesn’t sound good enough to make the grade

by admin August 19, 2025

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Groov-e Wave Glow: two-minute review

The Groov-e Wave Glow is a very affordable portable speaker and one with sound quality to match that price tag. Yes, this is one that will infuriate the ears of audiophiles sounding somewhat tinny at times and slightly lacking any oomph across the course of my listening.

On the other hand, it has some funky looking lights which I found rather endearing, a comfy to grip strap, and some surprising ways to connect it to your music. Besides Bluetooth, you can also plug in a USB flash drive, slot in a TF card (both admittedly with a tight 64GB limit), and there’s an aux port. It’s not often you see these features in a tiny speaker any more. Granted, not everyone will need these but if you do, well, your options are limited making this more tempting.

Of course, don’t count on it rivalling the best Bluetooth speakers. This is a decidedly cheap speaker. It feels a little cheap to the touch and there’s that dodgy sound quality. I say dodgy; it’s reminiscent of buying a cheap radio or speaker years ago, before good speakers were affordable for the masses. It’s not hideous, exactly, but it’s also fairly ‘blah’.

Away from that disappointing audio quality, the Groov-e Wave Glow has some chunky, tactile buttons for play/pause, volume, and adjusting the lights, and the ports are all hidden behind a pull-out protective shell. Then there’s the lights up top and down bottom, and the elastic strap.

The Groov-e Wave Glow is priced at £23.99 and at the moment is only seemingly available in the UK, but that would make it under $35, or around AU$50. For that price, it’d be silly to expect too much, but if you can stretch further, you will find better options – more on those later. If money is that tight, however, or you’re looking for a cheap gift, the Groov-e Wave Glow still has some appeal.

(Image credit: Future)

Groov-e Wave Glow review: price and release date

Released May 2025
£23.99 at launch
Limited availability

The Groov-e Wave Glow was launched in May 2025 and is currently available to buy in the UK. It’s already seen some modest discounts but is generally available for £23.99.

That makes it one of the cheaper speakers around. The recently released Tribit Stormbox Mini Plus is close but is still usually priced at £39.99. If you’re able to increase your budget to that, there are a few other options like the JBL Go 4, but few as cheap as this one.

Groov-e Wave Glow review: specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Weight

645g

Dimensions

13.7 x 8 x 7.5 cm

Connectivity

Bluetooth 5.3, aux-in, USB-C (charging)

Battery life

8 hours (quoted)

Speaker drivers

10W

Waterproofing

n/a

Groov-e Wave Glow review: features

AUX port, microSD slot, and USB flash drive support
LED lights
8-hour battery life

The Groov-e Wave Glow is a fairly typical looking little Bluetooth speaker but with some surprising features. The highlight is its plethora of connections. Sure, you’ll be mostly using its Bluetooth connection, but it has other options. You can use its aux port to connect to other devices (and the speaker actually comes with a 3.5mm jack), while next to it is a TF (read: microSD) card slot, and the USB connection allows you to plug in a USB flash drive. Admittedly, both microSD and USB have a limitation of 64GB so you might have to search around for a compatible option, but it could be that specific situation that fits you perfectly.

There are no mics for speakerphone duties (although few speakers seem to offer that, these days) and battery life is a very unremarkable 8 hours. I’d have liked to have seen more here, especially as it takes 2 hours for a full recharge. Its Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity works fine and I had no issues using it with my iPhone 14 Pro but there were occasional dropouts on my PC – usually when I moved the speaker around.

Elsewhere, the LED lights are my favorite thing about the Groov-e Wave Glow. They visually bounce away while playing music and look suitably vibrant and exciting. They’re potentially more exciting than the audio quality, but I’ll get to that. It’s a neat touch either way and makes up for the lack of app support and thus in-app customization.

(Image credit: Future)

Groov-e Wave Glow review: sound quality

I didn’t expect much of the Groov-e Wave Glow but I have to be honest, it actually sounded a little worse than anticipated. It’s functional, of course, but pretty tinny at times. There’s no bass to speak of, but my word, do the lights try to atone for that. You’re encouraged to feel like it’s doing its best, happily bouncing along. However, it’s pretty tame stuff.

Listening to spoken word – a podcast or YouTube video, say – is fine, but when you switch over to your favorite music, the limitations are much more noticeable. The volume can go pretty high, but that weakens the experience even more. I went for my cheesy favorite, Robbie William’s Let Me Entertain You to start, knowing exactly how it’s meant to sound and there was no urgency or strength in the mids.

I went bold then and loaded up some Muse and sighed as it sounded somewhat pitiful. The soundstage is weak but more importantly, the bass and general ambience is underwhelming.

(Image credit: Future)

Groov-e Wave Glow review: design

Comfy elasticated strap
Tactile buttons
Well hidden ports

The Groov-e Wave Glow is certainly exactly how you expect a speaker to look, but there are a few highlights. I’m a big fan of its buttons being attractive but tactile too, so anyone with visual impairments can find what they’re wanting to press. There are buttons for play/pause, volume, and for toggling the lights on or off.

There’s a chunky section for the ports too which blends in well and feels suitably snug. On another side is the strap which is elasticated but held in quite tightly. The idea is that you can easily hold it through the strap but also attach it to something like a hook. It feels nice in your hands which is the main thing here.

As with other similar speakers, the Groov-e Wave Glow is pretty lightweight to carry around. Up top and down the bottom is the lighting so you can place the Groov-e Wave Glow sideways as well as upright.

What lets it down in this section – and why not go higher than four stars? Well, any discussion on the design has to include the audio architecture under the hood, and as you’ll know if you’ve read this far, this area is where the Wave Glow struggles. Also, unusually for a speaker in 2025, there’s no mention of an IP rating for water or dust ingress – so it won’t be joining the ranks of our best waterproof speakers buying guide any time soon.

(Image credit: Future)

Groov-e Wave Glow review: value

Very cheap
Sturdy design
Useful for a specific situation

The Groov-e Wave Glow is certainly cheap but its sound quality demonstrates exactly why it’s so cheap. Having said that, the aux port, USB flash drive support, and TF card slot could make it exactly what you’ve been looking for. For those people, there’s not much else to rival the Groov-e Wave Glow at this price.

However, if you’re looking for good audio, it’s a smart move to spend a little more on the JBL Go range or something from Anker Soundcore. The Groov-e Wave Glow definitely isn’t the best choice for music lovers, but it is super cheap and for many, that’s the priority.

(Image credit: Future)

Should I buy the Groov-e Wave Glow?

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Features

No app, but there are a few notable extras not on other models

4/5

Sound quality

The weakest element by far when considering the Wave Glow: tinny and lacking in low end

2/5

Design

Useful straps, fun lights and tactile buttons

4/5

Value

It’s cheap, but given the sound quality, spending less doesn’t always mean value

3/5

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Groov-e Wave Glow review: also consider

Swipe to scroll horizontallyRow 0 – Cell 0

Groov-e Wave Glow

Tribit Stormbox Mini Plus

JBL Clip 5

Price

£23.99; limited availability in other markets

$39.99 / £32 / AU$65 (approx.)

$79.95 / £59.99 / AU$89.95

Weight

645g

545g

285g

Dimensions

13.7 x 8 x 7.5 cm

90.9 x 90.9 x 118.9 mm

86 x 134.5 x 46 mm

Connectivity

Bluetooth 5.3, aux-in, USB-C (charging)

Bluetooth 5.4 (SBC, AAC codecs), AUX-in, USB-C (charging)

Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C (charging)

Battery life

8 hours (quoted)

12 hours (quoted)

Up to 12 hours

Speaker drivers

10W (dimensions not stated)

48mm

Integrated class D digital amplifiers x 1

Waterproofing

n/a

IPX7

IP67

Groov-e Wave Glow review: how I tested

Tested over 14 days
Used with Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Twitch
15 years of audio equipment reviewing experience

I used the Groov-e Wave Glow across 14 days in a wide range of ways. I connected it to my PC initially and listened to Spotify, Apple Music and Twitch using that as a source device, then moved to my iPhone 14 Pro.

That meant a solid mixture of spoken audio and also music. My music taste is fairly varied so it went from Robbie Williams to Muse to Chet Baker to various pieces of classical music. I also checked how good battery life appeared to be and monitored how long it took to recharge.

I have 15 years of experience testing audio equipment, specialising in portable, affordable products just like the Groov-e Wave Glow.

Groov-e Wave Glow: Price Comparison

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August 19, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Here’s the entire soundtrack for Europa Universalis 5 even though the grand strategy game doesn’t have a release date yet

by admin June 22, 2025

Europa Universalis V – Original Soundtrack – YouTube

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You can now listen to the entire soundtrack for grand strategy game Europa Universalis 5, as it’s been posted to YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music. Composed by Håkan Glänte, the music spans a lot of history and a lot of Europe in an impressive 26 tracks lasting nearly two hours.

As you might imagine, it’s a suitably grand soundtrack for a game that will encompass nearly 500 years of human history, from the medieval world through the early modern period. It focuses on a lot of orchestral pieces, with recognizable inspirations from medieval, renaissance, and baroque music.

There’s even a fitting bit of Bach in there, with an added vocal track above it—Gloria Patri On Bach’s Cello Suite No.1 in G major, BWV 1007: I.Prélude. How pleasantly iconic. (Not sarcasm—trust me, you’ll probably recognize the tune if you hear it. It’s at 38:08 in the YouTube video.)

For hardcore fans of grand strategy games there may have been a little apprehension over the upcoming soundtrack. Andreas Waldetoft, the composer behind the brilliant soundtracks of over a decade of Paradox Development Studio releases, left his exclusive arrangement with Paradox in 2023. Waldetoft’s soundtrack for previous Paradox games were much-beloved.

However, like Håkan Glänte’s previous tracks with Paradox for Victoria 3, this one’s pretty dang good. I’ll let you give it a listen before you decide if it lives up to the legacy, fellow strategy meganerds, but for me it’s another good set with a few true standouts that’re going right on my “good game music” playlist. No, I won’t give it a better name, it has been named that since 2005 and I am now completely set in my ways.

In a hands-on preview earlier this year, PC Gamer’s Fraser Brown said that Europa Universalis 5 might well be “the ultimate grand strategy game.” I spent time with the same build of it, and I’m inclined to agree.

You can find the Europa Universalis 5 soundtrack on Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube. Europa Universalis 5 itself, however, doesn’t yet have a release date.

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June 22, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Bitcoin doesn’t budge on Israel-Iran war, for now: NoOnes CEO

by admin June 20, 2025

Geopolitical tensions are escalating, but Bitcoin hasn’t seen major price action. NoOnes CEO Ray Youssef explains why.

Rising tensions in the Middle East are exposing a flaw in how some traders view Bitcoin (BTC). Instead of acting as a hedge, Bitcoin is behaving more like a tech stock, says Ray Youssef, CEO of NoOnes, a crypto peer-to-peer payments and trading platform.

“Markets usually don’t like surprises — but lately, crypto doesn’t seem to react much. Over the past week, we’ve seen a major hack targeting Iran’s biggest crypto exchange, growing tensions in the Middle East, and even signs of digital warfare. Yet crypto prices have barely moved,” Ray Yossef, NoOnes.

Yossef also highlighted the $100 million breach of Nobitex, Iran’s biggest crypto exchange. The hack, likely performed by Predatory Sparrow, a hacking group with ties to Israel, would have sounded alarm bells earlier.

Escalating tensions are usually positive for hedge assets. However, Bitcoin’s reaction was muted, continuing to trade around $105,000. At the same time, Ethereum (ETH) also traded between $2,120 and $2,330, now for the seventh week in a row. This is despite significant whale inflows, amounting to 871,000 ETH over one week.

Bitcoin fails as a hedge asset for now: Yossef

Bitcoin’s lack of movement, according to Youssef, suggests that its hedge-asset narrative is losing traction in today’s market.

Bitcoin no longer appears to function as a hedge asset; instead, it behaves more like a high-beta tech stock, caught in the macro winds but not really steering its own ship. The link between BTC and the Nasdaq 100 is still strong at 0.68,” Ray Yossef, NoOnes.

Still, Youssef notes that geopolitical risk is driving a shift within the broader crypto landscape. Bitcoin dominance is approaching 66%, as traders retreat from riskier altcoins. If global tensions continue to mount, this rotation into BTC could accelerate, especially if capital controls, sanctions, and infrastructure disruptions enter the mix.

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June 20, 2025 0 comments

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 06: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the OpenAI DevDay event on November 06, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Altman delivered the keynote address at the first-ever Open AI DevDay conference.(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Product Reviews

OpenAI supremo Sam Altman says he ‘doesn’t know how’ he would have taken care of his baby without the help of ChatGPT

by admin June 19, 2025

Sam Altman on AGI, GPT-5, and what’s next — the OpenAI Podcast Ep. 1 – YouTube

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For a chap atop one of the most high profile tech organisations on the planet, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s propensity, shall we say, to expatiate but not excogitate, is, well, remarkable. Sometimes, he really doesn’t seem to think before he speaks. The latest example involves his status as a “new parent,” something which he apparently doesn’t consider viable without help from his very own chatbot (via Techcrunch).

“Clearly, people have been able to take care of babies without ChatGPT for a long time,” Altman initially and astutely observes on the official OpenAI podcast, only to concede, “I don’t know how I would’ve done that.”

“Those first few weeks it was constantly,” he says of his tendency to consult ChatGPT on childcare. Apparently, books, consulting friends and family, even a good old fashioned Google search would not have occurred to this colossus astride the field of artificial, er, intelligence.

If all that’s a touch arch, forgive me. But the Altman is in absolute AI evangelism overdrive mode in this interview. “I spend a lot of time thinking about how my kid will use AI in the future,” he says, “my kids will never be smarter than AI. But they will grow up vastly more capable than we grew up and able to do things that we cannot imagine, they’ll be really good at using AI.”

There are countless immediate and obvious objections to that world view. For sure, people will be better at using AI. But will they themselves be more capable? Maybe most people won’t be able to write coherent prose if AI does it for them from day one. Will having AI write everything make everyone more capable?

Not that this is a major revelation, but this podcast makes it clear just how signed up Altman is to the AI revolution. “They will look back on this as a very prehistoric time period,” he says of today’s children.

That’s a slightly odd claim, given “prehistory” means before human activities and endeavours were recorded for posterity. And, of course, the very existence of the large language models that OpenAI creates entirely relies on the countless gigabytes of pre-AI data on which those LLMs were originally trained.

Indeed, one of the greatest challenges currently facing AI is the notion of chatbot contamination. The idea is that, since the release of ChatGPT into the wild in 2022, the data on which LLMs are now being trained is increasing polluted with the synthetic output of prior chatbots.

As more and more chatbots inject more and more synthetic data into the overall shared pool, subsequent generations of AI models will thus become ever more polluted and less reliable, eventually leading to a state known as AI model collapse.

Indeed, some observers believe this is already happening, as evidenced by the increasing propensity to hallucinate by some of the latest models. Cleaning that problem up is going to be “prohibitively expensive, probably impossible” by some accounts.

Anyway, if there’s a issue with Altman’s unfailingly optimistic utterances, it’s probably a lack of nuance. Everything before AI is hopeless and clunky, to the point where it’s hard to imagine how you’d look after a newborn baby without ChatGPT. Everything after AI is bright and clean and perfect.

Of course, anyone who’s used a current chatbot for more than a few moments will be very familiar with their immediately obvious limitations, let alone the broader problems they may pose even if issues like hallucination are overcome. At the very least, it would be a lot easier to empathise with the likes of Altman if there was some sense of those challenges to balance his one-sided narrative.

Anywho, fire up the podcast and decide for yourself just what you make of Altman’s everything-AI attitudes.

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June 19, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Nintendo Doesn’t Care About Donkey Kong Lore & That’s Great

by admin June 19, 2025

During today’s Donkey Kong Bananza Direct, it was officially revealed that DK’s sidekick throughout the adventure is a young version of Pauline. That’s fun! Now let’s check the internet to see how people are reacting to the Direct… oh…oh no. Way too many of you care about Donkey Kong/Mario lore! That’s weird, because Nintendo don’t give a shit about any of that stuff and that’s wonderful.

Princess Peach’s Leading Role And More New Releases

Donkey Kong Bananza launches next month. On Wednesday, Nintendo shared a 15-minute Direct all about the game. As a result, I’m very excited to play Bananza. It looks awesome, letting DK punch and destroy everything. It also co-stars a young Pauline, who is DK’s companion in the game, riding on his shoulder and using her singing ability to help the big ape solve puzzles and destroy more stuff. I think that inclusion alone wouldn’t have broken too many people’s brains, but at one point in the Direct we briefly see Donkey Kong and young Pauline interact with Cranky Kong. And that has caused chaos among Nintendo lore nerds.

YouTube comments debating DK Bananza’s place in the lore. Screenshot: YouTube / Kotaku

The “problem” is that in past games, Cranky Kong has been implied to be the original Donkey Kong who kidnapped an adult Pauline during the events of 1981’s Donkey Kong arcade game. So seeing Pauline as a child hanging out with an aged Cranky Kong makes it hard for wiki editors and super fans to figure out how to connect Bananza to the other Mario and Donkey Kong games.

Over on YouTube, there are literally hundreds of comments from many people debating how to make the lore work.

Some speculate that Bananza is retconning the original game. Others hypothesize there might be some time travel. Gamespot postulates it could be a multiverse situation (though the writer acknowledges they might be overthinking all of this). Some DK / Mario purists are denouncing the game as non-canonical. Some think Pauline is actually Pauline’s daughter. Still others are expecting this to be a prequel to Super Mario Odyssey, and it will reveal the origins of New Donk City, where we meet an adult Mayor Pauline.

A huge YouTube comment about DK lore. Screenshot: YouTube / Kotaku

I found one YouTube comment that was over 1,300 words long and dug deep into the canonical Mario and Donkey Kong games and Bananza’s place in that timeline and the problems it creates.

How A Young Pauline Can Meet Cranky Kong In Bananza

I want to help you all. So, here’s the answer you’ve been looking for. Here’s why and how Pauline, as a kid, is talking to Cranky Kong. You ready? Here you go: Nintendo doesn’t care about lore and just wants to make fun games. That’s it. Simple as that.

And honestly, that’s so nice. I love it so much. Truly, Nintendo devs couldn’t care less about canon, timelines, and Donkey Kong lore. They just make great games that make you smile. The company doesn’t let decades of backstory impede its ability to be creative and do new things. Pauline is a kid in this game because the people making Bananza thought it would be a fun idea, and Nintendo agreed.

Besides, the Donkey Kong lore is a mess anyway. Cranky Kong’s appearance in the Direct is seen by many as a smoking gun that reveals Bananza to be a reboot or a time travel story. But on the Mario Wiki page for Cranky, you’ll find a nearly 800-word section about how his connection to Donkey Kong has never been consistent. Sometimes he’s DK’s grandpa, sometimes he’s DK’s dad, sometimes he might not even be related. Sometimes Nintendo has acknowledged this nonsense; other times, they just treat the current Donkey Kong as the sole big ape that long ago kidnapped Pauline. None of this has ever been nailed down consistently, and acting like it has is silly!

Look, I get it. I love Star Wars lore. I get nerdy about it, too. I’m not trying to say people can’t have fun. But far too many of the comments I’ve seen about this Bananza lore debate seem to be taking it far too seriously, as if Nintendo is vindictively shitting on Rare’s legacy. That doesn’t make sense considering all the references to Rare’s DK Country games included in the Direct.

The thing about lore is that it’s fun to ponder and discuss, but it should never be allowed to completely derail anyone’s ability to tell a new story or make something cool with classic characters. Donkey Kong Bananza seems like a blast. Don’t let the lore get in the way of that.

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June 19, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Date Everything claims to be a dating sim, but it doesn’t love or understand its own genre

by admin June 18, 2025

Romantic games are one of the most overlooked successes in all of gaming. There are million-selling series spanning decades amongst them, and the loosely defined genre thrives on Steam in all its beautiful forms, encompassing everything from breezy pop star fantasies and summer adventures to hot gothic stories. Date Everything, a comedic “sandbox dating simulator” where I romance tables and lamps thanks to a pair of hi-tech glasses, has a lot of competition—and a lot of work to do if it wants to convince me that the jokes here aren’t aimed at the genre, or at me for playing it.

And to its credit, the writing is often genuinely funny. The slight problem is this game clearly has no idea what a dating sim actually is.

There are 100 dateable objects in the house, and I really do have to romance the vast majority of them all at once if I want to see anything close to a semi-satisfying credits roll. This fact alone instantly turns these intimate interactions into a meaningless “Gotta date ’em all!” clickfest (there’s even a date-a-dex installed on my in-game phone, with everyone given an ID number). And it makes me into the gaming equivalent of a brainless cushion-humping chihuahua.

No, worse than that—it makes me nothing. I am the submissive counterpart to the attic dominatrix. I am the perfect date of my charming desk. I am loyal to everyone and no one, and worst of all nobody seems to care.

Bedding my bed and getting topless with a trophy has no impact on the “love” state of the throuple I’m in with the washing machine and tumble dryer, and the magnifying glass will treat me like I’m the only one for her even though I’m already sleeping with four dozen different appliances, like a lovesick handyman let loose in a hardware store.

Image 1 of 3

(Image credit: Team17)(Image credit: Team17)(Image credit: Team17)

In an actual dating sim, like 1994’s Tokimeki Memorial (and a heaving shelf’s worth of others), pursuing someone takes time and effort, and always comes with risks. Rivalries form when I favour one person over another, or a scheduling conflict or special event forces me to pick a side. If I agree to meet someone next Tuesday, then I’d better meet them next Tuesday or not only will I tank their opinion of me but their friends will hear about it too, and tear my entire social life to pieces.

One of Date Everything’s dates is a cat clock, and their entire personality and mini-storyline revolves around timeliness and scheduling. Makes sense. I agree to make an appointment so we can introduce ourselves properly—12:00pm. The conversation ends. It’s noon. Fantastic, I can keep my promise. Except I can’t, because I already spoke to them today and that means the UI says no.

So I eventually show up at 12:00… three days later, and that doesn’t seem to be a problem. For the clock. The clock-person whose entire being is all about timeliness.

Without stakes, friction, or consequences, it’s all meaningless. A dating sim where I never have to commit to anyone or anything, and my dates are just passive pushovers who could surely do better than someone who doesn’t care which Thursday they eventually showed up for.

But that’s no problem, right? This is a silly game, so I should just roll with it and enjoy the laughs.

That would be nice. The thing is, Date Everything is silly—until it isn’t.

While talking to my biggest fan—in every sense of the word—I get my first content warning. These give me a quick heads-up when the conversation might veer towards subjects including, and I quote, “PTSD, violence, stalking, manipulation, domination, mental health issues, addiction, and many more…”, and then the option to skip the character entirely (while still receiving the bonuses for clearing their story).

Image 1 of 3

(Image credit: Team17)(Image credit: Team17)(Image credit: Team17)

Interactive fiction can be a fantastic place to safely explore these subjects. But this is a game where my microwave is called Luke Nukem, a “warrior” convinced they’re fighting a bizarre sci-fi battle, and my shower talks like Elvis. In this context these dabbles with something deeper feel out of place, as if the drafts for something darker got mixed in with all the pink hearts and lengthy conversations about fitness and makeup.

“If you don’t like sociopaths…” reads one content warning, which, if nothing else, is surely the opposite of someone emotionally available and looking for love. And maybe the personification of my personal diary isn’t the ideal place to drop a random allusion to date rape?

A good dating sim has consistency. A mood, a tone—a promise. It will always offer a reasonably clear idea of what sort of romantic attention I’m in for, and because of that I’ll know what sort of romantic gestures are expected of me in turn. You know, the way Koei’s Angelique managed to do so with its sweet magical fantasy decades ago. On the Super Nintendo.

Pushing on anyway and obtaining the final, final, romantic ending for a particular character sees them… leave me. My ultimate reward, in a dating sim, is to see the characters I’ve poured 20+ hrs of work into and had supposedly heartfelt, life-altering conversations with… leave. Literally as soon as the dialogue box closes. One down, 99 to go. The house I worked so hard to transform into a literally loving home emptied out, one relationship at a time.

Sure, it’s nice that they go off and have fulfilling careers and large families, but am I seriously supposed to be OK with all that because the script assures me some of them come back and sleep with me from time to time? And for a game that’s so quick and careful with content warnings, it’s jarring to see my own sexual consent and personal desires never factor into these endings.

(Image credit: Team17)

This game has no idea what it wants to do, never mind what it’s supposed to be. Sometimes it’s tooth-rottingly wholesome. Sometimes it’s plain horny. And then just sometimes it ventures into deeply unsettling nightmare territory. It’s like they put 100 short stories, covering everything from popcorn prep to actual murder, in a blender and then locked me in a house with them.

It’s mush in dateable form, a mess of a game that lacks the narrative and mechanical depth of dating sims made before some of the people reading this were even born, and a playable example of why other examples of the genre don’t offer anything close to 100 dateable characters.

Dating sims are so much better than this. I just wish Date Everything knew that.

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June 18, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Sony Doesn’t Sound Too Concerned About Switch 2, Even After A Record-Breaking Debut

by admin June 16, 2025

Switch 2 is so hot right now. So much so that Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Hideaki Nishino was asked if the PlayStation team is worried about the system’s increased performance and third-party support, possibly leading to tougher competition for PS5. The answer boiled down to: Not really.

Nishino discussed the Switch 2 during a Sony business presentation, where he even touched on PS6 (but not in name) and cloud gaming. Switch 2 set a new record for fastest-selling system of all time, with Nintendo stating it sold 3.5 million consoles in four days. Nishino said successful launches like this can be a boon for everybody. He noted that “catalysts in the market are great for the industry as a whole, as they invigorate the excitement and demand more broadly,” per VGC.

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The PlayStation executive also conveyed confidence in the PS5 as a whole, especially when it comes to gaming on a TV. “PlayStation 5 is designed for an immersive gaming experience, and this includes the innovative DualSense controller features as well. We believe PS5-level performance is required to achieve a great experience on big screens. And in this way, we have provided a unique offering for players and creators in this current console generation.”

However, Sony is reportedly developing a PS5 portable system, possibly designed to compete with Switch 2 and Steam Deck. In the 2000s and 2010s, Sony battled in the handheld market space against Nintendo with the PSP and PS Vita.

Sony leadership didn’t just talk about Switch 2, though. Herman Hulst, who’s CEO of the studio business group at Sony Interactive Entertainment, said that the company remains committed to live-service games. Bungie’s Marathon is next up in that department for PlayStation, and it’s set to release September 23.

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June 16, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

Shiba Inu Burn Rate Soars 1,869% In One Day, But Doesn’t Make A Dent In Supply

by admin June 12, 2025

Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure

Shiba Inu has witnessed a dramatic spike in its burn rate over the past 24 hours, according to data from Shiba Inu burn tracker Shibburn.com. The total number of tokens sent to burn addresses surged by over 1,800% during this period, marking one of the most notable increases in recent weeks.

The spike in SHIB burns is coming as the Shiba Inu price is attempting to stabilize above the $0.000013 price level. However, despite the short-term surge in token burning, the scale of the burn is insignificant when placed beside the meme coin’s massive total supply.

Shiba Inu Burn Activity Spikes Suddenly

Data from Shiba Inu burn tracker Shibburn shows that 4,578,466 SHIB tokens were sent to burn addresses in the past 24 hours, which represents a 1869% increase from the previous 24-hour timeframe. Interestingly, the majority of the tokens burned in the latest cycle came from just two large transactions.

The first involved the movement of 3,295,542 SHIB tokens to a designated burn wallet known as CA. Two hours later, a second transaction saw another 1,173,708 tokens sent into a separate address labeled BA-2.

Source: Chart from Shibburn

On-chain data links both transactions to a wallet identified as “0xa9d1,” which is tied to the Coinbase10 label. This means that the burns may have been executed by a user on the Coinbase crypto exchange. Combined, the two burns amounted to 4,469,520 SHIB tokens and were primarily responsible for the 1,869% jump in the daily burn rate.

Shiba Inu’s Large Supply Still Far Ahead

Although the number of SHIB burned in the past 24 hours is a lot, it is actually small compared to the amount of SHIB burned during periods of high activity surrounding Shiba Inu. Also, it barely makes a dent in the circulating supply of Shiba Inu.

The numbers show a 1,800% spike in 24 hours, but the impact of the burn is somewhat negligible in the grand scheme of SHIB’s supply structure. Shiba Inu was created with a total supply of 999.9 trillion SHIB tokens. Of this total supply, 410.7 trillion SHIB has been burned and removed from circulation, meaning there are still 589.9 trillion SHIB in total supply.

Out of this total supply, only 4.7 trillion SHIB tokens are currently staked, meaning that there are presently about 584.5 trillion SHIB tokens in circulation. When placed next to such a massive figure, the 4.58 million burned in the past 24 hours is barely noticeable both numerically and in terms of price effect. For SHIB’s supply to reduce meaningfully enough to influence price over time, far larger and more sustained burns would need to occur.

At the time of writing, Shiba Inu is trading at $0.00001272, down by 4.9% in the past 24 hours.

SHIB trading at $0.000012 on the 1D chart | Source: SHIBUSDT on Tradingview.com

Featured image from Getty Images, chart from Tradingview.com

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June 12, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Sam Altman doesn’t think you should be worried about ChatGPT’s energy usage – reveals exactly how much power each prompt uses

by admin June 12, 2025

Sam Altman says a ChatGPT prompt uses “0.34 watt-hours” of electricity, roughly one second of an oven
He also says a single ChatGPT prompt uses “0.000085 gallons of water; roughly one-fifteenth of a teaspoon”
While that’s not a lot in isolation, ChatGPT has over 400 million weekly users, with multiple prompts per day

OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman has revealed ChatGPT’s energy usage for a single prompt, and while it’s lower than you might expect, on a global scale, it could have a significant impact on the planet.

Writing on his blog, Altman said, “The average query uses about 0.34 watt-hours, about what an oven would use in a little over one second, or a high-efficiency lightbulb would use in a couple of minutes. It also uses about 0.000085 gallons of water; roughly one-fifteenth of a teaspoon.”

While that might not sound like a lot as an isolated prompt, ChatGPT has approximately 400 million active weekly users, and that number is growing at a rapid rate. Bear in mind there’s a growing amount of AI tools and chatbots on the market, including Google Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, so general AI energy usage will be even higher.

We rely on AI, so is this energy consumption a concern?

There’s a constant concern about ChatGPT’s energy consumption, and it is becoming increasingly vocal as AI usage continues to rise. While Altman’s blog post will put some minds at ease, considering the relatively low energy and water usage in isolation, it could also spark more uproar.

Earlier this week, a mass ChatGPT outage led to millions of people unable to interact with the chatbot. Over the 10 hour plus period, I received emails from thousands of readers who gave me a new perspective on AI.

While I’d be lying if I said AI’s energy consumption doesn’t concern me, it would be unfair to overlook the positives of the technology and how it is improving the lives of millions.

The climate crisis is not limited to me and you, but unfortunately, it’s the working class that ultimately pays the price. ChatGPT’s energy consumption at a mass scale may be a severe problem in the future, but then again, so are the private jets flying 10-minute flights.

The AI climate concerns are not black and white, and those who criticise the impact of the technology on the planet are equally vocal about the impact of other technologies. That said, we’re only at the beginning of the AI revolution, and energy consumption will continue to rise. At what point should we be worried?

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June 12, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Elon Musk discovers Trump doesn’t stay bought

by admin June 5, 2025

I have been watching, with some grim amusement, Elon Musk discovering the limits of being just another political donor. While he was at DOGE, he literally could control the Treasury and DOD — he effectively had the IT reins of the entire country, and could simply gut things he hated at will. There was a price for that: it destroyed what was left of his reputation. But it was real, true power — being able to stop payments at will makes you more powerful than the president.

So much for that. These days, Musk is reduced to begging his followers on X to call their senators and congressmen [sic, obviously] to vote down the Big Beautiful Bill. His nominal reason is that Donald Trump’s budget plan will increase the deficit, but reports indicate that Musk is annoyed an EV credit is getting cut. That makes it harder to sell Teslas in an environment where it’s already hard to sell Teslas. Also, Musk may be annoyed that he didn’t get to stay past his statutory limit as an unpaid advisor and that the FAA isn’t using Starlink, according to Axios.

Even less powerful enemies can lead to political problems, which is why Musk doesn’t get his pet boy in NASA

The cracks have been showing in the MAGA-tech alliance for some time now. When Scott Bessent got Musk’s IRS pick ejected in April, that was notable. (Bessent’s deputy now runs the IRS.) Musk wasn’t politically savvy enough to get Bessent on his side before installing his pick; an end-run like that is insulting and Musk had been making enemies. Take, for instance, Marco Rubio, who was furious when Musk destroyed USAID — that was Rubio’s department and getting rid of it cut his power. Sean Duffy, the reality TV star who is for some reason running the Department of Transportation, had to intervene to stop DOGE from firing air traffic controllers while the lack of air traffic controllers remains a hot-button issue.

These men should not have been especially difficult to finesse, but then Musk is known for his bull-in-a-china-shop approach. It is rare that a person in a position of power — a cabinet seat, say — willingly gives up even an inch of leverage. Making enemies of Bessent, Rubio, and Duffy was a strategic error.

Even less powerful enemies can lead to political problems, which is why Musk doesn’t get his pet boy in NASA now. Jared Isaacman was due to receive his final confirmation vote in the Senate when Trump abruptly withdrew his nomination for head of the aerospace agency. That was reportedly because Musk had beef with Sergio Gor, the head of the White House Presidential Personnel Office — basically the lead recruiter for government jobs. The moment Musk was no longer in the actual White House, Gor dropped the blade.

Still, Trump isn’t publicly chastising Musk

Silicon Valley is still entwined with the government — Musk’s cronies, including the guy who calls himself Big Balls, now have permanent jobs. Associates of Peter Thiel, Palmer Luckey, and David Sacks all have jobs in the administration; the vice president owes his entire political career to his sugar daddy Thiel. But when David Sacks gets on X to argue with Marjorie Taylor Greene about the AI provision in the budget bill, that suggests a shocking lack of leverage. Sacks was a major Republican fundraiser and is a literal advisor to the president; shouldn’t he be able to pick up a phone and get what he wants?

Instead, his podcast All-In is getting the exclusive bitch session from Isaacman, the NASA administrator who wasn’t. Great for content, I guess, but not real power.

I’m a little surprised Musk isn’t threatening to primary people over the bill. Maybe that’s happening in private, I don’t know. But it could also reflect that Musk’s money is, at times, a political liability. When Musk dropped $20 million on his preferred Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate, that candidate got blown out of the water. Musk’s increasingly toxic reputation may make his money less welcome.

Still, Trump isn’t publicly chastising Musk, which is unusual. Maybe that’s because he’s waiting on a $100 million check to his political action committee, per The Wall Street Journal. Or maybe it’s because Musk is particularly close to Katie and Stephen Miller, two major Trump administration power players.

The basic truth of Donald Trump’s entire career, starting in real estate, is that he will fuck over anyone who does a deal with him as soon as it benefits him to do so. (Just ask Michael Cohen!) You can buy him, but he won’t stay bought. You have to keep an eye on him, keep managing him, as Stephen Miller knows well. Musk left the White House to tend to his own reputation, leaving his enemies behind to whisper in the president’s ear. Sure, he’s still got people in the administration, but it’s hard to effectively rule from the shadows when you’ve created a shocking amount of tension with the actual presidential staff. Musk set his own companies on fire, and this is what he’s gotten in return. What did you get for your money, honey? How do you get your kicks?

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June 5, 2025 0 comments

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Shiba Inu Burn Activity Spikes Suddenly

Shiba Inu’s Large Supply Still Far Ahead

We rely on AI, so is this energy consumption a concern?

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