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Trump Executive Order Will Hand TikTok Over to US Investors

by admin September 26, 2025

On Thursday, US president Donald Trump signed an executive order to transfer ownership of TikTok’s US operation to a group of American investors, including Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison.

“I had a very good talk with president Xi. We talked about TikTok. He gave us the go-ahead,” Trump said during a White House press conference. He conceded that he’d gotten a bit of resistance from the “Chinese side.” By Thursday afternoon, the Chinese government had not issued an announcement acknowledging the deal.

Vice President JD Vance said the deal valued TikTok at around $14 billion. ByteDance was valued at $330 billion as of August. Both Trump and his treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, credited Vance as playing a pivotal role in brokering the agreement.

Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, and Rupert Murdoch are among the “four or five” American investors who will take over TikTok’s US operations, according to Trump. “Oracle is playing a very big part,” he said at the press conference. Vance noted the full list of investors will be released in the “days to come.”

Details of the deal are still unknown. “What this deal ensures is that the American entity and the American investors will actually control the algorithm,” Vance said during the briefing. “We don’t want this used as a propaganda tool by any foreign government.”

It’s unclear if ByteDance would remain in any way responsible for the operation of TikTok in the US. Up to this point, TikTok has been betting on Project Texas, a system designed to separate the data access of US- and China-based employees, to soothe national security concerns. But a global platform like TikTok inevitably requires different departments and geographical branches to access data from each other, making a clean separation unlikely. For many in Congress and in Washington more broadly, any ByteDance involvement in the new US TikTok would violate the law. On the flip side, if licensing essentially amounts to buying a copy of the ByteDance source code, it’s hard not to see that as a violation of Chinese law.

It’s also unclear whether US users will now be forced to migrate to a new app, and whether they’ll be served different content than TikTok users in the rest of the world.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that there would be no difference. But even if the pool of content being posted to the platform is the same, changes to the recommendation algorithm would inherently mean that users see different things. TikTok was one of the first social networks in which the content algorithm overwhelmingly decides a user’s experience, unlike previous platforms that prioritize personal connections and self-labeled interests. It means users have less control over what they see on their For You page.

There are widespread concerns that the Trump administration is willing to weaponize its allies’ control of media and social media to censor content it doesn’t favor. Larry Ellison, the Oracle founder who will have a significant role in the new TikTok entity, has close ties to the Trump administration. CBS, which is now owned by his son David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance Corporation, recently canceled The Late Show, whose host, Stephen Colbert, is a frequent Trump critic.

Asked by a reporter on Thursday if the deal would mean more MAGA content on TikTok, Trump responded, “If I could, I’d make the algorithm 100 percent MAGA related. But it’s not going to work out that way unfortunately. Everyone’s going to be treated fairly.”

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September 26, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

Skullcandy Method 360 review: great-sounding mid-range earbuds with a helping hand from Bose

by admin September 21, 2025

Why you can trust TechRadar

We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Skullcandy Method 360: One minute review

As my editor at TechRadar well knows, I’ve spent the last year enamored with the Nothing Ear (a) as the best earbuds you can buy for a relatively affordable price, and nothing has come close to toppling these svelte and low-cost buds.

That’s all changed now though, because the Skullcandy Method 360 give their year-and-change older rivals a run for their money. And I see them being the new big buds that, going forward, I shall compare all contemporaries too.

These buds from American audio company Skullcandy are dead ringers for the brand’s cheap Dime Evo buds, coming in the same novel carry case, but I’ve already got to correct myself: these aren’t just from Skullcandy, but from another key player too.

In a big partnership, top audio dog Bose contributed to the sound of the Method 360, and it shows. These have the energy of Skullcandy buds but the audio precision of Bose ones, and the fantastic audio quality shows that the Method 360 benefits from the best of both worlds.

While Skullcandy boasts that the Method 360 have ‘Sound by Bose’, the design of the new buds also bears more than a passing resemblance to recent Bose earpieces too, especially with a gel fin around the buds to help them stick in your ear. Whether this was another case of the Bose helping hand or just a total coincidence, it’s welcome, with the Method 360 staying in the ear reliably even during workouts. They’re comfortable too, letting you listen for long bouts without your ears getting achy.

Design of the buds may be great, but the carry case itself provides problems: namely, that it’s absolutely huge. It’s a massive long tube which hides an inner shell that you slide out to retrieve the earbuds, and it’s far too big to easily fit in trouser pockets. According to promotional images Skullcandy sees you using the O-ring to strap the case to your bag, or perhaps your trousers, but the sheer size would make that about as unwieldy as walking about with a scabbard.

A few rough edges show their face in the feature set too: the app often failed to connect to the earbuds, even when they readily connected to my phone without issues, which was irritating when I wanted to change ANC mode. Plus, the voice announcer on the buds is both terrifyingly loud and surprisingly low-res, making me wonder if I’d accidentally been sent a pair of Method 360 which had been cursed by the Babadook.

Are these flaws enough to ruin the Skullcandy? Not by any means, they’re just minor gripes, and ones that give me something to write about to seem even-handed too. But they do little to counteract the real strengths of the Method 360: its reliable fit, its fantastic sound and its affordable nature.

Skullcandy Method 360 review: Specifications

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Component

Value

Water resistant

IPX4

Battery life (quoted)

11 hours (earbuds), 29 hours (total)

Bluetooth type

Bluetooth 5.3

Weight

11g / Charging case: 77g

Driver

12mm

Skullcandy Method 360 review: Price and availability

(Image credit: Future)

Announced in April ’25
RRP $119 / £99 / AU$189
Priced against mid-range rivals

Skullcandy announced the Method 360 in April 2025 and put them on sale straight away afterwards.

The official price of the buds is $119 / £99 / AU$189, although they were cheaper for their first few weeks of existence thanks to introductory pricing. When considering their value, though, we’ll consider this official price.

At that price these can be considered mid-range buds, with the aforementioned Nothing Ear (a) costing more or less (depending on region) at $99 / £99 / AU$192. Their other big rival at that price is the WF-C710N which has an RRP exactly the same as the Skullcandy and we’ll get more into the differences in our comparison section below.

Skullcandy Method 360 review: Design

(Image credit: Future)

Huge case that’s fiddly to insert buds into
Buds are comfortable and fit reliably
Range of color options

The worst part of the Skullcandy Method 360 is its case. It’s absolutely huge – you’ve got no chance of fitting this thing in your trouser pocket and it was even a squeeze fitting it into the folds of my jacket. It’s significantly bigger than the case of any other earbud I’ve tested recently, making it a pain for portability.

That’s a shame because it’s a bit more interesting-looking than your generic clamshell earbud case. It uses what Skullcandy calls ‘Clip It and Rip It’; this means that there’s an internal column holding the earbuds which you reveal by sliding it out of a protective tube. There’s an O-ring which lets you clip the case to a bag or, according to Skullcandy, trouser belt loop, which also makes it easy to do this sliding action.

It’s an interesting design which Skullcandy has used before, but two extra things beyond the size damn the case. Firstly, the charging port is on the bottom of the internal column so if you slide this column up, the charging port is hidden by the external case – it’s quite a procedure to keep charging while you remove the buds. Secondly, the buds only fit in their respective slots if you insert them at just the right angle, and it’s hard enough to tell which bud goes in which slot, let alone which angle to put them in at (there are a faint ‘L’ and ‘R’ to solve the first problem but it could be made more clear). These are the single most frustrating earbuds I’ve ever tested in terms of returning them to the case after use, and I constantly wasted time trying to rotate the buds to work out how to get them into their gap.

It’s not just me on this latter point: Skullcandy’s listing for the Method ANC has an FAQ question and one query is “How do I put my Method 360 ANC earbuds back in the case?” complete with a surprisingly in-depth 5-point answer. Skullcandy: if earbud users need to go through five steps to put an earbud in the case, perhaps there’s a better way of doing things. I also presented my much-smarter girlfriend with the buds and the case and she too found it akin to solving a Rubix cube.

Evidence of how easily-bendable the hook is. (Image credit: Future)

At least Skullcandy has done something I love in earbuds: offered multiple color options. As well as the standards of black and white there’s bright red, a sandy hue which Skullcandy calls ‘Primer’ and your grandma’s favorite option: leopard print.

Now onto the buds themselves: they seem to work as a medley of the two core types of in-ear buds with large bodies which stay in your ears with a silicon ridge, but they also have a slight, dumpy stem. Whatever color of case you fit, affects the buds too, though in the case of leopard print it’s just on one surface.

The buds weigh 11g so they’re among the heaviest earbuds I’ve tested, but in the grand scheme of things a couple of grams doesn’t make much difference on the ears. And that tells – not once in my testing did the buds fall out of my ears, even though I went on runs with them and took them to the gym. I’m going to point towards their fin as the reason for this, with the material of the tip also making them stay in my ear snug. In the box you get an array of sizes for both too.

Both buds have touch controls, activated if you tap the right spot on the body of the bud (if you look at the picture, it’s just below the slight ridge, around where the LED light is). This worked fine in picking up fingertips but I found it quite hard to reliably tap the correct spot when I wanted to pause music.

The buds both have an IPX4 rating making them protected against splashes of water, which essentially means they’re safe against sweat or a light drizzle of rain but nothing stronger (or wetter).

Skullcandy Method 360 review: Features

(Image credit: Future)

Good on-bud battery life
ANC is strong, but not competition-beating
Skull-IQ app for extra features

With a case of its size, you’d expect the Skullcandy Method 360 to have a battery life longer than creation. And it’s definitely good, though set your expectations a little lower than ‘forever’.

According to Skullcandy, the bud battery life reaches 11 hours with ANC off or 9 hours with it turned on, with the case providing an extra 23 or 29 respectively. From my testing I’d say Skullcandy’s figures are, if anything, a touch conservative – either way those are respectable figures

You’re offered the two standard noise cancellation modes we often see: standard ANC and ‘Stay-Aware’, both with a slider letting you change intensity mode (before you ask the same question I did: higher intensity affects the strength of ANC, not of background noise allowed through).

Regardless of which option you pick, the ANC is strong and capable, and you’ll struggle to find better at this price point. It’s so effective, however, that Stay-Aware often failed to let through the kinds of loud nearby sounds that these ambient modes are designed to do. In fact I didn’t notice a huge difference between ANC and Stay-Aware most of the time.

You can download the Skull-IQ app on your phone or tablet to get extra features for the earbuds. Some of these are ability to toggle ANC and change what tapping the buds does, but there are a few more.

(Image credit: Future)

One of these is nigh-on mandatory at this point: an equalizer. You get several presets here but there’s also a five-band custom option. While that’s not as complex as we normally see in equalizers, I honestly don’t mind, as it’s a lot more simple for the average earbud user to get their head around.

Beyond that we’ve got features for low latency audio (useful for gaming), multipoint pairing to connect to multiple devices at once, the ability to use your earbud as a remote trigger for your smartphone camera and Spotify Tap, which lets you press and hold an earbud to instantly play from a certain Spotify playlist.

A few features I like to see are absent like Find My Earbuds, listening tests or earbud fit tests, but the features you do get work well… unlike the way you control them.

One thing that I’d love to see Skullcandy fix with the app is its reliability. A fair few times I’d boot it up while listening to music only to be told that the earbuds weren’t in use – one time this incorrect message was ironically covered up by my phone system’s own notification telling me the buds’ battery life. I’d have to either refresh the app, or give up on plans to change the EQ or noise cancellation.

On the topic of annoying features: the voice announcer, which tells you when the buds are connected when you put them in as well as when you change ANC modes, is both incredibly low-res and incredibly loud. Calm down please, announcer!

Skullcandy Method 360 review: Sound performance

(Image credit: Future)

12mm drivers
Bose tuning pays off
Energetic sound with meaty bass

As I said in the introduction, Bose helped with the tuning of the Skullcandy Method 360 (though possibly not in lending the 12mm drivers, which are actually bigger than the ones we normally see Bose use in its earbuds).

This helping hand shows because the Method 360 are some of the best-sounding earbuds I’ve ever tested for their price. And, more obviously, they faintly resemble the tone of the Bose QuietComfort Buds from last year, in that music sounds rich, meaty and full (which I doubled down on by activating the bass booster EQ repeatedly through testing, though it’s far from necessary).

That’s not to say that the buds are just for bass-heads, as mids were just as energetic and electric as lower-frequency sounds. I found the audio profile perfect for punchy and fast-paced rock music which fits well with the Skullcandy branding. Treble could have been a little more glistening though and, while not audibly falling behind in the mix, it did lack a little zest when other parts of a song were going full-force.

If you like listening to high-velocity music, you’ll be glad to know that the Method 360 gets very loud, and I didn’t even test it at its top volume.

The Skullcandy also has a fairly pronounced sound stage, perhaps not as dramatic as the aforementioned Bose buds, but still great compared to many same-priced rivals. Instruments aren’t just panned left or right but to varying degrees around you, and audio was clear enough that I could hear the sound of fingers on guitar glissando or the type of drumstick a drummer would use.

Here’s where I’d discuss audio codecs or connection types but neither Skullcandy’s website nor the Skull-IQ app make any mention of them, so I’ve got to presume that high-res music isn’t supported.

Sound performance score: 4/5

Skullcandy Method 360 review: Value

(Image credit: Future)

The Skullcandy Method 360 are great value for money because in two big ways, they rival alternatives which you’d be spending twice the price on.

Both the sound quality and precision-designed fit feel like features you’d normally have to pay way more for. Yet here you go, finding them at a mid-range price. Good job!

Skullcandy Method 360 review: scorecard

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Skullcandy Method 360: Should I buy?

(Image credit: Future)

Buy them if…

Don’t buy them if…

Also consider

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Component

Skullcandy Method 360

Nothing Ear (a)

WF-C710N

Water resistant

IPX4

IP54

Battery life (ANC off)

11 hours (earbuds), 29 hours (total)

9.5 hours (earbuds), 42.5 hours (total)

12 hours (buds); 30 hours (case)

Bluetooth type

Bluetooth 5.3

Weight

11g (buds) 77g (case)

4.8g (buds) 39.6g (case)

5.2g (buds) 38g (case)

Driver

12mm

11mm

5mm

How I tested

I used the Skullcandy Method 360 for about two weeks before writing this review.

For the most part of the review, the headphones were paired with my Android phone for Spotify streaming as well as the occasional gaming and Netflix. I listened to music at home and in quiet environments, but also took the buds for a spin at the gym and on runs.

I’ve been reviewing products for TechRadar since the beginning of 2019 and have tested countless headphones amongst other gadgets. I’ve also used past Skullcandy options not for review purposes, but simply through having bought them myself.

Tribunal hears Microsoft case on whether second hand Office and Windows license trading is unlawful

by admin September 12, 2025

Microsoft continues tribunal fight over legality of reselling Office and Windows licenses
ValueLicensing claims Microsoft restricted resale market and seeks £270 million in damages
Outcome could reshape the future of Europe’s second-hand software industry

Microsoft’s long-running dispute with ValueLicensing, a UK reseller of pre-owned licenses for products like Windows and Office, returns to the Competition Appeal Tribunal this week, with the US tech giant now arguing that selling pre-owned Office and Windows licenses is unlawful.

ValueLicensing says the trial will focus on whether the entire resale market for perpetual Microsoft licenses is legal, or indeed ever has been, and the result could have huge implications for Europe’s popular second-hand software market.

The reseller contends that if Microsoft’s argument succeeds, it would mean second-hand license trading should never have existed in Europe.

A change of stance

The case, which has been going on for several years now, stems from ValueLicensing’s claims that Microsoft restricted the availability of pre-owned licenses.

According to the reseller, Microsoft offered customers discounts on subscription services if they surrendered their perpetual licenses, limiting the stock available to firms like ValueLicensing.

It also alleges Microsoft inserted contract clauses that curtailed resale rights in exchange for further price cuts. This strategy, ValueLicensing claims, cost it £270 million in lost profits.

Microsoft’s defense rests on the claim that it owns copyright not just to program code, but also to elements such as the graphical user interface.

The tech giant says the European Software Directive does not apply to such components, meaning resale is not allowed.

ValueLicensing boss Jonathan Horley said Microsoft’s position had shifted dramatically, from denying anti-competitive conduct to arguing that the resale market itself should not exist. “It’s a remarkable coincidence that their defense against ValueLicensing has changed so dramatically from being a defense of ‘we didn’t do it’ to a defense of ‘the market should never have existed,'” he said.

Microsoft’s stance draws on a precedent from the Tom Kabinet ruling, which found that software resale was allowed but that e-books were different.

Microsoft is seeking to place its own products outside the rules that allowed secondary trading by making the interface distinct from software code.

The tribunal’s decision could determine whether Europe’s thriving trade in pre-owned software survives or vanishes entirely.

Via The Register

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September 12, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

This cloud storage doesn’t hand over your data to AI – and costs less than a coffee a month

by admin September 10, 2025

Keeping your files and photos safe is more important than ever, but secure storage can be expensive. So, we’ve found this fantastic deal by Proton Drive for a huge 50% discount on their storage plan – helping you backup photos, videos, and files for less.

Although this deal comes just in time for the new school year, it’s not only students who could benefit from this offer. If you have precious family photos or important documents like medical or financial information worth securing, then this plan offers end-to-end encryption to keep them private.

For a 1 year plan, Proton Drive has lowered the price from $47.88 ($4.99 per month) to just $28.88 (or $2.49 per month) -which is a lot less than most of the best cloud storage providers.

But, this offer is only available until the 24th of September, so make sure you take a look while you can.

Top end-of-summer cloud storage deal

Why you can trust TechRadar

We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Proton is an excellent choice for the privacy conscious among us. Proton Drive has a host of features that big tech companies don’t offer, and it doesn’t use your data to train and AI models.

Proton argues users shouldn’t have to hand over their personal data just to use the internet, and to uphold this, it prevents the use of your data for targeted ads, as well as stopping companies from selling your data – something many of the best cloud storage providers can’t promise.

Proton drive is based in Switzerland, a country with one of the strongest privacy laws in the world – and thanks to the end-to-end encryption, even Proton can’t access your data.

You can upload files of any type or size, and Drive Plus plans include recovery for overwritten or altered files going back up to ten years – so you never have to worry about losing your files again.

The plan comes with 200GB of storage, as well as all the basic Proton VPN, Proton Mail, and Proton Calendar, as well as online document editor and the 10-year file version history for recovery.

If all of this isn’t enough, it has a 30-day money-back guarantee, so if you find it isn’t your style, you can switch it out for a free cloud storage option or a paid alternative.

Take a look at our choices for best backup software of 2025

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September 10, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

What’s so special about the original Hollow Knight? The intoxicating power of Team Cherry’s invisible, insistent guiding hand

by admin September 4, 2025

It’s not just locked doors, imposing bosses, and top-tier traversal. It’s a world, a sensation, a desperate and lonely feeling communicated through screen and pad. It’s chains and foliage obscuring the foreground, as imposingly huge bugs slink about in the background. The depth of parallax art and the grit of an impossible fight. The feeling of movement as you flap your wings or dash over pits or scramble up walls. The world is dying, but you feel alive and vital within it. From vanishingly small beginnings to power comparable to godhood, Hollow Knight isn’t just a good game: it’s one of the best ever made.

There’s been a wealth of incredible Metroidvania games from small dev teams over the past few generations – Axiom Verge, Guacamelee, Headlander, Ori and the Blind Forest to name just a few – but I don’t think any of them compare with Hollow Knight, really. Team Cherry’s 2017 debut is a masterpiece. And I am not using that word lightly. It represents a high tide for the genre that I think even surpasses the achievements of its progenitors, taking the foundational design philosophies of Metroid and Castlevania and sanding off all the rough edges to leave something elegant, perplexing and utterly moreish.

Here’s a bit of Silksong for you.Watch on YouTube

It all begins with its subtle tutorialisation. This is a Metroidvania, so the unwritten understanding is that you get power-ups, and they open up new areas. When you’re thrown into the world of Hallownest from the starting town of Dirtmouth with the vague instruction of ‘head on down’, you are instantly and subconsciously directed about where to go next: verdant green leaves tease the Green Path from the Forgotten Crossroads, and peculiar pink gems nod towards the Crystal Peak.

It’s the enticing greenery of the Path that typically grabs your attention first, though – the visual language of the game’s ‘second zone’ eating into the starting area in a small touch you’ll soon notice runs as a theme in the game. One screen in, and you’re barred; an armoured beetle-like thing impedes your progress. So you soldier on, going right instead of left, until you face your first boss and ingest your first upgrade, the Vengeful Spirit. In order to leave this area, an NPC instructs you to clear its temple, and what do you find at the exit? The very same armoured beetle, which you can now kill. Aha, you think, I know this guy.

So you backtrack, clear the doorway, and you’re on your way. That experience, a delicious example of early game not-quite-handholding that makes you feel like you’ve done all the work, sets a precedent. It’s easy, early on, to trick a player into thinking they’re smart for putting two and two together and coming out with four. But as the paths deviate, the 15 zones that make up Hallownest and its colonies begin to show themselves, and you start to gain a bit more independence, Team Cherry keeps finding ways to make you feel smart. It’s intoxicating, ego-boosting, and I even think at times it feels sublime. Really.

Image credit: Team Cherry / Eurogamer

You’re nudged along with barely perceptible cues that keep your brain itching whilst your fingers dance over the parabolic difficulty spikes in Hollow Knight’s combat. So many design decisions in this game are small, but mighty – fitting for a game about bugs, failing empires, and bitter godheads. Each area, be it the perpetually soggy City of Tears or the dusty dankness of the Ancient Basin, has its own specific colour. Colours are saturated, and props and set dressing is placed (with little repetition) to make each area feel distinct. In your head, you associate these areas with the map: left is green, right is pink, down is blue. It tugs at your cortex, so when you’re trying to navigate, you’ve always got an impression of what direction applies to what power.

But there’s more. The map itself hues its areas to match the world design, subconsciously gluing these colours to your spacial reasoning processes even more distinctly. Paired with more explicit progression cues – Silksong’s Hornet teasing you with which way to go by constantly dashing out of reach and out of view – Hollow Knight simultaneously baits you and makes you feel like you’re in control of your fate. It’s a dirty, delicious trick. And I cannot wait to see how this formula is expanded upon in the sequel.

Team Cherry’s approach to the map, too, cedes all power to the player. It’s not until you actually make it to the City of Tears that the game itself actually applies anything to your map – and even then, it’s a strange waypoint for a place we’ve already discovered. Otherwise, it’s all on you. You even need to choose between a power-up notch in your character screen and a marker to identify where you are on the map. Some may call this obtuse, or needlessly unhelpful, but I think it does wonders for the sense of place Hollow Knight dedicates so much effort to instilling in your head. You pull up the map a lot. Good. If you want to learn everything there is to know about Hallownest, you should know it inside out. The relationship between the knight and the world is a symbiotic relationship, technically and narratively, and all of these mechanics feed into that.

Image credit: Team Cherry

I think that’s where the real appeal of Hollow Knight lies. You have proper agency when it comes to progression and exploration – a sense of proper agency I have honestly only felt in the first Dark Souls in terms of ‘modern’ games. You’re let loose to discover your power on your terms, pluck at various locks and see which one comes undone, whilst also given the power to go and forge your own locks. You don’t even need to be a game design savant to understand the potential for sequence breaks (something Ori and the Blind Forest also understood very well), and by keeping a keen eye on the environment and the map, it feels like Team Cherry almost dares you to skip certain bosses or platforming challenges. The devs understand player ego, how to appeal to it, and how to challenge it. It makes the game’s difficulty more than just a combat or dexterity check, but an emotional one, too.

A lot of Metroidvania games also fall down when they design their critical paths: all too often, there will be one place you need to find and use your new power in order to progress. Some bits of Hollow Knight have four separate paths leading to the ‘next bit’ of the critical path. Chances are, you’ll happen upon one when casually exploring, or backtracking to farm currency or get a combat upgrade. The trail of breadcrumbs never runs out, and by letting you manually pin things to your map when resting at a bench, the sense of self-direction always feels natural and encouraged. The invisible hand of Team Cherry, it becomes clear from this first game alone, is one of the deftest in the business. And that insistent, impossibly light touch is so much of what makes Hollow Knight so special, so compelling, so intoxicating.

I’ve not even touched on the strength of the combat and the 160+ enemies here, or the build-crafting that’s integral to your journey through the game via pins and notches. I’ve not spoken about the game-changing spectral/dream mechanic you unlock about 50 percent of the way through, and how Team Cherry makes asset reuse into a genius portion of the game that anyone that’s played, say, Bravely Default would be agog over. I’ve not spoken about the subtle narrative craft that rivals FromSoft in its multi-layered complexity. I’ve not spoken about the music, the use of leitmotif, or how five twinkly piano notes can evoke such a distinct sense of loss, hopelessness, and desolation.

But that’s because it’s the design of Hollow Knight that sets it apart both from its contemporaries and its inspirations. Sure, the game wouldn’t be half as good if it didn’t have stellar combat or a surprisingly deep build-crafting system, but it’s in the irrepressible way the game keeps nudging you deeper, further down into its mystery that it truly shines. Hollow Knight is, indeed, a masterpiece, an exemplary manifestation of a developer understanding and leveraging player psychology. Is all this hype for Silksong really justified? Yes. And then some.

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September 4, 2025 0 comments

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Gaming Gear

AntGamer is releasing a 1,000 Hz gaming monitor next year, with a helping hand from AMD, though the chances are you really don’t need it

by admin September 1, 2025

The first widely available 1,000 Hz gaming monitor will launch in 2026, but unless you are at the top of the top in a select few games, you likely won’t be able to tell the difference between this and a monitor with a fifth of the refresh rate.

As reported by ITHome, Chinese manufacturer AntGamer recently announced its new 1,000 Hz panel will arrive in 2026, and players are encouraged to test it out with Counter-Strike 2 and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. As you might be able to guess from those choices, this is firmly a competitive monitor.

AntGamer reportedly published a white paper alongside AMD demonstrating the specs needed for 1,000 fps play in these games, but we don’t yet know how broad the full recommended games list is. This report was cited in a presentation by the company.

The new 1,000 Hz screen is a TN panel, rather than an IPS or the rather fast OLED. Where IPS panels offer a large viewing angle and great colours at a more expensive price, and OLEDs offer great contrast and true blacks, TN panels are often picked in the competitive scene due to fast response times. They also tend to be cheaper, but offer a much worse picture quality than other panel types.

With IPS, TN, and OLED being ‘Sample and Hold’ displays, they are subject to motion blur. Effectively, these three all project an image, then hold that image until the next one is ready. CRT TVs create, then continuously recreate the same image, which is why they are known for having less motion blur. As noted by Blurbusters, 60 fps on a 60 Hz display runs into 16.7 ms of blur persistence, where 1,000 fps on a 1,000 Hz display runs into just 1 ms.

Higher frame rates are definitely better for visual quality. They also are power hungry, so it will take a while to solve that for standalone HMDs. I think 240 Hz/eye is a good short term target and agree with 1kHz+ for the long run.December 2, 2017

This monitor employs BFI (black frame insertion), which pops a black frame in between every displayed frame in order to help with motion blur. You get fewer pixels of motion blur at higher refresh rates, but even running a game at 1,000 fps won’t remove it entirely. Asus’ third generation of OLED monitors, like the ROG Swift PG34WCDM, support the same tech.

This isn’t our first time seeing a 1,000 Hz monitor (there was a TCL with it last year), but it is the first that is confirmed to be coming to the market. Unfortunately, much is still missing from AntGamer’s model right now. We don’t have the price point or confirmation of which ports the monitor will employ, either.

You may be wondering how much is too much when it comes to refresh rate, and that’s a valid concern given the average gamer likely won’t be able to tell a difference between mid-300s and 1,000 Hz. The refresh rate of a monitor caps the fps you will see, even if your GPU is providing them much quicker.

1,000+ fps is pretty rare, with you needing a newer, powerful graphics card playing an older/less intensive game, and with an uncapped rate. Though it may strike some as premature, Morgan McGuire, an ex-Nvidia scientist, did once say, “I think 240 Hz/eye is a good short term target and agree with 1 kHz+ for the long run.”

Ultimately, right now, monitors this snappy are intended for players performing at the very top, and they often have the additional gear to match it. In fact, when your fps is significantly lower than refresh, it can introduce notable tearing, so this panel will likely only be used for very specific purposes. Most importantly, it won’t make you any better at Elden Ring.

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Skullcandy Method 360: One minute review

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