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Model

Sony Is Raising The Price Of Every PlayStation 5 Model Tomorrow, August 21

by admin August 20, 2025

Rising video game and console prices have frustrated consumers this year, and today, Sony is adding its flagship console to the list of products getting price hikes. In the United States, the PS5, PS5 Digital Edition, and PS5 Pro are each increasing in price by $50.

According to a blog post from Sony Interactive Entertainment vice president of global marketing, Isabelle Tomatis, the change is due to “a challenging economic environment.” This brings the new prices for each device to the following:

PlayStation 5 – $549.99
PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – $499.99
PlayStation 5 Pro – $749.99

As of today, prices remain unchanged in other countries, but many of them faced price hikes earlier this year. This news comes a few months after Sony said it was considering raising its prices in the US, but it might not affect consoles. That was, obviously, not the case. Other instances of companies increasing prices lately include Nintendo increasing Switch 2 accessory prices, and Xbox raising its console and game prices back in May. Across the board, it’s a rough time to be paying for new games and hardware.

Meanwhile, Xbox announced its new handheld’s release date today, but won’t reveal its price quite yet, citing “macro-economic conditions.”

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August 20, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

This RTX 5090 graphics card draws up to 800W and looks like a model from 2008

by admin August 20, 2025

As well as a see-through 720Hz tandem OLED gaming monitor, Asus unveiled a retro-looking graphics card that draws up to 800W – a massive 200W jump over the most powerful RTX 5090 models and 215W over the base spec. A single 16-pin power cable maxes out at 600W, so the ROG Matrix uses both the proprietary BTF connector built into Asus motherboards and the regular 16-pin power input. That should make this the most powerful consumer graphics card in the world by a huge margin, and just how it’s been designed is fascinating.

In short, Asus wanted to pay homage to their past designs with a 30th anniversary edition that goes well beyond the standard “take your standard GPU and paint it differently” method of creating special models. That accounts for the unusual circular frame of the far end, which refers back to a card Asus launched in 2008, but inside there are also manufacturing and design elements from later models: 3mm copper PCBs, vapour chamber cooling, liquid metal, four fans and so on.

Image credit: Eurogamer

Perhaps most critically for the super-wealthy slash overclocking audience the limited edition card is intended for, there are sensors on every wire of each power input to ensure that none is drawing too much power – after all, with 800W on tap, this is effectively uncharted territory for a “stock” graphics card.

There’s even a sensor to check the angle of the card, alerting you if it’s starting to sag. Graphics card enthusiasts actually spotting the sensor in other high-end Asus models a while back, and now that functionality is actually going to be surface in Asus’ software.

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So with 33 percent extra power, you’re going to get 33 percent extra performance, right? RTX 5090 Ti, more or less! Well, no. Asus say that the graphics card only delivers around 10 percent higher frame-rates, even at a rated boost clock of 2730MHz – versus 2407MHz for a base 5090. It’s not clear if there are any memory clock upgrades on offer either, but the GDDR7 on Maxwell does tend to overclock without many difficulties.

Of course, an 800W rating far exceeds this generation’s power sweet spot – and presumably even with unlimited power, you’d still run into some serious issues keeping the die, tiny mainboard and VRAM/power components cool under an 800W load.

It does kind of suggest that this is about the maximum we could expect from a proper RTX 5090 Ti though, which is perhaps why Nvidia hasn’t shown any signs of releasing one.

Even if you do have deep pockets, expect the ROG Matrix 5090 to be a real challenge to find. Asus say that only 1000 units will be made, though you can enter the chance to win one on their Gamescom 2025 site. Pricing also hasn’t been announced, but presumably is well into the middle four figures given that a dead standard 5090 costs $2000 or more, even so many months after launch.

More numerous – and affordable – will be their special edition 5080 models, which include a Hatsune Miku edition (part of a distractingly large number of branded peripherals and components) and a Noctua edition with the Austrian firm’s famous fans.

Either way, I’m happy the Matrix 5090 exists, pushing out the state of the art to ludicrous excess. It’ll be fascinating to see what overclockers manage to accomplish with it – bring on the liquid nitrogen! – and the retro design really appeals. I just hope that this GPU doesn’t portend the arrival of a 800W-rated RTX 6090.

Disclosure: Asus provided flights and accommodation in Cologne for Gamescom.

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August 20, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

Publicly Traded Solana Treasury Firm Is ‘Showing What’s Next’ for Strategy’s Bitcoin Model

by admin June 18, 2025

In brief

Solana treasury company DeFi Development Corp. is taking a different approach from other crypto treasury companies.
The firm is embedding itself within the Solana ecosystem, ensuring it doesn’t need to rely on capital markets to acquire SOL.
It aims to bridge the gap between traditional finance and on-chain ecosystems, said Investor Relations Lead Dan Kang.

DeFi Development Corp, a publicly traded firm building a Solana treasury, says that it is taking a different path from other crypto treasury vehicles, proactively pushing its way into the Solana ecosystem and maintaining laser focus on its “north star” of maximizing SOL per share.

Established in early April, the firm’s Solana stash now boasts more than 620,000 SOL valued at around $90 million, making it the largest Solana treasury among publicly traded entities.

In an interview this week on “FOMO Hour” from Decrypt’s sister company Rug Radio, Investor Relations Lead Dan Kang explained how it’s approaching the increasingly popular crypto treasury model—pioneered by Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy)—differently than some others in the space.

“We used to say we’re sort of a next-gen MicroStrategy,” Kang said. “But I really think of ourselves as the first true on-chain-to-TradFi bridge.”

Its efforts to connect the world of traditional finance and the on-chain ecosystem have been different than that of other crypto treasury vehicles, which oftentimes rely on financing and capital markets to accumulate and stash an underlying asset like Bitcoin.

Instead, DeFi Development Corp. is proactively embedding itself in the Solana ecosystem, most notably through its Solana validator set, which it acquired in May for $3.5 million.

“A lot of the Bitcoin treasury vehicles that exist today are highly capital markets dependent to grow their underlying Bitcoin holdings,” said Kang. “Versus with us, not to say we won’t tap the capital market playbook… but by virtue of running our own validator infrastructure, we actually don’t need to tap the capital markets to keep growing our underlying SOL per share.”

The firm’s ability to tap into a robust on-chain ecosystem and earn yield via a proof-of-stake asset is another reason it chose Solana, eschewing the limitations of some Bitcoin treasury vehicles. Plus, there was no reason to compete with Strategy, said Kang, who likened the firm and its monstrous $62 billion Bitcoin treasury to an NFL lineman.

“If I hand you a football, would you want to play running back against an NFL lineman, or would you rather run the ball down the field with no one in the way?” said Kang. “Michael Saylor and MicroStrategy—they’re the NFL lineman in the Bitcoin vehicle space. Hats off to those who want to take them on, but we intend to become the big behemoth in the Solana treasury space.”

The firm appears on its way, having amassed its $90 million treasury in just two months since announcing plans to pivot towards a Solana strategy, as the AI-driven real estate platform rebranded from Janover. In that time, on top of the validator acquisition, it also launched its own liquid staking token, partnered with notable Solana meme coin Bonk, and established a $5 billion equity line of credit for future Solana acquisitions.

“If MicroStrategy showed what is possible in the crypto treasury space,” Kang added, “DeFi Development Corp. is here to show them what is next.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward

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June 18, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

This AI Model Never Stops Learning

by admin June 18, 2025

Modern large language models (LLMs) might write beautiful sonnets and elegant code, but they lack even a rudimentary ability to learn from experience.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have now devised a way for LLMs to keep improving by tweaking their own parameters in response to useful new information.

The work is a step toward building artificial intelligence models that learn continually—a long-standing goal of the field and something that will be crucial if machines are to ever more faithfully mimic human intelligence. In the meantime, it could give us chatbots and other AI tools that are better able to incorporate new information including a user’s interests and preferences.

The MIT scheme, called Self Adapting Language Models (SEAL), involves having an LLM learn to generate its own synthetic training data and update procedure based on the input it receives.

“The initial idea was to explore if tokens [units of text fed to LLMs and generated by them] could cause a powerful update to a model,” says Jyothish Pari, a PhD student at MIT involved with developing SEAL. Pari says the idea was to see if a model’s output could be used to train it.

Adam Zweiger, an MIT undergraduate researcher involved with building SEAL, adds that although newer models can “reason” their way to better solutions by performing more complex inference, the model itself does not benefit from this reasoning over the long term.

SEAL, by contrast, generates new insights and then folds it into its own weights or parameters. Given a statement about the challenges faced by the Apollo space program, for instance, the model generated new passages that try to describe the implications of the statement. The researchers compared this to the way a human student writes and reviews notes in order to aid their learning.

The system then updated the model using this data and tested how well the new model is able to answer a set of questions. And finally, this provides a reinforcement learning signal that helps guide the model toward updates that improve its overall abilities and which help it carry on learning.

The researchers tested their approach on small and medium-size versions of two open source models, Meta’s Llama and Alibaba’s Qwen. They say that the approach ought to work for much larger frontier models too.

The researchers tested the SEAL approach on text as well as a benchmark called ARC that gauges an AI model’s ability to solve abstract reasoning problems. In both cases they saw that SEAL allowed the models to continue learning well beyond their initial training.

Pulkit Agrawal, a professor at MIT who oversaw the work, says that the SEAL project touches on important themes in AI, including how to get AI to figure out for itself what it should try to learn. He says it could well be used to help make AI models more personalized. “LLMs are powerful but we don’t want their knowledge to stop,” he says.

SEAL is not yet a way for AI to improve indefinitely. For one thing, as Agrawal notes, the LLMs tested suffer from what’s known as “catastrophic forgetting,” a troubling effect seen when ingesting new information causes older knowledge to simply disappear. This may point to a fundamental difference between artificial neural networks and biological ones. Pari and Zweigler also note that SEAL is computationally intensive, and it isn’t yet clear how best to most effectively schedule new periods of learning. One fun idea, Zweigler mentions, is that, like humans, perhaps LLMs could experience periods of “sleep” where new information is consolidated.

Still, for all its limitations, SEAL is an exciting new path for further AI research—and it may well be something that finds its way into future frontier AI models.

What do you think about AI that is able to keep on learning? Send an email to hello@wired.com to let me know.

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June 18, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Amazon Clearing Out Smart TVs, This 42″ Full HD Model Sold for Peanuts Before Prime Day

by admin June 17, 2025

While OLED TVs are their own attraction, none of them will be under $1,000 and they’re not necessarily the most convenient for all parts of the house. For the majority of consumers, a smart TV like this Insignia 42-inch Fire TV is the perfect blend of quality and price (especially at the price tag it’s carrying).

Currently, this Insignia TV is available for only $119, having originally been priced at $179. That’s an fantastic 33% discount and one of the cheapest means of improving home entertainment. Whether you’re looking for a TV for a bedroom, a kids’ room or a secondary living area, this model delivers a lot for very little money.

See at Amazon

Amazon Fire TV

The Insignia Fire TV boasts a clear 1080p resolution so your must-see movies and games appear crisp and vivid. Though it’s not a 4K screen, the Full HD image quality is more than adequate for most viewing experiences, particularly at this screen size and budget. The anti-glare screen reduces reflections so it’s less of a problem to view in well-lit rooms or during the day.

One of the greatest benefits of this TV is the seamless way that it connects to Amazon’s Fire TV platform: Since the Fire TV experience is natively built in, you can enjoy over a million streaming movies and TV shows as well as tens of thousands of channels, and apps. The included Alexa Voice Remote lets you control your entertainment, and more—hands-free with your voice.

For Apple users, the Insignia Fire TV is AirPlay enabled which means you can easily share your videos, photos, music and more from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac with your TV using a single tap. Audio connectivity is also one area where this TV excels: It is HDMI ARC compatible which routes audio directly from the HDMI port to an AV receiver or compatible soundbar without using an additional cable.

The current sale price of $119 is an all-time low, and it’s a deal that’s hard to pass up.

See at Amazon

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June 17, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Pi Coin holders eye safe upside in Neo Pepe ecosystem model

by admin June 15, 2025

Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.

After Pi Coin doubts, investors eye Neo Pepe Coin, a tech-powered memecoin blending utility with DeFi and NFT potential.

Pi Coin once promised to change the crypto space with its ambitious goal of accessibility. However, many have now begun questioning whether it has turned into one of the biggest rug pulls of the year.

For those that are burned by Pi Coin (or almost fell for it), they may be wondering where to look next for potential high-value investments. Enter Neo Pepe Coin, a memecoin powered by cutting-edge technology and smart contract functionality that offers real value far beyond just hype.

Neo Pepe Coin isn’t just another flash-in-the-pan memecoin. With promising applications in decentralized finance (DeFi), NFTs, and play-to-earn gaming, it positions itself as a hybrid of fun branding and serious utility. Buyers looking to cash in on the next big crypto opportunity may want to explore this ecosystem model, especially with its presale currently underway.

Below, we’ll deep-dive into Neo Pepe Coin’s groundbreaking features, the role of smart contracts, and how its ecosystem leverages Ethereum liquidity pools and deflationary tokenomics to deliver long-term value. Stick around to find out why joining this early could be a smart move for your investment portfolio.

Pi Coin experience vs. Neo Pepe’s movement

Before we explore Neo Pepe Coin, we need to reflect on one of the most debated crypto stories this year. Pi Coin launched with enormous hype, marketed as a game-changing platform that made mining accessible through mobile devices. Yet, its utility and transparency have been marred by criticism, with many calling it a borderline rug pull. Investors placed their faith in Pi Coin, only to discover limited real-world utility and questionable long-term potential.

Learning from such experiences, the crypto community seeks coins that integrate robust functionality, community-driven governance, and transparency. This is where Neo Pepe Coin stands apart, with its focus on innovation and utility.

Why Neo Pepe Coin stands out

Unlike purely speculative tokens, Neo Pepe Coin is backed by tangible utility and unique features that redefine what a memecoin can achieve. From its smart contract capabilities to Ethereum liquidity pool integration, Neo Pepe Coin creates a comprehensive ecosystem for savvy crypto investors.

Smart contracts driving real value

Neo Pepe Coin leans heavily into the power of smart contracts to offer real-world value. These contracts automate agreements between parties without relying on intermediaries, making them ideal for:

Staking and Farming: Invest Neo Pepe Coins in DeFi protocols to earn passive income while contributing to the ecosystem.
NFT Compatibility: Neo Pepe’s smart contracts enable seamless integration with decentralized NFT exchanges, allowing users to buy, sell, or trade digital collectibles.
Gaming Rewards: The play-to-earn gaming sector is growing rapidly, and Neo Pepe Coin is positioning itself as a go-to token for transparent and secure in-game rewards.

This application of smart contracts ensures Neo Pepe Coin has utility well beyond the humor-filled image of its meme origins.

Ethereum liquidity pool integration

Neo Pepe Coin thrives on integration with Ethereum liquidity pools, offering investors several tangible benefits:

Smooth Trades: The liquidity pool eliminates price fluctuations during transactions, allowing for efficient and cost-effective trading.
Ecosystem Strength: By participating in Ethereum’s liquidity pool, Neo Pepe contributes to sustaining and expanding one of the largest blockchain ecosystems.
Enhanced Returns: Investors enjoy dual exposure to the proven stability of Ethereum and the explosive growth potential of Neo Pepe Coin.

By linking itself with Ethereum’s robust infrastructure, Neo Pepe Coin creates a synergistic relationship that amplifies its value proposition.

Deflationary tokenomics creating scarcity

Unlike inflationary tokens that flood the market with excess supply, Neo Pepe Coin adopts a deflationary model. Here’s why this matters:

Token Burning: Periodic token burns reduce the total supply, increasing scarcity and driving long-term value.
Sustainable Growth: Lower supply combined with rising demand ensures steady upward pressure on token prices.
Community Incentives: This setup rewards early adopters and holders by making their tokens more valuable over time.

This deflationary mechanism ensures Neo Pepe Coin doesn’t fall victim to the pitfalls of oversupply, as many other coins have.

How Polygon innovations strengthen Neo Pepe’s model

Neo Pepe Coin’s affiliation with the Polygon ecosystem amplifies its strengths. Often called the “Internet of Blockchains,” Polygon addresses Ethereum’s scalability issues with faster transaction speeds and lower fees.

Platforms like Polymarket have thrived on Polygon’s infrastructure. Neo Pepe Coin similarly leverages Polygon’s capabilities, promising investors and users a seamless experience within its ecosystem.

Polymarket case study

Polymarket’s success on Polygon demonstrates how tokens like Neo Pepe can thrive. By offering real-time trade settlements at minimal costs, Polymarket has set the standard for what a next-gen crypto platform can achieve. Neo Pepe Coin mirrors this ethos, making DeFi, gaming, and NFT transactions efficient and affordable.

Presale alert, Neo Pepe Coin’s big opportunity

Now that Pepe Coin’s incredible potential has been explained, it’s time to talk about strategy. The presale phase is where the smart money moves in. Here’s why:

Exclusive Pricing: Token prices during presale are significantly lower than their listing price, creating a perfect entry point for early supporters.
Community Perks: Earn access to exclusive NFTs, governance rights, and bonus rewards as part of the early adopter family.
Rapid Growth Potential: Joining before public launch means you’re at the forefront of one of the most promising crypto revolutions.

Getting involved is easier.

How to Join its presale

Visit the Official Website: Head over to Neo Pepe Coin’s verified page to get started.
Connect a Wallet: Use MetaMask or Trust Wallet for safe and seamless transactions.
Buy Tokens: Select how much to invest and complete the purchase. (Tip: Act early for the best deals.)
Hold and Watch: Secure tokens and keep an eye on their rise as the ecosystem grows.

Think smarter with smart contracts and memecoins

Neo Pepe Coin isn’t just another token riding on the memecoin wave. It’s a thoughtful, utility-driven platform marrying smart contracts, deflationary tokenomics, and Ethereum liquidity pools to offer something truly valuable in the crypto space. While other tokens might deliver short-term hype with little substance, Neo Pepe Coin has all the ingredients for long-term success.

Ready to make smarter investments and join the future of memecoins with real value? Don’t miss out on the presale and the chance to be part of a community that turns jokes into serious profits.

Disclosure: This content is provided by a third party. crypto.news does not endorse any product mentioned on this page. Users must do their own research before taking any actions related to the company.

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June 15, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

‘Attack of the Clones’: Coinbase Raises Alarm on Risks With Bitcoin Treasury Model

by admin June 15, 2025

In brief

Coinbase’s top analyst said Thursday that the increasing dependence of publicly traded companies on Bitcoin could lead to disaster for the broader crypto market, should BTC’s price decline.
Numerous companies that have collectively purchased billions of dollars worth of BTC would likely have to sell off the tokens to pay back investors all at once, triggering a broad, market-wide sell-off.
Coinbase said it is “confident about Bitcoin’s upward trajectory even in the face of such risks,” but nonetheless categorized them as “systemic.”

Coinbase issued a dire warning Thursday to publicly traded companies going all in on Bitcoin: The gains may be addictive now—but if and when the music stops and prices fall, disaster could ensue.

In a report on the crypto market’s outlook for the second half of 2025, Coinbase Head of Research David Duong predicted that the recent trend of American corporations spinning up multibillion dollar Bitcoin treasuries may be bullish in the near future, but poses “systemic risks” to the entire crypto ecosystem in the medium-to-long-term.

In the wake of large publicly traded companies like Strategy and Tesla spending billions of dollars to buy up Bitcoin, over a hundred other such Wall Street-traded firms have followed suit in recent months. A total 126 publicly traded companies currently hold a collective 819,857 BTC, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net—a sum worth over $87 billion at writing.

This dynamic has created a potential “attack of the clones” scenario, Coinbase says, in which the viral trend could soon trigger devastating consequences.

The incentive for publicly traded companies to buy up Bitcoin became too attractive to ignore in December, Coinbase’s Duong said. That month, new accounting rules went into effect permitting such firms to count unrealized crypto gains on their books.

The development happened to coincide with a massive (and still ongoing) upswing for Bitcoin. Thus, in recent months, dozens of publicly traded companies have collectively invested billions of dollars in the world’s top cryptocurrency—as a means to easily pump stock prices.

Even President Donald Trump’s own publicly traded media company raised $2.4 billion last month to seed its own Bitcoin treasury, following the trend that GameStop and many other firms have recently latched onto.

Duong warns, however, that when Bitcoin’s price starts falling, these firms—which have raised cheap money to purchase the cryptocurrency by issuing convertible bonds—will have to begin paying off their investors, and will likely be forced to “sell their crypto holdings, possibly at a loss.”

“Thus, the fear is that indiscriminate selling by many entities at once (to service those debts) could lead to market liquidations and a sell-off in crypto more broadly,” Duong wrote.

“If prices start to fall and these entities perceive a narrowing exit, others may rush to sell as well, destabilizing the market well before any actual debt repayment issues emerge,” he continued.

While the analyst anticipates such a calamity would not be as devastating as past crypto crashes, and is “confident about Bitcoin’s upward trajectory even in the face of such risks,” he nonetheless categorized the potential damage of such an outcome as “systemic.”

In recent days, analysts have begun ringing similar alarm bells. Last week, Standard Chartered predicted that roughly half of non-crypto publicly traded firms with Bitcoin treasuries would go underwater if the token fell below $90,000.

Last month, Coinbase’s own CEO, Brian Armstrong, said that going all-in on a Bitcoin reserve, similar to Strategy, would have been “too risky” a move in its earlier days.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

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June 15, 2025 0 comments

Glorious Model I 2 on plinth with pink background

Product Reviews

Glorious Model I 2 review: a multi-buttoned wired gaming mouse that’s too expensive for what it offers

by admin June 12, 2025

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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.

Glorious Model I 2: Two-minute review

The Glorious Model I 2 is a wired gaming mouse with some useful features and pro-level tweaks, making it ideal for all kinds of play styles and genres.

There’s no mistaking the Model I 2 for anything other than a gaming mouse, thanks to its brash but tasteful design. Its profile is sleek, while the honeycomb back portion allows for the RGB lighting underneath to shine through in all its glory. The thin RGB strips on both edges are also a nice touch.

It has quite a long profile, longer than many of the best gaming mice. It also slopes away to the side, adopting a slightly ergonomic form. The thumb slot has a prominent floor, which fitted my thumb rather well – although I can well imagine some users not finding it to their liking – while the central hump was ideally placed for my palm. What’s more, that aforementioned honeycomb texture is pleasant to grip on to.

Glorious Model I 2 review: Price & availability

$64.99 / £59.99 (about AU$101)
Available now in black and white
Expensive for wired gaming mouse

The Model I 2 costs $64.99 / £59.99 (about AU$101) and is available now in two colorways: black and white. It comes with various spare caps for the sniper and rear-most side buttons. A wireless variant is also available.

This is reasonably expensive for a wired gaming mouse. It’s more expensive than the Asus TUF Gaming M4 Air, for instance, which we reckon is the best lightweight wired mouse for gaming at the moment. This does lack the feature set of the Model I 2; it doesn’t even have RGB lighting. However, at just 50g, it’s quite a bit lighter than the Model I 2.

The Model I 2 is also more expensive than the Cooler Master MM311, which even has the added benefit of being wireless, and that’s partly why we rate it as the best budget gaming mouse around. It doesn’t have a rechargeable battery, though, nor does it have as many buttons as the Model I 2.

Glorious Model I 2 review: Specs

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Interface

Wired (USB-C-to-A)

Ergonomics

Right-handed asymmetrical

Buttons

DPI

Up to 26,000

Switches

Glorious Switches

Weight

2.3oz (66g)

Should I buy the Glorious Model I 2?

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Attributes

Notes

Rating

Value

The Model I 2 is expensive for a wired gaming mouse – you’ll have to decide whether its extra buttons are worth it.

3 / 5

Design

The Model I 2 looks good and is comfortable in the hand. The software has some nice tweaks, but it’s limited in terms of remapping.

4 / 5

Performance

All the buttons and scroll wheel perform very well, and glides are quite smooth. However, it doesn’t exactly exceed the competition when it comes to precision and speed.

4 / 5

Overall

The Model I 2 is a competent gaming mouse that’s comfortable to use with some nice features. However, the software lacks versatility, and the performance isn’t outstanding, so its relatively high price might not be justified.

3.5 / 5

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Glorious Model I 2 review: Also consider

Swipe to scroll horizontallyHeader Cell – Column 0

Glorious Model I 2

Asus TUF Gaming M4 Air

Cooler Master MM311

Price

$64.99 / £59.99 (about AU$101)

$49.99 / £39.99 / AU$76

$39 (about £31 / AU$59)

Interface

Wired (USB-C-to-A)

Wireless (2.4GHz), wired (USB-C-to-A)

Ergonomics

Right-handed asymmetrical

Right-handed symmetrical

Right-handed asymmetrical

Buttons

DPI

26,000

16,000

30,000

Switches

Glorious Switches

Kailh GM 4.0

Razer Optical Mouse Switches Gen-3

Weight

2.3oz (66g)

1.8oz / 50g

2.2oz / 64g

How I tested the Glorious Model I 2

Tested for a full day
Used for gaming and working
Extensive gaming mouse experience

I tested the Model I 2 for a full day, during which time I used it for gaming, working, and general browsing.

I played Counter-Strike 2, a good test for gaming mice given the demands it places on quick and accurate movement and aiming.

I’ve been gaming on PC for over a decade, and during that time I have experienced a large number of mice. I’ve also reviewed a broad range of models from multiple brands, with varying price points, designs, and feature-sets.

Glorious Model I 2 Wired Mouse: Price Comparison

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June 12, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Current Model P Smart Pizza Oven review: smart tech, crispy crusts

by admin June 11, 2025

I am an excellent home cook, if I do say so myself. I regularly produce restaurant-quality dishes from my smart kitchen. But I have two favorite dishes I’ve never mastered at home: pizza and burgers. Yes, I can make them, but do they taste as good as my local burger or pizza joint? Nope. Naturally, I was intrigued when I heard about the new smart pizza oven from Current, which launched at CES earlier this year.

Yes, I know pizza ovens have been a thing for a while with their enticing promise of making pizzeria-quality pizza at home. But they’re eye-wateringly expensive, and I’ve always been put off by the prospect of putting a wood or gas-burning appliance in my backyard for the sole purpose of making pizza. Current’s Model P Smart Pizza Oven is electric, so there’s no need to mess with fuel, plus it can be used outdoors and inside (in theory — but my initial attempts produced far too much smoke for indoor use to be viable).

$559

The Good

Cooks a pizza in two minutes
App’s pizza-building tool is helpful
Makes multiple pizzas in quick succession
No need to rotate the pie
Easy to read display with a proper knob

The Bad

Takes a while to preheat
Large and hefty
Pizza peel sold separately
Too smoky to use indoors
Cleaning the stone is tricky

The Model P costs $699, which is a lot, but significantly less than other options; the electric version of the popular Ooni oven is $899 without any connected features. Current is a startup based in Columbus, Georgia, that’s trying to electrify outdoor cooking (its first product was a smart electric outdoor grill). Its smart pizza oven is one of the first to feature an app for controlling the oven, with the choice of a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection. The app has several tools that promise to help me make the perfect pizza. Challenge accepted.

The Model P can reach a blistering 850 degrees Fahrenheit. It cycles power between graphite tubes at the top and standard calrod heating elements on the bottom, and it uses proprietary algorithms to cook three different styles: Neapolitan, New York, and thin crust. There’s also a frozen pizza setting and a broil function, which you can use for any food that could benefit from a broil (such as searing a steak or browning some veggies), giving you a bit more functionality.

It comes with a 12-inch cordierite cooking stone, but you have to buy the pizza peel separately, which is required to pop the dough into the oven without burning your fingers. Current sent me a wooden one, which it says will be available soon; there’s a $89 steel version that you can buy bundled with the oven and a pizza cutter for $847.

The Current pizza oven is compact and easy to use. It can be used indoors or outdoors. However, its exterior gets very hot, so you need to position it away from walls or anything flammable.

The Current Backyard app (iOS and Android) allows for mobile control of the oven, sends notifications for preheating and cooking timers, and has a pizza build calculator that adjusts the cooking time based on how thin your crust is and how high you pile your pizza.

Making pizza is an art, and it’s not one I am close to having mastered, even with all this tech

As the pizza cooks in around two minutes, the alerts for preheating (which takes a while) and the pizza calculator were the most useful, as my past attempts at homemade pizzas often resulted in soggy toppings and undercooked crusts.

To put the Model P through its paces, I invited a few friends over for a pizza party and set it up on a wooden table on my porch, a few inches away from a brick wall. You have to consider placement carefully because it gets very hot. It’s elevated by four metal legs, so it’s safe to use on most surfaces. (There’s an outdoor pizza cart available for $499 if you want something more tailored.)

Current recommends making your own pizza dough, and there’s a recipe in the app you can follow. Current also recommends store-bought dough from Trader Joe’s and Publix; I went for the easy option.

I set up an indoor pizza-making station, with a large wooden cutting board, lots of flour, several portions of Trader Joe’s pizza dough and premade pizza sauce, and some standard toppings: mozzarella, pepperoni, olives, and basil. We then proceeded to go crazy twirling dough and topping pizzas.

Prepping the dough and preheating the oven is the most time-intensive step. Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

The oven can cook a Neopolitan-style pizza in as little as 2 minutes. Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

The pizza calculator lets you adjust based on factors like crust thickness and topping density. Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

You can control the entire cooking process from the app or on the oven. Photo: Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Our first few pizzas were a bit of a disaster. We made a plain mozzarella pizza on New York-style (635F) and followed the suggested six minutes of oven time, but it came out overcooked. The next attempt had too many toppings, and the dough got stuck to the pizza peel mid-flick, launching cheese and pepperoni onto the molten stone, resulting in a smoky mess.

I did like the option to make concurrent pizzas with a button press — no need to start the preheat over. And not having to rotate the pizza, combined with getting alerts on my phone when the pie was ready, meant I didn’t have to hover over it.

But by our third pizza, the stone had a thick layer of burnt cheese on it, so I had to stop the party and go back to the cutting board.

Obligatory pizza glamor shot.

I realized I had been too eager, assuming the oven would magically deliver perfect pizzas. It turns out that there was quite a bit more prep I needed to do, the most important being buying a bag of semolina flour. Apparently, this is a magic pizza-making ingredient.

I went back to Current for more tips — especially about cleaning the stone, which needs to be done carefully. It can’t be soaked or scrubbed with anything more abrasive than a nylon brush. I bought some new dough and followed Current’s detailed YouTube video on how to properly roll it out (sadly, no twirling required). I then fired up the app to use the neat pizza builder tool that customizes the cook time based on style, dough type, and thickness, as well as how much sauce, cheese, and toppings you have.

Armed with semolina and a tad more patience, my next attempt was with the Neapolitan style, which yields a crispier pizza and uses the oven’s top temperature of 850F to get those signature burnt leopard spots. This is the type of pizza you eat at a sidewalk cafe in Italy. The downside was that it took a while to heat up, but the pizza only took two minutes to cook.

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1/2Our first attempt at cheesy bread, New York-style pizza.

I was more successful, producing an almost perfect Neapolitan-style buffalo mozzarella and pepperoni pizza with a delightfully puffy (if slightly misshapen) crust. There was still a fair amount of smoke, though, and my husband (who’s a firefighter) is still not keen on me using the oven indoors.

My only other complaint is that the cheese wasn’t hot all the way through; next time, I’ll opt for thinner slices. I then popped in a more traditional shredded mozzarella pizza for my daughter, going with New York-style as she likes the softer crust. After two bites, she declared it was as good as her favorite cheese pizza from Pisanos, our favorite local spot.

The Model P comes in two colors, sand or slate.

Hardware-wise, the oven’s sleek, domed design and glass door would look great on a kitchen counter — if you have the space. At just over 40 pounds, it’s not that portable, but it feels solid and well built. The on-device controls include a large LCD display with touch controls for turning the power on and off and setting a timer. This is paired with a physical dial to adjust time and temperature and select different pizza styles.

I would like to see a physical on / off button, as I worry about the longevity of a touchscreen on a device that can be used outdoors. (It isn’t waterproof, so you shouldn’t leave it uncovered.) Although I could control all the functions in the app, including turning it off. But, as with most high-heat smart appliances, you have to confirm on the device to turn it on for obvious safety reasons.

I enjoyed using the oven, and it is a great piece of kit for a backyard party, but I don’t see adding it to my regular cooking routine. Making pizza is an art that I’m far from mastering, even with the Model P’s advanced tech. While it brought me closer to being a pizza apprentice, it also reinforced that, for me, pizza night means not cooking. Pisanos can rest easy — pizza delivery night isn’t going anywhere.

Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

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June 11, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

OpenAI adds the o3-pro model to ChatGPT today

by admin June 10, 2025

OpenAI is keeping up its rapid-fire pace of new AI releases. The company introduced the o3 and o4-mini models to its ChatGPT platform in April. At the time, the business promised that a pro model of the o3 was on the way, and that version became available today.

Both the o3 and o4-mini models are meant to use and combine all the tools under ChatGPT’s umbrella. When OpenAI adds the “pro” designation to a model, it’s a version that has been built to spend longer answering queries to provide better and more accurate responses. “We recommend using it for challenging questions where reliability matters more than speed, and waiting a few minutes is worth the tradeoff,” the company said in the release notes for the o3-pro. In the testing assessments shared, the o3-pro delivered better benchmarks than the o3 and the o1-pro options.

There are some restrictions on the other ChatGPT services the o3-pro can use. Image generation and Canvas are not supported, so users will need to turn to different models for those features. The o3-pro is available today for ChatGPT Pro and Team users, while Enterprise and Edu customers will have access to this option next week.

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June 10, 2025 0 comments