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FLOSS Weekly Episode 876: There Is No Money Fairy

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This week Jonathan chats with Michael Meeks about Collabora! What’s the origin story in this consulting company, why do they have an outstanding office suite, and where is the world headed to accomplish digital sovereignty? Watch to find out!

Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or have the guest contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.

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Direct Download in DRM-free MP3.

If you’d rather read along, here’s the transcript for this week’s episode.


Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

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The Drill Press Finally Got Smart, and It’s Just the Beginning

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For roughly a century, the drill press was the most stubbornly unchanged tool in the workshop. CNC routers went digital. Laser cutters got software brains. Even the table saw picked up intelligent blade-detection technology. The drill press, meanwhile, remained a cast-iron column with a chuck on top, the same basic machine it had been in 1925.

That’s starting to change, and the shift is happening faster than most woodworkers expected.

A Longer Time Coming

The broader power-tool industry has been absorbing smarter technology for years, mostly at the motor and interface level. Variable-speed drives, digital readouts, preset memory, and automatic depth stops arrived in stages. Tools became more consistent and easier to repeat across a production run. Those were meaningful upgrades. They still left one part of the process entirely up to the operator, though: finding the mark and getting the bit over it.

Alignment has always been the hidden labor cost of drilling. Mark the board, lower the bit, squint, lift, adjust, lower again, check the divot, correct, and drill. On a 30-hole shelf-pin pattern, that sequence can eat an afternoon. The repetition is tedious enough on its own, and it also introduces small, compounding errors that are hard to catch until a shelf wobbles or a joint doesn’t close.

The intelligence spread through much of the shop without ever quite reaching the drill press.

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What Embedded Computer Vision Changes

The next wave of development in workshop tools is pulling the intelligence closer to the work itself, away from phone apps and separate accessories and into the machine directly. Computer vision, once limited to expensive industrial equipment, has become inexpensive enough to embed in tools aimed at small shops and serious hobbyists.

Harvey Industries is among the companies pushing in this direction. Their new Intelligent Drill Press, called Sniper, uses a downward-facing camera array, a neural network, and a robotic dual-axis servo platform to locate a pencil mark on a workpiece and move the spindle directly over it, with no repositioning required from the operator. Positioning accuracy is rated around 0.004 inches, which puts it in the range of shop-CNC precision in a machine sized for a one-car garage.

The neural network component handles what a simple camera cannot: distinguishing a valid target mark from sawdust, shadows, or the grain of figured wood. That kind of pattern recognition used to require controlled industrial environments.

The International Federation of Robotics has noted that falling costs for computer vision and AI components are enabling exactly this kind of capability shift. Machine intelligence that once lived on factory floors is now finding its way into smaller-scale professional and prosumer tools.

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Safety as a Software Feature

Embedded vision is also reshaping how power-tool safety works. That change may be more consequential over time than any productivity gain.

Traditional power-tool safety has relied on physical systems: guards, kill switches, and friction brakes. They are effective, and once a tool ships, its safety profile is essentially fixed.

Vision-based systems open up a different approach. The same camera array that tracks a pencil mark can simultaneously monitor the operator’s hands. Harvey’s implementation, which the company calls the Proactive Safety Protection System, cuts spindle power and motion in the blink of an eye if a hand enters the danger zone. The interrupt occurs at the hardware level, which keeps response time tight regardless of software load.

The broader implication is philosophical. Safety systems built into software and firmware can be improved after the tool is already in the shop. A machine that ships in 2026 could be meaningfully safer in 2028 without any hardware change. Tool ownership starts to resemble the kind of ongoing development cycle familiar in consumer electronics, where the product on the shelf today is not necessarily the one it will be in two years.

What Comes Next for the Shop

Harvey Industries’ Sniper is one data point in a broader pattern. Phone apps now flag knots and grain defects before a board is cut. CNC routers communicate directly with design software. Table saws can distinguish wood from flesh in milliseconds. Computer vision and servo motion control are all converging in workshop tools at a pace that would have seemed implausible a decade ago.

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Professional cabinet shops see the benefit in production costs. Hobbyists find the barrier to consistent results is lower than it used to be. In both cases, the machine is absorbing the positioning, monitoring, and correction work surrounding each cut, while the operator retains full control of the actual drilling.

Harvey Industries plans to release Sniper this summer. Pricing targets the custom-shop and advanced-hobbyist market, which is where most category-defining tools tend to start before the technology spreads more broadly.

The drill press took about a hundred years to learn to move. The next decade of workshop tools probably won’t need that long.

Digital Trends partners with external contributors. All contributor content is reviewed by the Digital Trends editorial staff.

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BioLife Solutions to be acquired by Repligen in $1.5B cell therapy deal

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Roderick de Greef, CEO of BioLife Solutions. (BioLife Photo)

BioLife Solutions, a Bothell, Wash.-based company developing tools for cell and gene therapy, is being acquired for $1.5 billion by the life sciences corporation Repligen.

BioLife is a publicly traded business that makes products used by biotech firms to keep living cells alive and healthy while they’re stored, shipped, frozen or thawed for medical therapies. Waltham, Mass.-based Repligen makes tools and other materials used to manufacture vaccines, antibodies and other biological therapies. Both companies launched in the 1980s.

Cell and gene therapies are advanced treatments that use living cells or genetic material to treat disease at the molecular level. Cell therapies replace or repair damaged tissue with healthy cells, while gene therapies add, fix or modify DNA to correct the underlying cause of a condition.

“Over the past several years, we have successfully repositioned BioLife around our market-leading biopreservation media franchise, while strengthening our financial profile and establishing a durable foundation for profitable growth,” said Roderick de Greef, CEO of BioLife, in a statement.

BioLife shareholders will get $11.25 in cash plus 0.1442 shares of Repligen stock for every share of BioLife they own—bringing the total deal value to $31 per share.

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The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter, pending BioLife stockholder approval and regulatory clearance.

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Team Ireland makes it count at International Maths Olympiad

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The students representing Ireland competed alongside 666 of the world’s brightest young minds from 117 countries across the world.

Six students representing Ireland – Owen Barron, Vitalii Halushko, Angyang Li, Jack McAuliffe, Ben Maguire and Tianci Yan – have walked away from the International Maths Olympiad 2026 competition in Shanghai, China with three medals. 

The secondary school students earned one silver and two bronze medals at the 67th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), the global championship in mathematics for second-level students. They competed against 666 of the world’s brightest young minds from 117 countries. 

Each participant was given 4.5 hours per day to solve six highly complex mathematical problems, with each worth a maximum of seven points, for a possible total score of 42 points. The thresholds in 2026 were 29 points for a gold medal, 23 for silver and 16 for bronze, with gold medals awarded to only the top 16pc of competitors.

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Maguire won Ireland’s fifth-ever silver medal, with Li and McAuliffe earning bronze medals. This is Ireland’s second time coming away with three medals, while Barron, Yan and Halushko – who each medalled at last year’s event – all earned honourable mentions for a complete and correct solution to at least one problem. 

The team was led by Prof Steve Buckley of Maynooth University, Tianyiwa Xie of the University of Münster and Dr Mark Flanagan from UCD. 

Following last year’s success, Irish Mathematical Trust (IMT) volunteers provided extracurricular maths training and coaching across the country, with recent expansion enabled by Stripe’s sponsorship of the IMT.

Commenting on the win, Alison Ahern, the head of education partnerships at Stripe, said, “Maths is the cornerstone of future success in fields as diverse as engineering, finance, medicine and software development.

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“We are dedicated at Stripe to supporting excellence in maths and STEM education in Ireland, and we are hugely proud of this year’s International Maths Olympiad team, who represent Ireland’s sharpest mathematical minds at secondary level.”

Prior to the competition in Shanghai, the team participated in the International Mathematics Summer Camp in Beijing, which incorporated an Olympiad-style contest where Yan, Halushko and McAuliffe earned bronze medals, and Barron a silver. 

Dr Neil Dobbs, a lecturer in mathematics at UCD and chair of the IMT, said, “That all six team members have medalled at the IMO either this year or last is simply extraordinary. The dreams, the hard work and the sense of community throughout the wider squad has been wonderful to witness.”

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

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Meet the judges who will crown Australia’s next breakout startup

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TechCrunch Startup Battlefield is coming to Australia — and we’re partnering with Stripe to find the country’s most exciting early-stage startups. On August 19, eight Australian startups will take the stage at Stripe Tour Sydney to pitch live in front of investors, press, and the tech community. Three will win prizes. One will earn an automatic ticket to TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, taking place in San Francisco from October 13-15.

The secret to finding the next breakout founder? The judges.

Startup Battlefield has a track record that speaks for itself. The competition has launched over 1,700 companies globally, including Dropbox, Cloudflare, Discord, and Trello. Alumni have collectively raised $32 billion and produced 250+ exits. The last time Startup Battlefield came to Sydney, the winner was HealthMatch — now valued at over $25 million with a million patients globally.

That success doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from having the right people in the room, the ones who can spot potential, ask the hard questions, and open doors for founders. This year, we’ve assembled three judges who represent the best of Australia’s startup ecosystem and global fintech innovation.

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Meet your judges

Jasmine Liew, Head of Startup & Investor Partnerships for APAC, Stripe

Jasmine Liew
Image Credits:Stripe

Stripe doesn’t just sponsor Startup Battlefield — the company is also deeply embedded in the startup ecosystem. Jasmine Liew brings institutional knowledge of what it takes to scale globally and the payment infrastructure that powers modern commerce. When a founder pitches in front of her, they’re pitching to someone who understands not just the vision, but also the mechanics of turning that vision into a revenue-generating machine.

Brendan Hill, angel investor and venture partner, Ten13

Brendan Hill
Image Credits:Ten13

Brendan Hill represents the investor class that actually writes checks. As a venture partner and active angel investor, he’s not just evaluating ideas — he’s also evaluating whether he’d bet his own money on a team. That’s the lens that matters when founders are trying to raise their next round.

Jarron Aizen, founder and CEO, Hapana

Jarron Aizen
Image Credits:Hapana

Jarron Aizen is a founder himself, which means he knows what it’s like to stand where these eight pitchers will be standing. He’s walked the path from idea to company, and that perspective is invaluable. When he asks a question from the judge’s table, it’s informed by the wins and scars of building in the Australian market.

What’s on the line

The grand prize winner takes home $15,000 in Stripe fee credits — real money that can fuel growth — plus automatic entry into Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. That’s not just a prize. That’s a launchpad. Second place takes $5,000 in Stripe credits. Third place takes $2,000 in Stripe credits. But more importantly, all finalists get in the room with these judges, get press attention, and get access to the Stripe Tour Sydney audience of founders, operators, and investors. 

The real spectacle happens on August 19

If you’re an investor, a founder who’s not ready to pitch, or just someone who wants to see the future of Australian startups unfold, Stripe Tour Sydney on August 19 is the event. Register to attend.

The stage is set. The judges are ready. The question is: Which startup will be next?

Hosted and MC’d by Isabelle Johannessen, director of Startup Battlefield.

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Jeff Bezos has been approached to buy a stake in Liverpool FC. Amazon already holds the Premier League TV rights.

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TL;DR

Bezos has been approached to join a consortium bidding £1.35B for a 30% stake in Liverpool FC from Fenway Sports Group. Amazon already holds Premier League TV rights in the UK.

Jeff Bezos has been approached to join a consortium seeking to buy a 30% stake in Liverpool Football Club from Fenway Sports Group, Sky Sports reported. The group is led by Amit Bhatia, the outgoing co-owner of Queens Park Rangers and son-in-law of steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal. The provisional offer is £1.35 billion ($1.8 billion), valuing Liverpool at approximately £4.5 billion ($6 billion). Talks are in the early stages and Bezos is not certain to proceed.

If Bezos invests, he would be the latest American tech billionaire to buy into European football. The overlap between tech wealth and sports ownership has accelerated in the past two years, driven by rising media rights values and the Premier League’s global audience. Amazon already holds Premier League TV rights in the UK, broadcasting a package of live matches through Prime Video. Owning a stake in one of the league’s biggest clubs while streaming its games would raise questions about conflicts of interest that neither Amazon nor the Premier League has publicly addressed.

Bezos has never owned a sports team despite multiple reported attempts. He explored bids for the NFL’s Washington Commanders in 2023 and the Seattle Seahawks this year, but did not proceed with either. Tech companies are deploying tens of billions into strategic investments, and Liverpool would give Amazon’s streaming platform a direct connection to one of football’s most watched clubs. Whether that connection is a commercial advantage or a regulatory problem depends on which regulator is looking.

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Liverpool is one of the most successful clubs in English football history, with six European Cup titles and 19 league championships. Fenway Sports Group, led by John Henry, bought the club in 2010 for £300 million. The £4.5 billion valuation represents a 15x return in 16 years. LeBron James holds a minority stake acquired in 2011 for $6.5 million, now worth an estimated $120 million. Sovereign and tech capital is converging on entertainment at unprecedented scale, the publisher behind EA Sports FC, football’s dominant video game. Tech and sovereign capital are converging on football from every direction: games, streaming, and now ownership.

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Four former DOGE staffers raised $160 million at a $1.4 billion valuation for an AI military cyber startup

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Cathedral, a stealth military cybersecurity startup founded by four former Department of Government Efficiency staffers, has raised $160 million at a $1.4 billion valuation. Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital led the round and both took board seats. The company plans to secure US government contracts for AI-driven offensive and defensive cyber operations against adversaries including China.

The founders are Gavin Kliger, Luke Farritor, Marko Elez, and Jack Stein. Kliger served as chief data officer at the Pentagon, where he was involved in the department’s legal fight with Anthropic over how Claude would be used by the military. The founding team maintains deep ties to the Trump administration and national security officials. Cathedral is also looking to acquire or partner with a data centre provider for dedicated compute power to run its cyber operations.

The funding underscores how DOGE alumni are converting government access into venture capital. More than 250,000 people left the federal workforce during DOGE’s cost-cutting campaign in 2025. The staffers who ran those operations are now building companies that sell services back to the government they reshaped. Anduril raised $5 billion at a $61 billion valuation as the defence tech sector attracts capital at AI-lab pace, and Cathedral enters the same market with the additional advantage of founders who recently held senior positions inside the agencies they plan to sell to.

The $1.4 billion valuation for a company with no disclosed revenue or contracts reflects investor confidence in the team’s government relationships rather than the product’s track record. The White House launched Gold Eagle this month, an AI-powered cyber vulnerability clearinghouse, signalling that the administration sees AI-driven cyber defence as a priority. Cathedral is positioning itself to be one of the companies that benefits from that priority. Whether a startup founded by cost-cutters can build enterprise-grade military software is the question the next round will need to answer with contracts, not connections.

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‘Bigger, brighter and lighter’: It was love at first use with the 3rd-generation Amazon Kindle Scribe (2025), but its height and price make it unwieldy

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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.

Amazon Kindle Scribe (2025): Two-minute review

I’ve used the 2024 release of the Kindle Scribe (2nd generation) for two years and I’ve loved every minute of it. I didn’t think there was a better E Ink display to write on (and read on for that matter) and I definitely didn’t think it could be improved. Yet that’s exactly what Amazon has done with the 2025 (3rd generation) Kindle Scribe with frontlight.

The epaper display is still one of the best to read and write on, but it looks even brighter and, indeed, it is bigger, with 11 inches of screen real estate to use. That’s fantastic for note-taking and drawing, but unnecessary for a device that also doubles up as an ereader.

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This Tabletop Machine Turns Scrap Plastic Into Working Pens

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Desktop Plastic Recycler Machine DEGO Pens
Most people toss broken baskets, empty food tubs, and leftover packaging without a second thought. Brothers Make decided to keep a pile of that material and feed it into a compact new machine called the DEGO. In one afternoon they turned the scraps into a set of usable pens, complete with unintentional swirl patterns, even when the colors refuse to stay neat.



The DEGO plastic extruder is the creation of plasticpreneur, an Austrian business that has spent years refining large recycling equipment for workshops and schools, but this new version is small enough to fit on a workbench at home. Weighing around 20 kilograms and measuring approximately 21cm by 55cm by 39cm, all you have to do is plug it in, put on a mold, and you’re ready to begin. A built-in fume extraction mechanism directs any unpleasant vapors directly through a filter, keeping the entire arrangement more cleaner than prior open versions.

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For those who like simplicity, the process is straightforward: shovel chopped-up plastic flakes in from the top and turn the hand crank. The crank cranks a screw inside a heated barrel, pulling the flakes forward, melting them down with friction and electric heat, and pushing the gooey plastic out the front nozzle. Put a mould on the nozzle, keep rotating the handle, and the cavity will fill; once finished, just open the mold, pull out your freshly created pen, and start again. The guys in the video built a bunch with a pen barrel mold and were churning them out one by one in only a few minutes.

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Desktop Plastic Recycler Machine DEGO Pens
They were largely experimenting with high-density polyethylene, the hard plastic used in laundry baskets, chocolate tubs, fishing rope, marker cases, and cracker containers. Each type of plastic had its own distinct color; a pale yellow-green basket looked great paired with bright red tubs, teal rope contrasted nicely with black pen barrels, and orange cracker packaging was a beautiful addition to the mix. They also added some white flakes for a little more contrast here and there. Because of the way the screw mixes the plastic, it is uncommon to achieve pure color blocks. Instead, you’ll see nice streaks, marbling, and delicate color transitions as you walk from one piece to the next.

Of course, there is still some preparation to be done before you can begin. You’ll need to remove any stickers and cut up any large pieces of plastic with scissors, shears, or a guillotine, and having a dedicated shredder to speed up the process is a major help, but the DEGO itself can run on plain old plastic flakes with no extra processing. Once the material is clean and dry, the machine does the rest, as the temperature is high enough to melt the plastic smoothly while remaining low enough not to burn most common varieties. It’s still a manual process, which keeps the learning curve low and safety concerns at a minimum.

Desktop Plastic Recycler Machine DEGO Pens
The base model will cost roughly 3500 euros, with additional molds for pens or carabiners costing slightly more. When compared to a full industrial extruder, the DEGO is a bargain. It takes up almost no space, requires no compressed air or fussy hydraulics, and can be up and operating in a matter of minutes. Cleanup is a breeze; simply pass any residual material through till the barrel is empty.

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Keychron Q6 HE 8K Review: Specs, Features, Price

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The Keychron Q6 HE 8K is a solid mechanical keyboard with magnetic switches. While it’s not cheap, it’s got more than enough to give a great typing experience on Mac.

When it comes to mechanical keyboards, Keychron stands out as one of the industry leaders. All thanks to its vast array of styles, colors, and features aimed at both Windows and macOS users.

The Keychron Q6 HE 8K is a beefy new release, and I put it through an extended test drive in my ongoing series of reviews of Keychron products. It’s an ever-continuing search for the mechanical keyboard that will earn a permanent position on my workspace.

The Q6 HE 8K is a full-size magnetic switch mechanical keyboard with an 8K polling rate that supports a direct wired connection. It has a staggering variety of customizations.

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Keychron Q6 HE 8K Review: Specifications

  • Size: 137 x 446mm
  • Front Height: 20.6 mm (without keycaps)
  • Back Height: 31.37 mm (without keycaps)
  • Feet Height: 1.24mm
  • Angle: 5.26 degrees
  • Weight: 2,268g +/- 10g
  • Body Material: Aluminum
  • Keycap: OSA double-shot PBT keycaps
  • Plate Material: Aluminum
  • Switch: Keychron Ultra-fast Lime Magnetic Switch
  • Stabilizer: Screw-in PCB stabilizer
  • Backlight: South-facing RGB LED
  • Compatible System: macOS/Windows/Linux
  • Operating Environment: -10 to 50C
  • Connectivity: Type-C Wired
  • Polling Rate: 8000 Hz / 4000 Hz / 1000 Hz
  • N-Key Rollover (NKRO): Yes
  • Rapid Trigger: Yes
  • Sensitivity: 0.01 mm
  • Adjustable Actuation Points: 0.1 – 3.35mm
  • Dynamic Keystrokes: 4-in-1 action keys
  • Hot-Swappable: Yes, compatible with Keychron Ultra-fast Lime Magnetic Switch only.
  • MCU: 1MB

Keychron Q6 HE 8K Review: Unboxing

The Q6 HE 8K arrives in a standard black box with a metallic Keychron logo. The keyboard and accessories are packaged in heavy foam cutouts for maximum travel safety.

  • 1x Fully Assembled Keyboard
  • 16x Gaskets (12 Installed and 4 in the Box)
  • 8 sets x Stabilizers
  • 1 set x Keycaps (PBT Double-shot)
  • 1 set x Magnetic Switches
  • 1x Type-C Cable
  • 1x Type-A to Type-C Adapter
  • 1x Keycap & Switch Puller
  • 1x Screwdriver
  • 1x Hex Key
  • User Guide

Keychron Q6 HE 8K Review: Build Quality

The Q6 HE 8K is a full-size mechanical keyboard with a metal case. Even by the industry standards for a keyboard of this size, I was surprised by the sheer weight and feel of it.

This is a very beefy keyboard that will easily withstand the rigors of daily use, at stationary or mobile workspaces alike.

Keychron offers the Q6 HE 8K in two colors: Black or white. That’s it.

Compact mechanical keyboard with light gray and white keys, dark gray modifier keys, and a single dark blue Escape key in the top left corner on a white surface

Keychron Q6 HE 8K Review: Left side with Mac keyset

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This is a recurring theme with Keychron and their keyboards, and I have written about it in the past. But with the amazing quality of its keyboards, I would love to see it expand its range of colors.

I’ll be the first to admit I do not know its manufacturing limitations with such meticulously engineered products. But even so, the occasional red, blue, green, or pink would be welcome in this age of colorful workspaces and peripherals.

The Q6 HE 8K arrives with the proprietary Keychron Ultra-fast Lime Magnetic Switches as standard. Keychron sells Banana and Silent Red switches on the Keychron website for an added cost of $29.99, depending on the type of sound level or tactile feel you prefer.

Keychron products never feel cheap or like an afterthought. Every keyboard it makes uses premium materials and engineering built to last for years.

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The Q6 HE 8K is certainly no exception. From the heavy aluminum case and double-gasket design to the double-shot keycaps, PCB stabilizers, adapters, and tools, everything in the box feels like bespoke, white-glove service.

Side view of a compact mechanical keyboard showing USB-C port, Win/Mac switch, three-position toggle switch, and white keycaps with one highlighted purple key in the top right corner

Keychron Q6 HE 8K Review: Rear has USB-C and two control switches

The back of the Q6 HE 8K includes a USB-C port for connection and use. There are two switches next to the USB port.

One switch is a three-position switch to toggle between up to three potential keyboard configuration profiles. The second switch moves between default macOS and Windows configurations.

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Keychron Q6 HE 8K Review: Customization

The Q6 HE 8K has a wide variety of customization options, including third-party keycaps and remapping variations available from Keychron’s proprietary Keychron Launcher tool. The pool of possibilities is very deep.

Keychron touts that the Q6 HE 8K is truly customizable from top to bottom, and it is. By default, Keychron includes keycaps for both macOS and Windows configurations.

The switches on the Q6 HE 8K are hot-swappable, with Keychron noting that hot-swapping works with Keychron Lime and Gateron Jade magnetic switches.

The new Keychron screw-in PCB stabilizers deliver incredible stability on the big keys, namely the space bar, shift, enter, and delete. The installation is quick and easy for experienced users and mechanical keyboard newbies alike.

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Keychron keyboard configuration software interface showing top view of keyboard layout and bottom panels for setting actuation distance, rapid trigger sensitivity, trigger debounce, and user macros on a dark theme

Keychron Q6 HE 8K Review: Managing the actuation distance in the Keychron Launcher

The south-facing RGB lights on the Q6 HE 8K are vibrant and fully customizable to each individual key, using Keychron’s Per-Key RGB feature. The contrast of the bright lights against the white metal body and keycaps makes everything pop.

Keychron’s Launcher tool is web-based, and it allows you to adjust almost everything. Adjustments span keymapping, the internal RGB light configuration, and adding custom macros for use with the Q6 HE 8K.

Previous versions of the Keychron Launcher did not play well with macOS and several browsers. The process is incredibly smooth now. It’s nice to see a manufacturer like Keychron listen to the concerns of their customers and address them.

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Keychron Q6 HE 8K Review: In use

I used the Q6 HE 8K for several weeks prior to writing this review, and it was the best Keychron experience I have had to date. That is, in a line of good Keychron experiences.

On my standard workspace layout, I use a digital pen display and stylus with my right hand. A wireless, low-profile keyboard is used by my left hand for key commands.

I need to move the tablet and the keyboard around often throughout my workday. I find most full-size keyboards to be cumbersome in this space, but despite its size, weight, and wired connection, the Q6 HE 8K handled the job incredibly well.

Close-up of a light gray mechanical keyboard showing number pad, navigation keys, and a few dark blue keys, on a white background

Keychron Q6 HE 8K Review: Right side with numpad and knob

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I’ll admit, I tested this as my work keyboard only to be thorough and see how the Q6 HE 8K behaves at work and at play. I expected to dislike the work experience based on my personal preferences, but I was surprised by how well the keyboard worked for me.

I had a few initial hours where my muscle memory for low-profile keyboards worked against me, with a series of missed clicks or a bit of fatigue with the larger keycaps. That passed in time, and I found the size and weight of the Q6 HE 8K to be a welcome change.

Where I expected the Q6 HE 8K to excel was in my gaming space on my Windows machine. It lived up to everything I anticipated and more.

The weighty keyboard provides stability, and the ability to customize every key actuation point and utilize the LKP (last key priority) and DKS (dynamic keystrokes) opened up an entire world for me. Think pressure sensitivity adjustments and absolute control with games like Marvel Rivals, where quick, responsive actions are vital.

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I am an older gamer, so experiencing these features for the first time truly made me feel a bit like a caveman cracking rocks together with my previous basic keyboard and mouse. Meanwhile, other gamers are building rockets.

Full-size mechanical keyboard with white and light gray keys, accented by a few dark blue keys, including Enter and spacebar, on a clean white background

Keychron Q6 HE 8K Review: Full top-down view

The Q6 HE 8K is not the quietest mechanical keyboard I have ever used. If I decide to get one for my gaming desk, I will absolutely purchase and use the Silent Red switches from Keychron.

The bumpy-clack of the standard switches is nice, but it is not my preference.

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The volume adjustment push knob on the Q6 HE 8K is amazing, and it is a simple quality-of-life feature that I love. It isn’t something I expected, and the clickable knob made quick muting feel satisfying.

Keychron Q6 HE 8K Review: An excellent mechanical keyboard

The Q6 HE 8K is an amazing mechanical keyboard, and I recommend it for gamers.

The retail price of the Q6 HE 8K is $239, and that is not anywhere close to inexpensive or budget-friendly for most. But the price is worth it if you are looking for a rock-solid mechanical keyboard.

Keychron Q6 HE 8K Pros

  • High build quality
  • Great for daily typing
  • Excels at gaming
  • Excellent customization options in Keychron software

Keychron Q6 HE 8K Cons

  • High entry price for keyboards
  • Case color options are limited

Rating 4.5 out of 5

Where to buy the Keychron Q6 HE 8K

The Keychron Q3 HE is available on the Keychron website for $239. It’s also available from Amazon,

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Geekbench Download Free – 7.0

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Geekbench includes updated CPU workloads and new Compute workloads that model real-world tasks and applications. Geekbench is a benchmark that reflects what actual users face on their mobile devices and personal computers.

Features

CPU Benchmark

Geekbench 7 measures your processor’s single-core and multi-core power, for everything from checking your email to taking a picture to playing music, or all of it at once. Geekbench 7’s CPU benchmark measures performance in new application areas including video conferencing, streaming, and game physics, so you’ll know how your system handles the tasks you rely on every day.

GPU Benchmark

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Test your system’s potential for GPU compute tasks including machine learning, image processing, and video editing with the GPU Benchmark. Test your GPU’s power with support for the OpenCL, Metal, Vulkan, and CUDA APIs. New to Geekbench 7 is an increased focus on Machine Learning, and support for NVIDIA’S CUDA API.

Real-World Tests

Geekbench uses practical, everyday scenarios and datasets to measure performance. Each test is based on tasks found in popular real-world apps and uses realistic data sets, ensuring that your results are relevant and applicable. Geekbench 7’s multi-core tests only run multi-threaded when real applications do, so your scores reflect how software actually behaves.

Cross-Platform

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Compare apples and oranges. Or Apples and Samsungs. Designed from the ground-up for cross-platform comparisons, Geekbench 7 allows you to compare system performance across devices, operating systems, and processor architectures. Geekbench 7 supports Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Geekbench Browser

Upload your results to the Geekbench Browser to share them with others, or to let the world know how fast (or slow) your devices can go! You can track all your results in one place by creating an account, and find them easily from any of your devices.

Benchmark Charts

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Verify device performance using the Geekbench Benchmark Charts. Available on the Geekbench Browser, these charts are based on data aggregated from real users in real-world environments. Whether you’re considering a new purchase or are curious about a device’s capabilities, use these charts to make informed decisions.

Stress Tests

Geekbench includes stress tests, which are tests that help determine the stability of your system. Stress tests help you find small problems with your system before they become big problems.

Multicore Aware

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Every test in Geekbench is multi-core aware. This allows Geekbench to show you the true potential of your system. Whether you’re running Geekbench on a dual-core phone or a 32-core server, Geekbench is able to measure the performance of all the cores in your system.

Here’s what the different numbers mean:

Battery Runtime is the battery test runtime. If the test started with the battery completely charged and ended with the battery completely discharged then the test runtime is also the battery lifetime.

Battery Score is a combination of the runtime and the work completed during the battery test. If two phones have the same runtime but different scores, then the phone with the higher score completed more work. As with Geekbench scores, higher battery scores are better.

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Battery Level is the battery level at the start and the end of the test.

What’s New

Geekbench 7, the latest version of Primate Labs’ cross-platform benchmark, has arrived and features both new and improved workloads to measure the performance of your CPUs and GPUs.

New Media Workloads

Geekbench 7 includes new media workloads that measure how well your CPU handles audio and video encoding, decoding, and processing. The workloads model the tasks behind video conferencing, screen sharing, and everyday content consumption. These new workloads:

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  • Encode screen-sharing video with the AV1 codec, modeling the screen-sharing features in video conferencing apps.
  • Compress music and spoken-word audio with the Opus codec, modeling voice memo and podcast apps.
  • Decode video and audio while generating live captions with the Whisper speech recognition model, modeling video playback with automatic subtitles enabled.

Alongside the new media workloads, Geekbench 7 adds a Game Physics workload built on the Jolt Physics engine used in popular video games, expands the Photo Editor workload with a richer set of real-world edits, and updates the Photo Library workload to support importing and processing modern image formats such as JPEG XL and DNG.

A Smarter Multi-Core Benchmark

The multi-core benchmark in Geekbench 7 has been redesigned to better reflect how real applications behave. Not every task in the real world is multi-threaded, and pretending otherwise distorts scores without telling you anything useful about your device.

In Geekbench 7, a workload only runs in multi-threaded mode if the task it models actually runs multi-threaded in real applications. For example, the HTML5 Browser test isn’t included in the multi-threaded suite because web browsers are single-threaded (or lightly threaded).

The result is a multi-core score that’s a more accurate, more useful, and more relevant measure of how your device performs the work you actually do.

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A Refreshed GPU Benchmark

The GPU benchmark has a new focus on the machine learning and content creation applications that increasingly define GPU performance. For machine learning, the GPU benchmark includes workloads that:

  • Track faces and apply real-time filter effects to video, modeling the face filters in social media apps.
  • Upscale images with machine learning, modeling super resolution features in content creation apps.
  • Blur backgrounds in video conferencing streams, modeling virtual background features in video conferencing apps.

Geekbench 7 also introduces new GPU image editing and synthesis workloads, including RAW image processing, LUT-based video color grading, path tracing, and fluid simulation.

And by popular demand, CUDA joins OpenCL, Vulkan, and Metal as a supported API in the GPU Benchmark. You can now measure your NVIDIA GPU using the API that powers its most demanding applications.

Larger Data Sets

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Since the release of Geekbench 6, the tasks people perform have become more strenuous, and the data sets they use have grown larger and more demanding. To reflect this, we’ve updated the data sets the workloads process so they’re more challenging for your device and better reflect the files people work with today. This includes:

  • More (and more varied) archives in the File Compression workload, spanning source code, object code, and text documents.
  • More (and more varied) documents in the PDF Viewer workload, from park maps to technical documents to academic papers.
  • More assets and different image formats throughout the developer and image processing workloads.

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