Tech

LAiV Crescendo VERSE Review: Chapter and Verse on This All-in-One DAC, Preamp, and Headphone Amplifier

Published

2 months ago

30 March 2026

LAiV is a relatively new name, founded in Singapore in 2023, but the brand has moved quickly with a growing lineup of design forward, higher end components. The LAiV Crescendo VERSE marks a shift in strategy, arriving as a compact all-in-one DAC, preamplifier, and headphone amplifier priced at $849 and aimed squarely at a far more competitive segment of the market. That puts it head to head with established players like FiiO, Shanling, Topping, Schiit Audio, Eversolo, and TEAC, brands that have spent years refining affordable desktop systems that do not feel compromised.

The question is not whether LAiV can design something that looks the part. It already has. The real issue is whether the Crescendo VERSE can deliver the performance, features, and reliability expected at this price in a category where excuses do not last very long.

Technology & Specifications

The DAC section of the Crescendo VERSE is built around an R2R ladder topology, a design approach often associated with a more natural tonal balance and a less processed presentation. In simple terms, it relies on a network of precision resistors arranged in a ladder configuration, switching between R and 2R values to convert digital data into an analog voltage signal.

On paper, R2R designs do not usually win the measurement game against delta-sigma DACs, but LAiV has clearly made an effort to keep the numbers respectable. The Crescendo VERSE posts 0.008% THD+N, signal to noise ratio above 110 dB, and less than 30 µVrms of noise from the balanced headphone output. That level of performance is supported by tightly matched resistors with tolerances below 0.05 percent, which is not something every manufacturer bothers to implement at this price.

In terms of format support, the DAC handles up to 768 kHz PCM and DSD256, with native 1-bit DSD processing that avoids unnecessary conversion. The tradeoff is that switching between sample rates or encoding types can introduce occasional pops between tracks. If that becomes distracting, switching to Multibit mode for PCM playback eliminates the issue and allows for smoother transitions without interrupting the listening experience.

The Crescendo VERSE also includes an integrated sampling rate converter, allowing PCM files to be upsampled by 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x, or even 16x. DSD can likewise be resampled to DSD64, 128, 256, and 512 when operating in native DSD mode, giving users a fair amount of flexibility depending on how they prefer their digital processing handled.

Beyond the DAC section, LAiV has built this as a true all-in-one unit, incorporating a headphone amplifier alongside a discrete, output buffered preamplifier for use with power amplifiers or active speakers. Switching between modes and functions is handled via the included remote or the front panel controls. Operation is generally smooth, although the 20 by 7 dot matrix display limits how much information can be shown at once, which makes menu navigation less intuitive than it should be.

On the amplification side, the headphone stage delivers up to 1.1 watts and 11 Vrms in high gain. That is not class leading on paper, but it is sufficient for the vast majority of headphones. Medium and low gain settings are also available, making it flexible enough for more sensitive headphones and IEMs without introducing unnecessary noise.

It is not a power focused design, and that feels intentional. More power does not automatically translate into better sound quality. What matters is how it performs where it counts, which we will get into in the listening section. But first, let’s take a closer look at the build quality.

Design & Build

The LAiV Crescendo VERSE leans heavily into premium territory when it comes to build quality and materials. The chassis is machined from anodised aluminium, and the front LED display sits behind a sheet of tempered glass that adds a bit of polish without feeling overdone.

There are two finishes available: ebony black with gold accents, or sterling silver with gold buttons and knobs. The latter is what we have in for review, and it looks exactly like what LAiV is going for—angular, slightly industrial, but with enough refinement to avoid looking like lab equipment. It feels intentional rather than flashy.

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Its compact footprint helps. Measuring 188 x 168 x 50 mm (7.4 x 6.6 x 2.0 inches), the Crescendo VERSE does not dominate a desk, which makes it a far easier fit in smaller setups or cleaner, more minimalist spaces. Not everyone wants a full-width component staring them down while they work.

Despite the smaller size, connectivity is not an afterthought. Up front, you get both a 6.35 mm (quarter inch) and 4.4 mm balanced headphone output. Around the back, there is a full set of RCA and XLR outputs, along with four digital inputs: USB, coaxial, optical, and I2S. Power is handled via an external supply, which makes sense given the size. There was no realistic way to keep the unit this compact and fit everything internally without compromise.

Back on the front panel, volume is controlled via an analog knob with a smooth, well-damped feel that avoids being overly loose or stiff. The included remote works as expected, although LAiV skips the small courtesy of including AAA batteries. Not a deal breaker, but it is the kind of detail you notice when everything else is this well executed.

Listening & Headphone Synergy

The LAiV Crescendo VERSE was used both as a complete DAC and headphone amplifier and as a standalone DAC paired with several external headphone amplifiers. Source material ranged from Spotify streams to high resolution FLAC files, with listening done across a wide selection of headphones, including low impedance planar magnetics, high impedance dynamic drivers, and everything in between.

After several weeks of use, one thing became clear. Despite its R2R architecture, the Crescendo VERSE does not lean as warm as some might expect. Compared to other implementations, such as the FiiO K13 R2R, which noticeably softens the treble on something like the Beyerdynamic DT880 Edition 600 Ohm, the LAiV takes a more balanced approach. It does not round off the top end to the same degree, which will likely come as a surprise to those expecting a traditionally rich and forgiving R2R presentation.

What it does deliver is a sense of fullness and flow that feels cohesive rather than exaggerated. There is a natural ease to the way it presents music, with instruments and vocals coming across as grounded and unforced. It avoids sounding clinical without tipping too far into coloration, which is not always an easy balance to strike. R2R designs are often praised for this kind of presentation, and while not every implementation gets it right, the Crescendo VERSE makes a convincing case for why the topology still has a following.

Starting at the low end, the Crescendo VERSE reaches deep and maintains good control, even if it stops short of being the most hard-hitting or visceral option under $1,000. What stands out more is texture. Bass notes have shape and definition, giving lines a sense of weight without turning them into a blunt instrument. On Jadu Heart’s “Woman,” the low, guttural guitar work comes through with a satisfying sense of density and presence rather than sheer slam.

That same sense of body carries into the midrange, where the Crescendo VERSE does its best work. Vocals, both male and female, are presented with a natural sense of scale and focus that draws attention without feeling pushed forward. On “Alaska” by Portair, Drew Southwell’s breathy delivery cuts through cleanly, but there is still enough weight behind it to avoid sounding thin. It manages to stay clear and articulate without tipping into harshness, which is not always a given at this price.

Treble is handled with restraint, but in a way that feels intentional rather than rolled off. There is enough energy to resolve detail and maintain separation, but peaks are kept in check, especially with more aggressive headphones. The result is a presentation that leans relaxed and listenable over long sessions, without losing the finer details that give recordings their sense of air and nuance. Just keep the volume in check, unless fatigue is part of the plan.

As an example, I sometimes find the HiFiMAN HE1000 Unveiled a bit too forward in the treble with certain tracks, including L’Impératrice’s “La lune.” Through the Crescendo VERSE, that edge was dialed back just enough to make the synths easier to live with, without stripping away their detail or energy.

In terms of pairing, the Crescendo VERSE handled most headphones without complaint, from low impedance planars to high impedance dynamic designs. Where it begins to show its limits is with more demanding planar magnetics. Headphones like the HiFiMAN HE6se V2 need more current than the internal amplifier can comfortably provide. Paired with an external amplifier like the Aune S17 Pro, however, the Crescendo VERSE steps into a different role and performs exceptionally well. The Class A design of the S17 Pro complements the DAC’s more organic presentation, resulting in a combination that feels both controlled and musically engaging.

Imaging and soundstage are clear strengths. The Crescendo VERSE presents a well organized, layered soundstage where instruments and vocals are placed with precision rather than smeared across the field. There is a convincing sense of separation between elements, which helps complex recordings retain their structure. On TOOL’s “Chocolate Chip Trip,” a track that can quickly turn into a mess on lesser gear, individual sounds remain distinct and easy to follow, with each layer occupying its own space without collapsing into the next.

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The Bottom Line

The LAiV Crescendo VERSE gets a lot right for a first attempt at an all in one in this price range. Build quality is excellent, the design feels considered rather than decorative, and the feature set covers just about everything most users will need, from flexible digital inputs to balanced outputs and a capable preamp stage. The R2R DAC implementation is the real differentiator. It delivers a sound that is full, controlled, and natural without leaning too warm or soft, which helps it stand apart from both typical delta sigma designs and more colored R2R alternatives.

It is not without limitations. The internal headphone amplifier is good, but not class leading in terms of raw power, and demanding planar headphones will still benefit from an external amp. The interface, while functional, could be more intuitive, and native DSD playback comes with minor usability quirks. None of these are deal breakers, but they are worth noting in a category where the competition is deep and well established.

What makes the Crescendo VERSE compelling is how complete it feels. It is not trying to win on specs alone or overwhelm with features. Instead, it offers a refined, well integrated solution that prioritizes sound quality and usability in equal measure.

This is for listeners who want a compact, well built desktop hub that can anchor a serious headphone or small speaker system without turning their desk into a rack system. If you value a more natural presentation and do not need extreme power on tap, the Crescendo VERSE makes a strong case for itself in a crowded field.

Pros:

Excellent build quality with anodised aluminium chassis and premium finish options
Compact footprint that fits easily into desktop and minimalist setups
R2R DAC delivers a natural, cohesive, and non-fatiguing sound
Strong imaging and layering with a well-defined soundstage
Flexible connectivity including USB, coaxial, optical, I2S, RCA, and XLR
Integrated preamplifier adds real system versatility
Good gain range for a wide variety of headphones and IEMs

Cons:

Headphone amplifier lacks the power for more demanding planar magnetics
Menu system and display are not the most intuitive to navigate
Native DSD playback can introduce occasional pops between tracks
No internal power supply, relies on an external brick
Competitive segment with strong alternatives from established brands

Where to buy:

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Tech

Something Made Earth’s Molten Core Reverse Direction In 2010

Published

9 minutes ago

1 June 2026

NewsAdmin

ScienceAlert reports:
In the molten ocean of iron churning in Earth’s outer core, a section deep beneath the Pacific Ocean suddenly reversed direction and started moving eastward against the planet’s usual westward flow. This happened in 2010, according to satellite measurements of Earth’s magnetic field, and scientists are still trying to figure out what caused it… [I]t seemed to have a large, wave-like structure — as though a chunk of molten core material suddenly thought better of where it wanted to go, surging in the other direction… This finding suggests that there are processes that can influence it strongly enough to alter its behavior in bulk — and that our planet’s interior may be more dynamic and variable than we thought.
A new analysis captures what we know so far — and

“It’s from the roiling, molten, conducting metal at Earth’s heart that the planetary magnetic field is generated… vital to our continued existence. It helps keep the atmosphere we breathe in and harmful cosmic radiation out.”

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Tech

Off-Grid OCR Server Powered By IPhone

Published

22 minutes ago

1 June 2026

NewsAdmin

Running an optical character recognition (OCR) server might sound like it would need some powerful hardware, like a rack-mounted, water-cooled machine, or at least a nice desktop or laptop. But if you have the time, anything could be used. [Hemant] has a long-running personal project that processes a lot of image data over a long time, and set up the OCR server on an iPhone 8 running entirely with solar power, rather than turn to more typical hardware.

Part of what makes this task feasible for low-powered hardware is Apple’s Vision framework, which uses machine learning to aid in things like character recognition (among other tasks). It will run on an iPhone just as easily as a Mac. The phone’s built-in battery already provides the first step of an off-grid setup. This build relies on a separate power bank to integrate the phone with the solar panel more easily. On the software side, [Hemant] reports that the true challenge wasn’t setting up the server as much as it was keeping the iPhone from sleeping or stopping his program from running full-time.

A system like this running off-grid, especially considering the costs of the solar panel and power bank, might seem counterproductive. But when comparing electricity costs for running the same software on his server, he estimates he saves about $10 per month with this setup, which has a payback of somewhere around 2-3 years. Not too bad for a phone that would have otherwise ended up in a landfill. Old phones can be surprisingly good choices for servers, too. It helps if they can run Linux, but plenty of phones will support server applications, even when running their native OS.

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Tech

Regular vs. Smart Thermostats: Everything You Wanted to Know

Published

35 minutes ago

1 June 2026

NewsAdmin

At CNET, we’ve been testing smart thermostats for years, so it’s always a little surprising to hear, “What’s a smart thermostat?” But only a fraction of American households, around 17%, actually use smart thermostats. That’s too bad, because they’re one of my favorite smart home innovations, and offer handy advantages for almost everyone.

So, what’s the difference, aside from flashy new touchscreen designs? I’ll take you through what’s new with these thermostats and how your heating and cooling will never be the same (neither will your energy bills).

Scheduled heating and cooling

A woman reaches to an Ecobee Essential thermostat on a white wall. — Thermostats like Ecobee’s allow for easier scheduling from a distance.
Ecobee

Both smart and traditional thermostats have programmable settings, letting you set temperature thresholds for specific hours and specific days of the week, and changing them as seasons change. The biggest difference is that smart thermostats make this much easier.

With old programmable thermostats, you’re mostly stuck doing programming with the thermostats’ manual controls. Smart thermostats allow you to set schedules from the app, no matter where you are, and you can usually save and switch between schedules on the fly, making the process significantly smoother.

Costs

You can find a standard programmable thermostat without any bells and whistles for under $20 from brands like Honeywell Home (although those with fancy touchscreens will cost more), so they’re an easy way to save money if you need a replacement. Smart thermostats, with all their added features, cost significantly more. Amazon has one of the cheapest for under $100, but for something like Nest’s 4th-gen Learning Thermostat, you’ll have to pay close to $300.

Honeywell Home thermostat on a white wall in front of a kitchen. — If you’re worried about initial costs, regular thermostats cost a whole lot less than smart thermostats.
Honeywell Home

Energy savings

Programmable thermostats will save you money, as long as you stay within strict temperature settings at certain times of day and night. Smart thermostats don’t necessarily save more, but they make saving money so much easier that houses tend to save more as a result, since very few users have time to constantly adjust a standard thermostat for maximum savings.

With settings like eco modes and monthly reports on energy savings, smart thermostats tend to save the average household significant amounts of money. Google Nest studies have estimated the average user saves around 15% on energy bills annually, while Ecobee says users can save up to 26% at the high end. That’s easily enough to cover the initial costs of a smart thermostat in a year or two.

Some smart thermostats are very pretty, but its their control options that matter.

Google Nest

Remote operation

A regular thermostat doesn’t have app connections and will, at most, have a remote control you can use from across the house. Smart thermostats, meanwhile, have Wi-Fi connections and apps. That means that as long as you have your phone and a connection, you can make thermostat changes.

For some people, this is an important feature — they can adjust the temperature while on vacation or if they forget while away from home. Others are fine making changes only when they’re at home.

Automatic learning and adjusting

A regular thermostat will heat or cool your home exactly when and how you tell it to. So will a smart thermostat — unless you enable its smarter features. Smart thermostats include learning algorithms and sensors that study activity in the house, like when people get up in the morning and start moving around.

With basic data like this, smart thermostats can start making adjustments about when to raise the heat or start cooling off, and when to hold back because there’s no one at home. Essentially, they can schedule themselves and respond to significant changes in habits.

Also, many new smart thermostats come with satellite sensors that you can place in specific rooms that traditional thermostats may not be able to “read” very well, increasing their temp-sensing accuracy.

Ecobee's thermostat and sensor side by side. — Ecobee’s thermostat with its sensor.
Ecobee

Energy savings

Installation

Both smart and standard thermostats are installed the same way — by connecting various wires to the thermostat’s base plate. Both offer professional installation services as well, so there’s not much difference here.

The biggest difference is that smart thermostats won’t work as well with every home system. For example, smart thermostats won’t make a huge difference if you use radiant floor heating as your primary heat source (it’s slower to respond and doesn’t affect thermostat sensors the same way), so you may as well save money with a simpler thermostat.

A Nest thermostat sensor sitting on a white table with a temperature illustration above it. — Thermostat sensors can go anywhere to monitor specific temperatures.
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Google Nest

Connections to other devices

Smart thermostats can often connect to other smart home technology, including security hubs and customized triggers, through platforms like IFTTT or Controller for HomeKit. Since smart thermostats tend to have extra sensors for humidity or air quality, they can trigger things like air purifiers, fans, dehumidifiers and more. Some smart thermostats even come with built-in voice assistants, while most at least support voice assistant control through Alexa, Google’s voice assistant and more.

Regular thermostats don’t have any of these connections, so you can’t usually connect them to home routines or set temperature triggers for other devices.

ecobee-siri-oct-12 — Many smart thermostats can work with voice assistants too.
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Ecobee

Bottom line

Smart thermostats make saving money much easier than regular thermostats and come with plenty of extra bells and whistles, including opportunities to connect them to voice assistants and other smart home devices. They’re also sleek, smart devices that display personalized info about your home and weather, while learning your habits and automatically adjusting heating or cooling — no micromanagement needed. Plus, unlike regular thermostats, you can control them from anywhere.

In return, the big drawback of smart thermostats is that they cost a whole lot more than a regular thermostat replacement would, although they do tend to pay for themselves within a year or two. However, not everyone is comfortable using an app for scheduling or letting a smart thermostat make changes itself, so some users may find themselves uncomfortable with the change.

Ready to learn even more? See our guide on the best settings to use on your smart thermostat for the season, the easiest steps to save on heating and cooling bills, and the best smart home devices overall.

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Tech

Etzioni on AI: Wall Street is quietly betting on AI to beat inflation

Published

1 hour ago

1 June 2026

NewsAdmin

How can the U.S. bond market, where the world’s smartest money lives, reconcile $36 trillion in national debt with less than 2.5% expected annual inflation over the next decade? The answer may consist of two letters: A and I.

Four forces are pushing inflation up:

The debt keeps growing as a fraction of GDP and neither political party has a credible plan to contain it.
The AI buildout is consuming gigawatts, transformers, and copper faster than the grid can supply them.
The Iran war has sent oil prices to a four-year high and pushed April inflation to 3.8%.
And we have a president who announces tariffs at breakfast and rescinds them by lunch.

Any one of these should put inflation back on the front burner. Taken together they are alarming.

Look at the chart. The red line is the national debt. It tripled. From 35% of the size of the economy to 100% in 20 years. The green line is what the bond market expects inflation to be. It went from 2.4% to 2.45%. Not a typo. A mere 20 basis points over 20 years.

The bond market has been telling the same inflation story since George W. Bush’s second term. Through three presidents, two financial crises, a pandemic, and the highest inflation in 40 years.

For most of those 20 years, four forces did the anti-inflationary work. The Federal Reserve earned its credibility crushing inflation in the 1980s and defended it every time since. Globalization sent cheap goods from China and cheap labor from everywhere, and that quietly held down prices. The country was aging, which dampens demand. And foreign central banks bought our debt no matter what, putting a floor under the bond market.

Here’s the problem: every one of those four forces is weaker now than it was a decade ago.

The Fed is under more political pressure than at any point since Nixon leaned on Arthur Burns in the early 1970s. Kevin Warsh was recently sworn in as Fed chair after the most divisive Senate vote in the institution’s history.

Globalization is going the other way. Tariffs are up, companies are bringing production home, and the U.S. and China are pulling apart economically. The old direction held prices down. The new direction pushes them up.

Aging is happening more slowly here than abroad, and restricted immigration is tightening the labor market further. Meanwhile, foreign demand for our debt is fading as China and the Gulf states quietly diversify away from dollars.

Four pillars, all cracking at the same time. Enough that you’d expect bond traders to notice. Enough that they should be demanding more inflation compensation than they used to.

Yet they aren’t. The green line hasn’t moved. The bond market is still pricing in about 2.45% inflation over the next 10 years. Roughly the average of the last 30 years. The professionals are barely flinching. Is the market missing something? Or, perhaps, the market is betting on AI.

Not on Sam Altman, not on Nvidia’s next earnings report, not on whether ChatGPT can write your kid’s college essay, but on productivity. On the idea that AI will deliver more output from the same labor, lower costs across the economy. A shift big enough to absorb the fiscal mess and keep prices anchored. That’s the bet baked into the green line. Whether you’ve thought about it that way or not, you’re either riding it or fading it.

Is the AI bet a good one?

The case for the market being right is straightforward. AI substitutes compute for labor in exactly the white-collar service sectors that have been driving inflation: customer support, basic coding, radiology, drug discovery, the entire knowledge-worker middle. Each of those becomes cheaper and faster.

Do the arithmetic: one extra point of annual productivity growth over a decade gives you an economy that’s roughly 10% larger. The debt stabilizes as a share of GDP without austerity. And here’s the kicker: this is the only story big enough to plausibly replace all four of those pillars all at once. If AI works, the anchor holds. If it doesn’t, nothing else is big enough.

The case for the bet going wrong is also strong. The productivity payoff is the back half of the trade. The front half, what we’re living through right now, as I wrote recently in the column about AI capital spending, is inflationary as hell. Data centers eating gigawatts, three-year waits for transformers, electricians making six figures, power prices climbing in every region hosting compute. The bill comes first. The payoff comes later. Maybe.

Productivity gains take longer than anyone expects. The personal computer was on every desk by 1990. The productivity gains didn’t show up in the data until 1995. In 1987, the economist Robert Solow joked that you could see computers everywhere except in the productivity statistics. The same is true of AI today. It’s in every newsroom, every earnings call, and almost nowhere in the productivity data. So far.

Stanford economist Erik Brynjolfsson argued in the Financial Times in February that the fog may finally be lifting. The 2025 jobs numbers were revised down by 403,000 while Q4 GDP grew 3.7%: output up, labor flat, which is the definition of productivity gain. His estimate: 2.7% in 2025, nearly double the prior decade’s 1.4% trend. If he’s right, the harvest phase has started.

AI doesn’t settle the inflation question. It widens the range of plausible outcomes. If AI works, the productivity gains absorb the debt and inflation stays anchored. If it doesn’t, the other pressures take over. A weakening Fed. Reversing trade. Bigger deficits. All pushing prices up simultaneously.

The bond market has made its choice. It isn’t betting on the Fed. It’s betting on the GPUs. The professionals are betting that AI will save us from the debt.

So what should an investor do?

If you believe AI will deliver the productivity miracle the bond market is pricing in, regular Treasury bonds are fine. You’ll out-earn inflation-protected Treasuries (TIPS) by half a percent to a percent per year and pocket the difference. If you don’t fully believe it, TIPS at a real yield of about 2% above inflation are cheap insurance. You give up a little expected return, and you sleep better at night.

If you can’t decide, and honestly who can, own some of each. A 50/50 split hedges your bet and protects you from being completely wrong in either direction.

And isn’t hedging what bond investing is all about?

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Tech

Evan Monsma Turns a Broadcast Camera Viewfinder Into a Sharp Little Standalone TV

Published

1 hour ago

1 June 2026

NewsAdmin

Old Camera Viewfinder to TV Mod
Evan Monsma started with a viewfinder built for a professional broadcast camera. Inside sat a small monochrome CRT, the kind camera operators once relied on for precise framing during live shoots. He wanted that same screen to work on its own, showing ordinary video signals without the rest of the camera attached.

The original equipment came with an eight-pin connection that not only provided power but also transported video and control signals back and forth between the viewfinder and camera body. There wasn’t a publicly available pinout, so Monsma decided to get his hands dirty and open it up to see what was inside. He used a multimeter to map out each and every wire, and voilà! He discovered that a yellow conductor supplied around 12 volts of power, the black and red wires served as ground, and the video signal was transmitted via a grey line, and it turned out that just three connections were sufficient to operate the tube.

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He cut the factory wire and built a simple adapter, allowing the viewfinder to be powered by a wall power supply or a suitable battery via a regular DC barrel socket. He also installed an RCA jack to accept composite video; both connectors are now mounted on the rear of the enclosure, securely fastened using sticky adhesive and heat-shrink tubing to prevent them from coming away during regular operation. He cleaned up the old harness by attaching heat-shrink coverings to the unwanted wires and storing them out of sight.

Old Camera Viewfinder to TV Mod
The focus-peaking switch still works flawlessly, and you can adjust the brightness and contrast to achieve the ideal image. Monsmas also tested the side panel using an HDMI-to-composite converter and was pleased to note that even with the contrast turned down, text remained visible, and the dark part of the movie had more information than you’d see on many laptops under similar settings.

A wooden base is what gives the finished piece its proper shape. Monsma carved several channels into scrap wood to hide the cables underneath, painted the screw locations, and then secured the metal viewfinder body to the board with little machine screws. A application of Danish oil on the base and a fresh coat of white paint on the housing transformed it from a Frankenstein’s monster to something that looked like it belonged there.

Old Camera Viewfinder to TV Mod
The original sunshade now flips over to provide a flat surface on top of which you can place another small gadget. You can have the viewfinder up and running in seconds; when the tube warms up, the image appears and remains solid. Monsma ran games via it and watched a variety of video clips; the analog approach produced none of the scaling artifacts commonly seen on low-cost contemporary displays.

The finished product takes up very little desk space while delivering a respectable image. Its analog input is compatible with antique cameras, game consoles, and any device that can output composite video, and a cheap converter makes it simple to connect to current sources. The hardwood mount keeps everything organized and the unit rock sturdy. The controls continue to respond as expected.
[Source]

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Tech

Apple TV, HomePod mini updates are waiting for Siri’s upgrade

Published

1 hour ago

1 June 2026

NewsAdmin

Apple’s home hardware is about to get a shake-up this fall. While the Apple TV gets a bit of a performance boost, the HomePod mini will get a bunch more Siri functionality.

Apple has long been rumored to be working on a new HomeHub, but other household tech will get updates soon. That includes the Apple TV and the HomePod mini.

According to Mark Gurman’s “Power On” newsletter for Bloomberg on Sunday, Apple has sat on new hardware for the two models for months. Indeed, they’re already being actively used by Apple employees at Apple Park.

The refreshed hardware has been held back from launch because of software. Apple apparently wants to ship them alongside the long-awaited revamp of Siri and new Apple Intelligence features, making them destined for a fall launch.

That said, the HomePod mini is suffering from limited availability, both online and at retail.

As for what’s changing, the Apple TV won’t get much of an update. A chip upgrade is almost certain, possibly with a slightly improved remote, but the Apple TV enclosure won’t change.

The HomePod mini, meanwhile, will go through a similar internally-facing glow-up. Outside, it will look pretty identical to the current spherical model, but the S5 chip will be updated to something much newer.

While they will chiefly be spec-bump updates, the changes should also allow the models to work with new Apple Intelligence and Siri features.

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Tech

One of our favourite Ninja air fryers just hit its lowest price yet

Published

2 hours ago

1 June 2026

NewsAdmin

Being able to cook a main and a side at the same time in one appliance – and have them both hit the table together, without one going cold while the other catches up – feels like an obvious idea, but most kitchens still can’t pull it off.

Well, the Ninja Foodi FlexDrawer looks to change that, and it’s currently down from £269.99 to £196.99 at Amazon, a saving of £73 that makes it the cheapest it has been since launch.

Ninja Foodi Flexdrawer on a pastel background