For the uninitiated or anyone who thinks “portable audio” means a waterproof pill clipped to a backpack, the boomboxes that ruled the streets were the original mobile music weapons. Born in the late 1960s and peaking in the late ’70s and ’80s, these weren’t just stereos you carried around; they were cultural battering rams. Think Fab 5 Freddy on your TV, Yo! MTV Raps in full rotation, the Beastie Boys causing trouble in a Brooklyn alley, and breakdancers turning flattened cardboard into battlegrounds.
Boomboxes transformed sidewalks into dance floors and backseats into clubs. These weren’t gadgets. They were attitude, wrapped in metal and plastic, blasting identity at unsafe volume levels.
Back then, a ghetto blaster wasn’t a polite lifestyle accessory with Bluetooth and passive-aggressive EQ presets. It was a war chest with woofers; loud, heavy, unapologetic. Models like the JVC RC-M90, Lasonic TRC-931, Sharp GF-777, and Panasonic RX-5600 didn’t just play music; they announced your presence and dared anyone nearby to argue with your taste. And nobody embodied that energy more than Radio Raheem, hauling his box like a sonic manifesto in Do the Right Thing.
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Before playlists were swiped, skipped, and forgotten, there were mixtapes—built in real time, often straight off the radio, finger hovering over the pause button like it mattered. Because it did. A mixtape was intent. Sequencing was personal. A Maxell XLII-S with Sharpie handwriting wasn’t nostalgia; it was proof you cared enough to get it right. Boomboxes carried those tapes into the streets, and for a while, they made the world listen.
What Is a Boombox? The Original Portable Stereo Explained
A boombox is a large, portable, battery-powered audio system with built-in speakers, a radio, and a cassette player and recorder. First appearing in the late 1960s, the format hit its peak in the 1980s and early 1990s. Later versions added CD players and, much more recently, Bluetooth and USB connectivity, but the basic idea never changed. A big box, a solid handle, and enough output to make sure your music was heard whether anyone asked for it or not.
The name boombox came from its integrated stereo speakers and their ability to deliver loud, booming sound. The nickname ghetto blaster came later, born on the streets rather than in a marketing meeting. These things were not polite. They were heavy, power-hungry battery pigs that chewed through D-cells like candy, and carrying one any real distance counted as arm day. Portability was relative. You could move it, but you were going to feel it.
While the ghetto blaster became closely associated with early rap and the rise of hip-hop culture, it was never limited to a single genre. Boomboxes powered block parties, fueled breakdancing battles, and blasted everything from rap and R&B to funk, reggae, pop, and rock. For teens and twenty-somethings, the boombox was more than a way to listen to music. It was a status symbol, a social magnet, and a public declaration of taste delivered at full volume.
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Let’s take a look at some of the most notable boomboxes from the era when they ruled the streets.
Norelco 22RL962
The Norelco 22RL962, made by Netherlands-based Philips (the same company that invented the compact audio cassette), is widely credited as the first true boombox. Introduced in the late 1960s, the 22RL962 established the core formula: portability, battery operation, a built-in speaker, and a single box that combined radio and tape playback.
Equipped with a carrying handle, AM/FM radio, and a compact cassette player and recorder, the 22RL962 delivered a modest 1 watt of output through its integrated speaker. Crucially, it was the first consumer audio product that allowed users to record radio broadcasts directly to cassette tape for later listening, a feature that would become central to mixtape culture in the decades that followed.
Additional connections included inputs for an external power supply, external loudspeaker or earphones, a microphone, and even a wired remote control. None of this came lightly. The 22RL962 weighed nearly 9 pounds, making it a serious haul by today’s standards and a reminder that early portability came with muscle strain included.
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The original U.S. price was approximately $500, listed at 5,995 Austrian schillings at the time. Today, value depends heavily on condition, originality, and whether the unit still functions, but demand remains strong among collectors who recognize it as the box that started it all.
AIWA was one of the most respected audio brands of the last quarter of the 20th century, and in 1974 it entered the emerging boombox market with the TPR-930. Built like a small appliance rather than a toy, the TPR-930 reflected AIWA’s reputation for serious engineering at a time when portability still meant compromise.
Packed with 40 transistors, an integrated circuit, and a four-speaker system, the TPR-930 delivered sound quality that still earns it respect among collectors. Its heavy-duty construction came at a cost. With batteries installed, it tipped the scales at roughly 13.75 pounds, making it a true battery pig and a reminder that early boombox portability required commitment.
The TPR-930 featured a wide-band radio tuner covering SW1, SW2, AM, and FM, along with a single cassette deck. Supporting features included AIWA’s Matrix Sound System, Loudness control, AFC for more accurate radio tuning, Automatic Stop, and a Memory Replay System. It also supported CrO₂ tapes, included a three-digit analog tape counter and a built-in condenser microphone, and offered connections for external 4-ohm speakers.
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Originally priced between $150 and $200 during its production run, the TPR-930 reportedly still trades in that same range today depending on condition. For collectors looking for a historically important boombox with legitimate sound quality, it remains one of the better bargains in the category.
First released in the 1977-1978 timeframe, the National Panasonic Ambience RX-7000 was conceived as a high-end boombox equally comfortable anchoring a living room or making a very loud statement outside. This was not a casual portable. It was Panasonic aiming straight at the top of the category.
At its core, the RX-7000 combined an AM/FM radio with a single cassette deck, but the deck itself was unusually sophisticated for the era. Features included a tape counter, Dolby B noise reduction, Panasonic’s “3 TPS” Tape Program Sensor, a Feather Touch mechanism, microcomputer control, play and record timers, cue and review functions, manual or automatic record level control, support for Normal, FeCr, CrO₂, and Metal tapes, and a Dolby LED indicator.
Supporting features were equally comprehensive. The front panel included VU, tuning, and battery meters, mono, stereo, and Ambience (stereo-wide) listening modes, balance, bass, and treble controls, an FM stereo indicator, and a terminal for a wired remote control. Inputs were generous, with dual microphone jacks featuring mixing level control, an RCA phono input with ground terminal, and a headphone output.
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One standout capability was amplification. In addition to its built-in speaker system, the RX-7000’s amplifier delivered 2 x 11 watts RMS and could power modest external speakers via dedicated terminals. The internal speaker array consisted of two 2-inch tweeters and two 6-inch woofers, reinforcing its ambitions as more than a street box.
All of that capability came with mass. The RX-7000 weighed approximately 17.6 pounds, firmly placing it in the “battery pig” category. Original pricing reflected its premium positioning, landing between $850 and $900 at launch. Today, depending on condition and completeness, demand pricing typically ranges from around $500 to well over $1,300, making it one of the most serious and collectible boomboxes of its era.
Released in 1978, the Sanyo M-9994 carved out its place in boombox culture by delivering serious sound in a relatively disciplined package. Rated at 2 x 5 watts of output power, it featured a capable speaker system with 6.3-inch woofers and 2-inch cone tweeters. Notably, the tweeters were rotatable, allowing users to improve high-frequency directionality depending on placement and listening position.
Sanyo marketed the M-9994 as a “professional edition,” and it leaned into that claim with included external handheld microphones complete with plastic desk stands. Supporting features included an Input Volume control that allowed attenuation of incoming signals from line-level or phono sources, along with a dedicated headphone output for private listening.
Originally priced between $300 and $350, the Sanyo M-9994 has appreciated significantly over time. Today, demand pricing can reach as high as $1,500 for pristine, fully functional examples, reflecting its reputation as one of Sanyo’s most desirable classic boombox designs.
Released around 1984, the Conion C-100F is pure boombox legend and remains one of the most aggressively sought models among collectors. Oversized, overbuilt, and unapologetically loud, this was a statement piece even in an era defined by excess.
Pro Tip: The Conion brand was part of Onkyo, which helps explain why this box leaned harder into features and spectacle than restraint.
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The C-100F came loaded. It featured a dual cassette deck configuration with one front-loading deck and one slot-loading deck, a four-band radio covering SW1, SW2, FM, and AM, dual VU meters, twin LED level displays, and two headphone jacks. One standout party trick was a built-in motion sensor that could be activated to trigger a security alarm if the unit was moved, a very on-brand feature for a boombox of this size and value.
The speaker array was equally ambitious, consisting of two woofers, two midrange drivers, and two tweeters. Output power was rated at 30 watts RMS at 10 percent THD, a figure that tells you everything you need to know about how hard this thing was meant to be pushed at its limits.
All of this hardware lived inside a massive 30-inch-wide chassis weighing just over 26 pounds. Portability was theoretical. Running the C-100F off batteries required ten D-cells, firmly placing it in battery-pig territory and guaranteeing that shoulder fatigue was part of the experience.
Depending on the market, the same design was also sold as the Helix HX-4365 and the Clairtone 7980. Original pricing for the Conion C-100F landed between approximately $450 and $475 in the U.S. Today, demand pricing typically ranges from around $750 to as much as $2,000, depending on condition, originality, and whether the alarm still scares the neighbors.
Another highly prized boombox among collectors is the Sharp GF-777, also sold in Japan as the GF-909. This model sits firmly in the heavyweight division, both in reputation and in physical presence.
The GF-777 featured a six-speaker array consisting of two woofers, two dedicated “sub” woofers, and two horn-type tweeters. Output power was rated at approximately 2 x 12 watts RMS, giving it the kind of authority that made it impossible to ignore once the play button was pressed.
Size and weight were part of the appeal. The GF-777 stretched roughly 30 inches wide and tipped the scales at about 27 pounds before batteries were added. Running it as a true portable required ten D-cell batteries, though it could also be operated on AC power for less shoulder strain and fewer trips to the battery aisle.
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Originally priced at around $800, the Sharp GF-777 remains surprisingly attainable today. Depending on condition, completeness, and functionality, current demand pricing typically falls between $500 and $700, with exceptional examples commanding higher figures from collectors who know exactly what they are looking at.
The Sharp GF-7600 is not the biggest, loudest, or most technically ambitious boombox of the 1980s, but it may be the most culturally significant. Released in 1983, it achieved permanent pop-culture status thanks to its starring role in the 1989 film Say Anything. Pity John Cusack didn’t drop it on his head.
Despite its more manageable size, the GF-7600 was surprisingly well equipped. It featured a four-band radio covering SW1, SW2, AM, and FM, a single cassette deck, a five-band graphic equalizer, an LED VU meter, line-in and line-out connections, and external microphone inputs. This was a serious feature set for a box that looked almost polite by Sharp’s usual standards.
The cassette deck supported metal tape, included full auto-stop and APSS track search, and offered a frequency response rated from 50 Hz to 16,000 Hz. Speaker duties were handled by a pair of 4.7-inch woofers and horn tweeters, while output power is generally estimated at around 5 to 6 watts per channel. Not a brute, but loud enough to make a statement—and immortal once held aloft over a rain-soaked lawn.
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Original pricing varied by retailer. Today, demand pricing typically ranges from approximately $125 to $500, depending on condition, completeness, and functionality.
Before Sony upended personal audio with the Walkman, it was already deeply embedded in boombox culture. One of its standout entries was the Sony CFS-99, also known as the Energy 99, released in 1981. Big, loud, and unmistakably ’80s in both sound and styling, the CFS-99 paired a rugged build with serious output. It also weighed in at a back-testing 23 pounds, firmly earning its place in the heavyweight class.
Core features included an AM/FM radio and a cassette deck, with certain variants adding an LED track indicator along with dual microphone inputs featuring pan control and echo effects. Connectivity was unusually flexible for the time, offering RCA line-level inputs and outputs, while some versions also included banana speaker terminals for driving external speakers.
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The original retail price is no longer well documented. Today, demand pricing typically starts around $500 and can climb higher depending on condition, originality, and whether the unit has been modified to add Bluetooth connectivity.
The Tecsonic J-1 Super Jumbo is another culturally significant boombox, cemented in history by its appearance in Do the Right Thing. Released in the 1987-1988 timeframe and manufactured in South Korea, the Super Jumbo wasn’t subtle. It didn’t need to be. This was a box built to be seen, heard, and remembered. Fight the Power.
The J-1 Super Jumbo featured an imposing speaker array with dual 8-inch woofers, a pair of midrange drivers, and twin tweeters. Feature-wise, it came loaded: dual cassette decks, AM/FM radio, karaoke sing-along functions, a 10-band equalizer, balance control, mixing volume, left and right front microphone inputs, a dedicated mix microphone input, phono jack, auxiliary/CD input, peak level meter, high-speed dubbing, tape counter, A/B continuous play, and an LED clock. Excess was the point.
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Physically, the J-1 lived up to its name. It measured roughly 31 inches wide and 16.5 inches tall, and weighed in at around 25 pounds. Reported output power is approximately 2 x 20 watts, more than enough to back up its visual presence with real authority.
Original pricing for the Tecsonic J-1 Super Jumbo is no longer well documented. Today, demand pricing typically hovers around $1,000, depending on condition, completeness, and whether it still looks ready to be hoisted over someone’s head as a very loud act of defiance.
Some regard the JVC RC-M90 as the “King of Boomboxes,” and it’s not an argument without merit. Released in 1981, this was a no-compromise design that combined brute force with an unusually deep feature set.
The built-in speaker system used a two-way, four-speaker layout consisting of dual 8-inch woofers and two 2.5-inch tweeters, driven by amplification rated at approximately 2 x 20 watts. It was designed to move real air, not just make noise.
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Operational features were extensive. The RC-M90 included an eight-band tuner with AM and FM coverage plus six shortwave bands, all supported by fine tuning. The cassette deck featured a tape counter, dual-motor full-logic transport, Normal, CrO₂, and Metal tape bias and EQ, JVC’s Multi Music Scanner, record and playback timers, and Dolby NR or Super ANRS noise reduction. With metal tape, cassette frequency response was rated at roughly 30 Hz to 17,000 Hz, impressive for a portable system.
Additional features included two built-in microphones, independent left and right recording level controls, microphone mixing level control, dual meters for VU, battery, and tuning, bass, treble, and balance controls, a loudness switch, and mono or stereo selection. Nothing about this box was casual.
Original pricing is documented at approximately £333 in the UK, with U.S. pricing from 1981 remaining elusive. Today, demand pricing for the JVC RC-M90 routinely exceeds $1,000, with top-condition examples commanding significantly more. For many collectors, this is the mountain every other boombox is measured against.
Jumping ahead to 1993, the Lasonic TRC-975 arrived as a genuine value play, originally selling for around $179. While the decade had shifted, its design was pure late-’80s muscle, and the sound followed suit. The TRC-975 earned a reputation for serious output thanks to its “Jumbo” Extra Bass system and a 10-band graphic equalizer that encouraged aggressive tweaking rather than restraint.
The speaker system consisted of dual 8-inch woofers paired with two 2-inch tweeters, a configuration aimed squarely at loud, physical sound. Feature-wise, the TRC-975 included dual cassette decks for recording and dubbing, AM/FM/SW radio, auto-reverse playback, and both normal- and high-speed dubbing. Connectivity was basic but practical, with an auxiliary input for external sources.
Some units on the secondary market have since been modified to add Bluetooth or MP3 playback, though purists tend to prefer unaltered examples. Closely associated with hip-hop culture, the Lasonic TRC-975 has become one of the most aggressively sought boomboxes of the 1990s era. Current demand pricing typically ranges from around $700 to as high as $2,300 for pristine, original-condition units, while modified versions with Bluetooth often trade closer to the lower end of that range.
Just as CDs were beginning to reshape how people listened to music in the early 1980s, Sharp responded with one of the strangest boombox designs ever put into production: the VZ-2000, released around 1982-1983.
What made the VZ-2000 truly weird was its ambition. In addition to a radio and cassette deck, it incorporated a vertical turntable capable of playing both sides of a record at 33 or 45 rpm without flipping. To pull that off, Sharp employed dual linear-tracking tonearms controlled by a microcomputer, enabling fully automatic playback. Each arm was fitted with a Sharp 118 phono cartridge and STY-118 stylus, turning this boombox into a portable record player in the most literal sense of the word.
Beyond the vinyl trickery, the VZ-2000 featured a two-way speaker system, easy-touch controls, an auto program pause system, and metal tape compatibility for the cassette deck. On paper, it checked an absurd number of boxes for a single portable unit.
Portability, however, was relative. The VZ-2000 weighed over 35 pounds, which severely limited how far anyone was realistically carrying it. Original pricing was approximately $550, and today a fully operational example typically commands between $1,000 and $1,500 or more, depending on condition. It remains one of the clearest examples of early-’80s audio excess, when engineers still believed anything was portable if you added a handle.
These 12 boomboxes barely scratch the surface of what flooded streets, stoops, and backseats throughout the 1970s and 1980s, when portable audio was as much about presence as playback. Today’s Bluetooth speakers and smartphones are lighter, cleaner, and infinitely more convenient, but they’ve traded shared experience for private consumption. Boomboxes weren’t just how people listened to music. They were how music forced its way into the room—and made everyone deal with it together.
Nearly four years after Sennheiser debuted its Momentum 4 headphones, the company is back with their successor. The new Momentum 5 Wireless carries a very similar design to its predecessor, which means nearly all of the changes are on the inside. The company is promising big upgrades to both sound and active noise cancellation (ANC), but there are a few caveats on the spec sheet. The main one being the Momentum 5 is $50 more than the Momentum 4.
The Momentum 5 uses the same 42mm transducers that are in the Momentum 4, which were inspired by Sennheiser’s iconic HD 600 series headphones, tuned for “full-bodied sound” and “dynamic bass.” What’s new on the fifth-generation model is a Hi-Res Audio certification and Snapdragon Sound, the latter of which offers Bluetooth codec support up to aptX Lossless. Sennheiser’s Smart Control Plus app now has an 8-band EQ alongside audio presets and sound personalization. The Momentum 5 is also compatible with the company’s BTD 700 lossless Bluetooth dongle that debuted with the HDB 630 headphones.
To further bolster audio quality, digital signal processing (DSP) Bluetooth updates are already planned. With a “day one update,” Sennheiser will add Dolby Atmos support with head tracking when listening to or watching compatible Atmos content. Right now, the headphones only support Dolby Atmos without the more immersive head tracking feature. And while the Momentum 5 will ship with Bluetooth 5.4, the headphones were designed for the upcoming Bluetooth 6.0 release, another upgrade that will arrive via firmware update.
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To improve the ANC performance, Sennheiser added two additional microphones per side (now four on each ear cup) for what it calls “across-the-board improvements.” The company promises the upgrades offer up to three times more effective noise cancellation of human voices. What’s more, the additional mics should provide “more natural voice quality on calls,” according to the company.
Another difference between the Momentum 4 and the new Momentum 5 is battery life. The previous model lasted up to 60 hours on a charge with ANC enabled, but the new version is rated for 57 hours. That’s not a huge loss, and it’s still a long time, but this is one place the two models vary. The Momentum 5 has a quick charge feature that will give you up to three hours of use in just five minutes. Additionally, the 700mAh battery is user-replaceable, and you only need a small Phillips-head screwdriver to make the swap.
The Momentum 5 Wireless headphones will be available June 16 for $400. Sennheiser will offer the new model in black, white and blue colors.
Take a look at my Philips 5000 Series Dual Basket Air Fryer XXL Steam review and you’ll know that I’ve taken a shine to having steam cooking in my air fryer. I still use this two-drawer steam fryer (I like calling it that), giving me the ability to steam only or steam and air fry (steamfry) at the same time. I’m miffed that steaming is restricted to one basket only, though.
As good as it is, the non-stick coating in the larger basket (which is used more often) is beginning to come off and, importantly, I really need a more compact option as I live in a small apartment with barely any countertop or cabinet storage.
Admittedly the single basket of the newer model might be a deal breaker for some, but its 7.2L capacity makes up for not having two baskets — I don’t use the smaller basket in my air fryer anyway, so I personally wouldn’t miss it much.
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The compactness of the single-basket Philips 5000 Series air fryer with steam isn’t the only reason I’m considering the upgrade. As I’ve already mentioned, the disappearance of the non-stick coating of the baskets in my two-drawer version is worrying me. I’m not too concerned that it’s toxic — it’s not — but the ceramic coating used in the newer model would just give me a little more peace of mind that it’s safer and longer lasting.
Then there’s the design of the new Philips air fryer compared to the dual basket — it looks so much more premium with the metallic trim and the little cooking window. I will admit I’m not too keen on the water reservoir on the side as it detracts from the appliance’s symmetry, but that’s me nitpicking. I’d very much prefer it if Philips had figured out a spot on the top or on the rear, but the vents at the back of the machine would make the latter a difficult task.
Moreover, my biggest complaint of only one of the two baskets having steam in the older model is taken care of here — it is, after all, a single-basket air fryer.
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From a functionality point of view, it all seems to match up between the two 5000 Series air fryers, so I wouldn’t miss much at all.
If the Philips 4000 Series Stacked air fryer had a steam functionality, I’d probably go for it over the single-basket 5000 Series, only so I still get the two 5L drawers. But I’ll take the ability to steam over the dual baskets any day as it adds versatility to the air fryer, making it better value.
Consulting firm Mercer’s Global Talent Trends report covers several AI-related topics. The most depressing finding is that virtually every one of the 825 C-suite leaders who participated expects AI to lead to at least some headcount reduction in the next two years. Read Entire Article Source link
Reallusion launched AI Studio, a production platform that pairs its iClone 3D animation tools with ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0 to give filmmakers spatial precision that text-prompt-only AI video generators cannot match. The multi-model platform also supports Veo 3, Kling AI, and others.
Reallusion, the 3D animation software company behind iClone and Character Creator, has launched AI Studio, a production platform that pairs traditional 3D scene-building with generative AI video models. The centrepiece is a direct integration with ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0, currently the top-ranked AI video model on the Artificial Analysis leaderboard.
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The pitch is straightforward. AI video generators like Seedance, Google’s Veo 3, and Runway’s Gen-4 can produce impressive footage from text prompts, but they struggle with precision. Complex character motion, camera choreography, and spatial continuity break down when the AI is working from language alone. Objects warp, perspectives shift, and directors have limited control over what actually appears on screen.
Reallusion’s answer is a hybrid workflow. Artists build their scene in iClone, a real-time 3D animation tool, setting camera paths, character positions, skeletal motion, and lighting. That 3D data then serves as what the company calls a “precision control layer” for the AI model. Seedance 2.0 handles the visual rendering, textures, and cinematic quality, while the 3D scene provides the spatial structure. The artist retains directorial control. The AI handles execution.
Seedance 2.0 is well suited to this approach. ByteDance designed it with strong spatial intelligence, meaning it can interpret exact scene layouts, camera paths, and skeletal data without the guesswork that plagues other models. It generates clips up to 15 seconds in length with camera choreography and motion dynamics that feel intentional rather than random. China’s AI video industry has moved faster than any other market on production tooling, and Seedance reflects that momentum.
AI Studio is not limited to a single engine. Reallusion has built it as a multi-model platform, consolidating Flux and Nano Banana for image generation alongside Kling AI, Veo 3, Wan, LTX, and Scail for video. Users can switch between models depending on the shot, choosing one for photorealism and another for stylised animation. The idea is to give studios the flexibility to use whichever model best fits each scene rather than locking into a single provider.
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The timing matters. OpenAI shut down Sora in April after the video tool peaked at one million users and reportedly cost $1 million per day to operate. The shutdown rattled creators who had built workflows around it and underscored the risk of depending on a single AI platform. The AI-animated film Critterz missed its Cannes market debut as a direct consequence.
Reallusion is positioning AI Studio as a more stable alternative. Because the 3D scene data lives locally in iClone, the creative work is not lost if a particular AI model is discontinued or repriced. The 3D assets, motion data, and camera setups remain usable. Only the rendering layer changes. That is a meaningful difference for studios investing in long-term production pipelines.
The company, founded in 1993 with R&D centres in Taiwan and offices in Silicon Valley, Canada, Germany, and Japan, has spent decades building tools for real-time 3D character animation. iClone and Character Creator are used in game development, film pre-visualisation, and virtual production. AI Studio extends that ecosystem into generative video without abandoning the 3D skill set that existing users have invested years in developing.
Adobe has taken a similar approach with its Firefly AI Assistant and Project Graph, integrating generative models into existing creative software rather than replacing it. The pattern across the industry is converging: the most useful AI creative tools are not standalone generators but hybrid systems that augment professional workflows.
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Whether AI Studio gains traction will depend on whether the hybrid model delivers on its promise. Pure AI video generation is improving rapidly, and each new model narrows the gap between what a text prompt can produce and what a 3D-controlled pipeline delivers. Reallusion is betting that the gap will never fully close, that professional filmmakers will always need spatial precision, repeatable camera setups, and frame-level control that language-driven generation cannot guarantee.
For an AI video market in flux, where the leading model changes every few months and platforms can vanish overnight, a tool that keeps the creative decisions in the artist’s hands rather than the model’s weights is a bet on stability over spectacle. Whether that bet pays off will depend on how many filmmakers prefer control to convenience.
People buy video walkie-talkies to facilitate short-distance communication among children and / or family members. Aaron Christophel recognized an opportunity to bring DOOM onto one of these low-cost gadgets. These devices have small color screens, built-in cameras, microphones, speakers, and rechargeable batteries. Models retail online for between fifteen and twenty euros and rely on the TXW818 system on a chip to function. This chip has processing capacity comparable to some wireless modules and supports external memory, as well as four megabytes of PSRAM.
Christophel began by closely inspecting the electronics, noting that the devices differed: some had two megabytes of external flash memory, while others had four. Stuffing chip markings and scrambling flash memory is a typical practice that manufacturers use to make it difficult to meddle with their goods. Not to mention the specific tools required to delve deep into things: a USB to UART converter, a Blue Pill board posing as a J-Link clone, and a box called a profiler that allows you to monitor power consumption as devices perform different things.
Extended Jobsite Range: 2W output reaches up to 300,000 sq ft or 25 floors under optimal conditions, keeping large, dispersed crews reliably connected
IP67 Weatherproof Build: Rated for full water and dust immersion with anti-slip housing that survives drops up to 2 meters, built for harsh outdoor…
Secure Team Channels: 22 FRS channels and 121 privacy codes eliminate interference, with auto-squelch and up to 18 hours of battery life per charge
The majority of the project included reverse engineering. Christophel dumped the original firmware and examined it with Ghidra, an app that is quite useful for this type of task. The software development kit that came with the device did not include drivers for the screen or camera, so Christophel had to create his own. Things only got tougher from there, since the stock firmware disabled the debug interface immediately after booting up. Christophel needed to find a means to keep it on, so he devised a mechanism that allows him to maintain access to the debug capabilities by connecting specific capacitors and communicating with the flash chip at startup.
With that resolved, Christophel began work on a new firmware, which did a variety of cool things such as initialize the screen and make the buttons functional. He also created a function that allows the device to recognize the amount of flash memory it has on board and alter its settings accordingly. Things got a lot more complicated when he attempted to port the game DOOM over. The original game data file alone takes up approximately one and a quarter megabytes, which was a problem for devices with only two megabytes of flash. Christophel had to reduce the file size to five hundred kilobytes. When the device boots, the firmware unpacks this data into PSRAM, which is exactly what is required to run the game.
The gameplay is rather straightforward, with you using the walkie-talkie buttons to move ahead and backward, as well as to turn around. When things begin rolling, an entertaining visual effect appears in the center of the screen, which is simply the front camera feed with the player’s face staring back at themself. Given the limited hardware, the performance is adequate, and the little screen does an excellent job of displaying the action, allowing you to have some fun with the device. Christophel has made the whole source code available on GitHub, so if you’re intrigued, you can now build the binaries and try it for yourself. [Source]
Summary: China has launched a national ID system for humanoid robots, assigning each a 29-character code that tracks it from production to recycling. Over 28,000 robots across 200 models already have IDs. The system logs real-time performance data including joint wear, battery status, and AI training history.
China has launched a national identification system for humanoid robots. The Humanoid Full Lifecycle Management Service Platform, built by the Humanoid Robotics and Embodied Intelligence Standardization committee under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, assigns each robot a unique 29-character digital code that follows it from the factory floor to the scrapyard.
The code captures everything: manufacturer, product model, serial number, hardware specifications, AI capability level, software training history, and production records. It is modelled on China’s 18-character national citizen ID system but adds 11 extra characters to cover operational data specific to machines. More than 28,000 robots across 200 models have already been assigned an ID through the platform, which was launched by the Hubei province’s Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center in May.
This is not a static registry. The platform functions as a live digital record that tracks maintenance history, work environments, and real-time performance metrics including mechanical joint wear rates, battery degradation, and movement precision. When something goes wrong, the system is designed to enable rapid fault detection. When a robot is decommissioned, the ID follows it through recycling.
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The scale of China’s humanoid industry explains why regulators moved now. The country has more than 100 humanoid robot manufacturers. Investment in robotics and embodied intelligence in 2025 exceeded the full-year 2024 total by the end of May, with China pouring $3.4 billion into new robotics ventures, 42 per cent more than the United States and five times Europe’s total. Shanghai has issued China’s first provincial plan for embodied intelligence, pairing R&D support with shared infrastructure for compute, testing, pilot production, and financing.
The robots are already showing up in the real world. A humanoid named Lightning completed the Beijing E-Town Half-Marathon in 50 minutes and 26 seconds earlier this year, beating the human world record by nearly seven minutes while navigating the 21-kilometre course autonomously. China’s State Grid Corporation plans to deploy 8,500 robots, including humanoids and robot dogs, for power grid operations. Tea farms in Hubei province have begun field trials with humanoid workers ahead of the 2026 World Robot Games.
The ID system addresses a governance gap that is widening as deployment accelerates. Without a standard way to track who built a robot, what software it runs, where it has been deployed, and how it has performed, liability becomes murky. If a humanoid injures a worker or damages property, regulators need a chain of information that connects the incident to a specific machine, its manufacturer, and its operational history. The ID code provides that chain.
There is a broader regulatory context. China has moved faster than any other country on AI governance frameworks, from algorithmic recommendation rules in 2022 to generative AI regulations in 2023 to deepfake and synthetic content rules in 2024. The robot ID system extends that approach to physical AI, treating humanoid robots as entities that require lifecycle oversight in the same way that vehicles, medical devices, and industrial equipment do.
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The comparison to citizen IDs is deliberate but imperfect. Robots are not citizens. They do not have rights. The ID system is an industrial standard, not a legal status. But the structural parallel, a unique identifier issued by the state that tracks an entity across its entire existence, raises questions that other countries will eventually need to answer. As humanoid robots move from factories into hospitals, homes, and public spaces, who is responsible for what they do? The ID code does not answer that question, but it creates the informational infrastructure to start.
The United States and Europe have no equivalent system. The EU AI Act classifies AI systems by risk level but does not require individual identification of physical robots. The US has no federal framework for humanoid robot registration. China’s approach to AI governance has consistently prioritised state visibility into how the technology is deployed, and the robot ID system is the latest extension of that philosophy.
For manufacturers, the system creates both obligations and opportunities. Compliance means submitting detailed technical data for every unit produced. But it also means that a robot with a clean lifecycle record, well-maintained, regularly updated, deployed within its rated capabilities, carries a verifiable history that could function as a quality signal for buyers. In a market with 100-plus manufacturers and no dominant brand, standardisation is a competitive tool as much as a regulatory one.
The question for the rest of the world is not whether China’s approach is right but whether it is early. If humanoid robots become as common as China’s industrial policy intends, every country will need a way to track them. China is building that system while the rest of the world is still debating whether the robots are ready. The 28,000 units already in the database suggest the debate may be beside the point.
Google’s Quick Share is the kind of feature you don’t think about until the day you need it and your phone simply doesn’t have it. Huawei device owners live in that reality permanently, given that they don’t have access to Google Play services, and so does anyone running the Chinese regional build of Android.
However, a developer with the handle Kyujin-cho just published an open-source Android app called Bada on GitHub that seems to solve exactly this problem. It does so by implementing Google’s own Quick Share protocol from scratch, circumventing the lack of Google Play Services.
Android Authority
What does Bada actually do?
Once Bada is installed on a device that lacks Quick Share, it becomes fully interoperable with any Quick Share-equipped Android device nearby on the same Wi-Fi network. The same four-digit PIN confirmation process that users already know shows up on both the sending and receiving sides.
Using the app, people can send files from any Android app (via the system share sheet), receive files to a specific folder, and even send entire folders, with the directory structure intact. Like Quick Share, the app supports Wi-Fi LAN as the transfer route, with BLE-based identification for devices running on stock Android and Samsung’s One UI.
Testing has already confirmed that Bada works with Galaxy S26 Ultra and Z Fold 7 over BLE GATT bootstrap. NearDrop on macOS and Quick Share on Windows are listed as targets; however, they remain untested.
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Nadeem Sarwar / Digital Trends
Should you actually use it right now?
According to Android Authority’s hands-on testing, the app experience isn’t exactly seamless when sharing files from a Quick Share device to a Bada device. Windows transfers completely failed.
The project sits at 10 GitHub stars and one fork, which is still early-project territory by all means. The codebase is open-source, meaning anyone with the technical know-how can verify what it’s actually doing with their files.
The app itself confirms that transfers still use Quick Share’s encryption method. The developer explicitly targets interoperability with NearDrop and Windows Quick Share for the near future.
In my opinion, Bada won’t replace Quick Share for most people, but for Huawei users, along with the Chinese Android users Google quietly left behind, or for any other Android user whose phone doesn’t ship with Quick Share out of the box, it’s the closest thing to a real solution anyone has bothered to build.
The It’s FOSS blog has news about the Linux Vendor Firmware Service, which gives hardware vendors a secure portal to upload firmware updates “which can then be downloaded and installed by users through clients such as GNOME Software or fwupdmgr.” (Originally developed in 2015 by GNOME maintainer Richard Hughes…) The issue, however, obviously, had been funding with the largest contributors being the usual suspects, Framework and Open Source Framework Foundation, at $10K a year. Recently, however, Lenovo and Dell joined suite as Premier sponsors, which is the highest tier at $100K a year each, making the project more sustainable and manageable.
These companies contributing makes a lot of sense, considering they are two of the bigger computer companies which offer Linux by default in some cases, especially with Lenovo’s ThinkPads being the Linux users’ favorite for decades. And now… HP has followed suit as a Premier sponsor, also providing $100K a year, right alongside Dell and Lenovo…
The question still remains, however, where are the other vendors? What are they waiting for… This major move by these three companies should not only be seen as a sign of relief and wider acceptance of the usage of Linux, but as a beacon for other vendors to follow, who ought to make their hardware more accessible to the open-source community.
You could argue, and people have, that the top gay dating apps are now optimized for monetization and juicing engagement loops. Increasingly overrun with bots, they are at times even devoid of actual connection.
Grindr, with its 15 million monthly active users, is drowning in ads while pushing expensive upsells on users. (In February, as part of its “gAI” overhaul, the company announced a new premium monthly subscription tier for $500.) Sniffies was beloved by cruisers until the seismic reaction in April to Match Group’s $100 million investment sparked concerns that another queer space could get absorbed into a larger dating conglomerate.
As public backlash against popular queer apps continues to mount, a batch of tech entrepreneurs are scrambling to meet the demand by doubling down on privacy-conscious, community-driven alternatives.
Calum Bowden, who posts under the internet persona @donjackoghue, launched MeetMarket in March. Currently only available as a web app, MeetMarket includes all the core features of your typical hookup app—a customizable profile, a grid of nearby users—with one major difference. It was built on a decentralized identity system, meaning MeetMarket doesn’t store users’ emails, passwords, or personal information. Users store everything on their device, giving them full control and ownership over their data and how it’s shared. Messages on the platform are end-to-end encrypted, and Bowden says it will always be ad-free, even for nonpaying members. (A monthly membership costs €12, or $13.99.)
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“Decentralization and data privacy make a lot of sense for queer people in general, and especially in hostile legal environments or in the US right now, where you don’t really know what digital platforms actually have your best interest in mind,” says the 34-year-old PhD student in Berlin who studies the sociology of technology and organization.
Within the first 48 hours of MeetMarket’s launch on March 24, over 12,000 people had signed up, and some 60,000 people have used it since. The app averages 5,000 weekly visitors, according to Bowden, though there is not a lot of concurrent activity in the same cities. “It’s become more social than necessarily driving an immediate hookup.” But casual encounters do still happen, he says. “The Midwest bottom jockeys are eating meet market up,” one user noted on X.
Bowden didn’t anticipate public sentiment would sour on Sniffies just a few weeks after his launch. Still, the timing of it couldn’t have been more serendipitous. “When Sniffies announced their investment from Match Group, I was like, how are they fueling my fire?” he asks. “This is exactly the model that venture capital leads to. This is exactly why these economic models for technology are so bad, because they basically force the gentrification of a digital platform.” Sniffies did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A self-described “utopian conspirator,” Bowden is the cofounder of Trust, a nonprofit that operates as a kind of incubator to prototype ideas “as a critique of technology and the status quo,” he says. With MeetMarket, he wanted to create an app that gave users more agency over their experience without cheapening it.
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It can sometimes seem like Big Dating wants people to believe that it is the only answer to cure their romantic woes—Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd recently told Axios that there isn’t much longevity in niche apps—but the opposite is proving just as true, as people seek out more specificity and intention in their online dating experience.
“Gay men have tribes, subcultures, aesthetics, and different ways they want to be seen,” says Justin Finnegan, a 35-year-old software engineer in Toronto who last year created Chunkr, a gay hookup app that has resonated with the bear community despite originally being for all gay men.
There are many ways you can implement an Intel i386 CPU on an FPGA, with the use of original microcode probably being one of the most interesting approaches. This is what [nand2mario]’s z386 project does, with a recent blog post summarizing development on this FPGA project so far.
This project is similar to the previously developed z8086 project, which as one may guess does something similar, except for the Intel 8086 CPU. By executing the original microcode you’re basically guaranteeing close compatibility with the original hardware, though of course the sheer scale of this microcode between an 8086 and 80386 is quite different.
There’s a much larger instruction set with a correspondingly much more complicated internal state to keep track of, including all those newfangled features like memory management, paging and register debugging, as well extensions to protected mode that began with the i286.
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Currently z386 runs on a number of FPGAs, including the Altera Cyclone V and Gowin GW5A, with performance equivalent to a ~70 MHz i386 albeit with slightly worse cycle efficiency, some of which could be due to the limited 16 kB cache compared to the 32+ kB cache in the fastest i386 CPUs. Either way, it’s more than enough to run all kinds of software, including games like DOOM.
Important to note is that the goal here isn’t to be more performant than cores such as for example ao486, but more as an archaeological reconstruction of the original hardware and its interaction with said microcode.
Top image: line-up of Intel 286, 386 and 486 CPUs. (Credit: Sgroey, Wikimedia)
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