Open-source Discord alternatives: What Stoat and Element actually fix
Hosting your own group chat could let you avoid a lot of drama.
Xbox Game Studios chief reportedly steps down as layoffs loom
Things continue to look grim for Xbox as layoffs loom and Craig Duncan steps down.
PowerA x Meridian Project X-Ray controller boasts interchangeable aircraft and helicopter controls
Gaming controllers are going beyond their generic functionality to cater to the needs of gamers, and more importantly, the titles being played on the favorite console. Gamepads loaded with specific functional controls are built to enhance the level of in-game realism and provide tactical advantage in certain situations. Take, for instance, the AAA flight simulator titles that are better experienced with dedicated gaming gear, or if you value portability, with a gaming controller.
Honeycomb Aeronautical’s Echo Aviation Controller designed primarily for the Microsoft Flight Simulator on PC and Mac, demonstrates how gamers can enjoy the cult favorite title with the same level of accuracy as the dedicated gaming gear, which at times can be bulky. PowerA, known for its gaming accessories in collaboration with Meridian GMT, who pioneer in advanced flight simulation hardware, has announced the Project X-Ray controller, an advanced gamepad at FlightSimExpo 2026 in St. Paul, Minnesota. The two brands have similar ambitions from this collaboration, as it gives flight sim fanatics even more freedom to explore their alternate passion.
Designer: PowerA
The flight deck controller combines the advanced level of controls for airplanes, as well as helicopter controls, into a single unit, courtesy of the modular interchangeable elements. Depending on which game you are playing on your PC or Xbox Series X | S, the controller can swap throttle, faceplates, and flaps for delivering a deeper level of simulation. PowerA and Meridian manage to do this while retaining the familiar form factor of a controller, which in itself is a feat. As per Nicki Repenning, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Meridian GMT, “Flight simulation enthusiasts are passionate about authenticity, immersion, and control. By partnering with PowerA, we’re combining Meridian GMT’s expertise in advanced flight simulation hardware with PowerA’s ability to deliver innovative gaming experiences at scale.”
This versatile flight system controller has all the major controls on board, including a throttle lever, flaps, landing gear, rotary trim knobs, and radio buttons. The controller swaps the D-pad of a normal gamepad with dedicated autopilot controls. The gaming accessory still misses the back view controls, but that is not a deal breaker in any way. Depending on the setup you choose – airplane or helicopter controls – the matching faceplate makes the gamepad look absolutely perfect in varied color themes. The Xbox button at the familiar top position suggests it should be compatible with the Microsoft ecosystem on PC titles as well.
According to Matt Hiler, Sr. Director of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships, “Meridian GMT’s deep flight simulation expertise, combined with PowerA’s decades of global accessory experience, helps bring authentic, approachable, and exciting flight control to more players.” That’s important because the Project X-Ray controller, still in development, could be a game-changer for flight sim games that otherwise required a dedicated set of accessories to have the complete experience. There is no word yet on the pricing or availability of the controller, but it sure is an interesting gaming accessory.
The post PowerA x Meridian Project X-Ray controller boasts interchangeable aircraft and helicopter controls first appeared on Yanko Design.
EA created an entire division to push more in-game ads
EA is making a big push for more in-game advertising.
KEENON Humanoid Pours Drinks at GCS 2026, 100,000 Others Run Hotels
The robotics industry has a curious reputation problem. The machines getting the most attention, walking bipeds that do backflips, aren’t the ones driving real business value. By 2030, professional service robots are projected to account for $90 billion of a $161 billion global market, growing at 24.6% annually. That makes them the fastest-growing segment in robotics, which is a fact that barely makes the news.
KEENON Robotics has known this for a while. Founded in 2010, the Shanghai-based company didn’t wait for the hype cycle; it built the service delivery robot category from the ground up. Today, with over 100,000 units shipped across more than 60 countries, KEENON holds the number-one global market share in commercial service robots for the third consecutive year, according to IDC 2025.
Designer: KEENON Robotics
At Global Connect Show 2026, the star of KEENON’s booth was the XMAN-R1, a wheeled humanoid robot that makes popcorn, pours drinks, and hands out snacks. It’s the kind of demo that stops foot traffic, and it’s meant to. Underneath the theatrics, though, is a robot packing 275 TOPS of AI processing power, dual 7-DoF arms, and precision dexterous hands built for human-level manipulation.
What the demo doesn’t show is how much work went into teaching a robot to grab a cup. KEENON estimates that a single action of that kind requires at least 1,000 data points. A full coffee-making sequence demands over 20,000. That gap between what looks effortless and what it actually costs computationally is one of the clearest explanations of where physical AI sits right now.
KEENON is remarkably candid about this. Their own assessment puts the current “mind age” of humanoid robots at roughly three years old, which, if you think about it, explains a lot about why they move so deliberately. True general-purpose humanoid deployment is still at least five years out by their estimation. The “Model T” framing they use is apt; these are early machines, not finished ones.
That candor is also what makes KEENON’s established product line feel more credible. While the XMAN-R1 gets the headlines, KEENON’s delivery and cleaning robots have been running inside hotels, restaurants, hospitals, airports, and casinos across more than 600 cities globally. Their DINERBOT T10 can carry up to 40 kg, fits through a 59 cm passage, and operates for up to eight hours on a single charge.
A good example of what that looks like in practice is Shangri-La Hong Kong, where KEENON runs six different robot types across eight units within a single hotel. Delivery bots handle contactless room service; cleaning robots run scheduled cycles through lobbies and corridors; logistics carriers shuttle linens and supplies behind the scenes. None of this required the hotel to restructure its operations around the robots.
Part of why that integration works comes down to a deliberate design choice. KEENON chose not to make its service robots look human. The compact, rounded bodies, soft voices, and animated screen faces are intentional, because how a robot looks determines whether people trust it. Western audiences carry Terminator-shaped anxieties; Asian audiences grew up with characters like Doraemon. The design has to work for both.
The XMAN-R1 at the Global Connect Show is KEENON’s way of signaling where the product line is heading. Alongside it, the company also offers the bipedal XMAN-F1, a full-body humanoid with 43 degrees of freedom that takes the same task-driven approach. Both run on KEENON’s KOM 2.0 platform and are designed to work alongside existing robots like the DINERBOT T10 rather than replace them.
What KEENON actually has over the wave of humanoid startups entering the market is something harder to replicate than a robot body. With 100,000 units running across 70+ countries, the company has been accumulating proprietary operational data at a scale most competitors haven’t even started to approach. Every delivery, every corridor, every cup poured feeds back into that picture, one data point at a time.
The post KEENON Humanoid Pours Drinks at GCS 2026, 100,000 Others Run Hotels first appeared on Yanko Design.
If you’re already watching YouTube daily, this subscription swap just makes sense
Is it time to double down on red?
The Inflatable Umbrella That Finally Makes Sense
Count how many umbrellas you’ve owned in your lifetime. Go ahead, try. Most people lose count somewhere around five or six, often because the memory of each one ends the same way: a gust of wind, a bent rib, a mangled heap left in a trash can on a rainy corner somewhere. We accept this as the unavoidable cost of staying dry. But a group of graduate students from the Savannah College of Art and Design decided that was a terrible deal, and they designed their way out of it.
Nimbus is their answer. It’s an inflatable umbrella made entirely from recyclable thermoplastic polyurethane, or TPU, and the absence of the usual suspects is the whole point. No metal ribs. No complex mechanical joints. No layered materials that make recycling a logistical nightmare. Just one material, doing everything.
Designers: Hannah Klein, Vishva Chauhan, Manasi Khatavkar, and Annika Hogan
Hannah Klein, Vishva Chauhan, Manasi Khatavkar, and Annika Hogan created Nimbus as part of their Master’s program in Design for Sustainability at SCAD. Their combined backgrounds span Interior Design, Graphic Design, Studio Arts, and Environmental Science, which is probably why the concept feels so well-rounded. When a team brings that range of perspectives to a single everyday object, it shows. They weren’t just asking how to make a better umbrella. They were asking why we’ve been making them so badly for so long.
The answer, it turns out, is that nobody really stopped to question it. The standard umbrella has looked more or less the same for generations: a metal skeleton, a nylon canopy, a plastic handle, all bonded together in ways that make the whole thing essentially un-recyclable. When it breaks, and it will break, it goes straight to landfill. Multiply that by the sheer volume of umbrellas sold globally every year, and you’re looking at a quiet but significant waste problem hiding in plain sight.
Nimbus addresses this by stripping the design down to its core job: keeping rain off your head. The inflatable structure replaces the rigid rib system entirely, which means fewer points of failure and a much longer functional life. It’s lightweight, designed to be repaired rather than replaced, and when the time does come to retire it, the single-material construction makes it genuinely recyclable. The team has also built in a buy-back program to support that end-of-life process, which tells you they’ve thought beyond the object itself and into the broader system it lives in.
The numbers behind this are worth sitting with. Compared to a standard umbrella, Nimbus carries a 99% lower impact according to life cycle assessment, the metric that tracks environmental cost from production to disposal. That’s not an incremental upgrade. That’s a complete rethink of what the object is allowed to be.
But what I keep returning to is the broader point Nimbus is making about design itself. We tend to celebrate innovation when it arrives in the form of something new, a gadget that didn’t exist before, a category that had to be invented from scratch. But sometimes the more interesting work happens when someone looks at something deeply familiar and asks whether it needed to be done this way at all. An umbrella feels like a settled question. These four designers disagreed.
The project has already been recognized by the Green Product Award, which is a good sign that the design community is paying attention. Whether Nimbus moves toward commercial production remains to be seen, but as a concept, it raises the right questions at exactly the right time. Consumers are increasingly asking where their things come from and where they end up. Products that can answer both questions honestly are going to matter more, not less, as those expectations grow.
You probably have an umbrella somewhere. Maybe it still works. Maybe it’s one rough commute away from the bin. Either way, Nimbus is a useful reminder that even the most unremarkable objects in our lives are worth questioning, and that sometimes the best design is just someone refusing to accept a bad answer.
The post The Inflatable Umbrella That Finally Makes Sense first appeared on Yanko Design.
Fox is buying Roku for $22 billion
Fox is paying $22 billion for Roku, its streaming devices and its ecosystem.
Forget Jerseys – These 5 FIFA World Cup 2026 Products Are Actually Worth Buying
The FIFA World Cup has evolved far beyond the boundaries of sport. As one of the world’s most-watched events, it influences culture, technology, fashion, and consumer behavior on a global scale. Brands increasingly use the tournament as a platform to create products that capture the excitement, passion, and identity associated with football’s biggest stage.
From luxury collectibles and limited-edition gadgets to pet accessories and interactive merchandise, designers are finding new ways to connect fans with the World Cup experience. These products show how major sporting events inspire innovation, storytelling, and emotional engagement across multiple industries.
1. Limited-Edition Collectibles Create Emotional Connections
Global sporting events often drive demand for exclusive products that celebrate memorable moments and national pride. Designers are responding by creating collectible items that combine functionality with strong emotional appeal. These products are often produced in limited quantities, making them highly desirable among fans and collectors alike.
To celebrate the FIFA World Cup 2026, Motorola has introduced a special-edition Razr smartphone that blends football-inspired design with premium mobile technology. Created as a collectible device for fans of the tournament, the foldable phone features a vibrant green finish inspired by the football pitch, complemented by geometric graphics that symbolize movement, energy, and the global spirit of the World Cup. Exclusive FIFA-themed wallpapers, ringtones, and content further connect the device to the tournament, turning it into more than just a smartphone.
Alongside its distinctive World Cup branding, the device offers a range of features designed for modern entertainment and content creation. A large foldable AMOLED display, advanced camera system, durable construction, and long-lasting battery make it well-suited for watching matches, capturing memorable moments, and staying connected throughout the tournament. By combining cutting-edge technology with FIFA-inspired design elements, Motorola has created a product that reflects how the World Cup continues to influence consumer electronics and drive demand for limited-edition fan-focused experiences.
2. Sports-Inspired Technology Is Becoming More Expressive
Technology products are no longer designed solely around performance. Brands are increasingly incorporating sports-inspired aesthetics, symbolic forms, and tournament themes into everyday devices. This approach helps products stand out while strengthening their connection to global sporting culture.
SanDisk has transformed a simple USB-C flash drive into a playful piece of FIFA-inspired merchandise with its whistle-shaped storage drive. Designed to resemble a referee’s whistle, the compact drive combines novelty and practicality, offering up to 128GB of storage in a highly recognizable form. Available in multiple colorways representing the World Cup host nations as well as universal editions for global fans, the device doubles as a wearable accessory due to its included lanyard.
Beyond its eye-catching design, the whistle drive serves as a fully functional storage solution compatible with smartphones, laptops, smart TVs, and gaming devices. The USB-C connector is cleverly concealed within the whistle body, creating a product that blends sports memorabilia with everyday technology. By disguising a flash drive as a familiar object, SanDisk has created a unique collectible that celebrates football culture while delivering practical utility for fans and tech enthusiasts alike.
3. Fan Engagement Is Driving Functional Innovation
Modern consumers want products that enhance how they experience major events. Designers are responding with practical innovations that make it easier to watch, record, share, and interact with sporting moments. Functionality is becoming a key part of fan-centered design.
Created in partnership with the Portuguese Football Federation ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026, the TORRAS Q3 Air Portugal National Football Team Edition transforms a smartphone case into a celebration of football culture. Inspired by Portugal’s national team colors, the case features a red-to-green gradient, gold accents, football-themed graphics, and the iconic Quinas crest. The design reflects the identity and heritage of Portuguese football while connecting fans to one of the tournament’s most anticipated teams.
Beyond its visual appeal, the case combines World Cup-inspired branding with practical functionality. It features TORRAS’ signature magnetic Ostand ring, which rotates and folds into a hands-free stand for viewing matches, recording content, or capturing memorable tournament moments. With MagSafe compatibility, military-grade drop protection, and a design tailored for football enthusiasts, the case seamlessly blends convenience, durability, and fan-focused style.
4. The World Cup Is Expanding Into Lifestyle and Pet Products
The influence of football now extends well beyond traditional merchandise. Brands are introducing lifestyle products that allow fans to express their enthusiasm in everyday settings, including products designed for pets, home environments, and personal accessories.
Adidas has expanded FIFA World Cup 2026 merchandise beyond traditional fan apparel with a collection of pet jerseys inspired by official national team kits. Designed for football-loving pet owners, the collection features miniature versions of the home jerseys of Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, and Japan. Each jersey incorporates recognizable team graphics, federation crests, and tournament-inspired details, allowing pets to become part of the World Cup celebration while reflecting the identity and spirit of their chosen nation.
The collection highlights how the World Cup is influencing lifestyle and pet product design, extending fan engagement into new categories. By adapting official team aesthetics for pets, adidas has created products that encourage shared experiences between fans and their companions during match-day gatherings and tournament celebrations.
5. Interactive and Experiential Products Are Growing in Popularity
Consumers increasingly seek products that offer immersive experiences instead of simple ownership. As a result, designers are creating interactive items that encourage participation, creativity, and deeper engagement with the World Cup story.
Created to celebrate the FIFA World Cup 2026, the LEGO FIFA World Cup Official Trophy set transforms one of sport’s most recognizable symbols into an immersive building experience. Consisting of 2,842 pieces, the model recreates the iconic trophy at an impressive scale, allowing football fans to own a detailed replica inspired by the tournament that will be hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Finished with gold-colored elements and authentic design details, the set captures the prestige and excitement associated with football’s biggest event.
More than a display piece, the collectible combines sports fandom with interactive design. The model features commemorative details, including references to past World Cup champions and hidden surprises that celebrate the 2026 tournament. By turning the famous trophy into a hands-on construction project, LEGO has created a product that extends the World Cup experience beyond the stadium, offering fans a memorable way to engage with the tournament while creating a centerpiece worthy of any football collection.
Global Events Are Becoming Powerful Design Inspiration
The World Cup indicates how major international events can influence product design across multiple categories. Brands are using the tournament as a source of inspiration to create products that blend innovation, identity, and entertainment. As fan expectations continue to evolve, event-driven design is likely to become an even more significant force shaping future consumer products.
The FIFA World Cup is no longer just a sporting spectacle as it has become a catalyst for product innovation. From technology and collectibles to lifestyle accessories and interactive experiences, brands are leveraging football’s global appeal to create products that resonate with fans long after the final whistle.
The post Forget Jerseys – These 5 FIFA World Cup 2026 Products Are Actually Worth Buying first appeared on Yanko Design.
The Apple Watch Ultra 4 Finally Addresses Its Only Major Flaw
The Apple Watch Ultra 4 is set to resolve one of the most persistent criticisms of its predecessors: its bulky design. By introducing a slimmer profile, enhanced battery efficiency and advanced health tracking capabilities, Apple aims to redefine its flagship smartwatch as a more practical and health-oriented device. These improvements, combined with smarter Siri integration […]
The post The Apple Watch Ultra 4 Finally Addresses Its Only Major Flaw appeared first on Geeky Gadgets.