Author Archives: Sarang Sheth

A Wireless Clip-On Mic With AI Noise Cancellation for Under $50 Sounds Ridiculous. Here’s Why It Works.

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The modern smartphone has set a remarkably high baseline for video quality, and its built-in microphone is surprisingly capable for casual use. But for creators who need their voice to cut through ambient noise, reach across distance, or maintain consistent clarity on the move, phone audio quickly reveals its physical limits. This is the complex mindset of the budget-conscious creator: they won’t spend money on a dedicated camera unless it’s dramatically better than their phone, and they certainly won’t carry a separate microphone unless it delivers a sound that is fundamentally impossible to capture with the device already in their pocket. It has to solve a problem, not just offer a marginal improvement.

This is the precise challenge the Saramonic Air SE is designed to meet. It justifies its space in a creator’s bag by breaking the physical limitations of a smartphone. Its core function is to get the microphone off the camera and place it exactly where it needs to be: clipped discreetly to a collar, just inches from the speaker’s mouth. Thumb-sized and weighing just 5 grams, the mic wears almost unnoticed on camera. It operates across 200 meters of wireless range, delivering crystal-clear, detailed 48kHz/24-bit audio while an AI engine actively removes up to 40dB of background noise. Snap it back onto the charging bar and it instantly becomes a handheld mic, ready for interviews. At $49 for the USB-C version, it’s positioned squarely as an entry-level system built for mobile-first creators and content teams who need professional capabilities without the professional price tag.

Designer: Saramonic

Click Here to Buy Now: $40 $50 ($10 off, use coupon code “YD20”). Hurry, deal ends in 48-hours!

The impossibly compact design makes it a marvel of engineering but also a testimony of how much discreetness matters to Saramonic’s core audience. The transmitter measures 28.5 x 17 x 13.4 millimeters, roughly thumb-sized, and weighs 5 grams. That makes it among the most compact in its class—significantly smaller than most entry-level wireless systems. When clipped to a collar or shirt, it genuinely disappears on camera, solving one of the oldest visual compromises in video production. The modular charging bar is the real design story here, sized like a lighter and engineered to magnetically house two mics and a receiver for easy carry. Everything you need for a two-person recording setup fits in your pocket. Dock a transmitter onto the bar, power it on, and it doubles as a handheld interview mic. Two form factors, one object, no adapters or workflow interruptions. The magnetic connection is strong enough that the bar feels natural to hold, weighted specifically for that second use case. Saramonic calls it “Clip It. Hold It.” and the simplicity of that statement captures exactly what makes this system different.

The Air SE’s noise cancellation represents Saramonic’s first-ever true AI system, trained on over 700,000 noise samples across 20,000 hours of audio. Unlike traditional ENC (electronic noise cancellation), which only handles steady ambient sounds like air conditioners or distant traffic, this AI engine identifies and separates voices from complex or sudden noise in real time. It runs in two modes: Weak at -15dB for natural-sounding environments where you still want some atmosphere, and Strong at -40dB for genuinely loud scenes like street shoots or crowded events. A single press on the receiver toggles the feature on and off. The companion app handles three EQ presets (Vocal Boost, High Boost, and Bass Boost) that let you fine-tune your vocal tone effortlessly, plus mono or stereo output selection and gain control. It’s plug-and-play simplicity with easy controls, approachable enough that a beginner can use it without touching settings, and flexible enough that someone with audio experience can dial in exactly what they need.

The technical fundamentals are solid in ways that matter for real-world use. The Air SE captures 48kHz/24-bit high-resolution audio with an 80dB signal-to-noise ratio and 120dB max SPL, preserving details with an ultra-low noise floor. The built-in limiter with -12dB safety track prevents distortion in unpredictable situations, recording a backup channel the whole time. If your main track clips because someone suddenly shouts or laughs too close to the mic, the safety track has you covered. The transmitter runs for about 6 hours on a single charge, and with charge-while-record capability through the modular bar, you get up to 28 hours of total runtime. That’s enough for a full day of street interviews or event coverage. The receiver draws power directly from your phone via USB-C or Lightning, so there’s no separate battery to manage. The plug-and-play design means seamless smartphone use from the moment you connect.

Saramonic is offering two configurations – the Air SE-01 at $49 includes a USB-C receiver and works with modern iPhones, Android devices, computers, and select action cameras like the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 and DJI Action 4. The Air SE-02 at $69 adds a Lightning receiver for older Apple hardware. Both kits include two transmitters, the charging bar, furry windshields, magnetic clips, a carry bag, and a USB-A to USB-C cable. That’s a complete field recording setup in one box, no additional purchases required. Competitors like the DJI Mic 3 and Hollyland Lark systems start around $150, making the Air SE’s price positioning genuinely aggressive for mobile content creators, streamers, and interviewers who need affordable wireless audio with outstanding value.

The Air SE is available now through Saramonic’s official store with free worldwide shipping, a 15-day return window, and a 2-year warranty. For creators who have been making do with phone audio and wondering if a dedicated wireless mic is worth the investment, this is a system designed to answer that question definitively. Pure, natural-sounding voice with powerful noise cancellation, ultra-light portability, and broad compatibility with mainstream smartphones and tablets, all in a package that fits in your pocket and costs less than most creators spend on a single camera accessory.

Click Here to Buy Now: $40 $50 ($10 off, use coupon code “YD20”). Hurry, deal ends in 48-hours!

The post A Wireless Clip-On Mic With AI Noise Cancellation for Under $50 Sounds Ridiculous. Here’s Why It Works. first appeared on Yanko Design.

This $90 Light-Up Cyclops Visor From Hasbro Is Going to Make You Feel Things You’re Not Ready For

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Somewhere out there is a version of you who was eight years old in 1992, watched Cyclops fire an optic blast through a Sentinel’s chest on Saturday morning television, and immediately needed that visor on their face. That version of you did not get it, because it did not exist, because the toy industry of the early 90s was not making premium LED light-up 1:1 scale roleplay props for children who deserved them. That version of you had to use their imagination, which is a polite way of saying they held a ruler over their eyes and made beam sounds with their mouth in the backyard. Adult you, the one with income and a deep and slightly embarrassing knowledge of X-Men lore, has finally been handed the thing that child deserved. The tragedy is that you are no longer a child. The consolation is that you are also no longer supervised.

The Marvel Legends Series X-Men ’97 Cyclops Premium Roleplay Visor arrives July 1, 2026 at $89.99, and Hasbro built it for exactly that person. The 1:1 scale yellow shell curves across the full width of the face, the recessed red lens sits in a slot that gives the sculpt genuine mechanical credibility, and the LED optic blast effect, activated by a side dial with beam-width control via double tap, delivers the one feature no 90s toy could have managed. Spring-loaded ear pieces and a swappable nose piece handle fit across different face geometries. A removable display stand and colored lens insert handle the dignified adult shelf-display use case, which is how most of us are going to justify this to ourselves and to anyone who notices it on our desk.

Designer: Hasbro

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Cyclops’ visor is one of the most recognizable accessories in the Marvel universe precisely because it reads as functional rather than decorative, a containment device with a job to do, engineered to hold back something genuinely dangerous. Translating that into a wearable prop means balancing cartoon faithfulness with enough physical presence to feel premium at $89.99. Looking at the product images, Hasbro threaded that needle well. The gloss yellow shell has a sculptural confidence to it, the kind of clean, rounded geometry that echoes the X-Men ’97 animation without tipping into caricature. The red lens is properly recessed within the frame rather than sitting flush, which gives the whole thing a layered, architectural quality that cheaper props almost always skip. The circular activation dial on the temple is prominent without being ungainly, and the interior reveals a dark gray structural frame that makes the thing feel engineered rather than hollow.

The LED effect is truly the centerpiece. A single button press illuminates the lens to simulate the optic blast charging up, and the double-tap beam-width adjustment is a detail that will mean everything to the right buyer, the one who already knows that Cyclops can narrow his blast for precision targeting or open it wide for area suppression. Hasbro clearly knows who is reading the spec sheet. The LEDs auto-off after two minutes, which is a practical battery-conservation decision that also means you will be pressing that button approximately forty additional times per session just to keep the glow going. This is a feature, not a flaw.

The X-Men ’97 animated series, which premiered on Disney+ in 2024 as a direct continuation of the beloved 1992 original, gave Cyclops one of his strongest character arcs in decades, and the show’s Emmy win confirmed what fans already knew: this IP still has serious cultural weight. Hasbro releasing this visor in 2026 is timed well, catching the long tail of that cultural moment while the emotional investment is still warm. The Hulk Hands set the bar for what a Marvel roleplay prop could become in the broader cultural imagination, but this visor is aimed at a more specific and more serious buyer, one who wants something that works as cosplay, as a Halloween costume anchor, and as a display piece simultaneously.

At $89.99, the Cyclops visor sits in that precise pricing zone where adult collectors can rationalize the purchase and children cannot access it without a parent’s help, which is either poetic justice or the cruellest possible joke depending on how old you were in 1992. You can pre-order it on Amazon now. Your eight-year-old self would be furious that it took this long. Buy it anyway.

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“Exoskeleton Mouse” Gives Each Individual Finger Its Own Ergonomic Saddle

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The history of mouse design is essentially a history of addition. More buttons, more weight options, more RGB zones, more surface textures, more software profiles, more reasons to spend three hundred dollars on a peripheral that still cradles your hand in the same closed-shell geometry Bill English built in 1972. The ergonomics conversation in particular has produced some genuinely thoughtful vertical mice and trackball revivals, but even those radical-seeming pivots keep the fundamental assumption intact: that a mouse is a body, and your hand rests on top of it. Psudoku, a maker and keyboard enthusiast whose work lives on GitHub, decided that assumption was the problem.

Kotinos is what a wireless mouse fossil looks like, the skeletal trace of an input device after everything non-essential has been removed by time or intent. An open 3D-printed scaffold rises from a flat base, each branch terminating in a small saddle pad matched to a specific fingertip, with the HSK Pro mouse internals sitting completely naked at the center of the lattice. Hand size and paddle geometry are both configurable through OpenSCAD scripts, meaning the fit is genuinely personal rather than averaging across a bell curve of palm measurements.

Designer: psudoku

The structural logic here is closer to a finger splint or an orthotic brace than anything in the Logitech catalog, and that framing is deliberate. Traditional mouse shells work by distributing contact across the entire palm and finger surface, which sounds ergonomic until you realize that it also means your hand is constantly fighting the geometry of a form designed for an average that probably doesn’t match you. Kotinos inverts the relationship entirely. The scaffold contacts only the fingertips, each pad saddle-shaped to cradle the distal phalanx rather than the whole finger, and the palm floats free of any surface entirely. Whether that produces genuine relief for RSI sufferers or just relocates the pressure points somewhere new is a question only long-term use can answer, but the premise is at least architecturally honest in a way that most ergonomic marketing copy never manages to be.

The construction photographs suggest multi-jet fusion 3D printing for psudoku’s own unit, that characteristic fine-grained grey surface that reads almost like sandstone in photographs, though the OpenSCAD source files mean any hobbyist with a resin or FDM printer can generate their own version. The exposed internals are genuinely striking in person: purple PCBs, a teal scroll wheel housing, ribbon cables and red wiring running between struts, all visible through the open lattice like a dissection model. There’s no attempt to prettify any of it. The aesthetic is pure function, which ends up being far more visually arresting than another matte-black gaming peripheral with aggressive chamfers and a glowing logo.

The files are free, the build is approachable, and the only real donor hardware you need is an HSK Pro mouse to gut for parts. Psudoku suggests applying fabric tape on the contact points to give the Kotinos mouse a more natural, comfortable feel. Because the Kotinos only touches you at the fingertips, those few contact points carry all the sensory weight that a conventional mouse spreads across your entire palm. If the saddle pads feel rough or cold or slightly wrong, there’s nowhere else for your hand to escape to. For a mouse built from struts and exposed circuit boards, that kind of tactile warmth might be exactly what keeps it from feeling like the medical device it occasionally resembles.

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Nothing 4a Pro with an E-ink Display Looks Way More Interesting than the Glyph Matrix

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The Glyph Matrix is nice, but it’s not really useful, is it? How much value can you extract from spinning the bottle on the back of your phone, or playing unique patterns on it every time your phone rings? Sure, Nothing will have you believe that the Glyph Matrix is the natural evolution of the Glyph Lights – but one redditor had a different idea. Ditch the matrix instead, give the consumers an actual screen.

This Nothing 4a Pro revised concept features a full-fledged e-ink display on the back, serving as a useful second space for notifications, alerts, QR codes, etc. It’s a little less manic than the original with the flashing lights and all, but I kind of like the silent seriousness of a phone that sports an e-ink screen on the back. Everything else remains the same, the exact same triple-camera layout, the same Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 processor, the same screen. Just, less flashy, more useful.

Designer: Taweros

Here’s where Carl Pei would come in objecting to this entirely. The Glyph Matrix is supposed to be Nothing’s secret sauce, the thing that makes you look twice at a phone, the element of surprise. Ditching flashing lights for an e-ink screen feels a little less TikTok and a little more LinkedIn. That’s not Nothing’s brand, and I can understand. It’s more YotaPhone or TCL NXTPaper than Nothing. However, reddit user ‘Taweros’ has a case to make.

“I’ve been thinking about an alternative to the Glyph Matrix on a future Nothing phone: a small always-on E-Ink display integrated into the same area on the back. Instead of only showing animations, it could display useful information with no power consumption,” Taweros says. “The idea is to keep the minimalist Nothing aesthetic while making the space more practical. Since E-Ink only uses power when the image changes, it could stay visible all day without significantly affecting battery life.”

This new glyph replacement offers a more discreet, low-power, always-on alternative that can be used for a bunch of things. Aside from actually displaying information (instead of wonky patterns), it becomes this ambient second screen that you learn to rely on. Keep it displaying weather notifications, or have it show the face of someone who’s calling, or even use it to display the QR code of your business at a networking event – all this is stuff you CAN’T do with the current Nothing 4a Pro, and to be honest, that feels like a bit of a shame.

To be clear, I don’t hate the glyph matrix. I saw it first-hand at a launch and was blown by how beautiful it looked. I just think beauty without utility is just… art. It’s fun. It isn’t function. Here’s to hoping the Nothing 5 will surprise us!

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This LEGO Bob the Builder Set Just Unlocked a Memory You Forgot You Had

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There are television theme songs that live in your nervous system long after the show has faded from memory. “Bob the Builder, can we fix it? Bob the Builder, yes we can!” is one of them, an earworm so potent that even reading those words probably just triggered a full playback somewhere in your brain. The show itself ran from 1998 well into the 2000s, following Bob and his sentient, goggle-eyed construction fleet through a series of building projects that always, reassuringly, got finished on time. It was comfort television before comfort television had a name, the kind of show that made Saturday mornings feel genuinely safe and warm.

Someone has now translated that comfort into 1,050 bricks. The Half Blood Baron’s LEGO Ideas submission recreates the full cast of Bob’s construction yard, with five individual vehicles and minifigures of Bob and Wendy, each built to be displayed together or played with separately. The result is one of those rare fan builds that earns its nostalgia rather than just trading on it.

Designer: The Half Blood Baron

The five vehicles are where the real craft lives. Scoop, the yellow backhoe loader, is probably the most technically accomplished of the group, with both a front bucket and a rear boom arm rendered with real articulation, plus a cab interior detailed enough to include a tiny steering wheel. Muck, the red tracked dumper, uses LEGO tank tread elements for the continuous track system, and the grille treatment on his face, rows of grey bars forming that wide, slightly manic grin, is surprisingly expressive for something assembled from plastic bricks. Roley, the green road roller, has that chunky, purposeful silhouette nailed, with the compactor drum sitting correctly up front and an open cab frame topped with an amber warning light that construction nerds will immediately recognize as period-accurate.

My favorite of the five, though, is Lofty. The blue mobile crane rides on a six-wheel chassis that gives him that wide, stable, slightly nervous presence the character always had on screen, and the boom arm actually extends and terminates in a proper hook. There is something genuinely satisfying about a LEGO crane that has a working hook. It is a small detail that costs the builder real problem-solving effort in terms of part selection and geometry, and it pays off every time you look at it. Dizzy, the orange cement mixer, rounds out the fleet with an oversized toothy grin that is probably the most faithful character likeness in the whole set, the rotating drum body translating into bricks with an almost uncanny accuracy.

The two minifigures, Bob in his dungarees and yellow hard hat and Wendy in her green top, sit comfortably in scale with the vehicles, small enough to look like operators rather than giants. I guess LEGO lends itself beautifully to the franchise too, which has a similar plastic minifigure design – the result is LEGOnBob and Wendy looking almost exactly like the original. The builder notes that every vehicle is built to be both displayed and played with, which is exactly the right call for a set that needs to work for nostalgic adults and actual children in equal measure.

The Half Blood Baron’s Bob the Builder set is currently gathering votes on LEGO Ideas, the online platform where fan-made MOCs (My Own Creations) accumulate community support toward a 10,000-vote threshold, after which LEGO’s internal team reviews the build for potential production as a retail set. With 1,172 supporters so far and 561 days left on the clock, there is plenty of runway. If your Saturday mornings once belonged to Sunflower Valley, head over and cast your vote here.

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This $23 Titanium Carabiner Hides a Secret EDC Knife Inside It And Weighs Next To Nothing

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I don’t sing enough praise of titanium as a material. It’s the strongest metal known to humankind, but at the same time, it’s also anti-corrosive, rust-resistant, and biocompatible (the body doesn’t reject it when used internally for implants/supports in surgery). It’s found in abundance on the moon, it self-heals (forms an oxidized layer if scratched), and is the only element that burns in nitrogen (every other element burns in oxygen). Titanium, aside from being such a weirdly wonderful element, is also a preferred alloy in EDC… and while most makers use titanium for a handle and call it a day, the folks at KeyUnity machined it in a way to give Titanium properties of a carabiner.

The KK08 carabiner from KeyUnity uses a single-piece titanium handle, which houses a 7Cr17Mov steel blade inside it. The handle is carabiner-shaped for a reason – it has this brilliantly machined detail that allows the carabiner arm to spring and bend without using a spring. Relying entirely on Titanium’s own properties, the zigzag machined pattern lets the carabiner work immaculately, providing spring as well as being durable enough to never break. The rest of the handle? Well, it’s cleverly designed to house the knife when not in use, sheathing the blade within its slim but incredibly cool design.

Designer: KeyUnity

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At 2.56″ when closed, this is your average-sized carabiner. It’s compact, weighs a paltry 16 grams, and can punch well above its weight. Titanium’s incredible strength-to-weight ratio means this carabiner can lift keys but even be used to do things like secure your water bottle to your backpack or even your backpack to a railing/fence. The cleverly machined detail on the carabiner arm allows the titanium to flex just like the spring-loaded arm on a regular carabiner. Meanwhile, the KK08 also hides a nifty blade inside it, for when you need a pocket knife.

The hidden blade folds out, revealing a 1.6″ cutting edge which might be on the smaller side, but it certainly gets the job done. The 7Cr17Mov steel build is brilliant on a budget, with high chromium for shine, and vanadium for strength and resilience. The drop-point profile makes it a great knife for all sorts of activities, from benign stuff like opening envelopes and packages, to more rugged activities like sharpening pencils, cutting branches, slicing through fruit/vegetables, or even self defense if push comes to shove.

Given its small size (and its fairly budget $23 price tag), the KK08 integrates everything into a minimal footprint, using a simple pivot for the knife to fold in and out. A frame lock is built into the titanium handle, allowing the blade to click into place while open, holding its position even while you’re working with tough materials like wood. KeyUnity mentions that the KK08 is the perfect hiking companion, although we see it as a brilliant EDC tool that you can carry anywhere – just not an airport or places where knives are considered taboo!

The KK08 comes in two colors – the plain titanium, as well as an anodized space grey finish. It honestly doesn’t need any color or pattern – the simple design language works wonderfully for this form factor, allowing it to also integrate seamlessly into your other EDC (especially your keychain). Both variants cost $23, and KeyUnity provides a 15 day exchange window upon damage or defect, along with a 1-year free maintenance period if your carabiner experiences regular wear and tear. There’s a lifetime warranty available too, although KeyUnity offers it at an added cost. Knowing their track record as well as how robust and durable titanium is, you’ll probably never need it.

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This Retro Arcade Machine Folds Into A Furniture Cabinet Right Out Of Pottery Barn

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You bring home a new piece of furniture. It’s a handsome, mid-century modern style cabinet in a rich walnut finish, and your partner is frankly stunned. They thought your design sensibilities peaked at a framed movie poster, yet here is this sophisticated, adult-looking object that actually complements the living room. They nod, impressed. The next evening, they go to open one of the doors, planning to store some coasters or maybe a few new wine glasses. Except the handle is just for show, and the doors don’t open. The look of confusion on their face is priceless, because they’re about to learn your secret.

That’s because this beautiful cabinet is a beautifully crafted lie. The front panel doesn’t swing open; it unlocks and folds down to reveal a two-player control deck. The entire top half then pivots upward, extending into a full-height marquee that glows with the promise of 8-bit glory. In seconds, the quiet, respectable piece of furniture has undergone a transformation worthy of a Saturday morning cartoon, revealing itself to be the Swap Arcade. It’s the ultimate stealth entertainment system, hiding in plain sight and waiting for your friends to come over.

Designers: Les Cookson & Ken Higginson

The brainchild of Les Cookson and Ken Higginson out of Lincoln, California, the Swap Arcade tackles a very real problem for gaming enthusiasts who happen to live in actual homes with actual partners who have actual opinions about décor. Closed, it sits at a compact 36 inches tall with a footprint slim enough to tuck against any wall. Open, it rises to a full 70 inches with a 27-inch HDMI display, built-in speakers, and a two-player control panel loaded with SANWA joysticks.

The transformation is handled by a counterbalanced mechanism that manages the weight as the hideaway arcade moves up and down, keeping the movement smooth and controlled rather than the kind of chaotic reveal that ends with someone’s fingers in the wrong place. Once fully open, front corner locking pins secure the arcade immediately after transformation, with a second redundant set at the rear corners for added stability, keeping everything firmly locked in place before anyone even thinks about touching a joystick.

Running on a Raspberry Pi 4 with Batocera preinstalled and a starter library of 100 games, the machine is ready to play straight out of the box, a self-contained gaming system from day one. From there, thousands of additional retro titles can be loaded, giving access to a huge library of arcade, console, and retro favorites through one clean multicade interface. The controls run through a Brook Zero-Pi Fighting Board encoder, adding compatibility with Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, PS3, PS2, the original PlayStation, and PC via X-Input. Hook up a Nintendo Switch Online subscription and suddenly you have access to classic Nintendo libraries on a proper stand-up cabinet. Connect a PC and play arcade-style games through Steam. The machine evolves with what you already own.

Cookson clearly had no intention of letting the furniture half of the equation slide. The cabinet shell is actual wood, and the unfinished bare wood option means it can be stained or painted to suit any interior. Three finished options are also available, Natural, Walnut, or Dark Tobacco, each looking convincingly like something sourced from a design-forward furniture store. For anyone wanting something completely custom, a graphic designer and printer can create custom vinyl decals using almost any artwork, making the Swap Arcade truly personal. The nostalgia you’re chasing here is entirely your own to define.

The lower section includes built-in storage for game systems, controllers, cables, and accessories, accessible when the Swap Arcade is opened into arcade mode… or maybe some of those wine glasses your partner wanted to originally store. It’s a detail that keeps the illusion perfectly intact. When closed, nothing gives the game away.

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A New Electric Hypercar Just Packed 3,154 HP and a 550km/h Top Speed Into a Prototype GT

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WIRED called them the brands that stole the show, and at CES Las Vegas in January 2026, KOSMERA arrived with a four-door high-performance GT prototype wearing a blue-black finish that New Atlas described as magnificent in person, noting its low-sloping hood, big rear wing, and dual-layer diffuser. SupercarBlondie’s verdict was equally direct: “a race car from the year 2199.” For a company that almost no one in the room had encountered before that week, the response was the kind that established brands spend decades trying to manufacture. KOSMERA’s founders, whose engineering lineage runs from China’s earliest quad-rotor UAV programs through 100,000 RPM-class digital motors and autonomous chassis research, had spent years building toward this moment. The car on the floor was proof that the preparation had translated.

The company calls itself “born global by design,” combining Chinese speed of innovation, American AI ambition, German engineering discipline, and Italian emotional design language into one evolving brand vision. R&D centers sit across Beijing, Suzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Los Angeles, with the design studio operating out of Turin and manufacturing anchored in Brandenburg, Germany. From hypercars and high-performance GTs to luxury all-terrain SUVs, KOSMERA is building a product portfolio powered by a shared foundation of performance, intelligence, and software-defined mobility. That portfolio breaks down into a collector-series hypercar called The Hypera, a pair of high-performance GTs in the Star Matrix and Star Razer, and a luxury all-terrain SUV called Terra. At the center of every vehicle is a quad-motor AWD system targeting 3,154 horsepower, a 0-100 km/h time of 1.7 seconds, and a top speed of 550 km/h.

Designer: KOSMERA

The Star Matrix is KOSMERA’s interpretation of intelligent performance built around balance, with an aluminum spaceframe wrapped in carbon-fiber panels, starburst rear lighting with a speed-responsive dynamic flow animation, and an acceleration pulse effect that makes the tail of the car feel alive at night. Designed as a next-generation high-performance GT, it combines extreme electric performance with aerodynamic efficiency and driver-focused ergonomics. Physical controls inside are reduced by 80 percent, leaving a driver environment of carbon fiber, aerospace textiles, and Alcantara with an AI Coach display projecting real-time racing lines and blind-spot alerts into the driver’s eyeline. The Star Razer carries the same architecture into wilder territory, arriving in Quantum Violet with frameless doors, a lower and wider stance, a breathing light bar, and a Cd of 0.20 achieved through aero blade lines and rear wheel channels. Where the Star Matrix reads as precision, the Star Razer reads as provocation.

Kosmera Star Matrix

Axial-flux motors redirect magnetic flow along the rotation axis rather than radially, producing a shorter magnetic path and better torque leverage in a far more compact package, and the HyperDrive quad-rotor layout delivers up to 1,578 PS on a single shaft, achieving nearly twice the power density of conventional motors. The quad-rotor configuration targets 1,160 kW per axle, 7,500 Nm of peak wheel torque, and wheel-end speeds above 4,000 rpm. The power electronics use a full silicon-carbide inverter architecture, reducing conduction loss by approximately 40 percent compared to conventional silicon systems. Four independent motors deliver per-wheel torque vectoring, shaping cornering through real-time torque redistribution rather than braking intervention, a more precise and faster-reacting control philosophy. KOSMERA describes each axle as comparable to two Ferrari V12 engines combined, and for once the metaphor and the physics actually align.

The HyperCore battery’s cell-to-pack architecture eliminates the module layer, pushing pack efficiency to 85 percent and enabling peak discharge above 2,500 kW on a 1,200-volt, 6C platform. Charging targets 10 to 80 percent in under seven minutes, a figure that starts collapsing the practical gap between an EV charge stop and a combustion fuel stop. KOSMERA’s HyperPilot Vision-Language-Action stack runs on a 2,000-TOPS compute platform with LiDAR, millimeter-wave radar, cameras, IMU, and HD mapping feeding a physics-based World Model architecture capable of predictive reasoning. The system covers predictive track mapping, an AI racing coach, AR headset integration, highway L3 assisted driving, and urban Navigate-on-Autopilot. The Star Razer extends the ecosystem further, adding an onboard drone interface that deploys autonomous UAVs for last-mile logistics, emergency delivery, and aerial capture, functioning as a mobile mothership for intelligent mobility. That prediction layer shifts the system from reactive driver assistance to genuinely anticipatory control.

FlexBase integrates drive, braking, steering, and suspension into a fully by-wire architecture with a closed-loop response time under 10 milliseconds, a latency figure that approaches the point where human perception cannot distinguish digital from mechanical control feel. A maximum steering angle of 90 degrees enables zero-radius turning and crab-walk capability that conventional suspension geometry cannot approach. Four-wheel independent control includes automatic compensation for single-wheel failure, and the ASIL-D safety certification aligns the platform with L4 autonomy requirements. KOSMERA claims the electrified integration reduces overall system cost and weight by 30 percent by eliminating components rather than replacing them. The modular chassis is designed to scale across the entire vehicle lineup, from The Hypera to Terra, meaning each model shares a validated foundation rather than developing bespoke hardware from scratch.

Kosmera Star Razer

Kosmera Star Razer

AutoEvolution placed KOSMERA’s 1.7-second 0-60 claim squarely in “a league where Rimacs and Koenigseggs have been making the rules for years,” and that is the competitive frame the brand has chosen for itself. The Axion Power propulsion division confirmed in June 2026 that the 3,000-plus horsepower system remains in pre-development and patent application review, a qualifier worth holding onto when reading the headlines. What exists today is a technically serious platform grounded in axial-flux motor engineering, 1,200-volt battery architecture, AI-driven chassis control, and software-defined mobility. The founding team’s background spans decades of experience in AI, robotics, autonomous systems, and high-speed motor engineering, which means the ambition carries real engineering DNA behind it. Whether KOSMERA can close the gap between concept-stage intensity and production-validated performance will be the story worth watching through the rest of the decade.

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A Designer Spent Ten Years Perfecting the Most Beautiful Pill Organizer You’ll Ever See

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About ten years ago, designer Adam C Miller made a pillbox for a close friend living with an invisible illness. The standard option available to her was the familiar hard plastic pharmacy organizer, practical enough, but hardly something anyone would want to carry proudly or leave out in the open. Miller decided she deserved better. Starting with a block of maple, paper templates, a few screws, and a lot of sandpaper, he built a pillbox she would actually want to keep nearby. That first handmade object became the beginning of Helia.

The project stayed with him for years. Miller kept refining the idea, and when he began taking a daily regimen himself, the design took on even more personal weight. About a year ago, he revisited the category and found plenty of pill cases that handled the basics, but very few that felt genuinely beautiful, portable, and display-worthy at the same time. Helia became the answer to that gap, shaped by a decade of iteration and by the simple belief that an object tied to daily care can carry warmth, beauty, and intention.

Designer: Adam C Miller (IDMill)

Click Here to Buy Now: $40 $60 (33% off) Hurry! Only 14 of 100 left.

That mindset allowed Miller to look at Helia and pillboxes very differently. We already reserve beautiful containers for the things we value most. Watches arrive in fitted cases, jewelry rests in lined boxes, and keepsakes are stored in objects designed to honor their presence. Helia brings that same level of consideration to a weekly pill organizer. It treats a daily medical routine as something worth leaving out where you can see it –
personal and dignified instead of something to hide in a drawer.

Seven petal-like compartments radiate from a central axis, forming a circular disc that reads closer to a crafted artifact than a storage device. With beautiful hardwood construction and seven magnetic doors, it is confidence-inspiring and satisfying to use. The primary material is FSC-certified cherry wood, finished with a food-safe, water-resistant mineral oil that brings out the warm reddish tones the species is known for. The wood species were tested one by one until cherry emerged as the clear choice after the finish was applied. Each compartment door turns on solid brass rivets and closes with strong neodymium magnets, adding a material contrast that lifts the object’s visual weight considerably, and the combination of wood, brass, and organic petal geometry gives Helia a design language the category has simply never used.

Each of the seven doors snaps open and closed with a satisfying click, held in place by four magnets each. They hold open while you load your medicine for the week, and when they snap closed, they hold your medication safe and secure. The door mechanism alone went through half a dozen iterations before it felt exactly right. Each daily pocket is about 0.9 inches across and roughly 0.5 inches deep, with room for a realistic daily mix, such as one large pill, three medium ones, and four small ones in a single compartment. It holds a week’s worth of medicine, while being compact enough to slip into a bag, and beautiful enough to leave on your counter.

Through his consulting firm IDMill, Miller has developed products spanning consumer electronics, furniture, RC vehicles, home goods, and tattoo machines, from initial sketch to production, for organizations ranging from thirty to thirty thousand employees. Within that range, his design work received a 2025 Silver A’Design Award for accessible design. He is also not new to Kickstarter, having co-founded the successfully funded ChargeCard and Snactiv campaigns before arriving at Helia.

The pharmacy pillbox has remained essentially unchanged for decades, and we are all familiar with the utilitarian rectangular plastic pill cases. These medicine organizers are designed to be used, then forgotten, out of sight in a drawer or buried in a bag. Everything about them reads clinical. Helia borrows from the same design playbook that transformed reading glasses into eyewear, orthopedic footwear into lifestyle sneakers, and fitness trackers into jewelry-grade wearables. In each of those cases, the category shifted when designers gave as much thought to the person using the object as to the function it performed. Helia frames itself as the shift from “clinical medicating” to “a daily ritual of taking care of you,” drawing on how spectacles evolved into eyewear and elevating the feeling of self-care through an object with genuine warmth, presence, and polish.

Helia is live on Kickstarter, where the standard cherry wood version starts at $40 for the early bird tier, limited to 100 pieces, before moving to a $45 campaign price, with retail planned at $60. The campaign also includes a Day and Night set that pairs a light maple Helia with a dark walnut one, engraved with a sun and moon respectively, along with personalized options, downloadable DIY files, and other extras worth exploring on the project page linked below. Shipping is expected in late 2026.

Click Here to Buy Now: $40 $60 (33% off) Hurry! Only 14 of 100 left.

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An Ex-Alibaba Exec Spent 12 Years Building the Smart Glasses that Google Couldn’t

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The story of Google Glass is a well-worn legend in Silicon Valley. It was a product so far ahead of its time that it became a cultural phenomenon and then a punchline, a symbol of technological overreach and social awkwardness. The project was ultimately shelved, a high-profile monument to a future that arrived too early. It was a public retreat, an admission that the world was not ready for a computer on its face, or perhaps that the computer was not ready for the world.

As that chapter closed, another one was just beginning, thousands of miles away. An executive from Alibaba, inspired by the initial audacity of Google’s idea, decided to take a different approach. Instead of chasing hype, he would chase utility. Instead of prioritizing features, he would prioritize weight and comfort. For twelve years, his company, Rokid, worked to solve the very human problems that Google had overlooked, and in 2026 that long bet looks less like a moonshot and more like a roadmap.

Designer: Rokid

That roadmap now has a new center of gravity. Following Google’s latest Gemini updates at I/O, Rokid says it is bringing Gemini Flash 3.5 to its smart glasses, pushing the company deeper into what it calls agentic AI. The phrase matters because it signals a shift away from voice assistants that answer one question at a time and toward systems that can hold context, respond faster, and handle more layered tasks through simple voice commands. Rokid is framing the glasses as a place where conversational AI can stay present, useful, and continuous rather than trapped inside a phone screen.

That ambition sits on top of an unusually broad AI strategy. Rokid has spent the last year positioning its glasses as an open ecosystem rather than a single-model device, supporting ChatGPT, Qwen, DeepSeek, and Gemini across different products and regions. In Asia, the company has already built an AI Agent Store and says it has received more than 3,000 submissions for agentic workflows, with over 400 approved and published. The international push comes next, and that is where the latest Gemini integration becomes more than a feature update. It becomes a bridge between Rokid’s regional momentum and its global pitch.

The hardware story still matters because smart glasses live or die by whether people will actually wear them. Rokid’s 2025 display-equipped glasses carried one of the most memorable specs in the category: 49 grams for a full-function AI and AR device with display. That number gave the company a clean answer to the oldest question in wearable tech, which is how much computation can disappear into something that still feels like eyewear. According to Rokid’s own materials, that product also helped it raise more than $6 million and move into global mass production by December, giving the company proof that its ideas could leave the demo stage.

This year’s bigger mainstream play is Rokid AI Glasses Style, a different kind of product aimed at lowering the barriers that have kept smart eyewear niche for so long. Style is display-free, voice-centric, and starts at $299. At 38.5 grams, it is even lighter than the 49-gram model, and Rokid presents that reduction as part of a larger balancing act between comfort, battery life, and functionality. The frame is designed like premium eyewear, with titanium alloy hinges, liquid-silicone nose pads, and a classic D-shaped silhouette. Underneath that familiar form is a dual-chip architecture, with one chip handling low-power always-on tasks and another managing AI and imaging workloads.

Rokid clearly wants to win on openness, but it also wants to win on practicality. One of the strongest parts of the press material is its prescription-first approach, which treats vision correction as core infrastructure rather than a niche add-on. Style supports prescriptions up to ±15.00D, covering myopia, astigmatism, presbyopia, progressives, and functional lens options like photochromic and blue-light filtering. Users can upload prescriptions online and receive custom lenses in about 7 to 10 days. That sounds mundane compared to AI buzzwords, but it may be one of the most important adoption levers in the entire category. Smart glasses cannot become everyday objects if they still behave like specialty gadgets.

The other major throughline is accessibility. Rokid has been consistent here, both in the visit materials and in the press kit. The company is working with Google on accessibility-focused solutions for users with vision and hearing impairments, and its broader messaging keeps returning to a principle it phrases simply: leave nobody behind. For blind and low-vision users, Rokid positions audio-based AI glasses as digital eyes, and it has attached a small subsidy to purchases made for visually impaired users. That choice gives the company a more grounded social purpose than most wearable launches, which often stop at lifestyle language and creator features.

Those creator features are still part of the package. Style includes a 12MP Sony sensor, 4K capture, open-ear audio, and a triple-format imaging system designed for 3:4, 4:3, and 9:16 shooting. Rokid’s pitch is obvious and smart: content should be ready for Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube the moment it is captured, without cropping or post-editing. The glasses also support voice interaction in 12 languages and translation in 89, while adding head gestures and AI shortcuts for hands-free control. Nod to answer a call, shake your head to end it, ask for help in your own language, and keep moving.

All of this adds up to a company trying to define smart glasses less as a futuristic accessory and more as the next natural interface for AI. That is the real continuation of the Google Glass story. Google proved the cultural shock of putting a computer on your face. Rokid is trying to prove the quieter part, that wearability, prescription support, open AI access, and contextual software are what turn a provocative idea into a daily habit. The original dream never disappeared. It just needed lighter frames, better timing, and a company patient enough to spend twelve years building the version people might finally keep on.

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