Author Archives: JC Torres

REACH Is a Modular Sports GPS Computer Built to Snap Into Any Sport

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Athletes who used to buy a separate walkie-talkie, action camera, and wind meter for different pursuits are looking at a much lighter hardware bill these days. Motion Rivalry’s REACH folds all three into one modular sports GPS computer, snapping on whichever accessory a session calls for instead of stocking a shelf of standalone gadgets. The same unit adapts across cycling, rowing, kayaking, canoeing, and paragliding, with hardware you reconfigure instead of replace as training shifts from one discipline to the next.

The mechanism behind that swap is a single open-source connector at the top of the unit, accepting hardware modules in seconds rather than minutes of fumbling with tools. Instead of buying a new device for each need or sport, REACH treats its body as a base you keep building on, sport after sport. It’s less a finished gadget, more a foundation designed to grow alongside whatever discipline has your attention this season.

Designer: Motion Rivalry

Click Here to Buy Now: $359 $599 (40% off). Hurry, only a few left! Raised over $122,000.

Two of the four available modules handle situational awareness. The Walkie-Talkie module lets a coach on the riverbank stay in contact mid-session, working across 0.6 to 1.2 miles (1 to 2 kilometers) of line-of-sight range with multiple channels. The Radar module covers what’s coming around you, using 24GHz mmWave sensing to detect objects between 16 and 98 feet away across a 100-degree field of view.

The other two lean into documentation and conditions. A Camera module records 1080p video at 60 frames per second from a rotatable, splash-resistant housing mounted where the head unit already sits, skipping a separate action-camera bracket. A Wind Meter module adds live wind speed readings down to 0.1 meters per second, along with humidity and temperature, numbers that matter more than they sound once you’re airborne.

Rowing, kayaking, and canoeing put REACH’s fastest sensors to work. A 10Hz multi-constellation GNSS (most sports GPS units run 1 to 5Hz) locks position ten times a second, catching velocity changes within a single stroke rather than average splits over a lap. A 200Hz 9-axis IMU tracks heading drift, turning a wandering line into a number a coach can correct. REACH folds both into a Stroke Quality score, and Legacy Mode keeps it comparable to existing benchmarks.

On a bike, REACH estimates cadence and power without external sensors. It tracks linear and angular acceleration from the pedaling motion, then fuses and normalizes those readings to amplify the unique signal of your stroke while filtering out road noise. The result is a stable cadence reading without the need for extra hardware, precise to about 4 inches (10 centimeters) of elevation change.

The 3.5-inch display lays out speed, gradient, distance, and training stress score in a format built for glancing down mid-ride. Power estimates follow that same sensor-fusion approach, translating the normalized motion signals into a wattage figure without ever needing a crank sensor or power pedal bolted to the frame, one less accessory to charge, pair, or lose track of before a ride.

The same unit that tracked stroke rate on a river can be strapped to a flight harness by afternoon. In paragliding mode, REACH runs a dedicated vario for climb and sink rates, layers terrain maps adjusted for wind, and predicts landing zones from live wind direction and speed. Every reading here works toward one goal, keeping a pilot ahead of conditions that shift by the minute.

Catching a thermal updraft mid-flight is one thing; marking it for next time is another. A single press on REACH saves that exact location to the map, ready for your next pass, future flights, or anyone else in the flying community using the same site. Fly the same ridge enough times, and what used to be guesswork turns into a precision heat map built entirely by pilots who’ve actually flown it.

That Legacy Mode feature earns its own mention outside of rowing, too. Coaches who’ve spent seasons building benchmarks around specific equipment don’t want new hardware that outputs numbers in an unfamiliar format, no matter how good those numbers are. By matching its readings to formats already in use, REACH slots into existing programs instead of asking a team to relearn how it measures progress.

That data doesn’t stay trapped on the screen. The dedicated companion app on iOS and Android pairs over Bluetooth LE for route planning, reviewing a session, and Over-the-Air firmware updates once you’re back on solid ground. Sessions export as .FIT, .GPX, or .CSV and sync directly to Strava, so switching to REACH doesn’t mean abandoning platforms already in use. With 24GB of onboard storage, five sports’ worth of sessions won’t fill it.

Every one of those features lives inside a 5.5-ounce (156-gram) shell wrapped around a 3.5-inch display that stays legible in direct sunlight. An IPX7 rating handles rain, spray, and cold, while a 2,900mAh battery delivers up to 26 hours per charge. A programmable RGB strip along the base, assignable to stroke rate, split, or heart rate, glows green when you’re in the zone and a different color when you drift out, proof that REACH treats hardware as just another surface for good design.

Click Here to Buy Now: $359 $599 (40% off). Hurry, only a few left! Raised over $122,000.

The post REACH Is a Modular Sports GPS Computer Built to Snap Into Any Sport first appeared on Yanko Design.

MetMo Eddy Makes Gravity Look Like It Changed Its Mind

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Watch a small metal ball drop through a tube, and normally that’s it; blink, and it’s over. But drop it through MetMo Eddy, and something strange happens: the fall stretches out, like gravity took a breath. This palm-sized copper cylinder is a precision-machined desk toy that turns a real electromagnetic effect into something you can hold, flip, and watch happen right in front of your eyes, no batteries required.

That slow-motion trick isn’t new; it’s just never looked this good on a desk. Back in 1855, physicist Léon Foucault noticed that moving a magnet near a conductive disc created currents that pushed back against the motion. He called them eddy currents, and engineers have used the same principle in brakes and sensors ever since. MetMo just gave it a much better home.

Designers: Sean Sykes & James Whitfield

Click Here to Buy Now: $109.

Here’s the simple version: as the magnet drops through the copper tube, it stirs up little loops of electrical current in the metal around it. Those currents create their own magnetic field, one that opposes the fall. Gravity is still very much in charge; it’s just arguing with physics on the way down. No motors, no gears, no hidden switches, just two materials doing what they’ve always done.

Copper does more than look good here, though it certainly does that too. It happens to be one of the most conductive non-magnetic metals around, which means it generates a stronger eddy current response than most alternatives could manage. That translates to a more pronounced, more watchable slowdown. It also happens to give Eddy that warm, rose-toned glow that looks better on a desk than aluminum or steel could.

Every tube starts as a solid block of lead-free, ultra-high-purity copper before it’s CNC-machined to tolerances tight enough to bring the inner wall almost, but not quite, into contact with the magnetic sphere. That tiny gap matters: the closer the copper sits to the magnet, the stronger the eddy current effect, and the smoother the drop looks. Designed and finished by hand in the UK, the machining is the point.

Pick it up and the size makes sense immediately: just under 3 inches tall, less than an inch wide, and just 3 ounces, enough heft to feel substantial without weighing down a pocket. Knurled caps on both ends give your fingers something to grip, while the smooth, brushed middle section contrasts nicely against them. It’s the kind of detail that separates a toy from an object somebody actually designed.

A passivated surface finish keeps the copper looking freshly machined for longer, slowing down the natural oxidation that usually dulls exposed metal within weeks. Eddy will still age the way copper ages, gradually and with character, but it won’t need constant polishing to stay presentable on a desk. It’s a small, easy-to-miss detail, but it’s the sort of thing that tells you somebody thought this through past the prototype stage.

Maybe the most underrated part is that it makes zero noise. No click, no rattle, no thud when the magnet reaches the bottom, just silence. Flip it over, and the drop starts again, and before long that one-handed flip becomes a habit your fingers pick up between emails or during a call. It’s less a fidget toy and more a five-second reset button that happens to double as desk decor.

An elongated window cut into the tube lets you watch the magnet fall instead of guessing what’s happening inside, and that visibility is what makes the whole effect land. Unscrew either end cap, and there are a few different ways to drop and catch the ball. For a longer drop, a small coupling piece threads two tubes together end to end, without changing anything about how the effect works.

Some desk objects need explaining before anyone appreciates them. Eddy doesn’t. Hand it to someone, let them drop the magnet once, and watch their eyebrows go up when it takes way longer to fall than it should. That reaction doesn’t really wear off with repetition either, which says something about how good the underlying idea is, dressed up in copper and finished by hand.

Click Here to Buy Now: $109.

The post MetMo Eddy Makes Gravity Look Like It Changed Its Mind first appeared on Yanko Design.

AFTERSHOCK Built a $14,200 Gaming PC Where 70 Petals Bloom With Heat

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Every gaming PC eventually reveals itself under load, fans spinning up, temperatures climbing, a quiet admission that something demanding is happening inside the case. Most builders spend their whole budget trying to hide that moment. AFTERSHOCK built an entire machine around celebrating it instead, planting a cherry blossom tree inside the chassis that physically opens its petals as the hardware gets hotter.

Seventy individual blossoms make up that tree, each one hand-formed and hand-painted from a titanium alloy engineered to react directly to heat. There’s no motor tucked behind the branches, no RGB lighting faking the motion, and no firmware quietly triggering an animation on cue. The metal itself just responds, curling open as the system’s internal temperature rises during a demanding session and folding shut again once things cool back down.

Designer: AFTERSHOCK

That mechanical honesty changes what “thermal performance” even means to look at. Most cooling systems exist purely to be invisible, judged only by numbers on a monitoring app nobody but the owner ever sees. Here, the exact opposite instinct wins out. Push the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and the Zotac RTX 5080 inside it through a genuinely demanding game, and the payoff is a slow, visible bloom happening in real time behind the glass.

AFTERSHOCK’s own demo reportedly shows the tree sitting fully closed at a resting 18°C, which suggests the blossoms don’t wait for some dramatic thermal spike before reacting. They likely ease open gradually as load builds, tracking the system’s actual temperature curve rather than snapping into a single dramatic pose. Idle back down to a lighter task, and the tree presumably eases shut again right along with it.

None of that sculpture would matter much sealed inside an opaque box, so the whole build sits inside an APNX V2 chassis wrapped in glass across a full 270 degrees. It’s a deliberate choice, given how little most case designers bother with rear or side visibility once a build is finished and pushed against a desk. This one seems built to be walked around and watched from nearly any angle in the room.

Underneath the sculpture sits a genuinely capable rig rather than a showpiece with hollow specs. Sixty-four gigabytes of DDR5-6000 memory, a 2TB PCIe Gen4 SSD, and a 1300W Platinum power supply all point to a machine with real upgrade headroom beyond its current configuration. A custom open-loop liquid cooling system handles the actual thermal load quietly, doing the unglamorous work that lets the titanium blossoms take the visible credit instead.

At roughly $14,200, converted from the AU$19,995 asking price, the Cherry Bloom is available to order now rather than teased as a future concept. That price does not include shipping, and next-business-day dispatch confirms this is a real commercial build rather than a one-off showpiece kept behind glass at a trade show somewhere.

Most of that cost is clearly going toward 70 hand-finished metal petals and the engineering needed to make them react correctly, not toward the Ryzen chip or graphics card sitting underneath. It’s a strange kind of luxury, paying handsomely for a gaming PC’s exhaust heat to finally look like something worth watching.

The post AFTERSHOCK Built a $14,200 Gaming PC Where 70 Petals Bloom With Heat first appeared on Yanko Design.

Microsoft Just Proved Purple Belongs on a Windows Laptop for Good

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Tech companies test colors the way restaurants test seasonal menu items, quietly, without much commitment, ready to pull them the moment sales dip. Purple laptops have a well-documented habit of disappearing after one product cycle, treated as a marketing flourish rather than a real option. Microsoft’s new Surface Pro 12-inch didn’t get that memo, and Violet is back for a second round, sitting right next to Black and Platinum like it’s always belonged there.

That decision matters more than a simple colorway refresh might suggest. Thin, light ARM-powered computers have spent years arguing their case through spec sheets and battery charts, rarely through how they actually look sitting on a desk. Keeping an unconventional color alive into a second generation signals that Microsoft sees Surface Pro’s audience as people who want a personal object, not just a workstation that happens to be portable enough to carry around.

Designer: Microsoft

The Surface Laptop 13-inch picks up its own version of that same instinct, adding a new Black finish this generation rather than leaving the lineup untouched. Paired with Violet’s return on the Pro, the two devices read less like a spec bump and more like a coordinated argument that thin-and-light Windows hardware doesn’t need to hide behind gray and silver anymore. It’s the same instinct driving Apple’s increasingly colorful MacBook lineup, arriving here in a slightly different shade.

Underneath that color story sits a chip that’s quietly doing more legitimizing work than any past Snapdragon generation. The Snapdragon X2 Plus processor powers both machines, and Microsoft’s own pitch leans hard into what that architecture unlocks for on-device AI, work that runs locally instead of bouncing to a cloud server first. Lower latency, less dependence on a constant connection, and less of a user’s data leaving the machine at all are the actual selling points buried under the marketing language.

That local-processing pitch only means something if the hardware around it earns trust too. Both machines lean on the same fanless, quiet-running design language Surface has spent a decade refining, the kind of engineering that doesn’t announce itself until a laptop is still cool and silent six hours into a video call with a dozen tabs open behind it. The chip gets the credit, but the chassis is doing quieter work alongside it.

Surface Pro 12-inch keeps its tablet-first identity intact, staying thin, light, and fanless while the Surface Slim Pen tucks away magnetically on the body itself for whenever a sketch beats typing. A 25% brighter, 500-nit display makes a real difference outdoors or under harsh office lighting, the kind of upgrade that shows up in daily use rather than a spec sheet skim. An optional 5G configuration finally reaches this smaller form factor too, letting it stay connected without hunting for Wi-Fi in an unfamiliar office or airport lounge.

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Surface Laptop 13-inch takes the opposite approach to the same goal, choosing a full-size keyboard and a fixed clamshell shape over the Pro’s shape-shifting flexibility. It’s built for the version of a workday spent moving between long documents and long meetings rather than switching between sketching and typing every few minutes. Rated at 22.5 hours of battery life, it’s built to survive a full day away from an outlet, no charger bag necessary.

None of this erases the fact that ARM-based Windows machines still occasionally trip over older desktop software that was never built with a phone-style chip in mind. What’s changed is how rarely that trips up an actual workday now, compared to how loudly it used to. Snapdragon silicon has quietly moved from an experiment tolerated for its battery life into an architecture Microsoft is willing to build its two most portable machines around, purple casing included.

The post Microsoft Just Proved Purple Belongs on a Windows Laptop for Good first appeared on Yanko Design.

Keyboards Work for Both Hands, the New Surface Mouse Finally Does Too

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Most mice quietly assume something about the person using them. Right-handed by default, with a thumb shelf that only makes sense from one side, they’ve trained an entire industry to treat left-handed users as an edge case worth a smaller, cheaper afterthought. Microsoft’s new Surface Mouse skips that assumption entirely, building its whole shape around a hand that could belong to anyone, reaching for it from either direction without penalty.

That ambidextrous body is the quiet headline here, a decade after the original Surface Mouse debuted alongside the Surface Studio in 2016. The contoured shell curves the same way no matter which hand picks it up, trimming the fatigue that comes from a grip built for someone else. It’s compact enough to travel light, but shaped with enough intention that all-day desk sessions stop feeling like a negotiation between wrist and plastic.

Designer: Microsoft

Underneath that shape sits a small vibration motor doing work most mice leave entirely to the eyes. Windows 11 recently gained native support for haptic feedback, and this mouse is built to use it, translating clicks, window-snapping, and object alignment in apps like PowerPoint or Affinity into a faint physical pulse. Nudge a shape into place during a layout session, and a small, deliberate buzz confirms the alignment landed, without forcing a glance away from the canvas.

That feedback loop matters most in the moments a screen alone can’t fully confirm. Dragging a photo into a grid, snapping a window to a monitor’s edge, or rotating an object into a precise angle all produce a matching pulse under the palm, a second channel of confirmation running alongside sight. It’s a small addition, but one aimed squarely at the seconds spent double-checking work that already looked done.

A dedicated action button sits within reach of the thumb, defaulting to a one-press Copilot summon but open to reassignment through the Surface app. Press, hold, or double-click can each trigger something different: a launch shortcut, a workflow macro, whatever a given desk setup actually needs. It’s a small piece of real estate turned into a personal command, rather than one more button doing the one thing it was told to do at the factory.

Bluetooth 6.0 lets the mouse hold a connection to three devices simultaneously, sliding between a laptop, a tablet, and a desktop without a re-pairing ritual each time. Two AAA batteries handle power, rated for roughly six months before a swap. 30% recycled content runs through its shell, a modest but real step up from the plastics used in the Surface Arc Mouse and the older Surface Precision Mouse.

Positioned next to those two existing accessories, this new mouse reads less like a replacement and more like a third personality added to the Surface input family. The Arc still folds flat for a bag; the Precision still courts the spreadsheet crowd with extra thumb buttons. This one carves out the daily-driver role, the mouse meant to just sit on a desk and disappear into whichever hand happens to need it that day.

The post Keyboards Work for Both Hands, the New Surface Mouse Finally Does Too first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Hisense U7SG TV Was Built for Bright Rooms, Not Dark Showrooms

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Despite what showroom demos suggest, nobody actually watches TV in a blacked-out room with the blinds drawn. Real living rooms have windows, afternoon sun, and someone walking in front of the screen mid-game. The Hisense U7SG seems to understand that, building its picture quality around the messy, bright rooms people actually watch in, not the dark theater fantasy TVs are usually sold on.

That starts with the panel itself. Thousands of MiniLEDs pack behind the screen, each one controlled with enough precision that bright highlights and deep blacks sit right next to each other without either blowing out. Hisense calls it MiniLED Pro with Full Array Local Dimming, but what it means is a sunset scene doesn’t wash out and a night scene doesn’t turn into a gray, murky mess.

Designer: Hisense

Click Here to Buy Now: $690 $1280 (47% off). Hurry, deal ends in 48-hours!

None of that matters much if the picture disappears under glare the moment the sun hits the window, which is where the anti-reflection layer earns its keep. Hisense uses a dual-layer screen treatment that goes further than the usual single-layer coating most TVs rely on, so afternoon light, overhead fixtures, and that one lamp nobody turns off stop being the enemy of a clear picture.

Motion is where a lot of TVs quietly fall apart once a game picks up speed. A native 165Hz refresh rate paired with Hisense’s own motion processing keeps fast breaks, corner kicks, and quick camera pans from turning into smeared pixels. It’s a small thing until you notice its absence, the kind of detail that only becomes obvious once a cheaper TV can’t keep up.

Gamers get their own reason to care. Game Booster 330 uses HSR technology to push refresh rates up to 330Hz VRR for smoother motion and less input lag, and the on-screen Game Bar lets you check FPS, VRR, and HDR settings without pausing whatever you’re playing. Four HDMI 2.1 ports also mean nobody argues over which console gets the good input, since all four handle 4K at 165Hz.

Color gets the same careful treatment. Hisense’s Hi-QLED panel is Pantone validated, which sounds like a checkbox until you notice how natural team uniforms, grass, and skin tones actually look instead of oversaturated. Add support for Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and IMAX Enhanced, and the U7SG stops caring what format your content showed up in. It just plays it, accurately, without asking you to think about it.

Sound tends to be an afterthought on most TVs, but not here. A 2.1.2 multi-channel setup tuned by Devialet pushes up to 60W across the room, with Dolby Atmos adding height overhead. Dialogue stays clear over crowd noise, commentary carries over stadium chatter, and reaching for a soundbar remote doesn’t feel as urgent as it usually would on a new television.

Google TV runs the show on the software side, now with Gemini built in for conversational searches instead of typing clumsy keyword strings. Ask it what to watch, and it pulls from more than 10,000 apps, or describe a vague mood and let it figure out the rest. It also answers questions on sports, cooking, or travel, a strange but welcome bonus for a television.

The U7SG also comes in sizes ranging from 55 inches up to 116 inches, which changes what the TV is for. A smaller set fits quietly into an apartment, but the larger ones turn into the obvious gathering point for a watch party or a family movie night, with a screen big enough that everyone feels like they got the good seat.

There was a time when getting all of this in one TV meant paying flagship prices for it. Hisense has spent the last few years chipping away at that assumption, one MiniLED generation at a time, and the U7SG is what that effort looks like now: a set that doesn’t force a choice between how bright your room gets and how good the picture looks in it.

Click Here to Buy Now: $690 $1280 (47% off). Hurry, deal ends in 48-hours!

The post The Hisense U7SG TV Was Built for Bright Rooms, Not Dark Showrooms first appeared on Yanko Design.

Flashstor 6 Gen2 Review: NAS Boxes Hide, This One Belongs on Your Desk

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PROS:


  • Distinctive, futuristic aesthetic and compact design

  • Powerful specs and fast data transfer speeds

  • Quiet operation even with two fans

  • Six M.2 slots with possible HDD expansion

CONS:


  • Only fits M.2 2280 size

  • Premium pricing

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

The Flashstor 6 Gen2 delivers a powerful and modern NAS solution that doesn't need to be hidden away behind a monitor.
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Network storage boxes rarely earn a second glance, usually parked out of sight because nobody wants a black box cluttering the desk. The Flashstor 6 Gen2 changes that expectation on sight. ASUSTOR’s second-generation all-flash NAS wears an angled, faceted shell that reads more like a compact game console than a file server, all while housing six NVMe bays and 10GbE networking underneath its sculpted plastic body.

This is the follow-up to ASUSTOR’s original Flashstor 6, and the internals show a genuine generational jump. An AMD Ryzen Embedded processor, DDR5 memory, and PCIe Gen4 support replace the older, more modest hardware inside. Built with creatives, home lab tinkerers, and small studios in mind, the FS6806X invites judgment on more than raw speed, asking to be evaluated on how it looks and feels in daily use.

Designer: ASUSTOR

Aesthetics

The shell makes the boldest first impression. Rather than the usual squared-off box, ASUSTOR shaped the Flashstor 6 Gen2 with a slanted, almost parallelogram-like profile that leans to the side at an angle. That single geometric choice gives the whole unit a sense of motion even while sitting still on a shelf, setting it apart from nearly every other storage enclosure on the market today.

Look closer, and the finish adds even more character. One side of the enclosure wears a brushed metal effect, while the other carries a powder-coated texture, and the contrast between the two reads as a deliberate styling choice rather than an accident. Both finishes sit on a plastic shell rather than actual metal, so the material change is really just a clever coating trick.

A set of lines and grooves wraps from the front panel around to one side, and that detail carries most of the futuristic feel the design is going for. It breaks up what could have been a plain surface without resorting to loud branding or extra vents. Combined with the angled face and lighting, the overall impression lands closer to a gaming console than anything typically found on a NAS shelf.

Ergonomics

Size-wise, the Flashstor 6 Gen2 measures about 7.6 x 12.1 x 1.9 inches and weighs roughly 3.1 lbs, closer to a thick external drive than a typical NAS tower. Because every bay holds an SSD instead of a spinning disk, there’s no vibration and barely any audible hum, which makes it far easier to justify keeping the unit somewhere visible instead of banished to a closet or a rack in another room.

Getting inside isn’t as effortless as the sleek shell suggests. Reaching the M.2 slots means removing four screws on the bottom panel, though ASUSTOR doesn’t include a screwdriver in the box, so keep one handy. Once that panel is off, though, the slots themselves use a simple latch system, no tools needed to seat or remove an SSD. Getting to the RAM means removing even more screws, so that part takes a bit longer.

Connectivity tells a similar story of tradeoffs. Up front, there’s a single USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 port for quick backups or grabbing files off an external drive. Everything else, including both USB4 Type-C ports, sits on the rear panel alongside the 10GbE jack, which means anyone who frequently swaps cables will be reaching around the back a lot. It’s a small inconvenience that trades off for a cleaner, less cluttered front face.

Performance

Underneath the shell sits an AMD Ryzen Embedded V3C14, a quad-core, eight-thread chip built on a 6-nanometer process with speeds reaching 3.8GHz, well ahead of the entry-level chips found in cheaper NAS boxes. It ships with 8GB of DDR5-4800 memory, expandable to 64GB across two SO-DIMM slots, and the platform supports ECC modules for anyone who upgrades, a detail that speaks to how seriously ASUSTOR treated the internals.

All six bays are built for M.2 NVMe drives running up to PCIe Gen4 x4, so there’s no bottleneck between the interface and the drive itself. Worth noting, the slots only fit the 2280 form factor, so shorter 2230, 2242, or 2260 drives can’t be mounted. Once populated, drives can be arranged into RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, or 10, formatted in either EXT4 or Btrfs.

That storage speed only matters if the network keeps pace, and the single 10GbE port earns its place here. Our own testing came close to ASUSTOR’s advertised figures, nearing 1,180 MB/s of sequential read/write in RAID 5 over that connection. The two USB4 Type-C ports add another route, offering up to 40Gbps per port for direct, network-free transfers.

One other significant upgrade from the Flashstor 6 gen2’s predecessor is the addition of a second cooling fan under the CPU. Given the higher processing power, that upgraded thermal management is very much warranted. But even with two fans, the NAS runs quiet, barely a murmur, adding to the appeal of putting the box somewhere visible yet unheard.

Software runs through ASUSTOR Data Master or ADM, the company’s operating system, with access to an app store covering everything from Docker containers to backup tools and media servers. If you ever decide to repurpose the NAS into a security hub someday, a handful of free surveillance camera channels will make that easier. The ADM also lets you control the speed of the fans, in case you prefer to sacrifice a bit of quiet for more aggressive cooling. And when six bays start to feel limiting, expansion units push the drive count up to 18, letting the platform grow past its footprint.

Sustainability

Going all-flash brings a few sustainability perks that are easy to miss at first glance. There are no spinning platters to wear down over years of use, less heat generated during typical workloads, and lower power draw than a comparable hard-drive NAS running the same hours. Support for ECC memory adds another layer of protection, catching data corruption before it becomes a bigger problem down the line.

The shell itself is plastic rather than metal, and it does flex a bit under pressure, a reminder of where costs were trimmed to keep the price reasonable. That’s not a huge deal-breaker, though it’s probably time for manufacturers to be more conscious of the materials they use, especially with storage solutions like NAS becoming more common even in personal use.

Value

The Flashstor 6 Gen2 sits in premium territory once six NVMe drives get factored into the total cost, and it doesn’t pretend otherwise. At roughly $1,040.99 for the box alone, this isn’t a budget pick for someone who just wants basic file backup. The cost reflects the Ryzen platform, expandable memory, PCIe Gen4 support, USB4 ports, and 10GbE networking, all wrapped in a shell that looks intentional rather than purely utilitarian.

What makes that cost easier to accept is how consistently current every component feels. The processor, memory, storage interface, and networking are all genuinely up to date rather than propped up by one flashy spec while everything else lags behind. That balance means the storage never waits on the processor, and the network never becomes the bottleneck holding back six fast drives working together.

The people who get the most out of this are already running 10GbE networks, working with large creative files, or tinkering with containers and light virtualization. Anyone still on a 1GbE home setup with modest storage needs would leave a lot of this hardware idle, and a simpler hard-drive NAS would likely serve them better per terabyte spent. Matching the buyer to the platform matters here.

Verdict

Taken as a whole, the Flashstor 6 Gen2 pulls off something a lot of NAS makers don’t even attempt: hardware that’s current, wrapped in a shell that looks like someone in the design department actually cared. The rear-heavy port layout and screw-bound drive access take some getting used to, and the plastic build has a bit of give to it, but neither issue undercuts what ASUSTOR built here.

Creators, home lab tinkerers, and anyone assembling a fast, quiet storage setup will find hardware that keeps pace with its own ambitions in the FS6806X. It asks for a commitment of both budget and desk space, but in return it hands back a machine that doesn’t need to be hidden away behind a monitor. Few storage boxes manage to earn a place in plain sight quite like this one does.

The post Flashstor 6 Gen2 Review: NAS Boxes Hide, This One Belongs on Your Desk first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Mark II Turns a Bookmark Into a Second Memory for Readers

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A bookmark’s only job has stayed the same for centuries: hold a place in a book, then disappear the moment reading stops. The Mark II asks that same humble object to do considerably more, turning a strip of aluminum and plastic into a scanner, a voice recorder, and a running archive of everything a reader decides is worth keeping between two covers.

The system splits into two physical pieces working together. A slim bookmark stays tucked inside the book itself, marking the page the same way a scrap of paper always has. A separate highlighter piece does the actual capturing, gliding across a printed line to scan it, or getting pressed once to start recording a spoken thought before it slips away entirely.

Designer: Eason Tang

That scanning works across both paper and screens, reading handwriting in more than 100 languages just as easily as printed type. Nothing about the process asks a reader to break stride mid-page. The housing itself uses premium aluminum paired with ABS in a double-injection unibody build, a construction choice meant to survive being dropped, shelved, and carried in a bag daily without cracking.

Battery life is advertised to stretch across roughly a week of regular reading before needing a recharge, topped back up through a standard USB-C cable rather than a proprietary dock. Every scan and recording is designed to land automatically inside the companion app, sorted by book, topic, or the moment it was captured, turning scattered notes into something that can actually be searched back through months later instead of forgotten in a drawer.

Half-remembered quotes get their own dedicated search, pulling back a fragment along with its original source rather than leaving someone to reread an entire chapter hunting for one line. A chat feature goes further, answering questions using only what’s actually been captured. It won’t invent a passage never highlighted or summarize a book never opened, a deliberate limit rather than a missing capability.

None of this demands abandoning tools already in use elsewhere. Captured highlights sync directly to Notion and Readwise, while a one-click import pulls existing notes from Obsidian or Apple Notes into the same catalog instead of starting from zero. That migration matters for anyone who’s already built years of scattered notes across three different apps and never quite trusted any of them.

A research binge across a stack of library books usually ends with sticky notes multiplying on every page, half of them falling out before a deadline arrives. Sliding the highlighter across a passage instead replaces that entire ritual with one motion, leaving behind a searchable, sourced record rather than a pile of paper scraps nobody can match back to the right page.

The device will ship in white or black, priced at $159, with availability starting in the US and Canada before expanding further. That price positions Mark II closer to a premium accessory than a casual gadget, a bet that readers serious enough to annotate books by hand will pay for a tool built specifically around that habit instead of a generic note-taking app.

The post The Mark II Turns a Bookmark Into a Second Memory for Readers first appeared on Yanko Design.

Samsung’s 85-Inch Screen Made Convention Visitors Think It Was Real

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A convention booth usually announces itself with a flat screen bolted to a wall, competing for attention against a hundred identical setups doing the same thing. Samsung’s Spatial Signage skips that entirely, using glasses-free 3D technology to make a single 85-inch panel look less like a display and more like a window into somewhere else. At Tokyo Game Show 2026, that window happened to open straight into the world of an upcoming fantasy RPG.

The trick behind it is Samsung’s patented 3D Plate technology, engineered to create genuine visual depth without asking anyone to put on glasses or a headset first. Characters from Astrae Oratio appeared to occupy real physical space rather than sit flat behind glass, convincing enough that some visitors reportedly assumed there was something solid mounted behind the screen itself, only to realize afterward it was a single flat panel doing all the work.

Designer: Samsung

That illusion matters most in the exact moment a convention booth usually wastes: the wait in line. Fans standing outside an exhibit rarely have anything worth their attention beyond a poster or a looping trailer, dead time that adds up across a four-day show. Placing a lifelike character directly in that queue turns idle waiting into part of the experience itself, giving people a reason to record it, share it, and stay curious before ever stepping inside.

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Slim physical dimensions make that placement possible in booths that were never designed around bulky hardware. Traditional volumetric or holographic displays tend to demand deep enclosures, dark rooms, or dedicated staging, none of which convention floors have room to spare. A flat panel thin enough to mount like ordinary signage sidesteps that constraint entirely, letting a booth designer drop genuine spatial depth into a footprint no larger than a normal screen would need.

That thinness also changes how quickly a booth can actually go up and come down. A four-day convention leaves little room for elaborate rigging or custom enclosures built just for one display technology. Something that mounts and behaves like a standard panel means setup crews can treat it the same way they’d treat any other screen, without scheduling extra time for specialized installation.

None of this stays confined to gaming conventions either. Samsung has signaled plans to bring Spatial Signage into retail spaces and pop-up shops, environments that share the exact same problem convention booths do: limited square footage and a need to grab attention fast. A flagship store window or a pop-up activation could use the same glasses-free depth to make a product or character feel present without demanding a renovation to fit it in.

A retail window built this way wouldn’t need mannequins or physical props stacked behind glass to suggest presence. The screen itself would carry that weight, switching between campaigns or characters as easily as updating a video file, something a physical display window can never do without tearing everything down and starting over.

Resolution numbers and brightness specs rarely explain why a display actually gets noticed on a crowded show floor. What Spatial Signage changes is simpler than any of that: a flat panel now does a job that used to require carving out actual volume from a room. Getting someone to briefly believe a character is standing there changes what people expect the next screen they walk past to do.

The post Samsung’s 85-Inch Screen Made Convention Visitors Think It Was Real first appeared on Yanko Design.

The Gennai Pen SL01 Is Closer to Clockwork Than Stationery

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Press a button on most pens, and you get ink. Press the lever on the Gennai Pen SL01, though, and you get mechanical theater instead. This stainless steel ballpoint, designed by Japanese artist Hidetoshi Nakayama and built by TACTICALGEEK, swaps the usual click-to-retract routine for a lever borrowed from telegraph keys. It’s a pen that behaves like a tiny machine, and that’s exactly the point.

Nakayama built his reputation on a specific look: mechanical steampunk, heavy on exposed screws, stacked metal layers, and hardware that seems pulled from a 19th-century workshop. His pieces are usually handmade in tiny batches, making them rare. The Gennai Pen SL01 carries that same visual DNA into a pocket-sized body, without smoothing over the rough, industrial edges that make his work recognizable.

Designer: Hidetoshi Nakayama and TACTICALGEEK

Click Here to Buy Now: $189 $259 ($70 off). Hurry, only 60/299 left! Raised over $94,000.

TACTICALGEEK doesn’t simply slap a designer’s name onto a stock pen body. This marks the studio’s first project with Nakayama, and the brief was straightforward: keep his mechanical quirks intact while running the design through proper EDC engineering. That meant precision CNC machining, careful material choices, and quality control that daily carry gear actually needs. The result reads like a handshake between an artist and a toolmaker.

Up top, the SL01 behaves like a normal ballpoint. Push the button and the refill snaps forward with a crisp, satisfying click, the kind that tells you the stroke landed cleanly. It’s the familiar half of the experience, the part that reminds you this is still a pen you can grab and write with without a second thought. That familiarity matters, because it sets up the surprise waiting on the side of the barrel.

That surprise is a lever styled after old telegraph keys, mounted on the body. Press it lightly and the refill retreats with a smooth, weighted motion, closer to flipping a switch than clicking a pen. Push to extend, press the lever to retract, and you’ve got a full mechanical loop most pens never offer. Even with no ink extended, the lever still clicks under a thumb.

The pocket clip keeps that mechanical mindset going, instead of settling for a plain spring strip. Press the top of the clip and the lower section swings open, ready to slide onto a pocket edge, bag strap, or EDC organizer. Let go, and it locks shut on its own. It’s a small detail, but it shows the design team didn’t reserve the mechanical theatrics for one part of the pen.

Underneath the theatrics is a body machined from solid stainless steel, the same grade Nakayama favors in his own handmade work. After CNC machining, each unit gets hand-chamfered and polished at the edges, which explains why the details feel crisp instead of sharp against skin. The finished pen runs about 3.8 inches long and about 0.4 inches across the barrel, widening to roughly 0.9 inches at the telegraph key, and weighs about 2.2 ounces.

None of this mechanical flair comes at the cost of writing well. The SL01 takes standard Parker-style G2 refills, so swapping in a favorite ink takes seconds and opens a wide pool of options. It ships with a Schmidt P900M cartridge already loaded, a refill known for smooth, consistent ink flow. That combination keeps the pen in daily-tool territory, not shelf-piece territory.

Beyond the natural stainless finish, TACTICALGEEK offers a Cerakote ceramic coating that adds wear resistance and a muted, field-ready tone. A separate Timascus version introduces layered metal with natural color variation, so no two pieces look quite alike. At the top sits a set of hand-engraved editions crafted by artist Xunmu, featuring 24-karat gold inlay set into carved surfaces, turning the barrel into a small sculpture in its own right.

TACTICALGEEK backs every SL01 with a lifetime warranty, covering free repairs for damage that turns up under normal use, an unusual commitment for something built around this many moving parts. Carry it long enough, and the novelty fades into muscle memory: push to write, press to put away, flip the clip without thinking. Somewhere in that repetition, the pen stops feeling like a gadget and starts feeling like a habit.

Click Here to Buy Now: $189 $259 ($70 off). Hurry, only 60/299 left! Raised over $94,000.

The post The Gennai Pen SL01 Is Closer to Clockwork Than Stationery first appeared on Yanko Design.