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Turtle Beach’s Command Series puts touchscreens right where your hands already are
Touchscreens have been quietly making their way into almost everything around us. From car dashboards to kitchen appliances, the tap-and-swipe interface that once defined smartphones has spread into nearly every product category imaginable. It’s reached a point where finding a device without a screen feels more unusual than finding one with it. Designers just keep finding new surfaces to embed them on.
Turtle Beach’s all-new Command Series is the latest proof of that. The lineup includes, among other things, two keyboards, the KB7 and the KB5, plus a wireless mouse, the MC7, each with an embedded Command Touch Display. For gamers, streamers, and multitaskers who are constantly juggling tasks at once, having a dedicated control surface right where your hands already rest makes for a genuinely practical setup.
Designer: Turtle Beach
The KB7 is the flagship, a tenkeyless board with a 4.3-inch Command Touch Display built into it. Think of it as a Stream Deck fused onto your keyboard, letting you swap profiles, trigger macros, manage audio, or push OBS scene changes with a tap. For streamers bouncing between a game and broadcast software, it removes a good chunk of extra hardware and window-switching.
Its Titan low-profile Hall Effect switches have adjustable actuation down to 0.1mm with Rapid Trigger support, and the keyboard runs at an 8K polling rate with 0.125ms latency. The slim 29mm chassis is aluminum-reinforced, with double-shot PBT keycaps, textured WASD keys, and an illuminated detachable wrist rest. Dual modular rails let you dock the KP7 add-on keypad for an expanded layout. The KB7 is priced at $199.99.
The KB5 is the full-size option at $149.99, offering the numpad that the KB7 leaves out. Its touchscreen shrinks to 2.4 inches but still handles OBS integration, profile switching, and macro control. Titan low-profile mechanical switches actuate at 1.2mm, backed by ReacTap technology for faster resets. Five dedicated macro keys, a detachable wrist rest, and 8K polling round it all out.
Then there’s the MC7, the device that makes you look twice. It’s a wireless gaming mouse with its own 2.25-inch touchscreen, and it works much the same as the keyboard displays. On the fly, you can adjust DPI, switch between five onboard profiles, mute your mic, or trigger OBS scene changes without breaking your grip or pulling your attention away from whatever’s on your screen.
Under the hood, the MC7 has the Owl-Eye 30K DPI optical sensor, Titan Optical switches, and tri-mode connectivity across 2.4GHz wireless, Bluetooth, and USB wired. Two hot-swappable 1000mAh batteries with a charging dock keep it running indefinitely, with each cell lasting up to 10 hours. It’s priced at $159.99 and launches globally on July 19, 2026, two months after the keyboards.
All three are already up for pre-order at turtlebeach.com. Together, the KB7, KB5, and MC7 form an ecosystem built on the idea that the peripherals you hold every day can surface controls without making you reach for anything else. Touchscreens have ended up in some strange places over the years, but a mouse grip might actually be one of the more intuitive ones.
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The OnePlus Ace 6 Ultra Finally Fixes the Thumbs-on-Screen Problem
Mobile gaming has come a long way from simple puzzle games and endless runners. Today’s smartphones can run graphically demanding titles at high frame rates, rivaling dedicated gaming hardware in raw power. But the way we actually control these games hasn’t kept pace. Playing shooters on a touchscreen has always meant thumbs blocking the very action they’re trying to aim at.
Gaming phones like the OnePlus Ace series have tried to bridge that gap with cutting-edge chips, cooling systems, and specialized gaming software. These upgrades help, but they don’t solve the fundamental issue of using glass as a controller. The Ace 6 Ultra changes that approach entirely by pairing with a snap-on accessory called the Gun God Game Controller, designed specifically for competitive shooter titles.
Designer: OnePlus
OnePlus calls the combined setup the “Gun God Handheld,” a new category somewhere between a smartphone and a portable gaming console. The controller is a lightweight shell that the phone snaps into, giving the whole rig a contoured, comfortable grip built for extended sessions. The multi-finger controls relocate to the back, clearing the screen and keeping the player’s field of view unobstructed.
That involves four physical back buttons: two bumpers (L1 and R1) and two triggers (L2 and R2). The thumbs stay on the screen for movement and aiming, while extra fingers take over shooting and special moves. All four are fully customizable, and OnePlus describes this as a “Touch × Button Fusion” that preserves the game’s native touchscreen logic while layering physical input on top.
What sets those buttons apart is what’s inside them. The micro-mechanical switches have a 1,000Hz polling rate and a 1.8ms response time, which means the gap between pressing a trigger and registering the action is almost imperceptible. A built-in esports antenna helps maintain a stable signal during play, which matters when a moment of lost connection is enough to throw off a well-timed shot.
Long gaming sessions bring heat, and the controller doesn’t ignore that. It includes a built-in heat spreader along with a magnetic suction cooling fan for sustained thermal performance. A USB-C port along the bottom keeps charging available while playing, so the battery isn’t a concern mid-session. Together, these let you push through long sessions without the heat-related slowdowns that typically creep in on demanding mobile titles.
Backing all of this is the OnePlus Ace 6 Ultra itself, which runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chipset. Its GPU is 33% faster than the previous generation, with 120 FPS gameplay support and ray tracing for a more visually immersive experience. An 8,600mAh battery with 120W fast charging handles the power demands, ensuring the phone itself keeps up with the hardware strapped to its back.
The Gun God Controller and Ace 6 Ultra launch together in China on April 28, with no confirmed global release date. For mobile gamers who’ve long wished their phone felt more like a proper handheld, this combo is a genuinely interesting answer. It’s still a phone when you need it to be, and something far more deliberate when the game demands it.
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The Couch Keyboard Has Been Bad for Years and Framework Just Fixed It
If you’ve spent any time using a home theater PC from the couch, you’ve probably already met the Logitech K400 Plus. It’s been the go-to couch keyboard for years, not because it’s particularly good, but because nothing better has come along. The touchpad is cramped, the keys feel cheap, and anyone who’s used one knows it’s a device you tolerate rather than enjoy.
Framework ran into this same frustration while developing and testing the Framework Desktop for living room use. Their team kept reaching for the same underwhelming keyboard until they decided to stop tolerating it and build something better. The Framework Wireless Touchpad Keyboard is the result, borrowing the same keyboard and touchpad design from Framework’s laptops and packaging them into a compact wireless unit.
Designer: Framework
The keys use the same chiclet-style, low-profile design as Framework laptops, with 1.5mm of key travel and full 19mm key spacing. That’s a higher standard than this product category usually bothers with, and it shows in how the keyboard feels to type on, even while holding it in one hand. The slim body doesn’t sacrifice the typing experience for the sake of portability.
The touchpad is where this keyboard makes its most meaningful departure from what’s currently available. At 68.8 x 85.6mm, it’s a clickable Windows Precision Touchpad with full multi-touch gesture support for Windows and Linux alike. That’s the same touchpad architecture found in Framework’s laptops, which means the precision and responsiveness are genuinely comparable to what you’d expect from a proper laptop trackpad.
Connectivity covers everything you’d reasonably want. You can pair up to four devices simultaneously over Bluetooth, plug in via USB-C for a wired connection, or use the USB-A dongle, which stores neatly in a slot on the back of the keyboard. Framework is even developing a USB-A Adapter Expansion Card so the dongle can sit flush inside a Framework laptop or desktop.
For living room setups, having a touchpad built directly into the keyboard changes how you interact with everything on screen. Pulling up a browser, adjusting playback settings, or scrolling through a queue from across the room becomes far less awkward when you’re not hunting for a mouse on the coffee table. It’s a small shift in workflow that makes a noticeable difference in day-to-day comfort.
Sim racers who mount keyboards into cockpit frames will appreciate the integrated touchpad even more, since a separate mouse is barely practical there. Of course, Framework being Framework, the hardware is fully open-source, with design files already on GitHub. The firmware runs on ZMK, and the Control Board exposes 28 I/O pins for custom configurations, with Framework even offering the board free to developers who apply early.
The Framework Wireless Touchpad Keyboard is expected to ship later in 2026, with pricing still to be confirmed. It came from genuine frustration rather than a gap in a product roadmap, and that tends to show in the details. The couch keyboard category has been stuck with one mediocre option for far too long, and this one finally gives people something worth reaching for.
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This transparent glass foosball table at Milan Design Week looks straight out of a 2000s sci-fi movie
The early 2000s had a very clear idea of the future. Think of films like *Minority Report* with its PreCrime headquarters, all white rooms and glass interfaces where everything looked seamlessly bonded rather than bolted together. Or *I, Robot*, which pushed that look even further with its glossy USR tower and Audi concept car, a world that had erased any sign of how things were actually made. That aesthetic has aged remarkably well, but it’s a territory most game furniture never touches, usually favoring rich materials over making things look like they are barely there. Basaglia + Rota Nodari are the exception, and Ghost, their foosball table for FAS Pendezza, is the proof.
The table itself is built from thick tempered glass, laminated at 12 and 9 mm, with a playing field that’s 114.5 by 70.5 centimeters, and it’s made entirely in Italy. Its body is bonded with a special adhesive, so there are no visible screws or bolts anywhere in the frame. That’s a key decision, because if you saw hardware, the whole ghost-like vibe would fall apart. A clean, conical white metal base holds up the floating glass volume, while chrome rods and two-tone players complete a color scheme that’s intentionally minimal. At 8,900 euros, it’s priced as a piece of design, and it earns it on looks alone before a single ball gets dropped.
Designers: Basaglia + Rota Nodari for FAS Pendezza
Even the players, made of white and gray resin, look like they belong in this sci-fi world. They’re somewhere between a medical illustration and a concept-car sketch, simplified to the point of anonymity. That’s exactly why they work. If they were in conventional team colors, the table would feel like just another piece of recreational equipment. Instead, these figures feel closer to the NS-5 robots of *I, Robot* than to any real athlete, which helps keep the whole look clean and unified. The chrome coil springs connecting them to the rods are the one little nod to mechanical texture, and they look almost like jewelry against all that glass.
But what really captures you are the detailed shadows the Ghost projects on the floor, if paired with the right lighting. At Salone Satellite, Ghost casts an incredible wireframe shadow on the floor, like it’s drawing a blueprint of itself in real time. Pitch markings are printed beneath the crystal surface, so they appear to float inside the glass instead of sitting on top. From any angle in the FAS Pendezza booth, you can see right through the structure, with the players and chrome rods suspended against the room itself. The name makes perfect sense when you see it in person.
FAS Pendezza is presenting Ghost at Salone Satellite this week as part of Milan Design Week 2026, in a booth where the table’s shadow alone justifies the detour. Seeing it alongside the rest of the brand’s lineup confirms Ghost as a deliberate formal departure rather than FAS Pendezza’s default register. The studio, Basaglia Rota Nodari, launched in 1997 with a stated ambition to build objects that convey emotion beyond their function, and Ghost may be their sharpest expression of that intent to date. For those who have already left Milan, Ghost is available in white and black finishes and retails at €8,900.
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The Xbox Prototype That Cost $18K Now Takes Just a Spool of Filament
There are hardware designs from the early 2000s that still stop people cold, and the original Xbox prototype is near the top of that list. Revealed at GDC 2000 by Bill Gates and Seamus Blackley, it was a massive X carved from a single block of aluminum, reportedly costing around $18,000 per unit. It was a developer showcase piece that toured press conferences and wasn’t meant for production.
Tito of Macho Nacho Productions previously got as close as anyone has managed by building a functional aluminum replica, though the enclosure alone cost thousands of dollars in machining. It was impressive and historically faithful, but it wasn’t something you could attempt yourself. His new version takes the same idea and rebuilds it entirely around 3D printing, with accessibility as the primary goal.
Designer: Macho Nacho Productions/Nacho Engineering
The digital files are available through his online store, and the enclosure can be printed at home if you have a large enough machine, or sent off to a 3D printing service. It’s not a complicated sourcing challenge; different configurations accommodate different build approaches, giving hobbyists some flexibility in how they put it together. Either way, the barrier to entry has dropped considerably, which is the entire point.
Getting the shell printed in clear resin produces a glass-like finish the aluminum build never had, and the transparency turns the internal components into part of the visual appeal. More significantly, this version finally matches the true dimensions of the original GDC prototype, a distinction the previous aluminum replica couldn’t make. For anyone interested in historical accuracy, that’s the more meaningful improvement of the two.
The original prototype didn’t have much at the center of its X besides a small green light. The replica replaces that with a round Waveshare LCD driven by a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 paired with a DVI sock. That combination lets the Pico push video to the round display without additional hardware, a compact solution that gives the build a much more animated presence than the original’s glow ever managed.
What makes this genuinely interesting beyond nostalgia is how deliberately it was rebuilt for the modding community rather than as a personal showcase. The print-friendly engineering turns what was previously a one-of-a-kind machined object into something with a shared community standard. Hobbyists don’t need access to a machine shop anymore to own one; they just need a printer, some patience, and a donor Xbox motherboard.
The build runs the original Xbox motherboard inside the new shell, keeping its gaming credentials intact. A modern USB-C power solution replaces the original Xbox’s notoriously oversized power brick, freeing up internal volume that the X-shaped enclosure genuinely needs. It’s a practical modernization that doesn’t ask you to give up the authenticity of running original hardware, which is exactly what this kind of replica demands.
The original X design was always more statement than product, a way of telling developers in 2000 that Microsoft was serious with hardware dramatic enough to make the point without words. The retail Xbox that followed looked nothing like it. Twenty-five years later, the modding community is effectively building the console Microsoft couldn’t, and making the files available to anyone willing to put in the work.
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A$AP Rocky Just Made a Retro Gaming Console That Looks Like a Famicom on Steroids
There’s a reason every retro emulation console of the last decade keeps cribbing from the same 1980s Japanese design playbook. The Famicom and the original SNES established a visual grammar for home gaming hardware that has never really been improved upon, just iterated, simplified, or fetishized. Cream-colored ABS plastic, primary-red accents, ribbed black ventilation grilles borrowed from HiFi separates, and chunky cross d-pads big enough to register through a winter glove. Analogue has built an entire premium business on faithfully reissuing this language. Anbernic and Miyoo have built equally large businesses on cheaply approximating it. What nobody has really done is take that grammar and warp it through a fashion-house sensibility.
A$AP Rocky’s Hommemade studio just gave it a shot. The HGC-V.1, or Hommemade Gaming Console Version One, is a flip-screen retro emulation system designed in-house at AWGE and built around a chunky, almost cartoonishly oversized form factor that reads like a Famicom rendered as a desk sculpture. Cream and slate-blue body panels, two red arcade-style thumbsticks, a cobalt cross d-pad, SNES-coded face buttons, and black ribbed heat sinks flanking a flip-up LCD that boots into a pixelated starfield with the Hommemade “h” logo glowing front and center. It’s a console designed to be looked at as much as played.
Designer: AWGE / Hommemade
The form language here rewards a closer look. Most retro consoles fall into one of two camps, the faithful reissue (Analogue Pocket, Mega Sg) or the all-in-one emulation handheld (the entire Anbernic catalog), and both prioritize either accuracy or portability. The HGC-V.1 ignores both briefs. It’s a tabletop unit, roughly the proportions of a 1980s portable TV, with a flip-up screen that gives it a clamshell silhouette closer to a Game Boy Advance SP scaled up to coffee-table size. The d-pad, joysticks, and face buttons are all deliberately oversized, pushing past ergonomic logic into something more sculptural. You don’t pick this up the way you’d pick up an Anbernic RG35XX. You sit at it.
The detailing is where the AWGE handprint gets loud. “HGC-V.1” sits in red Famicom-style lettering across the bezel, “Powered by AWGE” gets stamped in that scrappy hand-drawn type Rocky has used across his whole creative universe, and the chunky blue “h” logo on the right shoulder behaves less like a brand mark and more like a structural element, almost a handle. Around the back you get USB, what looks like HDMI out, and a physical toggle switch with the satisfying mechanical heft those late-90s appliances always had. The package ships with two wireless gamepads that crib NES proportions while smuggling in twin analog sticks and a four-button face cluster, essentially a hybrid retro-modern pad capable of running anything from NES ROMs through to early PS1 emulation.
No public price has been announced, which fits the Hommemade pattern. The label operates on a made-to-order basis through a single email address (hommemade@awge.com if you’re interested), and the rest of the Galaxy Collection ranges from $13,500 dividers to the $300,000 CBNT.V1 entertainment console covered by Hypebeast last week. Expect this to land somewhere in art-object territory rather than competing with the upcoming Steam Machine. The HGC-V.1 isn’t trying to win on specs or library size. It’s trying to win on the simpler proposition that gaming hardware can be a piece of furniture worth designing properly, and on that front, it makes a genuinely compelling case.
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ONEXPLAYER X2 Mini is a power-packed compact PC, tablet and handheld in one
We’ve been ranting all year long about the rise of the handhelds and the choices spread across a wide spectrum. This diversity is attributed to many variables, including the use case, the genres of games the device is expected to play, and, most importantly, the price segment a gamer is looking at.
ONE-NOTEBOOK has more often than not shown what a premium gaming rig or a powerhouse handheld is supposed to be like, going beyond the utility of simply enjoying your favorite titles. The ONEXPLAYER G1 laptop, the ONEXPLAYER X1 tablet hybrid, and the ONEXPLAYER Youxia X1 Pro EVA Limited Edition handheld gaming PC proved it all right.
Designer: ONE-NETBOOK
The Shenzhen-based electronics company is back with another powerhouse gadget that should solve your gaming, work, and entertainment needs. ONEXPLAYER X2 Mini is the latest teased handheld by ONE-NETBOOK, and it packs some real power for playing AAA titles. Despite the “Mini” in its namesake, the device features a slightly larger 8.8-inch OLED screen compared to the Apex handheld’s 8-inch display shown off at CES 2026. The display supports VRR and HDR modes, along with the superior 144 Hz variable refresh rate for demanding titles. This pits it directly in competition with the Lenovo Legion Go 2.
Powering the guts of the handheld is the power-packed AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 APU, and there is no word yet about the RAM or storage on the gaming device. The beefy processor with 16 Zen 5 CPU cores is mated to the Radeon 8060S integrated GPU. That kind of hardware requires active cooling, and ONE-NETBOOK has an optional external water cooling pack in the mix. That amount of processing power can be overkill for a handheld, but it makes sense since the device doubles as a potent mini laptop. The screen is completely detachable and connects to a magnetic backlit keyboard for your work routines on the go.
To power the demanding machine, they’ve decided to go with a user-detachable 85W battery to make swaps quick, in case you want to extend your gaming sessions on a long flight. The detachable controller has swappable face buttons (with micro-switches), a capacitive joystick, casing, and a vibration motor for haptic feedback. Thus, making the handheld mini PC easy to replace with new components. D-pad will also be user configurable in two options – the standard cross version, or the octagonal setup similar to the Xbox Series Elite controller. For better control in-game, the two-stage analogue trigger provides micromovement and linear freedom in switching. The controllers can be connected to the independent wireless connection base, which turns them into a capacitive touchpad for mouse-level precision while working.
ONEXPLAYER X2 Mini will likely have 128GB of storage and ultra-fast LPDDR5X RAM to go with the Strix Halo APU, which should put it flush in the premium handheld category. That should carry a premium price as well, somewhere around $4,000 or more. Add the price of accessories to that, and you have a handheld-PC hybrid poised to attract power gamers and users who have always wanted a modular device for multi-functional needs.
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ANBERNIC RG Rotate handheld with swivelling display doubles as a music player
Handheld gaming has just exploded in the last year or so with players like Ayaneo, Analouge, ANBERNIC and Retroid catching the pulse of handheld gamers. There’s one for every type of gamer, whether someone who likes things arcade, retro modern, or a demanding nerd who wants to have a compact console to play AAA titles.
ANBERNIC has been in the news lately due to their rumoured handheld with a rotating screen, and now things are official. Their next retro gaming handheld, called RG Rotate, looks somewhat like the Motorola FlipOut phone, which was released way back in mid-2010. The idea here is to emulate classic console titles and also double as a music player since the device can play MP3 files.
Designer: ANBERNIC
Building on the success of the RG Slide and the exciting prospect of the RG DS, the brand was confident enough to introduce a rotating-screen handheld to its gaming community. The result is an Android handheld that is compact enough to fit in a pocket yet powerful enough to play demanding arcade classics without breaking a sweat. This device has a peculiar pivoting square display that hides the D-pad and the buttons.
This rotating action relies on the proprietary ultra-thin alloy hinge mechanism, which should be durable enough to take on the constant movement that gamers are going to put it through. After all, it has gone through high durability testing, even though it was an engineering challenge for the brand. The confidence of a successful hinge mechanism and the constant movement on the RG DS should have brought enough input to go with this form factor.
The RG Rotate comes with swappable in-line L2 and R2 buttons to toggle the height of the shoulder buttons as per liking. This handheld also comes with a single USB-C port and a microSD card, but surprisingly, it doesn’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack, given that it has built-in capability to play MP3 files. The only option left is to play music via the Type-C port. The aluminium screen frame handheld comes in two color options: Polar Black and Aurora Silver, which both have different body builds. One has an aluminum body frame, while the other has an ABS plastic body.
There is no word yet about the pricing or the availability of the rotating screen handheld. Also, there is no confirmation whether the two different body frame options will be released together or at different times.
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Georgia Is Building a Chess Palace That Looks Exactly Like a Chessboard
Georgia has a claim on chess culture that goes deeper than most countries appreciate. The nation has produced grandmasters at a rate disproportionate to its size, and the game is woven into its educational and cultural identity in ways that feel genuinely foundational rather than ornamental. Given that context, the decision to build a dedicated Chess Palace in Batumi reads as overdue rather than extravagant, the kind of civic investment that a country with this relationship to the game probably should have made a generation ago.
What makes the Batumi Chess Palace architecturally compelling is that Irakli Emiridze of Alpha Architecture refused to treat chess as mere decoration. The entire building is organized around the game’s visual logic. Its form references an unfolded chessboard, its facades use perforated solar shading to animate a black and white grid pattern with real-time light and shadow, and a dramatic sculptural installation marks the entrance as both functional threshold and symbolic statement. The two-story, 60-meter-deep structure is due for completion in 2027, housing a tournament hall, chess library, hotel rooms, exhibition spaces, a gym, and study rooms.
Designer: Irakli Emiridze, Alpha Architecture
Perforated solar shades wrap all four elevations in a dense, pixelated black and white grid that shifts in depth and shadow as the sun moves across it. In still photography, the building reads as a graphic object, clean and immediate. Experienced over the course of a day, the surface behaves more like a living board mid-game, its apparent pattern changing with conditions outside any designer’s control. That quality, the way the building changes without changing, separates a strong concept from a merely clever one. The HPL panel system that underlies the shading adds durability to what could have been a purely cosmetic gesture.
Emiridze has extended the chessboard geometry across the entire site rather than limiting it to the elevations. From above, the rooftop alternates planted green squares against glazed skylights in a grid that mirrors the facade pattern. The ground plane continues in oversized alternating light and dark paving squares that push the building’s visual field outward into the surrounding landscape. Every vantage point, aerial, street level, interior looking out, returns the same binary rhythm, a level of conceptual commitment that most thematic buildings abandon the moment it becomes structurally inconvenient.
Rather than placing a literal chess piece at the entrance, Emiridze commissioned a tall, twisting corten-steel installation, two interlocking curved fins spiraling upward into a form that hovers between abstraction and figuration. It suggests a chess piece without depicting one, which is the more intelligent move. A literal rook or knight would have read as theme-park signage. This form reads as architecture, and the warm oxide tone of the corten against the monochrome facade gives the building’s street presence a focal point that earns its scale.
The program signals serious ambition for chess tourism. Beyond the tournament hall and study rooms, the building incorporates a chess library, exhibition space, conference facilities, a sports shop, a food facility, hotel rooms with two adapted for disabled visitors, and a gym. That breadth positions Batumi as a potential international destination for the chess world, a place where a grandmaster could arrive, compete, study, eat, and sleep without leaving the building. Alpha Architecture won this commission through a governmental competition, which means the Chess Palace carries public accountability alongside its conceptual ambition. The real test arrives in 2027, when Batumi either gets a landmark that genuinely serves its chess community, or a building that performed better on screen than on the ground. The bones are strong enough to be optimistic.
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