You may hate “fake” frames. But if you didn’t know they were AI generated, would you like them in games more than natively rendered ones? Turns out, German publication ComputerBase found the answer is often… yes. At least, more often than raging online discussions might indicate. Welcome to The Full Nerd newsletter—your weekly dose of hardware talk from the enthusiasts at PCWorld. Missed the surprising topics on our YouTube show or latest news from across the web? You’re in the right place.  Want this newsletter to come directly to your inbox? Sign up on our website!  Here’s how the tests worked: ComputerBase chose six games to pull scenes from using Nvidia’s DLSS 4.5, AMD’s FSR 4, and native rendering. Then the outlet placed those unlabeled segments side-by-side and had the community vote for their favorite. In three of the six games (Anno 117, Arc Raiders, and Horizon Forbidden West), DLSS 4.5 took more than 50 percent of the vote—and for two other games (Arc Raiders and The Last of Us Part II), over 40 percent. To me, this is a fascinating contrast between what people say they want, and what they actually gravitate toward. I understand how the softening emphasis on raster performance could feel like a grift. By this long-standing measure, GPU makers keep slowing progress, while still asking consumers for more and more cash. And yet, if you plop down a bunch of pixels in front of a decent portion of gamers, a majority of them will pick those that include “fake” frames.  They want what looks best, and for many, that’s apparently AI-enhanced scenes. Last month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said AI was the future of games—that neural rendering was the “way graphics ought to be.” You could interpret these ComputerBase poll results as vindication of that belief, that the majority already embraces that destiny. I don’t, though. I see an opportunity to better articulate what you prefer visually—so you can better demand it from coming technology. The breakdown of the results (machine translated from the original German).ComputerBase I looked at the “blind” game comparisons, as well as earlier side-by-side comparisons with labeling. For me, the DLSS 4.5 scenes sometimes look over-rendered. Take Assassin’s Creed Shadows as an example—all of the grass looks more defined with DLSS 4.5, yes. But the human eye doesn’t focus on everything in view. It concentrates on a certain portion, and whatever is not in that area starts to lose detail. In games, I prefer a hierarchy of visuals, so I’m willing to sacrifice a bit of crispness to approximate that. And that’s how the natively rendered version gets my vote. But what if I didn’t have to choose native rendering for that desired outcome? What if I could instead expect upscaling to simulate both what I want (accuracy of focus) and what others want (accuracy of detail)? I wonder if we’d care as much about traditional raster vs. AI upscaling performance. (At least, when it comes to visuals.) At the end of the day, gamers will have DLSS pushed on them. Nvidia holds over 90 percent market share for consumer GPUs, and its CEO is all-in on AI upscaling. We won’t have a choice about the coming shift, no matter how long we debate it. But I think we have influence over how good it becomes—as long as our expectations are clear. In this episode of The Full Nerd In this episode of The Full Nerd, Adam Patrick Murray, Alaina Yee, Will Smith, and Michael Crider discuss the idea of PC rentals, Puget System’s hardware reliability report, and peripherals that recently crossed our desks. Let me tell you, I’ve never seen Adam react as fast as he did to my thoughts on renting a Steam Machine. But despite him trying to rally the masses against me, it turns out not everyone took up arms against my proposal. Alex Esteves / Foundry Missed our live show? Subscribe now to The Full Nerd Network YouTube channel, and activate notifications. We also answer viewer questions in real-time! Don’t miss out on our NEW shows, either—you can catch episodes of Dual Boot Diaries and The Full Nerd: Extra Edition on our channel, too. PLUS: Adam’s new joint show with Retro Gaming Corps has finally launched! Catch Episode 0 of Expedition: Handheld now! And if you need more hardware talk during the rest of the week, come join our Discord community—it’s full of cool, laid-back nerds. This week’s slimmer nerd news I dumped a lot on y’all last week—so we’re taking more of a breather this week. But plenty demanded attention this week, including rumors of delayed CPUs, nifty science, and a really cool (hot) custom PC. Andrey Matveev / Unsplash HP put a number on it: The company said in a recent earnings call that for its desktop PCs, memory and storage now eat about 35 percent of the cost.  Watch out on public Wi-Fi: A new exploit makes open networks once again a risk for meddler-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks. Times change: Used to be that internal capture cards always trumped external units. But Will did some testing, and it turns out that old guideline doesn’t hold up the same now. Vaccine against dementia? The link hasn’t been fully confirmed, and the exact amount of benefit is unclear, but you know what? I’d take even a 15 to 20 percent decrease in risk of developing dementia. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree: Such is the conclusion I took from this article about chimpanzees and why alcohol shows up in their urine. Billet Labs Steampunk PC: This system built into an old-school, 200-pound radiator lends extra weight (ahem) to the idea of a desktop computer as a space heater… That would be a bummer: Brad’s out again, so I’m slipping in this rumor about AMD’s Zen 6 and Intel’s Nova Lake CPUs possibly getting delayed until January 2027. Boo. Value buy: One of the keyboards we discussed this week was the Ducky OK-M, Mike’s new budget pick for best mechanical keyboard. There’s a lot packed into it. Earthquake trigger: As a Californian, learning that solar flares could trigger earthquakes makes me a tad nervous. We’re supposed to be due for a big one. Catch you all next week—I don’t know about you all, but I’m a little confused by how close spring is already. But you won’t catch me complaining about the warming temps. Alaina This newsletter is dedicated to the memory of Gordon Mah Ung, founder and host of The Full Nerd, and executive editor of hardware at PCWorld. Read...

I’m not a huge PC gamer, which means I’ve never really considered buying a mechanical keyboard. In my experience, everyone I know who owns one has the fancy light-up kind for “serious” gamers. But recently I noticed how many cheap/affordable ones are available on Amazon, with numerous options going for less than $50. I even spotted one for just $20 and it looked pretty good—so much so that it felt like a bargain I shouldn’t pass up. So I jumped on it. I put in my order and waited to find out what all the fuss was about. Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting. Could a mechanical keyboard really be a game-changer? Or would it be a disappointment that didn’t live up to the hype? How much of my experience would be “valid” considering I went for a bottom-barrel model? Would I even notice the cheaper build quality and lack of features? It was an experiment for me… and the results were mixed. As a mechanical keyboard virgin, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about Having worked in online publishing for decades, I’ve met a lot of people who are deeply passionate about technology—and so I’m used to being recommended products left, right, and center. I also love tech myself but I’m more of a skeptic, the opposite of an early adopter. I try to take a more objective view on what’s trending in the world of gadgetry and keep a level head when it comes to newfangled products. Here’s my “before” setup: an unassuming wireless membrane keyboard.Dave Parrack / Foundry Mechanical keyboards have obviously been around for a long time, stretching back as far as the 1970s, but when they became mainstream in the early 2010s, I was relentlessly pushed to try one by colleagues and friends alike. Not being a PC gamer—preferring the ease of console gaming—meant I was never persuaded to invest in one. However, the germ of the idea never quite died, thus I took a punt on it when I spotted this decent-looking mechanical keyboard for only $20. Will a cheap $20 mechanical keyboard be enough for me? It was a lot easier to keep out of the mechanical keyboard trend when everything was $100 and over, but there’s really no excuse not to give it a whirl when the entry price has come down so much. Sure, those cheapies are mainly Chinese brands that cut corners and skimp on essential features and maybe even neglect some safety precautions… But at $20, it’s hard to resist. And given how much time I spend on my PC as a working writer, I might as well try it out. If there’s even the tiniest potential for this peripheral to be an absolute game-changer that revolutionizes my productivity and makes me enjoy typing that much more, then I owe it to myself to see if that’s true. The Newmen GM611 mechanical keyboard, ready and waiting for me.Dave Parrack / Foundry The mechanical keyboard I ended up getting is the Newmen GM611. Newmen may seem like a proper brand at first glance—it’s certainly better than so many of the nonsensical all-cap ones you often see on Amazon, like VRURC and JAJAFOOK—but it’s a China-based company like the rest. Peeking at its Amazon storefront reveals a specialization in keyboards, mice, and webcams. Not too bad so far. So I bit the bullet. I sent in my order and also snagged a USB-A-to-USB-C converter with it. When it arrived, I promptly plugged it into my PC and took it for a spin… What I like about the keyboard I like the mechanical keyboard’s appearance. It somehow manages to look sleek and robust at the same time. It’s small but perfectly formed, with the only real omission being a dedicated number pad. However, it looks great sitting on my desk in front of my PC, especially when the sun sets and the multicolored keycaps light up. Dave Parrack / Foundry I also found the act of typing quite satisfying. Maybe because it was novel and something different to what I’m used to, or maybe because the clacking noise made each button press feel more definitive. Once I built new muscle memory for the key layout and started tolerating the sound (more on this below), it was surprisingly enjoyable. It’s been a while since I felt this much satisfaction just from tapping away on keys. Plus, setting up the keyboard was simple and seamless, both on my Windows PC and on my Chromebook. I plugged it in… and it worked! Right away. No extra effort on my part. I’m sure that’s the case with almost any reputable keyboard these days, but I appreciated it given the extra-cheap nature of the one I bought. No wrinkles. What I don’t like about the keyboard The first thing that struck me—and the main thing I’ve come to dislike about mechanical keyboards—was the noise. The clackety clack as I typed away on the keys? Very distracting! Maybe I’ll start to like it after a while, but I can see (or, in this case, hear) why mechanical keyboards are designed more for gaming than writing. Dave Parrack / Foundry I also had to build new muscle memory because the keys were taller and more spread out than the typical low-profile layouts I’m used to. It also surprised me how much pressure was needed to trigger each key. (I’ve been using a bog-standard membrane keyboard since my Windows 7 days—a long time spent on the same keyboard! We don’t recommend membrane keyboards, by the way.) And since this is a cheap mechanical keyboard, the customization options are limited. It has 19 different LED backlight effects that I can cycle through, plus 5 brightness levels. But that’s all. I’ve seen more expensive mechanical keyboards with much more to them. Of course, this is more an observation than a complaint. Can’t really expect all that much from something that only costs $20, can I? Do I buy a better one? Or go back to my standard membrane keyboard? Ultimately, having used this cheap mechanical keyboard for a few weeks now, I have a choice to make. Do I carry on with it? Invest in a better, more expensive model? Or return to the membrane keyboard that came with my Windows PC and is showing its age? My setup again, except this time with my new mechanical keyboard.Dave Parrack / Foundry While I enjoyed the typing experience on my cheap mechanical keyboard, I’m not enamored enough on the whole to invest further on a “better” model. If I were to ever start gaming on a PC in a big way, it might make sense then. But for now? When I really only use my keyboard to type words for work? Not going to happen. That said, given how cheap this keyboard was, I’m pleased and have no regrets. I won’t be getting rid of it. It’s still going to take some time to get used to it—especially the noise—but I’ll be going back and forth between this and my old membrane keyboard, at least until that one dies. I do like the tactile typing. Maybe one day I’ll love it. Further reading: The best mechanical keyboards Read...

I’m a big fan of OLED monitors. (I recently upgraded to a 4K OLED for my desktop PC!) But I can’t help but feel I’m gaming on a stopgap. OLED is incredible for screens, helping to boost contrast and color vibrancy. But just as plasma TVs were eventually trumped by LCDs, I get the sense that Mini-LED is fast catching up to OLED. In 2026, Mini-LED displays aren’t just brighter, but also often cheaper, with better longevity, no risk of burn-in, and improved color accuracy and vibrancy. In short, OLED still has its strengths, but there’s less reason to pay for it now that its successor is almost ready for the prime time. It’s time to look beyond OLED to Mini-LED. Here’s why. Mini-LED wins on brightness I won’t deny that OLED monitors have gotten much brighter recently, and there are even some models that offer 1,500+ nits on smaller sections of the screen. But those tend to be WOLED monitors, which lose out on the color accuracy of QD-OLED. By contrast, the latest Mini-LED monitors offer 2,000+ nits brightness with ease, often over larger sections of the screen. For games, videos, or anything else that you really want to pop off the screen, there’s no beating the sheer vibrancy of Mini-LED. That’s doubly true if you’re looking at it in a brighter room. Sure, some love to game in the dark for the boosted contrast and color, but if you’re like me and mostly use your monitor during the day with the curtains open—or even with harsh overhead lights—then you’ll appreciate Mini-LED. LG In a brightly lit environment, Mini-LED’s extra brightness makes a far bigger difference than OLED’s contrast and colors. It makes it easier to see details, reduces problems with glare, and gives you a more consistent picture quality regardless of the time of day. And then there’s HDR gaming on PC, which is far from smooth sailing even at the best of times. You’ll get a lot of benefits from Mini-LED’s higher brightness there, too. OLED might look better on high-contrast scenes with bright highlights, but the latest Mini-LED monitors have more dimming zones that make blooming far less of an issue. OLED contrast isn’t so standout anymore Yes, OLED still technically offers the best contrast, but it’s not as far ahead of the competition as it once was. The best OLED monitors today are split between WOLED and QD-OLED displays. While the former enjoy the near-infinite contrast that OLED is so well-known for—inky blacks for days—QD-OLED panels are increasingly popular for better bright color support while sacrificing only a little bit of that contrast for the trouble. TCL On the other hand, Mini-LED has grown from strength to strength, and the latest models with 1,000+ local dimming zones don’t suffer from blooming as much as they used to. Yes, OLED contrast will always beat Mini-LED because it has that much better control over the individual pixels, but Mini-LED is getting very close. And in the future, Micro-LED will eliminate the gap entirely. Response time is overrated Look, I’m not trying to annoy anyone, but I know this point is probably going to upset the semi-pro gamers out there. If you’re scrambling for every possible competitive advantage in your favorite esports games, you should absolutely consider OLED. But I’m pretty sure 99% of you reading this don’t care that much about besting other hyper-competitive gamers. For those of us who just play games to relax or hang out with friends, Mini-LED is plenty fast enough. Matthew Smith / Foundry Sure, a 0.03ms response time is going to feel faster than 1ms… by a bit. And yes, the motion clarity of OLED is going to be better because the pixels themselves can change faster… But if you have motion blur enabled, you probably aren’t going to notice it. And if you aren’t playing ultra-fast games and haven’t already maxed out your frame rate and reduced your latency everywhere else, is response time really going to help you win your games? Eh, I don’t think so. There’s an advantage there, but I don’t think it’s worth fretting over—not until you’ve min-maxed everything else first. Text reads better on Mini-LED Outside of subtitles, I’m willing to bet you’re not doing a lot of text reading on your TV. But if you’re using your monitor for anything besides gaming (and even then), I bet you are reading a lot of text! And if you’re reading a lot of text, then text clarity matters. Amazon Mini-LED has clearer text than OLED, period. And if your display has a resolution lower than 4K, the difference is going to be a lot more noticeable (due to the subpixel makeup of OLED and Mini-LED). It may not be a big enough deal to warrant buying one type of monitor over another on its own, but it’s a supplementary point worth considering, especially if you expect to do a lot of reading on your monitor. In that case, Mini-LED will give you an easier time. Burn-in isn’t a concern with Mini-LED Burn-in has been the big boogeyman of OLED monitors and TVs for a long time. Fortunately, the situation is far better today with better pixel refresh and pixel shift technologies to mitigate issues with short-term image retention and long-term brightness control. Foundry But burn-in is still inevitable on OLED. It’s the nature of the technology, and it’s particularly bad on monitors due to always-on user interface elements like taskbars, game HUDs, chat app overlays, browser window outlines, etc. It’s not as bad on TVs where full-screen images are always moving and varied, but certain elements can burn in (like news tickers, channel logos, paused movies, etc.). All of that is going to contribute to OLED burn-in over years of use. Meanwhile, it’s not something Mini-LED owners have to worry about. If you expect to run your system with lots of static images and on-screen HUDs and menus, Mini-LED will definitely last longer. Mini-LED is king for most users I am a firm buyer of the OLED hype. It really is gorgeous, and I’m in the market for high-contrast images and fast response times. I want the nuanced HDR of OLED and I don’t mind tweaking the way I play games to help delay the inevitable onset of burn-in. For most people though, that’s the kind of hassle that just isn’t worth having. Most users want a bright and punchy image that’s going to look great whether the room is dark or bright with lights on or curtains open. Most users aren’t going to notice the limited blooming on modern displays with over 1,000 local dimming zones, and most users won’t notice a 1ms response time, especially when they probably don’t even turn off motion blur in games anyway. Ultimately, Mini-LED is the future. RGB Mini-LED will rival OLED’s best color saturation and brightest pops of color, and Micro-LED will one day replace OLED entirely—it’s self-emissive like OLED but with greater brightness and reduced burn-in risk. Mini-LED is the best choice now and its even-smaller iterations will only make this ever more true in the years to come. Further reading: The best monitors worth buying right now Read...

The technology and online grocery group is cutting about 5% of its global workforce, with two-thirds of the losses in the UK. Read...

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Scams keep coming at us—and they’re getting harder to spot. How? Scammers have begun making them more tailored to their marks. That is… us. Personalized scams, as security experts call them, use details about you in the hope of tricking you more easily. This information comes from illicit sources like data leaks and breaches, successful phishing attacks, compromised websites, and malware, as well as legitimate sources like marketing info, public records, and social media. As you might guess, the data range can span a pretty wide range, from location to shopping habits.  But what does a personalized scam look like? And how do you spot one? I brought these questions (and others) to a chat with Steve Grobman, Chief Technology Officer at McAfee—and it turns out that just like the data a scammer might have on you, the types of scams they craft fall under pretty broad umbrellas, too. The “general” personalized scam PCWorld These kinds of scams tend to target broad groups—like a specific geographic area. Toll scams have become personalized, for example. Before, messages claiming you had unpaid toll charges were generic. Now the texts will refer to your area’s toll authority and the name of the system, based on your phone number’s area code. If you’re not naturally a suspicious person, this updated approach may catch you off-guard. The language sounds more natural, despite being very broad. What changed? AI. Scammers can use AI to figure out regional information and incorporate it into messages quickly.  Scammers don’t have to know much about you to make this kind of connection. They’ll extrapolate it from your contact info. Think area code for a phone number or a specific service related to your email provider. For example, I’ve recently seen emails related to Google storage limits, claiming your files will be deleted soon because you ran out of space. The “specific” personalized scam Here’s where all those data leaks and breaches become a problem. Even when a data dump only involves details like name and location (like, say, from an address), a resulting scam message can sound much more official. It can address you by name, target your age bracket, and/or zero in on something specific to your region. The extra information allows for additional customization of the message. Grobman calls these “fill in the blank” scams, where a scary notice can easily swap in your name and a relevant entity to spook you. For my location, he described it as “___(name)____, the California Department of _________.” (A possible example would be: John, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has revoked your registration due to unpaid fees.) If matched well enough to your region, this approach could get you to click or otherwise fall for the scam, because it sounds realistic enough. The “hyperpersonalized” scam Scammers can target topical interests for their attacks.Wegovy This type of personalized scam is more insidious than outright creepy. (Mostly.) Grobman says these are “lifestyle” focused. Scammers use what they know of your habits—like sites you’ve visited or links you’ve clicked on—to figure out your interests. Then they’ll zero in to exploit that info. For example, if you’ve shown interest in weight loss, you could be targeted with a link to a fake weight loss drug. Hyperpersonalized scams can also take longer to build to the fraud—think romance scams, where the scammer uses information about you to build trust. Maybe they know where you went to school, and use that to start and build rapport. The more you share, the more they weave that into the relationship being built. Eventually, the requests for favors and money begin. Or shared communication, photos, and other details are then twisted into blackmail material, used to extort money in exchange for secrecy. Often, these kinds of scams can feel so personal—and so shameful to have fallen for one—that many victims won’t tell anyone they’ve been scammed. Previously, the young and the elderly were bigger targets for scammers, as they could prey on not just loneliness, but also lack of experience or diminished cognitive capabilities. But now, the threat for this to be widespread across all age brackets hangs lower than before… which is why we have to be on alert. What to do if you’ve been scammed First, take a deep breath. You might feel overwhelmed by your feelings—whether that’s shock, embarrassment, or shame—but that’s common and normal. Also common and normal: Making this kind of mistake. Falling for a scam can truly happen to anyone, even seasoned security professionals. Next, ask for help. The problem may seem huge at first, but getting help keeps the problem from spiraling into a huge mess. You can start with the FTC’s consumer advice page, which lists common scam scenarios and what steps to take afterward. Generally, you want to address the immediate problem first. Let’s say you used your credit card number on a scam site or wired money to a “special friend”—alert your bank about these fraudulent transactions right away. The faster you act, the faster you limit the damage. Worried about credit card or bank account fraud? Call your bank immediately!Cardmapr / Unsplash Or you shared your social security number and then realized your mistake. Add a security freeze to your credit reports immediately, and also add a security alert for good measure. (The freeze is the more powerful tool though, as it blocks anyone from checking or opening credit in your name until you temporarily allow access, aka “thaw” your report.) Take care of your emotional health, too. At a baseline, talking to a friend or family member who can help provide clarity or good feedback can help while you’re in a stew. You can also try your employer or even the police if you just need help in getting oriented. How to avoid personalized scams The grim reality is that personalized scams could become more common—the tools to help fraudsters keep improving, thanks to AI advances. (Thanks but no thanks, AI.) How fast that will happen remains to be seen—Grobman says scammers are business owners. They do what makes money, so a change in approach only comes when current efforts lose profitability. And that will happen the more awareness spreads and detection tools improve. (Remember, security experts also have AI available to them, too.) As that race continues to escalate, the shift toward more and more personalization will increase the difficulty of spotting legitimate messages among the fakes. Windows Security is a solid free antivirus option that Microsoft automatically keeps up to date.Foundry Fortunately, the best steps to protect yourself are also the easiest. Have antivirus software active on your PC. Be wary about installing apps on your computer or phone. Keep your software up to date, especially your browser. Use a password manager. Apps and services have begun to build in more safeguards and protections—think of it as a neighborhood watch approach to online security. The final piece of the puzzle? You. The sites you choose to visit, the software you download, the browser extensions you install, the links you click in email and messages—those all can increase or decrease your risk of getting caught in a scam, too. Surf the internet wisely. Read...

Microsoft has been promoting Edge Secure Network as of late, a built-in “VPN” solution for the Edge browser that’s intended to improve privacy and security while browsing the web. No extra apps, no subscriptions. Just free VPN support built right into Microsoft Edge. Turn on Secure Network VPN and browse with more confidence.  Learn more:https://t.co/lfkkWJJpJG… pic.twitter.com/sMVmy7hAp7— Microsoft Edge (@MicrosoftEdge) February 11, 2026 According to Microsoft, it “uses VPN technology to stop third parties and bad actors from accessing your sensitive information, so you can make purchases online, fill out forms, and keep your browsing activity away from prying eyes.” But that description of the feature was recently lambasted by Sooraj Sathyanarayanan on social media: I did a comprehensive security analysis of Microsoft Edge`s `Secure Network VPN.` Here`s what`s actually going on under the hood.Edge Secure Network is NOT a VPN. It`s an HTTP CONNECT proxy built on Cloudflare`s Privacy Proxy Platform. It only tunnels traffic inside the Edge… https://t.co/YkW0YE22bc— Sooraj (@iAnonymous3000) February 18, 2026 Sathyanarayanan, a cybersecurity and privacy researcher who works at Brave Software, writes: “Edge Secure Network is NOT a VPN. It’s an HTTP CONNECT proxy built on Cloudflare’s Privacy Proxy Platform. It only tunnels traffic inside the Edge browser. Every other application on your system, DNS queries, email clients, background services, OS updates, everything outside Edge is completely exposed.” To use Edge Secure Network, users must also be logged in with their Microsoft accounts, which could pose a threat to personal privacy. However, according to Microsoft, Cloudflare does not have access to users’ identities despite traffic flowing through its platform, nor will the partner inspect the traffic itself, reports Windows Latest. Read...

Amid rising AI and automation in contact centres, new research finds leadership, empathy and agent support now outmuscle technology alone. Read...

When the news first broke that legendary Apple designer John Ive was joining forces with OpenAI on the first made-for-ChatGPT hardware, imaginations ran wild.  What could the first ChatGPT hardware be? Not anything with a screen, insiders said (Ive and ChatGPT founder Sam Altman have remained mostly mum on the subject.) Maybe more a “pebble” that would fit in your pocket, a “third-core” device that would be “contextually aware” of its surroundings.  Indeed, reports of a leaked OpenAI conference call detailed Altman calling the device the “coolest piece of technology that the world will have even seen,” while Ive has called the upcoming ChatGPT hardware the beginning of a “new design movement.”  Well, a groundbreaking ChatGPT hardware device may yet be in the pipeline, but a new report says one of the first ChatGPT devices will be far more familiar: a plain-old smart speaker.  The speaker, which might not arrive until February 2027, would ship with a camera and cost between $200 and $300, according to the Information and its anonymous sources.   Other OpenAI hardware in the works include smart glasses and—maybe—a smart lamp, the report said, with the glasses not expected to be released until 2028 or later.  OpenAI has yet to comment on The Information’s story, and like any report from anonymous industry sources, it should be taken with a grain of salt.  But if we are just getting a glorified, ChatGPT-powered Echo speaker as our first OpenAI product, it will be quite a letdown. I already have an AI-powered smart display in my kitchen—the Google Nest Hub Max with Gemini inside—and it mostly just sits there, displaying family photos, while the Alexa+-enabled Echo Dot in my office stays mostly silent. Personally, I haven’t found many inspiring uses for AI in a smart speaker, and the same goes for ChatGPT’s voice mode and Gemini Live on a phone; the conversations tend to be stilted, halting, or downright weird. ChatGPT has done a lot for me on a desktop, but in a smart speaker? I’m not so sure.  The rumored ChatGPT smart glasses would be a little closer to the vision of an on-the-body device that gathers intel from your surroundings, but OpenAI would be heading into well-trod territory (hello, Meta, and possibly even Apple).  A ChatGPT smart lamp? That’s a little more out of the box, and we have seen similar smart lights with integrated smart speakers before.   Personally, I’ll be waiting for the ChatGPT pebble. Read...