If you saw Lenovo’s Legion Go 2 launch last year and thought, “I’ll wait for the SteamOS version,” well, you’ll have to wait a little longer. But at least now it’s official. At CES 2026, the company revealed the Legion Go 2, Powered by SteamOS. The Valve-friendly variant of the gaming handheld arrives in June, starting at a pricey $1,199.

There aren’t any surprises here. It’s the same Lenovo Legion Go 2 hardware, with SteamOS replacing the sometimes-awkward Windows. In many ways, you could view the SteamOS Legion Go 2 as a more powerful and versatile (and expensive!) Steam Deck. One notable exception is the optimizations game developers often make for Valve’s handheld. (Ditto for “Steam Deck Verified” badges on store listings to learn quickly how playable games are.)

So, all the specs from the Windows version carry over. That includes a spacious 8.8-inch OLED display at 1,920 x 1,200 and with a 144Hz VRR. You still have two tiers to choose from: Ryzen Z2 / 16GB / 1TB or Ryzen Z2 Extreme / 32GB / 2TB. The device has a microSD slot, kickstand, detachable controllers and a 74Wh battery. At 2.2 lbs, it’s a bulky affair, so you’ll want to look elsewhere if a light, compact handheld is your priority.

Lenovo says the Legion Go 2, Powered by SteamOS is expected in June. It will start at $1,199 for the entry-level variant. (Lenovo hasn’t yet announced pricing for the Z2 Extreme tier.) You can revisit Sam Rutherford’s review of the Windows version for much more on the hardware.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/lenovo-reveals-a-steamos-variant-of-the-legion-go-2-at-ces-010000852.html?src=rss

A couple years ago Lenovo showed off a concept laptop stand that used cameras and AI to follow you around. But now at CES 2026, the company has taken that idea and turned it into a full-fledged system that it’s actually going to sell. 

Dubbed the ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist, instead of a laptop stand, Lenovo created a standalone notebook with the same functionality, plus a little more. The impressive thing is that despite having a built-in motor that lets its display follow you around, the laptop’s design doesn’t look all that outlandish. And after playing around with it a bit, I discovered a handful of other tricks it can do. 

Instead of using your fingers to open the lid like a luddite, all you have to do is knock a couple times and then the laptop’s display will pop up by itself. From there, you’re greeted with a surprisingly good-looking 14-inch 2.8K OLED display and a traditional keyboard that won’t upset longtime ThinkBook or ThinkPad aficionados. You also get solid specs including support for Intel’s new Core Ultra Series 3 processors, up to 32GB of RAM, 2TB of storage and a decently large 75Whr battery. The laptop also sports a strong selection of ports including two USB-C with Thunderbolt 4, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, a full-size HDMI jack and Wi-Fi 7. And all of this comes in a chassis that weighs 3.1 pounds, which is very reasonable for a 14-inch machine. 

As for its auto-twisting abilities, the main use case is during presentation and video calls, where the laptop can use its motor, 10-MP webcam and AI to track your face as you move around so you stay neatly in frame. Compared to the concept I saw before, the laptop pivots and rotates its display more smoothly (though it’s still a bit jerky) and if you want, you can even make it dance to music. Alternatively, the laptop can analyze your posture to position its screen in the optimal position to prevent slouching or automatically transform between laptop, tablet and presentation modes. While this is a really minor inclusion, my favorite thing about the Auto Twist is that when you turn the system off, the laptop will automatically close its own lid, as if it was tucking itself into bed. 

The other goal of this laptop is that Lenovo is touting it as a vertical AI solution for small businesses. Naturally this means that the system supports Microsoft’s Copilot+ features, though we also saw a demo of Lenovo’s own AI companion. Not only can you talk to it, ask it questions or use it to translate other languages like a regular digital assistant, the company created a friendly face that reacts to your queries and comments. 

The one odd inclusion, which probably won’t make it to retail units, was an AI feature designed to help you understand hidden meanings or subtext in other languages. However, in my experience (as seen in the video above), this turned into a weird excuse to get negged by AI or at the very least make yourself more paranoid about what your friends or coworkers are saying about you. 

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

In the end, I’m still not sure I need a laptop with a display and a camera that can follow me around during video calls. But if you have happy feet during work meetings or like to express yourself through movement, the ThinkBook Plus Gen 7 Auto Twist might be the business notebook you need. Plus, considering it features relatively novel tech, its starting price of $1,649 is surprisingly approachable. You’ll just have to wait until it goes on sale sometime in June.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/ces-2026-the-lenovo-thinkbook-plus-gen-7-auto-twist-wont-let-you-out-of-it-sight-010000913.html?src=rss

Lenovo has experimented more with laptops featuring rollable displays than pretty much any other PC maker and at CES 2026 it’s keeping that trend going with the XD Rollable Concept.

Equipped with a 180-degree Gorilla Glass Victus 2 cover, the XD Rollable concept features a very futuristic design. However, underneath, it has the same basic engineering as last year’s ThinkBook Plus Gen 6. That means with the touch of a button, its 13.3-inch flexible OLED display can expand to 16 inches, which gives you around 50 percent extra screen space in just a few seconds. The main difference with Lenovo’s latest concept is that instead of hiding the unused section of its rollable display underneath its keyboard, the XD’s panel wraps up and over its lid to create a “world-facing” display around back. This allows people sitting on the other side of the laptop to see content, with the laptop capable of mirroring elements from its main display or using that space as a small secondary monitor. 

Now I will admit that after seeing the XD Rollable in person, its design does feel a bit gimmicky. Even though Lenovo’s space-themed animation that appears when the laptop’s display extends is pretty slick, I’m not sure how helpful that world-facing display really is. In normal use, you can’t even see it because it’s on the other side of the lid and while I suppose you could utilize that area for meetings or presentations, I think most people would be much better off simply connecting the notebook to a dedicated secondary monitor or projector. 

That said, I do like that contrary to the ThinkBook Plus Gen 6, by exposing the unused part of the XD Rollable’s display when it’s not extended, you get a little bit of extra value out of it. At the very least, it beats stashing the rest of the panel underneath the keyboard where it won’t be seen at all. On top of that, I like the look of having no bezel along the top of the display and you can even use touch controls on the edge of the display to control widgets or expand its flexible screen. Interestingly, the coolest part about the XD Rollable might not even be its screen, but the motors and rails that Lenovo uses to extend its display, which are easily seen beneath its glass design.

Meanwhile, the rest of the XD Rollable is very down to earth with it featuring a comfy keyboard and a decent-sized touchpad. The main downsides are that its glass lid makes the concept a bit heavier than a more traditional 13-inch notebook and you only get two USB-C ports. But considering that Lenovo isn’t planning to put this thing into production, that lack of connectivity or info regarding its specs shouldn’t come as a big surprise.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/lenovo-goes-sci-fi-with-its-wild-xd-rollable-concept-at-ces-2026-010000817.html?src=rss

After kicking off its Moto Things accessory line with wireless earbuds, a Bluetooth tracker and a cheap smartwatch in 2024, Motorola is doubling down. At CES 2026, the company is announcing a sequel to its tracker, the Moto Tag 2, a stylus for its new folding phone, the Moto Pen Ultra and a more premium smartwatch called the Moto Watch.

The Moto Watch has a 47mm round face with a stainless steel crown and an aluminum frame. The smartwatch comes with a PANTONE “Volcanic Ash” silicone band, but is designed to support third-party 22mm bands, too, which greatly expands its customization options. Motorola says the watch can get up to 13 days of battery life normally or seven days with its always-on display enabled, and also features a built-in speaker and microphone for hands-free controls and audio notifications. The Moto Watch is meant to be fairly durable, as well, with Gorilla Glass 3 front glass and IP68 water and dust resistance.

The actual fitness features of the watch are powered by Motorola’s new partner Polar, a company with its own line of fitness trackers and smartwatches. The Moto Watch lets users log their calorie consumption throughout the day, track their workouts and activity levels (with a daily Activity Goal and Activity Score) and monitor their sleep. The watch also has built-in dual-frequency GPS for tracking runs, bike rides and hikes.

Motorola

While Samsung dropped S Pen stylus support on its latest version of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 (one of many ways the company got the foldable so thin), Motorola is embracing styluses on its new Razr Fold. The Moto Pen Ultra comes with a charging case and supports things like palm rejection and tilt sensitivity for more accurate strokes. The Moto Pen Ultra can also be used with Google’s Circle to Search and new AI-powered software features like “Sketch to Image,” which converts hand-drawn sketches into detailed images.

Motorola

The Moto Tag 2 builds on the original Moto Tag with a longer battery life and better durability. The Moto Tag 2 is IP68-rated and now gets over 500 days of battery life in comparison to the original Tag’s year-long battery. As before, the Bluetooth tracker connects to Google’s Find Hub network and Motorola says the tracker’s ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna and support for Bluetooth Channel Sounding can help users determine the exact distance they are from their tracked object. You can also press the button on the Moto Tag 2 to ring your phone if it’s missing, or customize the Tag to act as a camera shutter button.

Motorola hasn’t shared pricing details for any of its new Moto Things accessories, though it has provided a release date for at least one. The Moto Watch will be available on January 22 from the company’s website. The Moto Tag 2 and Moto Pen Ultra, meanwhile, will both be available in North America “in the coming months.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/motorola-expands-its-moto-things-lineup-with-a-new-bluetooth-tracker-stylus-and-smartwatch-010000669.html?src=rss

If the world didn’t already have one too many digital assistants, Lenovo is adding another one to the pile. On Tuesday evening, the company announced Qira, a cross-device AI for both its own computers and Motorola smartphones. Set to arrive later this quarter, it will live at the system level of Lenovo devices. Users won’t need to open or switch to the assistant. Instead, “it’s always present,” says Lenovo.   

Of course, you can ignore Qira, and it will stay quiet if you don’t need the software to do anything for you. Occasionally, Lenovo says Qira will surface proactive suggestions, and for frequent users, the company promises a machine learning system that will develop a “living model” of your world, “understanding context, continuity and personal patterns of over time.” In practice, that means Qira can write emails for you, transcribe and translate meetings and provide summaries of things you might have missed. You know, all the usual stuff every company is offering with their on-device assistants.  

From a privacy standpoint, Lenovo says Qira employs a hybrid architecture that “prioritizes” on-device processing, and won’t collect customer data without the user’s permission. “Every aspect of the Lenovo Qira experience is designed to be secure, ethical, and accountable.” I asked Lenovo how Qira would interact with Copilot and Gemini on the company’s PCs and Motorola smartphones, and if the new assistant would add to the processing load on those devices, but the company has yet to respond to my email. I’ll update this article when I hear back. 

On paper, creating a dedicated AI assistant for the company’s devices is something I’m sure Lenovo executives agreed was a good idea, but when many people aren’t even using Copilot, it feels like a misread of what Lenovo users want. In April, reporting from Newcomer suggested Copilot had flatlined at around 20 million weekly users in 2024. By contrast, over that same period, ChatGPT had grown to 400 million weekly users, and as of late 2025, there are 800 million people using OpenAI’s chatbot every week. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/lenovo-and-motorola-are-releasing-their-own-on-device-ai-assistant-010000696.html?src=rss

Lenovo might have the most concept devices of any company at CES 2026, but the wildest and most interesting one is almost certainly the Legion Pro Rollable which features a 16-inch flexible display that can expand to not one but two different sizes. 

To make the Legion Pro Rollable, Lenovo started out with a standard Legion Pro 7i and kept the bottom half including all of its ports and support for an RTX 5090 GPU. But then the company went a bit crazy: Instead of replacing the notebook’s original 16-inch OLED screen with a rollable variant that extends upwards like the Thinkbook Plus Gen 6 from 2025, Lenovo opted for one that expands outwards to either 21.5 inches or 23.8 inches This means instead of being restricted to a standard 16:10 aspect ratio, you also have the choice of 21:9 or an ultra-wide 24:9 with just the touch of a button. Or more like two buttons because to widen or shrink its display, you need to press FN plus one of its arrow keys.

Admittedly that feels a bit clunky considering some of Lenovo’s other laptops with expandable displays have a dedicated button. But this is a concept device after all, which was immediately obvious when I got a chance to see this up close. The bottom of the laptop feels solid, as you’d probably expect because not much has changed there. However, the top of the laptop didn’t feel super sturdy, probably due to the display’s hinge not being able to fully support a heavier lid and the notebook’s bulkier rollable display. 

I also noticed that there were some faint lines left by the internal motors that allow the rollable display to do its thing and a bit of waviness from the panel due to it not being super taut. That said, from the side, I was impressed that even for a prototype, Lenovo did a halfway decent job of eliminating any huge panel gaps or empty spaces where the lid expands. The biggest bummer is that even though Lenovo had a handful of demo units on on site, there weren’t any games installed so I wasn’t able see the Legion Pro Rollable’s tech function in full glory. 

But if we’re being honest, none of that really matters on a gadget that’s meant to be a showcase and testbed for next-gen tech. The idea of a gaming laptop with a screen that can go from normal to ultra-wide at the touch of a button (or buttons) is super cool, especially if you play titles like flight sims, racing games or big open-world adventures that can take advantage of an extra wide screen. And out of all of the concepts I’ve seen at CES 2026, this one is at the top of the list of stuff that I hope eventually gets turned into a proper retail product. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/ces-2026-the-lenovo-legion-pro-rollable-concept-goes-big-wide-at-the-touch-of-a-button-010000333.html?src=rss

sinij shares a news release from the Utah Department of Commerce: The state of Utah, through the Utah Department of Commerce’s Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy, today announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with Doctronic, the AI-native health platform, to give patients with chronic conditions a faster, automated way to renew medications. This agreement marks the first state-approved program in the country that allows an AI system to legally participate in medical decision-making for prescription renewals, an emerging model that could reshape access to care and ultimately improve care outcomes. Politico provides additional context in its reporting: In data shared with Utah regulators, Doctronic compared its AI system with human clinicians across 500 urgent care cases. The results showed the AI’s treatment plan matched the physicians’ 99.2 percent of the time, according to the company. “The AI is actually better than doctors at doing this,” said Dr. Adam Oskowitz, Doctronic co-founder and an associate professor of surgery at the University of California San Francisco. “When you go see a doctor, it’s not going to do all the checks that the AI is doing.”

Oskowitz said the AI is designed to err on the side of safety, automatically escalating cases to a physician if there’s any uncertainty. Human doctors will also review the first 250 prescriptions issued in each medication class to validate the AI’s performance. Once that threshold is met, subsequent renewals in that class will be handled autonomously. The company has also secured a one-of-a-kind malpractice insurance policy covering an AI system, which means the system is insured and held to the same level of responsibility as a doctor would be.

Doctronic also runs a nationwide telehealth practice that directs patients to doctors after an AI consultation. In Utah, patients who use the system will visit a webpage that verifies they are physically in the state. Then the system will pull the patient’s prescription history and offer a list of medications eligible for renewal. The AI walks the patient through the same clinical questions a physician would ask to determine whether a refill is appropriate. If the system clears the renewal, the prescription is sent directly to a pharmacy. The program is limited to 190 commonly prescribed medications. Some medications — including pain management and ADHD drugs as well as injectables — are excluded for safety reasons.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In the original, and best Total Recall, there’s a scene where Rekall’s receptionist uses a digital pen to change the color of her nail polish. It’s only taken 35 years, but now a company has turned up to CES 2026 with a version that actually works outside a pricey sci-fi movie. iPolish is a company which makes press-on acrylic nails that, when you apply an electric charge, changes color.

In order to enjoy kaleidoscopic nails, you’ll need to charge the wand, which then connects to your phone. Once you’ve selected your color of choice, you just put the tip of the nail into the wand, and it’ll pass a short charge into the nail to change it. Sadly, the company wouldn’t shed too much light on the process it uses to run the nails but, from my guess, it’s some sort of electrochemical shenanigans going on behind the scenes. All in all, it took around five seconds to change the color of a single nail, so it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

Daniel Cooper for Engadget

iPolish says that each nail can display 400 colors, and can be changed as many times as the user would like. So, if you’re coordinating your nails with your outfits, you’re not bound to a single color palette in the weeks between salon visits. They’re also surprisingly affordable, with the starter set costing $95 which contains two sets of nails, one in Ballerina cut, one in Squoval. The Ballerinas are relatively short, while the Sqovals are longer.  It’s worth noting that you can’t shape the nails as you’ll break the hardware, so if you don’t like those shapes, you can’t use ‘em.

When it comes time to replace your nails when one breaks or you lose it in some nailbed mishap, you’ll be able to pick up spares for $6.50. Given the theoretical cost of getting your nails re-done on a weekly basis, being able to change color on a whim seems like a bargain. Of course, we won’t be able to speak to iPolish’s quality and reliability until they start shipping, which is presently expected to begin in June 2026.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/ipolish-brings-color-changing-press-on-smart-nails-to-ces-001345407.html?src=rss

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: On Monday, [Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the chip-making giant Nvidia] said the company would begin shipping a new A.I. chip later this year, one that can do more computing with less power than previous generations of chips could. Known as the Vera Rubin, the chip has been in development for three years and is designed to fulfill A.I. requests more quickly and cheaply than its predecessors. Mr. Huang, who spoke during CES, an annual tech conference in Las Vegas, also discussed Nvidia’s surprisingly ambitious work around autonomous vehicles. This year, Mercedes-Benz will begin shipping cars equipped with Nvidia self-driving technology comparable to Tesla’s Autopilot.

Nvidia’s new Rubin chips are being manufactured and will be shipped to customers, including Microsoft and Amazon, in the second half of the year, fulfilling a promise Mr. Huang made last March when he first described the chip at the company’s annual conference in San Jose, Calif. Companies will be able to train A.I. models with one-quarter as many Rubin chips as its predecessor, the Blackwell. It can provide information for chatbots and other A.I. products for one-tenth of the cost. They will also be able to install the chips in data centers more quickly, courtesy of redesigned supercomputers that feature fewer cables. If the new chips live up to their promise, they could allow companies to develop A.I. at a lower cost and at least begin to respond to the soaring electrical demands of data centers being built around the world.

[…] On Monday, he said Nvidia had developed new A.I. software that would allow customers like Uber and Lucid to develop cars that navigate roads autonomously. It will share the system, called Alpamayo, to spread its influence and the appeal of Nvidia’s chip technology. Since 2020, Nvidia has been working with Mercedes to develop a class of self-driving cars. They will begin shipping an early example of their collaboration when Mercedes CLA cars become available in the first half of the year in Europe and the United States. Mr. Huang said the company started working on self-driving technology eight years ago. It has more than a thousand people working on the project. “Our vision is that someday, every single car, every single truck, will be autonomous,” Mr. Huang said. The Rubin chips are named for the astronomer Vera Rubin, a pioneering astronomer who helped find powerful evidence of dark matter.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I’ve been a fan of XREAL for a while, but outside of people who are really into AR, it’s still a lesser-known company. Lifehacker has given XREAL’s glasses stellar reviews before, but in the company’s new collaboration with Asus, it’s aiming to really expand its market. The new ROG XREAL R1 AR glasses are the first XREAL glasses aimed specifically at gaming (although its other models aren’t exactly bad for gaming), and they basically put the best gaming monitor you could ever want right on your face.

Essentially, you wear these like a normal pair of sunglasses, and you get a massive 171-inch virtual TV floating in a black void right in front of you. It’s an OLED, so there are crisp colors and high contrast, and the resolution is a respectable 1080p. Most importantly, the glasses max out at a 240Hz refresh rate, meaning they can display up to 240 frames-per-second.

Taken all together, that’s better than pretty much all of the full-size desktop monitors I have at home, but these are portable. They’re barely heavier than my reading glasses, too, and you can set your virtual screen to either be anchored in one spot (meaning it won’t follow your head) or stay in front of your eyes at all times. I prefer the former, since it means it shakes around less.

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

I also didn’t get any of the usual problems I have with AR or VR, like light bleed or fuzzy graphics. Aside from the black void, this really did feel like looking at a real-life screen. And you don’t even have to use the full 171-inches, if you prefer something smaller.

Aside from the glasses, Asus is also shipping these with a dock, to help you better use them with your various devices. It’s got two HDMI ports and one DisplayPort connection, so you can have up to three devices ready to go at one time.

It’s probably the most realistic way you’re going to get an experience like gaming on a movie theater screen, and it’s also set to improve down the line. Asus told me these glasses will eventually support XREAL’s 2D-to-3D conversion tech, which just came out on the new XREAL 1S glasses and automatically converts any image to 3D. The effect uses AI to determine how to split the image between your eyes, but it was so convincing to me when I tried it with Mario Kart World that it felt like it was officially developed by Nintendo.

And on that end, I have confirmation from XREAL that the ROG XREAL R1 glasses are compatible with the XREAL Neo mobile dock and battery pack. This is much more compact than the dock that comes with the headset, and if you plug the glasses and the Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 into it at the same time, will allow you to play your Nintendo console in AR. Even Asus’ dock can’t do that without another Switch dock acting as an intermediary first. Plus, this will charge whatever device you’re playing at the same time.

The ROG XREAL R1 AR glasses will release later this year, although pricing isn’t available quite yet. They’re expected to release in the first half of this year.

Google will begin releasing Android Open Source Project (AOSP) source code only twice a year starting in 2026. “In the past, Google would release the source code for every quarterly Android release, of which there are four each year,” notes Android Authority. From the report: Google told Android Authority that, effective 2026, Google will publish new source code to AOSP in Q2 and Q4. The reason is to ensure platform stability for the Android ecosystem and better align with Android’s trunk-stable development model.

Developers navigating to source.android.com today will see a banner confirming the change that reads as follows: “Effective in 2026, to align with our trunk-stable development model and ensure platform stability for the ecosystem, we will publish source code to AOSP in Q2 and Q4. For building and contributing to AOSP, we recommend utilizing android-latest-release instead of aosp-main. The aosp-latest-release manifest branch will always reference the most recent release pushed to AOSP. For more information, see Changes to AOSP.”

A spokesperson for Google offered some additional context on this decision, stating that it helps simplify development, eliminates the complexity of managing multiple code branches, and allows them to deliver more stable and secure code to Android platform developers. The spokesperson also reiterated that Google’s commitment to AOSP is unchanged and that this new release schedule helps the company build a more robust and secure foundation for the Android ecosystem. Finally, Google told us that its process for security patch releases will not change and that the company will keep publishing security patches each month on a dedicated security-only branch for relevant OS releases just as it does today.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Before this CES, I thought gaming headsets had gotten about as complex as they ever would. How many improvements can you possibly make on speakers and microphones? Well, forget all that. Apparently, the future of gaming headsets is mind-reading.

In a private demo with a colleague from IGN this CES, I tested out a collaboration between HP’s HyperX gaming brand and brain-computer interface company Neurable. Neurable’s been at CES before, but most of its work has been in the defense and enterprise sectors. The idea behind the brand is specifically aimed at helping you nail down your focus, and now, Neurable thinks it can use that to help gamers.

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

Here’s how it works. Before trying on the Neurable x HyperX headset, I did a quick run-through in a target shooting game, where I shot down 30 targets with a 547ms response time. Then, I got guided through a focus program called Prime. This showed a cloud of dots on the screen, and I was told to do whatever I needed to do to focus up. I decided to stare into the distance and count, and in about 90 seconds, the dots had shrunken down into a small orb and I was “primed.” Neurable also suggested focusing techniques like repeating a word in your head over and over, or following one of the dots as it moved about the screen, but these didn’t work for me.

Than, I did the shooting test again. Theoretically, I should have been better, but I actually scored slightly worse this time—a 559ms response time.

Still, that response time isn’t terrible, and your mileage may vary. It might just have been that I was already really locked in before priming, and my colleague actually reduced her response time by about 40ms after priming.

If all of that optimization sounds really nitty-gritty, well, yeah. This is aimed at esports players and streamers, where every (mili)second counts.

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

And that’s probably where the headset’s coolest feature comes in for me. Alongside Prime, Neurable and HyperX are also working on an overlay plugin for streamers that can show their focus level on screen. You can display this as a speedometer, or as that cloud of dots, or even as a progress bar that shows whether you’re “on tilt” or not. It should make for some pretty fun interactions with viewers, and play well with existing plug-ins, like eye trackers that show where a streamer is looking.

Plus, my slightly worse response time after priming wasn’t totally useless. Neurable said the headset could be used to help you “practice choking,” where you psych yourself up shortly after locking in and end up worse off. I thought that maybe sounded like marketing spin, but my colleague, a high-level raider in World of Warcraft, said it would have real use for her.

It’s still just a concept for now, but it’s exciting to see this kind of tech getting ready to hit the mass market. What also sets Neurable apart is how portable it is. Unlike other brain-computer interfaces, this just looks like a normal headset, and all the contacts are just stored in the earcups. There’s no need for a giant helmet with discs and wires attached to it, which is thanks to Neurable’s expertise in AI. The company says that using such a compact form factor does result in getting a small amount of data, and a lot of junk data, but thanks to an on-device AI model, it’s easily able to detect trends in your focus and translate them into something usable.

That seemed to be true in my demo, which at the end of the day, kind of felt like a guided meditation with real-time feedback. You could use this for more than gaming, but it’s a clever use case for digital mind-reading, and the streaming plugins really take the cake, helping solidify the concept into a clear product with a concrete goal and target audience.

It’ll take a while for the gaming version of Neurable’s tech to be ready, although the company said it hopes to get it out this year. In the meantime, you can buy an ultra-luxury headset with Neurable’s mind-reading built in, although it’s currently on pre-order and will set you back $500. It also won’t come with Prime or that streaming plugin, although because those are based in software, that could change in the future.