Gadgets

Ploopy just announced the A Plus trackball, the successor to the open-source, 3D-printed Adept. It has six buttons, two dials, a wrist rest, and RGB LEDs. It goes on sale on August 19th starting at $99 CAD (about $71 USD). Ploopy.

You can already get multi-port desktop USB-C chargers with a status screen from companies like Satechi, Baseus, and Anker. What sets Ugreen’s new $199.99 Nexode Pro 300W apart is that in addition to six USB-C charging ports and a USB-A port, it includes a barrel-style port that can deliver 240W to a beefy laptop.

Qualcomm has now shared that its Snapdragon C laptop platform is built on a 6nm process, with an 8-core CPU and support for up to 16GB of LPDDR5X memory. The budget laptops are obviously not powerhouses, especially with Qualcomm positioning them against Intel N250 devices instead of Intel’s Core lineup or the MacBook Neo’s A18 Pro chip.

Its new C100 8K Giant Custom Macro Pad packs 100 keys (sitting atop swappable Keychron Apex switches) into a 10x10 grid that will take a sizable bite out of your desktop. It’s available now for $64.99 and features an 8,000Hz polling rate and per key RGB lighting that you can potentially use to differentiate what each key does.

But also pricier. The HydraSense is a new countertop water filter that dispenses water with a button press, filling your cup or bottle in seconds.

Sales dropped 64% year-on-year in Q2, according to research from Counterpoint, as manufacturers raised prices or simply stopped shipping cheaper models. Samsung and Motorola have been the only brands to benefit, as smaller companies became unable to undercut them on price. That helped both grow their market share in prepaid phones.

We live blogged almost 90 minutes of a show that was, honestly, better than expected. Our video team cut it down to eight.

The Made By Google keynote, hosted by Trevor Noah, kicks off at 6PM ET. Stay tuned to this website starting at 5:30PM for our live blog. Victoria Song will be there live, with Jay Peters, Jake Kastrenakes, and myself following remotely. Let’s see what happens.

The seventh Today I’m Toying With giveaway is live. Each week, I give away gadgets from my TITW videos, because I can’t ethically keep them! You can enter each new giveaway at theverge.com/TITW (or by email, see the rules) starting 9AM each Wednesday; I draw a winner a week later.

The Vergecast crew will be live in 30(ish) minutes, at 1PM ET, running down all the details on the new Pixel phones, Pixel Watch, Pixel Tag, and everything else. We’re going to have a lot of feelings about photos, how we capture them, and what they even are anymore. Hope to see you there!

Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney’s Computer Space is considered the first arcade machine that even predates Pong. This two-player version now up for auction is even rarer than the single player machine that preceded it in 1971. It’s expected to go for over $20,000 when the auction ends on August 20th.

Ahead of Gears of War: E-Day releasing in October, Microsoft opened preorders for a new $89.99 Xbox controller featuring “3D molded, laser-etched details of cracked asphalt with red, glowing cracks.” On September 30th the Xbox Design Lab will also introduce a new E-Day design with a top case featuring artwork by illustrator Luke Preece.

Samsung’s online-exclusive “Pistachio” version of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 looks great, and has apparently been selling well. But I’m a much bigger fan of Google’s Pixel 11 finish by the same name. It looks a lot closer to the color of a good pistachio gelato, unlike whatever minty nonsense Samsung is up to.

It’s not a brand-new set of earbuds, but in addition to a new olive color, the Pixel Buds Pro 2 will get a firmware update that can improve ANC based on how the buds sit in your ears. Expect the update to roll out sometime in September.

Wahoo is revamping its app to expand beyond its core cycling hardware to become a “connected training ecosystem.” And that means subscriptions. Under its new three-tier model, basic Wahoo device support is still free; $4.99/month adds performance analytics, insights, and training load tracking for self-guided athletes; and $17.99/month adds structured training guidance.

The CMF Clip Pro open wireless earbuds were announced just a few days ago, but they’re already seeing their first discount. Normally $99, Amazon has the earbuds marked down to $79 in all three colors: light grey, dark grey, and coral. They have enough battery life for up to 10 hours of playback on their own, and up to 33 hours total with the charging case, which has a smart dial for adjusting volume and controlling media.