In 2025, it’s very difficult not to see gambling advertised everywhere. It’s on billboards and sports broadcasts. It’s on podcasts and printed on the turnbuckle of AEW’s pay-per-view shows. And it’s on app stores, where you can find the FanDuel and DraftKings sportsbooks, alongside glitzy digital slot machines. These apps all have the highest age ratings possible on Apple’s App Store and Google Play. But earlier this year, a different kind of app nearly disappeared from the Play Store entirely.Luck Be A Landlord is a roguelite deckbuilder from solo developer Dan DiIorio. DiIorio got word from Google in January 2025 that Luck Be A Landlord was about to be pulled, globally, because DiIorio had not disclosed the game’s “gambling themes” in its rating.In Luck Be a Landlord, the player takes spins on a pixel art slot machine to earn coins to pay their ever-increasing rent — a nightmare gamification of our day-to-day grind to remain housed. On app stores, it’s a one-time purchase of $4.99, and it’s $9.99 on Steam. On the Play Store page, developer Dan DiIorio notes, “This game does not contain any real-world currency gambling or microtransactions.”And it doesn’t. But for Google, that didn’t matter. First, the game was removed from the storefront in a slew of countries that have strict gambling laws. Then, at the beginning of 2025, Google told Dilorio that Luck Be A Landlord would be pulled globally because of its rating discrepancy, as it “does not take into account references to gambling (including real or simulated gambling)”.DiIorio had gone through this song and dance before — previously, when the game was blocked, he would send back a message saying “hey, the game doesn’t have gambling,” and then Google would send back a screenshot of the game and assert that, in fact, it had.DiIorio didn’t agree, but this time they decided that the risk of Landlord getting taken down permanently was too great. They’re a solo developer, and Luck Be a Landlord had just had its highest 30-day revenue since release. So, they filled out the form confirming that Luck Be A Landlord has “gambling themes,” and are currently hoping that this will be the end of it.This is a situation that sucks for an indie dev to be in, and over email DiIorio told Polygon it was “very frustrating.”“I think it can negatively affect indie developers if they fall outside the norm, which indies often do,” they wrote. “It also makes me afraid to explore mechanics like this further. It stifles creativity, and that’s really upsetting.”In late 2024, the hit game Balatro was in a similar position. It had won numerous awards, and made $1,000,000 in its first week on mobile platforms. And then overnight, the PEGI ratings board declared that the game deserved an adult rating.The ESRB had already rated it E10+ in the US, noting it has gambling themes. And the game was already out in Europe, making its overnight ratings change a surprise. Publisher PlayStack said the rating was given because Balatro has “prominent gambling imagery and material that instructs about gambling.”Balatro is basically Luck Be A Landlord’s little cousin. Developer LocalThunk was inspired by watching streams of Luck Be A Landlord, and seeing the way DiIorio had implemented deck-building into his slot machine. And like Luck Be A Landlord, Balatro is a one-time purchase, with no microtransactions.But the PEGI board noted that because the game uses poker hands, the skills the player learns in Balatro could translate to real-world poker.In its write-up, GameSpot noted that the same thing happened to a game called Sunshine Shuffle. It was temporarily banned from the Nintendo eShop, and also from the entire country of South Korea. Unlike Balatro, Sunshine Shuffle actually is a poker game, except you’re playing Texas Hold ‘Em — again for no real money — with cute animals (who are bank robbers).It’s common sense that children shouldn’t be able to access apps that allow them to gamble. But none of these games contain actual gambling — or do they?Where do we draw the line? Is it gambling to play any game that is also played in casinos, like poker or blackjack? Is it gambling to play a game that evokes the aesthetics of a casino, like cards, chips, dice, or slot machines? Is it gambling to wager or earn fictional money?Gaming has always been a lightning rod for controversy. Sex, violence, misogyny, addiction — you name it, video games have been accused of perpetrating or encouraging it. But gambling is gaming’s original sin. And it’s the one we still can’t get a grip on.The original link between gambling and gamingGetty ImagesThe association between video games and gambling all goes back to pinball. Back in the ’30s and ’40s, politicians targeted pinball machines for promoting gambling. Early pinball machines were less skill-based (they didn’t have flippers), and some gave cash payouts, so the comparison wasn’t unfair. Famously, mob-hating New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia banned pinball in the city, and appeared in a newsreel dumping pinball and slot machines into the Long Island Sound. Pinball machines spent some time relegated to the back rooms of sex shops and dive bars. But after some lobbying, the laws relaxed.By the 1970s, pinball manufacturers were also making video games, and the machines were side-by-side in arcades. Arcade machines, like pinball, took small coin payments, repeatedly, for short rounds of play. The disreputable funk of pinball basically rubbed off onto video games.Ever since video games rocked onto the scene, concerned and sometimes uneducated parties have been asking if they’re dangerous. And in general, studies have shown that they’re not. The same can’t be said about gambling — the practice of putting real money down to bet on an outcome.It’s a golden age for gambling2025 in the USA is a great time for gambling, which has been really profitable for gambling companies — to the tune of $66.5 billion dollars of revenue in 2023.To put this number in perspective, the American Gaming Association, which is the casino industry’s trade group and has nothing to do with video games, reports that 2022’s gambling revenue was $60.5 billion. It went up $6 billion in a year.And this increase isn’t just because of sportsbooks, although sports betting is a huge part of it. Online casinos and brick-and-mortar casinos are both earning more, and as a lot of people have pointed out, gambling is being normalized to a pretty disturbing degree.Much like with alcohol, for a small percentage of people, gambling can tip from occasional leisure activity into addiction. The people who are most at risk are, by and large, already vulnerable: researchers at the Yale School of Medicine found that 96% of problem gamblers are also wrestling with other disorders, such as “substance use, impulse-control disorders, mood disorders, and anxiety disorders.”Even if you’re not in that group, there are still good reasons to be wary of gambling. People tend to underestimate their own vulnerability to things they know are dangerous for others. Someone else might bet beyond their means. But I would simply know when to stop.Maybe you do! But being blithely confident about it can make it hard to notice if you do develop a problem. Or if you already have one.Addiction changes the way your brain works. When you’re addicted to something, your participation in it becomes compulsive, at the expense of other interests and responsibilities. Someone might turn to their addiction to self-soothe when depressed or anxious. And speaking of those feelings, people who are depressed and anxious are already more vulnerable to addiction. Given the entire state of the world right now, this predisposition shines an ugly light on the numbers touted by the AGA. Is it good that the industry is reporting $6 billion in additional earnings, when the economy feels so frail, when the stock market is ping ponging through highs and lows daily, when daily expenses are rising? It doesn’t feel good. In 2024, the YouTuber Drew Gooden turned his critical eye to online gambling. One of the main points he makes in his excellent video is that gambling is more accessible than ever. It’s on all our phones, and betting companies are using decades of well-honed app design and behavioral studies to manipulate users to spend and spend.Meanwhile, advertising on podcasts, billboards, TV, radio, and websites – it’s literally everywhere — tells you that this is fun, and you don’t even need to know what you’re doing, and you’re probably one bet away from winning back those losses.Where does Luck Be a Landlord come into this?So, are there gambling themes in Luck Be A Landlord? The game’s slot machine is represented in simple pixel art. You pay one coin to use it, and among the more traditional slot machine symbols are silly ones like a snail that only pays out after 4 spins.When I started playing it, my primary emotion wasn’t necessarily elation at winning coins — it was stress and disbelief when, in the third round of the game, the landlord increased my rent by 100%. What the hell.I don’t doubt that getting better at it would produce dopamine thrills akin to gambling — or playing any video game. But it’s supposed to be difficult, because that’s the joke. If you beat the game you unlock more difficulty modes where, as you keep paying rent, your landlord gets furious, and starts throwing made-up rules at you: previously rare symbols will give you less of a payout, and the very mechanics of the slot machine change.It’s a manifestation of the golden rule of casinos, and all of capitalism writ large: the odds are stacked against you. The house always wins. There is luck involved, to be sure, but because Luck Be A Landlord is a deck-builder, knowing the different ways you can design your slot machine to maximize payouts is a skill! You have some influence over it, unlike a real slot machine. The synergies that I’ve seen high-level players create are completely nuts, and obviously based on a deep understanding of the strategies the game allows.IMAGE: TrampolineTales via PolygonBalatro and Luck Be a Landlord both distance themselves from casino gambling again in the way they treat money. In Landlord, the money you earn is gold coins, not any currency we recognize. And the payouts aren’t actually that big. By the end of the core game, the rent money you’re struggling and scraping to earn… is 777 coins. In the post-game endless mode, payouts can get massive. But the thing is, to get this far, you can’t rely on chance. You have to be very good at Luck Be a Landlord.And in Balatro, the numbers that get big are your points. The actual dollar payments in a round of Balatro are small. These aren’t games about earning wads and wads of cash. So, do these count as “gambling themes”?We’ll come back to that question later. First, I want to talk about a closer analog to what we colloquially consider gambling: loot boxes and gacha games.Random rewards: from Overwatch to the rise of gachaRecently, I did something that I haven’t done in a really long time: I thought about Overwatch. I used to play Overwatch with my friends, and I absolutely made a habit of dropping 20 bucks here or there for a bunch of seasonal loot boxes. This was never a problem behavior for me, but in hindsight, it does sting that over a couple of years, I dropped maybe $150 on cosmetics for a game that now I primarily associate with squandered potential.Loot boxes grew out of free-to-play mobile games, where they’re the primary method of monetization. In something like Overwatch, they functioned as a way to earn additional revenue in an ongoing game, once the player had already dropped 40 bucks to buy it.More often than not, loot boxes are a random selection of skins and other cosmetics, but games like Star Wars: Battlefront 2 were famously criticized for launching with loot crates that essentially made it pay-to-win – if you bought enough of them and got lucky.It’s not unprecedented to associate loot boxes with gambling. A 2021 study published in Addictive Behaviors showed that players who self-reported as problem gamblers also tended to spend more on loot boxes, and another study done in the UK found a similar correlation with young adults.While Overwatch certainly wasn’t the first game to feature cosmetic loot boxes or microtransactions, it’s a reference point for me, and it also got attention worldwide. In 2018, Overwatch was investigated by the Belgian Gaming Commission, which found it “in violation of gambling legislation” alongside FIFA 18 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Belgium’s response was to ban the sale of loot boxes without a gambling license. Having a paid random rewards mechanic in a game is a criminal offense there. But not really. A 2023 study showed that 82% of iPhone games sold on the App Store in Belgium still use random paid monetization, as do around 80% of games that are rated 12+. The ban wasn’t effectively enforced, if at all, and the study recommends that a blanket ban wouldn’t actually be a practical solution anyway.Overwatch was rated T for Teen by the ESRB, and 12 by PEGI. When it first came out, its loot boxes were divisive. Since the mechanic came from F2P mobile games, which are often seen as predatory, people balked at seeing it in a big action game from a multi-million dollar publisher.At the time, the rebuttal was, “Well, at least it’s just cosmetics.” Nobody needs to buy loot boxes to be good at Overwatch.A lot has changed since 2016. Now we have a deeper understanding of how these mechanics are designed to manipulate players, even if they don’t affect gameplay. But also, they’ve been normalized. While there will always be people expressing disappointment when a AAA game has a paid random loot mechanic, it is no longer shocking.And if anything, these mechanics have only become more prevalent, thanks to the growth of gacha games. Gacha is short for “gachapon,” the Japanese capsule machines where you pay to receive one of a selection of random toys. Getty ImagesIn gacha games, players pay — not necessarily real money, but we’ll get to that — for a chance to get something. Maybe it’s a character, or a special weapon, or some gear — it depends on the game. Whatever it is, within that context, it’s desirable — and unlike the cosmetics of Overwatch, gacha pulls often do impact the gameplay.For example, in Infinity Nikki, you can pull for clothing items in these limited-time events. You have a chance to get pieces of a five-star outfit. But you also might pull one of a set of four-star items, or a permanent three-star piece. Of course, if you want all ten pieces of the five-star outfit, you have to do multiple pulls, each costing a handful of limited resources that you can earn in-game or purchase with money.Gacha was a fixture of mobile gaming for a long time, but in recent years, we’ve seen it go AAA, and global. MiHoYo’s Genshin Impact did a lot of that work when it came out worldwide on consoles and PC alongside its mobile release. Genshin and its successors are massive AAA games of a scale that, for your Nintendos and Ubisofts, would necessitate selling a bajillion copies to be a success. And they’re free.Genshin is an action game, whose playstyle changes depending on what character you’re playing — characters you get from gacha pulls, of course. In Zenless Zone Zero, the characters you can pull have different combo patterns, do different kinds of damage, and just feel different to play. And whereas in an early mobile gacha game like Love Nikki Dress UP! Queen the world was rudimentary, its modern descendant Infinity Nikki is, like Genshin, Breath of the Wild-esque. It is a massive open world, with collectibles and physics puzzles, platforming challenges, and a surprisingly involved storyline. Genshin Impact was the subject of an interesting study where researchers asked young adults in Hong Kong to self-report on their gacha spending habits. They found that, like with gambling, players who are not feeling good tend to spend more. “Young adult gacha gamers experiencing greater stress and anxiety tend to spend more on gacha purchases, have more motives for gacha purchases, and participate in more gambling activities,” they wrote. “This group is at a particularly higher risk of becoming problem gamblers.”One thing that is important to note is that Genshin Impact came out in 2020. The study was self-reported, and it was done during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a time when people were experiencing a lot of stress, and also fewer options to relieve that stress. We were all stuck inside gaming.But the fact that stress can make people more likely to spend money on gacha shows that while the gacha model isn’t necessarily harmful to everyone, it is exploitative to everyone. Since I started writing this story, another self-reported study came out in Japan, where 18.8% of people in their 20s say they’ve spent money on gacha rather than on things like food or rent.Following Genshin Impact’s release, MiHoYo put out Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero. All are shiny, big-budget games that are free to play, but dangle the lure of making just one purchase in front of the player. Maybe you could drop five bucks on a handful of in-game currency to get one more pull. Or maybe just this month you’ll get the second tier of rewards on the game’s equivalent of a Battle Pass. The game is free, after all — but haven’t you enjoyed at least ten dollars’ worth of gameplay? Image: HoyoverseI spent most of my December throwing myself into Infinity Nikki. I had been so stressed, and the game was so soothing. I logged in daily to fulfill my daily wishes and earn my XP, diamonds, Threads of Purity, and bling. I accumulated massive amounts of resources. I haven’t spent money on the game. I’m trying not to, and so far, it’s been pretty easy. I’ve been super happy with how much stuff I can get for free, and how much I can do! I actually feel really good about that — which is what I said to my boyfriend, and he replied, “Yeah, that’s the point. That’s how they get you.”And he’s right. Currently, Infinity Nikki players are embroiled in a war with developer Infold, after Infold introduced yet another currency type with deep ties to Nikki’s gacha system. Every one of these gacha games has its own tangled system of overlapping currencies. Some can only be used on gacha pulls. Some can only be used to upgrade items. Many of them can be purchased with human money.Image: InFold Games/Papergames via PolygonAll of this adds up. According to Sensor Towers’ data, Genshin Impact earned over 36 million dollars on mobile alone in a single month of 2024. I don’t know what Dan DiIorio’s peak monthly revenue for Luck Be A Landlord was, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that.A lot of the spending guardrails we see in games like these are actually the result of regulations in other territories, especially China, where gacha has been a big deal for a lot longer. For example, gacha games have a daily limit on loot boxes, with the number clearly displayed, and a system collectively called “pity,” where getting the banner item is guaranteed after a certain number of pulls. Lastly, developers have to be clear about what the odds are. When I log in to spend the Revelation Crystals I’ve spent weeks hoarding in my F2P Infinity Nikki experience, I know that I have a 1.5% chance of pulling a 5-star piece, and that the odds can go up to 6.06%, and that I am guaranteed to get one within 20 pulls, because of the pity system.So, these odds are awful. But it is not as merciless as sitting down at a Vegas slot machine, an experience best described as “oh… that’s it?”There’s not a huge philosophical difference between buying a pack of loot boxes in Overwatch, a pull in Genshin Impact, or even a booster of Pokémon cards. You put in money, you get back randomized stuff that may or may not be what you want. In the dictionary definition, it’s a gamble. But unlike the slot machine, it’s not like you’re trying to win money by doing it, unless you’re selling those Pokémon cards, which is a topic for another time.But since even a game where you don’t get anything, like Balatro or Luck Be A Landlord, can come under fire for promoting gambling to kids, it would seem appropriate for app stores and ratings boards to take a similarly hardline stance with gacha.Instead, all these games are rated T for Teen by the ESRB, and PEGI 12 in the EU.The ESRB ratings for these games note that they contain in-game purchases, including random items. Honkai: Star Rail’s rating specifically calls out a slot machine mechanic, where players spend tokens to win a prize. But other than calling out Honkai’s slot machine, app stores are not slapping Genshin or Nikki with an 18+ rating. Meanwhile, Balatro had a PEGI rating of 18 until a successful appeal in February 2025, and Luck Be a Landlord is still 17+ on Apple’s App Store.Nobody knows what they’re doingWhen I started researching this piece, I felt very strongly that it was absurd that Luck Be A Landlord and Balatro had age ratings this high.I still believe that the way both devs have been treated by ratings boards is bad. Threatening an indie dev with a significant loss of income by pulling their game is bad, not giving them a way to defend themself or help them understand why it’s happening is even worse. It’s an extension of the general way that too-big-to-fail companies like Google treat all their customers.DiIorio told me that while it felt like a human being had at least looked at Luck Be A Landlord to make the determination that it contained gambling themes, the emails he was getting were automatic, and he doesn’t have a contact at Google to ask why this happened or how he can avoid it in the future — an experience that will be familiar to anyone who has ever needed Google support. But what’s changed for me is that I’m not actually sure anymore that games that don’t have gambling should be completely let off the hook for evoking gambling.Exposing teens to simulated gambling without financial stakes could spark an interest in the real thing later on, according to a study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. It’s the same reason you can’t mosey down to the drug store to buy candy cigarettes. Multiple studies were done that showed kids who ate candy cigarettes were more likely to take up smoking (of course, the candy is still available — just without the “cigarette” branding.)So while I still think rating something like Balatro 18+ is nuts, I also think that describing it appropriately might be reasonable. As a game, it’s completely divorced from literally any kind of play you would find in a casino — but I can see the concern that the thrill of flashy numbers and the shiny cards might encourage young players to try their hand at poker in a real casino, where a real house can take their money.Maybe what’s more important than doling out high age ratings is helping people think about how media can affect us. In the same way that, when I was 12 and obsessed with The Matrix, my parents gently made sure that I knew that none of the violence was real and you can’t actually cartwheel through a hail of bullets in real life. Thanks, mom and dad!But that’s an answer that’s a lot more abstract and difficult to implement than a big red 18+ banner. When it comes to gacha, I think we’re even less equipped to talk about these game mechanics, and I’m certain they’re not being age-rated appropriately. On the one hand, like I said earlier, gacha exploits the player’s desire for stuff that they are heavily manipulated to buy with real money. On the other hand, I think it’s worth acknowledging that there is a difference between gacha and casino gambling.Problem gamblers aren’t satisfied by winning — the thing they’re addicted to is playing, and the risk that comes with it. In gacha games, players do report satisfaction when they achieve the prize they set out to get. And yes, in the game’s next season, the developer will be dangling a shiny new prize in front of them with the goal of starting the cycle over. But I think it’s fair to make the distinction, while still being highly critical of the model.And right now, there is close to no incentive for app stores to crack down on gacha in any way. They get a cut of in-app purchases. Back in 2023, miHoYo tried a couple of times to set up payment systems that circumvented Apple’s 30% cut of in-app spending. Both times, it was thwarted by Apple, whose App Store generated $1.1 trillion in developer billings and sales in 2022.According to Apple itself, 90% of that money did not include any commission to Apple. Fortunately for Apple, ten percent of a trillion dollars is still one hundred billion dollars, which I would also like to have in my bank account. Apple has zero reason to curb spending on games that have been earning millions of dollars every month for years.And despite the popularity of Luck Be A Landlord and Balatro’s massive App Store success, these games will never be as lucrative. They’re one-time purchases, and they don’t have microtransactions. To add insult to injury, like most popular games, Luck Be A Landlord has a lot of clones. And from what I can tell, it doesn’t look like any of them have been made to indicate that their games contain the dreaded “gambling themes” that Google was so worried about in Landlord.In particular, a game called SpinCraft: Roguelike from Sneaky Panda Games raised $6 million in seed funding for “inventing the Luck-Puzzler genre,” which it introduced in 2022, while Luck Be A Landlord went into early access in 2021.It’s free-to-play, has ads and in-app purchases, looks like Fisher Price made a slot machine, and it’s rated E for everyone, with no mention of gambling imagery in its rating. I reached out to the developers to ask if they had also been contacted by the Play Store to disclose that their game has gambling themes, but I haven’t heard back.Borrowing mechanics in games is as old as time, and it’s something I in no way want to imply shouldn’t happen because copyright is the killer of invention — but I think we can all agree that the system is broken.There is no consistency in how games with random chance are treated. We still do not know how to talk about gambling, or gambling themes, and at the end of the day, the results of this are the same: the house always wins.See More:

/May 30, 2025/4:28 p.m. ETTrump Attacks Harvard With Social Media Screening for All VisasThis pilot program will soon be expanded across the country.Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesThe Trump administration has begun carrying out its expanded vetting for student visa applicants, surveilling their social media accounts to make sure they aren’t posting anything in support of Palestine, which the administration considers antisemitic. This vetting will start with Harvard visa applicants but is expected to be adopted nationwide.Secretary of Stato Marco Rubio sent a cable to all U.S. embassies and consulates on Thursday ordering them to “conduct a complete screening of the online presence of any nonimmigrant visa applicant seeking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose.” That would apply not just to students but also to faculty, staff, and researchers visiting the university.The Trump administration is taking particular interest in people who have their social media accounts on “private,” an obvious, ominous crossing of boundaries.The State Department has ordered officers to examine “whether the lack of any online presence, or having social media accounts restricted to ‘private’ or with limited visibility, may be reflective of evasiveness and call into question the applicant’s credibility.”This is yet another instance of Harvard serving as a test subject for the administration’s larger crackdown on free speech and international students at American universities. Trump has already revoked billions of dollars in research funding from the Massachusetts school, and even banned it from admitting any international students at all, although the latter policy was temporarily revoked by a judge. Most Recent Post/May 30, 2025/3:53 p.m. ETStephen Miller Grilled on Musk’s Drug Use as Wife Lands New GigTrump’s chief adviser seems desperate to avoid questions on Elon Musk. Does that have anything to do with his wife’s new job? Francis Chung/Politico/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesStephen Miller had a dismissive response Friday to new reports of Elon Musk’s drug use during Trump’s campaign last year. CNN’s Pamela Brown asked the far-right Trump adviser if there was “any drug testing or requests for him to drug test when he was in the White House given the fact that he was also a contractor with the government.”  A chuckling Miller ignored the question and said, “Fortunately for you and all of the friends at CNN, you’ll have the opportunity to ask Elon all the questions you want today yourself,” before he then segued into the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant agenda. “The drugs I’m concerned about are the drugs that are coming across the border from the criminal cartels that are killing hundreds of thousands of Americans,” Miller said. Perhaps Miller laughed instead of answering because his wife, Katie Miller, has left her job as adviser and spokesperson for the Department of Government Efficiency to work full-time for Musk and his companies. Miller has probably had enough of Musk, as he has also been subtweeting the tech oligarch, trying to refute Musk’s criticisms that the Republican budget bill would raise the deficit. “The Big Beautiful Bill is NOT an annual budget bill and does not fund the departments of government. It does not finance our agencies or federal programs,” Miller said, in a long X post earlier this week. Is there bad blood between Miller and Musk that has now spiraled because Miller’s wife is working for the tech oligarch and fellow fascism enthusiast? Most Recent Post/May 30, 2025/3:19 p.m. ETOld Man Trump Repeatedly Fumbles in Weird Speech Praising Elon MuskDonald Trump couldn’t keep some of his words straight as he marked the supposed end of Elon Musk’s tenure at the White House.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesHours after reports emerged Friday that Elon Musk had been under the influence of heavy drugs during his time advising the president, Musk and Donald Trump stumbled and fumbled their way through a White House press conference recognizing the end of the tech billionaire’s special government employee status.The wildly unusual joint conference featured Musk’s black eye, a giant gold key that Trump said he only gives to “very special people,” cringe-worthy regurgitations by Musk of Trump’s take on his Pulitzer Board defamation suit, and claims that Musk’s unpopular and controversial time in the White House was not quite over.But as Trump continued to praise Musk and his time atop the Department of Government Efficiency, the president’s verbal gaffes became more apparent. He claimed that DOGE had uncovered $42 million in wasteful spending, referring to expenditures related to Uganda, which Trump pronounced as “oo-ganda.” The 78-year-old also mentioned he would have Musk’s DOGE cuts “cauterized by Congress,” though he quickly corrected himself by saying they would be “affirmed by Congress,” instead. Trump’s on-camera slippage has gotten worse in recent weeks: Earlier this month, Trump dozed off while in a meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. That is despite the fact that the president received a clean bill of health in a medical report released in April that described Trump as being in “excellent health,” including neurological functioning.Musk, meanwhile, refused to acknowledge emerging reports of his alleged drug use. But the news of White House drug use under Trump’s helm is nothing new: In fact, if the reports prove true, it would be little more than a return to form. Last year, a report by the Department of Defense inspector general indicated that the West Wing operated more like a pill mill than the nation’s highest office. Common pills included modafinil, Adderall, fentanyl, morphine, and ketamine, according to the Pentagon report. But other, unlisted drugs—like Xanax—were equally easy to come by from the White House Medical Unit, according to anonymous sources that spoke to Rolling Stone.While other presidents were known to take a mix of drug cocktails to fight off back pain (like JFK) or bad moods (like Nixon), no previous administrations matched the level of debauchery of Trump’s, whose in-office pharmacists unquestioningly handed out highly addictive substances to staffers who needed pick-me-ups or energy boosts—no doctor’s exam, referral, or prescription required.“It was kind of like the Wild West. Things were pretty loose. Whatever someone needs, we were going to fill this,” another source told Rolling Stone in March 2024.Meanwhile, pharmacists described an atmosphere of fear within the West Wing, claiming they would be “fired” if they spoke out or would receive negative work assignments if they didn’t hand pills over to staffers.Read more about the press conference:Trump and Elon Musk Have Ominous Warning About Future of DOGEMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/3:00 p.m. ETElon Musk Gives Strange Excuse for Massive Black EyeMusk showed up a press conference with Donald Trump sporting a noticeable shiner.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesElon Musk sported what looked like a black eye during his DOGE goodbye press conference with President Trump on Friday. When asked about it, he blamed the bruise on his 5-year-old son punching him in the face. “Mr. Musk … is your eye OK? What happened to your eye; I noticed there’s a bruise there?” one reporter finally asked near the end of the press conference.“Well, I wasn’t anywhere near France,” Musk said, in a weak attempt at a joke regarding footage of French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife slapping him in the face.“I was just horsing around with [my son] little X and said, ‘Go ’head and punch me in the face,’ and he did. Turns out even a 5-year-old punching you in the face actually does—”“That was X that did it? X could do it!” Trump chimed in. “If you knew X …”“I didn’t really feel much at the time; I guess it bruises up. But I was just messing around with the kids.”Musk chose an impeccable time to show up to a press conference with a black eye. Earlier in the day, The New York Times reported on Musk’s rampant drug use on and off the campaign trail, as the world’s richest man frequently mixed ketamine and psychedelics and kept a small box of pills, mostly containing Adderall. The shiner only adds to speculation around his personal habits.More on that Times report:Elon Musk Was on Crazy Combo of Drugs During Trump CampaignMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/2:51 p.m. ETTrump and Elon Musk Have Ominous Warning About Future of DOGEElon Musk’s time as a government employee has come to an end, but his time with Donald Trump has not.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesDespite the fanfare over Elon Musk’s supposed departure from the Department of Government Efficiency, Donald Trump says that the billionaire bureaucrat isn’t really going anywhere.“Many of the DOGE people are staying behind, so they’re not leaving. And Elon’s not really leaving. He’s gonna be back and forth, I think. I have a feeling. It’s his baby, and he’s gonna be doing a lot of things,” Trump said during a press conference in the Oval Office Friday.The press conference was held to mark the end of Musk’s time as a so-called “special government employee,” a title that allowed him to bypass certain ethics requirements during his 134-day stint in Trump’s administration. The president made sure to give Musk a gaudy golden key—what it actually unlocks went totally unaddressed—to make sure he could get back into the White House. “This is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning,” Musk said, promising that DOGE’s “influence” would “only grow stronger” over time.Earlier Friday, the billionaire bureaucrat shared a post on X asserting that the legacy of DOGE was more psychological than anything else. Surely, it will take longer than four months to forget the image of Musk running around with a chainsaw. Read more about Musk:Elon Musk Was on Crazy Combo of Drugs During Trump CampaignMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/1:21 p.m. ETDem Governor Vetoes Ban on Surprise Ambulance Bills in Shocking MoveThe bill had unanimous support in both chambers of the state legislature.Michael Ciaglo/Getty ImagesColorado’s Democratic Governor Jared Polis has vetoed a bill that would ban surprise billing by ambulance companies, over the unanimous objections of both chambers of the state legislature. Why would Polis veto a bill that’s popular with everyone, even Colorado Republicans? The governor wrote in his veto statement that drafting errors in the bill made it “unimplementable” and estimated that it would make insurance premiums go up by as much as $0.73 to $2.15 per person. “I am committed to working with proponents and sponsors to protect Coloradans from surprise bills, but I encourage all parties to work towards a more reasonable reimbursement rate that mitigates premium impacts and nets a better deal for Colorado families,” Polis wrote. In Colorado, if legislators in both chambers repass the bill with a two-thirds majority, they can override the governor’s veto, especially considering that the bill passed with the support of every single legislator. But the legislature adjourned on May 7, meaning that the bill has to be passed again when the legislature reconvenes in January.  For some reason, ending surprise ambulance billing nationally is not the slam-dunk issue it should be. Congress ended most surprise medical bills in 2020 but exempted ground ambulances from the bill. Was Polis’s veto due to badly drafted language and a (seemingly modest) price hike in insurance premiums, as he said, or was it for a different, more nefarious reason? We might not know unless and until the bill is reintroduced next year. More on surprise ambulance bills:Congress Doesn’t Care About Your Surprise Ambulance Bill Most Recent Post/May 30, 2025/12:21 p.m. ETTrump’s Pardons Since Jan 6 Spree Show an Infuriatingly Corrupt TrendSince his January 6 pardon spree, Donald Trump has tended to grant clemency a little closer to home.Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty ImagesA good chunk of the white-collar criminals pardoned by Donald Trump after his massive “Day One” pardoning spree either have a political or financial tie to him.The president has issued 60 pardons since he offered political forgiveness to some 1,600 individuals charged in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. But out of those subsequent 60 unrelated to the attack, 12 people—or roughly one in five—were already in Trump’s orbit, according to ABC News.They included several politicos, including former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted on several counts of corruption, including for an attempt to sell Barack Obama’s Senate seat after he left the position for the White House; former Republican Representative Michael Grimm, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud; former Nevada gubernatorial candidate Michele Fiore, who allegedly stole public funds intended to commemorate a slain police officer; and former Tennessee state Senator Brian Kelsey, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud in 2022.Trump also pardoned major financiers of his presidential campaigns. Trevor Milton, the founder of the Nikola electric vehicle company, donated nearly $2 million toward Trump’s 2024 campaign. Imaad Zuberi, who has donated to both parties, issued “at least $800,000 to committees associated with Trump and the Republican Party,” ABC reported.Others helped Trump advance his retribution campaign against his political enemies, or helped advance his own image in the broader Republican Party. Devon Archer and Jason Galanis, both former business partners of Hunter Biden, accused the younger Biden of leveraging his father’s name and influence in order to conduct business overseas. Archer had defrauded a Native American tribal entity, while Galanis was serving time for multiple offenses. Trump also forgave Todd and Julie Chrisley—reality TV stars known for their show Chrisley Knows Best who were sentenced to a combined 19 years on fraud and tax evasion charges—after their daughter Savannah Chrisley spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention.Speaking to press Friday after her parents’ release, Savannah Chrisley said that the “biggest misconception right now is I either paid for a pardon or slept for a pardon—,” but she couldn’t finish her sentence before Todd interjected: “That’s something I would have done,” he said.Read who else Trump is thinking of pardoning:Trump Considering Pardons for Men Who Tried to Kill Gretchen WhitmerMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/12:04 p.m. ETTrump Knew He Was Deporting Innocent People to El Salvador All AlongMany of the people deported to El Salvador have no criminal record, and Donald Trump knew it.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesDonald Trump’s administration was well aware that many of the 238 Venezuelan immigrants it shipped off to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador had no criminal records at all, according to a Friday report from ProPublica.  While Trump officials claimed that the deportees were brutal gang members and “the worst of the worst,” only 32 of the deportees had actually been convicted of crimes, and most of them were minor offenses such as traffic violations, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security reviewed by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune, and a team of journalists from Venezuelan media outlets. One of the men, 23-year-old Maikol Gabriel López Lizano, faced a misdemeanor charge after he was arrested in 2023 for riding his bike and drinking a can of beer.Little more than half of the deportees, 130 of the 238, were charged only with violating U.S. immigration laws. Twenty of them had criminal records from other countries. The U.S. government data showed that 67 individuals had pending charges, with only six being for violent crimes. In several cases, the government data about the pending charges differed from what ProPublica was able to find. In some cases, the men had actually been convicted, and in one, the charges had been dropped. But in many cases, these individuals were remanded to a foreign prison before their criminal cases were ever resolved. The Trump administration has touted allegations of gang affiliation as a justification for denying the deportees their due process rights. But none of the men’s names appeared on a list of roughly 1,400 alleged Tren de Aragua members kept by the Venezuelan government, ProPublica reported. Trump’s border czar Tom Homan tried desperately in March to downplay reporting that many of these individuals did not have criminal records. “A lot of gang members don’t have criminal histories, just like a lot of terrorists in this world, they’re not in any terrorist databases, right?” Homan said on ABC News. But the methods the government relies on to classify individuals as gang members—such as identification of gang-affiliated tattoos—have been disproven by experts. Not only were many of the men who were deported not proven gang members, they weren’t even criminals, and by denying them the right to due process, they were remanded to a foreign prison notorious for human rights abuses without ever getting to prove it. Trump has continued to pressure the Supreme Court to allow him to sidestep due process as part of his massive deportation campaign, claiming that the judiciary has no right to intrude on matters of “foreign policy.” But immigrants residing on U.S. soil—who are clearly not the bloodthirsty criminals the administration insists they are—are still subject to protections under U.S. law. Read more about the deportations:Trump Asks Supreme Court to Help Him Deport People Wherever He WantsMost Recent Post/May 30, 2025/11:41 a.m. ETJoni Ernst Stoops to Shocking Low When Told Medicaid Cuts Will KillSenator Joni Ernst had a disgusting answer when confronted by a constituent at her town hall about Trump’s budget bill.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesRepublican Senator Joni Ernst had a particularly unhinged response to questions from her constituents at a town hall in Parkersburg, Iowa, on Friday.Ernst was asked about the GOP’s budget bill kicking people off of Medicaid, and her condescending answer quickly became callous and flippant as the Iowa politician smirked at the audience.“When you are arguing about illegals that are receiving Medicaid, 1.4 million, they’re not eligible, so they will be coming off, so—” Ernst began, before an audience member shouted, “People are going to die!”“People are not—well, we all are going to die,” Ernst responded, as the audience drowned her in loud protests.What was Ernst thinking with that answer? Almost every Republican town hall this year has gone badly for the politician holding it, thanks to President Trump upending the federal government, and Ernst surely knew that choosing death over Medicaid wouldn’t go over well with the crowd. Earlier this week in Nebraska, Representative Mike Flood was heckled after he admitted that he didn’t read the budget bill.Ersnt’s town hall wasn’t even the first one in Iowa to go badly for a Republican. On Wednesday, Representative Ashley Hinson was met with jeers and boos, with audience members in Decorah, Iowa calling her a fraud and a liar. But at least Hinson had the good sense not to seemingly embrace death over a vital, lifesaving government program. More on Trump’s bill:Here Are the Worst Things in Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill Most Recent Post/May 30, 2025/11:35 a.m. ETKetanji Brown Jackson Blasts “Botched” Supreme Court Ruling on TPSSupreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a scathing disssent, called out the rest of the court for allowing Trump’s harmful executive order to stand.Anna Moneymaker/Getty ImagesSupreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson thinks the Supreme Court “botched” a decision to allow the Trump administration to revoke the Temporary Protected Status protections of about 500,000 Haitian, Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan immigrants.Jackson and fellow liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor were the only two dissenters.“The Court has plainly botched this assessment today. It requires next to nothing from the Government with respect to irreparable harm,” Jackson wrote in the dissent. “And it undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives of and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.”TPS is a long-standing program that allowed those 500,000 immigrants to stay in the U.S. after they fled violence and risk in their home countries. After the Supreme Court’s ruling, all of them are at high risk of sudden deportation. “It is apparent that the government seeks a stay to enable it to inflict maximum predecision damage,” Jackson wrote.Read the full dissent here.View More Posts

PROS: Discreet, elegant, and unobtrusive design that doesn't scream "tech" Lightweight and comfortable premium frame Focuses on essential experiences without the unnecessary cruft Impressive transcription and teleprompter features Long battery life and effortless charging case design CONS: No speakers for calls or audio feedback (especially during navigation) Temple tips touch controls can be a bit cumbersome A bit expensive RATINGS: AESTHETICSERGONOMICSPERFORMANCESUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITYVALUE FOR MONEYEDITOR'S QUOTE:With a simple design and useful features, the Even Realities G1 smart glasses prove that you don't need all the bells and whistles to provide an experience. Every day, we’re flooded with more information than our already overworked minds can handle. Our smartphones and computers put all this information at our fingertips, connecting us to the rest of the world while ironically disconnecting us from the people around us. Smart glasses and XR headsets promise to bring all this information right in front of us, bridging the gap that divides physical and virtual realities. And yet at the same time, they erect a wall that separates us from the here and now. It’s against this backdrop that Even Realities chose to take a bold step in the opposite direction. In both form and function, the Even Realities G1 smart glasses cut down on the cruft and promise a distilled experience that focuses only on what you really need to get through a busy day. More importantly, it delivers it in a minimalist design that doesn’t get in your way. Or at least that’s the spiel. Just in time for the upcoming Father’s Day celebration, we got to test what the Even Realities G1 has to offer, especially to some of the busiest people in our families: the dads juggling work responsibilities while trying to stay present for their loved ones. Designer: Even Realities Click Here to Buy Now: $599. Exclusive Father’s Day Special – Get 50% Off the G1 Clip + Clip Pouch! Hurry, offer ends June 15, 2025. Aesthetics You probably wouldn’t even be able to tell the Even Realities G1 is wearable tech if you meet someone on the street wearing a pair. Sure, they might look like slightly retro Pantos, but they’re a far cry from even the slimmest XR glasses from the likes of Xreal or Viture. You can clearly see the eyes of the person wearing them, and the tech is practically invisible, which is exactly the point. The design of the Even Realities G1 is on the plain and minimal side, a stark contrast to the majority of smart glasses and XR/AR headsets currently in the market, even those claiming to be fashionable and stylish. Sure, it’s not going to compete with high-end luxury spectacles, but they’re not entirely off the mark either. Unless you look really closely, you might simply presume them to be a pair of thick-framed glasses. The form of the glasses might be simple, but their construction is anything but. The frame is made from magnesium alloy with a coating that’s fused with sandstone, while the temples use a titanium alloy on the outer sides and soft silicone on the inner surfaces. The mixture of quality materials not only gives the Even Realities G1 a premium character but also a lightweight form that’s only ever so slightly heavier than your run-of-the-mill prescription eyeglasses. While the G1 most looks like normal eyewear, the temple tips are dead giveaways that things are not what they seem. The blocky, paddle-shaped tips that house batteries and electronics are definitely larger than what you’d find on most glasses. They’re not obnoxiously big, but they do tend to stick out a bit, and they’re hard to “unsee” once you’ve noticed their presence. Despite looking quite aesthetic, the Even Realities G1 isn’t pretending to be some posh fashion accessory. After all, the circular G1A and rectangular G1B options hardly cover all possible eyewear designs, and the limited color selection won’t suit everyone’s tastes. Rather than something you flaunt or call attention to, these smart glasses are designed to be an “everyday wear” and disappear into the background, making tech invisible without making it unusable, perfect for the dad who wants to stay connected without looking like he’s wearing a gadget at the family barbecue. Ergonomics If you’ve ever tried any of those hi-tech wearables promising the next wave of computing, then you’d probably know that you’d never wear any of those glasses or visors for more than just an hour or two every day. They may have impressive technologies and apps, but they become practically useless once you take them off, especially when you have to step out into the real world. In contrast, the Even Realities G1 is something you’d be able to wear for hours on end, indoors or outdoors. Made from lightweight materials with a construction that even throws away screws to reduce the heft, it’s almost mind-blowing to think that the glasses houses any electronics at all. This level of comfort is honestly the G1’s most important asset, because it allows people to experience its smart features far longer than any Quest or Viture. When it comes to eyewear, however, prescription lenses have always been a sore point for many consumers, and this is no exception. Because it integrates waveguide optics into the lens, you’ll have to pay extra to have customized prescription lenses when you buy an Even Realities G1. It can be a bit nerve-wracking to ensure you get all the measurements and figures right, especially since you can’t return or exchange glasses with customized lenses. While the G1 eyeglasses are definitely comfortable to wear, the same can’t exactly be said when it comes to manually interacting with them. While most smart glasses and headsets have controls near your temples, the G1’s touch-sensitive areas are at the temple tips, which would be sitting behind your ears when you’re wearing the glasses. They might feel awkward to reach, and those with long hairstyles might find it difficult to use. Fortunately, you will rarely touch those tips except to activate some functions, but it can still be an unsatisfactory experience when you do. Performance The Even Realities G1 takes a brilliantly focused approach to smart eyewear, prioritizing elegant design and practical functionality over unnecessary tech bloat. The 640×200 green monochrome display may seem modest, but it’s deliberate choice that enables the G1 to maintain a sleek, stylish profile. The absence of cameras and speakers isn’t a limitation but a thoughtful design decision that enhances both wearability and privacy, allowing users to seamlessly integrate this technology into their daily lives without social awkwardness. The magic of the G1 lies in its delivery of information directly to your field of vision in a way that not only delights but also transforms how you interact with digital content. The core Even Realities G1 experience revolves around bringing only critical information to your attention and keeping distractions away, all without disconnecting you from reality and the people around you. Its text-centric interface, displayed by two micro-LED displays, one on each lens, ensures that information is distilled down to its most essential. And there’s no denying the retro charm of a green dot-matrix screen in front of your eyes, even if the color won’t work well against light or bright objects. The Even Realities G1 experience starts with the dashboard, which you can summon just by tilting your head up a bit, an angle that you can set on the companion mobile app. One side shows the date and time, temperature, number of notifications, and your next appointment. The other side can be configured to show one of your saved quick notes, news, stocks, or even your current location. None of these items are interactive, and you’ll have to dive into the mobile app to actually get any further information. With Father’s Day approaching, it’s worth noting how the G1’s floating heads-up display, visible only to the wearer, helps dads stay effortlessly connected, organized, and present. The QuickNote and Calendar features are particularly valuable for fathers juggling work and family responsibilities, allowing them to process their to-do lists perfectly on schedule without missing a beat of family time. Spending quality time with your child then suddenly remembering you need to buy batteries on your next errand run? No more frantically scampering for pen and paper or even your phone; just tap and speak. Of course, the smart glasses really shine when it comes to the, well, smart functionality, most of which unsurprisingly revolve around words, both spoken and displayed. Transcription, which is used when making Quick Notes, records your voice and saves it alongside the transcribed text. Fathers who find themselves in never-ending meetings no longer need to worry about missing a beat. Not only do they get to keep notes, but they also receive a summary and recap thanks to the G1’s AI capabilities, a game-changer for busy dads who need to process information efficiently. Translation can make international trips quite fun, at least for some interactions, as you’ll be able to see actual translated captions floating in the air like subtitles on a video. Dads who give a lot of talks, business presentations, interviews, or broadcast videos will definitely love the Teleprompter feature, which can advance the script just based on the words you’re speaking. No more worrying about missing important points during that big presentation, leaving more mental bandwidth for what really matters. It’s also perfect for a captivating Career Day show that will do your kid proud. The accuracy of Even Realities’ speech recognition and AI is fairly good, though there are times when it will require a bit of patience and understanding. There’s a noticeable delay when translating what people say in real time, for example, and it might miss words if the person is speaking too quickly. Navigation can be a hit or miss, depending on your location, and the visual direction prompts are not always reliable. The latter is also one of the cases where the absence of built-in speakers feels a bit more pronounced. There’s no audio feedback, which could be useful for guided turn-by-turn navigation. Even AI can hear you, but it can’t talk back to you. Everything will be delivered only through text you have to read, which might not always be possible in some cases. Admittedly, the addition of such hardware, no matter how small, will also add weight to the glasses, so Even Realities chose their battles wisely. The Even Realities G1 is advertised to last for 1.5 days, and it indeed lasts at least more than a day. The stylish wireless charging case, which has a built-in 2,000mAh battery, extends that uptime to five days. Charging the glasses is as simple as putting them inside the case, no need to align any contact points, as long as you remember to fold the left arm first before the right arm. Oddly enough, there’s no battery level indicator on the glasses, even in the dashboard HUD. Even Realities focused on making the G1 simple, both in design and in operation. Sometimes even to the point of oversimplification. To reduce complexity, for example, each side of the glasses connects to a smartphone separately via Bluetooth, which unfortunately increases the risk of the two sides being out of sync if one or the other connection drops. Turning the glasses into shades is a simple case of slapping on clip-on shades that are not only an additional expense but also something you could lose somewhere. Sustainability By cutting down on the volume of the product, Even Realities also helps cut down waste material, especially the use of plastics. The G1 utilizes more metals than plastic, not only delivering a premium design but also preferring more renewable materials. The company is particularly proud of its packaging as well, which uses 100% recyclable, eco-friendly cardboard. While magnesium and titanium alloys contribute to the durability of the product, the Even Realities G1 is not exactly what you might consider to be a weather-proof piece of wearable tech. It has no formal IP rating, and the glasses are only said to be resistant to splashes and light rain. It can accompany you on your runs, sure, but you’ll have to treat it with much care. Not that it will have much practical use during your workouts in the first place. Value Discreet, useful, and simple, the Even Realities G1 smart glasses proudly stand in opposition to the literal heavyweights of the smart eyewear market that are practically strapping a computer on your face. It offers an experience that focuses on the most important functions and information you’d want to have in front of your eyes and pushes unnecessary distractions out of your sight. Most importantly, however, it keeps the whole world clearly in view, allowing you to connect to your digital life without disconnecting you from the people around you. The Even Realities G1 would almost be perfect for this hyper-focused use case if not for its price tag. At $599, it’s easily one of the more expensive pairs of smart spectacles you’ll see on the market, and that’s only for the glasses themselves. For custom prescription lenses, you need to add another $150 on top, not to mention the $50 (normally $100) clip-on shades for those extra bright days. Given its limited functionality, the G1 definitely feels a bit overpriced. But when you consider how lightweight, distraction-free, and useful it can be, it comes off more as an investment for the future. For family and friends looking for a meaningful tech gift this Father’s Day, the G1 offers something truly unique: a way to stay on top of work responsibilities while remaining fully present for family moments. Whether capturing quick thoughts during a child’s soccer game or discreetly checking calendar reminders during family dinner, these glasses help dads maintain that delicate balance between connectivity and presence. Verdict It’s hard to escape the overabundance of information that we deal with every day, both from the world around us, as well as our own stash of notes and to-do lists. Unfortunately, the tools that we always have with us, our smartphones, computers, and smartwatches, are poor guardians against this flood. And now smart glasses are coming, promising access to all of that and threatening to further drown us with information we don’t really need. The Even Realities G1 is both a breath of fresh air and a bold statement against that trend. Not only is it lightweight and comfortable, but it even looks like normal glasses! Rather than throw everything and the kitchen sink into it, its design and functionality are completely intentional, focusing only on essential experiences and features to keep you productive. It’s not trying to turn you into Tony Stark, but it will help make you feel like a superhero as you breeze through your tasks while still being present to the people who really matter the most in your life. For the dad who wants to stay connected without being distracted, who needs to manage information without being overwhelmed by it, the Even Realities G1 might just be the perfect Father’s Day gift: a tool that helps him be both the professional he needs to be and the father he wants to be, all without missing a moment of what truly matters. Click Here to Buy Now: $599. Exclusive Father’s Day Special – Get 50% Off the G1 Clip + Clip Pouch! Hurry, offer ends June 15, 2025.The post Even Realities G1 Glasses Review: Smart, Subtle, and Perfect for Father’s Day first appeared on Yanko Design.

Sad Eagle Scream Eagleopolis has fallen despite Helldivers 2 players slapping up 2.5 billion squids for an opening victory in the battle for Super Earth, leaving six Mega Cities to defend "To unleash the flames of Justice and triumph over Tyranny, we must battle through the inferno before us." Image credit: Arrowhead News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on May 23, 2025 Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Well, good news, Helldivers 2 managed to win the first major order of the battle for Super Earth by slaughtering over two billion Illuminate. The bad news? It's not stopped Eagleopolis from falling. As it turns out, not even the biggest number of Helldivers the game's had since last spring diving in to help try and hold off the invasion of fresh Illuminate baddies was enough to stop one of Super Earth's seven Mega Cities being reduced to ruins. It's ok, don't cry. Hug your SEAF buddy and watch a clip of someone surfing on a Leviathan if that'll help. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The previous major order, which was the Helldivers' initial defense of Super Earth after the Illuminate invasion of their home planet began with the arrival of the Heart of Democracy update, ended this morning. Things looked good, the goal of casually killing 2.5 billion Illuminate had been achieved. Let the good times roll right? Nope, said Arrowhead. "Eagleopolis, a venerable stronghold of Managed Democracy since time immemorial, lies in ruins," the studio informed us all via its latest MO briefing, "Its tattered shopping centers stand in warning as to the fate that awaits the rest of Super Earth, should our mission fail." So, that's one of the seven Mega Cities which make up Super Earth destroyed, but there's still a long way to go in the battle for Super Earth, and that win has seen folks make some progress towards wiping out the entire Illuminate fleet or forcing it to retreat. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. "Illuminate Fleet Strength currently stands at 49%," Arrowhead continued, "Six Mega Cities remain standing. The Helldivers must dig in, alongside their SEAF allies, and continue to fight, day and night, to defend the heart of our Federation. The surviving Mega Cities must be defended at all costs. The Helldivers must deploy to the Mega Cities as Illuminate pressure shifts among them to prevent them from falling. Once they fall, they cannot be reclaimed." Hence the latest order's goal - successfull extract from missions against the Illuminate 20 million times, in order to strike a further blow to the fleet's big invisible health bar. And, of course, to avenge Eagleopolis, which I'm sure people on the game's subreddit would be cut up about if they weren't too busy post fan art about loving their SEAF trooper buddies in a fashion that totally isn't getting a bit creepy. Are you shedding super tears for Eagleopolis? Let us know below!

BigHatPaul Member May 28, 2019 1,823 Swamp Some controllers are loud. The current gen XBOX controller is LOUD. Aggressively. The PS5, not so much. Some third party ones are pretty loud, too, like 8bitdo's buttons. But does it bother you or take you out of the experience? Or do you find it oddly satisfying? I actually quite enjoy hearing the clacking noises watching speedruns but not that big a fan hearing it while I'm playing.  Dest Has seen more 10s than EA ever will Coward Jun 4, 2018 16,041 Work I've really never even paid attention to it. But now that you've brought it my attention, it's going to be the only thing I can think of when I'm using a controller. Thanks OP.  nsilvias Member Oct 25, 2017 30,147 i mostly wear headphones so i dont care for the most part. i have a stadia controller tho and that think is loud.   YohraUtopia Member Apr 1, 2021 1,409 I've never noticed except that the rumble on the wireless Xbox controller is in fact extremely loud; it startles me sometimes.   Mullet2000 Member Oct 25, 2017 6,399 Toronto I'm banned from using the Xbox Series controller after 10:00 p.m. by my wife because of the noise lmao.   MADSUPERVILLAIN Member Jan 11, 2018 1,665 Dunedin, New Zealand I haven't really thought about it before, but I've spent my life playing PC games on Cherry MX Blues and fighting games on my arcade stick so I really have been using the loudest possible input methods this whole time.   Transistor The Walnut King Administrator Oct 25, 2017 41,656 Washington, D.C. The combination of the d-pad and the rumble motors on the Series controllers can wake the dead.   Killzig Member Oct 25, 2017 1,132 The clickiness of sticks or buttons doesn't bother me but rumble is something I disable as soon as I get hands on a controller almost immediately since the feature was introduced. Absolutely hate it.   Doc Laserstein Member Oct 25, 2017 5,605 The only controller that has ever really bothered me has been exclusive to all three dualsenses I have owned, and it's this disconcertingly loud and aggressive clicking/rattling that comes from the rumble in certain games.   OP OP BigHatPaul Member May 28, 2019 1,823 Swamp Any pop'n music players in here? Loudest controller I've ever used by far   WordsAndDreams Member Jan 4, 2018 1,378 I used to not think about it. But after using the Dual Sense primarily for the last couple years, I can't help but notice how loud my 8bitdo is.   ari Member May 7, 2024 650 Biarritz my logitech f310 isn't loud. although my 7.1 system gets in the way of every noise except the sound of a meteorite striking my house  Dougieflesh One Winged Slayer The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 37,219 Milky Way Ghetto I've never really noticed controller noise until the Xbox Series controller. Those buttons and bumpers are so damn loud.   Gavalanche Prophet of Regret Member Oct 21, 2021 25,941 Is the xbox controller loud? I havent noticed? Maybe I am too used to it. I will keep an ear out when I play next.   moqz Member Jan 28, 2025 487 The switch pro controller sounds like it's filled with bees when it rumbles. It's really annoying because you can barely even feel the LRA's in the switch pro controller, they really needed larger ones.   MissedArrows Member Feb 6, 2025 230 I prefer ps controllers, but got an xbox series controller for compatibility on PC. I haven't used it in years and instead just find workarounds for my dualsense if needed. The loudness is too much, it can be heard through mics and I'm concerned back when I had roommates they could hear it too. I was shocked when watching old recordings and the clicking was that loud.  Last edited: 1 minute ago Dezzy Member Oct 25, 2017 3,791 USA I hate noisy controllers. The Xbox Series ones drove me nuts. The dpad and all the buttons were too noisy.   rics2980 Member Oct 28, 2017 257 My friend's Xbox series controller sounds like he is slapping a typewriter when we're party chatting. I wish I was exaggerating but I'm not. Other than that I'm not really bothered by controller noise.   Letters Prophet of Truth Avenger Oct 27, 2017 5,201 Portugal Recently moved to maining the Dual Sense on PC after years of Xbox controllers just because of this. I grew tired of those loud and stiff buttons. Dual Sense is inferior in some ways but at least those face buttons are a pleasure to press. Hopefully the Xbox Sebile controller really copies all the best things of the Dual Sense for the ultimate controller.  Tohsaka Member Nov 17, 2017 7,098 I really like how quiet the DualSense is. I have an Xbox controller only for PC games that don't have native DS support/prompts and I hate how noisy it is in comparison. It feels cheap.   Kevers The Fallen Oct 29, 2017 15,890 Syracuse, NY The dpad on my launch dualsense makes this really annoying squeaky sound when you push it, drives me up a wall. My galaxy purple is flawless though  Audiblee Member Mar 14, 2025 1,596 Hated the noise my Series controllers made. One of many reasons I don't miss that console.   Zafir Member Oct 25, 2017 8,977 I use a cherry blue mx keyboard, I'm fine with loud peripherals lol. The only thing bothers me with noise is if something is amiss. Like if theres random squeaking from things or clicking that shouldn't be there. Those bother me. 

It is perhaps an understatement to say that Donald Trump is obsessed with popularity. Throughout his time in the limelight, he has repeatedly made it clear just how much he cares about polls — so much so that he’s made some up out of whole cloth and even called to “investigate” ones that showed he had low approval ratings, which he called “FAKE POLLS FROM FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS.” He often exaggerates his political mandate and refers to his November victory as a historic landslide despite the fact that he didn’t even win a popular-vote majority.But since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has been doing very unpopular things, and it shows: According to a recent New York Times poll, two-thirds of respondents described Trump’s second term as “chaotic,” 59 percent said it’s “scary,” and 54 percent disapproved of his overall job as president. And though his approval rating has been improving in recent weeks, the overall number is still negative.More specifically, Trump’s most high-profile moves have been opposed by the majority of Americans. An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll showed that two-thirds of Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of tariffs. A CNN poll found that a majority of Americans opposed deporting immigrants to a Salvadoran prison. And only 17 percent of Americans support deporting legal immigrants who participated in protests against Israel, according to the New York Times.Given the way Trump is governing, it can sometimes seem like how the majority of people feel doesn’t matter to the president, leading to more despair among those who disapprove. But is it actually true that polls and public opinion no longer influence Trump’s decisions? The takeaway, told through examples from the past four months, is more hopeful.Trump doubles down on birthright citizenship, deportationsOne of the most obvious examples of public opinion failing to sway the president comes from Trump’s handling of immigration, especially when it comes to the most controversial aspects of his policy. For years, Trump has railed against birthright citizenship, saying that the United States shouldn’t automatically give citizenship to people born on American soil. In his second term, one of Trump’s first executive orders was an attempt to end birthright citizenship, even though it’s enshrined in the US Constitution. The order, which has since been blocked by the courts, has little public support. An NPR/Ipsos poll in February, for example, found that only 31 percent of Americans support ending birthright citizenship. In May, the same poll found that only 28 percent of Americans favored Trump’s executive order. But that hasn’t made Trump stop his crusade against birthright citizenship, and his administration has taken the case up all the way to the Supreme Court.Another area where Trump has shown little, if any, movement despite public outcry is deportations. His administration deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorian immigrant and Maryland resident, sending him to the notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador along with other deportees the administration has alleged are gang members. The Trump administration admitted that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was the result of an “administrative error.”A New York Times/Siena College poll found that only 31 percent of Americans approved Trump’s handling of this case, and another poll showed that only 26 percent of Americans believed that Abrego Garcia should remain in El Salvador. Despite that, and the fact that the courts have ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States, the president has been unwilling to do so. On X, the White House said that he would be “never coming back.”The same New York Times/Siena poll also found that only 17 percent of Americans support moves to deport legal immigrants for expressing their views about Israel. But the Trump administration has continued its effort to deport green card holders and revoke student visas for those who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.Trump has also shown little interest in how people feel about the more minor issues that seem to be his pet projects. Only a quarter of Americans seemed to like the idea of renaming the Gulf of Mexico — but Trump is so fixated on leaving his imprint on that body of water that he has a map labeling it the Gulf of America in the Oval Office. The White House even banned Associated Press reporters from accessing presidential events because their outlet still refers to it as the Gulf of Mexico. Large majorities also oppose Trump’s idea to annex Canada and Greenland, but that hasn’t stopped him from talking about his plans to do so. But Trump is still largely complying with the courts — for nowOn the other hand, there are examples of Trump at least pretending to fall in line with public opinion. Take, for example, Trump’s delicate dance when it comes to how the administration handles court rulings. Defying the judicial branch is a red line for many voters. A Pew poll found that 78 percent of Americans believe that Trump should obey federal courts, and 88 percent believe that Trump should abide by Supreme Court rulings. A New York Times/Siena poll similarly showed that only 6 percent of Americans believe that Trump should ignore Supreme Court rulings. And a Fox News poll found that two-thirds of Americans believe that the president must follow the Supreme Court. Trump has clashed with the courts and even defied some of their orders. But despite all of his complaining about the courts, Trump hasn’t gone so far as to be openly defiant. His administration, for example, still publicly states that it’s complying with the courts even when it’s not, knowing that explicitly rejecting court orders will likely prompt some backlash. And while there have been a few standout cases, as in the case of Abrego Garcia, the Trump administration has, for the most part, gone through the court process and abided by the rulings. They paused federal layoffs, for example, restored student visas, and released detained immigrants per court orders. Even as his administration finds ways to slow-walk court orders, Trump has said that he would “never defy” the Supreme Court. “I wouldn’t do that,” he told Time magazine in a recent interview. “I’m a big believer in the Supreme Court, and have a lot of respect for the justices.”Trump sidelines Elon MuskFor months, it seemed like Trump’s championing of Elon Musk was one of the starkest signs that he truly did not care about what his constituents think. The Tesla CEO was tasked with leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has wreaked havoc across agencies in the federal government. DOGE has been responsible for mass layoffs of federal workers and has proposed cuts to all sorts of programs, including Social Security. Musk himself had an outsize presence at the start of the Trump administration — even appearing in TV interviews alongside the president.Musk’s role in the Trump administration was designed to be temporary, with his status as a “special government employee” lasting 130 days. But at the start of Trump’s presidency, White House officials predicted that Musk’s role would be more permanent and that he would last longer than the 130-day limit that his status provides.That, however, doesn’t seem to be the case. Polls consistently show that a majority of Americans have an unfavorable view of Musk. And one of Musk’s most public setbacks came after he campaigned heavily in favor of the Republican in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election, only for the Democrat to win by 10 points.Soon after that election, Trump signaled to his Cabinet that they will be seeing less of Musk. According to Politico, “Trump is increasingly mindful of next year’s midterms and making sure he doesn’t jeopardize his House majority. He’s kept a careful eye on the town hall outrage over DOGE, even as Republicans have chalked those scenes up to coordinated liberal stagecraft.” Trump, who made a habit of mentioning Musk’s work earlier on in his administration, has even stopped bringing him up nearly as much in public, something that his fellow Republicans in Congress have also done. Trump walks back tariffsPerhaps the ultimate example of Trump heeding public opinion comes from one of his most chaotic policies. When he came into office, Trump promised to impose taxes on imports from allies and foes alike. And since then, his plan can best be described as on again, off again.On the day he was inaugurated, for example, Trump announced he would impose 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting on February 1. A Reuters/Ipsos poll at the time showed that a majority of Americans opposed slapping a tax on imports from the United States’ two largest trading partners, with only 37 percent of Americans supporting tariffs on Canada. Just two days after the tariffs went into effect, Trump announced he would implement a 30-day pause, claiming that he was satisfied with his agreement with the two countries over their border policies.A similar story played out when Trump finally announced his broader tariff policy, which imposed import taxes on the vast majority of countries. In the days and weeks that followed, poll after poll showed Americans were unhappy with the policy, with one poll showing that some two-thirds of Americans opposed Trump’s tariffs. Notably, financial markets were also rattled, and stock prices plunged. Trump then scaled back and paused his tariffs, focusing his trade war with China as opposed to the whole world. And eventually, Trump started walking back how aggressive he was willing to be on China as well.What does this all mean?A lot of Americans who oppose Trump might feel helpless during this second term, seeing little reason to protest or express their discontent. But just because Trump is term-limited and doesn’t have to win another election doesn’t mean that public anger won’t influence his administration. One of the fears of a second Trump term was that Trump would be emboldened and even more reckless than he was in his first. But there still seems to be evidence that despite governing in a deeply polarizing and unpopular way, Trump is probably swayed by the polls. That’s not to say that protests would stop the administration from implementing its agenda, but it is to say that if there’s enough discontent, Trump has shown that he might adjust his priorities. And with enough public outcry, Trump, like other presidents, sometimes scales back some of his more controversial policies to make them more palatable. It’s hard to predict just how much hold public opinion has over Trump, or when bad poll numbers might prompt him to reverse course, but he clearly cares about his legacy, what the overall public thinks about his performance as president, and, maybe most importantly, how his party will fare in the midterms next year. Trump would love nothing more than to still have a majority in Congress for the last two years of his presidency. So when it comes to which areas he might be willing to move on in order to cater to the broader electorate, it’s likely going to be issues that have staying power and could haunt the GOP in 2026. That’s likely why he panicked about tariffs and blinked: Not only are they deeply unpopular, but the potential negative consequences on prices and the overall economy might make Republicans less electable, just as historic inflation hurt Democrats’ chances last cycle. Expressing discontent over Trump’s policies also has a ripple effect that goes beyond how Trump might respond to one poll or protest here or there. When Trump first launched his retribution campaign against law firms and his assault on universities, some institutions cowered and bent to his will. But over time, as Trump grew more emboldened while the public grew more wary, some institutions started to fight back. At the end of the day, Trump’s power is derived from the people, and he is not immune to pushing his luck. See More:

The AI winners won’t be the ones slapping “AI” on a landing page — they’ll be creating products enterprises can't live without.Read More

The AI winners won’t be the ones slapping “AI” on a landing page — they’ll be creating products enterprises can't live without.Read More

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More At the height of the dot-com boom, adding “.com” to a company’s name was enough to send its stock price soaring — even if the business had no real customers, revenue or path to profitability. Today, history is repeating itself. Swap “.com” for “AI,” and the story sounds eerily familiar. Companies are racing to sprinkle “AI” into their pitch decks, product descriptions and domain names, hoping to ride the hype. As reported by Domain Name Stat, registrations for “.ai” domains surged about 77.1% year-over-year in 2024, driven by startups and incumbents alike rushing to associate themselves with artificial intelligence — whether they have a true AI advantage or not. The late 1990s made one thing clear: Using breakthrough technology isn’t enough. The companies that survived the dot-com crash weren’t chasing hype — they were solving real problems and scaling with purpose. AI is no different. It will reshape industries, but the winners won’t be those slapping “AI” on a landing page — they’ll be the ones cutting through the hype and focusing on what matters. The first steps? Start small, find your wedge and scale deliberately. Start small: Find your wedge before you scale One of the most costly mistakes of the dot-com era was trying to go big too soon — a lesson AI product builders today can’t afford to ignore. Take eBay, for example. It began as a simple online auction site for collectibles — starting with something as niche as Pez dispensers. Early users loved it because it solved a very specific problem: It connected hobbyists who couldn’t find each other offline. Only after dominating that initial vertical did eBay expand into broader categories like electronics, fashion and, eventually, almost anything you can buy today. Compare that to Webvan, another dot-com era startup with a much different strategy. Webvan aimed to revolutionize grocery shopping with online ordering and rapid home delivery — all at once, in multiple cities. It spent hundreds of millions of dollars building massive warehouses and complex delivery fleets before it had strong customer demand. When growth didn’t materialize fast enough, the company collapsed under its own weight. The pattern is clear: Start with a sharp, specific user need. Focus on a narrow wedge you can dominate. Expand only when you have proof of strong demand. For AI product builders, this means resisting the urge to build an “AI that does everything.” Take, for example, a generative AI tool for data analysis. Are you targeting product managers, designers or data scientists? Are you building for people who don’t know SQL, those with limited experience or seasoned analysts? Each of those users has very different needs, workflows and expectations. Starting with a narrow, well-defined cohort — like technical project managers (PMs) with limited SQL experience who need quick insights to guide product decisions — allows you to deeply understand your user, fine-tune the experience and build something truly indispensable. From there, you can expand intentionally to adjacent personas or capabilities. In the race to build lasting gen AI products, the winners won’t be the ones who try to serve everyone at once — they’ll be the ones who start small, and serve someone incredibly well. Own your data moat: Build compounding defensibility early Starting small helps you find product-market fit. But once you gain traction, your next priority is to build defensibility — and in the world of gen AI, that means owning your data. The companies that survived the dot-com boom didn’t just capture users — they captured proprietary data. Amazon, for example, didn’t stop at selling books. They tracked purchases and product views to improve recommendations, then used regional ordering data to optimize fulfillment. By analyzing buying patterns across cities and zip codes, they predicted demand, stocked warehouses smarter and streamlined shipping routes — laying the foundation for Prime’s two-day delivery, a key advantage competitors couldn’t match. None of it would have been possible without a data strategy baked into the product from day one. Google followed a similar path. Every query, click and correction became training data to improve search results — and later, ads. They didn’t just build a search engine; they built a real-time feedback loop that constantly learned from users, creating a moat that made their results and targeting harder to beat. The lesson for gen AI product builders is clear: Long-term advantage won’t come from simply having access to a powerful model — it will come from building proprietary data loops that improve their product over time. Today, anyone with enough resources can fine-tune an open-source large language model (LLM) or pay to access an API. What’s much harder — and far more valuable — is gathering high-signal, real-world user interaction data that compounds over time. If you’re building a gen AI product, you need to ask critical questions early: What unique data will we capture as users interact with us? How can we design feedback loops that continuously refine the product? Is there domain-specific data we can collect (ethically and securely) that competitors won’t have? Take Duolingo, for example. With GPT-4, they’ve gone beyond basic personalization. Features like “Explain My Answer” and AI role-play create richer user interactions — capturing not just answers, but how learners think and converse. Duolingo combines this data with their own AI to refine the experience, creating an advantage competitors can’t easily match. In the gen AI era, data should be your compounding advantage. Companies that design their products to capture and learn from proprietary data will be the ones that survive and lead. Conclusion: It’s a marathon, not a sprint The dot-com era showed us that hype fades fast, but fundamentals endure. The gen AI boom is no different. The companies that thrive won’t be the ones chasing headlines — they’ll be the ones solving real problems, scaling with discipline and building real moats. The future of AI will belong to builders who understand that it’s a marathon — and have the grit to run it. Kailiang Fu is an AI product manager at Uber. Daily insights on business use cases with VB Daily If you want to impress your boss, VB Daily has you covered. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI. Read our Privacy Policy Thanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here. An error occured.

ZDNET's key takeaways The RingConn Gen 2 Air is a $200 smart ring, one of the first subscription-free and affordable smart rings I've tested. The battery life can survive up to eight or nine days of use, and the sleep data collection rivals Oura. The AI health partner feature is lackluster, and it's essential to view the brand's privacy policy, given the affordable nature of a health wearable. more buying choices Smart rings are rising in popularity, but the big names -- the Ouras, Samsungs, and Ultrahumans -- can run $300 to $400. That's not counting the subscription fee, which some customers pay for full access to all the data that the smart ring aggregates. With all these murmurs of an impending recession causing pennies to be pinched and wallets to be watched, who has the money for a $400 smart ring right now? Also: How we test smart rings at ZDNET in 2025I hadn't yet tested a high-quality and affordable smart ring from a notable brand, but the newest smart ring from RingConn, the RingConn Gen 2 Air, could change that. It's the first ring I've tested that retails for a price as low as $200, without any sale or special deal. I've worn RingConn's newest smart ring over the past few weeks to see how the brand's budget ring fares as a sleep and activity tracker. Keep reading to learn how it compares to the RingConn Gen 2, which costs $100 more, and the Oura Ring 4, which costs double.  details View at RingConn The smart ring looks and feels almost exactly the same as the RingConn Gen 2, with the main difference being the charging case and battery size. The Gen 2's charging case has enough power to boost the smart ring for over 150 days, and the ring has a battery life of up to 12 days. The Gen 2 Air, on the other hand, does not come with a charging case equipped with extra juice, and it advertises a 10-day battery life (though, in my testing, I got around eight days). Even though the Gen 2 Air's battery is lower than the Gen 2, both RingConn rings match or outcompete the battery life of the Oura Ring, the Ultrahuman Ring Air, and the Samsung Galaxy Ring. The Gen 2 Air is made of stainless steel, a more affordable material compared to the Gen 2's aerospace-grade titanium. Regardless of the material, the Gen 2 Air is comfortable to wear and feels unnoticeable around my finger. It comes in a silver and gold finish, and available sizes range from six to 14.Both rings are connected to the same app experience, so whether you're using the $300 ring or the $200 ring, you'll get your data and insights presented to you in exactly the same manner. Much like the Gen 2, the Gen 2 Air tracks sleep, stress, vitals, and activity. It takes all those factors and daily scores to deliver a Wellness Balance score. The Wellness Balance is displayed like a petal on a four-petal flower, and each biometric is ranked out of 100. At the start of the day, the activity petal is nonexistent, but the activity score increases as I exercise or walk. At the end of the day, I can view my aggregate Wellness Balance, and this score provides a holistic picture of my health. As I said in my spotlight of the RingConn Gen 2, the downside to this Wellness Balance is the absence of a readiness or recovery score that other wearables have calculated and provided to users at the start of their day to understand how their body bounced back from activity and how much activity or rest they should take on for the day. This recovery score provides insights into a user's overall health and resilience, and it's helpful for those who are following a training regime to know how to treat their bodies each day.I tested the RingConn Gen 2 Air hand in hand with my Oura Ring 4, and both devices gathered fairly similar health metrics. One night, Oura gave me an 87 Sleep Score, and RingConn gave me an 86. Oura said my resting heart rate overnight was 48 beats per minute, while RingConn said 49 beats per minute. Oura said my average heart rate was 55 beats per minute, and RingConn said it was 52. While not identical, these numbers are close. Activity data is a different story. One day, Oura said I walked 7,454 steps, while RingConn said I walked 5,706. This was on a moderately active day when I took a 25-minute walk. On an intensely active day, when I went to the gym for two hours and was out and about, Oura calculated that I walked 16,291 steps, and RingConn calculated that I walked 15,454 steps. Nina Raemont/ZDNETRingConn advertises an "AI health partner" as a function of its app experience. Every day, the AI partner tells you information, like how you slept or whether you hit your step count, and then asks questions based on your behaviors. These summaries aren't available on the main page where sleep, activity, and stress data are displayed -- they're only available on the AI tab. But unlike other AI assistants, you can't type out a personalized answer to these questions.Instead, you pick from the choices of responses. It didn't feel like AI to me because it wasn't as personalized, and the responses you could choose were simple; rather, it felt like a multiple-choice health summary. This is a classic case of a brand slapping AI onto a feature that isn't actually AI. What I like about RingConn smart rings is they will tell you exactly when the ring will die and notify the user to charge it ahead of time. This is a helpful feature I hope other smart ring brands adopt. Also: Oura Ring 3 vs Oura Ring 4: Opt for the older, discounted smart ring or the newest?One concern about a smart ring this affordable is whether the brand is keeping the user's data safe and protected. Health data is valuable, and in the wrong hands, it can be sent to advertisers or health insurance agencies. Smart ring brands pay a lot of money to keep such data safe, which is why they cost as much as they do. A RingConn representative did not immediately answer my questions about why the smart ring can be so cheap, if user data is secure and protected, or if it is being compromised for the sake of a lower-cost smart ring. I did, however, review RingConn's privacy policy which relays what user data is collected, used, and stored. I recommend looking over a health wearables privacy policy before purchasing a ring, so you understand how a company keeps your information safe and secure. ZDNET's buying advice So, should you buy this $200 smart ring? If you're looking for an alternative to some of the big names that won't cost you as much but will collect nearly the same level of health data, I'd suggest the RingConn Gen 2 Air.Also: The best smart rings: Expert tested and reviewedWith competitive battery life, data display that matches its $300 sibling, and data collection that gets close to the Oura Ring 4, the RingConn Gen 2 Air is one of the first $200 smart rings I've tested that I can confidently recommend for the budget-friendly and smart ring-curious shopper. Looking for the next best product? Get expert reviews and editor favorites with ZDNET Recommends.Featured reviews