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UPDATE: Jan. 10, 2024, 5:18 p.m. EST This story has been updated to reflect that Evolve MVMT is now available to buy.

Wearables that track your steps are nothing new, but what about a wearable that tracks how you step?

At CES 2024, Evolve MVMT unveiled an ankle wearable that tracks the quality of your steps, and helps you improve your gait over time. Claiming to be the first of its kind, Evolve MVMT uses proprietary tracking technology to analyze heel strike – the act of landing hard on your heels – which is hard on your joints and can lead to certain injuries.

As someone with flat feet, this is something I’m painfully aware of, and I’m not the only one. According to 2017 study, almost 27 percent of people have fallen arches or flat fleet. Whether it’s walking on hard surfaces all the time, or wearing shock-absorbing sneakers, we’ve evolved to be bad at walking. Basically, many of us are guilty of heel striking, and even though walking is one of the most basic activities humans do, a lot of us are doing it wrong. Evolve MVMT uses a technique developed by founder and physiotherapist Luke Pickett called “light walking” to minimize heel striking and make walking more efficient.

Evolve MVMT works by doing a walking test to measure your baseline. From there, the app will give you live guidance on how to improve your steps. The idea is that over time, practicing “light walking” will activate the right muscles, and make walking more beneficial. In studies conducted at the Cleveland Clinic and Monash University, patients reportedly burned 36 percent more calories when using the Evolve MVMT technique.

If decreasing stress on your joints, improving your posture, and burning more calories sounds good to you, Evolve MVMT is available now. That said, improving your gait doesn’t come cheap — the device and accessories costs $499. But if you’ve ever had to pay for expensive orthotics or special footwear, which have to be replaced every few years, this might be a solid alternative.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians fans, the wait is over. A worthy adaptation of Rick Riordan’s beloved novels is finally hitting TV, and I, for one, could not be giddier to relive my childhood.

As is the case with all book-to-screen adaptations, Percy Jackson and the Olympians deviates occasionally from the source material. However, the main arc of the series remains the same: 12-year-old Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell) learns that he’s a demigod, the son of a human woman and a Greek god. Not long after this discovery, he undertakes a cross-country quest to recover Zeus’s stolen Master Bolt and stop a war of mythic proportions. Accompanying him are Annabeth Chase (Leah Sava Jeffries), a daughter of Athena, and Grover Underwood (Aryan Simhadri), Percy’s satyr protector.

This story will sound familiar to book fans, but the show does make a few changes along the way, adding new story beats, omitting others, and focusing on other characters beyond Percy’s narrative point of view. So what are some of the biggest changes the show makes? Do they work? And if so, what do they add to the show? Let’s dive in. (But take heed: From here on out, spoilers for the show and the novels are in full effect.)

Episode one: The Mrs. Dodds fight (and aftermath) look a little different.

Season 1 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians tackles Riordan’s The Lightning Thief, meaning it kicks off, like the book, with Percy’s fateful field trip to the Met. In the novel, math teacher Mrs. Dodds (Megan Mullally) lures Percy into the museum alone. She reveals herself to be a Fury and attempts to kill him. Luckily, Latin teacher Mr. Brunner (Glynn Turman) — later revealed to be the centaur Chiron — tosses Percy a ballpoint pen-turned-sword, and he’s able to slay Mrs. Dodds.

The show takes a different approach, moving the fight to the front steps of the Met and removing Mr. Brunner’s involvement. Instead, Mrs. Dodds lands on top of Percy and nearly finishes him off. It’s only by a stroke of luck that Percy survives, as his pen (given to him earlier) turns into his sword Riptide and impales Mrs. Dodds without Percy realizing it.

On the one hand, this change threw me for a loop, as the scene plays out extremely quickly and robs Percy of his first big monster-slaying moment. If anything, Dodds’s death here reads more like an accident! However, the fast-paced, confused framing of the incident places us deeper in Percy’s horrified mindset. His math teacher is trying to kill him — of course he’d be freaking out and not be completely aware of what’s going on. His less coordinated attack here also contrasts nicely with his slaying of the Minotaur at the end of episode one. Armed with more knowledge about who he is, Percy is able to take down another fierce beast with more control this time. It’s his first classic hero moment, something the show has built to from his initial flailing defense against Mrs. Dodds.

The fallout from Mrs. Dodds’s attack plays out a little differently in the show as well. Percy is expelled from Yancy Academy because he supposedly pushed bully Nancy Bobofit (Olivea Morton) into the Met fountain — a story Grover corroborates even though he’s supposedly Percy’s best friend! While this may seem like a betrayal at first, it was actually Grover playing the part of protector to a tee. Knowing that monsters will find Percy at Yancy, Grover realizes he has to get him away from the school as quickly as possible. We get hints of this motivation in the book, especially when Percy eavesdrops on a cryptic conversation between Mr. Brunner and Grover. Yet Grover’s choice in the show is a concrete example of him doing everything he can to keep Percy alive — even if it means he may lose his friendship. The seeming betrayal also isolates Percy further, bringing him to an even lower emotional point by the time he learns the truth about who he is.

Episode one: Sally Jackson has a bigger part to play.

Speaking of the truth about who Percy is, let’s get into how he finds out the truth in the show versus the books. The Lightning Thief sees Percy getting a crash course in very real world of Greek myth from his mother, Sally (Virginia Kull), and Grover on the ride to Camp Half-Blood. At camp, Chiron, Annabeth, and Luke (Charlie Bushnell) teach him even more, including telling him outright that he’s a half-blood.

However, in the show, a lot of these revelations fall to Sally. She’s the one who tells Percy he’s a demigod, hoping to console him about why he’s always felt different from everyone else. We also see how she’s been training Percy for his birthright his whole life. One sweet flashback scene features her telling Percy why she named him after Perseus. It’s not just because Perseus was a hero, but because of the bond he and his mother shared while cast adrift at sea. Later, we also understand just how far Sally will go to get Percy to safety. When the Minotaur attacks, Sally takes a more active role in keeping it away from her son, including distracting it with Percy’s red jacket, matador-style.

None of this is to say that Sally doesn’t get a lot to do in the books: Right from the start, we see that she’s a fiercely devoted, loving mother. She listens to Percy’s worries about being expelled from Yancy and even gives him tips on how to survive the Minotaur attack. We just get less time with her is all. In the show’s first episode (which was co-written by Riordan), that time is expanded upon somewhat. By giving Sally more of a say in telling Percy about who he is, the show also helps build their emotional connection, which in turn informs Percy’s decision to go on his quest in the first place.

Episode two: The hellhound goes missing.

The main set piece of the second episode is a camp-wide game of Capture the Flag. The game plays out the same way it does in the books, with Annabeth using Percy as bait to distract the rival team captain — and daughter of Ares — Clarisse La Rue (Dior Goodjohn). Her plan results in victory, and here’s where the show and the book diverge. In the book, the win is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a bloodthirsty hellhound, whose attempt to kill Percy is thankfully unsuccessful.

The hellhound scene is all of a page and a half long, so perhaps that’s why it simply doesn’t appear in the show. After all, Percy Jackson and the Olympians calls for the creation of several complicated on-screen beasts. If you’re going to cut one to save the brunt of visual effects for other creatures, this would be the one to choose. Still, the hellhound’s arrival marks an important change for the atmosphere at Camp Half-Blood. A hellhound on camp grounds is a signal that something is very wrong. Only a traitor in the campers’ midst could have summoned the beast, stoking an atmosphere of paranoia that culminates in Percy accepting the quest to recover Zeus’s Master Bolt. Without the hellhound, we unfortunately get less of a sense of that paranoia, or much of a hint at a certain traitor.

The absence of the hellhound also changes the sequence where Poseidon claims Percy as his son. After suffering severe wounds from the attack, Percy goes into a nearby creek on Annabeth’s orders. Just like with his injuries from Capture the Flag, his hellhound wounds heal magically thanks to the water. Poseidon chooses this moment to reveal himself as Percy’s father.

With the hellhound missing from the show, we only see the water’s healing properties working post-Capture the Flag. But between that instance and Percy’s magical control over water in his bathroom fight with Clarisse, Annabeth has gathered enough evidence to realize who Percy’s father is. Wise girl, that one! To prove her point, she shoves him back into the water, and we get the show’s rendition of the Poseidon-claiming scene. Honestly, I adore the shove — it’s so deeply in keeping with the mildly contentious start to Percy and Annabeth’s dynamic, as well as a reminder of just how young these kids are.

The only part of this scene that disappoints me is the Poseidon reveal. After the triton appears over Percy’s head, we get a disembodied Chiron voiceover telling us what that means. However, we don’t get to see his or the campers’ reactions in the moment. And given that Percy is a forbidden child of one of the Big Three gods — Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades — their reactions should be massive! For example, the book sees campers kneeling (some, like the children of Ares, do it reluctantly). I wish the show could have included something like that in order to let us sit in this moment more and understand the momentous consequences of Percy’s parentage.

Episode two: Grover learns about Sally Jackson’s fate from the Council of Cloven Elders.

A totally new subplot in episode 2 involves Grover speaking to the Council of Cloven Elders, a group made up of satyrs. He learns from them that Sally is not actually dead, a fact neither Chiron nor camp director Dionysus (Jason Mantzoukas) want Grover to tell Percy. However, Grover does so anyway, as Percy is his friend and deserves to know the truth about his mother. Knowing that Sally is alive and could be brought back from the Underworld motivates Percy to take the quest to get the Master Bolt back from Hades, lending an extra layer of drive to his epic journey.

In the book, Percy doesn’t know his mom isn’t fully dead. Still, when he realizes his quest will take him to the Underworld, he does think about what that could mean for Sally. The show just surfaces this thought even more. The addition of Grover’s involvement also helps him mend his somewhat rocky relationship with Percy, who’s understandably upset about his best friend keeping major secrets — god-tier secrets, in fact — from him.

Book-wise, we don’t learn Sally’s fate ourselves until (spoiler alert!) our valiant crew reaches the Underworld. There, Hades reveals he took Sally hostage right before she died in order to gain some leverage over Percy. You can bet we’ll get that confrontation in the show farther down the line, but for now, we know that Percy didn’t just accept his quest in order to gain glory or save the world. He accepted it to save Sally, whose relationship with Percy is the emotional core of the show’s two-episode premiere, even when she’s not on-screen.

Episode three: The selection ceremony

As Percy prepares to undertake his quest to retrieve Zeus’s Master Bolt, Chiron presents him with a selection ceremony. Here, he must choose two companions from the camps’ best and brightest. Options include Clarisse and Luke, but Percy has eyes for only one member of this formidable lineup: Annabeth. He picks her without hesitation, finally giving her the chance at the quest she so desperately craves. When telling Chiron his reasoning, he also acknowledges that she will do anything to succeed — even push him down the stairs without hesitation.

Percy’s second choice is Grover, who wasn’t even an option at the selection ceremony in the first place. Yet Percy knows he needs someone on his team he can trust completely, especially after the Oracle prophesied that Percy would be betrayed by someone who calls him a friend.

The selection ceremony is a show-only invention, but it certainly works as both a character- and world-building device. On the one hand, it gives Camp Half-Blood an even deeper sense of ritual. On the other, it also strengthens the bond between our main trio. Percy choosing Annabeth is a deep demonstration of respect, particularly after Luke told Percy about Annabeth’s desire to go on a quest. (Also a great moment for Percabeth shippers!) Elsewhere, Grover and Percy have gone through a lot in the past two episodes, with Grover getting Percy kicked out of Yancy (granted, for his own safety) and revealing that he was Percy’s satyr protector this whole time (again, for safety reasons). Any tension from these secrets is long gone, and these two best friends are ready to take on the impossible.

Episode three: Alecto offers Annabeth a deal.

Thought evil math teacher Mrs. Dodds died in episode 1? Think again! She’s a monster — a Fury, to be more exact — and monsters can’t truly ever die. Her real name is Alecto, and she and her Fury sisters are back on the hunt for Percy. They find him and his friends at a bus stop in New Jersey. Here, Alecto offers Annabeth a deal: If she lures Percy to the Furies, they’ll make sure her quest continues unimpeded. But Annabeth is having none of this. Sure, she may disagree with Percy sometimes, but she’s not going to sell him out to the Furies who killed her friend (and daughter of Zeus) Thalia! She warns Percy and Grover, and they manage to escape.

Alecto’s proposed deal is completely new to the show. It is also a scene without Percy’s perspective, marking a departure from the books, which are told strictly from his point of view. We see this broadening of perspective often with TV adaptations, as they take the opportunity of a new medium to explore other characters whose interiority we don’t always get to see in the source material. In this scene’s case, that character is Annabeth.

Annabeth’s conversation with Alecto hints at an interesting element from the books: fatal flaws. These are weaknesses demigods must reckon with, as they could lead to their tragic undoing. In Riordan’s work, Annabeth’s fatal flaw is hubris, or pride. Alecto’s bargain works to exploit that flaw, balancing Annabeth’s friendships and sense of duty against her need for glory and acknowledgment from Athena. But it looks like Annabeth isn’t ready to let her pride be her downfall just yet.

Episode three: A very different Medusa

The main set piece of the third episode is an encounter with Medusa (Jessica Parker Kennedy), she of the snake hair and stony gaze. The Lightning Thief sees our main trio stumble upon Aunty Em’s Garden Gnome Emporium, where Aunty Em, concealing her real identity as Medusa, plies them with food before trying to turn them into statues. The show changes that entirely, and in doing so, opens up some fascinating thematic questions.

In Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Annabeth realizes right away they’re in Medusa’s realm — and why wouldn’t she? She’s well-versed in Greek myth, and since her mother cursed Medusa in the first place, it makes sense she’d be familiar enough with her legend to the point of recognizing her in the wild. Medusa doesn’t keep up any Aunty Em pretenses either. She introduces herself right away and offers Percy, Annabeth, and Grover shelter from a pursuing Alecto.

Once inside, Medusa gives our heroes her side of her myth, showing us a completely different side of the character we got in the book. She likens herself to Annabeth: The two are devoted worshippers of Athena, even if they hear nothing back from the goddess. So when Poseidon told Medusa he loved her, she felt seen by a god in a way she never had with Athena. Unfortunately, Athena did see Medusa’s interaction with Poseidon. She blamed her for desecrating her temple and cursed her, even though it was all Poseidon’s doing. (Given that Percy Jackson and the Olympians is meant for a young adult audience, the show skirts around the sexual violence of the original myth. However, if you are aware of said violence, Medusa’s discussion with the children takes on an even more somber quality.)

Because of her past relationship with Poseidon, Medusa also feels a kinship with Sally Jackson. She tells Percy, “Your mother and I are like sisters, in a way. Targeted by the same monster.” Her words cause a reckoning, in more ways than one: Did Poseidon take advantage of Sally in the same way as he did with Medusa? Should Percy continue on this quest to help his father clear up his quarrel with Zeus, even after all the pain he’s caused?

This is the test Medusa poses Percy: Let her get rid of his companions so he can save Sally without worrying about the quest, or continue to serve the wrathful, unjust gods. Like Annabeth with Alecto, Percy chooses his friends and the Medusa fight ensues, ending — like it does in the books — with Medusa’s severed head shipped to Mount Olympus. Still, the ideas Medusa raises in this iteration of Riordan’s story will reverberate throughout the rest of the series. Should the demigods really be serving their parents if all they do is ignore them and mistreat others? And in becoming monster-slaying heroes, are they doomed to repeat their mothers’ and fathers’ mistakes?

Episode four: More time with Echidna

The fourth episode of Percy Jackson and the Olympians introduces us to yet another important adversary from Riordan’s books (and Greek mythology, obviously): Echidna (Suzanne Cryer), otherwise known as the Mother of Monsters. Naturally, like every other monster from Hades to Olympus, she’s after Percy Jackson.

Both the book and the show versions of Echidna’s pursuit of Percy end with a confrontation at the top of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. However, the buildup to that point varies from page to screen. In The Lightning Thief, Echidna takes the form of a tourist at the Arch, with her beloved Chimera disguised as a chihuahua.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians introduces Echidna far earlier. She meets Percy, Annabeth, and Grover on a train, then chases them all the way to the Arch. As with Medusa in episode three, this shift from the books allows for an expansion of Echidna’s character. She spends quite a bit of time talking to Percy, Annabeth, and Grover on the train. And as sinister as she is, this discussion clues us into her relationship to her darling children (aka her brood of terrifying monsters) and how she trains them to hunt. After all, she only lets Percy escape her initial clutches so the Chimera can get some practice. These changes — like most of Percy Jackson and the Olympians‘ shifts from the books so far — complement our understanding of Echidna as she appears in The Lightning Thief, while also allowing for fun twists that will surprise new and old fans alike.

Episode four: Percy Jackson and the self-sacrificing streak

Here’s a much smaller change between Riordan’s books and the show, but an important one nonetheless. In The Lightning Thief, Echidna only reveals herself to Percy after he gets separated from Grover and Annabeth at the Arch. The separation isn’t anything dramatic, just that the two of them get on a different elevator down. Notably, the two don’t know about the Echidna attack until after the fact.

With Echidna and the Chimera hunting our main trio for much longer in Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the reason for that separation gets tweaked a bit in the show. Annabeth tells Grover and Percy to save themselves while she takes on the Chimera in the Arch. But at the last second, Percy shoves her to safety and locks her and Grover out of the Arch’s observation deck, all so he can face the Chimera alone.

Remember how Alecto’s offer to Annabeth in episode three hinted at pride being her fatal flaw? Here, Percy Jackson and the Olympians is hinting at Percy’s own flaw: He’s loyal to a fault. In fact, he’s so loyal he’ll risk fighting a monster — while poisoned! — in order to save his best friends. Since we don’t officially learn about fatal flaws until The Sea of Monsters, book two in Riordan’s book series, instances like this are a nice way to seed them for future seasons of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Plus, Percabeth fans get another awesome new moment to freak out about, with Percy getting Annabeth out of harm’s way. It may be a seaweed-brained move, but it’s only making this ship stronger.

Episode five: Say hi to the Fates!

In the fifth episode of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, our characters have a brush with fate — sorry, I meant a brush with the Fates. Annabeth spies three old women knitting by the Gateway Arch. One of them snips a piece of yarn with foreboding flair, meaning that a member of our main trio will die soon. The Lightning Thief features a similar scene much earlier on, where Percy sees the Fates on his way home from Yancy Academy. In that scene, the yarn snip foreshadows the loss of Sally. Here, it’s hinting at Percy and Annabeth’s disastrous trip to Waterworld, raising the stakes for the episode.

Episode five: Percy and Annabeth visit Waterworld

Speaking of Waterworld, let’s get into all the ways Percy and Annabeth’s side quest to retrieve Ares’s (Adam Copeland) shield differs from the book. The main conceit is the same: Hephaestus (Timothy Omundson) used the park as a trap to catch his wife Aphrodite in an affair with Ares. In the book, said trap involves a Tunnel of Love ride, booby-trapped Cupid’s arrows, and a livestream to Mount Olympus. In the show, only the Tunnel of Love ride remains, and it poses Percy and Annabeth with a heartbreaking choice: In order to get the shield, one of them will have to sit in an inescapable chair designed by Hephaestus. It’s as good as a death sentence, and both Percy and Annabeth know it.

Just like in St. Louis, Percy is ready to sacrifice himself in order to save Annabeth so she can continue with the quest. But even once she gets the shield, Annabeth isn’t willing to leave Percy behind, proving just how deep their friendship has become. Her attempts to tinker with the chair’s mechanism summon Hephaestus, who is so moved by Annabeth’s insistence that Percy isn’t like the other backstabbing Olympians that he releases him. Hephaestus’s appearance and the dilemma with the chair are all entirely new to the series, though they are based in Greek mythology. However, they all serve the episode’s larger theme of how horrible the familial relationships between the Olympians are — and how people like Percy could break away from the gods’ violent, self-destructive patterns.

Episode five: Bonding time with Grover and Ares

Where was Grover during all this drama? Buddying up with the Greek god of war, that’s what. In a twist from the books, Grover doesn’t actually go to Waterworld. Instead, Ares keeps him as collateral. A nature-loving satyr might seem like the antithesis of all that Ares stands for, but Grover wins him over by citing some of his “deep cuts,” like the Turbot War and the Lobster War. (In classic satyr fashion, both are bloodless conflicts over various fishing disputes.)

Grover uses Ares’s goodwill to pry for information about Camp Half-Blood’s visit to Mount Olympus on the winter solstice, the day the Master Bolt was stolen. As he does, he uncovers some information about Ares’s annoyance with Athena. Based on what he tells Percy and Annabeth at the end of the episode, it seems like this conversation clued him into who really took the Master Bolt. But did he really solve the mystery? Or is this another red herring?

This story will be updated weekly as each new episode drops.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians is now streaming on Disney+, with new episodes weekly.

The year 2024 could be the dawn of a new Space Age, full of landing attempts on the moon and successive rocket launches.

It may seem doubtful that it could top 2023: The super-sensitive infrared James Webb Space Telescope enriched astronomers’ understanding of other worlds and the early universe, and NASA flew home its first asteroid chunks. SpaceX’s Starship is priming to become the most powerful spaceworthy rocket. And India joined the ranks of nations that have successfully landed a robotic spacecraft on the moon.

But 2024 promises another banner year in space. Much of North America will get to experience a total solar eclipse in the spring: Another such opportunity for the United States won’t come for two decades. And several more robotic moon landings are in the pipeline.

UPDATE: Jan. 10, 2024, 1:31 p.m. EST This calendar has been edited to reflect a delay for NASA’s Artemis II crewed moon mission, pushed back to 2025, according to an agency announcement Jan. 9. It also includes the tentative February timeframe for SpaceX’s third Starship test flight.

Here’s a round-up of space missions and cosmic events just around the bend.

Astrobotic’s moon landing attempt: January 2024

An Astrobotic Technologies lander will blast off atop a new rocket in January on a quest to be the first commercial company to land on the moon.

The launch, expected no earlier than Jan. 8, will be the maiden voyage for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. If the spaceflight succeeds, the company will try to land its Peregrine spacecraft on Feb. 23.

NASA tapped Astrobotic as one of several vendors for its Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative to explore the moon over the next few years. The program has recruited the private sector to help deliver instruments and send back crucial data. Astrobotic is set to be the first of the CLPS vendors to embark on the 250,000-mile trek from Earth to the moon.

Japan’s moon landing attempt: January 2024

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The Japanese space agency JAXA will try to put its own lander on the lunar surface early this year.

The SLIM mission, short for Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon, is expected to touch down near Shioli crater on the moon’s near side on Jan. 20. Its goal is to demonstrate so-called “pinpoint landing” with an accuracy of less than 100 yards, a level of precision unprecedented for moon landings.

JAXA announced that the mission had achieved a major milestone on Christmas, successfully inserting into an oval-shaped orbit around the lunar north and south poles.

Intuitive Machines’ moon landing attempt: February 2024

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A private Houston company is nipping at the heels of Astrobotic’s first lunar lander mission.

Intuitive Machines recently announced its IM-1 mission is targeting a mid-February launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral. Assuming a successful spaceflight, it will attempt to touch down its Nova-C lander near the lunar south pole about a week later. Like Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines is part of NASA’s CLPS initiative, and the two companies are neck and neck in a race to achieve the first successful private moon landing.

The space agency’s payloads onboard the lander will focus on testing communication, navigation, and precision landing technologies, as well as gather data about rocket plume and lunar surface interactions.

SpaceX Starship orbital spaceflight: February 2024

SpaceX attempted two orbital flights of its skyscraping rocket and spacecraft, known collectively as Starship, in 2023. During both attempts, Starship exploded before completing the space journey.

But billionaire Elon Musk’s company is getting closer. It made significant progress over the past two tests — in particular demonstrating a new method of separating the booster from the spacecraft in the air, known as “hot-staging.”

These tests are crucial for NASA, which will depend on Starship and its human landing system to get astronauts on the moon in the next few years. If successful, it’ll mean Musk is one small step closer to realizing his personal dream of building a city on Mars.

As part of SpaceX’s contract with NASA, the company will need to show a successful uncrewed test flight to the moon before Artemis III, the return of astronauts to the lunar surface, which could come as early as 2026.

Total solar eclipse for North America: April 2024

A rare total solar eclipse will cross North America, passing over Mexico, the United States, and Canada on April 8, the likes of which won’t return until Aug. 23, 2044.

A total solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between the sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the sun. People can’t normally see the sun’s outer atmosphere, known as the corona. During a total solar eclipse, the sky will darken as if it were dusk, allowing people to remove their protective eclipse glasses for a few minutes.

This phenomenon can confuse wildlife, causing nocturnal critters to wake up and other animals to head off to bed.

Boeing Starliner’s first crewed flight: April 2024

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft will take astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time, becoming the second commercial carrier capable of transporting NASA crew to the outpost.

No longer serviced by its own shuttle program, the U.S. space agency relied on Russian rockets after 2011 to get astronauts into space. That period ended in 2020 when SpaceX largely took over that responsibility, but NASA has been without any backup, which wasn’t the original plan.

Boeing encountered many technical problems with the spacecraft, finally docking an uncrewed capsule at the station in 2022. But more issues arose with the spacecraft, causing the first crewed flight to slip. NASA will send two astronaut test pilots — Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams – to the station on Starliner no earlier than April.

Peak of Lyrids meteor shower: April 21-22, 2024

Meteor showers happen every year or at regular intervals as Earth passes through the dusty wake of previous comets. Each time a comet zips through the inner solar system, the sun boils off some of its surface, leaving behind a trail of debris. When the planet intersects with the old comet detritus, the result is a spectacular show, with sometimes up to hundreds of meteors visible per hour. The Lyrids, best viewed from the Northern Hemisphere, will be active from April 14 to 30.

China’s return to the moon: January — June 2024

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China plans to return to the moon with another uncrewed robotic mission this year.

The mission dubbed Chang’e 6 will send a probe to the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon. It’s expected to collect rock samples from different regions and periods. To enhance communications between the moon’s far side and Earth, China plans to launch its new relay satellite Queqiao-2, or Magpie Bridge-2, according to China’s State Council Information Office.

It’s unclear when exactly the mission will launch, as the military-controlled space program is often secretive. The Chinese government has previously said the mission would happen in the first half of the year.

The spacecraft will carry instruments from France, Italy, Pakistan, and the European Space Agency. The United States has prohibited NASA by law from collaborating with China or participating in scientific exchanges with the national program.

Peak of Eta Aquariids meteor shower: May 4-5, 2024

The Eta Aquariids meteor shower, best viewed from the southern tropics, produces strong “persistent trains” of shooting stars. The celestial event will be active from April 19 to May 28.

Peak of Perseids meteor shower: Aug. 11-12, 2024

The popular Perseids, made up of remnants of comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, is a spectacular show for the Northern Hemisphere. The meteor shower is active from July 14 to Sept. 1.

NASA’s Europa orbiter launch: October 2024

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One of Jupiter’s moons could hold double the water that is in Earth’s oceans. That’s why experts are eager to send the robotic Clipper spacecraft to explore Europa up close.

Scientists think Europa could perhaps have conditions capable of supporting life. Clipper, set to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral in October, will determine the thickness of the moon’s icy shell and its surface interactions with the ocean below. Instruments will also help scientists investigate its geology.

The spacecraft, expected to arrive at Jupiter in 2030, will make nearly 50 flybys of the water world, coming within 16 miles of the surface at its closest approach.

DART follow-up asteroid mission: October 2024

In 2022, NASA deliberately crashed a spacecraft into a harmless asteroid to practice thwarting a space rock, should a hazardous one ever be on a collision course with Earth.

The European Space Agency is providing a follow-up to that Double Asteroid Redirection Test, better known as DART. The Hera mission’s spacecraft will launch no earlier than October and rendezvous with Dimorphos, the slammed asteroid, in 2026.

Performing a sort of post-op investigation, the spacecraft will measure the asteroid’s mass and take a close look at the crater. The data should tie up the loose ends of the experiment, perhaps making DART a repeatable planetary defense technique in the future.

NASA’s water-mining mission: November 2024

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Hitching a ride on an Astrobotic Griffin lander, NASA’s rover will set out on a mission to drill for ice at the lunar south pole.

Scientists believe ice is buried in permanently shadowed craters in the southern region. The plan is for VIPER — short for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover — to land on Mons Mouton in late 2024. Over 100 Earth days, it will explore roughly 12 miles and venture into craters where it will drill and measure frozen water.

Delivery of NASA moon rover and orbiter: 2024

Intuitive Machines has the added responsibility of sending a new NASA rover to the south pole of the moon later in the year. This mission, referred to as IM-2 or PRIME-1, is to land and test a drill and mass spectrometer, a device that identifies the kinds of particles in a substance.

As currently planned, another spacecraft, NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer, will also hitch a ride on this flight. The small satellite will orbit the moon to map out the locations of lunar water. The mission will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.

Firefly’s moon landing attempt: 2024

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In yet another CLPS initiative mission, a private U.S. company will carry 10 NASA instruments to the moon.

The space agency tapped Firefly Aerospace, a Cedar Park, Texas, company, to take its payloads to Mare Crisium on the moon’s near side. The mission, using Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander, is expected to happen in 2024.

The NASA cargo is designed to test soil sample collection, navigation systems, radiation-tolerant computing, and moon dust mitigation.

Peak of Geminids meteor shower: Dec. 13-14, 2024

Widely regarded as the best meteor shower of the year, the Geminids can be seen from most any part of the world, especially the Northern Hemisphere. The Geminids are denser meteors, allowing stargazers to see them as low as 29 miles above ground before the cosmic dust burns up. The shower will be active between Nov. 19 and Dec. 24.

This year a full moon will obscure the number of meteors people can see. If skies are clear, though, you could glimpse bright meteors by facing a direction with the moon at your back, according to the American Meteor Society.

Other 2024 space mission events

Sept. 5, 2024: The European Space Agency’s BepiColombo mission is expected to make its fourth Mercury flyby.

Dec. 2, 2024: ESA’s BepiColombo mission should make its fifth Mercury flyby.

Dec. 13, 2024: NASA’s Lucy mission will make its second Earth flyby.

Slack knows you’ve got a lot going on at work. There are just so many channels, messages, and threads. A new feature is aimed at making things easier to navigate.

The Verge reported Slack is set to add a feature called “Catch Up” that’ll let you swipe through channels and DMs, either marking it as read or leaving it unread. Catch Up is reportedly slated to drop only for the mobile app and is aimed at helping workers parse through the massive amounts of messages at any given time on Slack.

Slack envisions Catch Up as a tool to help people start or resume their workday. The company noticed that folks often use the mobile app as more of a prep station for the real work.

“Before they get to their desk in the morning, or when they’re away from their desk, or maybe at lunch — a 30-second session, super fast, just trying to catch up,” Akshay Bakshi, a product management director at Slack, told The Verge. “Then the stuff they want to get back to at their desktop, they leave it for later.”

Slack has been playing around with changes lately, including a complete redesign of the app that wasn’t particularly well received. It has, of course, added some AI functionality like every other company on planet Earth.

But hopefully, Catch Up will prove useful for folks. Oftentimes it feels like all the Slack channels and messages distract from real work instead of helping you get it done. Maybe this new feature can be a fix.

There are a lot of “maybes” and “hope tos” uttered at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), as many of the products demoed there take months or years to launch. And that’s if they even make it to market at all; prototypes, previews, and proofs of concept are running themes at the annual tech convention in Las Vegas. But fortunately for anyone eager to get their hands on the latest gadgets, there are a few exceptions every year.

Below, we’ve rounded up a list of products from CES 2024 that are actually available for purchase or preorder immediately, including innovative wearables, stick-on TVs, and a physical manifestation of AI. Some of them blew us away, while others just weirded us out.

1. Clicks Creator Keyboard Founders Edition

The Y2K revival rages on. Featuring a physical backlit keyboard that supports standard shortcuts (like CMD + A for “Select All”), this unibody case evoking the Sidekicks and Blackberries of yore is Clicks Technology’s debut product. It’s available in “BumbleBee” (yellow) and “London Sky” (gray) for the iPhone 14 Pro, 15 Pro, and 15 Pro Max.

2. Garmin Lily 2

Garmin’s latest smartwatch is easily its most fashion-forward wearable to date, with a metal case and patterned lenses that act like stylish screensavers when the display is powered off. It comes with sleep monitoring and built-in sport apps, including a new dance fitness activity that can track different dance styles, and it lasts up to five days on a single charge. The standard Lily 2 comes in two colors with silicone bands, while the slightly pricier Lily 2 Classic (which adds support for Garmin Pay contactless payments) comes in four colors with nylon or leather bands.

3. Apollo

Read Mashable’s full review of the Apollo.

Apollo Neuro says its new wellness wearable can improve your focus, help you sleep better, and ease your stress with the power of “good vibes” — i.e., by stimulating your vagus nerve (which regulates important bodily functions like heart rate and breathing). It didn’t live up to all of those claims when Mashable tech editor Kim Gedeon tried it for three weeks ahead of CES, though it did have a positive effect on her social anxiety: “It’s similar to how I feel when I’m listening to binaural beats or ASMR,” she wrote. At the time of publication, it was on sale for almost $70 off via Amazon and the Apollo Neuro website.

4. EVOLVE MVMT

Evolve MVMT’s “first-of-its-kind” ankle wearable aims to make your gait more efficient and joint-friendly by tracking the quality (not quantity) of your steps — more specifically, the way your heel strikes the ground. If you’re a flat-footed person who’s “ever had to pay for expensive orthotics or special footwear, which then has to be replaced every few years, this might be a solid alternative,” wrote tech reporter Cecily Mauran.

5. Nimble

Read Mashable’s hands-on review of the Nimble.

In one of the less dystopian examples of “robots are taking over the world,” the Nimble is a new 12-inch manicure robot that uses scanning technology and AI to do your nails in about half an hour. “Since there was high demand to test out Nimble, I was only able to get one nail painted,” Mauran reported from CES. “But within minutes, I got polish and a topcoat, and my nail was fully dry. … Nimble is precise and on par with the pros.” Its polish capsules will be available in 30 colors, and new features — including pedicures — are supposedly in the works.

6. Displace Flex and Displace Mini

Watch Mashable staff try the Displace Mini.

They’re not quite as exciting as LG’s new transparent TV, but Displace’s new lightweight, wireless 4K displays are still pretty cool in their own right (and certainly more practical): They have battery-powered suction that allows them to stick onto almost any wall or window — no mounting required. “It’s impossible to pull off unless you actually want to take it off,” said tech reporter Matt Binder, who took part in a demo at CES. Both the 55-inch Flex model and the 27-inch Mini variant are expected to ship out in late 2024.

7. Acer Swift Go 14

Read Mashable’s hands-on review of the Acer Swift Go 14.

The new Acer Swift Go 14 looks like a very average laptop until you pull up YouTube, which triggers a set of light-up media controls on its touchpad — a neat feature for those who use a PC as their primary entertainment device. (Support for other platforms like Twitch and Spotify are expected to be added at launch in March.) The base configuration is powered by a 13th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, but you can upgrade to a newer Intel Core Ultra 5 CPU.

8. HP Spectre x360 14

Read Mashable’s hands-on review of the HP Spectre x360 14.

HP’s newly refreshed convertible boasts next-gen specs (including an Intel Core Ultra processor with AI tools), a 14-inch OLED touchscreen, and a 9MP webcam. But the real star of the show is its clickety-clackety keyboard, which Gedeon called “the best thing I’ve ever tested.” “I actually contemplated chucking my MacBook Pro out the window for that sweet, sweet typing experience on this irresistible HP laptop,” she wrote.

9. Wacom Cintiq Pro tablets

Available in three sizes (17-, 22-, or 27-inch), Wacom’s stunning and spacious new drawing slates were the best tablets Mashable saw at CES. Each one sports a vivid 4K display with a 120Hz refresh rate and customizable ExpressKeys for different settings and functions. They also come with the new Wacom Pro Pen 3, an ergonomic, pressure-sensitive stylus that “allowed me to use natural touch gestures, including rotating, zooming, and panning,” Gedeon said post-demo.

10. Wehead GPT Edition

Read Mashable’s hands-on review of the Wehead GPT Edition.

The Wehead puts a literal (emotionless, disembodied) face to OpenAI’s large-language model GPT via two screens, and it’s as creepy as it sounds. But in its defense, “it gave some practical advice about surviving CES (stay hydrated, wear comfortable shoes) so there might be some redeemable qualities — if you’re willing to spend $5,000,” wrote Gedeon and Mauran. If you don’t want to curse yourself to a lifetime with this thing, you’ve also got the option of renting it for $199 per month.

Honorable mention: Skyted Mask

Another CES gadget that toed the fine line between “wowing” and “weirding out,” the Skyted Muzzle Mask has sound absorption technology that lets you make confidential voice calls when you’re out in public. “[We’re] sure some people who are serious about their privacy may find it to be a must-buy for their lifestyle,” said Gedeon and Mauran. “However, we can’t see ourselves using this product – it’s just too outlandish for our tastes.” Those who fall into the former category can save a serious chunk of cash by backing it on Kickstarter through early February.

Honorable mention: Stern ‘Jaws’ pinball machine

Read Mashable’s hands-on review of the Stern JAWS pinball machine.

Stern’s faithful pinball adaptation of the 1975 classic includes that awesome John Williams score, some new voiceover lines from Richard Dreyfuss, and a playfield filled with movie references that’s “immensely fun to look at,” said tech and games reporter Alex Perry. Now, for the catch (of the day): It appears to be limited to commercial dealers and distributors, and it starts at a whopping $7,000; you can go all the way up to $13,000 for the limited-edition model with different cosmetics. Maybe just wait for it to show up at your local dive bar.

As it turns out, a different type of AI made a big splash at CES 2024: AI companionship. We were expecting generative and predictive AI, but this one threw us for a loop.

Are we really that lonely? How bad has it gotten that vendors are seeking to give us non-human companionship in a world filled with, well, humans? And that’s not the only bizarre trend I’ve been seeing. Here are the top five trends I’ve spotted at the world-famous Las Vegas showcase.

1. AI companionship

As I mentioned at the outset, more than any other technology, AI companionship was, by far, the most popular trend I saw at CES 2024.

Take a look at Ballie, for example, Samsung’s new rolling yellow ball that is, in part, designed to keep users company. I also checked out an anime-inspired robot called Mirokai, which has a use case for lonely patients in the medical sector. And finally, there’s WeHead, a bizarre 3D structure that puts a face to ChatGPT.

Hell, even at Lenovo’s CES suite, it showcased a concept of a robot companion that can be snapped to the lid of your laptop.

I can’t help but wonder, are vendors seeking to fill some sort of companionship void that is plaguing us humans?

2. Wearable rings

The Oura ring, which had a presence at CES 2024, is a rising star in the compact wearable space. But this year, it looks like a swath of vendors are vying for Oura’s throne.

From RinConn’s Smart Ring, a wearable that claims to “understand your body and maximize your health” to the Amazfit Heli Ring, a sports-focused wearable that can be paired with a performance watch of your choice, rings seemed to take over CES this year, outpacing smartwatches like Garmin.

3. Air gestures

Mashable’s Cecily Mauran checked out a smart mirror at Unveiled, a CES 2024 pre-show for the press, and it’s not just its wellness benefits that caught her eye, but its interactive functions.

You can use air gestures to swipe through the UI on the funky smart mirror. The Mudra band is another striking tech product we spotted at CES 2024. It lets you navigate through all of your iDevices using air gestures, too.

4. Sleep tech

Many adults suffer from sleep issues, including myself. Quieting one’s mind to get a good night’s rest is much more challenging than it seems. As such, I’ve seen a few vendors attempt to solve this issue with technology. One of them is the Frenz Brainband, which I happened to review for a couple of months ahead of CES 2024. (Stay tuned for whether that was helpful for my insomnia.)

This rubbery crown, which is meant to be worn around the forehead, uses AI to determine which binaural beats and voice coaching to use for the most optimal, personalized sleep.

I also stumbled upon myWaves, a device that can reportedly read your delta waves before using them to feed back sleep-inducing sound waves personalized for you.

5. Live captioning with smart glasses

TCL’s RayNeo X2 Lite glasses, billed as the world’s lightest full-color AR glasses, utilizes true AR, applying interactive, digital overlays on top of a real-world environment.

You can engage with an AI-powered avatar with your voice, use touch gestures to interact with a virtual menu, and more. But a trend that I’ve been noticing, starting with the RayNeo X2 Lite glasses, is live captioning. These quirky glasses can also translate languages, live captioning everything that is being said to you in your native language. (For example, in our demo with the RayNeo X2 Lite glasses, the rep spoke Korean and we could see the words being transcribed — before our very eyes — into English.

However, the RayNeo X2 Lite glasses aren’t the only spectacles that can do this. The XanderGlasses also made an appearance at CES 2024. Unlike the X2 Lite, the XanderGlasses target the accessibility market. It is made for users who are hard of hearing. The XanderGlasses can deliver lines of scrolling words to users, allowing them to rely on their visual senses (i.e., reading) to understand others who are speaking to them.

Sometimes the best things at CES aren’t even really at CES.

While walking back to our hotel late at night to wind down from a big event, Mashable’s Matt Binder and I stumbled upon a peculiar-looking SUV parked outside on display. It turns out Razer and Lexus have teamed up to create what can only be described as a “gaming car,” and it wound up being one of the wilder things we saw in Vegas.

To be more specific, it’s a 2024 Lexus TX that’s been tricked out Razer-style with all sorts of gaming goodies. Is it street legal? Possibly not, according to a press release from December. Does that matter? Nope!

A mobile LAN party

For starters, this thing is eye-catching from 50 yards away. It’s a black Lexus TX with green (by default) Razer lighting that can change colors on command around the exterior of the vehicle. However, it’s what’s on the inside that makes this the ultimate gaming car — street legality be damned.

The Lexus TX has three rows of seating, and this particular version of it replaces the normal seats in the back two rows with gaming chairs. Yes, they put gaming chairs in a car. Each seat has a widescreen gaming monitor, and one of the seats even had a desk with a keyboard for PC gaming.

And then you open the trunk and see the craziest stuff the Razer Lexus TX has to offer. Instead of regular trunk space, there’s a docking station for up to four Razer gaming laptops (yes, it charges them) and a built-in Xbox Series X. There are a couple of open spaces for baggage, but aside from that, it’s all gaming, all the time in the Razer Lexus TX.

To be clear, this seems to be a concept vehicle that I highly doubt will ever be a real thing you can buy for yourself. It’s really just a promotional crossover between Razer and Lexus. Personally, I have my concerns about what all that gaming hardware would do to a car battery over time. But none of that matters because this is CES and CES is all about wild tech stuff that you don’t see anywhere else.

I can’t think of anything we saw in Vegas that exemplifies that attitude more than a powerhouse gaming car.

MatPat is retiring … sort of. In a video uploaded earlier today, the 37-year-old YouTuber announced he will host his last video on his Game Theorists YouTube channel on March 9. After that, he will hand the channel and its three spin-offs — Film Theory, Food Theory, and Style Theory — over to four members of his staff.

MatPat, whose given name is Matthew Patrick, created his Game Theory series in 2011. His highly-edited, fast-paced videos exploring game lore remain among the platform’s most celebrated and long-running projects, and have spawned multiple related channels that have accumulated over 40 million combined subscribers.

Patrick and his wife and COO Stephanie have also become some of YouTube’s most recognizable and interesting creative forces off the platform. They’ve raised over $5 million for St. Jude’s Hospital through charity live streams and co-produced the Broadway play Grey House in 2023.

The Patricks have also pioneered new ways for online creators to turn YouTube channels into a viable business: in 2022, the couple sold The Game Theorists to a U.K.-based startup called LunarX in an attempt to expand the channel’s programming without snuffing out their creativity in the process.

In the video announcing his retirement from The Game Theorists, Patrick notes that the wear and tear of content creation played a large role in his decision to step down. “I don’t love the fact that Steph and I have been work-first for over a decade … I miss the days where I could just sit down on the couch with her and play video games and it’s not for content.”

Still, Patrick plans to stay involved in content development on the backend of the business and even appear on the business’s other channels. He also plans to livestream on his GT Live channel through the end of the summer and says he will host a Style Theory series about creator-crafted fashion lines in April.

Patrick’s is the latest in a line of YouTube creators who have recently announced their semi-retirement from the platform. On Jan. 1, science creator Tom Scott announced he would be stepping back from his channel for the foreseeable future and, in December, gaming creator CaptainSparklez announced he would stop posting Minecraft gameplay videos after 13 years.

It’s a tough day to be an Our Flag Means Death fan.

After giving us two seasons of queer pirates, mermaids, and oceanic drag queens, series creator David Jenkins announced that the beloved pirate comedy will not be returning for a third season on Max.

“I’m very sad I won’t set foot on the Revenge again with my friends, some of whom have become close to family,” Jenkins wrote in an Instagram post. “But I couldn’t be more grateful for being allowed to captain the damn thing in the first place.”

Jenkins also paid tribute to the show’s passionate fan base, saying:

“The second season was made possible by the enthusiasm of one of the most likable fan communities in the history of this medium. Your voices made a difference, your art made a difference, your viewership made a difference in securing more [Our Flag Means Death]. Getting to share this show with you and watching you make it yours has been a dream come true.”

Understandably, heartbroken fans took to social media to express their dismay and celebrate the community the show managed to build over its run.

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Jenkins’ announcement marks one of the first major TV cancellations of 2024. And although Our Flag Means Death will surely live on in fan art and fanfiction, it’s always painful to lose a show that meant so much to so many people — especially after only two seasons. Here’s hoping it isn’t pulled from the Max library entirely in order to cut costs, a fate suffered by other canceled series like Infinity Train and Raised by Wolves.

The portable gaming PC marketplace exploded in 2023, and 2024 looks to be no different.

After a year that brought us the ASUS ROG Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and Steam Deck OLED, MSI is ready to enter the fray with the Claw. On paper and in practice, it’s very similar to its competitors. It’s got enough juice to run modern AAA games, a similar control scheme to something like the Steam Deck, and a nice display to make games really pop. It will launch in the first half of 2024, starting at $699.

MSI brought the Claw to CES 2024 and I got to (briefly) put my hands on it. As much as I love the Steam Deck, its use of SteamOS is a problem for people who have games in other online libraries. MSI went a different route, and if the company can work out a couple of kinks, this could be a viable alternative for those who don’t want to be locked into Steam.

MSI Claw: Specs

Before I get to my experience with the Claw, it’s worth taking some time to lay out what’s under the hood of this handheld bad boy:

• 7-inch display with 1080p resolution and 120Hz refresh rate

• Up to Intel Core Ultra 7 processor

• Windows 11 built in

• 16GB RAM

• 53Wh battery

• Up to 1TB storage

There are a couple of points worth digging into here. First is the display, which one-ups the Steam Deck with 1080p resolution (as opposed to Steam Deck’s 800p) and a 120Hz refresh rate, beating the 90Hz rate on Valve’s handheld. Its Intel Meteor Lake processor is newer and theoretically more powerful than what’s in the Steam Deck, which is running on hardware that’s almost two years old at this point.

Like the ROG Ally and Legion Go, the Claw runs on Windows 11, as opposed to Valve’s choice to use the custom Linux-based SteamOS. This means the Claw is able to natively and easily run games from non-Steam libraries like Xbox Game Pass, Epic Games Store, and more. A Steam Deck can technically do that too, but you have to have some technical know-how and patience to pull it off.

Therein lies the best potential aspect of the Claw. The device can run in regular Windows 11 desktop mode if you want it to, but MSI built a simple and clean custom UI that brings all your different libraries together under one roof. It marries the simplicity of SteamOS with the functionality of Windows 11. To be clear, MSI isn’t a pioneer in this regard; the Legion Go, for example, had its own hub software with similar functionality, but the cluttered, ugly UI was enough of an impediment to stop me from using it entirely.

The Claw’s menu, on the other hand, is self-explanatory and seems worthwhile. I did have some troubles with finicky menu selection in certain spots, but MSI assured me the UI is still a work in progress. In particular, trying to force quit a game at the system level took more effort than I would’ve liked.

Last but not least, we brought a Steam Deck with us to the event and found that the two devices are nearly identical in weight. The spec sheet backs this up; MSI Claw comes in at 1.48 pounds and Steam Deck at 1.41 pounds.

MSI Claw hands-on

As for how the device actually plays, my time with it was ever-so-brief but still illuminating enough.

Like its competitors, the Claw has two analog sticks, a D-pad, four shoulder buttons, and four face buttons. There are also two customizable macro buttons on the back. Unlike the Steam Deck, however, there are no touchpads to emulate mouse controls. There is a touch screen, but some people might prefer a touchpad. I don’t really care about that, but it’s worth pointing out.

I wasn’t able to get enough time with the Claw to do detailed performance analysis, and MSI didn’t have an onscreen frame rate counter for me to use like the Steam Deck does (though I was assured this is in the works). Judging by the eye test, Assassin’s Creed Mirage ran at a pretty stable 30FPS on low settings and looked excellent on the display. Sonic Superstars was even better, running at or close to 60FPS without much in the way of noticeable drops.

These are recent AAA releases (though maybe Superstars doesn’t qualify, even if it is a nice looking game), so seeing the Claw run them admirably was encouraging. MSI talked a big game about its proprietary cooling system that is supposed to keep the device from running hot, and sure enough, I didn’t notice any uncomfortable warmth in my time with it. A demo unit that had been running Mirage continuously for at least 20 minutes was a little warm, but well within acceptable parameters.

As for battery life, MSI says it has been able to run Forza Horizon 5 for two straight hours on a single charge. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but by the standards of portable gaming PCs, that’s pretty dang good. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until we have a review unit later this year to test that ourselves.

In all, MSI Claw could be another worthy entrant in the suddenly crowded portable PC landscape. Aside from maybe its newer processor, there isn’t anything about the hardware that screams must-have compared to a Steam Deck OLED just yet. But it’s great that there are so many options right now, and none of them are abjectly bad.