ClobberBobble48

This sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole after skimming through the article...

I'm guilty of going on about the luxury side of this, but Leviathan has also been designed with scientific work in mind: Newell's interests now include Starfish Neuroscience, a company focused on neural interfaces (popularly known as "brain chips"), and Inkfish, a marine research operation

Neural interfaces? Uh oh, that reminds me of another billionaire and a heart-breaking story about animal testing.

https://www.gsmgotech.com/2025/05/gabe-newellbacked-starfish-bci-chip-to.html

Unlike bulky, invasive BCIs used in medical settings, the Starfish chip is designed to be minimally invasive, leveraging a proprietary array of microelectrodes that attach to the scalp.

The device’s compact design, roughly the size of a postage stamp, also addresses a common hurdle in consumer neurotech: wearability. Early prototypes suggest the chip could be discreetly integrated into headbands, VR headsets, or even augmented reality glasses.

Oh ok... well that doesn't sound as bad. Wait, didn't Valve just announce a new VR headset that has a port which can be used for 3rd party accessories?

BCIs inevitably raise questions about privacy, data security, and ethical AI use. Starfish claims its device anonymizes neural data and processes most information locally, rather than cloud servers. Still, skeptics argue that neural data’s intimate nature demands stricter regulatory frameworks.

Dr. Rachel Kim, a bioethicist at Stanford University, cautions, “The benefits are immense, but we need clear guidelines on who owns brain data and how it’s monetized. This isn’t just another app—it’s a window into the human mind.”

Hmmm...

Promise Mascot Agency

As some others have said, the main interest for some people is the lighter weight with a "plus" sized display, not the thickness or the other features they won't use.

The Samsung Galaxy S25 edge is slightly better example of that concept. The screen of a S25+ with the weight of the S25.

Simple stuff to prevent you from panicking early on:

• Say you're playing docked with an external controller and you put your steam deck to sleep while playing a a game. After it wakes up the next time you use it, 99% of the time, the game won't respond to the controller input anymore. You need to reorder the controllers in the menu and it'll come good again. Only in extremely rare cases have I had to restart the game.
• Less so now, but early on there were definitely cases where I had to power cycle the steam deck because something went wrong. Even if the screen is black for a bit, just give it some time.
• There's years of tips/tricks or software mods that people have collected that may/may not be relevant anymore. Just play it for a week or two before tweaking things. For instance, I love Decky loader for adding things like protondb support and how long to beat times to the library... but you definitely don't need it.

If you do decide to play docked, Sony Dualshock 4 or Dualsense 5 controllers are great because they have touchpads. This makes them super useful in games with half implemented controller support (i.e. the games work fine but the menu controls still use a mouse) or using desktop mode from the couch. They also have gyro support too.

I haven't had many issues with PC usb-c hubs... but all hubs are created differently. If you care about 4K output, VRR, HDR or anything above basic usage, I found a dedicated jsaux docking station works pretty well (note: I never considered the official dock as it was only officially available in my country well after I already had a steam deck).