In an update on its blog, Valve says it’s still aiming to ship the Steam Frame, Steam Controller, and Steam Machine in the “first half of the year.” But it also indicates that specific details regarding pricing and launch dates are in flux, adding that “limited availability and rising prices” on storage and memory are forcing Valve to “re-think” these issues. This sounds a lot like the price increases that almost every PC maker has already warned about in new products coming in 2026. Companies like Dell and HP are doing everything they can to ensure supply, including working with Chinese memory makers for the first time.
The memory shortage has been caused by the huge increase in demand for AI in data centers. The world’s three primary memory manufacturers, Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix, have abandoned the consumer market in favor of supporting AI data centers. Off-the-shelf PC memory prices began rising in September and October, and actually increased over the following months, now up to four times the retail price (especially with DDR5 RAM). We are now seeing declines in almost every product imaginable. There’s no clear path to how this will be resolved, but we’re still waiting to see how big of an impact it actually will have on PCs and new products like Steam Frame and Steam Machine. —luke larson
Fitbit founders launch family caregiving app Lafu
Courtesy of Lafu
Yes, that’s right—it’s pronounced “lu-fu,” as in “love.” After founding (and selling) Fitbit, James Park and Eric Friedman realized that in addition to protecting their personal health, they were also caring for everyone else’s health. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and the National Alliance for Caregiving projected that in 2025, nearly one in four adults would be a caregiver for school-aged children or older parents. Lafu is a new platform that lets caregivers easily access all the essential health information – prescriptions, lab tests and more – without having to sort through different devices, calendars or portals.
Lafu is AI-powered (of course it is), but the founders emphasize that the AI experience will be much deeper than just being a health chatbot. Lafu’s AI will sift through your family’s data, learn patterns, and proactively provide personalized guidance and easy-to-understand advice. This will let everyone in your family log medications, diet, or other health information on one platform to share on health portals with doctors. Lafu assures us that the privacy and security of your data will be a top priority, and users can control how much information is shared.
We have to keep privacy top of mind, because like the founders of the hugely popular wearable device, Lafu will start as an app experience before expanding into hardware. I’m very curious to see what a fitness tracker that keeps track of not just you but your family as a unit would look like. -Adrienne So
Dexcom revamps its app with AI-enabled features
Monitoring your glucose spikes is one of the easiest (well, cheapest) ways to nudge you toward healthy behaviors without taking medications. Dexcom, which makes one of the two most popular continuous glucose monitors commercially available, is continuing to improve its own ownership experience within the Dexcom app.
Last year, Dexcom launched smart food logging in the Dexcom app, where you can take a picture of what you’re eating and the app will log what it is. This year, the company is expanding the feature by breaking down the calories, carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and dietary fiber in your food and adding text search and barcode scanning. The app will also provide three personalized, actionable recommendation cards and daily insights with contextual understanding.
I used to be concerned that monitoring your glucose was part of a larger trend (along with protein powders and GLP-1) that reflected broader changes in body norms and could lead to disordered eating. However, as Dr. Dianne Stadler, a dietitian and professor at Oregon Health & Science University, points out, patients with disordered eating have a disorder. There are worse ways to lose weight than prioritizing lean protein and fiber and walking around after every meal. -Adrienne So
Blink’s outdoor security camera runs 2K
courtesy of blink
The latest security camera from Amazon’s budget brand is the Blink Outdoor 2K+. The main leap forward of this fifth generation camera compared to the Blink Outdoor 4 is the higher resolution of 2560 x 1440 pixels. Support for 2K is now increasingly becoming the standard, and we’ve recently seen Google’s Nest Cam, among others, make the move. This is good news for home security fans as sharper footage makes it easier to identify objects, packages, pets and vehicles.
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