It’s clearly time: all the news about the transparent tech renaissance

Analogue has announced another collection of limited-edition colors for its modern remake of the Nintendo 64. Last December it introduced several transparent versions of the Analogue 3D inspired by Nintendo’s Funtastic N64 series, but this time the company says it drew inspiration from colored versions of the nearly 30-year-old console that Nintendo prototyped, but never released to the public.

The Prototype Limited Editions versions of the Analogue 3D will be available for purchase through the company’s website in limited quantities starting on February 9th at 8AM PT / 11AM ET, and are expected to ship 24 to 48 hours after that. Each will be $299.99, which is slightly more expensive than the $269.99 black or white versions of the console. The new colors include extreme green, ocean, atomic purple, ghost, and glacier, with the last three options being subtler alternatives to the colored collection that launched last December.

At CES 2026, Lenovo is announcing yet another new concept laptop with a transforming screen: the ThinkPad Rollable XD Concept. It’s a ThinkPad, complete with its iconic red TrackPoint nub, but it features a flexible OLED display that wraps around to the outer part of its lid. Slide your finger along the folded spin of its touchscreen, and the laptop vertically expands from a 13.3-inch display to a taller 15.9-inch screen — offering more screen real estate for productivity work. It’s a bit like Lenovo’s already released ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 rollable, but the screen and motors are all in the lid as opposed to tucking the display into the chassis.

By wrapping the screen around the lid, you get a bit of usable exterior-facing workspace. When closed, the ThinkPad XD can display touch-friendly widgets on its lid. And giving it a knock will extend the display slightly, lengthening the lid to make opening it easier. The glass covering the outward-facing touchscreen and curved spine at the top of the lid is made of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, and the seethrough portion of the lid showcases the mechanics of the rollable screen.

After announcing and teasing its design well over a year ago, Epilogue’s new SN Operator will finally be available for preorder starting tomorrow. Like the company’s GB Operator that debuted in early 2021, the SN Operator is a standalone USB cartridge slot that lets you play and archive old Nintendo console games on PCs, Macs, or handhelds like the Steam Deck using their original carts. But where the GB Operator was built for Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and GBA games, the SN Operator instead supports any Super Nintendo and Super Famicom game.

Preorders for the SN Operator will open at 12PM ET on December 30th for $59.99. That’s $10 more expensive than the smaller GB Operator, which will remain available too. The hardware is expected to ship in April 2026.

As if the Analogue 3D wasn’t nostalgic enough, the 4K N64 emulator will soon be available in a handful of transparent “Funtastic” limited editions going on sale on December 10th at 8AM PT/11AM ET. The vibrant transparent models will be available “in highly limited quantities,” and they’ll cost more than the standard model at $299.

The limited editions are inspired by the Funtastic series of N64s from the early 2000s, which Analogue says it spent over a year “perfectly color matching.” According to Analogue, these transparent hues are “identical to the originals.” They even have the same names: fire, watermelon, grape, ice, jungle, clear, and smoke. There’s also a nontransparent gold model inspired by a Toys R Us special edition that currently goes for hundreds or even thousands of dollars on eBay.

Logitech’s Alto Keys K98M mechanical keyboard is now available in North America after its initial launch in China and other select markets. The $119.99 Alto Keys K98M is an almost full-size 1800-layout keyboard, offering a slightly compact design that maintains a number pad. But what makes the K98M special for a mass-market Logitech board is that it’s fully hot-swappable with standard Cherry MX-compatible key switches and uses an internal gasket mount for a semi-soft typing feel. Logitech is taking some belated cues from enthusiast keyboards.

The Alto Keys has a two-piece plastic case with a translucent top portion and opaque bottom that’s color-matched to its included keycaps. It comes in white, graphite, and lavender color combos, with white backlighting and shine-through PBT keycaps. It’s a simple and clean aesthetic designed for mass appeal. As are its specs and features, like a claimed battery life of up to 12 months (with white backlighting turned off) and Bluetooth / Logi Bolt wireless connectivity — each usable on Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, iOS / iPadOS, and Android.

Of all the companies that could have launched a robot vacuum in 2025, I didn’t have DJI in the running — but here we are. The drone and camera manufacturer released the DJI Romo robovac in Europe today, following its China debut this summer. The Romo is a combo robot vacuum and mop with a twist — it’s transparent. But, sadly, it can’t fly. Instead, DJI has channeled its navigation expertise into a bot that stays firmly on the ground.

I got a sneak peek at the see-through sucker at the IFA trade show in September. While I didn’t get to see it in action in the tiny room behind DJI’s huge booth, I did get to check out the hardware — and there’s some interesting tech here.

Sharge is a brand slowly making a name for itself with eye-catching accessories that solve problems you didn’t realize you had. Its latest creation is an external SSD drive that includes a built-in cooling fan to improve its performance and longevity. It also has a bunch of extra ports so you can connect other accessories to your laptop or smartphone while moving data around. The Sharge Disk Pro just launched on Kickstarter and comes in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities temporarily discounted to $189, $289, and $469, respectively.

As the performance of SSDs has increased, so has their propensity to heat up while in use. Excess heat can affect an SSD’s reliability and lifespan, so their performance is reduced when they reach a certain temperature (often over 70 degrees Celsius). It’s especially a problem for external SSDs housed in slim cases with no airflow, but the Disk Pro’s fan solves that. It can be set to a Turbo Mode that continually runs at 10,000rpm to keep the drive’s operating temperature at around 50 degrees Celsius, or a quieter Auto Mode that adjusts the fan speed automatically up to 7,000rpm as cooling is needed, and turns it off completely below 25 degrees Celsius.

We might have a new king of esports gaming monitors — one dripping with gamer style, but also a strange limitation. Asus has just announced the ROG Swift OLED PG27AQWP-W at Gamescom 2025. Not only does it offer a 26.5-inch 2560 x 1440 QHD OLED screen at a blazing-fast 540Hz, it’s also a dual-mode panel that can switch to a practically unheard-of 720Hz refresh rate — if you’re willing to crank down to a blocky 720p resolution.

That’s less exciting than we originally wrote on Tuesday, August 19th — because both Asus and LG Display, which makes the panel inside this monitor, originally told The Verge that the ultra-fast 720Hz mode ran at a higher 1080p resolution instead of 720p.

Have you heard of Natalie the Nerd? She’s a pillar of the Nintendo Game Boy modding scene who taught herself to reverse engineer and design Game Boy circuit boards.

Now, she’s put her skills to work in probably the most beautiful build I’ve ever seen: a working see-through Game Boy Color where even the circuit board is made of clear plastic. Because she designed and created that board herself from scratch, you see.

Following the reveal of its first 360-degree action camera a week ago, DJI has announced its first robot vacuum cleaner. The DJI Romo is available in three versions that are mostly differentiated by their appearance — two use transparent shells to reveal their inner workings — but they all borrow technology from the company’s drones to detect and avoid obstacles around your home.

And like DJI’s latest drone, which debuted last May, the DJI Romo lineup won’t be available in the US for a while. It’s first launching in China at CNY 4,699 (~$654) for the Romo S and A, and CNY 6,799 (~$947) for the fully transparent Romo P. A broader global release is expected later this year, according to DroneDJ, but it’s not known if that will include the US, or what international pricing will be.

While Nothing is gearing up to officially unveil its first over-ear headphones next week, leaked images and videos have given us a good idea of what they look like. The Nothing Headphone 1 sports an unusual design that appears consistently across leaks from multiple sources, featuring a squircle earcup with the company’s signature transparent elements and support for what looks like a 3.5mm audio cable.

Nothing announced in a video last month that it would be launching over-ear headphones in “summer 2025,” but remained largely tight-lipped about what to expect. What little was teased — including Nothing’s Tom Ridley saying the company was making “a more interesting looking pair of headphones that say something about you,” and Adam Bates suggesting its buttons would feature distinct designs for each control function — appears to have been realized in these design leaks.

Razer has announced a new Phantom Collection featuring updated versions of four of its accessories designed to enhance a feature the brand is probably best known for: LED accent lighting. The company even sells wireless earbuds that glow, but they’re not included in the Phantom Collection which features shells and other components made from translucent green plastic that makes each product’s RGB LEDs shine brighter while also revealing the components inside each device.

Although the functionality is the same for all of the accessories included in the Phantom Collection, some of them are slightly more expensive as a result of the new finish. The $199.99 Phantom Green Edition of the Razer BlackWidow V4 75 percent keyboard is the same price as the standard versions, but the Razer Basilisk V3 Pro 35K wireless mouse, Barracuda X Chroma wireless headphones, and Firefly V2 Pro mouse mat are all $10 more expensive at $169.99, $139.99, and $109.99, respectively.

Audio-Technica’s engineers are seemingly working overtime to elevate the design of the record player. Following the reveal of its floating, glowing Hotaru turntable last month, the company has announced its new AT-LPA2 featuring a chassis and platter made from transparent acrylic. With electronics like its power supply and playback controls packed into a separate unit that can be kept out of sight, the turntable is a reminder that transparent tech can still look modern and sleek.

The AT-LPA2 features a similar design to the Audio-Technica AT-LP2022 turntable that was released in January 2023 to help commemorate the company’s 60th anniversary. The previous version was limited to just 3,000 units made available worldwide and sold for $1,200. The new AT-LPA2 is available starting today, and while its rollout won’t be as limited, it now costs $2,000.

To help celebrate the 50 years its parent company has been in business, Japan’s Buffalo has announced a limited edition external hard drive with a window that lets you see its inner workings. Don’t whip out your credit card just yet, though; the Buffalo Skeleton Hard Disk is limited to just 50 units priced at 100,000 yen each (around $695) and is only available for purchase starting in June via a lottery.

The Skeleton Hard Disk mounts a 4TB drive inside a machined aluminum housing with a small window attached to a display base weighing about 3.3 pounds. Its gold and anodized black finish is an homage to a retro Melco (Buffalo’s parent company) record player, which was first released in 1978.