From its opening minutes, Moves of the Diamond Hand is upfront about what it offers: You’re going to have a lot of strange conversations, and you’re going to roll a lot of dice. Get on board with this proposition, and the reward is one of the most creative roleplaying games I’ve seen in years, even if its many mysteries won’t be resolved until 2027.
Technology
Moves of the Diamond Hand is an unfinished, irresistibly weird dice-based RPG
Moves of the Diamond Hand is an Early Access videogame available on PC, macOS, and steamOS (including the Steam Deck, where I played it) from musician and game designer Cosmo D. The game looks and feels like a 2000s-era first-person RPG or immersive sim: environments are grimy, stark, and blocky; characters’ features are stretched over smooth heads a bit too small for their faces; an eerie soundtrack pulses over all. You’ll arrive on a train and immediately meet an old mentor, disgraced by some kind of political scandal. You convey your desire to join a powerful organization called Circus X, then declare which of several wildly different paths you’ll take into its fold — you can try joining the city council, but could find equal success crafting the perfect sandwich or joining the best band.
These options help introduce the central mechanic. The game gives you one upgradeable die for each of seven stats, ranging from standard fare like Physique and Observation to the more idiosyncratic Cooking and Music. To set a challenge, it will roll a die corresponding to one of those attributes, and you’ve got to match or beat it with your own roll.
Once you emerge into the train station, the complexity quickly multiplies. There are a plethora of sub-mechanics including cooking, performing music, laundering disguises, and mixing cocktails — all of which add additional dice with unique quirks. You can selectively re-roll dice in a manner similar to Yahtzee, introducing an element of strategy within each encounter, and your final score (win or lose) is translated into experience points. The basic system was introduced in Cosmo D’s last game, Betrayal at Club Low, but in a less flexible and elegant form; Diamond Hand feels like its evolution. (Disclosure: My husband has provided outside feedback for Cosmo D’s games.)
It’s all a little intimidating at first. But the game allows you to ease into its options, which happens quickly, since you’re rolling for virtually every action and verbal exchange from making small talk to opening a door. There’s a meaningful element of chance to all this, without descending into unbounded randomness. Some rolls can be mathematically impossible to win or lose at a given skill level, but it’s possible to still damage your health or gain an unwelcome status effect with safe challenges, preventing them from becoming purely rote. You can retry most actions if you fail them, but they’ll become slightly more difficult on a second attempt, so there’s a constant balancing act of deciding when to take the initial leap. The ambient low-level risk makes even simple spaces feel substantive and engaging — it negates the common RPG urge to speed through environmental detail and flavor text while looking for the “real” parts of the game.
Through countless skill checks, you’ll internalize the odd logic of the game’s world. The setting, Off-Peak City, is a garish metropolis shaped by the machinations of sinister corporations, corrupt politicians, and shady operatives, but also musicians, restaurateurs, and literally and figuratively underground tailors — a neon retro-future for streetwise aesthetes. What might be niche skills in any other game prove extraordinarily powerful here. The Music stat, whose uses include sewing (machines can, among other options, be literally operated by improvisation), calming aggressive animal-human hybrids (by whistling tunes), and mixology (which can be performed “rhythmically”), is arguably the single strongest power in the game.
Circus X, you’ll soon learn, is a secretive arts institution that influences everything from politics to the sandwich supply chain — imagine the Factory crossed with the Freemasons. While pursuing membership, you’re embroiled in a local election between a scandal-plagued technocrat, a former boy-band star, and the corporate-controlled clone of a mayor from decades past. In place of a Maltese Falcon, everyone’s scheming for control of a sentient Big Mouth Billy Bass. And meddling behind the scenes is the mysterious, anarchic Diamond Hand, frequently alluded to but not explained.
Diamond Hand’s story evokes real-world parallels, but as a jumping-off point for something that’s rich and alive in its own right. In perhaps the most obvious example, a company in Off-Peak City is pumping the place full of clones, supplanting human artists with corporate-guardrailed regurgitations of old media. But rather than stop at commentary, the game walks this out to explore the idea that clones are also conscious beings who are frustrated by their creative limits and lack of autonomy, while letting human characters reflect on their own relationship with nostalgia and artistic taste.
Put this all together and you’ve got a hard-boiled sci-fi thriller involving subway busking, finding library books, stumping for politicians, harvesting lettuce, arguing about jazz, and doing laundry, infused with the lizard-brain appeal of a nonstop game of chance. It’s irresistible.
Most of Diamond Hand’s main quests end in roadblocks, because its Early Access build includes only the first two of six chapters, with the next scheduled for this summer and a full launch set for the spring of 2027. But even in its current state, Diamond Hand is dense and tantalizing, delivering a string of absurd premises and dry humor with a straight face. (Among many tossed-off jokes that are also actual game mechanics, local pizza-makers require everyone to bake their own pie, so if you don’t like your order, you have only yourself to blame.) You’re granted experience points for letting characters ramble through their backstories and opinions — which lands somewhere between a sly gag about RPG infodumping and a straightforwardly clever decision — but the dialogue pays off even without that prize.
And for all its dystopian elements, there’s something idealistic about a world where art, for good or ill, deeply matters. Diamond Hand may be a work in progress, but it’s a recipe for becoming obsessed with skill and perfection, chasing the world’s greatest sandwich and the string of lucky dice rolls that will get you there.
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Skullcandy announced a new version of its Crusher wireless headphones today featuring a few of Bose’s audio technologies including its QuietControl ANC and head-tracking spatial audio. The Crusher headphone line differentiates itself from the competition through the use of both full-range and dedicated bass drivers in each ear cup to boost deeper frequencies. Skullcandy admits that approach can result in a loss of audio quality when the bass is heavily boosted, but its new Crusher 1080 ANC are meant to address and improve that with Bose’s help.
Available starting today for $279.99 in black, candy, primer, and cement color options, the new Crusher 1080 ANC feature redesigned drivers with a stiffer diaphragm material resulting in enhanced clarity and detail with less distortion at higher volume. As with previous models in the Crusher line, the bass boosting is entirely adjustable using Skullcandy’s mobile app or the on-headphone controls that now include a more prominent dial on the outside.
The Crusher 1080 ANC will be the first non-Bose headphones to feature that company’s TrueSpatial audio technology with head tracking that works whether you’re stationary or out for a run and its WaveForm audio engine that “keeps audio full, balanced, and smooth.” Skullcandy’s latest will also offer industry-leading noise cancellation with Bose’s six microphone QuietControl ANC tech that adapts as sounds around you get louder or quieter. The Crusher 1080ANC even features Bose’s SpeechClarity that reduces noise so your voice comes through clearly during a call, but they’re not the first third-party headphones to offer it.
Battery life is estimated to be up to 60 hours with ANC turned off, or 50 hours with it on, while a 10-minute rapid charge will keep the Crusher 1080 ANC going for up to four hours if they die. There’s multipoint pairing for connecting and switching between multiple devices, auto reconnect and wear detection that pauses music when you take the headphones off, and a design that folds flat for easier storage. The Crusher 1080 ANC supports Bluetooth 5.3 with LE Audio, low latency audio, and Auracast.
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You paid for the product. So why does it feel like the company still controls the screen? That is the question more of us are starting to ask as smart devices get updated long after we bring them home. A refrigerator can show ads in your kitchen. A car can flash offers on the dashboard. Even a Windows 11 computer can surface promotions before you get to work.
The frustrating part is that this often happens through software updates. You tap update because you want your device to stay secure and work properly. Then one day, the product you bought starts acting like a billboard. This is also why it pays to understand the hidden privacy clauses and settings that come with smart products before those screens start doing things you never expected.
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Smart devices from refrigerators to cars and computers can show ads after software updates, raising questions about who controls screens consumers already paid for. (Michele Tantussi/Getty Images)
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Samsung Family Hub refrigerators started showing ads
Samsung Family Hub refrigerators are sold as connected kitchen hubs. You can use the screen for weather, calendars, grocery lists and other household features. But as we discussed on The CyberGuy Report podcast at CyberGuy.com, that same screen can also become a place for ads after a software update. Samsung began showing ads on some Family Hub refrigerator Cover Screens in the U.S. We reached out to Samsung about this, and a spokesperson provided us with this statement:
“Last year, Samsung piloted a new Cover Screen widget on Family Hub refrigerators in the U.S. The widget rotates through useful information like weather, news, calendar events, and curated ads. After the pilot concluded in March, the widget was launched fully with the same user experience.
Users can turn off the Cover Screen widget, including ads, in the Advertisements tab of the Settings menu (Settings > Advertisements > Cover screen Ads) without impacting any other features or functions. Ads can also be dismissed on the Cover Screens where shown, meaning that the dismissed ad will not appear again during that specific ad’s campaign period. Since the start of the pilot program last October, our review has indicated consumers are finding value in this new widget. The percentage of users who have turned off the feature is in the low single-digits.
A Cover Screen appears when the Family Hub screen is idle, and the widget only appears on the Weather, Color, and Daily Board themes. The widget does not appear on the Cover Screen’s Art or Album themes.”
That answer is important because Samsung says you can turn the Cover Screen ads off without losing other features. Still, the larger point remains. You bought a refrigerator, then a later update added an ad experience to the screen in your kitchen.
How to turn off Samsung Family Hub Cover Screen ads
On the Family Hub screen:
- Tap Settings
- Tap Advertisements
- Tap Cover Screen Ads
- Turn the switch off
You can also change the Cover Screen theme. Samsung says the widget does not appear on Art or Album themes.
Car screen ads appeared in Jeep, Ram and Chrysler vehicles
Now move from the kitchen to the driveway. Some Jeep, Ram and Chrysler drivers previously saw promotional messages on their infotainment screens through Stellantis’ Uconnect system.
Stellantis, the automaker behind Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and Dodge, says its In-Vehicle Message technology, or IVM, is designed to help the company stay in contact with owners at important points during ownership. The company says it uses IVM for important messages, such as vehicle recalls and vehicle health monitor alerts. Stellantis also confirmed that the earlier pop-up promotions were part of its in-vehicle messaging or Uconnect communication system. However, the company says it has not run the promotional in-vehicle messages referenced in those reports since mid-fall 2025 and has nothing planned for future in-vehicle promotional messages.
At the time those promotional messages were active, Stellantis says owners could opt out by calling customer service or by updating their profile or Message Settings on their vehicle brand’s website account, such as a Ram owner account. That update is important. There are no current promotional in-vehicle messages to opt out of, according to Stellantis. Still, the larger concern remains: modern vehicles are software-driven, and the screen in the middle of your dashboard can be changed long after you drive off the lot.
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Some Jeep, Ram and Chrysler drivers previously saw promotional messages on infotainment screens through Stellantis’ Uconnect system. (Kurt “Cyberguy” Knutsson)
Why dashboard messages feel more intrusive
A car screen is different from a phone app or website. You use that display for directions, music, climate controls and vehicle settings. So when a promotional message appears there, it can feel more personal than an ad on a webpage.
To be fair, in-vehicle messaging can serve an important purpose. Recall notices and vehicle health alerts can help owners respond to safety or maintenance issues faster.
However, promotional messages hit differently. You are sitting in a car you paid tens of thousands of dollars for. That screen should help you drive, maintain your vehicle and get where you are going without feeling like another place for a sales pitch.
Windows 11 ads can appear in several places
Then there is your computer. Windows 11 can show promotional content in places that feel like part of the operating system. That includes the lock screen, the Start menu and account-related notifications.
The lock screen can use Windows Spotlight, which displays rotating images along with tips, tricks and notifications. Start menu settings also include areas where Microsoft can show recommendations and account prompts.
Some of these messages may look like helpful notices. Others can feel like upsells. The most annoying ones are the alerts that look urgent, then steer you toward a Microsoft service such as OneDrive backup. Microsoft declined to comment for this story.
How to reduce ads and suggestions in Windows 11
You can cut down on much of this in Settings.
Change the lock screen:
- Go to Settings
- Click Personalization
- Click Lock screen
- Change Windows Spotlight to Picture
- Turn off Get fun facts, tips, tricks and more on your lock screen
Reduce Start menu suggestions:
- Go to Settings
- Click Personalization
- Click Start
- Turn off any available toggles for recommendations, tips, suggestions or personalized offers
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Samsung says Family Hub refrigerator Cover Screen ads can be turned off, but the feature highlights how connected appliances can change after purchase. (SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Limit account-related prompts:
- Go to Settings
- Click Personalization
- Click Start
- Turn off Show account-related notifications
Microsoft may change wording over time, so look for anything tied to recommendations, tips, suggestions, offers or account notifications. For more Windows settings help, see these Windows 11 tips.
Device screen ads are spreading after you buy
The real problem isn’t one ad on one screen. It is the fact that software gives companies a way to change products after you buy them. A refrigerator used to stay a refrigerator. A car dashboard used to do what it did on the day you drove off the lot. A computer operating system used to feel like the tool you used to get things done.
Now those screens can change later. A company can add a widget, promote a service or push an offer through an update. That does not mean every update is bad. Security fixes are essential. Bug fixes help. New features can be useful. However, ads feel different when they arrive after you already paid for the product. That is why you should keep your devices updated, but also check what changed after the update installs.
What this means to you
Before you buy a smart appliance, connected car or computer, think beyond the hardware. Ask what kind of software controls the screen. Check whether ads, recommendations or promotional content can be turned off.
After setup, go through the settings before you assume the default experience is the only option. Look for menus labeled ads, recommendations, notifications, tips, offers or personalization. If you are setting up a new device, this new electronics setup guide is a good place to start.
Also, pay attention after updates. If a new widget or pop-up appears, do not assume you have to live with it. There may be a buried toggle that turns it off. Most of all, remember that a screen in your home, car or office has value. Companies know that. You should know it too.
Kurt’s key takeaways
This is exactly why we covered this on The CyberGuy Report podcast at CyberGuy.com. It hits a nerve because you already paid for these products, yet companies can still use software updates to claim space on the screens you see every day. Samsung says Family Hub Cover Screen ads can be turned off. Stellantis says its vehicle promotions stopped in the fall of 2025. Windows 11 gives you some settings that reduce tips, suggestions and account prompts. Still, the pattern is hard to ignore. Companies are learning how to keep making money from a product after the sale. That may be great for them, but it can feel pretty lousy when the screen is inside your kitchen, your car or your computer. When you pay thousands of dollars for a product, that screen should work for you instead of becoming another place for a company to sell to you.
Which screen ad would bother you most: one on your refrigerator, one on your computer or one in your car? Let us know by writing to us at CyberGuy.com.
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Lucid Motors found itself in a tough bind this week, fending off bankruptcy rumors and watching its stock price plunge as a result. The company quickly denied the report, calling it “completely false” and pointing to its available free cash flow as evidence that it has enough runway to operate into next year.
But despite the swift response, the damage was widespread. The panic immediately bled into competing automakers, pulling down shares of Rivian and Polestar as investors speculated about the long-term survival of EV-only companies in the face of slowing consumer demand and whiplash policy shifts. And it cast a harsh light on the precarity of all three companies and the future of electric vehicles.
The trouble started on Tuesday, when EV trade publication EV reported that restructuring firm AlixPartners had advised Lucid’s board to consider Chapter 11 bankruptcy or a take-private deal. The report also said AlixPartners had encouraged the board to further restructure in the US and Europe and to focus on the Gravity SUV. But while the rest of the media has since reported on Lucid’s denial, no other publication has confirmed EV’s scoop. (For what its worth, EV’s URL is “eletric-vehicle.com,” enshrining the incorrect spelling in its address.)
Lucid confirmed that it had hired AlixPartners, but denied that the firm had made any such recommendations to its board. Instead, AlixPartners would provide advice on “improving execution, strengthening operations and positioning Lucid to realize the full potential of its technology, products and innovation,” Lucid chief communications officer Nick Twork said.
Lucid went a step further, filing a cease and desist order against EV
Lucid went a step further, filing a cease and desist order against EV, claiming that the site’s report directly led to the stock crash. “In short, your actions caused serious injury to a number of investors,” Lucid’s chief legal officer and general counsel, Brian Tomkiel, said in the letter. “And they injured, and continue to injure, Lucid directly.”
Still, the timing was terrible. Lucid is genuinely not in good shape, having lost over $1 billion in the first quarter of the year. The company has also gone through two rounds of layoffs in 2026, having cut 12 percent of staff in February and then 18 percent in June. The company also reduced production at its factory in Arizona in a bid to counteract its high inventory and save money. And there’s been leadership turmoil, with COO Marc Winterhoff departing the company and his position being eliminated entirely in an effort to flatten the structure.
The report sent the stock into freefall, plummeting as much as 50 percent in one of the worst single-day drops in Lucid’s history. And with Polestar and Rivian also catching strays, it’s generally been a glum time for companies not named Tesla trying make a go of exclusively building electric vehicles. Wall Street is panicking because the rumors are aligning with the bad news coming out of these companies’ earnings reports. EV sales are stabilizing, but recovery is still a distant promise. The all-electric future seems further away than ever.
Whether or not Lucid is actually weighing Chapter 11, it’s a sure sign of more turbulent waters ahead. Polestar getting strong-armed out of the US over its Chinese ties has left a lot of EV owners and dealers scratching their heads. Rivian is in an increasingly precarious position thanks to its huge, expensive bet on becoming a mass-market car company with the production of the R2.
All of these companies are increasingly reliant on big stakeholders — Lucid with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Polestar with Geely, and Rivian with Volkswagen — for their future survival. If any of these big backers get cold feet, the future could get really dark really fast.
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