Razer has announced three new products today, including an alternative to wireless headphones called the Clio that’s designed to attach to your gaming chair and double as a head cushion.

Powered by a 5,400mAh battery that Razer says is good for up to 14 hours of use, the Clio uses adjustable straps to attach to “most high-back gaming and office chairs” so that it’s positioned directly behind your head. Inside each of the cushion’s angled wings is a near-field speaker that uses a 43-millimeter driver paired with a passive radiator that work together to deliver “crisp, clear trebles and deep, punchy bass you can hear and feel.”

The Clio speaker wirelessly connects to Bluetooth-compatible devices like smartphones, tablets, and handheld consoles, but is also compatible with Razer’s HyperSpeed Wireless protocol for a low-latency connection to a gaming PC. Support for THX Spatial Audio creates a more immersive listening experience when using the Clio on its own, but it can be paired with additional desktop speakers and used as a dedicated rear channel as part of a larger 7.1 surround sound setup.

The Razer Clio wireless speaker is available for preorder now through Razer’s online store for $229.99 with shipping expected to begin on May 16th, 2025.

Razer also announced a new lightweight Basilisk Mobile mouse and Joro wireless gaming keyboard,  which it says were created to pair with portable gaming gear “without compromising on performance.”

The Razer Basilisk Mobile mouse weighs in at 76 grams and “boasts a compact, ergonomic design” designed to slip into pockets or squeeze into a laptop sleeve along with a computer. It supports wired, Bluetooth, or a low-latency Razer HyperSpeed Wireless connection to PCs with up to 105 hours of battery life with the latter, or up to 150 hours with Bluetooth.

The mouse includes a four-way tilting scroll wheel with two scrolling modes: free-spin for more speed or tactile cycling for more precision. There’s a Razer Focus X optical sensor with up to 18,000dpi of sensitivity on the underside, while the mouse’s primary buttons use Razer’s Gen-3 optical switches boasting a 90 million click lifecycle.

The Razer Joro ultra-portable wireless gaming keyboard uses a compact 75 percent layout and measures in at 16.5-millimeters thick and 374 grams in weight. As with most Razer products, it features RGB lighting that can be animated with various effects while still offering an impressive battery life of up to 1,800 hours when using its power saving mode.

The Joro connects to devices with a USB-C cable or over Bluetooth and is not only compatible with both Windows and Apple devices including iPadOS and iOS, it also features secondary keys with macOS labels and a dedicated Microsoft Copilot Key. Laser-etched ABS keycaps help ensure longevity, and in addition to the keyboard being customizable, it can also store up to five different profiles locally, and switch between them as needed.

The Razer Joro wireless gaming keyboard is also available for purchase now for $139.99 with delivery expected in mid-May 2025, but the $89.99 Razer Basilisk MobilePortable wireless mouse is still listed as “Coming Soon” on the company’s website.

• The recent firing of Ashley Buchanan as Kohl's CEO included the words "terminated" and "for cause."
• Directors, at times, ditch corporate euphemisms to signal accountability and maintain credibility.
• Boards are sometimes more "emphatic" with the words they use than decades ago, one expert told BI.

"You're fired."

It's jarring for pretty much anyone to hear, but it's maybe especially hard for CEOs accustomed to calling the shots and getting kid-glove treatment.

Yet, when the top dog's transgression appears serious enough, some companies will tear up their lists of euphemisms and say it more or less plainly: We canned the big boss.

That's what happened Thursday at Kohl's. The retailer said it had decided to "terminate" Ashley Buchanan, who'd only been in the top spot for a few months, "for cause."

Kohl's said in a regulatory filing that Buchanan had directed the company to do business with a vendor started by a person with whom he had an undisclosed personal relationship.

The terse phrasing in Kohl's announcement is a reminder that corporate boards — eager to maintain credibility — will sometimes forgo their word-mincing habits, at least for what they deem to be serious matters, corporate observers told Business Insider.

The embrace of tougher language around CEO firings is most on display when there's been a perceived ethical breach or malfeasance, Donald Hambrick, a professor of management and organization at Pennsylvania State University, told BI.

"Boards now are emphatic about such dismissals, and in a way that they weren't decades ago," he said.

One reason, Hambrick said, is that boards stand to gain if they appear to be taking a no-nonsense approach.

"It's a signal that they want to be scrupulous," he said.

No time for 'softer language'

Nadya Malenko, a professor in the finance department at Boston College, told BI in an email that strong and direct language isn't unusual in cases where there's been a scandal or a clear violation of fiduciary duties.

That's different, she said, from situations where a CEO might not have been a good fit or had made strategic blunders.

"The board needs to signal that it holds misconduct accountable, and using softer language will not achieve this," Malenko said.

She said it's also often worthwhile for directors to adopt a serious tone to tamp down speculation that there's some wider problem.

In the case of Kohl's, Malenko said, the board might have decided it was better to be "crystal clear" about the reason for the firing rather than let investors wonder whether there was something more serious afoot.

She said a rise in Kohl's stock following the news could have been a sign that investors weren't happy with Buchanan's short-lived efforts to turn around the company. Another possible reason for the gain, Malenko said, might have been that investors were pleased to see the board doing its job.

Gains on Thursday and Friday pushed Kohl's shares up nearly 12% following the news.

BI attempted to reach Buchanan for comment through what appeared to be his personal email; his LinkedIn account appears to be deleted.

Kohl's didn't respond to a request for comment from BI on its choice of wording in announcing Buchanan's firing.

Retaining confidence in the board

Kathy Gersch, chief commercial officer at the change-management firm Kotter, told BI that because Buchanan was so new in the role, the board likely wanted to show investors and others that it hadn't made a bad call in assessing his abilities and, rather, that Buchanan's ouster related to what the company deemed a conflict of interest.

"The board needs to convey a sense of competence," she said, referring to its ability to hire a CEO.

Kohl's announced in November that Buchanan, who'd been running the retailer Michaels since 2020, would take over Kohl's in early 2025. In January, Kohl's, which is based near Milwaukee, reported slumping sales and said it would close more than two dozen stores.

Gersch said directors often seek a balance between not disparaging someone they're pushing out and maintaining the board's legitimacy.

"There's sort of a demand from the public and shareholders for greater degrees of transparency," she said.

Penn State's Hambrick said that with serious matters, it's good when companies dispense with corporate speak because doing so signals that boards are concerned foremost about ethics and adhering to company values and societal norms.

He said that approach helps a board maintain its reputation and that of a company.

"If they sniff out ethical misdeeds, no matter by whom, including the CEO, the person will be gone," Hambrick said.

• Vrbo took shots at its rival Airbnb in a Super Bowl commercial and a cheeky billboard campaign.
• Airbnb challenged Vrbo's phrasing to the National Advertising Division, an independent regulator.
• Vrbo said it would stop using some of its claims that imply Airbnbs always have on-site hosts.

Vrbo has taken a few big swings at Airbnb, its main competitor, in the past nine months.

First, the vacation-rental company ran a commercial featuring famously intimidating football coach Nick Saban. In the ad, which debuted in August, he pretends to be an overbearing Airbnb host, lounging in a hot tub with guests who plainly preferred to be left alone.

"When other vacation rentals make you share your turf with a host, try one you have all to yourself," the narrator said.

The spot also ran during the 2025 Super Bowl, when 30 seconds of airtime cost a reported $7 million.

In March, Vrbo put up tongue-in-cheek billboards, including one right outside Airbnb's San Francisco headquarters. The text on some billboards emphasized that Vrbo is host-free.

Now, a national watchdog group has ruled that Vrbo took some of its claims too far and recommended it stop using the commercial and billboard. Vrbo said in a statement to Business Insider that it will comply.

The National Advertising Division, an independent regulatory body founded in 1971, reviewed the Vrbo campaign after Airbnb filed a complaint. This week, the NAD determined that Vrbo inaccurately communicated to consumers that "Airbnb always has hosts that cohabitate with guests during their stay."

Airbnb filed the initial claim for the NAD to review Vrbo's campaign, but both companies' cooperation during the NAD review process was voluntary.

Companies typically file a complaint with the NAD when "they see advertising by a competitor that is unsupported or might be misleading," NAD attorney Eric Unis told Business Insider.

"We're pleased with the NAD's decision," a spokesperson for Airbnb told Business Insider.

Vrbo said in a statement to Business Insider that it took issue with some of the specific critiques in the NAD review but did not elaborate on them. Vrbo also said it would follow the recommendation.

"We stand by our messages and respectfully disagree with NAD's findings on two claims, but will comply with the required changes," a spokesperson for Vrbo said.

Advertising expert Ashley Rutstein told Business Insider earlier this year that confrontational marketing can be a fruitful strategy, especially when an underdog is trying to punch up.

Airbnb commands a 44% market share of the global short-term-rental industry, dwarfing Vrbo's 9%, according to a 2024 estimate by travel news site Skift.

Rutstein told BI in March that she believed travelers could easily find listings without hosts on-site via Airbnb, not just Vrbo, which weakened the Vrbo campaign's effectiveness.

"They had the right idea, but not the right execution," Rutstein told BI.

The NAD recently issued another ruling in a spat between beer rivals Molson Coors and Anheuser-Busch. Molson Coors claimed its competitor's light beers "taste like water," but the NAD found Molson Coors submitted no evidence supporting the claim.

• CEOs face pressure from investors to enhance their AI strategies.
• Investor demand for AI adoption surged from 68% to 90% from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025, according to KPMG.
• One investor told BI there's no board of a VC-backed startup that isn't discussing AI.

Executives, investors, and boards are united on one thing: AI.

Last month, enterprise AI company Dataiku published a survey that showed that CEOs are putting pressure on themselves, and each other, to ramp up their AI strategy.

But a new report from KPMG shows that some of the heat is coming from investors. Investor pressure to adopt AI has jumped from 68% to 90% from the last quarter of 2024 to the first quarter of 2025, according to the firm's survey of 130 executives from a mix of public and private companies with over $1 billion in revenue.

KPMG's head of ecosystems Todd Lohr said he expects investors to double down more, potentially driving a rise in activism.

"There's a signal of 'change is going to continue to come,' especially if you're not moving fast enough," he told Business Insider. "There's going to be others that are going to move your hand for you."

Lohr said board members, too, are becoming more attuned to AI.

"I do a lot of speeches for boards and board members, and they're getting pretty deep on the technology because they want to make sure they're asking the right questions for how it's going to disrupt their businesses," he said.

Several venture capitalists told BI that they are actively driving their portfolio companies to deploy AI.

"We've been working with our portfolio companies to incorporate GenAI features into their product portfolios," Jai Das, president and partner at enterprise technology firm Sapphire Ventures, told BI. "AI is a generational shift, and companies that don't embrace it in a big way will be history footnotes versus becoming companies of consequence."

Maria Palma, general partner at Freestyle Capital, said the firm has been having discussions with all its portfolio companies on how they are integrating AI. It's also hosting a series of "optional sessions on AI's potential to improve workflows across various departments, like engineering or marketing," she wrote to BI by email.

In the age of AI, Palma's thesis is that companies should have "strong peripheral vision" so they can keep an eye on the tools competitors are deploying. "Adopting AI in your company won't guarantee its survival. But the lack of it? That will guarantee to put your company at a huge disadvantage, and ultimately place it on a path toward extinction," she wrote.

In some cases, though, companies are scrambling to save face. They're applying AI features as a quick fix rather than analyzing where they can achieve real gains, founders of companies developing those AI features told BI.

This results in an "AI arms race that creates real risks," Florian Douetteau, Dataiku's CEO, told BI.

"Without a unified strategy across the business, organizations expose themselves to chaos: siloed experimentation of point solutions, unmonitored AI application usage, data leakage, cost overruns, and more," Douetteau said. "AI is raw power, and it can only work to drive measurable business results if it is controlled."

Darren Louie, a vice president at Proof — a platform for digital identity and verifications — echoed the idea.

"Investor expectations are understandably rising, so businesses are under growing pressure to demonstrate ROI on their AI initiatives, but many of these companies have serious and valid concerns about compliance and security," Louie said.

Across the board, spending on software has accelerated among Global 2000 enterprises in the last two quarters, said FirstMark Capital's Matt Turck. Within that, there's been a "meaningful increase" in spend on AI tooling and applications as companies move from consulting projects and proof of concepts to deploying AI, Turck told BI via text.

That means discussions about AI are happening constantly, he said.

"As an investor, I don't think there's any board of VC-backed startups where there isn't a current conversation on using AI throughout the company to increase efficiency across functions like development, sales, marketing, etc," he said.

The big question, though, is whether the Trump Administration's sweeping new tariffs will change things, he said.

The "tariff nonsense is particularly painful because it may (or may not) have stopped that trend — we'll see what the Q2 numbers look like," Turck said.

If I knew how much I’d end up loving my Logitech mice, I would’ve taken better care of them from the start. The MX Master 3S and Lift are my favorite mice for productivity, but their rubber coating can get grimy quickly. My white MX Master 3S looks especially shameful atop my desk, so I’ve been considering purchasing a replacement for a while.

Overturning my plans, though, Logitech recently raised prices across 51 percent of its portfolio, as detailed by YouTube channel Cameron Doughterty Tech. The firm has raised prices by as much as 25 percent.

The MX Master 3S I just mentioned is now $120, which is $20 more than before. That 20 percent increase makes it even harder to justify a new mouse, which I already considered a luxury purchase.

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Many of Logitech’s products are pricier now than they were in the recent past. In a video published this week, YouTuber Cameron Dougherty detailed increases as high as 25 percent on the company’s PC and gaming accessories, including well-known Logitech gear like the MX Master 3S mouse.

I took a peek at a few Internet Archive captures of Logitech’s current offerings to confirm the YouTuber’s findings, and sure enough, prices are going up. The MX Master 3S, my favorite mouse and the one I’m using at this very moment, now costs $119.99, a $20 increase from before. And on the keyboards side, for instance, the Pro X TKL has gone up to $219.99 from $199.99 before. One keyboard Dougherty calls out, the previously $27.99 K400 Plus Wireless Touch, went up by $7 to $34.99 — a relatively small increase that, at 25 percent, is one of the higher price bumps Logitech made.

Dougherty notes a few products that didn’t see price increases, including the MX Ergo mouse and the G703 gaming mouse. And according to the video, a handful of products have actually dropped in price, like the Pro X Superlight mouse, which was $159.99, but is now $149.99.

Logitech doesn’t seem to have …

Read the full story at The Verge.

It's a widely known problem with roots in urban legend: Devices with motherboards failing in the early 2000s with a sudden pop, a gruesome spill, or sometimes a burst of flames. And it was allegedly all due to one guy who didn't copy a stolen formula correctly.

The "capacitor plague" of the early 2000s was real and fairly widespread among devices, even if the majority of those devices didn't go bad at the same time or even in the same year. The story of this widespread failure, passing between industry insider stories and media reports, had a specific culprit, but also a broad narrative about the shift from Japanese to Taiwanese manufacturers and about outsourcing generally.

The Asianometry channel on YouTube recently dug into the "capacitor plague" in a video that asks, "What happened to the capacitors in 2002?" and comes to some informed, broad, and layered answers. It explains the specifics of what's happening inside both a working capacitor and the faulty models, relays the reporting on the companies blamed and affected, and, crucially, puts the plague in the wider context of hotter chips, complex supply chains, counterfeits, and, sure, some industrial sabotage.

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The BlackBerry might be dead, but one of its best ideas — a tiny thumb-friendly keyboard for phones — lives on in the Clicks keyboard case, which will soon be available for several Android devices.

Over 100,000 of the original Clicks keyboard cases have been sold around the world, the company says in a press release, but since launching in January 2024, it’s only been compatible with iPhone 14, 15, and 16 models. Starting in April, the cases will be available for several Motorola, Google Pixel, and Samsung Galaxy devices and will work with a new Android version of the Clicks Keyboard mobile app, allowing the keyboard’s functionality to be customized, including how the caps lock, return, and Clicks keys work.

Preorders for all of the Android Clicks keyboard cases start today through the company’s website, but availability varies by device. The Google Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro (not the XL) version, expected to ship at the end of April, will sell for $99 until March 21st and then increase in price to $139. Color options include surge — described as a “high-vis yellow-green” — and black.

The Motorola Razr Plus (2024) and Razr (2024) version of the Clicks case, available in electric blue or black, can be preordered for $49 to lock in a price of $99. After March 21st, preorders will still be $49, but pricing for the case, which is expected to ship in late May, will jump to $139. It’s the same story for the Samsung Galaxy S25 version of the case, although it’s not expected to ship until June and will be available in red and black.

The Android version of the Clicks case carries over the same keyboard design as the iPhone version, including the use of round keys that are slightly angled to improve the typing experience. (Instead of copying the more ergonomic design of the BlackBerry’s keys — an approach that didn’t end well for the Ryan Seacrest-backed Typo case.)

Some of the key labels are slightly different, but like the original iPhone version, the Android Clicks case still allows keyboard shortcuts to be used for launching apps or quickly navigating Android, including a dedicated key for accessing Google Gemini. It also features backlighting, and instead of a battery, it draws all the power it needs from each Android device’s USB-C port.

The physical design of the case is also similar, although the version for the Motorola Razr Plus and Razr (2024) is split into two halves, allowing both devices to still fold. Clicks is also adding a “strong magnetic array” to the two Pixel cases — a feature the company introduced with the iPhone 16 version to improve MagSafe compatibility — making it a bit easier to use wireless chargers with Google’s latest smartphones.

The keyboard company Qwertykeys has temporaily halted all shipments to the United States in response to President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods going into effect. The company says it’s working on ways to mitigate shipping costs and that the tariffs have made it so that “all keyboards from China to the U.S. are now subject to 45% tariffs at full value.”

“We are closely watching the progress of the situation and really hope that there is something else we can do other than bumping the price up,” the company wrote in a comment on Reddit.

Qwertykeys says that its delivery partner, DHL, “now requires prepayment of 50% of the declared product value as a tariff deposit, plus a $21 processing fee per package.” That would drastically raise prices for customers in the US, something Qwertykeys says is “unsustainable for both our business and customers.”

The company plans to pause shipping for 72 hours, during which it will negotiate with DHL and “alternative logistics providers” to obtain “fairer tariff-handling solutions.”

Qwertykeys, which specializes in mechanical keyboards and components, also said in a message this morning that it would be unable to send replacement parts out to customers due to the US Postal Service’s announcement that it would suspend deliver of packages from China. The Postal Service has since reversed course, but Qwertykeys hasn’t yet posted an update on its plans.

Some companies in the mechanical keyboard world ship their products directly from China to customers in the US, which was expensive even before the new tariffs were in place. Qwertykeys says it relies on suppliers in Guangdong, China and notes on Reddit that the tariffs will impact those “direct shipping methods.”

Qwertykeys and DHL did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Hey, real quick: look at this keyboard. There’s something cool about it.

It’s a mechanical keyboard. It’s a laser keyboard. It’s a magnetic induction keyboard.

It has the new switches. It has the old switches. It’s very thin. It’s got a weird layout. It has a trackpoint. Or a screen. It has cool keycaps. It has cool screens on its keycaps. It’s…furry? It folds in half. It’s retractable.

Maybe it’s not a keyboard at all, except spiritually. Sometimes it’s a mouse, or a trackpad, or a trackball.

Sometimes The Verge reviews keyboards. Other times, we just want to show them to you.

Look at this keyboard.

• The Key Boy reimagines the Nintendo Game Boy as a keyboard.
• Turn out the lights and I’ll glow.
• Build your own macrodata refinement keyboard.
• The keyboard from 2005 with 113 tiny OLED screens.
• Freewrite’s latest keyboard has a mechanical word-counter to track your writing
• A better look at the zany ergo keyboard with Wolverine claw action.
• The AutoKeybo is the keyboard for people who dream of Wolverine.
• This solid aluminum keyboard costs as much as a MacBook Pro
• 8BitDo added RGB backlights to the new Xbox version of its mechanical keyboard
• This killer translucent keyboard kit is on sale for $95
• Apple’s new Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad have USB-C
• This $655 keyboard is wired-only because it has to power 389 LEDs.
• Let’s follow Google’s lead — and celebrate wacky keyboard day instead of April Fools’.
• The HHKB Studio Snow makes a great keyboard prettier
• Modder gives a 38-year-old Apple keyboard a wireless upgrade.
• This retro mechanical keyboard kit is all modern on the inside
• The best folding portable Bluetooth keyboard I’ve tried yet is a Royal Kludge.
• Angry Miao’s new $559 keyboard has a huge dot-matrix display and retro details

For $2,100, you could buy over a dozen upper-quality mechanical keyboards. Alternatively, you could buy just one mechanical keyboard kit. Costing the same as a desktop computer, The Icebreaker keyboard commands one of the highest price tags you'll see for a keyboard, and that's more due to its appearance than its capabilities.

The Icebreaker, spotted by Tom's Hardware, became available for preorder on Thursday. The prohibitively priced peripheral is the primary product from Serene Industries, which founder Denis Agarkov describes as an “outlet for creativity, love of materials, experimentation, and an endless exercise in learning new things."

In a February interview with Design Milk, Agarkov said that the profile view of New York City’s Flatiron skyscraper inspired the keyboard’s design. The building opened in 1902 and measures 285 feet tall with a steel frame and distinct prism shape.

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• A federal court struck down a rule requiring Nasdaq-listed companies to disclose board diversity.
• Legal experts say the ruling won't likely impact Goldman Sachs' board diversity mandate.
• Since 2020, the investment bank has only helped take public clients with diverse boards.

Wall Street's board diversity initiatives are not dead — yet.

On Wednesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Nasdaq's efforts to push companies that want to list their stock on its exchange to diversify their boards or explain themselves. Nasdaq has said it will not appeal the decision. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which approved the Nasdaq rule in 2021, has said it is reviewing the decision.

Companies could continue to feel pressure to diversify their boards, however, from other stakeholders including shareholders and even Wall Street banks.

In 2020, David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, a top underwriter of initial public offerings, announced that the bank would start requiring the clients it helps take public to have at least one diverse board member. In 2021, the bank upped the requirement to two diverse board members, including at least one woman. It has also tasked one of its rising stars with a new role helping corporate clients find diverse board members.

Goldman declined to comment on its board diversity initiative, but legal experts say that the Fifth Circuit ruling should not impact the investment bank. That's because Wednesday's ruling, agreed to by 9 of the circuit's 17 judges, centered on the Securities and Exchange Commission's right to approve the Nasdaq's diversity rules.

The judges said the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 gives the SEC the authority to prevent fraud and promote competition — not enforce diversity disclosures.

Ann Lipton, a professor at Tulane University's law school, however, said that the ruling could still have a chilling effect on banks whose policies are often informed by federal standards.

"If those standards appear to be shifting, investment banks may alter their policies to conform," she said in an emailed statement.

Wall Street has historically been made up of mostly white men and remains so to this day. Following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in 2020, more bank CEOs have begun personally setting goals to increase diversity at their companies, including at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

Some Wall Street's diversity initiatives, however, have been walked back in recent months in light of an influential court ruling that significantly changed the way college campuses can use affirmative action in their admissions process. Bloomberg reported in March on investment-bank recruitment programs originally geared toward minorities that have been quietly opened to everyone.

In January, Goldman told Fortune that it had taken public 300 businesses that adhere to its diversity standards. Last year, the Goldman executive tasked with helping clients identify diverse board members told BI that she had helped facilitate 99 placements since her role was created on the heels of the bank's new diversity mandate.

"Demand was there and supply was there, there was just a market mechanism problem," Ilana Wolfe told BI at the time. "I'm most proud of being able to be that link."

There's something liberating about traveling without your computer. Your load is lighter, your battery needs are fewer, and you don't have to risk damaging or losing one of your most important and expensive devices. Besides, most of us are already carrying around a pretty powerful and conveniently compact computer 24/7: our smartphones.

My problem, though, is that I prefer doing most things on a laptop rather than on a phone. Whether working, writing a detailed email, or shopping around for something online, I can complete my task quicker and more accurately if sitting at a table, typing on a physical keyboard, and navigating with a mouse.

So, in the interest of having my cake and eating it, I've gathered a collection of gadgets that help me get the most out of my iPhone when traveling. With these accessories, I can use my iPhone as if it were a desktop PC, peripherals and all. See you later, laptop.

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