The iBuyPower Slate system I spent the last month gaming on isn’t particularly flashy, nor is it a shining example of the heights that gaming PC brands can reach. It is, however, a totally usable system with minimal bloatware, and any qualms I have with some odd choices don’t harm the gaming performance.

At its listed price of almost $2,000, this configuration of the iBuyPower is charging you a modest premium just to install (almost) all of the components, but frequent sales and discounts make this a more palatable deal as the price gets lower.

It’s really only set back by some minor assembly issues, as well as parts that may limit future upgrades, which currently affects users at opposite ends of the PC building spectrum disproportionately. Given the current RAM pricing issues, this is a better value than ever, and perhaps cheaper than an off-the-shelf build.

A Mixed Experience

First, the good stuff: The GPU is packaged separately from the rest of the system, which may sound odd, but I’ve found that’s one of the most common pain points when shipping a new gaming PC. I’ve seen system builders use expanding foam, special brackets, and folded cardboard supports, among other solutions, but packing the graphics cards in its original box is far simpler and safer, and the other ways of shipping a PC with an installed graphics card still require opening the system up anyway. I do wish the instructions were more specific to the case, particularly since the PCIe bracket might be a little fiddly for total novices, but anyone who has worked with gaming systems in the past shouldn’t have any issues.

The case isn’t particularly unique or eye-catching, but it does have a wide, slightly smoky glass side panel that helps give it a clean silhouette. The dark tint allows the lights underneath to shine a bit without the whole system being overtly gamer-coded, but also makes them extremely reflective. There are no screws holding it in place, it’s just press fit, but it’s nice and sturdy, and I didn’t worry about it falling out. Like most glass panels, they inhibit airflow, so iBuyPower has set the front fan array an inch or so back from the panel, and added mesh sections at the top and bottom, which helps alleviate the issue. Even so, I can’t imagine the fan directly behind the center glass panel is doing all that much.

Research from internet of things (IoT) analyst firm Berg Insight has calculated that the total number of aftermarket car telematics shipments worldwide reached 26.5 million in 2024 and projects that it will reach 39.3 million units in 2029, with the installed base of active aftermarket car telematics units growing at a compound annual growth rate of 8.7% to reach 136.8 million worldwide at the end of 2029, up from 90.3 million at the end of 2024.

Berg Insight’s definition of an aftermarket car telematics solution in the report comprises cellular/global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and RF-based solutions. It said there are currently many different form factors applicable for aftermarket car telematics, ranging from professionally installed hardwired black boxes to self-installed onboard diagnostics dongles and battery-powered devices.

The Aftermarket car telematics report pointed to such systems being useful in a number of application areas, including stolen vehicle tracking and recovery (SVT/SVR), vehicle diagnostics, Wi-Fi hotspots, convenience applications and usage-based insurance. It added that systems leveraging cellular technologies are most common across the industry, but RF-based solutions can be found in many geographical markets and are particularly used for SVT/SVR services.

Remote vehicle diagnostics allow service providers such as dealers and workshops to improve service offerings to car owners. “Dealers and finance companies can moreover leverage telematics for internal fleet management and manage the customer lifetime value,” noted Berg Insight senior analyst Martin Cederqvist. “The number of active aftermarket SVT units in use is forecasted to reach 103.4 million in 2029, up from 67.0 million at year end 2024.”

Regional market conditions, such as a high level of vehicle crime, influencing the demand for stolen vehicle tracking were found to have made SVT systems popular in countries such as Brazil, Israel, Russia and South Africa.

Even though an increasing number of new cars are sold with embedded connectivity, Berg believes that a varying degree of market success for current OEM telematics services enables aftermarket services to have a promising future, even in mature telematics markets. Aftermarket services targeting a specific customer group are seen as being able to offer an advantage in specialisation compared with telematics services that are mainly developed for a wide range of use cases.

The study noted that the market is characterised by a great diversity of players interacting in a complex value chain that spans multiple industries. The car telematics companies targeting the aftermarket car sector include specialists focusing on this application area only, as well as general telematics players that serve a broad range of applications including fleet management for commercial vehicles, stressed how aftermarket car telematics services are offered by a wide range of players.

That said, the research highlighted how distributing services and products through third parties is the most common go-to-market strategy for aftermarket car telematics solution suppliers. Important sales channels include insurance companies, dealers and importers, as well as direct-to-consumer channels such as mobile operators and online retailers.

Examples of leading telematics companies selling services via third parties or directly to consumers include OCTO Telematics, Procon Analytics, StarLine, Spireon, Targa Telematics, Vodafone Automotive, Ituran, PassTime GPS, Tracker Connect Maxtrack, Carsystem, SVR Tracking, Cognosos, Verizon Hum, Varroc Connect, Mojio, Tail Light (Bouncie) and Agnik (Vyncs).

Since the beginning of the Trump administration, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the brainchild of billionaire Elon Musk, has gone through several iterations, leading periodically to claims—most recently from the director of the Office of Personnel Management—that the group doesn’t exist, or has vanished altogether.

But DOGE isn’t dead. Many of its original members are in full-time roles at various government agencies, and the new National Design Studio (NDS) is headed by Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, a close ally of Musk’s.

Even if DOGE doesn’t survive another year, or until the US semiquincentennial—its original expiration date, per the executive order establishing it—the organization’s larger project will continue. DOGE from its inception was used for two things, both of which have continued apace: the destruction of the administrative state and the wholesale consolidation of data in service of concentrating power in the executive branch. It is a pattern that experts say could spill over beyond the Trump administration.

“I do think it has altered the norms about where legislative power ends and where executive power begins simply by ignoring those norms,” says Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. “This is not necessarily going to be limited to Republican administrations. There are going to be future Democratic presidents who will say, ‘Well, DOGE was able to do this, why can’t we?’”

The earliest days of DOGE were characterized by a chaotic blitz in which small teams of DOGE operatives, like the now infamous Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, were deployed across government agencies, demanding high-level access to sensitive data, firing workers, and cutting contracts. And while these moves were often radical, if not appearing to be illegal, as matters of bureaucratic operation, they were in service of what had been the Trump administration’s agenda all along.

Goals like cutting discretionary spending and drastically reducing the size of the federal workforce had already been championed by people like vice president JD Vance, who in 2021 called for the “de-Ba’athification” of the government, and Russell Vought, now the head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). These goals were also part of Project 2025. What DOGE brought wasn’t the end, but the means—its unique insight was that controlling technical infrastructure, something achievable with a small group, functionally amounted to controlling the government.

“There has never been a unit of government that was handed so much power to fundamentally upend government agencies with so little oversight,” says Moynihan.

Under the Constitution, the authority for establishing and funding federal agencies comes from Congress. But Trump and many of the people who support him, including Vought and Vance, adhere to what was until relatively recently a fringe view of how government should be run: the unitary executive theory. This posits that, much like the CEO of a company, the president has near complete control over the executive branch, of which federal agencies are a part—power more like that of a king than of the figure described in the nation’s founding documents.