Microsoft said on Tuesday that it would be taking a series of steps towards becoming a “good neighbor” in communities where it is building data centers—including promising to ask public utilities to set higher electricity rates for data centers.

Speaking onstage at an event in Great Falls, Virginia, Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith directly referenced a growing national pushback to data centers, describing it as creating “a moment in time when we need to listen, and we need to address these concerns head-on.”

“When I visit communities around the country, people have questions—pointed questions. They even have concerns,” Smith said, as a slide showed headlines from various news outlets about opposition to data centers. “They are the type of questions that we need to heed… We are at a moment of time when people have a lot on their mind. They worry about the price of electricity. They wonder what this big data center will mean to their water supply. They look at this technology and ask, what will it mean for the jobs of the future? What will it mean for the adults of today? What will it mean for their children?”

The announcement follows a post from President Donald Trump on Truth Social Monday in which he pledged that his administration would work with “major American Technology Companies,” including Microsoft, to make sure that data centers don’t inflate customer utility bills.

“We are the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and Number One in AI,” Trump wrote in the post, in which he also accused Democrats of being responsible for the rise in utility bills. “Data Centers are key to that boom, and keeping Americans FREE and SECURE but, the big Technology Companies who build them must ‘pay their own way.’”

Average electricity bills have risen faster than inflation in recent years in many parts of the country. These price hikes are due to a variety of factors, including the costs of repairing and maintaining the country’s aging electric grid. But higher demand for electricity—including from data centers, which can also be expensive to connect to the grid—plays a role. As technology companies and utilities are predicting a massive new need for energy from the nationwide data center buildout, the Energy Information Administration projects that electric bills will keep increasing through 2026.

Concerns around data centers and electricity bills played a key role in several local and state midterm elections last year, while research released last fall shows that local opposition to data centers skyrocketed in the second quarter of 2025, leading to billions of dollars in projects stalled or cancelled. The political divide against data centers appears to be bipartisan. In recent months, influential former Trump strategist Steve Bannon has begun speaking against the energy and water costs of data centers on his War Room podcast, part of a larger pushback from some MAGA figureheads against the AI buildout in the US.

The Trump administration, by contrast, has made expediting the data center buildout in the US a key priority. It has removed a variety of environmental protections for data centers, including water protections, expedited the review of chemicals involved in their use, and encouraged their development on federal land. The Department of Energy has also instructed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees interstate transmission, to work on a suite of issues around data centers and the grid.

Microsoft, which has around 100 data centers planned or under construction across the country, has met with some local pushback to some of its projects. In October, the company canceled plans for a data center in Wisconsin due to local opposition; the group leading the charge against that project warned of a potential “5-15% rate hike to subsidize cheap power.” The company revealed last week that it was also behind a proposed project in Michigan, which was put on hold in December following concerns from community members. Hundreds of residents attended a planning commission meeting for the project Monday night, with many telling local media they were there to express opposition.

My kids also enjoyed Save the Bloogs, an obviously Lemmings-inspired platformer, where you use the pieces as ladders, bridges, and canons to guide the cute wee Bloogs away from impending death. Board Arcade is the only one that reuses pieces, with spaceships and robots adding physical controls to versions of classics like Snake and Asteroids.

Most of the games are marked as age 6 and up, and I’d expect young kids to love this. The dull digital pet Mushka is clearly aimed at wee ones. Sadly, a couple of the more interesting titles, international mystery Spycraft and strategy face-off Thrasos, are still marked as “coming soon.” The Tetris and Chess-inspired Strata is a bit more challenging and makes for a fun two- to six-player battle for territory. I also quite liked the sushi-themed Omakase, a head-to-head battle to build the best bento boxes.

The quality and depth of the launch titles vary, but they feel more like examples of what you could do with the tech than must-have games. It’s telling that the best of the bunch are clones. It will be interesting to see what third-party developers might come up with. While I applaud the lack of a subscription, it’s not yet clear how much the 10 new incoming titles will cost, when they will land, or how many more might follow. You’ll be able to download the titles digitally, and the physical component packs will be shipped.

Mixed Reception

I really like Board, but my teen kids (13 and 16) weren’t impressed. They both found Board’s games boring. Other family and friends had similarly mixed reactions. We play a lot of video games and board games, but I was the only one pushing Board over the holidays. It lacks that killer addictive hook that keeps you coming back for more. I suspect it would go down a lot better with younger kids (6 to 10).

Board is big, and I struggled to find a spot to store it. While it has survived mostly unscathed so far, I can’t help wondering about long-term durability, as the frantic nature of some games could lead some, especially younger kids, to be a bit rough with the screen. It has already sustained a faint scratch from a wayward cat claw, as one of my cats has the unfortunate habit of sitting on board games when we gather to play.

Plugged into my father’s 20-year-old Arcam amplifier, powering a pair of equally vintage Mordaunt Short floorstanding speakers, the Streamplayer works smoothly. It did require a 3.5mm to RCA cable (more in this below) but dad’s box of old cables is a tech treasure trove. On first listen I was impressed by the ease of it all, and switching between Qobuz and Spotify Lossless certainly didn’t offend. But when playing the same song side-by-side using a mid-range Cambridge Audio CD player, the difference was obvious.

Playing the album “Music from Big Pink” by The Band, and the power and scale from the CD version easily eclipsed that of the Streamplayer. Rick Danko’s bass lines soared and the layering of the instruments was wonderfully pronounced via CD, while they were noticeably subdued when streaming. Same speakers, same amplifier, very different DACs.

It’s by no means a disaster, and the streaming convenience—in lieu of a large CD collection—is difficult to argue with. Even with quality components, the performance is only ever going to be as good as the audio quality played.

Cables and Connectivity

Atonemo makes a big deal over being able to power “all” legacy speakers. Included in the box is a single 3.5mm to 3.5mm audio jack, giving the ability to plug into active speakers, old radios, cassette players, boomboxes, and anything with a 3.5mm aux-in port.

But to power analogue speakers, you will need a separate amplifier and alternative cables, whether that’s a 3.5mm to RCA or SPDIF RCA to 3.5mm jack cable. Atonemo told WIRED they toyed with the idea of including multiple cables in the box, but opted for the 3.5mm audio jack because most hi-fi people would have one already. They also plan to sell a range of cables to suit “all” legacy speakers. I think including a couple of cable options would have been a good idea, especially at launch, just to avoid any friction points with first-time installation, as not everyone has a box of old cables as comprehensive as my Dad.

Competition

Photograph: Chris Haslam

Atonemo isn’t the only option when it comes to breathing new life into older hi-fi components. The WiiM Mini Music Streamer ($89) is cheaper, offers AirPlay/Chromecast/Spotify Connect streaming capabilities and a XX DAC. Similarly the FiiO SR11 Desktop Streaming Music Receiver ($110) also copes with Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, FiiO Music and PCM 768 kHz/32 Bit and DSD256 (DOP) quality. And for a further boost in audio quality plus one of the finest hi-res streaming multiroom platforms, the $379 Bluesound Node nano streamer is hard to ignore. There are also plenty of basic Bluetooth dongles available too if audio quality, or the ability to enjoy multi-room audio, isn’t important to you.

But what Atonemo has done well is remove any technical barriers to use. The app is incredibly simple—in a good way—with no bloat, or pretence it is doing anything other than facilitating streaming between your old speakers and a modern streaming platform.

Yes, it could (and probably should) squeeze in a better DAC, and a more comprehensive collection of cables, but these are deliberate omissions, not glaring mistakes. Anyone looking to tweak and tune, and generally nerd-out about bit rates, are already well served elsewhere.