Technologies
As Inflation From Trump’s Tariffs Looms Large, I’m Watching 11 Key Products for Inflation
Though the reality of tariff-driven inflation is arriving in earnest, the very worst of it might still be a ways off.
The question of how new tariffs will affect prices is more relevant than ever, with President Donald Trump punting another major deadline down the road and a new Consumer Price Index summary showing that the inflation rate was 2.7% in June, the biggest jump since February. It’s enough to get anyone concerned about affordability in the US, as if we all weren’t worrying about it already. However, the worst may still be yet to come, as the Aug. 1 deadline for the president’s steepest tariffs approaches in a matter of days.
Amid those worries, I’ve been tracking prices every day for 11 key products likely to be hit by price increases from tariffs, and the picture I’ve painted so far is this: not much has changed, at least not yet. The winding road of tariff inflation still stretches before us into an uncertain future, and the threat of price hikes continues to cloud the horizon. As some economists recently told Vox, the upward trend in inflation is almost certain to continue if Trump’s tariffs remain at the levels being discussed.
To date, I’ve seen two noteworthy price increases, one for the Xbox Series X and the other for a popular budget-friendly 4K TV. Some other products have gone on sale for brief periods. Notably, other outlets have caught a number of major retailers hiking prices across the board, with CNBC finding some substantial inflation at Walmart specifically.
CNET Tariff Tracker Index
Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help give you a sense of the overall price changes and fluctuations going on. Further down, you’ll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked. Based on the numbers so far, the average has gone up noticeably since the start of the year but this has been driven mostly by big shifts for a few products, as most price are still stable.
We’ll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It’s all in the name of helping you make sense of things so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET’s guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession.
Methodology
We’re checking prices daily and will update the article and the relevant charts right away to reflect any changes. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled «Now» and showing the current price. For the past months, we’ve gone with what was the most common price for each item in the given month.
In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price-tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple’s official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering of the iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we’ll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause.
The 11 products we’re tracking
Mostly what we’re tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs — along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn’t produced in the US to any significant degree.
The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like printer ink or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists.
- iPhone 16, 128GB
- Duracell AA batteries, 24-pack
- Samsung DU7200 65-inch TV
- Xbox Series X
- Apple AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C case
- HP 962 CMY Printer Ink
- Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank
- Bose TV speaker
- Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush
- Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook, 256GB
- Starbucks 28-ounce ground dark roast coffee
Below, we’ll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting.
iPhone 16
The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes because of its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500.
Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you’ll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. If you, say, buy direct from Apple or Best Buy without a carrier involved, you’ll be charged an extra $30, so in some places, you might see the list price of the standard iPhone 16 listed as $830.
Apple’s been taking a few steps to protect its prices in the face of these tariffs, flying in bulk shipments of product before they took effect and planning to move production for the US market from China to India. A new Reuters report found that a staggering 97% of iPhones imported from the latter country, March through May, were bound for the US. This latter move drew the anger of Trump again, threatening the company with a 25% tariff if they didn’t move production to the US, an idea CEO Tim Cook has repeatedly shot down in the past. This came after Trump gave a tariff exemption to electronic devices including smartphones, so the future of that move seems in doubt now.
Duracell AA batteries
A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you’ll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we’re tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon.
Samsung DU7200 TV
Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if they’re an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET’s pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean company, so it might have some measure of tariff resistance.
After spending most of 2025 hovering around $400, this item has now seen some notable upticks on Amazon, most recently sitting around $450, a change that has stuck around long enough to seem permanent. This could potentially be in reaction to Trump’s announcement of 25% tariffs against South Korea.
Xbox Series X
Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft’s Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes — the company cited «market conditions» along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that «certain» games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80.
Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US.
AirPods Pro 2
The latest iteration of Apple’s wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales.
HP 962 CMY printer ink
This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around $72 — where it stayed for most of 2025 — to $80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be keeping tabs to see if this is a long-term change or a brief uptick.
This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we’re still tracking that item.
Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank
Anker’s accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET’s lists of the best portable chargers.
Bose TV speaker
Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose.
Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush
They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won’t let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET’s overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025.
This product hasn’t seen its price budge one way or another most of the year, but while Prime Day might have come and gone, there’s still a $10 coupon listed on Amazon right now, letting you save a little bit of money for the time being.
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook
Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump’s tariffs. For now, its price on Amazon has remained pretty much static, aside from some brief dips down to $480.
Starbucks Ground Coffee (28-ounce bag)
Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity —I’m certainly drinking too much of it these days —and because it’s uniquely susceptible to Trump’s tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth’s equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the «Coffee Belt.»
Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season — little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years.
All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs. While this particular bag of beans from Starbucks hasn’t seen its price budge for most of the year, in recent days it ticked up by less than a dollar on Amazon, which could be a sign of further increases to come.
Other products
As mentioned, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. Here are some things no longer featured above, but that we’re still keeping an eye on:
- Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places — including Amazon — since it released in 2017. Whether that price will be affected by tariffs or the release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X.
- Overture PLA 3D printer filament: This is a popular choice on Amazon for the material needed to run 3D printers. It has held steady around $15 on Amazon all year. This product was replaced above by the HP 962 printer ink.
Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven’t been featured with a graph yet:
- Razer Blade 18 (2025), 5070 Ti edition: The latest revision of Razer’s largest gaming laptop saw a $300 price bump recently, with the base model featured an RTX 5070 Ti graphics card now priced at $3,500 ahead of launch, compared to the $3,200 price announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump’s tariff plans were ramping up in April.
- Asus ROG Ally X: The premium version of Asus’s Steam Deck competitor handheld gaming PC recently saw a price hike from $799 to $899, coinciding with the announcement of the company’s upcoming Xbox-branded Ally handhelds.
Technologies
OpenAI Says It’s Working With Actors to Crack Down on Celebrity Deepfakes in Sora
Bryan Cranston alerted SAG-AFTRA, the actors union, when he saw AI-generated videos of himself made with the AI video app.

OpenAI said Monday it would do more to stop users of its AI video generation app Sora from creating clips with the likenesses of actors and other celebrities after actor Bryan Cranston and the union representing film and TV actors raised concerns that deepfake videos were being made without the performers’ consent.
Actor Bryan Cranston, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and several talent agencies said they struck a deal with the ChatGPT maker over the use of celebrities’ likenesses in Sora. The joint statement highlights the intense conflict between AI companies and rights holders like celebrities’ estates, movie studios and talent agencies — and how generative AI tech continues to erode reality for all of us.
Sora, a new sister app to ChatGPT, lets users create and share AI-generated videos. It launched to much fanfare three weeks ago, with AI enthusiasts searching for invite codes. But Sora is unique among AI video generators and social media apps; it lets you use other people’s recorded likenesses to place them in nearly any AI video. It has been, at best, weird and funny, and at worst, a never-ending scroll of deepfakes that are nearly indistinguishable from reality.
Cranston noticed his likeness was being used by Sora users when the app launched, and the Breaking Bad actor alerted his union. The new agreement with the actors’ union and talent agencies reiterates that celebrities will have to opt in to having their likenesses available to be placed into AI-generated video. OpenAI said in the statement that it has «strengthened the guardrails around replication of voice and likeness» and «expressed regret for these unintentional generations.»
OpenAI does have guardrails in place to prevent the creation of videos of well-known people: It rejected my prompt asking for a video of Taylor Swift on stage, for example. But these guardrails aren’t perfect, as we’ve saw last week with a growing trend of people creating videos featuring Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. They ranged from weird deepfakes of the civil rights leader rapping and wrestling in the WWE to overtly racist content.
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The flood of «disrespectful depictions,» as OpenAI called them in a statement on Friday, is part of why the company paused the ability to create videos featuring King.
Statement from OpenAI and King Estate, Inc.
The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr., Inc. (King, Inc.) and OpenAI have worked together to address how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s likeness is represented in Sora generations. Some users generated disrespectful depictions of Dr.…— OpenAI Newsroom (@OpenAINewsroom) October 17, 2025
Bernice A. King, his daughter, last week publicly asked people to stop sending her AI-generated videos of her father. She was echoing comedian Robin Williams’ daughter, Zelda, who called these sorts of AI videos «gross.»
I concur concerning my father.
Please stop. #RobinWilliams #MLK #AI https://t.co/SImVIP30iN— Be A King (@BerniceKing) October 7, 2025
OpenAI said it «believes public figures and their families should ultimately have control over how their likeness is used» and that «authorized representatives» of public figures and their estates can request that their likeness not be included in Sora. In this case, King’s estate is the entity responsible for choosing how his likeness is used.
This isn’t the first time OpenAI has leaned on others to make those calls. Before Sora’s launch, the company reportedly told a number of Hollywood-adjacent talent agencies that they would have to opt out of having their intellectual property included in Sora. But that initial approach didn’t square with decades of copyright law — usually, companies need to license protected content before using it — and OpenAI reversed its stance a few days later. It’s one example of how AI companies and creators are clashing over copyright, including through high-profile lawsuits.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
Technologies
Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 21, #863
Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Oct. 21, #863.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.
Today’s NYT Connections puzzle has a diverse mix of topics. Remember when you see a word like «does» that it could have multiple meanings. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.
The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.
Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time
Hints for today’s Connections groups
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Deal me in.
Green group hint: I can get that.
Blue group hint: Hoops.
Purple group hint: The clicker.
Answers for today’s Connections groups
Yellow group: Playing cards.
Green group: Takes on.
Blue group: N.B.A. teams.
Purple group: Things you can control with remotes.
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
What are today’s Connections answers?
The yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is playing cards. The four answers are aces, jacks, kings and queens.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is takes on. The four answers are addresses, does, handles and tackles.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is N.B.A. teams. The four answers are Bucks, Bulls, Hornets and Spurs.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is things you can control with remotes. The four answers are drones, garage doors, televisions and Wiis.
Technologies
Ninja Gaiden 4 Review: The Comeback Fans Have Been Waiting For
PlatinumGames and Team Ninja revive the franchise with pure adrenaline.

With 2025 coming to a close, so is the «Year of the Ninja» for video games. What kicked off in a big way with a surprise remaster of 2008’s Ninja Gaiden 2 Black and Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, now ends with the release of Ninja Gaiden 4.
Developed in partnership with longtime series studio Team Ninja and action game specialists PlatinumGames, Ninja Gaiden 4 is the first new 3D entry in the franchise since 2012, following the retro 2D release of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound in July. As expected from a series known for its fast-paced slashing action, Ninja Gaiden 4 delivers plenty of stylish combat — but not much beyond that.
Ninja Gaiden 4 introduces a new protagonist, Yakumo, who replaces longtime series hero Ryu Hayabusa. It’s a similar move to what publisher Tecmo Koei did with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. As part of the Raven clan, a rival of Ryu’s Dragon clan, Yakumo doesn’t differ that much from the series’ previous main character. Don’t worry, Ryu fans: He does show up in the game.
Yakumo’s quest in Ninja Gaiden 4 is to defeat the Dark Dragon, an evil deity who has been the series’ primary villain. Standing in Yakumo’s way is the Divine Dragon Order, which defends the beast and controls the futuristic Tokyo setting of the game.
Does the story make a lot of sense? Not really, except to fans who already know the ins and outs of the Ninja Gaiden lore. Does that matter? Absolutely not, because all you need to know is where to go to slice up more enemies, which Yakumo is stellar at.
Go Ninja Go
To say Ninja Gaiden 4’s action is fast is almost an understatement, which is to be expected. The series was already focused on rapid combat that requires quick reactions, even prior to PlatinumGames’ involvement. The developer took on Ninja Gaiden 4 after revolutionizing the hack-and-slash action game genre with the Bayonetta series and games like Nier: Automata.
If you’ve played plenty of hack-and-slash games, Ninja Gaiden 4’s combat formula will be familiar. Yakumo has weak and heavy attacks, and chaining these together creates your standard combos. The more enemies he defeats, the more money and points he gets to unlock new moves and weapon skills. Some of the new moves extend Yakumo’s combos for longer sequences of attacks and against more enemies, while others are defensive, allowing him to unleash a powerful riposte after parrying an enemy attack.
Yakumo starts off his journey with his twin blades, but he finds more weapons throughout the game. A favorite of mine is the Magashuti staff that has a long reach to attack multiple enemies as Yakumo spins it around himself.
Where Yakumo differs greatly from Ryu is his Bloodraven form. Unleashed when attacking with the left trigger held down, it changes Yakumo’s weapon to do greater damage. The Magashuti, for example, will take the form of a giant hammer whenever Yakumo uses his Bloodraven form. Certain enemies and bosses have armor that can deflect or reduce the power of Yakumo’s attack, so you’ll need to switch to Bloodraven form to break that armor.
All of these mechanics make for unrivaled action. Players who spend enough time practicing will engage in beautiful dances of slashing weapons. The fact is, there are times when the action feels just a bit too fast, even for my veteran gaming reflexes. Trying to maneuver to certain areas or to talk with a non-playable character sometimes had me jumping off walls while hardly touching the controller. It almost takes more work to keep Yakumo still, especially after unlocking so many of his skills. There was also an instance when I did a finishing move to an enemy, and the animation pushed me out of bounds, causing me to have to reload to my last checkpoint.
Arguably, the biggest frustration for me was the lock-on button. It was not intuitive at all, as it had no rhyme or reason for what it was locking onto. Even when I was fighting just the boss, it still never fully locked onto it as every other action game does.
Also, what might be a bit of a downer for some Ninja Gaiden fans, this entry in the franchise is noticeably the easiest of the bunch. Thanks to healing items and equipable accessories, I died maybe once or twice per chapter. If a certain boss kills you too many times, the game will give you free items and even an NPC to help. For those who want more of a challenge, there’s a higher difficulty option available, but players with reasonable skill should be able to coast through the game otherwise.
A Feast for Ninja Eyes
Another mainstay of the Ninja Gaiden franchise is the beautiful visuals. As the game takes place in a futuristic Japan, the development team really leaned into the cyberpunk-like look of a city bathed in neon and glass.
This excels in the moments when Yakumo has to traverse in the most ninja ways, such as sliding on the train rails high above the city or gliding on rushing winds that blow through the mountain pass. These are the moments where you don’t have to worry about enemies attacking or creating the fanciest combos. You can just look around and take in these beautiful graphics.
Combine these visuals with an excellent soundtrack and solid voice acting, and you have a presentation worthy of being included in the Ninja Gaiden series.
Despite these quality elements, Ninja Gaiden 4 is a good reboot but not revolutionary. PlatinumGames resurrected the franchise 13 years after the last main entry, but didn’t take it in any different direction that would give this mass appeal to the gaming public. It’s an exciting 7 to 8 hours to beat, but I didn’t feel like jumping right back in.
Ninja Gaiden 4 will not be up for Game of the Year, or likely even considered one of the best games in the series, but that doesn’t matter. This is a game for anyone who just wants to feel like a badass ninja carving up enemies in the blink of an eye, because sometimes that’s all you want.
Ninja Gaiden 4 will be released on Oct. 21 for $70 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles. It will be available for Xbox Game Pass on day 1.
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