DEC.13.2025 - #53

Hi all 👋, this week while writing clicks 'n clacks I've finally caught up to the newest season of Criminal Minds: Evolution after months of binging, spent an embarrassing amount of time boing-ing, checked in every day of December for a new wallpaper and story from iA Writer, and made an account on Cyberspace to escape the algorithm. I also had a blast tuning in on Thursday night to The Game Awards to witness all the winners & announcements—Expedition 33 sweeping, Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, and Control: Resonant were my top moments of the night.

In the world of keyboards, KeyCon announced its 2026 location and date, brands like Nuphy and Chosfox have started some Christmas deals, and I enjoyed hobbyist acozyghost's post about modding an MX Master 3.

Onto the features!

clicks 🔗

Swedish sights and sounds

→ Arriving just in time as Ikea is beginning to discontinue their popular Symfonisk line-up, the Swedish furniture company has announced Teklan. While Symfonisk was developed in collaboration with audio brand Sonos, this new product family is developed by Swedish designer Tekla Evelina Severin, and is made to blend tech and audio seamlessly into your home. My chosen favourite out of this launch are the Kulglass lamp speakers which are very similar to their Symfonisk counterparts but with brighter colours and a more minimal, bulbous shape. I never bought into the Symfonisk ecosystem—I didn't love their edgier style and basic colours—but I am sad to see the Sonos collab go and I hope the audio quality and build of these new devices deliver. On a totally random tangent, Canadians (and others if this news went beyond borders) may remember Ikea Monkey and I am pleased to report he is doing well in a local Ontario sanctuary (away from cameras and the spotlight).

Burd

→ Pocket Bird is a calm, cute, and unobtrusive browser extension which adds a digital pet bird to your webpages. It hops around the screen, perches on elements, has unlockable styles, and shows some love back when pet! It was developed by Idrees (who also made PicoChat from Issue #13), is completely open-source, and free for Chrome and FireFox. Just a simple little tool to add some joy to your doom-scrolling.

Inky 🦑

→ Shout-out to The Hiro Report for highlighting this device last week—it was too good to pass up, is right in my wheelhouse, and I wanted to amplify it some more here. The Xteink X4 is a super-small e-ink display with a MagSafe magnetic system built right in, meaning you can keep it on you at all times just by throwing it onto the back of your iPhone (or any other phone that works with MagSafe). At 5.9mm it's slimmer than most other MagSafe accessories I own, and I love the versatility it can provide, whether you're catching up on ePubs or displaying an image (think ID, QR code to website, business card, etc.). Not too expensive either, starting at $70 and re-stocking on Christmas Eve—it's perfect for a little present to myself.

clacks ⌨️

Stone cold keyboards

→ Bold, beautiful, and unconventional is the name of the game at Brazen Studio—a Hong Kong based team creating keyboard kits, desk accessories, and even some coffee gear. A majority of their products are crafted using a “concrete-resin composite material” that mimics the natural look of stone and its imperfections. A recent announcement was a new colourway for their Stonevault keyboard case (built for the Vault35 PCB/plate combo)—Pink Terrazzo. If you're not so much into buying a separate PCB, they also offer full-kits, like their Zen series. Haven't seen boards like this anywhere else before, and these certainly make a statement.

Linux powerhouse

→ The c100 is a sleek, powerful, all-in-one workstation with a built-in low-profile keyboard made for all types of digital creators. It was created by Caligra who partnered with design studio Pentagram to engineer this new device. Pentagram has a fantastic project overview where they dive into the concepts, prototyping, and final construction of the c100. Something I found interesting about this device is that Caligra developed their own Linux distro uniquely for this project, but not much else is available on that right now. The device will end up costing a hefty $1,999, and you can reserve your spot in line for $99 right now.

Achieve enlightenment

→ Clever, whom you may know from creations like the Blue Ridge or DynaCap, is back with a premium ergo HHKB board—the Enso-E. Named after the concept of ensō, signifying ”hand-drawn circles symbolizing balance, simplicity, and enlightenment,” it resonates precision, calm, and simplicity. Other impressive features include top-down building, MX or EC variants, a special exploded bottom row layout, and an aluminum (or 50-unit limited titanium) case. This is certainly one of the pricier boards I've featured but the amount of innovation, authenticity, and expression here is incredible—it truly stands out as a fresh take.

That’s all for this week! I hope you enjoyed it, and now it’s time to hear from YOU 🫵. I want to know your opinion—what you liked, what you loved, what you didn’t like, what you skipped. Email [email protected] (or reply to this issue!) and have a great weekend!!