NOV.22.2025 - #50

Hi all 👋, it has been a calm week after a crazy (and lovely) weekend attending the CAMK Fall 2025 meetup. In my downtime, I was playing the new Assassin's Creed Mirage DLC, snapping some pics with my Kodak Charmera (also love seeing the insane mods people are creating for it), displaying my newly-acquired Tron: Ares comic variants, building a new board with parts from the aforementioned meetup, and holding myself back from purchasing this new replica Pip-Boy from the Fallout series.

I wanted to highlight some of the friends, vendors, and creators I had the privilege of meeting and talking to during the meetup. In no particular order, thank you to KeyBay, Mino Keys, BeaverKeys, RNDKBD, 3dkeycap, Alexotos, VintKeys, and everyone else I chatted with. It was a wholesome weekend, never before have I felt so included, seen, and welcomed to an amazing community ❤️.

Onto the features!

clicks 🔗

Appreciating apps

→ 'Tis the season for app and tech awards! Recently I've seen many events and blog posts dedicated to giving out accolades to the best of the best. Participants range from Apple to Google to full-stack dev platform Expo, and even long-standing showcases like Best Mobile App Awards—all of these ceremonies are underway (or already concluded) as this year comes to a close. Several of the publications include great apps previously featured here in this newsletter, like Google's App of the Year Focus Friend or Apple's gaming finalist Pokemon TCG Pocket, and it's great to see them get the recognition they deserve. The time has also come for video games to hear some praise! The Game Awards has announced nominees in several categories and opened up voting to the public—check it out, cast your vote, and tune in on December 11th to see the winners announced.

LUT Lab

→ As part of my continuing commitment to learn more about photography (both film and digital), Héliographe's collection of tools on PhotoTools.app have been invaluable. The newest addition to this set of tools, LUT Lab, is useful for viewing, analyzing, and converting Look Up Tables that alter the colour of your photos. I love that Héliographe's apps provide so much clarifying documentation, and even though they are designed as power tools, they are accessible for intermediate users. Finding, using, and understanding LUTs has been a big part of my exploration recently. I've also been testing out Prelens, a live-previewing LUT app to see how LUTs interact with environments directly in my viewfinder. Not sure what the final destination for these explorations are yet, but I'm grateful for the chance to learn from so many others' fantastic works and creations.

WALLHACK

→ WALLHACK is a collection of gaming accessories aimed at improving your gaming performance and experience—their main product being glass mouse pads. I've been interested in their glass pads for a while and was recently reminded of them when they released their newest set, the VA-005 and CR-005. Using a glass mouse pad is truly a different experience—I've only ever tried a friend's, but never really understood how to determine which one was right for me. But this blog post by WALLHACK that goes deep into the science behind the surface friction of glass types and how it relates to different gaming experiences really sold me.

clacks ⌨️

Two sides to this keyboard

→ One of the coolest items I got to see at the CAMK meetup was The Secret by Keybay. It's a 65% fully aluminum keyboard with amazing colourways (thanks to a new anodizing process) and a reversible back weight that hides a unique design within the case. I was blown away when I saw the colourways in-person—they are vibrant, pristine, and vivid; my favourites being Verdant Halo and Crimson Depth. This is KeyBay's third keyboard (following the W70 and The Base), and I commend the team for creating such a diverse line-up of keebs that are all one-of-a-kind in their own way. The group buy for The Secret goes live today, along with so many extras, check it out!!

Erasing Compromise

→ This next feature has been teased by its creator, Clever, and the Omnitype team for almost 6 months now and the time for its release is here! DynaCap is a project dedicated to making Electro Capacitive keyboards accessible, delivering high-quality EC parts to all. It's a little hard to explain EC concisely so if you're interested, DynaCap has a fantastic FAQ that outlines pretty much everything you need to know about EC. My favourite part from this drop are the DynaPaks which are conversion kits for existing MX-style keyboards and PCBs. The kits allow you to modify your existing boards to be usable with EC/DynaCap parts. Only the Bauer Lite is available now, but there are plans for more, and you can vote on the next DynaPak in their Discord. If you're reading this issue at the time of release, the project hasn't gone live yet (Nov 24th in the official launch date), but product pages, pricing, and other information is available immediately.

Orange you glad for GMK Orenji

→ Keycap designer, content creator, and product photographer Captain Sterling (aka Tristan) has just released a punchy, bright, and beautiful keycap set called Orenji. It's inspired by retro tech and their modern day analogues—think Sony Walkman earpads, or anything Teenage Engineering. The pre-order for this set, along with some novelties and deskmats, is open right now—I also highly recommend heading over to Tristan's YouTube channel to view some of his other amazing keyboard content.

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!!