Hasta La Gadget!

It’s widely known that the comics industry is an extremely insular, rarified space where people’s careers are made or broken based on their interpersonal, social connections to those (typically older, white men) who have a seat at the table. A seat that affords them a distinct institutional power. All too often this…

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When first revealed to the world back in December of 2001 Dean Kamen’s Segway promised to revolutionize urban mobility. But sticker shock, and cities quickly banning the self-balancing standing scooter, meant the Segway never came to close to realizing that dream. Nineteen years later, on July 15, the original Segway…

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This year’s WWDC was a little different than its past iterations of the annual developer’s conference. For one, the global pandemic underway meant that the actual format was a little different, and rather than presenting from a packed auditorium, the event was streamed. In spite of the at time very silly cinematic…

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As much fun as it is to play with a Rubik’s Cube, it can also be quite frustrating if you don’t know the proper algorithms to use to solve it. There are countless videos and reference materials which show you how to solve the puzzle, though they assume that you can actually see the colors.

This special 3×3 Rubik’s Cube upgrades the standard color cubes with special tactile versions, so you can solve the puzzle even if you have a visual impairment.

Made by Winning Moves Games, the Rubik’s Tactile Cube matches up each color with an embossed shape that can be easily discerned with your fingertips. Blue is represented by a single solid dot, red is an open square, yellow is a grid of dots, orange is an X, green is an open circle, and white has no surface texture. Not only does this add a new dimension to the Rubik’s Cube, it opens the puzzle up to people who have limited or no sight. Of course, you can put on a blindfold or attempt to solve it in complete darkness too.

The Rubik’s Tactile Cube sells for $14.99, but is on sale for just $10.97 over on Amazon as of this writing. It’s a great idea, and a fun new spin on a classic puzzle.

In recent years, Seattle-based Wyze made a name for itself thanks to making a lot of smart home gadgets affordable. These days, the company sells everything from smart plugs and locks to scales and fitness bands, but what started it all was the $20 Wyze indoor security camera. Today, the company is following that up with its newest camera, the Wyze Cam Outdoor, which is launching in early access today.

It’ll cost $50 for the starter bundle with a base station and once the camera is out of early access, you’ll be able to add additional cameras for $40 each. As usual, Wyze is undercutting many of its direct competitors in this space for basic outdoor security cameras on price.

For the most part, that name tells you everything you need. It’s a 20 fps 1080p camera for live streaming and recording and features IP65 water resistance that keeps the overall blocky aesthetics of the original Wyze camera. It also offers a night vision mode and two-way audio through the Wyze app, which also offers a rolling 14 days of free cloud storage, in addition to on-device storage. And, of course, it also uses some onboard smarts to do motion detection, using a standard PIR sensor.

Image Credits: Wyze /

Like similar products, it runs purely on battery power, so you don’t have to string any cables across your yard. The company says the battery should last three to six months.

It mounts to its base with magnets, but you still need to do a bit of DIY to screw that base into your walls, ceilings or garden fences.

The base station itself is obviously cabled (and that includes the option to plug in an ethernet cable, in addition to WiFi support). One nice feature here is that the base station also includes an SD card slot, so you can store videos on there, too.

Given that it’s pretty small, at 2.3×2.3×2.8 inches, Wyze also built another nifty feature into the software: offline travel mode. With this, the company says, you can watch your hotel room or campsite while you’re away from home.

Image Credits: Wyze

Based on the samples, this looks to be a pretty capable outdoor camera, but hardware is only one piece of the puzzle here. A lot depends on how well the app and on-camera motion detection work, too. We’ll take a closer look at those once we get a review sample in the next couple of weeks.

If you don’t want to wait until then, the starter pack is now available in Wyze’s shop and in the Wyze app.