Hasta La Gadget!

The custom mechanical keyboard market has exploded in recent years. Where you previously had to go through arduous group buys to obtain many of the best models, there are now mainstream options you can purchase at any time. Drop (née Massdrop) has been a go-to for many just starting their descent into the hobby. Today, the company is introducing its first new keyboard since 2019. Dubbed the Sense75, it’s a 75 percent layout board with about all the features a budding enthusiast could want.

As with the Ctrl and Alt, Drop will offer two versions of the Sense75. Starting today, you can order the keyboard pre-built with the company’s highly sought-after Holy Panda X switches and DCX keycaps included. Then, later this year, Drop will begin selling a barebones kit that comes with only the frame and PCB, making it ready for you to customize to your heart’s content.

Drop

The Sense75 also comes in two colors: “Nightfall” and “Polar,” with the latter incorporating an electrophoretic coating that creates a “stunning and clean look” but is also more expensive to produce. A pre-built Sense75 in the former will set you back $349, while the latter costs a cool $399. If you want to go the frame-only route, you’ll pay either $249 or $299. 

With prebuilt pricing starting at $349, Drop has set its sights on the Glorious GMMK Pro. It’s widely considered one of the best “entry-level” custom keyboards you can buy. The two share many of the same features. They’re both 75 percent layout boards with a gasket-mounted plate to dampen keystrokes. Similarly, both allow you to hot-swap switches, so there’s no soldering involved if you want to try a new set of tactile, linear or clicky switches. The Sense75 even has a rotary dial just like the GMMK Pro, and both offer customizable RGB lighting. Speaking of customization, the Sense75 supports both QMK and VIA firmware.  

The first 500 people who order the Sense75 will get a free MT3 keycap set, carrying case and a limited edition novelty keycap with their purchase. The first shipments will arrive sometime in November.

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Twitter’s feature for tweeting only to close friends is now available to all its users. After nearly four months of testing, Twitter Circle is rolling out for everyone to help people feel “more comfortable tweeting and expressing themselves.”

Twitter Circle is a bit like Instagram’s “close friends” feature.. Meant to be a sort of middle-ground between a public and private account, users can designate some tweets to be viewable only to a smaller “circle” of up to 150 followers. The feature could help address a long-running issue for the company: that many Twitter users simply don’t feel comfortable tweeting that much, either for fear of harassment or simply the pressures associated with public-facing accounts.

Interestingly, Twitter says that its early tests of the feature have shown that users with Circle tweet more overall, and get more likes and replies when tweeting to a smaller group. The company notes that it also reduces the need for users to have a secondary account or switching their accounts back and forth between public and private.

Twitter Circle is the latest way Twitter has tried to create spaces for users to interact with smaller audiences without making their accounts completely private. The company has also experimented with a Facebook Groups-like feature, called Communities, and subscriber-only content for creators with Super Follows. But Twitter Circle, which users can access directly from the tweet composer, is an even more accessible way of controlling the audience for each tweet. That may seem at odds with the “town square” vision of Twitter vaunted by its would-be acquirer, but increased engagement could also help the company’s bottom line.

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