02AUG2026: A blast at museums
Staying cool at night, knowing what's flying overhead, pocketable 3D scans, and whispering to your finger...
Happy Sunday everyone!
This week I’ve been making the transition from my early summer ska records to my late summer midwest emo records, contemplating mail order permanent tattoos, surviving an escape room, and setting up yet another Hermes instance to experiment with.
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On to the good stuff!
📷 Creality Pika 3D Scanner - Creality, makers of affordable consumer 3D printers, launched the Pika this week. It’s a pocket-sized 3D scanning camera that pairs a 7-line blue laser with NIR for markerless scanning at up to 0.03mm accuracy — point it at a broken part, a figurine, or anything else and get a printable 3D model back. Best of all, it’s small enough to fit in a jacket pocket. I am extremely tempted by this one… it would be a blast at museums.
📆 Pocket Cal - AI Calendar App - Pocket Cal is an indie calendar app from developer Kevin Hall: you type, speak, or scan something like “Meeting at Shimago-Dominguez Corporation at 9, Recharge Robot at 11” and it lands on your schedule instantly — events, tasks, and reminders all in one clean timeline you can pinch from a single day out to the whole year. The developer collects no data and offers a nice free tier, with AI features for reorganizing your calendar and moving things around on your behalf for just a few bucks. I’m enjoying trying it out.
✈️ Overflight - I’ve been digging this indie planespotting app this week. It basically turns your iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV into a radar scope of the entire visible sky around you. When you see planes wander within “radar” range, you can tap on one to get all kinds of info on it — airline, flight number, type, altitude, vertical speed, bearing, and, crucially, where to look to find it in the sky. The app can also notify you when military and special-interest traffic are passing overhead. It runs on community ADS-B data with no account and no sign-up required, is totally free, and has an optional Pro upgrade that adds origin-to-destination route info and spoken hands-free callouts (e.g. “Traffic, two o’clock, eight miles, United 35-17, a Boeing 747”).
💍 Stream ring by Sandbar - David Pierce did a great write-up on this smart ring, which is essentially a microphone, a battery, and a Bluetooth radio on your finger. You raise the ring to your mouth, click the touchpad, whisper whatever you want dictated, and it’s captured to an accompanying app. Naturally, it can also be used to record meetings, etc. It looks like a more refined take on the Pebble 01, and it seemed to impress David, which bodes well for it. I like the idea of gadgets like this that help you think out loud without having to risk the siren song of opening your phone while out and about.
🧊 Bed Jet - A good friend recommended one of these to us this week, and I’m seriously tempted. The BedJet is a simpler (and slightly cheaper) solution than the EightSleep for giving you zone temperature control in your bed. The BedJet consists of a small fan unit that sits at the foot of any bed, no tools required, and pushes cooled air or warmed moisture-drying air through your sheets. I’ve not gotten to try it out yet, but as someone who tends to run hot at night but who also appreciates a cozy blanket, this sounds like an awesome solution.
That’s it for this week! May your music provider of choice always know the perfect song for the moment.