23JUN2024

Happy Sunday, everyone! Welcome to the newly redesigned Hiro Report! Beyond changing up the logo and formatting, I’ve also switched to a new email provider that will hopefully make subscribing, sharing, and unsubscribing easier for everyone. If you experience any issues with delivery, formatting, or links not working, please let me know!

• ☁️ Ente - Private cloud for your photos, videos, and more - I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m intrigued by the concept. I’ve been growing increasingly nervous about having ALL my photos in one basket (iCloud). I have a local network attached storage (NAS) device that I’ve backed up many of my pre-iPhone photos on, but most of the daily memory photos from the last decade+ are in one cloud service. I need a good backup solution. Ente offers end-to-end encryption on photos, mirroring Apple’s security model, which would give me peace of mind about storing my photos offsite while having a redundant backup.
• 🪄 Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom - Nintendo announced a bunch of new games this week that are all coming to the Nintendo Switch later this year. The highlight for me was a new Legend of Zelda game, where you finally get to play as Princess Zelda rather than Link. Instead of using a sword, Zelda uses a magic wand to copy and paste elements from the environment as tools and weapons. It looks like a fascinating mechanic, and I can’t wait to try it. As the dad of two young gamers, I’m thrilled they’ll have another great action game with a kickass female protagonist.
• 📸 Circuit Bent Sony Cyber-shot - DocPop, the yo-yo master and polymath, shared this epic blog post about his experiments with a Sony Cyber-shot pocket digital camera from the early 2000s that had undergone some modding to its sensor. The effects it produces make for totally epic retro cyber futuristic photos. Check them out. If you want to grab one of your own, here’s the link to the vendor.
• ⌨️ Micro Journal Rev.6 - There’s a kinda fun “anti-tech” tech trend right now. Think the Daylight DC-1 and other minimalist, screen time-reducing devices. The Micro Journal fits right in with this trend. It’s basically a digital typewriter with an e-ink display. While there are other offerings like this, this one stands out by being a) $169, b) customizable for keyboard nerds to change out the keycaps, and c) open source, so everyone can build their own rather than buying it. I’m intrigued.
• Sebastiaan de With’s Gear Guide - Last week, I linked to Kino and Halide, two excellent video and photography apps from Lux. This week, Sebastiaan, one of Lux’s founders, shared his photography gear guide. Do NOT read this unless you’re prepared to develop a bad case of G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) for some very expensive Leicas. He has incredible gear and takes beautiful pictures of it. A deadly combination.

That’s it for this week! Be well, everyone.

OK, one more thing—if you want to listen to the soundtrack for writing this week’s report, go to your music streaming platform of choice and look up Little Simz. I’m doubtlessly incredibly late to discovering her music, but man, am I hooked.