This pocket synthesizer will break your heart

Rob Beschizza 5:12 am Tue Jul 19, 2016

You saw the thumbnail and you came to the post, so here's the cold truth: it's just a rendering. Zont Sound's beautiful little pocket synth will have an AMOLED display, softly-backlit matte-touch controls, wireless and USB-C connections, and 3.5mm out. There's a dock that adds MIDI, writes Sean O'Kane, and at least a year of dreaming ahead of us. [h/t daneel]

Unfortunately, it seems that it will be a long time before anyone gets a chance to play with the Zont synth: the official website says it won’t be available until the fall of 2017. And while the designer behind the project, Pavel Golovkin, claims to have industrial design experience at Nooka (a company known for its wild wristwatches), this appears to be his first attempt at making his own hardware. That’s not always a promising proposition, though Teenage Engineering pulled it off with their own (admittedly low-budget) pocket synthesizers. (In fact, Zont's already drawing comparisons to Teenage Engineering's synth.) Golovkin will start up a crowdfunding campaign for the Zont synth later this year. Here’s hoping he befriends some audio engineers in the meantime.

Review / Logitech MX Keys

Logitech’s MX Keys [Amazon] is what it finally took to lure me away from mechanical keyboards. It’s a slim yet solidly-constructed full-size model that's similar to and superior to Apple's… READ THE REST
Microsoft to permanently close its retail stores

Microsoft is to shut shop on the high streets and malls of America, permanently closing its 116 retail stores. Only 10 were overseas; flagship stores in New York City, London,… READ THE REST
Traintrackr is a light-up circuit-board map of the London Underground or Boston Metro

Traintrackr is a powered circuit board showing a map of the London Underground, lighting up in real time to show train positions on 333 stations on all 12 main lines.… READ THE REST
Short Post, just one paragraph

Dessert cheesecake wafer bear claw fruitcake. Fruitcake chupa chups donut candy canes marzipan. Apple pie sweet roll tart chocolate cake macaroon marshmallow carrot cake gummi bears sweet. Pastry sugar plum… READ THE REST
Save 50% on a 1-year subscription to Dashlane's premium password manager

We all know vital information about ourselves and our private digital accounts can be compromised by cybercriminals. However, many would be frightened to know just how compromised they and their… READ THE REST
The Bite Helper removes the itch of a mosquito bite in seconds

While mosquitoes have certainly earned their title as the deadliest animal on earth, their impact on most of our lives is usually a lot less consequential. But even though they… READ THE REST