The Oppo Find X9 Ultra establishes itself as a trailblazer in the flagship smartphone market, blending advanced technology, premium design, and remarkable durability. With standout features such as a 200 MP camera sensor, sensor-shift stabilization, and a robust yet refined build, it challenges conventional expectations. Although it is not available in the U.S., the device […]
EDC and stationery have been moving closer together for years. Pens became precision objects. Rulers became desk jewelry. Pocket tools started borrowing the language of industrial design, while analog work tools picked up the portability and finish standards of everyday carry. Somewhere in that overlap, products began chasing a sharper balance between usefulness and desire.
UnioArc feels tailored for that exact overlap. It carries the visual language of titanium EDC, but its purpose lives firmly in the world of measurement, drawing, and layout. That combination gives it an immediate hook. It speaks to the person who keeps a notebook close, notices edge quality, values compact gear, and wants a tool that can move from workbench to sketchbook to shirt pocket without feeling out of place.
Seven measurement and drawing functions collapse into a single folding titanium ruler. Closed, it measures 145mm, roughly smartphone length. One motion releases the magnetic lock, the sleeve joint clicks straight, and it extends to 295mm for full A4 coverage. No sliding mechanisms. No multi-step deployment. The transformation happens edge to edge, from zero to full length in a single click. Three scales cover metric, imperial, and a dedicated millimeter track. All markings are laser-engraved into the titanium surface, which means they will never fade, peel, or rub off. The zero point starts right at the tip, eliminating offset math when measuring depth or inserting the edge into tight spaces.
A 0.5mm recessed groove runs along the bottom edge. It catches a pen tip, holds it stable, and lets you mark immediately after measuring. That same groove improves grip when you’re holding the ruler at an angle or cutting against it. The flat middle edge guides craft knife blades flush against the surface for clean cuts without wobble. The top edge carries a 25-degree bevel to reduce glare and improve readability under direct light. Three edge profiles, three distinct jobs, one continuous form. This kind of multi-layer thinking shows up throughout the design, where individual features earn their place by doing multiple things well instead of one thing adequately.
Precision compass holes span 140mm in 10mm increments. Insert one pen through a hole near the pivot (the sleeve joint), insert another at the desired radius, and draw smooth circles from 10mm to 140mm diameter. No center puncture. No damaged paper or leather. Swap the stylus pen for a craft knife and you can cut perfect circles in paper, thin materials, or vinyl without leaving a center mark. For woodworkers and leather crafters, this solves a persistent workflow annoyance. A full 180-degree protractor sits engraved at 5-degree increments. Need to mark 35 degrees? 55 degrees? Read it directly, no interpolation required. A 90-degree quick-check corner handles faster right-angle verification. A small arrow indicator simplifies complementary angle reading: subtract the arrow-aligned angle from 180 degrees and you have the answer without rotating the tool or doing mental math.
Fold the ruler to 90 degrees, align the reference line with your scale, and set any spacing you want for parallel lines. The arms lock into a true right angle with no wobble or drift as you move across the page. For architectural sketches, textile patterns, or technical drawings, this turns a multi-tool task into a single-ruler operation. The locking mechanism holds firm enough for consistent spacing across long runs. The same two arms that handle linear measurement also slide apart while staying parallel, clamping around boards, straps, or stock to give direct thickness readings. It functions like a simplified caliper without requiring a separate tool. In workshops or on job sites where you need quick material checks, this compresses another measurement step into the same instrument you’re already holding.
No screws hold the sleeve joint together. No washers. Nothing to tighten or maintain. Resistance comes from precision fit between machined titanium surfaces. The two arms slide into each other and lock at 180 degrees with zero gap, zero step, zero play. That interlocking geometry prevents the common folding ruler problem where pen tips drop into gaps or lines skip at the hinge. The transition from one arm to the next reads as seamless. This is critical because any interruption in the edge breaks the flow when you’re drawing continuous lines or cutting long paths. TiBang solved it by making the joint itself part of the measurement surface instead of treating it as a hinge that happens to sit between two rulers.
Grade 5 Titanium throughout, CNC-machined from solid stock rather than stamped or cast. That process ensures consistent dimensional accuracy across every unit and allows for fine detail work in the compass holes, protractor markings, and edge profiles. Sandblasted titanium gives a raw, matte appearance that develops micro-patina over time. PVD Black applies a deep black coating with increased surface hardness for a technical, permanent look. Both finishes share identical machining tolerances and functional geometry. Weight sits at 66.5 grams, just over two ounces. Light enough to carry all day without noticing, heavy enough to feel substantial when you pick it up. The 5mm thickness keeps it shirt-pocket slim, fits inside notebook sleeves, slides into small tool rolls. Fold it shut and magnets snap the arms together with a tactile click. No rubber bands. No retention clips. It stays closed in your pocket and opens when you want it to.
Architects, product designers, woodworkers, leather crafters, engineers, and EDC enthusiasts will recognize the workflow this tool targets. Anyone who moves between sketching, prototyping, and layout work carries some version of this measurement kit already. UnioArc compresses that kit into a single pocketable object, which is exactly the kind of consolidation that makes sense for people who work across locations or keep minimal setups. TiBang has two previous Kickstarter campaigns behind them, both shipped with 100% fulfillment and zero missed deliveries. Mass production and backer surveys are scheduled for May and June 2026, with quality inspection and packaging slated for July and August 2026. The timeline accounts for buffer periods around international shipping and customs clearance, which suggests they’ve learned from previous campaigns how to build realistic delivery windows.
UnioArc is live on Kickstarter with a Launch Day pricing of approximately $55 USD (42% off MSRP of $95) and Super Early Bird pricing climbing to $60. The ruler works standalone, but optional add-ons include a leather sheath in two colors for $12, a PVD Black finish upgrade for $15, and a Pocket Titanium Everlasting Mini Pen for $9. Shipping begins in July and August 2026 following quality inspection. All reward tiers include free worldwide shipping with no additional fees. TiBang manufactures, ships globally, and communicates throughout the process.
Every major tech conference eventually finds its thesis statement. CES landed on “everything is connected.” SXSW staked out culture-meets-technology. BEYOND Expo‘s thesis for 2026 is more specific, and honestly more timely: AI has spent years proving itself in software, and the interesting question now is what happens when it leaves the screen. The official theme, “AI: Digital to Physical,” takes over from last year’s theme of Transforming Uncertainty into a Trigger for Innovation. Timed perfectly around the global speculation that AI’s a bubble, it’s a genuine reflection of where the most consequential AI work is actually happening right now, in robotics labs, automotive platforms, wearables, and manufacturing floors across the Greater Bay Area.
BEYOND has been building toward this moment since Dr. Lu Gang launched it during a global lockdown in 2021, a decision he’s called delusional in hindsight during an interview with Yanko Design, but with the kind of grin that says he’d do it again. The original problem he was solving was simpler than people realize: Asia’s most interesting founders kept showing up at CES and Web Summit as attendees rather than headliners. A hardware startup out of Shenzhen with genuinely world-class AI chops would get a 3×3 booth on a back wall while the stage went to the usual suspects. BEYOND was built to fix that imbalance, and five years in, it’s working.
The 2026 edition is aiming for 30,000 attendees, a significant jump from 2024’s 20,000, and the programming reflects a maturing event that knows its own strengths. The summit lineup spans Humanoid Robotics and Embodied AI, Enterprise Agentic Workflows, Autonomous Driving, AI-Integrated Wearables, and a PayFi and Decentralized AI track that will either feel prescient or premature depending on your priors. What ties all of it together is the through-line of AI becoming something you interact with physically, not just through a chat interface. That’s a meaningful editorial choice, and one that puts BEYOND in a different conversation than conferences still treating large language models as the whole story.
The most interesting addition this year is the GBA Innovation Tour, which gives international attendees direct access to Greater Bay Area manufacturing infrastructure. This matters more than it might sound. Lu Gang has argued for years that what makes Asia’s tech ecosystem genuinely different isn’t just the innovation pipeline, it’s the compression of the distance between idea and physical product. Watching an AI concept move from prototype to production in a Shenzhen facility in weeks rather than months is something you can describe in a keynote, but apparently you need to see it to really understand the scale and speed involved. The tour is BEYOND’s way of making that argument visceral rather than theoretical.
Last year’s theme, “Unveiling Possibilities,” was about reframing uncertainty as creative fuel, which was the right message for a chaotic moment. “AI: Digital to Physical” is more declarative, more confident. It names a specific transition that the industry is mid-stride through, and plants BEYOND squarely in the middle of it. Registration and exhibition details are live at beyondexpo.com.
Certain kinds of architecture don’t announce themselves. La Maraude, the latest project by Nathalie Thibodeau Architecte, is exactly that — a compact residential dwelling tucked into the dense woodlands of Boileau, in Quebec’s Outaouais region, that earns its presence through restraint rather than spectacle. Completed in 2024, it’s one of the more quietly compelling houses to come out of Canada in recent memory.
The name itself carries meaning. ‘Maraude’ — to roam, to forage — hints at the relationship the house cultivates with its surroundings. Rather than claiming a dominant position along the river’s edge, the architects deliberately set the home deeper within the treeline, orienting the house’s interior life entirely toward the forest. It’s a gesture that shapes everything else about the project.
The design draws directly from Quebec’s vernacular architectural tradition — steeply pitched rooflines, grounded proportions, and a material palette that feels native to the region. The exterior is clad in natural cedar shingles and topped with a metal roof, two materials with deep roots in the local building culture. These aren’t nostalgic choices. They’re translated through a contemporary lens, stripped of ornament, reduced to their essential geometry. “Designed with particular attention to simplicity, functionality, and respect for traditional codes, La Maraude embodies a successful dialogue between contemporary architecture and local traditions,” says Nathalie Thibodeau Architecte.
What makes the spatial sequence genuinely interesting is the use of two courtyards as organizing devices. The plan doesn’t simply open to the outdoors — it pulls the forest in, fragmenting the landscape into a series of framed views that shift with the seasons. One courtyard faces north, more sheltered and partly enclosed by the building itself, oriented toward higher ground. The other faces south, brighter and more expansive, drawing the eye down toward the lower terrain. The result is a house that reads differently in every light condition, every month of the year.
The second volume, arranged over two levels in response to the site’s slope, plays a more introverted role. Openings here are smaller and precisely placed to frame specific moments within the tree canopy — quiet apertures rather than panoramic statements.
Photographed by Maxime Brouillet, La Maraude has the look of a project that will age well, both materially and culturally. It’s already being discussed as a potential anchor for a broader ensemble of small retreats on the site — a first building in what could become a considered, evolving conversation between architecture and landscape.
The open-source community has a long history of doing more with abandoned hardware than the original manufacturers ever did. The PSP got emulators Sony never approved. The Wii got homebrew loaders that ran software Nintendo pretended didn’t exist. The pattern repeats because the hardware is always fine; it’s the corporate support structure around it that evaporates. The Spotify Car Thing joined that lineage in December 2024 when Spotify killed server-side authentication and turned every unit into an expensive knob with a screen attached.
Nocturne picked up where Spotify dropped off. The project launched in October 2024, anticipating the shutdown, and has shipped four major versions since. V4.0.0, currently in beta with a public release imminent, finally delivers true Bluetooth connectivity without phone tethering, a companion app, and a feature set that makes the original Spotify firmware look like a rough draft.
Developer: Nocturne Team (Brandon Saldan, Dominic Frye, and contributors)
The Car Thing runs a 512MB RAM, 4GB storage Amlogic S905D2 SoC, which is a polite way of saying it has the processing power of a mid-range router from 2015. Early versions of Nocturne required a Raspberry Pi as a co-processor just to get the thing online, which was a heroic workaround but not exactly mainstream-friendly. V3 replaced that with Bluetooth tethering through your phone’s hotspot. V4 cuts the tether entirely, pairing directly via Bluetooth through the new Nocturne Companion app, which requires a Nocturne+ subscription to fund the team’s continued development.
What the photos make immediately clear is how clean the UI actually looks in practice. The now-playing screen pulls album art and renders it as a full bleed gradient background, the same visual logic Spotify used but executed with noticeably more polish in edge cases. The typography is large and glanceable. The playlist browser view is dense but organized, using album thumbnails and track titles in a layout that navigates naturally with the knob. Image 3 shows a subtle ambient lighting effect around the screen border, a rainbow glow that responds to the current track, which is the kind of detail you wouldn’t expect from a community firmware project running on 2021 budget hardware.
The gesture control, OTA updates, Spotify Connect device switcher, podcast support, local file playback, and DJ mode all carried over from V3. The V4 architecture also bakes in full offline functionality, meaning the firmware survives without Spotify’s servers being cooperative, which was precisely the failure mode that bricked every original unit in the first place.
Nocturne’s GitHub currently lists V3.0.0 as the stable release, with V4.0.0 accessible to donors via Discord while the team finishes the public build. If you’ve got a Car Thing in a drawer, the installation guide at usenocturne.com is the next tab you should open.
Wheelhome is a budding compact camping solutions enterprise in the United Kingdom. It is changing the way camping is perceived and how all-electric camping trips can be made more convenient. First, it launched the electric rooftop camper for the Tesla’s popular Model 3, and now it is offering other lighter vehicle owners an alternative for solo or two-person camping with the new Dashaway ECT micro camping trailers.
Designed for efficient electric camping trips, the Dashaway ECT trailer comes in two variants: a solo version and a two-person model. The campers are packed with all the amenities and facilities one needs, from a lounge to beds and a toilet to a kitchen, so they can be fully packed for all sorts of camping requirements.
A provided awning is one of the major highlights of the Dashaway ECT series. It is part of the trailer and delivers an additional outer space that can be used for a portable toilet. Of course, it is optional, but with awning rolled up on the front of the trailer when riding, you have the option of expanding the living space. It can unfurl easily and attach to the roof and two side poles to create a sizable space. Besides the awning, the trailer is otherwise similar to the other options on the market, measuring 12.5 feet long and about 5.3 feet wide, but it differentiates itself in the convenience campers can have inside.
When in drive mode, the Dashaway ECTS one berth and the ECT 2 two berth pack down to a height of 3.8 feet. At the camp, both models can pop up to the height of 6 feet. Setting up the trailers is as easy as it can get. No additional tools or any specific training is necessary. The process takes a few minutes. First, using a motorized mover the trailer can be positioned using a remote control, without even the tow vehicle. When in place, the stabilizer legs are lowered and the roof can be lifted up using a gas strut-assisted crank and the fabric side-walled camp is ready to live.
However, before you start living, you can access the camper via single rear entry and layout the furniture and furnishing inside (which folds down when the camper is packed for the road). The interior has the kitchen setup at the entrance complete with an induction hob, kettle, air fryer, and microwave, and then is the seating lounge facing outward, toward the camp entry. The seat also accommodates a 12L fridge underneath. The lounge – depending on the berth configuration you have picked – is either one seat or two. the seats flatten down into a single or double bed at night. The sides are provided with large windows covered with mesh, which light up the interior.
Wheelhome provides the ECT series with ample storage cabinets and compartments under the seat(s). The trailer features a 3-kWh lithium battery, 200-watt rooftop solar panel connected to a 3,000 W inverter. Dashaway ECTS is available for a starting price of £19,750 (roughly $26,000), and the ECT2 is priced at £26,225 (about $35,000).
