According to The How-To Geek, the tech world saw several notable developments this past week. The Pebble Round smartwatch is officially returning with a second-generation model, continuing the brand’s indie comeback. In media server news, a developer has created an iPhone app that lets you manage your Plex library by swiping through titles like you’re on Tinder. On the business side, the GOG game storefront has been sold by CD Projekt to its co-founder, Michal Kicinski, for $25.2 million. Meanwhile, the classic MAME emulator hit version 0.284, adding support for an unreleased Atari game among other updates, and a new project called Phoenix has launched as another effort to revive the aging X11 display system for Linux.
Pebble’s Charm Offensive
Look, the return of Pebble is one of those feel-good stories in tech that you just want to root for. It’s a brand that built a cult following on clever e-paper displays, insane battery life, and a developer-friendly ethos before getting steamrolled by the Apple and Google juggernauts. Now it’s back, and launching a follow-up to the Pebble Round—arguably its most stylish and niche design—is a fascinating move. It tells me they’re confident. They’re not just rehashing the safe, rectangular Time model; they’re going for the fashion-forward, thin-profile play that originally had limited appeal. Here’s the thing: the smartwatch market is now utterly dominated by giants. Can a revived indie player carve out a sustainable niche just on nostalgia and good design? I think it’s possible, but the margin for error is basically zero.
The Tinder-fication of Everything
So someone built an app to manage your Plex server by swiping left or right on media titles. On one level, it’s a hilarious and genius solution to a real first-world problem: decision paralysis when your 50TB server is full. But it also highlights a broader trend we’re seeing everywhere. Gamification. Reducing complex curation or organizational tasks into simple, addictive, binary actions. It works for dating, so why not for your movie collection? The real question is whether this actually leads to better decisions or just faster, more impulsive ones. “I swiped left on the entire Lord of the Rings extended edition trilogy during a boring meeting… oops.”
linux-s-x11-zombie”>Linux’s X11 Zombie
The news about another X11 revival project, Phoenix, made me sigh. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the impulse. Wayland, the modern replacement, has been a years-long transition fraught with compatibility hiccups, especially for power users and gamers with specific setups. X11 just works for them. But here’s the thing: X11 is a architectural relic from the 80s. It’s incredibly complex and has fundamental security and performance limitations that Wayland was built to solve. Every new project like Phoenix that keeps it on life support potentially fragments developer effort and slows the inevitable. It’s like watching people lovingly restore and drive a classic car that, frankly, has terrible emissions and no airbags. The love is real, but the future is elsewhere.
GOG’s Gamble
GOG being sold by CD Projekt for $25.2 million is a huge deal, but maybe not for the reasons you think. That price tag? It seems almost shockingly low for a major, established PC game storefront. That tells you everything about the challenging economics of running a DRM-free game store in a market dominated by Steam. CD Projekt was likely seeing it as a non-core cost center. But for Michal Kicinski, the co-founder who bought it, this is a passion play. He believes in the DRM-free mission. The risk is massive—going it alone without a deep-pocketed parent—but the potential reward is preserving a unique and principled corner of the gaming ecosystem. I’m skeptical about its growth prospects, but I’m glad someone is willing to fight for it.
The Niche App Renaissance
Stepping back, a lot of this week’s news is about niche tools for dedicated audiences. The AOL Instant Messenger clone for that 90s nostalgia hit. Kiwix getting updates for offline Wikipedia browsing. LibreOffice, of all things, arriving on VR headsets. It feels like we’re in an era where the big platforms are so homogenized and algorithm-driven that there’s a real counter-movement. People are building (and using) highly specific software that does one weird thing perfectly for a small group of enthusiasts. It’s not about mass appeal. It’s about serving a community that the big guys ignore. And honestly? That’s where a lot of the fun in tech is right now.
