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It's made for viewing 70mm IMAX /s

Oh, it's some different AT protocol (some distributed mambojambo) than Hayes AT protocol.

Someone also posted a link to the Hayes command set and I was glad.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49567961


Yeah I was super confused for a minute, wondering what cool and fun use someone found for this old protocol.

It's been extended to include connecting SSH sessions.

It's been a few years, but it's something like

  ATDS"username:password@host:port"

+++ATH0+++ ... good times

AT

ATZ

AT&F

ATDT5551234


My first job in IT was at AOL tech support and we could rattle off AT modem strings from memory :)

Or you know what, just use built-in dictation. MacOS would be the last platform where I vibe-build my dictation-app for.

Perfect, I don’t have to go on this tangent on my own!

Apple’s dictation feature has great theoretical UX and an implementation so bad that it practically does not exist.


=))))))

That would be oddly precise. More like "up to 50", or depending on speaker, "up to 100". /s


It would also be incorrect. "Up to" doesn't mean any possible upper bound, it describes the top of a known range. I can't say a car I'm selling goes "up to" 900mph if it tops out at 120mph.


Well, depends. Maybe it can go up to 900mph¹?

¹ drivers are responsible to get the car into a low earth orbit themselves and need to be familiar with the orbital maneuvers needed to accelerate the car to 900mph


Don't forget that US prices usually do not include the VAT, while EU prices usually do include respective VAT.


A lot of us in America have no sales tax (if that’s what you mean by VAT) and those that do have it at a fraction of EU VAT rates.


> A lot of us in America have no sales tax

Not that many of us, actually. Only Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, and some parts of Delaware and Alaska have no sales tax. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sales_tax_by_county....


I'm sure plenty of Idahoans and Washingtonians, for instance, take advantage of their neighbor status for high ticket items like this...


Except that you then have to pay a "use tax" of 6%:

https://tax.idaho.gov/taxes/sales-use/use-tax/online-guide/

This is difficult to enforce, but it seems that "taking advantage" is strictly speaking just tax fraud.


New Tamron lenses have built-in usb-c port close to the lens mount. The utility just replicates what official Windows/Mac software does - not much, configuration of focus-by-wire, corrections, button functions.


Sounds weird to me to have this functionality on the lens in the first place.


Modern lenses are complex electronics now. They need to communicate with the camera about correction params, metadata, control algorithm for focusing and stabilization. Having a usbc port is a natural next step.


Lenses have energy budgets, responsiveness concerns and actuator/sensor pairings through embedded processing. Therefore they need firmware. Firmware goes out of date and has bugs and improvements. Having the ability to configure a lens beyond simply selecting firmware is an obvious second use of the required interface.


Firmware doesn't inherently have more bugs than hardware, in general that's a consequence of the ability to update it more than the other way around. Here the need for an update-able firmware comes more from implementation a reverse engineered interface which might need fixes for compatibility with future cameras or updated camera firmware that only care about official vendor approved lenses (which consequently don't have a need for an update interface). However that still doesn't explain who would want things like auto-focus fine tuning or assignable buttons in the lens rather than the camera body where it already exists. Just because the USB interface is there doesn't mean that this use of it is useful.


> However that still doesn't explain who would want things like auto-focus fine tuning or assignable buttons in the lens rather than the camera body where it already exists.

1) not all camera bodies include those fine tuning options in the camera firmware;

2) lenses that include additional buttons beyond that which the camera maker programmed the body to understand can't be tweaked by a body that was never programmed to know the button exists;

3) in the specific case of some Tamron zooms, the Tamron focus fine tuning is at up to five different distance figures, while most camera body focus fine tuning is a single global setting for that one lens;

4) for camera bodies that do include focus tuning in their firmware, they also usually have a limited number of slots for a limited number of lenses. For professionals they very well may own more lenses than the camera has slots, so being able to "tune the lens" via "the lens itself" means each can be fine tuned, even if the camera body cannot store that many different adjustments;

5) an adjustment the camera maker never thought to include (i.e., one example quoted in the repo where the focus ring direction can be reversed) can not be tweaked by the camera body. This is useful to photographers who mix lenses from different makers on the same body as Canon builds their focus rings to rotate one way when focusing towards infinity while Nikon builds their focus rings to rotate in the opposite direction towards infinity.


Modern DSLR camera lenses are full blown embedded computers controlling mechanical actuators (focus motor, aperture blades, etc.) and communicating lens information to the camera's CPU (aberration corrections, vignetting corrections, etc.). The days of lenses just being collections of mechanical cams for moving glass elements back and forth disappeared a great many years ago.


Plenty lens manufacturers from China have a small USB port either in on the lens itself or its cap. Mostly of updating its software.

Here is a good example of what it can do for the Kase lens.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HWL6kGUHbCg


503. Serving websites is a solved problem since 30 years. Even RPi powered via GPIO pins should be able to serve that website... /s


> Not a backdoor, but a documented CPU feature.

I would be even more explicit and call it “Not a backdoor, but a documented feature of ancient de facto unused Via C3 CPU.”


What is special about this? Does it cost $20? Is it a cheap smart phone (why do they call it a hybrid phone?) targetting India (mentioning of cricket)?


The little print at the end says "Currently only available in India."

Reminds me a bit of HMD's KaiOS feature phones but this is apparently Android?


> The little print at the end says "Currently only available in India."

I think that was made obvious by the big thing on the marketing website scroll about checking cricket scores.


Because India is the only country that cares about cricket?

They're not even the only country in Asia where cricket's big.


I believe GP’s point is India is the place a company would highlight cricket scores above other marketing lines.


Cricket season is just starting up. I could see this ad in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, or hell, even Australia. India's not special.


Do you have some examples? I love to explore such things.


No, it uses RTOS Touch. Looks like HMD/Nokia gave up on KaiOS a few years ago.


which makes it a new platform. any other phone uses rtos touch ?


Apparently some other HMD devices (HMD 105, HMD 110) use "RTOS". Most likely their proprietary feature phone OS, don't expect it will provide an option for user-installable apps.


It says "Small phone".

And it is indeed smaller than most smartphones. Apple never made a small smartphone, presumably because they need the big screen for their vending-machine-in-your-pocket to sell more content.


Ikko MindOne Pro is small phone, could be a usable device if it had better software


Apple struggles to sell budget models of their phones, everyone wants at least the standard version. Why would they try to sell an even tinier phone than the SE? No one will buy it. The Apple Watch is a tiny device with its own SIM but that's not a phone, it's a smartwatch so its really an accessory to your phone.


> And it is indeed smaller than most smartphones. Apple never made a small smartphone

I couldn't find specs for this thing but from the picture it looks to be about the same size as the original iPhone.


A bit smaller.

Touch 4G: 102 x 62 x 11

iPhone: 115 x 61 x 12

The Samsung Z Flip is probably your best bet if small size is the most important factor - though, er, slightly more expensive than the HMD!

Z Flip 7: 86 x 75 x 13


Thanks so that's like the same ballpark, which kind of validates my counterpoint about "small" phones (which at the time were considered immense)

Flip phone is cheating! Haha kidding. Still a Z Flip 7 is giant when unfolded.


I mean, depending on what you mean by "small smartphone", the early models definitely count (3.5"-4" diagonal). They were huge screens for their time, but nowadays everything's a phablet so they look tiny by comparison.


many people await the return of the iphone mini...


Yes you still see so many around. They might not have sold enough by Apple standards but they still sold in huge absolute numbers.


Conversely, I am counting 6 persons (7 when including myself) in my direct close circle that do not upgrade because there is no Mini on the Apple lineup.

I'm not counting people that did upgrade but are spiteful of the forced size increase.


I'm really not surprised. The mini is sooo cute.

I'd have got one myself but iOS doesn't work for me.. I have several things I need on a mobile phone that are not available on iOS.

For me a phone is really an outside the house thing only. I don't use it at home to poke around on the internet etc, like most people do these days. I still have a real computer with a massive screen and keyboard. So a mini size is great for me.

On Android there's the ones from Unihertz but they take the "small" factor a little bit too far, and also their software support is absolutely terrible. And people often mention the zenPhone, I'm not sure why because it was never smaller than the Samsung S-series. It wasn't really a small phone anyway.


₹4,199 it seems, which is about $45.


This is perfect. I've been looking for a burner phone for when I'm in Guayaquil. Something I wouldn't mind losing in a robbery.


Why would you voluntarily go to a place where you expect to be robbed?

I go to places where there is very little, to no, risk of being robbed. This is good.


Maybe they have relatives there. Maybe their job requires them to.


Family and food. Guayaquil has the best bolón.


3.2" display. Weighs 100g. Cheap (presumably)


Someone had an idea, neat idea, but solved 10 years ago already.

Edit: GPT-5.5 says: "The hidden text is “HAPPY HUMAN.”

The outlined decoy text is “SORRY ROBOT.” Blurring or viewing it from farther away reveals the hidden message."


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