Follow Us Twitter / Facebook / RSS

Microsoft Surface Duo reviews Microsoft's Surface Duo is a clamshell device about the size of a pocket notebook. Open it up and there are two facing touchscreens. Is it any good? The Verge's Dieter Bohn says the hardware design is excellent, but it's buggy and far too expensive at $1400. The feel of opening this device like a book […] SHARE / TWEET / 11 COMMENTS

Reviewers of AmazonBasics gear complain of dangerous items A CNN investigation into the AmazonBasics lineup of inexpensive yet seemingly good-enough electronics gear found dozens of products that melted, exploded or started fires: "Dozens of AmazonBasics product are flagged as dangerous, but many are still being sold." consumers have raised serious safety concerns about AmazonBasics items in complaints to government regulators and in reviews […] SHARE / TWEET / 42 COMMENTS

The Decision Maker Are you facing a difficult decision? A binary one? The Decision Maker is for you. A pendulum forced by the power of magnetism to oscillate between signs marked "YES" and "NO" until coming to settle on one of them, the Decision Maker is a simple and surprisingly time-consuming way to put your future in the […] SHARE / TWEET / 10 COMMENTS

Hackable Raspberry Pi handheld computer Yarh-io is a handheld Linux-based computer with keyboard, trackpad and 800×480-pixel display made with a Raspberry Pi 3B+, a custom 3D-printed case and many hours of love. [via Liliputing] YARH.IO is a fully hackable and custamizable Raspberry Pi based handheld, running Raspberry Pi OS and supporting all other Operating Systems available for Raspberry Pi. The […] SHARE / TWEET / 17 COMMENTS

8bitdo Arcade Stick 8bitdo makes the only game controllers I like, and they just announced a proper six-button Arcade Stick [Amazon] for October release. It works on Nintendo Switch and Windows, connects via Bluetooth or USB Type-C, and supports custom mapping and macros. The list price is $90, it's 30x20cm, and they make a point of its mounting […] SHARE / TWEET / 7 COMMENTS

Vintage Japanese landline phone has nice ring Viral today is this brief but charming clip of an old Japanese landline phone ringing. It's adorable! Below, evidence that this is or was a normal ring in Japan, for any "Japanese phones had a nice ring" disbelievers out there. SHARE / TWEET / 15 COMMENTS

Tiny custom "iMac" Michael Pick created a fully-functional miniature "iMac", slicing down a Raspberry Pi 4 (with a Dremel!) to fit inside his custom-printed case. He takes us through the process of designing the device and assembling it; the keyboard is the only retail item left unhacked. At that size, you'd never know it was running Twister OS, […] SHARE / TWEET / 8 COMMENTS

Hidden cameras "everywhere" in Korean hotels This BBC report examines the "molka" phenomenon in South Korea (previously at BB): the proliferation of hidden wireless cameras in toilets and hotel rooms, and the culture of blackmail and revenge porn around it. "How many spycams can Stacey Dooley find in a love motel bedroom?" Pornography is illegal in South Korea, and molka has […] SHARE / TWEET / 17 COMMENTS

Lack Rack: Ikea's cheapest table is perfectly sized to rackmount computers #lackrackNeed a network rack in a pinch? £5. IKEA LACK Rack. pic.twitter.com/Wn257GEqWr — Paul Curry (@cr3) August 14, 2020 I recently saw a Lack Rack—an inexpensive Ikea Lack table put to use rackmounting servers—and now I keep running into them. Pictured above is Paul Curry's £5 example, replete with vinyl wood texture. They need little […] SHARE / TWEET / 25 COMMENTS

The suitcase computer of 2020 The a-X sereies of portable workstations resemble the earliest laptops, but are fully contemporary beasts fitted with top-of-the-range AMD Threadripper CPUs, up to 256GB of RAM and dual GPUs. And price tags hovering around $8000. PC Gamer: Picture this: you sit down in a meeting alongside your colleagues. They pull out their Surfaces, iPads, phones, […] SHARE / TWEET / 76 COMMENTS

Spider Board: horripilating data recovery There are many nondescript and mundane tools for data recovery, but the Spider Board is not one of them. It lives up to its name, with 25 leglike needles that, carefully placed on copper traces on a denuded card, suck the data out of them like fly juice. PC-3000 Flash Spider Board Adapter is a […] SHARE / TWEET / 9 COMMENTS

£30 record player is fine Terence Eden found a turntable [Amazon] that cost only £30 (~$40): "I accidentally bought a load of vinyl records. So I decided to buy the cheapest, shittiest, turntable possible," he writes. For firty paands he even gets a USB port to rip the records directly to digital. Is it any good? Not really. It plays […] SHARE / TWEET / 32 COMMENTS

Mew is a furry, purring, wailing theremin Emily Groves' Mew is an interactive furry slab. When you approach it, it begins to purr. When you stroke it, the purring intensifies and miaowing commences. If you stroke it too hard, the miaowing becomes wailing and hissing. Mew was part of a collaborative sound object project between Design Products, Information Experience Design and Visual […] SHARE / TWEET / 18 COMMENTS

Quack 5G protection gadget just a copper tube in a light box Quackometer checked out a gadget that purports to "protect" users from 5G. It's probably a scam, as 5G is as safe as any other radio transmission and you don't need protection from it. But what's in the box, exactly? Turns out it's a battery-powered light and a copper tube. Whatever the copper device is doing, […] SHARE / TWEET / 62 COMMENTS

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 Magic Keyboard. It's flat, minimalist, heavy, solid and low-profile, with large backlit keys typeset in something similar to Futura Light. The keys are square with […] SHARE / TWEET / 48 COMMENTS