Matthew Lim decided to experiment with an ESP32 board that sports a tiny 8×8 LED matrix, capable of flickering through a digital recreation of fluid that looked eerily similar to moving water. He found it fascinating, and an idea sprang to mind: try if he could fit a few pieces of hobbyist gear into a pocket-sized 3D window.
Las Vegas recently put ten Tesla Cybertrucks in police colors on display along the strip. Drivers appear to be slowing down, tourists are pausing to take photos on their phones, and officers are hurrying to get behind the wheel of a vehicle right out of a science fiction film. These trucks are increasingly responding to actual emergencies, such as traffic stops on Fremont Street and rescue missions in Red Rock Canyon.
Throaty Mumbo opens a box from the 1990s sealed with packaging tape and pulls out a copy of Netscape Navigator 4.5 that has been shrink wrapped for longer than he has been alive. The plastic wrapping “cracks” like thin ice on a winter pond. Inside, there’s a gleaming CD-ROM, a stack of floppy disks that appear to have been there for decades, and a gigantic 300-page manual that’s thicker than a phone book.
Toyota has a habit of appearing unexpectedly, and the 2025 SEMA Show in Las Vegas is no exception. Amidst the roaring clamor of customized muscle cars and the brilliant glimmer of chrome everywhere, the automaker just unveiled the bZ Time Attack Concept, a battery electric crossover built for the track. Toyota created this vehicle to slice corners on time attack circuits and power up challenging hillclimbs.
Seventeen years after its debut, Grand Theft Auto 4 is still stuck with the same ancient engine it first trotted out way back in 2008. But even as the streets shine under those familiar sodium lamps, it all just looks kind of flat. Shadows aren’t really doing much, reflections are dull and matte, and every surface goes for that tell-tale sheen of a game that was built before global illumination went mainstream. Then the magic happens with the RTX Remix mod courtesy of the genius Xoxor4d. Path tracing kicks in, and suddenly Liberty City is a whole different world.
Anker may be known for their power banks but the Soundcore 2 is a portable Bluetooth speaker that has people coming back for more. At $27.99 on sale (down from $44.99) this palm-sized brick sounds so good you’ll question every overpriced Bluetooth speaker you’ve ever bought.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has pulled off a spooky gift for Halloween . A star is on its last legs in the constellation Sagittarius – thousands of light years away. Stars like our Sun follow a rather predictable path. They burn hydrogen for billions of years before eventually running out of steam. As the outer layers expand, the center begins to contract.
Japanese Honda dealers sell the Civic Type R for around $40,000 at invoice, while Porsche starts the 718 Boxster at $53,000. On paper, the mid-engine roadster wins the prestige battle. Then Mugen releases its Group.B catalog. When all the options are added up, the Honda’s price is over $103,000 (including the Type R itself), almost double the base price of the Boxster and enough to buy a loaded GTS 4.0 with change to spare.
Sharon Aluma stands in the center of what appears to be a typical loading dock in America, but there are no forklifts in sight. As the product manager for Stretch at Boston Dynamics, she understands that this is not for show. It’s a complete warehouse squeezed inside a test facility, with banging metal doors and the faint odor of cardboard dust. The engineers here spend their days watching Stretch, the company’s box-hauling robot, grapple with the same freight that powers e-commerce titans.
Photo credit: Bangooh
Bangooh stunned the internet with a Game Boy Advance SP carrying a DeWalt power-tool battery on its back. The setup claims 404 hours of playtime—enough to finish many RPGs without needing to recharge.