TechEBlog -

Soviet CD Players Used Glass Discs Helium Neon Lasers and Static Sensitive Buttons

By Jackson Chung March 29, 2026

Soviet engineers faced a constant uphill battle keeping pace with the rapid development of consumer electronics, working without access to foreign components or technical blueprints. Nowhere was that more apparent than in their approach to compact disc technology. Work on the Luch-001 prototype player wrapped up in 1979, but the result was a genuinely strange machine, reading data from glass discs using a helium-neon laser. Production didn’t take off because they couldn’t make enough, and red tape slowed things down for years.

Inside the Rarely Seen Sony DKC-C200X Passport Camera That Prints Photos Wirelessly

By Bill Smith March 29, 2026

Long before phone cameras became the answer to almost every photography need, Sony released something in 2003 that took a very different approach to the whole idea of a camera. The DKC-C200X was built for one job and one job only, capturing passport and ID photos on the spot. Designed to work as part of Sony’s UPX-C200 system alongside a dedicated printer, the whole setup operated as a self contained unit with no cables or connections required, making it exactly what post offices and ID processing centers needed to turn around photos quickly and reliably

Apple Mac Pro’s Journey Ends After Two Decades of Evolution and Stagnation

By Jackson Chung March 28, 2026

Apple has quietly pulled the Mac Pro from its online store, bringing an end to a machine that spent nearly two decades as the definitive choice for creative professionals who needed every last bit of computing muscle available. Built on the Power Mac foundation, the early towers earned their place in post-production houses and research labs by offering the kind of internal expandability that let users slot in extra storage, graphics cards, and specialized hardware as their needs grew, a level of flexibility that made them genuinely hard to walk away from.

Fascinating Look Back at BlackBerry’s PlayBook, the Compact Tablet From 2011 That Had Real Promise

By Jackson Chung March 28, 2026

BlackBerry entered the tablet market in the spring of 2011 with the PlayBook, a 7-inch tablet that had to compete with larger offerings from Apple and others. People who picked one up quickly noticed how portable it was, fitting easily into a bag or coat pocket for on-the-go use.

Scientists Observe Atoms Existing in Two Places at Once

By Jackson Chung March 28, 2026

Australian researchers have pulled off something that quantum theory predicted but nobody had managed to actually observe in matter until now. Working with pairs of helium atoms, they captured the particles existing in two different locations simultaneously, their behavior frozen in a way that has no equivalent in everyday experience. It is the first direct observation of this phenomenon in matter rather than light, and it opens a new window into how the fundamental building blocks of our world actually behave.

Large Screens Get Real with the 75″ Hisense U6 Series Mini-LED 4K UHD Smart Fire TV (75U65QF)

By Jackson Chung March 28, 2026

Home theater enthusiasts looking for a large display frequently consider a high price tag as a huge hurdle, since the entire idea feels out of reach, but the 75U65QF from Hisense, priced at $550 (was $900), is an exception to this norm. This mini-LED set packs a lot of punch at a price that feels reasonable given what you get for your money.

Mac Gaming Takes an Unexpected Turn With the M5 Max MacBook Pro

By Bill Smith March 28, 2026

When Apple dropped the M5 Max into the latest MacBook Pro, the obvious question was how far the chip could be pushed beyond the usual creative and productivity workloads. Andrew Tsai decided to find out, loading up 20 Windows games and running them through the CrossOver translation layer. The results were surprising to say the least, with the MacBook delivering solid frame rates in demanding titles that were never designed with Apple silicon in mind.

Handy Geng Turns a Loss to His Brother Into Victory With a Giant Sword on an Excavator

By Bill Smith March 28, 2026

Handy Geng is a rural Hebei province, China-based maker with a talent for taking ordinary equipment and pushing it somewhere nobody expected. After suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of his younger brother during a full commitment LARP battle, complete with cardboard barrel armor / oversized weapons, and after taking several very convincing hits from a spiked war hammer that sounded considerably more painful than it had any right to, Geng decided that conventional retaliation simply was not going to cut it.

Wesley Treat Laser-Welded a Giant Aluminum Head of Himself

By Bill Smith March 28, 2026

Wesley Treat had his face scanned as part of a collaborative 3D model library project with other makers, and when he saw his own scan sitting in the archive he decided it deserved a more permanent form. The result is a strangely fascinating aluminum portrait, roughly life sized and built from dozens of flat welded panels, that now lives in his workshop and stops people in their tracks the moment they walk past it.

Sony’s Patent Reveals How a Smartphone Could Snap Onto the DualSense and Unlock New Ways to Play

By Bill Smith March 27, 2026

Sony PlayStation DualSense Controller Patent Smartphone
Photo credit: Sarang Sheth | Yanko Design
A recently uncovered Sony patent shows how users could connect a smartphone directly to the DualSense controller. The entire concept revolves around connecting two pieces of hardware that most people already own and using them to create a seamless gaming experience directly into PlayStation. Some drawings included with the application show a phone simply placed on top of the controller’s analog sticks and triggers. A magnetic thingy holds everything together, so you can simply plug your phone in and it transforms into a single, compact handheld item.