Twenty five years after Halo Combat Evolved redefined console shooters on the original Xbox, a fan project has moved its multiplayer suite onto the Nintendo 64. Halo 64, created by Jack Tulli and available on GitHub, runs the original game’s objects, physics, collision detection, weapons, game types, HUD and pathfinding on the N64’s VR4300 processor. Maps come from a player’s own Xbox disc image. A new renderer, menu system, HUD drawing and sound layer sit on top of libdragon and tiny3d.
NASA just laid out clear progress on the vehicles that will let astronauts move around the lunar south pole and help set up the first lasting outpost there. The October 20 update and accompanying video show both the robotic scouts and the crewed lunar terrain vehicles staying on schedule for delivery and arrival well before crews touch down.
Maker Ivan Miranda is no stranger to turning ordinary glass marbles into reliable timekeepers. His latest machine abandons fixed digits entirely. Instead of showing hours and minutes, a massive circular wheel slowly rotates while black and white marbles form continuous scrolling text around its outer edge.
A small white cube sits on its motorized base and quietly sweeps left, right, up, and down at your command. The Blink Mini Pan-Tilt Camera, priced at $23.99 today (was $40), plugs into any wall outlet, connects to 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi in minutes through the Blink app, and gives you control over nearly an entire room from a phone or tablet. Its 110-degree lens sits on a base that pans roughly 350 degrees and tilts about 125 degrees, so you can check the far corner of a living room, glance at a hallway entrance, or look down at the floor without walking over to move the camera yourself.
Hexbugs start as tiny plastic toys that scurry around floors on the strength of a single vibrating motor and a few angled bristles. One maker took that basic idea and scaled it up until a person could climb aboard. The result, shown in a recent video, looks more like a moving plywood platform than a finished robot, yet it does travel under its own power once someone sits down.