Rooms come alive as thousands of LEDs illuminate in perfect time over a large 50×50 panel. Chris Maher took on this task by converting regular light strips into that massive display without breaking the bank or requiring several controllers. His finished presentation plays well on a single 12-volt power supply and some pretty tiny gear, offering professional-looking animations, text, and patterns.
Apple announced a huge leadership shake-up earlier today. Tim Cook will step down as CEO of the company he has headed for nearly 15 years on September 1st. That post will be filled by John Ternus, who has been with Apple for 25 years, essentially crafting out the modern product line itself. Cook is leaving down but will remain executive chairman, where he will oversee global policy and board activities.
Photo credit: 2 Warps to Neptune
In 1974, Nintendo kicked off their coin-operated arcade era with Wild Gunman. This game required players to step up, pull a handgun from a holster, and face off against some unfriendly live-action gunslingers on a projection screen. Footage came from authentic film reels filmed on site in Japan, capturing the wild west-style shootouts in all their gritty grandeur. Timing was everything here. You could only draw and shoot after your eyes flashed and the word “FIRE” appeared on the screen. Get it right, and you’ll come out on top. If you mess up, draw too soon, or miss your shot, you will lose the duel.
Smartglasses seldom stay in style for this long, but the first Ray-Ban Meta model, priced at $247 (was $329), continues to draw those looking for the full experience without breaking the bank. Let’s start with how they look, because that’s the first thing that may turn some people off, but these frames fit just like old Ray-Bans, so if you put them on, no one will notice.
A recent project by Double M Innovations takes a really simple concept and turns it into something rather unique by sandwiching some tritium vials between conventional solar cells to create a self-contained nuclear power source.
Smartphones have long promised a world of gaming on the go, but most of the time we’re still tapping away at our glass screens, with nothing to grip onto when things get hot. OnePlus took a close look at this and set out to solve the problem by designing the Ace 6 Ultra around a simple concept: give the phone an optional add-on with genuine buttons and a reasonable grip while keeping the screen open for touch controls. Surprisingly, it feels exactly like upgrading to a standard handheld console, and it works much better than you might expect.
Lightning crossed the finish line in Beijing after completing the 13-mile half-marathon course in 50 minutes and 26 seconds. It blasted the men’s half-marathon world record into small bits and crossed the finish line ahead of roughly 12,000 runners hammering the pavement in their respective lanes.
Programmers have managed to cram the original Mac OS X onto a Nintendo Wii from 2006, a piece of hardware that is nearly 20 years old. Bryan Keller, the brains behind this, spent a year and a half developing tools to make it happen through a project called wiiMac. The result lets the Wii boot into Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah and handle basic tasks even if the experience moves slowly on such limited hardware.
