Modding News - Page 1

Fandom can be wonderful, where passion and dedication can lead to some truly impressive feats. Case in point, The Time Trekking Technologist and his Star Trek-inspired Shuttle PC created in part to celebrate the new Star Trek Picard TV series. With three months of design, 3D printing, painting, and wiring, the DIY PC build is always exciting to see.

Star Trek PC mod, credit: The Time Trekking Technologist

The video covering the build is a fun watch, as it covers the build and includes some of the 3D printing failures. There are some excellent touches, with the windows acting as vents for cooling and the power and reset buttons assigned to panels next to the windows.

There's some clever PC-building expertise, too, with additional Noctua fans used to vent air like an actual working engine on the back. There are even hidden USB ports on the front alongside the motherboard and other parts being installed on panels that can easily slide in and out.

When it comes to handheld gaming in 2023, there's the Nintendo Switch, and then there's Valve's Steam Deck - one being a traditional Nintendo-style console and the other being a portable gaming PC. What if you could hack the Switch to make it run Steam and fire up PC games? Wouldn't that turn it into a Nintendo Switch Deck or a Steam Switch?

That's the question YouTuber SpikeHD set out to answer and hopefully pull off - except it was impossible using existing tools and hacks. The idea is sound; a jailbroken Switch can run Ubuntu, so there should be a way to run the Linux version of Steam on the Nintendo console.

It's worth pointing out that only older models (from the console's launch) can be hacked in the first place, but that wasn't what ultimately led to the Steam Switch journey ending. Even though that requires a lot of SD card action bypassing boot loaders and compiling and even shorting connections on the Joy-Con rails to get working.

Manufacturers have been toying with new smartphone form factors in recent months. The most notable new form factor has been folding smartphones. We've seen some that bring dual screens with a separate second screen. A new smartphone form factor has turned up in the form of a leaked LG device rumored to be codenamed the LG Wing.

The top screen is said to rotate, allowing it to be swung from portrait to landscape position uncovering a second screen beneath. In the leaked image the second screen acts as a keyboard. When unfolded, the LG Wing resembles the letter "T." We most certainly aren't sure the LG Wing is anything more than a hastily photoshopped device.

There are some rumors about hardware to go along with the leaked image. Those rumors suggest that the Wing will use a Snapdragon 7-series processor and have a 64-megapixel primary camera. The main screen is said to be 6.8-inches. We could see the form factor getting a YouTube usage experience similar to what the Galaxy Z Flip features.

The force is strong with DIY electronic toymaker, littleBits. They have just released an amazing toy that is supposedly aimed for users in the age bracket of 8-12 years old. Introducing the 11-inch tall, fully-functional R2D2 Droid Inventor Kit. The R2D2 Droid kit features everything you need to get your own R2D2 droid moving around your living room bleeping and whistling with 20 authentic sounds directly from the Star Wars movies.

The accessories kit consists of 20 parts that snap together magnetically, so no screws are required. 3 sticker sheets that allow yourself children to customize R2D2 to their liking. Electronically, we see DC and servo motors, 9V battery, proximity sensor that detects hand movements for Force Drive and also detects objects in its path and more.

The most interesting part is the control hub, effectively the Droid's brain that allows communications with your smart device using Bluetooth technology. With the use of the free Droid Inventor Training app, users can view video instructions ,program secret missions by drawing maps for their droid and simply control their droid, making this app an essential tool.

Samsung is just days away from unveiling its new Galaxy Note 8 smartphone, with what looks like a big emphasis on the rear-facing camera, which I think will be one of the first big tease of Qualcomm's next-gen camera tech.

Qualcomm held an intimate conference at SIGGRAPH a few weeks ago, showing off what I think will be one of the larger steps in smartphone camera technology (something you can read here). But now Samsung's marketing hype train is in full swing for the Galaxy Note 8, which is being unveiled on August 23... next week.

In the embedded video above, you can see the 'infinity' zoom that Samsung should bake into the Note 8. Samsung will be using a dual camera rig on the Note 8, and I'm sure there will be some impressive tricks up Samsung's sleeve.

AMD launched its new EPYC 7000 series processors last week, and now GIGABYTE is one of the first to unveil its new MZ30-AR0 motherboard that supports AMD EPYC 7000 series processors, and has a ton of awesome, server-grade features.

GIGABYTE's new MZ30-AR0 packs 8-channel DDR4 support with 16 x DIMMs, supporting up to 1TB of RAM through LRDIMM/NVDIMM modules, while 64GB of DDR4 support is provided through RDIMMs. GIGABYTE includes 2 x SFP+ 10Gb/s LAN ports, M.2 with PCIe 3.0 x4 ports, and more. Storage wise we have 16 x SATA 3.0 ports, 4 x SAS, 7 x PCIe 3.0 x16, and 1 x M.2 capable of 32Gbps. The board supports CPUs with up to a 180W TDP, eating up the new EPYC-based CPUs with 32C/64T of power.

An Iron Man glove created by laser gadget maker Patrick Priebe is 3,000 times more powerful than a typical laser pointer. As shown by Wired in the demo video below, that's enough to let you indulge your inner pyromaniac a little by igniting cigarettes, ping pong balls, and matches. You can also show up to children's birthday parties and make them cry by popping balloons with it (that's a win my book).

If you want to get your hands-on one, contract Priebe through his official website. Although after the press he's been getting, you may have to wait awhile for a response.

Water cooling can be a pretty fun process, but also somewhat scary if you don't quite know what you're doing. And that's why ASUS partnered with INWIN, Bitspower, Kingston (HyperX), NVIDIA, Intel and Cooler Master during the ASUS Australia 2016 PC water cooling event in Sydney, Australia at the University of Sydney this past weekend to give Australian retailers and Sydney-based PC enthusiasts all the info they need to be water cooling professionals. We prepared a video from the event, embedded below.

The whole event had a great turnout, with a lot of different examples of water cooled PC's, from the more extreme, modded variety all the way to the other end of the spectrum with modest examples of what can be done with proper water cooling parts.

It was all about showing off the different ways in which it can be used and how efficient it can be, and how complicated it is not. Really, the scariest part is wondering if the tubes you connected were done so with a proper seal. But other than that, water cooling, as this event showed, is a splendid idea for everyone. And now a variety of retailers all have the knowledge and power to help just about anyone plan their build, no matter how complex it might be.

Is will most likely not improve the sound, but at least it looks quite cool. This little 'build log' video on Facebook outlines how you might go about re-shelling your beloved earphones with two spent bullet casings.

This handy 'guide' goes through the process step-by-step, showing how you can use simple household tools in order to complete the job. With the tool list including things like a drill, hacksaw and pieces of sandpaper with various grit ratings, doing it yourself shouldn't really take more than an hour.

If you're interested in doing this yourself, watch the video posted by Best Knives above.

Packed with 118 parts and the capability to construct three different chassis types depending on your needs, the AeroCool Dream Box DIY kit is a seriously interesting invention.

While you're provided with a plethora of parts including aluminum frame pipes, various connectors, mounting C-rings and more, this creativity kit comes at a price - being $149.90 MSRP. Released as part of AeroCool's 'Free Your Imagination' contest, this pack also comes with in-depth manuals and an installation video for those looking for some inspiration.

While not completely unlimited in use, this three-chassis kit may be a sign of things to come. Interested? It's available to buy right now.