Kritik sah

As a portable media player, Microsoft’s Zune simply couldn’t compete with Apple’s juggernaut iPod — the latter essentially becoming the de facto personal media player until smartphones took over. But in 2026 it might be Microsoft that gets the last laugh, as thanks to [rsheldiii] the Zune can now play Super Mario 64 . The software is based on sm64ex, and notably doesn’t include the ROM file necessary to actually run the game. But presuming a legal dump of a cartridge has been done, building and loading it onto a Zune HD is straightforward enough. From there the player is presented with a controller interface on the device’s touchscreen overlaid with the video output from the game. Some interesting things are happening in the background here as well, like using NVIDIA’s Tegra tools to pre-compile shaders so the 2009-era processor can handle the rest of the gameplay. Although it didn’t enjoy the mainstream success of the iPod, the Zune was...

The sad reality is that all consumer electronics are going to be e-waste eventually. [Cory Whitesell] was determined his old NEC ProSpeed 286 Laptop wouldn’t meet that fate until absolutely necessary, so when his attempts at repairs failed, his efforts pivoted to create a retro battlestation from the stylish old machine . That screen looks too good to be stock, but otherwise you can’t tell from this angle. Externally, it looks pretty well stock, and [Cory] has retained as much of the internals as possible. The original power supply remains intact, with power taken off the original HDD’s molex connector. Said power drives a Raspberry Pi, which is small enough to fit inside without any gutting. The original keyboard connects easily enough via a PS/2 to USB adapter, while the passive-matrix LCD has been replaced with a modern screen of the same dimensions. You’d have to be a pretty hard-core purist to mourn that last change. With emulation on the Pi, he can still...

Recently [Riley] got his paws on an old Prusa i3 FDM printer that had clearly seen better days, with a hot-end that had suffered an explosive blow-out. For the project he had in mind this was of course perfect, as his intention was to replace the hot-end with a syringe system for embedded 3D printing (E3DP) , which uses a supportive medium to allow for the printing of materials and structures that would be impossible with just air. Generally in additive manufacturing (AM) methods like fused deposition modelling (FDM) the material is extruded onto a build plate or a previous layer where it solidifies. This works great for materials like thermoplastics, but for other materials having only the surrounding air as support is just a recipe for a big mess. With E3DP the liquid is instead extruded into a supportive material at a selectable depth and volume, opening up a whole range of possibilities. In a 2026 review article by [Rongji Tang] et al. in  Frontiers in Materials provide an ove...

Flying and driving simulators can go as far as money will take you, and at some point it might end up being cheaper to buy a plane or race car than to keep adding capabilities to some of the sim rigs we’ve seen. But it can also be a fairly affordable hobby as well, with entry-level components being within reach for many. The price can drop precipitously from there too, provided some parts can be sourced and a 3D printer is made available, and [Jason] is demonstrating one of the lowest-cost H-shifters we’ve seen which only uses two parts at its core . The two components only cover the electronics for the build, but this gets almost everything needed for the shifter squared away. A joystick like those found inside many game controllers is paired with an Arduino Pro Micro, with a very straightforward wiring configuration between them. These components are paired with a prototype 3D printed case and shift knob which provides the H pattern of choice. From there it’s as sim...

Most home security sensors require a chemical battery or external power source to operate, which can be a point of weakness. If the battery in a window or door sensor dies overnight and nobody is there to swap it, it might miss that one intruder or mess up your carefully curated home automation system. In that sense self-powered sensors are rather interesting, such as this one by [Manas Tiwari] and [Deepak Bharti] that is based around the triboelectric effect. The research article is sadly paywalled, but the  IEEE Spectrum article covers all the salient details. The sensor uses ground up garlic peel for the positive side of this triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) as they call it, with a sheet of polyethylene (PE) forming the negative side. Once installed on a door frame, opening said door generates about 210 VAC with a 45 µA short circuit current. A dual-side layer of garlic peel bumps this up to 400 VAC and 65 µA. As installed, the researchers used this generated current to dete...

Repurposing old smartphones for more general purpose computing isn’t a new thing, but the project by [LastComputer] ups the ante by going from a Samsung Galaxy S23 that looks like it got run over by at least a few cars to a very serviceable gaming computer , courtesy of its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. The somehow still working but definitely worse for wear phone was purchased for 1,700 Ukrainian Hryvnia (~$40). It being SIM locked also helped reduce the price, even if someone had somehow wanted to use it again as a phone. Since the SoC inside is also used in quite capable gaming handhelds, but with good cooling, that would be a real waste. Converting it into proper gaming system requires some careful disassembly, some gentle whacking with a hammer to straighten out the frame and a new battery as the mainboard won’t work without one installed. A 3D-printed phone case glued to an SSD cage for the 512 GB SSD serves as the enclosure, along with two USB hubs, one of which also pro...