Hasta La Gadget!

Have a bunch of old 3.5″ floppy disks lying around? If you still have some left over after converting them into paintings or handbags, you might want to redecorate your room with a floppy disk lampshade.

That’s exactly what Instructables contributor Technohippy did with his spare floppies. All it took to make this floppy disk lampshade was 17 floppy disks, 44 cable ties, and some basic hand tools. While this particular design was for a ceiling fixture, there’s no reason you couldn’t apply the same concept to a table or floor lamp too. Keep in mind that you’ll want to go with a fluorescent or LED lamp inside the fixture so as not to melt your floppies, and fill your home with the noxious fumes of burning plastic.

Pop on over to Instructables for the full build instructions. I wonder what we’ll make out of USB flash drives when they’re eventually obsolete and replaced with holographic memory or something altogether different.

Today the gaming world was reintroduced to one of their most beloved places to do battle with a total conversion remaking of Half-Life 2 by development group Valve Software. After seven full years in development, this release has been not just given away for free on its own, but given away with a full soundtrack as well. This is the fulfilled promise of the Source engine port of Half-Life as made by the developers all those years ago – if you thought Half-Life: Source was awesome, you’re going to have a heart attack today.

This download was made available earlier today through several portals, the most official of these being the [Black Mesa Source Download Page] as provided by Valve. This page will be your one and only location where tried and true – and trusted – sources for the build can be found. As the game modification is given away for free, you will see some advertisements here and there on the webpage, but the final product will be just as ad-free as your original game was and always has been.

That same page shows you the Black Mesa Trailer that you see here above. This trailer was released earlier this month for those that’ve been following the project for several years – and it’s gotten rave reviews in and of itself. Here with this new product, you’ll see above as well, the game mechanics have remained largely the same (to gamers’ glee) while the storyline and overall scale of the game have been exploded with greatness.

You’ll now be playing as Doctor Gordon Freeman right alongside the original cast of environments and characters you’ve grown fond of from the original Half-Life. What you’ve got here instead of the same product is one made much more visually fantastic and immersive. This full reconstruction of Half-Life uses Source to what the developers describe as its “fullest potential” with enlarged level sizes, art detail, and code features galore.

You’ve also got new maps entirely, new models, new voice actors – save some key heroes, and textures. And again, there’s a whole new soundtrack as well that you can also download for free – be sure to donate to the team though if you’re feeling especially appreciative.

The download of this game does have some requirements, those being:

• A copy of any Source Engine game (as seen here).

• Minimum System Requirements
Software : Windows XP, Vista, or 7
Processor : Pentium 4 3.0 GHz, or AMD processor.
RAM : 1GB (1024 MB)
Graphics Card : Shader Model 2.0 capable, ATI 9600, NVidia 6600 or better.
Sound : DirectX 8.1 compatible.
HDD : 8 GB (Not including the Free Source SDK, installed separately)

• Ideal System Requirements
Software : Windows XP, Vista, or 7
Processor : Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz or AMD equivalent.
RAM : 1 GB (1024 MB)
Graphics Card : Shader Model 3.0 capable, ATI X1600, NVidia 7600 or better.
Sound : DirectX 9.0c compatible.
HDD : 8 GB (Not including the Free Source SDK, installed separately)

Fun Fact: the Xbox360 controller is supported for this game – use it!

If you have a Mac, you’re out of luck. It’s not likely that any builds other than what’s listed above will be supported, but we’ll certainly keep you up to date on any developments in the future regarding furtherances of this build. They’ve got Portal on the Mac, maybe we can dream!

Black Mesa download madness hits the Half-Life gamer universe is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This morning we’re riding the wave out from the Apple event that occurred less than 24 hours ago, our complete collection of coverage available to you in our Apple portal. You can see our hands-on with the iPhone 5, iPod touch, and iPod nano as well as our iPhone 5 wrap-up and our iPod wrap-up too! And don’t forget the EarPods! Then it’s time to get Wii U ready for the whole world – launch time is upon us! Check our full launch title list for games, info on the new Nintendo TVii, and USA and Euro pricing information too.

NVIDIA has let loose some information on the GeForce GTX 660 and non-GeForce GTX 660, full excellence of NVIDIA’s GPU power at a low, low cost. NASA is speaking this week about their future with a manned lunar outpost. LG has teased a new device with Qualcomm power under the hood – perhaps the LG Optimus G with quad-core processing!

The iPhone 5 Lightning adapter may not be working with some accessories from the past – not great for analog audio hopefuls! Cricket now has the pre-paid iPhone 5 on its roster. You an now check out some iPhone 5 sample photos straight from Apple with its 8-megapixel camera.

You can now watch the entirety of the Apple iPhone 5 event in video form. Europe will be getting a lovely Lightning to microUSB adapter per their local standardization laws. Note that the iPhone 5 needs no NFC, wireless charging, or localized haptic feedback – believe it.

Intel has released information on its Android 4.1 Jelly Bean port for Medfield smartphones. The Mars rover known as Curiosity has nearly completed robot arm tests up on the red planet. The Nikon D600 DSLR is now official with a 24.3MP sensor and remote phone / tablet control.

SlashGear Morning Wrap-up: September 13th, 2012 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Ben Heck is well known as a modder extraordinaire, and this time he doesn’t let anyone down by cobbling together a pocket PC from an array of harvested parts, including a chatpad from an Xbox 360 controller.

The BASIC pocket PC uses the aforementioned chatpad, an Arduino Uno and a Hitachi LCD display. The handheld computer runs an appropriately tiny version of the BASIC programming language called TinyBASIC. Thanks to its built-in interface, this Franken-computer allows Ben to control real-world objects – for example, Heck uses it to control a servo-operated ghost on a pinball playing field.

Check out the full show where Heck shows you how he built the device and to see what it can do.

The whole thing is pretty neat, but you’ll need to brush up on your electronics skills if you want to be able to make one of these for yourself.

[via Ubergizmo]

OK, you got me. My iPhone is white, as is my iPad, so having a gray or black keyboard folio kind of sucks. So it’s cool that Logitech decided to released a white version of their Ultrathin Keyboard Cover.

The Ultrathin Keyboard Cover is one of many Bluetooth keyboards available for your iPad. The battery is supposed to provide up to 6 months of usage, based upon a daily use of 2 hours, which is good. Logitech is making their devices less power hungry. I’ve got their Marathon Mouse M705 and it’s still got 1070 days of autonomy  left months after I purchased it – though Bluetooth is way more of a power hog than Logitech’s proprietary unifying receivers.

I like how slim it looks, but the slot-stand is a bit hit or miss. On the Zagg Logitech Keyboard Case, that wasn’t my favorite feature. And while white might look cool for a cover, it might grimy quickly.

The Ultrathin Keyboard Cover will sell for $99.99(USD) and be released later this month. Now if they could release a white Solar Folio Keyboard, I’d be pretty happy.