Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve featured our fair share of portable Atari 2600 mods, but I don’t think any of those can hold a candle to this one. Speaking of candles, the future owner of this one of a kind handheld should keep it away from even the tiniest of flames, because its case is made entirely out of wood.

The mod was made by eBay seller retro_mood. Inside the varnished wooden case is a 3.5″ TFT screen, a 700mAh battery that should last up to 3 hours per charge, two player controls – one of which was made out of a PlayStation analog stick – and the guts of an NTSC Atari 2600 console. Retro_mood also added digital volume and brightness controls as well as composite video and mono audio outputs. Perhaps most importantly for a handheld, this Atari 2600 has a pause button! Its weight – 600g (approx. 1.3lbs) – borders on iPad territory though, so minus points for portability there.

Ultimately though, retro_mood intends this handheld to reside not in the deep pockets of a collector. He’s selling it for a cool $1,240 (USD) on eBay. Money doesn’t grow on trees, but neither do wooden cases.

[via GameSniped]

Have you seen those t-shirts that have a built-in equalizer? They look cool in theory, but they’re not really awesome up close. Most of them have this awkward-looking large cardboard in the middle where the LEDs shine through. Then there’s the fact that you have to carry around a battery pouch. This necktie variant is a lot cooler.

Becky Stern of Adafruit calls her creation the LED Ampli-tie. This particular tie runs on Adafruit’s FLORA, an Arduino-compatible board. The Flora detects ambient noise via a small microphone hidden behind the tie’s knot. Adafruit already wrote the program that will make the 16 Flora RGB LEDs react to the noise. The best part? The Ampli-tie runs on the FLORA’s battery.

Check out Becky’s post on Adafruit’s website for the full walkthrough.

[via MAKE]

Japanese artist Hokusai probably sought to honor the power of the sea when he made The Great Wave off Kanagawa. But with a simple cut and paste, KyozoKicks managed to make Blastoise the bad ass part of this famous woodblock print.

Legends say that this is the final form of the bib they call The Wee Spittle off of Drooling Baby. The t-shirt is available from KyozoKicks’ online store for $23 (USD).

[via Svpply]

The famous Hogwarts Castle from the Harry Potter series already has an official LEGO playset, but I’m sure that even J.K. Rowling herself would rather play with this sprawling replica made by Alice Finch. It would be notable enough for its sheer size, but what takes it to the next level is its decked out interior.

Whereas the official LEGO Hogwarts set is made of 1,920 pieces, Alice used about 400,000 bricks to build her Hogwarts. I can’t even count to 400,000. I always get lost when I get to the tens. In an interview with The Brothers Brick, Alice said she worked on the replica for a total of one year, spread out over an 18-month period. Aside from the books and movies, Alice also visited the Harry Potter studio in London to get a better idea of the school’s interior.

Alice’s Hogwarts won Best in Show and People’s Choice at last year’s BrickCon. It’s easy to see why. Seriously go check out Alice’s Flickr page for more pictures of her masterpiece. I could spend hours appreciating the details of her work and I’m not even a Harry Potter fan.

[via Geekologie & The Brothers Brick]

I think that one of Microsoft’s biggest mistakes in recent years is Windows RT, and by extension the Surface RT. I’m not saying Windows RT devices are useless. It’s just that seen in the context of their release, they are products that can confuse and scare off potential Windows 8 users. Microsoft might be better off supporting this hack that lets full Windows programs run on Windows RT.

Xda-developers forum member mamaich is currently developing a program that enables Windows RT devices to run applications that were originally intended to run on the desktop version of Windows. In other words, it’s going to turn a Surface RT into a Surface Pro (with weaker hardware). Mamaich is aware and clearly states that even in its finished state, the program isn’t a cure-all. It won’t be able to launch some desktop applications simply because there are many hardware and software limitations in Windows RT devices. We do know that it can launch Heroes of Might and Magic 3, though.

Head to mamaich’s thread on the xda-developers forum to download or find out more about the program. Mamaich lays out the intricacies of the program in this particular post. This isn’t for the faint of heart though; the program is in beta and it requires you to jailbreak your Windows RT device.

[via Lifehacker]