The Checkmate Retro Styled IPS Upgradeable Display is a flat-screen monitor that looks and works like a 1980s computer monitor. It's a Kickstarter project for people who want to play retro games on their old consoles and computers.

If you've ever tried to connect your old console to a modern TV, you might have learned that the picture is less than perfect. — Read the rest

The post This new flat-screen monitor looks like a 1980s computer monitor and has all the old sockets built in appeared first on Boing Boing.

Personal computers have become unaffordable for many as datacenter construction gobbles up all the components. If the joke was that the AI guys don't want you to have your own machine, it turns out not to be a joke at all! — Read the rest

The post Keeping RAM in personal computers "quite terrible," says OpenAI's Sam Altman appeared first on Boing Boing.

Kevin Bates, creator of the credit card-sized Arduboy game system, now sells a $149 digital candle that uses a small neural network ("8-dimensional latent, convolutional decoder, 3,545 parameters, 30 fps") to generate a realistic flame simulation on its low-resolution display. — Read the rest

The post Arduboy Digital Candle has AI-simulated flame appeared first on Boing Boing.

Adam Lawson's Zac-OS-9 is a completist recreation of the classic Mac desktop experience for Debian Linux, "drawn pixel by pixel from scratch." Modeled on the last versions before the switch to Mac OS X (more than 25 years ago!) it's not just a skin: it replicates the window manager, file browser, menu bar and every control panel. — Read the rest

The post How to turn modern Linux into an old Mac appeared first on Boing Boing.

Overgrown is a Chrome browser extension that plants seeds in neglected browser tabs, which slowly become overwhelmed by spreading foliage. Creator Charlie Gerard was inspired by a creative exercise around the word and decided to do something special.

I then wanted to apply this idea to the digital world, and the word "abandoned" made me think of my browser tabs… What if my tabs were slowly taken over by plants the longer I left them unread?

— Read the rest

The post Chrome extension lets weeds overgrow your neglected browser tabs appeared first on Boing Boing.

A long-awaited OLED upgrade to Apple's iPad Mini launched this week with an international marketing campaign. But a moment in one ad has drawn controversy in South Korea, as the pinch gesture in it means "you have a small penis" and carries popular connotations of feminism. — Read the rest

The post iPad Mini ad edited in Korea to remove gesture inadvertantly mocking your penis appeared first on Boing Boing.

When I was in Nagasaki earlier this month, I visited the Atomic Bomb Museum there. One of the displays, which showed the damage caused by the bomb that the U.S. dropped on the city, had long audio narration in Japanese only. — Read the rest

The post I wore Timekettle's translating earbuds around Kyushu, where few people speak English appeared first on Boing Boing.

I'm on the constant lookout for the tiniest umbrella available.

On my recent trip to Japan, I found the smallest one yet at the fantastic Hands store in Fukuoka.

It weighs just 65 grams and measures 8 inches long and about 1.5 inches in diameter when collapsed. — Read the rest

The post This 65-gram umbrella from Japan fits in my front pocket appeared first on Boing Boing.