The connected world

ASRock has quietly introduced one of the industry's first Intel Z590-based Mini-ITX motherboards with a Thunderbolt 4 port. The manufacturer positions its Z590 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 platform as its top-of-the-range offering for compact gaming builds for enthusiasts that want to have all the capabilities of large tower desktops and then some, so it is packed with advanced features. The ASRock Z590 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 motherboard supports all of Intel's 10th and 11th Generation Comet Lake and Rocket Lake processors, including the top-of-the-range Core i9-11900K with a 125W TDP. One of the main selling points of the Z590 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB4 motherboard is of course its Thunderbolt 4 port, which supports a 40 Gb/s throughput when attached to appropriate TB3/TB4 devices (or 10 Gb/s when connected to a USB 3.2 Gen 2) such as high-end external storage subsystems (in case internal storage is not enough on a Mini-ITX build) and can handle two 4K displays or one 8K monitor (albeit … [Read more...] about ASRock Unveils Intel Z590 Mini-ITX Motherboard with Thunderbolt 4

As a ’90s kid who saw Warcraft as the Dungeons & Dragons of videogames, I found Blizzard Entertainment’s legendary PC catalog a little too nerdy for my Nintendo-obsessed preteen tastes. It wasn’t until I fell deep into World of Warcraft that I began to crave the old-school PC experiences I’d stubbornly shooed away in my youth, but the moody pixel graphics of Diablo II couldn’t capture my heart. After a few hours with the Diablo II: Resurrected technical alpha, I went in expecting to fall in love with its gritty 3D visuals. Instead, I’m left thinking a new lick of paint isn’t enough to make it stick. It looks fine — it’s just not particularly fun right now. Diablo II: Resurrected attempts to fulfil two goals: Enticing a new generation to experience a classic by reworking aging visuals and ensuring veterans can continue to play the game they love easily across modern hardware. Butchered cinematics and the forced erasure of the original 32-bit client killed any hope … [Read more...] about Diablo II: Resurrected’s technical alpha showcases a faithful remaster of an aging classic

I had a problem. In the last year, I’ve accumulated nearly a handful of reusable disposal water bottles — from either buying them myself or being gifted them. Many, in fact, look similar to S’well’s popular stainless steel water bottles . As the COVID-19 pandemic changed our habits and perception about cleanliness in the last year, UV-C light became a highly sought-out solution for sanitizing surfaces. They were incorporated into just about everything. Just a few weeks ago, I switched things up and started using a new reusable bottle that features UV-C light to sanitize the water inside — the Larq Bottle PureVis. At first, I thought its $95 cost was ludicrous given that the average S’well bottle sells for about $25, but the more I used it, the more I realized it’s one of the best investments you can make. Why UV-C light in a water bottle? I prefer bottled water. Why in the world would I need UV-C light when the bottled water sold by companies has gone through meticulous … [Read more...] about The Larq reusable water bottle made me realize how much money I’ve wasted

If you don't know what to do with your old Nerf guns or maybe just want to upgrade them, you could always turn them into working video game controllers as Alfredo Sequeida did with his latest Raspberry Pi project. The best Raspberry Pi projects offer more than just proof of concept, they have real-world applications. Sequeida not only transformed his old Nerf gun into a controller but successfully uses it in Call of Duty. The project required installing a few new buttons as well as integrating existing hardware like the trigger, which was soldered to open GPIO pins. An old Android phone retrieves the accelerometer data and the Pi uses this information to determine the aim of the controller. A custom Python script interprets the controller input, which is then translated into output for the PC. You can read more about the code in detail on the official GitHub page. If you want to see how well it works, you can check it out in action on Sequeida's official YouTube … [Read more...] about Raspberry Pi Transforms Nerf Gun Into Call of Duty Controller