Having the right to repair your hardware doesn't matter much if you don't have hardware you can repair. As phones have become more svelte and complex, they've also become significantly more difficult to take apart. Even with the right tools and detailed instructions from a joint like iFixit, replacing the battery in a recent iPhone can leave you having nightmares for a month. — Read the rest

The post Fairphone finally sells its repairable phones directly in the US appeared first on Boing Boing.

I took a home blood test today, and it included a reusable heat pack. These things have been around since the 1970s, but this was the first time I've used one. It's a plastic pouch with liquid inside and a small metal disc stamped with many dents. — Read the rest

The post How reusable heat packs work appeared first on Boing Boing.

I'm headed back to Japan soon. This will be my 10th visit there. I've been going to Japan since 1986. It's changed in a lot of ways. Most noticeably, it is less expensive than it was in 1986, and there are far more foreigners in Tokyo now. — Read the rest

The post A little plastic holder for the yen coins in my pocket appeared first on Boing Boing.

When I head out for the day, my pack is heavy with EDC nonsense: my laptop or word processor, a CLS medical kit, phone, earphones — you get the idea. If I feel the urge to add anything to my load out, it needs to be lightweight, well-made and, most importantly, feel essential. — Read the rest

The post This phone keyboard attachment is well-made but still too heavy appeared first on Boing Boing.

Do you recall the stunned feeling in your thinky bits the moment that you discovered that the holes in many pasta serving spoons are designed to measure portion size? Did that moment just come after reading that first sentence? Anyway, it could well be that I'm the last fella on the planet to realize this, but you can use a wireless battery pack to charge many models of true wireless earphones. — Read the rest

The post MagSafe battery packs can charge AirPods and other earbuds too appeared first on Boing Boing.

DuckDuckGo, the search engine that built its whole pitch on not tracking you, now sells a pair of sunglasses. The $35 Paso Robles never needs charging, skips the smartphone app, and works with no internet connection. DuckDuckGo says that's by design, so the person standing next to you doesn't have to wonder if they're being filmed. — Read the rest

The post DuckDuckGo's answer to Meta's smart glasses is regular sunglasses appeared first on Boing Boing.

The 1960 mystery-comedy Scent of Mystery was the only film ever released in Smell-O-Vision, which delivered 30 odors to vents under the theater seats. Inventor Hans Laube called the mechanism the "smell brain": a belt of perfume containers wound onto a motorized reel, cued by markers on the film print, with needles puncturing a membrane so fans could push the scent down the pipes. — Read the rest

The post The only movie released in Smell-O-Vision piped 30 odors under the seats appeared first on Boing Boing.

Oh, Lordy, my wallet: I'm not one to invest in, or generally write about, crowdfunded hardware. I've been burned one too many times. But a decidedly old-school Personal Digital Assistant with a tactile keyboard and an e-paper display? That is entirely my jam. — Read the rest

The post PocketMage is a crowdfunded PDA with a keyboard and e-paper screen appeared first on Boing Boing.

Billionaire Trump aide Elon Musk "ragequit" an online game after repeatedly dying and enduring the mockery of those gamers paying attention. He called them "retards" and logged off Path of Exile 2.

Musk went live on X on Saturday, showing himself playing Path of Exile 2 aboard his private jet in what he called an "airborne continuity test" of his satellite internet service Starlink.

— Read the rest

The post Elon again upset after gamers mock his lack of skill appeared first on Boing Boing.

I started messing with reMarkable's tablets for as long as the company has been around. Their original slab, the RM1 had little to recommend when it was released. It was slow, a little glitchy and, its writing tools were rudimentary, at best. — Read the rest

The post Review: The reMarkable Paper Pro is my favorite tablet appeared first on Boing Boing.

When asked by Stephen Colbert if he would accept a preemptive pardon by President Biden, former Congressman Adam Kinzinger said nope — he'll take a prison cell, thank you very much. "Because I didn't do anything wrong," he said on the Late Show last night. — Read the rest

The post GOP's Adam Kinzinger doesn't want Biden pardon — says he'll fight Trump "from my jail cell" (video) appeared first on Boing Boing.

Announcing the brand new Tom the Dancing Bug book: Volume 8 of The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug book program is IT'S THE GREAT STORM, TOM THE DANCING BUG! Now accepting orders right HERE!

"I am a HUGE fan of Tom the Dancing Bug! — Read the rest

The post Tom the Dancing Bug: How the media handles Trump's Fascism appeared first on Boing Boing.

This package of over 200 little rubber feet, variously sized for electronics and home appliances, should last me the rest of my life.

The variety of diameter and thickness of these assorted LRF should cover the gamut. I was finally convinced to buy them due to a missing "foot" on my space heater, but I also have a headphone amplifier and an electronic waffle iron that will soon be whole again and not tilt-y. — Read the rest

The post I finally got around to buying some replacement 'little rubber feet' appeared first on Boing Boing.

JR's Appliance Museum—aka the "The World's Largest Small Electrical Appliance Museum"—looks super cool, and I'm putting it on my Roadside Attraction bucket list. The museum is located in Diamond, Missouri. Their website describes the collection, which as of 2020, according to the Columbia Missourian, currently boasts over 10,000 rare electrical appliances including toasters, coffee percolators, razors, waffle irons, and much more:

Owner, Richard Larrison states, "There are "pinchers" and "perchers," "droppers" and "floppers," "tippers" and "flippers," not to mention the "swingers," "walk-throughs," "flatbeds" and of course, the ever-popular "pop-ups." 

— Read the rest

The post At JR's Appliance Museum, the hot dog electrocutor can fry five wieners at once appeared first on Boing Boing.

Georgia State Senator Colton Moore hates the rule of law so much that he is willing to start killing people if election fraud charges against Donald Trump aren't dropped.

But, like a street gang thug threatening a local business owner to cough up protection money, Colton says he can make the "make this problem go away." — Read the rest

The post Georgia State Senator threatens civil war unless charges are dismissed against Trump appeared first on Boing Boing.

Covid-19 cases are on the upswing in Los Angeles County again, and officials are asking people to voluntarily wear masks while indoors. The county is reporting approximately 1500 new cases a day, compared to 1300 per day last week, and a 52% jump since the beginning of the month. — Read the rest

The post Here we go again: Los Angeles county "strongly recommends" indoor masking as Covid cases rise appeared first on Boing Boing.

Microsoft's Surface Duo is a clamshell device about the size of a pocket notebook. Open it up and there are two facing touchscreens. Is it any good? The Verge's Dieter Bohn says the hardware design is excellent, but it's buggy and far too expensive at $1400. — Read the rest

The post Microsoft Surface Duo reviews appeared first on Boing Boing.

A CNN investigation into the AmazonBasics lineup of inexpensive yet seemingly good-enough electronics gear found dozens of products that melted, exploded or started fires: "Dozens of AmazonBasics product are flagged as dangerous, but many are still being sold."

consumers have raised serious safety concerns about AmazonBasics items in complaints to government regulators and in reviews posted on Amazon's own website.

— Read the rest

The post Reviewers of AmazonBasics gear complain of dangerous items appeared first on Boing Boing.

Are you facing a difficult decision? A binary one? The Decision Maker is for you. A pendulum forced by the power of magnetism to oscillate between signs marked "YES" and "NO" until coming to settle on one of them, the Decision Maker is a simple and surprisingly time-consuming way to put your future in the hands of fate. — Read the rest

The post The Decision Maker appeared first on Boing Boing.

Yarh-io is a handheld Linux-based computer with keyboard, trackpad and 800×480-pixel display made with a Raspberry Pi 3B+, a custom 3D-printed case and many hours of love. [via Liliputing]

YARH.IO is a fully hackable and custamizable Raspberry Pi based handheld, running Raspberry Pi OS and supporting all other Operating Systems available for Raspberry Pi.

— Read the rest

The post Hackable Raspberry Pi handheld computer appeared first on Boing Boing.

8bitdo makes the only game controllers I like, and they just announced a proper six-button Arcade Stick [Amazon] for October release. It works on Nintendo Switch and Windows, connects via Bluetooth or USB Type-C, and supports custom mapping and macros. The list price is $90, it's 30x20cm, and they make a point of its mounting plate letting you swap in arcade hardware from different manufacturers. — Read the rest

The post 8bitdo Arcade Stick appeared first on Boing Boing.

Viral today is this brief but charming clip of an old Japanese landline phone ringing. It's adorable! Below, evidence that this is or was a normal ring in Japan, for any "Japanese phones had a nice ring" disbelievers out there.

The post Vintage Japanese landline phone has nice ring appeared first on Boing Boing.

Michael Pick created a fully-functional miniature "iMac", slicing down a Raspberry Pi 4 (with a Dremel!) to fit inside his custom-printed case. He takes us through the process of designing the device and assembling it; the keyboard is the only retail item left unhacked. — Read the rest

The post Tiny custom "iMac" appeared first on Boing Boing.

This BBC report examines the "molka" phenomenon in South Korea (previously at BB): the proliferation of hidden wireless cameras in toilets and hotel rooms, and the culture of blackmail and revenge porn around it. "How many spycams can Stacey Dooley find in a love motel bedroom?" — Read the rest

The post Hidden cameras "everywhere" in Korean hotels appeared first on Boing Boing.

#lackrack
Need a network rack in a pinch? £5. IKEA LACK Rack. pic.twitter.com/Wn257GEqWr

— Paul Curry (@cr3) August 14, 2020

I recently saw a Lack Rack—an inexpensive Ikea Lack table put to use rackmounting servers—and now I keep running into them. — Read the rest

The post Lack Rack: Ikea's cheapest table is perfectly sized to rackmount computers appeared first on Boing Boing.

The a-X sereies of portable workstations resemble the earliest laptops, but are fully contemporary beasts fitted with top-of-the-range AMD Threadripper CPUs, up to 256GB of RAM and dual GPUs. And price tags hovering around $8000. PC Gamer:

Picture this: you sit down in a meeting alongside your colleagues.

— Read the rest

The post The suitcase computer of 2020 appeared first on Boing Boing.

There are many nondescript and mundane tools for data recovery, but the Spider Board is not one of them. It lives up to its name, with 25 leglike needles that, carefully placed on copper traces on a denuded card, suck the data out of them like fly juice. — Read the rest

The post Spider Board: horripilating data recovery appeared first on Boing Boing.

Terence Eden found a turntable [Amazon] that cost only £30 (~$40): "I accidentally bought a load of vinyl records. So I decided to buy the cheapest, shittiest, turntable possible," he writes. For firty paands he even gets a USB port to rip the records directly to digital. — Read the rest

The post £30 record player is fine appeared first on Boing Boing.

Emily Groves' Mew is an interactive furry slab. When you approach it, it begins to purr. When you stroke it, the purring intensifies and miaowing commences. If you stroke it too hard, the miaowing becomes wailing and hissing.

Mew was part of a collaborative sound object project between Design Products, Information Experience Design and Visual Communication students at the RCA, London.

— Read the rest

The post Mew is a furry, purring, wailing theremin appeared first on Boing Boing.

Quackometer checked out a gadget that purports to "protect" users from 5G. It's probably a scam, as 5G is as safe as any other radio transmission and you don't need protection from it. But what's in the box, exactly? Turns out it's a battery-powered light and a copper tube. — Read the rest

The post Quack 5G protection gadget just a copper tube in a light box appeared first on Boing Boing.