Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

If you’ve gotten just a little too good at your Nintendo DS games and are looking for more of a challenge — and also looking to void your warranty — now there’s a way to hack your console for making everything run almost twice as fast. A Japanese modder has just posted step-by-step directions (in Japanese, unfortunately) for re-wiring a DS Lite to perform at a claimed 1.7x speed, complete with a toggle switch in case you decide that turbo mode isn’t appropriate for all occasions. It looks like you have to be pretty handy with a soldering iron to tackle this particular project, so if you’ve got the skillz and about four hours to waste on tinkering around with your DS’s sensitive circuitry, then accelerated performance — and funny-sounding audio — will be your reward.

[Via Maxconsole]

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Filed under: Displays, Wearables

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

Never one to rest on his laurels,the great Ben Heckendorn has taken his already-stylin’ nPod portable 8-bit Nintendo console and reworked it around a smaller “NES on a chip” to come up with a unit  that’s even more polished and compact than the original. Like the nPod 1.0, this new version is only slightly bigger than those bulky plastic cartridges it plays, yet still manages to include a headphone jack and convenient sliding battery pack powered by four regular AAs. As usual, the talented Mr. Heckendorn is happy to part with the prototype (for the right price), but this time around he’s also seeking feedback to gauge the market for a potential limited production run of these devices. If the NES emulator on your smartphone just isn’t doing it for you anymore, then head over to Ben’s site and let him know how much you’d be willing to throw down for one of these — he may even equip them with such niceties as a system link and TV out if that’s what his adoring public demands. Keep reading if you want to catch a tantalizing glimpse of the nPod 2.0 from behind…

[Via Make]

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Filed under: Gaming

Now that you've flashed your Xbox 360's firmware to enable the playing of backup discs, you probably want to start actually backing up those expensive games you bought in case they get scratched or perhaps even melted by your toasty 360. And luckily for you, CleverMod has posted just the step-by-step instructions you need for ripping your games and then burning the images onto dual-layer DVDs -- but keep in mind, you're voiding about a million warranties with all of this flashing and ripping and such. Basically, CleverMod's method involves disassembling a DVD drive so that you can switch discs without hitting the eject button, and then installing a program called WxRipper that finds a so-called "magic number" from any regular 8+GB dual-layer DVD. The program then uses that data to unlock a substituted 360 disc and dump a RAW copy onto your hard drive, which can be burned onto a blank disc and presumably played using the Commodore4Eva hack on Toshiba-Samsung drive-sporting 360s. And just to be super clear, if you don't own a copy of the game you're ripping, then you're not allowed to do this (i.e. Blockbuster, GameFly games are off-limits).

[Via digg]

Filed under: Desktops

So instead of folding up his computer and going home like some of our more negative commenters had suggested, inventor, composer, and all around resilient guy Peter Green has been hard at work on the second version of his MacMini Portable. As you'll recall, MMP rev. 1 was basically Apple's diminutive PC stuffed inside a custom enclosure, attached to an LCD, battery pack, trackpad, and thumb board, and occupying a footprint smaller than even the most compact laptop. Well now Green is back to silence the critics who questioned the utility of his first project with the MacMini Portable MkII, which makes numerous improvements upon its predecessor such as mounting the thumb board flush with the case, significantly reducing the overall size of the device, and generally making it look more like something you'd want to take out in public. So once again Mr. Green, we salute you, and encourage you to continue ignoring the haters (and refine your creation to the point that they're forced to come around). Make sure to check out the "Read" link to peep video of the MMPMKII in action, complete with a soothing Green-composed soundtrack.