Key Takeaways
Raspberry Pi 2040 used to create a tiny Snake game on an LED grid.
A retro PC case from an April Fool’s joke becomes a real product in Japan.
Leaks suggest a possible sequel to the beloved Steam Controller may be in the works.
Wow, where did November go? It feels like we’ve only just cleared away the Halloween stuff and we’re already looking at December starting next week. In the tech news sphere, it’s that time of year when businesses pull down the shutters and go into a holiday-induced hibernation before it all pops off again in 2025 with January’s CES. However, that didn’t mean we saw a shortage of cool stuff to report on, so here are the top five news pieces from the past week.
5
Eating the tiniest dots
Last month, we spotted a board called the Nova going into the crowdfunding phase. The Nova is a really simple piece of kit; it’s an RP2040 board that has a 7×10 LED grid on it. You can use that grid for pretty much anything you want, just as long as it can squeeze down into that teeny-tiny space. Well, it’s far too small to run Doom on it, but we can at least run Snake on it instead, as proven by this cool project that brings the gaming classic onto the tiny board. And the best bit is, the creator listed all of the instructions and code required, so you can make your own..
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Repurpose your Raspberry Pi into a watchdog that can warn you the moment it detects unauthorized devices in your network
4
Good things come in old-school packaging
So there was an April Fools joke earlier this year where Silverstone Japan advertised an old PC case redesigned for the modern era. The idea is that the external looks like it came from the 20th Century, but it comes with all the ports and slots to make a fierce gaming rig. Well, fast forward to this month, and it turns out the case wasn’t a prank at all; it’s becoming a real thing. Right now, the case is only penned for a Japanese release, but I really hope it makes a splash internationally too.
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Because aesthetics aren’t everything
3
Regain control
Source:
The Steam Controller is very much a “love it or hate it” kind of thing, albeit the “love it” camp adores it so much that they can no longer go back to regular console controllers. The problem is that Valve has taken the Steam Controller off its store. Well, if you’re hankering for a new one, a recent leak has shown that Valve may be working on a Steam Controller 2, albeit we don’t know much more than that.
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The Steam Deck is powered by SteamOS, but you can install Windows on it with the proper installation media
2
To Arms!
Lenovo ThinkPad X13s
2024 has seen win after win with the Windows on Arm crowd. Granted, it’s likely because Microsoft has asked developers to make Arm-compatible software to go with their shiny new Copilot+ devices; regardless, we’ve seen a ton of apps make their way over to the Arm-based architecture. This week, we saw Google Drive arrive on Windows on Arm, which, along with all the other releases we’ve seen, has made picking up a Copilot+ device pretty desirable, even if it’s not for Copilot+ itself.
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It does most things right
1
But do gamers want it?
Finally, the past week saw Microsoft pushing for gamers to use Edge. This involved adding an Edge integration into the Game Bar app so that people can search the web without needing to Alt-Tab out of their game. It also has some nice features like a pinning function that keeps the browser window visible even after you close the Game Bar, which is handy if you’re following a guide. Given how most of them wouldn’t be caught dead without at least two monitors, will gamers actually use this feature in lieu of having their browser of choice open somewhere else?
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Edge has more going for it than you think
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