Mods - TechEBlog

Dusklight Patch 2.0.0 Turns Zelda Twilight Princess Into a Native Port You Can Mod and Randomize

By Bill Smith September 20, 2026

TwilitRealm shipped Dusklight 2.0.0 earlier this week, and the build is the first time this unofficial Twilight Princess port feels finished as a platform rather than a careful reconstruction. Dusklight is a reverse-engineered reimplementation of the 2006 GameCube and Wii adventure, grown out of the zeldaret/tp decompilation and the Aurora framework. You still supply your own legally dumped disc, usually converted to a compact .rvz file. Nintendo assets are not in the download. What arrives from GitHub is original code, licensed CC0, that compiles natively for Windows, macOS, Linux, Steam Deck, Android, and iOS.

Whisplay HAT+ Rebuilds Google’s Offline Gemma Translator Into One Compact Pi 5 Slab

By Jackson Chung September 20, 2026

Google Creative Lab published Gemma Translator back in August 2026 as a voice box that never phones home. Alan Yam, Shashwath Santosh, and Dan Motzenbecker built it with help from Google Antigravity, then posted the code, model scripts, and 3D-print files on GitHub under Apache 2.0. You talk into a microphone. Moonshine turns the recording into text. Gemma 4 E2B, running locally through LiteRT-LM, translates that text. Moonshine speaks the other language from a speaker. After the first download, the radio can stay off.

Six Wheels of Extra Steel, a Custom 2019 Ford EcoSport Titanium Stretch Sells on Bring a Trailer

By Bill Smith September 19, 2026

A 2019 Ford EcoSport Titanium left Ford as a short compact crossover with four wheels, Titanium trim, and a naturally aspirated 2.0-liter Duratec four-cylinder rated at 166 horsepower and 149 pound-feet. Prior ownership later sliced the body open behind the rear doors, welded in an extra rear section plus an auxiliary subframe, and added a third axle so six matching 17-inch alloy wheels now sit on Firestone WeatherGrip tires. Black paint and thin white pinstripes cover the longer sides, filler panels close the gaps, and a roof-mounted wing sits over the stretch. A side-swinging rear gate still opens onto cargo space lined in gray deep-pile carpet.

Mirza Makes’ ePaper Smart Journal Only Exists to Catch Ideas Distraction-Free

By Jackson Chung September 19, 2026

Phones aren’t the best journals because most people open one to save a sentence, and then the original thought is lost, buried beneath a feed of other thoughts. Paper pads avoid this unless they disappear inside a bag or require a second round of typing. Mirza, better known as Mirza Makes, became dissatisfied with both outcomes and spent one small project transforming a brief parts list into a distraction-free machine whose sole purpose is to take notes.

Jonathan Rowny Built an MP3 Player That Only Plays on Tape Decks

By Jackson Chung September 19, 2026

Jonathan Rowny has been feeling nostalgic again, and this time the answer is a cassette that holds no magnetic tape. His player looks like a mixtape, fits a standard deck, and stays silent until the mechanism starts to turn. Songs live on a microSD card inside the shell. Sound leaves through a real tape head pressed against the deck’s own head, so the old machine treats digital files as if they were oxide sliding past at walking speed.

Future Motion Turns a Onewheel XR Classic Into a Self-Balancing Track Cart

By Bill Smith September 17, 2026

Future Motion’s Santa Cruz shop looks out on the Pacific. About thirty feet from the door sits a stretch of abandoned railroad Kyle Doerksen had been staring at for years. In September 2026 he pulled a bone-stock XR Classic off the shelf and decided that line was going to carry a Onewheel.

IKEA’s Kallax Storageborn Follows You Through Skyrim While Matt Berry Complains About Clutter

By Bill Smith September 14, 2026

Swedish furniture giant IKEA paid Kinggath Creations to build a free official Creation for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and the finished work arrived on Bethesda’s Creations menu on September 9 for PC and Xbox. Players who pick it up get a new companion named Kallax Storageborn, a walking cube of shelves modeled on IKEA’s familiar Kallax bookcase, voiced in full by Matt Berry.

Mac Nano Cyberdeck Consists of an M4 Mac Mini That Slides In Like a Game Boy Cartridge

By Jackson Chung September 10, 2026

Shing Solutions already had a name for a gutted M4 Mac Mini. Once the retail shell came off and the board sat in a printed sleeve with Apple’s original heatsink and blower still bolted on, that package became the Mac Nano. The new project puts that sleeve inside a second body, a handheld deck that treats the whole computer like a giant Game Boy cartridge you can pull and replace.

Wave Race 64 Recompiled 0.4.0 Lets 1996’s Waves Fill a Modern Screen

By Bill Smith September 10, 2026

Wave Race 64: Recompiled is out as a native Windows and Apple Silicon build, and it treats Nintendo’s 1996 jet-ski racer with unusual care. You still supply a legal dump of Wave Race 64 USA Rev A, also called v1.1. The project never ships the ROM. Once that file is accepted by the launcher, the game’s own MIPS code runs as a compiled C program instead of through a full console emulator. Championship, Time Trial, and two-player races all boot, save records to emulated EEPROM, and play at speed.

DirectorFeng Restores an iPhone 13 Mini, Adds 512GB of Storage

By Jackson Chung September 8, 2026

A fan who still likes a phone that fits the hand mailed DirectorFeng a tired iPhone 13 Mini. Daily use had worn the battery to 77 percent health, enough that the owner charged three or four times a day. Storage sat at 256 GB and felt tight. iOS 16.2 was still on the device, a leftover most people would have overwritten years ago.