Don't throw that electronic junk just yet! - Top 10 Ways to Modernize Your Old, Retro Gadgets

Despite the strong possibility that I will be labeled as a hoarder, I have no qualms in admitting that I find it extremely difficult to throw away old electronic gadgets that have lived out their intended usages. So for me, this article was a discovery that brought me joy and comfort.

Turn your old 'about to be garbage' junk electronic gadgets into something useful. Floppy drives can be converted into pen holders, Nintendo controllers turn into USB gamepads or even pen drives, VCR heads become momentum based scroll wheels - possibilities are only limited by the limits of imagination!

These projects sound fun, and even though practicality of the final products cannot be guaranteed, it will surely bring loads of fun experimenting with these ideas. If you succeed, you get to keep your favorite electronics with added value. If you fail, well, not much is lost.

Just one piece of advice, as the article rightly reminds - don't tear down anything you might want back!!

Read it all here.

iPhone 5 - was there ever a hype?

Hypes are just what they are - hypes. Making something slimmer and lighter has become obsolete as a marketing strategy to attract customers, particularly if it fails to bring any sort of 'wow'. And thats what the new iPhone has done. With a taller and slimmer look and the new A6 chip, it hasn't brought anything new to the table. I thought Apple got more publicity in its bickering with Samsung than it will get with iPhone 5.

However, as this article says in its closing comment, the only positive thing to hope for from this release is a little boost in the US economy that Apple products have more or less regularly produced.

Oh, it says something about a cool charger for the phone, called 'Lightening' or something. ehh!

Nanoelectronics just got smaller - Graphene and Boron Nitride in atom-thick semiconductor fabrication

Cornell University researchers have found a way to stack Graphene and Boron Nitride layers and produce integrated circuits that are nanometers thick. The resulting electronic chips would be slimmer, smaller and flexible. The fabrication process sounded pretty similar to present day IC fabrication methods, involving etching and lithography to fuse the layers together.

There are still huge kinks in the technology to be corrected before this can become a reality, but the possibilities in applications are endless. This will be a huge breakthrough in flexible and transparent electronics - reminds me of Minority Report, although that's not the first movie to show the possible use of transparent electronics.

Read more here.