Latest news with #GameBoy
Mint
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
6 gadgets from 90s we all used, loved, and lost: How many do you remember?
Do you ever stop and wonder what happened to all those gadgets we couldn't live without in the 90s, and running into the early 2000s? It's wild to think how quickly they vanished from our lives and how far we've come in terms of speed, design, and efficiency. Back then, every new device felt like a doorway to the future. Now, most are just memories, sometimes tucked away in a drawer, sometimes just a story we tell. Ready for a little trip down memory lane? Let's see which classics made the list. Walkman Who remembers popping in a cassette and heading out for a walk, headphones on, feeling like the star of your own movie? The Walkman was pure magic. You'd rewind, fast forward, maybe even untangle a tape with a pencil. Crazy, right? Streaming was a distant dream. That click when you pressed play was all you needed to escape for a while. Floppy disc Saving a school project or swapping games with friends meant one thing, floppy discs. They could barely hold a single photo by today's standards, but back then, they were everything. Most people would label floppy discs with a marker because of how easy it was to mix them up. The suspense of waiting to see if your files survived, that was real drama. Now, the floppy lives on as the save icon on our screens. Who would've guessed? Of course we can't forget this one. Before everyone had a phone, the pager was king. Doctors, business folks, even teenagers clipped these little buzzers to their belts. You'd get a beep, see a number, and then rush to find a payphone. It sounds slow now but back then, getting a page felt urgent and important. Did you ever try to use one just to feel cool? Taking a photo was an act of faith. You'd line up the shot, snap the picture, and then wait days to see if it turned out. Picking up a fresh envelope of prints from the photo lab was like opening a present. Sometimes you'd get a masterpiece, sometimes just a blurry mess. But that surprise was half the fun, wasn't it? Game Boy The Game Boy was the ultimate sidekick. Chunky, a little heavy, but always ready for Tetris or Pokémon. Swapping cartridges with friends, hunting for batteries, and playing by the window for better light, those were the days. Can you believe how simple it all felt? No updates, no downloads, just pure fun. Here's one that probably got you in trouble at school. Tamagotchis were everywhere. These tiny digital pets needed constant feeding, cleaning, and attention. If you forgot about them for a few hours, you'd come back to a sad screen and a virtual mess. The obsession was real. Did your Tamagotchi ever survive more than a week? It's funny how fast things change. The gadgets that once felt futuristic are now relics of another time. But every so often, it's good to pause and remember those clicks, buzzes, and beeps that made the 90s feel so alive. Makes you wonder which of today's tech will be tomorrow's nostalgia, right?
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
‘Terrified' mama dog came to shelter with 8 pups. Now, she gets second chance
A mama dog with eight puppies was 'terrified' — and now, she gets a second chance. After all of Polly's pups were adopted from a Florida shelter, she finally has a home of her own. 'We continue to get amazing updates from her family on her progress,' Peyton Davis, marketing manager for the Humane Society of Pinellas, told McClatchy News in a June 16 email. 'Her progress was slow in the beginning, but her family had been determined to never give up on her.' The heartwarming adoption came after Polly landed at the shelter in March. At the time, she was 'underweight, recovering from heartworms, and terrified,' the humane society wrote in its email and in a Facebook post. 'Polly was extremely timid and shy,' Davis wrote. 'She took a while to warm up to new people. She was quite fearful of the world around her.' Polly had arrived at the shelter with her eight puppies, who all bear names of toys: Barbie, Beyblade, Bratz, Furby, Game Boy, Hot Wheels, Lego and Tamagotchi. The babies were weaned, so they got ready to go to new homes. 'While her puppies were quickly adopted, Polly needed something more — time, patience, and a whole lot of love,' the animal organization wrote. 'Our team never rushed her. We celebrated the tiniest milestones — like taking a few steps outside or sniffing a new friend.' Then one day, a couple saw Polly on the shelter's website and 'felt a spark.' At the shelter, they were warned that Polly might be hesitant to come close, but the pair still wanted to meet her. 'Every step of the way, they let Polly take the lead,' Davis wrote. 'They brought blankets and toys that smelled like them and their home to get her comfortable with their presence, even when they weren't here. They brought her favorite treats, too!' For weeks, the couple kept visiting the shelter to bond with Polly. Eventually the pair adopted her, kicking off their next chapter together on May 23. 'When Polly finally went home, our work didn't end,' the shelter wrote. 'We checked in regularly, helped troubleshoot routines, and celebrated alongside her new family as Polly bloomed. Because of this partnership, Polly nearly became a new dog — from frozen in fear to zoomies around the yard and snuggles at bedtime.' The humane society is in Clearwater, west of Tampa.
Engadget
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Engadget
Palmer Luckey's ModRetro Chromatic portable console is now a thing you can actually buy
There's a new (ish) retro console on the block. The ModRetro Chromatic had a soft launch last year but is now "permanently in stock" for consumers. This is another machine that runs Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges, like the beloved Analogue Pocket and others. The Chromatic features a magnesium alloy build, so it should take a licking. It also features a backlit screen — something the original Game Boy lacked. As a matter of fact, Nintendo didn't fully embrace backlighting technology until midway through the life of the Game Boy Advance. The console was designed by Palmer Luckey and was originally sold in a limited run last year. Today's release includes a new colorway and the choice of a sapphire glass display for increased durability. There are also a bunch of new accessories, like a rechargeable power bank, and some nifty software features. It can now natively stream to Discord, Mac or PC, without any additional hardware and there's a new firmware tool to update games. The Chromatic runs proprietary cartridges, in addition to Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. There are a handful of new games arriving with this release, including a metroidvania called Dark Plague . Each console ships with Tetris , just like the original Game Boy. The standard release costs $200, but the model with the sapphire glass display costs $300. New games price out at $40 and old-school Game Boy carts are available on eBay, at garage sales and maybe buried in ancient couch cushions. There are a couple of caveats here. First of all, this doesn't emulate games, as cartridges are required. It only handles Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles. The Analogue Pocket, for instance, can also play Game Boy Advance titles and a separate adapter brings other consoles into the mix. — Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) May 1, 2025 There's also the creator himself. Palmer Luckey is a controversial figure. He founded Oculus and helped bring VR to the masses, sure, but recent years has found him running a military defense contracting firm called Anduril Industries. This company has been involved with designing a "virtual" border wall complete with hundreds of surveillance towers, building AI tools for military use and, most recently, making wearables that allow soldiers to interact with AI-powered weapon systems. He's become a big player in the defense space, securing $6 billion in global government contracts. You'll have to decide if you want to indirectly contribute to that cause by giving him $200 or $300 to pick up a portable console. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
Hindustan Times
07-06-2025
- General
- Hindustan Times
Waste Wars: Read an exclusive excerpt from the book by Alexander Clapp
Your first cell phone, the VCR player you gave away after the advent of the DVD, the DVD player you donated to Goodwill after the arrival of Blu-ray, the Blu-ray player you never used, the college laptop you tossed away because it was ransacked by viruses—it all may very well have passed through Agbogbloshie, submitted to the stroke of a hammer and shucked of its valuables, the last chapter of a journey (What did happen to your childhood Game Boy?) You've probably never paused to contemplate in the first place. Photos of Agbogbloshie are invariably enlisted to demonstrate Ghana's grim fate as one of the world's greatest recipients of Western electronic waste. But the reality is more complicated and, in certain respects, darker. For Ghana was never meant to turn out like this. It was never supposed to become a dumping ground for foreigners' unwanted electronics. And contrary to many descriptions of Agbogbloshie, not a single country or company on Earth ships, or has ever shipped, broken phones or busted televisions to the place as a matter of policy. No, none of this arrives in Ghana as waste per se. What foreigners do send—and this is not merely legal but incentivized by global institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund—are old electronics they claim do work. When recycling firms or waste brokers in countries like Canada or Germany ship millions of broken cell phones or ceiling fans to Ghana, it's probable they may not think they are outsourcing pollution to West Africa. They may really believe they're bestowing the tools of enlightenment and progress upon a poor corner of the world's poorest continent. How did any of this start happening? How did Ghana—a country that scarcely possessed a functioning computer a generation ago—emerge as the recipient of thousands of tons of busted electronics and appliances every year? ...None of this was getting 'dumped' in Ghana. It had been shipped for the purpose of getting purchased by Ghanaians. Dozens of containers packed with thousands of electronic devices of one sort or another reach Tema every day. Some are sent by waste brokers in Western countries who specialize in collecting secondhand electronics from recycling centers or dumps; others are donated by hospitals, universities, NGOs; others are sent by expatriate Ghanaians who, during the famine and tribal conflicts of the 1990s, relocated to the great metropolises of the north—London, New York, Toronto—and now wander their streets in search of old appliances piled on sidewalks that they can ship to relatives who work the street bazaars of Accra back home. untested electronics, meaning cell phones and TVs that have been imported from Europe or the United States but are not necessarily guaranteed to work. A TV at twenty bucks instead of forty? A consignment of desktop computers at five hundred dollars instead of a thousand? Most Ghanaian vendors are willing to take the risk…. The point of Agbogbloshie is not just to be a destination for 'condemned' phones—not to be a 'dump' in the conventional sense—but to separate and extract as much of these inner materials as possible, as quickly and cheaply as possible. It is difficult work. Beyond the long-term health consequences of operating a great scrapyard in the midst of sixty thousand people with negligible access to healthcare, there are reminders all over Agbogbloshie of the dangers of shucking and hammering broken electronics for ten hours a day. The slum is full of hands missing fingers, feet shorn of toes, limbs pocked with burns, and the occasional one-eyed dismantler. (Excerpted with permission from Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash by Alexander Clapp, published by Little Brown & Co; February 2025)
France 24
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- France 24
🌟The Bright Side: Ahead of Switch 2 release, the five best-selling gaming consoles of all time
From the first video game consoles of the 1970s to the Nintendo Switch 2 due out on Thursday, hundreds of millions have been sold to players eager to immerse themselves in their favourite franchises from "Assassin's Creed" to "Zelda". The five most popular consoles have sold around 700 million units between them. PlayStation 2: 160 million Japanese tech and entertainment giant Sony sparked a global frenzy with the release of PlayStation 2 in 2000. A midnight launch in the United States stoked excitement and in some areas people stormed shops to make sure they got their hands on a unit. Its initial success was built on its backwards compatibility – players could still enjoy original PlayStation games – and its ability to play DVDs. Ironically critics were unimpressed with the initial slate of games for the console. But a string of hits from franchises including "Grand Theft Auto", "Grand Turismo", "Final Fantasy", "Tekken" and "Metal Gear Solid" helped kick the console into stratospheric popularity. On its website, Sony says it sold more than 160 million units of the PlayStation 2 around the world. Nintendo DS: 154 million The Nintendo DS revolutionised the world of gaming when it hit shelves in 2004 and 2005. Its foldable two-screen design, complete with built-in mic and internet connection, improved on the already incredible 1990s success of the Game Boy. Its success was built on a solid stable of hit adaptations – "Super Mario", "Zelda" and "Pokemon" among them. But it also became famous for breakout cultural phenomena like "Animal Crossing" and "Nintendogs" – a real-time pet simulation game where players groomed and virtually walked their dogs. The Japanese firm said it had sold more than 154 million units. Nintendo Switch: 152 million The Nintendo Switch, released in 2017, had a tablet format allowing users to play on a large screen at home or on public transport, helping to turn it into a sensation. It burnished its success with stellar sales of the latest chapters of the "Zelda" franchise. "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" – a game about social interaction – became a global mega-hit after launching in 2020, when much of the world faced some kind of confinement as a result of the Covid pandemic. The Switch, still the Japanese giant's current premium product, had notched up 152.1 million sales by the end of March this year, the firm said. Game Boy: 118 million The Game Boy and its 1998 Color spin-off were a cultural phenomenon in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The tiny handheld consoles helped launch some of the world's most recognisable characters. Pokemon's Pikachu first appeared on the Game Boy in 1996, spawning a globe-conquering franchise of films, series, games and toys. With hits like "Tetris" and "Super Mario Land", it helped crown Nintendo as a market leader in the 1990s, and eventually recorded more than 118 million sales, according to the company. PlayStation 4: 113 million While the PlayStation 2 helped kill Sega's Dreamcast at the turn of the millennium, the PlayStation 4 did battle with Microsoft 's Xbox series – and won. Released in 2013, it sold 113.5 million units by 2020, according to the Japanese firm's data, far outstripping its Microsoft rival. Success was secured with well-received additions to popular franchises like "Grand Theft Auto" and "The Last of Us".
