Piltch Point (Video)

This week, Avram Piltch shows off the Artie 3000 drawing robot. Artie is a new entry in the growing list of kids STEM toys intended to help teach kids about computers, logic, and programming. These toys all take different forms, and Artie is unique in the field. This product is a robotic drawing product, which allows the user to program its movements to produce a drawing.

While Artie is cute, some aspects make it less than ideal. Most robotic toys connect to their host devices via Bluetooth, Artie connects via WiFi. Artie has a web server built-in which serves up the web interface to program the robot. This produces a couple of issues. The first is that because Artie connects through WiFi, the computer or tablet does not have internet access. This means that looking for help will be impossible on the connected computer. So, to be able to use a tutorial or follow instructions, you will need two devices.

The second problem is that the interface is designed for a larger screen, particularly a laptop. It works well on a laptop, but most younger kids have more experience with a tablet or phone than with a laptop. As such, using the block-based programming system is not as easy to use as it is with other products.

While Artie is billed as a toy to learn how to program, this robot is not going to be a great introductory programming toy. That's because the system is very limited in its scope. However, Artie is a truly great product to help kids learn the basics of geometry due to its drawing focus. Over time, kids can learn the finer points of how to program the robot to produce geometric shapes. The more intricate the shapes, the more detailed the drawings can be. One of the included programs produces a very cool Spirograph-like design.

Because of the price and the legitimate learning opportunities, Artie is a good buy for most young kids.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

This week, Avram Piltch talks about how and why to overclock your computing device. So, what is overclocking? It is the process of changing the operating parameters of a component to increase its performance. While the main CPU is the most common to overclock, you can also overclock your graphics card, or GPU, and your RAM.

While not long ago the process of overclocking was difficult enough that only computer aficionados got involved, today it can be as easy as changing a setting in a text file or your system BIOS. It does require that your hardware be overclockable, better known as unlocked. For an Intel processor, just make sure that the model number ends in a K. Modern AMD processors are all unlocked, as are Raspberry Pi processors.

Why might you want to overclock your components, though? For some, it can just be a fun challenge. Some people take it to extremes. There are competitions and professional overclockers who can use liquid nitrogen to pull out every drop of performance. But, for normal computer users, overclocking could potentially add some life to older hardware. Maybe your PC is getting a little slow, you've done a full reset, but it's just not quite enough. By overclocking your processor, you might be able to bring that device back to life.

Many people wonder why overclocking is needed. Why not just run the component at its full potential out of the box? Because every device is unique, manufacturers cannot predict the maximum potential of each component. So, rather than trying to tune each processor or stick of RAM individually, the manufacturers find the least common denominator and tune for that. That does, however, leave some headroom that you can take advantage of. Overclocking can also affect the overall lifespan of your components.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

This week, Avram Piltch discusses a pair of interesting science experiments that have been conducted by Tom's Hardware over the past few weeks. The first involves the publication's favorite tech gadgets: the Raspberry Pi. The site has done a lot of projects using the board, but this one was unique. Rather than building something with it, they waterproofed it and used it completely submerged underwater. The result is accomplished by dipping the board into a bath of a chemical called CorrosionX. This chemical is incredibly toxic and should be used with care.

From a usefulness perspective, this project probably doesn't rank high for most consumers. However, there are some real-world applications. Raspberry Pi boards are used in a lot of robotic applications, and robots can get themselves into potentially damaging situations, completely outside of their control. Even if the case is already waterproof, adding this process on top of the case can protect the board in the event the case is damaged. Think of a product like a Roomba where the electronics could be protected from moisture even if the body is damaged.

The second experiment, which will be published this week, involved AMD, Intel, and pancakes. It's common knowledge that a computer CPU gets hot, and the chips have been used to cook before, but Tom's Hardware decided to test which manufacturer cooks better. They used comparable processors, one from Intel and one from AMD, and removed their processor fans. Adding thermal compound to a skillet, they placed it over the processor and ran a test to kick the processor to 100%. While both have similar operating temperatures, the Intel processor continued to run through the heat while the AMD Threadripper turned off for protection.

Again, the usefulness of the test is probably pretty low, but it is an interesting experiment. From a results perspective, it's important to know that an Intel processor will continue to run without proper heat dissipation. If you're building a computer and need it to keep running in extreme heat, potentially to the detriment of the hardware, Intel would be a good choice. If you're looking for a system with a strong self-preservation instinct, AMD might be the better choice.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

This week, Avram Piltch shows off a preview of the newest addition to the Sphero lineup: the Sphero Mini Activity Kit. This kit builds on top of the existing Sphero Mini robotic ball, adding to it a variety of pre-planned activities that can be done with the ball. These activities give new owners ideas of things that can be done with their ball. This has long been a leading problem with robotic toys like this. Without ideas on how to use it, educational toys tend to be abandoned in fairly short order.

One of the activities that come in the kit is building a maze. To accomplish this, the kit also comes with the parts and pieces to build such a maze. Another activity is bowling and, once again, the kit has bowling pins to help encourage the activity. After working through some of the included activities, kids' minds can be sparked to look for new things to do or new ways to accomplish the same goals.

As with other Sphero products, the Sphero Mini can be controlled in several different ways. You can use it in play mode, where you run it like a remote-controlled car. It can also be controlled using the accelerometer in your phone or tablet, to move in the direction of the device. It can even move based on your facial expressions, with a smile moving it forward and a frown moving it backward. There is also a programming interface, which allows you to move the device around programmatically. This is where the fun of a Sphero really comes in. You can use the included block-based programming system to build logic, but you can also use full programming languages, like C#. With all of these options, you can come up with any number of ways to bowl or complete a maze.

The Sphero Mini is available now, but the Sphero Mini Activity Kit comes out in early October.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

This week, Avram Piltch tries something new and unboxes the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard live on the show. This keyboard is unique in that it is designed to be modular, both in itself and with accessories. The small-framed keyboard detaches in the middle, allowing you to use it as a standard ergonomic keyboard, or configure it however is convenient and comfortable for you. But, the split keyboard design gives the ability to use the keyboard with additional features.

For example, the company will offer attachments for different input methods, like a trackpad, trackball, or track pointer (like on a Lenovo laptop). They will also offer a small additional key cluster. But these add-ons are just the beginning. The name is not just cutesy, it is because the entirety of the keyboard is open source. This could lead to additional accessories from other companies, or even in the form of maker projects. Of course, all of the expandability will only come to fruition if the product and platform become commercially successful. It doesn't make sense to make add-ons for devices without customers, just ask Motorola.

The biggest challenge to the success of the keyboard could be the general layout. While a keyboard of this style would likely be targeted at computer enthusiasts, the keyboard layout is far from it. There is no function row, number pad, directional pad, navigation keys, or media controls. For most computer and keyboard fans prefer more keys rather than less. All of these capabilities, except media controls, are only available via a function key combination. Unfortunately, media controls are completely missing, though you could use the key cluster add-on to replicate the missing feature.

The Ultimate Hacking Keyboard is available for pre-order, with product shipping in October. The keyboard runs $275, the add-ons run $60 each, and the palm rest runs $75.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

Modern games are fun, but there is something special about retro gaming. The simplicity of the games, the focus on fun over graphics, the limitation of the controls. These old games are just pure, simple fun. While you can play these games on a standard computer, the experience is just better in the environment the games were designed for, whether that be the living room or an arcade cabinet. Luckily, there are ways to replicate those experiences using modern and inexpensive computing hardware, like the Raspberry Pi.

Using a Raspberry Pi, you can emulate nearly any gaming experience you want. Using ROMs, which are replications of original game cartridges, you can play the old games exactly as they were made - glitches and all. Some ROMs have been made publicly available legally, while others are available without a proper license. You can also use a cartridge reader to read the games directly. Whatever your method, using an emulator is the key to the experience. It's important to know that the Raspberry Pi 4 currently does no support this, but official support is in the works. If you are a little more adventurous, you can try your hand at a bypass.

For a console-style experience, you can buy cases online, or 3D print a case, that matches your style. Whether it be an NES, a Super Nintendo, or Sega Genesis, you can make your Raspberry Pi look like the console you know and love. Some of the cases even come with USB versions of the matching controllers, including some of the links above.

For an arcade-style experience, some cases can replicate an arcade gaming stick or even an entire arcade cabinet, complete with screen, joystick, and buttons. You can also add an external USB arcade stick. Most of these projects require assembly, but others are mostly plug-and-play.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

This week, Avram Piltch discusses one of the biggest changes in the tech space for 2019: the price of solid-state memory. Both NAND flash and standard SSD drives have come down significantly in price, making them a great option for upgrading an existing computer. Many of us have an older laptop that is simply too slow for everyday use, but removing a traditional spinning hard drive or a hybrid drive and replacing it with a solid-state drive can completely change the experience.

Avram recently did this for a colleague from a sister publication. They had a laptop for their son, who wanted to use it for gaming purposes. The problem was that launching apps and games took way too long. So, Avram swapped out the drive, using one purchased at retail. The price for a 1TB solid-state drive was just over $100, making the price per gig around 12 cents. This represents a major shift downward in pricing. Scott also has a recent example of this upgrade. His business partner at Sumo Software has an older laptop with a hybrid drive, which was so slow that the laptop was retired. However, after ordering an SSD from Amazon, the laptop acts like an almost brand new machine.

When making this switch, there is an important part of the process that is required: cloning the old drive to the new one. Doing that will be far easier than trying to start from scratch, having to install Windows, reinstall all of your apps, etc. Instead, you can use a tool to take the original drive and duplicate it exactly to the new drive. Then, simply pull the old drive out of the computer, replace it with the new drive, and you are off and running. It's a small amount of work that can make a big impact.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

This week, Avram Piltch discusses some of the best technology to send your kids with when they return back to school. Whether they're returning to college or starting high school, certain technology pieces can enhance their learning.

For those who already have a laptop, there are a few items that can make using it a little better. For example, an external keyboard makes typing those long papers less stressful on the wrists. A larger external monitor can also help with the overall ergonomics of your desk setup, preventing a lot of neck strain looking down at a laptop. You can also make small upgrades to the laptop to speed it up, including adding additional RAM or replacing a traditional hard drive with an SSD.

If you are looking for a new laptop, it's important to consider the usage. For example, a school-age student should look into what technology their school is using. While many schools use Windows, because it is the global norm, others are beginning to adopt Chromebooks because they can be less expensive for schools. Unfortunately, it creates a difficult scenario for parents, who are unlikely to be familiar with the operating system.

For college students, however, there are some common things to look for. Ideally, a budget between $800 and $1200 will get you a great laptop for college students. You can get a great model with long battery life, so you can take notes in all of your classes, enough RAM to run any software needed for class, and enough storage to not have to fight with external disks. Tom's Hardware offered their editors' advice on buying a new laptop for students, in which Avram said,

I recommend a lightweight Ultrabook such as the Asus Zenbook, HP Envy 13t or Dell XPS 13. If you want a 2-in-1 (better for sketching), consider the HP Spectre x360.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

This week, Avram Piltch is showing off the newest addition to the LEGO augmented reality family: LEGO Hidden Side. Unlike the set that Avram tested last year, this series of products has both cool LEGO environments and AR that is fun. First, Avram discusses the sets themselves. With 8 in total, they vary from the simpler Graveyard Mystery to the more complex and beautiful Newbury Haunted High School. Like with any LEGO sets, the only real issue is the ease with which the pieces come apart.

The reason to mention the stability of the sets themselves is because of their integral nature in the game. Before you can play, you have to choose your region, which is indicated by the set you're wanting to play with. You then have to lock the app's AR to the physical location of the set. However, if it is not 100% perfect, it will not be recognized and you cannot play. For kids, this can be frustrating because any time you move a set, it could eject pieces or whole sections.

Once you've gotten past the technical issues of the game, it is a lot of fun. The augmented reality aspect of the game is not just a gimmick, as we've seen in the past, but legitimately adds to the experience. During his demo, Avram showed off that the tree in the set was actually in motion, plus it was raining in the graveyard. All of this is a precursor to the actual tasks of the game, which include finding items of a particular color and catching ghosts. The ghost hunting is similar to Pokemon GO, except you find them in the LEGO sets, not in the real world.

Avram will be publishing his full review to Tom's Hardware in the next few days, but spoiler, he recommends it to anyone with kids.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.

This week, Avram Piltch brings us up to date on one of his projects for his new favorite toy, the Raspberry Pi 4: the Picade by Pimoroni. This project features a 10-inch screen, mini arcade body, 6 player buttons, 4 utility buttons, and a joystick. The goal is to create a fully functional arcade cabinet that can run one of a variety of system emulators. Because this model is designed for the Raspberry Pi 4, as of publishing, there are still compatibility issues with some emulators and the new hardware. However, once those platforms are optimized for the new hardware, you'll have full system capability. It is important to remember that emulators and ROMs live in a legal grey area, so proceed with caution.

While Avram is still semi-early in his personal build of the project, he is familiar with Raspberry Pi emulator projects. He built another arcade-style gaming system based on a previous version of the hardware and learned a lot about the process. The inclusion of the utility buttons is an important one, as a Gameboy looking project only featured the original 4 buttons, making it difficult to escape a game. The utility buttons should help alleviate this problem.

On another project, he learned the difference between snap-in buttons and screw-in buttons, which has caused a small amount of concern. The Picade uses snap-in buttons, which can fit loosely, causing them to push through the cabinet if too much pressure is added. The benefit with this project is that the holes in the cabinet are pre-drilled, meaning they should be the perfect size for the buttons.

Obviously, with the current limitations of the Raspberry Pi 4's backward compatibility, or lack thereof, finishing this build is not exactly a priority. However, Avram is very excited to see the project completed and the beginning of playing games.

Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab.

Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW.