Key Takeaways
- Google Sheets doubles calculation speed with WasmGC library.
- Living Computers Museum auctions off historical tech items for charity.
- Steam adds built-in game recording tools and opens API for developers.
With Copilot+ PCs now out in the wild, things have been a little quiet on the news front. Still, despite the slower pace, some gold nuggets caught our eye over the past week. So, regardless of whether you want to check out how quick Google Sheets is now, or you’re a Raspberry Pi enthusiast, here’s a handpicked selection of the best stories in the last week.
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Reducing the calculations for calculations
If you’re a Google Sheets power user, your productivity is about to go through the roof. Earlier this week, Google implemented the WasmGC library into Sheets, which doubles the speed of calculations on Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and other Chromium-based browsers. Browsers that don’t use Chromium, such as Firefox and Safari, are expected to get an implementation soon.
Own a piece of computer science history in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
Since 2019, the Living Computers Museum in Seattle has closed its doors to the public. Now, the museum has declared that it’s shutting down, but what to do with all of its iconic items? The museum is holding one last hurrah by selling off some monumental relics from history, from Bill Gates’s first-ever PC to the letter Einstein sent to President Roosevelt, of the sparks that set the Manhattan Project in motion. The auctions happen in September, so take the time to save some cash.
No additional software required
Game recording has come a long way since YouTube was inundated with videos from FRAPS and Unregistered Hypercam 2. Now, you don’t even need GPU software to record your games. If you play them on Steam, the app now comes with its own built-in game recording tools, so you can either record a session or grab the last few seconds of gameplay. Best of all, Steam is opening the API up so developers can add their own timestamps to your recording depending on what you did in-game.
Have a finger in as many Pis as you like
Raspberry Pi Connect is great, but for a while, it was restricted to Raspberry Pi 4, 5, and 400, leaving some people with older models in the dark. Fortunately, that has all changed, with the handy tool coming to all Raspberry Pis. With this update, you can now remotely tap into the Pi of your choice, regardless of what version Pi it is or if it’s 32 or 64-bit. Now would be a great time to dust off that old board you wanted to find a use for and see what you can achieve with Raspberry Pi Connect.
Raspberry Pi brings retro home once again
Finally, we have this cool project demonstrating just how good the Raspberry Pi is at emulating older hardware. We’ve seen plenty of examples where Raspberry Pis are used to emulate older games, but this time, someone has created a modern-day reimagining of the iPod with theirs. It comes with some sleek modern-day tech, such as an e-paper display to show off which song is currently playing. Plus, as you’d expect from something inspired by the iPod, you have directional buttons in the middle to control what’s being played. Perhaps not a replacement for your smartphone, but still a fun little project you can do in your spare time.