Photo credit: inb4ohnoes
Sophia Tung spent a year turning Nintendo’s orange boombox-on-wheels into a street-legal machine she could actually ride. The YouTuber and engineer, already known for deep dives into robotaxis and emerging tech, became so hooked on Mario Kart World that she decided the Tune Thumper had to exist in real life at full size. Everything on it works: speakers play music, buttons click and pause tracks, headlights and taillights fire up, the antenna stands tall, and a Nintendo Switch 2 dock sits inside the cassette-door section so you can play the game on the very bike it came from.

Game screenshots and photogrammetry provided her with a starting point for creating a 3D reference, but when she attempted to scale the in-game model 1:1, it proved to be far too long and high for someone to sit comfortably and ride securely.Instead, she installed the body on an old FTO frame, which proved to be an excellent choice, and flipped the front fork to reduce the wheelbase from 84 cm to 77 cm, making it more manageable.

Nintendo Switch 2 System

• The next evolution of Nintendo Switch
• One system, three play modes: TV, Tabletop, and Handheld
• Larger, vivid, 7.9” LCD touch screen with support for HDR and up to 120 fps

That way, she could preserve the cartoon-like proportions while also making it safe for people to sit and steer. A friend suggested going with wood after they received a price for a $10,000 3D print, which is a lot of money for a print that takes ages to complete. So cabinet builder Joe DiMaio spent weeks working with her to build the speaker shell out of MDF sheets, stacking and cutting them into the curved shape before hand-applying all the features such as the black grilles, colored buttons, volume knob, and cassette embellishments. She had her partner handle the most of the late nites and frustrations that followed.

An 84-volt battery pack provides power to the motors via a unique speed controller, with a top speed of approximately 65 mph on 13-inch wheels. A MOSFET switch and DC converters handle the illumination, so the head and tail lights appear to belong on a real vehicle, which they now do. The speakers are positioned where the game’s black speaker cones would be, and they are actually playing audio, which is a really great touch. And you can see the cassette door, which hides the Switch 2 dock internals as well as some extra ports, not to mention Apple CarPlay. The whole weight came to roughly 70 pounds.

Halloween night proved to be the first real-world test, and let me tell you… the dashboard reset on every bump, a printed tail piece flew off, and one of the tires ran flat, but folks on the street just stopped and stared when they saw it, which provided plenty of Instagram worthy moments. After that ride, she was able to replace a shorted controller by hand, secure the electronics against vibration, and eventually resolve the dock integration issue.

Later, she took the bike to a Nintendo store and demonstrated that the buttons functioned, the music played, and the dock could power up a screen. The entire endeavor took her a year of evenings, splinters, and 4 a.m. sessions, but the end product is a wooden radio bike that appears to have stepped straight out of the game and onto the pavement.

OFFBEAT

At last, somewhere comfy to sit while your PlayStation 5 game loads

Microsoft’s latest Xbox merchandising deal means at least you can sit on an IKEA cushion while you wait for your PlayStation 5 to boot.

IKEA has announced YXSTABY, a nine-piece collection of items aimed at the XBOX completist who has to have every possible piece of merchandise associated with their beloved game console. Need a stool? How about one modeled on a controller’s thumbstick? A cushion? There’s a D-pad to throw on the sofa.

And a tariff refund for Xbox customers? Ah, well, the IKEA deal only goes so far…

IKEA has long had a reputation for being that place where relationships go to die, thanks in part to the occasionally labyrinthine layout of its store. Xbox has, under the leadership of Asha Sharma, acquired a similar rep as far as staffers and game studios are concerned. Thousands of workers were laid off in recent months as Sharma “reset the business” to improve the platform’s standing in a market dominated by rivals.

In the UK, IKEA charges £12 for a cushion or platter, and up to £115 for a side table on wheels. The Reg suspects Xbox branded stuff will be a little pricier but considerably less than an Xbox itself. 

Microsoft Store shows the comparatively weedy Xbox Series S retailing for £429.99, while the beefier Series X goes for £669.99. When launched in 2020, the Series S cost £249. “Unfortunately,” wrote Microsoft, “console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027.”

It is far from alone. Price rises have become a way of life in the tech industry in recent months as demand for memory outstripped supply.

This is not the first gaming-related wares that IKEA has sold. The BRÄNNBOLL collection predates the Xbox collaboration and features “everything to improve your gaming adventures, from a rug that helps you hit the enemies, not the table, to gaming bolsters that boost your comfort and play.”

The YXSTABY range was unveiled at Gamescom this month, but eager buyers have a little longer to wait for that Xbox-inspired stool. The range will be in stores and available online from October 1. ®

TL;DR: Scientists have built a quantum battery prototype that can produce an electrical current after charging in femtoseconds, marking a step forward for a technology that has largely remained theoretical and limited to small-scale lab experiments. The prototype is far from replacing conventional batteries, but it provides evidence that quantum effects could eventually enable faster energy transfer in quantum hardware and other specialized systems.

The device, developed by a team led by CSIRO quantum science researcher James Quach, is designed to take advantage of a quantum effect called superabsorption. In simple terms, the more molecules involved, the faster the system can absorb energy.

That is the opposite of what happens with conventional batteries, which generally take longer to charge as they get larger. The work does not mean quantum batteries are ready to replace those used in phones, laptops, or electric vehicles. The prototype stores only a small amount of energy and holds it for nanoseconds. Still, researchers say the experiment demonstrates that energy can be rapidly absorbed and extracted from a quantum battery.

The prototype uses an optical microcavity made of two mirrors separated by about 100 nanometers. The space between the mirrors is filled with organic dye molecules. A laser shines into the cavity, causing the light and molecules to interact strongly.

That interaction creates hybrid light-matter states. The molecules do not absorb energy independently, as they would in a classical system. Instead, they respond collectively.

The battery charges in femtoseconds, or quadrillionths of a second. It can retain energy for nanoseconds, about six orders of magnitude longer than the charging period.

Quach’s team first demonstrated superabsorption in 2022. The newer experiment added the ability to extract an electrical current. The current remains small, but demonstrating it is an important step toward making a quantum battery useful beyond a physics experiment.

Quantum batteries are not expected to compete with conventional batteries simply by storing more energy. Their main attraction is the possibility of very fast charging and precise energy delivery.

CSIRO’s clean lab for engineering prototype quantum batteries.

Dario Ferraro, an associate professor of physics at the University of Genova, told the BBC that quantum batteries are intended to improve the speed and control of energy delivery rather than significantly increase the amount of energy a battery can store.

For now, the gap between the prototype and a useful power source remains wide. The device can hold only a few billion electron volts of energy and retains it for a very short time. A real-world system would need far greater capacity and much longer storage times.

Quach said his group has built a hybrid design intended to address those limitations. It combines quantum components for rapid charging with classical layers that can store energy for longer. He said the team is preparing a paper on the work.

The researchers also plan to link multiple microscopic batteries together. “If we do those two things, then we’re on our way to being able to power a conventional device,” Quach said.

The optical microcavity system has one practical advantage: It operates at room temperature. Other quantum-battery designs use superconducting materials, which are already important in quantum computing but require extremely cold operating conditions.

Superconducting systems can operate at temperatures below -150°C. “This is fine for quantum computers, but not so useful to power your mobile phone,” Quach said.

The world’s first fully functioning proof-of-concept quantum battery.

Mauro Paternostro, a quantum physicist at Queen’s University Belfast, said the optical approach is a strong way to demonstrate that quantum charging can work. However, he added that it may be difficult to draw energy from such a system in a controlled and useful way. “A microcavity gives you a beautiful ensemble demonstration, but poor control over getting the energy back out in a useful, directed form,” he said.

The first practical use of quantum batteries, if they reach that point, may be in quantum hardware rather than consumer electronics. Quantum computers already rely on specialized equipment, and some use superconducting systems that operate at cryogenic temperatures.

Quach said a quantum battery could eventually help reduce energy use in quantum devices and support faster, more reliable operation. However, those benefits have not yet been demonstrated.

Ferraro said quantum effects are fragile and can break down when the system interacts with its environment. He expects quantum batteries to remain most useful in quantum-scale applications. “In my view… quantum batteries are unlikely to replace conventional batteries in everyday applications such as mobile phones or electric vehicles,” Ferraro said. “Their natural domain is the quantum scale.”

The latest prototype does not settle that debate. It does show that researchers can use quantum effects to charge a system quickly and extract an electrical current. The next challenge is building a device that can store more energy, hold it longer, and release it where it is needed.

VodafoneThree’s networks director says UK mobile quality is not ready for AI traffic and that planning rules, not money, are the obstacle, with more than half of its upgrades to existing masts requiring permission. The EU’s Gigabit Infrastructure Act has since November given authorities four months to decide a permit, after which it is deemed granted.

The UK’s largest mobile operator says its own network is not good enough. “I am embarrassed today at the level of quality of our network,” Andrea Donà of VodafoneThree told the Guardian.

He was describing what happens when AI traffic arrives. His comparison was the signal loss people get at a stadium, made permanent.

The starting position is poor. UK mobile coverage is worse than every EU member state and every other G7 country, on Opensignal data compiled for Which?. The same analysis puts it 57th globally for network performance.

Money is not the obstacle. VodafoneThree has committed £11B to upgrading masts, and it is cutting its mast count by 30%.

Almost none of the work needs a new site. About 96% of the upgrades are on existing structures, and more than half of those still require planning permission.

Donà’s ask is procedural rather than financial. “Planning reform is the lowest possible cost growth policy, it doesn’t require any government money,” he said.

The European Union legislated exactly that in 2024. The remedy he is describing is already on the statute book across the Channel.

Under the Gigabit Infrastructure Act, national authorities have four months to decide a permit application for a very high capacity network, and the permit is deemed granted if they miss the deadline.

It has applied since November last year. Member states may opt out of the automatic approval, but they have to offer compensation or a right to sue instead.

Brussels is going further. The Digital Networks Act proposes indefinite spectrum licences, use it or share it rules, and simpler deployment in exchange for tougher coverage duties.

The UK is bound by none of it. Its operators also point out that mobile networks are critical national infrastructure without the reliefs data centres receive on business rates and energy.

Elsewhere the gap is being attacked from a different direction. A Spanish startup raised €150M to beam 5G to ordinary phones from orbit, which needs no local consent at all.

Which is the shape of the problem. Britain protects the building where the model runs and not the network that has to reach it.