This "tree" definitely puts the one at Rockefeller Center to shame.
Located at Nuevos Ministerios in downtown Madrid, this animated LED display features everyone's favorite power pellet abuser, Pac-Man himself.
You may notice that the cherries, pretzels, and other guzzle-able items have been replaced by a Christmas tree, holiday bells, ribbons, and stars. Nice touch.
To see a gargantuan picture of the Pac-Man tree (or at least a larger image than the one to your right) and some video action of it, jingle all the way past the break.
What do you get when you combine mooninite inspired LEDs with items from Mario games? No, not bomb scares in Boston, silly. Check out these videos if you're interested in these projects by Carl Cartagena, where he makes star, turnip, bomb-omb, and mushroom LEDs. For extra points, Carl either wrote or remixed all the music in these vids, too.
Some of them are a bit lengthy, but it's worth at least checking out the finished products. More LED videos after the break, just be sure not to invite any Boston police.
Posted Nov 26th 2007 8:40PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: Mods
So, is this what's hot on the streets nowadays? Is this what's really hood? We have to commend Acidmods forumer Rocky for having enough technical knowhow to mod his handheld so extensively -- regular readers will recognize his work from our previousposts spotlighting his LED wizardry. We also have to commend him for blowing our minds with this off-the-wall design.
We assume that the inspiration behind the unicycling llama came from Rocky's animated avatar on the Acidmods message board. Fellow forumer XionDS engraved the llama onto a transparent shell for him with a CNC cutter, immortalizing the balancing pack animal. You can see more photos of Rocky's DS Lite and images of XionDS's similarly-etched system past the post break.
The past few DS Lite mods we've featured didn't venture far beyond lodging LEDs into the handheld's face, so we're glad to have a twist to that formula for today. AcidMods forum administrator F00 f00 installed light-emitting diodes into the back of his portable. To emphasize its glow, he used what looks like Onyx Black casing and a clear replacement shell for the DS's frame.
How long will it be before we see a DS Lite kitted with ambient lighting? Staring into those bright screens while you're in the dark puts a lot of strain on your eyes, and there are times when turning on a light just isn't an option (e.g. like when you're hiding in a blanket because there are ghosts floating around your bed). Put on some sunglasses and check past the post break for more photos of F00 f00's mod.
Rocky's ultra-modded DS Lite has gotten to the point where you can literally station it on the coastline, its LED beacons guiding ships to safe harbor. His latest hack installs LEDs under the ABXY buttons, sticking them in place with hot glue. We're not sure if the mod has any functional purpose -- save serving as a navigational aid to sailors at sea -- but it's certainly something we haven't seen done before with the handheld. Float your boat past the post break for larger photos of the DS lighthouse.
When we last checked in with Acid Mods forumer Rocky, he had outfitted his DS Lite with a clear shell and several LEDs, wowing all the ladies and fellas with its electric blue brilliance. His latest experiment adds a sound amp chip that floods the LEDs with light in time with the handheld's audio. Don't feel like driving out to the dance club tonight? Just find yourself a dark room, load up Darude's "Sandstorm" on your DS Lite, and you've got the same experience right in your hands! Sort of.
Rocky has posted a photo tutorial of the installation process, but we're much too squeamish to replace our stock casing or do any sort of soldering. If that seems like too much hardware hacking, you can settle with just watching a video of the jazzed up DS Lite flickering along with music tracks and video game sounds after the post break. Though we can't condone his use of a flash cart to load backed up games, we won't let that get in the way of imagining how cool it'd be to play our favorite rhythm titles with this mod.
We've reported on the surprisingly well-established homebrew community on the DS; there's a whole wealth of wonderful applications you can coerce your DS into performing. To most, however, the prospect of "hacking" the DS is "scary", and despite some of the easier methods out there, it still seemed a little much.
Well, we no longer think it could get any easier. The newest device to come out of haX0r-land, the sillily named DS-Xtreme, is nothing more than a DS cartridge. It works as a simple mass-storage device ... simply move the applications or files to the cartridge using a USB connection, and poof, instant homebrew. It comes with a built in MP3-playback app, and it has two bitchin' LEDs for good measure (check out the embedded videos after the jump). The downside? It only contains 512 MB of memory, and it can't run anything built for the Game Boy Advance. Still, for the fence-sitters out there, this might be enough to push you over the edge. Check it out. [Sillily is so a word.]
For those of you who love to check out tutorials for modding hardware, we've got a great one for you. With this DS Phat light mod, you can add some flair to your old DS Phat, as well as provide yourself with defense against any attacking deer. By adding some bright LED lights to the top portion of your DS Phat, you might be able to compete against the stylish appeal of the DS Lite.
Also be sure to check out other mods for your DS Phat:
This "tree" definitely puts the one at Rockefeller Center to shame.
The past few DS Lite mods we've featured didn't venture far beyond lodging 
Rocky's 
We've reported on the surprisingly well-established 
For those of you who love to check out tutorials for modding hardware, we've got a great one for you. With this DS Phat light mod, you can add some flair to your old DS Phat, as well as provide yourself with defense against any attacking deer. By adding some bright LED lights to the top portion of your DS Phat, you might be able to compete against the stylish appeal of the DS Lite.
