Everything new is old again

While we obsess over all things new and shiny, intrepid modders are packing today's tiny products into the larger, sturdier and possibly more stylish gadgets of yesteryear.

• Matt Billings didn't want to expose his Mac Mini to thieving passers-by, so he tucked it away inside an old Dell desktop. His Flickr photoset documents the build.

• Jim Younkin isn't buying the iPod Shuffle as high-tech jewellery thing. He's stuffed his into a pair of $1 headphones from a charity shop to create the Shufflephones 1.0 -- Old Skool Edition. Visit his photo album for all the gory snipping and soldering.

• We've seen lots of retro add-ons for mobile phones, including this and these. But for full-on open-phone surgery with wires coiling everywhere like exploding intestines, you can't go past Spark Fun Electronics' step-by-step guide to embedding a mobile in an old-style rotary phone.

What’s next? We'd like a digital camera in a Box Brownie. -ML