Lifehacker reader rykennedyan created this customized desktop based on Halo, and even if you're not a gamer, you've got to appreciate the workmanship that went into this. Check out what it can do after the jump. [Lifehacker]

The desktop is made from a string of custom Rainmeter configurations on a Halo 3 background image. Rykennedyan's list of features:

• Grenades - Each grenade launches a specific application. I currently have them set to, from left to right, Pidgin, Steam, Foobar, and Firefox.
• Power Drainer - Opens a Shutdown menu. You can choose Shutdown, Restart, and Sleep
• Health Bar - Displays current track progress, with artist and title above it.
• Battle Rifle and Ammo Count - Displays current unread message count from Gmail and the Battlerifle opens Gmail.
• Ammo Clip - Top clip is download traffic; bottom clip is upload traffic.
• Radar - As of now, all this does is download and save an image for the local radar from Weather Underground. I'm currently editing a GIMP script which will automatically crop and edit the picture to display properly upon download. What you see here is the intended look. It also displays the current temperature.
• Time and Game Type - Display current time and date.
• Blue Score and Red Score - Display current CPU and RAM usage.
• Player Callsigns - These behave just like my TweetScanner skin.
• Battlerifle Ammo Count - Displays current battery status; it displays 0 in this picture because I'm using my desktop which is not on a battery.
• Also, the visor outline is done in Rainmeter as well.

This is the Palo Alto, CA garage where two young Stanford engineering grads named Bill Hewlett and David Packard started building what would one day become the world's largest PC manufacturer. In 2000, HP turned it into a museum.

Hewlett and Packard rented the garage way back in 1938 to build audio oscillators with a new, more efficient design, a business that quickly expanded into all means of electronic hardware (and later, software) and effectively put that stretch of northern California on its way to becoming Silicon Valley.

In 2000, HP bought the garage and its corresponding house where the company's founders lived while they worked, and turned it into a museum of sorts. They recreated the garage exactly how it was at the time, with the same decor and audio oscillator parts strewn about. It's not open to the public, since it's just a house on a residential street in Palo Alto (and HP is nothing if not neighborly), but it's definitely someplace we'd like to take a look at. Love them or hate them, HP is top dog in the computer hardware world, and it's a treat to see how it all began. [CNET]

You know you've made it when a shady Chinese company uses your image without permission to sell a crappy knockoff of a phone nobody really liked all that much in the first place. [Cloned in China via Coolest Gadgets]

Since Apple hasn't given us a comprehensive list of all the little changes in iPhone 3.0, users have taken it upon themselves to compile the treats they've found in the new software, some of which are actually quite nice.

The MacRumors forums have a couple of ongoing, constantly updated lists, though of course we can't verify their massive efforts. Here's part one and everything since part one of their informal list, and a slightly more structured list can be found here.

If you want something a little easier to read, iPhone User Guide has posted a nice and simple list of (at the moment) 113 new updates they've found, from font changes to new customization options to iPhone 3.0's ability to display album information when the device is locked.

And, as always, check out our features:

• 10 Things to Check Out in iPhone 3.0
• Our iPhone 3.0 Review
• The Complete Guide to iPhone 3.0

It's times like these that make me proud to live in America. A new survey ranks the US number 20 in household broadband use, just behind Estonia and the United Arab Emirates. Wait, is "proud" the right word?

We all know the US lags way behind in broadband penetration (a phrase that never fails to sound far dirtier than it is), but it's still a little disheartening to find exactly how far. The top 5, which consists of South Korea, Singapore, The Netherlands, Denmark, and Taiwan, are all over 80% penetration while the US struggles at only 60%. Hell, even Canada hit 76%, and they've got way more land and way fewer people. This will change, of course; Obama's pledged to increase broadband penetration, though at the moment he still has to fistfight his way through the legislature or whatever it is he needs to do to get anything passed. Still, it's nice to see Estonia get some good press for once. [Ars Technica]

Medialets is reporting that as of June 17th, a mere 11 days after its launch, Palm Pre users have downloaded well over 650,000 apps. Now hurry up and expand that App Catalog, Palm!

With only 30 apps in the App Catalog (and none of them fart-related), it's still clear that Palm users know and want apps. Once the SDK goes out sometime in "late summer", we should start seeing an explosion of apps. Congrats to Palm on their early success!

Now get back to work. [Medialets via Engadget]

The WSJ reports that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago in Tennessee. He is expected to still return to work later this month, even if only at a part time schedule.

From there, the article goes on to speculate loosely, ever so loosely, that Jobs' cancer had spread to his liver.

William Hawkins, a doctor specializing in pancreatic and gastrointestinal surgery at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., said that the type of slow-growing pancreatic tumor Mr. Jobs had will commonly metastasize in another organ during a patient's lifetime, and that the organ is usually the liver. "All total, 75% of patients are going to have the disease spread over the course of their life," said Dr. Hawkins, who has not treated Mr. Jobs.

Getting a liver transplant to treat a metastasized neuroendocrine tumor is controversial because livers are scarce and the surgery's efficacy as a cure hasn't been proved, Dr. Hawkins added. He said that patients whose tumors have metastasized can live for as many as 10 years without any treatment so it is hard to determine how successful a transplant has been in curing the disease.

But those are far from facts. All we know is that the WSJ is saying Jobs got a transplant. Regardless, when Steve gets back to work, I think we should all welcome him back. [WSJ, via Peter K]

Here's the stuff that we didn't post today. (Until now, obviously.)

• Somebody finally took a stand against the crap Michael Bay Transformers, and built himself a life-size Bumblebee using a very real Volkswagen Beetle. It's mighty without being, bizarrely disjointed, and has the old noble Tranny face, instead of the weird insectoid new ones. Only problem is, this thing doesn't move, not even as much as Japan's larger-than-life Gundam, so it's technically not a "gadget." [DailyStab]

• OK, here's an award-winning idea: Build an overly elaborate, overly large bracelet that harvests your energy so that when your stupid phone dies, you have an extra 2 minutes of juice. Am I getting it right? Sure, it looks neat—if your name is Captain Spaceman. Here's one concept we don't think we'll be doing a Lightning Review of in the future. [Yanko]

• $55 tethering? Mid-July launch? Confirmed by AT&T? But reported by some blog we never heard of, who appears to have stolen our name, or at least our naming system? We didn't jump on the bandwagon because our sources within AT&T and Apple said it was BS. Here's a link to a site that's doing the work of dispelling this dumb rumor, verified by AT&T themselves through their Facebook page. [Loop]

• Popular Science has declared their July issue the first interactive magazine cover. When you hold their magazine up to a webcam, you see the 3d image above, on your screen. Too bad its actually an ad by GE. [PopSci/GE]

Thomas Meyerhoffer used to work at Apple and helped design Chumby. These days, he's reinventing the classic shape of the surfboard. Looks more like a snowboard, with that midcut radius. Or a spaceship. I like it.

Here's how it rides:





I would try to explain the theory behind this one, but the shape itself is best explained by Thomas in this video by surfpulse.

Thomas Meyerhoffer's projects include the first rounded sky goggles, the Smith V3 and the predecessor to the iMac, the translucent emate. Thomas Meyerhoffer doesn't live too far from where I am, a few miles south of San Francisco. Maybe I'll catch him riding this strange surfboard one of these days. Interesting. [Meyerhoffer surfboards, Outside Mag Profile, SurfPulse]

We're playing 1 vs 100 on Xbox Live right now. If you're anywhere near your Xbox 360, hop on and we can use the comments as a discussion of what's going on.

AND, if you're going to be on at 7PM Pacific (10 ET), it's the live game. You'll get a chance to win a car, plus some other good prizes this weekend. Not from us, from Microsoft—like we have the money to give away a car.