Hackaday Links

The firmware link for the Linksys PAP2 unlocking was dead when the link went up yesterday. [ian] found another site with the instructions and firmware. It mentions that Staples has the PAP2 for $50 and a $50 rebate that doesn’t require a Vonage subscription. They’re are out of stock online; tomorrow is the last day you can buy one in-store and get the rebate.

Leah Buechley has added the code to her wearable LED  display. [fdisk]

The annual Ig Nobel awards were last night. A personal favorite of mine, the Ig Nobels award prizes for questionable research. For example: “The Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine went to Gregg Miller, inventor of Neuticles, artificial testicle replacements for neutered dogs and other animals, which come in different sizes and levels of firmness.” Wired has the full story.

$179 is a ridiculous price for this IR controlled pan/tilt head. I’m sure one of you could put this together easily.

[camzmac] decided to add USB support to his XBox controller. Sure, it’s been done before, but we love our readers.

[CWAL] built this XMLHttpRequest chat a while ago. I like the clean interface.

Do you want your mouse to rumble every time you click a button? [leadingzero and mzungu]

Really simple speakers from a hard drive Even simpler than those other ones. [Zen]

You could be using those hard drives to sharpen scalpels. [CapnSnazzy]

Mobile drive-in theater I think I saw a story last year about these “guerrilla drive-ins” irking the MPAA since they weren’t properly licensed for public performance. [hierono]

Pixel2Life software tutorial search [via del.icio.us]

I usually don’t check del.icio.us, but I’ve had a LiveMarks window open all day. It shows the popular links as they come in. [via Waxy]

The tip line

15 thoughts on “Hackaday Links

  1. I have to say, I like the ingenuity behind the rumble mouse. I really really do. I think I may try that sometime. I would use a 5V DC motor so it could be powered directly from the USB connection, and I’d try to actually fit it in the casing. Props.

  2. regarding the camera? well yeah. mine was free because i had all the parts lying around. a little creative acrylic cutting and heat gun bending, and i got http://www.macetech.com/cambig.jpg

    it runs on the serial port and uses a PIC16F84. the top platform could be rotated 90 degrees and a 1/4-20 screw installed to mount normal cameras. i wrote a little piece of software to remember positional bookmarks and manually pan/tilt etc. someday i will put an actual design document together for you all.

  3. Regarding the above comment, I also agree that $175 for a pan/tilt is extortion. I would say for IR control, just take apart a cheap old stereo and use the remote from that… ie. the contacts for “play” could be pan up, etc… sounds like a fun project, now to break my sister’s CD player.

  4. Loved the mouse, because I’m all about pointless projects purely for the “neat!” factor. I agree with #2 though, I would have liked to seen it done with a 5V motor wired into the USB power line – also, an optical mouse. I haven’t seen a ball mouse in a looong time…

  5. “rumble mouse could use pager motors. they run on 1.5v. they are smaller, so may not have as much rumble, but you get the point.”

    Exactly what i was thinking, you can buy the motors (with the weight for vibration) online at stores that cater to BEAM robotics. I might try it with those and an old mouse.

    The hard drive speakers are kind of lame, you can do the same thing with any relatively strong magnet. And they shouldn’t be compared to Afroman’s (he is god) hd speakers because the heads on his move and look awesome while they work.

    a stalker greg hum is

  6. I tried to order the PAP2 from staples but it’s blocked on the website from adding to the cart… called the 1-800 number and the rep wouldn’t take my order saying that it was going to be phased out, and they weren’t sure if they would even get enough in to fill the backordered orders already in place. =-( so close

  7. About unlocking the Linksys PAP2. A lot of companys, when you buy a ATA (PAP2) from them, they “lock” you into there plan. For example, with the PAP2’s Vonage “locks” the unit so it “cannot” be altered. Lets say you end up not liking Vonage, and decided to carry you business elsewhere. Even though you _own_ the hardware, you cannot modify it to use it with another service provider! What unlocking does is allow you to do anything with the device you want. In this case, you’re unlocking it from being a strictly “Vonag” device to being something you can use anywhere you want (say – with your home Asterisk server). What also made this “hack” attractive was the fact that Staples was giving a $50.00 rebate on the units. You did _not_ need to sign up for Vonage to get the $50.00 rebate! The _unit_ costs $50.00. Basically, free unlock’able PAP2 units. I hope this clears up some of the misunderstandings.

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