[emuboy] sent in this neat hack where he converted a GPS dock to bluetooth (google translated). He has an ipaq rz1710 and a Kirrio GPS cradle. Apparently there were annoying problems when inserting the ipaq into the cradle. He decided that he would much rather just connect via Bluetooth. After tearing apart the cradle, he found the documentation for the GPS chip online. He ordered a bluesmirf bluetooth modem and got to work. The end result is something that could be concealed in his car and just connected to when he gets close enough.

In middle of all the adding features that should have been available day-one, Apple announced something really interesting for the hardware hacking community. The new iPhone 3.0 OS will support application communication over bluetooth or through the dock connector using standard or custom protocols. From Engadget’s coverage:

10:19AM “They talk over the dock, and wirelessly over Bluetooth. Things like playing and pausing music, getting artwork — or you can build your own custom protocols.”
10:19AM “Now here’s a class that we think will be really interesting — medical devices.” Scott’s showing off a blood pressure reader that interfaces with the iPhone — wild.
10:18AM “Here’s an example — an FM transmitter. With 3.0, the dev can build a custom app that pairs up with it, and automatically finds the right station and tunes it in.”
10:18AM “With 3.0, we’re going to enable accessory developers to build custom apps that talk directly to that hardware.”

No solid connection specification has been published yet. We’re excited about the prospect of developing our own accessory hardware, but we wonder what sort of hoops you’ll have to jump through. Apple doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to approvals. Just this week they denied MSA Remote client App Store entry; it’s a multitouch client that uses the standard TUIO protocol. Prepare for similar roadblocks in the future.

[via adafruit]

[betaj] shares this cool mod with us. They used an Amiga joystick to create the shutter release for their camera. The circuit is pretty simple, consisting of a battery and a switch. It interfaces with the camera via a USB type A connector. Its fairly simple, but will definitely get some comments from onlookers when it is used. Still, the best mod we’ve seen for a camera by far is the chdk software for Canon digital cameras. I’ll bet we see an NES controller version soon, despite the ergonomic nonsense of it.

The folks over at NKC electronics didn’t waste any time with this one. They sent in the MEGA shield for the Arduino MEGA. We just posted the story of the Arduino MEGA yesterday, so that was pretty fast.

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories spotted one of the first images of the Arduino MEGA. The board is based on the ATmega1280 microcontroller, which has 128KB of flash,4KB of RAM, and 4KB of EEPROM. We haven’t seen any official specs yet, but the silkscreen shows 12 PWM connections, 36 Digital I/O, and 16 analog inputs. The post mentions 4 hardware UARTs and an I2C bus as well. No release date yet, but we can assume it’s soon since the hardware was already demoed at ETech.

Related: We added an Arduino category.

The CupCake CNC Kit is the flagship product of MakerBot industries, a joint venture between [Bre Pettis] and [Zach Hoeken]. At $750, it comes with all the motors, belts, body pieces, bearings, belts, and other pieces to assemble it. You could be printing your own 3d objects in a matter of hours with this. 3D printers with only slightly larger capacities can run thousands of dollars. The only advantage to some of the commercial products might be resolution. They don’t give much as far as technical data as the unit isn’t available yet. They should start Shipping before April 15th, so they can’t be far off. This could possibly be a competitor for the RepRap. Since RepRap doesn’t offer a complete kit, we’ll have to speculate. We’ve seen estimates from $500 to $1000 to build one.

[via adafruit industries blog]

When traveling with a laptop, we often find that the list of peripherals that we have to attach can get pretty long. Especially if it is an older laptop without wireless built in. [Dawning] has taken steps to consolidate some of his peripherals(registration required)by cramming a USB hub and a wireless card into his mouse.

He started by dismantling a USB hub. After placing the board in the mouse to see how it fit, he realized that he was going to have to reduce the size. To do this, he removed the USB slots themselves. This forces him to wire things directly to the board, but saves a ton of space. Next, he took the guts from a USB wireless adapter and wired them up. The decorative LED in the mouse was then moved to the wireless card. This way he could see light flicker with his network traffic. At this point, that’s all he’s added, though there’s still plenty of space for other items. He notes that he’ll probably add some storage or a CF reader. The only problem he has encountered is that his mouse tends to get warm during use. What peripherals would you put in there?

Update: [Dawning] let us know that he didn’t actually remove the LED from its original location. He connected a wire from the wireless adapter that causes the LED to short when traffic is going through. Also, there’s a video which you can now see after the break.

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Dallas/Maxim’s DS1801 is an audio volume potentiometer with a simple SPI interface. This chip has two channels of volume control that might be useful in a DIY audio project. We previously looked at the DS1807, a similar part with an I2C interface. This week we’ll show you how to use the SPI version.

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