Comments on: Internet enabled Furby

By: DiRWiN

DiRWiN — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:15:47 +0000

ahh its a nabaztag… only it doesnt have RFID

By: edwindertien

edwindertien — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 09:25:43 +0000

@MRE You’re probably right that to fully ‘internet enable’ a furby it’s nicer to leave its original brain in place. However, I *did* use most of its original electronics. I replaced the brain by the arduino, using furby’s motorcontrol, sensor-amps, etc. The hackfurby.com approach was more radical in that sense, taking out all electronics and replacing everything by RC servo’s. Still, making a infrared-furby-to-internet connection could be the way to ‘internet-enable’ the furby. I doubt however that the 4-bit IR protocol allows for full motor-control and access to all sensor inputs.

By: Funky Gibbon

Funky Gibbon — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:39:49 +0000

It is that easy, if i remember the furby command format is something like one high nibble 1010, low nibble not’ed 0101. there can only be 16 commands, dare i say even a aduino could manage that

By: leer239

leer239 — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:34:07 +0000

if it was that esey

By: Funky Gibbon

Funky Gibbon — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:52:47 +0000

He could have left the electronics in place and talked to it wirelessly through the infrared sensor already built into furby, this i’ve done, some years ago though, if i remember it’s just a 4 bit command mirrored to make a Byte, you can even talk to these things with a tv remote, how about a furby tvbgone, who would ever suspect a small fury creature?

By: CodeASM

CodeASM — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:47:51 +0000

Jason Pelzer’s website
retrointerfacing.com>hackfurby.com>Jason Pelzer

()()
(Oo)This is Furby. Copy and paste Furby into your
(())signature to help him gain world domination

By: CodeASM

CodeASM — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:43:12 +0000

And then his homepage says something usefull..
“You’ll have to sift through a lot of newbie posts, but after a while your own filters will kick in and you’ll be able to focus on the important information.” XD jst like it.

By: jan

jan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:57:06 +0000

@batch
lol made my day…

By: MRE

MRE — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:23:21 +0000

to be clear, that’s not internet enabling a furby. Its repurposing the shell and mechanics of a furby. having left the electronics in place and functioning, while somehow attaching them to the internet would be internet enabling.

You cant ‘enable’ something *a* with something *b* after it was hacked out and thrown in the trash.

Anyway, whatever. nice job.

By: Pilotgeek

Pilotgeek — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:49:18 +0000

@batch
I love you.

/ I lol’ed pretty hard.

By: Link

Link — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:11:04 +0000

I was hoping for an attempt at a chobits persocom internet, but that would be no small undertaking, seeing how voice control barely works under a complex OS (without tuning and periodic use at least)

By: medix

medix — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:46:26 +0000

I wish I could still find it..

There was a video posted (years) some time ago, of a guy (Charles Brush maybe?) electrocuting a furby with 14.4kV from a pole transformer back-fed with a welder so he didn’t blow his mains. *that* was a hack to remember.

By: TJ

TJ — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:50:53 +0000

@stunmonkey
Lure them into a faraday cage (o’ death) with the promise of yiffing?

By: Stunmonkey

Stunmonkey — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:17:44 +0000

I first read that as ‘internet enabled furry’, which seemed kind of redundant because they are already pretty annoyingly net-enabled.
Figuring out how to get them >off< the net, now that would be a truly useful hack.

By: batch

batch — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:10:32 +0000

He should have put an arduino in that arduino so he could hack it while he hacked it…