Head-mounted computer with spit, bailing wire

Oh, for crying out loud! While we were all giddy reporting on yesterday’s wonderfully done head-mounted computer, [Andrew Lim] of recombu.com comes along and essentially does the same thing with an HTC Magic handset and three dollars worth of Harbor Freight crap. Linux kernel, WiFi, accelerometer, the whole nine yards. Consider our collective ass handed to us.

Funny thing is, either of these could be considered The Consummate Hack. One flaunting the creator’s know-how with its custom-designed parts and delicate engineering, the other exhibiting a more punk flair with random scraps and off-the-shelf technology achieving much the same effect — a solution so obvious we were blind to it. Whatever your outlook, this is a great day to be a hacker!

[via slashdot]

Comments [23]

tagged: android, ghetto, hmd, htc, wearable

Reader Comments

hacking a hack :) i like it

Posted at 8:08 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by monkeyslayer56

Might I suggest either painting the inside of the box black or lining it with something like flat-black felt?

Posted at 8:29 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by Andrew Moyer

I’d have thought that the immersive aspect of the ViewMaster came from the fact that it was stereoscopic, not that you had the thing crammed up right close to your face. Cool project, though!

Posted at 8:42 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by Ben Ryves

ya, it is a good hack, but i think Ben Ryves is right.

Posted at 8:59 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by David Holsclaw

@Ben Ryves
You could write a custom application to show stereoscopic views side by side and put a divider in the middle of the box to achieve a similar effect. Granted, that’s a lot of work, but I guess it depends on just how immersive you want it.

Posted at 9:13 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by compukidmike

wtf?

Posted at 9:52 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by aztraph

“the goggles… they do nothing”

Posted at 10:03 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by sly

“the goggles… they do nothing”

the goggles do the job of “impedance matching” between the hard box and the soft face. certain type of people wouldn’t need them.

Posted at 10:29 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by svofski

needs forward and reverse controls

Posted at 10:31 am on Oct 27th, 2009 by colecago

App 1: “augmented finding the toilet after eighteen beers.”

Posted at 12:08 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by jim

I don’t see how having a 2″ screen right up against your face is “immersive”. In fact, I don’t see how this is any different than using the same device in a dark room.
If it had head tracking or stereoscopy he might be able to argue that it was “virtual reality” (which is an ill-defined and meaningless term, anyhow), and if he wrote some code that made use of the phones camera he could have said it was augmented reality. But he didn’t. It’s a phone taped to the end of a cardboard box. It doesn’t seem to have any purpose beyond making the wearer look silly.

Posted at 1:50 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by r_d

Just this: Because we can. XD

Posted at 2:10 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by XD

Yes, we can!

For me, that’s totally a hack!

Posted at 3:12 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by Another XD

I just checked…. Did you know Hackamonth.com is available? Im just saying….a bit of quality over quantity would be appreciated and maybe the name change would take some of the pressure off you guys.

Posted at 3:21 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by YAWN!

I quoted it wrong…
“My eyes! The goggles do nothing!”
http://megamansgogglesdonothing.ytmnd.com/

Posted at 4:10 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by sly

Hmmm… I might just have to try this with my iPhone. This coupled with some red/blue glasses and a magnetometer equipped iPhone running AirCoaster could be quite fun!

Posted at 5:32 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by Phil

Back and I just tried exactly what I mentioned above. A bit of cardboard, my safety goggles, 3D red/cyan glasses and an iPhone 3G S with AirCoaster. Probably the best “VR” experience I’ve ever had!

Posted at 5:55 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by Phil

I would like to see this use the camera to give you HUD like terminator view.

Posted at 9:42 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by AnthonyDi

It just plain stupid, having screen near you eyes does not make it into virtual reality glasses

Posted at 10:21 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by therian

I’m going to track down a cheap camera phone, buy two of them, tape them together, and create a really disorienting, low-res 3D VR helmet with this same exact formula.

Posted at 11:38 pm on Oct 27th, 2009 by derwin

Nice. If I find a spare cardboard box here at the office, I’m going to build a similar thing right away using HTC Hero. I must see how augmented reality software (Layar, Wikitude) work with this setup.

Posted at 3:13 am on Oct 28th, 2009 by Tragos

this is cool for a starter VR/AR atempt..h3!! with a hacked psp and a few other componets could be a really good VR experince…
need a usb hub
cam
and a usb compass

Posted at 5:30 am on Oct 28th, 2009 by teck monkey

That would not work as well if the phone used did not have the functions.
Improvements:
1) create an easy release phone holder
2) get a better camera for macro cause it ’twas blurry.

Posted at 11:05 pm on Oct 29th, 2009 by Wonginism

Head-mounted computer with spit, bailing wire

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