[Doug Paradis] took a good look inside the Air Wick Freshmatic Compact i-Motion and then stole all the parts for other projects. We’ve looked at adding a manual spray button or making air fresheners Internet enabled before. Those models didn’t have parts that were all that interesting, but this one has a passive infrared motion sensor. You’ll also gain three switches, a PNP transistor, and an LED.

Price seems to be all over the map for this model, but [Doug] says you can find it for $8 or less. After showing how to make a tool to bypass the triangular security screws, he explains how to access the PIR sensor. But if you want to be all you can be with the hardware, he details the modifications needed to patch into the analog and digital circuitry on the rest of the board too.

Pastebin has the HDCP master key that we talked about in a post last week. This is the encryption protocol used for HDMI content protection on media such as Blu-Ray and High Definition cable television.

The master key array is a 40×40 set of 56-bit hex used to generate the key sets. You get one brief paragraph at the top of the document explaining what to do with this information. If you ask us we’re more interested in how this set was determined. So for some background information read the key selection vector (KSV) Wikipedia page. That points us to an interesting discussion proposing that if 40 unique device-specific KSVs can be captured, they could be used to reverse-engineer the master key. And finally, a bit of insight from a Reddit user (make your own decision on the dependability of this information) commenting on the value of having the master key.

In his comment, [iHelix150] covers the revocation system that HDCP uses to ban devices that are being used to circumvent copy protection. He says that having the master key makes it possible to push your own revocation lists onto devices. Each time a list is written to your device (TV, Blu-ray, etc.) the version number field for the list is updated. If you push an update with nothing on the revocation list, and set the version number to a binary value of all 1′s it will prevent any more rewrites of the list. This means that any previously banned hardware will be allowed back into the chain or trust.

So far this probably means nothing for you. But it’s fun to watch the cat-and-mouse involved in the DRM struggle, isn’t it?

Thieves in Paris have been stealing money with the clever use of a vacuum. Not just bits of change here and there, they’ve stolen over 500,000 euros. They noticed that Monoprix supermarkets use a pneumatic tube system to transport rolls of cash to and from the safe. Realizing this was the weakest point in the security, they simply drilled a big hole in the tube, hooked up a vacuum and sucked the cash out. Forget lock picking or safe cracking, this had to be ridiculously easy.

The thieves are still out there, sucking their way to riches. At this point, they’ve hit 15 locations. Their luck has to run out some time right?

[via Slashdot]

This time-lapse photo trigger was built [Lukasz Goralczyk]. It is controlled by an ATmega168 and we were surprised to read that it uses about 12k of code. Curious about what takes up that much space, we were impressed to see all the features demonstrated in the video after the break. The small device, running on two AA batteries, has a well-designed user interface displayed on a 3V character LCD that is navigated with a clickable rotary encoder.

It isn’t the smallest intervalometer we’ve ever seen, but it deserves respect for the features packed into a diminutive form-factor.

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All we needed to read was 4x 3900uF capacitor bank to know we had yet another decently sized homemade coilgun on our hands. And for the math buffs, that equates out to 1.25kJ of potential energy (efficiency kills it down to 37j of kinetic, but large numbers are more fun) which is more than enough to break skin; of course we recommend you just shoot old electronics rather than friends. On the more technical side, sure its only a single stage for now and we’ve seen some slightly more impressive triple stage guns, but it may just be more beautiful than our previously featured coil pistol. You guys be the judge. Catch a complete video after the jump of the internals and build process, skip ahead to 2:40 for the destruction.

[via TheDailyWh.at]

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Feeling bad that his access point was being made fun of by models with beefier external antennas, [Customer Service] decided to do something about it. After cracking open the Asus wl-330ge he found it would be quite easy to add a connector. This access point has two internal antennas that are quite small and use a spring connection to the signal and ground pads on the PCB. Those pads are fairly large and separated, making it easy to solder the connections. Scavenging an antenna connector from an older device, [Customer Service] soldered it in place and drilled a mounting hole in the plastic case. After flashing DD-WRT firmware he’s now got everything he wants from the little guy.

[Doug Jackson] just finished building an analog Stylophone. We’ve seen this instrument a few times before, most recently with an Arduino-based controller, but this one makes use of 555-timer, resistors, and potentiometers to generate the waveform for each note. If you’ve got the copper-clad and the means to etch the board everything else should be pretty easy to come by. We did note that since this is a single-sided board you’ll be soldering on the same side as the components, which can get a bit hairy but manageable. We just wish that [Doug] has posted a demonstration video so we could hear what this sounds like. But it can’t be too much different from that electronic vuvuzela that used a 555 timer as well.

Low bandwidth speech compression is a desirable concept for amateur radio enthusiasts. Unfortunately there isn’t a great open-source option out there, but that’s changing with the low-bitrate speech compression package called Codec2. It manages to transmit and decode at 2550 bits per second with results comparable to proprietary solutions like MELP and very near the initial goal of 2400 bit/s. [David Rowe], who spearheads the project, has been simulating communications using a Linux box and has posted audio snippets at the first link above for comparison. They’re looking for feedback and testing so if you interested give them a helping hand.

[Thanks Robomo]