New PSP leaked

posted May 30th 2009 1:43pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: handhelds hacks, news, psp hacks

psp_go

Engadget has video from the June 2009 episode of Qore that shows the new PSP Go. It has a slide out gamepad, 16GB internal storage, bluetooth, and a memory slot of some sort. We’re naturally curious about its potential as a homebrew platform. Will Sony take the mature route they did with the PS3 and let you run Linux or will they continue the firmware arms race the PSP is known for? We’ll be hearing more about this platform at E3 next week.

Steampunk vibrator

posted May 3rd 2009 12:40pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: Medical hacks, handhelds hacks, home entertainment hacks

steampunk_vibrator

[Ani Niow] built this steam powered vibrator. It has a milled stainless steel shell with a brass motor structure. The motor is a Tesla turbine made from a stack of Dremel diamond cutoff wheels. This drives an off-center weight to create the vibration. She tested it using a pressure cooker as the steam source. It worked, but became so hot it had to be held using welding gloves. It works just as well with compressed air though. You can see the device at the Femina Potens Art Gallery in San Francisco or later this month at Maker Faire.

[via Laughing Squid]

UPDATE: [Ani] responds in the comments.




GPS cradle upgrade to bluetooth

posted Mar 18th 2009 12:19pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: gps hacks, handhelds hacks, transportation hacks

ipaq_gps

[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.

Kindle 2 teardown

posted Feb 25th 2009 5:53pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: handhelds hacks, news

kindle2

The people at iFixit have shown that they’re still on top of their game by tearing down the new Kindle 2 eBook reader. The main processor is a 532MHz ARM-11 from Freescale. Interestly, there isn’t any significant circuitry behind the large keyboard; it seems its existence is just to hide the battery.

Related: previous teardowns on Hack a Day

[via Make]

Pandora case prototype

posted Jan 28th 2009 7:12pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: handhelds hacks, news

The last time we checked in on Pandora it was just being shown in dev unit form. Embedded above is a video of the first case prototype. It doesn’t have any components yet, but it definitely looks like a good formfactor with a lot of potential. The Pandora is a Linux based portable game console with an 800×480 touchscreen.

[via Gizmodo]




Quake on the BUG

posted Jan 27th 2009 1:31pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: handhelds hacks

It seems like every piece of hardware has to earn its respect by going through some standard paces. One of which is having Quake ported to it. Much like an angel earning their wings, Bug Labs, with the help of community [CMW], has ported Quake to the BUG. Right now, the only add on needed is the BugView module. Controls are done through the base unit.

Hands free point of view camera

posted Jan 24th 2009 7:30pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: digital cameras hacks, handhelds hacks

handsfree

Here’s an odd little footnote we found while perusing the Comic Tools blog. [Matt Bernier]’s blog is dedicated to drawing and inking tutorials for comic artists. He uses a lot of example photographs that involve both hands. This week, at the bottom of his post on cleaning brushes, he included a photo to illustrate how he takes all of these point of view shots. The camera is strapped securely to his head using an old lanyard. He can see the display and access the controls on the back. After composing his shot, he just sets the timer, and you get a picture of what the process looks like from his perspective. Sure, it looks silly from this angle, but it really helps out the posts.

Meggy serial cable

posted Jan 21st 2009 1:52pm by Caleb Kraft
filed under: arduino hacks, handhelds hacks

meggy

We thought the Meggy had some serious potential. The open serial port is ripe for the plucking, but has thus far been fairly unused. Here’s directions on how to make your own serial cable capable of connecting two Meggies. Basically, it is just modifying an audio cable, used to connect CDROMs to the motherboard. The cool thing about this is that the resulting crossover cable should work on any Arduino that is programmed via an FTDI cable.




Bug Labs introduces new BUGmodules

posted Jan 8th 2009 2:00pm by Strom Carlson
filed under: handhelds hacks, portable video hacks, wireless hacks

bug

Bug Labs, the company that makes modular electronics that allow you to build your own tech doohickeys quickly and easily, has announced five new modules: BUGprojector, a mini DLP projector developed in conjunction with Texas Instruments, which sounds very much like the tiny DLP projector we posted about last week; BUGsound, an audio processing module with four stereo input/output jacks, a microphone, a speaker, and builtin hardware codecs; BUGbee (802.15.4) and BUGwifi (802.11 and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR), which will let you connect wirelessly with your PAN and WLAN, respectively; and BUG3g GSM, for connecting to (you guessed it) 3G GSM networks. In conjunction with Bug Labs’ existing series of modules, especially the highly versatile BUGvonHippel universal module, you’ll be able to create some pretty kickass gadgets. No word yet on pricing, although Bug Labs expects to ship by the end of Q1 2009.

Game Boy Pocket backlight

posted Jan 4th 2009 6:00am by Eliot Phillips
filed under: ds hacks, gameboy hacks, handhelds hacks, led hacks, nintendo hacks

gameboy

[palmertech] and [Bibin] have both completed backlight projects for the Game Boy Pocket recently. The most difficult part of the transplant is carefully removing the reflective backing on the LCD. After a thorough cleaning, a diffuser and backlight panel were added. [palmertech] used a backlight salvaged from a DS, while [Bibin] built his own using LEDs. You can see his backlight in the video embedded below. There’s a disassembly video too.

Read the rest of this entry »

Nintendo Sixtyfree Lite-R portable N64

posted Dec 27th 2008 5:00am by Eliot Phillips
filed under: gameboy hacks, handhelds hacks, nintendo hacks

n64

Nothing says Christmas like Nintendo 64 and benheck forum member [SifuF] has a treat for you. His Nintendo Sixtyfree Lite-R stuffs all the guts of at Nintendo 64 into a compact handheld package. It features dual joysticks and triggers. The display is a PSone screen with all of the extra board trimmed away. The part that really makes this project shine is the case. It’s vacuum-formed 2mm sheets of polystyrene. Another nice touch was the volume and screen brightness. They’re adjusted by holding down start and then using the other buttons. It doesn’t have internal batteries, but can run off of a 7.2V Infolithium.

[via Engadget]

Bug Labs releases BUGvonHippel universal module

posted Dec 21st 2008 5:50pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: handhelds hacks, misc hacks

vonhippel

Bug Labs makes hardware modules that can be combined to create your own custom gadgets. They’ve just released what we consider the most useful module: BUGvonHippel. Unlike the previous single purpose modules, the BUGvoHippel is a universal interface. The bus features USB, power/ground, DAC/ADC, I2C, GPIO, SPI, serial, and more. BUG applications are written in Java using a custom IDE.

The $79 module is named after MIT professor Eric von Hippel, who wrote Democratizing Innovation. You can find an interview with him below.

Read the rest of this entry »

NanoTouch, lucid touchscreen navigation

posted Dec 20th 2008 7:00am by Eliot Phillips
filed under: handhelds hacks, news, portable video hacks

lucidtouch

The fine folks at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) are demoing a new touchscreen system that may make small devices easier to use. An extension of their LucidTouch technology, NanoTouch has a small screen on the front and a touchpad on the back. Their test unit features a 2.4inch screen. The screen displays where the user’s finger is on the back touchpad as if the display was transparent. The user’s finger no longer obscures the screen surface, so it’s much easier to hit small buttons. In testing, researchers showed that targets just 1.8mm across were easy to hit. That’s much smaller than the iPhone’s touchscreen keyboard. Here’s a video demonstrating the new device.

[via Engadget]

UK raid seizes 1,800 flash cartridges

posted Dec 19th 2008 6:00pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: ds hacks, gameboy hacks, handhelds hacks, news, nintendo hacks

dscart

South Wales Police raided a store in Cardiff seizing 1,800 Nintendo DS flash carts. The devices can be used for playing pirated games or running homebrew software. In the UK, the carts are illegal under the Trademarks and Copyright Acts. The 21-year-old suspect had imported the devices and was selling them both online and in-store. He had over 1,000 devices in his home. Many of them packed and ready to ship. Official statements by the Entertainment and Leisure Publishers Association claim that the hardware irreparably damages the DS handhelds.

[via Joystiq]

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