iPod chargers definitely are a unique entity on anyone’s desk. Allowing you to stand your iPod upright, charge, and maybe play a video at the same time, but they aren’t exactly beautiful. [russm313] got the brilliant idea of disguising his iPod (and charger) as a miniature Ms. Pac-Man arcade cabinet. Unlike some other small cabinets we’ve seen, it is just cover and can’t actually be played. But the idea is still original and the process is so simply we’re surprised it hasn’t been done before; just cardboard, glue, and some other small items are needed and you have a work of art. All that is left is figuring out how to adapt it for the iPhone. Check out his iPod playing a video of game play for a more authentic look, after the break.
[Dennis] points out that the iPod shuffle and the iPod remote are almost identical visually. He decided to combine the two so he always had his remote with him. He pulled the guts out of a remote and mounted them in a shuffle. The remote functions all of the time, while the shuffle only turns on when you insert headphones. We wonder if he accidentally does stuff on his computer while he’s changing songs.
[Benjamin] submitted this slick project. It’s a gesture based control unit for the ipod and iphone. It plugs into the dock port and allows you to control the track and volume with simple gestures. While accellerometer equipped units can already “shake to shuffle”, they lack the ability to simply skip tracks forward or backward. He notes that with an accellerometer, simple gestures can be harder to decipher than with a gyro. The gyro gives the ability to tell which direction you are twisting it, so it’s easier to utilize. [Benjamin] was previously covered when he released the iPodGPS.
The iPhone dev-team has released an updated version of PwnageTool. It supports jailbreaking iPhones using the 3.0 firmware. This update does not include the much easier to use QuickPwn, but it should be coming soon. The release also doesn’t include the UltraSn0w unlock which will be coming via Cydia.
[googfan], probably our youngest contributor, has submitted another hack. This one is not that complicated, but fairly practical. He has an iPod shuffle, wants to play music through his stereo with it, but found there were no docks available. With iPod accessories being as prevelant as they are, we’re surprised to hear that. He took matters into his hown hands and built an iPod shuffle dock. You can see it in action in the video above. While there isn’t a writeup, you can see some of his other projects on his homepage.
Many people find themselves frustrated when working with headphones. The tiny coated wire can be a real pain to work with. They are so very very small, and usually coated. We generally just end up doing a quick “sand and tape” which just isn’t very high quality. [Alex] sent in some tips that can really help you get those repairs or modifications going.
[Nate] hates keys. He’s gone through a lot of effort to remove them wherever possible. He has a keypad at home and a keypad at work, but he still has to carry car keys. His solution is to build a device he can carry in his pocket that will unlock the car via RF. To do this, he’s utilizing the guts of a Nike iPod puck along with an Arduino and an iPod serial board. He has managed to get this all working, but still has to carry his key to actually start the car. We know what his next project will be.
Here’s a quick demo that FAT’s [Theo Watson] put together. It uses the iPod’s accelerometer to measure how fast it’s spinning and plays the sound file accordingly. This only works on the iPod touch 2nd gen because of its curved case. He says scratching is coming next, but currently the app doesn’t know which direction it’s spinning since it’s measuring outward force. This project was done in response to [vanderlin]’s AR scratching that used fiducials on records.
[Benjamin] was working for a GPS company called Nemerix about two years ago and decided to hack together this iPod accessory GPS unit. He is using an Atmel ATmega324 and a Nemerix GPS unit, though he says the GPS unit shouldn’t matter. He is taking advantage of the AiR mode on the iPod which allows a 4 color image to be sent to the screen. There was little information on how to utilize this, but BMW and Alpine had made some car audio that featured this. [Benjamin] picked up an Alpine with this function and sniffed the data stream to get what he needed. He says there is good documentation out there now though.
He says that the source code is available if you ask.
When the MSAFluids Remote multitouch App was rejected, a developer found a way to get virtually the same effect using a safari App. They’re using the TUIO protocol to get the desired remote control. This opens up the door to extending Applications through the browser as well. While this probably wouldn’t allow you to utilize the other sensor inputs from your device, like accelerometer data, it will allow for fast prototyping of applications that don’t need that.
