Retrotechtacular: First laser transmitter built 50 years ago

helium-neon-laser-transmitter

Most of the time we feature hokey film footage in our Retrotechtacular series, but we think this hack is as cool today as it was fifty years ago. [Clint] wrote in to tell us about Operation Red Line. It was an experiment performed May 3rd and 4th, 1963, which means the 50th anniversary just passed a few weeks ago. … Read the rest

Modulator box connects iPod to Tesla coil

tesla-coil-modulator

This pass through audio modulator lets you playback stereo audio on two Tesla coils. But don’t fret, you can just use mono files if you only have one coil on hand. On one side there are inputs that connect to the audio source. The other side drives the Tesla coil, switching it on and off based on the relationship … Read the rest

Script defeats minteye CAPTCHA

minteye-captcha-defeated

We hadn’t heard of minteye CAPTCHA before, but we’ve seen evidence of a script that can break the system. Minteye combines two things which you probably don’t love about the Internet: advertisements and CAPTCHA. The system uses a slider to distort an advertiser’s image. Once the slider is in just the right spot the image becomes clear and you … Read the rest

Building an inexpensive Squeezebox client replacement

squeezebox-replacement-built-on-the-cheap

[Andrew] is a fan of the audio quality provided by the Squeezebox hardware. Like many he was unhappy to hear that the devices were being discontinued, but he figured out a way to build a Squeezebox client clone for less than he could have bought an original.

He set several goals for the build. Most notably he wanted the … Read the rest

Recording audio with Chrome using HTML5

recording-audio-with-chrome

The Dubjoy project was stopped dead in its tracks when the newest version of the Google Chrome browser stopped using Adobe’s flash plugin and transitioned to their own called Pepper Flash. The aim of development was to produce a browser-based editor for translating the audio track of a video clip. After a bit of head scratching and a lot of … Read the rest

Wireless speaker made using Arduinos and 2.4 GHz tranceivers

[Texane] picked up a 2.4 GHz transmitter/receiver pair for transmitting sensor data wirelessly. After using them in a project he wanted to try pushing them a bit to see what the limits are when it comes to higher bandwidths. He ended up building a wireless speaker that transmits audio at about 90 KB/s. That link leads to a subfolder … Read the rest

Hacking an old radar gun to interface with a laptop

[Gregory Charvat] decided to see what he could do with this old Police radar gun. It is an X-band device that broadcasts continuous waves and measures the Doppler shift as they echo back. He cracked it open to see if he could interface the output with a computer.

After a little poking around he’s able to get it connected … Read the rest