Tis the season for hacking, and [Nick McClanahan] at the GadgetGangster is certainly showing off his Christmas spirit with his most recent creation. He had an animatronic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer toy sitting around and thought it would be fun to convert him into an email reading machine.

He tore open the toy, removing its innards, disconnecting the built-in speaker and servos from the original PCB. He then extended wires from those components outside of the body before reassembling the toy. The reindeer is controlled primarily using a Propeller Platform, with an E-Net module and a small audio amp taking care of network communications and audio output, respectively.

Most of the work is done by the software [Nick] is using, which allows Rudolph to periodically check his Gmail inbox for new messages. When the message count increases, the reindeer springs into action, moving and lighting up his nose before announcing the sender’s name.

He’s using a phonemic voice synthesizer for the output, which does the job, though we would go mad if we had to listen to it all day. Since the reindeer is connected to his LAN, it might be feasible to run the data through a more robust voice synth on a PC, returning a better-sounding audio clip for playback.

Check out the video below to see a short clip of Rudolph in action.

One day computers will exist in every part of our lives. You’ll be standing in the shower, lathering up  when Chantal, your holographic computer controlled AI partner, informs you in a cool voice you have a new email. How splendid, it must be the office letting you know there is no work today! “Anything else?” You ask; “Negative” her electronically synthesized voice responds.

Over at TINYenormous they’ve made this dream come true – minus the holographic computer controlled AI partner bit. Rather its simply a physical email notification system consisting of an LED and Arduino with some python code. We like the concept but prefer our Google Desktop with Gmail setup instead. Perhaps by using a small wireless server and rechargeable batteries, it could make a great dinner table centerpiece notifying you of the latest email. How simple, or how complicated would you make a setup?

[Thanks Madmaze]

[Update]

Rob created a very nice USB version.

Dan made a wireless version from XBee modules and includes an LCD.

J4mie is the original inspiration for the project.

Have your own notification system? Tell us in the comments, And we’ll place it here!

Google’s Gmail is a highly viable option for email. With numerous features and options like widgets, a task list, labels, and chat, Gmail has a slight tendency to get overwhelming and might force us to loose focus on what it is really all about: email.

What can make Gmail better? For starters, how about no ads; they are cluttering and distracting. What about getting rid of the widgets and unnecessary features like labels and chat that we think are supposed to make us more productive but really only make us lose our focus to send, read and reply to email? Nobody knows Zen better than [Leo] at Zen Habits. We weren’t surprised that he and his friends (with Firefox and Greasemonkey) have found a way to trim all the unnecessary elements from Gmail and make it into an email powerhouse that focuses on a basic productive email client. The minimalist inbox for Gmail consists of Greasemonkey scripts for:

• Removing gadgets
• Hiding labels, chat and footer
• Removing ads
• Removing stars
• Getting rid of the Gmail logo and searchbar
• Removing menu navigation bar
• Cleaning up and removing unnecessary buttons

To get started focusing on email, and only email, head on over to ZenHabits for a list of associated scripts and what exactly they can do to help you on your road to the minimalist Gmail.

Yesterday’s Gmail service outage is a hot topic on just about every news site right now. For so many of us that have always taken the reliability of Gmail for granted it was a real shock to lose all of the functionality of the web based system. Now that we’ve learned our lesson, here’s a couple of tips to help you out the next time there’s an outage.

Setup POP and IMAP access now

Your Gmail can be sent and retrieved via IMAP or POP. These protocols were still working through the outage yesterday but unfortunately you need to use the web interface to enable them. Even if you are not going to use a separate email client regularly, now is the time to set this up so it works for you during the next outage.

Use Offline Gmail

Yesterday’s outage prevented most users from even logging into the Gmail interface and when they could, the compose message feature was not functioning properly. Offline Gmail, a feature of Google labs, allows you to access the Gmail interface offline. This doesn’t mean that you will be able to send and receive during an outage because this feature still uses the web interface for that. What it does mean is you will be able to read emails that you have cached locally and compose messages to be sent as soon as Gmail is back online. Take a look at what Offline Gmail is all about and see if it will get you through next time.

Google introduced a new Labs feature named Mail Goggles. If you turn it on, on late night weekends, the feature will ask you to perform some math problems before you can send an email. We’re not sure how widespread a problem drunk emailing is, but maybe the delay will allow you to sober up and realize when you’re about to CC your entire company on a rant about your boss, or your adventures with the cute guy or girl in the office. It’s enabled for late nights on the weekends, but once you’ve turned it on, you can adjust the time in the General settings.