R/C quad-copters have been quite popular at CCCamp. Our friend, Dan Kaminsky shot this video of two different models in flight. The first is a 10K Euro commercial version, but the second one is a 500 Euro home built one. The commercial unit has a head mounted display so you can fly it from the onboard camera. There is a second video after the break that shows the maneuverability.
Year: 2007
DIY Condensor Microphone

[wiesi] sent in his latest condenser mic. Rather than use pre-built components, he built from scratch (except the discrete components). He’s on his second iteration, and things look pretty good. This tends to be the sort of project that amateur radio guys go for… oh wait, I am one.
DIY Plasma Gun

[Richard] took another shot at his battery powered tesla coils. He sent in his latest hand held plasma gun. He modified his battery powered tesla coil to work as a handheld. He added a large copper pad to the drill handle to couple the RF ground to the human torch holding it.. Sure, we’ve seen plenty of tesla lately, but who here wouldn’t want one? (Maybe the guy in the server room…)
All the parts needed are listed – just be sure you fully understand everything before you get into this one.
Wiimote On Your XBox 360

[UberNoober147] and [Carey] both sent in this round about hack. The Wiimote is interfaced with a PC. The PC outputs to a micro-controller circuit that outputs PlayStation 2 control signals. That’s connected to a XFPS – a PS2 to XBox 360 controller converter. It’s definitely round about, but it works.
Back From Vegas Extra

I made it home after a long day of travel. Airport security let me through with my new home server – a 1U dual P3 800Mhz Compaq rackmount that I scored from the guys at UNIX surplus. Yes, it was my carry-on personal item.
Somehow I missed the MIDI tesla coil last month. Thanks to [skuhl] for sending it in. It’s a solid state coil that’s modulated to create one bad-ass midi box. The videos are worth checking out.
[martin] tells me that the Pentax k10d firmware has been hacked for polish menus. I’ll let you guys sort through it, I’m honestly too tired to deal with translating it right now.
[Alex] re-cased a macbook power supply to repair a slightly ripped out power cable. Those power supplies aren’t cheap, so it’s worth noting.
By the way, I’ve got one of the midnight research wicrawl CDs, so ask nice if you want me to put up a torrent.
Defcon 15: Wrap-up

Our friend [Alex] was a little late getting to our t-shirt free-for-all today, but I just found out why: He was writing a great wrap-up of the many Defcon talks he attended. It’s well worth your time and will give you an idea of the broad slice of info that’s covered at the convention. That picture is him repruhzenting for Hack-A-Day in Fast Company magazine.
Update: I’m finally getting caught up on my RSS feeds; check out Richard Bejtlich’s equally good summary of Black Hat: part 1 and part 2.
Shirts Are Gone, But We’ve Got Stickers

I’m pretty happy with our skybox event. [Eliot] and I’ve both got a good pile of stickers to give away, so ask us if you want ’em. It was great turn out for all the shirts we gave out. Thanks to [Eliot]s g-string water bottle, we raised $263 for the EFF. [Eliot]’s heading to CCC later, so hit him up for stickers while he’s across the pond.