[Alison Lewis] has posted this fantastic digital wall harp project at My Home 2.0. They built an infrared MIDI instrument into a wall, using a MidiTron and some IR sensors. It all connects to a computer running a MIDI sequencer via a MIDI to USB converter. The project was built for a family home. They wanted something musical that they could play as easily as waiving their hand. They got it! Simply run your hand under the sensors and play some music!
[via Instructables]
The NYC Soldering Championships are happening tonight at Ignite in M1-5. It looks like there might still be some slots open if you want to compete. You can bring your own iron, it’s all through-hole, but you can’t use helping hands. Good luck, and we can’t wait to see how this inaugural event turns out!
[photo: Nick Bilton]
[Nicolas] sent in his liquid display project.Think of it as the opposite of a fountain display. Instead of water, it releases bubbles into a flat panel filled with liquid. There aren’t many details on the site, but it’s a nice twist on an classic concept. He also created an odd sort of liquid interface. Touching the liquid in any of the three chambers in front causes changes in the reaction of the display.
Despite, Hack a Day seeming to be fairly lock heavy lately, we’ve yet to cover a major story from The Last HOPE. At the conference, [Jon King] talked about vulnerabilities in Medeco locks and presented his Medecoder tool. Medeco is really what makes this story interesting; unlike the EU, the US has very few high security lock manufacturers. You pretty much have to use Medeco and it’s found in many government agencies.
The Medeco locks have a vertical row of six pins arranged like most pin tumbler locks. Unlike your average lock, the rotation of the pins is important. When the key is placed in the lock, it not only moves the pins to the correct height, it also rotates them to the correct orientation. A sidebar blocks the cylinder unless the pins are rotated properly. Each pin has three possible orientations. They’re biaxial as well, which means the pin’s offset point allows for three more possible positions.
MetaFilter is reporting that Wired magazine (available on paper) has killed one of our favorite features. Found: Artifacts From the Future was a back page that asked artists and designers to create possible future products. While the magazine generally had a positive view, even in its sloppy use of infoporn, Found always seemed to have a comforting cynicism. Products appeared helpful on the surface, but still exhibited modern pitfalls: Even if you took the big leap to get a Bluetooth implant, it still required a two year contract. The Responsibeer could tell exactly how drunk you were, but did nothing to prevent localized debauchery. A Smart Windshield provided info on unsafe drivers… while obscuring your view.
The short of it is: Found was our kind of futurism. It was excited about new technology while emphasizing all the frustrations we currently have trying to get consumer products to do what we want. It’s sad to see something that got people thinking beyond the now go away. MeFi has conveniently assembled links to all the online Found features.
[via Waxy]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/Gjzm1A5-GMk&w=470]
Back in May we mentioned AcidMods’ spitfire mod that enabled rapid fire (amongst other things) and was undetectable by Xbox Live. The parts list was quite low, needing just a PIC16F84A and a few other components, which led to third parties selling controller mod kits on eBay. The AcidMods team has figured out a new way to enable rapid fire using just a momentary switch and the necessary wire to hook it up. All you need to do is wire in the switch between the ground on the controller LED and the middle pin on the trigger. The only caveat is that because it’s hardwired to the LED, you can only use the mod on the particular port you’re using the controller on.
The reason it’s so simple is because the Xbox 360 controller uses pulse width modulation to “dim” the LED on the controller, creating a rapid high/low signal. When the momentary button is depressed, it routes this rapid high/low signal to the trigger input on the controller, which is then input to the Xbox 360. Hit the read link for a couple more videos explaining this hack.
While this modification is undetectable by Xbox Live, it does create an unfair advantage in multiplayer gaming and could result in your account being banned.
[via Xbox-Scene]
Related: Xbox 360 Hacks, Xbox Hacks
Slate is running an interesting article about taking new security approaches to lock vulnerabilities. In the past, lock makers such as Medeco have been able to quietly update their product lines to strengthen their security, but as movements such as Locksport International gain popularity and lock picking videos on YouTube become dime a dozen, lock makers can no longer rely on security through obscurity. It’s no question that an increased interest in this field helps lock manufacturers to create more secure products, but because patching these flaws often means changing critical features of the lock, it becomes a very expensive game of cat-and-mouse.
Traditional lock picking has employed the use of picksets, like the credit card sized set given out sold at The Last HOPE, but more recent methods of lock hacking have used bump keys or even magnets. However, as manufacturers make their locks less susceptible to picking and bumping, not even high-security locks will ward off someone determined enough to create a copy of the key, either by observing the original or using impressioning, as [Barry Wels] covered in a recent talk at HOPE 2008.
