Animated LED Eyes For Halloween

October 3, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 5 Comments

[Matt Daughtrey] sent us this sweet little project he’s doing for Halloween. He’s building some animated LED eyes. He says that the whole thing is 3 individual LMDriver platforms, another project he’s working on. There isn’t any info available about that, but he does expand a little. He states that each display module uses an Atmega169 with some heavy multiplexing. The eyes really don’t look that impressive sitting on the bench, but watch the video to see how cool they really are.

We noticed that the back of the boards appear to have http://www.embeddedether.net on them. Unfortunately that site seems to have been grabbed by a domain squatter.

How-to: Networked Graffiti Wall

October 2, 2008 by Ian 22 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8KprTVbHD4]

Wondering what we did with our web server on a business card project from last week? It’s powering a giant LED graffiti wall. Animations can be user-submitted using the online designer. You can watch a live feed of user animations as well. The online interface runs on the Google App Engine for maximum scalability and resilience.

In today’s How-to we cover all the ins and outs of building your own networked graffiti wall. Continue reading “How-to: Networked Graffiti Wall” →

Amazingly Cheap Dual Channel Scope

October 2, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 20 Comments

[Jacques] sent us this little project he has been working on. It is an amazingly cheap USB 2 chanel scope. The total cost of the project was around 5 Euros. It is based off of an Atmel Tiny45, has 2 analog inputs, and can supply 5 Volts to a breadboard. He has listed the bill of materials as well as downloads for the source code, plans, and display software.

Helix V2.0 Released

October 2, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 20 Comments

Helix 2.0 has been released. Helix is a collection of various tools for electronic forensics. Just like on TV, you can use this to find all kinds of information on a computer. Some of the useful tools added were Winlockpwn a tool for breaking windows security, Volitility which processes data out of the raw memory, and several other tools that are beyond our comprehension.

You’ve undoubtedly noticed that the title says Helix V2.0, but the image and header of the Helix site say 3. We have no idea why. Look at the download info to see that it says V2.0.

[Via Midnight Research labs]

System Admin Steals 20,000 Items From Work

October 2, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 32 Comments

Over the course of 10 years, [Victor Papagno] stole 19,709 pieces of equipment from the Naval Research Laboratory. He began taking stuff home in 1997 and had so much that he had to store some in a neighbors house. The report says that no secret technological information was taken. Some items listed were CDs, hard drives, floppy disks, adding up to an estimated value of 1.6 million dollars. He could face up to two years in prison for this. We shudder to think of the total cost of all the post its, CDs, and floppy disks we’ve taken home over the years.

[via NetworkWorld]
[photo: Blude]

Autonomous Hovering Drones Invade Germany

October 1, 2008 by Caleb Kraft 11 Comments

We welcome the swarm of autonomous hovering robot overlords being made by students at Humboldt University. The goal of this project is to build an autonomous hovering platform that is controlled via adapted insect behavior. Navigation comes from monitoring real time inputs, such as air pressure and optical sensors, not by predefined paths and GPS coordinates. Some examples of this adapted behavior are: navigation via polarized sun light like African ants, and optical flow similar to bees.

You can see the platforms in action on Spiegel Online, but unless you understand German, you won’t get much else out of it.

If any of this seems familiar, it’s because we covered CCCamp 2007, which was near Berlin and had some very similar quadcopters. While the large quadcopter platforms have been around for a while and are steadily coming down in price, there are some new alternatives out there that are quite tempting. Anyone want to build some autonomy into this little baby?

[thanks fh]

Escape From Berkeley

October 1, 2008 by Kimberly Lau 13 Comments

Escape From Berkeley (By Any Non-Petroleum Means Necessary) is an alternative-fueled road rally that starts October 10th and ends October 13th. The rally begins in Berkeley, California, and finishes in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Sahara. Contestants are required to use any fuel other than petroleum, and using only those fuels scavenged “for free” along the way. Fuel cannot be purchased. Judges will present awards for both artistic and technical achievements. If you want to get in on the action, there are a number of ways to participate, from registering your vehicle to volunteering for the event or even sponsoring the route “by the mile” or by landmark.

[via Laughing Squid]