Twittering Washing Machine

January 2, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 34 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkMXpKmRXvU&fmt=18]

If you don’t have at least one twittering appliance in your household, you’re getting behind. The latest addition to the spread is a twittering washing machine. [Ryan] tells us that he kept accidentally forgetting to retrieve his clothing from the washing machine, resulting in smelly mildewy clothes. Now, his washing machine twitters to announce it is done. It also has a sign in the house that displays its status to help him remember. We’ve seen unborn babies and toasters twitter, what’s left? Remember those refrigerators that were supposed to let you know that you’re out of certain food? Why don’t we see a twittering fridge yet?

RFID Dorm Room Door

January 2, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 10 Comments

rfid_door

[Max] sent us his dorm room RFID controlled lock. While RFID door locks are nothing new, his implementation is very slick. The entire unit is attached with suction cups to a mirror on the inside of the door. It looks like it could be removed and put elsewhere in a matter of seconds. That’s pretty slick. Much cleaner than the touch sensitive dorm lock we saw last year.

Parts: I2C Digital Thermometer (TC74)

January 2, 2009 by Ian 18 Comments

tc74

Microchip’s TC74 is an inexpensive digital temperature sensor with a simple I2C interface. It has a resolution of 1 degree Celsius, and a range of -40 to +125 degrees. This is an easy way to add temperature measurement to a project without an analog to digital converter. We’ll show you how to use the TC74 below.

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IPhone 3G Unlock Released

January 1, 2009 by Eliot 23 Comments

As promised, the iphone-dev team has released yellowsn0w. You can install/uninstall via Cydia. It works fine with the latest firmware too. This sentence is filler.

Pouring A Beer Via IPhone

January 1, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 30 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtUyzQBNT3k&eurl=&feature=player_embedded]

[Steve] sent us his new years project, a remote beer server controlled by his iPhone. He has built a frame from construx and used ioBridge to connect it to his iPhone. He states that he “wanted to make a project that allows for the perfect pour and take out all of that physical work”. Seems like it could use a little adjustment to be a bit less foamy. Maybe an additional frame to adjust the angle of the glass as it is poured.

Hacking The MyVu

January 1, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 16 Comments

myvu_3d

[Conundrum] shares with us his MyVu hacking experiences. The MyVu personal display seems like it would be a great foundation to build some decent 3d display goggles, it is fairly small and has a screen for each eye. This opens up the door to possibly driving them independently for 3d. Those giant helmets we used to use were not anywhere near as stylish as these. Apparently, some quick hacking can double your resolution or even possibly supply 3D imagery! The details are pretty sparse, but it appears as though he has gotten some of these mods functional and tested. Lets hope he posts some more information, we’re definitely interested. We normally wouldn’t post something with so little information, but we’re hoping this encourages him to give us more.

[thanks andre]