Your Mobile Phone, Now With 100% More RFID

November 7, 2010 by James Munns 15 Comments

More and more today, it is becoming harder to avoid having some sort of RFID tag in your wallet. [bunnie], of bunnie:studios decided to ease the clutter (and wireless interference) in his wallet by transplanting the RFID chip from one of his subway cards into his mobile phone. Rather than the tedious and possibly impossible task of yanking out the whole antenna, he instead pulled the antenna of a much more accessible wristband with an RFID chip of similar frequency instead. Nothing too technical in this hack, just a great idea and some steady handiwork. We recommend you try this out on a card you haven’t filled yet, just in case.

Have You Ever Wanted To Be On (Internet) TV?

November 5, 2010 by James Munns 2 Comments

Are you an independent inventor? It might just be your lucky day. The fine folks at Independent Inventor TV, a new show currently filming for Revision3, is looking for home and garage based inventors to present their inventions for the camera. Currently they are based out of San Francisco, CA and are looking to film people in person, or by Skype if you are out of town.

To apply to be on the show, send an email to Independent.Inventor.tv(at)gmail.com with the details, photos, and videos of your inventions. The shooting date of the show is November 15th, so make sure to have all submissions in well before then. The selected inventors will get to meet the hosts, Comedian Jonah Ray, as well as fellow hacker [Joe Grand] (who is the creator of many of the DefCon Badges we have covered before). Be sure to let them know Hackaday sent you!

Win A Harley In This Design Contest

November 4, 2010 by James Munns 38 Comments

EBVElectronik of Germany is hosting a design contest based around the STM32F microcontroller. They are inviting engineers and inventors to come up with the best general purpose design ideas, with prizes including a Harley Davidson Motorcycle and a 1000 euro Apple voucher. Even better, they are offering a free STM32 Discovery Kit to anyone who enters, just to get them started. Sound too good to be true? Well, there is one catch. As of right now, entrants are limited to:

Any individual or group of individuals, age 18 and over as of the date of entry and located in EMEA (Europe and Middle East and Africa)

Sorry USA. We have to save some love for the international crowd. Do us a favor and let us know what you are planning to build, or if you win any of the prizes!

DIY Coffee Gripper

November 4, 2010 by James Munns 20 Comments

Here at Hackaday, we love it when people make home brew versions of elaborate, expensive, and technical equipment. By gathering up some coffee grounds, a balloon, some plastic tubing, and his lungs, [Carlos] has provided a good how-to on making your own coffee grounds robotic hand. Inspired by the U. Chicago, Cornell, and iRobot Collaboration we previously covered, he is one robot and a vacuum pump away from having their setup. Check out his blog for a list of components as well as a couple hints to help the build go smoothly. Be sure to check out the video after the break.

[via Make]

Continue reading “DIY Coffee Gripper” →

Firesheep: Promoting Privacy In A Scary Way

October 25, 2010 by James Munns 50 Comments

Often, software hackers are the activists that push software giants towards updating vulnerable applications. In todays example, [Eric Butler] is pushing Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and more all at the same time. By creating a user script-kiddie friendly extension for Firefox, he has allowed just about anyone to sniff unsecured connections on public Wi-Fi access points and log into these unprotected accounts.

Right now the extension is available for Windows and Mac, with a Linux port coming soon. Temporarily, the best way for a user to avoid getting taken advantage of would be to not use these social networking sites on a public connection, or to implement a secure proxy for these connections that would keep your data safe. Hopefully these websites will have a quick rebuttal that allows for security without workarounds. With all of the bad press they are recieving, they certainly have incentive to.

Are there any software or security buffs out there? We would love to see someone port this to an iPhone or Android app that could check and log open Wi-Fi points. We’ll leave the foot work to the experts out there, but do be sure to give us a heads up if anyone manages to make it happen, okay?

Fully Customized Robots

October 25, 2010 by James Munns 8 Comments

i.materialise, a custom 3D printing fabrication house are looking for talented robotics enthusiasts with the skills to design custom robotics parts such as functional frames, decorative shells, as well as unique parts required by robots to look and perform their best. The best part? They are offering free 3D printing of parts to the people they select with the most interesting or useful ideas. Make sure you check out their blog for details on what they are looking for and how to enter, as well as checking out some of the other cool things they do, such as a fully customizable 3D printed frisbee. Let us know what you design, we would love to show it off!

[via Robots-Dreams]

Hacker Housing – Rally To Restore Sanity

October 25, 2010 by James Munns 44 Comments

HacDC, Washington DC’s own hackerspace has been kind enough to open their doors (and floors) to fellow hackers planning on visiting DC this weekend for the upcoming Rally to Restore Sanity. They are taking registrations now, and space is limited, so act fast. They have a suggested donation of $20 a night, which will get you floor space and breakfast each morning, as well as the warm feeling of supporting a community based Hackerspace. Details can be found on their registration page, and please make sure you read the rules before registering. Thanks again to HacDC for supporting the Hacker community!

In other news, Hack a Day will be at the Rally, so keep an eye out for the writers wearing the Hack a Day shirts, as well as the HackaDay Twitter. If you get seen with one of us, you might just make it to the fan gallery. We will also be handing out some HackaDay Swag if you catch us soon enough on Saturday.