UDK: Make The Next Gears Of War

November 5, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 41 Comments

Ever sat down from a long day of hacking and thought to yourself “I wish there was a cool video game out there made just for me. Better yet, made by me!” Today is your lucky day with the release of UDK – Unreal Development Kit.

In days of old, the only solution to satisfying your game creation desires was a cheap game making kit, or adding to the millions of Source mods. Epic has changed tables by now allowing anyone to use their engine (non-commercially of course) to create the game of their dreams; who knows, maybe even the next Unreal Tournament.

UDK is currently limited to PC, but plans are in the process for PS3 and Xbox360 development. For those who cant wait, we suggest checking out XNA. Whatever tools you use, ever made a cool game? Tell us in the comments!

[Thanks Kinigit]

Mac Mini – Getting A Little More Useful

November 4, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 25 Comments

We’re pretty sure Apple decided to implement an IR sensor in their Mac Mini line simply to mock the user. For those who are unaware, the built in sensor only works with the standard Apple Remote; unless you happen to have a programmable PDA or similar you’re SOL. An alternative solution would be to install a USB IR receiver. But then your beautiful Mac Mini is forced to sit alongside an ugly black box. Why not have the best of both worlds? [SqueeZe] wrote an (almost) entirely non invasive tutorial for placing a USB IR receiver inside his Mac Mini. Reminds us of a certain hack a while back, but the objective was to get the IR receiver outside of the unit rather than inside. Different people, different worlds.

[Thanks Kiran]

PUSH Competition Winners

November 3, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 13 Comments

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Nokia team PUSH is proud to announce they have winners from the contest they held over the past two months. You may remember when we first told you about the competition, but here’s a recap. All you had to do was think of a good hack for the Nokia N900! Winners will receive funding and other resources to make their hack come alive. What possible hacks made the cut?

Haptastic – A compass and map? Not any more with this wearable guide that can lead the way.

KAPingwiththeN900 – Flying high with this aerial photography project

LIGHT HACK CREW – Bring light graffiti to the N900

Rocket Pocket – Just Bonkers! An N900 in orbit, we love it!

SolderinSkaters – Tony Hawk who? It’s all about Solderin Skaters!

We’ll Take The Fries.

November 1, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 32 Comments

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We’ve all been there; hardest decision we’ve ever had to make. College and debt or freedom but no career? Start a family or live out alone? The number 2 with a small shake or side of fries?!

[Leon] sent in his random number generator, oddly enough not to just generate a number, but help us through with those life altering decisions. Using a noise diode like setup he’s able to generate random bits, which an ATtiny24 then converts and displays on a 7 segment LED. His generator also has the ability to set upper and lower limits. Seems like an awful lot of work to avoid the freedom of choice paradox, but we enjoyed the project none the less. Check out a video after the break. Continue reading “We’ll Take The Fries.” →

Cheating RockBand (again)

October 30, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 17 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0mIkkwUq0g&feature=player_embedded%5D

Sure making a robot that plays the game RockBand for you seems a little cheap at first, but no human can possibly hit that 30 triplet note straight ending in a button mashing contest. To finally get his high score [Joe] made a setup to play the game for him, on the iPhone. We’ve seen some very different Guitar Hero hacks before, but none that had to get around the touch capacitance screen on the iPhone. What version of the game should be hacked next? We think Football Hero would be a good start.

[via Make]

LibTISCH 1.0 Released

October 29, 2009 by Jakob Griffith 2 Comments

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[Florian] is proud to announce libTISCH 1.0 is finally ready for release. We told you about libTISCH just under a year ago and how it is a multitouch framework that factors more on the software side of things, instead of hardware for multitouch interfaces. A lot has changed including more widgets, more gestures, more hardware support, and some other nice features. If you’re looking into making your own multitouch surface, or making your own widgets for a multitouch surface – libTISCH would be a great place to start.