This one’s been making the blog rounds, but it really fits us. Nintendo makes one, but this instructables tells you how to make your own for a DS lite. It uses a PIC 12F675 to read the input line and activate a vibration motor from an old nokia cell phone.
Oh, speaking of instructables, I forgot to mention that they finally picked a winner for their laser etching machine. Of course, if you lack the budget, you can make your own for $60.
[Jowan] sent in this excellent gameboy cartridge hack. The cartridge contains 1MB of flash and an 8 bit serial I/O interface. He’s using it to play percussion with some solenoids and a custom rom. If you guys like it, he might be convinced to put together a how-to on hacking the cartridge.
[XanTium] sent this in a few days ago, but I thought you guys would dig it. Here are the details straight from his email:
Hackers on the XBH forums managed to change DVD key and Game Region Code in the Xbox 360 ‘Key Vault’ (that stores on flashchip: console certificate(s), per-box private keys, DVD key, however NOT any code-related encryption keys).
However you should know the ‘Key Vault’ is encrypted with the per-xbox360 ‘CPU key’, so that means this hack is only possible on Hypervisor exploitable Xbox360s (kernel 4532 and 4548) for now. You will of course also have to read/flash the Xbox360 flashchip (by desoldering it and read/flash it with programmer or for example use the versatile Infectus dev chip)
You can read up on some more details here or get a login and check out the actual forum thread. The end result: play EU games on your US 360. (It doesn’t sound like the DVD movie region has been successfully changed, but modded DVD players are easy to make.)
This little hack was sent in by [andrew], he built it specifically for the long flight from Australia to the US. The idea is simple, but I wouldn’t have considered it given the cost of decent D Cells these days. H put together a 20 D-cell power pack, a regulator to keep it at 24v, and an eighth inch plug to power up his old ibook.
Update: I goofed and left out [andrew]’s name.
[Christoph] sent in [fingers] rather interesting coffee hacking project. (Use the fish to translate it to English.) Using various scrounged parts, he’s constructed his own automated french press brewer. A good french press is a bit of an art, so I can understand the desire to automate one. The grind itself isn’t too critical, but brewing time can vary with the roast and grind of the bean. Personally, I’ve found that decent brew temperature is the real key to a good press. [Fingers] machine provides a way to do everything consistently, but the custom aluminum brew chamber might be effecting the brew temperature.
Inspired by the knock to open hack, [ashish] put together a fairly simple DTMF decoder to control solenoid door unlocker and connected it to a Nokia 1100 cell phone. Call the phone, input the magic code, and the door unlocks.
I’ve been getting some good looking mods on the tips line, so I thought it was time for a bit of bling on Hack-A-Day.
[f00-F00] sent in his ever so lightly modded iPod. It’s a bit similar to his force feedback PSP mod, but in this case, the leds lighting up the clear case are music sensitive.
The not too shabby looking [flooky] sent in her latest use for the SEGA Dreamcast, a guitar. (Hopefully soon to have three more strings.)
[crait] decided to steal 5v to power a Dreamcast VMU from his PS/2 port.
Oh, and if you dig our logo, you might be amused by skulladay.
I’ve got my travel plans for Defcon 15 set up. [Eliot] will certainly be skulking around vegas, so we’ll see you there.
