More FrankenKindle Progress

August 24, 2011 by 7 Comments

[Glenn] sent us an update on his FrankenKindle project. You might remember this hack from back in July. [Glenn] is modding the device to make it easier for his sister, who has Cerebral Palsy, to use.

The latest revision adds a case for the hardware. The silver button pad is what remains of the V.Reader (a children’s toy), having had the screen portion hacked off. The case provides a stable base for the reader and buttons, holding them at a nice angle for easy use. There’s just a bit of cable routing that needs to be finished to protect some fragile connections. The picture above does show the circuit board to the side, but there is a place for it around back.

In the video after the break [Glenn] mentions that the response to keypresses is a little sluggish. Sure, some of this is Kindle’s own delay when refreshing the ePaper display. But we can’t help but think the code running on the Teensy could also be optimized. We’ve asked him to post his code if he wants some tips, so check back and help out if you can.

We do have one feature suggestion for him. The Kindle keyboard no longer functions because that flat cable coming out the side is what connects to it. It’s quite easy to add a PS/2 keyboard port to a microcontroller. That would be a nice addition to the FrankenKindle as it would make things like shopping for books a bit easier.

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Cellphone Controlled Retro-radio Stores And Plays Your Digital Library

August 24, 2011 by 6 Comments

[Autuin] was worried about having desirable electronics stolen while on the road with his band. He didn’t want to take a laptop along on tour, but he didn’t want to be without his music either. To solve this problem, he built a music player inside of a cheap-looking radio. His write-up covers two different portable MP3 solutions, but it’s the second rendition that catches our attention.

After hollowing out the old radio he filled the void with an Asus WL-HDD 2.5. That hardware is meant to be an easy way to add network storage; it houses a laptop hard drive and has WiFi and Ethernet connectivity. But it also has one USB port, and can be hacked to add a second. [Autuin] did just that, using the two USB connections to add a Bluetooth dongle and a USB sound card. Music is synced with the hard drive via some cat-5 cable that’s hidden in the battery compartment of the vintage box. The NAS runs Linux, and the audio playback software is controlled though a Mobile Java application running on a somewhat broken cellphone. That’s an idea that might find its way into our next project.

Water-powered Multi-channel Audio

August 24, 2011 by 8 Comments

[Niklas Roy] is rolling out some water-powered music for Berlin’s Museum night. It seems that this water-wheel is attached to the side of the Museum. It’s got a stream flowing past it and the wheel is constantly turning. The thing is, that work isn’t being used for anything. Now we’ve already seen [Niklas] making electricity from moving water, but that’s far from what he had in mind this time around. Instead he’s driving a multitude of music boxes with the motion transferred from the water.

He teamed up with another artist named [La belle Imira] to build and connect a series of pulleys to the waterwheel. The video after the break shows the rope system being strung throughout the grounds of the museum. After passing around the output drum of the water wheel, the rope snakes through each pulley. Many of the pulleys have the mechanism from a music box attached to their axles, so whenever the water is flowing, music plays. They don’t all play the same tune, so you get a variety of selections as you walk around. We could swear that one of them is playing ‘My Way’.

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The Dish-o-Tron 6000 Is Back And Better Than Ever

August 24, 2011 by 30 Comments

dish_o_tron_6000_extreme

When designing a circuit on the bench, sometimes things work far better than they do in real life. [Quinn Dunki] learned this lesson over the last few months as she struggled with one of her recent creations, the Dish-o-Tron 6000. We featured the Dish-o-Tron back in April, and at that point things seemed to be working out well for [Quinn]. As time passed however, she found the device to be an unreliable power hog. Aside from eating through a battery every few weeks, it kept spontaneously switching states from ‘Dirty’ to ‘Clean’ and back. It was time to take the Dish-o-Tron back to the bench for some debugging.

The random status flip from ‘Dirty’ to ‘Clean’ was a relatively easy fix, and required a small capacitor between the set pin and ground to eliminate the electrical noise that was tripping things up. She nailed down the spontaneous ‘Clean’ to ‘Dirty’ flip to a stuck tilt switch, which she swapped out for a mercury-based model, making things far more reliable. She solved her battery problems by wiring in a 12v wall wart, which might not be any more energy efficient, but it does save her from swapping out batteries all the time.

It’s always nice to see how projects evolve over time, and how the inevitable bugs are worked out of an initial design.

Forget That Boring Old Fire Pit, Build A Flame Tree Instead!

August 24, 2011 by 12 Comments

maker_faire_bay_area_2011_fire_tree

Maker Faire is a great event to attend not only because you get to see all sorts of cool designs and machinations, but because you can participate as well. At Maker Faire Bay Area 2011, maker [Brett Levine] put together a fun and interactive display he likes to call the DIY Flame Tree.

The concept is pretty simple, and he says everyone who participated got a pretty good kick out of lending a hand. Each participant was given a piece of copper tubing and allowed to bend, twist, and sculpt it to their liking before using a drill to add holes wherever they pleased. They were then allowed to choose where their portion of the project would be mounted on the existing tree.

With everyone standing a safe distance away from the display, [Brett] pumped it full of propane and lit the various sections on fire. In the video below, you can see that the display was blown around a bit by the wind, but we imagine it would look pretty awesome on a still summer evening.

Even if you’re not into this sort of art, you have to admit that it certainly beats a boring old fire pit!

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The Scariest Hacks From Black Hat And Defcon

August 24, 2011 by 12 Comments

Although [HAD] is generally all about legal hacking, this list of demonstrated hacks could be used for the dark side as well. Hopefully by demonstrating hacks like this, most people can be more aware of how they use their information. Computer security experts also have a chance to hone their skills and see where potential vulnerabilities lie.

Some of the highlights from this article include hacking a Siemens S7 PLC, which can be used for factory automation, a “hacker drone” that we’ve featured before, and a method to deduce someone’s social security number from personal photos on social networking sites.  Also scary is a method to shut down certain personal insulin pumps.  Although serious in itself, one would hope that other life preserving devices would be adequately protected against intrusion.

One hack that seems like it could have interesting uses in the legal-hacking world is the idea of VoIP botnet control. Although “botnet control” obviously implies illegal use, controlling a computer with voice or touchtones can and does have many legal uses.

“Extrem Konsolen Modding”

August 24, 2011 by 27 Comments

Not to be outdone by their North American counterparts, these German-speaking hackers have come up with a truly unique console mod. Although modding one system may be OK for most, the builders of this console decided to combine three systems into one clear plastic box. A stripped down Xbox360, Playstation3, and Nintendo Wii were all put together to form this “Extrem” system.

The build style should be very appealing to those interested in video game hardware. Combining the look of a tower PC with a clear plastic allows one to see all components in action. Since the box is lit up with electroluminescent lighting, one is able to show off this system in the day or at night. Continue reading ““Extrem Konsolen Modding”” →