The Old Robots Website

September 10, 2009 by 4 Comments

oldrob

We found The Old Robots Website this morning and ended up spending way too much time there. It’s a display of mainly consumer robots, though there are some custom jobs tossed in there too. Ranging from silly to awesome and everywhere in between, we found tons of great information. By strange coincidence, we saw Arok in a documentary about eclectic homes last night. Arok’s creator explained that not only is he an amazingly versatile robot, Arok is also going to be the medium for communication after his creators death. That makes him even creepier.

[via Robots Dreams]

Uzebox Video Player

September 10, 2009 by 12 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWWsSn_QKLM]
Everyone’s favorite open source game console, the Uzebox (also cloned as the Fuzebox), just got a new feature hacked into it – a video player. At reduced quality (8-bit color), the Uzebox was able to play ‘The Matrix’ off an SD card @ 30fps plus the audio @15kHz. That’s a pretty impressive feat when one considers it is running on 4096 bytes of RAM. The video file had to first be converted into a series of pictures through a Photoshop macro in order to be playable. A Uzebox can be built with little more than a few resistors in addition to an overclocked ATmega644P, and AD725 (which has been skirted in certain incarnations).

S.P.A.R.K. Beginer Robotics Resources

September 10, 2009 by 2 Comments

spark

We love to see educational resources appear. iRobot has put together Starter Programs for Advancement of Robotics Knowledge or S.P.A.R.K to serve as not only education, but amusement with the purpose of getting people interested in robotics. With sections divided into different grade levels, it is obvious that this is mainly meant for school aged kids. There are some games as well to keep them amused when they need a break. We looked around a little bit and it seems that they are still fleshing it out. We hope to see some structured content specifically created for education of youngsters. Right now it is mainly links to other resources.

[via botjunkie]

Cain And Abel: Windows Password Recovery Utility

September 10, 2009 by 72 Comments

cain

As far as password recovery utilities go, Cain & Abel is by far one of the best out there. It’s designed to run on Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista but has methods to recover passwords for other systems. It is able to find passwords in the local cache, decode scrambled passwords, find wireless network keys or use brute-force and dictionary attacks. For recovering passwords on other systems Cain & Abel has the ability to sniff the local network for passwords transmitted via HTTP/HTTPS, POP3, IMAP, SMTP and much more. We think it is quite possibly one of the best utilities to have as a system administrator, and definitely a must have for your toolbox.

40 Years Of NERF

September 9, 2009 by 12 Comments

nerf3 (Custom)

In 1968 a guy by the name of [Rey Guyer] came up with an idea for a game. It involved foam balls as game pieces. After failing to sell the game to Milton Bradley, he approached Parker Brothers. They bought his idea but ended up tossing the game itself and just marketing the foam ball. Named after the padding used on rollbars in offroad vehicles, Nerf balls were an instant success, 40 years ago, in 1969. Many of us have fond memories of Nerf, even before everything they produced was a weapon. That’s not to say we don’t appreciate the Nerf weapons. We certainly have seen some hackers do some fun stuff with them.

[via neatorama]

In-depth MAME Cocktail Cabinet Build

September 9, 2009 by 16 Comments

mamebuild31_sm

Recently, a friend of ours got married who is a Ms. Pac-Man fanatic. His best man set out to fulfill the groom’s dream of owning a Ms. Pac-Man cocktail cabinet. The problem is that the unit he was after was selling for $2500. It’s great to buy the real thing (and with guest contributions he did,) but if it’s not available consider building your own.

[Alex] has put together a comprehensive guide for building a MAME cocktail cabinet. Unlike the mini-cabinet we saw last week, this is intended to be used sitting down and features controls on more than one side. His guide details the use of an original arcade CRT or an LCD flat panel, high-end controls via an I-Pac 4 controller, and a PC running MAME and MaLa software for Windows. The result is a professional looking build with controls on three sides of the table.

[via Gizmodo]

How To Download Books From Google

September 9, 2009 by 80 Comments

If you want books, but don’t want to pay for them, there is a better way than walking into your local book store and pocketing them. Try grabbing them online, from Google!

Everyone must be aware of the Google Books Library project by now. If you’re not, it’s basically a way for Google to ensure all of the world’s book content is accessible and searchable. Through the Book Project, Google works with libraries to scan and archive their older and out of print materials. Up until recently, viewers of books in the Google Library Project web space were limited to viewing books within the browser. Not any more. Google Book Downloader is a utility that rips books from Google and saves them as PDFs so you can view them with any device or desktop that can view this file format. Using Microsoft’s .NET framework, the Google Book Downloader application allows users to enter a book’s ISBN number or Google link to pull up the desired book and begin a download, fishing off with exporting the file to a PDF. Full setup instructions and download are available on Codeplex.