Wiimote Driven Motion Effects

December 22, 2008 by 5 Comments

[vimeo 2515709]

Check out the video above by [Adrien Mondot] for a extensive demonstration of eMotion being used with a Wiimote. eMotion is a physics based visual tool for the Mac. It’s designed to enhance performances by reacting to real world motion. Its grounding in physics makes the resultant motion appear more natural than if they were arbitrarily generated. The video above combines eMotion with the output of Wiimote Whiteboard, a low-cost interactive white board that uses the Wiimote camera plus IR light pens. While the video takes place in a small area, we can see how this could be scaled to a much larger space with IR lights mounted to performers.

[via CDM]

Digital Clock Building

December 22, 2008 by 10 Comments

clock

[punkky] has been documenting his adventures building digital clocks. They each use six 7-segment LED displays, but he’s been gradually changing how they are built. The first version used a CMOS BCD-to-7-sement latch on each display, which is tied to a PIC16F627a. For the next run, he added multiplexing, so he could drive all the segments using just thirteen pins. He’s posted a final schematic with code and details of how the clock timing actually works.

Cast Concrete RGB Lamp

December 22, 2008 by 1 Comment

lamp

[matthew venn] shows us how to create this cool RGB LED lamp. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but some good information on casting the base out of concrete.  The body of the lap is formed by two thin rods folded in half, stuck in holes in the base, with a lycra sleeve slid over them. The final effect is quite nice and can be controlled by 3 knobs recessed in the front of the base. Information on the actual circuit used is very limited, as there are so many tutorials out there for that, but he does show how he mounted it all, and plans on releasing the source code soon.

No Solder EEEPC 701 Upgrades

December 22, 2008 by 14 Comments

eeepc_no_solder

[luke] has put together a set of EeePC upgrade instructions for those who suffer from solderphobia. If you have the EeePC 700 or 701,  also known as the 4G surf, you can upgrade the storage, add bluetooth, and a touch screen without having to solder a thing. Those models don’t have the built in camera, so they have an unused internal USB port.  With some crafty taping and careful placement, you can upgrade as easily as [luke]. We’ve really seen the EeePC mature, the product line has expanded quite a lot. For those who don’t mind a little solder, there have been tons of hacks for the EeePC.

IPhone 3G Unlock Video

December 21, 2008 by 6 Comments

musclenerd

To appease people waiting for the iPhone 3G unlock, iphone-dev team member [MuscleNerd] did a live video demo this afternoon. The video shows him removing the AT&T SIM and putting in a T-Mobile SIM. After the switch, the phone shows no connectivity. He then runs “yellosn0w” in an SSH session with the phone. The phone then unlocks without needing to be rebooted and the signal bars appear. The final test shows the phone receiving a call.

The target for this release is New Year’s Eve and it doesn’t support the most recent baseband. Well be attending the 25C3 talk hosted by [MuscleNerd] and other team members. The VNC screen you see in the video is thanks to [saurik]’s Veency.

Bug Labs Releases BUGvonHippel Universal Module

December 21, 2008 by 9 Comments

vonhippel

Bug Labs makes hardware modules that can be combined to create your own custom gadgets. They’ve just released what we consider the most useful module: BUGvonHippel. Unlike the previous single purpose modules, the BUGvoHippel is a universal interface. The bus features USB, power/ground, DAC/ADC, I2C, GPIO, SPI, serial, and more. BUG applications are written in Java using a custom IDE.

The $79 module is named after MIT professor Eric von Hippel, who wrote Democratizing Innovation. You can find an interview with him below.

Continue reading “Bug Labs Releases BUGvonHippel Universal Module” →

Tor Hardware Privacy Adapter

December 21, 2008 by 33 Comments

hardwaretor

The Janus team have published a preview of their new Privacy Adapter. It’s a small two port router. You just plug it in-line between your computer/switch and your internet connection. It will then anonymize all of you traffic via the Tor network. You can also use it with OpenVPN. The hardware appears to be a Gumstix computer mounted to a daughtercard with two ethernet ports. It will have a web configuration just like a standard router. This looks like a great plug-n-play privacy device. The only improvement we would suggest is adding auto-detect so a crossover cable isn’t required.

Janus is responsible for JanusVM, a virtual machine designed to protect your privacy with technologies like Tor and OpenVPN.

[via @hdmoore]