[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1TelXmRQs0]
This project is particularly amusing. It doesn’t have a whole lot of practical use, but it makes up for it in style. They have an SD card with Wikipedia from 2003 downloaded to it. This is accessed with a Parallax propeller microcontroller based system and displayed on a small retro looking screen. We like it. We don’t think we would ever actually use it, but we would definitely keep it around.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ioV2Dj56iw]
Inspired by this year’s april fools day joke from Opera, [Jason] has made facial gesture recognition actually work. While this may seem like a silly project, it could seriously help some people out. This could be a great accessibility tool for people with motor control limitations.He states that it has some problems right now, most notably a performance issue with extended use, so he’s hoping to get some input from some bright minds.
[thanks, Jordan]
[vimeo=4370631]
Cloud Mirror is an interactive art installation that combines you and your easily available online information in real time. Attendees stood in front of the camera and held up their badges. Cloud Mirror then projected them on the wall and displayed a speech bubble containing information from the web. In the example after the break, you can see our very own [Eliot] displayed with his most recent twitter post. To add another layer to it, you could send a text message with someone’s badge ID to the system and it will display your message in that person’s bubble.
Recycling is great. We’ve seen a pretty hard push in that direction recently. We like the fact that our modifying of hardware is generally saving it from the dump. Keep in mind, that just using old hardware can be advantageous too. We don’t always need the new shiny thing, maybe we’re fine with what we’ve got. That is exactly what lastyearsmodel.org is about. You can join their facebook group and even get stickers for your old devices.
Sometimes we forget just how useful magnets can be. Sure, we use them in some projects, but usually we just pull them apart for our amusement. Evil mad scientist laboratories reminds us that they can be useful tools. They’ve made a list of 17 uses of magnets. We’re also reminded that magnets can be dangerous. What else can you think of?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjSv2VNKnvY]
Electrosthetics has taken it upon themselves to open up and explore the insides of a Phillips AmbX system. The unit is supposed to help immerse you in your video games by adding ambient lighting, vibration, and wind. They got the starter kit, which is missing some bits. Interestingly they found that the hardware was not hampered in any way. You could plug in fans and such and, in theory, build the larger kit. There are lots of pics of the various pieces for you to look at. They note that the hardware all seems decent, but it’s the software that really causes issue. On their Vista64 dual core machine, the software was eating up an entire core to do ambient lighting.
[Mike] has posted an instructable on making cool looking PCBs. He does it a little differently than we do. He uses soda cans for the stencils and combines the solder mas and silk screen steps. Also, a bit of extra cooking gives him this cool gradient of color. He has managed to get some really fine etching. It isn’t as fine as a laser etching, but this should be able to handle the smallest stuff you can throw at it. We’re a bit curious what exactly he’s building. There’s a color picture after the break to show you what we mean.
