Misc Hacks

4182 Articles

Twittering Teddy Bear

June 16, 2008 by 4 Comments

This may be the deathblow that kills Nabaztag: using text-to-speech software, this animatronic bear speaks a Twitter stream aloud and in real time.

The gurus at My Home 2.0 made the bear talk by replacing its integrated circuit board with an Arduino loaded with custom software. A Bluetooth audio adapter was added as a channel for the bear’s voice, and a circuit with an H bridge chip was added to address power issues. The Arduino translates the income audio signal into movement. From there the process moved to the computer that feeds the bear audio data, they parse the Twitter stream and use OSX’s built in “say” command to generate the voice stream that’s sent to the bear via Bluetooth.

Don’t Talk To The Police

June 16, 2008 by 17 Comments


As builders of improvised electronic devices, we’re worried that we may find ourselves running afoul of the law. Lucky for us, we’ve got the advice of Regent University Law Professor James Duane on using the 5th amendment. He runs through many examples where saying anything at all, truth or otherwise, can get you into trouble. Embedded below is the other side: Officer George Bruch discussing some of the interview techniques he uses.

Continue reading “Don’t Talk To The Police” →

Laser Based Night Light

June 15, 2008 by 5 Comments


[the4est] put together this quick how to for making a laser based light bulb night light. First, you need to break out the black glass base of the bulb and remove the filament. Scrub the inside of the bulb and pour in the paraffin. Once it sets, you can break the glass, leaving a solid wax bulb. Hollow out the inside, insert a laser pointer, and you’ll have fine glowing night light.

Asus WL500GP Audio Hack

June 15, 2008 by 3 Comments


The Asus WL500GP wireless router runs Linux and has two USB ports. [equinoxfr] wanted to install audio support internally to the router though (translated). Luckily, it uses a VIA VT6212 4port USB controller. So, he was able to wire two more internal ports. A Brando USB soundcard is plugged into one of those ports and wired to an external headphone jack. He wanted dual RCA connectors, but they just wouldn’t fit. The router is running OpenWRT Kamikaze. MPD is used to serve music with the wymypy frontend since it has its own lightweight webserver.

Syringe Logic Probe, Revision 2

June 15, 2008 by 4 Comments

[Travis Goodspeed] has updated his syringe based logic probe that we covered earlier. Instead of soldering to the outside, he’s using silver wire shoved into the core of the needle. A nice side benefit is the safety cap now fits. Inside the syringe are two LEDs that indicate current direction. The sharp needle makes it a lot easier to hit small traces.