Maker Faire 2009

May 29, 2009 by Eliot 11 Comments

jinroh

Maker Faire returns to the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend. It’s “the World’s Largest DIY Festival”. We’ve been attending off and on since 2006 and you’re sure to catch many of the projects we’ve covered in the past. Be sure to stop by our favorite hackers that will be in attendance: mightyOhm, macetech, SparkFun, Liquidware, Jeri Ellsworth, Bleep Labs, Noisebridge, Ani Niow, EMSL, and Adafruit. If you’re attending, upload your photos to the Hack a Day Flickr pool and let us know what you see.

[photo: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid]

Global Hackdays: Tangible Interfaces

May 26, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 1 Comment

[vimeo=4138521]

June 6th is the date of the upcoming Global Hackday. This time, focusing on cheap tangible interfaces, mainly trackmate. They want as many people to join as possible, even if you’re not comfortable with code. We’ve covered the construction of the trackmate surface before, now build one and get in there and contribute.

Repurpose: A Short Documentary

May 26, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 23 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOTw_PkK_SU]

This is a nice little documentary on hacking. Made by [Jack Oats], this video sheds a little light on hacker culture. Filmed in Foulab during a workshop, there’s plenty to to see and enjoy. Show this to all your friends and relatives that get confused when you use the term hacking.

[via NYCResistor]

Marc Weber Tobias Vs Medeco

May 22, 2009 by Eliot 20 Comments

tobias

This month’s Wired magazine has an extensive profile of [Marc Weber Tobias]. He’s a professional lock picker that delights in coming up with new techniques for taking on high security locks. In recent years, he’s run afoul of the US’s premier high security lock manufacturer, Medeco, by publishing Open in Thirty Seconds with [Tobias Bluzmanis]. Medeco still denies that this is even possible. Wired decided to to test the team by purchasing six new cylinders and timing them. Each one was open in under nine minutes. You can see a video of this on Wired’s site.

Last fall we covered a decoding attack against Medeco locks by [Jon King].

[via blackbag]

D-Link Adds Captcha To Routers

May 12, 2009 by Eliot 30 Comments

D-Link is adding captcha support to its line of home routers. While default password lists have been abundant for many years, it was only recently that we started seeing the them implemented in malware. Last year, zlob variants started logging into routers and changing their DNS settings. It’s an interesting situation since the people who need the captcha feature are the ones who will never see it, since they won’t log in to change the default password.

[photo: fbz]

Nove Bit: A 9 Bit Memory Recorder

May 9, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 16 Comments

novebit_spell_blog

Nove Bit looks like a pretty cool toy. You press sequences into the 9 buttons and it plays them back. We think it would be cool to play with. The artist [Nick Hardeman] states that the project is to allow you to save memories in 9 bit configuration instead of the traditional 8 bit computer method. Why don’t artists just say they did it because it looks cool? We want one of these, but We really think that recording our memories has nothing to do with it. You can see a video of it working after the break.

Continue reading “Nove Bit: A 9 Bit Memory Recorder” →

TouchKit Spark Released

May 8, 2009 by Eliot 14 Comments

touchkitspark

NOR_/D has just released their newest multitouch display system. The TouchKit Spark features a larger 35.4x23inch display surface than its predecessor, the Run. It uses ultrabright IR LEDs around the screen’s border for FTIR multitouch sensing. A high frame per second IR camera is included to increase tracking performance. The screen is fully assembled, but you need to provide your own projector and case. It can be built at table height or as low as 20inches. The device is designed to work with OpenFrameworks, but future software releases will have TUIO support.