This instrument caught our eye. It is a Laser device that looked like it could do midi input of some type. We played a little bit, but really weren’t too impressed. You know why? We’ve seen better.
[James] – Way to be hackers.
Peripherals Hacks1521 Articles
Reverse Engineering The Telly Terminator
[Oliver] received the Telly Terminator as a gift and decided to take a closer look at it. This key fob has two buttons; one shines an LED like a flashlight and the other turns off televisions. Sound familiar? Yeah, it made [Oliver] think of the TV-B-Gone as well.
He cracked open the case to find just a few components. The brain behind the IR signals is a Helios H5A02HP. Only a few pins are used for outputs so he connected a logic analyzer and recorded the signals. His writeup covers the process quite well. He takes a known IR transmitter protocol and compares it to the capture from the logic analyzer. It turns out that the fob generates 46 different signals and with further analysis concludes that there’s a chance the code used here is from an older version of the TV-B-Gone source.
Arduino Traffic Light
[Rockwell] sent us an update on his traffic light hacking. Dedicated readers will remember seeing this legally attained traffic signal controlled through a parallel port from back in 2005. The new update swaps the old port for USB and adds several autonomous functions which are demonstrated in the clip after the break. The update includes a nice UI and some notifications for things like email, IMs, Reddit posts, etc.
He’s given control of the hardware over to an Arduino. Instead of building the board into the project he’s included just the parts he needs; an AVR running the Arduino bootloader, a crystal and filtering caps, and an Arduino serial to USB module for connectivity. The AC load switching is handled by three relays. The relays he links to are 12VCD rated coils. We think this should have pointed to 5VDC coils as that’s the voltage that the logic circuit are running at. Be careful with switching these AC loads, this traffic light isn’t a toy.
Make Your Own 3d Monitor
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NektsV1EOic]
Don’t let this cruddy video fool you. [Sprite_tm] has done an amazing job here. He has put together a fairly simple way of creating your own 3d monitor at home. The basic principle is easy to get. You have to supply different angles of an object, on the screen, at the same time. [Sprite_tm] has done this by using transparency sheets, printed with a pattern to only show specific pixels. As you move your head, you see a different set of pixels, and therefore a different image. It’s simple, but it works. The system isn’t really new. Traditional 3d with polarized glasses uses a very similar setup. This system however seems like it is lacking in stereoscopic view however. When you move your head, you’re looking at a different angle, but still a 2d image of it. It would be really cool if he could somehow present each eye a different view, without polarizing filters and glasses. We’ve seen others do that with multiple screens, but that gets so clunky and can give most people a headache pretty quick. We also think we are about to see a flood of face tracking perspective modification, especially with project Natal and similar technology emerging.
The Harlequin Project
This impressive little mod is quite fantastic really. [pakkei] has constructed the Harlequin, a home-made version of the Microsoft courier. This was a stock Dell mini9. Now, coupled with a display link touch screen monitor that happens to be identical in size and resolution to the original, it has become a new device. He has loaded Windows7 and is currently working on a case that can hold all the bits a little more organized than what you see above. We can’t wait to see this finished.
[via engadget]
Pranav Mistry’s Cool Input Devices
[ted id=685]
This new video about [Pranav Mistry’s] SixthSense project doesn’t bring us much that we haven’t seen before. At least, not on that project. What really caught our eye was the device he shows off at the beginning of the video. Using two old ball mice, he constructed a grip style input device. It is simple and elegant and we can definitely see using this in future hacks. Not only is it cheap and apparently effective, it seems as though it could be constructed in a very short amount of time. all you need are the wheels that spin when the ball moves, 4 springs and some string. Why didn’t we think of that?
[thanks Sean]
Tiny Keyboard/touchpad Has “hack” Written All Over It
Yes, we know, this is not a hack, yet it just has the vibe of something we’ll likely be seeing in many small form-factor systems and wearable hacks in the future.
The USB Wireless Handheld Keyboard is a diminutive keyboard and mouse replacement with a passing resemblance to a BlackBerry PDA — where the screen has been replaced with a laptop-style trackpad sensor. This seems a shoo-in for home theater PC use; it’s unobtrusive and won’t look out of place on the coffee table alongside the universal remote. But any tiny system requiring only occasional input could likely benefit.
The keyboard layout is funky as heck, though likely adequate for its intended use of couch web-surfing and interactive messaging (or whatever wild applications our readers will surely come up with). A USB wireless receiver and a charging cable are included in the $62 package. Video after the break…
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