Tablet Hacks

94 Articles

JooJoo Turns Out To Be Legit, Gets Torn Down.

April 4, 2010 by 51 Comments

The JooJoo exists. With all of the recent media coverage of the iPad, we’ve had a chance to hear some interesting discussion and heated debates. Usually the more tech savy and the hackers are most upset about the “closedness” of the hardware and software. We have heard of many alternatives, but usually they’ve been pretty clunky. The JooJoo(originally “crunch pad”) by Fusion Garage gets mentioned, but we’ve been avoiding it since the company had been having so many set backs, we doubted it would actually exist. Well, it does. The shipped the first ones at the same time as the iPad.

What is so special about it? well, heres what you’ll find when you open it up (yeah, with screws).

  • a RAM slot, 1 GB provided
  • 2x mini pcie slots
  • 1x ssd slot
  • a 3g sim slot
  • Nvidia’s new ion graphics chip
  • An atom n270 processor

With 4 Gb of storage, bluetooth, wifi, a camera, external USB ports, a screen boasting 1366×768 resolution, and a slick interface which supports flash, we can’t help but get excited. It costs $499. We think this could be a fantastic hacking platform. We aren’t going to just run out and buy one yet, but if it takes off, we expect to see people hacking these like crazy. Too bad they couldn’t have gotten a little more press to compete with the iPad.

The Uber Eeepc

February 18, 2010 by 13 Comments

[F00] wrote in to show us his Eeepc that has been modded with almost every upgrade you can cram in one. He has an external cantenna for his wifi, an iPod hard drive, touch screen, added bluetooth with indicator lights, and an internal USB drive for booting linux. While the details are somewhat lacking on his site, you can find an article here for every piece you need to recreate his work. We’ve covered adding the touch screen, mounting external antennas, doing it all without solder, even changing the form factor. Not to mention the other Eeepc we’ve seen that was extremely well endowed.

Ask Hack A Day: Touch Screen Hack

December 3, 2009 by 33 Comments

Reader [Chad Essley] asked us:

“I’m wondering if the vast knowledge base of HackADay’ers out there might know of some way to turn almost any laptop into a touch screen of some kind. Actually, any surface.”

He has an older Wacom Tablet, and would like to be able to add resistive touch screen capabilities so that he isn’t forced to use the Wacom pen. Being an artist and part time hacker, he even summed up the question in a comic-style post.

Continue reading “Ask Hack A Day: Touch Screen Hack” →

Pen Based Input Improvements

December 21, 2008 by 10 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcE3XBytN-U]

Lately we’ve been focusing on multitouch technologies, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t interesting research going on in other areas of human-computer interaction. [Johnny Lee] posted a roundup of some the work that [Gonzalo Ramos] and others have done with pen based input. The video embedded above shows how pressure can be used to increase control precision. Have a look at his post to see how pen gestures can be used for seamless workspace sharing and how pen rolling can give additional control.

Install Debian On The Nokia N810

July 15, 2008 by 8 Comments


The Nokia N810 tablet is a great buy, especially for hackers. It already ships with a Linux-based operating system, called OS2008, which is based upon Maemo 4.0. However, for those who aren’t fans of OS2008, you can install Debian easily with some patience and an extra memory card. The Debian install includes OpenOffice, Firefox 3, AbiWord, and IceWM. You should be aware that there are pitfalls. Some of the applications run slowly, and you may be in danger of losing data if you run into problems.

[via Unwired View]

Dell Tablets Support Multitouch

July 14, 2008 by 4 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arrkdO_SDm8&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]
Dell announced today that it will be offering a free multitouch upgrade to their Latitude XT tablets. You may remember Microsoft using an XT when they first demoed the multitouch features in Windows 7. Dell’s new firmware update will allow users to scroll, scale, and assign macros to other gestures. The laptop is using capacitive touch technology, so don’t expect accurate tracking of multiple fingertips. We’re happy to see a manufacturer take time to roll this out even if widespread adoption probably won’t happen. Now to see if some one can get it working with OSx86. As with most technology we encourage you to build it yourself.

[via Gizmodo]

Mac Tablets Made By Fans

July 14, 2008 by 17 Comments


Macintosh makes a lot of wonderful pieces of technology, but they do not make a tablet. Pictured above is the Modbook, the closest you can currently get to a Mac tablet. Though not officially built by Apple, they are an Apple Premier Developer and that isn’t too shabby.

Several people have taken it upon themselves to fashion Mac tablets of their own, varying from extremely professional looking finishes down to duct tape and wire. Lets take a look at some of the more popular ones out there.

Continue reading “Mac Tablets Made By Fans” →