I usually don’t link to MAKE:Blog because I assume everyone is already reading it (you should). I just thought the GPS tracking link today deserved special attention.

We’ve been talking about “guerrilla drive-ins”. Dirk put together an FM transmitter kit this weekend that would probably work well. He’s also got a nice picture of why you shouldn’t keep your Replay-TV at a construction site.

[Spazz] put together a Hack-A-Day RSS Konfabulator widget.

[jeffers] pointed me to the Bluetooth car whispering article over on Autoblog. I had shrugged it off earlier in the day because I knew it was possible. I didn’t realize they had released the POC software on their site. This is another gem to come out of What The Hack. Here is the pdf of their slides and the torrent link for the video (370MB).

[TILT-MODE-ARMY] claims to have a working HTTP server on a PSP. They’re doing a stress test, but I’m not going to hot link it for fear of melting the little guy.

[Geoff] wrote to inform me that Weta Digital is expanding their render farm with 250 Dual Xenon blades.

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It looks like the DS trojan bricker is in the wild. There are instructions up to fix the situation. I was contacted by DarkFader last week wondering if I’d be interested in his answer to the PSP’s malware that had been circulating. I’m not interested in this kind of hacking because I feel it takes a lot more finesse NOT to break something. Here’s the info straight from the source for those interested:

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FIVE teams have completed the Grand Challenge 2005. Only four were able to get through the 131.6 mile course in the 10 hours needed to claim the prize. The fastest was Stanford’s “Stanley” at 6:53:58.

NASA is testing an unmanned sailplane that will turn off its engine once it has found a thermal.

[sprocket] documents the disassembly of the Roboraptor. UPDATE: This is [Sprocket]’s site. The other link was the inspiration.

The XBox 360s that were featured in all of those lewd photographs were apparently stolen property. I was looking for those pics the other day because I’ve decided I need to buy a 360 (you know

Wow, it’s a good time to be a robot:

[William Cox]’s coverage of RoboNexus 2005 continues over at GoRobotics.net. He’s been uploading a ton of video from the show. The Roomba hacking kit that was supposed to be released in July will hopefully be out next month. Of note is that it will include an AVR microcontroller dongle that will plug into the serial port. The dongle will have a USB interface for reprogramming. I hope they give full specs so you can plug whatever controller you want into the serial port.

[Nano2x] and Team 1039 (FIRST Robotics) are currently representing at Robothon in Seattle. They’ll be updating their website as the weekend progresses.

The DARPA Grand Challenge 2005 continues. As we write this three vehicles have already completed the 132 mile course. Glad to see things are going better than last year.

IBM developerWorks has had a great series of articles on wireless robotics: one, two, and three. [Richard]

Restoring Robby the robot [J. Peterson]

Here are some links for our human readers:

[Mikey Sklar] replaced the pockets in his jeans with conductive fabric to block RFID reading. He’s got a video of the process on his site. This project was made for a workshop at Swap-O-Ramma-Ramma in New York tomorrow. Which is probably the easiest way to get your hands on some fabric without a special order.

[benito] pointed out a site dedicated to guerrilla drive-ins. [via]

Place free calls without using up your SkypeOut minutes. [Kenny]

I’m sure you’ve heard that Microsoft is annoyed that it can’t play Sony’s DRM. The Wikipedia article needs expansion.

UPDATE: Sweet, fan mail! Unfortunately, you don’t get to see it in its ALL-CAPS glory.

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The firmware link for the Linksys PAP2 unlocking was dead when the link went up yesterday. [ian] found another site with the instructions and firmware. It mentions that Staples has the PAP2 for $50 and a $50 rebate that doesn’t require a Vonage subscription. They’re are out of stock online; tomorrow is the last day you can buy one in-store and get the rebate.

Leah Buechley has added the code to her wearable LED  display. [fdisk]

The annual Ig Nobel awards were last night. A personal favorite of mine, the Ig Nobels award prizes for questionable research. For example: “The Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine went to Gregg Miller, inventor of Neuticles, artificial testicle replacements for neutered dogs and other animals, which come in different sizes and levels of firmness.” Wired has the full story.

$179 is a ridiculous price for this IR controlled pan/tilt head. I’m sure one of you could put this together easily.

[camzmac] decided to add USB support to his XBox controller. Sure, it’s been done before, but we love our readers.

[CWAL] built this XMLHttpRequest chat a while ago. I like the clean interface.

Do you want your mouse to rumble every time you click a button? [leadingzero and mzungu]

Really simple speakers from a hard drive Even simpler than those other ones. [Zen]

You could be using those hard drives to sharpen scalpels. [CapnSnazzy]

Mobile drive-in theater I think I saw a story last year about these “guerrilla drive-ins” irking the MPAA since they weren’t properly licensed for public performance. [hierono]

Pixel2Life software tutorial search [via del.icio.us]

I usually don’t check del.icio.us, but I’ve had a LiveMarks window open all day. It shows the popular links as they come in. [via Waxy]

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Yes, Weblogs, Inc. has been purchased by AOL. Should you be worried? Not really. Weblogs, Inc. is still an independent entity from AOL. AOL won’t be censoring us or directing us. [grayskies] hit the nail on the head “How much direction did Weblogs, Inc have on Hack-A-Day? They had the annoying “Best of weblogs inc” and the banner at the top.” This deal does mean a better contract and probably more money to throw at projects, contest prizes and schwag. My checks will have AOL on them so I guess I have to stop throwing out the mail from them now.

As a show of good faith, here’s a recent article from Linux.ars on monitoring network traffic with Ruby and pcap; the example script is an AIM sniffer.

RoboNexus 2005 started yesterday. [William Cox] from GoRobotics.net is covering the event on his site.

[Robogeek] has decided to tackle the adaptive LED color controller project. First task: modularize the LED units.

While you’re over at Blogcadre you could help former H-A-D editor Jason Striegel beta test his smartphone app.

We get quite a few emails from people telling us that their school’s firewall blocks access to our site. Duxbury High School is actually holding a hacking contest. I was contacted by Mr. Conners looking for judges. We’ll do a judging poll if you readers are interested.

[phatmonkey] is working on a high altitude slug project.

The Hack-A-Day folding team is moving as fast as ever. We’re now ranked in the top 350.

People have started unlocking their Linksys “Vonage” PAP2. [Ozmotear]

[Troy] is already getting into the holiday spirit.

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If you’re a Mac user you might want to check out our friend C.K.’s experience with the slug. He’s got links to some other good resources.

I’m surprised how many times the 200Gb Nano got submitted when it has photo credits like: “Photoshopped from ArsTechnica. Remove if sued.“

I got a new toy in the mail yesterday. My eyes have never been happier. I used this coupon (expires 10/6).

Yes, there is a fake PSP patcher out there. [tomskag]

[dangel] says he has a better AJAX chat system. It doesn’t work for me at all.

[Sp3cial Person] made a Hack-A-Day EvoX skin.

Bit-tech got a first hand look at a High Dynamic Range monitor. [thanks Geoff]

[tX] put together a Java API search as both a web form and konfabulator widget.

A new version of SyncTunes has been released. You can use it to sync your non-iPod music players with Mac iTunes. [Quafboy]

[drasko]’s eBay – Google maps mashup Good for finding items close to you that would be expensive to ship.

[razor]’s Ultimate iPod dock features far too many toothpicks for my taste.

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