Hackit: Ideal Conference Badge?

August 11, 2009 by Eliot 28 Comments

In 2006, Defcon 14 premiered a unique electronic badge. All it did was blink, but it raised the bar for what was expected from a hacker conference badge. In 2007, they went from 2 LEDs to 95 in a scrolling marquee. Along with a POV mode, the badge had two capacitive switches to let the user edit the displayed text. Defcon 16’s badge featured an IR transmitter and receiver for transferring files from an SD card. It worked as a TV-B-Gone and had pads to access a USB bootloader. That was the same year that The Last Hope debuted their RFID tracking badges.

This year the official Defcon badge reacted to sound, but they were no longer the only game in town. Ninja Networks brought their 10 character party badges with a built in debugger. The Arduino compatible HackTheBadge 1.0 also made an appearance. With these new entrants into the field, we wondered what you’d want to see in your ideal badge. What badge would you want to see at next year’s Defcon? Leave you comments below and keep in mind that it should be an idea that is easy to cheaply mass produce.

UPDATED: Forgot to mention the Neighborcon 2 badge based on the GoodFET20.

[Photo: Ninja Networks]

HackTheBadge 1.0

August 10, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 17 Comments

[Martin] tipped us off to HackTheBadge 1.0. Possibly more elusive than the NinjaBadge, HackTheBadge has a Dpad, a 3×5 LED matrix, Arduino compatable headers, and 46 GPIO channels. You can download the open source plans if you didn’t get one at Defcon. You probably didn’t, there were only 14 given out. You can also order one pre assembled. This makes us wonder, does being low in quantity qualify this as elusive?

Vacuum Gloves For Climbing Buildings

July 25, 2009 by Zach Banks 22 Comments

spiderman

Suction is incredibly powerful and can be put to use in several different ways. [Jem Stansfield] built a set of vacuum gloves for a BBC TV series to show how powerful suction really is. He climbed up the side of a 100 foot building, yet had to rely on his safety line near the top. The video of his daring ascension after the jump.

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Volver

July 20, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 17 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmkW5PpjfNg]

Volver is a 3.75 inch square LED matrix that will display over 1600 unique patterns. Designed by members of Image Node and Disorient, it is a fundraiser for burning man 2009. While it is certainly less colorful than its older sibling the Nodeblinky, it features 8 more LEDs and a bit smoother and faster graphics. Volver can be picked up as a kit, or fully assembled from their site. Just like last time, you don’t have to buy from them. They freely offer the source code and schematics.

Keychain GPS Finder

June 25, 2009 by Steve Watkins 7 Comments

gps keychain navigation

With a user interface consisting of two buttons and a three digit display, the GPS finder guides the user back to a saved location. Nine locations can be saved for navigation recall. Press a button to save location and press another button to recall. Each switch has a secondary function, for management purposes such as memory indexes and power features. An AarLogic GPS 3A module and AVR microcontroller make up the guts. With the popularity of Geocaching, this would make an impressive trinket; Leading the hunter to an undocumented treasure.

Wide Angle Lense Mod For The ATC2K

June 25, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 6 Comments

wal

For those that have them, the ATC2K action camera is a decent little piece of equipment. It is waterproof and can save video for roughly 30 minutes on a flash card. The viewing angle of the lens leaves something to be desired though. This has been remedied in newer models. [raalst] shows us how to modify the ATC2K to install a new, wider angle lens, while retaining the waterproof seal. He also takes us through a necessary mod to ensure clear video under water since the new lens was not initially intended for it. Just in case you are curious, he’s using his for hobby radio controlled submarine dives.

Things To Hack: Sub 100$ Toy Night Vision, Projector, And Tv Game

June 22, 2009 by Gerrit Coetzee 14 Comments

projector

Ars Technica writes about three new toys coming out this year: a sub 100$ projector, tv game, and night vision goggles. The projector runs at standard TV resolution, takes standard composite in, and outputs an okay picture. The night vision goggles are monocular but focus both eyes on a single RGB LCD. The goggles uses an array of IR LEDs instead of amplifying ambient light to see in the dark. Lastly, they have a standalone implementation of the arcade game Big Game Hunters. The rifle uses a sensor bar to do the motion tracking and features a 32MB rom to hold the game files.