touch

36 Articles

Easy Touch Capacitance

October 17, 2009 by 15 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euv8ZLgPh8A&feature=player_embedded%5D

[Humberto] from NerdKits is one of our favorite tipsters. We like how he can take a concept that seems so extremely complicated, in this case touch capacitance sensing, and present it in a clear and concise manner thats impossible to not love. As previously mentioned the most recent NerdKits hack is on touch capacitance; by using a resistor capacitor pair and some clever switch timing, anyone is able to detect the presence of a human limb. Now who’s going to be the first to adapt this concept further in their own hack?

Touchpad And VFD Hacking

July 20, 2009 by 17 Comments

p2 (Custom)

[Agent420] brought up this touchpad and VFD hack in the comments on our capicitive sensor guide post. He had broken dell laptop from which he harvested the touchpad and an HP laserjet that contributed the VFD. Though the touchpad communicates using standard PS2 protocol, he wanted to use it with his Atmel 8535 AVR which required him to write some custom code. In the picture above, you can see the VFD displaying the coordinates of his finger. You can download his code as well as the spec sheets for the different pieces on the project thread.

IPhone Linux

November 28, 2008 by 22 Comments

[vimeo 2373142]

Embedded above is a demo video of an iPhone running a Linux 2.6 kernel. The iphone-dev team has created a new bootloader called OpeniBoot. The bootloader lets you boot into a Linux console, which you can talk to over a USB serial device. They’ve got busybox working, but there is no touchscreen support yet. The instructions are not that difficult and include how to back up your settings. It works on first and second gen iPhones and first gen iPod Touch. This is a very early port, but the future is wide open… Android iPhone?

Waterproof IPod Touch Video Boombox

August 23, 2008 by 1 Comment


Popular Mechanics contributor [Anthony Veducci] wanted a virtually indestructible video player that he could use anywhere. Not finding a commercial solution, he decided to build his own. He already had a large waterproof case and another for the iPod Touch. The 8″ display came from an iPod accessory. Unfortunately it was developed before Apple implemented their stupid accessory locking, so he had to use an Apple approved video cable through several adapters to get it to work. The speakers were also salvaged parts. The case was assembled using a jigsaw and a whole lot of epoxy. The speaker openings are covered with latex from a pair of gloves and everything is sealed with silicone. We’re usually trying to escape technology when we head outside, but we’ll be looking back at this the next time we need to ruggedize something.

[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” →

HandUSB Data Gloves Interface

July 12, 2008 by 2 Comments

Following today’s earlier post on data gloves, HandUSB is a glove interface designed to relay fingertip touch data to a computer via USB. Although the gloves themselves are not extremely interesting or useful for your average hacker, the project has some good documentation. The electronics are all open source and he has links to the EAGLE files and the AVR Libc code. You can also find a demo program written for DOS. This project uses AVR-USB by Objective Development so if you are looking to move on from your USB-serial chips, this project would be a good resource to study.

[via YourlTronics]