Laptop-DRV » Hacks, Mods and DIY

The Amazing Wooden B-Bit Violin

admin — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 15:47:04 +0000

Ranjit Bhatnagar’s 8-bit violin is all corners

There’s not most to say about a 8-bit violin, alternative than it looks positively retro-gorgeous. The instrument is playable (although if you jump over down to watch Make’s Bre Pettis scratching divided, you’ll see its only as tough to conjure up sweet tune from as is the unchanging analog violin), as well as every part solely the fingerboard as well as a turn holes for a tuning pegs is squared-off.

The extraordinary instrument was built by Ranjit Bhatnagar of Moonmilk.com, who normally spends his time making tune installations as well as receiving photographs with scanners. He has never played a violin, as well as done this a single as the part of his Instrument-a-Day plan, in that he creates — you guessed it — an instrument each day throughout February 2010. It’s worth checking out some more of his pieces, that embody the hand-made balalaika played with an AA battery rubber-banded onto a ride.

Can you suppose how awesome this would be if Ranjit got together with Circuitmaster, a maker of a NES guitar, for some kind of nerdy dueling banjos action?

Instrument-a-day 20 & 21: 8-bit violin [Moonmilk around Make]

Low-Tech Geekery Makes Beautiful High-Speed Photography

admin — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:22:38 +0000

Vincent Riemersma’s pleasing time-freezing photographs are a reduction of skill as well as old fashioned geekery. The cinema uncover splashes of colored water frozen in time as they burst concurrently from a row of booze eyeglasses. The formula are clearly considerable. But how were a photos taken?

First, the splashes. To safeguard repeatability, time after time, Vincent built the simple rig. Two inline skate-frames and the piece of timber done the rolling trolley that was mounted upon the slope. A marker at the tip meant a start-point was consistent, as well as a plank of wood during the bottom stopped a trolley suddenly. Momentum takes care of a rest, flinging the colored water into the air. Capturing these repeatable spills was the tricky part.

Timing is everything. To capture the splashes, you need to have undiluted timing. Vincent motionless to let the computer take care of this, as well as used an Arduino to fire a peep gun. The trigger was a piezo-element that would detect the noise of a pile-up and glow the strobe. Into the Arduino Vincent programmed multiform delays. The first was to give the h2o enough time to jump from the potion (around 100ms). The peep would then glow, and be cut right away. A last check, of 4,000ms, is there to have sure zero tricks a circuit into firing again.

What about a camera? Well, that’s a easiest part. The tripod-mounted Nikon D300s was manually focussed as well as had its shiver speed set to 3 seconds. Turn out a room lights as well as outing the shiver, as well as the sensor waits patiently for a little light. Roll the skateboard and wait. The water spills, a peep flashes, a sensor records the image, and the shiver clicks safely close. Easy!

The formula show only how well Vincent set things up. More photos can be seen over at his Flickr page, as well as you can read his write-up, complete with all a nerdy sum, at the DIY Photography blog.

Creating “The Splash” [DIY Photography]

Photo: Vincent Riemersma / Flickr

Open Source Guitar Kit With 3-D Printed Body

admin — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 01:34:53 +0000

Zoybar is the similar to Meccano for music. It’s an open-source guitar kit that you put together yourself, as well as a modular tools can be arranged in most combinations to make differently shaped instruments. The pack can be bought in either drum or six-string configurations, but a twist is that you can serve customize the designs yourself.

The guitar kits have been protected underneath a Creative Commons, and the CAD files can be downloaded and openly tweaked in the open source 3-D program, Blender. Here we see the Zoybar Tor, the fretless six-string whose physique is 3-D printed to give pretty most the minimum volume of element to work. There’s the dip to rest upon your leg, an arch during the tip on that you can rest your arm and, good, that’s about it.

The Zoybar kits ship with the fretless neck, tuning gears, a humbucker pickup (it looks like an aged PAF pickup) plus tools to have a fundamental body, and some bolts as well as Allen wrenches to hold it all together. Prices begin during $670, as well as go up depending upon shipping options.

So how does the 3-D printed guitar tune? Check it out:

Zoybar Tor [Zoybar. Thanks, Glen!]

Video: Terrifying ‘Shaving Helmet’ is the Skull-Scraping Hard-Hat

admin — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 10:53:50 +0000

“Shaving Helmet”. When you see those words, you have been likely struck with a same terror which can obviously be seen upon the exam subject’s face. The fact that he is called “Kenny” just creates the deadly mess seem all a some-more probable.

The steel sheet is a extraordinary invention of a mysterious Boris, crony of YouTuber Mattinbrooklyn. Take the look during in in action, as well as behold the fright in Kenny’s eyes:

If you daren’t watch a shave, here’s a spoiler. They don’t kill Kenny. Instead, everything goes (literally) uniformly. The helmet is for shaving heads, not faces, and has a “four-blade array” inside, with any knife edge using on Teflon-coated, aluminum rails. Two servo-motors, mounted upon a sides similar to Princess Leia’s hair, appropriate the blades opposite the victim’s head, and round a back is a shaving thick cream injector. The blades scour a skull of the shavee for the full twenty seconds before the indicator lights contend which the torture is done.

Astonishingly, a helmet is not only safe but actually administers the decent trim. There’s still no way you’d locate me putting my own melon inside it, yet. One note from the video: Judging by his shiny pate, Boris himself has obviously been testing a steel sheet. That must have since Kenny a small progress to his certainty. Imagine if Boris instead had long, flowing locks.

Does anyone have bad Kenny’s contact sum? I need somebody to test out my latest invention – bulletproof contact-lenses. What could possibly go wrong?

The Shaving Helmet [YouTube. Thanks, Marc as well as Chris!]

Japanese Book-Scanning Services Fueled by iPad, E-Readers

admin — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 04:01:57 +0000

If I could have every a single of the books upon my groaning bookshelves converted to EPUB format and shrunk to fit my iPad or Kindle, afterwards I’d do it in a second. Or rather than, I’d pay someone else to do it in the second. Yusuke Ohki, spurred on by a twin motives of the the typically little Japanese unit and the miss of indolence, not usually scanned 2,000 of his own books, but proposed the company to do it for people similar to me.

The company is called BookScan, as well as you can have his 120-strong group of employees modify your paper books into electrons* for around a dollar (¥1,000) per book. The books have been ripped into individual sheets as well as a scans are returned to you as PDFs. Once the tough work of digitizing has been finished you can set your own mechanism to work processing to EPUB or other e-book formats. You can opt to have a scans “tuned” to your device, with margins trimmed for phones as well as colors removed for Kindle. After scanning, a books are dumped.

The iPad has fueled a sharp enlarge in direct for e-books in Japan, as well as nonetheless there is still no homogeneous of Amazon’s Kindle store to supply them. Thus, people have taken to scanning.

Sound informed? Remember when the usually approach to get your song onto your MP3 player was to slice your own CDs? And look where which led: The music attention almost broken itself until Apple as well as iTunes yanked a music folks’ common head from the sand as well as proposed offered a song. Every time I can’t find a book I wish upon Kindle, I think that a book publishers have been going a same way. Especially if mass-scanning takes off as well as suddenly the internet is awash with DRM-free PDFs.

What about y’all, Gadget Lab readers? Would you compensate to have your books scanned, clearing your shelves of passed trees? Or do you still like to leaf through your cook-books with the glass of wine, determining what’s for cooking? Or should we only get free e-books for every genuine book we own? Answers in the comments.

BookScan product page [BookScan around Bloomberg]

Photo: BookScan

* I realize they already enclose electrons, but you know what I’m removing during here.

Untethered iOS 4.2.1 Jailbreak Live

admin — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:47:18 +0000

With the brand new Wi-Fi hot-spotting underline in the Verizon iPhone that – will roughly certainly be entrance to GSM iPhones – there’s one less reason to jailbreak your device. Sharing your 3G connection with your laptop or Wi-Fi-only iPad was possibly a number-one idea of jailbreakers.

Still, which hasn’t stopped the hackers, as well as a ultimate way to moment your iPhone is Greenpois0n, the tether-free jailbreak for iOS 4.2.1, a ultimate chronicle of Apple’s mobile handling system.

Untethered equates to which you can reboot your device without have to block it into the computer. Greenpois0n is Mac-only right now, though Linux as well as Windows versions should be upon their way soon sufficient. One tip: this hack isn’t endorsed for anybody who has carrier-unlocked their iPhone, or who intentions to do so.

So because would you still wish to jailbreak your iDevice? Well, iPads still don’t get the nifty brand new hot-spotting feature, though there’s a single big reason to open your iPad up during least: Retro-gaming. Sega competence already be in a App Store, but if you want to play classical Nintendo titles on your iPad or iPhone, you’re going to have to moment the metal cover.

As ever, take caring. We haven’t tested this jailbreak nonetheless (I like to keep my iPad stable).

Greenpois0n [Chronic Dev Team]

Robo-Rainbow, the Spectrum-Spraying Graffiti Machine

admin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 19:48:55 +0000

This is the Robo-Rainbow by artist Mudlevel, as well as the role is to lighten your day – either you like it or not:

There’s not most to explain which can’t be gleaned from examination the hypnotic video, a square of production as beautiful as the robot itself. Powered by the cordless cavalcade, a torque is eliminated to a counterweighted arm that rises six paint spray-cans in an arc.

What looks similar to an Arduino circuit-board controls the speed of the arm as it traces an arc opposite a wall of your choosing, as well as triggers the servos which spray a paint. Even a spray-can mount is ingenious: 6 cans around the round hoop that keeps everything lined up as it creates its round, and at a same time gives the cans space whilst gripping the nozzles tighten together.

And best of all, the total supply packs into the bike trailer.

It’s tough to find anything about this that isn’t overwhelming. The only problem might come from the cops. After all, you may be able to make a quick getaway upon your bike, though with the prolonged boom rattling paint-cans at the back of you, you’re going to be pretty easy to spot.

Robo-Rainbow [Mudlevel / Vimeo around Adafruit Industries and Hack an Day]

Ubertooth One: A Bluetooth Network Hacking Tool upon Kickstarter

admin — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 14:25:11 +0000

Ubertooth One is the poor, open-source Bluetooth network sniffer. Unlike Wi-Fi, that has had the wide range of gratis network monitoring collection for years, Bluetooth has remained pretty closed. Michael Ossman is about to shift this, with his Ubertooth Kickstarter plan.

The Ubertooth One is the USB block with an receiver, as well as the ARM Cortex-M3 processor-based board in-between. Plug it into your mechanism as well as you can make use of it with assorted wireless monitoring collection similar to Kismet. The Ubertooth allows you to make use of Bluetooth in monitoring mode. This “promiscuous” mode creates the airwave pass everything that it picks up onto the horde mechanism. Normally, wireless receivers will ignore anything not addressed to them. In random mode, you can spot as well as accumulate interpretation meant for alternative inclination.

These tools can be used for contrast network confidence, or for hacking. Kismet, for example (and derivatives similar to the Mac OS X chronicle KisMac) can be used to moment Wi-Fi networks’ passwords.

Until now, Bluetooth monitoring hardware would cost upward of $1,000. Ossman’s device will price just $100 as well as, because both a software as well as hardware have been open-source, you can setup your own.

Ossman demonstrated the Ubertooth One during the ShmooCon hackers convention upon Friday. Future program updates will enable Bluetooth injection as well as stretched monitoring modes.

Ubertooth One: an open source Bluetooth test apparatus [Kickstarter]

Project Ubertooth [Sourceforge]

Ubertooth One on Kickstarter [Michael Ossman's blog]

Microsoft Responds to Jailbreakers With Free Swag, Not Lawsuits

admin — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 10:58:43 +0000

Hack a Sony device as well as you might get slapped with a legal case. Hack the Windows phone, however, and you competence get the free T-shirt as well as a phone call from Microsoft.

That’s a arrange of treatment Windows Phone 7 hackers report receiving from Microsoft: warm welcome, the eagerness to combine as well as free rigging as if they’re part of a brand new group.

In recent weeks, Microsoft representatives have reportedly met with Windows Phone 7 jailbreakers to plead how they can await “homebrew” apps — third-party software that doesn’t require the approval of Microsoft — in a approach which benefits both parties.

This accessible approach even managed to impress George Hotz, a youngster who gained celebrity as the first hacker to clear a iPhone.

“Perhaps a more suitable approach to deal with jailbreakers,” Hotz wrote on his website, joining to a story about a Windows Phone 7 hacker removing a free T-shirt.

Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment. However, Brandon Watson, who is partial of Microsoft’s developer relations team, posted the open summary upon Twitter charity Hotz the gratis phone for creation apps.

Microsoft’s friendly interactions with hackers have been surprising in the rarely litigious technology attention. Recently, Sony asked a justice to mislay all traces of the PlayStation 3 hack from a internet, alleging which it violated copyright law and would eat into PS3 diversion sales.

Similarly, Apple in 2009 attempted to have jailbreaking a iPhone illegal. The move was catastrophic, as a DMCA in 2010 declared hacking a iPhone lawful. Jobs once described Apple’s attribute with iPhone jailbreakers as a “cat-and-mouse game.”

Of march, the PlayStation 3 as well as iPhone are far some-more renowned than Microsoft’s newest mobile handling system, which debuted in October, 2010. As of December, an estimated 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 inclination had shipped to retailers, as well as there were only 4,000 apps accessible for a platform. Recruiting hackers could be part of the much-needed developer- as well as customer-outreach campaign.

Microsoft isn’t being the finish pushover, of course. The initial jailbreak for Windows Phone 7, dubbed ChevronWP7, will be broken with a subsequent Windows Phone 7 software update, according to ChevronWP7’s makers. However, that seems to be the proxy roadblock.

The ChevronWP7 team says it’s under the non-disclosure agreement with Microsoft about only what will be strictly supported with courtesy to Windows Phone 7 hacks, though that it’s “genuinely excited” about what lies forward.

“We conclude Microsoft’s outreach, genuine seductiveness and impasse in this matter and we goal the community can understand we’re working towards a win-win unfolding,” ChevronWP7 wrote in the blog.

DIY CNC Machine Just $390

admin — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:35:39 +0000

Stephen McGloughlin took the look during stream CNC machines and saw complex as well as hard-to-make inclination which costs thousands of dollars to buy. So he motionless to have his own.

CNC machines are computer-controlled mills which allow you to accurately cut tools as well as components to have flattering much anything, from simple models to formidable engines. McGloughlin opted for a appurtenance which uses a Dremel for cutting, tranquil by stepper motors. The total thing can be had for just $390, as well as if you want to spend less you can opt to buy only a plans, or prejudiced kits.

Because the appurtenance was written from a begin to work with usual and simply scavenged stepper motors, you can crack open a couple of old printers as well as re-use a parts. And once fabricated, the hardware can be driven by multiform free program packages running upon your own mechanism.

McGloughlin headed to Kickstarter to get his project funded, and currently over $50,000 has been affianced, way some-more than a $15,000 idea indispensable to get things running (pledging closes at 11:59PM EST tonight, January 10th 2011). And there’s a wonderful twist which underlines the DIY nature of the total project: The production line will consist of a really same CNC bots which they have been making, in the reproductive spiral which would have Skynet proud.

The Easiest Way to the Desktop CNC Machine [My DIY CNC. Thanks, Stephen!]

DIY Desktop CNC Machine [Kickstarter]