tech.nocr.at

Allegro Portable Internet Radio

Frank — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:04:12 +0000

Let’s face it, terestrial radio is all but dead. Who wants to wade through all the commercials and limited avalability of the FM or AM dial? I listen to internet radio all the time, when at work at my desk and even on my iPhone when in my car and this little baby while now complete my internet radio experience.

The Grace Allegro Wi-Fi internet radio can run for about 8 hours on six AA batteries and streams over 16,000 radio stations from the likes of Pandora, Sirius and Live365. Is has built in 802.11b/g/n support and even has an iPhone remote control app so you can change stations without walking up to the unit.

You also get MP3/WMA/Real Audio/WAV/AAC/AIFF codec support, alarm functions, built-in speaker, 4-line display, standard remote control.

The unit will cost you $170 and is available right now from Grace Digital Audio

Allegro Portable Internet Radio originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/25.

WiFi Door Opener

Frank — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:41:26 +0000

We have seen our fair share of door opening hacks. Remember the secret knock door lock? That was pretty awesome, but what if I tell you that you can unlock your door from any wifi device?

The guys over at Sunlight Labs have done just that. By using a WRT54GL and some creative hacking that have wired up their wireless router to buzz open their front door.

So how does this all work? Well, let’s start with the router. It’s a Linksys WRT54GL, a still-Linux-friendly descendant of the WRT54G, the router which jump-started the custom firmware scene. There are a lot of custom router firmwares available — DD-WRT, Tomato, Gargoyle — and they can all make your consumer-grade router do some professional-grade things. For this project I used OpenWRT, the system on which many of those other projects are based. It’s got a much steeper learning curve than those other distros — you definitely need to be comfortable with the command line — but it lets you build a custom firmware with exactly the components you want. With some tweaking I was able to create a firmware that included a stripped-down version of Python, but which still fit into the WRT54GL’s meager 2MB flash memory. (Like the Arduino, Python turned out to be overkill, but at the time I expected to need it — and it’s always nice to have it handy.)

Link to Door Opener Science Project

WiFi Door Opener originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/24.

Nintendo DSi LL Here On March 28th

Frank — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:32:04 +0000

Nintendo fans rejoice, you too will be able to cash in on the DSi LL on March 28th of this year. The fuller DSi comes at you with a larger 4.2-inch screen and a full-size pen stylus as compared to the is original brother.

Nintendo has also added support for eBooks. Although you will be able to flip the unit sideways and use it in a traditional book format you won’t be able to read those book unless you plugin a special DS cartridge.

The new DSI LL will hit store shelves on March 28th for $190. The eBook system will come at a later date with a 100 Classic Books title shipping around June 15th.

Nintendo DSi LL Here On March 28th originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/24.

Nintendo DSi LL Here On March 28th

Frank — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:32:04 +0000

The new DSI LL will hit store shelves on March 28th for $190. The eBook system will come at a later date with a 100 Classic Books title shipping around June 15th.

Nintendo DSi LL Here On March 28th originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/24.

Brushduino – Arduino Meets Toothbrush

Frank — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:59:12 +0000

You knew it was bound to happen. We have seen Arduino’s used in everything from toasters to coffee machines and now we see the Brushduino. The cool hacks knows when you are brushing via an accelerometer that you attach to your toothbrush. By knowing what your doing the unit will tell you when it’s time to move to the next section of your mouth.

“It’s basically all LED’s. There are 6 white LED’s that correspond to the six regions of the mouth that I want to highlight, there are four green LED’s for showing progress and there’s a speaker I pulled out of some broken toy that’s there to entertain the children while they brush. The multi-strand wire connected to the three analog inputs on the Arduino also supplies 3.3v and ground to the accelerometer. The cable itself is an old ADB keyboard cable from my old Mac SE/30 from back in the day. It’s been laying in my junk box for ages. There are also some current limiting resistors for the LED’s and a bunch more of that lovely AWG30 solid core wire I like so much.”

Link to Brushduino

Brushduino – Arduino Meets Toothbrush originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/23.

Roll Your Own 3D Video For Under $300

Frank — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:53:08 +0000

You’ve gone out and seen Avatar and now your ready to summon your inner Cameron and shoot the next blockbuster 3D movie but you just can’t seem to come up with the millions of dollars needed to purchase the camera gear you would need, fear now more because you too can now create a super-duper 3D film for under $300 (how was my infomercial pitch there?).

Some great weekend hackers have put together a shopping list of materials needed to pull this off.

A couple Kodak Zx1 Digital Camcorders
L-Shaped bracket
Some nylon washers, wingnuts and screws
A basic tripod

I’m sure you could use other cameras and adjust the bracket to suit, but the concept is pretty simple. They have a full write up on how the pulled it off including all the editing that is needed to produce the stereo image. Check out the video after the break of some home made 3D footage.

Roll Your Own 3D Video For Under $300 originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/22.

Glow In The Dark Toilet Paper

Frank — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:10:07 +0000

How many times have you been in the bathroom taking care of business when suddenly the lights go out? Never you say? Well I have, once. Trust me, when you are caught in a situation where you are in complete darkness the only thing you want to know is where the toilet paper is, and when the lights are off you have no idea.

Enter the glow in the dark toilet paper. If you are ever caught in a situation like I mentioned above you will be thankful that you spend $8 a roll (ya that’s right, cleaning up you business with glow in the dark toilet paper is expensive).

You can grab you very own roll at I Want One of Those

Glow In The Dark Toilet Paper originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/22.

Photoshop On Your iPhone

Frank — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 05:41:54 +0000

10 years ago most of us would struggle with not only the cost of Photoshop but the cost of the hardware needed just to run it let alone do anything with it. Amazingly enough in todays day and age you can now carry Photoshop in your pocket.

Alright, alright, it’s not CS3 or anything it’s actually 1.0, but it’s still super cool on the geek factor scale. This demo was released to about 50 people who recently attended the Photoshop 20th anniversary event and will never see the light of day on the app store. Doesn’t mean that I want it, I want it bad!

Check the video out after the break of Photoshop in action on an iPhone.

Photoshop On Your iPhone originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/21.

DIY RJ-45 Cable Tester

Frank — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 05:14:00 +0000

Cable testers can be super expensive, but if your trying to trouble shoot a cable drop or run then you know how valuable one can be.

Our favorite kids over at Instructables have a great how to on building your own on the super cheap. A quick trip to your local big box home improvement store and your favorite electronics store (hell even radio shack should it all) and a few bucks is all you will need to build this.

Besides your basic DIY hacking tools you will also need the following …

8 LED’s
20cm of Cat5 Cable
9V Battery Clip and Battery
Wall Mount Box
2 RJ-45 Female Jacks
220ohm Resistor
Female RJ-45 Mount Plate

Once you have all your components assembled head on over to Instructables and make your way through all the sets.

DIY RJ-45 Cable Tester originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/21.

Solar Powered Cellphone

Frank — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 05:05:07 +0000

Ever been caught with a dead cellphone and no source of juice anywhere to power that puppy up? Come on now, you know you have. Well, Sharp is ready to settle that problem once and for all.

By dropping your conventional backlit LCD and using a passive matrix LCD screen the SH6230C will use a lot less power than a conventional phone. The passive matrix screen can display the time and SMS/e-mail all the while using an incredibly small amount of power. Don’t count on too many features either. Besides offering your standard dumb phone features the only extra bell you get is a 5-megapixel camera, but if you spend a lot of time outdoors this phone should never leave you high and ~~dry~~ dead.

The phone will run on GSM networks and is set to make it’s debut in China sometime this month with a $500 price tag.

Solar Powered Cellphone originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/21.

Windows Phone 7 In Action

Frank — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 06:08:35 +0000

Earlier this week at the World Mobile Conference Microsoft announced the Windows Phone 7. Microsoft, the once high and mighty in the smartphone market looks like it’s getting serious about taking back their smartphone crown.

I have never been a Microsoft fan but I must admit I was a heavy user of the Windows Mobile environment a few years back and I quite enjoyed it. Development and improvements in their mobile os quickly fell to the way side and they were quickly overshadowed by the like of RIM and Apple.

The OS looks clean and simple, following the Zune’s UI but it is already suffering from some bad play like the fact that there will be no backwards compatibility with older WinMo software, no multi-tasking and no Flash (could this finally be the death of flash?), and a super late roll out date (Q4 of 2010).

Check out the video after the break of the new shiny OS.

[link to Windows Phone 7]

Windows Phone 7 In Action originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/20.

Happy Birthday BBS

Frank — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 05:13:20 +0000

Just a few days ago, Feb 16 to be exact, in 1978 Ward Christensen and Randy Suess launched the first ever Bulletin Board System in Chicago.

Many people belive that the BBS was the predecesor to the modern internet, a crude form I will agree but a much more enjoyable form of social interaction online per say. If your not familiar with how a BBS works let me give you a crash course. Back in the day we use to have these devices connected to our computers called modems. They allowed us to connect phone lines to our systems so that we could call other computers and interact in a message based way. BBS’s offered the world of information; files, messaging and even games (called door games).

Many people think that the BBS is dead, they couldn’t be more wrong. BBS’s are still quite active and alive with thriving communities and best of all, no spam or trolls (alright, so there are still stupid people in this world, even on BBS’s). bbs-scene.org is a great place to find out more about BBS’s and how you can participate.

Come join us in Web 0.2, I still love it (and run a system myself!)

Happy Birthday BBS originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2010/02/20.

Vega Tablet With Android 2.0

Frank — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:57:00 +0000

With all the hype surrounding the “maybe possibily” release of the Apple tablet, other possible tablet like devices have been over shadowed. Take this uber sexy looking Innovative Converged Device called the Vega.

The Vega will be offered in 7, 11 and 15-inch models and will all run Android 2.0 software. The largest of the bunch will have a 15.6-inch resistive screen that supports a resolution of 1366 x 768, come with a Tegra processor, 512MB DDR DRAM, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi (no N), and Bluetooth 2.1. The built-in 512MB NAND Flash storage can be expanded via MicroSD cards. It’ll weigh about 45 ounces and have a battery life of around 4 hours.

Look for them to hit tier one cell phone carriers sometime in early 2010. No pricing is available on them yet, but the company does say that they intend to let them go for little cost, so it looks like the carriers might be subsidizing them.

Vega Tablet With Android 2.0 originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/13.

The C64 iPhone Emulator Is Back Baby

Frank — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:35:38 +0000

People in their 30’s rejoice, you may now relive your youth on your iPhone, again. The Commodore 64 emulator is available again in the iTunes App Store. (Check the video of it in action after the break)

If you don’t remember, back in June Apple removed it from the app store claiming that it violated the rules on launching executable code (Uhmmm, isn’t that what all emulators do?).

The only downside to this new version is that it can only play games that are downloaded from the App Store itself, no uploading of your own ROMs. I’m hoping someone out there will whip up a hack so that we can get such classics as “California Games” and “Bards Tale” back on. Oh the memories.

[Link to iPhone C64 Emulator]

The C64 iPhone Emulator Is Back Baby originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/13.

PSP GO FW 6.10 Hacked?

Frank — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:19:13 +0000

A video that has been flowing around the inter-tubes shows a PSP Go running firmware 6.10 running a Genesis Emulator. This can only mean that the Go’s 6.10 firmware has been hacked, no?

According to PSP Hacks ….

Good News! – Well Neon says it is and if this video is anything to go by then we may be inclined to believe him. The video shows a PSP Go running a Genesis Emulator and the hack is apparently a kernel level exploit.

Now for the bad new, Neon says he has no plans on releasing the hack, whether he is just playing hard to get is not yet apparent but it will no doubt lead to many pessimists insisting that the cake is a lie.

Does this mean that we might soon be able to use the internal 16 GB of memory in the Go for custom firmware goodness? I sure hope so.

[Via PSP Hacks]

PSP GO FW 6.10 Hacked? originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/13.

Turn Any NAS Drive Into A Time Machine Drive

Frank — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:20:08 +0000

Time Machine is a great built-in feature in OS X. When Apple first announced that they would be offering the ability to backup and restore your files and system with the ease of use that we have come to know and love from Apple I was ecstatic. Then I found out that you had to have a physical drive connected to your machine to utilize it, or you’d have to purchase an expensive Apple made NAS product (Time Capsule) to use it without a physical drive connected to the machine.

Many hacks have been released that allow you to use any NAS drive as a Time Machine drive. All you really need to do is some shell code and create a sparse image, but now someone has taken all of the dirty work away from you and released a simple AppleScript that will get you up and running with any headache’s.

[Link to Time Machine NAS AppleScript]

Turn Any NAS Drive Into A Time Machine Drive originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/13.

Boxee Set To Roll Out A Set-Top Box

Frank — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:05:07 +0000

Ohh you Americans with your awesome ability to watch full episodes of TV shows via Hulu and Boxee. Us Canadians are only stuck with the ability to watch our Canadian programming in some crappy player on some crappy Canadian broadcasters website. Actually it really isn’t all that bad, but then again, you have Boxee, we have awesome beer. You can always use a VPN is you really wanted to use it.

Boxee just announced that it will be releasing a set-top box that will run their fantastic software. There really isn’t much details on the upcoming device but then again all it really has to do is have a hard drive inside and HDMI out, no? It’s what’s inside that counts, the Boxee software.

Hopefully one day we will see Boxee up here in Canada with having to go through hoops to use it and with a connected device that costs oh let’s say under $200 to power it, you might never need cable or satellite again.

[Link to Boxee Box]

Boxee Set To Roll Out A Set-Top Box originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/13.

Drive A Car With Your iPhone, Again

Frank — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:25:06 +0000

A few weeks ago we showed you how some smart peeps got together to write some custom software and hardware to control a minivan via an iPhone. They did all of that for the Darpa Urban Challenge and all of it will probably never see the light of day. Now the guys over at Waterloo Labs have decided to jump into the whole “control a car with your iphone” thing with both feet and actually show us how they got their iPhone to control the steering, brakes and acceleration on a full size car.

I don’t suggest you actually go out and do this, especially not the surfing on the top of the car while controlling it with your iPhone. That could end up really bad for you. Check the video out of all the crazy action after the break.

Drive A Car With Your iPhone, Again originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/13.

iControlPad: Gamepad For Your iPhone

Frank — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:13:06 +0000

Since the release of the iTunes app store the iPhone and iPod touch have really been pushed as the next great portable gaming platform. Game developers have really started to push the limits of the device but the one major stumbling block has only been the “touch only” interface.

The iControlPad looks to change all of that. It’s a case for your iPhone that offers dual analog nubs, a gamepad controller and of course a few buttons. There is also an internal battery that charges your iPhone while you play.

Bad news is that you will need to jailbreak your iPhone to use this since it’s not an official Apple licensed product, but the iControlPad is supported by some of the biggest devs like the boys that make all the cool emulators. If you’re interested in the device, you can can place a pre-order by signing up at their site.

iControlPad: Gamepad For Your iPhone originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/13.

iSteady Shot: Camera Stabilizer For Your iPhone

Frank — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:01:06 +0000

If using your iPhone 3G S to shoot a movie is in your plans you will quickly learn that such a small and light weight device won’t be the easiest thing to keep stable. Gladly someone has got your problems covered.

The iSteady Shot is a camera stabilization unit for your iPhone 3G S. Although this won’t improve the video quality of the video that the iPhone produces, it will defiantly make it a lot smoother (check the video out after the break). It can be adjusted if your iPhone has a case and comes with a two-axis gimbal for real smooth 360 degree movement.

The unit will run you $149.99 and can be pre-ordered right now from their site.

iSteady Shot: Camera Stabilizer For Your iPhone originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/13.

Tweet From Your Joystick

Frank — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:52:13 +0000

Xbox 360 fans rejoice, you will soon be able to tweet from your Xbox 360, another great reason to not use the console for what it’s made for, playing games. You’ll also get a few other tweaks to the update that will be pushed down on the 17th like on-demand 1080p HD video from the Zune Video outlet. Check out the video of Twitter on the 360 after the break.

[Via Engadget]

Tweet From Your Joystick originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/12.

Cup Communicator

Frank — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:19:19 +0000

When I was a kid you communicated with two tin cans connected with a string, and that was the early 80’s for God’s sake. If you want to relive your childhood with a modern twist (some of us supres our childhood memories of have a Sega system while everyone else had moved on to the NES) then check out these walkie talkies that are designed to look like paper cups connected by string.

The design of the Cup Communicator is focused on the gesture of use and the relationship between the users and object. I aim to explore the potential of the product as a medium for interaction and reassess the way we use technology.

The form and function of the Cup Communicator refer to the ‘two-cans and string’ children’s toy and the physical factors involved with that device. This typology and its associations remind us of the magic and playfulness of our first communication devices.

Not exactly the form you’d want for this type of function, but it will definitely turn heads.

[Link to Cup Communicator]

Cup Communicator originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/12.

DIY: Cool Arduino Clock

Frank — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:10:03 +0000

People build all sorts of cool things with Arduino. Take the Twittering Doorbell or the Bedazzler but how about something as simple and useful as a clock? And an eye catching one at that!

The clock build requires a few simple materials; a laser printer, some LED’s and a few connectors. The instructions are super easy to understand and the only artistic skill you will need is knowing how to use a stencil (as you can see from the picture above).

Being an Arduino project, you will also get the source code from the project website to get you clock going. Along with the code you’ll also get a detailed PDF schematic and a template for the stencil. With the holiday season right around the corner, making a few of these and giving them to your geeky friends might just be the perfect gift idea.

[Link to Instructables]

DIY: Cool Arduino Clock originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/12.

mPower Illuminator: A $250 Flashlight

Frank — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:59:06 +0000

You might be wondering why you would spend $250 on a flashlight, especially since you can pick up a cheap one at a dollar store for, well, a dollar. There are two reasons you would do so. One would be because you are filthy rich and really don’t care how much you spend and Two, hmmmm, well you decide for yourself.

The mPower Emergency Illuminator was designed by the Porsche Design Studio (so far not worth the $250).
It comes with what the company calls “groundbreaking battery technology”. The unit has dual battery barrel’s. One barrel holds you run-of-the-mill batteries and the other holds the “mPower Reserve Battery” that has a minimum shelf life of 20 years from activation. The user chooses when and where to active it. (still can’t see why I would pay $250)
A built in USB port for charging other gadgets (Maybe. Actually, nope. Still not worth it)

So as you can see, you’ll have to be filthy rich to justify this purchase, or just an idiot.

[Via DVICE]

mPower Illuminator: A $250 Flashlight originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/12.

NCube: Portable Gamecube Goodness

Frank — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:46:38 +0000

I’ve seen my fair share of portable Gamecube systems, but this has got to be one of the slickest I have ever see.

Designed and hacked together by a Ben Heck apprentice, the NCube is a beautiful creation. The case is a seriously modded Datamax Kid’s Delight and the screen is an unmodded Zenith PSone display. The unit also has a 2-way switch so you can choose to run off batteries or AC, a memory card slot and a rear-mounted disc drive.

You can read up on the 90 hour journey to create this or just skip right down to the end of this article to see it in action.

[Link to NCube Design]

NCube: Portable Gamecube Goodness originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/12.

Hackintosh Atom Fix In The Works

Frank — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:37:34 +0000

Fear not hackintosh faithful; according to Gizmodo, the hacker who is the driving force behind netbook hackintosh builds says that the kernel will be fixed for the Atom processors. “It’ll just take a few weeks.”

If you might have slipped with your netbook and upgraded to 10.6.2, you can still downgrade your kernel to get you back up and running again.

[Via Gizmodo]

Hackintosh Atom Fix In The Works originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/12.

DIY: Pirate TV Station

Frank — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:14:42 +0000

Miss the good old Analog TV days? If so, you can build you very own low-power analog television transmitter and join the underground. I’m not too sure on the legality of it, but now that all the networks (at least in the US) have vacated the analog spectrum you might not be harassed.

Tired of the blocky, JPEG-like resolution of digital television? Do you long for the days of RF modulation and regulated-yet-unregulated content? Do you simply have the desire to toss your converter box out the window and make use of those rabbit ear antennae that are just lying around? If so, then you might be interested in becoming a savior of analog television! This Instructable will show you how to create your own fully-fledged low-power analog television channel, with any video source(including your computer) as a source of content.

We created one that went live the minute analog tv went dead. We’re still the only analog station in NYC, but please join us in making more!!

[Link to Instructables via Make]

DIY: Pirate TV Station originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/12.

App Store Overwhelming? Try Chorus

Frank — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:07:10 +0000

With the iTunes app store pushing over 100,000 choices it’s easy to see how someone can easily be overwhelmed. If you’re like me you need some clarity amongst the sea of choices. Thankfully there is an app to help you out.

Thanks to the wisdom of crowds, Chorus gives you recommendations from people you know who have already tried the app. Since it’s a crowd sourcing based solution, something like this needs to catch on with millions of users in order to be bullet proof.

The concept and idea is great and I really hope it catches on since something needs to be done to help with the sea of choices that we now have.

[Link to Chorus]

App Store Overwhelming? Try Chorus originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/12.

Enterprise Chandelier, For The Geeky

Frank — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:52:46 +0000

I know my wife would love to have me hang up this Enterprise chandelier in our dining room. She would love it so much that it would easily be grounds for her to divorce me. On the other hand, if your already single and your a hardcore trekie then this $189 USS Enterprise chandelier might just be perfect for your residence.

[Link to Enterprise Chandelier]

Enterprise Chandelier, For The Geeky originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/12.

Snegenes-P

Frank — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:54:31 +0000

What the hell is the Snegenes-P you ask? Snes + Genesis + NES – Portable. If you’re the hardcore 8 or 16 bit gamer and refuse to use one of those fancy handheld emulators like the Gemei X760+, then why not build yourself one of these?

Modder Trstn18 smashed together components from all his favorite consoles into this custom see-through case so that you can see all of the messy goodness. Coming in at 8.6-inches wide, 5.4-inches tall and 1-inch thick, it’s not really portable in my opinion. Powered by 6 2600mAh batteries, this beast should get you somewhere between 5 to 7 hours of game play on a single charge. It also has composite video and stereo outputs so you can enjoy all of your 8-bit goodness on your TV.

As you can clearly see, the back of the unit is a bit of a mess. I’m not too sure how comfortable this thing will be when you hold it with a massive cartridge sticking out the back.

[Via Ben Heck Forums]

Snegenes-P originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/10.

In Case You Missed It: Week 44 Round Up

Frank — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 04:22:01 +0000

Another week another bunch of stuff that we posted. In case you missed any of it we have everything from Videogame Alarm Clocks to Secret Knock Door Openers. Enjoy.

Gadgets

A Cell Phone For Grama
USB Boobie Warmers
Fuel Cell Charger
Batteries For The Web 2.0 Generation

Gaming

Videogame Alarm Clocks

Hacking and Security

DIY: Star Trek Bluetooth Communicator
Turn A Dead 360 Into A PC
DIY: Auto Tracking Sentry Gun
DIY: Arduino AppleTV Remote
Secret Knock Door Lock
DIY: Digital Mixtape
Build A Real Working Tricorder, Sort Of
Build An Annoying Beeping Thing

Mac

MacHeist Nano Bundle: $154 In Apps 4 Free
Hacker Hacks Jailbroken iPhone
10.6.2 Kills Off Atom CPU Support
iPhone Safari Bug Could Cost You Cash

Tech News

Google Voice Invites
Woops: 10.6.2 Doesn’t Kill Atom Support

In Case You Missed It: Week 44 Round Up originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/09.

DIY: Star Trek Bluetooth Communicator

Frank — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:15:24 +0000

How could a week go by without us talking about some sort of Star Trek reference or gadget? Now if you really want to ~~be singled out as a dork~~ show your love for Star Trek why not build yourself this bluetooth Star Trek communicator? I’m not talking about those wussy TNG communicators, I’m talking about the old school plastic molded with mesh screen original series communicators. (Check out the video after the break).

Makezine has a great detailed write up on build your very own super geeky handset.

I thought it would be fun to have a Star Trek: The Original Series Bluetooth communicator for a cellphone. I worked with Dave Clausen to hack one together from a toy Star Trek communicator, a Bluetooth module, and a microcontroller.

If you pair this us with a phone that does voice dialing then you could easily walk around town with you phone nowhere to be seen. Imagine all of the ~~beatings~~ looks you will get as you walk down the street talking into this iconic device.

[Link to Make a Star Trek Bluetooth Communicator]

DIY: Star Trek Bluetooth Communicator originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/07.

Turn A Dead 360 Into A PC

Frank — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:45:55 +0000

Got a dead 360 laying around that you can’t fix? Turn that sexy piece of hardware into a fully functional PC. The guys over at Hack N Mod have posted a detailed mod which converts a 360 console into a fully functional PC. Best of all, no red ring of death on this one. Check out the video after the break.

The main challenge with an Xbox to PC mod is fitting everything inside the cramped space of an Xbox 360. The CPU and the power supply have different sizes and line up differently. Innovation is the name of the game as electric0ant shows through careful planning and his project illustrations. Check out a few below. The complete step by step is given on his project page.

Now if only someone could cram a fully functional quad core into an altoids tin, that would be awesome.

[Link to Resurrect a Dead XBox 360 into a PC]

Turn A Dead 360 Into A PC originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/07.

A Cell Phone For Grama

Frank — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:07:55 +0000

With the massive amount of multi-function “smart” phones out there people tend to loose the focus of what cell phones actually are; phones.

My mother couldn’t care less if her phone plays mp3’s or if it’s got a twitter client. All she wants is a phone and a super easy one to boot. As she starts to approach her twilight years (still love you mom), this generic brand mobile phone with oversize butons with a screen that can be read from across the room might just be perfect for her.

The oginal idea was to design a phone for seniors who aren’t very tech savvy, but you can also use it if all you want is a really simple cell phone.

The 6380 Senior Mobile Phone does actually carry a few handy features, including a flashlight, a massive “SOS” button on the back the can auto dial a pre-set number and emit a loud warning tone (if you think pocket dialing people is bad, just imagine this in your pocket), a phone book, SMS messaging, a calendar, alarm clock and an FM radio. The display is kept to a bare minimum with a massive font and, ready for this, a whopping 128×60 screen resolution.

The 6380 only works in the 900/1800 GSM bands, so it will work everywhere except for North America (sorry mom). If it’ll work on your home network, expect to pay $74.99 for one.

[Link to 6380 Seniors Mobile]

A Cell Phone For Grama originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/06.

MacHeist Nano Bundle: $154 In Apps 4 Free

Frank — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:53:34 +0000

The guys behind MacHeist are at it again. This time they are offering $154 in apps for free. Yes I said for free as in speech and beer.

I’m not sure how the developers or the guys at MacHeist are making any money from this since it’s all free, maybe they are building up their mailing list or creating some hype for the next bundle they release. Who knows, but what we do you is you get the following 6 apps for free:

ShoveBox
WriteRoom
Twitterrific
TinyGrab
Hordes of Orcs
Mariner Write (only unlock after 500,000 people)

All you have to do is head on over to MacHeist.com, login or signup, and you’ll get your six free apps. The offer is only valid for the next 6 days, so hurry your ass over.

[Link to MacHeist nanoBundle]

MacHeist Nano Bundle: $154 In Apps 4 Free originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/06.

Google Voice Invites

Frank — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:37:09 +0000

With all of the hoopla surrounding Google Wave most people have forgotten about Google’s last hot product, Google Voice.

If you haven’t heard of Google Voice, let’s look at wikipedia ….

The service provisions a U.S. phone number, chosen by the user from available numbers in selected area codes, free of charge to each user account. Inbound calls to this number are forwarded to other phone numbers of the subscriber. Outbound calls may be placed to domestic and international destinations by dialing the Google Voice number or from a web-based application.[2] Inbound and domestic outbound calls (including calls to Canada, Alaska and Hawaii [3]) are free of charge, while international calls are billed according to a schedule posted on the Google Voice website.

It’s an awesome service and it currently in closed beta. Much like gmail of many years ago, you can only join Google Voice if you have an invite, and I just happen to have 3.

The first three people who post a comment will get an invite. Make sure you use your real email since that’s the only way to send out the invite. Enjoy.

Google Voice Invites originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/06.

DIY: Auto Tracking Sentry Gun

Frank — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:22:08 +0000

Every wanted to build you very own auto tracking sentry gun? No? Me either, but now that I take a look at it I do want to build one. Not one that fires bullets or anything, but one that would have a water gun on it to keep people out of my office.

If you’re like me and wanted to make one of these you would probably ran into the same issues I have. So to help all you poor suckers out the software we developed is open source and freely available on the website. The only reservation we have is that you make it a point not to hurt anyone or anything, we take no responsibility for anything.

The point of making it open source is to encourage joint development of the software and hardware possibilities.

If you follow the instructions properly you will end up with exactly what you wanted. After collecting all the hardware you will probably spend a long weekend putting it together. It doesn’t take a genius but it helps to be able to solder and do some basic handcrafts.

You can head on over to his website where he has detailed instruction on building one and all the software you will need to make it work.

DIY: Auto Tracking Sentry Gun originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/06.

Woops: 10.6.2 Doesn’t Kill Atom Support

Frank — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:13:26 +0000

Woops, looks like 10.6.2 won’t kill support for the Atom chip after all. All you netbook hackintosh users can now breath a sigh of relief. We reported a few days ago that the latest developer build of Leopard had support for the Atom chipset removed. None of the Apple hardware uses the Atom chip so it looked like it was a direct attack at killing off the hackintosh community. Well, we were wrong.

It looks like Apple has added support for the Atom chip back in. Not sure why they did this in the first place. It could have been a mistake, could just be a temporary measure, but it can change again at any time. Apple is notorious for going to extreme measures to it’s OS off of non Apple hardware. Only time will tell. In the meantime, enjoy the latest developer build on your netbook.

Woops: 10.6.2 Doesn’t Kill Atom Support originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/06.

DIY: Arduino AppleTV Remote

Frank — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:19:25 +0000

Not happy with the limited ability of Apple’s remote control? Build yourself your very own by using an Arduino.

Besides the obvious fact that this will act as a remote control for not only your AppleTV but also your Mac, you can easily build projects to automate tasks via the remote control.

This is a great first step in adding some more functionality to Apple’s “Hobby” hardware. This is also great for remotely getting your AppleTV to work when your out of town and your wife can’t figure out how to work the damn thing. It’s to AppleTV what MythWeb is to MythTV. Awesome.

[Link to Instructables]

DIY: Arduino AppleTV Remote originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/05.

USB Boobie Warmers

Frank — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:26:10 +0000

I have seen my share of of really weird USB devices, but a set of breast warming pads that work off of USB? Just imagine plugging in your bra to your laptop as you are working at your desk.

I’m not sure how much good this will do you while your out and about, where keeping your boobies warm might be what you want, but then again you can always have a battery pack or solar panel on the back of your jacket to power it.

[Link to USB Breast Warmer]

USB Boobie Warmers originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/05.

Secret Knock Door Lock

Frank — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:09:36 +0000

Forget about all of those fancy RFID and Biometric door lock systems, build yourself a high-tech secret door knock lock.

By using an Arduino and a few other parts that were laying around, Steve Hoefer built a device that unlocks the door when it detects a certain knock pattern on the door. It works by listening and counting the time between knocks, and you can re-program the unit by simply holding down a button. Check out the video after the break of the Secret Knock Door Lock in action.

I wouldn’t depend on this to keep my place safe. It would be real easy for someone to hang out around the corner and listen to the knock and then they would know how to get in. The guys over at Hackszine have the right idea; incorporate a system where as you can use a series of one time knocks or incorporate a timestamp.

[Link to Secret Knock Door Lock]

Secret Knock Door Lock originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/05.

Hacker Hacks Jailbroken iPhone

Frank — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:55:51 +0000

We all know the dangers of running a jailbroken iPhone. No tech support, the wrath of your carrier, and simple exploits as demonstrated by Dutch hacker. With a little bit of port scanning to find jailbroken iPhones with SSH running he sent users a message that read “Your iPhone’s been hacked because it’s really insecure! Please visit doiop.com/iHacked and secure your iPhone right now! Right now, I can access all your files.”

The URL directs people to Paypal and requests €5 in exchange for instructions that explains how to remove the hack. How did the Dutch hacker get in? All jailbroken iPhones have a default root password, if you forget to change it your left wide open to this kind of attack.

This is more of an annoying attack than anything else. With root access to the phone a lot more could have been done. Remember, if you jailbreak your phone, for the love of God, change the root password.

Hacker Hacks Jailbroken iPhone originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/05.

DIY: Digital Mixtape

Frank — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:36:01 +0000

Remember the good old days? When you wanted to impress a girl you’d spend all night creating her a mixtape? No, you don’t? Maybe I’m just old.

Justin Cole wanted to relive the good old days while still using modern day technology so he decided to mash together a digital tape adapter and a flash drive.

My new design uses a small mp3 player that I disassembled and placed inside a cassette tape adapter for an iPod. This allows for mp3’s to be played back through a tapedeck. This has all of the ease and technology of an mp3 player with the retro coolness of a mix tape.

[Link to Digital Mixtape]

DIY: Digital Mixtape originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/05.

Fuel Cell Charger

Frank — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:25:28 +0000

We have all heard about how fuel cell technology will revolutionize the world of power since they are instantly recharged with a small shot of methanol. Toshiba finally releases a practical fuel cell charger for real world geek use; a gadget charger.

Toshiab’s Dynario charger uses as little as 50 ml of methanol to recharge itself in about 20 seconds. This really is the first stab for them at consumer commercial fuel cell chargers and they have only created 3000 units that they plan to sell for $328, plus another $34 for 5 cartridges.

This is still a far cry from being affordable for common use, but it is a first step in easing power issues for all of us geeks.

[Link to Toshiba's Dynario]

Fuel Cell Charger originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/04.

10.6.2 Kills Off Atom CPU Support

Frank — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Looks like Apple is taking another step to put a nail in the coffin of the hackintosh community. Looks like the developer build of Mac OS 10.6.2 lacks support for Intel’s Atom processor which every netbook around uses and is very popular in the hackintosh community.

If this is a conscious move on Apple’s part and they let the build go live we might be looking at another cat an mouse game between Apple and the legions of hackers in the hackintosh world.

For the longest time Apple hasn’t really anything heavy at stopping people from installing their OS on non Apple hardware. With a move like this, which really doesn’t streamline the OS and looks like a blatant attack on the hackintosh world, I wonder how long it will take set community to find a work around. You can never keep the power of the people down (I just had to throw that one in there).

10.6.2 Kills Off Atom CPU Support originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/04.

10.6.2 Kills Off Atom CPU Support

Frank — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 04:00:00 +0000

If this is a conscious move on Apple’s part and they let the build go live we might be looking at another cat an mouse game between Apple and the legions of hackers in the hackintosh world.

10.6.2 Kills Off Atom CPU Support originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/04.

Build A Real Working Tricorder, Sort Of

Frank — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:49:35 +0000

No self respecting trekkie would ever be caught dead without his or her tricorder. So if your that much a trekkie or have no friends and find that people of the opposite sex are repulsed by your presence, why not kill sometime and build yourself a real working tricorder?

The words “Real” and “Working” are someone deceiving. See, if you really want this thing to “Sort of work” then you’ll need to sacrifice an iPhone. Also, the term “Working” only refers to what the iPhone can do, like send email or surf the web. If you cool with giving up your iPhone to make it look like you have a working tricorder then go nuts, but might I suggest getting some fresh air or professional help from a doctor as well!

[Link to Building A Real Working Tricorder]

Build A Real Working Tricorder, Sort Of originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/03.

Videogame Alarm Clocks

Frank — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:41:10 +0000

Every hardcore gammer should alway emerge him or herself with gaming at all times. Games on your phone, games on your PDA, games on your computer, games on your tv and even gaming to wake you up. The guys over at the TechEBlog have put together a pretty cool collection of “Alarm Clocks Made From Video Game Consoles”.

My personal favorite is the Xbox 360 with built in space for your kleenex. I sure hope whoever made that one picked up a dead system to build it with. If not, that can easily be classified as the most expensive alarm clock anyone person should own.

If you know of any other cool things made from video game consoles, let us know in the comments or in the tech.nocr.at forums

[Link to Alarm Clocks Made From Video Game Consoles]

Videogame Alarm Clocks originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/03.

iPhone Safari Bug Could Cost You Cash

Frank — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:25:23 +0000

Here’s one thing you don’t hear of too often, a serious bug in Apple’s iPhone version of Safari that could end up cost you, the user, some serious cash.

Although it’s not a very common bug but thanks to someone who probably spend countless hours trying to poke a hole in Apple’s mobile device, all iPhone users might avoid being hit with extra operator costs.

Estonian Apple site AppleSpot discovered the bug in question. If an iPhone user visits a site which uses Motion-JPEG (usually found on websites that show live feeds of web cams) in Safari, Safari will continue to use up bandwidth even after it’s closed. Safari is one of the few apps on the iPhone that is allowed to run in the background. So let’s say you have a web page up that uses Motion-JPEG streams and even if that site is in another tab or worse yet, Safari has been closed, the stream will continue and if your on a mobile carriers network then bandwidth will continue to rack up.

Now just imagine you were traveling outside your home country where you would be nailed with international data roaming charges and you decided to visit that ~~sexy nurse pay live stream~~ nature wildlife live cam, you could easily rack up some serious charges. The guys at AppleSpot have claimed to rack up over 740 MB in silently streamed bandwidth in one hour of testing. That would cost something like $3,000 in international roaming charges. Yikes!

[Link to AppleSpot]

iPhone Safari Bug Could Cost You Cash originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/03.

Batteries For The Web 2.0 Generation

Frank — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:59:22 +0000

Seriously, why has no other company come up with the idea of creating sexy looking batteries? We have gradients on every web 2.0 website out there, why not some colour on our batteries too?

Well first off, most devices that use batteries keep them hidden so nobody will ever see the flashy looking skin to your powercell and secondly, does it really matter? DC power is DC power. It’s doesn’t matter if it comes from a black and copper Duracell or a Volta.

[Link to Volta Battery Packaging]

Batteries For The Web 2.0 Generation originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/03.

Build An Annoying Beeping Thing

Frank — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:24:30 +0000

I’m always up for a good practical joke, especially the kind that involves electronics and can drive people mad. Get your soldering guns out kids, this is a good one.

The Annoying Beeping Thing is a simple circuit board that is powered by a single 9-volt battery and outputs a high-pitched whining sound through a tiny speaker or piezo buzzer.

As you can see from the pictures above it’s hidden inside of a transformed but this thing is so tiny that you can practically hide it anywhere. Make sure you don’t let the joke run on too long as it might really get on someone’s nerve who might not think it’s all that funny. Check out the video after the break of it’s construction and to hear it in action.

[Via Make]

Build An Annoying Beeping Thing originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/02.

In Case You Missed It: Week 43 Round Up

Frank — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:35:51 +0000

In case you missed anything last week; we have everything from Metallica on your iPhone right through to a $1200 Mouse. Enjoy

Gadgets

Remote Controlled Tissue Box
Electronic Guitar Shirt
Sucker Alert: $1200 Mouse
Sucker Alert: Wattgate 381 “Audio Grade” Socket

Gaming

Nokia Kills The N-Gage – Are You Shocked?
Nintendo DSi Get’s Bigger
Quickdev16: SNES Developers Cart
Soccer Hero

Hacking and Security

Use Your iPhone To Control Your Car
Mr. Wake – The Uncatchable Alarm Clock
Crush Your Cans With Electricity
3D Video With One Camera
DIY: Tesla “Spooky Spirit” Radio
Phaser Boasts 300mW Laser
iPhone App To Crack Combination Locks

Mac

Tap Tap Revenge Metallica For The iPhone

Tech News

XBMC on ARM
Install 59 Apps Quickly And Easily
Water Drops At 2000 FPS

In Case You Missed It: Week 43 Round Up originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/11/01.

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Use Your iPhone To Control Your Car

Frank — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 02:11:47 +0000

You knew it was bound to happen. With the iPhone already having apps to control everything from your iTunes to a remote computer you knew that someone would come up with an app to control a car.

The Spirit of Berlin team have developed an iPhone app that remotely controls a minivan. They developed the app for the 2007 Darpa Urban Challenge, so the likelihood of you getting the app from the app store is slim to none.

The iPhone connects with the driving circuitry via WiFi and offers a button for gas and brake as well as a wheel to turn the vehicle. The camera mounted on the front of the minivan transmits video to the iPhone in real-time.

In the video below you can see the operator in the camera’s view on the iPhone. It seems that the top speed of the van is limited (thank God!). This is every big kids dream, a real live RC of an actual car, problem is that this can be extremely dangerous. Plus, WiFi? I hope that their is some sort of kill switch if the van goes out of range or else there can be some serious consequences. Check out the video after the break.

[Link to iPhone RC]

Use Your iPhone To Control Your Car originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/31.

XBMC on ARM

Frank — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:55:23 +0000

The most awesome guys over at the XBMC project have posted a teaser showing how far along the have come on the ARM port of their media player (Check the video after the break). You can clearly see the package boot up and even play back HD video. There looks like there is still some tweaking to be done on image rendering, but it looks like it’s almost there.

The hardware they used is a Beagleboard which runs a 600 MHz ARM processor, puts out HD via a DVI port, has OpenGL acceleration and best of all, sells for about $150. You can easily connect the 3″ x 3″ (wow, that’s insanely small for an HD media device) to a network by using a USB WiFi dongle.

The port is still a ways away from being stable, but from all of the work they have been doing there shouldn’t be too much more of a wait.

[Link to XBMC on ARM]

XBMC on ARM originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/31.

Nokia Kills The N-Gage – Are You Shocked?

Frank — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:45:57 +0000

You might want to sit down before you read this. Nokia has announced that they will be stopping all support for it’s plagued portable gaming platform, the N-Gage. Yes, I know, you might be saying “Dude, didn’t Nokia stop supporting this thing like years ago?”.

The move really isn’t a huge shock, the platform has been begging to be put out of it’s misery for a few years now. Although Nokia has officially announced that no further games will be published for the unit, it also said that it will continue to sell currently available games in the Ovi Store until September 2010.

Although purchased games will alway continue to work on the unit, any of the connected community features will also cease in 2010.

On a side note, anyone wanna buy a slightly used N-Gage? Cheap.

Nokia Kills The N-Gage – Are You Shocked? originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/31.

Install 59 Apps Quickly And Easily

Frank — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:30:15 +0000

With the recent release of Windows 7, many people have to slug their way through installing their applications. This can easily be a tedious and time consuming adventure. Thankfully Ninite does a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Ninite allows you to install up to 59 different pieces of software for you, with little or no interaction from you. All you have to do is head on over to the Ninite website, select which programs you want and download the installer. It’ll start the process of loading your machine up with the software. Best of all, it will automatically say “No” to installing any extra toolbars or annoying add-on programs.

[Link to Ninite]

Install 59 Apps Quickly And Easily originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/30.

Mr. Wake – The Uncatchable Alarm Clock

Frank — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:23:00 +0000

The snooze button on my alarm clock has to be the most worn out button by far. I admit it, I am an alarm clock abuser. I tend to beat the crap out of the time telling device every time that annoying buzzer goes off. Now if I had me Mr. Wake which was designed by Vadim Ryazanov of Let’s Make Robots, I would actually have to get my ass out of bed to silence it.

Mr. Wake’s job is to protect the snooze button from abusers like me. By using a homebrew IR sensor to detect anything near it, the robot takes off if you try to even get close to it. Plus, what can be cooler than having a robot that not only wakes your ass up, but has it’s frame made out of heat formed pens. Awesome. Check out the video after the break of it in action.

Mr. Wake – The Uncatchable Alarm Clock originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/30.

Nintendo DSi Get’s Bigger

Frank — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:14:42 +0000

The Nintendo DSi just got a whole lot bigger. The DSi XL was officially unveiled yesterday by Nintendo. The new handheld is a lot bigger, which is one of the things that fans have been asking for. Instead of dual 3.25-inch displays the bigger brother will now come with 4.2-inch displays. It might not sound like a lot, but if you do the math that’s close to 30% bigger. The unit weighs 314g which is 100g more than the DSi and the overall size is 161 x 91.4 x 21.2 mm.

Besides the size and the new battery that claims to offer 13-17 hours of game play when minimum brightness is used, everything else stays the same. The DSi XL will cost about $220 in Japan where it will be available November 21st. The rest of us shmucks will hopefully see the unit sometime in 2010. It would have been nice to have this unit in time for the holiday season, but like most decisions that Nintendo makes wil releases, North America is always last.

Nintendo DSi Get’s Bigger originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/30.

Remote Controlled Tissue Box

Frank — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:05:27 +0000

Yes, you read it right, a remote controlled tissue box. You never know when you might need to blow your nose and feel way to lazy to get up and get the tissue box that’s like 2 feet away. Actually, now that I come to think of it, how many people actually keep their tissue boxes on the floor? I mean wouldn’t this thing need to be rugged if you say, keep your tissue box on a end table or on the coffee table? I’m just asking here.

If you do keep your tissue box on the floor and are interested in purchasing this remote controlled unit it costs $25, it has a maximum range of 8m and it’s 250×65x123mm so make sure your kleenex box fits inside. Oh yeah, and it’s only available in Japan.

Remote Controlled Tissue Box originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/30.

Electronic Guitar Shirt

Frank — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:50:20 +0000

When only wear a shirt with a picture of your favorite instrument when you can actually play it? The Electronic Rock Guitar Shirt from the clothing masters at ThinkGeek isn’t just a picture of a guitar, it’s actually a real instrument that allows you to play your favorite tunes right on the shirt. The shirt works via touch sensitivity and come with a magnetic pick that even allows you to strum. All sounds that the shirt produces were recorded on a real guitar and you even get a tiny amp that clips on to your belt. Check out the video after the break.

Just don’t fall asleep with the shirt on as it can easily wake you up if you start tossing and turning. Either that or you might stumble on some great new musical style.

[Link to Electronic Rock Guitar Shirt]

Electronic Guitar Shirt originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/29.

Crush Your Cans With Electricity

Frank — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:39:28 +0000

Why would you crush your empty pop or beer cans with your foot or even your head when you could lug out a device that’s 30x the size of the can and probably use more electricity than the actual cost of the can? Because you can, that’s why.

By using a high voltage source and some large capacitors you can build your very own electromagnetic can crushing machine. Just remember that this is extremely dangerous. You are talking about an insane amount of electricity that’s flowing here and it will definitely kill you if something goes wrong. If you choose to not heed our warning and want more info on the project then you can visit Bob Davis’s blog, the creator of the device.

Crush Your Cans With Electricity originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/29.

Tap Tap Revenge Metallica For The iPhone

Frank — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:29:07 +0000

So I went to the Metallica concert the other night here in Toronto (it’s my 15th time seeing them live. Yes, if you are asking, I am a fan!) and decided that maybe I was having an early mid-life crisis and wanted to walk down the path of my early life as a dedicated hardcore Metallica fan. As a dedicated fan I scoured the band’s website to catch up on the happenings with the metal legends and stumbled upon their iPhone app, TapTap Revenge: Metallica.

Tapulous, the company famous for it’s addictive line of TapTap games has worked with the band to release a Metallica themed version of it’s TapTap Revenge games aptly called: TapTap Revenge: Metallica. The dedicated version of the game allows users to poke through 10 tracks of some of the bands most famous songs like “Enter Sandman” and “One”.

The game gives you the option to play in a fast-paced arcade mode where you are challenged with bombs and other objects. Career Mode allows you to work your way through the track list and there is even a Bluetooth battle mode that allows you to challenge other players via Bluetooth.

I’ll be honest, if your not a hardcore Metallica fan you might not enjoy this, but if you consider yourself a member of the Metal Militia then what are you waiting for? It’s only $4.99, it’s worth it if not for the music alone.

[Link to TapTap Revenge: Metallica]

Tap Tap Revenge Metallica For The iPhone originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/29.

3D Video With One Camera

Frank — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:57:54 +0000

3D video has really started to make a strong comeback. I remember being a kid when the paper glasses with red and blue lenses were all the rage. Technology has changed a lot since then. The cost of creating 3D videos is so expensive that it prohibits the aspiring film maker from considering the option, but if you happen to have a CNC machine that you can access your on your way to brining that dream to life.

Gabriel, the crafty hacker, is using a SketchUp to plot the camera paths, a plugin to export those paths and automatically adjust them for perspective and a CNC machine to preform all of the movement. You take a pass at something for the left eye then the CNC machine takes a second pass at a different perspective for the right eye.

Simple eh, well it does have it’s drawbacks like the inability to shoot anything that’s moving. Although this isn’t the perfect setup, it does show you how creative some people can be. Maybe this would be perfect for stop motion 3D. Check out the two videos after the break. The first is the actually 3D video and the second shows a behind the scene on how the whole rig works.

[Link to 3D with CNC]

3D Video With One Camera originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/28.

Water Drops At 2000 FPS

Frank — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:45:51 +0000

High speed video can be so much fun. Watching something that we normally take for granted on high speed film can really be amazing. Remember the bullets that were shot at 1,000,000 fps? Normally when we see a bullet being fired it happens in the blink of an eye, but when it’s slowed down you can actually see how the impact happens.

Take this video of a water droplet hitting a container full of water. You can actually see the droplet bouncing thanks to a thin layer of air which separates the drops from the water surface. Check out the video after the break.

Water Drops At 2000 FPS originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/27.

Sucker Alert: $1200 Mouse

Frank — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:36:45 +0000

Don’t get me wrong, a good solid mouse it a must, especially if your a hardcore gamer, but $1200? I don’t think so. The ID Mouse from Intelligent design looks great and I’m sure it’s comfortable (at $1200 no wonder they won’t send us a review unit), but the last thing I want to do is spend more money on a mouse than I did on the whole fracking computer.

I’d be afraid to actually use this thing. It would sit behind glass, just for show. Plus, look at that finish, imagine all of the finger prints and smudges that would hold. Hey, if you have more money than you know what to do with go nuts, not me, this coming from the same guy who purchased his wife a $900 purse from Coach.

[Link to ID Mouse]

Sucker Alert: $1200 Mouse originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/27.

Quickdev16: SNES Developers Cart

Frank — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:25:43 +0000

If you are a true hardcore 16bit gaming geek and have always wanted to whip up your own homebrew games then you might be interested in the Quickdev 16. The unit is a cartridge for the Super Nintendo system that comes with everything you will need to develop for the platform, including the Atmel AVR Atmega644 with boot loader, USB connection for putting your code on the cart, 16 megs of SRAM, and an RS232 converter for a debug terminal. It’s available for Windows, Linux and the Mac.

Homebrew for the SNES was quite rare back in the hay day of the system so if you think that spending all your time coding for the same system 20 years later will bring you anything more than some geek cred then you are sadly mistaken. On the other hand, if your a hardcore emulator playing monkey, then whipping up your own game for the SNES platform might be fun!. For $120 I’m not sure if the cost justifies all that fun.

[Link to Quickdev16]

Quickdev16: SNES Developers Cart originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/27.

DIY: Tesla “Spooky Spirit” Radio

Frank — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:01:06 +0000

A crafty Instructables user has written up a how-to on creating Tesla’s Spirit Radio, it even creeped out Tesla himself. The Spirit Radio uses a simple crystal radio circuit that us connected to a line-in jack of a computer to generate spooky sounds from all kinds of electromagnetic sources.

“My first observations positively terrified me as there was present in them something mysterious, not to say supernatural, and I was alone in my laboratory at night.” – Nikola Tesla 1901

“The sounds I am listening to every night at first appear to be human voices conversing back and forth in a language I cannot understand. I find it difficult to imagine that I am actually hearing real voices from people not of this planet. There must be a more simple explanation that has so far eluded me.” – Nikola Tesla 1918

Check out the video and decide for yourself if it’s science or supernatural. Halloween is around the corner, this will make an awesome party toy.

[Link to Spirt Radio How-To]

DIY: Tesla “Spooky Spirit” Radio originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/27.

Phaser Boasts 300mW Laser

Frank — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 04:15:23 +0000

Since you can’t walk into to your favorite weapons store and pick up a phaser just yet, hacker Luke decided to build his own. He picked up a toy phaser from Amazon for about $20 ripped out the internals only choosing to reuse the trigger, top switch and battery pack.

The phaser contains two laser diodes which were pulled from a 6x BD-R burner. I sure hope that the burner was broken since purchasing a unit just for the sake of pulling the diodes out to put in a toy gun is very expensive. The two diodes are mounted on a swiveling carriage which can be turned 180 degrees to switch between the diodes. A boost driver is used to bump up the 3v that the batteries provide to 7v to drive the diodes.

Although you won’t be killing Kingons with this unit it does make one cool looking toy. Remember, don’t go firing it in peoples eyes, that will hurt. Check out the video after the break.

Phaser Boasts 300mW Laser originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/26.

Soccer Hero

Frank — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:44:08 +0000

Nothing like having a bunch of friends come over and play some Guitar Hero, especially when beer is also at play. Is especially better when you come up with some creative ways to play your favorite rhythm game.

These guys have the right idea. By using an Arduino and some piezo sensors they have managed to rig together a game of guitar hero that’s played with soccer balls. Unfortunately there isn’t too much info available on the project, but connecting piezo sensors to an Arduino is pretty easy. Check out the video below for all the action.

Soccer Hero originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/25.

Sucker Alert: Wattgate 381 “Audio Grade” Socket

Frank — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:23:22 +0000

Wow, there really is a sucker born every minute, but is there anyone out there stupid enough to spend $147 on a so called “Audio Grade” electrical socket?

The Wattgate 381 and claims to bring you crystal clean sound. I’m no electrician but doesn’t the quality of your sound actually come from the components inside your amplifier? WTF does electricity flow have to do with it? It’s not like this is some surge suppressor that cleans your power and makes sure that you don’t have power fluctuation. It’s a freaking socket.

I’m sure this will go perfectly with the $400 Monster Cable you bought and that $500 Denon Ethernet Cable.

If your stupid enough to buy one, you can pick it up here

Sucker Alert: Wattgate 381 “Audio Grade” Socket originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/25.

iPhone App To Crack Combination Locks

Frank — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:05:52 +0000

Earlier this month we talked about how easy it was to hack a Master Lock (you know, one of those locks we all got in high school) by using some basic math. Well, someone has decided to write an iPhone app that will help you in your endeavor to remember the combination to your old gym or high school lock.

LockGenie is an app that helps you store and recover forgotten or lost combination lock passwords. It doesn’t actually hack the lock for you, but does all of the math for you and presents you with 100 possible combinations that will work on your lock. Now I know that 100 combinations sounds like a lot, but it’s far better than the millions of possible passwords a standard Master Lock has.

You can pick it up in the iTunes app store for $1.99. I know that sounds steep for a single purpose app, but if you have one or two combo locks laying around and you can’t remember their passwords it’s cheaper than replacing them.

[Link to LockGenie]

iPhone App To Crack Combination Locks originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/25.

Cool Your Xbox With Mineral Oil

Frank — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:52:17 +0000

You really have to be playing your Xbox non-stop to generate enough heat to justify submerging your Xbox motherboard into a non-conductive fluid such as mineral oil which B-rad used.

Besides the two obvious things that should never ever be submerged, the hard drive and dvd drive, every other component that was housed inside the Xbox case was submerged into a fish tank fill of mineral oil. Surprisingly enough, after he submerged his unit it ran on average 10 degrees cooler.

Maybe it’s worth while if you’re having a cooling issue, but one thing is for sure, having something like this out in the open will almost guarantee that you will never get laid.

[Link to B-rad's Xbox Tank]

Cool Your Xbox With Mineral Oil originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/24.

Remote Control That’s Impossible To Lose

Frank — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:43:25 +0000

This is gonna be one of the easiest hacks you’ll ever do, at least from an electrical standpoint.

Most electronics like digital camera and cell phones have a loop attached to them so that you can slip a lanyard on to it which in turn makes it easier to find or harder to lose. This guy came up with a similar idea, albeit a tad too extreme in my opinion, but still an excellent way to ensure that his remote control never gets lost. Actually, by looking at the picture, he is now ensuring that his remote control will never move again, period.

If your not a blacksmith or if you don’t happen to have a massive I-beam laying around, this hack will probably cost you a lot more than a replacement remote control would cost.

[Link to Dad's Lost The Remote]

Remote Control That’s Impossible To Lose originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/24.

Project Eagle Claw: Taking Out The Scammers

Frank — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:31:11 +0000

Looks like the Nigerian government is actually doing something to stop email scammers that are giving their country a bad name. Project Eagle Claw is an effort to shut down Nigerian scammers. The project has netted 18 people and shut down 800 sites.

Previously the government would use “Cyber Raids” and petitions (WTF, how do you bust someone via petition?) to deal with scammers. Now they are going full out commando style and busting people left, right, and center. They say that when they are all done up to 5000 scam emails will be offline.

Someone in Hollywood should make a kick ass action movie depicting some elite commando group that’s sent in to Nigeria to take out these scammers.

[Via Ars Technica]

Project Eagle Claw: Taking Out The Scammers originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/24.

Dead: ZFS For The Mac

Frank — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:17:20 +0000

Remember all of the hype behind ZFS for OS X? Remember how everyone was talking about how great it would be to add such a powerful and robust file system for the Mac? Something to replace the aging and outdated HFS+. Well you can forget about ZFS. Apple has decided to shut down the project. Maybe they got busy with other stuff and forgot about it. Maybe it just wasn’t what they were looking for. Who really knows, but as time goes on, Apple will be behind the gun if they continue to use HFS+

From the project page on Mac OS Forge:

ZFS Project Shutdown

2009-10-23

The ZFS project has been discontinued. The mailing list and repository will also be removed shortly.

It’s hinted that this was caused by legal issues surrounding the merger of Sun Microsystems and Oracle, which caused Apple to back away from the next-generation file system technology. After many rumors, including ZFS support that was going to be added in Snow Leopard Server, but that ended up being removed in the final version, it now seems like the saga of ZFS on Mac OS X is ending with a whimper.

Dead: ZFS For The Mac originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/24.

Skype And Chrome Go Portable

Frank — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:13:34 +0000

The guys over at PortableApps.com have been turning out great portable apps for years now. Apps that you can easily put on a USB flash drive and run from any machine. All of the software that they offer is open source, until now that is.

PortableApps has decided to add a handful of closed source apps like Skype and Chrome to their list of offerings. Project lead John T. Haller offered a number of reasons for the move, ending with “it’s the right thing to do. Keeping an open platform and allowing all software to compete on a level playing field just makes sense.”

Besides fan favorites Chrome and Skype, Free Commander, SpyDLLRemover and 2x Terminal were added. IcoFX, XMPlay and a few others are expected soon.

[link to PortableApps.com]

Skype And Chrome Go Portable originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/23.

Microsoft’s App Lab

Frank — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:01:04 +0000

I’ll give Microsoft credit, when they want to be funny they are funny. The Windows Mobile Dev team released this video giving everyone a sneak peak from their super secret application development lab of the upcoming apps that will be released on the new Windows Marketplace.

I love the under-tone of poking fun at Apple’s ridiculous app approval process. They talk about some of the apps that have been rejected like the “You Are Here GPS App” and my personal favorite the virtual handsake app called the “Germaphobe”. I’d pay $0.99 for it.

Microsoft’s App Lab originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/23.

Rebel EFI: A Thorn In Apples Side

Frank — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:51:27 +0000

You guys remember Psystar, don’t you? Psystar was the company that openly sold hackintosh systems, complete with a beige box PC and OS X pre installed. Well looks like they have dealt another painful blow to the kids in Cupertino.

Rebel EFI is Psystar’s latest attempt at sending Steve Jobs off of the deep end. For $49.99 the company claims that their Rebel EFI software “allows for the easy installation of multiple operating systems” including OS X on plain old PC hardware. The software can also detect hardware on your system that is compatible with OS X.

There are always risks involved with running hackintosh systems. Apple can decide to roll out an update to OS X at anytime that will break this functionality and let’s not even get into the legal issues surrounding running an Apple OS on non Apple hardware.

If you want to see it for yourself you can grab a trial copy of the software off of their site that will run with a two hour time limit.

[link to Rebel EFI]

Rebel EFI: A Thorn In Apples Side originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/23.

ReelDirector: Video Editing For Your iPhone

Frank — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:44:57 +0000

If you own an iPhone 3GS then you know how nice it is to be able to trim video clips right on your phone. At the very least that should get you a somewhat semi-professional video that doesn’t have a lot of fluff at the beginning or end of your clip. What if you wanted to do more? What if you wanted to do a transition or add a title? You were forced to use a computer to do your editing. Well with the release of ReelDirector you will now be able to all that and more right from your iPhone 3GS.

Final Cut Pro or Express it’s not, but it does give you some nice control and some nice editing features. Think of it as a stripped down version of iMovie. You won’t be recording and editing an award winning piece with this app, but you will be able to clean up and add some effects to those short clips before you post them on you tube.

[Link to ReelDirector]

ReelDirector: Video Editing For Your iPhone originally appeared on tech.nocr.at on 2009/10/22.