Hacks Mods & Circuitry: Page 7

Our hacked Kinect series has demonstrated amply how the Kinect is changing the worlds of business, art, medicine and robotics. But where does it go from here? That will be determined by the thousands of dedicated DIYers out there doing work like you've seen here over the last week.

It's remarkable that a gaming device (from Microsoft, no less) designed for geeky gamers has incited broad innovation in medicine and robotics. But that Kinect has captured the imagination of hackers-with-MBAs-in-mind is downright amazing.

E Ink technology is nothing short of amazing. It recently contributed to the world's first bend-sensitive flexible smartphone, and now it's capable of something even cooler, not to mention astonishingly simpler—flashing digital displays on cloth.

This video will introduce you to a couple of websites that will let you know whether or not your Apple I device- iPhone, iPod, or iPad can be jailbroken. Check out this site or this site if you are interested in jailbreaking an iPhone 4, iPod touch, or iPad 2.

Were you horrified when Gwyneth Paltrow's head ended up in a box in Se7en? Do you share Harrison Ford's opinion that Han Solo should have died in Return of the Jedi? Think Kurt Russell could have handled aliens better in The Thing? Well, sorry—you're out of luck. There's nothing you can do to prevent William Wallace's beheading or Carrie's mayhem. But thanks to MyndPlay, controlling the plot to future films is totally possible.

Understandably, the tragedy in Japan has substantially risen the level of worldwide radiation-related hysteria. So much so, as an alternative to stampeding health food stores for iodine tablets, crafty individuals and organizations are hacking together personal radiation detectors. Rather than relying on the government, the creation and modification of handheld Geiger counters provides a self-sufficient solution to today's questions regarding radiation. Profiled below, three admirable...

You're walking down the street, minding your own business. Then you see it—a large, bright fireball in the near distance. A tremendous heat wave speeds towards you at one thousand miles an hour, and before you can think, before you can even blink, the extremely heated wind pushes right through you. Your skin melts, your eyes liquefy—your face disappears into the wind. Before you know it, your pancreas collide with what's left of the person next to you, your duodenum is dissolving faster than it...

One of the creepiest musical instruments ever is undoubtedly the theremin, a device originating from the early 20s that emits eerie sounds with a just a wave of the hand. If you've seen the original movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, you know what I mean—freakishly creepy. Playing the theremin can be off-putting for some, since it's a relatively pricy gizmo, but a new geek gadget called the EaTheremin aims to make all of us professional, dinnertime theremists.

Matt Reed, a web developer at Nashville interactive ad agency Redpepper, built a massive, real life Facebook Like "button" out of Legos, which lights up whenever someone clicks Like on his Facebook page. The programmer loves LEGOs, and draws an affinity between the legendary building blocks and engineering: "[Legos] are great for prototyping physical objects. I don't manufacture things, but I do click blocks together. Plus, most things I deal with on a daily basis are pixelized. Legos are some...

This guide will provide you with the very basic fundamentals of how to be a hacker.  No specific techniques will be written here.

If you dig case mods and Resident Evil, it's fair to say you'll find Ron L. Christainson's nothing short of epic. Inspired by the renown video game and movie, Ron—an artist and PC tech from Seattle—has already spent a year constructing the mod from scratch, and still has a couple months of work ahead of him.

The capacitor is one of the most recognizable and important electronic components, and a part of nearly every electronic device. This video will teach you the basics of capacitor theory and then teach you how to replace a faulty or broken on on a circuit board. This skill will help you fix all sorts of devices you thought were dead forever; try it out!

The transistor is the most basic and important part of electronics, allowing small changes in voltage to turn things on and off. On, off. 0, 1. There's electronics. The grandaddy of them all is the N channel MOSFET, the most important transistor. This video will teach you how the MOSFET works and how to build some example circuits. This video is an absolute must-watch if you are interested in electronics at all.

An amplifier is something that amplified the voltage on a circuit. The most basic kind is an operational amplifier, and this video will show you how these work and how to use them in your electronics. As an example you'll learn how to make a microphone circuit for spying on people or listening to your heartbeat.

Many types of circuits are useless and less useful if you cannot control the amount of power going through them. For that, you need a PWN (pulse with modulation) switch. This electronic component will let your control the power going through the circuit, enabling you to dim LED lights, control the speed of a motor, and other useful tasks. This video will teach you all PWN switches and how tom make your own.

Musical boxes are best known for their kitschy designs and somewhat trivial renditions of musical masterpieces. They tend to frequent the dresser of young girls or elderly woman hanging on to their youth, and for the most part, they remain cutesy and harmless, but when featured in movies like The Silence of the Lambs and Black Swan, they become downright creepy.

Do you have an old uninterruptable power supply you're not using or that's broken? Most people have scads of them these days, and they contain all sorts of useful electronics parts, including all of the stuff to make a little batter charger, which you'll learn how to do by watching this video and checking out the circuit diagram here.

A voltage divider is one of the easier-to-understand pieces of circuity in use in modern electronics. They divide voltage, and are crucial to most modern electronics. This video will show you how they work and how to build one yourself for your circuits.

Oscillators are basically just machines that make waves, but they are used everywhere in modern life and if you want to know electronics you should understand them as well. This video will teach you how oscillators work, what they're for, and how to make some simple circuits with sine and square wave models.

If you're looking to see if you're working with a live, dead, or leaking capacitor, this video is just what you need. You'll want to have a multimeter and you need to remember: capacitors can be dangerous things. They hold and release electricity very rapidly, so you can get shocked or electrocuted if you don't exercise caution.

If you're working with a capacitor and wondering whether it's working or not, this video will help you find out. You're going to need a multimeter, available at any good electronics store. This device is capable of testing many different electric devices, and capacitors are one you can test. Set the dial, hook it up and see if things are working! These multimeter devices are essential in the world of home electronics, so put one in your tool kit today!

Know how some people have a natural way of lighting up a room? Well, hacker i-am-jen has an artificial one—LED sneakers!

Instructable user samsmith17's solution for riding in the dark is a lot snazzier than your typical bicycle light:

Daito Manabe is awesome. Last we heard of him, he was setting up Japanese school girls with glow-in-the-dark grills. Before that, he was playing himself like a human drum kit. And before that, he was just plain old electroshocking himself. In his most recent appearance, he takes his electro-pulsed facial twitches to the stage, with fellow artist Ei Wada, before an audience at Berlin's Transmediale Festival.

Play remotely with all your friends, stream videos and music from the Internet or even check your Facebook and email - all with your PSP. The PSP has Internet capability, but not every network will be available to you at all times. Here is how you can hack any wifi connection with your PSP.

A perfect project for the budding roboticist in you! This video shows you how to make a small robot gripper using basic household items. Press the button and make the robot's come together! You will need: a small blow torch or butane lighter, a glue gun, a dremel or rotary tool (along with several different bits), the free cutting pattern, a permanent marker, a micro servo, some small nails or pins, a small piece of Plexiglass and a paperclip. If you don't have access to a dremel, you can fake...

This do it yourself robot can be made out of many materials you can find around your house. You'll need a few special non household items, such as an arduino and a class 3 laser. However, once you assemble everything correctly, you can make a sentry robot inspired by the robots in the game PORTAL. Even if you've never built a robot before, as long as you have a basic knowledge of electronics, you can start with this simple and fun project.

Well your friend's won't stop dissing your BlackBerry Storm, and you need to show them it can actually play some games. This video shows how-to install the Gameboy emulator on your BlackBerry Storm so that you can play a whole host of cool video games. This method is pretty simple and requires your smart phone be connected to your PC, and that you go and get some software as described in the video. Give it a try and show them you ARE cool!

OK master spy, it's time to get your lurk on. If you're going to be spying, you'll need to be able to spy at night. This video will show you how-to make your very own night vision goggles so you can keep up with your mark well after the sun goes down. You'll need a 9V battery, an infrared LED, some wire cutters, a small screw driver, and some wire with a battery clip. You can easily find your needed infrared LED in any old TV remote control. Try it, and make some home made spy gear today!

Make a homemade airsoft machine gun with Kipkay! You will need a basic ball point pen, a film canister or medicine bottle, and an assortment of Airsoft pellets (6 mm size pellets work the best). You'll also need access to a drill, and a hot glue gun.

When choosing a security system for the office, Billy Chasen decided to ditch the traditional lock & key barricade for something a little more 21st century. He hacked together a device that uses a web server, servo motor and some parts from Home Depot to enable locking & unlocking via text message. Chasen maintains a list which gives access to green lit office workers, who enter by simply texting "lock" or "unlock"... and voilà, open sesame.

Man, it's laundry day and once again you have NO quarters. Well, check out this video and you'll never need quarters again. This how-to shows how to pick the lock on a coin operated laundry machine and then rig it up so you'll never need to pay again. Sweeeet.

In the far away land of Japan, gold is out, glow-in-the-dark is in. LED "grills" were recently conceived of by two Japanese designers/hackers for a winter advertising event at clothing store Laforet Harajuku. The LED teeth attachments quickly became a hot item.

Do you have one of those jobs where the minutes seems to stretch by like hours? Then shaving off an extra twelve might make all the difference. All you need is cunning (to kidnap the workplace clock for the night) and hacking skills (not to worry, creator Randy Sarafan will help you with that), and you'll be the office hero. Sarafan says:

Do 3D glasses give you a headache? This might hurt more. As in, I think I'm going to hurl just watching. Below, Francois Vogel demonstrates his rapid eye blinking method for 3D viewing. ...as if the electrodes on his temples could stimulate his eyelids to open and close in alternating synchronization with the refresh rate of the monitor!

Samimy is at it again. And this time, his ingenuity has tackled a clever way to take something old and broken and restore it to something new and useful. What are we talking about? Modding a broken hard drive and some busted cell phones into a useful rechargeable USB / solar-powered light, which also acts as a portable mobile charger.

Ever had a problem with your Wi-Fi signal strength?  Signal just won't reach from the office to the lounge room?  Well, build yourself one of these.  It can give you a massive increase in signal strength for peanuts.

Learn about the history and technology of batteries in this informative video, and learn how to make your own voltaic cells at home, along with other scientific experiments. Jeri Ellsworth demonstrates how and provides several informative facts about the history and technology about the battery.

Budget Hack's cheap Wifi range extender works off of the age old concept of adding tin foil to your TV's rabbit ears. The materials are cheap, and the project is relatively easy (if you're willing to pick up some soldering skills).