Hot Hacks, Mods & Circuitry Posts
News: Comic Book Instructions Make Arduino Hacking Easy
If you didn't think you could make a high speed photography trigger or hack together some creepy googly eyeballs for Halloween, then you've got another think coming, because learning how to use Arduino just got easier thanks to Jody Culkin and her wonderful comic book introduction to the Arduino platform (and electronics projects in general).
How To: Modify house clocks to run on solar power for five dollars
Power the clocks at your home with the sun! With a solar cell that costs around $5, you can convert a clock to solar power and avoid buying batteries or running up the electric bill. Instead, connect a rechargable battery to the solar panel with a few wires and some adhesive and soon you'll have enough energy to power your clock for as long as it lasts.
How To: Turn an Old Scanner into a Keyboard Light
Do-it-yourselfer Kipkay salvaged parts from an old parallel port scanner and made a flexible, super-bright light in this how-to video. The modification is done by extracting the lamp and running it through clear tubing. He mounted the new lamp above his keyboard for night typing. Watch this video tutorial and learn how to turn an old scanner into a keyboard light.
How To: Increase the range of a remote control
Kipkay shows you how to increase the range of your remote control for your television. You use electrical tape to make sure that the leads do not come into contact with the reflector.
How To: Hack a toy radar gun into a real one
Turn a 'toy' radar gun into the real thing! Cops don't even have one like this! While this is a completely new and different design, the inspiration for this video is from an article by Ken Delahoussaye in MAKE Magazine. Just watch this video tutorial on how to hack a toy radar gun into a real one.
How To: Secretly record people with your own spy sunglasses
Hack a pair of sunglasses to secretly record audio and video and spend less than $40 in the process with this how-to video. To replicate this hack for yourself, you will need a spy camera and black solar shield sunglasses. For detailed, step-by-step instructions on building your own spy recorder sunglasses, watch this hacking how-to from Kip Kay of Make Magazine.
How To: Turn a flashlight into a laser
Kipkay demonstrates how to extract the laser from a DVD burner and mount it in a small flashlight to create a handheld laser burner that can light matches and burst balloons, all in this how-to video. All you need is a 16x DVD burner, a laser housing, and a flashlight. Watch this video tutorial and learn how to modify a flashlight into a relatively strong laser.
How To: Make a Blu-Ray Laser Phaser
Build your very own Trek-style Blu-Ray laser phaser with this hacker's how-to video from Kip Kay of Make Magazine. To replicate this hack at home, you'll need the following materials: (1) a PS3 Blu-Ray laser assembly (which can be had on eBay for roughly $45), (2) an original series-style Star Trek phaser gun (a good quality replica of which can be found for roughly $30), (3) a 9-volt battery, (4) a 9-volt battery snap, (5) a 150 Ohm resistor, and (5) a new switch to replace the phaser trigge...
How To: Make a motion triggered spy camera
Kip "Kipkay" Kedersha is known for his intriguing and clever how-to and prank videos, even when he teams up with MAKE Magazine. He will show you how to tweak, hack, mod, and bend any technology to your hacking needs. No electronic device, gadget, or household item can stand the test of Kipkay's hacks and mods.
How To: Mod a digital converter box into a battery powered one
Kip "Kipkay" Kedersha is known for his intriguing and clever how-to and prank videos, even when he teams up with MAKE Magazine. He will show you how to tweak, hack, mod, and bend any technology to your hacking needs. No electronic device, gadget, or household item can stand the test of Kipkay's hacks and mods.
How To: Make an exploding confetti cannon with Kipkay
Make a cool confetti cannon that's great for concerts, parties and special events! Kipkay demonstrates how to hack together this high powered cannon. Confetti bombs are super fun, pay attention to learn how to make your own confetti cannon.
How To: Make LED-enhanced anti-paparazzi glasses
This video teaches us how to prevent those pesky paparazzi from invading our privacy. It suggests buying a pair of safety glasses that have lights attached at the sides. Then, remove the lights, and replace the existing resistors with higher-powered ones, and the lights with infrared LEDs. When the press tries to film you while you're wearing these at night, the cameras will see bright, menacing lights where your face should be. This how-to is presented as a joke, but it would be hilarious to...
How To: Make an infrared home alarm system
Kip "Kipkay" Kedersha is known for his intriguing and clever how-to and prank videos, even when he teams up with MAKE Magazine. He will show you how to tweak, hack, mod, and bend any technology to your hacking needs. No electronic device, gadget, or household item can stand the test of Kipkay's hacks and mods.
How To: Recharge a TV remote control's batteries with this solar power hack
If you're tired of replacing the batteries on your remote control and you would rather have the TV remote charge by itself, grab a few solar cells, rechargable batteries, and a few extra odds and ends. With this mod to your remote, you can let light charge your remote and never buy another battery for it again!
How To: Measure current, voltage, resistance, and continuity using a multimeter
If you own or have access to an auto-ranging or manual-ranging multimeter you can measure several different aspects of circuits, resistors, and the like. For example, you can determine the resistance, voltage, continuity, and current with the multimeter to help you determine the precision of a resistor. This guide will help you learn how to use a multimeter to perform these tasks.
News: Haptic Hacking Breathes New Life into Old Computer Mice
You've seen the felt mouse, which made computer clicking comfortable and chic, now brace yourself for something a little more interactive—DataBot.
News: Analog Video Cam + Thermal Printer = Slowest Instant Camera Ever
Sometimes an "analog" result is highly satisfying when the means for producing it is just the opposite. Enter Niklas Roy's "Electronic Instant Camera" project. The endeavor combines an analog black and white videocamera with a thermal receipt printer. The outcome is something in between a Polaroid camera and a digital camera. Like the olden days, the subject must sit still for a quite a while—3 full minutes—as their image is recorded and printed directly on a roll of receipt paper.
News: Super Tiny (And Cheap) DSLR Intervalometer for Time-Lapse Photography
If you're lucky, your digital camera has a built-in intervalometer that lets you operate the shutter regularly at set intervals over a period of time. Why would you be lucky? Because you can create some very awesome time-lapse videos, like the horribly beautiful eruption of a volcano or vivid star trails in the night sky. You can capture the stunning display of the northern lights or even document the rotting of your favorite fruit.
News: Holy Pac-Man! DIY Light Painting Saber Is Pure Awesome
A few months ago, we showed you a pretty awesome light painting project that visually captured invisible Wi-Fi signals around town using a Wi-Fi detecting rod filled with 80 LEDs. With some long exposure photography, the results were pretty amazing. This project was inspired by those crazy Norwegians, but this build lets you do something even more amazing—capture pictures of colorful written text and drawn images, frozen in midair.
Cocktail Couture: Robotic Booze Generating Dress
Meet DareDroid: sexy nurse, geek couture and mobile bartender, engineered into an all-in-one technologically advanced garment. Created by fashion designer Anouk Wipprecht, hacker Marius Kintel, and sculptor Jane Tingley, the team calls themselves the Modern Nomads (MoNo), and their series of garments fall into Wipprecht's invented family of "Pseudomorphs". Pseudomorphs are tech-couture pieces that transform into fluid displays—which is exactly what DareDroid does.
News: Electrical Shock Could Make You a Better Musician by Possessing Your Hand
Looking to be the world's best violinist or fastest banjo player? If you didn't start practicing when you were a kid, learning a new stringed instrument is extremely challenging. But an upcoming device may change all of that, if you don't mind being shocked by 28 different electrodes.
How To: Hack any Android device to run Netflix
Want to watch Netflix Watch Instantly on your Android device? Watch this video and follow these instructions to learn how to hack any rooted Android device with an APK to work with Netflix. Watch thousands of streaming movies and TV shows with your hacked Android tablet or smartphone.
News: The Latest and Greatest Kinect Hacks
Nobody could predict the success of Microsoft's Kinect, not even Microsoft themselves. So, it was quite a surprise when it ended up earning a Guinness World Record for fastest-selling consumer electronics device, and an even bigger surprise to see people buying one that didn't even own an Xbox 360.
News: Schoolboy Invents Burglar-Deterring, Post Office-Friendly Doorbell
He may have just started his teenage years, but Laurence Rock's future is looking pretty good after inventing an ingenious doorbell device called Smart Bell. He's already sold 20,000 units to telecoms giant Commtel Innovate, and is securing a second deal with an unidentified company that will land him £250,000. That's over $400,000!
Hack the News: Build Your Own Media-Altering Newstweek Device
At first, it seemed like a clever art installation housed on the web, but now we're not so sure... the Newstweek hack may indeed be legit.
How To: Calibrate your mobile device for better battery life
Learn how to recalibrate the battery reading of your mobile device, so that you don't get stuck with a dead battery. This video explains how and why to calibrate your phone, music player, tablet, or laptop. Watch and learn how to improve your battery life.
How To: Cheat benchmarks in Quadrant using the HTC Hero
This video will show you how you can manipulate the benchmarks captured by Quadrant on an HTC Hero. Watch this video to learn how to cheat benchmarks on your Android smartphone. Any software can be modified, which is why Quadrant doesn't always accurately rate hardware performance.
How To: Jailbreak an Apple TV 2G for Mac or Windows
Check out this video to learn how to use Seas0nPass to jailbreak your Apple TV 2G. This mod works on either Mac or Windows. This jailbreak is for Apple TV with firmware 4.2.2. Once you've jailbroken your Apple TV2 you'll have administrator access to all files on it.
How To: Turn a Chromebook into Google TV
The Google Chromebook may be simple, but it is not limited. Watch this video to see how the Chromebook works as a kind of rudimentary Google TV when hooked up to a large monitor. This easy mod will let you enjoy your Cr-48 Chromebook in a whole new way.
Inventables: A Store for Superheroes & Hackers
Founded by Zach Kaplan, a "serial entrepreneur" with a B.S. in mechanical engineering, Inventables is a futuristic online hardware store based out of Chicago. The company sells innovative materials at much smaller quantities than typically available—largely to artists, inventors, developers, and researchers. If you've got a brilliant idea and cash to spare, careful, you just may go hog wild. My premature "Dear Santa" wishlist-in-progress:
News: Wearable Electronic Displays Coming to Your T-Shirt Soon
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.
How To: Recycle an Old Vinyl Record into a Warped 'Salvador Dali' Analog Clock
This recycling project would surely make Salvador Dali proud. Kipkay outlines the process, from old vinyl record to cool analog clock. Just pick out an appropriate record, place on cookie sheet and soften inside the oven. Then take the clock mechanism from an old cheap clock and attach to the record. This may not fit with all of your décor, but who cares?
How To: Find out if you can jailbreak your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad
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.
How To: Give Your Camera Phone a Powerful Macro Lens by Hacking a DVD Drive
If you've got an extra DVD drive laying around not being used, watch this video and learn how to give the lens new life—as a powerful macro lens for your camera phone! You'll be able to take incredible pictures on your camera phone using this clever mod.
News: The Revolution of the Hacked Kinect, Part 4: The Future Is YOU
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.
News: The Revolution of the Hacked Kinect, Part 2: Even MBAs Gotta Have One
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.
How To: Put your magnets to use around the house
Magnetism is one of the most incredible forces in the world. Did you know you can use magnets to get more out of a number of household appliances- from screwdrivers to electric toothbrushes? They're also great fun, so check out this video to learn how to make magnets work for you!
News: MyndPlay Gives Mindf*** Movies a New Meaning
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.
News: Amazingly Complex, Yet Simple LEGO Contraptions in Rube Goldberg Fashion
Back in the '80s, I was just a kid with a LEGO hobby. I remember building castles and floating boats, spaceships and monster trucks, even a working LEGO train powered by battery, lights and all.
Altruistic Hacking: The Rise of the DIY Radiation Detector
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 organiz...