Computers & Mobile

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for digital gadgetry, open code, smart hacks, and more. Processing power to the people!

Stephen Colbert Portrait With Subliminal IR Message Marquee

Stephen Colbert Portrait With Subliminal IR Message Marquee

Fortunately, Austrian filmmaker Benjamin Hable has discovered that you can use your cell phone, digital camera, or other CCD-equipped gadget (rather like the special sunglasses discovered by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s character in John Carpenter’s 1988 conspiranoia flick They Live) to see the fnords. Benjamin made Augmented Paranoia for a January 17 exhibition called bits and ohm, and used the public-domain portrait of Stephen Colbert released for the Colbert Nation Portrait Challenge. Reminds me of a project I did a few years back ( (also inspired by They Live) involving deliberately burning subliminal messages into the phosphors of analog TV tubes. [Thanks, Benjamin!]

Dramatic Gestures With Kinect

Dramatic Gestures With Kinect

I’m indebted to a commenter on yesterday’s Kinect + Tesla Coils post for pointing me to the website of artist, engineer, and interaction designer Gerry Chu. Among the many treasures in Gerry’s online portfolio is this short video showing his use of a hacked Kinect to instantaneously correlate a dramatic gesture with a dramatic sound. He calls it Motion Emotions. [Thanks, Josh Kopel!]

iPhone T Amp Speaker Dock

iPhone T Amp Speaker Dock

Michigan maker Pruitt’s iPhone/iPod speaker dock is built using 2-inch full range drivers built into specially constructed pipes that also act as the units legs. Each channel gets 15 watts from an internal class T digital amp (T Amp). It’s not going to blow your socks off, but it’ll sound great at a modest volume.