The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for digital gadgetry, open code, smart hacks, and more. Processing power to the people!
This ad for Vodafone New Zeland is an impressive technical feat. They loaded up 1000 cell phones with ringtones for single instruments, and then built a system to send text messages to them in the correct order, to get them to perform a portion of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture.
If you’re still looking for ideas for this (or next) year’s Halloween display, check out HauntProject.com. They’ve done a great job of assembling cool Halloween projects from all over the web and have nearly 1,000 indexed and categorized as of this writing. Shown here are three of my faves so far. Above, a sweet crashed flying saucer prop by Scott Rossi. Below, a motorized monster-in-a-box by Bob and Cindy Stewart.
As you can see, Montage takes all the work out of combining a bunch of individual images into an array of images, dealing automatically with all the resizing, cropping, arranging, and/or labeling headaches automatically.
Tired of reading all of those racist, anti-Semitic, gross, nasty, hateful, and just plain dirt-dumb stupid comments on YouTube? Now you can make everyone as smart as a rocket scientist, or at least as smart as a Nobel Prize-winning physicist (and prankster, juggler, painter, bongo player, and lock-picker), namely Richard Feynman. FeynTube is a Greasemonkey […]
I love these physical expressions of digital data. Here, a computer trashcan filling up is reflected in an inflating balloon. Empty the trash, and the balloon deflates. Lots of other nice physical computing examples on this page. Tangible Prototypes Lab
John Boiles, he of the iPod-controlled RC car, also produced this sweet wirelessly controlled power box, which he demonstrates in this video by controlling different sets of X-mas lights plugged into it by shaking his iPod. See it work around 1:40, then be sure to check out the dance party at 2:40. The iPod is enclosed in the “Law book” prop everyone is shaking around while they rock out to vintage Bon Jovi, et. al.
More Dorkbot Austin goodness! John Boiles demonstrated this radio-controlled car steered using his iPod’s built-in accelerometer via its built-in WiFi transceiver. All you have to do is tilt the iPod, and the car goes. It starts to move around 1:10.
