Archive for the ‘Hacks, Mods and DIY’ Category

Dance Dance Revolution Game Pad Morphs Into a Purse

For a busted video game accessory, the trash can is not the only place. In the hands of a creative DIY-er, a broken Dance Dance Revolution game pad got a makeover that is likely to have many women gamers drooling.

When Liz McLean Knight’s DDR dance pad stopped being good enough to jump on, she cut it up to see what was inside. And the first layer turned out to be a piece of fabric so pretty, she decided to turn it into a purse.

With a standard purse pattern, some lining, foam and zipper, McLean Knight created a colorful tote that could be a fun DIY project for anyone to try. It’s simple, easy and there’s documentation with photos for those who may want to replicate it.  Too bad, though, McLean Knight didn’t use the internal circuitry of the dance pad in her purse. That would have made this the ultimate go-to bag for DDR fans.

Photo: DDR Purse (Liz McLean Knight)

Gallery: Sony Gadget Teardown Porn

Like humans, dead gadgets get autopsies, too — only we call such hardware dissection “teardowns.” But why do we rip our beloved gadgets to pieces? To learn more about the nature of technology, engineering and industrial design, of course.

It’s kind of a beautiful thing, actually: staring at a gadget’s ugliest internal parts to learn its secrets.

To celebrate teardown culture, we hosted a contest in collaboration with teardown company iFixit, and 19 people participated (20, if you include a hilariously failed attempt). The rules were simple: Disassemble a Sony gadget, take photos of each step, and post the results.

Why Sony? Because the company makes some of the most elegantly designed hardware out there, and we were curious to see what lurked beneath the products’ sleek exteriors. Also because Sony told iFixit that it doesn’t like its products being torn apart publicly like this, and we couldn’t resist a challenge like that.

IFixit is handing out two awards to the winners: a PS3 Slim for “Best Overall Teardown,” and a PSP Go for “Most Creative Teardown,” Check out photos of the two winners, as well as eight other teardowns we found thoughtful, clever and impressive.

Thanks to all 20 who participated!

The winner of “Most Creative Teardown” goes to iFixit author Bac, who disassembled a vintage Sony TR-63 transistor radio. Not only were we shocked at the author’s ballsiness for ripping up this valuable antique; we were wowed by the old-school circuit board, which looks like an array of colorful beetles and worms.

Photo: Bac/iFixit

Motorola’s Droid is Memorable, But Won’t Make You Forget the iPhone

Like it or not, Motorola’s new Google-powered Droid smartphone will be compared to the iPhone.

The good news is that this feature-rich handset, running version 2.0 of Google’s Android OS, compares very favorably to the Goliath of the smartphone world as a utility mobile computing device — and, oh yeah, a phone.

The bad news is that there may be too many good things going on to make using this device the quick, intuitive, out-of-the-box experience it should be. That’s a problem, given that the iPhone has set the usability bar so high.

An embarrassment of riches shouldn’t be a negative, and it really isn’t overall on the Droid, which goes on sale Nov. 6 to Verizon customers only. The tight integration of all things Google — maps overlayed on GPS, voice input all over the place, search that does not ask you to decide whether you are looking for something locally or on the net — are now more fully realized in this major upgrade to the mobile operating system the search giant first released on a single handset, the T-1.

This is very good thing for that segment of the population who have become Google citizens and are already used to entrusting their contacts, documents and discovery needs to that cloud.

On the down side, you will need a Gmail, Facebook or Microsoft exchange account to use the e-mail app. And, there is no provision for syncing to an address book (or calendar) on your desktop. Everything is in the Google cloud which, given the recent Sidekick data-loss debacle, may not be the greatest selling point just now.

Like the iPhone and many other handsets this is a primarily a touchscreen device whose face is almost 100% screen — and a bright, crisp screen it is. Rather than take sides in the virtual vs. hardware keyboard debate, the Droid provides both. The hardware keyboard slides out in a familiar landscape mechanism, and it includes a 5-way directional-pad, the better to allow you to keep your hands on the keyboard once you have them there.

The virtual keyboard appears when appropriate, landscape or portrait. And while the software keys appear to be narrower than those on the iPhone they seem at least as easy to use. Another familiar feature is the “reality check” of a small pop-up displaying the key being pressed. And there is a type-ahead function which displays possible words, potentially saving you keystrokes.

On-board music purchase is from Amazon (at least), but when the Droid is connected to a computer it’s read as an SD card, and dragging any tracks onto it makes them playable within the music app. The Droid also sports a 5 MP camera with autofocus, on-demand flash and video.

The Droid goes beyond the iPhone in two key areas: Like the Palm Pre, applications can run in the background, and switching among them is a smooth process. And as a robust GPS device it accepts and gives turn-by-turn verbal instructions, making it the closest approximation yet to a total GPS solution that obviates the need for a dedicated vehicle device. One caveat: it’s necessary to be connected to the 3G data service for course-correction and other dynamic route features to work (and to even plot a course), so this is not a replacement for a GPS device in locales where Verizon 3G coverage is nonexistent or spotty.

Available apps? Android only offers about 1/10th of the nearly 100,000 Apple has available, but that should change as Android handsets become more common. The first app I downloaded was Google Voice which, strangely, is not pre-installed — but then again, it isn’t available at all on the iPhone. On the Droid, you can set your Google Voice number to be the one that everyone sees when you call or text them, so you can switch to Verizon without worrying about giving everyone a new number or waiting for your old number to port over. That’s assuming you’re already using the phone-number-for-life that Google provides.

Navigation is not a touch-screen experience: Unlike the left-right/swipe metaphor there is hard “undo” button which takes you back step by step. In fact there are four hardware buttons to the iPhone’s one: back, menu (which does not activate from any given screen), home and search (which does).

There are three customizable screens that can contain dozens of shortcuts — to contacts, bookmarks, anything — but there are only three of these screens: the “home” screen plus one to the left and one to the right, accessible by swiping. Think of these as a speed dial, with your entire collection of app icons in a sliding drawer. But these icons can be moved anywhere using touch/hold, and there is the gentlest of vibrating feedback to confirm your gesture. (This “haptic feedback” is the default and activates in too many contexts, including for every number you hit when manually entering a phone number. Fortunately, it can be turned off in the settings).

There’s one “feature” that is is sure to draw fire: on certain events, the entire array of which I have yet to determine (although connecting to a power source is one), a computerized voice announces: “Droid.”

On version 2.1 please remove that, Google.

Continue reading for more photos of the Droid.

Photos: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

Psystar ‘Rebel EFI’ Patch Installs Snow Leopard on Any PC

Like a too-trusting doggy who keeps running, tail wagging, back to its abusive owner, only to get booted in the muzzle once again, hackintosh-monger Psystar has rolled over and asked Apple for another whack.

This time the lawyer bait is the Rebel EFI, a boot loader which allows the installation of OS X Snow Leopard onto pretty much any commodity Intel PC. The Darwin Universal Boot Loader, or DUBL, allows the system to start up from a Snow Leopard install disc and to boot into the Mac OS when you’ve done installing.

All you need to do is download a small file (7.6 MB) and use it to make a bootable CD. You then start the computer from this disk and wait until it tells you to swap in your Snow Leopard DVD. That’s it.

Or, that’s kinda it. The list of caveats, warnings and workarounds that follows the short instructions shows just why Apple will never bother supporting its OS on third-party hardware: There are just too many unknowns in the various machines to consider them all. Take this example, which is the description of the Psystar Labs Approval program.

To alleviate some the incompatibility issues some devices will experience, Psystar has begun their home certification program. Once authenticated, users will be given the opportunity to send in hardware components that are not working correctly and have our engineers build a profile for the device.

Nice. You might have to send in, say, your wireless card and hope Psystar can get it back to you along with a working driver. Not bad enough? How about this?

If when booting OS X your computer hangs at a screen with the Apple logo and a “no smoking” sign, you may have an issue with a BIOS Setting. To rectify this, follow these procedures.

Uh oh! “These procedures” turn out to be a lot of rummaging in the advanced BIOS settings of the machine. But the most confidence-inspiring part of all is this one, which gets its own FAQ entry entitled “‘Installation failed’ message.”

You may receive this message upon the completion of the OS X installation. Please know that this may not necessarily be the case and that it may have correctly been installed.

With all the trouble involved for the end-user, Psystar is surely giving this away just to needle Apple, right? Wrong. The asking price is a hilarious $90, currently reduced to $50 as an introductory offer. But at least there’s a trial version, right? Again, kinda. The free trial will let you install OS X but will only let you run it for a couple hours at a time, and then with the rather ominous-sounding warning, “limited hardware functionality as compared with the full version.” That means you can’t be sure that all the hardware drivers work on your machine without paying up first. Seriously, why not just run Windows?

The final irony is that the Rebel EFI is activated by an “authentication code,” which means that it will doubtless be all over the internet the minute a hacker gets hold of it. And in this case, “hacker” means every single customer.

Product page [Psystar]

Press release [PR Web]

Photo illustration : Charlie Sorrel

Bike Hack: Recumbent Trailer Made From Walking Frames

There’s something very appropriate about hooking up a trailer to a recumbent bike. The eco-warrior beardo reputation of horizontal cyclists fits nicely with the green ethos of cargo-carrying. And at the risk of annoying the recumbent crowd, building the trailer from walkers is just one more ticked box on a successful dating-agency sheet.

Joking aside, the aluminum walker is an excellent frame for a trailer. They have to be light enough to be lifted by frail old-folks and strong enough to stop them falling, even if they have had too many cup-cakes with their afternoon tea. Bike-hacker Tim picked up a pair of them from a goodwill store for $5 apiece and along with some old bmx wheels, some scrap aluminum, webbing and cable ties, came up with this very professional looking trailer, designed to hook up to his recumbent bike.

So clean looking is this trailer that I’m tempted to build one to hook up to my fixed gear. And if I run it without brakes for a day or two, I’ll probably be able to run over a few pensioners and steal their frames, bringing the cost of the project near to zero.

Recumbent Bicycle Trailer Hack [Bike Hacks]

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