Hasta La Gadget!

Sprint and Verizon may have shunned the Nexus One, but that doesn’t mean the handsets can’t be put to good use: these Android-controlled, Arduino-powered Cellbots now feature the one true Googlephone as the CPU. At Intel’s 2010 International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose, we got our hot little hands on the DIY truckbots for the first time, and found to our surprise they’d been imbued with accelerometer-based motion control. Grabbing a Nexus One off a nearby table, we simply tilted the handset forward, back, left and right to make the Cellbot wheel about accordingly, bumping playfully into neighbors and streaming live video the whole time. We were told the first handset wirelessly relayed instructions to the second using Google Chat, after which point a Python script determined the bot’s compass facing and activated Arduino-rigged motors via Bluetooth, but the real takeaway here is that robots never fail to amuse. Watch our phone-skewing, bot-driving antics in a video after the break, and see what we mean.

Continue reading Cellbots get Nexus One upgrade, ad-hoc motion control (video)

Cellbots get Nexus One upgrade, ad-hoc motion control (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 May 2010 17:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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From the moment we saw the so-called “magical device,” we knew the lucrative digital cookbook market would never be quite the same, but it’s one thing to imagine an iPad as the centerpiece of one’s kitchen, and something else entirely to see to see it in the flesh. TUAW reader Alan Daly built his directly into the side of a kitchen cabinet, and set it to work doling out Epicurious recipes, streaming Jamie Oliver, and surfing some of the world’s best websites (in our oh-so-humble opinion) well out of the way of troublesome meat splatter. In lieu of flying toasters, his screen displays a virtual aquarium when it’s not in use, and the whole assembly seems to be a simple matter of cutting a hole and affixing a pair of wooden strips for support. It’s not clear, however, how he keeps it charged. Maybe that’s the magic Steve keeps talking about. Video after the break.

Continue reading iPad merges with kitchen cabinet, sacrificing portability for utility

iPad merges with kitchen cabinet, sacrificing portability for utility originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 May 2010 13:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We have not modified the above picture in any way — Scout’s Honor. That’s a real baby, wearing a real IR necklace that interacts with a real Wiimote. What’s not real, of course, is the view of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. That is generated by Ryan Hoagland’s DIY virtual window, a brilliant pastiche of interior design, RED ONE footage and Johnny Chung Lee-style headtracking, all directed to your eyes by a Mac Pro feeding a pair of plasma screens. As the viewer moves around, dual 1080p images move the opposite direction, providing the convincing illusion of looking out a real pane of glass at the incredibly detailed scenery beyond. Exciting? Then you’ll be giggling like Jr. when you hear it’s for sale. After spending a year figuring out how to mount, drive and cool the whole shebang, Hoagland would like you to have one too; he plans to have basic kits ready by July for under $3000. Watch baby-powered plasma in motion after the break, as well as a sweet time-lapse video of the build process.

[Thanks, Andy, ArjanD]

Continue reading Winscape virtual window features Wiimote headtracking, absolutely made of win

Winscape virtual window features Wiimote headtracking, absolutely made of win originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Next time you’re out at a Lady Gaga tribute concert, leave the crowd speechless with your very own “Pop Music Will Never Be Low Brow” glasses. All it takes to give off that “Creative Director of Polaroid” vibe is just the touch of your hand, two keychain digital picture frames, and some garage glamorous sunglasses you don’t mind seeing destroyed. Love the shades, baby? You won’t be able to see straight anymore — the frames aren’t transparent, so keep that in mind when choreographing. DIY instructions via the source link, video example after the break. Spandex one-piece recommended, but we’d advise against Heartbeats earphones.

Continue reading DIY Lady Gaga ‘Pop Music’ shades: so magical, you’d be so fantastical

DIY Lady Gaga ‘Pop Music’ shades: so magical, you’d be so fantastical originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“It’s like an omelet, everyone finds their own way to do it,” Adam Savage answers. It’s not quite the response I was expecting. I was thinking something more along the lines of ‘study hard and stay in school,’ when asking the MythBusters star how one goes about breaking into the special effects game.

Judging from Savage and co-host Jamie Hyneman’s extremely different resumes, however, the whole egg analogy seems spot on. “I wanted to work in special effects since I was 11 and Star Wars came out,” Savage tells me, seated across from me in his San Diego hotel suite. “I tried in several different ways in several different situations where the pay was really crappy and people were real jerks, and ended up forgetting about it until Jamie called me and working with people I liked, doing things that I enjoyed changed it.”

Jamie’s resume, on the other hand, reads like a plot summary of Factotum, having worked as a diving instructor in the Caribbean, lived on a farm, been employed as a cook, done construction, and even owning a pet store.

“In my case it I’ve done a lot of different things and at one point I sat down to decide what it was that I actually wanted,” he tells me. “By then I realized that it was actually possible to earn a living doing something that was fun. I learned that routines are not fun. I started looking around, and there aren’t that many vocations that meet that criteria. Special effects was one. I started methodically getting my foot in the door by cleaning the shop. I quickly rose to the top and had my own shop.”