Hasta La Gadget!

Sure, you love the HDR pictures coming from your point-and-shoot, smartphone or perhaps even your Glass. But what if you want to Hangout in HDR? An enterprising grad student from the University of Toronto named Tao Ai — under the tutelage of Steve Mann — has figured out how to shoot HDR video in real-time. The trick was accomplished using a Canon 60D DSLR running Magic Lantern firmware and an off-the-shelf video processing board with a field programmable gate array (FPGA), plus some custom software to process the video coming from the camera. It works by taking in a raw feed of alternatively under and over exposed video and storing it in a buffer, then processing the video on its way to a screen. What results is the virtually latency-free 480p resolution HDR video at 60 frames per second seen in our video after the break.

When we asked whether higher resolution and faster frame rate output is possible, we were told that the current limitations are the speed of the imaging chip on the board and the bandwidth of the memory buffer. The setup we saw utilized a relatively cheap $200 Digilent board with a Xilinx chip, but a 1080p version is in the works using a more expensive board and DDR3 memory. Of course, the current system is for research purposes only, but the technology can be applied in consumer devices — as long as they have an FPGA and offer open source firmware. So, should the OEM’s get with the program, we can have HDR moving pictures to go with our stationary ones.

Filed under: Cameras, HD

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A team of researchers have created a hack that allows a modified charger to hack in to any iOS device in under one minute.

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Google Glass Explorer Editions are a developer’s wonderland, full of little secrets we probably won’t see – in part, at least – in the regular consumer edition. Some Easter eggs and various hidden features have already been discovered, and now the folks over at Android Police have itemized a whole host of them that are available via Glass’s hidden labs, including a simple change for getting Wink, browser support (kinda) and more.

Using a rooted pair of Glass and some ADB commands, users can get their hands on quite a few features that are integrated into the frames but not available by default. Some of them work well, while others are a bit spotty. One such feature is an easier-to-get enabling of the Wink feature we’ve seen before, allowing device owners to snap a picture with a deliberate eye wink – no sideloaded app necessary. It is said to work very well when enabled via this manner.

Another is “OK_GLASS_EVERYWHERE,” which is a fairly self-explanatory name, letting users evoke “Ok Glass” pretty much wherever they want rather than just the Ok Glass screen, which is limiting. Enabling this means the device is always listening – not in the sense of eavesdropping on your private matters, but in waiting for a command to come its way. There’s no word what having this enabled might do to your battery life, however.

In terms of the more spotty features is the “WEB_BROWSING” line, which – don’t get your hopes up – doesn’t fire up the ability to browse the Web. Instead, it pulls up the ability to complete the desired action using a browser, which you’ll have to install yourself since Glass doesn’t offer one. The folks at Android Police put on Chrome, and report that while it does start to load a website, the Glass user interface takes over again within seconds. What it does show is a potential project for a developer to get elbows-deep in.

Those three aside, there are a host of others, including a peek at video stabilization listed as “VSTAB,” which is interesting in light of Sergey Brin’s statement to us earlier this month that the company will be rolling out a solution to the video shakiness issue that results from head-mounted cameras. The feature, sadly, doesn’t stabilize videos right now, but it does show that digital stabilization is in Glass owners’ future.

SOURCE: Android Community

Google Glass hidden labs give rooted users Wink and more is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Despite being just a hovering orb, Portal 2′s Wheatley is arguably one of the greatest video game characters of all time. At least one of the greatest video game characters without arms or legs. Now, the disembodied, moronic sphere has a body of his own.

This awesome custom Wheatley action figure was made by Technabob fave toy hacker Kody Koala. His body was made using various parts from robot toys, while Wheatley himself started off as a keychain. Kody sculpted his portal gun and trusty companion cube from scratch. Yikes, Wheatley with a portal gun can’t possibly be a good idea.

If you think that Wheatley deserves a body of his own, open a portal over to Etsy where you can buy this epic custom action figure for $160(USD). Of course, knowing how idiotic Wheatley is, he’d probably trip over himself if he had legs.

We’d probably say something like, “I always thought it would be cool to build a giant fire breathing piranha plant,” and then promptly forget about following through. Also, hey, that sounds dangerous! Hack-a-day‘s Caleb Kraft, however, doesn’t allow silly things like fear of seared human flesh get between him and his dreams. (This is the same man who created an incredible Portal gun, in case you forgot the name.)

Kraft created a six-foot tall, fire-breathing “piranha plant” — also known as “that bastard plant hiding in Super Mario World‘s pipes” — using PVC pipe, butane and a whole mess of other materials. The results are — well, we can think of a variety of adjectives that’d fit perfectly well here, but you’ll likely come up with a few of your own after watching the video of it in action below the break.

Filed under: Misc, Gaming, Science, Alt, Nintendo

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Source: Hack-a-day