Hasta La Gadget!

There are already plug-and-play third-party devices that let you play previous gen consoles or a PC using any of their controllers. For instance, you can use a Wiimote with your PS3 if you want. There’s no equivalent product for the PlayStation 4 just yet, but Marcos Mori de Siqueira of Softfactory is onto something here. He hacked a Dualshock 4 controller to send input from a mouse and keyboard to the PS 4.

I’m not even going to pretend that I fully understood what Marcos pulled off, but from what I grokked he used a microcontroller (plus two digital-to-analog converters for emulating the thumbsticks) to turn signals from his keyboard – in this case a Logitech Gameboard – and mouse into signals that the PS4 understands, sent via the Dualshock 4′s circuit board. All in all it took him about $50 (USD) of materials and a ton of solder to make the mod. Skip to about 1:55 in the video to see the mod in action.

Check out Marcos’ post on Softfactory for more details on his mod. Seeing as FPS and MMOs are still popular, I wonder why Sony and Microsoft don’t just add support for keyboards and mice on their consoles. They can probably earn extra from certifying third party hardware if they did that. It’ll make it way easier to search for content on their online stores too.

[via Hack A Day]

When my son was really small he loved trains and watched Thomas the Tank Engine a lot. He loved the oddly animated train and his pals. I always found Thomas more than a bit creepy. If you ever thought that Thomas might be plotting to kill and take over the world, then I have the Skyrim mod for you.

It’s called the Really Useful Dragons mod and it turns every dragon on the game into Thomas the Tank Engine. The roars of the dragons are even replaced with Thomas’ shrill whistle. That toot-toot will haunt your dreams. Here, check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cXuWBMZfi8

I love the first time you see Thomas in the video. He swoops in and lands atop the tower with dust puffing out. I think he was meant to burn cities and capture souls, what about you? You can fast forward to about 2:00 in the video to bypass the wait and see Thomas the Terror for yourself.

Want to try it for yourself? Grab the mod here.

[@kenyatta via Laughing Squid via Nerd Approved]

Kodak’s Super 8 Film system revolutionized home moviemaking, by making it much easier for people to buy and load film, jump-starting amateur film making, and eventually laying the groundwork for camcorders. Of course nowadays everyone with a smartphone or point-and-shoot can be a modern filmmaker. Designer Hayes Urban wants to make the old Super 8 cameras useful again, so he came up with a digital cartridge for the ancient gadgets.

Hayes’ Nolab is a device that fits into the film cartridge slot of Super 8 cameras. It has a 5mp OmniVision sensor and a custom glass objective lens. According to Hayes, “the sensor focuses on a ground glass image plane pressed against the camera’s film gate.” Nolab records 720p H.264 video with a 4:3 aspect ratio, the same native aspect ratio of Super 8 film. It will also have the ability to apply one of two color correction filters. The Nolab uses SD cards for storage and relies on a rechargeable battery for power.

Hayes claims that he and his partners already have a working prototype of the Nolab and indicates that the digital film cartridge will become a commercial product. Check out his website for more about his invention.

[via No Film School]

A small group of DMCA activists and device accessibility advocates are raising funds to reward anyone who comes up with an free, open source and untethered iOS 7 jailbreak. In case you’re not familiar with the term, jailbreaking iOS devices opens it up to software modifications that Apple would never officially allow. They can be as big as file managers, new gesture commands and even shortcut settings (which Apple clearly copied in iOS 7).

The prize was the idea of Chris Maury, an entrepreneur who believes that iOS devices will be more useful to disabled people if combined with jailbreak apps. The other proponents of the fundraiser are Boing Boing editor and author Cory Doctorow, iFixit co-founder and CEO Kyle Wiens and professor and author Biella Coleman.  Head to the fundraiser’s website if you want to donate or check out the criteria for submissions.

[via Boing Boing]

We here at Technabob are big fans of Richard “Datamancer” Nagy, the craftsman responsible for high quality steampunk computers and accessories. Sadly Datamancer passed away earlier this week. While that may be stunning news to his fans, it’s even more of a loss to his family. As a token of respect and goodwill, eBay user bruteforce1889 is auctioning off a keyboard made and signed by Richard.

Bruteforce1889 will donate all of the proceeds from the auction to Richard’s family.

You can bid for the keyboard on eBay. Rest in peace Richard.

[via Boing Boing]