Simon didn’t provide any details about his replica’s construction, but as you’ll see in the video below it has a working display. Simon also said that it has an FM radio.
Here’s a side quest for you, vault dweller: find Simon’s Flickr page and you’ll be rewarded with three high resolution pictures of the Pip-Boy 3000Si.
Back in the 1980s we had a little game system here in the States called the NES. In Japan, that system was called the Famicom. It looked mighty different, but played most of the same games. And while the Famicom has long-since been discontinued, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t get the occasional hack done to it just like the NES. Here, we have a Famicom, hacked to control a robot.
Ninagawa Izumi’s robot is controlled by the classic red and gold Famicom gamepad. While I’m not sure of all of the steps in the hack, it involved the use of a Bluetooth dongle, a Wii controller, an NES/SNES to Wii adapter, a PS to Wii adapter and a Bluetooth-to-serial adapter. All of this was put together to control a cute little ROBO-XERO humanoid robot with some googly eyeballs. Here, check it out in action:
Funny thing is, this isn’t the only controller that he’s operated his robot with…
Sweet, eh? I wish Nintendo would come out with their own line of robots operated by game controller. Heck, they could even skip the Famicom, and go straight for the Wii U controller. It would be cool if you could pilot a Nintendobot using motion control and get a ‘bots-eye view using the screen. I bet they’d sell at least a few more Wii Us if they started offering Wii U robots to go with. And yes, I know it wouldn’t be the first time Nintendo connected a robot to a console.
At first, you might think what you’re looking at is just a cool illuminated wall sculpture. Well it is that, but it’s actually more. It’s actually a weather forecaster with a tangible user interface.
This interactive LED art was assembled by Instructables contributor and Parsons design student Adiel Fernandez. He built the wall unit using a set of three sconces found at CB2, rigged with a digitally-addressable LED scrip, cut into pieces that he placed into the sconces. His original concept was to simply rig the sconce with flickering LEDs to make them look like candles without the inconvenience of actual candles and flame, but ultimately ended up with a much more interactive pieces.
The wall sculpture is controlled by a small acrylic cube with icons on each side. Inside the cube is a gyroscope, accelerometer, XBee radio and lithium-polymer battery. Rotating the cube to face an icon upwards will switch the LEDs between 6 modes, described in the words of its creator as follows:
Power: “The cube is normally off to save power and will not recognize any commands or orientation. By having the power icon facing up and shaking the cube, the cube is now awake, will pulse the inner light that shines through the icons, and will recognize which side is facing up to allow other modes to be accessed. By spinning the cube while its on and the power side is up, a fun rainbow display is turned on and off.”
Flame: “When the cube is on and the flame side is facing up, the lights in the sconces will glow and flicker like real candle flames (a little difficult to see in the video). By rotating the cube clockwise, the number of candles lit are incremented and likewise, rotating it counter clockwise decreases the number of lights lit.”
High Temperature: “Having this side face up while the cube is on will display the high temperature of the day in red light. The lights will display the first digit of the temperature on the left side by lighting up the number of lights equivalent to that digit. The lights then pause then display the second digit of the temperature on the right side. For example, if the temp. is 47 degrees (like in the video), the lights will show 4 lights on the left, pause, then display 7 lights on the right.”
Low Temperature: “Similar to the low temp side, this side will show the low temperature of the day in a cool cyan hue.”
Precipitation (snow/rain): “This will display the percent chance of precipitation similar to how the other temperatures are displayed in blue. Its a little difficult to tell the difference between the cyan and blue in the video but easier in person.”
Travel (plane around the world): “For a bit of whimsy, I decided to make the bottom of the cube display the temperature of some fantasy destination set by the user in green light. In this case it’s set to Honolulu, Hawaii, hopefully making it easier to bare the cold winter with hopes of a future vacation.”
Here’s a look at the controller cube in action:
And here’s a brief demo of the wall as it lights up:
At this point, the temperature data is hard-coded into the system, but Adiel plans to get it wired up to an internet data source soon. There aren’t too many more details on the build available, but you can see what there is over on Instructables.
Like many of us, animator Kenna W. read about the Dad who hacked Donkey Kong so his daughter could play as Pauline and save Mario. The story reminded Kenna of how, as a kid, she was bummed out that she never got to play as Zelda in The Legend of Zelda. So she made her own wish come true.
Kenna made a custom patch that makes Zelda the hero of The Legend of Zelda. She then used that patch to edit a ROM of the game. Kenna used a sprite editor called Tile Layer Pro to animate and replace Link’s sprites with the Hylian princess’ sprites. Her boyfriend wrote a Python script that allowed her to change the color of Zelda’s dress as well as edit the text on the game’s opening and closing scrolls.
Finally, the moment you’ve been waiting for. Are you ready Zelda fans? Here it is, Kenna playing as Zelda!
This reminds me of the dad who hacked the text in Wind Waker for his daughter. Head to Kenna’s blog to find out more about her patch and how you can experience playing as Zelda as well.
YouTuber Hknssn may be missing a few vowels, but that hasn’t kept him from being awesome. He was able to make a LEGO machine that can automatically take a sheet of paper, fold it into a paper plane and then launch it on its own. In other words, Hknssn made a toy that makes its own toys.
The machine is about 59″ long and 16″ wide. As you might have guessed, Hknssn relies heavily on LEGO Mindstorms NXT parts to make the machine work, including two NXT Intelligent Brains, five NXT servo motors, four NXT color sensors and an NXT accelerometer. It also uses five Power Function XL motors and between 6,000 to 7,000 LEGO pieces. Check it out in action in the video below, which Hknssn hiked up to about three times the normal speed.
Hknssn shared the parts list of the machine on YouTube and a shot of its 3D model on ImageShack, but it seems he didn’t make a guide for building one. He’s probably working on a LEGO machine that can do that for him.
Even today, NES aka Famicom games are still popular with gamers. We’ve seen people come up with a variety of alternative ways of getting their NES fix. You can run an emulator, buy a thirdpartyportable or even hack one yourself. Nintendo Age forum member Silius chose the latter. But instead of portability or a modern design, he chose to preserve his console’s original beauty. Behold!
As you can see, Silius’ custom console looks just like any other NES when “closed”. It even loads cartridges the old way. But then the console can be opened up to reveal an LCD screen inside. Silius console also has built-in speakers so it really needs is a power outlet. Silius did make it so its screen can be turned off, which would come in handy if he ever wants to connect the NES to a TV. Here’s a brief demo of the console:
It’s not as ambitious as Ben Heck’s ultimate console hack, but it’s a nice homage to one of the best gaming systems ever made.
What would you do if you introduced your daughter to Donkey Kong and she was disappointed that she couldn’t be the female and save Mario? Would you just say, oh well, that’s the way it is? Well, Mike Mika wanted his daughter to have the game her way. So he hacked the game.
His daughter wanted to play as a princess in Donkey Kong, like she did in Super Mario Bros. 2. So, like Kirk with the Kobayashi Maru, Mike changed the program and put together a patch that let his daughter play as Pauline, the damsel who is no longer in distress. In fact, she has a mallet, and she knows how to use it.
I’ve been waiting a very long time for somebody to build a single game system which could play all of today’s console games. Well that day is today – courtesy of master modder Ben Heck. For his latest project, Ben has created a single mutant machine that combines a PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U.
Heck’s wood-cased Ultimate Combo System may not be the sleekest and most modern looking thing, but it’s still an impressive build, having combined these three current-gen consoles in a single box. We don’t know too much about the final build other than the picture shown above. However, Ben and element14 have teamed to release a 3-part series chronicling this epic build. Here’s Part 1 for your enjoyment – skip to about 1:25 to get to the meat of the mattter.
Surprisingly, this is the first time that Heck has disassembled a Wii U or the new PS3 super slim, but he digs right in and starts ripping things apart right away, giving us all a glance inside the two most recent consoles. Parts 2 and 3 of the build video will be released on element14 on March 15th and March 23rd, respectively, and will reveal the construction of the case and assembly of all of the components. From what I can tell, the final build will include HDMI switching to a single output, and I’m betting it’ll have a power strip built in so you can plug it in with a single cable – but that’s just conjecture on my part. Personally, I can’t wait to see exactly how the finished thing works.
While I’d assume Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will never collaborate on such a console, you can still get your hands on this one. Those of you interested in the build can enter to win it over on element14 now.
Google presented the Glass’ funny younger brother at the 2013 SXSW multimedia festival. While the Glass was made to act like your butler, the aptly named Talking Shoe is meant to serve as your hype man. What? It’s not like everything Google does has to be useful. Remember Google Wave? Or the Nexus Q? The company has a sense of humor.
As is only appropriate for a talking shoe, its brains are mounted on its tongue. It has a pressure sensor, an accelerometer and a gyroscope to help it detect whether you’re stationary or moving about, and what kind of movement you’re doing. It also has a Bluetooth radio to help it connect to an Android phone or computer. Last, but not least it has a built-in speaker, which it does not hesitate to use. It can also broadcast its comments over the Web if you’re brave enough to allow it.
Google made the shoe in collaboration with interactive media specialists YesYesNo and the wearable tech enthusiasts of Studio 5050. Just in case you’re thinking that the video above isn’t for real, here’s a demo filmed by The Verge straight from SXSW:
The Microsoft Kinect has been hacked to do allsorts of things, and while some of the hacks are for the good of humankind, most are prettysuperfluous. But the Microsoft Research Cambridge team has recently put together a Kinect demo which could provide neurosurgeons with interactive 3D visuals which could help them save lives in the operating room.
The prototype system shows how a Kinect could help provide augmented reality visuals which overlay the patient’s MRI or CAT scan data with the real world. This would allow doctors to move around the patients head and visualize problem areas non-invasively, and to help them map out a better action plan before starting surgery.
The system uses a touchscreen tablet with a Kinect duct taped to the back of it, tied to a custom application through the Kinect Fusion API. In the video below shot by IEEE Spectrum, Microsoft Research’s Ben Glocker demonstrates how the system works:
While this particular system isn’t exactly the most portable, it’s still quite impressive, and you could see how combining Kinect tech with some sort of head-mounted display could really change the way surgery is performed. Now if only they could work out a way that you don’t have to lie in that noisy and claustrophobic MRI machine.
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