Hasta La Gadget!

Even though iOS has gone through six major revisions, multitasking remains one of the weakest facets of Apple’s mobile devices. A clever designer has set out to change all that and designed an app switcher that is still simple and easy to use but is far more useful than Apple’s approach. Now his design has been realized as a jailbreak app.

The Auxo app switcher was conceptualized by The Verge forum member Sentry. When the user summons the app switching interface, Auxo shows a preview window for each running app, along with their icons and names. You can then swipe down on an app to close it; you can even swipe on two apps at the same time to close both of them. As if that wasn’t enough, Auxo also improves on the playback interface and provides easy access to the most commonly toggled settings. Watch this video made by iDownload Blog for a demo:

Sentry originally designed Auxo to take advantage of the longer screen of the iPhone 5, which is a bit cruel because it’s a jailbreak app since up until now there hasn’t yet been a proper jailbreak for the iPhone 5. Those of you with other jailbroken devices running iOS 6 can get Auxo from the Big Boss repository on Cydia for just $1.99 (USD). The rest of us can only hope that Apple hires Sentry and his developer colleagues and make Auxo part of iOS.

[via The Verge via Redmond Pie via QuickJump]

Back in 2008, Daniel Jansson designed a concept mouse based on the NES controller. Instructables member champx turned the concept into reality and made a wireless mouse that actually uses parts from an NES controller.

As you can see, the champx’s mouse doesn’t look exactly the same as what Jansson imagined, nor is it as polished, but it’s still pretty awesome. As you might expect, champx used a couple of NES controller buttons for the left- and right-click mouse buttons, and a NES controller D-pad as a scroll wheel. Champx used the base of the original mouse, then made the new body out of Makrolon, a brand of polycarbonate. Next, imagine a montage of champx gluing, hacking, sanding and painting set to the music from Punch Out, and voila!

Head to Instructables to see how champx made the mouse. Surprisingly this is actually his third take on a NES controller mouse. He also posted his other builds on Instructables; his first build is literally the entire NES controller itself used as the body of a mouse.

[via Damn Geeky]

A few months ago we saw how a smart guy figured out how to make small 3D printed records that could be played on a toy turntable. Instructables employee Amanda Ghassaei has trumped that hack: she figured out how to 3D printed records that can be played on any turntable, just like an ordinary vinyl record.

Whereas the audio on the 3D printed toy records had to be input note by note on a custom software, Amanda was able to write a program that automated the process in a very precise manner: “It works by importing raw audio data, performing some calculations to generate the geometry of a record, and eventually exporting this geometry straight to the STL file format (used by all 3D printers).” Sadly, even the high-end Object Connex 500 printers at the Instructables office were unable to encode the geometry at a resolution high enough to create a high quality record. But the fact that even this is now possible is still nothing less than mind-blowing.

Wow. 3D printing hardware’s only going to improve in time, so I’m sure Amanda can eventually recreate professional grade records should she pursue it. Once again we’re seeing people using current technology to go back to a more physical and tactile interaction with gadgets. 3D printing is the bee’s 3D printed knees. Check out the links below for more details on Amanda’s project.

[via Instructables & Amanda Ghassaei via I Heart Chaos]

Master modder Ben Heck recently finished a Holiday hack that could help the young ones stay behaved. I say could because as we all know how utterly wild these creatures known as “children” can be. But if your little loved ones are still spellbound by the concept of Santa, they could be controlled with Ben Heck’s Naughty or Nice Meter.

In keeping with the Holiday theme, the gadget is officially named Self-Aware Niceness Tester, Analog or S.A.N.T.A. for short. The idea is to have a meter that can magically update in real time to show kids how naughty or nice they’re being. Even though the meter itself is fairly large, the box only contains a TI Launchpad microcontroller, a Bluetooth module and a servo that moves the needle.

The magic happens in the companion mobile app, which was made by Ben Heck’s buddy Jesse Robinson. The app’s interface looks exactly like the dial of the meter; touch a spot on the app and the meter moves accordingly. You can see it in action over on episode 39 of The Engadget Show, which also contains a bit of trivia about and lots of useful tips from Ben Heck.

It’s a naughty way of keeping the peace at home, although knowing how savvy kids are with gadgets, I’m pretty sure this won’t work for long.

[via Engadget]

The Internets is currently amused-shocked-enraged-leaving enlightening comments about dogs that have been taught to drive. I think it’s time we show some love to Pepper the parrot and his one-of-a-kind ride, the BirdBuggy.

The BirdBuggy was made by University of Florida student Andrew Gray. It has a joystick that Pepper can move with his beak, propelling him along the sidewalk.

I’m not sure if Pepper is entirely sure of what he’s doing; fortunately Gray installed a couple of safety measures on the BirdBuggy. The thin lines in front of each front wheel are bump sensors. If they hit something, the vehicle will quickly back away. There’s also an infrared sensor up front; if BirdBuggy detects an obstacle, it won’t move forward even if Pepper pecks the joystick to death. Finally, the BirdBuggy can dock on it’s own, using its camera and a color-coded base station as its guide.

Maybe the perch should be mounted sideways so Pepper can keep his eye on the road.

[via Reddit]