Dec 10
The lowly, hand-cranked, stovetop Whirley Pop popcorn maker can be hacked into a bare-bones coffee roaster. Here’s how.
     |
Dec 08
Facebook’s “Like” button could be getting another overhaul. The company nixed the ubiquitous thumbs-up symbol, starting with a rollout at that began a month ago. Now it could be getting a more emotionally complex character in the guise of a “sympathy” button. A Facebook engineer this week told the Huffington Post that some of the […]
Dec 04
While attaching one thing to another is a fairly basic process – epoxy is still a thing, after all – what do you use if you want to occasionally remove that thing from the other thing? The answer? Magnets. And Sugru.
Sugru, the rubbery, self-hardening material that allows you to fix nearly anything, is planning on offering a very simple connection kit for hardware hackers. It comes with four magnets and a bunch of Sugru. To use it you simply create a little mountain of Sugru, stick a magnet inside, and attach it to one surface. Then you do the same for the other surface. Once the material hardens, the magnets will hold your stuff together without slipping.
The kits will cost $16 when the company begins making them this year and they are offering pre-orders now. While this definitely isn’t rocket science – any yutz can buy some magnets – it looks like the folks at Sugru have thought this through and are offering just the right magnets and just the right material for an ideal experience. In short, it looks pretty Sugreat.
Get it?
Dec 03
Brian Krebs has found a fascinating example of a card skimmer – essentially a machine that steals your credit card number – that masquerades as a real POS terminal. The skimmer fits over the ubiquitous Verifone POS reader and even reads key-presses. It is virtually indistinguishable from the actual POS card reader and can be slipped on and off without the retailer’s knowledge – or, more chillingly, with the retailer’s consent.
Should you be worried? Well sure. Your credit cards are approximately as safe in the wild as your cash. If you give your card to someone, the rules of decorum allow you to assume they won’t cheat you. That’s not always the case, and it doesn’t help that the thieves are getting so wily when it comes to card skimming.
Heck, thieves don’t even need skimmers. Sometimes they can simply install new software onto cash registers, giving them backdoor access to all transactions. Here’s hoping none of us get hit this heavy shopping season.
Nov 28
Usually, if you’re building your own synthesizer, you have aspirations of composing the next great techno track. But this kit—available from the Maker SHED for just $20—lets you build a wonderful toy ray gun that generates electronic "pewpew" sound effects. And, instead of just cycling through various sounds like you would with a cheap toy, you can use the gun’s three adjustable knobs to tweak the wub, bwoop, and bip bip sounds however you like.
| |
Nov 26
Convert Images into Vectors
Posted in: Today's ChiliThis article was written on November 09, 2007 by CyberNet.
Original image on the left, vectorized on the right
Have you ever had a photo that you wish you could blow up to a much larger size? Doing something like that would require a vector image, which is a graphic format that has no size limitation. You’re in luck because there is a new service in town, called VectorMagic, that will take your regular images and do its best to convert it into a vector graphic. The conversion process is normally rather quick, and it only asks you a few questions such as:
- What type of image are you uploading? Is it a photograph, anti-aliased logo, or a non anti-aliased logo?
- What is the quality of the image? Is it sharp or blurry?
- Are there less than 12 colors in the original image, or are there more than that?
After it’s done you’ll be able to download the vector image in a variety of lossless formats including PNG, SVG, and EPS.
One thing that I’ve noticed is that starting with a higher quality images will result in pretty good conversions. I intentionally made the Firefox logo above low quality to start with so that I could see what the end result would be. The vectorized Firefox logo was a bit choppy, but it almost looks like artwork to me. When I bumped up the quality of the logo the result was much better, but it obviously has a hard time with shading:
Original image on the left, vectorized on the right
Tip: The bigger and more detailed the images are the more time it will take to process. If you just want to play with this real quick try shrinking down some of your images otherwise you might be waiting for a few minutes to see the results.
VectorMagic [via Lifehacker]
Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com
Oct 29
Sometimes you need to get into a computer without knowing the password. Perhaps you’ve forgotten yours, or perhaps you’re up to no good. Either way, it’s actually pretty easy to do, provided your victim hasn’t taken the necessary precautions. Click one of the links below to find out how to do it on either a Windows PC
Sep 11
Trying to become a real photographer? I know. All that gear that’ll make you legit costs oodles of cash money. Juggling which photo gear you need to buy and which you really need to buy can lead to credit card statement horror. Don’t worry though, DigitalRev has 10 hacks specific to photography that’ll save you a ton of bucks. Sure you might look ridiculous tilting tripods and using egg timers and rubber bands but your piggy bank will adore you more. [DigitalRev via PetaPixel]
| |
Sep 10
Hardware hacking often seems like black magic to the uninitiated, which is why 123D Circuits is so cool: it allows you to learn electronics using a virtual Arduino board and breadboard without blowing up capacitors or burning yourself with solder on your work table.
Created by AutoDesk, 123D Circuits is part of the company’s “sandbox” initiative that offers simple 3D simulators, 3D printing apps, and other tools for beginners and advanced users to take part in the Maker movement.
To be clear I have very little experience in breadboard design and I find Arduino baffling right now (I’m pretty good with my Raspberry Pi, though). However, as an entry-level system for creating circuits as well as electronics design collaboration this thing looks pretty good. You can even print your own PCBs using designs made in the app and it supports Arduino programming using a built-in code editor.
The service is free and upgraded accounts are available for $12 and $25 a month. The lower price point gets you 5% off PCB orders and unlimited public circuits (as well as 5 private circuits.) Twenty-five dollars per month gets you unlimited private circuits.
The app runs in the browser and offers a number of components, pre-made designs, and chips. You drag and drop components from a large library of simulated electronics and then “run” them, simulating the flow of electricity through the designs. In short, it’s like having a RadioShack on your laptop. You can also see other public circuits and play with them on the fly.
Circuits.io isn’t new – it’s been around since 2012 – but these entry-level Arduino tools help improve the product and make it easier for newbs to get into hardware hacking without zapping themselves.
Aug 28
You don’t even need to buy a Roomba lawn mower, all you need to do to rid yourself from the chore of mowing lawns is to make the lawn mower mow itself. How? Be like this guy who strapped his self-propelled lawn mower with rope to a stake in the middle of the yard. The lawn mower ingeniously mows the lawn in smaller spirals as the rope wraps around the wooden stake.
| |
Who's in charge here?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.