Hasta La Gadget!

For panorama-obsessed French photographer Steven Monteau, every photo is better if lengthened or widened with others. For him, even exposing a single, elongated image spanning a good six inches of 35mm film and spilling out across the sprocket holes is not enough. No, Steven would only be happy stretching three lengths of film out in parallel, and shooting onto all of them simultaneously. Still not crazy enough for you? Then why not make it a pinhole camera?

Above you see the result of Steven’s crazed concept, dubbed the Battlefield because it looks like, um, a battleship. It is constructed of cardboard, tape, aluminum foil (for the pinholes), plastic tubes, nails and bottle-tops. The three reels of film run along the length of the box, and its odd shaped ends are due to the three 35mm cartridges being offset to get the film strips close enough together. The results are stunning:

Inside, the mechanics are complex, as you’ll see if you follow the step-by-step tutorial Steven has written for DIY Photography. While one crank winds all three reels forward, and a neat rubber-band-and-nail assembly keeps the film in tension, there are three separate knobs to rewind the film.

I’m not sure what I like most here. The meticulously-made camera, the crude and beautiful images complete with sprocket holes and the mix of different films stocks, or the intricate and detailed illustrations accompanying the how-to. One thing I do know: I want one.

The Battlefield Pinhole Camera [DIY Photography]

Photos: Steven Monteau/Flickr

See Also:

• DIY Card Pinhole Camera Overpriced — We Find Free Version
• Almost Free Pinhole Digicam Hack
• Turn a Flatbed Scanner Into a Giant Camera
• How To Make a Scanner Camera

Continue reading Rovio robot controlled via Skype with Emotiv brain-reading headset

Rovio robot controlled via Skype with Emotiv brain-reading headset originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 04:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Manufacturers want you to recycle old gear when you upgrade, but Kyle Wiens would prefer that you keep your old gadgets and fix them yourself.

Wiens, CEO of repair company iFixit, has remade his gadget-repair website into a collaborative wiki with the goal of crowdsourcing repair manuals for every type of device imaginable. He calls the movement “Repair 2.0.”

“I don’t think we can continue manufacturing new things, consuming them and throwing them away at the rate that we do,” Wiens told Wired.com. “What we’re doing is we’re allowing people to join together and help each other save money, help the environment and care for those things.”

Previously, iFixit was a repair site that posted step-by-step disassembly instructions for gadgets posted by iFixit staff. The company makes money by selling parts (like replacement iPhone screens) that intrepid fixers can use in their repair projects. Later, iFixit implemented a gallery tool for anybody to post an illustrative teardown manual for their gadgets (which Gadget Lab helped introduce with a Sony teardown contest).

Now, the site has repurposed itself into a full-blown wiki for repair manuals, where contributors can collaborate on repair instructions in real time. For each product, iFixit contributors can create individual manuals with instructions for specific repairs (e.g., a manual for fixing the Wi-Fi module in a MacBook, or a manual for replacing a battery in a Samsung cellphone). All the manuals on iFixit will be free and noncopyrighted.

The DIY-repair concept is derived from a longstanding culture of gadget teardowns. Typically, when manufacturers ship products, they don’t publicly disclose full details about their internal parts. Some hardware geeks disassemble electronics to learn more about their components and the evolution of industrial design. IFixit has been an extremely popular site hosting teardowns immediately after a major gadget is released.

Wiens said the next step was to make teardowns beneficial for the environment and consumer culture by repurposing them into easily digestible repair guides. He added that fixing gadgets only increases their value.

“To some extent things have lost their soul, and I think repairing things yourself re-injects some soul and connects you to the stuff that you own,” Wiens said.

See a video of Wiens’ introduction of iFixit 2.0 below.

See Also:

• Gallery: Sony Gadget Teardown Porn
• Teardown Reveals iPhone Camera Could Fit the iPod Touch — Barely
• If You Love Your Gadgets, Tear Them Apart
• iPad Dissection Reveals Its Secret Powers

Photo courtesy iFixit

We won’t even front — we’ve got a thing for visiting National Parks, and in a way, we’re dangerously envious of these fellows who crafted this here BeetleCam. In short, the device is a wildlife photography robot: a four-wheeled, remote control buggy that holds a DSLR, a couple of flashes and enough torque and battery life to power through African wilds for hours on end. After months of testing, building, rebuilding and rebuilding again, the BeetleCam was packaged up and carried over to Tanzania’s Ruaha and Katavi National Parks. During the fortnight-long excursion, the buggy managed to survive being mauled by a lion (sadly the same can’t be said for the Canon EOS 400D) and get staggeringly close to elephants, African Buffaloes and other untamed fauna. Frankly, this is one of the more amazing homegrown gadgets we’ve seen in quite some time, and we couldn’t encourage you more to hit up that source link for the full spill.

BeetleCam wildlife photography secures stellar snaps in the wilds of Tanzania originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I’m a big fan of the RIM Blackberry Bold 9000. It’s a solid-feeling, decent-working QWERTY smartphone with a lovely high-res screen, lots of apps to download, and an excellent e-mail inbox.

It’s not perfect, though. On AT&T’s spotty 3G network, it can drop phone calls faster than “The Bachelor” switches fiancés. Then there’s the trackball–the little rolling wheel that replaced the old Blackberry’s scroll wheel. It’s a lovely innovation that owes much to old-school trackball-based computer mice. Too much, in fact. The newest BlackBerrys feature a track pad. Sadly, I don’t have one of those.

In any case, the phone has been working fine except for the trackball, which has gotten stuck a few times. I’ve been able to move the ball around with enough force that it rights itself, until last week, when the ball would only roll down and from side to side (though not consistently). As a result, I couldn’t properly scroll up though e-mail, documents, websites, and my Twitter feed. I also couldn’t work with most menus. It was like juggling three balls with one hand tied behind my back. So I decided to try to find a more permanent solution.