Hasta La Gadget!

As the great Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement would say:

0, 001, 001!
Come on sucker, lick my battery!

We’re no experts on translating binary rock ‘n roll into modern day English (or Russian, for that matter), but we’re guessing that the boys from New Zealand would most certainly approve of a guitar pick crafted from recycled motherboards. Etsy member TheBlueKraken seems capable of churning these guys (and many other wares) out in almost any hue of PCB, and at just $7 or $8 apiece, they’re hardly a rip off. In fact, we’d wager that these are pretty much the most awesome stocking stuffers of all time. Boogie, boogie, boogie, robo boogie, all after the break.

Continue reading Guitar picks crafted from old circuit boards spark binary solo revolution

Guitar picks crafted from old circuit boards spark binary solo revolution originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 10:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DIY touchscreen gloves are as simple as a few stitches originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ll freely admit to having a love / hate relationship with Christmas lights and decorations. The sheer gaudiness of it all often turns our “bah humbug” nature inside out, revealing the awe struck “inner child” we hear so much about from people like Martha Stewart and Oprah. Regardless, an artful DIYer’s taken the outdoor Christmas lighting game to the next level. Making use of an ioBridge IO-204 module, an Arduino Wave Kit, an Arduino Duemilanove board, solid state relays, and the Oracle Application Express for connectivity, he was able to get his internet controlled light and music show on the road. Check out the final results — which feature 3,300 mini lights, 3 spotlights, an LED Rope, 4 LEDs, and one magical reindeer — in the video after the break. Hit the source link for full instructions if you want to get in on the holiday action yourself.

Continue reading DIY arduino Christmas lights spectacular turns bad taste into… art

DIY arduino Christmas lights spectacular turns bad taste into… art originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know, there are times when you have to part ways with your adorable kitties at home, and you might not be so keen on getting a cat sitter in case he or she touches your precious game consoles (even if it’s an old granny). We’ve seen the lazy man’s solution before, but Britain’s Mathew Newton has brought us a new DIY internet-enabled cat feeder just in time for a new decade. Rather than using a CD-ROM tray to push-release unknown quantities of cat food, Mathew’s version has a motor-driven cereal dispenser controlled by signal from port status LEDs on a Cisco switch — an ingenious way to avoid expensive Ethernet relay units. When it’s feeding time the user logs onto a web interface to choose the dispensing quantity, or you can also have an automatic feed schedule set up if you trust the system — Mathew said he “can rely on it 100%,” and his cats do appear to be healthy. Fortunately, you can always check the live video stream just in case you have doubts. All is explained in the video after the break.

Continue reading DIY cat feeder now enabled by a Cisco switch, streams food and video

DIY cat feeder now enabled by a Cisco switch, streams food and video originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Guess what, prospective Milestone owners, the Droid’s one major advantage over its Euro cousin has just been coded out of existence by those proactive, un-American XDA Developers. The free Google Maps Navigation service, whose US announcement was so shocking as to decimate the stock prices of satnav purveyors Garmin and TomTom, has now been ported to work outside the land of the free as well. Not only that, but you can use the app on other Android devices, meaning your old G1 can get a breath of fresh air for absolutely free. That is if you don’t count the time it takes you to learn how to insert all the code properly and the risk of bricking your device in the process. But we know our readers eat iron nails for breakfast and fashion elegantly optimized code before lunch, so we expect all of you to be using this by day’s end, you hear?

Google Maps Navigation hacked for extra-American use originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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