Hasta La Gadget!

Yes, I know that the Amazon Kindle and other e-readers are changing the way many people read. And I chuckled a bit this morning when I heard the news that Google is spending $7 million on a print ad campaign to inform the world of its plan to digitize every book ever written. But when you get right down to it, I still prefer my page-turners to have actual, you know, pages.

Which is why I love the idea behind Icoeye’s clever Save Bookmark, which adds a little online humor to your offline reading. The best part? It’s free. Simply download and print the graphic, cut it out, and [physically] save your page.

Ben Heck‘s at it again, and this time, he’s cobbled together a breath-controlled kick pedal for use with Guitar Hero (or Rock Band, if that’s your flavor) meant for people in wheelchairs, or who don’t have use of their legs, but still want to get in on the rocking action. After tearing apart the kick pedal to expose its piezoelectric sensor, he mods it so that, rather than reacting to physical pressure, it’ll react to air pressure. To get the job done, you’ll need some PVC piping, a hot glue gun, and a drill. Hit the read link for full instructions and video of Ben himself testing out the device!

[Via Hack a Day]

Filed under: Gaming

Ben Heck fashions breath-controlled kick pedal for Guitar Hero originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Mar 2009 23:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Forget controlling things with your mind, hands or feet — how’s about your completely underutilized eyebrows? Without any real output in mind, one Robert Carlsen designed the Brauswtich to give wearers the ability to control any number of things with just an eyebrow raise. Fully endorsed by The Rock, this apparatus contains a digital switch that can be activated when an eyebrow movement forces the tiny slit shut. Details behind the magic have yet to be revealed, but you can bet you’ll see these infiltrating the likes of Spencer’s Gifts, Hot Topic and Loose Lucy’s when it’s good and ready. Naturally, a demo video is after the break.

[Via MAKE]

Continue reading Brauswitch gives you eyebrow control, that Karate Kid look

Filed under: Wearables

Brauswitch gives you eyebrow control, that Karate Kid look originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yesterday we brought you a gallery of home-modded bikes and asked you if you knew of anything crazier. The post was so popular, and we got so many great suggestions, that we decided to go again. The only disappointing part? Of the mountain of suggestions as to the true nature of the "Pizza Bike", none were plausible, despite being very funny. One more thing — far too many of you suggested that it might be a condom carrier. What’s wrong with you guys?

Photo Credit: TheThompsonFive/Flickr

Pub Bike

One of the reasons I ride a bike is so that I can roll back from the pub and not lose my drivers license (although in Germany, oddly, you can lose your car license for being drunk in charge of a bike).

This monster takes it slightly further, putting the pub on the bike. The PedalPub holds 16 people, although only ten of them have to pedal while the others relax. The original is Dutch, but we picked up on the Minnesota version as it was pointed out to us in the comments and also because it highlights an interesting Minnesota law.

According to the PedalPub site, Minnesota State law was amended to allow passengers to drink while pedaling. Here’s the exception:

a vehicle that is operated for commercial purposes in a manner similar to a bicycle as defined in section 169.01, subdivision 51, with five or more passengers who provide pedal power to the drive train of the vehicle

Product page [PedalPub] 

The Poppa Chop

Far too dangerous looking to be practical, the Popa Chop is a chopper built to wheelie. Made by Gadget Lab reader Macbaen, the bike balances on the back wheels of two kids’ cycles. As you can imagine, its almost impossible to steer. In fact, it ended up "attracted to the tree across the street".

Poppa Chop [Macbaenchunk]

The Schloooong Bike

This ridiculous example of bike hacking is brought to you by the Rat Patrol. It’s classed as a Limo Bike, but lacks any frills. The stretch-cycle is, as you’d expect, dangerous — under the listing for Most Memorable Ride we find the following: "Ones where critical bits didn’t fall off!"

Sadly, the Schlooooong Bike is out of action — it was actually stolen, presumably by someone with a sense of humor.

Schlooooong Bike [Rat Patrol]

The Aquaduct

Not a homemade mod, but fantastic nonetheless. The Aquaduct is designed for developing countries where water is both far away and dirty. You cycle the empty bike to the well or river, load it up and, on the return journey the water is pumped by pedal-power through a carbon filter and ends up in the top tank.

The design is still a concept (we first covered it a year ago, but if there’s anything we know about the developing world is that the people are very inventive hardware hackers. Hopefully somebody will build their own.

Aquaduct blog [Aquaduct]

Water Bike Pitches Pedal Powered Purification [Gadget Lab]

Sport Utility Bicycle

Here’s another ute, this time fashioned from two bike frames and one shopping cart. Don’t overload it, though. The maker, called TheThompsonFive, tells us how it rides:

Yeah it’s heavy, but it rides pretty good. The only problem I’m having is that the basket has quite a bit of flex in it, which is a little unsettling going around bumpy turns. I may have to work out some cross bracing. I wonder if they will let me take it into the supermarket.

Photo credit: TheThompsonFive/Flickr

Like many people, Jaya Kumar wanted an e-book reader that was a little more capable than Amazon.com’s Kindle. So he built one.

Kumar’s custom-built e-book reader has a fully capable web browser — it can even handle Google Maps — and the same "electronic ink" display used by the Kindle and the Sony Reader.

"It offers an opportunity to get involved with a disruptive technology
that is at
the tipping point of having a huge impact in the real world," says
Kumar, an embedded Linux developer who lives in Malaysia. "It is also
exciting to be using something that’s cutting-edge but
accessible in an open way so that a hobbyist can take the kit
and manipulate it."

Kumar is one of a community of developers building e-book readers using prototype kits from E Ink, whose paperlike displays power both Amazon’s and Sony’s e-book readers. E Ink’s kits allow do-it-yourself
hackers and engineers to create their own applications and products.

It may not be as pretty as
the neatly packaged Amazon Kindle or the Sony Reader. And at a whopping $3,000, the E Ink kit isn’t going to threaten Amazon’s market share (the Kindle 2 costs $350). But for the Lego-minded, the kits can offer an experience that pre-packaged e-readers will find difficult to beat.

E Ink launched the prototype kits about eight months ago targeted at product designers and hobbyists who want hands-on access to its display technology. The company’s lower power, sunlight-readable, thin displays already power the Kindle and Sony Reader.

The prototype kit offers buyers a production sample of a glass-based display, a display controller and all the hardware and software necessary to produce a
fully functional e-reader. The kit supports 5", 6", 8" and 9.7"
displays.

"The primary advantage is you can take it apart and look at each
individual piece, like a block diagram," says Sri Peruvemba, vice president of marketing for E Ink. "You can do your own design and put together your own device or applications based on our technology."

For e-book enthusiasts, it offers what a Kindle or a Sony Reader can’t. "If
you buy one of those units you won’t be won’t be able to reprogram it to your
satisfaction," he says. "You can’t copy the electronics or change the chipset or use a different software."

The kit is based around the open source Gumstix single-board computer, which combines a 400-MHz Marvell processor
with a Bluetooth transceiver, USB, a serial port and a card reader. (In contrast, the Kindle 2 has a 532-MHz processor and no ports, but does include a built-in wireless access card.) The board comes installed with Linux. E Ink also offers software display drivers that are open source  and sample applications to help developers and hobbyists get started.

The prototype kits are pre-configured to operate as a simple e-book reader. So out of the box, users can download page images from their PC to the included multimedia card and view them on the display with no further programming or assembly.

But the ability to hack and tweak has made it a dream gadget for developers like Kumar.  Kumar has written several drivers for the kit that would make typical Linux applications run transparently on it. "It’s more than just an e-book reader then," says Kumar.

Kumar’s programming efforts allow Fennec, an Mozilla Firefox web browser for mobile phones and smaller non-PC devices, to run on the kit. (See video here.) Kumar can even have Google maps on his e-reader.

So far most of the applications are Linux-based, but there are users trying to run Windows CE and other operating systems on the kits, says E Ink’s Peruvemba.

Earlier this month, product development firm Moto Development Group showed off the first E Ink display powered by the Google Android operating system. (See video here)

The community of DIYers keep the buzz alive on the prototype kits but companies also use them to create new products.

"A number of people are building the next-generation browsing device, tablet PC or handheld," says Peruvemba. "Those devices could run our display and companies want to experiment with it."

Photo: E Ink Prototype Kit Runs Wired Blog/Jaya Kumar