Apr 04

Lego Ship in a Bottle on Time-Lapse Video

Posted in: Hacks, Mods and DIY, lego, Today's Chili

SS Lego took a week to plan, and three days to build

There are a few ways to get an oversize object through the skinny neck of a bottle. A model ship is made to collapse its masts and sails and then be slid through the open mouth. Once the ship’s inside, you tug on a string to re-erect the rigging. The pears inside bottles of brandy and Poire William are actually grown inside those bottles, and you can see the surreal sight of them hanging off trees in orchards. (Some bargain brandies resort to a screw-off base to the bottle, but that’s cheating.)

When Julia Morley decided to build a Lego ship in a bottle, she did it in the most straightforward, and possibly most frustrating way: one brick at a time, using special long tools to build the model inside the bottle.

The work consisted of using a long, flat-bladed tool, like a miniature pizza peel, to put the bricks into place inside a big (empty) wine jug. A stick with what looks like a Lego Technic joint on the end was then used to push the bricks into place. Best of all, she made a time-lapse video of almost the entire process.

Julia says she took a week to plan the ship, using Bricksmith software, all the while being careful to make sure she could “build it back to front using only bricks that were able to fit through the neck of the bottle.” Building it took three days.

I can only stare open-mouthed at the patience required here. My attention span is so short that I often call out to order pizza when I get bored waiting for my microwave TV dinner to heat up.

SS Lego [MOCpages via Brothers Brick]

See Also:


No Comments
Apr 04

‘Predator’ Smart Camera Locks Onto, Tracks Anything … Mercilessly

Posted in: Hacks, Mods and DIY, security, Today's Chili, video

Zdenek Kalal’s Predator object-tracking software is almost uncanny. Show anything to its all-seeing camera eye, and it will quickly learn to recognize it and then track it, whether it fades into the distance, hides amongst other similar objects or — in the case of faces turns sideways.

It really lives up to its name, reminding us of the Predator’s HUD-enhanced vision in the movie of the same name.

Kalal is a Ph.D. student at the University of Surrey in England, researching projects that make computers see. His Predator algorithm is both fast and powerful.

After telling it what to look for (by dragging a box over the onscreen image) the Predator gets to work. Within seconds it can recognize patterns, objects and faces and track them as they shrink, grow and rotate. When Kalal hides from the camera and holds up a sheet of paper with his photo among a patchwork of thumbnails, Predator picks his face out immediately.

Four minutes might seem like a long time in today’s attention-starved world, but you should watch Kalal’s demo video. It’s worth it just to see him scooting hyperactively around on his office chair.

Keep watching past the credits and you’ll see plenty of other uses, such as tracking individual animals for research, and chasing cars and people across multiple security cameras. It’s not hard to imagine more.

Remember the assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai last year? The Dubai authorities tracked the assassins — probably Israeli Mossad agents — across hours and hours of city-wide security footage. Predator would likely make that a lot easier.

I have another, civilian use for this algorithm. Imagine a Nerf-shooting, camera-equipped aerial drone which could acquire and lock onto targets, and then rain holy hot foam onto them from above. That would be a pretty awesome addition to your office warfare arsenal, right?

Surrey student hailed as computer technology pioneer [University of Surrey]

See Also:


No Comments | Tags:
Mar 30

Video: Machete-Shooting Crossbow Redefines ‘Dangerous’

Posted in: Hacks, Hacks, Mods and DIY, Today's Chili

In the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse of the future, a machete-shooting crossbow will be as practical and everyday as a Leatherman is today. But right now, it is possibly the most dangerous contraption I have ever seen.

Made by Jörg Sprave, who runs The Slingshot Channel on YouTube, the Machete Slingshot consists of a standard head-lopping machete with a notch cut in the blade near the tip. This notch hooks onto the rubber bands on the crossbow, and the machete is held back, cocked, by a slotted wooden block that stops the handle from moving forward. The trigger lifts the handle over this block, and chaos ensues.

As you’ll see when you watch Jörg’s video, this isn’t something you should try at home. During the testing phase he wore nothing more protective than a T-shirt, and he has the livid, bloody gash on his Popeye-like forearm to prove it. Jörg, I think you’ll have to agree, is completely bad-ass.

Keep watching for the bonus video, and the chance to see someone even tougher than Jörg himself: Jörg’s cat. Any animal that hangs around when homemade catapults are being tested deserves our undying respect.

Shooting Machetes with the Slingshot [YouTube via CrunchGear]

See Also:


No Comments
Mar 30

Video: Crossbow-Shooting Machete Redefines ‘Dangerous’

Posted in: Hacks, Hacks, Mods and DIY, Today's Chili

In the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse of the future, a machete-shooting crossbow will be as practical and everyday as a Leatherman is today. But right now, it is possibly the most dangerous contraption I have ever seen.

Made by Jörg Sprave, who runs The Slingshot Channel on YouTube, the Machete Slingshot consists of a standard head-lopping machete with a notch cut in the blade near the tip. This notch hooks onto the rubber bands on the crossbow, and the machete is held back, cocked, by a slotted wooden block that stops the handle from moving forward. The trigger lifts the handle over this block, and chaos ensues.

As you’ll see when you watch Jörg’s video, this isn’t something you should try at home. During the testing phase he wore nothing more protective than a T-shirt, and he has the livid, bloody gash on his Popeye-like forearm to prove it. Jörg, I think you’ll have to agree, is completely bad-ass.

Keep watching for the bonus video, and the chance to see someone even tougher than Jörg himself: Jörg’s cat. Any animal that hangs around when homemade catapults are being tested deserves our undying respect.

Shooting Machetes with the Slingshot [YouTube via CrunchGear]

See Also:


No Comments
Mar 30

Wireless Video Mirroring for iPad 2

Posted in: Hacks, Mods and DIY, ipad, Today's Chili, Wireless

I’d say that AirPlay is one of the best things about the iPad, letting you stream music and video wirelessly to speakers and screen. And I only use the audio version. But what if you want to use the iPad 2’s new screen-mirroring feature without the wire? Then you’ll need to do some hacking.

The mod, done by EGOvoruhk for a client, may not be pretty but it is effective. It uses an HP Wireless TV Connect, Apple’s Digital DVI Adapter and a USB battery, all packed into a custom case that adds a couple pounds to the iPads weight. The components have their own cases removed to fit the custom box.

At the other end, the second part of the HP Wireless TV Connect is hooked up to the display of your choosing.

Thus equipped, you can beam the exact-same video on the iPad’s screen to the big-display for up to two hours (when the battery will run out). EGOvoruhk’s client wanted it for making Keynote presentations, but as you can see in the YouTube clip, it also works great for movies and games.

It may not be the most practical setup in the world (hopefully Apple will add mirroring as an AirPlay option in the future) but it works, and is about the only choice you have if you really, really hate wires.

Wireless Mirroring With An iPad 2 [YouTube]

Wireless Mirroring With An iPad 2 [MacRumors Forums via Reddit]

See Also:


No Comments | Tags:
Mar 28

Hands-On: Banana TV Streams iOS Video, Pictures to Mac

Posted in: airplay, Apple, Hacks, Hacks, Mods and DIY, Mac, Today's Chili

Banana TV enables an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad to stream photos and video to a Mac.

One of the coolest gimmicks of iOS is AirPlay, a button you press on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to stream photos, videos and audio to a huge display connected to an Apple TV. Problem is, you can’t normally use this nifty feature without your Apple TV (or an AirPort Express, if all you want is audio).

Enter Banana TV, a Mac app that allows you to use AirPlay to beam your videos and photos from an iOS device to a Mac. This way, you can enjoy streaming your media onto a bigger screen even if you don’t own an Apple TV.

The best part about Banana TV is it’s seamless. Launch the app and it’s ready to go, so long as your iOS device and Mac are on the same Wi-Fi network. On your iOS device, open any AirPlay-compatible video or photo, and an icon will appear to stream it via AirPlay. Hit the AirPlay icon and boom, the picture is displayed on your Mac.

This will come useful in many scenarios. Say you’re visiting relatives who have a 27-inch iMac, and you want to share photos of your family vacation, stored on your iPhone. Just load Banana TV on their iMac and stream it from your iPhone with AirPlay.

Or let’s say  you give presentations at work, and the PDFs are stored on your iPhone. Just connect your Mac to the projector, run Banana TV, open the PDFs on your iPhone and hit the AirPlay button. Voila — the image will be showing on the projector, and you can swipe the screen to move between PDFs while you’re giving the presentation.

Created by prolific programmer Erica Sadun, Banana TV cost $8 over at BananaTV.net. It’s not available in the Mac App Store, probably because Apple wasn’t cool with people reverse-engineering the AirPlay code, according to Sadun.

“There’s never been anything Apple’s built that I haven’t wanted to reverse engineer somehow,” Sadun said. “I’m sure there’s probably medication for that, maybe therapy.”

Wired.com previously covered Banana TV, which was formerly called AirPlayer, when it was still a work in progress. The near-final version of Banana TV released last week is snappy and fast, as if it came straight from Apple headquarters. It’s a must-have app for any Mac customer with an iOS device.


No Comments | Tags: ,
Mar 25

Kindlefish Turns Kindle Into Worldwide Translator

Posted in: Hacks, Mods and DIY, kindle, Today's Chili

Kindlefish turns the Kindle into a universal translator. Photo courtesy Kindlefish.

The 3G Kindle is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Sure, you can read books on it, but with its web browser, you can also access Wikipedia from anywhere in the world. Until now, though, there was one thing it didn’t do so well — translation. That has been fixed by Kindlefish, made by Gadget Lab reader Nicholas.

Nicholas found that Google Translate is badly suited to the e-reader’s admittedly limited web browser. “Standard Google Translate doesn’t work for the Kindle,” he writes on his blog, “and the mobile Google Translate page returns text that is too small to be easily read, and a little clunky for use on the Kindle.”

To get around this, he wrote a new front-end called Kindlefish, a homage to the universally translating Babelfish from Douglas Adams’ five-part Hitchhiker’s trilogy. The interface is simple, letting you set three preferred languages for quick access, and one input language (English by default). You just type your phrase on the Kindle’s little keyboard and hit the “Translate” button.

Non-Latin text looks particularly good

Kindlefish outputs the translation in very large type, so you can show it to a waiter or storekeeper without having to pronounce anything. Asian alphabets look particularly good on the e-ink screen.

We tested it out, and it works well enough. With the Kindle’s less-than-ergonomic keyboard and the slowness of its browser, though, you’ll need patience to use it. In other words, it’s not going to help you pick up that French cutie sitting across from you in the cafe, but it might help you get a glass of mineral water from the waiter.

If you want to try it out, head over to the Kindlefish site on your Kindle. The site is on free hosting, but if it is swamped by traffic then Nicholas plans to move it to a more permanent home.

Kindlefish – No Muss Translations for the Amazon Kindle [Seattle Flyer Guy. Thanks, Nicholas!]

Photos courtesy Nicholas/Kindlefish.com

See Also:


No Comments
Mar 25

Kindlefish Turns Kindle into Worldwide Universal Translator

Posted in: Hacks, Mods and DIY, kindle, Today's Chili

Kindlefish turns the Kindle into a universal translator

The 3G Kindle is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Sure, you can read books on it, but with its web browser, you can also access Wikipedia from anywhere in the world. Until now, though, there was one thing it didn’t do so well — translation. That has been fixed by Kindlefish, made by Gadget Lab reader Nicholas.

Nicholas found that Google Translate is badly suited to the e-reader’s admittedly limited web browser. “Standard Google Translate doesn’t work for the Kindle,” he writes on his blog, “and the mobile Google Translate page returns text that is too small to be easily read, and a little clunky for use on the Kindle.”

To get around this, he wrote a new front-end called Kindlefish, a homage to the universally translating Babelfish from Douglas Adams’ five-part Hitchhiker’s trilogy. The interface is simple, letting you set three preferred languages for quick access, and one input language (English by default). You just type your phrase on the Kindle’s little keyboard and hit the “Translate” button.

Non-Latin text looks particularly good

Kindlefish outputs the translation in very large type, so you can show it to a waiter or storekeeper without having to pronounce anything. Asian alphabets look particularly good on the e-ink screen.

We tested it out, and it works well enough. With the Kindle’s less-than-ergonomic keyboard and the slowness of its browser, though, you’ll need patience to make the most of this. In other words, it’s not going to help you pick up that French cutie sitting across from you in the cafe, but it might help you get a glass of mineral water from the waiter.

If you want to try it out, head over to the Kindlefish site on your Kindle. The site is on free hosting, but if it is swamped by traffic then Nicholas plans to move it to a more permanent home.

Kindlefish – No Muss Translations for the Amazon Kindle [Seattle Flyer Guy. Thanks, Nicholas!]

Photos courtesy Nicholas/Kindlefish.com

See Also:


No Comments
Mar 23

Wristwatch Turntable Bends Circuits, Impresses Girls

Posted in: Hacks, Mods and DIY, Today's Chili

Wristwatch turntable turns your wrist into a party for more than one

If you ever went into that teddy-bear store down at the mall, grabbed one of the recordable bears and left an obscene message on it, ready to traumatize some poor little kid, you’ll know how much fun can be had with a low-fi digital sampler.

But what about taking one of those samplers and modding it to make it even better (and potentially less damaging for poor, unsuspecting children)? That’s just what Mikeasaurus did over at Instructables, making these amazing Wristwatch Turntables.

There are two “turntables” here, each made from a talking greetings card — one recordable and one pre-recorded. Mikeasaurus wired these chips, along with their speakers, up to potentiometers and put the whole lot inside two furniture-moving disks from the dime-store.

Despite what you’d think, the pre-recorded chip is the most interesting. While the recordable one lets you grab your own samples and play them back with a few buttons poking through the disk, the potentiometer only controls volume. Twisting the disk on the other chip, though, actually does some circuit bending, allowing you to approximate the sound of scratching vinyl.

What I really love, though, is that this is a wrist-mounted instrument. This arbitrary and wholly impractical design decision turns this from a pretty neat circuit bending project into a gadget that will make you popular wherever you go. As Mikeasaurus himself points out, you can “be a DJ Hero with wristwatch turntables!”

Wristwatch Turntables [Instructables]

html


No Comments
Mar 22

Hack Puts Smart Cover on Old, Fat iPads

Posted in: Hacks, Hacks, Mods and DIY, ipad, Today's Chili

Smart Cover on iPad 1 — It’s all done with magnets. And Glue

One of the coolest features of the iPad 2 is Apple’s Smart Cover, that giant fridge-magnet which snaps instantly into place on the front of the iPad and works as both screen protector and stand. Sadly the symbiotic nature of the iPad 2 and the Smart Cover means that it won’t work on the original iPad. Or will it?

The solution is to add your own magnets to that ugly old iPad you can barely stand to look at any more. Over at the The Russians Used a Pencil blog, Dan Provost did just that, and even shot a video of the results.

To line everything up properly, our intrepid hacker took four rare-earth magnets and almost tossed them at the cover’s hinge. There they stuck, twisting themselves until they sat in place. Next, Dan used masking tape to measure where they should sit on the iPad’s left edge, and then stuck them to the flat surface with superglue.

Thus equipped, the Smart Cover can hide the shame that is your big, old, slow first-gen iPad. You can use it as a cover, and as a stand. The one thing is won’t do is to lock and unlock the screen, because the iPad 1 lacks the internal magnet that is needed to detect the cover.

If you’re going to actually glue something to your iPad, I guess you could skip the magnets altogether and just stick the Smart Cover itself straight to the side. On the other hand, this hack means you won’t actually have to buy the new iPad just to get the clever cover, which means you just saved at least $500, just by reading this post. You’re welcome.

Smart Cover for iPad 1 [The Russians Used a Pencil]

See Also:


No Comments | Tags: