Hasta La Gadget!

Want to put your overheating iPhone to some use (other than scalding your cheek as it goes to work in your hip pocket, of course)? Why not try it out as a barbecue grill, “no app required”?

Illustrator Chad Covino tossed off these fun sketches after reading about the hot, hot handsets here on Gadget Lab, and, while rather sardonic, Chad’s idea is a good one. The glass top of the iPhone is wipe clean, like the ceramic cooker hobs beloved of the Lady’s clean-freak mother. And because you’ll have to use the iPhone 3GS if you have any hope of getting your meat past the salmonella stage of doneness, you’ll also benefit from the grease-repelling oleophobic coating.

The only problem we foresee, then, is that the iPhone is tiny in comparison to a real grill, although you’ll probably have space for six chicken nuggets or a very small, reshaped burger patty. And you can even use it as a countdown cooking timer!

No APP required [Chad Covino]

Canon’s June 2nd firmware update for the 5D MkII added much-needed manual exposure control to the video-shooting part of its DSLR, but there is still a long way to go until the camera’s software measures up to its actual picture-grabbing abilities.

Until now, that is. Magic Lantern is a custom firmware addition which can easily be loaded onto the camera to add new features. It is very similar to the CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit), and brings some proper pro-video functionality.

Magic Lantern adds on-screen audio meters for monitoring sound recording levels, “zebra stripes” to show where video is overexposed while actually shooting (very similar to the flashing warning for blown-out highlights on still cameras), on-screen crop marks for alternative aspect ratios (16:9, 2.35:1 and 4:3) and the ability to switch off the troublesome AGC (Auto Gain Control) and control video gain manually. This last apparently reduces picture noise quite significantly.

It’s far from perfect: You need to reload the firmware after the camera is switched off, goes to sleep or you remove the CF card, and you should remove the battery after each use lest the hacked processes continue to run in the background and kill the battery. But these problems should eventually be fixed, and this is at least free and certainly looks fun to play with.

Product page [Magic Lantern Firmware Wiki via DIY Photography]

See Also:

• Canon Firmware Update Adds Manual Control to 5D MkII Video …
• More Stunning Video Shot With Canon 5D MKII DSLR
• Add Features to Low End Canon Cameras: Free
• Hack Adds Hi-Def Video to All Canon DSLRs

Something for the weekend, sir? I have just the thing, and it’s a curious cross between a homemade hack and a precision engineered, purchasable piece of kit.

The Kacey Pole Adapter (or MetalHead, as it has been dubbed by Stobist’s David Hobby) is a small aluminum spigot milled to have a female thread that will marry the thread of a standard broomstick or, better still, a telescopic painters’ pole. The other end of the spigot features a 5/8″ male stud (please, no snickering), which is the standard mount for photo lighting stands.

Why would you want it? Because it means you can pick up pretty much any cheap pole from a hardware store and turn it into a lighting stand. The painters pole version seen in the picture will let you elevate your lighting to a whole new level (excuse the pun — it’s Friday), taking your strobe far enough away to emulate a hard light source like the midday sun, or with the right softening, a rather flattering, wraparound, top-down light.

The MetalHead costs just $19, which is on a par with this kind of equipment. You can grab it from MPEX or pay a little more to get it from the manufacturer.

MetalHead Makes Your Home Depot Boom More Functional, Less Embarrassing [Strobist]

The LongArm and MetalHead – Taking Your Speedlite To New Heights [PixSylAted]

Sure, the catalog of compatible games hasn’t been as hefty as we’d like, but Sony has done quite a bit right with its PlayStation 3 / PSP Remote Play feature. Modder Dashhacker (with special thanks to noted PSP hacker Dark_AleX, among others) has released Open Remote Play v1.1 beta, which lets you take that same Remote Play experience onto your Windows PC or Intel-based Mac. The caveat here is that you’ll still need a PSP handy to set up the application, so don’t go thinking you can bypass the portable altogether. The OS X version apparently works well, but Windows users may ample bugs — it is beta, after all. We haven’t had a chance to try it ourselves yet, but don’t let that stop you from beating us to the punch — just let us know what you think. Alternatively, you can peruse video of it in action after the break.

Read – ORP v1.1 Beta
Read – Google Code project page

Continue reading ORP beta released, brings PS3 Remote Play experience to your PC or Mac

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Laptops

ORP beta released, brings PS3 Remote Play experience to your PC or Mac originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 May 2009 04:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is hacking a netbook to run Mac OS X really worth the trouble? Two tech journalists today expressed grief with their Hackbooks, so I felt like chiming in with my thoughts about my somewhat controversial MSI Wind Hackintosh. In short, my Hackintosh and I have been pals for six months, but it’s been a pretty bumpy ride.

When I first bought my Wind in October, I was thrilled after successfully hacking it to run Mac OS X Leopard. I loved the netbook so much, in fact, that I almost stopped using my first-generation MacBook Pro altogether. To express my delight, I even made a custom wallpaper for my netbook featuring my favorite childhood ice cream flavor (Superman). The Wind was a great companion device: I use an iMac in the office, so when I got home the dumbed-down, lightweight netbook was perfect for web surfing, chatting and general unwinding.

But over time the problems started surfacing. Like Wired.com’s Charlie Sorrel, I grew to despise the Wind’s dinky trackpad: Whoever designed it had in mind an infant’s hands; navigating became so tiresome that I started carrying around an external mouse to make it tolerable.

Second, the software issues. Seeing as this netbook was hacked to run OS X, of course it didn’t work perfectly. I accepted that, and with some tweaks I got most software utilities working properly. But while I was traveling in Europe, my netbook’s Wi-Fi suddenly stopped working. The Airport utility simply wouldn’t light up, and I discovered a few fixes that worked temporarily, only for the connection to fail again. As you can imagine, a netbook without the net in a foreign country was a huge drag — a piece of useless plastic added to my luggage. I ended up barely using my netbook during my trip, and I instead heavily relied on my problem-free iPhone.

When I returned home, I completely reinstalled OS X, and Wi-Fi worked once again. And then the hardware issues kicked in. Minor ones, actually: Screws at the bottom of the clamshell kept falling out, even after I screwed them in as tightly as possible. I inspected the case more closely and realized it no longer clamps all the way shut, which is why the screws aren’t staying in. This issue was probably a result of cheap plastic or shoddy clamshell design. Unfortunately this created another annoying problem: The battery kept popping out of the case ever so slightly — just enough to shut off the computer whenever I nudged the netbook. I eventually resolved the problem with some double-sided tape, but I wasn’t happy about it.

Given all these issues, I became pretty jaded about my netbook — hence my lack of mentioning it here at Wired.com in recent months. I ended up selling my MacBook Pro and buying the latest unibody model refurbished, and now I rarely use my netbook. So unfortunately, I have to agree with Dave “MacSparky” Sparks and The Unofficial Apple Weblog’s Steven Sande, who both grew frustrated with their Dell Mini 9 Hackintoshes. It’s a fun hacking project, but it’s like the fixed-gear bicycle you built but left sitting in the garage, because over time you realized it was too impractical.

Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com