Hasta La Gadget!

It’s not hard to find a good inductive charging smartphone these days, but German IT student Qian Qin absolutely had to have the feature on his Galaxy S Plus. What’s more, it needed to be just right: no voiding of the warranty and no unsightly protrusions. So, instead of bumping his gums, he went out and purchased a Palm Pre back cover and a Touchstone dock for €30 ($40), ripped the charging circuit out of the Pre cover and stuck it into the Samsung’s cover, then finally soldered a wire from the circuit to the micro-USB port (plus another wire to the microSD slot for 0V). Job done. At first, the mere mention of a webOS device gave us a twinge of sadness, but then the video after the break cheered us right up again — you can tell within the first six seconds that this guy is a pure OCD perfectionist. You’ll also find more detailed instructions at the source link, and they should work equally well for the original Galaxy S too.

Continue reading Mr Fussy mods Samsung Galaxy S for inductive charging, without frazzling warranty (video)

Mr Fussy mods Samsung Galaxy S for inductive charging, without frazzling warranty (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Sep 2011 19:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wooden Sega Saturn laptop sits nicely on your antique dresser originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 02:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You can make your iPhone match your MacBook with a glowing Apple logo. Image: iPatch

I find the mirrored Apple logo on the back of the iPhone 4 to be convenient for the occasional “Has my makeup melted?” or “Is there food in my teeth?” check. If it weren’t for that, I’d definitely be interested in a cool mod like this glowing Apple logo.

This iPhone 4 mod, from British iDevice repair service iPatch, sets the Apple logo on your phone aglow whenever the screen lights up, much as the logo on a MacBook lights up when opened. From the pictures, it looks pretty slick.

How iPatch accomplishes this is “a complete secret” and “very tricky to replicate,” says Andy Smith, the director of iPatch.

“It’s not something that could be done at home without specialist equipment,” he says.

The process takes a few hours. It uses your iPhone’s original rear case, so your phone isn’t any thicker when the mod is complete. You can choose the color of your glowing Apple, and it can be done to black or white iPhones.

This isn’t the first time the iPhone’s logo has been set ablaze. In 2008, a Russian iPhone hack achieved the same thing, using software that allowed you to adjust the intensity of the glow. Other notable appearance-altering iPhone mods include a solid Titanium 3GS backplate, a sleek (and cheap) brushed aluminum back cover for the iPhone 4 and an iPhone fitted with a QWERTY keyboard.

“Interest so far has been immense,” Smith says, citing about 40 tweet requests and countless phone calls and emails. “We tend to just do general repairs but this mod was spawned from another we were working on at the time.”

In case there’s any doubt, this mod definitely voids your warranty but Smith says it is reversible, should you have a change of heart at some point in the future.

The mod will run you between £50 and £100 if you’re in the U.K. (that’s around $150 U.S.). If you can’t hop across the pond to the company’s shop, you can mail your iPhone for modding.

Pricing for that shipping option hasn’t been released yet, but you can check the company’s Twitter account for updates.

via Cult of Mac

Oh, look — it’s Pixar’s iconic lamp brought to real-world Frankenlife. Okay, not really, but the automated, voice-enabled mod is as close to the movie studio’s icon as a hacking kit and five euros in a Swedish furniture store can get you. The prototype, lovingly named “The annoying IKEA lamp” or SM-1, is ArduinoArts’ finalist entry for SeeedStudio’s Grove Toy Kit contest. Headed by industrial engineer Javier Lander, the project weds two servos (one in the base and one in the lamp), sensors for motion and sound, a three axis accelerometer, LED light and audio board to an Arduino shield, springing the modjob to programmed states of alarm and irritation. We commend Javier for eschewing the cutesy road well-traveled, and giving the mundane desktop light a grumpy, old man makeover. Click on past the break to see this curmudgeonly office accessory in action.

[Thanks, Javier]

Continue reading Arduino hack imitates Pixar’s living lamp, disses IKEA in the process (video)

Arduino hack imitates Pixar’s living lamp, disses IKEA in the process (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, we’ve all thought about how nice it would be to have our PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles in the same enclosure. But, as many similar thoughts go, we left it at that. Not content with letting a good thought simmer, Reddit user timofend accepted the challenge and built himself a gaming mega-machine — he stuffed the new slim model of Microsoft’s console into a PC tower alongside an older 80GB PS3. Looking to save some funds in the process, the über-gamer skipped out on a liquid cooling system — but he notes that when both machines are running simultaneously, they each hover around 100 degrees Farhenheit (38 degrees Celsius). Hey, we’re not complaining… but really, timofend, can we please see a NES / Dreamcast / O.G. PlayStation combo in your next masterpiece? To take a peek under the hood, hit the gallery below.

Gamer stuffs PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles into one case, clears shelf space for the trifecta originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Sep 2011 08:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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