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• Optimizing code for PWM efficiency
  For some projects, it’s okay to have a microcontroller twiddling it’s thumbs most of the time. When a project requires the cpu to do just one thing over and over, there’s no loss with inefficient code – it either works or it doesn’t. However, if a project requires a microcontroller to do several things at [...]
• Japanese maid mods a furby
  This video has been floating around the web recently and we thought that some of you might enjoy it. After a quick google search, we found out that this is [Julie Watai], a singer/model who also enjoys hardware modification. In this video, she’s doing a tutorial on how to circuit bend furbies. No, we have [...]
• Bluetooth media remote in an N64 controller
  [Phik] wrote in to share his very first microcontroller project with us. He built a bluetooth remote in an old Nintendo 64 controller to control an audio application on his computer. He had been building up the individual modules with the controller in mind for some time, but initially had no idea what kind of [...]
• Emulating a marching band with wearable instruments
  [Scott] is a design and technology master’s student who just came up with The Imaginary Marching Band – virtual band instruments you can wear on your hand. Taking inspiration from Minority Report and the NES Power Glove, the system is able to emulate 6 instruments at this point – A trumpet, trombone, tuba, snare drum, [...]

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• Stress testing robots…with baseball bats
  When you are working on constructing the first Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 prototype a super-robust robotic arm, you’ve got to test it somehow, right? You probably recognize the robot being abused in the video below, as we have talked about the construction of its hand once once before. The German Aerospace Center has been working [...]
• USB Geiger counter hack
  [Vic] bought a Kvarts DRSB-01 Geiger counter a few years ago, and recently dug it out of his electronics stash. The counter is a run of the mil no-frills unit. It lacks any kind of LCD display and it cannot be calibrated, so Sievert exposure ratings are out of the question. The unit essentially monitors background [...]
• Adding MIDI to a very old drum machine
  Long before drum machines played samples from an SD card or EPROM, drum sounds were analog – just filtered waveforms and noise. To the modern eye, these are very primitive machines, but for [Andrew], they’re the inspiration for this brilliant hack. [Andrew] took a Roland CR-68 drum machine from 1978 and added MIDI input with the [...]
• Using Google’s ADK on standard Arduino hardware
  When we heard that Google’s open accessory development standard was forthcoming, we were pretty excited. However once we heard that the reference hardware kit was going to cost nearly $400, our thoughts changed to, “Surely you can’t be serious.” Well, Google is dead serious (and we hear they don’t take kindly to being called Shirley [...]

If you like solid state drives (ssd) for computers then you may be shopping for an OCZ Vertex hard drive. It has great benchmark test results and happy user reviews after all and may possibly be the best ssd on the market right now for your PC or laptop. But there are multiple versions. You may have to check out OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS Edition Vs Regular Edition for the specific details and compare the two series / versions before buying it. You’ll see the differences between the two models for each size:

OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 120GB Versus Vertex 3 120GB Regular (VTX3MI-25SAT3-120G Versus VTX3-25SAT3-120G)
OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 240GB Versus Vertex 3 240GB Regular (VTX3MI-25SAT3-240G Versus VTX3-25SAT3-240G)

Some ssd drives are prone to errors because of their nature, not to mention some are from a bad batch. If your OCZ Vertex has any problems, then I’d check out OCZ Vertex 3 Crashing, Freezing and Stalling Fixes for tips / solutions / guides to fixing it. These tips generally work for other SSD models too just FYI so if you have a different ssd model in your computer or laptop or even netbook, then you can apply these tips too (except for the ones pertaining specifically to the Vertex 3). An example tip is messing with the LPM

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• chipKIT Max32, an Arduino Mega upgrade with a PIC32 under the hood
  For those of you who are looking to put some power behind your Arduino shields,  Digilent just released their chipKIT Max32 prototyping platform. The board  features a Pic 32 microcontroller, USB programmer and all the things you would typically expect from a development board. The PIC32MX795F512 is a  32-bit MIPS processor core running at 80Mhz, [...]
• Plastic Plate Capacitors
  We have been featuring some home made capacitors this week, and [Mike] wrote in to share his with us. While rolled capacitors are nice, they can be somewhat difficult to construct and grow to unwieldy sizes as capacitance and voltages increase. His solution is to stack the layers up using plastic plates. In this forum [...]
• Papercraft flowers teach kids about batteries
  [Emily Daniels] has been teaching interactive electronics workshops geared towards children for some time now, recently holding a session that demonstrated how batteries work in a pretty novel fashion. She wanted to keep things safe and simple due to the class size, so she didn’t want to rely on using soldering irons for the demonstration. [...]
• Macetech is looking for a few good Processing programmers
  [Garrett Mace] wrote to us in hopes of finding a few good programmers to help him out with a project he’s been working on for Maker Faire Bay Area 2011. More specifically, he is looking for Processing programmers who are also pretty decent with graphics. Macetech’s big project for this year’s Maker Faire is a [...]

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• Google? In my lightbulbs? It’s more likely than you think
  With the recent announcement and release of their ADK, it was only a matter of time before Google started invading your home in a big way. From the looks of it, Google will be jumping into the home lighting market very shortly, which could prove to be quite interesting. Partnering with Florida-based Lighting Sciences, Google is [...]
• GSM-to-Skype bridge lets you lose those roaming fees
  Here’s the scenario: you’re going to be traveling somewhere and you’ll be charged roaming fees if you use your cellphone. But there is free WiFi available in this place. You can save yourself money by leaving your SIM card at home and using a GSM-to-Skype bridge to take calls on your phone via WiFi. [Trax] [...]
• Touch-based synthesizer is a wiring nightmare
  [Jane] wrote in to let us know about the touch-based synthesizer she and her classmates just built. They call it the ToneMatrix Touch, as it was inspired by a flash application called ToneMatrix. We’re familiar with that application as it’s been the inspiration for other physical builds as well. A resistive touch screen in the [...]
• Adding power trim to a boat
  [Matt's] boat had a trim plate that could be adjusted by hand. The problem with this setup is that the trim angle of a boat changes as you speed up or slow down. Last year he never really went over 35 MPH because of this issue, but he set out to correct that by adding [...]

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• DIY sound localization sensor
  Sound localization is very popular in law enforcement circles due to its accuracy and ability to quickly separate gunshots from other similar noises. These systems don’t come cheap, and after trying to build one himself, [Fileark] knows why. He thought it would be neat to build a sound localization sensor based on how the human [...]
• Open Source Linear Bearing System
  While we normally don’t make it a habit to feature Kickstarter projects, we couldn’t pass this one up. [Barton Dring] from BuildLog.net is putting together a project called MakerSlide that we’re sure will interest many of you out there. Through his various CNC builds, he has found that one of the more expensive and frustrating [...]
• DIY portal turret is… looking pretty good.
  [Ryan Palser] wrote in to tell us about his Portal Turret. [Ryan] set about making this Portal 1 style turret by first carving a Styrofoam form, bondo and waxing then casting molds of the various components. Anyone interested in mold making (like us) should check out all the pictures and comments in the stream. The [...]
• Human-powered quadcopter flies live tomorrow
  A team from the University of Maryland will be taking their human-powered helicopter to the air tomorrow. The current flight record for this type of vehicle is just over 19 seconds of flight at a height of about 8 feet. What surprises us about this attempt is that they’re not pedaling just one main rotor. It [...]

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• FBI tracking device found; disassembled
  [ifixit] has apparently grown tired of tearing apart Apple’s latest gizmos, and their latest display of un-engineering has a decidedly more federal flair. You may have heard about Yasir Afifi’s discovery of a FBI-installed tracking device on his car back in October of last year. Apparently, the feds abandoned a similar device with activist Kathy [...]
• Double barreled air cannon
  [Jeremy] wrote in to show off his latest creation. he has built a two barrel pneumatic air cannon. Eschewing the traditional approach of having a single barrel and pressure chamber for his spud gun, [Jeremy] wanted to have a double barreled version. Since he was doing this pneumatically, he had to rig up a way [...]
• Jeri Ellsworth’s shooting gallery
  Back with another interesting vidoe, [Jeri Ellsworth] once again brings us an amusing and educational hack. This time she’s made a “shooting gallery” in the style of the old arcade games that actually used projectiles. In her version however, she’s using LEDs in the targets which are detected by the gun.  In an effort to [...]
• A friendly spiderbot named Chopsticks
  After seeing his fair share of hexapod-style bots on the Internet, [Russell] decided he wanted to build one of his own. One of the downsides to building these robots is the cost. He often saw them constructed from laser cut parts and very expensive servos. Rather than blow hundreds upon hundreds of dollars on the [...]

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• Synkie: the modular synth for video
  The folks at [anyma] have been working on an analog video processor called Synkie for a while now, and we’re amazed a project this awesome has passed us by for so long. Like a Moog or Doepfer synth, the Synkie was developed with modularity in mind. So far, [anyma] has built modules to split and [...]
• Learning electronics concepts step by step
  We realize that not everyone out there holds a degree in electrical engineering or has the ability to tell NPN transistors apart from PNP transistors by taste alone, so we occasionally like to mention things that appeal to the beginners in the crowd. While there is a clear division between Arduino supporters and detractors, it [...]
• Generating music with credit cards
  [Steve] was browsing around at a local electronics surplus store when he spotted an old Tranz 330 point-of-sale terminal that seemed pretty interesting. He took it home and after disassembling it, found that it contained a Z-80 based computer. Because the 330 shares the same processor as other hobbyist-friendly devices such as the TRS-80, he [...]

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• Photon Banner
  The Revision 2011 demo party that brought us” table for two” a little while ago along with some super demos for PC’s, retro, and state of the art, has also brought us the Photon Banner(google translate). The Photon Banner is a 96X24 led matrix that was made with (of course) 2304 5mm leds, and a [...]
• Rebecca Black running accessory also promotes running for everyone within earshot
  Last Friday, Friday we caught wind of [gvillenave]‘s running accessory inspired by Rebecca Black, and we we we so excited, we so excited to bring this to you on Saturday, which comes after Friday. [gvillenave] came up with the idea of using a song on the annoyance level of “Friday” to encourage a runner into keeping [...]
• Digital picture frame reverse engineering
  A few months ago [Jason] got his hands on a free Coby DP700WD digital picture frame and thought it would be fun to hack. After realizing that the frame did not run any sort of Linux-based OS he figured his options were pretty limited, but he gave it a shot anyways. The frame came with [...]

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• Miniature PC packs a big punch
  We are always looking out for smaller yet capable computers for our projects, and this newest offering by [David Braben] is looking mighty nice. [David] is the head of a UK-based games studio, but has recently been focusing on bringing small, affordable PCs to classrooms around the world. The computer, called Raspberry Pi,  is about [...]
• Advanced robotic arm control using Kinect
  [Ryan Lloyd], [Sandeep Dhull], and [Ruben D’sa] wrote in to share a robotics project they have been keeping busy with lately. The three University of Minnesota students are using a Kinect sensor to remotely control a robotic arm, but it’s not as simple as it sounds. Using OpenNI alongside PrimeSense, the team started out by [...]
• Improve charlieplexing performance with interrupts
  [Dmitry] was shopping for LEDs and accidentally pulled the trigger on the wrong type. Since he didn’t want to be wasteful, he figured he should at least take the time to build something with them. A LED matrix display was the obvious project choice, but he only had a PIC16F688 at his disposal. Since the [...]
• USB Minecraft portal
  [Sprite_tm] had heard some time ago that middle of the road Nokia phones had some really interesting LCDs, they are 2.4 inch TFT’s with 320×240 resolution. He immediately got 3 beccause they are pretty low cost as well, and started working with them. Apparently these LCDs are self contained, meaning they have all the driver [...]