• Is that some type of new Kindle?
[Mr C Camacho] picked up an inexpensive digital picture frame hoping to hack into it. He hasn’t had the time to crack open the hardware so that it will do his bidding but he did find a creative way to make it an ebook reader. Using a python script he processes books, creating images of [...]
• Gentle wake up alarm
[Michiel], unsatisfied by his Phillips wake up light, decided just to make his own. He really wanted programmable weekend alarms as well as an easier to find snooze button. At first, his circuit was not reliable enough, losing several minutes per hour, but he gutted another alarm for the 1Hz crystal. After some carpentry, his [...]

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You can download a free copy of Norton Safe Web Lite Here for a limited time during the beta testing phase. Do not worry: just because it says “beta” doesn’t mean the product will be incredibly glitchy. On the contrary, it will still work very well and as intended. Text from their website about the software and how it works to protect you stay away from harmful websites online–

“Download and install the Free Norton Safe Web Lite* beta version to benefit from the site safety markup on Web search results to help you avoid dangerous Web sites. Our servers constantly crawl the Web and test millions of Web sites to determine if the sites are safe before you visit them.
Norton Safe Web Lite helps users stay clear of unsafe Web sites each day. Try it today!”

• Robocup bot places wheels perpendicularly
[Eric] built this robot for the 2009 Robocup Jr. competition. The game ball has IR LEDs inside of it and this little bot uses eight IR detectors for tracking. Four motors mounted perpendicular to each other provide locomotion. Since this would normally have you traveling in circles, he used some omnidirectional wheels walled Transwheels. As [...]
• Hackaday links: February 21 2010
Powerplant control room panoramas:

There are two power plants presented in 360 degree panoramas here. All those dials and switches just get us giddy. The one pictured above was built in 1918 and is still in operation. Not only are the control rooms here, but several other locations around the facility too.
Energy recycling prosthetic foot:

At first, [...]

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• Sausage Gun 19mm
If you are anything like us, you find yourself needing, on occasion, to fling sausages at high velocity. [F00] sent in his solution, the SG19. While the details are glazed over pretty quickly, we get the point. This is basically a smaller diameter spud gun, meant to shoot sausage. While it may not be remarkable in its [...]
• Rube Goldberg FTW
This video was on its way to a links post until we saw the game of chess right in the middle of it (bishop to H5). [Tom] and [Ben] put their Master of Manufacturing Engineering degrees to use by jam-packing every conveyance method possible into a Rube Goldberg machine. There’s violin bows, a polo mallet, [...]

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• High speed video from cheap digital camera
Some researchers from Oxford University have come up with a way to produce high-speed video from a one mega-pixel camera. They’re calling the method Temporal Pixel Multiplexing. This method adds a digital micromirror device in line with the camera lens. These chips house over a million mirrors and can be found in home theater projectors. [...]
• Basement fusion reactor
Do you ever wonder what projects your neighbors have going on in their basements? [Will Jack's] neighbors might be surprised to find he’s building a fusion reactor. The first step toward completing a Farsworth-Hirsch Fusor is up and running. The picture above shows heated plasma contained in a magnetic field. Next he just needs to [...]

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Has your catalyst install manager stopped working? No worries! It’s easy to fix. Check out How to Fix Catalyst Install Manager for how to fix it!

Hopefully this will be of great help to some of you readers, as it is a very common problem that many run into. The solution, as shown on that page, is simplistic and easy to follow so don’t worry — you are not going to be in a boat load of difficulty or anything like that. If you have any questions, leave a comment on that page and you will get a response FAST.

• Now you can record mermaids singing
Buy stock in hot glue, this project corners the market on the stuff. [Leafcutter John] uses the hot goop as his water-proofer of choice when building an underwater microphone (also known as a hydrophone). By installing a couple of piezo elements on one lid of a tin can he is able to record some amazingly [...]
• Robo-vibe
What sounds like a sex-toy is actually the reason these musicians haven’t been practicing. Marv is the MIDI actuated robotic vibraphone built by [Tim O'Keefe], [Michael McIntyre], and [Brock Roland]. Every key has a solenoid positioned below it. The beauty here is that other than four small holes used for mounting, the vibraphone hasn’t been [...]

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• Ultimate flame bait: liquid cooled Arduino
We do so many things around here  just because “we can”. Though this guy cites this as his reason, we somehow can’t help but wonder if he’s doing it just to troll the Arduino hating crowd. He has decided to overclock his Arduino by replacing the crystal and dropping it in some non conductive liquid [...]
• The Mini-Markade
We love arcade games. Who doesn’t? We feel that the “arcade” feeling just can’t be replicated in any other form factor than an arcade cabinet. [Moslevin] must feel the same way too. He has built, what could possibly be the worlds smallest arcade cabinet. Aside from a coin mechanism, it is fully functional. It is [...]

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• Electronic key impressioning
[Barry] shared his postulation on how electronic key impressioning works. You may remember his foil impressioning demo from earlier in the month, but now he’s addressing a piece of news we must have missed. Apparently, a handheld impressioning device is about to hit the market that can tell you the key codes for a lock [...]
• Developing for iPhone serial communications
[Hcgilje] threw together a tutorial on using serial communications in iPhone applications. It builds upon the DevDot tutorial which was posted back in 2007. A lot has changed since then; the firmware has come a long way and there are several development tools that now make things a bit easier for you. His examples use [...]

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• Homebrew MagSafe
[Freeload] sent us his custom MagSafe adapter build for laptops. MagSafe for those unaware is Apples (patented) power adapters that prevent damage to laptops when the cord is accidentally yanked from the socket. While we’ve seen some custom versions before of MagSafes they were usually bulky, ugly, and used a ton of unremovable glue. We [...]
• Hackaday links: February 14, 2010
$30,000?
Is it art or is it a puzzle? Well, it functions as a game but it’s certainly a work of art and priced accordingly. The Superplexus was featured in Make Mazine and Hammacher Schlemmer sells it for thirty grand (you can’t just click to add it to your cart though). Think of the work that [...]

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