[John] wanted to take a pong clock and put it in a wristwatch form factor. Take an afternoon and pour over his detailed build logs. This multi-year project is done with meticulous cleanliness that makes us jealous. He’s milled the case and buttons himself, achieving a professional look that equals or surpasses the quality of some commercially available “gaming” watches. The project centers around an OLED display driven by a TI MSP430F2013 processor. Don’t miss the video after the break covering prototyping, PCB work, case milling, and the watch in action. Currently, this is the third generation of development…
Hack
Pong on your wrist
Hack
With Zipit, who needs a netbook?
[Hunter Davis] keeps rolling out the hacks for the Zipit. In the past he showed us how to run DOSbox, and then how to get NES emulation working on this tiny device. Now he’s got Linux kernel 2.6.29 running Fluxbox with mouse (newly added), audio, and WiFi functionality. Follow his step-by-step flashing instructions to load the kernel into the Zipit. Once flashed, a partitioned microSD card servers as the filesystem and swap.
Who needs a 10.1 inch screen or an Atom processor when you can get this 2.8″ QVGA beauty with an XScale processor for around $40?
[Thanks Matt]…
Business
Apple updates site with environmental impact
Apple on Thursday updated its Web site with a new section on how its products are impacting the environment.Apple has made public information in several categories including Life Cycle Impact, Product Usage Impact, andProduct Environmental Reports. The company also created a section dedicated to its own environmental updates.Taking a look at the power management section will give you an idea of how extensive the information is that Apple provided. According to Apple, Mac OS X even regulates the processor in between keystrokes, saving power.”Designing green products includes considering the environmental impact of the materials used to make them,” reads Apple’s…
Hack
New Wii drive hardware emulation
The Wii-Optical-Drive-Emulator (WODE) makes it possible to load Wii and GameCube ISO files from an SD card or USB storage device. This hack uses the ribbon cable for the optical drive to connect to the Wii, requiring no soldering. The WODE is based on an ARM9 processor, runs Linux, and features a backlit LCD screen and 4-way center click joystick. Storage can be hot plugged and then an ISO selected using the stick and LCD display. Selected ISO files appear in the game channel as if an original disc had just been inserted into the drive.
The developers claim…
Game
Virtual pool, real-world interface
Sunday we saw robots playing pool and an augmented reality pool game. Today we’ll complete the pool trifecta: virtual pool using a real cue stick and ball in another vintage video from Hack a Day’s secret underground vault. The video is noteworthy for a couple of reasons:
First is the year it was made: 1990. There’s been much buzz lately over real-world gaming interfaces like the Nintendo Wii motion controller or Microsoft’s Project Natal. Here we’re seeing a much simpler but very effective physical interface nearly twenty years prior.
Second: the middle section of the video reveals the trick behind it all, and it turns out…
Hack
Mail-E email checker
[Totoro] sent in this cool little email notification device he made. Using a paper model of Wall-E, he added some servos and connected it to his computer using a PIC. Mail-E has independent arm rotation and head rotation. He admits that the PIC processor is major overkill and plans some upgrades such as making it wireless and using a little better suited chip to control it. Not bad for a proof of concept.
Hack
Zune HD teardown
Our friends over at ifixit are at it again, how they get these devices so early before release and make a complete teardown in time still amazes us. Today they bring us the latest Microsoft media device, the Zune HD. Some features worth mentioning: The astoundingly thin, 1mm we’re talking, OLED screen. The Nvidia Tegra 2600 processor, hinting at 3D game capability. And finally who could forget the 660 mAh battery. But isn’t that 129 mAh less than the iPod touch? Microsoft’s reply, supposedly the Zune HD is using many more low power hardware solutions in this device. Either…
Italian Blogs
Recensione Conceptronic YuiXX: il primo media player Intel Inside
Verrà prodotto da Conceptronic in associazione con Metrological (che fornisce il firmware e i successivi aggiornamenti) il primo player FullHD con tecnologia Intel: Intel® Media Processor CE 3100 SoC capace di riprodurre filmati e applicazione a 1080p @ 60Hz, supportando nativamente le librerie OpenGL ES 2.0 e OpenVG. Esisteranno diversi modelli a seconda dell’hardware con cui [...]
Computer
Nokia Booklet 3G specs
Nokia is my favourite handphones brand. Now, Nokia introduces Booklet 3G ‘mini laptop’. This is first Nokia’s netbook. I think is nice to see a nokia netbook.
Nokia Booklet 3G specifications:
Nokia Booklet 3G comes with premium design with a chassis made from a single piece of machined aluminum (Three different colors at launch: black, ice (white) and azure (blue)). Nokia Booklet 3G uses Intel Atom Z530, 1.6 GHz with Intel Poulsbo US15W, fanless design. The size of this netbook has a thickness (19.9 mm thin), with only 1250 g weight. The Nokia Booklet 3G comes toting a glass 10.1-inch…
Software
Internet Download Manager 5.18 Buil 2
ternet Download Manager has a smart download logic accelerator that features intelligent dynamic file segmentation and safe multipart downloading technology to accelerate your downloads Unlike other download accelerators and managers that segment files before downloading starts Internet Download Manager segments downloaded files dynamically during download process Internet Download Manager reuses available connections without additional connect and login stages to achieve better acceleration performance Internet Download Manager supports proxy servers ftp and http protocols firewalls redirects cookies authorization MP3 audio and MPEG video content processing IDM integrates seamlessly into Microsoft Internet Explorer Netscape MSN Explorer AOL Opera Mozilla Mozilla Firefox Mozilla…
Hack
Mini MAME cabinet
[luis] added to the collection of MAME projects we’ve covered with his mini MAME cabinet build. This is his 5th mini cabinet and features a 5″ PlayStation LCD screen, a joystick, four control buttons, player 1 and 2 start buttons, speakers, and a lighted marquee. The controls are interfaced through an I-PAC and the system running the whole thing is a mini-ITX board with an Atom processor and two gigs of RAM. The build log is in Spanish and takes us all the way from a cardboard prototype to the finished particle board cabinet full of high quality artwork.…
Hack
Happy birthday internet: 5 history videos
National Geographic has pegged September 2, 2009 as the 40th anniversary of the Internet. They do not cite their source and our source doesn’t make the same claim. But, August 30, 1969 is the date the first Interface Message Processor was delivered to the Arpanet. The IMP is what allowed different computer networks to talk to each other and so it follows that September 2 is probably an acceptable date to celebrate.
To commemorate this glorious day we’re sharing some of our favorite History of the Internet videos. Start with the National Geographic video and then take in the…
