Projects involving Conway’s Game of Life and utilizing a Nokia 3310 screen are quite popular with electronics hobbyists. [Droky] put these two together and went one step further by adding capacitive sensors to control the Game of Life. His work is a great example of how to use the Atmel QTouch capacitive sensor (QT100a datasheet). This chip does the heavy lifting that we’ve seen in other touch sensitive solutions. It operates from 2V-5.5V, requires only three capacitors and a resistor, has a one pin active high output, and sells for around $1 in low quantities. One thing [Droky] overlooked…

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Earlier this year we were amazed when University of California researchers controlled a beetle via electrical implants. The video available at the time of the original report showed beetles tethered in place while electrical stimuli was applied via the chip. New video of free flight is has now been posted. Although the motion is rather sporadic, it is obvious that simple commands to start flight, stop flight, and turn left or right are having their intended effect. Check out this cyborg action after the break. Is DARPA one step closer to unleashing legions of insect warriors on unsuspecting masses?…

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Earlier this month Tweetdeck announced that they would begin integrating the full Facebook stream into their widely used desktop application. The new version of the application has now gone live and you can view your entire news feed and then implement filters which limit the content to status updates, wall posts, photos, videos, and custom groups of friends. That means your Facebook feed will now sit right next to your Twitter feed … talk about content overload!

Rather than having to log in to Facebook to find out what’s going on with your friends you can quickly filter through TweetDeck…

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This is Day 30 of the 30 Days to 3,000 Fans program. You can learn more about the program here.
There’s an old proverb which says “He who fails to plan, plans to fail” and while there are people that will debate the importance of planning, mapping out a guide for the next month will make things a lot easier. What blog posts will you be writing? What content will be most effective to drive new fans to your Facebook? What steps will you take to promote your Facebook Page? While we’ve listed 29 techniques to boost your fan base,…

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We’d like to spend some time talking about documenting your project and sharing it with the world. For many, the goal is to become an Internet sensation, hopefully for the right reasons. Taking a bit more time to make certain you do a great job of sharing your information will pay off. Here at hackaday.comwe focus on technological wonders but these guidelines should work well at improving the desirability of anything you might want to share on the interweb.

1. Pictures
Yes, you need to have a picture to go with your project. Even if you did something that…

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Did your battery finally run out of juice? It can be frustrating, trying to replace a watch battery when you don’t know how. Luckily, this simple guide will walk you through it, step-by-step. If you follow these instructions, you should have nothing to worry about.
Step 1: Place the watch, face down, on a soft surface such as a towel. Inspect the rear of the casing, and find a tab-like indentation near the rear-edge of the cover. Use a tool with a wedge-head, something dull, like a butter knife or screwdriver. Shimmy the wedge into the back of the indentation.…

Noting that so many of his electronics are using the mini USB plug for charging, [Xavier] decided to modify his Nintendo DS to charge via the same adapter. It looks like the existing adapter is basically a proprietary mini USB plug, so replacing it was actually almost a perfectly clean swap job. He has nice pictures of the process and some helpful tips as well. If you’re thinking of consolidating your charging devices, this looks like a step in the right direction.

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[Tim] wanted to make some recordings of himself driving similar to those made by the dashboard cameras on police cars.  In a simple two step hack (1. Measure, 2. Drill), he altered his iPhone windshield mount so that it didn’t block the lens of the camera. We will admit (sheepishly) that at first glance we thought this might be connected to the outside of the windshield but it’s not. Take a look at his drive to work after the break.

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