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December 31, 2008

A lightbox built with love

Sadlightbox

My pick for best gift of '08, Boris writes -

My sister suffers from seasonal affective disorder, also known as winter depression. A commonly prescribed therapy is light therapy - about thirty minutes of bright light in the morning. Bright in this context means more than 10 000 Lumens. You can of course buy commercial light-boxes, but I wanted to construct one by myself...

What a good brother, truly heartwarming. He even cared enough to share his build process ;)

41Oxzsqst1L
Wow, this is crazy - a few folks emailed us and said all the 30GB ZUNEs in the world all stopped working at the same time (today) it seems that there might be some type of date bug with them (Z2K9)? Some folks are reporting that taking their ZUNE apart and unplugging the battery and re-plugging it in works, but it's a bit unclear what's going on.

ZUNE meltdown.
ZUNE frozen.
Z30s frozen.

Pedal power to light up Times Square New Year sign

Duracell.480
Pedal power to light up Times Square New Year sign...

The ritual dropping of the ball in New York's Times Square on New Year's eve, seen on television by millions around the world, is becoming a bit greener than in years past.

The 2-0-0-9 sign that will light up when the New Year's ball finishes its descent will be powered by batteries charged by people pedaling on bicycles.

"This is our way of involving consumers in the whole process of powering the 2009 lighting when the ball drops on New Year's Eve," said Kurt Iverson, spokesman for Duracell, a unit of Procter & Gamble Co and which supplied the batteries.

Duracell has set up a "power lodge" in Times Square where visitors are ushered to a row of bicycles with generators connected to a set of massive batteries.

So far the project has collected 95 hours of pedal power, or about 35 percent of the total needed, Iverson told Reuters.

The power is generated from old-fashioned rotary technology -- pedal power and spinning wheels.

PHILIPS LIGHTING provided the new solid state lighting technology for the Ball, resulting in an astounding increase in impact, energy efficiency, and color capabilities. Capable of creating a palette of more than 16 million colors and billions of possible patterns, the 32,256 Philips Luxeon LEDs in this year's Ball represent more than three times the number of LEDS used last year, to deliver a brighter and more beautiful New Year's experience than ever before. And this year’s Ball is 10-20% more energy efficient than last year’s already energy-efficient Ball, consuming only the same amount of energy per hour as it would take to operate two traditional home ovens.

More:
New Year's eve ball.
Ringing In 2009 with People Power.

December 30, 2008

iPhone 3G software unlock

The friendly iPhone Dev Team hackers have been hard at work over the holidays and have promised to release the iPhone 3G software unlocking utility, called yellowsn0w, sometime tomorrow for New Year's Eve.

A few details from the iPhone Dev Team blog:

We have been working hard on a few other things. The main one being the 3G unlock codenamed "yellowsn0w". This is now completed and is currently being packaged into a user-friendly application with the simplicity that you see in QuickPwn or BootNeuter.
The target release date for the unlock is New Year's Eve 2008.
This unlock method is available to iPhone 3Gs that have 2.11.07 baseband or earlier, we did warn you.
You can tell what version baseband you have by going to Settings->General->About->Modem Firmware
The unlock requires a jailbroken 3G iPhone. It'll be installable via Cydia and so it doesn't matter if you have a Mac or PC.
Please refrain from updating your baseband, regardless of what version you're at.
We'll have complete directions on New Year's Eve.
We'll stream a live demo of the unlock before Christmas (see the update at the end of this post)

The software exists, as you can see from the video above, which was released last week, so I'm pretty confident we'll see the release as promised. From what I understand, the software is non-invasive and needs to be run every time the phone is booted, which will be executed during boot and invisible to the end user.

You do need an un-upgraded <2.11.07 version of the baseband, and for the near future you'll have to be careful not to upgrade it if you want to keep your phone unlockable. If you want to upgrade your phone but not kill the possibility of unlocking it, the team has some information on using PwnageTool to upgrade the iPhone firmware while keeping the baseband firmware intact. If you've already updated your baseband, consider yourself stuck with AT&Tuntil a new hack comes along.

Dev Team Blog (watch here for updates)
Original yellowsn0w Announcement
yellowsn0w Preview Demo

HOW TO - Tap a phone

Make Pt1549
How to tap a phone - Mechanix Illustrated, March 1957 - fun for the whole family.

THERE are many ways to tap a phone; most of them against the law. Our little gadget, however, is quite legal and can be used to great advantage at home or in the office.

Basically, the unit consists of a pickup coil, an amplifier and a speaker. The pickup coil is placed under, or near, any transformer-type telephone without being in physical contact with it. As the electrical currents pass through the phone, part of the energy is induced into the pickup coil. This energy is fed into the amplifier where it is amplified to the point where it will operate the loudspeaker, enabling everyone within range to hear what is being said at the other end of the telephone line. This will come in handy when some relative is calling long-distance; your whole family can hear what he is saying. Or, in the office, the whole staff can hear a salesman’s report. There are other uses for the pickup, limited only by your own imagination.

Papercrete and aluminum can wall

Here's a basic, introductory papercrete project: save some newspaper and soda cans from the garbage / recycling, add a bit of cement, and end up with a funky cool wall! I've also seen walls of this style with glass bottles instead of aluminum cans. I believe there's less of a recycling market for glass than aluminum, but you'd have to go a few inches thicker on the wall to match the bottle's height...

Top contributors and top tags for the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Make Pt1530
2008 was a big year for the MAKE: Flickr photo pool there are over 4,527 members with over 29,190 items! As 2008 ends, here are the top 5 contributors to the pool (that's all that's possible to list it seems) along with the most popular tags, enjoy!

Top photo makers!
pt (1,026)
kentkb (726)
connors934 (497)
shifzr (489)
Laughing Squid (474)

And... here's a cloud view of the most popular tags, this is a list of the 100 most used tags associated with the content in the MAKE pool. The bigger the link, the more popular the tag. You can check them out on Flickr too....

2006 2007 2008 apple arduino art austin austinist austiniststock awesome bayarea bicycle bike boat build ca california car christmas cnet computers cool costume craft craftmagazine craftzine day2 diy diyhalloween diys dorkbotpdx electronics etsy faire fibra gadgets geek geotagged hack hacks halloween howto ipod kentkb kit led link mac magazine make makecrafthalloween makemag makemagazine makephilly makeplayday maker makerfair makerfair2007 makerfaire makerfaire07 makerfaire08 makerfaire2006 makerfaire2007 makerfaire2007day2 makerfaire2008 makerfaireaustin makerfaireaustin2007 makerfaireaustin2008 makerfairebayarea makerfairebayarea2007 makerfairemakeplayday makers makesubmit makezine mpdsf2008 music needstags needstitle oreilly oreillymedia pc pcb physicalcomputing pic project projects robogames robot robotics sanfrancisco sanmateo sculpture seattlepowertoolrace solar sptdrad upcoming:event=146064 upcoming:event=190362 usa usb wood zedomax

Evolving Wii control experience

So you want to play motion based games on something other than the Wii product? Try out the Darwin, the latest evolution in gaming.

Magnetometers that check the controller's movement against the earth's magnetic core. So cool. The result of all these sensors in the controller is that it gives a very accurate rendering of motion.

They developed the technology for a golf swing data gatherer, but there was no real mass market until the Wii. 30 million Wii consoles later, and suddenly they don't have to hitch their wagon to fussy pro athletes.

Gamespot has a good interview with Motus CEO Satayan Mahajan and Technology Review has a good piece as well.

Thanks Tien!

Have you tried the Darwin? The writeups say that it will work on other platforms, and on the pc as well. Are you happy with your wiimote, or do you need something more full featured?

Share your ideas in the comments, and add some photos to the Make Flickr pool.

Modern Hobo code

Modern Hobo code...

The legendary "hobo code"was a set of covert markings used to warn other hobos about danger or to clue them into good situations. As times have changed, a new set of code symbols have emerged to alert other hobos to circumstances in modern America. Perhaps you have seen them on your own city streets.

Used Frying Oil Available for Biodiesel

No-fee ATM

Overpriced Drinks

Edible lawn transformation

Here's the transformation of a lawn into an edible landscape:

Thanks to Rebekah and Stephen Hren, authors of The Carbon-Free Home, whose lawn is featured in the photos, and Bountiful Backyards for the slideshow.

Top 10 things searched for on MAKE and the Maker Shed in 2008

Make Pt1531

In 2008, the top 10 search terms on MAKE using our google search box at the upper right were...

LED
Arduino
Solar
Halloween
555
Guitar
RFID
Steampunk
Laser
Bike

Make Pt1532
Also in 2008 - the top 10 search terms in the Maker Shed store were....

Arduino starter kit
Arduino
Make magazine
SIM card reader
Pinewood derby designs
Arduino duemilanove
Electronics kit
Tube amp kits
SX-150
DIY electronics

Benheck's PC Mod Pick of the Day - Aperture Science PC!

Today's yuletide pick for PC Mod of the Day is the Aperture Science PC, built by "Willsonman" as seen on the [H]ard|Forum. I like this mod because instead of building a case inspired by a videogame it builds one to emulate a prop found in the game.

Let's take a look at how he put this nice piece together...

Read full story

Make: television -- giant wind turbine blade

We had this 15′ long blade on the set of the Make: television show to serve as inspiration for a smaller-scale wind generator we built out of 8" PVC. It's a pretty incredible piece of work!

Toilet plunger lamp

This isn't the first time we've seen a plunger lamp, but this one from instructables user cityup comes with instructions!

More:

Plunger lamp in the Core77 gift guide

Inside the pocket DLP Pico Projectors

Sono2-Zu1
Sono2-Zu4-2
Inside the pocket DLP Pico Projectors via Giz...

[Ultra-small Projectors Teardown] DLP Projector Opened [Part 1]
[Ultra-small Projectors Teardown] Fly-eye Lens Commands Attention [Part 2]

DIY ATmega168 evaluation board with LCD screen

Dave Prochnow writes on PopSci:

Every AVR programmer worth her weight in ATmegas knows about the AVR Butterfly--a ridiculously low cost ATmega169 demonstration and evaluation kit. Lamenting the lack of such a kit for the ATmega168 drove me to design my own demo/eval kit for the Arduino microcontroller family. This project became a compulsion that cost three complete redesigns, five destroyed ATmega168s, and hundreds of hours of point-to-point wiring. The result was Polyphemus--an ATmega168 demo kit that you can build from your own spare-parts box.

Polyphemus Demonstration and Evaluation Kit

The "Webcam" vs. the "Particle Beam"

A web camera is placed into a particle beam to show visually the affects of space radiation on electronics. This video shows the particles striking the camera along with streaks due to high angle impacts. In addition particles striking the audio circuit can be heard and the damage to the camera CCD is illustrated at the end of the video.This video was produced as an Education and Public Outreach product for the CRaTER Instrument (http://crater.bu.edu) that will fly on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission (http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/).