Now News

Finally, after the long wait, the highly anticipated app, Now News is available in the App Store, and already shooting its way up the rankings. Here a link to it in the iTunes Store: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=318018153&mt=8

Make a Fireball Shooter

Another great video from the Internet legend KipKay. Wow, I really want to do this because not only does it look fun but, it's simple and cheap. I just need to find a store around that sells flash paper and cotton.

Make Your Own Motion Detector Alarm

Have you ever thought that it would be cool to make your own motion detector? Well now you can with some well written instructions. You need very few parts and the whole thing will only cost a couple of bucks. The parts that you will need are:

2 - Cds Cells (Photocells)
1 - 741 Op Amp
1 - Buzzer or alarm
1 - 9 volt battery breadboard
1 - 10K potentiometer

Not much huh? It really is actually really easy and quick to build. Much more than you would have originally thought. Click on the link for the step by step instructions.

Make Your Own Homemade LED Christmas Lights

If you have trouble with all of your Christmas lights going out when only one bulb becomes burnt out or stepped on and if you feel up to the challenge, you can build your own strand of LED Christmas lights. Whats even better is that you will wire the lights in parelell which means that when one bulb goes out the rest will stay on. Not only is it cool to have Christmas lights that you made yourself but, the LED's last over 100,000 hours, they produce little heat, they use minimal energy, and the bulbs aren't hallow which makes them virtually indestructable. Check out the instructions on how to build them. However, you will need tons of LED's, (can be bought at your local electronics store) lots of resistor, some solder, and the ability to solder. Good luck!

Can You Name The Video Game Systems

Many of us remember the days of NES and Sega gaming platforms. But, I bet that you can't name all 68 of them from the year 1972 to today. If you think that you are up to the challenge than why not play the game? But, oh yeah, you only have twelve minutes.

How To Beat The Candy Crane Game?

Most of us have, at least once in our lifetime, played the candy crane game, and many of us have seen on the sign on the front that says, "play until you win." Well, that gave me an idea. I started researching how the machine detects whether you have won or not and have found that it uses an infrared LED sensor and once it no longer receives the signal from the LED (when the candy falls down the chute) it knows that you're a winner and makes you pay again to play. But, what if you bought an infrared LED and shined it at the detector. Wouldn't it keep on thinking that your a loser and letting you keep on playing while you start gathering a pile of candy at the bottom of the machine? I'm skeptical about it working but, why not give it a shot?

Guy Builds His Own Jet Fighter

When Arthur van Poppel found some online plans on how to build a jet fighter he took them pretty seriously. He actually built the thing! While his homemade jet won't ever take flight he can actually drive it. The jet has a scaled down version of the real thing and has collapsible wings so that he can fit it in tight spaces.



"Apart from a crafty piece of machinery, the Jet Fighter is especially some spectacular entertainment, full of surprises! In the cockpit, one finds sound equipment and a monitor with surveillance cameras. Apart from this, the Jet Fighter has many sound effects and visual entertainment, such as smoke-, water- and confetti-effects, to surprise its audience again and again. These effects can also be controlled from a distance. The spectators will be amazed!"

Via- Muziekkunstenaar

CNC Hexapod Robot

Matt Denon, a dedicated robotics expert has built the worlds first CNC machine that can walk on the material that it's getting ready to cut. He uses the Hexapod robot, which you can now buy at his store, played around with the programing, and added a drill bit. Although it only can go through styrofoam and high density foam right now, Matt is looking into the possibilities of it cutting wood and he plans on using a smaller drill bit for a clearer model. However, he has come a long way from when he first started because originally it used a marker to draw pictures. Way to go Matt!

5 Minute Christmas Light Controller

Max from ZedoMax built an automated Christmas light controller. All that you have to do if you want one of your own is go to his website, copy the code that he already provides, and then send it to the CuSB22R board that is shown in the video. Here is a parts list:

1. CuSB22R from | cubloc.com
2. AC power cord (like the one for your computer or get it here: cubloc.com)
3. AC Connectors from Home Depot (You can get more depending on how many Christmas Lights you are trying to control,
remember you can also put Christmas lights in series per relay)
bunch of wires

In the video it shows him controlling only three strands of lights but, you can add up to seven more. Plus, you can have more than one set of lights in a strand. What's even better is that, if you feel the need to, you can edit the code for the lights to change the blinking rate or you can change it all together to make objects look animated.

Giant Ceiling Clock

When Realities United, an architectural design company, was put to the task of building a creative lighting design in a building in New York they sure did. They decided to use industrial fluorescent bulbs to create a clock to display the time which served as both a light source for the room and an information display. It uses two seven segment displays, designed to look like a giant LCD clock, to display the time in minutes. What I want is this concept to be implemented into a room, act as an alarm clock, and then flash to wake you up (just a thought)

Old Fasion DIY Calculator

Aaron from Arron Adding Machines.Com makes and sells "antique calculators" He hand makes each of them using old wood that he finds from various places and gives them a nice antique stain. Then he drills holes in it and adds buttons from Radio Shack which hook up to a circuit board that goes to a red led display. Although this wouldn't be too hard to make it's still a great idea so good job Aaron!

Worlds Coolest Keyboard

While many people are building wooden keyboards and others are making their keyboards completely black there is one that completely blows away the competition. It is called the Optimus Keyboard and each individual key is an led display that can be changed depending on what you are
doing.

For example, if you are using Photoshop than the keys can serve as shortcut buttons or if you are playing a game than they can be the buttons to control your character like in the picture below.

However, if you are now convinced that you need on than you may want to reconsider because, it will cost you over $1500. Yes, that's right $1500. But, maybe if you wait a while the price will drop (I sure hope so because I would love one of those on my desk) and maybe even one day they'll have them installed on laptop keyboards.

How to Save a Hard Copy of your Wii Games

For those of you who are prone to scratching or loosing your games for the Wii there is an easy way to back them up. First off, you will need:
-Homebrew Channel
-SD Card
-Computer With DVD-R Burner
-DVD-Rs (The higher quality the better)
-Wii (Duh)
-ImgBurn
Once you are sure that you have it all or at least have access to it than read this Instructalble on how to make it. It will only take a little while and involves minimal skill.

Shut Down Your Computer With a Text Message

If you have ever left your house without turning off your computer and you need to turn it off for whatever reason but, don't want to go home than you can set your computer up with this program. It takes only a few minutes to do and even though it really isn't practicle, although it could be (I guess), it is pretty cool. For a little more fun you can set this up on a friends or family members computer and have a little fun :-).

PS3 Hack- Upgrade Your Hard Drive

Upgrading your hard drive on your psp is much easier than you may think. Instead of paying hundreds more for a ps3 with a 160 GB hard drive just buy one with a 20 GB one and buy a 160 GB hard drive for about $130.00 which will end up costing you the same amount of money. Plus you'll have an extra 20 GB drive that you can use to make your own hard drive clock.

Connect Your IPod To Your Car's Stereo

For those of you with newer cars you may not need this hack since, most newer cars come with an IPod input jack. However, most of us don't have the newest cars and would like to find a way to connect our IPod's to our car's stereo without buying different things to help us do it like an FM transmitter or a diskette that connects to your IPod. Well, now you can. You need to take off your dash panel. Do this by unscrewing the screws on the side of most panels. If your panel doesn't have screws you'll have to get a flathead screwdriver and gently pry it out. Once you have it off, find the two RCA jacks (they are red and white and are commonly used for an additional input device such as a cd player.) Once you have found them you'll need to make a quick trip to your local Radio Shack and ask then for a Y cable (you shouldn't have any trouble getting one). When you have the cable take the side with two female adapters and plug them into the two RCA jacks. Then, just put the dash panel back on (remember to leave the other end of the Y cable sticking out.) Once you have it installed just plug in the Y cable into the headphones jack of your IPod and play a song.

Blender Defender

If you have a cat that just won't get off the counter than the Blender Defender may be the project for you. Mark was fed up with that so he built a system so that when his cat jumped on the counter it triggered the blender and a strobe light to go off. Like that isn't cool enough, he also has a video camera facing the blender to see how to cat reacts if he's away and the video is sent to his phone directly after it is recorded. For those of you interested, plan on spending about $164.00 if you already have a blender (the main part of the cost is the camera so if you already have one you are in good shape!)and will take a few hours to set up. Please check out his website, even if you don't plan on building it, for some videos of it in action.

One Handed XBox Controller

Ben Heck, a dedicated modder who strives to help others by hacking gadgets(he was also the one who made the game console laptops featured on our site in the past and the one who made the other famous one handed controller that you can buy here), has build a one handed XBox controller for those who can't use two hands for whatever reason. He got the idea from a serviceman in Iraq who had been injured and had lost one of his hands. I think that the whole thing turned out great. For the link to the page on how he built it click here.

Make Your Own USB Powered Fridge

If you have ever wanted to keep you drinks cool while you surf the web than this is the perfect project for you. The best part, the whole thing will only put you back a mere $2.50.

$5.00 Burglar Alarm

While this make be very simple it is also very cool and doesn't take much time or money to build. So why not?