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Hack A Day (10 unread)

Faster browsing with RAM disks

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 8:14pm MST by Eliot Phillips

A coworker approached us today wondering if they could get a performance boost using Samsung’s newly announced 256GB SSD. Most of their work is done in browser, so we said “no”. They’d only see benefit if they were reading/writing large files. Their system has plenty of RAM, and we decided to take a different approach. [...]
duiPhone hack

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 3:33pm MST by Kimberly Lau

Tellart turned an iPhone into a duiPhone with its latest Sketchtools kit. Combine a 3G iPhone, an ordinary store-bought breathalyzer, and the NADA Mobile, which consists of a communication board, sensors, and actuators, and get a useful iPhone application. Blow into the mouthpiece, and the iPhone will inform you if you can safely drive, or if you should call a cab.

We’d like to find out more about the NADA Mobile, since it looks like it could be the start of a lot of fun projects. It’s the latest of Tellart’s Sketchtools line, which can only be accessed if you work with Tellart as a consultant, or if you work with them to organize a workshop for your organization.

[via Digg]
Boom Bench

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 2:13pm MST by Kimberly Lau

German designer [Michael Schoner] of NL Architects turned an ordinary street bench into a public sound system that can be accessed by passersby with iPods and cellphones with Bluetooth. Boom Bench features 60 watt co-axial speakers, two subwoofers, and a bass shaker in the seat that’ll allow you to feel the vibrations of your music choices. It was on display in Amsterdam last month for the Urban Play event. It remains to be seen whether this new urban development will make your daily wait for the bus more entertaining or aggravating.

[via Notcot]
ti-84 LED mod

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 2:13pm MST by Caleb Kraft

Add lights to your graphing calculator. Do it now. [Sil3ntP8nd8] added some, and seems to have done a decent job. They are spread around the back, supplying a nice even light on, well, on whatever is under your calculator. It may be difficult to see too much detail though on account of the water marks. You have to protect your intellectual property though. This almost compares to the DS LED monstrosity we covered recently.
Sonar navigation jacket

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 1:14pm MST by Caleb Kraft

[Lynne] had this crazy idea to build a piece of clothing that would give you feedback about your surroundings using sonar. She started with a carefully selected thrift store jacket. She wanted something that looked good and also provided plenty of places to hide electronics. She used the LilyPad system, with a vibration pad and [...]
“Interplanetary internet” passes first test

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 12:56pm MST by Kimberly Lau

NASA just completed the first deep-space test of what could one day become the interplanetary internet. Images of Mars and its moon Phobos were sent back and forth between computers on Earth and NASA’s Epoxi spacecraft. Instead of TCP/IP a new protocol, named “Disruption/Delay Tolerant Networking” (DTN) was used. Information is only sent once with DTN, and stored at each node until another node is available to receive the information. To prevent hackers from interfering with the network, information that is transmitted over DTN is encrypted. The team at NASA is hoping to get the protocol accepted by the international community and setup a permanent node at the International Space Station next year.

[via Warren Ellis]
Professional soldering guide

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 9:00pm MST by Eliot Phillips

Curious Inventor pointed out a cache of training materials provided by IPC. IPC is a trade organization that publishes standards for producing and evaluating electronics. They’re great looking full color guides that most hobbyists will probably never get their hands on. They have low resolution video demos as well. Go snag them now in case [...]
PSP 3000 hacked

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 8:30pm MST by Eliot Phillips

Peripheral manufacturer Datel has been hard at work attempting to crack the PSP 3000 since its release. They’ve developed the Lite Blue Tool battery to force the PSP into service mode so hackers can run any arbitrary code they want. According to MaxConsole, Datel performed a silicon level investigation of the PSP’s chips to determine [...]
iphone-dev team 3G soft unlock coming soon

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 7:38pm MST by Eliot Phillips

The iphone-dev team has officially stated “all that remains is implementation“. They’ve developed all the pieces they need to perform a software unlock for the iPhone 3G, now it’s just a matter of putting them together in user friendly fashion. They’ve managed to run unsigned code on the baseband, developed custom AT tools, and are [...]
Augmented reality in Flash

Posted: November 19th, 2008, 7:10pm MST by Eliot Phillips

Digital Pictures Interactive has put together a great augmented reality demo. Unlike many others, it’s entirely Flash based, so there’s no install necessary. Print out the custom symbol and try it out for yourself in your browser. Augmented reality refers to any mashup that combines computer generated content with a live video stream. We see [...]