BuffaloFeeds » Hack A Day » August 27, 2009

Hack A Day (11 unread)

Energy efficient fridge hack

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 6:35pm MDT by James Munns

We’ve already covered a pipe bomb mini-fridge this week, but inventor [Tom Chalko] provides us with today’s fridge hack. He noticed that chest-style (laying down, see above) freezers were more energy efficient when compared to normal stand up refrigerators at the same size, despite the colder temperatures involved. This is largely due to the fact that these chest-style [...]
Vonage on iPhone

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 4:31pm MDT by James Munns

Vonage has promised to release an official iPhone app to compete with other providers such as Skype, and it is currently working its way through Apple’s well documented approval process. Unfortunately, this app would most likely come with an initial cost and/or subscription fee, though a way has been figured out to retrieve Vonage’s SIP authentication [...]
Simple, low-tech attack on Credit Unions

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 3:30pm MDT by Brett Haddock

The National Credit Union Administration is warning all Credit Unions about malicious hackers and a low tech attack by mailing branches CDs with malware on them. Using a somewhat dated but still effective Social Engineering attack, a package designed to look as though it was mailed by the NCUA is sent to the branch. The package [...]
Phasma insectoid

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 2:40pm MDT by Caleb Kraft

When we saw the video of the Phasma insectoid robot above, we immediately thought of the iSprawl. After checking out their site, it turns out that the two are connected in some way, we’re not sure how, maybe just inspiration. The Phasma gives us a little more insight into the construction of the bot. The [...]
DIY 3D gets a nod at SIGGRAPH

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 2:00pm MDT by Phil Burgess

Among the courses at this year’s SIGGRAPH (an annual technical conference and showcase of the latest in computer graphics research) was an introduction to 3D scanning that covers all the bases: mathematical foundations, two different build-your-own hardware approaches, and how to process and render the resulting datasets. The presenters have assembled all the course materials on a [...]
Interfacing a digital rotary switch

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 1:31pm MDT by Mike Szczys

[hw640] has put together a well written and detail packed explanation of how to interface with a digital rotary switch. These digital opto encoders have just two outputs with four possible logic levels (00, 10, 11, 01). The relative position of the switch is insignificant but the direction of rotation is what matters. The short and [...]
Ubuntu repository crash-course

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 12:45pm MDT by Mike Szczys

[Alan] has just posted an Ubuntu screencast that will take you through a crash course in the Ubuntu repositories. If you are new to Ubuntu this will give you a much better grasp on how software repositories are handled. The different types of updates are discussed: Security updates fix bugs that cause a system vulnerability. Updates [...]
Bus Pirate updates: preorder 2 and v3

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 12:00pm MDT by Mike Szczys

We’ve had a barrage of questions regarding when the second preorder of the Bus Pirate would ship. As you know, shipment was delayed by a shortage of PIC processors. [Ian] let us know this morning that the chips have arrived at Seeed Studio, manufacture has begun, and we should see shipments going out within a [...]
Fedora rawhide nightly builds

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 11:19am MDT by Mike Szczys

The devs over at the Fedora Project are hard at work on the development version: Rawhide. They’ve just setup automated nightly builds of the liveCD which can easily be downloaded and tested on a CD, DVD, USB drive, virtual machine, or separate partition. Rawhide will be released as Fedora 12 upon completion. With this version you [...]
Bliplace LED toy

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 9:30am MDT by Caleb Kraft

These wearable LED toys called Bliplace are freshly made and headed to Burning Man. They’re pretty much just a sound reactive toy, but [Tanjent] decided to go pretty in depth in the design. They are 1″ wide octagons with 3 super bright LEDs and a microphone. The microphone is sampled at 4400 hz by the [...]
RepRap wedge

Posted: August 27th, 2009, 8:30am MDT by Mike Szczys

Generation 2.0 of RepRap, the self replicating 3d printer, is approaching realization. Code named “Mendel”, the new design will be wedge shaped rather than a box which offers a few benefits. The overall design is smaller than the original RepRap but the printable area is larger. This means more functionality with less building material. With [...]