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Hack A Day (10 unread)

Automating Rock Band vocals

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 4:01pm MDT by Mike Nathan

When it comes to Rock Band, our friends suck at singing. No, really. We’re cool with them beating on the drum set completely off-time, but the sound of them trying to sing “Tom Sawyer” makes us want to cut out our eardrums. We’re willing to bet that Cornell students [Gautam Kamath and Dominick Grochowina] have [...]
Google? In my lightbulbs? It’s more likely than you think

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 3:01pm MDT by Mike Nathan

With the recent announcement and release of their ADK, it was only a matter of time before Google started invading your home in a big way. From the looks of it, Google will be jumping into the home lighting market very shortly, which could prove to be quite interesting. Partnering with Florida-based Lighting Sciences, Google is [...]
GSM-to-Skype bridge lets you lose those roaming fees

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 2:15pm MDT by Mike Szczys

Here’s the scenario: you’re going to be traveling somewhere and you’ll be charged roaming fees if you use your cellphone. But there is free WiFi available in this place. You can save yourself money by leaving your SIM card at home and using a GSM-to-Skype bridge to take calls on your phone via WiFi. [Trax] [...]
Touch-based synthesizer is a wiring nightmare

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 1:30pm MDT by Mike Szczys

[Jane] wrote in to let us know about the touch-based synthesizer she and her classmates just built. They call it the ToneMatrix Touch, as it was inspired by a flash application called ToneMatrix. We’re familiar with that application as it’s been the inspiration for other physical builds as well. A resistive touch screen in the [...]
Adding power trim to a boat

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 12:44pm MDT by Mike Szczys

[Matt's] boat had a trim plate that could be adjusted by hand. The problem with this setup is that the trim angle of a boat changes as you speed up or slow down. Last year he never really went over 35 MPH because of this issue, but he set out to correct that by adding [...]
DIY hidden bookshelf speakers

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 10:01am MDT by Mike Nathan

[Steve] was tired of looking at the speakers in his workshop and began searching around for something a little more aesthetically pleasing. Having recently received a set of hollowed out books used for hiding things as a gift, he thought that he might be able to solve his speaker issue in a similar fashion. He [...]
I2C 101

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 9:06am MDT by Kevin Dady

Embedded Labs has come out with a very detailed I2C 101 tutorial, that you should check out if you have any questions on the system. I2C is a short distance serial interface that only requires 2 bus lines. Keep in mind that as wires go down complexity goes up. While there are more than a [...]
Official android open accessory development kit – it’s an Arduino

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 8:03am MDT by Brian Benchoff

A new development kit for android was unveiled at the Google I/O 2011 developer conference that officially supports the Arduino. It looks like Google took a cue from Circuits@Home, because the interesting part of this dev kit is the fact that the shield can be put into USB Host mode. That’s great for phones and [...]
Machining replacement parts with hand tools

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 6:01am MDT by Kevin Dady

Jeff is a huge music fan, and like many of us likes old technology, so it seemed a bit silly (to him) that he did not have a turn table. His dad had a spare in the basement. A neat old Braun model from the 1970′s that was broken. Opening the unit up he found [...]
Arduino magnetic core memory shield

Posted: May 11th, 2011, 4:59am MDT by Mike Nathan

Magnetic core memory turns 60 years old today, and as a tribute [Ben North and Oliver Nash] have created a 32-bit magnetic core memory board for the Arduino. Magnetic core memory was used from the 1950s through the 1970s, and provided a non-volatile means for storing data, as each magnetic core retained its orientation, even [...]