Month: June 2005

From Tim! Someone who heard a podcast of Neil Gershenfeld’s eTech talk then went out and bought his book, Fab. Gershenfeld is the director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, where he teaches a course called “How to Make (almost) Anything.” As you know from O’Reilly’s new Make magazine, we’re closely following hardware hacking and what we’re now calling the maker movement. The work that Neil is doing is at the bleeding edge of that movement. We’re setting up our own Fab Lab in conjunction with Squid Labs, which is populated by former Gershenfeld associates, so you’ll be hearing more about personal fabrication in future issues of Make. Link.

Making satellites from old surplus space suits. Plans are on the fast track to deploy a surplus Russian Orlan spacesuit this fall as a non-traditional satellite. Dubbed “SuitSat,” the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) project could become the most unusual Amateur Radio satellite ever orbited. Now, an ARISS-US proposal will provide an opportunity for schools to participate in the SuitSat enterprise. Link.

With a PC running Linux and a recent VGA card, you can emit a real digital TV signal in the VHF band to your DVB-T set-top box. DVB-T emitters are usually very expensive professional devices. Now with a standard PC you can broadcast real DVB-T channels! Examples to transmit PAL or SECAM analog signals directly to your TV are also presented. [via] Link.

The K750i is a stunning phone, here’s a mod for it! Hi there, I thought a few of you may be interested to see the adaptation that I have made to the hands free head set that comes with the k750i. I have had the handset for a few weeks now and have always been planning to do this mod. I got round to it this weekend and took a few pics along the way to show you all. Incidently all the pics here were taken with the k750i too! Link.

VOIP is spreading via its users. Leading the way is a Luxembourg-based start-up, Skype, which has signed up 40 million users for its Internet telephone service and is growing at a remarkable 150 000 users a day. The article goes on to talk about all the 3rd party tools, how folks are using it and our very own Skype payphone project! Link.

Here’s how to make your own Root beer. Fermentation has been used by mankind for thousands of years for raising bread, fermenting wine and brewing beer. The products of the fermentation of sugar by baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a fungus) are ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide causes bread to rise and gives effervescent drinks their bubbles. Link.

Revival of the oldest laptop concept! In this recipe the Etch A Sketch tablet is digital. It even includes the feature of shaking the tablet to erase the screen, as in the original version. How to map a couple of analog inputs to X and Y coordinates of a simple drawing software. How to get a Boolean input from a sensor (tilt). Link.