MAKE will be on G4’s Attack of the show on 11/07/2005 – “Make magazine’s Phillip Torrone shows us some cool DIY projects and how to hack some new gadgets. Harmonix president Alex Rigopulos rips some licks on Guitar Hero, the new rockin’ music game for the PlayStation 2. We return to the car mecca that is the SEMA Show for a look at the hottest accessories inside cars these days.” Link.
Good NYT article on the changing face of the toy business – “Having failed to beat the electronics industry, the ailing toy business will join it in a big way in the year-end holiday shopping season, offering just about everything from cellphones for 6-year-olds (LeapFrog) to video projectors for 8-year-olds (Hasbro) in an effort to hold on to children who are casting aside Lego and GI Joe to play with their parents’ gadgets.” Link.
It looks like a lot of users of the T-Mobile Sidekick received a pretty nice “over the air update” Friday and throughout the weekend. AIM was updated, UI evolution arcade was added for Sidekick I users, Yahoo Messenger was added and many navigation, device, web, email and camera enhancements. Overall, looks like a nice update. Link.
Latest episode of Hak.5! “In this episode of Hak.5 Wess builds a mini arcade cabinet for under $100, Harrison attacks SSL with Whoppix, Darren defends himself by setting up a VPN server on XP, and Jon Harrison’s take on buffer overflows with beer.” Thanks Kim! Link.
Brian writes “A great Maker competition, founded buy a bunch of guys with some spare parts and mechanical know-how and a desire to see how far they could throw a pumpkin. I’ve taken my family for the last five years and it’s great to see the machines, from human powered onagers of Roman design to hundred foot long air powered cannons.” Link. The event was over the weekend, so expect to see some photos and results soon.
Handy DIY project before you make digital versions of those vinyl’s…“Build your own high quality, easy to use record cleaner. This design can be built for less than $50 and will remove at least as much grunge as the expensive VPI record cleaners. The original concept was developed by Jay Amble.” [via] Link.
Here are some LEGO man jewelry from Plastic Bat Jewelry – one set is a LEGO man head dangling from earrings, the other is a pretty nice bracelet complete with blocks and a full size LEGO dude. If you’re a crafty-maker type, you could likely make these on your own too. [