PhotoMann recently decided to ‘collect’ images of unique vending machines found in Japan. They are everywhere. Estimates suggest there are 5.6 million vending machines which works out to be one for every 20 people in Japan. Sales from vending machines in 2000 totaled $56 billion! All of the images in this section are taken with a Nikon Coolpix 5000. [via] Link.
The idea of this project was to create a fully-automated sentry gun, capable of picking out a human target and accurately tracking and shooting him or her in the heart. Really, the idea was to find a cool robotics project for the summer while I was working at an advertising agency, and I’d only ever seen sentry guns in movies (like Congo) and video games (Half-Life 1, Half-Life 2, Team Fortress Classic). [via] Link.
San Francisco, Sept. 24-25 at the Webzine 2005 Independent Online Publishing Conference MAKE’s Phil Torrone will have a session about hacking many popular consumer electronic devices : High quality audio recording on old iPods, run new games, mod firmware, fun stuff. Digital camera hacks, from the reuse of the “disposable” cameras to modding digital cameras for projects. PSPs, Gameboys and more along with a trip from Maker past to Maker future in an action packed warranty voiding DRM busting session. Link.
Todd Oldham has a new show on HGTV called “Hand Made Modern” my pal Eric told me about – looks very MAKE friendly, so I’m going to MythTV it and check it out. Runs every night, all next week. Link.
Alek writes “So I wanted to put a webcam outside to provide imagery of my holiday lights – that’s a whole seperate story onto itself ;-) I ante’d up the big bucks for a decent wireless webcam (Dlink DCS-6620G), but cold weather enclosures all cost $500 or more – they include a heater and blower. So I ended up building my own using $27.34 of parts from Home Depot … and that include the 6″ sewer pipe and (free!) AOL CD cover – yea, no expense was spared on this puppy … but I’m hopeful it will withstand the upcoming Colorado winter”. Link.
Tea Vui Huang made an extremely useful app, I may need to dust off my CLIE! “Is an iTunes add-on for Sony Ericsson Walkman Phones, Sony Clie PDAs & Sony Ericsson P900/P910 Smartphones. Turns Sony devices into virtual “ROKR”! :)” Link.
Here’s another great HOW TO on running a full OS (Linux) on a portable flash drive (this would work fine on music players like the iPod too). It’s pretty handy to carry around, all your docs, bookmarks, applications, ready to go on any system. Link.
