Maker Faire!
Join the creators of MAKE magazine, the MythBusters, and thousands of tech DIY enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, science clubs, students, and authors at MAKE’s first ever Maker Faire. All kinds of people who make amazing things in garages, basements, and backyards. Inspiration, Know-How, and Spirited Mischief-Making: Weird Science, Ultimate Garage, Robotics, Digital Entertainment/Gaming,Green Tech & Electronics Recycling, Ultimate Workshop MAKE: Remix Video Film Festival and more… I have a lot more to post about all this, but the site is live go check it out!! Link.
And we’re back! PSPupdates is cranking out the PSP goodness! – “That’s right, the day we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived! Thanks to the fantastic work by our forum moderator Fanjita and his coding companion Ditlew, it is now possible to play vast amounts of homebrew programs and emulators on every PSP in the world, including those with 2.60 Firmware! Thanks to their monumental achievement, every PSP in the world is capable of playing homebrew!” [
Sans writes “The cheapest way to remotely control a device within a visible range is via Infra-Red light. Almost all audio and video equipment can be controlled this way nowadays. Due to this wide spread use the required components are quite cheap, thus making it ideal for us hobbyists to use IR control for our own projects. This part of my knowledge base will explain the theory of operation of IR remote control, and some of the protocols that are in use in consumer electronics.” 
Here’s this week’s “cool stuff being made!” – “…animation of the making of a flat panel display. In fact, you’re probably looking at one now. This shows you how once again you are surrounded by manufactured products: cars, food, clothing, flat panel displays. Without manufactured products, the world would be a quiet and empty (and hungry) place.” [
More on the RFID zapping project “The RFID-Zapper is a gadget to deactivate (i.e. destroy) passive RFID-Tags permanently…Goals are a proof-of-concept and the construction of at least one functioning and appealing prototype, as well as a documentation of the project, so that everyone can build an own RFID-Zapper. Since the project found so much positive resonance, we probably are going to work on some other realizations of the concept, e.g. building an RFID-Zapper from scratch, without a single-use-camera.” [
Barry writes “After attending the Winter NAMM show for a number of years I’ve noticed that the exhibitors seem to fall into two categories: the established company showing their new (and sometimes vaporous) products; and the independent start-up company looking to be noticed by distributors, music stores, potential investors and the music press. It seems that every year I spent more of my NAMM cruising time checking out the various small companies that all get stashed off in some side room. Many of the products from these companies are never seen the by the mainstream either because their potential market is too small, or most people simply can’t figure out what the hell to do with it.” 
MAKE Flickr photo pool member MH2 made an Apple Newton MP3 player, he writes “I download carefully prepared mp3 files to my outdated Newton MP 2100… I set up the 2100 to shut down after 10 minutes. Ten minutes each night, then I sleep. Of course the 2100 is no iPod. Music can’t be cut up as conveniently in two minute pieces as large audio book files, but above 900 KB (which is approx. 3,5 min @ 22050 Hz mono 32 kbps) transfer to the Newton gets complicated. Of course the internal speaker has only poor audio quality compared to an iPod. Or any other decent mp3 player, that is.”