New ASIMO humanoid robot…
The new ASIMO is closer to the robots that eventually revolt in all the science fiction movies “Honda Motor debuted a new ASIMO humanoid robot which features the ability to pursue key tasks in a real-life environment such as an office and an advanced level of physical capabilities. Compared to the previous model, the new ASIMO achieves the enhanced ability to act in sync with people – for example, walking with a person while holding hands. A new function to carry objects using a cart was also added.” Pictures and videos on the site. Thanks Justin! Link.
Here’s how to emulate the telezapper by using SIT tones on your answering machine or voice mail messages…“Predictive Dialers are used by telemarketing firms to gain more ‘dialing efficiency’. About 75% of junk calls are made with a predictive dialer (PD). One thing a PD does, is monitor what happens when the phone is answered. The Telezapper can emit a ‘disconnect’ tone when your phone line goes off-hook. The tone it transmits is either a single ‘ultra-modulated’ tone or an actual set of 3 ‘Special Information Tones’ (S.I.T.) common to the telecommunications industry: depending on the setting you seletct. It works… now… in some situations. You can get a set of all three Special Information Tones from Private Citizen. Just record the tones at the beginning of your answering machine message and put your greeting right after it.”
Nice mod, adding Bluetooth to laptop with an extra USB port…TomTheGeek writes “This weekend I added internal bluetooth to my Dell CPx laptop. These laptops have a two port USB hub in them but only one is available on the outside. The other one is only used if you have a docking station. Since I don’t have a docking station I found the traces for the unused USB port and placed my USB bluetooth module internally. These are the connections I had to add to the main board in order to use the USB port…”
Jonathan designed a great printed circuit board router, he writes – “Printed circuit boards are usually manufactured by chemical etching (with iron (III) chloride or ammonium persulfate, for example). This is not very practical if only a few boards are necessary, because these etchants are messy and somewhat dangerous. PCBs can also be manufactured by “mechanical etching,” in which a trace is “etched” by milling away the copper along its perimeter. This requires software to generate a toolpath from the layout and a small CNC mill or router. Lots of companies make routers for PCB fabrication, but they are unjustifiably expensive so I decided to build one.”
Here’s another great how to on converting an ATX power supply to a lab power supply, Abizar writes “Computer power supplies are US$15 but lab power supplies are US$100+. By converting the cheap (free) ATX power supplies that can be found in any discarded computer you can get a phenomenal lab power supply with huge current outputs, short circuit protection, and very tight voltage regulation.”
Great holiday Instructable! “Use solid-state relays to blink the lights on your tree in time with music. String lots of lights onto the tree. Use as many sets as you like, but arrange them such that there are three light regions, each with a separate plug. Run these three plugs down the trunk so they can easily be attached to the light controller. Up to three strings of lights can usually be linked in series, so you can almost certainly cover even big trees. Plug light strings into the controller you built for Halloween (