Live from Etech: Natalie Jeremijenko from UCSD showcased her open source student created modified robotic toy dogs which seek out environmental toxins. If you’re interested in modding up one one your own, visit the upgrade site. The Make crew visited the a test site today, truly amazing to see these in person work with all the students buzzing about (couple photos here).

Live from Etech: James Larsson’s “Hardware Hacks from the Far Side” had a ton of great and entertaining hacks you should never try at home (or anywhere else). Creating a prawn sandwich fresh-lethal-stale clock. Transforming an old CRT monitor into a radio jamming device, an insect repeller, a fly killer, a cardiac defibrillator, several types of electronic artwork, a squash-ball warmer, and a somewhat vicious mouse trap.

Live from Etech: Neil Gershenfeld runs the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT. Neil talked about personal fabrication (machines making machines) and how these concepts may change how developed and developing countries create things. He also showed a few cool examples of other projects from the lab. The Scream machine (bottle up and play back your scream later), Interpet explorer (web browser for parrots) and a defensive dress that can fend off attackers. We have an interview with Neil in issue 01 of Make, so it was a great treat to hear him in person.

Here’s a pretty useful site for gluing one thing to another. Select the material you’re trying to glue to another material and the site returns the appropriate affixers. For example is you want to glue ceramic to styrofoam they recommend Lepage’s regular epoxy for the strongest bond, for the fastest- hot glue and for the least toxic, Welbond.

Live from Etech: The folks from the EFF showcased many of the gadgets and gizmos that might get crushed (or have) by copyrights, the DMCA, Hollings Bill, Induce act… Things like Linux based PVRs, City of Heros, XM Satellite recording, DVD Jukeboxes and other species we all love to tinker with. I don’t have the $27k jukebox, but I really love (and use) the other things on the list. Here’s the complete list on the EFF’s site.

Live from Etech: Yahoo Research launched the “Tech Buzz Game”. Aggregating over population weighted by performance, turning markets in to predictors. Artificial market on questions to emerging technology trends. You get $10k to start with, go try and own the market. It will be fun to see how search popularity may result in sale or lack of. I’m keeping an eye on podcasting at the moment.

Live from ETech: Rick Rashid, Microsoft Research talked about the Human black box, the ultimate blogging tool. A person mounted camera that takes thousands of photos throughout the day. A wide angle lenses captures more information, accelerometers tell the camera when it’s a good time to take a picture. Some uses: Memory-loss individuals, tourism, reflective practice…Kinda reminds me of the version I made for my car (and dog). I think we can all make our own versions of these.