How to make a war driving box – “It’s very easy, but this is not a step by step HOWTO, only a guide to build your own box. To start, you need a small up and running OpenBSD System on an Intel based System. This Sytem can run on in VMWare or on a older PC System (I use a 500 Mhz Pentuim System with 4 GB HD and 128 MB Ram)” – Thanks Jason! Link.
For years I’ve tried to create “AIM bots” little buddies you’d add to your instant message list – to interact with, to fetch useful information and deliver via your IM window. Back in the day there was a company called ActiveBuddy and they a great developer kit so you could make your own too (not sure if that’s still possible). As of today AOL has a new effort here so I think we might see a few interesting ones. Ideally, these bots could use RSS and anyone with a feed could create their own bots that their visitors could add and use. Would you use a MAKE bot? You could ask it “how do i solder” and it he’d return text and links to our pages on this online and in the magazine… [via].
Here’s more about the DIY cell phone project – ” Surj Patel is building his own cell phone, bit by soldered bit. It’s not easy. It starts with parts that cost around $400. Then Patel and his partner, Deva Seetharam, have to write code to run on the tiny Linux-based computer that he’s hoping will serve as the brains of his new phone. So why bother? After all, it’s not like cell phones are hard to find or terribly expensive.” [via] Link.
Brian sent this along, something to consider if you’re working on small form factor devices…It’s good for the environment, good for your batteries, but it’s weird to think about an algorithm’s energy efficiency (it’s not just CPU cycles they look at, but memory access as well) “PowerEscape has added a new utility to its development toolsuite. “Insight” aims to reduce power consumption by improving the “data efficiency” of C-language code. The company says improving data efficiency in the initial stages of development yields higher performance for the same amount of power.” Link.
Paul writes “If there’s one word to describe my latest article, it’s comprehensive. Focused on using RSS as a means to save time in one’s daily routine, I take the reader through what RSS is, why it should be used and how to use it. I go through the installation, configuration and usage of RSS in Thunderbird, Google Desktop, RSSOwl as well as web-based feed readers with Google’s Personalized homepage, My Yahoo!, and Bloglines. As with all of my articles, there’s screenshots-a-plenty.” Good one to send to the non-RSSers, or if you’ve always wondered what those XML and RSS buttons are on MAKE. Link.
Mocapitator let us know that the new Beck video we mentioned, starring the Sony QRIO robots is now live on the Beck site. I just watched it and I think the QRIOs are a lot more interesting than their role in the video. I worked on a few Sony projects in the past in Japan and China, some with the QRIOs and they’re creepy-cool. If you’ve seen the QRIOs in action, then this video might not seem that interesting, it’s pretty much their dance routine when they’re out in public – but still fun to watch. Link.
Greg sent in this great LED project that spells words or makes patterns when it spins “The way this works, is you have an EEprom (electronically eraseable programmable read only memory). This stores data on different lines. You retrieve this data by feeding it binary numbers, (ie. 1=0001, 2=0010, 3=0011, 4=0100, and so on). Each line of code has 8 bits of data, and directly corresponds to how the row of LEDs are lit up. If you put in 10000001, then the top and bottom led would be on. This is kind of tricky to figure out, but you have to make a grid. Since I am using a 4 bit counter, I have a possibility of 16 addresses. So to make a letter, you have to draw up a 16X8 grid, and color in the pixels you want.” Link.
