Flickr member Filmosity’s modded a CVS disposable video camera to include a built-in USB cable for easy transfer of video – “…Side view of the CVS One time use Camcorder, hacked with a USB Cable. The cable now has some velcro that keeps it flush to the side of the cam. Still a few more mods I’m going to make to the cam, including changing the logos that show up when you turn the cam on and off.” Link. More CVS camera hacking here.
Tom made a pretty spiffy Ubuntu (Linux) home media center. He writes – “Like a lot of people nowadays, I have a growing collection of digital media. My digital media is stored on a home Linux server. Most of the digital media players available today do not support protocols to connect to a Linux server, which make them unsuitable for my use. I realized the best way to connect my digital media library with my home theatre was to build my own Linux home media center (LHMC)…” [via] Link.
Here’s a page with a lot of iPod hacks, all in one place “iPod hacks have been created to aid users in using their iPod more efficiently, or to customize their product, making it more individual or for novelty purposes. Their creation has also been to create new features, possibly that Apple Computer wanted to disguise to aid sales of another product.” [via] Link. Also, check out these other two listings and iPod hacks the book.
Wow, it’s like a backup for organics: “Norway is planning to build a “doomsday vault” inside a mountain on an Arctic island to hold a seed bank of all known varieties of the world’s crops. The Norwegian government will hollow out a cave on the ice-bound island of Spitsbergen to hold the seed bank. It will be designed to withstand global catastrophes like nuclear war or natural disasters that would destroy the planet’s sources of food.” [via] Link.
Here is this week’s “Cool Stuff Being Made”! – “…from aerospace to zippers, a lot things we use and interact with these days are made with investment cast parts. Surgery tools, golf equipment and lots of things that the military use all rely on the investment cast process. The investment cast process begins with plastics (Yes, Mr. Robinson, there “is a great future in plastics!”) to create near net shape metal parts that require minimal surface treatment. Investment cast parts come in all shapes and sizes, from fractions of an ounce to several tones.” Link.
MAKE’s Natalie Zee has a good round up of Macworld – “I walked around the Macworld floor with my fellow MAKE colleague Phil and I have to say, I was quite disappointed to see that there wasn’t enough good looking girl tech out there. I wasn’t about to shell out money for an ugly looking iPod speaker purse, so thankfully there were a few things that caught my eye.” Link.
Keylock has an interesting post about cell phone ownership in other countries in response to the Verizon crippling of our phones – “In Qatar I pay a security deposit and then my mobile phone is billed like a landline phone. I pay for the calls I make–no limits and full access to all my Nokia 6230’s features (like bluetooth) without being billed for it. The coverage in Qatar is good (albeit a small country) but it is also an all digital network. The USA is a mix of analog/digital because the companies that put up the analog towers are trying to wring every dollar out before they have to replace them. The USA is behind in the cell phone market considerably…don’t believe me? Check out Nokia’s website and click on the Middle East. I’ll bet you’ll find phones that you haven’t even heard of over here. I bought my buddy a Nokia 6600 cellphone while I was in Qatar and brought it back for him. It works fine over here and his bluetooth chip wasn’t disabled and he isn’t billed when he transfers his photos, movies, music, etc…” Link.
