Gadgets

Alt.CES: Chris Walker at the show

Alt.CES: Chris Walker at the show

Chris Walker, of Secret Labs/Netduino fame, was kind enough to agree to do some snooping around at CES for MAKE, too. Here’s some of what he found interesting. Thanks, Chris! — Gareth Orbotix brought their Sphero robotic balls to CES 2011. Attendees were able to drive Spheros live using an iPhone app. Sphero uses the […]

Cooking for Geeks at CES

Cooking for Geeks at CES

Sherry Huss, Maker Media’s Director of Sales and Events, posted this phonecam pic on Facebook of Jeff Potter’s Cooking for Geeks, spotted at the Wired Science Station. Wired is also featuring a MakerBot in their Maker Station. More: 10 questions with Jeff Potter of Cooking for Geeks Holiday Gift Guide 2010: Cooking for Geeks Alt.CES: […]

Make: Projects – Kinect privacy shield from Kinect packing foam

My new Kinect is a very cool toy, but it was not lost on me, as I was plugging it in, that I’d given the Microsoft hive-mind a pretty sophisticated set of eyes and ears onto my living room. Sure, I suppose I could only plug it in when I’m using it, but I’m kind of a neat freak about my entertainment center wiring and I don’t want to be digging the Xbox out every time I decide I want certain privacy. Some kind of lens-cap arrangement seemed the easiest solution, and making it out of the foam that the Kinect came packed in avoids the danger of picking some material that might scratch the device or otherwise be incompatible with it over the long term.

Snail mail push alerts

Getting iPhone push notifications from objects in your physical world is possible using an Arduino with an Ethernet Shield, a PHP-enabled web server and an iPhone app called Prowl. In this video, I show how to set up a mailbox so that it pings your phone when snail mail is delivered, but it’s very easy […]

Nexus S soft-touch mod

Nexus S soft-touch mod

Are you sick of slick black plastic enclosures that collect fingerprints and smudge marks? Sure, you could go out and buy a case for your mobile, but that just adds more bulk to something you’re ultimately going to stuff into a pocket. This DIY case mod from xda-developers member mhaedo remedies the fingerprint collector issue with a couple of coats of Plasti Dip. Adding only a thin layer of gripy material to the surface of the battery cover eliminates the smudges and enhances the overall look and feel of the device.