Two German students have invented a beer mat, or coaster, that uses sensor chips to determine when the beer glass it supports is empty and then radios the bartender for a refill. One of the students interviewed for the story suggested that lifting mugs from sensing mats could double as a voting system during karaoke competitions. [via] Link.
If a household ladder is extended with a melodic function, it will develop into a real musical instrument. The ordinary ladder transforms into a soundladder. Stepping on a bar of the ladder creates a sound or tone which is different from rung to rung. So you can create a piece of music by stepping up and down on the ladder. Together with a partner you can even play a duet. Link.
Excellent! Welcome to 1.50, PSP firmware 2.0 users! MPH has created a WORKING downgrader from PSP firmware 2.0 to firmware 1.50. This takes advantage of the toc2rta exploit and allows for the full downgrade of firmware 2.0 to firmware 1.50. I have tried this myself and have successfully downgraded from firmware 2.0 to firmware 1.50. Although this has been tried and found working, this does not mean there is no risk involved so use at your own risk. Link.
First steps to making the PSP an ebook reader – An anonymous programmer published a PDF file reader for the Sony PSP with source code. PSPPDF is still pretty simplistic, but the base functionality of displaying text from a PDF file on the Sony PSP is working. Now the Sony PSP homebrew community is tasked to make the PDF viewer better. [via] Link.
Interesting development, homebrew might be coming to the PSP 2.0 soon- Set wallpaper to frame_buffer.png (without overflow.tif present in the PHOTO directory, or it will crash). Add overflow.tif to the PHOTO directory, and open into the photo viewer. Custom code to paint the screen! Or to write a homebrew app – This proof of concept has now been confirmed as a working exploit for the 2.0 firmware. Now we have to wait until some more useful code using this exploit is released… [via] Link.
Raphael writes “I wanted to be able to control my music player, xmms, using a laser pointer and a wall. I drew the symbols for rewind, stop, play, forward on paper sheets using fluorescent ink so it looks cool with a blacklight and sticked them on the wall. I coded a simple tool that monitors the wall for the presence of a small spot using a webcam. When the spot appears somewhere, if it is inside a defined hotspot, the appropriate command is executed”. Link.
Nice Xbox projects – a solar powered Xbox running FreeBSD, controlled via a cell phone using GPRS and it’s a radio controller car too with web cam. Once the Xbox 360 comes out the old Xboxes will be dirt cheap to build projects like this. [