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.
You can find these old digital microscopes on eBay for under $20. Here’s a blog that catalogs some of what you can see with them – “Last week, I got myself a toy I’ve wanted to play with for many years — the Intel Play QX3 Digital Microscope. When I was a kid, the old medical microscope my parents bought for me at a garage sale was my favorite toy. I would spend hours putting whatever I could find underneath it… and now, with the digital microscope, I’m doing it again as an adult. I am adding new pictures every day and will continue to do so until I run out of things to look at with the microscope”… [via] Link.
Awhile back we made our own Flickr photo frame from an old Tablet PC we got on eBay, and now there’s a real version you can pick up, too. “The eStarling frame is a standalone Wi-Fi LCD photo frame that connects to a wireless network and automatically displays photos e-mailed to it in a slideshow format. Additionally you can specify an RSS photo feed from Flickr based on your own tagged keywords. You can even shoot photos on your mobile phone then e-mail them directly to your eStarling frame for display.” [via] Link. There are also a ton of other ways to make photo frames, too, if you’re in the DIY mood.
A MAKE reader writes in about some DIY film gear projects: “Today’s posting on Self-Reliant Film considers the pros and cons of DIY film tools, along with a compilation of a number of links (and a reference to the “Crafter’s Manifesto” found in Make)!” The article has a pretty good overview of many of the film gear projects we cover here, including the $10 video camera stabilizer. Link.
Handy how-to from Gadgetopia “Being on a budget, we got two things for our business: the smallest conference room we could reasonably get away with, and the cheapest decent projector we could find. This means that the projector is pretty big, and takes up an entire end of the conference table. I needed a way to mount it to the ceiling, but projector mounts run between $100-$200. They typically come in two types: Spidery-Articulated-Aluminum-Dealie and Pole-With-A-Mounting-Plate. One of the Pole-With-A-Mounting-Plate products I found on the net claimed, “mates with any 1 1/2 inch pipe” in its description. That sent me to Home Depot, and I came up with this rig for about $40. Read on for a rough how-to.” Thanks Star. Link.
Matt writes “The stereoscope used lenses to make each eye see a separate image. It was wildly popular. In some ways it was the first “television,” found in the living-rooms and parlors of every self-respecting European and American family. 168 years later, the same basic principle is still used to create 3D movies and photographs. Here I’ve created my first stereo pair” Link.
“The basic idea for the single use digital camera is to take your “27 pictures” or so, send the camera in and they send you a CD with your photo’s. Kind of lame, but unique. However, you bought the camera – keep it! There are three different methods to making this camera “last forever”. You do not need to do all three of them, choose the method that will be cheapest/best. You may have a few of the items at your disposal already, so take a look at the required parts for each section, then choose which rout to take.” Thanks Star! Link.
