The problem with bleeding edge devices is that they quickly become old and irrelevant. Replaced with the latest gizmo, old smart phones and PDAs tend to find their way to a drawer or a landfill after about 2 or 3 years.
It's not that most of us want a throwaway society. It's that most of the gadgets we buy are designed to expire, with hardware that cannot be user serviced, batteries that cannot be easily replaced, and with firmware and software stacks that cannot be modified to accommodate the future. Proprietary. Closed. User subjugating. Stupid.
One half of the solution is to choose open hardware and open source whenever you have the choice. The other part of the solution is to hack your closed devices to do your bidding. Thankfully, there are a lot of people working hard to make the latter possible, and you can run Free Software on everything from Palms to iPhones.
We caught this note from Hans-Christoph Steiner on the dorkbot nyc mailng list. He's currently working on a project called Reware, which is attempting to bring a common hacker-friendly Linux distro to a variety of PDAs:
We've been working at Eyebeam since July on making it easy to hack old devices and run new software on them. We now have our first Reware HOWTO video, showing the basics of how to use a Reware image yourself, then it illustrates some of the Pd patches we've made.
Coming soon, a image for running Pd, Python, and Lua programs on PDAs, as well as a HOWTO for making Pd patches for 1-5G iPods. The key idea is to turn old PDAs, mobile phones, etc. into something like an Arduino, where you can easily upload your own code to the device.
Currently Reware supports several Palm devices, but with iPods on the radar and a number of Pocket PCs that can run Linux, there's a lot of potential here. Just think about all those 200-400MHz ARM processors just waiting for something interesting to do.
Reware Wiki - tools to recycle old devices
Reware First Release
Ångström - Linux for devices, including many Palm, Nokia, HTC, and iPaqs
iPod Linux
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Written by Jason Striegel | Source: http://blog.makezine.com/
on December 2nd, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Samsung’s new M310W digital camera is currently being showcased at the Taiwan IT Month fair and will go sale in Taiwan for an estimated price of NT$9390 ($282 U.S. dollars). The M310W features a whopping 13.6 megapixel 1/1.72-inch CCD image sensor, a 3.6x optical zoom, a 5x digital zoom, and a 2.7 inch TFT LCD touch-screen display.
[Check it out]
Technorati Tags: Samsung M310W digital camera
Written by flung | Source: http://www.krunker.com
on December 2nd, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Microsoft reports the Xbox 360 console had record beating Black Friday sales in the U.S. – outselling the PlayStation 3 by a three-to-one ratio and selling an estimated 25 percent more than 2007’s Black Friday sales figures.
Worldwide, Xbox 360 sales have also surged ever since the September price drop with Microsoft claiming the 360 consistently outselling the PS3 across Europe. “Console sales in Europe are up as much as 400 percent, with sales nearly double year over year and reaching 7 million consoles sold this generation.”
There’s no doubt that the recent surge in Xbox 360 consoles sales can be attributed to the price cuts but one must not forget about the recent holiday bundles that were introduced as well as the incredible bundles retailers were offering for Black Friday. In total, this is a good time to check out the Xbox 360 console.
[Check it out]
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360, Black Friday sales record
Written by flung | Source: http://www.krunker.com
on December 2nd, 2008 with comments disabled.
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The new SageTV HD Theater media center extender device allows you to enjoy your videos, music, and photos in full HD on your HDTV sets wherever they are in your home. As with previous SageTV extenders, the HD Theater will allow you to watch live or recorded HD broadcasts from the PCs or Macs running SageTV Media Center software. Digital content can be played off of PCs, Macs, network storage devices, or even USB storage devices.
In addition to local content, the HD Theater extender will be able to stream online video directly from sources such as YouTube, Google Video, and major TV networks without the need of a PC.
Here’s a list of the SageTV HD Theater Specifications:
Video format supported: MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, H.264 up to 1080p, AVI, MKV, MOV, ASF, VOB, WMV9/VC-1 up to 1080p
Audio format suppported: MP2, MP3, AAC, WMA, Vorbis (stereo only), AC3 (stereo down-mix/pass-through), FLAC, DTS (pass-through)
Video Outputs: 1 HDMI, 1 Component, 1 Composite, 1 S-Video
Audio Outputs: Left/Right audio output and optical S/PDIF
Maximum Number of SageTV HD Theaters: Limited only by your home network bandwidth, each HD video stream may use 20 Mbps or more of home network bandwidth.
TV Set Requirements:
- HDMI, Component, Composite or S-Video input (NTSC)
- Left and right audio input jacks, optical or HDMI audio input
Network Requirements:
- One 10/100 RJ-45 port on a Router, Hub or Switch network with DHCP server on network
or
- Direct connect from SageTV HD Media Extender to PC running DHCP server via cross over LAN cable (not supplied)
You can purchase the SageTV HD Media Extender for $199.95 each.
[Check it out via eHomeUpgrade]
Technorati Tags: SageTV HD Theater Media Center Extender
Written by flung | Source: http://www.krunker.com
on December 2nd, 2008 with comments disabled.
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You know steampunk has gone mainstream when it seeps into academic institutions... I recently was given a steampunk assignment in one of my sculpture/metalworking classes, so I modded a vintage Kenmore sewing machine with some spare parts from Phoenix's favorite junk shop, Apache Reclamation. The propellers on the drive wheel and thread spool spin when the machine is running.
This piece as well as many, many others will be on display at First Studio in downtown Phoenix this friday, December 5 as part of a steampunk show put on by Arizona State University.
ASU's evening of Steampunk
Friday, December 5, 6-10pm (part of the First Friday art walk)
First Studio
631 N. 1st Ave. Phoenix
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Written by Becky Stern | Source: http://blog.makezine.com/
on December 2nd, 2008 with comments disabled.
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There are only a few hours left to enter our CYBER MONDAY contest (and to also get 10% off our robot kits)... we were able to do up a quick code/sale for all our robot kits for today so have at it. It starts at 12:01 am PST 12/1/2008 and ends today at 11:59 pm PST. Use code CYBERM at checkout at the Maker Shed.
Out contest is simple, just post up your version of the "Three laws of robotics" in the comments HERE, make it clever, funny, outrageous. At 11:59pm PST I'll post up a winner. You can post up multiple entries, contest is world-wide. The prize? The new Co-Robot kit we just got in from Japan! Here's a video!
Pictured above, an old photo of when I was running 30 miles a week and spending a lot of time looking through robot dog eyes - it was CYBER MONDAY every.single.day (long story)....
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Written by Phillip Torrone | Source: http://blog.makezine.com/
on December 1st, 2008 with comments disabled.
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Here's the newest news from F.A.T.; a Tokyo division has been established!
We F.A.T. freaks in Tokyo got together to hack Japan with "Free Art & Technology!" At tokyo.fffff.at, we will be showing Japanese translation of F.A.T. posts, reporting of F.A.T. related applications, and our own reports of free-art development. Check out the members of Toko F.A.T. here. The people section of fffff.at has been translated into Japanese, too!
In the image above, from the left, Genpei Akasegawa, Taishu Kase, Minakata Kumagusu, Vivienne Sato and Japanese Yokai.
More:
Make Tokyo Meeting 02
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Written by Becky Stern | Source: http://blog.makezine.com/
on December 1st, 2008 with comments disabled.
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If you think that the current Blu-ray disc is the best there is, think again. Pioneer has unveiled its 16-layer optical disc that can store a huge 400GB worth of data. The Pioneer disk is based on Blu-ray Disc (BD) with an added breakthrough in material of reflective layers.
The specs of the pick-up head of the disc are the same as those of blank BD discs. That means that the Pioneer discs can be read on BD players that are now on the market. Pioneer will release its read-only (ROM) 400GB discs from 2008 to 2010, while rewritable 400GB discs will make their appearance between 2010 to 2012 and the 1TB capacity disc should show up in 2013.
After that who knows.
[Digitimes]
Written by Conner Flynn | Source:
on December 1st, 2008 with comments disabled.
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