A new type of phone directory that provides access to reverse phone number lookups offers users the ability to lookup the name associated with an unrecognized phone number.
For quite some time now, computer users have been able to use online versions of the Yellow and White Pages to look up personal and business listings, but what sets reverse cell phone searches apart from these traditional directories is the fact that they can be used to lookup phone numbers when a person does not have a mysterious caller’s name available.
These very specialized searches are not much different form a normal query performed on an internet search engine. To perform a search, a user must enter a 10-digit phone number into a reverse phone directory’s search field and press enter to retrieve a report containing the phone owner’s name and any extra available information.
The reason why reverse phone search directories are such an effective tool in the battle against unwanted and unsolicited phone calls is that they lift the veil of protection from anonymous callers so that real name and alternate contact information can be gathered immediately.
If you’ve ever tried to call back a telemarketer by dialing the phone number that appeared on your caller identification box, you have probably gotten a recording, or in some cases, the call probably didn’t even go through. By performing a reverse cell phone search on that number, users can find out who the number belongs to before answering the call.
If you have tried to contact a telemarketing firm without the necessary information before, you know how frustrating it can be to remove yourself from call lists. They always claim they will remove your information in a few days, but the calls never seem to stop coming, often times even more frequently than before. However, when you know the name of the company responsible and you have their direct line, you will likely notice a quick end to unsolicited phone calls.
If you are already listed on a Do Not Call list, the unsolicited calls you receive are considered illegal and the company responsible could be subject to large fines. In these cases, a reverse cell phone directory can play a major role in helping to screen your calls effectively.

Our friends over at WonderHowTo.com just launched the 2008 Video Awards! For those of you who have never been to the site, they are the one-stop shop for all how-to videos on the internet. With a library of over 225,000 videos they provide the largest, most contemporary, and most diverse resource in this increasingly growing space.

The WonderHowTo 2008 Video Awards! is their first annual competition that celebrates excellent instructional videos…on any topic under the sun. Since they source and index videos from more than 1900 specialty sites around the world, they truly get front row seats to every insanely wonderful tutorial that is produced. WonderHowTo picked the nominees based on numerous factors including; intent to instruct, originality of concept, and story telling. Categories include Hacks, Sex, Pranks, Weird Science and many more. These finalists’ videos are extremely interesting and I have a feeling that the voting will come down to the wire

Voting will be open for one month, from October 13th through midnight PST November 13, so get over to WonderHowTo right now and vote on the 2008 Best How To Videos In The Universe.

Also, don’t forget to snag a free t-shirt courtesy of Stephen Chao and Johnny Knoxville!

A clever way to use a bicycle computer as a poor-man’s tachometer.  While I’m not sure about installing it in my car, I’m sure it’ll come in handy down the road for another project. 

"Sometimes you just have to know how fast a wheel or shaft or motor is turning.  The measuring device for rotational speed is a tachometer. But they are expensive and not easy to find.  Its cheap and easy to make one using a bicycle speedometer (cyclocomputer). In fact, the only thing you need is a functional cyclocomputer that reads speed in miles per hour. You won’t damage it, so you can even ‘borrow’ one from your bike, or add it to your bike once your done!"

OK, NYC has it’s reasons to be a little careful but Richard Falkenrath, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for counterterrorism may be just a little bit too careful. As the Village Voice reports that the city is just a little worried that the good citizens might just report too many false alarms. If you read through the comments, a couple of people had the same thought I had. Smoke alarms give false alarms very, very often, and if you have an alarm system the firetrucks are coming just in case. Don’t some smoke detectors measure radiation increases?  Plus in the greater New York area you can’t sell a house without a Radon Test and in some houses there is a powered radon detector so you get a warning if the abatment system fails. So if I can’t have one of these.

Can I use this?

(I had one of these as a kid. Of course back then we thought nuclear energy would save the world. )

It’s not a ""Geiger" counter but detecting alpha particles is better then nothing,

I wonder what Mr. Falkenrath’s reaction be if he knew I could get this -   

Nuclear Isotope Generator  

for $250.00 (plus shipping) from United Nuclear who clearly state.

You might also want to include some decontamination spray in your order for $22.00

So get yours now!

All the products mentioned above are available from United Nuclear

Projector, Old stereo, laptop, and a few connecting cables: Its likely these are things you already have, or can borrow with a few phone calls to your friends. Have you ever thought of starting a Guerrilla Drive-in, aka MobMov?

“With hundreds of movie mobs across the world, the Mobile Movie is bringing back the forgotten joy of the great American drive-in. Powered by cars and low-cost film projectors, ‘mobmovs’ are easy and affordable to set up. Abandoned warehouse walls spring to life flash mob style with the sights and sounds of your favorite big screen movie”

It’s a great way to bring the community together, and easy for any techie to throw together with a little bit of creative planning and some ingenuitive setup. Theres even an instructable on how to get your own started.

So anyone in the Cleveland area interested?

Above is a video from Johnny Lee, a Computer Engineer who has chosen the Wii Remote as one of his main hacking platforms. Johnny was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to do an interview with us.

Alan Parekh: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview with us.

Johnny Lee: Your welcome, it’s a pleasure to chat with you.

AP: I get the feeling that you are a very busy person. Selling your cool steadycam units,
doing audio recording, photography and completing a Ph.D. sounds like enough to keep
three people up to their necks in work! How do you manage to stay on top of it all?

JL: Haha,I’m not sure. If you ask my friends, they might actually say that I don’t seem to be that busy. I guess I just spend a lot of time on my hobbies that I really enjoy doing and it turns out that my hobbies end up being productive. Even the Wii remote work started as a way to procrastinate working on my on my thesis. Sometimes projects can grow it’s own legs, like the steadycam. Enough people started buying them that I can now pay people to help me manufacture and sell them. That way I can move on to do other things.

AP: Your display technology that you worked on as your Thesis Project has been featured on
Hacked Gadgets in the past. What made you choose this technology as your Thesis Project?

JL: Well, I created the first slow location discovery version while I was at Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs in Boston. We were working on creating a “retail store” of the future to using projected light to augment the appearance of products or present co-located information. Like have the environment of the store changing based on your preferences. Project alignment was a systemic issue that plagued all of the installations. So, we came up with this approach of using structured light to discover the locations of pre-installed light sensors for alignment. There seemed to be a large enough body of executable future work that it made sense to use it for my thesis work. The key was just finding a single topic that was large enough and tractable.

AP: Your Wii projects have been taking the Web by storm! What attracted you to the Wiimote
as your interaction device of choice?

JL: Well, I was excited by the Wii Remote ever since the original press release about it’s capabilities was public. Ironically, I was an intern at Microsoft the summer before the Xbox 360 was launched. Several internal people, including me, were still trying to convince the Xbox group they should put an accelerometer into the controller. That, of course, didn’t happen. The Wii remote is one of the most sophisticated input devices available today and an amazing piece of engineering containing an accelerometer, camera, and wireless communication. Combined with the ease in which you can connect it to a computer made it an obvious choice for experimentation.

AP: Have you had any discussions with Nintendo? Do you think they could use some of your techniques to
enhance their console?

JL: I have not formally had any contact with Nintendo about this. I speculate that the Nintendo engineers who developed the controller probably knew of this technique, but probably passed on the idea or were saving it for a later product launch. But, these ideas can definitely be used in a Wii title assuming they would be willing to bundle a little bit of new hardware with it. I know several game developers are starting to look at the idea. Hopefully, the game concepts will make it all the way to market.

AP: What made you choose Computer Engineering as your field of study?

JL: I’ve always had an engineering spirit in me growing up and computers are one of the most versatile tools out there for exploring your imagination. I felt electrical engineering or computer science were too narrow for my interests. Computer engineering provides a nice balance between hardware and software giving you the skills and perspective to modify/create any component of a computational system. Nothing is a given. This has served me very well in my research.

AP: What can we expect to see in the future? Any cool projects that you have dreamed up but haven’t
yet had the time to implement?

JL: Hehe, I have a LOT of un-implemented ideas. My to-do list is always growing much faster that I have time to accomplish. Sometimes, I just wish I had an army of developers working for me. Hopefully, my future work will be as cool as the one’s I’ve already done. Usually, I only pick ideas that I think are cool to work on which has, so far, meant other people will probably like them too. But, it’s probably best for me not to talk about them too far in advance otherwise I might burst my own bubble. I guess you’ll just have to wait and see. Sorry to be a tease.

AP: Thanks again for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this interview with us Johnny.

JL: My pleasure.

Been reading for a while and not quite sure where to jump in? Maybe you would just like to learn more details? Hardware modding/hacking is lots of fun, and can have a very rewarding outcome.

For starters, here is a great article for beginners, covering pretty much all the bases. Also Wikipedia is an excellent source for some beginner knowledge, everything from capacitors, to resistors, to solder, and much much more.

As far as jumping in and getting your hands dirty, there are a number of stores online offering kits ranging from beginner to advanced. Adafruit Industries is a great place to jump in, The Maker Store, and who can forget good old Radio Shack.

Oh, and make sure to check our very own Hacked Gadgets forums
Happy hacking!