|
The d-touch music system has continued to evolve since we saw it the first time. It is completely free, why not give it a try! "The release of audio d-touch is itself part of a research project about novel computer interfaces. Our aim is to advance the field by gaining insight on how tangible interfaces may be used in the real world. Please help us by trying out the applications, letting us know what you think and spreading the word about audio d-touch! To inform our research we remotely record usage data from the system, in the respect of our users’ privacy: we do not record images, but only the positions of the objects in the interface and the sounds recorded on them." |
|
There is something very cool about clocks, you have constantly changing information that your design needs to represent. This Single Nixie Tube Clock is a very interesting clock design, it uses a low voltage plug in wall transformer and makes the high voltage needed for the clock on the circuit board. We have seen lots of cool tube clocks in the past and this one is sure to not be the last. "With PIC microcontroller I used a "watch" crystal at 32,768kHz. It’s value is pretty cool and now we will see why. PIC16F84 has internal TMR0 counter that increments itself no matter what the PIC is doing at the moment. Think of it as a threaded sub-program. This counter can generate an interrupt when it’s value overflows from 255->0. We can also prescale this counter to slow it down a bit so we can make it generate an interrupt on every 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 or 256 overflows. So, when we finally connect our 32,768kHz crystal on PIC microcontroller, we should also know that the speed it runs at is divided by 4 and this characteristic is only found with PIC microcontrollers. This all means that our PIC runs at 8,192kHz which tells us that TMR0 will overflow 32 times per second. Now when we prescale it by 32 it means that it will overflow once per second and generate us an interrupt." |
|
If you like building electronic kits, have a look at this cool Tube Clock Kit that is built around a nice looking Russian display tube. Thanks to Limor Fried from Adafruit Industries it’s open source so if you would prefer to make your own from scratch you can do that! Have a look at a the Adafruit Industries behind the scenes video that Rocketboom make after the jump. "This is our first clock kit design, made with a retro Russian display tube!
|
|
This Rock Radio would be a good match for the Granite Speakers that we saw before. What would be real cool would be a full set of components that were encased in cement, that way you could have a stereo system that no one could steal. For the high end finished look you could mortar the joints between your components. Thanks Guss. "It started of being a very nice rectangular brick shape. Then I found out that a thick layer of cement shields the radio from actually receiving radio waves. With my "Now it doesn’t work anyway" philosophy, I took a big hammer and created this Flintstones look, and the radio works!" |
|
This CRISTAL remote system by the folks at Media Interaction Lab would be a welcome addition to any complex home theater setting. The intuitive ease of use is something that current remote controls can only dream about. Recently some remote controls have incorporated color LCD displays to attempt to allow additional functionality but it can only go so far. Now that projection technology has been dropping in price I can see this interactive projection technology become common place (I can’t wait!!!). Until then I will continue to use my Atari 2600 Remote Control. Via: Robin Ferianto’s blog and Wired "Many remote controls lack intuitive interfaces for mapping control functions to the device intended being controlled. This often results in trial and error button pressing, or experimentation with graphical user interface (GUI) controls, before a user achieves their intended action. CRISTAL simplifies the control of our digital devices in and around the living room. The system provides a novel experience for controlling devices in a home environment by enabling users to directly interact with those devices on a live video image of their living room using multi-touch gestures on a digital tabletop."
|
|
The guys over at Openschemes have hacked a set of Smart Tweezers to measure voltages. The internal DMM chip that was used in the Smart Tweezers has voltage measurement capability however it was never meant to be used. It also seems that even if you purchase one of these Smart Tweezers you should probably adjust the internal calibration pot to allow more precise measurements. "Disassembly of the MS8910 is trivial - remove the battery screw to expose two hidden screws. Remove these, and one more near the probes and the case can be easily slid open. The PCB resides in the LCD side, held by a few plastic clips. The battery resides in the battery compartment, obviously, and is connected to the PCB by red/back wires. Be careful not to break them during disassembly. One interesting point is that the red wire (battery positive) is considered the GND terminal of the device and is directly connected to the top probe (near HOLD button). The black wire (battery negative) is considered the V- negative (-3v) supply for the DMM chip. The positive (+3v) supply for the chip is generated by the DMM IC itself with a capacitor-based charge pump. Makes sense, when you consider that a typical meter needs to measure both positive and negative voltages so a bipolar supply will be required."
|
|
If your next office party needs a tiny amount of fun added you could whip up this cool disco ball. Yes, the same effect could have been created in about 5 minutes with no complexity but what fun would that be? "For fun, Sid created a disco-ball wired to a servo-mechanism by a switch. Then, added a microcontroller (from a WSNnode) and some helping FETs. Then, controlled the node through UDP on another WSN-node. Then, added speech recognition on a Windows PC to remotely send the UDP packets." |
