The HandySwipe provides a portable magnetic card reader interface and display. It collects card data from a “Type 2″ card reader (shown here), and displays the data on a small character LCD screen. Type 2 stripes are by far the most common in use, such as on credit cards and drivers licenses. More info after the jump.
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Crabfu SteamWorks writes “Steam Powered Armatron Hack. Taking the best toy ever made – Armatron, and hacking it to be powered by a steam engine. There are no electronics or batteries what so ever, purely a mechanical robotic arm powered by steam.”
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Want to have a Gmail drive on your computer? With just a Gmail account and of course an internet connection, you will have extra few gigabytes of storage for free. You can use it as a central file server that is accessible from anywhere you can access Gmail. You can store any files but as long as its not more than 10MB each. This is not illegal, dont worry. Learn how to do it after the jump.
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Ryan writes – “Ive been following with much interest these robo-one style robots. The servo powered little humanoids with amazing capabilities. I saw a few video clips of the KHR-1 humanoid and decided I wanted it. Then I saw the price. Around $1,200. Then i decided i could build one myself. Imagine a doll, crossed with a robo-one robot. Its a computer cotrolled robot doll. Very cool, and a little creepy all at the same time.”
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The Monome is a new music interface with LED-backlit pads, a USB interface that transmits OSC and MIDI data to a computer, and — here’s the unusual part — open source, hackable firmware and software interface. Touch the pads, and you can use this as a step-sequencer and remix tool (as in the example), but the real philosophy here is being able to do whatever you want, so think of the example video as just a start.
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Do you have any plain interface CDs at home? I still remember i have plenty last time. Me and my friends use to draw something on it and stick it on the wall and door. Somoene came out with an idea of making your CD cover by using only a few tools, a walkman, a couple of water-based or permanent marking pens and a clip.
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Alan writes – “Philippe Hurbain has created a pneumatic LEGO wheel. This wheel has no electronics and is controlled by two hand pumps, also made from LEGO. There are very detailed construction details available on his site that were created using LeoCAD and some LeoCAD plugins.
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