LED Ice Cubes Prevent Alcohol Induced Blackouts

On November 23rd last year, [Dhairya] attended a little shindig at MIT. Three drinks into the night, he blacked out and woke up in the hospital the next day. It was an alcohol-induced blackout, and like all parties at MIT, there’s an ingenious solution to [Dhairya]‘s problem.

[Dhairya] came up with an alcohol-aware ice cube made of a coin cell battery, an ATtiny microcontroller, and an IR transceiver are molded into an edible gelatin ice cube.

The microcontroller counts the number of sips per drink, and after one glass of adult beverage changes the color of the flashing LED from green to yellow. After two drinks the LED changes from yellow to red, signaling [Dhairya] to slow down.

If [Dhairya] feels the night is too young and keeps on drinking, the IR transmitter signals to his cell phone to send a text to a friend telling them to go take [Dhairya] home.

Less than three weeks after waking up in the hospital, [Dhairya] tested out his glowing ice cubes at another party. Everything performed wonderfully, even if he admits his creation is a little crude. A neat piece of work, and we can’t wait to see an update to this project.

read the rest of article...

Bringing the Zach Morris Phone Into the 21st Century

With the gravitas of [Michael Douglas] in Wall Street and the technological amazement of [Zach Morris] on Saved By The Bell, the classic 1980s ‘brick’ cell phone has a lot to offer these days. Not only is it large enough to be used as a blunt weapon, it’s also useful as an anchor and more durable than an old-school Nokia. Most, if not all of these phones have gone silent since analog cellular service went dead a few years ago, but that didn’t stop [Andrew] from bringing his back to life.

The core of this build is a 128×64 OLED screen that replaced the old seven-digit, seven-segment display and a very small GSM module. The ancient PCB was discarded and a new hardware revision was created in Eagle based on an Arduino-powered microcontroller. The buttons from the original phone remained, thanks to a custom designed resistive button footprint on the PCB and a bit of conductive ink.
What’s surprising is this phone actually works. [Andrew] can not only receive texts on his phone, but also send them using his own implementation of a number pad keyboard. It’s an awesome build, and from what we can tell, the first proper DIY cell phone we’ve ever seen. About time someone got around to that, and we couldn’t have hoped for a better form factor.

read the rest of article...

Video phone Arduino shield

We’ve seen Arduino-powered Twitter machines, and even some that can send text messages, but how about one that’s a video phone? That’s what the guys over at Cooking Hacks put together with their very impressive 3G Arduino shield.

On board the shield is an internal GPS receiver, microphone, speaker, 3G module, and a camera sensor with VGA resolution. The 3G module is able to act as a 3G modem via a USB connection, allowing any computer to take advantage of wireless Internet with a SIM card.
While in their tutorial the guys use a terminal running on their computer to send AT commands to place a call, it’s possible to simply put all that info in a sketch making for a small, battery-powered video link straight to your cell phone. Seems like the perfect piece of hardware for a wireless, 3G-enabled video feed for a robot. You can check out the video from their tutorial after the break.

read the rest of article...

Home Automation: How to Tivo Remote Control with Telnet

Apparently, Tivo has an open port which can be accessed via Telnet. This means by using the old school network protocol, you can configure your Tivo by taking advantage of its built in home automation system.  Check out more about this project.

read the rest of article...

Ripped DVD Videos on your iPhone

Among other things including images, games, and music, this tutorial demonstrates how to put ripped DVD videos on your iPhone via various conversion programs.

Most are made for Windows, but there are indeed a few for Macs as well. Yes, it’s an awfully simple “hack” (if it’s even worthy of that title).

read the rest of article...

Inject & Capture Bluetooth Audio

I’ll demonstrate an attack where you can remotely capture and inject audio on a blue tooth headset.

Using a few snippets of linux code, I can attach to any bluetooth device, and listen to any conversation transferred through the airwaves. Any bluetooth device is vulnerable to attack.

read the rest of article...

Learn How To Build Your Own iPhone!

Are you thinking about buying that new shiny iPhone?  If you like that pretty new interface and cool touchscreen, then you don’t have to wait in line to get the features.

Here is an Amazing I-Hacked.com Tutorial that teaches you how to modify YOUR phone to mimic the iPhone. It’s the next best thing, without the cost.

read the rest of article...

6 Must Know Group Call Apps

This time it’s group calling apps that are simple, quick to setup, free, and
probably something you would want to use. What do you get Make instant calls to a group of friends, video chat with play mates, schedule conference calls with colleagues, live brainstorming dashboard, etc.

As usual, all apps are free and fairly simple to use. Enjoy!
Read More

read the rest of article...

DIY – Portable Skype Phone

Use the VOIP (Free talking on your computer) service – Skype – to get free calls by modifying your phone. You need an old cordless phone. (one that you don’t care about.. because you might break it) try and get one that has an “intercom” because they are much easier..

IMPORTANT- unplug this from your phoneline.. you don’t want your telephone company after you.. also you can get a nasty shock.. when the phone rings.. a 110v signal passes through your phone line..

read the rest of article...

How to Disassemble the iPhone

We don’t know why anyone would want to take apart this beauty, but if you’re curious what’s inside this beast, take a gander at this. Both first gen and 3G tutorials avaliable.

read the rest of article...

Spy Hacks – Make your own Phone Tap

As you begin your career as a secret agent or spy, you’ll need to know how to create your own wire tap.  It’s a pretty simple circuit and it records your conversations to your computer through the free audio editing program, Audacity. Note, this is illegal pretty much everywhere, so don’t do it.  You can also aquire phone tapping equipment for a decent price on Ebay.  Be sure to continue your epic spy adventures by:

read the rest of article...

Hack Your Voicemail: Custom Messages

Sometimes you just don’t feel like answering your phone. Using a hacked bluetooth headset (a few bucks on ebay), you can customize your cell phone’s voice mail.

For example: “Thank you for calling Dan. Your estimated wait time is 5 minutes, 30 seconds.” Surprise and amuse your friends with original greetings. Follow this, fantastic tutorial which will take you step by step through the process.

read the rest of article...

DIY iPhone Controlled RC Car

Combine the power of the Arduino with the iPhone and you’re bound to end up with an outstanding project. Learn how to control an RC car using the multitouch and tilt sensing features of the iPhone.

The data is basically sent from the iPhone →  WiFi → PC → Max/Msp → Serial port → Arduino and then finally to the original RC remote, which in turn controls the vehicle. Definitely a fantastic weekend project!

• For more details be sure to check out the project website.

read the rest of article...

Smartphone Controlled Labyrinth

This entire project could have been done as an app, drawing the maze and ball virtually on the screen. But that wouldn’t have been nearly as fun as what [Matt] accomplished. He built a little Labyrinth which responds to the accelerometer in his phone.

Take a close look at that handset. It’s not an Android, an iPhone, or a Blackberry. That thing is a Windows phone…. no, really! The phone doubles as a timer, which we think is a nice touch. It communicates with a Netduino which is both driving and monitoring the Labyrinth.

You may have noticed that the maze is hand-built rather than a modified commercial version of the toy. He mounted some hardboard on a pair of servo motors, then built up the maze on that surface. There is also sensing hardware that detects when the metal ball bridges two contacts. This gives us fond memories of our Minotaur’s Revenge build.

We’ve embedded the demo video after the break.

read the rest of article...

Ridiculous Giant Pneumatic Alarm Clock

Although you have to laugh at the absurd demo vid above, you still have to admire the great engineering work. The pneumatic bed shaking alarm clock is for the deepest sleepers you know. The contraption works by an air fed valve from two compressors which jolt the bed and your bones in that order.

The video shows a pneumatic valve attached to the bed. The valve is like a pneumatic lift which lifts the bed with intake of air. The valve is fed air from two sources – a large liquid cooled air compressor under the basement stairs and a secondary source of pressurized air (at 150psi) from the car compressor. A computer controls the valve and triggers the bed bouncing action dot on the programmed time. The pneumatic force can be turned on and switched off with a keystroke.

read the rest of article...

A Clever Solution For Constantly Locking Workstations

[Vasilis] works at CERN, and like any large organization that invented the World Wide Web, they take computer security pretty seriously. One ‘feature’ the IT staff implemented is locking the desktop whenever the screen saver runs. When [Vasilis] is in his office but not at his battlestation, the screen saver invariably runs, locking the desktop, and greatly annoying [Vasilis].

The usual Hackaday solution to this problem would be a complex arrangement of RFID tags, webcams, and hundreds, if not thousands of lines of code. [Vasilis] came up with a much better solution: have the computer ping his phone over Bluetooth. If the phone is detected by the computer, kill the screen saver.
The code is up on Github. It’s not much – just 20 lines of a Bash script – but it’s just enough to prevent the aggravation of typing in a password dozens of times a day.

read the rest of article...

IR Based Augmented Reality

For a final design project, [Frank] and his group took on an augmented reality project. The goal was to make objects interactively controllable by pointing a smartphone at them. Their solution was Augmented Reality Universal Controller and Identifier (ARUCI).

The system locates controllable objects by sensing IR beacons that contain identifiers for each object. The IR is received by a Wiimote sensor, which has been integrated into a custom PCB. This board sits in a 3D printed enclosure, and mounts to the back of a smartphone. The electronics are powered by tapping off of the phone’s battery.

Commands are sent to devices using a custom 2.4 GHz protocol which was implemented using the ATmega128RFA1. Each device has another ATmega to receive the signal and control the real world object. In their demo, the group shows the system controlling devices including a TV, a radio, and an RC car.
The system provides an interesting way to interact with objects, and the hardware integration is quite impressive. After the break, watch [Frank] give a demo.

read the rest of article...

Giving The Nexus 4 a Serial Port

Having a serial port on any Linux box is always useful, but with the tiny computers we’re carrying around in our pockets now, that isn’t always an option. Some of the more advanced phones out there break out a UART on their USB OTG port, but the designers of the Nexus 4 decided to do things differently. They chose to put the Nexus 4′s serial port on the mic and headphone input, and [Ryan] and [Josh] figured out how to access this port.

Basically, the Nexus 4 has a tiny bit of circuitry attached to the microphone input. If the Nexus detects more than 2.8 Volts on the mic, it switches over to a hardware UART, allowing everything from an Arduino to an old dumb terminal to access the port.

The guys used a USB to serial FTDI board wired up to a 3.5 mm jack with a few resistors to enable the hardware UART on their phone. With a small enclosure, they had a reasonably inexpensive way to enable a hardware serial port on a mobile device with GPS, cellular, a camera, and a whole bunch of other sensors that any portable project would love.

EDIT: An anonymous little bird told us this: “You should add a note to the Nexus 4 serial cable post that TX and RX need to be 1.8V.  If you use 3.3V USB cables, you will likely eventually fry something.  FTDI makes 1.8V IO cables that work – you just need to make the trigger voltage for the mic line.” Take that for what you will.

read the rest of article...

How To Make Your Own Ringtones

Are you one of those people who changes their ringtones frequently? If so, you may be surprised to learn that there are many online tools that allow you to create your own ringtones within a matter of minutes. To get started, visit one of the most popular online services that offer the ability below:

1. Makeownringtone.com. With this site you have a variety of options when it comes to uploadable formats. You can choose from MP3, MP4, QCP, OGG, AAC, and MMF.
2. Audiko.net. This is one of the most popular services for creating your own ringtone. Upload your song, take the excerpt that you want to act as your ringtone, and start the download process.
3. Mobicious.com. By offering a free service, Mobicious.com has a leg up on the competition. All you have to do is upload your MP3, clip the portion that you want to use, and turn it into a ringtone that can be instantly sent to your cell phone.

Once you find a service you enjoy, you can create as many ringtones as you want while being assured that each one is 100 percent unique. If you want to learn to edit MP3, wav and other audio files, use audacity to create custom ringtones.

read the rest of article...

Adding wireless charging to any phone

The wireless charging options available on flagship phones is a great feature, but most of us aren’t rocking the latest and greatest cellphone. [Daniel] came up with a great mod that adds wireless charging to just about every cellphone ever, at a very low price and a few bits and bobs ordered off eBay.

[Daniel] used a Palm Touchstone inductive charger – available for a few bucks on eBay – along with an inductive charging circuit from a Palm Pixi. This charging circuit was designed to complement the Touchstone charger, and is simple enough to wire up; all [Dan] needed to do was put the coil and charging circuit near the charge, and it output 5 Volts to charge any phone.

To get the power from the charging circuit into his phone’s battery, [Daniel] simply wired the output of the coil’s circuit to the USB in on the phone. The space inside his S2 was pretty tight but he was able to come up with two ways to install the charging circuit, for use with either the stock back cover or a third-party case.

For anyone with a soldering iron, it’s a quick bit of work to add wireless charging to any phone. We’re loving [Dan]‘s solution, as the Palm gear he used is so readily available on eBay and junk drawers the world over.

read the rest of article...