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Is It a Car, a Robot or a PC? |
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Thursday, 28 August 2008 |
 While not necessarily a mod since this is in full production, it definitely caught my eye as a pretty cool case. The 914 PC Bot is a combination car/robot/camera/PC. Talk about futuristic: this could easily be a grandfather to the R2 Astromech droids in Star Wars, wheeling around with lights, cameras and full of action. Only downside, runs on Windows or Linux, no Mac interfaces yet.
The slick design uses mainstream computer hardware parts and stands out as being able to be both a robot and a personal computer. According to the creators, whiteboxrobotics.com, this is a first generation service robot. Ladies and gentlemen ... we have robots! While basic now, in the future these guys are only going to get smarter and smarter. From the WhiteBoxRobotics website concept page ....
The 914 PC-BOT does everything you would expect a
desktop PC to do – plus it moves by remote control or autonomously
avoids obtacles, transmits and receives – voice, video, data and text –
but additionally the 914 is intended to put scalable data and
processing power into a complex mobile robotics digital world that
involves human beings.
All of this good fun is just the beginning ... the
9-Series PC-BOT is also a novel application development environment for
computer science or robotics developers set on developing the next wave
of serious applications. There's almost no end to what you can build
with a little or a lot of tech savvy. Application development
environments allow you to write custom algorithms for a wide range of
behaviors, such as speech recognition, navigation, and artifical
intelligence. All you need to do, is download and install your favorite
applications and link them to the I/O board or Machine Management
Module (M3) .
I want one. Just to have a freakin' robot get me drinks or something. Anything. Who cares, it's a robot!
From WhiteBoxRobotics via CaseModBlog
 Comments (3)
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Wednesday, 27 August 2008 |
 There's a nice example of a low-impact mod you can do to your original or 3G iPhone. By getting to the camera inside the case you can remove the glue that has it fixed to infinity. After removing the glue you can turn the dial on the lens counter-clockwise to bring the focus closer. Flickr user eastrain has taken some pictures taken with his modded iPhone and posted them to the iPhone Focusing Mod album on Flickr . He has gotten the phone to focus in at 1/4" with no problems.
via TUAW
UPDATE : As noted in the comments, a how to is posted on eastrain's site.
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iPhone Glows with $370 mod |
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Friday, 15 August 2008 |
 While there are only a few details coming out about this mod, it is one of the hottest mod topics out today. Russian modder Arthur has taken the iPhone's back side Apple logo and converted it to be an illuminated Apple logo.
Sent to gizmodo for posting, with more pictures being released after this looks like the real deal. All it says about the construction is that it cost about 9000 rubles( or about 370 USD) and a reference to gpda.ru (in Russian). GPDA.ru looks like an iPhone / PDA repair service in Moscow. I guess if your phone isn't supposed to be in your country, grass root businesses will pop up to help support it. While there is no direct information, it does look like it is using the controls for the backlight of the iPhone for the light. Hopefully Arthur or GPDA.ru will release more information in the near future. I think there are plenty of crazy Americans who will follow the Russians into this warranty voiding zone.
From Gizmodo .
References from gpda.ru & iphones.ru
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Buzz Killer (your speakers) |
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Saturday, 02 August 2008 |
 A real simple yet effective mod has been posted by Michael Simon over at MacLife.com . He has taken the Ferrite beads inside of an USB cable and attached them to his speaker cables to cancel out the electronic noise made by the GSM of the iPhone. Ferrite is an iron alloy that is used for canceling out electronic noise in lots of devices. It so useful that the FCC requires cable makers to use Ferrite beads in all devices to classify as a Class B device (for the home or small office).
You may have seen them, but never knew what it was or what it did. Take a look at almost any USB cable and you will see a large round piece at the end of it. That's your Ferrite bead. Now, what do you do with it? Crack open the case and take off the beads. This probably means that you will have to cut off the end of the USB cable, you can also go to Radio Shack or other electronic stores and find Ferrite beads. Attach the beads to the your speaker wires and you have yourself a silenced stereo system.
On MacLife.com via engadget
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PC Mod - armed and dangerous |
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Written by Chris Tangora
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Wednesday, 16 July 2008 |
 While the guns may not fire, this PC mod can double as your home security system. The mod is based around Team Fortress 2 (TF2) from Valve and is a sentry from that game. TF2 is a class based online war game (think D&D using modern weapons online). This is the second mod of the TF2 style, the first being a health dispenser mod.
This is a great mod, but the only draw back is that the guns don't work. Now show me a mod that can blow away a real thief and that will be a great mod. The TF2 sentry mod is done very well though. Very clean lines and attention to details, with a complete build log at bit-tech.net's site.
From bit-tech.net via engadget
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