Arduino

British designer Dominic Wilcox has created a pair of prototype shoes which offer to guide the wearer home with built-in GPS navigation. The inspiration for the clever footwear derives from The Wizard of Oz character Dorothy’s red shoes, which famously transported her home with a click of her heels. Naturally, the GPS system within Wilcox’s shoes is also activated by clicking the heels together.  Read More

Games that are played by using your hands are so last year – why not do something a little more fun? For instance, why not explode watermelons ... with your mind? One Kentucky-based hackerspace took that idea and ran with it, turning a mind-reading toy into a melon blasting machine.  Read More

Imagine having your own personal bartender ever-present in your home just waiting to be given the instruction to produce a cocktail of your choosing. While employing a dedicated bartender to be on hand 24/7 is the exclusive domain of the rich, a robot bartender doesn't have to be. Especially for those with a little passion and dedication – oh, and the technical know-how to build one out from the humble beginnings of an Arduino board. This is exactly what a group of amateur engineers have done with the Inebriator.  Read More

If, during your next hotel stay, you're met with a lock on your door like that pictured above, it's time for a conversation with management. This is an Onity HT series lock. Cody Brocious claims that the company has sold 10 million of its various locks to hoteliers, accounting for half of all locks worldwide, and appearing in one in three hotels. Described by Onity as its "flagship product," the HT series lock is its big seller: Brocious reckons there are 4 million HT series locks out there. Why does this matter? It matters because on July 24, Brocious took to the stage at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas to demonstrate how to unlock one in a matter of milliseconds using gear you and I can buy off the shelf from Radioshack for under 50 bucks.  Read More

The open-source Arduino micro-controller is a very useful piece of kit which has been implemented by hackers to power countless endeavors from Musical Umbrellas to Angry Birds Slingshot Controllers. For some projects however, the flexibility of the Arduino can be overkill and it's this issue which prompted Digispark to create a simpler, cheaper alternative - a tiny Arduino-compatible developmental circuit board that costs as little as US$12.  Read More

It's hard to believe just how popular Angry Birds and its spin-offs have become since the first game's release in 2009, but there are plenty of people still enjoying Rovio's series even now. With numerous ports for almost every popular mobile device, game console, and web browser, not to mention downloads totaling over one billion, it's clear that casual gamers are still enamored with the game about suicidal birds and explosive pigs. A couple of students have even gone so far as to create a slingshot-style controller just for the game out of a motorized slider from a sound mixer and an Arduino microcontroller.  Read More

Part of the huge appeal of the electronic follow-me game of Simon was its simplicity. Anyone in the family could step up and play without needing advanced scientific know-how or seriously fast hand-to-eye co-ordination skills. It was an entertaining challenge where the punishment for incorrectly following Simon's lead resulted in no more than a disapproving buzzer sound ... until now. A group of hackers has constructed a modern violence edition as a qualifying entry for this year's Red Bull Creation competition that is quite literally a bone shaker.  Read More

During this year’s Amsterdam-based Music Hack Day, two intrepid hackers originating from Berlin created a musical umbrella which produces a random series of lo-fi 8-bit tones. The tones are triggered by raindrops striking the outside surface of the umbrella's canopy and the abstract results bring to mind a warped soundtrack for the first generation Nintendo Game Boy.  Read More

The LED-meisters at macetech LLC seized upon this week's Maker Faire to unveil an eye-catching pair of prototype "LED matrix shades" that light up in a variety of dynamic patterns. When the shades hit the market in six to eight weeks, users will be able to program patterns of their own, thanks to the Arduino-compatible electronics from which they're made. macetech's Garrett Mace gave Gizmag an exclusive insight into the development of the shades, which look like they've fallen through a portal from some future urban dystopia.  Read More