Category: DIY + Hacks

This has gotta be the best hack I’ve seen in a while… Scott Walker’s DigitalBox Newspaper Machine automatically displays the day’s latest news on an LCD screen that’s installed in the front of an old newspaper vending machine.

You won’t have any trouble finding the buttons on this massive replica of Nintendo’s famous NES controller. Game fan Philip Torrone and his team of builders put together this 5-foot wide joypad for the recently completed 2007 Maker Faire.

So what do you do when you crack your iPod screen? This industrious hacker has decided to turn his broken eggs into an omelet by turning his fractured iPod into a tiny little laptop. Owen McGarry created his iTop mini laptop by cutting his old iPod in half, keeping only the screen, battery and audio portions intact, then flipping that portion up at a 45-degree angle.

A console modder known as sir crx has fabricated a mashup between an Xbox 360 controller and a Wii-mote, allowing the Wii control to operate the Xbox 360. From what I can tell, he modified the 360 controller to accept Bluetooth commands, then uses it as a proxy for connecting to the Xbox through Microsoft’s proprietary wireless scheme.

If you’re the adventurous type and think the stock case design for the Nintendo Wii is a bit bland, look no further. Check out the new I-Case Chameleon from Team Xtender. The clear replacement shell features a cool glow in multiple LED colors.

While it’s certainly not the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, you’ve got to hand it to this casemodder for his gumption. This supremely modified Nintendo Gameboy has become host to an entire Windows XP computer.

Here’s what looks like a very cool portable casemod for the Nintendo GameCube. The so-called “GameCube Advance” handheld opens up to reveal access to a large LCD screen and complete gaming controls. On the outside, there’s OLED display for accessing the system’s built-in MP3 player.

The wizards on the R&D team for Zoozen have created this totally redesigned console body for the Xbox 360. Rather than simply a replacement case, the Ovo 360 completely changes the Xbox 360 into a bubbly, blue lit console.

Have a hankerin’ for some old Super Nintendo games, but don’t want to spend all your cash on Virtual Console downloads? French game modder Kotomi has just the solution for you. He’s taken a Super Nintendo console and smashed it down into the case of a Nintendo Wii .

Hot on the heels of Ben Heck’s last mod, the PS360 hybrid joystick, he’s at it again. This time he’s cranked out another Xbox 360 laptop, which improves on the original one he did a few months back.

Console modder extraordinaire Ben Heck is at it again. This time, he’s carefully taken the guts of the Playstation 3’s SIXAXIS controller and sandwiched them inside of an Xbox 360’s wireless controller. There’s something that’s oh-so-wrong but oh-so-right about the strange bedfellows coming together to form a single mutant controller.

While Logitech’s z-5500 5.1 speaker system has received high marks for its sound quality, its looks are a little too high-tech plastic for my tastes. Seeing that nobody was really doing case mods for speaker systems, modder Antti Hakala took on the challenge of converting this rather ordinary looking set of speakers and transformed them into a work of art.

The useless Wii hack of the month award has to go to YouTube user matthwesalvo for his iPod / Wii mashup. He’s figured out a way to stream live video from his Wii to his 60GB iPod via a custom Linux application and some hacking of the video connectors on his iPod dock.

Think Microsoft’s white Xbox 360 case is a bit bland? While you could pick up one of Microsoft’s not so exciting faceplates for the 360, or stick on some sort of cheap-looking vinyl decal, why not go all out and replace the whole case with something a little less dull?

For those of you who are fans of Matt Groening’s classic animated show, Futurama, here’s a computer casemod was just dying to be done. Modeled after everyone’s favorite acerbic, beer-swilling, foul-mouthed robot, Bender, this is one fine piece of casemodding work.

Wii hacker, LiquidIce has set up an integration between his Wii console and his home automation systems. The system lets him control his lights, thermostat, security and home entertainment systems, all from his Nintendo Wii. The system is actually a web-based interface written in PHP and Flash running on a MySQL database.