Tag: Linux

Almost a year ago a RedPost made news with their hackable Linux picture frame, the RedPost/Kit. Today, the guys at RedPost announced Kit’s better, faster, stronger kid brother, the Signbeta. While it certainly can be used as a digital picture frame, RedPost’s real mission is to replace wasteful paper-covedred bulletin boards with an electronic version.

Google’s Android platform might be designed for mobile devices, but that didn’t stop this guy from making an Android-inspired desktop computer. Built by software engineer (and self-proclaimed geek) Eric Burke, the Android PC is inspired by the green ‘droid head on the Android logo.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a computer designed to fit inside your car, but it’s definitely the first one I’ve seen which can fit entirely in the space of your old car stereo. The Navisurfer II occupies a single DIN slot in your car’s dashboard, and manages to cram in an entire PC with a flip-out touchscreen 7-inch color display.

Here’s an ingenius little invention for all you boozehounds out there. Imagine if you will, sitting at your neighborhood watering hole, when the bartender sees a little flashing light out of the corner of his eye and just knows it’s time to refill your cocktail.

New Zealand digital artist Julian Oliver is working on a cool game that blends the electronic universe with the real world. His work-in-progress game called levelHead uses a series of cubes placed on a table top.

If you ask die-hard gaming enthusiasts what portable console they think is best, you might think they’d all say the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. But there’s a little portable that has a huge underground following because of its ability to run homebrew games and emulators.

Need a second computer to run some basic tasks like hosting a website or a file server? Want to spend less than one big bill on it? Then look no further than this compact system from Data Evolution Corporation (DEC).

Given all the recent challenges I’ve been having with my hosting environment, maybe it’s time for me to pick up one of these puppies. It’s a compact computer that’s totally ready to go for you to host your own dedicated server.

The guys over at RedPost come right out and say it. They want you to hack their new digital picture frame and do whatever you want with it. For starters, the RedPost/Kit is a gorgeous digital picture frame with a large 19-inch Hannspree LCD screen.

This cool hack takes videos from YouTube, converts each frame to ASCII text, then plays them back in all their alphanumeric glory. Warren Harding (Linux geek, not the 29th President) put together a script which uses the text-based Lynx web browser along with Mplayer to to render the video.

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.

Palm today rolled out the details on a new device which extends the functionality of smartphones. Dubbed the Foleo, it’s a companion product for both Palm OS and Windows Mobile versions of Treo smartphones. In a nutshell, Foleo adds a big screen and a full size keyboard to your mobile phone.

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.

Interact TV, makers of numerous Linux-based home media servers has just announced the latest in their line-up, the MyTellyHD (what sort of silly name is that?) It features a complete home media server including PVR, DVD, music and photo library capabilities.

Between the iTunes DRM, a 2-year AT&T/Cingular contract commitment and a slim chance you’ll be able to write custom applications for the device, Apple’s iPhone is beginning to sound like one highly restrictive device. On the flip side, there’s the OpenMoko open source phone platform.

At the Binary 2.0 Conference in Japan, a presentation was given using the Nintendo Wii remote controller to operate a Sony Playstation 3. The catch? The controller was installed as a device using a custom Python driver under Linux on the PS3.