Crave

DIY'er Steve Hoefer used a piezo speaker, a tiny gear reduction motor, an Arduino, and a PVC pipe to make his secret-knock door lock.

(Credit: Steve Hoefer)

I've been hearing more and more about the Arduino microcontroller project lately, and this is by far one of the coolest uses for it I've seen. Arduino is an open-source hardware project meant for easy prototyping of hardware ideas. This is Steve Hoefer's great vision for a mechanism that opens a door when it detects a secret knock. Here it is in action:

As you can see, he's programmed the microcontroller to listen for a specific knock sequence. When it hears it, it turns the deadbolt, meaning you can open the door. It's a simple but genius idea.

We're hoping something like this comes to market. Sure, it's not the most secure idea in the world, but it's fun enough that it'd be great for the inside of homes or backyard sheds or underground sex dungeons.

Feed me, SnackBot. Feed me now!

(Credit: Carnegie Mellon University)

Cravers, I'd like to introduce you to SnackBot. He is exactly what he sounds like: a robot that brings you snacks. He wanders around a place, say a hotel lobby during a convention, with a tray of sweets.

This, people, is what robots are for: Bringing me food. Or beer. Or making sure I don't have to wait in line at the counter for something. This has always been the promise of full robotics--they are made to be servants. They'll happily navigate crowds doing jobs nobody else wants to do (could you imagine this guy answering your door on Halloween?").

That is, of course, until they become sentient and decide they are superior. Then they're all about finding Sarah Conner and killing us all. Naturally.

But this mobile, humanoid robot--which was created by an interdisciplinary team at Carnegie Mellon University--isn't just a toy. It's a prototype for studying human-robot interaction (PDF) in the real world.

As robots become more prevalent (and they will), the ways we deal with them will become more important. Questions inevitably are coming up about how we communicate with robots, how comfortable we are when they're around, and how technophobes deal with the change.

SnackBot is a study platform that aims to answer some of those questions--while bringing us peanut brittle.

Ragsdale hooked his camera up to a jeep and drove around West Point at up to 100 kilometers per hour capturing images. He programmed his rig to take one set of images every 20 seconds, and in an hour had 300MB of data.

(Credit: IEEE Spectrum)

Google Wave is getting all the Googley press this week, but let us not forget one of The Goog's other impressive creations: Street View in Google Maps.

As part of a "disruptive technologies" course at West Point, Roy Ragsdale put together his very own Street View camera vehicle, and in an IEEE Spectrum article, he offers a fairly straightforward and cool how-to on doing the same. Why you'd want to is beyond me. Sure, it's cool, but I like to spend my spare time talking to girls.

Street View, of course, affords panoramic views of places on Google Maps so you can get a street-level view of the place you're looking at.

Ragsdale's rig uses a handful of Microsoft NX-6000 LifeCams that he picked up for $25 a pop, and a GlobalSat BU-353 GPS receiver he got for $37, all of which he plugs into a standard Ubuntu-powered laptop to map where he's been. The setup uses open-source software like luvcview from Logitech, so anyone could probably make this happen with a little tweaking. On top of that, all the parts are off-the-shelf. That sounds like it could be simple enough for a great weekend project.

What you do with the images is up to you, though. Google currently isn't accepting home-brewed Street View pictures, though it would be cool if it did. It would allow smaller towns that Google hasn't yet seen fit to Street Viewify to get on the map, as it were. But we're not holding our breath on that.

In the world of submicroscopic physics, things happen that really can't be observed. So when scientists at Johns Hopkins University need to see an example of interactions between various nanoparticles, they simply make blown-up versions of what they're studying--with Legos.

In the video above, Manuel Balvin demonstrates how different sized ball bearings move differently through a gravity-driven field of pegs. The same reaction can be assumed to work at the nano level, meaning the research can be done more practically.

And these aren't special science Legos, these are the same off-the-shelf toys that we've all loved for years. I'm imagining if we gave them a set of Robotix they could invent practical time travel.

Runte's take on real-world Pac-Man. The photographer designed and made the costumes for the series.

(Credit: Patrick Runte)

While we wait for the big-screen adaptation of Halo to hopefully come out in the next couple of years, we must wonder about the real-life looks video games of yore may have taken. Modern games already look like awesome high-definition movies, but what about their heavily pixelated predecessors?

German photographer Patrick Runte has taken on the idea and has come up with some fairly funny recreations of old 4-bit video games as they would have looked in real life. The games adapted include Tetris, Pac-Man, and of course Pong. He even goes off the grid just a tad to bring us a pinball recreation. Rad.

Runte's a good photographer and there are many more (not so geeky) images on his site. In the meantime, check out a couple more of his game shots after the jump.

Runte's friends dress in costume to represent Pong in the real world.

(Credit: Patrick Runte)

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(Credit: TechEBlog)

USB drives have become a commodity, and, like other things we have too many of, it's hard to make individuals stand out. That's why I find this Luke Skywalker-getting-maimed USB drive to be doubly awesome: it's my favorite climactic scene from the original trilogy and a bad-ass USB drive to boot (not meaning it's bootable, just meaning...well, you know).

Sure, it may be cumbersome to have to sever the son of Anakin's hand to access your work documents for serious business, but it will always remind you of the sacrifice the young Jedi had to endure.

As a side note, I'd like to say to any girls who think this is awesome that I live in Seattle and am available most nights after 7:00 p.m.

(Credit: Ironic Sans)

The Outlet Wall is a great idea. It actually looks good and is totally an exercise in function meeting fashion. If I ever get around to remodeling my place I do believe one wall will feature this setup.

It's just what it appears to be: an entire wall made of active power outlets. Imagine: no more power strips, tangled cables, or trying to make brick adapters fit where they don't want to.

Even if you don't wire all the outlets up, they still look cool. It's almost some sort of post-tech artistic statement.

Photographer David Friedman came up with this concept and posted it on his site, Ironic Sans, where he often details design and gadget ideas. Sadly, the wall does appear to be just a concept for now, but David, if you're reading this, I'd like to give you an Internet high-five.

You could wait for Microsoft's Surface computing device to drop in price so you can put one in your living room. Or you could build your own, like the guys at Maximum PC did. Even more, they documented the whole process step by step so you can build your own.

They used off-the-shelf parts, a PS3 Eye camera, a small form factor desktop PC, and a mix of open-source software and other readily available apps to run the whole thing. The video is pretty impressive. With this data, someone could possibly beat Microsoft to the tabletop multitouch punch.

I've had a lot of experience with the Surface and I have to say it's one of the most innovative products Microsoft has come up with in years. It won't be long till the Surface--or devices like it--are everywhere. Portable multitouch devices should be arriving soon, with Apple rumored to have a 10-inch or so version readying for launch among others. Its' going to be a fun market when it blows up, that's for sure.

(Credit: Think Geek)

I cannot come up with a practical reason why I'd need these reproduction medieval gauntlets. I just want them. Think of all the people I could be! These are the last pieces I need to complete the following outfits: Destro, Sir Galahad, Drs. Klaw and Doom, and Optimus Prime (after a paint job).

No more carpal tunnel!

(Credit: Think Geek)

I think, though, that I'd just keep them in my bag at all times. I imagine that next time I get into an argument with a drunk dude-bro at a bar I can get him to back down without violence simply by putting them on. They're made out of steel, for crying out loud. They also have leather finger loops that do something, though I'm not sure what.

The gauntlets, or Enforcers of Awesomeness as I'll call mine, are handmade and feature real riveting. If anyone out there is feeling generous, e-mail me and I'll send you my mailing address. They're only $59.99 from Think Geek. I need them for the +2 bonus they'll give me to my Charisma when I'm wearing them.