[Hack a Day] 7 New Entries:

http://hackaday.com/2008/12/17/7012/

[gmgfarrand] wanted to be able to measure the current being pulled through his USB.  He realized that even though he could just cut open the wire and measure at any point, a permanent tool for this would be quite useful.  This is a simple modification that shouldn’t take long. All you need is a spare USB cable and an enclosure. He ultimately filled his enclosure with glue to keep everything in there and solid. lets hope his soldering holds well.

      

900,000 volts at your fingertips

[Nickademuss] has put together these great instructions on how to build a 900,000 volt Van De Graaff generator. For those unfamiliar, Van De Graaff generators produce massive amounts of static electricity. They are usually the things you see in science centers that make people’s hair stand on end. [Nickademuss] put a lot of effort into this, he created 3D models and diagrams for many of the steps and gave a very detailed step by step breakdown.

      

Sony Vaio UX 64GB solid state upgrade

This Sony Vaio UX50 came with a 30GB hard drive from the factory. This hacker wanted to do an upgrade and move to solid state, so he started hacking away. He ended up with a total of 64GB of solid state storage crammed into the computer.  The hard drive was replaced with a 4GB compact flash drive and the rest is spread through out the device. Apparently any crevice or crack in the Sony UX50 can have memory shoved into it. He managed to somehow get 60GB of storage in there through various USB extensions and adapters. Notice the sticker on the inside of the case. Is this the latest fad? Decorating the inside of the unit where only you know it exists?

[thanks Jorn]

      

iPhone 3G unlocked

iPhone dev team is at it again. They claim to have finally hacked the iPhone 3G.  Originally codenamed “yellowsn0w”, it is targeted to be released on December 31st. This should free you from your locked in carrier as long as you have version 2.11.07 or earlier.

[via Engadget]

      

Twittering toaster

[nothans] felt that there were enough people curious about his toaster’s status that he built a system to update the world via twitter. Using the ioBridge module and a switch on the toaster, the world can now know when [Hans] is making toast. We recently saw someone use the same unit to feed their dog remotely.

      

Rideable hexapod

Who hasn’t fantasized about riding on a hexapod robot?  With these detailed instructions, you very well could be living out your fantasy very soon. As you can see in the video, they opted for connected legs instead of 6 independent ones, so your dreams of riding the dancing Lou Bega bot may have to wait for another day.

[via Hack N Mod]

      

A welcome train for the holidays

[Eric] was charged with the task of setting up the train to welcome people on the porch.  The train had been in the family for a long time, so he didn’t want to modify the train itself. Luckily, it has an IR port. He recorded the IR signal from the remote and used a home made pressure sensor to signal the train to start.

      

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