Computing

While digitizing a Rubik’s cube would offer little more than confusion and frustration, at least it’s a one-up from Hasbro’s Lights Out. However, it is not a one-up from the original design of the Rubik’s cube, which is a classic amongst puzzle games worldwide. Rubik’s cubes were always the cheap toy you could throw around when you couldn’t solve it, ...

The Duemilanove (meaning “2009” in Italian) is the latest addition to the Arduino line of microcontrollers. It looks like it’s predecessor, the Diecimila, and also shares similar specs with one main subtle difference: the Diecimila has a jumper which is used to select a power source (USB or external power) while the Duemilanove automatically selects the appropriate power supply , ...

The musical trio from Tokyo, Japan known as d.v.d. sound like a blast to see live. The group consists of drummers Itoken and Jimanica and visualizer Takashi Yamaguchi. As the drummers play and beat on the drums, Takashi projects and manipulates brilliant imagery on a screen. The sounds trigger geometrical shapes and landscapes via Processing (just like Metamorphosis 2), ensuring ...

Using an ATtiny13 microcontroller and some matrixed LEDs, hacker Randomskk designed a jar full of electronic fireflies. A bulb is picked at random and flashed on one to three times. 255 different patterns are available and the entire thing is powered by a watch battery. Seems like it’d be pretty easy to make your own. What do you think? Weekend ...

I have to admit, the last place I ever expected to see a tutorial detailing how to install OS X on a PC would be the Register. But hey, Brian Hurley has a fantastic tutorial for those of you too broke to afford Apple’s hardware. The process is very detailed and is more suited for a long weekend than an ...

Little is known about Motorola’s Android endeavor but the public will surely welcome another Google phone. Word on the street is that Motorola is preparing a touchscreen iPhone competitor that will run the Android OS and will feature a full QWERTY keyboard. Unfortunately, the unnamed phone won’t be available until Q2 2009, so don’t hold your breath. Link

Even on Halloween, when you’re all hopped up on candy, using a mouse can be tiring. For the people who don’t use a vocally controlled mouse, you’re going to need a place to rest your hand. Good thing ThinkGeek is selling this foam wrist-rest that’s shaped like a disembodied hand. It’s perfect for October. $9.99 isn’t a bad price for ...

Jean Shin is pretty cool. First, we saw her bizarre melted wave of vinyl records (we hope no Journey vinyl was used.) Now, we’re taking a look at Jean Shin’s TEXTile, an interactive sculpture that’s comprised of 22,528 recycled keyboard keys that are fashioned in a way to make it appear as a tapestry. At its base is a customized ...

A good pal of mine and former colleague Mike Kobrin is the go-to man for all things musical. I didn’t even know a Moog guitar existed until I saw this post on CrunchGear featuring a video of Kobrin reviewing it. It looks (and sounds) like a beautiful instrument but at $6500, it’s reserved for real rock stars. No, getting one ...

The lovely folk at T-Mobile just sent us our Android-equipped Google G1 phone for review. After the jump, all the pics you could ever want, including a sampling of the supposedly three-megapixel camera it has.