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Archive: Home Entertainment
November 27, 2008
HOW TO - Make a "TV-B-Gone Hat"
Turn off TVs by just looking at them - By Mitch Altman....
“Hey, you mind turning that thing off?” Simple enough question, but I got tired of people looking at me like I’m from Mars. When a TV is on in the room, I can’t think. I just stare at the thing and drool.
So I invented TV-B-Gone, a key chain that stealthily turns off just about any television. When the TVs turn off, people turn on, engage in conversation, read, eat, and perform all sorts of human activities. Peace happens.
I recently teamed up with prolific kit maker Limor Fried to create a $20 kit version of the original TV-B-Gone key chain. This version works up to 40 yards away, and it’s totally hackable; the entire project is open source and documented at ladyada.net/make/tvbgone. Here’s how I built one into a baseball cap that lets me look at almost any TV, touch the top, and watch with glee as it shuts off.
Read full storyPosted by Phillip Torrone |
Nov 27, 2008 12:00 AM
Culture jamming, DIY Projects, Electronics, Gadgets, hacks, Home Entertainment, Wearables |
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November 20, 2008
What happy people don’t do - Watch TV?
What happy people don’t do - Watch TV... I wonder if the Cornfield Electronics paid for this study? :)
Happy people spend a lot of time socializing, going to church and reading newspapers — but they don’t spend a lot of time watching television, a new study finds.
That’s what unhappy people do.
Although people who describe themselves as happy enjoy watching television, it turns out to be the single activity they engage in less often than unhappy people, said John Robinson, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the author of the study, which appeared in the journal Social Indicators Research.
While most large studies on happiness have focused on the demographic characteristics of happy people — factors like age and marital status — Dr. Robinson and his colleagues tried to identify what activities happy people engage in. The study relied primarily on the responses of 45,000 Americans collected over 35 years by the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey, and on published “time diary” studies recording the daily activities of participants.
“We looked at 8 to 10 activities that happy people engage in, and for each one, the people who did the activities more — visiting others, going to church, all those things — were more happy,” Dr. Robinson said. “TV was the one activity that showed a negative relationship. Unhappy people did it more, and happy people did it less.”
More:
Super TV-B-Gone kit, the happy maker. A great beginner kit to get started in electronics, hack it, mod it, be happy.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Nov 20, 2008 04:40 PM
Home Entertainment |
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November 10, 2008
HOW TO - Max out Apple TV's potential with Boxee
Nice Boxee write up at Gizmodo, how-to max out Apple TV's potential with Boxee...
This is a guide that, if followed, will unchain your Apple TV from its cruel iTunes tether, turning it into the useful living room conduit of music, video and web-based content it should have been all along via the media center software Boxee. Boxee can be installed fairly easily via the ATV's USB port to bring Hulu and Comedy Central streaming, playback of any video or music file anywhere on your network in virtually any file type imagineable, and a bevy of internet A/V sources like Flickr, Last.fm, NPR and BBC podcasts and tons of others—all upping the usefulness and fun of Apple's notoriously underachieving box by a factor of 10, easily. If you have an ATV, Boxee is a must-install, and it's 100% free. Let's get started...
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Nov 10, 2008 12:10 PM
DIY Projects, Home Entertainment |
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November 5, 2008
The end of TV: Boxee + Apple TV + Hulu
The end of TV: Boxee + Apple TV + Hulu, a review of Boxee @ Tux Geek...
People want to do much more with their iPhone then Steve Job allows. So they jailbreak it. The same goes for the Apple TV. While it is a great and relatively cheap media center, it has restrictions, just like the iPhone. Wouldn’t it be nice to play xvid videos, stream shows from Hulu, listen to LastFm, Twitter the name of the movie you are currently watching or see what music your friends are listening to on your big screen TV connected to an Apple TV? Well, you can do that with Boxee!Boxee is an open source media center, with social networking features, currently in an invite-only alpha stage. It is a fork of XBMC, a media center initially designed for the Xbox, but then ported to run on all major platforms. Boxee runs on Linux, Mac, and soon Windows. You can put it on your AppleTV with a grandma-simple “hack“, with no adverse effects.
What does it do?
As other media center software, Boxee allows you to browse and play media files (movies, music, photos) from local hard-disks or DVD drive and can stream music and videos from the internet or other computers in the network (SMB/SAMBA shares). It supports 1080p HD and it reads virtually any type of media, except DRM files.
Boxee scans your default media folders and downloads the related meta-data and artwork for your music and video files. Unfortunately, it doesn’t import your iTunes or iPhoto libraries - a big loss for Mac users.
When playing a song you can choose to see the lyrics (especially useful for a karaoke night) or display information about the band or artist.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Nov 5, 2008 09:00 AM
Home Entertainment, Online |
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October 31, 2008
HOW TO - Make a USB remote control receiver
Nice how-to at Hack-a-day from Ian on how to make a USB remote control receiver, he writes...
Now that we listen to MP3s, and watch XVIDs or x264s, a computer is the entertainment center in at least one room of most homes. Unless you have a special HTPC, though, you’re probably stuck using the keyboard to pause, change the volume, and fast-forward through annoying Mythbusters recaps. PC remote control receivers range from ancient serial port designs (who has one?) to USB devices not supported by popular software. In this how-to we design a USB infrared receiver that imitates a common protocol supported by software for Windows, Linux, and Mac. We’ve got a full guide to the protocol plus schematics and a parts list.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Oct 31, 2008 04:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Home Entertainment |
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September 26, 2008
Participate in the US Presidential debate with crowd narration
Johan writes in...
A Neuros community member has created a technology for superimposing chat on top of a TV broadcast, called 'Crowd Narration' using the Neuros OSD. Users won't need a Neuros device to participate at http://narration.neuros.tv/ but their chat text will be sent in real time to participating viewers watching the debate through their Neuros OSD.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Sep 26, 2008 08:00 AM
Home Entertainment |
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September 8, 2008
RealDVD - Copy DVDs?
RealDVD is being touted as one of the only legal ways to "back up" DVDs. It seems to make a copy on your drive, keeps the DRM and adds more Real player style DRM.
Here's the funny part about all this - awhile back (1999) a ton of people were sued and got in trouble for trying to back up their DVDs, it still happens to this day although rare.
That said you can't build a DVD jukebox without getting sued.
Most people nowadays rip DVDs using many of the free open source tools (lots of posts on MAKE about that). Back to 1999, when the encryption(s) on the DVDs were broken allowing copies to be made (DeCSS) - they key actually came from the XingDVD player, from Xing Technologies, a subsidiary of RealNetworks. I'm pretty sure to this day 2600 magazine cannot even link to the DeCSS program, source, or anything.
I'm sticking with HandBrake.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Sep 8, 2008 10:30 AM
Home Entertainment |
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August 14, 2008
Easy Scrabble susan
Jenny @ CRAFT points us to this easy scrabble lazy susan using a bracket, some illustration board, and fuzzy furniture feet.
Posted by Becky Stern |
Aug 14, 2008 07:00 PM
DIY Projects, Home Entertainment, Toys and Games |
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HOW TO - build an adjustable projector mount
If you find yourself transporting your video projector to new locations often, a sturdy and versatile mount is a must -
This projector mount will hold your valuable beamer securely while allowing you to point it most anywhere you would need. The components can be found at Lighting/Grip or Photography resellers. The parts as described here run about $130 - not cheap, but well worth it to protect and properly utilize your expensive video projection box.- not cheap, but really not that bad when you consider pre-built alternatives of comparable quality. - Build a projector mount that will go anywhere
More:
Build Your Own Projector Mount...
Posted by Collin Cunningham |
Aug 14, 2008 04:00 AM
DIY Projects, Home Entertainment |
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August 4, 2008
What is this toilet paper contraption?
This 3 beds, 1 baths house was available in Wausau, WI - when browsing through the photos you can't help to wonder what this toilet paper contraption is and if it's included. Post up your guesses in the comments, winner gets something cool from the Maker Shed.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Aug 4, 2008 03:30 PM
Home Entertainment |
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July 30, 2008
Home automation round up
Here's a round up of just some of the home automation projects, kits and more found on MAKE! If you do home automation, post what you've made, used or bought in the comments!
You could make your own "proximity based power system"...
Make - Volume 08 - Smart HVAC (Page 140).
MIDAS: Homemade Dorm Room Home Automation System.
Home automation with the Basic Stamp.
Use old pda as interface for home automation.
Homebrew Home Automation Project.
Rackbox - Extreme home automation.
Wireless Webcam For Homebrew Automation/Security Project.
Home Automation hacks (Wiki). A couple cool hacks here - X10RfConfiguration - essentially converts the fairly unreliable powerline X10 to a more reliable (under many circumstances) RF X10 at virtually no cost and homebrew X10 signal analyzer - rather than measure signal strength, this homebrew signal analyzer (built with a lego mindstorms RCX) actually counts the transmissions that arrive at the destination X10 sensor, for comparison to the source sensor. Missing transmissions indicate reliability problems.
The Open Source Gift Guide: Open source hardware ... Here's some great opensource DIY Home automation software, written in Perl with a Web interface. For windows or Linux/unix. It also works with the One Wire Weather station posted a few days ago." MisterHouse is an open source home automation program. It's fun, it's free, and it's entirely geeky. Written in Perl, it fires events based on time, web, socket, voice, and serial data. It currently runs on Windows 95/98/NT/2k/XP and on most Unix based platforms, including Linux and Mac OSX. $ Just need to buy/eBay the home automation hardware, like x10 (easily found for cheap).
Smarthome's INSTEONNetLinc devices (works with iPhone).
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jul 30, 2008 12:00 AM
DIY Projects, Home Entertainment |
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June 29, 2008
HOW TO - Stackable sound baffles
Jim Robert made an instructable for stackable "gobos," portable sound baffles for absorbing or reflecting sound for a reconfigurable sound work environment. He has the tutorial up on his website, too.
Posted by Becky Stern |
Jun 29, 2008 12:00 PM
DIY Projects, Home Entertainment, Instructables, Music |
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June 25, 2008
Lost the remote? Use your face...
Lost the remote? Use your face... frowning skips commercials I guess...
A researcher has discovered a way to use facial expressions to speed and slow video playback.By using a combination of facial expression recognition software and automated tutoring technology Jacob Whitehill, a computer science Ph.D. student from UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering, is leading the project that ultimately is part of a larger venture to use automated facial expression recognition to make robots more effective teachers.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jun 25, 2008 09:05 AM
Arts, Home Entertainment |
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HOW TO - Turn your Xbox 360 into a streaming Netflix player
Fun hack @ LifeHacker, turn your Xbox 360 into a streaming Netflix player.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jun 25, 2008 09:00 AM
DIY Projects, Home Entertainment |
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April 17, 2008
Sony XEL-1 OLED TV teardown
I saw one of the Sony XEL-1 OLED TVs in Tokyo and wanted to take one apart on the spot, luckily Bunnie just posted up some awesome photos! He writes -
I was at the Embedded Systems Conference today in San Jose, and I saw a presentation where a Sony XEL-1 OLED TV was torn down live. It’s a sweet piece of technology, the crispest screen I’ve ever seen. Unlike LCDs, the screen doesn’t develop weird artifacts when you poke at it or twist it. I first saw it at CES in January, and then I got to lay my hands on it ever so briefly while in Japan a couple weeks ago…so tempted to get one…and then, I run into it today, again, by chance: the speaker’s luggage was lost so the teardown presentation, originally scheduled for yesterday, got moved to the day I was at the conference.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 17, 2008 10:00 AM
Computers, Gadgets, Home Entertainment |
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MultiScreener
MultiScreener looks very handy if you need to play movies on multiple screens and want to keep them sync'ed up...
MultiScreener is a set of freeware applications that synchronize the playback of Quicktime movies on multiple computers, using a local network to tie them all together.It is intended for multi-screen video walls, multichannel art installations, and the like. (It's an alternative to Pioneer DVD Players and expensive synchronizer hardware.) There are two applications: Server and Client. The server plays a movie and sends position information over the network. Each client compares its position to the server's and changes its playback speed to compensate.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Apr 17, 2008 07:00 AM
Arts, Computers, Home Entertainment |
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March 31, 2008
Carbon fiber draft tower
Raelx made this absolutely sick draft tower for his keggerator with carbon fiber. DIY alert, however, the guy works for Cannondale, so he's got primo access to supplies and tools. He includes some nice construction photos, too.
Related:
From the pages of MAKE:
Working with Carbon Fiber - Form, lay up, and cure your own high-performance composites
Posted by Becky Stern |
Mar 31, 2008 07:00 PM
DIY Projects, Furniture, Home Entertainment |
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March 3, 2008
DIY CD changer
Nophead made this awesome seven-shelf cd changer, which he just retired (all his cds are ripped as mp3s, now) to make more space in his workshop. Documentation is better late than never! - [via] Link.
Posted by Becky Stern |
Mar 3, 2008 03:00 PM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Home Entertainment |
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February 19, 2008
Erector sets and more (iPod & iPhone robots, R2D2 projectors...)
@The NYC Toy fair 2008 Erector was there, perhaps best known for Erector sets - but these folks had a mind blowing product line that I didn't expect. They have a series of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth robots that work with iPhones and iPods and controllable from anywhere in the world.
They had their "classic" Erector set on display, but that's no match for this giant creature.
Lastly, they licensed R2-D2 from Star Wars and sorta went nuts - this R2 unit is a real home projects, web camera, DVD player, iPod / iPhone stereo - and a robot you can control from anywhere. When it needs to project, it tilts back and projects a stunning image just like any other home projector. Obi-Wan you're my only hope, and $3,000+ dollars. It's not released - this was it's debut.
Oh, it's remote is a Millennium Falcon, of course.
More:
- Erector - Link.
- More photos of Erector @ Flickr - Link.
- Giant set of NYC Toy fair 2008 photos @ Flickr - Link.
- MAKE's coverage of the NYC Toy Faire 2008 in one place! - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Feb 19, 2008 10:30 AM
Home Entertainment, Robotics, Toys and Games |
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February 4, 2008
TV-B-Gone Gun
Ferry, from the HackedGadgets Forum, writes:
"I took 30 IR LEDs and wired them up, a SMD FET switches them on and off and is wired up with a pinheader connector to the TV-B-Gone. Internally the FET is connected to the output pin of the controller, which is also connected to the transistor driving the normal IR LED.
I took a lens out of a old beamer, and used a PVC tube to fit all the stuff in.
After all I painted it black, paint doesn't hold too well on PVC but whatever.
It's possible to focus the beam by turning on a blue LED and slide the LEDs when loosening the screws on the side."
TV-B-Gone Gun - Link
Related:
- TV-B-Gone coverage on the Make: Blog - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Feb 4, 2008 12:00 PM
Culture jamming, Electronics, Home Entertainment |
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