Glenn's Second Brain » Dan Nosowitz

Finally, a Solution for Those Poor Two-iPhone Owners [Accessories]

Dan Nosowitz — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:39:48 +0000

The duaLink cable is essentially a specialized USB hub: It splits from one USB connector into two iPod/iPhone cables. Great for incredibly rich people with two iPhones, or upper-middle-class folk with two iPods. Available now for $26. [Engadget]

Snoozy the Sloth Is a Creepy Comforting Stuffed Animal That Really Breathes [Robots]

Dan Nosowitz — Tue, 19 May 2009 03:35:00 +0000

Parsons student Justin Blinder created the Arduino-based Snoozy the Sloth stuffed animal as “an intimate, yet passive, toy interaction that relaxes and comforts a user.” Cuddly, or creepy?

Snoozy the Sloth from Justin Blinder on Vimeo.

The sloth doll uses an Arduino microcontroller, two diaphragm pumps, and a latex glove to act as the “lung;” Blinder makes it clear that he wanted not the illusion of breathing (by having, for example, a mechanically contracting and expanding chest) but the actual intake and expulsion of air. In other words, this thing can gently breathe on your neck, which sounds about the same mixture of creepy and cute as The Police’s “I’ll Be Watching You.” On the other hand, we could totally see kids loving this: They go crazy for dolls with semi-animate features, like giggling Elmo or those dolls that pee (weird!). And kids have less experience than we with machines behaving badly, anyway, so their innocent little minds can enjoy the doll without fear of, you know, horrible robot murder. [Official Site, Thanks Justin!]

Nintendo Power Glove Updated With Accelerometer, Bluetooth, Irony [Power Glove]

Dan Nosowitz — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:30:00 +0000

Instructables has a great hack to turn an old Power Glove, that triumph of silliness, into an Arduino-controlled, Bluetooth-and-accelerometer-sporting modern peripheral.

The new and much-improved Power Glove is positioned as kind of a 20th anniversary present to the original Glove. The video below gives a pretty detailed instruction for how to tear apart your own Power Glove, presuming you can find one, and also shows him using it with an iPhone boxing game he’s developing.

Power Glove 20th Anniversary Edition — Build Video from Matt Mechtley on Vimeo.

Finally, the future looks like we imagined it would in 1989. [Instructables, creator's blog]

Xbox 360 Mod Gives Keyboard and Mouse Support At Long Last [Mods]

Dan Nosowitz — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:45:00 +0000

I know that no matter what controller I use, I’m awful at video games not involving Mario or Karts, but XIM’s new mod’ll surely be of interest to hardcore Xbox 360 gamers.

The XIM 2 gives Xbox 360 owners the ability to use a plug-and-play keyboard and mouse with their console. It’s available from XIM’s site for a steep $180, but then, the ability to shoot more things even faster and more accurately has to be priceless to somebody, right? It’s available to order from their website, though you’ll have to wait a bit for shipping. [Engadget]

iPhone Firmware 2.2 Jailbroken, QuickPwn 2.2 Released [Apple]

Dan Nosowitz — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Once again, anything Apple can make, the enterprising Dev Team can break: the brand-new firmware 2.2 has been jailbroken. QuickPwn should take care of everything, unless you're one of those unfortunate owners of the second-generation iPod touch, in which case you're out of luck at the moment. But everything else seems to be running fine—anybody here broken the new firmware yet? Let us know in the comments. [iPhone Dev, thanks Mehmet!]