Are you too cheap to buy a stainless steel kitchen appliance, but want one anyway? Here’s your answer – it ain’t supercheap, but it works – it’s a paintjob.

XLR is something used by audio devices – microphones, keyboards, drum machines (and maybe even electric gituars… dunno, didn’t research it). Lightsnake has developed a little kit to just plug these machines into your PC without the need for drivers. The hardware is bundled with waveform and karaoke software, which is nice but not necessary. Neat.

Razer has released the first set of desktop speakers to feature THX. The speakers are specially built to rest on tables and other surfaces, ensuring sound quality isn’t lost when the sound waves hit the surface to give you awesome THX sound. There’s a headphone slot in the system for when you need to tone the volume all the way down and they’ve released a superb quality soundcard to go with it. If it compares to the 32 channel Gravis Ultrasound I don’t know (probably not – damnit Gravis, why did you stop supporting that?!), but it’s about time that real sound output came back on the agenda – all the emphasis has been on graphics improvements in the past few years.

If you’re hearing impaired, this may be the thing for you – wireless stylish earbuds with award winning quality and noise cancelling technology so that voices come out crisp. clear and loudly without having to up the volume too much. You can switch between mono and stereo sound depending on the environment you’re in and what you want to hear of it. Excellent technology for the (slightly) deaf.

These guys sell some unusual cool lighting, especially LED lighting which changes the entire look of your room using colour.

If you want to do VR, how do you avoid bumping into the walls as you’re wondering about? Use the battle ball – weighs around 500 pounds, easily dissasembleable and mounted on wheels allowing you to walk, run or crawl. Finally!

The Image Replication Imaging Spectrometer is a gadget that sees coloured light views 32 bands in the light spectrum and composits them into the 3 that humans can see, allowing the camera to show low observable (to humans) objects. These images can help not only in spotting IEDs and land mines, but also have medicinal use.

The RFID Gaurdian project is to build a hand held RFID blocking field which will offer bodywide protection from scans on your RFID tags (which you can disable on command) allowing people to reap the benefits of RFID whilst being able to maintain personal privacy.
They’ve managed to build a prototype, with video demonstrations.

The MJoy controller can be used to create your own programmable joystick, or convert your current analogue joystick to a digital, more accurate one.

Using air bubbles to create pixels.

fake legs and feet are now incredibly advanced – so much so, that for GBP 60,000 you can get one which is microprocessor controlled and will allow amputee soldiers back into combat.

By using a wireless 802 antenna from an old piece of kit stuck into the keyboard you can increase the range by about 400%

Ceelite creates flat lightbulbs on sheets of bendable plastic.
Want it in my house, but no pricing on the site.

This huge scanner has a monitor built in to it, and scans the tabletop in less than a second. It also has animation and image editing functions in the software.

You attach some electrodes to your throat and mouth the word. The device says the word in the other language. Far from complete, with an 80% accuracy rate with a lexicon of 100 words, it’s very promising and the only system that doesn’t try to work with acoustic input.

Using a laser pointer and a mirror mounted to a motor you can make cool laser vortex effects cheaply.

For $34,- you can travel using your non-enclosed SATA HD and plug it into just about anything. This tiny gadget sits in between the cable and the USB port.

create your own LCD with interface to your PC and stick it on, create your own content.

This video sparked it off – a guy who’s mounted a camera onto an RC aircraft and fed the feed to a head mounted display (HMD). Now not much special in and of itself, I’ve seen that looong ago. But he’s also got a gyroscope attached to the HMD coupled to a motor on the camera allowing him to pan and tilt. The video is amazing!

The guy who made the video – VRFlyer – has a whole discussion about the technology here.

One of the aspects is the HMD to use. Things get difficult here. Basically it’s about the following things in the choice of HMD
1) Resolution (minimally 640×480 (ie. don’t get ripped off for 3240×240!), but preferably 800×600 [1.5 million pixels])
2) Whether the headset has a VGA connector as well as or instead of NTSC / PAL input
3) Whether the monitors in the HMD are independent of each other or not (most aren’t)
4) Virtual display size
5) Angle of view
6) Cost
7) Are the displays independent (stereo / 3D)?

If you’re only going to use the HMD for flying, VGA isn’t important, as the camera reciever is NTSC/PAL output anyway, but if you want to use it for other things (or view via a laptop) it becomes important.

Also, none of the HMDs is bright screen, so they’re pretty much useless in direct sunlight. Some kind of screen will have to be put on around them.
The maker of the system uses the Cyberman GVD510.
1) 640×480
2) no VGA
3) no
4) 40″, 2m away
5) 28 o
6) $499,-

[edit: 2007]
The Headplay unit offers 800×600, USB 2.0, VGA, NTSC, PAL inputs, optical settings adjustment for focus and inter-pupilar distances, 52″ diagonal (ie. 40″) at 6′ away and 360 colour fields/s. The goggles plug into a central unit which also has an output plug for a controller. It’s expected to retail at around $450,- or so.

Sony has a discontinued line of Glasstron HMDs which you might be able to pick up on ebay or something. The PLM A55 is sufficient, but really you want the 800×600 PLM S-700. No VGA input though.

The Cybermind Cy-visor dh-4400vp has similar specs as the PLM S-700. The Cybermindnl.com website has a whole load of different HMDs for sale. (NB the 900 series is 3D)

Tek Gear has a whole list of HMDs for sale as well.

Stereo3d.com has a huge list of HMDs in a comparison chart (unfortunately it’s static), so if you really like shopping around, this should help.

[edit: 16/7/7]
The Emagine Z800 3D Visor has a lot of good reviews and should be going for around $800,- to $900,- in the reviews. It’s 800×600 but on the official site it goes for a lot more.

They’re a lot cheaper on ebay, but a word of warning – the CrystalView HMDs come in 2 types, one of which is 1.5m pixels, in which case it’s a good deal, but the ‘poor’ model (don’t know how to tell which it is though) sucks so don’t get it!

Then we have the monacle systems which I really didn’t feel like getting into much. The Eyetop system was pointed out and looked quite nice, BUT QVGA (320×240) and no VGA in. It is, however a complete package for $425,-
This system is recommended for making aerial video’s but not for flying in first person view.

So, now we’ve got a HMD, we need a transmitter and a camera. You can get these at Blackwidowav.com.

Placing the transmitters is important and a question of trial and error. Stay away from metal as much as possible (so replace the landing struts, maybe) such as gates, fences, cars, etc.

The gyro is obtained from rc-tech.ch.

This are his mounting instructions, plus a how he recentres the view:

it’s plug in the trainer port, I modifie my tainer port to be able to get 9.6Vpower thrue the plug to power headset. But normally, you plug the gyro in High end radio like the Futaba 9C, it’s like givig partial control to the student. No gyro is available to be plug directly on pot. inside radio. I would have a model like this too, I will be able to use all my radio.
The momentary trainer switch on the radio have been replace
with standard switch. I toggle to student mode to activate the gyro, when I flip it back, the camera come to center fix. I can turn myself at that moments. When new orientation is acheive, I push a second switch mometarily to reset the gyro center, then I toggle the trainer switch to reactivate the gyro. I do that oftenly, when the planes is far, I prefer to look in the direction of the planes, if somethig wrong happens, I will save time. I got rarely problem, but I prefer be prepare if video fail.

Mounting the camera inside a canopy is not a good idea, because of the lack of clarity in plastic.

Now we need a digital recording device (PVR) to throw your flight movies onto. Again, look for a resolution of minimally 640×480, the quality loss going lower is amazing. That or use a laptop with a capture device.

There’s a discussion on PVRs here

If you go the MPVR, they’re reccomending the Aiptek MPVR 2K6, which is 640×480, is cheap and functions as a digital camera as well as being just an input machine.

So then what?
Uhm… yes… you need a plane, a RC controller and permission to fly RC planes (different per country). Good luck on that – that’s a whole new subject in and of itself!

Pretty blinkenlights – the Kamameter has RPM gauge indicators for fan speed, volume and shows temperature. You can change the colours of the indicator and twist buttons and everything!

16×9 mm in size it will project the size of a regular projector on the wall. But not in green. Because green lasers are too frickin’ big man.
It uses one vibrating mirror to spread the light – instead of the loads of mirrors other projectors need.

Because they’re planning to launch a new product, they’re selling refurbished units with one year’s garauntee for massively cut rates on the Apple Website.
A video iPod 30GB for $179, a 2GB iPod nano for $99, for example…

So, if you have any idea how to get a white 30GB one here, please tell me – at $179 I’m finally overboard and want one.

The PicooZ micro helicopter is remote controlled, lasts around 10 minutes and is 17 cm long!

Someone made an android of Philip K Dick, and left his head on the airoplane, so now it’s missing. The software has been released as freeware and was fed with all the information available on Philip so that the android could talk and answer using the correct voice, posture etc.

Guardian Article

Software

A nice aticle on how to build a solar cell which yeilds around 0.43V / 1mA/cm2