With so many devices these days getting the touchscreen function, it makes perfect sense for those with older or more ancient devices to have successors that keep up with the times. Of course, there are folks out there who love nothing better than to roll up their sleeves and perform some DIY hack on existing machines to be relevant in this day and age. Case in point, throwing in touchscreen capabilities to an Eee PC, which is one of the earlier netbooks to really take off. If you’re interested, you can always follow this step-by-step guide which helps you install the relevant touchscreen hardware and make sure your netbook does not end up as a paperweight. The hardware comprises of two parts, with the transparent film covering the screen and the driver board that reads inputs. The film itself will feature an adhesive layer on the back which sticks to the LCD panel. In order to install it however, you must first must remove the panel from the bezel while finding a place to hou...
This Pulse Laser Gun may look like it is from the future, but believe me, it was just recently made. The gun was a DIY project that has a small pulse laser head and generates a kW-pulse of infrared light. There is a video below of it shooting a balloon, but it can blast through plastic, razorblade, and even 5mm of Styrofoam. It has a range a 3 meters, and the gun itself is 320mm long and weighs at 2 pounds. Just be warned, there isn’t any sound at the beginning of the video, but it kicks in later. Too bad there isn’t any laser pewpew sound. To make up for sound is the sight of this blue lights to create a real science fiction look. The video says that it is battery powered, and it is good for about 50 shots. For obvious reasons, safety glasses are required at all times. According to the video, it sounds as if the creator has sold this gun. Hopefully it came with a matching holster. However, it sounds like he or she wants to make more. This looks like you would have to h...
The wonders of the human mind never ceases to amaze me, and this time around we have a bunch of boffins over at Harvard University and MIT working together to create what could potentially have positive effects in the fight against cancer worldwide – using just $200 worth of parts to develop a scanner gizmo which is capable of detecting cancer in just an hour. This will be a handheld device, where it will use “antibodies and magnetic particles to seek out and flag cancer in cells, which are extracted with a needle, rather than large amounts of surgically removed tissue.” All diagnostic results can be processed on a smartphone via an app (hopefully the app will be free), and you can check out your results in an hour without having to wait for a week as the biopsy takes place. That kind of wait can be pretty tough, especially for those who have a weak mental fortitude. Current biopsy tests are around 84% accurate, but this invention is touted to deliver accuracy leve...
We have reported on some cool weapons made from DIYers before. For example, there was that actual Star Trek Phaser with the beam that really works. Here is another weapon that is created by DIYers at J&M Special Effects, and I would love to see it in any movie and in real life. I have a video of this after the jump, and the man looks like Pyro from the X-men movies, without any of the mutant powers. You will note that there are many hoses and cables that don’t look very safe. Not that making a flame thrower would fall under anyone’s definition of safe, of course. Apparently, J&M Special Effects is working on a more compact version of this flamethrower. I suppose that this would be good for when you want to conceal your flamethrower. Granted, I cannot think of a situation other than espionage where you would need a concealed flame thrower. Then again, I don’t know much about flame throwers. Usually, I see them as big backpacks that require a gun which ne...
Last week, I saw a documentary film entitled Exit Through the Gift Shop, and it was a film about street art. You can watch it for free at Hulu.com now. The film opened my eyes to see that some of the graffiti isn’t there for “tagging” or going against the system, but an attempt from artists to make the streets more beautiful. Many of these great street artists, including the now legendary Banksy, bring in cardboard stencils so they can do their work faster. Also, so they won’t be apprehended by the law. This street artist named Mudlevel has created a Robo-Rainbow, which can make a perfectly formed multicolored rainbow on a wall in 15 seconds. You can see it on a video after the jump. The Robo-Rainbow uses a mechanical sweeping arm with spray cans. That might sound incredibly simple, but the device is quite complicated with an Arduino processor controlling an electric drill and servos to trigger the spray can nozzles. Apparently, it is harder to make a colored...
This is an ammo counter that was built by a DIY modder named Michael Ciuffo. As you can see, it resembles those ammo counters that you see in a lot of FPS games. Some of you might remember that Ripley had a digital one on her futuristic rifle in Aliens. The gun can be used on a lot of different weapons. I wish that I had a list of armaments that it accommodates, but it has to do with an accelerometer to detect recoil from the gun. According to my Source, the maker has seen so many requests for these ammo-counter that he wants to start putting it into production. I have no idea when he will get started, or how long it will take to market them. I wonder how much he will charge. I think this is one of those times when life imitates art. Does anyone think that this is odd that someone builds an accessory for armaments that was inspired by video games or science fiction movies like Aliens? So what is next for inspiration for DIY-ers. Can I make some suggestions? How about some of the c...
What you are seeing here is a “death-ray” made by gluing 5,800 tiny mirror tiles to a fiberglass satellite dish. According to my Source, it is powerful enough to “melt steel, vaporize aluminum, boil concrete, turn dirt into lava, and obliterate any organic material in an instant”. Believe it or not, it was built by a 19-year-old named Eric Jacqmain who wanted to prove how powerful the sun’s energy is. Okay, point taken! Unfortunately, Jacqmain’s invention failed because it was destroyed by a shed fire that was started by its own energy. Jacqmain says he want so build a more powerful version with 32,000 mirrors in the future. Will that be more powerful than the sun? In all honesty, I’m not certain at what point the government should intervene when Death-rays are created. I think I saw an episode of Mythbusters where they were trying to find out whether some ancient mirror weapon could blast ships. As I recall, it was busted. Correct me in a c...