Check out this awesome 3D mouse you can build using some creative hacks!

I’ve been exploring 3D graphics using VVVV. One of the things you quickly learn when working in 3D is that doing anything with a 2D mouse is a pain. Particularly I found I was spending a lot of time shuffling the camera position which involves a tricky combination of keystrokes and mouse movements. I wanted to get a camera control that would allow me to fly the camera smoothly in 3D space.

Looking for “3D Mice” in Google found a variety of more-or-less ugly and expensive commercial options, but also this project linked off Slashdot. Humm I thought, how hard could that be to copy.

The basic principle of Three Blind Mice is to run three threads round three rollers from old mechanical mice. By using the mouse reports to calculate the length of the extended thread this allows the position where all the threads join to be calculated. First job was to interface the mice to a PC. I am using old Microsoft Itellimice. The “z” axis on these mice which measures the position of the wheel is very low resolution and not suitable for this application. So, you need two mice to get the three axis of measurement required.

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Here’s a cool Smart Car system for your car with GPS tracking so you don’t have to pay some
big name service to track where your car is.

Do you need to control your vehicle using your cellphone or track
where it is in the world on your computer?
Here’s a cool smart car system built using the CUBLOC CB220 as the
brain and CLCD420B for display. They obviously hooked up some GPS
modules and some GPRS modems to make it work nice.
Our distributor in India built this,
awesome job guys!

Also check out the PDF with detailed features.
If you want to get hands on one of these systems or be a distributor
for it if you own a Auto company, contact Autopay Solutions.

Well my friends over in Korea are going crazy about making these cantennas, here’s the site
that has some pics of the parts you need. Pretty much, you can probably make this just by
the pictures. Oh yeah, you can use this software to check your db.

Check out this funky homemade wireless antenna you can make it yourself and extend the range
of your home wireless network. Tight!

Most of the designs on the web for 2.4 GHz omni antenna seem to involve brass tubing and lmr-400 cable, none of which are readily available to me. I then found a coax only design for 444Mhz that was based on the same idea. The only reasonable cable I could get my hands on was RG-213 from Maplin. By scaling the 444Mhz design up to 2.4 Ghz and using RG-213 I thought I’d have a go. In order to get about 6db gain from the antenna, it would need 8 sectors, with a 1/4 wave section at the top and a fly-lead with N-connector at the bottom. It should take about 2-3 hours to build an antenna using this design, but don’t worry if it takes longer, you will get quicker, especially as you only need to make the jig once.

via wagthis

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

Remember the 200MPH Radio controlled model Jet? Here’s another cool one that
can go 300KM per hour!

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Garrett and Kenji have been telling me free wifi is coming to San Francisco pretty soon which isn’t
new since the mayor promised this almost 2 years ago. Anyways, we are looking forward to the
free internet since our pockets are becoming more empty every day. But if you don’t live in SF,
you can always hack a wireless WEP pretty easy. (well, i am not telling you to hack it though…)

Thanks user blade666 for the link!

Here’s a cool HOWTO for cracking WEP and WPA wireless networks if you can’t afford one.
(Not advised to do so! THIS IS FOR INFORMATIONAL purposes ONLY! ) :p

via wagthis

Okay, this one is very simple.
First, download from Network Stumbler’s website.

1. Then install it and find out which channels other wireless networks in your neighborhood are on.
2. Then select a channel that is not near anyone else’s channels. This little tip I got when I used to work as an IT manager did help when our company network was in the same wireless channel as 20 other companies.
3. Of course, this might not help your wireless network if you don’t have that much interference in the first place but it does help since 99% of all wireless networks default to Channel 6.

Cheers!
This howtos got to be a no-brainer since it’s really common sense…dur…
via zedomax duh!

I think this has been around for a while now but this is the first time I’ve
seen the video of it.

Many laptop owners carry a spare mouse because they dont like the built in control, or because they just like to use a mouse. This adds weight, things to remember etc when you go anywhere. Also, if you use somebody elses laptop you may not be able to use their pad at all! I often setup software for somebody else on a laptop and curse the wigglestick on the keyboard that they fumble on with because they are that slow anyway but it holds me up. If I had a mouse with me at all times that would be amazing. So, the NokiaMouse was born.

Most phones now have a camera and can run Java, there is no reason that some software couldnt be written to watch for movement in the camera, and translate that into mouse signals for the PC. Bluetooth could be used to send the data to the PC.
So there was my challenge, a java program that took multiple frames from the nokia camera, translated that into direction and speed and sent it to the PC as mouse movements.

I dont intend to release this code as im trying to develop the Bluetooth HID before any kind of release, but it means any laptop owner need not carry a spare mouse or use the crappy touchpad!

Things didnt go entirely smoothly of course. The first thing everybody is probably saying is, but the camera only shows black when its flat on the mousepad! You are of course right, Light is needed. My temporary solution is to hold the phone about .6cm above the pad, letting light in the side. My camera picks up enough to see at this distance.

The initial code didnt use bluetooth, but a usb cable to the phone as I wasnt sure about accessing the bluetooth interface directly in java or how to make a real BT Mouse HID so it would pair as if it was a mouse. For now custom driver code runs on the PC and the phone, and data is sent over a usb lead.

After giving up on the idea of a proper mouse HID I used the bluetooth to just link the phone as normal and send the data over the Nokia driver to a special driver on the PC again, this isnt as convenient as the original plan as it needs software on the PC as well as the phone, if I can be bothered ill develop a proper HID mouse bluetooth driver for the nokia, this would mean that it could be used on ANY bluetooth pc without installing software!

A lot of thought went into the interface. Originaly the phone was the right way up with the screen at the top, but this put the buttons at the bottom! Not a good shape for a mouse. So, the phone was inverted with the screen where your palm would rest. This makes the keypad available for buttons. Not surprisingly I used three buttons, Star, Zero and Hash (pound for US’ites). Originally I intended to make the volume up/down on the side into a scroll wheel but it seems that its just not positioned right when the phone is upside down, and I decided that left right buttons were more important than scroll wheel.