Foldable Display Tracking - more Wiimote magic from Johnny Lee Chung [previously].
posted by mhjb on Jun 25, 2009 - 27 comments

From the satisfying click of its keys to its no-nonsense layout and solid steel underpinnings, IBM's 24-year-old Model M is the standard by which all other keyboards must be judged. (previously)
posted by Joe Beese on Jun 22, 2009 - 106 comments

6x4x2 wheel configuration with Ackermann steering and hybrid live-axle suspension. Telescoping boom. Impressive 1kg lifting capacity.

Jennifer Clark builds amazing things with lego.
posted by 7segment on Feb 17, 2009 - 13 comments

Dorkbot is a "monthly meeting of artists (sound/image/movement/whatever), designers, engineers, students, scientists, and other interested parties who are involved in the creative use of electricity." Started in NYC in 2000 by Douglas Repetto, Director of Research at the Columbia University Computer Music Center as well as one of Wired's 10 Sexiest Geeks, there are now dozens all over the world. Past presenters have been featured here on the blue. For instance Jeff Han presented his multi-touch interface at dorkbot-nyc in April of 2006. Miru Kim presented her naked city spleen at dorkbot-nyc in October of 2006. Bummed that there's not one in your own city? Start your own! [more inside]
posted by funkiwan on Dec 30, 2008 - 19 comments

The Sea of Perdition - Children of the Kingdom - Black Tulips - Three short films by South African-born film director Richard Stanley. Stanley's career took off with Hardware (an unacknowledged adaptation the 2000ad story Shok!) and the apocalyptic African western/Horror movie Dust Devil, then hit the rocks with the doomed 1996 version of the Island of Doctor Moreau, from which he was fired and replaced by John Frankenheimer. Stanley hasn't directed a feature film since... though he now has two films in preproduction, Vacation and Bones of the Earth. The original script for Moreau can be read on his unofficial site, as well as the script for a sequel to Hardware. Richard Stanley's MySpace Blog is also very strange.
posted by Artw on Dec 26, 2008 - 18 comments

Failing Hard Drive Sounds. via
posted by sveskemus on Nov 15, 2008 - 46 comments

Would you like some Narco ballards with your network software?
posted by Artw on Oct 10, 2008 - 9 comments

Inspired by the discussion of the remix of Nude, I dug up some other musical hardware (it seems that scanner engineers really like classical). Here's the earliest example of this silliness I could find.
posted by drfu on Jun 6, 2008 - 7 comments

The History of Computing Project is a collaborative effort to record and publish the history of the computer and its roots. The site includes a chronological timeline, biographies of computing pioneers, a look at computing hardware through the years, as well as software and games. [more inside]
posted by netbros on May 9, 2008 - 11 comments

"Finding JTAG on the iPhone": a ten-step hardware unlock of the iPhone, allowing it to function with other carriers
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Aug 23, 2007 - 40 comments

“[O]ur military today oversees spending of about a billion and a quarter dollars every day. Most of that is misspent. Over this past quarter-century, we've reinforced an old industrial-policy military with hardware that makes increasingly less sense, spending most on things that provide the least return. The principal argument for that is: ‘We have to keep the big, old-style military because we might fight a big, old-style war one day.’ But in the future the bigger you are, the harder you're going to fall to ever-more accurate weapons.”
posted by jason's_planet on Apr 10, 2007 - 58 comments

LA6NCA's WW2 German Radio Collection Pictures and a little history on many WW2 German radios including a cute as a button spy radio and the Lichtsprechgerät 80, an incoherent light audio transceiver. Also featured are a few photo essays of the equipment in use (Enigma, Luftwaffe Signals unit redeploying). [dorian
posted by Mitheral on Feb 8, 2007 - 20 comments

Judy Patch's Guide to Computer Hardware
posted by GuyZero on Jan 12, 2007 - 36 comments

The Colemak keyboard layout. Colemak is a new alternative to the QWERTY and Dvorak layouts. Designed for efficient and ergonomic touch typing in English, Colemak places the 10 most frequent letters of English (A,R,S,T,D,H,N,E,I,O) on the home row. Z,X,C are preserved in their QWERTY positions for easy copy and paste operations. It gets rid of the Caps Lock and replaces it with Backspace so you no longer need to move your hand off the home position to correct errors. Available for Windows/Mac/Linux/Unix it works with all standard keyboards, including laptops. [via: Projects], [Previously]
posted by Mitheral on Jan 8, 2007 - 91 comments

Taking Open Source to the Next Level Linux? Firefox? Bah! German Markus Merz scoffs at these posers. Instead, he steps up to offer the OScar project, whose goal is to develop and build an open source *car*. While not in the same class as a Range Rover or Hummer, they hope to make something more simple and functional. This isn't the only example of hardware-based open source projects. Others include Zero Prestige, which designs kites and kite-powered vehicles, and Open Prosthetics, which offers free exchange of designs for prosthetic devices.
posted by PreacherTom on Dec 8, 2006 - 20 comments

To work around the proprietary whims of digital audio software developers and laptop processor limitations during the mid- and late-1990s, a small band of technically-minded people, including the electronic musician Blitter, pulled together in the late 1990s to engineer the open-source OPEN DSP EZ-Kit platform, a 16-bit computer designed entirely with a focus on low cost and extensible control and DSP arithmetic capabilities. While this project and similar commercial offerings never seemed to gain the critical mass needed to sustain long-term interest, perhaps the new Arduino hardware project from MIT's Processing hardware group may gain a foothold with Processing and Pure Data audio software hobbyists and artists alike, allowing the creative community to extend, enhance and share inventive uses of new technology. Arduino's use has already begun in fascinating museum installations around the world, and has become a part of this year's SONAR and Ars Electronica festivals.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Aug 12, 2006 - 10 comments

FlexGo™. Microsoft targets emerging markets with pay as you go and subscription models.
posted by davehat on Jun 29, 2006 - 13 comments

What is ubiquitous computing or "ubicomp," other than a geeky buzz-phrase for smart objects, "things that think"? In his provocative new book Everyware (freely excerpted here and here), interface designer and MeFite Adam Greenfield provides a thoughtful meditation on one of the digital world's most resonant hopes for the future, encompassing everything from pervasive RFID-chipping, Orwellian surveillance, and a humbly practical magic wand to a "coming age of calm technology."
posted by digaman on Jun 19, 2006 - 29 comments

Welcome to Microsoft's Mac Lab.
posted by nakedcodemonkey on Apr 21, 2006 - 27 comments

Bad Caps. A site dedicated to the faulty capacitors present in even highly-rated manufacturers' boards. There's a forum with individual boards dedicated to identifying specific boards with faulty caps.
posted by cellphone on Mar 17, 2006 - 17 comments

Ah, remember the olden days when Blogger had to beg for money from users to get new hardware? These days, the hardware is begging Blogger -- FOR MERCY.
posted by brownpau on Mar 17, 2006 - 9 comments

Laser-etched PowerBooks.
posted by nthdegx on Dec 7, 2005 - 25 comments

High Dynamic Range (HDR) imagery rendered in software is only half the story if your monitor can't actually display that full dynamic range. Bit-Tech has an excellent article on an actual HDR-capable display brought out by a crowd called Brightside Technologies (formerly Sunnybrook Technologies).

Needless to say, you want this. And it can be had, for the bargain price of $50000 USD.

Here's more on various HDR Display technologies. Brightside HDR is also covered at HardwareSecrets and Toms Hardware Guide. The Max Planck Institut has their take on HDR, Hyperfocal Design has a few good links if you're interested in trying your own hand at HDR content creation, and here's Brightside's own take on HDR and gaming.
posted by crocos on Oct 4, 2005 - 35 comments

Bring dead LCD pixels back to life! Did you know you can often fix dead LCD pixels by forcing them to rapidly cycle through red, green, and blue? Neither did I, but the video linked here worked on one of my older screens after a few hours of looped playback. YMMV, but what have you got to lose?
posted by pmbuko on Sep 19, 2005 - 32 comments

Because everybody needs a beautiful mouse.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy on Sep 19, 2005 - 18 comments

First came the O'Reilly hacks series. There there was Make magazine, which claims to be the first magazine devoted to digital projects, hardware hacks, and DIY inspiration. Now a niche publication for Lego geeks who want to know everything about wee plastic bricks.
posted by Fozzie on Jun 24, 2005 - 1 comment

Resources for lighting designers and enthusiasts: The Lighting Wiki; [extensive] Glossary of Lighting Terminology (and another); Lighting Design Resources (inc. "Fun with Light"; and Professional Lighting Resources.
posted by nthdegx on Feb 16, 2005 - 4 comments

The clueless reviews the Mac Mini His chief gripes are "The Mini boots up into a stripped-down operating system which Apple calls OS X, similar to the stripped-down WindowsCE OS found on many handhelds." and "No serial ports, no way to connect a printer, no PS/2 ports, no floppy drive, no 5.25" bays." Let the hate mail campaign begin!
posted by StormBear on Feb 2, 2005 - 47 comments

Bored? Flame Wars got you down? Got extra Hardware? This guy has an idea what you can do with some of those old hard drives. Or maybe you would fancy a 3 D Display? And these guys have my favorite summer project of all. (Props to Boing Boing)
posted by jopreacher on Aug 5, 2004 - 7 comments

Meet the new Walkman. 20GB HD, 25 minutes of cache for skip-free playing. Works with Sony's Connect music service. Sharp-looking little player.
posted by jpoulos on Jul 1, 2004 - 48 comments

Trusted Computing. Microsoft and friends are proposing some major alterations to the way that computers work, the ostensible goal being to increase security. But others say that the real goals are much more insidious.
posted by bingo on May 22, 2004 - 15 comments

Home Depot stops doing business with federal government. Home Depot Inc., the nation's largest hardware and home-improvement chain, has told its 1,400 stores not to do business with the U.S. government or its representatives. [snip] Most of Home Depot's managers interviewed by the Post-Dispatch shared the confusion. All the managers contacted declined to be quoted, but most said they didn't know what was behind the company's refusal to sell to the federal government.
posted by percine on Jun 17, 2002 - 7 comments

Apple enters the server hardware market.
posted by alan on May 14, 2002 - 24 comments

NASA scavenges on eBay for old parts for Space Shuttle [NYT link-reg req] The Space Shuttle is so old that many of the parts for it are no longer being made. NASA has been reduced to buying old equipment on eBay to scavenge for circuit boards and old CPUs.
posted by geneablogy on May 12, 2002 - 10 comments

If you're an old geek like me, you'll enjoy a nostalgic browse through the collection at OLD-COMPUTERS.COM. If you're a young geek, you can laugh at all the boxen that we used to think were cutting edge 20 years ago. What system currently in use today will be the Intertec Superbrain of 2020?
posted by MrBaliHai on Mar 3, 2002 - 24 comments

Q209354 - HOWTO Semi-comic relief. Found on newsgroup.
posted by bjgeiger on Jan 27, 2002 - 6 comments

HP's proposed buyout of Compaq has run into some unexpected resistance -- from a couple of guys named Hewlett and Packard.
posted by jjg on Nov 7, 2001 - 17 comments

The Table PC: promising 'new' form factor or marketing tripe? It's not a new idea. Both the Grid and Vadem's Clio did this a long time ago. I wonder will Microsoft's rallying of major hardware manufacturers (Sony, Toshiba, Fujitsu, etc.) be able to turn this form factor into an affordable and practical product.
posted by stevengarrity on Oct 31, 2001 - 15 comments

Just a bit ago, there was a crowd of about 2,000 in downtown Seattle chanting "AMD! AMD!" People will do anything for the chance at free processors. It was seriously a spectacle, and a marketing department's wet dream. Who knew you could get 2,000 nerds to show up at 5-6am and stand around in the cold for two hours, and have them still be in good enough spirits to chant your brand name in response to the question "Who do you love?" (Of course, I might be less cynical about it if they'd just called number 4495.) Were any other MeFi peeps out there? Someone should post pictures. It was really kind of surreal.
posted by endquote on Oct 12, 2001 - 16 comments

Dell takes a survey out on AMD processors. Finally, the only thing that keeps me from buying a Dell is their lack of Athlon and Duron machines. Sounds like the negative reviews of the P4 has Dell running towards the competition.
posted by skallas on Jul 3, 2001 - 21 comments

Northpoint assets have been sold to AT&T. AT&T plans to keep only the hardware assets. Guess what? Thousands of DSL consumers whose ISPs purchase DSL from Northpoint, could be without service very soon.
posted by andre_111 on Mar 22, 2001 - 14 comments

GeForce 3 to be available on Macs first. Check out the 3rd video down. Bonus: A look at the new ID 3D engine for Doom. High drool factor.
posted by john on Feb 22, 2001 - 5 comments

It's officially the 20th of November (some places) and the P4 NDA's have lifted. Here come the reviews!

Anandtech gives it poor marks. On a lot of tests it gets creamed.
HardOCP is more kind, but does a much less comprehensive test against a must less formidable competitor.
GamePC gives it a "thumbs down".
I'm still waiting for Tom Pabst's review; I expect it to be brutal.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Nov 19, 2000 - 6 comments

Wondering what to do with your :CueCat? These guys have got some answers.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Oct 11, 2000 - 6 comments

How to tilt at windmills. What these guys don't undestand is that Apple can't make money selling software. They develop software so that they can sell the hardware on which it runs, which is their real profit center.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Sep 18, 2000 - 32 comments

Intel botches one bigtime. They recalled their 1.133 GHz P3 the very same day that AMD started volume shipment of the 1.10 GHz Athlon. (More inside)
posted by Steven Den Beste on Aug 28, 2000 - 4 comments

Intel's Sin: Vanity The truth about Intels new Pentium III 1.13 GHz.
posted by physics on Jul 31, 2000 - 1 comment

I hear dead components. How nice that your computer can sing to you when it's breaking down. I wonder if there's any significance to "It's a small world."
posted by jdiaz on Jul 5, 2000 - 8 comments

And you thought guns were only useful for shooting *people*.
posted by baylink on May 30, 2000 - 8 comments

Intel royally fucks over one of its best customers. We don't ordinarily get into hardware here, but what's important about this is that this has a damned good chance of putting ASUS out of business. (And just two weeks after I put an ASUS mobo into my computer, sob. Fortunately, mine is not one of the ones involved.)

If Intel has any honor (or wants to maintain any kind of reputation) they're going to completely cover ASUS's losses on this, which could easily top a billion dollars. I wonder if they will.

Anyone want to lay odds on when the first lawsuit gets filed? (Or who will sue whom?)
posted by Steven Den Beste on May 13, 2000 - 5 comments