"The history of switching power supplies turns out to be pretty interesting." It really does: long, fascinating post about a history of AC-DC conversion and how new technologies affected it.

Oooh, the Shruthi got an upgrade: not just white PCBs, but an interesting new filter board. Seriously tempted by one of these.

"The hackable, digital synth": cheap, build-your-own virtual analogue. Interesting.

"
hen I finally got around to playing Portal, I was a bit surprised at how much the Internet loved the companion cube. Sure, the cube is pretty great, but in my mind it pales in comparison to the turrets, the real scene-stealers of the game. In fact, they inspired a Veruca Salt-esque covetousness in me. I wanted one. Badly. And, of course, it just wouldn’t be the same if it didn’t talk…" I had forgotten how much I loved the turret dialogue. You monster.

"It's very simple. If there are more than five bikes at one of these bike stations the relevant LED comes on. It's a glanceable guide to which way to walk when we head out. It's going on the wall by the door. No need to reach for a device, launch an app and navigate to our favourites." Situated hardware. Very good.

This is, in fact, the most successful rotary encoder code I've found to date.

Microcontrolled Lego printer, running off some kind of postscript driver, I guess. Properly awesome - and, of course, the most important thing is all the little chaps that keep it working.

"The Lego Step-sequencer is 3 channels 8 steps sequencer. The different coloured Lego pieces each have their own sound. Connecting the Lego three-dimensional makes complex sound. This is building sound more than playing sound."

EMSL dissect a classic Tomy wind-up semi-electronic game - in this case, a version of Pong. Amazing what you could do with mechanics (even if that included "making the singleplayer game entirely unfair").

"The ST-LINK USB programmer/debugger comes attached, but it’s easy to crack one off and use this for future STMicro-compatible projects; clearly a plan of giving away the razor and selling the blades." $7 for a microcontroller which also has the usb connector/debugger attached; snap it off when you're done.

"Designed by Oliver Rokison a teacher at St Paul's School. This project connects to the Tower Bridge twitter account and mimics the movements of the real tower bridge." Fun.

"LEDs pulse back and forth in the mantle to indicate roughly how many friends are on Xbox Live. It goes into red alert if anyone's playing Left 4 Dead." Nicely done; might poke something similar into life for myself, just for kicks.

It looks like a GBA Micro; in fact, it's a portable multi-platform emulator, it's $100, and there's almost nothing you can do on it that isn't highly illegal. But if the hardware's manufactured well, it's a lot less faff than modding a PSP these days...

It's an open-source radio-trigger for small flashes. Really! The hardware, the software - the whole lot - is open source. The Strobist community never ceases to impress with its ingenuity.

"I think there's a lesson here: doing something in hardware isn't automatically cool, particularly for kids. It's harder to make things happen, so we veteran geeks get a thrill from it. We think that because it's physical, real, and a Robot, kids will automatically be excited. But for kids who are learning, and who don't appreciate the significance of the challenge, it's just hard and unrewarding."

"For use on days with uninteresting skies." I should like one of those very much.

It's a Roguelike, running on a Meggy Jr - the microcontroller-powered console with an 8x8 LED display. Looking good so far!

"TinkerKit is an Arduino-compatible physical computing prototyping toolkit aimed at design professionals. The interest in physical computing as an area in development within the creative industries has been increasing rapidly. In response to this Tinker.it! is developing the TinkerKit to introduce fast iterative physical computing methodologies to newcomers, and particularly design professionals." Standardised modules, standardised connectors, Arduino-compatible. I remember Massimo showing me his keyboard-emulating board ages ago. Nice to see Tinker productising the platform, too.

Roo writes up his first experiments with his microprinter. The barcode stuff is particularly interesting.

"Hackers across the country are buying up old old receipt printers and imaginatively repurposing them into something new. We call them microprinters." pbwiki site for gathering resources around microprinters. Nice! Still waiting on mine (from the same load as Roo's) to arrive, though...

"in the meantime, I decided to do an absolutely crucial bit of game science. Something that I am entirely sure is mulled over constantly, but never properly investigated. The question is but stated thusly: how long would it take the Little Prince to roll up an entire room based on a random path algorithm?" Julian is having fun.

"These sketches should make Arduino-based web-controlled home automation, and remote-responsive spaces a lot easier. The advantage of working with an ethernet shield is that you no longer need to tether the Arduino to a computer in order to access Pachube and other network services!" Some useful examples, to be returned to.

"Simply stick your finger in the hole and a virtual representation appears on the screen. Then you can use your virtual finger to play all kinds of cool mini games... from swinging a panda to having a karate fight with a tiny little man." Um, wow. Although I'm always afraid of putting appendages in boxes I can't see inside, though.

Click "CM Gallery". Watch. In order to illustrate the xiao's ability to not only take but also print photographs, Takara Tomy really pushed their anthropomorphic metaphor to the limits.

"The Fuzebox is a fully open-source, DIY 8-bit game console. It is designed specifically for people who know a little bit of programming to expand into designing and creating their own video games and demos. A full-featured core runs in the background and does all the video and audio processing so that your code stays clean and easy to understand." Ooh, that could be interesting.

"My election party tomorrow will feature DMX controlled RGB LED lighting. The color of the house should reflect the electoral balance. The color will start purple, and drift toward either red or blue, depending on who’s winning." Awesome.

"DS brut is an open source hardware prototyping platform for the Nintendo DS, developed by and for electronics enthusiasts, artists and game developers. By connecting the Nintendo DS to the outer world, the game console can be easily hooked up to a variety of sensors (e.g. GPS receivers) and can itself control all different kinds of actuators, servo motors and others."

"Now noisy makers can assemble and modify their own light controlled analog noise friend!" I want an analog noise friend.

Building your own version of Higinbotham's oscilloscope tennis game, to work on a real oscilloscope.

"Having successfully built a soundchip out of a microcontroller together with my friends in kryo, I wanted to tackle the greater challenge of generating a realtime video signal along with the sound." Wow. An ATMega88 turned into a demo platform.

You save money; you level up in the electronic game that's attached to the piggybank...

16x2 LCD and a d-pad, all wired up as an Arduino shield. Slap it on, and off you go. Looks fun.

"The EnerJar is an easy-to-build device that accurately measures the power draw of electrical appliances" Delightful - lovely form-factor (in itself, an act of recycling), simple to build, genuine usefulness. More like this, please.

Radiopopper: a prototype, low-budget rf flash trigger. The target market: better than the Chinese Gadget Infinity, not in the same league as Pocket Wizard. Interesting to see hardware emerging to fill a niche - namely, Strobist readers.

"Fifteen years ago, Nokia launched its first GSM handset, the Nokia 1011, the model number coming from the launch date: 10 November 1992."

"From basic electronics to advanced computer hardware, you'll learn the magic behind the gear that makes it all run." PDF only, due for publication this month (August 2007). Could be interesting.

A kit to output a digital clock face to any two-axis oscilloscope.

Ooh - nearly here - program via bluetooth, access as bluetooth device. Nifty.

Lovely. I am totally pumped about buying an Arduino very, very soon. This'll make some more compact hacking relatively easy.

Wow: $300 perfect usb/midi clone of a 303. DIY; want.

Useful if you're wanting to repair your own joystick...