The video below shows a Raspberry Pi powered universal translator. The setup includes two RPi units along with one user wearing a Vuzix headset so that words are put in the users vision. Bluetooth mics are used to send the voice to a Microsoft translation service which replies and then puts the response in your language on the screen.

[Read more…]

Check out the video below which shows a physical side-scrolling game. The system uses a Teagueduino along with a scrolling paper obstacle course. Using a knob on the side of the cardboard box you get to control Mario jumping up and down to avoid the obstacles. The game speeds up the further you get in.

[Read more…]

NAVI is another Microsoft Kinect hack that pushes the boundaries of what the popular hands-free gaming controller can achieve.

NAVI, meaning Navigational Aids for the Visually Impaired, is a student project that helps navigate a blind person around a room. Although it looks a bit cumbersome now, we could possibly see something like this in the future when all the components are made even smaller than they are today.

It works by using a Kinect sat on the users head (another reason it needs to be worked on a bit), and when walking around a room, obstacles can be detected and are then fed to a computer which in turn, feeds information to the user by a bluetooth headset. Vocal instructions received could include, “obstacle ahead, stay left”. [Read more…]

If seeing inside the latest technology is something you enjoy, then iFixit are on hand again as they have now taken apart a Nintendo 3DS.

The 3DS is similar to older models in someways, but in other ways it has a totally different approach. The team found that the 3D effect worked well although out of the 10 employees who tested it, one of them couldn’t see the effect at all. The way the screen works is by using a parallax barrier. The 3DS has an adjustment slide that when moved, sends the images off center and towards each eye. By making two slightly different images, you then get to see a 3D effect. For a more detailed approach on 3D, this post should sort you out. [Read more…]

Kinect hacks seem to have slowed down a bit since the device first launched. Today though, we see quite an ingenious hack that allows the Kinect to capture you in 3D and then use that data to fabricate a 3D print of you.

Right now, the tool for testing is not finished and the results are not as clear as they could be. However, it does work and it can capture pictures of users that can in turn, be printed. [Read more…]

Within the first few hours of launch, the Mac App Store has already been hacked although the hack is not yet available.

To hack the Mac App Store you’ll simply need to install some software called Kickback that is being made available sometime in February this year.

We don’t want to release kickback as soon as the [Mac App] Store gets released. I have a few reasons for that.

Most of the applications that go on the Mac App Store [in the first instance] will be decent, they’ll be pretty good. Apple isn’t going to put crap on the App Store as soon as it gets released. It’ll probably take months for the App Store to actually have a bunch of crappy applications and when we feel that it has a lot of crap in it, we’ll probably release Kickback.

So we’re not going to release Kickback until well after the store’s been established, well after developers have gotten their applications up. We don’t want to devalue applications and frustrate developers.

[Read more…]

Just a few weeks ago, a guy called Oliver Kreylos managed to get the Microsoft Kinect to track him and put him in a virtual setup where a live video feed could be manipulated to rotate around himself. The effect was amazing to watch. The downside is that anything past what the Kinect could see was just left blank. To get around this, Krelos connected two Kinects together to fill in some gaps that were created when rotating around a person.

Kreylos is back again and this time is using a couple of Kinects to create a virtual 3D video conferencing system. The system is capable of transmitting the data from the two Kinect cameras over a WAN and lets the person receiving the video call manipulate the virtual scenery by rotating around the person talking. [Read more…]

Another Kinect Hack has been created. This time it’s called the Keyboard Anywhere and basically allows a keyboard to be virtually created on any surface.

The system uses the OpenKinect library as well as Python code and with all that, it can create a virtual piano on a desk, floor, wall or any other surface.

To get it to work you first need to create a space and point the Kinect at that space. Once done, you define the area where the piano is, move a virtual piano on to that space and once done, you get a virtual piano. When used on a floor, it can stretch the width of a room. [Read more…]

The Microsoft Kinect has been used to create a Minority Report style computer interface. The hack was achieved by students at MIT who managed to use Kinect drivers for Linux and make a program that can detect all 10 fingers on your hands as well as the palms of your hands. [Read more…]

We keep seeing Kinect hacks each day and often think that the limits have been reached and that the creativity has almost reached its end… and then another Kinect hack shows up.

This time, the Kinect has been sat on top of a quadrocopter which in turn, gives the quadrocopter abilities to navigate around objects. The quadrocopter here has been given a pre-defined course and manages to scan the surrounding area to figure out where the floor is, where objects are and what the nearest point to the quadrocopter is. [Read more…]

The Kinect for Xbox has been hacked to make you invisible. The effect allows you to use the Kinect to make you invisible as you walk past it in a way similar to what looks like the Predator on the movie from the late 1980’s.

The invisibility hack was created by Takayuki Fukatsu and uses OpenFrameworks, open source C++ tool kit and a Microsoft Kinect. [Read more…]

Back in the middle of November we posted details of a project built by Youtube user okreylos. The first video use a Microsoft Kinect connected up to a computer that could read the video stream from the camera as well as depth details. Those details could then be made in to a real-time 3D model that could be rotated around. The main problem with using just the 1 Kinect was that the back of the model was not there.

This latest project from the same guy now puts two Kinects together so that more of the scene can be captured in to a 3D model. The results, although not the best visual quality, actually work very well with three sides of a box now being tracked. [Read more…]