Does it hurt your brain to look at the picture above? That’d be Chromium OS — running on a MacBook Air! Pretty much the definition of “worlds colliding,” this feat is brought to you by Hexxeh, whose most recent mind-warping project put Google’s operating system on an iPad. The platform-mixing maestro says in this case everything works except Bluetooth, owing to a lack of support. But hearty souls who seek to follow in his footsteps, take heed: there’s no dual-boot option, and you will lose OS X — so perhaps this is a job for your now outdated model. Click the source link for 14 easy steps to turning your svelte laptop into Frankenstein’s monster, but sadly, there’s no mention of where to buy that hopelessly cute Chrome pillow.

Chromium OS running on a MacBook Air: somewhere, a mad scientist cackles in the night originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 11:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Man, we hope Gumby’s collecting some royalty checks for this one. One part incredible-stretching toy, and one part DIY robotics kit, the Plick project takes the traditional hobbyist approach to brick-building your own bot and slaps a little rubber all around it. The industrial design prototype from Brazilian engineer Gabriel Paciornik combines programmable robotic parts with an elastic wired connection suitable for strapping your mad scientist creations to everyday objects. So, what can you make? The kit packs a variety of sensor-based circles that react to distance and sound, giving your mod-jobs the power of movement and light. It’s safe to say this not-for-market toy veers far from LEGO Mindstorms NXT territory — and that’s exactly the point. Far out video demo and its 60s beach music soundtrack after the break.

Continue reading Plick hitches an elastic ride on the DIY robotics train (video)

Plick hitches an elastic ride on the DIY robotics train (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jul 2011 05:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windell Oskay of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories joins me to show you how to make to squeeze the life out of your dead batteries by making a simple circuit called the Joule Thief! More info: blog.makezine.com www.evilmadscientist.com

By Andrew Liszewski

Whether you’re braving a winter storm, or serving as humanity’s first ambassador to extraterrestrial life, this simple scarf embroidered with the Arecibo message is sure to come in handy. You’ll have to make it yourself, but thankfully the rudimentary pixel design of the message that makes it easy for ET to understand should also make it easy for embroidery novices. And you can download the pattern from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories for free.

[ Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories - A scarf to aid your search for terrestrial intelligence ] VIA
[ Make ]

Hand-held electronics are marvels of miniaturization. The ones that existed before I was born, even more so. Anyone who played Blip might be interested to know two things. First, despite being titled “The Digital Game”, it was in fact 100% mechanically driven. Second, the game was, as you may have claimed many times, actually impossible to beat.

The good folks over at Evil Mad Scientist Labs opened the Blip up to let us take a look at the gears inside. The game itself is played much like Pong. A red LED bounces across the screen, and it is up to you, the valiant player, to stop it. Interestingly, rather than having an LED screen, Blip operated with a single LED on a mechanical arm that would swing back and forth. The three buttons you would use the stop the “ball” would actually physically stop the arm from moving. In fact, the only electronics in this device at all are the circuits for the LED.

When in single player mode, the device effectively holds down all three buttons for the other player at once. Meaning there is no way it will ever miss the ball. How preposterous.

After the jump, you’ll find a much more detailed breakdown, the original TV commercial, the original patent, and a video of the deconstruction.

[Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories] via [Retro Thing]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re looking for a new way to justify that $1,000+ DSLR you just bought, and have run out of objects to stick in front of your macro lens, you might want to give Kirlian photography a shot. It uses high voltage applied to everyday objects to create unique exposures of the corona discharge, and thanks to this $295 Kirlian Imaging Device you don’t need a mad scientist-esque laboratory to make them!

Now normally an exposure is created by placing a piece of sheet film on the metal discharge plate, but since you probably bought your DSLR so you wouldn’t have to get film developed anymore, there’s also an optional $129.95 transparent discharge plate that allows you to take photographs using your digital camera. The whole setup looks reasonably safe, though it’s cautioned that you’ll need to deal with a ground wire if you’re photographing inanimate objects, which leads me to wonder what living creatures this could actually be used with.

[ Kirlian High Voltage Imaging Device ] VIA [ Random Good Stuff ]