If your radios are your thing then you will have probably come across the Motorola GTX before, its a cheap and cheerful yet powerful radio that can be converted easily to use the 33cm / 902Mhz band.  Only issue is, it doesnt come with an extender cable to allow the head to detach.  Robert Shulz over at the Yolo Amateur Radio Society blog has come up with a simple yet elegant solution that allows you to mount the radio anywhere you want and then mount the faceplate in a convenient place on your dash.

He has taken the ribbon cable and soldered a serial cable to it, along with a custom mount for the back of the detached faceplate, this allows him to mount the head on his dashboard and keep the main radio body out of sight and in a more convenient place.  He does admit that everything except programming the radio worked once the external head unit was attacthed but this was put down to a loose connection somewhere in the wiring loom.  You can see more pictures of the project and a details build log over at this link.

In a similar style to the Raspberry Pi USB computer, the Cotton Candy is a USB based embedded PC running linux.  It has a HDMI output and so can be added to any monitor or HDTV with a HDMI input to immediately turn it into a 'Smart TV'

This device looks to be aimed more at the home user rather than developers or educators, it has impressive specs.  It runs on a 1.2Ghz ARM Cortex processor and features a Quad-Core GPU to handle 1080p video decoding.  1Gb Ram, WiFi and an SD slot make this a more than capable system.  The company behind it, FXI Tech, expect it to be available by the new year.

The latest technology to come out of the Japanese research labs is this amazing prototype 'True 3D' Laser Projector produced by the team at Burton Incorporated.  It projects dots in mid air by focusing the laser beam to excite the oxygen and nitrogen particles.  Using this method it can plot shapes out in real 3D space.

It is capable of display up to 50,000 dots per second and is able to process at between 10 and 15 frames per second.  The team are currently working on increasing this frame rate to a more realist 30 frames per second.  The technology was actually first announced in 2006 but is only now coming to fruition.  Real life lightsabers and holodecks might be closer than you think!

You can find out more about the technology and device in question by visiting Burton Incorporated or the link from the DigInfo.TV site.

The story last year of the US resident who discovered a Government owned GPS tracker attached to his vehicle was widely reported and sparked a huge debate on the legality of evidence gathered using them.  The row looks set to re-ginite with the discovery of two new models of GPS tracker, this time attached to the vehicle of a as yet nameless 25 year old Californian resident.

This initial device pictured above (Photos courtesy of wired.com) was removed from underneath his Volvo SUV, examined and photographed by Wired.com.  It was then replaced by persons unknown with a different device which is pictured below, this time the device was a Sendum PT200 GPS Tracker with a modified battery pack. There was also a sighting of a suspicious person investigating the underneath of his girlfriends car whilst she was parked at work.

The Justice Department reports that GPS trackers are regularly employed in the fight against crime, something that the vast majority of the general public are probably unaware of.  The strange thing is that there is no warrant requirement to use these devices, the government can just attach one to your vehicle and begin tracking your movements without probable cause and without it having to be authorised by a judge. 

Everybody, check underneath your cars, you never know what you might find!  You can read the original wired report at http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/gps-tracker-times-two

Furball_Zen from the Overclock.net forums is working on his latest case mod, as the case is transparent acrylic he wanted to make the internal components look as good as the outside.  We think he has achieved just that with this slick looking transparent DVD Drive mod.

Built using transparent acrylic which we assume has been laser cut to achieve some very precise looking windows.  This is then sprayed with blue metallic flake paint from the inside and bolted together using the DVD Drives original screw holes.  Can't wait to see how he gets on with the other components in the build, we will post them up as soon as it is complete!