This home built workbench is a work of art.  Fine craftmanship and good design have made sure this project turned out 100%

It features a swing out cabinet for components and even deals with wiring issues by allowing you to hide your wires at the rear of the unit. And when your done with your project, you can swing the bench up and lock it into place.  Reclaiming precious space and ensuring the WAF is satisifed

Check out a detailed project log here

Hitachi Electronics Advanced Research Labs have developed a system that can read peoples minds, albeit in a very primitive way.

It works by flooding the brain with near infra-red rays which are harmless but allow the system to measure blood flow in the frontal lobe areas. This blood flow changes in response to a persons thoughts and this change can be measured and interpreted as images which can in turn be used to trigger electrical devices.

They admit their ‘optical-topography’ system is in the early stages but hope to use it to develop remote control systems for disabled people, allowing them to control wheelchairs and other aids using only their minds.

Systems similar to this have already been developed and covered by Hack247 in the past such as this one which allowed a user to control an electronic limb, but this system differs in that it is a non invasive interface.

They plan to develop the system into a usable application by 2011

If you want to find out more about this then check out Hitachi’s site at the link below for more information

http://www.hitachi-medical-systems.co.uk/topic5243.html

OR you can check out a homebrew version of the system developed in the Labs at UCL in America at this link

http://www.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/research/borg/research/topography/index.htm

With Apples long running history of leaking new product information on the internet, the iPhone has remained pretty unseen although often talked about.

But today ended the years of speculation with Apple unveiling the new iPhone at the Macworld conference and Expo 2007 at San Francisco’s Moscone West.

At only 11.6mm it is seriously thin and lightweight, it is due to ship in two versions, a 4Gb model and an 8Gb model, heres some of its many features..

• 3.5 Inch Touchscreen Display
• 480×320 Resolution
• 2 Megapixel Camera
• Bluetooth 2.0
• Wi-fi
  

• Quadband GSM Radio
• 5 Hour Talktime & Video Playback
• 16 Hour MP3 Playback

With its long screen it can be turned on it’s side allowing you to use it and view videos in widescreen mode, it also allows multi-fingered input allowing you to use two fingers to access even more complex controls. The device runs on OSX giving it immediate compatibility with lots of software and applications.

We at hack247 think this Phone/MP3/Video/Internet device is going to revolutionise the Mobile Phone market, even giving big players like Nokia and Samsung a run for their money.

As you would expect from Apple the design is sleek and the User Interface looks to be fast and intuitive.

We will definetly be first in the queue to pick one of these up when they are finally released over here, check out www.apple.com/iphone for more details, pictures and specs. You can also watch Steve jobs presentation of the phone via Apple’s website

Cooking with computers and computer components has been something we have featured in the past, but the team at hack247 feel that this setup deserves a special mention. These guys are cooking chips and potato faces with a Pentium II submerged in a foil tray filled with non conductive cooking oil.

Ok, the heat provided by the camping stove underneath may have been the real source of cooking power, but what makes this setup so unique is that the motherboard inside the oil is still running and playing quake 3 whilst the chips are being cooked, it crashed a couple of times but was still running!

Dont quite know how all those components are going to add to the taste of the chips, but still an interesting setup .

If you want to see more pictures and information on this cooking oil setup then check out this forum post

And if reading this has put you in the mood for more PC / Food combinations then don’t forget to check out the classic USB meat grill at this link

Or even frying an egg on an xbox-360!

Just discovered this neat little trick from the excellent http://www.darknet.org.uk

Ever been fed up of having to stop off at every floor before you finally get to your destination in an elevator?

Well the frustration ends here! If your ever stuck in that situation just do the following

Press the ‘Door Close’ and your required ‘floor’ button at the same time

The lift should then whisk you off to whatever destination you require without having to stop for anyone else
It has been verified working on the following brands of elevators

* Otis elevators
* Dover elevators
* Most Desert Elevators

We will check it out on the lift’s at work tomorrow and report back with an update, leave a comment if you try it out and let us know how it went

thanks to Darknet for the heads up on this one

Anyone who was ever into copmuters growing up in the UK will have heard about the Jolly roger’s cookbook. I know for me personally it was somewhat of a bible, filled with everything you ever wanted to know how to do but weren’t sure how! Governments, school’s and parents tried to stop it spreading but it turned out to be impossible

Within a relativley short space of time everyone that wanted a copy, had one…

It was actually a modified version of the original Anarchist’s cookbook, which was a book that circulated via several underground sources, although it was eventually released and can still be purchased via Amazon at the following link. but this version was a lot more destructive, it had to abide by no rules as it was distributed via BBS’s which were so new they were not governed in any way. It gave specific instructions on various things such as making explosives, hacking, phreaking, counterfieting money and generally causing mischief.

It was unleashed on the world in a time when people were innocent, terrorism was never close to home and people didn’t really have a problem with people trying the things listed in the book. Nowadays unfortunatley it’s contents would be seen in a much more sinister way… Just goes to show how much things have changed in 15 years….

The version of ‘Jolly Roger’s Cookbook’ you had was probably very different to the next persons, so many revisions were released and updated by different people it was hard to keep track, here is a quick rundown of the differing versions, although there are probably quite a few missing…..

* Anarchy & Explosives (Volumes 1 through 7)
* The Anarchists Cookbook 2000
* The Anarchists Cookbook V. 666
* The Avengers Handbook
* BHU’s Cookbook
* The Encyclopedia of Direct Action
* CIA Book of Dirty Tricks
* Black Beard’s Scrap Book
* The Anarchy Files Volumes 1 & 2
* Frogg’s Cookbook
* The Big Book Of Destruction
* The Black Book
* Guide To Street Anarchy & Terrorisim
* Hit Man Online
* Jollyroger’s Cookbook III
* Jollyroger’s Cookbook IV (Exodus’s Revision)
* Murder Inc. - The Book
* The Terrorist Handbook by Even Steven
* Anarchist’s Encyclopedia
* Black Books aka the Improvised Munitions Handbook.
* The White Man’s Resistance handbook

I won’t link to any of them as freedom of speech just ain’t what it used to be, but remember, google is your friend
If you have any more information about the ‘Jolly Roger’s Cookbook’ then please leave a comment and let us know…..

Here’s a cool case mod, if not slightly dangerous looking! It is a PC case constructed from a cardboard box! The unit has been running with no temperature problems for 3 years now!

The system, which as mentioned before is quite old now runs the following components

• 800MHz/s AMD Duron
• 526MB SDRAM
• ABIT KT7A Motherboard
• ATI Radeon 9000, 64MB, RV25L-TV
• Hercules 3D Prophet Kyro, 32MB, 4000XT
• SoundBlaster AudioPCI 128
• Freecom CD-RW, 4×4x32x
• Noname CD-ROM, 8x
• Noname ISDN Modem

US Robotics 10/100BASE NIC

Obviously not the biggest of heat producing components, but neat nonetheless..

Wouldn’t like to try it with something a bit meatier, like a P4, guaranteed fire hazard!

check out the original 3 year old page detailing its construction at http://xfuj.com/waste/gpc1/

I remember seeing this somewhere a while ago but can’t remember exactly which site. Here is a DIY USB Shuttle used to control any software that accepts it as an input.

Very handy for video editing, this one is constructed using an old VCR drum and a hacked up Optical mouse

As is usual with similar projects, the optical encoder from the mouse is attatched to the bottom of the rotating drum, as it is a USB mouse that is used it ensures the finished device is compatible with the majority of programs

If you want to find out more about it’s construction and see some more photo’s of the unit then check out it’s related forum thread at http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=86820

And to see the Griffin Powermate that this DIY hack is based on then check out http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/powermate/

It’s actually not that bad value at $45 but it’s obviously much more fun to make your own….

Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Computers, launched their brand new replacement super computer at World Wide Developers Conference yesterday during their annual keynote. Last year Apple Computers controversially announced they were going to ditch the PowerPC platform and move their entire range, both consumer and professional, to Intel, and have now completed the transition with the eagerly anticipated replacement to the phenomenal Power Mac G5. Along with new processors (note the plural!) comes a new name. Following the new naming scheme first seen with the MacBook and MacBook Pro (formerly referred to as iBook and Powerbook) the Power Mac is now simply Mac Pro.

2x faster than the quad processor 2.5ghz Power Mac G5? Surely not?
So what’s actually under that svelte anodised enclosure? Two spanking new Intel Xeon ‘Woodcrest’ 64-bit dual-core processors running up to 3.0ghz each! Now that’s swift. Up to 2x faster than Apple’s previous flagship G5 in fact. Along with the state of the art processor the Mac Pro offers 2 dual-layer superdrives, the ability to install up to 16gb of new fully buffered with error-correction-code RAM, 2 terabytes of hard drive storage, along with NVIDIAs latest GeForce 7300 GT graphics card with 3 PCI Express graphics slots and 1 double-wide to spare! All of which starts at a bargain £1699.99 for the two dual-core 2.66ghz. £40 less than the equivalent Dell and you won’t need to buy that latest version of Norton Anti-Virus!

For full details on the Intel powered Mac Pro visit www.apple.com/uk/macpro
Click here to view the WWDC 2006 keynote in full

Heres a site for you with a huge archive of DIY electronics projects.

Projects include

• RJ45 Cable Tester
• RF Transmitter
• Hot Wire Foam Cutter
• Miniature FM Transmitter

Head on over there and see if any of their schematics take your fancy

Circuits for The Hobbyist - VA3AVR