Gearfuse

What’s a programmer to do. Buy a hard-to-find LED strip? Most likely. He’ll then probably spend weeks hacking it so he can interface it with an Arduino. Afterwards, the LEDs will fade in and fade out for weeks to come, as our hero desperately tries to make sense of all this. After meeting with a friend, our hero and his companion work together to release a library for said LED strip. The day ends and they both breathe a sigh of relief. They hack to live, they live to hack. Hit the link to see it in action.

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DJing has really evolved since the 1990s. Nearly everyone uses some kind of digital interface to spin, whether it be Serato Scratch Live, Traktor 3 or even the Pacemaker. Wacom, the tablet guys, are entering into the DJ controller market with the Nextbeat. This device features a removable, wireless scratch controller that you can use to dance around the room whilst still scratching. Quite a neat idea.

In addition to the wireless gimmick, the Nextbeat features plenty of knobs, some buttons, sliders and even a touchscreen to use for mixing it up. It includes FX units and a sampler to ensure you can keep the asses shakin’ into the night.
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iPhone developer Steven Troughton-Smith updated his iPhone port of Doom to not only take advantage of the iPhone’s TV-out features but also utilize its touchscreen as an interface for the game. Why he decided to display the game on an old monochrome Apple II monitor is beyond me. We get it, Steven: you love Apple.

For now, there are no plans for adding TV-out to the public Doom build for the iPhone, although Steven says that he’s open to investigating the possibility. We just wanted to show you in order to get your hopes up and maybe encourage you to drop Steven a line persuading him to do what we all know is right.

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The best things in life are free, no question about it. But even if it wasn’t free, I’d most likely buy iTouchMidi, a program for both OS X and Windows that will receive MIDI signals from your iPhone or iPod Touch via WiFi. Pretty insane right? Check out what this guy did with two iPod Touches and iTouchMidi software. He uses the touchscreens mounted to his guitar to control Ableton Live and pull off some Brian Eno-type shit. I’d keep writing but I’ve simply got to try this out for myself. I’ll report back with my findings, Cap’n!

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If you turned on your 360 yesterday, you probably were flabbergasted at the new interface that’s been getting some mixed reviews. Whether or not you like the new dashboard interface matters not, the new experience is here to stay.

Don’t forget to fashion your new Mii-like avatar to look like your least favorite dictator. Mine is a spitting image of Cambodia’s Pol Pot. That should scare away any strangers who consider adding me to their friends list.

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If you’ve ever lost your keys while out on the town, you know there’s no way in hell you’re getting them back. Luckily, we tend to clutch our cellphones dear to our heart, never letting them out of our site. If you have a Schlage LiNK system, you need not worry about having keys anymore.

Essentially, the LiNK system uses the ‘net to give you full control over your door locks. Install the locks and you can use a laptop or Blackberry/iPhone/cellphone to control your locks from anywhere. Wife needs to be let in and you’re at the bar? No problem. A touch of the screen and the door is unlocked. The system shows the status of each lock, so you’ll know if someone is snooping around in your home. The lock will even text message you if there’s an issue. Sounds like a very cool idea, but also expensive. I suppose it depends on how much you value convenience and security.

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I hope you’ve been preparing for the new Xbox experience because it’s going to change the way you play your 360. No doubt you’ve heard that Microsoft has completely revamped the dashboard, bringing with it a new design and avatars that give core players the casual feel of the Wii. Is this a good thing? It sure is according to Engadget.

Joshua Topolsky of Engadget wrote up a positive preview of the new Xbox experience which will soon be your new dashboard. In the preview, he comments on the likeness between the Xbox 360’s marketplace and iTunes. Additionally, he mentions the Netflix feature which allows you to shuffle through movies in your queue. I’m thrilled about the new Xbox experience, I just hope my 360 doesn’t turn into a Wii. Look for the update to hit your system come November 19th.

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When you can’t use a mouse because of too much Guitar Hero, don’t fret; alternative means of controlling your computer’s cursor are just over the horizon. The University of Washington is developing a vocally controlled mouse interface that’s completely hands free!

Similar to speech recognition that aids in typing, the vocal joystick makes using a mouse as simple as humming mantras in front of your computer. Using different vowels and sounds, the vocal joystick is able to create cursor motion and clicking functions as if you were using an ordinary mouse. However, playing Minesweeper is still a pain in the ass.

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So yeah, while I’m addicted to Facebook, I don’t have an iPhone. But alas, I hear many good things about the just-released Facebook 2.0 application for the iPhone. From the above screenshot, it looks just like the web-based version. But why speculate? I turned to Boggle master/blogger Andrea Rosen to find out:

VV: You just downloaded the app. First impressions?

Rosen: The old app only allowed you to look at status updates in your news feed. I’m glad they waited for the Facebook redesign to add more to the main feed–the new navigation options (separating your news feed into sections) are really phone-friendly–it makes everything easier to digest.

VV: How’s the navigation? Much easier than before? Any complaints?

Rosen: You can also access notifications, which is new and makes checking your wall posts, tagged photos much simpler on the go. My main complaint about the former iteration of the app was that you couldn’t see all of a user’s tagged photos. Now you can and the navigation is much like the iPhone’s own photo browse application. Overall, this is a massive improvement.

VV: What’s a “Downtown Julie Brown?”

Rosen: A vagina.

There you have it! One of the best vagina-based apps on the market!

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For those who are unhappy with the current UIQ user interface employed by SonyEricsson devices, here’s a little something to look forward to. Apparently the UI will have some serious facelift. Here’s a shot snapped from a presentation somewhere, somehow, by somebody. –Sam Chan