DIYs & Mods

The team at PhoneWreck has gone and done something that no other Verizon Wireless subscriber dare not do: dissect the Blackberry Storm bit by bit. Head on over for the full review to find out what that crazy new “clickscreen” looks like under the hood. From what I can gather, it looks like the screen uses a single button to ...

YouTube is great for entertainment, but quality is a whole other bag of marbles. When I have a video I plan on uploading, I don’t want it compressed to all hell and back for the purpose of streaming. Because of this, I usually use Vimeo for those vids. But thanks to a hack involving the URL of YouTube videos, you ...

Whoa, whoa. Hold up. The title of this post could be seen as deceptive. I swear, these are not my intentions. I just had to show you Nick Dean’s LEGO creation that features a vending machine made out of LEGOs. There’s a bill reader included on the side and even mini-plastic packaging for the ammo clips and supplies that await ...

Building a car from a kit is nothing new. Open any modern auto magazine and you’ll find plenty of that crap in the classifieds. But when one man goes above and beyond to turn a 2001 Mercury Cougar into a fully-functional, stylish Audi R8, well, that’s magic. While there’s just some things that can’t be copied, overall this car looks ...

I wish my father had bought me a ROMP as a child. The Remotely Operated Mobile Platform, ROMP for short, is a remote control vehicle designed for military use. It can shoot stuff with a paintball gun, listen in on conversations, blow up IEDs and so much more. Think of it as a Radio Shack R/C car jacked up on ...

Listen, dude. Forget everything you heard about the iPhone. Forget the apps, forget the voice recognition calling, forget everything because all of its capabilities and features have just been outdone. A Japanese software engineer named Kazu Terasaki has given his iPhone the ability to walk. Yes, he’s turned his iPhone into a kick ass robot that takes baby steps. Because ...

This is a mod that hits close to home due to the fact that my iPod’s headphone jack died this week. Perhaps I should just gut it and turn it into a little case like this one. It holds plenty of cigarettes for your smoking pleasure. Pretend you’re a modern day Steve McQueen and light up a fag for good ...

Anyone interested in DIY, energy or our ecosystem should most definitely check out the Alternative Energy Gift Guide from MAKE. They cover some key issues that we as Americans must confront head on, such as our dependence on foreign energy and oil. There’s a bunch of a kits you can browse through that will have you using the Sun as ...

Sony has gone on the record saying that the piracy is affecting PSP game sales. That’s a givein; if it’s free, take it. This time around, a peripheral manufacturer called Datel has cracked the PSP 3000 by forcing it into service mode. Datel did some silicon hacking on a chip level to find out how it could force the PSP ...

If you love WHYY as much as I do and you’re down for a little DIY action, scrape three pennies from your sofa and try building this tiny radio. Full instructions are available and the electronics involved can be had at your local Radio Shack. There’s even instructions on how to make your own batteries out of vinegar and aluminum ...