<![CDATA[Gizmodo: mod]]> http://tags.gizmodo.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gizmodo.com.png <![CDATA[Gizmodo: mod]]> http://gizmodo.com/tag/mod http://gizmodo.com/tag/mod <![CDATA[Hark Back to the Good Ol' Days With the Portable N64]]> Forget the DSi XL, Nintendo should look to the past for its next handheld console. Or, just commission the modder-maestro Zenlock for a heap of portable N64s, so we can revisit The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in style.

Purported to be one of the world's smallest portable N64 mods at 120 x 200 x 50mm, it's being sold on eBay now for $205 after 26 bids, with all buyers safe in the knowledge that the modder likes his food extra spicy. [eBay via Ben Heck Forums via Engadget]

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<![CDATA[Back Up Your Valuables in a Time Capsule Gift Box]]> No broken MacBook and pair of old routers, but you do have a Time Capsule gathering dust? Turn it into a gift box, adding hinges and a silk cushion. Just don't put an engagement ring in there, trust me. [Instructables]

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<![CDATA[What To Do With All Your Broken Routers? Make a MacBook Mod, That's What]]> Like the Everest-climbing George Leigh Mallory, modder Tyler saw a Linksys router and decided to shove a MacBook inside, "because it's there." Well, it was either that, or a Billy the Big Mouth Bass.

Using two Linksys routers, he rammed the MacBook's parts, along with the iSight camera and microphone in the joined-up cases, loaded Leopard and after slaving over it in the workshop for a few weeks, he was able to connect it to his monitor successfully.

Sure does beat having several broken routers in the attic like I do. [Phantomdev via Gearfuse]

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<![CDATA[Remainders - Stuff We Didn't Post (and Why)]]> Phil Schiller Talks App Approval, Avoids Saying Much of Anything...Microsoft Reiterates Smackdown on Pirate Xbox Users...iPhone Magnification Camera Mod Came From the Recycle Bin...Another Anonymous Netbook/Sleeping Aid Hits Wireless Carrier...

Phil Schiller Talks App Approval, Avoids Saying Much of Anything

There are lots of legitimate concerns about Apple's app approval (app!) policy, and in a recent profile in Business Week, Senior VP Phil Schiller goes out of his way to not respond to any of them. Yes, we understand that there are legitimate reasons for having an extensive approval process, and we even appreciate the complication-free results. But Schiller neglected to respond to any of the real problems with the process, like, say, the Google Voice ban. We're always interested to hear an Apple higher-up discuss the App Store, but we prefer it when something's actually said. [Business Week]

Microsoft Reiterates Smackdown on Pirate Xbox Users

In response to Microsoft's mass banning of Xbox Live users with pirate leanings, said pirates are contemplating hitting them with a class-action lawsuit—but Microsoft doesn't seem even a little bit scared. MS's response:

Piracy is illegal and modifying an Xbox 360 is a violation of the Xbox Live Terms of Use. Microsoft is well within its legal rights to ban these users from Xbox Live.

Translation: Hey, you guys down there, you piratey types? Cute lawsuit and all, but you ain't got a chance in hell of winning this.

This winds up in Remainders because the lawsuit is still, as of now, speculative—no such suit has actually been filed. Still, that's about as big an ice burn as you're likely to see from the big MS. [Kotaku]

iPhone Magnification Camera Mod Came From the Recycle Bin

Bummed about the iPhone's lack of zoom? Bummed enough to attach the lid from a pickle jar to the back of your iPhone? Here's a tutorial for how to create a multi-zoom add-on with items found in your recycle bin and a few lenses pried off deceased cameras. It's ungainly as hell, and I'm not totally sure the iPhone's camera is good enough to be worth such effort ugliness, but it does seem like it would work and it even has an external flash. And, of course, we've seen much dumber mods before. [Instructables via Engadget]

Another Anonymous Netbook/Sleeping Aid Hits Wireless Carrier

Another day, another netbook. AT&T brings the LG X120 10.1-incher Stateside to be sold, subsidized of course, through Radioshack.com and the obviously so much more hip brick and mortar version, The Shack. It'll be sold for $180 with a 2-year contract, which requires a $60 per month data charge. As far as specs, it's got a 160GB hard drive, 1GB memory, a 1.6GHz Atom and Windows XP, and in case of emergency will function as a sleeping aid so potent you might never wake up. What I'm saying is, it's in Remainders because seriously you guys, snore. [Engadget]

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<![CDATA[Potential Fix Available For Banned Xbox 360 Users]]> The millions of Xbox Live players who were banned because of their modded Xbox 360 consoles may get a second chance with some firmware workarounds. Beware though, it's a complicated process.

First you'll need to get iXtreme LT, which'll attempt to return your console to a playable state. The catch is that you need to know your CPU code and that the instructions rely on a lot of different (free) tools.

Has anyone used this or another workaround to get their Xbox playing again? [DailyTech via Crunchgear]

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<![CDATA[Converted Dell Mini 9 Netbook Makes For a Great Internet Tablet]]> Everybody's favorite hackintoshable netbook, the Dell Mini 9, has yet another identity—it can be converted into a pretty fantastic internet slate PC/tablet.

A MyDellMini forum member by the name of Rob is the man responsible for this elegant mod, turning his Del Vostro A9 (business version of the Mini 9) into a Windows 7 touchscreen with a 16GB SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, 1GB of RAM and an Intel Atom N270 processor. Rob is also planning to add an accelerometer to automatically adjust the screen orientation and a small USB fan to help keep the temperature down. If you think you are up to doing a similar conversion, Rob has laid out details of the build in his forum post. [MyDellMini via Slashgear]

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<![CDATA[The Girlfriend Controller (That You Secretly Want)]]> This is how you show you care: By meticulously hand-painting a controller for your girlfriend. Or, that's how you get her to play videogames. Or you want a pink controller, and you say it's for your girlfriend. [Flickr via Technablog]

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<![CDATA[Lego R2-D2 Minifig Mod Adds Sound and Light]]> Sorry Jason. You trumped my LED Lego stormtrooper minifig with your cylon and Iron Man, but this modded R2-D2 Lego minifig kills them all with lighting and actual Star Wars astromech sounds. [Brickmodder via FBTB via Brothers Brick]

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<![CDATA[PC-In-A-Vase Was Created by a Real Company, Not a Dodgy Hacker]]> We see PC guts stuffed into vessels not normally associated with technology all the time, but they're always the product of a bored hacker, tinkering away in his free time. This PC-in-a-vase, however, was designed by ECS, a little-known but assuredly real company.

It's actually not a bad little system for a low-powered (some would say under-powered) home theater PC. It's got the Atom 230 system, a 2.5-inch HDD of unspecified capacity, a Blu-Ray drive, 1GB of RAM and HDMI out, all in one diminutive, delicate package. If you've got the kind of living room where a vase would seem less out of place than a HTPC (that excludes mine), it's a pretty cool idea. No word on price or availability, as it's probably just a proof of concept. [via Engadget]

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<![CDATA[Give Your Eee PC 900HA a Touchscreen]]> As one of the few tablet lovers here, I'm going crazy waiting for the Eee tablet netbook. Maybe instead, I ought to just make my own out of Eee 900HA like these guys.

A member who claims to have “very little knowledge on computer things” managed to take about his 900HA and turn it into a touchscreen notebook. All you need is a screwdriver, some tape, a plastic card, a solderless touchscreen kit and some extra wires.

Pretty neat, if it works! A 900Ha is only $320-ish on Amazon and this method doesn't seem to add more than another $100 to the cost. Maybe if Asus hasn't released the T91 in the next month, it'll be time for me to get my screwdriver out. [Eee User Forum - Thanks Shoangore!]

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<![CDATA[How To Hack a Nerf Vulcan to Fire 500 Rounds a Minute]]> The Nerf Vulcan is definitely awesome—but it is not as cool as it could be. Manapotions have developed a hack that adds an LED round counter and a 500 round-per-minute firing capacity.

In order to accomplish this feat, the guys from Manapotions increased the voltage to the firing motor using 2 x 9.6v battery packs. More juice equals a faster spinning motor. A faster spinning motor means that toy darts will come down on your enemies like rain. As an added bonus, they equipped the gun with a sweet LED round counter and a slick paint job. Seriously folks, this thing is like the A-bomb of office warfare. And the best part is that it is a cheap upgrade. Hit the link for complete instructions on how to do it yourself. [Manapotions]

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<![CDATA[New Wii Disk Drives Render Modchips Useless]]> In their latest attempt to block homebrew on the Wii, Nintendo has begun using a new revision of the Wii's optical drive—one that prevents any existing mod chip from functioning.

While this may be just a standard hardware switch and not a concerted effort to block piracy, some keen-eyed modders quickly noticed the change—in the latest drive revision, found in an Australian model with the serial number LAH1098xxxxx, the drive controller chip necessary for previous mods had been completely replaced by a new one.

What they have done is combine the old D1A and drive controller chip in to one which is now called the GC2-D3, as you can see from the photo there is a big blank space on the PCB where the controller chip used to be.

So far there haven't been any other reports of these Wiis showing up outside of Australia, so it may be a while before we see them widespread and by then, I'm guessing there will probably already be a workaround. Kiddies who just can't wait to open up their new Wiis and solder up a mod chip on Christmas morning, though, should probably double check which drive they have first. [mywii.com.au via GoNintendo]

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<![CDATA[Simple Hack Adds Power-Charge USB Slot to VGA Socket]]> Sometimes the simplest hacks are the most useful: If you've got a laptop with limited USB ports and you're in the market for something small and handy to let you charge a device over USB, then this is for you. All it takes is a male-male VGA adapter, a spare USB socket and some accurate soldering: it's all in the Instructable. Neat. [Instructables]

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<![CDATA[SE Xperia Panel Interface Modded to Work on HTC Touch HD]]> Not sure why anybody would take on this project, but several modders at the xda-developers forum have gotten Sony Ericsson's Xperia X1 panel interface to work on HTC's Touch HD. From the look of it, X1 installs, launches and works without much of a speed difference, and the panel interface actually seems nicer on the Touch HD's roomier screen. I doubt either company would be happy about this, but if you ever wanted X1's interface rather than TouchFLO on your HTC handset, I guess now there's a way to get it. [xda-developers via Engadget China]

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<![CDATA[The DIY Mac Pro Mini: Turn that Broken MacBook into a Teeny Desktop]]> An intrepid modder was given a sad, water-damaged MacBook and turned it into his own little Mac Pro Mini with a little know-how and a $40 Mac Pro case knockoff. His MacBook's motherboard worked, but LCD, HDD, battery, memory, keyboard, and DVD drive were all busted. After replacing the HDD and memory, he set out to stuff his cheap-o case with the corpse of his MacBook.



The mod takes a lot of soldering, fitting, and cooling, but none of it is particularly complicated and a bigger case would probably simplify matters. The finished product is a fully-functional desktop version of the MacBook, and probably has a better cooling system. It's a great mod, I love that he started out with something broken and finished with an operational and even enviable system. [Wolph Bite]

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<![CDATA[Awesome Mod Adds 3D Animated Imaging to Viewmaster Toy]]> I was never jealous of my friends who had those Viewmaster slide-viewer toys when I was a kid—they just seemed kinda boring, but I would have been jealous if the toy was as clever as this mod. This guy's taken the toy and added an Arduino-driven display unit, accelerometers and a Bluetooth connection to a PC so that it generates animated color-based chromadepth 3D imagery. There's even push-button control of the imagery, which reacts when you shake it. Waaaaay better than clicking through boring 20 3D-ish static cartoon frames, though the psychological effects its psychedelicness may cause hasn't been tested. [MickeyMann via Makezine]

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<![CDATA[DIY Super Nintendo Digital Alarm Clock]]>
I wouldn't sacrifice a working SNES for this mod, but if you have a broken one in your closet somewhere, transforming it into a digital alarm clock is an interesting (and inexpensive) way to give it new life. As you can see in the video, the display can be set using the standard controller. Plus the cartridge is still removable, making it possible to expand on the mod and develop alternate displays.

[Mavrinac via Hack-a-Day]

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<![CDATA[Etch-A-Sketch Mod Adds Memory, Ability to Reproduce Your Art]]> Rakesh Reddy's Remember-it-All mod brings Etch-a-Sketch nearly up to the 21st Century, by adding a memory and stepper motors to the toy. It ends up being a tad like the Etch-a-Sketch clock, but niftily when you switch it into record mode it copies your every move into memory. Throw a switch and your crappy straight-line art is recreated in front of your eyes. I say nearly 21st Century, 'cause a truly modern mod would automagically create the art for you, but this is still fun, and you can DIY it by following Rakesh's instructions. [DesignNews via MAKE]

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<![CDATA[iPhone Unnecessarily Hacked to Add Real Keyboard]]> This guy's taken a jail-broken iPhone and hacked it by wiring it up to a genuine physical keyboard that's about as big as the phone itself. Yes... it's clever. But nononono: the beauty of the iPhone is its slender slippery sleekness, and I've found myself speeding up to darn fast text-entry rates using the virtual keyboard. This mod is like strapping a paddlewheel to a dolphin: bulky, old-fashioned and unnecessary. [Crunchgear]

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<![CDATA[Cow Dies Needlessly to Coat Eee PC in Horrid Leather Modding]]> There's just no excuse for this leather-clad Eee PC 901 mod. No excuse at all. No—not even the fine workmanship which means it's got an arguably professional-grade finish. A cow died needlessly for this, remember. Daisy, I think she was called. And it's just a tiny, crappy netbook. If you're going to mod anything into a leather-clad version we want to see a 150-inch plasma TV in shocking-pink nubuck. That would be a worthwhile use of skin. [EEEPCNews.de]

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