Facelesstech created a fun pair of "smart glasses" with an embedded a miniature attiny85 Arduino controller, and followed it up with a pair that concealed a TV-B-Gone (Mitch Altman's open source hardware gadget that cycles through all known switch-TV-off codes, causing any nearby screens to go black). — Read the rest
Boing Boing pal and maker superhero Mitch Altman, creator of the amazing TV-B-Gone, spent several years designing a simple-yet-powerful DIY music synthesizer that he could use to teach creative electronics and also digital signal processing to kids and adults. The result is the ArduTouch Music Synthesizer! — Read the rest
BB pal Mitch Altman informs us that he's ceased manufacturing on his marvelous invention the TV-B-Gone, a keychain remote control that turns off any television with a push of the button. It's great fun in sports bars, airports, restaurants, and wherever else there's an idiot box that annoys you! — Read the rest
You probably have heard of the TV-B-Gone. If you haven't, it's a small wireless gadget that will turn of any TV. Now, for people who hate the TV-B-Gone, or for people who hate it when someone changes the channel on a TV set in a public space, there's the IR Jammer Kit. — Read the rest
Becky Stern models her clever TV-B-Gone automated TV-switcher-offer sewn into a jacket: "Whenever I bring my TV-B-Gone out to restaurants, I look suspicious pointing it around. So I embedded the device into a jacket and turned it into a wearable TV silencer. — Read the rest
Wearable tech is cool to begin with, but when that technology is performs a function you'd actually want to use, it's even better— and if that function is turning off TVs in public, that's like a high-tech hat trick. — Read the rest
Phillip Torrone sez: TV-B-Gone is a device that reports to turn off virtually all TVs, and so far in our tests, it's knocked out anything we've pointed at it. Of course that wasn't good enough, we're recording the IR signals and putting it on iPod with a sound to IR converter, that way we can play "tv off" all the time and turn off TVs wherever we go, always. — Read the rest
My Cool Tools podcast guest this week is Scotty Allen. Scotty is a nomadic engineer, entrepreneur, adventurer and storyteller who orbits around San Francisco and Shenzhen, China. He runs a YouTube channel Strange Parts, a travel adventure show for geeks where he goes on adventures ranging from building his own iPhone in China to trying to make a manhole cover in India. — Read the rest
This Friday through Sunday in San Francisco, my extreme maker pals Kal Spelletich (Survival Research Labs, Seemen) and Mitch Altman (Noisebridge, TV-B-Gone) invite you to what's sure to be a mind-bending experience of neuro-robotic weirdness and art at The Lab. — Read the rest
It's that time of year again! Welcome to Boing Boing's 2015 Gift Guide, where you'll find toys, books, gadgets and many other splendid ideas to humor and harry your friends and family! Scroll down and buy things, mutants!
It's a long-overdue and much-deserved tribute to the hardest-working chroniclers of hacker culture. Emmanuel Goldstein and co have inspired generations of electronic spelunkers and freedom fighters, and they're still going strong — and have never been more relevant, thanks to the debate sparked by the Snowden leaks.
After eight years of development and a successful Kickstarter, BB pal Mitch Altman's Neurodreamer sleep mask is ready for shipping! You might recall that Mitch is the inspiring maker behind the TV-B-Gone, Trip Glasses, and a bunch of other delightful gadgets. — Read the rest
Mitch Altman, inventor of TV-B-GONE and co-founder of San Francisco's Noisebridge hacker space, is a master maker and educator who finds great joy in teaching people of all ages how to get creative with electronics. At last year's Science Hack Day SF, Mitch taught my 7-year-old son how to solder and he's been at it ever since, making increasingly-complicated kits from Mitch's Cornfield Electronics, Maker Shed, and Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. — Read the rest
Karsten Nohl of Security Research Labs, a white-hat hacker, believes that a recent spike in car theft is due to a break in the car immobilizer security systems; thieves are able to re-mobilize the immobilized vehicles. My question is: how long until someone builds a TV-B-Gone for car engines that lets you stop cars with the click of a button? — Read the rest
This 1954 HOWTO from Mechanix Illustrated invites the reader to take apart the family TV set to make a remote-controlled mute button (called a "SHADDAP") (!). Remember, Zenith's first TV remote control was decried by the broadcasters as a tool of piracy, because it made it too easy to switch away from the commercials:
ARE some of those long-winded commercials spoiling your TV pleasure?
Vimby is producing a very well made series of videos about hacker spaces called "Take On The Machine," hosted by my friend and and MAKE contributor Mitch Altman (inventor of the TV-B-Gone, a universal TV power remote control keychain).
Steve of Vimby says:
Presented by Scion, "Take On The Machine" is a competition reality series hosted by the "dean of hackerspaces" Mitch Altman.
I was in Detroit this past weekend for Maker Faire Detroit 2010. It was held at the Henry Ford Museum (look for an upcoming post about this incredible museum) and I'm guessing 20,000 people showed up. There was a great deal of excitement and energy in the air, and I went home with the feeling that Detroit is going to rise to greatness again very soon. — Read the rest
MAKE Volume 22 is on newsstands now! Automate your world with remote control. From pet care to power outlets, from toys to telepresence, we'll show you how to add a joystick, push-button, twist-knob, or timer to just about anything.
Remote control projects in MAKE Volume 22 include:
The Lawnbot400 R/C lawn mower–sit back and enjoy the mow!