Outré USB Gadgets 102
PreacherTom writes, "We've all connected a myriad of useful things to USB ports: flash drives, printers, webcams. How about a vacuum cleaner? Pair of heated gloves? Anti-cubicle missile system? Joseph Pisani offers a listing of some of the most creative USB-controlled gadgets available, and includes a slide show of the most popular."
This stupid thing too. (Score:5, Interesting)
The EtherKiller and friends: http://www.fiftythree.org/etherkiller/ [fiftythree.org]
The Google cache [64.233.167.104]
Or this stupid thing [thinkgeek.com] is more in line with the aim of the article.
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The EtherKiller and friends: http://www.fiftythree.org/etherkiller/ [fiftythree.org]
I once had a PC case where the connection to the 'hard disk is running' LED had an evil twin that connected to the power supply....
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Stuff that just uses power shouldn't count (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm only interested in weird stuff that uses the USB data connection also.
No kidding, way boring. (Score:2)
Re:Stuff that just uses power shouldn't count (Score:4, Funny)
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USB would be a good interface for programming a Roomba, though! (They use RS-232, don't they?)
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Yeah but you don't get on Digg with that kinda tripe...oh wait this is /.
Never Mind... :)
The appeal of USB is the power (Score:3, Interesting)
However it is worth noting that it is the power that really makes USB different from other interfaces (sure you can steal a few mA from RS232). I quite often use USB to power small electronic circuits (development boards etc) instead of a wallwart or a bench power supply, even if they are using some other connectivity.
USB (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:USB (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:USB (Score:5, Funny)
I know, I know: {groan}
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oh sorry, I forgot this is slashdot... I mean:
<-- joke
o
-+- <-- you
^
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Go on, mod me down, but you know it's true.
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Re:USB (Score:5, Informative)
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Give me more power, Scotty! (Score:2, Funny)
Really useful? Laptop lights! (Score:4, Interesting)
If USB gives us nothing more in the way of alternative devices and gadgets, I will consider it a victory anyway =)
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iBrator (Score:4, Funny)
Mirror (Score:2)
The site's down for me (BusinessWeek.org down?! Maybe it's just gremlins in my walls.)
USB controlled or USB powered? (Score:5, Informative)
Only the little missles look like they could be USB controlled. The rest just seem to be drawing power from the USB port.
Re:USB controlled or USB powered? (Score:5, Interesting)
The guy combined a USB skype/gaming headset and an older style telephone handset for something that actually seems somewhat practical compared to a USB aquarium.
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Got that one for my Dad for Father's day. Not only are the missiles controlled by USB, it comes complete with realistic soundeffects, and ducking co-workers! (nothing like a little in-office terror :)
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USB power is cool (Score:5, Interesting)
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Are you, by any chance, from the 70's ?
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"is this some sort of joke"?
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What really friggin annoyed me is that I have a shiny, new cell phone, with a universal plug on the bottom. The charger plugs into that plug, and so does the USB cable. So I can't use the USB interface at the same time as I charge the phone with the AC adapter.
BUT IT WON'T CHARGE THE PHONE WITH A USB CABLE!
What kind of retarded corporate brain damage is that? It would be SO NICE if I could plug my phone into my laptop and charge the phone while I'm plugged in at a starbucks.
Fri
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USB Powered != USB Gadget (Score:4, Interesting)
Imagine if a photocopier did this. Oh no, you can't *print* to it. It just runs off USB power, but because the specification limits a single USB port to 200mA, we have provided a "conveniant" multiheaded usb plug (count them, 4 usb plugs).
No no no no no no
There are some really neat ICs out there that allow you to build a device thats USB controlled, eg the PC can send a signal down the wire (and vice versa) and you can make the device do something. USB pencil sharpers are not a great category for this. USB weather stations are.
Heck, I've always wanted to build a USB *controlled* fan. One that you can change the direction and speed via the USB port.
A really big useful-ness of the USB devices is that you can now replace almost any part of your PC. USB serial, USB parallel, USB sound, USB network. Case-in-point, my network took a power surge via the network/switch. Best I can tell, the server took the main charge, probably though the power supply, and happily diverted it through the ethernet port, which the switch passed on to each device connect. Then end result is the network component on every device on the network is fried. The simple answer, especially for my beauitful geeked-out slimline MythTV box is a USB network. (No room for any more PCI cards)
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Do you have any more information on these ICs? How difficult and expensive is it to build a simple few-channel low-voltage DC DAC/ADC device? Something where I can simply set an output to a desired voltage, and read the voltage into an input channel. I'm not talking waveforms: a response of around 1 Hz would
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Realdoll (Score:3, Funny)
I Gotta Get Me One Of These... (Score:2)
I wished I had one of those when I was a video game tester at Atari. One of the supervisors used to fire his soft pellet air gun over the cubicles, especially when he lost at Counter-Strike.
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It shoots down cubicles with missiles? I'd expect such a thing only in my Tetris-induced dreams.
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He missed the best one... (Score:2, Interesting)
Creative is the wrong word (Score:1)
How about a vacuum cleaner? Pair of heated gloves? Anti-cubicle missile system?
A pair of heated gloves? What a brilliant idea! Until, ya know, you have to actually go outside. In the cold. There ain't an extension cord long enough.
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What is this outside you speak of? My life revolves around being within 4 feet of my computer at all times.
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Well Duh. Thats why you have a laptop...
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(...Ebenezer Scrooge? A Christmas Carol?)
Actually...if you were really desperate to save money (yet *needed* to use your computer), these might be useful - you put your winter jacket on, and these could keep your fingers warm for typing..
(Admittedly, it does seem like being cold to save money on heat then running a computer might not truly be economical...)
I've got the missile launcher, it's okay. (Score:5, Informative)
It takes AA batteries to actually power the launcher motors, with a switch on the underside of the base. The part of the missile that locks into the spring mechanism is actually heavier than the the rest of it, so it doesn't always fly nose-first like you'd think. It also doesn't have much in the way of range. If I could find extra missiles for it I'd experiment a bit with weighting the tips to try to address those issues.
I haven't used the included (Windows-only) control app yet, but a guy wrote a control app for it for OS X that's not too bad. You can find it on Versiontracker, I'm too lazy to hunt it down and make a link right now.
~Philly
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We armed our missiles with white-tack warheads (it sticks surprisingly well to foam), and they do fly much better, without a significant loss in range.
They do tend to pick up a lot of hairs and muck from this grotty old carpet though.
uhhh. yeah. (Score:2, Informative)
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Keychain obligatories (Score:1)
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Now if there was a bottle opener and USB memory that automatically backs up YOUR physical memory to the drive when the bottle opener is used, allowing to restore it once the effects of the contents of the bottle expire, that would be useful.
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Missing: USB powered frypan (Score:3, Funny)
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what about the ghost detector? (Score:1)
http://www.engadget.com/2005/04/02/usb-ghost-dete
http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/20060712/the-usb-g
USB needs (Score:2)
When you think about it, when you carry a laptop with you all the time, all you're really lugging around is a massive battery with a computer on top of it. Seems to me, that battery could be used to power all the OTHER crap I have to lug around - why carry three power adapters when I really only NEED one?
You can show me all the flashy usb devices that currently exist, but NOTHING is as convenient as one of these [westsidecellular.com].
Personal Protection (Score:3, Funny)
Missed one (Score:1)
USB in the PSU (Score:2, Informative)
my favourite (Score:1)
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The USB device I really want (Score:2)
So, how hard would this be to develope, how much would it add to the price of a flash drive and is it practical? Would it sell?
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1 What does it do that the screen/screensaver/speaker cannot?
2 No
Fondu (Score:2, Funny)
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Maybe they got punished for that incredibly nasty sounding recipe for fondue at the website. It sure killed my desire to have one.
Last Xmas (Score:2)
Sold by Marks and Spenser for 20 quid.
And now only available in Aus? Someone didn't check things out properly. This is Slashdot, what's new?
Cold (Score:1)
Some video of multiple-launch systems in action (Score:3, Interesting)
USB "short run" gadgets (Score:1)
Make a device and supply a command line program to retrieve that simple information. It would seem to be expensive and more than a couple weekends of work.
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What does cost a few thousand dollars is joining the USB-IF [usb.org], which is necessary to get a unique vendor ID, which is necessary for drivers to be correctly associated with your device. But you can buy small blocks of product IDs from other peoples' vendor space, if y
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Look again: Silicon Labs [silabs.com]
makes some nifty microcontrollers and you can buy a developer's kit [silabs.com] with in-circuit debugger for a hundred bucks. And you can use sdcc [sourceforge.net] for your compiler.
Of course if you want to sell your USB device you need to get your own Ve
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Wow, nobody yet mentioned this thing? (Score:3, Funny)
.