I've been trying to find an excuse to pick up one of the HD Aiptek cams for a while now. [windowlikker] posted his simple pre-amp + external audio input mod for his Aiptek AHD videocam. Unfortunately, the mod is limited to mono input unless there's an un-used stereo input on the encoder board.

[Robin] over at acidmods sent in this interesting PSP mod. [PvP] added an internal hard drive (with the exception of a mini-usb cable sticking out the top) to his PSP. The advantage? Laptop hard drives are dirt cheap while sony memory sticks are still pretty pricy. More details should be along soon, but [Robin] assures me that this means up to 200GB of storage is possible for the PSP.

[Johny Lee] sent in his(pdf) awesome projector calibration project. By adding embedding some optical fiber that feed into a set of USB connected light sensors, his groups software can determine the exact pixel position of each sensor. Once the positions are determined, the projected image can be dynamically adjusted to fix the screen. The technique can be used to stitch together multiple projectors, and even calibrate an image to project onto a three dimensional model. I know some home theater nuts that would love to have this system for calibrating their CRT projectors.

This is such an excellent project, that I want to give credit where it's due - it was developed by [Johnny C. Lee], [Paul H. Dietz], [Dan Maynes-Aminzade], [Ramesh Raskar] and [Scott E. Hudson].

Be sure to check out the video demo after the break!

Sometimes it may seem like I suffer from goldfish memory. [Chris] sent this in a while back and I'd almost forgotten about it. He built a simple VGA test box using a PIC 18F452. I'd probably be more interested in using it to add simple VGA output to another project than use a test box, but it can definitely be handy if you need a small portable video test signal.

[Mark] couldn't resist sending this in, and I can see why. It turns out that this is made from off the shelf parts, but the functionality is awesome. The pilot wears a video headset - igoggles, etc, and has a gyro/accelerometer sensor mounted on it that outputs commands to the R/C transmitter. On the plane, a servo pan tilt camera matches position based on the viewers head motions. Just about all the components are listed in the credits at the end, but you can use any RF camera and a transmitter with enough channels to run the extra servos.

[Jake] sent in his source for a cheap head mounted display. In his writeup he notes that the spy video car comes with quite a pile of handy electronics - video tx/rx, camera and this simple black and white monocle head mounted display. (Which happens to be available as a replacement unit for a mere $20) The screen is a Kopin 300M (Black and white, 300x240 pixels) The display is actually somewhat usable out of the box, but he takes the time to note some simple mods that'll improve the displays performance.

If you ever bought a virtual boy just to gut the display, then you know you want one. In fact, I've got a perfect project in mind for this particular toy.

In a fit of apparent oddity, the Zune doesn't support non-US characters. [Mike] sent in this how-to on modding the Zune software to speak other languages. We haven't seen much on the Zunes, so it's about time for something to come out.

[Jonas] sent in a surprisingly retro concept given the number of small cheap funky video recorders on the market. He built his own. At the heart is a sony Digital8 recorder, combined with a security camera and a SLR lens. It's finished out with an LCD viewfinder and a handful of AA batteries to power the security camera.

[Ben Heckendorn] put together this little beauty on engadget. It's not quite as over the top as the XBox 360 laptop, but there's a reason for that. He'll be putting up a How-To series covering the construction. If you've been pondering building a portable yourself, it'll be a nice jump start for your hardware hacking skill-base.

TomTom already runs Linux. The OpenTom project has documented the TomTom hardware and software to allow custom software builds to run. The Wiki covers everything from build tools to hardware connections. So far, a mp3 player has been released using the build tools. Hmm, I might have to pick one up to develop on myself. Thanks to [kniVes788] for the tip.

http://www.opentom.org/Main_Page

Ben's been working on this one forever. This new version 2 Atari 800 laptop features a CF drive, a RS lcd, original Atari hardware and lots and lots of friggin soldering. That keyboard is hand wired, along with the CF adapter. Unlike the xbox 360 laptop, this one's got Ni-MH batteries that are good for about an hour of play.

[aboxman] brought this nice wavecom jr mod to my attention. I first ran across scanning for wireless video signals a couple years ago when the X10 version came out. People were surprised at just how many video signals were flying through the air.This little project results in a unit that can scan a wide 2.3 to 2.7Ghz range. Of course, if you're across the pond, you might want a european version.

[Ozan] sent in his first attempt at making his own heads up display. The optics are very simple in design, and he gutted a commercial heads up display (ICUITI) for the LCD panel and interface electronics. I haven't played with many head mounted displays since the Nintendo virtual boy. I'm not up on my field of view calculations, so it's difficult to equate this to a commercial headset.

[Everett] got such a great response to yesterday's nightvision hack he decided to write up this underwater CVS mod. The outside is a Pelican #1010 case. The camera fits almost perfectly inside. A small foam shim is used to position the camera lens between the two thick plastic ridges. Everett relocated the power button to the front of the camera and placed a guard around the shutter button on the back. The shutter is now wired to a reed switch at the back of the case. To start the camera recording he's attached a magnet to a spring on the outside of the case that you slide over the reed switch to trigger it. If you missed it yesterday, he added an example shot from the nightvision cam. It isn't swimming season so the only underwater pics he has are from the bathtub, which he luckily hasn't posted. If you want to start hacking on a CVS cam, [morcheeba] warns that they still haven't completely broken firmware 3.62 and above. Here is the FAQ.

Our loyal reader [Everett] has hacked up a CVS single-use camcorder to use as a nightvision scope. This is his second prototype. The first one only had 4 cruddy IR LEDs from Radiohut and a front mounted battery pack. For the second one, he separated the batteries from the camera. He removed the IR filter from the CCD and added 8 higher quality IR LEDs. On the backside of the camera is the eyepiece from a Handycam. It keeps the the LCD screen from leaking light and has a lense to help the eye to focus on the screen. The LCD is to bright to use without adding a dimmer pot. The camera is mounted to a headlamp rig with the batteries on the backside of the head. It may not have the best image quality, but at $35 you can't go wrong when it comes to nightvision fun.