by Terrence O'Brien on November 18, 2010 at 06:30 AM

Info about this mod is a little tough to come by, but it appears that a German man, through the simple application of physics, has turned his Segway from dorky death-trap to speedy, dorky death-trap. By slapping a pair of large carriage wheels on his gyroscope-balanced nerd-mobile, YouTube user mastersector managed to top out at blazing 25 mph. Check out the video after the break. ...
by Caleb Johnson on September 22, 2009 at 08:31 AM

Remember when you were a kid, and you'd use your mouth to make sound effects for toy guns and cars? Well, one intrepid gamer has taken that idea to the next level. He has replaced all the sound effects in 'Half-Life 2' with soundbites of his own voice, creating a totally useless yet highly entertaining mod (see video above). It's really well done, too. For example, fire a weapon, and you hear ...
by Joseph L. Flatley on March 15, 2009 at 02:43 PM

In the far-out, sci-fi future of 2009, robots are doing some pretty amazing things, like capturing prowlers, assembling communications networks, and playing Rock / Paper / Scissors. Now, with a little help from RoBe:Do and Twitter, robotics has achieved what may be its crowning achievement: couch-side popcorn delivery. Coppa is a $1,649 software-ready robot (you supply the machine's netbook ...
by Laura June on March 13, 2009 at 04:12 PM

The fine folks over at Instructables have posted some wild mods in their time, but the musical bra you see above inhabites its own realm in terms of weirdness and lack of usefulness... unless you really want a bra that makes music of course. The speaker is on the front, with a battery pack between the shoulder blades at the back, and each cup is equipped with eight different "sounds" culled ...
by Joseph L. Flatley on March 7, 2009 at 10:10 AM

Crazy us, we thought that a remote control was meant to keep you on the couch -- it does seem rather counter-intuitive to build one that makes you leave your seat and jump around within arm's reach of the TV set. But when this guy saw an over-sized novelty remote at Brookstone, he knew that he had to have it. Not only that, but he had to best it -- by fashioning a controller for Windows Media ...
by Joseph L. Flatley on January 5, 2009 at 10:45 AM

Some Xbox 360 mods are the product of serious craftsmanship, some are rather silly, and some -- like this Suzuki automobile console / Xbox 360 game console hybrid -- really give one pause. This isn't the sort of thing that one spends moments / hours / weeks on, after which he reflects for a moment ("Aren't I rather clever?"), and then hides it safely in the closet (or sells it on eBay). No, this ...
by Laura June on January 2, 2009 at 11:08 AM

Sure, it might be a little more cumbersome than your current billfold -- but whatever -- this is awesome. This SNES cartridge has been modded so that it holds a photo ID on the front plate, but it's also been gutted of its internals and outfitted with a hinge so that there's storage space on the inside. Oh, and it's got an LED that can be powered on and off, plus it plays game music / noises! ...
by Laura June on December 19, 2008 at 05:59 PM

Feeling the hurt of endlessly dying batteries on your BlackBerry (or iPhone, if that's what you're into)? Atif Shamim, a PhD student at Canada's Carleton University might have the medicine for that pain of yours. He's cleverly hacked such devices, removing all the wires that connect the electrical circuits to the antenna, and developed a module for the connection to operate wirelessly. The result, ...
by Darren Murph on December 9, 2008 at 03:04 PM

And you thought The Shining cuckoo clock was terrifying -- imagine waking up to this. Designed by French artist Stephane Vigny, the loudspeaker clock does exactly what you'd expect it to. When the time comes, the doors flip open, the bottom woofer extends out and a cacophonic emission of sound is heard as you angrily wake from your slumber. We can't imagine that outstretched woofer surviving too ...
by Engadget Staff on November 11, 2008 at 03:14 PM

Yeah, we may be hardened cynics -- our cold, black hearts have closed off to all but the most extraordinary tech-related stories, and we don't talk about the triumph of the human spirit a lot, but PlayStation 3 forum user KitsuneYume has us stepping outside our usual box today. With the help of an engineer, he made an "adaptive controller" that allows him to game with the pros despite serious ...
by Donald Melanson on September 10, 2008 at 04:22 PM

This toaster may only have one setting, but that setting is Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and that's good enough for us. Created by the same console modder behind the monstrous Super Genintari, this project is certainly a good deal less ambitious than that endeavor, but it hits all the right marks nonetheless, including a functional front lever that acts as a power switch, and some red ...
by Darren Murph on July 28, 2008 at 04:12 PM

Just as Mr. Adams wrote of the summer of '69, some heralded pop star decades from now will pen a smash hit recalling the summer of two-thousand and eight. Oddly enough, the tune will likely focus on the revitalization of the Nintendo Entertainment System, which has somehow wiggled into just about everything imaginable over the past few months. The latest concoction is a bit different, though, ...
by Darren Murph on July 21, 2008 at 04:55 PM

This one has been around the block a time or two, but considering you have absolutely nothing else to do on a Sunday, you might as well dust off that DIY kit and get to work. What you're looking at above is a genuine (albeit modified) NES controller playing a bona fide classic on a laptop. Amazingly, all of the software required for such a marvelously good time is stuffed tight within the ...
by Terrence O'Brien on July 8, 2008 at 08:40 AM

The computer mod scene, an entire subculture of computer users who spend their time hacking apart and modifying their computers, has been thriving for years. The simplest mods involve changes like painting the cases or installing lights. Some very dedicated and tech-savvy fanatics, like Ben Heck, will build elaborate cases from scratch, sometimes from odd everyday items. Take for instance this ...
by Terrence O'Brien on January 14, 2008 at 04:21 PM

Kids do the darnedest things sometimes. Take the 14-year-old from Lodz, Poland, who hacked a television remote control to manipulate his city's tram system, thereby derailing four trams, and injuring 12 people. Little rapscallion, what can you do? Apparently charge him with endangering public safety and drag him before a juvenile court. Or at least that's what the court in Lodz did in the case ...