Anonymous writes "Here's a step-by-step look at building a PC with the new Antec Skeleton PC chassis. It's obviously not for everybody, but at least Antec is trying out something relatively new for hard-core users. Not sure if you'd need an air spray can to keep the dust off all the components, though ..."

teddaw152 writes "I've been tasked with ordering an oscilloscope and a logic analyzer for use in a university physics lab, and have found several models that will likely suit our technical needs from the major manufacturers (Agilent, Tektronix, and LeCroy). However, I personally have only used legacy HP scopes, and thus I have no idea what modern features are must haves and which brand's user interface is the most intuitive. Is there anyone out there that has used modern Tektronix/Agilent/LeCroy scopes side by side and can comment on their thoughts from the purely subjective side?"

sneakyimp writes "My brother is an architect and sculptor and wants to create kinetic sculptures powered by wind, steam, and sun. He wants to avoid electrical systems and keep this mechanical. He's prepared to cast metals for custom parts if necessary, but is hoping to find a cheap source of gears, axles, and bearings for the internal mechanical workings of these contraptions. We'll need things like miter/bevel/spur/helical gears, standard and thrust bearings, and axles." Read on below for more on the details of what sneakyimp is looking for — dismembered Capsela units won't do it.

Maximum Prophet writes "When I was in High School, I built an X-Ray machine that (probably) didn't produce any X-Rays. I used an old vacuum tube and high voltage. Little did I know that simple triboluminescence would have enough energy to do useful work." The catch: you'll need to peel your tape in a vacuum, and have the x-ray film at the ready.

notthatwillsmith writes "Everyone's seen mods where someone super-cools a PC by submersing it in a non-conductive oil. It's a neat idea, but most components aren't designed to withstand a hot oil bath; after prolonged exposure materials break down and components begin to fail. Maximum PC has an exclusive hands-on, first look at the new Hardcore Computer Reactor, the first oil-cooled PC available for sale. Hardcore engineered the Reactor to withstand the oil, using space-age materials and proprietary oil. The Reactor's custom-manufactured motherboard, videocards, memory, and SSD drives are submersed in the oil, while the dry components sit outside the bulletproof tank. The motherboard lifts out of the oil bath on rails, giving you relatively easy access to components, and the overall design is simply jaw-dropping. Of course, we'd expect nothing less for a machine with a base price of $4000 that goes all the way up to $11k for a fully maxed out config."

tsm_sf writes "A recent Slashdot article got me thinking about dead and dying media. I'd like to build a cheap PC with the goal of being able to read as many old formats as possible. Size and power consumption would be design considerations; priority of media formats would be primary. How would you approach such a project?"

ThinSkin writes "It is appropriate to say that Antec was 'thinking outside the box' when the idea of the 'Skeleton' PC Case sprung to mind. The Antec Skeleton is an open-air PC case with a pair of shelves for the motherboard and other components — held up by arching arms. There are no side panels. This is ideal for the computer user who is constantly fidgeting with his PC parts, or someone who wants to show off his fancy components. Just have a compressed air can nearby. There is also a slideshow of Antec Skeleton images available."

marshotel excerpts from a story at the Wall Street Journal: "European law-enforcement officials uncovered a highly sophisticated credit-card fraud ring that funnels account data to Pakistan from hundreds of grocery-store card machines across Europe, according to U.S. intelligence officials and other people familiar with the case. Specialists say the theft technology is the most advanced they have seen, and a person close to British law enforcement said it has affected big retailers including a British unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Tesco Ltd."

arcticstoat writes "Overclockers looking to bolster their new Nehalem CPUs with overclocked memory may be disappointed. Intel is telling motherboard manufacturers not to encourage people to push the voltage of their DIMMs beyond 1.65V, as anything higher could damage the CPU. This will come as a blow to owners of enthusiast memory, such as Corsair's 2.133MHz DDR3 Dominator RAM, which needs 2V to run at its full speed with 9-9-9-24 timings."

mollyhackit writes "We've seen tiny Web servers in the past, but rarely ones that are home-built. Here's a guide to building your own tiny web server with a footprint no larger than a business card. The design uses two major chips. One handles the SPI to MAC/PHY translation for the ethernet jack. The other chip is a PIC24F, which hosts a simple web server and reads files stored on a microSD card. All components run at a low 3.3 volts. Part of the compactness of the design comes from the PIC24F having programmable pins; only four jumper wires were needed. The single-sided SMD design is easy to manufacture at home. Part 1 covered many of the 24F's features and both posts have full code available."

arcticstoat writes "Today marks fifty years since the first integrated circuit, or microchip, was demonstrated by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments on 12 September 1958. The original chip might not be much to look at, but then Texas Instruments admits that Kilby often remarked that if he'd known he'd be showing the first working integrated circuit for the next 40-plus years, he would've 'prettied it up a little.' The integrated circuit itself was housed in a germanium strip on a glass slide, and it measured 7/16in by 1/16in. With protruding wires, and just containing a single transistor, some resistors and a capacitor, it's a primitive chip by today's standards, but it worked and successfully produced a sine wave on an oscilloscope screen at the demo. Technology hasn't been the same since."

Joseph Vaccarelli, a former Verizon Technician, has been charged with racking up $220,000 in phone-sex calls by tapping into the land lines of nearly 950 customers. Authorities say that he made approximately 5,000 calls, resulting in 45,000 minutes of call time. Verizon estimated that out of a 40-week period, Vaccarelli spent 15 weeks talking on sex lines. How in the world do you have this much phone sex, period, but especially at work, and not have anyone notice?

Mike writes "The Security Group at the University of California in Santa Barbara has released the video that shows the attacks carried out against the Sequoia voting system. The video shows an attack where a virus-like software spreads across the voting system. The coolest part of the video is the one that shows how the 'brainwashed' voting terminals can use different techniques to change the votes even when a paper audit trail is used. Pretty scary stuff. The video is absolute proof that these types of attacks are indeed feasible and not just a conspiracy theory. Also, the part that shows how the 'tamperproof' seals can be completely bypassed in seconds is very funny (and quite disturbing at the same time)."

ptorrone writes "I picked up the Esquire E-inked cover today and took a bunch of high res photos, for the makers out there. It has a programming header, 5-pin ISP, a Microchip PIC 12f629 which is flash programmable, 8 pin, 6 lithium coin cell CR2016s, 3 volts each. Two E-ink screens with flex connections — looks like it was made to be reprogrammed and different screens. The top screen has 11 segments, the bottom has 3. It was designed 2008-06-04. The PCB was made by Forewin, half thickness, 2 layer board (FR4). I think someone out there will likely reflash the PIC and make the segments go on / off at different times and perhaps put other displays on it, there's a little bit of hacking to be had but not that much really."

Hybride And The Groom writes "Building hybrids uses machinery that pollutes the environment. The solution? Ship the parts of a hybrid individually and get your customers to put the car together themselves. That's exactly what Robert Q Riley Enterprises is doing, according to a story on CNet today, with its XR-3 hybrid. It'll cost you $25,000 for the bits, plus zero dollars in manufacture, I hope. Better yet, cough up $200 for the blueprints and schematics and even build the parts yourself. It's no secret that many hybrid drivers are smug enough as it is. Allow them to brag about having built the damn cars themselves and we might be entering obscenely smug territory."

DigitalDame2 writes "Not all hackers are bad guys, but a few fall prey to the dark side and use their talents for evil — not good. In compiling this list of the craziest cyber crimes, PC Mag looked for a few things: ingenuity (had it been done before?), scope (how many computers, agencies, companies, sites, etc. did it affect?), cost (how much in monetary damages did it cause?), and historical significance (did it start a new trend?). Read on about famous hackers John Draper, Robert Morris, Kevin Poulsen, and others."

brigc writes "Here's one that's got me stumped. A friend of mine who is blind asked me for help tracking down a cell phone for him. He's interested in a flip phone with well-defined separations between the keys, and as much voice control as possible. Battery life is the only other thing he mentioned. Preferably something that would work on AT&T's network in the US. We spent part of the afternoon in a local AT&T store checking out all the flip phones they had and didn't find one he really loved. Anyone have any ideas?" There was a story some months back about a phone that would read to you by interpreting pictures from the built-in camera, but it doesn't have much information about usability. I'm sure it'd be handy to have some sort of text-to-speech option for common cell phone features like caller ID and text messaging, or even just reading menu names.

Bat Country writes "I've had an idea in the back of my head for some time (and I'm surely not the only one) that it would be a worthwhile project to coat a motherboard in thermally conductive electrically insulating resin — complete with all of its various components — for the purpose of immersion, shock resistance, whatever. I'm curious to find out if anyone's undertaken a similar project or if it's known to be a shockingly bad idea (due to shrinkage during the curing process) already. Thoughts?" If you've done anything similar (even an experiment that failed), how did you go about it?

holy_calamity writes "Big mouth tech blogger Mike Arrington decided earlier this year to 'teach gadget-makers a lesson' and make his own portable, touch screen web tablet. The first, very rough, prototype is complete. Despite the claims it would be fully open source — even the hardware — there's no sign of a project site or any other openness yet."

jonniee writes "Mike Riley over at Dr. Dobb's takes a look at 'The BUG,' from Bug labs. It's a Linux-based, Java-programmable electronic base with I/O ports for connecting BUGmodules — individual modules that supply additional functionality to the BUGbase. Four BUGmodules currently exist: a color LCD screen, a combined motion detector/accelerometer, GPS, and a 2-megapixel color camera. You can think of it as 'electronic LEGOs' that let you build different devices depending on how you plug the modules together."