Both small children and cats have a certain tendency to make loud noises at inopportune times, but what if there were a way to combine these auditory effects? This seems to have been the reasoning behind the creation of the Meowsic keyboard, a children’s keyboard that renders notes as cats’ meows. [Steve Gilissen], an appreciator […]
The Functionalist design philosophy that Dieter Rams brought to Braun from the 50s to the 90s still inspires the look of a few devices, including Apple’s iPod, Teenage Engineer’s synthesizers and recorders – and [2dom]’s IR7 streaming radio. The streaming radio was inspired by Braun’s portable radios, particularly the SK2, TP1, and the T3 pocket […]
Sometimes you find a commercial product that is almost, but not exactly perfect for your needs. Your choices become: hack together a DIY replacement, or hack the commercial product to do what you need. [Daniel Epperson] chose door number two when he realized his Yamaha MusicCast smart speaker was perfect for his particular use case, […]
Another day, another Internet-connected gadget that gets abandoned by its creators. This time it’s Jooki — a screen-free audio player that let kids listen to music and stories by placing specific tokens on top of it. Parents would use a smartphone application to program what each token would do, and that way even very young […]
Music consumption has followed a trend over the last decade or more of abandoning physical media for online or streaming alternatives. This can present a problem for young children however, for whom a simpler physical interface may be an easier way to play those tunes. Maintaining a library of CDs is not entirely convenient either, […]
In the era of digital streaming, the market is full of wireless speakers that will play content from your smartphone or pull it down from the Internet directly over WiFi. But if you’re feeling a bit nostalgic and want to throw on one of your old CDs, well, you might have a problem. That’s the […]
When it comes to hacking niches, breathing new life into vintage devices is always an exciting challenge. [t0mg]’s recent project exemplifies this with his 1978 Sony FX-300 ‘Jackal’ radio. He’d already upgraded the radio in 2021 and turned it into a feature-packed marvel, but there’s always room for improvement. [t0mg]’s initial 2021 build had its […]
It’s 2024. You’ve probably got one or more pairs of wireless headphones around the house. [Barnso] prefers wired headphones with a long cable, but he also decries the fact that it often gets tangled in his chair. The solution? A pulley system to make everything easier. The concept is simple. [Barnso]’s system uses three pulleys. […]
While the death of Apple’s Lightning Connector can’t come soon enough, swapping the ports on their products as “category-defining innovations” seems a bit of a stretch. [Ken Pillonel] has designed a set of streamlined, repairable, USB-C adapters for the AirPods, AirPods Pro, and AirPods Max that show Apple what innovation really means. If you’ve followed […]
The 1990s seem to have reached that point at which they are once more considered cool, and ephemera of the decade has become sought-after. One of the unlikely software hits from the period was Winamp, the MP3 player of choice in an era when time spent on dodgy file sharing sites or peer to peer […]