Put that dusty Apple floppy drive to use, make an amplifier mod outta it

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Some bloke over at Hacked Gadgets has taken his hand out of his underpants, and put it to good use – making an amplifier out of an Apple floppy drive.

It shouldn’t come to too much expense, and you’ll be able to pick up a 5.25 floppy drive fairly easily from eBay or even your shed if you save relics from your IT past. Finally – a suitable way to…

BBC puts an end to iPlayer download hack. Back to file sharing sites for you

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The BBC has said that it has fixed its iPlayer software to stop people exploiting the code that allowed users to watch TV shows on their iPhone or iPod Touch.

It turns out that, while PC users can only download and keep a programme for 30 days, or stream it from the web for up to seven days after broadcast, hackers had discovered that iPlayer simply streamed a MP4 file to iPhones and iPods. Using a Firefox plug-in, they were able to capture and save the file…

MacBook Air battery CAN be replaced: take one screwdriver…

macbook_air_back.jpgOne of the early criticisms levelled at Apple’s new MacBook Air ultra-thin notebook computer is that the battery seems to be a non-replaceable part.

While Air fans have said that carrying round a spare battery defeats the object of the machine’s portability, if the internal battery goes kaput, it would be a lot handier to be able to pop in a new one without having to send it away to Apple.

It turns out a distinctly low-tech solution exists. According to AppleInsider, all that’s required is “a single size-0 type Philips screwdriver and some diligence.”

Eee PC hack of the day – touch screen!

Can’t everyone just leave the poor little thing alone? The latest shameful example of Eee PC abuse comes from this guy who has installed one of those achingly fashionable touch screens onto the mini laptop.

He used a $60 touch screen kit he got off eBay, fitting it between the screen and its housing. He then presumably also used quite a lot of brain and technical knowledge to get it all working.

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Mod of the year week: portable NES

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We only changed it from the mod of the year to the mod of the week, as history dictates that Ninty fanboys will one day manage to create a personal Shigeru Miyamoto clone, shrunk down to pocket-size, who can guide you through impossible levels like the last castle in New Super Mario Bros., all the while yelling out words of encouragement such as “Itsa me, Mario!”

Whoever modded this NES into a handheld module no doubt has a GBA and even a DS. Heck, I bet he has all of Nintendo’s handhelds…

Warning! This iPhone will self-destruct if opened…

It seems that some unfortunate who was trying to physically hack open an iPhone in order to modify the hardware to unlock it from AT&T caused it to “explode”.

The victim explained:

The antenna cover was a bit tricky but eventually it came off. Then we started to open the metal cover (after taking out the 3 screws) and PUFF, up it went in smoke… It literally went up in black smoke. I[t] was so hot that when I tried to pick it up I burnt my fingers. So, this is for shure [sic] the most difficult part of the whole process. I don’t know what he did, as I had just stepped out of the room to fetch something when I heard a scream…they got such a fright. I will post a photo of the iphone… To everybody out there, be carefull….