That's right. The good folks at Hackaday has posted about a home-made MP3 player that is so tiny, it could be crushed by quite possibly a fingertip. The player's uses a VS1011 MP3 decoder that also has it's own stereo headphone-driver on the chip. Being so compact, it would seem that most of the 4k of program memory on the PIC 18LF88 is being used, but such is life for a tiny device. It may be display-less, but then again, this can be made by most anyone with decent board fabrication and soldering skills. Go ahead, treat your relative's to a nice home-made toy. Bundle it up with a home made Christmas card and you've got yourself, well, a poosibly not-so-merry Christmas at home. This is when you remind them that it's the thought that counts.
via hackaday
Retroleum Phil has mastered not only the art of the home-built computer, but the home-built operating system as well. The V4Z80P is a clean looking 8-bit laptop that's based entirely on the Zilog Z80 microprocessor and a pair of Spartan II FPGA's. The Spartans have helped Phil conquer the Persians. lol. lame joke aside. The Spartans are now all dead. Arrg!, couldn't help it, back to business. The Spartan II FPGA's have helped Phil scale the size of his mother board down by reducing the number of devices, which have also reduced production cost. The laptop also includes a salvaged PSOne screen and an apparently great graphical vector based demo. The V4Z80P has also since been upgraded to a smaller size, a faster Z80 and faster peripheral speed and functionality, but it's older model is
The x86 Viliv S5 tablet has been hacked by resourceful folks to run on Android 2.2 (FroYo). The Viliv S5 usually runs on Windows XP. It seems to run fairly well, which is cool, but there is a catch; a hurdle; a problem... the image has not been released because there are problems getting the proprietary Intel drivers for the GMA graphics chipset inside the S5 to work properly. Though those in the video seem to have accomplished it, it appears they are unwilling to release the image file just yet. Either way, cool stuff and another small step forward. Specs of the Viliv S5 after the break.
1.3GHz Intel Atom processor
Intel GMA 500 graphics
4.8-inch 1024 x 600 pixel touchscreen display
32GB SSD
GPs
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
via ubergizmo
This Apad hack by Carnovire, who has dubbed it "Project Apex", packs in an 8500mAh battery giving it a whopping 12 hours of battery life into a nice looking overall finish. After the break is a video of the hack just after completion as well as a video review of the hack after 3 days of usage.
The Project Apex hack after completion.
After 3 days of using Project Apex, Carnivore posts a video review.
via Hackaday Slatedroid
A bloke named Carnivore over at Slatedroid did not take no for an answer when confronted with the disappointment that is generally associated with the Eken M001 VIA WM8505 powered Android 1.6 MID, and instead hacked the device to improve various specs. Among them was an improved battery life (increasing the battery capacity from 1600mAh to 5200mAh now giving him 7-12 hours of battery life versus the original 1-2 you could count on), as well as adding a USB hub and flash drive internally, and also added a front-facing camera. He was unable to keep the MID slim and had to modify the back cover so that it now protrudes some 2 inches, making the device less portable but it is overall more functional. Watch the video below to see his Eken M001 hacked internals.
via Hackaday
You aren't looking at a fake picture, forum user MaleAxx has been able to port over Doom to a cheap PSP clone that uses the Sunplus 8000 processor. I was really wondering if anyone would try and port games to this ARM based processor. It's quite interesting how porting Doom is like an almost 'hello world' equivalant event on hacking a device. Kudos to MaleAxx for the hard work. The doom port isn't 100% and the game isn't playable YET, but the guys are working on it.
Follow the development on the forums
Many of you know that the Onda VX787 has some very funny english used for its UI, a poor translation can certainly undermine the quality of a product, thankfully SeaSprite from our forums had stepped up and provided a better English translation for the VX787.
More info and download the new transalation here
