Hackzilla.org
Home of the wacky and crazy projects
XBox 360 off for a while
0You see the oddest of things in the real world.
This message was seen on a XBox 360 during the Christmas Sales in Game store.
We are unsure as to the intent of the message.
Is it?
- Humour?
- Stupidity?
- or the Xbox is broken and they have no idea when it will be fixed?
Personally we feel it’s either option 1 or 3.
Featuring Sir Bones
0I have been looking everywhere for some realistic ears for Sir Bones. The idea of the ears is to channel forward sound in to the microphone; just like in the human body.
Trying to find realist ears is actually quite hard. Most of the ears available are novelty ears, over-sized and not very realistic.
I even went into a fancy dress shop to ask if they knew where I could get some, with no luck.
Recently I was shopping in Tesco's and I noticed this scary Halloween mask. The ears were almost perfect size for Sir Bones, so I could not resist buying this face mask.
The beginning
0I have been trying for a long time to understand computer vision, and trying to make a program that could pick out useful information from web cameras.
It was a standard set-up of 2 cameras and slight angles to each other, pointing forwards.
The trouble was they were free to move around. What was needed, was something to hold the cameras in a fix position.
The hunt for a human skull was on!
Sir Bones gets a (meek) voice
0Sir Bones has had a quiet life, constantly listening and not being able to say a word.
Today will change all that.
Sir Bones gets a voice (module).
All that is really needed is a speaker attached to a 3.5mm jack, but I prefer to have Sir Bones portable, so we'll be using a USB Sound card aka USB Voip Handset.
Give him a voice
2With the ability to hear and to see, Sir Bones is progressing very well.
Sir Bones needs to be able to communicate with the world around him.
What Sir Bones needs is a voice.
I have a voip handset, which is basically a USB sound card, which has a standard 3.5mm audio jack.
What I need now is to find a good enough speaker to fit inside Sir Bones, which is also loud enough to be heard.
We don't want him sounding weak now 
Waste not, Want not
0After all the modification to Sir Bones's skull, he is starting to be a little too top heavy for the base.
What was needed would be some extra weight.
The Logitech microphones came with quite a heavy base and they will save having throw them out.
There should be enough combined weight to keep Sir Bones upright.
