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Outré USB Gadgets

Posted by kdawson on Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:15 PM
from the any-port-in-a-storm dept.
Toys
PreacherTom writes, "We've all connected a myriad of useful things to USB ports: flash drives, printers, webcams. How about a vacuum cleaner? Pair of heated gloves? Anti-cubicle missile system? Joseph Pisani offers a listing of some of the most creative USB-controlled gadgets available, and includes a slide show of the most popular."
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  • This stupid thing too. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sporkme (983186) * on Tuesday September 12 2006, @11:16PM (#16094112) Homepage
    My most sincere apologies to Fiftythree.org, but when I read about plugging unconventional things into the computer, this classic came to mind. Note: the USBKiller is not listed. Scatter a few of these outside the back door of your local bank.

    The EtherKiller and friends: http://www.fiftythree.org/etherkiller/ [fiftythree.org]
    The Google cache [64.233.167.104]

    Or this stupid thing [thinkgeek.com] is more in line with the aim of the article.

  • Stuff that just uses power shouldn't count (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mrchaotica (681592) * on Tuesday September 12 2006, @11:20PM (#16094128)

    I'm only interested in weird stuff that uses the USB data connection also.

    • However, by the same token I'm way more interested in really cheap wireless telemetry a-la zigbee (thermometers, etc) than I am in USB, which was junk to begin with, once it decided to try to play in areas where it really didn't belong.

    • Re:Stuff that just uses power shouldn't count (Score:4, Funny)

      by Qadesh (998988) on Wednesday September 13 2006, @12:46AM (#16094430)
      I am so disappointed. I thought the vacuum cleaner would connect via the usb to a plan of the house and do the vacuuming for me.
    • I agree with parent that anything that just steal USB isn't really a USB device.

      However it is worth noting that it is the power that really makes USB different from other interfaces (sure you can steal a few mA from RS232). I quite often use USB to power small electronic circuits (development boards etc) instead of a wallwart or a bench power supply, even if they are using some other connectivity.

  • USB (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2006, @11:20PM (#16094132)
    They're not USB controlled at all. They're USB powered, and I wish people who write articles would get the difference (hint: one can be replaced with batteries, the other can't).

    • Re:USB (Score:4, Interesting)

      by BadAnalogyGuy (945258) <BadAnalogyGuy@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 12 2006, @11:25PM (#16094157)
      I got a USB fan that has a software-controlled speed setting. It's pretty useless outside an air-conditioned room, but it's mostly around for novelty's sake. I hate when people just yank the cord out without right-click removing it from the device list. It leaves the fan in an unstable state and blue screens Windows when I plug it back in.

      • Re:USB (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2006, @11:38PM (#16094217)
        That's what you get for being a Windows Fan-boy.

        I know, I know: {groan}
        • The Linux USB fan drivers are still in beta I'm sure

          • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Of course, Linux doesn't need fans when it has rabid zealots.

            Go on, mod me down, but you know it's true.
            • in your haste to notify the GP of the fact that the GGP was a joke, you failed to realise that he was simply replying to the joke with a joke of his own

              oh sorry, I forgot this is slashdot... I mean:

                    <-- joke

                  o
                -+- <-- you
                  ^

    • Re:USB (Score:5, Informative)

      by Cyno01 (573917) <Cyno01@hotmail.com> on Wednesday September 13 2006, @01:57AM (#16094586) Homepage
      The missile launcher is aimable and fireable through windows.
      • hahaha, did you mean, through Windows (tm) or through windows (is it open or did someone polish the glass really well?)
  • I knew there was a reason Intel invested $6 bln in R&D last year: so I'd have plenty of power left over to run my USB nose hair trimmer.

  • Really useful? Laptop lights! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by The Bungi (221687) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 12 2006, @11:23PM (#16094143) Homepage
    Remember when USB started to go mainstream? After reading for a while about the 'glut' of 'wonderful devices' that would come down on the market and then hearing about USB-powered Tamagotchi (or some such stupidity) I pretty much gave up on the idea... until the laptop light. The USB-powered laptop light. Hell hath no fury compared to my reaching for my wallet to get one of these things at CompUSA the first time I saw them.

    If USB gives us nothing more in the way of alternative devices and gadgets, I will consider it a victory anyway =)

    • Well you could just by an IBM, they have a laptop light built in. As if producing the best laptops alone wasn't enough.

  • iBrator (Score:4, Funny)

    by diablo-d3 (175104) <pmcfarland@adterrasperaspera.com> on Tuesday September 12 2006, @11:23PM (#16094144) Homepage
    Well, there is always the iBrator [flamingmailbox.com], the most, uh, "friendly" of USB devices.
  • MirrorDot [mirrordot.org] mirror.

    The site's down for me (BusinessWeek.org down?! Maybe it's just gremlins in my walls.)

  • USB controlled or USB powered? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Matt Perry (793115) on Tuesday September 12 2006, @11:26PM (#16094163)
    Pisani offers a listing of some of the most creative USB-controlled gadgets available

    Only the little missles look like they could be USB controlled. The rest just seem to be drawing power from the USB port.

  • USB power is cool (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bombcar (16057) <racbmobNO@SPAMbombcar.com> on Tuesday September 12 2006, @11:33PM (#16094193) Homepage Journal
    I wish more devices used USB power to charge, then I wouldn't have to carry as many different power adapters around.
    • They need the Irish magnetic system attached to the USB port so you could recharge your laptop with it.
    • Say goodbye to karma. Oh well.

      What really friggin annoyed me is that I have a shiny, new cell phone, with a universal plug on the bottom. The charger plugs into that plug, and so does the USB cable. So I can't use the USB interface at the same time as I charge the phone with the AC adapter.

      BUT IT WON'T CHARGE THE PHONE WITH A USB CABLE!

      What kind of retarded corporate brain damage is that? It would be SO NICE if I could plug my phone into my laptop and charge the phone while I'm plugged in at a starbucks.

      Fri
      • My Motorola phone charges from the usb cable like a dream (I forgot the model number maybe 350 or 385 .. its new). Maybe you your usb port are have a cutoff circuit and the Motorola cell phone has a high power rating (which would mean that I am frying my usb port)

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by ajs318 (655362)
          I think you'll find that the phone's main processor is controlling the switched-mode power supply for battery charging. Instead of a comparator, a few resistors and a hefty transistor, they use an ADC and some spare CPU cycles to operate said hefty transistor. The idea is that as soon as there's enough voltage just to power the processor at all, it can deal with the whole business of interrupting and restarting the charging current to the supply capacitor {which is how a conventional SMPS regulates its v

  • USB Powered != USB Gadget (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Zaffle (13798) on Tuesday September 12 2006, @11:46PM (#16094247) Homepage Journal
    I'm sick of every man and his dog working out that their product can run from 5v dc, and therefore sticking a usb port on it, and saying its now able to connect to your computer!

    Imagine if a photocopier did this. Oh no, you can't *print* to it. It just runs off USB power, but because the specification limits a single USB port to 200mA, we have provided a "conveniant" multiheaded usb plug (count them, 4 usb plugs).

    No no no no no no

    There are some really neat ICs out there that allow you to build a device thats USB controlled, eg the PC can send a signal down the wire (and vice versa) and you can make the device do something. USB pencil sharpers are not a great category for this. USB weather stations are.

    Heck, I've always wanted to build a USB *controlled* fan. One that you can change the direction and speed via the USB port.

    A really big useful-ness of the USB devices is that you can now replace almost any part of your PC. USB serial, USB parallel, USB sound, USB network. Case-in-point, my network took a power surge via the network/switch. Best I can tell, the server took the main charge, probably though the power supply, and happily diverted it through the ethernet port, which the switch passed on to each device connect. Then end result is the network component on every device on the network is fried. The simple answer, especially for my beauitful geeked-out slimline MythTV box is a USB network. (No room for any more PCI cards)

    • There are some really neat ICs out there that allow you to build a device thats USB controlled, eg the PC can send a signal down the wire (and vice versa) and you can make the device do something.

      Do you have any more information on these ICs? How difficult and expensive is it to build a simple few-channel low-voltage DC DAC/ADC device? Something where I can simply set an output to a desired voltage, and read the voltage into an input channel. I'm not talking waveforms: a response of around 1 Hz would

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by jridley (9305)
        Pick up any copy of Nuts and Volts. There are ads galore for USB development kits and inexpensive interface chips, and most issues have some damn thing or another that interfaces to USB.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by saider (177166)
        Go to Sparkfun [sparkfun.com] and search for USB. Lots of cheap (less than $30) dohickeys for doing all kinds of electronics projects.

  • Realdoll (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2006, @11:52PM (#16094268)
    The Realdoll was the best, at least until the time I left it plugged in while playing Quake.
  • Anti-cubicle missile system?

    I wished I had one of those when I was a video game tester at Atari. One of the supervisors used to fire his soft pellet air gun over the cubicles, especially when he lost at Counter-Strike.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What they need now is a cubicle missile defense system. Let the cubicle arms war start!

  • He missed the best one... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The usb big red button. [reghardware.co.uk]
  • I wanted to up the ante in a rubber-band-gun arms race in my office, but I couldn't find it available from any online vendors in the U.S. I see ThinkGeek now has a listing for them and they're expected in stock there in October. Anyway, I ended up picking one up on eBay from a guy in Australia for a decent price, about a month and a half ago.

    It takes AA batteries to actually power the launcher motors, with a switch on the underside of the base. The part of the missile that locks into the spring mechanism is actually heavier than the the rest of it, so it doesn't always fly nose-first like you'd think. It also doesn't have much in the way of range. If I could find extra missiles for it I'd experiment a bit with weighting the tips to try to address those issues.

    I haven't used the included (Windows-only) control app yet, but a guy wrote a control app for it for OS X that's not too bad. You can find it on Versiontracker, I'm too lazy to hunt it down and make a link right now.

    ~Philly
    • Instead of weighting the tips, extend the fins backwards or out with tape/paper. All that's needed is for the center of area to be behind the center of gravity.
  • how this [condomcountry.com.au] didnt rate a mention is beyond me!

  • When you think about it, when you carry a laptop with you all the time, all you're really lugging around is a massive battery with a computer on top of it. Seems to me, that battery could be used to power all the OTHER crap I have to lug around - why carry three power adapters when I really only NEED one?

    You can show me all the flashy usb devices that currently exist, but NOTHING is as convenient as one of these [westsidecellular.com].

  • Personal Protection (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ben Jackson (30284) on Wednesday September 13 2006, @02:23AM (#16094650) Homepage
    I want a USB Bayonet.
  • With this thing it seems that I can keep my USB missile launcher at Defcon 1 even when the PC is off. Wuhahahahahaha http://www.northq.com/products/powersupply/nq4200G P-USB.html [northq.com]
  • An USB flash drive with three LEDS (RGB) that are individually controllable by the host computer. Maybe the driver on the host and a dedicated directory on the flash drive with a configuration file. The idea is the flash drive could alert the user to new email, a weather change (like a tiny, old John Hancock building), whatever they wanted.


    So, how hard would this be to develope, how much would it add to the price of a flash drive and is it practical? Would it sell?

  • I'm amazed that the USB Fondu pot [thinkgeek.com] didn't make the list!

  • Some video of multiple-launch systems in action (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PreacherTom (1000306) * on Wednesday September 13 2006, @09:47AM (#16096126)
    Some video of what one can do with a number of launch vehicles: http://scott.weston.id.au/software/pymissile-20060 126/ [weston.id.au] Gotta love technology in action.

  • Wow, nobody yet mentioned this thing? (Score:3, Funny)

    by SEE (7681) on Wednesday September 13 2006, @08:32PM (#16100858) Homepage
    I mean, sure, there was a reference to the fictional iBrator, but this is real [sexshop365.co.uk].

    .

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Rageaholic (728509) *
      A pair of heated gloves? What a brilliant idea! Until, ya know, you have to actually go outside. In the cold. There ain't an extension cord long enough.

      Well Duh. Thats why you have a laptop...

    • Of course. The bottle-opener and USB memory are totally separate devices simply attached to each other, without any influence on each other.

      Now if there was a bottle opener and USB memory that automatically backs up YOUR physical memory to the drive when the bottle opener is used, allowing to restore it once the effects of the contents of the bottle expire, that would be useful.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Bassman59 (519820)

      Last I looked, USB development kits with any chance of helping you succeed right away were about $2000. If you wanted to make a USB device that supplied some simple information, e.g. temperature probe? the light is on --or not--, how would you go about it?

      Look again: Silicon Labs [silabs.com]

      makes some nifty microcontrollers and you can buy a developer's kit [silabs.com] with in-circuit debugger for a hundred bucks. And you can use sdcc [sourceforge.net] for your compiler.

      Of course if you want to sell your USB device you need to get your own Ve

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