This article was taken from the May 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Thanks to the Hack a Day website we now know how to install pneumatic Star Trek-style doors and create an orchestra out of old floppy drives. "It is becoming much more common to find some altered piece of electronics in the average home," says Caleb Kraft, senior editor of LA-based hackaday.com. Here are five of its most imaginative ideas.
VHS toaster
Inspired by an episode of The Young Ones, one hacker fitted a toaster inside the tape slot of an old VHS player. It also scorches "VHS" on each piece of toast it produces -- a nice touch, though the maker doesn't recommend leaving it unattended.
Road sign hacking
Once hackers worked out that most roadside construction dot-matrix displays use the same default password and have a programmable keypad inside, a world of (usually zombie-related) mischief opened up. A word of warning: this is illegal.
A pulsed laser pistol
Patrick Priebe has created a Star Wars-style laser gun. Adapting a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser (used for industrial metal-cutting), it relies on a battery charging a capacitor bank with 350-400v. It looks fun, but it can blast through a razor blade.
Kinect hacking contest
Johnny Chung Lee, a former Microsoft employee who worked on the Kinect, offered a reward to the first hacker who open-sourced the Kinect driver. The honour would go to Héctor Martin, founder of openkinect.org.
Microsoft hasn't sued (yet).
The first iPhone jailbreak
As soon as the iPhone launched, hackers raced to crack Apple's single-vendor lock.
George Hotz was first: forcing his way inside the case, his physical hack connected two traces on the motherboard, rendering the firmware protection useless.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
