2011 saw the rise and fall of Siri. What was initially hailed as something just short of the savior of mankind turned out to be a limited voice control system. Apple insists Siri is still a beta product. They say it will get better.
But some out there couldn’t wait for Apple. And so, with a little imagineering, people made Siri do all sorts of unconventional tasks in 2011. These hacks led to her opening beer, playing the piano, and even warning owners about what’s on a specific TV station. Yeah, the official feature set of Siri is a bit underwhelming, but hackers and modders managed to roll out an impressive set of avant-garde use cases to keep owners occupied until Apple rolls out the next Siri revision. Read on for the top 5 Siri hacks and mods of 2011.
Unless you buy in bulk, your run-of-the-mill office tape already comes with its own handy dispenser. While not as stylish as this Strip dispenser, it also doesn't cost you $32 for what is essentially a flat piece of aluminum. I'll give credit where credit is due, though. So kudos to Raumgestalt Studio for finding a way to mark-up a strip of metal. While I doubt they're rolling in the dough, I'm sure they've convinced at least a few people to pony up that asking price. But not me. As I sit here wrapping presents, continuously getting tape jammed up when the crappy plastic teeth on this dispenser fail to cut properly, I'm happy I've taken a stance against such frivolous overpriced designer goods.
Fitness watches are one thing, but how about a fitness watch that lets you play a few levels of Angry Birds in between wind sprints? Motorola’s MotoACTV debuted alongside the Droid RAZR not too long ago, and one developer has finally taken it upon itself to unleash its full potential.
The hack comes courtesy of developer Chris Wade, whose past endeavors include the DingleberryPlayBook root method and the (ill-fated) iEmu project. While he’s best known for his software projects, he’s quite the hardware buff too — before working getting to work on a root process, he felt the need to tear the thing apart first.
Unlike some of the other Android-powered watches we’ve seen pop up in recent months, the MotoACTV actually sports a half-decent spec sheet. During the teardown, Wade found a 600 MHz OMAP 3630 processor and 256 MB of RAM, which provides enough oomph to handle nearly everything Wade threw at it. After he managed to finagle the Honeycomb launcher and Market access onto the little guy (check the video below), the end result was a compelling lilliputian Android tablet.
I’ve been trying to find the best solution for charging and mounting my phone in my car for a long time. I was sick of docks that hold the phone with adjustable foam arms and messing with car chargers that break. Finally I came up with a method of modifying a Powermat charger for the ultimate car charger/mount. I’ve been using it for over 6 months and it works perfectly. Video of what the finished charger looks like installed in my car.
Unless you buy in bulk, your run-of-the-mill office tape already comes with its own handy dispenser. While not as stylish as this Strip dispenser, it also doesn't cost you $32 for what is essentially a flat piece of aluminum. I'll give credit where credit is due, though. So kudos to 