This little homemade robot takes all of those impressive no-look Dragonforce-on-expert Rock Band/Guitar Hero YouTube videos and destroys them with a cold, clockwork efficiency.

Here’s how it works in a nutshell:

– light sensors read the falling notes (brightness set to max)
- light data is sent to an Arduino Mega, which is monitoring for data spikes
- The Arduino filters the data, and sets a threshold for “on” and “off”
- an “on” means the tiny robot finger presses the screen
- the capacitive touchscreen requires a human touch to operate, so a rudimentary Xacto knife/copper wire workaround was created. Simply hold the knife while the robot plays, and the current is enough to trick the iPhone

The code is available for download, should you want to help the robots spread their lifeless 100% accuracy music around the globe. [OhBowz via Boing Boing]

This 30-second Droid spot started airing last night during the ALCS. Dan may not like it, but even so there’s no denying that Verizon, in the words of Matt Buchanan, has gone totally balls in with an Android phone.

An Android 2.0 Motorola phone, to be precise, which we’ll officially get to see sometime in November.

Until then, we can feast on rumours and speculation, revel in the broadside Verizon fired against Apple (not AT&T, it should be noted), and of course dissect the actual marketing itself, as was done at Daring Fireball:

1. The whole site is Flash.
2. The animation is pretty close to the commercial they showed during tonight’s Yankees-Angels game, which (I’ve heard) will be in heavy rotation during football games tomorrow.
3. Those “iDon’t”s, with the straight primes instead of proper apostrophes, make the commercial look slapdash.
4. Seems pretty clear that Verizon isn’t getting the iPhone any time soon.
5. The small print notes that “Droid” is a registered trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd., licensed to Verizon.
6. It’ll be running Android 2.0.

All interesting stuff, yes, but is it weird that the biggest bit of news out of all this, to me, is that George Lucas controls the word droid? [Verizon, Daring Fireball]

The “security code” installed on this NES controller flash storage mod isn’t going to keep anyone from accessing the files inside, but that’s not really the point:

You see, the code in this case is one of the most well-known codes in all of video game history. The Konami Code. Hell, even God knows it.

Again, there’s no real security here, but in any event it’s miles ahead of what most people use to secure things that are really important to them. [8Bit Fix - Thanks, Gusto]

If the idea of 7000 odd kilometres of cable being laid on the ocean floor kinda gets you hot and steamy, this video has a heap of cable porn for you to watch and enjoy. Not to mention a soundtrack that could replace the global need for coffee…

As the Zune HD launch looms ever closer, a smorgasbord of purported launch videos have offered up what appears to be the best demonstration yet of the sleek, sexy portable’s 3D gaming capabilities.

The 3D gaming example, Forza 3, debuts at about the 30 second mark in the video above. It’s a fleeting glimpse, but it’s solid evidence nevertheless.

For authenticity’s sake, we tell you that Microsoft PR reportedly asked the leak’s originator, Buy TV, to take the videos down, but not before brigands at sites like Neowin were able to upload them to YouTube, where they spread like a New York Times homepage virus.

Zune HD drops in two days. [Neowin, Buy TV via ars technica]

Look beyond the cheesiness of the music, smug actor and his Oakley Thumps glasses for a moment and actually examine the incredible practicality at work—highlighting/identifying parts of an engine and offering step by step instructions for completing complicated procedures. Give me a world UI like this, and I won’t just change my own air filter. I’ll be able to remove my own appendix.

Oh, and my brain will never memorise how to do anything ever again, but let’s forget that part… [BMW via MediaIte via Jalopnik]

I admit that the whole Hitler subtitle meme has had its day in the sun, but this one had me literally laughing out loud. Is it weird that I actually felt bad for the guy? I mean, it can’t be easy to lose a top 5 ranking in Flight Control, or the ability to read news on the toilet…

That’s exactly what five guys did yesterday at 2am, at the Sagemore New Jersey Apple Store, and it all occurred in 31 seconds. When the security guard came, everyone and everything was gone.

[TUAW]

It’s not self-lighting, which puts it one step below a serious flamethrower, but on the other hand it still lets loose with that always-hilarious BWAAAH! air horn sound when the trigger is pulled. Check out the video for some BWAAAHFWOOOSH! fire horn action. [Ariel Schlesinger via Hackaday]