“Dead Drops” preview

I am pleased to preview ‘Dead Drops’ a new project which I started off as part of my ongoing EYEBEAM residency in NYC the last couple weeks. ‘Dead Drops’ is an anonymous, offline, peer to peer file-sharing network in public space. I am ‘injecting’ USB flash drives into walls, buildings and curbs accessable to anybody in public space. You are invited to go to these places (so far 5 in NYC) to drop or find files on a dead drop. Plug your laptop to a wall, house or pole to share your files and date. Each dead drop contains a readme.txt file explaining the project. ‘Dead Drops’ is still in progress, to be continued here and in more cities. Full documentation, movie, map and ‘How to make your own dead drop’ manual coming soon! Stay tuned. Read more at datenform.de

iLounge has launched their 2011 Buyer’s Guide to everything iPod, iPhone, and iPad.

Apple News | iLounge 2011 iPod/iPhone/iPad Buyers’ Guide

There’s a lot of great new stuff to discover inside. In Sneak Peeks, you’ll get a world-exclusive first look at the first video camera accessory for iPads and older iPod touches, Scosche’s iClops, the dedicated iPhone/iPod projector Neo-i from Optoma, a super-cool iPad stand-grip-case from Belkin called Grip 360, and one of the slickest battery pack designs we’ve seen for the iPhone, Digipower’s Jumpstand Flip. Two separate Top 100 sections provide “must-see” cheat sheets for the year’s best iOS games and apps. And of course, there are our massive Apple hardware and accessory guides, each 50 pages long and packed with enough details to keep you reading for days. This is the biggest and best Buyers’ Guide we have ever published—208 pages, no filler. Every section is either entirely rewritten from top to bottom, or significantly expanded with brand new, up-to-date developments. We’re very glad to be able to bring it to the iPod, iPhone, and iPad community at no charge. Download it now in your choice of three formats, explained below.

See more at www.iClarified.com

See more at designfabulous.blogspot.com

See more at formfactor.se

Napster just inched a step closer toward its roots as they’ve announced that the latest update will allow you to play your playlists when you’re away from an internet connection. The app also queues the next few songs in the playlist ahead of time to avoid stuttering while buffering, a problem others suffer with in other apps.

Napster Update Brings Offline Playback

See more at phandroid.com

Tiny USB business card

[Frank Zhao] put together a USB business card. It’s even got the instructions printed right on the silk screen of the PCB explaining how it should be used. He based the design around an AVR ATtiny85 microcontroller. It runs the V-USB package that handles USB identification and communication protocols. The rest of the hardware is pretty standard, the uC draws power from the 5V USB rail, with a couple of 3.6V Zener diodes to drop the two data lines down to the proper level.

Once plugged in it waits until it detects three caps lock keypresses in a row, then spews a string of its own keypresses that type out [Frank's] contact information in a text editor window (video after the break). It’s not as reusable as the mass storage business card because [Frank] didn’t breakout the pins on controller. But we still enjoy seeing business cards that make you stand out. Read more at hackaday.com