Category: Hacks

Allen Pan has created a sword made of ice that is so strong it could be used to chop through real things, including attacking watermelons. What is the secret to his super strong ice sword? One word – pykrete.

Pykrete is typically a mixture of water, ice and sawdust. It is so strong that World War II Allies considered using it to build warships. Allen substituted old fashioned toilet paper for the sawdust, but the process is the same. His end mixture was 86% water and 14% toilet paper.

There you have it, a fascinating sword made of ice (more or less). So, the next time you hear the shouts of “Winter is coming!”, relax and know that you can be prepared. This would also work well for the Zombie Apocalypse, assuming you are in a cold climate or it’s not the warm months. But if you are in the desert with a zombie horde attacking, well, you may need to consider other alternatives.

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I’m a fan of Catan, and have been known to play it on digital devices and as a board game. But it never occurred to me that a person could build their own game in its entirety, all from a single 2×4. But that is exactly what Aaron Day did, and the end result is impressive.

The wood artist did it as an entry in the Summers Woodworking Challenge, and he created a video detailing the process. I’ll say it now, it takes a special kind of person to iron that much wood. But then again, most people probably don’t realize that you can even iron wood.

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Wouldn’t it be cool if someone was to build a robot to type out requests using a classic Smith Corona typewriter? Well, maybe there aren’t a lot of people that share that particular vision, but at least Youtuber Zip Zaps does. And they built it.

The system uses Microsoft Windows to do the Voice Recognition, which then streams the data out to an Arduino-based control board. From there finger like servos strike the required key, and the rest is like music. There is even a mechanism for hitting the return level.

But does anyone else notice the similarity in the names “Cortana” and “Corona”? Not only is this a fascinating project, but obviously it was synergy just waiting to happen…

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No matter how well constructed, physical buttons are subject to wear and tear. One physical button that gets a lot of use is the home button on Apple Devices. And with millions of devices in user’s hands, it should come to no surprise that there are more than a few home buttons that need replacement.

However, it seems that replacing the button from a third party source could leave your device inoperable, a virtual technological brick with the error code “Error 53”. The problem comes from the fact that the home button now incorporates the TouchID sensor, and when you change it, you change the handshake between input device and secure store. Apple acknowledges this as they say,

We protect fingerprint data using a secure enclave, which is uniquely paired to the Touch ID sensor. When iPhone is serviced by an authorised Apple service provider or Apple retail store for changes that affect the touch ID sensor, the pairing is re-validated. This check ensures the device and the iOS features related to touch ID remain secure. Without this unique pairing, a malicious touch ID sensor could be substituted, thereby gaining access to the secure enclave. When iOS detects that the pairing fails, touch ID, including Apple Pay, is disabled so the device remains secure.

Now, you may not see a problem until you upgrade the OS to version 9 or later, but once you do there is no recourse. Personally I think that it’s good Apple is taking hardware threats seriously, but in the meanwhile if you have a hardware problem, you may want to give the folks at the Genius Bar a shout.