DIY picture frame does IM, Skype notifications

There's certainly plenty of readymade devices out there that'll give you information at a glance, but if you're more the DIY-type you may want to follow the lead of David Bue Pedersen from Volunteer Lab Rat, who put together this spiffy little picture frame that notifies him when his friends are online. There's no fancy LCDs here, however, just some plain old pictures housed in clear frames with an LED placed on top of each, which light up whenever the person is on IM or Skype. Needless to say, there's quite a bit of coding and some slightly daunting hardware hackery involved to get all that to work, but Pedersen has at least provided the necessary schematics and board layout if you want to give it a go -- you can even push things all the way up to 22 LEDs if five isn't enough for you.

[Via Hacked Gadgets]

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 8th 2008 1:51PM]

Look, I'm not saying that David Bue Pedersen is gay, but if you're going to build a notifier system such as this, and you only have 4-5 spaces to use, why would you fill it with a bunch of dudes?

Is it really THAT important to know when your buddy comes online as opposed to your new Ashley Madison contacts?

[phanbouy @ Apr 8th 2008 1:54PM]

Ashley Madison... does she cater real estate as well as affairs?

[Andir3.0 @ Apr 8th 2008 10:58PM]

I want to know why they chose to decorate the place in modern "garage metal cabinets"

[ReggieXuk @ Apr 8th 2008 1:57PM]

So simple that you'll kick yourself

[Blue Sunshine @ Apr 8th 2008 2:12PM]

Now all I have do is develop a Wack-A-Mole version of this when my ex's sign online.

http://www.miscgarbage.com

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 8th 2008 2:14PM]

I'd pay a ton if you could come up with a voodoo doll version of that.

[phanbouy @ Apr 8th 2008 2:16PM]

and what's with all this friends with exes nonsense out there? i call bullshit!

[kal326 @ Apr 8th 2008 2:06PM]

Any one else see the irony in a DYI article were the person has created some hardware hackery, yet is using an off the shelf Dell PC?

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 8th 2008 2:14PM]

I see more irony in the fact that you recognize a Dell computer that doesn't say Dell anywhere on it.

[kal326 @ Apr 8th 2008 2:31PM]

@Lowest Ranked
The last company I worked for had plenty of machines built off that chassis, I could recognize that POS from any angle.

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 8th 2008 2:40PM]

Whose to say he didn't gut the Wii and his computer and magically frankenstein them into eachother's chassis(es?, ies? chasii?).

Now thats what a real modder would do.

[Carl @ Apr 8th 2008 5:19PM]

@ lowest ranked

I knew it was a Dell too, because I have the same one to my right...

[James @ Apr 8th 2008 7:03PM]

Me too, a very souped up dimension 9100. Sadly.

But anyway, the idea is great. I'd love for this to hit mainstream.

[Esat Dedezade @ Apr 8th 2008 2:09PM]

Simple yet effective.

Hopefully like this comment.

:)

[John @ Apr 8th 2008 5:32PM]

More like your mom.

[decapitor @ Apr 8th 2008 2:28PM]

wallace and gromit did it better

[Anonymoose @ Apr 8th 2008 2:28PM]

*excitedly and hurriedly builds this*

hmm, i must not have done this right, i'm not getting any notifications that my friends are online.

*checks friend list of 0 - hugs self*

[SimonRichards @ Apr 8th 2008 2:58PM]

I think you'll find the LEDs are under the pictures.

Anyway, I would build one myself but with a contact list of over 100 people, I doubt it would be all that practical lol

[Anonymoose @ Apr 8th 2008 3:03PM]

dude, you have a lot of relatives

[phanbouy @ Apr 8th 2008 3:18PM]

dude, you have a lot of hair!

[SimonRichards @ Apr 8th 2008 3:22PM]

Im going to change that bloody pic soon -_- more trouble than its worth lol

[Anonymoose @ Apr 8th 2008 3:30PM]

uhh...i don't think the picture is the problem there, buddy

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 8th 2008 5:22PM]

Is your name really Simon Richards or are you just playing off of Richard Simmons?

Sorry, I just haven't seen you here before.

Also, judging by your use of the word 'bloody' and your picture, I'm insisting you must be Harry Potter's crackhead evil twin.

[SimonRichards @ Apr 8th 2008 5:34PM]

My name really is Simon Richards, and i'm a Londoner. lol.

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 8th 2008 6:50PM]

Londonian?

Londinite?

Londonioians.

San Diegoians.

[phanbouy @ Apr 8th 2008 7:16PM]

i believe the proper word is San Diago

[david @ Apr 8th 2008 3:51PM]

any coincidence that a guy that spent all this time making this only has pictures of dudes?

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 8th 2008 8:27PM]

Any coincidence that you missed the first comment, dove straight to the bottom of the page and said the exact same thing?

I surely hope so.

[z @ Apr 8th 2008 8:41PM]

In david's defense, 1st post is about being gay, david's is about him not knowing any girls. Big difference.

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 10th 2008 2:32PM]

Sorry, didn't realize David's boyfriend was on patrol.

I'll watch what I say next time.

[Stan Winstone @ Apr 8th 2008 4:03PM]

Thunderbirds are go!

[Otto @ Apr 9th 2008 3:57AM]

The system is already in place so improving the display, such as using an LCD instead of photos and diodes would be the easy part. I feel a venture capital coming on ;)

Otto
http://www.dragonlasers.com

[David Bue Pedersen @ Apr 9th 2008 12:42PM]

Hi everybody. I'm David, the creator of the picture frame thingy.

I feel insulted that two comments suggest I'm gay. Well... I'm NOT okay!

As a resonse to these posts, I've decided never to publish the missing firmware for the microcontroller nor the Win32 application that drives the display.

It's sad that you guys should ruin it for everybody else that would be interrested in this.

To the rest of you: Thank you for your interrest in my project.

Regards
David

[Blue Sunshine @ Apr 9th 2008 1:31PM]

I didn't think you were gay for building this, it's quite cool actually.

However, since you don't want to share your the firmware nor the Win32 application, your stock in the gay department has drastically increased.

[Lowest Ranked @ Apr 10th 2008 2:33PM]

Nah, you're just in denial.