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The nine speakers we recommend in our back-to-school guide
Though our back-to-school guide includes plenty of headphones, we threw in just as many speakers. Whether you intend to host a few parties or just want the convenience of a smart speaker, we found a number of models that we feel earn their space in your dorm. As you might expect, our list of nine picks include plenty of smart speakers, including usual suspects like the Apple HomePod, Google Home and Sonos One. Our feeling is, if you're going to invest in bookshelf or desktop speakers, you may as well have the option of using voice commands. That said, nearly half of our recommendations are portable, with highlights from JBL, Bang & Olufsen and the category leader, UE. As a warning, not everything on this list is cheap (we're looking at you, Klipsch), but some, like the UE Wonderboom are much cheaper, with a street price of around $70. Find all that and more (plus those headphone picks we mentioned) in our complete guide.
MIT student hacks his dorm room door lock
Dheera Venkatraman, a crafty MIT student, has just completed the latest iteration in a series of upgrades to his dorm room door lock. Now because MIT's administration doesn't like it if you hack the door locks or the strike plates, Dheera needed an innovative way to enter his own room without using a key. He's gone through a series of various door-opening mechanisms over the last couple of years -- our favorite one required scanning a barcode on a box of EZ Mac to gain entry -- but he's finally settled on the simplest design, a computer-less setup that involves a microcontroller, a motor, and a PS/2 (waterproof) keyboard. (He's got a much more technical explanation, including a circuit diagram and drivers on his website, in case your SO / parents / kids also have rules about messing with your house). We're now taking bets on how long it takes his MIT classmates to crack his password.[Via MAKE: Blog]
MIT students automate dorm room, add "party mode"
Even though they may have somewhat of a geeky reputation, MIT students party just as hard as the white hatters at your local state school, and probably graduate in larger percentages to boot. It should be no surprise, then, that a couple of dorm-dwelling party animals at the university decided to use their copious electronics skillz to convert their room into the ultimate cramped disco -- and because this is MIT we're talking about, everything goes live at the push of a single button. Using an X-10 control system, Zack Anderson and his roommate RJ Ryan hooked up strobe lights, black lights, a fog machine, laser light show, scrolling LED sign, disco ball, and an LCD projector to their computers so that all the effects would sync with whatever music was playing, and even retrofitted their window blind with a motor so it can drop down and act as a projection screen for some trippy visualization action. Calling their setup MIDAS (Multifunction In-Dorm Automation System), the pair also included a security alarm and camera for remotely monitoring their now-famous room, and situated small VFDs throughout the interior to deliver system status updates or other types of infoswag. Hey guys, if you don't land some hotshot jobs after college with your MIT degrees, we always have room for clever DIYers right here at Engadget.[Via MAKE: Blog]
