AtTiny
Latest
Ben Heck builds Arduino-based automatic sunglasses, beats David Caruso to the punch (video)
CSI: Miami might be out of production, but that doesn't mean we'll be deprived of casual eyewear flipping. Not if Ben Heck has a say in the matter, at least. His latest DIY project automatically swings a pair of clip-on sunglasses into view whenever it's too sunny outside: a photocell attached to an AT Tiny microcontroller checks the light levels and, through an Arduino-based AVR MKII language, tells a rotor to spin the glasses into place. No one will be labeled a fashionista with the requisite battery pack strapped to their heads, but the construction doesn't require CNC milling and won't destroy a favorite frame. We're only disappointed that the sunglasses won't play The Who on command... yet.
DIY password dongle logs you in, saves you from RSI (video)
Any of you who have spent time in corporate America know that companies can be pretty paranoid about your passwords. Change them every three months, have a minimum of one upper case and one lower case letter, one number, one special character and be at least 12 characters long. We've even seen requirements for how many characters must be different from one password to the next. Joonas Pihlajamaa apparently got tired of trying to keep up and built himself a USB key, based around an ATtiny85, that automatically inputs a password for him when plugged into a computer and can even generate a new one with just a few key presses. You can see it in action after the break or hit up the source to learn how to build your own.
