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We love reading articles like this. Folks who use old gadgets for novel purposes make our geeky little hearts dance. Take as evidence the DIY iPod video projector and the iPod nano slide viewer.

Today we came across a post from jeffkobi at Instructables describing how he turned a 5.25" floppy drive into an amplifier. After building a prototype with a Tupperware container, Jeff (can we call you Jeff?) put the guts of a Sonic Impact 5066 T-amp into the drive case (it fit quite nicely, actually), attached a volume knob and in/out ports, connected his iPod and was in business. A retro-amp that looks cool on any desk.

Well done, Jeff!

In preparing our recent carputer post, I came across AMP, the Front Row-like touchscreen interface Sam used for his car based Mac. Designed by author Aychamo with an extensible plugin architecture AMP already has plugins allowing you to import and access your iTunes library, movies, and photos. It even sports a mini-web browser and a war driving interface which lists detected Wireless Access Points. The interface seems to be optimized for a 800 x 480 touchscreen display which is common on the 7" LCDs that are often used in carputers. Aychamo already appears to be hard at work on version 2.0 of AMP and more information can be found on the AMP forum at MP3Car.com

Don't you love it when as yet unreleased products show up on Gift Guides? The Nike Amp+ was included on Men's Health's 2007 Tech Guide (there isn't a permalink, but it is listed under Media Players). What? You haven't heard of the Nike Amp+? Well, there is good reason for that, it hasn't been released yet.

The Nike Amp+ is a wrist band which communicates with your iPod (with Bluetooth, I assume) so that you can start, stop, and browse your tunes. That's not all! It also talks to the Nike+iPod Sport Kit, so you can access information about your run without having to take out your iPod.

I'm not a runner, but this is cool enough that I might just pick one up anyway. No details about pricing or availability are known at this time.

Thanks, Barry.

#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Steven Sande	52	4
2	Dave Caolo	36	1
3	Mike Schramm	33	0
4	Mel Martin	32	0
5	TJ Luoma	24	32
6	Joachim Bean	18	2
7	Michael Rose	18	17
8	Victor Agreda, Jr.	17	7
9	Erica Sadun	17	2
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11	David Winograd	11	17
12	Ken Ray	11	2
13	Sang Tang	11	1
14	Brett Terpstra	9	8
15	Megan Lavey	6	9
16	Tim Wasson	5	1
17	John Burke	4	3
18	Kent Pribbernow	4	0
19	Chris Ullrich	4	1
20	Chris Rawson	3	0

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

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Reuse an old Apple floppy drive as an amp

AMP: Front Row-like Touchscreen Interface

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