3 Bot

Our first Community Byte went well! We had around 8 people in the room coding collaboratively and watching to learn. LukeStav did the kind task of hosting it on Gobby for all of us, so big thanks to him! At minimum, our task was to create an IRC bot for #nullbytez that could ...more

Hello fellow Nullbytiens, I'm Washu, a long time commenter but first time poster. Today we'll be making an IRC bot, if you haven't seen OTW's post about the new IRC channel I would encourage you to go check it out. He does a good job at explaining what IRC is and how to get se ...more

Welcome to the second Goonight Byte! Our second coding session was kindly hosted by th3m, so props to him for letting this happen. Our task this time was to hack the bot that we made the week prior, which was only capable of connecting to the channel and then printing message ...more

This LEGO Mindstorms NXT Rover Bot is a monster. Depending on the camera angle, the scale looks huge (check out the person in the background). 9 NXT's controlling 16 XL power functions motors! Amazing.

Beginning this week, Null Byte will be hosting a new feature called Community Byte, a weekly coding and hacking session held in the Null Byte IRC. This is a chance for our community to do something fun, and make something awesome together! The weekly community projects are ge ...more

iRobot released their new soft blob morphing robot this past Tuesday. The amazing shape-shifter has the ability to squeeze through tiny crevices. From IEEE Spectrum: "Researchers from iRobot and the University of Chicago discussed their palm-sized soft robot, known as a chem ...more

Last week's Community Byte we got off to a great start! We had a few people build our IRC bot, and all went well. We had some great contributers, ideas, and people willing to learn. So, needless to say, we will be having another. Let's try to get a few more people involved thi ...more

Motoman the Robot uses a 3D vision system to assemble LEGOs. "Motoman’s high resolution color cameras and object recognition make picking out and connecting LEGO pieces easy...he’s able to get the pieces with one hand while assembling the LEGOs with the other. " Robots keep ...more

Ok, so perhaps V.I.K.T.O.R. won’t replace Walter Murch or Thelma Schoonmaker anytime soon, but this app that automatically assembles clips and photos from your iPhone and transforms them into mini-movies is another viable example of software-assisted creativity. V.I.K.T.O.R. E ...more

CMU’s Biorobotics Laboratory modular snake robot slithers in all sorts of different ways. Check out the three videos in the gallery below. Project statement: "Snake robots can use their many internal degrees of freedom to thread through tightly packed volumes accessing locat ...more

Rescuing wounded soldiers in a war zone is extremely dangerous. Again, (previous entry, Futuristic Warefare), the Pentagon turns to scifi technology and robotics for the answer. The current solution is to develop robots that perform as "combat casualty extraction system[s].” A ...more

Can't help but smile at this goofy, endearing nerd "master" (Vitalijus Rodnovas) guiding his copy-cat protege robot (coined Waldo). The rig allows Waldo to mimic Rodnovas' body movements in actual real time. Hackaday has dug up the HowTo notes: "...The project page is slight ...more

You can try and try, but all the practice in the world can't compete with this robotic hand's pen spinning skills. Ishikawa Komuro Lab's dexterous, high-speed robotic hand is lightning fast. It can close its fingers in less than 1/10th of a second and uses breakneck actuators ...more

Remember Big Dog? Or Big Dog's counterpart, Little Dog? Well, Boston Dynamics has added a new member to their creepily-moving-calvary. Boston Dynamics mission statement: "PETMAN is an anthropomorphic robot for testing chemical protection clothing used by the US Army. Unlike ...more

Very cool project by Benjamin Gaulon. Gaulon has created a graffiti writing paintball robot, entitled PrintBall. He uses technology from (previously posted) EyeWriter to tag with his eyes, plastering a wall with paintballs. From Gaulon's site, Recyclism: "The PrintBall is a ...more

I love robots. They have the potential to evolve into Asimovian destroyers of the human species, but have only just mastered the art of cleaning my rug. They have an ever increasing cool factor and a growing number of cheap and simple components that let the hobby roboticist r ...more

We all have those moments where we're bored or lonely, and in those times, just having anyone to talk to would be awesome. But maybe your friends are all busy, or everyone you know is at work and nobody's responding to your text messages. That's the perfect situation to chat ...more

During a contest in 2010 regarding which country Justin Bieber should visit next on his tour, North Korea won by a landslide. Unfortunately, he never went, and that's partly because nobody in the internet-less dictatorship probably voted. Instead, the contest was rigged by 4ch ...more

Automated bots are growing on Facebook Messenger, and while they can be helpful, they also have the potential to get very annoying, very quickly. That's because these bots are enabled by default to send you "sponsored messages," or, you know, spam. Unfortunately, there doesn' ...more

WikiLeaks. In recent weeks, it's been the hottest topic on the web. It's been attacked on a multinational level by political influence peddling. First, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman swayed Amazon's decision to stop hosting WikiLeaks. Then, Tableau Software removed graphs from th ...more

Though named "Walker," this robot doesn't really ambulate so much as shimmy. Which, to tell the truth, is fine by us. Lots of gross things walk. Only cute things dance. Bot builder Randy Sarafan explains his motivation: My goal with Walker Bot was to make a 4-legged walking ...more

War leaves a lot of stuff behind. Torn families, delegitimized institutions, mass graves, and unexploded ordinances litter the post occupation landscape. Whether or not you have driven the imperialist out, or are still in the phase of armed resistance, you will need the abilit ...more

Cheating ruins everything. Cheating makes game play unfair for others who may be truly competitive and strategic. Cheating makes others disrespect and un-friend you. There can be unforeseen consequences, like getting viruses, trojans or your account hacked from downloading a c ...more

While tweetstorms were a part of Twitter since the beginning, threads, which makes tweetstorms more viable, didn't show up until late-2017. Still, threading multiple tweets at once to create long-form stories, opinions, tirades, and other lengthy Twitter posts, can be hard to ...more

If you're playing Rage on the Xbox 360, you'll find that your sentry bot is very helpful. For example, if you want to unlock the 'Passive Aggressive' achievement, you can head into the mutant game show and activate your bot. If it gets three kills, you'll get the achievement. ...more

Look no further than Flint, Michigan, to discover the serious consequences of contaminated drinking water. Around the world, water polluted by pathogens and toxins sickens people or cuts them off from safe drinking water. Looking for a solution, researchers created tiny, swimm ...more

Facebook really wants us to use Messenger. For the most part, they've succeeded; theirs is one of the most popular messaging apps right now. And with yesterday's announcement of new features, Facebook is only going to make their flagship chat application better. Well, maybe. ...more

With the release of the Mirai source code, botnets are back in a big way. In the early days of botnets, zombies (infected hosts) would report to IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels for CNC (command and control) instructions. Modern botnets have evolved, but they continue to use ...more

Every time you make a call or send a text, you're giving the recipient your phone number. This can be quite the security vulnerability, opening yourself up to scammers, spammers, and the feds. In this how-to, we'll look at what a burner phone is, why you might want one, and ho ...more

This simple yet odd robot moves like a four-legged, single unit of a centipede, which unfortunately makes me think of the Human Centipede (shudder, don't click on the second video in the gallery below if you're faint of heart... or at work). OK, maybe a stretch. But for whate ...more

One of the greatest things about the internet? Free papercraft downloads. Enjoy Botropolis' collection of 50 fun robots. Just download, print, and assemble. My top ten favorites below. Wall-E. Robocop. Optimus Prime. R2-D2. The Terminator. Poseable Toy Robot. Retro Bot. Godzi ...more

Getting your green card can be an extraordinarily complicated and difficult task. Often times it seems so daunting that it's hard to know where to begin. Thankfully, Facebook Messenger introduced "Visabot" last year, a chatbot in the app that helps with all things immigration. ...more

Winter is here, which means we have a lot of questions about the coming season of Game of Thrones. It's hard finding someone who cares enough to listen to you rant about why Jon Snow is the rightful ruler of Westeros. It's also hard to figure out who exactly everyone is and is ...more

From Instagram bot farms in China all the way to vending machines in Moscow that promise to sell you fake followers — the Facebook-owned empire is attracting the attention of the world around. When it comes to Russia especially, the country seems to be developing a little crus ...more

Despite a round of updates to Pokémon GO that patched and eliminated location spoofing, the game still has a difficult time dealing with the most hardcore cheaters. Like weeds on a grassy lawn, third-party bot makers still remain the biggest thorn in Niantic's side and continu ...more

Google's personal messaging service Allo could reveal your search history and other private information to friends if the Google Assistant bot is called upon in chats, according to a story from Re/code. Allo uses Google's AI Assistant to bring smart information into your chat ...more

Welcome to an introduction on writing basic malware, an optional sub-series in which I expose you to malware and its technologies. This is written for those who wish to seek a beginning in malware analysis or enlightenment on the subject. We will be justifying the writing and ...more

Long-Term Strategies for FrontierVilleWhen you first start to play FrontierVille, after you’ve cleared a bunch of trees and brush and started to build a schoolhouse or a barn and you’ve added a few neighbors, you look up at the people around Level 90 or Level 100, and wonder h ...more

Robots are great for performing tasks that are otherwise too dangerous for man (e.g. dead body extraction bot). BeetleCam is a cute little bot that takes all the danger out of wild life photography. Controlled remotely from a Range Rover about 50 yards away, BeetleCam ventures ...more

Purdue mechanical engineering undergrad Ross Wehner built a gadget Homer Simpson would envy- a working, arduino-powered beer catapult fridge. Details on his build process here; see it in action below. Previously, Beer Launcher Wows Letterman (+ Any Self Respecting Male). Remo ...more

Can a robot be dumber than a toaster? For the answer, look no further than Bacarobo—a yearly contest that showcases and celebrates and the world's dumbest, most adorable robots. Each year, ten robots vie for first prize. Each year, only one bot wins. Who took the title of Top ...more

Artist Giles Walker's robot peep show/DJ installation piece gives us a little glimpse of what strip clubs could look like in the future (well, let's really hope not, guys). Walker also teams up with Frank Barnes and his robot drummers (second video in the gallery below, check ...more

This bristlebot will run without batteries. It works with super capacitor that you charge with your power supply for about 1 minute and the bot will run 2-3minutes. Video: . Make sure you follow me for more awesome videos from the macobt projects.

Office workers beware, or a snarky robot may unleash a barrage of ping pong balls upon you. A somewhat sinister individual from the CKBot group at UPenn’s Modlab concocted the prank. According to Bot Junkie, it operates as follows: "A remote control raises a cutout section of ...more

A Merry Christmas robot medley of song and dance, courtesy of Bot Junkie. Merry Christmas from everyone at WonderHowTo!

If you're like me, you don't have time to sit down and leisurely read an entire article from start to finish — but you still want to be informed throughout the day. Instead of just browsing the daily headlines, there's a free service that will summarize any article you throw a ...more

There are over 1.6 million apps on the Google Play Store, which makes it the largest collection of mobile apps on the planet. However, a large portion of this total is occupied by apps with overlapping functions—think social media, news, weather, music players, and various oth ...more

I was looking around on this site and this article caught my eye. It was about hiding text in ADS or Alternate Data Streams. While this is nothing new in the tech world, it seems that more and more people are looking at ADS for one reason or another. Years ago, I created a si ...more

We're officially seeking Null Byters on a weekly basis who would enjoy taking their time to educate the community. Contributors will write tutorials, which will be featured on the Null Byte blog, as well as the front page of WonderHowTo (if up to par, of course). This is a job ...more

We're officially seeking Null Byters interested in teaching others! Contributors will write tutorials, which will be featured on the Null Byte blog, as well as the front page of WonderHowTo (if up to par, of course). This is a job meant for anyone with the will to share knowle ...more