The $7 DIY Oculus Rift for iPhone & iPod Touch!

If you're anything like me you're kind of extremely psyched about the Oculus Rift. Immersive gaming, FPV RC piloting, and a possible shift in how we use our personal computers all together is a year or two from going mainstream.

Also, if you're anything like me, you didn't have the $300 to spend on the DK1's kickstater. And you also don't have the $350 to plunk down on the DK2 preorder.

So what do we do? DIY if course!

The first stop should be where the rift originated, MTBS3D.com. People have a few different approaches here. Some choose to make their own Rift from scratch, the Nova is a great example. Downsides? It might just so happen to look like plastic, circuit board, and a cheap welder's mask all glued together. Because that's what it is. It's also heavy and will cost around $150 plus hours in construction and tweaking. I could not convince myself to drop $150 that could be put towards the real deal, DK2 or a future Consumer Version. Moving on.

It seems for any technological problem, if you wait long enough, Google will solve it. They did just that by releasing the very DIY Cardboard. This is so DIY they didn't even release a kit. They give detailed instructions and links where to purchase the materials, then you're on your own. Of course, eager entrepreneurs jumped on the opportunity and began releasing full kits for a premium price on Amazon. Still, $20 for a 3D headset is pretty freakin good!

So that's it right? The easiest, cheapest option with no drawbacks or shortcomings whatsoever. Wrong! Google, of course, made the Cardboard Android only. Not a huge deal, an iPhone will squeeze in there. But before my parts even arrived in the mail, I spotted an even better solution on a random shopping trip to Ollie's Bargain Outlet. I give you, the Hasbro MY3D!

Apparently Hasbro tried to pin down the 3D headset market for kids and missed. I have no idea how. The stock app UI is good and even the demo has decent content (games and movie trailers). The MY3D is well built, it feels like it could easily survive a fall but is not too heavy to strap to your head. Retractable pins allow swapping trays to perfectly fit your iPhone/iPod touch. It even has a rubber bumper to prop it at an angle off the table so you can operate it hands-free. Available on Amazon for under $7, this checks all the boxes! Poor marketing is all I can think of for what doomed its fate. Either way, it no longer fits modern devices so it is on clearance just about everywhere. And who doesn't have an older iPhone gathering dust and begging to be useful once again!?

The only question left is what do you do for content? The Cardboard apps are Android-only. MY3D is all but abandoned. There seems to be some iOS apps being cranked out by devs but they are few and far between. Besides, we don't care about mobile apps, we want 3D PC gaming!

Enter Splashtop. I found out about splashtop on Reddit a year or two ago. A Redditor was bragging about his mobile gaming solution that encompassed a desktop, an iPad, a XBOX controller, and Splashtop. Using the controller as input, he claimed he could control the desktop and have the video stream pushed back to the iPad wirelessly. And he claimed it was playable. For science, I downloaded the Splashtop app on my iPad and ran through a few different games to test the latency. I was surprised at how playable the games were, there was minimal delay between my inputs and the game's response. I didn't have a huge need to game from anywhere other than my desk, so I uninstalled the program and filed it under "neat". Until now!

I present my solution to the DIY Rift: MY3D + iPod Touch 3G + Splashtop

Make a Post-Apocalyptic Offline Wikipedia Reader Tablet!

He who holds the knowledge, holds the power!

This thought always echoes in my head when I see natural disaster footage. People (that aren't looting scum-of-the-earth) naturally scramble for food and water as their first priority when SHTF. Second to this, they try to group together with other people in hope that they will have the knowledge (and resources) on how to survive better than themselves. This behavior is amplified as we have learned to depend on technology to the point that we become useless when it goes away. Why spend your life stuffing your brain full of garbage that you can just Google?

These crazed, rambling thoughts made me determined to assure I had all of humanity's knowledge in case of disaster. Knowing how to grow corn, or distill water, or make black powder could save you and your family's life. Sure, you may know some or many of these things, but you don't know everything. And when the pressure is on, you'll want to get it right the first time.

The obvious choice is an offline copy of Wikipedia. The database holds every scrap of human knowledge on practically every subject. It's free, open source, and the archive dumps are easily downloadable.

The more difficult decision is hardware. A laptop would offer flexibility over a tablet but are more expensive. This makes it less likely you can keep it safely stored only to be used during an emergency. A tablet makes more sense if solely for this application.

I made up a short list of requirements before searching for the perfect chassis to build my reader:

• Must be able to run or root to full Android (not some e-reader software front-end crap)
• Must have an e-ink screen
• Must have a very long battery life
• Must accept the common Micro-USB standard charging cable
• Must be cheap cheap cheap!

 Luckily, there are many e-readers that meet the list. However, one caught my eye over the others: Nook Simple Touch. This thing was so cheap it is practically disposable. I found one on sale on Slickdeals for $30 and scooped it up.

Now for the fun part!

I first needed get the Nook off of that horrible Barnes & Noble OS. Luckily, the Nook Simple Touch (NST) is already running Android 2.1, it just has a B&N front-end pasted on top that the user is bound to. So no risky OS flash/change has to happen, it's as easy as rooting!

I searched around for a well-reviewed rooting process for my Nook and found NookManager. I downloaded NookManager and burned it to a small 2GB MicroSD card I had laying around using Win32 Disk Imager. It's an easy process and you should have that utility installed anyway. It is probably the best thing for Win7 when it comes to burning RasPi images or creating backup images from USB/SD storage.

Follow the direction in the NookManager link. Including making that backup!
You're done at Step 8! You could install the Google crapware but it will do nothing but lessen your battery life. You want to keep this tablet lean! So I also opted to remove all B&N apps with NookManager. Do it only if you are sure you don't want to use it as a B&N eReader.

Once you reboot with the MicroSD removed, you should be greeted with an Android-ish screen. It isn't incredibly intuitive but poke around and you'll learn it fast enough. This isn't full blown KitKat, its UI is thin and light, which is good!

Next, we need to get Wikipedia on this eReader that was freed from its bonds!
My first choice was Kiwix. This is very well-reviewed offline Wikipedia reading software for pretty much every platform. There is an issue. It's not running on the NST. If you don't believe me, install the Google crapware, find it on the Play Store, install it, run it. Then, go to Sourceforge and grab it. You too will get the very non-descriptive, very infuriating "Parse Error" while trying to use it. I found other people with the same issue on xda-developers. Turns out it requires Android 3.0 or higher and the NST runs on Android 2.1. That would have been a more helpful error message! Oh well, moving on.

Following their suggestion, I looked into Aard Dictionary. I was very impressed with what I saw and decided to give it a try. Install is easy enough, download the apk onto your MicroSD card. Pop it into the NST. When it recognizes, tap to install it. Done!

The final step is to get the Wikipedia dump onto the tablet. The NST only has 2GB of internal storage. You're going to need a MicroSD for this. I would recommend a 32GB since they're getting uber cheap. I used a 16GB since it's what I already had. I grabbed the Wiki dump from Aard Dictionary's website (scroll to the bottom). You'll have to choose based on what will fit on your card. At the time of writing, "English (without reference lists and info boxes)" clocked in just under 16GB. If you have a 32GB card you can probably torrent the "Simple English" or "English (most popular articles)". Once it's all torrented, copy it over to your MicroSD and pop it in your NST. You're done!

To use, launch Aard Dictionary and it should scan the MicroSD card automatically. Browse away and sleep soundly knowing that you now hold all of humanity's knowledge in your bunker.

Bonus points if you wrap it in aluminum foil before storage!