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Juicebox Hacking
magic_user writes "Now that Mattel's JuiceBox can be had for $12 (Target, WalMart), this seems like a perfect toy for hackers. I've found a picture frame hack but what I'm really looking for is a way to play my own videos on it. It runs uclinux so this shouldn't be too hard, right? "
From what I can see (walmart.com, amazon.com, and froogle.com) the JuiceBox is about $40 to $50. The only place I can find it quoted for being less is at the blog that this story links to... Perhaps they were on sale, the unit was in an opened package, or the online prices do not reflect the in-store ones. I don't know. YMMV.
:)
It seems that this would have been a more informative link to include in the story as it gives quite a bit of information about the JuiceBox and links to some of the code from Emsoft.
It does seem like an interesting device to putz around with but I'll hold out until you can display pics via wlan to it
I wouldn't exactly call it "hacking," but I've been modding juiceboxes for years. All it involves is a straw...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Get the ARM port of Debian on there and compile mplayer to an ARM target. Failing that use the debian port of Xine. Does this rate a /. article?
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
At 12$ a pop I seriously doubt that thing has much video playback potential due to hardware constraints.
I believe the $10ish price was some sort of closeout that they just happened to stumble across.
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
....you know...for KIDS!!!!
"It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
...do what now?
This is also a great mod to do:
....wait....
Place juicebox in freezer
Amazing! Juice turns into slushy!
You have to get the mp3 adapter kit to be able to play the mp3s, so it doesn't work out of the box with mp3s and pictures, and it looks like they only have a 32MB card for it. This isn't worth anything if you ask me, don't waste your time trying to put your own videos on it.
Beat the computer, program your life.
12 bucks here in columbus on clearance as well...
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
Beware: Wal-Mart's online price is never the same as the store price. Their in-store price is directly affected by sales where online is another story.
Sometimes you need to get out of the house...
Get your Unix fortune now!
You could have warned us that the JuiceBox link leads to an obnoxiously noisy site. Fun way to get noticed at work. Yick.
Your favorite sig sucks
Why the hell would you give us a link like that, that is the loudest, most annoying flash program i've ever seen.
My little sister has one of these things. I'm waiting for her to get bored of it so I can grab it and have some fun hacking it. :)
Pretty Pictures!
...it's that hardware intended for kids is usually useless for anything else. I've seen quite a few electronic gizmos in recent years, and every time I look at hacking them into a more general purpose device, I find that they are far too mission specific to be of any real-world use. Half the time you open them up and find nothing more than a chip, small PCB, and some epoxy holding the whole thing together.
:-/
If you're interested in replicating this, it might make a "fun" home project to build one using services like Pad2Pad, Digikey, and a handful of parts. Once you have the design down, you can sell them in bulk for a similar cost. Perhaps even as "developer kits" that allow others to fool around with them. Just don't waste your time on a toy.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I have RTF, well, links.
What's the resolution/physical size of the screen in this thing?
Just curious, since there seem to be a lot of you complain-about-obvious-advertisments around...why do you keep coming here if the ad's irritate you so much? And why do you actually contribute content to the site (in the form of comments) when you obviously have a problem with its tactics for gaining revenue?
Say what?
Pretty Pictures!
Could someone please explain what this thing does and doesn't? The website doesn't really say much.
It's just, you forgot to turn on the feature "SubtractBlock." Obviously, when you add a slashdot story to a perfectly good website, it tends to start looking like an infomercial. SubtractBlock prevents anything be taken away, thus circumventing your AdBlock. It's ok, SubtractBlock is a feature of slashdot that can't be turned off. They're looking out for our well-being, you know...
(Look! *ducks*)
No realy, I hear a quacking noise.
without prejudice
At which chain?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I wouldn't mind spending $20 on a DIY digital picture frame that I could upload pix to while traveling on business. It seems no one can agree on the price and functionality out-of-the-box here.
Intelligent Life on Earth
What is the juicebox? I've tried several different browsers, but each time I go to the juicebox.com web page, all I get is an empty white page, or a white page with 'copyright 2005 Mattel' at the bottom.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Because it won't be a product for very long. Other than for hackers and a few "must have everything" kids, I can't see this succeeding as a product. The number of qualifiers/caveats/limitations of this thing as mentioned in the FAQ are ridiculous. Want to play MP3s? You need to purchase special software. Oh, and the sound quality is limited to 128 K/s, so all those songs you ripped at higher quality won't work. Want to watch movies? Again, special software. To store anything, you'll need an SD or MMC card (not included) to boost the storage past the 32 MB. The game selection is bound to be limited as they are cartridge based and proprietary.
Oh, and one more thing: It's not cool. By the time kids will be able to use it, they'll be old enough to know they want an iPod/GameBoy SP/PSP/DS/etc. and not some childish thing from Mattel.
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
NNNNGGGGGGhhhhhh!
Does the actual hardware sound better than that? And why does it use MP3 instead of something that sounds better at a lower bitrate like WMA?
Best Buy can have you arrested
the linked site is basically just a shiny noisy advertisement. what exactly is the juicebox? what are it's specs?
2.75 inch 240x160 color LCD
http://www.elinux.org/wiki/JuiceBox
The fruit fucker is a recurring character in the online comic Penny Arcade. Unfortunately I don't have any links to strips in which he was featured.
My co-worker bought one of these for $12 at Target (look in the clearance items). A usefull thing to note: The "mp3 adaptor" is really an SD Card adaptor, and it plays mp3s and mpeg4 video clips. You don't have to "hack" anything, just put a 512MB SD card in with your properly encoded video clip and you're good to go. Then again, you're gonna get what you pay for. The screen can only handle a wopping 6fps. My advice: buy a PSP and a big memory stick duo.
Its a penny arcade comic, except he cropped the image.
Measure once, cut twice
"the international campaign against television"
So you hate the logo? I'm campaigning for my TV box, thank you.
(Side note: Thank you agent, for the Ashanti picture. I prefer white girls, but she's quite the exception.)
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
The ads irritate us enough to complain, but not enough to miss reading comments and stories on slashdot. I know you'd rather have everything as a definitive YES/NO choice, but life and annoyances don't work that way.
Oh . . . right. . . .
Pretty Pictures!
Personally I'm looking at hacking the VideoNow player. The main advantage is that the VideoNow uses slightly modified mini-CD's whereas this thing uses memory cards(?) Unfortunately no one has yet reverse engineered the color format, but it can't be too hard..
twitter.com/gravitronic
Well, some enterprising American can stick them on ebay and available to the UK because they're upto $108 here.
a tegory=298&item=7520347783&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW
As I speak one is going for $54.33:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&c
A blog I run for the wealth
Here I am trying to write intelligently about the structure of on-line apps (and you NEED a /. break to clear you mind from all the BS you've just been spouting,) and this little kid's voice comes on and utterly blows my cool.
The links should have carried a warning, in BOLD and red.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I noticed that one ... I once found the same product at three different prices in different parts of the store. When I asked why I was told that as the number of unsold units goes up, they put out more inventory at progressively lower prices. The lowest price in the store is the one you get.
and now all they need is a computer and some software to tie it together. Yea. Sure. Its easy.
(Its gonna be such a bOmB. I don't want to see the collateral damage but I know somebody's gonna get fired over this...)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Wasn't JuiceBox Nicole Brown Simpson's nickname?
http://www.penny-arcade.com/search.php
Target on Sawmill. Plenty of them, the MP3 kits, and cartridges. Of course, most of the cartridges are duplicates...
Juicebox - 12.50
MP3 Kit - 11.50
Cartridge - 2.50 (16M), 4.50 (32M)
but my computer is allready pluged in ??????
wow, does that site tell me nothing. it must be a ploy to sell more advil with that annoying fucking YEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH audio loop.
Try 50. Expensive!
After all this time I can't believe that someone hasn't just come up with a kit/product that is embeded linux with a small (somewhere around 3" to 5") LCD panel and a network adapter or WiFi.
If there is something out there like this, I'd love to know about it. The best I've seen previous to this is hacking an old laptop and throwing it into a custom frame, but I want something that uses very little power and generates as little heat as possible.
How exactly does $12 for this toy compare to $400 for a PSP? Not everyone has that much disposable income. If I came across one of these juiceboxes for $12, and it can read mp3's off of my existing SD card, I think I'd probably grab it. If it doesn't get used much, no big loss. On the other hand, if I buy a PSP for $400 and it doesn't get used because I realize how lame it is to watch movies on a tiny little screen, then I'm out a month's worth of rent, as opposed to a cheap steak dinner.
Just my opinion, take it or leave it.
Stupid people hurt my head.
Does this new fangled playback device honor the broadcast flag? :-)
Rather than hacking the JuiceBox, you might want to consider getting a VideoNow Jr and hacking that instead. There are filters out there for VideoDub, and if you don't mind a bit of dremeling, you can get it to accept a standard CD-R (get the silvery ones like Sony).
:-)
You can put up to 35 minutes of encoded video on a CD-R at a decent quality (18fps) and sound.
Why go this route rather than a portable DVD player? Somewhat cheaper, don't have to hold the unit folded open (big plus for my handicapped daughter) and RUGGED (bigger plus for my handicapped daughter). We've dropped ours numerous times on the concrete driveway getting her out of the car, and the unit skips and then keeps playing.
Of course we're not total idiots, so we've bought a backup unit for the eventual day that the driveway is harder than expected
where's the pcmcia port on these babies? i could see this being used, along with a wireless card, to have an up-to-date calendar hanging on my fridge! mwahahaha!
GPS,,,Yes or no?
Sig: BEEeeeP,,Please press pound, so I can get on with my fucking life!
Your friend happened to find it for $12. And when you don't find it because there are none in Clearance then what?
These are probably going for $50 on ebay and are obviously not cheap at the stores. Your comment is Informative about what you can do with it but I don't see how one find for $12 disproved the Grandparnet post about how expense it is.
More hacking info here:t raBoard.pl?Action=ShowBoard&Board=MJB/
http://www.linux-hacker.net/cgi-bin/UltraBoard/Ul
Now if only we could get that thing to be a ebook reader, that would be awesome!
Insert Witty Remark Here ===>____________________________
Got one for my pre-teen daughter at Christmas. Really wanted to get her a "real" MP3 player, but it was the hottest thing at the time. Had to return the MP3 pack to the store for a replacement. Came with the 32MB flash card, usb adapter to download files (pics or audio) to the flash card from pc. You could buy pre-formated "movie/music video" flash cards as well. To use the flash card with it you had to let the JuiceBox system "pre-format" the flash to it's own system structure, then the windows app (93se or above only) could be used to x-fer files to the flash card itself. Audio playback is barely acceptable, has a speaker and better with headphones. Video playback is grainy but can occupy a child's attention in a car. Might be fun to "hack" as a project just to say it was done, but I really doubt the usefullness. Besides, my daughter has figured out that Dad's iPod is better than her juicebox.
Just think...if you buy twenty of these things, you can re-assemble them into a large matrix to be used as a X11 ter
I already forgot what I was talking about. It must be a bad idea.
While it doesn't play back DiVX/XViD/MPEG-4, Radio Shack has a portable DVD player for $99 after rebate, it has a 3.6" screen and is about the size of a portable CD player(I've tested one, and it has passable playback quality).
e =CTLG&category_name=CTLG_003_003_004_000&product_i d=16-3912
http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog_nam
I'm sure it can be taken apart and fiddled with, but for those who don't want to, it makes a satisfactory substitute.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
What is the smallest PC I can find with a wireless adapter that I could mount behind an LCD panel so that I could hang the panel up on the wall and display a slideshow of pictures?
You've just posted the trade secrets of the recording industry. Prepare to be sued into oblivion!
yes that negress can lick my anus any day she likes
To confirm you're not a script, please piss in my ear.
great reference, to an awesome movie, the hudsucker proxy
http://monkeyserver.com --- weeeeee
Did anyone ever figure out how to install Linux on a 3Com Audrey? Now that little gizmo was promising, running QNX. Needs a bootloader and uCLinux...
--
make install -not war
I think your dad paid considerably more more that $12 in 2005 dollars for that ZX in 1982.
We don't have them in the land of OZ.
At $12 it's no brainer, one in each room for home control, connect to front door camera, etc.
Even at $50 (current $ on wm.com)as a home control unit it's doable considering the cost of other solutions.
Speaking of small-screen gadgets running Unix variants, I can't resist putting in a word about the 3-Com Audrey, a $85 (EBay) solid-state touch-screen gadget that runs an embedded Unix called QNX. The Audrey is a failed Internet appliance that was made by 3Com a few years ago. When they didn't sell for $499, 3Com dumped them. They soon showed up on EBay and an Audrey hacking community sprang up (see AudreyHacking.com). Hacked memory images are available with all sorts of free goodies like mp3 players and home automation software.
The Audrey has a 7-inch 640x480 color touch screen built into a 2-inch-thick package that looks like like a Jetson's version of an Etch-a-Sketch. It was made to sit on the kitchen table so you could read the news, send email and look up recipes. Several dedicated buttons on the front, intended to start the pre-packaged apps, can be reprogrammed to do other things. There's even a "channel changer" knob that switches among favorite websites.
Inside is about a P200, 32Mb ROM and a 32 Mb flashcard for RAM. The original built-in software included a telephony app. There is a built-in 56K modem, microphone and two tiny speakers, also 2 USB ports and an audio output jack, and a no-frills wireless IR keyboard. Most of the ones sold on EBay include a USB LAN interface.
I bought 5 of them and put them around the house to stream mp3 to different rooms. Beats having to go to the computer to select files, and the touch screen and retro look make a really cool UI.
The Buffalo Grove, IL Target has it for: $12.48 The adapters, Install CD, USB Cable, 32MB SD Card package is: $11.24
What you're talking about is a Newton eMate 300 with a card-based linux. I know this, because I want one. Unfortunately, it also doesn't exist. But it should be able to: I get over a week of average use, say, several hours per day of word processor & accessories use out of my eMate. I can hook it up to my Cisco routers as the console terminal (or over ethernet and VTY in, for that matter).
Shift Gears here and look at the linux-ish projects for card-based systems. Now imagine popping one of those into the PCMCIA slot on the Newton, and letting the Newton function as a terminal to the card! That is my "easy" route, although it's way beyond me. I'm sure more sophisticated options are possible.
Hawk (who got modded troll a long time ago for some reason, and has been AC ever since. Does this system seem skewed in favor of people who like to say "troll"?)
Check out the Minute Maid knockoff of Capri Sun. I don't remember the name but it's silver pouches of fruity stuff.
I'm guessing Capri Sun has a patent on the hole on the side of the pouch, so Minute Maid had to come up with their own scheme. They did this by double-folding the top of the pouch, so there's a groove to stick the straw into.
It's the best vagina mimicry you're likely to find on the grocery store shelves, executed in aluminized plastic.
What's worse is the caption, which features a large garish arrow and the words "STICK IT HERE!".
Even so, if I could find a working eMate for $12 I might agree. You might get better video on a Gameboy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
Region what?
Froogle shows a bunch of hits all over the board. Amazon has what must be retail and eBay has about seven hits, all for what must be clearance prices.
Can anyone confirm if you encode a video to mp4 and trasfer it with the "mp3" adapter it will play as thatguy2g states in this post.
If this is the case Im buying one today
I can personally attest to the fact that there are about 25 Juiceboxes at the Oakridge Mall Target in San Jose, CA. They are sitting on an endcap in the toy section. (2nd floor, far corner of the store). The marked price is $12.48 There are also about 70 prerecorded cards (6-8 different titles) for $2.48 each. I picked up a "dexter's Lab", the rest were crap...Wrestling, extreme sports, last season's music videos, and an episode of Trading Spaces!!! (wtf?) I also picked up what may have been the last "starter set" (this includes a 32mb SD card + cardreader + software + adaptor for the juicebox) for $11.48. Of course, if you do some digging, you might find another one.
I'm in East Texas, the nearest Target has them on sale for $24. What other stores have them marked down? Maybe give a store number if you can find it on target.com's store locator. That way, those of us that are not near a $12-store can say, "Hey Target #xxx has it for $12, why not you?"
We want to be able to play movies off the SD cards. That is exactly why we need some hacker to figure out how to make it play our own movies off of the SD card. The video quality is not bad at all IMHO. Yeah, it's not a PSP, but for $23 ($12.50 for the box and $11.50 for the MP3 adapter) it's pretty darn good. If we could make it play our own videos, then $23 is DEFINITELY worth the price.
Even if nobody figures it out, it's a damn good deal for a portable MP3 player WITH BUILT IN SPEAKER. It's like a portable radio - I can't think of ANY other portable MP3 players that have a built-in speaker and it's hard to find *any* MP3 player for $23.
Brian
Are you a Candy Addict?
They are on clearance in the store. The website still lists them at regular price. You must go to a WalMart or Target near you and look in the clearance section. I bought 3 from my local WalMart and I went by Target this past weeken and the yare on clearance there.
Are you a Candy Addict?
Target.
Blacker than my baby girl's stare. Black like the veil that the muslimina wear. Black like the planet that they fear...
For those of you looking to get a JuiceBox, but were discouraged to find your local WalMart or Target with a price higher than expected, call again; or go check again. After calling ahead yesterday to find the price ~$24.00, I went to Target expecting to pay that for the JuiceBox. I get there today, and find they have them marked down to half of that - now ~$12.00. I guess the price change went into effect here sometime over the last 24hrs.
Also, you will need the MP3 Conversion kit, which is also marked down to ~$11.00.
And you will need 3 AA batteries, which happen to be available up in the $1-bins at the front of the store. (A 4-pack of Eveready for $1.00, not bad)
FYI : just check your prices again. Happy hacking.
I just bought one June 2nd 2005 for $12.48 from my local Target. I doubt Target or Wallmart ever list there local clearance prices online. So your online searching is pretty pointless, just go down to a local Target.
And I agree with others, so far, no hacking. It plays MP3s and converted images. Just put it in a frame and your done. Hacks exist, but for a picture frame, no hacks needed.
The parent of this reply needs modding up - it should be made clear and visible that the Juicebox CANNOT play video files off its SD card! No one who reads this thread seems to realize that!