USB Controlled Traffic Signal

[imagitronics]

Hey all,

I just finished my very first hardware project and thought I'd share it with you first.

I modified a novelty store "Blinking Traffic Signal," outfitted it with a Delcom USB module, and wrote up a sample program (Mac OS X) that monitors the Cocoa NSDistributedNotificationCenter and changes the light based on the number of applications you have running on your system. A user-defined threshold determines whether the light should be green/yellow/red. The application runs in the system status bar, and the icon changes to match the current status of the light.



I plan to continue working on the software to add additional user-configurable options. For instance, I would like to trigger the light based on the number of unread emails in your inbox, CPU utilization, have the light flash yellow when the screen saver activates, or turn red when launching specific applications (ie. Xcode or eclipse). I wanted to make the project known in hopes of getting additional feedback from like-minded hackers.



The idea for the project came to me after being interrupted one too many times by thoughtless coworkers while already balancing 100 different tasks.

Please, if you have any suggestions, comments, or other input [positive/negative] please email me, or leave a comment on one of the pages below:

Project site:
http://www.imagitronics.org/trafficstop

Flickr photo gallery:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/imagitronics

Development journal:
http://imagitronics.livejournal.com/tag/trafficstop

[Alan]

So many possibilities! CPU usage, number of spams caught today, temperature outside. I think that gadgets that let us view information at a glance will be very popular in the near future.

[imagitronics]

Thanks for the reply!

I'm really glad that you like the concept. I agree with your statement 100%. For years we've been adapting our minds and bodies to work with computers. I think technology has matured to the point where it's time to start making computers adapt to us!

Thanks again.
Tim

[jaimatadi]

That’s great but somehow if anyone controls your Mac OSX from distant location then he can change the output to his desired output

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[cez06]

Nice creation imagitronics. Your post was very interesting. I'll visit those site.
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