LEGO CNC Machines There are tons of cool LEGO CNC machines that have been made. The one pictured above can be seen in operation here (unfortunately we can’t embed the video here). It shows how so many people have real creativity since these CNC machines are obviously only for fun since a LEGO frame wouldn’t be sufficient […]
There are tons of cool LEGO CNC machines that have been made. The one pictured above can be seen in operation here (unfortunately we can’t embed the video here). It shows how so many people have real creativity since these CNC machines are obviously only for fun since a LEGO frame wouldn’t be sufficient for doing any real work. Nice thing about LEGO is that once your design is done you can rip it apart can move on to your next creation. I am still waiting to see a LEGO pick and place machine populating surface mount components onto a circuit board.
ASUS’ DR-570 e-book reader comes in ‘10 with OLED display A lot of activity around e-book readers at CES keeps going on after the end of the show. Announced readers, most of those at least, are coming out this winter. The new Amazon Kindle DX will be released tomorrow and Spring Designs Alex no sooner then February. In the meantime ASUS has spiced the dish a bit with an info leak about a mysterious DR-570. Well, maybe not so mysterious - it is also an e-book reader but unlike all the others we’ve, RD-570 has an OLED screen which is a thing you’d want in a reader, gives an unparalleled contrast ratio and improves hugely on battery life. Source: www.gadgets-reviews.com
caleb larsen’s arty cube endlessly ebays itself When I first read about this, I thought to myself that it’s just a plain, black acrylic cube, but then I read on and found out what this thing exactly does. A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter is actually a piece of conceptual art by Caleb Larsen. Sounds pretty impressive, but it’s not much to…
When I first read about this, I thought to myself that it’s just a plain, black acrylic cube, but then I read on and found out what this thing exactly does.
A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter is actually a piece of conceptual art by Caleb Larsen. Sounds pretty impressive, but it’s not much to look at until you understand what it exactly is. You see, the crazy thing about this cube is that once you get your hands on it and plug it in, it will automatically put itself back on sale on eBay. The box continually pings a server on the Internet looking to see if it can find itself for sale on the auction site. If it cant, it automatically creates an auction for itself.
If a person buys it on eBay, the current owner is required to send it to the new owner. In turn, the new owner must plug it into an Ethernet cable, and the cycle repeats itself, until somebody breaks the chain.
You can check out the most recently finished auction for the cube here, and follow A Tool To Deceive and Slaughter and its various auctions on its own dedicated website.
CES preview: USB 3.0 video streaming chip from DisplayLink Small wonder why USB 2.0 technology doesn’t score as a proper video carrier. Attempts to push 3D video game graphics or a movie in HD result in glitches from low frame rates (60fps and 27fps respectively). DisplayLink, USB 2.0 video streaming pioneer, has sold a million of their specialized chips last year. But you have probably guessed already that the latest USB 3.0 standard brings a lot of potential into the concept. So did they, and with ten times more the bandwidth DisplayLink puts a lot of effort in designing a new USB 3.0 compatible chip. They will show it as soon as CES 2010 starts. Source: www.gadgets-reviews.com
Basement Design Revolution I’ve seen the writing on the wall for many years now. It is now possible for a single person or a small team to crank out physical items just like the huge players with massive factories. In this new age where circuit designs can be cranked out on the coffee table and sent out […]
I’ve seen the writing on the wall for many years now. It is now possible for a single person or a small team to crank out physical items just like the large players with big factories. In this new age where circuit designs can be cranked out on the coffee table and sent out to China for production the next day is fantastic! The internet has shortened the gap between design and manufacturing. With the advent of inexpensive machines like the Maker Bot you can wake up with a brilliant design idea, cad up a quick design and print your plastic idea before the sun it up. If the idea is a good one ship off the electronic file to a facility to crank them out and move onto your next large idea.
As an example the Button Code project was designed in my home office. Parts were sourced from a electronic wholesaler and the board manufacturing was outsourced. All orders are electronic and most are sent out in kit form.
“We designed the boards the way all electronics tinkerers do, with parts purchased from online shops, wired together on prototyping breadboards. Once it worked on the breadboard, we laid out the schematic diagrams with CadSoft Eagle and started designing it as a custom printed circuit board (PCB). Each time we had a design that looked good onscreen, we’d upload it to a commercial PCB fab, and a couple of weeks later, samples would arrive at our door. We’d solder on the components, try them out, and then fix our errors and otherwise make improvements for the next version.
Eventually, we had a design we were happy with. How to commercialize it? We could do it ourselves, getting our PCB fab house to solder on the components, too, but we thought it might be better to partner with a retailer. The one that seemed culturally matched was SparkFun, which designs, makes, and sells electronics for the growing open source hardware community.”
wii magic stick gives your wii-mote d-pad a makeover Do you love playing games with your Wii-mote, but like a joystick to a D-Pad? Well have I got something for you! The Wii Magic Stick is a cover that slides over your current Wii-mote and (sorta) turns it into joystick. It’s also supposed to make gameplay more comfortable for your fingers, but you’ll have…
Do you love playing games with your Wii-mote, but like a joystick to a D-Pad? Well have I got something for you! The Wii Magic Stick is a cover that slides over your current Wii-mote and (sorta) turns it into joystick.
It’s also supposed to make gameplay more comfortable for your fingers, but you’ll have to get one to find out if that’s the case. In addition to transforming the D-Pad, the Wii Magic Stick covers the “A”, “1″ and “2″ buttons with slightly more massive, easier to press buttons that protrude from the face of your controller. You just snap the Magic Stick onto the front of your Wii-mote and you’re all set.
A pair of Wii Magic Sticks will set you back just $7 (USD) over at Brando. Of course if you want some real joysticks for your Wii, I’d recommend you hold off and wait for the new Wii Classic Controller Pro.
NVIDIA Optimus technology debuts in Q1 Intriguing news from NVIDIA have appeared on their blog this day. The brief announcement says NVIDIA is putting final touches on a mysterious Optimus technology. The manufacturers themselves say NVIDIA Optimus is notebook-orientated and works with platforms that carry an onboard NVIDIA graphic processor.
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series comes out soon Another day of CES 2010 and another groundbreaking announcement. This time AMD has turned all the heads to its lot with the latest ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series graphic cards range manufactured using 40nm fabrication process. This is the second generation of AMD’s GPUs that have full support for Microsoft DirectX 11 technology and the very first one designed for notebooks. Which, of course, will require Windows 7 installed. The lineup offers a surprisingly wide choice of different variations such as VRAM varying from 256MB to 1GB and calculate power with just over 1GFLOPs at the starting point and over 1TFLOPs at the peak. Source: www.gadgets-reviews.com
Name the Thing Contest - 117 Thanks to Rocky Mountain Tracking for sponsoring the contest this week. They will be providing a Smart Tracker to the winner. The Smart Tracker is a GPS device that is mounted in your automobile and can be used to track your car in real time. Great if your automobile gets stolen or you forget where […]
Thanks to Rocky Mountain Tracking for sponsoring the contest this week. They’ll be providing a Smart Tracker to the winner. The Smart Tracker is a GPS device that’s mounted in your automobile and can be used to track your vehicle in real time. Great if your car gets stolen or you forget where you parked it. You can use the NavIQ mapping software to pull up where your car is on an simple to use map. Best of all unlike most of these units, this one does not have a monthly fee, you only need to pay when you want to use it. I wouldn’t mind paying $4.95 to know exactly where my automobile was right after it was stolen. Please note that this device can only be won by someone with a North American address.
“With our Smart Tracker gps device, you might activate and/or locate the device as the need arises. After a test period the unit will remain inactive until you need to track your vehicle, activation and location can be obtained online, at any time, day or night.
No monthly fees. Simply activate when vehicle is stolen or as needed.
Full end-user accessibility to our tracking software 24/7.
Activation and tracking on-demand as needed.
Geofence (parameter) alerts by text or email.
Low cost hardware and locates.
Advanced technology enables quick recovery.
Superior coverage in the U.S. utilizing hundreds of networks.
Simple two-wire install.
Internal back-up battery (optional).
Best for BHPH auto dealers.”
This contest will run for one week (January 30, 2010 - February 5, 2010) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it. Winner must have a North American Address.
Please do not give the answer in the comments.
Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with “Name the Thing Contest” as the subject, and the message body consisting of:
The name of the item in the above picture
An example of what the item pictured above can be used for
The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries.
intel inside casinos: smarter ways of taking your money Dhiram over at Newlaunches spotted this Intel video showing the company’s vision of a modern-day casino, one that can be managed remotely, has electronic card tables, Core2Duo-powered slot machines and even handheld gambling devices. It’s all fancy tech, but I don’t think the current gambling generation will be so impressed or welcoming of the improvements…
Dhiram over at Newlaunches spotted this Intel video showing the company’s vision of a modern-day casino, one that can be managed remotely, has electronic card tables, Core2Duo-powered slot machines and even handheld gambling devices.
It’s all fancy tech, but I don’t think the current gambling generation will be so impressed or welcoming of the improvements on their end. I mean, if you’ve been playing poker using good ol’ cards for decades, it won’t be that easy to switch to touchscreens won’t it?
Also, isn’t a Core2Duo slot machine just overkill? Will players be able to send instant messages or emails while playing? Will I be able to blog using the slot machine itself while gambling? Will I?
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A lot of activity around e-book readers at CES keeps going on after the end of the show. Announced readers, most of those at least, are coming out this winter. The new Amazon Kindle DX will be released tomorrow and Spring Designs Alex no sooner then February. In the meantime ASUS has spiced the dish a bit with an info leak about a mysterious DR-570. Well, maybe not so mysterious - it is also an e-book reader but unlike all the others we’ve, RD-570 has an OLED screen which is a thing you’d want in a reader, gives an unparalleled contrast ratio and improves hugely on battery life. 
Small wonder why USB 2.0 technology doesn’t score as a proper video carrier. Attempts to push 3D video game graphics or a movie in HD result in glitches from low frame rates (60fps and 27fps respectively). DisplayLink, USB 2.0 video streaming pioneer, has sold a million of their specialized chips last year. But you have probably guessed already that the latest USB 3.0 standard brings a lot of potential into the concept. So did they, and with ten times more the bandwidth DisplayLink puts a lot of effort in designing a new USB 3.0 compatible chip. They will show it as soon as CES 2010 starts. 
Intriguing news from NVIDIA have appeared on their blog this day. The brief announcement says NVIDIA is putting final touches on a mysterious Optimus technology. The manufacturers themselves say NVIDIA Optimus is notebook-orientated and works with platforms that carry an onboard NVIDIA graphic processor.
Another day of CES 2010 and another groundbreaking announcement. This time AMD has turned all the heads to its lot with the latest ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series graphic cards range manufactured using 40nm fabrication process. This is the second generation of AMD’s GPUs that have full support for Microsoft DirectX 11 technology and the very first one designed for notebooks. Which, of course, will require Windows 7 installed. The lineup offers a surprisingly wide choice of different variations such as VRAM varying from 256MB to 1GB and calculate power with just over 1GFLOPs at the starting point and over 1TFLOPs at the peak. 
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