Apparently, Wired agrees with point #29 from my SIGINT speech. The future will be more modular, and hackable. The BUG was the example I gave there and Wired cited it as well! Future of Open Source: Hack This Gadget |
Take Bug Labs. The New York-based company makes modular open source hardware components that can be snapped together and programmed to build custom devices with specialized functions. The central building block of the BUG hardware stack is the BUGbase, a $250 portable computing device with an ARM processor, memory, a rechargeable battery and various ports. Additional modules, which are sold separately and snap into the BUGbase, can be used to add speakers, GPS, camera, motion sensors and an LCD touch screen. They have also announced support for new modules that will add WiFi, 3-G and a tiny video projector.
Read more at www.wired.com |
Digital building fabrication. Sweet. Enrico Dini dreamt of buildings, construction and impossible shapes. He was particularly inspired by Gaudi’s architecture and loved his fantastic(in every sense) work. He became a Civil engineer and later branched out into making machines. All the while dreaming of those impossible shapes. Read more at www.shapeways.com |
Boring means profitable in down times? Perhaps! |
We’re Dull, Small Banks Say, but Have Profits
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INDIANAPOLIS — It’s unlikely that any group of professionals is happier to highlight the dullness of their work than small-town bankers.
At a recent conference held here by the Indiana Bankers Association, attendees said it over and over: our business is plodding and boring and we would not have it any other way. “Banking should not be exciting,” said Clay W. Ewing, president of retail financial services at German American Bancorp, a community bank in Jasper. “If banking gets exciting, there is something wrong with it.” Read more at www.nytimes.com |
I don’t know whether to file this under creepy, or ridiculous, but being able to communicate directly through EEG read telepathy? Wow. Pentagon Preps Soldier Telepathy Push |
Forget the battlefield radios, the combat PDAs or even infantry hand signals. When the soldiers of the future want to communicate, they’ll read each other’s minds.
At least, that’s the hope of researchers at the Pentagon’s mad-science division Darpa. The agency’s budget for the next fiscal year includes $4 million to start up a program called Silent Talk. The goal is to “allow user-to-user communication on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals.” That’s on top of the $4 million the Army handed out last year to the University of California to investigate the potential for computer-mediated telepathy. Read more at www.wired.com |
Put your feet on the desk and WORK! Here’s some truly rigeekulous fashion hacking from those geniuses over at NYC Resistor. I had a blast today at Diana’s fashion hacking event, and I made these nifty pants that sort-of function as a keyboard. I can play tetris at least! It was fun to make them, and if you’d like to make your own you can download the files from Thingiverse. It was nice to spend the day working on a goofy project with no real value with my friends. Oh, and now I have some super-sexy nerd magnet shorts. Awesome. Read more at www.nycresistor.com |
I love a good materials hacking article! Frustrated with the high cost of materials for their 3-D printers, UW mechanical engineering students developed a better solution using ceramics and food products. Check out the awesome results! 3-D Printing Hits Rock-bottom Prices With Homemade Ceramics Mix |
About five years ago, Mark Ganter, a UW mechanical engineering professor and longtime practitioner of 3-D printing, became frustrated with the high cost of commercial materials and began experimenting with his own formulas. He and his students gradually developed a home-brew approach, replacing a proprietary mix with artists’ ceramic powder blended with sugar and maltodextrin, a nutritional supplement. The results are printed in a recent issue of Ceramics Monthly. Co-authors are Duane Storti, UW associate professor of mechanical engineering, and Ben Utela, a former UW doctoral student. |
Lately I’ve been using Google Reader…and when I get a little flustered, trying to keep myself from heading outside for a not-so fresh air break, I catch up on some old posts. Kellbot has some very sage advice here for those who care for (and occasionally feed) new small business owners. You Know What You Should Do… |
Lately it seems like the phrase I hear more often than any other is “You know what you should do…” followed by a suggestion for my business. Or one of my friends’ businesses.
I highly discourage anyone from starting a sentence with that phrase, especially when you are talking to a friend who is trying to build a company/product. It’s not that we don’t appreciate the interest, far from it, but 9 times out of 10 it’s something we’ve heard 50 times before. And more than that, telling people what they should do, even when you’re just offering advice, is annoying. Read more at www.kellbot.com |
I need to find out more about this…. AANN (Artificial Analog Neural Network) - Phillip Stearns |
NYCResistor’s Kellbot is an amazing craftista and has a pretty good head for numbers. I’malways getting asked by friends about advice on keeping track of finances, both for side projects and personal finances. Kelly brought Freshbooks to my attention through her blog and with her blessing, I can gladly recommend it to others. Managing Wholesale Accounts |
Enter Freshbooks. Freshbooks is an online invoicing tool which makes things really easy. You enter your client info, put together an invoice, and send it via email or snailmail. If you send the invoice via email the client will get a link to a login page where they can view the invoice and, if you’ve set it up, pay it. I just got around to configuring mine to work with Paypal / Google Checkout. Read more at www.kellbot.com |
This is what my car would do to a Minicar in a head on collision. |
Study Says Minicar Buyers Sacrifice Safety
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From left, the Smart Fortwo, the Toyota Yaris and the Honda Fit after a head-on collision with a midsize sedan in which both vehicles were traveling at 40 m.p.h. The tests were conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Read more at www.nytimes.com |
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