Robots with dog-like talents are nothing new, but it's not exactly practical to buy one that can do more than the basics. The new Aibo is cute, for instance, but not very athletic. A group of Stanford students might have a better solution. They've...
Bioengineers are one step closer to 3D printing organs and tissues. A team led by Rice University and the University of Washington have developed a tool to 3D print complex and "exquisitely entangled" vascular networks. These mimic the body's natural...
DIY projects can be a lot of fun, and if Raspberry Pi has taught us anything it's that people love to tinker. But for most folk, forays into the world of build-it-yourself tech start and end with a specific kit and a whole bunch of instructions to he...
Today, Google released TensorFlow Privacy, an open-source tool that will help keep your data anonymous, even as AI learns from it. The now-public code is based on differential privacy. That's what allows Gmail's Smart Reply to guess what you're going...
As the name suggests, the Dorkpod looks pretty dorky. It’s designed to transport dorks to and fro and is available in a variety of options for makers of any skill level. It comes from Tinkersmiths Makerspace and is an open source DIY vertical personal electric vehicle.
You can get just the plans or a complete and ready-to-drive model. It’s highly customizable, since most of the components are simply plywood. It uses an electric wheelchair base for the drive system.
It’s about time that dorks were able to get a ride just for them. I can see folks customizing these in some really cool ways. Check out the Dorkpod prototype in action in the clip below:
The Dorkpod is being funded through a Kickstarter campaign, and you can either get access to the plans early for a contribution of $25, with the frame kit starting at $350 and up (wheelchair base not included), and the actual completed prototype available for $3500.
Get everything you need to create useful projects using the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B with this special hardware bundle. Of particular note is the 7″ SainSmart LCD touchscreen, and on-board Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.
Here’s a full list of the included hardware:
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Quad-Core 1.2 GHz CPU w/ 1GB RAM
SainSmart 7″ LCD display touch screen
Board controller for Raspberry Pi 2/3
SainSmart USB power supply
Specially designed Micro USB cable
ABS black case
3 premium quality heat sinks
8 GB SD card
HDMI cable
Head on over to the Technabob Shop, and grab the Raspberry Pi 3 Complete LCD Display Kit for just $114.99.
Samsung's experiment with the Tizen operating system hasn't shown up in more than a couple of handsets and some Gear smartwatches so far, but the smartphone behemoth still believes the open-source platform has value for low-cost phones in emerging ma...
There are various features of Tesla’s cars that can be activated using mobile apps. If you have a compatible garage door opener, you can even have a Tesla vehicle enter or exit your garage with just a few taps. Jason Goecke claims he’s come up with a way to activate that feature with a voice command, a la Knight Rider.
Jason says he connected his Amazon Echo to his Tesla Model S using the Amazon Alex Skills Kit API, the AWS Lambda cloud service, his Tesla Model S API wrapper, and Tim Dorr’s unofficial Tesla Model S API. That’s a lot of parts, but Jason says his code is just a small piece and the hack is mostly reliant on the cloud services. Unsurprisingly, Jason made “KITT” the keyword to open his garage door and have his car drive out.
I love how the voice-activated car and even the garage door opener are quieter than the flying camera used to film them. Jason says it would be trivial to replicate the mobile apps’ function with voice commands, but he’d rather wait for Tesla to officially support the technology, preferably with an authentication measure in place.
Synesthesia is a rare condition wherein a sensory input consistently activates multiple senses or emotions. Some synesthetes see colors when they see a particular letter or number. Others have their sense of taste activated when they hear a word. Zachary Howard’sSynesthesia Mask on the other hand approximates the condition of synesthetes who can smell colors.
The mask’s electronics are controlled by an Intel Edison. A color sensor meant to be worn on the hand sends RGB values to the Edison. The mask also has three tubes filled with fragrance oils, one each for red, green and blue. In Zachary’s case, the red tube has a grapefruit scent, the green tube has a tea tree scent and the blue tube has a lavender-scented oil. Each tube has a servo that can open its cover in varying degrees, and there are fans that send the resulting mix of oils into the mask.
Zachary then wrote an Arduino program that instructs the servos to open the tubes’ covers depending on the RGB values sent by the color sensor. So if the object he’s inspecting is predominantly red, he’s going to smell mostly the grapefruit scent.
Zachary must hate white objects now. Head to his Instructables page to find out how he put the mask together.
You might not know it, but Play-Doh and similarly made modeling clay are conductive, which makes them a great way to introduce electronics to kids. Squishy Circuits has kits and recipes for both conductive and insulating clay. They recently turned to Kickstarter to raise money to make better kits and more projects.
Both the current and the upcoming Squishy Circuits kits come with a 4 AA battery pack to power your electronic creations, but the contents of the lone original kit will be distributed or expanded among the three new kits to give you more options. The components in these new kits will also be more durable, safer and easier to manufacture compared to the ones in the original kit.
University of St. Thomas Engineering professor AnnMarie Thomas and her then students Samuel Johnson and Matthew Schmidtbauer developed the Squishy Circuits project back in 2010. The following year Matthew spun off the project into a commercial company. You can still purchase the current Squishy Circuits kit and get the recipe for the clays from its current website, but both the current kit and that site will be phased out soon (the new site is here).
Pledge at least $8 (USD) on Kickstarter to receive a Squishy Circuits kit as a reward.
Robots with dog-like talents are nothing new, but it's not exactly practical to buy one that can do more than the basics. The new Aibo is cute, for instance, but not very athletic. A group of Stanford students might have a better solution. They've...
Bioengineers are one step closer to 3D printing organs and tissues. A team led by Rice University and the University of Washington have developed a tool to 3D print complex and "exquisitely entangled" vascular networks. These mimic the body's natural...
DIY projects can be a lot of fun, and if Raspberry Pi has taught us anything it's that people love to tinker. But for most folk, forays into the world of build-it-yourself tech start and end with a specific kit and a whole bunch of instructions to he...
Today, Google released TensorFlow Privacy, an open-source tool that will help keep your data anonymous, even as AI learns from it. The now-public code is based on differential privacy. That's what allows Gmail's Smart Reply to guess what you're going...
Samsung's experiment with the Tizen operating system hasn't shown up in more than a couple of handsets and some Gear smartwatches so far, but the smartphone behemoth still believes the open-source platform has value for low-cost phones in emerging ma...
