Written by Jonah Brucker-Cohen on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 in News.
The "Solar Paper Latern" is made from 36 miniature solar panels with each connected up to an electroluminescent diode. The resulting light can remain on indefinitely, as long as the panels are near a spot of strong sun exposure.
Solar Paper Lantern by Damien 0'Sullivan @ Saint Etienne Design Triennial
Written by Collin Cunningham on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 in News.
The MAKE/CDM/Etsy sonic fun-derland event returns - this time @ our new location, Third Ward in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY! Kicking off the new monthly schedule, the first meet-up will be Thursday, Dec. 11th. Peter of CDM gives details -
Bonus – Make Your Own Beep-It Optical Theremin. For the cost of parts (about $10), Mike Una is giving a workshop – no experience required, and you’ll leave with your own Beep-It. (Space is limited!)Head over to Create Digital Music to fill out the project submission form. I'm quite psyched for this - it's been a while since the last event and this one looks to be fully awesome!Double Bonus – You! We’re looking for hardware and software projects to share.
Not in New York? Stay tuned – we’ll have some ways to join up live online with both the CDM community and the Etsy community.
If you are in New York:
Party: 7-10p, 12/11 (snacks/drinks + lots of sounds for everyone, from non-musicians to hardcore musical hackers!)
Make Your Own Beep-It Workshop: 7:30-8:30p (arrive promptly!)
Here’s what the event is about, as described by, well, me:
Part party, part mixer, part Science Fair, and part performance, this is an informal chance for geeksters and the geek-curious to come together, relax, and discover new sounds. The evening is a gathering of inventors of circuit-bent toys, custom software and patches, interactive digital & visual instruments, custom electronics, electricity-powered noisemakers, DIY robots and new acoustic instruments. And it’s open to everyone from hard-core hackers & newcomers to music lovers who want to learn about the DIY music scene.
And here’s a big bonus: if you liked Michael Una’s Beep-It DIY optical Theremin, as debuted here, you can make your own for the low, low price of parts: about ten bucks.
Michael Una will demonstrate his optical theremin synthesizer Beep-it and conduct a workshop wherein attendees will build their own optical theremin. The basics of analog synthesis will be discussed. No skill level is required- all tools and parts will be provided by the participation fee.
Pay for your parts by Wednesday 12/10, and reserve your spot at the workshop, at EventBrite:
http://beepit.eventbrite.com/Logo design by the amazing creator of the CDM logos and endless musical posters, Nat aka onetonnemusic.
See you next week, in New York or online!
We welcome people showing up with gear and creations at the last minute – bring cables, an extension cord, and (if you’ve got it) small speakers / headphones / PA (though we’ll do our best to provide some sound). But it does help to know who’s coming if you want to give us some advance warning, and we can help publicize your work in advance.
More:
Beep-It optical theremin
Written by Naveen on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 in News.
Target Customers: People who work in rugged environs.
After the rugged Sonim XP3, Sonim Technologies has now announced that it will embark on a partnership with Land Rover to bring some new rugged mobile phones. The duo has plans to drop a line of rugged cell phones that are designed to complement the lifestyle of an outdoor adventurer. The first two rugged phones in the line are the Land Rover S1 by Sonim and Land Rover S2 G4 by Sonim. Sonim and Land Rover together will market the phones to top operators, mobile retailers and consumers across 40 countries.
Written by Marc de Vinck on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 in News.
Do you like designer lighting, but can't afford the $11,700 price tag? Yeah, me too! This instructable shows you how to remake a really cool designer pendant light for under $56. Cool.
The original light uses cloth wire which I was able to find in white, then dyed red. I was unsure about using the wire so used the Ikea lights instead. I would love to hear from anyone that has ideas on how to make this design more eco-friendly. While these bulbs are only 60W each I think it can be made better. Smaller bulbs take away from the size and design. I was thinking of running small led lights inside the bulb once the element burns out...some how. Retail cost: $11,700, Instructable cost: $55.93
More about making a DIY: Designer light
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Written by Naveen on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 in News.
Target Customers: Fashionistas.
We all know that Samsung’s previous forays into luxury phones weren’t much of a success, but they are now hoping to steal a bit of the show with the Samsung Ego S9402 luxury phone. Instead of going for some fancy design, they have selected the classical candybar form factor. The body of S9402 Samsung Ego phone is made of liquid metal composite alloy developed by Caltech. And yes, it’s a DuoS phone with space for two SIMs. The spec sheet looks quite decent, except for the fact that the phone doesn’t have 3G, Wi-Fi and GPS.
Written by Phillip Torrone on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 in News.
Photograph by Jeff Lieberman
Want robots to be musical, creative, and expressive? Better brush up on your engineering. Musician/ roboticists Dan Paluska and Jeff Lieberman constructed a web-connected "robotic mechanical orchestra" that plays a marimba by firing rubber balls out of a cannon, strikes traditional percussion instruments, and also rubs mechanical fingers along wine glasses. The machine, Absolut Quartet, uses artificial intelligence to creatively riff on melodies composed remotely by users on the web.
"At the core, the machine is just motors, metal, and software," say the MI T alums. "However, the design of these elements gives the whole machine a 'personality' and this is what allows a creative dialog to exist between the machine and the online user."
Of course, that dialog can't just work once -- it has to work over and over again. The guys wanted the technology to "disappear," leaving a purely creative experience. But that meant making 3,000 custom parts and 10,000 stock parts work in harmony.
And then there are the 500,000 custom rubber balls firing a 4-meter arc onto the keys.
"For any reasonable maintenance, this can only fail roughly 1 in 10,000 times," the duo explains. They tried four fundamentally different shooting mechanisms before they found one that worked -- springs and a rotating arm.
They then consulted an engineer to settle on magical, maintenance-solving ingredients such as polyethylene glycol dimethacrylate, which they used to make the suede fingers resonant. But they also needed the skills of a professional glass harpist so they could get 35 tuned wine glasses.
"Being both musicians and roboticists, we have always been interested in combinations of the two," say Paluska and Lieberman. In the finished work, centuries-old percussion and glass armonicas meet modern industrial robotics. Musician/inventor Benjamin Franklin, who built the first glass armonica, would have been proud.
>> Absolut Quartet: absolut.com/absolutmachines
>> The Build: bea.st/sight/absolut
From the column Made on Earth - MAKE 14, page 18 - Peter Kirn.
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Written by Naveen on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 in News.
Designer: Josselin Zaïgouche.
This one is literally a different take on the design of a mobile phone. The Zero Concept Phone isn’t shaped like a zero, but it’s a square box with two equal sides that connect to each other. When these two sides are together, the hollow part in the middle becomes the transparent holographic display for the phone. You can make calls or do other tasks on the screen hologram of the Zero phone. When the two sides are open, the phone works as a normal telephone and there is no screen. The Zero concept phone looks to be something straight out of a futuristic sci-fi movie.
What’s innovative? The overall design and the disappearing holographic display.
Via: Josselinz
Written by Christian Milsom on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 in News.
Section: Peripherals, Mice / Keyboards
Yesterday I talked about the keyboard and how it is rooted in the history of computers, but this week is also important for another input device: the mouse. The 40th birthday of the mouse also coincided with history being made, as Logitech announced that they had shipped a billion mouses (or mice) since they started production. But how did it start, why is it so good and what is the future of the mouse? Read on.
The first “mouse” was invented by Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute as a prototype for a way of manipulating a GUI. It was one of many suggestions (including using the head) for how to control the computer. The mouse won because of its accuracy, ease of use, and the fact that it did not cause too much inconvenience to use. No one is quite sure who first coined the name “mouse” and it was only intended for use as a nickname and not as an actual product name, but the wire/tail resemblance is definitely there and so the name as well as its plural problems stuck.
Since then we’ve had the horrid ball mouse which was an improvement on the two external wheels that the original had, to a ball controlling two small interior wheels, and then onto the optical and laser versions that we use today. This has meant that mice are now more accurate and easy to use than ever before, and as science and medicine come to rely upon computers more and more this is increasingly important.
However the fact that the mouse has lasted four decades is not the only amazing thing, the fact that Logitech has shipped 1 billion is also amazing when you think about it. I’m not sure that there is any other product that a single company has consistently sold for this period of time, and managed to rack up 1 billion of them. This really is an astonishing number for one company, and it goes a long way not only to showing the popularity of the mouse, but how big the computer world is.
“It speaks volumes to the success of the mouse that they (Logitech) have produced a billion and good luck. But past performance is not a guarantee of future success. The world has changed and the nature of machines has changed. The multi-touch interface I believe really does seal the coffin of the mouse,“ Gartner analyst Steve Prentice
This is perhaps a little presumptuous, touchscreens have never taken off in the home computer world in the past, but is this now the time for the mouse to hand over the baton? There are many advantages for using touch screens. With multi-touch, they are now much more versatile. Advances in technology have allowed them to become more accurate, but there are still problems and many cynics believe this is just an excuse to drum up interest in Windows 7 and associated touchscreen products.
So please, sit back, and celebrate the wonderful product of design and manufacture that is your mouse, take a moment to be amazed by how big this little product actually is and think about what will happen in the future. And then sing happy birthday to it, have a party or maybe even bake a cake… I know I have! (there is a virtual prize if you know where this is from!)
Source [BBC]
Full Story » | Written by Christian Milsom for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Written by flung on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 in News.
Above is the Rotel RSX-1560 Home Theater Receiver which was named a CES Innovations 2009 Design and Engineering Awards Honoree. Features of the RSX-1560 Home Theater Receiver include:
The Rotel RSX-1560 has an MSRP of $2599 and will be on display at CES 2009 – I hope to get live pictures of it while there.
Written by JG Mason on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 in News.
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Mobile
Aww rats. So what if my idea of HTC buying Palm didn’t really make any sense. It might have been Palm’s big chance not to take a dirt nap. HTC, refusing to yield to my new world view, decided to purchase One and Co., the design firm that helped create their awesome Touch Diamond.
Interestingly, One and Co. works with a lot of big names outside tech such as Nike, North Face and Soloman. One and Co. brings broad expertise in design and manufacturing techniques combined with an emphasis on lifestyle design. One latest achievement for the company was a helmet for K2.
“Design is key, it is why you love or hate something,“ said Horace Luke, Chief Innovation Officer, HTC Corporation. “Integrating iconic design into HTC products is an inspiring and dynamic challenge that requires a unique combination of consumer insight, creativity, innovation and an appetite to take risks; attributes that embody One & Co.“
This move, rather than purchasing Palm, should prove a much higher return for HTC. The Touch Diamond was their breakout product (in my mind, at least) that made consumers take note of the HTC name. Focusing on developing their own style is exactly what HTC should be doing.
I can’t help wondering how One and Co. will deal with only working in electronics now as last time I checked, HTC doesn’t have a footwear or ski business going yet, other core design competency for One and Co. Perhaps I should stress yet.
Thanks to reader John Donaldson for the tip.
Read: [MarketWatch]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
