Hasta La Gadget!

The pen draws wires on paper with silver ink. Photo: Bok Yeop Ahn

Professors Jennifer Lewis and Jennifer Bernhard at the University of Illinois have come up with a way to draw circuits with a pen.

Not circuit diagrams. Any old pen can do that. No, the pen is a rollerball with silver ink that can actually draw real, working circuits. The ink dries to leave silver trails behind on the paper, and these are tough enough to survive bends and folds and still conduct electricity. And it doesn’t need to be paper. You can write on anything that will hold the ink.

Thus you can sketch a circuit, hook up components with crocodile clips and do anything you could do with a breadboarded circuit or even a proper circuit board. You’re only limit is how small you can scribble.

Next up in the project is the loading of other conductive materials, but the tech has already been co-opted for use as art. A sketched copy has been made of a painting by artist Jung Hee Kim. The lines of the drawing — a house and trees — becomes the wiring to connect an LED on the house’s roof.

Silver pen has the write stuff for flexible electronics [University of Illinois via Twitter]

See Also:

• Light Up Your Life With LEDs, Sewable Circuitry
• Vintage Circuit Boards Create Stunning Sculptures
• Turtle Pens With 'Turtle Head' Technology
• Awesome Lego Printer Uses Felt-Tipped Pens, Tiny Workers

While we’re busy recovering from a recent overdose of Nokia eye candy, secret agents are hard at work hunting down more visual goodness for us to ogle at. These shots above are of the Nokia 700 “Zeta,” which appears to be a replacement to the C6-01. The photos show it running on Symbian Belle — Anna’s successor — and packed with a 5 megapixel camera, LED flash, and NFC support. The source indicates the Zeta will house a 1 GHz CPU and 3.2-inch nHD AMOLED display, weighs a smidge over 80g, and measures out at 10mm thick. Oddly enough, we dug up a leaked snapshot of the Zeta’s spec sheet claiming it’ll be the “thinnest smartphone ever,” which at 10mm isn’t anywhere close to earning that title.

Though no other phones were pictured, the spec sheet (shown below) brought attention to three other Symbian offerings on the roadmap: the Nokia 701 Helen has the best specs of the bunch with 8 megapixel camera and 3.5-inch ClearBlack display; there’s the Nokia 600 Cindy with NFC, 5 megapixel shooter, and 3.2-inch AMOLED; also, we’ve likely seen the Nokia 500 Fate already leaked as the N5. There’s no indication on when (or if) we can expect any of these phones to hit the market, but it looks like Mr. Elop is intent on keeping his promise. More photos after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Nokia 700 ‘Zeta’ caught in spyshots, ready to give mobile makeovers

Nokia 700 ‘Zeta’ caught in spyshots, ready to give mobile makeovers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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See this happy couple? They’re smiling because they’re in love, they’re at a waterpark, and they haven’t contracted E. coli yet. They could also be chuckling with the knowledge that all 700 of their closest Facebook friends will soon see them canoodling in an artificial lagoon, thanks to a strange new photo-sharing program from Great Wolf Resorts. From now on, visitors to Great Wolf’s Grand Mound lodge will be able to automatically post their vacation pics on Facebook, using only an RFID-equipped wristband. All they have to do is register their accounts at check-in, slap on their bands and head over to any of five kiosks stationed throughout the resort, where they can pose for pictures that will be instantly uploaded to their walls (along with captions). Immediately de-tagging yourself, however, remains a uniquely manual task. Wade past the break for the full PR.

Continue reading RFID tags let you share waterpark photos on Facebook without leaving the lazy river

RFID tags let you share waterpark photos on Facebook without leaving the lazy river originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 09:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A top exec at Electronic Arts says his company can envision several of its prominent franchises, including Battlefield, making an appearance on Nintendo’s upcoming console.

Originally posted at The Digital Home

When we took a deeper look into the technology that makes a Porsche a Porsche, we experienced neck-snapping acceleration and yawn-inducing traction control, but never did we get the feeling that the car was actually driving itself. That could change soon, Autoblog catching the keys to a Porsche Panamera S test mule outfitted with something called ACC InnoDrive. ACC stands for Adaptive Cruise Control, while InnoDrive stands for (wait for it) Innovative Drive. It’s basically cruise control with a brain, having a fully mapped-out route and knowing not only the severity of upcoming turns but also elevation changes and posted speed limits. In other words: it figures out how fast it should be going and even stops when it should, letting you go the entire distance without having to apply loafer to pedal — assuming no intersections. Porsche isn’t saying when we might see this technology coming to a dearly expensive options package near you, but assures us its cars never completely drive themselves: “We will not touch the steering, trust us. That hands-on aspect is key to the Porsche experience.”

Porsche ACC InnoDrive handles all the pedals, takes the lead out of your foot originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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