Hasta La Gadget!

For most of us, we would think of a speaker as something that is static and non-expandable, simply because it has tended to be that way for so long. What then if I were to propose the idea of an expandable speaker? This is what the folks over at POW Audio have come up with, a brand new portable audio device that has reimagined the way speakers are built in order to deliver unparalleled sound quality in the form of the Mo. The Mo expandable Bluetooth speaker will rely on POW Audio’s patented WaveBloom technology which can expand to create a passive radiator that supports the speaker’s high-quality drivers using an air-filled chamber.

The added air will end up delivering better bass resonance, bigger volume, and improved overall sound quality. All of these are simply unachievable using a standard, tightly-packed speaker, since that would not have the expansive wave chamber. The Mo can be pre-ordered at the moment with shipping set to commence this coming middle of March 2019. With an asking price of $99.99 apiece, it is certainly worth checking out considering that it will be more than just a novelty.

Another unique feature of the Mo expandable Bluetooth speaker would be its ability to be easily attached to the back of any smartphone via POW Audio’s universal mount. Whenever it is not in use, the Mo can also be folded down flat to the back of the handset, and it is not surprising that the diminutive form factor makes it easy to be slipped into any pocket. The universal mount, as well as a wallet that can be swapped on when Mo is not attached will arrive with each individual purchase of Mo to help new owners get started right out of the box.

Mo will also boast of Stereo Sync that sees a couple of Mo speakers getting paired in order to spread left and right channels while boosting amplitude for an immersive, true stereo experience. One can choose from Snow and Graphite color schemes for this water-resistant and UV stable speaker. With Bluetooth 4.2 connectivity and USB-C charging, it will offer up to 8 hours of music playback on a full two-hour charge time.

Press Release
[ POW Audio reveals the Mo expandable speaker copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

3D printing has changed the way people approach hardware design, but most printers share a basic limitation: they essentially build objects layer by layer, generally from the bottom up. This new system from UC Berkeley, however, builds them all at once, more or less, by projecting a video through a jar of light-sensitive resin.

The device, which its creators call the replicator (but shouldn’t, because that’s a MakerBot trademark), is mechanically quite simple. It’s hard to explain it better than Berkeley’s Hayden Taylor, who led the research:

Basically, you’ve got an off-the-shelf video projector, which I literally brought in from home, and then you plug it into a laptop and use it to project a series of computed images, while a motor turns a cylinder that has a 3D-printing resin in it.

Obviously there are a lot of subtleties to it — how you formulate the resin, and, above all, how you compute the images that are going to be projected, but the barrier to creating a very simple version of this tool is not that high.

Using light to print isn’t new — many devices out there use lasers or other forms of emitted light to cause material to harden in desired patterns. But they still do things one thin layer at a time. Researchers did demonstrate a “holographic” printing method a bit like this using intersecting beams of light, but it’s much more complex. (In fact, Berkeley worked with Lawrence Livermore on this project.)

In Taylor’s device, the object to be recreated is scanned first in such a way that it can be divided into slices, a bit like a CT scanner — which is in fact the technology that sparked the team’s imagination in the first place.

By projecting light into the resin as it revolves, the material for the entire object is resolved more or less at once, or at least over a series of brief revolutions rather than hundreds or thousands of individual drawing movements.

This has a number of benefits besides speed. Objects come out smooth — if a bit crude in this prototype stage — and they can have features and cavities that other 3D printers struggle to create. The resin can even cure around an existing object, as they demonstrate by manifesting a handle around a screwdriver shaft.

Naturally, different materials and colors can be swapped in, and the uncured resin is totally reusable. It’ll be some time before it can be used at scale or at the level of precision traditional printers now achieve, but the advantages are compelling enough that it will almost certainly be pursued in parallel with other techniques.

The paper describing the new technique was published this week in the journal Science.

Super Bowl ads tend to get a lot of attention and Microsoft wants just that for the Xbox Adaptive Controller. The company is returning to this major sporting event with an ad that highlights this special controller that makes gaming possible for the differently-abled. This is Microsoft’s first Super Bowl ad in four years as it last aired one back in 2014.

Super Bowl ads are not cheap by any stretch of the imagination which is why there’s always so much interest in them. Companies typically spend around $4.5 million per 30 second slot and that’s excluding the cost of production.

The Microsoft commercial highlights all of the different ways that this powerful controller can be used to play games. The Xbox Adaptive Controller has two programmable buttons which are fairly large as well as the ability to hook up to 19 jacks for various accessories. The controller can be used to play games on both the Xbox and PC. The company has even designed the packaging to be accessible.

The two-minute ad walks us through the story of several young gamers who have disabilities and how they’re able to play Xbox games with the Adaptive Controller. So it’s not more of an outright pitch for the controller as you’d expect from a conventional ad. It’s more emotional in that it tells stories that make you take a second and appreciate people who defy odds on a daily basis.

Microsoft Super Bowl 2019 Ad Highlights Xbox Adaptive Controller , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

I have a love-hate relationship with Super Mario Bros. I really like the game, and played it a lot back in the day on my NES. I also died a lot and remain utterly convinced to this day that the game cheated. If you’re a Mario fan, and need a way to get caffeine into your body at warp speed, this is the coffee mug for you.

This Super Mario Bros. pipe mug looks like the green plumbing you would jump into when playing the game to find those secret levels with lots of bonus coins.

I guess if you want to replicate the game experience as much as possible, you could put coins in the bottom of the mug to find after you drink all your coffee, but then again you might choke on those, or poison yourself from the metals. The mug is ceramic and hand wash only, and will set you back $14.99 at ThinkGeek.

The departure of Sen. Minority Leader Schumer’s communications director was reportedly related to sexual misconduct.