Hasta La Gadget!

This week’s Gadget Lab Podcast is packed with Android announcements, hackable hardware and a teensy new smartphone you may dig (if you can fit your thumbs on it).

Staff writer Mike Isaac went to Google’s annual I/O developer conference this week, and came back with a ton of Google news, not to mention an armload of free swag. Mike joins senior editor Dylan Tweney to talk about what he saw, including a taste of the new version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich.

They also show off the limited edition Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 given out to I/O attendees, some of which are already going for big bucks on eBay. Our verdict: it seems an awful lot like an Android-powered iPad.

Next, the crew looks at Google’s new Accessory Developer Kit (or ADK), which you can use to make stuff that will interact with your Android device. Just imagine: one day you may be able to make sure your front door is locked from the comfort of your smartphone. Is there no bottom to man’s level of laziness?

And this week, we got to play with Samsung’s version of Google’s Chromebook (although we couldn’t take it home). It’s an update version of the CR-48 web-only notebook released in beta last year. Though the Chromebook isn’t out yet, we liked what we saw.

Finally, Gadget Lab intern Christina Bonnington stops by to give her take on HP’s latest smartphone release on AT&T’s network, the Veer.

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds

Or listen to the audio here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #115

http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gadgetlabaudio/GadgetLabAudio0115.mp3

The vending machine at Metrix Create:Space in Seattle has a few geeky items in addition to snacks and drinks. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Visitors to Metrix Create:Space in Seattle can avail themselves of the hacker space’s many amenities: 3-D printers, work benches, hand tools, power tools, oscilloscopes, and 50 Mbps internet.

If you need something more than that for your project, there’s a good chance you’ll find it in the shop’s vending machine.

Alongside such vending staples as candy bars and bottles of water, this machine dispenses USB cables, LCD displays, LEDs, breadboards and Arduino kits.

The machine also contains MREs (military “meals ready to eat”), an open-source breathalyzer kit, solder tubes, servos, DC motors and ShamWows, among other things.

Metrix is one of several Seattle-area hackerspaces, and it’s one of the newest. It was started by Matt Westervelt, and unlike many hackerspaces, which are run as quasi-anarchist collectives, Metrix is Matt’s business.

Hanging out at Metrix and using the copious bandwidth is free, but you’ll pay an hourly rate to rent the space’s many tools. It’s just $5 an hour to use any of the basic tools, $15 per hour for the soldering room, and higher rates for the laser engravers, Makerbot and other specialty tools.

And, if you should find yourself short a part or two, there’s always the vending machine.

Metrix Create:Space is at 623 Broadway East in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

First they came for Jeopardy!, then they came for our vibraphones. We still own baseball, but the “humans only” list has grown one shorter now that the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Club has birthed Vibratron, a robotic vibraphone. Vibratron’s Arduino Mega controls 30 solenoid gates that drop steel balls onto the vibration keys, producing a note; an Archimedes screw recycles the bearings, turning them once more into sweet, sweet music. We should also note that Vibratron doesn’t put decent, salt-of-the-earth vibraphonists out of work. That cacophony in the video is “Circus Galop,” written for two player pianos and impossible for humans to perform — and still pretty hard for humans to listen to. See, Vibratron is here to help you, fellow humans. At least for now. Click the video above to get acquainted.

Vibratron plays impossible music with ball bearings, is your new master (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Apr 2011 01:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Arduino geiger counter brings open source radiation detection to the geeky masses (video)

Arduino geiger counter brings open source radiation detection to the geeky masses (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Apr 2011 18:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the right Arduino board, an R/C race car, a couple paperclips and the MacGyver spirit, we imagine most anyone can hack together a creative remote control these days… but how many can open-source an HTML5 web app that’ll do the deed from any tablet, phone or PC? Gaurav Manek crafted just such a thing, and he’ll demonstrate it for you on an Apple iPad in the video immediately above. What’s more, he’s also got a Kinect hack that uses Microsoft depth camera (with Code Laboratories’ NUI SDK) to control the very same with the wave of a well-placed hand — we’re already envisioning fisticuffs should he and a lab partner try for some head-to-head racing action. That said, you don’t need to wait for an illustrious creator to have all the fun. Why not download his source code at our links below and give it a go yourself?

Man steers R/C car with his hands, not to mention an HTML5-based web app (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 03 Apr 2011 14:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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