Hasta La Gadget!

High quality microscopes cost thousands of dollars and can be hard to operate and maintain. A group of researchers from Stanford University are close to changing that with a microscope that’s made mostly out of paper and costs less than a dollar to make.

The Foldscope was conceptualized by Jim Cybulski, James Clements and Asst. Prof. Manu Prakash. They were moved to develop the revolutionary microscope because they wanted to speed up the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases in developing countries. In his recent TED presentation, Asst. Prof. Prakash said that right now it can take months for patients in developing countries to get diagnosed and treated partly because microscopes are bulky, hard to maintain and expensive to acquire . So they set out to design a microscope that’s portable, easy to operate and can be mass produced at low costs. It looks like they succeeded.

In their paper, Jim, James and Asst. Prof. Prakash. said that the Foldscope can provide a magnification of up to 2,000X depending on the lens used. All of its components can be packed on a single sheet of card stock, which can also serve as an instruction manual.  Foldscope is also resistant to impact and water. It’s so small that you can carry multiple Foldscopes in your pocket. The only part of the microscope that needs electricity is an LED, which can last over 50 hours on a button cell battery. Best of all, it only costs between $0.58 to $0.97 to make. Below is Asst. Prof. Prakash’ TED presentation about the Foldscope:

How amazing is that? A copy of Jim, James and Asst. Prof. Prakash’s paper is available from the Cornell University Library archive. If you want to get your hands on one, head to the Foldscope team’s website and apply to become one of the their 10,000 beta testers.

[via Wired via Reddit]

Pool tables come in hundreds of different styles, but if you really want to make your setup unique, check out OpenPool. It’s an augmented reality system that lets you project visual effects on the bed that react to the motion of the balls.

OpenPool is an open source program that uses a Kinect sensor to track the balls on the table, then feeds the visual effects to a projector mounted above the table. OpenPool also has an optional complementary device that triggers additional visual effects when a ball sinks into a pocket.

OpenPool isn’t for small time players though. You have to pledge at least $5,000 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a full OpenPool kit, which includes a PC, a Kinect and a projector – and that doesn’t include the pool table. You can also get a DIY kit – basically just the software and a mount for the projector – by pledging at least $1,000. Masse your browser to the OpenPool website to see additional information as well as more demo videos.

[via Gadgetify]

Back in 2011 we featured a couple of humanoid robots designed to play table tennis. Industrial mechanic Ulf Hoffman recently unveiled a similar robot that he and his friends have been working on for the past couple of years. He calls it the Ulf Hoffman Tischtennis Roboter (Ulf Hoffman Table Tennis Robot) or UHTTR-1 for short.

As you can see the robot’s arm is on a rail mounted at one of the ends of a ping pong table. It’s made of aluminum, making it light enough for its servos to rapidly ferry it across the length of the table. It may only have one arm, but the robot has two things we don’t have: a second pair of eyes. Four cameras mounted at the top corners of the room track the ball’s position and send that data to the UHTTR-1′s software.

Ulf hasn’t said much about the robot’s program, but as you can see it has a variety of settings that help define its play style, including speed and spin. It even seems to have difficulty levels. I’m a bit worried about that “Evolve” setting.

We didn’t see it put to the test in the video, but I think you can beat the robot with a well-placed drop shot. Then again when you’re dealing with a robot that can evolve, all bets are off. Grip your browser and head to Ulf’s blog for more on his robot.

[via Laughing Squid]

There’s already a lot of responsibilities in being a parent. You gotta make sure your kids are fed. Make sure they bathe. Make sure they’re safe. And make sure they don’t become a menace to society. There’s only one requirement in becoming an awesome parent though and it’s this: build your kids an awesome Batpod motorcycle they can ride around.

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…or at least try to do so. The electronics repair specialists at iFixit put together a set of tools that will help you dust off and possibly even repair a variety of gadgets. It comes with spudgers, tweezers, cleaning swabs, and most importantly a 28-bit driver set that works with a variety of screw heads and sizes.

ThinkGeek says you can use the Refurbisher’s Toolkit to open up and clean practically any console. That includes the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4, as well as Nintendo and Sony handheld systems. The kit should also come in handy with some smartphones, laptops and desktop computers.

You can order the Refurbisher’s Toolkit from ThinkGeek for $100 (USD), $20 off its selling price on the iFixit store.

[via Boing Boing]