Feb 11
In a time when manufacturers are looking to give your kitchen appliances connectivity to the digital world, GE has busied itself with improving how the appliances work: in this case, … Continue reading
Feb 11
In fact, wireless chargers are already here, but these still require that your gadget is physically connected to a charging pad or similar. However, I mean the type of charging where there is no contact whatsoever, so that you can charge your mobile phone or tablet anywhere you are in by just… being there. It seems (and, in fact, is) amazing, and this technology is closer than you might think.
Feb 11
Back in December when Amazon announced that it wanted to use drones to deliver packages to Prime users in only 30 minutes, many folks thought that sounded farfetched. Word has now surfaced from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that the government wants to trial its own delivery service in Dubai using drones.
The service would feature drone aircraft to deliver items to citizens such as driver’s licenses and other government documents. A prototype drone was unveiled this week and the UAE government plans to test the drone for six months.
The battery-powered quadrotor will carry packages in an upper cargo compartment. It also will have fingerprint scanners and retina scanners to ensure delivery to the correct person. The team behind the drones says they could cost as little as $1100(USD) each, and carry loads up to 3.3 pounds distances up to 1.86 miles.
Assuming a successful test in Dubai, the government wants to roll the drone aircraft out to the remainder of the country in the next year.
[via The National via The Verge]
Feb 11
How to Build a PS4
Posted in: Today's ChiliCheck out this video entitled “How to Build a PS4″. I don’t know WTF is going on here really. It just seems to be some guy with an extreme food fetish tearing the place up and making love to his Xbox 360 with food. Thanks internet. Some things you just can’t un-see.
This video is a few months old, but since I had to see it, I am making sure that you guys get to see it too and be all like “WTF did I just watch?” too.
The dude puts raw meat, eggs, peaches, even urine all over his console. Yes, urine. Not kidding. This video will make you feel all weird and you will want to take a shower afterwards.
[via Geekologie]
Feb 10
Last November we heard about VRcade, a virtual reality system that lets the user move around while wearing a VR headset, thanks to wireless wearable electronics and cameras. A company called Zero Latency is working on the Inversion Project, a very similar setup for VR poster child Oculus Rift.
Details are scarce about the Inversion Project, but I’m going to bet that it also requires cameras or motion sensors aside from the hardware that’s worn or carried by the user. The video below demonstrates the technology with the help of a simple zombie game disappointingly called Zombie Fort: Smackdown and not Rift 4 Dead.
Zero Latency will demo the Inversion Project on Feb. 16 at Melbourne Australia’s Pause Festival. Hopefully details will trickle out of the event soon after.
[via PSFK]
Feb 09
Within the next five years we may have holographic telephone systems akin to the Dejarik game in Star Wars (you know… the one with the little monsters… "Let the Wookiee win"). I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait!
Feb 09
Back in 2010, we talked a bit about the Bose SoundLink speaker. Since that time, there was a Soundlink II, and now Bose has announced a new version of that speaker called the SoundLink III. The new speaker is much more attractive and promises better performance. In fact, the company says that the new speaker is its best sounding portable Bluetooth unit ever.
The SoundLink III has four neodymium transducers and dual-opposing passive radiators. It also uses a digital signal processing algorithm and improved electronics for more volume than the previous models.
The compact speaker measures 5″ H x 10″ W x 2″ deep. Battery life is rated at up to 14 hours on a single charge. The design of the speaker is made even more attractive with one of several optional colored covers, which add $35 to the price.
It has a silicon button panel that can survive dirt and dust. It also has a wrap around metal grille to resist fingerprints. The speaker is offered in gray, blue, green, orange, and pink. The SoundLink III speaker is available now for $299.95(USD).
Feb 09
This robot fights the winter blues. A company called SuperDroid makes large remote-controlled snow plow robots. Use them to clear your front yard, push your cat back to your house, destroy your neighbor’s snowman and more from the warmth and safety of your home.
The robot has six 13″ tiller tires, each powered by a 24V motor. Its 52″ x 16″ snow plow blade is raised and lowered with the help of an air compressor.
Watch the robot do what it does best:
Unfortunately, it does require a remote operator, and isn’t autonomous. SuperDroid can also install additional batteries, chains for the wheels and cameras on the robot. They can even make it work over the Internet so you can control it even if you’re on another continent. But you may not want any of those add-ons once you hear the robot’s basic price. Each one costs an ice cold $7,900 (USD). Dig your browser out of the snow and head to SuperDroid if you’re packing that much paper.
[via Gadgetify]
Feb 08
Instructables member janw uses an old Televox intercom to call his assistant. But here’s the thing: the intercom is his assistant. He calls her Raspberri, and she’s just a few rads shy of being a Fallout character.
Janw took great pains to preserve the exterior of the intercom and the way that it’s activated. That means that he simply presses the button to “call” Raspberri and speak his command, after which she should respond as if she was on the other end of the line.
Janw used a DPDT switch to rig the intercom’s speaker to a sound card, which in turn is connected to a Raspberry Pi. A USB Wi-Fi adapter allows the computer to go online to search for information. Then he installed Steven Hickson’s voice command software and wrote Python scripts to tell Raspberri how to respond if needed.
Tell your browser to cancel all your meetings and head to Instructables for more on Janw’s hack.
[via Hack A Day]
Feb 08
A few years ago we found out about mighty Roombas that were moonlighting as sumo wrestlers. Jose Julio’s RepRap 3D printer also has a sporting spirit. The robotics enthusiast unlocked his gadget’s potential and turned it into an air hockey player.
The robot has three motors: two for moving its mallet across the y-axis and one for movement along the x-axis. Jose Julio wrote the drivers for the motors in Arduino. He then color-coded the mallet and the puck, installed a PlayStation Eye camera and wrote a program in C to make his robot see. Finally he wrote another Arduino program that predicts where the puck will go so that its motors can react appropriately.
Another neat thing about Jose Julio’s setup is that the table uses two old PC fans to create a cushion for the puck to slide on.
Jose Julio knows that his robot still needs a lot of practice – and programming – before it’s ready for primetime. For instance, it doesn’t know where the goal is, though as you saw in the video it can already score even with that handicap. But Jose Julio says he can easily imagine RepRap enthusiasts making air hockey robots of their own, improving and refining its programming so that robots could have different difficulty levels and even different strategies.
Insert a token in your browser and head to Jose Julio’s blog for more on his project.
[via The Next Web]
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