Hasta La Gadget!

SAN MATEO, California — You’re too old for the science fair, the county fair has too much manure, and Burning Man is far, far away in a hot, dusty desert.

What you need, my geeky friend, is Maker Faire: A two-day reinvention of the world as it would look if 10-year-old nerds were running everything.

Lego, robots, crazy bicycles, electronics, flaming things, and a giant rocket: These are just some of the attractions of the annual event held here last weekend on the outskirts of Silicon Valley.

Take a look at some highlights as seen through the lens of Wired photographer Jim Merithew.

And if you want to check out the Maker Faire yourself, it’s not too late: Regional Maker Faires will be held in Detroit July 31 and Aug. 1 of this year and in New York Sept. 25 and 26.

Above:

Cycles

Pedal-powered transportation was a big theme at this year’s Maker Faire, with many fanciful vehicles propelled by bicycle cranks and chains. Some were chopped or otherwise modified bicycles, while others — like this lofty four-wheeled contraption — were more elaborate conveyances.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

If you’re the kind of person who likes to trace your own footprints, you may be interested in the new experimental feature that Google introduced to organize your past locations. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-20006080-251.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Android Atlas/a/p

B&H, J&R, Adorama, Amazon, the list goes on — we dare you to find a US model Nikon D3s for sale anywhere among them (spoiler: you can’t). What’s remarkable about it is that the mighty 12.1 megapixel beast has technically been on sale since late November of last year, and yet some seven months later, many top-tier photography retailers still list the camera as a pre-order or “coming soon” as though it’s never even hit retail to begin with. Well, it has — sort of — but it’s been available in such ridiculously small quantities that your best bet has been to score a gray market unit off eBay (often at a price above the US MSRP of $5,199) that lacks a manufacturer warranty. On a precision machine this expensive and complex, that’s not a very wise thing to wave off.

It’s not at all unusual for new flagship DSLRs from Nikon and Canon to be backordered to the extreme (in fact, it’s the norm), but the D3s’ situation is pretty unprecedented — and there’s no letup in sight. We spoke to J&R this past weekend about the tight inventory and we were told that they receive maybe “one or two” D3s bodies every couple of weeks, but not on a regular schedule; they just get them when they get them, and naturally, they’re sold out by the time the boxes roll into the store. Folks browsing J&R’s website don’t even stand a chance.

So, what’s the story? Is there a manufacturing problem that Nikon is trying to correct? Is the camera’s full-frame sensor being produced at insanely low yields? It’d one thing for demand to outstrip supply, but in this case, they’re not even in the same league. It seems like there could be something afoot here, but a company spokesperson has told us this week that there’s nothing more to blame than extraordinary demand, seeing how a single factory produces units for the entire world. Fair enough, Nikon — but considering the rate at which DSLRs obsolesce, it’s totally reasonable to think we’ll see a D4 before supply catches up.

Seven months later, the Nikon D3s is still a unicorn originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 May 2010 18:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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U.K. engineer becomes the first person in the world to be infected (intentionally) by a computer virus via a chip inserted into his hand. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20006069-247.html” class=”origPostedBlog”News – Health Tech/a/p

Last time we heard about ExB’s PTPT (pronounced “petite petite”), the software startup was just beginning to show off the basics of its touchscreen interface; since then, the small German company has been polishing up the UI and prepping it for Android phones and tablets. According to the CEO Ramin Assadollah, the company is in talks with a “major hardware manufacturer” that’s planning on skinning its Android products with the incredibly unique software. We got to see PTPT running on an Android 1.6-powered Acer Liquid while at the Netbook Summit, and though it took us a few minutes to understand how the interface worked, it’s definitely interesting and responsive. The input starts with three circular icons representing people, places, and things and then a bar that represents time.

You can simply select an individual person — you can import contacts from a variety of sources, including, Twitter, Facebook, and so on — from the halo that appears, and then drag them up to a specific time to get various updates or e-mails from that person. The custom predictive text keyboard in the e-mail interface was very snappy — it’s also just nice to see a change from the stock Android input. Then, you can drag that person to things to see pictures of them. And just like in the original demo, you can then move the pictures icon to a point on the timeline to see pictures from that time. Though the phone and tablet demos we saw didn’t have widgets on the homescreen, we were assured that they can be added. We promise this is all better explained in the demo video below, so mosey on down after the jump. We’ll be here, wondering what Android devices this software may pop-up on.

Continue reading PTPT shows off wild Android UI skin, we go hands-on

PTPT shows off wild Android UI skin, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 May 2010 18:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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